Guy de Blanchefort

Guy de Blanchefort

Grandmaster coat of arms of Guy de Blanchefort

Guy de Blanchefort (* around 1446 in Bois-Lamy, municipality of Moutier-Malcard , today's Creuse department , France; † 1513 at sea in the Mediterranean) was the 42nd Grand Master of the Order of St. John in 1512 until his death .

Guy was the second son of Guy III. de Blanchefort ( House of Blanchefort ) and his wife Souveraine d'Aubusson, the younger sister of Pierre d'Aubusson , the Grand Master of St. John (ruled 1476–1503). He joined the order early on and enjoyed the protection and promotion of his uncle afterwards. An inscription from 1486 in the church of Saint-Jean de Bourganeuf says that he was Commander of Morterolles (Creuse) and then Commander of Cyprus . After his uncle was elected Grand Master in June 1476, Guy succeeded him in the office of Grand Prior of the Auvergne Tongue .

In September 1482, Pierre d'Aubusson entrusted his nephew with the task of keeping the Ottoman prince and failed heir to the throne Cem , who had found refuge with the Hospitallers on Rhodes, in custody in France. Cem was first imprisoned near Nice , then in the Dauphiné , in Morterolles (Creuse) and finally from 1486 to 1488 as a prisoner in a tower in Bourganeuf that was specially built according to Blanchefort's instructions . In November 1488 Blanchefort brought the prisoner to Rome, where in March 1489 Pope Innocent VIII was handed over as a political hostage. In return, Pierre d'Aubusson received the cardinal's hat from the Pope .

Although Guy de Blanchefort is widely reputed to have been little more than a prison guard who blindly obeyed the orders of his uncle Pierre d'Aubusson, he also proved to be a valiant fighter for the Order.

In June 1499, a Turkish fleet under Kapudan Pasha Daud appeared off the west coast of Greece , where they were supposed to put an invading army ashore in order to conquer the remaining Venetian bases in the Peloponnese ( Methoni , Koroni , Nauplion , etc.). A French squadron, reinforced by three ships of the Johanniter under Guy de Blanchefort, joined the Venetian fleet under Antonio Grimani in July to cut off the route of the Turkish fleet. The first fighting in August was in favor of the united Christian forces. In a second attempt, on August 20, the Ottomans tried to force entry into the Gulf of Patras . The French squadron, with the " Great Carracks of Rhodes " (see also Santa Anna (ship) ) under Blanchefort, was in the forefront. Another victory was already within reach when Grimani surprisingly let his Venetian ships sail away. (Grimani was charged with treason in Venice, fled to Rome, but became Doge of Venice 22 years later at the age of 86. )

Kapudan Pascha Daud, who despite heavy losses still commanded a numerically larger armada , then managed to reach the Gulf of Patras. The invading army went ashore and subsequently captured the remaining Venetian bases. The only thing left for Blanchefort was to sail to Rhodes.

In 1512, when he was staying at the seat of the Auvergne Grand Priory in Bourganeuf, the General Convention of the Order in Rhodes elected him Grand Master, succeeding Emery d'Amboise , who in turn succeeded Pierre d'Aubusson. Blanchefort died in 1513 on board his ship on the voyage to Rhodes.

literature

• Charles de La Roncière: Histoire de la marine française. Plon, Paris 1923, vol. III ( Les guerres d'Italie, la liberté des mers ).
• Gilles Rossignol: Pierre d'Aubusson, "le bouclier de la chrétienté". Les Hospitaliers à Rhodes. La Manufacture, Besançon 1991.
• Pierre d'Avity / Johann Ludwig Gottfried : Archontologiae Cosmicae , Book III: Origo Ordinum Militarium, tam Regularium. Jennisius, Frankfurt am Main 1628.

Web links

• Guy de Blanchefort at cilialacorte.com
• Guy de Blanchefort at smom-za.org
• The 79 grandmasters at orderofmalta.org

predecessor	Office	successor
Emery d'Amboise	Grand Master of the Order of St. John 1512–1513	Fabrizio del Carretto