The Hospitaller Order of the Knights of Malta and the thirty years war, 1618-1648

Abstract

This study focuses on the early modern period, precisely on the first half of the seventeenth century. Although the Order’s Rule is the product of the eleventh century, the Hospitallers succeeded in adapting themselves to the whole process of historical development. In his ‘Historia della Sacra Religione Militare’, Bartolomeo dal Pozzo mentions the Thirty Years War only briefly. He concentrates largely on the Order’s military and corsairing adventures in the Mediterranean during this period. These activities were lucrative, and were a significant factor that in part helped to cover the Order’s expenses, especially on fortifications. In part, too, they countered the losses brought about both by default in the payment of responsions as a result of the War, and by the rampant monetary inflation that prevailed. The ordinary income of the Order, the responsions, was derived yearly from its large number of European properties. The income from individual estates, the commanderies, was fixed at the first Chapter General in Malta in 1533 at two-thirds of half the annates, or annual income.5 The commandery was the basic unit of the Order’s administration, and of its revenue. Hospitaller commanders administered commanderies. Those who took Holy Orders, who were chaplains of the Order, were also given this responsibility, and were priestly commanders. They provided spiritual services. The War had a prolonged effect on the Order’s landed property within the Holy Roman Empire. It was disruptive, especially on those possessions that were overseen by its priests. The Order’s fortunes waxed and waned depending on the losses or gains of the Imperial armies. Retention of its property was also affected by the edicts concluded by the various treaties that were drawn up between the Emperor and Princes. Property was confiscated when occupied by the Protestant armies. When Imperial armies were on Hospitaller property they occasionally settled on it. This happened, for example, when they occupied the Priory of Bohemia. Wherever there was war, it was often followed by plunder and destruction of property and of arable land. Together with the frequent inclement weather characteristic of those times, this destruction contributed to poor harvests and starvation. The plague often followed the movement of troops. Numbers of both priestly and other Hospitaller commanders diminished during the War, the former to a greater extent. Other repercussions of the War reached the Mediterranean when surrounding nations joined the conflict in its later phase. France joined the War in order to defend its borders against Habsburg aggression. Its navy, with the participation of a number of Hospitallers, in early 1638 attacked Sicilian vessels flying the Spanish ensign in the Mediterranean. This induced Habsburg Sicily’s suspicions that the Order was probably favouring France in the conflict. Sicily cut off the customary, much needed, grain supplies to Malta on various occasions in retaliation to perceived inimical actions by the Order. Half the Order’s members hailed from the three influential French Langues and naturally favoured France, in contrast with the Order’s Council which adopted a neutral policy in harmony with the Institution’s Statutes. Dal Pozzo recounts the Order’s diplomatic skills in persuading its patrons of its neutral position in conflicts between Roman Catholic states, and naturally, on Malta’s dependence on Sicilian grain especially in the famine situations that occurred at the time.