Descriptions of the siege can be tested against the low formal defender totals. Mdina supposedly had only a very small garrison, yet Ottoman troops encountered walls filled with people shooting back. That mismatch suggests local residents and household forces were present even when chroniclers did not enumerate them as soldiers. In the social setting of the sixteenth-century Mediterranean, a population threatened with conquest and enslavement would be expected to help defend its city. The evidence complicates the heroic story of a tiny professional garrison without denying the courage of the named troops and Knights Hospitaller.
Notable Point · 36:47-39:53
What Mdina's crowded walls reveal about defender totals
Accounts of lightly garrisoned Mdina presenting crowded, well-defended walls support the case for substantial unrecorded civilian participation.