The Shield and the Sword

by Ernle Bradford

An authoritative history of the Knights of St. John, from Jerusalem to Malta, told by the bestselling author of The Great Siege. Known by many names through their centuries-long career, The Knights Hospitaller of Saint John dedicated themselves to defending the poor and sick. First formed in Jerusalem during the Crusades of the eleventh century, the Order of Saint John grew in wealth and power rivaled only by the Knights Templar. They survived exile from the Holy Land, settling first in Rhodes and then in Malta, which they famously defended against the Ottoman Empire’s epic invasion of 1565. Even after losing Malta to Napoleon Bonaparte two centuries later, the Order of Saint John continued its mission.   Ernle Bradford, whose bestselling book The Great Siege recounts their historic battle for Malta, follows the Knights of Saint John through centuries of war, politics, rivalry, and perseverance in The Shield and the Sword.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Military History, Medieval, Military Fiction, Religion, Christianity

272 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Ernle Dusgate Selby Bradford was a noted British historian specializing in the Mediterranean world and naval topics. Bradford was an enthusiastic sailor himself and spent almost thirty years sailing the Mediterranean, where many of his books are set. He served in the Royal Navy during World War II, finishing as the first Lieutenant of a destroyer. He did occasional broadcast work for the BBC, was a magazine editor, and wrote many books.

Reviews

[Skallagrimsen]

Ernle Bradford was a popular historian whose career spanned the 1950's to the 1980's. He is remembered for vivid biographies of historical personalities such as Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Henry the Navigator, Heyreddin Barbarossa, and Francis Drake, and also for gripping books about pivotal events of military history, such as the Siege of Malta (1565 A.D.) or the Battle of Thermopylae (480 B.C.).

A lieutenant in the British Royal Navy, Bradford developed a lifelong fascination with the Mediterranean, where he served during the Second World War. After the war, Bradford returned to the region, spending much of the next four decades sailing its waters and immersing himself in its cultures and history. A thread that connects his best-remembered books is their Mediterranean setting; his work is informed and inspired by an intimate firsthand knowledge of the Middle Sea. It's just one of several reasons Bradford remains worth reading, even after subsequent scholarship has exposed some of his errors and biases.

Another reason to read Bradford is that he was a simply splendid writer, a natural story teller who, I believe, might easily have had a second career as a novelist. Whatever their occasional lapses in objectivity or scholarly rigor, his best books reverberate with the authenticity of passion and experience.

Other than its Mediterranean backdrop, however, The Knights of the Order represents a bit of a departure for Bradford. It isn't a description of an important historical episode or an epochal life. Rather, it's the history of an institution: variously known the Knights of St. John, the Knights of Malta, and the Hospitallers. Bradford does a remarkable job tracing the story of this ancient Catholic military fraternity, from its half-legendary origins preceding the Crusades, through the Medieval, Renaissance, and early modern periods, and right up to the present day: more than a thousand years in less than 300 pages.

Along the way, Bradford locates many noteworthy or dramatic moments of the Knights' story to highlight with his considerable literary skill, vitalizing what in most hands might be a dry and impersonal narrative. The Knights of the Order is far less an academic than a human history, and in my view all the better for it. It can be seen as a companion to Bradford's best book, The Great Siege: Malta 1565. I suspect it was woven out of extensive research for that earlier volume that just couldn't be made to fit.

Also published as The Shield and the Sword.

[Jo Walton]

Thorough, old fashioned, in depth, and sufficiently readable. I wouldn't recommend reading this for fun, but if you want a history of the Kinghts Hospitaller, this is the best you're likely to find. It's very clear about battles and geography, not my favourite things, but very solidly drawn. It's also good on the different Grand Masters, and the way the Order changed across time.

A thought I had as I was reading this is that you can see the way Napoleon cut across history more easily by reading long-duration histories of other things than by reading about Napoleon. If you read that Napoleon conquered Venice and Malta and and and you do not get the same effect as if you read about how Venice changed and changed and lasted and lasted until Napoleon totally changed it. And the same for the Knights, eight hundred years of changing history, ended, splat, running into Napoleon like running into a brick wall. And he was just on his way to Egypt, he didn't even care.

[Rindis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay, overall, it is by no means a bad overview of the history of the Hospitallers. And unlike Dan Jones' The Templars, it has the bonus that you won't find all of this in any one other place about a broader subject.

In fact, this book is very informative about their time on Rhodes. And while the centerpiece of the later history is what you'd expect the (the Siege of Malta in 1565), there's a very useful discussion of how they came to Malta, and problems of time and money when applied to fortifying the island. Sadly, Rhodes does not get the same amount of attention on that subject, but there is some discussion.

The book stays with the 'active' part of the order, and doesn't go much into the workings of its European connections, the properties they administered there (and how that changed over the centuries), and recruitment of new members. This isn't too surprising, considering its a lighter book, and it has a long time span to cover, but is still slightly disappointing.

A very interesting bit is the fall of Malta to Napoleon. It reminds me very much of the end of Norwich's Venice, where a proud, independent state just can't manage much more than some hand-wringing in the face of a historical force of nature.

The Shield and the Sword was certainly written with the cooperation of the Order of St. John, and takes a positive view of their activities throughout. The Knights' attacks on Muslim shipping are presented as part of the defense Europe instead of just part of a cycle of violence on the Mediterranean. There's some justice to this view, thanks to the larger context of the time, but it is an example of where the blinders are.

Still, there's going to be very little out there for a better one-volume history of the Order.

[Calzean · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit dated in its language but a very readable history on the The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem (then of Rhodes then of Malta). This is an overview of various events so covers the crusades, the orders times in Cyprus, Rhodes, Malta as well as the various Moslem leaders who they fought against. Fascinating that a religious order that ran hygienic hospitals and practiced stated of the art medical procedures gained their income from piracy and captured lands.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good overview of the Order of St. John but it is just that - an overview. It lacked either the drama and immediacy of Bradford's own "The Great Siege" or the thoroughness of a more academic work. Take, for example, the rise of the Order from a humble mission set up by Brother Gerard and its rise to wealth and prominence. One could, I imagine, write a book on this topic but it is only given a few paragraphs here. Still a fine read.

[Mmetevelis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a history of the Knights of St. John which covers in some detail the beginnings during the first crusade through the 1565 siege of Malta and into the loss of Malta to Napoleon in 1798. Bradford narrates this history almost like a novel and is capable of setting powerfully evocative scenes that root you in the events. For anyone interested in European history or military history this short read is well worth it. I want to visit Malta now.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

For those interested in the history of the Knights of St John, I first recommend reading the brilliant and compelling Empires of the Sea by Roger Crowley. That book will give you the most compelling and accessible narrative of the Knights' period of greatest power and consequence.
For a bit more on the origins and later stages of the Order, The Shield and the Sword does a fine (though biased) job.

[Chris Maska · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good Sketch

With over 900 years of history, the Order of the Knights of Malta has played a key role in the Mediterranean and around the world. The Shield and the Sword provides a good sketch of that history.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an exciting book.

[OldFisben · Rating 3 out of 5]

Научпоп обычный, всего пять сносок (ежеличо). Общее понимание дает, иногда очень цветасто все, хорошечно, но Кроули будет получше.

[Lea · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting and concise chronology of the journey of the Hospitallers.

[ProfX · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a history of a relatively obscure topic it is eminently readable, informative, and even entertaining in its way. Summarizing the 900 year history of the Knights of St. John into a few hundred pages is quite a challenge, but Bradford rises to it admirably.

I just wish it were a bit longer so it could go into more detail. The story of the Knights of St. John is one of the most fascinating stories I have ever encountered in all my years of reading history.

I read this in preparation for a trip to Malta I am taking later this year. While not about Malta per se, it serves as an excellent companion piece to his two works on the Great Sieges of 1565 and 1942-43. The story of Malta and the knights may seem esoteric and irrelevant today, but as I see it stories like this transcend time and space. The story of the Knights of St. John is a story about humanity at its best and its worst.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty quick read, could use some more maps but gives a fairly comprehensive picture of the Knights of the order of St. John and Rhodes/aka Knights of Malta/aka the Hospitaliers, from their foundation in the crusades, the glory days fighting corsairs and the Ottoman Turks, and their final defeat by Napoleon. The Order survived losing everything, though, and still carries out their mission helping the poor and sick to this day. The sections on the sieges of Rhodes and Malta are the best part, of course.

[Persephone Abbott · Rating 4 out of 5]

I might have read this book before when, as a teenager, I studied medieval history. Most of the information was familiar to me. However, having just visited Malta, the story of the siege became quite clear. Penguin's "classic military history" does stand up to the test of time, and it was a quick and enjoyable read.

[Glenda]

Too much history. Could not finish.

[Malachi Antal · Rating 3 out of 5]

—The Knights of the Order—

Mediaeval history on the First Crusade differentiated into the earlier People’s Crusade, sacked Eastern Orthodox Christian Belgrade, paralleled by the Crusade of the Princes met different fates entirely. Bleached bones in Anatolia versus p. 20 insight, “the furor Normannorum, the rage of the Norsemen (from which the Christian Church itself had once prayed to be spared) in bloodlust princely crusaders put Eastern Orthodox Christians; Jews and; Moslems, equally to the sword with descriptors like blood ran to horses’ bridle in tight confines of stonewalled Jerusalem. The Moslem world would never forget it, and would become equally fanatical in its determination to expel these Christians from the lands that they had seized.”


Mediaeval stone walled cities like double-walled Constantinople were rather crucial linchpins like Jerusalem in the Levant. Recollect from Jerusalem tour our guide, Maya, a Jewess explained that Jerusalem occupies strategic high ground away from malarial swamps along coast. Even in 1800s when Zionists arrival land offered outside stone walls of Jerusalem for a certain price had no takers, finally landlord offered lands for free and only then people nibbled; yet, however, careful to return behind stone walls of Jerusalem for protection by nightfall. Beyond the city of Jerusalem valley where rubbish burnt known as Gehenna the biblical hell spoken of in the Tanakh.
In this line of thinking telling p. 19 descriptor by the writer, “Jerusalem was one of the strongest fortified cities in the world. Ever since its capture by the Romans in the reign of the Emperor Hadrian it had been the keypoint to the whole area and the walls had been added to constantly over the centuries, first by its Byzantine and later by its Moslem rulers. The siege of Jerusalem lasted for a little over a month. That it did not take longer was largely due to the fact that the crusaders were inspired by the vision of a priest, in which he assured them he had been told that if only they would all fast and walk barefoot round the walls the city would fall to them. (On a more practical basis the arrival of a number of Christian ships at Jaffa had recently provided them with the sailors and technicians, the wood and materials, with which to construct siege engines). They had been disheartened and suffered heavily from the heat under the scorching July sun, but now the army’s morale once again revived.”
Chapter 1 ends with legendary figure Brother Gerard expelled by Moslem governor of Jerusalem shortly before Crusaders reach the summit of a hill (Montjoie or Mount Joy as pilgrims earlier named if p. 19 besieged Jerusalem p. 20 insight, “The governor of the city, who had waited throughout the months while the crusaders made their way through Asia Minor and Syria—knowing full well that Jerusalem was their target—had made no move against the pilgrims and other Christians within his city walls. Even when the army had moved down from Montjoie and encamped against Jerusalem he took no violent action against them. The Christians were merely expelled, and allowed to go and join their co-religionists. Among those who probably left Jerusalem before the siege began was a certain Brother Gerard.”
A certain Raymond of Toulouse amongst French personages’ instrumental in the crusade of the princes with strong French strain such that the French pontiff organized the First Crusade in Clermont, France. Toulouse dynasty instrumental in controversial Cathar Crusades.
Chapter 2 begins with the Order of St. John established 1080 in Jerusalem by Gerard a merchant of Amalfi forthwith Gaeta and, Venice, Italian city-states controlled the Levantine carrying trade. Frenchman knight; viz., Raymond de Puy grafted on militant Christianity onto the order with Grand Master concepts from first purely militant monastic order the Templars. Detailing on their alliance to secular ruler Raymond of Tripoli, gifted the Hospitallers the famous Krak des Chevaliers in Syria.
Excellent map of the Levant; the Dodecanese islands of Rhodes; and Malta archipelago.


Chapter 3 encompasses the influence of the Levant on the settlers, such as p. 28-29 insight, “Many centuries before, although they had come in far greater numbers, the Greeks who had spread over the same area after the campaigns of Alexander the Great had become largely orientalised. If the Greeks with their superior culture had been so transmuted it was natural enough that these comparatively simple and unsophisticated Latin nobles would soon become imbued with the light and the colour, the luxury and the languor of the East.” … ¶ “Between the invaders of the eastern lands and the surrounding inhabitants there began a form of communication, a tolerance eve, that was found extremely distressing by the newly-arrived European, hot for a chance to save his soul by fighting the infidel. If one may make the comparison, the situation was not unlike that of an officer newly arrived from Britain in the India of the nineteenth century.” Or like American Jews serve their military service in Israel are oft more hardnosed than Zionists in Israel.
Cultural elegance of the East is disarming p. 30, such as, “The Byzantines how had built their houses upon earlier Greek and Roman techniques and traditions had been emulated by the Moslems, who in their turn were copied by the resident crusaders. There were efficient sewerage systems—unknown in medieval Europe—piped water supplies in a number of cities, and in areas where water was scarce great underground cisterns ensured that even through the long hot summers the citizens or the soldiers did not go short of fresh drinking water.” Reminiscent of line from Shangri-La where Conway describes the Romans with aqueducts and heated baths got close in civilization as one might desire.
Should aspirant desire join a Chapter his candidature must be assented to by majority of monastic knight brothers. Weeding out prospective opportunists with forewarning p. 32, “And if you are willing to be in so excellent and so honourable company and in so holy an Order as that of the Hospital, you are right in this. But if it is because you see us well clothed, riding on great chargers and having everything for our comfort, then you are misled, for then you would desire to eat, it will be necessary for you to fast, and when you should wish to fast, you will have to eat. And when you would desire to sleep, it will be necessary for you to keep watch, and when you would like to stand on watch, you will have to sleep. And you will be sent this side of the sea and beyond, into places which will not please you, and you will have to go there.”
Horns of Hattin agony is written how King Guy of Jerusalem from relative succor of Sephoria took Saladin’s bait crossing p. 37 a, ‘burnt-out barren plateau. It was a question of who would cross first.’ Crusaders attempt to relieve Tiberias, prevailed by Guy’s veto power over cooler headed Hospitallers & Count Raymond, “whose wife was besieged in the castle, said that it would be folly to cross the plateau. Tiberias, he pointed out, was his city and Eschiva was his wife—but there was no reason for the army to hazard itself. Unfortunately, Guy, King of Jerusalem, who was in overall command, allowed himself to be persuaded by the party in favour of relieving Tiberias at once. It was a fatal decision. Saladin had lured his enemy into a death trap.” Crusaders suffering under the lion-sun of summer soon short on aqua crucial to their horses and, the men-at-arms. Masterful descriptors p. 37 also, such as, ‘The plateau shook, danced with mirage, and through the wavering bars of heat the horsemen began to emerge—not to join battle, but to swoop and sting like desert hornets.’
Chivalrous Saladin covered by writer p. 38, “Those who were distinguished by the Cross of the Temple or that of St. John were summarily executed. Saladin was normally a merciful man but he knew from past experience that members of the military Orders were dedicated to the extinction of Islam. To allow any of them to be ransomed (always possible with their great wealth) was only to allow another demon to escape and return to battle against his Faith.”
Chapter 4 details aptly enough the Fourth Crusade into the sacking of Christian Zara by the Latin crusaders, upon fief of the Catholic king of Hungary, before enterprise degenerates into besieging Constantinople ostensibly to prop a Byzantine pretender to the throne. Catholic\Eastern Orthodox Christianity schism to this day permanency result. Writer delves into nitty-gritty p. 44, “In secular terms it provided the fatal opportunity for the Latin barons to carve out for themselves small kingdoms and principalities in the prostate land of Greece. Here they could build their castles, engage in their intrigues and feuds against one another, go hunting, drink the Greek wine—and forget all about the Holy Land.”
Baybers a Mameluke sultan described p. 46 as militarily overqualified, “… Above all, Baybers was a soldier. He frequently rode down from the citadel of Cairo to the parade ground to watch the troops exercising. He himself often took a turn and few, if any, of the troopers could handle his lance or shoot his arrows at full gallop with more skill than the sultan himself.” Questionable since Roman Emperor Nero won many an Olympic chariot race also.
Derisory price a most derisory epoch when Acre snuffed out, p. 50 such as following Mamelukes bulldozing conquests, “Thousands of Christians now flooded the slave markets of the East. These became so glutted that the price of a nubile young woman was no more than a simple silver coin. The Crusades were over. The dream of Outremer was over. The Latin kingdom of the East was gone for ever.”
By chapter 7 game is up the militant monastic orders reduced to piracy and mourned by Greek-Cypriot ladies well into a century all in black. Christian corsairs their next transition upon the Med. Writer hit nail on head p. 52, with insight, “The Inquisition anticipated the trials, the practices, and even the public confessions of Soviet Russia, by many centuries.”
The siege of 1480 transpires four-hundred-years later from the founding of the Hospital of St. John. Battue second instance of Christians defeating Ottoman Turkish conquerors of Constantinople, a fact further up Danube at Belgrade in 1456 when Janos Hunyadi demonstrated it possible to best the Grande Turke on the land isn’t mentioned by the writer; yet, however, the Burgundian-led crusade to Nikolopoulos is mentioned.
Knights of St. John misfortune to have their stronghold on Anatolia mainland, p. 85, “The Knights were also to suffer from Timur’s conquering hordes when, in 1402, he swung north and captured Smyrna,” sacked by Tamerlane in 1402. Throughout two century Aegean epoch the Knights only Christian power consistently fought with aplomb versus the Ottoman Turks certainly in the Med. Consolation prize of p. 85, “During the breathing space afforded by this civil war the Byzantines managed to acquire a number of coastal cities that had formerly been theirs, while the Order of St. John built a powerful fortress on the narrow peninsula that juts out from the mainland opposite the island of Cos. They now had the Cos channel securely in their grasp. The fortress called St. Peter the Liberator still stands, its name corrupted into Budrum (from Bedros, Peter). It provided a refuge point for Christians fleeing from slavery throughout Anatolia, a place from which they could be ferried to security of Rhodes.”
Renegade a Dalmatian Italic conceived plot to poison Grand Master during earlier siege of Rhodes p., “was torn to pieces by the townspeople on his way to the place of execution. But, despite these and other attempts to suborn the Rhodians or betray the city, d’Aubusson kept his eyes all the time on the mysterious German, Master George.”
Frà Thomas Newport, the what-if factor p. 117, “the only relief ship to leave for Rhodes foundered and sank in the Bay of Biscay, taking all her men with her. Dispatched from England in October under the command of Frà Thomas Newport, she might well have played an important part—he she arrived.”
Chaos of Moslems encountering graven imagery in p. 97, “The banner of St. John the Baptist, the Banner of the Holy Virgin, and the Cross of the Order of St. John became converted in the eyes of their opponents into terrifying djinns, devils from the abyss.”
Chivalrous spirit of Sulieman the Magnificent recorded p. 119, “It saddens me to be compelled to force this brave old man to leave his home [,]” on Grand Master; viz., L’Isle Adam.





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