Suchergebnisse

Nella Malta della prima età moderna, quartier generale dell'Ordine militare-religioso di san Giovanni Battista, gli schiavi musulmani erano, per dirla con le parole di Natalie Zemon Davis, "esseri umani in carne e ossa d'indubbia rilevanza, stabilita in base alle circostanze e alle istanze particolari delle rispettive epoche, i quali talvolta si adeguavano, talvolta opponevano resistenza, talvolta si rassegnavano a subire, talvolta si davano alla fuga, talvolta favorivano cambiamenti e sondavano nuove possibilità." Il presente contributo è incentrato principalmente sugli schiavi musulmani di sesso maschile, esaminando la natura del 'bottino' che le galee dell'Ordine e le navi corsare trascinavano fino alle coste maltesi. Saranno tuttavia presi in considerazione altri esempi, tra cui la condizione delle schiave e dei neofiti di entrambi i sessi. Il mio contributo si prefigge di rispondere a interrogativi, quali che cosa significassero davvero l'odore e il sembiante della schiavitù, o la corporalità degli schiavi e la loro cultura materiale, nonché la mutabilità della loro fede. ; peer-reviewed

Following thirteen years of excavation by the Israel Antiquities Authority, a thousand-year-old structure – once a hospital in Jerusalem – will be open to the public; part of it seems earmarked to serve as a restaurant. In Syria, as the civil war rages on, reports and footage have been emerging of explosions in and around Crac des Chevaliers castle, a UNESCO World Heritage site. During the interwar period (1923–1943), the Italian colonial authorities in the Dodecanese engaged in a wide-ranging series of projects to restore – and in some instances redesign – several buildings on Rhodes, in an attempt to recreate the late medieval/Renaissance lore of the island. ; peer-reviewed

Between 1530 and 1798, the Maltese islands were governed by the Order of St John the Baptist of Jerusalem, Rhodes and Malta. This military-religious organisation was made up of knights from the noble families of Europe who took religious vows; their mission statement was to care for the sick and fight the enemies of Christendom. This theocratic regime established the Magna Curia Castellaniae in September 1533 as a new tribunal, divided into two branches, a civil and a criminal one. ; peer-reviewed

This chapter engages with gender through an analysis of the historiography of chastity, bachelorhood and masculinity in early modern Europe. We begin with an overview of the ideas and practices related to chastity during the Middle Ages and how these were challenged and upheld as a result of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. From there the discussion moves on to consider a range of bachelorhood models that challenge the assumption – generally premised on the study of Protestant communities – that all men across Europe aspired to be patriarchal heads of households. In those parts of Europe where the Catholic Church retained its presence, men had a range of options to choose from in deciding what sort of life they wanted to lead. One such option – particularly for noblemen – was membership in the military-religious Order of St John the Baptist (of Malta). The focus of studies dealing with chastity has been primarily on women, but this was a practice that influenced men as much as women. By looking at the Knights of St John, this study provides comparative material against which the experiences of women that have been analysed in many pioneering studies can now be more broadly understood. As part of the discussion of chastity, bachelorhood and masculinity within the Order of St John, this study draws a comparison between Baldassare Castiglione's Il libro del corteggiano (1528) and Frà Sabba Castiglione's Ricordi ovvero ammaestramenti (1546). Frà Sabba, a Knight of St John, is the lesser-known cousin of the famous Baldassare. Comparing the ideas of these two 16th-century men throws a revealing light on the varieties of manhood in early modern Europe. The overall aim of this chapter is to show how gender was at the heart of diverse male religious identities. It responds to a historiographical need to study gender in military-religious institutions in order to understand how religious and aristocratic/military ideals of masculinity interacted. In this way, the chapter contributes one further piece to the knowledge of social/religious identities and experiences that characterised early modern Europe. ; peer-reviewed

The aim of this article is to provide insight into the lives of children and adolescents who lived on the Maltese archipelago between 1565 and 1632, a period of significant change for both the people of Malta and their overlords, the Knights Hospitaller of St. John the Baptist. In this study, there is an equal concern with "childhood" and "adolescence" as a set of ideas, and with "children" and "adolescents" as people with experiences, for neither has been looked at before. Such a focus reflects current historiographical debates but is also a consequence of the nature of the sources used here, that is, the court records of the Magna Curia Castellaniae (the secular law court) and the Tribunal of the Roman Inquisition. Ideas about young people and their life experiences were forged through a multifarious interaction among gender, age, religion, law, work, and violence.

In a country with a deep-rooted Catholicism such as Malta, cases and stories about the 'misbehaviour' of priests and clerics have always attracted the attention of one and all. One of G. Wettinger's most widely read works is in fact a paper on clerical concubinage between 1420 and 1550, not least because of the on-going debate in Catholic countries as to whether or not Catholic priests should be allowed to marry. In late medieval and sixteenth-century Europe the clerical estate extended far beyond those in priestly orders and contained a vast underbelly of men who were technically clerics, but who in effect lived as laymen. The effect of this was severely to blur the line which in theory separated the clerical estate from the rest of society. In this vein, the unfolding of Joannes Matheo Camilleri's life presents a clear-cut example of those practices which the Tridentine Church would be vigoursly addressing from the second half of the sixteenth century. ; peer-reviewed

In Hospitaller historiography, the Rhodian phase (1306/09-1522) is often discussed in terms of the development of an 'Island Order State' (henceforth IOS),1 that is, the coming together of the international Order of St John and the island of Rhodes (and other Aegean outposts) led to the formation of a unique political structure in late medieval Europe. A key characteristic of this IOS was its dependence on outside sources for its needs, in particular, to replenish its ruling caste of knights who all came from outside Rhodes. On the other hand, the IOS shared many similarities with other polities, in that it had to deal with issues that any state was faced with, ranging from religious affairs to questions related to urban development, defence, and the economy. ; peer-reviewed

1291 was a significant year for the main military orders: uprooted from their foundations in the Holy Land, they took refuge on Cyprus, and in the following years they found themselves vulnerable to those who questioned the validity of their continued existence. The Teutonic Order negated this by successfully transferring their headquarters to mainland Europe, building on a growing involvement in Prussia dating back to 1225. The Knights Templar, however, faced suppression. Meanwhile, the Knights Hospitaller conquest of Rhodes assured both their survival and independence. ; peer-reviewed

The January 2007 front-cover of the popular magazine History Today carried the catchy title 'Keeping Turkey out of Europe' . It was a clever editorial tactic that was meant to play upon its readers' sensibilities with regards to Turkish membership of the European Union, while creating a link with the Great Siege of 1565. This publication is one of the latest in a long chain of such narratives that are inspired by this epic tale of violence, religion and heroism. Identifying the motives that led the Ottomans to besiege Malta is analogous to the analysis of an intricate work of tapestry. It is never easy to undertake the analysis of an event through the eyes of someone else, especially if the 'Other' is essentially different from you. To look at the Siege of 1565 from the Ottomans' point of view, and to gain an understanding of their motives, is an exercise in jumping the fence. One has to try to move beyond the categories of 'Maltese', 'Christian' and 'victors' (which ideas are ingrained in practically every Maltese from the most tender age), to the state of mind of' Ottoman', 'Muslim', and 'the vanquished'. An understanding of Hospitaller Malta is intimately tied to an understanding of the Ottoman Empire, its sworn enemy, and its reason for existence, at one and the same time. Finally, this is made more difficult by the fact that Ottoman archives have not been open to researchers for quite a long time and even now there is a whole set of logistical problems, especially the archaic language of the documents, which even modem Turkish researchers find difficult. ; peer-reviewed