Reception into the Hospitaller Order of St. John : a Venetian perspective

Abstract

The present study is concerned with an overview of the concept of nobility and the history of the European nobility through its contacts with the Order. The Order is thus being invested with a social role. The study has a core chapter which analyses the Order's Statutes governing reception to its highest rank, that of Knight of Justice, for which the most stringent rules were laid down. This will be done through a close look at the applications received by the Grand Priory of Venice. The Order had an important function to perform within the social context of the late Middle Ages and early modem Europe, until the French Revolution toppled the old hierarchy based upon the principle of social privilege, which the whole social structure had been built upon. The Order limited entrance to its first class solely to members who could prove their nobility. The class of Knight of Justice thus became the repository of the younger sons of the cream of Europe's noble families. The changes which were going on in the economic sphere necessarily and inevitably spilled over into society and its circles. A breakdown in the rigidity of the structure itself and an increased social mobility were the result of the nascent capitalism. Adventurers and risk takers soon amassed considerable fortunes and sought to rise higher in society. Yet if the money made out of trade and commerce could buy them estates and titles of rank and honour, it was the chief obstacle to their entrance into the Order, against which activities it actively legislated. It is not however the purpose of the following study to study the Order of St. John without a glance at its environment. On the contrary, the purpose of this study is to locate the Order and its legislation firmly within the social and economic context, principally that of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A final chapter will discuss the situation of the Order at the end of its stay on Malta and its present situation.