Leper Crusaders: how disease-stricken knights forged an army in the Holy Land
During the Crusades, one Christian order transformed from caring for those suffering from leprosy in Jerusalem to fielding an army of leper knights. Matthew Doherty explores the story of the the Lazarites
In the history of the Crusades, a number of military orders made their names with their exploits in the Holy Land. The likes of the Knights Templar, the Knights Hospitaller, and the Teutonic Order all formed in the 12th century, in the decades after the First Crusade (1095-99) had captured the holy city of Jerusalem from Islamic control.
Alongside the more prominent orders, however, was a small group called the Order of Saint Lazarus. Although formed with the sole purpose of caring for the sick, by the 13th century the Lazarites, adorned in white with a green cross, were among the ranks of crusader knights.
But they were no ordinary fighters: the majority of them suffered from the dreaded scourge of leprosy.
Rise of the order
The beginnings of the Order of Saint Lazarus can be found in a leper hospital in 12th-century Jerusalem, with the purpose of helping and caring for sickly pilgrims to the Holy Land. Leprosy appears to have been particularly prevalent in the Near East in the 12th and 13th centuries, at the same time as waves of Christian invaders descended on the region.
In 1142, Fulk, the Christian king of Jerusalem, conceded to “the church of Saint Lazarus and the convent of the sick who are called miselli, an estate… which is between the Mount of Olives and the Red Cistern on the road which leads to the River Jordan.” Miselli can be roughly translated to “little wretched ones” and referred to leprous beggars.
The land granted to this church was well situated, for it was on a key crossroads close to the Jordan, where those suffering from leprosy could bathe in its supposedly curative waters. Styling themselves ‘Lazarites’, the monks who cared for the afflicted were successful enough to buy more land two years later and expand their ministrations.
A living death
In the 21st century, it’s known that leprosy (also known as Hansen’s disease) is spread in humans by Mycobacterium leprae and Mycobacterium lepromatosis (leprosy bacteria). Symptoms include thickened and deeply furrowed skin, discoloured sores on the body, and numbness in the arms and legs.
If untreated, it can lead to severe facial disfigurement, paralysis, and blindness. The hands and fingers tend to wither and shorten. Non-healing ulcers can also develop on the soles of the feet, forcing many sufferers to shamble painfully as they walk. Though the disease itself is not fatal, complications arising from infection can often lead to septicaemia and death.
During the medieval age, it was often called a “living death”, for the sufferer would have looked – to the unscientific and unsympathetic eye – like a moving corpse.
During the medieval age, it was often called a “living death”, for the sufferer would have looked – to the unscientific and unsympathetic eye – like a moving corpse.
Those suffering from leprosy were often viewed with horror and suspicion by a fearful population, especially in the wake of the Black Death. The classic image of the hooded leper, shunned by a society who assumed the disease was divine punishment from God, does hold much truth.
However, more recent scholarship is redefining the longtime perception of the medieval leper as an eternal outcast. At the time of the Crusades, many regarded the leper as suffering a type of purgatory on Earth, and so believed that they would ascend straight to heaven upon death.
Accepting donations from the nobility of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Lazarites continued to grow and gained more ‘lazar houses’ across the Crusader states, or Outremer. Pilgrims and penitents would come to pray and care for the lepers at these houses.
The most spectacular case of penance was that of a nobleman called Alberic, who “ate those things which the lepers had left, kissed each one daily after Mass, washed and wiped their feet, made their beds, and carried the weak on top of his shoulders.”
Alberic must have felt himself to have led a particularly violent and impious life prior to serving at the lazar house, considering that he whipped himself relentlessly and wore a goat-hair shirt (worn so the coarse hair would scratch the wearer). He even took the bowl used to wash the lepers and, though the blood and discharge within moved him to nausea, immerse his face in it.
For the first 50 years of its existence, the monks of the Lazarite Order only concerned themselves with tending to the sick. But this would all change after the great sultan Saladin recaptured Jerusalem for the Muslim world in 1187.
Men who are not afraid to die
One of the greatest problems faced by Crusader forces was manpower: they were almost always outnumbered by opposing Muslim armies. To combat this shortcoming, several orders took an active role in defending Outremer, including the aforementioned Knights Templar, Knights Hospitaller and Teutonic Order.
These military orders contained some of the most highly trained and motivated fighting men in the Christian world. But when a knight contracted the dreaded disease of leprosy, he would usually be ordered to live separately, or encouraged to report to a lazar house. Since leprosy in its early stages rarely renders the sufferer infirm, the Lazarites began to add to their ranks men who were the fighting elite of the Crusader states, and could still wield a blade.
In 1191, the Lazarites relocated their headquarters to the coastal city of Acre and built a fortress-hospice called l’Eglise des chevaliers de Saint Lazare, or House of the Knights of St Lazarus. Popes gave them similar dispensations and tax breaks to the ones bestowed upon other key military orders, while their knights began to combine military and medical duties.
At the beginning, the knights were likely all made up of lepers. It is definitely known that Walter de Novo Castro and Reynald de Fleury, two master generals after the order’s militarisation, suffered from the disease. In battle, Lazarite knights wore a green cross on a white background. It is likely that brothers with facial deformities or scarring would have wrapped up in white bandages. Though the group was small in number, they must have been a terrifying sight, especially given that their opponents may have believed that close combat ran the risk of contracting leprosy.
The ‘Leper King’?
The most famous sufferer of leprosy in the Crusader states was one of its greatest kings: Baldwin IV. King of Jerusalem from 1174 to 1185, it is likely he had an association with the Lazarites.
His father Almaric gave an annual rent of 50 bezants to the lazar house in Jerusalem, specifically for the support of one leper. This was in 1171, around the time he became aware of his son’s condition. By the time he ascended the throne at the age of 13, Baldwin’s leprosy had already caused one hand to wither. He was therefore taught to ride a horse using his knees. He became known as the ‘Leper King’.
By the time he ascended the throne at the age of 13, Baldwin’s leprosy had already caused one hand to wither. He was therefore taught to ride a horse using his knees. He became known as the ‘Leper King’.
In 1177, Saladin led a huge army of his Ayyubids against the Crusaders, and Baldwin elected to head up his forces in person. As one chronicler put it: “Everyone despaired of the life of the sick king, already half dead, but he drew upon his courage and rode to meet Saladin.”
In the subsequent battle of Montgisard, Baldwin achieved a spectacular against-the-odds victory, completely routing Saladin’s army. This was in large part down to Baldwin's daring leadership, not to mention horsemanship.
Yet by 1183, Baldwin was blind, had lost the use of both hands, and could not walk without help. Until his death in 1185, he forced himself to perform administrative duties. Though never an official member of the Lazarite Order, Baldwin was in every respect a leper knight.
How successful were the Lazarites?
Despite occasional battlefield successes, the tide opposing Christian forces in the Holy Land was unstoppable, and the position of the Crusader states grew ever more precarious as the 13th century ground on. At the battle of La Forbie in 1244, an allied army – made up of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the military orders and breakaway Ayyubids – took on the Muslim forces of Egypt. While the Egyptians swept up much of the enemy, the knights – including the Lazarites – made a ferocious mounted charge, which nearly restored the situation.
Even when they pressed too far into the Egyptian ranks and became surrounded, they fought bravely until eventually be overwhelmed. Some Hospitallers and Templars cut their way out, but Robert of Nantes, Patriarch of Jerusalem, reported that “all the leper knights of the [Lazarite Order] have been miserably killed by the enemies of the faith.”
Further losses were to come in 1252, when the reformed Lazarites decided, on their own initiative, to launch a chevauchée near Ramla. This was a fast-moving raid aimed at civilian targets, during which cattle would be seized and crops burned, in an effort to spread terror.
In the end, things did not go so well for the Lazarites, as one French knight called De Joinville remembered: “After [the master of St Lazarus] had collected his spoils the Saracens attacked him, and so thoroughly defeated him that of all the men he had in his company no more than four escaped.”
The defeats at La Forbie and the Ramla raid crippled the already small Lazarite order. To replace their losses, it became necessary to accept healthy knights into the ranks. For those men, this was seen as an act of extreme piety and faith in God, for they risked contracting leprosy.
By 1255, Pope Alexander IV described the order as a convent “of active knights and others, both healthy and leprous, for the purpose of driving out the enemies of the Christian name.” And in 1260, it became official policy for a leprous Templar brother to transfer to the Lazarites.
Yet despite their (often-suicidal) courage, the tiny band of Lazarite knights could not hope to hold the Crusader states. Matters came to a head at the Siege of Acre.
The Siege of Acre
In April 1291, a large Muslim army from the Mamluk sultanate in Egypt surrounded Acre. To many, the fall of the city was inevitable, leading women and children to evacuate by sea, but most of the fighting men stayed – including the knights of Saint Lazarus.
By now the order had been so whittled away that it could only muster around 25 knights for the defence, with some backing from lighter armed retainers.
Tightening the ring, the Mamluks brought up siege engines to batter the walls. The night of 15/16 April saw a foray led by the Templars, which probably included Lazarite brethren. Though unsuccessful in burning the siege engines, they engaged over a thousand Mamluks and brought home valuable trophies.
Yet nothing could stop the fall of the city. On 18 May, the Mamluks attacked the entire length of the wall. Templars and remaining Lazarites had been given responsibility for defending the Montmusard wall. This constituted the short straw: a lengthy section with a small number of defence towers, built straight which meant that it lacked opportunities for crossbowmen and archers to provide covering fire.
When the ‘Accursed Tower’ fell on the other side of the city, the Templars scrambled to retake it, leaving the Lazarites to guard the wall. The Mamluks pressed Montmusard again with the Lazarites spread too thin. All the “military brethren” of the order fought to the death.
The fall of Acre represented the end of the Crusader presence in the Near East.
What happened to the Lazarites?
While the Lazarite cause in the Holy Land collapsed, the order was growing in Europe. During the Crusader period, they had built a network of lazar houses centred on the Castle of Boigny near Orléans in France, and Lazarite monks continued to care for the afflicted.
The next centuries would see the order survive papal disfavour, political revolutions, and two world wars. Today, the modern Order of Saint Lazarus boasts 4,500 members across five continents. And it still maintains its original mission of caring for the sick, with a special focus on the one to two million people still suffering with leprosy.
Matthew Doherty is a military historian, writer and teacher