Notes:

To visit the siege of Malta and Dragut Reis, talk to the scribe in the palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of St. John. Ask him siege.

Mages can learn a Christian chant-style from the chancellor in the palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of St. John.

History:

During the years 1530-1798, the islands of Malta, Gozo, and Comino in the Mediterranean south of Sicily retained a unique position, forming a sovereign state of a military ecclesiastical order, rather than a republic or kingdom as was custom in contemporary Europe -- as opposed to Rhodes and Cyprus which both served the Knights Hospitaller and the Knights Templar as headquarters at some point, but which were also kingdoms in their own right.

After the fall of Acre in 1291, Palestine was lost to the Christian crusaders, and the chivalric and crusading ideals gradually faded into obscurity. In Lithuania and Prussia, the Knights Teutonic formed an ecclesiastical state (and the Templars were hoping to form one in Languedoc), but this soon became ridden by internal conflict, war with the Polacks and pagan Celtic tribes, and too influenced by German nobility to truly be unique in this respect. Malta remained strictly the seat of a crusading order until the arrival of Napoleon underway to Egypt in 1798.

During the 350 years of Hospitaller reign, Maltese sailors were among the best seamen of the Levant. Maltese galleys were feared everywhere, and Malta engaged in multiple wars with the chief competition for Levant control, the Republic of Venice, with Turkish pirates and princes, and with the Ottoman Empire. This is an era of naval warfare, chivalric courage, gruesome villainy on all sides, and a constant struggle for control of commerce and religion.

Malta was not hospitable. It was -- and is - a barren archipelago, comprising three larger islands and a number of smaller uninhabited, some of them not large enough to build a house on. The soil is meager, the crops sparse, and at the time the Hospitallers arrived, the island could not support them -- they had to import food from Sicily. Malta's chief crops at the time were oranges, honey, rabbits, and obviously, seafood.

Malta proved a challenge to the Hospitallers. They managed to turn the medieval state into a modern Renaissance state with one of the most powerful fleets of the Mediterranean. They were feared by their enemies and they demanded respect and support from the European sovereigns. Through heroic battles -- most famous the Great Siege - and sheer stubbornness and loyalty to the now all but forgotten crusading ideal, the Knights of Malta maintained a medieval ideal and culture well into the 18th century.