View source for Order of Saint Lazarus

{{Short description|Roman Catholic military order founded by crusaders around 1119}}
{{About|the medieval Catholic military order|its successor|Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus|the extant ecumenical order|Order of Saint Lazarus (statuted 1910)|the society of apostolic life also known as Lazarists|Congregation of the Mission|other uses|Order of Saint Lazarus (disambiguation)}}
{{Infobox organization
|name         = Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem
|image        = Flag of the Order of Saint Lazarus.svg
|caption      = Flag of the order
|size         = 
|malt=
|mcaption=
|abbreviation=
|motto=
|successor    = [[Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus]] (Italian branch, since 1572)<br />[[Royal Military and Hospitaller Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem united|Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem united]] (French branch, 1608–1830)
|established  = Circa 1130
|dissolved    = 1572: merger of Italian branch<br />1608: merger of French branch
|type         = [[Military order (religious society)|Military order]]
|status=
|purpose      = [[Nursing]]
|headquarters=
|location=
|membership   = [[Catholic]]
|language     = [[Latin]]
|general=
|leader_title = [[Patron saint]]
|leader_name  = [[Lazarus of Bethany|Saint Lazarus]]
|leader_title2= [[Grand Master (order)|Grand Master(s)]] 
|leader_name2=
|parent_organization= [[Catholic Church]]
|affiliations = [[House of Savoy]] (since 1572)<br />{{nowrap|[[House of Bourbon]] (1608–1830)}}
|remarks=
|former name=
|website = {{URL|https://www.st-lazarus.net/|st-lazarus.net}}
}}

The '''Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem''', also known as the '''Leper Brothers of Jerusalem''' or simply as '''Lazarists''', was a [[Catholic]] [[Military order (religious society)|military order]] founded by [[Crusaders]] during the 1130s at a [[leprosy|leper]] hospital in [[Jerusalem]], [[Kingdom of Jerusalem]], whose care became its original purpose, named after its [[patron saint]], [[Lazarus of Bethany|Lazarus]].<ref>{{cite journal |first=Charles |last=Savona-Ventura |title=The Order of St Lazarus in the Kingdom of Jerusalem |journal=Journal of the Monastic Military Orders |date=October 2008 |volume=1 |pages=55–64 }}</ref><ref name=Bellesheim>{{cite book |last=Bellesheim |first=Alphons |title=History of the Catholic Church of Scotland: From the Introduction of Christianity to the Present Day |date=1887 |publisher=Blackwood |quote=Lazarists. David likewise established at Harehope the military order of St Lazarus of Jerusalem, which had another house at Linlithgow. |url= https://archive.org/details/historyofcatholi01bell}}</ref><ref>Wise (2012): "The new Order had its own church and convent by 1142, and by 1147 was known as the Leper Brothers of Jerusalem. By 1155 the Order had houses in Tiberias and Ascalon, and later in Acre and possibly Caesarea and Beirut. By the mid-12th century the Order had also developed a force of military brethren, but they were never very numerous, and the Order remained principally preoccupied with the hospitaller role. A few non-leper brethren were included in the Order as knights, and leprous knights almost certainly took up arms when necessary. There were also lay brethren-sergeants, recruited from commoners suffering from leprosy."</ref> 

The monastic order itself is believed to have been created in the 1130s as a hospitaller order,{{sfn|Marcombe|2003|p=7}} and the earliest reference to the order's military activity is dated to 1234.{{sfn|Marcombe|2003|pages=12–13}} It was recognised by [[King Fulk]] in 1142, and canonically recognised as a hospitaller and military order of chivalry under the [[rule of Saint Augustine]] in the [[Papal bull]] ''[[Cum a Nobis Petitur]]'' of [[Pope Alexander IV]] in 1255. Although they were centred on their [[charism]] of caring for those afflicted with leprosy, the knights of the Order of Saint Lazarus notably fought in the Siege of Acre in 1191, Arsuf, in the Battle of Jaffa in 1192, the [[Battle of La Forbie]] in 1244, and in the [[Siege of Acre (1291)|Defense of Acre]] in 1291.<ref name=Wise>Wise (2012)</ref> The [[Cathedra|titular seat]] was successively situated at [[Jerusalem]], then [[Acre, Israel|Acre]]. After the [[Fall of Outremer|fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem]], the order split into two main branches – in [[History of Italy|Italy]] and in [[Kingdom of France|France]] (at the [[Château Royal de Boigny-sur-Bionne]]).<ref name=Constitution>{{cite web |url=http://www.st-lazarus.net/en/the-order/constitution |title=Constitution of The Order |publisher=The Military and Hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem |date=2015 |access-date=25 May 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150629001303/http://www.st-lazarus.net/en/the-order/constitution |archive-date=29 June 2015 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

In 1489, [[Pope Innocent VIII]] attempted to merge the order and its land holdings with the [[Knights Hospitaller]]. This was resisted by the larger part of the jurisdictions of the Order of Saint Lazarus, including those in France, Southern Italy, Hungary, Switzerland and England. The Knights Hospitaller only managed to appropriate the order's holdings in what is now Germany.

In 1572, the Order of Saint Lazarus in Italy was merged with the [[Order of Saint Maurice]] under the [[House of Savoy]] to form the [[Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus]], which still exists today and is recognised as a dynastic successor of the Italian branch.<ref name=Littell>{{cite book |title=The Living Age, Volume 121 |date=1874 |publisher=Littell and Gay Publishers |quote=This ideas was not realized; but in 1572 the Lazarists were joined to the Order of St. Maurice of Savoy, and the two together constitute the present Italian Order of St. Maurice and St. Lazare.}}</ref> However, the merger excluded the order's holding in the southern part of Italy, then forming part of the Spanish realm. These were transformed into ecclesiastical benefices. The Duke of Savoy gained control only of those benefices located in the [[Duchy of Savoy]].

In 1608, King [[Henry IV of France]], with the approval of the [[Holy See]], the jurisdiction of the head of the [[Catholic Church]], linked the French branch administratively to the [[Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel]] to form the [[Royal Military and Hospitaller Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem united]]. This branch became closely linked to the French Crown during the 18th century, with the serving grand masters then being members of the French royal family. It suffered the consequences of the [[French Revolution]] and went into exile along with its grand master, Louis-Stanislas-Xavier de Bourbon, Count of Provence (the future King [[Louis XVIII of France|Louis XVIII]]). It formally lost its royal protection in 1830 and then ceased to remain listed as having royal protection in the French [[Royal Almanac]].<ref name=newadvent>[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10304d.htm Moeller, Charles. "The Military Orders." The Catholic Encyclopedia] Vol. 10. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. 22 Jun. 2015</ref><ref name=Cyclo>{{cite web |title=The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia: Cyclopedia of names |year=1906 |publisher=Century Company |page=761 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=J2ohAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA761}}</ref><ref name=Almanach>{{cite web |title= Almanach Royal pour l'anné 1770-1830 |url= http://issuu.com/mhoslj_library/docs/almanach_royal_1700-1830}}</ref>

The word ''[[lazarette]]'' (in some languages being synonymous with ''leprosarum'') is believed to also be derived from the hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus, their foundations having been adapted as quarantine stations in the 15th century, when leprosy was no longer the scourge it had been in earlier centuries.<ref>{{cite book |first=Junko Thérese |last=Takeda |title=Between Crown and Commerce - Marseille and the Early Modern Mediterranean |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |location=Maryland, USA |year=2011 |page=118 }}</ref>

==History==
[[File:Lazarus_cross.svg|thumb|The green-enameled [[Maltese Cross]] of the Order of Saint Lazarus.]]
===Crusades===
The [[Military order (religious society)|military order]] of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem originated in a leper hospital founded in the twelfth century by crusaders of the Latin Kingdom. There had been earlier leper hospitals in the East, of which the Knights of St. Lazarus claimed to be the continuation, in order to have the appearance of remote antiquity and to pass as the oldest of all orders. According to Charles Moeller, "this pretension is apocryphal";<ref name=Moeller>[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09096b.htm Moeller, Charles. "Order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem." The Catholic Encyclopedia] Vol. 9. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 22 Jun. 2015</ref> but documentary evidence does confirm that the edifice was a functioning concern in 1073.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Charles |last=Savona-Ventura |title=A Hospitalis infirmorium Sancti Lazari de Jerusalem before the First Crusade |journal=Acta Historiae Sancti Lazari Ordinis |date=October 2018 |volume=2 |pages=13–26 }}</ref> 

The Order of St. Lazarus was purely an order of hospitallers in the beginning, and adopted the hospital Rule of St. Augustine in use in the West. It has been claimed that the Order assumed a military role in the 12th century, but this date may not be supported by verifiable evidence.<ref name=Wise/> The monastic order was most likely founded in the 1130s, though the earliest military action that involved Lazarist knights did not occur until the 1230s.{{sfn|Barber|1994|p=38}} The Lazarists wore a green cross upon their [[Mantle (monastic vesture)|mantle]].<ref name=Porter>{{cite book |last=Porter |first=Whitworth |title=Malta and Its Knights |url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_oW1BAAAAYAAJ |date=1871 |publisher=Pardon and Son |page=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_oW1BAAAAYAAJ/page/n22 14] |language=en}}</ref><ref name=Blackwood>{{cite book |title=Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume CXV |date=1874 |publisher=The Leonard Scott Publishing Company |page=494 |language=en |quote=There were four of each : the Hospitallers, the Templars, the Teutonic Knights, and the Lazarists in Palestine; and the brotherhoods of Calatrava, Santiago, Alcantara, and Avis in the Peninsula. All these fraternities were established in order to help the weak and fight the Saracen; yet, nothwithstanding this general similarity of object, each of them had a special character of its own which distinguished it from the others.}}</ref>

Hospitals dependent on the Jerusalem leprosarium were eventually established in other towns in the Holy Land, notably in [[Acre, Israel|Acre]], and in various countries in Europe particularly in Southern Italy ([[Capua]]), Hungary, Switzerland, France (Boigny), and England ([[Burton Lazars]]).{{sfn|Marcombe|2003|page= }} [[Louis VII of France]], on his return from the [[Second Crusade]], gave it the Château of Broigny, near Orléans in 1154. This example was followed by [[Henry II of England]], and by [[Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor|Emperor Frederick II]].<ref name=Moeller/>

In 1154, King [[Louis VII of France]] granted the Order of Saint Lazarus a property at [[Boigny-sur-Bionne|Boigny]] near Orléans which was to become the headquarters of the order outside of the Holy Land. Later, after the [[Siege of Acre (1291)|fall of Acre in 1291]] the Knights of St. Lazarus left the Holy Land and moved first to Cyprus, then Sicily and finally back to Boigny, which had been raised to a barony in 1288.

The Order remained primarily a hospitaller order. They did take part in a number of battles, but there is no evidence for this prior to the fall of Jerusalem (1244). After the fall of Jerusalem in July 1244 and the subsequent [[Battle of La Forbie]] the following October, the Order of St. Lazarus, although still called "of Jerusalem", transferred to Acre, where it had been ceded territory by the Templars in 1240. The ''Ordinis Fratrum & Militum Hospitalis Leprosorum S. Lazari Hierosolymitani'' under Augustinian Rule was confirmed by [[Papal Bull]] ''[[Cum a Nobis Petitur]]'' of [[Pope Alexander IV]] in April 1255. In 1262 [[Pope Urban IV]] assured it the same immunities as were granted to the monastic orders.

===Late medieval period===
The order quickly abandoned its military activities after the [[Siege of Acre (1291)|fall of Acre in 1291]].{{sfn|Marcombe|2003|page= }} As a result of that catastrophe, the leper hospital of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem disappeared, but its [[Commandery|commanderies]] in Europe, together with their revenues, continued. In 1308, King [[Philip IV of France]] gave the order his temporal protection.{{citation needed|date=November 2018}}

In 1490, [[Pope Innocent VIII]] attempted to amalgamate the order with the [[Knights Hospitaller|Knights of St. John]], including the handing-over to the Knights of the possessions of the Order. Although that was confirmed in 1505 by [[Pope Julius II]], the Order of Saint Lazarus resisted the move, and the order of St. John never came into possession of the property, except in Germany. In France, the [[papal bull|bull of suppression]] was ignored and French Grand Masters appointed.{{citation needed|date=November 2018}} The order of Saint John pursued its claim to the French holdings but that was legally rejected by the [[Parlement of Paris]] in 1547.

In 1565, [[Pope Pius IV]] annulled the bulls of his predecessors and restored all possessions to the order so that he might give the grand magistry to a favorite, Giovanni de Castiglione. However, de Castiglione did not succeed in securing the devolution of the commanderies in France. By the end of the 16th century, the Order retained a significant presence only in France and Italy.

===Continuations after 1572===
====Royal House of Savoy====
[[File:Emmanuel_Philibert_of_Savoy_(1580).jpg|thumb|[[Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy]] (1528–1580), founder and first [[Grand Master (order)|Grand Master]] of the amalgamated [[Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus]], recognised in 1572 by Pope [[Gregory XIII]].]]
{{Main|Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus}}

With the death of the papal favorite, Castiglione, in 1572, the grand magistry of the order was rendered vacant and [[Pope Gregory XIII]] united the Italian branch with the [[Order of Saint Maurice]] to set up the [[Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus]]. This order was then linked in perpetuity with the Crown of Savoy and thenceforth the title of its Grand Master was hereditary in that house. 
 
By the time of [[Pope Clement VIII]] the order had two houses, one at Turin, was to contribute to combats on land, while the other, at Nice, had to provide galleys to fight the Turks at sea. But when thus reduced to the states of the Duke of Savoy, the order merely vegetated until the French Revolution, which suppressed it. In 1816 the King of Sardinia, Victor Emmanuel I, re-established the titles of Knight and Commander of Sts. Maurice and Lazarus, as simple decorations, accessible without conditions of birth to both civilians and military men.<ref name=Moeller/>

This became a national order of chivalry on the [[Italian unification|unification of Italy]] in 1861, but has been suppressed by law since the [[birth of the Italian Republic|foundation of the Republic]] in 1946. Since 1951 the order has not been recognized officially by the Italian state. However, the House of Savoy in exile continued to bestow the order. Today, it is granted to persons eminent in the public service, science, art, letters, trade, and charitable works.

====Royal House of France====
[[File:Le roi Louis XVIII dans son cabinet de travail des Tuileries (bgw17 0046).jpg|thumb|[[Louis XVIII]] (1755–1824) with the Order of Saint Lazarus grand cross]]
{{main|Royal Military and Hospitaller Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem united}}

In 1604, [[Henry IV of France]] re-declared the French branch of the order a protectorate of the French Crown. King Henry IV founded in 1608, with the approbation of [[Pope Paul V]], the Order of Notre-Dame du Mont-Carmel. He then, in turn, united to this new order the possessions of St. Lazarus in France, and such is the origin of the title ''Ordres Royaux, Militaires & Hospitaliers de Saint Lazare de Jérusalem & de Notre-Dame du Mont-Carmel réunis'' ("Royal, Military, and Hospitaller Orders of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and St. Lazarus of Jerusalem united"). This amalgamation eventually received formal canonical acceptance on 5 June 1668 by a bull issued by Cardinal Legate de Vendôme under Papal authority of Clement IX.

Unlike the situation with the Savoyian Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus where a complete merger took place creating one order, the French branch was not completely merged with the Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and the orders were managed as two separate entities, with individuals being admitted to one order but not necessarily to both.<ref>Grouvel, Robert. L'Ordre de Notre-Dame du Mont-Carmel et l'École Royale Militaire (1779-1787). Carney de La Sabretache, 1967, p.352-356.</ref>

During the [[French Revolution]], a decree of 30 July 1791 suppressed all royal and knightly orders in France. Another decree the following year confiscated all the Order's properties. The Holy See, which had originally created the Order, on the other hand did not suppress the order;{{citation needed|date=June 2015}} while Louis, Count of Provence, then Grand Master of the order, who later became [[Louis XVIII]], continued to function in exile and continued admitting various dignitaries to the order.<ref>Sainty, Guy Stair, ed. (2006) ''World Orders of Knighthood and Merit'', p. 1862</ref>

Scholars differ in their views regarding the extent to which the Order remained active during and after the French Revolution. There is however no doubt of its continuing existence during this time. In different museums, there are preserved a number of paintings of Russian and Baltic nobles, admitted to the order after 1791. In this list are general John Lamb, [[Alexander Suvorov|Prince Suvorov]], [[Peter Ludwig von der Pahlen|count Pahlen]], count Sievers etc. Some of the new knights are listed in [[Royal Almanac|Almanach Royal]] from 1814 to 1830. King Louis XVIII, the order's protector, and the duc de Châtre, the order's lieutenant-general, both died in 1824. In 1830, a royal decree caused the order to lose its royal protection in France.

== Gallery ==
<gallery class="center" heights="276" widths="200">
Palen P A.jpg|[[Peter Ludwig von der Pahlen]] (1745–1826) with the Order of Saint Lazarus knight cross
Suvorov Alex V.jpg|Russian General Alexander Suvorov (1730-1800) with the Order of Saint Lazarus knight cross
</gallery>

==In popular culture==
* The Order of Saint Lazarus is depicted in season two of the television series ''[[Knightfall (TV series)|Knightfall]]''.
* A fictionalized version of the Order is depicted in the television series ''[[A Discovery of Witches (TV series)|A Discovery of Witches]]''.

==See also==
{{stack|{{Portal|Christianity}}}}
* [[Grand Master of the Order of Saint Lazarus]]

===Successors===
* [[Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus]]
* [[Royal Military and Hospitaller Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem united]]

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

===Bibliography===
* {{cite book|last=Bander van Duren|first=Peter|date=1995|title=Orders of Knighthood and of Merit-The Pontifical, Religious and Secularised Catholic-founded Orders and their relationship to the Apostolic See|place=Buckinghamshire|ref=495-513|series=XLV-XLVII}}
* {{Cite book |last=Barber |first=Malcolm |author-link=Malcolm Barber |title=The New Knighthood |year=1994 |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-60473-5 }}
* {{cite journal|last=Burgtorf|first=Jochen|date=2006|title=Siege of Acre, 1291|editor=Alan V. Murray|journal=The Crusades: An Encyclopedia|volume=I|publisher=Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO|ref=13–14|oclc=70122512}}
* {{cite book|last=Coutant de Saisseval|first=Guy|title=Les Chevaliers de Saint Lazare de 1789 à 1930|publisher=Drukkerij Weimar by the Hague|date=nd}}
* Environ (1295), Constitution, règlements et nécrologie de Seedorf (Suisse).
* {{cite book|last=Marcombe|first=David|date=2003|title=Leper Knights|publisher=Boydell Press|isbn=1-84383-067-1}}
* {{cite book|last=Morris of Balgonie Ygr.|first=Stuart H.|date=1986|title=The Insignia and Decorations of the Military and Hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem|place=Perthshire}}
* {{cite book|editor-last=Sainty|editor-first=Guy Stair|date=2006|title=World Orders of Knighthood and Merit}}
* {{cite book|last=Savona-Ventura|first=Charles|date=2014|title=The History of the Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem|publisher=Nova Publishers|place=New York}}
* {{cite book |last=Wise |first=Terence |title=Knights of Christ |date=2012 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=9781780966427}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite book|last=Belloy|first=Pierre de|title=De l'origine et institution des divers ordres de chevalerie tant ecclésiastiques que prophanes|place=Paris|orig-year=1604|edition=2nd edition Toulouse|date=1622}}
* {{cite journal|last=Elphinstone|first=Francis|title=The Opponents of St Lazarus which appeared|journal=The Armorial|volume=III|issue=4|date=November 1962|place=Edinburgh}}
* {{cite book|first=Gautier|last=de Sibert|title=History of The Military and Hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem|place=Paris|date=1772}}
*[http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/crusades/articles/stlazarus.aspx Military History Online - Order of St.Lazarus in the Latin East]
* {{cite book|last=Seward|first=Desmond|title=The Monks of War: The Military Religious Orders|publisher=London: Penguin Group|date=1995}}
* {{cite web|url=http://www.stelling.nl/vrijmetselarij/ridders/lazarus_bander.html|title=The Military and Hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem from the book: Orders of Knighthood and Merit: The Pontifical, Religious and Secularised Catholic-founded Orders and their relationship to the Apostolic See|first=Peter|last=Bander van Buren|publisher=Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe|date=1995|access-date=2007-05-18|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110721002417/http://www.stelling.nl/vrijmetselarij/ridders/lazarus_bander.html|archive-date=2011-07-21|url-status=dead}}

==External links==
{{Commons category}}
* {{CathEncy|wstitle= Order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem |volume= 9 |last= Moeller |first= Charles |author-link= Charles Moeller (historian) |short=1 }}
{{Crusader sites}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Order of Saint Lazarus| ]]
[[Category:1130s establishments in Asia]]
[[Category:12th-century Catholicism]]
[[Category:Leprosy organizations]]