Karl Borchardt - Documents Concerning Central Europe from the Hospital’s Rhodian Archives, 1314–1428

Documents Concerning Central Europe from the Hospitals Rhodian Archives, 13141428 brings together over 450 texts concerning the Hospitallers during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

These texts are crucial sources for understanding the history of the Hospitallers between 1314 and 1428. Whilst some Hospitaller charters and letters have been published elsewhere, few scholarly editions contain enough sources to permit close analysis of the language and contents of these documents. Moreover, most previous editions focus on certain geographical areas, such as Cyprus, Rhodes and the Aegean Islands. In contrast, this book is the first of its kind to focus on central Europe. It brings together 460 texts dated between 1314 to 1428, and two from 1461.

This book will appeal to scholars and students of medieval history and the history of Central Europe, as well as those interested in the legal structures and personal networks within the Order of St. John.

Karl Borchardt is Research Fellow at the Monumenta Germaniae Historica in Munich, Germany.

Edited by Jochen Burgtorf and Nicholas Morton

The military religious orders were initially established in the twelfth century to care for and protect Western pilgrims in the Holy Land. They later helped to defend the crusader states, participated in the Iberian Reconquista and eventually played a significant role in warfare, charity, commerce, colonization and cross-cultural encounters in Europe, the Mediterranean World and even the New World. The Military Religious Orders: History, Sources and Memory stimulates research on this fascinating phenomenon.

General Editors

Editorial board

First published 2021

by Routledge

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and by Routledge

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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2021 Karl Borchardt

The right of Karl Borchardt to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Borchardt, Karl, editor. | Luttrell, Anthony, 1932

Title: Documents concerning Central Europe from the Hospitals Rhodian

Archives : 13141428 / edited by Karl Borchardt in collaboration with

Anthony Luttrel.

Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2021. |

Series: The military religious orders: history, sources, and memory |

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020027912 (print) | LCCN 2020027913 (ebook) |

ISBN 9780367139834 (hardback) | ISBN 9780429029523 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Hospitalers. | Europe, CentralHistory15th century. |

Rhodes (Greece)History.

Classification: LCC BX2825 .D63 2021 (print) | LCC BX2825 (ebook) |

DDC 271/.7912dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020027912

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020027913

ISBN: 978-0-367-13983-4 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-429-02952-3 (ebk)

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by Apex CoVantage, LLC

The present volume has a long history. The plan originated as a by-product of my PhD on ecclesiastical institutions in Rothenburg ob der Tauber which was published in 1988. This imperial town in Franconia had two command-eries, one of the Teutonic Order and one of the Hospital. Research on the Teutonic Order in Central Europe abounded, whereas scholarly publications on the Hospital in these regions were rare. In 1987/1988 Anthony Luttrell received a Humboldt prize and came to Wrzburg. In the seminars of my supervisor, Peter Herde, he started teaching German students Hospitaller history. The Rhodian documents we read were virtually unknown at this time, at least among German scholars. So the idea was born to have an edition that would benefit both historians of the Hospital and regional historians in Central Europe. From then on I profited greatly from Tonys expertise. Several times we met in the National Library of Malta. He introduced me to that place which is central for all Hospitaller studies. A first version of the present volume was produced. The texts concerning the Priory of Bohemia were made accessible to Libor Jan, his colleagues and students at Brno, and they were used by Ji Mitek in his 2005 PhD. Together with Anthony Luttrell and Ekhard Schffler, another student of Peter Herde, I was honoured to publish Rhodian documents concerning Cyprus in 2011. Tony read the Manosque accounts from the 1280s, which Damien Carraz, Alain Venturini and myself published in 2015. I read some difficult Latin texts for the Rhodian countryside, which Anthony Luttrell and Gregory OMalley published in 2019. Now Tony has read again the present volume. It owes a lot to his expertise. All remaining mistakes and deficiencies remain of course exclusively my own fault. But without Tonys advice many problems of Hospitaller history would have escaped my notice. In sum, one can say that the present volume would be impossible without the initiative and counsel of Anthony Luttrell and without the time and energy he spent on discussing many problems.

Thanks are also due to many others. The list of scholars from whose publications and expertise I have profited greatly could be long. Only pars pro toto I would like to mention Libor Jan in the Czech Republic, in Poland Maria Star-nawska and many colleagues from the Ordines Militares at Toru, and Johannes

A. Mol for the Netherlands. Special thanks are also due to the National Library of Malta and its staff. Time and again they made it possible for me to see the volumes and to obtain copies. Last but not least, thanks are due to the series editors and to Routledge for having the courage to accept an edition of sometimes long and complicated Latin texts. Nevertheless, these texts are basic both for Hospitaller and for regional history. And I hope they will be used as source materials for further research on these two subjects.