(Rivista Internazionale - December 1997: Aristocratic Monasticism and the Order of St. John, called of Malta - 1/5)

History

"Aristocratic Monasticism and the Order of St. John, called of Malta"

by Ven. Bailiff Fra' Franz von Lobstein
Grand Prior of Rome

Summarised here are the salient points regarding our Order from a talk of an hour which, on the invitation of the "Cultura, Insieme" Club, the Grand Prior of Rome, the Ven. Bailiff Fra' Franz von Lobstein, gave in Chiasso on the evening of 5 November 1997. The encounter with the public concluded with a lively discussion prompted by numerous questions from the audience to which the speaker replied at length.

Blessed are the merciful: because they shall obtain mercy. How can we not keep in our hearts the sublime words of the Sermon on the Mount? It can even be said that the history of the Order of St. John, now better known as the "Order of Malta", is the history of a request for solidarity and love nine and a half centuries long, to which has been and is still being given an equally lengthy response of solidarity and love.

H.E. the Ven. Bailiff Fra' Franz von Lobstein, Grand Prior of Rome.

Infirmis servire is therefore firmissime regnare in the twofold exhortation of that tuitio fidei and obsequium pauperum which ab antiquo characterised and still characterises the Sovereign Order's action.
The action of the Hierosolymite Order which was created in the 12th century by the commendable intuition of Brother Gerard Sasso of the city of Scala. Brother Gerard was present and active in the places where the Son of Man had been born, had preached, and had accomplished his passion, death and resurrection and he instituted a Johanniter Domus Hospitalaria in the Holy City of Jerusalem to serve "our lords the sick". Sad to note is the persistency of some - albeit steadily falling in number - who attribute Fra Gerard to a family called Tenque or Tonco, on the basis of an ancient inscription: "Geradus tune magister..."

Grand Master Fra' Martino Garzes (1595- 160 1) at his work table, flanked on the right by an ecclesiastic of the Order and on the left by a page with the Cross of Profession; in the lower margin, the indications by Fabio Ghigi, the future Pope Alexander VII, from an ink and water-colour drawing of 1637.

So the Latin phoneme "tune", which everyone knows means "then", gives rise to a Tenque or Tonco family!
The pilgrims from distant lands visiting the Holy City had to come to terms with another, not insignificant, presence: the Muslims who soon started a continual action against them, often unfortunately ending up as real, personal attacks against the Christians. Hence the immediate need to provide the pilgrims not just with a roof and shelter, but also with assistance and defence. And talking about assistance, just think of the eating habits of those times, just think of the recurrent endemic diseases, such as pellagra, gout and shingles, then very serious illnesses, and many other afflictions, not least fractures and sprains, especially of the legs. Therefore, Gerard considered it providential to take care of the pilgrims and establish the xeonodoquium, sheltering strangers under the patronage of St. John. We know that Gerard died in 1120 and therefore he had fifty years or so of "administrative management" as we would say today with an ugly expression. It was Gerards successor Raimond du Puy, naturally French, who obtained that recognition with which Paschal II formally granted in 1113 what he had already given to the institutor, Gerardus, with his Bull. Thus the existence of the Order as a religio was sanctioned. And the religious and military aspects merged to create a religio militaris, a religious militia or, as jurists would say, a persona mixta.
This nucleus of religious fitted out one of those fleets which became an authentic "police" force in the Mediterranean and the Order was a beneficial and naval power until - oh alternating omnipotence of human events - Napoleon Bonaparte deprived Grand Master Hompesch and his knights of territorial sovereignty on Malta in 1798.

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