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The Castle of St.
Peter the Liberator of the Order of the Knights of the Hospital of
St. John of Rhodes - to give it its full, comprehensive title - is
Bodrum's acclaimed landmark. Over the period of six centuries it has
served as a military garrison, a compound enclosing a tiny village,
and even as a fortress prison. Today it houses one of the finest
museums of nautical archaeology in the world.
The castle is
built on a promontory which, according to Herodotus, was a small
island called Zephyria at the time of the first Dorian invasions
which occurred around the time of the Trojan Wars. By the time king
Mausolus (377-353 BC) came to rule Caria and moved the capital from
Mylasa to Halicarnassus, today's Bodrum, Zephyrion was already a
small peninsula joined to the mainland by debris and landfill. This
peninsula is believed to have been the location of Mausolus's palace
built near the site of an Early Classical temple of Apollo, although
some authorities prefer to place the presumed venue of the palace on
the mainland just north of the peninsula. The highly strategic
nature of the promontory strongly supports the view that it was
indeed the site of the palace or citadel, but unfortunately there is
no solid proof of this in ancient sources and all possible vestiges
have long since disappeared.
The destruction
of an edifice on the promontory dating to that early era - if one
did exist - may have occurred when the city was captured by the
Macedonian forces of Alexander the Great or, perhaps, in the Arab
raids in the latter half of the seventh century AD when Rhodes and
Cos were overrun, although Halicarnassus is not specifically
mentioned among their conquests. A structure there also may have
fallen prey to an earthquake.
History does
record, however, and our own eyes bear witness today, that a
medieval castle was built on the small rocky peninsula on the east
side of Bodrum harbor and records show that this castle was built by
a company of men collectively known as the Knights of the Hospital
of St. John of Rhodes. Who were these men? When, why and how did
they build the castle?
Top
 After the
Christian religion was declared legal by Constantine the Great in AD
312 it spread throughout the Roman Empire, and soon thereafter
pilgrims began to find their way to Jerusalem to worship at the
Christian shrines. Even after Jerusalem surrendered to the Moslem
Arab armies of Caliph Omar in the year 638 pilgrim traffic continued
to be tolerated, with the exception of the brief reign of the
demented fanatic Caliph Hakem. In those centuries Jerusalem saw - in
addition to the building of churches and monasteries - the
foundation of hospices to house and care for poor and ill pilgrims
suffering from the hazards of the long journey and rampant diseases.
The precise date
of the foundation of the Order of the Knights of St. John is
difficult to determine. Some attempts have been made to trace its
origins to a hospice reportedly founded in Jerusalem about AD 600 on
the orders of Pope Gregory the Great and to an associated grant of a
request by Charlemagne made of Harun al Rashid ca. AD 800 to enlarge
it. More plausible, however, is the more generally accepted version
which sets its beginnings in Jerusalem in the immediate aftermath of
the First Crusade.
 When Jerusalem
fell to the armed hosts of the First Crusade in July 1099, the
victorious crusaders met a most resourceful, energetic and
enterprising man named Brother Gerard, superior of a hospice named
after St. John the Baptist. The hospice was an adjunct of the Abbey
of St. Mary of the Latins and it is believed to have been founded by
merchants from the Italian trading city of Amalfi. Brother Gerard's
exceptional administrative and organizational abilities were so
impressive that the leaders, later followed by the kings and
nobility of Europe, showered his mother house - the Hospital of St.
John - with extensive endowments. At the same time some of the
knights, having fulfilled their crusading vow and having little in
their own countries to return to, found an appropriate field of
action opened to them by Brother Gerard: they joined the company of
like-minded men to form an organization which grew rapidly and was
given official status of a knightly religious Order by a papal
decree (Bull) issued in the year 1113. Thus the Order of the
Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem was born, and although such
details of organization as classes of membership changed somewhat
through the years the basic structure remained.
Realistic
portrayal of these knights, known in brief as Hospitallers, is made
difficult by prejudice. Historical sources and even many modern
writers all too often display blindly passionate adulation on the
one hand or bigoted hostility on the other, but we can be quite
certain that they were men of their times, with all the virtues and
vices of their contemporaries. Their initial military role was
limited to escorting pilgrims through hostile territory, but it was
soon expanded to castle defense and then to offensive action in
disciplined formations. This discipline and obedience to orders is
what distinguished them from the headstrong and fractious barons
ruling the various principalities and fiefs conquered by the
crusaders, and these qualities made the Order of great value as a
dependable instrument of military power.
The Order was
ruled by a Grand Master elected for life and responsible only to the
pope; membership was limited to those of noble birth and its
multinational, multilingual nature was accommodated by division into
seven Langues (or "tongues"), each commanded by a Pillier (or
"pillar"). Knights joining the Order were obliged to take vows of
obedience, poverty and chastity, but, especially in the following
centuries - when even some popes kept mistresses and lived in
worldly splendor - it is naive to expect that all members complied
with these strictures. Indeed, the Hospitallers also became very
wealthy on income derived from their extensive European endowments,
but they possessed one asset acknowledged by friend and foe alike:
courage in battle.
Not even this
courage, however was of no avail against the Moslem forces united
and inspired by the leadership of the great Saladin who inflicted a
crushing defeat on the Christian army at the Horns of Hattin and
went on to retake Jerusalem in 1187. After its fall, notwithstanding
some respite brought about by the following Crusades, the Christian
position in the Holy Land steadily deteriorated, with the
Hospitallers playing a major role as an offensive and defensive
rearguard until the loss of the last stronghold, Acre, in 1291. The
Knights now moved to their possessions in Cyprus where they were
additionally awarded the land holdings of the Templars, a rival
Order suppressed and practically exterminated by the pope and the
French king in 1307-1312. In the meantime the Hospitallers were
starting on a new enterprise: lured by a hypothetical claim of a
Genoese adventurer to the islands of Cos and Rhodes, the Knights
conquered Rhodes, theoretically on his behalf (1309), and then
persuaded the pope to grant them title to this strategic island. By
these ethically shady maneuvers Grand Master Foulques de Villaret
acquired for the Order a sovereign state, and the Hospitallers, now
known as the Knights of Rhodes, were launched on their new course of
naval power and expansion in the Eastern Mediterranean and the
Aegean.
At this time, in
the words of H.J.A.Sire, author of a new history sympathetic to the
Order: "the Knights of Rhodes rapidly formed a coherent strategy of
territorial acquisition"..."seized the small island of Simie (sic),
in the very jaws of the Gulf of Doris" and "by 1319 the knights held
all the Southern Sporades as far north as Lerro". About the year
1337 the Hospitallers reconquered Lango (Cos), and Smyrna (Izmir)
was taken in 1344 by a combined papal, Venetian, Cypriot and
Hospitaller force, with a Knight of Rhodes appointed commander. This
policy of acquisitive expansion, based on military and naval power -
not to mention skill in diplomatic intrigue - brought the Order into
rivalry with all of the states, large and small, that were
contending over the spoils of the crumbling Byzantine Empire. The
first of these spoils was, of course, the island of Rhodes, a
titular property of the Byzantines.
Having become
masters of an island empire the Knights needed a naval force to
defend it, to maintain lines of communication between their
far-flung possessions and, according to one source, to protect
Christian trade with Turkey. The latter is not as preposterous as it
may appear, even considering that the Knights were a militant
religious Order, because throughout the ages trade and profit have
usually tended to obscure ideological considerations. At the same
time galleys flying the flag of the Hospital were also preying on
the shipping lanes, justified by a papal ban on trade with Moslem
powers. In this fluid and complex state of affairs the Knights of
Rhodes prospered, until even a pope complained about their
conspicuous consumption. The growing power of the Ottoman Turks that
could have threatened the Order's possessions received a serious
blow from Tamerlane who crushed the Turkish armies at Ankara in
1402, and the ensuing eleven years of wars of succession weakened
Ottoman power further giving the Knights years of respite and time
to fortify Rhodes till it was regarded as impregnable.
The sense of
security was shattered when news reached Rhodes in 1453 of the
conquest of Constantinople. The new sultan, henceforth known as
Mehmet the Conqueror, was not one to suffer the stranglehold that
the Knights' island empire was exercising on the coasts of Turkey,
but his priorities were elsewhere and it was not until 1480 that his
forces besieged the city. The Conqueror was not with his men and
Rhodes avoided capture, but only just. The sultan's death in 1481,
followed by events that placed Prince Jem in the hands of the Order,
delayed the fall of Rhodes for nearly a half century and during that
period the Knights of Rhodes engaged in conduct that brought
dishonor to their knighthood and faith.
Prince Jem, one
of the two sons of Mehmet the Conqueror, losing the fight for
succession to his brother Beyazit, applied to the Knights of Rhodes
for temporary refuge and transportation to Europe. The Order agreed
and Jem landed in Rhodes where he was handsomely treated at first
and induced to sign a treaty that would give great concessions to
the Hospital should he ever regain the Ottoman throne. Then he was
transferred to France and detained, then imprisoned and made the
subject of barter and trade. Eventually turned over to the pope and
then to the French king, the prince was finally poisoned. During the
thirteen years of Jem's detention the Order received an annual
stipend of 45,000 ducats from the reigning sultan for keeping the
unfortunate prince from pressing his claim to the throne. Grand
Master Pierre D'Aubusson also managed to extract 25,000 ducats from
Jem's wife and mother, resident in Cairo, on the false pretense that
the sum was needed to set him free and transport to Egypt. These
machiavellian intrigues certainly kept Rhodes safe from invasion
while Prince Jem was alive, but upon his death and the death of
Beyazit the next sultan was free to deal with the Order and, in the
end, the reputedly impregnable fortress was taken by the armies of
Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in December, 1522.
The terms of
surrender - presumably also requiring the evacuation of the other
Hospitaller castles - allowed the knights to depart with honor and
they sailed to the castle of Candia in Crete. Shortly thereafter
(1530) they were given possession of the island of Malta by Emperor
Charles V and there, now as Knights of Malta, they built another
fortress, one that successfully withstood the Great Siege of the
Ottomans in 1565. Sultan Suleiman, then seventy years old, did not
command the attacking force in person but entrusted it to a veteran
of Rhodes, Mustafa Pasha, a soldier in his seventies, while the
naval element sailed under Piale Pasha and was reinforced by Turgut
Reis, the Dragut of western lore. In command of Malta was Grand
Master Jean Parisot de la Valette, also a veteran of the siege of
Rhodes, whose stubborn, valiant defense won the day. His name lives
on in the capital of Malta, Valletta.
The power of the
Ottomans was dealt another blow in 1571 when an allied Christian
naval force that included ships of the Knights of Malta defeated the
Turkish fleet in the battle of Lepanto. After this the Ottoman Turks
ceased to be a threat to the Maltese Knights who now devoted
themselves to the harassment of the nominally Ottoman possessions on
the North African coast from where, in turn, Barbary corsairs
harassed the Mediterranean trade of Europe. The Order also became
embroiled in European conflicts and its importance steadily declined
until it was unceremoniously dissolved by Napoleon Bonaparte in
1798.
The Sovereign
Order of Malta was eventually revived, but not as a fighting force.
It still exists in many countries as a religious and a charitable
institution mostly engaged in works associated with the provision of
hospital and medical assistance and, through its aristocratic
members, it continues to exercise power in the affairs of the
Vatican and, in the affairs of the world.
Top
Today, Bodrum
Castle discloses only two of its personalities; the third is
thankfully not in evidence.
 Its massive,
battlemented walls, five towers and seven gates shows that it was
once a fortress of note. Numerous inscriptions and coats-of-arms
seen embedded at various points in the structure testify to its
medieval, multi-national origins - there are no visible traces left
of previous Carian, Roman, Byzantine and Seljuk construction. Even
though their proprietorship of the castle lasted only some 120
years, the prevailing aura today is still of its former Crusader
occupants, the Knights Hospitaller of St. John. This is due to a
large extent to the castle’s restoration and accentuation with
period furnishings, all done by Turkish authorities after its
transformation into a museum.
This period of
the Bodrum Castle may be of particular interest to the western
visitor due to associations with historical events which have made
lasting impressions on European heritage and culture, but such
interest presupposes a modicum of knowledge of the past or, at
least, some familiarity with Sheakespeare. Why Sheakespeare?
Because, in the play “Henry IV”, the Bard mentions by name a number
of the English knights who fought in the battle of Agincourt - the
roll-call of honor includes Bedford, Exeter, Warwick, Salisbury and
Gloucester - whose coats-of-arms can be seen today above the portal
of the English Tower.
Very
appropriately there are many reminders of French presence here since
a Frenchman, Philibert de Naillac, was the Grand Master of the Order
when the castle was founded. When we look at the royal arms of
France in the north wall perhaps some will remember that the
inscribed date, 1460, was near the end of the reign of Charles VII
whose coronation was made possible by Jeanne d’Arc’s victory over
the English at Orleans. It is interesting to speculate how French
and English knights coexisted in Bodrum when their native lands were
at war with each other...
German visitors
can admire the handiwork of their countryman Henrik Schlegelholdt.
the chief architect of the fortress. The restored German Tower
bears the escutcheon of the German Langue or “Tongue”. This
designation identified chapters of knights within the Order by their
linguistic groups, language being the primary indicator of their
nationality. By the 1400s there were few German knights in the
Hospitaller Order, most preferring to enlist in the Order of
Teutonic Knights active in Prussia.
Spaniards and
Italians can also find traces left by their countrymen in the Bodrum
Castle, associations that fill out the tapestry of the fifteenth
century in western Europe. This aspect of the castle blends with
its second face, reflected by its current status as one of the
world’s finest museums of underwater archaeology. Amphoras strewn
around castle grounds set the atmosphere for visits to exhibits of
superb artifacts recovered from ancient shipwrecks, a reconstructed
wreck and displays of the underwater excavation process. The
harmony between the ancient maritime exhibits and the medieval
setting is noteworthy.
The third, mostly
forgotten face of the Bodrum Castle is that of a prison, established
as such in 1893 in the reign of Abdulhamid II. This sultan, known
for phobia of plots against his absolute rule and his suppression of
civil liberties, had many champions of freedom sent into exile or
imprisoned, some in the Bodrum Castle. But not only supporters of
liberty were jailed here. When reactionary fanatics tried to have
Islamic religious law (Seriat) re-imposed in1909, two of their
foremost rabble-rousers were sentenced to life imprisonment in the
Bodrum Castle when the rebellion was defeated.
Some captured
mountain robbers also spent time behind the castle walls. After the
turn of the century bands of outlaws infested the mountains and
forests robbing the rich and, sometimes, helping the poor. Some of
their leaders, known as “Efe”, have been immortalized in folk songs
and their dignified, deliberate demeanor and colorful costumes can
be readily seen in Aegean regional dances.
The last to be
sent here for incarceration in the fortress was Cevat Şakir
Kabaağaçlı, a writer who gained fame under the pen-name of “The
Fisherman of Halicarnassus”. His persecutors apparently didn’t know
that the prison was closed a decade earlier, and the local governor
was a person of culture, so the new “convict” was assisted in
renting a house looking out on the sea. His infatuation with Bodrum
and its heritage poured out of the pages of his many books and
brought renown to this formerly laid-back fishing village, today’s
resort town of Bodrum. Top
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