Langue (Knights Hospitaller)

A langue or tongue () was an administrative division of the Knights Hospitaller (also known as the Order of St. John of Jerusalem) between 1319 and 1798. The term referred to a rough ethno-linguistic division of the geographical distribution of the Order's members and possessions. Each langue was subdivided into Priories or Grand Priories, Bailiwicks and Commanderies. Each langue had an "auberge" as its headquarters, some of which still survive in Rhodes, Birgu and Valletta.
History.
The Knights Hospitaller began to take the features of a state following its acquisition of Rhodes and nearby islands in the early 14th century. The subdivision of the Order into "langues" began in 1319 during a meeting of the Chapter General in Montpellier. For the purposes of administration of the Order's possessions in Europe, the langues were divided into "grand priories", some of which were further divided into "priories" or "bailiwicks", and at the lowest level into "commandries" dealing with regional or local administration.
The head of each langue was known as a "pilier" or "bailiff". The "piliers", together with the Knights Grand Cross, the bishop, the bailiffs of the convents and the prior of the Conventual Church, sat on the Grand Council of the Order. Each "pilier" also had specific responsibilities within the order; that of France was the Hospitaller, that of Italy was the Admiral of the Order's fleet.
The headquarters of each langue was known as an "auberge", a French word meaning inn. Auberges were first built in Rhodes in the late Middle Ages.
After the Order moved to Malta in 1530, auberges were built in Birgu between the 1530s and the 1550s, and later in Valletta from the 1570s onwards.
When the system of the langues was established in the 14th century, there were seven langues split according to ethno-linguistic divisions:
In 1462, the langue of Castille, Léon and Portugal was split from that of Aragon. The langue of England was dissolved in the mid-16th century following the English Reformation, and while there was an Auberge d'Angleterre in Birgu, no English auberge was built in Valletta. The langue was reinstituted by Grand Master Emmanuel de Rohan-Polduc in 1784 as the Anglo-Bavarian Langue, which also included Bavarian and Polish knights. It was housed in Auberge de Bavière, which had been built as a private palazzo.
St. John's Co-Cathedral in Valletta, which was built as the Order's conventual church, contains chapels for each of the langues.