Order of Malta Studies

(Author's Note: This concise overview is not intended as a scholarly work, as it presents no newly-researched information; a list of books suggested for further reading follows the text.)

A recent exhibit at the British Library (Sacred - Books of the Three Faiths: Judaism, Christianity, Islam) displayed, among treasures such as the Codex Sinaiticus, a bound manuscript known as the Harley Trilingual Psalter, inscribed during the first half of the twelfth century in the Normans' Kingdom of Sicily in Greek, Arabic and Latin. It is but one reminder that as recently as 1140 Greek was the principal liturgical and vernacular language of half the Mediterranean world, including part of Italy, and a vital element in the Byzantine cultural environment into which institutions such as the fledgeling Order of Saint John found themselves. But language is only one aspect of Byzantine culture, which was more than a matter of Eastern Christians using the Greek rite while those in the West used the Gallican. Rather, it was a broad social phenomenon encompassing the arts, architecture, literature, law and other developments built upon those inherited from the Eastern Roman Empire. Alongside Muslim-Arab influences, medieval Byzantine society stood as a beacon of learning and culture in a time when most of western Europe was still in the grip of the Dark Ages. (Recent attempts to elevate the achievements of the Celts, Visigoths and Longobards to the level of what existed in Rome and Byzantium reflect more wishful thinking than fact.)

Rediscovered Heritage
Though subsumed in Italy by western movements in thought and in art, tangible vestiges of the Medieval Byzantine are still to be seen in the West, particularly (but not exclusively) in churches in Venice, Ravenna and Sicily, where artistic treasures are occasionally uncovered. In western Europe, recent times have also witnessed a certain Byzantine renewal, or at least a more widespread appreciation that was not very evident a half-century ago. Pope John XXIII, having served as Apostolic Nuncio to Greece and Turkey, was personally familiar with Byzantine culture, and made some efforts in this direction. The interest in icons, not only as works of art but as holy images, is part of this subtle trend; even Westminster Abbey now has a large icon near its entrance. This is not a trend toward something new, but an attempt to reclaim something that was believed lost.

Until the twentieth century the Western recognition of the importance of Byzantine culture was essentially an esoteric matter, something kept alive by a handful of passionate scholars or by those who claimed it as a natural part of their heritage, such as Catholics of the eastern rites. The western perception of Byzantine culture as somehing exclusively "Greek" is seriously flawed; much of the greatest surviving Byzantine art is in Italy.

In certain regions (Poland, Hungary, Croatia) the political support for a "Latinized" popular culture actually became a question of nationalism. Elsewhere in western Europe, the Gothic, the Renaissance and the Baroque were glorified, and with them the artistic and even philosophical movements they embodied. In Greece and the Balkans the decline of the Byzantine was connected to the long Ottoman domination, while in the Russia of Peter the Great eastern influences were set aside in favor of more "progressive" western ones. Fortunately, the tsars never sought to alter what has come to be the greatest living repository of Byzantine culture: the Orthodox Church.

In the Middle Ages, of course, Byzantine culture was not to be found exclusively in the ecclesial environment. It just so happens that the Orthodox Church was especially good at preserving it over the centuries unto the present day, not for the sake of art itself but because Orthodoxy, being virtually unchanged in almost every way over the course of twenty centuries, never sought to change its art or architecture any more than it modified anything else. The beauty and efficacy of the western European social and artistic movements is not to be denied, but their popularity need not have completely overwhelmed Europe's equally significant Byzantine heritage. Insofar as we have the Neo-Gothic to remind us of the Gothic, a true Neo-Byzantine may have been well-received.

West Meets East
That institutions which existed in the East during the twelfth century were exposed to Byzantine culture is a simple matter of historical context. Founded by Franks and Italians as a hospitaller institution before 1100, the Order of Saint John evolved over the centuries to become what is today the Order of Malta, named for the island the knights acquired as a fief from a King of Sicily (and Holy Roman Emperor), Charles V, in 1530. The medieval Hall of Barons, the chamber in Palermo's Steri Castle where Charles gave the knights Malta and Gozo in exchange for the annual feudal rent of a falcon, can still be visited, and the politics of Charles V are well-documented. Would that we had as much information relating to the earliest Hospitallers.

There can be little doubt of the order's thoroughly Western character over the centuries, and yet its formative years were a time of great transition and recent schism for the Church. This wasn't just a matter of monasticism or spirituality, but of the very fabric of society. East and West were dividing socially as well as theologically, and the effects would be felt for centuries.

Not everything in Frankish Jerusalem was "Latin." The society of the Kingdom of Jerusalem can hardly be said to have been a particularly homogeneous one, so eclectic were its influences. It became, in fact, a polyglot, multicultural society, though not the only one of its time. Farther west, southern Italy was being conquered by invading Normans, ensuing in long-running conflicts between the Papacy and these remarkable rulers of what came to be the Kingdom of Sicily. Later, Frederick II became the last King of Jerusalem to rule with any real authority, visiting in 1229. Unlike most other Kings of Jerusalem, Frederick also ruled important European dominions, for he was King of Sicily (through his mother's father) and Holy Roman Emperor (through his father). His truce with the Muslim leader al-Kamil (Frederick negotiated in Arabic) infuriated both Hospitallers and Templars, but though this oft-excommunicated monarch was a Latinizer he was tolerant of those who did not share his faith. The same could probably have been said of the Hospitallers a century earlier.

Monasticism
A Papal Bull of 1113 recognized the Hospitallers as a religious order. They seem to have become a military order a few years before 1136, when they began construction of the fortress of Gibelin. They already had conventual priests, and under Blessed Gerard, their founder, they probably had followed the Benedictine Rule. Raymond du Puy chose to orient the Hospitallers toward the Augustinian Rule, though perhaps with influences from the monasticism of the Templars and the Orthodox.

If Blessed Gerard, founder of the Order of the Hospital, was from southern Italy (a French origin has also been suggested), he was familiar with both the Normans and the Byzantines, as well as the Benedictine tradition of Cava and Montecassino. In Gerard's lifetime the Benedictines, though a Latin order, sometimes embraced certain aspects of Byzantine culture. As recently as the 1170s, the Benedictines of Monreale Abbey, outside Palermo, worshipped in a church resplendent with mosaic icons created by Greek monks. Prominent among these is Christ Pantocrator, typical of Orthodoxy, but the earliest holy image of Thomas Becket can also be seen.

The Kingdom of Jerusalem was founded in the wake of the First Crusade in 1099, antedated by Gerard's community. Latin clergy arrived with the crusaders, and a Latin patriarchate was eventually established, but for some years the Eastern influence was strongly felt. While it would be ridiculous to paint the early Order of the Hospital as an "Orthodox" institution, it would be equally inaccurate to presume that the earliest hospitallers were not influenced, to some degree, by the eastern tradition.

The order's earliest monasticism was necessarily different from what it would become during the post-medieval period, if only because the Roman Church itself changed considerably in the centuries following the Schism, forming the basis of the fundamental differences which exist between Catholicism and Orthodoxy to this day. Circa 1100, not only was the Roman Church devoid of certain elements "formally" introduced much later (Papal infallibility, the Immaculate Conception, etc.), but its liturgy was different. To express this simply, without embarking upon a theological tome, we might consider whether a cleric advancing through time from 1100 to our day, visiting a twenty-first century Roman Catholic church during Mass, would recognize it as his own; it is more likely that he would find in an Orthodox church (or perhaps a very "traditionalist" Byzantine-rite Catholic one) more familiarity that he would experience in a Latin-rite Roman Catholic liturgy. The distinctions between siblings have grown great indeed.

Chivalry
It is also worth noting that until the early decades of the twelfth century knighthood did not exist as the institution it later became, largely through the efforts of the Templars and Hospitallers. Feudal (enfoeffed) knights were not always invested in religious ceremonies or by their sovereign (under certain circumstances feudatories and elder knights could elevate esquires to knighthood), and the military-religious orders devised their own rites of investiture based on principles of faith which rarely concerned feudal knights outside the crusading environment. The writings of Bernard of Clairvaux were certainly influential, especially where these described the ideals of knighthood or (particularly in the case of the Templars) the new military religious orders.

The mounted warrior had always enjoyed a special place in society and even in literature, but it was in the twelfth century that knighthood began to be viewed as a particularly "mystical" vocation. "Mysticism," a term often (if vaguely) used to describe things such as meditative prayer, has gained unconventional connotations, but there is no doubt as to the spirituality of the medieval Hospitallers and their unique place as warrior monks.

Were the Hospitallers and Templars inspired by the precedent of a contemporary mounted Christian army? If so, the most likely possibility would have been Constantinople's fearsome Varangian Guard under Emperor John Komnenos, whose important victory at the Battle of Beroia (1122) was well known.

Art
The rôle of the Hospitallers was not the promotion of artforms but the care and defense of the sick. The most evident example of art surviving from the early days of the Order of Saint John is the Cross of Malta. The geometry of the Cross of Malta appears to be based on designs known in the Byzantine Empire, though its geometry is most similar to certain Arab motifs. Symmetry of this kind is typical of geometric Islamic art, which to the medieval Muslims was an expression of perfection through spirituality. The Cross of Malta appears to be a kind of inverted star, and originated before the inception of heraldry, but a modified cross formy may also have been used on occasion. Medieval Muslims might not even have thought of the design as a "cross." It would be fair to posit that the design of the Cross of Malta is a reflection of medieval Eastern art, whether Christian or Islamic.

We do not know precisely when the knights adopted the Maltese Cross as their symbol, but there is no doubt as to its use in other quarters during the twelfth century, as demonstrated by its presence in many structures of this period.

Icons come to mind when one thinks of Byzantine art. Traditional Byzantine iconography is a vast topic but its underlying principle is a simple one: an icon is a window to the soul. Despite occasional Westernist assertions to the contrary, an alternative to the icon as holy image really does not exist. Inspiring though they may be, statues, paintings, and stained-glass images cannot take the place of icons; indeed, that was never their intended purpose. The Hospitallers so venerated certain icons, held in their possession for centuries, of which they took several with them to Malta. The icon of the Theotokos of Philermo, though one of the few surviving ones, probably was not the oldest of these.

The principal architectural structures of the Hospitallers which survive in the Holy Land from the twelfth century are castles and a very few chapels. As regards the latter, the stark Romanesque architecture is typical of what was widely known during this period, in both East and West. However, many churches, such as Jerusalem's Holy Sepulchre (or, more accurately, the Franks' rebuilt superstructure of it), were constructed in a simple but aesthetic style incorporating Byzantine, western European and Arab forms and motifs. Outside the Holy Land, the Norman-Arab style of Sicily is very similar. That the Hospitallers would continue to follow this style (at Rhodes, for example) is not surprising. In the Kingdom of Jerusalem this poly-cultural architecture became the norm; newer European forms (such as the Gothic) were introduced only to a very limited degree.

Schism
The causes and effects of the Schism are too lengthy and complex to be considered in detail here, but several points should be borne in mind. When Pope Urban II preached the First Crusade in 1095, one of its stated purposes was to assist Constantinople in her fight against Muslim invaders who were threatening the Eastern "Byzantine" Empire and occupying parts of the Holy Land. In fact, the rapport between East and West did not completely break down in 1054, and several attempts at reconciliation were attempted in successive decades.

The questions of the Creed (the filioque) and Rome's claims of supremacy were but the most prominent in a long-running series of subtler conflicts between East and West. In the wake of the Schism these differences became more pronounced, even if it took decades for the ordinary person to observe the changes. During the twelfth century the Hospitallers were but one segment of society affected by changes which, in the end, were as much social as they were theological.

Politics changed, most immediately in "Byzantine" regions in Italy, the western Balkans and the eastern fringes of the Holy Roman Empire. For centuries, often with the help of the bogus "Donation of Constantine," and even before the time of Charlemagne, the Papacy had seen itself as kingmaker, but now, in the absence of the collegial authority (and likely contestation) of the whole Church it could be seen, in Acton's famous words, that "absolute power corrupts absolutely." Having "excommunicated" all the other patriarchs, the Popes offered Sicily to the Normans, ostensibly to wrest control of the island from the Muslims but with the proviso that the Christians of Sicily, who were faithful to Constantinople, would eventually come under the authority of Rome. The Papacy didn't restrict its politics to the Mediterranean or central Europe; the Anglo-Norman occupation of Ireland was sanctioned by Rome, with significant consequences.

By 1200, iconography had largely given way to less "Eastern" artforms such as statues and a westernized style of painting approved by Rome. The beginnings of the Gothic were to be seen in western Europe though, interestingly, the pure Gothic never made substantial inroads in southern Italy. (This is not to suggest intrinsic fault with Gothic architecture and art per se.)

With Papal support of certain conquests and the consequent kingdoms, languages changed. Had the Latin liturgy not been introduced in Sicily, the Sicilian language might have evolved into something quite different from the gutteral "dialect" we recognize today.

"Esoteric" Knowledge
In western academia the culture and heritage handed down to us by Byzantium rarely enjoys the attention it deserves, if only because the Eastern Roman ("Byzantine") Empire was a continuation of the crumbling Western Empire that dissipated during the fifth century, and its only incarnatron to survive into the Middle Ages. The role of Byzantine culture in the Paleo-Christian and medieval eras in the Mediterranean was an important one overlooked by those (such as certain overzealous Catholics) who seek to advance Latinism at any revisionist or ahistorical cost. However, there has been a genuine revival of interest in Byzantine art and music.

In other quarters, the cognoscenti have included some prominent knights of Malta. The late Cyril Toumanoff, the Russian-born High Historical Consultant of the Order of Malta who for some years taught history at Georgetown University in the United States, was one of the few Catholic scholars to openly recognize the importance of Byzantine history to the West. He, with Angelo de Mojana, Oberto Pallavicini and other knights of Malta, was a knight of the Constantinian Order of Saint George, a dynastic order of the Royal House of the Two Sicilies; the present Prince Grand Master of the Order of Malta is also a knight of this order. The Neapolitan dynasty's connection with the Order of Malta is comparatively recent, as Malta was a nominal "protectorate" of the Kingdom of Sicily from 1530 until 1798. While the Constantinian Order's supposed medieval foundation does not bear scrutiny, its Byzantine tradition, though largely symbolic, can be traced to a family of exiled claimants to the Imperial Throne of Constantinople who the Papacy wished to "restore" in the event of the hoped-for defeat of the Turks. True, the heads of a number of non-regnant dynasties bestow honors (and there is even a "shadow" Constantinian Order which has been bestowed by a cousin of its legitimate grand master since the 1960s), but few can be said to represent an institution which looks to the Byzantine East for its Christian traditions. From the fall of the Two Sicilies in 1861 into the twentieth century, the great aristocratic majority of Constantinian knights were also knights of Malta, and through institutions such as this order the society founded by Constantine the Great is not forgotten.

In an institution as ancient as the Order of Malta the Byzantine tradition represents the kind of historical memory which might be held in a very old, aristocratic family. It is a part of the past which has shaped the present.

Suggested Reading:

- Abulafia, David. Frederick II: A Medieval Emperor.
- Chadwick, Henry. East and West: The Making of a Rift in the Church from Apostolic Times Until the Council of Florence.
- Cormack, Robin. Byzantine Art.
- Dale, David. Upon this Rock: Doctrine, Dogma and Church Authority.
- Eusebius. The History of the Church (translation by G. Williamson).
- Losske, Vladimir & Ouspensky, Leonid. The Meaning of Icons.
- Meyendorff, John. Orthodoxy and Catholicity.
- Meyendorff, John. The Primacy of Peter: Essays in Ecclesiology and the Early Church,
- Nes, Solrunn. The Mystical Language of Icons.
- Norwich, John Julius. A History of Venice.
- Norwich, John Julius. Byzantium: The Early Centuries; Byzantium: The Apogee; Byzantium: The Decline and Fall (3 volumes).
- Norwich, John Julius. The Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean.
- Norwich, John Julius. The Normans in the South; The Kingdom in the Sun (2 volumes republished as The Normans in Sicily).
- Runciman, Steven. A History of the Crusades (2 volumes).
- Runciman, Steven. The Eastern Schism: A Study of the Eastern Churches During the 11th and 12th Centuries.
- Seward, Desmond. The Monks of War: The Military Religious Orders.
- Tradigo, Alfredo. Icons and Saints of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
- Whelton, Michael. Two Paths: Papal Monarchy-Collegial Tradition.

Statements made in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Grand Magistry of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.