THE LANGUAGES of the KNIGHTS: LEGISLATION, ADMINISTRATION and DIPLOMACY in a MULTILINGUAL STATE (14TH –16TH CENTURIES) Joseph M

Joseph M. Brincat The Languages of the Knights THE LANGUAGES OF THE KNIGHTS: LEGISLATION, ADMINISTRATION AND DIPLOMACY IN A MULTILINGUAL STATE (14TH –16TH CENTURIES) Joseph M. Brincat THE BACKGROUND he particular structure of the Order of St. John is quite in- triguing to linguists. As it progressed from its early function of a Tconvent with a hospital to the status of a princely state, it had to tackle a number of administrative problems and these were intimately linked to linguistic issues. As we all know, the Order was an international institution, whose members came from all over Europe and therefore spoke different languages. We all know that here in Malta they were organised in separate units called “Langues”, and that there were eight of them, namely France, Auvergne, Provence, Aragon, Castille and Leon, Italy, Germany, England, and that these subdivisions reflected the languages they spoke. In English the term “langue” clearly refers to the administrative unit while “language” carries the normal denotation. Thanks to the French loan-word (a misnomer which linguistic scholarship has not man- aged to substitute by a more precise and neutral term), English makes a distinction which is impossible in the Romance languages, but then, by using the same word for both (lingua, langue, lengua) the latter convey the full force of the semantic bond which identifies the institution with the speech of its members. This is apparently a result of the identification between nation and language, a concept which is even older than the Classical age because the Romans and the Greeks called foreigners “barbarians”, a term they adopted from the Sumerians who called foreigners “stammerers”, people who speak in an incomprehensible way. However the linguistic situation in Europe was not as clear cut as the Order’s set-up presents it. First of all the Con- vent’s division into langues only came about after 1291 (Luttrell 1993: 260-261) and became more evident in Rhodes (1310-1522) where separate auberges were built for resident knights. This practice was maintained in Malta, first in Birgu and then in Valletta. However, when the langues were set up, they did not really reflect nationhood or linguistic Language and Diplomacy 261 The Languages of the Knights Joseph M. Brincat custom. For example in the 15th century, French was already the stand- ard language in Provence and Auvergne as well, with the result that actually there were three French-speaking langues. On the contrary Italy was unified only in Malta, for the priories which constituted it actually be- longed to different states. The Portuguese were grouped with Castille and Leon while Aragon, comprising the regions of Catalonia and Navarre, was a second Spanish-speaking langue. Apparently the main aim was to organise the various priories (which were the Order’s principal sources of income) into groupings for administrative and financial considerations. The set-up therefore ensured the supremacy of the French knights who were the most numerous and who provided the larger part of the Order’s revenues (Blondy 1993: 660-661). THE SPOKEN REGISTER The linguistic issue was further complicated by the fact that in most regions the local dialects were still very much alive in everyday speech, and this must have created one of the most urgent problems ever since the Order’s foundation. What was the Order’s language of ordinary conversation? Obviously, knights of the same langue must have spoken their own language between themselves, but they also had to converse with the knights of the other langues. Information on this issue is lacking from the documents and one can generalise what Ann Williams points out with reference to the Chapters General, that “there are no notes on the debates of the Sixteen” because only their decisions were recorded (1993: 294). The predominance of the French knights could have ensured the adoption of French as the medium for everyday conversation, especially during the first century when the Hospital was situated on the mainland, in Jerusalem, and then in Acre. Laura Minervini explains that the expan- sion of French in the Eastern Mediterranean was due to the rise of the Crusader states because these were led by a French-speaking aristocracy and colonised by Latins who came over from all parts of Europe, especially from the Gallo-Romance regions. French influence covered a vast area, from Cyprus to Constantinople, Thessalonika, Morea and the Aegean and, although French was spoken mostly by the upper classes it was also written for administrative and literary purposes, rivalling Latin. 262 Language and Diplomacy Joseph M. Brincat The Languages of the Knights However, extant texts produced in the area show the formation of a koiné marked by increasing contacts with Venetian and North Italian, which reached hybrid proportions in works dated 1367, 1406 and 1423 (Minervini 1996, section 5). When the Order later moved to the islands of Cyprus (1291) and Rhodes (1306) and embarked on maritime activities by form- ing a small fleet, it could have adopted the lingua franca, which in the Eastern Mediterranean was Venetian-based, especially at the lower so- ciolinguistic levels. THE WRITTEN REGISTER: FROM FRENCH TO LATIN The above considerations help us to understand why the Order had, in its first centuries, adopted French as its official language rather than Latin, in spite of its religious and international character. This means that it did not follow the linguistic practice of the Church, which had picked up the linguistic legacy of Rome as early as the 4th century and maintained it in its liturgy and administration up to the middle of the 20th century. Delaville le Roulx (1904: 5) wrote that the rules and statutes and their comments were originally written in Latin but, since the knights were more familiar with the sword than with the pen (as he put it), their knowl- edge of Latin was rather limited, so much so that the Master Alphonse of Portugal (1203-1206) ordered the translation of the privileges and statutes into the vulgar languages. This practice continued for a long time and later attempts to return to Latin were unsuccessful. Roberto Valentini (1934: 78) pointed out that the original proceedings of the earliest chapters general that have been conserved at the Order’s Archives in Malta (codex n. 280), held between 1330 and 1344, the first one in Montpellier and the other five in Rhodes, are written in French (the statutes) and Latin (the formalities). Another valuable collection is in codex Arch. 64, described by Zammit Gabarretta and Mizzi as “five original documents on parchment” (1964: 209), but defined by Valentini as “copie autentiche, in pergamena e munite della bulla plumbea” (1934: 78). It records the statutes and ordinances enacted by the Chapters General held in 1335, 1344, 1347, 1353 and 1366 “gallico idiomate exarata”. In the late 14th century recourse to Latin became more frequent. The proceedings of the Chapter General of 1383 ab. inc. [=1384], held Language and Diplomacy 263 The Languages of the Knights Joseph M. Brincat in Naples under the Grand Master Roberto Caracciolo, were written in Latin but this was a special case, because Caracciolo had been elected in the schism of Urban VI and Clement VII. He had been named by Urban VI and was not recognised by the Convent in Rhodes where Juan Fernandez de Heredia remained faithful to Clement VII. More impor- tantly, a few years before that, in 1357, the need was felt for a Latin version of the statutes of the Order. Valentini revealed that this collection only included decisions which in some way or another concerned or were of interest to the priory of Lombardy, and he interpreted this as proof of the fact that the French language was giving rise to difficulties in inter- pretation and was therefore arousing controversy. He quoted the fore- word: Frater Rogerius de Pinibus dei gracia sacre domus hospitalis sancti Johannis Jerosolimitiani magister … Nos itaque volentes tales incredulos de statutis eisdem reddere cerciores, regulam, statuta et con- suetudines nostras et nostre religionis de galica lingua, in qua comuniter sunt redacta et continuo rediguntur, resecatis aliquibus ex eis que vobis non necessaria neque utilia videbamus, invicem deliberato consilio, de nostra certa sciencia transferri iussimus in latinum, que sub bulla nostra comuni plumbea vobis presencialiter destinamus. It was therefore the Order’s Grand Master himself who ordered the translation and guaranteed its contents by his seal. Valentini also dug up an authenticated contemporary copy of the second part of the proceedings of the Chapter General held under Antonio Fluvian de la Rivière in 1433, written in the Sicilian bureaucratic koiné: “la secunda parti di stabilimenti et ordinanci facti et ordinati per lu reverendissimu patre in Christu frate Antoni Flaviani dignissimu Maestru di lu hospitali di Sanctu Joh.” This version must have been meant for the priory of Messina. Simi- lar versions must have existed for the use of the various priories, and Valentini mentions copies in Provençal, Catalan, French, Italian, Latin and German and underlines that the administration of justice in the 264 Language and Diplomacy Joseph M. Brincat The Languages of the Knights provinces depended on them. Although a few can be found in the Or- der’s Archives in Valletta, most of them would have been kept in the rela- tive priories and may now be conserved in local libraries all over Europe. Such copies were still made during the 17th and the 18th centuries. Anyway it is quite evident that towards the end of the 14th century and the first half of the 15th there was a return to the use of Latin.

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