Confraternal Organisation in Early Modern Malta

Abstract

This article analyses how Maltese confraternities were set up, their composition and their internal organization. Most were in­clusive and comprised the adult population of the parish, both males and females though a few companies were restricted to the elite or to particular craftsmen. They cooperated with each other and could even allow their members to join other companies, but they could also be great rivals. The Council of Trent had put parish priests at their head, but the brothers contested their leadership and were frequently in dis­pute with them. At the end of the eighteenth century the confraternal movement was in decline in Europe, but in Malta the brotherhoods remained active.

Les noblesses maltaises et l’Ordre de Saint-Jean. Une nouvelle approche

“…4 Some historians have sought to apply different concepts to the question of social stratification in this period, ones that nonetheless emphasise the exclusion of Malta's population from positions of authority and influence. 5 While broadly in agreement with this strand of thinking, other historians have noted and sought to explain the recurrence of episodic interactions between individual knights' hospitaller and the inhabitants of the islands. This has brought to attention instances of upward social mobility, sometimes through personal ties, at other times through service to the institutions of the Order, more probably through a combination of both.…”