Copyright timesofmalta
Throughout the last two centuries of Hospitaller rule, a persistent cold war simmered between the three top wielders of authority in the island – the Order, the Church and the Inquisition. Few other European states came so close to being absolute theocracies as Malta did, a small island where three ecclesiastical entities shared the entirety of political and civil power between them, and all three ultimately competed for the nod from the pontiff in Rome. This uncomfortable distribution of authority inevitably gave rise to outright conflicts or to smouldering tensions, sometimes erupting into outright confrontations, but generally constrained by polite and understated hostility. Often a three-cornered fight, but sometimes two joined forces against one, in shifting coalitions. One of the principal causes of conflict was that each of the three authorities had its own court, prison and areas of jurisdiction.
