Page:A short history of nursing - Lavinia L Dock (1920).djvu/77

61 Military Influences 6i other for women, which had been founded at Jeru- salem about 1050 A.D. by wealthy Italian mer- chants. They were dedicated respectively to St. John the Almoner and Mary Magdalene. In charge of the sisterhood of women nurses in the latter hospital was a noble Roman lady named Agnes, of whom little is known. In its inception the order of St. John was secular, and the knights and ladies met at table, and in the wards for the sick, but toward the end of the eleventh century, under the direction of Peter Gerard, who was intensely devout, a strictly religious form was adopted, and the Knights and Sisters renounced the world by taking vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Under its second director, Raymond de Puy, who was essentially a warrior, it took on a markedly military character and became exclu- sively aristocratic, open only to members of a distinct social class. As the warlike features in- creased, the order was divided for utility's sake into three sections — knights or men-at-arms, whose first duty was to fight, yet who were expected to serve in the hospital wards when not engaged in battle; priests who directed the religious life of camp and hospital; and serving brothers or half- knights (serjeus) who carried on the regular ward work at all times. These had to belong to fami-