Foundation
Around 1048 a group of merchants from the Republic of Amalfi obtained a licence from the Fatimite Caliphates of Egypt to build a hospital devoted to St. John the Baptist, upon the ruins of an earlier one built by Charlemagne and a church dedicated to Our Lady, in the city of Jerusalem. Some of them decided to take the religious habit and adopted a white eight pointed cross as their emblem. Their leader was Blessed Gerard. When Godfrey de Bouillon took Jerusalem in 1099, leading the First Crusade, he found the congregation in Jerusalem.

Blessed Gerard

Pope Paschal II took this authentic "House of God" under his protection, conceding it certain privileges under the Bull "Pie Postulatio Voluntatis" the 15th February of the year 1113. This Bull is considered to be the founding decree of the Order. Fra’ Raymond de Puy, who succeeded Blessed Gerard as the head of the Congregation, and who was the first to use the title of Master, established the first complete Rule, which was approved by Pope Calixt II in 1120.

Queen Sancha of Aragon
Nearly simultaneously, a group of women who shared the same spirituality of the hospitalier brothers formed a female community directed by the Servant of God Agnes of Alix, to attend the sick female pilgrims in Jerusalem.
However, it is Queen Sancha of Aragon who is considered to be the founder of the female branch of the Order, widow of King Alphonse II, who professed herself in the Monastery of Sijena. According to their Rule, the Sisters of St. John consecrated themselves to be the contemplative soul of the Order of Malta. The Rule of Sijena soon was used as the model to found new communities in all the world.

Sisters of Saint John with Knights of the Order (ca. 1930)