Malta part of the newly formed Kingdom of Sicily which also covered the island of Sicily and the southern half of the Italian Peninsula. The Catholic Church was reinstated as the state religion with Malta under the See of Palermo, and some Norman architecture sprung up around Malta especially in its ancient capital Mdina. Tancred, King of Sicily, the last Norman monarch, made Malta a fief of the kingdom and installed a count of Malta. As the islands were much desired due to their strategic importance, it was during this time the men of Malta were militarised to fend off capture
Malta Malta Malta (, ; ), officially known as the Republic of Malta (), is a Southern European island country consisting of an archipelago in the Mediterranean Sea. It lies south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. With a population of about 475,000 over an area of , Malta is the world's tenth smallest and fifth most densely-populated country. Its capital is Valletta, which is the smallest national capital in the European Union by area at 0.8 km. The official languages are Maltese and English, with Maltese officially recognised as the national language and the only Semitic language