Faith's Boundaries: Laity and Clergy in Early Modern Confraternities (Europa Sacra) 9782503538938, 2503538932

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Faith’s Boundaries

EUROPA SACRA Editorial Board under the auspices of Monash University Megan Cassidy-Welch University of Melbourne David Garrioch Monash University Peter Howard Monash University Thomas Izbicki Rutgers The State University of New Jersey Carolyn James Monash University Constant J. Mews Monash University M. Michèle Mulchahey Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto Adriano Prosperi Scuola Normale de Pisa

Previously published volumes in this series are listed at the back of the book.

Volume 6

Faith’s Boundaries Laity and Clergy in Early Modern Confraternities Edited by

Nicholas Terpstra, Adriano Prosperi, and Stefania Pastore

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Faith's boundaries : laity and clergy in early modern confraternities. -- (Europa sacra ; 6) 1. Confraternities--Social aspects--Italy--History--16th century. 2. Confraternities--Social aspects--Italy--History--To 1500. 3. Christian sociology--Italy--History--16th century. 4. Christian sociology--Italy--History--Middle Ages, 600-1500. 5. Christianity and politics--Italy--History--16th century. 6. Christianity and politics--Italy--History--To 1500. 7. Florence (Italy)--Church history. 8. Social capital (Sociology)--Religious aspects. 9. Kinship--Religious aspects. I. Series II. Terpstra, Nicholas editor of compilation. III. Prosperi, Adriano editor of compilation. IV. Pastore, Stefania editor of compilation. 261'.09031-dc23 ISBN-13: 9782503538938

© 2012, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. D/2012/0095/217 ISBN: 978-2-503-53893-8 Printed on acid-free paper

Contents

Illustrations ix Boundaries of Brotherhood: Laity and Clergy in the Social Spaces of Religion Nicholas Terpstra

xi

Part I. Confraternities and Comunitas: Politics, Charity, and Civic Religion Civic Hospitals, Local Identity, and Regional States in Early Modern Italy Daniel Bornstein

Delegated Charity: Confraternities between City, Nations, and Curia in Late Medieval Rome Anna Esposito

Confraternities, Citizenship, and Factionalism: Genoa in the Early Sixteenth Century Carlo Taviani

Between Devotion and Politics: Marian Confraternities in Renaissance Parma Cristina Cecchinelli

3

23

41

59

Contents

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Part II. Texts & Contexts: The Case of Florence The Plea for Lay Bibles in Fourteenth- and Fifteenth-Century Tuscany: The Role of Confraternities Sabrina Corbellini

Preaching, Brotherhoods, and Biblical Literacy: The Case of Pietro Bernardo of Florence Peter Howard

Machiavelli and Confraternities: Oratory and Parody Olga Zorzi Pugliese

87

113 131

Part III. Kinship, Civil Society, and Social Capital Bonding or Bridging Social Capital? The Evolution of Brabantine Fraternities during the Late Medieval and the Early Modern Period Maarten F. Van Dijck

Negotiating Charity, Politics, and Religion in the Colonial Philippines: The Brotherhood of the Misericordia of Manila (1594–1780s) Juan O. Mesquida

153

187

Part IV. Kinship and the Politics of Devotion in Islam and Judaism Islamic Brotherhoods in Sixteenth‑Century Central Asia: The Dervish, the Sultan, and the Sufi Mirror for Princes Alexandre Papas

Kabbalistic Innovation in Jewish Confraternities in the Early Modern Mediterranean Roni Weinstein

209

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Contents

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Part V. Mediating Difference: Race, Gender, and Kinship Confraternal Community as a Vehicle for Jewish Female Agency in Eighteenth-Century Italy Federica Francesconi

Native Brotherhoods and Visual Culture in Colonial Quito (Ecuador): The Confraternity of the Rosary Susan Verdi Webster

251

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Part VI. Boundary Disputes: Laity, Clergy, and Conflict Revolutionary Flagellants? Clerical Perceptions of Flagellant Brotherhoods in Late Medieval Flanders and Italy Gavin Hammel

Beyond Crisis: Confraternities in Modern Italy between the Church and Lay Society Danilo Zardin

‘Such a despotic rule’: Confraternities and the Parish in Eighteenth-Century Paris and Milan David Garrioch

303

331

353

Illustrations

Figures Figure 1, p. 161. Flag of the Young Shooting Guild of Betekom, painted on leather. Private collection. Seventeenth century. Used with permission Figure 2, p. 280. Jules Boilly, Procession du Vendredi Sant a Quito, in Alcide D’Orbigny, Voyage pittoresque dans dans les deux Amériques (Paris, 1836). Figure 3, p. 282. Jules Boilly, Procession du Vendredi Sant a Quito, detail of almas santas. Figure 4, p. 282. Contemporary almas santas from a Good Friday Procession in the Town of Alangasí, Ecuador, 2007. Figure 5, p. 283. Jules Boilly, Procession du Vendredi Sant a Quito, detail of Andeans carrying the paso of Jesus and Simon of Cyrene. Figure 6, p. 284. Jules Boilly, Procession du Vendredi Sant a Quito, detail of Africans. Figure 7, p. 285. Jules Boilly, Procession du Vendredi Sant a Quito, detail of ‘Jews’. Figure 8, p. 285. Jules Boilly, Procession du Vendredi Sant a Quito, detail of women. Figure 9, p. 286. Anonymous, Good Thief, Chapel of the Rosary, Church of Santo Domingo, Quito. Seventeenth or eighteenth century. Figure 10, p. 287. Anonymous, Bad Thief, Chapel of the Rosary, Church of Santo Domingo, Quito. Seventeenth or eighteenth century. Figure 11, p. 288. Interior, Chapel of the Rosary of the Spaniards, Church of Santo Domingo, Quito. 1730s.

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ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 12, p. 288. Exterior, Chapel of the Rosary of the Spaniards, Church of Santo Domingo, Quito. 1730s. Figure 13, p. 292. Anonymous, Dulce Nombre de Jesús, Museo Fray Pedro Bedón, Monastery of Santo Domingo, Quito. Eighteenth century. Figure 14, p. 294. Ernest Charton, Empalado, in ‘Fêtes indiennes, de la semaine sainte et de Paques, a Quito (République de l’Équateur)’, L’Illustration: Journal Universel, 1854.

Graph Graph 1, p. 159. Population Estimates of the Aarschot Region (Fifteenth to Eight­ eenth Centuries)

Maps Map 1, p. 156. Position of Aarschot in the Netherlands Map 2, p. 157. The City of Aarschot and its Rural Hinterland (Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries) Map 3, p. 164. Share of Population in Confraternities in Aarschot (c. 1790) Map 4, p. 165. Participation of Begijnendijk Population in the Confraternity of Eternal Adoration (c. 1796) Map 5, p. 166. Participation of Different Hamlets in Wezemaal in the Confra­ ternity of Eternal Adoration (c. 1796) Map 6, p. 167. Membership of Confraternities outside the Aarschot Region (Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries)

Tables Table 1, p. 169. Integration of Immigrants in Confraternities in the Region of Aarschot (1790s) Table 2, p. 178. Expenses of the Confraternity of Saint George in Aarschot (1683–84)

Boundaries of Brotherhood: Laity and Clergy in the Social Spaces of Religion Nicholas Terpstra

W

ho owns the spaces of religion? Does the question matter, or even make sense? When we distinguish now between a sacred and a secular sphere, we tend to assume that clergy dominate the former, and laypeople the latter. A man or woman living in the early modern period might not have been so sure. They would have thought more immediately of things of heaven and things of earth, and would have seen each as the concern of laity and clergy alike. The relationship between laity and clergy is one of the most fundamental ones in institutional religion. Religious traditions differ significantly in the preparation, spiritual functions, sacramental power, or social authority that separates these two groups, but few faiths lack the division entirely. The history of religious institutions is often written around lay-clerical antagonisms, and the historiography can get as heated as the original disputes. Yet a particular effort of historical imagination is often required to remember that for much of the late medieval and early modern periods, the metaphor that religious communities Nicholas Terpstra ([email protected]) is Professor of History at the University of Toronto. His research deals with the intersection of religion, politics, and charity in Renaissance and early modern Italy, with a focus on the institutional forms of civil society. His books include Lost Girls: Sex and Death in Renaissance Florence (2010), Abandoned Children of the Italian Renaissance: Orphan Care in Florence and Bologna (2005), and Lay Confraternities and Civic Religion in Renaissance Bologna (1995), which was awarded the Howard R. Marraro Prize of the Society for Italian Historical Studies. He has edited The Art of Executing Well: Rituals of Execution in Renaissance Italy (2008), and The Politics of Ritual Kinship: Confraternities and Social Order in Early Modern Italy (2000).

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employed to visualize their ideal state was not division into two, but union into one. The model for that one was almost always the family, or kinship. The language of brotherhood and sisterhood may seem archaic and quaint to the modern reader, possessing little of the resonance that it once held across many cultures and traditions. Yet kinship had such a powerful pull because it was a model that reached up into heaven and out into the world, bridging the sacred and the secular. It was the metaphor that made sense of God’s relationship with those he had created, and that gave a spiritual dimension to relationships of authority in religious, political, and economic life. In theory, if not always in practice, the model of kinship rendered all relationships subordinate to the one that linked human beings with their Creator, making God less abstract and earthly powers less absolute. Kings and popes, priests and sheriffs were, in the end, never more than big brothers or sisters wielding a purely delegated power. More to the point, social kinship groups were not primarily or necessarily about power. As guilds, confraternities, shooting clubs, hospital boards, burial societies, prayer circles, or trade associations, they were about sociability, connection, status, intercession, and just getting things done. And power, of course. Yet to foreground power is to lose sight of the broader social and spiritual connections that drew people into brotherhoods and that, in turn, gave these institutions the influence, mission, and scope that fuelled their authority to begin with. Within early modern religious institutions, symbolic kinship created a model and a language for negotiating roles and relationships outside the binary dynamic of laity and clergy. It included these but was not limited to them. Fraternities were the spaces where laity and clergy met. They were communities that might exist inside or beside parochial structures, that might or might not owe their origins and their quarters to clergy, that might include or exclude priests or rabbis, and that might employ clergy in their liturgies or be employed by clergy for charitable or educational outreach. Fraternities were the lay face and form of churches, synagogues, and mosques. This is not to say that they competed with the clergy. On a very important level, they assumed the clergy and certainly relied on clerics for assistance in fulfilling their goals. Yet on an equally important level, confraternities carried out many religious and social functions apart from the clergy, and they sometimes operated by choice or necessity in the absence of religious authorities. The confraternal community provided collective wealth, identity, activity, and status that allowed laity to negotiate roles for themselves which met, stretched, or violated social-religious boundaries. What boundaries did laypeople face, and what boundaries did they observe? The essays gathered here explore the social dynamics between laity and clergy within early modern confraternities. Some show confraternities to be social spaces

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where laity and clergy co-operated in pursuit of spiritual, charitable, or civic religious goals. Confraternity members worked collectively to build hospitals, churches, and shrines, and in this way frequently became part of informal authority structures or social services. Some confraternities became vehicles that allowed marginalized groups in society to push back collectively against social boundaries that prevented individual action. Confraternities’ embrace of civic religion could lead to a wide spectrum of possible results: some became vehicles for the politically subversive, while others became the arm of the politically dominant. In some cases, groups of laity and clergy worked together to an extent that made many of their peers nervous. Northern European flagellants gave their whips an almost sacramental significance, and so generated a backlash that their southern counterparts didn’t experience. Some southern European confraternities pushed for vernacular Bibles and lay religious literacy to a degree that generated professional anxiety and opposition from local priests. In towns and cities across the continent, some confraternities became so successful in gathering legacies that in more than one locale, their assets exceeded that of the parish or diocese; essentially, the laity were giving more of their charity to the part of the church that they controlled themselves than they did to the part of the church controlled by the clergy. These activities suggested at least an indifference to boundaries, if not quite an active desire to pull them down. Some historians have found in the standardized rules, tighter regulations, and increased diocesan power promoted by the Council of Trent a sign that the clergy was extending and strengthening boundaries. Yet others argue that the Church had neither the ambition nor the resources to conduct such an assertive project, and that it was more often fighting a desperate rear-guard action against lay predation. Perhaps the most important lesson here is that social kinship was a local phenomenon and that any raising or transgressing of boundaries was similarly driven by deeply local opportunities, drives, and pressures. Both local and comparative studies alike prove that the positions confraternities adopted and from which they negotiated were determined by regional considerations. If a confraternity was swept up into political factionalism, if it was manipulated by local councils to advance economic or political goals, if it promoted or rejected new devotions, if it became the vehicle by which marginalized groups extended influence to compensate for the lack of power — in each of these cases, local pressures and particularly local elites determined which boundaries were observed and which ones were ignored. This collection offers the first sustained comparative examination of the dynamics of lay-clerical relations in confraternities through the late medieval and early modern periods. It shows how the parties in these communities debated,

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accommodated, resolved, or deflected key issues of gender, race, politics, and class. The sixteen essays are organized into six sections that consider different aspects of the function of confraternities as social spaces where laity and clergy met, mediated, and sometimes competed and fought. The studies cover a historical period when kinship was a dominant metaphor in religious life and kinship groups like confraternities were a dominant model in religious institutions. Most of these essays deal with confraternities in the Catholic world, although several broaden the scope of inquiry to include Judaism and Islam. The confraternities under consideration in this volume range geographically from Latin America through Europe to the Middle East and Central and South Asia. These studies also demonstrate a range of interpretive approaches. All consider fraternalism as a critical and sometimes contradictory phenomenon, which could be at one and the same time transformative and reactionary, egalitarian and elitist, a vehicle of acculturation and one of resistance. It was a plastic cultural form adaptable to a range of situations and a social resource that met a variety of economic, political, and religious needs.1 The authors engage in dialogue with other historians in order to pull apart and understand these contradictory dynamics and to show why we need to consider lay-clerical relations in precisely this context if we are to understand religion as a critical social and historical phenomenon. The contributors draw on the theories of Pierre Bourdieu, Robert Putnam, Norbert Elias, John Bossy, and Robert Bellah in order to integrate confraternities into ongoing discussions about social capital and social control, confessionalization and hybridization, the rise of the centralized state and the persistence of the local community. Part I on Confraternities and Comunitas: Politics, Charity, and Civic Religion offers four essays that discuss the intersections of politics, charity, and civic religion in late medieval and early modern Italy. Confraternities were sometimes sites of lay-clerical collaboration in charity or devotion, but they could equally be sites of resistance by local elites to outside power, or even by factions within a divided local elite. Daniel Bornstein leads off with an examination that is as much historiographical as historical. David Herlihy first gave the term ‘civic Christianity’ to the late medieval development of ‘a more sensitive moral and social consciousness, a new awareness of the responsibility of the Christian in regard to the present world and its troubles […] new human and humane involvement in civic society […] [and] a huge investment in works of public charity, bespeaking a consciousness of responsibility for the destitute of the city’.2 Edward Muir, André Vauchez, 1  2 

Terpstra, ‘De-Institutionalizing Confraternity Studies’. Herlihy, Medieval and Renaissance Pistoia, pp. 245–50, 254, 257.

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and others later termed this ‘civic religion’, describing it as ‘the collection of religious phenomena — cultic, devotional, or institutional — in which the civil powers play a deciding role, principally through the actions of local and municipal authorities’.3 Confraternities were central vehicles of civic religion, and Bornstein looks at how they operated at the intersection of two important historical developments: first, the rise of the regional state, with centre-periphery dynamics often focused sharply on such ecclesiastical concerns as control of property, wealth, and immunities; and second, the shift from medieval to early modern modes of charity as civic officials took the lead in consolidating and reorganizing hospitals to render them better able to assist and possibly discipline broader categories of the poor. Tracing these developments in the town of Cortona, which was absorbed into the Florentine state in 1411, Bornstein finds that the town’s local elites worked hard to consolidate urban charitable and civic religious services within the confraternity of S. Maria della Misericordia, which they controlled. Many times wealthier than the local diocese, and more influential in some ways than Tuscan administrators, the confraternity of the Misericordia was an effective site of Cortonese autonomy against expanding external powers based in Rome and Florence. The case of Cortona confirms what other historians have found in Piacenza and Bologna, which is that local elites in peripheral cities used confraternities in order to regain informally the social, economic, and religious authority that they had lost to central capitals.4 Even within those central capitals, confraternities’ provision of religious worship, sociability, and institutional charity made them important players in local society. Anna Esposito shows how Rome’s confraternities organized the various national communities in this paradigmatic ‘city of foreigners’, providing expatriates and pilgrims with the food, shelter, and liturgies of home. Powerful patrons from the aristocracy, curia, and mercantile community then turned to confraternities as their local almoners, giving them funds and/or authority to execute their wills, distribute dowries to young women and food to the poor, establish hospitals for the sick and pilgrims, and open shelters for women. Their patronage brought the confraternities into Rome’s governing structures and also brought more of the Roman ruling class, both lay and clerical, into the brotherhoods. Through the course of the fifteenth century, traditional confraternities gradually became places where the civic laity and curial clergy met and collaborated, often developing new 3 

La Religion civique à l’époque médiévale et moderne, ed. by Vauchez. Andenna, ‘Aspetti politici della presenza degli Osservanti’; Terpstra, ‘The Politics of Con­ fraternal Charity’. 4 

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forms of devotion and charity in the process. More than that, these institutions modelled the forms of lay-clerical co-operation that later became more common with the new confraternities of the Catholic Reform, and would eventually lead new religious orders, reforming bishops, and popes to turn to confraternities as the delegated agents of a revived and ambitious Tridentine Church. In the early decades of the sixteenth century, as cities struggled to handle the fallout from the Wars of Italy, the civic religious roles of confraternities made them key players at times when local governments or dynasties were in flux. The growth of confraternities in Genoa at the beginning of the sixteenth century has much to do with political changes occurring in the city at the same time. Carlo Taviani considers how confraternities attempted to steer politics away from traditional family-based factionalism towards a revived communalism that would empower citizens. Genoa’s politics through the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries was locked into two alternating dynamics. Internally, power alternated between the Fregoso and the Adorno families, who traded the position of doge back and forth through much of the fifteenth century. Externally, the city fell under the control of either the French (who held dominion three times between 1399 and 1512) or the Milanese (who also controlled it three times between 1421 and 1499). Taviani examines the influence of a group of councillors who aimed to push Genoa’s politics beyond family factionalism towards a system that vested more power in the popolares. Many of the individuals in this latter group were also active members of confraternities, which multiplied rapidly in number through the fifteenth century, and it is therefore not surprising that many of these councillors framed their new politics in explicitly religious terms. In 1506, members of the confraternity of the Divino Amore took part in the uprising of the populus against the nobles. Political reforms two decades later in 1528 eliminated the distinction between Genoa’s nobles and the popolari, and we find members of confraternities among those who promoted this reform as well. Until now, scholars have labelled as ‘contradictory’ the actions of those who were involved in both religious brotherhoods and in political rebellion. Taviani revisits the 1506 revolt and the 1528 reforms, explaining the participation in political events as simply one aspect in the lives of those who promoted the growth of the confraternities in Genoa. He argues that class rather than faction provides a better interpretive framework for understanding the ways in which confraternities could serve as catalysts for political change, and hence why their growth actually made such reforms more rather than less likely. A different political revolution was underway in Parma in 1521 as the papacy took control of the town from the French, and confraternities here too played a central role. As Cristina Cecchinelli demonstrates, this was a time when the

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secular clergy were not particularly active and when Bishop Alessandro Farnese was regularly absent from the diocese. As in Florence, Bologna, and Venice, local confraternities became the principal actors of civic religion in Parma. Confraternities were deeply rooted in the social and political tissue of the city and they acted on religious, social, economic, political, and other fronts, becoming privileged sites of action for local patrician families. These families determined that new charitable, devotional, and building programmes could stimulate a more general urban revival in collaboration with the papacy. One new confraternity, the Steccata, forged close ties with the confraternity of the Annunciation in S. Maria sopra Minerva in Rome, an anticipation of the archconfraternal relations that would become more common later in the century. The Steccata’s successes overshadowed another old confraternity, the company of the Conception, which had until then been more prominent in Parma. The Steccata gathered men and women, laity and clergy, and in so doing introduced new devotional forms to Parma. It maintained greater independence from the mendicant orders and parish churches, and opened its own new shrine in 1521. Parma’s elite, including members of the Conception, flocked to join the new confraternity and fill its coffers with donations, for while the two institutions represented different forms of devotion they co-operated more than they competed. Both confraternities began building new shrines in 1521, using the same craftsmen, artists, and basic design — although the Steccata’s was the more ornate of the two. Cecchinelli demonstrates that during the crisis-ridden decades of the early sixteenth century, brotherhoods became more active and visible in Parmese society, particularly those that had modernized themselves and introduced devotional and charitable innovations pioneered elsewhere. The network of local confraternities was not isolated from or resistant to new social and political developments. Rather, in this instance, confraternities collaborated with the efforts of local government to integrate Parma more fully into the papal state and so avoid returning to what they took to be the greater evils of Milanese and French domination. Confraternities were also sites where laypeople aimed to disseminate religious knowledge, and it is perhaps no surprise that in the dynamic literary and rhetorical culture of fifteenth-century Florence, confraternities were particularly enterprising agents of spiritual education. Among Italian cities, Florence had perhaps the most extensive network of confraternities dedicated to socializing and educating the young. The republic also possessed a very strong tradition of lay preaching in the brotherhoods. Part II of this collection examines Texts and Contexts, using Florence to demonstrate the ways in which confraternities were common and active agents of religious culture — so ubiquitous, in fact, that Machiavelli could assume that enough people would get the joke when he

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used confraternal statutes as the basis for satire. Sabrina Corbellini opens the section by showing how Florentine confraternities promoted the distribution of vernacular biblical texts. While the production and distribution of translations was strictly forbidden at some points in (southern) France, Bohemia, and England, there was a higher level of production and circulation in some of the strongly urbanized parts of Europe, including Tuscany, the Low Countries, and the Rhineland. Confraternities were not always directly involved in the work of Bible translation, but they were active in the oral and written transmission of biblical materials such as gospel harmonies, sometimes by giving their members the opportunity to copy books in the brotherhood’s library. Sermons delivered by some confraternity members demonstrate a deep knowledge of the Bible and a practised familiarity with the rhetorical structure of sermons. Confraternity members exchanged books and sold or donated them to poor priests or friars. The brotherhoods thus functioned as commercial networks, which, together with meetings, exchanges, and discussions, facilitated the spread of vernacular translations of religious texts. As Corbellini puts it, ‘laypeople were thus “living channels of communication” of religious knowledge in the vernacular, and were directly contributing to a movement of religious acculturation’. For studies of lay and clerical relations, this means that confraternities were far from being spaces where an ‘active’ clergy proclaimed and interpreted the Bible while ‘passive’ laypeople listened to a text they could neither read nor understand. Laypeople in confraternities were active religious agents: they read vernacular Bible translations and created together with the regular or secular clergy ‘sacred networks’ in which translations were circulating and actively used. These sacred networks in turn engendered trust: confraternities allowed a means of controlling laypeople’s access to vernacular Bibles, and so constituted a safe space where laity and clergy could collaborate to create, use, and circulate vernacular Bible translations. Not all who entered that space were themselves considered entirely safe, especially after the rise and spectacular execution of Savonarola, who turned confraternities into vehicles for a more egalitarian and often anticlerical reform. Peter Howard explores the case of Pietro Bernardo, an artisan who preached inside and outside a confraternity that was rumoured to also engage in unorthodox rituals and practices, such as electing Bernardo, a goldsmith and sculptor, as its ‘pope’. The artisan preached almost every Sunday from 1496, and came to believe that God had given him a mission to instruct the youth of Florence in the Christian way of life. One of Bernardo’s sermons gives an indication of what young Florentines were being taught in their confraternities. The artisan reminded his young hearers to pay attention to the revelation of God in the natural world. Yet he drew them into the Bible as well, filling his sermon with

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scriptural citations that he gave first in Latin and then in Italian. This suggests that laypeople of even the lower social levels had an elementary understanding of the Biblical vulgate. His rhetoric shows a debt to a sermon guide by Florentine Archbishop Antoninus. More than that, it shows that even though he lacked any formal theological training, Bernardo had been trained well in Christian doctrine through the four confraternities that he had joined as an adolescent. Bernardo’s sermon provides an example of how confraternal religion was personalized, felt, and encoded in language. The preacher created a ‘safe space’ by defining and reinforcing social and cultural values, and looking at the sermons of an unknown and unorthodox lay artisan helps us to see preaching as something more than clerical indoctrination. But what of the preaching of a humanist who is far better known, and perhaps even more unorthodox? Machiavelli was much like other young Florentines in joining a youth confraternity at age eleven before moving to another when he reached age twenty-four. Like other young Florentines he preached to his confraternal brothers. Olga Pugliese leads us through two writings that emerged from Machiavelli’s experience in Florentine confraternities. The first, an ‘Exhortation to Penance’, is an undated and polished rhetorical commentary on Psalm 129 (De profundis). Written in Machiavelli’s characteristic style, it has the rhetorical questions, binary classifications, and enthusiastic exclamations of a sermon, features that as much as anything have flummoxed those interpreters who cannot see this famous humanist as anything other than a secular cynic. The very idea of a ‘preacher’ Niccolò Machiavelli is hard to swallow, so some argue that it is a work of early enthusiasm or late despair, others cast it as a parody, and yet others contend that it is a work of dissimulation. Pugliese reviews these arguments before turning to another undated work, Rules for a Company of Pleasure (Capitoli per una compagnia di piacere), to show that confratello Niccolò Machiavelli is the character we need to be thinking about. Internal evidence points to the Rules’ composition in the late 1510s. The work’s overtly parodical nature suggests that its author was equally familiar with statute regulations and human foibles. Pugliese argues that the legalistic language and bizarre prescriptions ‘demonstrate unequivocally that the Capitoli consists of a parodic rewriting of confraternal constitutions’ decades before Rabelais attempted something similar for the fictional Abbey of Thélème. The thirty-four rules found in the Capitoli called for chatting, rude tricks, gossip, and spiteful acts. They prescribed grooming and lying as the chief spiritual exercises, and appointed male and female officers on the basis of their sexual characteristics. The prescribed exercises were mostly sexual, and those who broke the rules were sentenced to sleeping with their spouses. This is Machiavelli in full flight, aiming his satiric barbs at precisely the kind of people to whom he’d preached his Exhortation to

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Penance. The two fit together almost as well as The Prince and The Discourses do, although there is no denying that Machiavelli has a lot more fun with this pair of texts and wants to move his readers beyond pompous pieties to pleasure. Part III of the collection moves us into the early modern period and beyond Italy. In Kinship, Civil Society, and Social Capital, we encounter more diverse adaptations of the basic forms of brotherhood, and learn about the variety of ways in which people of different faiths across the globe organized their lives through social kinship. Maarten Van Dijck compares some of these forms directly as they developed in Brabant in the late medieval and the early modern periods. Fraternities have long been seen as sources of social capital, but what separates one form from another, and further, are all such institutions equally effective? Following Robert Putnam, Van Dijck distinguishes two different forms of social capital: ‘bonding’ social capital refers to networks between social peers, while ‘bridging’ social capital creates relations between people from various social backgrounds.5 Recent debates about whether and how confraternities generated social capital are all hindered, Van Dijck believes, by a lack of empirical data. Choosing the region of Aarschot, roughly forty-five kilometres southeast of Antwerp, as his test case, Van Dijck examines statistics for the full range of kinship groups — shooting clubs, guilds, chambers of rhetoric, and religious confraternities — to understand how they organized social life in a region experiencing economic stagnation. Aarschot’s medieval fraternities had produced both bonding and bridging social capital, stimulating social cohesion between members of different social backgrounds while also reinforcing existing ties. Yet from 1500, social divisions and boundaries increased and the fraternities become more exclusive, putting pressure on their sociability. The Dutch Revolt and Catholic Reform both reinforced this evolution: the war due to its disruptions to social life, and the Reform thanks to the efforts of ecclesiastics to abolish social activities that were considered impious, such as drinking bouts and annual dinners. As a result, fraternalism split into two diverging forms. Older and more socially exclusive groups resisted clerical efforts to curb their social activities and so continued to be a valuable source of bonding social capital. The newer Tridentine fraternities, which clerics began forming or reforming in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, were more open and socially heterogeneous, but without social activities they did not form social networks or boost social cohesion. Accordingly, Van Dijck argues that it would not be correct to see these later fraternities as sources of either bridging or bonding social capital. 5 

Putnam, Bowling Alone, pp. 22–23.

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Sociability was less on the minds of the thousand Spanish colonists building a stone wall around Manila during the same period: hospitals, education, poor relief, and dowries were more immediate needs. The Crown could not afford to provide these services, but it did the next best thing (in its own mind at least) by permitting the colonials to establish a Misericordia confraternity in imitation of the brotherhoods that organized worship and charity throughout the Portuguese empire. Juan Mesquida follows the Misericordia’s development through the next two centuries as it accumulated a fortune in legacies, an impressive accomplishment since the institution lacked the leverage of civic religion. As in Cortona and Portugal, the Misericordia was essentially the local patriciate at prayer, and these men were determined to use their funds and powers to avoid ecclesiastical and imperial interference. An escalating series of disputes led the Misericordia’s governing board (the Mesa) to surrender ultimate authority to the Crown in 1733. This submission to royal control was seen by the members of the fraternity as a means of restraining the archbishop, who sought to put a stop to such practices as subsidies to defence forces, loans to the city council, and investments in the large trading fleets that were Manila’s economic lifeline to Mexico. Misericordia officials were confident that they could blunt the impact of royal audits through evasion or stonewalling. Yet from the mid-eighteenth century, the new Bourbon monarchy’s determination to pursue more enlightened and efficient administration in things religious made it a more serious supervisor than the Church had ever been or intended to be. Local governors turned hostile to an entrenched group which seemed more intent on funding overseas trade than in investing in local agriculture or people, but in the end the monarchs decided that even with its flaws there was no alternative to the Misericordia in the area of social development, and it continued unchanged until radical changes to the galleon trade occurred in 1813. These studies of fraternities as agents of civic religion, of charity, and of broader sociability all work within the contexts of European Christianity, but adherents of both Judaism and Islam also had brotherhoods that also functioned as spaces for interaction between clergy and laity. Part IV on Kinship and the Politics of Devotion in Islam and Judaism offers two studies that show a more clerically driven and mystical approach to politics emerging from these brotherhoods. A rich body of literature on Jewish confraternities shows that they were active in education, sociability, and public charity, although the tight legal and cultural restrictions on Jews in Christian Europe made large charitable institutions, massive endowments, and public practice of a civic religion impossible. The scant literature on Islamic brotherhoods suggests that they were groups that functioned in an ambiguous grey zone between the lay and clerical worlds, due in part to the

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very difficulty of defining a clergy in Islam. This scholarship also shows that such brotherhoods focused largely on mystical and devotional exercises, rendering their interventions in the public sphere far less activist, even if their leaders had high ambitions. Alexandre Papas explores the brotherhoods in several early modern Central Asian Islamic societies, and finds that the terms ‘confraternity’ and ‘brotherhood’ are appropriate for many of the Sufi groups there. Like medieval and early modern Catholic confraternities, Sufi brotherhoods adopted the values and vocabulary of masculine solidarity and paternalism. Members hailed from different social classes, and included both laity and clergy who were drawn to a spiritual guide and a life of devotional and mystical exercises. When these members were drawn into politics, they operated less as the agents of some kind of civic religion than as a circle of Sufis that formed when a sultan favoured a particular spiritual guide, or dervish. The preferred Sufi masters were inevitably drawn into court politics, sometimes quite willingly, and some even joined in military operations as moral supports, advisors, or even combatants. The masters wrote books of advice for their patrons, and these Islamic ‘Mirrors for Princes’ projected the same rigorous moral doctrines and general patterns of behaviour that we find in their Christian counterparts of the same name. Papas sketches the relationship of the sultan ‘Ubayd Allâh in Bukhara with his advisor Mîr-i ‘Arab, a Sufi master whose property, power, and cultural patronage earned him many enemies in the first decades of the sixteenth century. Among Mîr-i ‘Arab’s rivals was Ahmad Kâsânî, a scholarly master of the Naqshbandiyya brotherhood who wrote approximately thirty treatises on a range of traditional Sufi topics, including at least ten for the sultan. In Ahmad Kâsânî’s Sufism, the sultan is to become the student and disciple of the dervish, who aims to lead the ruler to the abandonment of the world and the ‘absolute annihilation in God’. As Papas notes, ‘The roles seemed to reverse: while the king was required to renounce the world, the Sufi saint became more and more involved in temporal affairs’. Ahmad Kâsânî consolidated his position at the court so well that he was shortly able to dismiss his opponents, including Mîr-i ‘Arab. This ruthless practitioner of power politics advised his sultan to renounce power and dedicate himself to mystical devotion. The mirror he holds up reflects a fundamental paradox. In the Sufi Naqshbandî brotherhood’s spiritualization of politics, the sultan transforms himself into a dervish under the supervision of his spiritual master, who in turn exercises great power from behind the throne. Jewish confraternities emerged in thirteenth-century Spain before spreading across the Mediterranean with the movements of Jewish populations from the late fourteenth century. A considerable number were active in Safed, just north

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of the Sea of Galilee, an exceptional centre of religious ferment in the sixteenth century. These brotherhoods were deeply rooted in the theosophical secrets of contemporary Kabbalah, and were headed by leading mystics. Members met daily, and were closely involved in each other’s spiritual lives. The confraternal Kabbalists in Safed were aware of devotional forms and reforms in the Catholic world, and adapted similar exercises to their own use, including a focus on repentance (public and theatrical), confession to a spiritual guide, and mystic rituals like night vigils. Christianity’s division into a laity and an ordained and sacramentally endowed clergy was foreign to both Judaism and Islam, yet the dynamic force of charismatic clerical leaders was not at all foreign, particularly during periods of religious ferment and reform. The clerical model and morals were to some extent normative, even though both clergy and laity valued and sought to maintain their distinction from one another. In early modern Jewish communities, we can observe a growing gap between charismatic spiritual leaders — mainly Kabbalistic figures — and the Jewish public at large. The two groups were coming to be seen as essentially different. Yet as Weinstein observes, ‘In the Jewish context, as in the Catholic, the religious confraternity was a very convenient vehicle for narrowing this gap. The Safed confraternities were composed of leading Kabbalistic figures practicing the faith alongside householders and non-mystical persons, and they disseminated their theosophical concepts and innovative rituals and religious practices among the general population’. The Safed confraternities brought spiritual leaders and laity together in a single brotherhood. From the sixteenth century onwards, some Jewish confraternities continued in this same mode as charismatic figures led their followers in distinct and sometimes unorthodox modes of life. This more authoritarian and clerically directed form appeared in the following century in the brotherhoods of Sabbateans, followers of the rabbi Sabbatei Tzevi (1626–76) who was declared the Jewish Messiah in 1665 before shocking the Jewish world by converting to Islam the following year. Sabbatean Jews continued to follow him despite concerted efforts to declare them to be heretics, and through confraternities they gained both a collective identity and a degree of secrecy. The more clericalauthoritarian strain also appears in the Islamic Sufi brotherhoods, in some postTridentine Catholic brotherhoods, and in Orthodox confraternities in Eastern and Central Europe. Yet there also grew a second type of Jewish confraternity that was closer to the medieval Italian Catholic model in that they were characterized by a strong lay leadership pursuing forms of life and worship that were less mystical and kabbalistic, and more orthodox. It is perhaps not surprising that these Jewish groups were more common in those areas (chiefly Italy and Western

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Europe) where there was a long tradition of strong lay leadership in Catholic con­ fraternities as well. Confraternities clearly functioned in different early modern religious contexts as intermediate spaces where laity and clergy could meet, negotiate, collaborate, or disagree. Yet this was hardly the only, let alone the most significant social distinction in early modern religion. Part V explores Mediating Difference: Race, Gender, and Kinship with two articles that illuminate the ways in which Jewish women and Latin American indigenous peoples used accepted vehicles of collective religious action to achieve otherwise transgressive degrees of agency. Francesca Francesconi opens with the limits to female agency in early modern Italian ghettos. Women were ‘virtually invisible members within the male Jewish communities of medieval and early modern Europe’, and were ‘relatively silent in comparison to the rich variety of women’s voices in the contemporaneous Christian world’. Francesconi recovers their visibility and voice through sources on Soed Holim, a confraternity active in the ghetto of eighteenth-century Modena. The wives and daughters of leading Jewish mercantile families organized this havurah, or confraternity, to assist, employ, and socialize women in the ghetto. Through Soed Holim, these women negotiated spaces and opportunities otherwise shut to both themselves and poorer women, engaging in ‘a sort of give-and-take with the community establishment’ through a more active role in negotiating family strategies, Sabbateanism, philanthropy, and welfare. Soed Holim’s ritual practices expanded female social space and self-consciousness, and its charitable work gave members an economic role beyond their own households. The women worked themselves and offered training and jobs to other women. Some income they invested (both with Jews and non-Jews), but most was returned to the community in the form of bequests, donations, dowries, and poor relief. Membership had its privileges, giving a woman a prestige and individual identity that she could otherwise not achieve in the public sphere of ghetto society. The society of the Jewish ghetto could accept this degree of otherwise transgressive female agency because the women organized and identified primarily as a religious community that took seriously its role in advancing the spiritual life of members and of the community at large. Soed Holim took its place beside eleven other confraternities that organized other aspects of ghetto social, charitable, educational, and religious life. Even though several key members were closely identified with the messianic-heretical Sabbatean movement, the women were otherwise quite conservative in the traditional roles they followed within their own families, and so Soed Holim was not publicly identified as a transgressive threat. Embedding the unfamiliar and transgressive within a cultural form that was familiar and conventional also gave aboriginal Catholics greater agency in the

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early modern Spanish Empire. Susan Verdi Webster notes that ‘in the Spanish colonial Americas, confraternities were among the very few officially recognized institutions to which all members of society could belong’. Mixed confraternities of Spaniards, Amerindians, and Africans could be found in urban areas, but ‘exclusive groups based on racial or ethnic identity […] were especially popular among marginalized groups because they offered the possibility for relatively autonomous social, cultural, and religious activity and fostered collective identity’. Verdi Webster looks at one such group in the northern Andean city of Quito, where more than half of the almost one hundred confraternities active in the midseventeenth century were exclusively indigenous groups. Men and women from a range of ethnic and linguistic groups who had been forcibly removed to the city gathered in these groups where their multiple identities were subsumed under a single ‘new ethnicity’. ‘In this sense, native confraternities actually promoted a kind of ethnic levelling similar to the indiscriminate label of “Indian” invented by the Europeans, yet they also afforded their members an officially sanctioned ethnic refuge in a diverse and hierarchical colonial society’. Promoted by Spanish authorities as vehicles of evangelization, these ethnic confraternities adapted traditional European Catholic models to reflect their own collective identity and culture. Verdi Webster explores this hybridization through the Good Friday procession of one group, Our Lady of the Rosary of the Natives (Nuestra Señora del rosario de los naturales), a wealthy and powerful confraternity that gathered many of the military figures, civic officials, and Spanish and Creole nobility who made up the colonial elite. The institution was founded in 1563 as a ‘mixed’ confraternity of Spanish, Andean, and African members, but by 1588 it had been divided into three groups on the basis of race and ethnicity. Each remained focused on the rosary, and had its own rituals, statutes, and chapel within the Dominican church, and each developed its own way of embodying Quito’s mixed society. The Spanish confraternity’s processions during Holy Week reflected and reinforced the colony’s social hierarchy by including Creole women in privileged positions, native Andeans and mestizos as labourers, actors playing the roles of Jews, and Africans marching as servants of the mayor. The native Rosary confraternities reflected a very different vision of the social order. Many women were active and involved members of the confraternity, and women held equal and parallel positions of authority in the native confraternity, so that every senior male office had a female equivalent. This equity was rooted in pre-Hispanic forms of social organization that worked on principles of social balance and gender complementarity. Men and women together constituted a whole and complete body, and it was this body that was reflected in the administrative organization of the exclusively Andean confraternities of colonial

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Quito, including the native Confraternity of the Rosary. It is even possible that the statues of the Virgin Mary and of Jesus carried by members in their processions were seen as expressions within Catholicism of that same ‘Andean gender complementarity’. These continuities carried on into the Holy Week processions. Drawing on existing Andean traditions of fasting and self-mortification, members dragged heavy crosses, flagellated, and disciplined themselves through the streets of Quito — a vivid and dramatic contrast to the Spanish rosary confraternity’s static recreation of the colonialist social order. Verdi Webster concludes that ‘native confraternities like that of the Rosary in Santo Domingo forged a “new ethnicity” that responded to their colonial context. They also instituted forms of gendered confraternal governance, ritual practices, and imagery that addressed specifically Andean traditions and audiences. In this sense, both the Spanish and the Andean confraternities of the Rosary replicated their own versions of colonial social organization and tradition in the structure and performance of their groups.’ These articles show confraternities straddling and mediating a multiplicity of social boundaries, in most cases peaceably. Part VI on Boundary Disputes: Laity, Clergy, and Conflict offers three comparative studies that focus on disputes between laity and clergy with and within brotherhoods. It highlights disputes that occurred in three historical periods when laity and clergy were most frequently and seriously at odds, and when confraternities were at the centre of disputes over lay agency in religious life. Confraternities first expanded in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century towns and cities across Europe following mendicant encouragement and models and with public penitence a characteristic exercise. Yet curiously, while thousands of Italian confratelli chose whipping themselves as their group penitential discipline, collective self-flagellation was largely absent from northern European cities. Historians seeking an answer to this disparity have suggested that Italian confraternities were militantly orthodox while northern European flagellants were as militantly heretical and revolutionary. Gavin Hammel suggests instead that the reason why flagellant confraternities were so common in Italy and so rare in northern Europe may lie less in the brotherhoods themselves than in their cultural context. Comparing the first years of two groups — one in Bologna in the mid-thirteenth century and another in Tournai a century later — he finds that there are many underlying similarities between them, and indeed between Italian and northern European flagellant confraternities generally. In fact, the similarities outnumber the differences, and it is impossible to find any clearly revolutionary or heretical elements in the northern flagellants’ own records or in the public responses to them. When an Augustinian preacher castigated the

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Tournai flagellants early in the movement, his congregation corrected him, and he was apparently so persuaded that he later appeared as a leader of the group. Hammel suggests that the social theories of Pierre Bourdieu may help us parse the differences here. Bourdieu described as class habitus that set of experiences, preconceived ideas, associations, and anxieties that members of a particular professional group may share and that forms the interpretive matrix through which they filter reality.6 There were indeed several minor differences in the ritual and practice of flagellation by northern and southern confraternities, yet Hammel argues that it was largely the class habitus of northern clergy that led them to refract minor differences into major issues and to push for the suppression of collective self-flagellation. The Tournai clergy took issue with the ‘penitential semiotics’ on display in confraternal processions, and feared that the lay flagellants were intruding on the sacramental privileges and powers of the clergy. Only more comparative research over a broader range of cities can determine whether this theory is sufficient to overturn the dominant historical model that contrasts radical northern ‘heretics’ with pious southern confratres. Yet by arguing that ‘the incongruous treatment afforded the northern and southern branches of the flagellant movement had less to do with the flagellants themselves and more with the ways in which clerical observers interpreted what they saw’, Hammel reminds us that our understanding of lay-clerical disputes is too often coloured by a reliance on clerical histories that we ought to be reading more critically. Boundary disputes became heated again in the period of Catholic Reform and after the Council of Trent. Danilo Zardin offers a comparative analysis of developments in Genoa, Venice, Milan, and Como, and argues that the current dominant historical model is shaped less by the historical phenomena themselves than by what has been projected onto them. From across a broad ideological spectrum, historians have tended to depict early modern confraternities as declining from a medieval ideal — that is, becoming steadily less corporatist and lay, and more clerical, individualized, and disciplined. Zardin aims to dispel what he believes is an air of nostalgia over ‘the medieval world we have lost’, and suggests that the current fascination with social discipline and confessionalization often results in histories that exaggerate the desire and power of the Catholic Church to impose regulations on social behaviours, new ideas, and lay groups like confraternities. Zardin does not deny the shift towards greater discipline, but argues that it was not a solely clerical preoccupation. In Genoa, Venice, Milan, and Como confraternities remained strongly under lay and even civic control even as they developed the accoutrements of baroque piety and began to tighten their own 6 

Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. by Nice, p. 80.

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internal discipline. They retained significant power to follow local models and to resist Tridentine innovations. More to the point, Zardin finds ample evidence that local political elites sought co-operation with church officials to meet their social and political goals. A strong separation between lay and clerical powers is more characteristic of the modern period and should not be projected back into the early modern, where we find an interpenetration of elites and a broad consensus approach — really a shared class habitus at the upper social ranges. Zardin argues that ‘the ecclesiastical colonization of the confraternal fabric of lay religion was only partly successful in the post-Tridentine period and even less so in the Baroque’. There was considerable continuity and inertia, and local traditions remained the strongest sources of local innovation and of resistence to ‘the levelling advance of the Counter-Reformation’. Towns and villages adopted and adapted devotional and organizational forms according to their own priorities and not as a result of vertical hierarchical pressures. Further, while inspirations and models did come from outside in the form of aggregations to Roman archiconfraternities, Zardin claims that these models were chosen freely: local confraternities wanted access to the spiritual resources and prestige of the Roman mother, while individuals could find the larger confraternities less restrictive. Local religious life was a complex interplay of many different centres of authority, actors, and forms of expression that varied in their origin and character. While they were sometimes antagonistic or at odds with each other, they more often worked collaboratively as interdependent social groups. ‘The confraternities also passed through their “ancien regime”. Devotion and the administration of worship long continued to be pluralistic and immersed fully in the framework of society, of which associations of the faithful were a part. In many ways, secular power coexisted strongly with priestly power. The res publica continued to form a hybrid unity, within which the Ecclesia, under the leadership of the clergy, dispensed the treasures of salvation’. Zardin mounts a vigorous revisionist challenge to those who see the Council of Trent and the Tridentine Church as bringing an end to the older confraternal culture. At the same time, he confirms the confessionalist paradigm that links the erosion of ‘medieval’ communal and corporatist forms with co-operation between a more disciplinary church and state, not to mention the convergence of their elites into a more coherent dominant class. Paolo Prodi and Adriano Prosperi have also shown that we cannot single out one institution from a more broadly disciplinary society, and Norbert Elias reminded us that self control and social control were the price of civilization.7 In his comparative study of 7 

Disciplina dell’anima, ed. by Prodi; Prosperi, Tribunali della coscienza; Elias, The Civilizing Process, trans. by Jephcott.

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lay-clerical relations in the eighteenth century — the next time these boundary disputes flared up — David Garrioch echoes Zardin in finding a still-vigorous and uncowed laity, while also reminding us that we can see their continuing power only because they had to fight so hard against persistent clerical efforts to curb it. The vitality of the fight should convince us to rethink our notions of a secular or ‘dechristianized’ eighteenth century. At the same time, Garrioch finds that this was a fight that the laity could not — and did not — win. Confraternities were common within parishes across Europe, and tensions were at least as common because they had overlapping roles in the areas of charity and administration and poorly defined boundaries when it came to spiritual powers and privileges. Lay and clerical leaders alike gained social capital, power, influence, and even wealth from the numbers of members they could claim and the services they provided. Garrioch examines the collaborations and tensions in eighteenth-century Paris and Milan. Paris’s population of five hundred thousand was spread over fifty parishes and organized into five hundred confraternities, while Milan’s hundred and thirty thousand residents lived in sixty-eight parishes and joined some four hundred confraternities. The interactions of parishes and confraternities in these two cities show a great deal about religious life, social relationships, and the uses and understandings of urban space in Catholic Europe. In many parishes, it was the confraternities that funded religious celebrations, subsidized the costs of church construction, decoration, and repair, and offered charity in the form of food, clothing, cash, and dowries. Even in those cases where these brotherhoods functioned as mutual aid societies, their insurancetype benefits for members reduced the demands on the parish’s general poor relief funds. The funerals, requiems, and memorial masses that they funded gave income to priests, sacristans, and musicians. While co-operation was the norm, ‘there were recurrent subjects of dispute that reveal both the parishes and the confraternities defending their turf, patrolling their jurisdictional and sometimes physical boundaries, and fighting over contested areas of the frontier’. Resolution sometimes came only through external mediators or court rulings, defining the roles, rights, and privileges of laity and clergy, and aiming to avoid future fights by defining their boundaries more clearly. Confraternities with freestanding chapels and sizeable incomes had considerable independence and significant control over the choice of clergy and of services. There were far more of these semi-autonomous institutions in Milan than in Paris, and the tensions in the Italian city escalated when parish clergy feared losing worshippers and income to confraternities. The former might appeal to the archbishop and the latter to the Senate. In cases where a confraternity had few members or income and no quarters of its own, the parish might seek its

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suppression so as to avoid having to take over the brotherhood’s debts; this happened more frequently in Paris than in Milan. Money was, not surprisingly, a key irritant. Disputes arose regarding where and when alms could be collected and who might perform religious services; confraternities valued their independence, while parochial clergy resented lost income. Priests criticized as a corrupt misuse of funds any spending on feasting, drinking, and theatrical pomp, and they aimed to curb it by keeping an eye on confraternal accounts and a hand on the cashbox. After money, the most common irritant was space, and in these cases the boundary disputes were not metaphorical. Disputes arose over control of confraternal chapels or pews within parochial churches, over public squares marked by a cross that had its own confraternity, and over the routes and order of processions. Religious belief and practice provided a third trigger for disputes, and the trigger could be pulled over minor local points or major public controversies like Jansenism in Paris. At the core of all these disputes were questions of confraternal independence and autonomy, in turn often linked to status and honour. Female confraternities more often accepted subordinate status and were less likely than male groups to contest a parish priest’s dictates. But disputes need not have arisen with the priest alone. Confraternities also fought with parish vestry councils over space, funds, and jurisdiction particularly when, as with Parisian trade confraternities and Milanese devotional groups, they drew members from across the city. Whatever their trigger, even disputes which had been resolved could explode anew every time vestry members, parish priests, and confraternal administrations turned over and new parties arrived bearing new assumptions or values — something that happened regularly in urban settings. These were all boundary disputes within the social territory of the ancien regime, and the decline of that regime rendered its boundaries moot. Through the course of the eighteenth century, enlightened public opinion came to see confraternities as superstitious, corrupt, and in need of tighter political and ecclesiastical control extending even to suppressions. Yet this was hardly dechristianization. As Garrioch concludes, ‘the very bitterness of many of the disputes that pitted parishes and confraternities against each other is evidence of the vitality and the continuing importance of both institutions — even in the supposedly “secular” eighteenth century’. Each of these essays addresses in one way or another the question of who owned the spaces of religion. What was distinctive about confraternities was that they were religious spaces that laypeople staked a clear claim to, and they were usually ‘owned’ less ambiguously than, say, parish churches. The ownership of these institutions was not usually exclusive, much less hostile, yet it was a position

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from which laypeople exercised their faith and negotiated their relations with those clerical authorities whose ordination and vows and celibate life had taken them one step outside — and possibly above — the lay community. Men, women, and children joined confraternities for a range of reasons, and together with their spiritual kin they integrated their faith into the warp and weft of their daily lives. They might perform their faith by dining together or giving bread to widows or meditating or marching with whips. They might profess it through sermons, catechisms, prayers, and rituals. Working collectively might take them further into the public sphere or might actually facilitate a mystical retreat from it. Laypeople used confraternities as both a cultural form and a social resource to negotiate their practice of religio in ways that occasionally stepped beyond boundaries set by a variety of ecclesiastical and governmental authorities. Yet as we see in many of the essays gathered here, the laity did not necessarily define itself in opposition to these authorities or in deliberate violation of those boundaries. In fact, from Brabant to Manila and from Quito to Safed, the social space of the confraternity deliberately included some of those authorities and incorporated those boundaries. This was an approach that arose naturally out of a corporatist society. It would be the erosion of social kinship as a model for social relations and of corporatism as a model for social organization that would bring the end of these spaces for religious collaboration. For as we also see in several of these essays, those same authorities of state and church, synagogue, and Islamic spiritual path worked through the course of the early modern period to enforce many boundaries — between sacred and secular and between genders, races, and religions — and so steer confraternal life into narrower channels and eventually to a position at the margins of social and political life. * * * Versions of some of these papers were first presented at a conference on ‘Brother­ hood and Boundaries — Fraternità e barriere’ that was held in Pisa in September 2008 under the sponsorship of the Scuola Normale Superiore and the University of Toronto. The editors would like to thank in particular the Scuola Normale Superiore, whose generous funding allowed a large number of presenters to come to Pisa from Italy, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Scotland, Spain, Australia, Canada, the Philippines, and the United States.

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Works Cited Secondary Studies Andenna, Giancarlo, ‘Aspetti politici della presenza degli Osservanti in Lombardia in età sforzesca’, in Ordini religiosi e società politica in Italia e Germania nei secoli xiv e xv, ed. by Giorgio Chittolini and Kaspar Elm, Annali dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento, Quaderni, 56 (Bologna: Mulino, 2001), pp. 331–72 Bourdieu, Pierre, Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. by Richard Nice, Cambridge Studies in Social Anthropology, 16 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977) Elias, Norbert, The Civilizing Process, trans. by Edmund Jephcott, 2 vols (Oxford: Blackwell, 1978; repr. 1982) Herlihy, David, Medieval and Renaissance Pistoia: The Social History of an Italian Town, 1200–1430 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967) Prodi, Paolo, ed., Disciplina dell’anima, disciplina del corpo e disciplina della società tra medi­oevo ed età moderna (Bologna: Mulino, 1994) Prosperi, Adriano, Tribunali della coscienza: Inquisitori, confessori, missionari, Biblioteca di cultura storica, 214 (Torino: Einaudi, 1996) Putnam, Robert, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000) Terpstra, Nicholas, ‘De-institutionalizing Confraternity Studies: Fraternalism and Social Capital in Cross-Cultural Contexts’, in Early Modern Confraternities in Europe and the Americas: International and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, ed. by Christopher F. Black and Pamela Gravestock (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), pp. 264–83 —— , ‘The Politics of Confraternal Charity: Centre, Periphery, and Modes of Confraternal Involvement in Early Modern Civic Welfare’, in Povertà e innovazioni istituzionali in Italia: dal Medioevo ad oggi, ed. by Vera Zamagni (Bologna: Mulino, 2000), pp. 153–73 Vauchez, André, ed., La Religion civique à l’époque médiévale et moderne: Chrétienté et Islam, Collection de l’École française de Rome, 213 (Roma: École française de Rome, 1995)

Part I Confraternities and Comunitas: Politics, Charity, and Civic Religion

Civic Hospitals, Local Identity, and Regional States in Early Modern Italy Daniel Bornstein

T

his paper lies at the intersection of two story lines. One is the formation of the Renaissance state, which has been a central concern of Renaissance studies since the time of Jacob Burckhardt. To be sure, historians have long since discarded Burckhardt’s image of the state as a work of art, carefully crafted into a unified whole by the skill and intelligence of its ruler.1 Instead, following the lead of Giorgio Chittolini, they have learned to see the territorial states of Renaissance Italy as the outcome of a tough and relentless negotiation of power between centre and periphery, whether that be the signori of the Po valley and the more powerful of their subjects, or a città dominante like Florence and the traditional elites falling under its spreading dominion.2 One of the chief 1  Burckhardt, Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien; Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renais­sance in Italy, trans. by Middlemore. 2  Chittolini, La formazione dello stato regionale e le istituzioni del contado; Chittolini, Città, comunità e feudi negli stati dell’Italia centro-settentrionale. For the state of the question then and

Daniel Bornstein ([email protected]) is Professor of History and Religious Studies at Washington University in St  Louis, where he holds the Stella K.  Darrow Professorship in Catholic Studies. A specialist in the religious culture of medieval Italy, he has written extensively on lay piety, popular devotional movements, religious confraternities, female sanctity, parish priests, civic religion, and other intersections of the spiritual and material worlds. He is the author of The Bianchi of 1399: Popular Devotion in Late Medieval Italy, editor of Medieval Christianity, and co-editor (with Roberto Rusconi) of Women and Religion in Medieval and Renaissance Italy. His translations of medieval Italian texts include Dino Compagni’s Chronicle of Florence and Bartolomea Riccoboni, Life and Death in a Venetian Convent: The Chronicle and Necrology of Corpus Domini, 1395–1436.

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Daniel Bornstein

areas of contention concerned ecclesiastical matters, which included control over important offices, extensive properties, great wealth, and significant legal and fiscal immunities. Here, of course, the field of contested power was further complicated and the authority of secular governments further limited by the role of Rome as distributor of benefices and defender of clerical privileges.3 The second story line concerns the shift from a medieval to an early modern model of charity, a development involving the rationalization and centralization of charitable institutions and their management. 4 In northern and central Italy, as elsewhere throughout Western Europe, the old structures of charitable assistance fell into crisis in a rhythm that varied from place to place, starting in the fourteenth century and continuing at an accelerating pace during the fifteenth.5 Everywhere, existing hospitals were reorganized and expanded and new ones built to offer a range of services that were at once more specialized and more comprehensive than in the past. Such a vast reshaping of the entire charitable apparatus, including important revisions to the very notion of charity itself, engaged the energies and absorbed the resources of wealthy patrons, city governments, and eventually the territorial states and their rulers, who dedicated themselves to meeting the needs of those suffering the effects of endemic poverty, now, see the essays collected in La Crisi degli ordinamenti comunali, ed. by Chittolini, and The Origins of the State in Italy, ed. by Kirshner. On Florence in particular, an early and enduringly influential voice arguing for the vigorous consolidation of a Florentine territorial state in the fourteenth century has been that of Becker, Florence in Transition; see also Florentine Essays, ed. by Banker and Lansing. 3  Chittolini, ‘Stati regionali e istituzioni ecclesiastiche nell’Italia centrosettentrionale del Quattrocento’; Prosperi, ‘“Dominus beneficiorum”’; Prodi, The Papal Prince. On Tuscany in particular, see Bizzocchi, Chiesa e potere nella Toscana del Quattrocento. 4  For a pioneering study of the redefinition and reorganization of charity, see Davis, ‘Poor Relief, Humanism, and Heresy’. For a recent overview, see Pullan, ‘New Approaches to Poverty and New Forms of Institutional Charity’. 5  Such was the conclusion drawn by Charles Marie de la Roncière in summing up the results of a conference on hospitals and cities in northern and central Italy. See La Roncière, ‘Città e ospedali’, pp. 258–59. Important regional studies of the question in Italy include Pullan, Rich and Poor in Renaissance Venice; Henderson, Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence; Henderson, The Renaissance Hospital; Gavitt, Charity and Children; Terpstra, Lay Confraternities and Civic Religion in Renaissance Bologna; Cavallo, Charity and Power in Early Modern Italy; Albini, Città e ospedali nella Lombardia medieval; La carità a Milano, ed. by Alberzoni and Grassi; D’Andrea, Civic Christianity in Renaissance Italy. Studies on specific aspects of the organization of social assistance include Sandri, L’ospedale di S. Maria della Scala di S. Gimignano nel Quattrocento; Storia della solidarietà a Firenze; Terpstra, Abandoned Children of the Italian Renaissance; Di Maggio, Le donne dell’ospedale del Salvatore di Roma.

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old age, and ill health, a daily struggle made infinitely worse by episodic spasms of famine and epidemic disease. In return for their patronage, princes and cities imposed increasingly close control on these hospitals (much like the poor, ill, and otherwise marginalized people they served) by centralizing their organization and regulating their operations. These two master narratives obviously carry us in different directions. One emphasizes centralization and control; the other stresses the resistance of local elites and the persistence of multiple centres of power.6 Since we are dealing here with both process and state — the process of centralization as it effects a preexisting state of diffuse power — these conflicting interpretations may not be quite as diametrically opposed as they might seem. Rather, the apparent contradictions can be explained as differences either of emphasis, as scholars focus on the trend of increased central authority rather than the survival of traditional exemptions and privileges, or of timing, as scholars fasten on an earlier or later stage in this process. Further complicating interpretations of the political role of civic hospitals is the vexed question of civil religion, which retains its interpretative power (and its ability to stir controversy) more than forty years after the first appearance of Robert Bellah’s enduringly influential essay on ‘Civil Religion in America’.7 This labile concept has proven as useful for interpreting Renaissance Italy as modern America — and indeed, strikingly, entered into the scholarly discourse of these two fields at exactly the same moment. In the very year that Bellah published his essay on American civil religion, David Herlihy, in his pioneering social history of medieval and Renaissance Pistoia, applied the label ‘civic Christianity’ to what he described as ‘a more sensitive moral and social consciousness, a new awareness of the responsibility of the Christian in regard to the present world and its troubles’, a ‘new human and humane involvement in civic society’, and ‘a huge investment in works of public charity, bespeaking a consciousness of responsibility for the destitute of the city’. While acknowledging that piety, ‘as a mood and expression of the spirit, cannot be measured statistically’, Herlihy averred that ‘some of its social results can be, specifically by noting the kinds of religious institutions and activities favored by the faithful in their donations and bequests. We can, 6  And not only elites: Sam Cohn has recently argued that peasant resistance and rebellion led Florence’s ruling elite to change the way it viewed and used its rural territories, so that the centralization and standardization of power worked to the benefit of Florence’s rural communities and especially the mountainous hinterland. See Cohn, Creating the Florentine State. On charitable institutions in this dialectic between centre and periphery, see Terpstra, ‘The Politics of Confraternal Charity’; on friction between lay and ecclesiastical authorities, see Albini, ‘La riforma quattrocentesca degli ospedali nel Ducato di Milano’. 7  Bellah, ‘Civil Religion in America’.

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in other words, compare the distribution of ecclesiastical wealth in the fifteenth century with that of an earlier period, to discern what kind of religious work the age had come to favor’. When he examined assessments of ecclesiastical property prepared for fiscal purposes, Herlihy found a massive shift of wealth away from traditional monastic foundations and toward hospitals and other institutions that sustained the civic fabric through their charitable activities. As gifts and bequests increasingly went to enrich civic hospitals rather than to endow the choral recitation of the liturgy in monasteries, Herlihy concluded that ‘The medieval, Christian stress on contemplation, asceticism and penance seems to have lost ground in the fourteenth century before a new, charitable and social emphasis in religious practice’ — in a word, the emergence of a civic Christianity.8 Herlihy’s classic formulation has been the subject of considerable debate, much of it turning on his measurable indices of piety and the question of whether funds were indeed being increasingly directed toward social purposes. Far from moving toward a consensus, two of the more important recent contributions to this debate in fact stake out positions that are diametrically opposed to one another. Philip Gavitt warmly embraced Herlihy’s model and used it to frame his study of Florence’s Ospedale degli Innocenti, declaring at the outset that ‘the fifteenth century saw far fewer displays of mass religious enthusiasm and much more deliberate zeal in the extension of charity beyond the confines of confraternal membership. Wealthy Florentines were leaving less money to religious orders and giving more to institutions that specialized in social problems’.9 In sharp contrast, in his sweeping survey of Florentine devotional and charitable confraternities, John Henderson emphatically rejected ‘this Utopian view of Florentine charity’, cast doubt on the existence of ‘a novel awareness of poverty as a social rather than a purely religious problem’, and questioned ‘how far it is possible to demonstrate the practical impact of “civic humanism” on poor relief ’.10 Other questions concerned the urban frame of reference adopted by Herlihy and other historians of what Augustine Thompson, referring to a slightly earlier period, has called ‘the religion of the communes’.11 The terminology employed by Bellah and Herlihy may differ only slightly, but the change of a single letter 8 

Herlihy, Medieval and Renaissance Pistoia, pp. 245–50, 254, 257. Gavitt, Charity and Children, p. 1. 10  Henderson, Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence, p. 354. Henderson’s rejection of any connection between civic humanism and civic Christianity is a bit of a red herring: Herlihy never suggested that civic humanism had any influence on the growing wealth of Pistoia’s charitable institutions. 11  Thompson, Cities of God. 9 

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points to the adoption of significantly different analytical frames. Bellah spoke of civil religion, by which he meant ‘a collection of beliefs, symbols, and rituals with respect to sacred things and institutionalized in a collectivity’. His concept is functional, in that civil religion serves to unite members of a political community, and it is general, since that community can be of any scale, scope, or character. Although Bellah concerned himself specifically with the American nation, the concept (as he used it) could be applied equally well to a city-state as to a nation-state. Herlihy, in contrast, spoke of civic religion, taking an equally functional approach but specifically highlighting the urban context of the Italian communes, as did his scholarly peers and colleagues who joined, in the 1960s and early 1970s, in articulating and applying this term of analysis. Still, as Donald Weinstein has observed, the two terms and concepts — civil religion, used initially by analysts of American political culture to refer to the quasi-sacred rites and symbols that invested American public life with a sense that the United States had been divinely chosen for a special role in world history; and civic religion, used by historians of medieval and Renaissance Italy to refer to ‘religion in its collective, social dimension and in its function of legitimating and sacralizing the urban entities, the communi, of medieval Italy’, 12 that ‘specifically, characteristically civic set of religious modalities arising out of the special experience of Italian communal life, as a special case of the medieval urban experience in general’13 — were close cousins. The fundamental identity of these two definitions of civic religion, articulated by Donald Weinstein at conferences held twenty years apart, testifies to the stability of the urban framework of analysis. Indeed, even when the geographical compass is widened to include discussions of cities ranging from Catalonia to Constantinople, from Poland to the Maghreb, and from the Hanseatic League to Egypt and Syria (as at a 1993 conference on medieval and early modern civic religion organized by André Vauchez), the urban frame of reference has remained the same, as indicated by Vauchez’s working definition of civic religion as ‘the collection of religious phenomena — cultic, devotional, or institutional — in which the civil powers play a deciding role, principally through the actions of local and municipal authorities’.14 12 

Weinstein, ‘Introduction’. Weinstein, ‘Critical Issues in the Study of Civic Religion in Renaissance Florence’, p. 265. 14  La Religion civique à l’époque médiévale et moderne, ed. by Vauchez. The quotation is from Vauchez’s Introduction: ‘l’ensemble des phénomènes religieux — cultuels, dévotionnels ou institutionnels — dans lesquels le pouvoir civil joue un rôle déterminant, principalement à tra­vers l’action des autorités locales et municipales’ (p. 1). Lorenzo Polizzotto has voiced sharp misgivings about any such geographical broadening of the concept of civic religion. For Polizzotto, the 13 

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A number of recent studies have questioned, albeit often only implicitly, whether the city provides the most appropriate framework for analysis. David Peterson has made explicit the implications of this work in a sharply framed critique aimed precisely at the scale on which civic religion has been conceived. On the one hand, he notes that the wealth and variety of urban religious institutions ‘offered laymen a remarkable wealth of confraternities and charitable institutions among which they might choose to participate’, with the consequence that ‘sodalities such as confraternities or parishes often provided their members a more immediate sense of Christian community than the global urban environment’. On the other, ‘Italian civic leaders increasingly viewed the church and religion in a framework extending beyond the urban environment to regional and peninsular contexts’, a framework that Peterson has explored in a series of exemplary studies of the Florentine church.15 In short, the city seems simultaneously too large and too small a unit for analysis, since individuals cared most about their personal, intimately local associations while governments could not help but look, and think, beyond their city walls. It is with an eye to testing these various interpretive models — centralization and local resistance, the enduring vitality of urban institutions and the rise of regional states, the emergence of civic Christianity and the rationalization of charity — that I wish to present evidence concerning the charitable institutions of the Tuscan city of Cortona and their gradual restructuring in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as Cortona came to be ever more thoroughly incorporated in the Florentine territorial state, which itself passed in those same centuries from communal to princely rule. Those institutions include Cortona’s numerous small hospitals, many of them explicitly identified as communal houses of charity, which became steadily more numerous over the course of the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries; the hospital of the Misericordia, by far the greatest among them, which by the fifteenth century had emerged as Cortona’s chief civic institution; and the Unione dei luoghi pii, which was created in the sixteenth century in an effort to rationalize and centralize charity in Cortona, as elsewhere throughout Cosimo I’s duchy of Florence. Cortona sits perched on a hill overlooking the Valdichiana in southeastern Tuscany.16 Despite its small size — with a population, at its pre-plague height, of civic religion of the Italian cities reflected the peculiarities of those cities, making it unlikely that ‘the concept of urban religion can be usefully applied in any but the vaguest of ways to urban centers outside north and central Italy […]. To do so regardless, on the basis of facile analogies, cannot but lead to distortions and eventually to the devaluation of a most useful concept’. See Polizzotto, ‘Holy Women, the City and Salvation’, pp. 86, 88–89. 15  Peterson, ‘Religion, Politics and the Church in Fifteenth-Century Florence’, p. 76. 16  The only book-length study of medieval Cortona is still Mancini, Cortona nel Medio Evo.

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perhaps five thousand people inside the city walls and half again as many scattered through the villages and homesteads of the Cortonese countryside — Cortona was able to maintain its independence throughout the fourteenth century thanks to its location at the border of Tuscany and Umbria, where the Florentine, Sienese, and Perugian spheres of influence met (and balanced each other out).17 In 1409, however, the city fell under the rule of King Ladislao of Naples, who sold it to Florence two years later. This loss of independence was marked in symbolic forms as well as in practical measures. Cortona’s civic statutes were carried off captive to Florence, where they could be consulted as needed by the city’s new masters, and the Cortonese civil code was swiftly and decisively brought into line with that of the città dominante.18 Florentine rectors took up residence and set up their administration in the palace that formerly belonged to the Casali signori of Cortona, leaving as testimonials of their presence the carved stone coats of arms that still adorn its courtyard and façade. And from 1411 onwards, Cortona’s bishops, like its civic administrators, were selected from Florentine families and nominated by the Florentine government.19 Of course, the candidates Florence put forward for this office had to secure papal approval for their appointment, which entailed satisfying a whole other range of often conflicting interests and concerns.20 Cortonese preferences, however, do not seem to have figured prominently in the negotiations between Florence and Rome over who would occupy the see of Cortona. Indeed, the faithful flock of Cortona had no greater voice in deciding who would be their spiritual shepherd than they had in choosing what rector Florence would send to govern them. When Bishop Bartolomeo Rimbertini was On the social and political order of early modern Cortona, see Perol, Cortona. 17  I am projecting backward from the early fifteenth century, when we have reliable statistical information, and assuming a decline in the order of forty per cent between the early fourteenth century and the early fifteenth. According to the Florentine catasto of 1427, the city of Cortona had a population of roughly 3250 (1603 men and 1636 women), and the territory of Cortona had 4636 inhabitants (2417 men and 2219 women). The ratio of men to women in the city was anomalously low: Cortona was the only city in the Florentine state that had more women than men. It also had a low proportion of children, and an overall population density below the regional average. See Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber, Tuscans and their Families, pp. 49, 56, 157, 198–99. 18  Tanzini, Alle origini della Toscana moderna, p. 98. 19  Mirri, I vescovi di Cortona, ed. by Mirri. The one fifteenth-century bishop of Cortona named after 1411 who did belong to a Cortonese family, Cristoforo de Petrella (1477–1502), practised law in Rome and made his career in the Roman curia; he continued to reside in Rome after being named bishop, leaving the administration of his diocese in the hands of a vicar. 20  Bizzocchi, Chiesa e potere nella Toscana del Quattrocento.

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transferred to another diocese in 1449, the cathedral chapter of Cortona elected as his successor an abbreviator at the papal court who happened to be the son of a Cortonese merchant. However, Nicholas V ignored their choice and instead restored to the see of Cortona the Florentine Servite friar Matteo Ughi, who had been deposed a decade earlier for supporting the Council of Basel and its schismatic pope, Felix V.21 While Cortona’s chief civic and ecclesiastical offices were now filled from Florence, the lesser ones remained in local hands. Despite the intrusion of a certain number of interlopers, Cortonese patricians continued to dominate the competition for cathedral canonries so that the cathedral chapter continued to be a bastion of local privilege, giving voice to local concerns and providing a Cortonese counterweight (though, as we just saw, not a very effective one) to their Florentine bishop. Parishioners (particularly in rural areas) continued to elect their parish priests through the middle of the fifteenth century, as they did in Monsigliolo in 1446 and in Bacialla in 1447, and continued to favour local candidates.22 The statutes imposed by Florence in 1411 confirmed that an entire array of offices, with responsibilities ranging from the road network and water supply to labour disputes, taxes on meat and fish, the teaching of Latin grammar, and the tutelage of widows and orphans, would continue to be filled and exercised as they had been under the old order of things.23 Of particular importance were the lay custodians of Cortona’s many charitable institutions, who were to be elected by a secret ballot of the town council.24 These institutions played a key role in the local economy, both political and moral, for they claimed a venerable antiquity and disposed of considerable wealth. Testaments from the middle of the thirteenth century mention three hospitals in Cortona and a leprosarium at Bacialla, a village just a few kilometres from the city.25 The number of hospitals multiplied rapidly between the thirteenth century and the fourteenth. Cortona’s earliest statute in 1325 (the year of Cortona’s erection as a diocese) names ten institutions devoted to public health and charity: a home for the poor and ill by the church of Santa Margherita, the hospital of Santa Maria della Misericordia near Porta Berarda, three suburban hospices close 21 

Mirri, I vescovi di Cortona, ed. by Mirri, pp. 81–114; Mancini, Cortona nel Medio Evo, p. 351. 22  Mancini, Cortona nel Medio Evo, p. 351. 23  Mancini, Cortona nel Medio Evo, pp. 288–95. 24  Mancini, Cortona nel Medio Evo, p. 289. 25  Mancini, Cortona nel Medio Evo, p. 103.

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outside three other city gates (Porta Santa Maria, Porta San Vincenzo, and Porta Peccioverardi), rural hospitals at Camucia, Ossaia, and Cignano, and the leper hospitals at Bacialla (for women) and Bovarco (for men).26 By the beginning of the fifteenth century, their number had doubled yet again. Cortona’s 1402 Catasto dei beni ecclesiastici lists no fewer than twenty hospitals and charitable institutions for a population that had shrunk in the wake of the Black Death to barely three thousand people in the city and fewer than five thousand in the countryside. 27 The leprosaria of Bacialla and Bovarco continued to fulfil their specialized functions, and the domus sive hospitale of Santi Antonio e Giacomo (also known as the Hospitale aromatariorum) also seems to have been devoted to providing medical care.28 But most of these institutions offered charitable assistance of a more general sort. They were hospices rather than hospitals in the modern sense, providing a place of refuge for all Christ’s poor: the ill and infirm, of course, but also pilgrims, beggars, and anyone who needed a square meal and a roof overhead. Most of these institutions were civic in ownership as well as purpose. Four hospices located in Cortona or just outside its gates were explicitly described as belonging to the town of Cortona: the hospice near Santa Margherita and the ones outside the Porta Santa Maria, Porta San Vincenzo, and Porta Peccioverardi (all mentioned in the statute of 1325) are each identified as a ‘Domus comunis Cortone in qua Christi pauperes receptantur’.29 So, too, are the leprosaria of Bovarco and Bacialla and the hospice in the village of Ossaia, and it seems reasonable to suppose that the eight other rural hospices — at Montecchi, Monsigliolo, Portula, Camucia, Mercatale, Cignano, Teverina, and Farneta — were likewise public institutions, sponsored by the village communities they served.30 26 

Mancini, Cortona nel Medio Evo, pp. 105, 157–59. Cortona, ASC, C.7: Catasto dei beni ecclesiastici. My figure of twenty hospitals includes the hospital of Castiglion Fiorentino, which owned nine pieces of property in that fringe of Cortonese territory that bordered Castiglione, and probably served the people from that area: Cortona, ASC, C.7, fol. 191v. For the population in 1427, see Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber, Tuscans and their Families, p. 56. 28  Cortona, ASC, C.7, fols 173r–v (Bovarco), 174r (Bacialla), and 161r–62r (Domus sive hospitale Sanctorum Antonii et Jacobi). 29  Cortona, ASC, C.7, fols 163r (Domus apud ecclesiam S. Margarite de Cortona), 164r–66v (Domus extra et prope Portam S. Marie de Cortona), 167v–68v (Domus extra et prope Portam S. Vincentii de Cortona), and 169r–70v (Domus extra et prope Portam Peccioverandum). 30  Cortona, ASC, C.7, fols  173r–v (Bovarco), 174r (Bacialla), 171r–72r (Ossaia), 175r (Montecchi), 175v (Monsigliolo), 176r–77v (Portula), 178r (Camucia), 178v (Mercatale), 179r (Cignano), 190r–v (Teverina), and 191r (Farneta). 27 

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The 1402 Catasto dei beni ecclesiastici lists the landholdings, both urban and rural, held by all the ecclesiastical and charitable institutions in the diocese, including hospitals and lay confraternities, providing a thorough, reliable, and nearly complete picture of the landed wealth of the Cortonese church at the beginning of the fifteenth century. But these documents do more than offer a snapshot of ecclesiastical wealth at this particular time. Because this volume of the catasto remained in use throughout the fifteenth century and into the sixteenth, registering acquisitions and alienations of property as they took place, it makes it possible to follow the evolution of this wealth over the course of more than a hundred years. The leprosaria and civic hospices (urban, suburban, and rural alike) mentioned thus far all had modest endowments in 1402, and they generally remained small but stably funded institutions throughout the century. Other hospitals were far wealthier, and their wealth was far more volatile. Thus, the domus of San Niccolò already possessed a considerable endowment in 1402, when the catasto was redacted, and its original declaration of eighty-three pieces of property was supplemented with another twenty-three items added over the course of the fifteenth century.31 The domus sive hospitale of Santi Antonio e Giacomo was established in 1422 by a bequest from the speziale Francesco di Pietro di Cecco Ranaldi, who endowed this hospital with fifty-eight pieces of property, valued at a total of nine thousand four hundred lire.32 A smaller but still substantial gift from Bartolomeo di Puccio di Vanni Ristori (twenty-seven pieces of property, with a value of more than two thousand six hundred lire) created the domus of Santa Caterina, which was added to the catasto in 1413; like the domus sive hospitale of Santi Antonio e Giacomo, Santa Caterina was referred to as both a domus and a hospital, but in contrast to the other institution, this one was explicitly established with the consent of the general council of Cortona.33 But San Niccolò, Santa Caterina, and Santi Antonio e Giacomo were all dwarfed — as indeed were all the religious and charitable institutions of Cortona — by the domus of the Fraternity of Santa Maria della Misericordia, which claimed to have been founded by St Margaret of Cortona herself back in 1286.34 Its 1402 catasto declaration opens with an entire block of buildings: six houses and a smaller casalino joined together around a courtyard, and bounded on four sides by the city streets.35 It continues with another two hundred and two pieces 31 

Cortona, ASC, C.7, fols 157r–60v. Cortona, ASC, C.7, fols 161r–62r. 33  Cortona, ASC, C.7, fols 155r–56v. 34  Mancini, Cortona nel Medio Evo, p. 103; Perol, Cortona, pp. 172–79. 35  Cortona, ASC, C.7, fol. 141r; the declaration of its holdings covers fols 141r–54v. 32 

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of property, starting with six more houses in the city of Cortona and proceeding systematically through the rural circumscriptions, listing holdings that included farmland, meadows, woods, vineyards, olive groves, entire poderi, and even mills and furnaces (probably used for baking bricks rather than bread, considering their locations). Many of its possessions were strikingly large and valuable bits of property: individual items valued at three hundred, three hundred and twenty, four hundred and seventy-five, six hundred, and a thousand lire — all found on a single folio (141v), reporting holdings in a single village, Montanare — easily surpassed the total wealth of many, perhaps most, Cortonese — and the vast estates that the Misercordia held at the dawn of the Quattrocento, on the eve of the Florentine acquisition of Cortona, continued to grow under Florentine rule. Over the course of the fifteenth century, the Misericordia enriched its original declaration of two hundred and three properties with no fewer than two hundred and seventy-four additional landholdings, including such spectacular ones as a podere that had once belonged to the Casali lords of Cortona, which the tax officials valued at a whopping one thousand seven hundred and seventy lire.36 Of course, not all of the confraternity’s transactions were acquisitions; occasionally some property had to be sold as well. Several of its houses scattered throughout Cortona were sold between 1405 and 1413, and there seems to have been a major restructuring of the Misericordia’s endowment in April 1418. Still, the overall trend was one of strong if not steady growth. This massive growth in the number of charitable institutions and the size of their endowments amply confirms the pattern that Herlihy observed in Pistoia and constitutes one of the notable features of the moral economy of Renaissance Cortona. What is more, this overall increase in the hospitals’ wealth was accompanied by an equally impressive consolidation of its management, particularly notable after the regime change in 1411, for much of the Misericordia’s expansion in the fifteenth century came at the expense of other charitable institutions. Both Santi Antonio e Giacomo and San Niccolò had the misfortune to be located in the terziere of San Marco, a neighbourhood dominated by the Fraternity of Santa Maria della Misericordia, which grew larger and richer by engulfing these intruders on its turf. Founded in 1422, the domus sive hospitale of Santi Antonio e Giacomo was in crisis just four years later, when much of its original endowment was cancelled. To solve the administrative problems afflicting this hospital and others, the commune of Cortona asked Pope Eugenius IV to authorize the unification of several smaller hospitals with the Misericordia. When this appeal was 36 

Cortona, ASC, C.7, fol. 147v.

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granted in 1439–40, the Misericordia extended its control over the urban hospitals of Santi Antonio e Giacomo, San Niccolò, and Santa Caterina and the suburban ones by Porta Santa Maria, Porta San Vincenzo, and Porta Peccioverardi.37 The Misericordia allowed their endowments to remain nominally independent (at least they continued to be listed separately in the city’s tax register, perhaps merely to avoid the inconvenience of systematically transcribing their holdings into the declaration of the Misericordia’s property), while seeing that its agents ratified all property transactions that they did not make on their own authority.38 At the same time that it assumed control over its smaller rivals, the Misericordia set about constructing its magnificent new hospital, with room to receive well over a hundred people, right in the heart of the city, just a few steps above the piazza in front of the Palazzo del Comune. This undertaking took most of the 1440s to complete and consumed an immense amount of resources, but it also gave the Misericordia a physical presence in the urban fabric to match its econ­ omic clout and moral heft.39 As a measure of the unrivalled pre-eminence achieved by the Misericordia, we might note that the bishop himself disposed of resources that paled beside those of the Misericordia. No exact comparison is possible for the fifteenth century, since the folios containing the bishop’s declaration were cut out of the tax records at some point, leaving the one significant gap in this otherwise exhaustive register. The loss is not complete, however: four of the missing folios detailing the bishop’s landholdings can be found (lacerated, mended, and badly damaged by water) incorrectly bound into a fourteenth-century catasto volume.40 Unfortunately, the first two folios, listing the most important properties, remain missing. Still, a crude sense of the difference in scale can be gathered from the observation that 37 

Mancini, Cortona nel Medio Evo, p.  320, citing the Registro della fraternita della Misericordia, in the archive of the hospital of Cortona. This archive has since been incorporated in the Archivio storico del comune di Cortona, but the volume in question (no. 100 in the new inventory in course of preparation) is presently unavailable. 38  Thus, the factor of the domus Misericordie approved sales of some of Santi Antonio e Giacomo’s property on 17 June and 5 September 1445, and the prior of Santa Maria della Misericordia granted permission for the cancellation of another item on 19 August 1469: Cortona, ASC, C.7, fols 161r–62r. The domus of San Niccolò had one item cancelled from its declaration in 1462 on the instructions of its own prior and that of the Misericordia; in 1463, 1465, and 1469, such cancellations were made on the authority of the prior of the Misericordia alone: Cortona, ASC, C.7, fols 157r, 159v, and 160r. 39  Mancini, Cortona nel Medio Evo, p. 321. 40  Cortona, ASC, C.1: Catasto vecchio, San Marco de intus, 1311, fols 76–79v (original foliation, 3–6v).

Civic Hospitals, Local Identity, & Regional States in Early Modern Italy 15

the total declaration of the bishop’s holdings, including additions over the course of the fifteenth century, amounted to only six folios, while the Misericordia’s original declaration in 1402 ran to eight folios, and swelled to cover fourteen as the hospital added inexorably to its holdings. The consolidation of resources and construction of a central hospital that we have followed in Cortona can be observed in other Italian cities as well, where (as in Cortona) it generally took place with the approval of the highest ecclesiastical authorities. For instance, L’Aquila consolidated a number of smaller hospitals in 1445 in order to rationalize hospital services, at the urging of John of Capistrano and with the approval of Pope Nicholas  V.41 In 1472, another Observant Franciscan friar, Michele da Carcano, persuaded the city of Piacenza to merge the twenty-two existing hospitals, which were no longer able to operate effectively due to shortage of space and resources, into one large charitable institution which would be better able to meet the needs of the city’s poor and ill.42 Fra Michele, a fiercely anti-Semitic preacher and promoter of the Christian pawnshops that took the place of Jewish moneylenders, was no stranger to reforms of charity with significant political repercussions, whether intended or not. As Giancarlo Andenna observed, by lumping together the oldest charitable foundations of the city with all of their possessions and revenues, the ruling class of the city of Piacenza took complete control over the management of health and welfare, thereby transforming it from a religious to a political concern.43 The same could be said of Cortona’s encouragement of the growing wealth and power of the Misericordia and its hospital — and, for that matter, of Francesco Sforza’s sponsorship of the new central hospital of Milan and other hospital reforms in Lombardy, though with an important distinction.44 Cortona was a subject city, and the members of its political elite no longer controlled their own political destinies. 41 

Vitolo, ‘Ordini mendicanti e dinamiche politico-sociali’, p. 144, n. 55. Mesini, ‘L’opera del beato Michele Carcano’, quoted in Andenna, ‘Aspetti politici della presenza degli Osservanti in Lombardia’, pp. 334–35. 43  Andenna, ‘Aspetti politici della presenza degli Osservanti in Lombardia’, p. 335. He adds: ‘Anche nella fondazione degli ospedali maggiori il legame con il mondo del patriziato urbano e con il ceto dirigente delle città si rinsaldava, poiché in stretta connessione con simili imprese non vi era solo una rinnovata visione dell’assistenza e della carità, ma circolavano ingenti capitali, raccolti durante la predicazione, donati da benefattori insieme a immobili produttivi, che dovevano essere amministrati dagli esponenti del ceto nobiliare e borghese e posti a vantaggio delle comunità urbane’ (p. 346). 44  Albini, Città e ospedali nella Lombardia medieval, pp. 114–27; Albini, ‘Continuità e innovazione’; Cracco, ‘Dalla misericordia della Chiesa alla misericordia del principe’. 42 

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They did, however, control the Misericordia, and that may have been enough for the Cortonese patriciate. After all, the Misericordia was by far the wealthiest institution in the city, with a patrimony that even in 1571 was assessed at five times that of the cathedral chapter and nearly four times that of the bishopric itself.45 What did it matter if Florence sent a rector to administer justice and Rome bestowed the see of Cortona and some of the prebends of Cortona’s cathedral on Florentines, and on Florentine recommendation, so long as Cortona’s patrician families continued to control the hospital of Santa Maria della Misericordia? The Misericordia owned entire blocks of houses in the city and some of the most valuable properties in the countryside. Control of these resources and the opportunities for patronage they afforded allowed local elites, pressed between the claims of regional state and universal church, to carve out for themselves an area of relative autonomy and considerable influence. In this context, it is noteworthy that it was in 1421, exactly ten years after Cortona passed under Florentine rule, that the prior of the Misericordia, the Cortonese patrician ser Uguccio di Lando, decided to expand the institution’s charitable activities to include the distribution of bread, wine, oil, salted meat, and lard.46 In so doing — in supplying not just care for the ill and lodging for the homeless, but essential foodstuffs for the poor and hungry — the Misericordia made itself an even more indispensable component of the civic order. Management of these charitable distributions, as of the Misericordia’s properties, rested with its priors: persons of high esteem drawn from the leading families of the Cortonese elite and named by the town council to an annual (and renewable) term in office. As Céline Perol has observed, the office of prior of the Misericordia was one of the most hotly desired positions of power in Cortona, and its holders figured among the most outstanding citizens of the town: wealthy wool merchants, apothecaries, and lawyers, with, very occasionally, a cathedral canon such as Costanzo Oradini (himself a scion of an important local family), who ran the hospital of the Misericordia from 1461 to 1471.47 By scrupulously monopolizing the office of prior, the Cortonese patriciate ensured that the Misericordia would remain under lay rather than clerical control, its resources would be directed 45  According to a fascicle of fourteen folios inserted in the front of the Catasto dei beni ecclesiastici (Cortona, ASC, C.7), headed ‘Luoghi pii’ and dated 18 March 1571, the cathedral chapter was assessed at 5997.25 scudi (fol. 4v), the bishopric at 7757.75 scudi (fol. 11r), and the hospital of Santa Maria della Misericordia at 30,126.75 scudi (fol. 11r). 46  Perol, Cortona, p. 175. 47  Perol, Cortona, p. 179; on pp. 342–43, Perol provides a list of the priors from 1440 to 1559.

Civic Hospitals, Local Identity, & Regional States in Early Modern Italy 17

towards local needs, and they would reap in return the honour and esteem that was their traditional due. A different dynamic was at work on 11 March 1537, when a dozen of Cor­ tona’s devotional confraternities, including both laudesi and disciplinati, banded together to form the Unione dei luoghi pii. This association fit neatly into the programme of Duke Cosimo I, who was moving rapidly to consolidate his hold on the state that fell unexpectedly into his hands after the assassination of his distant cousin Alessandro on 6 January 1537.48 Cosimo did not crush the last serious resistance to his succession until the battle of Montemurlo on 31 July, but well before then, in his approbation of the Unione dei luoghi pii of Cortona, he was already seizing an opportunity to advance the policy of centralization and close ducal control that came to characterize his reform of charitable and sanitary institutions — though that broader programme, given bureaucratic form with the creation of the magistracy of the Bigallo in 1542, itself confronted and often succumbed to myriad forms of local resistance.49 Ever jealous of his ducal prerogatives and eager to limit ecclesiastical liberties, Cosimo sharply warned the bishop of Cortona against meddling in the Unione dei luoghi pii, which the duke insisted should be governed by laymen. This canny move bought Cosimo the backing of Cortona’s elite, for it ensured that the families (and sometimes the very same individuals) who ran the Misericordia would also run the Unione.50 But Cosimo also drew on the Unione’s revenues to support his own cultural and charitable initiatives in other corners of his state, as when he assigned ten per cent of its annual income to financing students at the university of Pisa, treating it as if it were a component part of the Medici duchy of Tuscany rather than a charitable institution of purely local range. It is therefore unsurprising to find that the Unione never really won the affection (or the support) of Cortona’s citizenry in the way that the Misericordia did. Since the ten per cent exaction on behalf of the students at Pisa generated a subsidy of just forty scudi, the Unione’s total income 48 

See in general Guarini, ‘Potere centrale e communità soggette nel Granducato’; Guarini, Lo stato mediceo di Cosimo I. None of the essays in La Nascita della Toscana or in Potere centrale e strutture periferiche nella Toscana, ed. by Spini, address the reform and regulation of charitable and sanitary institutions under Cosimo I. 49  Terpstra, ‘Competing Visions of the State and Social Welfare’. 50  Céline Perol observes that members of the great patrician families came increasingly to be chosen as presidents of the Unione (the equivalent of the priors of the Misericordia), to the exclusion of Cortonese of the second rank. See Perol, Cortona, p. 189. Perol’s list of the priors from 1440 to 1559 (see n. 47) shows that it was only during the reign of Cosimo I (1537–74) that priors of the Misericordia tended to figure also among the presidents of the Unione.

Daniel Bornstein

18

at that point amounted to a mere tenth of the Misericordia’s four thousand scudi a year.51 By 1571, the assessed value of the Unione dei luoghi pii’s property had reached 8113.75 scudi, which compared quite favourably to the resources of the ancient but decaying abbey of Farneta (3358 scudi), the fashionable convent of the Contesse (11,416 scudi), the cathedral chapter (5997.25 scudi), and the bishopric itself (7757.75 scudi). Nevertheless, it still amounted to just over a quarter of the hospital of Santa Maria della Misericordia’s 30,126.75 scudi.52 While the Misericordia continues to function to this day and the closing of its hospital is viewed with dismay as a loss of an integral part of the civic fabric, no effort was mounted to save the Unione from suppression in 1785. As the case of Cortona has shown, it was possible for hospitals to play two roles within the emergent territorial states of early modern Italy, depending on their sponsorship and management. An institution like Cortona’s Unione dei luoghi pii, created with ducal sponsorship and subject to ducal directives, functioned from its inception as an instrument of ducal policy, favouring the interweaving of local interests into a territorial state. The Misericordia, in contrast, remained an essentially local institution, guided by local elites for local purposes, and so fostered a sense of Cortonese civic pride and a focal point of civic identity long after Cortona lost its independence. Of course, both institutions, like hospitals and the confraternities that ran them throughout early modern Italy and Europe, acted as agents of social control of the poor at the same time that they provided charity for the needy. But in Florentine Cortona (as in Piacenza within the Sforza dominion, Treviso in the Venetian terrafirma state, L’Aquila in the Papal State, and other subject cities of emerging regional states), civic hospitals like the Misericordia performed another crucial, and politically charged, function by preserving a local identity despite the loss of political autonomy and reserving to local elites a satisfying array of honourable offices and social influence.

51 

Mancini, Cortona nel Medio Evo, pp. 321–22. This according to the document cited in n. 35, fols 2v (Farneta), 4v (cathedral chapter), 9r (Contesse), 11r (bishopric and Misericordia), and 11v (Unione dei luoghi pii). 52 

Civic Hospitals, Local Identity, & Regional States in Early Modern Italy 19

Works Cited Manuscripts and Archival Resources Cortona, Archivio storico del comune, C.1 Cortona, Archivio storico del comune, C.7 (Catasto dei beni ecclesiastici)

Secondary Studies Alberzoni, Maria Pia, and Onorato Grassi, eds, La carità a Milano nei secoli xii–xv: Atti del Convegno di studi, Milano, 6–7 novembre 1987, Edizioni universitarie, 63 (Milano: Jaca, 1989) Albini, Giuliana, Città e ospedali nella Lombardia medieval, Biblioteca di storia urbana medieval, 8 (Bologna: Clueb, 1993) —— , ‘Continuità e innovazione: La carità a Milano nel Quattrocento fra tensioni private e strategie pubbliche’, in La carità a Milano nei secoli xii–xv: Atti del Convegno di studi, Milano, 6–7 novembre 1987, ed. by Maria Pia Alberzoni and Onorato Grassi, Edizioni universitarie, 63 (Milano: Jaca, 1989), pp. 137–51 —— , ‘La riforma quattrocentesca degli ospedali nel Ducato di Milano tra poteri laici ed ecclesiastici’, in Povertà e innovazioni istituzionali in Italia: Dal Medioevo ad oggi, ed. by Vera Zamagni (Bologna: Mulino, 2000), pp. 95–109 Andenna, Giancarlo, ‘Aspetti politici della presenza degli Osservanti in Lombardia in età sforzesca’, in Ordini religiosi e società politica in Italia e Germania nei secoli xiv e xv, ed. by Giorgio Chittolini and Kaspar Elm, Annali dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento, Quaderni, 56 (Bologna: Mulino, 2001), pp. 331–72 Banker, James R., and Carol Lansing, eds, Florentine Essays: Selected Writings of Marvin B. Becker (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002) Becker, Marvin B., Florence in Transition, 2 vols (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967–68) Bellah, Robert N., ‘Civil Religion in America’, Daedalus, 96 (1967), 1–21; repr. in Bellah, Beyond Belief: Essays on Religion in a Post-Traditionalist World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991) Bizzocchi, Roberto, Chiesa e potere nella Toscana del Quattrocento, Annali dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico, Monografie, 6 (Bologna: Mulino, 1987) Burckhardt, Jacob, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, trans. by S. G. C. Middle­more, intro. by Benjamin Nelson and Charles Trinkaus (New York: Harper and Row, 1958) —— , Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien: Ein Versuch (Basel: Schweighauser, 1860) Cavallo, Sandra, Charity and Power in Early Modern Italy: Benefactors and their Motives in Turin, 1541–1789 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995) Chittolini, Giorgio, Città, comunità e feudi negli stati dell’Italia centro-settentrionale (xiv– xvi secolo) (Milano: Unicopli, 1996) —— , La formazione dello stato regionale e le istituzioni del contado (Torino: Einaudi, 1979)

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—— , ‘Stati regionali e istituzioni ecclesiastiche nell’Italia centrosettentrionale del Quattro­ cento’, in La Chiesa e il potere politico dal Medioevo all’età contemporanea, ed. by Giorgio Chittolini and Giovanni Miccoli, Storia d’Italia, Annali, 9 (Torino: Einaudi, 1986), pp. 149–93 —— , ed., La Crisi degli ordinamenti comunali e le origini dello stato del Rinascimento, Istituzioni e società nella storia d’Italia, 2 (Bologna: Mulino, 1979) —— , and Giovanni Miccoli, eds, La Chiesa e il potere politico dal Medioevo all’età contem­ poranea, Storia d’Italia, Annali, 9 (Torino: Einaudi, 1986) Cohn, Samuel K., Jr, Creating the Florentine State: Peasants and Rebellion, 1348–1434 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) Cracco, Giorgio, ‘Dalla misericordia della Chiesa alla misericordia del principe’, in La carità a Milano nei secoli xii–xv: Atti del Convegno di studi, Milano, 6–7 novembre 1987, ed. by Maria Pia Alberzoni and Onorato Grassi, Edizioni universitarie, 63 (Milano: Jaca, 1989), pp. 31–46 D’Andrea, David M., Civic Christianity in Renaissance Italy: The Hospital of Treviso, 1400– 1530 (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2007) Davis, Natalie Zemon, ‘Poor Relief, Humanism, and Heresy’, in Natalie Zemon Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1975), pp. 17–64 Di Maggio, Elena, Le donne dell’ospedale del Salvatore di Roma: Sistema assistenziale e beneficenza femminile nei secoli xv e xvi (Pisa: Pacini, 2008) Gavitt, Philip, Charity and Children in Renaissance Florence: The Ospedale degli Innocenti, 1410–1536 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990) Guarini, Elena Fasano, ‘Potere centrale e communità soggette nel Granducato di Cosimo I’, Rivista storica italiana, 89 (1977), 490–538 —— , Lo stato mediceo di Cosimo I (Firenze: Sansoni, 1973) Henderson, John, Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994) —— , The Renaissance Hospital: Healing the Body and Healing the Soul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006) Herlihy, David, Medieval and Renaissance Pistoia: The Social History of an Italian Town, 1200–1430 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967) —— , and Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, Tuscans and their Families: A Study of the Florentine Catasto to 1427 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985) Kirshner, Julius, ed., The Origins of the State in Italy, 1300–1600 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996) Mancini, Girolamo, Cortona nel Medio Evo (Firenze: Carnesecchi, 1897; repr. Cortona: Etruria, 1992) Mesini, Candido, ‘L’opera del beato Michele Carcano nel concentramento ospedaliero pia­centino (1471–1472)’, in Cinque secoli di storia ospedaliera piacentina (1471–1971) (Piacenza, 1973), pp. 209–23 Mirri, Giuseppe, I vescovi di Cortona dalla istituzione della diocesi (1325–1971), ed. by Guido Mirri (Cortona: Calosci, 1972)

Civic Hospitals, Local Identity, & Regional States in Early Modern Italy 21 La Nascita della Toscana: Dal Convegno di studi per il iv centenario della morte di Cosimo I de’ Medici, Biblioteca di storia Toscana moderna e contemporanea, 23 (Firenze: Olschki, 1980) La Roncière, Charles Marie de, ‘Città e ospedali: Bilancio di un convegno’, in Ospedali e città: L’Italia del Centro-Nord, xiii–xvi secolo. Atti del convegno internazionale di studio tenuto dall’Istituto degli innocenti e Villa I Tatti, ed. by Allen J. Grieco and Lucia Sandri (Firenze: Lettere, 1997), pp. 255–72 Perol, Céline, Cortona: Pouvoirs et sociétés aux confins de la Toscane, xve–xvie siècle, Collection de l’École française de Rome, 322 (Roma: École française de Rome, 1994) Peterson, David, ‘Religion, Politics and the Church in Fifteenth-Century Florence’, in Girolamo Savonarola: Piety, Prophecy and Politics in Renaissance Florence, ed. by Donald Weinstein and Valerie R. Hotchkiss, Bridwell Religious Studies Series, 1 (Dallas: Bridwell Library, 1994) pp. 75–83 Polizzotto, Lorenzo, ‘Holy Women, the City and Salvation’, in Girolamo Savonarola: Piety, Prophecy and Politics in Renaissance Florence, ed. by Donald Weinstein and Valerie R. Hotchkiss, Bridwell Religious Studies Series, 1 (Dallas: Bridwell Library, 1994), pp. 85–93 Prodi, Paolo, The Papal Prince: One Body and Two Souls; The Papal Monarchy in Early Mod­ ern Europe, trans. by Susan Haskins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987) Prosperi, Adriano, ‘“Dominus beneficiorum”: Il conferimento dei benefici ecclesiastici tra prassi curiale e ragioni politiche negli stati italiani tra ’400 e ’500’, in Strutture ecclesiastiche in Italia e in Germania prima della Riforma, ed. by Paolo Prodi and Peter Johanek, Annali dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico, Quaderni, 16 (Bologna: Mulino, 1984), pp. 51–86 Pullan, Brian Sebastian, ‘New Approaches to Poverty and New Forms of Institutional Charity in Late Medieval and Renaissance Italy’, in Povertà e innovazioni istituzionali in Italia: Dal Medioevo ad oggi, ed. by Vera Zamagni (Bologna: Mulino, 2000), pp. 17–43 —— , Rich and Poor in Renaissance Venice: The Social Institutions of a Catholic State, to 1620 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971) Sandri, Lucia, L’ospedale di S. Maria della Scala di S. Gimignano nel Quattrocento: Con­tri­ buto alla storia dell’infanzia abbandonata (Firenze: Società storica della Valdelsa, 1982) Spini, Giorgio, ed., Potere centrale e strutture periferiche nella Toscana del ’500 (Firenze: Olschki, 1980) Storia della solidarietà a Firenze: Conferenze tenute nell’Atrio dell’ex ospedale di San Giovanni di Dio nella primavera 1984 su iniziativa dell’Assessorato alla Sicurezza Sociale del Comune di Firenze (Firenze: Libreria Editrice Fiorentina, 1985) Tanzini, Lorenzo, Alle origini della Toscana moderna: Firenze e gli statuti delle comunità soggette tra xiv e xvi secolo, Biblioteca storica toscana, 54 (Firenze: Olschki, 2007) Terpstra, Nicholas, Abandoned Children of the Italian Renaissance: Orphan Care in Florence and Bologna (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005) —— , ‘Competing Visions of the State and Social Welfare: The Medici Dukes, the Bigallo Magistrates, and Local Hospitals in Sixteenth-Century Tuscany’, Renaissance Quarterly, 54 (2001), 1319–55

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—— , Lay Confraternities and Civic Religion in Renaissance Bologna (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995) —— , ‘The Politics of Confraternal Charity: Centre, Periphery, and the Modes of Con­ fra­ternal Involvement in Early Modern Civic Welfare’, in Povertà e innovazioni istitu­ zionali in Italia: Dal Medioevo ad oggi, ed. by Vera Zamagni (Bologna: Mulino, 2000), pp. 153–73 Thompson, Augustine, Cities of God: The Religion of the Italian Communes, 1125–1325 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005) Vauchez, André, ed., La Religion civique à l’époque médiévale et moderne: Chrétienté et Islam, Collection de l’École française de Rome, 213 (Roma: École française de Rome, 1995) Vitolo, Giovanni, ‘Ordini mendicanti e dinamiche politico-sociali nel Mezzogiorno angioino-aragonese’, in Ordini religiosi e società politica in Italia e Germania nei secoli xiv e xv, ed. by Giorgio Chittolini and Kaspar Elm, Annali dell’Istituto storico italogermanico in Trento, Quaderni, 56 (Bologna: Mulino, 2001), pp. 115–49 Weinstein, Donald, ‘Critical Issues in the Study of Civic Religion in Renaissance Florence’, in The Pursuit of Holiness in Late Medieval and Renaissance Religion, ed. by Charles Trinkaus with Heiko A. Oberman, Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought, 10 (Leiden: Brill, 1974), pp. 265–70 —— , ‘Introduction’, in Girolamo Savonarola: Piety, Prophecy and Politics in Renaissance Florence, ed. by Donald Weinstein and Valerie R. Hotchkiss, Bridwell Religious Studies Series, 1 (Dallas: Bridwell Library, 1994), p. iii

Delegated Charity: Confraternities between City, Nations, and Curia in Late Medieval Rome Anna Esposito*

T

he history of late medieval Roman confraternities is comparable only in part to that of other cities in the same period for a number of reasons. Above all, Rome possessed a pontiff who was not only the city’s spiritual point of reference, but also a temporal ruler, the lord of the city. Even more distinctive, in my view, is the early and close relationship between confraternities and pontifical authority, particularly in the area of social assistance. In this essay, I will seek to shed light on Roman confraternities and the role they developed in the late medieval period as privileged ‘delegates’ in certain spiritual and charitable works promoted by the popes. This role was undertaken by the lay brothers (or confratres) together with other faithful on behalf of the ecclesiastical authorities (including the pontiff ) by way of a series of devotional and charitable practices. The roles were drawn from confraternal tradition while also responding to the new needs of Roman society and particularly the needs of both marginalized urban

*  I am grateful to Nicholas Terpstra, who has discussed with me some of the issues raised in

this paper (of course, I remain responsible for any errors) and to Camilla Russell for the translation. Anna Esposito ([email protected]) is Associate Professor in Medieval History at the Università di Roma — La Sapienza. Her particular research interest is in the urban social history of early Renaissance Rome, with an emphasis on economic, religious, and cultural questions as they regard Rome and the Papal State. Her research aims to set particular groups like women, confraternities, charitable institutions, and Jewish youth in these contexts. She has published many articles and monographs, including the two volumes of I processi contro gli ebrei di Trento (1475–1478), i: I processi del 1475, and ii: I processi alle donne, (Padova 2008) (in collaboration with D. Quaglioni).

24 Anna Esposito

groups (chiefly women and the poor) and of diasporic national communities. What we find is that it was not only popes who delegated confraternities to be the agents of their charitable will. The pattern of delegation was followed by many others who called on confraternities to perform charitable actions for others. In some cases, it was members who called on their confraternity to fulfil their charitable will to other brothers or to the Roman poor generally. Yet just as frequently, it was men and women who were not members of the confraternity who left donations or legacies to the brotherhood and then delegated the confratres to become the agents who would fulfil their charitable will. The Roman brotherhoods shared a similar pattern of evolution with many other confraternities by becoming the principal (if not exclusive) lay organizers of urban charitable assistance to the poor and infirm. What set the Roman associations apart was their early interest in undertaking charitable works that extended beyond the usual scope of remembrance for their deceased members, and providing help in cases of financial ruin and illness. This is particularly evident from the second half of the fourteenth century when even the smallest lay confraternity in Rome (with the exception of those established for other ‘nations’ from outside Italy) had facilities for the recovery for the poor and sick, available to the entire city. Before confronting the important question of organized assistance, however, the need for which was felt in equal measure by single benefactors and by ecclesiastical and civil authorities, I would like to turn our attention to the growing importance that some confraternities began to acquire in Roman society on account of their being deeply embedded in civic life. This was the case above all because the efficiency and institutional solidarity they displayed earned them widespread esteem and trust, the manifestations of which are of particular interest here. It is not by chance, then, that confraternities were being called on (not only by the confratres but also by many faithful who were not members of the brotherhoods) to organize funerary ceremonies and above all anniversary remembrances. The latter included the celebration of memorial masses in the church of burial for members and also for anyone who had ‘left anything to our company’ or had contributed a sum of money that varied, according to the strength of the association, between twenty-five and fifty florins.1 These funerary and requiem services in particular were increasingly requested of the Roman confraternities, a develop1 

‘Lassato alcuna cosa alla nostra compagnia’. See the statutes of the Gonfalone confraternity edited in Esposito, ‘Le “confraternite” del Gonfalone’, chap. 44, p. 128, and chap. 43, p. 127 respectively. On the significance of anniversary practices, in which confraternities specialized, see Chiffoleau, La Comptabilité de l’au-delà, pp. 206–10.

Delegated Charity

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ment illustrated by the numerous bequests to confraternities contained in wills from the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, especially to brotherhoods that provided the greatest guarantee of stability and continuity.2 These institutions were, in a certain sense, charged or delegated with keeping the memory of the deceased alive. Their manuscript registers of legacies provide a record in time and within society of those who had entrusted themselves to the confraternities for such a purpose, considering the associations to be structurally solid and even capable of replacing familial ties. This was especially important during a period in which the precariousness and solitude of life were so keenly felt.3 The confraternal structure offered many different avenues of assistance in areas of common concern among the faithful; with regard to death in particular, these concerns included avoiding the punishments of purgatory, securing eternal life, and preserving one’s memory among the living. Indeed, by way of legacies and donations, a single member of a confraternity could reinforce his or her associative ties, enjoy in the most intimate way the spiritual benefits offered by the association, and simultaneously establish an individualized and durable presence in confraternal and civic collective memory. He or she could do this by commissioning works for the decoration and embellishment of the confraternal facilities, as well as by donating a painting or a devotional or charitable object.4 In addition, it was possible to formulate more personal requests, such as the organization of a lunch for all the members of the company to celebrate an anniversary. This is what Jannangilo Beccaluva did in his will of 1469 for his confratres at S. Maria in Portico, leaving ‘in perpetuity for his memory’ a generous legacy of four ducats for them to have a meal annually in his memory.5 2  An exhaustive study of wills in late medieval Rome has yet to be conducted. Currently, only studies of parts of the city have been undertaken. On the Parione district during the pontificate of Sixtus IV, for example, see Barbalarga, ‘Il rione Parione durante il pontificato sistino’. For the city as a whole during the pontificate of Martin V, see Sanfilippo, ‘Morire a Roma’. For the wills of women only, see Lombardo and Morelli, ‘Donne e testamenti a Roma nel Quattrocento’. 3  Similar requests are rather diffused; see the case of Florence analysed by Henderson, Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence. For a review of practices of commemoration in Italian confraternities see Frank, ‘Confraternities, “memoria” and law in late medieval Italy’. 4  Alternatively, it was the confraternity itself that satisfied this kind of need, commissioning works of embellishment in their own devotional centres, even in the most modest ones. On this, see Esposito, ‘Le confraternite romane tra arte e devozione’. On the subject of artistic commissions specifically by confraternities in this period, see Crossing the Boundaries, ed. by Eisenbichler, and particularly on confraternal patronage of religious images, see Wisch, ‘Incorporating Images’. 5  See ASR, CNC, 1083, c. 72 (3 July 1469), regesto, in ASR, Consolazione, reg. 76, c. 90v.

26 Anna Esposito

But the delegation of religious and charitable tasks to the Roman brotherhoods by confratres and other faithful did not end here. Remaining in the realm of personal affairs, it was by no means rare to find people entrusting to the officials of the more important brotherhoods the task of settling unpaid debts that had not been satisfied in life. This was the case especially at San Salvatore, the Gonfalone, and SS. Annunziata.6 Naturally, these tasks were given to the brotherhoods together with the legacies required to repay the debts themselves. In addition, members of Roman brotherhoods were asked to serve as executors of private wills, designated as officials pro tempore with the task of overseeing the succession of goods of a deceased person. This was a clear sign of the level of faith placed in these institutions, compared with relatives or friends, to carry out the wishes of the testator. Men and women tended to approach this differently. Men tended to record in their wills debts of work: for the services of artisans who remained unpaid, or work-associated loans that had not been honoured, which was often the case among mercatores. Women for the most part created legacies with their dowries which, whether in whole or in part, had not been returned by the relatives of the deceased husband. In the area of single charitable acts (which were always undertaken with a view to the salvation of one’s own soul) testators could entrust the brotherhoods with carrying out particular requests. A common example was the provision of meals for the poor, often provided to groups of twelve participants in memory of the twelve apostles; these meals often took place on important feast days such as Christmas, Easter, or All Saints.7 Other acts of charity intended for individual recipients or for particular groups (hospital patients, for instance) included the distribution of bread, clothing, and money, usually on the occasion of a funeral or an anniversary. The income from goods left to confraternities was often designated for this purpose.8 6  See, respectively, Pavan, ‘Gli statuti della società dei Raccomandati del Salvatore ad Sancta Sanctorum’; Esposito, ‘Le “confraternite” del Gonfalone’; Esposito, ‘Le confraternite del matrimonio’; Esposito, ‘Ad dotandum puellas virgines, pauperes et honestas’. 7  For example, for the legacy of Lazzaro qd. Nicolai de Duratio to the association of the Maddalena, see ASV, Gonfalone, mazzo 3 (ex C), perg. 33, 28 July 1470; also, Marco Antonio Iacovacci left to the SS. Annunziata a meal for twelve poor people on the day of All Saints (ASR, SS. Annunziata, reg. 239, c. 29r). 8  For legacies in houses to rent, whose fruits were to be spent ‘for necessary items for the care of those poor who are in Consolazione’s hospital’ (‘in cose necessarie alli poveri che stan nell’hospitale de Consolazione per manutenzione de quelli’), see, for example, the codicil of Antonio de Antonisci Ludovici of the S. Angelo district, in ASR, Consolazione, reg. 746, c. 92v, a. 1472; see also legacies relating to the provision of clothing for twelve poor people ‘who are

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There is no doubt, however, that the most significant undertaking, whether by private citizens or confraternal institutions, was the organization and management of places of care for the poor and sick. In Rome, the activity of charitable assistance, which in the early fourteenth century still had a vaguely corporate flavour, quickly transformed to include all pauperes et infirmi of the city and extended also to pilgrims de diversis mundi partibus. These groups received prodigious care, both material and spiritual, as ‘a sign of the collective sensitivity towards the theme of charity, but also a concrete response to the diffuse need for public order’. Such sentiments were expressed in particular by merchants, proprietors, and businessmen, who constituted the majority of members of the most important confraternities in Rome.9 For the members of these societies, the hospital was felt to represent the very best type of charitable work. Many in this period still considered hospitals chiefly as hostels that sheltered a diverse range of the needy, even if in the fifteenth century there was no lack of concrete evidence that hospitals were evolving into places for the sick.10 The attention given to ‘infirm, weak, or abandoned people’, especially those who lived precarious lives, who were not financially self-sufficient, or who no longer had adequate family support, reflects a problem that was typical of late medieval urban society. Efforts were made to confront these problems. Private funds were used to establish shelters (the domus pauperum) for the most derelict among the population, while the most organized and well-administered confraternities were given the task of running these shelters. One example was the case of the Raccommandati del Salvatore, which at the end of the fifteenth century administered about ten such houses.11 In addition, for those of a more elevated social status who had fallen into poverty, there were facilities appropriately reserved for confratres who wanted to deliver themselves ‘together with all of their goods, into our hands’ (‘insieme con le loro robe nelle nostre mano’). These men infirm in the said hospital’ (‘che gesseranno de infirmità nello decto hospitale’), or for twelve poor people ‘who are in need, and in possession of clothing in poor condition’ (‘abisognosi male vestiti’), so described in the donation of the cardinal of Monreale, Podio de Auxia, in 1480 (ASR, Consolazione, reg. 746, c. 98r). 9  ‘Segno di sensibilità al tema della carità, ma anche risposta concreta alla diffusa esigenza di ordine pubblico’, in Pavan, ‘La confraternita del Salvatore’, p. 85. 10  For the evolution of hospitals, see Pastore, ‘Strutture assistenziali tra Chiesa e Stati nell’Italia’; Cosmacini, Storia della medicina e della sanità in Italia. For Roman context, see Esposito, ‘Gli ospedali romani’. 11  ASR, Ospedale del Salvatore, reg. 373, c. 4r; ASR, Ospedale del Salvatore, cass. 413, no. 9; ASR, Ospedale del Salvatore, cass. 418, no. 14.

28 Anna Esposito

and women became oblates of the society in which they were members. This was the case for the Gonfalone, which in its statues of 1495 provided care for the women of S. Maria Maddalena and the men of the Holy Forty Martyrs, in whose hospices they had to be ‘looked after with diligence using their own goods, which, when they are finished, they have the right to be sustained with our goods’.12 There were many more ways in which single individuals delegated confraternal institutions with meeting particular requests, and these appeared most often in the area of social assistance. Analysis of a variety of documentary sources reveals significant concern on the part of both men and women for their own survival in situations of solitude or other difficulties. Above all, women who could not count on adequate familial protection ‘delegated’ to a pious association the responsibility for their own care and sustenance. Many of these women were widows who deeded their homes to their chosen organizations in exchange for personal assistance. This was the case for Angela, widow of one Massaruzio, who in her will of 1420 offered to the society of San Salvatore the legacy of her residential home, where she intended to stay until her death. In return, the society was obliged to provide her with clothing and care for the remainder of her life.13 There was no lack of ‘badly married’ women either, that is, women who were abandoned by their husbands and who entrusted themselves to a confraternity for their survival. This is what a certain Pulissena did at the end of the fifteenth century. She was the wife of a barber of Valmontone, who had thrown her out of the marital home and abandoned her for over five years. Pulissena revoked the donation of her house to her husband and instead gave it as a legacy to the confraternity of S. Maria delle Grazie Consolazione, which, in return, had given her food, shelter, and other forms of care since the time of her abandonment.14 For the most part however, Roman testators, and especially those of middleto-high social rank, were concerned with the survival of their indigent neighbours. It was within this context, as we have already noted, that they became involved in the foundation of designated shelters (the domus pauperum), usually in houses specifically reserved for this purpose. In some cases, when a direct heir was lacking, this might even be the same house that the testator also lived in. 12  ‘con diligentia manutenuti secondo le loro robe, le quali non bastando, selli debia subvenire dalle nostre entrate’ (Esposito, ‘Le “confraternite” del Gonfalone’, chap. 47, p. 129, but see also Pavan, ‘Gli statuti della società dei Raccomandati del Salvatore ad Sancta Sanctorum’, p. 60). 13  ‘ei gubernari et ei subveniri in vestimentis et calciamentis vita natural durante’ (ASR, Ospedale del Salvatore, cass. 451, no. 19). 14  ‘gubernata de comedendo et bibendo et de multis aliis beneficiis’ (ASR, Ospedale della Consolazione, reg. 33, c. 91r, a. 19 March 1500).

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29

Testators entrusted the carrying out of their wishes to pious confraternities (often even including the choice of pauperes who would live in the home) in order to guarantee the survival of this arrangement.15 There were numerous instances of this type of agreement, but one example suffices to underline the point: the notary Francesco Vecchi requested in 1363 that a hospitale solepne with twelve beds should be erected in his house, overseen by the Società del Salvatore in exchange for prayers and other devotions for the salvation of his soul.16 It is worth noting, however, that over the course of the fifteenth century the majority of charitable works by men and women were directed towards the assistance of the social category that was considered the weakest: women. They were thought most particularly to be exposed to the dangers of the world on account of their fragile physiology.17 Indeed in this context, late medieval Rome is noteworthy for the presence of so many ‘national’ organizations for social assistance dedicated exclusively to the care of expatriate women. This was due in part to the increasing number of pilgrimages to the Eternal City and the growing population of female pilgrims during this period. Many of these same women often found themselves unable to return home for a variety of reasons. Another explanation for the high number of institutions for women in Rome is that women were the principal victims of several forms of increasing social marginalization and destabilization that in Rome seemed to be particularly keenly felt. It is in the context of this rapid multiplication of shelters (called variously ospita or domus pauperum mulierum) that male and female benefactors delegated the members of confraternities as the ones chosen to administer and govern these institutions using the income from their legacies. Many of these ‘houses of women’ (literally ‘case di donne’) were composed of widows, mulieres religiose, pinzoche, and tertiaries (who usually maintained some links with a mendicant order).18 Indeed, by the end of the fifteenth century, each ‘nation’ can be said to have had a hospice or hospital for its own pilgrims, mainly established by lay benefactors for the temporary accommodation of its lay faithful.19 In establishing similar institutions, the Romans directed those responsible for the confraternities 15 

On the foundations pro anima, see the interesting observations of Rando, ‘Fundationes e società cittadina’. 16  ASR, Ospedale del Salvatore, cass. 484, no. 9, a. 1363; see also a variety of wills in ASR, Ospedale del Salvatore, cass. 502. 17  De Maio, Donne e Rinascimento. For institutions concerned with the assistance of women, see Papi, ‘In castro poenitentiae’, especially pp. 635–65. 18  Esposito, ‘St. Francesca and the Female Religious Communities of Fifteenth Century Rome’. 19  Esposito, ‘Pellegrini, stranieri, curiali ed ebrei’.

30 Anna Esposito

in their cities to reserve some of them for the exclusive accommodation of Roman women, or at least italiche.20 The same ‘nationalistic’ flavour can be found in legacies for dotal funds, which started to appear with some frequency in Roman wills in the fifteenth century. Increasingly, testators (especially those without direct heirs), entrusted to their confraternities the task of providing dowries through the establishment of endowments. Indeed, the last decades of the fifteenth century saw the emergence of confraternities that were dedicated specifically and exclusively to providing dowries for poor girls who were identified as being at risk. Beginning with the company at SS. Annunziata alla Minerva, which was tied to the Dominican order (and therefore to SS. Concezione in S. Lorenzo in Damaso), this initiative was followed by numerous brotherhoods that traditionally were concerned with other works of charity.21 We should not underestimate the role of spiritual intercessor that these dowered girls could play on behalf of their benefactors.22 At the same time, it is important to keep in mind that the care of vulnerable children was viewed as a response to a social imperative to curtail prostitution and illegitimate births, which were viewed as social problems that strongly undermined the institution of marriage, which was believed to be the cornerstone of society. It is no coincidence that by the end of the fifteenth century, ecclesiastical authorities at the highest level were already involved in this charity in increasingly visible ways. The pope himself played a role in person at the celebration of the ‘marriage’ feast, where symbolic dowries were bestowed on the girls; the pope also made financial contributions, even if these were only one-time (una tantum) gifts, such as the one thousand ducats of gold that Leo X donated to the SS. Annunziata.23 20  For example, see ASR, Ospedale del Salvatore, cass. 413, no. 9, 31 July 1427, regarding the will of Perna, widow of Lorenzo Bonianni ‘de magistri Luce de regione S. Angeli’, who leaves her habitation (after the death of her daughter Caterina) to two poor and honest women, italicis tantum, chosen by the guardians of San Salvatore, as well as another house for their care. Another example among many is a will of 1495 and a codicil of 1496 of the magnifica domina Elisabetta dell’Anguillara, in which the testator states that she has acquired a house for poor people in the district of Pigna in the parish of S. Stefano del Cacco, where her niece Flora can stay, if she wishes (ASR, Ospedale del Salvatore, cass. 413, no. 49, in Adinolfi, Laterano e via Maggiore, doc. 1, pp. 123–29). 21  Esposito, ‘Le confraternite del matrimonio’; Barone, ‘La confraternita della SS. Con­cezione’. 22  See Chabot, ‘La beneficenza dotale nei testamenti del tardo Medioevo’, p. 60. 23  Esposito, ‘Le confraternite del matrimonio’, pp. 7–8. On the oversight of female virtue, see Casagrande, ‘La donna custodita’. For example, the SS. Annunziata supplied a dotal quota to a converted Jewess; on this, see Constantia f. Salamonis imbastarii ebrei et uxor discreti viri Dominici qd. Antonii Bonfigli de Prato mulacterii, ASR, SS. Annunziata, reg. 355, c. 126v, a. 1514.

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Pontifical authorities were consistent in their support for confraternal affairs throughout the late fifteenth century and the first half of the sixteenth century. Their attitude extended to all sectors of social assistance, especially the care and recovery of the destitute and sick. Papal support for confraternal work in these areas represents further evidence of the state delegating the work of social assistance to confraternities rather than taking direct responsibility for the task. These brotherhood associations were invested with the appropriate organs and bodies required for undertaking the work specific to social assistance. Yet, in the context of this discussion, it is perhaps not too rash to conceive of this relationship as still more complex, operating on two levels. On one level, it was the papacy itself that encouraged confraternities of various types to provide charity (discussed in more detail below). On another level, it was the confraternities that in turn delegated to others the task of providing practical assistance to those pauperes et infirmi who were unable to take care of themselves, regardless of whether or not they were members of the brotherhoods. In contrast with other regions in central and southern Italy, Rome played host to a constant, if not always linear, process of concentration of hospitals from the second half of the mid-fifteenth century. Here, there was a ‘more incisive undertaking on the part of the government, both by the princely and citizen authorities’ in the area of social assistance.24 Rome was distinct: the pope had been for some time the absolute ruler of the city, which was both the seat of an international court and the capital of a state.25 As a result, Rome’s evolution in the area of social assistance was different from that of other regions and was more contingent on its particular political circumstances. Rome was recognized ab antiquo for its numerous hospices and schole for pilgrims, located around the city’s major holy sites. At the beginning of the thirteenth century, the city saw the foundation of the hospital of S. Spirito by Pope Innocent III in the vicinity of the Vatican, which was entrusted to the hospital order of Guido da Montpellier. Henceforth, a series of popes would consider it as l’hospitale nostrum (our hospital) and the object of their special care. Sixtus IV was 24  ‘Un più incisivo impegno da parte delle autorità di governo, sia dei prìncipi sia delle autorità cittadine’ (Pastore, ‘Strutture assistenziali tra Chiesa e Stati nell’Italia’, pp. 436–37). For ‘a comparative analysis of institutional innovation as it concerns the incorporation of confraternal charity into civic charity in a critical period of transition’, see Terpstra, ‘The Politics of Confraternal Charity’; also Terpstra, ‘Confraternities and Public Charity’. 25  See Roma capitale, ed. by Gensini. For an analysis of the politico-institutional transformations of the city from the second half of the fifteenth century, see Prodi, Il sovrano pontefice, especially chaps 1–3, pp. 13–126.

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particularly attentive to the hospital’s needs, overseeing its complete restoration, refitting, and decoration. On the opposite side of the city, close to the Lateran basilica, a lay fraternity established the nucleus for what would become the hospital ‘del Salvatore’ in the early thirteenth century. Considered to be the true hospital of the Romans, the Salvatore was directly overseen from the second half of the fourteenth century in particular by the most enterprising members of the mercantile class in Rome, which guaranteed the hospital’s success and efficiency. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, a number of other confraternities emerged, also equipped with hospitals. They were modelled on the Salvatore and governed by members of the urban mercantile and professional classes. These institutions, and in particular the Salvatore, grew strongly over the course of the fifteenth century. The reason for this was that the families of the emerging municipal classes in both the political and economic sectors were already leaders of the Curia and the external financial affairs of the city. Through their involvement in confraternal institutions and social assistance societies, these same groups were able to ‘reaffirm their own identity and role in an urban contest that seemed to leave ever diminishing opportunities for taking part’.26 Hence, it was upon the management of hospitals that the interests of Roman confraternal groups were focused in the fifteenth century. At the same time, these hospitals were increasingly modern and complex institutions that gradually expanded their roles in the provision of more efficient health care. While the sight of confratres providing direct and personal care to patients did not disappear completely from the hallways and wards of these hospitals, the practical side of care nevertheless tended increasingly to be entrusted to salaried personnel, who grew both in numbers and level of specialization. This process represented a kind of delegation of the practice of charity on the part of confraternal associations. The attitude of the popes towards the confraternities in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries was twofold. On the one hand, they did not present any obstacles to the establishment of organizations for social assistance, which were set up by confraternities alongside S. Spirito. This was a continuation of the pluralistic nature of Rome’s evolving system of social charity, where foundations for foreigners multiplied in addition to the traditional brotherhoods. Far from objecting, the papacy often conferred special privileges on these foundations both old and new, especially during times of crisis, such as during famine and epidemics, or to mark special events, such as jubilees. Such initiatives functioned at a number of different levels. They constituted a response to the needs of a city under­going intense 26 

‘Riaffermare la propria identità ed il proprio ruolo in un contesto urbano che sembra lasciare sempre minori spazi d’intervento’, in Pavan, ‘La confraternita del Salvatore’, p. 89.

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demographic growth on account of the constant influx of migrants. They promoted an image of efficiency, and hence represented an enticement for Christians to undertake pilgrimages to Rome, and not just during the holy years. They promoted consensus in the city on questions concerning the authority of the pope, while also strengthening public order, easing social tensions, and meeting the needs of marginal groups.27 Finally, the recognition and concession of privileges to ‘national’ confraternities provided a useful opportunity to strengthen diplomatic relations between the Holy See and other European powers.28 On the other hand, the popes were actively interested in weakening those associations that traditionally brought together some of those social groups in the city that might in some way challenge the civic-religious and politicalliturgical primacy of the papacy. This was particularly the case with the devotional confraternities, which practised preferential or selective recruitment of members, and which allowed the participation of extraneous elements, such as members of the Curia and the ecclesiastical sector generally.29 In this sense, one would do well to consider the first aggregations of confraternities, mainly those in charge of hospitals, that took place with papal support between the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries. The creation of a new entity brought with it substantial changes among the institution’s elite. Members of the Roman aristocracy sometimes found themselves demoted to second rank after many years of exercising control over small hospitals. For example, the Gonfalone merged seven separate confraternities in 1495, while the new company of S. Maria ‘de vita eterna’, was formed in 1505 from ‘the union and confederation’ of three small Marian brotherhoods.30 Equally significant is the appearance of the cardinal protector in the institutional order of the confraternities. This occurred at the end of the fifteenth century, when this figure begins to appear in the reformed statutes of the ancient brotherhoods. The objective was to establish a closer link between the Roman confraternities and the papacy, with a view to erasing the ancient municipal social 27 

For the conspicuous subsidies of three hundred ducats annually that Leo X began to donate to the sodality of S. Giacomo for hospital ‘degli Incurabili’ from July 1515, see ASR, Ospedale S. Giacomo, reg. 1145, c. 8r. For the early modern period, see Lazar, ‘The First Jesuit Confraternities and Marginalized Groups’. For more recent contributions on social welfare and social control from Italian confraternities, see Black, ‘The Development of Confraternity Studies’, pp. 25–28. See also Terpstra, ‘Apprenticeship in Social Welfare’. 28  See Esposito, ‘Gli ospedali romani’, p. 250. 29  Hurtubise, ‘La Présence des étrangers à la cour de Rome’. 30  See Esposito, ‘Le confraternite e gli ospedali’.

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structures, and to establish instead greater control over the city precisely through these confraternal structures of social assistance.31 From the point of view of the confraternities, it became increasingly important to have members who were close to the papacy, in order to solicit and secure papal assistance more easily.32 At the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries, a different type of confraternity was emerging with a distinctly social value. 33 This process occurred in confraternities with a membership that included many clerical members of middle-to-high status and unfolded at the initiative of highranking persons in the Church. This was the case, for example, in S. Girolamo della Carità,34 the Divino Amore,35 and S. Rocco,36 which were all founded in this period with the stated objective of confronting the ever more pressing problem of urban poverty. By the second half of the sixteenth century, as Luigi Fiorani has shown, Romans would witness the birth of institutions established by a State seeking to resolve their most pressing social problems, but this is another story.37 Rome’s particular status as a city of ‘foreigners’ — from the pope himself to the curialists hailing from one end of Christendom to the other, from pilgrims and journeymen to merchants, soldiers, and more — created an urban dynamic unlike that found anywhere else in Europe. Many of those resident in Rome had only shallow roots in the city and, as they sought out trustworthy agents to fulfil their charitable impulses in life and in death, they turned inevitably to Rome’s confraternities. They charged confraternities with feeding the poor, dowering the nubile, sheltering the pilgrims, and healing the sick — all in their name, with the resources that they had left in the form of legacies or gifts. As Rome was recovering its population, its powers, and its pull in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth 31 

On the diffusion of this system in the modern era, see Piccialuti, La carità come metodo di governo. 32  This was standard procedure for all Roman brotherhoods at the end of the fifteenth century, although only for the society of the SS. Concezione in the statues of 1494 is inserted a rubric where it is stated that the priors must submit to the care of ‘habere plenariam indulgentiam a Summo Pontefice, qua habita, apponantur cedule per Urbem […] et hoc idem per tubicines manifestius nuntietur’, on which see Barone, ‘La confraternita della SS. Concezione’, chap. 33, p. 126. 33  Fiorani, ‘Charitate et pietate’, p. 468. 34  See Carlino, ‘L’arciconfraternita di S. Girolamo della Carità’. 35  Camilloci, I devoti della carità. 36  Canofeni, ‘La confraternita di S. Rocco’; Langellotti, ‘L’ospedale di S. Rocco dalle origini al 1612’. 37  Fiorani, ‘Charitate et pietate’.

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centuries, its ancient brotherhoods found themselves called upon more and more to be the delegated agents of a wide range of locals and foreigners. Popes were among those foreigners who relied on traditional and new confraternities in this way, and who thereby increased the influence and social role of these institutions. Papal patronage drew the confraternities more closely into Rome’s governing structures, while also drawing more of Rome’s governors, including its curialists, into the brotherhoods. This eroded the old boundaries between civic laity and curial clergy in the old confraternities, and prepared the way for the emergence of new confraternities in the sixteenth century that would be the delegated agents of a revived and ambitious Tridentine church.

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Works Cited Manuscripts and Archival Resources Città del Vaticano, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Gonfalone, mazzo 3 (ex C) Roma, Archivio di Stato, Collegio dei Notai Capitolini, 1083 —— , Consolazione, reg. 746 —— , Ospedale della Consolazione, reg. 33 —— , Ospedale del Salvatore, cass. 413 —— , Ospedale del Salvatore, cass. 418 —— , Ospedale del Salvatore, cass. 451 —— , Ospedale del Salvatore, cass. 484 —— , Ospedale del Salvatore, cass. 502 —— , Ospedale del Salvatore, reg. 373 —— , Ospedale S. Giacomo, reg. 1145 —— , SS. Annunziata, reg. 239 —— , SS. Annunziata, reg. 355

Secondary Studies Adinolfi, Pasquale, Laterano e via Maggiore: Saggio della topografia di Roma nell’età di mezzo (Roma: Tiberina, 1857) Barbalarga, Donatella, ‘Il rione Parione durante il pontificato sistino: analisi di un’area cam­ pione. Gli atteggiamenti devozionali nei testamenti’, in Un pontificato e una città: Sisto IV (1471–1484): Atti del convegno, Roma 3–7 dicembre 1984, ed. by Massimo Miglio and others, Littera antiqua, 5 (Roma: Roma nel Rinascimento, 1986), pp. 694–705 Barone, Raffaella, ‘La confraternita della SS. Concezione in S. Lorenzo in Damaso di Roma (con l’edizione degli statuti del 1494)’, Archivio della Società romana di storia patria, 126 (2003), 69–135 Black, Christopher F., ‘The Development of Confraternity Studies over the Past Thirty Years’, in The Politics of Ritual Kinship: Confraternities and Social Order in Early Mod­ ern Italy, ed. by Nicholas Terpstra, Cambridge Studies in Italian History and Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 9–29 Camillocci, Daniela Solfaroli, I devoti della carità: Le confraternite del Divino Amore nell’Italia del primo Cinquecento (Napoli: Città del sole, 2002) Canofeni, Paola, ‘La confraternita di S. Rocco: Origine e primi anni’, Archivio della Società romana di storia patria, 109 (1986), 57–86 Carlino, Andrea, ‘L’arciconfraternita di S. Girolamo della Carità: l’origine e l’ideologia assistenziale’, Archivio della Società romana di storia patria, 107 (1984), 275–306 Casagrande, Carla, ‘La donna custodita’, in Storia delle donne: Il Medioevo, ed. by Christine Klapisch-Zuber (Bari: Laterza, 1990), pp. 88–128 Chabot, Isabelle, ‘La beneficenza dotale nei testamenti del tardo Medioevo’, in Povertà e innovazioni istituzionali in Italia dal Medioevo ad oggi, ed. by Vera Zamagni (Bologna: Mulino, 2000), pp. 55–76

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Chiffoleau, Jacques, La Comptabilité de l’au-delà: Les hommes, la mort et la religion dans la région d’Avignon à la fin du Moyen Âge (vers 1320–vers 1480), Collection de l’École française de Rome, 47 (Roma: École française de Rome, 1980) Cosmacini, Giorgio, Storia della medicina e della sanità in Italia: Dalla peste europea alla guerra mondiale, 1348–1918 (Roma: Laterza, 1987) De Maio, Romeo, Donne e Rinascimento, La cultura, 61 (Milano: Saggiatore, 1987) Eisenbichler, Konrad, ed., Crossing the Boundaries: Christian Piety and the Arts in Italian Medieval and Renaissance Confraternities, Early Drama, Art, and Music Monograph Series, 15 (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute, 1991) Esposito, Anna, ‘Ad dotandum puellas virgines, pauperes et honestas: Social Needs and Confraternal Charities in Rome in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries’, Renaissance and Reformation, 18 (1994), 5–18 —— , ‘Le “confraternite” del Gonfalone’, Ricerche per la storia religiosa di Roma, 5 (1984), 91–136 —— , ‘Le confraternite del matrimonio: Carità, devozione e bisogni sociali a Roma nel tardo Quattrocento (con l’edizione degli Statuti vecchi della Compagnia della SS. Annunziata)’, in Un’idea di Roma: Società, arte e cultura tra Umanesimo e Rinascimento, ed. by Laura Fortini (Roma: Roma nel Rinascimento, 1993), pp. 7–51 —— , ‘Le confraternite e gli ospedali di S. Maria in Portico, S. Maria delle Grazie e S. Maria della Consolazione a Roma (secc. xv–xvi)’, Ricerche di storia sociale e religiosa, n.s., 17–18 (1980), 145–72 —— , ‘Le confraternite romane tra arte e devozione: persistenze e mutamenti nel corso del xv secolo’, in Arte, committenza ed economia a Roma e nelle corti del Rinascimento (1420–1530): Atti del convegno internazionale, Roma, 24–27 ottobre 1990, ed. by Arnold Esch and Christopher L. Frommel, Piccola biblioteca Einaudi, 630 (Torino: Einaudi, 1995), pp. 107–20 —— , ‘Gli ospedali romani tra iniziativa laicale e politica pontificia (secc. xiii–xv)’, in Ospedali e città: L’Italia del Centro-Nord, xiii–xvi secolo. Atti del convegno inter­ nazionale di studio tenuto dall’Istituto degli innocenti e Villa I Tatti, ed. by Allen J. Grieco and Lucia Sandri (Firenze: Lettere, 1997), pp. 233–51 —— , ‘Pellegrini, stranieri, curiali ed ebrei’, in Roma medievale, ed. by André Vauchez (Roma: Laterza, 2001), pp. 213–39 —— , ‘St. Francesca and the Female Religious Communities of Fifteenth Century Rome’, in Women and Religion in Medieval and Renaissance Italy, ed. by Daniel Bornstein and Roberto Rusconi, trans. by Margery J. Schneider (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), pp. 197–218 Fiorani, Luigi, ‘Charitate et pietate: Confraternite e gruppi devoti nella città rinascimentale e barocca’, in Roma, la città del papa: Vita civile e religiosa dal giubileo di Bonifacio VIII al giubileo di papa Wojtyła, ed. by Luigi Fiorani and Adriano Prosperi, Storia d’Italia, 16 (Torino: Einaudi, 2000), pp. 431–76 Frank, Thomas, ‘Confraternities, “memoria” and law in late medieval Italy’, Confraternitas, 17 (2006), 2–19 Gensini, Sergio, ed., Roma capitale (1447–1527), Collana di studi e ricerche / Centro di studi sulla civiltà del tardo medioevo, 5 (Pisa: Pacini, 1994)

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Henderson, John, Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994) Hurtubise, Pierrre, ‘La Présence des étrangers à la cour de Rome dans la première moitié du xvie siècle’, in Forestieri e stranieri nelle città bassomedievali: Atti del Convegno inter­ nazionale, Bagno a Ripoli 4–8 giugno 1984 (Firenze: Salimbeni, 1988), pp. 57–80 Langellotti, Alessandra, ‘L’ospedale di S. Rocco dalle origini al 1612’, Archivio della Società romana di storia patria, 109 (1986), 87–139 Lazar, Lance, ‘The First Jesuit Confraternities and Marginalized Groups in SixteenthCentury Rome’, in The Politics of Ritual Kinship: Confraternities and Social Order in Early Modern Italy, ed. by Nicholas Terpstra, Cambridge Studies in Italian History and Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 132–49 Lombardo, Maria Luisa, and Mirella Morelli, ‘Donne e testamenti a Roma nel Quattro­ cento’, Archivi e cultura, 25–26 (1992–93), 23–130 Papi, Anna Benvenuti, ‘In castro poenitentiae’: Santità e società femminile nell’Italia medieval, Italia sacra, 45 (Roma: Herder, 1990) Pastore, Alessandro, ‘Strutture assistenziali tra Chiesa e Stati nell’Italia della Controri­ for­ma’, in La Chiesa e il potere politico dal Medioevo all’età contemporanea, ed. by Giorgio Chittolini and Giovanni Miccoli, Storia d’Italia, Annali, 9 (Torino: Einaudi, 1986), pp. 431–65 Pavan, Paola, ‘La confraternita del Salvatore nella società romana del Tre-Quattrocento’, Ricerche per la storia religiosa di Roma, 5 (1984), 81–90 —— , ‘Gli statuti della società dei Raccomandati del Salvatore ad Sancta Sanctorum’, Archivio della Società romana di storia patria, 101 (1978), 35–96 Piccialuti, Maura, La carità come metodo di governo: Istituzioni caritative a Roma dal pon­ ti­ficato di Innocenzo XII a quello di Benedetto XIV (Torino: Giappichelli, 1994) Prodi, Paolo, Il sovrano pontefice: Un corpo e due anime. La monarchia papale nella prima età moderna, Annali dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico, Monografie, 3 (Bologna: Mulino, 1982) Rando, Daniela, ‘Fundationes e società cittadina: A proposito di un libro recente’, Annali dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento, 27 (2001), 657–70 Sanfilippo, Isa Lori, ‘Morire a Roma’, in Alle origini della nuova Roma: Martino V (1417– 1431). Atti del Convegno, Roma, 2–5 marzo 1992, ed. by Miriam Chiabò and others, Nuovi studi scorici, 20 (Roma: Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo, 1992), pp. 602–23 Terpstra, Nicholas, ‘Apprenticeship in Social Welfare: From Confraternal Charity to Muni­cipal Poor Relief in Early Modern Italy’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 25 (1994), 101–20 —— , ‘Confraternities and Public Charity: Modes of Civic Welfare in Early Modern Italy’, in Confraternities and Catholic Reform in Italy, France, and Spain, ed. by John P. Donnelly and Michael W. Maher, Sixteenth Century Essays & Studies, 44 (Kirksville: Thomas Jefferson University Press at Truman State University, 1999), pp. 97–120 —— , ‘The Politics of Confraternal Charity: Centre, Periphery, and the Modes of Con­ fra­ternal Involvement in Early Modern Civic Welfare’, in Povertà e innovazioni istitu­

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zionali in Italia: Dal Medioevo ad oggi, ed. by Vera Zamagni (Bologna: Mulino, 2000), pp. 153–73 Wisch, Barbara, ‘Incorporating Images: Some Themes and Tasks for Confraternity Studies and Early Modern Visual Culture’, in Early Modern Confraternities in Europe and the Americas: International and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, ed. by Christopher F. Black and Pamela Gravestock (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), pp. 243–63

Confraternities, Citizenship, and Factionalism: Genoa in the Early Sixteenth Century Carlo Taviani

I

n organizational structure the typical late medieval Fiorentine confraternity was a miniature commune’.1 With these words, Ronald Weissman referred to the similarities between confraternities and communes, similarities that perhaps did not encourage social harmony but rather led to a conflictual relationship between these two forms of community life in the Middle Ages.2 In some periods, confraternities prospered with the aid of established institutions, but more often they became associated with the sects, secret circles, and factions that were considered the traditional enemies of the civitas. Accusations of par1 

Weissman, Ritual Brotherhood in Renaissance Florence, pp. 58–59. Weissman revived the comparison between the commune and other forms of association, such as corporations, which was established by Martines, Lawyers and Statecraft in Renaissance Florence, pp. 51–53. It is a link that more generally concerns associations requiring members to take an oath; see also Oexle, ‘Die mittelalterlichen Gilden’. Authors have more often emphasized the positive effects of this relationship. See for example Weissman, Ritual Brotherhood in Renaissance Florence, p. 91, which describes the masses for the maintenance of peace within the city which were regularly said by the confraternities. 2 

Carlo Taviani ([email protected]) has been a Fellow at the Harvard Center for Italian Renais­ sance Studies (Villa I Tatti), and is currently a Research Fellow at the Italian-German Historical Institute. His work on political conflicts in Genoa has been published as Superba discordia. Guerra, rivolta e pacificazione nella Genova di primo Cinquecento (2008). His current research projects include a biography of Ottaviano and Federico Fregoso, two Genoese exiles who ­appear in Baldassare Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier, and a study of the Bank of San Giorgio, which not only managed the Genoese public debt, but also had territorial jurisdiction.

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tisanship could arise from the actual participation of the confraternities in factional disputes, but sometimes the hostility they provoked amongst the politically powerful had deeper roots, the causes of which have received little attention from historians.3 The suspicions of political authorities were sometimes raised, at least in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, by such confraternal activities as assisting the poor and the sick, or controlling the body and soul of a condemned man or woman.4 Some scholars are very cautious about the study of links between politics and confraternities, restricting themselves to comparative studies of carefully compiled prosopographies in order to understand the long-term activities of ruling groups at a time when there seems to have been substantial uniformity between civil magistrates and the confraternities.5 In this article, I wish to examine a different area of study and concentrate on amendments to the laws of the commune of Genoa in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The legal provisions are important, but it is possible to identify a wider range of links by also broadly investigating the extensive changes to Genoese political life that characterized the period. This approach makes it possible to illuminate the changes to and conflicts within the political system of early modern Genoa, as well as the leading role played by the confraternities at a time of important political change. In 1528, a reform was introduced to eliminate the distinction between Genoa’s nobles and popolari (merchants and artisans), who up to that time had each been allocated half of the appointments to elected offices in the city. This is usually considered to be the founding date of the Republic of Genoa; before that time, legal documents issued by the chancellery mainly referred to the city’s government as a ‘commune’. The 1528 Reform created a single category (ordo) of citizens called ‘nobles’, a category that included the families of merchants and 3 

John Henderson’s suggestive article on the law against the confraternities of 1419 introduced by the Florentine priors identifies the kind of materials that merit further study by the scholarly community. See Henderson, ‘Le confraternite religiose nella Firenze’, pp. 80–81. 4  See the reflections on the rivalry between confraternities and communes in Rondeau, ‘Homosociality and Civic (Dis)order’. The struggle between secular and religious powers over the body and soul of the condemned is discussed in Prosperi, ‘Morire volentieri. See also Prosperi, ‘Consolation or Condemnation’. 5  John Henderson has studied the periods of political crisis, particularly those close to elections; see Henderson, ‘Le confraternite religiose nella Firenze’. Rodolfo Savelli initiated his studies into sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Genoa by discovering that a significant part of the membership of the Divino Amore was in the leadership of the Republic throughout the sixteenth century and the early part of the seventeenth. The results were published in part in Savelli, ‘Dalle confraternite allo stato’.

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artisans (previously called popolari) who were now also organized into alberghi (households), a social and institutional entity typical of the Genoese noble families.6 The transformation of the alberghi in 1528 led to a loss of power by the dominant factions of the Adorno and Fregoso families, who had alternated in holding the most powerful position of doge throughout the fifteenth century and into the early sixteenth. Politically both families were identified with the populus, even though each clan could boast links with noble families in the rest of Italy and both had been considered Genoese nobility.7 The new definition of a noble governing class did not have the immediate consequence of reducing the Genoese government to an oligarchy. Indeed, the electable families of merchants and artisans were much the same as before and were merely organized into alberghi. The term Unione, found in the sources, referred not to a diminished number of co-opted families, but to a newly defined community which did not reflect earlier class distinctions. It was only in the following decades that social groups were effectively blocked from access to government, due to the fact that families of new or previously excluded popolari were no longer organized into the alberghi. Yet in spite of these continuities, the two major factions of the city experienced an undeniable decline. This begs the question, then, of what other forces might have shaped such a profound change in political culture. Edoardo Grendi pointed out in a series of essays that the reform of the Republic’s laws came at the end of a period of intense proliferation of Genoese confraternities. Their numbers had grown rapidly in the second half of the fifteenth century.8 By introducing a few regulations to control the confraternities, the 6 

Grendi, ‘Profilo storico degli alberghi genovesi’. For the political system and the laws of the commune of Genoa before 1528, see Savelli, ‘“Capitula,” “regulae” e pratiche del diritto a Genova’. The Reform of 1528 has been studied in Pacini, I presupposti politici del ‘secolo dei genovesi’. See also Pacini, ‘La tirannia delle fazioni e la repubblica dei ceti’. 7  We can find no trace of the Adorno and Fregoso factions in contemporary laws, either those of the fifteenth-century (regulae) or the ones based on the Reform of 1528. It may be that the factions were considered scandalous because they were detrimental to the common good. Yet the Adorno and Fregoso families lost power after 1528 because the populus disappeared as a political actor. It had been their membership in the popular ordo that had allowed members of the two factions to dominate the office of doge, in spite of their powerful links to the nobility. Marco Gentile has examined a similar reticence in the written sources in Lombardy and the problems this creates for anyone who wishes to study the factions; see Gentile, ‘Discorsi sulle fazioni, discorsi delle fazioni’, pp. 383–84, 394–95. 8  Grendi, ‘Le compagnie del SS. Sacramento a Genova’; Grendi, ‘Morfologia e dinamica della vita associativa urbana’; Grendi, ‘Un esempio di arcaismo politico’; Grendi, ‘Le società

44 Carlo Taviani

reform allegedly sought to bring an end to an outdated political system based on a plurality of social groupings, founding a modern state in its place.9 Grendi identified this link between confraternities and political reform not simply because one of the laws of 1528 pointed in such a direction, but also due to the continuous presence of confraternities in the political conflicts of late fifteenthand early sixteenth-century Genoa. Grendi’s stimulating interpretations have not been fully examined. One of the problems is the fact that the Genoese used a common name for a variety of lay associations, making it impossible to distinguish various categories. Of course, this was the case in many cities in Renaissance Italy. The term most often found in the sources is societas, and it was used for both charitable and devotional associations. These associations registered with a notary out of an explicit desire to avoid dissent within the group (as in the case of the societas of Saint John the Baptist).10 This registration might also implicitly reflect general aspirations for order, as reported in the articles of the Compagnia della Redemptione.11 Sometimes we find restrictions on membership (against young people, nobles, or even artisans), while on other occasions, the documents show that there were no restrictions at all. In the great majority of cases, associations were linked with the oratory of a church. The cathedral of San Lorenzo and the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria di Castello were the preferred spaces for the formation of many societates. Bearing in mind that social class and area of residence generally reflected each other, we can identify an area bordering the San Lorenzo church as being home to the nobility and the area around Santa Maria di Castello as being home to members of the popolari.12 The great albergo of the Giustiniani, for instance, had patronage of the high altar of San Lorenzo, while the less numerous family of the Sauli had deep roots in the Santa Maria di Castello district. This summary social division did not affect certain other associations, such as the Compagnia dei giovani a Genova’, republished as Grendi, ‘Le societates juvenum e il cerimoniale’. This subject has also been examined in Savelli, ‘Dalle confraternite allo stato’, and Pacini, I presupposti politici del ‘secolo dei genovesi’. Danilo Zardin has linked the presence of legislation against the confraternities to the rapid increase of these associations (between 1480 and 1582 there were 134 associations); see Zardin, ‘Prerogative della Chiesa e prestigio della Repubblica’, p. 278. This question merits further research to clarify the correlation between the two events. 9  Grendi, ‘Un esempio di arcaismo politico’. 10  ASG, Notai Antichi, 1484, Lorenzo Costa, act of 5 January 1484. 11  ‘Knowing that everything that is governed with perfect order shall endure for a long time’; ASG, MS Membranacei LVIII, fol. 1r. 12  Grendi, ‘Le societates juvenum e il cerimoniale’, p. 126.

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del Divino Amore, the important confraternity founded in Genoa in 1497 in the Dominican cloister of Santa Maria di Castello, which gathered both noblemen and popolari and grew to have many imitators across the Italian peninsula.13 Confraternities, then, may have had more to do with political events, territorial disputes, and the decline of faction in early modern Genoa than previously imagined. With this in mind, I would like to suggest two possible approaches to understanding the link between political reforms and confraternal societates in early modern Italy. The first is based upon an individual active in Genoa in the early sixteenth century: the chancellor Raffaele Ponsone, who straddled the spheres of confraternal lay devotion and high politics. The second is more general and arises from reflections on Grendi’s arguments. Several years ago, in her important book I devoti della carità, Daniela Solfaroli Camillocci investigated certain political events in the early years of the sixteenth century, particularly the revolt of 1506, and drew attention to the fact that some members of the Compagnia del Divino Amore took part in the uprising. Camillocci, like Grendi, observed that these were men who were ‘personally exposed in the conflict between factions and political groupings’, in spite of their membership in a confraternity.14 In general, confraternities promoted social peace and often opposed factionalism, making this intervention particularly noteworthy. The statutes of the Divino Amore even explicitly prohibited members from allowing themselves to be drawn into factional struggles.15 I think, however, that it is possible to resolve this apparent contradiction. When we examine political events in the early sixteenth century and the 1528 Reform more closely, we find phenomena that can best be explained by a broad convergence around a single cause, rather than a divergence between political movements and confraternities. In turn, this could elucidate the contradictory behaviour of some figures. Although clashes between factions were common in the early sixteenth century, it should be noted that the political conflicts in which the brothers of the Divino Amore and other confraternities and societates took part tended to be fuelled by class-based tensions rather than factional ones. 13 

For the Divino Amore confraternity, see Camillocci, I devoti della carità; Camillocci, ‘La “carità segreta”’. See also Bianconi, L’opera delle Compagnie del ‘Divino Amore’; Paschini, ‘Le compagnie del Divino Amore e la beneficenza pubblica’. For the company’s activity in Rome, see Barletta, ‘Ettore Vernazza nei documenti dell’Archivio dell’Ospedale di San Giacomo’; Russo, ‘L’attività della Compagnia romana del Divino Amore’. Although I have been unable to consult it, it may also be worth examining Jorgensen, ‘The Oratories of Divine Love and the Theatines’. 14  Camillocci, I devoti della carità, p. 71. 15  Venturi, Storia della compagnia di Gesù in Italia, i.2, p. 31.

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In the early years of the sixteenth century, the Commune of Genoa came under French rule. This was not a new occurrence. At various points in the fifteenth century, the city and the whole territory of the Commune’s districtum had come under French dominion on the occasions when it wasn’t controlled by Milan.16 However, the period of French domination that commenced with the Italian Wars (1499) was different from previous ones in that it brought about the exclusion and expulsion of the Adorno and Fregoso families, who had not acted as intermediaries with the French. The absence of these major factions reinforced the identity of the popolari, and when the merchants and artisans rebelled against the nobility in 1506, the traditional factions had no strong leverage over the populus.17 Initially, the French tolerated the revolt and the merchants sought to obtain the king’s recognition of the new form of government. As months passed, the revolt became increasingly hostile towards the nobility, and the artisans started to prevail over the merchants. After about a year, the artisans elected a silk-dyer, Paolo da Novi, to the position of doge. He ruled for a few weeks until French soldiers and Swiss mercenaries hired by Genoese nobles regained control of the city for Louis XII. A reform of the city’s high offices was carried out during the revolt from October to December, placing more of them in the hands of the popolari. Whereas these offices had earlier been divided equally between the nobles and the popolari, the 1506 reform allocated two-thirds to the popolari and one-third to the nobles.18 The law implementing this included an oath of peace and concord aimed at eliminating the factions of the Adorno and Fregoso families, not to mention the Guelphs and Ghibellines, but it was mainly artisans who took this oath.19 There was a long tradition of such oaths of peace and concord in other cities and communities,20 yet in most cases they were introduced from above, by city councils that acted at the urging of a preacher and occasionally even the pope. In Genoa, the oath occurred at the time of a revolt, that is, at a moment when 16 

The Commune of Genoa came under French dominion three times between 1399 and 1512, and under that of the Duchy of Milan also three times between 1421 and 1499. 17  I provided an historical account of the revolt in Taviani, Superba discordia. 18  See Savelli, ‘Il problema della giustizia a Genova’. 19  Genova, Bibl. Civica Berio, mr. i. 4. 9. For this text, see Pacini, I presupposti politici del ‘secolo dei genovesi’, pp. 146–54. 20  There is now a vast bibliography on the oaths of peace and concord. I would like to draw attention to Bossy, Peace in the Post-Reformation; Bellabarba, ‘Pace pubblica e pace privata’; Bellabarba, La giustizia nell’Italia moderna, pp. 76–115; Niccoli, ‘Rinuncia, pace, perdono’; Niccoli, Perdonare; and Rossi, ‘Polisemia di un concetto’.

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authority was absent, and it was driven by popular consent; it was the populus itself that demanded this oath. One of the most active participants in the revolt was Raffaele Ponsone, a chancellor who worked alongside the artisan-doge Paolo da Novi during the final months of the uprising. Ponsone drew up the chancellery records during its last weeks, when we see evidence of the final attempt to resist the French armies. Amongst his papers we find some documents (letters to commissars outside Genoa, letter to captains in the army, and letters to autonomous communities on the Riviera) with a distinctive rhetoric that exalted the way the inhabitants of the city and the Riviera of Liguria identified with popular government. The documents convey the impression that Ponsone was the custodian of the revolt’s ideals. He was likely the author of the oath of peace and concord, and he organized numerous processions after the siege had started.21 With the arrival of the French in Genoa in the spring of 1507, Ponsone was forced into exile. He became a priest in the years that followed and returned to Genoa once Louis XII’s dominion came to an end. From the beginning of the revolt, Raffaele Ponsone had also been one of the most active members of the Divino Amore confraternity. He was one of those individuals identified as belonging to the devotio, but also someone who, according to Daniela Solfaroli, allegedly took part in the factional struggles while participating in the revolt. The terms used in the sources to indicate the political and religious groupings might appear ambiguous. Faction, like societas, often refers to a fairly wide variety of groupings. Thus, an edict issued by the nobles on their return to the city in 1507 listed the name of Raffaele Ponsone amongst those who ‘had taken the side of a faction at the time of popular unrest’, in 1506.22 Here the term ‘faction’ clearly has a class connotation and is not connected with the long-standing political divisions between the Adorno and Fregoso families or the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. As we have seen, Ponsone strongly opposed those traditional factions, so the accusation that he had ‘taken the side of a faction’ can only be understood by adopting the viewpoint of those who had suppressed the revolt. In this sense, the popolari had disrupted the civic body because they had taken part in a seditio, operating as a faction against the nobles and threatening the harmony of the civitas.23 To avoid confusion, I suggest that we distinguish clearly between 21 

See Taviani, Superba discordia, p. 140. ‘Erano stati di fattione al tempo del viva popolo’. The document is published in Pandiani, Un anno di storia genovese, p. 551. 23  This was the view of jurists of the time; see for example Bohier, Tractatus de seditiosis 22 

48 Carlo Taviani

the classes on the one hand and the groups supporting the Adorno or Fregoso families on the other. Whereas the popolari were acknowledged in legislative sources (the high offices in the commune were elected by the popolari and nobles), the parties of the Adorno and the Fregoso were considered something negative, as elements harmful to the common good.24 In the years following the revolt, there were further demands for an oath of peace and concord as part of efforts to unify the citizenry which culminated in the decisive reforms of 1528. Yet both these unification efforts and the Reform itself dispensed with the emphasis on the popolari’s rights, which had been the hallmark of the 1506 revolt. The efforts were, in fact, pushed through by members of the Adorno and Fregoso factions: indeed, the proposals for unity that were promoted between 1515 and 1528 came from the dogi Ottaviano Fregoso and Agostino Adorno. I believe that we can explain this change by examining the entourage of the dogi in the first and second decades of the sixteenth century, when we can find councillors who were serving in intellectual and religious roles at the time. This included Raffaele Ponsone, by then involved in the activities of the Divino Amore confraternity, Gregorio Cortese, Stefano Giustiniani, Benedetto Tagliacarne, and the Dominican Marco Cattaneo. These were some of the figures whom we know to have been closest to the families of the dogi and who can be linked to the political upheavals by fragmentary bits of evidence at the very least. Yet it may well be that others, such as Agostino Giustiniani, a Hebraist and Bishop of Nebbio in Corsica, Stefano Sauli, or Ludovico Spinola, also exerted an indirect influence over the political and cultural situation.25 Ponsone’s activities as a councillor were not restricted to drawing up new laws in the first decade of the sixteenth century. We also have evidence of his interest in social peace and charity. He persuaded the doge Ottaviano Fregoso to remove his coat of arms from the city gates and to replace it with the insignia of the Madonna and Saints Nazarius and Celsus, and he also convinced Fregoso to fund the Pammatone hospital, where members of the Divino Amore had been active (p. 7), who quoted Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologica: ‘seditio proprie est inter partes unius multitudinis inter se dissensenties, puta cum una pars civitatis excitat in tumultum contra alia’ (Sedition, in its proper sense, is between mutually conflictual parts of a community, as when a group of citizens rises in tumult against another; my translation). Bohier’s text also refers to the Genoese seditio of 1506. 24  The regulae of 1413 contained a paragraph on suppressing factionalism: ‘Ad partialitates in Ianua et eius territorio extinguendis’, ASG, MS di Parigi, 19, fols 87v–88r. 25  See Menchi, ‘Passione civile e aneliti erasmiani di riforma’.

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since the end of the fifteenth century.26 Gregorio Cortese must have also had a very significant role at that time, since the chronicler Giovanni Salvago mentions him as the author of the laws of 1528. Unfortunately, we have no other documentary evidence to support this claim, so we cannot confirm the extent of his involvement.27 Cortese dedicated his Latin translation of Gregory Nazianzen’s De pauperibus diligendis to Ottaviano Fregoso, and the success of this work (not only in Genoa, where Fregoso had just decided to fund the Pammatone, but also in other cities such as Lyon) might have reflected an increasing interest by political institutions in charitable works.28 Cortese’s closeness to the Fregoso might have contributed to his removal from the Genoese ruling circle following the sack of 1522, but this did not prevent him from having contacts with the opposing faction of the Adorno. Cortese sent a letter to Gerolamo Adorno, the brother of the doge Antoniotto, concerning the need to take better control of young people’s standards of behaviour, which had declined and threatened to corrupt the Republic. Some passages in the letter referred to violent tendencies among the city’s youth that were having a powerful impact on Genoese society at the turn of the sixteenth century.29 Others among the group of politically involved intellectual and religious councillors pushing for an oath in the early sixteenth century include the humanist Benedetto Tagliacarne, also known as Teocreno, who was the chancellor when Ottaviano Fregoso was doge. Teocreno wrote a historical work, Annali dello stato di Genova, which was lost during the sack of the city. We later find him working as Federico Fregoso’s secretary, and finally as tutor to the children of King Francis I, 26 

Pandiani, Genova e Andrea Doria nel primo Quarto del Cinquecento, p. 136. The source is Salvago, Historie, fol. 45r, quoted in Fragnito, ‘‘Il Cardinale Gregorio Cortese (1483?–1548)’, p. 160 and note. Gigliola Fragnito has argued that we should treat this evidence with caution. 28  The link between Gregorio Cortese’s translation of Gregory Nazianzen’s book and Fregoso’s drive for charitable works was established by Savelli, ‘Dalle confraternite allo stato’, p. 186. For the importance of a French translation of Gregory Nazianzen in Lyon, see Davis, ‘Gregory Nazianzen in the Service of Humanist Social Reform’. Natalie Davis believes that the translator was Sante Pagnini. It may be coincidence, but it should be noted that, like Gregorio Cortese, Sante Pagnini was in contact with Federico Fregoso, who was very close to French religious circles, as he was exiled in France during the 1520s and 1530s. 29  Cortese, Omnia, quae huc usque colligi potuerunt sive ab eo scripta, pp.  115–16. On conflict amongst youth in Genoa, see Grendi, ‘Le società dei giovani a Genova’. The revolt of 1506–07 started following the violence inflicted on artisans by young nobles belonging to one of the companies. See the account in an anonymous diary of the time in Pandiani, Un anno di storia genovese, pp. 313–14. 27 

50 Carlo Taviani

with whom the Francophile Fregoso had close relations. Marco Cattaneo, the prior of the monastery of Santa Maria di Castello and, like Federico Fregoso, author of a treatise on oratory, was known as one of the most fervent exponents of the Union of 1528.30 Finally, Stefano Giustiniani appears to have been the one most deeply engaged in the politics of 1510s and 1520s, yet we have little useful biographical information about him.31 Among this group of councillors, for whom we have scant biographical data, Raffaele Ponsone stands out as the one who most clearly represents the political changes occurring in Genoa during the early years of the sixteenth century. There is certainly more evidence to support his connection to the reform. We cannot interpret his role from 1506 to 1528 in terms of any radical change in his life prompted by a religious conversion, yet his efforts to build a community free from factionalism changed in character over these two decades. The kind of pacification he proposed was no longer a union of the populus, but a union of the cives, and he pushed to widen the inclusion of the citizenry and remove the class distinctions provided for in legislation. This was not an entirely new initiative. Some projects dating back to the midfifteenth century demonstrate earlier Genoese efforts to transform the regulae for the purpose of uniting citizens irrespective of differences of class or political orientation; these earlier efforts were motivated by profound religious sensibilities. In 1465, the Franciscan friar Battista Tagliacarne started to preach in Genoa, after having already campaigned in Albenga for a ‘holy union’ involving an oath to abjure factionalism. The chancellery records refer briefly to his presence in the city and to a movement to change the commune’s regulae in the wake of his preaching.32 The reform project provided for the inclusion of citizens in a single group defined broadly as popolari or nobles. The project was quite similar to the one actually implemented in 1528, with the creation of a single group of cives. Although citizens were then defined as ‘nobles’ in 1528, there was much argument over which term to use: ‘noble’ or ‘popolare’. The first text setting out the Union of 1528, as Arturo Pacini has noted, used the religious language found in the oath of peace and concord of 1506. 33 30 

Here again, the evidence comes from chronicles, those of Foglietta, but there is no other documentary corroboration. See Pacini, I presupposti politici del ‘secolo dei genovesi’, p. 300. 31  Pacini, I presupposti politici del ‘secolo dei genovesi’. 32  The records of the acts of the chancellery refer explicitly to the importance attributed to Tagliacarne who convinced the anziani to eliminate the factions (‘i colori’), ASG, AS 557, fol. 123r. This document and the related project were identified by Musso, ‘I “colori” delle riviere’, p. 534 and note. 33  Pacini, I presupposti politici del ‘secolo dei genovesi’, p. 146.

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It was only in a second draft in the autumn of 1528 that religious references were dropped from the legislative language. Yet a regulation prohibiting the proliferation of confraternities (defined as ‘conventicles’) was not included in the law of 1528 as Grendi suggested. This only occurred the following year, when the text of the Union had lost its religious connotations, and it was probably due to the changed political context arising from the presence of Andrea Doria.34 Thus, it is possible to see religious influences behind the attempts at political reform that were made up until 1528. Thus far, I have referred only to the evidence connecting political changes with the proliferation of confraternities in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in the context of opposition. However, I believe that we can put forward a broader interpretation on the strength of the elements described so far, modifying Edoardo Grendi’s view of the political transformations and the boom in confraternities. Indeed, Grendi himself revised his views and reworked his writings on this point on several occasions, offering a more causal or alternatively a more casual connection between the reform of the commune and the existence of confraternities.35 The changes in the early sixteenth century reveal not only the disappearance of class distinctions from the legislation, but also the disappearance of factions. These were not eliminated with the stroke of a pen, as occurred with the populus. Yet after 1528, the Adorno and Fregoso families lost power as the factions controlling the appointment of dogi, and it is this disappearance that is significant. From the end of the fifteenth century, it is possible to identify a series of moments in which political conflicts were played out through the confraternities. In 1497, the confraternity known as the societas of Vera Croce, made up exclusively of popolari, clashed with a confraternity of nobles over the care of a relic of the Cross of Zacharias held in the cathedral of San Lorenzo. Chroniclers record that the city divided into two parts, because the two confraternities had between them organized the great majority of the citizens.36 In 1502, the Vera Croce was one of 34 

ASG, MS 129, fol. 29v. 35  Grendi, ‘Le società dei giovani a Genova’, p. 521. This text was defined by its author as a remake of the previous version (Grendi, ‘Un esempio di arcaismo politico’), but here Grendi stresses the links with the Reform of 1528 rather than the differences. 36  ‘This contention grew so much that the city was divided in two parts, the Governor took the decision to pacify this controversy. It was decreed that the young popolari had the authority to carry out this procession and paid the nobles for the amount incurred to decorate the cross. And thus ducats were paid in the same amount as was paid for decoration and construction of the chapel of San Giovanni Battista. And indeed the Governor’s prudence was considerable in this matter because hatred had increased greatly between the nobles and the merchant popolari,

52 Carlo Taviani

the most active societates preparing the feast day to mark Louis XII’s entrance into the city, and this generated more of the familiar conflicts between the nobles and popolari concerning the order of the confraternities in the procession. There was a great deal of continuity between these events and the revolt of 1506, because the same people who had led the popolari’s societas in 1497 and 1502 organized the revolt in 1506: Vincenzo Sauli and Demetrio and Paolo Battista Giustiniani. During the revolt of 1506, the role of the societates was even more pronounced. Several new groups which had adopted the name of ‘companies’, such as the Company of Jesus and Mary, declared themselves to be politically close to the artisans but obedient only to the orders of Pope Julius II.37 We know that they used religious symbols (such as the Trinity, which one societas had painted on its flag),38 but we do not know their intentions, political or otherwise. Fragmentary evidence makes it difficult to know much about these confraternities, especially regarding the nature of their relationship with political change. At the same time, it is clear that societates that could foment class conflicts became more numerous and better organized at the same time as the decline of groupings around the Adorno and Fregoso families in the early sixteenth century. During this period, Louis XII had obstructed factional access to government by appointing a non-Genoese governor, probably in response to the complex and fragile political situation of the Italian Wars and in order to guarantee a more coherent form of government. Yet after the revolt of 1506, the Genoese themselves began pushing for a system free from traditional factionalism. Even though the creation of the Divino Amore confraternity (the most important one, which is often used as evidence for the vitality of Genoese confraternities) occurred before the arrival of the French, the spread of many societates (particularly ones for popolari) occurred when the Adorno and Fregoso factions were at their weakest, a process which culminated with the revolt of 1506. These associations of the early sixteenth century, like the Vera Croce in 1502 and the new companies proliferating around 1506, could be linked to the societates that proliferated at the end of the fifteenth century. In the 1490s, a series of associations with religious names emerged, such as the Divino Amore or the Confraternita della Redemptione. If we use the term confraternita in its widest something that was neither custom nor tradition. […] And a hundred young popolari were already for arming themselves and causing disorder in the city, but the Governor’s prudence calmed everything down’. From Giustiniani, Castigatissimi annali della Repubblica di Genova, p. cccliiiv, my translation. 37  See the anonymous diary of the revolt in Pandiani, Un anno di storia genovese, pp. 369–70. 38  Pandiani, Un anno di storia genovese, p. 371.

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sense, we can link the emergence of these societates to the weakening of the factional system during the early decades of the sixteenth century.39 The establishment of the new religious societates may have weakened the system of associations around the Adorno and Fregoso families while strengthening other social and political bonds. Grendi defined the Reform of 1528 as an ‘attempt to impose the principle of state government on the anarchy of private factions’, and included the confraternities amongst those ‘private factions’.40 However, if we consider the relationship between the societates and the political changes to be not one of opposition but rather one of cause and effect, this kind of explanation is wide of the mark. As Rodolfo Savelli has pointed out, the Republic’s efforts to control confraternities did not produce lasting results. On the contrary, from the very moment when the laws against conventicles were introduced, the more important confraternities, such as the Divino Amore, continued to prosper. Over the long term, there was a gradual integration of members of the Divino Amore into the higher echelons of the Republic.41 By way of conclusion, I would like to draw attention to a document of 1504, which I discovered in a volume of the acts of the chancellery of the Commune of Genoa and which is suggestive for the study of the Genoese societates, for it points to a substantive link between politics and confraternities. In this manuscript, a page recording the Commune’s activities is followed by a page containing a prayer. Chancellors often wrote down a few brief passages of religious argument at the end of a volume of records, but in this case the prayer follows immediately upon the description of the activity, and takes up about the same amount of space: about one and a half sides of a folio sheet. I have not found anything like it anywhere else in Genoese records. Raffaele Ponsone wrote most of the records in these years, and that itself may help explain the unusual arrangement of the text; the volume in question is one of his registers and the prayer appears to have been written in his hand. The text expands on the militia and the name of Jesus, with words taken from the Vita Christi of Ludolph of Saxony, and it ends by invoking Jesus to protect ‘this society’.42 Given the nature of this final clause, the prayer is 39 

See Terpstra, ‘De-Institutionalizing Confraternity Studies’. Grendi, ‘Un esempio di arcaismo politico’, p. 951. 41  Savelli, ‘Dalle confraternite allo stato’, p. 187. Perhaps the integration of the high offices of the Republic and the membership of the Divino amore confraternity became more complete during the sixteenth century as part of the process of aristocratization of the Republic. 42  ‘Hanc societatem’, BAV, Patetta, 1504, fols 103v–04r. My thanks to Rodolfo Savelli for having drawn my attention to this volume of the chancellery. 40 

54 Carlo Taviani

very likely seeking Christ’s protection for the most important confraternity in Genoa at the time, and the one that counted Chancellor Raffaele Ponsone among its members: the Compagnia del Divino Amore. The biography of the Genoese chancellor permits us to understand the complex relationships between confraternities and political change in Genoa at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries. The growth of the confraternities may have contributed to ending the factional divisions of the Adorno and the Fregoso. It is probable that, in the long run, the system of fraternal organizations came to be a competitor of the factions and ultimately led to a decline in their importance. It is clear that in addition to external forces (such as the Italian Wars) and internal political reform efforts, confraternities played a crucial role in the stunning decline of factionalism in fifteenth- and sixteenthcentury Genoa. Further research is certainly required, but the societates must be considered as part of the equation.

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Works Cited Manuscripts and Archival Resources Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Fondo Patetta, 1504 Genova, Archivio di Stato, AS 557 —— , MS 129 —— , MS di Parigi, 19 —— , MS Membranacei LVIII —— , Notai Antichi, 1484 (Lorenzo Costa, act of 5 January 1484) Genova, Biblioteca Civica Berio, mr. i. 4. 9 Genova, Facoltà di Economia e Commercio, Archivio Doria, 646/1 (Giovanni Salvago, Historie)

Primary Sources Bohier, Nicholas, Tractatus de seditiosis (Paris: De Marnef, 1515) Cortese, Gregorio, Omnia, quæ huc usque colligi potuerunt sive ab eo scripta, sive ad illum spectantia, 2 vols (Padova: Cominus, 1774) Giustiniani, Agostino, Castigatissimi annali della Repubblica di Genova (Genova: Bellono, 1537)

Secondary Studies Barletta, Edvige Oleandri, ‘Ettore Vernazza nei documenti dell’Archivio dell’Ospedale di San Giacomo’, Archivio della Società romana di storia patria, 86 (1996), 125–31 Bellabarba, Marco, La giustizia nell’Italia moderna (Roma: Laterza, 2008) —— , ‘Pace pubblica e pace privata: Linguaggi e istituzioni processuali nell’Italia moderna’, in Criminalità e giustizia in Germania e in Italia: Pratiche giudiziarie e linguaggi giuri­dici tra tardo medioevo ed età, ed. by Marco Bellabarba, Andrea Zorzi, and Gerd Schwerhoff, Annali dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento, Contributi, 11 (Bologna: Mulino, 2001), pp. 189–213 Bianconi, Alfredo, L’opera delle Compagnie del ‘Divino Amore’ della riforma Cattolica (Città di Castello: Lapi, 1914) Bossy, John, Peace in the Post-Reformation, Birkbeck Lectures, 1995 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) Camillocci, Daniela Solfaroli, ‘La “carità segreta”: Ricerche su Ettore Vernazza e i notai genovesi confratelli del Divino Amore’, in Tra Siviglia e Genova: Notaio, documento e commercio nell’età colombiana. Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi storici per le celebrazioni colombiane, Genova, 12–14 marzo 1992, ed. by Vito Piergiovanni, Per una storia del notariato nella civilità europea, 2 (Milano: Giuffrè, 1992), pp. 393–434 —— , I devoti della carità: Le confraternite del Divino Amore nell’Italia del primo Cinque­ cento (Napoli: Città del Sole, 2002) Davis, Natalie Zemon, ‘Gregory Nazianzen in the Service of Humanist Social Reform’, Renaissance Quarterly, 20 (1967), 455–64

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Fragnito, Gigliola, ‘Il Cardinale Gregorio Cortese (1483?–1548) nella crisi religiosa del Cinquecento’, Benedictina, 30 (1983), 129–71 Gentile, Marco, ‘Discorsi sulle fazioni, discorsi delle fazioni: “Parole e demonstratione par­ tiale” nella Lombardia del secondo Quattrocento’, in Linguaggi politici nell’Italia del Rinascimento: Atti del Convegno, Pisa, 9–11 novembre 2006, ed. by Andrea Gamberini and Giuseppe Petralia, Libri di Viella, 71 (Roma: Viella, 2007), pp. 381–408 Grendi, Edoardo, ‘Le compagnie del SS. Sacramento a Genova’, Annali della Facoltà di Giurisprudenza di Genova, 4 (1965), 453–80 —— , ‘Un esempio di arcaismo politico: Le conventicole nobiliari a Genova e la riforma del 1528’, Rivista storica italiana, 78 (1966), 948–68 —— , ‘Morfologia e dinamica della vita associativa urbana: Le confraternite a Genova fra i secoli xvi e xviii’, Atti della Società ligure di storia patria, n.s., 5 (1965), 241–311 —— , ‘Profilo storico degli alberghi genovesi’, Mélanges de l’École française de Rome, 87 (1975), 241–302 —— , ‘Le società dei giovani a Genova fra il 1466 e la Riforma del 1528’, Quaderni storici, 80 (1992), 509–28 —— , ‘Le societates juvenum e il cerimoniale’, in Edoardo Grendi, In altri termini (Torino: Einaudi, 2004), pp. 111–31 Henderson, John, ‘Le confraternite religiose nella Firenze del tardo Medioevo: Patroni spirituali e anche politici?’, Ricerche storiche, 15 (1985), 77–94 Jorgensen, Kenneth J., ‘The Oratories of Divine Love and the Theatines: Confraternal Piety and the Making of a Religious Community’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Columbia University, 1989) Martines, Lauro, Lawyers and Statecraft in Renaissance Florence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968) Menchi, Silvana Seidel, ‘Passione civile e aneliti erasmiani di riforma nel patriziato genovese del primo Cinquecento: Ludovico Spinola’, Rinascimento, 18 (1978), 87–134 Musso, Riccardo, ‘I “colori” delle riviere’, in Guelfi e Ghibellini nell’Italia del Rinascimento, ed. by Marco Gentile, Libri di Viella, 52 (Roma: Viella, 2005), pp. 523–61 Niccoli, Ottavia, Perdonare: Idee, pratiche, rituali in Italia fra Cinque e Seicento (Roma: Laterza, 2007) —— , ‘Rinuncia, pace, perdono: Rituali di pacificazione della prima età moderna’, Studi storici, 40 (1999), 216–61 Oexle, Otto Gerhard, ‘Die mittelalterlichen Gilden: Ihre Selbstdeutung und ihr Beitrag zur Formung sozialer Strukturen’, in Soziale Ordnungen im Selbstverständnis des Mittel­ alters, ed. by Albert Zimmerman, Miscellanea mediaevalia, 12 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1979), pp. 203–26 Pacini, Arturo, I presupposti politici del ‘secolo dei genovesi’: La riforma del 1528, Atti della Società ligure di storia patria, n.s., 30 (Genova: Società ligure di storia patria, 1990) —— , ‘La tirannia delle fazioni e la repubblica dei ceti’, Annali dell’Istituto storico italogermanico in Trento, 18 (1992), 57–119 Pandiani, Emilio, Un anno di storia genovese, Atti della Società ligure di storia patria, 37 (Genova: Società ligure di storia patria, 1905) —— , Genova e Andrea Doria nel primo Quarto del Cinquecento (Genova: L.U.P.A., 1949)

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Paschini, Pio, ‘Le compagnie del Divino Amore e la beneficenza pubblica nei primi decenni del Cinquecento’, in Pio Paschini, Tre ricerche sulla storia della Chiesa nel Cinquecento (Roma: Liturgiche, 1945), pp. 3–88 Prosperi, Adriano, ‘Consolation or Condemnation: The Debates on Withholding Sacra­ ments from Prisoners’, in The Art of Executing Well: Rituals of Execution in Renaissance Italy, ed. by Nicholas Terpstra, Early Modern Studies, 1 (Kirksville: Truman State University Press, 2008), pp. 98–117 —— , ‘Morire volentieri: Condannati a morte e sacramenti’, in Misericordie: Conversioni sotto il patibolo tra Medioevo ed età moderna, ed. by Adriano Prosperi, Seminari e convegni, 11 (Pisa: Scuola Normale, 2007), pp. 3–70 Rondeau, Jennifer Fisk, ‘Homosociality and Civic (Dis)order in Late Medieval Italian Confraternities’, in The Politics of Ritual Kinship: Confraternities and Social Order in Early Modern Italy, ed. by Nicholas Terpstra, Cambridge Studies in Italian History and Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 30–47 Rossi, Maria Clara, ‘Polisemia di un concetto: La pace nel basso medioevo. Note di let­ tura’, in La pace fra realtà e utopia, Quaderni di storia religiosa, 12 (Caselle di Somma­ campagna: Cierre, 2005), pp. 9–45 Russo, Maria Teresa, ‘L’attività della Compagnia romana del Divino Amore’, Strenna dei Romanisti, 42 (1981), 395–408 Savelli, Rodolfo, ‘“Capitula,” “regulae” e pratiche del diritto a Genova tra xiv e xv secolo’, in Statuti, città, territori in Italia e Germania tra medioevo ed età moderna: Atti della xxx settimana di studio, 1989 dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento, ed. by Giorgio Chittolini and Dietmar Willoweit, Annali dell’Istituto storico italogermanico in Trento, Quaderni, 30 (Bologna: Mulino, 1991), pp. 447–502 —— , ‘Dalle confraternite allo stato: Il sistema assistenziale genovese nel Cinquecento’, Atti della Società ligure di storia patria, 98 (1984), 171–216 —— , ‘Il problema della giustizia a Genova nella legislazione di primo Cinquecento’, in Studi in onore di Franca De Marini Avonzo, ed. by Mariagrazia Bianchini and Gloria Viarengo (Torino: Giappichelli, 1999), pp. 329–50 Taviani, Carlo, Superba discordia: Guerra, rivolta e pacificazione nella Genova di primo Cinquecento, Libri di Viella, 80 (Roma: Viella, 2008) Terpstra, Nicholas, ‘De-institutionalizing Confraternity Studies: Fraternalism and Social Capital in Cross-Cultural Contexts’, in Early Modern Confraternities in Europe and the Americas: International and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, ed. by Christopher F. Black and Pamela Gravestock (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), pp. 264–83 Venturi, Pietro Tacchi, Storia della compagnia di Gesù in Italia (Roma: La Civiltà Cattolica, 1938) Weissman, Ronald F. E., Ritual Brotherhood in Renaissance Florence (London: Academic, 1981) Zardin, Danilo, ‘Prerogative della Chiesa e prestigio della Repubblica: Dal primo Cinque­ cento alle riforme tridentine’, in Il cammino della Chiesa genovese: Dalle origini ai nostri giorni, ed. by Dino Puncuh, Atti della Società ligure di storia patria, n.s., 39 (Genova: Società ligure di storia patria, 1999), pp. 265–328

Between Devotion and Politics: Marian Confraternities in Renaissance Parma Cristina Cecchinelli*

T

he foundation stone of the new church of Santa Maria della Steccata in Parma was laid on 4 April 1521. The church was destined to become, within a few years, the most important Marian sanctuary in the city.1 The following day, the same people who had been involved in the Steccata project, acting this time as elected members of the confraternity of the Immaculate Conception, went before the friars of the city convent of San Francesco del Prato to ask permission to build a new and larger chapel for their brotherhood next to the Franciscan church.2

*  This essay was first presented at the conference on Brotherhood and Boundaries / Fraternità

e barriere, held in Pisa at the Scuola Normale Superiore, 19–20 September 2008. I would like to thank Prof. Nicholas Terpstra and Prof. Adriano Prosperi for inviting me to speak on that occasion. The work is part of a wider doctoral project at the University of San Marino entitled Tra culto civico e aspirazioni politiche: il sistema confraternale a Parma tra Medioevo ed Età Moderna (supervisor Prof. Danilo Zardin). 1  Dall’Acqua, ‘Documentazione’. 2  ASP, Notai, filza 580, deed of Pier Maria Prati, 5 April 1521 (see n. 71). Cristina Cecchinelli ([email protected]) studied Art History and took her PhD in His­ tory at the Università degli Studi di Parma, and has held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Università degli Studi di San  Marino. Her research interests deal with social and religious history during the Renaissance and early modern periods in Italy (particularly Parma and Northern Italy) and focus on the connections between religious and artistic aspects of confraternal art patronage. Apart from articles in journals and essay collections, she has published two monographs, Bartolomeo Schedoni pittore emiliano (Modena 1578–Parma 1615) (1999) and Il convento dei Cappuccini di Fontevivo (Parma) (2005).

60 Cristina Cecchinelli

The prestigious new seats of the two most important Marian brotherhoods active in Parma between the end of the fifteenth century and the early years of the sixteenth century were beginning to take shape. One confraternity, dedicated to the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin, began meeting in 1494 next to the ancient oratory of the Steccata. The other, that of the Immaculate Conception, was founded in the second quarter of the thirteenth century in the oldest Franciscan church in the city: San Francesco del Prato. By the early sixteenth century, both brotherhoods had been engaged for several years in initiatives and activities that sent a very clear message to the people of Parma: the confraternities were not only recognized devotional associations, but also groups of people endowed with the wealth and prestige necessary to create new shrines for civic religious life. This article will analyse the role played by confraternities, and in particular those dedicated to the Virgin Mary, in early sixteenth-century Parma. During this period, the city was gripped by a process of profound political and social change, and Parman confraternities did not go unaffected. Indeed, these changes marked a significant turning point in the evolution of the entire confraternity system in the city of Parma.

Crisis and Rebirth: Civic Religion as the Language of Civic Identity The city of Parma and the entire Po River valley area were badly affected by the Wars of Italy in the first decades of the sixteenth century. The invasion by the King of France and the consequent collapse of the Milanese duchy, which had included Parma since the fourteenth century, brought an end to Sforza domination over the city by 1500. There followed a phase of alternating control between the French and the papacy, with the latter firmly established from December 1521 until the establishment of the Farnese Duchy of Parma and Piacenza in 1545.3 With this lengthy phase of political confusion, accompanied by an effective power vacuum, the centuries-old balance of power established within Parmese territory by the Sforza family was overthrown. Until that point, political stability had been based upon the concession of wide powers and privileges to the feudal vassals of the Parma region in return for their loyalty and active defence of the territory. This strategy had weakened the city in its relations with the feudal lords, while the rural landholders in turn were never at peace with one another.4 Since 3  A detailed analysis of the events in this tumultuous years can be found in Benassi, Storia di Parma. 4  Among the vast bibliography available, I only refer to Chittolini, Città, comunità e feudi negli stati dell’Italia centro-settentrionale.

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the city of Parma had never been ruled by a communal or signorial power strong enough to force the vassals of the area into submission, it had never developed the functions of political and economic hegemony proper to a capital. It remained subject instead to that climate of violent factional conflict which, even at the turn of the sixteenth century, carried labels dating back three centuries: Guelphs against Ghibellines. These factions looked to the major feudal families of the surrounding countryside for leadership, above all to the Sanvitale and the Rossi, who had their headquarters outside of Parma but acted within the city walls through their followers. The municipal government itself, though never truly powerless, lacked authority because of the longstanding Sforza strategy of political concentration and the government’s own subordination to factional politics.5 The end of Sforza domination sparked a new feeling of civic pride among the lay and ecclesiastical elite in Parma, and this went hand-in-hand with the project of reasserting freedom and political autonomy within the city itself. The ambition became more concrete after 1521 with the submission of Parma to the ‘gentle yoke’ of the Church, as papal government was described at the time. In fact, it seemed that the papal policy of territorial occupation would support the restoration of the city as an effective self-governing community. Under the Medici popes Leo X and Clement VII in particular, Parma’s municipal government was granted a number of requests that were intended to strengthen civic jurisdictional and fiscal prerogatives against the feudal families.6 Besides these political initiatives, the ruling class represented in the town council promoted with ever greater conviction the adoption of a language aimed at building a new civic consciousness founded upon renewed feelings of identity and unity, two elements that were widely seen to be fundamental for any project of autonomous and independent government. All of the town council registers and official documents produced by local government officials proclaimed a revival of republican magnificence and of the ancient comune as well as the return of peace to the city.7 Although ardently desired by all social classes, achieving such an ambitious purpose would require the adoption of a different language in order to ensure both that the entire population would be reached and that the message would become deeply rooted in successive generations. Through the extensive use of the language of civic religion and above all through the cult of 5 

For factions at the beginning of the sixteenth century in Parma, see Arcangeli, Gentil­ uomini di Lombardia. More generally, see Bruni, La città divisa. 6  See Benassi, Storia di Parma, iii: 1515–1521 (1899), pp. 254–60. 7  Arcangeli, ‘Sul linguaggio della politica nell’Italia’.

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patron saints, the ruling class crossed the boundaries between the city’s civic and religious worlds.8 At a time when the secular clergy were not particularly active or impressive in their fulfilment of the cura animarum and when Bishop Alessandro Farnese was regularly absent from the diocese, local brotherhoods became the principal actors of civic religion in Parma.9 Archival research confirms that in Parma, as in cities like Florence, Bologna and Venice, the confraternal system was deeply rooted in the social and political tissue of the city. Confraternities acted on religious, social, economic, political, and other fronts, thus becoming a privileged field of action for local patrician families.10 The last years of the fifteenth century saw a certain revival of confraternal activity in Parma, thanks in particular to the preaching of the Franciscan Bernardino da Feltre.11 The revival led to the renewal of many statutes and the rise of new companies, the majority of which brought laymen and ecclesiastics together in a single brotherhood. One example was the confraternity of the Holy Sacrament, which was founded in Parma cathedral in 1484.12 In 1494, the confraternity of the Annunciation was founded in the oratory of Santa Maria della Steccata, and soon took on a leading role in civic life. As certain brotherhoods gained members of more noble origins, they were able to exercise much more influence within society by interacting with the most important lay and ecclesiastical powerholders. 8 

For the concept of civic religion and its political implications, see Donvito, ‘La “religione cittadina” e le nuove prospettive’; La Religion civique à l’époque médiévale et moderne, ed. by Vauchez; Chittolini, ‘Città, istituzioni ecclesiastiche e “religione civica”’. See also n. 11 below. 9  For the connections between Alessandro Farnese and Parma, see Cecchinelli, ‘Un sinodo di Alessandro Farnese a Parma (1519)’, and Cecchinelli, ‘Agli esordi del potere farnesiano a Parma’. 10  See the various essays in The Politics of Ritual Kinship, ed. by Terpstra. For Florence, see Weissman, Ritual Brotherhood in Renaissance Florence; Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence; Henderson, Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence. For Venice, see Pullan, Rich and Poor in Renaissance Venice. For Bologna, see Terpstra, Lay Confraternities. For Milan, see Gazzini, ‘Confraternite e società cittadina nel Medioevo’; Gazzini, ‘Patriziati urbani e spazi confraternali in età rinascimentale’. For Treviso, see D’Andrea, Civic Christianity in Renaissance Italy. See also Black, Church, Religion, and Society. 11  Bernardino da Feltre was in Parma on several occasions between 1484 and 1492; see Pezzana, Storia della città di Parma, v: 1484–1500 (1859), pp. 19–20, 37–40, 98–108. In 1488, Bernardino founded the Monte di Pietà; see Spaggiari, Bernardino da Feltre. For the character and efficacy of his preaching, see Muzzarelli, Pescatori di uomini. 12  Allodi, Serie cronologica, i, 816–17; Celaschi, ‘La confraternita del SS. Sacramento a Parma’.

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This was made easier by the fact that many confraternity leaders (ufficiali) played significant roles within the centres of lay power. This included the town council and the committee of elders (anziani), but also the main charitable institutions like the Rodolfo Tanzi Hospital (Ospedale grande) and the Monte di Pietà. Among powerful ecclesiastics involved in the brotherhoods’ activities, the canons of the cathedral were the most obvious and were found in a number of confraternities. The members of Parman confraternities could join more than one brotherhood at the same time. Multiple memberships reinforced ties between the various brotherhoods and created a kind of management network controlled by a restricted number of people and family groups. Their rise to power and personal success was therefore facilitated by relationships between brotherhoods and Parma’s political and economic system. The revival of civic religion is thus a telling framework for the analysis of this phase in Parma’s history and explains the enormous scale of the funds steered towards civic religious projects by local patricians. The majestic and visible language of sacred art and architecture was considered the most suitable to give eternal glory to the celestial protectors of the city, both old and new. 13 The municipal government appointed several new patron saints in the space of a few years in the early sixteenth century. Next to St Ilario and St John the Baptist, whose local cult went back to the thirteenth century, the town council added St Thomas in 1521, St Joseph and St Roch in 1528, and St John the Abbot in 1534.14 The supreme protector of the city remained the Virgin Mary. The adoption of religious language was intended to sacralize the actions of the municipal government (the mediator and guarantor of both Parman material and spiritual safety) while at the same time transmitting a message of loyalty to the papal temporal government. This was the ambitious project to which confraternities contributed vitally: giving new foundations to the renewed city around symbolic places and recreating a deeper sense of identity and unity amongst the cives by using the power of religious language.15 13 

For a more detailed discussion of the connections between civic cults and sacred urban space, see Cecchinelli, ‘Ridefinire lo spazio sacro della città’. 14  ASP, Com., Ordinazioni, reg. 49, fol. 187r–v, 19 March 1528 (St Joseph), fol. 197r–v, 24 June 1528 (St Roch); ASP, Com., Ordinazioni, reg. 51, fol. 212r–v, 2 June 1534 (St John the Abbot). 15  For the concept of a city as a symbolic place characterized by shared values (religious ones in particular), see La coscienza cittadina nei comuni italiani del Duecento; Vita religiosa e identità politiche, ed. by Gensini; Casagrande, Religiosità penitenziale e città al tempo dei comuni.

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Marian Devotion and Civic Revival The civic cult promoted most emphatically by the local government was the one addressed to the Virgin Mary. From its origins in the medieval period, this devotion had always had strong civic and political connotations and was associated with victories and periods of civic freedom. One of the founding myths of the communal period in Parma was, in fact, the defeat inflicted on Emperor Frederick II in 1248 by the Parman people, who immediately attributed this ‘miracle’ to the intercession of the Virgin. At that time, she was depicted on a canvas to which noblewomen of the city had donated a precious crown. This image of the Crowned Virgin, venerated in the cathedral, was added to the official symbols of the comune. It appeared on the title page of the municipal statutes, on the seals and coinage, and on the exterior walls of public buildings.16 Almost three centuries later, on 21 December 1521, the town was once more in danger. The municipal council, seizing on a moment of weakness in French control over the city, declared the annexation of Parma to the Papal States. This declaration provoked a tough siege by the French army in order to take back the town. Yet despite serious differences in numbers and organization, contemporary chronicles note that the entire population of Parman men, women, and even clerics, spurred on by papal governor Francesco Guicciardini, reacted so desperately that the French troops abandoned the battlefield, thus leaving Parma under the wing of the Church.17 The escape from danger was interpreted by people and governors alike as a miracle, a saving grace granted to the city through the intercession of the Virgin Mary in response to the faith of Parma’s population. From that point on, 21 December (the feast day of St Thomas) was officially celebrated as the day when the whole town was reborn. Civic pride grew over the following months, and it was popularly believed that the Virgin Mary had suppressed factional hatred and restored peace, even though true peace was more a hope for the future than an a realized fact. 18 This climate of renewed faith led to several initiatives to exalt the figure of the Virgin Mary as well as to portray the image of a reborn city. Most took the form of important artistic commissions both private and public, and most of these were dedicated to Mary: from great fresco cycles in cathedral and the 16 

For an analysis of the characteristics of Marian devotion in Parma, see Cecchinelli, ‘Culto della Vergine e devozione cittadina’. 17  A detailed account of what happened on that occasion can be found in Benassi, Storia di Parma, iv: 1521–1522 (1899), pp. 1–55. 18  Arcangeli, ‘Tra Milano e Roma’.

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main churches,19 to altarpieces for noble family chapels, to small devotional paintings.20 Confraternities took a leading role in this effort by promoting the building, restoration, or decoration of their own sacred spaces, chapels, and oratories.21 They often turned to famous artists and in some cases erected properly autonomous churches.22 This was the case for the two main brotherhoods dedicated to the cult of the Virgin which, following the diffusion of Marian devotion in the city and the unfolding political events, saw their own prestige and popular attraction increase at this time.

The Confraternities of the Annunciation and of the Immaculate Conception From the mid-fifteenth century, veneration of a particular image of the Virgin Mary expanded steadily in Parma. The small frescoed icon of the Madonna feeding the Child was known as the ‘Madonna della Steccata’ and had been painted between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries on the outside wall of a house situated next to an oratory dedicated to St John the Baptist (also called ‘della Steccata’). The oratory was at the head of an important street in the town centre, just a few steps away from the town hall.23 Thanks to its miraculous powers, this image became a potent focus for public devotion over the latter half of the fifteenth century.24 19 

To mention only the most important ones, the fresco cycles painted by Correggio in the church of San Giovanni Evangelista (the Crowning of the Virgin in the apse) and in the cathedral (the Assumption of Mary in the dome), and, at the same time, the construction and decoration of the church of Santa Maria della Steccata and of the oratory of the Immaculate Conception. 20  I am currently working on a paper dealing with the artistic production of Marian subject in Renaissance Parma and with the effects on local art of the debate about the Marian dogma. 21  For brotherhood patronage, see the various essays in Crossing the Boundaries, ed. by Eisen­ bichler, and in Confraternities and the Visual Arts in Renaissance Italy, ed. by Wisch and Ahl. 22  Besides Marian confraternities, the brotherhood of Santa Croce was, for example, active in this way between 1508 and 1530 when it promoted the building and decoration of a new oratory next to the Dominican church of San Pietro Martire: see Cecchinelli, ‘Ludovico Marmitta e Alessandro Araldi’. 23  The name ‘Steccata’ most probably derived from the fence that was built in front of the little fresco painting in order to prevent people from touching it. 24  The bibliography on the church of Santa Maria della Steccata is abundant: for the artistic and archi­tectural characteristics, see the recently published miscellaneous volume Santa Maria della

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To protect the sacred image and promote the cult, a new brotherhood dedicated to the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin was established in 1494 in the Steccata oratory. It was made up of men and women, clerics and laypeople.25 The model for this new company was the confraternity of the Annunciation founded around 1460 in Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome. The first official documents of the Parman Annunciation brotherhood made this link explicit and noted that, beyond the title, the two confraternities also shared the purpose of assigning a certain number of dowries to poor and honest girls every year.26 Parma’s Bishop Gian Giacomo Schiaffinati, resident in Rome but a native of Parma, inspired the creation of the new company. He not only warmly encouraged the setting up of the new brotherhood in Parma, but was also the first to join it.27 Within a very few years, the new brotherhood obtained great public support, especially amongst the upper classes: the wealthy merchant middle class, professionals in various city guilds, jurists, notaries, and canons of the cathedral. Four years later, the confraternity of the Steccata, as it was commonly called, was able to absorb into its ranks a more ancient flagellant company in decay.28 In 1496 the Steccata published its statutes in Italian.29 These detailed rules closely followed the Roman-Minerva model, regulating the directional structure of the brotherhood and articulating both the aims of the confraternity and the methods of achieving them. The rules established a set of very precise criteria for choosing girls to endow: the young women had to be more than twelve years old, of legitimate birth, of honest life, and above all, born and living inside the city walls. This last element underscored the civic character of the confraternity. Steccata a Parma, ed. by Adorni. For the ‘Madonna della Steccata’ image, see Fava, ‘Maria lactans’. 25  For a first analysis of the origins and development of the confraternity of the Annuncia­ tion, see Cecchinelli, ‘Tra culto civico e aspirazioni politiche’. 26  For the Minerva confraternity, see Esposito, ‘Le confraternite del matrimonio’. The Parma brotherhood took it as a model, starting with the statutes (Cecchinelli, ‘Tra culto civico e aspirazioni politiche’, pp. 87–100). 27  For further notices about Bishop Schiaffinati, see Mariotti, ‘L’Arco di Parma in Roma e il Palazzo del Cardinale Parmense’. 28  Pezzana, Storia della città di Parma, v: 1484–1500 (1859), p. 368. 29  Statuti della devota Compagnia della Beata Vergine. A copy of the original edition, printed on parchment with miniatures, is kept in Biblioteca Palatina di Parma (Parma, Bibl. Palatina, MS Inc. Parm. 700). In an appendix to the statutes, the book contains the manuscript transcription of the deed of union of the flagellant confraternity of the Disciplina Nuova to the Steccata company (see previous note), together with some new rules added in the course of the sixteenth century.

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Over time, an increasing number of Parmans left generous legacies to the brotherhood, a development that attests to the success of the organization. Testaments represent an extremely significant source for understanding the development of civic devotion because they show the gradual shift of charity beyond alms given pro anima, that is, for the salvation of one’s own soul and that of family members.30 These sources also illuminate shifts in giving patterns, temporary or more permanent, from brotherhoods or charity institutions in decline to new companies — in Parma, the Steccata brotherhood in particular.31 According to the archival evidence, even the most ancient Marian confraternity in the city, dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, seems to have suffered a perceptible decrease in prestige, accompanied by a diminution of its power to attract donations. It had been founded in the mid-thirteenth century under the double title of the Blessed Virgin and St Francis, later more specifically of the Conception.32 The Conception’s quarters were situated next to the Franciscan church of San Francesco del Prato, and the confraternity’s 1295 statutes, written by the friar Raniero da Genova, established its charitable and devotional aims to celebrate masses for members’ souls and to give clothes to the poor on the feast day of 8 December.33 The large number of testaments accumulated over the following two centuries documents Parman generosity towards this company, which at the end of the fifteenth century still received the highest number of testamentary legacies in the city.34 The archives of the brotherhood have survived 30 

For the meaning and purpose of pious legacies, see Bacci, Investimenti per l’aldilà. About last wills as sources for the history of religious mentality, see Nolens intestatus decedere. 31  It is impossible to list all the legacies left to the Steccata company from the first years; many are contained in the deeds of those notaries who usually worked for the Steccata brotherhood, such as Francesco Pelosi and Andrea Cerati. It is enough to underline their growing number and conspicuous amounts; in some cases, the confraternity was appointed as universal heir in exchange for masses, sacred offices, and in some cases the foundation of altars in the Steccata oratory. For several examples, see Cecchinelli, ‘Tra culto civico e aspirazioni politiche’, pp. 104–05. 32  In Parma, the feast of the Immaculate Conception was already celebrated in ancient times, as attested by a manuscript calendar dating back to the thirteenth century, mentioned by the Ordinarium Ecclesie Parmensis (1417). The company statutes contain a specific chapter for that feast and the related indulgences. 33  The statutes of 1295 were published on the basis of a fourteenth-century manuscript found in Parma, Bibl. Palatina, MS Pal. 87, by Giordani, ‘Statuta Consortii B. Mariae Virginis et S. Francisci Parmae’. For a description of the miniatures, see Zanichelli, ‘Scriptoria parmensi del medioevo’. 34  Several examples of universal legacies can be found among the documents of the con­ fraternity, some of which are cited in Ronchini, ‘Due quadri di Girolamo Mazzola’, pp. 241–42,

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almost completely and include various series of account books attesting to the wealth and solidity of the administration.35 Marian brotherhoods received a new impulse during the last quarter of the fifteenth century. The general diffusion of Marian devotion throughout Christendom was reinforced by the church’s commitment, above all through the Franciscan order, to promote the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.36 Many new spaces for confraternity meetings, chapels, and oratories were founded as a result. In Parma, the brotherhood of the Conception renewed its statutes in 1487, placing more emphasis on the title of ‘Conception’.37 This was, in all probability, a consequence of the preaching of the Franciscan Bernardino da Feltre, who upheld the dogma fervently and who had been preaching in Parma’s squares shortly before.38 Around 1470, the brotherhood sought to build a chapel of its own in the cloister of the convent, next to the chapter house.39 Until that time, the confratelli for example, ASP, Notai, filza 96, Galasso Leoni, 105–08: 8 June 1468; 8 September 1483; 16 July 1484; 24 July 1484; 1 May 1486; 30 March 1487; 22 April 1487. 35  Most of these account books are kept in the archives of the parish church of SS. Trinità and of the Franciscan convent by the Immaculate Conception oratory. I would like to thank the parish priest, don Guido Pasini, and the Franciscan fathers for kindly allowing me to consult this material. 36  The Franciscan Pope Sixtus IV affirmed the validity of the feast of the Immaculate Conception with a papal bull in 1477, followed by the approval of two sacred offices composed by two Franciscans, Leonardo Nogarolo and Bernardino de Bustis. See Mayberry, ‘The Controversy over the Immaculate Conception’. A useful summary and discussion of the effects of the debate on the artistic world can be found in Kroegel, ‘Quando il centro usa prudenza e la periferia osa’. See also D’Ancona, The Iconography of the Immaculate Conception; Goffen, Piety and Patronage in Renaissance Venice. 37  A late manuscript copy, with additions until 1540, is kept in Parma, Archivio di Stato, Raccolta Statuti, n. 165. 38  From this time on, documents refer to the confraternity only with the title ‘della Concezione’; at the same time, the local clergy and the municipality decided to give solemn honour to the feast of the Immaculate Conception (Linati, Parma e la Vergine, pp. 37, 85–86; Allodi, Serie cronologica, i, 820). 39  The location of the first chapel, which no longer exists, can be precisely inferred from several archival documents, for example, ASP, Notai, filza 165, Pietro Del Bono, 29 September 1474: ‘Actum Parme in vicinia S.ti Francisci de Prato in primo claustro monasterii ordinis fratruum Sancti Francisci sub porticu dicti claustri ante capella societatis domine Sancte Marie’; ASP, Notai, filza 103, Galasso Leoni, 20 December 1478: ‘Actum in camera dicte societatis sita prope capelam novam dicte societatis sitam prope capitulum monasterii fratrum Sancti Francisci civitatis Parme’. Local literature about the ancient chapel incorrectly reports that it was

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of the Conception had not owned a specific space inside the church of San Francesco del Prato, but rather met in the chapter house itself. Before the end of the fifteenth century, they had carried out an ambitious project involving the construction of the new chapel, complete with a cycle of fourteen paintings representing episodes of the Virgin’s life, beginning with the Immaculate Conception.40 Nevertheless, even this lavish investment was not enough to restrain the inexorable rise of the Steccata brotherhood. Since its foundation, in fact, the confraternity of the Annunciation in the Steccata oratory had been strongly and consciously promoting certain forms of devotion and administration, the modernity of which distinguished the institution from the other Parma devotional companies.41 The decision to draw up statutes within a mere two years and, above all, to print and publish them in Italian underlines the clear intention to reach out to a broader segment of the population by using the press and the vernacular. The administrative structure and the election process were defined in detail: every year eight new members were appointed, two for each of the four city areas (‘dui per qualunque quarterio della città de Parma’). The annual turnover of members made it necessary to secure continuity for ongoing projects, and in fact, the three highest officers (the priore, the depositario or capsario, and the massaro) remained part of the executive council for a second year in order to help and inform the new members.42 Beyond this, two public notaries were charged with registering every decision and action and assuring the conservation of brotherhood records.43

inside the Franciscan church on the right hand side, where the brotherhood later built a corridor that linked the church to the new oratory (Allodi, Serie cronologica, i, 404). 40  ASP, Notai, filza 227, Gaspare Del Prato, 28 September 1489: contract between the officials of the brotherhood and the painter Bartolomeo Rossetti da Modena for the execution of the frescoes. For an analysis of the cycle, see Zanichelli, ‘Strutture della produzione artistica a Parma nel xv secolo’. 41  For the following remarks, I found particularly useful the conclusions drawn by Terpstra, Lay Confraternities, pp. 205–16, and Terpstra, ‘Confraternities and Local Cults’, about the tight links between confraternities, patronage of Marian images, and the transformation of private oratories into public shrines of civic religious cults. See also Muir, ‘The Virgin on the Streetcorner’; Wisch, ‘Keys to Success’. 42  Statuti della devota Compagnia della Beata Vergine, fol. 3r: ‘per più piena informatione deli officiali novi’. 43  Notaries acting for the company in the first decades of the sixteenth century included Francesco Pelosi, Andrea Cerati, and Benedetto del Bono (deeds in Parma, Archivio di Stato, Notai di Parma).

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The Steccata brotherhood provided a successful example of superior organization and purpose, inspired by a high-level Roman model and supported from the beginning by the bishop, who was also cardinal of the Holy Church of Rome. Many decades before the spread of archiconfraternities through Europe, this can be considered a very early experiment in affiliation to a Roman confraternity.44 The Steccata presented itself as a civic company open to all people, both men and women. Women were assigned the very visible role of leading the girls chosen to receive dowries in an Annunciation Day (25 March) procession through the city.45 Lay members could be registered as brothers of the Steccata without distinction being made in the record of their professions or neighbourhoods of residence.46 Unlike the Conception, which was a purely lay company, many clerics held the highest office of prior for several years.47 Apart from the more traditional action of saying masses for members’ souls, the main purpose of the Steccata was innovative. Providing dowries to poor young girls was an urgently felt need by the late fifteenth century, and the Minerva brotherhood had just emerged as the first confraternity in Rome to choose this work as its principal charitable activity aim in order to safeguard female honour and encourage Christian marriage.48 In Parma, the Steccata company was the first to identify itself with this work and to guarantee to testators that it would actually be carried out. Many last wills in the preceding centuries included legacies to 44  The Statuti insisted upon having the opportunity to ask for the concession of a papal bull that allowed brothers to gain all the indulgences and privileges already granted to the Minerva brotherhood: ‘una bolla appostolica […] la quale facia noy participi de tutte le indulgentie e privilegii de la compagnia de l’Annunciata della Minerva in l’alma cità de Roma […] soto stendardo della quale questa nostra devotissima università como da quella discesa intende militare’ (Statuti della devota Compagnia della Beata Vergine, chap. 4.ii). 45  Statuti della devota Compagnia della Beata Vergine, fol. 8r–v, notes that each girl was accompanied by two old women, ‘vedove e gravi’, called priorisse. Women’s roles in confraternities has been investigated by Casagrande, ‘Confraternities and Lay Female Religiosity’; Terpstra, ‘Women in the Brotherhood’; Esposito, ‘Donne e confraternite’. 46  The eight new officers elected every year were supposed to include two from each area of the city (Statuti della devota Compagnia della Beata Vergine, fol. 3r). 47  Until 1520, the office of priore was held by a member of the local high clergy (the bishop’s vicar or a canon of the cathedral); then the clerics alternated with doctors in law. In 1534, the annual turnover was definitely established (Parma, Arch. dell’Ord. costant. di San Giorgio, Ord. ii, c. 35r). 48  See Kirshner, Pursuing Honor while Avoiding Sin; Klapisch-Zuber, Women, Family, and Ritual in Renaissance Italy; Leuzzi, ‘Condurre a onore’; Esposito, ‘Ad dotandum puellas virgines, pauperes et honestas’.

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endow a certain number of young women, but these funds were later assigned to general confraternal administration.49 Moreover, the Steccata brotherhood was free of any tie to the mendicant orders, which had fostered many lay companies between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.50 Several mendicant communities had declined in rigour, devotion, and size by the end of the fifteenth century, including the Franciscans in the church of San Francesco del Prato in Parma, where the Conception brotherhood had been founded. This decline had caused a certain feeling of alienation among the people and generated great concern in the municipal government, which had called for reform on more than one occasion.51 In contrast, the autonomy of the Steccata brothers gave them wider freedom of action; they were independent of the bishop’s control, and their church was not a parish church nor would it depend on other churches.52 Last but not least, their role as guardians of a miraculous icon gave the members of the confraternity an important civic-religious task of mediating between the Parman people who, individually and collectively, sought spiritual protection through the power of the Virgin Mary to intercede with God on their behalf.53 49 

Many testators leaving legacies to the Steccata company required that the funds be dedicated to dowries for poor and honest young women; see, for example, ASP, Notai, filza 832, Gerolamo Balestra, 7 March 1523; ASP, Notai, filza 619, Gaspare Bernuzzi, 11 April 1523. For other remarks, see Chabot, ‘La beneficenza dotale nei testamenti del tardo Medioevo’. 50  The most important confraternities founded next to mendicant convents in Parma were the Conception (Franciscans of San Francesco del Prato), the Santa Croce (Dominicans of San Pietro Martire), the Santa Maria della Misericordia (Augustinian of San Luca), and the Beata Vergine del Monte Carmelo (Carmelites of Santa Maria del Carmine). The relevance of mendicant preaching for the birth of many lay brotherhoods during the Middle Ages has been widely studied; see, for example, De Sandre Gasparini, ‘Movimento dei disciplinati, confraternite e ordini mendicanti’. 51  Benassi, Storia di Parma, ii: 1512–1515 (1899), pp. 101–02. 52  This privilege was pursued and defended on several occasions. After a first unsuccessful attempt in 1515 (ASP, Notai, filza 449, Francesco Pelosi, 15 July 1515), the brothers obtained a separation from the church of San Matteo in 1527, and the Steccata sanctuary became free of any link to the diocesan structure (ASP, Culto, b. 11, 22 March 1527). In this, the Steccata example seems to confirm the conclusions drawn by Terpstra, that ‘the confraternities could function as an alternative to both the local parish and the monastic house’ (Terpstra, Lay Confraternities, p. 48), and by Giorgio Cracco, that a Marian sanctuary could be considered ‘una specie di parrocchia di tutti finalmente funzionante’ (Cracco, ‘Culto mariano e istituzioni di Chiesa’, p. 34). 53  For the importance of miraculous images in this age, see the essays in the volumes Thunø, Image and Relic, and The Miraculous Image, ed. by Thunø and Wolf. A Florentine example can

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The prestige of the Steccata company was guaranteed by the high-ranking group of leaders and officials who often filled significant roles within the civic government or the cathedral chapter.54 This in turn ensured the support of local institutions when they approached the popes to ask for indulgences for brotherhood members and benefactors, and thus assemble a spiritual treasury to which more and more Parmans would desire to have access through membership and alms.55 The gradual passage from what had begun as spontaneous devotion to the icon of the Madonna della Steccata into a true civic cult went hand in hand with the success of the brotherhood of the Annunciation. Already by 1509, the latter was able to increase the number and amount of its annual dowries.56 Yet the largest part of the wealth accumulated in these few years was assigned to the construction of a new and magnificent church, intended to bolster the cult of the Steccata icon and give further visibility and reputation to its ‘guardian’ brotherhood. By 1515, the company was assiduously raising funds and, thanks to the explicit support of the local government through both money57 and the required permissions,58 the be found in Trexler, ‘Florentine Religious Experience’. 54  Thus, for example, the office of priore was held by the doctors in law Pietro Ruggeri, Bartolomeo Prati, Gerolamo Zunti, and Bernardo Bergonzi (these four were supposed to be the best jurists in the city) and the canons of the cathedral Bartolomeo Montini, Pascasio Beliardi, and Vincenzo Carissimi (who took turns between 1512 and 1520). 55  The first concessions of indulgences date back to 1494 and 1496 by Pope Alexander VI and to 1508 by Pope Julius  II. In 1522, the Comune gave precise instructions to Parman ambassadors in Rome to obtain a new indulgence for the Steccata confraternity and sanctuary: ‘Non ce è parso potersi tanto ricordare de la gloriosissima Regina del cello nostra advocata et sua confraternita de la Stachata che’l basti, per che sapete da quanto exterminio questo anno contra li rabidi inimici nostri ce habia conservati: in perhò usarite tutta quella industria vi serà possibile, et omni extrema faticha, ad ciò se consegua la unione et confirmacione de soi statuti, et concessione de indulgentie se contiene in li capituli antedicti’ (ASP, Com., b. 11, Instructions to the ambassadors, 29 October 1522, chap. 6). 56  In 1509, the amount of the dowry passed from thirty lire (as declared by the Statuti della devota Compagnia della Beata Vergine, fol. 5r), including the guarnello or ceremonial robe, to forty lire, while the number of young women endowed from sixteen to twenty; before 1530, the sum had passed to fifty lire, while in 1564 the number of the girls had increased to fifty. 57  The Town Council deliberated to assign the considerable sum of a thousand lire on 26 April 1521, ‘essendo per divina ispiratione piaciuto al popolo di questa città dar principio ad edificare una honorevole chiesa in onore de la Virgine Maria de la Stachata, ad ciò dicta opera meglio se possa compire’ (ASP, Com., Ordinazioni, reg. 48, c. 40). 58  The Comune granted an exemption from a previous order forbidding the construction of a church on the place where the brotherhood intended to found the new sanctuary (ASP, Com., Ordinazioni, reg. 47, 5 March 1516, fol. 172r–v).

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new church was consecrated in the presence of important ecclesiastical and civic figures on 4 April 1521.59 The unexpected victory over the French on 21 December of the same year, followed by the official version which attributed the triumph to the miraculous protection of the Virgin Mary, accelerated the process of identification between the abstract theological figure of the Virgin and the concrete local image of the Madonna della Steccata. It was she who defended Parma in order to signal approval for the new sanctuary just founded. The small image was thus presented as a civic palladium, or safeguard, and it can easily be imagined how such an ideological operation, grounded in the citizens’ true and real feelings of devotion in conjunction with the miraculous delivery from the French siege, helped the church building programme. Founded to underline and increase the prestige of a particular brotherhood, the shrine quickly acquired the broader connotation of ‘civic temple’ and ‘church of the community’.60 It was a potent symbol and monument of civic pride. The same factors allowed the brotherhood of the Annunciation to assume a role in the projection of local government into the religious sphere. When, on 19 March 1528, the town council decided to include St Joseph in the pantheon of Parma’s patron saints, one of the main chapels of the Steccata church, at that point still under construction, was dedicated to the saint and its decoration was paid by the comune.61 The boundaries between religious and civic values were dismantled in the church of Santa Maria della Steccata, which was becoming the liturgical seat of the civic cults. The Steccata project was not, however, the only one that in those years aimed at glorifying the protective figure of the Virgin Mary. 62 The most ancient of 59 

See n. 1. Ronzani, ‘La “chiesa del comune” nelle città dell’Italia’; Chittolini, ‘“Religione cittadina” e “chiese del comune”’. 61  ASP, Com., Ordinazioni, reg. 49, fol. 187r–v: ‘Et li sia dedicato [to St Joseph] uno de li nichioni grandi, cioè quello de mane destra de la chiesa nuova de la Stachata, in lo quale se habi a fondare lo altare sotto il vocabulo de esso santo, et che de le intrate de questa Magnifica Comunità se li debbia donare et insino adesso se intenda esserli donata et applicata la summa de libre 2500 da esserli pagate in cinque anni alla ratta, per fare una anchona et altri ornamenti in detta capella’. 62  There were more than forty brotherhoods at the beginning of the sixteenth century in Parma, although many were limited parish confraternities. Among the most important sodalities dedicated to the Marian cult (apart from the two major ones dealt with by this article), we must also note Santa Maria della Misericordia in San Luca, Santa Maria del Conforto in Sant’Apollinare, Santa Maria del Carmine in the Carmine church, Santa Maria delle Grazie and Santa Maria della Neve in the cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore, Santa Maria Bianca, and Santa Maria in Borgo Taschieri (these three last were connected to the cult of a Marian icon). 60 

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Marian brotherhoods in Parma, that of the Immaculate Conception, also continued to play a privileged role. Yet this could only happen because of its gradual convergence with the sodality of the Steccata. According to documentary evidence, in fact, we should conclude that there was no competition between the two Marian confraternities. Rather, they shared the common aim to uphold, each in its own way, the revival of civic identity based on religious values. This was made possible by the contemporaneous involvement of many members of the patrician class in the leadership of both brotherhoods. A comparison of the various officers’ lists demonstrates that by the end of the fifteenth century, those who were charged with the role of minister of the Conception company were also powerful men within the activities of the Steccata.63 Already in 1489, the executive committee of the Conception brotherhood had promoted a radical change of the rules concerning the annual election of the officers.64 Instead of appointing two representatives for each of the four areas of the city, as the traditional procedure stated, it was decided to draw lots for the two ministri, the four sindaci, and the twelve sapienti from three selected social groups. These groups were comprised of those who were social and economic peers, and from this moment on, jurists, knights, wealthy merchants, and outstanding figures in the local political world were always numbered among the ministers.65 In 1497, the Conception company added to its annual charitable disbursements the dowering of two poor girls.66 While certainly a modest initiative, it is a significant example of the ways in which the group was inspired by the Steccata brotherhood: in fact, the rules for the choice and the solemn ceremony of endowment were modelled explicitly after those of the Steccata.67 63 

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the officers of the Conception were mainly artisans, whereas from the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries, there were growing numbers of wealthy merchants, notaries, and doctors in law. Among the pre-eminent members of the Town Council who served simultaneously as officers of both the Steccata and the Conception companies in these years, we find Pietro Ruggeri, Gerolamo Zunti, Bartolomeo Prati, Gian Andrea Tarasconi, Damiano da Cornazzano, Simone del Piombo, Gerardo da Ferrara, and Francesco Zangrandi. 64  ASP, Statuti, n. 165, 6 September 1489, ‘Capitolo de fare li offitiali della Compagnia’. 65  ‘Et che secondo la industria, ingenio et aptitudine magiore o minore de le persone, siano promosse et deputate seu ellecte, chi ad uno officio, et chi ad uno altro, secondo che sono epsi officii de magiore et de minore importantia’. The boxes from which names of officers were drawn contained enough names for six elections; that is, for six years. 66  ASP, Statuti, n. 165, 17 July 1497: ‘Ordo super maritandis pauperibus domicellis in ipsa societatis’. 67  Many deeds record the delivery of dowries by the massaro of the Conception confraternity (for example: ASP, Notai, filza 465, Francesco Burzi, 18 April 1518; ASP, Notai, filza 874,

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The convergence of the two brotherhoods became even more evident a few years later, when both undertook the ambitious project of building new sacred spaces in honour of the Virgin Mary. The confraternity of the Conception, which had already constructed a finely decorated new chapel only three decades before, now promoted the creation of a much wider and prestigious oratory where the sacred offices run by the brothers would take place. By 1518, negotiations with the friars were in progress in order to ensure the necessary support for the project.68 After several attempts during the following two years,69 the final approval arrived in April 1521, just one day after the consecration of the church of Santa Maria della Steccata.70 Each company elected a small group of members to oversee the building project of the two churches as works committees (fabbriceri) responsible for all details of the construction.71 The documents refer to the same workmen, builders, Giovanni Martino Garbazzi, 6 February 1520); significantly, one of these was drawn up in the sacristy of the Steccata oratory (ASP, Notai, filza 471, Francesco Burzi, 30 April 1517). 68  ASP, Notai, filza 465, Francesco Burzi, 10 October 1518 (mentioned by Dall’Acqua, Correggio e il suo tempo, p. 159): the officers, gathered in the ancient chapel in the cloister, elect four fabbriceri with the task of dealing with the friars to acquire the space next to the church where they wanted to found the new oratory: ‘locum seu facultas hedificandi et hedificari in horto dicti monasterii […] pro faciendo et fabricando in dicto loco nomine prefati societatis unam pulcram devocionem sub nomine Conceptionis […]’. ASP, Notai, filza 465, Francesco Burzi, 2o October 1518: the minister of the Franciscan Order, ‘audita peticione sibi facta per agentes nomine societatis Conceptionis domine Sancte Marie fondate in ecclesia Sancti Francisci civitatis Parme in qua petierunt auctoritatem fabricandi apud ecclesiam predictam […]’, appoints an agent to make a decision. 69  ASP, Notai, filza 471, Francesco Burzi, 3 May 1519: the officials elect two fabbriceri to come to an agreement with the friars about where to build the new oratory; ASP, Notai, filza 323, Antonio Marcello Bovini, 14 October 1520, and ASP, Notai, filza 874, Giovanni Martino Garbazzi, 28 October 1520: new elections by the officials to decide the site of the building. 70  ASP, Notai, filza 580, Pier Maria Prati, 5 April 1521: the Franciscan friars, gathered in the chapter house, after listening to the requests, gave licence ‘quod ipsa confraternitas possit et valeat pro eius voluntatis construi et edificari facere capellam prefatam […]’. The request of 5 April was followed by the approval granted by the minister of the Franciscan Province of Bologna on 15 April (ASP, Notai, filza 568, Pier Maria Prati). Many other unpublished documents concerning the foundation and construction of the oratory of the Conception will be the subject of a forthcoming essay. 71  Between 1518 and 1521, the following confratelli were elected fabbriceri by the Con­ ception officials: Gerolamo Zunti, Damiano da Cornazzano, Gian Andrea Tarasconi, Marco Garsi, Bartolomeo Prati, Francesco Zangrandi, and Gian Francesco Bonzagni. In the same years, those figures acquired a kind of specialization, for example, Damiano da Cornazzano was the first fabbricere of the Steccata church in 1521 and later in 1524; he was charged with the same task also for the cathedral (1519) and for the confraternity of Santa Croce (1524). See

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and artists being involved in the two construction sites, as well as to exchanges of materials.72 Even the architectural model used (a centrally planned Greek cross) was similar for the two designs.73 This manifest overlapping of the two projects was highly significant. It does not seem possible to describe the relationship as rivalry given the identity of the people involved; more probably, it was the result of a shared ideal of civic identity based on Marian devotion. The development of this ambitious project allowed the confraternal network to influence society on various levels. Brotherhoods became a meeting place and a fertile ground for the exchange of ideas both religious and political as well as for the further social rise of a group of families already climbing the ladder of success in the economic and political spheres. The relaunching of the confraternity of the Conception can be interpreted as the fruit of an operation, consciously carried forward by the ruling elite, to save this antique devotion and the wealthy brotherhood that supported it. The miraculous events of December 1521 favoured the already-finished Steccata sanctuary, but the oratory of the Immaculate Conception, though smaller in size and less magnificent in decoration, was fully completed during the following decade. The iconographical programme of the frescoes in both churches was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and the works committees of both turned to artists who knew each other well from having worked together previously. The famous painter Parmigianino painted the arch over the main altar in the Steccata, representing the parable of ‘The Wise and the Foolish Virgins’.74 Michelangelo Cecchinelli, ‘Ludovico Marmitta e Alessandro Araldi’, pp. 330–31. 72  In the account books of the Conception brotherhood, many payments are recorded to Pietro Cavazzoli, a master builder (‘magister a muro’) who worked also for the Steccata church in the same years (‘Libro rosso, 1520–35’, fols 23r–v, 27r–v, quoted in Quintavalle, ‘L’oratorio della Concezione a Parma’, p. 25 and n. 4); ASP, Notai, filza 580, Pier Maria Prati, 5 June 1521: agreements between Cavazzoli and the fabbriceri. It was probably due to him that stone materials were exchanged between the two construction sites (30 April 1525, stone to make capitals and plinths). 73  The identity of the architect is not known, but frequently the person who had provided the design was not involved in the construction of the building itself, a process that was entrusted to local master builders instead. This was likely the case with the Staccata plan: some scholars attribute it to Leonardo da Vinci, while the execution is attributed to Bernardino Zaccagni. See Adorni, ‘L’architettura del tempio civico’. The sculptor Gian Francesco d’Agrate, who made several tombs in the Steccata church, was probably involved also in the project of the Conception oratory; he was paid ‘per haver fatto il modello della Concetione’ (quoted in Quintavalle, ‘L’oratorio della Concezione a Parma’, p. 25). 74  There is an extensive body of literature dealing with Parmigianino’s frescoes (1531–39).

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Anselmi and Francesco Maria Rondani worked together to fresco the lower part of the dome of the Conception oratory with episodes related to the dogma of the Immaculate Conception,75 while Girolamo Mazzola Bedoli, Parmigianino’s cousin, was appointed to paint the ‘Allegory of the Immaculate Conception’ for the main altar with a particularly complex iconography which has not yet been completely deciphered by scholars.76 Both Anselmi and Bedoli worked later, after Parmigianino’s death, in the Steccata church. It is highly probable that the similar decorative plans were due to the deep culture and ideas of the two works committees and the other brothers. The two new churches, situated in two different parts of the city thus became the new focal points of civic religion in Parma. Within a few years, the ambitious project of promoting Parma’s autonomy and freedom underwent substantial changes. Papal policies changed after the Sack of Rome in 1527 (a calamity which had dire consequences for the fiscal resources in the Papal States), and later, under the Farnese duchy, municipal authority was severely curtailed. Yet the prestigious basis acquired by the Steccata brotherhood allowed its new sanctuary, consecrated in 1539, to keep the status of an autonomous church, independent of the diocese, as it remains today.77 It even became a privileged devotional place for the Farnese dukes. The confraternity of the Immaculate Conception, which existed until the nineteenth century, had a more devotional and local dimension.78 See, for instance, Vaccaro, Parmigianino, pp. 186–89; Battisti, ‘Ecce virgo ecce habet lampades’. 75  The most recent study of these frescoes (1532–34) and the related documents is Fadda, Michelangelo Anselmi, pp. 73–75, 167, 184–85. 76  Today in the National Gallery of Parma, this altarpiece was commissioned in 1533 and paid for in 1539; see Milstein, The Paintings of Girolamo Mazzola Bedoli, pp. 40–47, 149–54, 241–59. Some different preparatory drawings attest to the complicated elaboration of the subject, due in part to the involvement of the brothers. 77  On that occasion, the fresco icon of the Madonna della Steccata was moved into the new sanctuary and placed over the main altar, where it remains today. Many documents refer to this solemn celebration and all underline the great number of people who took part in the event. Chronicler Giovanni Battista Sozzi notes for 24 February 1539, that ‘li officiali della Compagnia della Madona della Steccata fecero condurre l’immagine di detta Madonna nella chiesa grande nuova e fu in domenica di notte alle ore nove venendo al lunedì, che fu il giorno di S. Mattia, e a detto giorno vi andò poi in processione il cardinal del Monte legato cispadano con tutta la chieresia e tutto il popolo, e con grandissima solennità e pompa e offerta e vi era il perdono plenario’ (Parma, Bibl. Palatina, MS 459, fol. 366r–v). For other references, see Cecchinelli, ‘Tra culto civico e aspirazioni politiche’, pp. 123–24. 78  The church still exists next to what remains of the Franciscan convent, which was closed in the Napoleonic age and transformed into a public prison; see Marchetti and Fiore, San Francesco del Prato in Parma.

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The evolution of the charitable, devotional, and building programmes of the Steccata and Conception confraternities in Renaissance Parma shows how brotherhoods became vehicles for the articulation of elite-driven civic religious responses to political crises and social opportunities during the troubled period of the Italian Wars. Against the backdrop of crisis and the shattering of centuriesold political equilibrium, brotherhoods took on an active and visible role in Parman society. This was particularly the case for those companies which were able to modernize themselves and adopt devotional and charitable innovations pioneered elsewhere in order to redefine their aims and structure. In Parma, the confraternal system did not act as an isolated or a particularistic force oblivious to developments in the political and social sphere. Rather, Parman confraternities were fully absorbed in the ambitious projects of the local government, in a mutual exchange of support and care.

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Works Cited Manuscripts and Archival Resources Parma, Archivio dell’Ordine costantiniano di San Giorgio, Ordinazioni ii Parma, Archivio di Stato, Comune, b. 11 —— , Comune, Ordinazioni, reg. 47 —— , Comune, Ordinazioni, reg. 48 —— , Comune, Ordinazioni, reg. 49 —— , Comune, Ordinazioni, reg. 51 —— , Culto, b. 11 —— , Notai di Parma, filza 96 (Galasso Leoni) —— , Notai di Parma, filza 103 (Galasso Leoni) —— , Notai di Parma, filza 165 (Pietro Del Bono) —— , Notai di Parma, filza 227 (Gaspare Del Prato) —— , Notai di Parma, filza 323 (Antonio Marcello Bovini) —— , Notai di Parma, filza 449 (Francesco Pelosi) —— , Notai di Parma, filza 465 (Francesco Burzi) —— , Notai di Parma, filza 471 (Francesco Burzi) —— , Notai di Parma, filza 568 (Pier Maria Prati) —— , Notai di Parma, filza 580 (Pier Maria Prati) —— , Notai di Parma, filza 619 (Gaspare Bernuzzi) —— , Notai di Parma, filza 832 (Gerolamo Balestra) —— , Notai di Parma, filza 874 (Giovanni Martino Garbazzi) —— , Raccolta Statuti, n. 165 Parma, Biblioteca Palatina, MS 459 —— , MS Inc. Parm. 700 —— , MS Pal. 87

Primary Sources Statuti della devota Compagnia della Beata Vergine della inclita Città di Parma firmata sotto il Venerando Titulo de sua sanctissima Annunciatione (Parma: Ugoleto, 1496)

Secondary Studies Adorni, Bruno, ‘L’architettura del tempio civico’, in Santa Maria della Steccata a Parma: Da chiesa ‘civica’ a basilica magistrale dell’Ordine costantiniano, ed. by Bruno Adorni (Milano: Skira, 2008), pp. 47–112 —— , ed., Santa Maria della Steccata a Parma: Da chiesa ‘civica’ a basilica magistrale dell’Ordine costantiniano (Milano: Skira, 2008) Allodi, Giovanni Maria, Serie cronologica dei vescovi di Parma, 2 vols (Parma: Fiaccadori, 1854–56)

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Arcangeli, Letizia, Gentiluomini di Lombardia: Ricerche sull’aristocrazia padana nel Rina­ sci­mento, Storia lombarda (Milano: Unicopli, 2003) —— , ‘Sul linguaggio della politica nell’Italia del primo Cinquecento: le fonti della città di Parma’, in Per Marino Berengo: Studi degli allievi, ed. by Livio Antonielli, Carlo Capra, and Mario Infelise (Milano: Angeli, 2000), pp. 76–113 —— , ‘Tra Milano e Roma: Esperienze politiche nella Parma del primo Cinquecento’, in Emilia e Marche nel Rinascimento: L’identità visiva della ‘periferia’, ed. by Giancarla Periti (Azzano San Paolo: Bolis, 2005), pp. 89–118 Bacci, Michele, Investimenti per l’aldilà: Arte e raccomandazione dell’anima nel Medioevo (Roma: Laterza, 2003) Battisti, Eugenio, ‘Ecce virgo ecce habet lampades: Il Parmigianino alla Steccata’, in Santa Maria della Steccata a Parma: Da chiesa ‘civica’ a basilica magistrale dell’Ordine costan­ tiniano, ed. by Bruno Adorni (Milano: Skira, 2008), pp. 159–96 Benassi, Umberto, Storia di Parma, 5 vols (Parma: Adorni, 1899–1906) Black, Christopher, Church, Religion, and Society in Early Modern Italy (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004) Bruni, Francesco, La città divisa: Le parti e il bene comune da Dante a Guicciardini (Bologna: Mulino, 2003) Casagrande, Giovanna, ‘Confraternities and Lay Female Religiosity in Late Medieval and Renaissance Umbria’, in The Politics of Ritual Kinship: Confraternities and Social Order in Early Modern Italy, ed. by Nicholas Terpstra, Cambridge Studies in Italian History and Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 48–66 —— , Religiosità penitenziale e città al tempo dei comuni, Bibliotheca seraphico-capuccina, 48 (Roma: Istituto Storico dei Cappuccini, 1995) Cecchinelli, Cristina, ‘Agli esordi del potere farnesiano a Parma: Il cardinale Alessandro Farnese vescovo-amministratore della diocesi (1509–1534)’, Rivista di storia della Chiesa in Italia, 63 (2009), 91–124 —— , ‘Culto della Vergine e devozione cittadina: Parmigianino e Correggio interpreti dei dogmi mariani’, Aurea Parma, 86 (2002), 443–92 —— , ‘Ludovico Marmitta e Alessandro Araldi per l’oratorio della Santa Croce a Parma’, Aurea Parma, 89 (2005), 321–44 —— , ‘Ridefinire lo spazio sacro della città: confraternite e culti civici a Parma nel Rina­ scimento’, Mélanges de l’Ëcole française de Rome: Moyen Âge, temps modernes, 123 (2011), 83–93 —— , ‘Un sinodo di Alessandro Farnese a Parma (1519)’, Cristianesimo nella storia, 24 (2003), 297–326 —— , ‘Tra culto civico e aspirazioni politiche: la confraternita dell’Annunciazione in S. Maria della Steccata a Parma’, Ricerche di storia sociale e religiosa, 70 (2006), 83–129 Celaschi, Silvio, ‘La confraternita del SS. Sacramento a Parma’, Ravennatensia, 6 (1974– 75), 413–20 Chabot, Isabelle, ‘La beneficenza dotale nei testamenti del tardo Medioevo’, in Povertà e innovazioni istituzionali in Italia dal Medioevo ad oggi, ed. by Vera Zamagni (Bologna: Mulino, 2000), pp. 55–76

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Chittolini, Giorgio, Città, comunità e feudi negli stati dell’Italia centro-settentrionale (secoli xiv–xvi) (Milano: Unicopli, 1996) —— , ‘Città, istituzioni ecclesiastiche e “religione civica” nell’Italia centro-settentrionale alla fine del secolo xv’, in Girolamo Savonarola da Ferrara all’Europa, ed. by Gigliola Fragnito and Mario Miegge, Savonarola e la Toscana, 14 (Firenze: SISMEL, 2001), pp. 325–45 —— , ‘“Religione cittadina” e “chiese del comune” alla fine del Medioevo’, in La chiesa a pianta centrale, tempio civico del Rinascimento, ed. by Bruno Adorni, Documenti di architettura, 142 (Milano: Electa, 2002), pp. 15–25 La coscienza cittadina nei comuni italiani del Duecento: Tema del convegno di 11–14 ottobre 1970, Convegni del Centro di studia sulla spiritualità medievale, 11 (Todi: Accademia Tudertina, 1972) Cracco, Giorgio, ‘Culto mariano e istituzioni di Chiesa tra medioevo ed età moderna’, in Arte, religione, comunità nell’Italia rinascimentale e barocca, ed. by Lucia Saccardo and Danilo Zardin (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 2000), pp. 25–52 D’Ancona, Mirella Levi, The Iconography of the Immaculate Conception in the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance, Monographs on Archaeology and Fine Arts, 7 (New York: College Art Association of America in conjunction with the Art Bulletin, 1957) D’Andrea, David M., Civic Christianity in Renaissance Italy: The Hospital of Treviso, 1400–1530 (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2007) Dall’Acqua, Marzio, Correggio e il suo tempo (Parma: Archivio di Stato, 1984) —— , ‘Documentazione’, in Santa Maria della Steccata a Parma, ed. by Bruno Adorni (Parma: Silva, 1982), p. 246 De Sandre Gasparini, Giuseppina, ‘Movimento dei disciplinati, confraternite e ordini men­di­canti’, in I frati minori e il terzo ordine: Problemi e discussioni storiografiche, Convegni del Centro di studia sulla spiritualità medievale, 23 (Todi: Accademia Tudertina, 1985), pp. 79–114 Donvito, Luigi, ‘La “religione cittadina” e le nuove prospettive sul Cinquecento religioso italiano’, Rivista di storia e letteratura religiosa, 19 (1983), 430–74 Eisenbichler, Konrad, ed., Crossing the Boundaries: Christian Piety and the Arts in Italian Medieval and Renaissance Confraternities, Early Drama, Art, and Music Monograph Series, 15 (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute, 1991) Esposito, Anna, ‘Le confraternite del matrimonio: Carità, devozione e bisogni sociali a Roma nel tardo Quattrocento (con l’edizione degli Statuti vecchi della Compagnia della SS. Annunziata)’, in Un’idea di Roma: Società, arte e cultura tra Umanesimo e Rinascimento, ed. by Laura Fortini (Roma: Roma nel Rinascimento, 1993), pp. 7–51 —— , ‘Donne e confraternite’, in Studi confraternali: Orientamenti, problemi, testimonianze, ed. by Marina Gazzini (Firenze: Firenze University Press, 2009), pp. 53–78 —— , ‘Ad dotandum puellas virgines, pauperes et honestas: Social Needs and Confraternal Charities in Rome in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries’, Renaissance and Refor­ mation, 18 (1994), 5–18 Fadda, Elisabetta, Michelangelo Anselmi (Torino: Allemandi, 2004)

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Fava, Massimo, ‘Maria lactans: Origini e sviluppi di un’iconografia tra antichità e Medio­ evo’, in La Madre di Dio per una cultura di pace: Atti del 10. Colloquio inter­nazionale di mariologia, Santuario di Santa Maria della Steccata, Parma, 19–21 aprile 2001, ed. by Walter Dall’Aglio and Enrico Vidau, Biblioteca di Theotokos, 10 (Roma: Monfortane, 2001), pp. 111–55 Gazzini, Marina, ‘Confraternite e società cittadina nel Medioevo: Percorsi di indagine sulla realtà milanese’, Nuova rivista storica, 81 (1997), 373–400 —— , ‘Patriziati urbani e spazi confraternali in età rinascimentale: L’esempio di Milano’, Archivio storico italiano, 158 (2000), 491–514 Gensini, Sergio, ed., Vita religiosa e identità politiche: Universalità e particolarismi nell’Euro­pa del tardo Medioevo, Centro di studi sulla civilità del tardo medioevo San Miniato: Collana di studi e ricerche, 7 (Pisa: Pacini, 1998) Giordani, Bruno, ‘Statuta Consortii B. Mariae Virginis et S. Francisci Parmae saec. xiv’, Archivum franciscanum historicum, 16 (1923), 356–68 Goffen, Rona, Piety and Patronage in Renaissance Venice: Bellini, Titian and the Franciscans (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986) Henderson, John, Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994) Kirshner, Julius, Pursuing Honor while Avoiding Sin: The Monte delle Doti of Florence, Quaderni di ‘Sensi senesi’, 41 (Milano: Giuffré, 1978) Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane, Women, Family, and Ritual in Renaissance Italy, trans. by Lydia Cochrane (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985) Kroegel, Alessandra Galizzi, ‘Quando il centro usa prudenza e la periferia osa: L’iconografia dell’Immacolata Concezione in Emilia e nelle Marche (con una postilla sulla Vergine delle rocce di Leonardo)’, in Emilia e Marche nel Rinascimento: L’identità visiva della ‘periferia’, ed. by Giancarla Periti (Azzano San Paolo: Bolis, 2005), pp. 215–51 Leuzzi, Maria Fubini, ‘Condurre a onore’: Famiglia, matrimonio e assistenza dotale a Firenze in Età Moderna, Biblioteca di storia toscana moderna e contemporanea, 46 (Firenze: Olschki, 1999) Linati, Angelica, Parma e la Vergine: Notizie storiche (Parma: Ferrari e Pellegrini, 1889) Marchetti, Paola, and Andrea Francesco Fiore, San Francesco del Prato in Parma: Una cattedrale gotica incarcerata (Parma: Benedettina, 1998) Mariotti, Giovanni, ‘L’Arco di Parma in Roma e il Palazzo del Cardinale Parmense’, Archi­ vio storico per le Province Parmensi, 25 (1925), 389–457 Mayberry, Nancy, ‘The Controversy over the Immaculate Conception in Medieval and Renaissance Art, Literature and Society’, Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 21 (1991), 207–24 Milstein, Ann Rebecca, The Paintings of Girolamo Mazzola Bedoli (New York: Garland, 1978) Muir, Edward, ‘The Virgin on the Streetcorner: The Place of the Sacred in Italian Cities’, in Religion and Culture in the Renaissance and Reformation, ed. by Steven Ozment, Six­teenth Century Essays and Studies, 11 (Kirksville: Sixteenth Century Journal, 1989), pp. 25–40

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Muzzarelli, Maria Giuseppina, Pescatori di uomini: Predicatori e piazza alla fine del Medioevo (Bologna: Mulino, 2005) Nolens intestatus decedere: Il testamento come fonte della storia religiosa e sociale, Archivi dell’Umbria, 7 (Perugia: Umbra, 1985) Pezzana, Angelo, Storia della città di Parma, 5 vols (Parma: Ducale, 1837–59) Pullan, Brian, Rich and Poor in Renaissance Venice: The Social Institutions of a Catholic State to 1620 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1971) Quintavalle, Augusta Ghidiglia, ‘L’oratorio della Concezione a Parma’, Paragone, 9 (1958), 24–38 Ronchini, Amadio, ‘Due quadri di Girolamo Mazzola per la chiesa de’ Minori Conventuali in Parma’, Atti e Memorie della Deputazione di Storia Patria dell’Emilia, 7 (1881), 241–55 Ronzani, Mauro, ‘La “chiesa del comune” nelle città dell’Italia centro-settentrionale (secoli xii–xiv)’, Società e storia, 21 (1983), 499–534 Spaggiari, Pier Luigi, Bernardino da Feltre e le origini della Banca del Monte di Parma (Parma: Banca Monte, 1993) Terpstra, Nicholas, ‘Confraternities and Local Cults: Civic Religion between Class and Politics in Renaissance Bologna’, in Civic Ritual and Drama, ed. by Alexandra F. Johnston and Wim Hüsken, Ludus: Medieval and Early Renaissance Theatre and Drama, 2 (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1997), pp. 143–74 —— , Lay Confraternities and Civic Religion in Renaissance Bologna (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995) —— , ‘Women in the Brotherhood: Gender, Class and Politics in Renaissance Bolognese Confraternities’, Renaissance and Reformation, 14 (1990), 193–212 —— , ed., The Politics of Ritual Kinship: Confraternities and Social Order in Early Modern Italy, Cambridge Studies in Italian History and Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) Thunø, Erik, ed., Image and Relic: Mediating the Sacred in Early Medieval Rome, Analecta Romana Instituti Danici, 32 (Roma: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2002) —— , and Gerhard Wolf, eds, The Miraculous Image in the Late Middle Ages and Renais­ sance, Analecta Romana Instituti Danici, 35 (Roma: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2004) Trexler, Richard C., ‘Florentine Religious Experience: The Sacred Image’, Studies in the Renaissance, 19 (1972), 7–41 —— , Public Life in Renaissance Florence (London: Academic, 1980) Vaccaro, Mary, Parmigianino: The Paintings (Torino: Allemandi, 2002) Vauchez, André, ed., La Religion civique à l’époque médiévale et moderne: Chrétienté et Islam, Collection de l’École française de Rome, 213 (Roma: École française de Rome, 1995) Weissman, Ronald, Ritual Brotherhood in Renaissance Florence (London: Academic, 1982) Wisch, Barbara, ‘Keys to Success: Propriety and Promotion of Miraculous Images by Roman Confraternities’, in The Miraculous Image in the Late Middle Ages and Renais­ sance, ed. by Erik Thunø and Gerhard Wolf, Analecta Romana Instituti Danici, 35 (Roma: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2004), pp. 161–84

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—— , and Diane Cole Ahl, eds, Confraternities and the Visual Arts in Renaissance Italy: Ritual, Spectacle, Image (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) Zanichelli, Giuseppa, ‘Scriptoria parmensi del medioevo’, in Monasteri: Alle radici della città e del territorio di Parma nel Medioevo, ed. by Mario Calidoni and others (Parma: Monte Università Parma, 2007), pp. 207–19 —— , ‘Strutture della produzione artistica a Parma nel xv secolo’, in Parma: Le tradizioni dell’immagine, ed. by Francesco Barocelli and others, Quaderni di storia dell’arte, 17 (Parma: Università degli studi di Parma, 1994), pp. 11–62

Part II Texts & Contexts: The Case of Florence

The Plea for Lay Bibles in Fourteenthand Fifteenth-Century Tuscany: The Role of Confraternities Sabrina Corbellini

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etween the appearance of the mendicant orders in the thirteenth century and the Reformation in the sixteenth century, Europe witnessed a cultural revolution. The traditional dichotomies between the categories ‘religious’ and ‘lay’ and ‘Latin’ and ‘vernacular’ dissolved into a more diffuse situation and led to ‘lay emancipation’ with regard to active participation in religious life. This period was characterized by a dramatic increase in the production of vernacular religious texts and more specifically by the production and the diffusion of vernacular Bibles. This development illuminates an important cultural transformation in the attitudes and mentalities of non-Latinate, although generally literate, laypeople. Further, it meant that the vernacular was ‘emancipated’ enough to render the Word of God, allowing the language of the laity to become a channel of transmission for Holy Writ. The cultural hegemony of Latin, the language of the Church, was no longer indisputable. However, the diffusion of Bible translations across Europe was not homogeneous. Translation activities, production, and distribution were, for example, under

Sabrina Corbellini ([email protected]) holds a Rosalind Franklin Fellowship at the Facul­ teit der Letteren (depart­ment of Dutch literature) of the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, where her research focuses on late medieval cultural history, in particular in Italy and in the Low Countries. She took degrees in Germanic Philology at the University of Bologna and in Medieval Dutch Literature from the University of Leiden. Her current research project, ‘Holy Writ and Lay Readers. A Social History of Vernacular Bible Translations in the Middle Ages’ aims at reconstructing social and cultural changes in the late medieval period by studying one of its most relevant features: the dramatic increase in the production of vernacular religious texts, and more specifically the production and the diffusion of vernacular Bibles.

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suspicion during certain periods in southern France, Bohemia, and England. The Constitutions of Oxford, issued by the aristocratic Archbishop Arundel in 1409, forbade anybody to make new translations of a text of scripture into English or even to own a copy of any such translation made since the time of the Lollards without diocesan permission.1 On the other hand, strongly urbanized European areas such as Italy (and Tuscany in particular), the Low Countries, and the Rhineland were characterized by a higher level of production and circulation. This disparity was even noticed by the participants in the lengthy discussions on Bible translations held in 1546 during the first phases of the Council of Trent. According to the council fathers, countries such as Spain and France had embargoes in place against vernacular Bibles, while in other lands such as Italy, laypeople were active readers of the Holy Writ in their ‘national’ languages.2 This patchwork distribution of vernacular Bibles raises questions about the conditions of this late medieval cultural revolution, of translation activities, and of the patterns of diffusion of these texts. What was translated? Who were the translators and what were their intentions? For whom were the translations made? Who were the readers and what were their strategies? What were the cultural dynamics behind this revolution? The aim of this article is to reconstruct these cultural dynamics by investigating the role played by confraternities in the translation and the diffusion of lay (that is, vernacular) Bibles in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Tuscany.3 The case study for this contribution will be a corpus of thirty-two manuscripts containing the Tuscan translation of a specific biblical text known as a Diatessaron or Quattuor unum. The name, which translates from Latin and Greek to mean ‘one made of four’, derives from the title of a work composed by Tatian around 170 ce. In this work, a so-called gospel harmony, the episodes narrated by the four Gospels are arranged in chronological order, therefore eliminating duplications and contradictions. This Diatessaron, first written in Syriac, was translated into Greek and Latin and subsequently into several vernacular languages.4 A crucial role in the spreading of Tatian’s Diatessaron in the West was played by the Codex Fuldensis, 1 

Watson, ‘Censorship and Cultural Change’. The issuing of the Constitutions did not automatically imply the disappearance of the Wycliffite Bible translation, as the surviving corpus counts more than 250 manuscripts. 2  Fragnito, La Bibbia al rogo. 3  This short study is part of a larger research project: Holy Writ and Lay Readers: A Social History of Vernacular Bible Translations in the Middle Ages. This four-year research project, which began in October 2008, is funded by the European Research Council (ERC). 4  Gambino, ‘Un “Diatessaron” in terzine dantesche di fine Trecento’, p. 537; Schmid, ‘In Search of Tatian’s Diatessaron’. On Tatianus, see also Petersen, Tatian’s ‘Diatessaron’, pp. 35–83.

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a manuscript approved on 12 April 547 by Victor, Bishop of Capua. The manuscript, which has been preserved in the library of Fulda, included the entire New Testament, albeit with a gospel harmony replacing the four canonical Gospels. 5 This corpus, which has been neglected in traditional research, offers an ideal focal point for this preliminary study as it represents, following an initial inventory, a quantitatively relevant group in the wide panorama of Italian vernacular Bible manuscripts.6 Research has shown that these thirty-two manuscripts are textually strictly related to each other and that they share the same palaeographical and codicological features. Circulation among a well-defined circle of users within a specific social and cultural context can therefore be assumed. Moreover, this corpus shows a clear geographical distribution pattern, which enables an in-depth study of the manuscripts and of the social and cultural environment in which they circulated.7 Considering issues of provenance, distribution, and function through codicological and palaeographical analysis as well as an inventory of paratextual elements, this article will explore the relationship between these manuscripts, the rapidly changing world of late medieval Italy, and the spiritual emancipation of laypeople.

The Research Corpus These thirty-two Tuscan manuscripts, each containing a gospel harmony, date from the second half of the fourteenth century to the later fifteenth century. The earliest dated manuscript in the collection (Firenze, Bibl. Ricc., MS 1356) was 5 

Schmid, ‘In Search of Tatian’s Diatessaron’, p. 177. An inventory of Italian biblical manuscripts (358 items) has been assembled by Myriam Chopin, Maria Teresa Dinale, and Raffaella Pelosini and published as Leonardi, ‘Inventario dei manoscritti’. The corpus of Italian Gospel harmonies considered here contains the following manuscripts: Siena, Bibl. Com., MS i.v.9; BAV, MS Pal. lat. 56, BAV, MS Barb. lat. 3971, BAV, MS Vat. lat. 7654, BAV, MS Ferrajoli 706, BAV, MS Vat. lat. 4840; BNCF, MS ii.viii.50, BNCF, MS ii.x.39, BNCF, MS Palatino 73, BNCF, Conventi Soppressi, MS i.iv.9, BNCF, Conventi Soppressi, MS ii.i.202, BNCF, Conventi Soppressi, MS ii.ii.506, BNCF, Conventi Soppressi, MS ii.iv.56; Firenze, Bibl. Ricc., MS 1334, Firenze, Bibl. Ricc., MS 2335, Firenze, Bibl. Ricc., MS 1304, Firenze, Bibl. Ricc., MS 1356, Firenze, Bibl. Ricc., MS 1749, Firenze, Bibl. Ricc., MS 1354; Modena, Bibl. Estense, MS Campori o.3.22, Modena, Bibl. Estense, MS Campori x.6.29; Bibl. Laur., MS Pluteo 27.12, Bibl. Laur., MS Pluteo 27.14, Bibl. Laur., MS Pluteo 27.8; Grosseto, Bibl. Chelliana, MS 5; Venezia, Museo Correr, MS Cicogna 954; Bodleian, MS Canon. It. 63; Roma, Bibl. Casanatense, MS 3892; Berlin, Staatsbibl., MS Hamilton 247; Prato, AS, MS Spedali 2607. See also Corbellini, ‘Retelling the Bible in Medieval Italy’. 7  Corbellini, ‘L’Armonia della Parola’. 6 

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completed on 10 February 1372 in San Miniato, outside Florence, while the latest (BNCF, Conventi Soppressi, MS i.iv.9) was written in Florence between 16 January and 20 March 1475. Based on these details, the production of the text can be placed at the beginning of the second half of the fourteenth century, which is consistent with the flowering of translations of biblical material in the Italian vernacular in the same period. The increasing production of vernacular manuscripts, in addition to criticism expressed by Church figures against the proliferation of Bible translations, points clearly to a flourishing translation movement that was especially vibrant in Tuscany and Venice. A case in point is the disapproving comment by the Dominican friar Iacopo Passavanti in his Specchio di vera penitenza (Mirror of true penitence), written between 1354 and 1357, in which he judges the philological quality of Bible translations. In particular, he criticizes the unauthorized translations made by laypeople with knowledge of Latin but without any theological background.8 These untrained translators were, according to Passavanti, not able to render the ‘intimate and spiritual meaning’ of the biblical text and were producing a ‘technical translation’, misinterpreting the real message and purpose of the Gospels. In his text, Passavanti does not refer solely to works published in his own Tuscan vernacular, but brings his critical eye to bear on translations into other languages and dialects, including texts in French, German, Hungarian, and English, as well in Venetian and Roman. The ‘ideal’ Bible translator should as a matter of fact ‘not only have good language skills, but he should also be an expert in theology with a wide knowledge of the Holy Bible. He should have wide experience in writing in the vernacular, and be pious and devoted to God. Without these skills, it is easy to make mistakes and mistakes have been made. It would be wise 8 

‘Altrimenti sono tenuti i laici e le persone sanza lettera, a’ quali basta di leggere in genere de’ comandamenti della legge, degli articoli della fede, de’ sagramenti della Chiesa, de’ peccati, degli ordinamenti ecclesiastici, della dottrina del Santo Evangelio, quanto è necessario alla loro salute, e quanto n’odono da’ loro rettori e predicatori della scrittura e della fede; non assottigliandosi troppo né mettendo il piede troppo addentro nel pelago della scrittura il quale non ogni gente sa, né puote, né dee volere guardare ch’ e’ vi sdrucciola e spesse volte vi s’ anniega degl’ incontri, e curiosi, e vani curatori […] in certi libri della Scrittura e de’ Dottori, che sono volgarizzati, si puote leggere, ma con buona cautela; imperocché si truovano multo falsi e corrotti e per difetto degli scrittori che non sono comunementi ben indipedenti e per difetto degli scrittori che non sono comunemente ben intendenti e per difetti de’ volgarizzatori, i quali i passi forti della scrittura santa, e’ detti de’ Santi sottili e oscuri non intendendo non gli spongono secondo l’intimo e spirituale intendimento; ma solamente la scorza di fuori della lettera, secondo la grammatica recano in volgare’, quoted in Passavanti, Lo Specchio della vera penitenza, ii, 103–16.

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to forbid other translations and to properly correct the existing translations’.9 In Passavanti’s tract, it is possible to recognize the tension between the production of translations, born of the growing participation of laypeople in religious life, and the clerical imperative to control the spread of translated texts. Passavanti states plainly that as a member of the Dominican order experienced in both Latin and the vernacular, he will take charge of this translation and correction project. Of course, the circumspection in Passavanti’s tract does not imply an exclusion of laypeople from scripture. All Christians, according to their intellectual development and their reading skills, was supposed to acquire knowledge from the scriptures, with particular attention paid to the Gospels, the principles of the Christian faith, the Commandments, the sacraments, and the seven deadly sins. Reading the scriptures (the Gospels, the epistles of Saint Paul, and the Psalter), even in the vernacular, was preferable to reading and studying texts such as ‘the comedies of Terentius and Juvenales, Hovidius, Romances and Love Sonnets’.10 It is clear that Passavanti was not against all translations, but rather opposed to bad and unorthodox ones which distorted the original biblical text. The diffusion of vernacular Bible translations was therefore not forbidden by members of the clergy such as Passavanti, who were agents in the ‘oceanic translation movement’ that characterized the Italian late Middle Ages.11 However, this transmission of Holy Writ to a lay readership was only possible if a relationship of mutual trust grounded in respect for the orthodoxy of the text was built between the translator, the readers, and the scribes. The importance of this ‘preliminary agreement’ is clearly expressed by an anonymous fourteenth-century translator of a glossed New Testament, transmitted by four late medieval manuscripts.12 He does not only refer to the necessity for the translator to be an expert in theology, but expects that those who are eager to copy the text will ‘remain faithful to the written text, without making any changes, because every tiny syllable, articles such as lo and la […] and words if added or left out can influence the meaning of the sentence more that they would expect’.13 In spite of his reservations and warnings, this anonymous translator (probably a member of the clergy) was aware that his translation would probably be read and copied by less-trained readers 9 

Passavanti, Lo Specchio della vera penitenza, ii, 103–04, 114–15. Leonardi, ‘Inventario dei manoscritti’; Barbieri, ‘Cavalca volgarizzatore degli “Actus Apostolorum”’. See also Guida, ‘I più antichi volgarizzamenti toscani dei libri biblici’, and Chiesa, ‘Le traduzioni’. 11  De Luca, Letteratura di pietà a Venezia, pp. 17–18. 12  Leonardi, ‘“A volerla bene volgarizzare”’, p. 185. 13  The text is cited by Leonardi, ‘“A volerla bene volgarizzare”’, p. 185. 10 

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and writers. His task was to foster in these non-professional users of Holy Writ respect for the textual integrity of the translation while they copied the text for personal use or passed it on to other users. The necessary reference to the orthodoxy of the translations of the Italian Diatessaron is often found in the definition of the text among the rubrics at the beginning of the manuscript. In the rubrics, the text is generally described (after an invocation to the Holy Trinity) as ‘the gospel of Yhesus Christ compiled by using the four gospels written by the four evangelists’.14 One manuscript (Bibl. Laur., MS Pluteo 27.14) adds the designation ‘approved by the Roman Church’.15 In the same rubrics, no reference is made to the translator or to intended readers. The Diatessaron is described as a translation from Latin by using the medieval technical terms ‘translatare’ or ‘rechare di grammatica [=Latin] in volgare’ (drawn from Latin into the vernacular).16 The use of these terms could indicate that the anonymous translator had gained experience in translating activities, but it does not offer any information about the identity of the translator or about his lay or clerical status. An initial hypothesis regarding the circumstances of the translation originates from a peculiarity common to a great majority of these Tuscan manuscripts. Most are adapted to liturgical use, with instructions following the liturgical calendar very closely. This peculiarity could indicate that the Italian Quattuor unum circulated in clerical circles, at least at a certain stage in its evolution. It is important to mention that by the fourteenth century, the Latin text of the Diatessaron (Unum ex iiii evangeliis) was already registered in the library catalogue of the Florentine basilica of Santa Maria Novella, headquarters of the Domenican order from 1246 and residence of the aforementioned Jacopo Passavanti, among others.17 14 

For example, BAV, MS Pal. lat. 56, fol. 6 r: ‘Il nome del padre et del figluolo et dello spirito sancto Questo è il santo evangelio di Yhesu Christo compilato ordinatamente traççato di tutti e quatro vangelj’. 15  Fol. 119v: ‘Finito il libro de’ vangeli aprovaty per la chiesa di Roma tratti e rechati di gramaticha in volghare fiorentino’. 16  Folena, Volgarizzare e tradurre, pp. 33–35. See, for example, Firenze, Bibl. Ricc., MS 1356, fol. 3r: ‘Al nome del padre e del figliuolo e dello spirito santo Amen Questi sono li santi evangeli di Christo compilati ed ordinati translatati di grammatica in volgare’; Modena, Bibl. Estense, MS Campori o.3.22, fol. 143r: ‘In nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti ad honorem beate marie semper virginis. Questi sono e santi evangeli del nostro signore Giesu Cristo e quagli scrissono e beati evangelisti per boccha di diddio Luca Marcho Giovanni e Matteo rechati di gramaticha in volgare’. 17  The fourteenth-century inventory of the Santa Maria Novella library was found in BNCF, Conventi Soppressi, MS f.3.565. For the edition, see Pomaro, ‘Cesimento dei manoscritto: Parte i’, p. 328. The manuscript containing the (Latin) gospel harmony is also mentioned in the

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While clerical intervention in the translation process can only be supposed, the manuscripts contain clear references to lay scribes and owners. Six manuscripts contain the names of the scribes: Pagolo di Piero del Persa (BNCF, MS Palatino 73); Laynus de Carmignano (1372; Firenze, Bibl. Ricc., MS 1356); Paganus Randensis (Modena, Bibl. Estense, MS Campori x.6.29); Andrea di Neri Vettori (1427; Bibl. Laur., MS Pluteo 27.14); Andrea di Sano batteloro (Grosseto, Bibl. Chelliana, MS 5); and Tommaso, son of magister Piero de’ Pulci (1373; BNCF, MS ii.iv.56).18 Only two owners can be identified with certainty. The Florentine Piero de’ Pulci, father of the scribe mentioned above, played an important role as a magnate until 1379 and in 1381–82 fulfilled various public functions. Andrea di Neri, who belonged to the prominent Florentine Vettori family, served as one of the priori in 1460.19 Andrea di Sano was probably an artisan; his nickname batteloro is probably a reference to his activity, the preparation of gold leaf used by painters and sculptors. Ownership marks are found in seven manuscripts. The Dominican convent of San Marco owned BNCF, Conventi Soppressi, MS i.iv.9. BNCF, MS ii.x.39 belonged to Giovanni di Domenico, and Bibl. Laur., MS Pluteo 27.14 was owned by Francesco d’ Andrea di Neri Vettori, the son of the scribe. In the sixteenth century, BNCF, MS Palatino 73 belonged to the Florentine book collector Piero del Nero.20 BNCF, MS ii.iv.56 belonged to Piero Andrea Andreini and successively to the Church of SS. Annunziata in Florence, while Prato, AS, MS Spedali 2607 was owned by the German Johannes Sungsen and was probably donated by the owner to the Spedale della Misericordia e Dolce in Prato, a lay hospital founded in 1245.21

Reading the Bible in Medieval Tuscany These elements make for a compelling case that the manuscripts circulated in a lay milieu. Manuscripts owned by religious communities (such as San Marco and library catalogue from 1489, see Pomaro, ‘Cesimento dei manoscritto: Parte ii’, p. 324. 18  For more on scribes of Italian vernacular texts, see Signorini, ‘I copisti volgari del Trecento italiano’. 19  On Tommaso and Neri, see Delcorno, La tradizione delle ‘Vite dei Santi Padri’, p. 525. 20  On Piero del Nero, see Gregori, ‘Piero del Nero tra bibliofilia e filologia’, as well as Gregori, ‘I codici di Piero del Nero’. 21  Johannes Sungsen was probably one of the German members of the Hospital of the Misericordia of Prato. See Henderson, Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence, p. 429; Paolucci and Pinto, ‘Gli “infermi” della Misericordia di Prato’.

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SS. Annunziata in Florence) were likely given as gifts by wealthy citizens to town convents. This is corroborated by the general palaeographical characteristics of the manuscripts, which are written in mercantesca or in a Gothic hybrida, in one or two columns. The mercantesca, in particular, can easily be localized to Tuscany and Florence, where it was used exclusively by Tuscan merchants and artisans for writing personal or unofficial texts in the vernacular.22 In addition, the vast majority of the manuscripts were written on paper, further suggesting their use by laypeople.23 Moreover, the Italian Quattuor unum codices are in most cases neatly written and without abbreviations. In a word, these manuscripts were books prepared for a ‘popular readership’ (following Paul Grendler’s definition), and they were probably meant to be read even by less-trained readers.24 These manuscripts circulated in urban lay circles, particularly among notaries and merchants active in public life and administration, as demonstrated in the studies on Florentine printing produced by Christian Bec and Verde. These notaries and merchants were the owners and the readers of recently translated, vernacular theological treatises such as Bible translations and the Lives of the Holy Fathers.25 While the inventories of the libraries of Florentine citizens mostly refer to Evangeli volgari without any specific reference to the four Gospels or the gospel harmonies, it is likely that both versions of the gospels (the four separate books as well as the harmonized version which organized them into a single chronological narrative), were present in Florentine home libraries. It is even possible to hypothesize the use of these manuscripts as schoolroom readers, as suggested by Paul Grendler. Reading the prescribed pericopes from the gospels or from a gospel harmony was probably a school exercise in the vernacular curriculum emerging from the practical experience and lay culture of the Italian merchant community of the later Middle Ages.26 These works were also in stock in 22 

Miglio, ‘Criteri di datazione per le corsive librarie italiane’, p. 145. Frioli, ‘Tra oralità e scrittura’, pp. 181–82. 24  Grendler, ‘Form and Function in Italian Popular Books’. About schooling and education in medieval Tuscany, see also Petrucci and Miglio, ‘Alfabetizzazione e organizzazione scolastica nella Toscana’. 25  Delcorno, La tradizione delle ‘Vite dei Santi Padri’, pp. 515–32. For a detailed assessment of gospels, epistles, harmonies, and like texts, see Bec, Les Livres des Florentins, and also Verde, Libri fra le pareti domestiche. 26  Grendler, Schooling in Renaissance Italy, pp. 275–81. The texts belonging to the field of interests of this community are, to cite but one example, represented in the inventory of the shop of the Florentine cartolario Giovanni di Michele di Baldini: Penitential Psalms, Books of Hours, Psalteria, Hours of Our Lady with a legend of Saint Margareth, and vernacular Gospels. See De la Mare, ‘The Shop of a Florentine “cartolario” in 1426’. 23 

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city bookshops. In 1496, for instance, Florentine bookseller Salvestro di Zanobi di Mariano sold a manuscript of the ‘Description of the Gospels’, three manuscripts of the ‘epistles and gospels’, a manuscript lectionary, and an unbound manuscript of gospels and epistles.27 These details reveal the private use of Bible translations by members of the urban laity, a lettered bourgeoisie often linked by family ties to the clerical world. They willingly read for cultural refinement but were less ready to detach themselves from traditional values transmitted by the church. In the Gospels, urban laypeople sought inspiration and instruments to feed their souls and strategies to create religious moments in their own vita activa.28 Generally speaking, manuscripts containing the Diatessaron should be considered typical examples of lay piety in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Italian towns and should be evaluated as examples of the religious literacy of the laici devoti. Different levels of prayer and participation were possible for these devout laymen and laywomen, based on their respective levels of literacy. As the Florentine preacher Giovanni Dominici wrote at the beginning of the fifteenth century: ‘Those who cannot read should learn the Our Father and Ave Maria and the Credo and the Ten Commandments and the seven works of spiritual and corporal mercy and prayers and other good things […] and this is enough for the simple ones, as well as going to church, confessing and other things promoting spiritual health; those who can read should spare no efforts to read the books of the scriptures and refrain from sins and errors, by way of the holy virtues and considering wisdom and sobriety’.29 Dominici’s advice was not only wishful thinking: the aforementioned inventories of lay libraries contained the Apocalypse, the sentences of Solomon, translations of the gospels (and gospel harmonies), the Pauline epistles and the Psalter.30 27 

Bec, Les Livres des Florentins, pp. 334–37. Fulvio Pezzarossa suggests in his edition of the poems of Lucrezia Tornabuoni (who in 1444 married Piero di Cosimo de’ Medici) that she used the Tuscan Diatessaron as one of her sources. See I poemetti sacri di Lucrezia Tornabuoni, ed. by Pezzarossa, p. 88. 28  Guida, ‘I più antichi volgarizzamenti toscani dei libri biblici’, pp. 193–94. 29  ‘Chi non sa leggere apparare il Paternostro, l’Ave Maria, il Credo, i comandamenti, le sette opere di misericordia corporali e spirituali e orationi et bune cose […] et questo basta a’ semplici, chon usare la chiesa, le confessioni e altre cose apartegnienti alla sua salute; chi ssa legiere, ingiegnarsi di legiere libri della Sancta Scrittura, et guardarsi da quegli che ‘l possino fare chadere in erori o in pechati, va per lo meçço delle sancte virtù, pigliando la sapiença, a ssobrietà’. Quoted in Delcorno, ‘Pietà personale e di famiglia’, p. 120. See also Ciappelli, ‘La devozione domestica nelle ricordanze fiorentine’. 30  Frioli, ‘Tra oralità e scrittura’, p. 155.

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The evidence of the spread and use of vernacular Bible translations is corroborated by the description that the Florentine merchant Giovanni di Pagolo included in his ricordi. Formulating advice for the education of male offspring, he stated that besides Boethius, Dante, Aristoteles, and Cicero, young boys ought to read and study the Bible (‘leggerai e studierai la Bibbia’) and to be inspired by the life of Christ. The merchant’s advice was certainly based on personal experience. Indeed, on the anniversary of his son’s premature death, Giovanni, still saddened by the tragic events, prayed in front of his home altar, which consisted of a painting of the crucifixion with Mary and Saint John. He prayed to God and to the Virgin Mary, intermingling his words with the reading of the gospel pericopes for the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (‘il vangelo della Annunziata Vergine Maria’) and the pericope containing the beginning of the Gospel of John (‘di poi il Vangelo di San Giovanni’).31 In addition to books of ricordi, private letters (such as the famous correspondence between the merchant Francesco Datini and the notary Lapo Mazzei) reveal the widespread presence of vernacular biblical literature in late medieval Tuscan households. In their letters, Datini and Mazzei frequently discuss questions regarding the importance of reading religious treatises, of knowing the Bible extensively, and of buying and copying manuscripts for the sake of their own souls and those of their relatives. It is worth noting in this context that Lapo Mazzei’s reflections on spiritual matters were in most cases based on his knowledge of the Bible, which he extensively cited in the vernacular, making precise references to the original text.32 On 6 January 1398, for instance, the Franciscan monk Matteo of Pioppi wrote to Datini about the vernacular gospels which he had been asked to copy for Datini’s wife Margherita.33 This manuscript was not the only vernacular Bible text in Datini’s home. Lapo Mazzei had already mentioned in a letter written on 22 January and 16 March 1395 the sending to Francesco of a ‘beautiful book, richly illustrated, containing the letters of saint Paul’ and ‘a book of gospels’.34 It is known that this ‘book of gospels’ had been bought in the shop of the Florentine cartolaio Jacopo di Bino, a bookseller who worked for private clients (like Datini and Mazzei) but also for Florentine religious institutions such as the Benedictine Badia and the Birgittine Paradiso monastery.35 31 

Morelli, Ricordi, ed. by Branca, pp. 271–73, 480, 487–88. See also Anselmi and Guerra, ‘Culture et éducation des marchands’, pp. 342–43. 32  Giambonini, ‘Per Giovanni dalle Celle’, p. 142. 33  Brambilla, ‘“Libro di dio e dell’anima certamente”’, p. 205. 34  Brambilla, ‘“Libro di dio e dell’anima certamente”’, p. 207. 35  Brambilla, ‘“Libro di dio e dell’anima certamente”’, p. 243.

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In Giovanni’s observations and the Datini-Mazzei correspondence, one can detect a twofold approach to the translated gospels (harmonized or not). On the one hand, reference is made to the private use of the manuscripts, read silently or aloud at home. On the other hand, the texts also suggest a stricter connection with the liturgy (gospel pericopes linked to a liturgical feast, for example) and therefore a more public function, probably occurring during the celebration of the Mass or while listening to sermons held by mendicants (very often on the invitation of confraternities) during Advent or Lent.36 These two uses of vernacular gospel manuscripts illuminate the shift from public acts of reading to a more private form of prayer and devotion, which was based on the ‘ability to decode a written text silently, word by word, and to understand it fully in the very act of gazing upon it’.37 Evidence for this private use of the manuscripts is corroborated by palaeographical features of the manuscripts, which were neatly written in one or two columns with an extensive use of word separation. Moreover, the testimonies of Francesco Datini and Lapo Mazzei confirm the correlation between religious orders (in particular mendicant friars) and the laici devoti in the production and the diffusion of vernacular Bible translations. Preaching, especially the popular vernacular sermon (sermo modernus), ‘was characterized by the choice of a biblical verse or thema, drawn from the liturgy (very often from the gospels) of the day, which was divided into parts, and therefore subdivided across the sophisticated mediation of scriptural concordances’.38 Sermons were thus strictly connected to biblical exegesis and commentary, which readers could understand better by reading and studying the pericopes in advance. Fifteenth-century preachers continually stressed the importance of the Bible as the starting point for a fulfilling religious life. Lay listeners were not only invited to learn prayers such the Ave Maria and the Pater Noster by heart, but they were also urged to find in the reading of and meditation upon Holy Writ inspiration for their spiritual wellness. Direct approaches to the Gospels provided believers with examples they could imitate (Christ, the Apostles, or the Virgin Mary) as well as the spiritual and cultural background they needed to grow in virtues and faith. ‘Reading the scriptures’, proclaimed Bernardinus of Siena, ‘is the most 36 

On the public and private use of vernacular Bibles, see Fragnito, La Bibbia al rogo. On silent reading, an innovation of the late Middle Ages, see Saenger, ‘Silent Reading’. 37  Saenger, ‘Books of Hours and the Reading Habits’, p. 142. This habit of private silent reading seems to have begun in Italy in the first half of the fourteenth century, that is, at least half a century earlier than in northern Europe. See Saenger, Space between Words, p. 271. 38  Delcorno, ‘Medieval Preaching in Italy’, p. 470.

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effective weapon in spiritual battles’.39 Literate listeners to the sermons were thus implored to access the Word of God directly, using the biblical text as the basis for prayer, personal devotion, and the religious education of one’s own family. Spiritual education, including prayer and Bible reading, was one of the most delicate parental tasks. Fathers and mothers were held responsible for teaching the first rudiments of the Christian faith to their children, often through the reading of the gospels, considered indispensable to well-balanced spiritual growth.40

The Role of Confraternities Ownership marks and the names of copyists certainly point to the private ownership of manuscripts, but these documents were put to other important uses as well. In the list of books of the Compagnia dei Disciplinati di Santa Maria della Scala di Siena, dated 1492, the following entry can be found: ‘a vernacular book called the harmony of the four evangelists of the gospel of Jesus Christ’ (‘uno libro volgare chiamato la Concordanza de li quatro Evangelisti de lo Evangelio di Yesu Christo’).41 This book, which was identified by Manetti and Savino as manuscript Siena, Bibl. Com., MS i.v.9, is mentioned in the booklist together with one partial vernacular Bible written in mercantesca on paper, and a second large volume (also in mercantesca) which included an entire vernacular Bible, fixed to the portable wood lectern by iron chains, and at the disposal of all members of the confraternity, artisans, and members of the civic bourgeoisie.42 Together with these three manuscripts (the term ‘volgare’ is explicitly used in the list), twelve other books were noted by their location in the confraternity library ‘ne la stanza prima de la Compagnia a piei la scala’. The brothers had access to manuscripts containing texts on the Passion of Christ (to be used during meditation), translations of the Lives of the Fathers, and Domenico Cavalca’s Specchio della Croce.43 39 

Delcorno, ‘Pietà personale e di famiglia’, pp. 119–20. Delcorno, ‘Pietà personale e di famiglia’, pp.  130–32. See also Webb, ‘Women and Home’, pp. 160–62. 41  Manetti and Savino, ‘I libri dei Disciplinati di Santa Maria’, p. 158. 42  ‘Uno libro vulgare scripto a penna in lettera mercantile, in carta bambagina de la Bibia, non però interamente’, and a ‘libro grande vulgare scripto a penna ad numero di carte 376 di lettera mercantile […] nel quale è scripta la Bibbia vulgare’. These manuscripts were ‘legati in catene di ferro (sopra) legii portabili di legno’, Manetti and Savino, ‘I libri dei Disciplinati di Santa Maria’, p. 158. 43  Manetti and Savino, ‘I libri dei Disciplinati di Santa Maria’, pp. 158–59. 40 

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Thus, according to the booklist in the library of the Disciplinati of Siena, at least three manuscripts containing translations of the Bible could be found: a manuscript of the Diatessaron (Siena, Bibl. Com., MS i.v.9) and two manuscripts with the vernacular version of the Old Testament (identified as Siena, Bibl. Com., MS i.v.5 and Siena, Bibl. Com., MS f.iii.4), both written on paper and in ‘lettera mercantile’ (mercantesca).44 Siena, Bibl. Com., MS i.v.9 contained, together with a gospel harmony (fols  3 r–50 r), a translation of the letters of Paul, Peter, John, and Judas (fols 63r–133v) and of the Book of Revelation (fols 134r–46r), followed by a table of the gospels read at mass, with references to folia in the manuscripts. It could be thus considered a kind of lay New Testament, where the place of the four canonical gospels was taken by a gospel harmony. In addition to the table, several medieval hands annotated in the margins references to the use of the Gospel pericopes during liturgical feasts. Several readers, possibly confraternity brothers, thus literally made their mark on the manuscripts, building a direct relationship between the events from the life of Christ and the liturgy. Siena, Bibl. Com., MS f.iii.4, containing a translation of the Old Testament, was bequeathed in 1430 to the Disciplinati by Giovanni di Tofano (a member of the confraternity) on the condition that the manuscript would not be sold or removed from the confraternity.45 It is worth noting that the text of the Old Testament in Italian vernacular circulated from the very beginning in lay circles. As a matter of fact, the oldest manuscript (dating from the first half of the fourteenth century), BNCF, Conventi Soppressi, MS c.3.626, was copied for private use by the Florentine layman Gozzo di Nuccino Gozzi on paper and in mercantesca.46 Moreover, two manuscripts from the library (one of which is identified as Siena, Bibl. Com., MS i.vI.9) contained poems on the Passion of Christ by the Sienese Niccolò di Mino Cicerchia, who was probably a member of the confraternity.47 As mentioned in the booklist, these manuscripts could be used to enhance Passion meditations (‘di quello s’appartiene ad chi vuole havere devotione de la Passione di Christo’).48 By reading the text and looking at the manuscript illumination (the first capital letter was illuminated with a Pietà), the brothers could better concentrate on the life of Christ and on his sufferings. 44 

Manetti and Savino, ‘I libri dei Disciplinati di Santa Maria’, pp. 190–92. Manetti and Savino, ‘I libri dei Disciplinati di Santa Maria’, p. 191. 46  Leonardi, ‘“A volerla bene volgarizzare”’, p. 179. 47  Cantare religiosi senesi del Trecento, ed. by Varanini, pp. 558–59. 48  Manetti and Savino, ‘I libri dei Disciplinati di Santa Maria’, p. 158. 45 

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The activities of the Disciplinati in Siena should not be considered as exceptional, but as a clear illustration of a more general practice. As a matter of fact, the confraternities were a privileged site for cultural transmission and education as they participated actively in the oral and written transmission of devotional texts and of biblical material (such as gospel harmonies) and organized religious activities for the members of the community, in particular, cycles of sermons during Lent.49 The organization of sermons seems to have been one of the core activities of Tuscan confraternities. As John Henderson has written, ‘confraternities […] were […] important forums for the delivery of […] sermons both by the clergy and the laity; members were invited to “articulate their devotion in the form of orations and homilies”’.50 Friars, especially mendicants, were also invited by confraternities to deliver sermons, and account books indeed register payments to friars for their services. The members of the confraternities were responsible for the choice of the preacher, selected on the basis of his rhetorical abilities. These activities represented a form of collaboration between lay members of the confraternities and the regular clergy, creating a relationship of mutual trust and setting an example for lay preaching activities. Salient examples of this practice are the treatises by Agnolo Torini (1315–98), a Florentine member of the company of Gesù Pellegrino, which were probably initially delivered as sermons during meetings of the company. Both in the Brieve collezione della vita miseria della umana condizione and the Brieve meditazione de’ benefici de Dio, Agnolo elaborates on biblical themes and in particular on the life of Christ, inviting his listeners and readers to meditate on these central ideas. The members of the Florentine company of the Magi were also invited to compose sermons for delivery at their meetings.51 Due to the high level of literacy among the confraternity brothers and their competence on religious matters, sermons could be transmitted, such as in the case of Giordano da Pisa. In their reportationes, the listeners summarized the words of the preacher and noted their interpretation of and reaction to the spoken words. In some confraternity statutes, the members were explicitly encouraged to take notes while listening to the sermons and to be thus actively involved in the preaching process.52 49  Dessì, ‘Parola, scrittura, libri nelle confraternite’, pp. 86–87. See also Gaffurri, ‘Prediche a confraternite’. 50  Henderson, Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence, pp. 115–16. 51  Henderson, Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence, pp. 116–17. 52  Gaffurri, ‘Prediche a confraternite’, p.  69, and Dessì, ‘Parola, scrittura, libri nelle confraternite’, p. 91.

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For religious activities organized by confraternities, the emphasis probably lay on the oral transmission of religious content, mostly through the delivery of sermons. Confraternities could also develop textual communities, for instance, by giving their members the opportunity to copy the books belonging to the confraternity library or by lending them library books for a certain period. One of the scribes of Florence, the Florentine Pagolo di Piero del Persa (BNCF, MS Palatino 73), mentions, for instance, in his colophon that he is obliged to interrupt his transcription of Domenico Cavalca’s Specchio della Croce because ‘he is not allowed to keep the book, which belongs to the confraternity of Santa Brigida of Florence, any longer’. Pagolo, together with two other unknown scribes, copied in this manuscript several texts, some of which were probably available at the confraternity library. Drawing from a number of available manuscripts, he composed his own textual collection with a strong focus on religious themes, such as descriptions of the sacraments and of the gifts of the Holy Ghost. In his copying process, Pagolo made clear choices. As he was running out of time, he noted in his manuscript that ‘he was leaving out some chapters because he did not have enough time to copy everything and he had to return the book he had borrowed’. He selected the chapters which, according to him, would be ‘more useful to his soul’.53 The practice of selecting texts from several manuscripts in order to create personal miscellanies could also imply that the copyist was borrowing books from various confraternal libraries. A Florentine scribe complained in his colophon that he had succeeded in having on loan manuscripts containing laude from different libraries to be able to compile his own collection. Unfortunately, he did not have enough time (the loan period was likely too short) to transcribe all the texts he had selected.54 Selecting texts and deciding what to write and what to leave out implies an active role played by scribes, transforming them into authors of their own miscellanies, often containing the texts they considered essential to their spiritual life. The majority of manuscripts containing the Tuscan gospel harmony are miscellanies also including vernacular translations of other books of the New Testament (letters, the Book of Revelation and the Acts of the Apostles) and catechetical treatises, mostly on the sacraments, the Ten Commandments, and the articles of the Christian faith. A case in point is manuscript BNCF, MS ii.iv.56, copied in 1373 by the Florentine Tomaso di maestro Piero de’ Pulci. At the age of 35, Tomaso copied 53  BNCF, MS Palatino 73, fols 67r, 89r; Dessì, ‘Parola, scrittura, libri nelle confraternite’, pp. 93–94. 54  Dessì, ‘Parola, scrittura, libri nelle confraternite’, p. 94.

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the texts in his paper manuscript in at least two stages: he started on 15 April 1373, worked on his manuscript until 25 July 1373, and then continued his copying activities probably after a short break. In the first writing phase, he copied The Revenge of Christ (an apocryphal text on the events after the death of Christ), texts containing miracles and lives of saints, the Book of Revelation, the Legend of St  Peter, and the Acts of the Apostles. Afterwards, he wrote down the legend of Virgin Mary’s belt, extracts from the Vitae Patrum, a series of legends from the Old Testament, lives of saints, a formula to be used during confession, the Vision of Saint Paul, and the prologue and first chapters from gospel harmony (up to Luke 1. 57), before concluding with the description of the Ten Commandments and the articles of faith as well as a comprehensive list of the Ten Commandments, the seven sacraments, the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, the seven misericordie, and the indulgences of Fiesole. The texts are preceded by a table of contents with references to the folia of the manuscript, where Tomaso (after introducing himself ) explains that he has gathered ‘many lovely and good and holy legends of saints and of lovely miracles’ in order to edify ‘we sinners’. 55 The use of the plural in the expression ‘noi pecchatori’ could be interpreted as a reference to the collective use of the manuscripts, possibly in family circles or inside a restricted group of users. These ‘early catechisms’ could indeed function as family books. Manuscript Florence, Biblioteca Laurenziana, Pluteo 27. 14 was copied in 1427 by Andrea di Neri Vettori and was successively owned by his son, Francesco d’Andrea di Neri.56 These writing activities were stimulated and made possible by confraternities. Certain confraternity brothers were tasked with the creation and care of institutional libraries and asked to search for new vernacular translations, while books could be exchanged between members, sold, or donated to poor priests or friars. An interesting example of this practice is the note in the account books of the brothers of the Florentine confraternity of Orsanmichele for 15 January 1356, describing a gift of books to brother Benedetto dal Pogiuolo of ‘1 book of the epistle of Saint Paul, glossed, 1 book of the Sentences of the Master, 1 book of the minor prophets, glossed’.57 Through the work of confraternities, a semi55  ‘Molte belle e bone e sante legiende di sante e di begli miracholi’ in order to edify ‘noi pecchatori’; BNCF, MS ii.iv.56, fol. 1r. 56  The manuscript contained: fols 1r–119v: gospel harmony; fol. 120r–v: Prayers; fols 123r– v 42 : Life of St Eugenie; fols 142v–46v: Laudae; fols 147r–88r: Lives of Saints; fols 188r–200r: Extract from Italian translation of Vitae patrum; fols 200r–84r: Extracts from Italian translation of Legenda Aurea (Life of Christ). 57  ‘1 libro delle pistole di san Paolo, chiosato, 1 libro delle Sentenze del Maestro, 1 libro

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private commercial network could come into being. Such a network enhanced meetings, exchanges, and discussions while also fostering the production and diffusion of vernacular translations of religious texts. It is for instance known that confraternities played an important role in the spreading of the translations of the Lives of the Holy Fathers and of the Actus apostolorum by the Pisan Domenican Domenico Cavalca (1270–1342).58 Jacopo Passavanti, the aforementioned author of the Specchio di vera penitenza (Mirror of true repentance) — a text which includes an interesting description of the role and the ‘pedigree’ of the ideal Bible translator — writes in his prologue that he has decided to transpose his sermons into the literary form of a treatise at the request of listeners to his preaching (‘molte persone spirituali e devote’). These ‘lay and devout persons’ have been identified as members of lay confraternities connected to Dominican friars. Inspired by the preaching, these laymen sought to participate more directly in the rituals, not simply as listeners but also as actors, hoping to gain a better and more personal relationship with the sacraments and the scriptures.

Confraternities and Liturgy Palaeographical and codicological analysis allows us to formulate hypotheses about the function of the described corpus. Rubrics, chapter headings, reading instructions, tables of contents and indexes point to liturgical or paraliturgical use of manuscripts. The liturgical associations of gospel harmonies are strictly connected with the original use of biblical texts, which were read as lectio continua during an annual cycle to satisfy the desire of the believers to follow the chronological development of the life of Christ. The most important moments in life of Christ were supposed to coincide with the corresponding days in both the lunar calendar (Easter and Pentecost) and the solar calendar (Christmas, Epiphany, and the feast of the Chair of Peter in Rome (Natale Petri de Cathedra, 22 February)).59 This de’profeti minori, chiosato’. Carabellese, ‘La compagnia di Orsanmichele e il mercato’; Dessì, ‘Parola, scrittura, libri nelle confraternite’, p. 93. 58  Delcorno, La tradizione delle ‘Vite dei Santi Padri’, p.  523; Barbieri, ‘Cavalca volgarizzatore degli “Actus Apostolorum”’, pp. 300–02. 59  Balboni, ‘Lezionari liturgici in lingua volgare nei secoli xiv–xv’, pp. 77–78; Garavaglia, ‘I lezionari in volgare italiano’, p. 369. A harmonizing tendency can even be detected in the earliest Merovingian lectionaries: see Salmon, ‘Le Texte biblique des lectionnaires mérovingiens’, p. 506. On liturgical books and pericopes, see Martimort, Les Lectures liturgiques et leurs livres.

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natural liturgical predisposition of gospel harmonies appears quite clearly from the results of the analysis of the corpus of Tuscan manuscripts, which shows that thirteen manuscripts were adapted to liturgical of paraliturgical use by the addition of liturgical instructions in rubrics and in margins and the addition of liturgical tables (with gospels per circulum anni or gospels for Lent). These paratextual reading aids, which contributed to a selective liturgical or thematic reading of the gospel harmony text, were also connected to the extensive use of page and chapter numbering (in Roman or Arabic numerals), indenting, paragraph marks, and rubricated initials. These features gave easier access to the text copied in the manuscripts. Episodes, often coinciding with liturgical pericopes, from descriptions of the life of Christ could easily be selected chronologically or according to the liturgical calendar, even by non-professional users of Holy Writ.60 It is quite clear that the paratextual liturgical elements contain an indication of the real liturgical use of manuscripts. This is obvious from specific cross-references in the margins as well as from additions of liturgical instructions and tables in later hand. It is also worth noting that tables and instructions were formulated in the vernacular, the only exception being manuscript Siena, Bibl. Com., MS i.v.9 in which the table and the instructions in the margins, composed in a later hand, are in Latin and include a specific reference to the missal. The extensive use of the vernacular in tables and rubrics confirms the hypo­ thesis that the Italian gospel harmony manuscripts were conceived or adapted for a lay readership as a counterpart to Latin liturgical manuscripts used by members of religious orders and Latinate people. The liturgical design of the manuscripts is textually reinforced by the formulas used to introduce instructions regarding what is read or sung (‘questo si legge’ or ‘questo si canta’), which are vernacular translations of those used in official Latin lectionaries,61 but also by the adaptation of the text of the pericope through the addition of nouns instead of pronouns before verbs indicating the action of speaking (for example, ‘Gesù disse’ ( Jesus said); ‘Gesù parlò’ ( Jesus spoke)) or by the temporal circumlocution ‘In quello tempo’ (in that time). This feature, which characterized the tradition of Greek and Latin lectionaries, indicates that, at least in a segment of the Italian tradition, readers were supposed to read each pericope or text portion individually and at a set time indicated in the rubric of in the table.62 60 

On the use of pericopes as reproduction in the liturgical calendar per circulum anni of Christ’s life, see Palazzo, Liturgie et société au Moyen Âge, p. 102. 61  Landotti, Le traduzioni del Messale, p. 55. 62  This contrasts with the analysis by Garavaglia, ‘I lezionari in volgare italiano’, pp. 368–69.

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Gospel harmonies could indeed have had a liturgical function comparable to Tuscan vernacular lectionaries (such as the Vatican manuscripts Rossiano 652, Rossiano 686, and Capponiano 174), which were written on paper in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century in a lay mercantesca hand. A comparison between the three manuscripts and the corpus of Tuscan Diatessaron shows that the combination of gospel pericopes and liturgical feasts in gospel harmonies and lectionaries does not differ.63 Liturgical instructions in harmony manuscripts were thus based on the oldest tradition of Roman Church lectionaries dating from the seventh and eighth centuries as well as vernacular lectionaries.64 It is important to note that the liturgical instructions refer not only to the pericopes for the temporal circle, but also to the so-called sanctorale.65 A more detailed analysis of rubrics and tables could reveal once again a direct link to use during devotional activities organized by confraternities. As a matter of fact, this investigation shows a prevalence of liturgical instructions for Lent and Holy Week, occasions emphasized in confraternal activities and probably the most important moments in the spiritual lives of lay readers. The reconstruction of confraternal activities, in particular those of flagellant companies, shows the extent to which the laity fully participated in paraliturgical ceremonies and the services held during Holy Week. Maundy Thursday was the real centre of devotion of these companies, as it included the scene from the Last Supper, when Christ had demonstrated his humility by debasing himself before his disciples and washing their feet. During the ceremony, the relevant passage from the gospel was read aloud, guiding members as they imitated Christ’s actions.66 It is therefore important to observe that the liturgical instructions of at least five manuscripts refer specifically to the washing of the feet (‘al lavare de’ piedi il giovedì santo’) as a description of the liturgical feast of Maundy Thursday. Direct participation in the services of the Easter cycle through membership in a confraternity represented a significant increase in the physical and linguistic Garavaglia states that Italian lectionaries (and gospel harmonies) contain neither temporal cir­ cum­locu­tions nor indication of substitution of pronouns by personal nouns at the beginning of the pericope. 63  Landotti, ‘I lezionari in italiano nei secc. xii–xix’. 64  Garavaglia, ‘I lezionari in volgare italiano’, p. 374. 65  In the sanctorale, a specific reference to St  Francis of Assisi (†1226) can be found (‘per sancto francischo e per altri romiti’) next to Roman martyrs and apostles. The feast days associated with St John the Baptist and St Lawrence, which were particularly venerated in Florence, were also mentioned. 66  Henderson, ‘Penitence and the Laity’, pp. 241–43.

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liturgical involvement of the laity; previously, they had been largely excluded from active participation in the liturgy. Indeed, the mass was always conducted in Latin and therefore incomprehensible to the majority of the congregation.67 The difficulty of following the mass for the laity becomes evident if we consider the proliferation during the late medieval period and especially the fifteenth century of vernacular expositiones missae, treatises explaining the most important moments of the celebration with a specific attention to the readings from scripture.68 Laypeople were asked to pay particular attention to the reading of the gospel, eventually by reading in their own books (possibly a vernacular lectionary of gospel harmony), because only by carefully listening to the gospels they could understand and follow the example of Christ’s life.69

Conclusion Confraternities represented a connection between the lay and the religious spheres of early modern life and also constituted a privileged vehicle of cultural transmission and education. Although they were likely not always directly involved in the work of translation, they participated in the oral and written transmission of devotional texts and of biblical material such as gospel harmonies by organizing religious activities for members of the community, especially cycles of sermons during Lent. Confraternal libraries, the exchange of manuscripts, and the delivery of sermons by confraternity brothers themselves point to a highly engaged and biblically literate laity. Confraternities gave their members the opportunity to copy books belonging to the confraternity library. In some cases members of a confraternity were asked to deliver a sermon on a religious subject once a year. The speeches delivered in the vernacular by the members show a profound knowledge of both the Bible and the rhetoric structure of sermons. Moreover, searching for vernacular translations and the creation and care of libraries was one of the tasks of some members of the confraternity. Books could be exchanged between members, sold, or donated to poor priests or friars. Thanks to these confraternities a semi-private commercial 67  Henderson, ‘Penitence and the Laity’, p.  232. The laity, the ecclesia laicorum, was physically excluded by a rood screen from the locus altaris. Only in the fourteenth century was a small opening made in the rood screen to allow the laity to see the elevation of the host. See Bacci, Lo spazio dell’anima, p. 174 (illus. 1). 68  Degli Innocenti, ‘Testi italiani delle origini sulla devozione alla messa’. 69  Conto and Crestani, ‘‘Un testo quattrocentesco inedito’, p. 229. See also Pantin, ‘Instruc­ tions for a Devout and Literate Layman’, pp. 420–21.

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network developed, which stimulated an increasing number of meetings, exchanges and discussions, as well as the dissemination of vernacular translations of religious texts. Laypeople were thus ‘living channels of communication’ of religious knowledge in the vernacular and were directly contributing to a movement of religious acculturation. Research into the diffusion and the use of manuscripts containing Tuscan gospel harmonies reveals that the traditional image of the interaction between clergy and laity should be revised. It was not simply a matter of an ‘active’ clergy proclaiming and interpreting Holy Writ while ‘passive’ laypeople listened to readings from a text they could barely understand. Laypeople, especially groups of laypeople united by confraternal bonds, should be given credit for their role as ‘doers’. They read these vernacular Bible translations, to be sure, but they also did more than that. Together with the regular or secular clergy connected to the confraternities, laypeople created sacred networks in which these translations were circulated and actively used. The confraternities contributed to a process of lay emancipation which resulted in a growing demand for vernacular Bibles in late medieval Tuscany. The trust in the sincere need of these lay devouts was probably stronger than the reservations of churchmen. Confraternities provided a means for controlling the access of laypeople to the Word of God while simultaneously creating a safe space in which the translations could take form, function, and circulate.

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Works Cited Manuscripts and Archival Resources Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, MS Hamilton 247 Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Barb. lat. 3971 —— , MS Ferrajoli 706 —— , MS Pal. lat. 56 —— , MS Vat. lat. 4840 —— , MS Vat. lat. 7654 Firenze, Biblioteca Laurenziana, MS Pluteo 27.12 —— , MS Pluteo 27.14 —— , MS Pluteo 27.8 Firenze, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, MS ii.iv.56 —— , MS ii.viii.50 —— , MS ii.x.39 —— , Conventi Soppressi, MS c.3.626 —— , Conventi Soppressi, MS f.3.565 —— , Conventi Soppressi, MS i.iv.9 —— , Conventi Soppressi, MS ii.i.202 —— , Conventi Soppressi, MS ii.ii.506 —— , Conventi Soppressi, MS ii.iv.56 —— , MS Palatino 73 Firenze, Biblioteca Riccardiana, MS 1304 —— , MS 1334 —— , MS 1354 —— , MS 1356 —— , MS 1749 —— , MS 2335 Grosseto, Biblioteca Chelliana, MS 5 Modena, Biblioteca Estense, MS Campori o.3.22 —— , MS Campori x.6.29 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Canon. It. 63 Prato, Archivio di Stato, MS Spedali 2607 Roma, Biblioteca Casanatense, MS 3892 Siena, Biblioteca Comunale, MS f.iii.4 —— , MS i.v.5 —— , MS i.v.9 Venezia, Museo Correr, Fondo Cicogna, MS 954

Primary Sources Cantari religiosi senesi del Trecento: Neri Pagliaresi, fra Felice Tancredi da Massa, Niccolò Cicerchia, ed. by Giorgio Varanini (Bari: Laterza, 1965)

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Secondary Studies Anselmi, Gian Mario, and Marta Guerra, ‘Culture et éducation des marchands’, in Cul­ tures italiennes (xiie–xve siècle), ed. by Isabelle Heullant-Donat (Paris: Cerf, 2000), pp. 325–44 Bacci, Michele, Lo spazio dell’anima: Vita di una chiesa medievale (Roma: Laterza, 2005) Balboni, Dante, ‘Lezionari liturgici in lingua volgare nei secoli xiv–xv’, Ephemerides liturgicae, 92 (1978), 76–87 Barbieri, Edoardo, ‘Cavalca volgarizzatore degli “Actus Apostolorum”’, in La Bibbia in itali­ano tra Medioevo e Rinascimento: Atti del Convegno internazionale, Firenze, Certosa del Galluzzo, 8–9 novembre 1996, ed. by Lino Leonardi, Millennio medievale, 1 (Firenze: SISMEL, 1998), pp. 291–328 Bec, Christian, Les Livres des Florentins (1413–1608), Biblioteca di ‘Lettere italiane’, 29 (Firenze: Olschki, 1984) Brambilla, Simona, ‘“Libro di dio e dell’anima certamente”: Francesco Datini fra spiritu­ alità e commercio librario’, in L’antiche e le moderne carte: Studi in memoria di Giuseppe Billanovich, ed. by Antonio Manfredi and Carla Maria Monti (Roma: Antenore, 2007), pp. 189–246 Carabellese, Francesco, ‘La compagnia di Orsanmichele e il mercato dei libri in Firenze nel secolo xiv’, Archivio storico italiano, 16 (1895), 267–73 Chiesa, Paolo, ‘Le traduzioni’, in La Bibbia nel Medioevo, ed. by Giuseppe Cremascoli and Claudio Leonardi, Collana la Bibbia nella storia, 16 (Bologna: Dehoniane, 1996), pp. 15–27 Ciappelli, Giovanni, ‘La devozione domestica nelle ricordanze fiorentine (fine xiii–inizio xvi secolo)’, Quaderni di storia religiosa, 8 (2001), 79–115 Conto, Agostino, and Caterina Crestani, ‘Un testo quattrocentesco inedito: “Del modo che si die tenire in chiexia”’, Quaderni di storia religiosa, 6 (1999), 223–35 Corbellini, Sabrina, ‘L’Armonia della Parola: la tradizione del Diatessaron in volgare italiano nella Toscana medievale’, in Simone Fidati da Cascia oesa: Un Agostiniano Spirituale tra Medioevo e Umanesimo. Atti del congresso internazionale in occasione dell’viii centenario della nascita, 1295–1347, Studia Augustiniana historica, 15 (Roma: Augus­ tinianum, 2008), pp. 145–60 —— , ‘“Looking in the Mirror of the Scriptures”: Reading the Bible in Medieval Italy’, in ‘Wading Lambs and Swimming Elephants’: The Bible for the Laity and Theologians in Late Medieval and Early Modern Era, ed. by Wim François and August A. den Hollander, Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum Lovaniensium (Leuven: Peeters, 2012), pp. 21–40 —— , ‘Retelling the Bible in Medieval Italy: The Case of the Italian Gospel Harmonies’, in Retelling the Bible: Literary, Historical, and Social Contexts, ed. by Lucie Dolezalová and Tamás Visi (Frankfurt a.M.: Lang, 2011), pp. 213–28 De la Mare, Albinia, ‘The Shop of a Florentine “cartolario” in 1426’, in Studi offerti a Roberto Ridolfi, direttore de La Bibliofilia, ed. by Berta Maracchi Biagiarelli and Dennis E. Rhodes, Biblioteca di bibliografia italiana, 71 (Firenze: Olschki, 1973), pp. 237–68

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De Luca, Giuseppe, Letteratura di pietà a Venezia dal ’300 al ’600, Saggi di Lettere italiane, 3 (Firenze: Olschki, 1963) Degli Innocenti, Mario, ‘Testi italiani delle origini sulla devozione alla messa’, in Medioevo e latinità in memoria di Ezio Franceschini, ed. by Annamaria Ambrosioni, Bibliotheca erudite, 7 (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 1993), pp. 163–86 Delcorno, Carlo, ‘Medieval Preaching in Italy (1200–1500)’, in The Sermon, ed. by Beverly Mayne Kienzle, Typologie des sources du Moyen Âge occidental, 81–83 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000), pp. 449–543 —— , ‘Pietà personale e di famiglia nella predicazione quattrocentesca’, Quaderni di storia religiosa (2001), 117–45 —— , La tradizione delle ‘Vite dei Santi Padri’, Memorie, 92 (Venezia: Istituto veneto di scienze lettere ed arti, 2000) Dessì, Rosa Maria, ‘Parola, scrittura, libri nelle confraternite: I laudesi fiorentini di San Zanobi’, in Il buon fedele: Le confraternite tra medioevo e prima età moderna (= Qua­ derni di storia religiosa, 5 (1998)), pp. 83–105 Folena, Gianfranco, Volgarizzare e tradurre, Saggi brevi, 17 (Torino: Einaudi, 1991) Fragnito, Gigliola, La Bibbia al rogo: La censura ecclesiastica e i volgarizzamenti della Scrittura (1471–1605) (Bologna: Mulino, 1997) Frioli, Donatella, ‘Tra oralità e scrittura: Appunti su libri e biblioteche dei laici devoti’, in Religione domestica, medioevo–età moderna (Verona: Cierre, 2001), pp. 147–217 Gaffuri, Laura, ‘Prediche a confraternite’, in Il buon fedele: Le confraternite tra medioevo e prima età moderna (= Quaderni di storia religiosa, 5 (1998)), pp. 53–105 Gambino, Francesca, ‘Un “Diatessaron” in terzine dantesche di fine Trecento’, in La scrittura infinita: Bibbia e poesia in età medievale e umanistica; Atti del convegno di Firenze, 26–28 giugno 1997, ed. by Francesco Stella, Millennio medievale, 28 (Firenze: Galluzzo, 2001), pp. 537–80 Garavaglia, Gianpaolo, ‘I lezionari in volgare italiano fra xiv e xvi secolo’, in La Bibbia in italiano tra Medioevo e Rinascimento: Atti del convegno internazionale, Firenze, Certosa del Galluzzo, 8–9 novembre 1996, ed. by Lino Leonardi, Millennio medievale, 1 (Firenze: SISMEL, 1998), pp. 365–92 Giambonini, Francesco, ‘Per Giovanni dalle Celle: Ascesi, notariato e mercatura di fine Trecento a Firenze’, Rinascimento, 21 (1991), 133–54 Gregori, Liliana, ‘I codici di Piero del Nero negli spogli lessicali della Crusca’, Aevum, 64 (1990), 375–85 —— , ‘Piero del Nero tra bibliofilia e filologia’, Aevum, 62 (1988), 316–61 Grendler, Paul F., ‘Form and Function in Italian Popular Books’, Renaissance Quarterly, 66 (1993), 451–85 —— , Schooling in Renaissance Italy: Literacy and Learning, 1300–1600, Studies in His­ torical and Political Science, 107th ser., 1 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), pp. 275–81 Guida, Saverio, ‘I più antichi volgarizzamenti toscani dei libri biblici, i: Proverbi ed Ecclesiaste’, in Saverio Guida, Religione e letterature romanze, Medioevo romanzo e orientale, Studi, 4 (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 1995), pp. 183–220

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Henderson, John, ‘Penitence and the Laity in Fifteenth-Century Florence’, in Christianity and the Renaissance: Image and Religious Imagination in the Quattrocento, ed. by Timothy Verdon and John Henderson (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1990), pp. 230–49 —— , Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994) Landotti, Giuseppe, ‘I lezionari in italiano nei secc. xii–xix’, Ephemerides liturgicae, 88 (1974), 401–46 —— , Le traduzioni del Messale in lingua italiana anteriori al movimento liturgico moderno: Studio storico, Bibliotheca Ephemerides liturgicae, subsidia, 6 (Roma: Liturgiche, 1975) Leonardi, Lino, ‘“A volerla bene volgarizzare”: Teoria della traduzione biblica in Italia (con appunti sull’ “Apocalisse”)’, Studi medievali, 37 (1996), 171–201 —— , ‘Inventario dei manoscritti’, Mélanges de l’Ëcole française de Rome: Moyen Âge, temps modernes, 105 (1993), 863–86 Manetti, Roberta, and Giancarlo Savino, ‘I libri dei Disciplinati di Santa Maria della Scala di Siena’, Bollettino senese di storia patria (1990), 122–92 Martimort, Aimé Georges, Les Lectures liturgiques et leurs livres, Typologie des sources du Moyen Âge occidental, 64 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1992) Miglio, Luisa, ‘Criteri di datazione per le corsive librarie italiane dei secoli xiii–xiv: Ovvero riflessioni, osservazioni, suggerimenti sulla lettera mercantesca’, Scrittura e civiltà, 18 (1994), 143–57 Morelli, Giovanni di Pagolo, Ricordi, ed. by Vittore Branca (Firenze: Monnier, 1956) Palazzo, Eric, Liturgie et société au Moyen Âge (Paris: Aubier, 2000) Pantin, William A., ‘Instructions for a Devout and Literate Layman’, in Medieval Learn­ ing and Literature: Essays Presented to Richard William Hunt, ed. by Jonathan J. G. Alexander and Margaret T. Gibson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), pp. 398–422 Paolucci, Giulio, and Giuliano Pinto, ‘Gli “infermi” della Misericordia di Prato (1401– 1491)’, in La società del bisogno: Povertà e assistenza nella Toscana medievale, ed. by Giuliano Pinto, Quaderni di storia urbana e rurale, 11 (Firenze: Salimbeni, 1989), pp. 101–29 Passavanti, Jacopo, Lo Specchio della vera penitenza, 2 vols (Firenze: Ciardetti, 1821) Petersen, William L., Tatian’s ‘Diatessaron’: Its Creation, Dissemination, Significance, and History in Scholarship, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae, 25 (Leiden: Brill, 1994) Petrucci, Armando, and Luisa Miglio, ‘Alfabetizzazione e organizzazione scolastica nella Toscana del xiv secolo’, in La Toscana nel secolo xiv: Caratteri di una civiltà regionale, ed. by Sergio Gensini, Centro di studi sulla civilità del tardo Medioevo: Collana di studi e ricerche, 2 (Pisa: Pacini, 1988), pp. 465–84 Pezzarossa, Fulvio, ed., I poemetti sacri di Lucrezia Tornabuoni, Biblioteca di ‘Lettere italiane’, 20 (Firenze: Olschki, 1978) Pomaro, Gabriella, ‘Censimento dei manoscritti della biblioteca di S. Maria Novella, Parte i: Origini e Trecento’, Memorie domenicane, n.s., 11 (1980), 325–470 —— , ‘Censimento dei manoscritti della biblioteca di S. Maria Novella, Parte ii: sec. xv– xvi’, Memorie domenicane, n.s., 13 (1982), 203–353 Saenger, Paul, ‘Books of Hours and the Reading Habits of the Later Middle Ages’, in The Culture of Print: Power and the Uses of Print in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Roger

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Chartier, trans. by Lydia G. Cochrane (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), pp. 141–73 —— , ‘Silent Reading: Its Impact on Late Medieval Script and Society’, Viator, 13 (1982), 367–414 —— , Space between Words: The Origins of Silent Reading, Figurae: Reading Medieval Cul­ ture (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997) Salmon, Pierre, ‘Le Texte biblique des lectionnaires mérovingiens’, in La Bibbia nell’Alto Medioevo, Settimane di studio del Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, 10 (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, 1963), pp. 491–517 Schmid, Ulrich B., ‘In Search of Tatian’s Diatessaron in the West’, Vigiliae Christianae, 57 (2003), 176–99 Signorini, Maddalena, ‘I copisti volgari del Trecento italiano’, in Scribi e colofoni: Le sotto­scrizioni di copisti dalle origini all’ avvento della stampa. Atti del seminario di Erice, X Colloquio del Comité international de paléographie latine, 23–28 ottobre 1993, ed. by Emma Condello and Giuseppe De Gregorio, Biblioteca del Centro per il collegamento degli studi medievali e umanistici in Umbria, 14 (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, 1995), pp. 223–33 Verde, Armando F., Libri fra le pareti domestiche: Una necessaria appendice a ‘Lo Studio Fi­or­en­tino’, 1473–1503 (Pistoia: Centro riviste della provincia romana, 1987) Watson, Nicholas, ‘Censorship and Cultural Change in Late-Medieval England: Ver­ nacular Theology, the Oxford Translation Debate, and Arundel’s Constitutions of 1409’, Speculum, 70 (1995), 822–64 Webb, Diana M., ‘Women and Home: The Domestic Setting of Late Medieval Spiritu­ ality’, in Women in the Church: Papers Read at the 1989 Summer Meeting and the 1990 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, ed. by W. J. Sheils and Diana Wood, Studies in Church History, 27 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), pp. 159–73

Preaching, Brotherhoods, and Biblical Literacy: The Case of Pietro Bernardo of Florence Peter Howard

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n recent historiography, Renaissance Florence has come to be understood as a fragmented city given cohesion by a complex ritual life.1 It was a city defined by social bonds which were agonistic in character; that is, they were at one and the same time both adversarial and supportive.2 How preaching contributed to the social cohesion of Florence becomes apparent when historians situate sermons, the preacher, and the act of preaching at the centre of the society: informing, framing, explaining, giving life to codes long dead, reinvigorating symbols, surfacing memories, reorchestrating elements of culture, and, ultimately, controlling and developing the meanings, the possibilities and boundaries of belief, of social life, and of moral behaviour.3 Preaching in the medieval and the Renaissance city cannot be reduced simply to indoctrination and propaganda. It was generally understood to be relational 1 

See most notably Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence. Weissman, Ritual Brotherhood, pp. 27, 30. 3  See Howard, ‘The Impact of Preaching in Renaissance Florence’. 2 

Peter Howard ([email protected]) is Associate Professor at Monash University in Mel­bourne. Author of Beyond the Written Word: Preaching and Theology in the Florence of Arch­ bishop Antoninus, 1427–1459 (Olschki, 1995) and other studies, his main research areas are Florentine Renaissance religious and cultural history, and medieval sermon studies. He has been a Fellow of the European University Institute at Fiesole (1988–89) and the Istituto per le scienze religiose in Bologna (1999), as well as a Fellow (2000–2001) and Visiting Professor (2007) at Villa I Tatti: the Harvard University Centre for Italian Renaissance Studies, Florence.

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and encompassed not only how a person stood in relation to God, but also how people related to one another. As a contemporary author of a manual on the art of preaching expressed it: ‘preaching must pertain “in the city between citizen and citizen”’ (in civitate inter civem et civem). 4 While a preacher may have likened Florentines to ‘proud lions, cruel bears, rapacious wolves, dishonest pigs, and other wild beasts’, there was, at the same time, the conviction that they could be tamed by words, and above all by those of the preacher.5 The exhortations of preachers were the impetus to conversion and penance which lay at the heart of late medieval spirituality and devotion.6 Moreover, preaching in Florence in the period was not necessarily homogenous. There were many diverse centres of preaching in the city where sermons gave identity to particular neighbourhoods and groups in much the same way as did the ‘textual communities’ described by Brian Stock and Paul Ricoeur.7 Indeed, one could almost speak of ‘oral communities’ defined by preaching. People frequenting particular parishes, individual preachers, churches, or confraternities could become a church within the Church, as it were, bound together by words.8 Such bonding was certainly the aim of preaching within the confraternities of Florence.9 The power of preaching devolved to the preacher and the preacher’s capacity to use words, to stir emotions, and to act as a kind of charismatic centre for a receptive cohort of devotees. The secret of a preacher’s success was an alchemical potion composed of the words themselves, the mode of delivery, and the echoes of experience and tradition that created a sense of history, purpose, and continuity amongst believers. Throughout the fifteenth century, city governments sought charismatic preachers with the gift of rousing oratory to inflame renewal and reform and to meld disparate factions into a common civic body. 10 At the end of the fifteenth century in Florence, Girolamo Savonarola, the observant Dominican from Ferrara, epitomized this tradition with the raw power of his 4 

Antoninus of Florence, Summa theologica, pt iii, title xviii, chap. 5, col. 1030. ‘Leoni superbi, orsi crudeli, lupi rapaci, disonesti porci, e dell’altre salvatiche fiere’, quo­ted in Lettere di Sant’Antonino, ed. by Corsetto, pp. 88–89; see Howard, ‘“Leone Superbi”’, p. 503. 6  Kieckhefer, ‘Convention and Conversion’. 7  Stock, Listening for the Text, pp. 140–58; Ricœur, ‘The “Sacred” Text and the Com­munity’. 8  This was is particularly evident by the end of the fifteenth century when, quite consciously, citizens gravitated to particular preachers. Members of the ottimati set up preachers in opposition to Savonarola, for instance, in the 1490s. See Howard, ‘The Politics of Devotion’. 9  On lay preaching in Florentine confraternities, see Weissman, ‘Sacred Eloquence’. On preaching in youth confraternities, see below. 10  Howard, Beyond the Written Word, pp. 87–89. 5 

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preaching.11 When he was silenced at the very height of his influence in the city, his power waned.12 The preacher who is the subject of this essay viewed himself in the tradition of Savonarola, and indeed, imagined himself as assuming the prophet’s mantle after the friar’s execution. The preacher, according to the rubric of the sermon manuscript underpinning this study, was ‘Pietro Bernardo da Firenze’. To contemporaries he was better known as ‘Bernardino dei fanciulli’ (Bernardo of the boys).13 Pietro Bernardo had been a youthful follower of Savonarola, and one especially mentored by Savonarola’s confrere Fra Domenico da Pescia, who had masterminded the reorganization of Florence’s youth confraternities as a key instrument of Savonarolan reform of the city.14 After the execution of the friars in 1498, Pietro Bernardo continued to pursue, with some notoriety, Savonarola’s reforming mission.15 Pietro Bernardo’s life, like the lives of his mentors, came to a dramatic conclusion with his arraignment before the otto di guardia (the local police force), his flight from Florence, and finally his torture and death by fire at the stake, having been wrested from the castle of Giovanfrancesco Pico della Mirandola, with whom he had taken refuge.16 What is significant in the context of my discussion is the way in which Pietro Bernardo transgressed boundaries between the lay world and the clerical. He himself was not a friar, but a layman, a sculptor and goldsmith (as he was variously described) — ‘di brutta presentia et sanza lettere’ (unrefined and unlettered) — from the parish of San Lorenzo who, by the mid-1490s, had become a lay preacher within several youth confraternities in the city and enjoyed considerable status and influence.17 From 1496, he had most likely preached every Sunday, and from 1497 he believed that through direct divine inspiration he had a mission to instruct the youth of Florence in the Christian way of life.18 The term ‘unlettered’ in this context therefore does not imply that he could not read or write, but rather 11 

Guicciardini, The History of Italy, p. 116; Guicciardini, Storia d’Italia, i, 258. Guicciardini, The History of Italy, p. 127; Guicciardini, Storia d’Italia, i, 295. 13  For a critical account of Pietro Bernardo’s life and activities, see Polizzotto, The Elect Nation, pp. 117–138 (p. 119, n. 56 for a detailed bibliography). For the use of the term fanciulli and the question of terminology for age classifications, see Eisenbichler, The Boys of the Archangel Raphael, pp. 18–21. 14  See Weinstein, Savonarola and Florence, p. 326; see also Polizzotto, The Elect Nation, p. 119. 15  Polizzotto, The Elect Nation, p. 124. 16  On this see Polizzotto, The Elect Nation, pp. 132–38. 17  Cerretani, Storia fiorentina, ed. by Berti, p. 251; Polizzotto, The Elect Nation, p. 121. 18  See Polizzotto, The Elect Nation, p. 122. 12 

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that he was not a cleric, had no formal training in theology, and did not have the refined bearing of a man of letters (hence the phrase ‘di brutta presentia’). It was not unusual for laymen to preach to confraternities. The lay appropriation of a traditionally clerical role was quite consistent with the injunctions of the statutes of confraternities which exhorted their youthful members to learn the art of sacred oratory and to give sermons to their peers.19 Here the word acculturazione (acculturation), which Ilaria Taddei has introduced into the Italian confraternal literature, can be readily adopted to characterize the process by which young people (the fanciulli) were inducted into local Florentine cultures of belief and patterns of behaviour.20 The confraternal statutes about the art of sacred oratory underline the possibility that Florentines, from a young age, were actively crafting biblical and theological language in a way that was more sophisticated than mere catechesis. This engagement helps explain the capacity of a citizen both to appreciate and to record accurately sermons of favourite preachers, even when they contained references to the works of theologians.21 Moreover, that Florentines were socialized into understanding religious discourse from an early age implies not just a shaping of belief but also a developed facility for perceiving and appreciating art works involving religious representations — their ‘period eye’.22 This fluency therefore reached beyond mere recitation of elements of doctrine commonly associated with catechesis to such a degree that the boundaries between clerical and lay culture were much less clearly defined than is often assumed.23 For insight into non-clerical preaching, however, scholars have generally focussed on the periodic sermons of the lay elite, humanists from the Medici circle such as Donato Acciaiuoli, Cristoforo Landino, and Pier Filippo Pandolfini, and not on the frequent preaching of artisans such as Pietro Bernardo.24 The extent of acculturation of the young in Florence is well illustrated by the case of Pietro Bernardo and one of his sermon texts. According to the contemporary chronicler Bartolomeo Cerretani, Pietro Bernardo represented the ‘lowest of the low’ (‘di base qualità’), and was a ‘fool without any learning’. 19 

See Eisenbichler, The Boys of the Archangel Raphael, pp. 185–88. On the acculturation of the young in Florence, see Taddei, Fanciulli e giovani, pp. 65–168, and especially Taddei, ‘Le societates puerorum, adulescentium et iuvenum fiorentine’. 21  Howard, ‘The Impact of Preaching in Renaissance Florence’, pp. 37–41. 22  On these two issues, see Howard, ‘“The womb of memory’”. 23  A good example of this is the Libretto dell Dottrina Christiana, ed. by Aranci. 24  Hatfield, ‘The Compagnia de’ Magi’, pp. 128–35 for the sermons. On the frequency of preaching, see Polizzotto, The Elect Nation, p. 122. 20 

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But, Cerretani continues, he had learned much of the Bible by heart and had imbibed a great deal about the scriptures from listening to the friars to the extent that he himself had developed the skill of preaching sermons of such quality and spellbinding delivery that everyone marvelled.25 This observation by Cerretani concerning Pietro Bernardo’s grounding in scripture prompts consideration of youth confraternities as the locus for the formation and inculcation of ways of perceiving and experiencing the world religiously, almost biblically.26 How young laymen were inducted into a religious worldview is well-illustrated by a sermon Pietro Bernardo preached in Florence on the Sunday before Septuagesima (two Sundays before the beginning of Lent), 15 February 1500 (1499 in the Florentine Calendar). The text, through the semiotics of its sentences and as a structured whole, reveals the depth to which religious language and hermeneutics were a part of the everyday speech of preacher and hearer alike. The rubric that heads the one manuscript of the sermon that survives, now in the Biblioteca Nazionale in Florence, reveals much about the young preacher and about his context and even presages his eventual fate on the basis of his own astute assessment of the tumult of the immediate post-Savonarolan moment.27 Pietro Bernardo had a strong sense of his own identity which he expressed in language that was intrinsically linked to his sense of mission. He was ‘inutile servule di Jesu Christo: et di tutti li fanciulli di buona volunta’ (the unworthy little servant of Jesus Christ and of all youth of good will). As the latter phrase implies, Pietro Bernardo had found his preaching vocation in the youth confraternities of Florence. The rubric goes on to specify his audience, one composed both of ‘huomini’ and ‘fanciulli’. From the location of his preaching cited in the rubric, one can infer the difficult circumstances of the sermon’s delivery: ‘facta nel populo di Sancto Lorenzo in Casa sua’. ‘Casa sua’ refers to Bernardo’s own family home, as seems likely in 25 

See Cerretani, Storia fiorentina, ed. by Berti, p. 281. This process aptly characterizes Savonarola’s eventual realization that his longed-for reform of Florence had to begin with the young. See Trexler, ‘Ritual in Florence’; Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence, passim; Polizzotto, Children of the Promise, pp. 107–23. 27  Pietro Bernardo da Firenze, Predica. Pietro Bernardo’s sermon was published in edited form in 1501, along with a second one he preached at Spagnuole in the Mugello in the March of the same year. Antonio Buonsignori, the editor, prefaces his edition of the sermons with propitiatory letters to the Signoria of Florence pleading Pietro Bernardo’s doctrinal orthodoxy. But he had already fled the city to his death; see Polizzotto, Children of the Promise, p. 129. To my knowledge, this manuscript version of the sermon has not been referenced in the scholarly literature. 26 

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view of the qualifying phrase ‘nel popolo di Sancto Lorenzo’, which translates, literally, as the parish of San Lorenzo. It was there, after all, that Bernadino had grown up. The reference to ‘casa sua’ implies even more about the context and the audience that had gathered. The youth confraternities that had been attached to San Lorenzo had been dissolved by the Republic’s ruling group after the death of Savonarola. The group addressed by Pietro Bernardo therefore constituted a conventicle, and in their reduced number (Cerretani says there were twenty attendees) they were readily accommodated in his parents’ home, described by chroniclers as ‘spazioso’ (spacious).28 In view of the circumstances after 1498, when the signoria of Florence was actively seeking out, trying, and sentencing members of the Savonarolan party (the Piagnoni), such a group would have been necessarily clandestine.29 Even in ordinary circumstances, preaching in private aroused suspicion. The language of religious exchange within confraternal meetings had long been rumoured to be tinged with the flavour of heresy.30 Indeed, the preacher himself was alert to the problem and is supposed to have cautioned his hearers during his sermon: ‘Do not say anything outside, you who are here, because someone may be scandalized by it. Wait until that time when we have permission’.31 The rumours emanating from a clandestine group may explain the views circulated by contemporary observers in their chronicles. According to Cerretani and Piero Parenti (neither of whom, the former in particular, shy away from gossip and innuendo in their accounts of Florence’s history), Pietro Bernardo had been elected ‘pope’ by his conventicle as the first of a new succession of popes who would reign over a purified church, a claim contextualized and treated with sceptical caution by Schnitzer in his study of ‘the boss of the Unti’.32 Much, too, is made of Pietro Bernardo’s practice of anointing his followers with oil, and his views on the tepid and corrupt clergy, again the subject of a critical revision by Schnitzer.33 28 

Schnitzer, ‘Pietro Bernardo’, p. 317. Polizzotto, Children of the Promise, p. 128. 30  See Trexler, ‘‘The Episcopal Constitutions of Antoninus of Florence’, p. 256. Also see Henderson, Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence, pp. 58, 412, 418. 31  ‘Non reportate nulla fuori voi che siate qui presenti: perche nessuno ne pigliassi scandalo: aspectate il tempo che habiamo licentia’. This phrase appears in the published version, see Weinstein, Savonarola and Florence, p. 327, but not in the manuscript. 32  Schnitzer, ‘Pietro Bernardo’, pp. 323–34. 33  Cerretani, Storia fiorentina, ed. by Berti, pp. 280–81; Polizzotto, Children of the Promise, pp. 128–29. A fruitful avenue of research could be to establish a relationship between this artisan group electing a pope and the artisan-based potenze electing a king and establishing territo29 

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The text of the manuscript of the sermon falls under the category of reportationes. The hand is in a clear, neat, humanist script and therefore unlikely to have been set down by the largely unlettered Bernardo. The text is therefore most likely to have been recorded by someone in attendance. Moreover, it is introduced as a reported sermon with context and audience specified. It preserves the asides, in much the same way as the amanuensis of Savonarola did a few years earlier. For instance, the author records at two points (one about a third of the way into the sermon, and the other about two-thirds through) that the preacher took a break, highly necessary since the twenty-eight double-sided octavo folios would have taken several hours to deliver! Moreover, the very fact that this sermon was recorded also indicates something of the sense of living in difficult times. Here we can witness the translation from oral community, gathered around the preacher, to textual community, seeking inspiration, guidance, and cohesion through the oral artefact of a defining moment. The identity of Pietro Bernardo’s rapporteur is not revealed by the text. He reveals himself only by quoting in Latin from the book of Proverbs, Chapter 30: ‘I am the most foolish of men, and the wisdom of men is not with me’. The way it is obviously inserted — the same hand, still very neat, but ink of a slightly different colour, the space between the rubric and the commencement of the sermon text, as though squeezed in — very likely indicates an addition, the amanuensis’s own sense of himself, and the idea that remained at the end of the sermon’s delivery. More precisely, however, the inserted scriptural verse is quoted by Pietro Bernardo a quarter of the way into the sermon and was perhaps appended at this point as an afterthought by our reporter in a moment of self-recognition — a humanist, perhaps Rafaello di Corso della Colomba, Piero Temperani, or Giuliano da Ripa, grown sceptical of his own worldly wisdom.34 The rubric also gives a sense of how the sermon was framed. It was not just a speech or simple catechesis; it was ‘lo acto della predicatione’. As ‘the act of preaching’, it was an event, given a sacred setting, as it were, even though it was delivered in a domestic space. The listeners, all on their knees, invoked the ‘Veni sancte spiritus’, followed by a series of prayers: ‘God who loves his devoted’, then a prayer to the Virgin, followed by a prayer to the God who brings salvation, then a prayer to the angels. Effectively, song and prayer evoked sacred time and space, ries within Florence. On the latter, see Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence, pp. 400–17; Rosenthal, ‘The Genealogy of Empires’; and Rosenthal, ‘The Spaces of Plebeian Ritual and the Boundaries of Transgression’. 34  For these adult followers of Pietro Bernardo see Polizzotto, Children of the Promise, p. 124, n. 79.

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disposing all the hearers present to receive Pietro Bernardo’s words in much the same way as a specific liturgical occasion grounded, framed, and indeed authorized a clerical preacher’s discourse. 35 The prayerful introduction established the setting, as it were.36 The key to this ritualistic overture is explained halfway through the sermon itself when Pietro Bernardo speaks about psalms and singing: ‘E però bisogna excitare lo spirito ad devotione’ (and therefore one needs to excite the spirit to devotion). Later in the sermon, he says: Prepare to receive the influence of God. And when you feel him touch you, run to the Lord, and leave every other study, because this is the principal study of Christians, as is said in that Laude (we have just sung). God touches the mind when you pray. Lift up your song, with fervour, for your salvation. Pray it with devotion, that you may carry a crown into heaven […].37

Succinctly, Pietro Bernardo sums up the point of preaching: transformation in the presence of the sacred with a view to future glory. Throughout the sermon, he exhorts his listeners to live rightly and virtuously and to shun the devil and his works, and, imitating the clerical models of preaching with which he was familiar, he urges a ritual confirmation of the spiritual transformation through the sacraments of penance and the Eucharist. What was novel was his encouragement to his hearers to follow the custom of the primitive church and to receive the Eucharist daily for strength and to inflame fervour.38 This exhortation and practice stood out in a city where frequent celebration of mass was not a daily event even in the lives of most upper clergy.39 In form, the sermon falls into two unequal parts. The first part is a general introduction to the four senses of scripture and how they lead into the very depths of the meaning of the scriptures. The second begins with an encomium to the singing of the psalms of David and of laude in general before turning to a 35 

For a philosopher’s discussion of how authority comes to language from outside, see Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power, ed. by Thompson, especially chap. 3, pp. 137–63. 36  See Howard, ‘Preaching and Liturgy in Renaissance Florence’. 37  ‘Preparati ad ricevere lo influenzo di Dio. Quando adunque vi sentite toccare, correte al Signore: et lascitte stare ogni altro studio: perche questo é il principale studio del christiano, Come’ dice’ quella Laude’. Quando dio tocca la mente: perche tu facci orationé: alza il coreà tutto ferventé: Alla sua salutatione’. Priegola con devotione, che tu porti in cielo corona […]’, Pietro Bernardo da Firenze, Predica, fol. 5r. 38  Pietro Bernardo da Firenze, Predica, fol. 25r. 39  See Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence, p.  34; and for a different context, Howard, ‘Preaching and Liturgy in Renaissance Florence’, p. 315.

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verse-by-verse gloss on Psalm 108. Even before turning to the content, the form of the sermon reveals an acuity, discipline, and sophistication unexpected in an artisan and largely unlettered preacher.40 Of course, it is far removed from the school sermons of the preaching friars, in much the same way as Savonarola’s were; Savonarola had shown a preference for the directness of what was technically a homily. As the chronicler Bartolomeo Cerretani recorded in his chronicle: He introduced an almost new method of preaching the word of God — in fact, the method of the Apostles. His sermons were not divided into parts, there were no intricate questions, no cadences or rhetorical devices. His sole aim was to expound Holy Scripture, and restore the simplicity of the primitive church.41

The words used to describe Savonarola can aptly be applied to Pietro Bernardo’s sermon. The speech is colourful and direct, full of familiar images and metaphors. The language is marked by vividness and immediacy. Moreover, the homiletic approach, as distinct from that of the thematic or school sermon, provided a very open framework within which to structure an array of topics and concerns suggested by the language and images of particular verses.42 The process by which Florentines may have been inducted into the use of scripture and into reading experience and history through a scriptural lens is made clear at the opening of the sermon. Before turning to his exposition of Psalm 108, however, Pietro Bernardo draws his hearers into the nature of the scriptures and the way their depths are to be plumbed since they have, as he says, ‘an infinite array of meanings’. The first section takes on a didactic tone as he expounds the traditional four senses of scripture: the literal, allegorical, tropological, and anagogical senses.43 Then, in order to explain how to approach these (‘come è a dire’) he applies to each the standard trope of the meanings of ‘Jerusalem’: the city in Palestine, the Church, the benefit for the soul and living the life of virtue, and the heavenly homeland. He explains his reasoning for introducing his sermon in this way by noting that ‘I have made this discourse so that you will know the way in 40 

On the likely education of sculptors in the period, including the ability to read Latin, see Ames-Lewis, The Intellectual Life of the Early Renaissance Artist, pp. 18–35. 41  Cerretani, Storia fiorentina, ed. by Berti, p. 192: ‘[...] introduxe quasi novo modo dio pronuntiare il verbo d’Iddio, cioè a l’apostolescha sanza dividere el sermone, non propoenndo quistione, fugendo el chantare, gl’ornamenti d’eloquentie, solo il suo fine era exporre qualchosa del vechio testamento et introdurre la semplicità della primitiva chiesa’. 42  On the distinction, see Howard, Beyond the Written Word, pp. 104–06. 43  For the classic study, see De Lubac, Exégèse médiévale. In relation to preaching, see Caplan, ‘The Four Senses of Scriptural Interpretation’.

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which you need to read the scriptures’.44 This is a crucial phrase, for from it may be inferred the possibility that ordinary citizens, from a young age, were instructed in handling biblical discourse in a way which was more than simply narrative. Moreover, while Pietro Bernardo protests that someone’s exposition may not be well informed by the holy doctors (although Bernardo’s text shows an acquaintance with the writings of Origen, Thomas Aquinas, Antoninus of Florence, Catherine of Siena, and the hagiographical materials relating to Sts Francis and Dominic), he argues that it is valid if it is put together in charity and for the edification of people. Such an exposition is the work of the Holy Spirit. ‘So my doctrine is not mine’, he says. ‘Besides, I expound the sacred scriptures for the good of souls’.45 He sets out principles that indicate the ways in which a reading of the scriptures is judged to be for the good of one’s soul and not a delusion of the devil: 1) it encourages rectitude, that is, all things directed to the honour of God; 2) it is derived from prayer; and 3) it does not introduce doubt, for scepticism is the opening for the wiles of the devil. The section ends with two quotations from scripture, both in Latin, which Bernardo then translates into the Tuscan vernacular, here adopting another practice of clerical preachers. ‘Manda deus virtuti tuae: confirma hoc deus quod operatus es in nobis’ (Summon your power, O God; show us your strength, O God, as you have done before. Psalm 67. 29); and ‘Stultíssimus sum virorum, et sapientia hominum non est mecum’ (I am the most foolish of men, and the wisdom of men is not with me. Proverbs 30. 2). Pietro Bernardo’s induction of the fanciulli into ways of reading and interpreting scripture helps answer a question for historians and art historians that arises as they seek to understand what the inhabitants of the Renaissance city ‘saw’ when confronted with a biblical image or fresco: what did ordinary citizens know about the scriptures? If Pietro Bernardo’s instruction and example is anything to go by, the answer must be: a great deal. In the course of this particular sermon, Pietro Bernardo portrays himself as a prophet. He urges his audience of men and boys to see the facts of the historical moment through the truth of sacred scripture. Like his teacher, Savonarola, Pietro Bernardo held that the Christian exegesis of the scriptures was the key to understanding the unfolding of history.46 Moreover, through Pietro Bernardo’s practice of quoting the scriptural verses first in Latin and then in Tuscan, we may infer the process by which ordinary citizens 44 

‘Questo discorso tho facto perche sappi in che modo bisogna che si leggha la scriptura’, Pietro Bernardo da Firenze, Predica, fol. 1v. 45  ‘Mea doctrina non est mea. Item io exporre’ la scriptura sacra secondo la utilita delle anime’, Pietro Bernardo da Firenze, Predica, fols 1v–2r. 46  See Godman, From Poliziano to Machiavelli, pp. 138, 140.

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were inducted into the rudimentary, scriptural Latin of which Pietro Bernardo himself had a basic knowledge. (Not only does he quote verses of scripture in Latin, but the sermon also quotes one of the sayings of Socrates in Latin.) The second major section of the sermon, the sermon proper, is woven around a verse-by-verse gloss on Psalm 108. As I have already suggested, Pietro Bernardo’s approach is characterized by the style of exposition advocated by Savonarola: to expound Holy Scripture and to restore the simplicity of the primitive Church. Pietro Bernardo says: ‘Here is for you the title of the psalm to be expounded: now let us enter into the psalm: “Eus laudem meam ne’ tacueris” [O God whom I praise, do not be silent]’. The text continues with the second verse (‘for the mouths of deceit and wickedness are opened against me’), but Bernardo dwells for the moment on the madness of praising God, and urges such praise on various groups: friars, monks, nuns, spiritual men and sinners, laywomen, and fanciulli at home, whether big or small. The tenor of the topic, as well as the rhythm of speech, seems designed to stir enthusiasm. This then gives Bernardo the opportunity to rant, for nearly fifteen minutes if the number of folios can be taken as an indication, against ‘preti tepidi’, that is, indifferent, apathetic, lackadaisical priests. The next few verses of Psalm 108 provided him with an effective framework to pursue this theme: They speak to me with lying tongues; they beset me with words of hate and attack me without cause. 4 In return for my love they accuse me while I pray for them. 5 They repay me evil for good, hatred for love. 3

In contrast with lacklustre ministers of God, the fanciulli and their fathers are urged to learn to do good works: ‘Imparate a far le buone opere’.47 Moreover, they must look to their motivations, since the reason why Florentines make prayers and processions is often the pursuit of what they want rather than what is for the honour of God.48 What becomes very clear is that this unlettered layman was skilled in the preacher’s art and knew the importance of speaking directly to the circumstances in which people found themselves. In this particular sermon, he relentlessly pur47 

Pietro Bernardo da Firenze, Predica, fol. 15v. ‘Il perché Firenze fa oratione et processione quanto tu vuoi, che se tu non fai quello che é l’honore di Dio’, Pietro Bernardo da Firenze, Predica, fol. 15v. 48 

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sues the approach employed by the most effective preachers in Florence throughout the fifteenth century: to get into the particulars of daily life in the city. He himself says, ‘et sempre ho facto; questa volta bisogna condescendere al particulare’ (I have always done this: this time it is necessary to get down to particulars).49 It is this characteristic which earns the type of religious practice he advocates the title of ‘civic religion’, for Bernardo’s preaching heightened the awareness of what constituted good citizenship. Of course, there is the typically Savonarolan diatribe against coming under the shadows (ombre) of the hedgerow (siepe), that is, ancient authors: Terence, Martial, Ovid, Propertio, Tibullus, or Catullus. ‘So the Devil is the teacher of the fanciulli of Florence’. They are therefore poor in virtue and are ambitious for the wrong things. ‘Everyone will say that I know one thing, and that I do not know the mind: as Socrates says: “Hoc unum scio quod nihil scio” [I know this alone: that I know nothing]’. By contrast, the fanciulli are crickets (grilli) who, under the tutelage of God, will purify and bring salvation to the city.50 The exhortations to good citizenship reappear in the closing sections of Bernardo’s sermon, where he encourages the fanciulli to pray for ‘tutto il popolo fiorentino’, that is, for the Signoria, the captains of the people, and the citizens, that they may be governed in such a way that brings them honour. The need is urgent, he concludes on a millenarian note, because the angels are about to fly into the city. His words captured the spirit of the times in which Bernardo and his colleagues lived, the last times, a time in which the fanciulli had an assigned role in bringing about the end of the world. Important studies, dating from Eugenio Garin’s ‘Desideri di riforma’, have focused on the sermons of humanist orators preached in confraternal settings.51 The scholarly consensus is that learned men of the Florentine elite, such as Alamanno Rinuccini, Donato Acciaiuoli, Cristoforo Landino, Pierfilippo Pandolfini, and Piero Parenti, occasionally delivered sermons to confraternities and therefore had facility with the language of the Bible. The implication of my brief account of Pietro Bernardo’s approach to scripture in this particular sermon, in terms of both medium and message, is that access to the scriptures was not necessarily reserved to those in the late Quattrocento privileged enough to be deemed lettered. While it is true that Pietro Bernardo may have been an exceptional artisan who was given a voice at a particular moment of Florence’s history, the very fact that he could expect communication to occur has the further implication that his words made sense and had meaning for those who formed his con49 

Pietro Bernardo da Firenze, Predica, fol. 16r. Pietro Bernardo da Firenze, Predica, fol. 18v. 51  Garin, ‘Desideri di riforma nell’oratoria’, pp. 166–82; Weissman, ‘Sacred Eloquence’, p. 255. 50 

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venticle. Moreover, that he preached regularly implies that he was perceived to contribute to the cohesion of the groups to whom he preached, both before and after the fall of Savonarola and his confreres. Since ecclesiastics jealously held to themselves the art of interpreting the biblical text as their prerogative, any laymen who dared trespass into this territory were immediately the object of suspicion, no matter how learned the man or how orthodox the content of the exposition.52 Pietro Bernardo’s persistent performance of this traditionally clerical role would have eventually sealed his fate, even if the rumours that were circulating about the rituals and practices of his conventicle had not. Even leaving aside its content, the semiotics of Pietro Bernardo’s sermon allow us to draw some useful conclusions about the nature of belief and perception in late Quattrocento Florence. First, Pietro Bernardo’s sermon provides insight into the ways in which young confraternity members were inducted into biblical discourse as a representational and symbolic way of thinking about the world. They were reminded that God is revealed in the ‘libro della creatione naturale’ (the book of the natural world).53 Children educated in this way and the men, presumably fathers, who were listening in, were being educated and reminded of the infinite depths of scriptural meaning behind any text. Second, the sermon reveals the degree to which Pietro Bernardo, himself unlettered, at least in humanist terms, had absorbed a structured knowledge of Christian doctrine through the confraternities he joined in his early adolescence.54 The term ‘unlettered’ is the epithet applied to him by contemporaries, and implies not that he could not read or write, even in Latin, but rather, that he was not a cleric and had no formal training in theology. By the age of twenty-one, he belonged to several youth confraternities: the Purification of the Virgin Mary, San Zanobi, the Archangel Raphael, and S. Giovanni Evangelista.55 Pietro Bernardo’s own sermon shows the success of acculturazione in youth confraternities as well as the success of the programme initiated by Savonarola and guided by Fra Domenico da Pescia. Thirdly, the Latin scriptural citations that pepper Pietro Bernardo’s text have implications for our understanding of the degree to which laypeople at all levels of society had an elementary understanding of the biblical vulgate. In the sermon examined here, Pietro Bernardo followed the custom of clerical preachers by citing the Bible first in Latin and then translating it into the vernacular. Such citation 52 

See Weinstein, Savonarola and Florence, p. 329. Pietro Bernardo da Firenze, Predica, fol. 13r. 54  Trexler, ‘Ritual in Florence’, p. 210. 55  Polizzotto, Children of the Promise, p. 119. 53 

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of verses from the Bible in sermons provided ordinary people with induction into a basic knowledge of the Latin. That he could quote a line from Socrates is further testimony of this. Moreover, beyond the Bible itself, it is evident that Pietro Bernardo had access to the sort of sermon aids regularly utilized by clerical preachers, as his reference to a tract by Archbishop Antoninus indicates. Bernardino’s sermon provides an example of how confraternal religion was personalized, felt, and encoded in language and how confraternal preachers sought in preaching to create and pass on a shared culture by defining and reinforcing social and cultural values. The conventicle was almost literally bound by words. This sermon preached to ‘huomini e fanciulli’ helps to refocus the historian’s interpretive model away from preaching as indoctrination and binary oppositions to an examination of the interactions and exchange between lay preachers, the laity, and the broader culture — even before the clerical preacher climbed into the pulpit.

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Works Cited Manuscripts and Archival Resources Firenze, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, MS Magl. XXXV.202 (Pietro Bernardo da Firenze, Predica di Pietro Bernardo da Firenze inutile servulo di Iesu Christo)

Primary Sources Antoninus of Florence, Sancti Antonini Archiepiscopi Florentini Ordinis Praedicatorum Summa theologica (Verona: Caratonius, 1740; repr. Graz: ADEVA, 1959) Lettere di Sant’Antonino, Arcivescovo di Firenze, ed. by Tommaso Corsetto (Firenze: Barbèra, 1859), pp. 88–89 Libretto dell Dottrina Christiana attribuito a S. Antonino Arcivescovo di Firenze, ed. by Gilberto Aranci (Firenze: Pontecorboli, 1996)

Secondary Studies Ames-Lewis, Francis, The Intellectual Life of the Early Renaissance Artist (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000) Bourdieu, Pierre, Language and Symbolic Power, ed. by John B. Thompson, trans. by Gino Raymond and Matthew Adamson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991) Caplan, Harry, ‘The Four Senses of Scriptural Interpretation and the Mediaeval Theory of Preaching’, Speculum, 4 (1929), 282–90 Cerretani, Bartolomeo, Storia fiorentina, ed. by Giuliana Berti, Istituto nazionale di studi rul rinascimento: Studi e testi, 31 (Firenze: Olschki, 1994) Eisenbichler, Konrad, The Boys of the Archangel Raphael: A Youth Confraternity in Florence, 1411–1785 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998) Garin, Eugenio, ‘Desideri di riforma nell’oratoria del quattrocento’, Belfagor, 1 (1948); repr. in Eugenio Garin, La cultura filosofica del Rinascimento italiano (Firenze: Sansoni, 1979; repr. 1994), pp. 166–82 Godman, Peter, From Poliziano to Machiavelli: Florentine Humanism in the High Renais­ sance (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998) Guicciardini, Francesco, The History of Italy, ed. and trans. by Sidney Alexander (New York: Macmillan, 1969) —— , Storia d’Italia, ed. by Constantino Panigada, 5 vols (Bari: Laterzo, 1967) Hatfield, Rab, ‘The Compagnia de’ Magi’, The Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 33 (1970), 107–61 Henderson, John, Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994) Howard, Peter, Beyond the Written Word: Preaching and Theology in the Florence of Arch­ bishop Antoninus, 1427–1459, Quaderni di Rinascimento, 28 (Firenze: Olschki, 1995) —— , ‘The Impact of Preaching in Renaissance Florence: Fra Niccolò da Pisa at San Lorenzo’, Medieval Sermon Studies, 48 (2004), 29–44

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—— , ‘“Leone Superbi”: Florentines, Sant’ Antonino and his Preaching in the Duomo’, in Atti del vii Centenario di S. Maria del Fiore, ed. by Timothy Verdon and Annalisa Innocenti, 3 vols (Firenze: EDIFIR, 2001), i, 495–509 —— , ‘The Politics of Devotion: Preaching, Piety and Public Life in Renaissance Florence’, in Cultures of Devotion: Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Religion, ed. by Peter Howard and Cynthia Troup, Monash Publications in History, 33 (Clayton: Monash University, 2000), pp. 29–42 —— , ‘Preaching and Liturgy in Renaissance Florence’, in Prédication et liturgie au Moyen Âge, ed. by Nicole Bériou and Franco Morenzoni (Turnhout: Brepols, 2008), pp. 313–33 —— , ‘“The womb of memory”: Carmelite Liturgy and the Frescoes of the Brancacci Chapel’, in The Brancacci Chapel: Form, Function and Setting; Collected Essays of a Symposium Held 6–7 June 2003 in The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, Villa I Tatti, ed. by Nicholas Eckstein, Villa I Tatti, 22 (Firenze: Olschki, 2007), pp. 177–206 Kieckhefer, Richard, ‘Convention and Conversion: Patterns in Late Medieval Piety’, Church History, 67 (1998), 32–51 Lubac, Henri de, Exégèse médiévale: Les quatre sens de l’écriture, 2 vols in 4 (Paris: Aubier, 1959–64) Polizzotto, Lorenzo, Children of the Promise: The Confraternity of the Purification and the Socialization of Youths in Florence, 1427–1785 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) —— , The Elect Nation: The Savonarolan Movement in Florence, 1494–1545 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994) Ricœur, Paul, ‘The “Sacred” Text and the Community’, in The Critical Study of Sacred Texts, ed. by Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty, Berkeley Religious Studies, 2 (Berkeley: Graduate Theological Union, 1979) Rosenthal, David, ‘The Genealogy of Empires: Ritual Politics and State Building in Early Modern Florence’, I Tatti Studies: Essays in the Renaissance, 8 (1999), 197–234 —— , ‘The Spaces of Plebeian Ritual and the Boundaries of Transgression’, in Renaissance Florence: A Social History, ed. by Roger J. Crum and John T. Paoletti (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 161–81 Schnitzer, Giuseppe, ‘Pietro Bernardo il Capo degli Unti’, Ricerche religiose, 4 (1930), 317–32 Stock, Brian, Listening for the Text: On the Uses of the Past (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990) Taddei, Ilaria, Fanciulli e giovani: Crescere a Firenze nel Rinascimento, Biblioteca storica toscana, 40 (Firenze: Olschki, 2001) —— , ‘Le societates puerorum, adulescentium et iuvenum fiorentine e il loro progetto sociale (xv secolo)’, in Brotherhood and Boundaries: Lay Religion and Europe’s Expan­ sion in the Renaissance and Early Modern Period, ed. by Adriano Prosperi, Nicholas Terpstra, and Stefania Pastore (Pisa: Scuola Normale, 2011) Trexler, Richard, ‘The Episcopal Constitutions of Antoninus of Florence’, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, 69 (1979), 244–72 —— , Public Life in Renaissance Florence (New York: Academic, 1980; repr. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991)

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—— , ‘Ritual in Florence: Adolescence and Salvation in the Renaissance’, in The Pursuit of Holiness in Late Medieval and Renaissance Religion, ed. by Charles Trinkaus with Heiko A. Oberman, Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought, 10 (Leiden: Brill, 1974), pp. 200–64 Weinstein, Donald, Savonarola and Florence: Prophecy and Patriotism in the Renaissance (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970) Weissman, Ronald, Ritual Brotherhood in Renaissance Florence (New York: Academic, 1982) —— , ‘Sacred Eloquence: Humanist Preaching and Lay Piety in Renaissance Florence’, in Christianity and the Renaissance: Image and Religious Imagination in the Quattrocento, ed. by Timothy Verdon and John Henderson (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1990), pp. 250–71

Machiavelli and Confraternities: Oratory and Parody Olga Zorzi Pugliese*

A

s his biographers indicate, Niccolò Machiavelli, following in the footsteps of his father and of many contemporaries, belonged to at least two confraternities. At age eleven, he joined the youth confraternity of Sant’Antonio da Padova that met in an oratory on the Costa San Giorgio that was shared with the flagellant adult confraternity of San Girolamo Oltrarno (also called the Buca di San Girolamo or Santa Maria della Pietà).1 When, in 1493, at

*  Earlier versions of this paper were presented in English and Italian at the conference of

the Renaissance Society of America, Miami, March 2007; the ‘Faith and Fantasy’ conference sponsored by the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, Toronto, October 2007; the conference of the Canadian Society for Italian Studies, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, June, 2008; the Renaissance Spring Festival organized by the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, Toronto, June 2008; and the Nostra Eruditio conference at the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto, January 2009. A brief version in English has appeared in Confraternitas, 19 (2008), 3–10. A more detailed analysis of Machiavelli’s texts was presented in Italian at the conference on ‘Brotherhood and Boundaries’ held in September 2008 at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa and appears in the proceedings. This English version is slightly revised. 1  White, Machiavelli, pp. 11–12. For the buca of San Girolamo Oltrarno, see Sebregondi, Tre confraternite fiorentine, pp. 3–23; for the youth confraternity of Sant’Antonio da Padova, and for the (at times difficult) relationship between youth confraternities and their associated buca, see Eisenbichler, The Boys of the Archangel Raphael. Olga Zorzi Pugliese is Professor Emerita of Italian and Renaissance Studies and former Director of the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies at the University of Toronto. She has published on Renaissance dialogues and on authors of religious texts including Lorenzo Valla, Girolamo Savonarola, and Girolamo Benivieni. Most recently she authored Baldessare Cas­ tiglione’s ‘The Book of the Courtier’ (‘Il libro del cortegiano’): A Classic in the Making (2008) and coedited Faith and Fantasy in the Renaissance: Texts, Images, and Religious Practices (2009). In 2008 she received a lifetime achieve­ment award from the Canadian Society for Renaissance Studies.

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age twenty-four he reached the limit for membership in a youth confraternity, Machiavelli moved to the Buca di San Girolamo, where his father Bernardo had also been a member.2 The participation of both men in Florentine confraternities is not surprising given the important benefits that such organizations could offer to those laypersons seeking not only to practise their spirituality but also to establish important contacts that could serve them well in their careers. Although further archival research may bring to light more details about the exact nature of Machiavelli’s role in the confraternities of his day, sincere or calculated as such participation may have been, his literary production alone suffices to prove that he had some interest in these institutions. Two of Machiavelli’s prose works, both very brief, are directly connected to confraternities and often appear together in editions of his work, at times in reverse order, given that opinions vary as to the chronology of the two texts and their dates of composition.3 The Exhortation to Penance (Esortazione alla peni­ tenza),4 has attracted a considerable amount of critical attention. On the other hand, the Rules for a Company of Pleasure (Capitoli per una Compagnia di Piacere)5 has been largely overlooked. This may be due in part to the odd nature of this tract which, as recently as 2005, was dismissed as being of little significance.6 Some of the neglect also stems from the word capitoli in its title, which may mistakenly be confused with the verse form in terza rima often adopted for burlesque poetry and used by Machiavelli himself in his single poems on fortune, opportunity, ingratitude, and ambition. In the work being examined here, the term capitoli refers instead to rules or articles, that is, sections of a legal document. 2 

Henderson, ‘Le confraternite religiose nella Firenze’, p. 93. The two works are presented in the order that seems chronologically more correct, that is, first the Esortazione alla penitenza and then the Capitoli per una compagnia di piacere, in the first editions, for example in Machiavelli, Opere minori, ed. by Polidori, and subsequently in editions such as Machiavelli, Tutte le opere storiche e letterarie, ed. by Mazzoni and Casella. They are published in reverse order instead in some modern editions including Machiavelli, Opere letterarie, ed. by Borlenghi. 4  Machiavelli, Esortazione alla penitenza. An English translation is available in Machiavelli, The Chief Works and Others, trans. by Gilbert, pp. 170–75. The translations given in the body of this essay for passages from the Esortazione are mine. 5  Machiavelli, Articles for A Pleasure Company, in Machiavelli, The Chief Works and Others, trans. by Gilbert, pp. 865–68. A French translation also exists: Règlement pour une société de plaisir, in Machiavelli, Oeuvres complètes, ed. by Barincou, pp. 155–59, with notes on p. 1486. For the present article, the translations of the title and the various passages cited are my own. 6  In his monograph, Bausi, Machiavelli, calls the Capitoli ‘poco significativi’ (p. 318). 3 

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The Exhortation to Penance, the first of Machiavelli’s confraternity writings to be dealt with here, is a polished rhetorical piece designed to encourage sinners to repent for their misdeeds and turn to moral living. It presents a commentary on Psalm 129 (De profundis) and is interspersed with citations of the words of the sinful prophet David. Brimming with exclamations and containing several rhetorical questions, which enable the author to display his oratorical abilities, the text is also characterized by a binary structure that is fundamental to Machiavelli’s style of writing and mode of thought. This structure is evident, for example, in his classification of states in his political treatise The Prince (Il principe), beginning with the basic subdivision into republics and principalities in Chapter 1. Opening the sermon with a definition of penance as a remedy for sinfulness, Machiavelli divides sins into two categories: those that show ingratitude toward God and those that indicate inimical tendencies toward one’s neighbours. The concept of ungratefulness in relation to the benefits received from God is then elaborated by means of a list of benefits beginning with the lower world and moving upward. The text underscores that although a lack of gratitude leads to the depths of sin, human beings may nevertheless raise themselves up through penitence. But, the orator argues, ‘it is not enough to repent and weep’ (‘e’ non basta pentirsi e piagnere’).7 Rather, by imitating Saints Francis and Jerome, one must flagellate and perform other acts that counter sin. This recommendation may be compared to the reasoning adopted in Chapters 24 and 25 of The Prince, where the author insists on the need to rise up and build dikes against the possible floods of Fortune. Another more structural similarity between the two works is the use of quotations from Petrarch for each of the conclusions; in the case of the Exhortation, the verse cited refers to the vanity of earthly pleasures (‘quanto piace al mondo è breve sogno’). An insightful analysis of the Exhortation to Penance is provided by Theodore A. Sumberg, who nevertheless still subscribes to the view (held by Franco Gaeta, for example) that the work was composed late in life.8 Even the handwriting in the manuscript, which was examined by Paolo Ghiglieri, would seem to indicate that the text was written (or rather copied) later, in the years 1526–27.9 Other 7 

Machiavelli, Esortazione alla penitenza, p. 212. Gaeta, introductory note to Machiavelli, Il teatro e tutti gli scritti letterari, ed. by Gaeta, p. xv. Sumberg believes that the text was written when Machiavelli wanted ‘to avoid social difficulties for his family, including his beloved young brother, Totto, a priest’. See Sumberg, ‘Sermon on Penance’, p. 50. 9  Ghiglieri, La grafia del Machiavelli, p. 358. He refers to Ridolfi, Vita di Niccolò Machia­ velli, p. 366 and note on pp. 474–75, on the question of the late dating. 8 

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readers, rather more convincingly, classify it as an early work, produced when the future politician and author was a member of a youth confraternity, in all likelihood, the brotherhood of Sant’Antonio.10 Probably invited to deliver a sermon, he must have composed it for this institution. Many laymen in Machiavelli’s time composed similar orations for their own confraternities.11 Such circumstances are indeed suggested in the text itself, for the orator states at the outset that his address was commissioned and that, out of obedience, he now directs it to the honourable fathers and older brethren (‘onorandi padri e maggiori frategli’). 12 More than a mere display of his rhetorical talents, the sermon, because of its insistence on good works that can redeem sinners, has also been interpreted by a few scholars, including Roberto Ridolfi, as a sincere expression of spirituality.13 Yet, in this respect Machiavelli’s sermon may resemble the ambiguous praise of the reigning Pope Leo X de’ Medici found in Chapter 11 of The Prince, a passage equally dictated by circumstance and therefore not to be read literally. According to this more sceptical interpretation, the Exhortation may even reflect Machiavelli’s belief in the need, as expressed in Chapter 18 of The Prince, to simply keep up the appearance of religiosity, as Giovanni Cattani maintains.14 One might further add that the religious language adopted by Machiavelli for the ending of The Prince could similarly reflect the intention of utilizing religion for purposes of persuasion. Interestingly, because the sermon stresses the sins of the world and reflects Machiavelli’s negative vision of humankind as inherently flawed (witness Chapter 17 of the political tract, in which he states that men are ungrateful, inconstant, deceitful, etc.), it has been judged by some critics, including Benedetto Croce, to be ironic.15 Stretching the point perhaps, Cattani deems it to be a veritable mockery of the humanist celebration of the dignity of man.16 Such readings of a presumed oblique message in The Exhortation text may seem exaggerated. What is more explicitly parodic, on the other hand, is the second confraternal tract by Machiavelli, namely, the Rules for a Company of Pleasure (Capitoli per 10 

In Cattani, La vita religiosa, a sampling of the criticism accompanies the text. See Pugliese, ‘Two Sermons by Giovanni Nesi’. 12  Machiavelli, Esortazione alla penitenza, p. 209. 13  Ridolfi, Vita di Niccolò Machiavelli, p. 366, note on pp. 474–75. In Lazzerini, ‘Machiavelli e Savonarola’, the author finds Savonarolan echoes in Machiavelli’s sermon, while Bausi, ‘Niccolò Machiavelli e Bartolomeo Scala’, has singled out as sources three sermons by Bartolomeo Scala. 14  Cattani, La vita religiosa, p. 8. 15  Croce, ‘Review of Felice Alderisio, Machiavelli’. 16  Cattani, La vita religiosa, p. 19. 11 

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una compagnia di piacere). 17 Only four and a half pages in length, it lacks a title in the only manuscript in which it is found.18 In advance of the critical edition that Filippo Grazzini is preparing for the volume of literary writings in the forthcoming Italian national edition of Machiavelli’s works, I examined this sole witness of the Capitoli and discovered that the printed editions of the work that have appeared to date contain some errors in transcription and fail to indicate the corrections (significant even if few in number) found in Machiavelli’s hand in the autograph manuscript.19 Editors who have included the Italian text in published volumes of Machiavelli’s literary works in prose have considered its date of composition. The reference to Michelangelo’s statue of David (‘il Gigante di piazza’) 20 which was erected in Piazza della Signoria in 1504 caused Franco Gaeta to conjecture that the Capitoli was written in that year, although any time after that date would be equally possible since the text refers to the statue’s presence in the square, not to its being brought there.21 A more valid philological approach might be to ascribe the work to the period 1519–20, on the basis of the handwriting of the manuscript that Paolo Ghiglieri examined years ago.22 The corrections in the manuscript and the fact that the work is unfinished prove, moreover, that it is a work in progress and not a fair copy, as might have been the case for the Esortazione dis17 

In the first editions the work was given two different titles: Machiavelli, Capitoli per una compagnia di piacere (in Opere), p. 240, for example, but also Machiavelli, Capitoli per una bizzarra Compagnia, p. 53. 18  Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, MS B.R. 29 olim Magl. viii, 1451bis; pro­ venance Strozzi, MSS in 40, n. 366. Sincere thanks go to dottoresse Susanna Pelle and Paola Pirolo of the manuscript department of the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Florence for their generous assistance. A facsimile of the first page (fol. 20r) appears in Machiavelli, Opere, ed. by Blasucci and Casadei, iv: Scritti letterari (1989), facing p. 248. 19  Leaving aside the editors’ modernization of the spelling, which does not change the meaning, they have erroneously transcribed ‘si provede’. See, for example, Machiavelli, Capi­toli per una compagnia di piacere (in Il teatro), p. 203, whereas the manuscript actually reads ‘si proveda’ (fol. 22r) in the subjunctive mood. From this point onwards, all references to Machiavelli’s text will be to Gaeta’s edition. 20  Machiavelli, Capitoli per una compagnia di piacere (in Il teatro), p. 204. 21  Gaeta, introductory note to Machiavelli, Il teatro e tutti gli scritti letterari, ed. by Gaeta, p. xv. Others who follow his dating include Borlenghi in Machiavelli, Opere letterarie, ed. by Borlenghi, p. 409. 22  Ghiglieri, La grafia del Machiavelli, p. 336. More recently, the same conclusion about the dating has been reached on the basis of a linguistic analysis by Franceschini, ‘Lingua e stile nelle opera in prosa di Niccolò Machiavelli’, p. 373, where he notes Machiavelli’s abandonment of the Florentine article el in favour of the by then standardized il that took place around 1520.

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cussed above.23 Consequently, we may deduce that the years of the handwriting represent the actual period of composition of the Capitoli. From the point of view of the subject matter, too, it appears to be a work from Machiavelli’s mature years, since the allusions to a prince, to poverty, and to a minority government could be connected to the politician’s experience after the return of the Medici and the loss of his position as secretary in the second chancery of Florence. Moreover, as Francesco De Sanctis observed in the nineteenth century, Machiavelli the writer was more straightforward and formal, even stilted in his early days (witness his sermon on penance) but subsequently, as he proceeded to compose his masterpieces, he achieved more freedom of expression, of the type displayed in the Rules for a Company of Pleasure.24 In fact, a close examination of this tract reveals it to be a true metaliterary parody. A work of such type does not surprise since an irreverent attitude was typical of this nonconformist writer and thinker, who was not averse to crossing conventional lines when he set about satirizing institutions, including religious ones. As for the interpretation of the text, the few critics who have mentioned the Capitoli or have prepared editions of it in volumes containing multiple writings by Machiavelli, beginning with Gaetano Domenico Poggiali in 1797, devote a mere few lines to it. When the satirical aspect is recognized, it is usually explained in general terms only. The English translator of the text, Allan H. Gilbert, for example, describes it generically in a few words as a ‘satire on fashionable society’.25 His evaluation reflects the fact that until recently, as far as can be determined, no one seemed to have studied the text in detail, so the work has not been fully understood. John Henderson, author of several books and essays on confraternities, has provided the longest single assessment of it to date. The first scholar to note that the word ‘company’ (compagnia) that recurs in the work refers to confraternities, he has read the Capitoli as a carnivalesque satire of these institutions. In the few paragraphs that he devotes to Machiavelli’s text, however, he suggests that the work was composed for one of the ‘pleasure companies’ active in Florentine carnivals, taking Machiavelli’s text to be almost documentary evidence of the activities of those hedonistic associations frequented by pleasureseekers.26 I believe, instead, that it is essentially a literary parody designed to 23 

Toward the end of the text, on fol. 23v of the manuscript, there is a self-correction in the rule about scratching oneself. Having lost sight of the impersonal format, Machiavelli had first written ‘noi siamo obligate’ (we are obliged) but then crossed out the phrase and substituted it with ‘ciascuno sia obligato’ (each member will be obliged). 24  De Sanctis, Storia della letteratura italiana, ii, 496. 25  Machiavelli, The Chief Works and Others, trans. by Gilbert, p. 865. 26  Henderson, Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence, pp. 436–37. A more detailed

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entertain the reader through its humour, its target being not confraternities per se so much as their statutes, the body of rules that governed them and were known in Italian as capitoli.27 The legalistic language in which Machiavelli’s text is partly written and the preceptive formulation of its content as a list of hortatory injunctions (in one case not transcribed correctly by the editors, as indicated below) demonstrate unequivocally that the Capitoli consists of a parodic rewriting of confraternal constitutions. Like other confraternity statutes, Machiavelli’s work begins with a formal introduction before presenting one at a time the specific rules for the brotherhood. In spite of the fact that the laws laid down display an element of absurdity, Machiavelli’s tract is highly intellectualized and sophisticated, requiring the reader to have some familiarity with confraternal documents in order to grasp the two levels of Machiavelli’s text and appreciate its humour. In order to highlight the discrepancy between the model and its light-hearted recasting, the comparison pre-text that has been adopted for the present analysis is the 1482 constitution of the Florentine confraternity known as the Buonomini di San Martino.28 The opening paragraph of Machiavelli’s Rules states in typical fashion that the aim of the document is an edifying one, namely, ‘to organize or rather to regulate the company in such a manner as to allow each member to devise and, upon devising, to carry out those things that will benefit each of the women and men in some way’ (‘ordinare o vogliam dire regolare in modo tale compagnia che ciascuno possa pensare e pensando operare quelle cose che alle donne e agli uomini e a qualunque di essi in qualunque modo giovino’).29 Immediately following the solemn introductory paragraph, the rules are introduced with a legalistically worded heading that reads as follows: ‘Therefore it is decreed that the said company is and is judged to be governed by the rules listed below, which have been decided upon and decreed by general consensus’ (‘Però si delibera che la analysis along the same lines is provided in Celli, Il carnevale di Machiavelli, pp. 21–29. 27  Interesting theories of parody are discussed both by Giannetto, ‘Rassegna sulla parodia in letteratura’, who stresses the two levels of meaning present in parody, and by Hutcheon, A Theory of Parody, who includes the definition of parody as a form of ‘repetition with critical distancing’ (p. 6). 28  For the text of the Buonomini’s first statutes see Trexler, ‘Charity and the Defense of Urban Elites’, pp. 105–09. The revised constitution is included in Pugliese, ‘Lo statuto “riformato” dei Buonomini di S. Martino’, pp. 275–80. The statutes of the thirteenth-century Florentine confraternity of Sant’Egidio have also been consulted. They are included in Monti, Le confraternite medievali dell’alta e media Italia, ii, 144–66. 29  Machiavelli, Capitoli per una compagnia di piacere (in Il teatro), p. 201.

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detta compagnia sia e si intenda essere sottoposta a gli infrascritti capitoli, fermati e deliberati di commune consenso’).30 Up to this point the text seems completely normal, yet certain elements reveal its fundamentally parodic nature. First of all, the setting for the discussion of the rules appears rather anomalous: the members, including both men and women, are ‘assembled together’ (‘ragunati insieme’) not to engage in serious conversations of the type involving noble courtiers as described in Castiglione’s Libro del cortegiano (1528) and other substantive treatises of the Renaissance, but rather ‘to chat’ (‘per fare chiacchiere’).31 Furthermore, among the pleasurable activities mentioned, instead of clever burle, that is, practical jokes of the type that were permitted to intellectuals in the princely courts and that had an undeniable literary pedigree established by Boccaccio, the confraternity members engage in ‘some tricks’ (qualche natta) and ‘spiteful acts’ (cose dispettose), but even these natte are often not carried out because of laziness.32 The term natta is synonymous with burla but it is a regional term of low register, thus implying a less refined and more vulgar type of trick;33 it also occurs, it should be pointed out, in the 1514 letter in which Machiavelli narrates the practical joke involving homosexuality played on Brancaccio.34 In the introduction to the Capitoli per una compagnia di piacere, there is, moreover, a significant omission which could immediately arouse suspicion concerning the connotations of the text: namely, the failure to mention the name of the saint to whom the company is dedicated. In fact, as we soon discover, this association’s ultimate goal is not religious devotion at all, but pleasure in the most basic sensual meaning of the term. Thus, no Christian patron saint is invoked. In the list of thirty-four regulations that Machiavelli provides for his Company of Pleasure, the first topics relate to the standard rules for confraternities. These include the age of the members, the qualities required in the leader, the length of the leader’s mandate (which tended to be brief ), and the criteria for the selection of the leader. But the specific details of Machiavelli’s rules are unexpected, to say 30 

Machiavelli, Capitoli per una compagnia di piacere (in Il teatro), p. 201. Machiavelli, Capitoli per una compagnia di piacere (in Il teatro), p. 201. 32  Machiavelli, Capitoli per una compagnia di piacere (in Il teatro), p. 201. 33  Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, ed. by Battaglia, xi (1981), pp. 223–24. 34  Brancaccio ‘had tricked him [Filippo da Casavecchia], as when he had made a vow at the Servi’, see Machiavelli and his Friends, ed. and trans. by Atkinson and Sices, p. 282. The original passage in Machiavelli’s letter to Francessco Vettori dated 25 February 1514 reads as follows: ‘altre volte gli haveva fatto delle natte quando lo botò a’ Servi’, see Machiavelli, Lettere, ed. by Gaeta, p. 329. The juxtaposition of the term natta and the reference to the the Servi church seems to suggest some satirical intention, as will be seen later. 31 

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the least. On the question of age, Machiavelli’s gendered discourse differentiates between the two sexes. The male members must be at least thirty years old, whereas women of all ages are admissible. The mandate for the leader is eight days (‘otto dì’), a ridiculously brief term if we recall that the leader of the Buonomini, for example, changed on a monthly basis.35 While moral integrity was the primary requirement for the leader of real confraternities, among the male members of the Company of Pleasure the leader was to be the man with the biggest nose, while for the female members the woman with the tiniest feet would take charge (nose and feet traditionally having sexual implications, as contemporary Renaissance references indicate).36 As for the main activities of the companions, normal confraternal documents made it mandatory for members to attend mass, go to confession regularly, 37 give alms, carry out rituals for the dead, recite prayers, help the families of the deceased, assist members who became impoverished, and tend to those who fell ill. The statutes of the Buonomini, for instance, typically stressed carrying out charitable activities anonymously and in secrecy, without seeking personal recognition.38 Membership required an untarnished reputation and the rendering of good service to eliminate discord. Those who refused to obey or were guilty of misdeeds were subject to expulsion. In Machiavelli’s text, on the other hand, there is a ban on speaking favourably of one another, confession is generally prohibited, being allowed only during Holy Week, and silence and secrecy are both condemned. Punishment for an infraction against the latter rule, such as failing to reveal the affairs of the company within a day, involves publicly hanging up the guilty woman’s slippers or having the man’s stockings turned inside out.39 What is recommended in highly positive terms, instead, is speaking ill (‘dir male’) of 35 

Machiavelli, Capitoli per una compagnia di piacere (in Il teatro), p. 201. The translator Gilbert, in Machiavelli, The Chief Works and Others, trans. by Gilbert, p. 865, mentions the correspondence between the nose and the feet, on the one hand, and the size of the genitals, on the other. In an edition of the Capitoli, the editors Blasucci and Casadei (Machiavelli, Opere, ed. by Blasucci and Casadei, iv: Scritti letterari (1989), p. 249) cite as a source of this concept Bartolomeo Della Rocca (called Cocles), author of an early sixteenthcentury treatise on physiognomy. As well Lotti, Le parole della gente, p. 276, explains that the word for nose, that is, naso, can also signify the male sexual organ (‘membro virile’). 37  The Sant’Egidio statutes prescribe going to confession once a month (Monti, Le confraternite medievali dell’alta e media Italia, ii, 148). 38  This aspect of the statute is discussed also in Pugliese, ‘The Good Works of the Florentine “Buonomini di San Martino”’, p. 109. 39  Machiavelli, Capitoli per una compagnia di piacere (in Il teatro), p. 201. 36 

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one another and publicizing the sins of strangers who come along — presumably the unfortunate who turn to the confraternity for aid. Assisting one another is banned and if asked to convey a message, one must relay the contrary meaning.40 Furthermore, members of the Company of Pleasure are required to be envious of others and to carry out spiteful acts against those they envy. Failure to seize some opportunity to perform a spiteful action is considered a sin of omission. Traditional common wisdom that recommends deeds over words is reversed when the document decrees that one must talk a lot without taking action and also boast unwarrantedly.41 The text also declares telling the truth, about one’s poverty, for instance, to be unlawful. Instead singling out simulation and lying as praiseworthy, the text stipulates as follows: ‘he who knows best how to pretend and tell lies will deserve most commendation’ (‘quello che sa meglio fingere o dire le bugie meriti più commendazione’).42 Moreover, most of a member’s time must be devoted not to spiritual meditation or pious deeds, as might have been expected, but to grooming and adorning oneself (‘azzimarsi e ripulirsi’).43 Clearly, in Machiavelli’s confraternity it is the body and not the soul that counts. This inverted discourse is perhaps comparable to the discussion in The Prince about virtues and vices where (with serious purpose, however) Machiavelli overturns the traditional scale of values. To engage in idle chatter was another conventional issue discussed and condemned in confraternal statutes. While the constitution of the Buonomini had specified that when delivering alms to the recipient’s home, the brothers must not stay behind to chatter with the women or engage in idle talk when distributing alms on the association’s premises, this is precisely what Machiavelli recommends.44 As his text states, ‘the more one chatters and with the greater number of persons, the more deserving one will be of commendation; and the person who is first to cease chattering must be avoided by all the other members of the company and give an accounting for the silence’ (‘quanto più si cicalerà e più insieme, tanto più commendazione si meriti; e quello che fia primo a restare di cicalare debba essere tanto stivato da tutti gli altri della compagnia, che renda il conto perché si è racchetato’).45 40 

Machiavelli, Capitoli per una compagnia di piacere (in Il teatro), p. 203. Machiavelli, Capitoli per una compagnia di piacere (in Il teatro), pp. 203, 204. 42  Machiavelli, Capitoli per una compagnia di piacere (in Il teatro), p. 204. 43  Machiavelli, Capitoli per una compagnia di piacere (in Il teatro), p. 204. 44  Pugliese, ‘Lo statuto “riformato” dei Buonomini di S. Martino’, pp. 276, 280. 45  Machiavelli, Capitoli per una compagnia di piacere (in Il teatro), pp. 202–03. 41 

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Some of the restrictions appear to be a parody of good manners. While etiquette books (like Galateo, written a few decades later by Giovanni Della Casa) followed classical notions condemning, for example, telling in daytime what one has dreamt at night, Machiavelli’s text advises against dreaming at night what one has said or done during the day.46 The punishment for disobedience consists of being held for a half hour with one’s derriere up in the air while being whipped by each member of the company.47 The text of the constitution also reverses other standard teachings: it specifies that one must not allow others to speak without interrupting them; that, while one must never blow one’s nose in public (a harmless action) except in times of necessity, it is obligatory to scratch parts of the body at any time. In fact, those who fail to scratch themselves when they itch are penalized by an edict issued by the apostolic tribunal, as the Latin phrase, in forma camerae, indicates.48 The carnivalesque and subversive element in evidence here is perhaps emphasized by the word contrario that recurs three times; on one such occasion, it is stated that he who does not reveal his colleagues’ secrets within two days must always do everything contrariwise (‘al contrario’).49 Among the examples of carnivalesque overturning, one finds a ban on women moving their feet in such a way as to reveal whether they are highcut.50 Although it may seem that the allusion is to the feet, and therefore to the shape of the shoes being worn, the feminine plural form of the participle (accollate) is in agreement with ‘women’ (donne). Unless a slip of the pen is involved here, the author associates the ladies’ feet with the neckline of their dresses. Overall in this system of penalties Machiavelli appears to be parodying the idea of the contrapasso that traditionally matched the punishment to the sin; those who fail to dandify themselves (azzimarsi), for example, suffer the consequences of not having the others even look their way. 46 

In Della Casa, Galateo, ed. by Prandi, the various classical sources for the rules of good manners are indicated. 47  Machiavelli, Capitoli per una compagnia di piacere (in Il teatro), p. 204. 48  The phrase in forma, meaning ‘according to a rule or particular disposition’, is explained in the Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, ed. by Battaglia, vi (1970), 167. The legal term forma is an edict issued by a magistrate, as is explained in Berger, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law, p. 474. The word camera refers to the apostolic or pontifical tribunal according to the Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, ed. by Battaglia, ii (1962), 577. It is interesting to note that the phrase in forma camerae appears in a poem by Pietro Aretino included in a 1524 letter of his addressed to Giovanni de’ Medici (ASF, Mediceo avanti il Principato, vi.797, fol. 808v). 49  Machiavelli, Capitoli per una compagnia di piacere (in Il teatro), p. 202. 50  Machiavelli, Capitoli per una compagnia di piacere (in Il teatro), p. 205.

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The performing of rituals was an important aspect of confraternity activities. The members of Machiavelli’s Company of Pleasure are required to attend all indulgence-granting events (perdoni)51 and other church feasts, but also — the enumeration continues with a contrasting addendum — all dinners, comedies, parties, and other similar frivolities (chiacchiere).52 This sentence, it should be noted, echoes the rhythm of similar phrases found in Machiavelli’s prose. In Chapter 12 of The Prince for instance, the achievements of mercenary soldiers are described in ironical terms: their ‘slow, tardy, and weak victories’ (lenti, tardi e deboli acquisti) contrasted with their ‘instant and miraculous losses’ (‘subite e miraculose perdite’).53 Machiavelli’s Capitoli also laid down rules for behaviour in church. At mass, it is specified, one must look around and attract attention to oneself; to do otherwise, it is stated hyperbolically, is an offence of lèse majesté.54 The so-called penalty for not attending all festivities, be they sacred or profane, would see the guilty women confined to a monastery of friars and the culpable men to a convent of nuns. Not surprisingly, there is considerable sexual innuendo — and not only in the nose and slipper references — although it is not always completely obvious. According to one rule, if a man or woman is deemed to be too handsome, the woman must bare her leg four inches above the knee and the man must declare whether he carries a handkerchief or some such object in his codpiece.55 Female members are obliged to go to the church of the Servi at least four times a month because, as we learn from references in Act iii, Scene 2 of Machiavelli’s The Mandrake Root (La mandragola), they are bound to be harassed by the Servite brothers there. An anti-matrimonial theme appears in the Capitoli text (as in the short story Belfagor, which probably dates from the same period) in the rule that requires members to abstain from sleeping with their spouses for two weeks each month. The penalty for noncompliance is to be forced to sleep with one’s spouse for two full months in a row. With an allusion perhaps to the mandrake potion 51 

The meaning of the word is explained in Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, ed. by Battaglia, xii (1984), 1129. 52  Machiavelli, Capitoli per una compagnia di piacere (in Il teatro), p. 203. 53  Machiavelli, Il principe, ed. by Janni, p. 137. 54  Machiavelli, Capitoli per una compagnia di piacere (in Il teatro), p. 204. The Latin phrase pro peccato de laesae maiestatis (fol. 23r in the manuscript of Capitoli) has not been transcribed correctly in the printed editions, where one reads di (in Italian) instead of de (Latin). 55  The Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, ed. by Battaglia, ii, 348, explains that the bracchetta (codpiece) was used not only to hold the male genitals but also as a pocket for keeping gloves and handkerchiefs.

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of the play or to other euphemistically named ‘strong medicines’ (medicine forti) administered by princes in the political treatise, the women of the Company of Pleasure are obliged to rid themselves of their mothers-in-law by administering to them strong laxatives; they are granted the right to do the same with husbands who are remiss in their duties.56 One particular rule has the women spend three quarters of their time at the ‘windows’ or ‘doorways’. Although this may appear to refer to their engaging in idle talk, the terms indicating the openings (‘finestre’ and ‘usci’)57 are clearly sexual double entendres, as the author specifies that the women may position themselves either in front or behind as they prefer, echoing a phrase from Machiavelli’s carnival song about snake charmers.58 The men, the regulation adds, must appear at these openings at least twelve times daily. The comments on proper attire for the company members, including those items worn ‘underneath’ (sotto), have sexual implications as well, for the clothing recommended must not be an impediment (impedimento) — to intercourse, that is.59 Thus, there is a ban on the wearing of hoop skirts or crinolines by women and laces by men, probably on their codpieces. 60 As a punishment for fastening their clothes with pins, women are forced to wear eyeglasses and ogle the Giant in the Piazza — a clear reference to Michelangelo’s statue of the nude David whose genitals are clearly displayed. In this peculiar penal system, the consequences for those who go to confession frequently is specified: the guilty woman must ‘bear’ (portare) the company leader while the culpable man must ‘be borne’ (essere portato) by him ‘in any way [the leader] sees fit’ (‘in quel modo che a lui parrà’).61 The sexual meaning of the verb portare, which means literally ‘to be subjected, or placed underneath, during the sex act’ (essere sottoposto all’atto amoroso) — a meaning that has often been missed by the editors — is explained in the Grande dizionario della lingua italiana with a precise reference to this passage in the Capitoli.62 56 

Machiavelli, Il principe, ed. by Janni, p. 88. Machiavelli, Capitoli per una compagnia di piacere (in Il teatro), p. 203. 58  Machiavelli, ‘De’ ciurmadori’, in Machiavelli, Il teatro e tutti gli scritti letterari, ed. by Gaeta, p. 338 (verse 20 contains the words ‘dinanzi e di retro’). 59  Machiavelli, Capitoli per una compagnia di piacere (in Il teatro), p. 204. 60  The codpiece could be fastened with laces, buttons, or buckles (see n. 55 above). 61  Machiavelli, Capitoli per una compagnia di piacere (in Il teatro), p. 202. 62  Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, ed. by Battaglia, xiii (1986), 957. 57 

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There are, furthermore, political subtexts in Machiavelli’s Rules. This is to be expected, given that the organization of confraternities was modelled on that of civic communes, with a rapid rotation of offices, similar electoral methods, and comparable office-holding structures.63 Machiavelli takes the opportunity, as he did in the description of the governance of hell in Belfagor, to parody basic principles of politics. In the Company of Pleasure, it is ‘the minority’ rather than the majority that ‘will always have the deciding power’ (‘i manco favori sempre ottenghino il partito’).64 For one type of nonconformity, that is, putting on one’s right shoe before the left, especially when trying to conceive a child, the punishment would consist of being forced to go barefoot for a month. Alternatively, the penalty could be decided by the ‘prince’ (principe), who is responsible for punishing modesty too, while the ‘lord’ (signore) decides the punishment for those who fail to display envy and do spiteful things.65 The lord and prince mentioned in these passages of the text are anomalous figures not usually associated with confraternal documents; indeed their roles in the Company of Pleasure are not clarified further, probably because Machiavelli did not complete the work. Only two principal functionaries are named here: the confessor selected for the company, who must be blind and preferably hard of hearing (and who perhaps brings to mind the infamous confessor of La mandragola), and the doctor, who (according to the last article of the statute) must be no older than twenty-four years of age, so that he is able to sustain the difficulties of the post, although we may surmise that at this young age, the doctor could be prepared for services other than those of a medical nature. While the statutes of San Martino mention serious moral questions that require consultation with experts and theologians, Machiavelli appears to ridicule medical science in the rule that dictates that, when falling asleep, one must not close both eyes at the same time, but rather first one and then the other, an action declared to be ‘an excellent remedy for maintaining good vision’ (‘ottimo rimedio a mantenere la vista’).66 The enumeration of the thirty-four regulations, all enunciated in the hortatory subjunctive mood, proceeds without following any real logical sequence. The work, which had opened with a more carefully structured proem, trails off into a 63 

These similarities have been singled out by Weissman, ‘Cults and Contexts’, p. 207. Machiavelli, Capitoli per una compagnia di piacere (in Il teatro), p. 202. The meaning of favore in the sense of an affirmative or negative vote is explained in Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, ed. by Battaglia, v (1968), 754. 65  Machiavelli, Capitoli per una compagnia di piacere (in Il teatro), pp. 204, 203 respectively. 66  Machiavelli, Capitoli per una compagnia di piacere (in Il teatro), p. 204. 64 

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general satire made up of a rapid succession of brief rules, and then ends abruptly, without ever making any conventional reference to the honour of God and the saints or indicating the date of the company’s foundation, even a fictional one for this nonexistent association. That Machiavelli should have composed such a parody as this mock statute is not out of character. The tendency toward parodic bilingualism that involves the ironic or critical rewriting of earlier pre-texts is common in the corpus of his writings: his epistolary invective on the prostitute from Verona (1509) is a response to what must have been the addressee’s letter now lost about an attractive woman; his famous self-deprecating letter about his life in exile (1513) is a rewriting of Francesco Vettori’s description of his own comfortable position in Rome. The play The Mandrake Root (c. 1518) recasts the story of the Roman Lucretia in a new light, parodies the ritual of the purification of the Virgin in the final church scene, and in Act iv, Scene 9, describes in a comic vein a ‘horned’ (‘cornuta’) battle formation that is analysed seriously in Book ii of the treatise on the Art of War.67 Even Belfagor, the short story that deals with the tribulations of a devil, has been viewed as a parody of a hagiographical life of a saint as well as other common literary themes, since the pact with the devil leads to good and, instead of a voyage to the underworld, the devil from hell comes to dwell on earth.68 Furthermore, Machiavelli’s Golden Ass (Asino d’oro) has been discussed by John Bernard as a parody of Dante’s Divine Comedy and Giorgio Bàrberi Squarotti has interpreted the description of ecclesiastical states in Chapter 11 of The Prince as a parody of principalities.69 A key phrase in the text of the Capitoli that refers repeatedly to speaking ill or not speaking favourably (dir male and non dir bene) also underscores the parodic intent. It recalls the statement found in the prologue to The Mandrake Root that speaking ill or maligning (dire male) or not speaking well (non […] dir bene)70 was the author’s first art (fu la suo prim’arte).71 Later, in the prologue to La Clizia (1525), Machiavelli would single out dir male as one of the sources of verbal humour.72 The many carnivalesque reversals and contrasts on which the text of the Capitoli is based, together with the recurrence of the word contrary (contrario), 67 

Machiavelli, Art of War, ed. and trans. by Lynch, p. 55; L’arte della guerra, in Machiavelli, Tutte le opere, ed. by Flora and Cordiè, i, 503. 68  Manai, ‘Note sulla Favola di Machiavelli’, pp. 21–22. 69  Bàrberi Squarotti, ‘La parodia del principato’. 70  Machiavelli, Capitoli per una compagnia di piacere (in Il teatro), p. 202. 71  Machiavelli, La mandragola, in Machiavelli, Teatro, ed. by Bonino, pp. 63–137 (p. 69). 72  Machiavelli, Clizia, in Machiavelli, Teatro, ed. by Bonino, pp. 139–201 (pp. 143–44).

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lead one to conclude that dir male may mean not simply maligning, but also in a more literal sense, as the Grande dizionario explains, speaking ‘in a manner that does not conform to a norm’ (‘in modo non conforme a una norma’).73 Indeed, the whole text of the Capitoli is based upon deviation from the norm. Rejecting conventions, and perhaps with the intention of attacking the religion practised by laypersons in confraternities, but more probably simply as a pure literary game, Machiavelli refashions the conventional rules. He thus demonstrates that, although the more common modes adopted by him in the treatment of religious themes could involve strong and direct condemnation, as in The Discourses on Livy (Book i, Chapter 12), or ambiguity and seeming contradiction, as in The Prince and some of the letters, parody too was a favoured option. The two texts studied here show that Machiavelli’s attitude toward confraternities could vary somewhat. More formal in his youthful sermon for a confraternity and more jocular in the later parody of confraternity rules, Machiavelli had considerable interest in these institutions both before and after his fall. In his early years, he could participate in the life of the confraternities and accept an invitation to speak, anxious as he was to establish his career, but later he could look at them in a detached ironic manner as well, providing not only entertainment but — intentionally or not — also some insightful observations on the genre of parody.

73 

While the Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, ed. by Battaglia, iv (1966), 529, explains that ‘dir male a qualcuno’ means to utter insults, in ix (1975), 516, the definition of male in the sense of not conforming to the norm is also given.

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Works Cited Manuscripts and Archival Resources Firenze, Archivio Storico, Mediceo avanti il Principato, vi.797 (‘Lettera di Pietro Aretino a Diovanni de’ Medici da Reggio’, May 1534 [accessed 3 July 2012]) Firenza, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, MS B.R. 29 olim Magl. viii, 1451bis

Primary Sources Della Casa, Giovanni, Galateo, ed. by Stefano Prandi, Einaudi tascabili, 244 (Torino: Einaudi, 1994; repr. 2000) Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, ed. by Salvatore Battaglia, 24 vols (Torino: UTET, 1961–2009) Machiavelli and his Friends: Their Personal Correspondence, ed. and trans. by James B. Atkinson and David Sices (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1996) Machiavelli, Niccolò, Art of War, ed. and trans. by Christopher Lynch (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003) —— , Capitoli per una bizzarra Compagnia, in Opere di Niccolò Machiavelli, cittadino e segretario fiorentino, 10 vols (Firenze: Conti, 1818–21), vi (1820), 53–58 —— , Capitoli per una compagnia di piacere, in Niccolò Machiavelli, Opere di Niccolò Machiavelli, cittadino e segretario fiorentino, Classici italiani, 109–18, 10 vols (Milano: Società Tipografica de’ classici italiani, 1804–05), i (1804), 240–46 —— , Capitoli per una compagnia di piacere, in Niccolò Machiavelli, Opere complete, ed. by Sergio Bertelli and Franco Gaeta, 8 vols (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1960–65), viii: Il teatro e tutti gli scritti letterari, ed. by Franco Gaeta (1965), pp. 199–205 —— , The Chief Works and Others, trans. by Allan H. Gilbert (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1965) —— , Esortazione alla penitenza, in Niccolò Machiavelli, Opere complete, ed. by Sergio Bertelli and Franco Gaeta, 8 vols (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1960–65), viii: Il teatro e tutti gli scritti letterari, ed. by Franco Gaeta (1965), pp. 207–13 —— , Oeuvres complètes, ed. by Edmond Barincou (Paris: Gallimard, 1952) —— , Opere, ed. by Luigi Blasucci and Alberto Casadei, 4 vols (Torino: UTET, 1984–89) —— , Opere complete, ed. by Sergio Bertelli and Franco Gaeta, 8 vols (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1960–65), vi: Lettere, ed. by Franco Gaeta (1961) —— , Opere complete, ed. by Sergio Bertelli and Franco Gaeta, 8 vols (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1960–65), viii: Il teatro e tutti gli scritti letterari, ed. by Franco Gaeta (1965) —— , Opere di Niccolò Machiavelli, cittadino e segretario fiorentino, Classici italiani, 109– 18, 10 vols (Milano: Società Tipografica de’ classici italiani, 1804–05) —— , Opere letterarie, ed. by Aldo Borlenghi (Napoli: Rossi, 1970) —— , Opere minori, ed. by Filippo Luigi Polidori (Firenze: Monnier, 1852)

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—— , Il principe, ed. by Etore Janni, Biblioteca universale Rizzoli, 183 (Milano: Rizzoli, 1950) —— , Teatro: Andria, Mandragola, Clizia, ed. by Guido Davico Bonino, Nuova universale Einaudi, 167 (Torino: Einaudi, 1979; repr. 2001) —— , Tutte le opere, ed. by Francesco Flora and Carlo Cordiè, 2 vols (Milano: Mondadori, 1949) —— , Tutte le opere storiche e letterarie di Niccolò Machiavelli, ed. by Guido Mazzoni and Mario Casella (Firenze: Barbèra, 1929)

Secondary Studies Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio, ‘La parodia del principato: lo stato ecclesiastico’, in Machiavelli o la scelta della letteratura, ed. by Giorgio Bàrberi Squarotti, Biblioteca del Cinquecento, 38 (Roma: Bulzoni, 1987), pp. 173–91 Bausi, Francesco, Machiavelli, Sestante, 9 (Roma: Salerno, 2005) —— , ‘Niccolò Machiavelli e Bartolomeo Scala: Due schede’, Interpres, 24 (2005), 272–79 Berger, Adolf, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law, Transactions of the American Philo­sophical Society, n.s., 43 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1953) Cattani, Giovanni, La vita religiosa nella ‘Esortazione alla penitenza’ e nella ‘Mandragola’ di Niccolò Machiavelli (Faenza: Lega, 1973) Celli, Carlo, Il carnevale di Machiavelli, Biblioteca dell’ ‘Archivum romanticum’, 355 (Firenze: Olschki, 2009) Croce, Benedetto, ‘Review of Felice Alderisio, Machiavelli: L’arte dello Stato nell’azione e negli scritti’, La critica, 28 (1930), 137 De Sanctis, Francesco, Storia della letteratura italiana, 2 vols (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1964) Eisenbichler, Konrad, The Boys of the Archangel Raphael: A Youth Confraternity in Florence, 1411–1785 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998) Franceschini, Fabrizio, ‘Lingua e stile nelle opera in prosa di Niccolò Machiavelli: Ap­ punti’, in Cultura e scrittura di Machiavelli: Atti del convegno di Firenze-Pisa, 27–30 ottobre 1997, Studi e saggi, 1 (Roma: Salerno, 1998), pp. 367–92 Ghiglieri, Paolo, La grafia del Machiavelli studiata negli autografi, Biblioteca dell’ ‘Archi­ vum romanicum’, 2nd ser., 34 (Firenze: Olschki, 1969) Giannetto, Nella, ‘Rassegna sulla parodia in letteratura’, Lettere italiane, 29 (1977), 461–81 Henderson, John, ‘Le confraternite religiose nella Firenze del tardo medioevo: Patroni spiri­tuali e anche politici?’, Ricerche storiche, 15 (1985), 77–94 —— , Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994) Hutcheon, Linda, A Theory of Parody: The Teaching of Twentieth-Century Art Forms (New York: Methuen, 1985) Lazzerini, Luigi, ‘Machiavelli e Savonarola: L’Esortazione alla penitenza e il Miserere’, Rivista di storia e letteratura religiosa, 44 (2008), 385–402 Lotti, Gianfranco, Le parole della gente: Dizionario dell’italiano gergale. Dalle voci burlesche medioevali ai linguaggi contemporanei dei giovani (Milano: Mondadori, 1992)

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Manai, Franco, ‘Note sulla Favola di Machiavelli: Gianmatteo, il villano più furbo del diavolo’, Rivista di studi italiani, 4–5 (1986–87), 11–28 Monti, Gennaro Maria, Le confraternite medievali dell’alta e media Italia, 2 vols (Venezia: Nuova Italia, 1927) Pugliese, Olga Zorzi, ‘The Good Works of the Florentine “Buonomini di San Martino”’, in Crossing the Boundaries: Christian Piety and the Arts in Italian Medieval and Renais­sance Confraternities, ed. by Konrad Eisenbichler, Early Drama, Art, and Music Monograph Series, 15 (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute, 1991), pp. 108–20 —— , ‘Two Sermons by Giovanni Nesi and the Language of Spirituality in Late FifteenthCentury Florence’, Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance, 42 (1980), 641–56 —— , ‘Lo statuto “riformato” dei Buonomini di S. Martino: Riflessi del pensiero rinasci­ mentale in un documento confraternale’, Rinascimento, 2nd ser., 31 (1991), 261–80 Ridolfi, Roberto, Vita di Niccolò Machiavelli, 2nd edn (Roma: Belardetti, 1954) Sebregondi, Ludovica, Tre confraternite fiorentine: Santa Maria della Pietà, detta ‘buca’ di San Girolamo, San Filippo Benizi, San Francesco Poverino (Firenze: Salimbeni, 1991) Sumberg, Theodore A., ‘Sermon on Penance’, in Theodore A. Sumberg, Political Literature of Europe: Before and after Machiavelli (Lanham: University Press of America, 1993), pp. 47–51 Trexler, Richard C., ‘Charity and the Defense of Urban Elites in the Italian Communes’, in The Rich, the Well Born, and the Powerful: Elites and Upper Classes in History, ed. by Frederic Cople Jaher (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1973), pp. 64–109 Weissman, Ronald F. E., ‘Cults and Contexts: In Search of the Renaissance Confraternity’, in Crossing the Boundaries: Christian Piety and the Arts in Italian Medieval and Renais­sance Confraternities, ed. by Konrad Eisenbichler, Early Drama, Art, and Music Monograph Series, 15 (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute, 1991), pp. 201–20 White, Michael, Machiavelli: A Man Misunderstood (London: Little Brown, 2004)

Part III Kinship, Civil Society, and Social Capital

Bonding or Bridging Social Capital? The Evolution of Brabantine Fraternities during the Late Medieval and the Early Modern Period Maarten F. Van Dijck

S

ocial scientists have recently paid a great deal of attention to clubs, associations, and societies. This is due to the growing interest in civil society and social capital. Both scientists and politicians believe that a vivid civil society, characterized by a large number of voluntary associations active in many aspects of social life, has several positive effects. According to this view, civil society promotes shared civic values and stimulates social cohesion. In other words: club life pulls down social boundaries. As a consequence, modern policy makers involve all kinds of voluntary associations in local, regional, national, and international government because they consider these associations as ideal intermediaries between citizens and government.1 1  See for instance: The United Nations: Global Issues [accessed 3 July 2012]; European Commission: Transparency; Civil Society [accessed 3 July 2012]; [accessed 24 July 2012].

Maarten Van Dijck ([email protected]) is Assistant Professor in Historical Methodology and a member of the Center for Historical Culture at Erasmus University Rotterdam. He is also affiliated with the Centre for Urban History at the University of Antwerp. His current research concentrates on the evolution of civil societies and public spheres in the Low Countries during the late medieval and early modern periods. The central questions of his research concern the influence of sociability on the spread of civic values and the formation of political cultures.

154 Maarten F. Van Dijck

Civil Society, Social Capital, and Confraternities This recent interest in associational life is significant for the study of fraternities, because fraternities were an important — probably the most important — form of associational life during the late medieval and early modern period.2 Consequently, they constituted civil society. The question is: did fraternities contribute to social cohesion in late medieval and early modern society, or were the effects of these institutions rather limited? Were fraternities a source of social capital? The latter is a concept that refers to the social relations between the members of associations. Indeed, some sociologists claim that internal relations between members of associations promote social cohesion.3 However, other social scientists have recently voiced more scepticism about this claim. They distinguish two different forms of social capital, namely ‘bonding’ and ‘bridging’ social capital.4 Bonding social capital refers to networks between social peers. The benefits of this kind of social capital are rather small, because the members of these associations (including fraternities) already have social contacts or shared interests with their fellow members outside of their associational tie. In this view, associations that foster bonding social capital contribute little added value to society. Bridging social capital, on the other hand, is completely different. Associations with bridging social capital create relations between people from various social backgrounds. Bridging capital crosses social boundaries and stimulates social cohesion.5 The general concepts of ‘social capital’ and ‘social networks’ are also problematic, because the nature of social relations can differ. Some are horizontal relations between equals, but others are rather vertical. Associations with people from different social backgrounds even strengthen existing social boundaries, when the relations within the association are rather hierarchical.6 These theoretical concepts are the starting point of this article, which tries to identify the nature of the More recent policy notes of the Flemish government can be found at and [accessed 24 July 2012]. 2  See also Reid, ‘Measuring the Impact of Brotherhood’. 3  Putnam, Making Democracy Work, pp. 121–36. 4  Etzioni is one of the most important critics: Etzioni, ‘Creating Good Communities and Good Societies’; Etzioni, ‘The Good Society’. 5  Putnam, Bowling Alone, pp. 22–23. 6  Putnam, Making Democracy Work, pp. 121–27.

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social bonds in late medieval and early modern fraternities. Discussions about civil society and social capital have become more common in historical studies, and some political scientists and sociologists have also realized that modern social structures, civic values, and human relations have undergone historical evolution. According to these points of view, long-term developments in associational life were at the origin of modern social bonds and civil values. Indeed, the frequent contacts between members of associations are considered as a source of mutual trust and shared opinions. Moreover, communitarian thinkers argued that the frequent socialization in associations fostered the emergence of crucial civic values, such as democratic participation in government, mutual trust, tolerance, solidarity, and public responsibility.7 Antony Black for instance points to the importance of guilds in Western Europe. He claims that medieval guilds contributed to the emergence of a republican political culture that dominated political practices in early modern Europe. According to Black, guilds lost their importance as a result of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution: liberal values and individualism replaced the old guild spirit in European society.8 The American political scientist Robert Putnam also uses a historical model to explain contemporary political values in Western Europe. He argues in his book about civil traditions in Italy that lay fraternities in northern Italy, like craft and shooting guilds elsewhere, lay at the origin of democratic values and good economic performances. Unlike Black, Putnam does not find a crucial rupture around 1800 but stresses the continuity in western political values from the late medieval period. According to Putnam, western democracy has its roots in late medieval guilds and fraternities, which were governed by elected committees. Moreover, Putnam claims that the European tradition of associational life contributed to social cohesion and shared values.9 Katherine Lynch recently added a new contribution to this debate. She does not focus on political cultures and practices, but on social relations. Lynch aims to demonstrate that confraternities created a system of mutual assistance, welfare, and a sense of community from the late medieval period. She argues that confraternities created ‘imagined communities’ in the sense meant by Benedict Anderson: that is, they generated symbolic relations and increased cohesion between members.10 7 

Putnam, Making Democracy Work, pp. 121–36. Black, Guilds and Civil Society in European Political Thought, pp. 237–39. 9  Putnam, Making Democracy Work, pp. 121–36. 10  Lynch, Individuals, Families and Communities in Europe, pp. 171–211. 8 

156 Maarten F. Van Dijck

Holland Brabant Flanders

50 km

Aarschot

Map 1. Position of Aarschot in the Netherlands

There are several problems with all these theories. They often lack empirical data, they contain contradictions, and they are extremely positive about the benefits of late medieval and early modern fraternities. Historians have been particularly critical. Some scholars argue that not every civil society generates positive effects such as social cohesion and democratic values.11 Others note that all of these studies make use of a relatively small selection of existing literature and that the authors hardly looked at archival sources. Robert Putnam’s explanatory model, for instance, combines extensive runs of contemporary survey data with a very small amount of historical data and almost no archival research. His book jumps from the fifteenth to the twentieth century without adequately examining the intermediate period between these two dates. This of course results in a very simplistic representation and interpretation of historical reality.12 11  Etzioni, ‘Creating Good Communities and Good Societies’, pp. 188–95; Etzioni, ‘The Good Society’, pp. 83–96. 12  Putnam, Making Democracy Work, pp. 134–50.

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Wolfsdonk

Langdorp

Begijnendijk Baal Haacht

Ninde

Betekom

Veldonk Kruis

Wakkerzeel

Werchter

Rotselaar

Testelt

Messelbroek

Aarschot Rillaar

Gelrode

City

Wezemaal 5 km

Village Hamlet

Map 2. The City of Aarschot and its Rural Hinterland (Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries)

The one-dimensional approach of these studies creates significant problems. How can we believe these scholars’ accounts of a so-called social miracle of social cohesion in religious fraternities, if other historians posit that the social and cultural gap actually grew in Europe during the early modern period?13 This article will address some of these questions by looking very closely at various sorts of fraternities in one particular area in the Southern Netherlands, namely the rural region around the city of Aarschot. Aarschot was a small town situated near the cities of Leuven, Mechelen, and Antwerp in the duchy of Brabant (Map 1). It was surrounded by twelve villages and some small hamlets (Map 2). The entire region was under the control of the duke of Aarschot with the exception of the village of Wezemaal, which nonetheless had intense contacts with the adjacent village of Rotselaar.14 The borders between the two villages were very unclear and changed during the early modern period; Rotselaar had enclaves within the territory of Wezemaal and vice versa.15 The region had a rich associational life. Research shows that at least sixty fraternities existed in the Aarschot region. Shooting guilds and religious confraternities were established in all the villages, and chambers of rhetoric and craft 13 

See, for instance, Burke, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe; Lis and Soly, Poverty and Capitalism in Pre-Industrial Europe, pp. 71–82, 108–15; Muchembled, Culture populaire et culture des élites. 14  Minnen and Duvosquel, Het hertogdom Aarschot onder Karel Van Croÿ, pp. 57–70. 15  Van Ermen, De landelijke bezittingen van de Heren van Wezemaal, i: Tot de dood van Jan I (1982), p. 32.

158 Maarten F. Van Dijck

guilds were common in the city of Aarschot. Some villages had guilds of ship drawers from the middle ages, but other craft guilds were found only in larger towns and cities.16 All these associations were organized as religious confraternities. This does not only imply that the members addressed each other as ‘brothers’, but that the groups had the same structure as those brotherhoods with a distinctly religious and spiritual focus. Shooting guild and chambers of rhetoric often described themselves as ‘confraternities’. The eighteenth-century statutes of the Shooting Guild in Testelt for instance defined the membership in this way: ‘all those who want to obtain the confraternity of this guild, have to pay three guilders and ten pennies for his entrance’.17 Other texts also used the term ‘confraternity’ when referring to these groups. The duke of Ursel, seigneur of Wezemaal, described the local Shooting Guild as ‘la confrerie en de l’arc à main’.18 Even the ecclesiastical authorities recognized these shooting guilds as confraternities. The archbischop of Mechelen, too, referred to the shooting guilds as confraternities of archers (confraternitas manu sagittariorum).19 In fact, these fraternities were essentially confraternities with additional social activities, such as performing plays, shooting exercises, or bee-keeping, added to the spiritual and devotional commitments that more explicitly ‘religious’ confraternities undertook. So, it would be a mistake to isolate the religious confraternities without making comparisons with the existing fraternities.20 The success of the Brabantine textile industry benefitted the region of Aarschot during the late medieval period, but economic prosperity slowly faded from the fifteenth century onwards. Brabant remained the most successful region in the Low Countries until the middle of the sixteenth century, but the rise of the Antwerp economy had serious consequences for the social and economic situation in Aarschot. It could not profit from the enormous economic boom in the north of Brabant, because Aarschot was not within Antwerp’s hinterland.21 The civil war of the second half of the sixteenth century intensified the economic crisis. The intermingling of religious conflicts with social and political tensions 16 

Millet, De kronijk van Aarschot van Charles Millet, trans. by Schroeven, pp. 110–15. Leuven, UA, Arenbergarch, fol. 1r. 18  Anderlecht, Archives de l’État, Conseil de Brabant, sentences, 113, letter of the Duke of Ursel, 17 August 1768, fol. 1r. 19  Mechelen, Arch. Aartsbisdom, Acta Vicariatus, vii, nr 5, pastoral letter from 1675, fol. 22r. 20  Terpstra has already pointed out the importance of studying confraternities in the wider context of fraternities. See Terpstra, ‘De-Institutionalizing Confraternity Studies’, pp. 264–65. 21  Van Uytven, ‘In de schaduwen van de Antwerpse groei’. 17 

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159

Population of rural surroundings

Population

Urban population of Aarschot

Year

Graph 1. Population Estimates of the Aarschot Region (Fifteenth to Eighteenth Centuries)

that resulted in the Dutch Revolt (1566–1609) marked the end of a successful demographic and economic boom in the duchy of Brabant. The region entered a period of de-urbanization that lasted until 1750.22 Nevertheless, Brabant still remained one of the most prosperous and densely populated regions in Europe.23 The demographic evolution of the Aarschot region mirrored the economic development of this area. The population was already declining in the fifteenth century, but the effects of the Dutch Revolt were disastrous and the number of inhabitants dropped to its lowest point at the end of the sixteenth century. The urban population of Aarschot even fell below 250 inhabitants (see Graph 1).24 The population recovered slightly after 1600 but did not return to fifteenthcentury levels until the eighteenth century. In fact, the region of Aarschot never 22

Klep, ‘Urban Decline in Brabant’. Allen ‘Progress and Poverty in Early Modern Europe’, pp. 403–08. 24 Sources for Graph 1: Leuven, UA, Arenbergarch., 1222; Brussels, Archives de l’État, Estates of Brabant, Suppl., 800; Cuvelier, Les Dénombrements des foyers en Brabant, pp. 345, 432–35; Minnen, ‘Hoofdlijnen van de geschiedenis van Rotselaar’, p.  30; Minnen and Duvosquel, Het hertogdom Aarschot onder Karel Van Croÿ, pp. 76, 93, 109, 115, 118, 339, 335, 371; Morren, Het dekenaat Diest (1599–1700), pp. 419–27; Bevolkingstelling jaar iv (1796): Kanton Aarschot; Anderlecht, Archives de l’État, Office-Fiscale de Brabant, registers, 374; Leuven, Rijksarchief, Schepenbank, 6340 B. 23

160 Maarten F. Van Dijck

recovered from the crises of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It became more a central place that provided some services to its surrounding hinterland than a real town centre, because it lacked several characteristics of a real urban centre, such as an international merchant community, a printing press, and a broad range of shops. In fact, Aarschot had the lowest centrality index of all urban centres in eighteenth-century Brabant.25 Local administrators described the city in an eighteenth-century census as small and poor, even though they undoubtedly feared a fiscal use of this document.26 A comparison with other parts of Brabant shows that Aarschot remained a peripheral region through the entire early modern period. While the population of Aarschot and its hinterland only rose by twenty per cent, the population in the other parts of the duchy at least doubled during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.27

Spiritual Kinship: A Shared Religious Identity According to sociologists, religion is an essential factor in the development of a solid civil society. Some even hold the secularization of Western society responsible for the decline of community, civic values, and social cohesion in Europe and North America.28 These kinds of views certainly underestimate the importance of other developments in Western societies, such as the growing social polarization during the early modern period, the rise of capitalism, or the emergence of modern individualism. Moreover, recent studies show that social cohesion was not necessary undermined by religious discord. The catholic and protestant inhabitants of ’s-Hertogenbosch lived peacefully together after the religious conflicts of the sixteenth century and succeeded in establishing a durable civil society.29 It would be an oversimplification of reality to deny the regional differences within Europe, and David Garrioch showed that community life was more influenced by religious feelings and identities in southern than in northern Europe,30 yet this does not mean that religion was irrelevant in northern European towns. On the contrary, Garrioch has argued that community life was deeply affected by reli25 

Blondé and Van Uytven, ‘De smalle steden en het Brabantse stedelijke netwerk’, pp. 141, 168–73; Van Uytven, ‘Brabantse en Antwerpse centrale plaatsen’, pp. 58–61. 26  Anderlecht, Archives de l’État, Office-Fiscale de Brabant, registers, 388, fol. 1r. 27  Klep, ‘Population Estimates of Belgium, by Province’, Table 15, p. 505. 28  Putnam, Bowling Alone, pp. 65–78. 29  Vos, Burgers, broeders en bazen, pp. 250–375. See also Kaplan, ‘A Clash of Values’. 30  Garrioch, ‘Sacred Neighborhoods and Secular Neighborhoods’, pp. 405–19.

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gious institutions and organizations.31 Religion also shaped late medieval and early modern patterns of sociability in the region of Aarschot. All associations in the area can be described as fraternities and most of them had the same structure as religious con­fraternities. More purely secular associations only came into existence after the invasion of French revolutionary troops in the Low Countries. Before 1793, all associations including shooting guilds, chambers Figure 1. Flag of the Young Shooting Guild of Betekom, of rhetoric, and confraternities painted on leather. Private collection. shared a core of similar reliSeventeenth century. Used with permission gious characteristics.32 Yet even the establishment of the secular ‘French club’ in 1793 did not mark an absolute break with the fraternities of the late medieval and the early modern period. Two of the six founding members of this new club were in fact members of the old Confraternity of the Holy Rosary in Aarschot.33 The first president of the French club was also a member the Fraternity of Saint Christopher, which was one of the three shooting guilds in the town of Aarschot.34 We can better appreciate the central place of religion in early modern sociability by examining the banners which these associations used in their processions. These objects usually contain several iconographic elements which stressed the specific character of each fraternity. The flag of the Shooting Guild of Betekom offers an excellent example of this religious identity (Figure 1). Two figures are represented on the banner, namely Saint Sebastian and Saint Lawrence.35 The image of Saint Sebastian, the patron saint of all archers who used a longbow, highlighted the activities of this fraternity. He is traditionally 31 

Garrioch, Neighbourhood and Community in Paris, pp. 149–66. Breugelmans, ‘De O.L.-Vrouwekerk vanaf de vestiging van het Frans bewind’, p. 108. 33  Aarschot, ACA, Suppl., 3–4/5, fols 6r–15v. 34  Borremans, ‘De Familie Daels te Aarschot’, pp. 57–58. 35  Claes, Claes, and Vincke, Sanctus, pp. 207–08, 218–19. 32 

162 Maarten F. Van Dijck

depicted shot through with many arrows at a tree. The image of Saint Lawrence, patron saint of the local parish church, highlighted the geographical character of the group.36 Both Saint Sebastian and Saint Lawrence were used by several guilds, but the Betekom Shooting Guild was unique in bringing together both saints. Contemporary descriptions of processions prove that most associations made use of a similar religious vocabulary to define and represent their own identity.37 Every member of the Confraternity of Our Lady in Rillaar carried in the annual processions a banner with an image of the Virgin. The other side of the banner contained a picture of the patron saint of the local parish, Saint Christopher.38 All these sorts of brotherhoods, from shooting guilds to chambers of rhetoric and religious confraternities, organized religious activities. Members attended masses, walked together in processions, and paid for the maintenance of an altar dedicated to their patron saints. A sample of twenty-three regulations of associations have survived and confirm that religious interests were at the heart of these fraternities’ sociability throughout the entire late medieval and early modern period. A single chamber of rhetoric in Aarschot is the only group whose statutes have no explicitly religious regulations.39 However, other sources indicate that this same association organized the same kinds of religious activities as other brotherhoods. As a sixteenth-century observer wrote: ‘The members of this chamber of rhetoric dedicate every year a solemn mass to their patron saint and all members are obliged to be present’.40 The statutes of all these associations generally contained the obligation to be present at the annual procession and at a number of masses. The late medieval regulations of the Fraternity of Saint Sebastian in Rotselaar (1427) stipulated that all members should walk in the procession on the feast of Corpus Domini. The members also had to make a gift to the altar of the patron saint of the village when they died.41 The statutes of the Shooting Guild in the nearby parish of Testelt contained even more specific religious instructions. New regulations of 1503 required all members to accompany the coffin of a deceased brother. Beyond this, all members had to participate in a sung mass at the feast of Saint 36 

Gerits, ‘Kataloog der kunstvoorwerpen’, p. 90. Millet, De kronijk van Aarschot van Charles Millet, trans. by Schroeven, p. 32. 38  Carpentier and Millet, De Kronijk […]: Rillaar, Haterbeek en Ourodenberg, trans. by Schroeven, p. 12. 39  Willems, ‘Over de Rederijkerskamers van Aarschot’, pp. 60–61. 40  Millet, De kronijk van Aarschot van Charles Millet, trans. by Schroeven, pp. 33–34. 41  Anderlecht, Archives de l’État, Conseil de Brabant, processes, 96, fols 3r–v, 5v. 37 

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Sebastian.42 The members of this guild did not change these religious stipulations when they renewed their statutes in 1753. The board of this association justified the reform and renewal of statutes by claiming that ‘a lot of articles are no longer in use and should be omitted’, but leaving the religious rules intact showed that they were clearly not out of date at the middle of the eighteenth century.43 The Shooting Guild of Wezemaal also revised its statutes during the early modern period. Remarkably, while most fines for offences against the statutes were doubled in 1662, those for violations of the religious rules increased fourfold.44 While these harsh punishments showed a diminishing interest on the part of individual members in the religious activities of the confraternity, the group continued to assert that religion was a vital element of the association. Similarly, the new statutes of the Shooting Guild of Testelt explicitly mentioned that members were not allowed to leave the church before the end of the Eucharist, a rule which suggests that some members did the opposite.45 Yet it would be an exaggeration to claim that interest in religious activities was declining. The accounts of several associations show that religion remained a core element of the chambers of rhetoric, the shooting guilds, and the religious confraternities of the Aarschot region. Both the Fraternity of Saint George and the Confraternity of the Holy Trinity in Aarschot spent money on masses and requiem services aimed at ensuring salvation of departed members. These two associations attracted a very different public, but both of them paid money for the embellishment of an altar in the church of Our Lady. The amount of money spent depended on the number of members and their social status, but the nature of the expenses was the same in all confraternities. All the accounts contain payments for candles, altar ornaments, masses, and material objects for processions.46

Confraternities and Bridging Social Capital A spatial analysis of the membership lists for different brotherhoods shows that parish churches were at the centre of their associational life. A comparison of the names in these lists and the names in a census registers of 1796 makes it possible 42 

Gerits, ‘De schuttersgilden van Testelt’, pp. 452–54. Leuven, Rijksarchief, Schepenbank, 7204, fol. 1r. 44  Anderlecht, Archives de l’État, Conseil de Brabant, processes, 113, fol. 1 r; Van Meel, ‘Caerte van de gulde van Wesemael’, p. 6. 45  Leuven, UA, Arenbergarch., 347, fol. 1r. 46  Leuven, Rijksarchief, Schepenbank, 7204, fol. 2r–v; Aarschot, ACA, Suppl., 1/5, fol. 5r–v. 43 

ve

rD

em

River

Ri

Laak

164 Maarten F. Van Dijck

er

100 km 20–29% population 10–19% population 1–9% population

1) Beguinage 2) Cabaretstraat 3) Grachten 4) Central Market 5) Kapucijnenstraat

6) Kerkstraat 7) Kortestraat 8) Leuvensestraat 9) Lombaardstraat 10) Molenbergstraat

11) Neerstraat 12) Peterseliestraat 13) Cattle Market 14) Zwaanstraat 15) Brakkepoort

16) Bogaardenstraat 17) Gasthuisstraat

Map 3. Share of Population in Confraternities in Aarschot (c. 1790)

to investigate where the members of these brotherhoods lived.47 In Aarschot, they were concentrated in the city centre, with most residing in big squares or broad streets (Map 3). This is no coincidence, because social scientists have already demonstrated that these kinds of shared public spaces stimulated the formation of vivid communities, but the high prices of houses in town centres — near to most public places — probably attracted people with a higher social status.48 This social bias can also explain why most members of associations lived in the inner city. However, the fringes of urban society also participated in associational life. People in the poorer neighbourhoods on the outskirts of the city joined the confraternities in the parish church of Aarschot. This was probably the result of 47  48 

Bevolkingstelling jaar iv (1796): Kanton Aarschot. Garrioch and Peel, ‘Introduction: The Social History of Urban Neighborhoods’, p. 667.

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165

Plankenbrug

8% Puttestraat

Kapel

Hoeksken

9%

Waterstraat

13%

17%

34%

Pandhoeven

20%

1 km

Map 4. Participation of Begijnendijk Population in the Confraternity of Eternal Adoration (c. 1796)

the small scale of the town, since Aarschot had only one parish. It is reasonable to assume that the small geographic distances in the city had consequences for the socially heterogeneous composition of most associations. Social boundaries were less rigid in a modest town such as Aarschot. Most villages surrounding Aarschot had one central church and their territory was not divided into different parishes. However, population density was lower and some hamlets were fairly remote from the parish church. Some people had to walk an hour to reach their parish priest. This situation caused several difficulties, especially in wintertime, when the rising water level of some rivers isolated remote places.49 Yet while fraternities were more popular in the centre of the villages, these hindrances did not prevent people from joining fraternities in the central parish church. The Confraternity of the Eternal Adoration in Begijnendijk drew most of its members from the centre of the village, but people from many surrounding hamlets participated in this association at the end of the eighteenth century (Map 4). In fact, the confraternity provided ‘bridging capital’ and brought together inhabitants from different corners of the village.50 In the nearby parish of Wezemaal, participation rates were even higher in the 49  This was a regular complaint to the bishops. For some examples, see: Morren, Het dekenaat Diest (1599–1700). 50  These figures are based upon the list in Andries, Begijnendijk vóór 1796, pp. 143–46.

166 Maarten F. Van Dijck

Everveld (14%)

Beversluis (0%) Eekt (24%) Vrouwenpark (2%)

400 m

Vlasselaar (22%) Wezemaal-dorp (10%)

Vuytem (22%) Duinbergen (0%)

Map 5. Participation of Different Hamlets in Wezemaal in the Confraternity of Eternal Adoration (c. 1796)

more remote hamlets than in the middle of the village, notwithstanding the fact that the altar of the Confraternity of the Eternal Adoration was established in the Church of Saint Martin in the centre of the parish (Map 5).51 Both men and women joined these confraternities and they were not unwilling to participate in the associational life even if they lived at the boundaries of the parish, far from the central church. The accounts of the Confraternity of the Sweet Name of Jesus in Haacht prove that woman went to the annual feast of their association, even when they had no relatives who could accompany them.52 Fraternities did not only recruit members only within the parish where they maintained their altar. Several statutes explicitly mentioned that members were not obliged to live in the parish of the fraternity. Most members did indeed live in the parish, but the stipulations suggest that outsiders were also becoming members of these associations, or that members maintained their connection even if they moved beyond the parish bounds. The rules of the Fraternity of Saint Ambrose in Begijnendijk required all members to attend the annual mass on 4 April, but people from outside the village were allowed to send someone else in their place if 51  52 

Wezemaal, Kerkarchief, sect. B, nr 5. Leuven, Rijksarchief, Kerkarch. van Brabant, nr 22,010, fol. 10r.

Bonding or Bridging Social Capital?

3 km

167

Membership of confraternities

Booischot

Sint-Pieters-Rode

Herselt

Oosterwijk

Schriek

Schriek

Kortrijk-Dutsel Baal

Keerbergen Werchter

Betekom

Wakkerzeel

Aarschot

Rotselaar

Nieuwrode Vlasselaar

Sint-PietersRode

Herent

Rillaar

Gelrode

Wezemaal Tildonk

Testelt

Zichem

Messelbroek

Haacht

Wespelaar

Wolfsdonk Langdorp

Begijnendijk

Holsbeek

Scherpenheuvel

O.L.V.-Tielt

Hauwaart

Kortrijk

Dutsel

Map 6. Membership of Confraternities outside the Aarschot Region (Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries)

they got permission from the board of the fraternity.53 Their replacement was also authorized to vote for a new captain.54 Other statutes contained similar passages. Members of the chamber of rhetoric Het tarwebloeisel in Aarschot could stay in the club when they moved outside the seigniory of Aarschot. They only had to pay their contribution for the meals of the fraternity.55 These kinds of prescriptions were in fact very common: people were considered to be members when they contributed to the costs of the annual meal. This resulted in a very broad recruitment of members. The register of the Fraternity of Saint George in Rotselaar proves that some associations had members across the entire duchy of Brabant.56 People could even transfer from one fraternity to another without the compulsory oath of entrance if both associations had the same patron saint. When Guillam Peters moved from Rotselaar to Booischot in 53  According to Gervaise Rosser, this was different in most English towns. The presence at the annual dinner was an obligation for all members in most English confraternities. See Rosser, ‘Solidarités et changement social’, p. 1132. 54  Leuven, UA, H. Ambrosius, Begijnendijk, statutes, art. 1. 55  Willems, ‘Over de Rederijkerskamers van Aarschot’, p. 68. 56  Roeykens, ‘Het leden- en rekeningenboek van de Sint-Jorisgilde van Rotselaar’, pp. 23–27.

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1763, he asked to become a member of the local Fraternity of Saint Sebastian. The register of this association notes that Guillam did not have to take a membership oath because he had already sworn a similar oath when becoming a member of the Fraternity of Saint Sebastian in Rotselaar.57 By these arrangements, confraternities fostered feelings of shared interests and unity between similar organizations. Map 6 shows that the membership of particular fraternities was not always limited to the local parish.58 Some fraternities attracted people from other cities and villages, especially confraternities devoted to miraculous statutes of saints or those situated in places of pilgrimage.59 Next to this, fraternities did more than create connections between different parishes. They also acted as alternatives for traditional ties of kinship, becoming in this way an ideal instrument for new migrants.60 These associations provided people opportunities to integrate into the local community. A census of 1796, drawn up by order of the French invaders, offers a possibility of examining how quickly migrants became members of local associations. This census covers all parishes in the hinterland of Aarschot and contains valuable information about the influx of immigrants. A comparison of the names on the census lists and the names in fraternal registers allows us to investigate patterns of integration in the region of Aarschot. The results are remarkable: many newcomers became members of local fraternities. The proportion of migrants in the membership of the Confraternity of the Eternal Adoration in Wezemaal was quite low: only ten per cent of members were new in the parish, even though fully one-third of the village population consisted of newcomers. However, most of the migrants joined the Confraternity of the Eternal Adoration within a year of arriving in Wezemaal. It took newcomers more time to enter similar associations in the city of Aarschot, but the share of immigrants in the major confraternities of the town was fairly high. Twenty-two per cent of the entire urban population was born outside of Aarschot, while only fifteen per cent of the members of the confraternities were immigrants. On the other hand, the percentage of migrants found in the Confraternity of the Eternal Adoration in Begijnendijk exceeded the percentage found in the entire parish itself (Table 1). 57 

Van der Auwera, ‘De schuttersgilden in het Land van Heist’, p. 155. Sources for Map 6: Tallon, ‘Bronnen voor de familiegeschiedenis’; Van der Auwera, ‘De Broederschap van Sint-Antonius van Padua’; Willems, ‘Volksdevotie in vroegere tijden in het Hageland’. 59  See, for instance, Willems, ‘Volksdevotie in vroegere tijden in het Hageland’. 60  Garrioch, ‘Lay-Religious Associations’, p. 46. 58 

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Table 1. Integration of Immigrants in Confraternities in the Region of Aarschot (1790s) Wezemaal: Begijnendijk: Aarschot: Confraternities Years of Confraternity of Confraternity of of Eternal Adoration, Pious residence Eternal Adoration Eternal Adoration Souls, Rosary and Trinity in place of confraternity Confraternity Population Confraternity Population Confraternity Population 1 year 2–4 years 5–9 years 10–19 years 20–29 years 30–39 years 40–49 years 50–59 years % immigrants N-number

11% 11% 25% 29% 14% 11% 0% 0% 15% 189

15% 18% 19% 22% 12% 11% 2% 1% 22% 2118

5% 19% 43% 24% 10% 0% 0% 0% 57% 37

4% 10% 28% 46% 8% 2% 1% 0% 49% 366

40% 20% 40% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 12% 42

7% 14% 18% 24% 17% 11% 7% 2% 35% 700

Sources: Aarschot, ACA,i, 286; Aarschot, ACA, i, 287; Aarschot, ACA, I, 316; Aarschot, ACA, Suppl., 1/5; Aarschot, ACA, Suppl., 2–3/7; Wezemaal, Kerkarchief, sect. B, nr 5; Andries, Begijnendijk vóór 1796, pp. 143–46; Bevolkingstelling jaar IV (1796): Kanton Aarschot; Bevolkingstelling jaar IV (1796): Kanton Haacht.

Although newcomers were not excluded from local associational life, the figures for Aarschot and especially for Wezemaal show that it was easier to get access to fraternities if you were born in the parish. However, some joined these associations the year that they arrived. Migrants’ occupational status was an important factor in the process of integration. People with occupations with a low social status, such as servants, did not enter the local confraternities in the countryside.61 The town of Aarschot offered more opportunities for servants than the surrounding villages. Some of them entered local confraternities after they had lived several years in the city. These religious confraternities were open to all social layers, but the members with a lower social status were mostly born in Aarschot. The associations were in principle open to immigrants, but only newcomers with an honourable profession, such as merchants, members of the chapter, and master craftsmen, were easily integrated into local society and immediately entered the urban associations. Migrants in lower status occupations entered a local confraternity only after five years in the city.62 61  Andries, Begijnendijk vóór 1796, pp. 143–46; Bevolkingstelling jaar IV (1796): Kanton Aarschot, village of Begijnendijk. 62  Aarschot, ACA, i, 286; Aarschot, ACA, i, 287; Aarschot, ACA, i, 316; Aarschot, ACA,

170 Maarten F. Van Dijck

A concrete example can illuminate the important social role of fraternities. The Adnelle family arrived in Aarschot around 1713. The first member of the family in the region, Arnold Adnelle, joined the Fraternity of Saint George, a shooting guild, in 1716 and then joined the Confraternity of the Pious Souls three years later.63 His son Theodore Adnelle occupied several functions in the urban welfare system and some years later was appointed an alderman in Aarschot.64 Like his father, he joined the Confraternity of the Pious Souls and was even elected to the brotherhood’s board. Theodore’s daughter Anna Barbara married Eustachius Van Cantelbeek, from a prominent Aarschot family, and it is certainly no coincidence that the young husband was also a member of the board of the Confraternity of the Pious Souls. He was also a member of the Confraternity of the Holy Trinity and was elected deacon of an urban shooting guild.65 Associational life in Aarschot clearly offered the Adnelle family access to crucial social networks. After some years in Aarschot, the family had made marriage ties to the most important families in the town. Their social status rapidly increased through the following decades. Since they were already well off when they arrived in Aarschot it cannot be argued that the Adnelle family’s steady social promotion was due only to their participation in local associational life. At the same time, they undoubtedly benefited from their confraternal social contacts, The Adnelle family was not an exception. Several new families arrived in the region in the early modern period, especially during the years after the Dutch Revolt, and many of them became important members of local associations. Many leading figures in the fraternities of Haacht originated from outside the parish. Most came from other Brabantine regions, but some, like the Goltfus family, had their roots in Germany. Some newcomers entered the confraternities of the seventeenth-century Catholic Reform, such as the Confraternity of the Sweet Name of Jesus in Haacht.66 Other immigrants to Haacht were even elected into the board of old and respectable associations, such as the fifteenthcentury shooting guilds. Abraham Grietens was a member of such a new family in Haacht. Much like Arnold Adnelle in Aarschot, his membership in several Suppl., 1/5; Aarschot, ACA, Suppl., 2–3/7; Bevolkingstelling jaar IV (1796): Kanton Aarschot, town of Aarschot. 63  Leuven, Rijksarchief, Schepenbank, 7204, fols  187r–88v; Aarschot, ACA, Suppl., 2–3/7, fol. 9r. 64  Wollaert, ‘Brusselse afstammelinge van “Spaanse” Aarschottenaars vertelt’, p. 20. 65  Aarschot, ACA, Suppl., 2–3/7, fol. 68v. 66  Leuven, Rijksarchief, Kerkarch. van Brabant, nr 22,010, fol. 19r.

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fraternities aided his swift integration into local social life. He was later elected as an alderman and also became captain of the Fraternity of Saint George, one of the local shooting guilds. The family was proud of these achievements and noted on his tombstone that ‘master Abraham Grietens was during his life surgeon, alderman of this parish of Haacht and captain of the Guild of Saint George’.67 The available data seems to suggest that the high social status of these new families played a decisive role in their immediate admission to local fraternities. Indeed, Ambraham Grietens bought a considerable amount of property immediately after his arrival in Haacht, and he married the only daughter of a rich local family; all of this occurred before he can be identified in the records as a member of the Shooting Guild.68 The geographical range from which fraternities recruited their members increased after 1600. The confraternities established in the wake of the Catholic Reform emphasized the collective identity of brotherhoods across the Roman Catholic world. The accent shifted from local parish distinctiveness to a broader catholic, Tridentine, and global consciousness. New confraternities aimed to strengthen Catholic identity by emphasizing differences with other religions and similarities to other Catholic confraternities. Most of these confraternities were established by clerics or religious orders. The Order of the Holy Trinity for instance founded a typical Tridentine confraternity in the village of Testelt. The statutes of 1662 stressed that the aim of the members was ‘to save the Christian slaves, captured by the Turks and other barbarian nations’.69 The later erection of an identical confraternity in Averbode was not an isolated phenomenon, but fitted into a general strategy. The Catholic Church emphasized shared Catholic experiences and depicted other religions as hostile. The Teselt and Averbode confraternities were dependent on the Order of the Holy Trinity, which had its headquarters in Paris and which established similar confraternities all over Europe. Another and older example can be found in the confraternities of the Holy Rosary. The Dominican Order had established these pious associations in order to promote devotional reform from the fifteenth century, but as the Catholic Reformation developed after the Council of Trent, their statutes more often explicitly mentioned that they were aimed against the protestant religion and the Turks.70 Confraternities of the Holy Rosary were erected in several parishes in 67 

Cools, ‘De Haachtse familie Grietens’, pp. 102–05. Cools, ‘De Haachtsche orgelmakers Goltfus en Dekens’, p. 91. 69  Gerits, ‘De oprichting van de Aartsbroederschap’, pp. 363–65. 70  Delumeau, Rassurer et protéger, pp. 242–60; Duerloo, ‘Verering van Onze-Lieve-Vrouw van de Rozenkrans’. 68 

172 Maarten F. Van Dijck

the Aarschot region around 1650, and became very successful during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.71 An even broader community of Catholic Christians was established in 1768. The archbishop of Mechelen decided in this year that every parish would get its own Confraternity of the Eternal Adoration of the Holy Sacrament to ensure that the Holy Sacrament was continuously adored in the diocese. 72 The clerical authorities drew up a calendar with a division of tasks between the different parishes in the diocese that laid out when each Confraternity of the Eternal Adoration had to pray to the Holy Sacrament. Such initiatives fostered the emergence of a shared Catholic identity between members of the different parishes within the diocese. The confraternity created an imagined community between faithful Christians which surpassed old local identities. This does not mean that the available social capital increased; these Tridentine fraternities were too large to allow face-to-face relations between all members.

Pressures on Traditional Solidarities The discussion above suggests that fraternities were a source of bridging social capital during the late medieval and the early modern period. Indeed, these associations contributed to the emergence of large social networks, regardless of neighbourhood ties and parishes boundaries. However, it still remains an open question if the various fraternities were also generating bridging social capital between people of different social and cultural backgrounds. In the case of medieval fraternities, most historians agree that they brought together people from different social layers. This was an explicit component of the Christian values which were at the heart of the fraternal movement of the late middle ages. Lay people gathered together in confraternities when they wanted to follow the example of Jesus Christ and his apostles. As a consequence, they considered each other as brothers and sisters.73 Their deliberate goal of advancing peace and harmony across social divisions was what John Bossy referred to as a ‘social miracle’.74 71  Leuven, Rijksarchief, Kerkarch. van Brabant, abdijen, nr 5,297, fol.  1r; Wezemaal, Kerkarchief, sect. B, nr 5; Testelt, Kerkarchief, 55; Aarschot, ACA, i, 288, fol. 3r. 72  Aarschot, ACA, Diest-Aarschot, 316. 73  Eckstein, ‘Words and Deeds, Stasis and Change’, pp. 2–3. 74  Bossy, Peace in the Post-Reformation, pp. 4–5, 14, 33, 56; see also Terpstra, ‘The Politics of Ritual Kinship’.

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It is difficult to evaluate the presence or effectiveness of this social miracle in the Aarschot region, because the extant sources for the late medieval period do not include lists of members. However, the fifteenth-century statutes of several confraternities suggest that clerics, noblemen, and ordinary lay people all joined the same associations. This broad recruitment did not mean that all members were considered equal. Noblemen had a distinguished place in the annual processions, and the ordinary dress prescriptions of the fraternities did not apply to them.75 Hard evidence is missing, but the disappearance of phrases emphasizing spiritual equality from later statutes suggests that noblemen gradually withdrew from these fraternities and their processions. Indeed, the kind of formulations emphasizing and implementing the ‘social miracle’ are absent from the statutes of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Associational life seems not to have escaped from the social polarization which increasingly characterized the early modern period.76 The course of events in the Low Countries strengthened this polarization in social relations, at least in the existing fraternities. The sources indicate that the Dutch Revolt reshaped almost all social relations and networks in the Low Countries. The late medieval fraternities were strongly affected by this long and devastating civil war. Some chronicles of the late sixteenth century describe a worsening state of affairs. Charles Millet for instance wrote about the Confraternity of the Holy Sacrament in Aarschot in 1597: ‘Before this time, this confraternity was very fine and respectable. She had many members amongst the male and female citizens of the city of Aarschot. At this moment there are no members anymore, and all have died during the turbulent times’.77 The Confraternity of the Holy Sacrament in Aarschot was not exceptional. Most fraternities lost their members during the Dutch Revolt, and only a few brotherhoods survived. Over the course of the sixteenth century, the Confraternity of Saint Anne in the village of Langdorp went from having many members to counting only four brothers and sisters.78 The shooting guilds were apparently less affected by the civil war, though they still faced serious challenges. The membership of the Fraternity of Saint Sebastian in Messelbroek declined from forty-two archers before the Dutch 75 

Anderlecht, Archives de l’État, Conseil de Brabant, process, 96, fol. 3r–v; De Ras, His­ torische aanteekeningen, p.  71; Vandegoor, ‘Het Stichtingscharter van de Werchterse St.Sebastiaansgilde’, p. 143. 76  Lis and Soly, Poverty and Capitalism in Pre-Industrial Europe, pp. 71–82, 108–15. 77  Millet, De kronijk van Aarschot van Charles Millet, trans. by Schroeven, p. 32. 78  Carpentier and Millet, De Kronijk […]: Langdorp, Messelbroek en Testelt, trans. by Willems, p. 18.

174 Maarten F. Van Dijck

Revolt to twenty-seven brothers at the end of the sixteenth century.79 These associations had to cope with other problems. The house of the shooting guild in the village of Rillaar for instance was burned down by troops during the Revolt. 80 These material concerns were of course less problematic than the demographic crisis (see also Graph 1), but they certainly disturbed normal social life. While it is tempting to assume that the Dutch Revolt lay behind the major crises faced by fraternities in the Low Countries, similar transformations in associational life occurred elsewhere in Europe. The social relations within Italian confraternities also changed as they became more hierarchical and less open from around 1500. The social bonds in confraternities were very strong during the late medieval period because members considered each other as brothers and sisters. Fraternities deliberated aimed to create ‘ritual kinship’ between members. These were formalized social connections between persons who did not have a direct blood relationship.81 The membership ties within fraternities in the region of Aarschot during the late medieval period can surely be understood as a form of ritual kinship. The associations provided an alternative to the extended family. Their fifteenth- and sixteenth-century statutes contained several prescriptions about the social relations between members. They clearly tried to integrate the entire household of every single member into the confraternity. It was for instance a custom during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that a man about to marry bought a set of gloves for all his fellow members. In exchange, all members had to attend his wedding and they were obliged to wear the gloves they had been given. The newly married couple was also served by the members of the confraternity.82 According to the statutes of 1518, members of the chamber of rhetoric Het tarwenbloeisel in Aarschot even performed a play when one of their number got married. The groom also received the symbol of this fraternity as a gift, namely the shoot of a grapevine made of pewter.83 Yet this custom went out of use at the end of the sixteenth century, and afterwards, the groom only had to buy a drink for his fellow members.84 79 

Carpentier and Millet, De Kronijk […]: Rillaar, Haterbeek en Ourodenberg, trans. by Schroeven, p. 78. 80  Carpentier and Millet, De Kronijk […]: Rillaar, Haterbeek en Ourodenberg, trans. by Schroeven, p. 27. 81  Terpstra, ‘The Politics of Ritual Kinship’; Aymard, ‘Vriendschap en gezelschapsleven’, p. 148. 82  Van Roost, ‘St. Sebastiaan contra St. Joris’, p. 5; Vandegoor, ‘Het Stichtingscharter van de Werchterse St.-Sebastiaansgilde’, p. 145; De Fraine, ‘De schuttersgilden in het Land van Aarschot’, p. 287; Gerits, ‘De schuttersgilden van Testelt’, p. 454. 83  Willems, ‘Over de Rederijkerskamers van Aarschot’, p. 66. 84  Carpentier and Millet, De Kronijk […]: Rillaar, Haterbeek en Ourodenberg, trans. by Schroeven, p. 35.

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Some fifteenth- and sixteenth-century fraternal statutes also contained stipulations regarding the children of members. All brothers of the chamber of rhetoric Het tarwenbloeisel in Aarschot had to accompany the body when the child of a fellow member died.85 The charters of the Fraternity of Saint George in Aarschot and the Fraternity of Saint Sebastian in Testelt (both shooting guilds) contained similar instructions.86 However, these prescriptions began disappearing in the second half of the sixteenth century, suggesting that membership in fraternities was evolving into a more individual matter. It is certainly no coincidence that several associations started to stipulate in their regulations that only members were allowed at the meetings of the fraternity. The members of these associations were not even allowed to drink together with people who did not belong to the fraternity.87 The practice of drinking together was reserved to members, because of the symbolic meaning of the gesture. Indeed, sharing a glass of beer was considered to be an important ritual that confirmed (or created) a social bond.88 The prohibition against offering outsiders a drink highlights the conflict around social exclusivity within most fraternities. The available sources suggest that all fraternities organized similar social activities aimed at consolidating group identity during fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. A sixteenth-century description of the Confraternity of Our Lady in Rillaar can serve as an example. Adrien Carpentier and Charles Millet wrote about this association: ‘All members of the confraternity participate in the offering during the annual mass according to their status. After this mass, they hold a collective dinner’.89 Many other fraternities also came together after an annual mass for a collective dinner.90 Such meals certainly stimulated the social cohesion between the members of these associations, but they also had a religious meaning: the pairing of a mass and a collective dinner referred to the Eucharist and the Last Supper. As a consequence, these fraternal meals were meant as symbols of Christian love of one’s neighbour.91 85 

Willems, ‘Over de Rederijkerskamers van Aarschot’, p. 66. De Fraine, ‘De schuttersgilden in het Land van Aarschot’, p. 282; Gerits, ‘De schutters­ gilden van Testelt’, p. 454. 87  Coeck, ‘Twee documenten over de handbooggilden van Langdorp’, pp. 20–21; Gerits, ‘De “Caerte” van de Kolveniersgilde’, p. 105. 88  Brennan, Public Drinking and Popular Culture, p. 118. 89  Carpentier and Millet, De Kronijk […]: Rillaar, Haterbeek en Ourodenberg, trans. by Schroeven, p. 12. 90  Carpentier and Millet, De Kronijk […]: Baal, Betekom en Gelrode, trans. by Scheys, p. 32. 91  Rosser, ‘Going to the Fraternity Feast’, p. 435. 86 

176 Maarten F. Van Dijck

The Great Divergence in Associational Life The combination of the Catholic Reformation and the Dutch Revolt reinforced the social tensions which were already emerging in sixteenth-century associational life. Religious authorities tried to curtail certain customs after the Council of Trent. Ecclesiastical institutions and priests interfered more with fraternities after Trent. In fact, most seventeenth- and eighteenth-centuries confraternities were established and controlled by clerics. Lay people were not totally sidelined, but they had to accommodate more control by ecclesiastical institutions. This was a radical break with the past, because fraternities had been relatively autonomous during the late middle ages.92 The impact of this new attitude towards lay associations was clearly visible in the Aarschot region. One group that was ‘reformed’ in the seventeenth century was the Confraternity of Our Lady in Testelt. The Dominicans of the nearby city of Leuven gained control over the confraternity and changed the original statutes. Before 1600, the members of the Confraternity of Our Lady had gathered every week and also organized an annual fraternal dinner on All Saints Day.93 However, the archbishop of Mechelen intervened in 1658. He complained about the symposia indigne (shameful banquets) which were being held by the members, and in consequence supported the attempts of the Dominicans to change this Marian confraternity into a typical Tridentine Confraternity of the Rosary. As a result, the old social activities of Teselt’s brothers of Our Lady were abolished, and the confraternity evolved into a purely devotional association.94 The ‘reform’ of this confraternity was not an isolated case. Account books for a similar Confraternity of Our Lady in Wezemaal record annually the expenses for a collective dinner. The twenty-six members of this association paid their contribution for this meal in 1637, but the Dominicans intervened to end this custom, and after 1642, the sources contain no references to the dinner.95 The same thing happened in Haacht, where the annual meals of the Confraternity of the Sweet Name of Jesus disappeared after 1642.96 Religious 92 

Hsia, The World of Catholic Renewal, p. 202. Carpentier and Millet, De Kronijk […]: Langdorp, Messelbroek en Testelt, trans. by Willems, p. 93. 94  Leuven, Rijksarchief, Kerkarch. van Brabant, iii, nr 5,297, fol. 1r. 95  Wezemaal, Kerkarchief, sect. B, nr 1b, account 1635–1640, fols  6 r–8 r; Leuven, Rijksarchief, Kerkarch. van Brabant, nr 5,297, fol. 1r. 96  Leuven, Rijksarchief, Kerkarch. van Brabant, supp., nr 22,010, fols 14r–15r. 93 

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authorities made determined attempts to reform the old fraternities, and this frequently entailed putting a stop to old forms of sociability like communal meals. The new confraternities of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries did not offer alternatives for the abolished social activities, and indeed most of these confraternities associations lacked any form of sociability. The statutes of the Confraternity to Free Christian Slaves in Averbode — which was founded in 1662 by the Order of the Holy Trinity — mentioned that members only had to put their name in the register. Afterwards, they were not obliged to come back to the chapel of the confraternity or to maintain frequent relations with other members. The confraternity only advised its members to pray from time to time.97 It is obvious that the social effects of such associations were minimal. In spite of all these clerical efforts to get rid of the old traditions of lay sociability, several medieval fraternities were able to resist the new Tridentine rules. These were inevitably fraternities that retained lay organization and avoided clerical control. A comparison of the activities of these associations before and after 1600 shows that some managed to stick to their traditional activities. A comparison of the sixteenth- and eighteenth-century statutes of the Fraternity of Saint Sebastian in Testelt — which was in fact a shooting guild — offers a good example. New statutes of the eighteenth century statutes retained prescriptions about the annual meal and fines for members who failed to show up for meetings.98 In fact, the social activities of this association roughly remained the same through the course of the early modern period.99 The sociability between members became even more important in some fraternities during the early modern period. The medieval statutes of the Fraternity of Saint Sebastian in Haacht had stipulated that all new members had to offer some wax candles to the patron saint of the village. This prescription remained in force until the end of the early modern period, but the conditions of entrance were extended during the eighteenth century, when new brothers were obliged to provide a half barrel of beer to their fellow members.100 The accounts of some of these associations show the continuing importance of sociability during the eighteenth century. Beer and wine turned out to be the largest single expense of the Fraternity of Saint George in Aarschot (see Table 2). This shooting guild 97 

Gerits, ‘De oprichting van de Aartsbroederschap’, p. 368. Leuven, UA, Arenbergarch., 347. 99  Gerits, ‘De schuttersgilden van Testelt’, pp. 452–55. 100  Vandesande, ‘Het 17 de-eeuwse Keurboeck van de Haachtse Sint-Sebastiaansgilde’, pp. 211–12. 98 

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also organized religious activities, such as masses, and paid for the decoration of their altar, but social meetings formed the most significant cost. The accounts of a similar organization in Rotselaar reveal that dinners and drinks comprised a good seventy-five per cent of all expenses. The first thing mentioned in the new register of this fraternity was not a solemn oath or an old privilege, but a contract with a local brewer.101 The importance of social drinking is also stressed by the way that the Fraternity of Saint Christopher in Aarschot (also a Shooting Guild) ordered its beer. The officers of this fraternity annually went to several brewers to taste some samples of their beer. They only placed an order when they had checked the quality of the beer.102 Table 2. Expenses of the Confraternity of Saint George in Aarschot (1683–84) Categories

Pennies

Percentage

Beer and Wine

354

39%

Administration

176

20%

Maintenance

146

16%

Religion

141

16%

Meetings

80

9%

Total

897

100%

Source: Leuven, Rijksarchief, Schepenbank, 7204, fol. 2r–v. 

This divergence between fraternities with and without social activities coincides with another development, namely the already-mentioned tendency towards hierarchical and socially exclusive fraternities. The evolution began around 1500 but was reinforced during the seventeenth century. In fact, most medieval fraternities in the Aarschot region developed into associations of the elite and the middling sort of people. The statutes of the Fraternity of Saint Sebastian in Wezemaal (a shooting guild) was explicit about this change: although the charter of 1500 allowed all social groups into the fraternity, new statutes adopted in 1662 explicitly stipulated that poor people could not join the brotherhood.103 This prescription was not written down as clearly in the rules of other fraternities, but some sources confirm that poor people were banned in practice from these associations. Several names were, for instance, struck out in the register of members of 101 

Enghien, Arenberg Archives, Confraternity of Saint George Rotselaar, accounts, fols 1r–5r. See, for instance, Aarschot, ACA, i, 289, fols 76r, 86r, 104r. 103  Van Meel, ‘Caerte van de gulde van Wesemael’, p. 6. 102 

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the Fraternity of Saint George in Rotselaar, another example of a local shooting guild. The notes in the margin of this manuscript reveal that these people were expelled from the fraternity because they received support from the local welfare institutions and so were considered a burden on the community.104 Contrary to the lay fraternities, which had been founded during the late middle ages, the new Tridentine confraternities did not exclude poor people. The statutes of these associations often explicitly mentioned that they were open to all social groups.105 This was a significant difference from the old medieval confraternities and brotherhoods in the Aarschot region. Not only did people have to pay to join the older fraternities, but all members also secretly voted about the admission of a new brother.106 By contrast, members of the Tridentine confraternities usually did not have to make an annual contribution to the confraternity, and entrance into these brotherhoods was totally free. This was also due to the influence of clerics, because the Catholic Reformation stressed the importance of co-operation between different social layers in confraternities. In this way, the Tridentine Church was promoting a return to the old values of the medieval fraternities and a rejection of social exclusiveness.107 However, these associations did not organize social activities. As a result, despite being open socially, the new confraternities did not generate the forms of social capital that were an achievement of the old lay confraternities and brotherhoods. Neither the old nor the new confraternities developed much bridging social capital across class divides. The existing medieval brotherhoods became a source of bonding social capital, but only for socially distinct groups in society. The new Tridentine confraternities crossed social boundaries, but lacked the activities to create a real social bond between the various members.

Conclusion Insights and theoretical frameworks drawn from the work of social scientists on associational life can be very useful for historians. The concepts of ‘social capital’ and ‘civil society’ in particular offer some very valuable interpretive tools and 104 

Enghien, Arenberg Archives, Confraternity of Saint George Rotselaar, accounts, no. 1, fols 2v, 4v. 105  Aerts, ‘Bijdrage tot de Geschiedenis van Wakkerzeel’, p. 33. 106  Aarschot, ACA, Suppl., 1/29, fol. 1v; Heylen, ‘Standregelen van de Sint-Ambrosiusgilde’, p. 93; Rock, ‘De St.-Ambrosiusgilde van Rillaer’, p. 66; Van Meel, ‘Caerte van de gulde van Wesemael’, p. 7. 107  Black, ‘The Development of Confraternity Studies’, p. 23.

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perspectives.108 However, a critical historical reflection about the evolution of social capital and civil society is necessary. Some social scientists claim that these phenomena in contemporary civil society are determined by a long and specific historical evolution, but their studies lack much empirical evidence and seldom use advanced historical methods. This article has taken these social models as a starting-point for an investigation of fraternities in a particular rural region in the Low Countries in order to evaluate the merits and problems of current social theories. Historians definitely need to refine their theoretical framework in order to evaluate properly these historical changes. They should certainly make a distinction between bonding and bridging social capital, and we cannot assume that they were a common characteristic of all confraternities at all times. Fraternities of various types in the Aarschot region of Brabant produced both forms of social capital through the later medieval period. This means that the social activities of these associations stimulated social cohesion by regularly bringing together members from different social backgrounds for a range of collective activities from worship to athletics to eating and drinking. However, the typical sociability of these lay fraternities came under pressure around 1500. The available sources suggest that social divisions and boundaries became more rigid through the sixteenth century. From then on, social activities were less important and some fraternities became more exclusive. The Dutch Revolt reinforced this evolution, because social life was seriously disturbed by the devastating civil war of the second half of the sixteenth century. The Catholic Reformation also played a part, since after the Council of Trent Catholic reformers tried to abolish typical social activities of late medieval confraternities like collective drinking and annual dinners. The new religious confraternities founded by clergy in the seventeenth century created forms of bridging social capital, because they recruited members from all social layers, yet they generated little bonding social capital because, without regular meetings and sociability, they did not foster either strong social ties or shared civic values. As a result, the new clerically driven confraternities of the Catholic Reform did little to strengthen civil society through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Two forms of confraternities dominated Brabant from the early seventeenth century. The more socially exclusive fraternities were run by lay people and were generally much older, with roots extending into the Middle Ages. They succeeded in resisting the attempts of the ecclesiastical authorities to reform their social activities. With their rich and varied forms of sociability, these fraternities were 108 

Reid, ‘Measuring the Impact of Brotherhood’, pp. 3–12.

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an important source of strong social ties and bonding social capital. However, they did not admit poor people and were consequently relatively homogenous socially. The newer Tridentine confraternities that clergy established or reformed during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were more open to all social layers, but lacked social activities. Although these new brotherhoods bridged social divides, they did not stimulate the formation of strong social networks or foster as much social cohesion as the more exclusive fraternities did. A vivid civil society needs both needs both bonding and bridging social capital to foster and strong social ties. In the case of the newer Tridentine confraternities, an ‘imagined community’ created a certain shared identity, but did not result in a shared civic culture because of the lack of strong social ties.

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Works Cited Manuscripts and Archival Resources Aarschot, Archief der collegiale kerk Onze Lieve Vrouw van Aarschot, i, 286 —— , i, 287 —— , i, 288 —— , i, 289 —— , i, 316 —— , Landekenij Diest-Aarschot, 316 —— , Supplement, 1/29 —— , Supplement, 1/5 —— , Supplement, 2–3/7 —— , Supplement, 3–4/5 Anderlecht, Archives de l’État à Anderlecht, Conseil de Brabant, processes, 96 Anderlecht, Archives de l’État à Anderlecht, Conseil de Brabant, sentences, 113 (letter of the Duke of Ursel, 17 August 1768) Brussels, Archives de l’État / Rijksarchief, Estates of Brabant, Supplement, 800 Enghien (Edingen), Arenberg Archives, Confraternity of Saint George / Confrérie des Chevaliers de Saint-Georges de Bourgogne in Rotselaar, accounts Leuven, Rijksarchief, Schepenbank (Bench of Aldermen), 6340 B —— , 7204 Leuven, Universiteitsarchief, Arenbergarchief, 347 —— , 1222 Leuven, Universiteitsarchief, Broederschap van den H. Ambrosius, Begijnendijk, statutes Mechelen, Archief van het Aartsbisdom Mechelen-Brussel, Acta Vicariatus, vii, nr 5 (pastoral letter from 1675) Leuven, Rijksarchief, Kerkarchieven van Brabant, abdijen, nr 5,297 —— , nr 5,297 —— , nr 22,010 —— , supplement, nr 22,010 —— , iii, nr 5,297 Testelt (Scherpenheuvel-Zichem), Kerkarchief Sint-Pietersparochie, 55 Wezemaal, Kerkarchief, section B, nr 1b —— , section B, nr 5

Primary Sources Bevolkingstelling jaar iv (1796): Kanton Aarschot, Toegangen genealogie en demografie, 2nd ser. (Brussels: Algemeen Rijksarchief, 1988) Bevolkingstelling jaar iv (1796): Kanton Haacht (Brussel: Algemeen Rijksarchief, 1988)

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Secondary Studies Aerts, A., ‘Bijdrage tot de Geschiedenis van Wakkerzeel’, Haachts oudheid- en geschied­ kundig tijdschrift, 11 (1996), 25–41, 101–08, 202–12; 12 (1997), 23–29, 163–70, 240–55; 13 (1998), 34–50, 130–39, 255–67 Allen, Robert C., ‘Progress and Poverty in Early Modern Europe’, Economic History Review, 56 (2003), 403–43 Andries, Geert, Begijnendijk vóór 1796: Bijdrage tot de geschiedenis van Het Land van Aarschot (Aarschot: Hertogelijke Aarschotse Kring voor Heemkunde, 1996) Aymard, Maurice, ‘Vriendschap en gezelschapsleven’, in De Gemeenschap, de staat en het gezin, 1600–1800, ed. by Roger Chartier, Georges Duby, and Philippe Ariès (Amsterdam: Agon, 1989), pp. 133–68 Black, Antony, Guilds and Civil Society in European Political Thought from the Twelfth Century to the Present (London: Methuen, 1984) Black, Christopher F., ‘The Development of Confraternity Studies over the Past Thirty Years’, in The Politics of Ritual Kinship: Confraternities and Social Order in Early Mod­ ern Italy, ed. by Nicholas Terpstra, Cambridge Studies in Italian History and Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 9–29 Blondé, Bruno, and Raymond Van Uytven, ‘De smalle steden en het Brabantse stedelijke netwerk in de late middeleeuwen en de nieuwe tijd’, Lira Elegans, 6 (1996), 129–81 Borremans, Louis, ‘De Familie Daels te Aarschot’, Het Oude Land van Aarschot, 10 (1975), 11–25, 55–80 Bossy, John, Peace in the Post-Reformation, The Birkbeck Lectures, 1995 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) Brennan, Thomas, Public Drinking and Popular Culture in Eighteenth-Century Paris (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988) Breugelmans, Johan, ‘De O.L.-Vrouwekerk vanaf de vestiging van het Frans bewind’, in De Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk Van Aarschot, ed. by Johan Breugelmans, Jef Ceulemans, and Chris Van Haesendonck (Westerlo: Sint Norbertus, 1987), pp. 105–207 Burke, Peter, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (New York: Harper and Row, 1978) Carpentier, Adrien, and Charles Millet, De Kronijk door Adrien Carpentier en Charles Millet van 1597 over Baal, Betekom en Gelrode in het Hertogdom Aarschot, trans. by Frans Scheys, Bijdragen tot de Geschiedenis van het Land van Aarschot, 5 (Aarschot: Hertogelijke Aarschotse Kring voor Heemkunde, 1981) —— , De Kronijk door Adrien Carpentier en Charles Millet van 1597 over Langdorp, Messel­broek en Testelt in het Hertogdom Aarschot, trans. by August Willems, Bijdragen tot de Geschiedenis van het Land van Aarschot, 3 (Aarschot: Hertogelijke Aarschotse Kring voor Heemkunde, 1979) —— , De Kronijk door Adrien Carpentier en Charles Millet van 1597 over Rillaar, Hater­ beek en Ourodenberg in het Hertogdom Aarschot, trans. by Willy Schroeven, Bij­dragen tot de Geschiedenis van het Land van Aarschot, 4 (Aarschot: Aarschotse Kring voor Heemkunde, 1980) Claes, Jo, Alfons Claes, and Kathy Vincke, Sanctus: Meer dan 500 heiligen herkennen (Leuven: Davidsfonds, 2002)

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Coeck, Adrien, ‘Twee documenten over de handbooggilden van Langdorp’, Het Oude Land van Aarschot, 16 (1981), 12–22 Cools, Jos, ‘De Haachtse familie Grietens’, Eigen Schoon en De Brabander, 46 (1863), 101–16 —— , ‘De Haachtsche orgelmakers Goltfus en Dekens en hun familie’, Eigen Schoon en De Brabander, 15 (1940), 88–106 Cuvelier, Joseph, Les Dénombrements des foyers en Brabant, xive–xvie siècle, Commission royale d’histoire, 42 (Brussels: Kiessling, 1912–13) De Fraine, Piet, ‘De schuttersgilden in het Land van Aarschot tot de xvide eeuw’, De Brabantse Folklore, 155 (1962), 262–89 De Ras, Jozef, Historische aanteekeningen, 2 vols (Leuven: Peeters, 1907), i: De heeren en het land van Rotselaar; ii: De ambachtsgilden van Maastricht Delumeau, Jean, Rassurer et protéger: Le sentiment de sécurité dans l’Occident d’autrefois (Paris: Fayard, 1989) Duerloo, Luc, ‘Verering van Onze-Lieve-Vrouw van de Rozenkrans’, in Albrecht & Isabella, 1598–1621: Catalogus, ed. by Luc Duerloo and Werner Thomas (Turnhout: Brepols, 1998), pp. 251–52 Eckstein, Nicolas A., ‘Words and Deeds, Stasis and Change: New Directions in Florentine Devotion around 1500’, Journal of Religious History, 28 (2004), 1–18 Etzioni, Amitai, ‘Creating Good Communities and Good Societies’, Contemporary Socio­ logy, 29 (2000), 188–95 —— , ‘The Good Society’, Seattle Journal of Social Justice, 1 (2002), 83–96 Garrioch, David, ‘Lay-Religious Associations, Urban Identities, and Urban Space in Eighteenth-Century Milan’, Journal of Religious History, 28 (2004), 35–49 —— , Neighbourhood and Community in Paris, 1740–1790, Cambridge Studies in Early Modern History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986) —— , ‘Sacred Neighborhoods and Secular Neighborhoods: Milan and Paris in the Eighteenth Century’, Journal of Urban History, 27 (2001), 405–19 Garrioch, David, and Marc Peel, ‘Introduction: The Social History of Urban Neighborhoods’, Journal of Urban History, 32 (2006), 663–76 Gerits, T. J., ‘De “Caerte” van de Kolveniersgilde van Sint-Kristoffel te Rillaar’, Het Oude Land van Aarschot, 21 (1986), 94–107 —— , ‘Kataloog der kunstvoorwerpen’, Het Oude Land van Aarschot, 4 (1969), 88–120 —— , ‘De oprichting van de Aartsbroederschap van de H. Drievuldigheid in de abdijkerk van Averbode in 1662’, Eigen Schoon en De Brabander, 45 (1962), 363–69 —— , ‘De schuttersgilden van Testelt’, Eigen Schoon en De Brabander, 52 (1969), 444–55 Heylen, L., ‘Standregelen van de Sint-Ambrosiusgilde (van het Broederschap van den H. Ambrosius) te Langdorp’, Het Oude Land van Aarschot, 12 (1977), 92–94 Hsia, Ronnie Po-Chia, The World of Catholic Renewal, 1540–1770, New Approaches to European History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005) Kaplan, Benjamin J., ‘A Clash of Values: The Survival of Utrecht’s Confraternities after the Reformation and the Debate over their Dissolution’, De zeventiende eeuw, 16 (2000), 100–17

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Klep, Paul M. M., ‘Population Estimates of Belgium, by Province (1375–1831)’, in His­ toriens et populations: Liber amicorum Étiennes Hélin (Louvain-la-Neuve: Academia, 1991), pp. 485–507 —— , ‘Urban Decline in Brabant: The Traditionalization of Investments and Labour (1374–1806)’, in The Rise and Decline of Urban Industries in Italy and in the Low Coun­ tries: Late Middle Ages–Early Modern Times, ed. by Herman van der Wee, Studies in Social and Economic History, 1 (Leuven: Universitaire Pers Leuven, 1988), pp. 261–87 Lis, Catharine, and Hugo Soly, Poverty and Capitalism in Pre-industrial Europe, Preindustrial Europe, 1350–1850, 1 (Hassocks: Harvester, 1979) Lynch, Katherine A., Individuals, Families and Communities in Europe, 1200–1800: The Urban Foundations of Western Society, Cambridge Studies in Population, Economy, and Society in Past Time, 37 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) Millet, Charles, De kronijk van Aarschot van Charles Millet (1597), trans. by Willy Schroeven, Bijdragen tot de Geschiedenis van het Land van Aarschot, 6 (Aarschot: Aarschotse Kring voor Heemkunde, 1983) Minnen, Bart, ‘Hoofdlijnen van de geschiedenis van Rotselaar: Van landbouwdorp tot residentiële gemeente’, in Rotselaar (Rotselaar: Het Beatrijsgezelschap, 1983), pp. 9–32 —— , and Jean-Marie Duvosquel, Het hertogdom Aarschot onder Karel Van Croÿ (1595– 1612): Kadasters en gezichten (Brussels: Gemeentekrediet, 1993) Morren, Tony, Het dekenaat Diest (1599–1700): Bijdrage tot de studie van de katholieke her­ vorming in het aartsbisdom Mechelen, Belgisch Centrum voor landelijke geschiedenis, 103 (Leuven: Belgisch Centrum voor landelijke geschiedenis, 1993) Muchembled, Robert, Culture populaire et culture des élites dans la France moderne: xve– xviiie siècles (Paris: Flammarion, 1978) Putnam, Robert D., Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000) —— , Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993) Reid, Dylan, ‘Measuring the Impact of Brotherhood: Robert Putnam’s Making Democracy Work and Confraternal Studies’, Confraternitas, 14 (2003), 3–12 Rock, L., ‘De St.-Ambrosiusgilde van Rillaer’, Hagelandse Gedenkschriften, 8 (1914), 63–73 Roeykens, A., ‘Het leden- en rekeningenboek van de Sint-Jorisgilde van Rotselaar’, Tij­ dingen van het Beatrijsgezelschap, 5 (1969–70), 18–28 Rosser, Gervaise, ‘Going to the Fraternity Feast: Commensality and Social Relations in Late Medieval England’, The Journal of British Studies, 33 (1994), 430–46 —— , ‘Solidarités et changement social: Les fraternités urbaines anglaises à la fin du Moyen Âge’, Annales: Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations, 48 (1993), 1127–43 Tallon, L., ‘Bronnen voor de familiegeschiedenis: Registers van broederschappen’, Vlaamse Stam, 7 (1971), 117–236 Terpstra, Nicholas, ‘De-institutionalizing Confraternity Studies: Fraternalism and Social Capital in Cross-Cultural Contexts’, in Early Modern Confraternities in Europe and the Americas: International and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, ed. by Christopher F. Black and Pamela Gravestock (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), pp. 264–83

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—— , ‘The Politics of Ritual Kinship’, in The Politics of Ritual Kinship: Confraternities and Social Order in Early Modern Italy, ed. by Nicholas Terpstra, Cambridge Studies in Italian History and Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 1–8 Vandegoor, Gust, ‘Het Stichtingscharter van de Werchterse St.-Sebastiaansgilde’, Haachts Oudheid- en Geschiedkundig Tijdschrift, 12 (1997), 139–48 Van der Auwera, Marcel, ‘De Broederschap van Sint-Antonius van Padua te Schriek’, ’t Zwaantje: Jaarboek voor het Land van Heist en omliggende, 12 (1995), 187–234 —— , ‘De schuttersgilden in het Land van Heist’, ’t Zwaantje: Jaarboek voor het Land van Heist en omliggende, 11 (1994), 56–176 Vandesande, Jo, ‘Het 17de-eeuwse Keurboeck van de Haachtse Sint-Sebastiaansgilde’, Haachts Oudheid- en Geschiedkundig Tijdschrift, 15 (2000), 204–17; 16 (2001), 6–13, 90–99 Van Ermen, Eduard, De landelijke bezittingen van de Heren van Wezemaal in de middeleeuwen, Belgisch Centrum voor landelijke geschiedenis, 68, 87, 2 vols (Leuven: Belgisch Centrum voor Landelijke Geschiedenis, 1982–86) Van Meel, L., ‘Caerte van de gulde van Wesemael’, Tijdingen van het Beatrijsgezelschap, 21 (1985–86), 4–25 Van Roost, J., ‘St. Sebastiaan contra St.  Joris’, Tijdingen van het Beatrijsgezelschap, 2 (1966–67), 2–7 Van Uytven, Raymond, ‘Brabantse en Antwerpse centrale plaatsen (14de–19de eeuw)’, in Het stedelijk netwerk in België in historisch perspectief (1350–1850): Een statische en dynamische benadering (Brussels: Gemeentekrediet, 1992), pp. 29–79 —— , ‘In de schaduwen van de Antwerpse groei: Het Hageland in de zestiende eeuw’, Bijdragen tot de Geschiedenis, 57 (1974), 171–88 Vos, Aart, Burgers, broeders en bazen: Het maatschappelijk middenveld van ’s-Hertogenbosch in de zeventiende en achttiende eeuw (Hilversum: Verloren, 2007) Willems, August, ‘Over de Rederijkerskamers van Aarschot’, Het Oude Land van Aarschot, 16 (1981), 7–11, 57–70, 97–106 —— , ‘Volksdevotie in vroegere tijden in het Hageland: De verering van Sint-Marcoen in Kortrijk-Dutsel’, Oost-Brabant, 13 (1976), 64–70 Wollaert, S., ‘Brusselse afstammelinge van “Spaanse” Aarschottenaars vertelt’, Het Oude Land van Aarschot, 35 (2000), 17–25

Negotiating Charity, Politics, and Religion in the Colonial Philippines: The Brotherhood of the Misericordia of Manila (1594–1780s) Juan O. Mesquida

O

n the morning of 16 April 1594, all the streets of Manila seemed to lead to the church of the Jesuits. Governor Luis Pérez Dasmariñas had called for a meeting to set up a charitable undertaking, and the church was filled with royal and municipal officials, army and navy officers, prominent merchants, Cathedral canons, and a few friars. The purpose of the gathering was to expand the charitable work carried out in Manila by Spanish priest Juan Fernández de León and a few concerned citizens by setting up a brotherhood of the Misericordia. The men gathered in the church approved a provisional set of statutes and elected the first mesa, or board of guardians. Governor Dasmariñas was elected proveedor to head a mesa made up of members of the local oligarchy. This included representatives of the first families to arrive to the islands as well as military men like Antonio de Cañedo, Cristóbal de Azqueta, Juan Ronquillo, and Juan Ezquerra.1 The high social extraction of the members of the brotherhood 1  Uriarte, Manifiesto, y resumen historico, fols 1v–2r ; Merino, El cabildo secular, pp. 77–78; Alva, Vida municipal en Manila, pp. 340, 343–44.

Juan O. Mesquida ([email protected]) is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Asia and the Pacific in Manila. Some of his research about the history of the Brotherhood of the Misericordia of Manila has been published in Philippine and international journals. He has also conducted research on the chaplaincy of endowments of seventeenthcentury Manila, which he has published in the Revista de Indias. He is now working on writing a complete history of the Misericordia of Manila for publication.

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would continue in the centuries to come.2 Manila was then a small city of more than one thousand Spaniards enclosed in stone walls, yet the new settlers were ambitious and anxious to build. With stone walls and tiled roofs they built new houses, and with the Misericordia they started to build a civil society.3 The main purpose of the Misericordia was to supply services that the royal government could not provide in the areas of poor relief and social well-being in Manila. The king had ordered the construction of a hospital for his soldiers and a residence for their orphaned children, but the needs of the city exceeded his resources. The Franciscans had built another hospital for the indigenous Filipinos. However, twenty years after the city’s foundation there were still many needy widows and orphans, handicapped soldiers, sickly servants and slaves, and beggars. Patterned after the Portuguese Casas da misericordia, the Misericordia of Manila cared for such needy individuals.4 Each month, the Mesa assigned brothers to make weekly rounds in order to determine the whereabouts of the indigent, deliver alms, and bring sick Spanish and mestizo women as well as ill vagrants to the organization’s own hospital.5 Aside from these regular charitable activities, members of the brotherhood had many other opportunities to aid the sick and the wounded due to the frequent calamities and misfortunes that beset the city. Manila was ravaged by plague in 1599 and then struck by an earthquake in 1600, the same year that the nearby Dutch launched a fierce assault against the city. In 1603, a large fire burned parts of the city and a bloody uprising of Chinese traders was crushed. Forming special teams of good Samaritans, the brothers of the Misericordia moved through Manila during times of disaster to attend to the wounded, give alms to the indigent, and bury the dead.6 At first, the meetings of the Mesa and the ceremonies of the brotherhood were held in an existing church, either the cathedral, the church of the Jesuits or the Franciscans, or the church of the royal residence for orphan girls. In 1610, the Misericordia acquired a lot to build its own facilities, and eleven years later, the brotherhood had constructed a small church and could boast of a membership 2 

Uriarte, Manifiesto, y resumen historico, fols 2r–3v. The Spanish population always remained small due to its great distance from the metro­ polis, the harsh climatic conditions, and the low reproductive levels of the Spaniards. See Alva, Vida municipal en Manila, pp. 26–36; and Merino, El cabildo secular, pp. 24–36; DíazTrechuelo, ‘Fortificaciones en las islas Filipinas’, p. 184. 4  Sevilla, AGI, Filipinas, 37, N.54; Sá, Quando o rico se faz pobre, pp. 58–74, 104–13. 5  Uriarte, Manifiesto, y resumen historico, fol. 4r–v. 6  Chirino, Relación de las Islas Filipinas, p. 130; Uriarte, Manifiesto, y resumen historico, fols 5v–7v; Díaz-Trechuelo, ‘Las Filipinas, en su aislamiento’, pp. 129, 138. 3 

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of two hundred persons.7 The Mesa and other members attended mass there on Wednesdays and Sundays, while the whole brotherhood gathered in the church four times a year. Each year on 21 November, the feast day of the Presentation of the Virgin Mary, members gathered to elect the proveedor and other Mesa guardians. On the afternoon of Maundy Thursday, the brothers assembled to listen to a sermon before travelling in procession to visit the altars of repose in other churches. On All Saints Day, a procession of brothers emerged from the church to look for and bury the bones of those who had been subject to public executions. The day after the feast of St Martin of Tours, there was a mass and prayers were offered for the souls of deceased brothers.8 The high standing of its members provided the Misericordia with effective social networks of influence among the different authorities in Manila. Nevertheless, those connections did not make everything easy for the brotherhood. In its 275 years of history, the Misericordia frequently clashed with the ecclesiastical and civil powers of the Philippines. This study discusses the many obstacles and conflicts that the Misericordia experienced in its dealings with different types of authorities until the 1780s, and the responses and strategies employed to solve each situation. The history of the Misericordia of Manila illustrates the ways confraternities with upper class memberships and with political connections could use a variety of means to fend off opposition or criticism, and how they displayed a skilful capacity to adapt to the changing political environments of the early modern period.

Containing Ecclesiastical Interference Twelve years after its foundation, the members of the Misericordia decided to draft their own statutes to reinforce the juridical status of the brotherhood. The document was essentially a slightly adapted Spanish translation of the Portuguese statutes of the Misericordias of Lisbon and Goa, and the statutes were therefore finished in only a few short months.9 However, the king took his time before showing goodwill toward the brotherhood. In principle, the king ought to have accepted the Misericordia under his royal patronage, as was the case with all Spanish social welfare institutions in the Indies. Several popes had granted the 7 

Colín, Labor evangélica, pp.  349–50; Sevilla, AGI, Filipinas, 909 and Sevilla, AGI, Filipinas, 74, fols 596v, 603r; Almanaque Filipino, pp. 137–140. 8  Ordenanzas, y constituciones. 9  Mesquida, ‘The Early Years of the Misericordia of Manila’, pp. 65–66.

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Spanish monarchs the privilege of doing so — together with other more important rights, most significantly jurisdiction over ecclesiastical appointments — in exchange for christianizing those territories and providing certain financial support to the institutions.10 There was, however, no attempt on the part of the royal government to take over the Misericordia. Financial considerations may have deterred the king from taking over the brotherhood, since Manila’s royal treasury was always in the red. At the same time, those governing the Misericordia appreciated their independence from the royal government; governors who occupied the post of proveedor (such as Dasmariñas, Francisco Tello, or Alonso Fajardo, to name only a few from the brotherhood’s early period) never hinted at a desire for royal patronage in their correspondence with the king.11 This healthy distance between the Misericordia and the king’s administration provided the Mesa with more control over the increasing financial power originating from donations and charitable endowments. In 1598, Canon Benito Gutiérrez left five hundred pesos to the Misericordia to be invested as a mortgage loan, with the interest to become alms for the Indians of Tabuco, a region near Manila. More endowments followed in succeeding years, and income from these sources grew so rapidly that by 1613 the interest payments on the endowments of the brotherhood reached 1350 pesos yearly — and the amounts continued to increase.12 The Mesa also handled funds from the execution of wills, which was a traditional service of Portuguese Misericordias. Conveniently, some of those using the services of the Misericordia donated generously. In 1615, Maestrescuela Diego de León, who had entrusted his burial and last will to the Misericordia, left one-third of his property to the brotherhood.13 In 1613, the Mesa was disbursing seven thousand pesos a year for the charities of the brotherhood, and by 1621, the amount had increased to twelve thousand pesos.14 For some sense of scale, it is worth noting that in the early part of the seventeenth century, two pesos would have been more than enough to support the weekly living costs for a Spanish widow or orphan.15 The income from these endowments and donations was distributed among various organizations and recipients, including the royal 10 

Blair, Robertson, and Bourne, The Philippine Islands, iv (1903), 121–23. Sevilla, AGI, Filipinas, 18B, R.4, N.27; Mesquida, ‘Origin of the Misericordia of Manila’, pp. 437–42; and Mesquida, ‘The Early Years of the Misericordia of Manila’, p. 65. 12  Sevilla, AGI, Filipinas, 856. 13  Manila, AAM, 9.D.10, Capellanias (1653–1913), Folder 1, fols 85r–90v. 14  Sevilla, AGI, Filipinas, 39, N.6, and Sevilla, AGI, Filipinas, 74, fols 596v–604r. 15  Ordenanzas, y constituciones, p. 34; Uriarte, Manifiesto, y resumen historico, fol. 8v. 11 

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residence for Spanish orphans, hospitals, boys’ schools, religious orders, the archbishop, the ecclesiastical chapter, and the needy and sick in town. For a brotherhood whose main activity was to provide alms to different beneficiaries, keeping full control over its funds was a matter of survival. It was also the source of most of the conflicts that erupted between the brotherhood and the local authorities. Sometime in 1617 or early 1618, the Misericordia experienced its first clash with the ecclesiastical authorities. The tensions came to a head during a period when there was no archbishop and the cathedral chapter was in charge of the diocese. In accordance with the Council of Trent, the chapter wanted to inspect the execution of last wills and the brotherhood’s endowment funds. The Mesa categorically opposed this attempt at ecclesiastical scrutiny, and only went so far as to allow a member of the chapter to join the yearly ceremony at which the outgoing Mesa handed the organization’s accounts over to the new Mesa. The chapter found the solution unacceptable.16 From 1618 onwards, the Mesas conducted a persistent campaign to persuade the royal government to grant the brotherhood the same privileges, rights, and exemptions as those enjoyed by the Misericordia of Lisbon. At the Council of Trent, the Portuguese monarch had obtained an exemption from episcopal visitations for the Misericordias in his kingdoms, an exemption also desired by the Mesa of Manila.17 An episode in 1619 illustrates why the Mesa pushed for independence and why the chapter had misgivings. At the time, the Mesa was keeping 39,599 pesos that Gaspar Álvarez, a member of the Misericordia and a former governor of Cavite port, had left in his last will to be sent to Mexico. Aware of such funds, Governor Alonso Fajardo de Tenza, a member of the Misericordia, convinced the Mesa to lend him the money in order to outfit seven ships to break the Dutch blockade of the city’s bay.18 According to canon law and the 1606 statutes, the Mesa could not vary a testator’s wishes without the archbishop’s authorization. In order to understand the actions of the governor and the Mesa, it is important to consider that Manila was a small enclave of Spanish population that felt under perpetual siege. Chinese merchants outnumbered the Spaniards and had revolted in 1603, leaving a lingering state of fear toward them, while the Dutch were a continuous threat during the first half of the century. The economic 16 

Sevilla, AGI, Filipinas, 39. N.10. Flynn, Sacred Charity, p. 175, n. 12. 18  Costa, The Jesuits in the Philippines, p. 339; Sevilla, AGI, Contratación, 368, N.7, R.1; Uriarte, Manifiesto, y resumen historico, fols 11v–12r, 32r. 17 

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life of the city depended on the maritime trade with Acapulco, which was disturbed by frequent calamities. This condition of insecurity, not to mention the enormous distance to the closest Spanish territory in Mexico, left a great deal of room for locals to deviate from the rules.19 The services provided by the Misericordia, coupled with the precarious situation, led the king to side with the brotherhood. In 1623, the king responded to the Mesa’s request, instructing the archbishop to refrain from inspecting the accounts of the brotherhood and to be content with an annual report on the matter. The monarch also entrusted the governor with granting some kind of approval to the 1606 statutes, but without mentioning anything about royal patronage.20 Archbishop Miguel García Serrano, osa (1619–29), knowledgeable of his rights, disregarded the king’s instructions and attempted to assert his authority by inspecting the accounts of the Misericordia. At the time, Serrano was engaged in a similar dispute with the religious orders, for he was also trying to visit them in an official capacity in accordance with his Tridentine obligations. The religious, however, had always opposed such oversight and claimed exclusive accountability to their superiors. They left the archbishop helpless by threatening to abandon the care of the parishes they handled if he dared to visit them. Mimicking the religious orders, the members of the Mesa did not allow Serrano to visit the facilities of the brotherhood and again appealed to the king. They argued that the archbishop had to desist if the exodus of members which he had provoked by his actions were to stop and if the Misericordia was to continue performing its much-needed charity work. The monarch sided with the Mesa in 1631, reaffirming his implicit approval of the way in which the Misericordia handled its finances.21 Soon after the news of the king’s support arrived in Manila, that year’s Mesa decided to use its funds to build a residence for orphaned Spanish and mestizo girls. There had been one such residence in Manila since 1594: the Colegio de Santa Potenciana, which even enjoyed royal patronage. The new home was named the Colegio de Santa Isabel, in honour of Queen Elizabeth, wife of King Philip IV, and the residence was located in the same compound that housed 19  Díaz-Trechuelo, ‘Las Filipinas, en su aislamiento’, pp.  138–43; Manchado López, Conflictos Iglesia-Estado en el Extremo Oriente Ibérico Filipinas, pp. 141–59. Similar situations occurred in Portuguese Misericordias in colonial enclaves: see Sá, Quando o rico se faz pobre, pp. 208–11. 20  Sevilla, AGI, Filipinas, 39. N.10; and Ordenanzas, y constituciones, Auto de confirmación. 21  Sevilla, AGI, Filipinas, 30, N.33, and Sevilla, AGI, Filipinas, 340, L.1, fols 424r–35r; Schumacher, Readings in Philippine Church History, pp. 128–38.

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the headquarters of the brotherhood.22 All sources mention that the girls who were admitted to the residence had a higher social status than those in Santa Potenciana, which accepted daughters of officers and soldiers regardless of their social background. The new residence was inaugurated with a solemn procession of the new boarders, who included girls from the Colegio de Santa Potenciana as well as girls formerly residing in private homes. For the short walk between Santa Potenciana to Santa Isabel, the girls in the procession formed a line and members of the brotherhood marched at their sides carrying long candlesticks. Proveedor Captain Pedro de Roxas carried a large crucifix under a canopy held by eight brothers, and the chaplains employed by the brotherhood closed the procession. The girls sang the litany of the Blessed Mary, which they finished inside the church. From that point on, support of Santa Isabel became the most important charitable work undertaken by the Mesa. This sentiment of confidence and expansion did not last long for the Misericordia, for shortly after the founding of the Colegio de Santa Isabel, the city fell into a general state of decline that would last for most of the century. From 1636 to 1640, the galleon trade stopped almost entirely due to the strict enforcement of trade rules in Acapulco by the special procurator Pedro Quiroga.23 As the general economic situation deteriorated, the archbishop tried even harder to assert his authority over the income from last wills that the Misericordia administered and of which he was also a beneficiary. In 1638, Archbishop Hernando Guerrero, osa, tried — again unsuccessfully — to inspect the finances of the Misericordia. At that economically critical time, the Mesa was busy executing the last will of Pedro de Heredia, the former governor of the Camp of Ternate who had recently died and left behind a hefty sum of money. It did not take long for Governor Sebastián Hurtado de Corcuera to confiscate the 150,000 pesos that the Mesa had kept from Heredia’s funds, claiming that the admiral had acquired them illicitly. A few months later, Corcuera would again force the Mesa to surrender all the money from its coffers — the large amount of 104,609 pesos. Corcuera needed the money to finance the military campaign he was waging against the very restive Muslims of the Jolo archipelago.24 Corcuera, like Fajardo before, had been a proveedor, and his disregard for the statutes of the brotherhood demonstrates that membership did not necessarily create a strong bond among the members. Yet throughout its history, there was 22 

Uriarte, Manifiesto, y resumen historico, fol. 21r. 23  Díaz-Trechuelo, ‘Las Filipinas, en su aislamiento’, pp. 136–37. 24  Sevilla, AGI, Filipinas, 30, N.33; Sevilla, AGI, Filipinas, 340, L.5, fols 42r–43r; and Sevilla, AGI, Escribanía de Cámara, 409c; Uriarte, Manifiesto, y resumen historico, fols 12r–14r and 24r.

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always a group of committed individuals looking after the main duties of the brotherhood. It was due to this devoted minority that the Misericordia was able to survive the even greater state of decline experienced by the city in the following decades. In 1639, the Chinese staged a large revolt against the Spaniards that was suppressed with great casualties on both sides. A large earthquake in 1645 caused serious damage to most of the city’s public buildings and churches as well as more than one-third of the private houses. Another earthquake, although of smaller magnitude, followed in 1654. As a consequence, the population of Manila decreased year after year, with the result that that by 1655 there were fewer than two hundred Spaniards in Manila.25 The demographic crisis caused a decline in the membership of the Misericordia, but in spite of these calamities — or perhaps because of the victims that they caused — the Misericordia continued to execute testamentary dispositions and gain income. That availability of funds did not pass unnoticed by the governors, who seized them in times of crisis, causing great harm to the brotherhood’s operations in the process. Corcuera confiscated 44,964 pesos in 1643, and Governor Diego Fajardo y Chacón ‘borrowed’ 76,231 pesos between 1646 and 1653 for several needs of the colony.26 Suffering both reduced membership rolls and frequent confiscations, the Mesa once more sought exemption from the archbishop’s supervision, but on this occasion the monarch dismissed their request.27 The general decline of the city and the losses due to obligatory loans affected the original altruistic spirit of the brothers, as illustrated by the decision of the 1656 Mesa to transfer the brotherhood’s hospital to the Order of San Juan de Dios. Because of the earthquakes, the endowments invested in real estate loans were generating income at an insufficient level to support the girls of the Colegio de Santa Isabel. The proveedor, Captain Nicolás de Luzuriaga, personally undertook the negotiations to transfer the hospital, donating funds as well as property in order to convince Prior Francisco de Magallanes to accept the residence. Yet even though membership had shrunk, those who ran the Misericordia continued to hail from the city’s upper social and economic classes. For instance, Luzuriaga and Captain Tomás García de Cárdenas, the secretary of the Mesa, were among the largest investors in the galleon trade in 1655.28 25  Díaz-Trechuelo, ‘Las Filipinas, en su aislamiento’, pp. 129, 146; Merino, El cabildo secu­ lar, pp. 34–35; Alva, Vida municipal en Manila, p. 29. 26  Sevilla, AGI, Filipinas, 341, L.8, fols 131r–33v; Madrid, AHN, Consejos, 43; Madrid, AHN, Consejos, 610; Molina, The Philippines through the Centuries, i (1960), 140–42. 27  Sevilla, AGI, Filipinas, 74, fol. 954v; and Sevilla, AGI, Filipinas, 341, L.6, fols 145r–46v. 28  Sevilla, AGI, Filipinas, 341, L.6, fols 187v–237r; Maldonado de Puga, Religiosa hospitali­

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As the city slowly recovered from the general slump, a new type of endowment revolutionized the finances of the Misericordia and triggered new kinds of difficulty with the ecclesiastical and civil authorities. Due to the damage caused by the earthquakes, it became obvious that it was not so wise to invest endowment funds as real estate loans.29 In 1668, Captain Diego Martínez Castellanos left funds to the Misericordia on the condition that the amount be used as seed money for sea trading loans in the galleon and Asian trades.30 Due to the difficult economic conditions of the city, the idea picked up steam only gradually, but by 1692, the capital accumulated from this type of endowment had grown to sixty-five thousand pesos. These new maritime trading endowments brought two important consequences for the Misericordia. First, they created much administrative work for the brothers, as the process now involved lending money to many borrowers, collecting the revenues after every galleon trip, and distributing the earnings to the many beneficiaries. Second, this increase in bureaucratic work further distanced the members of the Misericordia from their initial, personal involvement in works of mercy for the needy. Most of their charitable work was now devoted to almsgiving and the maintenance of the Colegio de Santa Isabel. The greater the financial resources of the Misericordia, the greater the desire on the part of the ecclesiastical authorities to supervise them. Surprisingly, those who demanded the right to look into the Misericordia’s accounts were themselves members of the brotherhood. In 1699, the Spanish king granted the Misericordia the much-requested exemption from episcopal visitation, yet when the decree arrived in Manila, Archbishop Diego Camacho y Ávila (a Misericordia member himself ) did not obey it and demanded his right to visit the brotherhood. Camacho was also then trying to enforce visits to parishes under the care of the religious orders. Neither the Misericordia nor the orders would allow him supervision. The king was forced to send a second version of the same order in 1708, which the Mesa of the time interpreted as granting it absolute independence from the ordinary.31 The brotherhood discontinued sending financial reports to dad, pp. 84–103; Uriarte, Manifiesto, y resumen historico, fols 30r–31r. 29  Sevilla, AGI, Filipinas, 856. 30  Manila, PNA, SDS 19165, fols 540r–42r. The specific maritime trade loan used was a respondentia, that is, a loan in which the creditor assumed the risks for the merchandise or the boat during the specified trip and the borrower assumed the obligation to pay back the capital and the agreed premium if the trip was successful; see Yuste López, ‘Obras pías en Manila’, pp. 183–86. 31  Sevilla, AGI, Filipinas, 341, L.8, fols 136r–37r; and Sevilla, AGI, Filipinas, 909, fol. 5v. Uriarte, Manifiesto, y resumen historico, fols 19v and 48r; Merino, Don Diego Camacho y Ávila, pp. 153–83, 441–42.

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the ecclesiastical judge in charge of testaments. Disregarding canon law, the Mesa even borrowed from its endowments when the Colegio de Santa Isabel faced budget deficits.32 Twenty years later, ecclesiastical judge Manuel Antonio de Ocio y Ocampo, a member of the Misericordia, objected to the financial licence of the Mesa. In 1728, he demanded that the Mesa let him inspect the papers of an endowment for the celebration of masses, which had been set up with funds from the last will of a Portuguese seaman. When the Mesa refused, Ocio retaliated by banning the Misericordia from leading a procession through the streets of the city on Maundy Thursday. The Mesa ignored the prohibition, leading Ocio to issue a decree that same evening that excommunicated those who had participated. Governor José Miguel de Cosio y Campa, who had been the proveedor of the Mesa in 1726, managed to convince Ocio to lift the indictment. However, the animosity continued, setting in motion several developments that would change crucial aspects of the life of the Misericordia. Both parties came out with printed literature defending their positions which spread among the city’s civil and ecclesiastical circles. That same year, the Mesa again asked the monarch for exemption from the archbishop’s inspection of last wills and, above all, asked that the brotherhood be accepted under royal patronage.33 Confidence in its own political clout and ignorance of the governing style of the Bourbon monarchy explain why the members of the Misericordia asked to be put under royal patronage. Manila had recovered from the financial decline of the previous century and the galleon trade was now a good source of wealth. Many members of the local oligarchy joined the Misericordia, including certain governors (like Cosio) and several ministers of the Audiencia. The kings had already been generally sympathetic towards the Misericordia, so royal patronage was not expected to bring a great degree of change to the operations of the brotherhood. The fiscal of the Council of Indies recommended accepting the request for royal patronage because the king’s papal privileges made him the general protector of all hospitals and charity institutions, including the Misericordia. Perhaps the most convincing reason to accept the Misericordia, according to the fiscal, was that it possessed significant income and there would be no need to support it financially. However, the Misericordia would be required to adhere to the decrees of Trent and submit all matters related to last wills for the examination of the ordinary. After countless requests over more than a century of existence, the 32  33 

Sevilla, AGI, Filipinas, 234. Sevilla, AGI, Filipinas, 234.

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brotherhood finally achieved its aim: their monarch signed the decree accepting the Misericordia under royal patronage on 25 March 1733.34

Royal Patronage The brotherhood’s first brush with the Bourbon administration occurred several years after the Misericordia had gained royal patronage. In 1738, Archbishop Fray Juan Angel Rodríguez complained to the king that the Mesa would not allow him to inspect the source of the twenty-five thousand peso loan that the Mesa had lent to the city council. He also protested that the Mesa had concluded, after consulting several lawyers and theologians, that the brotherhood did not need the archbishop’s permission to go on procession on Maundy Thursday.35 The monarch finally replied in 1743. Instead of providing a vague answer and an embrace of the status quo, as the Habsburg monarchs had often done, the new bureaucracy chided the Mesa for misinterpreting the privileges and obligations of royal patronage and for not respecting the jurisdiction of the archbishop. Furthermore, the king required the Mesa to send information to Madrid, explaining the source of funds of the 1738 loan that the archbishop had complained about.36 For the first time, the Mesa was compelled to submit a statement of accounts, finally unable to refuse an order from the king, who was now the brotherhood’s royal patron. It was also the organization’s first experience with the higher professional standards and stricter legal interpretations of the Bourbon government. The new dynasty made particular efforts to ensure a clear separation between civil and ecclesiastical jurisdictions.37 Previous Mesas had ignored the prerogatives of the archbishop, even though certain decisions, like the 1738 loan to the city council, required his approval. A more serious case developed in 1739–40, when the Mesa built a new office and treasury for the brotherhood on the second floor of its facilities. As it had done in the past, the Mesa took some of the required 34  Sevilla, AGI, Filipinas, 342, fols 360r–65v. Out of the three hundred thousand pesos trading load allowed in the 1722 galleon, more than one hundred thousand pesos came from loans given by the Misericordia; thus, the fiscal’s confidence in the financial power of the brotherhood; Madrid, AHN, Clero, Jesuitas, 93. 35  Manila, PNA, SDS 19165, fols 2r–15r. 36  Sevilla, AGI, Filipinas, 334, L.14, fols 156v–65r. 37  Domínguez Ortiz, Sociedad y estado en el siglo xviii español, pp. 94–97, 367; Taylor, Magistrates of the Sacred, p. 13. The Bourbon dynasty advocated and tried to implement the political doctrine of the subordination of the church to the state; see Schumacher, Readings in Philippine Church History, pp. 139–40.

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funds from endowments which had precise conditions attached and for which the brothers also needed the archbishop’s consent. The two individuals responsible for these spending decisions were the proveedores of the Mesa in the two years it had taken to remodel the premises: the Marquis of Montecastro y Llanahermosa and the Marquis of Las Salinas. The two men were prominent citizens. Both were among the largest traders in the galleon economy, held important government posts, and were close to the governor.38 This system of creative accounting grew still more complicated for the Misericordia when the royal order arrived, for the British had just captured the galleon Covadonga, resulting in a serious economic recession in Manila. This economic downturn delayed the recovery of funds needed by the Mesa to repay what it had borrowed for its extraordinary spending and delayed their efforts to restore the endowments. While the Mesa was trying to come up with a convincing explanation for its illegal borrowing, the ecclesiastical judge of Manila and vicar general, Juan de la Fuente Yepes, acted to carry out a royal order instructing him to check the source of the money of the 1738 loan to the city government. Yepes was also a member of the Misericordia, yet the Mesa refused to allow him to fulfill the royal order. Frustrated and helpless, Yepes wrote to the king giving his views on the maladies of the brotherhood and proposed a strategy to correct them. In his letter, the vicar revealed how the Mesa borrowed money from testamentary legacies and used them for purposes not intended by the testator without obtaining permission from the archbishop, thereby contravening both its own statutes and canon law. Most importantly, Yepes noted that the Misericordia was virtually untouchable because it counted among its members some of the governors and ministers of the colonial governing council of the Audiencia. Yepes’s recommendations were straightforward. He proposed the supervision of the accounts of the Misericordia, with a royal minister reviewing all matters related to royal patronage, and an ecclesiastical judge reviewing everything pertaining to last wills and endowments for the celebration of masses. Yepes also argued that the governor and ministers of the Audiencia should not be allowed to join the Misericordia since the brotherhood’s statutes forbade membership to those working in professions or holding a post that required full-time work. Such regulations had been drafted in order to ensure that members would find enough time to attend to the work of the brotherhood.39 38  Manila, PNA, SDS 19165, fols 24r–33v; Concepción, Historia general de Philipinas, ix (1790), 95. 39  Sá, Quando o rico se faz pobre, pp. 95–97.

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Even though the Mesa countered by sending its own views of the situation to Madrid, the king heeded Yepes and adopted both of his recommendations in 1747. He also asked the Mesa to look after the funds allocated for dowries, and to send a report about the construction work done in 1739–40 to expand the facilities.40 Although the Misericordia retained significant influence in the city due to the status and position of its members, barring the most important officials in the royal government of the archipelago from membership in the brotherhood had serious consequences and required new strategies. From this point on, ecclesiastical interference was not a significant problem for the Mesas, because the royal government in Madrid worked to ensure that the statutes were followed and that the accounts were in order. The Misericordia was now very different from what it had been in its beginnings. It functioned essentially as a large charitable bank, and the Mesa became busy at certain periods of the year when it made loans, received the returns, or distributed the earnings among the many beneficiaries in town. The only more sustained work of the Mesa was supervising the day-to-day operations of the Colegio de Santa Isabel and organizing several communal celebrations. Following the royal order, the governor in 1751 appointed the Audiencia’s minister Francisco Enríquez de Villacorta to inspect the facilities of the Mesa, to review the financial statements for the repairs of 1739, and to examine the operations of the brotherhood for the 1750 fiscal year. The proveedor at the time was Santos Pérez de Tagle, brother of the Marquis de Las Salinas, who had supervised the renovation of the facilities in 1739–40. The Mesa promised to send a report on that renovation work and presented Villacorta with a financial statement for the previous fiscal year. Yet despite its length (150 pages), the statement was poorly assembled and lacked both explanatory notes and accounting summaries. Villacorta was overwhelmed by the size of the volume and took only a perfunctory look at it before sending it without any comments to the king.41 The same procedure was repeated in the following years. After dutifully submitting financial statements for several years, in 1754 the Mesa proposed to revise the 1606 statutes, since they made no provision for the new activities and requirements of the brotherhood. Early that year, a general gathering of Misericordia members elected a committee to carry out the revisions. Among those chosen were several members who had previously held posts in the Mesa, past generals in the galleon voyage, long-serving members of 40 

Manila, PNA, SDS 19165, fols 2r–15r. 41  Manila, PNA, SDS 19165, fols 16r–201v.

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the city council, lawyers and treasurers of the Audiencia, and a handful of the most important galleon traders. This committee finished drafting new statutes in a few months. Most of the general principles and intentions of the Portuguese Misericordias — which had, after all, inspired the Manila brotherhood in the first place — remained intact, but new regulations were added to effectively supervise endowment funds both as loans for real estate or for maritime trade, and to regulate the distribution of endowment earnings to beneficiaries. The new statutes also included a chapter expressly dealing with the administration of the Colegio de Santa Isabel. The three guardians of the Mesa who were in charge of funds were elevated to permanent salaried officers, in the hope that the quality of their service would improve and that continuity would therefore be ensured in the handling of endowments. Only the proveedor and the Mesa could accuse these three permanent financial officers of the Mesa of malpractice. The revised statutes significantly improved job descriptions and procedures. Certainly the revisions concentrating financial power in the hands of a few permanent officials appears to have been a strategy on the part of the elite then running the Mesas to continue their stay in power. Be that as it may, the changes reveal that the members of the Misericordia were gradually adjusting to their institution’s new status under royal patronage.

Facing Hostile Officials Governor Manuel de Arandía y Santisteban and several Audiencia ministers refused to approve the revised statutes of 1754.42 These royal officials shared the principles of the Enlightenment and regarded the activities of the Misericordia with suspicion. They considered the monopolistic status of the galleon trade a deadweight to the economic progress of the archipelago’s economic growth because it led the Spanish population to neglect farming and manufacturing. The Misericordia was also blamed for economic stagnation since it offered easy loans to the galleon traders. The heavy involvement of the galleon trading oligarchy of traders in the running of the Misericordia, of course, only exacerbated the situation. These concerns, in conjunction with the royal order banning government officials from membership in the Misericordia, resulted in an atmosphere of distrust and suspicion between the royal authorities and the brotherhood from the mid-eighteenth century onwards.

42 

Manila, PNA, SDS 19075, fols 880r–85v, 888r–89v.

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Tensions in the brotherhood’s relationship with the Audiencia rose again in late 1755 or early 1756 when the Council of the Indies reprimanded the Audiencia’s minister, Francisco Enríquez de Villacorta, for the poor quality of the 1750 financial statement of the Misericordia. Villacorta in turn exerted more pressure on the Misericordia, and the Mesa started to improve its reporting.43 Even Villacorta admitted that the oligarchy controlling the Mesa’s financial matters was acting responsibly.44 Due to the opposition of Governor Arandía and the Audiencia, the Mesa began to navigate around these officials by sending requests directly to the Council of the Indies. Thus, in 1757, a royal decree approved the Mesa’s proposal that the yearly inspection by the minister of the Audiencia be discontinued on the grounds of the great expense incurred. Instead, the Mesa would send a financial statement to the Council every three years, after it had first been reviewed by a member of the Audiencia.45 This strategy of sending requests directly to Madrid secured for the Mesa the Council’s approval of the 1754 statutes, which included a clause that the periodic financial statement would be sent to the Council every five years, instead of every three.46 The Misericordia revised the statutes once more in the economically dire year of 1769. This was at a time when the British occupation of Manila in 1762– 64 had left the brotherhood’s coffers empty and when low sales of the galleon products in the Acapulco fair severely reduced its income. In order to save money, the salaries of the three permanent financial officers of the Mesa were scrapped, and these officials themselves were once again elected annually. Instead, the statutes sought to improve accounting practices by hiring an accountant-archivist to look after the financial statements, which were then to be sent to the Council without prior examination by the Audiencia. Governor Simón de Anda y Salazar did not want to approve these new statutes, because of the usual suspicions of the oligarchy that ruled through the Mesa. Ironically, it did not matter much that the Misericordia had recently made generous loans to the government to solve several urgent financial crises. Nevertheless, bypassing the royal officials in Manila worked well once again, and the Council of the Indies in Madrid approved the new statutes in 1778.47 43 

Manila, PNA, SDS 19165, fols 532r–36r, 537r–38r, 648r–50v, 652r–53v; Madrid, AHN, Consejos, 43, Madrid, AHN, Consejos, 610. 44  Sevilla, AGI, Filipinas, 186. 45  Madrid, AHN, Consejos, 43, Madrid, AHN, Consejos, 610; and Manila, PNA, SDS 19075, fols 782r–83r. 46  Manila, PNA, SDS 19075, fols 880r–85v and 888r–89v. 47  Manila, PNA, SDS 19075, fols 772r–v, 774r–75r, 778r–96v, 836v–37r, 851r–56v, 856v–57r;

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Influenced by the stringent new policies of King Charles III towards confraternities in Spain, and following the advice of Minister Pedro Rodríguez Campomanes, two governors tried to extend their influence over the affairs of the Misericordia.48 In 1777, interim Governor Pedro Sarrió and Fiscal Emeterio Cacho Calderón sent an Audiencia minister to monitor the fairness of the Mesa’s elections. This was required by law, but the implementation of this statute had been delayed in most places: in Mexico, for example, this review had only been undertaken regularly since 1755.49 The next governor, José Basco y Vargas, arrived in Manila in 1778 with clear plans to implement the best principles of the Enlightenment.50 Within a year of his arrival, Basco sent a minister of the Audiencia to the elections of the Mesa in order to ensure that those elected were fit. The Misericordia’s oligarchy responded to Basco’s challenge by choosing as proveedor the dean of the cathedral, thus leaving no doubt about the uprightness of the election. By the mid-1780s, Ciriaco González Carvajal, a minister of the Audiencia also steeped in the spirit of the Enlightenment, proposed that the Spanish monarch entrust the funds of the Misericordia to the archbishop, who would administer them with a body of professionals.51 He also wanted the money from the endowments used in the maritime trading loans to be transferred from the galleon trade to the Compañía Real de Filipinas, a trading company recently founded under the auspices of the Council.52 Carvajal realized that the galleon trade would be affected by the Law of Free Trade of 1778, which had increased the number of ports that were allowed to trade between Spain and America.53 Like many before him, this minister also decried the many privileges that the Misericordia had obtained from the monarchs in the past which allowed its members to function quite independently from the civil and ecclesiastical authorities in town. From Madrid, the situation looked very different. The monarch was quite satisfied with the Mesa’s compliance with royal orders. He also appreciated the Madrid, AHN, Consejos, 43, Madrid, AHN, Consejos, 610. 48  Rumeu de Armas, Historia de la previsión social en España, pp. 285–96, 387–407. 49  Madrid, AHN, Consejos, 43, Madrid, AHN, Consejos, 610; Luque Alcaide, La Cofradía de Aranzazu de México, pp. 221–22. 50  Cushner, Spain in the Philippines, from Conquest to Revolution, pp. 186–95. 51  García de los Arcos, La Intendencia de Filipinas, pp. 55–69, 84, 102–03, 177–78. 52  Díaz-Trechuelo, ‘The Economic Development of the Philippines’, pp.  222–24, and Díaz-Trechuelo, La Real Compañía de Filipinas, pp. 196–212. 53  Herrero, ‘Reformismo borbónico y crecimiento económico de la Nueva España’, p. 86.

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welfare assistance that the Crown itself could not yet provide, and he relied on the funds of the Misericordia as a potent source of emergency income for that distant Spanish territory. The king nonetheless asked the Mesa for its views on the matter. The brotherhood replied with all the arguments for continuing the status quo that could be expected from a trading oligarchy that had controlled the corridors of power of the Misericordia for several generations.54 Perhaps not surprisingly, no major changes to royal policy ensued, and the brotherhood continued without much change to its activities or administration until the end of the galleon trade monopoly in 1813.

54 

Sevilla, AGI, Filipinas, 909.

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Works Cited Manuscripts and Archival Resources Madrid, Archivo Histórico Nacional, Consejos, 43 —— , Consejos, 610 —— , Clero, Jesuitas, 93 Manila, Archives of the Archdiocese of Manila, 9.D.10 (Capellanias (1653–1913), Folder 1) Manila, Philippine National Archives, SDS, 19075 —— , SDS, 19165 Sevilla, Archivo General de Indias, Contratacíon, 368, N.7, R.1 —— , Escribanía de Cámara, 409c —— , Filipinas, 18B, R.4, N.27 —— , Filipinas, 30, N.33 —— , Filipinas, 37, N.54 —— , Filipinas, 39, N.6 —— , Filipinas, 39, N.10 —— , Filipinas, 74 —— , Filipinas, 186 —— , Filipinas, 234 —— , Filipinas, 334, L.14 —— , Filipinas, 340, L.1 —— , Filipinas, 340, L.5 —— , Filipinas, 341, L.6 —— , Filipinas, 341, L.8 —— , Filipinas, 342 —— , Filipinas, 856 —— , Filipinas, 909

Primary Sources Maldonaldo de Puga, Juan Manuel, Religiosa hospitalidad por los Hijos del Pradoso Coripheo Patriarcha y padre de pobres S. Ivan d. Dios, en su provincia de S. Raphael de las Islas Philipinas (Granada: De la Puerta, 1742) Ordenanzas, y constituciones de la Sancta Misericordia de la Insigne Ciudad de Manila reformadas conforme el estado, y disposiciones de la tierra por los Hermanos de la dicha Hermandad, conforme por las Ordenanzas de la Ciudad de Lisboa se dispone, y aunadas a ella al Año de 1606 (Manila: Collegio, y Universidad de Santo Tomás […] for Correa, 1724) Uriarte, Juan Bautista de, Manifiesto, y resumen historico de la fundacion de la Venerable Hermandad de la Santa Misericordia de la ciudad de Manila, hospital, casa, y collegio de niñas, y iglesia de Santa Ysabel, con las conveniencias, y utilidades al comun, bien publico, y particular de istas islas (Manila: Collegio, y Universidad de Santo Thomas […] for Correa, 1728)

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Secondary Studies Alva Rodríguez, Inmaculada, Vida municipal en Manila, siglos xvi–xvii (Córdoba: Universidad de Córdoba, 1997) Almanaque Filipino i Guía de Forasteros para el año 1834 (Manila: Dayot for Oliva, 1834) Blair, Emma Helen, James Alexander Robertson, and Edward Gaylord Bourne, The Philip­pine Islands, 1493–1803: Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and their Peoples, their History and Records of the Catholic Missions, 55 vols (Cleveland: Clark, 1903–09) Chirino, Pedro, Relación de las Islas Filipinas y de lo que en ellas han trabajado los Padres de la Compañía de Jesús, 1604 (Manila: Balbás, 1890) Colín, Francisco, Labor evangélica, ministerios apostólicos de los obreros de la Compañía de Iesús, fundación, y progressos de su Provincia en las Islas Filipinas (Madrid: Fernández de Buendía, 1663) Concepción, Juan de la, Historia general de Philipinas: Conquistas espirituales y temporales de estos españoles dominios, establecimientos progresos, y decadencias […], 14 vols (Manila: La Rosa y Balagtas, 1788–92) Costa, Horacio de la, The Jesuits in the Philippines, 1581–1768 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961) Cushner, Nicholas P., Spain in the Philippines, from Conquest to Revolution, Institute of Philippine Culture, 1 (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University, 1971) Díaz-Trechuelo, María Lourdes, and Horacio de la Costa, trans., ‘The Economic Develop­ ment of the Philippines in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century’, Philippine Studies, 11 (1963), 195–231 —— , ‘Las Filipinas, en su aislamiento bajo el continuo acoso’, in Historia General de España y América, ed. by Luis Suarez Fernandez, 19 vols (Madrid: Rialp, 1981–92), ix: América in el siglo xvii, ed. by Demetrio Ramos Pérez and Guillermo Lohmann Villena, 2 vols (1984), ii, 129–53 —— , ‘Fortificaciones en las islas Filipinas (1565–1800)’, in Puertos y fortificaciones en América y Filipinas (Madrid: Comisión de Estudios Históricos de Obras Públicas y Urbanismo, 1985), pp. 261–80 —— , La Real Compañía de Filipinas (Sevilla: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos de Sevilla, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1965) Domínguez Ortiz, Antonio, Sociedad y estado en el siglo xviii español, Ariel historia, 9 (Barcelona: Ariel, 1976) Flynn, Maureen, Sacred Charity: Confraternities and Social Welfare in Spain, 1400–1700 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989) García de los Arcos, María Fernanda, La Intendencia de Filipinas, Colección monográfica, 83 (Granada: Universidad de Granada, 1983) Herrero, Pedro Pérez, ‘Reformismo borbónico y crecimiento económico de la Nueva España’, in El reformismo borbónico: una visión interdisciplinar, ed. by Agustín Guimerá, Alianza Universidad, 863 (Madrid: Alianza, 1996), pp. 75–108 Luque Alcaide, Elisa, La Cofradía de Aranzazu de México, 1681–1799, Colección Historia de la Iglesia, 25 (Pamplona: Eunate, 1995)

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Manchado López, Marta M., Conflictos Iglesia-Estado en el Extremo Oriente Ibérico Filipinas (1767–1787), Colección Historia, 3 (Murcia: Universidad de Murcia, 1994) Merino, Luis, El cabildo secular: Aspectos fundacionales y administrativos, Estudios sobre el municipio de Manila, 1 (Manila: Vera Reyes, 1983) Merino, Pedro Rubio, Don Diego Camacho y Ávila, arzobispo de Manila y de Guadalajara de Mexico, 1695–1712, Publicaciones de la Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos, 105 (Sevilla: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos de Sevilla, 1958) Mesquida, Juan O., ‘The Early Years of the Misericordia of Manila (1594–1625)’, Revista de Cultura, 14 (2005), 59–81 —— , ‘Origin of the Misericordia of Manila’, Ad Veritatem, 2 (2003), 423–62 Molina, Antonio M., The Philippines through the Centuries, 2 vols (Manila: U.S.T. Co­ operative, 1960–61) Rumeu de Armas, Antonio, Historia de la previsión social en España: Cofradías—gremios— hermandades—montepíos, Manuales de derecho, 11 (Madrid: Editorial Revista de derecho privado, 1944) Sá, Isabel dos Guimarães, Quando o rico se faz pobre: misericórdias, caridade e poder no império português, 1500–1800 (Lisbon: Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, 1997) Schumacher, John N., Readings in Philippine Church History (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University, 1979) Taylor, William B., Magistrates of the Sacred: Priests and Parishioners in EighteenthCentury Mexico (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996) Yuste López, María del Carmen, ‘Obras pías en Manila: La Hermandad de la Santa Miseri­ cordia y las correspondencias a riesgo de mar en el tráfico transpacífico en el siglo xviii’, in La Iglesia y sus bienes: De la amortización a la naciónalización, ed. by María del Pilar Martínez López-Cano, Elisa Speckman Guerra, and Gisela von Wobeser (México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2004)

Part IV Kinship and the Politics of Devotion in Islam and Judaism

Islamic Brotherhoods in Sixteenth‑Century Central Asia: The Dervish, the Sultan, and the Sufi Mirror for Princes Alexandre Papas

T

here is no clergy in Islam — or at least, such is the common opinion of Islamicists. It is true that, theoretically, every Muslim can fulfil a religious function without belonging to a sacerdotal category. Everyone can become an imam if he shows enough piety and knowledge; there is no precise canonical status for imams, muftis, and so on. Yet the reality is more complicated, for who would claim that in Islam there are only laymen? Under the Safavids in the sixteenth century, for instance, Iranian Shiism included an independent hierarchy of religious authorities, while modern Sunnism also acknowledges a kind of clergy. Historically, the attributes and privileges given to religious scholars (‘ulamâs) are somewhat comparable to those of clergymen lato sensu.1 According to Claude Gilliot, one repeats, with the Muslims themselves, that there is no clergy in Islam; yet this is true only if one gives to the notion of clergy a sacramentalist meaning, like the one shared by Roman and Eastern Catholic Christianities. It is inaccurate if we 1 

Chodkiewicz, ‘Quelques leçons du comparatisme’, p. 283.

Alexandre Papas ([email protected]) is a Research Fellow at the Centre national de la re­ cherche scientifique (CNRS) in Paris, where he studies the history of Sufism and Central Asia. His research focuses on Islam and Islamic mysticism in Central Asia and the neighbouring regions of Western China and Northern India from the sixteenth century to the present. He is the author of several articles and two monographs: Soufisme et politique entre Chine, Tibet et Turkestan (2005) and Mystiques et vagabonds en islam (2010). He is currently working on a book on saint veneration in Xinjiang.

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understand clergy as the class of clerics, specialists in religion, who intervene in the cult or in teaching. In that sense, there is definitely a clergy in Islam. Their authority is based on the knowledge of ‘grammar’ and Sunna. This clergy lays down and codifies, in particular, the legitimate use of language on the Quranic and ‘Prophetical’ model. They then exercise a power (this power is one of the default possessions of the clerical class in every religion) which is as efficient in securing social control as the power of Christian clerics, at least in those parts of the world untouched by a certain form of ‘modernity’.2

Fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Central Asia was one of these regions, but not surprisingly, the socio-religious reality was more complicated than it first appears. Overlapping these two categories of laity and clergy in the Islamic tradition are the mystics (Sufis or dervishes) who are mainly organized according to tarîqa, or spiritual path. The tarîqa Naqshbandiyya, founded by Bahâ’ al-Dîn Naqshband in fourteenth century, is a Central Asian example of this type of association. The term also designates the social organization of Sufis. Scholarly definitions of this organization vary, depending on the historical context and the actors involved. Arthur Buehler has written that ‘often tarîqa is translated as “order,” that is, a group of persons living under a religious rule or Christian monastic order like the order of St. Benedict. Yet defining a tarîqa as an “order” fails to communicate the ad hoc organizational style of the Sufis based on initiatic chains (silsilas) which, in turn, are based on a succession of pirs [spiritual masters] who have guided disciples according to defined spiritual methods. Moreover, the use of “brotherhood” to describe a Sufi lineage ignores the many women participants in Sufi tarîqas’.3 By contrast, the term ‘confraternity’ or ‘brotherhood’ seems particularly ap­ pro­priate for many Sufi groups in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Central Asia, and the Naqshbandiyya in particular. Like the devotional brotherhoods of medieval or early modern Europe, these Sufi associations were structured around the values of masculine solidarity and paternalism and used a rich vocabulary of symbolic kinship: members were fathers, sons, and brothers to each other.4 They performed fraternal rituals and practices and they all swore allegiance to one master.5 The lay members came from various social classes, and could include quasi2 

Gilliot, Exégèse, langue et théologie en islam, p. 91. Buehler, Sufi Heirs of the Prophet, p. 97, n. 43. 4  See Vincent, Les Confréries médiévales dans le royaume de France, and Froeschlé-Chopard, Dieu pour tous et Dieu pour soi. 5  See also Weismann, The Naqshbandiyya, pp. 9–10, who explains that ‘brotherhood refers to a group of followers who are united around their master, and by extension with their entire 3 

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clerical members called ‘ulamâ’ (unlike some European brotherhoods). Some brotherhoods were organized around a spiritual guide who was considered a living saint. The aim of these associations was not only devotional but also mystical. In the case of fifteen- and sixteenth-century Central Asia, we shall see that lay-clerical relations within Sufi brotherhoods were linked to the relationships between dervishes and non-dervishes, that is, the relationship between those who supported a particular Sufi group or master and those who rejected them. At the heart of these complex relations was the political power embodied by the sultan. For initiatic brotherhoods competing with non-initiated clerics, the sultan’s support was often vital. Particular sultans and dervishes often collaborated in the premodern Islamic Orient, a politico-religious phenomenon that historians can trace through hagiographical sources. Drawing on several biographical and legendary texts, for example, Jürgen Paul has discussed a number of these specific relations between rulers and their spiritual masters in fourteenth-century Central Asia.6 In the process of the Islamization of the steppe, Sufi masters called shaykhs belonging to different brotherhoods (such as the Yasawî, Kubrâwî, or Naqshbandî) helped secure the conversion to Islam of Turko-Mongol khans and sultans (such as Berke Khân or Tarmashîrîn). These Sufi masters also served as religious tutors for sovereigns and for the ruling elite in general, acting as mediators between rulers and ruled. In the course of Tamerlane’s rise to power, these masters played a new role that was more political yet also closer to the Turko-Mongol shaman. They functioned as the spiritual guides and guarantors of the conqueror, the king’s oracles and his intercessors with the supernatural world.7 The political involvement of these Sufi brothers was institutionalized in the name of an ideology that blended economic interests, peaceful idealism, the defence of Islam, and the promotion of sharî‘a. Lastly, it was not only the Sufi master but his tariqa, but also, in line with the Qur’anic injunction that “believers indeed are brothers,” with the Muslim community at large. Though admittedly gender biased, this concept does reflect the dominance of men in organized Sufism while leaving room for less visible sisterhoods’. Regarding European brotherhoods, it is worth noting that many of them admitted women among their members. 6  Paul, ‘Scheiche und Herrscher im Khanat Čaġatay’. 7  Jürgen Paul devoted a book to the social and political role of the Naqshbandiyya Sufi brotherhood in fifteenth-century Central Asia. Combined with epistolary sources, the Naqsh­ bandî hagiographies from the Timurid period describe the relation of protection and patronage (himâyat) existing between an important master like Khwâja ‘Ubayd Allâh Ahrâr and the powerful sultan Abû Sa‘îd. See Paul, Die politische und soziale Bedeutung der Naqšbandiyya, pp. 164–244. See also Gross, ‘Khoja Ahrar’, pp. 89–127.

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entire faction which was politically influential, intervening both with the sultan directly and with other senior members of the court, such as the high command and upper administration.8 Similar forms of collaboration between particular sultans and dervishes also occurred in the Ottoman Empire, as sultans regularly consulted these religious figures as personal advisors. In an important hagiography, for example, we read about the tumultuous though intimate relationship between Mehmet the Conqueror and ‘Othmân Baba.9 Wavering between the defence of the oppressed and the magical support of the mighty, the Sufi master (shaykh) appeared as a double of the sultan, so that the master’s miracles paralleled the sultan’s decisive acts (as, for instance, in the case of a miraculous demonstration of clairvoyance before the sultan’s failed assault on Belgrade in 1456). The sultan would regularly consult the dervish as a personal advisor, Indeed, at certain moments of imperial crisis, and especially when there was instability at the borders, Sufi masters and brothers even joined military operations as figures of moral support, as instigators, and occasionally as combatants.10 The sultans encouraged this politicization by surrounding themselves with spiritual counsellors who prepared books of advice advocating rigorous moral doctrines and general patterns of behaviour for their rulers.11 Offering advice to sultans was such an essential activity of Sufi religious authorities that it became the basis for a literary sub-genre: the Sufi Mirrors for Princes. Together with the numerous hagiographies written at the time, these books represent an important though often neglected source for the study of the interplay between religion and power in Islamic societies. In the following pages, I will explore sultan-dervish relations in sixteenth-century Central Asia using a Mirror for Princes that was written by a Sufi master of the Naqshbandî brotherhood. Rather than simply presenting the text, I will attempt to understand it as a mirror, offering a testimony 8 

For purposes of clarity, the faction is the tâ’îfa, the high command is the amîr, and the upper administration is the dîwân. 9  The contemporary hagiography was composed by Küçük Abdal. İnalcık, ‘Dervish and Sultan’. 10  Sixteenth-century Rumelia provides one example, and Nathalie Clayer, drawing on Münîrî Belgrâdî’s menâkıbnâme, has suggested that the Khalwatî Sufi shaykhs are examples of those brothers who join directly in military operations. See Clayer, ‘Les Miracles des cheikhs et leurs fonctions dans les espaces frontières’. 11  The text of Münîrî includes words of advice: similar to a book of advice (nasîhatnâme), the menâkıbnâme addresses the sultan directly with a firm moral doctrine that approaches a general behaviour pattern based on mystical values. Clayer, ‘Quand l’hagiographie se fait l’écho des dérèglements socio-politiques’.

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of its time, the vision of an ideal, and a process for making sense of events. This essay will detail the intrigues and struggles, both large and small, that characterized the prince’s court before identifying the historical actors involved, with a particular focus on religious figures. Finally, this article will consider the ways in which these actors spoke through the Mirror of Princes before drawing conclusions about the conceptions of power expressed in the text.

The Sultan, the Court, and the Advisors At the beginning of the sixteenth century, southern Central Asia was in the hands of the Uzbek khans of the Shaybânid dynasty.12 Two chiefs’ assemblies held in 1511 and 1512 divided the territory into four apanages ruled by four sultans: Bukhara, Samarkand, Miyânkâl, and Tashkent. While Samarkand was theoretically the capital city of the khanate, and Köchkünjî Muhammad was its supreme khan, in practice the four apanages were quasi-independent princely domains. Each of them minted it own coinage, governed its own territory, and conducted its own foreign policy. The ruling elite of the apanages was composed of three groups: the monarchs (khans or sultans) from the Chingizkhanid dynasty who held the sovereign power; the amîrs, who fulfilled military, judiciary, and administrative functions; and the men of letters, in charge of the law, religion, and education. To these primary groups should be added the religious scholars (caretakers of the holy places, poets, artists, and others) who, while they did not comprise a distinct group, were nonetheless very influential in the court.13 Tensions rose quickly between the sultans and among the elite, and often resulted in particular conflicts and incidents. One such incident occurred at the court of ‘Ubayd Allâh Sultân in Bukhara, although it also had repercussions in Tashkent.14 In 1514–15, the vizir of Bukhara faced opposition from a segment of the local elite. Despite the intervention by Mîr-i ‘Arab (the sultan’s spiritual advisor who lived in Saurân, in the Tashkent apanage) who came several times to Bukhara to support the vizir, the vizir fell into disgrace and was executed. 12 

See the historical sketch given by Bregel, An Historical Atlas of Central Asia, p. 52. The khans were of the Abûlkhayrid branch, and the assemblies (quriltây) of 1511 and 1512 assigned the apanage of Bukhara to ‘Ubayd Allâh Sultân, Samarkand to Köchkünjî Muhammad, Miyânkâl (south of Samarkand) to Jânî Bek, and Tashkent to Soyûnch Khwâja. The religious scholars often came from the Transoxanian great families, such as the Pârsâ’î in Balkh, the Ahrârî in Samarkand, or the Jûybârî in Bukhara. See McChesney, ‘Central Asia, vi’. 14  The dispute is related by historian Zayn al-Dîn Wâsifî; see Schwarz, ‘Unser Weg schließt tausend Wege ein’, pp. 76–79. 13 

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This, in turn, triggered the expropriation and expulsion of Mîr-i ‘Arab through a series of events engineered by another high-placed rival: a vizir who also headed the madrasa in Saurân. This dark affair of political rivalries caused quite a stir at the time and revealed the politicization of the religious authorities. From that point on, it was more common for spiritual advisors to seek to play with the ‘big boys’, that is, the vizirs and sultans. These religious figures often found themselves involved in complicated schemes of territorial ambition and power politics pursued by the ruling authorities, who sought to increase the power and predominance of their respective apanages.15 However, in addition to their appetites for influence and conquest, the stature, personalities, and real historical dimensions of the court’s members are worth examining. Individuals such as the sultan ‘Ubayd Allâh and his advisor Mîr-i ‘Arab are certainly exceptional figures, but in many ways they are also emblematic of the Central Asian high society of the sixteenth century. ‘Ubayd Allâh (d. 946 [Islamic calendar]/1540 [ Julian calendar]) was a skilful, powerful, and effective military chief whose power began to increase in the 1520s and 1530s.16 Successfully unifying the sultans of the neighbouring apanages in a series of campaigns against Safavid Iran, he became supreme khan in 1533 and retained this authority until 1539. In spite of continuous tensions in the khanate, ‘Ubayd Allâh’s military successes and his ability to unite rivals against a common Shiite enemy endowed his regime with a certain political stability; ‘Ubayd Allâh was a fervent Sunni Muslim.17 He was also a successful military leader, wellversed in classical and religious literature and a patron of Islamic arts and sciences, who restored the city of Bukhara to the splendour it had enjoyed under the medieval Timurid and who sheltered the exiled men of letters who were fleeing the Safavid advance.18 ‘Ubayd Allâh was a generous patron of book arts and architecture, and, following the Timurid model, his court financed the making, 15  The original shamed vizir of Bukhara was Khwâja Nizâm. The one who plotted Mîr-i ‘Arab’s fall was Khwâja Sultân Ibrâhîm, the administrator of the madrasa at Saurân, who was also the vizir of Tashkent’s sultan, Sôyûnch. 16  His complete name is ‘Ubayd Allâh ibn Mahmûd ibn Shâh Budaq, and he was a nephew of Muhammad Shaybânî. See Bosworth, The New Islamic Dynasties, p. 288. 17  One notices, with amusement, that the Sunni piety of ‘Ubayd Allâh was the target of mockery from the Safavid Shiite opponents. We know the case of a caricature (signed Âqâ Mîrak, a famous painter at the court of Shâh Tahmasp) of the Uzbek wearing a musical instrument and a flask of alcohol. See the portrait reproduced in Matthee, The Pursuit of Pleasure, p. 78. 18  ‘Ubayd Allâh’s policies recovered the Timurid Khurasanian heritage to the detriment of Samarkland; Schwarz, ‘Unser Weg schließt tausend Wege ein’, pp. 82–85.

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collecting, and keeping of rare books in order to build up a royal library.19 A prestigious school of miniatures also developed under his aegis.20 In 1535–36, ‘Ubayd Allâh built a monumental madrasa in Bukhara in honour of Mîr-i ‘Arab himself and as a counterpoint to the madrasa of Saurân. The institution stood as a lasting symbol of the alliance between ruling sultan and spiritual advisor, and the funerary monuments of both men were eventually erected on the grounds of this madrasa.21 Mîr-i ‘Arab, the sultan’s partner in this politico-religious alliance, was an Arab sayyid (descendant of the Prophet) who arrived in Central Asia from Yemen in the 1490s.22 He left the Arabian Peninsula as a young man after a spiritual crisis and joined a master of the Naqshbandî brotherhood.23 At Bukhara, Mîr-i ‘Arab enjoyed a close relationship with the khan Muhammad Shaybânî, and he took part in preparations for military conquest. He settled at Saurân, not far from Turkistân, but kept in contact with Bukhara and the sultan ‘Ubayd Allâh, eventually becoming the sultan’s chief counsellor. Some sources even describe the sultan as Mîr-i ‘Arab’s disciple (murîd). Thanks to comfortable incomes from property, Mîr-i ‘Arab was able to involve himself deeply in political intrigue and the life of the court. In 1512, he distinguished himself in the struggle against the Safavid incursion in Ghijduwân. He also built an irrigation network at Saurân and patronized intellectuals.24 Naturally, Mîr-i ‘Arab’s swift ascent aroused the envy of others, and (as noted above) several of these enemies conspired to have him deported in 1514. Yet his expulsion was to be short-lived. Mîr-i ‘Arab returned to Bukhara in 1515, under the protection of ‘Ubayd Allâh himself. The details of the final years of the spiritual advisor’s life are not well-known, and even the date and 19 

The great library of the Sufi scholar Khwâja Muhammad Pârsâ had existed as early as the fourteenth century (Dodkhudaeva, ‘La Bibliothèque de Khwâja Mohammad Pârsâ’). 20  Porter, ‘Remarques sur la peinture à Boukhara’; see also Bahari, ‘The Sixteenth-Century School of Bukhara Painting’. 21  This is a relatively common practice in Central Asia. Paul, ‘Scheiche und Herrscher im Khanat Čaġatay’, p. 278, mentions several examples: Tarmerlane buried with Sayyid Baraka, Taragay with Shams al-Dîn Kulâl, Buyân Qulî Khân with Sayfuddîn Bâkharzî. 22  I use the biographical data for Mîr-i ‘Arab, whose original name is Shams al-Dîn ‘Abdallâh al-‘Arabî al-Yamanî al-Hadramawtî, as given in Schwarz, ‘Unser Weg schließt tausend Wege ein’, pp. 119–21, and in Dzhuraeva, ‘Mir-i Arab i politicheskaja zhizn’ v bukhare v xvi veke’. 23  The master he joined was Khwâja Ahrâr, and while it seems that he became his disciple, his affiliation to the Ahrârî branch is not established. 24  Among the intellectuals he patronized were Shams al-Dîn Muhammad and the historian Zayn al-Dîn Wâsifî.

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circumstances of his death remain murky. He may have been murdered between 1530 and 1534, a victim of rivalries among the members of the religious elite. It is true that there was a fierce struggle for influence between religious authorities in the court of ‘Ubayd Allâh Khân, and contemporary sources attest to the open conflict between at least one of these authorities and Mîr-i ‘Arab.25 Yet we cannot content ourselves with interpreting the facts only in terms of competition and political interest. The individuals involved were remarkably complex, and cannot be simply categorized as despots or courtiers. Further, the stakes involved cannot be pithily summed up as purely the temptation of power — it is what the power signified that is of interest to us here. Why were the religious authorities so heavily involved at the court? What explains the evident penchant of sultans for spiritual masters? Which conceptions of power justify the transition from religious authority to political authority? With these questions in mind, it is worth considering the relationship between the sultan ‘Ubayd Allâh and another religious leader, whose influence comes to rival and then eclipse that of Mîr-i ‘Arab: a dervish of the Naqshbandî brotherhood named Ahmad Kâsânî Dahbidî.

The Sultan and the Sufi The dervish Ahmad Kâsânî (1461–1542) was a central and well-known figure in sixteenth-century Central Asia.26 After obtaining the title of spiritual supervisor (irshâd), he settled at Kâsân, near Samarkand, and exerted an influence over Bukhara and the Ferghana valley. When his master passed away, he became extremely powerful within the Naqshbandiyya brotherhood. At the same time, he launched his politico-religious career.27 In 1524–25, the sultan Jânî Bek (r. 1526–29) offered Kâsânî a place of residence in his apanage. The dervish regularly gave sermons, led spiritual discussion sessions (suhbat), and often visited dignitaries of the ruling Shaybânid dynasty. Several sources consider sultan Jânî Bek to have been a follower of Ahmad Kâsânî, and at the very least, the sultan 25 

Among the possible rivals were two others shaykhs in the court of the Bukharan sultan: Ahmad Kâsânî Dahbîdî and, more occasionally, his disciple Ahmad Jûybârî. 26  His complete name was Sayyid Jalâl al-Dîn Khwâjagî Ahmad Kâsânî Dahbidî, also known as Makhdûm-i A‘zam, and he was a Naqshbandî shaykh, trained at the madrasa; his initiatic lineage goes back to Khwâja ‘Ubayd Allâh Ahrâr (d. 1490) through the master Muhammad Qâzî (d.  1515–16). For his biography, I have referred to the following works: Babajanov, ‘Makhdum-i A‘zam’, and the brief notice in Nawshâhî, Dânishnâma-yi âdab-i fârsî. 27  I have used the data given in the dissertation of Babajanov, ‘Politicheskaja dejatel’nost’ shajkov nakshbandija v maverannakhre’, pp. 94–106.

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asked the dervish to write a treatise on the succession of spiritual masters in the Naqshbandî brotherhood.28 Knowledge — this is the key to understanding the relationship between the Shaybânid sultans and Ahmad Kâsânî. The dervish saint made predictions, miraculously cured the Bukharan sultan ‘Ubayd Allâh, blessed the armies that besieged the city of Andijan in 1526, and interceded with God to ensure victory over the Safavids during the 1528 Khurasan campaign.29 Yet Ahmad Kâsânî was characterized less by these legendary accomplishments recorded in the hagiography than by his Sufi intellectual status. As a master of the Naqshbandiyya brotherhood, he followed the tradition of being a scholar well-versed in the classical disciplines. He wrote approximately thirty treatises (risâla) in Persian, of variable length and covering every traditional Sufi topic.30 This is a body of literature not notable for its originality; in his treatises, Ahmad Kâsânî reasserted the arguments of the medieval members of the Naqshbandiyya brotherhood. The writings of the dervish also reflect the constant contact he had with the sultan ‘Ubayd Allâh. As observed above, the sultan actively patronized arts and letters at his court and was a well-read sovereign on the model of the medieval Timurid kings. He devoted himself to mystical poetry and composed verses and quatrains that he sent to Ahmad Kâsânî so that the dervish could comment on them and give his gloss. Their correspondence resulted in a brief treatise, and Ahmad Kâsânî composed nearly ten other treatises for the sultan.31 28 

The residence given by Jânî Bek was at Karmîna, along the Zarafshân River. The treatise commissioned by the sultan was the Rîsâla-yi bayân-i silsila, and for Jânî Bek’s son he also composed an essay entitled Gul-i nawrûz. See Pazhûhandeh, ‘Gul-i nawrûz’. 29  For the details, see the hagiography (in particular, al-Baqâ, Jâmi‘ al-maqâmât and al-Kîshî, Silsilat al-siddiqîn wa anis al-‘âshiqîn) and the chronicles (mainly Bukhârî Hâfiz, Sharafnâma-yi shâhî, ed. by Salahetdinova). 30  These treatises deal with such topics as adab, dhikr, samâ‘, murîd/murshid, kalîmât-i qudsiyya, and wujûdiyya, and have been collected in compendiums called Majmû‘a-yi rasâ’îl. There are numerous manuscript copies of this collection, preserved in various libraries. I have used two: İstanbul, Üniv. Kütüphanesi, MS FY 649, dated 997–98/1589–90 (I thank Necdet Tosun who provided me with a copy of this manuscript); Tashkent, Sharqshunoslik Inst., MS IVAN Uz 1443, dated 1134/1721. This second codex (and a third one under the reference Kattakhanov MS, private collection) is accessible, although not as a critical edition, in the dissertation of Gardner, ‘The Written Representation of a Central Asian Ṣūfī Shaykh’. The Tashkent copy (MS 1443) is less reliable than the Istanbul manuscript (MS 649). 31  The treatise that arose from the correspondence was the Risâla-yi sharh-i rubâ‘iyât-i ‘ubayd allâh khân (İstanbul, Üniv. Kütüphanesi, MS FY 649, fols 146a–52b; Dahbidî, Risâla-yi sharh-i rubâ‘iyât, ed. by Sirâj). On the Shaybânid poets, including sultans, see Erkinov, ‘The Poetry of the Nomads and Shaybani Rulers’. More generally, there is much to say about the

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This was an intellectual relationship suffused with Sufism, for from a religious point of view, the sultan became the student and disciple of the dervish. Like every other disciple, he was required to follow the mystical path under the supervision of his master. The relationship was so close that Ahmad Kâsânî claimed he stayed next to the sultan night and day. He sought to lead his ruler to the abandonment of the world and the ‘absolute annihilation in God’ (fanâ-yi mutlâq). The roles seemed to reverse: while the king was required to renounce the world, the Sufi saint became more and more involved in temporal affairs. Hence, while he served as the sultan’s closest spiritual guide, Ahmad Kâsânî consolidated his position at the court and among the elite, influencing the sultan’s decisions and even going so far as to dismiss his opponents. Among this list of enemies we find Mîr-i ‘Arab, although the Sufi master’s responsibility for Mîr-i ‘Arab’s misfortunes and final fall from grace remains difficult to prove. Upon the death of the sultan ‘Ubayd Allâh, Ahmad Kâsânî carried on his activities at the court of the sultan’s son and successor, ‘Abd al-‘Azîz.

A Sufi Mirror for Princes It was not a very common practice among Sufis to write treatises of advice for sultans. Most such manuals were written by high-placed administration members who were anxious to offer their knowledge in service of the supreme political power. As works of moral literature, these books of advice (nasîhatnâmes) described ‘the way of practicing morality proper to princes’ and represented ‘acts of hope and expressions of an ideal, that of the traditional ethic applied to princes’.32 Therefore, their authors were more often moralists than mystics. Nonetheless, the most learned among the Sufis sometimes favoured this form of moral or normative discourse, called the adab, and between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, several leading Sufis had even composed texts known as Mirrors for Princes.33 political role of poets and poetry at the court as well as authors of allegorical mirrors for princes, comparable to what occurred at the European courts in the late Middle Ages. On this question, see Blanchard, ‘L’Entrée du poète dans le champ politique’. 32  Fouchécour, Moralia, pp. 357, 367. Chapter 4 (pp. 357–440) is entirely devoted to the Mirrors for Princes. 33  The most brilliant and most studied examples are Ghazâlî, Nasîhat al-mulûk (d. 1111); al-Râzî, Mirshâd al-‘ibâd min al-mabdâ’ ilâ al-ma‘âd (d.  1256); and, by the Kubrâwî Sufi Hamadânî, Dhakhîrat al-mulûk, ed. by Anvârî (d. 1385). Bosworth, ‘Naṣīḥat al-Mulūk’. In his notice, the author mentions the Sulûk al-mulûk written by the polygraph Fazl Allâh Rûzbihân

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Ahmad Kâsânî, who also authored adab treatises, wrote two books of advice, but this paper shall focus only on the second one: the Treatise of Advice to Sultans (Risâla-yi tanbîh al-salâtîn).34 It was written in 1530–32 and was most likely intended for the sultan ‘Ubayd Allâh. Quite classically, the treatise opens with the narrative of the creation of the world, followed by the creation of Adam and Eve, whose children populated earth.35 At this moment, ‘God made Adam his caliph and the sovereign (pâdishâh) of his children’, and ‘Adam was in charge of the caliphate until the world became entirely inhabited’. Adam exercised power (dawlat) ‘in absolute servitude and submission’ (‘biwâsat-i kamâl-i bandagî wa niyâz gûy’) which delighted God.36 We can already see the paradox of power exercised in submission. This conception of man’s power submitted to God is not original, and corresponds to a fundamental teaching in Islam, yet in this case it has an unexpected theoretical consequence. After Adam, God gave during each period and to each people a child whom the people were to make the caliph and sovereign, since ‘the rule (sunna) of Allah established that mankind could not exist without a sovereign’.37 The notion that government is necessary among mankind is another classical Islamic principle. The sovereign was also a caliph, that is to say, elected by and representing God. This meant that he had to be worthy of his role: he needed to demonstrate his abilities for both justice and compassion (dâd û ‘adl u shafaqat) and, if need be, severity and anger (qahr u ghazab). Further, a caliph was to be equitable (tarâzû’î) with those he governed. Ahmad Kâsânî penned a quatrain that memorably underscored this reality and the relations it expressed: the poem notes that sovereigns reflect God’s sovereignty just as scholars reflect God’s knowledge, as the just reflect God’s justice, and as the beautiful reflect Gods’ beauty.38 Khunjî at the intention of ‘Ubayd Allâh Sultân. But this text is not a Mirror for Princes; it is a juridical treatise. See Lambton, State and Government in Medieval Islam, p. 180. 34  The other was entitled Risâla-yi zubdat al-sâlikîn wa tanbîh al-salâtîn. Both risâla have been edited (non-critical) in Cyrillic characters under the reference: Dahbedi, Zubdat us-solikin va tanbijat us-salotin, ed. by Khilatpur. The Risâla-yi tanbîh al-salâtîn has been translated into Russian in Dahbidî, Risâla-yi tanbîh al-salâtîn, trans. by Babajanov. 35  İstanbul, Üniv. Kütüphanesi, MS FY 649, fols 113r–14r; Tashkent, Sharqshunoslik Inst., MS IVAN Uz 1443, fols 164v–65v. 36  İstanbul, Üniv. Kütüphanesi, MS FY 649, fol.  114 r  (missing passage in Tashkent, Sharqshunoslik Inst., MS IVAN Uz 1443). 37  İstanbul, Üniv. Kütüphanesi, MS FY 649, fol. 114r; Tashkent, Sharqshunoslik Inst., MS IVAN Uz 1443, fol. 166r. 38  İstanbul, Üniv. Kütüphanesi, MS FY 649, fol. 114v; Tashkent, Sharqshunoslik Inst., MS IVAN Uz 1443, fol. 166v.

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Ahmad Kâsânî adds that sovereigns are also the substitutes of the Prophet of Allah, Muhammad (nâ’ib-i manâb-i ân hazrat).39 They must pursue his task of mercy (marhamat), but more essentially, they must aim to ‘spread the Muhammadan Law and Path’ (‘tarwîj-i sharî‘at wa tarîqat-i muhammadî’).40 This notion of propagation and promotion of sharî‘a and tarîqa is the treatise’s leitmotif. It conveys the Sunni orthodoxy proper to the Naqshbandiyya brotherhoods, especially in the context of the struggle against the Shiites in the sixteenth century. It also provides for the purpose of political power by linking it to the end of the human experience: spreading the Law and the Path must be the aim of any political action, since these two ideals are ‘the perfection of man’ (kamâl-i âdam). This virtuous exercise of man’s worldly government must benefit the people in general and the dervishes in particular (ra‘âyâ wa darwîshân-i wilâyat-i îshân), writes Ahmad Kâsânî.41 If the king is benevolent with the ‘men of the path’ (ahl-i tarîq), these men will then join him and choose his kingdom to ‘improve the lineage of spiritual masters and the veneration of God’ (‘warzish-i în nisbat-i sharîf wa ‘ibâdat-i khâdawand-i khûd’).42 Ahmad Kâsânî illustrates his argument by describing the times of a shaykh active over a century earlier, Khwâja Muhammad Pârsâ (d. 1420). A new sultan who was sympathetic to Sufis allowed the formerly censored shaykh of the Naqshbandî brotherhood to teach Sufism at the mosque, underscoring how crucial royal support was to the activity of the mystics.43 But Ahmad Kâsânî goes further and states that it was imperative that ‘the ruler should be a faithful follower of their brotherhood, should even be their support and mainstay’ (mumidd û mu‘âwin); ‘otherwise, there will be enormous difficulties’ (wagarna bighâyat-i mushkil ast).44 The people were often ignorant: they rejected Sufis, denied their spirituality, and oppressed the brotherhood. Only the sultan, once he was convinced of the brotherhood’s value, was able to secure its perpetu39 

İstanbul, Üniv. Kütüphanesi, MS FY 649, fol.  114 v (missing passage in Tashkent, Sharqshunoslik Inst., MS IVAN Uz 1443). 40  İstanbul, Üniv. Kütüphanesi, MS FY 649, fol. 115r; Tashkent, Sharqshunoslik Inst., MS IVAN Uz 1443, fol. 167r. 41  This is embodied by the famous example of Sultân Ibrâhîm b. Adham. 42  İstanbul, Üniv. Kütüphanesi, MS FY 649, fol. 115 r–v; Tashkent, Sharqshunoslik Inst., MS IVAN Uz 1443, fol. 167r–v. 43  İstanbul, Üniv. Kütüphanesi, MS FY 649, fol. 115v; Tashkent, Sharqshunoslik Inst., MS IVAN Uz 1443, fol. 167v. According to Bakhtyar Babajanov, the sultan might be Mîrza Ûlûgh Bek (1409–49). 44  İstanbul, Üniv. Kütüphanesi, MS FY 649, fol. 116r; Tashkent, Sharqshunoslik Inst., MS IVAN Uz 1443, fol. 168r.

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ity. If he fought for it, no one would oppose it. In support of his case, Ahmad Kâsânî quotes another authority who had written: ‘We must get closer to the sovereigns of the time’ (‘bâyast ikhtilât bi pâdishâhân-i ân zamân kard’).45 In addition to the Quran and hadîth, Ahmad Kâsânî quotes several great authorities of the Naqshbandiyya brotherhood. Like a good disciple who had himself become a master, he often cites his former master, Muhammad Qâzî.46 In this context, he relates several accounts that illustrate the necessity of royal patronage. On one occasion, the shaykh al-islâm (comparable to the mufti) of the city of Herat had asked Muhammad Qâzî to send him a letter that would explain the principles of the Naqshbandiyya brotherhood. The master first sent a letter, and then sent his disciple, Ahmad Kâsânî, to Herat to gather more information about the situation. What the disciple found was that the Naqshbandiyya brotherhood was in fact very popular in the Herat region, yet the shaykh al-islâm who had written the letter was opposed to its activities. In another example dating from shortly after the conquest of Shâsh (present-day Tashkent), the sultan, who supported the Naqshbandiyya brotherhood, asked Muhammad Qâzî to bring his companions to Bukhara. The master sent them and initiated the sultan into Naqshbandî Sufism. The king proved to be a great Sufi. His great spirituality led ‘the princes (mawâlî) of this time as well as many other people (mardumân) to join the path and to apply its principles’.47 After this sultan’s death, ‘Ubayd Allâh, the one for whom Ahmad Kâsânî was writing, ascended the throne. Some opponents at court spread the rumour that the new sultan was not linked to the Naqshbandiyya brotherhood and claimed that he had banned any discussion (guft û shunîd) of the brotherhood’s doctrine. Fortunately, the sultan issued an edict confirming both that it was allowable to speak about the doctrine, and also that he himself was loyal to Muhammad Qâzî: ‘I am a follower of this lineage and of Khwâja ‘Ubayd Allâh Ahrâr, and, if I have any problem or concern, I turn to him so that he appears and favours my project’.48 Nonetheless, Muhammad Qâzî did not explain the difficult ideas of the Naqshbandiyya brotherhood to the 45 

The authority being quoted here was Khwâja ‘Ubayd Allâh Ahrâr, in İstanbul, Üniv. Kütüphanesi, MS FY 649, fol.  116 v; Tashkent, Sharqshunoslik Inst., MS IVAN Uz 1443, fol. 169r (truncated version). 46  On this person, see the notice by Babajanov, ‘Muhammad Kazi’; also Schwarz, ‘Unser Weg schließt tausend Wege ein’, pp. 134–38. 47  This sultan was Mahmûd Sultân (d. 1504). İstanbul, Üniv. Kütüphanesi, MS FY 649, fol. 118r–v; Tashkent, Sharqshunoslik Inst., MS IVAN Uz 1443, fol. 171r. 48  İstanbul, Üniv. Kütüphanesi, MS FY 649, fols 118v–19r; Tashkent, Sharqshunoslik Inst., MS IVAN Uz 1443, fol. 171v.

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sultan, but only spoke of them in general terms. Even when discussing these ideas very broadly, he purposefully left the books that explained them at home, this in order to avoid hostility towards the brotherhood.49 Quoting his master Muhammad Qâzî, our author Ahmad Kâsânî concludes that ‘As long as a sovereign does not support the brotherhood and its doctrine, one cannot promote the lineage of spiritual masters, and the quarrels arise among the brotherhood itself ’. Muhammad Qâzî’s experience showed, first of all, that when dealing with the politically powerful and with religious authorities it was necessary to handle the Sufi spiritual teachings cautiously and to go no further than the orthodox literature. Second, the story taught that the sultan’s support of the dervish was essential in many respects: to defend him against opponents and censors, to protect the brotherhood’s unity, and to spread Sufism. Third, Muhammad Qâzî’s example showed that the best way to obtain the sultan’s backing was to initiate him to Sufism and integrate him to the brotherhood. Another lesson was implicit in Muhammad Qâzî’s experience. Sultan ‘Ubayd Allâh’ had adopted a saying that called on the saints of the Naqshbandî brotherhood when he was in difficulty. On several occasions, the Treatise of Advice to Sultans emphasizes that to support the Naqshbandî brotherhood was to be supported by God, ‘since whatever happens to the ruler and to other people — power and fortune, adversity and misery, divine grace and benevolence — all this happens only thanks to the Sufi saints’ existence’.50 One must not interpret such a statement as simple self-promotion by the Naqshbandîs to win court favour, brandishing the magical threat of the saints in case of disgrace. Here we are dealing with a system of representation, a belief shared by a large part of society, according to which the saints were God’s intermediaries on earth, making it therefore imperative to defend them. Likewise, one should not reduce this call for the support of the Naqshbandîs to a call for the protection of a particular threatened brotherhood. To support the Naqshbandîs was not simply to help Sufis; it was to work for the Muhammadan Law and Path and to defend Islam. It gives a meaning to political action.51 49 

The account notes that ‘Muhammad Qâzî did not explain the difficult ideas of the Naqshbandiyya, and spoke only of Imâm Ghazâlî’s books and the Quran’s commentary (tafsîr) of Qâzî Baydawî’. İstanbul, Üniv. Kütüphanesi, MS FY 649, fol. 119r ; Tashkent, Sharqshunoslik Inst., MS IVAN Uz 1443, fols 171v–72r. 50  ‘Bi wâsita-yi wujûd-i sharîf-i îshân’; see İstanbul, Üniv. Kütüphanesi, MS FY 649, fol. 116r; Tashkent, Sharqshunoslik Inst., MS IVAN Uz 1443, fol. 168r. 51  ‘He [Khwâja Ahrâr] had to get closer to the rulers of the time in order to, thanks to their help, make everything possible to spread the Muhammadan Law and Path at this time’; İstanbul,

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The Dervish Sultan The Treatise of Advice for Sultans reflects another image, that of the author Ahmad Kâsânî himself. He reminds Sultan ‘Ubayd Allâh’ that he came ‘to this noble place’ (Bukhara) because the country was living ‘in vice and immorality (fisq û fujûr), in oppression (zulm), and [because] the Muslims were living in discord’; ‘there it was impossible to improve and to spread the Muhammadan Law and Path’ (‘warzish û tarwîj-i sharî‘at wa tarîqat-i muhammadî’). Ahmad Kâsânî gives an idealized image of a spiritual master who came to aid Muslims and Sufism. According to the ‘great masters’,52 three things are indeed ‘necessary in order that the followers of the Path can take it with no danger’: fraternity (ikhwân), place (makân), and time (zamân). These three general conditions are necessary for the fulfilment of Sufism and Islam.53 Fraternity means that the community of companions (jamâ‘at-i yârân) is unanimous (yakdil), resolute (yakjihat) and united (yak nisbat) […]. Place means a place where Sufis can devote themselves during years to the lineage of masters and to immerse themselves in spiritual discussions […]. Time means that Sufis must stay firm (bar qarâr) on the Path, and that the time events (hâdithat-yi zamân) should not lead to discord or any trouble among men. 54

In other words, the practice of Sufism is only possible with a particular people, in a particular place, and at a particular time. Mysticism can only be fulfilled when these three conditions are satisfied. This is the fundamental contingency of spirituality in Islam, according to the Naqshbandî author. There is no predicted outcome to the contingency of this world, yet there are two men who can take concerted action to avoid it: the dervish and the sultan. Ahmad Kâsânî recounts in detail the circumstances of his coming to Bukhara. He saw that this region was at fault (khatâ), for although ‘it was a place of election for the Muhammadan Law and Path, it was in a period of desolation (kharâb)’. He did not hear that the ruler had the ambition (himmat) to act against this Üniv. Kütüphanesi, MS FY 649, fol. 117r; Tashkent, Sharqshunoslik Inst., MS IVAN Uz 1443, fol. 169r. 52  Kâsânî does not give any name. He restricts himself to quoting verses from Mawlânâ Rûmî’s Mathnawî. 53  İstanbul, Üniv. Kütüphanesi, MS FY 649, fol. 119 r–v; Tashkent, Sharqshunoslik Inst., MS IVAN Uz 1443, fol. 172r–v. 54  İstanbul, Üniv. Kütüphanesi, MS FY 649, fol. 119r; Tashkent, Sharqshunoslik Inst., MS IVAN Uz 1443, fol. 172r.

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situation, yet he knew that ‘the support for these kind of religious affairs depends upon the rulers’ (‘chûnki tarwîj-i în amr-i sharîf ta‘alluq bipâdishâhân dârad’).55 One day, however, his companions brought him good news regarding the sultanate. ‘Conditions were satisfied so that the Muhammadan Law could be applied’, since the new sultan ‘Ubayd Allâh was acting to eradicate the causes of sin (asbâb-i fisq). The people charged with keeping public order (muhtasibân) enforced the law, and the king himself was ‘a follower of the dervishes and their spiritual path’.56 This last point was a cardinal one: with the sultan being a friend of the dervishes (darwîsh dûst) and endowed with a generosity of spirit (himmat-i ‘âlî), the conditions were in place so that the Muhammadan Path — not only the Law — could be applied, asserts Ahmad Kâsânî. Here, the ideal of sultandervish collaboration finds its most complete expression: the sultan becomes the dervish of the dervish and the dervish becomes the sultan of the sultan. When the king becomes Sufi, he must be under the supervision of a master, whereas the latter, if he wants the sharî‘a and the tarîqa to be applied, must have a king under his supervision. Ahmad Kâsânî writes that ‘the great masters claimed that, to promote the lineage of masters, the disciple must accomplish three things: fraternity, place, and time. I say that the master should accomplish four things to promote the lineage of masters: fraternity, place, time, and khan’. 57 With this, the sultan’s ideal and the dervish’s ideal could converge beyond the world’s contingency. Their collaboration therefore advanced the creation of a society founded upon the Islamic law, and conducted on the mystical path. The Treatise of Advice to Sultans again takes a moral tone by alluding to ambition and generosity of spirit (himmat). This notion, traditional in Persian Mirrors for Princes, encompassed several distinct meanings: the Arabic term refers to the intention, the aiming, the plan; it denotes the idea of thinking big, of distancing oneself, of ‘aiming for the highest point’.58 Instead of providing a precise content, the thinker makes it a cardinal virtue of the king in the sense that himmat comes to characterize all his acts. Sociability, activity, discourses — all of these things depend on good intentions. For his part, Ahmad Kâsânî does 55 

İstanbul, Üniv. Kütüphanesi, MS FY 649, fol. 119v; Tashkent, Sharqshunoslik Inst., MS IVAN Uz 1443, fol. 172v. 56  İstanbul, Üniv. Kütüphanesi, MS FY 649, fol. 119v; Tashkent, Sharqshunoslik Inst., MS IVAN Uz 1443, fol. 173r. 57  İstanbul, Üniv. Kütüphanesi, MS FY 649, fol. 120v; Tashkent, Sharqshunoslik Inst., MS IVAN Uz 1443, fol. 174v. 58  See Fouchécour, Moralia, pp. 406–08. Al-Ghazâlî also emphasized this moral concept in his Mirror for Princes, the aforementioned Nasîhat al-mulûk.

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not propose any taxonomy of virtues; he rather underlines himmat to describe the sultan’s spiritual value, emphasizing the point through a historical narrative. When he had first arrived in Bukhara, Kâsânî made enquiries among the city’s respected religious figures (‘azîzân) about the ‘noble nature’ of the sultan, that is, his himmat. He writes: ‘I was hoping that his noble nature would influence the ordinary people (ra‘âyâ wa fuqarâ’) of the province’.59 We see here a vertical scheme for the diffusion of Sufism that is based on the pair of sultan-dervish acting as exemplars that an entire society could follow, if not imitate. Kâsânî then compares ‘Ubayd Allâh Sultân favourably with his father Mahmûd Sultân, claiming that the former surpasses the latter in knowledge (‘ilm) and in his support of the Muhammadan Law and Path: At this time [under Mahmûd’s rule], drinking establishments (bûza khâna), vice and immorality (fisq û fujûr) were everywhere. Thank God, now it is over, and there is hope that the Muhammadan Path will become sooner or later the rule (shart) […] there is hope that, if God wishes, sooner or later this new order (sikka) is in force at Bukhara, thanks to the generosity of spirit (himmat-i ‘âlî) of dervishes and their beloved sultan ‘Ubayd Allâh Khân.60

This is what the dervish expects from the exercise of the sultan’s will: applying Islamic law rigorously and imposing the moral and religious model of Naqshbandî Sufism on society at large. By comparing the two sultans, the author also implicitly compares the Sufi dervishes of the Naqshbandî brotherhood who had worked with them: Muhammad Qâzî paired with Mahmûd Sultân, and Ahmad Kâsânî himself paired with ‘Ubayd Allâh Sultân. In addition to the aforementioned criticisms of the former pair, Kâsânî had written earlier that the dervish ‘Muhammad Qâzî did not explain the difficult ideas of the Naqshbandiyya and spoke only of Imâm Ghazâlî’s books and the Quran’s commentary (tafsîr) of Qâzî Baydawî’.61 With his sultan-disciple ‘Ubayd Allâh, the master Ahmad Kâsânî believed that he would be able to go further in the process of mystical initiation by composing a Mirror for Princes whose spiritual value would far surpass the traditional text by Ghazâlî, the Nasîhat almulûk. Kâsânî’s own treatise is less a moral account than an attempt to convert 59 

İstanbul, Üniv. Kütüphanesi, MS FY 649, fol. 120r; Tashkent, Sharqshunoslik Inst., MS IVAN Uz 1443, fol. 173v. 60  İstanbul, Üniv. Kütüphanesi, MS FY 649, fol. 120v; Tashkent, Sharqshunoslik Inst., MS IVAN Uz 1443, fol. 174r–v. 61  İstanbul, Üniv. Kütüphanesi, MS FY 649, fol. 119r; Tashkent, Sharqshunoslik Inst., MS IVAN Uz 1443, fols 171v–72r.

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the sultan to mysticism. The virtue of himmat described by Ghazâlî becomes, under Kâsânî’s pen, a mystical concept; it is the very name of the Sufi devotion of the Naqshbandî brotherhood that should haunt the king’s spirit.

The Empire of Devotions Ahmad Kâsânî’s Treatise of Advice to Sultans concludes with an explanatory appendix that expands on the concept of himmat. It suggests that generosity of spirit is fundamentally a form of devotion, rendering the great sultan the most devout follower of Islam. The complete argument runs as follows: Oh truthful disciples, be aware that devotion (‘ibâdat) includes the particular devotion of angels and men (jinn û ins), and the general devotion of beings. The particular devotion is exoteric and esoteric. The exoteric devotion performed by men is made of standing up (qiyâm), recitation (qirâ’at), genuflexion (rukû‘), prostration (sujûd) and other practices. The angels also perform each of these particular devotions — as is said, in genuflexion, prostration, etc. On the other hand, the esoteric devotion performed by men is made of knowledge (ma‘rifat). Several commentators consider this devotion as a knowledge; others think it goes through spiritual states (bar hâlash gudhashta and). Thus, devotion is exoteric and esoteric. The esoteric devotion includes the knowledge of God’s beauty and greatness (jamâl û jalâl-i haqq) since God has two qualities: the quality of beauty and the quality of greatness. Mankind is the receptacle (hâmil), the reunion (jâmi‘) and the manifestation (mazhar) of both qualities. [Whereas] the angels are only the receptacle and the manifestation of God’s beauty […]. This is why man is above the angels and every creature (makhlûqât).62

To sum up, exoteric devotion corresponds to rituals of the adoration of God while esoteric devotion corresponds to the intuitive knowledge of God. More than any other being, men are the agents of devotion in both forms. The sultan must be the most excellent of men in his devotion to God. It is devotion which directs his political action. In many respects, this definition of devotion as the destiny of the king removes this text from the genre of Mirrors for Princes. First, in Kâsânî’s text we do not read a series of political advice but rather an apology for the sovereign’s mysticism. Kâsânî further abandons moral discourse and instead insists on sharî‘a and tarîqa. Last but not least, we see here more generally the absolute negation of any 62 

İstanbul, Üniv. Kütüphanesi, MS FY 649, fol. 121r; Tashkent, Sharqshunoslik Inst., MS IVAN Uz 1443, fols 174v–75r.

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attempt at a secularization of politics. Unlike the medieval tradition of Islamic Mirrors for Princes — described by Jocelyne Dakhlia among others — there is no place given to politics as such.63 There is no autonomous conception of politics found in Kâsânî’s work. It is rather Islam, and more precisely the devotional form of the Sufi brotherhood, which defines the realm of politics. It is therefore tempting to confront the pairing of sultan and dervish with that of the sultan and vizir, for the latter pair was highlighted in the earlier Islamic Mirrors for Princes. In her book L’Empire des passions, Jocelyne Dakhlia continues her study of the commonplaces of politics in Islam by explaining that far from a so-called Oriental despotism, the Muslim world is characterized by a complex political history, in which the autocrat must continuously deal with his minister.64 The union of sultan and vizir, through its passions, its tragedies, and its incidents, revealed the nature of political life, full of crisis and opposing forces. We could consider making an analogy with the passions of sultans and dervishes. This union was no less free from violence or disastrous consequences. Yet it seems more relevant to imagine an ‘empire of devotions’ rather than an ‘empire of passions’, in the sense that mystical convergence rather than political divergence characterized the union of sultan and dervish. Indeed, as this article has demonstrated, both sultans and Sufis shared a common literary, religious, and spiritual culture, leading them to identify the aim of political power as the adoration of God. From this perspective, it would be valuable to undertake a broader study of the union of sultan and dervish that takes a much longer time span as its ambit. It might well be, for instance, that in certain periods and cases the pairing of sultan and dervish replaced that of sultan and vizir. At the very least, there could have been intense competition between both models within the twoheaded government. This would be a sign of the existence of two contradictory trends in the political history of Islam — on the one hand, a secularization or ‘autonomization’ of politics, and on the other hand, a spiritualization of politics — much like the two faces of a single mirror.

Conclusion: A Political Aporia in Islam In Ahmad Kâsânî’s Treatise of Advice to Sultans, a Sufi master of the Naqshbandî brotherhood lays out the terms by which the sultan can rise to the level of that brother­hood. If the main quality of the sovereign — his generosity of spirit 63  64 

Dakhlia, ‘Les Miroirs des Princes islamiques: une modernité sourde?’. Dakhlia, L’Empire des passions.

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— is proportional to his degree of devotion, then the sultan will be a dervish. Accordingly, if it is not proportional he will remain a political authority alone. The very model of the devout is the Sufi Naqshbandî brotherhood. Abandoning the moral and political field, Ahmad Kâsânî concludes his treatise with a description (and in truth, a very classical one) of the condition of the devout, This condition is primarily one of suffering (dard, alam, jigar sûkhta). The mystic is the one who is conscious of the separation from God.65 The sorrow that results from this suffering leads the Sufi to dedicate himself to devotions, which in turn make him suffer again, a dialectical suffering perhaps, which is nothing but the spiritual accomplishment.66 At this stage, the suffering becomes love (mahabbat, ‘ishq), which is the second phase of the devout condition.67 At the end of the mystical progression (sayr) stands the absolute love for God. Such is the paradoxical condition of the devout and the final definition of the sovereign. The sultan is, like the dervish, and indeed as a dervish himself, destined for beatitude within suffering, entirely devoted to the passion of God. Such an ideal of kingship generates paradoxical results. As an accomplished dervish under the supervision of his spiritual master, the sultan becomes involved in the world provided he renounces it. Moreover, he aspires to power only in the absolute submission to God. Acting entirely in the service of devotional Islam, the king embodies a fundamental political aporia that conceives power in powerlessness, sovereignty in servitude. According to the Sufi Naqshbandî brotherhood and their tradition of the spiritualization of politics, the most powerful man must be the most submissive. The mirror that Ahmad Kâsânî holds to sultan ‘Ubayd Allâh is contradictory in so far as it reflects the impossible image of a king naked in his renunciation of power.

65 

İstanbul, Üniv. Kütüphanesi, MS FY 649, fol. 121r; Tashkent, Sharqshunoslik Inst., MS IVAN Uz 1443, fol. 175r–v. 66  İstanbul, Üniv. Kütüphanesi, MS FY 649, fol. 121v; Tashkent, Sharqshunoslik Inst., MS IVAN Uz 1443, fol. 175v. 67  İstanbul, Üniv. Kütüphanesi, MS FY 649, fol. 122r; Tashkent, Sharqshunoslik Inst., MS IVAN Uz 1443, fol. 176r.

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Works Cited Manuscripts and Archival Resources İstanbul, Üniverstesi Kütüphanesi, MS FY 649 (dated ah 997–98/ad 1589–90) Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Ind. Inst. Pers. 118 (Abû al-Baqâ, Jâmi‘ al-maqâmât) Tashkent, Sharqshunoslik Instituti, MS IVAN Uz 622 (Dûst Muhammad al-Kîshî, Silsilat al-siddiqîn wa anis al-‘âshiqîn) Tashkent, Sharqshunoslik Instituti, MS IVAN Uz 1443 (dated ah 1134/ad 1721)

Primary Sources al-Baqâ, Jâmi‘ al-maqâmât, see Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Ind. Inst. Pers. 118 Bukhârî Hâfiz, Tânish, Sharafnâma-yi shâhî, ed. by M. A. Salahetdinova (Moskva: Nauka, 1983) Dahbedi, Makhdumi A’zami, Zubdat us-solikin va tanbijat us-salotin, ed. by Boturkhon Khilatpur (Samarqand: Sughdijon, 1994) Dahbidî, Ahmad Kâsânî, Risâla-yi sharh-i rubâ‘iyât-i ‘ubayd allâh khan, ed. by Sayyid Sirâj, Dânish, 54–55 (1998–99), 13–26 —— , Risâla-yi tanbîh al-salâtîn, trans. by Bakhtyar Babajanov, in Mudrost Sufiev (Sankt Peterburg: Azbuka, 2001), pp. 375–428 Ghazâlî, Abû Hamîd, Nasîhat al-mulûk, in Ghazali’s Book of Counsel for Kings, trans. by F. R. C. Bagley (London: Oxford University Press, 1964) Hamadânî, Sayyid ‘Alî, Dhakhîrat al-mulûk, ed. by Mahmûd Anvârî (Tehran: Mu’assasah-i târîkh wa farhang-i îrân, 1358 (ah)/1980 (ad)) al-Kîshî, Silsilat al-siddiqîn wa anis al-‘âshiqîn, see Tashkent, Sharqshunoslik Instituti, MS IVAN Uz 622 al-Râzî, Najm al-Dîn, Mirshâd al-‘ibâd min al-mabdâ’ ilâ al-ma‘âd, in The Path of God’s Bond­men from Origin to Return, trans. by Hamid Algar (North Haledon: Islamic Publi­ cations International, 1980)

Secondary Studies Babajanov, Bakhtyar, ‘Makhdum-i A‘zam’, in Islam na Territorii buvshej Rossiskoj imperii: Entsiklopedicheskij slovar I (Moskva: Izdatel’skaja firma ‘Vostochnaja literatura’, 2006), pp. 262–63 —— , ‘Muhammad Kazi’, in Islam na Territorii buvshej Rossiskoj imperii: Entsiklopedicheskij slovar I (Moskva: Izdatel’skaja firma ‘Vostochnaja literatura’, 2006), pp. 292–93 —— , ‘Politicheskaja dejatel’nost’ shajkov nakshbandija v maverannakhre (1 polovina xvi v.)’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Akademija Nauk Respubliki Uzbekistan, Institut Vostokovedenija imeni Abu Rajkhana Beruni, 1996) Bahari, Ebadollah, ‘The Sixteenth-Century School of Bukhara Painting and the Arts of the Book’, in Society and Culture in the Early Modern Middle East: Studies on Iran in

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the Safavid Period, ed. by Andrew J. Newman, Islamic History and Civilization, 46 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), pp. 251–64 Blanchard, Joël, ‘L’Entrée du poète dans le champ politique au xve siècle’, Annales: Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations, 41 (1986), 43–61 Bosworth, Clifford E., ‘Naṣīḥat al-Mulūk’, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edn, 12 vols (Leiden: Brill, 1980–2004), vii: Mif–Naz, 9 parts (1990–92), 984 —— , The New Islamic Dynasties: A Chronological and Genealogical Manual, 2nd edn (Edin­burgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004) Bregel, Yuri, An Historical Atlas of Central Asia, Handbuch der Orientalistik, 9: Sect. 8, Zentralasien (Leiden: Brill, 2003) Buehler, Arthur F., Sufi Heirs of the Prophet: The Indian Naqshbandiyya and the Rise of the Mediating Sufi Shaykh (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998) Chodkiewicz, Michel, ‘Quelques leçons du comparatisme’, in Histoire des hommes de Dieu dans l’islam et le christianisme, ed. by Dominique Iogna-Prat and Gilles Veinstein (Paris: Flammarion, 2003), pp. 279–86 Clayer, Nathalie, ‘Les Miracles des cheikhs et leurs fonctions dans les espaces frontières de la Roumélie du xvie siècle’, in Miracle et Karâma: Hagiographies médiévales comparées, ed. by Denise Aigle, Hagiographies médiévales comparés, 2 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000), pp. 435–58 —— , ‘Quand l’hagiographie se fait l’écho des dérèglements socio-politiques: Le Menâkîb­ nâme de Müniri Belgrâdî’, in Syncrétismes et hérésies dans l’Orient seldjoukide et otto­ man (xive–xviiie siècle), ed. by Gilles Veinstein, Collection Turcica, 9 (Leuven: Peeters, 2005), pp. 363–81 Dakhlia, Jocelyne, L’Empire des passions: L’arbitraire politique en Islam (Paris: Aubier, 2005) —— , ‘Les Miroirs des Princes islamiques: une modernité sourde?’, Annales: Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations, 57 (2002), 1191–1206 Dodkhudaeva, Lola, ‘La Bibliothèque de Khwâja Mohammad Pârsâ’, Cahiers d’Asie centrale, 5–6 (1998), 125–46 Dzhuraeva, G. A., ‘Mir-i Arab i politicheskaja zhizn’ v bukhare v xvi veke’, in Dukhovenstvo i politicheskaja zhizn’ na blizhkem i Srednem Vostoke v period feodalizma (Moskva: Nauka, 1985), pp. 74–79 Erkinov, Aftandil, ‘The Poetry of the Nomads and Shaybani Rulers in the Process of Transition to a Settled Society’, in Central Asia on Display: Proceedings of the vii Conference of the European Society for Central Asian Studies (27–30 September, 2000), ed. by Gabriele Rasuly-Paleczek and Julia Katsching, Vienna Central Asian Studies, 1 (Wien: Wiener Zentralasien Studien, 2005), pp. 145–50 Fouchécour, Charles-Henri de, Moralia: Les notions morales dans la littérature persane du 3e/9e au 7e/13e siècle (Paris: Recherche sur les civilisations, 1986) Froeschlé-Chopard, Marie-Hélène, Dieu pour tous et Dieu pour soi: Histoire des confréries et de leurs images à l’époque moderne (Paris: Harmattan, 2007) Gardner, Victoria, ‘The Written Representation of a Central Asian Ṣūfī Shaykh: Aḥmad ibn Mawlānā Jalāl al-Dīn Khwājagī Kāsānī ‘Makhdūm-i A‘ẓam’ (d. 1542)’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan, 2006)

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Gilliot, Claude, Exégèse, langue et théologie en islam: l’exégèse coranique de Tabari, Études musulmanes, 32 (Paris: Vrin, 1990) Gross, Jo-Ann, ‘Khoja Ahrar: A Study of the Perceptions of Religious Power and Prestige in the Late Timurid Period’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, New York University, 1982) İnalcık, Halil, ‘Dervish and Sultan: An Analysis of the Otman Baba Vilāyetnāmesi’, in The Middle East and the Balkans under the Ottoman Empire: Essays on Economy and Society, ed. by Halil İnalcık, Indiana University Turkish Studies and Turkish Ministry of Culture Joint Series, 9 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993), pp. 19–36 Lambton, Ann K. S., State and Government in Medieval Islam: An Introduction to the Study of Islamic Political Theory; The Jurists, London Oriental Series, 36 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981) Matthee, Rudi, The Pursuit of Pleasure: Drugs and Stimulants in Iranian History, 1500– 1900 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005) McChesney, Robert, ‘Central Asia, vi: In the 10th–12th/16th–18th Centuries’, in En­ cyclo­paedia Iranica, ed. by Ehsan Yarshater, 13 vols to date (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985–), v: Carpets xv–Coffee (1990–92), pp. 176–93 Nawshâhî, Arif, Dânishnâma-yi âdab-i fârsî (Tehran: Sâzmân-i Châp wa Intishârât, 1996) Paul, Jürgen, Die politische und soziale Bedeutung der Naqšbandiyya in Mittelasien im 15. Jahrhundert, Studien zur Sprache, Geschichte und Kultur des islamischen Orients, n.s., 13 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1991) —— , ‘Scheiche und Herrscher im Khanat Čaġatay’, Der Islam, 67 (1990), 278–321 Pazhûhandeh, Layla, ‘Gul-i nawrûz’, Maqâlât wa barrasîhâ, 63 (1998), 197–237 Porter, Yves, ‘Remarques sur la peinture à Boukhara au xvie siècle’, Cahiers d’Asie centrale, 5–6 (1998), 147–67 Schwarz, Florian, ‘Unser Weg schließt tausend Wege ein’: Derwische und Gesellschaft im is­ lami­schen Mittelasien im 16. Jahrhundert, Islamkundliche Untersuchungen, 226 (Berlin: Schwarz, 2000) Vincent, Catherine, Les Confréries médiévales dans le royaume de France, xiiie–xve siècle (Paris: Michel, 1994) Weismann, Itzchak, The Naqshbandiyya: Orthodox and Activism in a Worldwide Sufi Tradi­ tion, Routledge Sufi series, 8 (London: Routledge, 2007)

Kabbalistic Innovation in Jewish Confraternities in the Early Modern Mediterranean Roni Weinstein

T

he sixteenth century witnessed a change that might certainly be described as dramatic: the shift of Jewish mysticism (kabbalah) from conceptions and forms that were esoteric and elitist to ones that were more public and active.1 For many centuries, it was believed that the concealment of theo­ sophical positions and practices was inherent to any meaningful Kabbalistic activity. Not so among some of the leading Kabbalists in Safed, the small city in the Galilee that hosted the major Jewish mystical figures of the early modern period. These Kabbalists stated in their writings that it was necessary to instruct the Jewish public according to their ethical and theosophical positions. Their statements did not remain a dead letter but led to a restructuring of Jewish ritual and to the establishment of new institutions, among them the Jewish pietistic confraternities of Safed. These confraternities (Achavot, Chavurot, and Chavurot Mitzvah) were rela­ tively stable institutions that imposed rules on their members either orally or in writing. These regulations were mandatory and thought to hold coercive power equal to that of legal documents. The confraternities were often headed by famous 1 

This process and its implications are discussed in Weinstein, Kabbalah and Jewish Moder­nity.

Roni Weinstein ([email protected]) is currently a Fellow at the Minerva Institute (Tel-Aviv University), working on the constitution of modern Jewish Law. He has recently published Juvenile Sexuality, Kabbalah, and Catholic Religiosity among Jewish Italian Com­ munities. ‘Glory of Youth’ by Pinhas Baruch b. Pelatya Monselice (Ferrara, xvii Century) (2008), and Kabbalah and Jewish Modernity [in Hebrew] (2011).

234 Roni Weinstein

local Kabbalists who dedicated much of their time to shaping and participating in the brotherhoods’ activities, producing pietistic and liturgical literature, and serving the needs of the confraternity’s members. From the beginning, these confraternities formed a double bridge between the elitist group of Kabbalists, who were fully committed to their distinctive ascetic and pious mode of life, and the local Jewish population at large. These brotherhoods also mediated between Jewish people in Safed and religious traditions of other faiths, including those originating in the Catholic world and those among Muslim Sufi mystics. Jewish religious life and practice allocated a central role to collective activity. The foundational story of the revelation and giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai is emblematic in this sense, for God, after all, revealed his sacred law in front of the entire people: men and women, young and old. This unique moment was later elaborated on in liturgy, public sermons, and Jewish philosophy and mystical theology, as typifying the bond between God and His beloved people, the entire collectivity.2 The collective dimension of Jewish tradition was further enhanced by pilgrimages to the sanctuary in Jerusalem, and after its destruction, by the rituals of the liturgical year and religious feasts played out in synagogue life. In a world of three monotheistic religions, all of which were competing for theological and political supremacy, the medieval Jewish community understood the need for religious and political solidarity. The Jewish communities in both Muslim and Christian regions evolved their separate collective institutions to provide charity, schooling, burial, or ritual baths to their own members. Yet in none of the documents regarding synagogue activity (which intersected with community life) from the Second Temple period until late antiquity (roughly the second to the seventh centuries) can we find clear evidence of con­ fraternal activity.3 Nor do we find it in the rich material of the Genizah, a collection of documents which encompassed all aspects of life in early medieval Jewish communities around the Mediterranean basin, from roughly the eighth to the eleventh centuries.4 Apparently, the first signs of Jewish religious confraternities emerge in thirteenthcentury Spain and southern France.5 In Spain, these organizations expanded and 2 

This issue later became one of the hottest points of dissent and sources of religious pol­ emic between the Jewish and Christian traditions. 3  See the monumental Levine, The Ancient Synagogue. 4  See the impressive series by Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, i–v (esp. ii: The Community (1971)). See also the extensive work of Moshe Gil. 5  Assis, ‘Welfare and Mutual Aid in the Spanish Jewish Communities’; Ben-Shalom, ‘The Jewish Community in Arles and its Institutions’.

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were further institutionalized by means of formal regulations through the course of the fourteenth century. The economic crisis of Jews in fourteenth-century Spain may have expanded the need for charitable confraternities, called confradia, confratria, or confrarie in the original sources. Other confraternities continued the longer-standing Mediterranean Jewish tradition of Hekdesh, that is, the allocation of property for sacred purposes in one’s testament. These associations kept in close contact with the community leadership, as their names testify (almosna de la aljama or confraria del cahal).6 The threat of social unrest, especially with regard to the poor, was a critical factor in the perceived need for such confraternities. A new type of religious confraternal activity developed in Saragossa in 1378 with the establishment of a Confraternity of Dawn (confradia de la Maytinal or confradia d’Azmuro), which was dedicated to gathering members for early morning prayers. This activity, among others, fitted well with the penitent atmosphere prevalent in late fourteenth- and early fifteenth-century Jewish communities in Spain. This pious culture was also found in Jewish communities across Catholic Europe, where it generated many new penitent confraternities. Yet the majority of contemporary Jewish confraternities were preoccupied with the material needs of the poor rather than religious-pietistic devotion, and such institutions were not endowed with any sacral character or exceptional position within the community. Even as late as the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Jewish confraternities of the Sephardic diaspora in the Ottoman Empire required a justification for their existence, so as not to be considered potential sources of criminality or social dissent by the political authorities. Accordingly, Jewish community officials controlled the regulations and activities of these brotherhoods tightly.7 Pietistic confraternities were one of the innovations emerging from ‘Safed spirituality’ in the early modern period.8 Alongside the synagogues (based on ethnic affiliation) and traditional schools (Yeshivot, Batei-Midrash) for the study of Torah and religious law (Halakhah), religious confraternities were very active in the Galilean city of Safed.9 ‘They helped to define the proper direction that piety ought to take and to channel religious energy in a disciplined way. These fellowships thus constituted a vehicle by which the idea of collective obligation could find expression. From a psychological point of view they must have served as both a means of support and a source of peer pressure to live the correct life 6  Aljama is an old designation of the Jewish community, originating from the time period under Islam in southern Spain; Kahal or Kehilah means ‘community’. 7  Ben-Naeh, Jews in the Realm of the Sultans, pp. 270–88. 8  The term was coined by Lawrence Fine. See Safed Spirituality, trans. by Fine. 9  Safed Spirituality, trans. by Fine, pp. 10–16, 42, 58, 61–65, 83–90.

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of mystical piety.’10 These new confraternities were formal institutions. Their mem­bers were supposed to follow clear regulations and could be sanctioned if they violated them. The statute regulations (generally termed Hanhagot) covered various aspects of community life, including compliance with religious law in general, interpersonal behaviour among confraternity members, and issues relating to inner consciousness. A fine example of these Hanhagot is attributed to by Rabbi Joseph Karo (1488–1575): 1. Not to take any oath, even regarding truthful matters. 2. Not to vent anger at all, and not to bear any grudge or vengeance […]. 4. Associate daily with a companion for the sake of increasing the fear of God. 5. To fast every Thursday, and participate in afternoon prayer (Minchah prayer) in the synagogue among other ten fasting men […]. 13. To abstain from disrespectful (leitzanut) and defamatory (leshon ha-ra) and futile talks. 14. To be aware, in any place one could, not to speak idle words […]. 18. Not to gaze at women, even at their clothing, as much as one could […]. 21. To confess before eating or going to sleep […]. 23. To speak with confraternity members in the Holy Tongue [Hebrew] during regular days, and during the Sabbath with every Scholar of the Torah (Ba‘al Torah), on condition that no stranger11 would be present. 24. Whoever infracted these rules purposefully would confess during new month eve in front of the pious, or in front of confraternity members. And whoever does so is promised to gain the world to come, on conditions that he does so wholeheartedly.12

As in other regulations composed in Safed for confraternal activity, these rules excluded any reference to the complicated Kabbalistic theology or to mythical components.13 They focused on daily practical issues, chief among them the regulation of interpersonal relationships between members of the confraternity, ritual innovations suggested by the leading figures of Safed, and personal and pietistic virtues. The role of Rabbi Karo in composing these regulations is not clear, and his weight in directing the confraternity in possession of these Hanhagot even less so. Yet in other cases we have clear testimonies that leading Kabbalistic figures played a dominant role in the confraternities, both in their foundation and in directing their ongoing activity. This is the case in the mystical group which formed around Rabbi Moses Alkabezt (c. 1505–84) and Rabbi Moshe Cordovero 10 

Safed Spirituality, trans. by Fine, pp. 10–11. Noted by Toledano (see following note): a person not pertaining to the confraternity whose members undertook upon themselves to obey these rules. 12  Toledano, ‘Confraternity Regulations of Safed Kabbalists’. 13  See Meroz, ‘The Circle of R. Moshe ben Makhir and its Regulations’. 11 

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(1522–80).14 The mystics around Cordovero imitated with their own bodies the peregrinations and exile of God in order to obtain mystical revelations. The revealed secrets were documented in ‘The Book of Exiles’ (Sefer HaGerushin); the title uses the plural form as a sign that the ecstatic states were considered a collective experience and not simply a personal merit. This reflects a more general change in Safed religiosity which allocated an increasing importance and value to collective religious activity, and accordingly led to the growing acceptance and sanctity of confraternal institutions. At the center of such mystical activity stood the figures of the righteous (Tzadik) and the saints (Kadosh), who led others on the basis of their sagacity and Torah knowledge. They were occupied day and night in the Torah, and constantly gathered communities (that is, confraternities) for this activity. The Kabbalist had ceased to be an esoteric figure known only to his few disciples, and now was supposed to be involved in public circles. The saintly group around Rabbi Cordovero was inspired by the mythical confraternity around Rabbi Shimeon bar-Yochai, which was described in the ‘Book of Splendour’ (Sefer HaZohar). From the thirteenth century, when they had first been composed and spread in Spain, Zoharic literature had gained unprecedented dominance in the Jewish mystical tradition and had served as a reference for major Kabbalistic schools. The literature expanded upon the mystical journeys of a group surrounding Rabbi bar-Yochai, including the followers’ intimate incursions into divine domains of divinity and the revelation of Torah secrets. Following on the model of the Zohar, Cordovero headed a hierarchical confraternity in which the dead and the living were partners through encounters with past figures. The collective character of this religious activity led Cordovero to the conclusion that the Zohar was a joint composition, and was therefore not authored by solely by Rabbi bar-Yochai — an insight that modern research has endorsed. Loyalty to other members of the holy confraternity was expressed using the terminology of family and kinship,15 and consequently the brotherhood competed to some extent with the biological family and other social networks.16 14  The regulations of Cordovero are published in Solomon Schechter, Schechter, Studies in Judaism, pp. 292–94. See especially §3, 14–15: ‘One should constantly mingle with other people, and behave calmly with them, even with the ones transgressing the Torah law […] one should befriend with one of the confraternity members, and discuss with him issues of religion. One should discuss with the aforementioned member on every Sabbath eve about the issues of the passing week, and then he should receive Sabbath the Queen’. 15  Members of the Cordovero group were considered to descend from the Fount of Souls in the Sephirotic domain in God. 16  The theme of competition or equilibrium between the Safed confraternities and biological family loyalties has yet to be examined. Such an investigation would shed new light on

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Some fascinating inside testimony on the activities of Safed confraternities is provided in the writings of Rabbi Elazar Azkari (1533–1600). He describes the brotherhoods in both his famous and influential ethical tract ‘Book of the Pietists’ (Sefer HaChasidim) as well as in personal notes that were meticulously collected and interpreted by Mordechai Pachter.17 These notes permit a rare glance into the intimate world of Kabbalists, including their personal motivations and the important shift from the emphasis on the personal domain to public activity. We can use these observations to understand the ways in which personal habits and invented rituals serving the needs of a pietistic elite were increasingly adopted by the Jewish public, or at least some parts of it. The confraternities served as means for the dissemination of these mental and ritual innovations. During his adult life, Rabbi Azkari was torn between his natural inclination to a solitary and ascetic life, and his wish to leave his mark on the wider public. At certain points, the latter desire gained the upper hand: On Sabbath eve, during the 26th of the month of Tamuz 1576, we were gathered in order to comply with the instruction ‘Accomplish [literally: buy] yourself a friend,’18 that is to help one another, and admonish, and not to depart from the divine Torah. The mouth and heart were the main instruments for this task out of love for the Torah. And from time to time we would do the accounting of loss and gain […] and we would not hold secrets from one another, and pray for one another, and everything we gain would become a partnership […] in relation to Torah and religious praxis, with great fear and love, and attachment (Dvekut)19 to God, blessed be he, and to his people Israel, for all of them are saintly and we [the confraternity headed by Azkari] are despicable and sinful. And all is valid and existent.20

The classical injunction ‘accomplish yourself a friend’ originates from second and third century rabbinic literature, but Rabbi Azkari interprets it here as legitimation for the foundation of a pietistic confraternity that he would lead. Its task the attempt of Rabbi Luria to establish a new quarter for his confraternity members. Scholars of Catholic confraternities, for instance, often regard brotherhoods as complementing and expanding family networks. I wish to thank Nicholas Terpstra for drawing my attention to this point, and for editing this article. 17  Pachter, From Safed’s Hidden Treasures, pp. 124–86. On Elazar Azkari, see Pachter, ‘The Mystical Diary of R. Elazar Azkari’. 18  This dictum appears in The Sayings of the Fathers, a collection of general ethical sayings which was not considered as legally binding as Halakhic instruction. 19  Dvekut (attachment to God) was a fundamental term in early modern Kabbalistic piety that was accompanied by mystical undertones of unio mystica alongside high commitment to religious life and praxis. 20  Pachter, ‘The Mystical Diary of R. Elazar Azkari’, p. 134.

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would be to work collectively to amend and ameliorate personal virtues, especially those esteemed at the time such as self-control, abstention from anger, humility, and solitude. The ‘mouth and heart’ — that is, conversation and selfaccount regarding sinful activity (cheshbon-nefesh) — are the main instruments of religious effort, and they are clearly conceived of in practical terms. In practice, this meant the establishment of one of the most fascinating religious practices in Judaism: religious confession among confraternity members or personal confession in the presence of a spiritual guide.21 Confraternal solidarity was meant to expand the prayer beyond its regular intentions for the benefit of other members. The sense of the following phrase ‘everything we gain would become a partnership’ remains opaque: does it refer to a rhetoric of solidarity, or does it imply more concretely the communal sharing of property and the economic support of other members and their families? In any case, such a declaration is quite exceptional in contemporary Jewish tradition, although it recurs in Kabbalistic circles.22 One of the main issues for this confraternity, as well as for others in Safed, was an obsessive occupation with sin, the omnipresence of evil, and the need for personal repentance. These were the main factors which drove Rabbi Azkari to end his solitude and begin undertaking public activities, including the establishment and leadership of a confraternity: ‘The year 1592, 11th day of the month of Tishré. I was firm to encourage Repentance,23 as God has ordained […] and these are the conditions/rules of Repentance.’24 Regarding the institution’s purpose, Rabbi Azkari uses the plural term ‘nitkabazti’. implying the establishment of collective frames of action (kibbutzim) for the common act of repentance, even when referring to his own personal commitment. Again, and in contrast to the Kabbalistic tradition, a higher religious value was attributed to the public plane than the private one. 21 

The practice of religious confession, clearly borrowed from the Catholic religious tradition, is comprehensively discussed in Weinstein, Kabbalah and Jewish Modernity, chap. 4. 22  See, for instance, the hagiographic story in The Toledoth Ha-Ari and Luria’s ‘Manner of Life’, ed. by Banaya, p. 201. The story details Luria’s attempt to create a sacred neighborhood for the communal life of his disciples and their families: ‘Then R. Luria established Enclusre/Hesger, and allocated rooms in his courtyard for women and children, each women and her offspring by herself.’ This story is told with regard to the fact that Luria acceded very reluctantly to the desires of his disciples to reveal extremely deep secrets, and was accordingly sentenced to death by God. To postpone the death penalty, he proposed to construct a sheltering wall of those devoted to him and his method. Not by chance, the term used is Hesger, the institution known in Sephardic tradition for mystic-scholarly-liturgical activity of adult men, separately from their living spaces. 23  The Hebrew terms are very poetic: ‘Nitkabazti be-chezkah le‘orer Teshuvah’. 24  Pachter, ‘The Mystical Diary of R. Elazar Azkari’, pp. 165–69.

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The confraternity functioned according a set of regulations that were put into writing and that were to be recited orally by all members daily.25 Additionally, this detail sheds light on the frequency of confraternal meetings (daily) and the ways in which the members were heavily involved in each other’s lives, needs, and intimate thoughts. These regulations were considered as binding as any legal writ according the Jewish Halakhah, which explains the infusion of mystic rhetoric with legal terminology. The earlier citation dealing with accomplishing friends, religious ferment and the pursuit of mystic Dvekut, for instance, ended with the well-known formula of formal legal writs ‘And all is valid and existent’ (ve-hakol sharir ve-kayam).26 The confraternities that grew out of contemporary CounterReformation Catholicism adopted similar legal formalities when establishing themselves, a point to which I will later return. The increasing importance of collective religious activity, and particularly the expression of it by external and theatrical means, was not confined to confraternal circles. The hagiographic literature emanating from Safed regarding Rabbi Avraham HaLevi Baruchim noted that he undertook ‘control visits’ through the community on the eve of the Sabbath, scolding people to prepare all they needed for the next day and urging the closure of shops, since selling and buying was forbidden on the Sabbath. Another of Rabbi Baruchim’s habits was to stroll through the streets and markets and gather people to instruct them in his ascetic mode of repentance (Teshuvah). In this context, Teshuvah implies a set of preordained ascetic acts accompanied by liturgical chants, hallowed by the rhetoric of sanctification. Through the hours of the night, Baruchim would pass from house to house and insist that the adult and male inhabitants rise and gather for night vigils and Torah study (another of the ritual innovations in Safed) with the confraternities intended for this end.27 As a result, this religious practice became not only a public event, an act to be seen and valued by others, but also a means of social control. These actions are unmistakably similar to the intensive missionary expeditions of the Catholic Church in the Mediterranean, and particularly in Spain and Italy. In both cases, confraternal activity was accompanied by public sermons and heavy social pressure for repentance, ascetic acts of physical discipline, the inten25  ‘The year 1588. We agreed to read the regulations daily’; Pachter, ‘The Mystical Diary of R. Elazar Azkari’, pp. 156–57. 26  Pachter, ‘The Mystical Diary of R. Elazar Azkari’, pp. 152–53, 161–63, on the use that Azkari makes of binding legal writs, to set his own personal schedule, or the composition of ‘a writ of self shi‘abud’ to God. The Hebrew term shi‘abud, confers a double sense of enslavement and mortgage. 27  The Toledoth Ha-Ari and Luria’s ‘Manner of Life’, ed. by Banaya, pp. 225–28.

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sification of emotional tensions with the arrival of missionaries, and the impressive gatherings of the local population that these missionaries sought to organize. In Catholic communities, the climax of this activity was often found in scenes of crying, regret, commitment to individual penitence, social reconciliation and the suspension of vendettas, and public acts of confession followed by personal and secret confessions. Frequently, the missionaries (mainly the Jesuits) founded confraternities of penitence so that laypeople would continue to be involved in this important activity even once the emotional storm had subsided and the missionaries had left. Not all of these components are present in the Kabbalistic activity in Safed in the same measure, as one would naturally expect. Yet a few examples point to the deep awareness of contemporary Safed Kabbalists of religious reforms in the Catholic world and further suggest a willingness to adapt similar devotional exercises. These points of interest include the focusing on repentance and its endowment with public and theatrical character, the increasing use of confession in front of a spiritual guide rather than as a fixed verbal formula, and ritual innovations relating to pietistic mysticism such as the night vigils in tandem with ‘religious amendments’ (Tikkunim). It is no wonder that the local people believed that sacred persons were living among them and considered certain individuals, like Rabbi Baruchim, to be reincarnations of the prophet Jeremiah, who was known for his bitter reprimands of the people of Israel. Most of the material available to us relates to the confraternities of ordinary people, who decided to commit themselves to more intensive lives of study and repentance, and who joined the confraternities headed or guided by major Kabbalistic figures in Safed. Yet there were also other more secretive and exclusive confraternities which were comprised solely of active Kabbalists. These institutions gathered together in order to practise repentance, to study the divine secrets and experience ecstatic moments of Unio Mystica or Dvekut with God, and to gain access to the secrets of the Torah. The groups around Rabbi Alkabetz and Rabbi Cordovero were mentioned earlier in relation to the mystical processions around the city of Safed in search of the exiled feminine figure of the Shechinah. The most important mystical confraternity in Safed gathered around the leading Kabbalist, Rabbi Isaac Luria (1534–72), who was later known by his acronym HaAri, or ‘the great mystical lion’. This Lurianic confraternity contained several components that recurred in other local confraternities, including written rules 28 which, after the death of 28 

See the ethical rules established by Luria for his disciples, in The Toledoth Ha-Ari and Luria’s ‘Manner of Life’, ed. by Banaya, pp. 314–19: ‘Basic to all virtues is a comportment of humility and extreme fear of sin […]. One should distance himself from haughtiness, anger,

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Rabbi Luria, were formalized in legal writ.29 This group practised the innovative act of turning the biblical dictum ‘Love your fellow as yourself ’ (Leviticus 19. 18) into a ritual act of verbal pronunciation before prayer, the study of the Torah, and into meditative concentration intended to benefit other confraternity members.30 Rabbi Luria’s innovation lay in the way in which he was weaving his great theosophical concepts with concrete and practical suggestions. He believed that five sacred confraternities were functioning throughout Jewish history, shaping Jewish tradition and the sacred canon. The penultimate institution in this sequence was the brotherhood of the itinerant mystics of the Zoharic story. These five confraternities symbolized in their historical existence five internal processes within the most hidden domains in divinity, and had a deep theurgical influence on the process of divine and earthly salvation.31 Unlike Rabbi Cordovero, who was deeply inspired by the Zohar in his writing and confraternal activities while still maintaining a clear distinction between the two periods, Rabbi Luria considered his own mystical groups as a direct continuation of the Zoharic institutions. This one-to-one correlation was expressed by the reincarnation of every Zoharic personality in one of Luria’s groups, with Luria himself representing a higher and more knowledgeable version of Rabbi bar-Yochai.32 As a result, the great Zoharic mythology that permeated almost every aspect of Safed religious life was reified in the life and thought of Rabbi Luria and his close disciples. There was little place for mythic detachment in a mentality that considered everything in concrete terms and with an eye to historical context. In one of the meetings of his group, Luria even reenacted a famous ecstatic event described meticulously mockery, and malicious gossip […]. Sadness is a vile virtue especially for one wishing to obtain the Holy Spirit […]. Anger, besides hindering religious study […]. My teacher [Luria], of blessed memory, was very strict about anger, more than any other defects, even when a person is angry for Religious Commandment’s sake’. Other items relate to the issue of confession of sins. See also Safed Spirituality, trans. by Fine, pp. 61–65. 29  Scholem, ‘The Bond of Fellowship of the Students of R. Isaac Luria’. 30  Hallamish, ‘The Fate of the Kabbalistic Custom’. 31  Liebes, ‘“Two Young Roes of a Doe”’, pp. 144–45; Fine, Physician of the Soul, Healer of the Cosmos, pp. 307–14. 32  The theory of reincarnation provides an axis of solidarity among confraternity members, since it is based on processes within divinity. The fountain of souls is found in divinity, and they are divided according to ‘roots’, forming semi-family clusters of souls, or spiritual identities. The members of the Lurianic confraternity belonged not only to the same earthly grouping, or even the previous four confraternities preceding them, but they carried a solidarity transcending human generations up to their common origin in divinity. This sensation stimulated them to common activity and missionary zeal.

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in the Zohar and placed his companions according to the original sitting places. The mystic confraternity, headed by the major spiritual leader of the generation (considered to be so by his disciples and by the hagiographic literature) becomes a cosmic principle, in which the divine and the human reflect one another in a process of mutual cooperation that works towards salvation. The confraternity was simultaneously presented as an arena for pietistic amelioration and a battlefield against cosmic evil.

Conclusion The rich body of documents on synagogue life, together with the immense Genizah testimonies on Jewish life around the Mediterranean basin from the eighth to the eleventh centuries, do not contain clear references to confraternal activity. The first testimony of what we can unambiguously describe as a Jewish religious confraternity appears in thirteenth-century Christian Spain. Contemporary documents borrowed terms customary in Spanish Catholic confraternities, a telling sign of the deep influence of Catholic forms and traditions on the evolution and activities of Jewish confraternities. Jewish brotherhoods flourished during the fourteenth century, a time of grave crisis in Jewish life culminating in the 1391 massacre. The massacre was a demographic catastrophe, leading to deep lesions in cultural-religious life and culminating in the conversion to Catholicism of several major rabbinic figures. Yet this period also witnessed important endeavours for religious reform, including the composition of Halakhic Summae (such as the Turim by Rabbi Jacob ben HaRosh), the development of repentance literature, harsh criticism of Aristotelian philosophy, and collective support for converted Jews (Anusim, conversos). Jewish religious confraternities played a role in this change by supplying assistance and backing to large segments of the Jewish population who felt abandoned and betrayed by the leading elite of Spanish-Jewish courtiers. In addition to their work of charity and material assistance, these confraternities actively promoted new religious modes of prayers and liturgy that became widespread after the 1492 expulsion of Jews from Spain and the establishment of the Sephardic diaspora. Late thirteenth-century Spain was also the setting for the composition of the Zoharic texts before they were disseminated to other Jewish communities along the Mediterranean basin. One of the leading themes of the Zohar is the mystical peregrinations of Rabbi bar-Yochai and his disciples. This mythical group actually functioned as a confraternity (the Spanish term is cofradia). Its membership rolls were fairly stable, it allocated a dominant role to Rabbi bar-Yochai (and his son),

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it adhered to a certain standard of behaviour as well as ritual formulae for certain mystical events, and it shared the belief that only a collective or confraternal framework could pave the way to mystical fulfilment.33 The spread of this model can be followed through the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, mainly among the Sephardic elite who played a crucial role in Safed Kabbalistic circles. Among these we find Rabbi Alkabetz who, after his passage from the city of Adrianopole to the Holy Land, remained in close contact with his former group, which was devoted not only to religious study but also to pietistic activity. We also find that Rabbi Luria, already as a young man, established with his friends and several disciples of Rabbi David ben Zimrah a sort of juvenile group or youth confraternity, grounded by a formal agreement ‘to treat one another with love and respect’.34 In short, a considerable change in confraternal activity took place in sixteenth-century Safed. These Safed confraternities were exceptional in the Jewish tradition, much as Safed itself was exceptional as a centre of religious fermentation and creativity. For the first time, religious confraternities were backed by an ideology rooted deeply in the theosophical secrets of contemporary Kabbalah, and related to the belief in the common fate and descent of all confraternity members prior to their birth. These confraternities were headed by the leading figures we have already encountered, such as rabbis Alkabetz, Cordovero, Azkari, Baruchim, Moshe ben Makhir, and later Luria, and also by Luria’s disciples Rabbi Chayim Vital (1543–1620) and Rabbi Joseph ibn Tabul (d. 1616). The brotherhoods were heavily immersed in Kabbalistic lore, yet not in esoteric secrets of the divine realm — for the first time, their activities were deeply public and very accessible. Their main concerns revolved around religious practice, sin and repentance, and the ethical path leading to mystical experiences, and they have a clearly ascetic character. Several of these confraternities were constructed around the encounter between a spiritual master and his disciples in order to advance the revelation of divine secrets and Torah interpretation in the mystical mode. Others devoted their efforts to acts of repentance, or to new religious rituals such as Tikkunim or religious chants. The confraternal spaces were regulated by rules and instructions that dealt with interpersonal relationships between confraternity members as well as collective religious activity used to empower the group and direct it towards mystical experiences. The mutual commitment of confraternity members was formalized by the signing of legal writs, including a sharing of their lot in paradise after death. 33 

Liebes, ‘How the Zohar Was Written’; Dan, ‘Zohar and Eros’. Pachter, From Safed’s Hidden Treasures, pp. 19–21; Sack, ‘The Land of Israel, the Zohar, and the Kabbalah of Safed’; Fine, Physician of the Soul, Healer of the Cosmos, pp. 30–31. 34 

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The immense importance attributed to confraternal activity in the thought of Rabbi Luria and others derives from a similar issue that occupied the Catholic Church and became more urgent during the early modern period. When religious institutions are based on an essential division between a select few clergy (ordained churchmen or monks) and laypeople, then an inevitable and unresolved tension must ensue during periods of religious ferment and reform. On one hand, there is the wish to maintain distance between those professionally occupied with the saintly domain and those deprived of it. On the other hand, there is the wish to inculcate standards of sanctity and moral norms that originate in the monastic ambient among large segments of the lay population. This dialectic was increasingly present in Jewish communities during the early modern period. The gap between ‘The Jewish Saint’35 (mainly Kabbalistic figures) and the Jewish public at large was widening, and a difference was increasingly perceived between two essentially different groups. In the Jewish context, as in the Catholic one, religious confraternities were a very convenient vehicle for bridging this gap. The Safed confraternities were composed of leading Kabbalistic figures practising the faith alongside householders and non-mystical individuals, allowing these mystics to disseminate their theosophical concepts, innovative rituals and religious practices among the general population. While the later development of these mystic or pietistic confraternities is beyond the scope of this article, it is important to note that they evolved in two main directions that to some extent reflected forms found in surrounding gentile society. One confraternal model accentuated the role of charismatic figures, and demanded a high commitment to the spiritual mentor and the adoption of a distinct mode of life, even at the expense of antinomian tendencies. This model, clearly reflecting the Sufi traditions being practised at the time in the Ottoman Empire, was later prevalent in the Sabbatean movement and in Eastern and Central European Jewish confraternities. The second model marginalized the dominant role of Kabbalistic figures, and handed confraternal control to ‘lay’ persons, adopting a clearly nomian position towards Jewish Halakhah. This model more clearly resembled some late medieval and early modern corporatist traditions in Italy and Western Europe generally, and so it is perhaps not surprising that it was found more commonly in the Jewish communities of those same geographical areas.

35 

On the rise of ‘The Jewish Saint’ and its ever dominant role in Jewish religious history dur­ing the early modern period, see Weinstein, Kabbalah and Jewish Modernity, chap. 2.

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Works Cited Primary Sources The Toledoth Ha-Ari and Luria’s ‘Manner of Life’ (Hanhagoth) [Hebrew], ed. by Meir Benaya ( Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute, 1967)

Secondary Studies Assis, Yom-Tov, ‘Welfare and Mutual Aid in the Spanish Jewish Communities’, in Moreshet Sepharad: The Sephardi Legacy, ed. by Haim Beinart, 2 vols ( Jerusalem: Magnes, 1992), i, 318–45 Ben-Naeh, Yaron, Jews in the Realm of the Sultans: Ottoman Jewish Society in the Seven­teenth Century, Texts and Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Judaism, 22 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008) Ben-Shalom, Ram, ‘The Jewish Community in Arles and its Institutions — Ben-Sheshet’s Responsum 266 as an Historical Source’ [Hebrew], Michael, 12 (1991), 9–41 Dan, Joseph, ‘Zohar and Eros’ [Hebrew], Alpayim, 9 (1994), 67–119 Fine, Lawrence, Physician of the Soul, Healer of the Cosmos: Isaac Luria and his Kabbalistic Fellowship (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003) —— , trans., Safed Spirituality: Rules of Mystical Piety, the Beginning of Wisdom (New York: Paulist Press, 1984) Goitein, Solomon D., A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967–93) Hallamish, Mosheh, ‘The Fate of the Kabbalistic Custom to Express the Formula “I accept upon myself the Religious Commandment to Love my Fellow as Myself ”’, in Mosheh Hallamish, Kabbalah: In Liturgy, Halakhah and Customs [Hebrew] (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2000), pp. 356–82 Levine, Lee I., The Ancient Synagogue: The First Thousand Years (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000) Liebes, Yehuda, ‘How the Zohar Was Written’ [Hebrew], in The Age of the Zohar: Pro­ ceedings of the Third International Conference on Jewish Mysticism, ed. by Joseph Dan, Meḥḳĕré Yĕrushalayim bĕ-maḥshevet Yiśra’el, 8 ( Jerusalem: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1989), pp. 1–71 —— , ‘“Two Young Roes of a Doe”: The Secret Sermon of Isaac Luria before his Death’ [Hebrew], in Lurianic Kabbalah, ed. by Rachel Elior and Yehuda Liebes, Meḥḳĕré Yĕrushalayim bĕ-maḥshevet Yiśra’el, 10 ( Jerusalem: Jewish National and University Library, 1992), pp. 113–69 Meroz, Ronit, ‘The Circle of R. Moshe ben Makhir and its Regulations’ [Hebrew], Pe‘amim, 31 (1987), 40–61 Pachter, Mordechai, From Safed’s Hidden Treasures: Studies and Texts concerning the History of Safed and its Sages in the 16th Century [Hebrew] ( Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 1994)

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—— , ‘The Life and Personality of R. Elazar Azkari, as Reflected in his Mystical Diary and Book of Pietists’ [Hebrew], Shalem, 3 (1981), 127–47 Sack, Bracha, ‘The Land of Israel, the Zohar, and the Kabbalah of Safed’ [Hebrew], in Zion and Zionism: Among Sephardi and Oriental Jews, ed. by W. Zeev Harvey and others ( Jerusalem: Misgav Yerushalyim, 2002), pp. 51–79 Schechter, Solomon, Studies in Judaism, 2nd Series (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1908) Scholem, Gershom, ‘The Bond of Fellowship of the Students of R. Isaac Luria’ [Hebrew], in Gershom Scholem, Lurianic Kabbalah: Collected Studies by Gershom Scholem, ed. by Daniel Abrams, Meḳorot u-meḥḳarim be-sifrut ha-ḳabalah, 22 (Los Angeles: Cherub, 2008), pp. 262–91 Toledano, Yaakov Moshe, ‘Confraternity Regulations of Safed Kabbalists’ [Hebrew], in Otzar Genazim: A Miscellany of Letters for the History of Eretz Israel, Extracted from Old Manuscripts, ed. by Yaakov Moshe Toledano ( Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1960), pp. 48–51 Weinstein, Roni, Kabbalah and Jewish Modernity (Tel-Aviv: Tel-Aviv University Press [Hebrew], 2011)

Part V Mediating Difference: Race, Gender, and Kinship

Confraternal Community as a Vehicle for Jewish Female Agency in Eighteenth-Century Italy Federica Francesconi*

W

hen a group of twenty-two well-to-do Jewish women, inspired by the famous verse ‘Thou Shalt Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself ’, founded the sisterhood Soed Holim (Benefit the Sick) in the Modena ghetto in November 1735, they were taking a fundamental stand.1 Their aim was to ‘help and assist all sick women, rich and poor, in the ghetto’.2 The confraternity was inspired by Miriam Rovigo (c.  1700–78), the daughter of Lustro Rovigo, who had married her uncle, Raffaele Rovigo. The Rovigo family was noted for both its cultural and its commercial leadership within the community. The Soed Holim membership register emphasizes Miriam’s role as the ‘first inspiring and inspired [woman] who took the initiative to establish Soed Holim in her house with all of the o­ ther

*  I wish to thank Judith Baskin, Yossi Chajes, and Nicholas Terpstra for their important

comments on the first version of this essay. 1  The verse is from Leviticus 19. 18; Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 22 November–21 December 1735. The archive consists of a folder of unpaginated documents written in Italian with Hebrew insertions. 2  Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 22 November–21 December 1735.

Federica Francesconi ([email protected]) teaches Jewish History at the University of Oregon in Eugene. She received her PhD in Jewish history from Haifa University, and her research studies and publications are concentrated mainly on the social and cultural history of Jews in early-modern Europe with an eye specifically to Italian communities. She has coedited with Francesca Bregoli a special issue of the journal Jewish History, titled Tradition and Transformation in Eighteenth-Century Europe: Jewish Integration in Comparative Perspective. Currently, she is working on a book manuscript, titled The Wealth of Silver: The Journey of the Modenese Jews from the Renaissance to Emancipation (1598–1814).

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women, aimed at performing the mitzvot [the Jewish precepts]’, according to Leone Moisè Usiglio, the confraternity’s male scribe.3 While Jewish women in Italy had been gathering in confraternities for at least a century, Modena’s Soed Holim is noteworthy for being the earliest European female Jewish confraternity with a complete pinkas or register, a set of documents stretching from 1735 to 1943.4 Fifteen years later, on the first day of the Hebrew month of Tevet 5511 (29 December 1750), an unusual procession of men and women paraded through the two streets of Modena’s ghetto, arriving at the home of Miriam Rovigo. The members of Soed Holim were making their first public donations of community charity: a dowry to a poor Jewish girl and wood for the fireplaces of all the poor families in the ghetto. The confraternity wanted to honour the minor holiday of the new moon (in Hebrew, Rosh Hodesh; literally, the head of the month) and to demonstrate the sanctity of their confraternity through an explicit reference to the month in which its activities began (the exact date was 22 December, or the sixth of Tevet).5 Rosh Hodesh of Tevet was of special significance to women, as they avoided heavy work on that day.6 A public celebration in which women were the primary actors challenged the male-dominated society of an Italian ghetto, and did so from within. The founders and members of Soed Holim were the wives and daughters of the most influential families in the Jewish community in Modena.7 They had organized the havurah, or confraternity, with a specifically female self-consciousness from the institution’s very inception. The members of the confraternity employed women over ten years of age as assistants, servants, administrators, and representatives and involved them in their weekly and monthly meetings. The participation of each of these women varied over the 3 

Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 22 November 1735. It ceased functioning in 1943 when the Nazis entered Italy to prop up the failing Fascist regime. The existence of Soed Holim is mentioned in Rivlin, Mutual Responsibility in the Italian Ghetto, p. 52; Modena, ‘Note a margine della vita delle donne ebree modenesi’, pp. 152–53, with some misunderstandings. Regarding early modern Italy, there is evidence of the existence of two Compagnie delle Donne in Venice in the 1640s and in Florence at least since 1669, both of which were devoted to the dowering of brides; unfortunately, documentation has not been preserved. See Siegmund, The Medici State and the Ghetto of Florence, p. 404; Boccato, ‘Aspetti della condizione femminile nel ghetto di Venezia’, p. 120. 5  Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 8 November 1750; 23 August 1751. 6  On the importance of Rosh Hodesh for Jewish women, see Weissler, Voices of the Matri­ archs, pp. 23, 112–16. For a specific reference to the Italian Jewish context see Modena, Historia de’ riti ebraici, p. 63. 7  Members inlcuded Miriam Rovigo and her mother Grazia Rovigo, Devora Formiggini, Rosa and Grazia Fano, Sara Levi, Bellina Norsa, and Buonaventura Sanguinetti. 4 

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years, but evidence shows that during the second half of the eighteenth century, fifteen members of the board along with ten servants (out of a total female Jewish population of between 470 and 480 women) were always more active than others in the confraternity.8 Looking at their lives, however, the members of Soed Holim do not appear as the strong-willed women we might expect. Rather, they were almost ‘silent’ members of the Jewish community, instrumental mainly in forging important social and political alliances among the Italian Jewish merchant elites for the reallocation and transfer of estates. These women did not take part in family business activities, and as widows they transferred control of their dowries to their sons. In sixteenth-century Modena, Jewish women from all of the social strata who inherited and freely disposed of property were considered unexceptional and unremarkable. But the well-to-do Jewish women of Modena receded even further from public life during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a period in which lower-class women remained active in society as simple workers (many were pedlars) and sometimes invested their own dowries as widows.9 Nevertheless over the years, the women of Soed Holim issued loans and invested in bonds and property through their confraternity, using collective profits for a number of activities. Their sisterhood provided care for the sick and burials, as well as donations of food, wood, and money, ‘for all of the poor families of the ghetto’.10 Their work aided at least 75 needy families out a total Jewish population of almost 250 families and 1220 people (six per cent of the overall Modenese population in the mid-eighteenth century).11 The living conditions of Modenese Jewish society had worsened since the beginning of the century with the entry of the Este duchy into the bloody European wars of succession, a development which afflicted both Jews and Christians alike for years.12 The confraternity of 8 

This analysis is based on the SH-Register as well as a database I created of the Jewish population in the ghetto for the period 1766–96, using primarily the following documentation: Modena, AS, Archivio per Materie, Ebrei, busta no. 15; Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 2.14: Denunzie de poveri sussidiati al Collegio de Signori Notari; Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 2.15: Denunzie delle anime all’ufficio dell’Abbondanza 1766–1796; Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 2.16: Distinta delle donne cristiane che di tempo in tempo prestano il loro servizio in ghetto 1760–1782. 9  See Francesconi, ‘Jewish Women in Eighteenth-Century Modena’. 10  Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 20 June 1756. 11  In 1775, for example, their work aided at least seventy-six needy families out of a total Jewish population of 1207 individuals, or 247 families. See n. 8. For the non-Jewish population, see Marini, ‘Lo Stato Estense’, p. 100. 12  For the history of Modenese Jews in the eighteenth century, see my doctoral dissertation,

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Soed Holim worked to ease these abysmal living conditions through systematic charity provided to the most vulnerable groups in Modena’s ghetto. This article investigates Jewish female agency in eighteenth-century Modena through the Soed Holim. It focuses on strategies of negotiation and cultural survival that well-to-do women were able to employ through the Soed Holim within the broader Jewish minority, ghettoized since 1638. It also analyses the background of Miriam Rovigo and other Soed Holim founders, taking into account family strategies, Sabbateanism, philanthropy, and welfare. The activities of the Soed Holim, especially in the economic sphere, demonstrate the expansion of female spaces and self-consciousness through confraternal ritual practices. This study builds on the recent historiographical shift that conceives of fraternalism as a critical but contradictory early modern European phenomenon, “which was simultaneously transformative and reactionary, egalitarian and elitist, a vehicle of resistance and one of acculturation”. 13 Moreover, this article contributes to the recovery of Jewish women’s identity in early modern Europe. Women were rendered virtually invisible members within the male Jewish communities of medieval and early modern Europe and were relatively silent in comparison to the rich variety of women’s voices that survive from the contemporaneous Christian world.14 Through various sources — the register of Soed Holim, together with notarial wills, dowries, and records of financial transactions — we can hear again the silenced yet instructive voices of women from the eighteenth-century Modenese ghetto.15

The Soed Holim’s Founders: Women in the Ghetto The history of the women in Soed Holim is deeply connected to the specific social patterns of Modena’s Jewish community, which had cultivated its own religious and cultural identity since the early seventeenth century. Through business, the Francesconi, ‘Jewish Families in Modena’, pp. 131–89. 13  Terpstra, ‘De-Institutionalizing Confraternity Studies’, p. 277. 14  See the important observations in Baskin, ‘Introduction’, pp. 15–24, and in Rosman, ‘A Prolegomenon to the Study of Jewish Cultural History’. On the history of Jewish women in early modern Europe, see Weissler, Voices of the Matriarchs; Levine-Melammed, Heretics or Daughters of Israel?; for the Italian context, see the contributions listed in notes 23 and 24 as well as Adelman, ‘Italian Jewish Women’; Adelman, ‘Servants and Sexuality’; Dubin, ‘Jewish Women, Marriage Law, and Emancipation’. 15  I have borrowed the formulation of ‘silenced’ women from Chajes, ‘He Said and She Said’, p. 118.

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transfer of estates, cultural and philanthropic activities, and international interfamilial alliances, a network of merchants (including the Formiggini, Modena, Sacerdoti, Rovigo, Norsa, and Sanguinetti families) developed an oligarchic and male-centred bourgeoisie. Despite ghettoization, these families developed an important merchant society consisting of book dealers, silversmiths, printers, and silk weavers. These merchants avoided cultural and commercial stasis despite the weak political administration of the city and duchy.16 The organization of the Este state was mostly feudal, and many privileged nobles or righthand men of the duchy were placed in charge of administering and taxing a number of small agricultural communities.17 As the wives, sisters, and daughters of these merchants, the Soed Holim founders functioned as part of this oligarchic system. They were the recipients of dowries and patrimonies that grew considerably over the eighteenth century. Often, however, they renounced their property in favour of their brothers and sons through the donatio inter vivos (irrevocable gift), an institution with a halakhic equivalent, the matanah gemurah. The case of Devora Levi Formiggini (1693–post-1777), the daughter and wife of the affluent silversmiths Benedetto Vita Levi and Laudadio Formiggini, and a woman who joined the confraternity at its inception but declined to participate in some of the duties, exemplifies the ways in which women relinquished property over the course of their lives. Devora first renounced some of her property in 1718 in connection with her marriage contract. She gave up her rights to her paternal and maternal patrimonies by accepting a dowry of seven thousand five hundred lire. When she was widowed in 1766, Devora ceded property a second time: she gave up her dotal and extradotal patrimony by making another donatio inter vivos in favour of her sons. In return, she received an annuity from the estate of her deceased husband Laudadio (nine hundred lire plus another monthly payment of fifteen lire), together with food and accommodation for the remainder of her life in the house of her eldest child, Benedetto.18 A decade later, in 1776–77, the octogenarian Devora faced the premature death of both her son Benedetto and his wife, Grazia Vita Levi. At that point, she transferred the guardianship of her five minor grandchildren to her oldest grandson, Moisé, a man who would later emerge as the leader of Italian Jews dur16 

Francesconi, ‘Jewish Families in Modena’. For similarities and differences with the Chris­ tian world, see Sabean and Teuscher, ‘Kinship in Europe’. 17  Marini, ‘Lo Stato Estense’, pp. 100–14. 18  Modena, AS, Not. Fondo Giannozzi, filza 5238, no. 666, 20 June 1763; Modena, Bibl. Estense, AfAF, cassetta 1, fascicolo no. 31, 20 June 1763, ‘Obbligazione assunta per parte della Compagnia Ebraica Covegnè Gnitim a favore dell’eredità di Laudadio Formiggini’.

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ing the Napoleonic age.19 Whether her decisions were made independently or not, Devora prevented financial trauma for her family by passing her dowry on to future generations. Her actions were typical of the majority of well-to-do Modenese Jewish women at the time.20 A partial exception to this system was Miriam Rovigo. In 1754, after the death of her husband Raffaele, her sons, Lazzaro and Leone, divided their properties. Miriam received her dotal and extradotal patrimony, which consisted of a spinning mill, three villas near Modena, a flat in the ghetto, and the spinning mill in the centre of Modena. The real estate, together with livestock, facilities, machinery, seed, and credits, totalled 213,460 lire. The activities of the Rovigos included real estate, livestock, stamped leather, and a tannery in Modena, which was run on a sublease with another Modenese Jew, Abram Forti. Miriam committed herself to providing a fifty thousand lire dowry for her young daughter, Sara, who married a member of the Sanguinetti family (her other daughter, Bonaventura, had already married with the same dowry).21 In 1758, Miriam showed ‘her passionate and maternal love’ for her sons, through a donatio inter vivos, giving them her portion of wealth in the family synagogue, silver ritual objects weighing a total of six hundred and three ounces, and furniture.22 Miriam’s donation was not simply made for economic considerations. It symbolized the pride and unity of the Rovigo family unity within the oligarchic Modenese Jewish society. Miriam managed her own business transactions but, like many other well-to-do Jewish women, she did not remarry. Both her patrimony and her day-to-day life appear to have been strongly connected to her nuclear family, and in particular, to her son Lazzaro.23 Miriam Rovigo was an exceptional case because of her strong initiative and autonomy, but she nonetheless remained an ancillary element in the consolidated social system of the Modenese ghetto. 19 

Modena, Bibl. Estense, AfAF, cassetta 1, fascicolo no. 37, 7 July 1770 (notarial act by Gaetano Radighieri). On Moisè Formiggini, see Francesconi, ‘From Ghetto to Emanci­p a­ tion’. 20  A similar pattern has been individuated among affluent Jewish families in eighteenthcentury Ancona by Bonazzoli, ‘Sulla struttura familiare delle aziende ebraica’, pp. 146–48. 21  Modena, AS, Not. Fondo Tonani, filza 5227, no. 87, 17 October 1754; Modena, AS, Not. Fondo Tonani, filza 5227, no. 96. 22  Modena, AS, Not. Fondo Cavicchioli, filza 5370, no. 59, 4 July 1768. The document reports the donation that took place on 2 August 1758. 23  On the vicissitudes of Miriam, see Francesconi, ‘Jewish Women in Eighteenth-Century Modena’. On the importance of the nuclear family for Italian Jews, see Stow, ‘Marriages Are Made in Heaven’; Stow, Theater of Acculturation, pp. 11–12.

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This female passivity must be seen in contrast to the growing autonomy of Italian Jewish women from the early modern through the modern era, a development that recent studies have stressed. In other cities, Jewish women invested their dowries as the financial basis for family firms. Women were named as heirs and administrators of business, women were testators, and women served as guardians of their minor children, even if the women were widowed or had remarried.24 Excluded from both family businesses and ownership, and not surprisingly shut out from the other Jewish confraternities in the ghetto, wellto-do Jewish women in Modena fundamentally challenged their marginalization with the creation of Soed Holim.

The Background of Miriam Rovigo amid Sabbateanism, Philanthropy, and Welfare Considering her background, Miriam’s decision at the age of thirty-five to establish Soed Holim together with her mother Grazia is not surprising. The family’s business had expanded via silk spinning and textile commerce in the Este duchy and Italian peninsula during the seventeenth century, and then by the acquisition of land in the eighteenth century.25 In 1693, Servadio Rovigo and his brothers (among them Miriam’s grandfather, Leone) declared a patrimony totalling 237,000 lire, the second highest within the Modenese ghetto after the Fano family (250,000 lire).26 In 1709 and 1711, the Rovigos bought two enormous farms in San Prospero, a small town near Modena. By 1754, these landed properties were counted among Miriam’s dotal patrimony, worth a total of 19,500 and 16,400 lire respectively.27

24  See Allegra, Identità in bilico; Galasso, Alle origini di una comunità; Stow, ‘The Jewish Woman as Social Protagonist’. 25  Useful documentation is preserved in Modena, AS, Arch. Materie, Arte della Seta, busta 34/b. On the Rovigo family, see Francesconi, ‘Strategie di sopravvivenza di una minoranza’. 26  These data have been calculated from sources located in Modena, AS, Archivio per Materie, Ebrei, busta no. 15, ‘Denunce dell’Arte dei Merciai ebrei aperte dal Magistrato al 6 febbraio 1693’. Servadio and Leone and Raffaele and Lustro Rovigo (the future husband and the father of Miriam) were two pairs of brothers. 27  Modena, AS, Not. Fondo Giannozzi, filza 5242, no. 1418, 9 June 1769. In 1769 Miriam and Lazzaro sold to Giacinto Solieri two of their landed properties located in San Prospero for thirty-eight thousand lire.

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Modenese Jewish mercantile elites operated behind the scenes in the state’s cultural and commercial life. While they participated fully in the economy, ducal authorities ensured that they kept a low profile. Jews could work behind the scenes but could not engage formally in civic affairs. This meant, for example, that Jews in the Este Duchy could not participate in the general councils of the city and were unable to vote, as they could in eighteenth-century Mantua, Livorno, or Trieste. Jews had been ghettoized in many of the duchy’s cities and towns (such as Reggio Emilia, Scandiano, and Finale Emilia), but at the same time they held all of the state monopolies, including those for brandy, glass, coral, diamonds, and even the duke’s library. Moreover, both major entrepreneurs and small traders could conduct their activities outside the ghetto, in the squares and streets of the city. Starting in 1622 at the latest, they could belong to any guild (by paying a fee higher than that paid by non-Jews), and could even buy property, both in the city and its countryside. As leaders within the Modenese Jewish mercantile elite, the Rovigos together with other leading merchant families like the Formiggini, Sacerdoti, Norsa, Levi, and Usiglio had the responsibility of paying the annual Jewish taxes required by the Ducal Chamber. They maintained their role of communal leadership through business, international matrimonial and interfamilial alliances, and cultural and religious influence.28 Growing up in a well-to-do family, Miriam confronted the difficulties of the ghetto while still being able to live nobly, to a certain degree. This was the case among a number of the influential merchant families of the Sephardic diaspora. The Rovigo family often hosted dukes for luxurious lunches in their ghetto home or in their lodge in the city centre. Yet, at the same time, they were forced to reside in the insufferably small ghetto, just like poor Modenese Jews. The reality of the ghetto democratized Jewish society in that it closed huge gaps in economic status through physical proximity.29 In addition, the Rovigo house had become one of the most interesting Jewish cultural and social centres both within and outside of the Italian peninsula in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Thanks to the activities of R. Abraham Rovigo (c. 1650–1713) — Miriam’s uncle and one of the most celebrated kabbalists and protagonists of the messianic-heretical Sabbatean movement in Italy — the Rovigo home was saturated with influences of Sabbateanism. 28 

In 1622 Jews were admitted into the Guilds of Silversmiths and Jewellers; Francesconi, ‘Jewish Families in Modena’, pp. 133–34; Modena, ASC, Camera Segreta, xxi, Statuti delle Arti, Orefici, fascicoli 582–92. On the admission of Jews into other guilds and their participation in the commercial life of the city, see Francesconi, ‘Strategie di sopravvivenza di una minoranza’, pp. 32–39. 29  For a comparison with the Sephardic world, see Menkis, ‘Patriarchs and Patricians’.

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Rovigo’s early fervour endured even after Sabbetai Tzevi’s conversion to Islam in 1666.30 Within the limited ghetto space, a building with a modest façade hosted the family synagogue and the male confraternity Hazot laila (midnight) that had been founded a few decades earlier by Abraham himself.31 In the mid-eighteenth century, the Modenese ghetto could boast nine synagogues, a renowned yeshivah, two schools, and twelve confraternities, one of which was Soed Holim.32 These confraternities were based on two chief sixteenth-century models: some havurot such as Rahamim (mercy) were charitable organizations, while other confraternities such as Hazot Laila focused on the study of religious texts, including kabbalistic literature, often during the night or at dawn. Hazot Laila was devoted to the regular recitation of a midnight rite (the tikkun hazot) mourning the Temple’s destruction and praying for its return, a practice popularized by R. Isaac Luria in the second half of the sixteenth century.33 Abraham Rovigo’s activities of prayer and study were combined with various forms of philanthropy. Scholars, emissaries from the Land of Israel, Sabbatean exponents, physicians,and healers (one, a certain Judah from Lithuania, specialized in treating hysterical women) were frequently hosted and funded by the Rovigos. In the late 1670s and early 1680s, for example, the presence of the maggidim ( Jewish religious itinerant preachers) Ber Perlhefter and Mordecai of Eisenstadt as salaried teachers in the Rovigos’ yeshivah was instrumental in shaping a new form of devotional religiosity in the Modenese ghetto which became influential far beyond the duchy’s boundaries.34 In this way, Abraham Rovigo was able to combine his involvement in the Sabbatean movement with his philanthropic leanings. The connection of the Rovigo family to the Sabbetai Tzevi’s movement was a critical component of Miriam’s background because of the importance of female prophets to Tzevi’s messianism. According to Ada Rapoport Albert, Sabbateanism 30 

On the Sabbatean movement, see Scholem, Sabbatai Sevi, trans. by Werblowsky. Speci­ fically on Abraham Rovigo and his connection to Sabbateanism, see Scholem, The Dreams of Mordechai Ashkenazi; Tishby, ‘R. Meir Rofe’s Letters of 1675–80 to R. Abraham Rovigo’; Sonne, ‘Visitors at the House of R. Abraham Rovigo’. 31  On Rovigo’s house and the various activities there see also Francesconi, ‘Strategie di sopravvivenza di una minoranza’, pp. 24–26, 29–31. 32  Francesconi, ‘Fra “sacro” e “profano”’. 33  On the history of Hazot Laila, see Horowitz, ‘The Eve of Circumcision’, and Horowitz, ‘Coffee, Coffeehouses and the Nocturnal Rituals of Early Modern Jewry’. 34  On the presence of Ber Perlhefter (d. after 1701) and Mordecai of Eisenstadt (1650–1729) at Rovigo’s house along with other visitors see Sonne, ‘Visitors at the House of R. Abraham Rovigo’.

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displayed a particular interest in women and was especially attrac­tive to them from the outset. The movement empowered many women by recognizing their own potential as a target audience for its redemptive message, acknowledging their prophetic inspiration, and granting them access to rituals and esoteric doctrines traditionally reserved for men.35 Following Tzevi’s apostasy and his death in 1676, women in particular were put under surveillance by communities and rabbinic establishments in both Mediterranean and European Jewish centres. This increased suspicion of women due to their association with Sabbateanism might also have played a role in the decline in female autonomy in eighteenth-century Modena, as described above. A double dimension of silence and secrecy enveloped the life of Sabbatean activists such as Abraham Rovigo and his Modenese neighbours, and greatly contributed to keeping opponents ignorant of the identities of adherents; true beliefs were concealed under the guise of rabbinic pietism.36 Did the Sabbatean activities in Miriam and Grazia’s home shape their plans, and if so, how? To what extent were they and other Soed Holim founders influenced by this complex cultural milieu? The fact that the Rovigos’ house often served as a centre for religious and philanthropic activities must have influenced Miriam’s decision to establish the sisterhood. From the start of Soed Holim until her departure from the city in 1778, the organization met in Miriam’s home. As such, a space usually under male dominance and associated with nocturnal rites and prayers was challenged by a female and daytime presence.37 Other leading women of Soed Holim such as Benedetta Fano, Miriam Levi, Gentile Levi, Reina Sanguinetti, and Devora Formiggini had similar backgrounds: their households occupied homes complete with synagogues and devotional confraternities that focused on the study of religious texts, including kabbalistic literature. Casa (household) Formiggini had a private synagogue and a yeshivah, where the confraternity Kove’e ittim (those who establish the times [for the study of the Torah]) used to meet.38 35  See Rapoport-Albert, ‘On the Position of Women in Sabbatianism’. In 2011 an expanded version of this work was published in English as Rapoport-Albert, Women and the Messianic Heresy of Sabbatai Zevi, trans. by Greniman. Moreover, J. H. (Yossi) Chajes has successfully studied the mystical prowess of a number of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Jewish women through possession narratives, hagiography, and ego-documents, showing that the possibilities for Jewish female religious expression expanded to include devotion, possession, hysteria, and the transmission of prophecies; see Chajes, Between Worlds; Chajes, ‘He Said and She Said’. 36  On this point, see Carlebach, The Pursuit of Heresy, pp. 76–77. 37  Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 22 November–21 December 1735, and 16 April 1778. 38  Modena, Bibl. Estense, AfAF, cassetta 1, fascicolo no. 3, Memorie dell’oratorio Formiggini; Modena, AC Ebraica, busta Oratori, Sinagoga Formiggini, atto di vendita del 1905; Modena,

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The Sanguinettis, influential silk entrepreneurs, owned a synagogue on the block of the ghetto facing the Strada Maestra, which hosted a school for the children of the ghetto, the confraternity Ha-mishmeret ha-boker ve ha-erev (the watch of the morning and the evening), and a ritual bath (mikveh) for women.39 If devotional confraternal activities included members with a strong attitude toward kabbalah and prayer, confraternities devoted to social welfare such as Gemilut hassadim (acts of loving kindness) and Rahamim counted all of the influential individuals of the Modenese ghetto among their members. 40 These confraternities formed the institutional basis for welfare activities touching the whole of Jewish society. The contributions of confraternity members, through both voluntary philanthropy (called il sistema della casella) and particular con­ fraternal duties, succeeded in taking care of the lower social strata of the ghetto population.41 Moreover, in Modena as in other Italian cities, the competition between the Jewish community and Catholic authorities over the poor as potential converts was always strong. After the establishment of the local Opera pia dei catecumeni (holy house of the catechumens) in 1700, the Modenese Jewish community was faced with a stronger conversional impetus from both ecclesiastical and civic authorities. Established by a group of Jesuits, priests and teachers of the Collegio di San Carlo, the Opera pia dei Catecumeni functioned much like a confraternity, obtaining a headquarters in the city’s historic centre in 1707. The Opera pia dei Catecumeni did not spare efforts in its new conversion programme, which included strict surveillance of the women who, either voluntarily or sometimes kidnapped from the ghetto, arrived in the house of the neophytes and were there locked up. Men, on the other hand, enjoyed better conditions before their conversion, such as the possibility of residing elsewhere.42 The Ducal Chamber AC Ebraica, Estimo 17 E, Memoriali 1776–1777. 39  Modena, AC Ebraica, busta 19 G, fascicolo 11; Modena, AC Ebraica, Estimo 17 E, Memoriali 1776–1777; Modena, ASC, Filza Contratti 1903; Modena, ASC, Filza Blasia e Coltellini, fascicoli 2–4; Modena, AS, Not. busta 1087, no. 58 and no. 45 (1689). On the commercial activities of Sanguinettis, see Francesconi, ‘Strategie di sopravvivenza di una minoranza’, pp. 32–39. 40  Francesconi, ‘Strategie di sopravvivenza di una minoranza’, pp. 27–28. 41  I found the formulation ‘il sistema della casella’ for the first time in Modena, ASC, Atti di Ammin. Gen. del Comune (1796–1853), fasc. 2, termidoro 20 luglio uscente 1798, ‘Nota delle compagnie ebraiche redatta da Buona Ventura Modena per Leonelli, commissario del Potere esecutivo’. 42  On the Opera Pia dei Cateumeni, see Zanardo, ‘Catecumeni e neofiti a Modena’. On the history of poor and their assistance in Modena, see Fatica, ‘La regolarizzazione dei mendicanti attraverso il lavoro’; Grana, Per una storia della pubblica assistenza a Modena; Pastore, ‘Strutture

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also took part in the conversion process. It augmented donations of bread and money to widows and neophytes on Saturdays,43 while the Jewish confraternities like Rahamim usually distributed their alms on Wednesdays, Fridays, and during the Purim holiday.44 These donations had a broad symbolic significance in defining Jewish-Christian relations in the city. It was not entirely coincidental that Soed Holim began its activities on 21 December 1735, close to both Christmas and the Jewish holiday of Hanukah. Even if the overall number of converts to Christianity was slim (only eighty people from 1749–73), conversions could break the continuity of Jewish families with devastating consequences.45 Miriam’s own family confronted conversions twice. In 1765, her brother Isacco converted to Christianity after a period of economic difficulties.46 Three years later, in December 1768, Miriam had to face the conversion of her son Leone, who decided to convert after the baptism of his wife, Eugenia, and his consequent impoverishment due to the loss of her dowry.47 Afraid of Miriam’s negative reaction, Leone, according to notarial documents, asked for and obtained his inheritance immediately before his conversion, thanks to the intercession of the Opera Pia dei Catecumeni and mostly Duke Rinaldo I.48 The attention paid by the ducal authorities to new and potential Jewish converts has to be seen in the context of the broader welfare system of a city in which the number of beggars and poor increased tremendously in the mid-eighteenth century. Within the city as a whole, the number of those impoverished reached about seven thousand out of a total population of twenty-four thousand, a percentage similar to the one found within the city’s Jewish ghetto.49 By the end of assistenziali nell’Italia della Controriforma’. 43  Zanardo, ‘Catecumeni e neofiti a Modena’, p. 129. 44  See Costituzione della Compagnia ebraica; this publication demonstrates that Rahamim was united to Gemilut Hasadim before 1791; according to the registers of Soed Holim, the merging took place before 1762 (Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 11 August 1762). 45  Zanardo, ‘Catecumeni e neofiti a Modena’, p. 133. 46  Zanardo, ‘Catecumeni e neofiti a Modena’, p. 125, and Francesconi, ‘Jewish Women in Eighteenth-Century Modena’, pp. 198–99. 47  Memorie attinenti all’Opera Pia del Catecumeno, ii, 115–17, cited in Zanardo, ‘Cate­ cumeni e neofiti a Modena’, pp. 125, 128. 48  The documentation for this complicated economic settlement is located in Modena, AS, Not. Fondo Cavicchioli, filza 5370, no. 59, 4 July 1768. In February 1769, Leone was baptized in the Duomo (the main church) of Modena with great publicity, and his godfather was the duke himself. Given the name Francesco Maria Varesi, he became a canon of Mirandola. 49  Marini, ‘Lo Stato Estense’, p. 100.

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the century, the duchy’s welfare system was on the verge of bankruptcy: impoverished by wars, overrun with requests from the poor, and spoiled by a patronage system that placed a few incompetent people in key administrative jobs. 50 Yet despite conversionary pressures, fiscal demands, and overcrowding due to a booming population, the Jewish social welfare system did not face bankruptcy as the Christian system did.51 Soed Holim, with its mixture of charity and solidarity, work and apprenticeship, acted as a strong bulwark against conversion for many weak elements in the ghetto society.

The Activities of the Soed Holim Initially, the members of Soed Holim were divided into three groups. First of all, the confraternity was governed by a board (va’ad) composed of the founders. These women provided an initial sum of money (sixty-four lire) and the material necessities of caring for the sick (bed linens, shrouds, bedclothes, mattresses, and pillows), and were willing to serve as massare pro-tempore, or parnassot (chiefs).52 The duties of this office (two members of the board were chosen each month by lottery) consisted of organizing aid, collecting money and bed linens, and taking care of the corpses.53 Starting in 1750, two women were hired at a monthly salary of thirty-five bolognini to supervise burials.54 The second group of members consisted of seven founders who preferred not to join the board or hold the office of parnassot. This second category grew larger over the years while promotion into the board became a privilege. Numerically, Soed Holim’s membership never exceeded thirty-five. The third group was composed of only four women (among them Devora Formiggini) who joined the confraternity at its inception, but did not contribute money and declined to participate in particular duties. All of the members were required to pay thirty bolognini (eight lire) per month. Every 50 

See n. 43. For an in-depth and contemporary analysis of the Christian dimensions of charity in Modena, see Ricci, Della Riforma degli Istituti Pii della Città di Modena. 51 

For Hebrew words transliterated in the sources, I left the original formulation. Modena, ASC, Atti di Ammin. Gen. del Comune (1796–1853), fasc. 2, termidoro 20 luglio uscente 1798, ‘Nota delle compagnie ebraiche redatta da Buona Ventura Modena per Leonelli, commissario del Potere esecutivo’. 52  Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, ‘Nota delle robbe che sono state date dalle signore fondatrici’, without a precise chronological indication, but presumably 21 December 1735. 53  Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 22 November–21 December 1735. 54  Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 3 October 1750.

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decision and proposal required a majority on an anonymous vote. Two male nonmembers also aided the confraternity: a keeper (custode), Prospero Lonzana, who worked as an unpaid volunteer and functioned essentially as guardian or overseer; and the scribe (sofer), Leone Moisè Usiglio, who was also an unpaid volunteer.55 A lottery selected those members who went in pairs to give daytime assistance to sick women (divided into two groups: the chronic and those in acute agony). The confraternity also hired twelve servants to care for sick women at night as well as an additional group of women outside the confraternity to care for the bodies of the deceased; it created an apprenticeship system for these positions in 1747.56 The confraternity began covering funerary expenses in 1750.57 According to the register, Soed Holim did not appoint full-time physicians or surgeons, meaning that female practitioners were able to fulfil many basic medical tasks that required a certain level of specialization. They also sat by patients’ bedsides and prepared corpses for burial according to the Jewish law. While both male and female practitioners of medicine in European Jewish and non-Jewish societies were quite common in the medieval age, by the sixteenth century the role of women had decreased. New requirements for formal academic training and licensing procedures kept women out of the medical professions; they were not allowed to attend university medical schools, and rarely received formal training any sort of trade or profession.58 The women whom Soed Holim hired not only had the basic skills, but were able to offer professional apprenticeships to others. During the same period, the neighbouring Catholic Ospizio dei poveri (hospice for the poor) offered women training in basic spinning and sewing while men had options in a broad spectrum of professional possibilities.59 Soed Holim also employed men for the care of corpses.60 Even if Soed Holim based its organizational structure on the model of male confraternities, it constituted a new development in the Western European Jewish world in that upper middle 55 

Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 22 November–21 December 1735. Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 15 October 1747. 57  Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 8 November 1750. 58  For an overview of these issues see Wiesner, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe, especially pp. 102–05 and the bibliography therein. For a comparative study on Jewish and Christian women in eighteenth-century Europe, see Ulbrich, Shulamit and Margarete, trans. by Dunlap, pp. 45–90. For a study on female work in early modern Italy, see Groppi, ‘Lavoro e proprietà delle donne nella prima età moderna’. 59  See n. 43. 60  Starting in the 1770s, two of these were Leone Senigaglia and Prospero Tedeschi. Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 29 December 1765. 56 

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class women organized themselves in order to carry out the traditional work of tzedakah (charity) both with their own hands and through the paid employment of others.61 Such independence was largely unknown in Italian Catholic women’s confraternities, such as the Modenese Congregazione delle Dame del catecumeno (established in 1709), most of which were attached to male-centred institutions and stressed their members’ role as spiritual and political subordinates.62 At the same time, Soed Holim’s autonomy and initiative did not negate the oligarchic and paternalistic social background that influenced Jewish confraternity life as well. Soed Holim’s criteria of admission demonstrate the complexity of the scenario. Daughters and sisters of members and former members did not receive special privileges, while daughters-in-law did.63 The protests of women like Ricca Sanguinetti, who objected to this policy, fell on deaf ears.64 Sometimes the male widower of a former member was appointed to choose a new female member. For instance, Salomone Vita Levi, an affluent banker and silversmith, picked two of his daughters-in-law to replace his wife in the confraternity after her death in 1762, and the members of Soed Holim voted to approve his choices.65

The Economic Dimension: Individual and Collectively Owned Properties Although the women in Soed Holim had no role in the administration of their own family’s patrimonies, good investments and collective income were key activities for their confraternity. During Soed Holim’s first meeting, Miriam was elected as the cassiera (treasurer). The statutes of 1735 explicitly emphasized that the treasurer would invest the capital of the confraternity after purchasing the necessary furniture and linens. That investment totalled two hundred eighty61 

For a new analysis of the tzedakah and the rabbinic sources as well as the medieval situ­ ation on the ground see Cohen, Poverty and Charity in the Jewish Community. For an in-depth and innovative study on the new forms of philanthropy in the European Jewish societies in the passage to the modern age, see Penslar, Shylock’s Children. On Jewish female associations in Germany, see Baader, ‘Rabbinic Study, Self Improvement, and Philanthropy’. 62  See Capitoli per le Illustrissime Signore Dame. For a comparison with the Christian world, see Terpstra, Lay Confraternities and Civic Religion in Renaissance Bologna, pp. 151– 70; Terpstra, Abandoned Children of the Italian Renaissance, pp.  116–17; Casagrande, ‘Confraternities and Lay Female Religiosity’. 63  Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 22 November–21 December 1735. 64  Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 17 September 1778. 65  Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 25 April and 11 August 1762.

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eight lire in the first year, including a lot of the furniture. The male guardian was not allowed ‘to take any initiative, in particular, economic, without the permission of the two officials (massare) pro-tempore’.66 The financial success of Soed Holim came from three sources of income. Initial membership fees and monthly dues (sixty-four and eight lire, respectively) covered ordinary expenses. Donations were the second source and came mostly as offerings in the offering boxes (bussole). Soed Holim and other confraternities placed these offering boxes in their meeting room and carried them door-todoor in order to assure the anonymity of the donors ‘according to the modesty required from banot Yisrael [ Jewish women]’ and in conformity with the Jewish principle that a charity gift has to be anonymous (matan be-seter).67 Investments in credit and loans provided the third source of income. Confraternal expenses were similarly divided into three: aid to sick women, ordinary benefits, and annual donations. According to the register, in 1751 the women of Soed Holim asked the Jewish community of Modena for two men to oversee financial matters. The community, ‘considering that the havurat Soed Holim [had] became a subject of remarkable importance’, proposed Benedetto Giuseppe Vita Levi, an important silversmith, and Angelo Vita Norsa, a silk entrepreneur. The women of Soed Holim approved these nominees by vote. It is not clear whether the idea for appointing two male financial overseers originated with the women of Soed Holim or came from the broader ghetto community. After their appointment, Benedetto Giuseppe Vita Levi and Angelo Norsa became prominent in Soed Holim affairs, partnering with Miriam and representing Soed Holim in matters of legal credit, property, donations, and social and religious standing before both Jewish and Christian authorities.68 At the same meeting, the women of Soed Holim, ‘considering the financial crisis of the community’, granted the request of Jewish leaders to donate three hundred lire for the general benefit of ghetto society, in order to alleviate some of the financial strain emanating from ducal taxes imposed on the Jewish community on account of the duchy’s participation in the War of Austrian Succession.69 66 

Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 22 November–21 December 1735. Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 31 May 1736; 11 August 1762. It seems that donations by will, as Grazia Norsa, a founder of the Soed Holim, did by donating a hundred lire in 1736 at the time of her death, were rather rare; Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 31 May 1736. 68  Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 29 August 1751. It is also difficult to understand if and how Miriam reacted to this change that in essence deprived her of part of her office. 69  Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 29 August 1751. 67 

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Credit and loans appear to have been a more substantial source of income than donations, contributing greatly to the growth of Soed Holim’s finances. Even though account books have not been preserved, other archival sources reveal that Soed Holim adopted economic strategies similar to those of other Jewish brotherhoods, brokering transactions involving individual and collectively owned properties.70 In 1762, for example, Miriam Rovigo leased her spinning mill to Soed Holim for a sum of fifteen thousand five hundred lire plus annual payments of three hundred eighty lire, in the form of a mascanta (a traditional arrangement for rent in Jewish law), for seven years. The mill came equipped with a house for the master-chief and all of its ‘tools and instruments’. It employed six workers and was directed by the Jewish banker and entrepreneur Emanuele Sacerdoti. 71 Soed Holim paid for the mill by using another credit that Miriam had obtained through a similar agreement with the firm of Aron e Figli Sanguinetti for a vast property in Monte Estenso, near Modena.72 Similarly, in 1763, Miriam drew up an agreement with the brotherhood Mishmeret ha-hodesh (watch of the month) for an eight-year lease on an apartment and the instruments for spinning that came with it; this brought her four thousand lire.73 In the same year, Soed Holim received three thousand two hundred ten lire for a credit on another landed property located in Spilamberto, near Modena.74 Under such arrangements, both Miriam and Soed Holim earned significant income without the burdens of money collection and administration. The real estate also served as a security for loans, which constituted the chief financial investments of confraternities. Through the confraternity’s transactions, Miriam Rovigo managed her assets in a way that had an impact on both her household and the collective sphere of Soed Holim. By participating in the confraternity’s economic activities, members could challenge the passivity that characterized their own private economic lives. The importance of the dowry and legal safeguards for women’s rights did not automatically imply female autonomy among Jewish women in eighteenth-century Modena, but Soed Holim offered them an alternative with a degree of agency. 70 

A report sent from the Jewish community to the municipality in 1798 (Modena, ASC, Prodotte 1798, 23 July–31 July 1798) and notarial documents (wills, dowries, and financial transactions) show the income and expenses of Soed Holim. 71  Modena, AS, Not. Fondo Alessandri, filza 5123, fascicolo no.  363, 26 May 1762; Modena, AS, Not. Fondo Giannozzi, filza 5242, fascicolo no. 1435, 11 May 1769. On the Jewish properties of all of the spinning mills in Modena during the eighteenth century, see Modena, AS, Arch. Materie, Arte della Seta, busta 34/b; Francesconi, ‘Jewish Families in Modena’, p. 149. 72  Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 25 April 1762. 73  Modena, AS, Not. Fondo Alessandri, filza 5123, no. 383, 23 July 1763. 74  Modena, AS, Not. Fondo Cavicchioli, filza 5370, no. 75, 15 February 1770.

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Soed Holim as a Female Space From its inception, Soed Holim negotiated its status within ghetto society by adapting male models in a wide spectrum of activities. Yet the female confraternity did not perform public rituals in the manner of its male counterparts. Never­ theless, the women of Soed Holim gradually inserted into their activities ritual elements such as the 1750 procession and dowry donation described at the beginning of this article. These rituals expanded the participants’ own female selfconsciousness and spiritual ambitions, which traditionally kept a low profile.75 The donation of dowries became important in establishing this process, as Soed Holim used dotal donations as a means to strengthen its own organization. Dowering brides was a philanthropic activity extremely common in both Christian and Jewish societies, where a number of confraternities devoted solely to the dowering of brides can be found.76 For this group of well-to-do women, however, donating dowries went far beyond a common form of philanthropy and became socially significant, as these women were excluded from the actual administration of their own dotal patrimonies. In 1742, good economic resources allowed Soed Holim to establish a fund generating ten scudi annually for providing poor girls with a dowry, and the confraternity began receiving applications from needy families.77 Initially, the confraternity did not apply preferential criteria, considering neither family ties nor ethnicity, as was common elsewhere. If the confraternity received requests from two or more families, they simply split the sum evenly. Starting in 1763, however, the number of recipients was limited to two, who were chosen by lot.78 Then in 1769, preference was given to young women whose fathers or whose mothers worked for Soed Holim. At the same time, the paid positions in Soed Holim became de facto hereditary.79 Ultimately, Soed Holim strengthened itself institutionally by rechanneling Jewish charitable activity through the confraternity.80 In so doing so, the institution also 75 

For Jewish male ritual models, see Horowitz, ‘Processions, Piety, and Jewish Con­fra­ ter­nities’; for a comparison with the Christian world, see Black, Italian Confraternities in the Sixteenth Century, pp. 108–21. 76  See for example Bodian, ‘The “Portuguese” Dowry Societies in Venice and Amsterdam’; Kaplan, ‘The Jews in the Republic until about 1751’. 77  Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 15 May 1742; Modena, ASC, Prodotte 1798. 78  Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 25 April 1762. 79  Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 29 November 1769; Modena, ASC, Prodotte 1798. 80  On this mechanism within Italian Jewish confraternities, see Horowitz, ‘Jewish Confraternal Piety in Sixteenth-Century Ferrara’.

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cultivated intimate bonds among its members that spanned the diverse social strata of the ghetto. From its establishment in 1742, the dowry fund was celebrated in conjunction with Rosh Hodesh of Tevet (in December or January), the holiday of special significance to women.81 Beginning in 1750, Soed Holim also combined the dowry donation together with the donation of wood for the fireplaces of all the poor families in the ghetto.82 Soed Holim women endeavoured to ‘emphasize the sanctity of this havurah’.83 In 1753, Soed Holim began holding its annual meeting at the beginning of Tevet and not at the end of Elul, which would mark the close of the year in the Jewish calendar.84 Thus the year-cycle for Soed Holim was calculated from one Tevet to another and not from the Hebrew month of Elul (September-October), which marks the actual beginning of the Jewish year. The proximity of Rosh Hodesh Tevet to the end of the Christian calendar is also meaningful since this time is a holiday period for both Jews and Christians. In 1756, the women of Soed Holim added other public donations to the annual event. They began distributing bread and one bolognino to all the poor of the ghetto, both women and men, and doubled that sum in 1775.85 Starting in 1759, the public donations were split in two, and distribution of fire wood moved to the month of Shevat (February–March).86 In December 1777, Soed Holim women decided to introduce another important innovation: meetings at which the rabbis of the community would deliver a ‘dibur or limud [a sermon] as it is common in the other confraternities to honour the soul of a late member’.87 Soed Holim women appeared rather determined in approaching the community establishment: they did not mention the importance of the mitzvot (precepts) as at the time of the confraternity’s foundation or the sanctity of the confraternity, but rather sent an explicit request via Benedetto Giuseppe Vita Levi and Angelo Norsa to the Kahal of the community.88 Confraternal rituals, such as the 81 

Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 15 May 1742. On the importance of Rosh Hodesh for Jewish women, see Weissler, Voices of the Matriarchs, pp. 23, 112–16. 82  Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 8 November 1750; 23 August 1751. 83  Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 15 May 1742; 8 November 1750; 20 June 1756; 24 December 1759; 17 September 1775. 84  Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, ‘Primo del 1753’. 85  Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 20 June 1756; 17 September 1775; Modena, ASC, Prodotte 1798. 86  Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 24 December 1759. 87  Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 2 December 1777. 88  Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 2 December 1777.

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celebration of Rosh Hodesh, the limud, and public ceremonies of bequest represented feminine strategies of cultural and spiritual survival that challenged the traditional social structure. The visibility of Soed Holim was evidenced by the expansion of their charitable activities. From 1738, every sick woman in the ghetto received a monthly sum of thirty bolognini and wood for her fireplace during the winter, and beginning in 1742, Soed Holim provided burial shrouds for women as well as men.89 On occasion, the confraternity provided charity outside the city. In 1762, for instance, mediated by their male guardians Benedetto Giuseppe Vita Levi and Angelo Norsa, Soed Holim agreed to the request of Modenese Jewish communal leaders to make a donation (the sum is not specified) to the Jewish community of Rovigo following the example of the brotherhood Rahamim.90 In this way, Soed Holim and its female philanthropic model gained fame outside the Este duchy. This kind of visibility meant that, over time, belonging to Soed Holim became a sign of prestige if not honour, as one of the rare opportunities through which a woman could emerge from the collectivity. The significance of Soed Holim membership as a sign of honour is evident from the story of Grazia Formiggini, the daughter-in-law of Devora Formiggini. Grazia had submitted her application to Soed Holim and had asked to join the board when she died suddenly in early 1777.91 Her young sons then requested and were allowed to pay the monthly fee for their mother until she could be symbolically admitted to the board when a place became available, so that Grazia Formiggini’s name would be inscribed on the official tableaux of the board, in order ‘to honour her memory’.92 Excluded from the Jewish public sphere as individuals, the women of Soed Holim established intimate bonds with each other through fraternalism and did their utmost to appear as a corporate body with strong visibility in the Jewish public sphere. Soed Holim women worked themselves, offered both jobs and professional training to other women, and raised and spent the money required for aid. The sisterhood grew wealthier through independent investments (from both Jews and non-Jews), bequests, and donations. Thus, Modenese Jewish women had complex cultural identities and religious roles that both paralleled and contrasted those of men. This female agency was always based on strategies 89  Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 22 November 1738; Modena, ASC, Prodotte 1798; Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 15 May 1742; Modena, ASC, Prodotte 1798. 90  Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 11 August 1762. 91  Modena, Bibl. Estense, AfAF, cassetta 2, fascicolo no. 47, 28 September 1784. 92  Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 25 May 1777.

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of negotiation, a sort of give-and-take with the communal establishment. A final example will make this dichotomy crystal clear. After the departure and then the death of Miriam Rovigo in 1778, Soed Holim lost its original headquarters. Soed Holim women then requested, through the mediation of Benedetto Giuseppe Vita Levi and Angelo Norsa, a ‘room in the mentioned KK [Kahal kadosh] to convene their board as they [leaders of the Jewish community] had favored the other haverot [confraternities] that lack a hall for meetings’.93 The women’s request was granted. A daytime female presence once again challenged a traditionally male-dominated space, since the building also hosted the rabbinic tribunal and served as the Kahal’s headquarters. 94 By allowing Soed Holim to use the building, communal leaders confirmed the female confraternity’s important social role within ghetto society. At the same time, their acceptance can be interpreted as a Foucauldian strategy by which the male Jewish oligarchy carefully watched over a female confraternity whose presence was becoming more and more prominent.95

93  94  95 

Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 16 April 1778. Modena, AC Ebraica, SH-Register, 17 September 1778. Foucault, Surveiller et punir.

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Works Cited Manuscripts and Archival Resources Modena, Archivio della Comunità ebraica, Archivio aggregato della Soed Holim (Register) —— , busta 19 G, fascicolo 11 —— , busta Oratori, Sinagoga Formiggini —— , Estimo 17 E, Memoriali 1776–1777 Modena, Archivio di Stato, Archivio per Materie, Arti e Mestieri, Arte della Seta, busta 34/b —— , Archivio per Materie, Arti e Mestieri, Ebrei, busta no. 15 —— , Notarile, busta 1087 —— , Notarile, Fondo Antonio Jacopo Alessandri, filza 5123 —— , Notarile, Fondo Gaetano Tonani, filza 5227 —— , Notarile, Fondo Giuseppe Antonio Cavicchioli, filza 5370 —— , Notarile, Fondo Niccolò Giannozzi, filza 5238 —— , Notarile, Fondo Niccolò Giannozzi, filza 5242 Modena, Archivio Storico Comunale, Atti di Amministrazione Generale del Comune di Modena (1796–1853), fascicolo 2 —— , Camera Segreta, xxi, Statuti delle Arti della città di Modena, Orefici, fascicoli 582–92 —— , Consiglio della Municipalità, Prodotte, 23 July–31 July 1798 —— , Filza Blasia e Coltellini —— , Filza Contratti 1903 Modena, Biblioteca Estense, Archivio familiare Angelo Formiggini, cassetta 1 —— , Archivio familiare Angelo Formiggini, cassetta 2

Primary Sources Capitoli per le Illustrissime Signore Dame della Congregazione delle Cattecumene di Modona (Modena: Capponi, 1709) Costituzione della Compagnia ebraica della Misericordia della Città di Modena (Modena: Soliani, 1791) Modena, Leone, Historia de’ riti ebraici (Venezia: Calleoni, 1638)

Secondary Studies Adelman, Howard, ‘Italian Jewish Women‘, in Jewish Women in Historical Perspective, ed. by Judith R. Baskin, 2nd edn (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998), pp. 150–68 —— , ‘Servants and Sexuality: Seduction, Surrogacy, and Rape. Some Observations Con­ cerning Class, Gender and Race in Early Modern Italian Jewish Families’, in Gen­der and Judaism: The Transformation of Tradition, ed. by Tamar M. Rudavsky (New York: New York University Press, 1995), pp. 81–97 Allegra, Luciano, Identità in bilico: Il ghetto ebraico di Torino nel Settecento (Torino: Zamorani, 1996)

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Baader, Maria Benjamin, ‘Rabbinic Study, Self Improvement, and Philanthropy: Gender and the Refashioning of Jewish Voluntary Associations in Germany, 1750–1870’, in Philanthropy, Patronage, and Civil Society: Experiences from Germany, Great Britain, the United States and Canada, ed. by Thomas Adam (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), pp. 163–78 Baskin, Judith R., ‘Introduction’, in Jewish Women in Historical Perspective, ed. by Judith R. Baskin, 2nd edn (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1994), pp. 15–24 Black, Christopher F., Italian Confraternities in the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989) Boccato, Carla, ‘Aspetti della condizione femminile nel ghetto di Venezia (secolo xviii): I Testamenti’, Italia, 10 (1993), 105–35 Bodian, Miriam, ‘The “Portuguese” Dowry Societies in Venice and Amsterdam: A Case Study in Communal Differentiation within the Marrano Diaspora’, Italia, 6 (1987), 30–61 Bonazzoli, Viviana, ‘Sulla struttura familiare delle aziende ebraica nell’Ancona del “700”’, in La presenza ebraica nelle Marche: Secoli xiii–xx, ed. by Sergio Anselmi and Viviana Bonazzoli (Ancona: Proposte e ricerche, 1993), pp. 139–54 Carlebach, Elisheva, The Pursuit of Heresy: Rabbi Moses Hagiz and the Sabbatean Controversies (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990) Casagrande, Giovanna, ‘Confraternities and Lay Female Religiosity in Late Medieval and Renaissance Umbria’, in The Politics of Ritual Kinship: Confraternities and Social Order in Early Modern Italy, ed. by Nicholas Terpstra, Cambridge Studies in Italian History and Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 48–66 Chajes, J. H., Between Worlds: Dybbuks, Exorcists, and Early Modern Judaism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003) —— , ‘He Said and She Said: Hearing the Voices of Pneumatic Early Modern Jewish Women’, Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women’s Studies and Gender Issues, 10 (2005), 99–125 Cohen, Mark, Poverty and Charity in the Jewish Community of Medieval Egypt, Jews, Chris­tians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World (Princeton: Prince­ ton University Press, 2005) Dubin, Lois, ‘Jewish Women, Marriage Law, and Emancipation: A Civil Divorce in LateEighteenth-Century Trieste’, Jewish Social Studies, 13 (2007), 65–92 Fatica, Michele, ‘La regolarizzazione dei mendicanti attraverso il lavoro: l’Ospizio dei poveri di Modena nel Settecento’, Studi storici, 23 (1982), 757–82 Foucault, Michel, Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la prison (Paris: Gallimard, 1975) Francesconi, Federica, ‘Fra “sacro” e “profano”: Spazi urbani e vita ebraica a Modena dal Rinascimento all’età moderna’, Studi della Deputazione di storia patria modenese, 52 (2004), 119–45 —— , ‘From Ghetto to Emancipation: The Role of Moisè Formiggini’, Jewish History, 24 (2010), 331–54 —— , ‘Jewish Families in Modena from the Renaissance to the Napoleonic Emancipation (1600–1810)’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Haifa, 2007)

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—— , ‘Jewish Women in Eighteenth-Century Modena: Individual, Household and Col­ lec­­tive Properties’, in Across the Religious Divide: Women’s Properties in the Wider Mediter­ranean (ca. 1300–1800), ed. by Jutta Sperling and Shona Wray, Routledge Research in Gender and History, 11 (London: Routledge, 2010), pp. 191–207 —— , ‘Strategie di sopravvivenza di una minoranza in una capitale europea: Commercio, filantropia e cultura degli ebrei modenesi (secoli xvii–xviii)’, in Vita e società ebraiche di Modena e Reggio Emilia durante l’età dei ghetti, ed. by Federica Francesconi and Luisa Levi D’Ancona (Modena: Panini, 2007), pp. 9–41 Galasso, Cristina, Alle origini di una comunità: Ebree ed ebrei a Livorno nel xvii secolo, Storia dell’ebraismo in Italia: Studi e testi, 23 (Firenze: Olschki, 2002) Grana, Daniela, Per una storia della pubblica assistenza a Modena: Modelli e strutture tra Cinquecento e Settecento, Deputazione di storia patria per le antiche provincie modenesi, n.s., 120 (Modena: Aedes Muratoriana, 1991) Groppi, Angela, ‘Lavoro e proprietà delle donne nella prima età moderna’, in Il lavoro delle donne: Storia delle donne in Italia, ed. by Angela Groppi (Roma: Laterza, 1996), pp. 119–63 Horowitz, Elliott, ‘Coffee, Coffeehouses and the Nocturnal Rituals of Early Modern Jewry’, AJS Review, 14 (1989), 17–46 —— , ‘The Eve of Circumcision: A Chapter in the History of Jewish Nightlife’, Journal of Social History, 23 (1989), 45–69 —— , ‘Jewish Confraternal Piety in Sixteenth-Century Ferrara: Continuity and Change’, in The Politics of Ritual Kinship: Confraternities and Social Order in Early Modern Italy, ed. by Nicholas Terpstra, Cambridge Studies in Italian History and Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 150–71 —— , ‘Processions, Piety, and Jewish Confraternities’, in The Jews of Early Modern Venice, ed. by Robert C. Davis and Benjamin Ravid (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), pp. 231–48 Kaplan, Yosef, ‘The Jews in the Republic until about 1751: Religious, Cultural, and Social Life’, in The History of the Jews in the Netherlands, ed. by J. C. H. Blom and others, trans. by Arnold J. Pomerans and Erica Pomerans (Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2002), pp. 116–63 Levine-Melammed, René, Heretics or Daughters of Israel? The Crypto-Jewish Women of Castile (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999) Marini, Lino, ‘Lo Stato Estense’, in I Ducati padani, Trento e Trieste, ed. by Lino Marini and others, Storia d’Italia, 17 (Torino: UTET, 1979), pp. 3–211 Menkis, Richard, ‘Patriarchs and Patricians: The Gradis Family of Eighteenth-Century Bordeaux’, in From East and West: Jews in a Changing Europe, 1750–1850, ed. by Frances Malino and David Sorkin (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991; repr. as Profiles in Diversity: Jews in a Changing Europe, 1750–1850 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998)), pp. 11–43 Modena, Luisa, ‘Note a margine della vita delle donne ebree modenesi nell’epoca del ghetto’, in Le Comunità ebraiche di Modena e Carpi: Dal medioevo all’età contemporanea, ed. by Franco Bonilauri and Vincenza Maugeri (Firenze: Giuntina, 1999), pp. 141–60

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Pastore, Alessandro, ‘Strutture assistenziali nell’Italia della Controriforma’, in La chiesa e il potere politico dal Medioevo all’età contemporanea, ed. by Giorgio Chittolini and Giovanni Miccoli, Storia d’Italia, Annali, 9 (Torino: Einaudi, 1986), pp. 433–506 Penslar, Derek, Shylock’s Children: Economics and Jewish Identity in Modern Europe (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001) Rapoport-Albert, Ada, ‘On the Position of Women in Sabbatianism’, in The Sabbatian Movement and its Aftermath: Messianism, Sabbatianism, and Frankism [Hebrew], ed. by Rachel Elior ( Jerusalem: Mandel Institute of Jewish Studies, 2001), pp. 143–327 —— , Women and the Messianic Heresy of Sabbatai Zevi, 1666–1816, trans. by Deborah Greniman (Portland, OR: Littman, 2011) Ricci, Lodovico, Della Riforma degli Istituti Pii della Città di Modena (Modena: Soliani, 1787) Rivlin, Bracha, Mutual Responsibility in the Italian Ghetto: Holy Societies 1516–1789 [Hebrew] ( Jerusalem: Magnes, 1991) Rosman, Moshe, ‘A Prolegomenon to the Study of Jewish Cultural History’, Jewish Studies: An Internet Journal, 1 (2002), 109–27 Sabean, David Warren, and Simon Teuscher, ‘Kinship in Europe: A New Approach to Long-Term Development’, in Kinship in Europe: Approaches to Long-Term Development (1300–1900), ed. by David Warren Sabean, Simon Teuscher, and Jon Mathieur (New York: Berghahn, 2007), pp. 1–32 Scholem, Gershom, The Dreams of Mordechai Ashkenazi, a Follower of Shabbetai Zevi [Hebrew] ( Jerusalem: Shoken, 1937) —— , Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah, 1626–1676, trans. by Raphael J. Zwi Werblowsky, Bollingen Series, 93 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973) Siegmund, Stefanie, The Medici State and the Ghetto of Florence: The Construction of an Early Modern Jewish Community (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005) Sonne, Isaiah, ‘Visitors at the House of R. Abraham Rovigo’ [Hebrew], Sefunot, 5 (1961), 275–95 Stow, Kenneth, ‘The Jewish Woman as Social Protagonist: Jewish Women in Sixteenth Century Rome’, in Le Donne delle minoranze: Le ebree e le protestanti d’Italia, ed. by Claire Honess and Verina Jones, Nostro tempo, 64 (Torino: Claudiana, 1999), pp. 87–100 —— , ‘Marriages Are Made in Heaven: Marriage and the Individual in the Roman Jewish Ghetto’, Renaissance Quarterly, 48 (1995), 445–91 —— , Theater of Acculturation: The Roman Ghetto in the Sixteenth Century (Seattle: Uni­ ver­sity of Washington Press, 2001) Terpstra, Nicholas, Abandoned Children of the Italian Renaissance: Orphan Care in Florence and Bologna (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005) —— , ‘De-institutionalizing Confraternity Studies: Fraternalism and Social Capital in Cross-Cultural Contexts’, in Early Modern Confraternities in Europe and the Americas: International and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, ed. by Christopher F. Black and Pamela Gravestock (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), pp. 264–83 —— , Lay Confraternities and Civic Religion in Renaissance Bologna (Cambridge: Cam­ bridge University Press, 1995)

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Tishby, Isaiah, ‘R. Meir Rofe’s Letters of 1675–80 to R. Abraham Rovigo’ [Hebrew], Sefunot, 3–4 (1960), 84–90 Ulbrich, Claudia, Shulamit and Margarete: Power, Gender, and Religion in a Rural Society in Eighteenth-Century Europe, trans. by Thomas Dunlap, Studies in Central European Histories, 32 (Leiden: Brill, 2004; orig. publ. in German as Shulamit und Margarete:  Macht, Geschlecht, und Religion in einer ländlichen Gesellschaft des 18. Jahr­hunderts (Wien: Böhlau, 1999)) Weissler, Chava, Voices of the Matriarchs: Listening to the Prayers of Early Modern Jewish Women (Boston: Beacon, 1998) Wiesner, Merry E., Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe, New Approaches to Euro­pean History, 20, 2nd edn (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000) Zanardo, Andrea, ‘Catecumeni e neofiti a Modena alla fine dell’antico regime’, in Le Comunità ebraiche di Modena e Carpi: Dal medioevo all’età contemporanea, ed. by Franco Bonilauri and Vincenza Maugeri (Firenze: Giuntina, 1999), pp. 121–39

Native Brotherhoods and Visual Culture in Colonial Quito (Ecuador): The Confraternity of the Rosary Susan Verdi Webster*

I

n colonial Spanish America, confraternities were among the very few officially recognized institutions to which all members of society could belong. Mixed confraternities of Spaniards, Amerindians, and Africans existed, particularly in the urban centers; however, exclusive groups based on racial or ethnic identity also were common. Exclusive confraternities were especially popular among marginalized groups because they offered the possibility for relatively autonomous social, cultural, and religious activity, and fostered collective identity. In the northern Andean city of Quito, for example, by 1650,

*  Research support for this study was generously provided by the Renaissance Society of

America, the American Philosophical Society, the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fulbright Senior Scholars Program, and the College of William and Mary. I am grateful for the assistance of Ximena Carcelén, Susana Cabeza de Vaca, Patricio Carvajal, José Vera, and most especially to Hernán Navarrete, whose contributions are always invaluable, and whose photos grace this text. Archival abbreviations employed in the footnotes: Archivo General de Indias (AGI); Archivo del Arzobispado de Quito (AA); Archivo General de la Orden Dominica del Ecuador (AGODE); Archivo Nacional de Historia, Quito (ANH). Susan Verdi Webster ([email protected]) is the Jane Williams Mahoney Professor of Art History and American Studies at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. The author of Art and Ritual in Golden-Age Spain: Sevillian Confraternities and the Processional Sculpture of Holy Week (1998), she has published widely on the social and religious contexts of early modern Iberian and colonial Latin American art and architecture. She is currently at work on several book projects, including a study entitled ‘The Conquest of European Architecture: Andean Masters and the Construction of Colonial Quito’.

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more than half of its nearly one hundred confraternities were exclusively indigenous groups.1 The first confraternities established in Quito in the early sixteenth century were multi-racial and multi-ethnic groups incorporating Spaniards, Andeans, and Africans. In many cases, this pattern shifted in the last decades of the sixteenth century as formerly mixed sodalities divided along ethnic and racial lines, establishing independent confraternities. For example, the Confraternity of the Vera Cruz, which was originally instituted as a mixed sodality in the late 1530s, split in the 1580s into separate brotherhoods of Spaniards and Andeans.2 Although both confraternities retained their devotion to the Vera Cruz, they existed and operated in separate realms. Each possessed a chapel and sacred images, maintained its own ordenanzas (rules), and celebrated its respective processions on different feast days. Many of the earliest Quiteñan confraternities followed a similar pattern, including the Dominican-sponsored Confraternity of the Rosary, marking a late sixteenth-century shift in Quiteñan confraternal institutions. Unlike their counterparts on the Iberian peninsula, where powerful identities and competition among sodalities ensured that different confraternities in a single city were prohibited from sharing the same name or advocation, Quiteñan brotherhoods replicated advocations that responded to the varied ethnic and racial composition of the city.3 New World social organization evolved around two separate Republics, the república de los indios and that of the españoles, with the former parallel but subservient to the latter. This resulted in multiple confraternities of the same name and advocation in colonial Quito.4 This transformation of Iberian confraternity models suggests the degree to which local ethnic differences in Quito established and reinforced separate social and devotional realms. While there was only one Spanish Confraternity of the Vera Cruz, the Rosary, or the Holy Sacrament (in a manner approximating localized archconfraternities), there were often several native confraternities with the same name and advocation located in religious establishments throughout the city.5 From a 1 

Webster, ‘Las cofradías y su mecenazgo artístico durante la colonia’, p. 68. Sevilla, AGI, Quito, 23, N. 14. 3  Webster, Art and Ritual in Golden-Age Spain, p. 36. 4  For the two Republics, see especially: Phelan, The Kingdom of Quito in the Seventeenth Century, chap. 3, pp. 243–340. 5  For example, by the seventeenth century, native confraternities of the Rosary were estab­ lished in the parish churches of San Roque, San Sebastián, and Santa Prisca (and its native satellite church Santa Clara de San Millán), as well as in the Monastery of Santo Domingo and the Convent of Santa Catalina. 2 

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Spanish point of view, multiple native confraternities of the same name may not have been problematic in Quito, precisely because native brotherhoods belonged to a distinct and lesser realm. By the late sixteenth century, a large number of exclusively native confraternities were established in the city’s parishes, monasteries, and convents, testifying to the popularity of such groups within the Andean community. In Quito, as in other colonial urban centers, native confraternities in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries typically included members representing diverse indigenous ethnic groups that had moved or been forcibly relocated to the city. From an Andean point of view, native confraternities were themselves mixed: they incorporated members of different linguistic groups, geographical regions, and cultural traditions. As a result, the broader rubric of ‘native’ confraternities included a multiplicity of Andean ethno-linguistic identities, creating what some scholars have termed ‘ethnogenesis’, or a ‘new ethnicity’.6 In this sense, native confraternities may have promoted a kind of ethnic leveling similar to the indiscriminate label of ‘Indian’ invented by the Europeans. Yet they also afforded their members an officially sanctioned ethnic refuge within the diverse and hierarchical social structure of the colonial city.7 Although native confraternities initially were fostered as tools of evangelization, they effected changes in the traditional model of the European sodality and its activities that reflected their new collective ethnic identity within a colonial context. This study focuses on several of the ways that native confraternities adapted and transformed European models by examining gender, ritual, and visual culture in one such Quiteñan sodality, that of Our Lady of the Rosary of the Natives (Nuestra Señora del Rosario de los Naturales).

The Many Faces of the Confraternity of the Rosary The Confraternity of the Rosary was the first sodality established in the Dominican friars’ church in Quito. It was instituted in 1563, less than three decades after the founding of the city itself. Originally, it was a mixed group that included Spanish, Andean, and African members. In 1588, however, the con6 

Charney, ‘A Sense of Belonging’. By the seventeenth century, the ‘new ethnicity’ of indigenous confraternities came to include mestizos who self-identified as natives. These mestizos wore native dress, spoke exclusively or primarily Quechua, and are often referred to in the documents as ‘mestiza/o en traje de india/o’, further expanding the notion of ‘Indian’ identity. 7 

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Figure 2. Jules Boilly, Procession du Vendredi Sant a Quito, in Alcide D’Orbigny, Voyage pittoresque dans dans les deux Amériques (Paris, 1836). Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Earl Gregg Swem Library, The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA.

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fraternity divided into three groups on the basis of race and ethnicity, creating independent sodalities of Spaniards, Andeans, and Africans and mulattos. Each confraternity retained the principal advocation of the Rosary, each maintained its own images, ordenanzas, and other belongings in its respective chapel in the Dominican church, and each celebrated its particular feast days with processions and other ritual activities. One means of approaching the nature of indigenous participation in colonial Quiteñan confraternities is afforded by examining an engraving that depicts a Good Friday procession in Quito (Figure 2). This print is not, strictly speaking, a colonial image (it was executed in the 1830s by the French engraver Jules Boilly), nor does it represent a native confraternity. It nonetheless provides a telling introduction to several of the principal themes of the present study. Boilly’s print was included as a tri-fold insert in Alcide D’Orbigny’s volume, Voyage pittoresque dans les deux Amériques, published in Paris in 1836. D’Orbigny’s text also included an extensive eyewitness account of a Good Friday procession that took place in Quito in the 1820s, written by a certain M. de Raigecourt. The print illustrates the Good Friday procession of a single confraternity, that of Our Lady of the Rosary of the Spaniards, one of the wealthiest and most powerful sodalities in Quito during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and, apparently, during the Republican period, as well.8 Membership in this elite group included numerous presidents of the real audiencia, generals, mayors, city councilors, and prominent representatives of the local Spanish and Creole nobility. The marvellously detailed image lends itself to extensive examination; however, the present study focuses on several of the ways that it informs our understanding of the membership and activities of confraternities in colonial Quito. The various groups of people that comprise the procession are conveniently labelled in the print although not always correctly — for example, John the Evangelist is here identified as the Baptist. The artist has also taken certain liberties in terms of the order of people and images in the procession. For example, the direction of the second and fourth rows of the procession should be reversed so as to follow those above them. Accordingly, the archbishop and the canon of the church should bring up the rear of the procession, following the tradition of locating the most important participants and images at the end of the procession. Other aspects of the print that might appear mistaken or exaggerated, such as the immensely tall conical hoods of the confraternity members labelled as 8 

For documented identification of the confraternity depicted in the engraving as that of Our Lady of the Rosary of the Spaniards, see: Webster, ‘La presencia indígena en las celebraciones y días festivos’.

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Figure 3. Jules Boilly, Procession du Vendredi Sant a Quito, detail of almas santas.

Figure 4. Contemporary almas santas from a Good Friday Procession in the Town of Alangasí, Ecuador, 2007. Photo: Susan V. Webster.

almas santas (holy souls) (Figure 3), are nonetheless quite correct, as contemporary accounts and present-day practice attest. According to our eye-witness, De Raigecourt, ‘The procession opened with a thousand almas santas, some among them with hats so extremely high that they reached the second-floor windows of

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Figure 5. Jules Boilly, Procession du Vendredi Sant a Quito, detail of Andeans carrying the paso of Jesus and Simon of Cyrene.

the houses and at times got hung up on them’.9 Although almas santas no longer appear in modern-day Quiteñan processions, the tradition continues in smaller rural communities near the city, such as that of the town of Alangasí. In a modern parallel to De Raigecourt’s account, today the passage of the almas santas through the streets of Alangasí is complicated by webs of dangling electrical cables (Figure 4). Certain features of the procession depicted in the print inform our understanding of colonial confraternities in Quito. Principally, it shows that virtually all sectors of Spanish colonial society: military and civil authorities, secular and regular clergy, noble Spanish and Creole women, native Andeans, Africans, and Spanish and Creole school children from the Dominican colegio participated in the procession. Andeans, identified by their darker skin, bare feet, ponchos, and short cotton trousers, appear only as porters of the pasos, or processional platforms, and as bearers of lanterns and incense burners (Figure 5). It appears that their role in this ostensibly penitential procession is to perform the manual labour, and they do so barefoot, unlike the other participants. The African presence is represented solely by the group of elaborately attired assistants to the 9 

M. de Raigecourt, quoted in Orbigny, Viaje pintoresco á las dos Américas, p. 85.

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Figure 6. Jules Boilly, Procession du Vendredi Sant a Quito, detail of Africans.

mayor, labelled in the print as ‘The Mayor and his negroes’ (Figure 6). The fact that so few Africans participated may reflect their historically small population in the city; African freedmen and slaves were not at all numerous, and slaves in particular were quite expensive. Although a separate Confraternity of the Rosary for Africans and mulattos was established at Santo Domingo, no significant documentation regarding its rules and activities has yet come to light.10 Boilly’s print also depicts a rather eclectic-looking group of men bearing weapons, identified as ‘Jews’ (Figure 7). These figures appear to represent a variety of so-called heretics and apostates from different historical periods and geographical regions, all subsumed under the label ‘Jews’. According to De Raigecourt’s account, these figures represent the Jews sent to the Mount of Olives to arrest Jesus. Who played the role of the Jews? De Raigecourt writes that ‘everyone assured me that these roles were so despised that if no one in the city could be found to volunteer, the [street] vendors who sell spices and foodstuff were forced to play them’.11 It bears noting in this regard that street vendors in colonial Quito typically were natives and mestizos. 10 

A complete review of all notarial documents in the Archivo Nacional de Historia between 1580 and 1800 has produced only one document related to the African and mulatto Confraternity of the Rosary in Santo Domingo, a chaplaincy established in 1638 by Juan de Vera ‘mulatto libre’, in the amount of fifty-five patacones per year in favour of the ‘capilla de nuestra señora del rozario que los morenos tienen fundado en el d[ic]ho combento’. Quito, ANH, Notaría 6a, vol. 50, 1638, fols 767v–68v. 11  De Raigecourt, quoted in Orbigny, Viaje pintoresco á las dos Américas, p. 86.

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Figure 7. Jules Boilly, Procession du Vendredi Sant a Quito, detail of ‘Jews’.

Figure 8. Jules Boilly, Procession du Vendredi Sant a Quito, detail of women.

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Figure 9. Anonymous, Good Thief, Chapel of the Rosary, Church of Santo Domingo, Quito. Seventeenth or eighteenth century. Photo: Susan V. Webster.

The role of women is also a notable feature in the print (Figure 8). Females occupy a position of relatively high status, as indicated by their location to the rear of the procession (only the Archbishop and the canon are given greater authority), and the women lift and carry the paso of the Sorrowing Virgin, a phenomenon that was relatively rare in peninsular Spain. Flagellants or confraternity members engaged in acts of self-mortification are conspicuously absent, despite the fact that the Spanish confraternity’s ordenanzas (rules) describe its procession as incorporating disciplinantes.12 Marching among the cream of Quiteñan society, the print depicts Spanish and/or Creole women occupying positions of high status, Andeans and mestizos serving as manual labour and impersonating the despised ‘Jews’, and Africans participating as well-appointed servitors of the mayor, attesting to this official’s social and political status. From one point of view, this image offers a fairly accu12 

Quito, AGODE, vol. 165, ‘Constituciones de la Cofradía del Santísimo Rosario’, fols 157v–66v.

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Figure 10. Anonymous, Bad Thief, Chapel of the Rosary, Church of Santo Domingo, Quito. Seventeenth or eighteenth century. Photo: Susan V. Webster.

rate representation of the colonial social hierarchy that clearly continued into the Republican period. As an elite and exclusive Spanish and Creole confraternity, Our Lady of the Rosary of the Spaniards replicated in its public procession its particular vision of colonial Quiteñan society, constructing its public image as a reflection and reinforcement of its own privileged social, economic, and political position within the colonial order. The Good Friday procession represented the culmination of a more extended ritual performance that was organized and funded by the Spanish Confraternity of the Rosary. The procession followed the sermon and ceremony of the Descent from the Cross held in the Church of Santo Domingo. Confraternity members re-enacted the Descent using sculpted images that represented Jesus, the Good and Bad Thieves, and the Virgin Mary. De Raigecourt wrote that, upon entering the Dominican church on Good Friday, he saw three enormous crosses arranged in the apse: ‘the one in the middle was empty, and the other two bore the crucified [sculptures of the] two thieves, one of them white and the other Indian, undoubt-

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Figure 11. Exterior, Chapel of the Rosary of the Spaniards, Church of Santo Domingo, Quito. 1730s. Photo: Susan V. Webster.

Figure 12. Interior, Chapel of the Rosary of the Spaniards, Church of Santo Domingo, Quito. 1730s.

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edly in respect to the two castes’.13 These sculptures are still preserved in the camarín, or dressing room of the Virgin, located behind the Chapel of the Rosary of the Spaniards (Figures 9 and 10). The dramatic difference in colouration between the two sculptures of the thieves highlights their ethnic associations: the image of the Good Thief is white and that of the Bad Thief is brown. De Raigecourt further observed from a characteristically European perspective that the ritual and procession of the Spanish Confraternity of the Rosary ‘surpassed in splendor all the others of the previous days’, several of which he describes at length. Indeed, he devotes nearly two pages to an extended description of the Spanish Confraternity of the Rosary and a full page to another Spanish sodality from the Church of San Francisco. At the end of his account, he mentions that ‘the following day another procession took place, although not as brilliant as that of the previous evening: it was composed exclusively of Indians, without a single priest or friar, and did not offer anything of particular note’.14 Although one might wish for further elaboration, the fact that De Raigecourt describes the procession of the native confraternity as unaccompanied and unsupervised by the clergy does serve to reinforce the impression of relative autonomy that such groups appear to have enjoyed.

The Native Confraternity of the Rosary: Adaptations and Transformations No visual images documenting the Holy Week processions of the native Con­ fraternity of the Rosary have yet come to light, yet its ordenanzas are still extant, as are archival documents and chronicles related to its origins, administrative structure, possessions, and activities. As noted above, the native sodality was established in 1588 when the Andean members separated from the formerly mixed Confraternity of the Rosary. This was apparently a mutual decision that was brokered by the Dominicans. In a preamble to the indigenous confraternity’s new ordenanzas, the scribe recorded that the natives did not attend [the mixed confraternity] because they said that they could not do so with comfort if they did not have their own organization, so as to be able to join together [as their own group] and attend with holy competence, [and] that they must have their own chapel and images to which they could freely attend, because the Spaniards belittled them and did not allow them to perform the activities that their devotions required.15 13  14  15 

De Raigecourt, quoted in Orbigny, Viaje pintoresco á las dos Américas, p. 85. De Raigecourt, quoted in Orbigny, Viaje pintoresco á las dos Américas, p. 84. Quoted in Vargas, Nuestra Señora del Rosario en el Ecuador, p. 47.

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As a result, in 1588, the native members essentially seceded from the mixed confraternity, establishing their own exclusive and autonomous group. This new ethnic confraternity fostered the reproduction of Andean cultural principles and traditions, some of which are documented in the visual and archival record. The Andean and the Spanish confraternities of the Rosary occupied distinct and separate side chapels in the Dominican church. The Spanish brotherhood possessed the transept chapel immediately to the right of the main sanctuary, while the Andean sodality apparently occupied a chapel in the left transept, facing the Spanish group beyond the crossing. Numerous archival documents record the successive expansions and decorative campaigns undertaken by the Spanish confraternity; however, no such documents record similar activities by the Andean brotherhood. The Spanish confraternity enlarged its chapel and commissioned new altarpieces during the 1660s, and then in the 1730s its members embarked on a radical architectural expansion of the chapel.16 Their ambitious plan involved demolishing a section of the transept wall of the Dominican church and building a massive extension composed of three distinct segments (Figure 11), the interior of which was then lavishly adorned with polychromed and gilded walls, arches, and altars (Figure 12). In an impressive feat of engineering, the imposing tripartite chapel with its two commanding domes was constructed atop a broad stone arch spanning one of Quito’s busy streets. Unfortunately, a lack of documentation with respect to the chapel of the native brotherhood makes a comparison with that of the Spanish confraternity difficult. Yet the present configuration of the Dominican church indicates that the Andean group undertook no comparable architectural expansion. The native confraternity possessed several titular sculptures and other objects related to it processional activities, which were undoubtedly located on an altar in its chapel; however, these images and objects have not survived. Without documentation, we can only speculate that the Andean group may have focused its energies and relatively limited resources on principally public activities, such as processions, rather than on the expansion and adornment of its private chapel. Upon separation from the Spanish confraternity, the Andean group was allocated a number of specific feast days and ritual activities. The native confraternity’s ordenanzas explain that 16 

For the expansion of the chapel in the 1660s, see Quito, ANH, Notaría 4a, vol. 25, 1666, Antonio de Verzossa, fols 58v–59v. For the radical extension of the chapel in the 1730s, see Quito, ANH, Libro de Cabildo de la Ciudad de Quito, 1730–35 (typescript transcription), 72, ‘Petición de la Cofradía de Nuestra Señora del Rosario de los Españoles para el remedio y reparo de la capilla de dicha cofradía para la comodidad y decencia del altar’, 22 April 1732. See also: Webster, ‘Confraternities as Patrons of Architecture’.

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because the confraternity [of Spaniards] has many feast days that are contained within the 15 mysteries of the Rosary, and because the Spanish members can not celebrate all of them, and the said natives were not given a place in their celebrations, rather they were confronted with many discomforts and even confusions, because of this they divided up the said feast days […] so that each [confraternity] can attend to its [respective] demands with diligence and holy competence […] gaining the jubilees and pardons that his holiness with a very long hand has conceded to the Holy Confraternity.17

Among the feast days given to the native confraternity was Viernes de Lázaro (Friday of Lazarus), also known as Viernes de Dolores, the Friday before Palm Sunday. On this day, the confraternity organized a procession ‘of the sorrowful mystery of Bitterness Street and the officials go out in black tunics [with the] insignias […] and the others go out in purple tunics bearing crosses on their shoulders’.18 The procession featured the confraternity’s two principal sculptures: one of the Sorrowing Virgin and the other of Christ Carrying the Cross, known as Jesús Nazareno, as well as the ‘insignias’, or Arma Christi, the instruments of the Passion. The confraternity thus took the name Nuestra Señora del Rosario de los Naturales y Nazarenos (Our Lady of the Rosary of the Natives and Nazarenes). The nazarenos, in this case, refer to members who took up the cross and performed other acts of penitence in imitation of Christ. In addition to these devotions, the confraternity’s ordenanzas specified that all those who enter as members of the said confraternity are at the same time members of the native Confraternity of the Juramentos [oaths], so that [each] confraternity is incorporated with the other […] and so that the members greatly bear in mind the honour of God and to exalt his sacred name, reining in the custom of inappropriate swearing, and advising the others with charity that they should not take the Lord’s name in vain, and to speak it only with appropriate judgement and [only] if it is necessary.19

The principal activities of this allied confraternity, also known as the Sweet Name of Jesus, were to counter blasphemy, to exalt the name of Jesus, and to employ His divine name as protection against evil. Requiring that the native members of the Rosary confraternity also belong to the sodality of the Sweet Name of Jesus points to a Dominican intervention that was undoubtedly imposed with the intent of teaching ‘proper’ devotion and stamping out ‘idolatrous’ native practices. 17  18  19 

Quoted in Vargas, Nuestra Señora del Rosario en el Ecuador, p. 48. Vargas, Nuestra Señora del Rosario en el Ecuador, p. 49. Vargas, Nuestra Señora del Rosario en el Ecuador, p. 51.

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Figure 13. Anonymous, Dulce Nombre de Jesús, Museo Fray Pedro Bedón, Monastery of Santo Domingo, Quito. Eighteenth century. Photo: Hernán L. Navarrete.

A remarkable eighteenth-century painting, still located in the Dominican estab­ lish­ment, clearly belonged to this brotherhood (Figure 13). The painting employs the traditional iconography of the Sweet Name of Jesus, yet goes far beyond conventional representations in depicting an elaborate allegory of the power of Jesus’s name to thwart and defeat evil.20 Surrounded by the Arma Christi, the Child Jesus holds a globe surmounted by a cross, his right hand offering the sign of the benediction. Directly beneath him, bracketed by vanitas and memento mori symbols to the viewer’s left and a figure of the devil to the right, is a battle scene 20 

For the traditional iconography of the Sweet Name of Jesus (Dulce Nombre de Jesús), see especially: Llompart, ‘Devoción e iconografía popular del nombre de Jesús’.

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in which an army of Christian soldiers speaks the name of Jesus. The firepower of Christ’s army effectively repels the devil’s minions. The principal devotion and role of the confraternity is thus graphically expressed in symbolic and narrative form, set against a backdrop of snow-capped Andean peaks. Far more didactic in its intent than European depictions of the theme, this painting is elaborately narrative and allegorical — one might imagine a Dominican friar pointing out and expounding upon the meaning of various scenes, particularly for the benefit of a native audience. The records of the native Confraternity of the Rosary also testify to the integral roles played by its female members. Women held equal and parallel positions of authority in the hierarchy of the native confraternity, unlike their European, and particularly peninsular Spanish, counterparts. As the annual election results make clear, for every mayordomo, there was a mayordoma, for every prioste a priosta, for every síndico a síndica, and so forth.21 Additionally, like many of their male counterparts, numerous women entered the confraternity as elite members, paying a larger fee to enjoy greater privileges and power. Female members of the confraternity were as active, involved, and supportive of the group as the males. They served equally in the administrative hierarchy and provided donations and testamentary bequests. Many were as committed, for example, as the native Andean woman María de Amores, who, in her testament of 1669, noted that she had been re-elected as priosta of the native Confraternity of the Rosary for thirty-three successive years. In her will, she established a substantial chaplaincy for the perpetual celebration of masses in the confraternity chapel.22 In a similar fashion, the indigenous woman Catalina Quima made a significant donation of land in 1611 to the native Confraternity of the Rosary, and Francisca Vilca Cargua left a bequest in her testament of 1613 to fund a chaplaincy.23 Both Andean women were long-time members of the confraternity, and had occupied the position of priosta or mayordoma.

21 

Quito, ANH, Notaría 1a, Juicios, caja 3, ‘Quaderno de quentas de la serenisima Señora del Rosario de los nasarenoss’ [1670s], fols 1r–39v. For eighteenth-century elections of confraternity officers, see also Quito, AGODE, vol. 124. The administrative structure of most, if not all, native confraternities follows the same model of gender complementarity, including those of the Vera Cruz and the Immaculate Conception in the Church of San Francisco, and many of the groups established in the Convent of Santa Catalina. 22  Quito, ANH, Notaría 6a, vol. 72, 1669, fols 329r–31v. 23  Quito, ANH, Notaría 1a, vol. 69, 1611, fols 933r–33v; and Quito, ANH, Notaría 6a, vol. 22, 1613, fols 986r–89v.

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Figure 14. Ernest Charton, Empalado, in ‘Fêtes indiennes, de la semaine sainte et de Paques, a Quito (République de l’Équateur)’, L’Illustration: Journal Universel, 1854.

Gender equity, as expressed in the governance of the native Confraternity of the Rosary, was an integral part of deeply-rooted pre-Christian forms of social organization. Prior to the Spanish conquest, Andean communities were organized according to principles of social balance. Hanan and Hurin, the principal moiety divisions, were gendered counterparts in this structure. The native field of social, spatial, and symbolic organization was based on the principle of gender complementarity.24 Communities of Andean men and women, united through this traditional system, constituted a whole, a complete body, in which both assumed equal roles, and by which the body became more than the sum of its parts. This gendered structure is replicated in the administrative organization 24 

Cummins, ‘The Madonna and the Horse’, p. 70; Silverblatt, Moon, Sun, and Witches; and Harris, ‘Complementarity and Conflict’.

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of the native Confraternity of the Rosary, and in most exclusively Andean confraternities in colonial Quito. Visual representations in some examples of early colonial Andean art frequently feature gender-complimentary pairs. For example, the wooden cups of the Inca, known as queros, which continued to be produced and used during the colonial period, were always made in pairs, and colonial examples are often decorated with paired images of male and female human figures.25 A sixteenth-century silver bracelet from the coast of Peru depicts alternating pairs of visually distinct male and female monkeys and felines, accompanied by a single Spanish horse and rider, demonstrating its status as an early colonial object that visibly combines and compares both Andean and European images and principles.26 The European confraternity tradition of a male-dominated governing hierarchy was thus transformed in the native Confraternity of the Rosary to reflect Andean principles of social organization. The two principal cult images possessed by the native confraternity and carried in its processions, those of the Virgin Mary and Jesus, were undoubtedly understood as sacred icons by its native membership. Yet they may simultaneously have been perceived as expressions of Andean gender complementarity. The Holy Week processions of the native confraternity also echo aspects of Andean tradition. Seventeenth-century accounts of the penitential processions that it staged on the Monday and Wednesday of Holy Week described them as impressive and awe-inspiring affairs. Diego Rodríguez Docampo, the royal notary in Quito, penned a revealing account in 1650: [E]stablished many years ago, there is a confraternity with the devotion of Our Lady of the Rosary [that is] distinct and separate from that of the Spaniards, in a different chapel of the [Dominican] church, with much adornment, ornaments and candles, wherein they celebrate masses and feast days with the requisite authority and music. This is a brotherhood of natives and the rest of the republic, outside of the essential. This confraternity has blossomed and grown unceasingly for may years, as is demonstrated by the general procession on Holy Wednesday, when it goes out in procession with insignias and crosses of the Passion of Our Lord, with a great number of penitents, bearing more than 1500 wax candles with such great devotion, penitential acts, solemnity, and silence, that they carry God before them.27 25 

For examples of gender-complementary images depicted on queros, see: Converging Cultures, ed. by Fane, pp. 199, 201; and Cummins, Toasts With the Inca, figs 8.23a, 8.23b, 8.25, 8.26, 8.27, 8.28. 26  Cummins, ‘The Madonna and the Horse’, pp. 68–75, fig. 5. 27  Campo, ‘Descripción y Relación del estado eclesiástico’, ii, 259.

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Unlike the Holy Week procession of the Spanish Rosary confraternity noted above, the native sodality enacted a truly penitential procession with heavy crosses in which flagellants and members engaged in other forms of self-mortification. The French artist and author, Ernest Charton, witnessed these processions in Quito in the early 1830s, and provides a European perspective on native participation and involvement: Holy Week […] with its sorrowful processions, its public flagellations, the melancholy silence that reigns in the streets […] has an imposing effect. It is not only the Indians, but all of the population that is called to contemplation. But extravagant scenes are permitted to mingle with religious practices, with the objective to satisfy the pagan instincts of the indigenous masses. This is when the [native] penitents, equipped with whips and chains, their backs ex­ posed, fill the public places, flagellating themselves with incredible ardor; losing pieces of skin. In the afternoons these fanatics meet in the churches and, with the lights extinguished, beat themselves in the complete darkness with resounding strokes.28

It appears then that in the Holy Week processions of early nineteenth-century Quito, the European tradition of self-mortification was carried out almost exclusively by native participants. As an artist, Charton depicted numerous examples of native penitents, including the figure of an empalado (Figure 14), a form of public self-mortification found in Spain, which in Quito was adopted by Andean confraternity members. Public penitential processions, fasting, and self-mortification were practised in pre-Hispanic Andean cultures. The native Andean author, Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, penned a lengthy epistle to the king of Spain in 1615 and included drawings and descriptions of public acts of self-mortification and penitential processions among the pre-Hispanic inhabitants of the Andes.29 Given the similarity of these pre-Hispanic Andean ritual practices, it was likely not much of a leap for native confraternity members to engage enthusiastically in the penitential activities of Holy Week. The public processions of the native Confraternity of the Rosary also appealed to and addressed a specifically Andean audience in the streets. In 1730, the native Confraternity of the Rosary lodged a protest against a Spanish sodality based in the Augustinian Church over the issue of processional timing and precedence during Holy Week. The Spaniards in their defence argued that moving their procession to the same day and time as that of the natives would not result in competition for spectators in the streets because 28  29 

Charton, ‘Fêtes indiennes, de la semaine sainte et de Pâques’, p. 236. Murra and Adorno, Nueva coronica i buen gobierno conpuesto, pp. 259–61.

Native Brotherhoods and Visual Culture in Colonial Quito (Ecuador) 297 it is widely known that the [native procession] […] from Santo Domingo on Holy Wednesday has only been undertaken at the expense and petition of the Natives and they would never stop attending such a function that is so properly and completely their own in order to attend a different procession, nor would the code of the natives permit it to occur.30

Documents such as this suggest that the audiences and the celebrations of Holy Week, like the membership of many Quiteñan confraternities, were divided along ethnic lines, each occupying a distinct space and time and drawing its respective constituency. Such parallel confraternities and parallel celebrations of Holy Week underline the social and spiritual ambivalence of colonial Quito. Native confraternities like that of the Rosary in Santo Domingo forged a ‘new ethnicity’ that responded to their colonial context. They also instituted forms of gendered confraternal governance, ritual practices, and imagery that addressed specifically Andean traditions and audiences. In this sense, both the Spanish and the Andean confraternities of the Rosary replicated their own versions of colonial social organization and tradition in the structure and performance of their groups. The colonial adaptations and transformations of the Iberian model demonstrated by native confraternities in Quito, such as that of the Rosary, clearly merit further investigation elsewhere in the Americas.

30 

Quito, AA, Juicios Civiles, caja 24, 1730, fol. 4v.

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Works Cited Manuscripts and Archival Resources Quito, Archivo del Arzobispado de Quito, Juicios Civiles, caja 24, 1730 Quito, Archivo de la Orden Dominica del Ecuador, vol. 124 (‘Libro de la Cofradía de la Capilla de los Naturales del Ord[e]n de Predica[do]res para las Elecciones de Priostes y Priostas’) —— , vol. 165 (‘Constituciones de la Cofradía del Santísimo Rosario’) Quito, Archivo Nacional de Historia, Libro de Cabildo de la Ciudad de Quito, 1730–35 (typescript transcription), 72, ‘Petición de la Cofradía de Nuestra Señora del Rosario de los Españoles para el remedio y reparo de la capilla de dicha cofradía para la comodidad y decencia del altar’, 22 April 1732) —— , Notaría 1a, Juicios, caja 3 (‘Quaderno de quentas de la serenisima Señora del Rosario de los nasarenos’, 1670s) —— , Notaría 1a, vol. 69, 1611 (Alonso López Merino, ‘Donación Catalina Quima yndia a la Cofradía de Nuestra Señora de los Naturales en Santo Domingo’) —— , Notaría 4a, vol. 25, 1666 (Antonio de Verzossa) —— , Notaría 6a, vol. 22, 1613 (Diego Rodríguez Docampo, ‘Testamento de Francisca Vilca Cargua’) —— , Notaría 6a, vol. 50, 1638 ( Juan Martínez Gasco) —— , Notaría 6a, vol. 72, 1669 (Diego Rodríguez de Mediavilla, ‘Testamento de María de Amores’) Sevilla, Archivo General de Indias, Quito, 23, N. 14 (‘Los diputados de la Vera Cruz de Quito piden merced’)

Primary Sources Campo, Diego Rodríguez do, ‘Descripción y Relación del estado eclesiástico del Obispado de San Francisco de Quito’, in Relaciones Histórico-Geográficas de la Audiencia de Quito, ed. by Pilar Ponce Leiva, 2 vols (Quito: Marka y Abya Yala, 1994) ii, 207–322 Orbigny, Alcide d’, Viaje pintoresco á las dos Américas (Barcelona: Oliveres, 1842; Spanish translation of Voyage pittoresque dans les deux Amériques (Paris: Furne, 1836))

Secondary Studies Charney, Paul, ‘A Sense of Belonging: Colonial Indian Cofradías and Ethnicity in the Valley of Lima, Peru’, The Americas, 53 (1998), 379–407 Charton, Ernest, ‘Fêtes indiennes, de la semaine sainte et de Pâques, à Quito (République de l’Équateur)’, L’Illustration: Journal Universel (1854), 235–37 Cummins, Thomas B. F., ‘The Madonna and the Horse: Becoming Colonial in New Spain and Peru’, Phoebus, 7 (1995), 52–83 —— , Toasts With the Inca: Andean Abstraction and Colonial Images on Quero Vessels (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002)

Native Brotherhoods and Visual Culture in Colonial Quito (Ecuador) 299 Fane, Diana, ed., Converging Cultures: Art and Identity in Spanish America (New York: Abrams, 1996) Harris, Olivia, ‘Complementarity and Conflict: An Andean View of Men and Women’, in Sex and Age as Principles of Social Differentiation, ed. by Jean S. LaFontaine, Association of Social Anthropologists of the Commonwealth Monographs, 17 (London: Aca­ demic, 1978), pp. 21–40 Llompart, Gabriel, ‘Devoción e iconografía popular del nombre de Jesús en la isla de Mallorca’, Mayurqa, 7 (1972), 53–64 Murra, John V., and Rolena Adorno, Nueva coronica i buen gobierno conpuesto por don Phelipe Guaman Poma de Aiala (México: Siglo Veintiuno, 1992) Phelan, John Leddy, The Kingdom of Quito in the Seventeenth Century: Bureaucratic Politics in the Spanish Empire (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1967) Silverblatt, Irene, Moon, Sun, and Witches: Gender Ideologies and Class in Inca and Colonial Peru (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987) Vargas, José María, Nuestra Señora del Rosario en el Ecuador (Quito: Artes Graficas SEÑAL, 1983). Webster, Susan Verdi, Art and Ritual in Golden-Age Spain: Sevillian Confraternities and the Processional Sculpture of Holy Week (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998) —— , ‘Las cofradías y su mecenazgo artístico durante la colonia’, in Arte de la Real Audi­ encia de Quito, siglos xvii–xix, ed. by Alexandra Kennedy (Hondarribia: Nerea, 2002), pp. 67–85 —— , ‘Confraternities as Patrons of Architecture in Colonial Quito, Ecuador’, in Early Modern Confraternities in Europe and the Americas: International and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, ed. by Christopher F. Black and Pamela Gravestock (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), pp. 210–13 —— , ‘La presencia indígena en las celebraciones y días festivos’, in Arte de la Real Audiencia de Quito, siglos xvii–xix, ed. by Alexandra Kennedy (Hondarribia: Nerea, 2002), pp. 129–43

Part VI Boundary Disputes: Laity, Clergy, and Conflict

Revolutionary Flagellants? Clerical Perceptions of Flagellant Brotherhoods in Late Medieval  Flanders and Italy Gavin Hammel

T

here were no flagellant confraternities in northern Europe during the late Middle Ages. That at least is the impression one gets from a perusal of confraternal studies literature. While Italian disciplinati (or battuti) confraternities of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries have received significant scholarly attention over the last fifty years or so, no equivalent body of scholarship exists for the same period for regions north of the Italian Alps and the Massif Central in France. It is a historiographical disparity that is, in some respects, indicative of a deeper historical reality. After all, prior to the sixteenth century, northern Europe was indeed bereft of the type of officially-sanctioned flagellant brotherhoods that became so numerous in Trecento and Quattrocento Italy and that have featured so prominently in scholarly work.1

1  See, for example, Fanti, Confraternite e città a Bologna; Casagrande, ‘Gli iscritti della Confraternita dei Disciplinati di San Francesco in Perugia’; Santucci, ‘La fraternita dei Disciplinati di S. Lorenzo’; De Sandre Gasparini, ‘Confraternite e “cura animarum”’.

Gavin Hammel ([email protected]) is a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Medieval Studies. His research focuses on the interactions between lay and official piety in northern Europe in the high and late middle ages.

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Yet this does not mean that organized flagellant brotherhoods were completely unknown in northern Europe. As several scholars have recognized, the aftermath of the Black Death in 1348–49 produced several attempts in the north at establishing local sodalities whose character was, in the words of the Italian flagellant specialist Giovanni Cecchini, ‘quite close to [that of ] the Italian confraternities’.2 Most of these developed in the urban centres of northwestern Europe — places like Ghent, Bruges, Utrecht, Cologne, and Strasbourg — where confraternal traditions were already strong. These institutions had a leadership structure, a set of distinctive rituals and songs, and a clear sense of corporate identity, but unlike their Italian counterparts, these societies were ultimately unsuccessful in their bid for religious and civic legitimacy. Accused of deceiving their fellow Christians and violating the customs of the church, they were suppressed. Bishops and archbishops issued ordinances banning the brotherhoods from their territories, and city councils, often under ecclesiastical pressure, threatened civil penalties against those who continued to participate in flagellant rites. The factors that produced this regional incongruity have been the subject of some debate among scholars of medieval heresy. Most historians advocate variations of the view evinced by Norman Cohn, who contrasted the Italian confraternities’ reputed orthodoxy with the supposedly ‘heretical and often […] revolutionary tendencies’ of the northern European flagellants.3 The differences, in other words, have generally been deemed to be inherent to the flagellants themselves and largely ideological in nature. This essay attempts to offer an alternative explanation by examining two case studies that exemplify the divergent fortunes of flagellant brotherhoods in Italy and northern Europe. The first relates to events in Bologna beginning in 1260 that eventually led to the founding of one of the very first, and longestlived, flagellant confraternities in Italy: the Bolognese Congregation of the Devout, later known as the confraternity of S. Maria della Vita. The second case deals with comparable although ultimately less successful efforts in the Flemish city of Tournai, where the best-documented attempt at establishing flagellant 2  Cecchini, ‘Raniero Fasani et les flagellants’, p. 352. For other references to more permanent flagellant associations, see Pfannenschmid, ‘Die Geißler des Jahres 1349’, p. 144, n. 8; Hübner, Die deutschen Geißlerlieder, pp. 16–17; Haupt, ‘Geißelung, kirchliche, und Geißler­ bruderschaften’. 3  Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium, p. 131. See also Leff, Heresy in the Later Middle Ages, ii, 485–93; Erbstösser, Sozialreligiöse Strömungen im späten Mittelalter. For more recent and more critical assessments of the assumptions that underlie the characterization of the northern processions, see Erkens, ‘Busse in Zeiten des schwarzen Todes’; Jenks, ‘Die Prophezeiung von Ps.-Hildegard von Bingen’; Kieckhefer, ‘Radical Tendencies in the Flagellant Movement’.

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confraternities in the medieval North took place between mid-1349 and 1351. By comparing and contrasting these two cases, the essay highlights the underlying similarities between them and thus, by extension, between Italian and northern European flagellant groups more generally. This article also aims to bring into focus the extent to which factors extraneous to the flagellants — factors that were in fact embedded in the cultural fabric itself — played a role in shaping clerical perceptions and attitudes. As such, this essay follows in the tradition of Herbert Grundmann, Robert Lerner, R. I. Moore, and others in seeking the origins of heresy not solely in the heretic himself, but also in the society that defines him.

From Itinerant to Sedentary: Early Confraternal Development Before turning to the case studies mentioned above, it is first necessary to acknowledge the challenges and limitations associated with this type of comparison. Perhaps the most immediately obvious of these is the chronological gap between our two case studies. Much could, and indeed did, change within the church during the almost ninety years between 1260 and 1349, and attitudes towards self-flagellation or some other aspect of flagellant practice might have shifted significantly in that time. Two basic observations help to mitigate such concerns. First is the fact that the Bolognese confraternity itself continued to flourish throughout the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. The society even persisted into the modern era, finally disbanding at the end of the eighteenth century in response to a flurry of anti-confraternal measures promulgated by secular rulers.4 Also relevant is the continual (and indeed accelerated) appearance of other, new disciplinati confraternities in various parts of Italy throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.5 Much more serious difficulties are posed by the substantial imbalance in both the nature and quantity of the source material for the Bologna and Tournai scenarios, for while the Bolognese Congregation’s institutional longevity and religious legitimacy allowed the production and retention of a variety of records (including documents written by confraternity members themselves) that shed significant light on the brotherhood’s rites and activities, circumstances in Tournai, where flagellant sodalities existed only for a matter of a few months 4 

The confraternity of S. Maria della Vita was finally suppressed in 1798. See Fanti, ‘La con­ fraternita bolognese dei Disciplinati’, pp. 21–22. For information on the trend towards sup­ pression of confraternities in general during this period, see Cecchini, ‘Raniero Fasani et les flagellants’, p. 348. 5  Meloni, ‘Topografia, diffusione e aspetti delle confraternite dei disciplinati’, p. 22.

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before being suppressed, were not so favourable. As a result, we are forced to rely on a small handful of sources from Tournai supplemented by inferences drawn from our limited knowledge about similar brotherhoods in the region. The portrait of the Tournai brotherhoods that emerges from such an analysis is, by necessity, imprecise and, at times, uncertain. Nevertheless, it provides a reasonable, if somewhat provisional, basis for comparison. Let us begin, then, by examining the circumstances that led to the establishment of flagellant groups in Tournai and Bologna. These were, in fact, remarkably similar in their basic outline. The backdrop for the development of the Bolognese confraternity is provided by the so-called generalis devotio. A devotional movement originating in Perugia in the spring of 1260 which quickly spread throughout much of northern Italy and beyond, the devotio featured large processions of whip-wielding penitents who, barefoot and half-naked, marched from town to town singing devotional songs, shouting ‘Mercy and peace!’, and, most characteristically of all, whipping themselves with scourges. Reactions to such spectacles varied from city to city but were generally positive, both among the general populace and the clergy. Some trustworthy reports even describe bishops and other high-ranking clerics themselves accompanying the flagellants in their wanderings.6 When the generalis devotio officially arrived in Bologna on 10 October 1260 in the form of a procession boasting more than a thousand participants from nearby Imola, city residents were inspired. Nine days later, on 19 October, a large group of Bolognese flagellants departed for Modena.7 One fifteenth-century chronicler credits this spontaneous assembly of a penitential procession to Modena as the beginning of the battuti societies in Bologna.8 While the transition from itinerant procession to sedentary confraternity is uncertain, the documentary evidence assembled by Mario Fanti has generally validated this assertion. It clearly shows that between 1261 and 1265, a formal association with a distinct corporate identity emerged from what seems to have been, at least initially, an informal act of commemoration for the day on which people ‘began to beat themselves 6 

For the varied reactions of the populace and lay authorities, see Annales Ianuenses, ed. by Pertz, p. 242; Annales Placentini Gibellini, ed. by Pertz, p. 512; Cronica fratris Salimbene, ed. by Holder-Egger, pp. 465–66. For reports of prominent clerics accompanying the processions, see Alberti Millioli notarii Regini Liber de temporibus et aetatibus, ed. by Holder-Egger, p. 526; Annales Foroiulienses, ed. by Pertz, p. 196. 7  Muratori, Rerum italicarum scriptores, ed. by Sorbelli, xviii, pt 1, no. 1, pp. 151–57. 8  ‘Unde Bononie Batutorum sotietates incepte sunt’; Muratori, Rerum italicarum scriptores, ed. by Sorbelli, xxiii, pt 2, p. 27

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publicly’. Fanti’s work has also highlighted the extent to which numerous highranking ecclesiastical figures, including Pope Alexander IV, the archbishop of Ravenna, the bishop of Bologna, and the prior general of the Augustinian order, supported the transition.9 Nearly ninety years later and more than nine hundred kilometres to the north­west, a similar mass movement provided the impetus for establishing one or more brotherhoods in Tournai. A reaction to the anxieties unleashed by the spread of the plague, the flagellant processions that inundated much of northern Europe between 1348 and 1349 are generally thought to have originated in Austria or Hungary. There is some anecdotal evidence suggesting that they may in fact have been inspired by similar processions that took place somewhat earlier in Italy, and which notably involved flagellant confraternities.10 In any case, by midsummer 1349, processions moved through many cities in Bohemia, Silesia, Poland, Germany, Brabant, and elsewhere. Tournai’s first experience with these processions came relatively late, on 15 August 1349, the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. Gilles li Muisis, a Benedictine abbot and chronicler who wrote the punctilious account that is our main source regarding the events of 1349–50 in Tournai, specifies this date for the arrival of a procession of approximately two hundred men from the nearby city of Bruges.11 Dressed in penitential garb with red crosses sewn to their capes and tunics, these flagellants made their way to the city’s main square, where they performed a rite that included self-flagellation. In the days and months that followed, Tournai became a hotbed of flagellant activity. Itinerant processions of various sizes continued to arrive in a seemingly endless stream from many nearby cities, including Ghent, Liège, Sluis, Dordrecht, Louvain, Damme, and Valenciennes. Local opinion regarding these itinerant spectacles was firmly divided. On the one hand, there were those who were immediately suspicious of the flagellants and their rites; li Muisis betrays his own sympathies by referring to these sceptics as people ‘of sound mind’ (aliqui sane mentis). Opponents included 9 

Fanti, ‘Gli inizi del Movimento dei Disciplinati a Bologna’, pp. 16–18. This essay has been reprinted in Fanti, Confraternite e città a Bologna, pp. 3–60. 10  For this theory regarding the origins of the 1349 processions, see Hauck, Realencyclopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche, vi (1899), 437. For evidence of flagellant processions in Italy associated with the plague, see Fontaine, ‘A House Divided’, p. 59. 11  The following description, except where otherwise noted, comes from the account in li Muisis’s chronicle: Corpus chronicorum Flandriae, ed. by De Smet, ii (1841), 341–42, 346–61. This excerpt has also been reproduced in Corpus documentorum inquisitionis haereticae pravitatis Neerlandicae, ed. by Fredericq, ii (1896), 96–110.

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the cathedral dean and canons (the episcopal seat was vacant at the time, a fact of considerable importance for our analysis) and prominent members of the local Dominican and Augustinian houses. On the other hand, many approved of this phenomenon, including even the city magistrates. These sympathizers, according to li Muisis, ‘began to feel compassion for the [procession participants] and to partake [vicariously] in the penance, and they began to give thanks to God for such penitence, which they believed was most valuable’. As in Bologna, the enthusiasm of the Tournai citizenry soon led to homegrown efforts at imitation. Li Muisis specifically mentions two such instances. The first of these took the form of a new itinerant procession. Five hundred Tournaisiens led by several prominent citizens and officially sanctioned by the city magistrates departed the city on 8 September in the direction of Lille. They had entered into a mutual compact to participate for the span of thirty-three days, the standard duration for such processions at the time in the North. A few clerics also participated, among them the prior of the local Augustinian house, whose lector, Brother Robert, had enraged many local residents a few days earlier by omitting the flagellants from his prayers and publicly criticizing a Dominican preacher who had recently accompanied a flagellant group from Liège. The procession returned on 10 October, having made its way, according to rumours at the time, as far as Soissons. The second instance of imitation arose at about the same time and was connected with preparations for Tournai’s traditional grande procession. First instituted in the late eleventh century to commemorate the miraculous intervention of the Virgin during an outbreak of plague, this annual procession took place on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (14 September). Following performance of a mass in the cathedral, the clergy and citizenry followed a processional circuit through the city.12 In September 1349, following the departure of the officially sanctioned itinerant procession described above, a group that li Muisis numbered as high as two hundred and fifty expressed an interest in integrating the recent enthusiasm for collective self-flagellation with the traditional rites associated with the occasion. They formed what amounted to a temporary brotherhood, joining together and obligating themselves (mutuo se sociantes et astringentes) to engage in collective self-flagellation as part of the 14 September procession. This display would continue for the next eight days. They chose as their leader Brother Robert, the very same Augustinian lector mentioned above, 12 

For a brief history, see Dumoulin and others, La Grande Procession de Tournai. For an overview of the processional rites, see Vos, Les Fêtes, offices, cérémonies et usages, pp. 33–35.

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and over the course of the next nine days the confraternal brothers processed and flagellated in fulfilment of their vow. Each morning, they gathered in the cathedral chapel of St Michael, located in the north transept, to hear mass. They then retired to the refectory of the neighbouring chapter hospital, where they removed their clothing and put on specially-designed penitential attire. Once dressed, they returned to the cathedral and offered one Pater Noster and one Ave Maria before the image and altar of the Virgin. Leaving one candle burning in front of the image at the entrance to the cloister and another in front of the Virgin, they then left the cathedral and processed through the city. Once their daily circuit was completed, they returned to the cathedral, retrieved their clothes, and continued on with their daily business. Sources from Tournai say little about how these limited measures, which had a well-defined mission and a specific end date, led to the establishment of one or more permanent flagellant associations. What is certain, however, is that almost immediately there was a demand for continued participation in a rite of collective self-flagellation. Thus, on 23 September, the day after the nine-day processional period was scheduled to end, the majority (magna pars) of those who had participated once again donned their penitential garb, took up their whips, and went in procession to the popular local pilgrimage destination of Mont St Aubert, a hilltop village approximately four miles from Tournai. They returned later the same day, according to li Muisis, ‘bearing themselves most devoutly and occasionally scourging themselves’. The same thing is said to have happened when the itinerant procession returned on 10 October. By late October 1349, something resembling a confraternity (or, more likely, confraternities) with a definite sense of corporate identity was beginning to coalesce out of these efforts. Flagellant groups in Tournai were burying their dead in their own distinctive attire and accompanying their bodies to the cemetery in idiosyncratic rites.13 By December and probably well before, they began to have semi-regular devotional gatherings on Sundays and/or certain feast days. Some continued to use local churches, including the cathedral, as their primary meeting place, a practice which at times caused a certain amount of disruption to church services.14 Others used private homes, perhaps in an attempt to avoid such conflicts.15 There is no extant set of statutes, as there is in Bologna, that can be 13 

Corpus documentorum inquisitionis haereticae pravitatis Neerlandicae, ed. by Fredericq, ii, 112. 14  Corpus chronicorum Flandriae, ed. by De Smet, ii, 354. 15  Corpus documentorum inquisitionis haereticae pravitatis Neerlandicae, ed. by Fredericq, ii, 112–13.

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definitively traced to any of these associations in Tournai. That such documents existed, however, seems a near certainty. In fact, li Muisis clearly paraphrases one such document, which may or may not have come from a Tournai group, in his chronicle account. Another instructive model for what such documents might have looked like are the extant statutes of a quasi-itinerant group from Bruges, which display elements that suggest their author(s) had something more permanent in mind than the standard thirty-three day procession.16 Some scholars have argued that these developments indicate the exceptional character of the flagellant movement in the Low Countries, where it took on a ‘more socially acceptable form’ than that found elsewhere in northern Europe.17 A few have even argued that the clergy exerted an unusual level of control over the flagellants in the region.18 While there are features of the situation in Tournai that seem to support such contentions, the inadequacy of this interpretation becomes evident in light of a series of events that began on 15 February 1350. On that day, external forces (namely Philip VI of France and his chancellor and newly-appointed bishop of Tournai, Pierre de la Fôret) intervened with a letter from the king to the city magistrates. The letter, which seems to have been carried by de la Forêt himself, informed city officials of the king’s concerns regarding the flagellant association(s) in the city. This ‘sect’, he wrote, utilizing the pejorative term, constituted ‘a great scandal to the Christian people and a grave peril to their salvation’. Citing Pope Clement VI’s bull Inter sollicitudines from October 1349, which had condemned that year’s itinerant processions, the letter called on Tournai’s secular leaders to meet with local religious authorities — that is, the dean and chapter of the cathedral and Bishop de la Forêt — and fashion a strategy for eradicating such groups. The magistrates complied, and on 19 February issued a civic ordinance forbidding the rite of collective self-flagellation in both the city and its dependent territory under penalty of permanent banishment. The following Sunday (21 February), a local clergyman delivered a sermon to a packed house in which he reiterated the papal condemnation and the civic ordinance.19 16  For these so-called Tournai statutes, see Corpus chronicorum Flandriae, ed. by De Smet, ii, 355–56. For the Bruges statutes, see Corpus documentorum inquisitionis haereticae pravitatis Neerlandicae, ed. by Fredericq, ii, 111. 17  Largier, In Praise of the Whip, p. 127. See also Fredericq, De secten der Geeselaars en der Dansers in de Nederlanden. 18  Pfannenschmid, ‘Die Geißler des Jahres 1349’, p. 123; Hübner, Die deutschen Geißler­ lieder, p. 15; Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium, p. 136; Erbstösser, Sozialreligiöse Strömungen im späten Mittelalter, pp. 59–67. 19  Corpus documentorum inquisitionis haereticae pravitatis Neerlandicae, ed. by Fredericq, ii, 112–13, 117; Corpus chronicorum Flandriae, ed. by De Smet, ii, 361.

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These suppressive measures generated resentment and resistance. There was ‘a great murmur from the people’ in response to the 21 February sermon that publicized the brotherhoods’ suppression.20 The ordinance banning collective self-flagellation had to be reiterated three more times over the course of the next year, a fact that suggests it was not immediately effective. It is noteworthy that on the second occasion, in May 1350, the city’s sergeants were charged with the task of arresting and imprisoning anyone known to have violated the ban. After the ordinance had been issued for a third time in March 1351, the flagellant associations disappear entirely from Tournai’s historical record.21

Confraternal Piety and Praxis Identifying the factors that elicited such disparate reactions from ecclesiastical and civil authorities in Bologna and Tournai requires a closer examination of the associations themselves. First and foremost among the characteristics traditionally cited in this respect are supposed differences in ideology and/or doctrine. Historians such as Norman Cohn have explicitly contrasted what they see as the militant orthodoxy of the Italian disciplinati with the reputed radicalism and heresy of northern flagellant groups like those in Tournai.22 But these correlations are not entirely convincing. The Bolognese Congregation was certainly embraced by virtually every level of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and both its thirteenth-century statutes and those belonging to its newly-formed stretta (strict) company in the mid-fifteenth century are fully in keeping with the image of militant orthodoxy, emphasizing sacramental observance, prayers for the dead, and other conventional aspects of late medieval piety. Yet describing the Tournai brotherhood as radical and heretical is much less convincing.23 To begin with, the Tournai sources contain no references to outright doctrinal or ideological 20 

Corpus chronicorum Flandriae, ed. by De Smet, ii, 361. Corpus documentorum inquisitionis haereticae pravitatis Neerlandicae, ed. by Fredericq, ii, 113, 141. 22  See p. 304 above. Cohn is primarily referring to groups that he claims continued to exist between the very first appearance of flagellant processions in northern Europe in 1261 and their reemergence in 1348–49. However, his statement is sufficiently broad as to encompass groups like those in Tournai, who sought to continue their idiosyncratic devotional regimen even after the itinerant processions of 1349 had dissipated. 23  For the reception of the Devout by the ecclesiastical hierarchy, see above, p. 306. For their conventional piety, see the confraternal statutes in Statuti delle società del popolo di Bologna, ed. by Gaudenzi, ii (1896), 423–36, and Angelozzi, Le confraternite laicali, pp. 118–41. 21 

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conflict. Neither Philip VI’s letter nor the subsequent civic statutes make any mention of specific doctrinal error.24 The lone exception is li Muisis’ account of the furore that erupted in late August and early September 1349. A Dominican friar who was accompanying a flagellant band from Liège delivered a public sermon in which (in the opinion of certain onlookers) he seemed to equate the salvific value of blood spilled by the flagellants during their rites with that of Christ’s blood spilled at the Passion. Scholars have tended to see this incident as positive proof of the northern flagellant movement’s increasingly radical views.25 Yet before jumping to such a conclusion and using this isolated event to characterize the general situation around the incipient brotherhoods in Tournai, there are several points that should be considered. First must be the commonsensical observation that one person with unorthodox beliefs does not a heretical sect make. The confratello of Bologna’s S. Maria della Vita, who in 1543 was forced to retract statements he had made attacking the cult of the saints, certainly had not spoken for the brotherhood as a whole; his brothers were likely loyal adherents to the explicit exhortations to honour the saints and their images that filled the Vita’s thirteenth- and fifteenthcentury statutes.26 Two other issues arise directly from li Muisis’ narrative. The first is that the heretical implications of the Dominican’s words were not as clearcut as has generally been assumed. When an Augustinian preacher dispatched by the cathedral chapter and the heads of the local religious houses gave a countersermon a few days later, in which he characterized the Dominican as having offered a ‘comparison of the blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ with that of those men who scourge themselves’, the local residents immediately interrupted him by shouting, ‘Lord, you are ill-informed, for the Dominican brother said no such thing’.27 Li Muisis does not indicate what these locals thought the Dominican had in fact said, but even his own sharply critical account of the initial sermon implicitly acknowledges that the Augustinian’s charge was not entirely accurate; he introduces the phrase ‘as many understood’ (ut multi intellexerunt) into his own description of the supposed comparison (comparatio). It is also noteworthy 24 

Corpus documentorum inquisitionis haereticae pravitatis Neerlandicae, ed. by Fredericq, ii, 112–13, 116–17. 25  Erbstösser, Sozialreligiöse Strömungen im späten Mittelalter, pp.  60–61; Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium, p. 137; Leff, Heresy in the Later Middle Ages, ii, 489–90. 26  Black, Italian Confraternities in the Sixteenth Century, pp.  60–61. For the articles from the statutes, see Statuti delle società del popolo di Bologna, ed. by Gaudenzi, ii, 425–26; Angelozzi, Le confraternite laicali, pp. 138–39. 27  Corpus chronicorum Flandriae, ed. by De Smet, ii, 349–50.

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that the Augustinian preacher who criticized the Dominican’s words was none other than Brother Robert, mentioned above. Less than two weeks later, he would himself be found at the head of a group of flagellants as they participated in the city’s grande procession.28 Lacking clear ideological statements from either the Tournai brethren or other observers, it becomes necessary instead to examine their devotional practices and lifestyle for what these suggest about the brotherhoods’ doctrinal views. Unfortunately, li Muisis is fairly reticent when describing the brotherhoods’ devotional practices. He notes that they met in churches, including the cathedral itself, on Sundays and certain feast days.29 However, he says little of the content of their communal devotions, other than the fact that these rituals included selfflagellation. Li Muisis criticizes the gatherings, but his critique has less to do with the content of the proceedings than with the fact that they sometimes impeded divine services. While some scholars have seen this as evidence of the Tournai flagellants’ lack of respect for the sacrifice of the mass and for the clerical estate more generally, this interpretation seems overly speculative. After all, similar disruptions likely occurred in connection with the Bolognese confraternity’s rites as well. Otherwise, it is difficult to explain why its thirteenth-century statutes include an article forbidding the brothers, when processing around Bologna’s churches, from engaging in their flagellatory rite inside a church if the office of the mass was being sung.30 There is suggestive evidence from Tournai itself and from other nearby communities that the flagellant groups held the sacraments in high regard. The mass featured prominently in the daily flagellant processions that occurred around the time of the grande procession, and those processions in turn provided at least part of the impetus for the subsequent development of flagellant sodalities in Tournai. It is extremely unlikely that those sodalities would have strayed so far from one of their archetypes in such a short time. Likewise, confession (another clergy-administered sacrament) was integral to the itinerant procession that began in Tournai on 8 September; the group was accompanied by no fewer than three clerical confessors, one of them the prior of the local Augustinian house. It is also revealing that a set of statutes submitted by a flagellant brotherhood in Bruges to the Tournai cathedral chapter for approval required anyone wishing to gain membership to first confess his sins to his curate and seek his per28 

Corpus chronicorum Flandriae, ed. by De Smet, ii, 359–60. See above, p. 309. 30  Statuti delle società del popolo di Bologna, ed. by Gaudenzi, ii, 427. 29 

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mission.31 One can easily imagine a similar dedication to confession becoming part of at least some of the Tournai associations. Finally, there is the curious fact that the condemnation did not arise locally from the cathedral chapter. It was external forces — namely Philip VI and his newly selected but still absentee Bishop of Tournai, Pierre de la Fôret — which provided the impetus for the brotherhoods’ suppression in February 1350. If the flagellant sodalities were truly disrespecting the sacraments and actively undermining priestly authority, why then did the cathedral chapter not act much earlier to at least communicate its displeasure with such a dangerous and obviously heretical phenomenon?32 The claims of ideological and/or doctrinal divergences between Italian and northern European flagellant groups are closely related to efforts to distinguish between them on socioeconomic grounds. The first scholars to undertake such an explanation were the German historians Emil Werunsky and Robert Hoeniger. In the late nineteenth century, each argued that the fundamental difference between the two regions’ experiences was the supposed preponderance and eventual dominance in the northern processions of individuals from the lower social strata. This, they claimed, resulted in the transformation of the northern flagellant movement through the introduction of anticlerical, anarchistic, and even proto-communistic attitudes current among the peasantry and urban underclasses.33 This hypothesis, which was subsequently adopted, elaborated and revised by various scholars, has since been quite thoroughly refuted.34 A comparison of the leadership and social makeup of the Tournaisien and Bolognese brotherhoods reveals little that could be used to differentiate between them. The Tournai sources provide no direct evidence whatsoever regarding the social makeup or leadership 31  Corpus documentorum inquisitionis haereticae pravitatis Neerlandicae, ed. by Fredericq, ii, 111–12. These statutes were for a procession that was intended to last for 33.5 days. However, they clearly laid the groundwork for a more enduring institution, since the final article obliged participants to follow a flagellatory regimen every Saturday for the rest of their lives. 32  Li Muisis states that the clergy allowed these disruptions to continue due to the large crowds involved, but such an explanation would hardly suffice to explain months of inaction if the brotherhoods were in fact actively disrespecting the sacraments and the clergy. See Corpus chronicorum Flandriae, ed. by De Smet, ii, 354. 33  Werunsky, Geschichte Kaiser Karls IV, pp. 249, 283–304 (pp. 296–97); Hoeniger, Der Schwarze Tod in Deutschland, pp. 13, 108–17. 34  For the elaboration and adaptation of the claim, see Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium, p. 137; Erbstösser, Sozialreligiöse Strömungen im späten Mittelalter, p. 35; Wentzlaff-Eggebert, Deutsche Mystik zwischen Mittelalter und Neuzeit, pp. 82–83. For its general rebuttal, see Graus, Pest–Geissler–Judenmorde, pp.  53–55; also Erkens, ‘Busse in Zeiten des schwarzen Todes’, pp. 501–02.

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of the local sodalities. Evidence from earlier flagellant groups in Tournai as well as brotherhoods in other nearby cities certainly does not support the notion of a flagellant movement dominated by the proletariat. If anything, it suggests that the Tournai groups likely included men from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds, and that they were governed by respected local citizens, or possibly even members of the local clergy. The two major flagellant initiatives that originated in Tournai (the local processions surrounding the grande procession and the itinerant procession that left Tournai on 8 September) were led, respectively, by an Augustinian friar and a group of prominent local citizens, whom even li Muisis describes as viri discreti.35 That these individuals, and others like them, might have continued their involvement after the conclusion of the procession is by no means difficult to imagine. Nor were these isolated cases. Several of the processions that passed through Tournai between August and October 1349 were apparently led by clerics, and in Strasbourg, Eberlin von Mulnheim, a member of a prominent local family and a civic officeholder, seems to have played a leading role in efforts at establishing a flagellant confraternity in that city.36 At the same time, the large number of participants mentioned by li Muisis virtually guarantees that a number of less prosperous members also took part in the Tournai brotherhoods. This correlates fairly well with what can be surmised regarding the social composition and leadership of the Bolognese Congregation of the Devout. The brotherhood’s membership probably initially reflected the mixture of old and young, rich and poor who made up the generalis devotio.37 The thirteenth-century statutes make at least one reference to poor brethren, indicating that upon their death, they were entitled to receive assistance in paying for a proper burial.38 At the same time, however, the Congregation’s lofty social standing — in civic processions, for instance, it occupied the foremost position among all of Bologna’s confraternities — ensured that many prominent and well-to-do citizens also 35 

See above, pp. 308; Corpus chronicorum Flandriae, ed. by De Smet, ii, 352. Die Chroniken: Straßburg, ed. by Hegel and Schröder, i, 119. It is unclear whether this is a reference to the elder Eberlin or his son. In either case, however, the observation regarding their lofty status is valid. For a sense of the von Mulnheim family’s standing in fourteenth-century Strasbourg and some of the positions held by the two Eberlins, see Dollinger, ‘Patriciat noble et patriciat bourgeois à Strasbourg’; Urkundenbuch und Akten der Stadt Strassburg, ed. by Wiegand and others, ii: Politische Urkunden von 1266 bis 1332, ed. by Wilhelm Wiegand (1886), pp. 456– 57, iii: Privatrechtliche Urkunden und Amstlisten von 1266 bis 1332, ed. by Aloys Schulte (1884), pp. 430–32, vi.2: Politische Urkunden von 1381–1400, ed. by Johannes Fritz (1899), p. 261; Mitteilungen aus dem Stadtarchiv von Köln, ed. by Höhlbaum, vii (1885), p. 34. 37  Annales S. Iustinae Patavini, ed. by Pertz, p. 179. 38  Statuti delle società del popolo di Bologna, ed. by Gaudenzi, ii, 427. 36 

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sought membership. It was undoubtedly from these ranks that the rector and guardiani, the annually (and later semi-annually) elected leaders of the confraternity, were generally drawn.39 The patrician character of the confraternity of S. Maria della Vita, and particularly its stretta company, became much more pronounced as the fifteenth century progressed.40 One point on which the situations in Tournai and Bologna did in fact differ substantially was that of burial practices. Yet it was not the practices themselves that were different. In fact, the thirteenth-century statutes’ description of the Bolognese Congregation’s burial rite coincides broadly with what can be surmised regarding the rites performed by the Tournai brotherhoods; the brothers silently carried the body of their deceased brother, dressed only in his confraternal cape (capa) and linen boots and covered with a thick cloth (carpita) presumably bearing the confraternal symbol, to the church for burial.41 Rather, the difference between north and south lay in the reaction of religious and civic authorities. Li Muisis gave voice to clerical concerns. In his description he took exception to the fact that dying individuals were giving alms otherwise reserved for ‘curates, chaplains, hospitals and paupers’ to these ‘societies of penitents [who] lift up, carry and bury dead bodies with cross and candles’.42 For their part, the city magistrates on 27 October 1349 prohibited anyone, ‘penitent or otherwise’ (penanchierz ne autres), from performing funerary rites that involved either a manner of conveyance or a form of dress other than that typically used for ‘good men of the city’.43 39 

Fanti, ‘La confraternita bolognese dei Disciplinati’, p. 19. The guardiani, in particular, took on significant financial obligations. If, for example, the confraternal coffers were unable to cover the cost of a deceased member’s funeral, the guardiani were supposed to provide the means from their own pockets. More punitive (and curious) in nature was article 32, which stated that if a guardianus failed to respond to a summons by the rector, he would be forced to pay the cost of feeding one of the Congregation’s dependent paupers (unus pauper congregationis). See Statuti delle società del popolo di Bologna, ed. by Gaudenzi, ii, 427, 433. 40  Terpstra, Lay Confraternities and Civic Religion in Renaissance Bologna, p. 98, n. 23. 41  See Statuti delle società del popolo di Bologna, ed. by Gaudenzi, ii, 428 for references to a special manner of carrying the body and a particular mode of dress for the corpse in the statutes issued by the Tournai magistrates on 27 October and 8 December 1349. Corpus documentorum inquisitionis haereticae pravitatis Neerlandicae, ed. by Fredericq, ii, 112. Also note the synodal statute from the diocese of Utrecht in 1355 that prohibited priests from burying a corpse ‘with a felt cap, staff or other garment of the flagellants’. Corpus documentorum inquisitionis haereticae pravitatis Neerlandicae, ed. by Fredericq, ii, 142. 42  Corpus chronicorum Flandriae, ed. by De Smet, ii, 354. 43  Corpus documentorum inquisitionis haereticae pravitatis Neerlandicae, ed. by Fredericq, ii, 112–13.

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The ban was reiterated on 8 December. The specific reasons behind these objections (defence of clerical prerogatives against perceived encroachment and the maintenance of a sense of civic unity, respectively) are not all that important for our analysis. After all, a local dispute over burial practices was clearly not the factor that prompted Philip VI’s intervention. It is important to appreciate, however, that it was the rite’s perceived significance as a symbol, a purveyor of cultural meaning, that made it threatening to a certain subset of the local population. It will be useful to keep this distinction in mind as we turn our attention to the final area of comparison between our two case studies, the flagellatory rite itself.

Flagellation, Procession, and the Rite of Solemn Public Penance The first to suggest that there was something specific about the northern flagellants’ rite that distinguished it from other more acceptable forms of ritualized self-flagellation was the noted Jesuit polemicist Jacob Gretser. In 1606, Gretser published a spirited defence of the Jesuit-sponsored flagellant processions then taking place in Catholic cities in Germany. Entitled Three Books on the Voluntary Crucifixion of Disciplines, or Whips, the work responded to the historical and theological arguments of Protestant critics, who suggested, among other things, that Clement VI’s October 1349 bull Inter sollicitudines had effectively banned all forms of public self-flagellation. Emphasizing the continuous tradition of localized flagellant processions in Italy and Spain, Gretser countered that it was the itinerant (and thus presumably uncontrolled) nature of the processions of 1349 that had resulted in their condemnation.44 Gretser’s analysis does not hold up well when viewed in light of either the actual wording of Clement VI’s bull or the long history of ecclesiastical toleration of (and at times support for) itinerant flagellant processions in Italy, and modern scholars have rightly abandoned this line of argument. Nevertheless, his basic contention remains valid: it was the context in which flagellation was performed, and not the physical act itself, that determined the flagellants’ fate. Gretser’s mistake lay in focusing on supposed differences in the immediate situational context (that is, how flagellation was performed in each region and under what circumstances), rather than examining the much more significant issue of how the various symbols and ritual signifiers employed by flagellant groups interacted 44 

Gretser, De spontanea disciplinarum seu flagellorum, pp. 231–32. For the views of his Prot­ estant opponents, see Zeämann, Carnificina Esavitica; Wolschoendorff, Disquisitio ­theologicohistorica de secta Flagellantium.

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with pre-existing networks of cultural signification that were unique to certain parts of medieval Europe. A brief review of our two case studies supports this observation. While the specific ordo of the Bolognese rite is unknown (the text that would have described this rite, the ordo ad faciendam disciplinam, has not survived, and extant versions from other Italian confraternities are extremely rare 45), those details that can be gleaned from the extant sources display a marked similarity. A central part of the brotherhoods’ distinctive piety, flagellation occurred on a regular and fairly frequent basis. In fact, the Bolognese and Tournaisien sodalities both prescribed Sundays and particular feast days as occasions particularly suited for collective self-discipline.46 The physical settings utilized for such rites were also similar. In Tournai, these included private dwellings, public spaces and, most notably, churches, including the cathedral church itself.47 While a few scholars have suggested that the Bolognese Congregation’s rite was largely hidden from the public’s gaze, this is not borne out by a review of the confraternity’s thirteenthcentury statutes. These specifically mention that on Sundays and major feast days the brethren would travel to the major churches of each of the city quarters, ‘beating themselves in honour of sweet Christ, who desired to be beaten and killed for the redemption of sinners’.48 Even the ritual accoutrements of the brotherhoods bear a resemblance to one another. Banners, processional crosses, and candles were all shared features. The ritual clothing worn by the Tournai brotherhoods did indeed differ somewhat from contemporaneous Bolognese practices in terms of the amount of bare skin exposed. Flagellants in Tournai, as in other parts of northern Europe in 1349, generally performed the flagellatory rite with their torsos fully exposed, while the Bolognese confraternity members of the mid-fourteenth century wore specially designed tunics with an opening at the back. Yet the vestments themselves were 45  Only one of these texts survives for the entire period between 1260 and 1348. See Rondeau, ‘Lay Piety and Spirituality in the Late Middle Ages’, pp. 130–31. 46  Statuti delle società del popolo di Bologna, ed. by Gaudenzi, ii, 424; Corpus chronicorum Flandriae, ed. by De Smet, ii, 354. 47  Corpus documentorum inquisitionis haereticae pravitatis Neerlandicae, ed. by Fredericq, ii, 112–13; Corpus chronicorum Flandriae, ed. by De Smet, ii, 354. 48  For suggestions that the Congregation kept their flagellation private, see Fanti, ‘Gli inizi del Movimento dei Disciplinati a Bologna’, p. 10; also Terpstra, Lay Confraternities and Civic Religion in Renaissance Bologna, p. 5. For clear evidence of their public nature, including the quotation above, see articles 3, 13, 27, and 40 in Statuti delle società del popolo di Bologna, ed. by Gaudenzi, ii, 423–36.

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similar in various other respects: in both cases they were hooded, both were predominantly white, and both had a red cross sewn into the headgear and cloak as their most notable feature.49 Even the relatively revealing nature of the Tournai brotherhoods’ uniforms was in keeping with earlier practices in Bologna. During the 1260s the Bolognese brotherhood, doubtless mimicking the practices seen during the generalis devotio in 1260, also processed in a semi-nude state. It was from this practice that they earned the monikers used in some early ecclesiastical documents, the ‘societas devotorum civitatis ed diocesis bononiensis se super nudo verberantibus propter Deum’ or the ‘viri catholici […] de societate devotorum civitatis ed dioceses bononiensis se super nudo verberantes propter Deum’ (Catholic men of the society of the devout of the city and diocese of Bologna who scourge themselves on account of God with the upper part of their body bare) or the ‘congregatio devotorum seu nudorum civitatis et diocesis Bononie’ (the congregation of the devout, or nude, of the city and diocese of Bologna.50 One possible difference in practice between Bologna and Tournai concerns the level of violent intensity with which the two groups performed their flagellatory rites. Historians have commented on the less rigorous ‘stylized rite’ that began to be preferred by many Italian confraternities in the mid-fourteenth century. In contrast, associations in and around Tournai promulgated strictures against overly severe forms of self-flagellation that resulted in serious injury or death. 51 It is unclear whether the confraternity of S. Maria della Vita participated in the trend towards stylization; certainly not all disciplinati groups did so. Nor do such differences, if they existed, constitute a convincing explanation for the very different treatments accorded the Bolognese and Tournaisien brotherhoods. Self49 

Corpus chronicorum Flandriae, ed. by De Smet, ii, 357–58. This description of the flagellants’ clothing is a composite, based on li Muisis’s generic description and supplemented by details regarding the predominant color of flagellant attire from other medieval chroniclers, among whom references to white and simple (undoubtedly white or possibly grey) linen predominate. See, for example, Continuatio Novimontensis, pp. 674–75; Gesta Abbatum Trudonensium; Gesta Archiepiscoporum Magdeburgensium; Rothe, Düringische Chronik, ed. by Von Liliencron, iii, 595. See also the description of the clothing worn by the Bruges brotherhood in Corpus documentorum inquisitionis haereticae pravitatis Neerlandicae, ed. by Fredericq, ii, 111. 50  Fanti, ‘Gli inizi del Movimento dei Disciplinati a Bologna’, pp. 18–20. For the near nudity that characterized the generalis devotio processions, see Annales S. Iustinae Patavini, ed. by Pertz, p. 179. 51  Terpstra, Lay Confraternities and Civic Religion in Renaissance Bologna, p.  62. For strictures against overly harsh flagellation in and around Tournai, see Corpus chronicorum Flandriae, ed. by De Smet, ii, 356, 359–60; Corpus documentorum inquisitionis haereticae pravitatis Neerlandicae, ed. by Fredericq, ii, 111.

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flagellation of a sometimes quite severe variety was, after all, a common and widely tolerated practice throughout the later Middle Ages, and neither Philip VI’s letter to the Tournai magistrates nor Inter sollicitudines made any effort to restrict the rite’s intensity, even though the latter explicitly allowed individuals to continue practising self-flagellation in their own homes so long as they did it on their own rather than collectively with others.52 But while there was little difference in most aspects of flagellatory practice between the Bologna and Tournai brotherhoods, ecclesiastical observers varied widely in the importance and symbolic meaning they attached to certain details. The clearest illustration of this fact is found in modifications to the standard flagellatory rite that were associated with the processions that took place in September 1349 as part of the grande procession festivities. These processions differed from those of most other flagellant groups in Tournai in three basic respects. The first involved the use of processional paraphernalia. As noted above, most of the processions appearing in Tournai between August 1349 and February 1350, including those connected with the local sodalities, were accompanied by banners, processional crosses, and candles. In the grande procession, however, flagellants made their rounds ‘without cross, without banners and without candles’. Li Muisis comments on this fact twice in the course of his narrative, reiterating shortly after the initial description that these particular flagellants marched ‘without any [processional] apparatus’(sine aliquo instrumento). The second difference involved the participants’ attire. The types of articles involved were similar to those of other groups, including a hood (capucia), a hat (capella), and an apron-like item that was cinched at the waist and reached almost to the ground. As li Muisis is careful to note, however, these vestments lacked the red crosses that were one of the flagellants’ distinguishing characteristics both in Tournai and elsewhere in northern Europe. The colour of the hat was also notably different: while the hats of the majority of flagellant groups were probably white or possibly grey in colour, those worn by the Tournai flagellants were black. The third difference concerned the quasi-liturgical ordo of the rite itself. According to li Muisis and other sources, at a particular point in the rites of most flagellant groups, the participants suddenly threw themselves to the ground, assuming the shape of a cross. They then rose to their knees and whipped themselves until they were told to stand by one of their leaders. They did this three times in succession. In the processions performed between 14 and 22 September, this appears to have 52 

See Largier, In Praise of the Whip, pp.  35–100; Corpus documentorum inquisitionis haereticae pravitatis Neerlandicae, ed. by Fredericq, i (1889), 199–201.

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been dropped in favour of a simple genuflection before the cathedral’s image of the Virgin and the recitation of a Pater Noster and an Ave Maria.53 These modifications have generally been overlooked in the scholarship on the northern processions. It is tempting to see them as little more than incidental variations in a phenomenon that was, after all, fairly fluid and changeable, yet two basic observations should keep us from dismissing these differences. First, it is worth noting that li Muisis goes to great pains to highlight and comment on the differences. Of the more than twenty flagellant groups to appear in Tournai between 15 August and 3 October, the only ones that he describes in detail are those associated with the grande procession. The others, including later local sodalities, are all subsumed within a generic description, despite the fact that each of these flagellant groups undoubtedly had its own idiosyncrasies. These, apparently, were simply not as important as the features of the grande procession spectacles. Even more telling in this regard is the fact that one of the primary leaders of these processions was the Augustinian lector Brother Robert who, only two weeks earlier, had aroused public anger by not only omitting the flagellants from his prayers but also by openly criticizing one of their preachers. Taken together, these details (the careful attention of a Benedictine abbot/chronicler and an outspoken critic’s change of heart) clearly suggest that contemporary clergy placed great weight on the modifications to the processional flagellatory rite. The question that remains is ‘why?’ What was it about certain processional accessories (banners, crosses, and candles), about the flagellants’ mode of dress, and about a rite involving repeated bodily prostrations that, when combined with collective self-flagellation, made it so objectionable as to warrant active suppression? Or, perhaps more correctly: what was it about Tournaisien, and indeed northern European, interpretive structures and semiotic frameworks that transformed what Italian clergy considered innocuous features into what Philip VI called a threat to ‘the condition and observance of the Christian faith and the salvation of the Christian people’?54 In closing, I would like to suggest one possible answer to this question. Solemn public penance was an ancient custom in which penitents, specifically those who had committed crimes that were both extraordinary and notorious, 53 

The analysis above is based on a comparison of li Muisis’s descriptions of the two rites. For his specific description of these grande procession rites, see Corpus chronicorum Flandriae, ed. by De Smet, ii, 359–60. For his contrasting description of the generic flagellant rite, see Corpus chronicorum Flandriae, ed. by De Smet, ii, 357–58. 54  Corpus documentorum inquisitionis haereticae pravitatis Neerlandicae, ed. by Fredericq, ii, 116–17.

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were expelled from the church on Ash Wednesday and then, after a suitable period of penitential observance, reconciled on Maundy Thursday. The rites could only be conducted by the bishop and as such represented a significant expression of his spiritual authority. Contemporary observers saw a close resemblance between this practice and the flagellants’ rites, for numerous sources refer specifically to the flagellants as engaging in ‘public penitence’. One text, a late fourteenthcentury Bohemian chronicle that purports to describe the processions of 1261, but whose description was undoubtedly influenced by clerical perceptions of the events of 1348–49, is even clearer. The chronicle claims that the flagellants ‘solemnly enthroned penitents’, an explicit reference to one part of the Maundy Thursday rite of reconciliation.55 More relevant to our current analysis, however, are several other aspects of the solemn penance liturgy.56 First of all, banners, crosses, and especially candles featured prominently in solemn penance. In many places, for example, penitents carried lit candles during the Ash Wednesday rite. These were ritually extinguished to signify the penitents’ separation from the church, and were subsequently relit in an elaborate ceremony on Maundy Thursday. As the influential thirteenthcentury liturgical writer William Durandus notes, the penitents were expelled on Ash Wednesday ‘with a procession and cross’.57 Similarities in attire also existed. Although liturgical sources generally refer to the penitents’ garb formulaically as ‘sackcloth’ (saccus) or ‘mean attire’ (viles vestes), in practice this almost certainly referred to rough linen or possibly wool, white or grey in colour. Red crosses, one of the key symbols of the pilgrim beginning in the thirteenth century, may also have been part of the garb, since those required to undergo solemn penance were often viewed as pilgrims engaged in pilgrimage in expiation of their sin. 58 55 

For references to public penance, see, for example, Monumenta Poloniae historica, ed. by Bielowski, pp. 346–47; Corpus documentorum inquisitionis haereticae pravitatis Neerlandicae, ed. by Fredericq, i, 197–98, ii, 126, 130–31. For aspects of solemn penance, see Fontes rerum Bohemicarum, ed. by Emler, v, 153–54. 56  The liturgy of solemn penance varied from place to place and over time. The following discussion is based on a composite drawn from numerous print and manuscript sources, for example Guillelmus Durant, Rationale divinorum officiorum, ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, ii (1998), 247–56, 345–49; Le Pontifical romano-germanique, ed. by Vogel, ii (1963), 14–23, 56–67; Wien, ÖNB, MS Palatinus 1378, pp. 201–210; Graz, UB, MS Graecensis 932, fols 85v– 94r; Trier, Bistumsarchiv, MS 570, fols 111v–31r; Wolfenbüttel, HAB, MS 537.b Helmst., fols 113v–18v; München, BSB, MS Clm 10073, fols 237v–53r. 57  Guillelmus Durant, Rationale divinorum officiorum, ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, p. 254. 58  Guillelmus Durant, Rationale divinorum officiorum, ed. by Davril and Thibodeau, p. 347. There are numerous facts that can be adduced to support these conjectures regarding clothing.

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Finally, the ritualized triple prostration employed by the flagellants in their rite closely emulates a portion of the Maundy Thursday reconciliation ritual, in which the penitents are directed three times by a deacon or archdeacon to bend their knee before the bishop, who responds each time through his own diaconal interlocutor: ‘Rise up’ (Levate). Until fairly recently, the accepted wisdom was that the practice of solemn public penance was moribund in Western Europe by the middle of the thirteenth century. Although it is mentioned by Scholastic theologians in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, many assume that the relatively new practice of private penance had almost entirely supplanted it.59 Indeed, this view informed Etienne Delaruelle’s analysis of the similarity between flagellant practice and the ancient rite. He concluded that the particularly strong negative reaction in 1349–50 to the flagellants by French ecclesiastical and secular authorities was the response of a post-Lateran IV ecclesiastical establishment to a lay movement that was essentially an arcaïsme. It was, in short a reactionary rejection of various postGregorian reform developments, including private penance.60 More recent research, however, has cast doubt on the central premise that solemn penance was essentially dead. It has provided a key to understanding the vastly differing receptions accorded the flagellant brotherhoods in Bologna and Tournai, and indeed those in Italy and northern Europe more generally. As Mary Mansfield has clearly demonstrated, the demise of solemn penance was a fundamentally regional affair. It disappeared first in Italy, where it was already falling into disuse by the mid-thirteenth century. Throughout much of northern Europe, however, it remained a vital part of the Lenten liturgy and a powerful demonstration of episcopal authority well into the mid-fourteenth century.61 These include the strong association of white (especially adorned with red crosses) with both penitential pilgrimage and the season of Lent; the fact that flagellant confraternities in Italy specifically referred to their white penitential garb as saccus; and the fact that the archdeacon charged in the Maundy Thursday ceremony with speaking on behalf of the penitents is sometimes described as dressed in ‘simple white’. Feasey, Ancient English Holy Week Ceremonial, pp. 36, 46; Brundage, ‘“Cruce signari”’; Thompson, Cities of God, pp. 82–83, 99; Wien, ÖNB, MS Palatinus 1378, p. 201. 59  See, for example, Lea, A History of Auricular Confession and Indulgences, i, 48–49, ii, 78–81; Poschmann, Penance and the Anointing of the Sick, trans. by Courtney, p. 154; Vogel, Le Pécheur et la pénitence au Moyen Âge, pp. 27–36. 60  Delaruelle, ‘Pourquoi n’y eut-il pas de flagellants en France en 1349?’, pp. 299–301, 303–04. 61  See Mansfield, The Humiliation of Sinners.

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This was certainly the case in Tournai. As late as 1366, synodal statutes were still jealously guarding episcopal prerogatives, instructing priests to send those guilty of immense crimes to the cathedral to be expelled on Ash Wednesday and reconciled on Maundy Thursday. As the statutes explained, ‘a simple priest does not have the authority to reconcile this type of penitent’.62 Given this continued observance of the rituals of solemn penance, it is not difficult to see how the flagellants’ actions might be read as an attempted usurpation of episcopal prerogatives. The flagellants appeared suddenly in Tournai, clad in white with red crosses on their hats and mantles, bearing crosses, candles, and banners, and engaging in a rite that involved three bodily prostrations. Regardless of whether or not they intended to usurp the bishop’s authority, it is worth recalling that in Tournai the first concerted measures designed to suppress the local flagellant brotherhoods coincided precisely with the end of a long period of episcopal vacancy. The end for the local flagellant sodalities came with the arrival of the new bishop, Philip VI’s chancellor Pierre de la Forêt, who bore with him a letter from the king suppressing the penitential brotherhoods. Bologna provides a sharp contrast. Solemn public penance had probably ceased to be a regular part of Lenten practice by 1260, and so features that were virtually identical to those seen in the North had none of the same symbolic resonance and so did not look like challenges to episcopal authority. Thus was it possible for Bonincontro, the vicar general of the bishop of Bologna, to pronounce in 1286 that after having read and diligently examined the statutes of the Congregation of the Devout, both he and the bishop had determined that they contained ‘sufficient honour and a worthy way of life’.63

Conclusion This essay has focused primarily on comparing and contrasting the reception and characteristics of flagellant brotherhoods founded in two specific locations, Bologna and Tournai. It has shown how these brotherhoods, while similar in ideology, social composition, and flagellatory practice, nonetheless provoked radically different responses from local clergy. This article has further suggested that these responses should be seen not as the result of a monolithic clerical establishment’s reaction to differing external stimuli, but rather as the product of specific variations in penitential ritual and practice in these two cities that 62  63 

Le Groux, Summa statutorum synodalium, pp. 7–8. Statuti delle società del popolo di Bologna, ed. by Gaudenzi, ii, 436.

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shaped ecclesiastical perceptions of the flagellants’ actions and their meaning. To use the terminology developed by social theorist Pierre Bourdieu, it was the differences in the Bolognese and Tournaisien clergy’s class habitus — the shared set of experiences, associations and preconceived notions that form the interpretive matrix through which reality is filtered — that led directly to these groups’ separate fates.64 A focused study like this cannot in itself justify a thorough reinterpretation of more than two hundred years of medieval flagellant history. A more wide-ranging research effort is clearly needed. Yet this study does suggest a potential alternative to the dominant historical narrative of ‘radical northern heretics’ and ‘pious southern confratres’.65 Perhaps, as in our case studies, the incongruous treatment afforded the northern and southern branches of the flagellant movement had less to do with the flagellants themselves and more with the ways in which clerical observers interpreted what they saw. After all, the Tournai clergy were not the only ones to take issue with the penitential semiotics of the flagellants’ display. As the French pope Clement VI himself notes in a passage from Inter sollicitudines that is too often overlooked, one of the flagellants’ chief offenses was that they ‘despise the keys of the Church and, scorning ecclesiastical discipline, carry the cross of the Lord before them and don a certain habit, namely black, with the seal (signaculum) of the life-giving cross impressed on the front and back, granting [the seal] without the license of a superior, and they adopt an unusual lifestyle, calling it penance’.66

64 

Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. by Nice, p. 80. This theme is explored more thoroughly in my forthcoming dissertation. 66  Clément VI (1342–1352), ed. by Déprez and Mollat, i, 287 (no. 2090); also Corpus chronicorum Flandriae, ed. by De Smet, iii (1856), 24. The fact that Clement describes the flagellants’ habit as black rather than white is a curious exception to the overall trend in the sources. It may simply reflect his distance in Avignon from the epicenter of flagellant activity in the North, or it may reflect the idiosyncratic dress of the group from Basel that is reported to have travelled to Avignon to seek papal permission for their rites. Alternatively, it may indicate that a certain article of the flagellants’ garb — perhaps the hood (capucia) — was generally black rather than white, a detail that may in fact have been in keeping with solemn penitential practice in some areas. Note: an alternate version of the letter current in Franconia leaves out the phrase ‘crucem Domini ante se’. See München, UB, MS 20 Cod. 731, fols 267r–68r; Corpus documentorum inquisitionis haereticae pravitatis Neerlandicae, ed. by Fredericq, i, 200. 65 

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Works Cited Manuscripts and Archival Resources Graz, Universitätsbibliothek, MS Graecensis 932 München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, MS Clm 10073 München, Universitätsbibliothek, MS 20 Cod. 731 Trier, Bistumsarchiv, MS 570 Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, MS Palatinus 1378 Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, MS 537.b Helmst.

Primary Sources Annales Ianuenses, ed. by Georg Heinrich Pertz, in [Annales aevi Suevici], ed. by Georg Heinrich Pertz and others, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores (in Folio), 39 vols to date (Hannover: Hahn, 1826–), xviii (1863), 226–48 Alberti Millioli notarii Regini Liber de temporibus et aetatibus, ed. by Oswald HolderEgger, in [Annales et chronica Italica aevi Suevici], ed. by Georg Heinrich Pertz and others, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores (in Folio), 39 vols to date (Hannover: Hahn, 1826–), xxxi (1903), 353–572 Annales Foroiulienses, ed. by Georg Heinrich Pertz, in [Annales aevi Suevici], ed. by Georg Heinrich Pertz and others, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores (in Folio), 39 vols to date (Hannover: Hahn, 1826–), xix (1866), 194–222 Annales Placentini Gibellini, ed. by Georg Heinrich Pertz, in [Annales aevi Suevici], ed. by Georg Heinrich Pertz and others, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores (in Folio), 39 vols to date (Hannover: Hahn, 1826–), xviii (1863), 457–581 Annales S. Iustinae Patavini, ed. by Georg Heinrich Pertz, in [Annales aevi Suevici], ed. by Georg Heinrich Pertz and others, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores (in Folio), 39 vols to date (Hannover: Hahn, 1826–), xix (1866), 148–93 Die Chroniken der oberrheinischen Städte: Straßburg, ed. by Karl Hegel and Karl Gustav Schröder, Die Chroniken der deutschen Städte, 8, 9, 2 vols (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1961) (orig. publ. Leipzig: Hirzel, 1870–71) Clément VI (1342–1352): Lettres closes, patentes et curiales se rapportant à la France. Publiées ou analysées d’après les registres du Vatican, ed. by Eugène Déprez and Guillaume Mollat, 3 vols in 6 pts (Paris: De Boccard, 1901–61) Continuatio Novimontensis, ed. by Georg Heinrich Pertz, in [Cronica et annales aevi Salici], ed. by Georg Heinrich Pertz and others, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores (in Folio), 39 vols to date (Hannover: Hahn, 1826–), ix (1851), 669–77 Corpus chronicorum Flandriae, ed. by Joseph Jean De Smet, Publications in quarto, 3, 4 vols (Brussels: Hayez, 1837–65) Corpus documentorum inquisitionis haereticae pravitatis Neerlandicae: Verzameling van stukken betreffende de pauselijke en bisschoppelijke inquisitie in de Nederlanden, ed. by Paul Fredericq, 5 vols (Gent: Vuylsteke, 1889–1906)

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Cronica fratris Salimbene de Adam Ordinis Minorum, ed. by Oswald Holder-Egger, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores (in Folio), 39 vols to date (Hannover: Hahn, 1826– ), xxxii (1905–13) Fontes rerum Bohemicarum, ed. by Josef Emler, 5 vols (Praha: Nakl. Musea Království českého, 1873–93) Gesta Abbatum Trudonensium Continuatio Tertia, in [Annales et chronica aevi Salici: Vitae aevi Carolini et Saxonici], ed. by Georg Heinrich Pertz, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores (in Folio), 39 vols to date (Hannover: Hahn, 1826– ), x (1852), 432 Gesta Archiepiscoporum Magdeburgensium, in [Supplementa tomorum i–xii, pars ii: Supplementum tomi xiii, ed. by Georg Waitz, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores (in Folio), 39 vols to date (Hannover: Hahn, 1826– ), xiv (1883), 437 Gretser, Jakob, De spontanea disciplinarum seu flagellorum cruce libri tres (Köln: Birckmann, 1606) Le Groux, Jacobus, Summa statutorum synodalium, cum praevia synopsi vitae episcoporum Tornacensium (Lille: [n. pub.], 1726) Guillelmi Duranti rationale divinorum officiorum, ed. by Anselmus Davril and Timothy M. Thibodeau, Corpus Christianorum, continuatio mediaevalis, 140, 140a, 140b, 3 vols (Turnhout: Brepols, 1995–2000) Le Pontifical romano-germanique du dixième siècle, ed. by Cyrille Vogel, Studi e testi, 226, 227, 269, 3 vols (Città del Vaticano: Biblioteca apostolica vaticana, 1963–72) Mitteilungen aus dem Stadtarchiv von Köln, ed. by Konstantin Höhlbaum, 15 vols in 37 bks (Köln: DuMont-Schauberg, 1882–1918) Monumenta Poloniae historica, ed. by August Bielowski, 6 vols (Kraków: Nakladem Akademii Umiejętności, 1864–93) —— , Rerum italicarum scriptores; raccolta degli storici italiani dal cinquecento al mille­ cinqu­ecento ordinate da L. A. Muratori, ed. by Albano Sorbelli, new edn, 26 vols (Città di Castello: Lapi, 1906–40) Rothe, Johannes, Düringische Chronik des Johann Rothe, ed. by Rochus von Liliencron, Thüringische Geschichtsquellen, 3 vols ( Jena: Frommann, 1859) Statuti delle società del popolo di Bologna, ed. by Augusto Gaudenzi, Fonti per la storia d’Italia, 3, 4, 2 vols (Roma: Forzani, 1889–96) Urkundenbuch und Akten der Stadt Strassburg, ed. by Wilhelm Wiegand and others, 7 vols (Strasbourg: Trübner, 1879–1900) Wolschoendorff, Nicolaus, Disquisitio theologico-historica de secta Flagellantium (Leipzig: Ritzsch, 1634) Zeämann, Georg, Carnificina Esavitica: Quatuor libri spontanea flagellationi oppositi (Witten­berg: Henckelius, 1614)

Secondary Studies Angelozzi, Giancarlo, Le confraternite laicali: Un’esperienza cristiana tra Medioevo e età moderna, Dipartimento di scienze religiose, 9 (Brescia: Queriniana, 1978) Black, Christopher F., Italian Confraternities in the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989)

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Bourdieu, Pierre, Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. by Richard Nice, Cambridge Studies in Social Anthropology, 16 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977) Brundage, James, ‘“Cruce signari”: The Rite for Taking the Cross in England’, Traditio, 22 (1966), 289–310 Casagrande, Giovanna, ‘Gli iscritti della Confraternita dei Disciplinati di San Francesco in Perugia’, Annali della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, Università degli studi di Perugia, 16–17, n.s., 2–3 (1978–80), 101–163 Cecchini, Giovanni, ‘Raniero Fasani et les flagellants’, Mélanges de l’Ëcole française de Rome: Moyen Âge, temps modernes, 87 (1975), 339–52 Cohn, Norman, The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970) De Sandre Gasparini, Giuseppina, ‘Confraternite e “cura animarum” nei primi decenni del Quattrocento: I disciplinati e la parrocchia di S. Vitale in Verona’, in Pievi, parrocchie e clero nel Veneto dal x al xv secolo, ed. by Paolo Sambin (Venezia: Deputazione, 1987), pp. 289–360 Delaruelle, Etienne, ‘Pourquoi n’y eut-il pas de flagellants en France en 1349?’, in Risultati e prospettive della ricerca sul movimento dei Disciplinati: Convegno internazionale di studio, Perugia, 5–7 dicembere 1969 (Perugia: Arti Grafiche Città di Castello, 1972), pp. 292–304 Dollinger, Philippe, ‘Patriciat noble et patriciat bourgeois à Strasbourg au xive siècle’, Revue d’Alsace, 90 (1950–51), 52–82 Dumoulin, Jean, and others, La Grande Procession de Tournai (1090–1992): Une realité reli­ gieuse, urbaine, diocesaine, sociale, economique et artistique, Art et histoire, 6 (Tournai: Cathédrale Notre-Dame, 1992) Erbstösser, Martin, Sozialreligiöse Strömungen im späten Mittelalter: Geißler, Freigeister und Waldenser im 14. Jahrhundert, Forschungen zur mittelalterlichen Geschichte, 16 (Berlin: Akademie, 1970) Erkens, Franz-Reiner, ‘Busse in Zeiten des schwarzen Todes: Die Züge der Geissler’, Zeit­ schrift für historische Forschung, 26 (1999), 483–513 Fanti, Mario, ‘La confraternita bolognese dei Disciplinati e la chiesa di Santa Maria della Vita’, in L’Oratorio di Santa Maria della Vita, ed. by Marco Poli (Bologna: Costa, 1997), pp. 15–23 —— , Confraternite e città a Bologna nel medioevo e nell’età moderna, Italia sacra, 65 (Roma: Herder, 2001) —— , ‘Gli inizi del Movimento dei Disciplinati a Bologna e la Confraternita di Santa Maria della Vita’, Quaderni del Centro di Documentazione sul Movimento dei Disciplinati, 8 (1969), 3–54; repr. in Mario Fanti, Confraternite e città a Bologna nel medioevo e nell’età moderna, Italia sacra, 65 (Roma: Herder, 2001), pp. 3–60 Feasey, Henry John, Ancient English Holy Week Ceremonial (London: Baker, 1897) Fontaine, Michelle M., ‘A House Divided: The Compagnia de Santa Maria dei Battuti in Modena on the Eve of Catholic Reform’, in Confraternities and Catholic Reform in Italy, France and Spain, ed. by John Patrick Donnelly and Michael W. Maher, Six­ teenth Century Essays and Studies, 44 (Kirksville: Thomas Jefferson University Press, 1999), pp. 55–73

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Fredericq, Paul, De secten der Geeselaars en der Dansers in de Nederlanden tijdens de 14de eeuw, Mémoires de l’Académie Royale des Sciences, 53 vols (Brussels: Hayez, 1895–98) Graus, František, Pest–Geissler–Judenmorde: Das 14. Jahrhundert als Krisenzeit, Ver­öffent­ lichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts für Geschichte, 86 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1987) Hauck, A., ed., Realencyclopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche, 24 vols (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1896–1913) Haupt, Herman, ‘Geißelung, kirchliche, und Geißlerbruderschaften’, in Realencyclopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche, ed. by A. Hauck, 24 vols (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1896–1913), vi (1899), 439 Hoeniger, Robert, Der Schwarze Tod in Deutschland: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des vier­ zehnten Jahrhunderts (Berlin: Grosser, 1882; repr. Walluf bei Wiesbaden: Sändig, 1973) Hübner, Arthur, Die deutschen Geißlerlieder: Studium zum geistlichen Volksliede des Mittel­alters (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1931) Jenks, Stuart, ‘Die Prophezeiung von Ps.-Hildegard von Bingen: Eine vernachlässigte Quelle über die Geisslerzüge von 1348/49 im Lichte des Kampfes der Würzburger Kirche gegen die Flagellanten’, Mainfränkisches Jahrbuch für Geschichte und Kunst, 29 (1977), 9–38 Kieckhefer, Richard, ‘Radical Tendencies in the Flagellant Movement of the Midfourteenth Century’, Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 4 (1974), 157–76 Largier, Niklaus, In Praise of the Whip: A Cultural History of Arousal, trans. by Graham Harman (New York: Zone, 2007) Lea, Henry C., A History of Auricular Confession and Indulgences in the Latin Church, 3 vols (London: Sonnenschein, 1896; repr. New York: Greenwood, 1968) Leff, Gordon, Heresy in the Later Middle Ages: The Relation of Heterodoxy to Dissent, c. 1250–c. 1450, 2 vols (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1967) Mansfield, Mary C., The Humiliation of Sinners: Public Penance in Thirteenth-Century France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995) Meloni, Pier Lorenzo, ‘Topografia, diffusione e aspetti delle confraternite dei disciplinati’, in Risultati e prospettive della ricerca sul movimento dei Disciplinati: Convegno inter­ nazionale di studio, Perugia, 5–7 dicembere 1969 (Perugia: Arti Grafiche Città di Castello, 1972), pp. 15–98 Pfannenschmid, Hugo, ‘Die Geißler des Jahres 1349 in Deutschland und den Niederlanden mit besonderer Beziehung auf ihre Lieder’, in Die Lieder und Melodien der Geißler des Jahres 1349 nach der Aufzeichnung Hugo’s von Reutlingen, ed. by Paul Runge (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1900; repr. Hildesheim: Olms, 1969), pp. 87–221 Poschmann, Bernhard, Penance and the Anointing of the Sick, trans. by Francis Courtney (New York: Herder and Herder, 1964; orig. publ. in German, Freiburg-im-Br.: Herder, 1951) Rondeau, Jennifer Fisk, ‘Lay Piety and Spirituality in the Late Middle Ages: The Con­ fraternities of North-Central Italy, ca. 1250 to 1348’ (unpublished doctoral dis­ser­ta­ tion, Cornell University, 1988)

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Santucci, Francesco, ‘La fraternita dei Disciplinati di S. Lorenzo: Linee storiche e statuto’, in Le Fraternite medievali di Assisi: linee storiche e testi statutari, ed. by Ugolino Nicolini, Enrico Menestò, and Francesco Santucci (Assisi: Accademia Properziana del Subasio, 1989), pp. 87–104, 273–304 Terpstra, Nicholas, Lay Confraternities and Civic Religion in Renaissance Bologna (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995) Thompson, Augustine, Cities of God: The Religion of the Italian Communes, 1125–1325 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005) Vogel, Cyrille, Le Pécheur et la pénitence au Moyen Âge, Traditions chrétiennes, 5 (Paris: Cerf, 1969) Vos, Joachim Joseph, Les Fêtes, offices, cérémonies et usages de l’ancienne église cathédrale de Tournai (Ath: Coppin-Goisse, 1894) Wentzlaff-Eggebert, Friedrich-Wilhelm, Deutsche Mystik zwischen Mittelalter und Neuzeit, 3rd edn (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1969) Werunsky, Emil, Geschichte Kaiser Karls IV. und seiner Zeit, 3 vols (Innsbruck: Wagner, 1880–92; repr. New York: Burt Franklin, 1961)

Beyond Crisis: Confraternities in Modern Italy between the Church and Lay Society Danilo Zardin

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ost studies of the associative life of confraternities are dominated by the spectre of decline. After their initial flowering and the vital energies displayed in their great medieval achievements, these institutions are said to have lost energy and decayed, being inevitably ground down by increasingly stringent and uniform ecclesiastical control during the CounterReformation until the final crisis in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The crisis is often described as a hollowing out of the essential confraternal spirit, a narrative that takes as its premise the existence of an ideal model of the historically integral, pure, and complete confraternity. The crisis appears all the more striking because its timing coincides with the steady expansion that characterizes the history of modern Catholicism. It was at the very moment when confraternities were poised to triumph, spreading to marginal rural areas and multiplying their forms of organization and devotional expression, that their supposedly most distinctive properties were lost. Just as they had become pillars of piety founded upon the protection of individuals and the Christian taming of death, Danilo Zardin ([email protected]) is Professor of Modern History at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Catholic University) in Milan. He is a member of the Council of the Accademia Ambrosiana (Sezione di studi borromaici) and of the Società storica lombarda and of the Fondazione Maccarrone per la ‘Rivista di storia della Chiesa in Italia’. At the core of his studies is the cultural world of Europe during the ancien régime, examined with a focus on systems of religious belief, with special reference to Milan and Lombardy from the Renaissance to the seventeenth century. Among his many publications is Donna e religiosa di rara eccellenza. Prospera Corona Bascapè, i libri e la cultura nei monasteri milanesi del Cinque e Seicento (1992), and Carlo Borromeo: Cultura, santità, governo (2010).

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the confraternities lost their power and independence, ending up in the grip of the diocesan hierarchy and the local parishes, dragged into the orbit of clerical patronage. This increased ecclesiastical control over the religious life of the faithful and the ensuing absorption of confraternities is often seen to coincide with the decline of certain Christian practices grounded in the principle of fraternal mutual aid. From the public and supportive piety of the ancient guilds or medieval scholae, complete with festive banquets and strong lay ceremonial activities, early modern Christians moved towards a concern for private devotion and ethical control over one’s own behaviour. ‘From the community to the individual’ was the rather provocative slogan recently coined to cover an Italian collection of studies by John Bossy on the anticorporative and individualistic trends in modern religion, characteristics seen by some to represent the disintegration of the charity and peace which lay at the heart of the more vital and compact forms of medieval Christianity.67 But this scheme of interpretation only reformulates in more modern terms a strand of thought that has profoundly shaped historical reconstructions of the centurieslong development of confraternities. This theme appears significantly in medieval studies, which from their first technically mature efforts are shot through with nostalgia for the earlier period: from Muratori, to cite a distant predecessor, down to such moderns as Gennaro Maria Monti or Father Gilles Gérard Meersseman, the acknowledged master of more recent studies, above all in Italy. This vision of regression appears in the most widely available general histories of Italian confraternities in modern times and threatens to restrict further research by channelling it into simplified approaches.68 The brief observations 67 

Bossy, Dalla comunità all’individuo. The present essay (trans. by Richard Sadleir) is a new and updated version of another published paper, in Zardin, ‘Tra Chiesa e società “laica”’, and in Storia della Chiesa in Europa, ed. by Vaccaro, pp. 381–99. 68  See Meersseman and Pacini, ‘Le confraternite laicali in Italia’; Angelozzi, Le confrater­ nite laicali. A more open vision reflecting subsequent research can be found in Rusconi, ‘Confraternite, compagnie e devozioni’. For recent developments by largely English-language historiography in dialogue with anthropology and the social sciences, see The Politics of Ritual Kinship, ed. by Terpstra; Confraternities and the Visual Arts in Renaissance Italy, ed. by Wisch and Ahl; Early Modern Confraternities, ed. by Black and Gravestock. For a more traditional approach, not restricted to the Italian situation, see Confraternities and Catholic Reform, ed. by Donnelly and Maher. The thesis of the ‘individualization of practice’ and the consequent ‘loss of all community rhythm’ presented as an ‘evident’ fact is very prominent in historical surveys like the recent work by Prosperi, Il concilio di Trento, pp. 120–21, 132. On p. 115 the reference to Bossy provides an opportunity to confirm the modern decline of the confraternal model: ‘The Tridentine model appears to present a reduction of traditional Christian sociability, expressed by the confraternities, to the advantage of the assertion of the hierarchical authority of the eccle-

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offered here seek simply to emphasize the limits of an interpretation reduced to the modern crisis of the confraternal model. The invitation to go further and survey different hypotheses is based on an examination of certain significant situations and developments which can be seen as representing a broader state of affairs and balance of forces.

Secular and Sacral Authorities Acting in Concert: Genoa To begin, it is worth considering the oligarchic Republic of Genoa. In its dynamic and enterprising capital, there were no fewer than twenty confraternities at the start of the sixteenth century that conformed to the ancient model of the flagellants. The chronicles provide intensely emotional echoes of their spectacular rituals which culminated, as did flagellant ceremonies across Christian Europe, in the great Holy Week celebrations. On the Thursday of Holy Week (earlier the ceremony had been held on Good Friday), the processions of the casacce, as it became customary to call these confraternities in the modern age, moved through the central districts of the city. Taking different routes and starting at different times to reduce the risk of incidents and outbursts of rivalry, the flagellants would proceed to pay homage at the sepulchre in the cathedral of San Lorenzo, where the Holy Sacrament was placed. For the church in the city as a whole, despite its fragmentation into parishes and areas of influence associated with the various monastic complexes and religious orders, this was the spectacular moment of the solennità de’ battuti. Large crowds of devotees were generally present. A contemporary source observed that the number of faithful ‘often rose to ten thousand’. In that crowded moving theatre, engaged in the faithful repetition of a venerated custom, the city’s most richly endowed confraternities (supported by noble gentlemen, wealthy merchants and bankers, and a multitude of craftsmen) displayed the signs of their status through the apparatus of sacred images prepared with the generous funds provided by the brotherhoods.69 siastical body’; ‘The question of the conflict between Tridentine bishops and confraternities occupied much space in the social life of the period’. The example of the episcopal government of Carlo Borromeo in Milan is here anticipated as the high point of ‘hostility towards horizontal forms of association’. 69  The description is based above all on Bernardi, ‘Corpus Domini’. See La Liguria delle casacce; Franchini Guelfi, ‘La diversità culturale delle confraternite’ (with references to earlier studies by Franchini). The studies by Edoardo Grendi emphasizing conflict and the manipulative influence of the social strategies of individuals were stimulating and innovative, and have now been brought together in part in Grendi, In altri termini.

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However, the significant point that needs to be stressed is that the authority responsible for ensuring the order and decorousness of these displays of the common faith was not ecclesiastical but civil. State records in Genoa attest that the casacce were the sole confraternities declared legitimate and permitted to exist under the drastic suppression measures of 1528, imposed by republican authorities to reorganize the unruly corporate associations and bring them under stricter control. As a result of this tutelage, even at the height of the CounterReformation, the confraternities of the battuti continued to be seen as legally dependent primarily on civil power rather than religious authority. The bishops did attempt to counterattack after Trent. For instance, in 1587 Archbishop Sauli imposed the rules devised in Milan by Carlo Borromeo for the dioceses of his metropolitan province as a model for Genoa. Yet the most markedly secular and strongly organized confraternities, such as the casacce, remained the spearhead of a municipal system of piety that extended from the sphere of ceremonial to embrace the network of hospitals and charitable works, control of the orthodoxy and morality of public and private conduct, care of the fabric of the cathedral, and custody of the religious houses, especially female convents. Despite the pressures of heightened ecclesiastical vigilance and rules which sought to achieve the opposite effect, the joint governance of the whole body of local society, including its religious dimensions and forms of worship, remained firmly established. Within this framework, secular and sacerdotal authority had to come to terms with one another and ensure that social cohesion prevailed over antagonism (which existed in Genoa as elsewhere). This was crucial if the authorities were to keep control over a theatre of devotion whose political implications for securing stability and the common good in a Christian society were immediately obvious to the elite of the period.70 This condominium in the governance of the city’s church, encompassing both clergy and laymen at the summit of the res publica, was embodied in applications for approval of the statutes, addressed in a number of cases to the magistracies of the civil power rather than the Curia. It also appeared in the continual requests for protection, favours, and exemptions that regular institutions, as well as confraternities or charitable bodies, addressed to the secular power of the city-state, which survived, with its (relative) independence intact, until the end of the modern era.71 As late as 1748, the archbishop of Genoa, Giuseppe Maria Saporiti, 70  Bernardi, ‘Corpus Domini’, pp. 233, 239. On the system of civic piety in Genoa and the marked continuity in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, see the outline by Zardin, ‘Prerogative della Chiesa e prestigio della Repubblica’. 71  Examples in Bernardi, ‘Corpus Domini’, pp. 232 (n. 10), 241 (n. 48).

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asked why his predecessors had been unable to overturn a custom that, in formal terms, seemed the reverse of the principle of immunity circa sacra and the superiority of ecclesiastical prestige emphasized by canonical legislation with a clear Tridentine imprint.72 Other particulars strengthen this impression of continuity within the context of the Counter-Reformation reorganization of the local church, suggesting a more deeply rooted collective tradition, a mixed lay-clerical (or rather, aristocratic-clerical, hence patrician) system, which even succeeded in bending to its will the resurgent episcopal powers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and became a cornerstone of the pre-bourgeois ancien régime. To remain in Genoa, we should remember that the civil power’s control over religious ritual was not confined to the penitential processions on Maundy Thursday. It included other outstanding events in the city’s calendar, namely the feast of the city’s patron saint and the procession of Corpus Domini. In 1553, the city fathers decided to fashion a silver ark surmounted by a tabernacle for the conveyance of the Eucharist, and in 1564 they added a baldachin. The intervention of the municipal authority was continuous and in fact obligatory for the organization of the great procession, in which the whole of society, both religious and civil, would gather to present the spectacle of its own composite identity and cement its unity interwoven with multiplicity. Proclamations for cleaning and decorating the streets, establishing the times for and legitimate forms of behaviour prescribed as the backdrop to the collective ritual, and commissions for the musical accompaniments were all part of the typical duties of public authorities in securing urban order. Far more revelatory of the spirit that regulated relations between the two spheres of authority in the local arena was the fact that the rules established for holding the Eucharistic procession were accurately recorded from year to year in the ceremonial books of the Republic. This documenting impulse likely arose from a need to ensure scrupulous compliance with the customs supported by the civic magistracies known collectively as the Serenissimi Collegi, which were at the apex of the administration of the state.73 The central symbols of the unity of 72  Bernardi, ‘Corpus Domini’, p. 239. Compare with Andrea Spinola, Dizionario politicofilosofico (early eighteenth century): ‘Do not permit our archbishops and their vicars, or other spiritual leaders, to assume authority, because […] our casacce have never recognized any other superior than the Signoria Serenissima’ (quoted in Franchini Guelfi, ‘La diversità culturale delle confraternite’, p. 425). 73  Bernardi, ‘Corpus Domini’, pp. 232–37. See ASG, Arch. segreto, 474, Ordinanza. The prescriptions of the masters of ceremonies of the Republic for the conduct of general processions were repeated each year throughout the seventeenth century.

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Christian worship became the sacrament of the essential cohesion of the social body. But here we have more than simply the continuity of a system of municipal patronage which endorsed from above the cyclical self-perpetuation of the religion of its subjects. This framework of protection was not an unchanging inheritance from the past. It was rather the framework in which the Genoese tradition of the casacce grew and flourished all through the Baroque period, attaining its greatest splendour at the height of the eighteenth century. The confraternities, which had always represented different classes and groups of citizens in the urban community, endowed themselves with splendid processional coffers, made by the most skilled artists active in the region. The visual eloquence of their great polychrome statuary provided a focus for devotion that, for many of the faithful, represented the essential reason for the existence of these associations. The beauty of these misteri, which may still be seen in many churches and oratories in Genoa and the Italian Riviera, formed a splendid climax to the processions, stirring admiration and attracting support, members, and financial contributions. Growing resources were invested in ceremonial with even greater lavishness and ostentation, as confraternities vied with each other to nourish that generous magnificence of worship which formed the lifeblood of Baroque piety. The crucifixes of the casacce became increasingly majestic and ponderous, their great arms decorated with embossed gold and silver like the boughs of trees in blossom, intended to attract the gaze of all. Carrying them was an undertaking in which the strongest gave proof of their skill and strength. The robes of the brethren became gradually covered in velvets and brocades, embroidery, and refined armorial bearings, increasingly resembling rich courtly garments with cloaks, elaborate hoods, and fine silk scarves. The robes of the Priors were lengthened with trains that required a retinue of pages to hold them. The processions were brilliantly lit with increasing numbers of lamps and candlesticks, and embellished with maces bearing images of the patron saints, painted or carved in relief, as well as splendid banners. The buildings which housed the confraternities became artistic shrines, complete with elaborate architecture, a profusion of stucco decorations, rich altarpieces and statues, choir stalls, and splendidly illustrated song and prayer books. This rising tide of mature Baroque brilliance was not just an empty spectacle designed to dazzle the Catholic masses and perpetuate their state of hierarchical inferiority. It was rather one magnificent sign of a tradition that remained alive, spreading from the trunk of its most ancient resources to produce a new aesthetic code. This tradition produced a creative synthesis, welding the impulses contained in the devotional upsurge of the first and most aggressive phase of the

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Counter-Reformation with a matrix that was Roman and regular even before it was episcopal and parochial.74

Secular and Sacral Authorities Acting in Concert: Venice It is highly unlikely that the case of Genoa was a wholly unusual exception in Italy, or among the even more varied panorama of early modern Catholic reform. Decisive confirmation of this hypothesis comes from the great Venetian tradition, from which can be drawn another significant example. In La Serenissima, the dense, extensive network of associative structures inspired by the ideals of devotion and fraternal charity culminated in the illustrious and affluent Scuole Grandi, which were likewise an organic part of the architecture of a longestablished civil order. The development of the Venetian scholae seems not to have differed greatly from that of the (only partly) successful project of ecclesiastical control launched by the Tridentine reforms. An important body of research has revealed the role of the scholae in municipal regulation of public worship and has also illuminated the extraordinary attractive power of the sacred within a social structure based on classes and professions.75 In this case, as in Genoa, there was no clear separation between the influence of the church and civil governmental control over civil society.76 Rather than providing confirmation of yet another defeat of the 74 

Readers are again referred, for a preliminary overview of religious changes on the local level and the transition to the closing phases of the ancien régime, to the essays in Il cammino della Chiesa genovese, ed. by Puncuh. A vivid reflection of the maturity attained by the processional lore of the city’s confraternities is found in the pictorial documentation reproduced in La Liguria delle casacce. More recently, see also Chilosi, I tesori delle confraternite. 75  For developments in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a staple work is the wideranging study by Pullan, Rich and Poor in Renaissance Venice, together with the essays later brought together in Pullan, Poverty and Charity. See also Mackenney, ‘Devotional Confraternities in Renaissance Venice’; Mackenney, ‘The Scuole Piccole of Venice’; Mackenney, ‘Public and Private in Renaissance Venice’. For a study of a significant case of the persistence of forms of confraternal association ‘under the protection of the State’ even after the Tridentine watershed and in the early seventeenth century, see Vianello, ‘The Confraternite dei Poveri’. On the emblematic front of relations with the arts and commissions for decorative works, see Le Scuole di Venezia, ed. by Pignatti; Brown, ‘Honor and Necessity’. Research into patronage in the musical field and the practice of liturgical-devotional song are also highly significant. In the case of Venice, studies have been conducted above all by Denis Arnold and more recently Jonathan E. Glixon. 76  See the quotation from Pullan at the opening of the study of neighbourhood welfare services by Vianello, ‘I fiscali delle miserie’: the whole body of the city’s ‘schools’, small and large,

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clerical corporation by the stronger powers which dominated it, this case instead points towards joint acceptance of shared regulation. What emerges is the anachronistic character of the idea of exclusive pastoral control over lay religious life in its entirety, the growing acceptance of political and secular instruments, and ultimately the development of a spirit of prudent compromise. Despite the expectations of the most ambitious reformers and the tenacity of the strengthened post-Tridentine Curiae, ecclesiastical authorities resigned themselves to seeking a realistic balance, using the margins for manoeuvre in the situations in which they found themselves. They could not hope to sweep away the independence and more emphatically the civil spirit of confraternal worship, which were inscribed in the customs of communities and embedded in hierarchies of orders, crafts, ‘nations’, age groups, or other alliances. The ecclesiastical world had helped to foster these traditional autonomies as well as the associations in which they were embodied, and the Church continued to support these institutions. Priestly authority was able to coexist with these organizations for collective devotion, and even derived notable benefits from them in terms of services, assistance, and material advantages. Ultimately, the confraternities could not be simply forced into antagonism, deaf to all dialogue and influence, set between the institutions of the secular powers and those of their clerical rivals. Even the opposed terms of clergy and laity are misleading when applied to a religious system not yet riven by the extreme dualisms caused by the tensions between the church and the modern state. The hierarchy of prestige and notable variety of functions that characterized the early modern church were one thing, but the conflicts over the necessary cooperation of the two authorities and the continuous disputes that broke out in the grey areas between the two jurisdictions, starting with conflicts over precedence in public ceremonies, were quite another. ‘Civic’ and ‘public’ had not yet become synonymous with ‘secular’, that is, they were not entirely independent of — much less extraneous to — the religion of private citizens. It may be objected that this continuity of civic worship in communal associations applies mainly to cities with a strong tradition of self-government or else to the surviving republican regimes that inherited the ancient order of the medieval comuni. But the powers of resistance shown by the corporate organization of religious institutions, drawn into the civil sphere of jurisdiction was ‘increasingly drafted into a system in the service of the state, which complicated, or even obscured their function as religious and charitable institutions’ (p. 277). Also on the Venetian ‘schools’, see the appraisal by Mackenney, ‘The Scuole Piccole of Venice’, p. 188: ‘There is little evidence of Tridentine discipline directly affecting the scuole in the later sixteenth century’.

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and influence, explain the difficulties encountered elsewhere by the church in its attempts to assert a more rigorous ecclesiastical monopoly or achieve complete control and uniformity based on post-Tridentine principles. Clear evidence that ecclesiastical authorities adopted a more open and flexible policy also appears in dioceses which were incorporated into more complex political structures such as princedoms or signorie, or in states with extensive territorial possessions, as could be shown more clearly beyond the confines of the Italian peninsula.

Not Only Clericalization: Milan But even in the heart of Italy, where the model of Tridentine discipline developed its lines of action, regulatory codes, and devotional policy — that is, in the Milanese laboratory of reform guided by Carlo and Federico Borromeo — the growth of episcopal control continued to be interwoven with the ancient but still-vibrant mixed tradition of civic-religious governance. This could be seen even in the charitable institutions and manifestations of worship that were more directly immersed in the secular world, and in closer contact with the collective life of the laity. In fact, we can ask whether this enforced cohabitation within a pluralistic framework of powers extending to religious matters was not to some extent envisaged in the Borromean project for a general reform of Christian customs. Though a widely accepted cliché of absolutist control commonly suggests the opposite, the Borromean project seems in fact to have avoided making a clean sweep of the existing associative traditions inherited from the freer Renaissance period. Introducing reforms, establishing firm boundaries, and clarifying urgent moral duties did not yet entail cancelling the ties of the past or the need to replace them with an alternative plan for uniformly subordinate institutions.77 Changes on the local level can only be measured adequately in the long-term. Throughout the years of Spanish rule until the Habsburg reforms of the later eighteenth century, Milan’s dense network of flagellant and penitential confraternities (the disciplinati and the penitenti) survived and in fact expanded, organized into two groups of associations, one using the Roman rite and the other the Ambrosian.78 As we have seen in Genoa, and as Venice and other dioceses 77  See the fuller treatment in Zardin, ‘La perfettione nel proprio stato’; Zardin, ‘Il “progetto” di san Carlo Borromeo’. 78  Zardin, ‘Relaunching Confraternities in the Tridentine Era’ (in particular p. 198 for the early interest Borromeo took in the renewing the organization of the compagnie di battuti, but

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in Venice’s mainland possessions would similarly demonstrate, this continuity reveals the power of an associative formula that remained a privileged precinct for lay initiatives in the religious field and gave them strong safeguards in the exercise of their functions.79 Even outside Milan, the more richly endowed confraternities in rural parishes continued to develop and reorganize themselves by imitating features of the old, established penitential companies. For instance, they applied for permission to wear uniforms. They moved from the side chapels of public churches into oratories of their own, which they had to learn to run with their own finances and where they met to say office on feast days. Strengthened in their ranks and their representative symbols, it was then natural for these confraternities to base their primacy on increasing participation in public processions.80 If it is true that the strong points of the Tridentine-Borromean model lay in the obligation to institute Eucharistic confraternities open to all the faithful and in the creation of an extensive network of Schools of Christian Doctrine, we must recognize that this comprehensive reordering of the religious governance of the life of the laity, centred on the primacy and unity of the parish, was established slowly and only partially.81 This programme had to overcome constraints, wear down opposition, and deal with criticism which reduced its disruptive force. Here I will not dwell again on the inevitable difficulties encountered by the reform in its early stages.82 But even long after the first provincial councils and diocesan synods over which Carlo Borromeo presided in person, after repeated visits to each parish, and despite the meticulously detailed decrees that ensued, there remained numerous confraternities in the Milan diocese which had not adopted the rules prescribed by the archiepiscopal Curia. In other cases, emissaries sent to inspect the parishes found that the confraternities were unable to observe the rules with the necessary fidelity and correctness. Post-Tridentine under archiepiscopal control); Giuliani, ‘Assetti istituzionali delle confraternite disciplinate’. 79  For an extra-Venetian reference see Pacini, Laici, Chiesa locale, città. 80  The process has been shown for Milan in Zardin, ‘La riforma delle confraternite di disciplinati’; Zardin, ‘Confraternite e comunità nelle campagne milanesi’, but much evidence relates it to a phenomenon that extended at the very least to its place of origin and that of the greatest development of penitential confraternities as self-governing associations of the faithful: namely, Italy. See Zardin, ‘Le confraternite in Italia settentrionale’, pp. 95–100, 111, 115–19. 81  Zardin, ‘Confraternite e comunità nelle campagne milanesi’, pp. 714–16; Zardin, ‘Le con­ fraternite in Italia settentrionale’; and more recently, Zardin, ‘Riscrivere la tradizione’, pp. 206–13. 82  I provide an examination of this issue in Zardin, ‘Relaunching Confraternities in the Tridentine Era’.

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confraternities founded or recognized as legitimate by newly recruited parish priests and vicars forane (that is, archpriests or deans), by ministers in the bishop’s entourage, or even by the archbishop himself, might lapse into apathy and vanish, leaving a void behind them. Some failed to put down roots or succumbed to the competition of customary devotion or rival confraternities. Others were defeated by hostile alliances organized by the laity or unruly religious and ecclesiastics, who could draw support from time-honoured custom, which proved difficult to remodel and lead in new directions. Even when the new devotional confraternities were finally accepted, as happened in nearly all the parishes in the towns and countryside of the far-flung areas controlled by the see of Milan (as well as in many other dioceses, near and far, where the same policies were adopted), there always remained the danger that tensions might at any moment be rekindled and degenerate into conflicts of varying acuteness in local communities. On one side were ranged the parochial clergy, backed by their supporters, who claimed the superior power of government; on the other side, there might be insubordinate groups of laymen appointed to administer the confraternities, their alms chests, and the fabric of the churches. The chronicles of Borromean Milan contain numerous examples of such conflicts, revealing opposition to the ‘parochialization’ of confraternal worship as desired by the reforming clergy. At the very least, the latent conflict, behind the screen of acceptance of the religious innovations of the late sixteenth century, reveals the difficulties that had to be overcome to control the particularism and pluralism of the confraternal associations. Even well into the seventeenth century, the records of the confraternity of the Holy Sacrament in one of the prestigious collegiate churches of Milan, San Giorgio al Palazzo, show that relations seemed to follow a municipal model closer to that coherently embodied in aristocraticrepublican Genoa than the true spirit of Saint Carlo Borromeo’s reform of the lay confraternities. The dispute with the college of canons who controlled the parish broke out in the late sixteenth century. The chapter felt fully authorized to exercise its powers of eminent patronage, but it was dealing with one of the city’s oldest Eucharistic confraternities, an institution definitively established by the first decade of the sixteenth century and at an earlier date capable of commissioning as talented an artist as Bernardino Luini to completely decorate its chapel in the collegiate church. At least until 1623, the brotherhood’s unruly members resisted the demands of the canons by invoking the confraternity’s exemption from ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The secessionists claimed a statute of privilege that descended from the patents of legitimacy and fiscal exemptions which the association had enjoyed in its early years, based on the princely authority of the duchy of Milan, during a period in

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which the authority of the secular clergy had been eclipsed. The resistance was a clear attempt to cling to a past that by this time had lost much of its significance, yet more notably, the argument could still be used as a legal resource in a civil suit. The vicar general of the Curia of Milan finally intervened. The confraternity was ordered to submit to the decrees for an inspection issued to settle the dispute, but the leaders of the confraternity refused. With a move decidedly antagonistic to the spirit of the Borromean reforms, they defended their prerogatives and appealed to the supreme civil tribunal of the Senate, the highest organ of justice in the state. They declared themselves a lay organization (in the formal sense of being subject to secular authority) and proclaimed they were unable ‘to perform an act completely opposed to the jurisdiction of His Majesty’, namely that Catholic king into whose hands the ancient Sforza duchy had passed.83 Shortly after the mid-seventeenth century, a report was forwarded to the episcopal authority indicating that the dispute had now been resolved within the institutional framework of the collegiate church of San Giorgio, producing a more harmonious relationship. The report states that ‘all the parishioners can now cast their votes at the chapter’ of the ‘school of the Holy Sacrament’, and that its assemblies, reduced to a sort of board of maintenance of the church fabric, were ‘never held without the presence of the provost and the canonical curate, or at least one of them’.84 In this case, peace must have been restored by emptying the old structure of the schola as a corporate body run by a select group of prominent laymen, recruited from the economically and socially most highly qualified classes of the urban population. But in a number of other cases the civil authority wielded its influence and power in more substantial and enduring ways, still interfering in the activities of lay religious associations and their many public functions with an energy similar to that they displayed before the Council of Trent. These functions included charitable works and social welfare, the assistance of prisoners facing a death sentence, and the administration of shrines and places of worship where images and miraculous signs were venerated, without neglecting joint responsibility for organizing urban ceremonials of the highest public importance.85 At least throughout the period of Spanish rule, the practice survived of appointing royal assistants, whom Carlo Borromeo had had to accept, to solve 83 

Zardin, ‘Solidarietà di vicini’; for the parochial dispute see p. 365. Milano, ASD, sez. xiii, 34, fasc. 2. See also Zardin, ‘Relaunching Confraternities in the Tridentine Era’, pp. 204–05, with references to other documented cases of disputes between confraternities aligned on the statutory Tridentine models and parochial power in the city. 85  Zardin, ‘Carità e mutua assistenza nelle confraternite milanesi’; Zardin, ‘La mendicità tollerata’; Zardin, ‘Le confraternite in processione’. 84 

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conflicts of jurisdiction created by the reform campaign. Records indicate that the confraternities themselves as well as the more representative pia loca in the city’s religious system applied to the governor of Milan to appoint such royal assistants whenever the positions were vacant.86 Disputes arose out of the prolonged friction caused by the shuffling of control over the societas Christiana between secular and the ecclesiastical powers, a state of affairs that continued until the end of the ancien régime.87 Outside the city, municipal and corporate associations won far greater freedom of action than those formed for purely devotional purposes, for the latter institutions remained entirely within the orbit of the parishes controlled by the bishop.88 Traditional historiography on the application of the Tridentine reforms has tended to examine the limited and selective sources produced by pastoral visits, and so has failed to reveal this fact. But in both town and countryside, the churches and the houses of the regular orders — Franciscans, Capuchins, Augustinians, Carmelites, and Jesuits, to give only a few examples — continued to attract large crowds of the faithful, who then formed groups, religious alliances, and true confraternal organizations above and across the individual parishes and the more restricted neighbourhood-based charitable associations. The parochial clergy always had to reckon with an associative energy that developed beyond the strategies of the centralizing government of the diocesan Curiae and which overstepped the rigid boundaries laid down in Carlo Borromeo’s great regulatory code, the Acta Ecclesiae Mediolanensis. 86  Signorotto, ‘Per la storia di Milano nell’età del cardinale Federico e di Daniele Crespi’ (p.  27, with reference to 1617); Dell’Oro, Il Regio economato, pp.  86, 172: archiepiscopal complaints of the tendency of the royal jurisdiction to expand to cover the ‘secular confraternities’, ‘congregations, schools, chapters and confraternities of laymen’, c. 1670. On the tradition of Milanese legislation in relation to scholae-fabricae, pia loca, and confraternities, see Prosdocimi, ‘Luoghi pii (ospedali e scholae) a Milano’. 87  Garrioch, ‘Lay-Religious Associations’; Garrioch, ‘La Persistance des confréries milanaises’. A late episode of conflict between the Senate of Milan and the bishops of the state, following an appeal to the highest court by a confraternity in the rural parish of Gallarate (1673), is documented in Milano, ASD, sez. ii, Foro Eccles., Y 6555. As early as 1596, soon after the end of Carlo Borromeo’s episcopate, the provisions to defend the prerogatives of the iurisdizione reale, based on the gride issued by the civil powers of government, compelled certain ‘schools’ of disciplinanti to ‘supplicate’ the state authorities in Milan for the right to meet for their pious works, under the ordini of fiduciary tutors who continued to exert their disputed role as ‘assistants’ representing the crown: Milano, ASD, sez. ii, Foro Eccles., Y 5658, fasc. iv. 88  For examples, see Cavallera, ‘Pia loca e società di antico regime’; Zardin, ‘Fioritura e metamorfosi di un centro di devozione’.

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The existence of this associative energy is eloquently confirmed by the steady expansion of the elitist Marian congregations and other Jesuit associations for the urban lay nobility and upper classes, a process which continued until the late eighteenth century. The extraordinary popularity at the height of the ancien régime of funerary consortia, organizations to ensure that one died a good death, testifies to the intense dialogue that remained open between the associative model of the confraternities and the more purely secular components of the body social. Closely interwoven with the social hierarchy, these were voluntary grassroots organizations which provided forms of mutual support for their individual members. ‘In our metropolis there is no hierarchy or order of persons that does not live under some spiritual rule, by which, through the reciprocal example of customs, they spend their days peacefully, and with the proper use of the means available they attain that happy end for which only we were created’. This is the picture of the sociological architecture of devotion in the city on the eve of the absolutist reforms in the Enlightenment, as described in the Milanese statute of the Venerabile Consorzio de’ Palafrenieri, printed in 1748 and again in 1754.89

In a Peripheral Area: Como The final example takes us north of Milan to the composite and even less easily controlled diocese of Como, the link between Spanish Lombardy and the Swiss cantons and a region which had largely embraced the Reformation. A recent contribution to the history of the region’s confraternities examines the governing policies of one of the first episcopates of the post-Tridentine period, that of Filippo Archinti (1595–1612). Its findings can certainly be extended to many similar contemporary situations: ‘Even a preliminary analysis of his interventions in the life of the lay associations clearly shows that Archinti did more than just apply the rules mechanically in order to align the local situation with a preordained ecclesial model. […] His Counter-Reformation pastoral policy had to cope with existing forms of association; his assertion of episcopal authority had to reckon with the numerous factors at work’.90 The author adds: ‘On the plane of pastoral activity, one of the cardinal points of the postTridentine strategy was the integration of confraternities into the organization 89 

Zardin, ‘Confraternite e “congregazioni” gesuitiche a Milano’, p. 180. Pezzola, ‘La confraternita della Beata Vergine Assunta di Morbegno’, pp. 131–32. See now, Pezzola, ‘Et in arca posui’. More generally, see Vaccani, ‘Le confraternite a Como’; for the political-religious history of the region, see Di Filippo Bareggi, Le frontiere religiose della Lombardia; La Valtellina crocevia dell’Europa, ed. by Borromeo. 90 

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of the parish’. ‘Integration’, however, is not strictly synonymous with conquering and absorbing. The attempt to affirm the ‘centrality of the parochial institution’, notes our author, did not lead to the full reabsorption of the independent confraternities into the framework of the parishes. This is shown, at least until the close of the seventeenth century, by recurrent disputes between confraternities and priestly authority over the delimitation of powers of jurisdiction, as well as control of their economic resources and patrimony. The hostility that saw the lay associations arrayed against each other, leading them to fight for their rights against competitors and rival institutions which threatened to overshadow them in the theatre of public life, constituted ‘a further restraint on attempts by the parishes to standardize and control the confraternities’.91

Conclusion The various cases we have explored converge to suggest that the ecclesiastical colonization of the confraternal fabric of lay religion was only partly successful in the post-Tridentine period, and even less so in the Baroque. These examples reveal elements of continuity, inertia, and the still-fertile resources of tradition, though it was compelled to redefine its tried and tested models of organization. These margins of resistance encountered by the levelling advance of the CounterReformation also serve as a warning against reducing the ‘popular Catholicism’ of the early modern period to a monolithic bloc, firmly controlled by the higher centres of order in a hierarchical subordination relationship that descended from the ‘aristocratic’ power of the bishop to poorly endowed parishes. In reality, the model imposed was not one of subservient dependence, simple and straightforward in its vertical lines of standardization. Apart from the patently compulsory forms of common organization, every town or village could adopt organizational formulas and forms of devotion developed elsewhere. There were attempts to develop original syntheses, and occasionally largely original solutions were proposed. The copying of the regulatory texts as well as the patrimony of symbols and teaching aids for local use (music and songs, prayers, images, preaching, or collective ceremonials) tended to follow authoritative paradigms or experiences found in other towns, in some cases some distance away. This reciprocal imitation was in itself an antidote against the risk of pure passivity and total 91 

Pezzola, ‘La confraternita della Beata Vergine Assunta di Morbegno’, pp. 132–33. For links between confraternities and parish structures in modern times, a more articulated study is Black, ‘Confraternities and the Parish in the Context of Italian Catholic Reform’.

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manipulation from above. The freedom to form affiliations between institutions and to ally with other groups under the same banner could link many different regions in a circle of contacts and relationships that immediately produced tangible results.92 In the modern age, aggregations to the great archiconfraternities of the Papal See or of other eminent cities spread steadily in every corner of the Catholic world. Their branches were eager to adopt the same statutes and endow themselves with original uniforms and coats of arms for the sake of display, and to have access to the substantial patrimony of indulgences made available with a shrewd exploitation of the prestige of the mother-confraternity.93 There were many different channels through which relations between individuals could avoid being kept to the restricted circle of local life. By these paths, the world of religious experience reached out to embrace a far broader horizon and absorbed in its complex interplay a multiplicity of centres of authority, actors, and forms of expression, variable in origin and character. They were related and interdependent far more than they were antagonistic or at odds with each other. The confraternities also passed through their own ancien régime. Devotion and the administration of worship long continued to be pluralistic and fully immersed in the framework of society, of which associations of the faithful were a part. In many ways, secular power coexisted with priestly power. The res publica continued to form a hybrid unity, within which the Ecclesia, under the leadership of the clergy, dispensed the treasures of salvation.94 92  The reader is again referred on this fundamental point to Zardin, ‘Le confraternite in Italia settentrionale’, pp. 90–119. 93  Full documentation is found in Confréries et dévotions dans la catholicité moderne, ed. by Dompnier and Vismara. 94  The question of the ties between confraternal organizations and the socio-professional framework in the modern age appears in some of the contributions collected in Corporazioni e gruppi professionali, ed. by Guenzi, Massa, and Moioli, as well as in Massa and Moioli, Dalla corporazione al mutuo soccorso. More broadly, it is the basis of the collection, Corpi, ‘fraternità’, mestieri nella storia della società europea, ed. by Zardin. See also Zardin, ‘Corpi, fraternità, mestieri’; and with openings to another urban universe hitherto rather neglected, but equally touched in original ways by the Tridentine reorganization, see Cerutti, ‘Identità individuale, identità corporativa’. Also on Turin and Piedmont, see Cavallo, Charity and Power in Early Modern Italy; Torre, ‘Faith’s Boundaries’, in continuity with the ‘micro-historical’ studies collected in Torre, Il consumo di devozioni. For an outstanding urban situation in the centresouth, see Mestieri e devozione, ed. by Casanova. Returning to Venice, see Manno, I mestieri di Venezia. The recent literature, however, continues to favour an approach to the functions of the confraternities, viewed as an alternative to the hierarchies and fragmentations of the aristocratic-

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Works Cited Manuscripts and Archival Resources Genova, Archivio di Stato, Archivio segreto, 474, Ordinanza del modo che se doverà far la processione per la città il giorno del Santissimo Corpo de Cristo, 1588 Milano, Archivio Storico Diocesano, sezione ii, Foro Ecclesiastico, Y 5658, fasc. iv —— , sezione ii, Foro Ecclesiastico, Y 6555 —— , sezione xiii, 34, fasc. 2

Primary Sources Confréries et dévotions dans la catholicité moderne (mi-xve–début xixe siècle), ed. by Bernard Dompnier and Paola Vismara, Collection de l’École française de Rome, 393 (Roma: École française de Rome, 2008)

Secondary Studies Angelozzi, Giancarlo, Le confraternite laicali: Un’esperienza cristiana tra Medioevo e età moderna, Dipartimento di scienze reigiose, 9 (Brescia: Queriniana, 1978) Bernardi, Claudio, ‘Corpus Domini: Ritual Metamorphoses and Social Changes in Sixteenthand Seventeenth-Century Genoa’, in The Politics of Ritual Kinship: Confra­ternities and Social Order in Early Modern Italy, ed. by Nicholas Terpstra, Cambridge Studies in Italian History and Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 228–42

corporative society of the modern age, or a purely symbolic, ritual, and compensatory way of circumventing them. It was precisely their progressive absorption into edifying care and the funerary-indulgential cult which prompted the reflux towards the parish and the private intimacy of ethical discipline, precipitating the crisis of the transition to the ancien régime and the ecclesiastical reconquest of the Counter-Reformation. There prevailed a potentially dualistic vision of the expressive code of piety in traditional Catholicism, which in practice weakened its roots in the logic of needs and in the human-relational fabric in which the confraternities were embedded. A reflection on the nodes of this general interpretative discussion appears in Zardin, ‘Riscrivere la tradizione’, especially pp. 191–206, with observations on the historiography, which remains profoundly conditioned by the secular and proto-republican founding myth of the Renaissance and the centrality of its particular Florentine achievements. Starting again from the margins, above all in the most recent studies of the Savoy-Piedmont region, the oscillation of the modern confraternities between ecclesiastical jurisdiction and the civil power is confirmed persuasively, with a tendency to reannex them to the polymorphous legal territory of the collegia, with which they shared their ‘general corporative identity’. See Torre, ‘L’iconografia della SS. Trinità in Piemonte e le confrarie dello Spirito Santo’, pp. 160–61 for the quotation, and p. 165; Comino, ‘La vita religiosa e l’assistenza’.

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Black, Christopher F., ‘Confraternities and the Parish in the Context of Italian Catholic Reform’, in Confraternities and Catholic Reform in Italy, France and Spain, ed. by John Patrick Donnelly and Michael W. Maher, Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies, 44 (Kirksville: Thomas Jefferson University Press, 1999), pp. 1–26 —— , and Pamela Gravestock, eds, Early Modern Confraternities in Europe and the Americas: International and Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006) Borromeo, Agostino, ed., La Valtellina crocevia dell’Europa: Politica e religione nell’età della guerra dei Trent’anni (Milano: Mondadori, 1998) Bossy, John, Dalla comunità all’individuo: Per una storia sociale dei sacramenti nell’Europa moderna, Biblioteca Einaudi, 28 (Torino: Einaudi, 1998) Brown, Patricia Fortini, ‘Honor and Necessity: The Dynamics of Patronage in the Con­ fraternities of Renaissance Venice’, Studi veneziani, n.s., 14 (1987), 179–212 Casanova, Daniele, ed., Mestieri e devozione: L’associazionismo confraternale in Campania in età moderna, Il pensiero e la storia / Istituto italiano per gli studi filosofici, 120 (Napoli: La Città del sole, 2005) Cavallera, Marina, ‘Pia loca e società di antico regime (secoli xvi–xviii)’, in I luoghi della carità e della cura: Ottocento anni di storia dell’Ospedale di Varese, ed. by Marina Cavallera and others, Storia della società, dell’economia e delle istituzioni, 10 (Milano: Angeli, 2002), pp. 191–258 Cavallo, Sandra, Charity and Power in Early Modern Italy: Benefactors and their Motives in Turin, 1541–1789 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995) Cerutti, Simona, ‘Identità individuale, identità corporativa: I mercanti torinesi e le loro istituzioni nel Settecento’, in Corpi, ‘fraternità’, mestieri nella storia della società europea, ed. by Danilo Zardin, Quaderni di Cheiron, 7 (Roma: Bulzoni, 1998), pp. 213–25 Chilosi, Cecilia, I tesori delle confraternite: Savona, Palazzo del Commissario, Complesso Monumentale del Priamar, 2–31 luglio 1999 (Savona: Comune di Savona, 1999) Comino, Giancarlo, ‘La vita religiosa e l’assistenza’, in Storia di Bra: Dalle origini alla Rivo­ luzione francese, ed. by Francesco Panero, 2 vols (Savigliano: L’Artistica, 2007), ii, 241–86 Dell’Oro, Giorgio, Il Regio economato: Il controllo statale sul clero nella Lombardia asbur­ gica e nei domini sabaudi, Studi e ricerche storiche, 371 (Milano: Angeli, 2007) Di Filippo Bareggi, Claudia, Le frontiere religiose della Lombardia: Il rinnovamento catto­ lico nella zona ‘ticinese’ e ‘retica’ fra Cinque e Seicento, Storia lombarda, 6 (Milano: Unicopli, 1999) Donnelly, John Patrick, and Michael W. Maher, eds, Confraternities and Catholic Reform in Italy, France, and Spain, Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies, 44 (Kirksville: Thomas Jefferson University Press, 1999) Franchini Guelfi, Fausta, ‘La diversità culturale delle confraternite fra devozione popolare, auto­nomia laicale e autorità ecclesiastica’, in Storia della cultura ligure, ed. by Dino Puncuh, 4 vols (Genova: Società ligure di storia patria, 2004), i, 401–44 Garrioch, David, ‘Lay-Religious Associations, Urban Identities, and Urban Space in Eighteenth-Century Milan’, Journal of Religious History, 28 (2004), 35–49 —— , ‘La Persistance des confréries milanaises au xviiie siècle’, Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, 52 (2005), 50–73

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Giuliani, Marzia, ‘Assetti istituzionali delle confraternite disciplinate nella Milano di Carlo Borromeo’, in Brotherhood and Boundaries: fraternità e barriere, ed. by Stefania Pastore, Adriano Prosperi, and Nicholas Terpstra (Pisa: Scuola Normale di Pisa, 2011), pp. 305–31 Grendi, Edoardo, In altri termini: Etnografia e storia di una società di antico regime (Milano: Feltrinelli, 2004) Guenzi, Alberto, Paola Massa, and Angelo Moioli, eds, Corporazioni e gruppi professionali nell’Italia moderna, Storia della società, dell’economia e delle istituzioni, 1 (Milano: Angeli, 1999) La Liguria delle casacce: Devozione, arte, storia delle confraternite liguri, 2 vols (Genova: Provincia e Comune di Genova, 1982) Mackenney, Richard, ‘Devotional Confraternities in Renaissance Venice’, in Voluntary Reli­gion, ed. by William J. Sheils and Diana Wood, Studies in Church History, 23 (Oxford: Blackwell 1986), pp. 85–96 —— , ‘Public and Private in Renaissance Venice’, Renaissance Studies, 12 (1998), 109–30 —— , ‘The Scuole Piccole of Venice: Formations and Transformations’, in The Politics of Ritual Kinship: Confraternities and Social Order in Early Modern Italy, ed. by Nicholas Terpstra, Cambridge Studies in Italian History and Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 172–89 Manno, Antonio, I mestieri di Venezia: Storia, arte e devozione delle corporazioni dal xiii al xviii secolo (Cittadella: Biblos, 1995) Massa Paola, and Angelo Moioli, eds, Dalla corporazione al mutuo soccorso: Organizzazione e tutela del lavoro tra xvi e xx secolo, Storia della società, dell’economia e delle isti­tu­ zioni, 18 (Milano: Angeli, 2004) Meersseman, Gilles Gérard, and Gian Piero Pacini, ‘Le confraternite laicali in Italia dal Quattrocento al Seicento’, in Problemi di storia della Chiesa nei secoli xv–xvii (Napoli: Dehoniane, 1979), pp. 109–36 Pacini, Gian Piero, Laici, Chiesa locale, città: Dalla fraglia di S. Maria alla confraternita del Gonfalone a Vicenza (sec. xv–xvii) (Vicenza: Egida, 1994) Pezzola, Rita, ‘La confraternita della Beata Vergine Assunta di Morbegno e il suo archivio: Nota storica dal rilevamento analitico del materiale documentario’, Bollettino della Società storica valtellinese, 53 (2000), 119–50 —— , ‘Et in arca posui’: Scritture della confraternita della Beata Vergine Assunta di Morbegno. Diocesi di Como (Morbegno: Confraternita della Beata Vergine Assunta, 2003) Pignatti, Terisio, ed., Le Scuole di Venezia (Milano: Electa, 1981) Prosdocimi, Luigi, ‘Luoghi pii (ospedali e scholae) a Milano tra riforme quattrocentesche e interventi statuali’, in La città e i poveri: Milano e le terre lombarde dal Rinascimento all’età spagnola, ed. by Danilo Zardin (Milano: Jaca, 1995), pp. 45–57 Prosperi, Adriano, Il concilio di Trento: Una introduzione storica, Piccola biblioteca Einaudi, n.s., 117 (Torino: Einaudi, 2001) Pullan, Brian, Poverty and Charity: Europe, Italy, Venice, 1400–1700 (Aldershot: Vario­ rum, 1994) —— , Rich and Poor in Renaissance Venice: The Social Institutions of a Catholic State to 1620 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1971) Puncuh, Dino, ed., Il cammino della Chiesa genovese: Dalle origini ai nostri giorni, Atti della Società ligure di storia patria, n.s., 39 (Genova: Società ligure di storia patria, 1999)

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Rusconi, Roberto, ‘Confraternite, compagnie e devozioni’, in La chiesa e il potere politico dal Medioevo all’età contemporanea, ed. by Giorgio Chittolini and Giovanni Miccoli, Storia d’Italia, Annali, 9 (Torino: Einaudi, 1986), pp. 467–506 Signorotto, Gianvittorio, ‘Per la storia di Milano nell’età del cardinale Federico e di Daniele Crespi’, in Daniele Crespi: Un grande pittore del Seicento lombardo, ed. by Andrea Spiriti (Milano: Silvana, 2006), pp. 19–27 Terpstra, Nicholas, ed., The Politics of Ritual Kinship: Confraternities and Social Order in Early Modern Italy, Cambridge Studies in Italian History and Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) Torre, Angelo, Il consumo di devozioni: Religione e comunità nelle campagne dell’Ancien Régime, Saggi Marsilio, Storia e scienze sociali (Venezia: Marsilio, 1995) —— , ‘Faith’s Boundaries: Ritual and Territory in Rural Piedmont in the Early Modern Period’, in The Politics of Ritual Kinship: Confraternities and Social Order in Early Modern Italy, ed. by Nicholas Terpstra, Cambridge Studies in Italian History and Cul­ ture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 243–61 —— , ‘L’iconografia della SS. Trinità in Piemonte e le confrarie dello Spirito Santo’, in L’iconografia della SS. Trinità nel Sacro Monte di Ghiffa: Contesto e confronti. Atti del convegno internazionale, Verbania, Villa Giulia, 23–24 marzo 2007, ed. by Claudio Silvestri (Milano: Istituto per la storia dell’arte lombarda, 2008), pp. 149–69 Vaccani, Mauro, ‘Le confraternite a Como dalla metà del ’500 alla metà del ’600’, Archivio storico della diocesi di Como, 3 (1989), 147–76 Vaccaro, Luciano, ed., Storia della Chiesa in Europa tra ordinamento politico-amministrativo e strutture ecclesiastiche, Quaderni della Gazzada / Fondazione ambrosiana Paolo VI, 25 (Brescia: Morcelliana, 2005) Vianello, Andrea, ‘The Confraternite dei Poveri: Confraternal Home Relief and Insti­ tutionalization of the Poor in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Venice’, in Early Modern Confraternities in Europe and the Americas: International and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, ed. by Christopher F. Black and Pamela Gravestock (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), pp. 96–111 —— , ‘I fiscali delle miserie: Le origini delle Fraterne dei poveri e l’assistenza a domicilio a Venezia tra Cinque e Settecento’, in Per Marino Berengo: Studi degli allievi, ed. by Livio Antonielli, Carlo Capra, and Mario Infelise (Milano: Angeli, 2000), pp. 277–98 Wisch, Barbara, and Diane Cole Ahl, eds, Confraternities and the Visual Arts in Renaissance Italy: Ritual, Spectacle, Image (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) Zardin, Danilo, ‘Carità e mutua assistenza nelle confraternite milanesi agli inizi dell’età moderna’, in La carità a Milano nei secoli xii–xv, ed. by Maria Pia Alberzoni and Onorato Grassi (Milano: Jaca, 1989), pp. 281–300 —— , ‘Confraternite e comunità nelle campagne milanesi fra Cinque e Seicento’, La scuola cattolica, 112 (1984), 698–732 —— , ‘Confraternite e “congregazioni” gesuitiche a Milano fra tardo Seicento e riforme sette­centesche’, in Ricerche sulla chiesa di Milano nel Settecento, ed. by Antonio Acerbi and Massimo Marcocchi (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 1988), pp. 180–252 —— , ‘Le confraternite in Italia settentrionale fra xv e xviii secolo’, Società e storia, 10 (1987), 81–137

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—— , ‘Le confraternite in processione’, in Il teatro a Milano nel Settecento, ed. by Annamaria Cascetta and Giovanna Zanlonghi (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 2008), pp. 161–91 —— , ‘Corpi, fraternità, mestieri: intrecci e parentele nella “costituzione” delle trame di base della società europea. Alcune premesse’, in Corpi, ‘fraternità’, mestieri nella storia della società europea, ed. by Danilo Zardin, Quaderni di Cheiron, 7 (Roma: Bulzoni, 1998), pp. 9–36 —— , ‘Fioritura e metamorfosi di un centro di devozione: La “Vergine dei miracoli” di Saronno tra fervori della pietà e coscienza d’una identità comunitaria’, in Il Santuario della Beata Vergine dei Miracoli di Saronno, ed. by Maria Luisa Gatti Perer, Monografie di ‘Arte lombarda’, 10 (Milano: Istituto per la storia dell’arte lombarda, 1996), pp. 69–111 —— , ‘La mendicità tollerata: La “scola” milanese dei ciechi di S. Cristoforo e le sue regole (sec. xvi–xviii)’, in Studi in onore di mons: Angelo Majo per il suo 70° compleanno, ed. by Fausto Ruggeri, Archivio ambrosiano, 72 (Milano: NED, 1996), pp. 355–80 —— , ‘La perfettione nel proprio stato: Strategie per la riforma generale dei costumi nel modello borromaico di governo’, in Carlo Borromeo e l’opera della ‘grande riforma’: Cultura, religione e arti del governo nella Milano del pieno Cinquecento, ed. by Franco Buzzi and Danilo Zardin (Milano: Silvana, 1997), pp. 115–28 —— , ‘Il “progetto” di san Carlo Borromeo: Costruire edifici nuovi con i materiali della tradizione antica’, Terra ambrosiana, 42 (2001), 59–72 —— , ‘Prerogative della Chiesa e prestigio della Repubblica: Dal primo Cinquecento alle riforme tridentine’, in Il cammino della Chiesa genovese dalle origini ai nostri giorni, ed. by Dino Puncuh (Genova: Società ligure di storia patria, 1999), pp. 265–328 —— , ‘Relaunching Confraternities in the Tridentine Era: Shaping Consciences and Chris­­tianizing Society in Milan and Lombardy’, in The Politics of Ritual Kinship: Con­­fra­ternities and Social Order in Early Modern Italy, ed. by Nicholas Terpstra, Cambridge Studies in Italian History and Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 190–209 —— , ‘La riforma delle confraternite di disciplinati ed una sconosciuta Regola della Compagnia della Penitenza’, in Danilo Zardin, San Carlo Borromeo ed il rinnovamento della vita religiosa dei laici: Due contributi per la storia delle confraternite nella diocesi di Milano (Legnano: Società Arte e Storia, 1982), pp. 7–54 —— , ‘Riscrivere la tradizione: Il mondo delle confraternite nella cornice del rinnovamento cattolico cinque-seicentesco’, in Studi confraternali: Orientamenti, problemi, testimo­ nianze, ed. by Marina Gazzini, Reti Medievali E-Book, 12 (Firenze: Firenze University Press, 2009), pp.  167–213, available online at [accessed 3 December 2012] —— , ‘Solidarietà di vicini: La confraternita del Corpo di Cristo e le compagnie devote di S. Giorgio al Palazzo tra Cinque e Settecento’, Archivio storico lombardo, 118 (1992), 361–404 —— , ‘Tra Chiesa e società “laica”: Le confraternite in epoca moderna’, Annali di storia moderna e contemporanea, 10 (2004), 529–45 —— , ed., Corpi, ‘fraternità’, mestieri nella storia della società europea, Quaderni di Cheiron, 7 (Roma: Bulzoni, 1998)

‘Such a despotic rule’: Confraternities and the Parish in Eighteenth-Century Paris and Milan David Garrioch

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e of the Santa Croce are the masters’, boasted the leader of the confraternity to the parish priest (parroco) of the Milanese parish of San Michele alla Chiusa in 1754. The priest was mortified: ‘has anyone in the world ever heard of a confraternity of the Cross exercising such a despotic rule within a church’.1 The subsequent archiepiscopal inquiry revealed that the feud between the priest and the confraternity had been going for some time. One issue was financial: the confraternity claimed all the proceeds from rich funerals but wanted the clergy to conduct services for the destitute entirely without payment. There was also a dispute over precisely who was entitled to indulgences granted to the confraternity. Faced with these disagreements, the priest had raised the original stakes by trying to establish a new confraternity under his own control, and using the need to accommodate the new body as a pretext, had attempted to move the company of the Cross to a different chapel, to change the times of their services, and to limit their collection rights. The original brother­ 1 

ASM, AFR, 1477; ASM, Culto p.a. 1501. My thanks to Peter Howard for his comments on this paper. David Garrioch ([email protected]) is Professor of History at Monash University in Melbourne. He has written on eighteenth-century Paris, on early modern European towns, and on the Enlightenment, notably on friendship, philanthropy, and cosmopolitanism. His most recent book is The Making of Revolutionary Paris (University of California Press, 2002). Current projects include a study of Protestants and religious toleration in eighteenthcentury Paris, a history of religious confraternities in Paris before the French Revolution, and a comparative social history of Paris, Milan, and Stockholm in the eighteenth century.

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hood responded by taking legal action against the new confraternity, further claiming that the priest had gone beyond his authority in ordering a novena and taking up collections on their behalf. The members of the Company of the Cross finally resorted to direct physical confrontation on the first Wednesday of Lent, when they began collecting alms both inside and outside the church, in contravention of the usual custom. The priest closed the church, but the confraternity brothers forcibly reopened it and resumed their collections, responding to the priest’s protestations by declaring that they would take up alms whenever and wherever they wanted. In the end, the dispute became a question of rights, of jurisdiction, and of boundaries. What were the respective roles of the clergy and of the confraternity? Did the confraternity have complete control over the chapel it occupied or could the parish make changes? How far did the privileges of its members extend, particularly when they collided with the interests and demands of other church users? And underlying all of this, who had the right to answer these questions in the first place? Should confraternities be subject to the parish authorities or were they independent bodies? The question was one that arose throughout the Catholic world. There were few parishes in Europe, especially in the cities, that did not contain at least one confraternity, and some tensions were inevitable given the overlapping roles and ill-defined limits of the two types of institutions. Both were spiritual communities that offered a range of services to their members, and while parishes had a monopoly on baptisms, confraternities competed with them in many other areas. The stakes were high. The more inhabitants a parish had, and the wealthier and more powerful they were, the more significant that parish was within the city. The leaders of the parish, both clerical and lay, had a major personal investment in its status, while both the duties and the income of the clergy depended on the number of parishioners and the services they provided. For a confraternity too, the spiritual welfare and social standing of its members were closely tied to the privileges it enjoyed and to its ability to maintain its income, membership, and prestige. This article examines the relationship between lay confraternities and parishes in two large eighteenth-century cities: Paris and Milan. For most of the century, Paris had approximately fifty parishes and Milan sixty-eight. The confraternities were very numerous: in the early 1700s, Paris had about five hundred to serve a population of roughly half a million; Milan had approximately four hundred for some hundred and thirty thousand people.2 While there were some significant 2 

The estimate for Paris is my own. For Milan, see ASM, Culto p.a. 2010, Governor Firmian to Chancellor Kaunitz, 4 August 1767, quoted in Zardin, ‘Confraternite e “congregazioni” gesuitiche a Milano’, p. 184. See also Bottoni, ‘Le confraternite milanesi’; Signorotto, ‘Milano

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differences in the ways in which parishes and confraternities operated, the relationship between them was very similar in both cities. Both the similarities and the differences have much to tell us about religious life, social relationships, and the uses and understandings of urban space, both in these two cities and to some extent in Catholic Europe more broadly. Most of the time, confraternities and parish authorities played complementary roles in local religious life. In both cities, the confraternities funded services that the parishes would otherwise have had to provide, notably those associated with the Blessed Sacrament and those on the feast days of their patron saints. They also maintained the chapels allocated to them, saving the parish vestries a major expense. In Milan, where the confraternities were often wealthier than in Paris, they sometimes covered other costs as well: at San Bartolomeo, for instance, confraternities paid for the salaries of the organist and the bell-ringer and also for the laundering of church linen; the brotherhoods funded repairs to the church, the organ, and the bells at San Carpoforo. In 1794, after the suppression of most of the Milanese confraternities, the priest at San Giorgio complained that without their assistance he could not afford to maintain the churches in his parish.3 In both Paris and Milan, confraternities undertook charitable activities, again supplementing the work of the parishes. This was an important role played by wealthy associations such as the ‘royal’ confraternity of the Passion in Paris, or the sodality of San Senatore in Milan that distributed bread, coal, and rice to women in childbirth4 But other less exclusive bodies also helped, including the company of Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours at Saint-Eustache in Paris, apparently run by local merchants. The Blessed Sacrament confraternities exhorted their members to assist the parish poor and a number of these organizations in Milan had an annual budget for distributing bread, rice, and sometimes cash. They also offered dowries to help poor girls get married.5 In 1770, the parish of San Eustorgio, short of money, handed over to the confraternity of San Pietro responsibility for a school for fifty poor boys on the southern fringe of Milan. The same confrasacra’; Signorotto, ‘Un eccesso di devozione’; Zardin, ‘Le confraternite in Italia settentrionale’. More generally, see Vismara, Settecento religioso in Lombardia. For Paris, the main works are Gaston, Les Images de confréries parisiennes; Lothe and Virole, Images des confréries parisiennes; Garrioch and Sonenscher, ‘Compagnonnages, Confraternities and Associations of Journeymen’. 3  ASM, Culto p.a. 1500; ASM, Culto p.a. 1501; ASM, AFR, 1026. 4  ASM, Luoghi Pii, p.a. 177; La Solide Dévotion à la passion. 5  BnF, 4° Fm 35552; Statuts et règlements de la Confrairie du Saint-Sacrement; ASM, Luoghi Pii, p.a. 177; Paris, AN, Minutier Central des notaires, XV 407, 15 January 1707. See also Bressan, ‘Chiesa milanese e assistenza nell’età delle riforme’.

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ternal church also provided religious education for girls, while in Paris the parish charity school at Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs was at least partly funded by the confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament.6 Other confraternities restricted their charity to their own members, but this too relieved the parishes. The women’s Consorzio del suffragio de’ Morti at San Lorenzo offered both prayers and practical assistance, while quite a number of Parisian confraternities functioned as mutual aid societies. Journeymen hatters, whose trade was subject to periods of unemployment, had a confraternity at Sainte-Geneviève-des-Ardents that assisted members who fell into poverty. The confraternity of Saint-Pierre at Saint-Médard admitted anyone under forty, although it had a fairly steep entrance fee of twelve livres. The monthly subscription was very modest, however, and it provided members with generous sickness benefits. After ten years of membership, the confraternity supported men whose age and infirmities no longer allowed them to work. The neighbouring parish of Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet had a very similar confraternity whose statutes read somewhat like the rules of a modern insurance company, providing for the sick to be examined by a doctor employed by the confraternity!7 Another form of mutual aid very widespread in both cities was the provision of funeral services, a major expense for many families, and some confraternities provided funerals for spouses and children as well. These funds were often very carefully calculated. A confraternity at San Sebastiano, for example, used a differential subscription rate according to the age at which members joined: those over fifty paid more than twice as much as men in their twenties. The statutes also provided that if total membership dropped below 165, the confraternity would reduce the number of masses.8 A major problem for the Milanese authorities, when they suppressed the confraternities in 1786, turned out to be how to satisfy those like Giorgio Maria Capella, who had paid sixty lire over fifteen years and who now found himself ‘deprived of all his property and burdened with a numerous family, finding that he had paid for nothing and was deprived of all the promised benefits, and obliged to incur new expenses’.9 Although not all of 6 

ASM, Culto p.a. 1511, San Pietro in Scaldasole; Paris, AN, H3798, fol. 72r. 7  ASM, Culto p.a. 1507, rules of 1755; BnF, Coll. Joly de Fleury, MS 1590, fols 145 r, 266–68r; Règlemens en forme de Statuts; Statuts, règlemens et bulle […]de la Confrairie de Saint Jean-Baptiste. 8  ASM, Culto p.a. 1512, San Sebastiano; Zardin, ‘Le confraternite in Italia settentrionale’, p. 118. 9  ASM, Culto p.a. 1501, petition of 27 September 1791. See also ASM, Culto p.a. 1506, ASM, Culto p.a. 1512.

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these confraternities were based in parish churches, they assumed some of the enormous burden of urban poverty. In addition, the many religious ceremonies offered by confraternities were often open not only to their members but to all comers. This activity also assisted the parishes in catering to the spiritual needs of their flock. At the same time, lay associations made a very significant contribution to the earnings of the clergy and other parish employees. At San Simpliciano, the 2152 parish masses each year were supplemented by 657 funded by the confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament and 1978 others funded by the nearby oratorio of San Giovanni Battista. In Paris the numbers were lower, but in the mid-1740s, the confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament at Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs was paying over 1100 livres a year to the parish clergy for services. Other associations in both cities employed their own chaplains and provided welcome additional income for parish bell-ringers, sacristans, beadles, and others.10 The collaboration between parish authorities and confraternities was thus vital for the day-to-day operations of churches in both Milan and Paris. At the same time, the confraternities made an enormous contribution to the splendour and pageantry that was central to Catholic religious practice by participating in processions as well as contributing banners, candles, music and — in Milan — theatrical performances.11 It was very much in the parish’s interest to attract and maintain healthy confraternities, and most confraternities relied heavily on the parish for infrastructure and religious services. Yet such cooperation, while central to the relationship between the confraternities and the parishes, tells us little about the boundaries between the two institutions. To learn more we must return to the sometimes bitter disputes that erupted periodically and that often arose — as in my opening example from San Michele alla Chiusa — precisely because one party had trespassed on territory that the other considered its own. There were recurrent subjects of dispute that reveal both parishes and confraternities defending their turf, patrolling their jurisdictional and sometimes physical boundaries, and fighting over contested areas of the frontier. The often delicate resolutions of these disputes, sometimes involving an external mediator or even a court ruling, set out the respective roles, rights, and privileges of the competing parties. On occasion, the statutes granted to confraternities clearly mark the lines of demarcation in an effort to avoid 10  ASM, Luoghi Pii p.a. 39. Paris, AN, H3798, fol. 171r. See also the accounts of NotreDame-de-Lorette (Paris, AN, H4291–2), of Sainte-Vierge at Saint-Séverin (Paris, AN, H4648), of Saint-Sacrement at Saint-Paul (Paris, AN, LL900). 11  Zardin, ‘Le confraternite in processione’.

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future conflicts. The different types of confraternities and the diversity of local circumstances meant that even within one city there could be significant variations in the relationship between parishes and lay associations, but several clear patterns nevertheless emerge. At first glance, a bewildering variety of issues underpinned disputes between confraternities and parishes. In general, the parishes were more powerful but in both cities the confraternities that possessed freestanding chapels might have been potential rivals. These associations had considerable independence and often almost complete control over the choice of clergy and of services. Only a handful of such chapels existed in Paris. One was Saint-Julien-des-Menestriers, run by the musicians’ guild. There, the archbishop had the right to appoint priests to say services, and in 1644 he had given the job permanently to a religious order, the Pères de la Doctrine Chrétienne. But for more than one hundred years, the confraternity had disputed his choices, meaning that the matter was still before the courts in 1752!12 Another chapel, Saint-Yves, was situated in the parish of Saint-Benoît, though the choir — having been extended — lay in the parish of Saint-Séverin. This may explain why, in 1672, the administrators of the confraternity of Saint-Yves chose the parish priest (curé) of Saint-Séverin to serve as ‘spiritual master’ of the chapel. In 1701, however, they demonstrated their independence by naming the curé of another nearby parish, Saint-Côme, in his place. This notional overlordship did not prevent the confraternity from choosing its own priests or deciding which services would be said and when. Its administrators allowed other confraternities to use the chapel but maintained firm control, even expelling one of the others that displeased them.13 Saint-Yves and Saint-Julien were very unusual in the Parisian context given the freedom they possessed, perhaps because during the early modern period the parishes managed to prevent other quasi-independent confraternities from being established. In the 1750s, the parish of Saint-Merry purchased the nearby chapel of Saint-Bon in order to prevent a confraternity from acquiring it and putting on services that would compete with those of the parish.14 In Milan, on the other hand, a great many confraternities had their own independent chapels and it was more difficult for the parishes to do anything about them. Occasionally they tried: for instance, the vestry of San Babila successfully 12 

Paris, AN, T1492. Paris, AN, LL963E. 14  Baloche, Église Saint-Merry de Paris, i, 533. Other independent chapels in Paris were Saint-Eloi, belonging to the goldsmiths (Paris, Arch. de l’Archevêché, 40 r P 12), Notre-Damede-Lorette (Paris, AN, H4292), Saint-Jacques-l’Hôpital (Paris, AN, S7493). 13 

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sued the confraternity of San Giovanni in Era to prevent it from constructing its own chapel. One of the reasons the confraternity wanted its own premises was out of fear that its relics would be appropriated by the parish if they continued to be stored there!15 (These fears were almost certainly justified, on both sides.) For the parishes, the greatest concern was that a confraternity would usurp their role and draw away part of the population. Even in a large and wealthy church like San Lorenzo, the canons who ran the parish were concerned that the members of the confraternity of Santa Maria del Riscatto were attending mass in their own chapel in preference to the parish service. The confraternity, the canons claimed, was trying ‘to escape from the filial dependence it owed to the vestry and to Mother Church’. They tried to insist that the confraternity use the sacristy in the church for storing vestments, which would effectively allow the parish clergy to control their use.16 More serious was the situation at San Giorgio in Palazzo, which protested in 1749 that the Oratorio of Santa Marta, located within its territory, ‘has in recent years introduced a great many ecclesiastical functions which, while laudatory in themselves, seem prejudicial to the body of the parish […] because undertaken in total independence and solely with a motive of rivalry’. These included frequent benedictions of the Blessed Sacrament and its distribution to the laity, novenas for the dead, celebrating the feast day of San Sebastiano with a sung mass, and even installing a confessional. These services were provided not by clergy from the parish but by priests brought in from outside. When the parish sought redress from the archbishop, the confraternity appealed to the governing body of the city, the Senato, which ruled in its favour.17 At the other end of the spectrum were confraternities struggling to maintain their very existence. In Milan it was rare for the parishes to attempt to close down a confraternity, but in Paris this happened with some frequency, usually because the churchwardens — the laymen who handled the financial affairs of the parish — were concerned that they might be forced to pay the debts of bankrupt associations. At Sainte-Marguerite in 1750, the vestry decided to abolish no fewer than five confraternities and sell their assets, and the law courts upheld their right to do so. At Saint-Médard, the churchwardens also decided to abolish two confraternities in 1731, possibly because the leaders of the two associations had sided against them in their bitter dispute with the curé.18 15 

Baldissarri, I poveri prigioni, pp. 200–14. ASM, AFR, 1512. 17  ASM, Fondo di religione 247, petition to archbishop, 14 January 1749. 18  BnF, Coll. Joly de Fleury, MS 292. 16 

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One of the most divisive subjects was the choice of priests for confraternal masses and sermons. At Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs in Paris the confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament took particular umbrage at the parish priest’s claim to name the chaplains of all four confraternities in his parish. The same issue underlay a long-running disagreement between the parroco of San Vincenzo in Prato and the scuola of Santi Gottardo e Biagio, which had its own church. The parroco wanted the confraternity to use only priests from the parish and to pay them more. The scuola refused to budge, but they did agree that the parish could use their church except on the feast days of their patron saints.19 There were several reasons why the selection of priests was contentious. For the confraternities, it was a crucial marker of independence. For the clergy the masses funded by confraternities were a key source of income, and it is hardly surprising that the parish clergy felt a sense of entitlement to provide religious services locally. But there were also questions of authority and of jurisdiction, since many of the priests in charge of parishes were very sensitive about who officiated and preached in their territory. At San Giorgio in Palazzo, as mentioned above, the parish priest insisted that he should at least be consulted by the confraternity and he particularly objected to their bringing in members of religious orders. The right to take up collections was another common source of disagreement. Although the confraternities might bring money into the church if they attracted adherents from outside, when they collected alms in the church or in the adjoining streets they were competing for local funds and were therefore watched closely by the clergy and the lay administrators of the parishes. At Saint-Merri in central Paris in 1727, the vestry simply banned collections by the confraternity of Saint-Merri and Saint-Roch. A few years later, all seven confraternities at SainteMarguerite in Paris took the churchwardens to court chiefly over the right to take up collections.20 Precisely because of the potential for such disputes, the statutes of confraternities often stipulated precisely when and where they could solicit alms. For example, the confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament at Saint-Barthélemy in central Paris could collect in the church, but only after the boxes for the parish poor and for the church fabric had been circulated. The same confraternity at Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie could seek alms during processions, both on Sundays and during the annual feast of the Blessed Sacrament.21 In Milan, the 19 

BnF, Rés., Z Thoisy 9, fol. 281r; ASM, Culto p.a. 1161. See also ASM, AFR, 1498, San Sebastiano, agreement of 11 April 1766. 20  Paris, AN, LL851, Saint-Merri; BnF, Coll. Joly de Fleury, MS 292, fols 58–63r. 21  Statuts et règlemens […] de la Confrairie du Très-Saint-Sacrement; Paris, Bibl. de l’Institut de France, MS 710.

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principal confraternity at San Gottardo shook its collection box on the market square outside the city gate every feast day. In this case there was no conflict with the parish, since the funds went to maintain the sanctuary lamp and the church buildings. But in 1764, the confraternity of San Giacomo, which had its own chapel, locked horns with no lesser authority than the governing body of the cathedral over the exclusive right to collect alms on Sundays.22 These disputes were partly about income but also about territory. Even confraternities based in parish churches tended to see the chapel where they held their services as their domain, whereas the clergy and the churchwardens claimed sovereignty over the entire church. In 1667, this led to a court case at Saint-Séverin in Paris after the churchwardens authorized a burial in the chapel used by the confraternity of the Conception de la Vierge Marie. On this occasion the confraternity won. But a few years later, that of Saint-Joseph at Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs unsuccessfully fought a decision of the churchwardens to move them from the chapel they had recently redecorated.23 Sometimes the confraternity claimed more than just a chapel: at San Sisto there was a dispute about the room in which the confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament held its meetings, while at Saint-Sulpice the administrators of the same confraternity objected when the churchwardens moved their holy water basin in the charnel house without consultation. At San Michele alla Chiusa, it was the priest who complained that the principal confraternity maintained a separate sacristy, a space ‘more appropriate for the parroco than for laypeople’. But worse still, they exercised ‘a private absolute dominion over the half of the church adjoining the altar of the B[lessed] V[irgin]’.24 In Paris, disputes over territory outside the church were rare, but not so in Milan. Among the most independent Milanese confraternities were the many companies of the Cross, one of which figured in the example which opened this investigation. Proudly claiming to have been founded by Archbishop Carlo Borromeo and thus placed under the direct authority of the archdiocese, each of these confraternities was based on a cross or statue erected in one of the squares of the city where the members gathered on Friday nights and on feast days to celebrate religious services. There was an intense rivalry between them, so strong that the archbishop was obliged to specify the precise boundaries of each one.25 22 

ASM, Culto p.a. 1506, 18 May 1767; ASM, Culto p.a. 1506, 17 May 1764. Paris, AN, LL945, fols 70–72r; BnF, Rés., Z Thoisy 9, fols 279–83r; and BnF, Coll. Joly de Fleury, MS 1590, fol. 246r. 24  ASM, AFR, 1024, San Sisto LL957, 22 May 1722; ASM, Culto p.a. 1507, petition of 1782. 25  Milano, ASC, Materie 282, and Milano, ASC, Località 136; Signorotto, ‘Milano sacra’, pp. 610–12; Zardin, ‘Le confraternite e la religione del popolo’; and Zardin, ‘Le confraternite 23 

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Thus granted a specific geographic jurisdiction, the companies of the Cross defended their territory aggressively, even on occasion against the parish. In 1763, the officials of the confraternity of the Cross of San Materno, for example, angrily rejected the claim by the priest of San Vito that the cross lay in his parish and that he should control access to it.26 The Company of the Cross at San Giorgio went further, claiming rights over the square in which the cross stood, the space in front of the parish, and even the chapter church itself. In 1739, they tried to prevent the church from erecting a pavilion for the ceremonial entry of the new archbishop, wishing to preserve an uninterrupted view for their own members. They went even further in 1744 by attempting to keep the entire piazza free for the confratelli.27 Processions were another common source of conflict, although the issues in the two cities tended to be different. In Milan, the key question was whether a confraternity had an automatic right to process or whether they needed authorization from the parish on each occasion. This was yet another of the issues at strife-ridden San Carpoforo, where the parroco contested the claim by the confraternity of the Rosary that it could take the statue of the Blessed Virgin on procession wherever and whenever it wished.28 In Paris, the main point of contention was the order of processions, and in particular, who should occupy the places of greatest honour available to laypeople either directly behind the clergy or immediately after the relics or the host. And whereas in Milan conflicts over processions usually involved the parish priest, in the French capital they sprang instead from rivalry between the administrators of the confraternities and the churchwardens. Normally the latter had precedence, but on the feast days of their patron saints the confraternities sometimes claimed the place of honour. This led to trouble at Saint-Sauveur, at Saint-Sulpice, and at Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, and it was one of several issues in a court case brought by the confraternities at Sainte-Marguerite in 1751. At Saint-Hippolyte, the courts ruled that both the churchwardens in office and the former churchwardens would march ahead of the administrators of the confraternity, unless the churchwardens failed to wear their gowns and bands, in which case the order would be reversed.29 in processione’, pp. 188–90. 26  ASM, AFR, 1567, deliberation of 6 June 1763. For a similar dispute, see ASM, Culto p.a. 1510, Santa Maria Pedone, 1748. 27  ASM, AFR, 1477; Il cardinale Giu, ed. by Perer, pp. 193–97. 28  ASM, Culto p.a. 1501, San Carpoforo. 29  BnF, F-23714; Paris, AN, LL957, 2 November 1732, 7 July 1733, and Paris, AN, LL712,

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Closely related to questions of precedence were other rights and privileges that confraternities sometimes felt were under threat. In Paris, the most commonly disputed object was the confraternal pew in the church. Having a pew, as for many noble or wealthy families, was a mark of status, which was why in 1742 the administrators of one confraternity at Sainte-Marguerite complained that the churchwardens had illegally demolished their pew. Either they retrieved it or they were given another one, because a few years later a new dispute arose when the churchwardens unilaterally reduced its size.30 Of course, some locations were more prestigious than others, leading the administrators of the Sainte Vierge at Saint-Séverin to request a pew in the nave. The confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament in the newly rebuilt church of Saint-Sulpice rejected the vestry’s original offer because the location was inappropriate — the confraternity had already lost members, they claimed, because during the renovations its pew was in a dark part of the church.31 Further disputes in both Milan and Paris centred on the use of confraternal funds. From the seventeenth century onwards, statutes forbade spending money on feasting and drinking but accusations of misused resources were common. At San Carpoforo, the parroco claimed that the confraternity of the Rosary was bankrupt because it put on expensive feasts and squandered money on frivolities. At San Sisto, the priest accused successive administrators of the confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament of competing to provide the greatest pomp, at huge expense.32 In 1760, the administrators of the confraternity of Saint-Louis in the Sainte-Chapelle were denounced for organizing feasts, while similar claims had been made in the late seventeenth century against the devotees of Saint-Roch in the parish of Saint-Gervais.33 Such accusations led to attempts by the parishes to exercise tighter control from the late seventeenth century onwards. The statutes of confraternities and the agreements reached in resolution of disputes frequently accord the parish priest or the churchwardens the right to attend meetings of the confraternity and to examine the accounts. Some require all major financial decisions to be ratified no. 15 (1735); BnF, Coll. Joly de Fleury, MS 1590, fol. 142r (Saint-Etienne-du-Mont); BnF, Coll. Joly de Fleury, MS 292, fols 58–63r; BnF, Coll. Joly de Fleury, MS 1586, fol. 159r, 3 July 1755. 30  Paris, AN, LL838, 3 May 1742; BnF, Coll. Joly de Fleury, MS 292, fols 58–63r. 31  Paris, AN, LL942, fol. 54r (1716); Paris, AN, LL957, 30 November 1747. 32  ASM, Culto p.a. 1501, San Carpoforo; ASM, AFR, 1567. 33  BnF, Coll. Joly de Fleury, MS 1590, fol.  167r; BnF, Coll. Joly de Fleury, MS 2524, fol. 198r (1672).

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by the parish vestry. Many of the Milanese confraternities gave the parish priest one of the two keys required to open the cash box so that neither he nor the treasurer of the confraternity could touch the funds without both being present. 34 Women’s confraternities were even more strictly controlled than many of the male ones, as were those organizations whose leaders were of relatively low social status, such as the confraternities of journeymen artisans that were fairly numerous in Paris.35 Yet this greater surveillance also generated tensions and sometimes even resistance. The confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament at Saint-Jean-enGrève, for instance, accused the churchwardens of taking their money, while at San Carpoforo the confraternity disputed the right of the parroco to the key of the cash box. At San Sisto, the priest complained that the Blessed Sacrament confraternity was failing to notify him of its meetings.36 The final area where confraternities and parishes came into conflict was over religious belief and practice. On occasion, confraternities engaged priests whose doctrinal positions made them objectionable to the parish authorities. It is possible that some of the hostility to the regular clergy in Milan was fuelled by disagreements over dogma as well as competition for resources. There were also instances when newly appointed parish priests disapproved of particular practices; I have already mentioned, for example, the disagreement at San Michele alla Chiusa over the interpretation of indulgences accorded to a confraternity. Sometimes too, accusations against the confraternities represented a rejection of religious practices that had formerly been acceptable: the sociability of confraternal banquets, the often burlesque theatrical performances, and the Baroque pomp of processions were now frowned on as abuses.37 The attempt by the priest at San Sisto to change the time of a confraternity’s services was similarly moti34 

BnF, Rés., Z Thoisy 9, Saint-Joseph at Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs, 1695; BnF, Coll. Joly de Fleury, MS 1590, fol. 206r; Saint-Sacrement at Saint-Médard; Statuts et règlements de la Confrairie du Saint-Sacrement; Statuts et règlemens […] de Saint-Barthélemy; ASM, AFR, 1024, San Sisto, agreement of c. 1751; ASM, AFR, 1468, Carità at San Lorenzo; ASM, AFR, 1498, Santa Maria degli Angeli custodi at San Sebastiano, agreement of 11 April 1766. 35  ASM, Culto p.a. 1507, rules of Consorzio del suffragio de Morti, S. Franco d’Assisi e S. Anto di Padova, 1755; BnF, F-25000bis, Statuts, et règlemens de la Confrérie de Saint Louis; BnF, Coll. Joly de Fleury, MS 1590, fols 122, 199, 267r. 36  BnF, Coll. Joly de Fleury, MS 1586, fol. 262 r; ASM, Culto p.a. 1501, San Carpoforo; ASM, AFR, 1567, ‘Provvidenze da me date per sostegno della scuola’ (c. 1751). 37  ASM, Culto p.a. 2084, 23 August 1769, abuses in scuole and consorzi; imperial edict of 25 September 1786, reforming public religion; Bottoni, ‘Le confraternite milanesi’, p. 599; Zardin, ‘Le confraternite in Italia settentrionale’, pp. 119–24; Capra, La Lombardia austriaca, pp. 230–51. For France, see Vovelle, Piété baroque et déchristianisation.

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vated by moral concerns: because their meeting followed a women’s service, some young confratelli came early in order to mix with the females in the church.38 But there was nothing in Lombardy comparable to the bitter struggles over Jansenism that wracked Paris in the early to mid-eighteenth century. These underpinned many disputes that at first glance, might have seemed to be about other issues. Jansenism was a dissident movement within the Catholic Church that was particularly popular among the Parisian laity. 39 The orthodoxy of priests employed by confraternities concerned both the archbishop and the antiJansenist clergy he appointed to run the parishes. At Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs in 1759, the confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament vigorously defended their pro-Jansenist chaplain against the other priests, who were attempting to have him dismissed by the confraternity. The clergy even reportedly used the confessional to discourage members from paying their annual confraternal dues, and as a result, the association’s income supposedly dropped by half.40 This was one of several Paris parishes where confraternities joined in wider disputes over Jansenism. At Saint-Benoît, the leaders of the Saint-Sacrement defied the local clergy by seeking to hold a requiem mass for a Jansenist priest who had belonged to the confraternity. Occasionally, the confraternities found themselves on the other side. At Saint-Médard, a parish where the churchwardens and successive anti-Jansenist curés fought a protracted and bitter struggle, two confraternities took the priest’s side and were nearly abolished by the vestry as a result. The handful of Sacred Heart confraternities in Paris were caught up in similar battles, since the anti-Jansenist clergy had deliberately encouraged this particular cult. At SainteMadelaine-en-la-Cité, the churchwardens employed workmen to dismantle the chapel that the parish priest had allocated to the Sacred Heart.41 There was thus a wide range of matters over which disputes between the parishes and the confraternities were fought. Yet despite their apparent diversity, a small number of fundamental issues underpinned almost all of them. Money was clearly a key area of tension: if the confraternity brought in outside priests, took up alms at times or in places where the parish expected to derive precious funds, or if times were hard and generous benefactors few, then a clash was inevitable. 38 

ASM, AFR, 1567. Kreiser, Miracles, Convulsions, and Ecclesiastical Politics; Van Kley, The Damiens Affair; Maire, Les Convulsionnaires de Saint-Médard; Garrioch, The Formation of the Parisian Bourgeoisie; and Garrioch, ‘Parish Politics, Jansenism and the Paris Middle Classes’. 40  BnF, Coll. Joly de Fleury MS 1570, fols 22–26r. 41  Nouvelles ecclésiastiques; Garrioch, The Formation of the Parisian Bourgeoisie, p. 144; BnF, Coll. Joly de Fleury MS 1568, fol. 185r; and BnF, Coll. Joly de Fleury, MS 1590, fols 176–77r. 39 

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Given that the parishes generally had the upper hand, a second issue underpinning many disputes, whatever their ostensible subject, was the autonomy and independence of the confraternities and the authority of the parish. Attempts by the clergy or the churchwardens to control the funds of the confraternities, to appoint their chaplains if they had customarily elected their own, to force them to change their chapel, pew, or sacristy, or to dictate any of their activities were likely to meet with resistance for this reason alone. Sometimes, as at San Michele alla Chiusa, this was quite explicit: ‘we of the Santa Croce are the masters’, not subject to the authority of the parroco. In the long-running dispute at San Sisto, the officials of the confraternity drew up a long list of grievances: the parish priest had tried to interfere in the election of new administrators and had called a meeting without inviting them, the church was dirty, the confraternity’s vestments and vessels poorly cared for, the priest had changed services around and owed the confraternity money. Above all, they said, ‘the parroco says he is the master of the church’. Yet these attempts to bolster the independence of the confraternities in turn represented a direct threat to the authority of the parish. The parroco at San Carpoforo summed up a series of complaints about the governing body of the Blessed Sacrament with the accusation that it ‘wants to claim right of mastery (jus di padronanza) over the church’.42 Such questions of autonomy and authority were inseparable from issues of status and honour. Throughout early modern society, corporate privileges and rights were jealously defended because they signified and guaranteed the standing of an institution and its members. In 1751, the vestry at San Lorenzo pointed out that the confraternity of the Riscatto had the right to join the parish procession on the first Sunday of each month and that this showed it was not a ‘servile body’ (‘scuola inserviente’).43 This was one of the reasons why people joined it. Similarly, the status of the Blessed Sacrament confraternities as the leading ones in the parishes of Paris was symbolized by their place in processions, which was therefore defended bitterly. Any challenge to this or to their standing in the hierarchy of pews, the order at communion, or any of a thousand other tiny privileges represented an assault on the standing of the association and its members. The fact that in many cases even the leaders of confraternities were relatively humble people did not make such threats any less dire. As the lawyer for two former administrators of the Blessed Sacrament confraternity at Saint-Jean-en-Grève put it: ‘As man is 42  ASM, AFR, 1567; ASM, Culto p.a. 1501, San Carpoforo. In canon law, ius patronatus governs the rights and obligations of the patron of a benefice or donation; see Sägmüller, ‘Patron and Patronage’. 43  ASM, AFR, 1513.

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always ambitious for honour and it is just to accord to everyone according to his rank some small prerogatives in his parish which encourage him to attend services assiduously, the leadership of the Blessed Sacrament was intended for and filled by artisans for whom the mediocrity of their occupations did not permit them to aspire to lead the vestry’.44 It was unjust for his clients — men of honour and probity despite their relatively humble standing — to suffer the ignominy of the vestry blaming them for the confraternity’s financial problems. In the same way, the removal by the parish vestry of a table belonging to the same confraternity at Saint-Sulpice, or having the churchwardens transcribe a passage from the confraternity’s books without authorization were described as ‘insults’. That this was more than rhetoric is shown by the willingness of confraternities to go to court over what might seem to be minor slights, as when the confraternity of Sainte-Marguerite in the parish of the same name prosecuted the parish beadle for insulting one of its former administrators and hence the company as a whole. This kind of sensitivity accounts for the very careful compromises constructed by mediators in disputes. At San Sisto, a face-saving solution was found after several meetings: the parroco would have one of the keys to the cash box and would sit at the head of the table at meetings as befitted his rank, but all meetings would be convened by the leader of the confraternity.45 Where the status of the two sides was clearly very different, disputes were infrequent. This was one reason why female confraternities were rarely at odds with the parish; women’s sodalities were more clearly subordinated and their opportunities for contestation less frequent. Nor was female honour as challenged by parish intrusions. Where male confraternities were concerned, however, a great many conflicts arose precisely because their relationship to the parish authorities was not a directly hierarchical one. In both Paris and Milan, the organizational structure of the parish made a clear distinction between spiritual and temporal matters. The usual practice throughout France and Italy was for the parish priest to be ‘the sole master of everything concerning spiritual matters’ (as a leading French jurist put it) and ‘for the body of the parishioners to determine all that pertains to [temporal affairs]’.46 Everything to do with dogma and with the delivery of the sacraments was the exclusive domain of the clergy while the finances and the maintenance of buildings and furnishings, including vestments and sacred vessels, were handled by lay administrators. As we have seen, however, 44 

BnF, Coll. Joly de Fleury, MS 1586, fol. 262r. Paris, AN, LL957, 22 May 1722; Paris, AN, LL838, fol. 42r; ASM, AFR, 1024, San Sisto. 46  Jousse, Traité du gouvernement spirituel et temporel, p. 6. 45 

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this apparently neat division was more complicated than it appears. The clergy often had a say in the way confraternal funds were spent and in practice played a key role in the allocation of poor relief funds; their pastoral work made them keenly aware of the most deserving families. Conversely, many confraternities chose their own chaplains and since they funded many masses and usually had their own sacred vessels they frequently claimed a say in the way spiritual services were conducted. There was rarely any doubt that the parish priest was the key authority in doctrinal matters, but in Paris the Jansenist conception of the Church as a community of spiritual equals often undermined this position and opened the way for struggles over belief. And in early modern European societies, where hierarchies were very strong, any attempt to exercise authority where there was room for debate about its boundaries was doomed to cause contestation. The precise relationship between confraternities and the parish vestries was also often unclear. Although the statutes of parish confraternities generally subordinated them to the vestries, both bodies had a legal existence as corporations: both could borrow and invest money and initiate court cases, and both were legally responsible for their own internal affairs. This gave them a certain kind of equality, as the powerful vestry of San Sebastiano recognized in 1715 when it resolved that instead of commencing expensive court proceedings, it would seek an agreement with the confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament ‘between two religious bodies’ (‘tra due luoghi pii’).47 Where confraternities had their own chapels or did not fall entirely within the jurisdiction of the parish, things were even more complicated. Most trade guilds had their own confraternities, whose members and administrators were drawn from all over the city. They did not necessarily feel bound by the customs of the parish where the confraternity’s chapel happened to be, and they had the option, in extreme cases, of going to a different parish or moving to a monastic church. In Milan, the jurisdictions of companies of the Cross often crossed parish boundaries and this reinforced their sense of independence. Because they were formally under the direct control of the archbishop they could appeal straight to the top when in dispute with the parish.48 Other quite humble bodies boasted powerful patrons. The confraternity of Sainte-Marguerite in the plebeian Faubourg Saint-Antoine, for instance, proudly claimed to be protected by the Le Ferron brothers, members of the Paris Parlement who paid the brotherhood to say regular masses for the soul of their mother. At San Michele in Milan, the parish priest had to confront 47  48 

ASM, AFR, 1006, 18 January 1715. ASM, AFR, 1477, Santa Croce di San Michele.

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the hostility of Marchese Brivio, a prominent local nobleman enlisted by the Blessed Sacrament confraternity as its ‘protettore’.49 Disputes thus arose partly because jurisdictions and hierarchies were not clearly defined, but also because relationships between institutions were constantly shifting. Even where their respective domains were set out in agreements or dictated by custom, a new priest, churchwarden, or confraternal administrator could be unaware of or hostile to past practice. Clergy who came from another parish, city, or region could have a different idea of their prerogatives. Those who subscribed to a different version of Catholicism (in the case of Jansenism) or who wished to reform religious practice or simply the morality of their flock might be hostile to particular cults or ways of celebrating them. The changes they attempted to make often perturbed the confraternity’s members and appeared to threaten their interests and even their spiritual well-being. Although customs were always described as being in place ‘from time immemorial’, they were in fact in a permanent process of revision as times, interests, and memories shifted.50 This was particularly frequent in urban societies because of the multiplicity of actors and the difficulty of establishing comparabilities and hierarchies as society changed. Laurence Croq and Nicolas Lyon-Caen have recently noted the growing role of the retired churchwardens of the Paris parishes: formerly entirely excluded from administration after they had left office, in the eighteenth century their consent came to be required for all major decisions. As their importance grew, they claimed a place of greater honour, coming to share a pew with the churchwardens currently in office. This change reflects a new, more collegial and less autocratic approach to parish government that may reflect the influence of Jansenism but that certainly functioned to exclude the aristocracy who had previously dominated local affairs. This in turn gave the curé a more significant influence, since he was dealing with men who were roughly his social equals.51 An unintended by-product of this transformation in parish hierarchies may have been the frequent disputes with confraternities, whose place of honour immediately behind the churchwardens currently in office was challenged by the rising status of the retired churchwardens. This does not seem to have been the case in Milan, where the nobility continued to play a key role in parish administration. But in both cities, other 49 

Paris, AN, LL838, fol. 35r; ASM, AFR, 1477. 50  Thompson, Customs in Common, pp. 1–15; Garrioch, The Making of Revolutionary Paris, pp. 40–44. 51  Croq and Lyon-Caen, ‘Le Rang et la fonction’.

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ideological and religious changes had serious consequences for the confraternities. The ways in which the brotherhoods were regarded by governments, by an ‘enlightened’ public, and even by church authorities shifted dramatically through the eighteenth century. Critiques of the ‘superstition’ of confraternal religious practices and of their corrupt fiscal practices became widespread and there was a noticeable tightening of control by both secular and religious authorities. New confraternities were discouraged and many existing ones were abolished on the most slender of pretexts. Whereas in the early eighteenth century confraternities had been seen as important forces for the maintenance of popular piety and as valuable contributors to church resources, they were now condemned for taking worshippers away from parish services. In 1713, the vestry of San Lorenzo happily accorded the confraternity of the Riscatto a site next to the church on which to build its own chapel, but by the late 1760s the canons who ran the parish were trying to move it back into the main church.52 These new doubts about lay religious associations quite clearly underpinned many of the disputes that pitted them against the parishes. By the end of the century, even before the French Revolution transformed the social and political organization of both Paris and Milan, many confraternities had disappeared and those that remained had been firmly subordinated to the parishes. In the nineteenth century, when confraternities enjoyed a revival, this control continued and gave them a very different character and a different place in the new social order. Ironically, the firmer definition of their boundaries and of the relationship between parishes and confraternities spelled the end of some of the features that had made lay religious associations attractive: their independence, the spiritual succour and collective comfort they offered as distinctive spiritual communities, the status they gave their members and especially their leaders, and the possibility of a degree of autonomy for people ‘ambitious for honour’ within a social system based on subordination. The very bitterness of many of the disputes that pitted parishes and confraternities against each other is evidence of the vitality and the continuing importance of both institutions — even in the supposedly ‘secular’ eighteenth century.

52 

Sella and Capra, Il Ducato di Milano, p. 506; Collin, Traité des confréries, p. 123 ; ASM, AFR, 1512.

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Works Cited Manuscripts and Archival Resources Milano, Archivio di Stato, Amministrazione del fondo di religione, 1006 —— , Amministrazione del fondo di religione, 1024, San Sisto —— , Amministrazione del fondo di religione, 1024, San Sisto LL957 —— , Amministrazione del fondo di religione, 1026 —— , Amministrazione del fondo di religione, 1468 —— , Amministrazione del fondo di religione, 1498 —— , Amministrazione del fondo di religione, 1477 (Santa Croce di San Michele) —— , Amministrazione del fondo di religione, 1512 —— , Amministrazione del fondo di religione, 1513 —— , Amministrazione del fondo di religione, 1567 (‘Provvidenze da me date per sostegno della scuola’, c. 1751) —— , Amministrazione del fondo di religione, 1766 —— , Culto p.a. 1161 —— , Culto p.a. 1500 —— , Culto p.a. 1501 —— , Culto p.a. 1506 —— , Culto p.a. 1507 (rules of Consorzio del suffragio de Morti, S. Franco d’Assisi e S. Anto di Padova, 1755) —— , Culto p.a. 1510 —— , Culto p.a. 1511 —— , Culto p.a. 1512 —— , Culto p.a. 2010 —— , Culto p.a. 2084 —— , Fondo di religione 247 (petition to archbishop, 14 January 1749) —— , Luoghi Pii, p.a. 39 —— , Luoghi Pii, p.a. 177 Milano, Archivio Storico Civico, Località 136 —— , Materie 282 Paris, Archives de l’Archevêché, 40 r P 12 Paris, Archives Nationales, H3798 —— , H4291–2 —— , H4292 —— , H4648 —— , LL712 —— , LL838 —— , LL851 —— , LL900 —— , LL942 —— , LL945

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—— , LL957 —— , LL963E —— , Minutier Central des notaires, XV 407, 15 January 1707 —— , S7493 —— , T1492 Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Institut de France, MS 710 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, 4° Fm 35552 —— , Collection Joly de Fleury, MS 292 —— , Collection Joly de Fleury, MS 1568 —— , Collection Joly de Fleury, MS 1570 —— , Collection Joly de Fleury, MS 1586 —— , Collection Joly de Fleury, MS 1590 —— , Collection Joly de Fleury, MS 2524 —— , F-23714 —— , F-23714, no. 481 (Sentence de M. le lieutenant civil du Châtelet de Paris touchant les prérogatives de la confrérie royale du Tres Saint Sacrement de l’autel et du Très Saint nom de Jésus, érigée en l’église Saint Sauveur à Paris ([Paris], [n. pub.], 1693) —— , F-25000bis —— , Réserve des livres rares, Z Thoisy 9

Primary Sources Jousse, Daniel, Traité du gouvernement spirituel et temporel des paroisses (Paris: Debure, 1769) Il cardinale Giu: Pozzobonelli e gli atti della visita pastorale nella collegiata di S. Giorgio al Palazzo in Milano (1779), ed. by Maria Luisa Gatti Perer, trans. by Gabriella Marelli (Milano: Parrocchia di San Giorgio, 1970) Nouvelles ecclésiastiques, 3 November 1731, p. 206 Règlemens en forme de Statuts, pour la confrérie du Très-Saint-Sacrement [… ] pour la société des Boursiers-confrères de ladite confrérie, sous l’invocation de Saint-Pierre (Paris: [n. pub.], 1783) La Solide Dévotion à la passion de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ, à l’usage des Confrères et Soeurs de la Confrérie royale de la Passion du Sauveur et de Notre-Dame de Pitié (Paris: [n. pub.], 1782) Statuts et règlemens […] pour estre observez et gardez au Gouvernement et Administration de la Confrairie du Très-Saint-Sacrement (Paris: Bouillerot, 1667) Statuts et règlements de la Confrairie du Saint-Sacrement: erigée en l’Eglise Paroissiale de S. Louis de Paris ([n.p.]: [n. pub.], 1674?) Statuts, et règlemens de la Confrérie de Saint Louis, érigée en l’Eglise paroissiale de S. Gervais de Paris ([n.p.]: [n. pub.], 1677?) Statuts, règlemens et bulle […] concernant l’association d’assistance mutuelle des cent Associés de la Confrairie de Saint Jean-Baptiste et de Saint Jean l’Evangéliste ([n.p.]: [n. pub.], 1769) Statuts et règlemens, faits et dressez par MM le curé, Marguilliers et anciens marguilliers de l’Eglise paroissiale de Saint-Barthélemy (Paris: [n. pub.], 1667)

Confraternities and the Parish in 18th-Century Paris and Milan

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Secondary Studies Baldissarri, Marina Olivieri, I poveri prigioni: La confraternità della Santa Croce e della Pietà dei carcerati a Milano nei secoli xvi–xviii (Milano: NED, 1985) Baloche, Constant, Église Saint-Merry de Paris: Histoire de la paroisse et de la collégiale, 700–1910, 2 vols (Paris: Oudin, 1911) Bottoni, Riccardo, ‘Le confraternite milanesi nell’età di Maria Teresa: aspetti e problemi’, in Economia, istituzioni, cultura in Lombardia nell’età di Maria Teresa, ed. by Aldo de Maddalena, Ettore Rotelli, and Gennaro Barbarisi, 3 vols (Bologna: Mulino, 1982), iii, 595–607 Bressan, Edoardo, ‘Chiesa milanese e assistenza nell’età delle riforme’, in Ricerche sulla chiesa di Milano nel Settecento, ed. by Antonio Acerbi and Massimo Marcocchi, Scienze religiose, 8 (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 1988), pp. 150–79 Capra, Carlo, La Lombardia austriaca nell’età delle riforme (1706–1796) (Torino: UTET Università, 1987) Collin, N., Traité des confréries (Paris: Demonville, 1784) Croq, Laurence, and Nicolas Lyon-Caen, ‘Le Rang et la fonction: Les marguilliers des fabri­ ques parisiennes à l’époque moderne’, in La Paroisse urbaine du Moyen Âge à l’époque contemporaine, ed. by Anne Bonzon and others (forthcoming) Garrioch, David, The Formation of the Parisian Bourgeoisie, 1690–1830, Harvard His­ torical Studies, 122 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996) —— , The Making of Revolutionary Paris (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002) —— , ‘Parish Politics, Jansenism and the Paris Middle Classes in the Eighteenth Century’, French History, 8 (1994), 403–19 —— , and Michael Sonenscher, ‘Compagnonnages, Confraternities and Associations of Jour­neymen in Eighteenth-Century Paris’, European History Quarterly, 16 (1986), 25–45 Gaston, Jean, Les Images de confréries parisiennes avant la Révolution (Paris: Marty, 1910) Kreiser, Robert B., Miracles, Convulsions, and Ecclesiastical Politics in Early EighteenthCen­tury Paris (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978) Lothe, José, and Agnès Virole, Images des confréries parisiennes: Exposition du 18 décembre 1991 au 7 mars 1992 (Paris: Bibliothèque historique de la Ville de Paris, 1992) Maire, Catherine-Laurence, Les Convulsionnaires de Saint-Médard: Miracles, convulsions et prophéties à Paris au xviiie siècle, Archives, 95 (Paris: Gallimard, 1985) Sägmüller, Johannes Baptist, ‘Patron and Patronage’, in The Catholic Encylopedia [accessed 28 July 2010] Sella, Domenico, and Carlo Capra, Il Ducato di Milano dal 1535 al 1796, Storia d’Italia, 11 (Torino: UTET, 1984) Signorotto, Gianvittorio, ‘Un eccesso di devozione: Preghiere pubbliche ai morti nella Milano del xviii secolo’, Società e storia, 20 (1983), 305–36 —— , ‘Milano sacra: Organizzazione del culto e consenso tra xvi e xviii secolo’, in Milano e il suo territorio, ed. by Franco Della Peruta, Roberto Leydi, and Angelo Stella, Mondo popolare in Lombardia, 13, 2 vols (Milano: Silvana, 1985), ii, 581–629

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Thompson, E. P., Customs in Common (London: Penguin, 1993) Van Kley, Dale, The Damiens Affair and the Unraveling of the Ancien Régime, 1750–1770 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984) Vismara, Paola, Settecento religioso in Lombardia, Archivio ambrosiano, 69 (Milano: NED, 1994) Vovelle, Michel, Piété baroque et déchristiani en Provence au xviiie siècle (Paris: Plon, 1973) Zardin, Danilo, ‘Confraternite e “congregazioni” gesuitiche a Milano fra tardo Seicento e riforme settecentesche’, in Ricerche sulla chiesa di Milano nel Settecento, ed. by Antonio Acerbi and Massimo Marcocchi, Scienze religiose, 8 (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 1988), pp. 180–252 —— , ‘Le confraternite e la religione del popolo’, in Storia illustrata di Milano, ed. by Franco Della Peruta, 10 vols (Milano: Sellino, 1992–97), iv: Milano moderna (1993), pp. 1161–80 —— , ‘Le confraternite in Italia settentrionale fra xv e xviii secolo’, Società e storia, 10 (1987), 81–137 —— , ‘Le confraternite in processione’, in Il teatro a Milano nel Settecento, ed. by Annamaria Cascetta and Giovanna Zanlonghi (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 2008), pp. 161–91

Europa Sacra All volumes in this series are evaluated by an Editorial Board, strictly on academic grounds, based on reports prepared by referees who have been commissioned by virtue of their specialism in the appropriate field. The Board ensures that the screening is done independently and without conflicts of interest. The definitive texts supplied by authors are also subject to review by the Board before being approved for publication. Further, the volumes are copyedited to conform to the publisher’s stylebook and to the best international academic standards in the field. Titles in Series Religious and Laity in Western Europe, 1000-1400: Interaction, Negotiation, and Power, ed. by Emilia Jamroziak and Janet E. Burton (2007) Anna Ysabel D’Abrera, The Tribunal of Zaragoza and Crypto-Judaism: 1484-1515 (2008) Cecilia Hewlett, Rural Communities in Renaissance Tuscany: Religious Identities and Local Loyalties (2009) Charisma and Religious Authority: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Preaching, 1200-1500, ed. by Katherine L. Jansen and Miri Rubin (2010) Communities of Learning: Networks and the Shaping of Intellectual Identity in Europe, 1100-1500, ed. by Constant Mews, John N. Crossley (2011) Alison Brown, Medicean and Savonarolan Florence: The Interplay of Politics, Humanism, and Religion (2012)

In Preparation Late Medieval and Early Modern Ritual: Studies in Italian Urban Culture, ed. by Samuel K. Cohn, Marcello Fantoni, Franco Franceschi, and Fabrizio Ricciardelli Clare Monagle, Orthodoxy and Controversy in Twelfth-Century Religious Discourse: Peter Lombard’s ‘Sentences’ and the Development of Theology