The Hospitaller Grand Priory of Messina in the Seventeenth Century The Military Religious Orders Series

This book details the origin of the Grand Hospitaller Priory of Messina. It discusses a breadth of themes, such as the historiography, the Hospitaller?s European commandery and Sicilian patrimony, its management and organization in the seventeenth century, its religious practices, and the prioral mansion in Messina. The final chapter includes a detailed account of the 1674 Messina insurrection against the Spanish overlords. This event plunged the priory into political chaos, fracturing it and pitting members against each other. It also shattered neutrality issues embedded in the statutes of the religion and ignoring the precepts emanating from the Convent on Malta.

The Hospitaller Grand Priory of Messina in the Seventeenth Century will appeal to students and scholars alike interested in the Crusading Orders, the history of the Knights Hospitaller, and the history of Malta.

Chapter 1

Introduction and Historiography

Chapter 2

The Hospitaller European Commandery

Chapter 3

The Hospitaller Sicilian Patrimony

Chapter 4

Management of the Sicilian Commandery in the Seventeenth Century

Chapter 5

The State of the Priory of Messina in the Seventeenth Century

Chapter 6

The Sicilian Hospitaller Priory - the Religious Cult

Chapter 7

The Hospitaller Prioral Mansion in Messina

Chapter 8

The Insurrection of Messina of 1674 and the Hospitaller Grand Priory

Conclusion

Bibliography

Appendix A

An Outline of the Grand Priory of Messina in the Seventeenth Century

Appendix B

Lingua d’Italia Tomo 1

Appendix C

The Church of the Hospitallers’ San Giovanni Battista in Messina, 1604 - 1749.

Ray Gatt has a professional medical background and holds a doctoral degree from the University of Malta. His thesis on the Grand Hospitaller Priory of Messina became the foundation for the current book with the same title. He has also written various papers on the Hospitallers which have been included in edited books, as well as on another Hospitaller Order, that of St Lazarus.