'Acciò Le Anime Dei Fedeli Non Morissero Disperate': Capuchin Friars, the Plague and Plague Treatises in the Early Modern Period

Abstract

'Acciò Le Anime Dei Fedeli Non Morissero Disperate':Capuchin Friars, the Plague and Plague Treatises in the Early Modern Period1 Bert Roest (bio) Francis of Assisi's embrace of a leper,2 and the initial identification of the Friars Minor with the outcasts of society, was echoed in the renown of a number of Franciscan saints and beati as miraculous healers and patron saints for those suffering from certain illnesses.3 Some of them were also [End Page 237] known for hospital service during epidemics.4 All this has created a long-standing association between the Franciscan order family and the care for the sick. Yet despite significant involvement of individual friars, and some Franciscan friaries, Clarissan convents and associated confraternities with hospitals and comparable institutions during the medieval period and after,5 there was no systemic Franciscan engagement with caring for the sick beyond the convent walls.6 The main exception were different [End Page 238] groups of Grey Sisters (Sœurs grises) in the Southern Low Countries, Northern France and Scotland that followed the tertiary rule and provided hospital care. Yet it is not always clear to what extent such groups can be assigned to the Franciscan order family.7 At the same time, as a wide-ranging recent essay by Ottó Gecser has pointed out, the care for the sick, incurables and other sufferers, as well as illnesses like leprosy and the plague played a significant role in the medieval Franciscan hagiographic self-image, and as a polyvalent metaphor in Franciscan preaching and related treatises on societal reform, notably during the Observant period.8 The Capuchins, the new Franciscan branch established during the early sixteenth century, never took on the character of a designated hospital order (unlike the Crociferi, the Camilliani and the Compagnia del Divino Amore). Yet in comparison with other members of the Franciscan order family, the Capuchins were more habitually involved with the care for victims of sudden epidemics and those suffering from a variety of incurable illnesses (including syphilis). At the same time, the Capuchin religious mission included more systemic initiatives for organizing social care for a variety of marginal groups (such as urban poor, orphans, fallen women, prisoners, and 'incurabili'). This started early, with the 'mixed' apostolate of Matteo of Bascio and Ludovico of Fossombrone, and its [End Page 239] importance persisted in subsequent centuries, often in collaboration with local authorities and other institutions.9 Throughout Europe, Capuchin friars repeatedly distinguished themselves during outbreaks of the plague and other contagious diseases, and many individual friars were renowned for their service to patients, often at great personal risk. These include well-documented Capuchin authors, whose biographies are detailed in various catalogues and national dictionaries, such as Bartolomeo Cordoni of Città di Castello (1471-1535), Franciscus Titelmans (1502-1537), Girolamo Finucci of Pistoia (d. 1570), Bernardino of Alhalma (d. 1593), Pierre Besson of Dreux (d. 1598), Apollinarius of Sigmaringen (1584-1629), Archangel of Aberdeen (Georg Leslie, d. 1637), Francesco of Vicenza (Francesco de'Mironi di Barbarano, d. 1656), Tiburtius of Brussels (Frans van den Berge, d. 1669), Bonaventura of Arezzo, (1648-1708), and Felice of Nicosia (1715-1787).10 Yet these friars only form the tip of the iceberg. Many additional Capuchin friars who distinguished themselves and often died within the context of caring for the physical and spiritual needs of plague victims and 'incurati' are mentioned in Capuchin chronicles and old collective biographies. Hence the anonymous Saggio della vita de'cappuccini liguri illustri in virtù, dottrina e santità mentions dozens of friars who died in this type of service in the Liguria region alone, among whom no less than 31 friars who died in action during the plague epidemic of Genoa in 1656.11 The role of Capuchin friars is particularly well-documented with regard to the large, in part European-wide pandemic resurgences of the [End Page 240] plague in the later sixteenth, seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. These include wide-spread outbreaks in 1564, 1574/77, 1580/87, 1595/99, 1603/1606, 1625/36 (esp. 1629/36), 1656 (predominantly in Italy), 1664/70, and 1720/1722 (especially in Southern France), and a much larger number of more regional outbreaks in...