The Maltese Islands and the Aragonese crown

Abstract

In this study of our Islands under Aragonese rule I have not attempted to give a chronological account of the history of Malta and Coac during the later Middle Ages. Such an account would have been fitting in general history books. My aim has been, rather, to examine briefly the government and institutions of these lslands under the Aragonese. I have included feudal government, ecclesiastical institutions, local government, commerce and trade, and law. The Southern European context has been constantly kept in view and comparisons with Sicily are particularly frequent. Indeed the political organisation of these Islands during the Aragonese period is so closely linked with that of Sicily and of Mediterranean Europe that it cannot be isolated. In preparing this study, which has occupied the best part of the summer of 1967. I have consulted various sources, among them: Politica e societa nella Sicilia aragones, by V. D'Alessandro; Aragonesi e Caraloni nel Mediterraneo, by F. Giunta; Abela's Della descrittione di Malta. isola nel mare Siciliano con Is cue antichita' ed altri notizie; the articles and documents published by Alfred Mifsud in Archivium Melitense, (1914-20); articles by it. Valentin; in archivio sterico di Malta V-XIII (1934-42) and Archivium Melitense IX (1935); "Capiltoli a statuti amministrativi dell:Isola di Malta approvati dal re o vicere di Sicilia 1130-1530" by G. La Mantle in Archivio Storico di Malta, Nov. 1936; articles by various people in Melita Histories; A.T. Luttrell's "Malta and the Aragonese Crown, 1282.1530" which appeared in the Journal of the Faculty pf Arts (of the Royal University of Malta) III (1), 1965.