Enrico del Carretto: Why a Religious Order Is Not a Mere Collection of Individuals

Abstract

Enrico del Carretto was a Franciscan theologian who called himself a bachelor of theology late in life, after becoming bishop of Lucca in 1300. He was among those Friars Minor who at the same time were loyal to John XXII and firmly believed in the Franciscan doctrine of Apostolic poverty. In his written contribution to the debate about Apostolic poverty, he maintained that a religious order is not a mere collection of individuals. The introductory section of this chapter briefly explains why such a claim was essential to Enrico’s defense of the Franciscan doctrine of poverty. In the following sections I show how Enrico develops a theory of human communities for this purpose, in which he distinguishes at least three levels: (a) mere aggregation, (b) societas, and (c) collegium, ordo or civitas. On his account, the main difference between a societas and civitas consists in the existence (or absence) of power relations among the members of the communities. Interestingly enough, though he thinks the establishment of power relations relies on acts of the will, he claims that a civitas and a religious order are real beings as opposed to beings of reason.