[Rodolfo Martínez]

Hello gentlemen.
I was browsing the web searching for any help or description about Malta knights´ armour, and i found this article:

http://www.myArmoury.com/feature_armies_orders.html

But that was the only info wich i could get from the web. There aren´t much sites, info or photos refered to the topic, and the armours shown are always ¨naked¨, without any at least reproduced cloth ornament of the original suit, so. my question is How the Malta Knight´s armour was, or if it had any especial distinction like a cloth skirt or how their supravest was and inserted in the armour considering a knight wearing a XVI full harness?

Thanks to all.

[Lafayette C Curtis]

Why not check the Order's own website? It's here:

http://www.orderofmalta.org/

And this image of a reenactment group may give some idea of the reconstructed garb of the Hospitaler forces, though obviously not all of them are knights of the Order:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Malta_Knights.jpg

I wish I could find out the name and/or website of the reenactment group, but since the Hospitalers are not within my main area of interest you might have better luck with the job.

[Richard Fay]

Hello all!

Rodolfo,

You might find more about the Knights Hospitaller if you search for the Knights of St. John, another name (actually, a part of their full name) that they are known by.

The Knight's Hospitaller might wear a heraldic tabard with the order's charge over their armour. Alternately, they might have worn armour with the charge engraved directly upon the breastplate.

There is a photo of armour worn by Vicenzo Capponi (1545-70) in the Osprey book The Knights of Christ by Terence Wise. Capponi fought in the siege of Malta in 1565. His breastplate has a small version of the order's cross engraved on the upper portion.

Another photo from the same source shows the effigy of Don Juan de Vergara, Proctor of the Langue of Castile, from 1575. He has a large eight-pointed star carved in relief on his breastplate. This was the style of cross preferred in the order in the mid 15th to the 16th centuries.

Yet another photo from the same source shows two 16th-century breastplates that bear the cross of the order. In each case the cross is engraved to appear almost as a pendant hanging from cords.

There are other period images of the Knights of St. John in the same source. Many others show the knights wearing heraldic tabards or jupons bearing the cross of the order.

A painting of the Knights Hospitaller preparing to defend Rhodes shows them in heraldic tabards over their armour. It also shows them wearing long hand-and-a-half or bastard swords at their sides. This could answer your question in the other thread about swords; they may certainly have used bastard swords, so it wouldn't be a stretch to see an occasional Knight of St. John wielding a two-handed sword in the same period.

I found one image of a Knight of Rhodes in late 15th century armour with a heraldic tabard displaying the Hospitaller's white cross on a red ground. It's from a fresco by Pinturichhio in Siena Cathedral. Sorry for the poor quality of the image; the original on the web site where I found this was of poor quality.

I hope this helped!

[Richard Fay]

Hello again!

I found a couple more images of Knights Hospitaller during the time of the siege of Rhodes. The first is the one I mentioned before, depicting the Knights Hospitaller preparing to defend Rhodes. Note the hand-and-a-half swords as well as the heraldic tabards. The other depicts the actual siege of Rhodes. Here's the information for the second image:

Source: Caoursin, Guillaume, Siege of Rhodes, Rhodes 1482-1498.
Copy in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, MS Lat. 6067.

Sorry again for the poor quality of the second image; the image on the site I found this was already of poor quality.

[Richard Fay]

Hello again!

I've found an image from the National Maritime Museum in London that shows the siege of Malta. It's not overly clear or detailed, but there is at least one good example of the sort of garment the Knights of Malta wore over their armour at that time.

Here's the information regarding the image:

The Siege of Malta: Assault on the Post of the Castilian Knights, 21 August 1565.

[Rodolfo Martínez]

Thanks for the info Mr. Fay.

This morning i´ve found the following Malta armour photo, and, as i´ve seen in a T.V. program years ago all armours have a similar pauldron pattern(Even full armours), so my doubt is how a tabard is inserted in the armour considering the movement restriction that pauldrons could give to the guy, and if tabards were used above or under the big pauldrons, and if it was an ornament obligatory to wear ?

Thanks

[Richard Fay]

Hello all!

Rodolfo,

The tabard would be a relatively loose garment, so it might not interfere too much with the armour. However, it is just as possible that it was discarded with armour like you showed; there are Hospitaller breastplates that have their cross engraved right onto the plate.

I'll see what else I can dig up later.

Stay safe!

[Richard Fay]

Hello again!

I did find this small image on the official site of the Sovereign Order of the Knights of Malta. It's a pretty good depiction of the sort of garment worn over armour during the siege of Malta in the 1500's. Note the short sleeves and the general cut of the garment.

[Marco Signore]

The Knights of Malta were no longer "hospitallers", so if you look for the "hospitaller" armour you will find most possibly a hauberk of mail. However, as the Knights of S. John, or Knights of Malta were a Knightly Order, most possibly they used the best equipment available at their time. There is at least one portrait of a noble belonging to the order in the works of the Italian portrait painter Tiziano, and further similar paintings are to be found with relative ease.
For what concerns the tabard I don't think they used it so much during the second half of the XVI century, as the "white armour", that is the use of wearing armour without tabard, should start around the first half of the XVI century.
I have seen a Knight of Malta armour, and it bears the cross of the order directely carved on the breastplate, and this MAY mean that the harness was intended to be used without a tabard.

[Lafayette C Curtis]

Well, Rodolfo, if we look closer at the pictures it would be obvious that the supravests were worn entirely outside the armor, not tucked in or inserted. The armors in the museum photograph would also have been quite atypical for the knights in Rhodes or Malta, as Richard has mentioned in the other thread. Most of the armors--even for the brother knights--would have been plainer and the owners would perhaps have been more eager to decorate them wih external fabric coverings.

Still, I agree with the others in that the supravests would not have been universal. Just about everybody have mentioned that the ornate armors--especially with the crosses etched/carved/embossed directly upon the cuirass--might have been worn without tabards or surcoats or supravests. And it is even more probable that both covered and allwhite varieties of armor would have been seen in the same battle--after all, it would be too much to suppose that the equipment of all the Rhodian/Maltese force was entirely uniform. Even the brother knights wouldn't have been totally uniform, let alone the mercenaries and non-ordained foreign volunteers.

[Rodolfo Martínez]

Yes bros, not all ¨knights¨ used full armours, but what i´m not sure if the armour that i have shown before was a battle one, Was it an ornamental one?

And about their weaponry, i know little more than nothing about rapiers, but, wasn´t more effective a longsword to face the light armored Turks?
I´m not saying that rapiers aren´t good weapons, they have an amazing reach, but as far as i know most of them were most used as duel weapons.
Thanks

[Richard Fay]

[Marco Signore]

[Lafayette C Curtis]

And obviously, weapon comparisons that may be valid in one-on-one fighting may no longer work so well in massed fighting. In a massed battlefield I'd rather have more friends on my side than the "right" kind of weapon, regardless of what that weapon was!

[Rodolfo Martínez]

[Richard Fay]

[Richard Fay]

[Steve Grisetti]

[Marco Signore]

While Knights of Malta retained several Hospitals on the Island, and even carried on some kind of medical research, they were no longer namend "hospitallers". Their role remained pretty much true to their origins as a non-military, hospitaller order, but thename was changed (and I think they were still known as Kinghts of St. John, according to the historical fonts).
Aside from The Monks of War, there is another book that those of you interested in the Malta period of the Knights of St. John may find useful. It is from a French author and I only know the Italian and French title:

Prosper Jardin and Philippe Guyard, Les Chevaliers de Malte

Also I would suggest the excellent book by Helen Nicholson titled The Knights Hospitaller.

[Lafayette C Curtis]

Er...I don't think the "Hospital" was ever an official part of their name. They were the "Knights of St. John of Jerusalem" right from the start. The ones who had the "Hospital" in their official name were the Teutonics (!).

And I was going to say something about the definition of "rapier" as well but Steve has got there first. We have to remember that "rapier" as a narrow thrusting weapon was the definition more often used in France and England; in Germany a "rapier" was practically any complex-hilted one-handed sword and in Italy the term didn't exist at all. So we have to be careful with the deifinitions in the sources, even the primary sources--especially if the primary sources are translated ones.