Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-p566r Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T23:22:28.228Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Fight for Inheritances in the Papal States during the Restoration, 1814–1830

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2019

CHRISTOPHER KORTEN*
Affiliation:
Adam Mickiewicz University/MGIMO University, Instytut Historii, UAM, Ulica Umultowska 86d, pok386, 61-809Poznan, Poland; e-mail: chriskorten@yahoo.com

Abstract

This article looks at a common societal feature – the inheritance – examining how it became a prized source of income following the French Revolution and, therefore, a divisive element. The Restoration in the Papal States (1814–30) produced unexpected legal battles over the right of inheritances; family members as well as the monasteries of ex-religious, secularised during the Napoleonic period in Italy, contested the beneficiary status of wills. Such was the frequency and acrimony of the disputes that a special commission was created in 1827 to curb future debate. All told, these legal battles favoured ecclesiastical institutions over secular or family interests, and loosened the bonds between the Catholic Church and society during the Risorgimento.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 ‘Pesaro, con la pensione’, AC, F.I.3.

2 Carlo Nardi devotes a very helpful monograph to this organisation: Napoleone e Roma, Rome 1989, 88106Google Scholar. Other essential works of the period include Naselli, Carmelo Amedeo, La soppressione napoleonica delle corporazioni religiose: contribuito alla storia religiosa del primo ottocento italiano, 1808–1814, Rome 1986, 41Google Scholar; Bartoccini, Fiorella, Roma nell'ottocento: il tramonto della ‘città santa’: nascita di una capitale, Bologna 1985Google Scholar; Madelin, Louis, La Rome de Napoleon: la domination française à Rome de 1800 à 1814, 4th edn, Paris 1927Google Scholar; Moulard, Jacques, Le Comte Camille de Tournon, II: La préfecture de Rome, Paris 1930Google Scholar; and Lemmi, Francesco, ‘Roma nell'Impero Napoleonico’, Archivio storico italiano liii (1915), 119–42 at pp. 123–5Google Scholar.

3 This was a huge task: there were 519 religious communities comprising 5,852 individuals: Broers, Michael, The politics of religion in Napoleonic Italy: the war against war, 1801–1814, London 2007, 128Google Scholar.

4 Croce, Giuseppe, ‘Monaci ed eremiti Camaldolesi in Italia dal Settecento all’ Ottocento’, in Trolese, F. G. B. (ed.), Il monachesimo italiano, Cesena 1992, 198306Google Scholar.

5 Placido Zurla report, 26 Feb. 1828, AC, S. Romualdo, ms 27, fo. 194; S. Gregorio, ms 33, fo. 1.

6 Petition to Pius vii, ‘Da antichissimo tempo’, 19 Jan. 1822, AC, A.2.I.

7 Giabbani, Anselmo, ‘L'ambiente monastico di don Mauro Cappellari’, in Miscellanea historiae pontificiae, Rome 1948, xiii. 188–9Google Scholar.

8 For a brief description of the economic situation see Edward Hales, Revolution and papacy, 1769–1846, Albany, NY 1960, 254. Only a dozen or so ennobled Romans who collaborated with the French profited from the period. And they did so spectacularly.

9 Ridley, Ronald T., The eagle and the spade: archaeology in Rome during the Napoleonic era, Cambridge 1992, 5Google Scholar. For the era more generally see Moscarini, Maria, La restaurazione pontificia nelle provincie di ‘Prima Ricupera’ Maggio 1814–Marzo 1815, Rome 1933, 142Google Scholar, and Petrocchi, Massimo, La restaurazione romana (1815–1823), Florence 1943, esp. ch. iGoogle Scholar.

10 Petrocchi, La restaurazione romana, 6–17.

11 Emigh, Rebecca Jean, ‘Devolution in Tuscany’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History xxxiii/3 (2003), 385420 at p. 385CrossRefGoogle Scholar. However, the author's aim is actually to show the more varied effects of inheritances.

12 Thomas Piketty, ‘On the long-run evolution of inheritance: France, 1820–2050’, Paris School of Economics, 13 Nov. 2009, 2, <http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/Piketty2010WP.pdf>, accessed Feb. 2018.

13 McKee, Sally, ‘Households in fourteenth-century Venetian Crete’, Speculum lxx/1 (1995), 2767CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dincer, Aysu, ‘Wills, marriage and business contracts: urban women in late-medieval Cyprus’, Gender and History xxiv/2 (2012), 310–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Clark, Elizabeth A., ‘Women, gender, and the study of Christian history’, Church History lxx/3 (2001), 395426 at p. 399CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Harris, Barbara J., English aristocratic women, 1450–1550: marriage and family, property and careers, Oxford 2002Google Scholar, introduction and chapter vii. For a detailed examination of an early medieval widow's ‘will’ see Nelson's, JanetThe wary widow’, in Davies, Wendy and Fouracre, Paul (eds), Property and power in the early Middle Ages, Cambridge 1995, 82113CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Carmichael, Calum, ‘Inheritance in biblical sources’, Law and Literature xx/2 (2008), 229–42 at pp. 229–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Edelhard Schneider, ‘The status of secularized ex-religious clerics’, unpubl. PhD diss. Catholic University of America 1948, and Joseph Corbett, ‘The juridical status of the extraclaustrated religious priest’, unpubl. PhD diss. Pontifical University of St Thomas, Rome 1958–9. Schneider's work is mainly concerned with the period after the new code of canon law (1917). An English-language work is Hannan, Jerome Daniel, The canon law of wills, Philadelphia, Pa 1935Google Scholar.

17 Lehfeldt, Elizabeth A., ‘Convents as litigants: dowry and inheritance disputes in early-modern Spain’, Journal of Social History xxxiii/3 (2000), 645–64 at p. 646CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Frank, Thomas, ‘Exploring the boundaries of law in the Middle Ages: Franciscan debates on poverty, property, and inheritance’, Law and Literature xx/2 (2008), 243–60 at p. 244CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 Andrew Meehan, ‘Will and testament of clerics’, in the Catholic Encyclopedia, xv, New York 1912, <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15626b.htm>. Those who had only made simple vows were also allowed to make a will.

21 Ibid. emphasis mine.

22 Fantappiè, Carlo, Il monachesimo moderno tra ragion di chiesa e ragion di stato: il caso toscano (XVI–XIX secolo), Florence 1993, 315Google Scholar. For the (slightly different) statistics of S. Angeli and Volterra see Aurelio Cappelli to Mauro Cappellari, n.d. (c. 1820), AC, A.II.4.

23 Petrocchi, Massimo, La restaurazione: il cardinale Consalvi e la riforma del 1816, Florence 1941, 53–4Google Scholar.

24 Croce, ‘Monaci ed Eremiti Camaldolesi’, 260. On the rate of pay see [?], ‘Memorie per il Sig.r Ercolani’, to Luigi Ercolani, papal treasurer, 8 Aug. 1821, b.1, ASR, Congr. Deputata ripristinato dei Monasteri Marche.

25 This twelve-person rule was variously enforced.

26 Lettere A–C, Giugno 1818, ‘Camaldolesi’, ASV, VVRR.

27 ‘I dinieghi che si sono verificati per due volte mi hanno reso anche più determinato. Solo la morte cambierà la mia opinione. E se la scarsità di monaci vi dovesse indurre a ricondurre indietro alcuni di loro con la forza, questa rimane sempre una cattiva decisione’: Rudolfo Leonardi to Cappellari, 9/18 May 1819, AC, A.II.4.

28 ‘Del obbligo, perchè (mi scrive) esso si riduce a niente’: Cappelli, Florence, to Cappellari, 19 Mar. 1820, AC, F.II.2. On rules governing stipends and locations of masses see Terzago, Filippo, Istruzione dommatica, morale, e liturgica nella quale si da a' sacerdoti una, Rome 1791, 401–2, 406, 409Google Scholar.

29 See n. 28 above.

30 On mass stipends see Cafardi, Nicolas P., ‘Bequests for masses: doctrine, history and legal status’, Duquesne Law Review xx/3 (1982), 403–27 at pp. 405–6Google Scholar. See also De la Taille, M., The mystery of faith and human opinion, London 1934, 81–197, 221–3Google Scholar, and Ch. Keller, F., Mass stipends, Washington, DC 1925, diss. 27Google Scholar.

31 ‘Ora gli Eredi Ceccomani intentando azione di ripetizione d'indebito, vengono a pretendere cessa [sic] o in tutto o in parte l'anno debito del Mon.ro [Monastero] verso la Procura, cioè vengono ad impetere il credito della Procura stessa conto [a] il Monro [Monastero] per la sommato tassata’: Cappellari, draft reply to Rinaldo Vanni, 14 May 1819, and Vanni to Cappellari, Perugia, 30 Jan. 1819, AC, F.II.3.

32 ‘Il documento, ch'ella trasmisse’, Vanni to [?], 25 Apr. 1819, AC, F.II.3.

33 Cappellari, draft letter (dated 1 May 1819) on the back of Vanni letter of 25 Apr. 1819, and Vanni letter, ‘Dopo avere suggerito’, n.d., AC, F.II.3.

34 ‘Camaldolesi’, Mai 1816, sez. reg, ASV, VVRR. On the discussion of parol evidence in the twentieth century and the various sets of obligations surrounding it see Hannon, Jerome D., ‘The canon law of wills’, The Jurist iv (1944), 522–47Google Scholar. See also Helmholz, Richard H. (ed.), The Oxford history of laws of England, I: The canon law and ecclesiastical jurisdiction from 597 to the 1640s, Oxford 2012, 392Google Scholar.

35 This example is taken from the following documents and folders: Albertino Bellenghi to [?], 26 Dec. 1814, ‘Al nome’, AC, F.I.2; lettere A–M, Mai 1816; and, for what follows in the next paragraph, see Gennaio 1815, sez. reg., ASV, VVRR. See also ‘Altra Volta l'Abbate Vicario Generale’, AC, A.4.1., S.Biago di Fabriano.

36 Moroni, Gaetano, Dizionario di erudizione storico-ecclesiastico da S. Pietro ai nostri giorni, Venice 1840–79, lxxv. 75Google Scholar.

37 The best sources on the history of canon law include Plochl, Willibald M., Geschichte des kirchenrechts, iii–v, Vienna–Munich 1959–69Google Scholar; Feine, Hans E., Kirchliche rechtsgeschichte, I: Die katholische kirche, 4th edn, Cologne 1964Google Scholar; and Dictionnaire de droit canonique, ed. Naz, R., Paris 1935Google Scholar.

38 Croce, ‘Monaci ed eremiti Camaldolesi’, 224.

39 This situation was pieced together from several letters at Camaldoli: Cappellari to [?], 3 June, 12 July 1820, AC, F.I.1; Cappellari writings, 21 Dec. 1816 and 29 July 1820, AC, F.I.2; unaddressed letters – ‘Appena mi sono stati communicate’ and two letters from 29 July 1820, AC, F.II.2; Cappellari to Bmo Padre, n.d., ‘Il Procurator Genle de’ Monaci’, AC, A.II.1; and ‘Casa’ to Cappellari, 1 Sept. 1820, and Biondi to Cappellari, 21 Nov. 1820, AC, A.II.4.

40 Cappellari, draft writing, ‘Sono costretto a recarle un disgustoso disturbo’, AC, F.I.2.

41 ‘Avendo Io sottoscro odierno’, AC, F.I.2.

42 Bellenghi to [?], 2 Oct. 1818, AC, A.II.6.

43 Cappellari to Luigi Giampè, 25 Nov. [?], ‘Ho tardato a rispondere’, AC, F.I.1.

44 Hannon, ‘The canon law of wills’, 533–4.

45 Cappellari to [?], 12 July 1820, AC, F.I.1.

46 Cappellari to Pius vii, n.d. (1820?), ‘Appena mi sono stati comunicati’, AC, A.II.1. How the remaining funds were apportioned is unknown; perhaps they went towards taxes on the amount.

47 Andrea Biondi, Foligno, to Cappellari, 1 Aug. 1820, ‘Cotesto Sig.e Mariano Baracconi’, AC, F.II.2.

48 ‘Per sistemare gli affari di Sua Famiglia’; ‘defraudato nelle sue speranze’; and ‘ricusa di riconoscere e di pagare questi suoi crediti’: [?] to [?], ‘D. Pier Luigi Giampè Abate del Monastero di S. Severo di Perugia’, AC, A.9.5.

49 Cappellari to VVRR, 30 July 1821, ASV, VVRR, sez. reg.,‘Camaldolesi’.

50 Cappellari rescript to the Commissione of Beni Ecclesiastici, end 1814/beginning 1815, ASR, Computisteria Generale della R.C.A., Amministrazioni camerali, b. 317/4282, S. Gregorio.

51 Cappellari, draft response to Clemente Morigi, 28 July 1817, ‘Fra Gregorio Prati và debitore di questa Procura Genle Camaldolese’, AC, F.II.2. See further Morigi to Cappellari, Cesena, 25 Jan. 1821, AC, A.XII.1.

52 Cappellari, draft response to Morigi, 28 July 1817.

53 ‘Colla massima confidenza e secretezza mi credo in dovere dirle, che il nostro Fra Gregorio ottoagenario [sic] e debole di mente, sò che a [sic] fatto una dichiarazione ad uno de suoi Nipoti. Non sò precisamente la sua estensione; … me li potrebbe levare i suoi nipoti, il Commissario de’ Spogli, che Dio non voglia’: Morigi to Cappellari, 14 July 1817, AC, F.II.2.

54 ‘Io potrei decidere di obbligarlo a pagare, ma per ora attenderò … ma nel caso in cui loro gli dovessero dare dei consigli sbagliati, o se, in seguito alla sua morte, i suoi eredi dovessero farlo, allora presenta questa lettera al Vescovo della Curia e avvisami immediatamente, in modo che io possa andare immediatamente alla Curia Romana’: Cappellari, draft letter on the back of the Morigi letter, 28 July 1817, AC, A.XII.1.

55 Cappellari, draft, to Morigi, 14 Feb. 1821, ‘Eccomi a notiziami [??] sull'affare del Prati’, ibid.

56 Morigi to [?], 25 Jan. 1821, ibid.

57 ‘Venerdì scorso con mio dispiacere intesi la funesta nuova della morte di Fra Clemente Bertoni seguita in Roma fino dalli 4 dello scorso Decembre; sono per avisarla con questa mia che col detto defunto sono creditore di un Terzo d'aretratti di sua Pensione come da document autentico potra rilevarsi’: Giacomo Bianchedò, agent, to [?], 29 Jan. 1823, AC, A.III.5.

58 ‘Saputasi appena dal Prore Genle Ore [Procurator Generale] la morte di d.o [detto] Religioso, fece egli testo inters [??] Giudicialmente alcuni debitori dell'Eredità qualmente la Religione intendeva essendo i suoi diritti sullo spoglio del defonto’: ‘Il Procurator Genle de’ Monaci Camaldolesi’, Cappellari to [?], draft, 13 Aug. [?], AC, A.II.7.

59 ‘Ieri è morta Suor Giustina Conversa Cisterciense e gli è stato ritrovato un grossissimo peculio, cioè poiche soldi; avendo la sud.a [sudetta] prima di venir in S. Parisio dato tutto a [??] parenti con licenza’: [?] to Cappellari, 28 Jan. 1809, AC, S. Parisio, G. LXV.3.

60 ‘È morto il Sig.r Ab. Canonici, … ora vi prega a ricuperarli tutti dagli eredi e trasportarli in S. Michele’: Cappellari to Placido Zurla, 1 Nov. 1805, letter 130, ASR, S. Gregorio, folder 110.

61 Franco Canali, Secr. of Congr., EE.VV. (and bishop of Larissa) to Tommaso Riario Sforza, copy, 25 Sept. 1827, v. 29, Stato Temporale, APR, SC; Cappellari to Carlo Odescalchi, timeline, 12 Sept. 1829, APF, SC, vol. clvi, fos 9–36; Odescalchi to Cappellari, 20 June 1828, APF, CP, vol. clvi, fo. 5.

62 Odescalchi to Cappellari, 31 Aug. 1829, APF, CP, vol. clvi, fo. 8.

64 Cappellari to Odescalchi, 12 Sept. 1829, APF, SC, vol. clvi, fos 9–36.

65 ‘Si Religiosus ille absoluto non fruebatur perpetuae saecularizationis indulto; si vero fruebatur [ut in primo] distinguenda inter bona quae ab ipso possidebantur: atque Bona quae jam Religionis erant, quaeque secum e Claustro egrediens attulerat, vel ei atcumque abvenerunt, sicuti etiam si quae habebat, bona ex iis prove nientia, ipsi Religioni manere: Quoad [??] autem bona extra Claustra ab [??] acquistita, et non ex bonis Religionis, judicandur de iis esse junta Constitutionem Gregorii XIII incisa = Officii Nostri’: ibid.

66 ‘Si talis Religiosus Aplico [Apostolico] Indulto disponendi de bonis ut in casu legitime usus est, facta socilicet undique legitiuna [??] eomundem bonorum dispositione, jus de quo sermo illi competere, cujus favore facta dispositio est’: ibid.

67 Motu proprio, 10 Nov. 1834, in Raccolta delle leggi e disposizioni di pubblica amministrazione nello stato pontificio dal 1 gennajo al 31 dicembre 1834, Rome 1835, iii. 14Google Scholar.

68 Ibid. iii. 7–8, 13–14.

69 Ibid. iii. 28–9.

70 In the motu proprio of 5 October 1824 Leo eliminated the rule of 15,000 scudi for immovable property. On 10 January 1829 jewellery and silver was also included in the fidecommesso.

71 Marca, Nicola La, ‘Primogeniture and Fidecommissi in Papal Rome’, in Tra rendita e investimenti: formazione e gestione dei grandi patrimoni in Italia in età moderna e contemporanea, Bari 1998, 147–62 at p.152Google Scholar.

72 ‘Ond'è che la legislazione degli Stati Pontificii consiste delle antiche leggi romane, del diritto canonico, delle costituzioni apostoliche, e di alcune disposizioni del motuproprio di Gregorio xvi pubblicato nel 1834, disposizioni le quali modificano il diritto romano, specialmente in ciò che riguarda le successioni, dove i maschi sono smisuratamente favoreggiati a pregiudizio delle femmine’: D'Azeglio, Massimo, Degli ultimi casi di Romagna: aggiuntivi diversi relativi opuscoli, Lugano 1846, 191–2Google Scholar. See also motu proprio, 10 November 1834, 7–12.

73 Most recently see Borutta, Manuel, ‘Culture war in Risorgimento Italy’, in Patriarca, Silvana and Riall, Lucy (eds), The Risorgimento revisited: nationalism and culture in nineteenth-century Italy, New York 2012, 191–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Papenheim, Martin covers similar ground: ‘Roma o morte: cultural wars in Italy’, in Clark, Christopher and Kaiser, Wolfram (eds), Culture wars: secular-catholic conflict in nineteenth century Europe, Cambridge 2003, 202–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

74 This is especially true when compared to the number of Mazzinians in the peninsula in the 1830s. On the neo-Guelf movement see Chadwick, Owen, History of the popes, 1830–1914, Oxford 2003, 53–6Google Scholar.

75 Russell, Bertrand, A history of western philosophy, London 1961, 631Google Scholar.

77 For other geographical contexts see Laven, David and Riall, Lucy, ‘Restoration government and the legacy of Napoleon’, in Laven, David and Riall, Lucy (eds), Napoleon's legacy: problems of government in restoration Europe, Oxford 2000, 7Google Scholar.

78 Borutta, ‘Culture War in Risorgimento Italy’, 196–7. For a short discussion on memory and experience see Riall, Lucy and Körner, Alex, ‘Introduction: the new history of Risorgimento nationalism’, Nations and Nationalism xv/3 (2009), 396401Google Scholar.

79 Marco Meriggi, ‘State and society in post-Napoleonic Italy’, in Laven and Riall, Napoleon's legacy, 52.