(sold for $271.0)

Denomination: Gigliato Mint Period: 1365-1374 AD Mint Place: Rhodes (Island, Greece) Reference: Schlumberger table 9, 23. RR! State: Knights of St. John (Knights Hospitaller) Ruler: Raymond Berenger (30th Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller, 1365-1374 AD) Condition: Minoer deposits and mint-made planchet splits, otherwise a nice VF+ (in hand better than on the picture!) Diameter: 29mm Weight: 3.89gm Material: Silver

Obverse: Grand Master kneeling left before patriarchal cross on three steps. Shield with arms in right field. Legend: + F RAIMVNDVS BERENGARII D G 8 Mm ("Brother Raymond Berenger, by the grace of God, Master")

Reverse: Cross fleurée; each bar ending in shield with arms of the Order of St. John. Legend: + OSPITAL: S: IOhS: IRL nI: ET: R ("Hospitaller of St. John of Jerusalem and Rhodes")

Ramon Berenguer IV or V (1198 – 19 August 1245), Count of Provence and Forcalquier, was the son of Alfonso II of Provence and Garsenda de Sabran, heiress of Forcalquier. He was the first Count of Provence to live in the county in more than one hundred years. After his father's death (1209), Ramon was imprisoned in the castle of Monzón, in Aragon until he was able to escape in 1219 and claim his inheritance. He was a powerful and energetic ruler who added Forcalquier to his domain. He and his wife were known for their support of troubadors, always having some around the court. He was known for his generosity, though his income did not always keep up. He wrote laws prohibiting nobles from performing menial work, such as farming or heavy labor. Ramon had many border disputes with his neighbors, the Counts of Toulouse. In 1226, Ramon began to reassert his right to rule in Marseille. The citizens there initially sought the help of Ramon's father-in-law Thomas, Count of Savoy in his role as imperial vicar. However, they later sought the help of Raymond VII, Count of Toulouse. In 1228, Ramon supported his father-in-law in a double-sided conflict against Turin and Guigues VI of Viennois. This small war was one of many rounds intended to more firmly establish control over trade from Italy into France, and Provence included several key routes. While the Albigensian Crusade worked in his favor against Toulouse, Ramon was concerned that its resolution in the Treaty of Paris left him in a precarious position. Raymond turned his troops from fighting France to attempting to claim lands from Provence. When Blanche of Castile sent her knight to both Toulouse and Provence in 1233, Ramon entertained him lavishly, and the knight left well impressed by both the count and his eldest daughter, Margaret. Soon after, Blanche negotiated the marriage between Margaret and her son, Louis, with a dowry of ten thousand silver marks. Ramon had to get contributions from allies for a portion, and had to pledge several of his castles to cover the rest. Ramon and Beatrice travelled with their daughter to Lyon in 1234 to sign the marriage treaty, and then Margaret was escorted to her wedding in Sens by her uncles from Savoy, William and Thomas. Shortly after, William began negotiating on Ramon's behalf with Henry III of England to marry his daughter Eleanor. Henry sent his own knight to Provence early in 1235, and again Ramon and his family entertained him lavishly. Henry wrote to William on June 22 that he was very interested, and sent a delegation to negotiate the marriage in October. Henry was seeking a dowry of up to twenty thousand silver marks to help offset the dowry he had just paid for his sister, Isabella. However, he had drafted seven different versions of the marriage contract, with different amounts for the dowry, the lowest being zero. Ramon shrewdly negotiated for that option, offering as consolation a promise to leave her ten thousand marks when he died. In 1238, Ramon joined his brother-in-law, Amadeus IV at the court of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor in Turin. Frederick was gathering forces to assert more control in Italy. Raymond VII of Toulouse was also summoned, and all expected to work together in the war. In January 1244, Pope Innocent IV decreed that no one but the pope could excommunicate Ramon In 1245, Ramon sent representatives to the First Council of Lyon, to discuss crusades and the excommunication of Frederick. Ramon died in August 1245 in Aix-en-Provence, leaving the county to his youngest daughter, Beatrice.

The Knights Hospitaller, also known as the Hospitallers, Order of Hospitallers, Knights of St John, Order of St John, and currently The Sovereign Military and Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem, called of Rhodes, called of Malta, were among the most famous of the Western Christian military orders during the Middle Ages.

The Hospitallers arose as a group of individuals associated with an Amalfitan hospital in the Muristan district of Jerusalem, which was dedicated to St John the Baptist and was founded around 1023 by Blessed Gerard to provide care for poor, sick or injured pilgrims to the Holy Land. Note that other sources claim the Amalfitan order and Amalfitan hospital were different from the order of Gerard Thom and their hospital. After the Western Christian conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 during the First Crusade, the organisation became a religious and military order under its own charter, and it was charged with the care and defence of the Holy Land. Following the conquest of the Holy Land by Islamic forces, the order operated from Rhodes, over which it was sovereign, and later from Malta where it administered a vassal state under the Spanish viceroy of Sicily.

The order was weakened by Napoleon's capture of Malta in 1798 and became dispersed throughout Europe. It regained strength during the early 19th century as it repurposed itself toward humanitarian and religious causes. In 1834 the order, by this time known as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM), acquired new headquarters in Rome where it has remained since. Five contemporary, state-recognised chivalric orders which claim modern inheritance of the Hospitaller tradition all assert that the Roman Catholic SMOM is the original order, and that four non-Catholic orders stem from the same root: Protestant orders exist in Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden, and a non-denominational British revival is headquartered in the United Kingdom.

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