Education in Malta before the Knights

Abstract

This chapter presents an overview of educational activities in Malta in the century or so before the establishment of the Knights Hospitallers in the islands. After outlining the political, social and economic contexts of late 15th and early 16th century Malta, I discuss the surviving documentary indications and relate them to the wider cultural context. Distinctions are drawn between institutional learning, scholastic activities, as well as other areas characterised by the transmission of skills, techniques and values that are not normally regarded as being part of the history of ‘formal education’. Last but not least, the historical consequences of these activities are assessed in the framework of late medieval Maltese society.