INTRODUCTION

“Spies … are for sovereigns, not for religious bodies … Therefore you ought to rid yourself of your spies [among the companies].” The image of a vast network of tightly controlled and highly disciplined cadres infiltrating every level of society under the direction of Jesuits has been a popular myth since at least the eighteenth century. Political intrigues, blood oaths, and secret surveillance on the part of Jesuit-sponsored confraternities have been some of the elements which make up these grand conspiracy theories. While considerable ink has been spilt in proving and disproving these conspiracies, much of the early data on Jesuit–lay collaboration has only recently begun to receive critical examination. Perhaps some kernels of truth emerge to support the dark interpretations of universal Jesuit control; nevertheless, the efforts of the Society of Jesus appear to have remained much more modest.

Historians of early modern Catholicism have often interpreted the advent of the educational systems and their related institutions as a response to the crisis of the Protestant Reformation. For conspiracy theorists, Jesuit control of education was a means to control society, and Jesuit sponsored companies extended that control even further. Increasingly, however, emphasis is being placed on these schools as essentially part of the Catholic formula for reform. In the first years of the Jesuit enterprise, their schools sought to strengthen and adapt many existing Catholic practices, among them lay confraternities. These organizations, in turn, provided support and helped to propagate new Jesuit schools.