The Knights Hospitaller surrendered Rhodes to Suleiman the Magnificent in December 1522 after a six-month siege. Where did they eventually settle, where they remained until Napoleon expelled them in 1798?
Negotiated surrender, favourable terms: safe passage with arms, archives, religious relics, and movable property. They sailed to Crete (Venetian) in January 1523, then to Sicily, and eventually accepted a 1530 grant of Malta from Charles V. They held Malta until 1798. The Order survives today as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Of the original 600+ professed knights at Rhodes in July 1522, about 180 made it to Malta in 1530. Ottoman casualties during the siege had run to perhaps 40,000–50,000 dead.
Read the full story →The Knights Hospitaller had governed Rhodes since 1309. In summer 1522 the Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent besieged the island with an army of approximately 100,000 against the Hospitallers' 7,500 defenders. The siege ran six months. The Hospitallers surrendered on negotiated terms in December and were given safe passage to Crete.
Related questions
- The Knights Hospitaller — the Catholic military religious order originally founded to care for pilgrims in Jerusalem — ruled the island of Rhodes from 1310. They were finally expelled in 1522 after a six-month Ottoman siege. By whom?
- Who gave the island of Malta to the Knights Hospitaller in 1530?
- Who was the Ottoman sultan under whom the empire reached its greatest extent and cultural peak?
- How was the Jewish community of Basel killed in the massacre of 9 January 1349?