The postal system of the Order of St John 1530-1798

Abstract

When it was suggested that I should consider writing about the 'letters and the postal system of the Order in Malta' for my thesis, leading to an MA in Hospitaller Studies, the idea appealed to me. I thought I could treat the subject from a philatelic postal historian's point of view, as others, not connected with postal history, might not be able to do. Other dissertations on the postal system in Malta so far focused more on the British period than that of the Order. The present study is therefore about how the Order's letters during the period 1530-1789, reached their destination in Europe and vice versa. Throughout the ages, there was the need to communicate, send messages, and transmit letters that allowed postal organisations, under one form or another, to develop. The function of a postal administration was therefore a method of transmitting information through letters. If there were no letters there would not have been the need to develop any postal administration. It was the letter that created the postal system, a unique need, which today lost some of its importance with the advent of the Internet. St Gerome in his Epistles states that "La lettera e ii solo mezzo che rende presente gli assenti "