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Hazard, H. W. (ed.) / Volume III: The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
(1975)
VIII: The Hospitallers at Rhodes, 1306-1421, pp. 278-313
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Page 287
Ch. VIII THE HOSPITALLERS AT RHODES, 1306—1421 287 lost their predominance at Rhodes when the Hospitallers enforced the papal prohibitions against trading in war materials with the Moslems, the importance of which Villaret had stressed in his crusad ing tract. The Hospital confiscated a Genoese galley, and in 1311 Antonio Spinola arrived from Genoa to demand its return, having incidentally captured Vignolo between Candia and Rhodes. Spinola and the Genoese, meeting a refusal, offered 50,000 forms to the Turks of Menteshe to attack Rhodes. Numerous merchants from Rhodes were arrested on the mainland, and Genoese and Turkish galleys seized Hospitaller vessels bound for Rhodes. In 13 12, how ever, the Hospitaller fleet pursued twenty-three Turkish ships to Amorgos in the Cyclades; when the Turks landed, the Hospitallers burned their ships and destroyed or captured almost the entire force, themselves losing some fifty or more brethren and three hundred foot, a serious loss. Marino Sanudo Torsello, who was at Rhodes with Villaret, had high praise for the way in which the master curbed the power of Orkhan, emir of Menteshe, and incited the other emirs against him. The Hospitallers took Cos and occupied certain castles on the mainland. In May 1313 Villaret seized more Genoese ships, including two galleys, but later the Genoese presumably reached an agreement with him. A period of peace followed. 10 The Venetians, traditionally anticlerical and opportunistic in cru sading affairs, were always hostile to the Hospital, although there were usually Venetian traders at Rhodes and circumstances often forced the two powers into uneasy alliance. The Venetians, like the Genoese, protested against the enforcement of the papal restrictions on trade, and were angered when in about 1312 the Hospitallers seized Carpathos and the other islands between Rhodes and Crete from Andrew Cornaro. In 1312 and 13 14 the Venetian government sequestered Hospitaller funds in transit at Venice, and even after the return of the occupied islands to the Venetians in 13 16 there were continual incidents and quarrels.11 Villaret, still far from secure at Rhodes and unable to rely on Genoese or Venetian support, carefully maintained close relations with James II of Aragon, ignoring papal instructions of 13 12 that the Hospital should intervene against the Catalans in Greece. 12 In Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia the fate of the lands of the Temple and of those of the Hospital was in the balance until 1317. Certain influential Catalan Hospitallers con 10. Delaville Le Roulx, Rhodes, pp. 4—7, 10—11; Luttrell. "Feudal Tenure," pp. 755— 757. No more is heard of Vignolo. Statistics concerning forces and losses should be treated with caution. 11. Luttrell, "Venice," pp. 196—197, 202. 12. See above, pp. 181—182.
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