Confraternities and Mendicant Orders: The Dynamics of Lay and Clerical Brotherhood in Renaissance Bologna

Abstract

The Catholic Historical Review VOL. LXXXIIJANUARY, 1996No. 1 CONFRATERNITIES AND MENDICANT ORDERS: THE DYNAMICS OF LAY AND CLERICAL BROTHERHOOD IN RENAISSANCE BOLOGNA BY Nicholas Terpstra* Andreas Allé was in deep trouble. A long-time brother in the BoIognese confraternity of San Domenico, he had been promoted to syndic when that confraternity merged with the confraternity of the Crocesegnati in 1494. The merger had been in the works for almost a decade, and had gained at least tacit approval from the prior of the Dominican friary and the local inquisitor. In the event, however, a new inquisitor proved unwilling to sanction the merger. The lay brothers had seen three inquisitors come and go since starting their merger talks, and so went ahead with the plan, hoping perhaps that a new inquisitor might see things their way. But there was to be no new inquisitor for twenty years, and the incumbent, Giovanni Cagnati, certainly did not see things their way. The brunt of his disciplinary action fell on Andreas Allé. While the confraternity ratified Allé s authority, the inquisitor issued orders removing him from his post. When Allé refused the inquisitor's demand that he resign, he was summoned before the curia in Rome; ignoring the summons earned him excommunication in November, 1496. The curial court subsequently found in favor of the inquisitor's assertion of authority and so cleared the way for reversing the merger in "Mr. Terpstra is an associate professor of history in Luther College, University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Manuscript sources used in the footnotes are designated as follows: 1 . AAB = Archivio Arcivescovile, Bologna. 2. ASB = Archivio di Stato di Bologna: Dem = Fondo Demaniale, Osp = Fondo Ospedale, PIE = Fondo dei Pii Istituti Educativi . 3- BBA = Bologna, Biblioteca dell'Archiginnasio: Gozz = Fondo Gozzadini, Osp = Fondo Ospedale. 1 Z CONFRATERNITIES AND MENDICANT ORDERS 1497.' Why did this confrontation happen, and what might it tell us of the dynamic between mendicants and the confraternities gathered under their auspices? This paper will look at the dynamic in four ways: first, a brief overview of the spiritual ethos and membership procedures of the confraternities to demonstrate how closely they modeled themselves on the mendicant orders. Second, a brief review of relations between confraternities and mendicant orders during the former's initial expansion in Bologna in the later thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. Third, a closer look at confraternal and mendicant relations through the fifteenth century, when mendicant control is said to have expanded. Finally , comparisons will be made to the situation elsewhere in Italy and in Northern Europe. The standard source for examining the relationship between lay confraternities and mendicant orders in Italy is Gilles Gérard Meersseman's magisterial three-volume work, Ordo fraternitatis: confraternité e pietà dei laici nel mondo medioevo, published in 1977. Meersseman's close study of lay-mendicant relations is based on extensive archival work but is limited to the Dominican order and the confraternities sponsored and supervised by it. A review of the situation in Bologna and comparisons to other Italian and European centers show that there was no single dynamic between lay and clerical brothers but that different religious orders varied significantly in their relations with confraternities . In Bologna the most amicable relations occurred with those orders which accommodated themselves to two chief characteristics of confraternities—a local focus and lay self-direction—and so reduced 'The folio of records regarding the case is contained among the records of the company founded to succeed the Compagnia della Croce: ASB Dem, Compagnia dei Crocesegnati , ms. 3/6669 (H). According to these documents, the union was first negotiated on July 4, 1485. On June 12, 1494, Andreas Allé succeeded the Crocesegnati syndic Ser Battista de Podio, and on December 17 the final agreement of union was notarized. His authority was confirmed by the newly unified company onJanuary 3 and May 14, 1495. The first Inquisitorial order removing him from his post came on October 30, 1496, the second on November 3. He was summoned to the curial court in Rome on November 5, and excommunicated on November 12. On November 15 the unified company was formally disbanded and the new "Societas Crucis" was erected under the Inquisitor...