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The Widow's Mite and Other Strategies: Funding the Catholic Reformation The Prothero Lecture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Olwen Hufton
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Extract

It is perhaps more usual for the giver of the Prothero lecture to choose a subject which has been a part of his intellectual baggage for a long time. In contrast, what I am about to offer falls more honesdy into the category of work in progress. I am presendy at a very preliminary stage in a project that may both take me a long time and lead me up many alleyways. I am concerned to understand how the Catholic Reform of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was funded. In the term ‘Cadiolic Reform’ are included charitable and educative initiatives, the funding of missions, the conversion of die heathen, the expansion of religious orders, die provision of books and images (biblia pauperurm) to improve and elevate the minds of the simple into mysteries they could not otherwise conceptualise, and die erection and furnishing of new churches. I would argue that taken as a package this funding process, about which I will be presently more specific, represents one of the largest private money-raising processes ever undertaken. It has, perhaps, a particular interest today when attempts are being made to reinvigorate die spirit of private philanthropy and to dismande or cause to wither away public commitment to assistance or subsidy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 8 , December 1998 , pp. 117 - 137
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1998

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References

1 This project is my central concern during the period of a Leverhulme Personal Research Professorship and I am deeply indebted to the Leverhulme Trust. Although much has been written about charitable and educational initiatives there is no systematic study which looks across their funding as a whole. Works such as Châtellier, L., The Europe of the Devout: the Catholic Reform and the Formations of New Society, trans. Birrell, J. (Cambridge, 1989)Google Scholar and idem., The Religion of the Poor (Cambridge, 1996); Delumeau, J., Catholicism between Luther and Voltaire (Cambridge, 1977)Google Scholar and idem., Sin and Fear: the Emergence of a Western Guilt Culture 13–18th Centuries, trans E. Nicholson (New York, 1990) are critical to an understanding of the general background. Pullan, B., Rich and Poor in Renaissance Venice: The Social Institutions of a Catholic State to 1620 (Oxford, 1971)Google Scholar remains inspirational. My thanks are due also to Christopher Black, Gabriella Zarri and the Pentofilo group in Florence for the many ideas on themes integral to the project that they have helped to generate.

2 On these motives excellent recent works include Cavallo, S., Charity and Power in Early Modern Italy (Cambridge, 1995)Google Scholar; Cohn, S. K., Death and Property in Siena 1205–1800. Strategies for the After Life (Baltimore, 1988)Google Scholar; Politi, G., Rosa, M., Peruta, F. della, eds., Timore e carità. I poveri mil Italia moderna (Cremona, 1982)Google Scholar; Vovelle, M., Piété baroque et déchristianisation en Provence au XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1973)Google Scholar; Chaunu, P., La Mort à Paris 16e 17e 18e sièles (Paris, 1978), p. 365Google Scholarpassim.

3 There is a huge bibliography on the work of the early Jesuits which can be broached through the recent study of O'Malley, J. W., , S.J., The First Jesuits (Cambridge, MA, 1993)Google Scholar; Lacouture, J., Jesuits: a Multibiography (English trans. London, 1996)Google Scholar is evocative rather than deep. The older nationally specific studies of Venturi, P. Tacchi, Storia della Compagnia di Gesù in Italia, 3 vols. (Rome 1961)Google Scholar, Astráin, A., Historia de la Compañia de Jesus en la Asistencia de Espana, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1902–1905)Google Scholar, Rodriguez, F., Historia da Companhia de Jesus na Asisténcia de Portugal, 2 vols. (Oporto, 1931)Google Scholar include many documents and were important to this essay.

4 Schurhammer, G., , S.J., Francis Xavier. His Life, His Times, vol. 1, Europe 1506–1541 (Rome, 1973)Google Scholar, permits a graphic perception of this development and in particular of the intense physical deprivation practised by the early fathers.

5 Copète, M. L., Les Jésuites et la prison royale à Seville: Missions d'évangelisation et mouvement confraternel en Andalousie à la fin du XVIe siècle (doctoral thesis, European University Institute, Florence, 1994), 76–133Google Scholar.

6 Jesuit initiatives aimed at persuading high-born women like Victoria Colonna to donate and endow such shelters are treated in Venturi, P. Tacchi, Storia della Compagnia di Gesu, 2, 2, 168, 178–91Google Scholar and Cohen, S., ‘Asylums for Women in Counter-Reformation Italy’ in Marshall, S. ed., Women in Reformation and Counter Reformation Europe. Private and Public Worlds (Bloomington, 1989)Google Scholar.

7 Cited by O'Malley, , The First Jesuits, 200Google Scholar. A full bibliography on the principles behind Jesuit education is given at page 418 footnote 1.

8 This development did not occur without substantial debate. Lukács, L., ‘De origine collegiorum externorum deque contraversiis circa eorum pauperitatem obortis’, Archvum Historicum Societatis Iesu 29 (1960), 189–245Google Scholar: 30 (1961), 1–89.

9 At Harvard I was told by the Dean of Harvard College in 1990 that one must never, when one hopes for donations, talk of either difficulties or failures but always of how success could be widened with more funds.

10 O'Malley, , The First Jesuits, 200Google Scholar, and SJ, H. Rahner, Saint Ignatius Loyola. Letters to Women (London, 1956), 224–6Google Scholar give several instances.

11 Goody, J., The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe (Cambridge, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Bremmer, J., ‘Pauper or Patroness: the Widow in the Early Christian Church’ in Bremmer, J., ed., Between Poverty and the Pyre (London, 1995), 31–57Google Scholar.

12 Bataillon, M.J. L., ‘Jean Luis Vivès, réformateur de la bienfaisance’, Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance, XIV (1952), 141–58Google Scholar and, more briefly, Marz, L., Poverty and Welfare in Habsburg Spain (Cambridge, 1983), 8–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Given for example by Philip II to the Carmelites to aid their expansion in the Low Countries. Sanchez, C. Torres, Conventualismo femmenino y expansion contrarreformista en el siglo XVII. El Carrnel Descalzo español en Francia y Flandes (1600–1650). (Doctoral thesis, EUI, Florence, 1997), 191–4Google Scholar.

14 Many such ploys were adopted in Italy. A fifth of the testamentary wealth of courtesans went to subvent the establishments for the retrieval of fallen women or girls at risk in Rome. In Florence licenses for prostitutes also funded, in part, houses of retrieval.

15 For a brief exposé of such dotal practises, see Delille, G., ‘Strategie di alleanza e demografia del matrimonio’ in di Giorgio, M. and Zuber, C. Klapisch, eds., Storia del matrimonio (Rome/Bari, 1996) 283–303Google Scholar, and ‘Consanguinité proche en Italie du XVI au XIX siècle’ in Bonte, P., ed., Epouser au plus proche. Inceste, prohibitions et stratégies matrimoniales autour de la Méditerranée (Paris, 1994)Google Scholar.

16 Ago, R., Carriere e clientele nella Roma barocca (Rome/Bari 1990)Google Scholar pursues the operations of the Spada family at the Vatican court. Reinhardt, W., ‘Der Papstliche Hof um 1600’ in Europaïsche Hofkultur zur Barockforschung (Hamburg, 1981)Google Scholar.

17 D'Aquino, T., La somma teologica (Firenze 1966), vol. 14, 257–61Google Scholar, text commented on by Sarti, R. (University of Florence) in an unpublished paper, ‘Alms requested, alms denied’, Pentofilo group, Florence, 1996Google Scholar. Dr Sarti has a projected work on the capacity of women to give in a pater familias system.

18 Chabod, I., La dette des families. Femmes, lignages et patrimoine à Fbrence aux XIVe et XVe siècks (doctoral thesis, EUI, 1995)Google Scholar, summarily reproduced in Chabod, I., ‘Risorsi e diritti patrimoniale’ in Groppi, A., ed., Il lavoro delle donne (Rome/Bari 1996), 60–70Google Scholar; Chojnacki, S., ‘Dowries and Kinsmen in Early Renaissance Venice’ in Stuard, S. M., ed. Women in Medieval Society (Philadelphia, 1976), 173–98Google Scholar.

19 Ferranti, L., Palazzi, M. and Pomata, G., Ragnatele di rapporti. Patronage e reti di relazioni nella storia delle donne (Turin, 1988)Google Scholar particularly part 1., ‘Patronesse e patroni nei rapporti di carita’.

20 Zarri, G., ‘Ginevra, Gozzadini dall'Armi, gentildonna bolognese (1520–27–1567), in Niccoli, O., ed., Rinascimento al femminile (Roma/Bari, 1991), 117–42Google Scholar.

21 Much of what follows is documented in H. Rahner S.J., Saint Ignatius Loyola, Letters; and de Ribadeneyra, Pedro, Vida de Ignado di Loyola (Madrid, 1967)Google Scholar, and Venturi, Tacchi, Storia della Compagnia di Gesù, 3 vols.Google Scholar, 2.2.

22 Rahner, , Saint Ignatius Loyola, Letters, 179Google Scholar.

23 Ibid., 182.

24 Ibid., 170, and Ribadaneira, Dicta el Facta, no. 75: also Epistolae et Instructiones S. Ignatii, 12 vols. (Madrid, 1903–1911)Google Scholar, 1.192.

25 From the very beginning the Jesuits were magnificent letter-writers and letters intended to inform the scattered fathers on developments were copied many times. O'Malley, argues this practice to be critical in the formation of Jesuit identity (The First Jesuits, 63–4)Google Scholar. Polanco wrote a circular letter which was much copied two or three times a year. The original Relations were reports from missions. The Canadian ones were largely compiled by the Jesuit superior in Quebec and sent to the provincial of the Order in Paris from 1611. In 1632 they were published so as to publicise the missions. The Jesuit Relations, ed. and trans. Goldthwaite, R., 73 vols. (Cleveland, 1896–1901)Google Scholar.

26 Their secular modern equivalent might be Oxford Today or the highly professional Universe produced by University College, London.

27 Rahner, , Saint Ignatius Loyola, Letters, 172Google Scholar.

28 Venturi, Tacchi, La Storia della Compagnia di Gesù, 2, 2, 431–2Google Scholar, describes how the sons of Cosimo de Medici and Eleanor of Toledo were vastly impressed by one such performance in 1553 and he notes that ‘I dialoghi degli fancuilli fiorentini’ could pull in crowds of 3,000–4,000 at a time, so that the Church of San Giovannino was too small and the Duomo had to be used.

29 Rahner, , Saint Ignatius Loyola, Letters, 417Google Scholar. The original is printed more fully in March, J., El aya del rey D Felipe II y del Principe Don Carlos, Dona Leonor Mascareñas, su vida y obras virtuosas. Relación de una religiosa su contemporanea (Madrid, 1942)Google Scholar.

39 March, J. M., Niñez y juventad de Felipe II, (Madrid, 1941), 1, 226–9Google Scholar.

31 Forthcoming, Renaissance Quarterly.

32 Rahner, , Saint Ignatius Loyola, Letters, 191. Rome, 7 01 1553Google Scholar.

33 Rahner, ibid., gives an instance of Francis Borgia soliciting such a document for his sister-in-law and passing on the cost to the then Duke of Gandía.

34 Venturi, Tacchi, Storia della Compagnia di Gesù, 2,2, 267–9Google Scholar; Rahner, , Saint Ignatius Loyola, Letters, 200Google Scholar.

35 Murphy, C. P., ‘Lavinia Fontana and Le dame della città: Understanding Female Artistic Patronage in Late Sixteenth Century Bologna’, Renaissance Studies, 10, (1996) 201–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 Chronicles, vi, 183.

37 Zarri, G., ‘II carteggio tra Don Leone Bartolini e un gruppo di gentildonne bolognese negli anni del concilio di Trento 1543–1563’, Archivio italiano per la storia della pietà 7 (1976)Google Scholar, and Guarnieri, R., ‘Nee domina nec ancilla sed socia: Tre casi di direzione spirituale tra Cinque e Seicento’ in van Kessel, E. Schulte, ed., Women and Men in Spiritual Culture (The Hague, 1986), 111–32Google Scholar.

38 Zarri, G., ‘II carteggio tra Don Leone Bartolini’ and ‘Ginevra Gozzadini dall'Armi, gentildonna bolognese (1520/7–1567)’, in Niccoli, O., ed., Rinascimento al Femminile (Rome/Bari 1991), 117–43Google Scholar.

39 ‘It is a miserable marriage. They live together like cat and dog …’ (Cardinal Lenoncourt to the Constable Montmorency), cited Rachfahl, F., Margareta von Parma, Statthalterin der Niederlande (Munich-Leipzig, 1898)Google Scholar.

40 Rahner, , Saint Ignatius Loyola, Letters, 133–48Google Scholar, gives a graphic account of this violent and terrible marriage.

41 On the del Gesso case, see Rahner, ibid., 192; O'Malley, The Fast Jesuits, 148, offers many instances of measures enjoined on the early Jesuits to avoid scandal, including (1553) that penitents should kneel at the side of the confessor's chair and that the priest should cover his eyes with his hand so as not to see them.

42 See Zarri, , ‘Ginevra Gozzadini dall'Armi …’ and Venturi, Tacchi, Storia delta Compagnia di Gesú 2, 2, 249Google Scholar, draws attention to a cartoon circulating in Bologna showing a wolf in Jesuit guise and women as sheep.

43 Pullan, B. and Chambers, D., Venice, a Documentary History (Oxford, 1992)Google Scholar. This story of the Jesuit of Vicenza became the basis of many others exaggerated in the telling. I am indebted to Kate Davies of the European University Institute, currently working on the Venetian Interdict, for this information.

44 The context of this development is found in Hufton, O., The Prospect Before Her: A History of Women in Western Europe (London, 1995), 374Google Scholar.

45 Conrad, A., Zwischen Kloster und Welt. Ursulinnen tmd Jesuitinnen in der katholischen Reformbeweung des 16/17 jarhunderts (Mainz, 1991)Google Scholar.

46 Chantal-Gueudre, M., Histoire de l'Ordre des Ursulines en France (Paris 1957–1963)Google Scholar. The funding behind the expansion of the Ursulines, and the reasons behind the transformation into an enclosed order, will be one of the concerns of this project.

47 Davis, N. Z., Women on the Margins: Three Seventeenth Century Lives (Cambridge, MA, 1995), 80–4Google Scholar.

48 Oury, G. M., Madame de la Peltrie et ses fondations canadiennes (Quebec, 1974), 44–55Google Scholar.

49 Oury, G., ed., Correspondence de Mère Marie de l'Incarnation (Solesmes, 1971), 909Google Scholar.

50 Michelet, J., Du Prêtre, de la Femme, de la Famille (Paris, 1845)Google Scholar, ran into three editions within a year and sold 50,000 copies in French before translation.