The church in Gozo in the middle ages : a historiographical survey

Abstract

Over the last five centuries, many historians have sought to illuminate the history of the Church in Gozo, each necessarily reflecting the epoch he was writing in and the documentary evidence, whether written, oral, or otherwise, available to him. Recently, certain historians have published previously unknown sources that could seriously affect our understanding of the history of the Church in Gozo, particularly in the medieval period. This dissertation aims to give a comprehensive overview of the different historical studies published from the modern to the contemporary era to coherently reconstruct the original audience that the historical text was addressed to, and, therefore, the context that the author was writing in and the biases that conditioned his comprehension of the events he was commenting upon. The work shows how the historiographical emphasis varies from the Hospitaller and the British periods to post-Independence Malta. It also seeks to determine whether the analysis of the local Church’s history is conditioned by the concerns of an increasingly secular and culturally fluid society.