Stemming Vice : a proposal for Hospitaller virtuous living in Ancien Regime Malta

Abstract

The regulation of the conduct of the various categories of members pertaining to the Hospitaller and Military Order of St John and residing in Malta constituted a major concern for much the entire period of that institution’s settlement on the Island. A more cosmopolitan society and greater interaction with the Maltese population following the Order’s transfer from Vittoriosa to Valletta in 1571 certainly contributed towards an accelerated transformation of its erstwhile convent mentality, reinforced through the practice of a segregated residence within a collachio.1 The ideal of the chaste warrior-monk - in so far as it proved to be the rule prior to the mid-sixteenth century - metamorphosed into one where military prowess was no longer balanced with an austere lifestyle, but increasingly with one where noble lineage, wealth and a resulting sense of self-confident superiority often made a mockery out of the prescribed vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.