Some notes on the history of Gozo and its old city under the Knights of St John

Abstract

If you have been to Gozo you cannot have failed to notice how different it is from Malta. Unlike Malta which has several large, sheltered harbours, Gozo is almost completely unindented. Seen from the air it looks like a tub floating on the sea, and some claimed that it got its name from its shape. The old name of Gozo was Gaulos which in Phoenician meant a tub. Gozo has practically no harbours, Marsalforn is more of a beach than a harbour, while Mgarr, where the ferry today puts in, is an artificial harbour built only a few years ago. Its surface is broken by several high flat hills looking into deep and wide valleys running down to the sea. It is surrounded on all sides by high almost vertical cliffs except for the south-eastern part which slopes gradually to the sea. Apart from the Capital at Rabat, there are in Gozo today 11 villages of which some like Xagnra, Nadur and Xewkija are quite large, while others like Kercem, San Lawrenz, Gnasri and Munxar are still little more than a cluster of houses grouped around the village Church. Most of the people of Gozo earn their living from the soil and even those who have a regular job, either with the Government or a private employer, are part-time farmers. As with most farming communities the people of Gozo are a friendly, but hardy and independent race, deeply suspicious of anything emanating from the central authorities in Malta most of whose laws and enactments they consider as incomprehensible and senseless impositions. The Gozitans' deep mistrust of anything coming from Valletta is not due solely to the usual insufferance of farmers of central controls and meddling, but is also rooted in a long tradition of neglect from the central Government. For hundreds of years, even up to very recent times, the people of Gozo were left more or less to fend for themselves in very difficult and often dangerous times and they have learned to look after and fend for themselves quite well. Unless one understands this historical process which conditioned their lives for so long one cannot understand and appreciate Gozo and its people.