[The Hospitaller Order and Silesia in the middle ages]

Knights Hospitallers of St. John arrived in Silesia from Bohemia and Moravia in the 70s of the 12th century, and created 15 posts there. Although Silesia commanderies were the biggest center of the Order of the Hospital in the Polish territories, they were not a separate province but belonged to the Bohemian priorate. An attempt to organize a Polish priorate with a seat in Silesia in the mid-13th century was a failure. The commanderies which had come into being by the middle of the 13th century were established thanks to grants of land estates by Silesian magnates, who in this way supported the struggle with the muslims in the Holy Land. In the middle of the 13th century, as a result of the decline of the crusade movement, rural commanderies began to lose their significance and some of them disappeared. The intensive process of the foundation of towns on the basis of German law in Slilesia in the 13th and 14th centuries opened new possibilities for the order. In urban parishes Knights Hopsitallers of St. John began to organize commanderies composed of ca 10 brethren who ministered to a parish. The undertaking of this new task showed the Silesian Knights Hospitallers' adaption skills and made it possible for them to not only survive but to develop in the late Middle Ages.