The Inn of England

Identity

Site & dates

Museum › Collachium, sea wall & Street of the Knights

The Chapel of Saint George ‘of the English’ occupies the first floor of a fortification tower on the sea wall, reached only from the wallwalk; the Auberge (Inn) of England is documented at two successive, non-adjoining sites within the Collachium, neither surviving above ground.

c. 1278

The chapel’s Byzantine-period tower is restored, later rebuilt into the sea wall under Grand Masters Villeneuve and Heredia.

1396–1409

Under Philibert de Naillac, the chapel’s murals are renewed and a donor frieze of English knights’ arms first ties the building to the English Langue.

1483–1504

The Auberge of England, damaged in the 1480 siege and 1481 earthquakes, is slowly and repeatedly re-funded — still incomplete two decades on.

1522 – today

Ottoman conquest ends Hospitaller use of both chapel and Auberge; the chapel survives as a protected archaeological monument, the Auberge in archive alone.

Legend

The legend of Sailor Jervis

1480 › a colourful, unproven episode of the great siege

A popular tradition credits an English sailor, Roger Jervis, with cutting loose the anchor of an Ottoman floating bridge assembled to land troops against the sea wall during the great siege of 1480 — thwarting the assault at a stroke. The story is best known today through its retelling in G. A. Henty’s 1896 boys’-adventure novel A Knight of the White Cross; no independent corroboration for it has been found in either of this Statement’s two principal scholarly sources. It is recorded here as part of the English Langue’s popular and commemorative tradition at Rhodes — of undetermined historicity on the evidence available, not as an established fact.

The Turcopolier’s office

Command of the Order’s light cavalry and coastal reconnaissance was permanently reserved to the English Langue — often called the Order’s third-ranking dignity after the Grand Master and Marshal, though this Statement treats that particular claim with some caution.

John Kendal, wounded in 1480

Turcopolier during the great siege, wounded in the fighting and named in Guillaume Caoursin’s contemporary account; later Grand Prior of England.

An illuminated manuscript miniature of a saint holding a globe, blessing John Chauncey, Treasurer of the English Priory, kneeling as a monastic votary, against a gold diaper background — John Chauncey, Treasurer of the English Priory, kneels before his patron saint in this English illuminated manuscript miniature — evoking the devotional culture of the Hospitallers whose Rhodes chapel bore the name of their national patron, Saint George.

England’s continental endowment was modest next to Provence’s or France’s, keeping its Rhodes contingent correspondingly small — yet its knights are well attested in the siege narratives, and the Langue’s Grand Priory, administering estates across England, Scotland and Ireland, remained its financial backbone until Henry VIII’s dissolution of its properties in 1540.

Fabric

What survives

Two monuments › a standing chapel, a vanished inn

The chapel and the Auberge differ sharply in physical survival: a decorated monument on one hand, a building known only from archive and epigraphy on the other.

The Chapel of St George ‘of the English’

A single-chamber tower chapel

A short entrance corridor and apse occupy the first floor of a Byzantine-derived sea-wall tower, reached only from the fortification wallwalk.

Naillac’s English heraldic frieze

Seven donor shields of English knights and nobles, painted around 1396–1409 at the springing of the vault, first tie the chapel to the English Langue.

Carretto’s dedicatory shields, 1513–21

A final renovation sets the royal arms of England at the centre of five shields in the apse, flanked by four successive Grand Masters.

The Auberge (Inn) of England

Two documented, non-surviving sites

A “primitive” Auberge near the Auvergne bastion, attested in 1480 and by heraldry dated 1437–54; a later Auberge east of the Great Hospital, rebuilt after 1483 and still unfinished by 1504.

Facade heraldry, recorded then lost

Early 19th-century travellers’ drawings record the royal arms of England, crowned, above the personal arms of Prior John Kendal — before the facade itself disappeared.

The building shown to visitors today

A standing facade on the Street of the Knights, carrying a later, quartered coat of arms, is popularly shown as “the Inn of England” — distinct from either archivally documented, vanished Auberge site.

History

Persons & events

1338–1540 › priors, turcopoliers, and a Wars-of-the-Roses beheading

A small Langue whose successive priors and turcopoliers connect this corner of Rhodes directly to the Wars of the Roses, the Tudor court, and the eventual dissolution of the English Priory under Henry VIII.

Philip de Thame, Prior of England, fl. 1330s–1358

Compiled a celebrated 1338 survey of the Langue’s English, Scottish and Irish estates — a primary source for its finances.

Philibert de Naillac, Grand Master 1396–1421

Renewed the chapel’s decoration and added its lost upper storey; oversaw the mural phase that first ties it to the English Langue.

John Langstrother, Prior of England 1468–1471

Acquired houses later thought to underlie the rebuilt Auberge; beheaded in 1471, two days after the Yorkist victory at Tewkesbury.

John Kendal, Turcopolier & Prior from 1489

His arms formed the centrepiece of the Auberge’s recorded facade heraldry; secured papal and chapter-general support for its restoration.

Thomas Docwra, Prior of England 1501–1527

Former Turcopolier; petitioned Grand Master Emery d’Amboise for a further Auberge restoration levy in 1504.

William Weston, d. 1540

The last English Turcopolier at Rhodes, defending the city through the final siege of 1522; died in England the day the Priory was dissolved.

Testimony

Eye witness: donors, a graffito, a beheading

1396–1471 › in the murals’ own heraldry, and in dispute

Seven shields, an English circle far from home

The chapel’s Naillac-period frieze names, where identifiable, Hospitaller knights Peter Holt and Thomas Skipwith alongside lay nobles Richard, Lord Grey of Codnor, William Marney and, probably, Richard FitzAlan, Earl of Arundel — a circle more plausibly explained as political exiles or English fundraisers for the Order’s castle at Bodrum than as ransomed prisoners of Nicopolis.

Bitha & Kasdagli 2022, this project’s principal architectural-historical source for the chapel.

The “RICHARD[US]” graffito

A black-letter graffito between two now-legless prelate figures on the north wall has been tentatively linked to St Richard of Chichester — or read instead as a memorial for a recently notable Richard, whether the executed Earl of Arundel or the deposed King Richard II.

Identity unresolved on the evidence available to this project.

John Langstrother: “fallen from the political tightrope”

Freed from the Tower of London the same day Henry VI was restored in 1470, Prior Langstrother was reappointed Treasurer of England — then beheaded two days after the Yorkist victory at Tewkesbury in 1471, even a promised pardon and sanctuary unable to save him.

Simon Phillips (2012), cited for Langstrother’s arrest, restoration and execution.

Gallery

Photo gallery

Six views › the building shown today, its heraldry, and its documentary record

Assessment

Significance criteria

Nine-criteria framework › International importance

Rarity

The chapel is a rare, on present evidence unique, survival uniting a Byzantine vault cycle with a collectively sponsored Western heraldic donor scheme; the Auberge is rare in the opposite sense — a national inn known almost entirely through documentary reconstruction.

Exceptional

Representativeness

Highly representative of Hospitaller Rhodes’ layered, multi-phase decorative practice, and of the practical difficulties facing the Order’s smaller, less wealthy Langues in maintaining their establishments.

High

Aesthetic value

The chapel’s murals show real aesthetic distinction even in fragmentary, eroded state; no aesthetic assessment can be made of the Auberge, which survives in no visual record beyond a single 19th-century drawing.

High (chapel); N/A (Auberge)

Integrity

The chapel’s structure survives but its murals remain fragmentary and, per this project’s principal source, “gradually losing the battle” against decay; the Auberge has no integrity to assess in the conventional sense.

Moderate (chapel); None (Auberge)

Historical value

Outstanding evidence of the English Langue’s presence at Rhodes across the Order’s entire rule, from Philip de Thame’s 1338 survey to the final siege of 1522.

Exceptional

Symbolic & social value

A rare surviving instance of collective lay and knightly patronage, dedicated to Saint George, patron saint of England since 1222 — a natural focus of English identity at Rhodes.

Exceptional

Scientific value

Open questions remain: unidentified donor shields, the meaning of the “RICHARDUS” graffito, and the still-unmatched locations of both documented Auberge sites.

High

Interpretive potential

Wallwalk-only access limits casual visits to the chapel; the Auberge’s story offers strong potential for panel- or publication-based interpretation, as attempted in this Statement.

Moderate

Importance level

A unique surviving instance of collectively sponsored Anglo-Byzantine mural decoration, paired with an unusually complete documentary case study of a small national Langue’s built history.

International

Statement of significance

“Natio parva, onus magnum.” (“A small nation, a great burden.”)

England held the Turcopolierate, commanding the Order’s light cavalry and its network of coastal scouts and watchmen across Rhodes and its dependent islands — a real defensive responsibility, though not, contrary to the inflated claims examined below, the Order’s third-ranking dignity. England’s continental endowment was modest next to Provence’s or France’s, which kept its contingent at Rhodes correspondingly small, but its knights are well attested in the siege narratives: John Kendal, Turcopolier during the 1480 siege, was wounded in the fighting and is named in Guillaume Caoursin’s contemporary account, later becoming Grand Prior of England. The Grand Priory itself, administering estates across England, Scotland and Ireland, remained the Langue’s financial backbone until Henry VIII’s dissolution of its properties in 1540. The Inn of England together documents the smallest and least wealthy western Langue at Rhodes across the whole span of its rule.

National

Protected under Greek Archaeological Law by Ministerial Decision ΥΑ 23084/737 (25 August 1948), ΦΕΚ 10 (23 September 1948), confirmed under Law 3028/2002. No separate designation exists for the Auberge, which retains no identifiable fabric.

UNESCO

Medieval City of Rhodes (ref. 493), inscribed 1988, criteria (ii), (iv) and (v) — the chapel is a contributing component of the property.

References

Bitha, Ioanna, and Anna-Maria Kasdagli. “Saint George ‘of the English’: Byzantine and Western Encounters in a Chapel of the Fortifications of Rhodes.” In Intercultural Encounters in Medieval Greece after 1204, edited by Vasiliki Foskolou and Sophia Kalopissi-Verti, 131–175. Turnhout: Brepols, 2022. The principal architectural-historical and art-historical source for this document.
de Vaivre, Jean-Bernard. “Sur quelques monuments de Rhodes.” Comptes rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 153e année, N.1 (2009): 323–387, esp. 369–373 (“Le cas des auberges d’Angleterre et d’Allemagne”). DOI 10.3406/crai.2009.92477. The principal archival source, drawing on the Archives of the Order of Malta, for the documentary history of the Auberge of England.
Delaville Le Roulx, Joseph. Cartulaire général de l’ordre des Hospitaliers de Saint-Jean de Jérusalem (1100–1310). 4 vols. Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1894–1906. Cited via de Vaivre (2009) for the early organisation of the Order’s Langues.
Gabriel, Albert. La Cité de Rhodes, MCCCX–MDXXII: Topographie, architecture militaire. Vol. II, Architecture civile et religieuse. Paris: Geuthner, 1921–1923. Foundational architectural survey of Rhodes’ Hospitaller buildings, cited for general context on the auberge system.
Hellenic Government Gazette (ΦΕΚ). Ministerial Decision 23084/737 (25 August 1948), ΦΕΚ 10 (23 September 1948), declaring the monuments of the Medieval Town of Rhodes protected.
ICOMOS Australia. The Burra Charter: The Australia ICOMOS Charter for Places of Cultural Significance, 2013.
ICOMOS. ICOMOS Charter for the Interpretation and Presentation of Cultural Heritage Sites. Paris: ICOMOS, 2008.
İnalcık, Halil. “A Case Study in Renaissance Diplomacy: The Agreement between Innocent VIII and Bayezid II regarding Djem Sultan.” In The Middle East and the Balkans under the Ottoman Empire: Essays on Economy and Society, 343–367. Indiana University Turkish Studies and Turkish Ministry of Culture Joint Series, vol. 9. Bloomington: Bilkent University Halil İnalcık Center. Cited, alongside this project’s House of Prince Jem Statement, for Venetian diplomatic intelligence on the Ottoman envoy Mustafa’s 1490 mission to Rome, and for the resulting suspicion directed at fr. John Kendal, Prior of England, in his separately documented role guarding Djem Sultan in papal custody.
Larking, Lambert B., ed. The Knights Hospitallers in England: Being the Report of Prior Philip de Thame to the Grand Master Elyan de Villanova for A.D. 1338. Camden Society, old series, vol. 65. London: Camden Society, 1857. The primary published source for Philip de Thame’s 1338 survey of the Order’s English estates.
O’Malley, Gregory. The Knights Hospitaller of the English Langue, 1460–1565. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Cited via de Vaivre (2009) for the English Langue’s reduced numbers at Rhodes after 1480.
Phillips, Simon. “Walking a Thin Line: Hospitaller Priors, Politics and Power in Late Medieval England.” Chapter 18 in The Military Orders, Volume 5: Politics and Power, edited by Peter W. Edbury, 219–230. Farnham: Ashgate, 2012. Cited for the political crises, arrest and eventual execution of Prior John Langstrother during the Wars of the Roses, and for the more cautious course followed by his successor as Prior of England, Robert Tornay.
REBOOT Research Note. “Notes on the Langue of England.” Reference material supplied for this project on the Turcopolier’s office, the Grand Priors of England, and named English dignitaries; cross-checked against de Vaivre (2009) where possible, and its unverified “Roger Jervis” episode reported as legendary tradition rather than established fact (see “Roger Jervis and the Floating Bridge of 1480,” above). [This project’s own reference note.]
REBOOT Statement of Significance: Great Hospital of the Knights, Rhodes (2026) — cross-referenced for the office and named holders of the Grand Hospitaller, reserved to the Langue of France, and for the Order’s staff-hierarchy conventions generally.
REBOOT Statement of Significance: House of Prince Jem, Rhodes (2026) — cross-referenced for Guy de Blanchefort and Pierre d’Aubusson.
REBOOT Statement of Significance: Porta Marina, Rhodes (2026) — cross-referenced for the 1480 siege and Pierre d’Aubusson’s fortification campaign.
REBOOT Statement of Significance: Street of the Knights, Rhodes (2026) — cross-referenced for the Inn of England’s surviving facade heraldry (opposite the House of Guy de Melais), the Eight Tongues of Europe, and “The Conventual Bailiffs,” the Order’s senior Langue-linked offices including the Turcopolier.
Riley-Smith, Jonathan. Hospitallers: The History of the Order of St John. London: Hambledon Press, 1999. Cited for the Priory of England’s medieval institutional statistics, John Kendal’s portrait medal, and the English Langue’s history after the loss of Rhodes, including the 1540 dissolution and 1557 restoration.
Roger, Jean-Marc. “Nouvelles perspectives sur les auberges et d’autres monuments des hospitaliers à Rhodes, d’après des documents inédits.” Previewed 2005; published in full, on present evidence, in the Journal des Savants (2007). Not available in the sources supplied for this document; flagged, per this project’s Street of the Knights Statement, as a potential source for further research on the Auberge of Germany.
Sarnowsky, Jürgen. Macht und Herrschaft im Johanniterorden des 15. Jahrhunderts: Verfassung und Verwaltung der Johanniter auf Rhodos (1421–1522). Münster: LIT Verlag, 2001. Cited via de Vaivre (2009) for the Order’s Rhodes-period administrative structure.
UNESCO World Heritage Centre. “Medieval City of Rhodes.” World Heritage List, ref. 493. Inscribed 1988.