Knights of Malta, 1523-1798 | Page 9

beginning to run short, and the troops were becoming more
and more dispirited at the failure of their numerous attacks and the
unending toll of lives. The death of Dragut, on June 23, had proved an
incalculable loss, and the jealousy between Mustapha and Piali
prevented their co-operation. The whole course of the siege had been
marked by a feverish haste and a fear of interruption, which showed
itself in ill-drawn plans. Dragut himself, early in the siege, had pointed
out the necessity of more foresight, but his warnings went unheeded.
The Turkish commanders took few precautions, and, though they had a
huge fleet, they never used it with any effect except on one solitary
occasion. They neglected their communications with the African coast
and made no attempt to watch and intercept Sicilian reinforcements.
On September 1 Mustapha made his last effort, but all his threats and
cajoleries had but little effect on his dispirited troops, who refused any
longer to believe in the possibility of capturing those terrible fortresses.

The feebleness of the attack was a great encouragement to the besieged,
who now began to see hopes of deliverance. Mustapha's perplexity and
indecision were cut short by the news of the arrival of Sicilian
reinforcements in Melleha Bay. Hastily evacuating his trenches, he
embarked his army; but, on learning that the new troops numbered but
some 8,000, was overcome by shame and put ashore to fight the
reinforcements. It was all in vain, however, for his troops would not
stand the fierce charge of the new-comers, and, helped by the
determination of his rearguard, safely re-embarked and sailed away on
September 3.
At the moment of departure the Order had left 600 men capable of
bearing arms, but the losses of the Ottomans had been yet more fearful.
The most reliable estimate puts the number of the Turkish army at its
height at some 40,000 men, of which but 15,000 returned to
Constantinople. It was a most inglorious ending to the reign of
Solyman the Magnificent.
[Footnote 1: A reminiscence of the Syrian days of the Order.]
[Footnote 2: The name given to the different estates of the Hospitallers
scattered throughout Europe: they were so called because they were
each in charge of a "commander," sometimes also named a "preceptor,"
from his duty of receiving and training novices.]
[Footnote 3: Most historians make this event part of the attack of
August 18. But Prescott (Philip II., vol. ii., p. 428) points out that Balbi,
who is undoubtedly the best authority for the siege as he was one of the
garrison, places it on August 7.]

CHAPTER III
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE ORDER OF ST. JOHN
Before proceeding to trace the history of the last two centuries of the
Knights at Malta it will perhaps be advisable to examine the

organisation of an Order which was the greatest and most long-lived of
all the medieval Orders of Chivalry. The siege of 1565 was its last great
struggle with its mortal foe; after that there is but little left for the
historian but to trace its gradual decadence and fall. And, as might be
expected in a decadent society, though outwardly the constitution
changed but little in the last two centuries, yet gradually the Statutes of
the Order and the actual facts became more and more divergent.
There were three classes of members in the Hospitallers, who were
primarily distinguished from each other by their birth, and who were
allotted different functions in the Order. The Knights of Justice[1] were
the highest class of the three and were the only Knights qualified for
the Order's highest distinctions. Each langue had its own regulations for
admitting members, and all alike exercised severe discrimination.
Various kinds of evidence were necessary to prove the pure and noble
descent of the candidate. The German was the strictest and most
exacting of the langues, demanding proof of sixteen quarters of nobility
and refusing to accept the natural sons of Kings into the ranks of its
Knights. Italy was the most lenient, since banking and trade were
admitted as no stain on nobility, while most of the other langues
insisted on military nobility only.
The chaplains, who formed the second class of the Order, were required
to be of honest birth and born in wedlock of families that were neither
slaves nor engaged in base or mechanical trades. The same regulations
were in force for the third class--that of servants-at-arms, who served
under the Knights both on land and sea. As the military character of the
Order became less and less marked in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, these servants-at-arms became fewer and fewer, but in earlier
days they were of considerable importance. The chaplains performed
their duties at the Convent or on the galleys; the priests at