All language subtitles for HC.The.Crusaders.S01E03.The.Knights.Hospitallers._eng

(rousing music)

- [Narrator] In the
Holy Land, a new kingdom

built by crusaders,

devout servants of the Holy State,

a life of prayer lived by a solemn rule,

the white cross, the black and the red.

New orders, of the cross,
and also the sword.

- They might've been
called the Hospitallers,

but these were warriors,
these were warriors of God.

(horse neighing)

- [Narrator] Feared by the enemies,

guardians of the poor and the sick.

- They cared for people
who needed to be cared for,

and they were there
when people needed them.

- [Narrator] Dark times ahead
for all the military orders.

- They'd been fighting for
God and yet, they had lost.

So is that 'cause we're sinners?

- [Narrator] New frontiers
for the soldiers of Christ.

- It could've been a
disaster for the Hospitaller,

but they turned it into a triumph.

- [Narrator] From the Middle East

to the Aegean and beyond,

the Order of the Knights Hospitaller.

(rousing music)

The Order of the Knights Hospitaller

was renowned throughout the Middle Ages.

Their plain robes and
surcoats, black and later red,

marked them out as devoutly religious,

dedicated to carrying out God's work,

with the sword if need be.

- The Order of the Hospitallers is clearly

one of the best known, most identifiable

of the military orders.

- [Narrator] They were respected
by some contemporaries,

and by historians since

due to their reputation
for caring and healing.

But at the same time, this led
them to being overshadowed,

at least in the popular imagination.

Their rival order, the Knights Templar

are often seen as the more famous

and dashing medieval Christian warriors.

- It's always the Templars
who are mentioned first,

and the Hospitallers never
had such a pronounced image.

They've come down through history

as the hospital order
who cared for people,

which for some reason, is
never seen as being as exciting

as the people that ride out

and do the death and glory charges.

In fact, the Hospitaller
did death and glory charges

as well.

- [Narrator] In fact,

the Hospitaller fought
alongside the Templars

in the Holy Land of the
12th and 13th centuries.

- The Hospitallers did have a
slightly more pacific image.

Although they did fight in
most of the battles as well,

and with a similar number of troops,

they could be very aggressive.

But because they had a whole
medical wing to them as well,

that did provide a rather
different image for them

in Western Christendom.

- [Narrator] The Hospitallers
were among the longest lived

of all the military
orders, even the Templars.

- The Knights Hospitaller were by far

the older of the two institutions
compared to the Templars.

They'd been around in Jerusalem

even before the first crusades.

- [Narrator] The Templars were
the first militarized order,

formed probably in the 1120s,

following the First Crusade's
capture of Jerusalem in 1099.

But the order of the Hospital
of St. John in Jerusalem

had already been formed for
some decades, perhaps longer,

although it wasn't yet a fighting order.

- There already was a
hospital in Jerusalem

run for Christian pilgrims

by Christians from Western Europe.

- They were founded in the 1060,

or possibly the early 1070s

by a group of Amalfi merchants

who wanted somewhere to stay in Jerusalem

and wanted somewhere where poor pilgrims

and travelers could stay.

- [Narrator] They were granted a site

near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,

the most important place
for Christian pilgrims,

who were often exhausted
after long journeys.

The Hospital of St. John in
Jerusalem became well-respected,

and the members of the order

became known as the Hospitallers.

Over the next decades,

the hospital grew in size and reputation,

opening its doors to men
and women of all faiths,

not just Christian.

- The first 50-odd years
plus of their existence,

they were solely medical,
providing healthcare,

support, accommodation, and
medical attention if necessary

for pilgrims visiting Jerusalem.

- [Narrator] The catalyst that
transformed the Hospitallers

was the First Crusade.

After the capture of Jerusalem,
the new crusader states

needed pilgrims and traders from the west.

The first military order,
the Knights Templar,

began protecting the Holy
Land's roads and frontiers,

but they were few in number.

- Some of the Hospitallers,

the members of the hospital staff

who were from the knightly class,

or at least would've had some
degree of military training

because of their own family backgrounds,

decided that they could
also protect pilgrims.

So that was the beginning

of what you would call
their militarization.

- [Narrator] Templars and Hospitallers

patrolled the borders of
the Christian Holy Land.

Like the Templars, the
Hospitallers rapidly developed

into a highly respected military force,

with the emphasis on cavalry,

the most important battlefield element

being the armored knight on horseback.

Full scale battles were few.

It was frontier work, often
far from the major towns.

Vitally important to
both sides were outposts.

The military orders operated
many castles in the Holy Land,

including some of the most
important border strongholds.

- The Hospitallers were
either given or built

10s of castles on the frontiers
of Kingdom of Jerusalem,

Principality of Antioch and elsewhere,

and these castles performed
a crucial function

because the Hospitallers could afford

to maintain them, to garrison them

and provide them with
all that they needed.

- The Hospitallers' castles
were wonders of the world.

They reflected the latest in
castle building technology,

so that they became places
that they could take

visiting pilgrims to to show them

the wonderful things that they were doing

in the Lord's name in
the kingdom of Jerusalem,

and thereby they got more
donations from the west

because of these magnificent fortresses.

- Several of the most famous

and impressive surviving
castles and fortresses

in the Holy Land, and
Lebanon and part of Syria

are or were Hospitaller castles.

- [Narrator] Historian David Nicole

is no stranger to the Middle East.

He's journeyed extensively here

during his research into
the crusader period.

Of the surviving crusader-era castles,

few are as spectacular as
the one he's traveling to

in northeastern Israel.

- One of the best known
is of course Belvoir,

overlooking the Jordan Valley
on the edge of an escarpment,

right on a frontier,

on a physical, identifiable,
visible frontier,

and on the top of a cliff.

I mean, this is dramatic stuff.

- [Narrator] Belvoir, beautiful view,

is the most preserved
crusader castle in Israel.

It's Arabic name meant Star of the Wind.

The castle stands on a promontory

500 meters above sea level.

- It's overlooking the Jordan Valley,

then Jordan, existing
Jordan on the other side,

and Saladin's castle
of Ajloun facing this,

two castles strategically
opposed to each other

in visual contact with each other.

This was defensively vital.

Its location is strategic.

And as a political statement,

a statement of power and wealth
by the Hospitaller's order,

it's second to none.

- [Narrator] The upper
levels of the castle

will be robbed away over centuries,

but what remains is still massive,

a testament to the
Hospitallers rapid growth

in a few decades after
they became military.

- Belvoir is extraordinarily
important to the Hospitallers,

and we can tell it's important

by the amount of effort and
money that was put into it.

I mean, the thing was only here,

according to the historical
record, for 21 years.

All this in 21 years,

- [Narrator] The Hospitallers
began building the castle

in 1168.

- The Castle of Belvoir
was built at a time

when the Kingdom of Jerusalem

was coming under increasing attack,

and people were looking increasingly

to fortifying the frontier,

where previously it hadn't
been quite so necessary

because they've been on
the offensive by and large.

So Belvoir was crucial.

- [Narrator] At this time
in the later 12th century,

Muslim leader Salah
al-Din sought to recover

the loss of Jerusalem and
Palestine to the Christians.

The job of the Hospitallers
and other military orders

was to delay his advance
as long as possible.

- One of the major invasion routes

into the kingdom of Jerusalem

was to go south of Lake Tiberius,

and Belvoir, situated on a ridge

high above that particular crossing,

was very strategically located.

- In 1187, the inevitable came,

and Salah al-Din's forces
laid siege to Belvoir,

but they found the castle extremely strong

and resilient to attack.

In the First Crusade,

the Francs had stormed
Jerusalem's ancient walls

after just a few days,

but the Hospitallers stronghold
here was newly built,

and its defenses were state-of-the-art.

Already atop the steep cliff,

it was surrounded on three sides by a moat

20 meters wide and 12 meters deep.

Within was a rectangular castle

with a tower at each corner and midpoint,

and a fortified gateway.

Inside the first wall was another,

and then yet another with its
own defensive corner towers.

It's thought to be one
of the earliest examples

of a concentric castle,

a design that became widespread

in the later 12th and 13th centuries,

both in the Holy Land and
back in Western Europe.

It wasn't just the castle's strength

that made it a statement
here on the frontier.

The kind of building stone
the Hospitallers used

may also have been chosen for its color.

- You can read a certain amount
into the use of dark gray,

effectively black volcanic basalt rock,

which is most of this,

certainly the lower parts of the castle,

and the white stone, the more
finely dressed stone above.

Black and white, colors
of the Hospitallers.

Now, whether this was in actual fact

a statement of identity or
not is impossible to say.

It may have been just that they were using

these two available rocks,

but doesn't alter the
fact that you end up with

a very striking, very visual,

very powerful black and white castle.

- [Narrator] The Muslim army
couldn't take Belvoir by storm,

so all they could do was
surround it and wait.

- Belvoir held Saladin up for months.

They did not fall to siege easily.

So the boasts that the
Hospitallers made about them

were well justified.

- [Narrator] In the end, Belvoir held out

for an extraordinary 18 months.

But in 1187, Salah al-Din defeated

the crusader field army at Hattin,

and across the crusader kingdom,

the Muslim tide was in
the end unstoppable.

- While in actual fact,
this place only fell

after the battle of Hattin,

which in turn led to
the fall of Jerusalem,

the fall of practically everything.

So this place, on the
eastern frontier effectively,

of the kingdom was left high and dry.

It had to surrender.

There was no point in it just
going onto the bitter end.

It would've ended up
with just more deaths.

- [Narrator] Within months,

most of the Christian held
castles fell to the Muslims.

When the Christians returned
just two years later,

they needed a port.

Acre, in the Holy Land's north
had fallen to Salah al-Din

along with almost everywhere else.

The Third Crusade, led by among others

Richard The Lionheart of England,

recaptured the city in 1189.

Jerusalem itself was never retaken,

so Acre became the crusaders' new capital.

Much of the city as it appears today

was rebuilt by the Ottoman Empire

in the 16th and 17th centuries.

But some parts remain from Crusader times.

For a 100 years, Acre was
the crusader kingdom's

link to Western Europe.

Most of its troops and supplies,

not to mention pilgrims,
entered the Holy Land here.

For the military orders too,
it was an important base.

Each of the main orders
had a headquarters here.

But Acre's value wasn't just
as a military staging post.

Its sheltered harbor was
ideal for merchant shipping.

The orders each had their
own trading interest,

and they as much as the kingdom

needed the revenue from this

to keep alive their Holy War effort.

In the 1990s, a discovery was made

which offered a tantalizing insight

into the military orders in Acre.

Beneath the streets of
the old crusader town,

developers found a large
network of tunnels,

their purpose unknown.

They took time to explore,
and even longer to unearth.

The stonework was Crusader period.

It wasn't until the layout of
the tunnels was established

that a clue was revealed
as to who built them.

- These are the famous Templar tunnels

running under a large
part of the old city,

from the harbor to where the
Templars had their headquarters

up the other end.

- [Narrator] Of all the military orders,

the Templars attract more myths
and rumors than any other.

Stories emerged that the
tunnels had been used

for clandestine purposes
or secret rituals.

Professional historians'
theories about the tunnels

might not be so sensational,

but they're no less fascinating.

- It seems much more likely to me

that they were a very convenient way

of bringing goods between the harbor

to the main Templar center,

and taking goods, indeed, people,

animals, whatever you wanted
to move very conveniently.

It's a private road.

But the fact that they
were able to do this

shows how wealthy and powerful they were.

- [Narrator] The tunnels extend
for more than 300 meters,

and they would've been wide enough

for supplies in large wagons,
personnel, or even cavalry.

In the last chaotic days of Crusader rule,

the tunnels might've offered a refuge,

or even an escape route.

- I think there's every good
reason to believe the stories

that they were used at the
last siege of Acre in 1291.

A few people escaped down
to the harbor through here.

Because of course, above
our heads in the old city,

once the Mamlukes had broken in

and the city was going to
fall, it would've been mayhem.

Everybody trying to get down to the harbor

to get aboard a ship to
escape as best they could.

People who had access to these tunnels

were in a very, very lucky position.

They could get down to the harbor.

They probably had ships down there

belonging to the Templars
waiting for them.

So this is a mark of
prestige, these tunnels

- [Narrator] When the
Mamlukes besieged the city,

the Hospitallers, as well as the Templars

and other military orders
were integral to its defense.

They each had towers or
points of the walls to defend.

One by one, they were defeated.

The Crusader city was mostly destroyed.

The Templars castle was the last to fall,

and it was obliterated.

Most of the others too were
gone, but one remained.

Near the harbor, and
like the Templar tunnel,

much of it was buried under
tons of earth and ruble.

The sea had flooded and silted much of it.

In the 1990s, Israeli archeologists

dug their way through this infill

to explore what lab beneath.

What they found astonished them.

Incredibly, it was the
castle of the Hospitallers,

preserved almost intact.

No one suspected so much
of the medieval building

still survived.

Much of the complex was
buried and built over

after the Crusader period.

Archeologists were
faced with the challenge

of removing the rubble
and earth room by room.

It's a task that British archeologist

Tim Sutherland can appreciate.

- In recent years when this
castle was reconstructed

and made safe again basically,

they emptied out all the
rooms of all the rubble

that have accumulated
over well, centuries.

And there was also sort of
blocks and dust and dirt.

They systematically cleaned out every room

until we have what we see today.

Some of it is still in
its original condition,

and it's never been cleaned.

So there are huge parts of this building

that've got huge amounts of
archeological rubble inside.

It's pure archeology right
in front of our eyes.

You can see all the archeological layers

as they've been deposited
inside this big void.

And you see the very
broad brown band there

with some big rocks in it,

but also, you can see some finer layers

tipped in completely
the opposite direction.

And what's happening,
people are bringing in

barrow loads of rubbish from elsewhere,

and it just builds up and
builds up over the centuries

until we've got this
fantastic archeological

display right in front of us.

- [Narrator] The painstaking
work enables us now

to see the Hospitaller stronghold

as it may have appeared at
the height of the crusades.

For a century, this was the Hospitallers'

main base in the Holy Land.

The enormous building
conveys the power and wealth,

not just of the crusader state,

but the independent military
order that built it.

- We're now moving into
the Hospitaller quarter.

This is the part of the bustling medieval

city and port of Acre, which
belongs to the Hospitallers.

There are other parts of the town

that belonged to the
Italians or to the Templars.

So each had their own area.

- [Narrator] Medieval Acre must have been

a cosmopolitan place where East met West.

- And it's not just the Hospitallers here.

You've got to remember
that there's markets here,

there's buying and selling,

there's men, women, children,

soldiers, merchants,
animals, pack animals,

full of noise, full of
life, full of smells,

some of them very nice exotic
spices from the orient,

along with the silks and
other valuable things

that they're bringing from the east.

- [Narrator] In all, the complex

is around 4,500 square meters.

The central open courtyard

lay under three to four
meters of rubble fill.

There were many rooms
and even large halls.

- This wonderful space here, this hall,

it's been identified as the refectory.

That's where the Knights Hospitaller

would've had their communal meals.

And of course, the communal life

is absolutely central to their ethos,

the building of a team,
to be quite honest,

because they developed
this very strong sense

of brotherhood and identity,

and the refectory and the communal meals

would've contributed to that.

You can imagine this place

would never have been entirely quiet.

There's always people coming
and going, as there are today.

- [Narrator] This was the focus

for all the Hospitallers'
fundraising efforts

back in Western Europe,

and the site of their
new medical facility,

remembering the original
hospital in Jerusalem.

Again, it was not just for Christians,

but for all the poor sick
of whatever religion.

- In here, they would have their hospital,

which is quite a structure by this time.

The sounds from the city outside,

perhaps chanting and
prayers from the chapel,

church bells and all the rest of it.

This is never going to be a silent place.

And in its strange religious
way, very clearly military.

These were serious guys.

- [Narrator] In the medieval world,

especially in the Middle East,

one of the most feared
aspects of life was disease.

With so many people living
together, including the sick,

the Hospitallers understood

that hygiene had to be considered.

You don't normally consider
something so everyday

when you look at a medieval
castle in the Crusades.

But here in Acre, the hospital latrine

is nothing short of epic.

- It's quite a spectacular
building, really.

'Cause not only are we
in a huge vaulted hall,

but we're in a multiple
latrine building basically.

So about 40 people could have
used this at any one time.

And we're talking about
a big place out there

that would've been full
of hundreds of people.

So there would've been a lot of people

who needed to got the toilet.

- [Narrator] Microbiology
was still centuries ahead,

but people knew enough to
realize that human waste, if left

could become a problem.

The design of the huge latrine

was ingenious in dealing with this.

- So engineering wise, it's
quite an interesting structure,

because the whole room slopes.

So everything slopes down towards us here,

and below the seats,
on basically open pipes

down into the room below.

So everybody would be sitting here,

and the below us there's
a massive vaulted room,

and all this human waste would've gone

straight down into this massive reservoir,

and in there, would've been everything

that went through these holes.

Now, not only is there human waste,

but it's everything that
gets dropped down there,

just like today in the equivalent

of mobile phones or whatever,

everything would've
dropped into this hole,

and you're certainly not
going to go and get it back,

because it's a massive
room full of human waste.

So if it went down there,
you'd leave it there

until the people went to clear it all out

and put it on the field, or
whatever they did with it.

- [Narrator] But beyond personal artifacts

that might have been lost,
archeologists realized

that there was a unique possibility here.

The material inside the buried latrine

had not been moved for centuries.

The thought of excavating
through layers of human waste

isn't for everyone,

but the results were to
provide incredible insight

into the lives of the medieval
people who lived here.

Pierce Mitchell is a
practicing medical doctor,

but he's also a leading
expert in paleo pathology.

He doesn't only study the material

that archeologists recover,
the artifacts and bones,

but the evidence of microorganisms,

the bacteria preserved within them.

When Piers heard of the
excavations at Acre,

he lent his expertise.

It was rare to find a
medieval latrine of this size

that had been so well preserved

along with the material beneath it.

- So we studied the soil
that collected in the cictern

underneath the latrines there,

and the first thing we did was to look for

the evidence of infectious diseases.

- [Narrator] Piers and his
team were looking for evidence

of intestinal parasitic worms.

These lived in some of
the food the crusaders ate

and digested, before coming
to rest down in the latrine.

One of the reasons parasites

are so good at spreading between humans

is the survivability of their eggs.

- They have these tough
walls around the eggs

that allows them to be preserved

for hundreds and often thousands of years.

So they die after a
year or two in the soil

and become non-viable,

but we can look at them
down the microscope

and identify the species of worms

that were present in the
people using the toilets,

because most species have
different shaped eggs

and different sized eggs.

- [Narrator] What Piers
found opened up a fascinating

but thought provoking window

into the everyday life of
the medieval people here.

- We saw many eggs from
roundworm and whipworm.

These are parasitic worms
that live in your intestines

that are spread by feces
contaminating your food or water.

So generally, if you're
not washing your hands

and if you're not cooking
your food properly and so on,

you can get reinfected with
roundworm and whipworm.

We also found the eggs of fish tape worm,

which is a parasite
that's much more common

in northern Europe.

So it may well represent
northern Europeans

who came to the Holy Land

and then used the latrines in Acre.

- [Narrator] Fish
would've been a major part

of the diet of many people

here along the Holy Land's coastline.

- Fish tapeworm is contracted

by eating raw or undercooked fish.

And in Northern Europe
in the medieval period,

it was common to have
raw fish or smoked fish,

pickled fish, salted fish and so on,

and not necessarily cook it.

And this would lead to
a very long tapeworm,

over 20 feet long.

It would spiral around the
insides of your intestines,

and then they would release
eggs into the feces.

And then if you went to the toilet

by a lake where there
were fresh water fish,

then you can then restart the lifecycle

so that someone who then
eats fish from that lake

can get infected themselves.

- [Narrator] Parasites like
these, along with dysentery,

must have been a part of day-to-day life

for most people in Acre,
crusaders or otherwise.

All the military orders had to be able

to care for their battle wounded.

Despite their name, the
Hospitaller were probably

no more skilled at this than the Templars,

Teutonic Knights or others.

Like the Templars, the
Hospitallers operated

houses or convents in countries
across Western Europe,

although somehow, their
presence may have been regarded

as more benign than their fellow order.

- There were Hospitallers
everywhere in Western Europe

in the 13th century.

The St. Alban's monk, Matthew Paris,

who wrote about everything in
Europe in the 13th century,

said that they had far more
manners than the Templars did.

- [Narrator] People were not always sure

whose best interest the Templars served,

their own, it was suspected.

By the early 14th century
and their dissolution,

all the Templars' vast estates
and castles were forfeit.

It was decreed by the Pope
that their properties and lands

across Europe and beyond

should be given to the Hospitallers.

But this wasn't always
straightforward in some countries,

including England.

- The handover from the
Templars to the Hospitallers

was not tidy.

The King of England, it would appear,

had wanted to keep those lands.

- [Narrator] King Edward II

resisted for as long as he could,

but even a king couldn't
defy a papal decree.

- When the king had discovered

he was going to have to give
the Hospitallers something,

he had instructed his keepers,

the sheriffs or their appointees,

to clear everything out from
the Templars lands that moved,

and a few things that didn't.

So all the cattle went, the sheep,

all the stock, all the grain.

Everything growing in the fields, take it.

Anything that's useful, just move it.

So the Hospitallers walked into shells,

buildings that have been
allowed to fall down

or that things have been removed from.

- [Narrator] Nevertheless,
one former Templar property

the Hospitallers did eventually receive

was the huge estate in
southern England at Crescent.

By the 1380s, the order was holding

its general chapter meetings here,

and the enormous storage barns
were collecting cash crops

for the order's own economic interests,

not the King of England's.

In England today,

few other Hospitaller
buildings now survive,

at least as they appeared
in medieval times.

In central England,

in the small village of Barrow
Upon Trent, there is one.

It may once have been known
as St. Helen's or St Luke's,

but from the mid 11000,
it's been St. Wilfred's.

- The church is built on a
promontory in the Trent Valley,

and at the time of its building,

it would've been the most
important building in the area.

It would've been seen from miles around.

You could imagine that you
were back in medieval times

looking out from the church door.

And we have a gargoyle.

Very eroded, very faded.

But I always imagine he must
have seen so many things

since he was put up there
in the early medieval times.

It would've been so
interesting to hear his story.

- [Narrator] On any historic site,

archeologists have to try
and understand stratigraphy,

layers of evidence of human activity

beneath or above the surface.

- As an archeologist,
people normally consider

what we do is just all under the ground.

But the nice thing about
an old historic building

is that it's actually above the ground,

and it's the same sort of stratigraphy.

Obviously the later things
are usually on the top,

but a building incorporates
so many different aspects

in terms of the walls and
the structure and the roof,

and even the floors.

- The church was built, we
think, in Anglo-Saxon times,

and we know it was given to
the Knights Hospitallers,

and it's been left as purely
a little rural country church

since that time.

- [Narrator] St. Wilfred's has some clues

about its medieval past.

Tim has come to see some
of these for himself.

- I think the first thing you think of

when you walk into a historic
building like this is,

you literally, you open the
door, you get the creaking noise

and then it all opens up in front of you,

and you never know quite
what you're gonna get

because every single church is different.

- [Narrator] At one time,

this would've been the heart
of the medieval village.

- It was originally the main
building in the village.

It was built as a stronghold,

as a place for people to have markets.

It was where they would
have some sanctuary

if there were any enemies around.

- [Narrator] It seems an
echo of those turbulent times

may still remain.

- One of the things I noticed

as soon as I'm walking
through the porch is,

and it's quite common,

there are lots of little
grooves carved in the walls.

- [Narrator] They're
similar to markings found

on some other churches in Britain.

No one really knows what they are,

but there's a theory
that might explain them.

- When you consider that the Hospitallers

were a military order,

we would assume that there would've been

always some sort of military
presence around the area,

just by who they were.

It does look like
somebody's been sharpening

blades and weapons.

And sometimes you wonder whether this is

to impart religious protection

onto the implement they're about to use.

So are they about to go to war,

and they bring their knife or their blade

or their weapon, sword to the church,

and then just hone it down a little bit

just before they head off somewhere,

and psychologically,

that may be a little bit
more protection for them.

- [Narrator] The Victorians
added a pulpit and pews,

but some of the features and carvings

are as they would've been
in Hospitaller times.

- The church itself is
full of little treasures

that we found over the years.

I think the biggest one
is probably our effigy,

which is an early, very early 13000, 1340s

alabaster effigy of a priest.

It may be a man called John de Belton

who came down from Craik in Durham

to help the hospitalists
to develop the church.

We have lots of grave slabs

with the Knights Hospitaller
grave markings on them.

- [Narrator] Ann Heathcote and
the friends of St. Wilfred's

plan to return the church
to its original open plan,

removing some of the Victorian features.

So it will soon, once more become

the central meeting place
and heart of the village,

just as it was in Hospitaller times.

- What we want to do is to reclaim it

as our community building
for the whole of the village,

and for the whole of this area,

and anyone else who wants to use it.

- [Narrator] But one intriguing
feature will be preserved,

a small hand-drawn image
of a medieval warrior

and the shield of the Knights Hospitaller.

Some people have suggested
it's Victorian graffiti.

- The drawing which is near to the effigy

appears to show an early
medieval knight in armor.

I am told it's original,
but it is intriguing.

- This is one of the
real gems of the church,

and it would be nice to
think that this is original.

It does look like a 14th century knight.

It's got the correct helmet,
it's got the right spear,

it's got the right outfit,

and also, it's got what appears to be

a Hospitaller cross on the shield.

So this is just one of
the other conundrums

that's typical of this church.

There's so many questions you can ask.

And I love these things.

I think they're fantastic.

And somebody's had to go at copying them.

Obviously, these are in pencil

and they're nowhere near as good,

even though they're relatively modern.

So this is the interesting aspect of it.

Is this original,

is it showing a knight's contemporary

with this part of the church,
this phase of the church,

and in which case, who was
it and what's it represent?

- [Narrator] Of all the medical ailments

the Hospitallers had to
deal with in communities,

one carried more dread
than almost any other.

- Leprosy is certainly a
disease which is feared,

and it's a disease which cannot be cured.

And to that extent,

it is one that inspires
terror in many people.

- [Narrator] Leprosy was among
the worst healthcare problems

in the Holy Land and Europe
throughout the crusader period.

And yet, in an age rife with disease,

it was not even the deadliest.

- There were many other diseases

that were much more likely to kill you.

So it'll be much worse
to have tuberculosis

than to have leprosy,

and they are very similar
bacterial organisms.

Leprosy doesn't normally kill you,

whereas tuberculosis is
very good at doing that.

- It was more how leprosy seemed to attack

the things that made us
human, outwardly at least.

- Because leprosy affects your face

in a significant proportion of people,

and it can make you go blind,

it can cause ulcers and cause numbness

in the hands and the feet,
leading to difficulty mobilizing,

all these things mean
that it was a very chronic

and socially debilitating disease.

- [Narrator] The social
consequences of leprosy

are still prevalent in society today.

It's now known as Hansen's disease,

and it's treated relatively
simply with antibiotics.

But in medieval times,
it was barely understood.

- So by the time you get to the late

13th and 14th centuries,
people have a pretty good idea

of what we today would
call Hansen's disease.

Whereas in the past, before that time,

it might have been very, very hard

actually to distinguish
someone, say with leprosy

from a really bad case of say, psoriasis,

skin cancer, or other problems.

- [Narrator] In a society
before microbiology,

people sought other
explanations for the disease.

- There are different
views in medieval Europe,

expressed at different times
and in different places,

about leprosy.

But some religious views about leprosy

explained the punishment
of the facial disfiguration

as a gift from God, as a
way of atoning for your sins

while you were still alive

so that you could then go
straight to heaven when you died,

instead of having to atone
for your sins after death

with a concept of purgatory,

which was developing
in the medieval period.

- [Narrator] The Bible told
the story of the humble Lazarus

who suffered terribly in life,

but who was then rewarded
instantly in heaven,

whereas his tormentor, Dives,
was condemned to purgatory.

The parallel between Lazarus and Christ

was clear to the medieval church.

- Medieval society
places enormous emphasis

on caring for the leper, because
the leper is like Christ,

the leper is a member
of the body of Christ.

And if you don't care for that individual,

as Dives failed to care for Lazarus,

then you yourself are
going to be condemned

to a long period in
purgatory, or even hell.

So caring for the leper
has a spiritual dimension,

and people found leper hospitals

with this concept at
the back of their mind.

- [Narrator] There'd been
a hospital or leprosarium

outside Jerusalem since the 11th century,

and in the 12th, the Order
of St. Lazarus was set up

dedicated to the care
of people with leprosy.

Many of its brothers, but not all,

were often sufferers of
the disease themselves.

And like the Hospitallers and Templars,

the Knights of Lazarus took their place

on the battlefields of the Holy Land.

- Because of the very
nature of their condition,

they were pretty fearless people,

and in several battles,
they all got wiped out.

Because they thought, what
could possibly be better

than fighting a Holy War?

I don't have to think about my own life.

I can fight until they kill me.

And so, there was a time when
there were very few people

in the Order of St. Lazarus
left who had leprosy.

So people from Europe
who didn't have leprosy

started joining the Order of St. Lazarus

as a sign of tremendous piety.

So it was regarded as even
more spiritually intense.

- [Narrator] The late 13th
century was a fateful time

for all the military orders.

In 1291, the Mamluk armies took Acre,

and the Holy Land fell
back under Muslim control.

Never again did Christian crusaders return

to try to recapture Jerusalem,

nor did any of the military orders.

- 1291 was a disaster
for the military orders

because that was their
vocation and they lost it,

and also the shock that
they'd been fighting for God

and yet they had lost.

So is that because we're sinners?

It's because the West didn't support us?

- [Narrator] The Hospitallers
and the other military orders

were forced to consider
how to adapt and decide

where next to wage their
Holy War in Christ's name.

Some, like the Teutonic Knights,

took an entirely different
direction northwards

to battle against the pagans
of Prussia and Lithuania.

The Hospitallers though
realized they needed

security and independence

from a host kingdom which Mike
turned the tables on them,

just as the Templars had been undone

by the French monarchy decades before.

A large island in the Aegean Sea

was to provide that independence.

In 1310, the Hospitallers captured Rhodes.

To do this, they fought other Christians

of the Eastern Byzantine Church,

but they justified their
actions as being necessary

in order to continue their
fight against the Muslims.

The order was to call Rhodes
home for more than 200 years.

In 1480, they successfully
withstood attack

by an enormous Ottoman army
of 160 ships and 70,000 men.

- Not only did they manage
to defeat the attackers,

they also managed to turn it

into a fantastic propaganda victory,

back in the rest of that in Christendom.

- [Narrator] The Hospitallers circulated

their own account of the siege,

helped by new technology, printing.

The victory helped to
justify their ongoing role,

and of course, keep the
donations coming in.

- Western Europe must have
lapped up this account

of what real knights could do,

determined soldiers of God
fighting against enormous odds

and saving the city.

This is perfect chivalry.

- [Narrator] For a time at least,

the specter of the loss
of the Holy Land was laid.

- It shows God's fighting force.

Because of course, in 1291,

it seemed that God
wasn't fighting for them

because they'd been defeated.

Now they're saying God
is fighting for us again.

We are obviously doing the right thing.

God is on our side this time.

This time we're going to win.

- [Narrator] The Order
could bask in their victory

for a few decades.

But when the Ottoman
armies came again in 1522,

the Order of St. John was not so blessed

and it found itself homeless once more.

Some organizations which exist today

claim to have lineage back to
the orders of the Crusades.

- Some of the medical orders

that were set up during the Crusades,

such as the orders of St. John

and the Order of St. Lazarus

have still kept on their medical role.

There has been an eye
hospital in Jerusalem

run by the order of St.
John for many years.

The order of St. Lazarus has
morphed and evolved over time,

but they're still
involved with the concept

of caring for people with leprosy today.

And so, you can see how
some of these orders,

for over eight centuries,

have now continued the
concept of medical care

which they were originally set up to do

- [Narrator] The most
well-known descendants

of the Hospitallers to this day

maintains a vital healthcare
role in Britain and Europe.

- The St. John's Ambulance
Brigade is rooted in,

it is a descendant of the Hospitallers,

the medieval Hospitallers.

And in fact, as the modern

St. John's Ambulance Brigade developed,

I think it was quite a conscious decision

to emphasize that the
heraldry, the imagery

which harked back to the medieval origins,

it gives them one heck of a heritage.

- The Hospitallers
cared for the poor sick,

they cared for people who
needed to be cared for.

They were there when they were needed,

and they're still there
when they're needed.

So they do continue the
tradition of the medieval order.

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