Knights of the middle ages banded themselves together in groups called orders. One of the most famous of religious orders were the Knights of Malta, formerly known as the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, until their forced eviction from Rhodes by superior Moslem forces under command of Suleiman the Magnificent. In 1523, a key date in Maltese history, the islands were ceded by Charles V of Spain to the vanquished knights. The Grand Master of the Order at that time was the French man Phillipe Villers De L'Isle Adam. King Charles reserved nominal sovereignty to himself and his successors. The sole obligation of the Grand Master of the Order was the annual presentation, on All Saint's Day, of a falcon to the King's resident viceroy in Sicily. Hence the renowned movie "The Maltese Falcon", based on a novel by Emmett Hamell which stems from an incident which occurred in Malta in 1538. For the next 275 years, these famous Knights of Malta made the island their kingdom. Eventually the power of the Knights declined, and their rule of Malta was ended by their feeble surrender to Napoleon in 1798.At first the Knights were primarily a multinational nursing brotherhood. They had their origin in a small hospital and chapel inaugurated in Jerusalem, for the use and care of poor and sick pilgrims to the Holy Sepulcher. The facilities, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, were founded by the merchants of Amalfi with the sanction of the Caliph of Jerusalem, before relations between Christians and Moslems soured and developed into holy war. The Knights, therefore, were hospitallers first and soldiers second, until they reached the island of Rhodes in 1310 AD, when Grand Master Folke De Villaret built a powerful fleet and transformed the Knights into a military camp. By the time the Knights set foot on Malta their evolution from medics to military was complete. Founded for faith and healing, the order had become devoted to piracy, slavery, and war. In 1565 the Knights and their Maltese troops saved Europe by hurling back from Malta, invading Turkish forces led by the very same Suleiman that had magnanimously allowed them to leave Rhodes 43 years earlier. After the most galling defeat of his career, Turkish hegemony in the Mediterranean, went into a sharp decline and its expansion towards the West was permanently stemmed. Valletta the capital city of Malta, a huge fortress surrounded on all sides by massive bastions was constructed by Grand Master Jean de La Valette and built according to plans of Francesco Laparelli, an Italian military architect from Cortona, to withstand Turkish invasion.
The members of the Order were divided into three classes - knights, chaplains and serving brothers. The knights included nobles from the greatest Catholic families. The chaplains were assigned pure religious duties. The serving brothers were of honorable origin and could be either soldiers or nurses in the hospitals of the Order. He who wished to enter the Order had to vow chastity, obedience and poverty, and undergo a ritual full of religious symbolism and chivalry. The Order was divided into eight "tongues" each of which was governed by a monastic prior. The Grand Master was elected for life not more than three days after the death of his predecessor. The independence of the Order was an accomplished fact, and it maintained diplomatic representation at a number of European courts.
One of the strangest role in Malta's history is its little known miniature empire. The knights extended their sphere of influence beyond the Mediterranean, acquiring possession of the Antilles islands of St. Christopher, St. Bartholomew, St. Martin and Santa Cruz. They appointed governors to rule those islands in the name of the Grand Master of Malta until the possessions were sold to the West India Company. So much for colonialism!!
E-mail to Joseph Vella:joevella@prodigy.net
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