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• The Last Year of the Hospitallers’ Rule on Rhodes

  83-100

  Jürgen Sarnowsky

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  11

  Early in 1523, the Hospitallers had to leave Rhodes with a small number of ships, after a long siege by the Ottoman forces under Sultan Soliman I. The Hospitaller rule on Rhodes and the Dodecanese had been endangered at least since the middle of the fifteenth century, but the Order had successfully resisted both the sieges by the Mamluks in the 1440s and by the Ottomans in 1480. The paper discusses the perception of a growing danger for Rhodes after the fall of Belgrade (1521) and the measures taken by the Order, based on the surviving registers from the years 1521/1522. While regular administration continued, the new Grand Master fr. Philippe Villiers de l’Isle-Adam who reached Rhodes in September 1521 had to handle the situation. The appeals to the Emperor, the Kings of England and France, the Pope and others set aside, fr. Villiers focussed on strengthening the fortifications, gathering supplies and monies and revising the Order’s contingent on Rhodes. Internal problems were mostly overcome, but without relief from the Western powers who were at war with each other, the Order finally had to surrender.

• On the Manifold Identities of John Corvinus: The Question of Origins in Political Power Play at the End of the Fifteenth Century

  31-38

  Suzana Simon

  Views:

  17

  According to the wishes of his father, King Matthias, John Corvinus should have become king of Hungary (the ideal dynastic case) or at least king of Bosnia (and maybe Croatia), in agreement with the House of Habsburg. Nothing came of it, as it is well-known. The co-king of Bohemia, Ladislaus II Jagiellon, was elected king of Hungary and John had to concede defeat and, gradually, “make a living” at the borders of the Ottoman Empire.

  By mid-1497, John Corvinus had reached agreements with Maximilian I of Habsburg, king of the Romans and co-king of Hungary, and with the Republic of Venice, becoming a citizen and a noblemen of the “strange ally” of late Matthias. John, however, did not renounce his allegiance to Ladislaus II, as the rightful (de iure) king of Hungary. As a result, for the final seven years of his life (1497–1504), John Corvinus seemingly had three “masters”: Ladislaus, Maximilian and Venice. The presentation aims to explore the impact of these political ties on the (royal) territories under the administration of John Corvinus and on his “other family”, by marriage (since 1496), the Frankopans (the Frangepans).