Burials in Maltese churches : 1419-1530/40 *

Abstract

The report made in 1575 by Pietro Dusina, the Apostolic Visitor to the Maltese diocese charged with the task of rooting out a number of abuses and defects, might suggest that the private ownership of graves in the Maltese churches, so common a phenomenon until burial in churches was stopped in the course of the last century, had not started before the year 1575. In fact, Dusina reported several times that the dead were buried in earth instead of in proper graves. Even for the cathedral at Mdina he had to leave instructions for this "impiety" to stop. However ample evidence survives in other sources to show that some graves existed much before 1575 and were also owned privately and used as family graves despite the custom of burial in common earth.