Dieudonné de Gozon

Fra ' Dieudonné de Gozon, also Deodatus Gozonensis, Deodatus de Gosono, († 1353 ) was from 1346 until his death in the 27th Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller. He came from a noble family of Languedoc, thus belonged to the tongue of Provence, of the Order in Rhodes, at.

He had the nickname " Extinctor Draconis ", which means dragon slayer.

It was according to tradition, in 1332 a dragon on Rhodes, who lived about two miles away from the city in a swamp and tore the livestock of local farmers. Contrary to the arrangement of the reigning Grand Master, do not stir up the monster, killed the animal de Gozon, and hung the head of the beast on one of the seven city gates. About a hundred years later, when the skull was examined, he was recognized as the head of a large crocodile. 1798 Schiller processed the legend to his ballad The fight with the dragon.

1347/1348 he led an expedition to the Order to Lesser Armenia, where he was the local king Constantine IV to help in the fight against the Mamluk Sultan of Egypt.

He died in 1353 and was buried in Rhodes, his grave stone has been preserved and is now in the Musée national du Moyen Âge in Paris.