The immovable property of the Collegium Melitense 1592-1639

Abstract

This study is an attempt to assess the revenue of the Collegium Melitense in the first fifty years or so of its life, from its foundation in 1592 to 1639. On the latter date the Jesuit Fathers were expelled for the first time from the Island after a tumult against them by the younger knights of the Order, during the Carnival of that year. The expulsion was only temporary however, for they were back again within the year; although when they returned most of the staff was changed. By that year the College had home into the possession of all - except one - of the benefices assigned to it in the Instrumentum fundationis. Although other immovable property was acquired after that date it did not change the pattern already established when the benefices assigned to the College had been taken possession of. The documentary sources available to me were very limited, many of them, perhaps, being lost. I could not find, for example, any registers for most of the years before 1630. Also a study of the introiti will not help much, on their own, to assess the financial life of the College [...].