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maltatoday, SUNDAY, 24 MAY 2015 12 News MARK CAMILLERI THERE was once a young his- torian who, against all odds, rose to become Malta's tower- ing authority on Medieval his- tory, slashing away at the ri- diculous lies and popular myths propagated by the Church and the clerical establishment. He slashed so hard and wrote so much, that there were no more myths left to debunk. Godfrey Wettinger, born in 1929, was raised in Mellieha by his mother after his father, a school headmaster, died when the young Godfrey still had not reached his teenage years. He started his studies in a teach- ing career at Malta's teaching college, but then opted to start studying history by correspond- ence as an external student of the London University. While Godfrey was studying history under the supervision of highly trained professionals, Malta lacked professional and qualified historians. When the then-Royal University of Malta opened the first Department of History in 1952, and the Uni- versity was still lacking a decent library, its first head of the his- tory department was Dominican friar Andrew Vella, who was by no means professionally trained, let alone a history (or relevant social science) graduate. Back then, history and social sciences at the Royal University of Malta were not actually con- sidered proper academic and scientific social sciences, but were treated rather as an exten- sion to the teachings and dogma of the Catholic Church. Wettinger was an essential figure in revolutionising the dogmatic terrain of the history department, and that is the very reason why the established au- thorities made it so hard for him to join the University of Malta as a full-time lecturer. On September 3, 1965, Wet- tinger created his first contro- versy with a letter to the Times of Malta. He raised doubts on the authenticity of historical myths which had gone down in history by means of tradi- tion rather than scholarly work, making particular reference to the myth of the origins of Mal- ta's colours, supposedly handed down to us by Count Roger the Norman. After that, Wettinger was blacklisted by the guardians of 'historical truth', who perceived him as a radical secularist who was going to bring forth com- pletely new historical narratives to the sacred Catholic land of Malta. Despite literally being 'the odd one out', the only truly Maltese historian of his time pushed on irrespectively and objectively sought for historical truths about Medieval Malta. He spent long hours by himself studying at his mother's house in Mellieha or at the National Library. He picked up classical Arabic and Latin all by himself, refined his skills in paleography and read any book he deemed relevant to his studies. In the meantime, he studied for his PhD with a thesis on the history of slavery in Malta, and spent time researching and looking for Medieval documents at the Cathedral and the Notarial ar- chives. In 1966, Wettinger struck gold along with Dominican friar Michael Fsadni, when he found the "Kantilena" in a notarial doc- ument written by Pietro Cax- aro: a 15th century document which carries the oldest text in the Maltese language. This dis- covery ensured the respect and recognition of the public for Wettinger, despite his historical views being generally accepted to be in direct contradiction to those of the clerical establish- ment. In 1969, Wettinger applied for the second time to become a lec- turer at the University of Malta. He was still short of his PhD (which he obtained two years later in 1971) but, confident of his academic abilities, refused to let this deter him. During the interview, an irate Ugo Mifsud Bonnici asked him what he knew about Marxism. Those were Malta's days of com- munist scaremongering, of mor- tal sin and heretical Labour par- ties cozying up to international anti-imperialist and socialist or- ganisations. Wettinger was not selected and instead made way for the Jesuit priest Mario Borg Olivier, who back then didn't even have a first degree in his- tory. The Jesuit was the son of the Minister of Education of the time, Paolo Borg Olivier, brother of then Prime Minister Giorgio. As it happened, just a few months after the selection proc- ess was completed, the newly appointed Borg Olivier passed away and the University had no choice but to admit Wettinger into the post. Wettinger always suspected that Lionel Butler, a foremost Medieval historian who in a way mentored and inspired Wet- tinger to a great extent, was the hidden hand pushing for his ap- pointment. This was probably correct, given that Wettinger had few or literally no friends at the University of Malta. Since his appointment at the University, Wettinger was in a position to freely write and re- search whatever he wanted to. He bestowed his country with immensely important histo- riographic pieces, such as "The place-names of the Maltese is- lands" which provides the ety- mology and history of thousands of Maltese place names, most of them being of a Semitic and/or Arabic origin. Gradually, with Wettinger's laborious studies, the historiographic notion that we Maltese were not actually the direct descendants of St Paul's converts was settling in, offend- ing many in the process and consequently leading many zeal- ots to strategically manufacture evidence and narratives which somehow prove the popular Pauline myth. In 2011, Wettinger presented a paper in which he clearly and without hesitation concluded that Malta had become depop- ulated with the Muslim inva- sion of 870 AD. His conclusion, based on the extensive historio- graphic references such as Al- Himyari and Ibn Hauqal and the complete lack of archaeological evidence which prove that there was no continuity in the Maltese population of that time, was still not accepted by those who des- perately clung to their ideologi- cal and religious beliefs rather than accepted the result and work of years of professional and historical academic study and research. But Wettinger was vindicated just a couple of days ago, when literally hours before he died, Jeremy Johns, an established Me- dieval historian, gave a lecture in the Aula Magna at the Old Uni- versity in Valletta, where he pre- sented a newly found Medieval document which adds to the evi- dence confirming Wettinger's historiographic narrative. Wettinger was the greatest historian Malta has ever had the priveledge of calling its own, not only because his monumental body of work has solved some of the most difficult historiograph- ic problems of Maltese Medieval history, but because he worked in extremely difficult conditions. Who could ever imagine, that this young lad studying labori- ously by himself in the humble setting of his mother's house, was to challenge the myths and dogma propagated by the cleri- cal establishment for hundreds of years. Like David, Wettinger tri- umphed against his Goliath, but with the humblest of attitudes and in nearly complete soli- tude, I remain, in truth, doubtful whether Wettigner was actually a "David". From my experience as a then history undergraduate, my student colleagues and I had the honourable opportunity to, if only for a short time, stand on the shoulders of a giant of Mal- tese history. Mark Camilleri is a historian and executive chairman of the National Book Council. Godfrey Wettigner, 1929-2015, won the Lifetime Achievement Award of the National Book Council in the National Book Prize ceremony of 2014. Malta's greatest historian ever The young Wettinger, in a passport photo from 1949, released by the National Archives In 1966, Wettinger struck gold along with Dominican friar Michael Fsadni, when he found the "Kantilena" in a notarial document written by Pietro Caxaro: a 15th century document which carries the oldest text in the Maltese language Godfrey Wettinger PHOTO BY GILBERT CALLEJA Godfrey Wettinger was a laborious student of history who grew up to challenge the myths and dogma propagated by the clerical establishment for hundreds of years