There is a fantastic cathedral here in Valletta, Malta. It’s called St John’s Cathedral and I queued
to get in and view the magnificent interior.
While waiting I decided that the entrance fee might be worth paying and
entered. Only to be accosted by a large
officious woman at the door who said I needed to cover up! Bemused, I checked myself, I am not
generally known for my daring outfits.
I wore a long skirt down to my ankles and a high necked top. What could possibly be offensive? Then, the lady pointed out that part of my
shoulders were visible at the edge of my top.
I mean, if you looked up my sleeves you might get a glimpse of my upper
arms, but really there was nothing obscene about it. I could tell the people in the queue around me were bewildered
too. One of them wore a cut away sarong
to the waist, but she was okay, another Australian man wore daring shorts with
a “wife beating vest” as my eldest son likes to call them. The lady in front of me had shoulders
covered but her neckline descended to her belly button and almost all her
breasts were on display. However, they
were all okay, it was I who caused offence for some reason and was duly draped
in a huge orange piece of material to make me decent.
The Australian giggled, as he said, “Sorry love, you looked
like Mary Poppins to me even without the shroud.” I sigh, such things seem to happen to me. It was at this point dressed in a huge
orange tent surrounded by half naked people, I realised I had forgotten my
glasses. Having paid my fee I was
trapped in a stunning church with poor eyesight that only let me see what was less
than a metre in front of me. Not to
be outdone I peered hopefully at each nave, every picture and all the
ornaments. In fact I am pretty sure,
every tourist that day in Valletta has a picture of me in a vast orange tent in
all their pictures of the cathedral.
They are all probably at home now in far off places showing relatives
and friends their holiday snaps and saying, “yes, I have no idea what this
idiot was doing, dressed in an orange tent who managed to get into all the
shots.” Well, the explanation is that
in order to see I had to stand in front of everyone really close to the
exhibits. While peering at the
aforesaid object people were clicking away in the background.
The floor is covered in gravestones of the famous knights
who died and their names are engraved along with the dates. The more famous have paid for huge statues
of themselves posing with angels and such like. In fact the more I read and examined the place the less I felt
like admiring things. Is that how it
is, you pay for your immortality, your place in Holy places? To get remembered, you need only get
something ornate and gold trimmed and stick it up somewhere? That doesn’t seem right. Mind you King Charles V who actually gave
the knights Malta, as their centre was not quite right either. Charles suffered from an enlarged lower jaw,
a deformity that became considerably worse in later Habsburg generations,
giving rise to the term Habsburg jaw. This deformity was caused by the
family's long history of inbreeding, which was commonly practiced in royal families
of that era to maintain dynastic control of territory. His bloodline would
become so genetically flawed that they could not survive, those red necks from
the film “Deliverance”, were obviously not the only ones to marry their kith
and kin. I even think can hear a banjo
playing as I wander round the church and its opulent décor. But, it was perhaps holding his own funeral
that makes Charles stand out in my mind.
Yes, you heard me right. Here is
an account of that very occasion.
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“The chapel was hung with black, and the blaze of hundreds
of wax-lights was scarcely sufficient to dispel the darkness. The brethren in
their conventual dress, and all the Emperor’s household clad in deep
mourning, gathered round a huge catafalque, shrouded also in black, which had
been raised in the centre of the chapel. The service for the burial of the
dead was then performed; and, amidst the dismal wail of the monks, the
prayers ascended for the departed spirit, that it might be received into the
mansions of the blessed. The sorrowful attendants were melted to tears, as
the image of their master’s death was presented to their minds—or they were
touched, it may be, with compassion by this pitiable display of weakness.
Charles, muffled in a dark mantle, and bearing a lighted candle in his hand, mingled
with his household, the spectator of his own obsequies; and the doleful
ceremony was concluded by his placing the taper in the hands of the priest,
in sign of his surrendering up his soul to the Almighty.”
Yes, the rich and the royal are often, "gone in the head",
as my nephew James would rightly say!
On that thought, I gave back my orange tent and left the cathedral
pondering the dangers of riches, fame and glory.
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