Aspects of the Office of the Receiver of the Hospitaller Order of St. John

Abstract

The purpose of the present study is to discuss some aspects of the office and function of the receiver. together with a few other aspects of a financial nature that appeared to me relevant to his office. In approaching the subject, I have come across at least one major problem: the paucity of secondary works on this particular area of study. This I think I have overcome by going to a number of manuscript treatises either specifically on the Office of the Receiver. or concerning the Treasury of the Order (commonly known as the ‘Comun Tesoro’). These manuscript treatises on the receiver consist of a collection of ordinances and statutes which. directly or indirectly involved the scope of Office of the Receiver. Their concern ranges from the responsions, spoils and mortuaries, to vacancies, passage fees, debts, and other general duties. As far as I am aware, the only published treatise on the subject is that by the Hospitaller Fra. Gio Maria Caravita, and carries the title of ‘Trattato dell’Offizio del Ricevitore’. Various manuscript copies of this work have survived, and are to be found at the National Library of Malta. Caravita’s treatise appears to have been considered by the Order and his contemporaries as the best work on the subject, for, besides having been published in two successive editions at the expense of the Order, it was extensively used by Fra. Francesco Busuttil in 1748 in drawing up his own treatise on the Receiver. Another manuscript treatise on the same subject, written also by Caravita, follows the same pattern and retains the same structure of his published version, with certain parts reproduced almost ‘ad litteram’. Caravita also wrote a massive treatise on the constitution of the Hospitaller Institution, a substantial part of which deals with the Common Treasruy. The work is entitled ‘Compendio di un ongo Trattato sopra le Constitutzioni della Religione di San Giovanni Gerosolimitana’. Another treatise on the Treasury was written by Fra. Cristiano Hosterhausen. It is called ‘Ristretto e Compendio delli Statuti, Costumi e Ordinationi della Sagra Religione Gerosolimitana’. Hosterhausen’s treatise was published in German. The Malta National Library has a copy of the second edition. Due to language problems, I relied solely on the Italian manuscript of Hosterhausen’s published work. This manuscript and another, almost an identical copy, are both preserved in the library manuscripts collection at the National Library of Malta. Apart from these works, I have also found the published ‘Compendio Alfabetico De Statuti della Sacra Religione Gersolimitana’, also compiled by Caravita, very useful for the present study. A manuscript copy of this edition is also preserved in the Library Manuscripts Collection at the National Library. It is unfortunate that, for reasons unknown to me, I have not been allowed access by the University Library authorities to one other treatise on the Common Treasury I am aware of. This, according to the catalogue of the Bonavita Manuscripts Collection, is to be found at the University Library. Due to lack of time and to the length-limit imposed by Department Regulations, it was found impossible to relate to the ideas behind the administrative structure of the Office of the Receiver to current social and economic thought in early modern Europe. This would have entailed a study of its own.