Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/360

330 appeared to them to be no longer suitable to the organization of the fraternity. In conclusion, they were to deal with any questions of a special nature which might be brought before them, but which did not come under any of the preceding heads.

The matters having all been debated and decided on by a majority of votes taken by ballot, the chapter was once more assembled, and the decrees of its committee ratified and promulgated. The business then closed with divine service, when the following prayers were offered in succession—for peace, for plenty, for the Pope, for the cardinals and prelates, for all Christian kings and princes, for the Grand-Master, for the bailiffs and priors, for the brethren of the Hospital, for the sick and captives, for sinners, for benefactors to the Hospital, and lastly for the confraria and all connected with the Order.

The duration of a chapter-general was very wisely limited to sixteen days, so as to check any spirit of opposition or factious debate by means of which it might otherwise have been indefinitely prolonged. If, at the conclusion of that time, any business remained unsettled it was disposed of by a council of reservation elected by the chapter prior to its dissolution. The chapter-general was the ultimate court of appeal from the decisions of the various councils, and in its absence that appeal lay with the court of Rome.

Provincial chapters were held in every grand-priory, presided over by the grand-prior or his lieutenant, at which all commanders attached thereto were bound to attend either in person or by proxy. The local interests of the fraternity were brought under discussion at these assemblies, and such matters were there disposed of as did not concern the Order at large, but only that branch of it embraced within the district. The appeal from these courts lay with the council at the chef-lieu.

The cede of laws known as the statutes of the Order were the result of the decrees of a succession of chapters-general, no additions to, alterations in, or omissions from this code having been permitted by any authority short of that which originally called it into existence. The duty of the Grand-Master as head of the fraternity consisted merely in enforcing obedience to the