Jean de Villiers (grand master)
Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller
Jean de Villiers was the twenty-second grand master of the Knights Hospitaller, serving from 1285 until 1293. He was elected Grand Master after the death of Nicolas Lorgne. De Villiers was Prior of France beginning in 1282 and he remained in France to deal with existing problems of the Order. Jacques de Taxi became Grand Master ad interim, perhaps through 27 June 1286, while awaiting the arrival of the newly elected Grand Master in the Holy Land. De Villiers was present at the Siege of Acre in 1291, but escaped just before the city fell to the Mamluks. He was succeeded by Odon de Pins.
Biography
Jean de Villiers appeared for the first time on 6 July 1269 when he went to the Holy Land at the request of Grand Master Hugues de Revel. He was made Commander of Tripoli on 4 April 1277, and then Prior of France in 1282. He was elected Grand Master in the summer of 1285. He remained in France to deal with the many problems of the Order.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Jean de Villiers (grand master)” is grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Jean, Villiers and grand, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 19, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q1454443. VIAF identifies the subject as 425159474310627662363. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1285, 1293, 1282 and 1286.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Jean de Villiers (grand master)”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Jean de Villiers (grand master) primary sources, Jean de Villiers (grand master) archive and Jean research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Jean de Villiers (grand master)”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Jean de Villiers (grand master)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.