Language:
English
Year of publication:
2014
Titel der Quelle:
Journal of Mediterranean Studies
Angaben zur Quelle:
23,2 (2014) 169-184
Keywords:
Knights of Malta History
;
Catholic Church Relations
;
Judaism
;
Jews Legal status, laws, etc.
;
Jews History 1530-1798
Abstract:
Describes the Vatican's anti-Jewish policies between the 13th-16th centuries. There were many expulsions of Jews from cities, towns, and countries in Europe. In 1493, the Jews were expelled from Malta, Gozo and Pantelleria; one estimate gives the number of Jews in these islands as 500, 3% of the total population. Under the rule of the Knights of St. John (1530-1798), Jews returned to Malta and Gozo, mainly as captive slaves. The Order of St. John treated anyone of non-Christian ancestry with contempt. Its statutes barred Christian nobles of Jewish ancestry from joining the Order. Their aristocratic and hierarchical structures caused the Knights to perceive the Jews as being low on the social scale. The fact that they were a crusading order further enhanced their antagonism to the "killers of Christ". In reaction, the Jews of Malta sympathized with the Ottomans, which induced the Knights, as well as the rest of the Christian population, to see them as a fifth column. In 1572, after the unsuccessful Turkish siege of 1565, the Jews were again expelled from Malta. Two decades later they were allowed to return on condition that they wear a distinguishing sign, a yellow square cloth in their cap or headdress. Piracy was rampant in the late 16th-late 17th centuries; most Jews who arrived in Malta were captured on shipping vessels and reduced to slavery. The Jews of Italy and North Africa then organized to pay the ransoms and free the Jewish slaves. Until the end of their rule in Malta, the Knights of St. John continued to treat the "alien" with contempt.
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