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‘Laid up Treasure’: The Finances of the English Jesuits in the Seventeenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Thomas M. McCoog SJ
Thomas M. McCoog SJ*
Affiliation:
Loyola College, Baltimore, Maryland
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Extract

A frequent criticism of the Society of Jesus, and one which Martin Grene, the Jesuit apologist whose An Account of the Jesuites Life and Doctrine was published in 1661, was especially eager to refute, was the possession of immense wealth. Grene’s rebuttal began with a distinction between an individual Jesuit and a Jesuit institution. The former was forbidden to accept any financial compensation for his apostolic services. What he did, he did freely. Grene stressed that the work was done by the Society gratuitously and simply for the love of God. The Jesuits sought no reward but relied on the providence of God ‘who exciteth devout people to supply their [the Jesuits’] necessity out of pure charity’. The alms of the faithful supported the Society and, through its dependence on charity, the Society hoped to avoid all semblance of avarice and simony.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 24: The Church and Wealth , 1987 , pp. 257 - 266
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1987

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References

1 [Grene, Martin,] An Account of the Jesuites Life and Doctrine (n.p. [London]).Google Scholar

2 Ibid., p.58.

3 Ibid., pp. 82–3.

4 PRO SP 14/142/3; SP 14/159/82.

5 PRO ADM 77/1/33; HMC 5th Report p. 386; Narcissus Luttrell, A Brief Historical Relation of State Affairs, 1678–1714 (Oxford, 1857) 1, p. 9.

6 For more information on this type of bookkeeping, see Heal, F., Of Prelates and Princes: A Study of the Economic and Social Position of the Tudor Episcopate (Cambridge, 1980), pp. 50–1 CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Stone, L., The Crisis of the Aristocracy 1558–1641 (Oxford, 1965), pp. 279–80.Google Scholar

7 For a more detailed analysis and exposition of the triennial catalogues, see McCoog, T. M. SJ, ‘The Society of Jesus in England, 1623–1688: An Institutional Study’ (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Warwick, 1984), pp. 260–3 Google Scholar. Over the next few years, Recusant History will publish a series of articles on the sources and the composition of the Jesuit estates in England. The first article, ‘The Finances of the English Province of the Society of Jesus in the Seventeenth Century: An Introduction’, has appeared in Recusant History, 18 (1986), pp. 14–33.

8 Compare McCoog, T. M. SJ, ‘The Creation of the First Jesuit Communities in England’, The Heythrop Journal (forthcoming, 1987).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 For an account of the events that led to this separation, see McCoog, , ‘The Establishment of the English Province of the Society of Jesus’, Recusant History, 17 (1984), pp. 121–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 General to Richard Blount, 8 April 1623; same to John Norton (in fact, Knatchbull), 29 April 1623, ARSI, Anglia 1, fols 169v, 172.

11 ARSI, Congr 59, fols 114–17v.

12 Richard Man (in fact, Blount) to [a Jesuit superior], 19 July 1623, PRO SP 16/99/1M.

13 The English Jesuit catalogues may be found in ARSI, Anglia 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20, 21, 22. Summaries and charts from these catalogues are printed in McCoog, ‘The Sociery ofjesus in England’, pp. 478–94.

14 Included in the totals given in the catalogues were not just the Jesuit members of the province but also the lay students at the college in St Omers and a number of other dependants at the other Continental houses. One must not, therefore, equate the number of Jesuits in the province with the number of men to be supported by the province’s annual revenue.

15 General to Richard Blount, 24 January 1632; same to Robert Stafford (in fact, Stanford), 10 April 1632, ARSI, Anglia 1, fols 344v, 346v.

16 For a perceptive investigation of the influence of the Catholics at court and their role in the collection of monies for the support of King Charles I see Hibbard, C., ‘The Contribution of 1639: Court and County Catholicism’, Recusant History, 16 (1982), pp. 42–60 and Charles I and the Popish Plot (Chapel Hill, 1983).Google Scholar

17 General to Edward Knott (in fact, Matthew Wilson), 24 August 1641, ARSI, Anglia I, fol. 523.

18 ARSI, Congr 70, fols 124, 127.

19 General to Edward Alacambe (in fact, Asdow), 6 August 1644; same to same, 20 August 1644; same to Edward Knott (in fact, Matthew Wilson), 17 December 1644; same to same, 4 March 1645; same to Thomas Port (in fact, Layton), 11 March 1645; same to Knott, 11 March 1645; same to same, 1 April 1645; same to same, 13 May 1645; same to same, 19 August 1645, ARSI, Anglia 2, fols 44v, 46v, 54, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62v, 68.

20 ARSI, Congr 72, fols 356–64.

21 General to Henry Stafford, 11 December 1649; same to same, 26 March 1650; same to Francis Forster, 20 May 1651, ARSI, Anglia 2, fols 127v, 128v, 135.

22 General to Edward Knott (in fact, Matthew Wilson), 24 May 1653; same to same, 25 October 1653; same to John Clayton, 29 November 1653; same to same, 21 February 1654, ARSI, Anglia 2, fols 146, 151, 151v, 153v.

23 ARSI, Congr 82, fol. 204.

24 John Clare (in fact, Warner) to the General, 15 January 1690; same to same, 9 April 1691, Stonyhurst College, Anglia V, 110, 111.

25 ARSI, Congr 84, fols 197–203.

26 ARSI, Congr 85, fols 199–205v.

27 Henry Garnet to Claudio Acquaviva, 10 December 1596, Stonyhurst College, Anglia II, 19.