Sancir: A Medieval Countryside Church at Ġnien is-Sultan - Charles Dalli

Sancir

a medieval countryside church at Ġnien is-sultan

by charles Dalli •photographs by stanley farrugia randon

The humble late medieval church of san Mikiel is-sanċir (st Michael ‘the sincere’), stands on the grounds of the former agricultural estate of Ġnien is-Sultan in the countryside of Rabat.

‘sancir still lies in a quiet agricultural setting outside rabat, as it always did – here in the centre of the image'

One of six churches built in the late Middle Ages scheduled for Grade 1 protection in October 2020, Sanċir brings together a story of medieval piety with one of modern perseverance. Almost forty years ago, a group of volunteers embarked on the rehabilitation of the church, which had suffered centuries of neglect. The rehabilitation process is eloquently recorded by historian Dominic Cutajar, who was one of the team of activists rolling up their sleeves to restore and preserve Sanċir.

First clearly recorded in 1575 by the Apostolic Delegate Pietro Dusina, when it was described as dedicated to St Michael, the small church was strategically located within the lands of Ġnien is-Sultan, which formed part of the Grand Master’s estates. The church was mentioned in different pastoral visits until 1678, when it was ordered to be deconsecrated by Bishop Molina, and subsequently refashioned into stables and agricultural storerooms by the local farmers.

The initiative to work for its restoration three centuries later, followed up by a foundation, the ‘Sanċir Trust’, to oversee the archaeological survey of the church and its wider context led by Anthony Bonanno, serves as a milestone in the field of Maltese heritage. This short contribution takes a wider look at the medieval context of Sanċir. The lack of documentation makes it impossible to answer the question: Who built Sanċir, and when? That being said, Sanċir says some significant things about its people and their history.

Ġnien is-Sultan, ‘the King’s Garden’, the estate on which the church of Sanċir was eventually built, formed part of the regio demanio, namely the lands of the Crown in the Maltese Islands. The earliest account of the organisation of production on the Crown estates is found in the well-known reply to the report of Giliberto Abbate, a royal administrator in around 1240/1242. Frederick II Hohenstaufen, King of Sicily and Holy Roman Emperor (d.1250) took a personal interest in the Maltese Islands because of his passion for falconry. No expense was spared as expeditions were undertaken by Frederick’s falconers to capture the prized birds and take them safely to the royal court.

Giliberto’s account discloses how the royal estates across Malta and Gozo were worked by Saracen serfs as well as slaves from the North African island of Djerba. Some of the estates must have been confiscated from the former chief landowners of Muslim times in the previous century, when the Norman rulers established their control over Malta and Gozo. The process of land confiscation was all but completed under Frederick II. Under his authority, the final expulsions of Muslims from Malta and Gozo were organized to Lucera, the Apulian stronghold populated by Saracen deportees from the Sicilian territories. In Maltese petitions to King Charles I of Anjou,

The lack of documentation makes it impossible to answer the question: Who built Sanċir, and when? That being said, Sanċir says some significant things about its people and their history.

The area of Ġnien is-Sultan may have been the site of an agro-villa complex in (late) Roman times. Viticulture was still characteristic of the estate at the end of the sixteenth century

ruler of Sicily (1266-1282), there was mention of the lands of the former Saracen owners.

It is unclear if the Muslim qaids had any specific structures on their Maltese estates, but beyond the characteristic functions of the farmstead, both defensive as well as religious buildings were observed on some private country estates in the medieval Maghrib and al-Andalus. Moreover, it was not unknown for Christian landholders to similarly erect military and/or religious buildings on their country estates in the Norman Kindom of Sicily. The practice persisted in the later Middle Ages.

As Malta and Gozo were Christianised, an ecclesiastical organization centred on the town of Malta and the castrum maris, and then the first churches were documented on the islands in the late thirteenth century in sea charts and last wills, to mention two examples. Moreover, the case has convincingly been made by Mario Buhagiar to date several cave- and rock-cut churches to this period of the high Middle Ages. Strategically located churches along the coastline were also serving as reference points for mariners, as shown in the research of Timothy Gambin.

Following the war of the Vespers and the Aragonese victory over the Angevin fleet in the Battle of Malta in 1283, the Maltese Islands were held by the Aragonese monarchs of Sicily. By 1299 works on the cathedral church of St Paul were ongoing, as indicated in the last will and testament of the resident knight in the Gozo castrum, Guglielmo de Malta the nephew of the Count of Malta. Based at the castrum maris, the stronghold guarding the strategic Maltese harbour, and its embryonic suburb of Birgu, a community of seafarers and traders emerged.

Among the ship captains of Birgu and the gentry of Mdina one encounters the names of fief holders, who enjoyed the rents from the chief estates in return for their services. The best example is arguably that of the mid-fourteenth century knight Giacomo de Pellegrino, who rose to prominence in royal service in the 1350s and married a relative of the reigning Aragonese monarchs in Sicily, King Ludovico and his successor King Federico IV, the noblewoman Margerita d’Aragona.

Giacomo was appointed Captain of Malta and Gozo, and entrusted with the Castellany. For more than a decade, he had de facto full control over the affairs of Malta and Gozo, even as one of the chief magnates of Sicily, the Count of Modica Manfred Chiaromonte formally claimed the islands as Count of Malta. It took a Genoese expedition against Malta, led in person by King Federico, in 1372, to expel Pellegrino from Malta and recover the Maltese islands for the Crown. Pellegrino died shortly afterwards, and his widow Margerita d’Aragona petitioned the Crown to be allowed access to her portion of the wealth confiscated in her husband’s downfall.

Ġnien is-Sultan was listed among the estates granted by the Crown to Giacomo de Pellegrino, Justiciar, Captain and Castellan of Malta. For his services he received the viridarium magnum of Lu Jardinu di lu Re with the water springs of Ayn il Cayd (Għajn il-Qajd/Qajjed) and Ayn Tosen (Għajn Tewżien ) as well as the cultivated estates of La Chafe ac Fonte, the fief of Beniarratu (Benwarrad), and the field of Chabel Salet (Ħabel Salet) in the contrata of Marsa next to Pellegrino’s own vineyard (18/19.vi.1361).

On the basis of some of the archaeological findings, including pottery, coins, the top part of an olive pipper, as well as part of a marble column, Cutajar suggests that the area of Ġnien is-Sultan may have been the site of an agro-villa complex in (late) Roman times. Given the proximity of water sources and the relative quality of the land, it is not a surprise to find indications of viticulture. Indeed, Ġnien is-Sultan seems to have possessed a substantial vineyard in late medieval times, when it was managed by the Secrezia as part of the regio demanio. The estate was described as being enclosed with a wall during the time of Pellegrino. After 1530 it formed part of the Grand Master’s estates as prince of Malta.

Viticulture was still characteristic of the estate at the end of the sixteenth century, alongside the production of cereals in the adjacent lands. The custom of vine dressers attending vespers at Sanċir on Michaelmas, which coincided with the end of the grape harvest, was mentioned by Bishop Gargallo. The presence of water also attracted flax producers. Ġnien is-Sultan was included in a list of places specified in proclamations issued by the jurats of the Università of Mdina warning against the illegal practice of the retting of flax by individuals polluting public water sources, alongside Dejr ilBaqar, Għeriexem, and the Bishop’s estate (for instance, in 1518, 1519, and 1527).

The Secrezia, which managed royal (and, from 1530 onwards, magisterial) properties, listed Ġnien is-Sultan among its territories for much of the later Middle Ages. The communities of farmers and animal husbandmen active in the countryside of Mdina and Rabat, regularly paid their rents to the gabellotti of the Secrezia or those of the leading landed families. Unfortunately few records have survived pertaining specifically to the management of Ġnien is-Sultan in the later Middle Ages. Variously named as Jardinu di lu Re/ de lo Re, and viridarium magnum, in the late medieval records, it was also recorded in the Maltese version by Brandano de Caxaro in 1556: the viridarium of Ginen Soltan.

The dedication of the church to St Michael as reported by Pietro Dusina in 1575, has led some authors to suggest that ‘Sanċir’ was an adjective for ‘St Michael the Sincere’. The painting of St Michael was described by Bishop Cagliares to be in a poor state in 1615. Alternatively, the idea that the church was previously dedicated to St Cyr may also be upheld. The child saint Cyriacus, or Quiricus, was said to have been martyred together with his mother Julitta at the beginning of the fourth century, at Tarsus, with his cult spreading to different parts of the Christian world. The female saint Cyriaca, a martyr from the Diocletian persecutions, seems to have been Latinised into St Dominica. The fifth-century St Cyriacus the Anchorite may well be the San Ċir venerated in this case, as his feast in the Orthodox calendar is held on 29 September, coinciding with the feast of St Michael in the Latin calendar, and marks the end of the grape harvest in some Orthodox communities.

The alternative is to view the term San Ċir as an epithet of St Michael ‘the Sincere’. The other example of the lost medieval church of ‘San Ċir’ in Bubaqra would seem to support a local cult. The remains of the church of ‘San Ċir’ at Bubaqra, taken to refer to ‘St Michael the

Vigilo - Din l-Art Ħelwa Issue 55 • MAY 2021 23 Sincere’ by Mario Buhagiar, were photographed around 1930. Nevertheless, it is unclear whether any documentary evidence may be adduced for this interpretation of ‘Sanċir’ as ‘San Mikiel isSinċier’.

Perhaps this is a case of a twin dedication - a church of St Cyr (re)dedicated by the harvesters of the vineyard of Ġnien is-Sultan to St Michael. We will probably never know for sure. But there is no doubt that Michaelmas was one of the key dates in the agriculture of the late Middle Ages, as evidenced by contracts stipulating the payment of debts on that feast day at the end of the annual grape harvest. n

The custom of vine dressers attending vespers at Sanċir on Michaelmas, which coincided with the end of the grape harvest, was mentioned by Bishop Gargallo.

Bibliography: The essay by Dominic Cutajar, ‘Sanċir. A rural medieval chapel in Malta. The story of its rehabilitation’, at: http://www.academia.edu/34148520/ collects much of the relevant information on the church of Sanċir and its modern restoration. The documents on Giacomo de Pellegrino’s tenure of the estates between 1361 and 1372 may be consulted in Stanley Fiorini ed., Documentary Sources of Maltese History. Part II. No 1 Cancelleria Regia, 1259-1400, Malta University Press, 1999. The proclamations of 1518, 1519 and 1527 are recorded in Stanley Fiorini ed., Documentary Sources of Maltese History. Part III. No. 3: Acta Juratorum et Consilii Civitatis et Insulae Maltae, II 1512-1531, Malta University Press, 2016. The report of Pietro Dusina may be consulted in George Aquilina and Stanley Fiorini eds., Documentary Sources of Maltese History. Part IV. No 1. Archivio Segreto Vaticano. Congregazione Vescovi e Regolari Malta: Visita Apostolica no.51 Mgr Petrus Dusina, 1575, Malta University Press, 2001. The place-name evidence on Ġnien is-Sultan was published by Godfrey Wettinger, Place-Names of the Maltese Islands, ca.1300-1800, PEG, 2000. Mario Buhagiar, The Late Medieval Art and Architecture of the Maltese Islands, Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti, presents evidence of ‘San Ċir’ church at Bubaqra, while Mario Buhagiar, The Christianisation of Malta. Catacombs, Cult Centres, and Churches in Malta to 1530, BAR International Series 1674, 2007, studies the Christian archaeology of the Maltese islands. Timothy Gambin, The maritime landscapes of Malta from the Roman period to the Middle Ages, University of Bristol, 2005 for a study of the landscape and its reference points. Henri Bresc’s study ‘The Secrezia and the Royal patrimony in Malta, 1240-1450’, in A.T.Luttrell, ed, Medieval Malta. Studies on Malta before the Knights, London, 1975, is fundamental for an understanding of the Secrezia in medieval Malta; while his paper ‘Malta dopo il Vespro’, Melita Historica, vi, 3, 1974, published for the first time the will of Guglielmo de Malta of 1299.

charles Dalli lectures on medieval history within the Department of history, faculty of Arts, at the University of malta, and is the author of numerous works on the subject.