The Knights of St John and Early Learning in Cottonera

When the Knights of St John arrived in Malta in 1530, Birgu became the political and military heart of the island. Soldiers, sailors, merchants, and foreign ships crowded the Grand Harbour, and the town expanded rapidly. Long before modern schools existed, education was already taking root in the harbourside towns of Cottonera. While the best-known school of the time was the municipal school of Notabile, records show that teaching was also well established in Vittoriosa (Birgu) and Senglea (Isla). In Birgu, parish priests taught boys to read prayers, copy letters, and understand the Christian faith. Lessons were often held in side rooms of St Lawrence Church, where children scratched their first words onto slates. Records from the Vittoriosa Parish Archives in the late sixteenth century even mention small payments made to priests ‘for the instruction of children,’ offering rare evidence of early schooling in the region.

Girls were usually taught at home, learning practical skills from their mothers, or receiving quiet instruction from nuns in convents. Books were rare, paper was expensive, and most families worked long hours simply to survive, leaving little time for formal schooling. Don Andrea Axiac, a Maltese schoolmaster was invited by the town authorities of the Borgo (Birgu) to transfer his school from Mdina to the hospitaller maritime centre in the mid-sixteenth centuryDon Andrea, who along with Francesco Gesualdo, a fellow school master, had been accused of teaching their students Lutheran ideas, and had their school closed, moved their teaching activities to Birgu for a period. Don Andrea’s pupils lived with their teacher, sharing the same food and accommodation. This close daily contact helped shape both their education and behaviour. A major insight into Cottonera’s educational strength comes from the Apostolic Visit of 1575. Investigators working on behalf of Bishop Fra Tomaso Gargallo discovered that five schools were operating in Vittoriosa and two in Senglea. Together, these schools offered a range of learning that included elementary education, grammar, law, and higher studies.

Elementary pupils in Vittoriosa were taught by Notary Andrea Albano, who instructed children in the prima elementa, or basic reading and writing. Grammar was taught by Notary Placido Abel, described in official records as a professor of the art of grammar. Legal studies could be pursued at the school of Don Giovanni Battista Spinola, identified as a professor of both laws, meaning civil and canon law. Two other schools in Vittoriosa were run by priests, Don Michele Cap and Don Crispino de Caro, although the subjects they taught are not recorded. Teaching often took place in informal settings: the two notaries taught from their own homes, while the priests used chapels within the cemetery of St Lawrence’s Church.

School attendance varied. Placido Abel taught around forty students, while Don Michele Cap taught fifty. Spinola’s law school had twelve students, and De Caro’s school just eight. No figures survive for Albano’s elementary pupils. Students normally paid their teachers for lessons, although Notary Albano stated that he taught without receiving payment. In Senglea, two priests were responsible for education: Don Francesco Caruana, who taught twelve students in the Church of St Julian, and Don Bernardo Francese, the parish curate, who taught twenty students from his own home.

Altogether, 142 students attended schools in Vittoriosa and Senglea alone. This compares very favourably with later figures from the Jesuit College, where only ninety-seven students were enrolled in grammar and humanities classes in 1658. Education was closely supervised by the Church. In 1591, Bishop Gargallo convened a diocesan synod that laid down the earliest detailed local rules for education in Malta. Teachers, known as Ludi Magistri, were instructed not only to teach grammar and other subjects but also to ensure that students received a solid grounding in Christian doctrine. Saturdays were devoted to religious teaching, and Sundays often included readings from Christian texts. Classrooms were to be decorated with holy images, and poor clerics were entitled to free education.

The Collegium Melitense

A major turning point in Maltese education came in 1592 with the arrival of the Jesuits, invited by Bishop Gargallo. They founded the Collegium Melitense in Valletta, which became the island’s most important centre of secondary and higher education. For over 150 years, it educated many of Malta’s future leaders, though access remained largely restricted to the elite. Under the Knights, education in the arts and sciences flourished among the nobility. Private tutors taught languages, navigation, accounting, music, rhetoric, philosophy, and science. Meanwhile, the majority of the population, especially in working communities like Cottonera, continued to rely on parish teaching, private tutors, and informal schooling.

The Collegium Melitense was an important milestone, but it did not solve all educational needs, especially for those living far from the harbour area. Recognising this, Bishop Fra Baldassare Cagliares proposed the creation of a seminary in Notabile (Mdina) to make education more accessible. Its foundation was officially recorded in August 1615, although other schools were already beginning to appear across Malta.

The earliest school known outside the harbour area was in Attard. The teacher was a priest called Don Tomaso Tabone, who was allowed to teach children in 1618. In that same year Don Giuseppe Micallef was authorised to teach in Valletta and Don Domenico Cassar in Senglea. A census of the clergy in 1638 shows six priests actively teaching: three in Valletta, one in Vittoriosa, one at the municipal school of Notabile, and one at the municipal school of Gozo.

By 1644, education had expanded significantly. Valletta had seven schools: one elementary and six grammar schools. Across the harbour, Vittoriosa had five grammar schools, and Senglea had one. Rural Malta was also keeping pace: Żebbuġ had two grammar teachers, while Lija, Naxxar, Mqabba, and Żurrieq each had one. Gozo had two grammar schools in Rabat, one in the Church of Santa Sabina and another in the Augustinian priory, both run by friars.

Higher education was largely centred around the harbour. The Jesuit College focused on Moral Theology, while the Dominican Priory of Porto Salvo in Valletta became known for teaching Logic and Philosophy, subjects also taught by Dominicans in Vittoriosa. Three diocesan priests ran their own schools of Logic and Philosophy in Birgu, Senglea, and Bormla. Law could be studied at four schools: three in Valletta and one in Vittoriosa.

Rules, Faith, and the Right to Teach

Following the Council of Trent, Pope Pius IV required all teachers, clerical or lay, to make a formal profession of faith. In Malta, this requirement was enforced from 1618 onwards. Parish priests were later made responsible for ensuring that no one taught without fulfilling this obligation and receiving episcopal authorisation.

By the late sixteenth century, the Bishop already exercised authority over who could teach. Investigations in 1588 revealed that while some teachers in Vittoriosa had proper licences, others, especially in Senglea, had none. Over time, the Bishop’s role became more formalised. From the 1690s onwards, teaching licences were usually granted for one year only and had to be renewed annually.

Candidates were examined, first individually and later through general examinations. Licences specified where and what a teacher could teach. While Valletta initially dominated educational authorisations, Cottonera gained increasing importance after 1721. From that point onwards, Bormla (Cospicua) emerged as the leading centre of education in the Three Cities, followed by Senglea. Vittoriosa, once the most important, gradually lost its earlier prominence.

New Subjects and New Methods

By the mid-eighteenth century, teaching methods were evolving. A new approach to grammar, using the textbook Donato by Don Giovanni de Rossi, became widespread. Humane Letters, the study of classical literature, were added to the curriculum. In 1686, Don Celestino Farrugia was authorised to teach Humane Letters in Bormla, and in 1716 Don Sisto Gambino ran a school dedicated entirely to this subject, serving all three cities.

Philosophy and Theology were also taught in Cottonera. A subdeacon was authorised to teach these subjects in Vittoriosa as early as 1668, and by the early eighteenth century, roughly one in every eighteen priests was engaged in teaching.

A Maritime Education

By the 1700s, Cottonera buzzed with activity. The shipyards and dockyards were expanding, and boys were often needed to help with repairs, carpentry, ropes, and sails. These trades required not only strength but also basic literacy and numeracy. Dockyard masters began insisting that apprentices know how to read and keep simple accounts. The records of the Order’s Naval Arsenal, preserved from 1740 onwards, confirm these expectations. Religious orders, especially the Oratorians in Birgu, established small charitable schools for poor boys or orphans. For the first time, education was starting to reach those who had previously been excluded. The lessons were still basic, but something important was happening: people were beginning to believe that learning mattered, even for the children of labourers and fishermen.

The Jesuits and Higher Education under the Knights

In 1676, Grand Master Nicholas Cotoner founded a lectureship in Anatomy and Surgery at the Holy Infirmary in Valletta, marking an important step in medical education. Training was long and demanding, and only students who could already read and write were admitted. In 1769, following the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1768, Grand Master Emanuel Pinto reconstituted the former Jesuit College as a public University of General Studies. It included faculties of Theology, Medicine, and Law, along with preparatory schools and courses in navigation, naval architecture, and cartography. Despite these advances, education under the Knights remained fragmented and largely inaccessible to the poor.

Education for Girls and the Role of Craft

Education for girls in Cottonera followed a different but equally important path. In 1699, a noblewoman named Laurica Mifsud, also known as Laurica Agius, founded the Conservatorio delle Zitelle in Santa Margherita, Bormla. This institution provided shelter, religious guidance, and practical education for poor and orphaned girls, particularly in spinning cotton and lace-making. The conservatory, later known as St Joseph’s Conservatory, aimed not only to protect girls but to give them a future. Through their textile work, the girls earned small sums of money, and some were even granted dowries. Profits from the cotton industry helped fund the institution and support its residents.

The Church played a major role in sustaining the lace industry. Religious garments required fine lace, and cloistered nuns, especially Benedictines, taught young girls to spin, weave, and create high-quality lace. Convents and conservatories became the first organised schools for girls, teaching reading, writing, domestic skills, and crafts. In Cottonera, the nuns of Santa Margherita and St Joseph’s Conservatory in Bormla, as well as those of St Scholastica in Birgu, ensured that girls received education that combined morality, skill, and economic independence.

St Joseph’s Conservatory, Bormla

The End of the Knights’ Era

A dramatic change came in June 1798, when the French removed the Knights of St John from Malta. The French were inspired by new ideas spreading across Europe. They believed that education should be for everyone, not just the rich, that it should be organised by the state, and that learning should prepare people to think for themselves. To put these ideas into practice, they banned private schools, encouraged adults to continue learning, and temporarily closed the University while they planned a new system.

One of the strongest Maltese voices supporting these ideas was the linguist and philosopher Mikiel Anton Vassalli. Even before the French arrived, in 1796, he had published Il-Ktieb tal-Kliem Malti, a work in which he argued for a national education system for Malta and Gozo. Vassalli believed that public schools should be opened across the islands so that all children could learn. He carefully described different types of schools, how teachers should be trained, and what was needed to make education successful. His ideas closely matched the French belief that education was a basic right.

On 18 June 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte issued orders setting out an ambitious education plan for Malta. It proposed the opening of fifteen state-run primary schools, the creation of a trained group of teachers with fixed salaries, and the establishment of a central school, known as an école centrale, to replace the University in Valletta. If these plans had been carried out, education in places like Birgu, Bormla, and Senglea would have been completely transformed.

In reality, none of this had time to happen. The French government lacked money, opposition grew quickly, and in September 1798 the Maltese rose up against French rule. By 1800, the French were forced to leave Malta, and their education plans were abandoned.

By the time they departed, Cottonera already had a strong tradition of learning built on faith, community support, and practical skills. What the French added was a powerful new idea: that education should belong to everyone, not just a few. Although they left before this idea could become reality, it would strongly influence the next chapter in Malta’s history, when new rulers took control of the islands.