At the heart of this volume is a concern with exploring levels of interaction between two particular objects of study, islands on the one hand, and military orders on the other. According to Fernand Braudel, islands are, 'often brutally', caught 'between the two opposite poles of archaism and innovation.' What happened when these particular environments interacted with the Military Orders? The various contributions in this volume address this question from a variety of angles.
1291 was a significant year for the main military orders: uprooted from their foundations in the Holy Land, they took refuge on Cyprus and in the following years found themselves vulnerable to those who questioned the validity of their continued existence. The Teutonic Order negated this by successfully transferring their headquarters to Prussia; the Knights Templar, however, faced suppression. Meanwhile, the Knights Hospitaller conquest of Rhodes assured both their survival and independence.
Islands are often, by definition, seen to be embodiments of 'insularity', of an effort to be separate, distinct, cut-off. Military Orders are, conversely, international in scope, nature and personnel, the 'first international orders of the Church', as they have often been described. Therein lies the crux of the matter: how did insular outposts and international institutions come together to forge distinct and often successful experiments? Hospitaller Rhodes and Malta still impress with their magnificent architectural heritage, but their success went beyond stone and mortar and the story of islands and military orders, as will be clearly shown in this volume, also goes beyond these two small islands. The interaction between the two levels - insulation and internationalisation - and the interstices therein, created spaces conducive to both dynamism and stability as military orders and islands adapted to each other's demands, limitations and opportunities.
Author(s): Emanuel Buttigieg, Simon Phillips (eds.)
Publisher: Ashgate
Year: 2013
Language: English
Pages: XXII+276
List of Illustrations and Tables ix
List of Abbreviations xi
Notes on Contributors xv
Preface xix
Introduction / Emanuel Buttigieg and Simon Phillips 1
PART I: Ideas and Ideals about Island Existence
1. The Hospitallers and Concepts of Island Existence / Simon Phillips 11
2. The Island Order State on Rhodes / Anthony Luttrell 19
3. Islands as Strongholds for the Defence of Christendom: The Hospital of Saint Mary of Bethlehem on Limnos (1459) / Elena Bellomo 29
4. The Maltese Islands and the Religious Culture of the Hospitallers: Isolation and Connectivity c. 1540s – c. 1690s / Emanuel Buttigieg 39
Part II: Relocati on and Adaptation
5. Propagating the Hospitallers' 'Passagium': Crusade Preaching and Liturgy in 1308–1309 / Constantinos Georgiou 53
6. Island Ports and Hospitallers, 1421–1631 / Ann Williams 65
7. Malta and the Order of St John: Life on an Island Home / George Cassar 75
Part III: Life on an Island: Interaction and Innovation
8. Zones and Nodes of Interaction: The Development of the Hospitaller Town of Rhodes / Katerina Manoussou-Della 87
9. A Fifteenth-Century Innovation Humanistic Script on Hospitaller Rhodes / Karl Borchardt 99
10. The Vision of the Island of Malta and its Role in the Transformation of the Order's Mission as Seen by the Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Traveller / Patricia Micallef 115
11. The Knights of the Portuguese Order of Christ on the Island of Madeira (1640–1755): A Socio-historical Approach / Fernanda Olival 127
PART IV: Regional Political Dynamics and the Military Orders
12. The Hospitallers of Rhodes and Attempts to Recover the Duchy of Athens by the Counts of Brienne after 1311 / Karol Polejowski 139
13. Aspects of the Relations Between the Hospitaller Knights of Rhodes and the Republic of Venice: Contacts and
Collaboration During the Second Venetian–Ottoman War (1499–1502/03) / Photeine V. Perra 147
14. Between Sicily and Jerusalem: The Teutonic Knights in the Mediterranean (Twelfth to Fifteenth Centuries) / Hubert Houben 155
PART V: Fortifications, War and Defence
15. The Hospitallers of Rhodes and their Alliances Against the Turks, 1306–1348 / Mike Carr 167
16. The Knights Templar in the Defence of the Lazio Coast: The Quasi-Islands of Santa Maria della Sorresca on Lake Paola and the Tower of San Felice Circeo (1173–1259) / Nadia Bagnarini 177
17. The Development of Gunpowder Defences at the Knights Hospitallers’ Fortifications on the Dodecanese Islands (1307–1522) / Michael Losse 189
PART VI: Economic Aspects of an Island Existence
18. Hospitaller Small Change: An Archaeological Perspective / Anna-Maria Kasdagli 203
19. Hospitaller Estates and Agricultural Production on Fourteenth- and Fifteenth-Century Cyprus / Nicholas Coureas 215
20. Some Aspects of the Use and Exploitation of Mills by the Order of St. John in Rhodes and Cyprus / Gregory O’Malley 225
21. Society and the Economy on the Hospitaller Island of Malta: An Overview / Victor Mallia-Milanes 239
22. The Order of St John and its Caribbean Islands, 1653–1665: A Cartographic Record / William Zammit 257
Index 271
