Copyright © The Malta Historical Society, 2011. Source: Proceedings of History Week 2009. (47-76). [Malta : The Malta Historical Society, 2011]. [p.47] Perceptions of Poverty: A Hospitaller approach Stefan Cachia[*] Poverty was an integral part of the lives of Hospitallers, or at least it should have been. The Rule of Raymond Du Puy and Hospitaller statutes bound members of the Order of St John with the three monastic vows of chastity, obedience and poverty. The same rule ordained that all members of the order ޜengage in the service of the poor.ޝ[1] The Papal Bull Pie Postulatio Voluntatis makes explicit reference to the Orders work in support of pilgrims and for the needs of the poor.[2] Furthermore, poverty was an intrinsic part of the life on most of the territories in which they were based, in Outremer, in Rhodes, in Malta as indeed across Europe. The strong correlation between ޜpoverty ޝand the Order of St John in general and the life of its members in particular raises a number of questions: what did the Hospitallers understand by the term poverty? Did this understanding change across time and why? How did this understanding fit in the contemporary perceptions of poverty? The connection between Hospitallers and poverty has often been a ޜgiven ޝin most discussions about Hospitaller history. Without dwelling at length on the subject, most Historians have referred to it en passant, assuming that their audience was au currant of it. Few studies have dwelt explicitly on the subject, and in general they focused on one particular aspect of this multi-faceted relationship; namely Hospitaller care of the sick and poor relief. The reference to the ޜvow of poverty ޝhas often been sketchy to say the least, generally being restricted to the apparent divergence between the precept of poverty which professed Hospitallers [p.48] were supposed to live and their actual standard of living, especially with regards to the Hospitaller phase of Maltese history[3] . This paper will seek to answer those questions by looking at the evolution of the concept of the ޜvow of povertyޝ[4] as evident from Hospitaller statutes and treatises penned by members of the Order on their way of life. While tracing changes in Hospitaller perceptions of poverty prior to 1530, the emphasis will be on the Maltese phase of Hospitaller history. It will first look at the understanding of poverty in medieval and early modern thought with particular emphasis on the relation of poverty to property ownership, the idealisation of poverty. This will lead to a discussion of the Hospitaller definition of the concept of poverty by looking at how the concept evolved though the years, the justification of how they lived their ޜvow of poverty ޝin Early Modern Malta and an attempt to infer the causes that led to such an evolution of the concept of poverty. Poverty in Medieval and Early Modern thought Hospitaller statutes were articulated, and indeed the forma mentis of its members was formed, in the context of the Christian-inspired medieval and early modern thought