VALLETTA: A Catalyst in the Central
Mediterranean and the Hospitaller Order ofSt. John (1530-1798)

Carmel Cassar  Malta Univ.

The sixteenth and seventeenth century Mediterranean has been described as ‘abattleground’ between the two great empires of Catholic Spain in the west and theMuslim Ottoman Empire in the east. It was an age during which the two greatempires, supported by their respective allies, gave evidence of their formidable
might.
Before the rise of the Habsburg kings, Charles V and Philip II, the CatholicKings of Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella, who were responsible for the unification ofSpain, played as vital a part in creating the Spanish Empire. They were responsiblefor the establishment of various Christian enclaves along the North African coast
stretching from Morocco to Tripoli (Libya).

Likewise, the Ottoman Sultans, after

the fall of Constantinople in 1453, were intent in expelling the remaining satellite
territories of the Christian minor powers, particularly Venice, and by 1522
managed to expunge Knights Hospitallers of St John from, and its territories, inthe Dodecanese and the tip of Anatolia.
When in 1530, Emperor Charles V granted the Maltese islands as a fief to the145 2018 지중해지역원 연례학술대회

Hospitaller Order of St. John, the old isolation of Malta melted into thin air. Theterms offered by the Holy Roman Emperor were so generous that with time theOrder turned the island into a veritable sovereign state in all senses of the word.
Various categories of foreigners, attracted by good work opportunities, settled inMalta, importing social, cultural and ideological components which were different
from those originally predominating in the island.
It may be said that the Ottoman Siege of Malta of 1565 brought about aradical transformation to life in the island.

For most people it marked the end of

an old era and the beginning of wider horizons.

This break with the past

manifested itself at all levels. Immediately after the siege, increased migration toSicily coupled with the continual evacuation of the countryside by a peasantry
attracted to city life, led to extensive rural depopulation. The wide-spread
destruction of houses, fields, livestock changed the villages physically.

Newbuildings and churches in a different style were set up.
The new system created a dual social structure that develops immediately after
the Knights Hospitallers set foot on Malta and becomes even more apparent after
the siege of 1565 and the building of Valletta.

This duality did not only exist at

the social level, but it also pervaded the mental and cognitive structures of Maltese
society. Two different cultural blocs, strictly separated from each other, formed
two opposing camps, namely, Mdina and its

suburbcountryside; Birgu (Vittoriosa after 1565) - andof Rabat as the seat of thelater Valletta - theseatofthe urbanized harbour area.
On the one side there were the typical classes of an agrarian society, consistingof landowners, a small class of notaries, priests and clerks, and a mass ofpeasants. These had their own ‘cultural traditions’, to which they were strongly
attached. On the other side, there weresettlers,often

inlivedinthe city, cosmopolitan

oftheirown.

thethedirect employment

new town
withdwellers

andotherthe Order, who were ‘alien’,in their orientation and with no ‘ancient culture’

Yet in the Harbour towns social distinctions prevailed, thefundamental difference based on economic affluence.

The property owners andindependent members of the town such as merchants, artisans, shopkeepers andprofessionals spurned those who were subservient or economically dependent byvirtue of being labourers, apprentices and servants.

146❙ Carmel Cassar ❙The

Order cameto represent

a concentration of international capital, which

coupled to an incredible reserve of human resource, made possible a vast
programme of urbanization, successfully carried through, since the Order set footon Malta in 1530. Even so, it is surprising to realize that it was possible toachieve all this on an island with a population-base of merely 30,000 (1590).
The creation of a new urban area around the Grand Harbour had effectively
revolutionized

the human geography of Malta

and the life of its people.

Nevertheless, after 1565 the emergence of Valletta - as the administrative capitalof the Maltese islands – came to dominate and condition Maltese life. Urban
theory recognizes cities to be, not merely dense concentrations of people, but above
all, concentrations of people doing different things, where the urban character
derives more from that variety of activity than it does from sheer numbers.
In reality, to speak of the Harbour area is to speak of a conglomeration offour towns: Valletta was the political and economic capital. In the upper part ofthe city, the Grand Master, the Grand Council and high society lived andexercised their authority. The common people lived mostly in the lower districts.
The ‘Three Cities’ of Vittoriosa (known as Birgu before 1565), Senglea (or Isola)and Cospicua (previously known as Burmola) stood on the south bank of theGrand Harbour. Between them, the four towns had a population of around
10,000, that is, approximately one-third of Malta’s population in 1590.

The‘Three Cities’ eventually came to form part of the popular district, together withlower Valletta with their narrow streets packed with foreigners, merchandize,sailors and slaves.
Valletta dominated the entire economy of Malta. The political influence of theHarbour towns on the countryside, the power of the Grand Master, the highly
concentrated nature of trade, all combined and contributed to the vast developmentof the Harbour area. This growth imposed an order on the area it dominated, andestablished a wealth of administrative and trading connections. By the earlyseventeenth century, the Harbour zone had not only developed into a very busy
area, but it practically handled all Malta’s foreign trade, and had become acultural centre of some value.
The Harbour towns were multifunctional and together they performed roles that
wereessentialfor

thewholesociety.

147Thecreationofanefficientand 2018 지중해지역원 연례학술대회

well-organized bureaucracy was to form the basis for the economic and politicaldependency of the countryside. Thus the more technically efficient the Harbour
towns

became,themorethey

increased

thepotential

dependencyofthecountryside. The virtual monopoly of Valletta, over importation of all commodity
items and exports including that of cotton (the major cash crop) enabled the newcapital, from very early on, to control all the production and redistribution within
the Maltese islands:

it was, above all, the central sorting station.

Whether boundinland or abroad, everything had to filter past through the Valletta harbour.
The Harbour town dwellers were well aware of the influence that the state hadon their daily existence. The intensification of traffic and trade, the new technicalpossibilities of administration, and the economic development of the Harbour area,
are part of the picture of the systematization of authority and the strengthening of
the Grand Master’s political role.

The Urban Culture of Malta
The heavy influx into the new urban areas of foreigners and people from thecountryside, starting from the sixteenth century onwards, altered the ethnic
character of the population of Malta. The newcomers may not have brought adistinctive culture of their own, as the case seems to be. Nevertheless, their
physical preponderance managed to transform the distinctiveness of the Maltese
lifestyle whose cultural patterns are usually associated with an urban life style.
After all, what is essential here are not the internal contrasts of urban culture, but
its different character from peasant approach.
It was common for the early modern middle classes to mingle with the ordinary
folk because of the ever-growing demographic pressures.

Thus, both wealthy

Maltese and the Knights often occupied sumptuous buildings, while the workers
lodged wherever space was available. The ground floor of these imposing edifices
usually contained a stable, stores and a workshop with an entry from the street,sometimes with displays extending into the street itself.
Very often a number of families had to share the same dwelling in order to beable to pay the rent bill. Matrimonial contracts indirectly refer to the shortage ofspace within the Harbour towns.

Thus, whereas it was normal for peasants to148

❙ Carmel Cassar ❙own a normal house, maybe consisting of some rooms at ground floor level, it
was common for poor artisans tolight andair

live in one-room cellars, whose only means of

was the street door.

The mezzanines, constructed above them,were likewise small and ill ventilated.

Except for the houses of the rich, mosttenements in the harbour area could pass as cheap housing. Such an atmospheremade family life difficult, and therefore most of the socialization processes took
place not in the family, but at public levels.
Urban culture did not simply renew or transform earlier cultural practices, butorganized them according to fundamentally new principles based on a ‘market
economy’. Obviously, city life, independent of class attachments, ethnic identity,
and other traditional prejudices, were labelled as ‘alien’ by the indigenous
population right from the very beginning of the Order’s rule.
The immense surge of activities generated both by the foundation of Valletta
and by the Order’s presence - with its manifold interests - made the island oneof the busiest centres of the Mediterranean. It served to create a cosmopolitan
atmosphere that impressed itself on the character of Valletta and helped to enrich
the country especially in the more creative activities. The Order of St. John had
thus managed to establish a ruling system

which seepeddown

thesocial scaleand gave character to the Harbour area.
But

these dominant cultural patterns failed to infiltrate the entire structure ofpeasant society. Philip Skippon, writing in 1664, could visibly distinguish citydwellers from villagers. He sums up the situation, by noting that while most citydwellers speak Italian well, the natives of the countryside speak a kind of Arabic.
The Maltese historian Godfrey Wettinger tends to agree with Skippon’s view. He
argues that,

Gradually the townspeople became largely indistinguishable in outlook from theinhabitants of other towns in southern Europe... In the countryside, however, oldforms of cooking, old musical instruments, much of the old types of houses...
remained very much in use. There they still repeated the same old Maltese
proverbs... worked the land in largely the same old way, hunted... and held
homely festivities.
In practice, however, the Great Tradition certainly influenced village life that149 2018 지중해지역원 연례학술대회went on to absorb and adopt elements of city life in a way to make it its own.
The cosmopolitan character of Valletta helped enrich the island-state, especially inthe more creative activities. The architectural boom spilledfrom

thenew city

into the surrounding countryside and by the early seventeenth century, theparish

churches of larger villages like Birkirkara, as well as, smaller ones like Balzan, Lija,and Attard, could boast of a parish church that was built on a magnificent scale.
Probably the Cathedral Church at Mdina is the best example. Thus, one could saythat urban culture possessed such a great integrating force that it quickly achieved
hegemony. It was able to create a mode of behaviour and a way of life, largely,
acceptable to the whole society.
The political centrality of the city underlined its cultural magnetism. Functioning
as an administrative capital, Valletta broadcasted the fashions and values of theGrand Master’s court. ‘Ideas and styles, fashions, manners, and habits, artists,architects, and Belgian tapestries, were all imported from “trading Europe”, andpaid for by the Order’s accumulating capital’. It attracted litigants to its Law
Courts, and passed on the government’s proclamations to the rest of the island.
In the economic field, the city became the harbinger of modernity with markets
that ‘were as much a meeting place for social intercourse as they were for business
transactions’. Valletta, like any other early modern European capital, was thepowerhouse of cultural change. The dissemination of artistic and cultural influence,
information, and news reached the Maltese countryside. Together with the othertowns of the Harbour area, it monopolized the economic and administrativeresources of the new state.
Thus, a city which was originally conceived as a ‘convent’ and fortified enclave
for the defence against possible Ottoman attack by a monastic military order, wastransformed into a central Mediterranean hub of complex trading networks, intensecommercial activity, and movement of people that resulted in the widest possible
cultural diversity.

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