
The last true knight on Malta - MiriamWeiner
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20181129-the-last-true-knight-on-malta
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jacobwilliamroy
Fun fact, after the grand master of the Order of St. John surrendered to
Napoleon at the french invasion of Malta, the order moved to Russia and named
Paul I as its sovereign protector. The Russian tradition of the Order of St.
John exists today in Hawai'i (and around the world). They have a meeting in
Honolulu on the first friday of every month. Sen. Daniel Akaka and Gov. George
Ariyoshi were both invested into the order. Today they do charity work,
funding various humanitarian projects around the world.

The Kingdom of Hawaii actually had a very friendly relationship with Russia.
King Kalakaua was a member of the Order and was even gifted a portrait of Czar
Alexander II, which is still hanging in Iolani Palace to this day.

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blfr
While I applaud the preservation of spirit and tradition, I don't think you
can really be a knight in the modern world.

 _“In the past, the defence of the faith was riding horses, fighting enemies,”
Fra Critien said. “Now we can defend the faith by being an example to those
around us.”_

That first part is quite important. Knights could have been thugs or even
warlords but they weren't. Not because they would have been stopped by the
state, which were fairly small and weak at the time, but because they largely
chose not to.

And many crusaders went further than that. They chose a risky expedition often
at a great expense of their families for no discernible earthly benefit.

Being a gentleman in the modern world is laudable but it happens under a
completely different set of incentives.

Still, Malta is beautiful and definitely worth a visit. Especially for
Europeans since flights and stay are very cheap.

~~~
garmaine
> That first part is quite important. Knights could have been thugs or even
> warlords but they weren't. Not because they would have been stopped by the
> state, which were fairly small and weak at the time, but because they
> largely chose not to.

That’s historical revisionism. Modern ideas of chivalry mostly post date the
age of knights. In their own time they were thugs and mercenaries granted land
as a reward for their brutality in combat.

(But the knights of this order were medicines, not warriors, in their primary
purpose. What you say is more true of these knights, but not knights
generally.)

~~~
toyg
They weren’t just doctors - at their peak, these knights were fundamentally
bankers: at a time were travelling with valuables on your person was extremely
unwise, you could open an “account” with them in Europe, travel all the way to
the Middle East, and withdraw your cash when there. It started as a simple
issue of logistics, but soon the order realized all that cash could be
managed, and they started loaning it out to kings and merchants, which
obviously made them even richer. This is the likely cause of their eventual
downfall, because kings of that age had the annoying habit of defaulting on
their debts by “eliminating” their sources.

~~~
Lio
> This is the likely cause of their eventual downfall, ...

I think you may be mixing in the history of the Knights Templer there.

The Sovereign Military Order of Malta had no “eventual downfall” to any
Christian King in the way the Templers did.

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emmelaich
If you're interested in the Knights of Malta have a look at
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_del_Priorato_di_Malta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_del_Priorato_di_Malta)
which is a bit of extra-territorial Italy in Rome given to the Order.

There's a cool optical illusion looking through its "Aventine Keyhole" towards
St Peters.

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ggm
I've read that these charitable Christian orders retain passport issuing
rights which were "grand fathered in" to the modern state passport system.
Thing is, you have to prove you're travelling on order-related business. Since
all the knights and grand Chancellors are citizens of other states, that means
no fancy tax avoiding magic passports alas.

~~~
caf
It's not like there's some master list of "authorities allowed to issue
passports". Each state decides on its own which passports it will recognise,
and they don't all agree.

~~~
starbeast
After hearing about people successfully traveling on Principality of Sealand
passports, I did wonder how far you could get round the world possessing
documentation from a completely fictional country.

>This is not the first time that passports from Sealand have found their way
into the news. One was found on the killer of Gianni Versace, Andrew Cunanan,
and he was said to have a car with Sealand diplomatic plates. In 1997 forged
Sealand passports were used to launder drug money in Slovenia, and there were
reports that 4,000 forged passports were sold at £1,000 a head before China's
takeover of Hong Kong. People involved in an illegal pyramid-selling scheme in
eastern Europe had Sealand papers; one had border stamps from Libya, Iraq and
Iran.

[https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2000/mar/28/features...](https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2000/mar/28/features11.g2)

~~~
ForHackernews
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camouflage_passport](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camouflage_passport)

There are a variety of companies that issue fake passports in the styles of
fictional or historical countries.

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kartan
> But a year later when he was arrested for his participation in what many
> assume to be a brawl, the knights imprisoned the artist at Fort St Angelo
> and expelled him from the Order.

For the only things I know Malata now are gambling, as a tax haven, and for
the assassination of a journalist
([https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/17/malta-
protecti...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/17/malta-protecting-
mastermind-journalist-daphne-caruana-galizia-says-husband)).

Not so much to do with the idealized world of knights and gentlemen.

~~~
craftyguy
I'm pretty sure the order that this article is about does _not_ run the
government. Based on my limited knowledge of history, orders like this were
generally citizens (super loose terminology) of a host country, rather than
rulers. Malta was an exception, until the 19th century.

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emmelaich
I learnt the other day that "caballeros" is Spanish for gentlemen. Which is a
nice echo of the knight/gentleman identity mentioned here.

~~~
scarejunba
Interesting contrast with the meaning of ‘cavalier’.

~~~
toyg
Yeah, for some reason the French word (from which the English one derives)
degenerated in a Don Quixote-like caricature. This has not happened in Italian
nor in Spanish, afaik.

