Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/543

Rh the first “Custos,” or Master of the hospital, was nothing more than the superior of a monastic establishment of but little consideration and less wealth. Under Raymond du Puy the dignity of the office was greatly raised. Much wealth had poured into the coffers of the institution, and extensive territorial possessions in most of the countries of Europe had materially increased the consideration in which the Order was held, and consequently improved the social and political status of its head. The change which flu Puy introduced by adopting a military character added also to the political importance of the Custos. He was no longer merely a monk, the superior of a body of monks; he was the leader of a select band of warriors, a corps which comprised in its ranks all that was knightly and noble. The chief of such a fraternity must naturally have held a very different position in the feeble monarchy of Jerusalem to that of the cowled monk who preceded him. Ere long the Master of the Hospital of St. John became a personage of no mean importance, consulted and courted by the monarch, and treated with the most deferential respect by the people. As time rolled on, and grant after grant was made to the Order, its wealth, numbers, and political consideration increased, until in the later days of the unfortunate kingdom the chiefs of tho Hospital and Temple occupied the highest position in the state next to the monarch himself, it was in these times that the simple appellation of Master was exchanged for the more ambitious and high-sounding title of Magnus Magister, or Grand-Master. The change was in itself of trivial importance, but it marks the gradual advance the office had made in social distinction.

The expulsion of the fraternity from Palestine, and its retirement to Cyprus, seemed at first likely to reduce, if not utterly to annihilate the political importance of its chief. For some years its fate for good or ill hung in the balance. The bold and successful conception of Villaret determined favourably the doubtful question, and from that time we find the Grand- Master occupying a far more influential position than even in the most palmy days of Christian domination in the East. The acquisition of the island of Rhodes, without divesting him of any of the prestige, which as the head of a powerful military