Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-31T19:09:59.418Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘Adapt Yourselves to the People's Capabilities’: Missionary Strategies, Methods and Impact in the Kingdom of Naples, 1600–1800

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2009

David Gentilcore
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

At a time when European missionaries were active in the New World to capture the souls of the ‘heathen’ for Catholicism, their confrères were conducting missions throughout Europe itself. For more than two centuries these missions – variously known as internal, parish or popular – were a crucial aspect of religious life, with numerous religious orders and congregations seeking to weave a fabric of evangelisation and catechetical instruction in areas of Europe that were nominally Catholic but were in many ways cut off from orthodox Tridentine Catholicism. This was particularly so in isolated areas on the European periphery. Southern Italy is a case in point. The persistent absence of an efficient parish structure and the dominance of a rather worldly collegiate clergy in the Kingdom of Naples left a large gap in organised religious life in the years following the end of the Council of Trent (1563), a gap that the missions attempted to fill. The mobilisation of preachers, confessors and instructors was vast, concentrated and unceasing. Such is the significance of the missions that they have been identified as the ‘most characteristic and important’ phenomenon of Italian religious history in the seventeenth century. One way to examine their scale and impact would be to map the areas missionised by the various congregations. But this serial approach would tell us very little, other than the fact that all of the towns and villages were visited, most of them repeatedly, over the centuries. Moreover, the varying quality of the surviving records would permit only partial results.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , April 1994 , pp. 269 - 296
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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 Ginzburg, Carlo, ‘Folklore, magia, religione’, Storia d'Italia, I: I caratteri originali, Turin 1972, 603–76, at p. 656Google Scholar.

2 Ibid. 652.

3 Chiappa, Paola Vismara, ‘Forme della pietà barocca nelle campagne lombarde tra Sei e Settecento’, in De Maddalena, A., Rotelli, E., and Barbarisi, G. (eds), Economia, istiluzioni, cultura in Lombardia nell'età di Maria Teresa, II: Cultura e società, Bologna 1982, 815–16Google Scholar.

4 For biographies of Jesuit missioners active throughout the Italian peninsula, see Guidetti, Armando, Le missioni popolari: i grandi Gesuiti italiani, Milan 1988Google Scholar.

5 For a description of Jesuit missionary procedure, see Chavarria, Elisa Novi, ‘L'attività missionaria dei Gesuiti nel Mezzogiorno d'Italia tra XVI e XVIII secolo’, in Galasso, G. and Russo, C. (eds), Per la storia sociale e religiosa del Mezzogiorno d'Italia, ii, Naples 1982, 159–85Google Scholar. For a study of the other orders active in and around Naples, see Maria Gabriella Rienzo, ‘Ilprocesso di cristianizzazione e le missioni popolari nel Mezzogiorno: aspetti istituzionali e socio-religiosi’, ibid. i. 440–81. An introductory study of the early Jesuit missions in Apulia is Rosa, Mario, ‘Strategia missionaria gesuitica in Puglia agli inizi del Seicento’, in his Religione e società tra Cinque e Seicento, Bari 1976, 245–72Google Scholar.

6 For the year 1649 there exist both a relation of the mission in Lecce and a reference to it in the annual letters, allowing this comparison, whereas generally in the surviving records the relation of a mission takes the place of a reference in the annual letters: ARSI, Neap. 74, xxvi; xxvii, fos 251–2V, 254.

7 ASV, Congregazione dei Riti, no. 2022, fo. 232.

8 Cf. Prosperi, Adriano, ‘“Otras Indias”: missionari della Controriforma tra contadini e selvaggi’, in Scienze, credenze occulte, livelli di cultura: convegno internazionale di studi, Florence 1982, 206–34, at pp. 217–18Google Scholar; and Delumeau, Jean, ‘La storia della cristianizzazione’, in his Cristianità e cristianizzazione, Casale Monferrato 1983, 177Google Scholar.

9 The expression is used by Croix, Alain with regard to the Jesuit missions in rural Brittany: La Bretagne aux 16e el 17e siècles: la vie, la mort, la foi, Paris 1981, ii. 1242Google Scholar.

10 ARSI, Neap. 75, ii, fo. 21Google Scholar.

11 StMaurizio, Leonardo da Porto, Opere complete, Venice 1868, iv. 556–9Google Scholar; cited in Orlandi, Giuseppe, ‘La missione popolare redentorista in Italia, dal Settecento ai giorni nostri’, SHCSR xxxiii (1985), 51–141, at p. 59Google Scholar. The issue is devoted to the popular missions of the Redemptorists in Europe.

12 Silva, Pompeo, Cenni storici sulla Congregazione delta Missione in Italia (1642–1925), Piacenza 1925, 170–8Google Scholar.

13 ‘Libro in cui si notano le Missioni fatte dalla Casa della Missione di Lecce’, Archivio della Casa della Missione, Lecce, i. 1733–1902Google Scholar.

14 Leoniano, Archivio del Collegio, Rome, ‘Ordini per quelli che vanno in Missione’Google Scholar, fo. 17V; cited in Mezzadri, Luigi, ‘Le missioni popolari della Congregazioni della Missione nello Stato della Chiesa (1642–1700)’, Rivista di storia della Chiesa in Italia xxxiii (1979), 12–44, at p. 35Google Scholar.

15 Prosperi, Adriano, ‘Il missionario’, in Villari, Rosario (ed.), L'uomo barocco, Rome 1991, 179–218, at p. 216Google Scholar.

16 ARSI, Neap. 73, xliv, fos 453–5Google Scholar.

17 Boland, Samuel, ‘The missionary methods of the Redemptorists’, SHCSR xxx (1982), 401–47, at p. 409Google Scholar.

18 Gagliardi, Vincenzo, ‘Direttorio Apostolico o sia Metodo di Missione in cui ci sono gli esercizj da farsi in essa per bene delle anime’, 1806Google Scholar, fo. 156: manuscript reprinted with introduction and appendixes by Orlandi, Giuseppe in SHCSR xxx (1982), 5–289Google Scholar. Orlandi notes that it was written in a very fine hand to minimise the use of paper and bound compactly in robust leather covers (16°) so that it could be carried from town to town on missions, given the fact that many areas were without books or else the missioner might not have time to prepare himself: introduction, 29.

19 Delumeau, Jean, ‘Missioni “interne” nel XVII secolo’, in Cristianità, 206–9Google Scholar.

20 Gagliardi, ‘Direttorio Apostolico’, fo. 134.

21 Pinamonti, Giovanni Pietro, ‘Istruzioni per le Missioni’, ARSI, Opera Nostrorum, 225Google Scholar.

22 Mezzadri, , ‘Missioni popolari’, 21Google Scholar. For this shift in emphasis cf. Delumeau, , ‘Missioni “interne”’, 185Google Scholar.

23 ARSI, Neap. 1, iv, fo. 28Google Scholar.

24 In the overseas missions ‘accommodation’ also entailed the assuming of local dress and customs, but only in societies considered advanced and whose religions were deemed non-idolatrous, such as that of China. Missions here were reserved for the ruling classes. (For an example of this strategy, see Spence, Jonathan, The memory palace of Matteo Ricci, London 1984Google Scholar.) The strategies used in the European missions, however, had more in common with those applied in the Americas, whose peoples were regarded as idolatrous and less advanced. According to this categorisation, American ‘savage’ equalled European ‘peasant’: Prosperi, , ‘Il missionario’, 203Google Scholar.

25 Orlandini, Nicolò, Historiae Societatis Iesu prima pars, Rome 1615, 540Google Scholar, cited in Venturi, Pietro Tacchi, Storia della Compagnia di Gesù in Italia, narrata col sussidio di fonti inedite, i, Rome 1950, 240–1Google Scholar.

26 ARSI, Neap. 76 1, xviii, fos 96–7Google Scholar.

27 Ibid. iv, fo. 27.

28 Ibid. fo. 27V.

29 Ibid.

30 ARSI, Neap. 73, xliv, fo. 454VGoogle Scholar.

31 Ibid.Neap. 74, xvi, fo. 215.

32 Ibid.Neap. 76 1, iv, fo. 27.

33 Ibid. xviii, fo. 108v.

34 Paolucci, Scipione, Missioni de padri della Compagnia di Giesù nel Regno di Napoli, Naples 1651, 127Google Scholar.

35 Corbo, Anna Maria, ‘Relazione descrittiva degli archivi notarili romani dei secoli xiv–xv nell'Archivio di Stato e nell'Archivio Capitolino’, in Brezzi, P. and Lee, E. (eds), Sources of social history: private acts of the late Middle Ages, Toronto 1984, 49–67, at pp. 61–2Google Scholar. My thanks to Dr Lee for drawing this to my attention.

36 Paolucci, , Missioni de padri, 138Google Scholar.

37 ARSI, Neap. 76 1, x, fo. 53r–vGoogle Scholar.

38 Ibid.Neap. 75, viii, fo. 53.

39 Paolucci, , Missioni de padri, 278Google Scholar. The reserved section of the Jesuit Catalogue (catalogus secretus) for 1649 describes Saraco as being of ‘boni ingenij, iudicij, ac prudentiæ…aptus ad docendum rheotricam & ad missiones’: ARSI, Neap. 83, fo. 167Google Scholar.

40 Paolucci, , Missioni di padri, 281Google Scholar.

41 ARSI, Neap. 76 1, iv, fo. 28Google Scholar.

42 Cf. Rosa, , ‘Strategia’, 165Google Scholar. The list compiled in July 1607 is testimony to this: ARSI, ‘De Sodalitatibus in prov. Neap.’, Neap. 72, xvGoogle Scholar.

43 Châtellier, Louis, The Europe of the devout: the Catholic Reformation and the formation of a new society, trans. Birrell, J., Cambridge 1989, 21Google Scholar.

44 Lopez, Pasquale, ‘Le confraternite laicali in Italia e la Riforma Cattolica’, Rivista di studi salernitani ii (1969), 153–238, at p. 183Google Scholar.

45 The ‘condition of the clergy’ and Tridentine reform is discussed in Gentilcore, David, From bishop to witch: the system of the sacred in early modern Terra d'Otranto, Manchester 1992, ch. iiGoogle Scholar.

46 Prosperi, , ‘Missionario’, 205Google Scholar.

47 This was the method adopted in an unnamed town during a mission in 1650: ARSI, Neap. 75, ii, fo. 21vGoogle Scholar.

48 Ibid.Neap. 76 1, xi, fos 68–9.

49 ‘Regole particolari per le sante missioni di fuori della Congregazione delle Apostoliche Missione’, Naples 1768, 36, 45–6Google Scholar; cited in Semeraro, Marcello, Le Apostoliche Missioni: la congregazione dei ‘Padri Salesiani’ o ‘Preti Pietosi’ nel Sette-Ottocento Leccese, Rome 1980, 36Google Scholar.

50 Gagliardi, ‘Direttorio Apostolico’, fo. 154. A similar sermon by the Redemptorist Ludovico Altarelli is cited by De Rosa, Gabriele in Vescovi, popolo e magia nel Sud, Naples 1983, 215Google Scholar.

51 Gagliardi, ‘Direttorio Apostolico’, fos 173–4.

52 Ibid. fos 267–8.

53 ARSI, Neap. 73, xliv, fo. 455Google Scholar.

54 Ibid. fo. 454.

55 ARSI, Neap. 74, xvi, fo. 215Google Scholar.

56 Ibid.Neap. 73, xxix, fo. 258r.

57 Ibid. xii, fo. 113V.

58 Ibid.Neap. 75, xi, fos 86v–7r. The whole account is presented in terms of a military reconquest. Indeed, military terminology and imagery is used throughout the mission relations – common are the ‘little raids’, or excursiunculae, into the countryside – along with agricultural (tending the vineyard, reaping a good harvest).

59 Ibid. vii, fo. 41V, for one example.

60 ARSI, Neap. 76 1, x, fo. 54VGoogle Scholar.

61 Ibid.Neap. 76 11, lxxiii, fo. 542.

62 Muratori, Ludovico Antonio, Dei pregi della eloquenza popolare, Venice 1750, 30Google Scholar.

63 Idem, Delia forza delta fantasia umana, Venice 1753, 119.

64 ARSI, Neap. 75, iv, fo. 30Google Scholar.

66 Ibid.Neap. 74, xvi, fo. 216.

66 Much has been written about ‘living saints’ in early modern Italy; for a discussion and bibliography, see Gentilcore, David, ‘The Church, the devil and the healing activities of living saints after the Council of Trent’, in Grell, Ole Peter and Cunningham, Andrew (eds), Medicine and the Reformation, London 1993, 134–55Google Scholar.

67 Gruzinski, Serge, ‘Christianisation ou occidentalisation? Les sources romaines d'une antropologie historique’, Mélanges de l'Ecole Française de Rome: Italie et Mediterranée, ci (1989), 733–50, at pp. 744, 748Google Scholar.

68 Gagliardi, ‘Direttorio Apostolico’, fo. 22.

69 ‘Dorotea Rossi denuncia diverse donne per pratiche magiche’, 24 Jul. 1742, Diocesano, Archivio, Oria, , Magia 11Google Scholar.

70 ASV, Congregazione dei Riti, no. 2022, fos 339r–41v.

71 Paolucci, , Missioni de padri, 75Google Scholar.

72 Ibid. 273.

73 ARSI, Neap. 74, xvi, fo. 215VGoogle Scholar.

74 Paolucci, , Missioni de padri, 273Google Scholar.

75 Delumeau, , ‘Missioni interne’, 223Google Scholar.

76 ARSI, Neap. 76 1, xxxiii, fo. 185Google Scholar. As an indication of the ambivalence, there are examples of missions being requested in cases of natural calamities like drought or pests, where the ‘ecclesiastical remedies’ of the local clergy – blessings, exorcisms, processions with relics– had failed.

77 Ibid.Neap. 73, xii, fo. 114.

78 Ibid.Neap. 76 1, vii, fos 40–v.

79 With trial records one could also include records of beatification and canonisation processes. The testimony of witnesses can be quite revealing. I consulted the records regarding St Francesco de Geronimo, a native of Terra d'Otranto who conducted missions throughout the Kingdom of Naples (nn. 7, 70). However, the nature of the source means that the emphasis of testimony tends to be on the extraordinary gifts and achievements of de Geronimo, which qualify him for eventual canonisation. Witnesses who had experienced his missions dwelt on his saintliness to such an extent that it is difficult to get a feel for how they were affected by ordinary missions, conducted by ordinary missioners.

80 Deposition of de Milato, Donatantonia, ‘Contro Nicodemo Salinaro per sortilegi’, Francavilla 1678Google Scholar, Diocesano, Archivio, Oria, , Magia 111, fos 52r–3rGoogle Scholar.

81 Antonia Quaranta, ibid, fos 86v–7v.

82 Tommaso de Milato, ibid, fos 166v–8v.

83 ARSI, Neap. 76 1, xxxiii, fo. 185Google Scholar.

84 Relation of Fr Pier Maria Terusio to Revd Bernardini, provincial of Rome, 16 June 1699, ARSI, Rom. 136, fos 169–70Google Scholar; cited in Orlandi, Giuseppe, ‘Missioni parrocchiali e drammatica popolare’, SHCSR xxii (1974), 313–48, at p. 341Google Scholar.

85 For instance, in Milan in 1767 Jesuit urban missions were forbidden, in anticipation of the suppression of the Society, but they were allowed to continue with their rural missions: Chiappa, Vismara, ‘Forme’, 827Google Scholar.

86 ARSI, Neap. 76 1, fo. 56VGoogle Scholar.

87 Baldinucci, Antonio, ‘Avvertimenti utilissimi a chi desidera impiegarsi nelle missioni, cavati dall'esperienza di quei che le han fatte per molti anni’, ARSI, Opera Nostrorum 299, fo. 5Google Scholar; cited in Orlandi, , ‘Missioni parrocchiali’, 339Google Scholar.

88 Orlandi, Giuseppe, ‘L. A. Muratori e le missioni di P. Segneri Jr.’, SHCSR xx (1972), 158–93, at pp. 172–4Google Scholar.

89 Letters of 20 June, 6 Jul. 1712 in Epistolario di L. A. Muratori, ed. Campori, M., Modena 1902, iv. 1472Google Scholar, cited in Orlandi, , ‘Muratori’, 183–4Google Scholar.

90 Muratori, Ludovico Antonio, La vita di P. P. Segneri iuniore, Modena 1720Google Scholar.

91 Cf. Imbruglia, Girolamo, ‘Dalle storie dei santi alia storia naturale della religione: l'idea moderna di superstizione’, Rivista storica italiana ci (1989), 35–84, esp. pp. 70–8Google Scholar.

92 Muratori, Ludovico Antonio, Delia regolata divozion de' Cristiani, Venice 1761, viGoogle Scholar.

93 Ibid. 379, 343.

94 Ibid. 347. The Agnus Dei was a small wax medallion stamped with the figure of a paschal lamb, whilst a breve was a small pouch into which was sewn a written prayer or other devotional object. Both were frequently used in popular culture as talismans and healing relics.

95 The last surviving mission relation penned locally dates from 1687, so that the relations themselves cannot shed further light on this possible development.

96 Cf. Rossi, Annabella, Le feste dei poveri, Palermo 1986, 75–6Google Scholar.

97 de Martino, Ernesto, Sud e magia, Turin 1966, 36–8Google Scholar.

98 Chavarria, Novi, ‘L'attività’, 181Google Scholar. The sociologist Michael Carroll refers to these surviving penitential forms as an example of what he calls ‘Mezzogiorno masochism’: Madonnas that maim: popular Catholicism in Italy since the fifteenth century, Baltimore 1992, 129–37Google Scholar.

99 ‘Interdictum sacrae passionis mysteriae exprimere’, Naples, 4 05 1779Google Scholar, in Giustiniani, Lorenzo, Nuova collezione delle prammatiche del Regno di Napoli, Naples 1803–1805, iv 276Google Scholar. It is somewhat ironic that the punishment for public flagellation should be an equally public whipping.

100 Barrella, Giovanni, La Compagnia di Gesù nelle Puglie, Lecce 1941, 79, n. 12Google Scholar.

101 Turrisi, Carmelo, La diocesi di Oria nell'Ottocento, Rome 1978, 331–2Google Scholar.

102 Verucci, Guido, ‘Chiesa e società nell'Italia della Restaurazione (1814–1830)’, Rivista di storia della Chiesa in Italia xxx (1976), 25–72, at p. 61Google Scholar.

103 Croix, , Bretagne, ii. 1240Google Scholar.