Abstract
This paper examines the archives of a major Catholic order, the Society of Jesus. The quality and amount of Jesuit sources allows a very detailed reconstruction not only of how the archives were meant to function, but also of how they were used in daily life. While the Jesuits and their archives resemble many other early modern institutions, the wealth of documentation nevertheless makes them particularly suitable for a case study of early modern archival practice. The paper argues that the order consciously developed a network of archives that closely mirrored the institutional framework of the Jesuit bureaucracy. Ideally, smooth and swift movement of papers within this network was meant to provide easy access to relevant documents for users at all hierarchical levels. In reality, however, Jesuit record keeping remained far from this ideal. Papers were misplaced or simply got lost in the maze of archives.
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