Secular Clergy Research Articles

The Native Clergy in Portuguese America: The Presence of Descendants of Indians and Africans in the Secular Clergy (c. 1670–c. 1820)

This article conducts an analytical overview of the controversies and acts that resulted in the formation of a native clergy in Portuguese America. The analysis is limited to the secular clergy and the ways by which descendants of Africans and Indians were incorporated into this segment of the Church. The author addresses the way parts of these groups developed strategies to access the priesthood, seeking to escape subaltern positions and consolidating processes of social mobility.

Попытка устроения пещерного монастыря в слободе Калач Воронежской губернии в конце XIX — начале XX в.

Kalach caves dug out in a chalk relic in the town of Kalach, Voronezh region, is an underinvestigated historical and cultural heritage site. The archive materials found in the funds of RSHA, together with evidence of local people, provide insight into the final period of the cult dungeon functioning in the late XIX – early XX centuries. At that time the rural community of Kalach made an attempt to establish there an official orthodox cave monastery. On the 11th of August, 1885, residents of Kalach authorized peasants Ivan Serjakov, Matvey Bezugly and Gavriil Lebedinsky to solicit different authorities for a monastery foundation. The community also allocated 1300 roubles and 36 dessiatines of land area for the monastery arrangement. The rural community request was examined in Voronezh Ecclesiastical Consistory, Voronezh Provincial Government, Voronezh Provincial Peasant Council and in the Second (Peasant) Senate Department. The attempt was not successful, it encountered resistance of authorities. Meanwhile the cave diggers managed to accommodate the caves and arrange regular divine service by the local secular clergy. Functioning of the caves as a sacred locus for the rural community was interrupted by revolution events of early XX century. At present Kalach caves are put on Russian cultural heritage register.

The State Church Policy of the Russian Empire in Alaska

This article deals with the management of missionary activity in Alaska in the late eighteenth – nineteenth centuries. The main objective is to reconstruct the management strategy of the Russian Orthodox Church in Alaska with reference to archival documents and published sources. The research methodology relies on analysing the regional approach, where the region is perceived both as an object and a subject of empire-building. In the eighteenth century, the management of Alaska was carried out by the Shelikhov – Golikov Company, a Russian fur trading venture. The Russian merchants fully supplied the Orthodox mission consisting of monks. Later, the Russian authorities entrusted control over the Russian overseas lands to Shelikhov’s heirs, represented by the Russian-American Company. The conflicts between the colonial administration and the missionaries called for a new strategy, i. e. sending secular clergy to Alaska. Meanwhile, the Management of the Russian-American Company returned to the plans of G. Shelikhov, who knew the region well, unlike the metropolitan authorities.

A Monastic Antichrist Satire from Medieval Bury St Edmunds: Interpreting the Iconotypicon Buriense

The so-called Iconotypicon Buriense (‘copy of the Bury picture’) is a painted panel of around 1560 that purports to reproduce a late medieval stained-glass window that was once in the Cellarer’s Chamber at St Edmunds Abbey. While the Iconotypicon has historically been interpreted as an anti-papal portrayal of Antichrist that anticipated the polemic of the Reformation era, this article argues that the original window was in all likelihood a monastic satire that took aim at the enemies of St Edmunds Abbey: bishops, secular clergy and friars. The Iconotypicon is rooted in traditional antisemitic portrayals of Antichrist and antifraternal traditions of monastic critique of the mendicant friars, and, while it is unusual, it is an essentially conservative work of religious art.

Lost sheep: Metaphor and simony in John Gower’s Latin poetry

ABSTRACT Almost all of John Gower’s very last writings are in Latin verse and politically inflected. Lost sheep and negligent shepherds (pastores) wander through a remarkable number of these poems. Drawing on biblical imagery and on his own earlier poetic treatment of pastoral misdirection in Vox clamantis, Gower found in lost sheep an enabling metaphor for his moral, satirical, and self-reflexive poetic project. In particular, Gower systematically associates the metaphor of lost sheep with simony (the selling of church privileges) and the hypocrisy of the secular clergy. This essay traces this figure of thought through Vox clamantis, De lucis scrutinio, Presul ovile regis, and Cultor in ecclesia.

Fragile belonging and the strong duties of foreign clergymen

Due to the jurisdictionalism inherited from Portugal, and in view of the strength of the typically liberal idea of sovereignty defense, the Empire of Brazil initially adopted as course of action to prohibit foreign priests from holding ecclesiastical benefices in its territory. The article focuses on the legal transformations that took place in the second half of the nineteenth century, and which led to a relativization of this prohibition, especially in view of the massive migration of European priests to the Americas in the period. We analyze concrete cases presented by bishops and clergymen to the Council of State, the emperor’s advisory body, as well as to the Congregation of the Council, an administrative organ of the Holy See, and show how a path was paved for the multilevel regulation of the migratory flows of the secular clergy towards Brazil. Since the Council of Trent was a key normative set to organise the mobility of clergymen around the globe, we examine how institutions and actors that ordinarily made use of it forged new interpretations and new norms in order to discipline migration as an unprecedented phenomenon. Following up on the Tridentine, transformations will allow us to see how precarious the situation of foreign priests was in terms of belonging to a new country and a new diocese. It will also reveal that what kept the clergymen minimally anchored in the sea of legal uncertainties at the end of the 19th century was the notion of duty.

Against the Dangers of the Night: The Compline Versicle Custodi nos domine and its Tropes in Medieval France

While few proper chants, let alone tropes or polyphony, survive for compline from medieval Europe, monastic and secular clergy across France between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries bestowed compositional and poetic attention upon one of its simplest chants, the psalmic versicle Custodi nos domine. Contrasting with its customary formulaic recitation, the brief versicle appears in song-form tropes as early as the twelfth century, initially linked to the troping of office liturgies for Christmas octave feasts (Epiphany and Circumcision) and then associated with the newly established feast of Corpus Christi. This article explores the previously unexamined practice of monophonic and polyphonic troping of the compline versicle, tracing iterations of the troped versicle in French service books and among liturgies for the feasts of the Circumcision, Epiphany, and Corpus Christi, as well as in non-liturgical music collections. I illustrate how such tropes contribute to the festal and musical flexibility of the Custodi nos domine versicle, which serves chiefly as a prayer for protection against sin, evil, and the dangers of the night, and thus foregrounds the central themes of compline and the versicle rather than of any single feast day.

Notes for the study of the choir stalls of the secular clergy of Jerez de la Frontera

La colegiata y el resto de parroquias de Jerez de la Frontera contaban con sus respectivos coros para la asistencia del clero a la misa y el oficio. De estos recintos, compuestos de rejas, cerramientos, órganos, facistoles, y pequeños altares, las sillerías de escaños suponían su origen y explicaban su existencia. Lamentablemente desaparecidas o desmembradas, en el presente estudio se compilan las noticias conocidas, pero hasta ahora dispersas, con nuevos datos inéditos y el estudio de los restos materiales conservados. Se conforma de este modo una primera aproximación de conjunto a estas piezas singulares del mobiliario eclesiástico jerezano.

Why Can’t We Be Friends? John of Salisbury, Thomas Becket and the Discourse of Amicitia

There has been an almost universal tendency to treat Thomas Becket as a personal—even close and intimate—friend of John of Salisbury, based on their decades-long association. Evidence for this position has rested, for example, on the fact that the two writings that have primarily sustained John’s intellectual reputation through the centuries—the Policraticus and the Metalogicon—he chose to dedicate to Becket. During the Middle Ages, however, addressing a book to powerful and well-placed people did not necessarily suggest endorsement of their behaviour. Indeed, a dedication might indicate criticism or rebuke rather than affection or gratitude, as it does today. John’s actual attitude towards Becket cannot be separated from appreciation of the relationship between friends as understood in the twelfth century. John stood at or near the centre of a large friendship circle that encompassed mainly monks and secular clergy—a network held together by copious correspondence as well as face-to-face interaction. Such circles functioned as important means of constructing common intellectual and political agendas among literate but otherwise far-flung figures. Becket received no such expressions of friendship status from John of Salisbury.

Romanian Greek-Catholic ecclesiastical elites between celibacy and marriage

Abstract: The present study investigates the connection between the marital status of the Romanian Greek Catholic priests in Transylvania and their promotion in the ecclesiastical career, between 1850 and 1918. In general, the promotion of ecclesiastical staff to higher offices was analysed from the perspective of their studies at prestigious universities or of their administrative experience gained during years of honourable service in parishes and low-level ecclesiastical institutions. However, we consider that for the studied group, namely the Romanian Greek Catholic canons in Transylvania, the marital status assumed by the young clergymen at the time they submitted their priestly vows was equally relevant. Prior to receiving the priesthood, the young theologians had to choose between being ordained as celibate or marrying as priests and joining the secular clergy. Those who chose celibacy had the option of advancing to the highest ecclesiastical offices, including occupying the episcopal see; the married ones had the opportunity to advance in the church ranks only to the advisory offices of the central level, where they were usually appointed after decades of exemplary church careers.

Thomas Aquinas and Dionysian Ecclesiastical Hierarchy

The thought of Thomas Aquinas is rightly understood to be hierarchical, but the word hierarchy is understood diversely across time and place, and important readers of Thomas have praised or blamed him for being less hierarchical than his contemporaries. Early modern critique of hierarchy with its political edge often dominates understanding of the notion, but such critique stems from medieval controversies over religious perfection and sacramental life, which in turn echo the monastic polemics of Pseudo-Dionysius, the probable inventor of the term hierarchy. The massive influence of Dionysius made him a contested authority in Thomas's time, and in his battles with secular clergy the Dominican theologian shows himself a more careful interpreter of the pseudo-Areopagite than his contemporaries, who purported to defend hierarchy against the mendicants. This study presents the reading method of Aquinas as a contemplative project, motivated and delineated by the mendicant controversies of the thirteenth century, and undertaken alongside the obscure Dionysius within their common pursuit of religious perfection.

PROPHECY, ESCHATOLOGY, GLOBAL NETWORKS, AND THE CRUSADES, FROM HATTIN TO FREDERICK II

Although interest in the influence of prophecy and eschatology on the crusade movement and on cross-cultural conceptions of righteous conflict has recently revived, to date there has been little consideration of the reception, transmission, and reinterpretation of multifarious prophecies by networks of individuals involved in the promotion of various crusades from roughly 1187 to 1240. This study tracks the circulation, adaptation, and impact of influential prophecies publicized by papal legates, by crusade recruiters trained in Paris, and by their colleagues in the Victorine, Praemonstratensian, and Cistercian orders, culminating in the crusades of Frederick II (1213–1229). Royal, imperial, noble, episcopal, and papal courts, as well as visionaries, regular religious, secular clergy, preachers, and prelates, played key roles in validating and publicizing predictions. The preservation and reinterpretation of prophecies by scholars, clerics, scribes, and historians working across Latin Christendom (and in the wider Mediterranean region and Central Asia) testifies to the cross-cultural transmission and reception of specific prognostications adapted to speak to local needs and concerns and changing circumstances. This article identifies manuscripts of prophecies which circulated both independently and in association with the crusading histories of Jacques de Vitry and Oliver of Paderborn, written during and used for the promotion of Frederick II's crusades. It concludes that prophecies and their promoters played essential roles in facilitating cross-cultural diplomatic negotiations, religious debates and conversion attempts, and in the fostering, contextualization, and commemoration of the act of pious warfare. Functioning as a common language, prophetic and eschatological expectations enabled Muslims, Eastern Christians, Jewish communities, and Latin Christians to justify their theoretical or actual roles on the orbis terrarum and to define and negotiate with other cultures. Moreover, they could be endlessly adapted both to fit and to shape existing past, present, or future circumstances. Prophecy and eschatology were not fringe phenomena or praxes, but presented holistic methods of making sense of and adapting to events and negotiating between one's own and other cultures, methods that both competed with and complemented historical and theological interpretations of the world (and texts) and rational, scientific, and philosophical modes of thought.

Carine van Rhijn, Leading the Way to Heaven: Pastoral Care and Salvation in the Carolingian Period. London and New York: Routledge, 2022, xii, 274 pp.

Abstract Early medieval manuscripts give up their secrets in this excellent monograph by Carine van Rhijn, who studies the books that enabled parish priests to perform their duties in the Carolingian countryside. Recognizing that the lineaments of the pastoral project outlined in royal normative texts issued by Charlemagne and his advisors were expressive of “ideals and intentions” (5), she argues convincingly that the practical challenges of implementing this project of expanding and deepening the knowledge that Christians required to assure their salvation fell increasingly to local priests in the Carolingian period. By the eighth century, a fundamental reorganization of the secular clergy resulted in priests being assigned to specific churches, where they lived, preached, and administered the sacraments in small communities for the rest of their lives.

Missionaries of Indians according to the First Three Councils of Lima

In the era of the conquest and colonization of Hispanic America, the church had at least two different manifestations: the Spanish church and the missional church. There was a marked difference between the two, beginning with the ethnic groups that made them up, methods of pastoral work, style of liturgy, content of catechesis, ecclesiastical laws, and, even, identities of priests destined to be chaplains of one of the two groups. Practically, from the founding moment the Catholic Church in the New World had the ability to differentiate its apostolic action according to the ethnic group that comprised it. Relatively easy was the implantation of the Spanish church in colonial cities in America. However, the founding of the new church – missional church – required the creation of a new modus operandi of its apostolic action. Such work could not be conferred on any priest or brother who felt called to undertake activities among the Indians, but on men specially selected and prepared in a different way than the secular clergy. The first three Lima Councils and their parallel Councils of México addressed this issue in several of their sessions. The article will seek to present those Indian missionaries who, although sometimes erred, knew how to carry out the mission with solid logic and apostolic courage, obeying the synod instructions.

The First Catholic Diocese in Asia and the Spread of Catholicism: Juan de Albuquerque, Bishop of Goa, 1538–1553

AbstractThis article offers an interpretation of the actions of the Franciscan Juan de Albuquerque as bishop of the first Catholic diocese in Asia. The analysis considers the local impacts of the episcopal government and the connectivities of its action, particularly through comparison with similar processes adopted in Spanish America. Based on a wide range of historical sources and cross-referencing them, it investigates how Albuquerque governed in three stages: first, describing the enormous challenges he faced; second, outlining his profile; and third, proposing a reconstruction of his government and the implications it had on the dissemination of Catholicism. The hypothesis raised at the outset is that, in Asia, the Bishop of Goa built a structure that was inspired by the matrix and dynamics of the Portuguese dioceses, which were then adapted to the specificities of the local situation. Accordingly, it is necessary to review the thesis of Charles Boxer, for whom the dynamics of evangelization in the spaces overseen by the Iberian empires from the 16th century onwards were generated essentially by the missionaries from the regular clergy and by the monarchies. By shifting the focus to the actions of a single bishop, the article demonstrates that Albuquerque, the diocesan church he created from scratch, and the secular clergy should not be underestimated.

Vom officium zum beneficium: Lokale Verwaltungsstrukturen im Johanniter-Priorat Alamania während des 13. und frühen 14. Jahrhunderts

From officium to beneficium: Local government structures in the Hospitaller Priory of Alamania during the 13th and early 14th century The paper is about the appointment of commanders for Hospitaller houses in southern Germany during the second half of the thirteenth and the first half of the fourteenth century (until c. 1330). No written documents about such appointments are extant from the time and region. The names of the commanders are only known from local charters. Some commanders were changed almost annually. Others stayed on more or less for life. The Hospitaller rule, statutes and consuetudines concerning such appointments are not clear. In the fourteenth century commanders were entrusted their houses either for ten years or for life. Earlier on shorter periods are probable, five years or even only one year, until the next regional chapter. Further research should be devoted to the question whether military-religious orders started with an office whose officers was ad nutum amovibilis, and then changed to procedures known from ecclesiastical benefices held by non-religious, secular clergy for life and from fiefs held by secular knights that were also held for life.

Związki rodzinne mieszczan krakowskich z duchowieństwem świeckim Krakowa w XIV wieku

The article analyses the family ties of the Cracow burghers with the secular clergy of the city in the fourteenth century, documented in sources. It has been demonstrated that the clergy who came from the Cracow burghers (cathedral canons, vicars, collegiate canons, parsons and priests, altarists and clerics) were a group consisted of 58 people. On their way to Church positions, they encountered various difficulties determined by the personal policy of the bishops of Cracow, the right of patronage, and the policy of noble and mighty families. There are also data on the education of the clergy of Cracow origin and their informal connections with the Church presented.

“Piers Plowman” and the Reinvention of Church Law in the Late Middle Ages

“Piers Plowman” and the Reinvention of Church Law in the Late Middle Ages

“Piers Plowman” and the Reinvention of Church Law in the Late Middle Ages

“Piers Plowman” and the Reinvention of Church Law in the Late Middle Ages

Learned law in late medieval Netherlandish practice: Consilia for the congregation of Windesheim (ca. 1415-1500)

Summary The Historical Centre of Overijssel in Zwolle and the Royal Library of Belgium in Brussels each conserve a fifteenth-century manuscript collection of legal and moral theological sources, written for the general chapter of the Augustinian canons regular of Windesheim. Both collections contain many ‘consilia’ by learned lawyers, several of whom were active in the prince-bishopric of Liège, at the universities of Paris or Cologne, or – especially – as professors of civil or canon law at the young university of Leuven. These manuscripts have already been the subject of a prosopographical analysis, but so far their content has not been studied. This article provides a substantive analysis of both collections. Topics include many disputes concerning the law of religious communities or regarding the congregation of Windesheim’s relationship to the diocesan bishops, the secular clergy and secular authorities. The volumes also cover diverse fields of the law of succession, contracts or delict.