The early modern history of the Maltese harbour towns : Birgu, Bormla and Isla from 1530 to 1630

Abstract

The present study undertakes the writing of the early modern social history of Birgu, Bormla and Isla, and their communities from 1530 to 1630, a period which from 1566 was in parallel to the building of the new capital, Valletta. The purpose of this study is to show how Birgu, Bormla and Isla remained essential towns in the southern harbour area after the Order’s relocation in 1571. The first chapter sets out the context of the physical space of the port-towns, and traces the development of Bormla and Isla from hamlets to towns. It provides a review of the archival sources, the secondary literature, the theoretical framework, and approach applied. The following chapters argue for the development of a market economy in the port-towns in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and for the presence of a ‘conspicuous consumption mentality’ for the case of clothing within the community. The third chapter tackles one of the most recurring and yet unresearched subjects for the harbour area: crime. It sets out to determine which town experienced the highest instances of crime recorded, and which type of crime emerges as the largest category of reported crime for each town. It also compares and contrasts the number of criminal instances in the towns under study, before and after the building of Valletta in 1571. The fourth chapter investigates the role and expansion of the early modern parishes of Birgu, Bormla and Isla from the parochial delimitations in place under the Order of St John. This is reached through four case studies: the first parish priest of Bormla, a Dominican Prior, an Abbess of Santa Scholastica, and the benefactors of the parish Church of Our Lady of Victory in Isla. The next chapter covers the administrative local government in Malta the Università. The first part explores the Order’s establishment of another Università on the island and traces the development of the nomenclature of the institution. The second part sets out to analyse the relationship between the elected jurats and the inhabitants of the towns, and through parish records it establishes a correlation between godfatherhood and jurats, with a particular focus on Rhodiot jurats.