tlie soldiers of the Cross, smitten with their piety and zeal, desired Pmur or to participate in their good offices, and the Hospitallers, animated ^"tiei, by the religious enthusiasm of the day, determined to renounce the world, and devote the remainder of their lives to pious duties and constant attendance upon the sick. They took the customary monastic vows of obedience, chastity, and poverty, and assumed as their distinguishing habit a black mantle J with a white cross on the breast. Various lands and pos sessions were granted them by the lords and princes of the Crusade, both in Palestine and in Europe, and the order of the hospital of St. John speedily became a great and powerful institution.* Gerard, a native of Provence, was at this period at the head of the society, with the title of " Guardian of the Poor." He was succeeded (A. D. 1118) by Raymond Dupuy, a knight of Dauphiné, who drew up a series of rules for the direction and government of his brethren. In these rules no traces are discoverable of the military spirit which afterwards animated the order of the Hos- I pital of St. John. The Abbé de Vertot, from a desire perhaps to pay court to the Order of Malta, carries back the assumption of arms by the Hospitallers to the year 1119, and describes them as fiercely engaged under the command of Raymond Dupuy, in the battle fought between the Christians and Dol de Kuvin, Sultan of Damascus ; but none of the historians of the period make any mention whatever of the Hospitallers in that action. D e Vertot quotes no authority in support of his statement, and it appears to be a mere fiction. The first authentic notice of an intention on the part of the Hospitallers to occupy themselves with military matters, occurs in the bull of Pope Innocent the Second, dated A. D. 1130. This bull is addressed to the archbishops, bishops, and clergy of the • WW. Tyr. lib. xviii. nip. 4, S.