Abstract

As presented in this chapter, during the petition process, supplicants defined their impairments through dialogue with the Papal Chancery. They drew on medical and religious culture, evident in the specific words deployed in letters, to present the causes of their impairments and to relate their ongoing experiences. Letters from the Chancery in response make use of similar terminology and frameworks, highlighting that petitioners’ conceptualizations of disability was shared by the Curia's staff and vice versa. The legal, cultural, and linguistic frameworks provided by Chapters 1 and 2 allow us to develop argumentative strands in the later chapters.

Keywords: Discourses; Aetiology; Medicine; Religion

All applicants to the orders were subject to vetting to ensure their suitability. Yet men hoping to become responsible for the care of souls (cura animarum) were under even more intense scrutiny. The care of souls was perhaps the single most important task in the clerical portfolio; clerics with such benefices must be above reproach, and thus were held to higher standards of idoneity than the rank-and-file clergy. This is exemplified in a letter from Urban VI (1318–1389) to the Franciscan leadership, written at some point after 1381 and collected by the convent S. Francesco di Conegliano, now preserved in the Archivio Status Tervisii. The Pope addresses Ludovicus de Venetiis, Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor, and Marcus de Conegliano, professor of the same Order, on an urgent matter: ensuring that sufficient checks have been undertaken on a candidate pursuing the role of master in the order, Brother Franciscus Belluni. Beyond illuminating this specific case, the letter reveals how the popes continued to resolve the tricky question of access to the sacred orders at the beginning of the Great Schism.

Franciscus’ request is neither as straightforward nor as simple as it might first appear. Masters in the Franciscan order were permitted to preach, to give sermons and to celebrate the divine offices.

General Considerations

When, after exile, in 1799 Ferdinand IV re-entered Naples, among many thingsto do, he wanted to remove from the Carmine Masaniello’s remains.This is why today we do not find the seventeenth-century tombstone, butrather an inscription, on a nearby wall, which reads:

The king’s action did not snuff out the rebel’s memory. WithNaples still restive, the famous Capopopolo soon became ananti-Bourbon myth. The man who propelled this myth, in the period thischapter surveys, was Giuseppe Mazzini, who spoke of the seventeenth-centuryrevolt in his work on the 1799 revolution. Never finished, it was publishedonly fairly recently, by Lauro Rossi, in his Mazzini e larivoluzione napoletana del 1799. Ricerche sull’Italiagiacobina. But let us first survey what came to pass beforethat happened.

Against the Foreigners

For originality, Gian Maria Arrighi’s Saggio storico perservire di studio alle rivoluzioni politiche, e civili del regno diNapoli (1809), in its pages on the revolt has little sparkle.The author did not recruit Masaniello to champion liberty from the“foreigners”; the Saggio’s dedicationto Joachim-Napoléon Murat, Corsican-born ruler of Naples, helps tellwhy. Nevertheless, Arrighi did stoke thinking ill of the old SpanishVice-realm; that practice would go on. Some important novelties in theMasaniello myth’s adventure were introduced by an Irish writer, LadyMorgan (Sydney Owenson), the author of several works clearly inspired byGermaine de Staël: Woman, or Ida of Athens (1809)for instance, and O’Donnel (1814). Lady Morganachieved fame with Italy, a history Byron defined as“fearless and excellent.”

So it came about that, on the evening of the 17th, boys went to rescueMasaniello’s remains. Tutini and Verde relate that his friend,Mercurio Cimmino, grieving his death greatly, paid ten ducats to someyoungsters to bring him to the Carmine.1 Masaniello’s body lay near amill. The boys fetched it, washed it,

Then, they went looking for the head, which had been thrown into the Fosse diGrano, a part of the grain storage complex. They worked fast becauseMichelangelo Ardizzone, who oversaw those places, had had a cannon installedthere. Masaniello’s remains were then brought back to the Carmine.There they were washed again in a tank filled with wine and myrrh, and sewnback together. Masaniello was once more whole. They placed on his head a hatwith a splendid big feather, in his hands the sword and staff “ofCapitan Generale,” and they laid him on a bier,and then covered him with a velvet cloth with a gold border, belonging tothe Carmine. The bier was installed in front of the great altar, where itremained for several hours.

It Is Not a Miracle…

In assorted works of the dawning eighteenth century, Masaniello receivedoccasional mention, a page or more, seldom at all flattering. First, PaoloMattia Doria, in his famous Relazione dello stato politico,economico e civile del Regno di Napoli [Relation of thePolitical, Economic and Civil Condition of the Kingdom ofNaples] (1709–1712) remarked that the rise of afishmonger like Masaniello made patent the crisis besetting the kingdom.Then Giannone, in his Dell’istoria civile del regno diNapoli, which for the kingdom’s revolts looked to theseventeenth-century Historia della repubblica veneta ofGian Battista Nani, referred to Masaniello’s rise as a phenomenon ofthose grim years. Once in command, Giannone wrote, Masaniello began to rulewith unchecked authority: “Head of the Seditious, and Soul of theInsurrection, proposed the Pretensions, imposed Silence, disposed theMotions, and, as if he had the Destiny of them all in his Power, killed witha Nod, and set fire with a Look; for, to what Place so-ever he beckoned,Heads were struck off, and Houses kindled.”

Sometime towards the end of the sixth century a wandering holy man and his small band of companions came to the court of a Frankish king. The holy man was going to continue on his journey, but the king begged him to stay – everything would be provided for if he remained within the bounds of the kingdom. At length, the holy man was persuaded by the king’s arguments – he would satisfy his desire to follow Christ by finding an ascetic retreat in the wilderness, while his presence would contribute to the salvation of the king and his people.

Whatever the truth of this story about the encounter between the Irish peregrinus Columbanus and King Sigibert I (d. 575) that led to the establishment of Annegray, Columbanus’s first monastic foundation on the Continent, its author, Jonas of Bobbio, used it to illustrate the reciprocal relationship that, by the mid-seventh century, had now become commonplace between monastic founders and the Frankish elite. Annegray was the first in a series of monastic foundations that continued well into the seventh century that would transform the inter-relationship between monastic groups and secular authorities in the early Middle Ages.

Within a century of Columbanus’s death in 615, more than a hundred new monasteries had been founded in the Merovingian kingdom.

There. The smallest pause. And then, a slight withdrawal. The promise of a touch, not yet delivered, never accomplished; suspended – a moment of expectancy split between two desires: longing to be touched and wanting to touch. Saint Agatha is brought into the light: a body of pain and acceptance. Her head tilted to one side. Her naked breast revealing a sharp cut, with small drops of blood dribbling down the brittle white dress. The angel shows the way. Saint Peter moves slowly, his hand gently guided by the angel – such a strange presence, almost like a negative projection, his skull rendered against the white light, his vision impaired. He reaches for the opening of the wound, and yet, he does not touch it. He pauses. Two hands suspended in mid-air – a touch without contact; or perhaps, a touch in separation, at the limit. The painting stages the ellipse of touch; its limits and possibilities, its syncope; it invites us to touch the very limit of touch.

Giovanni Lanfranco’s Saint Peter Healing Saint Agatha (1613–1614) (Image 6) presents two forms of touch turned against each other: touching to see and touching to no longer see; touching the untouchable, the inaccessible, or the unapproachable.

“As Spirited and Vivacious as a Person Could Be”

But who was Masaniello? What do we know about his looks, his character, andhis past? Giraffi portrayed him as: “a man of spirit and easy speech,of middling height, black of eye, more thin than fat, with a shock of hair,and a blond moustache; barefoot, wearing a shirt, and cloth leggings, with acloth cap on his head in sailor fashion, but good-looking, as spirited andvivacious as a person could be, and as the effects have shown him tobe.” He then added that his “profession” was to“fish for small fish with the rod and with the hook, and to buy fish,and carry it, and to sell it to some private persons of his quarter, and inNaples such persons are called fish-mongers.” Indeed, Masanielloworked at the so-called Pietra del Pesce (Fish Rock). Nevertheless, ratherthan plying the fisherman’s craft, he sold bundles of scrap paper andcast-offs of fish, along with his brother. So, he was a labourer evenhumbler than what the chronicler describes here. For Giraffi, such low rankmay have made it rather awkward to champion his unlikely protagonist.

From other sources one learns that Masaniello also did domestic service,sometimes without pay. This was the case with Giovan Carlo Cacace, whoaccepted the bundle he had brought and told him not to show his face again,unless he wanted a good clubbing. Another time, the well-known bandit,Nicola Ametrano, left him without enough change to buy even a bite toeat.

Abstract

The introduction presents the main historical context to the study at hand, with an in-depth focus on the corpus: the petitions sent to the popes and the letters written in answer by the Papal Chancery. It investigates the identity of the petitioners, alongside procedures and regulations relating to the written documents themselves. Most writers were members of the Italian and French high clergy, though individuals from all levels of the Church are represented in the petitions. The correspondence between such clerics and the Papal Chancery depended upon established writing and regulatory processes, both in terms of the rules put in place by the Chancery to guarantee its intervention and the mechanisms available to supplicants for reporting their impairments and making an effective case for dispensations.

Keywords: Petition; Papal Letters; Experiences; Methodology; Discourses

Using this sentence, Pope Leo found much-needed biblical justification for an act that appeared senseless to all those around him. Shortly after his election to the papacy, Leo had encountered a beautiful woman who, with due reverence, kissed his hand chastely. This unleashed within Leo, as legend has it, a fleshly temptation so powerful that he had only one option to staunch its fire: to cut off his hand, as prescribed in Matthew 5.30. Whilst this may have resolved the new Pope's internal spiritual struggles, it generated another set of problems entirely, even threatening his position as leader of the Church. Following canonical regulations on clerical impairment, his distal forearm amputation rendered him ineligible to perform Mass. The clergy openly voiced their dissatisfaction with a pontiff who could not fulfil one of the most basic, one of the most important, clerical tasks. Their disparaging sentiments were shared by the Roman laity, who threatened a revolt against Leo's religious authority. And so, Leo turned to another beautiful woman to resolve his situation: he entrusted his misfortunes to the Virgin Mary and prayed to her for a miraculous remedy. She dutifully appeared to him in a vision, restored his hand and explicitly authorized him to celebrate Mass.

Abstract

This chapter probes the fate of the disabled men who were less fortunate: those who had to leave the clergy entirely, either of their own volition or due to the severity of their disability. At times, poor health or impairment forced clerics to resign from their positions as they became unable to perform their rights and duties. Often, they were forced to find care and support outside of their clerical community. Case studies demonstrate, however, that petitions and pontifical letters sometimes allowed for the adaptation, even contravention, of existing rules so that the disabled former clerics could live out their days with dignity.

Keywords: Resignation: Retirement; Transfers; Leprosaria

Invoking the sixth-century Pope Gregory the Great, Gratian sets out a roster of unsuitable candidates for the priestly office in his Decree, written between 1140 and 1150. He cites the usual suspects – men who have been married twice, simoniacs, usurers, and so on – before seizing upon the least desirable of all: the mad, or as Gratian puts it, men ‘rendered frantic or possessed by the devil’ (forssenez ou travaillez del deable). It seems clear, then, that an individual with defectus mentis is prohibited from entering the priesthood, and certainly from giving the sacraments. Yet, in a letter sent to Bishop Eleutherius of Tournai and later compiled by Gratian, Gregory the Great asserts that bouts of madness or the loss of one's senses do not always provide grounds for the expulsion of a recently ordained cleric: ‘for that which prevents entry into orders does not always entail the deposition of a cleric already ordained’. Gratian relies directly on this letter to draw his own conclusions: a bishop overcome by passion (passio) leading to insanity (mente alienate) could not be forced to resign, as he had already been ordained. On one hand, the Decree rules that a cleric, who, weighed down by old age or illness (defectus corporis), is prevented from performing his office, is authorized to substitute a person in his place. In those cases, assessors were nominated, implying that such well-off clerics continued to receive the income associated with their office until their death. On another hand, the Decretals of Gregory IX highlight the link between old age and lack of vigour, both of which can provoke a cleric's resignation.

Blood stands out – a life-giving substance overflowing and overwhelming. Blood compels; it holds our gaze in repulsive fascination. We are astonished by its abundance; it spouts violently from the neck in mid-air, poring over the white sheets; lingering in crisp creases and fabrics. We are repulsed yet we cannot look away. Blood wields its power to produce an abject coupling of horror and delight. In Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith Slaying Holofernes (1614–1629) (Image 16), blood stages the painting as a liminal space of abjection. Its presence demands distinction – there is the blood that streams from the general’s neck in jets of unbounded energy and the drops that drip and hover over the surface of the canvas, as if the artist delivered a violent splash, a sudden stroke of the fully loaded brush, and spread its content on the surface of the canvas.

These small drops are different in substance and form from the violent gushes that stream from the severed head. They proclaim their presence as something that belongs to the surface of the painting, yet is set apart and made distinct from the rest of the unfolding drama. Each drop enacts difference within similitude.