# Serving the Convent. The Commanderies of the Order of St John in the Sixteenth Century

Anne Brogini

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Anne Brogini. Serving the Convent. The Commanderies of the Order of St John in the Sixteenth Century. Valentina Burgassi, George Alexander Said-Zammit, Valeria Vanesio (eds). The Land and the Cross: Properties of the Order of the Knights Hospitaller between centre and periphery (16th-18th centuries), 1, Routledge, pp.21-35, 2025, 9781032154527. 10.4324/9781003244226-3 . hal-05321630

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## 2 Serving the Convent

### The Commanderies of the Order of St John in the Sixteenth Century

Anne Brogini

### Introduction

The study of the Order of St John's commanderies and properties is currently undergoing a major revival in international historiography.<fnref n="1" /> The scientific literature on the military orders is, indeed, linked to the constitution of an international network of researchers who meet in regular congresses (London, Palmela, Toruń, and Pisa) and publish in collective works and specific journals (*The Military Orders, Ordens Militares, Ordenes Militares, and Colloquia Torunensia Historica*). Since the early twenty-first century, although local and regional studies have persisted and are still essential to understand the military orders and their economic functioning, a renewed attention to general histories of military orders is notable. These contributions focus on a specific Order<fnref n="2" /> or all of them<fnref n="3" /> to better understand these institutions from a global perspective and identify differences and similarities. The military orders are thus now integrated into the general history, where they are considered asprotagonists but are also investigated in their singularity.<fnref n="4" />

In addition to some studies in the 1980s,<fnref n="5" /> French historiography focused for 20 years on studies on the rural aspects of military orders and their commanderies,<fnref n="6" /> recently renewed by some reflections on the territory.<fnref n="7" /> However,

DOI: 10.4324/9781003244226-3

<footnote n="1">1 AD = Archives Départementales; AOM = *Archivum Ordinis Melitae*; ADBR = Archives Départementales des Bouches du Rhône, Marseille; BM = Bibliothèque Méjanes, Aix-en-Provence; BnF = Bibliothèque nationale de France; NLM = National Library of Malta.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">2 Riley-Smith, *The Knights of St John in Jerusalem and Cyprus*; id., *Hospitaliers*; id., *The Knights Hospitalier in the Levant*; Nicholson, *The Knights Hospitalier*; Demurger, *Les Hospitaliers*.</footnote>

<footnote n="3">3 Forey, *The Military Orders*; Demurger, *Chevaliers du Christ*; Ayala Martinez, *Las órdenes militares hispánicas*.</footnote>

<footnote n="4">4 Demurger, "Histoire de l'historiographie des ordres religieux-militaires", 30-1.</footnote>

<footnote n="5">5 Legras, *Les commanderies des Templiers et des Hospitaliers*; Higounet (ed.), *Les ordres militaires*.</footnote>

<footnote n="6">6 Verdon, *La terre et les hommes en Roussillon*; Luttrell and Pressouyre (eds.), *La Commanderie*; Vaivre de, *La commanderie d'Epailly*; Bessey, *Les commanderies de l'Hôpital en Picardie*; Miguet, *Templiers et Hospitaliers de Bure*.</footnote>

<footnote n="7">7 Cursente and Mousnier, "Introduction", 7-15; Mazel, *L'évêque et le territoire*; Boisselier, "La délimitation des territoires locaux", 9-16; Chevalier (ed.), *Ordres Militaires et territorialité au Moyen Âge*.</footnote>
22 *The Land and the Cross*

not only have these studies been conducted mainly by medievalists but also
they have not enjoyed the same success as cultural and political studies in early
modern history. Therefore, the Order of St John has not attracted a lot of
French researchers in the last 20 years and the history of its commanderies in
the early modern period is still largely understudied.<fnref n="8" />

At that time, the Hospitaller commanderies represented a vast territory that was not exempt from European wars and from the appetites of princes and popes. They were nonetheless an essential element in financing the military and corsair activities of the Convent throughout the sixteenth century. The transfer of the commanderies' revenues and income (*responsiones*) required a structured territorial organisation and a network of western Mediterranean ports used to export goods and money. The commanderies were also an important and necessary step in the Knights' *cursus honorum* and represented an opportunity of fortune for merchants in the service of the Hospitallers who exported their revenues to the Convent in Malta.

This chapter intends to analyse the territorial wealth of the Order of St John, which experienced financial and security problems in the sixteenth century as a result of the European and Mediterranean wars. It also sheds light on the transport system of the commandery income and how it ensured the fortunes of certain Knights and laymen in the service of the Order.

The Hospitallers’ Wealthy Estate

The Hospitallers controlled a vast territorial area built around 650 command-
eries grouped in 26 priories in Catholic Europe,<fnref n="9" /> an overseas Convent, and
several western Mediterranean ports that were transiting places for people
and goods and acted as an economic intermediate position between the front
and the rear.<fnref n="10" /> This financial network, both territorial (commanderies and
roads) and maritime (ports and Convent), made up an organised territory that
the Knights travelled, controlled, and claimed as theirs. They oversaw and
fostered the movement of both people and revenues by controlling the har-
bours that linked Catholic Europe to the overseas Convent in Malta.<fnref n="11" />
Through this polarisation, a reticular structure was defined<fnref n="12" /> by a number of
interconnected places and individuals part of an administrative hierarchy.<fnref n="13" />

<footnote n="8">8 Except for two important articles (Fontenay, “Le revenu des chevaliers de Malte”, 259–71 and *id.*, “Corsaires de la foi ou rentiers du sol?”, 361–84), Michel Fontenay mainly studied the mari-time history of the Hospitallers. Alain Blondy mainly studied the political, social, and cultural history of the Convent and the Knights in Malta in the eighteenth century (Blondy, *L'Ordre de Malte au XVIIIᵉ siècle*); and Anne Brogini mainly studied the social, religious, and political history of the Convent in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries (Brogini, *Une noblesse en Méditerranée*).</footnote>

<footnote n="9">9 D'Avenia, “Le commende gerosolimitane in Sicilia”, 36.</footnote>

<footnote n="10">10 Josserand, “De l’arrière au front”, 683–703.</footnote>

<footnote n="11">11 Boissellier, “Introduction à un programme sur la territorialité”, 5–85.</footnote>

<footnote n="12">12 Carraz, “Les établissements hospitaliers”, 11–3.</footnote>

<footnote n="13">13 Coulon and Valérian, “Introduction”, 9.</footnote>
Indeed, the circulation of goods and men required an efficient administrative and spatial organisation to support the defence of the frontier of Latin Christendom<fnref n="14" />: the central level (the Convent); the regional level (the langue or priory, in charge of the recruitment of new brothers, gathering the revenues and organising their export to the Convent), and the local level (the commandery).<fnref n="15" />

Since the beginning of the fourteenth century, the Hospitallers were divided into seven nations or langues (Provence, Auvergne, France, Italy, Spain, England, and Germany), and then into eight in 1462, when the Langue of Spain was divided into two (Castile and Aragon).<fnref n="16" /> A century later, the number of langues decreased again to seven when King Henry VIII abolished the Langue of England.<fnref n="17" /> Each langue included one or several priories in western Europe. The Kingdom of France, which provided the largest number of Knights throughout the early modern period,<fnref n="18" /> was divided into three langues: the one of Provence had two priories (Saint-Gilles and Toulouse); the Langue d'Auvergne had only one priory of the same name; and the Langue of France had three priories (France, Aquitaine, and Champagne). Each priory was composed of several commanderies that provided an income to support the commander. Commanderies were divided between the main holding (*chef*) and the rural holdings (*membres*). Usually – but not always – the commander used to live in the *chef*. In the Commandery of Nice, part of the Duchy of Savoy since 1388 which had remained attached to the Langue of Provence, the *chef* (Nice) did not have a residence for the commander in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; the commander, therefore, resided in Biot, a *membre* of the commandery.<fnref n="19" />

Some commanders could become receivers (*receveurs* or *ricevitori*)<fnref n="20" /> for three years.<fnref n="21" /> They were in charge of controlling the resupplying of the Convent with goods and money coming from commanderies and priories, checking their value and supervising the sea journey to Malta. Theoretically, in the Middle Ages, the revenues had to be equivalent to a third of the commandery surpluses,<fnref n="22" /> but in practice, they were often lower. When the Hospitallers were established in Rhodes, the revenues represented one quarter of the income of

<footnote n="14">14 Greci, "L'ordine di San Giovanni di Gerusalemme tra centro e periferia", 73-99; Albini, "La ricchezza dell'Ordine di San Giovanni (secoli XII-XIV)", 101-36.</footnote>

<footnote n="15">15 Riley-Smith, *The Knights Hospitaller in the Levant*, 129.</footnote>

<footnote n="16">16 Delaville Le Roulx, *Cartulaire général*, vol. 1, 13.</footnote>

<footnote n="17">17 O'Malley, *The Knights Hospitaller of the English Langue*.</footnote>

<footnote n="18">18 Brogini, *Une noblesse en Méditerranée*, 35-6.</footnote>

<footnote n="19">19 NLM AOM 5320, *Visites de la commanderie de Nice* (1667-1716), fol. 2v, 1667: 'we all went together to the place of Biot member of the Commandery of Nice and domicile of the commander, whereas in the city of Nice, head of the commandery, there is no house or domicile belonging to the commandery'.</footnote>

<footnote n="20">20 Diderot, and Alembert, "Receveur", 440.</footnote>

<footnote n="21">21 Beaudoin, and Naberat, *Les statuts de l'Ordre*, 45.</footnote>

<footnote n="22">22 Riley-Smith, *The Knights of St John in Jerusalem and Cyprus*, 344-46; Riley-Smith, *The Knights Hospitaller in the Levant*, 187-201.</footnote>
24 *The Land and the Cross*

their commanderies.<fnref n="23" /> Then, in 1543, the Chapter-General officially fixed the amount of the revenues at one-third of the income of each commandery, estimated ten years earlier.<fnref n="24" /> However, the revenues often depended on the international military context and convent expenses. The loss of Rhodes in 1522, the years of wandering in the Mediterranean and Europe (1523–1529), and the establishment in Malta (1530) costed so much to the Order that the 1533 Chapter-General stated that all priories and commanderies had to pay an exceptional tax of two third of their income for three years.<fnref n="25" /> This tax was renewed in 1539²⁶ and 1543, and the Chapter-General definitively fixed the amount of the revenues, which did not always represent a third of income. In 1583, the langues paid between 20% and 28% of their income: while the Langues de Provence and Auvergne paid 28.8% of their income, the Langues of Aragon and Castille only paid 22% and 19.6%, respectively.<fnref n="27" />

Largely depending on the agricultural production of the commanderies, the responses were therefore not equal each year nor between each langue. In 1583, the estimation of the Order's total income was around 580,000 scudi (Figures 2.1 and 2.2). The Spanish langues were undoubtedly the richest: the

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /><figcaption>*Figure 2.1* The estimated income of the seven langues, 1583 (in *scudi*) (graph: Anne Brogini).</figcaption></figure>

<footnote n="23">23 Bonneaud, "Les Hospitaliers catalans", 347.</footnote>

<footnote n="24">24 Fontenay, "Le revenu des chevaliers de Malte", 260.</footnote>

<footnote n="25">25 NLM AOM 286, fol. 39v, Register of the Chapter General, 1539.</footnote>

<footnote n="26">26 NLM AOM 286, fol. 85v.</footnote>

<footnote n="27">27 BM, ms. 1097 (981), *La stima di tutte le commendate della Sacra Religione Gerosolimitana fatta l'anno 1583 e anco quello che pagano di carrichi ciascun anno al Commun Tesoro*, n.f.</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>Figure 2.2 The proportion of the estimated income of the langues, 1583 (graph: Anne Brogini).</figcaption></figure>

Langue of Castile alone accounted for 33% of the Order's income – as much as the three French langues.<fnref n="28" />

Responsions were either paid in money (in the local currency: French *livres tournois*, Venetian *ducati*, Spanish *scudi*, etc.) or in various goods. In 1556, the responses of the Langue of Provence were delivered in gold jewellery and gold and silver vessels.<fnref n="29" /> Similarly, in 1558, the responses of the Langues of Castile and Aragon were paid in money, jewels, bars of silver and pure gold, recovered from Barcelona and Palamós, and with a cargo of salt loaded in Majorca.<fnref n="30" /> In Sicily (the Priory of Messina), which was at the time the major supplier of grain to the Christian ports of the western Mediterranean, the responses were usually made up of grain cargoes. A 1576 report states that each year the Order's responses from Sicily included the following goods: in addition to grain, 3,000 sheep, 150 pigs, 300 cows, 300 units (*cantari*) of cheese (around 23.8 tons),<fnref n="31" /> 30 *cantari* of lard (around 2.5 tons), 25 *cantari* of olive oil, salted meat, 350 barrels of wine, 10 barrels of vinegar, 30 *cantari* of sugar, 50 *cantari* of apples (around 4 tons), and 200 barrels of sardines.<fnref n="32" /> In Marseilles, the responses could have been paid in money or military equipment; in 1534, part of the responses brought to Marseilles consisted of reserves of saltpetre

<footnote n="28">28 BM, ms. 1097 (981), *La stima di tutte le commendate della Sacra Religione Gerosolimitana fatta l'anno 1583 e anco quello che pagano di carrichi ciascun anno al Commun Tesoro*, n.f.</footnote>

<footnote n="29">29 NLM AOM 426, fols. 251v-252r, 17 December 1556.</footnote>

<footnote n="30">30 NLM AOM 427, fols. 259r-260r, 23 December 1558.</footnote>

<footnote n="31">31 Abela, *Hospitaller Malta and the Mediterranean Economy*, xxvi (one *cantaro* = 79,378 kg).</footnote>

<footnote n="32">32 NLM AOM 436, fol. 258r, 11 May 1576.</footnote>
26 *The Land and the Cross*

and stones to help the preparation of the military attack on Tunis by Emperor Charles V in 1535.<fnref n="33" /> From the second half of the sixteenth century, with the development of corsair activity in Malta, the supply of weapons and tools necessary for the arming of galleys increased. In 1589, among the exports of the Priory of Capua’s commanderies, the receiver sent a cargo of timber, as well as 24 masts for the Knights’ galleys.<fnref n="34" />

Preserving Land and Resources

The Hospitallers' main challenge was to secure the transport of their wealth to the Convent in Malta. To accomplish this, they entrusted some Knights to collect the responses from the receiver in several Mediterranean ports. Hospitaller activities were recorded in London<fnref n="35" /> until the suppression of the Langue of England in 1540, in Marseilles<fnref n="36" /> for the Langue of Provence, and in Lyon<fnref n="37" /> for the Langue of Auvergne. The Knights also went to Palermo,<fnref n="38" /> Messina,<fnref n="39" /> Naples,<fnref n="40" /> or Venice<fnref n="41" /> to recover the responses of the Langue of Italy and to Palamós,<fnref n="42" /> Barcelona,<fnref n="43" /> Majorca,<fnref n="44" /> or Cartagena<fnref n="45" /> for the Langues of Aragon and Castile.

The ports of Marseilles and Messina were often used as a place of arrival and storage of responses from other commanderies and langues. In 1534, a Spanish Knight named Don Pedro Ponte went to Messina to collect the responses of the Priory of Pisa which the receiver of the priory had sent to Sicily.<fnref n="46" /> In 1537 and 1538, the Hospitallers recovered the responses of the Langues

<footnote n="33">33 Parker, *Emperor*, 237.</footnote>

<footnote n="34">34 NLM AOM 444, fols. 267v-268r, 27 June 1589 and 6 July 1589.</footnote>

<footnote n="35">35 NLM AOM 415, fol. 229v, 5 March 1532.</footnote>

<footnote n="36">36 NLM AOM 415, fol. 232v, 6 August 1532; NLM AOM 416, fol. 192r, 28 December 1534; NLM AOM 420, fol. 203r, 28 April 1546; NLM AOM 423, fols. 206v-207r, 25 January 1552; NLM AOM 428, fol. 278v, 10 January 1561; NLM AOM 434, fols. 255v-256r, 15 February 1573; NLM AOM 459, fol. 322v, 17 May 1616.</footnote>

<footnote n="37">37 NLM AOM 423, fols. 206v-207r, 25 January 1552.</footnote>

<footnote n="38">38 NLM AOM 419, fols. 222v-223r, 13 August 1544.</footnote>

<footnote n="39">39 NLM AOM 416, fols. 190v-191r, 22 December 1534.</footnote>

<footnote n="40">40 NLM AOM 416, fol. 193r, 23 March 1535.</footnote>

<footnote n="41">41 NLM AOM 419, fols. 195r-195v, 19 December 1544; NLM AOM 420, fol. 220v, 9 March 1547; NLM AOM 422, fol. 205v, 26 February 1550.</footnote>

<footnote n="42">42 NLM AOM 417, fols. 266v-267r, 25 October 1539; NLM AOM 417, fols. 277v-278r, 28 September 1540.</footnote>

<footnote n="43">43 NLM AOM 421, fol. 205r, 11 December 1547; NLM AOM 428, fols. 277r-277v, 4 November 1560; NLM AOM 433, fol. 262v, 6 June 1571; NLM AOM 434, fols. 255v-256r, 15 February 1573; NLM AOM 435, fols. 267v-268r, 13 January 1575; NLM AOM 446, fols. 220r-220v, 27 July 1592.</footnote>

<footnote n="44">44 NLM AOM 434, fols. 255v-256r, 15 February 1573; NLM AOM 435, fols. 267v-268r, 13 January 1575.</footnote>

<footnote n="45">45 NLM AOM 427, fol. 260r, 23 December 1558; NLM AOM 428, fol. 277v, 4 September 1560; NLM AOM 428, fols. 277r-277v, 4 November 1560; NLM AOM 459, fol. 322v, 17 May 1616.</footnote>

<footnote n="46">46 NLM AOM 416, fols. 190v-191r, 22 December 1534.</footnote>
of Castile and Aragon in Marseilles because the Balearic Islands were under threat from Barbary pirates.<fnref n="47" />

Additionally, the European geopolitical context could also have played a role in interrupting the shipment of supplies to the Convent. In 1544, the Priory of Venice still owed the Convent 14,383 gold *ducati* which it should have paid the previous year.<fnref n="48" /> The war between the French and the Emperor's supporters for the control of Italy had damaged several territories in Northern Italy during this period, certainly including some of the Order's commanderies. In Central Europe, the Ottoman conquests and religious conflicts harmed many commanderies and the Order lost huge profits. In 1560, Grand Master Jean Parisot de La Valette (1494–1568) complained to the king of Spain that several commanderies in the German Langue (those of Primmisitat in the Marquisate of Moravia and Wladisladia in the Duchy of Silesia) were now under Protestant control and that the Priory in the Kingdom of Hungary had been devastated by Turkish raids.<fnref n="49" /> In 1596, the Order lost the two Commanderies of Frielmant and Schenekendoff<fnref n="50" />; that of Bratislava was lost in 1622,<fnref n="51" /> and the commander was expelled from the city. All three commanderies had been secularised by the Protestants.

Many French commanderies were also damaged by the religious wars of the second half of the sixteenth century. In 1574, the Convent was almost totally deprived of French responses.<fnref n="52" /> In 1594, many commanderies of the Priory of Aquitaine had been ravaged by civil wars and were in debt to the Convent of 220,000 *scudi* (i.e. 756.800 *livres tournois*).<fnref n="53" /> Furthermore, the Order had to constantly fight against the temptation of the pope to “offer” the commanderies as gifts, as happened in 1596 to the Duke of Savoy by granting him the revenues of a commandery in Lombardy.<fnref n="54" /> Papal nepotism reached its peak at the beginning of the seventeenth century under Pope Urban VIII (born Maffeo Vincenzo Barberini) who conceded the income of eight commanderies to his own family. By 1623, the popes had misappropriated the income from 35 commanderies for their own benefit in less than 50 years.<fnref n="55" />

## Serving the Convent and Serving Oneself

If some of the commanderies could be run by sergeants-at-arms or chaplains, the majority of them were reserved for the most prestigious brethren, the noble professed Knights.<fnref n="56" /> To become a commander, a Knight had to pay his

<footnote n="47">47 NLM AOM 416, fols. 220v-221r, 16 October 1537.</footnote>

<footnote n="48">48 NLM AOM 419, fols. 195r-195v, 19 December 1544.</footnote>

<footnote n="49">49 NLM AOM 428, fols. 259v-262r, 19 February 1560.</footnote>

<footnote n="50">50 NLM AOM 449, fol. 274r, 9 July 1596.</footnote>

<footnote n="51">51 NLM AOM 255, fols. 6r-6v, January 1623.</footnote>

<footnote n="52">52 NLM AOM 435, fol. 268r, 13 January 1575.</footnote>

<footnote n="53">53 NLM AOM 447, fols. 301v-302v, 25 May 1594.</footnote>

<footnote n="54">54 NLM AOM 449, fol. 204r, 15 August 1596.</footnote>

<footnote n="55">55 NLM AOM 256, fol. 4r, 6 August 1624.</footnote>

<footnote n="56">56 Sire, *The Knights of Malta*, 112.</footnote>
28 *The Land and the Cross*

admission fees,<fnref n="57" /> take his vows, complete three caravans (four in the seventeenth century),<fnref n="58" /> reside in the Convent of Malta for five years, not lived in the company of a woman, and not have living children when he was appointed as commander.<fnref n="59" /> The commandery was to be left in the state in which it had been found or improved: everything that the commander used was to be returned for the successor.<fnref n="60" />

As a provision enforced at the time of Grand Master Claude de La Sengle (1553–1557), every five years, the priors had to visit their commanderies or bailiwicks, which was another name to indicate larger commanderies like, for example, in some French Priories<fnref n="61" /> (such as the Grand Priory of St. Giles).<fnref n="62" /> In fact, general visitations did not take place that often: for the Priory of Messina, for example, there are preserved only three general visitations during the whole early modern period: in 1555, 1604, and 1749.<fnref n="63" /> The visits of improvements of the commanderies (in French, “visites d'améliorissement”) were instead more frequent and also took place every time a commander asked to change commandery: thus, for the Commandery of Nice, the archives preserved more than 25 improvement visits between the end of the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries and one general visitation at the end of the eighteenth century.<fnref n="64" />

Despite the threats to the Order's European properties during the sixteenth century, the commanderies still represented a valuable asset and their administration was an important step in the Knights' *cursus honorum*. First, the offices of commander, prior, and commissioner were moneymaking: the commander received one-fifth of the income of the commandery and the prior one-tenth.<fnref n="65" /> Second, they conferred prestige and importance to the Convent. The commanders were almost always commissioners during the investigations of proofs of nobility (*processi di nobiltà*). This was an important and recognised duty because, from the sixteenth century, the proofs of nobility had become a very prestigious procedure,<fnref n="66" /> as the Order of St John was characterised by a process

<footnote n="57">57 Beaudoin, Naberat, *Les statuts de l'Ordre*, 45.</footnote>

<footnote n="58">58 Sire, *The Knights of Malta*, 92. Caravans were a mandatory maritime and corsairing military service for young Hospitallers. They were instituted in Rhodes, when the Order of St John became a maritime order.</footnote>

<footnote n="59">59 Beaudoin, Naberat, *Les statuts de l'Ordre*, 124–25.</footnote>

<footnote n="60">60 Beaudoin, Naberat, *Les statuts de l'Ordre*, 131.</footnote>

<footnote n="61">61 Beaudoin, Naberat, *Les statuts de l'Ordre*, 138:168.</footnote>

<footnote n="62">62 Carraz, “Administration, délimitation et perception des territoires”, 321.</footnote>

<footnote n="63">63 D'Avenia, “Le commende gerosolimitane in Sicilia”, 39. Despite the loss of records, as explained by D'Avenia in this volume, each register of the three general visitations (1555, 1604, and 1749) contains the date of the previous visitation and confirms these were the only ones conducted in the early modern age.</footnote>

<footnote n="64">64 AOM 5318, 5319, 5320; ADBR, 56H258.</footnote>

<footnote n="65">65 Bruno, and Pace Gravina (ed.), *La Sicilia dei Cavalieri*, 69.</footnote>

<footnote n="66">66 See also the two volumes: Brogini “Nobles et chevaliers”; Brogini and Butaud (eds.), “Noblesses et Ordres militaires”.</footnote>
of aristocratisation that affected all military orders.<fnref n="67" /> The commander was often accompanied by a younger knight: in 1569, the Commander of Gap, Jean Roux, was associated with Knight Jean de Vintimille<fnref n="68" />; in 1572, the receiver of the Priory of Saint-Gilles was commissioner with Knight Sauveur de Glandevès Cuges.<fnref n="69" /> The commanders needed to be already about 50 years old because it was a guarantee of their seriousness in the investigation. A knight who matured seniority in the Order had indeed more experience in trials and a deeper knowledge of the genealogy of the families<fnref n="70" />; in 1653, Jean-Bertrand de Luppé du Garrané was 73 years old when he was commissioner.<fnref n="71" />

The commanders were also responsible for carrying out surveys to improve the commanderies. As with the proofs of nobility, the commander was accompanied by a younger knight who was just beginning his *cursus honorum* in the Order. In 1667, the Commander Pierre de Blacas Carros inspected the Commandery of Nice with the help of the young knight Alexandre de Villeneuve Gréolières,<fnref n="72" /> who became commander himself around twenty years later.<fnref n="73" /> A knight waited around 20 years before becoming a commander: Jean-Paul de Lascaris Castellar (1560–1657), who was elected grand master in 1636, obtained his first commandery in 1613, after 20 years in the Order, and obtained a new one by improvement (*améliorissement*) nine years later, in 1622.<fnref n="74" /> To continue his career indeed, a commander had to change commandery regularly by improvement, by exchange with another one, or by obtaining it as a favour from the grand master. In 1623, Grand Master Antoine de Paule (1623–1636) gave a new commandery to Jean-Paul de Lascaris Castellar, who gave up the one he had obtained by improvement.<fnref n="75" />

Commanderies and priories were stages in a prestigious career. François de Flotte was commander of Codat, then Manosque (1504) before becoming grand prior of Toulouse (1514)<fnref n="76" />; Philippe de Giraud du Broc was commander of Homps, then of Caignac, and subsequently of Renneville (1523), before he

<footnote n="67">67 Nicholson, "Nolite confidere in principibus, 262–63; Oliveira, "La sociologie des ordres militaires", 166; Donati, *L'idea di nobiltà in Italia*; Spagnoletti, *Stato, aristocrazie e Ordine di Malta*; Irace, *La nobiltà bifronte*; Angiolini, *I cavalieri e il principe*; D'Avenia, *Nobiltà allo specchio*.</footnote>

<footnote n="68">68 AD du Var, AD83, 62 J 10–2, fols. 1r-1v., 1569.</footnote>

<footnote n="69">69 AD des Bouches-du-Rhône, AD13, 14 E 345, *Processo* of Nicolas de Villages La Salle, 1572.</footnote>

<footnote n="70">70 Brogini and Butaud, "Prouver sa noblesse de nom et d'armes". 58.</footnote>

<footnote n="71">71 NLM AOM 3536, *Processo* of Jean-Augustin de Foresta, 1653, fol. 1r.</footnote>

<footnote n="72">72 NLM AOM 5320, fol. 1r, 1667.</footnote>

<footnote n="73">73 AD13, 56H 565-315, *Processo* of François de Ponteves Bargème, 1685.</footnote>

<footnote n="74">74 NLM LIBR 309, p. 3.</footnote>

<footnote n="75">75 NLM LIBR 309, p. 3.</footnote>

<footnote n="76">76 Raybaud, *Histoire des grands prieurs et du prieuré de Saint-Gilles*, 28:45. The information provided by Notary-Archivist Jean Raybaud (1675–1752) was reliable, as he had consulted the Archives of the Order and was a brother of a Chaplain of the Order of St John, Jean-François Raybaud, who had been admitted in 1693 (see Carraz, "Un érudit méconnu et peu reconnu", 1–14).</footnote>
30 *The Land and the Cross*

became grand prior of Saint-Gilles (1549–1556)<fnref n="77" />; René de Chabaud Tourrettes was commander and grand receiver of the Grand Priory of Toulouse (1600–1605).<fnref n="78" /> Several grand priors of Saint-Gilles had become grand masters, such as Jean de Valette (1557–1568), who had been grand prior in 1556–1557,<fnref n="79" /> and Antoine de Paule (1623–1636) who had been grand prior in 1620–1623.<fnref n="80" />

The Hospitallers were not the only ones to benefit from the commanderies and the responses. Since the Middle Ages, the responses trade was probably under the responsibility of a knight, sent by the Convent, or merchants in the service of the Hospitallers. In the late 1230s, they had invested in an important fleet, based in several European ports.<fnref n="81" /> In the early years of its establishment in Malta, the Order used to entrust this mission exclusively to its knights. In 1532, an English Knight, John Babington, was sent to Marseilles and then to London to find out why the responses of the English Langue had still not arrived to Malta.<fnref n="82" /> In 1534, 1535, and 1537, some knights were sent again to Marseilles, Messina, and Naples to bring back the responses.<fnref n="83" /> However, in 1538, the Hospitallers entrusted a merchant from Marseilles (flying the Order's flag) to transport their responses to Malta<fnref n="84" /> and in 1540–1541, six Sicilian and Maltese merchants named Alfonso Abela, Braito Burlo, Leonardo Falson, Bartolomeo Scarpello, Sebastiano de Chicalona, and Fernando Saiti transported the responses from Licata and Palermo to Malta.<fnref n="85" /> The mistrust of the Hospitallers in the very early 1530s may have resulted from the fact that they did not yet know or trust the Maltese merchants. If trade associations could exist between the Knights and Maltese merchants, the transport of responses was too valuable to be entrusted immediately to merchants with whom the Hospitallers were not used to work.

Throughout the sixteenth century, the Order's galleon was regularly used for the transport of responses, and some knights were very often sent in person to collect them, almost always when the cargoes were in gold or silver coins. In 1592, although it was a common practice to ask merchants for transport, Bailiff Ramon Fortuin went to Barcelona with the Order's galley *Capitana* to collect the Spanish responses paid in money (50,000 ducati) and the French responses in Marseilles.<fnref n="86" /> But for the transport of goods (food, cloth,

<footnote n="77">77 Raybaud, *Histoire des grands prieurs*, 72.</footnote>

<footnote n="78">78 AD des Bouches-du-Rhône, AD13, 56H 212v-213r; BM, Aix-en-Provence, Manuscript 340 (R.A.44), t. 1, p. 380.</footnote>

<footnote n="79">79 AD des Bouches-du-Rhône, AD13, 56H 212v-213r; BM, Aix-en-Provence, Manuscript 340 (R.A.44), t. 1, p. 154.</footnote>

<footnote n="80">80 AD des Bouches-du-Rhône, AD13, 56H 212v-213r; BM, Aix-en-Provence, Manuscript 340 (R.A.44), t. 1, p. 156.</footnote>

<footnote n="81">81 Riley-Smith, *The Knights Hospitaller in the Levant*, 150.</footnote>

<footnote n="82">82 NLM AOM 415, fol. 229v, 5 March 1532.</footnote>

<footnote n="83">83 NLM AOM 416, fol. 192r, 28 December 1534; NLM AOM 416, fols. 192v-193r, 23 March 1535; NLM AOM 416, fols. 220v-221r, 16 October 1537.</footnote>

<footnote n="84">84 NLM AOM 417, fol. 250v, 4 July 1538.</footnote>

<footnote n="85">85 See footnote 30.</footnote>

<footnote n="86">86 NLM AOM 446, fols. 220r-220v, 27 July 1592.</footnote>
artillery pieces, etc.), the Convent easily and often used merchants from Sicily, Marseilles, or Malta. In 1588, Raymond Perdigan, a merchant from Marseilles and owner of a galleon, delivered a cargo of 43 bales of sheets and 3,725 skips of stone coal from the Priory of Saint-Gilles which had been transported to Marseille by the Order's Receiver.<fnref n="87" /> In 1594, the receiver in Naples entrusted a Neapolitan captain, Cola di Jeraci, with a cargo of 189 *cantari* of salted meat from the Priory of Capua to Malta.<fnref n="88" />

By the beginning of the seventeenth century, the employment of merchants had become so common that in 1623, French merchant Guillaume Bauduf from Marseilles was given a safe-conduct to move alone to several ports and to collect the Order's responsions.<fnref n="89" /> From now on, the Hospitallers largely delegated to trustee merchants the collection of their money and goods, which was not so common in the previous century.

For these individuals and their families, working within the Hospitallers' network resulted in double mobility: first, territorial and economic, due to the rise of intercultural trade and the good use of the Convent's island position which boosted trade with Muslim ports; second, social mobility through a progressive social integration (assimilation into the urban upper classes, the acquisition of titles and fiefdoms) or the conferring of a title of nobility sometimes supported and legitimised by the Hospitallers themselves, as their descendants became members of the Order. Bound to an institution – the Order – which provided certain merchants with a legal framework whilst leaving them a lot of leeway,<fnref n="90" /> some merchant families obtained trading licences more easily than others, chartered their ships to the Knights, signed trading contracts with them, worked with them over several generations, and clung to the privileges afforded to them by this trade.<fnref n="91" />

The Rispolo Maltese family represents a good example: merchants from Naples, the Rispolo settled in Malta (Senglea) in the early 1560s and soon began trading, often for the Hospitallers. In 1572, Bernardino Rispolo went to Sicily to collect a cargo of tallow (one part of the responsions) for the service of the Order,<fnref n="92" /> and in 1581, he left for Jerba to buy back Christian slaves.<fnref n="93" /> His three sons Vincenzo, Michele, and Giacomo kept the trading company after his death in 1584.<fnref n="94" /> Giacomo practised the *corso*<fnref n="95" /> to protect the Maltese shores for

<footnote n="87">87 NLM AOM 443, fol. 138r, 15 March 1588.</footnote>

<footnote n="88">88 NLM AOM 448, fol. 226v, 19 July 1594.</footnote>

<footnote n="89">89 NLM AOM 464, fol. 318r, 10 October 1623.</footnote>

<footnote n="90">90 Nef, "Introduction", 11.</footnote>

<footnote n="91">91 Molho and Ramada Curto, "Introduction", 3.</footnote>

<footnote n="92">92 NLM AOM 434, fol. 246v, 26 June 1572.</footnote>

<footnote n="93">93 NLM AOM 440, fol. 249v, 14 December 1581.</footnote>

<footnote n="94">94 Cassar, *Society, Culture and Identity*, 84.</footnote>

<footnote n="95">95 Inspired by the Mediterranean *lingua franca*, the term *corso* was used by the French historian Michel Fontenay (1935–2021). It refers to a form of violence at sea practised by Christian and Muslim corsairs in the Mediterranean under the pretext of a holy war. See Fontenay, *La Méditerranée entre la Croix et le Croissant*.</footnote>
32 *The Land and the Cross*

the Hospitallers,<fnref n="96" /> while Michele carried in 1590 some responses from Naples
(200 *cantari* of salt meat) to the Convent.<fnref n="97" /> The first brother Vincenzo was the
most active: he worked regularly at the service of the Order of St John for more
than 30 years (from 1588 to 1618), trading between Malta and Sicily, carrying
responsions, and sailing off the Italian and Maltese coasts to keep an eye on
the Turkish fleet.<fnref n="98" /> As a reward for his service, the Order granted him the title
of donat (*donato*) in 1604 and accepted him as a minor member.<fnref n="99" /> In the begin-
ning of the seventeenth century, the Rispolo became part of the merchant elite
of the Great Harbour of Malta.

The merchant families collaborated with the Order while often diversifying their networks outside the Hospitaller boundaries and succeeded in integrating the local urban elites demonstrating remarkable social mobility. Families who had been recently ennobled crowned their social ascent by investing in lordships, thereby managing over a period of two or three generations to place their descendants in chivalric orders. Félix de la Reynarde's family is another significant case study.<fnref n="100" /> In the fifteenth century, Claude Félix, from Avignon, settled in Marseilles and began to trade in the service of the Hospitallers. A century later, in 1580, his descendant Louis Félix was qualified as a “gentleman” in the archives since the family bought a lordship named Reynarde. His nephew Philippe Félix inherited the fiefdom and began a military career before being elected First Consul of Marseille in 1628.<fnref n="101" /> At that time, Félix de La Reynarde managed to ally with a powerful aristocratic family from Provence, the Valbelles and, later on, between 1641 and 1712, these families counted over 12 sons in the Order of St John.<fnref n="102" /> The most famous of them, Fra Jean-Baptiste de Félix de La Reynarde, became a knight in 1641, and also had his tombstone in the conventual church of St John.<fnref n="103" />

Through a deep investigation into rich archival sources concerning the Order of St John's commanderies, this study has shown the financial and social power of this network of properties in the early modern period both within and outside the Hospitaller institutional framework. Especially, during the sixteenth century, the immense territory of the Hospitallers in Europe had been repeatedly threatened and affected by religious conflicts, secularisation, and spoliations by kings and popes. However, it never stopped functioning as a large reticular territorial structure, within which the Knights – but also several laymen (especially merchants) – gained both economic and social benefits. The investment in the management of commanderies and in the transport of

<footnote n="96">96 NLM AOM 444, fol. 246r, 12 July 1588.</footnote>

<footnote n="97">97 NLM AOM 445, fol. 132v, 31 July 1590.</footnote>

<footnote n="98">98 Brogini, *Malte, frontière de chrétienté*, 377-79.</footnote>

<footnote n="99">99 NLM AOM 455, fol. 257v, 20 October 1604.</footnote>

<footnote n="100">100 Kaiser, "Une aristocratie urbaine entre la plume et l'épée", 264-73.</footnote>

<footnote n="101">101 Kaiser, "Une aristocratie urbaine entre la plume et l'épée", 267-68.</footnote>

<footnote n="102">102 Brogini, *Une noblesse en Méditerranée*, 44-45.</footnote>

<footnote n="103">103 NLM LIBR 102, *Recueil des Maisons et familles qui ont donné des chevaliers à l'ordre de St Jean de Jérusalem et qui ont été reçus dans la Langue de Provence depuis l'an 1513 jusques à présent, avec les charges, employs et dignitez dont ces chevaliers ont été revêtus*, 1738, 774.</footnote>
responsions was a means of enrichment and career development. Sociologists have shown that geographical mobility goes hand in hand with social mobility¹⁰⁴: the reticular space structure of the Hospitallers in Europe and the western Mediterranean during the early modern period was a proof of this.

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