The Hospitaller Knights of Malta

Emanuel Buttigieg: Nobility, Faith and Masculinity: The Hospitaller Knights of Malta, c.1580-c.1700, (London and New York: Continuum, 2011, 336 pp.

A new study of the Hospitaller Knights of Malta in the early modern era focusing on nobility, faith and masculinity has been published.

This is an important study of elite European noblemen who joined the Order of Malta.The Order – functioning in parallel with the conventsthat absorbed the surplus daughters of the nobility – provideda highly respectable outletfor sons not earmarked formarriage.

The process of becoming a Hospitaller was a semi-structured one, involving clear-cut (if flexible) social and financial requirements on the part of the candidate, and a mixture of formal and informal soc-ialisation into the ways of the Order.

Once enrolled, a Hospitaller became part of a very hierarchical and ethnically mixed organisation, within which he could seek offices and status.

This process was delineated by a complex interaction of internal factors – hierarchy, patriarchy and age – set within external mechanisms such as papal patronage and interference.

This book is innovative in its methodology, drawing on a wide range of sources and applying historiographical approaches not previously brought to bear on the Order.

The author – Emanuel Buttigieg – undertook his doctoral studies at the University of Cambridge between 2004 and 2008 and is a member ofPeterhouse.

His supervisor was Mary Laven of Jesus College. This book stems for the dissertation he wrote while studying atCambridge.

He is now a lecturer at the University of Malta Junior College. He has also, in recent days, co-organised with Simon Phillips of the University of Cyprus, a conference on the theme of ‘Islands and the Military Orders.

This was held in Rhodes, Greece, between April 27 and 29. The proceedings of this conference will be published as an edited volume.

The book is available from all major websites and bookshops.