![]() In 1318 Pope John XXII granted them exemption from local ecclesiastical authority, making the Order dependent on the Holy See. Unlike the Order of Malta, the Knights of Saint Lazarus were not able to found a territorial state of their own, although they established a number of commanderies and hospices in Western Europe, particularly in Sicily, Southern Italy and France, but also in Spain and elsewhere. The Knights of Saint Lazarus went back to Europe around 1290, after Islam finally forced the Christians from Palestine and northern Africa. It was probably at some time in the thirteenth century that the Order became a military institution, and it seems to have been favored particularly by Pope Clement IV, though there is a curious dearth of historical documentation regarding its early activities. Their heraldic symbol was an eight-pointed cross similar to the Cross of Malta but tinctured deep green (vert). As long as the Crusaders were able to maintain themselves in Palestine, the Knights of Saint Lazarus devoted their efforts to aiding the victims of leprosy. In the mid-thirteenth century, the Order of Saint Lazarus was formally recognised as a military and hospitaller order by a Papal Bull which confirmed to it the religious rule of Saint Augustine. ![]() The first Grand Master known to us is a certain Hugues de Saint Paul, circa 1155. ![]() One of the earliest surviving documents relating to the Order is the approval by King Louis VII of France, a few years later, of a feudal transfer to it. In these early years, the Order's Grand Master was usually a leper, as were many of the brothers. A hospital for lepers had been established in Palestine sometime before 1100, perhaps around the same time as the Hospital of Saint John (circa 1070), and by 1148, a hospitaller brotherhood had appeared in the Holy Land named after Saint Lazarus, the Patron of Lepers. ![]()
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