[Book Review] Nobility, Faith and Masculinity : The Hospitaller Knights of Malta c.1580-c.1700

Abstract

Book Review for Nobility, Faith and Masculinity: The Hospitaller Knights of Malta c.1580-c.1700. By Emanuel Buttigieg. Continuum, 2011. ISBN 9781441103437. Buttigieg provides the reader with an intimate insight into the mores and ideals of the ruling class of the time; an unprecedented task, ironically, in a historiographical tradition that boasts of the singular heritage of its early modem period. Nobility, Faith and Masculinity proposes a cultural history of a ruling class gathered from the echelons of European aristocracy in a unique set-up, that of a military order, on an island administered as sovereign territory. It is therefore an exploration that transcends the enclaves of the Maltese islands to delve into the wider reality of the mores and ideals lived by the aristocracy on the European continent.