[The Jesuit Father Caspar] had learned of the Specula leafing through the papers of a deceased brother, who in turn had learnt of it from another brother who during a voyage to the most noble island of Malta … had heard praise of this instrument constructed by order of the Most Eminent Prince Johannes Paulus Lascaris, Grand Master of the famous Knights.
What the Specula was like, no one had ever seen.Footnote 1
The reference to the mysterious Specula is how Umberto Eco introduces yet another twist in his novel L'isola del giorno prima (1994). The tale relates to a young seventeenth-century Italian shipwrecked at a point where he straddles the date meridian. The novel is interspersed with references to the knights of Malta and the Jesuits.Footnote 2 The fictitious and multi-talented Father Caspar is an echo of Father Athanasius Kircher SJ who was in Malta between May 1637 and early 1638. During his stay, Kircher is reputed to have built this wonderful machine called the Specula Melitensis Encyclica (variously translated as ‘the Maltese Observatory’ or ‘the circular Maltese mirror’), which had 125 different uses.Footnote 3 It is easy to see how such an invention captured Eco's imagination in a novel where the characters were seeking the means for more precise calculation of, and possibly control over, time itself. The Kircherian moment in Malta was but one side of a multi-faceted relationship between the Society of Jesus and the military-religious Order of Malta (whose members were known as the hospitallers); a relationship characterized by shared aims and extensive co-operation, as well as by highly critical voices from within the Order of Malta at the perceived over-bearing influence of the Jesuits. This is a case-study highlighting the workings of the Society of Jesus, before and after its temporary expulsion from Malta during the dramatic Carnival of 1639. Although the main theatre of action to be discussed here will be the small and particular setting of the island of Malta during the seventeenth century, the international dimension of both the Society and the Order, and the issues dealt with here, have a wider resonance for early modern Europe. The aim of this contribution is to move away from the dominant narrative of 1639 as a ‘temporary disturbance’. Instead, it seeks to highlight the dynamic meanderings of hospitaller–Jesuit encounters by emphasizing the place of 1639 within its wider seventeenth-century context – including the pivotal role of the Inquisition – rather than discuss it in terms of the different realities of episodes from the eighteenth century, as has previously been the case. Furthermore, the richness of the sources provides an evocative window on to the early modern carnival.
In the wake of the Counter-Reformation, new religious orders established themselves in Malta with the support of the Order and individual hospitallers. The Capuchins established a monastery in 1588 just outside the city of Valleta, while a Jesuit College was founded in 1592–3 within the city walls.Footnote 4 From here, they were ideally positioned to minister to the constantly growing population of the harbour region. Such new religious orders were in fact primarily concerned with the reinvigoration of religious life among the clergy and laity.Footnote 5 The Capuchins, for instance, held a licence from the Holy See that allowed them to hear confession and preach in Arabic (i.e. Maltese) to the people of the villages.Footnote 6 The Society of Jesus rapidly attained a position of prominence within Malta, where it ministered to the Maltese native population, the Muslim slave population, and the members of the Order of Malta. Jesuit–hospitaller relations were particularly intense during the first quarter of the seventeenth century: for example, there were two Jesuits among those recruited by the Order to help it build a vital aqueduct.Footnote 7 The Jesuits influenced hospitaller lives through their spiritual initiatives, as well as through their involvement – in a variety of roles, from consultants to confessors – with the Inquisition Tribunal, where hospitallers were regularly summoned to appear. As in other places, the Jesuits sought to rein in Carnival, generally associated with popular ribaldry, but which in Malta was an event close to the heart of the hospitallers, many of whom, in particular the knights (the foremost rank), hailed from Europe's chief noble families. The Jesuits attained a certain influence on the organizational structures of the Order, particularly during the opening years of the reign of the French Grand Master Jean Paul de Lascaris Castellar (1636–57). These factors led to seething discontent, which in the context of a tense European situation, and in view of the intricacy of Jesuit–hospitaller ties, resulted in a violent breakdown of relations between the two sides during the Carnival of 1639.
I
On Saturday 5 March 1639, Grand Master Lascaris issued an edict forbidding women from wearing masks during the last three days of Carnival and generally curtailing the presence of women at Carnival festivities.Footnote 8 Those who disobeyed these commands were to be whipped. ‘These injunctions left both young and old knights, as well as the People and the Artists very disgruntled.’Footnote 9 On the evening of Sunday 6 March, those young knights who were preparing the customary comedy that took place in the Magistral Palace beseeched the grand master to allow women to attend. When Lascaris denied them this, the young knights turned to the most senior members of the Order, the grand crosses, to intercede on their behalf. These went to Lascaris who told them he would only acquiescence to this if his confessor, the Maltese Jesuit Father Giacomo Cassia, told him he could do so without compromising his soul. Turning to ‘the inconsiderate’ Father Cassia, the grand crosses were told he could not allow the presence of women.Footnote 10 The young knights were furious and the comedy was called off. On Monday 7 March, a young Italian knight, Frà Girolamo Salvatico, went around dressed like a Jesuit with a placard attached to his back in which the rector of the Jesuit College, the Sicilian Father Giorgio Tagliavia and Father Cassia were mocked. Lascaris had Frà Salvatico arrested, which led to a rapid escalation of tension. On the morning of Tuesday 8 March, a loud crowd of knights gathered in front of the Magistral Palace. Young Italian knights went to the auberges (the inns assigned to each of the ‘nations’ that constituted the Order of Malta) of the French and the Spanish and urged their brethren to join them in their protest. A menacing crowd clamoured against the Jesuits for having got Frà Salvatico arrested. These inflamed spirits headed towards the Jesuit College (located near the Magistral Palace) and declared they would not move from there until the Jesuits had secured the release of their brother. The knights knocked heavily at the door of the College, and seeing that no one opened, they burst into the College. The terrified Jesuits locked themselves inside their church and exposed the Blessed Sacrament. The knights scavenged around the rooms of the College but found no one; in the refectory, they found tables laid out for lunch with turkeys and roasted capons and they started throwing the food out of the windows to the mass of people in the street. The knights wanted people ‘to make Carnival at the expense of the Jesuits’.Footnote 11 After this, the knights went through the rest of the rooms in the College, including that of the rector, ransacking, destroying, and throwing out of the windows all they found: sweets, perfumes, flowers, money, and books. ‘The playful spirit of Carnival’ now intoxicated everyone.Footnote 12 Descending into the cellar of the College, the knights found many exquisite wines, which they drank and they cheered one another, breaking up everything else. As the tumult increased, the Jesuits felt no longer safe in the church and sought hiding places in the remotest parts of the College.
When Lascaris heard about this upheaval he instructed the Order's marshall to quell this ‘youthful furore’.Footnote 13 Upon turning up the marshall was arrogantly told off by the rebels who insisted that Frà Salvatico had to be released and the Jesuits exiled from Malta. If not, they would torch the College with the Jesuits inside. Two elderly and senior hospitallers, the Italian prior Gattinara and the French bailiff Valençay stepped in as negotiators between the grand master and the insurgents. Lascaris was persuaded to release Frà Salvatico and he ordered the Jesuits to depart. Gattinara and Valençay took the Jesuits under their protection to prevent any physical harm to them. The Jesuits now emerged from their holes – Rector Tagliavia having hidden himself in a cistern – and were escorted to a frigate that had been prepared for them. The rector and Father Cassia looked particularly dejected as they reflected on how quickly they had fallen from their stations, from being revered in the morning, their hands kissed by the knights, to exiles in the afternoon. The young knights and the Maltese people were exceedingly happy to see the Jesuits depart. Although the original quarrel had been directed at the rector and the grand master's confessor – who were believed to be ‘managing the Grand Master’ – rather than the Society as a whole, ‘youthful furore has neither law, nor respect for anyone’.Footnote 14 Four Jesuits were, however, allowed to stay. These were the Spanish Jesuit Father Sebastiano Salelles, ‘who for many years had lived on the island surrounded with a fame for sanctity, and kept his distance from the wire-pulling’, a German Jesuit called Father Theodoric Bech, confessor to the German knight Prince Friedrich von Hessen, landgrave of Hessen-Darmstadt (Father Bech had succeeded Father Kircher in this position), and two Maltese Jesuits who happened to be eating with their relatives on that morning.Footnote 15
II
The expulsion – temporary or definitive – of Jesuits from a particular territory was a feature of early modern religion and politics. Instances of expulsion include: Antwerp (1578), much of France (1594–1603), Venice (1606), Japan (1614, along with other missionaries), Prague and Bohemia (1618), Hungary (1619), Naples and the Southern Netherlands (1622), Ethiopia (1634), Brazil (1641 Santos and São Paulo; 1661 São Luís do Maranhão and Belém do Pará), Russia (1676), and China (1724, along with other missionaries).Footnote 16 Hence, the eviction from Malta needs to be seen within a ‘pattern’ where sections of the elite in a particular place who enjoyed a momentary or permanent ascendancy over other groups earmarked the Jesuits as enemies. The action against the Jesuits by the hospitallers also needs to be set against the deep rifts that ran across Europe because of the Thirty Years War, in which confessional and national identities were juxtaposed to create a complex set of competing interests. Moreover, scores of books attacking the Jesuits circulated in many languages.Footnote 17 As an institution composed of different nationalities, the Order of Malta was particularly exposed to the various intellectual-religious currents of the time. These included highly critical ideas emerging in the early seventeenth century from within the Society itself by second-generation Jesuits who voiced concerns about the Society having moved away from its original purposes.Footnote 18 In particular, the deep suspicion with which the activities of the grand master's confessor and his superior were held reflected the European-wide mistrust of Jesuits as confessors to the powerful. The Monita secreta (1614), published anonymously but penned by an ex-Jesuit, embodied for successive generations the manipulative character of the Society and its clever means of dominating consciences to control rulers.Footnote 19 Moreover, the riot took place in the midst of Carnival, a time for the subversion of customary social conventions.Footnote 20 Admittedly, most hospitallers did not require Carnival to indulge in mischief, but the fact that the expulsion happened at the time signified an unswerving rejection of the Jesuits' attempts at controlling Carnival, and more besides.
The Carnival of 1639 is generally seen as a temporary disturbance in an otherwise smooth relationship. In 1913, Canon Alfredo Mifsud, writing in the Maltese journal Archivum Melitense dismissed 1639 as a ‘fleeting discontent’ caused by ‘youthful ardour’, particularly when compared to the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1768 during the years leading to the suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1773.Footnote 21 During the 1930s, the Italians P. A. Leanza SJ and Pio Pecchiai published a number of pieces on Jesuit history in Malta, particularly in the Archivio Storico di Malta, issued by the Regia deputazione per la storia di Malta, an organization established by the Italian government to highlight the historical links between Italy and Malta (then a British colony). Despite the political agenda underlying the Archivio, Leanza and Pecchiai produced detailed works based on documentary evidence. Leanza emphasized that what happened in 1639 was a result of too much familiarity between some Jesuits and the grand master, while Pecchiai pointed out the authoritarian character of Rector Tagliavia. Like Mifsud, they emphasized the temporary nature of this disturbance.Footnote 22 The most recent study of 1639 is by Joe Zammit-Ciantar, published in the Maltese journal Symposia Melitensia (2004). This included transcriptions of relevant primary sources and similarly emphasized the temporary nature of this event caused by ‘irresponsible’ knights.Footnote 23 The same point is re-iterated in the ‘Our History’ section of the Maltese website of the Society of Jesus: ‘On two occasions the Jesuits were made scapegoats and had to leave Malta. The first occasion was in 1639 when tensions arose between the rigid and orthodox Grandmaster and a number of liberal knights. The knights used the Jesuits as a scapegoat.’Footnote 24 The most detailed study of this event is by David F. Allen in Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu (1996). Similarly to the authors above, Allen's conclusion was that ‘Given [their] long and mutually influential collaboration, the Society of Jesus and the Order of St John had experienced at Malta during the Carnival of 1639 a truly local difficulty.’Footnote 25 Nevertheless, Allen's article does state the case for looking at a wider explanation for the causes of the revolt, which is what will be attempted here.
The description of the Carnival of 1639 presented above is based on a text found at Modena, Relazione del discacciamento de Gesuiti da Malta, and on a text found in Rome, Relazione dello scacciamento de Padri Gesuiti di Malta. The Modena manuscript is the most complete and would seem to be the original from which other copies, including the Rome one, were made. Although similar, taken together the two texts complement each other when particular turns of phrase or insights are present in one but not the other. Given the vividness and immediacy of the language used, it is very probable that whoever wrote the account experienced the events close-up.Footnote 26 The details contained therein are precious because other sources – whether official histories of the Order such as Frà Bartolomeo dal Pozzo's Historia (1703–15) or contemporary letters – provide an outline of what happened with an emphasis on why it happened, rather than on what happened. Yet having such detail is what brings to light the human element of the story, with all its nuances and biases. Clearly, the author of this account relishes the comic dimensions of the episode, such as the rector emerging out of a cistern: presumably he got soaked, thereby bringing down his proud crest. Moreover, the emphasis on the food-laden tables, the various material objects, and the well-stocked wine cellar of the Jesuits was likely meant to bring out the incongruity of such luxury among those who were meant to be committed to a life of simplicity. Significantly, this opulence of the Jesuits in Malta was the theme taken up by Antoine Arnauld (1612–94), the renowned French theologian, Jansenist, and critic of the Jesuits. Arnauld argued that the expulsion of the Jesuits (which he wrongly dates to 1643 or 1644) occurred because the Jesuits were hoarding grain and selling it at an exorbitant price during a food shortage (there had indeed been a famine in 1635–6).Footnote 27 No evidence has come to light which supports Arnauld's claim of Jesuit avarice, but clearly the episode of 1639 served as effective fodder in a strongly anti-Jesuit intellectual climate.
Allen has emphasized the importance of consulting the archives of the Society of Jesus in Rome to gain a wider framework within which to place the uprising.Footnote 28 There are visitation reports which provide insights into the workings of the Jesuit College in Malta. More significant, however, is the correspondence from and to the general of the Society, Father Muzio Vitelleschi (1615–45), and the other key players of 1639: Rector Tagliavia, Grand Master Lascaris, Inquisitor Fabio Chigi, Father Salelles, and Prince Friedrich. Vitelleschi's correspondence reveals his pivotal role at the heart of a patronage network which became a source of irritation for hospitallers. Further relevant letters are held at the Vatican Apostolic Library (Fondo Barberini Latino), at the heart of which was the correspondence between Cardinal Francesco Barberini and Inquisitor Chigi (although other correspondents, including Lascaris and the bishop of Malta, Miguel Joannes Balaguer Camarasa, also feature). Chigi was an attentive observer and his letters contain intricate details about disparaging posters and incriminating rumours that circulated within Malta and help to fill in gaps in the story.Footnote 29 Furthermore, a neglected fount of information on hospitaller–Jesuit relations – which will be tapped here – is preserved in the Archive of the Inquisition of Malta. Here, Jesuits feature regularly: as confessors who encourage hospitallers to go to the inquisitor, as supervisors of punishments meted out by the Inquisition, and on various occasions when disagreements occurred between Jesuits and hospitallers. The multi-faceted day-to-day nature of such encounters is crucial in anchoring the events of 1639 into more long-term exchanges between the two sides. Moreover, this is the first time that such a broad cross-section of primary sources is being brought to bear on the Carnival of 1639 and on hospitaller–Jesuit relations.
III
It seems that Ignatius Loyola himself envisaged the founding of a college in Malta to act as a springboard for evangelizing missions to North Africa.Footnote 30 This fitted with Ignatius's original vision of converting Muslims.Footnote 31 Contacts between the Order and the Society dated back to at least 1555, when hospitallers were frequenting the Jesuit College in Siracusa, Sicily. In 1565, a group of Jesuits wanted to make their way to Malta to help in the defence against the Ottoman siege of the island, but they were only able to get there towards the closing stages of the blockade.Footnote 32 In 1583, Pope Gregory XIII suggested the opening of a Jesuit College in Malta as the most effective way of bringing the tenets of the Council of Trent to the island.Footnote 33 As happened elsewhere, due to financial constraints, the bishop of Malta opted to have a Jesuit College to train the clergy, rather than a seminary as had been stipulated by Trent.Footnote 34 The co-operation of the Order as an institution and of a number of individual hospitallers was crucial for the founding and functioning of the College; this reflected the emphasis within the Society's management from around 1580 to have as strong as possible local commitment to its activities prior to opening a college.Footnote 35 The knight Frà Cataliano Casati played an instrumental part in the negotiations and on 8 March 1593 the first college opened in a house in Valletta.Footnote 36 In 1595, work commenced on the construction of their college proper, which came to be known as the Collegium Melitense, a prominent building sitting at the heart of the urban landscape of Valletta. In a report about the activities of the Collegium Melitense, it was stated how the Jesuits had felt the need to establish themselves on Malta, the island of St Paul and home to the finest nobility of all Christian nations. It was to be ensured that French and Spanish confessors were at hand to cater for the needs of hospitallers of those nations.Footnote 37
In 1563, the first Jesuit Marian sodality had been established in the college of Rome and the idea quickly spread. Reflecting the wider social order, these sodalities were divided according to social ranks.Footnote 38 By 1599, a sodality dedicated exclusively to hospitallers had been established. The visitation report for this year noted not only the good disposition of the hospitallers towards the College, but also their participation in the sodality and generous charity.Footnote 39 The Jesuits were also responsible for the running of a place called the Camerata, which was located in Valletta close to the Holy Infirmary (the hospital and charitable establishment run by the hospitallers) and the Collegium Melitense. This was intended as a place of temporary spiritual retreat for hospitallers, but some hospitallers, desirous of leading a more spiritual life, made it their permanent residence.Footnote 40 The number of hospitallers at the Camerata was always limited, yet its impact was significant. Frà Jacques de Cordon d'Evieu I, for instance, after living in the Camerata, rose in the ranks of the Order and attained various territories (known as commanderies) in the Savoy area to administer on behalf of the Order. From here, he co-operated with François de Sales, Vincent de Paul, and Jeanne de Chantal in re-introducing and strengthening Catholicism in parts of Savoy and Geneva.Footnote 41 His exemplary life merited a biography written, aptly enough, by a Jesuit.Footnote 42 Another significant example is that of Lascaris: in 1603, he was procurator for the Jesuit College; in 1634, as an official of the Order's Treasury, he oversaw the transfer of certain funds to the Jesuits; on 12 June 1636, while living at the Camerata, he was elected grand master of the Order.Footnote 43
Since the foundation of the first Jesuit College in Messina in 1547–8, education had rapidly become one of the principal mainstays of the Society. Jesuit schools – the seminaria nobilium in particular – were aimed at such adolescent upper-class boys as prospective hospitallers.Footnote 44 In this vein, Jesuits often acted as personal tutors to hospitallers in Malta, appointed by a hospitaller's parents or guardians. Cardinal Francesco Barberini appointed the renowned Father Kircher as tutor and confessor to Prince Friedrich von Hessen, a prominent convert from Lutheranism.Footnote 45 The successful conversion of Prince Friedrich had, in part, been achieved through the papacy's use of membership in the prestigious Order of Malta as a powerful lure. The Prince converted in January 1637 and was soon admitted into the Order, after which he wanted to visit Malta and Kircher was chosen by Barberini to accompany him on his trip from Rome to Malta. At the same time, by sending Kircher, the general of the Society was complying with the long-held wish of Lascaris for a mathematician for the Collegium Melitense to instruct the novices of the Order.Footnote 46 Kircher's journey and stay in Malta allowed him to carry out various observations (recorded in his Mundus Subterraneus, 1665) and engage in some creative exercises such as the Specula, but overall he was bored and did not pay much attention to the Prince. He wanted adventure and planned to travel to the Levant, but was recalled to Rome.Footnote 47 He befriended the inquisitor and apostolic delegate Fabio Chigi, the future Pope Alexander VII (1655–67), but even Chigi acknowledged in a letter to Barberini that Kircher had become a convenient excuse for hospitallers to visit the Collegium Melitense on the pretence of studying mathematics, when in fact they wanted to talk to the rector about patronage.Footnote 48
Looking at religious orders in a comparative perspective – in this case the hospitallers and the Jesuits – helps both to contextualize each better, and to bring out the specifics of their religious and cultural experiences.Footnote 49 Allen outlined four main similarities between the Order and the Society: their military overtone, with both organizations seeing themselves as Christian militias; their shared concern for the care of the sick and the poor; an interest in Jerusalem as a holy city; and an awareness of the importance of dying in a true Christian fashion.Footnote 50 Moreover, both institutions were characterized by a very centralized yet flexible administrative system, both of them venerated their founders, and the two corporations served to train the Catholic nobility of Europe. The Jesuits were keen to educate nobles (although their colleges were also open to a broader elite) through the provision of a classical curriculum, while the hospitallers provided military, naval, and diplomatic training. This benefited the rulers of Europe in their quest to staff their expanding bureaucratic states. On a further level, the papacy recognized the utility of combining the missionary zeal of the Jesuits with the lure of membership in the prestigious Order of Malta, in a sort of pincer movement through which to entice back to Catholicism the nobilities of England and Germany.Footnote 51
As international religious corporations owing obedience to the pope in an age of nascent national sentiments, both hospitallers and Jesuits found it increasingly challenging to manage the balance between their national roots and international missions. One further parallel development between the Order and the Society consisted of the consolidation of an administrative dichotomy between their headquarters (in Malta and Rome respectively) which remained cosmopolitan in character, and their provinces which were composed almost solely of subjects of their respective princes.Footnote 52 Links between the two organizations also occurred on a personal-familial level: Grand Master Gregorio Caraffa (1680–90) was a nephew of Vincenzo Caraffa, general of the Society (1646–9) who – according to the annals of the Caraffa family – had prophesied that his nephew would be elected grand master.Footnote 53
In contrast to the similarities shared by the Order and the Society, one of the crucial differences concerned their membership. Whereas everyone could potentially become a Jesuit, hospitaller ranks, specifically the knightly ones, were the reserve of the aristocracy. Furthermore, while native Maltese were only allowed to join the Order's less prestigious ranks as chaplains, there were no such restrictions in the Society. This meant that Maltese subjects of the hospitallers could attain positions of influence – such as confessors to grand masters – which could make some within the Order raise their eyebrows in disapproval. While on the one hand many hospitallers showed unwavering enthusiasm for the Jesuits' mission in Malta, from the very beginning there was also an anti-Jesuit undercurrent. In 1605, the Provençal Commander Frà Broiera described a French hospitaller who had been for confession to a Jesuit as ‘an idiot’.Footnote 54 The Jesuit confessor sent this French hospitaller to the inquisitor, which resulted in a number of hospitallers being summoned in front of the Inquisition. This incident points out two factors that are crucial to understand hospitaller–Jesuit relations. First, it illustrates the key role that Jesuits came to have as confessors to hospitallers, and secondly, it demonstrates the close co-operation that developed between the Jesuits and the Inquisition.
Jesuits in Malta – as elsewhere – accepted the Inquisition as part of the Catholic apparatus in place.Footnote 55 Since 1574, the Inquisition of Malta acted as a tribunal separate from that of the bishop; it was presided over by one inquisitor (always Italian), who was also apostolic delegate, and who had at his disposal a limited number of paid officials, several individuals associated with the Inquisition known as ‘familiars’, as well as consultants drawn from both the secular and the regular clergy, and occasionally from the laity.Footnote 56 When Jesuits deemed a penitent guilty of heresy, they would recommend to him to lay bare his sins – and those of others – to the inquisitor, since heresy was only recognizable by the Holy Office. In 1617, the French Frà Georgio de Longue denounced himself to the inquisitor for having ridiculed a statue of Christ, after having confessed to a French Jesuit who advised him to proceed to the inquisitor.Footnote 57 Throughout Inquisition records there were indications of a steady flow of hospitallers denouncing themselves and others, and of non-hospitallers reporting members of the Order, on the instigation of Jesuit confessors.Footnote 58 Conversely, the inquisitors frequently resorted to Jesuits as overseers of punishments meted out by appointing them as guides to condemned hospitallers. Thus, in 1602, a French hospitaller who had been found guilty of infringing abstinence and expressing doubts about the Virgin Mary was liberated on condition of confessing his sins to the rector of the Jesuits.Footnote 59 Related to inquisitorial activities, Jesuits were sometimes asked to inspect books suspected of containing unorthodox material.Footnote 60 In 1611, the Jesuit Father Petrus Facnusuis appeared before the inquisitor to report to him how two French knights had asked him to inspect a book on their behalf: this turned out to be Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim's (1486–1535) De occulta philosophia libri tres (c. 1533).Footnote 61
As the rector of the College Father Hieronimo Falcone stated in 1600, the inquisitors regularly sought out the opinion of learned Jesuits.Footnote 62 The Spanish Jesuit Sebastiano Salelles embodied the relationship between the Inquisition and the Jesuits: he was first consultant and censor within the Holy Office between 1605 and 1666, a constant figure of authority in an institution whose head changed frequently.Footnote 63 Given Salelles's prominence within the Holy Office, it is surprising that he was spared exile in 1639; he was even described as a saintly figure. What seems to have saved him was precisely his elevated status as consultant of the Inquisition, which offered him some protection from the hospitallers. It is also likely that Spanish hospitallers may have shielded their compatriot given that most of the rebel knights were Italian and French. Salelles published in Rome an important three-volume work – De materiis tribunalium (Rome, 1651–6) – covering various issues concerning the Inquisition. The second volume commenced with an engraving showing three female allegorical figures: the papacy flanked by the Society of Jesus and the Order of Malta, a visual statement of the powerful link between them.
IV
On 12 June 1636, Lascaris, who was in his seventies and living at the Jesuit Camerata, was elected grand master.Footnote 64 Though he was the most popular choice among his brethren, Lascaris's stern character, his attempts at reform, and his association with the Jesuits soon caused many hospitallers to feel uneasy. A colloquial expression that emerged at this time and is still in use – a ‘Lascaris face’, meaning someone who is broody – reflects the general unpopularity of this grand master.Footnote 65 Inquisitor Chigi, however, was pleased with Lascaris, though he feared his susceptibility to be influenced by those around him. The demise of a patron generally meant that a household would experience a change of favourites, and Chigi, with the help of the Jesuits, convinced Lascaris to change the personnel at the Magistral Palace.Footnote 66 These measures, together with Lascaris's strong Jesuit background, and the activities of Fathers Cassia and Taglavia, soon led to a growing perception of a grand master controlled by the Jesuits. Such sentiments were not unique to Malta and mirrored Europe-wide suspicions of Jesuit confessors controlling princes through casuistry and meddling with politics, at a time when royal confessors were often regarded as royal counsellors.Footnote 67 In the first half of the seventeenth century, Fathers Wilhelm Lamormaini and Adam Contzen were both famous and infamous as prototypes of the Jesuit as royal confessor and a political force.Footnote 68 Jesuit political thinking – as far as one can talk of a Jesuit political doctrine as a cohesive body of ideas – was concerned with the complex interaction between the spiritual and the temporal, and the place of the Society therein. The fifth general of the Society, Father Claudio Acquaviva (1581–1615), tried to provide clarification on what a royal Jesuit confessor's mandate was through his Instructions for the Confessors of Princes (1602); confessors were advised to abstain from involving themselves in ‘external and political matters’, while at the same time declaring what they judged to be ‘the prince's duty to God’.Footnote 69 A year prior to the publication of the Instructions, the visitor to the Collegium Melitense, noticing the intimacy with which Jesuits dealt with hospitallers, actually advised the Jesuits to step back and not get overly involved in politics.Footnote 70 In 1636, the general of the Society, Father Vitelleschi, wrote to Rector Tagliavia telling him to be more prudent in his dealing with the grand master.Footnote 71
Such advice from the general might seem sensible, but Father Vitelleschi's counsel was a qualified one. Vitelleschi hailed from an established Roman family and was a well-connected man who was in regular touch with the Barberini who exercised much influence over the papacy in the first half of the seventeenth century. His desire to please benefactors led him to write continuously to Jesuits at various courts to request favours.Footnote 72 The Magistral court in Malta was no exception and Vitelleschi did not hesitate to join the host of popes, cardinals, and princes who tried to influence the grand master in accepting their candidates for membership or promotion within the Order.Footnote 73 In January and February 1639 alone, Vitelleschi sent eight recommendations to Malta. Four more followed when the dust from the revolt had barely settled.Footnote 74 For his part, Lascaris shared personal information with Vitelleschi, such as when Lascaris wrote informing him that during January 1639 he was suffering from an ailment and that he was healed through the intercession of St Francis Xavier.Footnote 75
Through actions such as those of Vitelleschi, the Jesuits in Malta became embroiled in one of the thorniest issues within the Order: the distribution of commanderies (i.e. territories) and offices. Besides trying to manage such ‘average’ recommendations, Lascaris also had to deal with Prince Friedrich. The conversion of such a leading German magnate from Protestantism to Catholicism had been a cause célèbre for the papacy and Cardinal Francesco Barberini was eager to have him honoured through rapid promotion within the Order's ranks. Under sustained pressure from Rome, the Empire, France, and Spain, Lascaris had to accede to the conferment of the coadjutorship of the grand priorate of Germany upon Prince Friedrich.Footnote 76 This caused grave consternation among all hospitallers, particularly the Germans. After his first promotion, Prince Friedrich sought an even more important office, that of captain general of the galleys. Lascaris did not want to grant him this key post as he did not deem the Prince sufficiently mature and financially stable effectively to command it. Cardinal Barberini again exerted his pressure upon the grand master but things were slow to move. Prince Friedrich decided to have a word with Father Tagliavia about this issue; soon after this meeting, the Prince was appointed captain general, commencing duties in February 1639.Footnote 77 While the extent to which the rector was responsible for this decision may be difficult to gauge exactly, already in November 1637, placards were circulating in Malta depicting Lascaris as half man, half ass, who moved along while being pricked with a stick by a Jesuit.Footnote 78 Therefore, what mattered was that the promotion of Prince Friedrich fitted in with the widely perceived idea that the grand master was under Jesuit control. Years later, when Father Tagliavia was rector of the College in Palermo, a visitor to the province would record in his report how difficult it was to work with Tagliavia because of his authoritarian character.Footnote 79 In the Collegium Melitense's accounts for March 1639, there is the following note: ‘On the 8th of this month the College was shipwrecked under the government of Father Giorgo Tagliavia.’Footnote 80 The actions of Vitelleschi and Tagliavia had evidently contributed to the problems in Malta.
Furthermore, for many years, the Jesuits in France were perceived to be dangerous for the king and the country. Not only were the Jesuits considered to be a papal fifth column that menaced Gallicanism, but they were also viewed as pro-Spanish.Footnote 81 Thus, French hospitallers – who constituted a numerical majority within the Order – would have been raised in an atmosphere that was highly suspicious of the Jesuits and would have brought such ideas with them to Malta. Jesuit interference – both real and imagined – in the distribution of offices and commanderies vexed many hospitallers, in particular the Italians, since such manoeuvring was usually done at their expense. In such circumstances, many Italians turned to France to obtain some protection against papal meddling.Footnote 82 Reflecting the grievances outlined throughout, most of the revolters – and the two pacifiers, Prior Gattinara and Bailiff Valençay – were Italian and French. Furthermore, according to the Order's historiographer dal Pozzo, the Italian knights who revolted had been supporters of Gattinara's bid to become grand master when instead Lascaris was elected, so that internal bickering added a further facet to the 1639 uprising.Footnote 83
Despite the going on of such anti-Jesuit murmurings among hospitallers, the Jesuits seem to have been more preoccupied with the opposition they regularly faced from the local Maltese clergy to their presence in Valletta, as well as attempts by the same clergy to appropriate the Society's assets.Footnote 84 Since the Collegium Melitense served as a seminary for the training of the clergy, it was entitled to a five per cent share from all ecclesiastical income on the islands. On a small island with few resources and various groups wanting a share of this limited wealth, the Jesuits' position caused resentment among the clergy.Footnote 85 Furthermore, there were bitter disagreements between the bishop of Malta Monsignor Balaguer Camarasa (1635–63) and the Order over the issue of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, which dispute was heightened by a strong personal aversion between Lascaris and Balaguer Camarasa.Footnote 86 The bishop believed that the rector of the Jesuits was responsible for the grand master's negative attitude towards him.Footnote 87 Upon his election as bishop, Balaguer Camarasa had been entrusted with setting up a diocesan seminary that would replace the Jesuit College, believing that though the Jesuits had become rich, the quality of their teaching had declined.Footnote 88 After the closure of the Jesuit College, the bishop and the canons of the Cathedral of Mdina insisted that it should not re-open.Footnote 89
Following the revolt, extensive correspondence was exchanged between Rome and Malta that was meant to help the papacy understand what had happened. On 10 March 1639, Grand Master Lascaris wrote to Cardinal Francesco Barberini: the letter showed the powerless position Lascaris was left in as the tumult grew and the insurgents insisted on the expulsion of the Jesuits. Preferring the lesser evil of the expulsion to a wider revolt where blood could be spilled, he instructed the Jesuits to leave Malta. He ordered the captain of the frigate to take the Jesuits to Gozo (the second island of the Maltese archipelago) and wait there for some time in the hope that things might calm down, but when after a while the possibility of a quick return seemed remote, he sent the vessel off to Sicily.Footnote 90 On 14 March 1639, Lascaris wrote again to Cardinal Barberini to tell him how four senior knights had been chosen as representatives of the rebels and how these had declared the sorrow of the insurgents for their actions, asked for clemency from the pope, and declared their respect for those Jesuits that were still in Malta.Footnote 91 A pardon was issued by the pope, accompanied by a stern admonition from Barberini to the knights to start leading a more pious life.Footnote 92
Another perspective on the revolt can be gleaned from the correspondence of the general of the Jesuits, Father Vitelleschi, on whose shoulders part of the blame must rest for his attempts at influencing appointments within the Order. He wrote to Inquisitor Chigi in Malta telling him how much he lamented the whole affair, but also to thank him for his assistance.Footnote 93 To Lascaris, he described how the revolt had been an offence to God, but that he was consoled by his zeal towards the Society.Footnote 94 The general also wrote to Father Salelles encouraging him to forgive the knights and to take charge of the college until things settled down.Footnote 95 Father Salelles was already doing his best to keep the College running, as is reflected in the account books for those turbulent weeks. He noted how he had gathered any money that had been left in the rector's office after it had been wrecked, as well as how a hospitaller who had come for confession had given him a sum of money that had been stolen from the College.Footnote 96 Another letter was sent to Prince Friedrich, who was a product of Ignatian spirituality and had certainly contributed to the anti-Jesuit grievances through his behaviour. Vitelleschi thanked him for the help he had offered the Jesuits.Footnote 97 Vitelleschi's tone throughout his correspondence was stern but subdued, reflecting his desire to get the College functioning again.
The most copious amount of correspondence was exchanged between Inquisitor Chigi and Rome. As the apostolic delegate he had to act as the eyes and ears of the papacy and because of the delicate nature of the business at hand, much of the correspondence was written in cipher. On 9 March 1639, Chigi reported how there was a popular perception among both hospitallers and Maltese that the grand master was being controlled by the Jesuits and how some were calling for his resignation. It emerges from this letter that Chigi was telling Lascaris what to do, such as the suggestion to send the Jesuits to Gozo first. The four rebellious nations were Italy, France, Provence, and Auvergne, but these had now quietened down and were seeking the pope's clemency.Footnote 98 Chigi also reported how the four senior knights chosen by the four rebellious nations had solicited his support.Footnote 99 Chigi was keen to point out that even during the worst of the excesses, due respect had been shown to the Jesuits' church and that the disturbing spirit of Carnival and the devil were to blame for much of what had happened.Footnote 100 On 13 March, Chigi sent another letter to Rome. He explained how Lascaris, being a weak and unloved leader who had not taken the necessary steps when similar (albeit unspecified) uprisings had occurred in the past, had to carry a big part of the blame for what had happened. Around 3,000 people had watched the Jesuits embark on their frigate; given that the population of Valletta was about 8,000 and allowing for some possible hyperbole on the part of Chigi, the presence of such a vast crowd of spectators served as another element of the carnivalesque turning up-side-down of conventions since the Jesuits were mocked rather than revered as would normally happen in Jesuit processions. Chigi also reported how many Aragonese and Castilian knights had offered the grand master to quell the riot by force, but that he had refused this to avoid a fratricidal blood bath.Footnote 101 Although some Spanish knights were recorded as taking part in the tumult, their numbers were small. Arguably, the Spanish knights who offered to suppress the uprising felt that an attack on the Jesuits, who were so strongly associated with Spain, was an affront to their country. Furthermore, it may have suited the Spanish knights to have a French grand master controlled by the apparently pro-Spanish Jesuits.Footnote 102
Chigi's emphasis on Carnival as the source of disorder highlights the conflicting attitudes of Jesuits and hospitallers towards theatre and Carnival. As they did elsewhere, the Jesuits in Malta used theatre to engage with their communities. On the twenty-eighth anniversary of the lifting of the Great Siege of Malta – 8 September 1593 – and just a short while after the opening of the Collegium Melitense, the Jesuits presented a drama to commemorate the victory of the hospitallers over the Ottomans.Footnote 103 It was a celebration of a Catholic triumph through hospitaller prowess over the infidels on the frontier. On the other hand, the apparent bone of contention in 1639 was the issue of women attending for a Carnival theatrical performance organized by the hospitallers themselves.Footnote 104 Father Cassia insisted that women should not be present at such theatrical productions. This reflected a wider concern within the Society about the immoral effects of theatre when it was not concerned about ‘holy and devout things’ and when it brought men and women together in the same space. Various books by Jesuits criticized actors who with their sensual appeal elicited sinful thoughts in their spectators.Footnote 105 It is within these intellectual parameters that Father Cassia's – and Lascaris's – stern attitude in 1639 is to be understood. Restricting the presence of women during Carnival – which can be described as the ultimate theatrical production where everyone takes on a role – was another step in the direction of creating a more godly society. In 1598, with the support of Grand Master Martin Garzes (1595–1601), the Jesuits had introduced the Forty Hours' Devotion as an act of expiation for the sins of Carnival.Footnote 106 Similar measures were adopted in Italy and France under Jesuit influence.Footnote 107 In 1639, Lascaris tried to further such restrictions by controlling women and eliminating cross-dressing practices; however, as acknowledged in a contemporary description of the Carnival of 1639, this proved to be futile and counter-productive:
The grand master being a zealous prince thought that the Edict, and the prohibition on women attending for the Comedy would forestall certain scandals, which could occur during those Carnivalesque days. Therefore nowadays it is necessary to allow the World to be as we found it, because change can sometimes bring about revolutions, since no Persons have up to now been found who have been able to straighten dogs' legs.Footnote 108
The equation of carnival with revolution is one of the central themes of Mikhail Bakhtin's analysis of the comic-carnivalesque elements in Rabelais.Footnote 109 The early modern Carnival was a violent, irreverent event, which was often pitted against the sobriety of Lent, creating in effect a ‘second life’ outside officialdom.Footnote 110 Carnival had its ‘language’, expressed in particular through the body: women wearing masks, hospitallers cross-dressing and mocking Jesuits.Footnote 111 The violence exhibited during this Carnival was – to paraphrase Natalie Zemon Davis – a ‘violence of the crowd’, an action by a group which rather than being random had defined goals and sources of legitimation.Footnote 112 The hospitallers, many of them being noblemen raised in an environment characterized by violence and notions of honour, constituted a particular kind of crowd.Footnote 113 The Carnival violence of 1639 served as a moment when individual and collective grievances could be expressed in a particularly unabashed manner. The target of the crowd's violence was unambiguous, the Jesuit College, but not their church. Their requests were also clear: the release of Frà Salvatico and the expulsion of the Jesuits. By extension, the departure of the Jesuits would end their influence over the grand master. The actions of those involved were legitimated by the anti-Jesuit literature that circulated across Europe and by the need to address the wrongs caused by ‘inconsiderate’ Jesuits like Father Cassia. As the above account makes clear, the anti-Jesuit crowd was constantly swelling; at one point there was a hospitaller crowd ransacking the Jesuit College from within, and a crowd of (mostly Maltese) spectators outside, watching, cheering, and benefiting from whatever goods were being thrown at it from inside. The two crowds mutually reinforced each other and both celebrated the departure of the Jesuits. Carnival violence had broken through social custom, the world was turned up-side-down, and the rebellious hospitallers had achieved their aims.
The attack on the Jesuits displayed many Rabelaisian–Bakhtinian elements: the desire of abundance, the role of humour, caricature and laughter, and the participatory essence of carnival which involved everyone. The ‘uncrowning, travesty, and thrashing’ of the Jesuits, in particular Fathers Tagliavia and Cassia, could have been taken from one of Rabelais's books.Footnote 114 Indeed, one letter discussing 1639 had as its subject heading: ‘Jesuits thrashed and sent away from the Island of Malta.’Footnote 115 The Carnival of 1639 was a participatory event during which hierarchical precedence was suspended; however, it also diverged from the image depicted by Bakhtin. While it was participatory, embracing one and all, the hospitaller crowd and the Maltese crowd remained distinct, underscoring the leadership role of the hospitallers. The hierarchical downfall of the Jesuits did not mean a total collapse of the social order; rather, it reinforced the hierarchical precedence of the hospitallers.
Gradually, with the beginning of Lent, calm returned to Malta. Father Vitelleschi was ordered to find a different set of Jesuits, from diverse nations, for the college in Malta.Footnote 116 No Sicilians were to be sent over as it was considered that this would help ease tensions. The rebellious hospitallers were pardoned on condition of carrying out some form of atonement for their insolence.Footnote 117 Gori Pannellini, who succeeded Chigi as inquisitor of Malta shortly after the revolt, had to face the complex tensions that were still seething in Malta. He remarked on how the anti-Jesuit revolt had become a benchmark of what could happen to someone who earned the enmity of the hospitallers.Footnote 118 On 7 August 1639, Pannellini sent a letter in cipher to Rome in which he complained of the ‘ease with which the Knights revolt’.Footnote 119 In September 1639, hospitaller–Jesuit relations risked getting out of hand once more when a book appeared in France, allegedly written by a Jesuit, which questioned the Order's utility for Catholicism. Lascaris demanded an explanation from Vitelleschi who was quick to distance the Society from this publication and to reassure Lascaris of the Society's utmost respect for the Order.Footnote 120 The Collegium Melitense re-opened its doors soon after the revolt, though it witnessed important structural changes, particularly in the composition of its personnel, which now had to be more cosmopolitan. Fathers Tagliavia and Cassia did not return.Footnote 121
For Lascaris, the revolt proved to be a serious debacle just three years after he had been elected. The difficulty for any grand master – particularly for one who was genuinely concerned about religious matters like Lascaris – was how to maintain discipline and punish miscreants whose noble rank practically placed them above the law. Just as the rehabilitation of the Jesuits in France in 1603 strengthened the position of Henri IV, so Lascaris used the quick return of the Jesuits to Malta to bolster the image of his authority.Footnote 122 The rapid re-establishment of the Collegium Melitense showed the rebels the futility of their actions and went against the explicit wishes of much of the local clergy. Furthermore, in 1640, Lascaris published a series of anti-social behaviour edicts that condemned and turned into punishable offences the soiling or damaging of doors and windows, blasphemy, and disrespect for parental authority. He also instructed taverns to close on feast days, as well during sermons and processions.Footnote 123 Through these measures Lascaris attempted to bolster the idea of obedience by dependants to their superiors and to foster a godly society. At the same time, the main casualty of the revolt was the Camerata, which went into decline. According to the official historiographer of the Order, dal Pozzo, the Camerata at one point stopped functioning completely, so that in 1685, a group of eight knights and a conventual chaplain who were desirous of leading a more spiritually oriented life, had to establish anew the Camerata, this time with no apparent Jesuit involvement; the fabric of the building itself needed extensive repairs due to years of neglect.Footnote 124 In its role as a centre of Ignatian sociability for hospitallers, the Camerata was competing with the corporate life of the auberges of the Order; almost certainly reluctantly, Lascaris allowed it to fade away as a further measure to reign in disruptive sentiments. At the same time, in a case at the Inquisition of Malta dated January 1657 – just a few months before Lascaris died – there is a reference to a young Frenchman called Claramon, who was described as living at the Camerata, and who reprimanded a fellow hospitaller for eating meat on a Friday.Footnote 125 Therefore the story of the Camerata after 1639 is far from clear: either its decline was a very protracted one, or it never ceased functioning completely, with Lascaris possibly keeping it going albeit with a much lower profile. What is certain is that local cultural practices persisted, despite such Tridentine efforts at standardization. Carnival continued to be as boisterous as ever, with festivities, masquerades, cross-dressing, and women, against which inquisitors would continue to thunder, largely in vain.Footnote 126
V
The narrative which posits 1639 as a ‘temporary disturbance’ in an otherwise smooth relationship is reinforced by strong examples of co-operation between the Order and the Society throughout the seventeenth century. For instance, between 1635 and 1657, the hospitallers were in charge of some French Caribbean islands, including St Christopher (modern-day St Kitts). The French knight who governed these possessions for most of this period, Frà Philippe de Poincy, was a keen follower of Ignatian spirituality. He encouraged the entry of the Jesuits in St Christopher, in preference to secular priests and other religious orders.Footnote 127
As a by-product of the hospitallers' naval activities throughout the Mediterranean, thousands of Muslim slaves ended up in Malta. The Jesuits were able to carry out catechizing work among Muslims, thereby fulfilling one of Ignatius's original aims.Footnote 128 Emmanuele Sanz SJ, a Spanish Jesuit who arrived in Malta after 1666, used his extensive experience with Muslim slaves in Malta to write a book on how to convert these.Footnote 129 It is within this setting that one can appreciate a rather spectacular instance of co-operation between the Order and the Society: the conversion to Catholicism of Mohammed el-Attaz (1631–67), son of the king of Fez, Morocco.Footnote 130 When he was twenty years old, el-Attaz set out on the pilgrimage to Mecca, only to be captured by the galleys of the Order. In Malta, he fell under the spiritual direction of the Jesuits and on 31 July 1656 he was baptized inside the Jesuit church of Valletta, taking the name Baldassare Loyola de Mandes. The priest who carried out the baptism was the vice-prior of the Conventual Church of St John (the main church of the Order), the Maltese Frà Girolamo Mamo.Footnote 131 Later on, Baldassare joined the Society and concentrated on missionary work among Muslim captives in ports such as Genoa and Naples. This baptism signalled a high point in the co-operation between the Order and the Society in gaining yet another prominent convert to Catholicism. The fact that the baptism occurred in the Jesuit Church of Malta, and was presided over by an important Maltese member of the Order, added to the significance of the occasion.
Such episodes, significant as they were, need nevertheless to be set alongside instances of disagreements. When the Maltese hospitaller Chaplain Frà Fabrizio Cagliola was writing his historical novel Gabriello Disavventurato (c. 1650), he thought of incorporating in it the Jesuits' journey to Sicily following their expulsion from Malta. The protagonist of his novel, Gabriello Pulis, had the misfortune of being the captain of the frigate charged with transporting the Jesuits. Gabriello, who was looking forward to enjoying Carnival with his family, fell into a deep anti-Jesuit lament upon receiving these instructions.Footnote 132 A decade after 1639, Cagliola evidently thought this episode was worth weaving into his narrative, illustrating a persistent belief that the Jesuits were a nuisance.
In 1656, the German prior of Dacia, Frà Christian Hauster Hausen, a senior figure within the Order, clashed with the censor of the Inquisition, the Jesuit Father Salelles. Frà Hauster Hausen was an author of naval treatises and he felt irritated by Salelles's claim that he was going to inspect his work. While insisting that he was not a Lutheran himself, the prior stated indignantly: ‘How do these [Jesuits] dare to poke their nose in things that concern our Religion and its Council; I am not at all surprised that there are so many Heretics, and that others become so because of the arrogance of these Monks.’Footnote 133 The prior's words were indicative of anti-Jesuit feelings that persisted within the Order and presaged the irritated astonishment expressed at the start of Letter IV of Pascal's Lettres provinciales (1657): ‘Sir – Nothing can equal the Jesuits.’Footnote 134 In 1659, an Italian knight even claimed that a condemned book that had led to the murder of a fellow knight must have been produced by ‘the cleverness of the rector of the Jesuits’.Footnote 135
Conflict also occurred at an institutional level. On 19 August 1690, the Order's ambassador to the Holy See, Frà Marcello Sacchetti, wrote to the recently elected Grand Master Adrien de Wignacourt (1690–7) to provide him with a summary of the various issues at the Roman Tribunal of the Sacra Rota. Among these was a ‘tremendous quarrel’ with the Jesuits in Poland, which had been going on for at least a decade. The problem arose when, upon his death, the Knight Iudissi Polacco left his belongings to the Jesuits in Cracow; this went against the rules of the Order which stipulated that aside from one fifth of any movables that they enjoyed, all of a hospitaller's goods had to pass to the Order.Footnote 136 Sacchetti inherited the dispute to regain Polacco's assets from his predecessor as ambassador and he employed various lawyers, both in Rome and Malta, as well as agents in Poland, to solve this. Aware of the Jesuits' influence Sacchetti referred to them as his ‘powerful Adversaries’.Footnote 137
VI
Set against the various instances of hospitaller–Jesuit conflict discussed above, what happened in 1639 was not a blot on an otherwise smooth hospitaller–Jesuit surface; it was, rather, a physical manifestation of hospitaller anti-Jesuit feeling which was there both before and after 1639. Looking at examples of co-operation, as well as conflict, in conjunction with a longer time-frame and broader source-base, presents a more balanced, and ultimately more nuanced, picture of hospitaller–Jesuit relations in Malta and beyond. Seventeenth-century Malta was a frontier Catholic society facing the Muslim world. The hospitallers, the Jesuits, and the Inquisition coalesced in the task of making this outpost a bastion of Catholic reform in the midst of a contested sea: hospitallers killed and captured Muslims at sea, while Jesuits attempted to convert Muslim slaves, and the Inquisition sought to police those Muslims who did not convert. The relationship dynamic between them was a powerful factor in shaping the Counter-Reformation in Malta. Mutually influencing one another, they were nonetheless distinct organizations. Moreover, neither the Order nor the Society were monolithic bodies, with various tensions and different characters within them. As in other places, the success of the Society of Jesus in Malta depended on its ability to adapt: accommodatio.Footnote 138 The members of the Order of Malta – particularly the noble-born Knights, being leading men within the Order, in Malta, and across Europe – constituted the ideal social estate which the Society wanted to attract to its vision. Nevertheless, the widespread perception of a leader who was under the thumb of the Jesuits, fostered by a Europe-wide literature which harped on about this theme, undermined the efforts of the Society. The available evidence suggests that the rector and the Jesuit confessor to Lascaris had attained some hold over him which, various hospitallers believed, required a violent reaction to break. Such forceful action fitted into contemporary notions of violence and its legitimate use by noblemen.Footnote 139 The Jesuits in Malta initiated a process of confessionalization whereby they tried to remould the religious practices of hospitallers. Consequently, the violent hospitaller–Jesuit fall out of 1639 was a complex event reflecting the dynamic relationship between differing Catholic confessional and national identities.Footnote 140 Just as the argument of a temporary disturbance is an over-simplification, so it would be limiting to just reduce this episode to a pre-Tridentine Church (hospitallers) vs. a post-Tridentine Church (Jesuits) contest. Hospitallers and Jesuits were mutually useful to each other, yet at the same time there co-existed a recurrent tension within this relationship: a multi-faceted continuum shaped by both co-operation and conflict, the balance between the new and the old, and the overlaps between the international stage and the local setting.
