More Gozitan historical documents come to light

I congratulate Professor Stanley Fiorini of the University of Malta for his excellent work in editing the series of publications entitled Documentary Sources of Maltese History. Only recently, publication No. 1 of Part V (a new section entitled 'Documents in the Curia of the Archbishop of Malta') has been published by Malta University Press.

The new book bears the title The Registrum Fundationum Beneficiorum Insulae Gaudisii 1435-1545, that is 'The Register of the Foundations of Benefices of the Island of Gozo 1435-1545'.

As historians would note, the period covered by these documents is that preceding the disastrous siege of Gozo of 1551, which ended up by Sinam Pasha and Tirghut carrying away almost the entire population of the island into slavery and the destruction or pillaging of all Gozitan medieval archives.

The learned professor's Introduction is most interesting, especially with regard to information given on his recent discovery of the medieval Collegiate of Gozo. Professor Fiorini even mentions further documents to prove the existence of this hitherto unknown Gozitan institution.

However, what surprises me most is the fact that regarding the title of Matrice for this same medieval collegiate, Professor Fiorini is still maintaining (or at least agreeing to) the position of Gozo's pseudo-historians, i.e., that this church was given this title because it had chapels abutting or adjoined to it and not because it became the mother church of other parishes.

Now the newly published documents show that Gozo's Collegiate Church of the Assumption had this title prior to the construction of any of adjoining chapels. Confronted with this fact, Professor Fiorini then suggests that there may have been other chapels that disappeared:

"One can counter, however, that there may have been other chapels that we do not know about which, like so much other information about this important church, have gone missing in 1551."

As everybody knows, chapels are neither pieces of paper nor precious objects that could be easily carried away. Therefore, suggesting the pre-existence of chapels where there were none is simply not plausible.

So let me turn to the very documents Professor Fiorini himself has just edited. In document No. 74 on page 108 we find: "Item reliquit et legavit Ecclesie Matrici dicte terre Gaudisii unam clausuram terre aratorie sitam et positam in Rabato dicte terre in Parrochia Sancte Marie de Savina, cuius ab oriente..." etc.

This means: "He left and bequeathed to the Church Matrix of the said town of Gozo a field of arable land sited in Rabat of the said town in the Parish of St Mary of Savina, whose confines on the eastern side..." etc.

Then, the medieval parish of Savina had its own territorial limits, but the boundaries referred to in the document are those of the field bequeathed to the Matrice. Moreover, in document No. 48, on page 68 we read:

"Item reliquit ecclesie Sancte Marie vocate Savina, sue parrochie, galgatam (galcam?)..."

Which means: "She left to the church of St Mary, called Savina, her parish, a field...", etc. So, besides the parish priest, Ta' Savina's medieval parish in Gozo had its own territorial limits, and its parishioners.

Therefore, it was a parish church of its own right and in the modern sense of the word. So too were the other two parishes of St James and St George.

For example, concerning the parish of St James, Bishop Gargallo's Visitation Report, a copy of which is at the Gozo Curia (1587 f. 19r), states that "at other times it was a parish church of a section of Rabat: Juxta moenia Castri et portam dicti Rabati respicientem orientem versus que alias fuerat parochia quarterii dicti Rabati".

So it had its parochial limits as well, and within those limits lived the parishioners. These parochial limits could not have been created out of nothing. The only church that could have given birth to Gozo's three medieval parishes could be none other than the Matrice of the Assumptions itself.

I am not reading history backwards. Here I have simple, clear and outright facts provided for us by Professor Fiorini himself. So the title of Matrice cannot be attributed, as the learned professor himself suggests, to some sort of imaginary medieval chapels that once stood adjoining the Collegiate Church and then vanished into nothingness through the course of history, but to the establishment of these three real and well-defined medieval parishes, always referred to in this order of precedence: (1) Ta' Savina, (2) St James's and (3) St George's.

In my opinion further documents will soon be discovered to prove me right. One last comment. History lovers and enthusiasts should acquire a copy of this important book. A word of praises goes also to Fr Joseph Busuttil, who transcribed the documents from the original manuscripts.