The Knights of Malta

The Golden Age of Maltese history must surely be the period the Islands were ruled by the Order of the Knights of St John. The Knights ushered Malta onto the international scene. The era starts in 1530, when Emperor Charles V donated the Maltese Islands to Knights for an annual token rent of one falcon. As the galleys of the Order arrived in what was later named Grand Harbour, the Islands entered a new era that would change their fortunes forever.

For the next two and a half centuries, Malta played a significant role in the events that shaped the region. Prime among these events is the famous Great Siege of 1565, which put a halt to the Turkish menace to Christian Europe and heralded Malta's own 'Renaissance'.

Under the Knights, Malta was subject to an extensive transformation as new cities sprouted and impregnable fortifications were erected. Malta also became a centre of trade and commerce, and witnessed an unprecedented flourishing of the arts.

The glorious era of the Order of St. John in Malta came to an abrupt end in 1798 when Grand Master Ferdinand von Hompesch capitulated to Napoleon Bonaparte. However, the legacy of the Knights has outlived their presence and can be seen in the numerous masterpieces of art and architecture all around Malta, especially in Valletta and the Three Cities.

Across the Islands, you'll find traces of their legacy in their military engineering and architectural feats: forts, bastions, watch towers, aquaducts, churches and cathedrals. Not to mention the rich patrimony they bequeathed the Islands with works of art, furniture, silverware and sculpture. Less evident, but none less important, is the place they gave the Islands in the history of medicine. Their Sacra Infermeria in Valletta was the foremost hospital of Europe in its day.

By the late 18th century the Order was little more than a large but effete international gentlemen's club. The island was ripe for picking by Napoleon in 1798. When, four years later, the Order was formally restored to Malta, the Maltese resisted their return and instead sought the protection of the British. The world's oldest order of chivalry, the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes, and of Malta, more commonly known as the Order of Malta or simply the S.M.O.M., has its origins in a hospice and confraternity in Jerusalem founded some time before the First Crusade (1099). According to most accounts, this was undertaken with the financial assistance of some wealthy merchants of the Italian port city of Amalfi to aid European pilgrims to the Holy Land.