Blessed Gerard Sasso (c. 1040 – 3 September 1120), known also as Gérard de Martigues, was a lay brother in the Benedictine Order who was appointed as rector of the hospice in Jerusalem at Muristan in 1080.

[4] An alleged surname Tum, variously also Thom, Tune or Tenque, is due to an error by Pierre-Joseph de Haitze (1730),[5] who mistook the word tunc, "then", as a name of Gerard.

His nationality and place of birth is unknown, but many historians claim that he was born in Scala, Campania around 1040,[7] while tradition makes him a native of either Amalfi or Lower Burgundy (Provence).

He most likely was a Benedictine lay brother, possibly one of the frates conversi (i.e., men who joined the order not as boys or youths but after spending part of their adult years leading a secular life) who came to the Holy Land to serve at the abbey of St. Mary of the Latins.

The Hospitallers at this time also operated a field hospital that would accompany the crusader armies on expeditions, which was able to evacuate 750 seriously wounded men from the Battle of Montgisard on 25 November 1177 for treatment in Jerusalem.

According to other versions, the Muslims believed that Gerard was hoarding money and not paying the proper taxes, and he was arrested and tortured, leaving him crippled for the rest of his life.

Favoured by historical circumstances, Gerard took advantage of his position as lay administrator of a monastery hospital to found the first truly international religious order.

Both his saintliness and his ability are expressed in a legend , recorded in an interpolation in a manuscript of the Historia of Fulcher of Chartres and as such of uncertain authenticity, as follows:[18] Here lies Gerard, the humblest man in the East, the slave (servus) of the poor, hospitable to strangers, meek of countenance but with a noble heart.

On the seventeenth day of the passage of the sun under the sign of Virgo [3 September], he was carried into heaven by the hands of angels.After his death, the Hospitallers tried to preserve Gerard's body and it was kept in the monastery in Jerusalem and later moved to Acre after the fall of the city.

[20] Other relics belonging to Gerard can be found in Martigues, France, in the chapel of the Magistral Palace of the order in Rome, in the church of San Domenico, Pisa and in Sicily.