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Social stratification

In Rhodes lived and worked Greeks and other nationalities that had arrived from West Europe. The upper social rank included the nobility, Greeks and Franks (owners of large properties), and the highest class of the Knights Hospitallers. Merchants and those who were involved in financial and shipping activities followed in the social stratification. The lower rank consisted of small merchants and artisans and the great mass of local artisans and workers, who were occupied in sugar and soap industries, in the harbour and in the construction works that the knights carried out in great extent, mainly from the 15th century onwards, under the menace of a possible Ottoman attack. The Greeks also acted as interpreters and commercial representatives of the knights. Therefore, during the rule of the knights, the city of Rhodes resembled an urban centre of West Europe.

Moreover, Rhodians manned the ships of the Hospitallers and until 1462 this obligation (marinura) was transferred from father to son. The Order of the Knights Hospitallers used Muslim slaves as workers, the so-called argodolati mentioned in the sources of the archives of Malta. Jewish merchants and artisans and a minority of Armenians also lived in Rhodes. The economic prosperity of the late 15th - early 16th century was accompanied by corruption of morals, this forcing the grand master to intervene, in order to restore order even among the monk knights. Hence, there were marginal groups in Rhodes during the time of the Knights. In the country, people were occupied with agriculture or stockbreeding and were free farmers or serfs.


Building activity of the Hospitallers

The building activity of the Order in the city of Rhodes had been continuous during the two centuries of their rule, seeing that the medieval city had suffered extended destructions by sieges (1440, 1480) and earthquakes (1481). The Knights city, as it was developed by the Order on the site of the former Byzantine one, had strong fortification and was divided by an interior wall into two parts: the collachium (or castrum or castellum), where dwelled the brethren - members of the Order and where its operations were based, and the burgus, where resided the rest of the city’s inhabitants and where the trade was carried out.