…Dorians from Epidaurus colonize some of the Dodecanese Islands, including Rhodes, …

Saracen raiders take advantage of the confusion in Constantinople to briefly occupy Rhodes in 717–718.

The Muslim Arabs ravage Rhodes and Cyprus during the Abbasid invasion of 806.

The military orders in the East can no longer offer a standing nucleus of troops.

The Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, having taken Rhodes in 1308 and established their headquarters here, become known from 1309 as the Order of the Knights of Rhodes.

The Hospitalers move from Cyprus to Rhodes in 1310, rebuilding the city of Rhodes and ruling the island as an independent state.

The Knights of St. John, who are the scourge of Muslim shipping on the eastern Mediterranean, have come to rule the island of Rhodes as an independent state, with right of coinage and other attributes of sovereignty.

Under the order's rule, the master (grand master from around 1430), elected for life subject to papal confirmation, rules a celibate brotherhood of knights, chaplains, and serving brothers.

The Knights Hospitallers, by now also referred to as the Knights of Rhodes, are forced to become a more militarized force, in 1444 withstanding an invasion of Rhodes directed by Sayf-ad-Din Jaqmaq, the Mamluk sultan of Egypt.

…Rhodes remain under western control.