Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/82

60 them indicated which was in the wrong. Those feelings were not slow in finding a vent, as the difference of their respective fates was destined before long to show.

The lose of Jerusalem deprived the Order of St. John of that home which for upwards of a century had been a shelter not only for themselves, but for all whose misfortunes demanded their aid. The buildings which the merchants of Amalfi had originally appropriated to their kindly hospitality, and which bad been greatly increased in extent since those times, once more reverted to the Moslem, in whose hands they remained until they fell into ruins.

Recent explorations have largely cleared up the difficulties as regards position, which until of late rendered it almost impossible to define what were the actual dimensions and limits of the establishment of the Order in Jerusalem. The following description may be taken as correct as far as sites are concerned, very few of the actual remains having been as yet uncovered.

To the south of the church of the Holy Sepulchre there is a plot of ground nearly square, about five hundred feet a side, which is bounded on the north by what was formerly the Street of Palmers, now known as the Via Dolorosa, on the west by Patriarch Street, now Christian Street, on the south by Temple Street, now David Street, and on the east by the Malquisinat or Bazaar. Within this area stood the later buildings of the Order. North of the Street of Palmers, and to the east of the church of the Holy Sepulchre stood the churches and hospitals of St. Mary ad Latinos and St. Mary Magdalene, also ad Latinos, the original establishments of the Amalfi merchants. No traces of these are now to be found. To the south of the Street of Palmers, in the western angle of the square, stood the church of St. John Eleemon and its hospice.

Such was the institution as it existed prior to the formation of the kingdom of Jerusalem in 1099. Between that time and the middle of the twelfth century the Order, under Raymond du Puy, had developed the church of St. John Eleemon into a fine building, the conventual church of St. John the Baptist.