LAZARUS, ST, ORDER OF

This article appears in Volume V16, Page 314 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: LAP-LEO

LAZARUS, ST, ORDER OF , a religious and military order founded in Jerusalem about the middle of the 12th century. Its primary object was the tending of the sick, especially lepers, of whom Lazarus (see LAZAR) was regarded as the patron. From the 13th century, the order made its way into various countries of EuropeSicily, Lower Italy and Germany (Thuringia); but its

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

centre of activity was France, where Louis IX. (1253) gave the members the lands of Boigny near Orleans and a building at the gates of Paris, which they turned into a lazar-

house

HOUSE
HOUSE (O. Eng. hiss, a word common to Teutonic languages, cf. Dut. huis, Ger. Haus; in
Gothic
- GOTHIC
it is only found in gudhiss, a temple; it may be ultimately connected with the root of " hide," conceal)

for the use of the lepers of the city. A papal confirmation was obtained from Alexander IV. in 1255. The knights were one hundred in number, and possessed the right of marrying and receiving pensions charged on ecclesiastical benefices. An eight-pointed cross was the insignia of both the
French and Italian orders. The

gradual

GRADUAL (Med. Lat. gradualis, of or belonging to steps or degrees; gradus, step)

disappearance of leprosy combined with other causes to secularize the order more and more. In Savoy in 1572 it was merged by Gregory XIII. (at the instance of Emanuel Philibert, duke of Savoy) in the order of St Maurice (see

KNIGHTHOOD

KNIGHTHOOD

AND

CHIVALRY

CHIVALRY (O. Fr. chevalerie, from
Late
- LATE
Lat. caballerius)

: Orders
of

Knighthood

KNIGHTHOOD

, Italy). The

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

task of this branch was the defence of the Catholic faith, especially against the Protestantism of Geneva. It continued to exist till the second half of the 19th century. In 16o8 it was in France united by Henry IV. with the order of Notre-Dame du Mont-Carmel. It was treated with especial favour by Louis XIV., and the most brilliant period of its existence was from 1673 to 1691, under the marquis de Louvois. From that time it began to decay. It was abolished at the Revolution, reintroduced during the Restoration, and formally abolished by a state decree of 1830.
See L. Mainbourg, Hist. des croisades (1682; Eng. trans. by Nalson, 1686) ; P.

Helyot

HELYOT, PIERRE (1660-1716)

, Hist. des ordres monastiques (1714), pp. 257, 386; J. G. Uhlhorn, Die christliche Liebesthatigkeit im Mittelalter (Stuttgart, 1884) ; articles in Herzog-Hauck's Realencyklopadie fur protestantische Theologie, xi. (1902) and Wetzer and Welte's (Catholic) Kirchenlexikon, vii. (1891).

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