After the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1291 (Jerusalem itself had fallen in 1187), the Knights Hospitaller had been confined to the County of Tripoli and, when Acre was captured in 1291, the order had sought refuge in the Kingdom of Cyprus.

Finding themselves becoming enmeshed in Cypriot politics, their Master, Guillaume de Villaret, had created a plan of acquiring their own temporal domain, selecting Rhodes to be their new home, part of the East Roman (Byzantine) empire.

His successor, Fulkes de Villaret, executes the plan, and on August 15, 1309, after over two years of campaigning, the island of Rhodes surrenders to the knights.

They also gain control of a number of neighboring islands and the Anatolian port of Halicarnassus and the island of Megiste.