Before the knights set foot on the Maltese island, Malta was an island which was poorly fortified,
lacking natural resources, other than olive groves, wheat fields and good
fishing waters, an island heavily dependant on large scale imports from Sicily.
The knights were reluctant to settle
in Malta,
for seven years they wandered without a permanent home, from Civita Vecchia, Viterbo
to Nice. L’Isle Adam was compelled to take the Maltese islands together with Tunisia.
The hospitallers dropped their
anchors at Birgu in October 1530. The Maltese especially the nobles, were most
unwelcoming of the knights, since this would decrease is not demolish their
power. Some even left the island and found a new home in Sicily.
According to the magna carte, the
Maltese had to right to revolt in such a situation. Only a minor protest took
place. Two people were sent to bologna to complain to the king of Sicily, king Charles V.
The order ignored the education of
the Maltese. In 1592 with the arrival of the Jesuit in Malta, this field took a minor
boost. The Jesuit built the Collegium Melitense. Also when Grandmaster Pinto sacked
them from Malta,
he used the wealth he had seized, to build a university. Originally medicine,
law and theology were thought. These developments, however only served the
clergy and the noble, no primary schools were set up, for the children of
peasants to get their basic education.
The hospitallers took Malta’s
only saving grace, the ports, and fortified them, together with the island’s
perimeter. The hospitallers first spend their energy in fortifying Isla and
Birgu to the full. Like Genza had suggested a fortified city was built, on mount shibberas.
Also Grandmaster Garzes had left money for a fortification to be built in Gozo.
Grandmaster Wingacourt built three towers from his finances. These where the
tower of St. Marija on Comino, the tower of Wignacourt in saint Paul’s Bay, the
tower of st. Lucjan in Marsaxlokk, and the tower of St. Tumas
in Wied il-Ghajn. Grandmaster Lascaris built the tower built in Mellieha near Ghadira
bay named ‘it-Torri l-Ahmar’ after it’s colour.
Malta went through a ‘baby boom’ under
the knights, the population trebled from 30,000 in 1530 to 100,000 in 1800. The
increase in population shows that the level of living changed for the better
under the hospitallers. This brought the building of new towns, villages, and
cities in the Maltese islands. Some of which are Naxxar, Zurrieq, Zejtun,
Siggiewi, Birkirkara, Hal Qormi, Zebbug, Bir Miftuh and Valletta. These towns and
cities also brought with them, the building of new churches, chapels and cathedrals,
along with the obvious building of houses, thus proving work.
The majority of the Maltese were peasants
working the land, the crop that brought great income, was cotton; we could find
white and red cotton at that time. This industry brought work related to
agriculture and work for the people who turned the cotton to thread, ready to be
exported.
The Maltese during the time of the
Order of St. John
were no longer afraid of he coasts, and villages started emerging around the
perimeter of the island. Also this brought an area of industry new to the
island, the Corsairing. These corsairing were basically licensed pirates. The license
had to be granted to them by the order and renewed every 5 years. The Maltese
became renowned for this work and Maltese became a major slave market in Europe.
Despite these developments, some of
the Maltese themselves grew to resent the Order, which they viewed as a
privileged caste. One of the other factors that brought the Maltese to resent
the hospitallers, might have been, that the Maltese had no say in the
government. The knight stripped Malta
of the privilege of being-self governed, by the Consiglio Popolare, to being
governed by a theoretical government.
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