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APPENDIX I
SOVEREIGNTY OF THE ORDER
There can be no doubt whatever that, after 1530, the Order was no longer independent and sovereign, and that L'Isle Adam, despite all his efforts, had become a feudatory, though the service demanded was very slight. The Act of Donation of Malta put them definitely into the position of feudal vassals of Charles V. as King of the two Sicilies. This is plain to everyone who examines the Charter itself (Vertot, III., p. 494, or Codice Diplomatico, II., p. 194). The tenure on which the Knights held the island from the King of the Sicilies may be classed as a form of serjeanty--the annual payment of a falcon being the only feudal service demanded. There were other conditions in the Charter concerning the Bishop of Malta and the Grand Admiral of the Order, but they were not strictly feudal. The chroniclers of the Order were naturally reluctant to admit this, and as the feudal tie was very weak, they glossed it over. But the Sovereign of the island, strictly speaking, was the King of the two Sicilies, and the Knights were never more than tenants. When the Order had been expelled by Napoleon we can see this universally admitted. While the fate of the island was in doubt--that is, before the preliminary peace between England and France in 1801--both natives and English regarded the King of Naples as lord of the island (Hardman, 111, 142. Foreign Office Records, Sicily, 11). When the Maltese wanted to be put under the protection of England, either temporarily or, later, permanently (Hardman, 185, 193, 204), they applied to the King of the Sicilies, as their lawful Sovereign, to grant their request. Events soon made Malta a question of great importance in the relations between France and England, and the renewal of war, in 1803, left Great Britain in _de facto_ possession of the island, until the treaty of May 30, 1814, gave England full right and sovereignty over Malta.
APPENDIX II
CONNECTION BETWEEN KNIGHTS OF MALTA AND THE MODERN ORDER OF ST. JOHN
During the Napoleonic wars the surviving Knights were too scattered and too helpless to be able to improve their condition. But from 1815 onwards we find various attempts of the Order to obtain from Europe another _chef-lieu_, and representatives of the Knights at the Congress of Vienna (1815) and at the Congress of Verona (1822) tried in vain to persuade the Allies to grant them an island. The French Knights were by far the largest and most powerful section of the Order, and in 1814 they had established a capitular commission in which they vested plenary powers to treat on their behalf. During the various negotiations for a _chef-lieu_ the question of reviving the English langue was started, and the French Commission entered into communication with the Rev. Sir Robert Peat, Chaplain to King George IV., and other distinguished Englishmen. The outcome was the reconstitution of the English langue on January 24, 1831, with Sir Robert Peat as Grand Prior. The English branch of the Order of St. John has devoted itself for the last ninety years to the succour of the sick and wounded, setting up cottage and convalescent hospitals, aiding the sick in other hospitals, and establishing ambulance litters in dangerous industrial centres, such as coal-mines and railway-stations, which at last developed into the St. John Ambulance Association, which rendered such magnificent service during the Great War. The German branch of the Order was the first to start ambulance work in the field in the Seven Weeks' War of 1866, work which was continued in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Since that date the mitigation of the sufferings of war has been a conspicuous part of the work of the Order of St. John, and nowhere has the Order's magnificent spirit of international comradeship been more fully displayed.
BOOKS CONSULTED
PRIMARY AUTHORITIES
Statuta Ordinis Domus Hospitalis Hierusalem. Edited by Fr. Didacus Rodriguez. Rome. 1556. Statuti della religione de Cavalieri Gierosolimitani. Florence. 1567. Statuta Hospitalis Hierusalem. Rome. 1588. Collection of Statutes in Volume IV. of Vertot's Histoire de Chevaliers de Malte. Paris. 1726. [As there was no Chapter-General between 1631 and 1776, all the above collections are practically complete, Vertot's containing little more than the others.] Codice Diplomatico del sacro militare ordine Gierosolimitano oggi di Malta. Fr. Sebastiano Pauli. Lucca. 1737. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic. 1523-1547. Calendar of State Papers. (Foreign.) 1547-1585. Calendar of State Papers. (Venetian.) Calendar of State Papers. (Spanish.) Les Archives de S. Jean de Jerusalem a Malte. Delaville Le Roulx. Paris. 1883. Report of Philip de Thame. Grand Prior of England. 1338. Camden Society. Volume LXV. 1857. Armoury of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem at Malta. Edited by G.F. Laking. London. 1903. Carta y verdadera relacion escrita por il eminentissimo Senor Gran Maestre al Commendador Fr. Don Joseph Vidal. 1669. E Tanner. Notitia Monastica. Ed. James Nasmith. Cambridge. 1787. Malte. Par un Voyageur francais. Anonymous. 1791. Le Monete e Medaglie del S. Ordine Gierosolimitano. C. Taggiasco. Camerino. 1883. Relation du Voyage et Description exacte de Malte. Paris. 1779. Malta illustrata. Giovanni Abela. Malta. 1772-1780. 2 Volumes. Liste de Chevaliers des Langues de Provence, Auvergne et France. Malta. 1772.
SECONDARY AUTHORITIES
GIACOMO BOSIO: Dell' Istoria della sacra religione et ill'ma Militia di San Giovanni Gierosolimitano. Rome. 1594. 2 volumes. ABBE DE VERTOT: Histoire des Chevaliers de Malte. Paris. 1726. 4 volumes. CHEVALIER DE BOISGELIN: Malta Ancient and Modern. English edition. 2 volumes. 1804. PRESCOTT: Life of Philip II. Volume II. MAJOR-GENERAL PORTER: History of the Knights of Malta. Revised edition. 1 volume. London. 1883. DE GOUSSANCOURT: Le Martyrologe des Chevaliers de S. Jean de Hierusalem. Paris. 1643. ANONYMOUS: Memoire de' Gran Maestri del sacro militare ordine Gierosolimitano. Parma. 1780. L. HERITTE: Essai sur l'Ordre des Hospitaliers de S. Jean de Jerusalem. Paris. 1912. HARDMAN: History of Malta, 1798-1815. Edited by J. Holland Rose. London. 1909. REV. W.K.R. BEDFORD: Malta and the Knights Hospitallers. London. 1894. REV. W.K.R. BEDFORD: The Hospital at Malta. Edinburgh. 1882. J. TAAFE: History of the Order of S. John. 4 volumes. London. 1852. A.T. DRANE: History of the Order of St. John. London. 1881. MIEGE: Histoire de Malte. 3 volumes. Paris. 1846. M.M. BALLOU: Story of Malta. Boston and New York. 1893. REV. W.K.R. BEDFORD AND R. HOLBECHE: Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem. London. 1902. ADMIRAL JURIEN DE LA GRAVIERE: (1) Les Chevaliers de Malte et la Marine de Philippe II. Paris. 1887. (2) Les Corsaires barbaresques et la Marine de Solyman le Grand. Paris. 1884. (3) Les Marins du XV'e et XVI'e siecles. Paris. 1879. (4) Les derniers Jours de la Marine a Rames. Paris. 1885. COMMANDER E.H. CURREY: Sea Wolves of the Mediterranean. London. 1913. SIR JULIAN CORBETT: England in the Mediterranean, 1603-1713. 2 volumes. London. 1904. S. LANE-POOLE: Barbary Corsairs. (Stories of the Nations.) 1886. E. DRIAULT: La Question d'Orient. Paris. 1898. J.A.R. MARRIOT: The Eastern Question. Oxford. 1917. G. VIULLIER: Le Tour du Monde. Malte et les Maltais. P.J.O. DOUBLET: L'lnvasion et I'Occupation de Malte. Paris. 1883. C.T.E. DE TOULGOET: Les Responsabilites de la Capitulation de Malte en 1798. (Revue des Questions Historiques. 1900.) DE LA JONQUIERE: L'Expedition d'Egypte. Paris. 1901.
NOTE ON THE AUTHORITIES
For the Statutes of the Order we possess the Italian edition of 1567, two Latin editions of 1556 and 1588, and the collection at the end of Vertot's fourth volume, which is later and more complete. The Codice Diplomatico of Fr. Pauli is the only collection of Charters to my knowledge which covers practically the whole history of the Order: the magnificent Cartulaire of Delaville Le Roulx only covers the Syrian period in the Knights' history. Many valuable hints can be found in the Calendars of State Papers issued by the Record Office, but they fail us at the beginning of the seventeenth century.
Of the various historians above mentioned, Bosio, for the period he covers, is by far the best and completest. Vertot only goes down to 1565: after the siege he treats the subject in a bare annalistic form. Boisgelin, who was a Knight himself and wrote his history after his expulsion from Malta, is valuable for his elaborate excursus on the financial system of the Order. All three--who are our completest authorities--wrote from the point of view of the Order, and consequently are very unreliable in some matters. The treatment that the Maltese received from the Order is very inadequately dealt with, and none of them can seriously estimate the Mediterranean background to the history of the Knights, and especially their relations with the Barbary pirates. General Porter, whose history is the only English one at all worthy of mention, possesses the same faults. Though his knowledge of the island is thorough, his ignorance of European history makes him neglect the importance of the external activities of the Knights, and he follows the Order's chroniclers too slavishly to claim authority as an independent investigator. Miege, who was a French Consul at Malta, is interesting as a bitter opponent of the Order and all its work; and he practically confines himself to the treatment of the Maltese at the hands of the Knights.The best authority on sixteenth-century sea power in the Mediterranean is Admiral Jurien de la Graviere, while Commander Currey's book is very sound and interesting. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Knights of Malta, 1523-1798, by R. Cohen
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