Maltese historiography lacks a serious discussion of the development of medieval institutions. However, currently available studies of the surviving documentary evidence show that already by the fifteenth century the Mdina and Gozo Universita, or town councils, were fully developed institutions within the framework of the Kingdom of Sicily. Charles V's act of cession of the islands to the Order as a free and noble fief included a provision that all privileges and liberties of the Maltese were to be preserved and honoured. Notwithstanding this sworn promise, it was only a few months before the Order started nibbling away at these jealously guarded rights and altering the political and administrative role of the town council in a radical way.

This chapter analyses these institutional changes by focusing on the functions and privileges of the Universita before the arrival of the Order and the subsequent gradual but significant changes implemented by the Order during the first decades of its rule. Particular attention is given to the town councils’ role in controlling and conducting a variety of economic activities that were pivotal in the island's subsistence. To date, Maltese historiography has treated this transitional period in the island's political, social and economic development in a rather isolated and Maltese-centred manner. In Braudelian terms, historians have presented the island as an isolated and self-contained world surrounded by sea. Is the persistence of this isolationist view justified? Were Malta's political reforms specific to the local context, or can comparable models be found in the wider geo-historical perspective? Any attempt to answer these questions must be approached with caution, and avoid reaching arbitrary conclusions in the absence of explicit evidence.

The administration of the Maltese islands prior to 1530

Study of the history of Maltese institutions in the medieval and early modern period needs to be grounded firmly in contemporary developments in Sicily, since the two islands formed part of a greater entity, the Regno. Notwithstanding Malta's strong connections to Sicily, as early as the mid-thirteenth century a report by the Governor of Malta, Giliberto Abbate, for Emperor Frederick II covering the decade 1230–40, highlighted the differences between Maltese customs and those of Sicily.