Languages, Schools and Learning under Hospitaller Rule

The Hospitallers governed Greek-speaking Rhodes until 1522 and Malta from 1530 to 1798. Their international brotherhood used several European languages, while most Maltese residents spoke Maltese. Learning took place in homes, parish instruction and small schools as well as the Jesuit college, the later university and the hospital. Access depended on family resources, gender, location and the kind of knowledge sought.

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Languages within the Order and its communities

On Rhodes, Latin was the Order’s official language, while Greek was spoken by the island’s population. Italian, Catalan and French were also in use. Greek-speaking residents and the Order’s multilingual membership used these languages in different settings.

The Order also organized its members into langues, divisions broadly associated with regions and the origins of the knights. The system was not a precise map of language communities. It helped the Order manage members, European possessions and responsibilities, and each langue had a shared headquarters called an auberge. On Rhodes, members of a langue were assigned part of the defences to protect. Its senior officer, or pilier, could also hold a particular office: the French pilier was responsible for the Order’s hospital affairs, while the Italian pilier commanded its fleet.

In Malta, Latin and Italian had official status, while Maltese was spoken by the majority. The Order’s international structure continued to matter, alongside the Maltese used in local families and spoken religious instruction.

Elementary teaching and girls’ access

Before the Order arrived, Mdina had a grammar school run with the cathedral and town council. In the mid-sixteenth century, boys from prosperous families could study at grammar schools in Mdina or Birgu, but these were beyond the means of many households. Other children learned prayers, reading, writing or arithmetic through local teachers and parish contacts. Instruction did not have one fixed route from primary school to college.

The historian Carmel Cassar records Isabetta Caruana teaching catechism to girls on Gozo during the later sixteenth century. In 1628, Margarita Marmara of Valletta said that her daughters attended an abacus teacher’s school in Senglea to learn reading and writing. These cases show that girls could receive instruction, though its availability and content were uneven. In 1733 an observer still complained that girls’ basic education was neglected.

In a harbour town, practical numeracy and communication could matter to trade as well as schooling. A young man named Francesco de Gaeta reported attending an abacus teacher, a teacher of practical arithmetic, near the Jesuit church in Valletta in 1606. These small classes differed from the Latin grammar teaching and advanced degrees available to fewer students.

From the Jesuit college to a university

A named educational institution in Malta was the Collegium Melitense, founded by the Jesuits in Valletta on 12 November 1592. Its model was a college open to students who were not members of the Jesuit order. Teaching included grammar and rhetoric, while papal permissions had authorized Jesuits to confer degrees in philosophy and divinity. The college therefore offered a route to advanced religious and humanistic study, for students able to pursue this level of learning.

After the Jesuits were expelled from Malta in 1768, the college remained open and its professors retained their posts. In 1769 Grand Master Manoel Pinto da Fonseca formally established the Pubblica Università di Studi Generali, or Public University of General Studies. The institution was briefly suspended in the 1770s and re-established in 1779. Its creation gave higher education a new institutional form; above the local instruction available through smaller schools and parish teachers.

Medical teaching, books and useful knowledge

Medical teaching developed at the Order’s hospital. In1676 Grand Master Nicolas Cotoner appointed Giuseppe Zammit to lecture in anatomy and surgery at the Sacra Infermeria. The founding decree opened instruction to the hospital’s barber-surgeons and others wishing to study these professions. Anatomy concerned the body’s structure, while surgery taught the practical treatment of injuries and conditions requiring an operation. This was hospital-based teaching, distinct from the Jesuit college’s grammar and theological studies.

Zammit also established a medical library and a garden of medicinal plants in a ditch at Fort Saint Elmo. These resources show that books and plants both had a place in Malta’s medical learning.

Learning through service and institutions

Training also took place through household and workplace practice. Children could learn skills and values from relatives, while Order offices placed experienced members in charge of hospital affairs, navigation, administration or defence. Learning through work placed skills alongside the formal study available at colleges.

The Jesuit college, university and hospital lectures offered a route to formal higher learning in Valletta. The small schools and parish teaching documented in Maltese communities served other purposes and other groups, including girls who were unlikely to enter the university. The Order’s multilingual administration and the island’s Maltese-speaking population therefore belonged to a society with several levels of learning, with different routes into instruction and occupational skills.