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In Programme Three of the series we look at the bloody siege of Malta of 1565.

In 1565 the Ottoman Emperor Suleiman the Magnificent laid siege to the Mediterranean Island of Malta. Having once been in Arab hands, Malta was run by a group of devout militant Christians who became known to the world as the Knights of Malta.

The Knights were by no means strong enough to pose a serious challenge to the Ottomans but they repeatedly irked Suleiman by attacking his ships as they moved between the Ottoman capital in Constantinople (present day Istanbul) and his North African possessions.

At its height the Ottoman Empire controlled vast territories on three continents from the Topkapi Palace, a complex of opulent buildings on the banks of the Bosphorus.

“It was the centre of the world,” says Ahmet Kohash Professor of Contemporary History in Istanbul. “The empire stretched from the Danube to the Indian Ocean, and from the Caucuses to the confines of Algeria.”

Many Muslims today look back at the Ottoman Empire with great pride. But for some it is also a source of embarrassment. By today’s standards some Ottoman rulers had distinctly liberal lifestyles enjoying wine, women and song. There was even space within the Topkapi Palace to accommodate hundreds of concubines. To this day official guides are reluctant to discuss the emperors’ lifestyle for fear of upsetting contemporary Muslim sensibilities…

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This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons.

Wikipedia: Knights Hospitaller a.k.a. Knights of Malta

… The perceived moral decline that the Knights underwent over the course of this period is best highlighted by the decision of many Knights to serve in foreign navies and become “the mercenary sea-dogs of the 14th to 17th centuries”, with the French navy proving the most popular destination.^[16] This decision went against what the Knights stood for most, in that by serving for a European power they faced the very real possibility that they would be fighting against another Christian force, as in the few Franco-Spanish naval skirmishes that occurred in this period.^[17] The biggest paradox when studying this is the fact that for many years the French remained on amicable terms with the Ottoman Empire, the Knights’ biggest foe and proported sole purpose of existence, signing many trade agreements and agreeing an informal (and ultimately ineffective) cease-fire between the two states during this period.^[18] That the Knights associated themselves with the allies of their sworn enemies shows their moral ambivalence and the new commercial driven nature of the Mediterranean. Serving in a foreign navy, in particular the French, gave the Knights the chance to serve the church and for many their King, to increase their chances of promotion in either their adopted navy or in Malta, to receive far better pay, to stave their boredom with frequent cruises, to embark on the highly preferable short cruises over the long caravans favoured by the Maltese, and if the Knight desired, to indulge in some of the pleasures of a traditional debauched seaport.^[19] This decision shows the Knights’ growing lack of allegiance both to their Order and to their religion. In return the French gained a quickly assembled and experienced navy to show stability to their subjects and stave off the threat of the Spanish. The shift in attitudes of the Knights over this period is ably outlined by Paul Lacroix who states:

“Inflated with wealth, laden with privileges which gave them almost sovereign powers … the order at last became so demoralised by luxury and idleness that it forgot the aim for which it was founded, and gave itself up for the love of gain and thirst for pleasure. Its covetousness and pride soon became boundless. The Knights pretended that they were above the reach of crowned heads: they seized and pillaged without concern of the property of both infidels and Christians”^[20].

With the Knights’ exploits growing in fame and wealth, the European states became more complacent about the Order, and more unwilling to grant money to an institution that was perceived to be earning a healthy sum on the high seas. Thus a vicious cycle occurred, increasing the raids and reducing the grants received from the European nation states to such an extent that the balance of payments on the island had become dependent on conquest.^[21] The European powers lost interest in the Knights as they focused their intentions inland during the Thirty Years War. In February 1641 a letter was sent from an unknown dignitary in Valletta to the Knights’ most trustworthy ally and benefactor, Louis XIV of France, stating the Order’s troubles:

“Italy provides us with nothing much; Bohemia and Germany hardly anything, and England and the Netherlands for a long time now nothing at all. We only have something to keep us going, Sire, in your own Kingdom and in Spain.”^[22]

It is important to note that the Maltese authorities would neglect to mention the fact that they were making a substantial profit policing the seas. The authorities on Malta immediately recognised the importance of corsairing to their economy and sent about encouraging it, as despite vows of poverty the Knights were granted the ability to keep a portion of the ‘spoglio’, which was the prize money and cargo gained from a captured ship, along with the ability to fit out their own galleys with their new wealth.^[23] A slave market in Valletta that rivalled the Barbary Corsairs was established.

The great controversy that surrounded the Knights’ ‘corso’ was their insistence on their policy of ‘vista’. This enabled the Order to stop and board all shipping suspected of carrying Turkish goods and confiscate the cargo to be re-sold at Valletta, along with the ship’s crew who were by far the most valuable commodity on the ship. Naturally many nations claimed to be victims of the Knights’ over-eagerness to stop and confiscate any goods remotely connected to the Turks.^[24] In an effort to regulate the growing problem, the authorities in Malta established a judicial court, the Consiglio del Mer, where captains who felt wronged could plead their case, often successfully. The practice of issuing privateering licenses and thus state-endorsement, which had been in existence for a number of years, was tightly regulated as the island attempted to haul in the unscrupulous Knights and appease the European powers and limited benefactors. Yet these were not all successful as the Consiglio del Mer contains numerous accounts from 1700 of complaints of Maltese piracy in the region. Ultimately, the rampant over-indulgence of the Mediterranean was to be Knights’ downfall in this particular chapter of their existence as they turned from military outpost to another albeit limited nation state in a commercially-orientated continent soon to be overtaken by the trading nations of the North Sea, themselves adept at piracy.^[25]