JOHN'S JOHN. 



253 



Sine, beech, elm, maple, and walnut. The river ' 

 jrnishes a great quantity of salmon, bass, and 

 sturgeon ; fend it is the common route to Quebec. 

 About a mile above the city of St John's, is the only 

 entrance into this river. It is about eighty or 100 

 yards wide, 400 yards long, called the falls of the 

 river. It being narrow, and a ridge of rocks running 

 across the bottom of the channel, on which there are 

 not above seventeen feet of water, it is not sufficiently 

 spacious to discharge the fresh waters of the river 

 above. The common tides here rising about twenty 

 feet, the waters of the river, at low water, are about 

 twelve feet higher than the waters of the sea. At 

 high water, the waters of the sea are about five feet 

 higher than those of the river ; so that, at every tide, 

 there are two falls one outwards and one inwards. 

 The only time of passing with safety, is when the 

 waters of the river and of the sea are level, which is 

 twice in a tide, and continues only about twenty 

 minutes each time. 



JOHN'S, ST, in New Brunswick. See New 

 Brunswick. 



JOHN'S, ST, in Newfoundland. See Newfound- 

 land. 



JOHN, ST, CHRISTIANS OF. See Sabians. 



JOHN, ST, KNIGHTS OF. The knights of St 

 John, or hospitalers of St John, afterwards called 

 knights of Rhodes, and, finally, knights of Malta, 

 were a celebrated order of military religious, estab- 

 lished at the commencement of the crusades to the 

 Holy Land. As early as 1048, some merchants 

 from Amalfi, in Naples, established a church at Jeru- 

 salem, and built a monastery, which they dedicated 

 to John the Baptist. It was the duty of the monks, 

 who were called brothers of St John, or hospitalers, 

 to take care of the poor and sick, and. in general, 

 to assist pilgrims. This order, which gradually 

 obtained important possessions, at the beginning 

 of the twelfth century, was regularly instituted 

 as a military order by the principal, Raymund 

 dti Puy, retaining all their former laws. Besides the 

 performance of their vows of chastity, obedience, and 

 poverty, it was their duty to aid in defending 

 the church against infidels. Raymund also divided 

 the order into three classes knights (who should 

 bear arms), chaplains (regular ecclesiastics) and 

 servitors (serventi d'armf)^ whose duty it was to take 

 care of the sick and accompany pilgrims. This order 

 long maintained itself against the arms of the 

 Turks and Saracens by union and courage ; but, in 

 1191, it was driven from Palestine. Upon this, the 

 knights conquered Cyprus, but soon lost it again, and 

 established themselves, in 1309, on the island of 

 Rhodes, where they remained upwards of 200 years. 

 This island was vigorously defended against Moham- 

 med II., by Pierre d'Aubusson (grand master, who 

 died 1503). Driven thence by the sultan Soliman II. 

 (1522), the knights went to Candia, then to Venice, 

 Rome, and Viterbo, and especially to Nice, Villa 

 Franca, and Syracuse, till Charles V. (1530) granted 

 them the islands Malta, Gozzo, and Comino, on con- 

 dition of perpetual war against the infidels arid pirates, 

 and the restoration of these islands to Naples/ if the 

 order should succeed in recovering Riiodes. From 

 this period, they were commonly called knights of 

 Malta. In 1565, under the command of Lavalette 

 (who died 1568), they repelled a violent attack from 

 Soliman II. with great loss. After this, they con- 

 tinued their naval battles with the Turks till modern 

 times, and saved themselves from ruin, in various 

 wars with the Porte, only by their unyielding courage. 

 In 1760, however, they would doubtless have been 

 overpowered but for the interposition of the French. 

 After that, their naval expeditions were seldom any 

 tiling more than mere show. The chief of this order. 



which had great possessions in almost every part of 

 Europe, was called grand master of the holy hospital 

 of St John of Jerusalem, and guardian of the army of 

 Jesus Christ. He was chosen by vote, and lived at 

 La Valette, in the island of Malta. He was addressed 

 by foreign powers with the title of altezza eminentis- 

 sima, and received annually 6000 crowns from the 

 treasury of the order, together with all the revenues 

 from the three islands, so that his annual income may 

 be estimated at nearly a million guilders. The 

 secular power was principally in his hands, but even 

 here he was limited by the governors of the various 

 languages, so called, who gave laws, fixed taxes, &c. 

 The spiritual power (that is, the immediate affairs of 

 the order) was exercised by the chapter, which con- 

 sisted of eight ballivi conventuali, and in which the 

 grand master presided. The principal offices in the 

 order were held by the pillars (piliers) of the eight 

 languages, into which the knights were divided, 

 according to their respective nations. The languages 

 were those of Provence, Auvergne, France, Italy, 

 Arragon, Germany, Castile, and England. From 

 these languages, the ballivi conventuali above-men- 

 tioned were chosen, and their lands were divided 

 into priories, these into bailliages, and these again into 

 commander ies. Of the priories, the German had 

 the preference, and was called the grand priory. It 

 was filled by the grand prior of Germany, or the 

 master of the knights of St John throughout Ger- 

 many, who was a prince of the empire, and resided at 

 Heitersheim, a city and castle in Brisgau, now in the 

 circle of Treisam, in Baden. The master of the 

 knights of St John was subject to the grand master 

 at Malta. He himself had the jurisdiction over 

 Brandenburg, Hungary, and Bohemia. Austria, 

 Bohemia, and Moravia formed, besides, a separate 

 grand priory of the German language. The last 

 master of the knights of St John in Germany, or 

 grand prior of Heitersheim, a count of Reichenbach- 

 Fouxmaigne (or the baron Rink of Baldenstein), by 

 the peace of Presburg and the formation of the con- 

 federacy of the Rhine, lost all his possessions in West 

 Suabia, which fell into the hands of the grand duke of 

 Baden. Of the eight languages above-mentioned, 

 the English became extinct in the sixteenth century ; 

 the three French languages perished during the 

 revolution ; those of Castile and Arragon were sepa 

 rated from Malta at the peace of Amiens, and the 

 Italian and German languages have since been abol- 

 ished. Thus the order of St John is to be regarded 

 as extinct, and its restoration is the less to be looked 

 for as the island of Malta has been formally ceded to 

 Britain. The Prussian order of knights of St John, 

 founded by Frederic Willam III., and which is a royal 

 order, can be considered only as a memorial of an 

 order venerable for its antiquity and its services. (See 

 Prussia) The knights of St John observed the rules 

 of the order of St Augustine. The Protestants, how- 

 ever, were not bound to celibacy. Every member 

 was required to be of good family. The knights who 

 could bring indubitable evidence of noble ancestry 

 were called cavalieri di giustizia (knights by right). 

 Those, on the contrary, who could not prove their 

 nobility, but were, nevertheless, received on account 

 of their merits, were called cavalieri di grazia (knights 

 by favour). The duty of each knight to take the 

 field at least three times against the infidels, or the 

 pirates of Barbary was rarely performed in recent 

 times, and, by the peace of Amiens, all hostilities 

 against the Turks were forbidden. In peace, these 

 knights wore a long black mantle ; a gold cross of 

 eight points, enamelled white : in war, they wore a 

 red jacket or tabard, charged with a full white cross. 

 Only in spiritual concerns was the order subject to 

 the pope : in all temporal ones, they enjoyed unlimited 



