Navy of the Order of Saint John | |
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![]() View of the entrance to the Grand Harbour, with various Hospitaller ships in the foreground | |
Active | 12th century–1798 |
Branch | ![]() |
Type | Navy |
Base | Rhodes (1309–1522) Birgu (1530–1571) Valletta (1571–1798) |
Engagements | Battle of Chios (1319) Battle of Preveza (1538) Algiers expedition (1541) Battle of Djerba (1560) Battle of Lepanto (1571) Battle of Pantelleria (1586) Action of 28 September 1644 Battle of the Dardanelles (1656) Battle of the Dardanelles (1657) Battle of Matapan (1717) Battle of Damietta (1732) Bombardment of Algiers (1784) French invasion of Malta (1798) and various other battles |
Insignia | |
Flag | ![]() |
Variants | ![]() |
The navy of the Order of Saint John , also known as the Maltese Navy after 1530, was the first navy of a chivalric order. It was established in the Middle Ages, around the late 12th century. The navy reached its peak in the 1680s, during the reign of Grand Master Gregorio Carafa. [1] It was disbanded following the French invasion of Malta in 1798, and its ships were taken over by the French Navy.
The Knights Hospitaller were established in around 1099 to take care of pilgrims in the Holy Land. The Order was sanctioned by a papal bull in 1113, and eventually its role changed to include the defence of pilgrims as well. By the mid-12th century, the Order had purchased its first transport ships. Eventually, it began building its own ships, and had a shipyard in Acre. In the 1280s, the Order sent some ships to support the Aragonese Crusade. [2]
Following the loss of Acre in 1291, the Hospitallers moved to Cyprus. Pope Nicholas IV encouraged the Hospitallers and other military orders such as the Knights Templar to build their own fleets, in order to enforce an embargo on Egypt. In December 1291, the Pope demanded that half of the Order's income in Europe was to be used to build up the fleet, and in January 1292, the Pope authorised the Order to use their new galleys to defend the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia. [2]
The first reference to an admiral of the Hospitaller fleet dates back to 1299. By 1306, the Order had drastically adapted to naval warfare, and it was beginning to become a maritime power. [2]
The Order captured the island of Rhodes from the Byzantine Empire in 1309, and subsequently established its base there. [3] Since the Order was now based on an island, its navy became an essential component for defence. [4]
The Hospitallers fought several naval battles in the Aegean Sea during this period, such as the Battle of Chios in 1319, and supported operations with other crusader navies, such as at Euboea in 1344. [4]
The Order lost Rhodes to the Ottoman Empire after a six-month long siege in 1522. After a couple of years of moving from place to place in Europe, Emperor Charles V offered the Order possession of the islands of Malta and Gozo, and the port of Tripoli. The Order arrived in Malta on 26 October 1530 on a number of ships, including the San Giovanni, Santa Croce, San Filippo, and the flagship Santa Anna. [5]
While based in Malta, the Order and its navy participated in a number of naval battles against the Ottoman Navy or the Barbary pirates. The Order sent a carrack and four galleys to support the Spanish Empire and its allies in the conquest of Tunis in 1535. It also participated in the Battle of Preveza (1538), the Algiers expedition (1541) and Battle of Djerba (1560), in which the Ottomans were victorious over the Christian forces.
Four of the Order's galleys, Santa Fè, San Michele, San Filippo and San Claudio, capsized in a tornado in the Grand Harbour in 1555. They were replaced with funds sent from Spain, the Papal States, France and the Prior of St. Giles. One galley was built at the expense of Grand Master Claude de la Sengle. [6]
When the city of Valletta began to be built in the 1560s, there were plans to build an arsenal and mandracchio for the Order's navy. The arsenal was never built, and while work started on the mandracchio, it stopped and the area became a slum known as the Manderaggio. [7] Eventually, an arsenal was built in Birgu in 1597. A dock was built in Valletta's ditch in 1654, but it closed in 1685. [8]
Three of the Order's ships participated in the Battle of Lepanto of 1571, which was a decisive victory for the Holy League. Ottoman power in the Mediterranean began to wane after this battle, and eventually the Order began to sanction corsairing against Muslim ships travelling near North Africa and the Levant.
The Hospitaller navy participated in a number of the Ottoman–Venetian Wars in the 17th and early 18th centuries. A notable engagement was the action of 28 September 1644, which led to the outbreak of the Cretan War. The navy reached its peak in the 1680s, during the magistracy of Gregorio Carafa. [1] At this point, the dockyard in Birgu was enlarged. [8]
The Order's navy and dockyard began to decline after around 1740, as part of the decline of the Order itself. [8] Its last engagement was in the French invasion of Malta in 1798. On 10 June, a galley, two galleots and a chaloup sailed out of the Grand Harbour and made an unsuccessful attack against French forces landing at St. Julian's Bay and St. George's Bay. [9]
Following the Order's capitulation on 12 June 1798, all its ships were all taken over by the French. The ships of the line San Zaccharia and San Giovanni and the frigate Sante Elisabeth were commissioned into the French Navy and were renamed Dégo, Athénien, and Carthaginoise. All three ships remained in Malta during the British blockade of Malta, and surrendered to the British in 1800. The British broke up Dégo and Carthaginoise, but commissioned Athénien into the Royal Navy as HMS Athenienne. She was wrecked off Sicily in 1806.
The Order's navy had a number of different types of ships over the centuries. Until the 17th century, the navy consisted mainly of galleys, which came in several sizes. At times, the navy also included galleons, carracks, frigates or xebecs.
The Grand Master also had a ceremonial barge, which was used for special occasions.
During the 18th century, the Order's navy also had a few ships of the line.
Birgu, also known by its title Città Vittoriosa, is an old fortified city on the south side of the Grand Harbour in the South Eastern Region of Malta. The city occupies a promontory of land with Fort Saint Angelo at its head and the city of Cospicua at its base. Birgu is ideally situated for safe anchorage, and over time it has developed a very long history with maritime, mercantile and military activities.
St John's Co-Cathedral is a Catholic co-cathedral in Valletta, Malta, dedicated to Saint John the Baptist. It was built by the Order of St. John between 1573 and 1578, having been commissioned by Grand Master Jean de la Cassière as the Conventual Church of Saint John.
The Grand Harbour, also known as the Port of Valletta, is a natural harbour on the island of Malta. It has been substantially modified over the years with extensive docks, wharves, and fortifications.
Fra' Claude de la Sengle was the 48th Grand Master of the Order of Malta, from 1553 to his death in 1557. His successor was Fra' Jean Parisot de Valette.
A langue or tongue was an administrative division of the Knights Hospitaller between 1319 and 1798. The term referred to a rough ethno-linguistic division of the geographical distribution of the Order's members and possessions. Each langue was subdivided into Priories or Grand Priories, Bailiwicks and Commanderies. Each langue had an auberge as its headquarters, some of which still survive in Rhodes, Birgu and Valletta.
Fra Gregorio Carafa was a nobleman from the House of Carafa and the 61st Grand Master of the Order of Saint John, from 1680 to his death in 1690.
The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller, is a Catholic military order. It was founded in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century and had headquarters there until 1291, thereafter being based in Kolossi Castle in Cyprus (1302–1310), the island of Rhodes (1310–1522), Malta (1530–1798), and Saint Petersburg (1799–1801).
HMSAthenienne was a 64-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. She was the former Maltese ship San Giovanni, which the French captured on the stocks in 1798 and launched and commissioned as Athénien. The Royal Navy captured her at or prior to the surrender of Valletta, on 4 September 1800, and took her into service as Athenienne. She was wrecked near Sicily, with great loss of life, in 1806.
The Palace Armoury is an arms collection housed at the Grandmaster's Palace in Valletta, Malta. It was the main armoury of the Order of St. John in the 17th and 18th centuries, and as such it was the last arsenal established by a crusader military order. Although today only a part of the original armoury still survives, it is still one of the world's largest collections of arms and armour still housed in its original building. The Palace Armoury has been open to the public as a museum since 1860.
The siege of Malta, also known as the siege of Valletta or the French blockade, was a two-year siege and blockade of the French garrison in Valletta and the Three Cities, the largest settlements and main port on the Mediterranean island of Malta, between 1798 and 1800. Malta had been captured by a French expeditionary force during the Mediterranean campaign of 1798, and garrisoned with 3,000 soldiers under the command of Claude-Henri Belgrand de Vaubois. After the British Royal Navy destroyed the French Mediterranean Fleet at the Battle of the Nile on 1 August 1798, the British were able to initiate a blockade of Malta, assisted by an uprising among the native Maltese population against French rule. After its retreat to Valletta, the French garrison faced severe food shortages, exacerbated by the effectiveness of the British blockade. Although small quantities of supplies arrived in early 1799, there was no further traffic until early 1800, by which time starvation and disease were having a disastrous effect on the health, morale, and combat capability of the French troops.
Hospitaller Malta, known in Maltese history as the Knights' Period, was a de facto state which existed between 1530 and 1798 when the Mediterranean islands of Malta and Gozo were ruled by the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. It was formally a vassal state of the Kingdom of Sicily, and it came into being when Emperor Charles V granted the islands as well as the city of Tripoli in modern Libya to the Order, following the latter's loss of Rhodes in 1522. Hospitaller Tripoli was lost to the Ottoman Empire in 1551, but an Ottoman attempt to take Malta in 1565 failed.
Fra' Jean "Parisot" de (la) Valette was a French nobleman and 49th Grand Master of the Order of Malta, from 21 August 1557 to his death in 1568. As a Knight Hospitaller, joining the order in the Langue de Provence, he fought with distinction against the Turks at Rhodes. As Grand Master, Valette became the Order's hero and most illustrious leader, commanding the resistance against the Ottomans at the Great Siege of Malta in 1565, sometimes regarded as one of the greatest sieges of all time.
The Auberge d'Italie is an auberge in Valletta, Malta. It was built at various stages in the late 16th century to house knights of the Order of Saint John from the langue of Italy, and it originally had a Mannerist design by Girolamo Cassar and several other architects. The building continued to be modified throughout the course of the 17th century, with the last major renovation being carried out in the 1680s during the magistracy of Gregorio Carafa, giving the building a Baroque character.
The fortifications of Malta consist of a number of walled cities, citadels, forts, towers, batteries, redoubts, entrenchments and pillboxes. The fortifications were built over hundreds of years, from around 1450 BC to the mid-20th century, and they are a result of the Maltese islands' strategic position and natural harbours, which have made them very desirable for various powers.
The fortifications of Valletta are a series of defensive walls and other fortifications which surround Valletta, the capital city of Malta. The first fortification to be built was Fort Saint Elmo in 1552, but the fortifications of the city proper began to be built in 1566 when it was founded by Grand Master Jean de Valette. Modifications were made throughout the following centuries, with the last major addition being Fort Lascaris which was completed in 1856. Most of the fortifications remain largely intact today.
Slavery in Malta existed and was recognised from classical antiquity until the early modern period, as was the case in many countries around the Mediterranean Sea. The system reached its apex under Hospitaller rule, when it took on unprecedented proportions, largely to provide galley slaves for the galleys of the Order, as well as other Christian countries. Commerce raids, which were the backbone of the Knights' economic military system helped to maintain this system, partly through creating the demand for slaves to maintain the military fleet, but also due to the influx of Muslim prisoners when battles were won. Thus Malta became the hub of slavery in Christian Europe. Slavery was abolished in Malta by Napoléon Bonaparte during his invasion of the Maltese archipelago on 16 June 1798.
The French invasion of Malta was the successful invasion of the islands of Malta and Gozo, then ruled by the Order of St. John, by the French First Republic led by Napoleon Bonaparte in June 1798 as part of the Mediterranean campaign of the French Revolutionary Wars.
The Slaves' Prison officially known as the Grand Prison and colloquially as the bagnio, was a prison in Valletta, Malta. It was established in the late 16th century, and remained in use as a prison throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. It was subsequently used as a naval hospital, a school and an examination hall. It was bombed in World War II, and the ruins were demolished to make way for a block of flats.
The Forni della Signoria was a bakehouse in Valletta, Malta. It was constructed in the late 16th century by the Order of St John, and it consisted of a number of bakeries which produced bread for the inhabitants of Valletta and the surrounding area, as well as for the Order's garrison and navy.
The 1592–1593 Malta plague epidemic was a major outbreak of plague on the island of Malta, then ruled by the Order of St John. It occurred in three waves between June 1592 and September 1593, during the second plague pandemic, and it resulted in approximately 3000 deaths, which amounted to about 11% of the population. The disease was imported to Malta by Tuscan galleys that had captured vessels from Alexandria. In 1593, the Order requested assistance from Sicily to deal with the epidemic, and the measures taken were effective in containing plague.