The open access publication of this book has been published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation. In Staging Holiness: The Case of Hospitaller Rhodes (ca. 1309-1522) Sofia Zoitou offers a study of the history of relic collections, devotional rituals, and sites invested with special meaning on Rhodes, during a time when the island became one of the most frequented ports of call for ships carrying pilgrims from Venice to the Holy Land. Scrutinizing late medieval travel reports by pilgrims from all over Europe along with extant historical, archaeological, visual, and material evidence, Sofia Zoitou traces the various forms of the Rhodian cultic sites’ evolution and perception, ultimately considered as an overall artistic strategy for the staging of the sacred.
This book pays homage to the work of a scholar who has substantially advanced knowledge and understanding of the medieval military-religious orders. Alan J. Forey has published over seventy meticulously researched articles on every aspect of the military-religious orders, two books on the Templars in the Corona de Aragón, and a wide-ranging survey of the military-religious orders from the twelfth to the early fourteenth centuries. His archival research has been especially significant in opening up the history of the military orders in the Iberian Peninsula. This volume comprises an appreciation of Forey’s work and a range of research that has been inspired by his scholarship or develops themes that run through his work. Articles reflect Forey’s detailed research into and analysis of primary sources, as well as his work on the military orders, the crusades, the eastern Mediterranean, and the trial of the Templars. Further papers move beyond the geographical and chronological bounds of Forey’s research, while still exploring his themes of the military-religious orders’ relations with the Church and State.
Houses and Domestic Space in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Hospitaller Malta is a study concerned with a wide spectrum of early modern dwellings in Malta, ranging from palazzi and affluent residences to peasant dwellings, troglodyte houses, and hovels. The multifaceted approach adopted in this book allows houses and domestic networks to be studied not only in terms of architecture and construction materials, but also as places of human habitation where house dwellers act, react and interact in different contexts and circumstances. Dwellings are places that permit different social and economic activities, whilst providing shelter and security to the household members. Through the available sources, the houses of Hospitaller Malta are analysed in terms of their spatial properties and how they generate privacy, interaction and communication, identity, accessibility, security, visibility, movement and encounters, and, equally important, how domestic space relates to gender roles, status, and class. This work, therefore, seeks to reach a deep and nuanced understanding of domestic space and how it relates to the islands’ history and the development of their society during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
The idea of carrying out research on the Maltese archipelago during the Roman and Byzantine periods stems from the author's participation in the activities of the Missione Archeologica Italiana, which had resumed in Malta in 1995 in order to complete research conducted on the sites of Tas-Silg and San Pawl Milqi. These archaeological sites are today considered amongst the most important on the archipelago. Their stratigraphy spans an extensive timeframe - from prehistory to the modern era - making them important points of reference and comparison, not least in the classification and study of ceramic remains. Contents: Introduction; Chapter I: The Historical Picture: from the Roman Conquest to the Islamic Occupation; Chapter II: The Archaeology of the Roman and Byzantine Periods: Current Studies and Prospective Venues of Research; Chapter III: Land and Environment; Chapter IV: Settlement and Population: Inhabited Centres, Sanctuaries, Villas and Landed Properties; Chapter V: Economic Activity and Patronage: the Main Players; Chapter VI: The Exploitation of Local Resources; ChapterVII: Did the Islands Produce Foodstuffs and Amphorae?; Chapter VIII: An Analysis of Two Maltese Sites: the Tas-Silg Sanctuary and the Villa at San Pawl Milqi; Chapter IX: Importation of Goods: Evidence from the Amphorae; General Conclusions.
Scholarly interest and popular interest in the military orders show no sign of abating. Their history stretches from the early twelfth century to the present. They were among the richest and most powerful religious corporations in pre-Reformation Europe, and they founded their own states on Rhodes and Malta and also on the Baltic coast. Historians of the Church, of art and architecture, of agriculture and banking, of medicine and warfare and of European expansion can all benefit from investigating the orders and their archives. The conferences on their history that have been organized in London every four years have attracted scholars from all over the world. The present volume records the proceedings of the Fifth Conference in 2009 (held in Cardiff as the London venue was in the process of refurbishment), and, like the earlier volumes in the series, will prove essential for anyone interested in the current state of research into these powerful institutions. The thirty-eight papers published here represent a selection of those delivered at the conference. Three papers deal with the recent archaeological investigations at the Hospitaller castle at al-Marqab (Syria); others examine aspects of the history of the military orders in the Latin East and the Mediterranean lands, in Spain and Portugal, in the British Isles and in northern and eastern Europe. The final two papers address the question of present-day perceptions of the Templars as moulded by the sort of popular literature that most of the other contributors would normally keep at arm's length.
Natural Materials of the Holy Land and the Visual Translation of Place, 500-1500, focuses on the unique ways that natural materials carry the spirit of place. Since early Christianity, wood, earth, water and stone were taken from loca sancta to signify them elsewhere. Academic discourse has indiscriminately grouped material tokens from holy places and their containers with architectural and topographical emulations, two-dimensional images and bodily relics. However, unlike textual or visual representations, natural materials do not describe or interpret the Holy Land; they are part of it. Tangible and timeless, they realize the meaning of their place of origin in new locations. What makes earth, stones or bottled water transported from holy sites sacred? How do they become pars pro toto, signifying the whole from which they were taken? This book will examine natural media used for translating loca sancta, the processes of their sanctification and how, although inherently abstract, they become charged with meaning. It will address their metamorphosis, natural or induced; how they change the environment to which they are transported; their capacity to translate a static and distant site elsewhere; the effect of their relocation on users/viewers; and how their containers and staging are used to communicate their substance.
In 1522, the Ottomans attacked the island of Rhodes and, after a six-month siege, the Hospitallers surrendered on terms. The Knights Hospitaller had ruled Rhodes since 1309, and the Ottomans had attempted to capture the island 40 years before in 1480, but were defeated by the Knights. The Ottoman victory in 1522 resulted in the Knights being expelled from the island and eventually settling in Malta, Gozo, and Tripoli and the Ottomans obtaining domination over the Eastern Mediterranean and its trade. This collection of essays, published on the 500th anniversary of the siege, explores such question as why Suleiman the Magnificent attacked Rhodes, what made the 1522 siege successful, and how the Rhodian population, the Knights Hospitaller, the Eastern and Western Mediterranean, and Europe in general were affected by the loss of Rhodes. The answers to these questions are explored in new research by expert historians and archaeologists in their field. This book will appeal to all those interested in the Knights Hospitaller, Ottoman History, Crusader Studies, and Early Modern European History.
Becker's studies of Malta's early Christian and Jewish sepulchral art are well-researched and exceptionally thorough. Most authors who later wrote on the subject refer to Becker in one way or another. Yet, due to the difficulties posed by the language, many of Becker's important findings and results remain unknown. In this new translation, the author has opted for clarity, accuracy and shorter sentence structures that enable the reader to follow Becker's detailed descriptions. However, Becker's choice of terminology has been scrupulously translated. Every chapter contains endnotes by the translator that provide further explanations, updates or translations. The original version is littered with quotes in Latin, Greek, English, French, Italian and Hebrew, none of which Becker translated. For this English translation, these quotes have been translated in the endnotes. Furthermore, when dealing with the inscriptions found in Malta, Becker often refers to inscriptions published in the Corpus Inscriptiones Latinarum (CIL) and in A. A. Caruana's 1882 publication, both of which are here provided in the endnotes, together with their translations where possible. Only some plans of the various hypogeal described by Becker were available when he was in Malta. The plans published later by Caruana and Buhagiar, to which Becker simply refers, have also been added and corrected where possible. The history and development of the Maltese Jewish and early Christian burial grounds is by no means a closed chapter today. The reader must bear in mind that many more hypogea have been discovered since Becker's 1913 publication, in Malta and abroad, and that many more papers have been published since. These new discoveries have added considerably to our knowledge. It is hoped that with this English translation of Malta Sotterranea, Becker's results and observations will form a more active part of the discussion.