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The Finances of the English Province of the Society of Jesus in the Seventeenth Century: Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

T. M. McCoog S.J.
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Extract

CHRISTOPHER HILL'S Economic Problems of the Church from Archbishop Whitgift to the Long parliament’ has long been the standard work on the financial composition of the post-Reformation English church. Over the past fifteen years, however, historians have taken a second look at the material covered by Hill and have begun to formulate new questions about it. Historians such as Felicity Heal and Rosemary O'Day have led new investigations into the economic conditions of the English church. Despite this renewed interest, no one has tackled the more difficult subject of recusant finances. Here is a world hidden behind aliases and secret trusts and one that remains almost totally unexplored. In a series of articles to appear in this journal, I shall venture ‘where angels fear to tread’ and attempt to make sense out of the complicated and confusing records of Jesuit financial activity. This article, which will serve as an introduction to the series, will be concerned with the constitutional development of the Society of Jesus, the spiritual exhortations to poverty as an evangelical counsel and a religious vow, and the legal entanglements of the penal laws in England. It is essential to remember that, first and foremost, the English Jesuits were religious bound by vows, specifically the vow of poverty. All financial activities and investments were restricted by that vow as it was then understood throughout the Society. Future articles will examine the income and the investments of the early Jesuit mission and its eventual subdivision into colleges and residences.

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Articles
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , May 1986 , pp. 14 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1986

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References

Notes

1 (Oxford, 1956).

2 Rosemary, O'Day, The English Clergy: The Emergence and Consolidation of a Profession, 1558–1642 (Leicester, 1979);Google Scholar Felicity, Heal, Of Prelates and Princes: A Study of the Economic and Social Position of the Tudor Episcopate (Cambridge, 1980);Google Scholar Rosemary, O 'Day and Felicity, Heal, eds., Princes and Paupers in the English Church, 1500–1800 (Leicester, 1981).Google Scholar

3 Translated by Louis J. Puhl, S.J. (Chicago, 1951) p. 62.

4 Michael Kyne, Cf., ‘Poverty and the Exercises’, Supplements to The Way, 1 (1965) 28–38.Google Scholar

5 Cons. 3. Much of the following discussion is based on the research of Giinter Switek, In Armut predigen (Würzburg, 1972) and Knight, David B., ‘St Ignatius’ Ideal of Poverty’, Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits, 4 (1972) 1–37.Google Scholar

6 The presentation on the evolution of the colleges follows the research of Ladislaus, Lukàcs in ‘ De origine collegiorum externorum deque controversiis circa paupertatem, 1539–1608,’ AHSI 29 (1960) 189–205;Google Scholar 30 (1961) 3–89. George, Ganss edited and translated the article as ‘The Origin of Jesuit Colleges for Externs and the Controversies about their Poverty, 1539–1608’, Woodstock Letters 91 (1962) 123–166,Google Scholar reprinted in Thomas, Clancy, An Introduction to Jesuit Life (St. Louis, 1976) pp. 283–326.Google Scholar

7 Clancy. An Introduction to Jesuit Life, p. 53.

8 Cons. 440

9 Formula of the Institute 5, Cons. 5, 326, 330, 419, 557, 774, 776.

10 Cons. 331.

11 Cons. 555, 556, 561, 562, 563.

12 Cons. 309–325, 680, 743, 762, 763.

13 GC I, d 73 (after the election).

14 GC 11, dd 8, 71 (after the election) and the ‘Formula acceptandorum collegiorum’ (printed after the decrees).

15 GC III, d 17 (after the election).

16 GC III, d 43 (after the election).

17 GC III, d 25 (after the election).

18 Formulae acceptandorum collegiorum anno 1558’ in Pachtler, G. M., ed., Ratio studiorum et institutiones scholasticae Societatis Iesu (Berlin, 1887) 337–340.Google Scholar Monumenta Germanicae Paedagogicae, 2.

19 GC V, dd 25, 69.

20 Epistolae Praepositorum Generalium (Antwerp, 1635) p. 287. Also, cf. Claudio Acquaviva's ‘ Quomodo rerutn temporalium incommodis providendum ’ in Pachtler, G.M., Ratio studiorum et institutiones scholasticae Societatis Iesu (Berlin, 1890) III, 5–8 Google Scholar (Father General Oliva's 1665 revision of the ‘ Quomodo ’ can be found on pages 105–108); Bullae, Decreta, Cañones Ordinationes Instrucíiones Epistolae &c quae Instituti Societatis lesu ab 1636 (Antwerp, 1665) p. 476.Google Scholar

21 This document is printed as an appendix to Lukacs, *De origine collegiorum externorurn deque controversiis circa paupertatem 1539–1608’, 75–77.

22 G C VI, d 18 translated in Ganss, ‘The Origin of Jesuit Colleges for Exierns and the Controversies about their Poverty, 1539–1608’, p. 165 and p. 325 respectively.

23 GC VII, d 50; cf. GC XI, d20.

24 GC VIII, dd 4, 5. Cf. also GC XI, d 16.

25 GC VIII, d 27.

26 GC VIII, d 60: ‘Pro remediis sublevandae domorum et collegiorum inopiae’. Cf. also GC VII, d 82 and Father General Vincent Carrafa's ‘Instructio pro administratione rerum temporaliumCollegiorum ac Domorum Probationis S.J.’. in Bullae, Decreta Canones Ordinationes Instructiones Epistolae &c quae Instituti Societatis Iesu ab 1636 (Antwerp, 1665) pp. 372–390.

27 GC IX, d 18.

28 Adrien, Demoustier, ‘The Pedagogical Import of the Spiritual Exercises in the Society in the 16th and 17th Centuries’ in The Exercises: Their Milieu and Foundation (Rome, 1982) pp. 22–24.Google Scholar

29 British Library, Harleian MSS. 4603, p. 62; Lansdowne MS. 384, f. 23.

30 Cons. 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 254, 255, 256, 258, 259, 570, 571, 572.

31 Cons. 4, 565, 566, 816.

32 Cons. 554, 562, 564, 569, 744.

33 Cf. footnote 4, p. 252 in Ganss’ edition of The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus.

34 G C II, dd 24, 41 (after the election).

35 GC II, d 56 (after the election).

36 GC 111, d 16 (after the election). The decree granting the dispensing authority to the general was not inserted into the acts of the congregation but was placed separately in the archives. It was later printed in the Institute after the decrees of the congregation. The same was true for the Fourth General Congregation's confirmation.

37 GC V, d 29.

38 GC VI, d 8.

39 Cf. Thomas, M. McCoog, S.J., ‘The Establishment of the English Province of the Society of Jesus’, Recusant History, 17 (1984) pp. 121–139 Google Scholar for a discussion of the composition and significance of Officium et Regulae.

40 Ordinationes Praepositorum Generalium (Rome 1617) pp. 12–13.Google Scholar

41 GC VII, d 17. Cf. also GC XI, d 15.

42 GC X, d 2.

43 GC XII, dd 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42.

44 The 32nd General Congregation (1974–5) decreed that ‘provinces, vice-provinces, and missions dependent and independent, as distinguished from communities and apostolic institutes, are capable of possessing even revenue-bearing capital and of enjoying fixed and stable revenues’ within certain limits established by the same decree. Cf. John Padberg, Documents of the 31st and 32nd General Congregations of the Society of Jesus (St. Louis, 1977) pp. 498–499.

45 Horatio, de la Costa, The Jesuits in the Philippines, 1581–1768 (Cambridge, Mass., 1961) pp. 272, 278.Google Scholar For an English illustration of this, cf. Francis Forster to Thomas Barton (vere Bradshaigh), 26 March 1649, Stonyhurst College Archives, Anglia MSS, V, 31.

46 ‘The Implementation of the Elizabethan Statutes against Recusants, 1581–1603’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1961); ‘English Catholics and the Recusancy Laws, 1558–1625: A Study in Religion and Politics’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Rutgers University, 1977).

47 The following exposition is derived from J. A. Williams's study, ‘English Catholicism under Charles II: The Legal Position’, Recusant History, 7 (1963–1964) pp. 123–143.

48 Cf. P. A. Hopkins, ‘The Commission for Superstitious Lands of the 1690s’, Recusant History , 15 (1980) pp. 265–282.

49 Public Record Office: SP 45/12/p. 395.