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by Željko Heimer, 8 June 2002
From the Malta and Gozo website:
The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem gave Malta the heritage of the Maltese Cross. The eight-pointed cross is a symbol used by the knights to denote the eight obligations or aspirations of the knights.
The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, now commonly known as the Knights of Malta, can trace their origin to a group of monks attached to a hospice built in the Holy Lands to aid travelers visiting the Holy Land. The monks were known as the Freres Hospitaliers de St. Jean de Jerusalem. Over time, the monks started offering armed escort to travelers as they passed through perilous Syrian territory. Following the success of the First Crusade, the Hospitallers evolved into a military order.
Around 1113, Pope Pascal II acknowledged the Hospitallers as a religious order. They were bound by the Augustinian rules of Chastity, Poverty and Obedience. However, more was expected of the members of the Order. They were required to abide by eight obligations or aspirations. These eight obligations were:
Noble aspiration indeed especially for individuals who came from very rich and powerful European families. Members of the Order wore a black habit and a camel-hair cloak of the same colour. A white eight-pointed cross covered their breast. The eight-pointed cross was also on their standard against a scarlet background. Eventually, as the Knights became known as the Knights of Malta, their symbol also became associated with Malta and is now known as the Maltese Cross.
The Maltese Cross is a very cherished symbol of the Maltese
people and the cross has become part of the Malta's heritage and
culture. Many souvenirs are adorned by the Maltese Cross. The
cross is also used in all kinds of jewelry including earrings,
necklaces, bracelets, broaches, pendants and cuff-links.
Dov Gutterman and Lewis A. Nowitz, 15 April
1999
Extracts from the St John Ambulance Australia Cadet Manual
(3rd Edition) :
The eight-pointed cross first became the badge of the Order in
the year 1023 when the Knights of St. John rebuilt their hospital
in Jerusalem with funds donated by the merchants of the Republic
of Amalfi. In gratitude for this support, the Knights adopted
the emblem of the Republic as their own badge. The origin of the
symbol is not known - one idea is that it represents four
arrowheads.
The whiteness of the cross symbolises the purity of life. The St.
John cross is often referred to as the 'eight-pointed cross', the
'White Cross' and the 'Maltese Cross'...
The Knights Hospitallers flag and battle dress emblem was a
large white cross on a red background. The other famous
military order, the Knights Templar wore a red cross on a white
background until they were disbanded and their property and
wealth passed to the Knights Hospitaller.
Jonathan Dixon 24 September 1999
The cross on the flag is known by several names, including the
Maltese cross, the St. John cross and the 8-pointed cross.
Concerning it's similarity to four arrowheads, in fact this is
what it is thought to have originally been when it was the badge
of the Republic of Amalfi. When the
Order of St. John was formed during the Crusades with the support
of Amalfi, they also took it as their badge, and since the
Order's occupation of Malta, it has also been known as the
Maltese Cross.
Jonathan Dixon, 14 June 2000
The two shapes of crosses don't present a case of evolution
form one to the other. The 'elongated Iron Crosses', the sort of
thing that in the Templar case gave rise to the St. George's Cross
of England, were used by both the Templars and the Hospitallers
as their banners and arms. I haven't come across anything about
the white-on-black to white-on-red change of the Hospitallers,
but several orders with some sort of descent from the Hospitallers use the 'inverted English flag' in some form to this
day. At the same time, both then and now, the eight-pointed
Maltese, or St. John Cross was used as a badge. It actually
originated as the badge of the republic of Amalfi, and quite
possibly was not originally a cross, but an emblem made up of
four arrowheads. It was adopted by the Brotherhood of the
Hospital in Jerusalem (even before the foundation of the Order)
when the merchants of Amalfi re-purchased the site of the
hospital established around 600AD and rebuilt it. At the
formation of the Order (formally recognised in 1113), the monks
wore black robes with the eight-pointed cross on the left breast.
It seems correct to understand that the white cross on red was
mainly used by the Knights of the Order in their military
activities, and the eight-pointed cross while at the convent.
No doubt the use of the two symbols over the many years since
varied, and was most likely at many times not well defined, I
guess, but there is a lot of evidence of the use of both during
the time when the Order of St. John had one of the strongest naval
fleets of the Mediterranean, when the use of the eight-pointed,
or as it became known, Maltese Cross on a red background became
more common as a flag. I guess the modern Maltese civil ensign
can be seen as a result of this.
In the 19th century, when Orders of Chivalry were a popular thing
among many classes, the English Langue, or Tongue, of the Order
was revived in England (having been eliminated in the time of
Henry VIII and the following monarchs). This is the part of the
history where I have come across many different interpretations,
as this was at the time when the Order was least organised,
having been driven from Rhodes by Napoleon. The current Sovereign
Military Order of Malta is probably the most valid direct
descendant of the original order, but this is the time where
there is the most doubtful continuity. The English Langue was
revived in the authority of a French group who claimed authority
over the Sovereign Order at the time, but the Lieutenant Master
later refused the acceptance of the proposed Protestant Priory in
the Catholic Order. So, not being accepted as part of the
international order, an English order of chivalry was formed
independently in Britain, using the symbols of the order dating
back to the crusades. The British order was later granted a royal
charter by Queen Victoria, and the Monarch of England became the
Sovereign Head of the Order. This lead to the addition of the
lions and unicorns (the Queen's beasts) to the eight-pointed
cross badge, and the addition of the Queen's Crest to first
quarter of the white cross on red flag. In the meantime, the
Order had been working to continue the tradition of the
Hospitallers, who had also had a focus on Hospitals, as well as
being a military order, and had established the St. John's Ambulance
Association (teaching first aid), Brigade (doing first aid as an
organised brigade) and established a hospital in Jerusalem,
focusing on ophthalmology. The Order's full name is now
"The Grand Priory of the Most Venerable Order of the
Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem".
The work of the Order and it's foundations, particularly the
Association and Brigade spread throughout the British Realm. The
Association and Brigade (in Australia since 1987 called the
Training Branch and Operations Branch) continued to use the
Maltese Cross with lions and unicorn badge, whereas the white
cross on red (with Queen's Crest) flag remains a symbol of the
Order itself (which also now has Priories in many, mainly
Commonwealth, countries). In Australia, the Ambulance services in
general have taken up the eight-pointed cross, and so most people
would associate it with ambulance services, and possibly with
first aid. It is not surprising that the state ambulance services
use the "Ambulance Cross", since the ambulance service
is actually run by St. John in Western Australia and the Northern
Territory, and were at one stage in NSW and South Australia. I
have also heard, but have my doubts, that the Tasmanian service
is now run by St. John.
Jonathan Dixon, 26 June 2001
I don't think there's precise documentation or even consensus
on the topic of the development of the Maltese Cross. Most people
seem to agree, though that it started in Jerusalem as a cross
with on each arm a tips on each corner. Later forms seem to have
added more and more body to the outer parts of the arms and the
tips.
There is, however, also a theory that it isn't a cross at all,
but a version of the emblem of Amalfi . The problem with this is
that, since that emblem consists of entirely separate
arrow-heads, one would expect all older illustrations of the
cross to look like very arrows-like crosses, if crosses at all,
which they don't.
What appears to be clear, though, is that the Templars took up
the symbol already in use by the Hospitallers. So both orders had
an eight-pointed cross (well, all orders to Jerusalem probably
had), but the Templars wore it over their heart, or over their
shoulder, whereas the Hospitallers wore the cross on their chest.
There must have been some differences in colour, though, since
the Hospitallers wore black, where the Templars wore white. I
don't know how all this translates into their standards, though.
Of course, if the cross did indeed develop over the centuries,
then the eight-pointed cross of the Templars would not have been
a cross of Malta, since they were destroyed when they left
Cyprus, long before the Hospitallers on Cyprus, then Rhodes, then
Malta, developed the current version of the cross.
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 27 June 2001
The Hospitallers, the Templars, and the Teutonic Knights were
all originally Crusading Orders, but with the fall of Acre in
1291, effectively lost their raison d'être, and ended up
wandering around Europe. The Hospitallers, or Knights of St. John
of the Hospital, were originally a group which cared for weary
pilgrims at the Hospital of St. John in Jerusalem. After
their incorporation as a military order, they continued to run
the hospital, which gained them respect and prestige. After
the fall of Acre in 1291, they moved first to Cyprus, then to the
island of Rhodes (Rhodos) in 1307, then Malta in 1522-23.
Their symbol was originally (1248) a white cross on black,
changed in 1259 to a white cross on red.
The Templars, or Poor Knights of the Temple of Solomon, were
originally a group which escorted and protected pilgrims while
they were travelling through the Seljuk lands. They lived
in a hostel near the Temple of Solomon, thus the name
"Templars". They had many estates in Europe, and
once Acre fell in 1291, retired to their European estates, and
became involved in banking and diplomacy, which made them
unpopular, to the point where King Philippe the Just of France
burnt the Grand Master and two senior officers at the stake for
supposed heresies. In 1312, Pope Clement V issued a decree
suppressing the Order. Their symbol was a red cross on
white.
As to the shapes of these crosses, the cross of the Hospitallers
may have evolved into the present-day shape of the "Maltese
Cross", but as to the Knights Templar, and the earlier
Hospitallers, I've found that the shapes can be said to be
"elongated" Iron Crosses.
Georges G. Kovari, 27 June 2001
The circle circumscribing the cross (red circle above) defines
a regular octagon (dark blue). The beams from the center of the
circle to the vertexes of the octagon define the bars of the
cross. The indentation is half the side of the octagon, i.e. on a
circle (black).
Željko Heimer, 8 June 2002
My information is that the Maltese Cross was originally the
Cross of Amalfi - the merchants'
flag. It was used because the SMOM was originally founded as a
Hospitallers' Order for assisting pilgrims to the Holy Land, and
the first hospice was set up in Jerusalem by Amalfi merchants -
this was a wealthy trading empire at that time - in 1048, manned
by Benedictine monks who added the white cross of amalfi to the
black tunic of the Benedictine Order (the Amalfi merchants had
already set up the Church of the Holy Sepulchre nearby in about
1020). Later they employed knights to protect pilgrims, the start
of their evolution into the most successful and long-lived order
of Christian fighting monks. Later the black ground to the white
cross became a red ground, possibly because it was more visible
on a battlefield.
Mike Singer, 20 August 2003
I don't know whether the Amalfi cross inspired the Maltese
Cross, but as to the last claim, the Oxford archaeological guide,
"The Holy Land," by the eminent Dominican
archaeological-priest Jerome Murphy-O'Connor has this to say:
- The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was first built in 326-335
under Constantine the Great (p. 47).
- The Persians burned this church in 614, after which it was
reconstructed by Patriarch Modestus (p. 48).
- The Fatimid Caliph Hakim totally leveled this church in
1009. "The poor community of Jerusalem could not
afford repairs. It was not until the reign of Constantine
Monomachus the the Imperial Treasury provided a subsidy for
reconstruction (1042-8). It was not adequate for complete
repairs however, and a great part of the original edifice had to
be abandoned." (p. 49)
Nothing about the merchants of Amalfi, and the dates
Murphy-O'Connor ascribes to the reconstruction provide no support
for the theory that the church had already been (re)built by
1020. In fact, in 1020 Hakim was still very much in power
and as crazy as ever; it was only under his son that an agreement
was negotiated with the Byzantines under which the caliph gave
permission for the church to be rebuilt. (Philip Hitti, History
of the Arabs, p. 621).
However, the merchants of Amalfi do appear in connection with the
restoration of the imperial hospice or hospital on the site now
known as the Mauristan, south of the Holy Sepulchre. Hakim
had also damaged this institution, and the Amalfians restored the
buildings in about 1060 as well as building three churches, St.
Mary of the Latins (c. 1070), St. Mary Minor (c. 1080), and St.
John (c. 1070). Knights wounded in the assault on Jerusalem
in 1099 were taken into St. John's Church, and those knights who
stayed on to nurse their wounded comrades became the nucleus of
the Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem
(Murphy-O'Connor, p. 59).
So even though the dates given by Mike Singer don't appear to
hold up, and the role of the merchants in creating the hospital
and the order seems to be overstated, there is a documented
connection that might provide a basis for the
Hospitallers to have borrowed the Amalfi cross as their emblem.
Joe McMillan, 20 August 2003
The information on the development of the Maltese Cross as
given above, lacks a consistent survey of the forms of the cross
as used by the Order. The modern Almalfi symbol cannot be
a guide to the origins as it is a recent adoption (20th Century)
and owes its shape the the Maltese Cross as eventually adopted by
the Order mid 1500s onward. In other words through the acceptance
of myth, the modern Almalfi symbol is a copy of the modern cross
of the Order, and not the other way around!
We know from the forms of crosses left on their buildings, the
seals of the Order, and the coins of the Order, that the cross
underwent a development from the simple Greek Cross, and also
that this development in the early years was not uniform
throughout the Order. However once settled in Malta, the present
form emerges post the great siege (i.e. a cross made up of
straight lines, forming four arrowheads meeting in the middle).
In the 12th and 13th Centuries the Order did not have a cross
which looked anything like the symbol found on the Amalfi coins.
See fig 5 on <www2.prestel.co.uk>.
You would be at a loss to describe that symbol as four
arrowheads. Much of the history of the cross by many authors
seeks to defend the claims of earlier historians of the Order,
who seem to be venerated due to the distance in time. Romance and
myth replace real history.
Such claims as "My information is that the Maltese Cross was
originally the Cross of Amalfi" give no explanation about
the source and the date of the source! You cannot trace this
claim back to the 12th & 13th Centuries!!! The source for the
claim may be as late as the 18th century.
The full explanation of its origins is on <www2.prestel.co.uk>.
Michael Foster, 20 May 2004
There are records of the Maurus family (I have a recollection
of "Comus Maurus" of Amalfi being involved in
rebuilding work in 1021 (Christians were again allowed on the
site after about 1020), and of it taking some hard bargaining to
get approval; if my memory serves me right, there is a document
in one of the priories in Jerusalem on this matter. Another
member of this same family was involved in rebuilding work in
Jerusalem about 1065+ (<www.newadvent.org>)
involving the hospital. There are reports of members of this
family operating in Byzantia, and as was traders wont in those
days, paying for public works there. Whether the hospitallers
grew out of this is indeed uncertain, and cannot be proven either
way. The 1021 rebuilding work must be viewed in the context of
what was there at the time - there are reports of a number of
chapels at key points over the site that had gradually replaced
the Anastasis of Constantine after its destruction in the 7th
century, and these are what the mad caliph destroyed (including
damaging the Holy Sepulchre - <servus.christusrex.org>
is interesting in some regards), and what seems to have been
rebuilt. The restoration of the site to a single religious
building was only started much later under Consantine Monomacus.
With regards to the Maltese Cross, it does appear that the order
grew out of Benedictine monks who manned a Jerusalem hospice at
least partly funded by the Amalfi Merchants. The popular idea is
of these monks adding a white cross of Amalfi to their black
tunics. The question is, is it true?
Certainly the order themselves (now working out of the Vatican -
see <acismom.org>)
claim the cross was introduced by Fra' Raymond du Puy (or del
Poggio), who was their second head after the blessed Gerard, but
on the other hand the South African branch of the order state
that the first evidence of usage is on a 2 Tari coin of 1567
(Amalfi created the Tari by the 11th century, based on current
Arabic coinage in the Mediterranean). Make of that what you will,
but there seems to be research (Nuns of Sixena?) that there were
different crosses in use before the the 16th century. Still, it
is all very vague. Dealing with the adoption of the cross by
Amalfi, it is not uncommon for a small and unimportant (but still
beautiful) town to look to past glories and adopt a symbol of its
past power. Amalfi may have adopted the cross as an emblem late
in the day, but "After is not because", as they say -
it is not of itself any argument over whether the cross
originated in Malta or Amalfi, and we cannot infer anything from
it.
Mike Singer, 9 July 2004