The Knights of Malta, from the Order of St John to the Order today

When people search for the Knights of Malta, they can mean two quite different things, and it helps to separate them from the start. One is the Order that ruled the island from 1530 to 1798 and filled it with forts, churches and palaces. The other is the institution that exists today in Rome, its direct heir. Here are both, with what they left in Malta and where to see it.

From a Jerusalem hospital to the island of Rhodes

The Order tells its own origin story precisely. In the second half of the 11th century, merchants from Amalfi got permission from the Caliph of Egypt to build a church, convent and hospital in Jerusalem, dedicated to St John the Baptist, to care for pilgrims. Under Blessed Gerard the community became a lay religious order, and Pope Paschal II recognised it in a bull of 15 February 1113.

The military role came later, when the Kingdom of Jerusalem charged it with protecting the sick, pilgrims and the main roads. After losing the Holy Land in 1291 it moved to Cyprus, and in 1310 to Rhodes. There the knights were grouped by langue, seven at first, including England with Scotland and Ireland, and eight from 1462, when Castile and Portugal broke away from Aragon. Each langue had its own auberge, first on Rhodes and then on Malta. In 1523, after a six-month siege by Suleiman the Magnificent, they left Rhodes with military honours.

How did the Knights end up in Malta?

Charles V gave it to them. The Order records that in 1530 Grand Master Philippe de Villiers de l’Isle Adam took possession of Malta, granted by the Emperor with Pope Clement VII’s approval, on condition that the Order stayed neutral in any war between Christian nations. Spain’s foreign ministry adds the rent, a single falcon a year, delivered to Sicily’s viceroy every 1 November.

They stayed 268 years and transformed the island. First they dug in at Birgu, around the old sea castle they renamed Fort St Angelo, and after the Great Siege of 1565 they built a new city on the peninsula opposite, Valletta, founded in 1566 and named after the Grand Master who defended it.

What they left, besides the walls

The obvious legacy is the fortifications, which I cover in the forts of Malta. What interests me more is the rest. The Order built a large new hospital, which it describes as one of the best organised in the world, opened a school of anatomy followed by a faculty of medicine, and says it played a part in developing ophthalmology and pharmacology. Its fleet fought at Lepanto on 7 October 1571 with the Holy League.

Then there’s the art. St John’s was finished in 1577, and Grand Masters and knights kept embellishing it until it became a treasure house. UNESCO lists the langues’ auberges in Valletta, those of Castile and León, Provence, Italy and Aragon, plus the 18th-century Auberge de Bavière. Two are museums today, the Auberge de Provence as the National Museum of Archaeology and the Auberge d’Italie as MUŻA.

Do the Knights of Malta still exist?

They do, and this is what surprises most people. In 1798 Napoleon seized Malta en route to Egypt, and the Knights departed, partly because their code forbade them to take up arms against other Christians, according to the Order. After a turbulent spell, with Tsar Paul I acting as Grand Master, it moved through Messina, Catania and Ferrara before settling in Rome in 1834.

Its full name is now the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta. It has its Magistral Palace on Via dei Condotti, has had 81 Grand Masters from Blessed Gerard to Fra’ John Dunlap, and counts over 13,500 knights, dames and chaplains, with projects in 130 countries. The British association was founded in 1875. Its emblem is still the eight-pointed Maltese cross.

Following the Knights around Malta

My order would be the ranking above. I’d start with St John’s Co-Cathedral, carry on to the Grandmaster’s Palace and cross to Birgu for Fort St Angelo. There’s a detail there that few visitors know about. Under an agreement with the Sovereign Order of Malta, the upper part of the fort, including the Magistral Palace, the Keep and St Anne’s Chapel, is open to the public. More than two centuries on, the Order is still present in the same fort where it settled in 1530.