The needs of poor pilgrims had led the citizens of Amalfi to set up a hospital at Jerusalem for their refreshment, in the days when Palestine was still ruled by the Fatimite Caliphs. This institution, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, was revived and reorganised by its master Gerard after the Latin conquest. Gerards successor, Raymond of Le Puy, struck by the success of the Templars, obtained about 1130 the Pope’s permission to convert this charitable foundation into a military brotherhood like that of Hugh de Payens. Before long the Hospitallers, or Knights of St. John, vied with the Templars in their numbers, wealth, and importance. At later times other military orders were founded, such as the Teutonic Order [founded in 1197], the struggling little English community of the Knights of St. Thomas of Acre [1231], and the three famous military orders of Spain. But in the Holy Land no other order ever took the position that was soon attained by the Templars and the Knights of St. John. Enormous estates gradually accrued to them in every country in Europe, and their houses in the West became recruiting stations, whence a regular supply of knights and servitors, vowed to a perpetual crusade, kept alive the forces of the Latin kingdom. A papal grant of 1162 exempted the Templars from all ecclesiastical jurisdiction, save that of the Grand Master and the Pope. Like Cluny or Cîteaux, each order formed an organised unity, ruled in the last instance by General Chapters, whose power controlled even that of the Master of each order. In the East each order formed a new little state, with castles, soldiers, revenues, and government of its own. Often in conflict with the kings and each other, the two chief orders nevertheless formed the most permanent and indestructible element in the Latin kingdom. It was due to their well-drilled enthusiasm that the Latin East could still hold its own against the Saracen and Turk. [Sidenote: Rise of the Atabeks.]