Malta and the Order of St John : life on an island home

Abstract

The Order of St John has had many homes. The Holy Land provided the setting for its formative years. There it gained its dual vocation: a hospitaller organisation and a corps of warriors committed to defend the Christian faith. This Order, whose members increasingly came to be derived from the noblest and highest-ranking families of Europe, adopted the common medieval concept in which men of noble blood congregated in religious orders whose raison d’etre was to pray as well as fight in defence of their religious convictions. The first group of brethren who formed the Order of St John was born and bred in the electrifying atmosphere of religious fervour encapsulated in the Christian Crusades. They forged themselves into a close-knit brotherhood, submitted themselves to a specific rule and promised to remain loyal to their calling and oath. In so doing, the first knights became part of a total institution. With the brethren being ‘owned’ by the organisation, the confreres turned all their possessions, along with their lives, over to their Order. The total institution, as a hierarchical organisation, therefore had absolute control over its members. The brothers virtually became a defined class: men controlled by the institution, relatively ‘cut off from the wider society’ to ‘lead an “enclosed” formally administered life together.’ From their origin, therefore, the brethren had chosen to shed their former roles and status and to detach themselves from their family and friendship networks to take on the identity of their Order. This Order withdrew into a spiritual ‘island’ in the midst of a highly mundane environment.