The National Library in Valletta houses an extraordinary collection of huge manuscript volumes, in themselves a detailed everyday chronicle of the life of the Order of St John of Jerusalem, popularly known as the Order of Malta. They contain brief minutes of the deliberations of the Council of the Knights, written mostly in Latin by professional scribes, generally in neat and legible handwriting over the pages of parchment-bound volumes. The collection goes by its technical term: the Libri Conciliarum.

In them, the clerk recorded succinctly everything that was debated and deliberated. The council, made up of the Grand Master sitting with the elders, dealt with the governance of the Order: administration, promotions, property, discipline, security, organisation, finance, intelligence, foreign affairs. And, flouting today’s dogmas on the separation of powers, it also administered criminal justice against knights charged with crimes. The council met regularly, sometimes daily, facing a varying schedule of work: with just one or many items on the agenda (the major pause being during the Great Siege, when the knights were too busy killing and being killed on the bastions).

A Maltese courtesan in 1577, from Nicolo de Nicolai.

The council had very little to do with the government of Malta and the Maltese. The Grand Master wore two very distinct hats: one as head of the Order of St John, the other as Prince of Malta. The first function fell squarely, and quite democratically, upon the council; the second remained his sovereign prerogative, which he exercised through his Uditori, his officials and his judges, very often Maltese. As a result, the minutes of the council very rarely have mentions of Maltese inhabitants, and then only when these had some marginal connections with the Order or its members.

The last place to look for information about the affairs of the indigenous population is therefore in the books of the council. But they do sometimes leak some data. Seeing the dearth of sources addressing the native population in the cinquecento, I thought it worthwhile trawling for what ‘Maltese’ information could be hidden in those huge masses of ‘alien’ writings during the first 50 years of the Order’s rule: 1530 to 1580.

Are Maltese women mentioned at all? Yes. But this is worth clarifying before proceeding. While each knight is recorded with their full name, surname and rank, outsiders are usually, though not always, referred to generically, as if their identity mattered little: a female, a Maltese woman, the wife, or daughter of X. Sometimes, my classifying the woman referred to as Maltese was a hazardous guess based mostly on probabilities. In criminal cases where knights meddled with women of easy virtue and difficult temper, it is fair to assume they were Maltese. The harbour areas hosted inordinate hordes of women engaged in prostitution, the majority Maltese, but not excluding some choice imports too.

The hall in the Palace, Valletta, where the Grand Council of the Order met and deliberated. Photo: Marie-Lan Nguyen, Wikimedia

Several mentions refer to criminal acts that some lustful or vengeful knights committed against women. These prove quite common. Actually, they start off with a bang. The volumes record many cases of domestic violence, but the very first one I have come across refers to a sad case of femicide.

In 1536, the council expelled from the Order, in absentia, the British knight Sir Christopher Myres for murdering “in the most vile and miserable manner” in his bedroom a prostitute fere fatuam, (retarded, a simpleton), who had for some time been his regular bit on the side. He escaped from Malta before he could be apprehended

In 1546, Fra Domenic Bac, for having commissioned the wounding of Annuccia, was sentenced to one year of detention in the tower and to pay her 20 scudi, or 40 florins, compensation for the expenses she had to incur.

Three years later, the council condemned Fra Giacomo Filippo Minighi, a thoroughly unsavoury brute, to remain three years in the Gozo underground guva for bursting into the home of a woman, trying to rape her violently and having his servant wound another woman in the face with a stone, a just punishment for interfering.

Sir Oswald Massingberd, an uncouth, villainous lout, often found himself on the wrong side of the law. Entering uninvited in the home of the Mdina nobleman Paolo Fiteni in 1552, he abducted with violence a maid and her daughter, wounding Fiteni, who resisted. The council ordered him to return the captives immediately, and to stay under strict house arrest for two months. The records then mention Constantia Venturina, who suffered violence at the hands of Fra Adrien de Lugny and Fra Claude Constant – for which pleasantries the council condemned them to several punishments.

Fra Opitio Guidotti, Maltese prostitute and her slave, c. 1600.

Shortly later, Fra Giovanni de la Porta was buried alive in the guva for a year, fed bread and water twice a week, for having ‘outraged’ the wife of Pietro ‘Clarini’. That could be a surname or mean ‘the trumpet player’. Besides other courtesies, he hurled stones at her door and windows.

Another entry in the minutes refers to an investigation ordered by the council into the “abduction of married women”. The Libri disclose no further details, but this could refer to the following:

Geronima Olivier, wife of Agostino Callette made news by eloping from Malta with Fra Charles Fleury, called Carogue. The council condemned the adulterer to one year’s confinement in the tower, and the two friends who had aided and abetted the prurient escape, to keep him company for two months.

A serious case was the wounding of Isabella Calli, or Cali. In 1556, the council condemned the turbulent Italian knight Fra Torquato Torto (sometimes Totto) to one year in the underground guva for this crime. Isabella may have been the daughter of the judge Giovanni Calli or Cali.

The harbour areas hosted inordinate hordes of women engaged in prostitution, the majority Maltese

This was not the end of the story. The following year, Isabella had to report Torto a second time to the council, which punished him with the quarantena, 40 days physical and religious discipline, with a warning not to enter her house again or attempt “to have carnal commerce with her”. It did not do him much good. Shortly later, Torto was expelled from the Order for murdering Fra Agostino Doria. Grand Master Jean de Valette pardoned and readmitted him in 1560, satisfied of his genuine repentance.

The next entry does not refer to a crime committed against a woman. In 1572, the council condemned Fra Alexander Vagnon to one year’s detention in the underground guva, for giving shelter and hiding Antonia Cardinale, a robber. Cardinale, wife of Giovanni Rivera, features in the minutes as the downfall of yet another knight, Fra Costanzo Vivaldi from Mondovi. The council found him guilty of adultery with her, and of other crimes, expelled him from the Order and locked him up in the tower for a year.

Part of the large collection of Libri Conciliarum in which information about Maltese women is contained. Courtesy of the National Library

Speranza de Molino must have angered Fra Petrus Dionis considerably. In 1575, he broke down her door and beat her up violently, but not before sharing her bed. A barely amused council expelled him from the Order a few days later. An unclear incident followed in 1577. The council appointed a commission to enquire about Aloisia, alleged to have organised the theft from the Carmelite church in Valletta of some benches belonging to Angelina, and then reducing them to splinters. The contents are clear. Why the matter ended up before the council is anything but.

The next entry ushers in more drama. In 1579, the council hauled Fra Filiberto Avogadro from Vercelli before it to defend himself against the charge of having wounded Prudenzia Caloiro (Coleiro) with a sword through her neck and hands “with great shedding of blood” after having been intimate with her. He was first defrocked (the first step before handing a former knight to the ordinary criminal court). But later, the council reduced the punishment to two years’ detention in the guva, and the forfeiture of all seniority.

Avogadro must have enjoyed his stay in the dank underground. On his release, he took part in a tumultum (an extended and seditious brawl) with other knights against his superior Fra Paolo Pietraviva in the Auberge d’Italie, and earned another two years in the underground quarters for his pains.

There is one of the earliest mentions of firearms used by a randy knight was in 1580. Fra Domingo Lopez de Ballestreros spent the night with Paola D’Andria at her home. A neighbour, Claudio, disturbed them, and Ballestreros discharged his firearm at him, “to the great scandal of the whole city”. The scribe did not find the right words to describe the new-fangled offensive weapon, and resorted to a long circumlocution: e manuballista ignifera plumbean glandean laxavit (he released a lead acorn from a catapult that produced fire). At first, the council expelled the felon from the Order, but shortly later Grand Master Jean de la Cassière resorted to his prerogative of mercy to change the penalty to two years’ detention in the tower and loss of seniority of service.

The last victim, on the 50th anniversary of the Knights’ settling in Malta, was Giasmina Calleja, whom six knights assaulted in 1580. The heroes stoned her house fearlessly at night, shattering her door and her windows. They then beat Giasmina so savagely that she ended soaked in blood. The council must have thought they had good reason to, as the elders only punished them with loss of three years’ seniority.

Though the books of the council often mention women in connection with prurient matters, this is not always the case. One comes across humane touches too, like when the elders voted a monthly pension in favour of Agatha Marmarà, widow of Antonio. Similarly, in 1577, the Treasury awarded the widow Perina Bonaventura a life annuity, payable monthly, in recognition of the services rendered to the Order by her late husband, Notary Vincenzo Bonaventura.

Just before the Great Siege, Marietta Falsone, known as la trippera, together with Pedro Alvarez de Aňaia, had won a court case. The council considered that judgment had prejudiced the German Langue, and, on appeal, revoked it. In other litigation before the elders, Catherina ‘Bedoja’ sued Fra Hieronimo D’Homedes for a claim of 400 scudi. The council appointed a commission to enquire and report, and eventually issued a warrant of enforcement against D’Homedes.

The Maltese nobility of Mdina occasionally features in the deliberations of the council. In 1568, Francesca Inguanez and her husband, (her cousin the Magnifico Giuseppe de Nava, married 1541) had pledged a ground rent of 80 scudi to the Treasury and this had been allotted to Fra Raimondo Fortuin. The council later authorised Fortuin to donate this income to Fra Giovanni Ottone Torrellas.

This is not meant as a sociological study; the data are too meagre to draw any far-ranging conclusions. But it does offer a glimpse into the ways of life in Malta in the cinquecento, just before and after the Great Siege – and how Maltese women may have participated in it.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Joseph Anthony Debono and Maroma Camilleri for their assistance.