The Arabs in Malta

The Islamic Era in the history of Malta is the ponasinorum of Maltese historiography. No other period of Maltese history is so fraught with admitted or hidden psychological complexes, with unconscious fears and hates that imaginary skeletons in the national cupboard should become common property to the delight and scorn of all. Much the same attitude once characterized other parts of the Mediterranean littoral which had lived for centuries under the hegemony of the Arabs during the High Middle Ages.peer-reviewe

Burials in Maltese churches : 1419-1530/40 *

* First published in Hyphen [Malta], iv (1984), 39-45: reprinted here with a few minor emendations.The report made in 1575 by Pietro Dusina, the Apostolic Visitor to the Maltese diocese charged with the task of rooting out a number of abuses and defects, might suggest that the private ownership of graves in the Maltese churches, so common a phenomenon until burial in churches was stopped in the course of the last century, had not started before the year 1575. In fact, Dusina reported several times that the dead were buried in earth instead of in proper graves. Even for the cathedral at Mdina he had to leave instructions for this "impiety" to stop. However ample evidence survives in other sources to show that some graves existed much before 1575 and were also owned privately and used as family graves despite the custom of burial in common earth.peer-reviewe

A land inheritance dispute in Gozo in 1485

This article describes in detail a dispute between Joanni de Bonnichio and Gullielmus Kinzi against Petrus, Jacobus and Liuni de Pontremoli, about a piece of land in the district of Ghammar in Gozo, between the 8th and 9th February 1485.peer-reviewe

The history of Gozo from the early middle ages to modern time

Though hardly twenty six square miles in area, the little island of Gozo, some four miles to the north-west of Malta, has its own particular history to boast of, parallel to that of Malta and that of Sicily but not so identical that it has not had its own individual story to tell. 1 In general outline, one might certainly think that there was little to differentiate the history of the two main Maltese islands. They normally changed foreign domination in the same way and pretty much at the same time, Arabs following Byzantines, Normans that of the former, then the Suabians, the Angevins, the Aragonese, the Order of St. John of Jerusalem or Rhodes, the French, the British and finally independence. 2 The main geographical factors influencing one have influenced the other, whether climatological, telluric or geopolitical. In broad outline the main cultural currents influencing both islands have been the same. For most practical purposes, consequently, there is little to distinguish culturally a Gozitan person from a Maltese one.peer-reviewe

The gold hoard of 1525

In the Middle Ages, an inhabitant of Malta could only make some riches either by marrying into a wealthy family or by a valuable prize brought in by the local corsairs. However, there was still a steady supply of treasure, mostly in the form of gold coins and medals hidden around the islands. Most of the gold had belonged to previous inhabitants who had been, or were about to be, invaded by an alien culture or religion. This article focuses on the search and investigation on the discovery of the hidden gold.peer-reviewe

The abolition of slavery in Malta

A few years before the outbreak of the French Revolution, the Emperor of Morocco began to ransom Moslem slaves from Malta on a large scale. This throws a curious slide-light on the eighteenth century, the age of enlightenment, though it is doubtful whether there was any connection at all with such a peculiarly European climate of opinion: it is unlikely that similar ideas could have penetrated into Morocco which, with Ethiopia, then ranked among the most xenophobic countries of Africa. The first reference to an exchange of slaves between Malta and Morocco occurs in a letter of Grand Master Pinto, sent to his ambassador in Rome on 4 September 1769.peer-reviewe

The Falzon family and the capomastro of its house at Mdina

From before 1300 right down to the seventeenth century, but especially after 1399, the family with the surname Falzon, under several different spellings, always took a prominent part in the municipal affairs of the Malta, although its social position could not compare with that of the principal feudal families long settled in Mdina. In the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries it shared power in the small municipal administration of Mdina with the Sordinos, the Caxaros, the Falcas, the Vaccaros and one or two others, although none of these could compare in sheer wealth and power with the greater feudal families, like the Desguanes, the Mazaras, the De Navas, the De Guevaras, and, earlier on, the Gattos. This the Falzons persisted in doing for generation after generation, when other families like the Vagnolu, the D'Alaimo, the Calavas, the Vassallos, even the Sillatos, the De Nasis, and the Sonellos were unable to perform for the same length of time and with the same uniform success.peer-reviewe

Pietru Caxaru, uliedu u omm uliedu

L-awtur jistħarreġ dwar Pietru Caxaru u l-familja tiegħu, f’taħdita moqrija f’Palazzo Falzon, l-Imdina fl-2009.peer-reviewe

Malta : language, literacy and identity in a Mediterranean island society

Available documentation for the early modern period indicates that the Malta harbor towns achieved literacy earlier than the countryside. The Maltese townsmen lived on a trading route, and it was necessary for them to learn the lingua franca, as the language of trade in the Mediterranean. The educated elite were able to acquire fluent speaking knowledge, as well as the ability to write, Tuscan (a dialect then in the process of becoming standard Italian), while continuing to employ their local Maltese ‘dialect’ on numerous occasions. By and large, the erosion of the position of Maltese as the subordinate language was an inevitable by-product of this development. The Maltese language was able to attain the function of a literary language in the nineteenth century but it had no standard orthography until 1931 and was only adopted as Malta’s official language in 1964.peer-reviewe