that his fame passed even into Asia, and Eginard states that the Caliph Haroun Raschid permitted the French nation to maintain a house in Jerusalem for the reception of pilgrims visiting the holy places, and that, further, the Prince permitted the Patriarch of Jerusalem to send to the Christian Emperor, on his behalf, the keys of the Holy Sepulchre and those of the Church of Calvary, together with a standard which was the sign of the power and authority delegated by the Moslem ruler to his mighty contemporary.  In the middle of the eleventh century Italian merchants coming from Amalfi, who had experienced the hard lot of the Christian pilgrims in reaching the Holy City, secured from the Caliph Moustafa-Billah a concession of land, on which they built a chapel known as St. Mary of the Latins, to distinguish it from the Greek church already established at Jerusalem, and also constructed a hospice in which to receive the pilgrims, whether in sickness or in health, known as the Hospice of St. John.

In 1093 the untiring efforts of Peter the Hermit, with the support of Pope Urbain II., brought about the first Crusade, and in 1099 we first hear of Gerard, the founder of the Order of St. John.  Gerard was a French monk who, seeing the good work done by the Hospice of St. John, had attached himself to it, and had at this time been working in the cause of charity, and devoting himself to the pilgrims for many years.

Godfrey de Bouillon, having defeated the Saracens outside the walls of Jerusalem, entered that city and visited the Hospice of St. John; he there found many of the Crusaders who had been wounded during the siege, and who had been carried thither after the taking of the place:  all of these men were loud in their praises of the loving kindness with which they had been received and tended.

Great was the honour and reverence in which these simple monks were held ever after by the Crusaders; for was it not common talk that these holy men had themselves subsisted on the coarsest and most repulsive fare in order that the food in the hospice should be both pure and abundant?  Fired by this fine example of Christian charity, several noble gentlemen who had been tended in the hospice gave up the idea of returning to their own countries, and consecrated themselves to the Hospice of St. John, and to the service of the pilgrims, the poor, and the sick.  Among these was Raimond Dupuy.

The great Prince Godfrey de Bouillon fully approved of the steps taken by these gentlemen, and for his own part contributed to the upkeep of the hospice the seigneurie of Montbirre, with all its dependencies, which formed a part of his domain in Brabant.  His example was widely copied by the Christian princes and great nobles among the Crusaders, who enriched the hospice with many lands and seigneuries, both in Palestine and in Europe.  All these lands and properties were placed unreservedly in the hands of the saintly Gerard to do with as he would for the advancement of his work.  In 1118 Gerard died in extreme old age; “he died in the arms of the brothers, almost without sickness, falling, as it may be said, like a fruit ripe for eternity.”