The knightly state
The Knights of Rhodes, or monastic state of the Knights of St. John of Rhodes, included Rhodes and most of the islands of the Dodecanese, as well as territories on the Asia Minor coast. Its administration had a strict, military-style hierarchy and consisted of three classes: knights, chaplains and sergeants. The members of the order initially belonged to seven and later eight "languages", corresponding, so to speak, to the ethnicities they belonged to.
The knights were necessarily descended from noble families and from them came the Grand Magister, as well as the leaders of the languages and all the officials.
The Knights of St. John were a single and indivisible multinational body whose members were supplied by each “language”. The languages, with their hierarchical ranking, were: the language of Provence, Auvergne, France, Italy, Aragon, which was later divided into Aragon and Castile, England and Germany.
