Pierre d'Aubusson was a Grand Master of the order of St. John of Jerusalem (the Knights Hospitaller) and a zealous opponent of the Ottoman Empire.
Background
Pierre d'Aubusson was born in 1423 in the castle of Le Monteil (today: Le Monteil-au-Vicomte, in the French department of Creuse), the fifth son of Jean d'Aubusson. His older brother Antoine had a brilliant career serving Charles VII and Louis XI, and the other three brothers became bishops.
Career
Aubusson joined the Knights of St. John c. 1453. The Knights, with their headquarters at Rhodes, held the island as a bar to Ottoman expansion in the Aegean. Aubusson became grand master of the order in 1476 and in 1480 gained widespread fame in Europe for successfully defending Rhodes against Sultan Mehmed II’s fleet.
Later, when Cem (Jem), brother of Mehmed’s successor Bayezid II, took refuge in Rhodes, Aubusson, despite his promise to Cem of safe conduct, accepted a bribe from Bayezid and had Cem imprisoned. After six years, Aubusson turned Cem over to Pope Innocent VIII, who had been vying with the kings of Hungary and Naples for the possession of so valuable a political weapon as the Sultan’s brother.
In return, Innocent made Aubusson a cardinal (1489) with the power to confer all benefices connected with the order without the sanction of the papacy. As cardinal, Aubusson reformed the Order of St. John, strengthened its authority in Rhodes, and eliminated Judaism from the island by expelling all adult Jews and forcibly baptizing their children.
The remaining years of his life d'Aubusson spent attempting to restore discipline and zeal in his Order and to organize a grand crusade against the Turks. The age of the Renaissance, with Rodrigo Borgia on the throne of St. Peter, was, however, not favourable to such an enterprise.
The death of Cem in 1495 had removed the most formidable weapon available against the Sultan. And when in 1501 d'Aubusson led an expedition against Mytilene, dissension among his motley host rendered this enterprise wholly abortive. His last years were embittered by chagrin at his failure, which was hardly compensated by his success in extirpating Judaism in Rhodes, by expelling all adult Jews and forcibly baptizing their children.
In the summer of 1503 he died.
Membership
Pierre d'Aubusson was a Grand Master of the order of St. John of Jerusalem (the Knights Hospitaller). Pierre joined the Knights of St. John in 1444 or 1445.