Government and Law in Hospitaller Rhodes and Malta: Civil Authority, Courts, and Local Administration

The Knights Hospitaller governed Rhodes from the early fourteenth century until the Ottoman conquest of 1522, then established their rule in Malta in 1530. The two regimes were not identical. On Rhodes, the Order exercised sovereign powers, including making laws and issuing coinage. Malta was formally granted as a fief of the Kingdom of Sicily, and its administration included municipal institutions as well as courts and church authorities. Across both islands, the Order’s internal religious rules governed its members, not the whole population. Civil administration and religious jurisdiction involved distinct institutions.

On this page5 sections

Rhodes: rule by the Order and its institutions

On Rhodes, the Grand Master stood at the head of the Order’s government. He was elected for life, and the Order’s central institutions included a council and a General Chapter, an assembly of the brethren. The Grand Master was supposed to govern with the council; the General Chapter provided an occasional institutional check. The Order also made laws, issued its own coins, and sent envoys to other rulers. These powers made its authority on Rhodes more than that of a military garrison serving another sovereign.

The Order’s membership was organised into groups known as langues, based on regions and languages. The langues shaped the allocation of senior offices and the organisation of the knights’ communal life. In Rhodes city, knights lived in the collachium, the Order’s walled quarter, while the adjoining borgo contained the wider urban population. Residents included Greek Orthodox Christians and Jews as well as Latin Christians, merchants, officials, and other workers. The Greek population formed the majority on the island, while Latin institutions, local Orthodox communities and merchants had different relationships with the government.

The Order’s local authority also rested on property and military resources. In the fourteenth century, its estates in Rhodes included lands associated with particular langues; Philip De Thame, an English Grand Prior, acquired estates assigned to the English langue between 1330 and 1358. Local vassals and hired soldiers assisted the knights. The Order’s resources also came from European estates: commanderies, or estates and administrative houses, were grouped into priories, and sent revenue known as responsions to the central organisation. These contributions helped support the Order’s garrisons, hospital, and communal houses.

The Order’s territorial authority could alter property rights. In1313 it announced the confiscation of Greek Christian and Muslim lands for redistribution to Catholic families owing military service. Such policies joined landholding to defence and increased the government’s influence over the island’s established population.

Malta: the Order and municipal government

In 1530, Emperor Charles V granted Malta and Gozo to the Hospitallers as a fief of the Kingdom of Sicily. The arrangement required an annual payment of a Maltese falcon to the Sicilian viceroy. The Order made Birgu its first headquarters on the islands. By the eighteenth century grand masters exercised extensive practical autonomy. Pinto’s dispute with Sicily in 1753–55 over an ecclesiastical inspection nevertheless exposed continuing conflicts over the formal grant and jurisdiction.

The Order did not begin governing Malta without local institutions. The Università, a semi-autonomous municipal council also called the Council of Jurors, had been established in 1397, before the Hospitallers arrived. In 1536, Grand Master Juan de Homedes reorganised it into two municipalities, based in Mdina and Birgu. After the Great Siege of 1565, the Order and the Università relocated to Valletta as the new capital took shape.

The Università’s practical work included managing food supplies. It arranged grain purchases and imports, especially from Sicily, where Licata was a principal source, and sometimes from Sardinia. The Order supervised the municipal body and relied on its control of grain reserves to maintain supplies. The council also built underground storage spaces known in Maltese as il-fosos. Food provision was therefore a matter of municipal administration and political stability, not simply private trade.

Civil courts and religious jurisdiction

A civil court operated separately from the Order’s religious institutions. In Birgu, the building later known as the Inquisitor’s Palace initially housed the Magna Curia Castellania Melitensis, a civil tribunal established by Grand Master Juan de Homedes in 1543. The court remained there until 1572, when a new Castellania opened in Valletta. The name Castellania referred to a court institution, not to the Hospitallers’ religious rule.

Church authority formed another jurisdiction. In 1574, Pope Gregory XIII established the Roman Inquisition in Malta and sent Pietro Dusina as a mediator in a dispute between Grand Master Jean de la Cassière and Bishop Martino Roya concerning heresy. The new tribunal replaced an earlier inquisition on the islands that had been run by the Bishop of Palermo. Dusina took over the former Castellania building, which then served as the inquisitor’s residence and housed the tribunal and its prisons. The inquisitor heard religious cases and also exercised civil jurisdiction over members of his own household and staff.

The creation of the Inquisition also shows that authority over religion was not simply absorbed into the Order’s government. A papal representative, the bishop, and the Grand Master could all be involved in disputes over religious jurisdiction. In 1581, a separate conflict between the Order’s General Chapter and the Grand Master escalated into a mutiny. Pope Gregory XIII sent an envoy, and the Grand Master and his opponent were summoned to Rome to answer for their positions.

Grain, credit, and local obligations

In 1635, records show the formal establishment of the Massa Frumentaria, a grain fund administered by the Università. It combined the purchase and distribution of grain with financial services. Wealthy residents invested private capital, and a designated official, the depositario, managed the fund’s finances and grain procurement. Registers recorded investors, amounts, interest, investment dates, maturities, shipments, and the vessels carrying grain.

Investments generally ran for two years, with interest paid twice a year. Rates ranged from 3 to 6 percent. The fund imported grain to help secure an affordable supply, while also lending to farmers for items such as seed, tools, and manure at low interest. Its accounts thus connected municipal food policy to local credit. The fund’s operations depended on imported grain, organised storage, records, shipping, and the council’s ability to manage reserves.

Municipal administration, however, operated under the Order’s political authority. Grand Masters diverted money from the Massa Frumentaria for other expenses, including building work and fortifications. By 1741, the reported appropriations approached half a million scudi. The episode illustrates how an institution intended to manage a public resource could be affected by decisions at the top of the Hospitaller government.

Changing authority at the end of Hospitaller rule

The institutions governing Malta did not share a single jurisdiction: the Order exercised political rule, the Università managed municipal responsibilities such as grain provision, civil courts handled civil business, and church tribunals addressed religious matters. Their authority could overlap, as the dispute involving the Grand Master, bishop, and papal inquisitor demonstrates. The Order’s relationship with Sicily also changed, as grand masters increased their practical autonomy while formal Sicilian claims persisted.

French forces expelled the Order from Malta in 1798, ending Hospitaller rule on the islands. That change disrupted the political framework under which the municipal council and its grain fund had operated, while the distinctions between civil administration, Order government, and religious jurisdiction had developed over more than two centuries.