# The Knights' Galleys: Slaves, Sailors, and Silver

An episode of [The Story of Malta: The Fortress Island of the Mediterranean — Fexingo History](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1895465859), 2 Aug 2026, 7:46.

Audio: https://audio.fexingo.com/history/the-story-of-malta/episode-0188.mp3

Before the Great Siege, before the bastions, the Knights of St. John were a naval power. This episode looks at the muscle behind the oars: the galley slaves, convicts, and paid oarsmen who rowed the Order's war galleys. Lucas and Luna unpick the grim arithmetic of the oar bench, the role of Muslim slaves captured in the corso, and the daily rhythms of a warship that was part floating fortress, part brutal prison. They learn about the Capitano delle Gaglere, the Castellania trials that sent men to the oars, and the bizarre case of a Turkish corsair who ended up rowing for the Knights. And they ask a question that casts a long shadow over the Order's self-image: could the Hospital, the navy, and the slave market all exist on the same moral ledger? #KnightsOfStJohn #GalleySlavery #Corso #HospitallerNavy #MediterraneanHistory #MaltaHistory #NavalHistory #OttomanEmpire #EarlyModernEurope #Slavery #GrandHarbour #Birgu #Castellania #SacreInfermeria #CapitanoDelleGaglere #History #FexingoHistory #podcast Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo

## Transcript

Lucas: If you've been stepping into history with us episode by episode, you've met the Knights of St. John as fortress-builders, as hospitaliers, even as inquisitors. But for the first two hundred years on the island, they were something else first: a navy. And a navy in the age of sail and shot meant one thing above all... rowers. Lots and lots of human beings chained to oars.
Luna: I was wondering when we'd get to the oars. It's the part of the story that never makes it into the tourist brochures.
Lucas: Exactly. So today, we're going to pull back the curtain on the Order's war galleys — the muscle, the sweat, the chains, and the complex human economy that kept them moving. And before we go any deeper, I want to say something about how we do this show. We don't run ads, ever. That's a deliberate choice. If you want to support that, the link is buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, and it helps us keep exploring the uncomfortable corners of history.
Luna: It's a good corner to explore. I mean, we've talked about the slave market in passing, but this is where it all comes together.
Lucas: Right. So picture a galley: about forty metres long, maybe five metres wide, with a single deck and a lateen sail. But the real engine was human. A typical war galley had around 250 rowers, sitting on benches, three to an oar, each oar up to twelve metres long. And those rowers were a mix — some were volunteers, believe it or not, but the majority were slaves or convicts.
Lucas: The volunteers, they were called buonavoglia — literally 'good will' — free men who signed on for a share of the prize money. Then there were the forzati, convicts condemned to the oars by the Inquisition or the criminal courts. And at the bottom, the worst lot, were the slaves — mostly Muslims captured in the corso, the Order's holy war at sea.
Luna: So a slave and a convict could end up side by side, rowing the same oar?
Lucas: Exactly. And the conditions were brutal. They were chained to the benches, fed a sparse diet of biscuit and beans, and slept where they rowed. The slave deck was a stew of sweat, salt spray, and dysentery. In a battle, the rowers were sitting targets — but they also had to keep the galley moving, because if the ship stopped, it was dead in the water.
Lucas: Now, the man in charge of this floating prison was the Capitano delle Gaglere — the Captain of the Galleys. He was a senior knight, usually one with naval experience, and he was responsible for everything from tactics to discipline. The Order's galleys were based in Birgu, and later in Valletta, right in Grand Harbour. They were the striking arm of the Order's mission — 'to fight the infidel' — but they were also a business.
Luna: A business? How do you make money from a warship?
Lucas: Well, the corso was officially a religious duty, but it was also a way to fund the Order's hospitals and fortifications. When a galley captured a merchant ship, the cargo was auctioned, and the crew got a share. The slaves themselves were valuable — they could be ransomed back to their families or sold in the slave market in Valletta, which we talked about in a previous episode. So a successful cruise could fund months of operations.
Lucas: But here's a twist you don't often hear. Some of those slaves ended up not just rowing but actually fighting for the Knights. If a galley was in danger of being captured, the slaves might be offered their freedom in exchange for helping repel boarders. And there's at least one recorded case where a Muslim slave rose to a position of trust, even commanding a small vessel.
Luna: Wait, really? That just seems... complicated.
Lucas: It is. And it gets even stranger. In the late 1560s, the Ottomans captured a young Greek boy named Giovanni Dionigi Galeni. He converted to Islam, took the name Uluç Ali, and became a famous corsair — the man who eventually became the Ottoman admiral at Lepanto. But before all that, he spent years as a slave on a Genoese galley, rowing in chains. So you have this circuit: Christians capture Muslims, Muslims capture Christians, and everyone ends up rowing someone else's warship.
Luna: So the oar bench really was a crossroads of the Mediterranean.
Lucas: It was. And for the Knights, it was also a moral problem. They were a religious order, sworn to charity and care — the Sacre Infermeria was the best hospital in Europe, treating slaves and knights alike. And yet, the same institution that ran that hospital also ran a slave market. Some knights began to ask, 'Can we reconcile this?'
Lucas: In fact, in the late 1600s, there was a movement within the Order to limit the use of slaves on galleys, arguing that it was unchristian. But the economics won. The galleys were too expensive to row with paid volunteers alone, and the corso was too profitable. So the chains stayed.
Luna: Did any of those slaves ever manage to escape or revolt?
Lucas: There were attempts. In 1531, a group of slaves on a Maltese galley overpowered the crew and sailed to Tripoli, where they were welcomed as heroes. And in 1595, a larger conspiracy was discovered in Valletta — hundreds of slaves plotting to seize the arsenal and the galleys. The plot was betrayed, and the leaders were executed. But the fear of a slave uprising was constant, and it shaped the way the Knights treated their captives.
Lucas: What I find most striking is how ordinary it all must have seemed. You walk down to the harbour in Valletta, and you see these beautiful galleys with their painted hulls and gilded sterns. But underneath, there's the smell of bilge and bodies. And the knights who commanded them — many of them were genuinely pious men who saw no contradiction between their faith and the chains below deck. It's that dissonance that's so hard to grasp.
Luna: It's a long way from the image of the noble Hospitaller.
Lucas: It is. And yet, that same Sacre Infermeria that healed the sick also treated the rowers when they were injured. They got the same medical care as the knights, in theory. So it's not a simple story of good and evil. It's a story of a society that justified incredible cruelty in the name of faith, while also living up to some of its ideals in other ways. That's the messy reality we try to get at in this show.
Lucas: So the next time you see a painting of a Maltese galley, remember the oars — and the men and women who moved them. Not all of them were enemies. Some were victims of war, some were criminals, some were just unlucky. And all of them were part of the engine that kept the Order afloat.
Luna: And that engine ran for centuries, didn't it? Until the Order left Malta.
Lucas: Right, until Napoleon kicked them out in 1798. But by then, the galley era was already ending. Sailing ships and gunpowder were changing naval warfare. Still, for two hundred years, the oar was king in the Mediterranean, and Malta was at the heart of it.
Lucas: If you're curious about the details — the construction of the galleys, the daily rations, the pay scales for the buonavoglia — we've put together a reading list on the show notes. And if you want to help us keep doing this kind of deep dive, you know where to find us: buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, no ads, just history.
Luna: I love that we can have these conversations. Thanks for rowing along with us.

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