Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/350



the period when the Order of St. John was first divided into langue, and the leading dignities in the gift of the fraternity were apportioned to those langues, no confusion or intermixture was ever permitted betwen them. A postulant for admission preferred his request either at the chef-lieu in the convent to the head of the langue of which he was a native, or at one of the grand-priories in his own country. If he sought admission into the ranks of the knights of justice, the necessary proofs of nobility were required from him, which proofs varied in the different Iangue, and have been already described. When it had been satisfactorily ascertained that his descent was sufficiently aristocratic to entitle him to admission, he was, if old enough, admitted at once as a novice. After the expiration of a year spent in probation he was duly received into the body of the Order as a professed knight.

The age at which a postulant was accepted as a novice was sixteen. He was thus enabled to be a professed knight at seventeen, but he was not required to begin his residence at the convent until he was twenty years of age, and in many cases he received a dispensation postponing still later the necessity for that step. The pages of the Grand-Master were, however, entitled to the exceptional privilege of admission when only twelve years old, and their service in that capacity counted towards the term of residence which every knight was bound to complete at the convent before he was qualified for nomination to a commandery. In times later on than those of which we are now writing, knights were received “in minority” even in