It was a lecture against a thesis but the thesis and its proponents were not mentioned by name.
The flyer said: “This lecture forms part of a work currently still in progress. Its purpose is to dispute two misconceptions concerning the Order of the Hospital: first, that the Hospitaller institution was in decline in the 18th century and, secondly, that this alleged deteriorating process explains its loss of Malta to the French in 1798. Both are historically untenable. The talk will not touch on the myths that have recently been created about the French, for they will not survive, simply through their own intrinsic artificiality and superficiality.”
The lecture was given by Professor Victor Mallia-Milanes, author of numerous books and Professor of History at the University specialising in the history of the Order in Malta.
He was speaking last week at the last of the lectures held by Wirt Għawdex at the St Cecilia chapel in Xewkija before the summer break.
True to form, Prof. Mallia-Milanes did not mention names, books or theses, but I would guess many in the audience understood who he was referring to.
The Order was not in decline when the French came.
Prof. Mallia-Milanes revisited his acknowledged expertise in what the Venetian ambassador in Malta reported back to the Doge and his council in the 18th century, in which successive residents never mentioned any weakness of the Order but on the contrary, its strength and power. What was of concern and written about was the ever-present threat of the plague and the earthquake in Sicily and Calabria in 1783.
Nor was the population of Malta against the Order. The population had increased under the Order and had experienced a long period of peace and prosperity. The revolt of the priests in 1795 did not have any real impact on the population.
It was only disaffected foreigners such as Bryden who came to Malta and claimed the Order’s Malta was like a gilded shell ready to collapse.
However, it is true that the Order suffered a financial collapse as a result of the French Revolution when its lands in France were taken and thus the huge revenues it used to get from the commanderies in France where the Order had three of its most important langues.
To try and make up for lost revenue, the Order created a new langue, the Anglo-Bavarian langue with its own commanderies but this could never make up for the ones lost in the Revolution.
It also tried to increase its revenues from elsewhere in Europe but this did not work; it then tried to increase its revenue from Malta, with no success at all.
Its former great source of revenue, piracy, had become limited and there were only two actions in Algeria, in 1784 and 1791.
Meanwhile, the Order’s past struggles with the Ottoman Empire had settled over the years and Selim III signed a peace accord with the Order in 1796.
The Order also lost its trade links with France and in August 1789 all titles were abolished and replaced by the ubiquitous ‘citizen’. In 1792, all confiscated property was sold off and as France expanded its rule over North Italy and other countries, the Order progressively lost more land.
Nevertheless, in Malta, the Order still kept up its activities, especially the Hospitaller aspect, which was kept at full strength even though the Order lacked funds.
At this time, the Order was still going strong – 2,900 knights, of which 900 were under 25 years of age.
The Order, Prof. Mallia-Milanes explained, was passing through a very natural evolution from its religious beginnings to a secular world. This it did in a seamless manner, more moved by the evolution of the times than by external pressures, such as the Revolution. Ever since 1294, the Order had been evolving through its successive stages in Acre, Limassol, Rhodes and then Malta.
The figure of Grand Master Hompesch has been dragged in the mud ever since the Order’s capitulation to Napoleon. He is portrayed as being incapable of putting up a resistance, uncertain what to do and generally weak.
People tend to forget he had his council and decided in accordance with the Council’s decision.
People tend to compare him unfavourably to Grand Master L’Isle Adam – but then this Grand Master had lost Rhodes – and to Grand Master de Valette – but this Grand Master had had foreign help to ward off the Turks in the Great Siege.
In my personal view, such an interpretation as that given by Prof. Mallia-Milanes does not give due importance to the Illuministic and Enlightenment spirit that had taken hold of many, mainly French, knights, nor to the fact that, after Malta, the Order suffered a great slump from which only now, and in a different format, it is recovering.
Nor does it really explain how, for all the fortifications the Order had built around Valletta, almost all surrendered without a shot being fired.