SOVEREIGN MILITARY ORDER OF MALTA. - It is the oldest, most illustrious, most meritorious of the chivalric orders (v.) and traces its origins to that quarter which the merchants of Amalfi had established in Jerusalem, resisting the most fanatical returns of Muslim high-handedness. It consisted of a commercial fondaco with a hospice for the shelter of pilgrims and the sick, and a church erected in honor of St. John the Baptist. When in 1099 the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem, a certain Gerard, perhaps from Amalfi, was in charge of the hospital, assisted by some servants, forming a kind of confraternity. They adopted a black habit and mantle with a white cross on the shoulder and gave themselves their own rule, which Paschal II approved in 1113.
Thus there originated an Institute canonically erected, recognized by the princes of the West, sustained by alms and by the contributions of all Christendom. Upon the death of Gerard, around whom pious legend labored, in 1120, Raymond du Puy (de Podio), a Provençal, who succeeded him in governance, gave the Institute new military-chivalric functions of armed protection for the poor and for pilgrims, and from 1137 it also assumed the broader task of defending the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and of waging war against the infidels. For this reason the new Order received donations, not only in Palestine but throughout the West, ever more extensive privileges from the pontiffs and sovereigns, and was soon in a position to build very strong castles for the defense of the most dangerous points of the Kingdom, to constitute, with the natives, a light cavalry after the manner of that of the infidels (the Turcopoles), and to undertake armed expeditions on its own initiative, not infrequently coming into conflict with the very kings of Jerusalem. Subject, as true religious, to the direct dependence of the pope and distinguished in the three grades of knights properly so called, of clerics and of servants, they also created in the various countries of the West an organization of houses ("domus hospitales, mansiones"), each with a hospital for the shelter and defense of pilgrims and for the protection of the roads at obligatory points of passage, with its own endowment and with some friars all of noble origin, under a preceptor (later commander) for custody and the necessary services; a group of hospices or commanderies formed a bailiwick, governed by a bailiff (bali). In this way provision was made for the recruitment of the necessary personnel.
The fall of Acre, after a valorous defense, in 1291 and the consequent end of the Kingdom of Jerusalem did not interrupt the activity of the knights. They found shelter from 1292 to 1305 at Limassol (Cyprus) with King Henry of Lusignan, where the naval power of the Order began, which also attempted a reconquest on the nearby continent and set its eyes on the island of Rhodes (v.); in 1308 it succeeded in definitively taking the island from the Eastern Empire, transferring its own seat there. The Order was here truly sovereign, with its own fleet on which it flew its flag with the white cross on a red field, struck coin, built defenses and sumptuous dwellings. From 1344 to 1402 it also extended its dominion over Smyrna, while organizing expeditions against the coastal cities of Syria and against Alexandria in Egypt itself. The Western Schism brought discord into the Order, which did not escape the relaxation of discipline that had become general, at that time, in the Church; moreover the conquest of Constantinople (1453) by the Turks created new conditions in the seas of the East and the Order suffered the consequences of the progressive expansion of their conquests. In 1480 Rhodes too underwent a harsh siege which it managed to survive, thanks to the valor of the knights led by Grand Master Peter d'Aubusson (v.); but then on 21 Dec. 1522, with sufficient help from the West lacking, it had to yield after a desperate defense. The survivors set about seeking another seat and meanwhile, at the invitation of the Pontiff, their only superior, having landed at Civitavecchia they settled at Viterbo. It was proposed to them to move to Malta, which then depended on Sicily, that is, on Charles V, who, with his mother, was its sovereign. Clement VII, who had been a dignitary of the Order, favored them there, particularly when, after the sack of Rome, he resumed good relations with Charles V; so that the latter, by diploma issued at Castelfranco d'Emilia on 23 March 1530, ceded to the Order in "perpetual noble and free fief" the islands of Malta (v.) and Gozo and the city and castle of Tripoli, subjecting its inhabitants to it, with the sole obligation of offering each year, at All Saints, a falcon or sparrowhawk in recognition of dominion and of taking the usual oath of fidelity. Thus the Order obtained its central seat as a fief of the Kingdom of Sicily, without ceasing for this reason to depend, as a "religion," on pontifical authority.
Malta soon became a key position in the Mediterranean because of its strategic importance, situated as it was between the territories dominated by the Turks and the Christian nations. Under the government of Grand Master Philippe Villiers de l'Isle-Adam (1521-34) those grandiose works of fortification began which made it an impregnable bulwark, while churches and palaces were erected even more sumptuous than those it had had to abandon at Rhodes, adorning the new residence with the finest expressions of Italian art. Meanwhile provision was made to give the inhabitants the necessary civil institutions, taking care that the government remained completely in the hands of the Grand Master and of the heads of the eight langues into which the Order was divided, namely Italy, Castile and Portugal, Aragon with Catalonia and Navarre, France, Auvergne, Provence, Germany, England. And although, with the detachment of England and of a great part of Germany, the Order lost much of its property and was soon forced to leave Tripoli, it lost nothing of its power, which allowed it to keep watch over the movements of the Turks on the sea and to keep alive the struggle against the corsairs. Twice a year it sent out its maritime forces in "caravan," always governed by an admiral of the Italian langue, on expedition all around, while it always stood ready against attacks on the island; and memorable was the siege sustained from 25 May to 7 Sept. 1565, heroically and victoriously, by Grand Master Giovanni de la Vallette (1557-68) against the Turkish army and fleet, resolved to remove the most constant impediment to their uncontested dominion over the sea. Thus the galleys of Malta took part in the victory of Lepanto (1571) and were of valid help to Venice in the war of Candia in the following century. A Jesuit college provided for secondary education, while Rome deemed it necessary to establish at Malta a branch of the Roman Inquisition. A certain pomp manifests itself in the 17th century in internal customs and the Grand Master assumed the title of Most Eminent Highness; and in the 18th century signs of decadence appear, due to the spread of new ideas, to conspiracies and to the impatience of the Maltese caused by the progressive exclusivism of the Order in government; nevertheless there originated in this age the Grand Priory of Poland and in 1797 the Grand Priory of Russia, through the ambition of Emperor Paul, who would have wished to create the Russian langue within the Order. Instead, the days of betrayal were drawing near. On 7 June 1798 Napoleon with the French fleet approached the island and, without a blow struck, on the 12th, took possession of the fortress held to be impregnable. Grand Master Ferdinand von Hompesch (1797-99) renounced sovereignty and the Order on 27 July moved its provisional seat to Trieste under the protection of Emperor Francis.
The Russian knights protested and elected, on 7 Nov. 1798, Emperor Paul as Grand Master, who died in 1801 and could do nothing in defense of the Order. Meanwhile the
The English fleet, after defeating the French fleet at Aboukir, seized Malta in September 1800; and although by the Treaty of Amiens of 1802 Malta was to be restored to the knights, the English remained there and in the Treaty of Paris of 1814 had their sovereignty over it recognized, which they have preserved to this day. The election of a new grand master having been deferred to Pope Pius VII, on 9 February 1803 Giovan Battista Tommasi of Cortona was appointed, and he resided in Sicily; when he died in 1805, the government of the Order, now deprived of its sovereign seat, was entrusted to a lieutenant elected by the council and ratified by the pope. In 1834 the seat of the Order was transferred from Sicily to Rome, where it had a palace, the residence of its representative to the Holy See, the priory on the Aventine and the house near the Forum of Augustus. Finally, on 29 March 1879, by a bull of Leo XIII, the office of Grand Master was re-established with its seat in Rome; the grand priories of Rome, Lombardy and Venice, Naples and Sicily, Bohemia, Moravia, Austria still exist, along with twelve associations of knights divided by nation. The knights are: of justice, and they take vows; of honour and devotion, who do not take vows but are admitted with proofs of nobility. There are also the dames of honour and devotion, for whom proofs of nobility are likewise required. Also affiliated to the Order are the knights grand cross of magistral grace, the magistral knights, and the donats of justice and those of grace, divided into three classes. The clergy is composed of conventual chaplains and chaplains of obedience.
Having lost its territorial sovereignty and ceased also its military activity, the Order has resumed its original task of charitable work in accordance with modern needs, by providing for the service of the wounded of war, for the victims of seismic disasters or other grave social necessities, and for the assistance of the sick on the occasion of grave epidemics where the need is especially felt. For this purpose, with the income from its possessions and with the contribution of its members, it has been able to assemble modern hospital equipment and to enlist its own personnel who, particularly in the First World War, rendered most praiseworthy service on hospital trains and in hospitals specially prepared thanks to special agreements with the Italian government; in the Second World War too the Order contributed to the transport of the wounded by aircraft. It was always present on the occasion of the earthquakes that devastated entire regions, carrying out its work alongside that of the Red Cross. The recent cardinalitial sentence of 24 January 1953 recognized in the Order the qualities of religious and of sovereign, dependent on the Holy See, through the respective channels of the S. Congr. of Religious and of the Secretariat of State. - See plate LXV.
Bibliography8 works
Pio Paschini