Although the hospital belonged to the Knights Hospitaller, the pope commanded that the Prior and the brothers of the Domus Theutonicorum, (‘House of Germans’) always should be German speakers. Thus the tradition of a German-led institution was established in the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
After the loss of Jerusalem to Saladin in 1187, some merchants from Lubeck and Bremen took up the idea of a field hospital during the siege of Acre. This field hospital became the nucleus of the future Order formally recognized in 1192 by Pope Celestine III.
Becoming a Military Order
At first its brothers followed the Augustinian Rule, but in 1198 it developed into a fully-fledged military religious order based on the Knights Templar, with its head known as the ‘Grand Master.’ The Order was granted papal orders to participate in crusades to retake Jerusalem as well as to defend the Holy Land from attacks by Muslim Saracens. Under Grand Master Hermann von Salza, the order made the final transition from being a hospice brotherhood for pilgrims to being primarily a military order.
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