A
MALTESE GOOD NIGHT
Once upon a time, there were knights. Real knights. They jousted and jested and were hunters and were hunted. Some gave up their homelands so they could create a new society with like-minded men from all over Europe. They lived in a city designed by fellow knights, in palaces that glittered with gold and shone with silver. They fought, and loved, and prayed. And when they died, they were buried in the most beautiful church imaginable, built in the heart of their city, a city named for their Grand Master.
And that church is still there, in Valletta, Malta.
The Order of the Knights Hospitaller of St. John's of Jerusalem oozes myth and mystery. The Order was born during the crusades, as a medical order of friars to tend to the health of pilgrims. Soon it became clear that, given the fact they were in essentially a war zone, a military component was needed as well. The friars were joined by knights.
When Jerusalem fell to the Muslims in 1187, the Knights Hospitallers moved their hospitals first to Margat and then Acre (where they bickered with another great order, the Knights Templar). When Acre fell, they tried Cyprus. Not happy there, they managed to conquer Rhodes. When the Templars were dissolved by the Pope, the Hospitallers finagled some of their treasure.
It was a good period. The Order grew rich and fat and became known as the Knights of Rhodes. But they were still knights, and they still tended the sick and fought periodic battles with the Muslims.
In 1522, the Knights lost Rhodes to that great military leader, the sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Suleiman the Magnificent. For years, they wandered homeless, no country wanting them in case the Suleiman would fulfill his promise and hunt them down and finish the job.
Finally, in 1530, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V gave the Knights Malta, a dusty, dry island in the middle of the Mediterranean. The Knights were not thrilled. They did not speak the language, there were no forests for hunting, and no rivers for fishing. But the rent was right, one Maltese falcon a year. And they did not have a lot of other options.
The Knights moved to Malta and immediately set to work fortifying the island, preparing for the battle they were sure would come.
Meanwhile, other forces in Europe were slowly eating away at the Order from within. To be a knight, you had to prove four generations of aristocracy. Only men from the best families were taken. Those chosen would then come to Malta and join one of the eight 'Langue' houses (I.e., Provence, Auvergne, Aragon/Catalunya/Navarre, Leon/Portugal/Castil, Germany, etc...) that formed the proto-European Union that was the Knights of Malta.
As Protestantism swept Europe, it took many of the great families with it. The Langue of England, for example, all but ceased to exist once Henry VIII had his little spat with Rome. The Knights struggled on.
Finally, in 1565, Suleiman attacked again, not only did he want to wipe out the Knights, he wanted Malta as a base from which to attack the rest of Southern Europe. The Knights were vastly outnumbered.
The bloody battle thrashed the island for four months. At the end of it all, the Knights and the Maltese managed to fend off the besiegers. It was a turning point for the Knights. They came to love their dusty little island and set about making it into a jewel of pan-European culture.
While they built defensive walls and planned their new capital with military defenses in mind, they also planted forests so they could hunt and built churches so they could pray.
The best materials, engineers, artists and architects were brought to their new renaissance fortress city, Valletta (named for Grand Master Jean de la Valette who led the Knights to victory in the Great Siege). Together they created a place described by Sir Walter Scott as a "city built by gentlemen for gentlemen".
Steps leading to churches were wide and shallow, so men in armour could navigate them with ease. Italian marble was imported by the boat load. Grand palaces with austere exteriors and resplendent interiors spring up all over the city.
And then the Knights began construction on their gift to their religion, St. John's Cathedral. The result is one of the world's most fabulous buildings, every inner centimeter covered by carvings and paintings rich in chivalric imagery.
The floor is composed of 375 intricately inlaid marble tombstones, each commemorating a knight from one of the great families of Europe. The tombs of the Grand masters themselves are massive works of Baroque art. Caravaggio himself painted the beheading of St. John. The whole is a clatter of colours of knightly life tinged with the somber undertones of devotion.
Each Langue has its own chapel off the main nave. The poor post-Henry English Langue are relegated to an end chapel which, not only did they have to share with the Bavarians, but the altarpiece is called the "Scourge of Christ".
The Knights ruled Malta long after their great enemy, the Ottoman Empire waned and fell. They continued to run hospitals but without a reason to sharpen their sword, they grew dull and bloated.
When Napoleon passed by in 1798 on his way to Egypt, he sniffed the stench of decay and seized his chance. Napoleon took Malta without firing a single shot. 268 years of rule by the Knights was over. Once again, they went into exile.
Incredibly, they are still around. And of all the orders to come out of the crusades (with the exception of the masons), the Knights Hospitallers are undoubtedly the most successful. Their titular headquarters are in Rome. Current heads of the order include several European princes as well as Queen Elizabeth II.
One branch, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, has permanent observer status at the U.N., an honour otherwise only granted only to the Red Cross and the Red Crescent. Some countries even consider the Order and independent country, in spite of the fact, it has no territory. Which has not stopped them from issuing their own passports and stamps.As for their medical branch, it is still around. And chances are you may have heard of it. Every time I see a St. John's Ambulance, I am brought back to that once-upon-a-time, dusty, little island in the middle of the Mediterranean, where knights sleep forever under a beautiful, cool, marble floor.
