Posted on 12/07/2018 4:44:17 PM PST by marshmallow
The storied Knights of Malta shaped the Maltese capital of Valletta into a ‘city for gentlemen’, but how much longer can chivalry survive in the modern age?
At 21:00 one Sunday evening this past October, I telephoned Fra John Critien and he was none too pleased. A gentleman does not, he told me, cold call a knight at such an unreasonable hour. The conversation ended there. Click.
But when I promptly sent him a follow-up email to explain that I had come to Malta to learn how to behave in a manner befitting of the storied knights of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta, also known as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, he responded more willingly the next morning.
“Well, I suppose being a gentleman also means trying to accommodate others even after being taken by surprise on Sunday evening,” he wrote.
And so I met him that Tuesday afternoon at Fort St Angelo, across the Grand Harbour from the Maltese capital city of Valletta, where he has been the sole inhabitant of the stronghold’s secluded upper part since 1998. Dressed in a cream-coloured polo shirt and boat shoes, he greeted me with a warm smile and floated his hand upward. “This way,” the knight said, and we climbed up a rampart.
The Order of Malta, founded as the Knights Hospitaller around 1099 in Jerusalem, is a Roman Catholic chivalric society that received the Maltese Islands in a perpetual lease in 1530 from Charles I of Spain in exchange for the promise of one Maltese falcon a year. Grand Master Jean de la Valette, along with his knights, began created the country’s new capital, which would later be described by former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli as “a city......
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Very interesting and intriguing. Thanks for posting.
Interesting, thanks
Thanks for the lesson Marsh ! Very enlightening.
In Rome:
http://www.reidsitaly.com/destinations/lazio/rome/sights/kn
ights_malta.html
We have been there. One of those hidden treasures.
” humble pride “
I like it (I think?)
Very interesting.
I didn’t know the Knights were still around.
Thanks for posting.
Regards,
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