Nobility, Faith and Masculinity: The Hospitaller Knights of Malta, C.1580-C.1700

This is an important study of elite European noblemen who joined the Order of Malta. The Order - functioning in parallel with the convents that absorbed the surplus daughters of the nobility - provided a highly respectable outlet for sons not earmarked for marriage. 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 socialization 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.

Table of Contents:
Introduction \ 1. Becoming a Hospitaller \ 2. Hospitaller Ranks: Hierarchy, Patriarchy and Age \ 3. Religious Identity, Beliefs and Practices \ 4. The Body, Chastity and Sexuality \ 5. Violence and Punishments \ Conclusion: Towards a Cultural History of the Order of Malta \ Epilogue \ Appendix: Popes, Grand Masters, Bishops and Inquisitors c.1580-c.1700 \ Bibliography \ Index

About the Author :
Emanuel Buttigieg is Lecturer in early modern history at the University of Malta. He read for a PhD at the University of Cambridge, UK.

Review :
...Buttigieg describes very well an institution that reflected, as one would expect, seventeenth-century Western society... thinking about this topic has led him to some extraordinarily interesting sources. He gives us insights into the world of the knights and their attitudes to dress, modes of behaviour and sex. His book is both thought-provoking and a good read... ... Nobility, Faith and Masculinity- is as dense with facts as you would expect a history book to be- but there's nothing cold or clinical about [Emanuel's] treatment of the Order. The Knights are flesh-and-blood mortals, mostly honourable yet fallible, largely holy yet frequently deviating from the Church's teachings, truly brave yet plagued by the same fears and superstitions that beset so many others at the time. One-dimensional they are not. In presenting the history of the Order of St John, Emanuel Buttigieg sets forth an entirely new approach to the subject. He examines the history of the Order primarily from a social and cultural perspective, which contrasts with previously applied approaches.... The book is well constructed, its structure is logical and well-articulated. ... Buttigieg's style is fluent and readable. The author is rigorous in the application of the historical method of inquiry, with extensive use of archival and printed primary sources. Furthermore the author also uses significant secondary literature to explain the position of the book in relation to the existent historiography. While being academically intense, the work is not dry, but highly engaging for the wider reading public. The merits of this work are various... It is neither the traditional history of rulers nor that which is commonly called 'history from below'; it is rather a history that cuts through the point where the two meet - a history of meeting points between different cultures within a shared world. That said, Nobility, Faith and Masculinity becomes a historiographic challenge to historians of Maltese early modernity by setting forth a new agenda that has been long in waiting. Emanuel Buttigieg's innovative and well researched book looks at the years in the Order's history from the end of the sixteenth century to the beginning of the eighteenth when it was developing a more self conscious attitude to its life and institutions... Dr Buttigieg's three themes of nobility, faith and masculinity provide an excellent entrée into a discussion of Hospitaller knighthood in the period... The book's ideas and examples are drawn from a wide range of European archival and secondary sources. It is an important contribution to Hospitaller studies. Especially rewarding here is the author's engagement with the full panoply of the knights' gendered regime of material display: from beards to armour, clothes to weapons... the lack of up-to-date literature on this topic makes this book a particularly welcome addition.