The population of Malta in the seventeenth century, a reflection of modernity

Anne BROGINI

(excerpts)

INTRODUCTION

Between 1590 (the date of the first major count carried out by the Order) and the end of the 17th century, the population of the Maltese archipelago grew spectacularly. This unprecedented growth was the reflection of a new modernity in Malta, under the influence of the Order.

The Order had indeed given its fief a material security previously unknown, thanks to the fortifications that protected the archipelago from the Muslim corsair incursions to which it had been subjected during the medieval period, and also thanks to the development of privateering and trade. At the same time, the Order, in accordance with its duty of hospitality and public charity, endowed the archipelago with an efficient Infirmary and provided the population with effective sanitary protection. This new economic and sanitary modernity of the Maltese archipelago explained and fostered an unprecedented demographic growth, linked on the one hand to an improvement in living conditions through increased supply to the island market and better assistance to the poor and sick, and on the other hand to significant immigration of working people to whom the Order offered employment in the maritime domain.

UNPRECEDENTED DEMOGRAPHIC GROWTH

1 - The island population in the 17th century

Before the end of the 16th century, we have only scarce information regarding the population of the Maltese archipelago. According to a count of hearths carried out by the Order shortly after its installation, in 1535, the number of inhabitants amounted to 28,500 souls, of which approximately 6,500 in Gozo and 22,000 in Malta. Subsequently, no enumeration was carried out before that of 1590, which the Order conducted in order to demonstrate the demographic growth of its archipelago and consequently request an increase in the quantity of cereals imported from Sicily.

That year, the number of inhabitants was estimated at 28,864 persons, of whom only 1,864 in Gozo. It is true that the population of Gozo, which amounted to approximately 5,000 persons in 1551, had been almost entirely raided by the Barbary corsairs that year and that the repopulation of the small island had been gradual throughout the entire second half of the century.

The year 1590 also coincides with the beginning in Malta of the ad limina visits, carried out on average every four years, which regularly drew up a count of the souls of the diocese. For the 17th century, the enumerations are more numerous and allow for a precise understanding of Malta's demographic evolution. Graph 1 was drawn up from the censuses carried out by the Order and from the estimates of the Maltese and Gozitan population established during the ad limina visits, each of which gives a precise figure of the population.

Graph 1: The population of the Maltese archipelago in the 17th century (1590-1681)

Source: ASV, Congregazione del Concilio, Relationes Diœcesium 514A and AOM 6421, ff°75r.-80r.

Amounting to just under 30,000 souls, the population of the archipelago in 1590 does not appear much greater than that of 1535. It even decreased noticeably between 1590 and 1595, collapsing to 21,102 persons, per la fame et peste et partiti da detto diocese sono mancate numero sette milia settecento sessanta doi anime, representing a loss of 7,762 persons.

The great famine of 1590-91, followed by the plague epidemic of the years 1592-93 and presumably by multiple departures of islanders bound for Sicily, indeed caused the disappearance of almost a third (26.9%) of the archipelago's population. However, after a difficult end of the 16th century, demographic growth proved steady throughout the following century, with the exception of the great dip of 1676, following the second serious plague epidemic that Malta experienced in 1675-1676.

The ad limina visits and the Order's censuses echo this unprecedented progression in the number of inhabitants. It rose indeed from 21,102 in 1595 to approximately 32,000 in 1608; it then stabilized around 42,000 inhabitants for almost half a century (41,087 in 1614, 43,798 in 1617, 42,433 in 1638 and approximately 42,000 in 1648-53) before rising to approximately 45,000 in 1662.

After that date, we are confronted with the severe depopulation caused by the plague of 1675, which cost the lives of 11,000 persons in the archipelago, of whom approximately 9,000 in the harbour: the status animarum of 1676 indeed counted approximately 36,000 inhabitants, almost the same as at the very beginning of the century! But thanks to demographic growth and still strong immigration, in 1681, the Maltese archipelago was populated by approximately 48,900 inhabitants.

Thus, with the exception of the crises of 1591-93 and 1675-76, the Maltese population was multiplied by 2.3 in just under a century. At the heart of this demographic growth, the harbour area was in full expansion. Table 1 shows the strong growth of La Valette and the Three Cities, whose number of inhabitants rose from 11,591 in 1590 to 22,143 in 1687.

The doubling of the harbour population may seem fairly ordinary, given that the archipelago's population was itself multiplied by 2.3 in less than a century. Let us specify, however, that this doubling concerns only the area strictly known as the "Grand Harbour," that is, the four cities of La Valette, Vittoriosa, Senglea and Bormula. Now, during the 17th century, the port of Malta had expanded in area, first with the construction desired by Grand Master de Paule in 1626 of the city of Paola, located not far from Bormula, and then by the building of a rampart adjacent to La Valette, the Floriana, between 1636-1645.

Furthermore, the share of the harbour population relative to that of the archipelago continued to grow over a century: representing 39.9% of inhabitants in 1590 (i.e., 11,591 persons out of approximately 29,000 islanders), it rose to 45.1% in the 1680s (i.e., 22,143 persons in 1687 out of a population that amounted to 48,900 souls in 1681). Half of the archipelago's inhabitants were therefore concentrated in the Grand Harbour and in its peri-urbanization (Floriana).

These new peri-urban spaces did indeed help to relieve congestion in the Grand Harbour. Graph 2 reflects the general increase in the number of inhabitants, up to 1632 when it reached the peak, deemed critical by the Order, of 21,991 persons; after that date, the population decreased sharply and fell to fewer than 20,000 souls in 1645.

Throughout the entire decade of 1635-1645 indeed, Paola and especially Floriana housed the new arrivals and even several inhabitants whom the Grand Harbour could no longer contain.

The decongestion of La Valette and the Three Cities proved, however, to be short-lived, and in 1658, the Grand Harbour grouped 22,253 inhabitants and exceeded the population threshold of 1632. Faced with the problem, the Order formally prohibited in 1666 any immigrant from henceforth settling in La Valette and in the Three Cities. The consequence of this decision can be read in the stagnation of the population: in thirty years, from 1658 to 1687, the number of inhabitants remained identical, with the obvious exception of the dip following the plague of 1675-76, which was very quickly filled, attesting to the undeniable demographic dynamism of the harbour area.

Graph 2: The population of the Grand Harbour (1590-1687)

Such demographic growth did not result solely from an increase in births or an improvement in living conditions. Many immigrants settled in Malta from the end of the 16th century onwards, and throughout the 17th century, contributing to the growth of the harbour population.

2 - Immigration and demographic growth

The number of newcomers to the Grand Harbour continued to increase between the end of the 16th century and the end of the 17th century. Attracted by the various opportunities offered by maritime and harbour activities (privateering, trade, craftsmanship...), Catholic immigrants of all origins did not hesitate to settle in Malta to try their fortune and establish families. Let us specify that only Catholics were authorized to live freely in Malta: all other foreigners (Jews, Muslims, Protestants, Orthodox...) had no right of residence and stayed only temporarily in Malta.

Thanks to an exhaustive study of the Parish Archives of the four harbour cities, and of marriages between foreigners and islanders, we can provide an unprecedented estimate of the number of immigrants in Malta during the 17th century. The table below lists all the marriages celebrated in the Grand Harbour between 1575 and 1670, between local Maltese, Maltese from the island's interior (or Gozitans) and foreigners.

The number of marriages, and therefore of foreign settlements in Malta, grew steadily throughout the 17th century: rising from 659 between 1575 and 1610 to 2,486 at the end of the 17th century, it was multiplied by 3.8, whereas during the same period, the total number of marriages in the harbour had only been multiplied by 2.7.

Sources: ACM, AP La Valette, Porto Salvo,
Liber Matrimoniorum, Vol. I, II, III, IV; ACM, AP La Valette, Saint-Paul,
Liber Matrimoniorum, Vol. I, II, III; ACM, AP Vittoriosa, Liber I Baptizatorum, matrimoniorum, mortuorumque,
Liber Matrimoniorum, II; ACM, AP Senglea, Liber Matrimoniorum, Vol; ACM, AP Cospicua,
Liber I Baptizatorum, matrimoniorum, confirmatorum et mortuorum, Liber II Matrimoniorum.

But it is not so much the increase in the number of their marriages that reflects the ever-growing penetration of the Grand Harbour by foreigners, since the Maltese population had grown strongly, and consequently the number of marriages as well: it is rather the steady increase in the share of foreigners in the harbour population that testifies to their increasingly significant presence. With 659 marriages out of 2,450, foreigners represented at the end of the 16th century 26.9% of marriages and therefore, approximately, of inhabitants; this proportion rose sharply to 38.5% in the middle of the following century, with 1,762 marriages out of a total of 4,576, and remained stable in the years 1640-1670 (2,486 marriages out of a total of 6,542, i.e., a proportion of 38%).

Thus, in the 17th century, more than a third of the Catholic inhabitants of the port of Malta were of foreign origin. If we apply this proportion to the lay harbour population (excluding therefore members of the Order and slaves), we obtain a secular average of 7,000 newly settled foreigners for approximately 11,000 Maltese.

The spectacular growth of the population between the end of the 16th and the end of the 17th century was thus explained both by a natural increase characterizing the entire archipelago (longer life expectancy, improved living conditions...) and by strong immigration concentrated almost exclusively in the harbour area. For this phenomenon, we find several reasons, each linked to the role of the Order: through their role in privateering, and then in trade, which ensured Malta's economic modernity, the knights fostered a new openness of the island and a development whose consequences can be read in the island's population and society. Furthermore, bound by their duty of assistance, the Hospitallers worked to establish a new sanitary control aimed at limiting epidemics, by caring for both the rich and poor elements of society.

Source:
Cahiers de la Méditerranée n°68

Published with the kind permission of Anne BROGINI

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4. The Jews in Malta, Aurore Verié
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6. The emigration of Maltese in Algeria in the nineteenth century, Marc DONATO
7. Malta in "A Winter in Egypt" (excerpts), Eugène Poitou
8. The Maltese in Tunisia before the Protectorate (excerpts), Andrea L. SMITH
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