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Confraternities and the Church in Late Medieval Florence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

John Henderson
John Henderson*
Affiliation:
Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, University of Cambridge
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Extract

The confraternities of late-medieval Europe have been seen as associations which were in some ways almost independent of the Church, and drew their special dynamism from the fact that the parish was supposedly in decline and had ceased to provide an adequate religious service to the lay community. However true this may have been north of the Alps, the problem when this proposition is applied to southern Europe, and particularly Italy, is that very little is known about the late-medieval parish to ascertain whether confraternities were really syphoning off the adherence of the local inhabitants. So often our impressions about the state of the Italian church derive from the sporadic visitations of local bishops or the ribald stories of a Boccaccio or Franco Sacchetti, later repeated and taken almost at face value by such influential writers as Burkhardt. But we may also be in danger of seeing late-medieval religion filtered through sixteenth-century eyes and taking for granted the correctness of the criticisms of the Council of Trent or for that matter following Luther’s gripes that confraternities had become no more than beer-drinking clubs.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 23: Voluntary Religion , 1986 , pp. 69 - 83
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1986

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References

* Unless otherwise stated, all manuscripts cited are from the Archivo di Stato di Firenze.

1 Bossy, J., ‘The Counter-Reformation and the People of Catholic Europe’, Past and Present, 47 (1970) p. 59; Davis, N.Z., Society and Culture in Early Modern France (London 1977) p. 75.Google Scholar

2 See, for example, the studies of Northern Europe by Adam, P., La vie paroissiale en France au XIV’ siècle (Paris 1964) and Toussaert, J., Le sentiment religieux en Flandre à la fin du Moyen Age (Paris 1965). But see the sensitive remarks by Bossy, John in Christianity in the West 1400-1700 (Oxford 1985) pp. 62–63.Google Scholar

3 Cf Hay, D., The Church in Italy in the Fifteenth Century (Cambridge 1977) pp. 23–25, 52–57 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Research has begun in this field as can be seen from the conferences on the subject: for example, Le istituzioni ecclesiastiche della ‘Societas Christiana’ dei secoli XI-XII. Diocesi, pievi e parrocchie (Milan 1975) and P. Prodi, P. Johanek eds Strutture ecclesiastiche in Italia e in Germania prima della riforma (Bologna 1984).

4 On episcopal visitations see Hay, , The Church in Italy pp. 52–57; for S.Antonino’s visitations Orlandi, S., S.Antonino. Arcivescovo di Firenze (Florence 1959) I pp. 75–89, esp 82-88. Burckhardt, J., The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (London 1950)Google Scholar pt. VI, where his main target is the regular rather than the secular clergy.

5 See, for example, Pierre Janelle’s description of the ‘disease’ within the pre-Tridentine Church, in what has now become a standard work on the Counter-Reformation: The Catholic Reformation (London 1971 ed), cap. 1. For Luther’s views on confraternities: Luther’s Works, ed E.T. Backmann (Philadelphia 1960) 35 pp. 67-69.

6 Bossy, , Christianity p. 59; Owen, D.M., Church and Society in Medieval Lincolnshire (Lincoln 1971) p. 127; Galpern, N., The Religions of the People in Sixteenth-Century Champagne (Cambridge, Mass./London 1976) p. 59; Christian, W.A., Local Religion in Sixteenth-Century Spain (Princeton 1981) p. 52; Chiffoleau, J., ‘Les confréries, la mort et la religion en Comtat Venaissin à la fin du Moyen Age’, MEFRM 91 (1979) p. 800; de La Roncière, CM., ‘La place des confréries dans l’encadrement religieux du contado florentin: l’example de la Val d’Eisa’ MEFRM 85 (1973) p. 55.Google Scholar

7 For the population of Florence see D. Herlihy and C. Klapisch, Les toscans et leurs familles: une étude du catasto florentin de 1427 (Paris 1978) p. 183, and calculation of numbers of confraternities in the city: J.S. Henderson, ‘Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence. Lay Religious Confraternities from the middle of the thirteenth century to the late fifteenth century’ (University of London Ph.D. thesis 1983) p. 32: Table 1.2, and Chapters 2-3 for the devotional role of these companies.

8 Weissman, R.F.E., Ritual Brotherhood in Renaissance Florence (New York and London 1982) pp. 67–68, 118–120.Google Scholar

9 Henderson, ‘Piety and Charity’ p. 39 Google Scholar n. 4.

10 The best introduction to the whole subject is G.G. Meersseman, Ordo.Fraternitatis: confraternite e pietà dei laici nel medioevo (Rome 1977) 3 vols., and on the Florentine Third Order see the articles by A. Benvenuti Papi, among which ‘I frati della Penitenza nella società fiorentina del Due-Trecento’, I frati penitenti di San Francesco nella società del due e trecento, ed M. D’Alatri (Rome 1977) PP. 191-220.

11 Burial sites in these two churches can be traced in their Sepoltuarii: for S. Croce in 1439: ‘Sepoltuario di S. Croce’, MS 619, and the 1617 ‘Sepoltuario della chiesa di S.Maria Novella’, MS 621. See also M.B. Hall, Renovation and Counter-Reformation. Vasari and Duke Cosimo in Sta Maria Novella and Sta Croce, 1565-1577 (Oxford 1979) catalogue of chapels and docs. I-II.

12 One exception among the friaries is the Laudesi company founded by St. Peter Martyr in S.Maria Novella in 1244: Conv.Relig.Sopp.102.324, fol 3r; and in a parish church the Laudesi di S.Frediano, whose 1323 statutes mention the participation of the local priest in their compilation: Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze (cited as BNF), Palatino, 154, fol 6v, as do the 1447 statutes of the compagnia di S.Maria della Neve in S.Ambrogio: Capitoli Comp.Relig.Sopp. 606, fol 38r. Examples of clerical involvement in company foundations is more common in other cities, as for example in Siena. The prologue to the statutes of the Compagnia di S.Domenico in Campo Regio states that they were ‘scritti e composti da savissimi padri nostri frate Giovanni da Sangimignano, frate Ricovaro da Guardavalle e frate Francesco di Missere Gratia’: G. Prunai, ‘I capitoli della compagnia di San Domenico in Campo Regio’, Bollettino senese di storia patria, 47 (1940) p. 139; Meersseman pp. 464-465 (Perugia), 596 (Pisa), 603 (Prato). See also the foundation in 1291 of the compagnia della Vergine Maria in the Servite church in Siena: F.A. dal Pino, I Frati Servi di S. Maria dalle origini all’approvazione (1233ca-1304) (Louvain 1972) 2 pp. 167-168.

13 Henderson ‘Piety and Charity’ Chapter 8 traces this evolution.

14 See Weissman pp. 82-83; 97.

15 See the excellent description in C. Barr, ‘Lauda singing and the tradition of the disciplinati Mandato: a reconstruction of two texts of the Office of Tenebrae’, L’ars nova italiana del trecento (Certaldo 1978) pp. 2-44; this subject is also treated in detail in Henderson ‘Piety and Charity’, Chapters 2 and 3.

16 White, J., Duccio. Tuscan Art and the Medieval Workshop (London 1979) pp. 32–45 Google Scholar and esp. 33, on one of the most famous of Florentine confraternity altarpieces, the Rucellai Madonna, commissioned by the compagnia di S.Pier Martire in S.Maria Novella.

17 ‘Capitoli della Compagnia di S.Gilio’, Testi fiorentini del duecento e dei primi del trecento ed A. Schiaffini (Florence 1926) p. 35: ‘che ammoniscila et corregha tutti, cosi piccioli di questa compagnia come i grandi’.

18 Comp. Relig. Sopp. 2170.I, ch II, fol 32r: ‘Il sacerdote è in luogho di Gesù Christo et i capitani e consiglieri in luogho de’ sancti apostoli’.

19 I capitoli della compagnia di Gesù Pellegrino ed P. Ferrato (Padua 1871) (Nozze Carlotti-Cittadella Vigodezere) pp. 28-29.

20 Recorded in Comp. Relig. Sopp. 910.6.

21 Calculated from Ibid.

22 Trexler, R.C., Synodal Law in Florence and Fiesole, 1306-1518 (Città di Vaticano 1971) p. 63.Google Scholar

23 For example, ‘Libro degli ordinamenti della compagnia di Santa Maria del Carmine’, in Schiaffini p. 57.

24 ‘secondo la forma de’ nostri capitoli’ Ferrato p. 24.

25 A captain of the compagnia di Gesù Pellegrino was punished for dismissing the friar without consulting his colleagues: Comp. Relig. Sopp. 910.7, fol llr (30 Nov. 1366).

26 See the 1422 statutes of the Compagnia di Gesù Pellegrino: BNF, Magl. VIII. 1282, ch. XIII, fol 82r and the 1427 statutes of the compagnia di S. Zanobi: CRS 2170.1, cap. 8, fol 41r. The frate correttore of the first company was elected annually (Ferrato, p. 5) and could hold office for a number of years, as can be seen from the company’s account book for the period 1411-1431: Comp.Relig. Sopp.919.36. The three correctors during this twenty-year period were: Frate Domenico Ristori, a Master of Theology; Frate Andrea Ducei Betti, a sacristan and later syndic of S.Maria Novella; and Frate Agostino Dominici, Prior of S.Maria Novella. For the lives of these friars see S.Orlandi, ‘Necrologio’ di S. Maria Novella (Florence 1955) 2 pp. 126-128, 166-167, and 205-206.

27 The 1447 statutes of the compagnia di S.Pier Martire in Conventi Relig. Sopp. 102. 324, fols 3r-v; and the 1451 statutes of the Laudesi di SS. Annunziata (Capitoli CRS 6, fols 4r-7r) were ‘nuovamente coposti et ordinati per me Frate Mariano, lectore in theologia, e per certi altri de’ fratelli, per tutto il corpo della compagnia sopracio electi et deputati’.

28 Orlandi, S., ‘Il VII centenario della predicazione di S.Pietro Martire a Firenze (1245-1945)’, Memorie Domenicane, ns 22 (1947) pp. 47–48, 171–208.Google Scholar

29 Calculated from BL, Add MS 17, 310: entitled ‘Registro, cioè Memoriale di tutti i lasciti e possessioni della compagnia’.

30 Catasto 293, fol 34r-v.

31 Conventi Rel. Sopp. 102.324, cap 1, fol Ir. For a more detailed discussion of this process see Henderson ‘Piety and Charity’ pp. 119-126.

32 Catasto 291, fol 72r.

33 Documenti inediti o poco noti per la storia della Misericordia di Firenze (1240-1525) ed U. Morini (Florence 1940) p. 59: statutes of 1490: ‘Ma ritorni più splendida et più chalda nell’opere della misericordia et charità’.

34 Ibid. cap. 1 p. 60.

35 Cf. the general remarks by Meersseman, ‘Disciplinati e penitenti nel Duecento’, Il movimento dei disciplinati nel settimo centenario dal suo inizio (Perugia 1260). Deputazione di storia patria per l’Umbria, appendice al bolletino 9 (Perugia 1962) pp. 56-61.

36 Monti, G.M., Le confraternite medievale dell’alta e media Italia (Florence 1927) I p. 165.Google Scholar See also for indulgences to: the Laudesi di S. Lorenzo between 1338-1347 (G. Richa, Notizie istoriche delle chiese di Firenze (Florence 1757) 5 p. 91) and S. Giovanni Battista detto lo Scalzo (Monti I p. 262). Companies hung up lists of their spiritual privileges in their oratories, as in the 1331 (?) inventory of the compagnia di S. Zanobi in S. Reparata in Florence: ‘Uno suggello nel quale è la figura di nostra donna e l’angelo quando l’anunzia et sedici lettere concedute ala compagnia per cardinali et vescovi et altri prelati dove sono le perdonanze et l’endulgenze’: Comp.Relig.Sopp. 2170.4, fol 21r.

37 Richa 5 pp. 329-330; the compagnia di S.Pier Martire in S.Maria Novella from the Dominican Order: Orlandi, ‘Il VII centenario’, (1947) pp. 118, 178.

38 The compagnia di S.Pier Martire received indulgences from the bishop of Ostia (V. Fineschi, Memorie ¡storiche degli uomini illustri del convento di S.Maria Novella di Firenze (Florence 1790) pp. 118-119), and the compagnia di S. Zanobi from the bishop of Fiesole (BNF, Magl. XXXI. 133, p. 17). Meersseman notes indulgences by archbishops to confraternities in Bologna, Imola and Arezzo: pp. 467-469, 931, 933, and indulgences and letters of confraternity to companies of the Virgin in Spoleto, Bologna, Mantua, Vercelli, Arezzo, Perugia, Padua, Piacenza, Lodi and Faenza: pp. 1005-1015.

39 Monti 1, p. 59 mentions Urban V’s privileges to the compagnia di S.Maria della Croce al Tempio.

40 The compagnia de’ Magi had to pay about 150 ducats for their spiritual privileges in 1467: R. Hatfield, ‘The Compagnia de’ Magi’, The Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 33 (1970) pp. 151-152.

41 The episcopal confirmation of the compagnia della Madonna di Orsanmichele in 1294 is the only one of its kind to have so far been traced for the late thirteenth century: S. La Sorsa, La compagnia d’Or S. Michele ovvero una pagina della beneficenza in Toscana nel secolo XIV (Trani 1902) p. 190. Few episcopal approvals of statutes survive for the Trecento, although see the reference for the compagnia di Gesù Pellegrino in 1354 (Capitoli Comp.Relig.Sopp. 502, fol iv) and the laudesi di S. Frediano detta la Brucciata for 1368 (BNF, Palatino 154).

42 Discussed briefly by G. Le Bras, Études de sociologie religieuse (Paris 1955) 2 pp. 448-451.

43 Henderson, J., ‘Le confraternite religiose nella Firenze del tardo medioevo: patroni spirituali e anche politici?’, Ricerche storiche 15 (1985) pp. 77–94 Google Scholar summarises the relations between the commune and confraternities in Florence in the fifteenth century.

44 On Corsini and Antoninus see D.S. Peterson, ‘Archbishop Antoninus: Florence and the Church in the earlier fifteenth century’ (Ph.D. thesis Cornell University 1985).

45 Ibid. p. 486.

46 Partner, P., The Papal State Under Martin V (London 1958) pp. 53 Google Scholar, 67.

47 See above n 31 and for the Pope’s intervention in the affairs of the boys’ companies: R.C. Trexler, ‘Ritual in Florence: Adolescence and Salvation in the Renaissance’, The Pursuit of Holiness in Late Medieval and Renaissance Religion eds C. Trinkaus, H. Oberman (Leiden 1974) pp. 207-208.

48 Approbations have been traced for the following companies: Gesù Pellegrino, 20 Nov 1420: BNF, Magl.VIII.1282, fol 8r; S. Lorenzo: 12 Jan 1425: N.A. F507 (1423-27) fols 29r-30r; S Matteo in S.Spirito, 23 Nov 1420: N.A. S 672 (1417-21) at date; S. Michele Arcangelo in SS. Annunziata, 1420: N.A. S659-69 (1378-1456), fols 339V-340V; S. Zanohi, Cathedral, 1427 (? no date given): Comp. Relig. Sopp. 2170.1 fol 32r and N.A.J 7 (1417-27), at 1427 (no day or month); 5. Giovanni Evangelista, S Trinità dei Gesuati, 1427 (no day or month): N.A. F507 (1423-27) fols 29r-30r and BNF Magi. XXI.II fols 8v-9r; S: Benedetto, S.Trinità, 24 Dee 1431: Capitoli Comp. Relig. Sopp. 635 fol 13r; S Niccolò, S. Maria del Carmine, 24 Dec 1431: Capitoli, Comp. Relig.Sopp.439, fols 7r-v. See also approbations of statutes of companies in the contado in: N.A. F506 (1412-23), fols 227r-v, 229r, 252v-253r.

49 N. A. F507 (1423-27), fol 29V: ‘In prima nel capitolo terzo delle dette constitutioni dopo le parole ‘facesse capo’ agiunse queste parole cioè “Intervenendoci la licentia di messer l’arcivescovo di Firenze o di suo vicario”.

50 Ibid. ‘Item in nel decto capitolo agiunse dopo le parole che dicono “l’anime di tutti li huomini della compagnia” queste parole, cioè “Riservate tutte le ragioni e iurisdictioni delle chiese parrochiali”’.

51 See the approbation of the 1466 statutes of the compagnia di S.Antonio da Padova in S.Maria Soprarno: Comp.Relig.Sopp. 137.6 fols 18r-v; the 1476 statutes of the compagnia di S.Domenico in S.Maria Novella: Biblioteca Riccardiana MS 3041, fols 25v-27r in Meersseman 2 pp. 740-741. In 1467 the Pope granted the compagnia de’ Magi the right to take communion in their oratory, with the exception of Easter Day: Hatfield doc II p. 152.

52 Trexler, R.C., ‘The Episcopal Constitutions of Antoninus of Florence’, Quellen und Forschungen aus Italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, 54 (1979) p. 258.Google Scholar

53 S. Orlandi 2 pp. 211-214, 313-316; R. Moray, Saint Antonin (Paris 1914) pp. 89-90. Statutes approved by Antoninus include those of the following companies: S.Maria della Neve, Capitoli Comp.Relig.Sopp. 606, fols 50v-51r; S.Giovanni Battista tra le arcore: N.A. S 690 at date, published by Orlandi I pp. 187-188; Purificazione della Madonna ovvero di S.Marco: BNF, Magl.VIII. 1500,11 fol 22v; S.Maria della Croce al Tempio, 1448 (?), mentioned by G.B. Uccelli, Della compagnia de S.Maria della Croce al Tempio (Florence 1864) p. 20, but with no source; S.Giovanni Scalzo, Capitoli Comp.Relig.Sopp. 152 fols 1-14, published by Richa 7 pp. 199-200; S.Andrea dei purgatori e cardatori: Capitoli Comp.Relig.Sopp. 870 fol 16v (1455). According to Moray, S.Antonin pp. 91 n 2, 473-4, Antonino confirmed the statutes of the S.Giovanni Evangelista; S.Niccolò del Ceppo in 1450; to F. Moisè, S.Croce (Florence 1845) P. 422, the statutes of the compagnia di S.Francesco in S.Croce; and to Ferdinando del Migliore, ‘Registro delle compagnie di Firenze’, BNF, Magi xxv, 418 fol 89, those of S.Lorenzo in Piano in 1447. According to tradition S.Antonino is supposed to have founded the Buonomini di S.Martino, but according to the most recent historian of the company there is no evidence for his direct intervention: A.Spicciani, ‘The “poveri vergognosi” in fifteenth-century Florence. The first thirty years’ activity of the Buonomini di S.Martino’, Aspects of Poverty in Early Modern Europe, ed T. Riis (Stuttgart 1981) p. 162 n 10.

54 Trexler, , ‘Episcopal Constitutions’, p. 256.Google Scholar

55 ibid.

56 Henderson, ‘Le confraternite’ p. 85.

57 On which see R.C. Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence (New York, London 1980) cap 8.

58 Trexler, ‘Episcopal Constitutions’ p. 265.

59 Statuta concilii Florentini (anno 1517) (Florence 1564), cap 7, p. 26.

60 Trexler, Synodal Law, pp. 118, 120.

61 La Sorsa pp. 101-114; Saalman, H., The Bigallo. The Oratory and Residence of the Compagnia del Bigallo e della Misericordia in Florence (New York 1969).Google Scholar

62 Cronica di Giovanni Villani a miglior lezione ridotta (Florence 1825) 1, VII, clv, pp. 362-363.

63 The Compagnia di S.Giovanni Scalzo bought land in 1407 from the church of S.Pietro del Murrone and subsequently built an oratory: Comp.Rel.Sopp. 1190. A, fols 6r-8v; the compagnia di S.Paolo bought in 1438 the existing complex of the Trinità Vecchia: Comp.Rel.Sopp. 1579, fol 58r; the compagnia di Gesù Pellegrino built an oratory in 1455 (Comp.Rel.Sopp.906.A, fol IIr) on land belonging to S.Maria Novella, as did the compagnia di S.Domenico in 1465: Meersseman p. 698; the compagnia di S.Antonio Abbate began theirs in 1490: Comp.Relig.Sopp. 112.13, fol rr, and the compagnia di S.Zanobi of the Cathedral theirs in 1478: Catasto 989, fol 469r.

64 On Florentine sacramental companies see Weissman pp. 220-235.