Sea of Faith

by Stephen O'Shea

  Fener district: also Phanar. It became a Greek city within a city in Kostantiniyye. Phanariot merchants grew very wealthy and at one time controlled Moldavia and Wallachia. It is here where the ghosts of the city's vanished Greek community are the most palpable, even if most of its members had deserted the quarter for Galata and airier neighborhoods along the Bosporus by the end of the nineteenth century.

  St. Mary of the Mongols, so named for a Byzantine princess: Princess Maria Palaeologina, illegitimate daugher of Basileus Michael VIII. She had originally been packed off to Persia to marry Hulegu, the destroyer of Baghdad (1258), but he died before she arrived and she was wed to his son. She is supposed to have converted many Mongols of his court to Christianity. Upon her husband's assassination in 1281, she returned to Constantinople and refused to be sent off again to marry another Mongol khan. She became a nun and underwrote the construction of the church. Fatih's firman, still on display, guaranteed the integrity of the sanctuary.

  CHAPTER 10: MALTA 1565

  the youthful Sultan, moved to magnanimity by the suicidal bravery of the knights: The siege of Rhodes, in 1522, was an epic six-month affair that pitted ninety thousand Ottoman troops against eight thousand defenders. As at Malta, the knights' resistance in the face of such great odds earned the admiration of Christian and Muslim alike. Charles V remarked that "nothing in the world was so well lost as Rhodes." The youthful Suleyman, on seeing Grand Master Philippe Villiers de l'lsle Adam, a seventy-year-old, board his ship for exile, is supposed to have said to his advisers, "It is not without some pain that I oblige this Christian at his age to leave his home."

  the Spanish king (who was also the Holy Roman Emperor): Charles V, the same monarch who criticized the construction of the cathedral in Córdoba,'s Mezquita.

  They would certainly have known the fate of John the Baptist: It will be recalled that mosques in Aleppo and Damascus have shrines to John and his father.

  the admiral of the Turkish fleet: In his childhood Admiral Piali was found abandoned—on a plowshare, it was said—outside of Belgrade during Suleyman's successful siege of the city, which was then a Hungarian possession. Raised in the Topkapi, he became a trusted adviser of the sovereign, a friend of his son (who on Suleyman's death became Sultan Selim the Grim), and the husband of Selim's daughter. Aged thirty-five at the time of the siege, he shared command of the operation in its early stages with Mustapha Pasha and is generally thought to have insisted, disastrously, that the Turks take Fort St. Elmo before turning their attention to Birgu and Senglea.

  give pause even to the most ardent admirers of the knights: Ernie Bradford, in his The Great Siege: Malta 1565 (Penguin, London, 1964), cites the assessment of a nineteenth-century historian of the Order, Whitworth Porter, who, in The History of the Knights of Malta (London, 1883), wrote of the atrocity: "It would have been well for the reputation of La Valette, had he restrained the feelings of indignation which this disgraceful event (the decapitation of the Knights) had most naturally evoked within reasonable bonds; but unfortunately the chronicler is compelled to record that his retaliation was as savage, and as unworthy a Christian soldier, as was the original deed; nay, more so, for Mustapha had contented himself with mangling the insensible corpses of his foe, whilst La Valette, in the angry excitement of the moment, caused all his Turkish prisoners to be decapitated, and their heads to be fired from the guns of St. Angelo into the Ottoman camp. Brutal as was this act, and repulsive as it seems to the notions of the modern warrior, it was, alas! too much in accordance with the practice of the age to have been regarded with feelings of disapprobation, or even wonderment, by the chroniclers of those times. Still, the event casts a shadow over the fair fame of otherwise so illustrious a hero, which history regrets to record" (140).

  "all the world might come here to sharpen its knives": Letter of May 24, 1920. Harry T. Moore, ed., The Collected Letters of DH. Lawrence (London: Heinemann, 1962), 631.

  the depredations of the Second World War: In 1942 Malta endured 157 days of continuous bombing by the Luftwaffe. Some thirty thousand buildings were destroyed. Simon Gaul, Malta, Goio and Comino (London: Cadogan, 1993), 82.

  Turkish fleets dropped anchor in Toulon: The Franco-Ottoman treaty was signed in 1536. As for the enmity between the Valois and the Habsburgs, France was at war with Charles V or his successor in 1515-29, 1536-37, 1542-44, 1552, and 1559. Michel Peronnet, Le XVIe siecle 1492—1620: Des grandes decouvertes a la contre-Reformes (Paris: Hachette, 2005), 182—83. The new seascape is spelled out in Maxime Rodinson, Europe and the Mystique of Islam, trans. Roger Veinus (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1991): "In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries European rulers did not consider Christian expansionism worth the sacrifice of their own political (and eventually national) interests; nor did the general public see this as justification for a call to arms throughout Europe, as earlier had been the case with the Crusaders. Henry VIII made all this quite clear to the Venetian ambassador in 1516. From then on, to the realists, the Ottoman Empire became a power like any other and even a European power . . . [a]nd therefore political relations with the Ottomans became essential. Whether it was to be alliance, neutrality, or outright war would depend on political factors quite separate from religion" (33).

  "It is the great battle of the Cross and the Koran . . .": Quoted in Bradford, Great Siege, 54.

  a scion of the great—and greatly conflicted—families of Toulouse: His adoring biographer and contemporary, the abbe de Brantome, lists several consuls of the Valette family in the eleventh- and twelfth-century governance of that city.

  "I do not come to Malta for wealth or honour . . .": Quoted in Bradford, Great Siege, 66.

  the knights were organized into langues: They were Auvergne, Provence, France, Aragon, Castile, Germany, Italy, and England. The last-mentioned was a shadow of its former self, ever since Henry VIII had outlawed the Catholic knights. Still, Oliver Starkey, an English knight, played a prominent role in the siege as Valette's secretary and right-hand man.

  "the most striking interior I have ever seen": Quoted in Gaul, Malta, Goza and Comino, 114.

  an audiovisual labyrinth: The advertising brochures for the show, called "The Great Siege of Malta and The Knights of St. John," are entertainingly tacky. One tag line reads: "Put yourself in mortal danger and enjoy every minute of it." Although the walk-through experience does not live up to that billing, it is amusing, even if its consistent demonization of the Muslim armies and leaders becomes tiresome. In fact, even the most recent histories of the siege (our chapter draws primarily from these western accounts) fall into the trap of "cheering" for the defenders and taking cheap shots at what is viewed as the fanaticism of Islam. That the knights, especially at St. Elmo, fought with a religious fanaticism equaling if not surpassing that of the Janissaries is passed over in silence. The usual device of denigration—on view in polemics published in present-day newspapers—is to use the word Allah instead of God when ascribing irrational and inhuman motives to adherents of Islam.

  Ibrahim Pasha, the canny Greek who was Suleyman's grand vizier: In the early years of his career as grand vizier, Ibrahim was almost a cosultan with Suleyman, so great was his power and influence. Eventually the beautiful and immensely persuasive Ukrainian Roxelana (known to the Turks as Haseki Hurrem) intrigued against her rival for the sultan's admiration. He was so besotted of her that he abandoned all his other wives, and she convinced him that Ibrahim was threat. On March 15, 1536, Suleyman and his vizier dined alone, after which the sultan had his deaf-mute retainers strangle the man and throw his body out of the Topkapi. Mansel, Constantinople, 88.

  the noblewoman Julia Gonzaga: The lady's fame was in some part due to the admiration she inspired in Renaissance poets. Ludovico Ariosto, in Orlando Furioso, wrote: "Julia Gonzaga, she that wheresoe'er / She moves, where'er she turns her lucid eyes, / Not only is in charms without a peer, / But seems a goddess lighted from the skies" (canto 46:8). She later attained a measure of influence as the mi
stress of a Medici cardinal.

  the defeat of Mark Antony and Cleopatra in 31 B.C.E.: The battle of Actium. The victor was Octavian, who would go on to be Augustus Caesar and usher in the Roman Empire. Actium is a cape that closes off the Ambracian Gulf; on the opposite shore is Preveza. The area is on the western coast of Greece, about ninety kilometers south of the Albanian border.

  "Dragut is a lion . . .": Quoted in Jean Merrien, Histoire des Corsaires (St. Malo: L'Ancre de la Marine, 2000), 62.

  severely punished by the Inquisition if captured: An altogether fascinating examination of some sixteen hundred renegades of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was recently published in France: Bartolome Bennassar and Lucile Bennassar, Les Chretiens d'Allah: L'histoire extraordinaire des renegats, XVP-XVIP siecles (Paris: Perrin, 2001). As yet untranslated into English, the book draws on Inquisition interrogations and trials throughout the Mediterranean world to reconstruct the reasoning behind some of the defections to Islam and, especially, to retrace some remarkable personal itineraries of these obscure historical figures.

  The Habsburg monarch: Charles V.

  "caravans": The odd name for a season-long campaign of seaborne piracy came from the order's earlier days, when knights accompanied caravans of pilgrims to Palestine. Participation in several caravans was necessary for promotion within the highly stratified order.

  an even more powerful Ottoman princess: Mihrimah, the daughter of Roxelana and the wife of Grand Vizier Rustem Pasha. She was Suleyman's favorite daughter and used her influence in having her stepbrothers killed. Her mosque complex, a luminous masterpiece of Sinan's with an astounding 161 windows piercing the dome, lies just inside the Edirnekapi, or the Adri-anople Gate, through which her great-great-grandfather, Fatih, made his first triumphal entrance into the city.

  Birgu and Senglea: To reconstruct the very well-chronicled events of the siege, I have relied on the indispensable Great Siege by Ernie Bradford, as well as Tim Pickles, Malta i565: Last Battle of the Crusades (Oxford: Osprey, 1998), and Catherine Desportes, Le Siege de Make: La grande defaite de Soliman le Magnifique i565 (Paris: Perrin, 1999). The best contemporaneous source is Francesco Balbi di Correggio, La Verdadera relacion de todo lo que elaho de MDXLVha sucedido en la Isla de Malta (Barcelona, 1568), which was published recently as The Siege of Malta i565, trans. Ernie Bradford (London: Penguin, 1963).

  "Even the rank and file wore scarlet robes": Balbi di Correggio, Siege, Balbi was a Spanish poet and arquebusier who fought on Senglea. His memoir was avidly read throughout Europe and remains an invaluable source for the events of 1565.

  the attackers had suffered three thousand dead, the defenders, 250: Pickles, Malta i565, 55.

  the powerful Habsburg viceroy there had repeatedly promised: Don Garcia de Toledo is the whipping boy of historians favorable to the Order of St. John. He was in constant contact with La Valette throughout the siege, thanks to the ability of the local Maltese to slip past the Turkish lines and launch small boats from coves known only to them. Garcia's correspondence is a litany of broken promises, though he did manage to send a small relief force at the end of June. Any credit the viceroy might gain in posterity's eyes for this gesture is diminished by the fact that the reinforcements got through to the knights only by disobeying his orders. Garcia had explicitly told them to return to Sicily if, by the time they arrived, Fort St. Elmo had fallen (which it had). They ignored the order and shored up defenses, and morale, on Birgu and Senglea.

  the modest city of Mdina: Mdina was the capital of Malta at the time and the home to its nobility. The Maltese leadership had been cool to the knights ever since their arrival, uninvited, twenty-five years earlier and remained above the fray during the siege. Their city, however, was garrisoned by the knights and was saved in late August from Turkish attack through the ruse of placing every man, woman, and child on the ramparts, dressed up as soldiers, to give the impression that the city was overflowing with warriors. The Turkish, disheartened by the end of the summer and thoroughly deceived, abandoned their plan of attack.

  It tottered, then fell over into the ditch: This was not the end of the siege tower tactic. Another was built a week later, but it was commandeered by the defenders and used against the Turkish attackers.

  Birgu is now known, quite reasonably in view of 1565, as Vittoriosa: "For its contribution to the final victory, Grand Master La Vallette renamed it Civitas Victoriosa which name in the Italian form, it still bears. The motto assigned on this great occasion was Victricem palmam few (I bear the palms of Victory), while on the Main Gate leading to the city, a Latin quotation from the Bible was inscribed: Obumbrasti Super caput meum in die belli—Psalm 139 (Thou hast overshadowed my head in time of war)." Lorenzo Zahra, Vittoriosa: A Brief Historical Guide to the City of Birgu (Birgu: Birgu Local Council, 1999).

  once again near the Ionian locale of Mark Antony and Cleopatra: Lepanto, now Navpaktos, is on the Gulf of Patras, opposite Patras. For a stirring account of the battle in the context of Muslim-Christian relations, see the first chapter of Andrew Wheatcroft's Infidels: The Conflict between Christendom and Islam 638—2002 (London: Viking Penguin, 2003), and the seventh chapter of Victor Davis Hanson, Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power (New York: Doubleday, 2001). Hanson hews to the view, in keeping with his thesis of western superiority, that Lepanto was a watershed, proving the virtues of capitalism. For the medieval millennium of this present work, which concerns itself with the confessional geography of the Mediterranean, the great battle came as a postscript, for the Ottoman Empire was a multinational state par excellence.

  Cervantes, who almost met his death there: Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was badly wounded in the left hand during the combat, which earned him the nickname elmanco de Lepanto (the one-handed man of Lepanto). The injury to his left hand was, Cervantes said, "to the greater glory of his right."

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Editions cited are those consulted. Many works have earlier publication dates.

  Ahmad, Aziz. La Sicile islamique. Translated by Yves Thoraval. Paris: Publisud, 1975.

  Akkari, Hatem, ed. La Mediterranee medievale. Tunis: Alif-Les Editions de la Mediterranee, 2002.

  Alighieri, Dante. Dante Alighier Vs Divine Comedy. Translated by Mark Musa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.

  Arberry, A. J. The Koran Interpreted. London: Allen and Unwin, 1955.

  Armstrong, Karen. Islam: A Short History. New York: Modern Library, 2000.

  —. Holy War: The Crusades and Their Impact on Today's World. New York: Anchor, 2001.

  Asbridge, Thomas. The First Crusade: A New History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

  Ash, John. A Byiantine Journey. New York: Random House, 1995.

  Aubé, Pierre. Roger IIde Sicile: Un Normand en Mediterranee. Paris: Payot et Rivages, 2001.

  Babinger, Franz. Mehmed the Conqueror and His Time. Translated by Ralph Mannheim. 1953; Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1978.

  Balard, Michel, et al. Islam et monde latin (Milieu Xe—Milieu XIIF): Espaces et enjeux. Paris: Association pour le développement de l'histoire économique, 2001.

  Balbi di Correggio, Francisco. The Siege of Malta i565. Translated by Ernie Bradford. London: Penguin, 1963.

  Baxter-Wolf, Kenneth, ed. and trans. Conquerors and Chroniclers of Early Medieval Spain. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1990.

  Bell, Warwick. Syria: A Historical and Architectural Guide. Essex: Scorpion, 1994.

  Benjamin of Tudela. The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela: Travels in the Middle Ages. Translated by M. N. Adler and A. Asher. Malibu: Joseph Simon, 1983.

  Bennassar, Bartolome, and Lucile Bennassar. Les Chretiens d'Allah: L'histoire extraordinaire des renegats, XVI-XVIf siécles. Paris: Perrin, 2001.

  Bianquis, Thierry. "L'Egypte depuis la conquete arabe jusqu'a la fin de I'Empire fatimide (1171)." L'Histoire generale de VAfrique, vol. 3. Paris: UNESCO, 1990.

  Bible, The Holy: New International V
ersion. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1979.

  Bloeme, Jacques. L'Europe avant I'AnMil, vol. 2. Paris: L'Harmattan, 2001.

  Bonnassie, Pierre. "Le Temps de Wisigoths." In Histoire des Espagnols. Edited by Bartolome Bennassar. Paris: Robert Laffont, 1992.

  Bord, Lucien-Jean. Les Merovingiens: Les Rois Inconnus. Vouille: Editions de Chiré, 1981.

  Bowersock, G. W. "Seeing the Voice of the Lord." New York Times Book Review. April 6, 2003.

  Bradford, Ernie. The Great Siege: Malta i565. Penguin: London, 1964.

  —. Mediterranean: Portrait of a Sea. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971.

  —. The Shield and the Sword: The Knights of St. John. London: Penguin, 2002.

  Braudel, Fernand. Memory and the Mediterranean. Translated by Sian Reynolds. New York: Vintage, 2001.