HISTORY OF MALTA.

297

Annual Receipt, on an average of ten yearsfrom 1779 to 1788. ’

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. Maltese Money.

a-year. They might indeed afterwards have crowns.. T. o.been encreased to 7,500.

Those from Bavaria, which during the lives ofthe first commanderies were only to pay 2' percent for each commandery, would immediatelyafter their deaths have paid at the rate of 10 percent, which would have brought in a sum of 15,170crowns.

English Money.

C * d.

Article II. '•

Mortuary and Vacancy.

The revenue of all vacant commanderies be-longed to the treasury from the moment of thecommander’s decease to the 1st of May follow-ing*, and this was termed the year of the mortuary.

Likewise the whole of the next twelvemonth, call-ed the year of the ’vacancy. For some time pastthe revenue of two years was constantly paid in.

This duty was first established towards the middle

of the fourteenth century. .... 214,721 9 9 . 21,472 3 7

Article III.

Passage.

The passage was a fee paid to the treasury byall those who were admitted into the order.

It was of two kinds, viz. the minority passage,and the majority passage. The first was paid bythose who entered the order in their infant years,and took rise originally in the year 1631. Thisfee was fixed at 360 Spanish pistoles for theknights, and 288 both for conventual chaplains

* The year was reckoned by the treasury to commence always on the 1st of May; it con-sequently ended on the following 30th of April.

VOL. I.

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