A genealogical journal
In the culture of European chivalry, the swan is the king of water birds, as the eagle is the king of all birds. The swan was said to be the only bird the eagle thought it worthwhile to fight. In medieval times swans were a delicacy. They were kept in a swannery, and when they…
The Hospitaller Order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem was one of the three great military orders of knighthood in the Middle Ages. Legendary History According to legendary sources, the Military and Hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus pre-dates the Crusades. Tradition says that Saint Basil the Great, Archbishop of Cæsarea, founded a leper hospital near Cæsarea…
Medieval Romance During the Middle Ages, at the height of knighthood, the Search for the Holy Grail became the literary symbol of the knightly quest. This literature, known collectively as the Grail Romances, were stories about individual knights who devoted their lives to finding the Holy Grail. Foremost among these knights were Parzifal and his…
The original Knight of the Swan was Lohengrin. LOHENGRIN (lō’en-grin), the hero of an old High German poem, written in the end of the 13th century. He was the son of Parzival, and a knight of the Grail. At King Arthur’s command he was taken by a swan through the air to Mainz, where he fought…
Early History The Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem was founded sometime before 1099 — perhaps as early as 1020 — as a hospice in Jerusalem to aid pilgrims to the Holy Land. The beginning of the First Crusade in 1099 began to change the character of the hospice. In 1113 Pope Pascal II…