Blessed Gerard (c. 1040 – 3 September 1120), first known as Gérard de Martigues, was a lay brother in the Benedictine Order who was appointed as rector of the hospice in Jerusalem at Muristan in 1080. In the wake of the success of the First Crusade in 1099, he became the founder of the Order of St John of Jerusalem, also known as the Knights Hospitaller, an organization that received papal recognition in 1113. As such, he was the first Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller. Name Gerard became known as Pierre-Gérard de Martigues due to a tradition of his place of birth being Martigues, Provence. However, William of Tyre, writing in the late 12th century, cites Amalfi as Gerard's birthplace. This is not implausible, as merchants from Amalfi were involved in the reconstruction of the hospice in Jerusalem in the 1020s after its destruction in 1005 under caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah. An alleged surname Tum, variously also Thom, Tune or Tenque, is due to an error by Pierre-Joseph de Haitze (1730), who mistook the word tunc "then" as a name of Gerard. De Haitze's mistake was identified in 1885 by Ferdinand de Hellwald. Before the erroneous nature of the surname Tunc became clear, Italian historian Francesco Galeani Napione (d. 1830) Italianized Gerardus Tunc as Gerardo da Tonco, suggesting that he was a native of (or held possessions in) Tonco in Piedmont. Life Little is known about Gerard's life. His nationality and place of birth is unknown, but many historians claim that he was born in Scala, Campania around 1040, while tradition makes him a native of either Amalfi or Lower Burgundy (Provence). He most likely was a Benedictine lay brother, possibly one of the frates conversi (i.e., men who joined the order not as boys or youths but after spending part of their adult years leading a secular life) who came to the Holy Land to serve at the abbey of St. Mary of the Latins. Around 1080, the abbot put him in charge of the Hospital of St. John in Jerusalem, which had been built on the site of the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist in the 1060s in addition to the older hospice rebuilt in the 1020s. Prior to the Siege of Jerusalem of 1099, much of the Christian population had been expelled from Jerusalem by the Fatimids to prevent collusion with the Western besiegers. Following