Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/581

Rh however, in the town of Valetta, a street so narrow as to be called, par excellence, the “Strada Stretta,” and this was the spot marked out as a kind of neutral territory in which irascible cavaliers might expend their superfluous courage without fear of incurring the severer penalties of the law. The fiction which led to this concession was that a combat in this street might be looked upon in the light of a casual encounter—the result of some jostling or collision brought about by the extreme narrowness of the road. The Strada Stretta consequently became eventually the great rendezvous for affairs of honour. The seconds posted themselves one on either side at some little distance from their principals, and, with their swords drawn prevented the passers-by from approaching the scene until the conffict had been brought to a conclusion. The records of the criminal council in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries teem with entries of stabbing, wounding, and killing, most of which were the result either of premeditated duels or of casual encounters. When they were the former the punishment depended greatly upon whether or not the duel had taken place at the authorized spot, and if so the penalty was comparatively trifling, being either a quarantaine or two months’ imprisonment.

The punishment for duelling being thus severe, it was necessary for the statutes to provide some protection to the peaceably disposed from the violence of passion and ill-temper and from the insult of hatred or jealousy. We consequently find the following decree under the head of insults:—“If a brother, in the heat of his anger, whilst quarrelling with another brother, shall make use of insulting language, he shall be punished by the quarantaine, even though he shall subsequently admit that he has spoken falsely and shall apologize for the insult. If he shall boldly give him the lie direct, he shall lose two years’ seniority, and if he strike him with a stick or give him a blow with his hand, he shall lose three years.”

The questions of quarrelling and duelling having been disposed of, the statutes proceed to provide against the nuisance to respectable and steady-going householders of midnight revellers disturbing their slumbers. The following regulation proves that fast young men in the middle ages were as groat a nuisance to their neighbours, and committed much the same 36’