MILITARY RELIGIOUS ORDERS: Organizations formed before and during the crusades to protect pilgrims who reached the sacred city in a suffering or destitute condition. Pilgrimage to places in Palestine hallowed by the presence or by the events of the life of the Savior was long regarded as a high religious duty in western Europe; and it was often, indeed, a form of penance prescribed by the Church. To the mass of the pilgrims, ill provided with the means of securing their safety or comfort, the long journey amid populations bitterly hostile was a most formidable undertaking; and many of them when they reached Jerusalem were better fitted to become inmates of a hospital than worshipers at the holy shrines. Thus there grew up in the Holy Land nearly twenty organized bodies or orders for the protection and succor of pilgrims; and, as a means to that end, they all sought to maintain the possession of the country in the hands of the Christians (see Crusades). Of these orders the most famous not only for what they did in Palestine during the Crusades but for their armed advocacy of the Church afterward against the Mohammedans and the heathen were the Knights-Hospitalers of St. John, the KnightsTemplars, and the Teutonic Knights. See John, Saint, Order of Hospitalers of; Templars; and Teutonic Order.
MILL, JOHN: English New Testament scholar; b. at Hardendale (8 m. s.w. of Appleby), Westmoreland, 1645; d. at Bletchington, Oxfordshire, June 23, 1707. He was the son of a weaver, Mill, Milln, or Milne; entered Queen's College, Oxford, in 1661, and took his B.A. 1666, M.A. 1669, B.D. 1680, D.D. 1681. He was fellow 1670-82, was ordained 1670 and made tutor, and became Sir William Palmer's chaplain at Warden in Bedfordshire. He was afterward (1676) chaplain to the bishop of Exeter, Thomas Lamplugh, 1677-1705 prebendary of Exeter, 1681 to his death rector of Bletchington, 1685 principal of St. Edmund's Hall, Oxford, 1694 proofor of the clergy of Canterbury in the lower house of Convocation, and 1704 prebendary of Canterbury. Professor Bernard of Oxford turned Mill's attention to the Greek New Testament, and John Fell, bishop of Oxford, gave his own notes to Mill and assumed the first expenses of Starting Mill's edition. Fell's death in 1686, when the edition had only reached Matt. xxiv., seems to have dismayed Mill, and the edition did not appear until 1707, two weeks before Mill's death. He printed the text of Stephens, 1550, except in thirty-one places. The critical apparatus gave Mill's views as to the passages that he had not dared to change in the text. The preface discussed with stupendous learning all the critical questions. Mill's was the first really great edition of the Greek New Testament.
Bibliography: F. H. A. Scrivener, Plain Introduction to the Criticism q/ the N. T., ii. 200 sqq.,4th ed., London, 1894: J. Le Long, Bibliodeea sacra. i. 235-239, Paris, 1723;
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