Petitions by women in Hospitaller times

Until quite recently, history has been consistently shameless in recording the subordinate role women played in shaping ‘big’ events. The decision-makers who established or changed the destinies of humanity more often than not bore male signatures. But when the emphasis shifts from grand design to the nitty-gritties of existence, a robust, vibrant female presence asserted itself, even in more ancient annals.

Evidence of this abounds in the records of Malta’s Hospitaller governance – the almost total absence of women in macro-history, their distinct profile in micro-history. The law itself explicitly enforced this flawless subservience.

Up to as late as the radical 1993 reforms, a husband ‘ruled’ over the family, and a married woman needed both the ‘consent’ and the ‘assistance’ of her husband for any meaningful act.

Government bureaucracy in Hospitaller Malta started saving the people’s petitions to the ruler in 1603 and binding them together after 1620. By the time Napoleon expelled the Order from the island in 1798, 17 huge volumes housed thousands of these suppliche. They are treasure troves that have hardly been studied yet.

Did women ever submit petitions to the monarch? Men represented the bulk of suppliants, but some women occasionally made their voice heard too – mostly widows. For their voice to be audible, their husbands had to be dead.

I homed randomly to find out what drove women to take the initiative in the early settecento to beg largesse or justice off the prince.

Most petitions deal with private grievances, personal problems, mundane subjects that rarely echoed beyond domestic walls. Notwithstanding their modest nature, their content equally serves to throw light on social realities and furnish valuable data to the anthropologist.

As they are all handwritten, not always quite legibly, I apologise for any misreading. All were addressed to Grand Master Ramon Rabasa de Perellós y Rocafull, as Prince of Malta.

She pleaded to be assigned the pension that had been promised her, so that the wife of a good servant of the Order would not perish through famine

Lorenza, widow of the capomastro Giovanni Borg, in June 1700 tells the prince that her husband, after serving the Order for 32 years, first as bombardier and later as capomastro (foreman) of the Galera Capitana, had died in the recent shipwreck, leaving her “in the most destitute state, and utmost poverty” with seven minor children, three boys and four girls lacking any resources.

She noted that one beneficiary of “the large loaf” (pan grande), Anna Polladi (?) had recently died and Lorenza petitioned Perellós for this loaf be assigned to her out of his “benignity, clemency, piety and charity” to relieve the extreme necessities of herself and her children.

Borg was almost certainly referring to the February 15, 1700, disaster, when the Order’s fleet, under Captain-General Giovanni Battista Spinola engaged two Ottoman vessels in Sicilian Correnti waters. In ramming the enemy vessel, Spinola’s capitana fractured and foundered, with considerable loss of life.

The grand master’s auditor, A. Peralta, favoured granting this request. Was this Dr Agostino Peralta, JUD, love child of the knight Fra Clemente Altieri, a nephew of Pope Clement X?

Shortly later, the 26-year-old Eugenia Maria Ricci brought to the notice of Perellós that her father, Gio Domenico, had died, leaving her motherless, chronically ill, and unable to work for her living and no prospects of an income.

Her family had always served the Order dutifully: her mother’s father died shedding his blood as a soldier boarding a Turkish vessel; her paternal grandfather served as clerk of the Treasury for over 23 years, and her father formed part of the commission that defended the interests of the knights of the Order in overseas litigation, risking his life, almost perishing in Catania during the apocalyptic January 1693 earthquake that destroyed the city and killed an estimated 90,000 inhabitants.

Eugenia Maria had applied for the charity of the large loaf, usually given in such deserving cases. She was informed that the list was full up but was reassured that she would be the next recipient. As one had just died, she pleaded for her pan grande.

Almost simultaneously, Angela di Bella, widow of Antonino who had died two years previously, leaving a daughter and two sons orphaned, filed her petition. She had assigned a marriage dowry of 400 scudi to her daughter. Her son Gasparre enjoyed a legitim of 200 scudi. Her elder son Domenico had taken on his father’s business and the equipment of his shop (stiglio della bottega). She asked to be authorised to receive one-third of the profits, to relieve the indigence she found herself in.

She had left Malta with her husband and settled in Terranova. After a while, her husband died and she now wished to return. She petitioned to be allowed to do so

The widow of Matteo Adriano, Antonia, told Perellós how her husband had served the galleys of the Order from a very minor age, and had been rewarded, for his labour and dedicated attention, with various promotions, including that of sea pilot during the last four years before he passed. When he died, leaving his widow and three children with no means of support, she received the charity of one-and-a-half tumulo of wheat, and was promised four scudi a month as a pension as soon as a vacancy occurred.

Years had passed and she had not been informed of any vacancy. Now, having secured an honest future (onesto stato) to her children, she found herself entirely destitute. She pleaded to be assigned the pension (piazza morta) that had been promised her, so that the wife of a good servant of the Order would not perish through famine.

A family group, including women, filed the next petition in 1703. Attilia Rosella, Caterina la Roccia, (illegible) Pallaio and Gioacchino Rosella, her son, recalled that they had been responsible for the personal laundry (lavandari) of the grand masters for the past 45 years since the time of Clermont Gessan in 1660, and were still performing that service.

They had been granted the use of the tunnel under Fort St Michael, Senglea, but had neglected to register (insinuare) the relative decree and had mislaid the original document. They pleaded that their rights over the tunnel during their lifetime be confirmed.

Anna Zammit had a similar cheerless story in 1703. Her husband, the late Pietro, had served for 20 years on the “glorious squadron” of the Order, first as fusilier, and later as fusilier corporal, being always the first to leap ashore during the landings from the galleys in their annual sorties in the Levant.

Pietro died during the last visit of the galleys to Civitavecchia, a principal port of the papal states, leaving Anna burdened with five children, three of whom were unmarried girls and minors, without any means of honest survival. She pleaded for a piazza morta or other charity, to see her through her misery and not perish through famine.

Two years later the daughter of a dead surgeon on the galleys, Anna Maria Vella, confides in Perellós that she is in no position to pay the rent of her residence. Some rooms had recently been built in Fort St Elmo. Considering the various services rendered to the Order by her father and by nine of her uncles, who had all died working for the Knights, and that she had never received any grants, she pleaded to be allowed to occupy one of those rooms during her lifetime.

That same year, Maria, wife of Giacchino Alard, her daughter Polissena, Chiara, widow Grech, and her daughter Anna Maria, wife of Matteo Ghejdun, filed an unusual supplika. They had often left Malta with their husbands with the permission of the prince who had also decreed that they would be allowed to return to Malta.

But, during the sea crossing they had been despoiled of their belongings by the Flisinghesi (?) and the decree that allowed them to return had been lost. Would the prince allow them back in their native land?

Rather similar is the 1711 petition by Catherinuzza Borg. She had left Malta with her husband Domenico and settled in Terranova (where? Many cities are named Terranova). After living there for a while, her husband died and she now wished to return to Malta. She petitioned to be allowed to do so.

Catherina, widow of Agostino Navarro, faced a different problem in 1713. She had two unmarried daughters. The eldest one, Theodora, had got engaged to be married to the foreigner Antonio Martino without any obligation of receiving a marriage dowry. For several months he lived with the Navarros, and they took care of him when he was ill as had nowhere else to live.

Antonio then left Malta for three years and presently resided in Reggio Calabria. He now wished to return to Malta to marry Theodora without a dowry “and return her honour to her”. But he could only do this with the Perellós’s permission.

Acknowledgement

My thanks to Jeremy Debono at the National Library.