Search results for " Order of St. John"

Making bishops in the Malta of the knights (1530-1798). An international game of parties, patronage and diplomacy

2011

Charles V’s donation of Malta to the Order of St. John in 1530 also established the procedure for appointment of the bishop of the island, whose episcopal seat since the time of the Norman conquest was subject to royal patronage, and thus to the King of Sicily’s right of presentation: the Grand Master would propose to the Spanish king, through the viceroy of Sicily, a ranking of three candidates, previously approved by the Council of the Order, belonging to the rank of convent chaplain and which contained at least one Sicilian. From that time until the expulsion of the knights from the island after the French occupation (1798), 15 bishops were chosen for the Maltese episcopal see. In these …