Malta

In the following, only a general overview of the history of Malta in the second half of the 16th century will be given as far as it seems necessary for the understanding of The Jew of Malta.¹

Malta is a group of islands that includes Gozo and Comino in addition to the main island. The first inhabitants probably came to the islands from Sicily in the 6th century BC. The Phoenicians began settling the islands in 850 BC. Around 600, the Carthaginians took control. They did not seem to be very popular, as the Maltese islands willingly submitted to the Roman commander Sempronius in 218 BC. After the final victory of the Romans in the Punic Wars, Malta was a Roman province. At the partition of the Empire (395), the islands became part of the Western Roman Empire. Goths and Vandals invaded as early as 476. It was not until 535 that Belisar succeeded in conquering the territories for the Eastern Roman Empire. Byzantium’s rule ended in 870 with the conquest by the Arabs. Thanks to the Norman Roger I, Malta was incorporated into the Sicilian Kingdom in 1091. Until 1479, the fortunes of the Maltese islands were linked to this kingdom. In 1194 it passed to the Stauffers, in 1265 to the House of Anjou and then to the Dukes of Aragon. With the marriage of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon, Malta became part of the Spanish Empire. In 1530, Charles V gave the Maltese islands and Tripoli, conquered in 1510, to the Knights of St John. In symbolic return, Charles V received a Maltese falcon every year. (A bird and not a statuette made of gold as can be read in Dashiell Hammett). Malta remained under the rule of the Order until 1798.

The Siege of Malta (1564)

Since the 1540s, the Ottomans and their allies had a strong presence in the Mediterranean. In 1551, the Knights of St John lost Tripoli. So Malta was expecting a siege, for which it was indeed well prepared. The natural harbour was fortified by three forts St Angelo, St Elmo and St Michael. In 1551, the corsair Turgut Reis and the Ottoman admiral Sinan attempted to besiege Malta. After a few days, however, they broke off the venture and went to Gozo. The island surrendered, whereupon almost its entire population was taken into slavery. The Ottoman fleet appeared again off Malta on 18 May 1565. It had more than 200 ships for an army of about 40,000 men. This was opposed by 750 knights, 8,000 native soldiers and 600 Spanish mercenaries led by the Grand Master of the Knights of Malta, Jean Parisot de la Valette. The Ottomans went ashore in the south-east of the island, where they set up camp in an area whose wells had been polluted at Valetta’s orders. The siege army was therefore constantly suffering from some kind of disease. Nevertheless, on 23 June, the Ottomans were able to take Fort St. Elmo. The other fortifications, however, offered fierce resistance. The capture of Mdina also failed. Almost only peasants and women stayed there with insufficient defence. As soon as the commander heard of the approach of the enemy army, he ordered all the inhabitants to put on uniforms, equipped them with everything resembling a weapon and placed them on the battlements of the city wall. He then opened fire briefly but fiercely. The Ottomans thus suspected that there was a powerful defence force in the city and did not even begin the siege. In early September, the Ottoman commander-in-chief Mustafa Pasha learned that help was on the way for Malta from Sicily, so he ordered the siege to be called off. As soon as he realised that this army amounted to only about 8,000 men, he had his soldiers disembark again. The relief army engaged the Ottomans in heavy fighting and the siege of Malta was finally ended on 6 September. Malta’s resistance was significant for all Christendom, whether Catholic or Protestant, as it signalled the end of Ottoman expansion in the Mediterranean.