The earliest portulan of the Mediterranean, the 1296 Chompasso de Navegare, makes a number of references to Malta. I had studied these in my article published 33 years ago in the academic journal Al Masaq.
This short 1296 description contains 13 references to Maltese place names or landmarks in the following lines:
1. Malta; 2. Castello; 4. Comino; 5. Gozo; 10. una chiegia che à nome Sancta Maria; 11. Gala de Comino; 13. Gala de Sancta Maria de Comino; 14. Milliaro; 18. LoPevere; 22. Marsa siloco; 25. Gala ludea; 27. Marsa Mosecto; 27. una isolecta.
Transposed into lay and contemporary Maltese language, these landmarks correspond to 1. Malta; 2. St Angelo Castle; 4. Comino; 5. Gozo; 10. Santa Marija church in Comino; 11. the Comino Qala; 13. The Santa Marija Qala in Comino; 14. Mġarr; 18. Filfla; 22. Marsaxlokk; 25. The Qala of the Jews (part of Grand Harbour); 27. Marsamxett; 27. Manoel Island.
Basically, in 1296, the only landmarks with a religious connection identified by the author of the Chompasso de Navegare were the Santa Marija chapel on Comino and the Santa Marija Bay, also in Comino. Not even one place with a religious connection was identified in either Gozo or Malta.
The situation changes at the end of the 15th century with the 1490 Chompasso de tuta la starea della marina. This portulan, which I also studied in the aforementioned Al Masaq article, comes up with a number of landmarks that are linked to religious and saintly figures.
In fact, the Chompasso gives us an approximate idea of the extent and quality of religious devotion in the Maltese islands, since certain churches are pointed out as important landmarks for navigators.
Going by the churches mentioned in this portulan, Marian devotion seems to have been at its best in the minor islands of the archipelago, with two churches devoted to Sancta Maria in Gozo (one in the neighbourhood of Marsalforn and the other between Mġarr and Cavo de Murtela) and another one in Comino.
Pauline tradition seemed to be quite widespread too, with a gliexia de San Polo in St Paul’s Bay, Malta, and another one situated to the east of Marsalforn, in Gozo.
The other two churches listed, i.e. the gliexia de San Lorenzo, “che è fuora del Bolgo” and the gliexia de San Ziorzi, which is in between the “ponta de Farchon” and “Marsachibir”, are to be found in the harbour area, respectively in Vittoriosa and Qormi.
So, where do Żejtun and Xewkija fit into all this? What was their status in early 15th century?
The veneration of St Catherine of Alexandria, in Żejtun, was already recorded in the year 1436. In this year, the bishop Senatore de Mello drew up an inventory of church benefices in Malta and Gozo. In the course of this exercise, De Mello identified a list of 10 existing parishes in our archipelago, which included those of Naxxar, Birkirkara, Qormi, Gudja, Żebbuġ, Siġġiewi, Żejtun, Żurrieq, Dingli and Mellieħa.
According to the website Aleteia.org, “the original [Żejtun] chapel, small and primitive, used to serve as the first parish of the hamlet of Bisqallin, situated in the south-east of present-day Żejtun, which was the farthest parish from Mdina. The chapel functioned until 1492, when it was rebuilt on a larger scale”.
A specific litany was worked out in order to invoke the appearance of such places on the horizon when the ships were lost at sea
Indeed, according to Perit Reuben Abela, it appears that the veneration of St Catherine of Alexandria in Malta was introduced through the Basilian Friars in the 12th century and the oldest churches dedicated to her that we know of are the old church of Santa Catarina in Żejtun and the church of Santa Catarina tal-Baqqari, in Żurrieq, both of which owe their origins to the 12th or 13th century.
On the other hand, in 1436, De Mello makes no mention at all of a church in Xewkija dedicated to St John the Baptist. However, when Apostolic Visitor Pietro Dusina visited Malta in 1575, he did recommend the demolition of an existing chapel in Xewkija, because of the state of neglect it was in.
According to Wikipedia, the first documentation that refers to the St John the Baptist cult in Xewkija goes back to 1582. According to this documentation, at that time there was a chapel or church in this town, which happens to be the oldest Gozitan parish outside Rabat, dedicated to St John the Baptist.
The site gozochurches.com states that “Xewkija [...] became the first parish outside the town of the island of Gozo on 27 November, 1678. It was Bishop Michael Molina who, after visiting the hamlet during a pastoral visit, decided the large community living around an old chapel of St John the Baptist, deserved better pastoral care”.
In 2004, Michele Bacci published the hitherto unknown c.1470 Portolano Sacro, in the article entitled ‘Portolano sacro. Santuari e immagini sacre lungo le rotte di navigazione del Mediterraneo tra tardo Medioevo e prima età moderna’.
According to the Swiss Open Access Repository: “This paper investigates a hitherto neglected aspect of late medieval devotion, which was connected with the peculiar expressions of piety of the sea people. The coastlines of the late medieval Mediterranean were dotted with a large number of shrines which corresponded to safe places and repair areas along the navigation routes.
A specific litany was worked out in order to invoke the appearance of such places on the horizon when the ships were lost at sea. The reconstruction and publication of such a list allows us herewith to understand this very articulated, transnational and transconfessional cultic topography.”
Basically, this 15th-century religious litany lists more than 150 places scattered all over the Mediterranean coast, which are linked to the devotion of specific Christian religious figures, to whom endangered mariners entrusted their lives in moments of peril. This list includes two references to saints in our country.
The first one is ‘Santa Caterina di Malta’, which is a clear reference to the Żejtun St Catherine cult which, as already witnessed, had already deeply embedded its roots in Maltese medieval religious tradition.
The second one presents the Maltese reader with a pleasant surprise since it is tied to ‘San Giovanni del Ghozo’, a clear reference to the cult of St John the Baptist, in Gozo. This citation confirms that, already in 1470, the devotion towards St John in Gozo was already so well rooted that mariners from all over the Mediterranean would invoke the help of this ‘Gozitan’ saint whenever they found themselves in difficulty off the isle of Calypso.
More importantly, this citation in this 15th-century manuscript, which is to be found at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, in Florence, should provide food for thought to Maltese scholars investigating religious traditions in our country, since they could now probably backdate the cult of St John the Baptist in Xewkija from the hitherto known year of 1582 to over a century earlier, in 1470.
Arnold Cassola, academic and politician, is chairperson of Momentum.