Fenkata, more than a delicious meal of rabbit.
I watched the waiters cross the floor, their hands carrying plates of steaming rabbit dishes, a first course of pasta with rabbit sauce to be followed by the rabbit as a second course. A procession of rabbit meals made its way to the diners sitting at tables spread across the tiled floor. The aroma of Fenkata made its way towards our table. Sitting in an Mgarr restaurant, my mouth watered, ready to devour what I had been assured would be the best meal of rabbit in Malta.
Rabbit has a long history in Malta. It was believed that either the Romans or the Phoenicians introduced the animal to the Maltese islands. However, it was the arrival of the Knights of St John in 1530 that would lead to the rabbit becoming a symbol of resistance.
The Order of St John’s authoritarian rules on hunting and land rights would set off a sequence of rising tensions that would reach a crescendo of disobedience in the 1770s.
Before the arrival of the knights in 1530, Malta enjoyed a level of autonomy under the Kingdom of Sicily. While the local government was controlled by an elite group of landowners, it was upon the arrival of the Knights that the population experienced a shift in power; the Knights becoming more a feudal overlord than a local system of government.
The Knights, who loved to hunt, took control of the island’s local administration and land management which saw the redesignation of substantial public areas across Malta, Comino and Gozo into private lands. During the rule of the Order of St John, these controls were gradually tightened, restricting local citizens’ access to areas for hunting. This affected both the peasants who were hunting rabbit for food and the farmers who needed to control rabbit populations. Farmers, desperate to limit the damage to agricultural lands, were recorded as killing up to 1,000 rabbits a day.
Over the 1600 and 1700s there were sporadic clashes over the local rights of Maltese peasants and the authority of the Order who drew the laws ever tighter. Eventually the hunting of rabbit, hares and partridge was limited to a season from December to July. Tensions continued to rise as courageous farmers and peasants who stood up for their hunting and grazing rights were imprisoned by the Order.
As restrictions grew tighter the punishments for transgressors became harsher. The Knights increased the severity of sentences from fines to punishments which included imprisonment and even consigning “criminals” to years of rowing on a galley.
What were once public lands became designated private areas, as the Grand Masters and the propertied class acquired ever larger swathes of land across the archipelago. The Order treated hunting as sport, a common practice across the European elites. While their hunting was used to train for war and the catch would be served in banquets, peasants need access to food for survival. The average Maltese diet was based primarily on bread and grains. Rabbit was a cheap and accessible protein source for lower class citizens to supplement their diet of grains. Rabbits that were caught were small in size, which required people to cook several rabbits before turning the meat into a pie. The impact of hunting restrictions extended to the Mnarja festival celebrations on 29 June where rabbit pie was the main dish at the festival to celebrate the feast day of St Peter and St Paul. This all raised further animosity towards the Order.
In the 1760s adverse weather events and the financial maladministration by the Knights, left the Order unable to purchase the required volume of duty-free grain. The availability of meat, including rabbit, became critical to compensate for the lack of imported grain. The calamitous financial situation caused by the Knights was compounded by the continued restriction of hunting rights during the 1770s.
Newly appointed Grand Master Ximinese de Texada introduced more austere regulations in late 1773. Public dissatisfaction against the Order grew, as the rising price of grain drove more people into poverty.
The impoverished rural population needed small scale hunting to maintain an existence. They found an ally in Bishop Giovanni Pellerano, who became so alarmed at the damage caused by rabbits to his property that he supported the peoples’ hunting rights.
In January 1774 a law banning citizen hunting further inflamed the discontent. The ban was opposed by Bishop Pellerano and members of the clergy. Throughout 1774 the local population instigated a campaign of civil disobedience until frustrations reached a boiling point in September 1775.
On the first of September 1775 a small group of 40 people, including 18 priests, embarrassed the Knights by occupying Fort St Elmo and the battery of St James Cavalier. At both sites they removed the flag of the Knights and in its place hoisted the red and white flag of the Maltese state. Within a few short hours the so-called Priests’ uprising was suppressed. The citizens of Valletta were placed in lock-down and the rebels were captured. In the aftermath the rebels were variously executed, exiled or imprisoned.
The collective rights of peasants continued to clash with the private hunting rights of the Order and the Maltese elite, triggering ongoing civil disobedience and acts of resistance.
The strength and resilience of the peasants, led to the laws being gradually loosened from 1776, which restored to peasants and farmers, small rights to the hunting of rabbits.
So, the next time you taste rabbit consider it as more than a tasty a meal. It was a symbol of peasant resistance in Maltese history.
Written with the assistance of Professor Carmel Cassar, University of Malta. First published in the Maltese Journal.
