Class 2: What types of archives exist on Malta?

What is in the archives of the Knights of Malta, and how do they pertain to the history of Malta?
What is the Cathedral Museum?
What about that Inquisition?

The Archives of the Knights of Malta

The Knights of Malta ruled Malta between 1530 and 1798. The archives of the Knights of Malta consist of the papers and documents issued by the master and central convent of the order. The series are:

There are additional sections of the archives:

The Università
Treasury Series A
Treasury Series B

Their archives cover the history of the Order from the following periods:

Syria and Palestine (1103-1291)

Section 1, Original Documents

Section 7, Papal bulls

Section 10, Statutes and Ordinances

No archival series dates from this period of the Order’s history. The records consist of loose charters and individual surviving manuscript volumes.

Rhodes (1320-1522)

In addition to materials in Section 1, 7, and 10, the household of the master preserved several important archival series during this period:

Section 2, Liber conciliorum (this series begins in the year 1459)

Section 4, Meetings of the Chapter General (first recorded meeting was in 1330)

Section 5, Liber bullarum (magisterial bulls) (begins with the year 1346)

Malta (1530-1798)

When the order arrived in Malta, they brought their archives with them from Rhodes. The bulk of the archives today contain material on Malta. They illustrate two chief concerns of the master: the administration of the Order and the government of Malta.

Portions of the archives deal with members of the order and the relationship between the European priories and the central convent on Malta. There is little or no duplication of materials in the Order’s European priories.

The archives initially contained all the materials that originated in the Master’s household. The records for the other chief officers of the Order, the Treasurer and the Infirmerer, survive for the Maltese period.

The archives of the Knights are more like the archives of a government than the archives of a religious order. There is very little about spirituality or conventual discipline. The archives are of interest as the records of the rulers of Malta, their diplomatic relationships, and their management of Maltese affairs. Some parts of particular interest for the study of Maltese history are the petitions (or suppliche) in which individuals requested jobs, pensions, and so forth. The Treasury series A and B contain records of 18^th-century accounts.

The Cathedral Museum

The Cathedral Musuem is part of the ecclesiastical archives on the island of Malta. The contents focus on the diocese and cathedral chapter of Malta. There are other Episcopal records located in Floriana, which were microfilmed as part of the island’s ecclesiastical collections; HMML also microfilmed the archives of some religious orders and parish archives.

Ecclesiastical archives located at Mdina, Cathedral Museum:

At the parish level, the archives record births, deaths, marriages, and the status of the souls in the church. Such records were required by church law. The Council of Trent insisted upon the proper registration of all marriages, so it appears that parish records start to become more systematic in the 17^th century. Maltese parish records fall into an unusual category, since some Maltese parishes have great antiquity and consider their records their property. In most other European countries, there was at some point a secularization or changeover in the ownership of parish records, so that 16^th, 17^th, and 18^th century parish records entered into public archives.

At the diocesan level, the cathedral kept series recording registers of prebends, accounts, income, and property from the 14^th until the 18^th century. These records show the diocese of Malta and Gozo as feudal lords and as a separate jurisdiction from the Knights of Malta. Series recording the acts of the cathedral chapter begin in the 17^th century. Later series dating from the 18^th-19^th century show the modern economic development of ecclesiastical lands. For example, ACM Beni cattedrale, Sliema, documents the rapid development of Sliema in the 19^th century once it was connected to the aqueduct.

The Cathedral Musuem contains inventories of artwork and precious objects in the cathedral. These inventories are of interest to art historians.

For historians, the most interesting collection in the Cathedral Museum is the so-called Miscellanea, which contains almost 500 items that do not fit into any of the cathedral’s series. These are codices that at one time or another were deposited with the cathedral museum. They contain volumes of the Universita, the town council of Mdina, and records of Mdina’s government prior to the arrival of the knights. They contain records of the founding of the University of Malta, which was originally a Jesuit foundation.

Probably the Mdina Universita deposited its documents in the Cathedral for safekeeping. The rest of the materials may have found their way there during the French occupation of Malta. We know that to be the case with the Archives of the Inquisition of Malta, which is one of the most significant collections on the island. Malta has one of only two complete set of Inquisitorial records to survive in Europe.

The richest collection of the cathedral museum is its music collection. Most non-Maltese who hear of this collection assume that it is primarily folk music, but that is incorrect. The cathedral commissioned some of the finest composers of its day; also, Mdina preserved printed musical works that don’t survive anywhere else. Mdina contains one of the finest collections of western classical music in the world.

The Archives of the Inquisition.

The inquisition has a fearsome reputation. The Spanish Inquisition functioned as an arm of the royal government, acting to enforce religious conformity. The Maltese Inquisition was, more properly speaking, the Roman Inquisition. The Spanish Inquisition was set up by Ferdinand and Isabella. The Maltese Inquisition was set up by the Pope in order to keep an eye on the bishop and the grand master and to maintain some sort of balance. In a way, Malta was a theocracy, but ruled by three different religious entities – the grandmaster, the bishop, and the inquisitor. Andrew Vella, one of the first to systematically explore the archives, said “There is nothing to fear in the archives.” He meant that the Inquisitorial archives do not contain salacious material that might embarrass the modern church.

The inquisition was a court, which proceeded by asking questions – hence the name, inquisition. The court recorded the questions and the answers. These records give invaluable insight into daily life in Malta.

Malta is one of two nations in Europe with a complete set of Inquisitorial records.

Other ecclesiastical archives

The Cathedral Museum filming project microfilmed many ecclesiastical archives on the island. These include:

Posted December, 2003
T. Vann
Malta Study Center
Hill Monastic Manuscript Library