Malta’s very own Norman Conquest

 

A coin from a watershed moment in Malta’s history.  This a trifollaro coin minted in Mileto, Calabria during the rule of Count Roger the Norman. 

Count Roger was nicknamed Roger Bosso and The Great Count and he was a Norman nobleman who became the first Count of Sicily from 1071 to 1101. He was a member of the House of Hauteville or Altavilla, and his descendants in the male line continued to rule Sicily down to 1194.  By 1090, he had conquered all of Sicily from the Arab Emirate and in 1091, he conquered Malta. 

Roger and his fleet reached Malta in June or July 1091 and following an initial skirmish which left some dead amongst the Maltese Muslim defenders who fled terrified, he waited until the following morning to make a march upon the Island’s capital Medina (today’s Mdina). 

When Roger and his Norman troops reached the walled city, the Muslim rulers surrendered without a fight, freed their Christian captives (not Maltese as they all opted to accept Roger’s offer to return them to their homes by boarding his ships to Sicily), donated horses, mules, and surrendered all their weapons and swore allegiance to the Norman Count. 

Roger departed with the liberated slaves and the loot, stopped to ransack Gozo on the way home and returned to Sicily never to visit again.  It is recorded that his fleet was so overloaded with cargo and the freed slaves that the ships were in danger of capsizing on their return trip to Sicily.

It was to be under his successor King Roger II in 1127 that Malta was to eventually be firmly and fully integrated into the Norman Kingdom of Sicily. 

The obverse of the coin (above) shows an effigy of Count Roger mounted on his horse in full armour and shield and carrying a lance with a pennant on his shoulder with the words Comes Rogerius (Count Roger) partially visible around the coin’s circumference. The mounted figure is very similar to the Norman knights displayed on the Bayeux Tapestry commemorating the Battle of Hastings which led to the Norman conquest of England in 1066, a mere 25 years earlier. 

The reverse of the coin shows the Madonna and Child with a cross on top and the some surviving letters of the legend “Maria Mater Dni (Domini)”, or Mary Mother of God. 

The Norman conquest of Malta ushered in the gradual process of Christianisation of Malta and its return to the European sphere of influence although this process extended over a number of decades during which the Maltese archipelago followed developments in Sicily by housing a diverse community of Christians, Moslems and Jews living in relative harmony.

 

Malta’s oldest fortification

Malta’s oldest fortification

Mention Maltese fortifications and one’s mind is automatically transported to the impressive and extensive defensive systems designed and constructed during the period of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, more popularly known as the Knights of Malta.   The most impressive of the Knights’ fortifications include the walls of Valletta and Floriana, the Cottonera Lines encompassing the Three Cities of Vittoriosa, Cospicua and Senglea and the walled citadels of Mdina and Victoria on Gozo.

The British also left some impressive fortifications the most famous of which are the Victoria Lines which criss-cross the island at its widest breadth between Madliena and Fomm ir-Rih. Older medieval fortifications, some dating from the Byzantine and Arab period, are found in Vittoriosa, Mdina and the Gozo Citadel where they were incorporated into the Knights’ battlements. A couple of locations such as San Gwann also feature the remains of Roman towers which presumably had some sort of military significance, albeit of an observatory nature.

By far, the oldest evidence of a fortified structure to have been found in Malta is the impressive wall protecting the remains of the Bronze Age village at Borg in-Nadur in Birzebbuga on the south-eastern tip of the island of Malta.

Borg in-Nadur has a very interesting history. It lies at the tip of the Wied Dalam valley where around half a kilometre upstream lies Ghar Dalam, the Cave of Darkness after which the earliest phase of Maltese prehistory is named. The Ghar Dalam phase dates back to around 5000BCE and is reputed to contain the oldest evidence of human activity in the Maltese Islands: settlers who came from Sicily by crossing the 100 kilometre stretch of sea on rafts and boats bringing with them seeds, livestock, fabrics and pottery which has been matched with artefacts from a south-eastern Sicilian prehistoric site called Stentinello.

Borg in-Nadur started life around 2,500BCE as a Tarxien-phase temple. It was a relatively small and undecorated temple on a promontory overlooking the protected expanse of Marsaxlokk harbour.  After around a thousand years as a temple, the site was taken over by a new wave of Bronze-Age settlers around 1500BCE who differed principally from their Neolithic predecessors owing to their introduction of metal tools, implements and weapons to the Islands. The Bronze Age settlers occupied Borg in-Nadur for a thousand years until 500BCE when the literate Phoenicians reached these shores and transported Malta into the historic age.

The Bronze-Age settlers redeveloped the site quite extensively into a sizeable village. They recycled a lot of the stones from the temple complex and built their huts in the general area of the older temple site. Hut foundations were excavated by Margaret Murray in the 1930s but were buried once more once the necessary studies were conducted.   The village seems to have been quite large housing a few hundred residents and also featured around one hundred grain silos excavated as bell-shaped cisterns in the soft globigerina limestone around the coast.

Most of the silos were destroyed in two episodes of road construction and widening in the twentieth century but a handful survive on a thin coastal stretch across the road from the main site: silos which have their own unique story to tell owing to the fact that most of them lie under sea level suggesting either a rise in sea levels over the past couple of thousand years or else land subsidence. This story is further corroborated by the presence of a single, adjacent set of cart-ruts which also lead straight into the sea.

Evidence indicates that the Bronze-Age inhabitants were more warlike than their predecessors, although it is not clear whether their bellicose behaviour extended to the threat of foreign seafarers or other clans inhabiting other parts of the Island.

One of the most impressive and clear indications of the troubled times in which these people lived, is the extensive 4.5 metre high semi-circular wall which lies at the northern end of the Borg in-Nadur village. The wall was excavated by Murray in the 1930s and contrary to most of the dig carried out then, it was not reburied. The original remains of the wall were augmented by modern reconstructions especially in the back part. The entire structure is about 30 metres long and circa 2.5 metres thick. The most impressive aspect of this 3,500 year old wall is the huge rock boulders which are embedded within the structure: megaliths which were probably recycled and reused from the original temple.

An intriguing aspect of the Borg in-Nadur defensive wall is that it actually faces inland rather than towards the sea! Does this mean that the villagers were more interested in defending themselves from the enemy within or is there another unknown significance?

Whatever the interpretation, this small and relatively unknown site has its special place in Malta’s impressive list of historical treasures: the first in a 3,500 year fortress-building tradition making Malta one of the most well-defended locations in the Mediterranean.

Fall of a fort: Malta, 23 June 1565.

Fall of a Fort: Malta, 23 June 1565

I have today acquired a beautiful piece of art, a fitting Christmas gift which besides its inherent artistic beauty also captures a dramatic episode in Malta’s history.  A three dimensional painting by my old schoolmate and established artist John Busuttil Leaver featuring the Fall of Fort St. Elmo during the Great Siege of Malta on 23 June 1565.

The Fall of St. Elmo.  An epic story of courage, a glorious chapter in a siege which pitted the superior strength of over 35,000 besieging Turkish Ottoman forces against an inferior force of around 6,500 defenders comprising 3,000 Maltese soldiers together with 500 Knights of St. John and a mercenary army of around 3,000 Spanish, Italian, Sicilian, Greek and other nationalities from the Spanish Empire.

The Siege was meant to be a foregone conclusion.  The cream of Ottoman Sultan’s Suleiman the Magnificent’s forces pitted against a ragtag army of Knights and untrained troops seeking shelter behind the walls of rapidly repaired battlements on a sun-baked, rocky island located on the front-line of two warring faiths.  A Siege whose significance was far greater than the tiny island on which it was fought.  For both sides knew that Malta held the key to the control of shipping between the East and West Mediterranean.  Coupled with the fact that whoever held Malta and its deep water harbours could use it as a base to attack Christian Europe.  Via the island of Sicily, 100 kilometres to Malta’s north, whose exposed coastline earned it the title of Europe’s soft underbelly: a very descriptive term which cuts no corners in explaining Europe’s vulnerability to attack should Malta have fallen to the Ottomans.

The Ottomans reached Malta on 18 May 1565 having set sail from Istanbul with a fleet of 193 vessels at the end of March.  After disembarking in Marsaxlokk and reconnoitering, they took stock of the defences which they needed to subdue: the inland town of Mdina with its crumbling walls, the town of Birgu with its strong walls and the bulwark of Fort St. Angelo and the newer settlement of Senglea with its new walls and its stronghold of Fort St.Michael.  The final obstacle consisted of a small, but modern star-shaped fort called St. Elmo guarding the entrance to the island’s two deep water harbours at the tip of the Sceberras Peninsula.

Turkish opinion was divided when it came to deciding which of the strongholds to start besieging.  The commander in charge of the land forces, Mustapha Pasha, was all for going straight for the strongest defences, in the belief that once the strongest defences fell, the rest would give up without a fight.  But his co-commander in charge of the Sultan’s fleet, Piali Pasha, insisted that tiny St. Elmo should be the first target, as its downfall would enable him to protect his precious fleet inside a safe harbour.  Piali’s opinion prevailed and tiny St Elmo, with its small garrison of Knights and infantry faced the Turkish onslaught.

The Turks initially estimated that the tiny fort, cut off as it was from the rest of the defences, and facing the incessant firepower of their artillery coupled with the pinpoint accuracy of their snipers, would fall within a matter of days.  What they did not reckon was that the defenders, led by the wily Grandmaster of the Knights Jean de la Valette, were quietly replenishing the beleaguered garrison with men and munitions under cover of darkness by crossing over with small boats in the darkness of the night while the Turks were resting after a day’s bombardment, and ferrying the wounded over the Fort St. Angelo.

However, the fall of St Elmo was considered by all to be a matter of when and not if, and de la Valette’s protracted game was only meant to waste Ottoman lives, ammunition and time before the assault on the main defences began.  In this, the tiny Fort and its defenders emerged with the greatest of honour for they managed to withstand a horrific, one-sided siege not for the few days as per the original estimate, but for a full, astounding  36 days of non-stop bombardment which stopped only for assault upon assault by crack Janissary troops to take place against the puny fortress and its small force of defenders.

The painting portrays the final moments of the Fort on 23 June 1565.  It is still flying the Knights’ banner as its stricken defenders make one last attempt to delay the unstoppable flow of besiegers: frustrated men wishing to avenge the death of  6,000-8,000 of their comrades, including half of their elite Janissaries and the famous veteran corsair, Turgut Re’is.

The Great Siege of Malta was far from over when St. Elmo fell on 23 June. It was to go on until the 8 September when the Turks finally abandoned their plans and set sail for Istanbul which they were to re-enter under cover of darkness to hide their shame at failing to take their prize.

However, the resilience of Fort St. Elmo played a very important part in the Siege’s final outcome.  It drained the Ottomans of their crack troops, gained the defenders five precious weeks and ultimately delivered a strong blow to Turkish morale.  In fact Mustapha Pasha himself is reputed to have stood on the ruins of St. Elmo gazing across the waters of Grand Harbour and the impregnable ramparts of Forts St. Angelo and St Michael uttering the words, “If the son has come at such a cost, what are the parents worth?”