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143-589: Tabone was born in Casal Pasqualino (today part of Żejtun ) around 1575 to Pietro Tabone and Dorothea née Cumbo. He was the only son of a rich family, and had six sisters. On 18 March 1589, he seems to have received a clerical tonsure which brought him under the Church's jurisdiction, protecting him from the powers of the Order of St. John who at the time ruled Malta . Tabone did not continue to study to become

286-746: A book about the practise of piracy in the Mediterranean, aptly titled the Discourse of Pirates . In the book, Mainwaring outlined potential methods to hunt down and eliminate piracy. The most famous of the corsairs in North Africa were the Barbarossa brothers, Aruj and Khayr al-Din . They, and two less well-known brothers all became Barbary corsairs in the service of the Ottoman Empire who later became "Kings" when they established

429-538: A courtyard, cistern and a nearby field, matching the description, and the date "1624" is reportedly inscribed inside the building. However, no sources which explicitly state that the building belonged to Tabone are known, and his ownership of the building is therefore uncertain. The design of the house is similar to the auberges of the Knights in Birgu. It has a main door in the middle with an imposing window decorated with

572-661: A decisive victory against a numerically superior force that made use of firearms. When the Ottomans departed, the Hospitallers had but 600 men able to bear arms. The most reliable estimate puts the number of the Ottoman army at its height at some 40,000 men, of whom 15,000 eventually returned to Constantinople. The siege is portrayed vividly in the frescoes of Matteo Pérez in the Hall of St. Michael and St. George, also known as

715-648: A direct part in supporting the Malta native Iacob Heraclid who, in 1561, established a temporary foothold in Moldavia . The Hospitallers also continued their maritime actions against Muslims and especially the Barbary pirates . Although they had only a few ships, they quickly drew the ire of the Ottomans , who were unhappy to see the order resettled. In 1565 Suleiman sent an invasion force of about 40,000 men to besiege

858-433: A form of piracy and that their goal was mostly to seize ships to obtain spoils, money and slaves. Muslim sources, however, sometimes refer to the "Islamic naval jihad"—casting the conflicts as part of a sacred mission of war under Allah, differing from the more familiar form of jihad only in being waged at sea. Accounts of Andalusian Muslims being persecuted by the notoriously ruthless Spanish Inquisition —willingly abetted by

1001-748: A guess about their total". Professor Ian Blanchard, an expert on African trade and economic history at the University of Edinburgh, said that Davis's work was solid and that a number over a million was in line with his expectations. Davis notes that his calculations were based on observers reports of approximately 35,000 European Christian slaves on the Barbary Coast at any one time during the late 1500s and early 1600s, held in Tripoli, Tunis and, mostly, Algiers. The history of Muslim enslavement of white Europeans has been cited by some as contextualising

1144-539: A hundred days a year, but when the slaves assigned to them were on land, they were forced to do hard manual labor. There were exceptions: galley slaves of the Ottoman Sultan in Constantinople would be permanently confined to their galleys, and often served extremely long terms, averaging around nineteen years in the late seventeenth-century and early eighteenth-century periods. These slaves rarely got off

1287-544: A hundred or more fighting men armed with cutlasses and small arms. The Barbary navies were not battle fleets. When they sighted a European frigate , they fled. The scope of corsair activity began to diminish in the latter part of the 17th century, as the more powerful European navies started to compel the Barbary states to make peace and cease attacking their shipping. However, the ships and coasts of Christian states without such effective protection continued to suffer until

1430-435: A local Melitan moulding. The building has other entrances and windows at ground floor but are simple. The upper floor is mostly not built. The Ingraw Tower ( Maltese : Torri Ingraw ) was built by Tabone in 1603 in Ħal Tmin or in the area of Misraħ Strejnu. It bore the following inscription, but it has been lost: Clementis clementia non-par dicto gigantum – Taboniae stirpis Gloriæ honoræ domus (meaning Clemente's clemency

1573-470: A long time now nothing at all. We only have something to keep us going, Sire, in your own Kingdom and in Spain. Maltese authorities did not mention the fact that they were making a substantial profit policing the seas and seizing infidel ships and cargoes. The authorities on Malta immediately recognised the importance of corsairing to their economy and set about encouraging it, as despite their vows of poverty,

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1716-483: A more militarized force. In 1334, they fought an attempted invasion by Andronicus and his Turkish auxiliaries, and in 1374 they took over the defence of nearby Smyrna on the Anatolian coast, which had been conquered by a crusade in 1344 ; the knights held the city until it was besieged and taken by Timur in 1402. On the peninsula of Halicarnassus (present-day Bodrum ), the knights reinforced their position with

1859-793: A new state in the Maghreb known as the Ottoman Regency of Algiers . They were called the Barbarossas (Italian for Redbeards) after the red beard of Oruç, the eldest. Oruç captured the island of Djerba for the Hafsids in 1502 or 1503. He often attacked Spanish coasts and their territories on the coast of North Africa; during one failed attempt in Béjaia in 1512 he lost his left arm to a cannonball. The eldest Barbarossa also went to capture Algiers in 1516. Well aided by his Berber allies from

2002-788: A number of other noted novels, including Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe , The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, père , The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame , The Sea Hawk and the Sword of Islam by Rafael Sabatini , The Algerine Captive by Royall Tyler , Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian , the Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson , The Walking Drum by Louis Lamour , Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting , Corsair by Clive Cussler , Tanar of Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs , and Angélique in Barbary by Anne Golon . Miguel de Cervantes ,

2145-520: A number of years, was tightly regulated as the island's government attempted to haul in the unscrupulous knights and appease the European powers and limited benefactors. Yet these efforts were not altogether successful, as the Consiglio del Mer received numerous complaints around the year 1700 of Maltese piracy in the region. Ultimately, the rampant over-indulgence in privateering in the Mediterranean

2288-456: A priest. He acted as an attorney for his father during a property deal in 1596, and his father later gave him some pieces of land through two notarial deeds. He subsequently became a wealthy landowner, renting out some of his fields and buying others. His lands included a number of fields and buildings, including part of the archaeological site of Tas-Silġ and salt pans in Bengħisa. Tabone built

2431-527: A smaller scale. Europeans at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818 discussed possible retaliation. In 1824 a British fleet under Admiral Sir Harry Burrard Neale bombarded Algiers. Corsair activity based in Algiers did not entirely cease until France conquered the state in 1830 . From bases on the Barbary Coast, North Africa, the Barbary pirates raided ships traveling through the Mediterranean and along

2574-542: A so called 'slave fund' (slavekasse) was established by the state in 1715. Funds were brought in through a compulsory insurance sum for seafarers. 165 slaves were ransomed by this institution between 1716 and 1736. Between 1716 and 1754 nineteen ships from Denmark-Norway were captured with 208 men; piracy was thus a serious problem for the Danish merchant fleet. During the American Revolutionary War ,

2717-525: Is mostly known for his role in the 1614 Raid on Żejtun , in which a fleet of Ottoman galleys landed some 6,000 men in St. Thomas Bay in Marsaskala and pillaged the village of Żejtun which had been abandoned by its inhabitants after they heard about the attack. Tabone's exact role is unclear; some sources state that he was a member of the dejma militia , while others state that he was attacked by Ottomans on

2860-473: Is said not to match that of giants – not even the glory of the Tabone's pedigree or the honour of the family ) The tower was built for defensive purposes since the area was prone to attacks by the Barbary pirates . A number of other towers were built in the area, including Tal-Mozz Tower in the immediate vicinity and Mamo Tower some distance away. The Ingraw Tower had been dismantled by 1927, and its stonework

3003-420: Is thought that around 8,500 new slaves were needed annually to replenish numbers—about 850,000 captives over the century from 1580 to 1680. By extension, for the 250 years between 1530 and 1780, the figure could easily have been as high as 1,250,000. Historians welcomed Davis's attempt to quantify the number of European slaves, but were divided as to the accuracy of the unorthodox methodology which he relied on in

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3146-575: The Ad providam bull that turned over much of their property to the Hospitallers. At Rhodes, and later Malta, the resident knights of each langue were headed by a bailiff . The English Grand Prior at the time was Philip De Thame , who acquired the estates allocated to the English langue from 1330 to 1358. On Rhodes, the Hospitallers, by then also referred to as the Knights of Rhodes , were forced to become

3289-826: The Fatimid caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah destroyed the hospital and three thousand other buildings in Jerusalem. Merchants from Amalfi in southern Italy were given permission by the Egyptian Fatimid Caliph al-Mustansir Billah ( r.  1036–1094 ) to build a monastery in Jerusalem, near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre . The monastery, known as the abbey of St Mary of the Latins (to distinguish them from local Syriac Orthodox Church hierarchy),

3432-826: The French West India Company , ending the Order's presence in that region. The decree of the French National Assembly in 1789 abolishing feudalism in France also abolished the Order in France: Barbary pirates The Barbary pirates , Barbary corsairs , Ottoman corsairs , or naval mujahideen (in Muslim sources) were mainly Muslim pirates and privateers who operated from the largely independent Barbary states . This area

3575-575: The French conquest of Algeria in 1830 and so-called "pacification" by the French during the mid-to-late 19th century. The Barbary corsairs were active from medieval times to the 1800s. Both Europeans (e.g. the Dum Diversas ) and Muslims considered themselves to be waging holy wars against each other during this era. European and American historical sources bluntly consider these operations to be

3718-622: The Johanniterorden to its continuing place as the chief non-Roman Catholic branch of the Knights Hospitaller. The Knights of Malta had a strong presence within the Imperial Russian Navy and the pre- revolutionary French Navy . When Phillippe de Longvilliers de Poincy was appointed governor of the French colony on Saint Kitts in 1639, he was a prominent Knight of St. John and dressed his retinue with

3861-490: The Kerkennah Islands off the coast of Tunisia and took away almost 500 Muslim captives. Between 1568 and 1634 the Knights of Saint Stephen may have captured about 14,000 Muslims, with perhaps one-third taken in land raids and two-thirds taken on captured ships. Ireland was subject to a similar attack. In June 1631 Murat Reis, with corsairs from Algiers and armed troops of the Ottoman Empire, stormed ashore at

4004-572: The Kingdom of Kuku , he vanquished a Spanish expedition intended to replace the Spanish vassal ruler of Algiers that he executed with his son along with everybody he suspected would oppose him in favor of his Spanish foes, including local Zayyanid rulers. He was finally captured and killed by the Spanish in Tlemcen in 1518 , and put on display. Oruç, based mainly on land, was not the best-known of

4147-617: The Ottoman -endorsed Barbary pirates operating out of North Africa. Boosted by an air of invincibility following the successful defence of their island in 1565, and compounded by the Christian victory over the Ottoman fleet in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, the knights set about protecting Christian merchant shipping to and from the Levant and freeing the captured Christian slaves who formed

4290-597: The Pietà , attributed to Francesco Zahra , is also found in the chapel. The chapel remains intact and it is still in use. Knights Hospitaller The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem ( Latin : Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani ), commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller ( / ˈ h ɒ s p ɪ t əl ər / ), is a Catholic military order . It

4433-580: The Public Library was established in 1761. The University was founded seven years later, followed, in 1786, by a School of Mathematics and Nautical Sciences. Despite these developments, some of the Maltese grew to resent the Order, which they viewed as a privileged class. This even included some of the local nobility , who were not admitted to the Order. In Rhodes, the knights had been housed in auberges (inns) segregated by Langues. This structure

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4576-406: The plague . English corsair Jack, or John, Ward was once called "beyond doubt the greatest scoundrel that ever sailed from England" by the English ambassador to Venice. Ward was a privateer for Queen Elizabeth during her war with Spain; after the end of the war, he became a corsair. With some associates he captured a ship in about 1603 and sailed it to Tunis; he and his crew converted to Islam . He

4719-587: The reconquest of the Holy Land by Islamic forces , the knights operated from Rhodes, over which they were sovereign , and later from Malta, where they administered a vassal state under the Spanish viceroy of Sicily . The Hospitallers were one of the smallest groups to have colonized parts of the Americas, briefly acquiring four Caribbean islands in the mid-17th century, which they turned over to France in

4862-583: The "Land of Severin" ( Terra de Zeurino ), along with the nearby mountains, from Béla IV of Hungary , as shown by a charter of grant issued on 2 June 1247. The Banate of Severin was a march , or border province, of the Kingdom of Hungary between the Lower Danube and the Olt River , today part of Romania, and back then bordered across the Danube by a powerful Bulgarian Empire . The Hospitaller hold on

5005-672: The 1660s. The knights became divided during the Protestant Reformation , when rich commanderies of the order in northern Germany and the Netherlands became Protestant and largely separated from the Catholic main stem, remaining separate to this day ; modern ecumenical relations between the descendant chivalric orders are amicable. The order was suppressed in England, Denmark, and other parts of northern Europe, and

5148-482: The 16th and 19th centuries. However, to extrapolate his numbers, Davis assumes the number of European slaves captured by Barbary pirates were constant for a 250-year period, stating: There are no records of how many men, women and children were enslaved, but it is possible to calculate roughly the number of fresh captives that would have been needed to keep populations steady and replace those slaves who died, escaped, were ransomed, or converted to Islam. On this basis it

5291-472: The 19th century. Between 1580 and 1680, corsairs were said to have captured about 850,000 people as slaves and from 1530 to 1780 as many as 1.25 million people were enslaved. However, these numbers are estimated and provided by only one historian, Robert Davis, and have been questioned by others like David Earle. Some of these corsairs were European outcasts and converts (renegade) such as John Ward and Zymen Danseker . Hayreddin Barbarossa and Oruç Reis ,

5434-516: The 700 knights and 8,000 soldiers and expel them from Malta and gain a new base from which to possibly launch another assault on Europe. This is known as the Great Siege of Malta . At first the battle went as badly for the Hospitallers as Rhodes had: most of the cities were destroyed and about half the knights killed. On 18 August, the position of the besieged was becoming desperate: dwindling daily in numbers, they were becoming too feeble to hold

5577-523: The Apostles. A historian of the Order in the 13th century wrote that this version was not true. In any case, the Hospitallers rose to fame and prestige in a short amount of time. By the time of the success of the First Crusade in 1099, the Hospital of St John was already well known among pilgrims and was regarded as a separate organization from the monastery of St Mary. The monastic brothers at

5720-617: The Banate was only brief. After the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1291 (the city of Jerusalem had fallen in 1187 ), the Knights were confined to the County of Tripoli and, when Acre was captured in 1291, the order sought refuge in the Kingdom of Cyprus . Finding themselves becoming enmeshed in Cypriot politics, their Master, Guillaume de Villaret , created a plan of acquiring their own temporal domain, selecting Rhodes , then part of

5863-466: The Barbarossas. His youngest brother Hızır (later called Hayreddin or Kheir ed-Din) was a more traditional corsair. After capturing many crucial coastal areas, Hayreddin was appointed admiral-in-chief of the Ottoman sultan's fleet . Under his command the Ottoman Empire was able to gain and keep control of the Mediterranean for over thirty years. Barbaros Hızır Hayreddin Pasha died in 1546 of a fever, possibly

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6006-419: The Barbary Coast during peacetime to pursue their trade. These outcasts, who had converted to Islam, brought up-to-date naval expertise to the piracy business, and enabled the corsairs to make long-distance slave-catching raids as far away as Iceland and Newfoundland . Infamous corsair Henry Mainwaring , who was initially a lawyer and pirate-hunter, later returned home to a royal pardon. Mainwaring later wrote

6149-437: The Barbary states attracted English pirates, many of whom had previously operated as privateers under Queen Elizabeth I , but found themselves unwanted by her successor King James VI and I . Where in England these pirates were reviled, in the Barbary states they were respected, and had access to safe markets in which to resupply and repair their ships. Many of these pirates converted to Islam. A notable Christian action against

6292-464: The Barbary states occurred in 1607, when the Knights of Saint Stephen (under Jacopo Inghirami ) sacked Bona in Algeria, killing 470 and taking 1,464 captives. This victory is commemorated by a series of frescoes painted by Bernardino Poccetti in the "Sala di Bona" of Palazzo Pitti , Florence . In 1611 Spanish galleys from Naples , accompanied by the galleys of the Knights of Malta , raided

6435-510: The Barbary states. Similar raids were undertaken from Salé (see Salé Rovers ) and other ports in Morocco . Barbary corsairs captured thousands of merchant ships and repeatedly raided coastal towns in Europe. As a result, residents abandoned their former villages on long stretches of coast in Spain and Italy. The raids were such a problem that coastal settlements were seldom undertaken until

6578-688: The British Isles, and Iceland. While such raids began after the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula in the 710s, the terms "Barbary pirates" and "Barbary corsairs" are normally applied to the raiders active from the 16th century onwards, when the frequency and range of the slavers' attacks increased. In that period, Algiers , Tunis and Tripoli came under the sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire , either as directly administered provinces or as autonomous dependencies known as

6721-441: The Byzantine Empire. He also reorganised the order into eight langues , or "tongues", corresponding to a geographic or ethno-linquistic area: the Crown of Aragon , Auvergne , Crown of Castile , Kingdom of England , France , Holy Roman Empire , Italy and Provence . Each was administered by a Prior or, if there was more than one priory in the langue, by a Grand Prior. Guillaume's successor, Foulques de Villaret , executed

6864-498: The Conqueror in 1480, who, after capturing Constantinople and defeating the Byzantine Empire in 1453 , made the Knights a priority target. In 1522, an entirely new sort of force arrived: 400 ships under the command of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent deployed as many as 100,000 men to the island, and possibly up 200,000. Under Grand Master Philippe Villiers de L'Isle-Adam , the knights, though well-fortified, only had about 7,000 men-at-arms. The siege lasted six months, after which

7007-465: The Crusaders on 22 August 1153. It is not clear if the role of the Hospitallers was only advisory or if they were involved in the fighting at Ascalon. The Hospitallers and the Knights Templar became the most formidable military orders in the Holy Land. Frederick Barbarossa , the Holy Roman Emperor , pledged his protection to the Knights of St. John in a charter of privileges granted in 1185. The statutes of Roger de Moulins (1187) deal only with

7150-416: The English branch was confiscated in 1540. The German Bailiwick of Brandenburg became Lutheran in 1577, then more broadly Evangelical, but continued to pay its financial contribution to the Order until 1812, when the Protector of the Order in Prussia, King Frederick William III , turned it into an order of merit; in 1852, his son and successor as Protector, King Frederick William IV of Prussia , restored

7293-434: The European states became more complacent about the Order, and more unwilling to grant money to an institution that was perceived to be earning a healthy sum on the high seas. Thus, a vicious cycle occurred, increasing the raids and reducing the grants received from the nation-states of Christendom to such an extent that the balance of payments on the island had become dependent on conquest. The European powers lost interest in

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7436-493: The French Navy over the long caravans favoured by the Maltese, and if the Knight desired, to indulge in some of the pleasures of a traditional debauched seaport. In return, the French gained and quickly assembled an experienced navy to stave off the threat of the Spanish and their Habsburg masters. The shift in attitudes of the Knights over this period is ably outlined by Paul Lacroix, who states: Inflated with wealth, laden with privileges which gave them almost sovereign powers ...

7579-404: The French Navy proving the most popular destination. This decision went against the knights' cardinal reason for existence, in that by serving a European power directly they faced the very real possibility that they would be fighting against another Roman Catholic force, as in the few Franco-Spanish naval skirmishes that occurred in this period. The biggest paradox is the fact that for many years

7722-484: The Holy Land were built by the Templars and the Hospitallers. At the height of the Kingdom of Jerusalem , the Hospitallers held seven great forts and 140 other estates in the area. The two largest of these, their bases of power in the Kingdom and in the Principality of Antioch , were the Krak des Chevaliers and Margat in Syria. The property of the Order was divided into priories , subdivided into bailiwicks , which in turn were divided into commanderies . As early as

7865-443: The Hospitallers in Germany, into the Principality of Heitersheim , making the Grand Prior of Germany a prince of the Holy Roman Empire with a seat and vote in the Reichstag . The knights would stay in Malta for the next 268 years, transforming what they called "merely a rock of soft sandstone" into a flourishing island with mighty defences, whose capital city, Valletta , would become known as Superbissima , "Most Proud", among

8008-597: The Hospitallers in their wills in the 1120s, and in the early 1140s Pope Innocent II mentioned that the Hospitallers had "servants" to protect pilgrims. An account from a Hospitaller priest in 16th century stated that as the Order of St John became more wealthy it hired knights to defend its hospitals and pilgrims, and these knights eventually became Hospitallers themselves. It is known that secular knights and soldiers were hired by institutions in Jerusalem to provide protection after 1099, including churches, and some of them later joined military orders. The Order of Knights Templar

8151-426: The Hospitallers rose in prominence and were recognized as a distinct order by Pope Paschal II in 1113. The Order of Saint John was militarized in the 1120s and 1130s, hiring knights that later became Hospitallers. The organization became a military religious order under its own papal charter, charged with the care and defence of the Holy Land , and fought in the Crusades until the Siege of Acre in 1291. Following

8294-427: The Hospitallers was granted the status of Reichsfürst ( Prince of the Holy Roman Empire ), even though the Order's territory was always south of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1630, he was awarded ecclesiastic equality with cardinals , and the unique hybrid style His Most Eminent Highness , reflecting both qualities qualifying him as a true Prince of the Church . With their diminished strength and relocation to Malta in

8437-657: The Ingraw Tower on one of his lands in 1603, and decades later, he used part of the land acquired in 1596 to construct St. Clement's Chapel . Tabone married three times. He first married Helena Testaferrata on 11 January 1597 in Birgu , but she died the following year on 2 August 1598. His second marriage, on 3 February 1602, was to Margherita Pace, the daughter of a nobleman from Siġġiewi . He eventually began an extramarital affair with Aloisetta Veron, and married her on 14 January 1657. They had four children, two of whom – Dorothea and Angelo (or Archangelo) – were born out of wedlock and later legitimized. Their fourth child, Archangela,

8580-431: The Kingdom of France remained on amicable terms with the Ottoman Empire, the Knights' greatest and bitterest foe and purported sole purpose for existence. Paris signed many trade agreements with the Ottomans and agreed to an informal (and ultimately ineffective) cease-fire between the two states during this period. That the Knights associated themselves with the allies of their sworn enemies shows their moral ambivalence and

8723-413: The Knights boosted the economy, were charitable, and protected against Muslim attacks. Hospitals were among the first projects to be undertaken in Malta, where French soon supplanted Italian as the official language (though the native inhabitants continued to speak Maltese among themselves). The knights also constructed fortresses, watch towers, and naturally, churches. Its acquisition of Malta signalled

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8866-429: The Knights were granted the ability to keep a portion of the spoglio , which was the prize money and cargo gained from a captured ship, along with the ability to fit out their own galleys with their new wealth. The great controversy that surrounded the knights' corso was their insistence on their policy of 'vista'. This enabled the Order to stop and board all shipping suspected of carrying Turkish goods and confiscate

9009-400: The Netherlands , and the Order of Saint John in Sweden . In 603, Pope Gregory I commissioned the Ravennate Abbot Probus, who was previously Gregory's emissary at the Lombard court, to build a hospital in Jerusalem to treat and care for Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. In 800, Emperor Charlemagne enlarged Probus' hospital and added a library to it. About 200 years later, in 1009,

9152-518: The Order was granted more castles and towns by nobles that needed assistance in defending them, especially in the County of Tripoli and the Principality of Antioch . Those notably included the Krak des Chevaliers in 1142, which they received from Raymond II, Count of Tripoli . According to one estimate the Hospitallers had 25 castles as of 1180. In addition to defending them, the Hospitallers also undertook construction projects to build new castles or repair and expand existing ones, with an example of

9295-423: The Ottoman fleet, was a serious blow. The Turkish commanders, Piali Pasha and Mustafa Pasha, were careless. They had a huge fleet which they used with effect on only one occasion. They neglected their communications with the African coast and made no attempt to watch and intercept Sicilian reinforcements. On 1 September they made their last effort, but the morale of the Ottoman troops had deteriorated seriously and

9438-453: The Spanish and Portuguese. There are several cases of Sephardic Jews , including Sinan Reis and Samuel Pallache , who upon fleeing Iberia turned to attacking the Spanish Empire 's shipping under the Ottoman flag. During the first period (1518–1587), the beylerbeys were admirals of the sultan , commanding great fleets and conducting war operations for political ends. They were slave-hunters and their methods were ferocious. After 1587,

9581-511: The Spanish author, was captive for five years as a slave in the bagnio of Algiers, and reflected his experience in some of his fictional (but not directly autobiographical) writings, including the Captive's tale in Don Quixote , his two plays set in Algiers, El Trato de Argel (The Treaty of Algiers) and Los Baños de Argel (The Baths of Algiers), and episodes in a number of other works. In Mozart 's opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail (a Singspiel ), two European ladies are discovered in

9724-413: The Templars. The other symbol of the Hospitallers, the "eight-pointed cross," is said to have originated in the Byzantine Empire before reaching the Duchy of Amalfi in Italy, and it was later used in Jerusalem by the monks that founded the Hospital of St John. After the Hospitallers moved to Malta, it became known as the Maltese cross . King Fulk of Jerusalem constructed several castles to defend

9867-412: The Throne Room, in the Grandmaster's Palace in Valletta ; four of the original modellos , painted in oils by Perez d'Aleccio between 1576 and 1581, can be found in the Cube Room of the Queen's House at Greenwich , London. After the siege a new city had to be built: the present capital city of Malta, named Valletta in memory of the Grand Master who had withstood the siege. In 1607, the Grand Master of

10010-571: The Turkish Barbarossa brothers, who took control of Algiers on behalf of the Ottomans in the early 16th century, were also notorious corsairs. The European pirates brought advanced sailing and shipbuilding techniques to the Barbary Coast around 1600, which enabled the corsairs to extend their activities into the Atlantic Ocean . The effects of the Barbary raids peaked in the early-to-mid-17th century. Long after Europeans had abandoned oar -driven vessels in favor of sailing ships carrying tons of powerful cannon, many Barbary warships were galleys carrying

10153-411: The U.S.'s oldest non-broken friendship treaty with a foreign power. Until the American Declaration of Independence in 1776, British treaties with the North African states protected American ships from the Barbary corsairs. Morocco , which in 1777 was the first independent nation to publicly recognize the United States , in 1784 became the first Barbary power to seize an American vessel after

10296-562: The abbey of St Mary as a church of the Holy See , placing it under his protection and exempting it from paying tithes on its land, on 19 June 1112. The monastic Hospitaller Order was formally created when the Pope issued the papal bull Pie postulatio voluntatis on 15 February 1113 to the head of the Hospital of St John, Blessed Gerard de Martigues . The Pope subordinated the hospital to his own authority and exempted it from paying tithes on

10439-423: The absence of written records. The historian David Earle, author of The Corsairs of Malta and Barbary and The Pirate Wars , questioned Davis, saying "His figures sound a bit dodgy and I think he may be exaggerating." He cautioned that the true picture of European slaves is clouded by the fact that the corsairs also seized non-Christian whites from eastern Europe and black people from west Africa. He wouldn't "hazard

10582-456: The attack was feeble, to the great encouragement of the besieged, who now began to see hopes of deliverance. The perplexed and indecisive Ottomans heard of the arrival of Sicilian reinforcements in Mellieħa Bay. Unaware that the force was very small, they broke off the siege and left on 8 September. The Great Siege of Malta may have been the last action in history in which a force of knights won

10725-411: The basis of the Barbary corsairs' piratical trading and navies. This campaign became known as the "corso". Yet the Order soon struggled on a now reduced income. By policing the Mediterranean, they augmented the assumed responsibility of the traditional protectors of the Mediterranean, the naval city states of Venice and Genoa . Further compounding their financial woes; over the course of this period,

10868-492: The beginning of the Order's renewed naval activity. The building and fortification of Valletta, named for Grand Master la Valette , was begun in 1566, soon becoming the home port of one of the Mediterranean's most powerful navies. Valletta was designed by Francesco Laparelli , a military engineer, and his work was then taken up by Girolamo Cassar . The city was completed in 1571. The island's hospitals were expanded as well. The Sacra Infermeria could accommodate 500 patients and

11011-404: The breaches, and the capture of Malta seemed more and more impossible. Many of the Ottoman troops in crowded quarters had fallen ill over the terrible summer months. Ammunition and food were beginning to run short, and the Ottoman troops were becoming increasingly dispirited by the failure of their attacks and their losses. The death on 23 June of skilled commander Dragut , a corsair and admiral of

11154-624: The cargo to be re-sold at Valletta, along with the ship's crew, who were by far the most valuable commodity on the ship. Naturally, many nations claimed to be victims of the knights' over-eagerness to stop and confiscate any goods remotely connected to the Turks. In an effort to regulate the growing problem, the authorities in Malta established a judicial court, the Consiglio del Mer, where captains who felt wronged could plead their case, often successfully. The practice of issuing privateering licenses and thus state endorsement, which had been in existence for

11297-472: The cavalry force that drove the invaders out of Żejtun. Tabone was given a house in Żejtun by his father in 1596. It is described in contemporary documents as consisting of rooms built around a courtyard, also containing a cistern, a small adjoining field and half of a tower (the other half of this tower seems to have belonged to the heirs of Tabone's uncle). The house at 40, St. Clement's Street has traditionally been considered to be Tabone's house. It contains

11440-469: The central Mediterranean, the knights found themselves devoid of their founding mission: assisting and joining the crusades in the Holy Land . Revenues subsequently dwindled as European sponsors were no longer willing to support a costly and seemingly redundant organization. The knights were forced to make do with their maritime location and turn to combating the increased threat of piracy, particularly from

11583-403: The chapel is believed to have been built in 1658, since that date is inscribed on its façade beneath Tabone's coat of arms. It was described as complete in 1661. An inscription above the main doorway of the chapel reads: Clementivs Taboni ecclesia[m] qua[m] ideo vovit, edificare fecit (meaning Clemente Tabone promised a church as a vow, and because of this he built it ) It is often stated that

11726-416: The chapel was built to commemorate deliverance from the 1614 attack, but a definite link between the raid and the chapel has not yet been established. The church has a simple façade and a small parvis. Pope Clement I is the subject of the chapel's titular painting, which was painted in 1662 and is attributed to Stefano Erardi . The painting contains a depiction of an elderly Tabone. A small painting depicting

11869-612: The construction of Petronium Castle , utilizing pieces of the partially destroyed Mausoleum at Halicarnassus , one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World , to strengthen their rampart. In the 15th century, the knights fought frequently with Barbary pirates , also known as Ottoman corsairs. They withstood two invasions by ascendant Muslim forces, one by the Sultan of Egypt in 1444 and another by Ottoman Sultan Mehmed

12012-576: The defeated surviving Hospitallers were allowed to withdraw to Sicily . Despite the defeat, both Christians and Muslims seem to have regarded Phillipe Villiers as extremely valiant, and the Grand Master was proclaimed a Defender of the Faith by Pope Adrian VI . In 1530, after seven years of displacement from Rhodes, Pope Clement VII – himself a knight – reached an agreement with Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain and Sicily, to provide

12155-545: The early 19th century. Between 1801 and 1815, occasional incidents occurred, including two Barbary Wars waged by the United States , Sweden and the Kingdom of Sicily against the Barbary states. Following the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna in 1814–15, European powers agreed upon the need to suppress the Barbary corsairs entirely. The remainder of the threat was finally subdued for Europeans by

12298-539: The emblems of the Order. In 1651, the knights bought from the Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique the islands of Sainte-Christophe, Saint Martin , and Saint Barthélemy . The Order's presence in the Caribbean was eclipsed with De Poincy's death in 1660. He had also bought the island of Saint Croix as his personal estate and deeded it to the Knights of St. John. In 1665, the order sold their Caribbean possessions to

12441-493: The exchange rate of the local currencies against the 'scudo' that were established in the late 16th century gradually became outdated, meaning the knights were gradually receiving less at merchant factories. Economically hindered by the barren island they now inhabited, many knights went beyond their call of duty by raiding Muslim ships. More and more ships were plundered, from whose profits many knights lived idly and luxuriously, taking local women to be their wives and enrolling in

12584-454: The expense of his own defences. A wrong decision could mean defeat and exposing Sicily and Naples to the Ottomans. He had left his own son with La Valette, so he could hardly be indifferent to the fate of the fortress. Whatever may have been the cause of his delay, the Viceroy hesitated until the battle had almost been decided by the unaided efforts of the knights, before being forced to move by

12727-589: The experience of enslavement by the Barbary pirates preceded the Atlantic slave trade and "the memory of slavery, and the methodology of slaving, that was burned into the British consciousness was first and foremost rooted in a North African context, where Britons were more likely to be slaves than slave masters." According to historian, Adrian Tinniswood , the most notorious corsairs were European renegades who had learned their trade as privateers , and who moved to

12870-708: The galley but lived there for years. During this time, rowers were shackled and chained where they sat, and never allowed to leave. Sleeping (which was limited), eating, defecation and urination took place at the seat to which they were shackled. There were usually five or six rowers on each oar. Overseers would walk back and forth and whip slaves considered not to be working hard enough. The number of slaves captured by Barbary pirates are difficult to quantify. According to Robert Davis, between 1 million and 1.25 million Europeans were captured by Barbary pirates and sold as slaves in North Africa and Ottoman Empire between

13013-400: The great powers of Europe. However, the indigenous islanders were initially apprehensive about the order's presence and viewed them as arrogant intruders; they were especially loathed for taking advantage of local women. Most knights were French and excluded Maltese from serving in the order, even being generally dismissive of local nobility. However, the two groups coexisted peacefully, since

13156-624: The hospital saw it as their duty to provide the best possible treatment to the poor. They were given an endowment by Godfrey of Bouillon , the leader of the First Crusade, before he died in 1100. The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem , Ghibbelin of Arles , formally recognized it as a separate entity from the monastery when he reformed the Catholic hierarchy in Palestine , and a step towards this was taken by Pope Paschal II when he recognized

13299-498: The hospital was visited by Archbishop John of Amalfi during his pilgrimage. In later centuries, to help raise money in Europe, the Order of St John made claims that the hospital had been founded more than a century before Christ by the high priest Menelaus and the Greek King Antiochus of Jerusalem, with financing from Judas Maccabeus , and that it was first headed by Saint Stephen and had been visited by Christ and

13442-492: The importance of a religious army), and thus in the Knights' regular tributes from European nations. That the knights, a chiefly Roman Catholic military order, pursued the readmittance of England as one of its member states – the Order there had been suppressed under King Henry VIII of England during the dissolution of the monasteries – upon the succession of the Protestant queen Elizabeth I of England aptly demonstrates

13585-462: The importance of subsequent European and American enslavement of blacks. Scholar Robert Davis noted that the larger picture isn't so one-sided: during a "clash of empires... taking slaves was part of the conflict," and at the same time 2 million Europeans were enslaved by Muslims in North Africa and the Near East, 1 million Muslim slaves in Europe. As Dr. John Callow at University of Suffolk notes,

13728-472: The indignation of his own officers. On 23 August came yet another grand assault, the last serious effort, as it proved, of the besiegers. It was thrown back with the greatest difficulty, even the wounded taking part in the defence. The plight of the Turkish forces was now desperate. With the exception of Fort Saint Elmo , the fortifications were still intact. Working night and day the garrison had repaired

13871-413: The island of Ischia , taking 4,000 prisoners, and enslaved some 2,000–7,000 inhabitants of Lipari . In 1551 Turgut Reis enslaved the entire population of the Maltese island of Gozo , between 5,000 and 6,000, sending them to Ottoman Tripolitania . In 1554 corsairs under Turgut Reis sacked Vieste , beheaded 5,000 of its inhabitants, and abducted another 6,000. In the early years of the 17th century,

14014-591: The kingdom's southern border from attacks by the Fatimid garrison at Ascalon , and allowed the Hospitallers to manage one of them in 1136, the castle of Bethgibelin . This castle also allowed them to defend the pilgrim route between Jaffa and Jerusalem. Later in the century, the Hospitallers were given control over more castles in Syria than they had in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. In the next several decades after 1136

14157-474: The knights as they focused their intentions largely on one another during the Thirty Years' War . In February 1641 a letter was sent from an unknown dignitary in the Maltese capital of Valletta to the knights' most trustworthy ally and benefactor, Louis XIV of France , stating the Order's troubles: Italy provides us with nothing much; Bohemia and Germany hardly anything, and England and the Netherlands for

14300-583: The knights permanent quarters: In exchange for providing Malta, Gozo , and the North African port of Tripoli in perpetual fiefdom , Charles V would receive an annual fee of a single Maltese falcon (the Tribute of the Maltese Falcon ), which they were to send on All Souls' Day to the king's representative, the Viceroy of Sicily. In 1548, Charles V raised Heitersheim , the headquarters of

14443-449: The lands it owned, and gave the right to its professed brothers to elect their master. He also placed several other hospitals and hospices in southern Italy under the governance of the Hospital of St John in Jerusalem, as they were located at port cities from which pilgrims traveled to the Holy Land. Gerard acquired territory and revenues for his order throughout the Kingdom of Jerusalem and beyond. Under his successor, Raymond du Puy ,

14586-605: The late 12th century, the order had begun to achieve recognition in the Kingdom of England and Duchy of Normandy . As a result, buildings such as St John's Jerusalem and the Knights Gate, Quenington in England were built on land donated to the order by local nobility. An Irish house was established at Kilmainham , near Dublin, and the Irish Prior was usually a key figure in Irish public life. The Knights also received

14729-501: The latter being Krak des Chevaliers. One of the first battles that the Knights Hospitaller fought in was the Siege of Ascalon in 1153. After a group of Knights Templar, led by their Grand Master, Bernard de Tremelay , entered the besieged fortress and were all killed, King Baldwin III of Jerusalem wanted to withdraw, but Raymond du Puy convinced him to continue, and the fort surrendered to

14872-431: The little harbor village of Baltimore, County Cork . They captured almost all the villagers and took them away to a life of slavery in North Africa. The prisoners were destined for a variety of fates—some lived out their days chained to the oars as galley slaves, while women spent long years as concubines in harems or within the walls of the sultan's palace. Only two of these captives ever returned to Ireland. England

15015-403: The long line of fortifications. But when his council suggested the abandonment of Birgu and Senglea and withdrawal to Fort St. Angelo , Grand Master Jean Parisot de Valette refused. The Viceroy of Sicily had not sent help; possibly the Viceroy's orders from Philip II of Spain were so obscurely worded as to put on his own shoulders the burden of the decision whether to help the Order at

15158-444: The military brothers, the brothers infirmarians, and the brothers chaplains, to whom was entrusted the divine service. In 1248, Pope Innocent IV (1243–1254) approved a standard military dress for the Hospitallers to be worn during battle. Instead of a closed cape over their armour (which restricted their movements), they wore a red surcoat with a white cross emblazoned on it. Many of the more substantial Christian fortifications in

15301-416: The military element of the Order. Raymond decided some time before 1136 that Hospitallers could fight to defend the kingdom or to besiege a pagan city. The Knights Hospitaller, like the other military orders, organized its fighting members into the ranks of knight and sergeant . In 1130, Pope Innocent II gave the order its coat of arms , a plain silver cross in a field of red, to differentiate them from

15444-710: The nation achieved independence. The Barbary threat led directly to the United States founding the United States Navy in March 1794. While the United States did secure peace treaties with the Barbary states, it was obliged to pay tribute for protection from attack. The burden was substantial: from 1795, the annual tribute paid to the Regency of Algiers amounted to 20% of United States federal government 's annual expenditures. In 1798, an islet near Sardinia

15587-572: The navies of France and Spain in search of adventure, experience, and yet more money. The Knights' changing attitudes were coupled with the effects of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation and the lack of stability from the Roman Catholic Church. All this affected the knights strongly as the 16th and 17th centuries saw a gradual decline in the religious attitudes of many of the Christian peoples of Europe (and, concomitantly,

15730-419: The new commercial-minded nature of the Mediterranean in the 17th century. Serving in a foreign navy, in particular that of the French, gave the Knights the chance to serve the Church and for many, their King, to increase their chances of promotion in either their adopted navy or in Malta, to receive far better pay, to stave off their boredom with frequent cruises, to embark on the highly preferable short cruises of

15873-400: The new religious tolerance within the Order. For a time, the Order even possessed a German langue which was part Protestant or Evangelical and part Roman Catholic. The moral decline that the knights underwent over the course of this period is best highlighted by the decision of many knights to serve in foreign navies and become "the mercenary sea-dogs of the 14th to 17th centuries", with

16016-628: The newly formed Langue, now occupied by the Lands Authority) and Provence (now National Museum of Archaeology ). In the Second World War, the auberge d'Auvergne was damaged (and later replaced by Law Courts) and the auberge de France was destroyed. In 1604, each Langue was given a chapel in the conventual church of Saint John and the arms of the Langue appear in the decoration on the walls and ceiling: The Order may have played

16159-517: The northern and western coasts of Africa, plundering their cargo and enslaving the people they captured. From at least 1500, the pirates also conducted raids along seaside towns of Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, England and as far away as Iceland, capturing men, women and children. On some occasions, settlements such as Baltimore , Ireland were abandoned following the raid, only being resettled many years later. Between 1609 and 1616, England alone had 466 merchant ships lost to Barbary pirates. At night

16302-455: The numbers, but it was not until the expansion of the Ottoman Empire and the arrival of the privateer and admiral Kemal Reis in 1487 that the Barbary corsairs became a true menace to shipping from European Christian nations. From 1559, the North African cities of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, although nominally part of the Ottoman Empire, were in fact autonomous military republics that chose their own rulers and lived by war booty captured from

16445-445: The order at last became so demoralised by luxury and idleness that it forgot the aim for which it was founded, and gave itself up for the love of gain and thirst for pleasure. Its covetousness and pride soon became boundless. The Knights pretended that they were above the reach of crowned heads: they seized and pillaged without concern of the property of both infidels and Christians." With the knights' exploits growing in fame and wealth,

16588-468: The order soon extended to provide pilgrims with an armed escort before eventually becoming a significant military force. Thus, the Order of St. John imperceptibly became militaristic without losing its charitable character. It is possible that the Hospital of St John hired knights or foot soldiers after the First Crusade to provide security, before it formally established its own military organization. Knights in western Europe left their horses and weapons to

16731-504: The original hospice was expanded to an infirmary and by then was subordinated to the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Around this time the Hospital of St John became connected with that Church, and documents often referred to "the Holy Sepulchre and the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem." Initially, the Hospitallers cared for pilgrims as well as others (including Muslims and Jews) in Jerusalem, but

16874-428: The outskirts of Żejtun. He might have lost his sword during this fight. 18th-century sources state that Tabone showed a lot of courage during the 1614 raid, but no direct contemporary sources which state Tabone's exact role are known. Tabone might have been part of the dejma that responded to the cannon fire from St. Lucian Tower after the Ottomans' failed attempt to land at Marsaxlokk , or he might have been part of

17017-489: The pirates attacked American merchant vessels in the Mediterranean. However, on December 20, 1777, Sultan Mohammed III of Morocco issued a declaration recognizing America as an independent country, and stating that American merchant ships could enjoy safe passage into the Mediterranean and along the coast. The relations were formalized with the Moroccan–American Treaty of Friendship signed in 1786, which stands as

17160-548: The plan to take Rhodes, and on 15 August 1310, after more than four years of campaigning , the city of Rhodes surrendered to the knights. They also gained control of a number of neighbouring islands and the Anatolian port of Halicarnassus and the island of Kastellorizo . Not long after, in 1312, Pope Clement V dissolved the Hospitallers' rival order, the Knights Templar , with a series of papal bulls , including

17303-578: The poor. Earlier in the 11th century, merchants from Amalfi founded a hospital in Jerusalem dedicated to John the Baptist where Benedictine monks cared for sick, poor, or injured Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land . Blessed Gerard , a lay brother of the Benedictine order, became its head when it was established. After the Christian conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 during the First Crusade ,

17446-659: The prosperity of the Deylik of Algiers , and gave it its last glory before the French invasion . His biography is relatively well known because the French archivist Albert Devoulx has found important documents, including a precious register of prizes opened by the authorities of the Deylik in 1765. Songs and legends have also taken hold of this charismatic character. Barbary corsairs are protagonists in Le pantere di Algeri (the panthers of Algiers) by Emilio Salgari . They were featured in

17589-473: The service of the sick; the first mention of military service is in the statutes of the ninth grand master, Fernando Afonso of Portugal (about 1200). In the latter, a marked distinction is made between secular knights, externs to the order, who served only for a time, and the professed knights, attached to the order by a perpetual vow, and who alone enjoyed the same spiritual privileges as the other religious. The order numbered three distinct classes of membership:

17732-504: The slaves were put into prisons called ' bagnios ' (derived from the Italian word "bagno" for public bath , inspired by the Turks' use of Roman baths at Constantinople as prisons), which were often hot and overcrowded. Bagnios had chapels, hospitals, shops and bars run by captives. Although the conditions in bagnios were harsh, they were better than those endured by galley slaves. Most Barbary galleys were at sea for around eighty to

17875-402: The so-called "Catholic Monarchs" , who (though inaugurating what would later become Spain's " Golden Age ") were initially faced with the post- Reconquista necessity of binding their (hitherto-divided) territories together, and hence adopted a militantly Christian national identity —provided more than enough justification, in Muslim eyes. In 1198 the problem of Barbary piracy and slave-taking

18018-415: The sole object of their successors became plunder, on land and sea. The maritime operations were conducted by the captains, or reises , who formed a class or even a corporation. Cruisers were fitted out by investors and commanded by the reises . Ten percent of the value of the prizes was paid to the pasha or his successors, who bore the titles of agha or dey or bey . In 1544 Hayreddin captured

18161-406: The south, who were captives for a time. In 1675 a Royal Navy squadron led by Sir John Narborough negotiated a lasting peace with Tunis and, after bombarding the city to induce compliance, with Tripoli. Piracy was enough of a problem that some states entered into the redemption business. In Denmark: At the beginning of the 18th century money was collected systematically in all churches, and

18304-513: Was also subject to pirate raids; in 1640 sixty men, women and children were enslaved by Algerian pirates who raided Penzance . More than 20,000 captives were said to be imprisoned in Algiers alone. The rich were often able to secure release through ransom, but the poor were condemned to slavery. Their masters would on occasion allow them to secure freedom by professing Islam. A long list might be given of people of good social position, not only Italians or Spaniards, but German or English travelers in

18447-472: Was attacked by the Tunisians , and more than 900 inhabitants were taken away as slaves. The Barbary states had difficulty securing uniform compliance with a total prohibition of slave-raiding, as this had been traditionally of central importance to the North African economy. Slavers continued to take captives by preying on less well-protected peoples. Algiers subsequently renewed its slave-raiding, though on

18590-587: Was born after Clemente's death. Tabone and his family had moved to Birgu by 1609, but he seems to have also returned to Żejtun at some points in his later life. He made wills in 1646, 1659 and finally in 1661. He died in Birgu on 11 March 1665, and was buried in the Parish Church of St. Lawrence . His son Angelo died a day after him. Tabone had an Ethiopian servant named Gregorio in 1646. In his later life, he had at least two black slaves, Gugliemo and Madalena, who were eventually set free. Clemente Tabone

18733-520: Was famous as one of the finest in the world. In the vanguard of medicine, the Hospital of Malta included Schools of Anatomy, Surgery and Pharmacy. Valletta itself was renowned as a centre of art and culture. The Conventual Church of St. John , completed in 1577, contains works by Caravaggio and others. In Europe, most of the Order's hospitals and chapels survived the Reformation, though not in Protestant or Evangelical countries. In Malta, meanwhile,

18876-762: Was forced to flee to Morocco when she was very young to escape the Reconquista . In Morocco, she gathered a crew largely of exiled Moors , and launched pirate expeditions against Spain and Portugal to avenge the Reconquista, protect Morocco from Christian pirates, and seek riches and glory. Sayyida al-Hurra became wealthy and renowned enough for the Sultan of Morocco, Ahmad al-Wattasi to make her his queen. Notably, however, she refused to marry in his capital of Fez , and would not get married but in Tétouan , of which she

19019-415: Was founded around 1119-1120 and it is likely that the Hospitallers were inspired by them to have their own knights. A charter made for a gift to the Hospital of St John in a Christian army on 17 January 1126 recorded that a brother from the Order was present as a witness and that he held a military title. Raymond du Puy , who succeeded Gerard as master of the hospital in 1120, is credited with establishing

19162-713: 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). The Hospitallers arose in the early 12th century at the height of the Cluniac movement , a reformist movement within the Benedictine monastic order that sought to strengthen religious devotion and charity for

19305-692: Was further damaged by Napoleon 's capture of Malta in 1798, after which it dispersed throughout Europe. Today, five organizations continue the traditions of the Knights Hospitaller and have mutually recognised each other: the Sovereign Military Order of Malta , the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John , the Bailiwick of Brandenburg of the Chivalric Order of Saint John , the Order of Saint John in

19448-468: Was governor. This was the first and only time in history that a Moroccan monarch married away from their capital. Hamidou ben Ali , known as Raïs Hamidou ( Arabic : الرايس حميدو ), or Amidon in American literature, born around 1770, and died on June 17, 1815, near Cape Gata off the coast of southern Spain , was an Algerian corsair . He captured up to 200 ships during his career. Hamidou ensured

19591-935: Was known in Europe as the Barbary Coast , in reference to the Berbers . Slaves in Barbary could be of many ethnicities, and of many different religions, such as Christian, Jewish, or Muslim. Their predation extended throughout the Mediterranean , south along West Africa 's Atlantic seaboard and into the North Atlantic as far north as Iceland , but they primarily operated in the western Mediterranean. In addition to seizing merchant ships , they engaged in razzias , raids on European coastal towns and villages, mainly in Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal, but also in

19734-573: Was maintained in Birgu (1530–1571) and then Valletta (from 1571). The auberges in Birgu remain, mostly undistinguished 16th-century buildings. Valletta still has the auberges of Castile and Portugal (1574; renovated 1741 by Grand Master de Vilhena, now the Prime Minister's offices), Italy (renovated 1683 by Grand Master Carafa, now an art museum), Aragon (1571, now a government ministry), Bavaria (former Palazzo Carnerio, purchased in 1784 for

19877-411: Was served by the Order of Saint Benedict and took in Christian pilgrims travelling to visit the Christian holy sites. The increase in the number of pilgrims led the Benedictine monks to establish two hospitals in the late 1060s, one for men and one for women, with the former known as the Hospital of St John. They did this with the support of a wealthy Amalfian named Mauro of Pantaleone. In the early 1070s

20020-485: Was so great that the Trinitarians , a religious order, were founded to collect ransoms and even to exchange themselves as ransom for those captured and pressed into slavery in North Africa. In the 14th century, Tunisian corsairs became enough of a threat to provoke a Franco - Genoese attack on Mahdia in 1390 (also known as the " Barbary Crusade "). Morisco exiles of the Reconquista and Maghreb pirates added to

20163-476: Was successful and became rich. He introduced heavily armed square-rigged ships , used instead of galleys, to the North African area, a major reason for the Barbary's future dominance of the Mediterranean. He died of plague in 1622. Sayyida al-Hurra was a female Muslim cleric, merchant, governor of Tétouan , and later the wife of the sultan of Morocco . She was born around 1485 in the Emirate of Granada , but

20306-467: Was to be the knights' downfall in this particular period of their existence as they transformed from serving as the military outpost of a united Christendom to becoming another nation-state in a commercially oriented continent soon to be overtaken by the trading nations of the North Sea . Even as it survived in Malta, the Order lost many of its European holdings during the Reformation . The property of

20449-400: Was used to build a nearby rural structure. A stone bearing the date "1603" and another bearing the coat of arms of the Tabone family can still be seen in the room's façade. Tabone had first made plans to construct a chapel in the 1620s, but when he described the wish to be buried in this chapel in his 1646 will, it is mentioned that the building was still to be constructed. Located in Ħal Tmin,

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