Military Monastic Orders

[Flocculencio]

How could we make it so that a few of the military monastic orders survive into the 20th Century as military units?

I don't mean for there to be a vast number of them- maybe just one or two orders sponsored by the Catholic church and other large, organised churches such as the Church of England.

[Strategos' Risk]

The Knights of Malta are still around.

Maybe if they actually had territory (a microstate in Europe), they could have a reason to maintain a military to protect it, and to preserve the militant tradition.

[Imajin]

I think there are still some remnants of the Teutonic Knights as well... after they got the boot from Prussia, they were in the Hapsburg territory for awhile, if I recall there's still a Grand Master but I don't know how large the order is.

[Thermopylae]

I think there are still some remnants of the Teutonic Knights as well... after they got the boot from Prussia, they were in the Hapsburg territory for awhile, if I recall there's still a Grand Master but I don't know how large the order is.

Say hello to the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Platter

[Flocculencio]

I'm aware that many of them still exist as various types of institutions but I meant keeping them as military units of some sort.

[Imajin]

Well, if the Teutonic Knights had a Grand Master less sympathetic to the Protestant Cause than Albert of Prussia, perhaps they could survive as the ruling body of Prussia, maybe later becoming simply the military arm of the Prussian government when it eventually secularizes.

[fortyseven]

you want few other changes Flocc? BTW you've read my Paladin timeline right?

It'd be cool to have imperial/royal churches and each empire/kigdom has its own military monastic order. Each order can have small territorial fiefs in Europe and large holdings elsewhere.

[PoorBoy]

Well, the Church could always (but not very likely) fire the Swiss Guards and hire the Knights of Malta (medics) and the Teutonic order (everything else). Or, maybe the Swiss government bans its citizens to be mercenaries outright (right now, there exists that obvious exception).

[Tielhard]

Well as you know the Little Sisters of Eternal Persecution are an itegral part of America's Crusade against Islam.

[Satyrane]

:cool: Cool. I like SR's idea that they maintain Malta (even Rhodes, if they can hold off the Turks?) as an independant state. ... and other large, organised churches such as the Church of England.I've always wondered what happened to the monastic orders after the Reformation/Abolition of the Monasteries - there was an English langue of the Knights of St. John, wasn't there? Presumably they were dissolved - did they all just migrate to Malta or something?

[JamesFox]

POD 1814: At the Congress of Vienna, the Knights of St. John see the writing on the wall, and realize early on that they will never get Malta back from the British. They instead press for some sort of territorial recompensation elsewhere.

Eventually, they are given a bone: the french colony of St-Louis, at the mouth of the Senegal river. They are, however, forbidden from the slave trade, which makes the colony much less lucrative. Eventually, they get into conflicts with the neighbouring Muslim Africans.