System monetarny Zakonu Szpitalników Świętego Jana Jerozolimskiego w państwie zakonnym na Rodos 1309-1522

Abstrakt

The Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem is one of the oldest religious and charitable organisations in the world. In its long and tumultuous history it played the role of a hospital fraternity, and a knight order fighting against the „infidel”. When the Franks lost the Holy Land and the Jerusalem Kingdom fell in 1291, a new stage was opened in the history of the three largest knight orders – Templars, Knights of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, and Teutonic Knights. For the first from the list it was „the beginning of an end,” while for the remaining two an occasion to build an independent power and independent economic policy in the lands under their jurisdiction. Having gained Rhodes at the turn of 1309/1310, St. John's Knights started to build an administrative structure on the island, among inhabitants dominated by people of Greek origin. They laid foundations under an effective economy, whose integral part was a monetary system.

Hospitallers introduced a clear and effective monetary system based on the best European models. It became an essential element of Europe's economic system in that period. Its influence was even bigger, as it dealt with one of the most important trade routes in the Mediterranean See, and economic relations with the rich St. John's Knights' commanderies in the west of Europe.