Hospitaller Malta and the Mediterranean economy in the sixteenth century [Book review]

Abstract

Malta witnessed great changes as a fiefdom of the Hospitallers between 1530 and 1565 as it developed from a predominantly agrarian appendix of the Kingdom of Sicily to a reasonable degree of urbanization and mercantile significance in the central Mediterranean. Abela’s book looks at the changing social and economic structures at that point in time, arguing that Malta’s fortune was occasioned by the presence of the Hospitallers who went about creating new institutions at all levels and transforming trade patterns. The importance of trade provides the springboard for this book which covers the social, economic, and, in an indirect way, cultural transformation of the island prior to the Ottoman Siege of 1565 and the eventual building of Valletta. The period which follows these two events led to a complete overhaul of Malta’s social, economic, and cultural structures clearly beyond Abela’s argument.