THE CATHOLIC
HISTORICAL REVIEW
VOL. 108

WINTER 2022

NO. 1

Abbot Balsamon’s Book:
The Origins of Administrative Registers
at Cava dei Tirreni
MAUREEN C. MILLER*
Through an examination of the contents, context, and material characteristics of the first administrative register surviving at the abbey of
Cava dei Tirreni, this essay argues that the “documentary revolution”
in thirteenth-century Italy was not only the accomplishment of the communal governments of the north. Political instability throughout the
peninsula in the late twelfth century fostered enduring changes in documentary practices in both monastic and diocesan institutions. The first
Cava register, drawn up under Abbot Balsamon (r. 1208–1232)—
possibly responding to the legislation of his sovereign, Emperor Frederick II—reveals that he and his brothers innovated to protect the property underpinning their religious life. The artifacts of their innovation,
moreover, underscore the primary influence of temporal rulers, rather
than the papacy, on ecclesiastical administrative practices.
Keywords: registers, administration, monasticism, Italy

* Maureen C. Miller is Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley.
The research presented here was supported by a grant from the University of California
Berkeley Department of History alumnus Carl “Chip” W. Robertson Faculty Research Fund
and by a Mellon Foundation Research Project grant administered by the Division of Arts and
Humanities at UC Berkeley. In addition to being grateful for the support of Mr. Robertson
and the Mellon Foundation, the author thanks the many colleagues who have, through their
questions and comments, contributed to this essay: Graham Loud, Jeremy Johns, Ian Forrest,
the Oxford University Medieval History Seminar, the California Medieval History Seminar,
the UC Berkeley History Department Colloquium, the Seventh Annual Symposium on
Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Saint Louis University, and the anonymous reviewers
for the CHR. She thanks, too, Dr. Giulia Rallo and all at the Biblioteca Statale del Monumento Nazionale Badia di Cava. Her email address is: mcmiller@berkeley.edu

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Introduction
Nestled into the Lattari mountains just north of Salerno, the archive
of the abbey of the Most Holy Trinity at Cava dei Tirreni is one of the
richest to survive in southern Italy and is most known to researchers for its
more than 15,000 single-sheet parchment documents or charters.1 Like
most medieval Italian ecclesiastical institutions, Cava appears to have relied
solely on these documents to manage and defend its immense patrimony
until the early thirteenth century when it began to keep registers. The earliest was compiled under Abbot Balsamon (r. 1208–32).2
In creating his register, however, Abbot Balsamon was not alone
among ecclesiastical leaders in early thirteenth-century Italy. When Robert
Brentano wrote his classic comparative history, Two Churches: England and
Italy in the Thirteenth Century—first published, a half century ago now, in
1968—he found only one set of episcopal registers in Italy, those of Città
di Castello.3 He likely emphasized the uniqueness of this small Umbrian
city’s episcopal registers to ensure that Italian scholars from other cities
would scour their archives and prove him wrong—which, of course, they
did.4 Thirteenth- and fourteenth-century registers survive for more than a
dozen other dioceses. These survivals, however, are less impressive when
one considers that there were roughly two hundred fifty dioceses in the
peninsula. From this perspective, Brentano’s larger point still stands: Italy
1. The best recent introduction to the archive and its parchments is Giovanni Vitolo,
“L’archivio della badia della Ss. Trinitá di Cava dei Tirreni,” in: La memoria silenziosa: Formazione, tutela e status giuridico degli archivi monastici nei monumenti nazionali: Atti del convegno, Veroli, Abbazia di Casamari 6–9 novembre 1998—Ferentino, Palazzo comunale 8 novembre 1998 [Pubblicazioni degli Archivi di Stato, Saggi 62] (Rome, 2000), 133–42; but see also
Imma Ascione, “L’Archivo,” in: La Badia di Cava, ed. Giuseppe Fiengo and Franco Strazzullo, 2 vols. (Sorrento, 1985–90), II, 185–222; and Leone Mattei Cerasoli, ed., Guida storica
e bibliografica degli archivi e delle biblioteche d’Italia, 6 vols. (Rome, 1932–40), IV: Badia della
Ss. Trinitá di Cave, 3–24.
2. Cava de’ Tirreni, Biblioteca Statale del Monumento Nazionale Badia di Cava,
Archivio dell’Abbazia della SS. Trinità di Cava de’ Tirreni (hereafter, AC), Armarium X,
Manuscriptum 1 (hereafter cited as AC Arm. X.1); Giovanni Vitolo, “Il registro di Balsamo,
decimo abate di Cava (1208–1232),” Benedictina, 21 (1974), 79–129.
3. Robert Brentano, Two Churches: England and Italy in the Thirteenth Century, 2nd ed.
(Princeton, 1968; 2nd edition, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1988), 291–94, most emphatically
on 293: “The only diocese . . . from which something close to papal or English episcopal registers is known to survive is Città di Castello.” The 1988 edition will be cited here. See also
his “The Bishops’ Books of Città di Castello,” Traditio, 16 (1960), 241–54.
4. Attilio Bartoli Langeli and Antonio Rigon, eds., I registri vescovili dell’Italia settentrionale (secoli XII–XV). Atti del Convegno di Studi (Monselice, 24–25 novembre 2000) (Rome,
2003).

MAUREEN C. MILLER

3

seems to have produced very little evidence of the kind of ecclesiastical
record-keeping that became normative in thirteenth-century England.
Whether this is actually the case is presently the subject of this author’s
research, but a more focused subsidiary question will be the topic of this
paper: if ecclesiastical institutions had been successfully managing their
patrimonies for centuries by preserving only single-sheet parchment documents, why did they suddenly change this practice in the early thirteenth
century? What circumstances produced Abbot Balsamon’s book and
ensured its conservation?
Changes in documentary forms and practices have long interested
medievalists, of course, but over the last decades they have garnered a
notable increase in historical attention. Works illuminating the broad
social and cultural impacts of the written word, such as Michael Clanchy’s
From memory to written record and Brian Stock’s The Implications of Literacy,
inspired a range of new studies exploring the production, uses, and influence of texts.5 Italian research on these issues, however, has a distinctive
focus and origins. Partly this is due to a strong heritage of Roman traditions, but other factors are the privileged place of the history of the northern city-states in the narration of Italy’s medieval centuries and insufficient
contextualization of lay political changes within the broader, largely ecclesiastical, documentary landscape.
Italy’s Roman heritage was formative. Although the widespread everyday use of written documents that characterized the ancient Roman empire
did not survive it even in its birthplace, the post-classical lull in documentary production was relatively brief, lasting only from the fifth through seventh centuries. More importantly, enough of the forms and practices of
Roman notaries (tabelliones) endured that redaction of instruments recording property transactions rebounded in Italy’s many urban centers. Significant changes had occurred in the transition from antiquity to the early
Middle Ages. Parchment, rather than papyrus, dominated as the support
medium for the written word; documentary Latin was a degraded version
of the classical language; and the Christian church provided more of the
personnel and training of notaries. The availability of notaries to record
5. Michael T. Clanchy, From memory to written record in England, 1066–1307 (London,
1979), reissued with additions and revisions (Oxford, 1993); Brian Stock, The Implications of
Literacy: Written Language and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries
(Princeton, 1983). The Brepols series [Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy,] which developed out of Marco Mostert’s research group and published its first book in 1999, has now
reached fifty volumes.

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transactions, however, strongly shaped the written record in Italy. They
produced prodigious numbers of single-sheet parchment documents from
the eighth century on, and the interest of ecclesiastical institutions in preserving them contributed to their survival into the modern era.6 This relatively widespread diffusion of the creation and use of written documents in
Italy from the early Middle Ages has tended to make literacy less of a focus
in Italian studies than in northern European scholarship.7
Instead, historians of medieval Italy have attended more to innovations in forms and systems of record-keeping than to impacts of the broad
use of written instruments.8 Here is where the primacy of the northern
city-states, or communes, in Italian research on the Middle Ages has been
particularly influential. The earliest surviving records of these urban governments from the eleventh and twelfth centuries are notarial charters, followed usually in the thirteenth century by codices (libri iurium) documenting the commune’s claimed rights, properties, and privileges. From the
6. Paolo Cammarosano, Italia medievale: Struttura e geografia delle fonti scritte (Rome,
1991), 39–74; Peter Classen, “Fortleben und Wandel spätrömischen Urkundenwesens im
Frühmittelalter,” in: Recht und Schrift im Mittelalter (Sigmaringen, 1977), 13–54; Antonella
Ghignoli, “Istituzioni ecclesiastiche e documentazione nei secoli VIII–XI. Appunti per una
prospettiva,” Archivio storico italiano, 162, no. 4 [602] (2004), 619–65; Antonella Ghignoli
and François Bougard, “Elementi romani nei documenti longobardi?” in: L’héritage byzantin
en Italie (VIIIe–XII siècle), ed. Jean-Marie Martin, Annick Peters-Custot, and Vivien Prigent,
to be completed in 5 vols. (Rome, 2011–present), I: La fabrique documentaire, 241–301.
7. Armando Petrucci and Attilio Bartoli Langeli published a number of works from the
late 1970s into the 1980s, but on the issue of literacy per se their work produced more of a
response from early modernists than from medievalists. More generative has been Petrucci’s
emphasis on writing; the journal he founded in 1977, Scrittura e Civiltà, still thrives today,
publishing outstanding work at the intersection of paleography and culture. Armando
Petrucci, “Per la storia dell’alfabetismo: metodi—materiali—quesiti,” Quaderni storici, 13, no.
38(2) (1978), 451–66; Armando Petrucci, “Scrittura e alfabetismo nella Salerno del IX
secolo,” Scrittura e Civiltà, 7 (1983), 51–112; and Attilio Bartoli Langeli, Storia dell’alfabetismo come storia degli scriventi: gli usi della scrittura in Italia tra medioevo ed età moderna (Florence, 1989).
8. It is worth noting that this impetus from politics and the history of rulership is a
highly traditional focus in diplomatics. The field of diplomatics itself emerged around the
study of royal and imperial documents and several of the great editing projects that created
fundamental published series of primary sources (e.g. Monumenta Germaniae historica,
Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France) were nationally focused and funded. See
Jean Mabillon, De re diplomatica libri VI (Paris, 1707); and David Knowles, Great historical
enterprises (London, 1964). Michael Clanchy’s From memory to written record emerged out of
his work on important editions of thirteenth-century records of royal judicial administration:
Michael T. Clanchy, ed., Civil pleas of the Wiltshire Eyre, 1249, [Wiltshire Record Society, 26]
(Devizes, 1971); Michael T. Clanchy, ed., The roll and writ file of the Berkshire Eyre of 1248,
[Selden Society Publications, 90] (London, 1973).

MAUREEN C. MILLER

5

mid-thirteenth century on, what is most striking in communal archives is
a prodigious multiplication of different types of registers and record systems. Thus, for Italian historians, the crucial development requiring elucidation is what appears to be a relatively sudden leap from administrative
reliance upon single-sheet parchments to the creation of various types of
registers (administrative records surviving as codices) in the thirteenth century. The leading scholars who identified this as a topic meriting attention
were all working intensively on communal politics and culture: Giovanni
Tabacco was writing his famous synthesis on political change, Attilio Bartoli Langeli was preparing his edition of the Codice diplomatico del Comune
di Perugia, Paolo Cammarosano was researching Tuscan communal fiscal
systems, and Jean-Claude Maire Vigueur was launching his massive study
of the podestà.9 It was Maire Vigueur who dubbed the commune’s invention of new forms and systems of record keeping as the “documentary revolution.”10 Although Maire Vigueur argued that the real revolution was the
work of the popular commune in the second half of the thirteenth century,
Italian scholars over the past two decades, while retaining a focus on the
northern communes, have vindicated Cammarosano’s identification of the
transition from charters to registers in the late twelfth century and opening
decades of the thirteenth century as the significant watershed.11
9. Giovanni Tabacco, Egemonie sociali e strutture del potere nel medioevo italiano
(Torino, 1979), published in English as The struggle for power in medieval Italy: Structures of
political rule, trans. Rosalind Brown Jensen (Cambridge, 1989); Attilio Bartoli Langeli, Codice
diplomatico del comune di Perugia: periodo consolare e podestarile (1139–1254), 3 vols., [Fonti per
la storia dell’Umbria, nrs. 15, 17, 19] (Perugia, 1983–1991); Paolo Cammarosano, “Il sistema
fiscale delle città toscane,” in: La Toscana nel secolo XIV: caratteri di una civiltà regionale (Pisa,
1988), 201–13; Paolo Cammarosano, Tradizione documentaria e storia cittadina. Introduzione
al “Caleffo Vecchio” del Comune di Siena (Siena, 1984); Culture et idéologie dans la genèse de l’État
moderne. Actes de la table ronde de Rome (15–17 octobre 1984), [Collection de l’École française
de Rome, 82] (Rome, 1985). This last volume featured an introduction and essay by JeanClaude Maire Vigueur, but also included contributions by Michael Clanchy, Attilio Bartoli
Langeli, and Armando Petrucci. Maire Vigueur’s fifteen-year project on the podestà began
the next year and published its results in I podestà dell’Italia comunale: Parte I—Reclutamento e
circolazione degli ufficiali forestieri (fine XII sec.–metà XIV sec.), ed. Jean-Claude Maire Vigueur,
2 vols., [Collection de l’École française de Rome, 268] (Rome, 2000).
10. Jean-Claude Maire Vigueur, “Révolution documentaire et révolution scripturaire: le
cas de l’Italie médiévale,” Bibliothèque de l’école de chartes, 153 no. 1 (1995), 177–85;
Giampaolo Francesconi, “Potere della scrittura e scritture del potere: Vent’anni dopo la Révolution documentaire di J.-C. Maire Vigueur,” in: I comune di Jean-Claude Maire Vigueur: Percorsi storiografici, eds. Maria Teresa Caciorgna, Sandro Carocci, and Andrea Zorzi (Rome,
2014), 135–55.
11. Maire Vigueur, “Révolution documentaire,” 184; Cammarosano, Italia medievale
(see above n. 6), 205. More recent work, all still focused on the documentation of the communes, has undermined Maire Vigueur’s sharp distinction between early thirteenth-century

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The transition from reliance upon single-sheet parchments to the creation of administrative codices is only perceived as a revolutionary rupture
in Italy, however, because of relative inattention to ecclesiastical precedents. This is an obvious definitional defect both in Maire Vigueur’s declaration of the “documentary revolution” and in continuing Italian scholarship elucidating the documentation of the northern communes.12 Early
medieval cartularies—that is, codices into which an institution’s charters,
grants of privileges, and title deeds were copied—are not as numerous in
Italy as in northern Europe, but both monasteries and dioceses produced
them. Thirty-six papyrus folios survive of the Breviarium ecclesiae Ravennatis, compiled in 960–983, and the work was clearly more extensive.
Organized topographically, it consists of registrations of charters relating
to the see’s properties and rights: it is a liber iurium produced over two centuries before a commune compiled one. Moreover, the survival within the
archiepiscopal archive of two other eleventh-century parchment fragments,
each labeled a breviarium and containing registrations in the same format
as the tenth-century papyrus breviarium, suggests that such registers were

registers, like the libri iurium, copying or safe-guarding documents and later thirteenth-century registers (those documenting the deliberations of councils, ongoing records of judicial
and fiscal administration) enacting governance. Profoundly influenced by Hagen Keller’s
project on “Pragmatische Schriftlichkeit,” especially the findings of his volume on the
redacting of communal statutes from the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, the
innovative character and governing force of pre-Popolo registers has been broadly recognized: Hagen Keller and Jörg W. Busch, eds., Statutencodices des 13.Jahrhunderts als Zeugen
pragmatischer Schriftlichkeit. Die Handschriften von Como, Lodi, Novara, Pavia und Voghera,
(Munich, 1991); Cristina Carbonetti Vendittelli, Documenti su libro: L’Attività documentaria
del Comune di Viterbo nel Duecento (Rome, 1996), especially on 183; Laura Baietto, “Elaborazione di sistemi documentari e trasformazioni politiche nei comuni piemontesi (sec. XIII):
una relazione di circolarità,” Società e storia, 98 (2002), 645–79; Giampaolo Francesconi and
Francesco Salvestrini, “La scrittura del confine nell’Italia comunale: modelli e funzioni,” in:
Frontiers in the Middle Ages: Proceedings of the third European congress of Medieval studies.
(Jyväskylä, 10–14 June 2003) (Turnhout, 2006), 197–221; Gian Maria Varanini, “Public
written records,” in: The Italian Renaissance State, ed. Andrea Gamberini and Isabella Lazzarini (Cambridge, 2012), 385–405, especially 387–88 where he describes “fiscal and judicial
sources, libri iurium and statutes” as all part of the “‘documentary revolution’”; Antonella
Ghignoli, “Il codice e i testi. Per una fenomenologia del codice statutario a Pisa fra XIII e
XIV secolo,” Mélanges de l’École française de Rome—Moyen Âge, 126, no. 2 (2014),
https://doi.org/10.4000/mefrm.2095.
12. Cammarosano himself acknowledged and discussed at length the continuing role of
ecclesiastical institutions in documentary production and innovation, underscoring that “the
change of the twelfth to fifteenth centuries was general, affecting the forms of private texts
and of public documents, those of historical narrative and the same traditional forms of ecclesiastical institutions” (Italia medievale, 205), but scholarly focus, following Maire Vigueur, has
remained on the communes until very recently (see below n. 15).

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being at least sporadically produced.13 The eleventh-century regestum of the
monastery of Santa Scholastica at Subiaco has a similar character.14 Such
collections of copies or summaries of charters were also the bases of the
“cartulary chronicles” produced by Italian monasteries from the eleventh
century: at the abbey of Farfa, for example, Gregory of Catino first compiled the community’s charters in the Regestum farfense, then put together
a collection of leases and other property transactions (the Liber largitoribus), and between 1107 and 1119 composed the better known Chronicon farfense, a narrative that incorporates documents.15 Not only were some
monasteries creating cartulary-histories, but at the end of the twelfth century the bishop of Salerno had a register compiled of all the see’s properties.16 The papacy, moreover, had been keeping registers of its correspondence from at least the fourth century. Although very few papal registers
survive before the thirteenth century, those survivals suggest an established
practice. The original register of Gregory the Great (590–604), for example, consisted of fourteen papyrus rolls, one for each indiction of his pontificate; it was preserved until the 880s when it was copied onto parchment.
There is also the register of Gregory VII (1073–1085) as well as portions
of the registers of Honorius I (625–38) and John VIII (872–82).17 So,

13. Breviarium ecclesiae Ravennatis (codice bavaro), secoli VII–X, ed. Giuseppe Rabotti
(Rome, 1985), xxxi–lxv, especially xlvii (lx for it as a liber iurium) and pp. 230–36 (Appendix
III, nos. 20–21). The author thanks Veronica West-Harling for calling attention to this
important source.
14. Leone Allodi and Guido Levi, eds., Il regesto sublacense dell’undicesimo secolo, (Rome,
1885), v–xi.
15. Similar codices were compiled at the monasteries of Casauria, Santa Sophia in Benevento, Montecassino, Volturno, and San Bartolomeo di Carpineto—on Montecassino and
Volturno, see G. A. Loud, Church and society in the Norman principality of Capua, 1058–1197
(Oxford, 1985), 172–76, 181–82, 183n62. On Italian cartularies generally, see Cammarosano,
Italia medievale, 91–92; Graeme Dunphy, “Cartulary chronicles and legal texts,” in: Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle, ed. Graeme Dunphy and Cristian Bratu, consulted online 10
September 2020 at https://referenceworks-brillonline-com.libproxy.berkeley.edu/entries/
encyclopedia-of-the-medieval-chronicle/cartulary-chronicles-and-legal-texts-SIM_01668?s.
num=0&s.f.s2_parent=s.f.book.encyclopedia-of-the-medieval-chronicle&s.q=Cartulary+
chronicles; Cristina Carbonetti and Jean-Marie Martin, “Les cartulaires ecclésiastiques de
l’Italie médiévale,” Mélanges de l’École française de Rome—Moyen Âge, 127, no. 2 (2015), 2–11.
Carbonetti now leads an equipe working to produce of repertory of Italian ecclesiastical cartularies compiled or copied before 1500 and this project is part of a larger, European-wide
undertaking, MECA—Medieval European Cartularies, coordinated by Paul Bertrand,
François Bougard, and Jean-Marie Martin: https://www.efrome.it/en/meca.
16. Alessandro Di Muro, Signori e contadini nel Mezzogiorno normanno: Il Codice
Solothurn (fine sec. XII) (Bari, 2013), 7–16, describing the five quaterniones surviving of the
more than ten that comprised this codex. The script used is Beneventan.
17. Thomas Frenz, Papsturkunden des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit (Stuttgart, 2000), 46–47.

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some ecclesiastical institutions in Italy were producing registers well before
the advent of the northern communes.
What is different in the thirteenth century is that more ecclesiastical
institutions not only produced administrative codices, but they also preserved them and initiated new, more enduring, systems of registers. Balsamon’s book, considered in the context of Cava’s other thirteenth-century
registers, documents and illustrates both changes. It was consulted and
conserved. Its state of conservation discloses an emerging system of record
keeping in notebooks (quaterniones) bound together as codices. It also
reveals the limits of papal influence in a period usually heralded as the apex
of papal power in the Middle Ages.
After briefly introducing the abbey of Cava and its origins, this paper
will sketch the political and patrimonial crisis that is the essential background to Balsamon’s abbacy before turning to the abbot’s election and
first acts in office. Then the focus will move to his register: what was it,
when was it redacted, and what kind of change did it represent? This paper
will argue that Balsamon’s book was not an essential tool to solve the problems he and his brethren confronted when he took office. Rather, it postdates the reclamation of the abbey’s patrimony and may have been influenced by the legislation and chancery of the abbot’s sovereign, Emperor
Frederick II. Fragments of two other registers bound into Balsamon’s
book, moreover, reveal that the abbey was keeping other registers too. And
this does suggest that the anarchy in the regno that followed the death of
King William II in 1189 led to enduring changes in this important southern Italian monastery. Cava initiated new administrative practices and documentary forms that performed conformity with royal legislation, and
these reveal suggestive traces of how much was not preserved for posterity
as well as glimpses of forces promoting conservation.
The Abbey of Cava
A monastic community had formed at Cava by 1025 around Alferio (d.
1050), a native of Salerno from an elite family. As a youth he had entered the
service of Salerno’s princes and been sent as an envoy to Francia.18 He
18. Alberto M. Ghisalberti, ed., Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (Rome, 1960–present) (hereafter DBI), II, 262–63, s.v. “Alferio,” gives the traditional founding date of c. 1020,
but a 1025 diploma of Guaimario III and Guaimario IV to Alferio provides a more reliable
one: see Vito Loré, Monasteri, principi, aristocrazie: La Trinità di Cava nei secoli XI e XII (Spoleto, 2008), 13–20, and Graham A. Loud, The Social World of the Abbey of Cava, c. 1020–1300
(Woodbridge, UK, 2021).

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became ill on the journey, and during a period of recuperation at the Benedictine abbey of San Michele della Chiusa he took a vow to enter monastic
life. At San Michele, Alferio had encountered the great abbot of Cluny,
Odilo, and subsequently traveled to Cluny where he lived as a member of
that reforming monastic community for roughly a decade. Circa 1010, however, Alferio was recalled to his homeland by its prince, Guaimar III of
Salerno, and charged with the task of reorganizing the city’s many Benedictine foundations. He proved, however, not up to that challenge, and within
a year retired to the mountains northwest of the city that were already the
refuge of other hermits. Alferio attracted disciples, an eremitic community
formed and set to work building the original church that was carved into the
rock-face at the site of today’s late eighteenth-century basilica of the Most
Holy Trinity. In Alferio’s lifetime, the community remained one of hermits
living in cells around the church. Only in the second half of the eleventh century did it adopt the regular life of a Benedictine monastery and attract the
support of the papacy. Its connections with Cluny moved Urban II (1088–
99) to grant privileges to Cava.19 The later Lombard rulers of Salerno, as well
as the Norman princes who replaced them, made multiple donations of lands
and rights to the abbey and other lay patrons soon began donating churches
and monasteries. Within a century of the founder’s death, Cava had over a
hundred dependent abbeys, and its monastic network throughout southern
Italy, like that of Cluny, became a powerful force for reform. Like Cluny as
well, Cava was greatly enriched by numerous donations; its abbots became
powerful lords overseeing an immense patrimony.20
19. Giovanni Vitolo, “Cava e Cluny,” in: L’Italia nel quadro dell’espansione europea del
monachesimo cluniacense: Atti del Convengo internazionale di storia medievale (Pescia, 27–28
November 1981), ed. Cinzio Violante, Amleto Spicciani, and Giovanni Spinelli (Cesena,
1985), 199–220. Two eleventh-century papal bulls are published in Carmine Carlone, Leone
Morinelli, and Giovanni Vitolo, eds., [Codex diplomaticus Cavensis, 10: (1073–1080) and
12: (1086–1090)] (Badia di Cava in Battipaglia, Salerno, 1984), in X, 76–8 (doc. 22) and XII,
296–302 (doc. 111), but the 1073 one, purportedly from Gregory VII, is considered a forgery.
The author thanks Graham Loud for calling her attention to this. The two are also published
in Paul Guillaume, Essai historique sur l’abbaye de Cava d’après des documents inédits (Cava dei
Tirreni, 1877), Appendix, pp. VI–VII, XX–XXII (the section of appended transcriptions of
documents is numbered with capitalized roman numerals in the original). The 1073 document survives only in an authenticated copy (AC Armarium Magnum B, parchment 8, hereafter AC Arm. Mag. B.8); Urban II’s original, dated September 21, 1089, survives in AC
Arm. Mag. C.32. The latter placed the monastery under apostolic protection, confirmed and
listed its property and rights (including the community’s free election of its abbot and his consecration by the pope), and accorded limited, specified rights (over consecrating altars,
ordaining monks) to the archbishop of Amalfi and bishop of Pesto.
20. For this early period, see Loré, Monasteri, principi, aristocrazie, 20–61; for the Lombard principality of Salerno, see Huguette Taviani-Carozzi, La principauté lombarde de Salerne

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The limits of Cava’s expansion seem to have been reached in the early
thirteenth century; and historians generally see an inexorable decline, both
spiritual and temporal, from the middle of the thirteenth century until a
series of developments in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries initiated
a new flourishing of monastic life at the Most Holy Trinity.21 So Abbot
Balsamon (r. 1208–32), who had the first surviving register of the abbey
created, seems to stand at a crucial tipping point in the community’s fortunes. In March 1208, Abbot Peter II, three days before he died, designated Balsamon his successor, and the community elected Balsamon the
tenth abbot of Cava. The only thing known about him before he acceded
to the position was that he had been prior, since at least 1200, of one of
Cava’s dependencies, San Nicola.22
Balsamon proved to be the able and astute leader the community
needed in perilous and uncertain times. The medieval Kingdom of Sicily,
which included southern Italy, had been in crisis since 1189. That year saw
the death without heirs of King William II (called William “the Good,”
grandson of the great founding monarch of the Norman kingdom of Sicily,
Roger II). On William’s demise, the rules for succession in the kingdom
were not clear. The closest possible heir was William’s aunt, Constance,
born in 1154 and married in 1186 to the Hohenstaufen prince, Henry VI
IXe–XIe siècle, 2 vols., [Collection de l’École française de Rome, 152] (Rome, 1991). The most
detailed history of the abbey is still Paul Guillaume, Essai historique sur l’abbaye de Cava d’après
des documents inédits (Cava dei Tirreni, 1877), but for a concise introduction to its medieval
history see Simeone Leone, “Dalla fondazione del cenobio al secolo XIV,” in: La Badia di
Cava (see above n. 1), I, 1–45; in English, Valerie Ramseyer, The Transformation of a Religious
Landscape: Medieval Southern Italy, 850–1150 (Ithaca, 2006), 159–92, and Graham A. Loud,
“The Abbey of Cava, its properties and benefactors in the Norman era,” Anglo-Norman Studies: Proceedings of the Battle Conference, 9 (1986), 143–77; on Cava’s dependencies, see: Barbara
Visentin, Percorsi monastici nel Mezzogiorno medievale: la Congregazione di Cava, 2 vols.,
[Studi e ricerche sul Mezzogiiorno medieval, nuova serie, 1–2] (Battipaglia, 2015), I, xxxii–
xlviii and tavole 3–6.
21. Visentin, Percorsi, I, xlvi–xlvii; Leone, “Dalla fondazione,” 15–23; Domenico
Ambrasi, “Le vicende dell’etá moderna,” in: La Badia di Cava (see above n. 1), I, 47–118, for
the “rinascita” specifically, see I, 56–67.
22. AC Arca. XLIV, parchment 103 (hereafter AC Arc. XLIV.103), a tiny charter
redacted in January of 1200, is subscribed “+ Ego fr(ater) Balsam(us) p(r)ior s(an)c(t)i Nycolai testis.” This is probably San Nicola de Palma in Salerno, a church founded by Abbot Leo
and the gastald Vivo in the 1060s; soon after, Leo was described as abbot of both Cava and
the monastery of San Nicola. Visentin, Percorsi I, 98–109, here 99 and 101. See Alessandro
Pratesi’s entry on Balsamo in DBI, V, 607–8 for the best short synopsis of his life; more
hagiographical in tone is Leone Mattei-Cerasoli, “Il decimo Abbate di Cava: Balsamo
(1208–1232),” Rassegna Storica Salernitana, 5 (1944), 109–44; see also Guillaume, Essai historique, 143–51.

MAUREEN C. MILLER

11

of Germany, son of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. Many southern Italians feared German rule, however, and so when Tancred of Lecce (an illegitimate son of Roger III) seized power, leading aristocrats and clerics
acquiesced and crowned him king in 1190. This did not staunch the kingdom’s rapid descent into violent factional struggles, warfare, and chaos as
King Henry VI made his way south to claim his wife’s inheritance. He succeeded in being crowned at Palermo on Christmas day in 1194, and the
very next day Constance gave birth at Jesi to a son, the future stupor mundi,
Frederick II. These auspicious events may have portended well for the stabilization of the realm, but Henry VI’s death at Messina in September
1197 prolonged and intensified the struggle for power within the realm
and the general lawlessness among elites that was the major threat to ecclesiastical institutions. The patrimonies of churches and monasteries, including Cava’s, were devastated.23
Balsamon, therefore, faced enormous challenges when he became
abbot of Cava in March of 1208. But his earliest actions suggest that his
predecessor’s faith in him was well placed: he promptly sought the confirmation of his election from Pope Innocent III, who on July 31, 1208 issued
a privilege authorizing Balsamon to restore his jurisdiction over any of the
abbey’s lands that had been seized and denying those illicitly holding
Cava’s properties any right of appeal.24 The following year, Abbot Balsamon took another, more crucial step: he went to Sicily to seek the aid of
Frederick II, who had just come of age and embarked on the restoration of
the monarchy’s authority in the kingdom. The fifteen-year-old king was,
himself, in a position not so different from that of the new abbot, for the
royal demesne too had suffered from the years of internecine struggles and
the self-interested decisions of the kingdom’s functionaries during the long
regency. When Balsamon came into the king’s presence at Messina in Sep23. Wolfgang Stürner, Friedrich II, first edition, 2 vols. (Darmstadt, 1992–2000), I: Die
Königsherrschaft in Sizilien und Deutschland 1194–1220, 34–66, [Italian translation: Federico II
e l’apogeo dell’impero, trans. Andrea Antonio Verardi (Rome, 2009), 95–133]; Norbert Kamp,
“Federico II di Svevia, imperatore, re di Sicilia e di Gerusalemme, re dei Romani,” in: DBI,
XLV, 743–58, here 743–44; a good, brief English account of the crisis in the realm is Tommaso Astarita, Between Salt Water and Holy Water: A History of Southern Italy (New York,
2005), 39–41. Some other southern monasteries, such as Montecassino, endured crises earlier
in the twelfth century as Roger II established his dominion on the mainland, but their losses
worsened after 1189: Loud, Church and society, 200–03 (see above n. 15).
24. AC Arm. Mag. M.6, transcribed in Guillaume, Essai historique, p. XLII, wrongly
dated July 30, 1210. This privilege is neither in Innocent’s register nor in August Potthast,
Regesta pontificum romanorum inde ab a. post Christum natum MCXCVIII ad a. MCCCIV
(Berlin, 1874–1875).

12

ABBOT BALSAMON’S BOOK

tember of 1209, Frederick had already been at work for several months
reclaiming royal lands in Sicily and had just put down an insurrection of
the disgruntled dispossessed in the northeast. Beyond the monarch’s
understanding of, and perhaps empathy for, the abbot’s difficulties, Frederick needed allies, and he granted Balsamon the extraordinary privilege of
exercising during his lifetime the powers of a royal justiciar over all the men
and lands conceded to his monastery.25 The evidence of Balsamon exercising these powers is slight, so the title of royal justiciar may have been
largely honorific.26 But the abbot slowly over the next twelve years reestablished the abbey’s possession of all its lands—particularly the castle of
Sant’Adiutore east of Salerno and the lands and churches that comprised
the abbey’s territorial lordship in the Cilento.27
Balsamon’s Book
If Balsamon’s book was created as part of the abbot’s campaign to
restore Cava’s patrimony, it seems a puny material memorial to his efforts.
Cava dei Tirreni, Badia della SS. Trinità, Arm. X.1 is a small (218 mm ×
25. Guillaume, Essai historique, pp. XLI–XLII; [Monumenta Germaniae historica,
Diplomatum regum et imperatorum Germaniae, 14 (hereafter, MGH, DD)] (Berlin, 1879–),
part 1, pp. 202–3 (doc. 105); Stürner, Friedrich II, I, 114–20 [Federico II, 189–96]; Loré,
Monasteri, principi, aristocrazie, 159–200.
26. Graham A. Loud, “Frederick II and the Criminal Jurisdiction of the Abbot of
Cava,” in: Da Aquisgrana ad Acri. Scavalcare i confini nel Medioevo / From Aachen to Acre. Crossing Medieval Borders, ed. Kristjan Toomespoeg, Kordula Wolf, Georg Vogeler, and Francesco
Panarelli (forthcoming); Loud, The Social World of the Abbey of Cava, 278–84. The original of
this diploma does not survive. The 1216 copy, AC Arc. Mag. M.8, was authenticated by five
Salernitan judges and deemed trustworthy by the MGH editors, but the only evidence to date
of Balsamon exercising the powers granted is a reference in the eighteenth-century collection
of excerpts compiled by the archivist of Cava, Salvatore Maria Di Blasi, Chronicon ex tabulario
SS.mae Trinitatis Cavae excerptum, under 1216: “Hoc anno Stratigotus Salerni, qui hominem,
Vassallum dicti Monasterij (Cavensis), de homicidio inquisitum in vinculis detinebat, ad
Abbatem Balsamum judicandum in omnibus hominum, et bonorum suorum causis electum,
quocumque alio Justitiario escluso.” Guillaume, Essai historique, 144.
27. Pratesi, “Balsamo,” DBI, V, 607; Mattei-Cerasoli, “Il decimo Abbate,” 124–27;
Visentin, Percorsi, I, 147–52 [Sant’Adiutore]; Fulvio Delle Donne, ed., Annales Cavenses,
[Analecta Cavensia 5, co-published as Rerum Italicarum Scriptores ser. III, 9] (Rome, 2011),
56: “Eodem etiam anno [1220] recuperavimus castrum Sancti Adiutoris, in vigilia scilicet
Natalis Domini, domno Balsamo venerabili abate multum proinde laborante”; Vito Loré,
“Poteri locali e congregazioni monastici. Cava e Montecassino a confronto,” in: Riforma della
Chiesa, esperienze monastiche e poteri locali: La Badia di Cava nei secoli XI–XII, ed. Maria
Galante, Giovanni Vitolo, and Giuseppa Z. Zanichelli (Florence, 2014), 119–34, especially
119–25; and Loré, Monasteri, principi, aristocrazie, 178–200, which affirms the territoriality of
Cava’s lordship at Cilento while noting its late development and incompleteness in comparison to other monastic lordships like Montecassino’s.

MAUREEN C. MILLER

13

159 mm) parchment manuscript of twenty folios dating, according to Giovanni Vitolo on paleographical grounds, to c. 1208–1222. At the time of
Vitolo’s study and edition in 1974, it consisted in only two gatherings, the
second of which included three slightly smaller folios (210 mm × 159 mm)
which Vitolo identified as extraneous and originally part of a different register.28 After Vitolo’s study, the three extraneous folios (14, 15, and 16)
were removed from the second gathering and placed at the end before all
folios were rebound to produce the present manuscript.29 Today folios 1–
9 form a defective quinternio with a leaf missing between 5v and 6r, followed by a quaternio (folios 10–13, 17–20), and then a defective duernio
lacking the final leaf (folios 14–16). Balsamon’s book proper consists of
lists of revenues organized by type of holding and place, each subdivision
indicated in rubrics, with space left after each category for further entries
to be added. Each entry usually includes a lease-holder’s name, the type of
property (land, house, garden, arbor, etc.), and the amount owed reckoned
in the local tarenos of either Salerno or Amalfi.30
It was these lists of sums owed in cash that initially attracted Vitolo’s
attention. His study of Balsamon’s book originated in research on the
broader, and highly significant, debate over agricultural levies in southern
Italy. Were peasants in the south more burdened with exorbitant rents and
lordly exactions than their counterparts in northern Italy? The question
bears on the fraught debate over the origins of the south’s “backwardness”

28. Vitolo, “Il Registro di Balsamo,” 96 describes the manuscript as “formato di due
quinterni di dieci carte ciascuno, in totale venti carte.” He gave the archive shelfmark as Arc.
CXX. 1, whereas presently it bears the designation “Armarium X, n. 1.” This and other
administrative registers are denominated the manuscripti / manoscritti and are part of the
archive, whereas the more famous codices / codici are part of the library: Leo Mattei-Cerasoli,
Codices Cavenses, 2 vols. (Cava, 1935), Pars I: Codices membranacei.
29. Vitolo’s numbering of the folios in his edition accords with the present manuscript
from folios 1–13, but then differs. Folios 17–20 in the present manuscript are number 14–17
in his edition. He also re-ordered the three extraneous folios, originally folios 14–16, as edition folios 18–20 but placing them in chronological order (edition folio 18 is 16 in the earlier
numeration, dated 1222; edition folio 19 is the earlier-numbered 14, dated 1222–23; and edition folio 20 is the earlier-numbered 15, dated 1225). See Vitolo, “Il Registro di Balsamo,”
96. In citing Balsamo’s book, both the original folio numbers first and then the corresponding
folio number in Vitolo’s edition will be given.
30. These gold coins derived from the Arab dinar (4.25g, a little lighter than a solidus).
The tarí used in southern Italy from the early tenth century were a quarter-dinar, 1.05g, and
those during the early part of Frederick II’s reign, 1197–1220, featured a cross on one side,
usually an eagle or star on the other, and Frederick’s name and title in Arabic or Latin. Philip
Grierson and Lucia Travaini, Medieval European Coinage, XIV: Italy (III) (South Italy, Sicily,
Sardinia) [Medieval European Coinage, 14] (Cambridge, 1998), 3, 160, 164–74.

14

ABBOT BALSAMON’S BOOK

in the modern era.31 The register’s lists of sums owed in cash caught
Vitolo’s attention because most of Cava’s leases at the time stipulated high
rents in kind—frequently half of the land’s agricultural produce in addition
to gifts of food on feast days. So, he systematically searched for the leases
of the individuals and lands named as owing sums in Balsamon’s register.
In the process he discovered that the register listed incomes from only a
very few localities among the numerous known patrimonial holdings of the
monastery, demonstrating that Balsamon’s little book was in no way a register of all Cava’s revenues. Vitolo was, moreover, able to identify securely
twenty leases for the lands and tenants named in the register.32 Many of
these do show that the register sums were only the cash portion of a more
complex, multi-component rent. On folio 5v of Balsamon’s book, for
example, the opening entry lists “Petrus de Bene, for the arbor and chestnut grove which he holds at Castanetus, at the Lord’s nativity, 1 tarenus.”33
Among Cava’s parchments one can find Peter de Bene’s lease: drawn up in
September 1222, it grants him four pieces of land with an arbor, fruit trees,
and chestnut grove in Mitilianus and in Castanetus at the place called “li
casali,” all of these lands belonging to the monastery. Every year Peter
owed to the abbey “half of the wine, chestnuts, fruits, and all produce” and
“to the chapel of the lord abbot at the nativity of our aforementioned Lord
Jesus Christ one tarenus of the present money of the aforementioned city
[Salerno] in gold,” as well as saputa and terraticus according to the customs
of these places.34 Some of the leases Vitolo linked to Balsamon’s book

31. On this debate now, see Sandro Carocci, Signorie di Mezzogiorno: Società rurali,
poteri aristocratici e monarchia (XII–XIII secolo) (Rome, 2014), especially 17–43 (now also
available in English as Lordships of Southern Italy: Rural Societies, Aristocratic Powers and
Monarchy in the 12th and 13th Centuries, trans. Lucinda Byatt (Rome, 2018), 26–54), and
Graham A. Loud’s rejoinder, “Labour Services and Peasant Obligations in Twelfth- and
Thirteenth-Century Southern Italy,” in: Italy and Early Medieval Europe: Papers for Chris
Wickham, ed. Ross Balzaretti, Julia Barrow, and Patricia Skinner (Oxford, 2018), 182–97.
32. Vitolo, “Il Registro di Balsamo,” 79–80.
33. AC Arm. X.1 fol. 5v: “Petrus de Bene de arbusto et castaneto quod tenet ad Castanetum in nativitate Domini tarenum I”; Vitolo, “Il Registro di Balsamo,” 106.
34. AC Arc. XLVII.86: “det omni anno parte ipsius monasteri integram medietatem
de vino et castaneis et pomis et omnibus fructibus . . . et cappelli domini abbatis in nativitate
suprascripti domini iesu christi unum tarenum presentis monetis suprascripti civitatis in
auro.” The other leases that match precisely are AC Arc. XXXVIII.102 (AC Arm. X.1 fol.
2v); XXXVIII.107 (fol. 7r); XXXIX.70 (fol. 6v); XXXIX.94 (fol. 6r); XXXIX.101 (fol. 11v);
XL.64 (fol. 6v); XL.89 (fol. 7r); XL.106 (fol. 3r); XLI.43 (fol. 3v); XLV.71 (fol. 4v);
XLVII.86 (fol. 5v); XLVII.97 (fol. 5v); XLVIII.30 (fol. 6r). Saputa and terraticum (terragium)
were payments acknowledging the abbey’s ownership of, and lordship over, the lands held;
terraticum is related to sown land and usually reckoned as a tenth part of the land’s produce.
See Maria Castellano, Per la storia dell’organizzazione amministrativa della Badia della SS.

MAUREEN C. MILLER

15

differ slightly from the entries in the register in the amount to be paid in
coin,35 and not all specify the cappella abbatis, but it is clear that the sums
registered were only portions of the rents owed.
Vitolo concluded that Balsamon’s register recorded only the revenues
designated for the abbot’s use: those to be paid “in cappella domini abbatis,”
in the lord abbot’s chapel.36 Indeed, the opening rubric on folio 1r
announces, “These are the revenues which should be paid in the chapel”
(Isti sunt redditus qui debent persolvi in capella). This cappella was a discrete
architectural space within the monastic complex that existed by the end of
the eleventh century: two accounts of Pope Urban II’s 1092 consecration
of the basilica built during the abbacy of Peter (r. 1079–1122) recount that
a cappella abbatis was also consecrated during the pope’s visit.37 But Vitolo
thought that the register itself was evidence that Balsamon had created an
abbatial mensa, a distinct set of funds reserved for the abbot’s use, as part
of a broader set of internal reforms of the monastery’s administration.38
Balsamon may have taken the key steps toward formalizing a mensa, but
two years before he became abbot a lease directed that a rent of one Sicilian

Trinità di Cava dei Tirreni: gli inventari dei secoli XIII–XV (Naples, 1994), 102 on saputa, and
Carocci, Signorie di Mezzogiorno (see above n. 31), 421–22 [Lordships of Southern Italy, 440–
42] on terraticum.
35. AC Arc. XLII.90, for example, is a lease redacted in February 1191 that directs
Alfanus, called Gallardus, to provide guard service with his own arms at the castle of S. Adiutoris in addition to paying four tareni, whereas AC Arm. X.1 fol. 7v lists him as owing six
tareni annually. Other examples like this are XXXIX.22 (fol. 3v); XLI.29 (fol. 6v); XLII.90
(fol. 7r); XLIII.100 (fol. 6v); XLV.97 (fol. 4v); XLVII.96 (fol. 5v).
36. Vitolo, “Il Registro di Balsamo,” 79–85; Vitolo noted that this terminology continued into the fourteenth century when, under Abbot Mainerio (1341–66), it shifted to camera
domini abbatis. The term mensa came into use in the period when the abbots were also bishops
(1394–1431) and when each member of the community was assigned a portion of the
monastery’s revenues.
37. Vitae quatuor priorum abbatum cavensium Alferii, Leonis, Petri et Constabilis, ed.
Leone Mattei Cerasoli, [Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, ser. II, 6.5] (Bologna, 1941), 47, 48.
The accounts differ as to whether the pope had bishop Bruno of Segni or Oddo cardinal
bishop of Albano perform the consecration, but both affirm the existence of the chapel. Vitolo
thought that the earliest documentary reference to the chapel was in 1190, but Graham Loud
has pointed out a reference in 1135. Vitolo, “Il Registro di Balsamo,” 82–84, citing AC Arc.
XLII.83; Graham A. Loud, “The Monastic Economy in the Principality of Salerno during
the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries,” Papers of the British School at Rome, 71 (2003), 141–79,
here 169n131 citing AC Arc. XXXIII.37. On the Vitae quatuor generally, see Graham A.
Loud, “The Posthumous Reputation of Abbot Peter of Cava,” in: Medioevo e Mediterraneo:
Incontri, scambi e confronti—Studi per Salvatore Fodale, ed. Patrizia Sardina et al. (Palermo,
2020), 389–403.
38. Vitolo, “Il Registro di Balsamo,” 81–84.

16

ABBOT BALSAMON’S BOOK

tarí be paid annually “in cappella domini abbatis.”39 It would seem, therefore, that revenues reserved to the abbot’s use and paid to his chapel existed
before Balsamon’s abbacy.
It is worth noting at this juncture that what a register was, in form and
content, varied a great deal. In earliest ecclesiastical usage, a regestum or
registrum was a collection of letters and memorials: as noted above, the
popes kept registers of their letters from the fourth century, the first reference to such a register being from the papacy of Liberius in 355. As
codices, administrative registers vary greatly in size: Abbot Balsamon’s
book at 218 mm × 159 mm is tiny in comparison to the episcopal registers
of Città di Castello, relative behemoths at 438 mm × 241 mm.40 The earliest gatherings of the latter series, compiled 1207–08, are a collection of
leases as is the earliest register of the cathedral chapter in Città di Castello
(dating from 1192).41 The first register of the see of Mantua, like some
early communal registers, is a collection of lists, chiefly lists of lands held
by the see in various locales.42 And Abbot Balsamon’s register too is composed of lists, in this case lists of revenues: the cash renders from specific
lands to be paid to the chapel of the lord abbot. Most of it was compiled
at one point in time by one scribe. But this original compiler laid it out
with the expectation of additions: on folio 10v, for example, sections were
laid out to facilitate additions with spaces left under a series of headings
(Figure 1). Two folios at the end of the second gathering were also left

39. AC Arc. XLV.81, dated June 1206.
40. This figure is based on the author’s own measurements of Città di Castello,
Archivio Storico Diocesano, Archivio Vescovile Cancelleria, Reg. 1. The individual volumes
of this series do vary slightly in size, but they are all very large in comparison to Balsamo’s
register.
41. Maureen C. Miller, “The Bishops’ Books of Città di Castello in Context,” Traditio,
76 (2021), 215–46.
42. Mantua, Archivio Storico Diocesano, Mensa Vescovile, ser. Registri, 1 which consists mainly of lists of the see’s landholdings in different parts of the diocese along with the
names of those who held or worked them. On communal registers generally, see Antonella
Rovere, “I ‘libri iurium’ dell’Italia comunale,” in: Civiltà comunale: libro, scrittura, documento:
Atti del Convegno, Genova, 8–11 novembre 1988: Atti della Società Ligure di Storia Patria, nuova
serie, 29, no.2 (1989), 157–199; and on “governing by lists,” see Giuliano Milani, “Il governo
delle liste nel comune di Bologna: Premesse e genesi di un libro di proscrizione duecentesco,”
Rivista storica italiana, 108 (1996), 149–229; Massimo Vallerani, “Logica della documentazione e logica dell’istituzione. Per una rilettura dei documenti in forma di lista nei comuni
italiani della prima metà del XIII secolo,” in: Notariato e medievistica: Per i cento anni di Studi
e ricerche di diplomatica comunale di Pietro Torelli: Atti delle giornate di studi (Mantova,
Accademia Nazionale Virgiliana, 2–3 dicembre 2011), [Nuovi studi storici, 93] ( Rome: Istituto
storico italiano per il medio evo, 2015), 109–45.

MAUREEN C. MILLER

17

FIGURE 1. Cava dei Tirreni, Badia della SS. Trinità, Arm. X.1, fol. 10v. Photo:
author; reproduced by permission of the Biblioteca Statale del Monumento
Nazionale Badia di Cava.

blank in the expectation of added sections and at several points, as on folio
8v, there were additions in several different hands (Figure 2). While the
content of the register (lists of revenues) might suggest a mere organization
of information extracted from the abbey’s documentation, the layout of
Abbot Balsamon’s book and the additions made to it highlight the expectation of continued use and development of its data.43
43. Although Cammarosano deployed a general distinction between administrative
registers, which he characterized as “open,” “ongoing” records of administration in comparison to “closed” collections of documents like most of the libri iurium (Italia medievale,
160), he also acknowledged that registers could have characteristics of both, and he pointed
precisely to the type of register listing “i censi teoricamente dovuti alla Chiesa e fondati su
certi possessi o certi villaggi, lascando uno spazio bianco destinato all’annotazione corrente
dei versamenti effetivamente esequiti.” This type represented “una sorta di area di confine
fra il tipo della registrazione ‘chiusa’ e quella ‘corrente’” (Italia medievale, 231). Moreover,
recent scholarship has further eroded the distinction between “closed” and “open” registers

18

ABBOT BALSAMON’S BOOK

FIGURE 2. Cava dei Tirreni, Badia della SS. Trinità, Arm. X.1, fol. 8v. Photo:
author; reproduced by permission of the Biblioteca Statale del Monumento
Nazionale Badia di Cava.

The Register’s Purpose
Having described Balsamon’s book, this paper will consider what it
was compiled to accomplish. If Balsamon’s book did not initiate the abbatial mensa, was it an administrative instrument necessitated by the abbot’s
struggle to reclaim the community’s lands and incomes? Since Giovanni
Vitolo dated the register on paleographical grounds to the first part of Balby demonstrating that even the Libri iurium were not stable (documents were added, quires
reorganized and reordered for political purposes) and that early thirteenth-century registers
such as the Libri finium (surveys of the commune’s territory) enabled the kind of governing
actions recorded in “open” registers. See Carbonetti Vendittelli, Documenti su libro (see
above n. 11), most succinctly on 179–84; Libro Nero I (Liber Instrumentorum) 1179–1350,
Regesti, ed. Ludovico Arcaleni (Città di Castello, 2005), ii–iii; Miller, “The Bishops’
Books” (see above n. 41), 6–19; and Francesconi and Salvestrini, “La scrittura del confine”
(see above n. 11).

MAUREEN C. MILLER

19

samon’s time as abbot, from 1208 to 1222, it seems reasonable to hypothesize that it was created to aid somehow in reconstituting Cava’s patrimony. Vitolo suspected, however, that the register may likely have been
created closer to 1222 than to 1208, his suspicions raised by characteristics
of the different hands making additions. In fact, it could not have been
redacted before the end of 1220. The clearest evidence of this is an entry in
the hand of the original compiler on folio 6r listing “revenues from the possessions of the castle of Sant’Adiutore.” The monastery was not receiving
these revenues until Balsamon re-established its control over the castrum,
and it actually is known rather precisely when that control was re-established: the monastery’s annals record under the year 1220, not only Frederick II being crowned emperor in Rome on the feast of Saint Cecilia
(November 22), but also that in that same year “we recovered the castle of
Sant’Adiutore on the vigil of the Lord’s birth, through our venerable lord
abbot Balsamon’s great labors.”44 Thus, if the register was not compiled
until after the abbot had already been successful in reclaiming the
monastery’s most important holdings, it appears not to have been an essential tool in the project of patrimonial reclamation.
Vitolo’s assertion of a 1222 terminus ad quem for the manuscript is
based on added entries that attempted to maintain the rounded character of
the original script which he says “are certainly from 1222.”45 It is not clear
from the accompanying citation what yields this certainty, although it may
be correspondences between names in the additions and leases dated 1222.
He may also have been influenced by a February 1221 diploma of Frederick
II conferring upon the abbey the right to collect commercial fees at its port
of Vietri. This grant seems to be reflected on folios 18r–19r of Balsamon’s
book which record the various dues ships had to pay in the monastery’s
ports, including Vietri.46 Although the emperor was in Salerno in February
44. Delle Donne, Annales Cavenses (see above n. 27), 56: “A.D. 1220—Indict. VIII. In
hoc anno coronatus est domnus Fredericus imperator, et domna Constantia uxor eius imperatrix a domno Honorio papa III in urbe Roma, in festo videlicet sanctae Caeciliae. Eodem
anno recuperavimus castrum Sancti Adiutoris, in vigilia scilicet Natalis Domini, domno Balsamo venerabili abbate multum proinde laborante.”
45. Vitolo, “Il Registro di Balsamo,” 97: “Tra una località e l’altra fu lasciato lo spazio
per delle aggiunte che furono fatte da diverse mani, almento fino al 1234, in un carattere in
genere più minuto, con un tratteggio quasi frettoloso: solo nelle aggiunte contenute nelle
prime carte si cerca di mantenere il carattere rotondo della scrittura originaria.” The 1234 date
is definitely from AC Arc. XLIX.108, a lease dated 7 July 1234 to Peter qui dicitur Scalzu, and
corresponds to the last added entry on 8v of the register.
46. Vitolo, “Il Registro di Balsamo,” 90–92, 114–15 (fol. re-numbered 15A–16A: see
above n. 29 on folio numbering).

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ABBOT BALSAMON’S BOOK

of 1221, granting seven other privileges, this document is of “dubious”
authenticity because the hand presented as that of Iacobus de Cathania notarius et fidelis noster does not match other known examples by this imperial
notary. While it is plausible that Abbot Balsamon had attended Frederick
in Salerno and sought confirmation of Cava’s lands and rights just as had
other ecclesiastical leaders in the region—such as the abbots of Casamari
and Fossanova, the abbess of San Salvatore del Goleto, and the bishop of
Melfi—other evidence indicates this dubious survival was forged later in the
century to meet new exigencies under the Angevins.47
What is clear, however, is that Balsamon’s book was drawn up sometime after December 24, 1220 and thus post-dates the abbot’s reclamation
of the monastery’s key holdings. Of course, one cannot rule out the possibility that there may have been earlier drafts, so to speak, of this sort of register that have not survived. Nor can one rule out the possibility that some
of the funds ultimately registered in Balsamon’s book contributed in some
way to the reclamation of the monastery’s patrimony. They may have. But
this carefully written and organized register preserved in Cava’s archive was
not essential to the project that dominated Balsamon’s early abbacy. The
reconquest of the most important elements of the monastery’s patrimony,
such as the castle of Sant’Adiutore, was accomplished before the primary
hand laid out and wrote the initial lists of revenues.
Several material characteristics of Balsamon’s book are more important indicators of the purposes for which it was compiled. Its handsome
Caroline minuscule script with some early Gothic features is carefully ren47. MGH, DD 14.4.1:335–38. The “original” is AC Arm. Mag. M.16; see Carmine
Carlone, Falsificazioni e falsari cavensi e verginiani del secolo XIII (Altavilla Silentina, 1984),
38n133, echoing the judgement of Simeone Leone, “La genesi e lo sviluppo del ‘signum’ dei
notai salernitani dal 799 al 1231,” in: Minima Cavensia. Studi in margine al IX volume del
Codex Diplomaticus Cavensis, Simeone Leone and Giovanni Vitolo, eds. (Salerno, 1983), 95–
128. Note that both Carlone’s study and the MGH edition of this diploma (published in
2014) came out after Vitolo published his study and edition of Cava MS 1. On the problem
of forgeries at Cava and other southern monasteries, see Graham A. Loud, “The Chancery
and Charters of the Kings of Sicily (1130–1212),” English Historical Review, 124, no. 509
(2009), 779–810, here 805–06. Frederick II in 1239 included the port of Vietri among those
he regulated directly: Cristina Carbonetti Vendittelli, Il Registro della Cancelleria di Federico II
del 1239–1240, 2 vols., [Fonti per la Storia dell’Italia medievale, 19*–19**] (Rome, 2002), 27–
31 (entry no. 30)—(please note that 19* and 19** are separate volumes, as the series did not
accord two different numbers to these volumes). The interpolation regarding control of ports
in this 1221 diploma was probably an attempt to convince the Angevin administration that
rights once enjoyed by Cava that had been returned to the royal demesne upon Frederick’s
return to the regno had instead been granted to the monastery in perpetuity.

MAUREEN C. MILLER

21

dered and laid out on ruled folios. Subheadings are rubricized and the same
rich red ink is used in some marginal annotations, initial letters, and lineend embellishments. Although the register is a modest volume, some effort
was expended on its appearance. The uniformly careful redaction and
rubrication of Balsamon’s book suggest that it was intended for the eyes of
readers beyond the abbey rather than for internal use alone. Who might
these readers have been? The date of its redaction (after 1220) and its Caroline script suggest an imperial, or imperially associated, audience. The legislation on documents and documentary validity Frederick II issued in
1221 point to this conclusion when considered in the context of Cava’s surviving manuscripts and charters. Contemporary events understood in light
of the emperor’s legislation also offer a possible explanation for the content
and appearance of Balsamon’s book.
After Balsamon had first met Frederick II in Messina in September of
1209, the young ruler remained in his southern Italian kingdom for only
two and a half years. From 1212 to 1220 he was in the German realm
where he ultimately succeeded in claiming the throne: he defeated Otto of
Brunswick and was crowned at Aachen on July 23, 1215. Frederick II reentered his southern Italian kingdom after his imperial coronation in Rome
on November 22, 1220 and in late December he held a general assembly
at Capua where he issued a series of important laws.48 Two of them reveal
Frederick’s attempts to use control over written instruments to renegotiate
relations with, and assert his power over, his southern Italian subjects.49
One was Frederick’s decree requiring the validation and renewal of
privileges. The premise for this law was that after the demise of both his
father, Emperor Henry VI (d. 1191), and mother, Empress Constance
(d. 1198), their royal seals had fallen into the hands of officials who had
used them to make many concessions damaging to Frederick’s rights.
Therefore, at Capua the emperor decreed that all privileges issued after
the death of King William II in 1189 were abrogated. All those who had
previously received privileges under the seal of his father Emperor Henry

48. Stürner, Friedrich II, I, 114–21, 141–44, 246–50 [Federico II, 189–98, 220–23, 344–
52]; Wolfgang Stürner, Friedrich II, II: Der Kaiser 1220–1250, 9–16 [Federico II, 364–72].
49. Stürner, Friedrich II, II, 17–26 [Federico II, 355–447]. This legislation is widely
acknowledged as an essential element in the monarch’s attempt to reform the administration
and economy of the regno. On the wider array of Frederick’s legislation on notaries and the
documents they produced, see Mario Caravale, “La legislazione del Regno di Sicilia sul
notariato durante il medioevo,” in: Per una storia del notariato meridionale, ed. Mario Amelotti
(Rome, 1982), 95–176.

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ABBOT BALSAMON’S BOOK

VI, his mother Empress Constance, or even Frederick himself, must
present their documents at his court before Easter.50 His subjects hastened to comply. In a diploma drawn up in February of 1221, for example, Frederick underscored and rewarded exemplary compliance with his
new legislation.
After having recently held our customary court at Capua where we
ordered, among other things established to be observed, that all privileges
from the death of the well-remembered King William [II] on be invalidated, Matthew the venerable abbot of the monastery of Santa Sofia in
Benevento, coming into our presence, presented for our highness’s
inspection that privilege which the deceased lord Emperor [Henry VI]
and Empress [Constance] of celebrated memory had piously conceded to
his deceased predecessor Abbot William. . . .51

50. Ryccardi de Sancti Germani Notarii chronica, ed. Carlo Alberto Garufi, [Rerum italicarum scriptores, ser. II, 7.2] (Bologna, 1936–1938) [hereafter Ryccardi chronica in [RIS, ser.
II, 7.2]], 9: “Uolumus et districte iubemus, ut quia post obitum domini imperatoris Henrici
sigillum nostrum deuenit ad manus Macualdi, qui de ipso sigillo plura confecisse dicitur que
sunt in preiudicium nostrum, et simile factum putatur de sigillo imperatricis matris nostre
post obitum eius, universa privilegia, que facta sunt et concessa ab eisdem imperatore et
imperatrice ab hiis qui sunt citra Farum usque ad Pascha resurrectionis Domini presententur:
et ab illis de Sicilia usque at Pentecostem. Omnia etiam privilegia et concessionum scripta a
nobis cuilibet hactenus facta in eisdem terminis precipimus presentari. Quod si non presentaverint, [in] ipsis privilegiis non impune utantur; sed irritatis penitus qui ea conculcauerint,
indignationem imperialem incurrant.” Frederick offered a similar rationale for the decree in a
3 March, 1221 letter to Pope Honorius III, but added that in the period after his mother’s
demise “privilegia multa falsa inventa sunt, quibus maior pars nostri demanii fuerat occupata.”
MGH, DD 14.4:362–63 (no. 801). The law De privilegiis ante curiam Capuanam, later incorporated into the Liber Augustalis (II 29), further attests to the Capuan decree as it declares
all privileges not presented and reissued in accord with it revoked. See the critical edition of
Frederick II’s legislation, Monumenta Germaniae historica [Constitutiones et acta publica
imperatorum et regum, Tomus II Supplementum—Die Konstitutionen Friedrichs II. für das
Königreich Sizilien], (hereafter, MGH Const. 2 Supp.), ed. Wolfgang Stürner (Hannover,
1996), 333–34. King Roger II issued a similar decree (De resignandis privilegiis) in autumn of
1144, supposedly aimed at protecting the rights of the churches of the kingdom: see Jeremy
Johns (whom the author thanks for calling this to her attention), Arabic Administration in
Norman Sicily: The Royal Dīwān (Cambridge, 2002), 115–43. Like his royal predecessor’s
decree, Frederick’s was likely as much motivated by the fees that could be collected for
renewal as the restoration of his rights.
51. MGH, DD 14.4:320–26 (no. 786), this passage at 322. Other post-Capua diplomas that reference conformity with “De revocatione privilegiorum”: MGH, DD 14.4:326–30
(no. 787), 330–32 (no. 788), 332–34 (no. 789), 338–41 (no. 791), 379–82 (no. 810), 386–89
(no. 812), 390–93 (no. 814), 430–32 (no. 829). Not all ecclesiastical institutions fared well in
this process: H. J. Pybus, “Frederick II and the Sicilian Church,” Cambridge Historical Journal,
3 (1929–30), 134–63, here at 138–41.

MAUREEN C. MILLER

23

Frederick confirmed the monastery’s privilege, enumerating all the lands
and rights bestowed upon Santa Sofia in a new diploma. This is just one
example among many.
Indeed, Cava’s dubious diploma, mentioned above as including the
rights to collect shipping dues at Vietri that are among the revenues listed
in Balsamon’s book, is also dated February 1221 when the emperor was in
Salerno. It does not include a direct reference to the Capuan legislation,
but like the Santa Sofia privilege quoted above it appears to confirm the
abbey’s holdings. It listed the castles of Cilento and Sant’Adiutore with all
their possessions, the lands of Cava and its surroundings, twenty named
villages, all the men of San Pietro Columnello and San Nicola a Mercatello, “and every other gift our royal and princely predecessors gave as
well as those gifts and oblations conceded by other faithful Christians.”
The reference to the Vietri port dues, however, is found in an additional
grant which this diploma represents the emperor as making out of consideration for “the praiseworthy life and conduct” of Cava’s monks as well as
the “virtuous religious worship flourishing among them for which that
monastery has always been distinguished,” and a desire that he personally
and the souls of his relatives might benefit from the monk’s prayers. This
additional grant exempted all Cava’s goods and men from every corvée or
military service which may be levied on demesne or fiefs and exempted
them from payment of general subventions (even in places that had customarily paid them). Further, he supposedly conferred upon the monastery
the free collection of fees on purchases and sales in their castle of Cilento
and in Vietri and in all their ports as well as perpetual immunity throughout the kingdom from payment of a range of royal taxes (among them port
duties and mooring fees, pasturage dues, and both market and customs
exactions).52 Besides the previously mentioned material reason to doubt
the legitimacy of this diploma, its failure to invoke compliance with the
sovereign’s recent Capuan legislation, its effusive praise of the monastery’s
religious life, and the expansive scope of the rights and immunities supposedly bestowed all suggest it is a forgery.53 The Cava diploma also lacks a
formula frequently inserted in the new documents Frederick and his
chancery were providing those who dutifully presented their old privileges
in accordance with the Capua legislation. The new diplomas issued to
52. Guillaume, Essai historique, pp. XLIII–XLV; MGH, DD 14.4:335–38 (no. 790).
53. As suggested earlier, this Cava forgery was most likely created in the late thirteenth
century when the regno’s new Angevin rulers arrived, but Graham Loud’s research has uncovered other monastic forgeries of earlier Norman privileges confected in response to this royal
decree: Loud, “Chancery and Charters” (see above n. 47), 804–08.

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ABBOT BALSAMON’S BOOK

monasteries in this period usually included the formula “salvo mandato et
ordinatione nostra,” a clause essentially allowing the monarch subsequently
to override his grant without incurring the charge of violating his own concessions. The utility of this right in making sure his subjects did their
utmost always to serve their monarch assiduously, lest their privileges be
revoked, is obvious.54
A second piece of legislation issued at Capua exerted royal control
over documentary production by establishing specific criteria for legal
validity. This decree does not survive in the chronicler Riccardo of San
Germano’s account of the 1220 Capua assembly, but it was incorporated
into the Constitutions of Melfi, also known as the Liber Augustalis, as titulus eighty (LXXX) of Book One, on “How documents should be drawn
up” (De instrumentis conficiendis). “By this clear constitution,” Frederick
decreed, “we invalidate the custom which we have heard is in force in certain parts of our kingdom, and we abolish completely the style of writing
which was preserved until the present in the city of Naples, the Duchy of
Amalfi, and Sorrento, and the areas belonging to them. Therefore, we
decree that public documents and bonds of any kind ought to be written in
common and legible letters by the notaries appointed by us.” The decree
continued, specifying that public documents should be written on parchment, in order to stand the test of time, and that those written on papyrus
or paper would have no legal value as proof in court or outside of court.55
There is good evidence that this decree was actually issued at Capua in
1220 because some individuals and institutions began to have their documents redacted anew. In Ravello in 1221, for example, a notary “re-wrote
and renewed” (rescripsi et renovavi) a charter of 1208 recording a sale,
explicitly citing the imperial decree: “Since our lord emperor Frederick has
made known his new constitution that abolished the form of writing used
up to now in the city of Naples, the Duchies of Amalfi and Sorrento and
their territories, and required that public instruments and any bonds made
54. James M. Powell, “Frederick II and the Church in the Kingdom of Sicily 1220–
1224,” Church History, 30, no. 1 (1961), 28–34.
55. MGH Const. 2 Supp., 253–54 (I 80), the quoted portion in this edition, “Consuetudinem, quam olim in aliquibus regni nostri partibus audivimus obtinere, dilucida constitutione cassantes decernimus instrumenta publica et quaslibet cautiones per litteram communem et legibilem per statutos a nobis notarios scribi debere, scribendi modo, qui in civitate
Neapolis, ducatu Amalfie et Surrenti ac per eorum pertinentias hactenus servabatur, omnino
sublato.” The English translation given here is from Frederick II, The Liber Augustalis or Constitutions of Melfi Promulgated by the Emperor Frederick II for the Kingdom of Sicily in 1231,
trans. James M. Power (Syracuse, 1971), 50. See also Caravale’s discussion, “La legislazione
del Regno,” (above n. 49), 111–12.

MAUREEN C. MILLER

25

in such writing a while ago be written in common and legible letters by
notaries established by him. . . .”56 What the 1220 imperial decree meant
by “common and legible letters” were the Caroline minuscule-based scripts
dominant throughout the former Carolingian empire, including northern
and central Italy. And, as the legislation acknowledges, such scripts were
decidedly not the norm in southern Italy.
In the Norman and Hohenstaufen eras, as Armando Petrucci pointed
out, southern Italy was characterized both by multigrafismo assoluto, the use
of different systems of writing (Greek, Arabic, Latin), and in Latin texts,
by a multigrafismo relativo, the contemporaneous use of different scripts.57
The latter phenomenon is especially evident in the region around Cava.
Frederick II’s legislation explicitly referenced and delegitimized the distinctive curial scripts of Naples, Amalfi, and Sorrento. These, according to
Jole Mazzoleni, appear in the ninth century and endured into the fourteenth century. Developed from the “new roman cursive” (also known as
“cursive minuscule”) dominant from late antiquity through the eighth century, these curial scripts were strongly influenced by elements of the Beneventan script but also display many local and regional peculiarities. Even
paleographers dedicated to their study resort to adjectives like fantasioso
and bizzarro in describing their features.58
Beyond these curial scripts of Naples, Amalfi, and Sorrento, however, did the imperial decree delegitimize the much more widespread and
dominant Beneventan script? E. A. Loew thought that it did, implic56. Jean Louis Alphonse Huillard-Bréholles, Historia diplomatica Friderici Secundi, ed.
Honoré d’Albert duc de Luynes, 7 vols. (Paris, 1852-61) II, 91–92n1 no. 5°. These scripts
remained in common use, however, through the fourteenth century. Apparently, most individuals only bothered to have a document “renewed” in legible script if it became necessary
for a judicial proceeding. See Giovanni Cassandro, “I curiali napoletani,” in: Per una storia del
notariato meridionale, ed. Mario Amelotti (Rome, 1982), 299–374, here 361 and following.
57. Armando Petrucci, Breve storia della scrittura latina (Rome, 1989), 147–48. The best
recent overview of this phenomenon in southern Italy is Francesco Magistrale, “Fasi e alternanze grafiche nella scrittura documentaria: i casi di Salerno, Troia e Bari,” in: Civiltà del
Mezzogiorno d’Italia: Libro scrittura documento in età normanno-sveva: Atti del convegno dell’Associazione Italiana dei Paleografi e Diplomatisti (Napoli—Badia di Cava dei Tirreni, 14–18 ottobre 1991), (Salerno, 1994), 169–96.
58. Jole Mazzoleni, Lezioni di paleografia et diplomatica, 2 vols. (Naples, 1960), I, 77–
82 (on the new Roman cursive) and II, 49–58 (on the Neapolitan and Amalfitan curial
scripts); Jole Mazzoleni, ed., Esempi di scritture cancelleresche, curiali e minuscole (Naples,
[1957?]), plates IV–VI. On the “cursive minuscule,” see also Giulio Batelli, Lezioni di paleografia (Vatican City, 2002), 90–96. By abolishing these curial scripts, the emperor was also
undermining the notarial corporations (curiae) in these cities: see Caravale, “La legislazione
del Regno” (see above n. 49), 111–13.

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itly.59 Like the curial scripts, the Beneventan evolved out of the cursive
minuscule in the eighth century, but it had a much wider diffusion: it was
used throughout southern Italy and across the Adriatic in Dalmatia.60 It
was certainly used at Cava. Although there is little evidence that Cava’s
scriptorium was a major producer of manuscripts, its library holds some of
the earliest and latest codices produced in Beneventan. Cava codex 2, for
example, is a copy in the Beneventan script of Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiarum libri XX, written at Montecassino between 779 and 797, and codex
24, written at Cava in 1295 in the same script, contains the Vitae Patrum
Cavensium, a hagiographical compendium on the abbey’s first four abbots
composed c. 1140 by Peter abbot of Venosa. As Loew noted, moreover,
there are marginal annotations and subscriptions in Beneventan indicating
that the script continued to be used at Cava into the second half of the
fourteenth century.61 Cava codex 18, the autograph of Benedict of Bari’s
De septem sigillis libri IV, also provides beautiful evidence of Beneventan’s
use during Balsamon’s abbacy. This treatise on the seven seals of the Apocalypse was written by a monk of Cava in a very fine Beneventan script and
dedicated to his abbot. A dedication image depicts the author presenting it
to Abbot Balsamon upon its completion in 1227. The illustrator’s double
depiction of Benedict indicates how long he had labored on the work: the
top image is of the young Benedict who began the work and the bottom
image the old man he was when he presented it to Balsamon (Figure 3).62
The Beneventan was not, however, just a library or book script. By the
tenth century it was used widely in the redaction of documents and in
everyday spontaneous writing, such as subscriptions, annotations, and mar59. Elias A. Loew, The Beneventan Script: A History of the South Italian Minuscule, 2nd
edition prepared and enlarged by Virginia Brown, 2 vols. (Rome, 1980), I, 44–45. On the origins and development of this important southern script, see now Giovanni Vitolo’s important
article “Gli studi di Paleografia e Diplomatica nel contesto della storiografia sul Mezzogiorno
longobardo,” in: Scrittura e produzione documentaria nel mezzogiorno longobardo: Atti del Convegno internazionale di studio (Badia di Cava, 3–5 Ottobre 1990), ed. Giovanni Vitolo and
Francesco Mottola (Badia di Cava, 1991), 9–27, as well as Giuglielmo Cavallo’s “Struttura e
articolazione della minuscola beneventana libraria tra i secoli X–XII” in: Studi Medievali, III
Serie, 11, no. 1 (1970), 343–68.
60. Loew, The Beneventan Script, I, 45–65, 95; Battelli, Lezioni, 119–23.
61. Loew, The Beneventan Script, I, 44, 51–52; Mattei-Cerasoli, Codices Cavenses, Pars I,
12, 49; Battelli, Lezioni, 121. On the author of the Vitae quatuor, see Hubert Houben, “L’autore
delle Vitae quatuor priorum abbatum Cavensium,” Studi Medievali, III Serie, 26, no. 2 (1985),
871–79. The author thanks one of the anonymous referees for making me aware of this article.
62. Benedetto da Bari, I Sette Sigilli, ed. Giuseppe Micunco, [Per la Storia della Chiesa
di Bari-Bitonto: Studi e materiali, Nuova serie, 32], (Bari-S. Spirito, 2018), 13–17; Leo
Mattei-Cerasoli, Codices Cavenses, Pars I, 41–42.

MAUREEN C. MILLER

27

FIGURE 3. Cava dei Tirreni, Badia della SS. Trinità, Cod. 18, fol. 304v. Photo and
permission to reproduce courtesy of the Biblioteca Statale del Monumento
Nazionale Badia di Cava.

ginalia. Maria Galante’s systematic study of Cava charters in the Lombard
era demonstrated the dominance of the beneventana documentaria in
Salerno and its territory, and this dominance continued through the midthirteenth century. But there definitely was use of Caroline scripts in this
region as Norman and papal influence grew across the twelfth century and,
more importantly, notaries here began incorporating elements of the Caroline to produce a much more legible version of the Beneventan. Francesco
Magistrale’s study of Cava charters from the 1140s through the second half
of the thirteenth century documents this process at the monastery. The
beneventana documentaria remained in use but with significant Caroline
influences: notaries and judges adopted more chancerial flourishes (a slight
inclination to the right, slender ascenders, more use of capital letters) and
began to use some individual Caroline letter forms (c loses its crest, e usually low, bottom of g open).63 This process of evolution in the Benevantan
63. Magistrale, “Fasi e alternanze grafiche,” 171–75; Simeone Leone and Giovanni
Vitolo, eds., [Codex diplomaticus Cavensis, 9 (1065–1072)] (Badia di Cava in Battipaglia,
Salerno, 1984), pp. XXXIX–XLIII; Maria Galante, “Un necrologio e le sue scritture: Salerno,
sec. XI–XVI,” Scrittura e civiltà, 13 (1989), 49–99.

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resulted in a sort of “koiné grafica.”64 While not explicitly engaging Loew’s
remark about Frederick II’s legislation, paleographers have implicitly distinguished the Beneventan from the curial scripts of Naples, Amalfi, and
Sorrento. Whereas the curial scripts had remained impervious to northern
influences, the Beneventan evolved Caroline forms and features well before
Frederick’s decree and institutions in the Beneventan zone around Salerno,
like Cava, were not hostile to use of the Caroline.65
The Beneventan script’s greater legibility through its integration of
Caroline elements may well have meant that it met the requirement of the
“common and legible letters” demanded by Frederick II’s decree De instrumentis conficiendis. The use of a Caroline script in Balsamon’s book rather
than the evolved documentary Beneventan, however, does indicate a conscious choice suggesting an imperial audience. Even as paleographers have
documented increasing use of the Caroline in southern Italy related to the
Norman conquest and explored Caroline’s influence on the Beneventan
script, they have also shown through patterns of use how both Beneventan
and Caroline were utilized as markers of identity (scritture identitarie).
Caterina Tristano’s magisterial 2018 lezione at the Spoleto conference
demonstrated that the paleographical pattern of change from the eleventh
to the thirteenth century was not a simple, gradual replacement of Beneventan with Caroline, but rather the development of a profusion of variants (or hybrids) of both and a culturally aware deployment of different
scripts in varying contexts. Most pronounced was the use of Caroline or
Caroline-influenced Beneventan in administrative and technical (e.g. medical, grammar) texts and the royal chancery’s use of a Caroline cultivating
franco-norman forms (and later the Gothic). The crowning example of
Caroline as a “scrittura di Stato” is the development under King Roger II
(r. 1130–54) of a Caroline incorporating Roman elements associated with
the papal chancery that was used in a series of royal liturgical books.66 The

64. Caterina Tristano, “Fenomenologia grafica di un dialogo culturale: I Normani in
Italia meridonale,” in: Le migrazioni nell’Alto Medioevo. Atti della LXVI Settimana di studi
(Spoleto, 5–11 aprile 2018), 2 vols. (Spoleto, 2019), II, 899–967, here at 929.
65. Giovanni Vitolo, “Tra Cava e Salerno: cultura e scrittura in età normanno-sveva,”
Rassegna storica Salernitana, nuova serie, 9, no. 2 (1992), 7–24, especially 16–19, drawing
heavily on the work of Caterina Tristano, “Scrittura beneventana e scrittura carolina in manoscritti dell’Italia Meridionale,” Scrittura e Civiltà, 3 (1979), 89–150.
66. Tristano, “Fenomenologia grafica,” (see above n. 64), 937, 953–66; Francis
Newton, “One Scriptorium, Two Scripts: Beneventan, Caroline, and the Problem of Marston
MS 112,” The Yale University Library Gazette, 66 (1991), 118–33; Theo Kölzer, “Kanzlei und
Kultur im Königreich Sizilien 1130–1198,” Quellen und Forschungen aus Italienischen Archiven
und Bibliotheken, 66 (1986), 20–39.

MAUREEN C. MILLER

29

choice of script for Balsamo’s book, not just Caroline but a Caroline
already evincing Gothic elements, signaled affinity with Frederick II’s
imperial rule and likely the expectation of a court-affiliated readership. Not
all ecclesiastical institutions in the south made this choice in their administrative registers.67
This context of the dominance of the use of Beneventan scripts at Cava
in manuscripts and charters into the mid-thirteenth century, as well as the
evolution of a Caroline-influenced beneventana documentaria, make the
script of Balsamon’s book stand out. Although not a public document or
bond, the register’s extremely “common and legible letters” signal alignment with the imperial court and appear to perform voluntary compliance
with Frederick II’s legislation. Even if Abbot Balsamon only rarely exercised the powers of a royal justiciar granted him in 1209, as the leader of a
wealthy and powerful monastic congregation that had received royal
patronage, he and his abbey’s administrators would have been generally
familiar with the practices of royal governance and record-keeping.68
Moreover, the obligation of a monastery under the monarch’s protection to
provide him and his court hospitality may be a reason for Abbot Balsamon
to have had a register of the cash at his disposal from the mensa drawn up
in a script comfortably legible to imperial functionaries.
An incident in 1220, surely known to Balsamon, suggests this possible purpose for the register. The chronicler Riccardo of San Germano
recounted how Frederick II, newly crowned emperor, left Rome late in
1220 with his consort and many knights. The court went first to San Germano and then, the following day, went up to Cassino. Montecassino’s
abbot, the chronicler reported, had made magnificent and sumptuous
expenditures for the imperial reception, but apparently despite his strenuous efforts he had not procured sufficiently for the multitude of people

67. Alessandro Pratesi, “Considerazioni paleografiche (e non) sul regesto di Sant’Angelo in Formis,” Segno e testo, 7 (2009), 91–141 (a cartulary written mainly in the second half
of the twelfth-century in Beneventan with later additions, some Caroline); Virginia Brown
and Francesco Mottola, “Per la storia della chiesa medievale di Salerno: Una nuova fonte in
scrittura beneventana (sec. XII/XIII),” Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Bibliotheken
und Archiven, 73 (1993), 658–63 (a list of taxes or dues owed by individuals on the fiefs of the
diocese of Salerno).
68. The abbot of Cava was listed in 1239, for example, among the royal functionaries
and elites (which included justiciars, castellans, barones) assigned Lombard prisoners to hold
as hostages; the abbot was to hold monachum de Laudo, qui fuit prepositus Omnium Sanctorum—Carbonetti Vendittelli, Il Registro della Cancelleria di Federico II (see above n. 47), p.
338 (no. 335.184).

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and horses in tow. So, the court did not stay at the abbey. The imperial
party split up, with the empress and her entourage going to the closer
Sessa Arunca and the emperor, his servants, and leading vassals to Capua.
The chronicler notes laconically that Frederick revoked a series of privileges that Montecassino had enjoyed on all its lands through a concession
made by the emperor’s father, Henry VI, returning them to the royal
demesne.69 That this could happen to an abbey as venerable as Montecassino was surely not lost on the monks of Cava and the moral to this
story would likely have been that a monastery such as their own, which
had received imperial munificence, should always be prepared to meet
their sovereign’s needs. Abbot Balsamon may have gleaned from these
recent events that he and his community should demonstrate their preparedness to provide optimal service to their monarch, lest he reconsider
or revoke their privileges. “The Lord giveth,” after all, “and the Lord
taketh away” (Job 1:21).
Whether or not this was the intended purpose of Balsamon’s book, the
abbot’s interactions or expectation of interactions with the royal bureaucracy seem to have influenced Cava’s record-keeping practices beyond the
creation of this register of abbatial revenues. The three folios bound into
Balsamon’s book and identified by Giovanni Vitolo as extraneous and part
of a different register actually indicate the existence of at least two other
kinds of registers at Cava in the 1220s. Viewed in the broader context of
the other Cava registers surviving for the thirteenth century, these fragments indicate the development of a new system of administrative recordkeeping at the monastery, and this new system evinces hints suggestive of
royal influence.
69. Ryccardi chronica in [RIS, ser. II, 7.2], 87–88: “Dictus imperator Romanos fines
deserens, per Campaniam comitatus multo milite magnifice Regnum ingrediens, preeunte
eum imperatrice, mense Decembris in festo beate Lucie virginis applicuit ad Sanctum Germanum, et sequenti die conscendit Casinum. Set quam magnificas et sumptuosas tunc dictus
abbas Stephanus expensas fecerit in eorum receptione, utpote qui gentium multitudinem et
equorum in singulis quibusque necessariis manu munifica nisus est procurare, omnis qui
sanum sapit hoc advertere plene potest; ideo necesse non fuit talibus immorari. Tunc apud
Sanctum Germanum Landulfus de Aquino filius domini Aymonis per imperatorem iustitiarius factus est Terre Laboris. Mensam campsorum e ius sanguinis, quod usque tunc habuit
Casinensis ecclesia de tota terra sua ex concessione Henrici patris sui, revocat imperator in
demanium suum; similiter Suessam, Teanum et roccam Draconis recipit a comite Rogerio de
Aquila. Imperatrix simul vadit Suessam, imperator Capuam; ubi habita curia generali pro
facto regni, subscriptas edidit sanctiones, et exinde Neapolim audit, et reuerso iterum
Capuam, Suessam uenit.” Note 2 in this edition illuminates the privileges revoked: “Enrico
VI concedette ‘mensa campsorum et ius sanguinis’”; mensa campsorum is the right to exchange
money, while ius sanguinis was the right of “high justice” exercised by royal justiciars.

MAUREEN C. MILLER

31

The first of the three extraneous folios (fol. 14, in Vitolo’s edition renumbered 19) looks very similar to those of Balsamon’s book proper. The
script and rubrication are the same and the dark brown ink is similar. As
the folio is slightly smaller than those in the register of abbatial income,
there are fewer lines per page, but the line-end ornaments are the same.
While Balsamon’s book was a list of abbatial revenues, this folio is a list of
revenues reserved for the abbey’s office of treasurer. The verso concludes
with a notation relating that “the lord abbot established in chapter, at the
intercession of the holy community, that all the aforesaid revenues ought
to be paid to and assigned to the lord treasurer especially for the great ritual
of the washing of the feet (magno mandato) that we celebrate on the day of
Holy Thursday.”70 The other folios in the register to which this properly
belonged may have accorded particular revenue streams for other specific
areas of expenditure that were the responsibility of this monastic office, or
the rest of that register may have designated revenues to the vestararius
generally and this folio (and perhaps others?) recorded additional “special
purpose” endowments.
The two other extraneous folios differ both in appearance and content
from those of Balsamon’s register of abbatial revenues and from the folio
discussed above listing the treasurer’s revenues. Folios 15 and 16 (in Vitolo’s
edition 18 and 20) comprise a bifolio with 15v entirely blank. Multiple
hands and inks are evident, but all entries are in the same Caroline script
with Gothic elements (Figure 4). There is no attempt, however, at maintaining a uniform or harmonious appearance to the page. Script size varies.
Different entries have different spacing and indentations. Multiple entries
continue into the margin all the way to the edge of the parchment. An entry
on folio 16r recording two loans is messily crossed out and the ink in portions of it scraped off. The contents of these folios are miscellaneous, but
most entries note sums received and sums paid out (a very rudimentary
accounting record, a precursor to “entrate e uscite” books). Fifteen recto
opens recording a payment made in November 1225 of half an ounce of
gold for skins (pellitiis). This is followed by a notation (in a different hand
and ink) of receipt of four tarí from Nicala Cicalesi and his brother John.
Below these entries, in yet another hand and ink, is a list of lands belonging
70. “De om(n)ib(us) aut(em) istis redditibus predictis . int(er)uentu s(an)c(t)i conuent(us) . statuit d(omi)n(u)s abbas in capitulo . ut domno vestarario debeant p(er)solui et
assignari . spetialit(er) p(ro) magno m(an)dato q(uo)d facimus in die s(an)c(t)o iouis. . .” AC
Arm. X.1 fol. 14v; Vitolo, “Il Registro di Balsamo,”117 (19B). The assignation of specific revenues to officials within the monastery occurred much earlier in the principality of Capua:
Loud, Church and Society, 124, 215–16.

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ABBOT BALSAMON’S BOOK

FIGURE 4. Cava dei Tirreni, Badia della SS. Trinità, Arm. X.1, fol. 15r. Photo:
author; reproduced by permission of the Biblioteca Statale del Monumento
Nazionale Badia di Cava.

to three churches—San Pantaleone and Santa Barbara (both in Mitiliano)
and San Leo de Molina—and what cash payments the churches should
receive annually from a series of named tenants. Folio 16r lists a series of
sums, all in cash, received across 1222–1223 and then closes with the two
crossed out entries. The first records a loan by the monastery of 18 ounces
of gold minus 8 gold tarí to a certain Arimandus. The money was received
in March and was to be repaid by the next feast of Saint Martin. The second
simply states that Guilelmus de Capicatio ought to pay four ounces of gold
minus a quarter. Sixteen verso, dated 1222, lists the money received from
incartaturis—conveyances of properties via written deed—made by the vicedominus Iaconus Thomas to seventeen different named individuals.71
71. AC Arm. X.1 fol. 15r, 16r–v; Vitolo, “Il Registro di Balsamo,” 117–18 (20A), 115–
16 (18A–B).

MAUREEN C. MILLER

33

To what type of register do the folios 15 and 16 belong? The same type
as Cava dei Tirreni, Badia della SS. Trinità, Arm. X.3, Regestrum abbatis
Thomae (1255–64)—the monastery’s earliest surviving paper register.72
Although the support material of its thirty folios—Amalfitan “carta bambagina,” according to Pietro Ebner’s study and edition—differs from the
parchment of the folios in Balsamon’s book, its dimensions, 227 mm × 157
mm, are quite similar (218 mm × 159 mm, extraneous folios 210 mm × 159
mm). Like Balsamon’s book, Abbot Thomas’s registers use the script of
royal administration, now the Gothic minuscule that was supplanting the
Caroline in the second half of the thirteenth century as the “common and
legible letters” of the late Hohenstaufen and then Angevin regimes in the
regno.73 Like MS 1’s extraneous folios 15–16, MS 3 is the work of different
hands using different inks with varying formats among entries (Figure 5).
The lack of coherent chronological order is also a shared feature. Just as the
single bifolio 15–16 contains entries from both 1225 (15r) and 1222 (16r–
v), the 30 folios of MS 3 nearly randomly intermingle dated items from the
period 1256 to 1264. Ebner, remarking on this “difetta di disposizione
cronologica del suo contenuto,” concluded that the folios were loose until
at some later time they were gathered together and bound—circumstances
that also account for the chronological disorder of the episcopal registers of
Città di Castello.74 The types of entries and notations in MS 3 are also
varied and they include all the types found in MS 1 folios 15-16 (payments
made, sums received, amounts owed).75
The greater number of folios surviving in MS 3 do make its purpose
easily discernible: it contains the acts of the abbot and his officials as they
moved among Cava’s dependent churches and monasteries as well as its
landholdings in the region around the abbey and the city of Salerno. In
1261 their accompanying notary relates that he is writing “on this trip, in
Mercatello . . . leaving Santa Barbara by ship.” Numerous acts are noted further south “at our castle of Cilento,” and on a June day, Abbot Thomas prefaced an entry noting receipt of 18 tarí by explaining that lord Nicolas Papasurga approached him, “when I was at Naples, when we were going to the
72. AC Arm. X.3; Pietro Ebner, “I rapporti economico-sociali della Badia di Cava nel
XIII secolo attraverso il suo più antico codice cartaceo,” Ricerche di storia sociale e religiosa, 1
(1972), 31–85.
73. Ebner, “I rapporti,” 10.
74. Ebner, “I rapporti,” 12–13; Brentano, “The Bishops’ Books of Città di Castello” (see
above n. 3), pp. 244–46. The earliest quaterni are bound into volume II, folios 82–136, right
after a group of fifteenth-century gatherings: Miller, “The Bishops’ Books” (see above n. 41).
75. To give just a few examples, AC Arm. X.3, fol. 1r (sums received), 2v (payments),
7r, 12v, 23v (loans); Ebner, “I rapporti,” 31–33, 42, 49, 72.

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ABBOT BALSAMON’S BOOK

FIGURE 5. Cava dei Tirreni, Badia della SS. Trinità, Arm. X.3, fol. 10r. Photo:
author; reproduced by permission of the Biblioteca Statale del Monumento
Nazionale Badia di Cava.

baths.”76 MS 3 is monastic lordship in action. The abbot dictates letters
appointing priests to churches and procurators for legal cases; he renews
leases and accepts donations; he receives payments owed and pays sums out,
some “pro caritate,” others reimbursing agents for expenses, still others to
the sailors manning his ships and to a master builder for adding four rooms
ubi dicitur hospitale.77 The modest dimensions of Cava’s thirteenth-century
registers, and the likelihood even that only individual sheets were traveling
with the abbot, accord with the textual allusions to a lordship on the move.
76. AC Arm. X.3, fol. 5r–v; 1r, 6r, 13v (Cilento); 25v (Naples); Ebner, “I rapporti,” 38–
39; 31, 39, 54; 76.
77. AC Arm. X.3, fol. 4r, 15r, 21v, 26r (letters); 11r–v, 12v–13r, 13v, 16v–17r, 19v, 20v
(leases); 15v, 24v (donations); 6r–9v (payments); 2v, 9r, 9v, 10v (“pro caritate”); 9v–10v (to
the vestararius, to sailors), 15v–16r (to magister Iohanne Scalzo); Ebner, “I rapporti,” 35–36,
56–57, 68–69, 77–78; 50–51, 52–53, 54, 59–60, 64–65, 66–67; 57–58, 74; 39–48; 33, 46, 47,
48; 58–59.

MAUREEN C. MILLER

35

Abbots of Cava may have been making such rounds for decades and
earlier annotations of their actions may simply not have survived. But it
seems reasonable to suggest that Abbot Balsamon’s awareness of royal
administrative practices may have influenced the monastery’s own recordkeeping. Even for Balsamon to exercise the powers of justiciar on rare
occasions, he would presumably have followed royal custom, which
required a justiciar to be assisted by a judge and a notary, who recorded and
conserved record of their actions.78 And these records were evidently used:
in 1239 Frederick II ordered the notary keeping the registers of the late
justiciar for the Abruzzo to copy the gatherings containing judicial acts and
consign the copy to the new justiciar.79 That the monarch demanded the
copying only of the quaterniones . . . in quibus videlicet continentur acta iudiciorum indicates that the previous justiciar’s records were more miscellaneous—like Abbot Thomas’s—and indeed this is consonant with the array
of other chores Frederick’s registers reveal him assigning to these officials.
There are, moreover, some broad similarities between Frederick II’s own
registers and Cava MS 3. The royal registers, like papal registers, recorded
correspondence: Frederick’s are a running list of mandates sent with his
orders, queries, and decisions, mainly to his officials throughout the realm.
Abbot Thomas’s register also contains copies of quite a few letters he dictated to those at a distance but, having a smaller remit than the great
emperor, he conducted far more of his business directly and in person.
Both lords filled church vacancies, saw to the provisioning of their castles,
dealt with their finances, and made decisions about matters that might be
thought beneath them. Abbot Thomas provided for his mules to be shod
while Frederick sent multiple missives on using poison to suppress the
wolves and foxes damaging his hunting grounds.80
78. Frederick II’s Assizes of Capua (1220) reserve to the emperor the nomination of
these important judicial officers: Ryccardi chronica in [RIS, ser. II, 7.2], 88–93, 94–97;
Stürner, Friedrich II, II, 9–16 [Federico II, 364–72]. The office’s remit is more extensively
described in the Assizes of Melfi: MGH Const. 2 Supp., pp. 210–22. See also Antonino
Marrone, “Circoscrizioni amministrative, compiti, e reclutamento dei giustizieri siciliani dal
1282 al 1377,” Mediterranea—Ricerche storiche, 8, no. 21 (2011), 17–50, here at 24–25.
79. Carbonetti Vendittelli, Il Registro della Cancelleria di Federico II (see above n.
47),133–3 (entry nos. 147–148). Not only are the registers of royal justiciars referenced—
Ibid., 256 (no. 257), 446 (no. 463)—but also registers of accounts—261 (no. 259), 581 (no.
615), 665 (no. 745)—of fiefs—274 (no. 265), 446 (no. 463)—and of customs receipts—285
(no. 270), 288–89 (no. 272), 290 (no. 275)—in addition to inventories castellans were
required to draw up: 565 (no. 598), 727 (no. 813), 737 (no. 820), 753–4 (no.842).
80. AC Arm. X.3, fol. 10v; Ebner, “I rapporti,” 49; Carbonetti Vendittelli, Il Registro
della Cancelleria di Federico II, I, 86–87, 119–21. Frederick also gave directions on the care of
his leopards and camels (201–2) and on training five of his sclavis nigris between the ages of
16 and 20 to play trumpets (219–20).

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ABBOT BALSAMON’S BOOK

One reason more of Abbot Thomas’s miscellaneous register of his acts
survived than did the one bifolio from Balsamon’s equivalent may be that
it contained two copies of a royal letter from King Manfred (r. 1258–66),
the last Hohenstaufen claimant to rule the regno. In this letter the monarch
granted the abbot’s request that his monastery be allowed to transport a
thousand bushels (modia) of provisions for the monks’ own use and consumption from their holdings south of Salerno via small ships directly to
the abbey without stopping at the royal port in Salerno (to pay royal fees
and taxes on them). Manfred also notified his port masters and tax collectors at Salerno of this exemption and ordered them to observe it up to the
stated amount.81 Note that this letter shows that the monastery definitely
was not exempt from these tolls as the February 1221 forged diploma (discussed above) claimed. Manfred’s letter, although it concerns large scale
transactions, does shed light on the royal systems of commercial taxation
possibly influencing another surviving register of Abbot Thomas.
Cava dei Tirreni, Badia della SS. Trinità, Arm. X.2, Liber Reddituum
Terrarum et Ecclesiarum Cavensis domini Thomae abbatis (1255–64), is similar
in size and appearance to Balsamon’s book (Figure 6).82 The folios of Abbot
Thomas’s Liber measure 206 mm × 159 mm, while those of Balsamon’s book
proper measure 218 mm × 159 mm and its extraneous folios 210 mm × 159
mm. Like Balsamon’s book too, Abbot Thomas’s Liber consists of lists of
incomes organized by locales indicated by rubricated subheadings. They are
in the same Caroline script with some Gothic features used in Balsamon’s
book, rather than the more current Gothic minuscule used in Abbot
Thomas’s miscellaneous paper register, MS 3. The thirty-one folios of Abbot
Thomas’s Liber are organized into four quires: a ternio (fols. 1–6), a quaternio
(fols. 7–14), a quinternio missing its third and fourth leaves (fols. 15–22),
and another defective quinternio missing its fifth leaf (fols. 23–31).83
The four quires of the manuscript actually comprise two distinct notebooks that list two different types of revenue. Each notebook has two
quires and opens with a dated preface. The first (fols. 1–14) is dated 1261.84
81. AC Arm. X.3 fol. 3v and again at 29r; Ebner, “I rapporti,” 34–35, 67–68.
82. AC Arm. X.2.
83. That is, collocation: 1 6, 2 8, 3 10 wants 2 after f.16, 4 10 wants 1 after f.26.
84. There is confusion over the indiction here and later in the notebook. 1261 is the 4th
indiction, and it looks like quarta was originally written on line 1 and then corrected to quinta,
probably when Goffridus (or a scribe he had writing for him) reached the mention of September in the next line. The region followed the convention of the Greek, or Constantinopolitan, indiction, which begins in September. A rubric on folio 4v gives a date of 1261 October for the 6th indiction, this also in error.

MAUREEN C. MILLER

37

FIGURE 6. Cava dei Tirreni, Badia della SS. Trinità, Arm. X.2, fols. 3v–4r. Photo:
author; reproduced by permission of the Biblioteca Statale del Monumento
Nazionale Badia di Cava.

Brother Goffridus, the monastery’s vestararius, announces on the opening
folio that he made “hoc extalium de nucellis,” or tally of [rents rendered in]
hazelnuts from the month of September.85 The entries normally indicate a
lease-holder’s name, then “from the nut grove” (de nucelleto), the location
of the grove, and finally the number of tumuli owed.86 Nine subsequent
85. In this region, a nucella or “little nut” is most likely a hazelnut. The fact that later
subdivisions of this tally on 4v, 7r, 8v, 11r, 12r, and 13v use the phrase estalium castanearum,
or “tally of chestnuts,” increases the likelihood of Goffrido’s extalium de nucellis being a “tally
of hazelnuts.” These rents in kind were ubiquitous in leases “a staglio” (“un estaglio” meaning
half of the yield; in other words, a mezzadria or share-cropping tenancy). See Ebner, “I rapporti economico-sociali,” 19.
86. The tumulus, or more properly, in the terminology of Frederick II’s September 1231
littera generalis (clarifying and expanding upon his new laws on weights and measures in the
Liber Augustalis), thuminus from the Arabic word thumn, is a surface measure corresponding
to a measure of dry products. Its value varies regionally and even within regions. In the region
around Salerno, the tumulus had a value of 0.553 hectoliter, which equals 10 metric dekaliters,
22 UK imperial gallons, or US 26.4172 gallons. See Ronald Edward Zupko, Italian Weights
and Measures from the Middle Ages to the Nineteenth Century, [Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society Philadelphia, Pa., 145] (Philadelphia, 1981), xxvi, 291, and Mario Rosario

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ABBOT BALSAMON’S BOOK

divisions of the list set out with rubrics indicate that the rents in hazelnuts
from Santa Lucia and Prati were also collected in September and that those
in chestnuts from Dragonea, Porta Gignoli, Capilla, Vallone di Cerro,
Bannara, and Caprili were due in October. The identifiable place names are
clustered around the monastery in Cava. The second notebook (fols. 15–
31) is dated 1262 and it comprises a sort of appendix or updating to Balsamon’s book: it lists additional rents from communities around the
monastery owed to the capella do(mi)ni abb(at)is.87 It is the first notebook
in Cava MS 2, however, that may relate to royal administration.
Its contents list rents owed in tumuli of hazelnuts and chestnuts. This
indicates that Goffridus’s notebook was possibly drawn up in relation to
the requirements of royal economic monopolies established in the 1230s
and continued by Frederick’s heirs and their Angevin successors.88 The
crown reserved to itself the right to sell certain products: among them salt,
iron, raw silk, butchered animals, tuna, chestnuts, and hazelnuts. State
warehouses (fundici) were established in ports, and those trading in these
goods were required to deposit their wares in them, where royal officials,
of course, imposed taxes on the products themselves and fees for their storage in the warehouse before sale.89 The letter of King Manfred in MS 3
demonstrates that Cava had no exemption from these royal requirements:
Abbot Thomas had to petition the crown for permission to ship a limited
amount of provisions to feed his community directly from the abbey’s
holdings south of Salerno to Cava without stopping in the royal port facilities. However, the lists opening MS 2 suggest that the monastery’s income
in commercially lucrative chestnuts and hazelnuts may have had to be consigned to the king’s officials in Salerno for taxation and sale.90 Other royal
legislation also directly addressed the products so carefully tallied in MS 2’s
first notebook. A statute of August 12, 1231 on the customs tariffs to be
Zecchino, “Weights and measures in the Norman-Swabian kingdom of Sicily,” in: People,
Texts and Artefacts: Cultural Transmission in the Medieval Norman Worlds, ed. David Bates,
Edoardo d’Angelo, and Elisabeth van Houts (London, 2018), 255–58, 263.
87. The indiction here, the fifth, is correct.
88. Stürner, Friedrich II, II, 212 [Federico II, 591]. The Excerpta Massiliensia, an
Angevin administrative compendium of c. 1300, attests to the enduring influence of Frederick
II’s economic statutes: see Eduard Winkelmann, ed., Acta imperii inedita seculi XIII: Urkunden
und Briefe zur Geschichte des Kaiserreichs und des Königreichs sicilien in den Jahren 1198 bis 1273,
2 vols. (Innsbruck, 1880), I, 599–720, for these statutes on imposts, crown warehouses and
monopolies, specifically 616-17 entry no. 790, 619–20 entry no. 792-3 and entry no. 795.
89. Stürner, Friedrich II, II, 292–93 [Federico II, 591–92]. The imposts on some products, including chestnuts and hazelnuts, were lower than on others to encourage their export.
90. AC Arm. X.3, fol. 3v and 21r; Ebner, “I rapporti economico-sociali,” 34–35, 67–68.

MAUREEN C. MILLER

39

collected at the ports of Siponto and Naples specifies that upon exiting the
port both Christian and Muslim merchants “pay for every salma of chestnuts, nuts and hazelnuts, almonds and other produce, one tarenus to the
court.”91 While it is not known precisely how a list of its revenues in chestnuts and hazelnuts was used in vending its annual collection, it seems reasonable to hypothesize that monastic officials had to document totals of
what they expected to receive annually and explain any shortfalls to the
royal officials charged with ensuring the king received his due.
Conclusion
Taken together, Cava’s surviving thirteenth-century administrative
registers indicate the emergence no later than 1222 of a system of two types
of registers: running records of miscellaneous abbatial and other official
actions (MS 1, folios 15–16 and MS 3) and then what one might call special purpose notebooks, namely lists of incomes to the abbatial mensa (Balsamon’s book proper and MS 2, fols. 15–31), lists of incomes for the
monastery’s vestararius (MS 1, fol. 14), and lists of incomes in royally controlled products such as nuts (MS 2, fols. 1–14).92 All of these registers
were written in the “clear and legible letters” used in royal administration
and emphasized in Frederick II’s 1221 decree De instrumentis conficiendis.
Cava’s administrative registers, therefore, appear to align with royal norms
and perform voluntary compliance with imperial legislation. It is possible
that they were designed to interface with royal administration. While these
empirical findings are limited, their significance is more expansive.
First, Balsamon’s book is evidence of a thirteenth-century “documentary revolution” in southern Italy—and Cava was not the only southern
ecclesiastical institution to produce registers.93 In many ways, Cava’s doc91. Acta imperii inedita seculi XIII, I, 616–17 (entry no. 790): “pro qualibet salma castanearum, nucum et avellanarum, amigdolarum ac aliorum fructuum solvetur curie tar. i.” The
salma is a multiple of the tumulus. Although Zecchino declines to fix a value, Zupko gives 16
tumuli: Zecchino, “Weights and measures,” 263; Zupko, Italian Weights and Measures, 241.
92. The continued use of parchment for the special purpose notebooks suggests an
expected longer-enduring need for these records than for the running records of miscellaneous official actions, which by 1256 were consigned to paper.
93. Allodi and Levi, Il regesto sublacense del secolo XI (above, n. 14); Brown and Mottola,
“Per la storia della chiesa medievale di Salerno” (above n. 67); Di Muro, Il Codice Solothurn
(above n. 16); Pratesi, “Regesto di Sant’Angelo in Formis” (above n. 67); Benevento, Archivio
storico provinciale, S. Sofia, no. 58—Platea antiqua usque ad annum 1382, described in Paola
Massa, “L’archivio dell’abbazia di Santa Sofia di Benevento,” Archiv für Diplomatik, Schriftgeschichte, Siegel- und Wappenkunde 62 (2016), 433–66, here at 437; Jean-Marie Martin, ed.,

40

ABBOT BALSAMON’S BOOK

umentary revolution is similar to the one historians have declared in communal Italy. As occurred up north, traditional single-sheet parchments
continue to be drawn up and conserved, but in the early thirteenth century
the management of incomes and economic rights begins to be recorded in
notebooks ultimately bound as codices. This similar chronology underscores the importance of peninsula-wide conditions of political uncertainty
and conflict. In the north, the years following the imperial defeat at Legnano (1176) and negotiations leading to the Peace of Constance (1183)
were ones of great political uncertainty. And while the 1183 treaty clarified
some power relations, it also initiated new violent strife as cities made war
on their neighbors to increase their control of resources in the surrounding
countryside and resistance within cities to elite dominance of the commune
sparked violence. In the south, the Norman dynastic crisis of 1189 narrated
above, the Hohenstaufen seizure of power, and then the long and contested regency of the boy-king Frederick II also yielded decades of political
uncertainty and violence. When Frederick granted Abbot Balsamon the
powers of a royal justiciar in February of 1209, he referenced the woes this
turbulence had on the monastery, citing the imposition of irksome dues
and the fact that “justice had been violated in many matters.”94 Significantly, Balsamon’s book demonstrates the necessity of overcoming the
long-established tradition of treating the histories of northern and southern Italy separately and unequally.95 While there were many differences

Registrum Petri Diaconi (Montecassino, Archivio dell’abbazia, reg. 3), 4 vols. (Rome, 2015); Tersilio Leggio, “‘Cum eodem Frederico sublato de medio’: I registri di chiese della diocesi
abruzzesi ai confini del Regno nella seconda metà del Duecento e nel primo Trecento,” Bullettino della Deputazione abruzzese di storia patria, 102 (2011), 5–33; Jean-Marie Martin,
“Étude sur le Registro d’istrumenti di S. Maria del Galdo suivie d’un catalogue des actes,”
Mélanges de l’École française de Rome—Moyen-Age, Temps modernes, 92, no. 2 (1980), 441–510;
Paolo Collura, Le più antiche carte dell’Archivio capitolare di Agrigento (1092–1282) (Palermo,
1961) [describing the thirteenth-century “Libellus de successione pontificum Agrigenti”];
Thomas, dean of Monte Cassino, Regesto di Tommaso decano; o, Cartolario del convento cassinese
(1178–1280) (Montecassino, 1915); S. Matteo de Castello, Regesto dell’antica Badia di S.
Matteo de Castello o servorum Dei pubblicato a cura de’ Monaci di Montecassino (Montecassino,
1914); Bernard I, abbot of Monte Cassino, Regesti Bernardi I Abbatis Casinensis fragmenta ex
archivo casinensi sanctissimi domini nostri Leonis XIII Pontificis Maximi munificentia nunc
primum edita, ed. Anselmus Mariae Caplet (Rome, 1890).
94. MGH, DD 14.1: 202–3 (no. 105): “. . . ut quia propter diversos justitiarios qui per
contratam constituuntur, homines Cavensis monasterii indebitis sepe fatigantur molestiis et
eorum justicia leditur in plerisque. . . .”
95. The history of medieval Italy is usually narrated as the history of the northern city
states: their story of independence, commercial innovation, and republican political institutions has been, and continues to be, the history that Italians privilege. While recent scholarship—particularly by non-Italian historians—has brought new historical attention to the

MAUREEN C. MILLER

41

between these two parts of the peninsula, the origins of administrative registers at Cava dei Tirreni reveal important common developments.
The content of Cava’s registers is also more broadly significant. Like
Balsamon’s book, the earliest registers, both north and south, recorded
economic assets: lands, incomes derived from them, the status and duties
of the people who made them productive, and rights to revenues generated by commerce. These assets had been threatened, seized, or damaged
in the peninsula-wide decades of instability, and these new registers both
memorialized their reclamation and documented the claims of lordship
exercised by both ecclesiastical and secular institutions. This point should
be underscored because ecclesiastical historians tend to link the emergence of episcopal registers to papal efforts to promote reform, particularly
to Innocent III’s Fourth Lateran Council, and thus these new forms of
documentation are heralded as positive advances in pastoral care.96 No
canon of the council, however, required bishops or other ecclesiastical
leaders to keep registers, although several canons assumed or instructed
that specific things should be written (articles of inquiry against a prelate,
Canon 8; the results of an election by scrutiny, Canon 24; and, most
broadly in Canon 38, “judicial acts”).97 And, in fact, like this first abbatial
study of medieval southern Italy, the histories of north and south remain largely separate and
unequal fields. Even The New Cambridge Medieval History treats Italy in chapters devoted to
north and south by different authors: northern Italy from the eleventh through the thirteenth
centuries is allotted five contributions totaling 107 pages while southern Italy over the same
period is covered in only 51 pages. David Edward Luscombe and Jonathan Riley-Smith, eds.,
The New Cambridge Medieval History: Volume 4, c. 1024–c. 1198, Part 2 (Cambridge, 2004),
72–119, and David Abulafia, ed., The New Cambridge Medieval History: Volume 5, c. 1198–c.
1300 (Cambridge, 1999), 419–521. Giovanni Tabacco’s Egemonie sociali e strutture del potere
nel medioevo Italiano (see above n. 9) gives at least limited attention to the south, while David
Abulafia’s The two Italies: economic relations between the Norman kingdom of Sicily and the northern communes (Cambridge, 1977) focuses on relations between the two, but these are exceptional within the broader historiography.
96. See for example Attilio Bartoli Langeli, “Un vescovo innocenziano: Giovanni di
Città di Castello (1206–1226),” in: Bartoli Langeli, Studi sull’Umbria medievale (Spoleto,
2015), 397–98, first published as a review of Federica Barni’s “Giovanni Il ‘Restauratore del
vescovato di Città di Castello,’” Bollettino della Deputazione di storia patria per l’Umbria, 89
(1992), 100–04; Sonia Merli, “‘Qui seminat spiritualia debet recipere temporalia.’ L’episcopato di Città di Castello nella prima metà del Duecento,” Mélanges de l’École française de
Rome—Moyen Age, 109, no. 2 (1997), 269–301, here 282, 287; Giuseppe Gardoni, “I registri
della chiesa vescovile di Mantova,” in: I registri vescovili dell’Italia settentrionale (see above n.
4), 180.
97. Canon 8, “On inquests” (De Inquisitionibus), enjoins that a prelate accused of
wrong-doing “be shown the articles of inquiry” (et exponenda sunt ei illa capitula), presumably
written, and Canon 24, “On making an election by ballot or by agreement” (De electione

42

ABBOT BALSAMON’S BOOK

register at Cava, the earliest episcopal registers in northern Italy (at Orvieto, Mantua, and Città di Castello) exclusively document lands, rights,
and incomes.98 The origins of new documentary forms and administrative
systems were primarily in protecting property, and not in the direct provision of care of souls. That property, of course, was essential to sustaining
religious life and pastoral care. Medieval prelates recognized this, and so
too should ecclesiastical historians.
Balsamon’s book, significantly, also reveals the limits of papal influence in a period usually heralded as the apex of papal power in the Middle
Ages. As powerful as the papacy and its judicial system were in the thirteenth century, for Abbot Balsamon and for prelates elsewhere in the
peninsula, secular lords and their courts were the powers that counted in
retaining and protecting the economic assets which made their spiritual
missions possible. In the opening decades of the thirteenth century,
prelates in both northern and southern Italy sought papal support—as Balsamon did as soon as he was elected abbot of Cava in 1208—and popes did
what they could. But even in the age of Innocent III, local ecclesiastical
leaders depended upon their relations with those who really ruled their
worlds, communal leaders and kings, in order to sustain the institutions
facienda per scrutinium vel compromissum), instructs the trustworthy persons entrusted with an
election “to find out, in confidence and individually, the opinions of everybody,” and then,
“after they have committed the result to writing, they shall together quickly announce it.” The
broadest injunction is Canon 38, “On writing acts so that they can be proven” (De scribendis
actis, ut probari possint): “We therefore decree, lest falsehood prejudice truth or wickedness
prevail over justice, that in both ordinary and extraordinary trials, the judge shall always
employ either a public official, if he can find one, or two suitable men, to write down faithfully
all the judicial acts—that is to say the citations, adjournments, objections and exceptions,
petitions and replies, interrogations, confessions, depositions of witnesses, productions of
documents, interlocutions, appeals, renunciations, final decisions and the other things that
ought to be written down in the correct order—stating the places, times and persons. Everything thus written down shall be given to the parties in question, but the originals shall remain
with the scribes, so that if a dispute arises over how the judge conducted the case, the truth
can be established from the originals.” Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, Volume One: Nicaea
I to Lateran V, ed. Norman P. Tanner (London, 1990), 238–09, 246–07, 252–03.
98. Lucio Riccetti, “La cronaca di Ranerio vescovo di Orvieto (1228–1248). Una prima
ricognizione,” in Rivista di storia della chiesa in Italia, 43, no. 2 (1989), 480–509, esp. 485–89;
Archivio Storico Diocesano di Mantova, Archivio della Mensa Vescovile, Sezione Secunda,
Registro n. 1, 165 folios, 355 mm × 440 mm, is mainly a collection of lists of lands held by
the see in different parts of the diocese with dates ranging from 1214 to 1270; Miller, “The
Bishops’ Books” (see above n. 41). The earliest gatherings in the great nine-volume collection
of episcopal acts are in volume 2, folios 82–136, primarily copies of donations and leases made
by the notary Martinus. All these early episcopal registers originated before the Fourth Lateran Council: Orvieto’s in 1211–12, Mantua’s in 1214, and Città di Castello’s in 1207.

MAUREEN C. MILLER

43

believed central to saving souls. Secular practices more powerfully shaped
local ecclesiastical documentary and administrative practices than did the
papal bureaucracy. Thus, the origins of ecclesiastical contributions to a
“documentary revolution” must be sought in the broad context of all
powers at play in the peninsula, secular as well as ecclesiastical.
Finally, the three extraneous folios bound into Balsamon’s book today
are precious clues to the existence of other forms of documentation but
they are also insistent reminders of how incomplete surviving sources are
as a basis for reconstructing the past and how precarious preservation is. It
will never be known how or why those three folios came to be intermingled
with those of Balsamon’s lists of revenues and bound into the little codex
carefully conserved today at Cava. But they point to an uncomfortable fact
that historians do not like to contemplate frequently: people throw things
away or recycle them all the time. Institutions, like faculty offices, can only
store so much. This truth is compounded, particularly in southern Italy, by
losses to natural disasters and those wrought by human beings. One cannot
research any issue in the history of the medieval regno without lamenting
the intentional, retaliatory destruction of one of the most important royal
archives created in Europe by retreating Axis forces outside of Naples in
September 1943. The fact that only fragments survive of the archives of the
medieval Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and partial reconstructions of the
378 chancery registers of the Angevin dynasty poses immense challenges in
writing the history of medieval southern Italy.99 But even incomplete and
possible reconstructions, like the one offered here, can contribute to understanding the shared histories of north and south in the Italian peninsula.

99. Riccardo Filangieri, “Relazione sulla distruzione del deposito di documenti di maggior pregio storico dell’Archivio di Stato di Napoli operata dai Tedeschi il 30 settembre
1943,” in Hilary Jenkinson and Henry Esmond Bell, Italian Archives during the War and at Its
Close (London, 1947), 44–46; an English translation is “Report on the Destruction by the
Germans, September 30, 1943, of the Depository of Priceless Historical Records of the
Naples State Archives,” The American Archivist, 7, no. 4 (1944), 252–55.

The English Hospice in Rome:
A Late Medieval Home Away from Home
JOEL T. ROSENTHAL*
The lists of the English men and women who stayed at the English
Hospice in Rome in the 1480s and in the early sixteenth century offer
a micro-view of late medieval society—people who carried out a commitment to make a pilgrimage to Rome. Some hundreds of pilgrims
came in these years—mostly laymen, a few women, and a sizable
number of clerics of various orders and ranks. For some of these pilgrims
there are additional scraps of information: places of origin back in
England or Wales, whether they arrived in groups or singly, trades and
callings (friar or merchant sailor, etc.), and for many, some information about their health (many noted as “sick”). There is even a bit about
some who died while at the hospice, often from the plague.
Key words: Rome, Pilgrims, English Hospice, Clerical identity,
Disease and mortality

T

his paper is an analysis of the list of visitors—pilgrims—who were
registered at the English Hospice of St. Thomas in Rome in the 1480s
and for a few years at the start of the sixteenth century. The long list of
names, arranged by date of entry or residence, and sometimes coming with
an additional scrap of information and identification, gives a glimpse of a
cross-section of late medieval English society. For some of the men and
women on the list, the reader is informed regarding a home base in England or Wales, clerical identity (for about one man in five), trade or academic status, and—in some cases—whether they were “sick” or died at the
hospice. Though they mostly seem to have arrived in small groups or individually, judging by their dates on the lists, one can think of these people
as later-day Chaucerian pilgrims, now with at least one leg of their long
journey already behind them.
The English in Rome were a familiar tale throughout the Middle Ages.
Thanks to the successful mission of Augustine of Canterbury, who came from
* Joel T. Rosenthal is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Stony Brook University,
Stony Brook, NY, 11794. His email address is: joel.rosenthal@stonybrook.edu.

44

JOEL T. ROSENTHAL

45

Rome to Kent in 597, English men and women had been regular visitors to
the See of Peter and to the many sights there—both holy and secular—from
the earliest days of Christianity through the end of the Middle Ages and
beyond. Their visible presence testified to the fact that they, although coming
from a distant and obscure island, were nevertheless faithful members of the
Church Universal.1 And while Rome had been one of the major destinations
of pilgrimage from the days of the early Church, it became even more so after
Boniface VIII pronounced the first jubilee in 1300 with its special indulgences
(a call repeated by Clement VI in 1350).2 Moreover, as both the headquarters
of the institutional Church and as a convenient crossroads for travelers to or
from the Holy Land and elsewhere in the Mediterranean, Rome was a major
focal point on the map of late medieval Europe.
With pilgrimage as an important and popular aspect of religious devotion in late medieval culture, this paper turns to those who had checked
into and/or dined at the English Hospice of St. Thomas the Martyr in
Rome in the 1480s and in the early years of the sixteenth century. Though
the history of the hospice, from its founding in 1362 through the Reformation and into the present day, has been well chronicled, what this paper
offers is an analysis of the lists of those who were recorded as its guests for
a few years at the end of the Middle Ages.3 Furthermore, while scholarly

1. For background on the English presence in Rome, see Margaret Harvey, The English
in Rome: Portrait of an Expatriate Community (Cambridge, UK, 1999); George B. Parks, The
English Traveler to Italy: Volume I, The Middle Ages to 1525 (Redwood City, 1954); and
Emilio Re, “The English Colony in Rome during the Fourteenth century,” Transactions of the
Royal Historical Society, 6 (1923), 73–92.
2. Herbert Thurston, The Roman Jubilee (St. Louis, 1900), and The Holy Year of Jubilee
(London, 1925), an abridgement of The Roman Jubilee. The number of English pilgrims who
came for the jubilee of 1350 has been estimated at around 375 as against about 200 each year
in the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century (and well over that if one includes those
referred to or assumed to have had a presence but who are not named). The hospice of St.
Thomas had been established in 1362 because of the rough treatment of English pilgrims in
Rome, especially in jubilee years: Cardinal Francis Aidan Gasquet, A History of the Venerable
English College, Rome (London, 1920), 27 tells of “the imposition and even violence of the
Roman lodging houses keepers”; see also Diana Webb, Medieval European Pilgrimage, c. 700–
c. 1500 (New York, 2002), 24, quoting Calixtus II on “the rapacity of the Romans.”
3. Alongside Gasquet, the basic study of the hospice is the Venerable English College’s
The English Hospice in Rome: Venerable English College 2012 (Rome, 2012) (cited below as Venerable, “this book was first published in 1962 in The Venerable magazine to celebrate the hospice’s sexcentenary,” according to The English Hospice, p. iv.). The author extends his thanks
to Professor Caroline M. Barron, who called his attention to the hospice and its records, and
to Professor Maurice Whitehead, Director of Heritage Collections at the Hospice, who, in
the tradition of the hospice, was a friendly and helpful guide to someone who knocked on the
door without advance notice. The pilgrim lists analyzed here are on pages 109–44 of Venerable,

46

THE ENGLISH HOSPICE IN ROME

Based on a late-sixteenth-century engraving, the image was redrawn, circa 1915, by
Monsignor Henri Laurent Janssens, OSB (1855–1925). Preserved today in the
Archivum Venerabilis Collegii Anglorum de Urbe (Prints collection), it is
reproduced by kind permission of the Rector of the Venerable English College,
Rome. © Venerable English College, Rome, 2022.

attention has tended to focus on the high ranking officers of the hospice
and on the support it received from a wide range of people, both back in
England and in Rome, this paper’s analysis of the guests—mostly coming
from the middling ranks of both the laity and the clergy—speaks to the
issues of popular piety and pilgrimage. The numbers arriving at the hospice
testify to the attraction of Rome, and they occasionally point to issues faced
by an institution that had been established to be of service to those who
sought its shelter and its services.4
covering 1479–1484, 1504–1507, and 1514, as appendices to George Hay, “Pilgrims and the
Hospice,” Venerable (Rome, 2012; originally published as an article in the journal The Venerable,
no. 19, May 1959), 99–109. The author of this paper has interpreted the lists on the idea that
they name those entering the hospice, though it is possible that the lists are of those who were
registered by the staff to keep track of the need for supplies and for meals.
4. For the officers of the hospice or confraternity and of English patrons, see: John
Allen, “Englishmen in Rome and the Hospice, 1362–1474,” in: Venerable, 43–81;

JOEL T. ROSENTHAL

47

The lists of the hundreds of names of these pilgrim-tourists speaks to
the high level of piety and enthusiasm that brought so many from the
British Isles to Rome.5 One can gauge the ratio of laity (mostly male) to
clergy (of many ranks and orders, both secular and regular) among those
who made the journey. The lists also attest to the presence of some few
women, and in some cases there is an additional tag that adds a bit after
the name: a hermit (5/1479), or two knights of Rhodes (11/1479), or two
merchants of Bristol (4/1483). There are those “two Englishmen who had
been [fighting] against the Turks and who stayed today and the following
days” (12/1480), while some years later there is a man, now a scholar but
who was “once an apprentice” (7/1506), and some years after that an
“unnamed Welshman” (10/1514). In the early sixteenth century there was
the master of the ship “St. Ann” (6/1506), as well as a merchant’s apprentice from London (3/1506), alongside others identified as a fisherman or a
barber or a dealer in spices, a nod to the exotic trade routes crossing Italy.6
Beyond the lists of trades and professions, many pilgrims named a home
location and many clerics named a parish church or a regular or mendicant
order and house as their home base.
The lists of the pilgrims who came to the hospice cover some years
in the 1480s and a few years in the early sixteenth century—namely, from
May, 1479 to April, 1484, from 1504 to 1507, and finally the year of
1514. All these years seem to have been busy ones for the hospice,
though one cannot compare them with other years nor with the numbers
at other national hospices in the city. Nevertheless, they argue for fairly
“Chronological List of English Residents in Rome, 1333–1469,” in: Venerable, 61–68;
“Brethren of the confraternity in England,” in: Venerable, 69–81; “Founders and members of
the confraternity,” in: Venerable, 94–97; and “Confratres admitted to the hospice, 1474–1511,”
in: Venerable, 188–92. See Parks, The English Traveler, 302–05, for lists of officials.
5. For a dip into the large literature on pilgrimage, see: Diana Webb, Medieval European Pilgrimage; see also Debra J. Birch, Pilgrimage to Rome in the Middle Ages: Continuity and
Change (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1998), for Londoners with business in Rome. The author
thanks Caroline M. Barron for sharing with him her unpublished paper, “Londoners and the
Papacy in the Fifteenth Century.” On the enduring popularity of Rome in English culture,
see David C. Benson, Imagined Romes: The Ancient City and Its Stories in Middle English Poetry
(University Park, PA, 2019).
6. Either sixteenth-century pilgrims were more diversified than those of the 1480s or
there was more concern to note details of identity, as many of the later ones have an additional
tag: tiler, cobbler, dealer in spices, “singer or musician,” weaver, carpenter, tailor, men of
Cornwall who were students at Bologna, etc. Also, there were more students and scholars in
the sixteenth century than in the 1480s; they were probably seeking one of the various dispensations needed for an ecclesiastical career or for permission to study without surrendering
their benefice.

48

THE ENGLISH HOSPICE IN ROME
TABLE 1. (Named) guests, 1504–1514a

Year*
11/04–5/05
5/05–5/06
5/06–5/07
1514 (7 months)
16th century totals

In forma nobilium

In forma pauperum

Total

34
55
49
15
153

49
147
151
96
443

83
202
200
111
596

a

For the period 11/1504-5/1505, among the “in forma nobilium,” there were thirty-four clerics listed as “dominus” and two cluster admissions (a “cluster” admission being five or more on
the same day). Among the “in forma pauperi” there were several accounts of injuries and death
and one cluster admission. For 5/1505-5/1506, the “nobles” listed twenty-two domini, eight
fratres, and one cluster of thirteen; the “pauperi” listed six women and five cluster admissions.
For 5/1506-5/1507, it was twenty-nine domini, nine fratres, and one cluster in the first category, eight cluster, some un-named clerics, and several wives in the “lesser” group. For 1514,
there are some high level clerics—anomalies, it would seem—among the nobles and two clusters among the nine-six pauperi.

heavy traffic.7 For each year between 1479 and 1484 (and only five
months for 1479 and but four for 1484), the annual totals run to—and
this is only counting those identified by name—160 (for those five
months of 1479), 192 for 1480, 206 for 1481, a bit of a dip to 155 for
1482, 192 for 1483, and 72 for those four months of 1484. Moreover,
these numbers do not include several categories of people who are mentioned or referred to in some fashion or other but are not named and
cannot be tallied: the “sick,” the “anon” (anonymous), and servants or
companions. In the sixteenth-century lists there was a further distinction
between “nobilium” and “pauperum,” though those in either category were
usually identified by name.”8 However, this class-based or affluencebased distinction had been determined, Table 1 shows that combining
the two categories gives totals much in line with those of the 1480s
(again counting only named pilgrims).
7. Hospices of some sort—“quarters in the neighbourhood”—were established for pilgrims from Hungary, Abyssinia, the Coptic Church, Aragon, Leon, Flanders, Sweden, Germany, France, and probably other places as well: see Gasquet, A History of the Venerable English College, 15, 26.
8. On distinctions between the categories of guests, Venerable quotes John Stow: “In
this hospital . . . was to be releeved, a gentleman three daies, bread, wine, and ware; a commoner eight daies and nights, meate, drinke, and lodging.” Stow goes on to describe the care
given “if any woman happen to be nigh hir time of deliverance . . . she is to be honestly kept
till she be purified” (Allen, “Englishmen in Rome,” 57). But, wherever Stow got his information, there is no reference to pregnancy, let alone childbirth, in any of the entries being considered here.

JOEL T. ROSENTHAL

49

That the annual numbers for the 1480s and for the early sixteenth century are much the same is of interest. Perhaps, like a successful restaurant
or hotel, the hospice could expect to have the numbers level off each year
at a fairly steady total, though the dips and peaks from month to month
(discussed below) could be quite striking, especially as one can only guess
at the number of those unnamed (and therefore uncounted) guests. Nor
did the change of dynasty in England have any obvious effect on the pilgrim traffic, since both the Yorkist and the Tudor kings were concerned to
maintain good relations with the papacy and to support the hospice.9 And
though the Continent had suffered horrendous wars in the 1490s, these
too seem to have had little effect on English interest in the Roman pilgrimage. This paper’s numbers argue for business as usual.10
Before moving on to an analysis of the lists of named pilgrims, this
paper turns for a moment to those significant numbers who are destined to
remain nameless and, to a considerable extent, are beyond any efforts at
counting them. This is mostly an issue for the 1480s, when such people
seem to have been a regular presence, and considerably less so when looking at the sixteenth-century lists. As noted, these shadowy visitors fall into
three categories. Only about eighteen were simply listed as “anon,” while
twenty-nine are rather indiscriminately referred to as companions or servants, against 167 “sick” (and this does not include a number of named
guests, also so noted as sick). There is, for instance, “Magister William
Jones, sick” (10/12/1479), against long tallies of the unnamed. The “anon”
rarely received any mention beyond that simple label, though occasionally
the records are a bit more forthcoming: “John Appley, Wales, and anon”
(6/1479). On the other hand, there is no further information about two
who arrived in close order: one “anon” arrived on February 21, 1481 and

9. On royal interest in the hospice, see: Brian Newns, “The Hospice of St. Thomas and
the English crown, 1474–1538,” in: Venerable, 145–92. A possible sign of the Tudors’ interest
in an Italian connection may be the large number of sailor-pilgrims and English ships
anchored somewhere near Rome. There are thirty-seven sailors among the pilgrims of 1505
and 1506, including one man singled out as the captain of two ships (5/4/1505), another man
called master of a different ship (6/14/1505), and two groups of ten sailors each (5/11/1505
and 2/19/1506). Many ships are named: “Thomas of London,” “Anna Clerke,” “St. Ann,”
“Supreme,” “Margaret of Southampton,” “Ly Jesus,” and one vessel simply referred to as the
“king’s ship.” English royal arms as per 1412 were at one time set up over the entrance (Venerable, illustration 13, opposite p. 99).
10. See Birch, Pilgrimage to Rome, 60, on routes of travel plus information about the
many stages of the long journey. The round trip might take a full year, and one wonders at a
mere three days at the hospice. See Webb, Medieval European Pilgrimage, 129–33, on the
stops and routes that pilgrims might choose as they worked their way to Rome.

50

THE ENGLISH HOSPICE IN ROME

then another on February 22. One odd item on the lists tells of an “anon,
who stayed one day” (2/28/1480). It is hard to know how to read the
“eleven pilgrims whose names are in the margins,” along with a puzzling
entry for April 1484 listing “anon (three)” for the twelfth of the month,
“anon (twelve)” for the thirteenth, “anon (six)” for the fourteenth, and
“anon (eleven)” for the fifteenth. It is hard to believe that thirty-two
anonymous guests had checked into the hospice in four days. Perhaps it
was just too much work to list so many names.11
In addition to those noted as “anon,” there must have been goodly
number of “companions” and servants, some explicitly mentioned and even
tallied: Gerard, servant of Magister Ralph Hethcote, died (7/22/1482), and
“Robert Biwgeys, sick, entered with 2 servants” (3/11/1482). But many
others passed without notice, though, given the identity and status of some
of their masters, they may have come to Rome in significant numbers. Men
like the chaplain to the Duchess of York (the king’s mother), or the Chaplain of the Staple—these two having both arrived on 7/22/1482—surely
did not make their journey unattended and presumably each had been
accompanied by any number of lesser folk not deemed worthy of being
counted, much less named.
The lists offer a bit more about some who were unnamed but listed as
“sick.” Without counting those who died while at the hospice—dealt with
below and mostly named—for most of the 167 unnamed cases who are
noted, the entry for that date simply says “2 sick” or “1 sick” or “3 sick”
among the day’s listings. To look at some numbers, the year 1482 seems to
have been a particularly bad one—probably piling plague atop malaria for
those who had exchanged the British climate for the Roman. Though no
“sick” were listed for January or December of that year, between February
and November of 1482 no fewer than ninety-eight guests—all unnamed—
had their deaths noted: twenty-one in May, thirteen in June, and eighteen
in July, etc. More grim details follow: in June, six of the sick were admitted
on the sixth of the month, three on the twenty-second, four on the twentyninth, and in August there were four on the fourth, three on the eleventh,
two on the twenty-first, and three more on the twenty-eighth. While no
other year matched these numbers, it was but a matter of degree: nine
“sick” in August, 1479, six in September. For July of 1483, the register

11. It is hard to know how the hospice space compared with that of comparable institutions in a crowded section of Rome near the bridges to the Vatican. In Venerable, a woodcut
of 1580 shows a church of fair size (Figure 11, after p. 98) and, in a ground plan of 1632, a
large complex of buildings and gardens (Figure 22, opposite p. 227).

JOEL T. ROSENTHAL

51

TABLE 2. Numbers of (named) pilgrims, clerical and lay, by year
Total
D
Clerical Named
(dominus) totals Pilgrims

M
(magister)

F
(frater)

1479 (4 mos.)
1480
1481
1482
1483
1484 (only 4 mos.)
Totals, 1480s

4
1
7
—
8
4
24

4
7
8
7
9
1
36

16
32
40
29
30
22
169

24
40
55
36
47
27
229

1504–05a
1505–06
1506–07
1514 (8 mos.)
16th cn. totals
Overall total

3
2
2
—
7
31

1
7
10
—
18
54

23
34
31
7
95
264

27
43
43
7
120
349

Year

% of
Clerics

160
16%
192
21%
206
27%
155
23%
192
24%
72
36%
977
23%
(186 p. a. (24.5%
on average) average)
83
33%
197
22%
201
21%
109
6%
590
20%
1567
22%

a

The number of clerics for 1504–05 is just for the “forma Nobilium” list, whereas the “in pauperum” names fifteen scholars. For 1505–06 five scholars were listed as “in pauperum” group,
and for 1506–07 it was eleven scholars plus several poor clerics in the second class category.
For 1514 several priests were in the pauperum group.

offers another of those puzzles: on the tenth of the month there were “two
sick with two companions,” for the twentieth, “two sick with two companions,” and then for the thirty-first, “three sick with three companions.” The
one-line entries can be intriguing. Magister Thomas Wynchecomb was
named and, according to the notation immediately after his name, “left two
sick” (7/16/1879). And then, on September 6—just a few weeks later—he
is now listed as Dominus Thomas Wynchecomb who has re-entered the
hospice, with the next line in the list being “two sick.” Had they come with
him or were they just the next two people to be admitted? Hospital over
hospice, it would seem, in the worst of times.
Given that pilgrimage to the city of St. Peter was the common purpose
behind the guest lists, how many of the 1600 or so named pilgrims are
identified as men of the Church? In the guest book (as printed) the names
of the clerics are preceded either by a D (Dominus), an M (Magister—indicating a degree), or an F (Frater). Both early and late in the period under
examination, the domini, presumed to be men in orders if not necessarily
ordained into the priesthood or with a benefice, far outnumbered the other

52

THE ENGLISH HOSPICE IN ROME

clerical categories. In the 1480s the count was twenty-four men listed (or
listing themselves) as magister, thirty-six as fratres, and one hundred sixtynine as dominus. This total of two hundred twenty-nine over the years represents about one-fifth (actually 23%) of all the named pilgrims (see Table
2). Nor do the raw numbers nor the percentages alter very much for the
sixteenth century: ninety-five men are listed as domini against but seven
magisti and eighteen fratri. And as it was for the 1480s, the combined
number of one hundred twenty clerics of all sorts comprises about one-fifth
of the totals for the sixteenth century. This paper offers no judgment on
how fixed or legitimate were the identifying labels and whether the pilgrim
himself could set down whatever self-identification he chose.
The lists of hospice guests at any given time offers a mix of men, a few
women, and any number of those in various ecclesiastical orders and ranks.
It is easy to picture a friar from the north breaking bread with men connected with the knights of Rhodes, or with a tradesman from London, or
with a sailor from Devon. In the hospice it was likely that they all mingled,
though one wonders at the internal arrangements, with one in five guests
under vows for a life-regulating routine and one in twenty or so being a
woman, few of whom had come with a husband.12 The segregation of lay
from clerical, of men from women, and of the sick from the hale and
hearty, were all issues that had to be addressed, however they were dealt
with. There would be the call of the daily services and the Mass, the disposition of shared rooms and beds, access to the chapel and the sacraments,
and other such practical and social considerations. The hospice had a
library and perhaps it was actually used by the guests. Clearly, a good managerial hand was needed; who decided who could claim one of the sixtythree beds, and for how long?
Though most of the clerics are simply distinguished by that key initial
before their name, as printed in Venerable, some of the clerics did offer a bit
more by way of identification. Some named their occupation or position
back at home: there is, for instance, Dominus Christopher Gelett, hermit
and priest of Salisbury diocese (10/5/1481), or Frater William Brood,
Carmelite of a London monastery (5/15/1481), or Magister John Elys,
rector of the pro-cathedral of St. Michael Stamford, whatever that was
meant to be (11/1479). Sometimes it looks as though the men had traveled
together, as was perhaps the case on January, 31 1480, when six men, all

12. There were two married couples listed for 1479, three for 1480, and two more
in 1505.

JOEL T. ROSENTHAL

53

identified as domini, checked in together.13 In March 1484, no fewer than
seventeen men identified as dominus were admitted, though the admissions
took place over eight different days of the month, and they were listed as
coming from five different institutions back at home. Was their convergence pre-arranged or merely a coincidence of late winter travel? One notes
the admission of friar William Bougay, who arrived in April 1480 accompanied by Robert, his brother, presumably a layman, or the admission of
dominus William Thrisforth, arriving from Norfolk with his servant
(11/11/1480). For some of the mendicants their house might be given, but
in such imprecise wording as “of a London monastery” or “Frater Henry
Cossey of a Norwich monastery”—not overly helpful given the number of
monasteries these tags might indicate (10/10/1481).14 Over the years one
notes an Augustinian friar of London, one James Wright, prior of a Canterbury monastery (7/27/1483), as well as a Dominican who was signed in
as rector of Suelands (sic), Norwich diocese, joined that day by a canon of
the Order of St. Augustine and listed as the vicar of Rishmer of the same
diocese (2/19/1507).
With some interesting exceptions, the hospice did not serve many of
the elite visitor-pilgrims who would have passed through Rome with some
frequency. Bishops from England came and went, no doubt, as did various
levels of men there on the king’s business. But for the most part, a look at
those hundreds of men, lay and secular, who are on the lists of guests, confirms the idea that basically the hospice was for middling-level visitors,
whether lay or clerical.15 The lists are hardly flooded with laymen of
impressive rank; a John Bukton may have styled himself “a nobleman,
York” (4/7/1481), but The Complete Peerage does not reference him, though
he may have been of prominent, if local, gentry stock. A few royal functionaries did check in, though they were not apt to be high up in the hierarchy of the royal bureaucracy. There was a John Smyth of the king’s
household, in 1479, and in the early sixteenth century there arrived John
Mortimer, nuncius of the king. One guest who was a grade above these

13. Different home bases in England do not preclude the possibility of a rendezvous at
their point of departure or somewhere along the road.
14. Cossey was followed one week later by Frater Thomas Godwyn, also “of a Norwich
monastery” (10/17/1481).
15. See Gasquet, A History of the Venerable English College, 46, for a more sanguine
view of the hospice’s clientele: “The Hospice was frequently, if not generally, the residence
of the English Ambassador to the Pope.” One can find little evidence of such exalted guests
except on the rare occasion as when such as the Abbot of St. Augustine, Canterbury stayed
over in 1514.

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THE ENGLISH HOSPICE IN ROME

men was Robert Wingefelde, billed as “noble,” hostiarius camerae regis. He
did go on to a career of considerable distinction, meriting an entry in the
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (by Mary Robertson). Relevant
here, one learns that in 1505 he went to Rome “with his younger brother
Richard . . . and a reputed illegitimate half-brother, Richard Urry,” and
after Rome he probably went “on to the Holy Land and was made a knight
of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem.” But it was not until some years after
he had returned from this early version of the grand tour that he rose to a
prominent career in the service of Henry VIII.
Whether they would have ranked at his level, the hospice hosted a
number of men identified as knights of Rhodes, some seemingly guests,
others just there for dinner. They all seem to have been Englishmen, whatever the overall composition of the order, and to their number one can add,
in January of 1506, one John Wallis, a “Neapolitan knight,” the only such
guest so identified and appearing without further identification.16
If the laity were predominantly at middling levels, so also were most of
the clerics. Not many of the hundreds of ecclesiastical guests could boast of
holding high office in the Church, though there were some striking exceptions, mostly in the sixteenth century. In April 1514, and ranking well above
that chaplain of the Duchess of York who had checked in during Edward
IV’s time (7/26/1482),17 there were the Lord Abbot of St. Augustine’s
Abbey at Canterbury and the Lord Prior of St. Gregory, there for “three
days,” along with their chaplains, plus others such as the “Abbot of Tynbi,
Wiltshire,” who came with his chaplain.18 These chaplains are sometimes
noted but rarely named, nor are their numbers regularly given. The choir16. Knights of Rhodes were sporadic guests (and diners) over the years. On November
9, 1479 there were two knights with three officials of some sort; on April 18, 1482 there were
two knights with two servants; on April 3, 1482 there was a knight at dinner, and then just one
knight in October 1482, April 1483, and July 1483. There was also a Neapolitan knight in January 1504, a knight of the Order of St John of Jerusalem in July 1507, a servant of a knight of
the Garter who had been to Jerusalem (June, 1506), and in December 1509 another servant.
17. The Yorkist chaplain was Dominus William Grave, and he signed in on the same
day as Dominus William, Chaplain of the Staple (along with three sick on that day). Grave’s
mistress, the king’s mother Cecily of York, had presented the hospice with “a superb chalice,
candelabra, and salvers of silver weighting 176 ounces,” among other gifts: see Gasquet, A
History of the Venerable English College, 46.
18. The admissions for April and May of 1514 are by the month rather than in the usual
day-by-day style. In April, in addition to the abbot, a “canon with one priest from Rowford
Abbey” arrived; “These two were poor and so stayed for eight days.” The abbot of “Tynbi” came
from a mystery abbey, not listed in David Knowles & R. Neville Hadcock, Medieval Religious
Houses: England and Wales (London, 1971). The name is probably an error in transcription.

JOEL T. ROSENTHAL

55

master of York Cathedral, Thomas Stordy, was of some note, though it was
his death from plague that made the register (10/11/1480). A few others of
impressive rank are occasionally listed, such as the prior of York (7/27/1483),
or a servant of the Cardinal of Canterbury (4/24/1480)—though he may
have exaggerated his status—or the treasurer of Salisbury (1/4/1507). In
May 1506 there also arrived Friar Henry Standish, Sacrae Paginae Doctor,
Provincial of the Friars Minor in England, Coventry diocese.
Nevertheless, these men stand out because they are atypical. Most
bishops and officials of various orders, plus royal representatives of higher
rank, would presumably have found more luxurious accommodations.
However, at the other end of the hierarchy, among the pauperi of 1506-07
there are a number of men of the Church. If the fifteen scholars who had
come along with a monk of Malmesbury (on October 23) and a cleric of
Norwich diocese (on February 24) had hoped to be classified as “nobili,”
they failed to make the grade, however it was determined.
A few of the clerics on the guest lists did rise to academic and ecclesiastical eminence, sometimes years after their stay in Rome. Though the
men mentioned here are not the only ones who might be listed in terms of
their careers, one can look at such as Thomas Tomyow, one of the fair
number of “scholars” who had studied at Ferrara and Bologna. He was a
doctor of civil law and his career in the English church peaked at becoming
the archdeacon of Bath after having been a canon of Exeter and of Wells.19
Another guest, William Shirwood, was a doctor of canon law. In his long
and varied career, he served as master of the children of the royal household and was—albeit briefly—a chaplain of Richard III. Alone among the
men surveyed here, he served the hospice in Rome as an auditor and chamberlain (1479–82) and was buried in its church or cemetery in 1497.20
Christopher Urswick was very much a man of the new humanism. He
declined the see of Norwich in 1499 but did very well as Lady Margaret
Beaufort’s chaplain and confessor and Henry VII’s envoy to Rome.21
Richard Nykke, who seems to have arrived at the hospice with his brother,
19. Alfred Brotherston Emden, Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to A.D.
1500, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1957–59), III, 1883–84. He arrived at the hospice on April 5, 1481
with M. John Staunce, both listed as being of Cornwall and as students at Bologna.
20. Emden, Oxford, III, 1693. He entered the hospice on January 27, 1481 with F.
Henry Cossey and Robert Fuller, all identified as hailing from Norfolk.
21. Emden, Oxford, III, 1935–37. Urswick had been a canon of the college at Windsor
to which he gave books, as he did to the Dominicans at Lancaster. He would be with Henry
Tudor on Henry’s return from the Continent in 1485. He had entered the hospice on January
25, 1481—two days before Shirwood—and he came with Thomas Buntyng of Northampton.

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THE ENGLISH HOSPICE IN ROME

was another who had studied at Ferrara and Bologna and, as a kinsman of
Robert Stillington, bishop of Bath & Wells, eventually rose high in the
Church before he spoke out against Henry VIII’s divorce. Though blind
and quite aged, he eventually found himself in need of a pardon or an
excuse against being summoned before the Star Chamber to answer
charges of violating the statute of praemunire.22
As one might expect, all of the individuals with an ecclesiastical identification were male, whereas all women listed, whether in the 1480s or in
the later years, were laywomen. A few were paired with a husband, many
more were listed as single pilgrims, some seemingly had arrived with a
female companion, and there is even a mother-son combination
(7/16/1481). None of these women seem to have been anything above
middle class, putting them on a par with most of the men. Nor were their
numbers very great: there were only forty-five or so in the 1480s and even
fewer—about twenty or so—in the sixteenth century, though in both centuries some of the unnamed “companions” were most likely to have been
women. There were not many couples, as the terse record’s entries like
those for “Henry Rose and Agnes, husband and wife, London”
(4/14/1480) or “William Gybson [and] Alice his wife” (5/9/1479) imply,
among the few couples identified in this fashion. When it looks as though
a woman had not come on her own, it was usually in just in a party of two,
as for Agnes Stevynson, London, and immediately after her Katherine
Reynold, “ibid,” which presumably means from London as well
(5/10/1480). In one instance, it may have been a party of three, but again
there is no clear link between the women other than their common date of
entry (6/21/1479). One listing does seem to point to a group of three:
“Alice and two companions” registered at the hospice on 6/7/1483.
Among the pilgrims of March, 1510, the list offers the intriguing “Guervil,
wife of Rice” followed immediately by “Guervil, wife of Hugh, 3 women
of St. Asaph d(iocese),” but with no reference to the presence of those husbands nor any further information about the “3 women.” Only one woman
is identified as a widow, though others must have shared the status of Elizabeth Wellis of Norwich, admitted June 9, 1506. Based on these numbers,
the women were outnumbered by the clerics by about four to one and they
made up less than ten percent of all the named pilgrims. There is little support here for the idea that the roads of Europe were flooded with women

22. Emden, Oxford, II, 1381–82. He entered the hospice on October 8, 1483, along
with Richard Nykke and Richard Hulton, the former presumably being his brother and all
three identified as doctors, which probably meant a university degree.

JOEL T. ROSENTHAL

57

on pilgrimage. Whatever the overall picture, the hospice’s guests were
overwhelmingly male.23
A bit more grist for the mill: one item of interest is that, on occasion,
the hospice seems to have played the role of a drop-in club for Englishmen
in Rome who presumably were staying elsewhere—see, for instance, the
“three English merchants at supper only” (6/20/1479) or “London merchant, dinner today and next day” (12/3/1482). “Magister John Talbot for
dinner” was a cleric, presumably another of those staying elsewhere but free
to come around for a meal (9/21/1481). It being the days of the later crusades, one finds those Knights of Rhodes, either staying in Rome on business or perhaps just passing through and using the hospice as a place to
rest, eat, and socialize—an English men’s club before its time. In April
1482 there were “two knights of Rhodes and two servants,” and in the following year one finds “Dominus Robert Molton knight of Rhodes at
dinner” (4/3/1482). Others checked in while passing through, such as
“Dominus Hugh Daniel, Knight of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem,
coming from Rhodes on his way to England” (7/16/1506). The knights
were distinguished from Thomas Grantham, “merchant, who had come to
Rome from the Holy Land” (2/18/1507).24 When one adds these men to
the lists of regular guests—in addition to the anonymous, the imposing
ranks of the sick, and those companions and servants whose numbers elude
the reader—one has a fair idea of the diverse and transient English community of Rome in the years under review.25
Many of those listed named a home base back in England or Wales (or
Calais). These scraps of identity bring home the diversity of the hospice’s
guest list—the ever-shifting group of men and women who, in various ways
and along various routes, successfully made their way to their common destination. Sooner or later almost every corner of the realm was represented:
23. For Margery Kempe’s mixed luck at the hospice in the early fifteenth century, see
Anthony Goodman, Margery Kempe and Her World (London, 2002), 97, 99. George Hay refers
to her as “the lachrymose mystic” (see “Pilgrims and the Hospice,” in: Venerable, 99). Her visit
is briefly covered in Venerable, 57. See Leigh Ann Craig, Wandering Women and Holy Matrons:
Women as Pilgrims in the Later Middle Ages, [Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions,
138] (London, 2009), passim, for the argument that, in terms of pilgrimages to shrines and
relic collections, women and men took vows and made the visit in about equal numbers.
24. Robert Graymyngton, of Gisborne Abbey, York diocese, had had an adventurous
journey, signing in (6/17/1506) as “servant of the prior of Gisborne who died at Jerusalem
with Richard Ormford, Knight of the Garter.” There is no record of Ormford at the hospice.
25. See Hay, “Pilgrims and the Hospice,” Venerable, 100–01, on the question of beds
and bed linens, especially “when the Hospice was crowded.”

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THE ENGLISH HOSPICE IN ROME

Lancaster, Sussex, York, Lincolnshire, Oxford, Paston, Durham, Lichfield
diocese, Winchester diocese, the Isle of Man (sic), St. Asaph diocese, plus
Calais and Wales, to offer but a few of the places named. And while Londoners came to Rome in almost every month of the year, they were rarely a
dominant group.26 For an odd variation on place, a few men listed a birthplace: “born at Brentwood, Essex” (2/15/1506) or “born in the parish of St.
Giles, London” (3/8/1506), wherever they now called home.
A look at the admissions for May, 1480, to choose a month at
random, gives an idea of the spread of home bases (and perhaps the points
of departure). In that month, the hospice admitted twenty-six (named) pilgrims on fourteen different days, with a listing of fifteen different home
bases or points of origin. September 1482 was much the same, with twenty
people arriving on eleven different days from thirteen home locations.
There were somewhat smaller numbers for May, 1481, with twenty-eight
people on sixteen different days but now with only five home bases, and an
unusually high of six Londoners. Had these people assembled at their
point of departure from a home port, or had they converged somewhere
along the road (either by accident or design), or had they just happened to
run into each other at the doors of St. Thomas? Since the admission
records usually note only a few names on most days, the likelihood is that
many, if not most, of the pilgrims had come to Rome singly or by way of

26. Londoners were a regular but not a dominant presence, with numbers as follows: in
1479, there were sixteen Londoners plus pilgrims from Barnet and Maldon; in 1480 there
were twenty-four, including a husband and wife and a man who died at the hospice; in 1481
there were twenty, including four women and a Carmelite from a London monastery; in 1482
there were fifteen, including three women, two London merchants at dinner, a monk of
Ilford, and a hermit from Maldon; in 1483 there were fifteen, including one woman and three
merchants who probably entered together; and in 1484 there were just four. Returns for the
early sixteenth century offer a bit more by way of identification. In the months available for
1505 there were eleven Londoners, including two Carmelites; there were twenty-three in
1505–06, including two women and three London sailors but not counting pilgrims from
Lambeth, Hackney, and Southwark; there were seventeen in 1506–07; and there were two in
1514 from the diocese of London. They were mostly laity—adding up to about thirty-five pilgrims, including four merchants, one merchant’s apprentice, a cobbler, a brewer, the barber
of the parish of St. Peter in Comel, plus three from Southwark and one from Hackney. The
sixteenth century clerical pilgrims were also a mixed group, with four Carmelites, a Dominican, an Augustinian friar, three Franciscans, the rector of St. Mary Ax, a doctor of laws, and
a priest from Lambeth “near London,” among others. In the 1480s there had been eleven
Domini and six friars, plus the monk and the hermit noted above. Caroline M. Barron, “Londoners and the Papacy,” sets these numbers into the general context of pious and worldly concerns. Since not every pilgrim is listed with a home base, there were probably more Londoners
than tallied here, plus those ubiquitous ranks of the sick, servants, and “anon.”

JOEL T. ROSENTHAL

59

small groups.27 However, when the entry noting the arrival of Thomas
Bothe of Lancashire is immediately followed by John Gybbs “of the same
place,” it is reasonable to assume they had come together.
The monthly lists offer a fluctuating pattern of admissions; big numbers on some occasions stand in contrast to lots of slack days and months.
Though the hospice was clearly of good size, it might at times only be
called upon to accommodate a bare handful of new admissions, as with the
four guests listed for January, 1479, or the two in November, 1481, or just
the single new entry for July and also for September of 1505. Some months
were close to a total blank; there were no nobiles in December, 1506 and
only one of this category in the following May and June, 1507. Given the
vagaries of the journey, there was never a noticeable bulge of admissions at
key points in the ecclesiastical or liturgical year. Fortunately, for the housekeeping problems of the hospice, revenues were not dependent on collections at the door.28
Though single or individual entries may have been common, when two
or three consecutive names on the list give an identical home base and date
of admission, these were probably people who had traveled together. Traveling with companions had the benefits of company and protection against
the dangers and problems of the long journey, and the chances are that
“Dominus John Craksale and William Metcalf, Southsea” (8/25/1481) or
“John Frost and John Browne, Northumberland” (4/26/1484), who arrived
in Rome together, had left home together. For the year 1481 there are
twenty-nine pairs of consecutive names for various dates with an “and”
linking the names. There are also a few groups of three yoked in this fashion, plus a pairing of a mother and son, a pairing of two students who had
been together at Bologna, and a pairing of two Welsh women. The chances
are that more pilgrims than those noted here had traveled together, though
the terse wording of the lists makes this speculative.
Against the picture of people arriving singly or in twos and threes,
other data argue for the arrival of appreciably larger groups admitted on the

27. For the actual pacing of arrivals, in April 1480 pilgrims came in a group of five on
the first of the month, and then it was 1, 2, 1 (anon), 1, 1, 5, 1, 1, 1, 3, 3, 2, 2, and 1. There
were arrivals on fifteen days of the month.
28. See Gasquet, A History of the Venerable English College, 26–61; Bernard Linares, “The
Origin and Foundation of the English Hospice,” in: Venerable, 15–42 (appendices from 37 on);
and Allen, “Englishmen in Rome,” 53–56, on the hospice’s holdings (including rental property
in Rome) and the fourteenth-century gifts and bequests that gave it a respectable start.

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THE ENGLISH HOSPICE IN ROME

same day. If one were to consider a group of five or more listed for the same
day as a “cluster admission,” such clusters offer a different view of the logistics of pilgrimage. Through the 1480s there was at least one such cluster
admission in about half the months of the year, but fewer in the 1500s
(except for 1510, with seven clusters and some of them being very large
indeed).29 Sometimes it was just five names, with two such groups in June,
1479, two in April, 1480, and five in April, 1482 (that year of so much
sickness). The cluster of five for June 10, 1479 consisted of two from Lincoln and three from Sussex, and that of 14 April 1480 was made up of a
husband and wife plus pilgrims from Chester, Newcastle, and Holderness.
In these cases, and others of their like (there being six such smallish clusters in 1479 and six more in 1483) a common pilgrimage from start to
finish seems unlikely, the clustering perhaps just the coincidence of arrival.
Other cluster admissions, especially some larger ones, do point to a
common venture from the start. What did the doorkeeper of the hospice
think when he looked out to see (as on 2/26/1481) thirteen men, all with
dominus credentials and all hailing from Suffolk? Or on April 11 of that year,
when there arrived fifteen pilgrims, though home bases were not listed and
there was a woman among them? Or again, when another group, also all
from Suffolk and this time nine strong, stood knocking at the door on February 20, 1483? Though it was stated that these were “all priests of Norfolk
and Suffolk,” not all such groups could offer an equally clear home base,
though there were those “all ten sailors of the ship ‘Margaret’ of Southampton,” who arrived—and were named—together with Even ap Thomas of
Rye, on February 19, 1506 (and all were classified as In forma pauperum).
Similarly, the thirteen pilgrims who signed in on March 27, 1507 all had
Welsh names, making it likely they were a part of the same group from the
start. The nine who had preceded them on the twenty-second of March were
“all of Karleyn” (Carleon), and doubtlessly this, too, was a pre-arranged
affair.30 Presumably the hospice had both adequate resources and a plan for
how to house them, whether it knew of their arrival in advance or not.

29. There were many cluster admissions in 1514, and these much on each other’s heels:
there were ten pilgrims on September 3, five on October 3, seven on October 8, and seven
more on November 8.
30. The only explicit reference to the diversity of the pilgrims, beyond stating that some
were Welsh and others from Calais (and with Welsh names in many cases), is the odd entry
about a Murus London, “qui egrotavit in hospitali per xvj dies et quia nescivit loqui nisi Wallice habuit secum tot dies ad hospitalis onus unum alium Wallicum, qui servaret eum.” He
was one of a ten-man cluster (4/5/1506), all of seemingly Welsh origin (David ap Gryffin,
Llewellyn William, Howoth ap Morod, etc.).

JOEL T. ROSENTHAL

61

As well as asking how the pilgrims arrived, in terms of numbers, one
can look at when they arrived (by month). Travel advice advocated a
summer departure from home and this meant, at best, an arrival late in the
year. However, the dating of admissions is too scattered throughout the
year to say anything about when people might have left home so as to
arrive—or to hope to arrive—in any chosen month.31 The hospice’s lists
shed no light at all on this major aspect of pilgrimage, and the dates of
arrival stand alone. Looking at those months of the year in which twenty
or more pilgrims signed in, April and May generally lead the list, with February (1481), July (1482), and September (1480) also showing a healthy
number (ignoring the various categories of the unnamed). The journey
from home to Rome may have taken up to a year, though it was possible
to cut this down, especially if one could afford a maritime passage.
This analysis of the arrival of these pilgrims and the pilgrimages that
led so many to the doors of a hospice in Rome supports the idea of a steady
current of late medieval enthusiasm for such activity. How these numbers
would compare with those of other years or of other hospices in Rome are
questions one cannot answer. Certainly, the numbers for the years covered
here argue for a fairly steady stream of both clerics and laity. They indicate
a heavy preponderance of lay people, mostly male, and coming from all
over the king’s realm. Though nothing is known regarding what spiritual
solace these pilgrims drew from their journey, or what sights of Rome they
saw, or what adventures they had on either leg of their journey, their steady
numbers over the years tell a tale of success and fulfillment. The hospice
seemingly had a good reputation. Within its walls there may have been
experienced travelers able to offer advice on what to see and what to do in
a city that the popes were now beginning to rebuild.32
The analyses of the lists of pilgrims offered here are concerned with
men and women who came to Rome and who availed themselves of the
facilities of the English hospice. But there is a bit more information that
31. See Gasquet, A History of the Venerable English College: “ice and snow . . . horrors of
a long sea voyage. . . .” Likewise Birch, Pilgrimage to Rome, 55–56 tells of ice, malaria, and
other hazards. George Hay adds that “[f]ew if any of the pilgrims walked all the way, but even
so the journey was not easy” (“Pilgrims and the Hospice,” Venerable,103–04). Once they got
to Rome, what awaited them? The food “may have lacked variety, but it seems to have been
substantial,” with meat and wine from the hospice’s vineyards, 103–04.
32. For retrospective memories of pilgrimage, see Joel T. Rosenthal, Social Memory
(New York, 2018), 100-02. For female pilgrims, see Craig, Wandering Women, 159–61: even
when recognized as pilgrims, women might suffer discrimination, such as not being admitted
to crowded sites and other forms of second-class treatment.

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THE ENGLISH HOSPICE IN ROME

one can wring from this laconic material. There are occasional references to
the hospice’s own personnel and to what might have been an in-house
assessment of some of the numbers. In addition, there are references to a
few stays of longer duration and—a fitting end to the hospice’s role—a regular recording of deaths.
An odd line here and there in the long lists of names and dates seems
to speak of the hospice’s own issues. A few references to the staff were
not necessarily good news: “John cleric of the Hospice died of the plague”
(8/21/1482)—one of the many who fell victim in that dreadful year. Nor
was misfortune confined to 1482, and in the following year “John Faron,
Hospice cook, died from plague, R.I.P.” (11/22/1483). Beyond these
grim notices there are a few entries giving what seems an in-house headcount, such as “In the hospice three servants” (the first listing, 5/1479),
and “In the Hospice: six servants, five pilgrims” (5/3/1480). Other such
entries talk of “six servants, eight pilgrims, three sick” (5/3/1482), or
seven servants and eight pilgrims (5/3/1481). Was there but limited
space and a small staff, given the number of pilgrims the hospice could
be called upon to deal with, though the hospice could take in about a
hundred people at peak? That these numbers are listed for the month of
May suggest the possibility of a spring inventory, though arrivals were
distributed across the year. Perhaps holiday festivities had taken their toll
among the staff, explaining why an arrival of January 1, 1507 was simply
noted as “A hermit of Kent, whose name was unknown because of the
shortage of servants.”33
Presumably, most of those named on the lists were at the hospice for
a short stay, and this paper has noted the policy or practice of three-day
guests, they being the more affluent ones, and of eight-day pilgrims for
whom more might have to be provided. A warm welcome may also have
been intended to be a short welcome, an idea borne out by references to
some of the longer stays, sometimes with an explanation for the prolonged
visit. In an instance of charity, and showing the hospice’s role as a hospital,
the lists note that on December 15, 1482, two men of Somerset “stayed in
the Hospice for two weeks, two days, with the consent of all the confratres,”
though this is without further explanation. That consent clause may hint at
how in-house decisions were made about such matters. Some longer stays
were noted but not explained, such as that of the parish cleric of Lynn, for
sixteen days (5/12/1510), or Thomas Borleton, of Shepnel, Shropshire for
33. This entry seems to argue that the hospice staff was responsible for the entries,
rather than the pilgrims.

JOEL T. ROSENTHAL

63

seventeen days (6/22/1505). And in one of those puzzling entries, one
Dominus Martin, priest and chaplain, stayed for three days “though his servant Richard Thurmode stayed eight days” (2/13/105). One does wonder
at the disparity here; would the servant have been left on his own for five
days to enjoy the street life of the big city?
Sickness, one can well imagine, was often cited to explain this stretching of a stay. One entry brings home a pilgrim’s nightmare—falling seriously ill when far from home (7/24/1506). Among the three entries for
that day there is noted one “Richard Drywre, sonatorum in tubiis [(trumpeter?)] who remained sick in the Hospice until 24th August, his son serving him the whole time.” Nor was poor Richard Drywre the only pilgrim
needing special care for a prolonged period, since a scholar from Devon
stayed thirty days “because of sickness” after he was admitted on May 1506
among the “pauperum.” Two men, one from Carmarthen and one from
Bath, also had to stay, or were allowed to stay, for twenty-four days for the
same reason. But the burdens imposed upon the hospice by such led, in at
least one instance, to the expression of something less than all-out charity:
“Dominus John Warburton, who had stayed in Hospice for thirteen weeks
and one day left today. He had lived here all autumn at the expense of the
Hospice, was completely healed and when he left he gave nothing”
(12/13/1483). The register might well have added “don’t come back,”
though an entry like “a poor young scholar . . . who was here in June of this
year but returned after a long illness and was admitted for three days only
for motives of charity” (3/13/1507) shows more compassion. The sailor
from Ludlow who had been brought in, “half dead, having been wounded
by thieves, and stayed in the Hospice for thirty-six days until restored to
perfect health, at the great expense and trouble of the Hospice,” at least got
the attention he needed, even if it had been given rather grudgingly
(March 6, 1505).34 The lists say nothing of the ultimate fate of the pilgrim
listed as “not sick but weak” (11/15/1480).35
For some the hospice, with access to a Roman cemetery, proved to be
a final resting place. On this, whether because of need for last rites and
Christian burial, or to clear the hospice of charges of negligence or inhospitality, the recording of deaths seems to have been a regular feature of the

34. There were a few odd entries about pilgrims’ health, for instance, Dominus William
Cheyne who “fell ill,” implying, perhaps, that he had been in good health when he arrived
(this is not, however, followed by any notice of his death) (11/8/1482).
35. There was also an entry, “one sick and one poor,” for 10/28/1482.

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THE ENGLISH HOSPICE IN ROME

lists.36 It is possible that some who died in the hospice had envisioned such
an end—a final trip to the holy city and of dying within sight of Peter’s
place of martyrdom—though the difficulty of the journey argues against
this. Some who died at the hospice may have fallen seriously ill along the
way, just making it to the city. Some entries could be very bald: “Robert
Rogerson died” (7/21/1479), or, the following September 24, “Richard
Falmer, Reading, died.”37 A mnemonic touch might be entered, as on September 20, 1479: “on the same day the grapes were gathered in the vineyard of the chalk tower and Dominus Thomas Lymner, canon of Langdon,
Kent, died.”38 This paper has already noted the presence of plague and,
unsurprisingly, it is noted for some of the deaths: “Nicolas Stordy, Choirmaster of York Cathedral, died from the plague” (10/11/1480). Sometimes
the hospice as a hospital was of little avail, as in two entries of October,
1483. For October 21, the register says that, “John Ryngwod, who came
last Friday, died from plague,” and among the entries for the next day there
is listed, “Magister William Jonys, Welshman, died eleven days after entering the Hospice.” For a variation in the wording, Dominus Ralph Stokeslay
of York was tersely memorialized: he “died of a pestilential fever”
(4/11/1481).
A few of the sick and dying did rate a bit more in the register. Perhaps
the hospice was concerned to show that it cared, even if it could not save.
Another of those puzzling cases, Thomas Florentyne of London, entered
the hospice, “A sick ‘ethicus’” (10/29/1480). Shortly thereafter (11/8/1480)
one reads that Thomas Florentyne of London died—two entries but one
fate. One reads also what sort of care was available for John Tusshew: he
stayed for three weeks, though he too died at the hospice (9/6/1480). And
while a cure was not to be found, there is at least an informed diagnosis
here, little good that it did Thomas Williams of Steeple Aston, Wiltshire.
He, poor man, “Died in Hospice on 24th, quia ante adventum fluxu ventris
insanabili ad fores mortis venerate” (4/20/1505).39 In one of the more
36. For the 1480s, seventeen deaths were recorded (one being the hospice’s cook),
seven explicitly attributed to the plague, and all those who died were identified by name,
unlike the many who are anonymous and simply listed as “sick.” Two cases point to the hospice’s role as a hospital: “John Ryngwod, who came last Friday, died from plague”
(10/21/1483), and then, one day later, “M. William Jonys, Welshman, died eleven days after
entering Hospice.”
37. In both cases the notice of death was the only entry for the day.
38. The “chalk tower” seems to be a reference to a building on the hospice’s own
grounds, for on the previous day the grapes had been gathered “in S. James’s vineyard.”
39. The hospice was authorized to use a nearby cemetery. According to Gasquet, A History of the Venerable English College, 46, “In 1445 the new church of St. Thomas and the

JOEL T. ROSENTHAL

65

Compendio delle heroiche, et gloriose attioni, et santa vita di papa Greg. XIII, distinto in
tredici capi, in memoria delli XIII. anni, ch’ egli visse nel suo felice ponteficato raccolto da
Marc’Antonio Ciappi . . . & dal medesimo nuouamête corretto, & ї molte parti
accresciuto. Con le figure tratte dall naturale delli collegij, seminarj, & altre fabriche fatte
da lui (Roma: Stamperia degli Accolti, 1596). Reproduced by kind permission of
the Rector of the Venerable English College, Rome.

poignant entries, there is the obituary of “Alice Melton, washerwoman,
died, R.I.P,” followed immediately by an entry noting “her 2 companions.”
This seems to indicate that Alice was on the staff, probably one of many
who kept the place in working order (6/12/1483).40

Blessed Trinity was consecrated and received many privileges from Pope Eugenius IV.
Among others it was granted the extra-parochial right of a cemetery the English had been
accorded in the time of the old Schola Anglorum.”
40. On her profession, see Carole Rawcliffe, “A Marginal Occupation? The Medieval
Laundress and Her Work,” Gender & History, 21 (2009), 147–69.

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THE ENGLISH HOSPICE IN ROME

Conclusion
This analysis of the hospice’s sign-in list hardly opens the door on any
neglected aspects of late medieval religious life and piety. These pilgrims
were simply participating in what has been characterized as “one of civilized man’s oldest habits.”41 The hospice, one can say, was created to fill a
need and it clearly did so long before it became part of the counter-reformations and a modern seminary. It still exists today as the English College
in Rome, charged to this day with training men for the Roman Catholic
priesthood in England and Wales.42
What this paper has tried to offer is the idea that the pilgrims who
came to Rome and who were to be found at the hospice represent a credible cross-section of the middling ranks of their society—far from home,
but nevertheless a microcosm of their world back home. One can see them
as later-day counterparts to Chaucer’s pilgrims, diverse in many ways and
sometimes pointing to a life and status back at home. Moreover, rather
than just making that short jaunt from Southwark to Canterbury, this list
presents hundreds and hundreds of men and women who had overcome
the obstacles—physical, financial, personal—that lay between home and a
stay in the holy city. Regardless of their social, economic, educational and
vocational distinctions, all the pilgrims who stayed at the hospice shared a
common purpose, a common goal, and although they not had not set off
in unison from the Tabard Inn, they all did wind up, sooner or later, at the
English hospice of St. Thomas in Rome.
One point of note: for those years covered by the lists, numbers
remained fairly constant. Those who signed in (and who merited being
named) invariably ran, for each year, from about 150 to just around 200.
Maybe this was what the hospice could accommodate, though it seems to
have been able to open its doors to a huge cluster—including some largish
groups that arrived on each other’s heels—when called upon to do so. In
addition to this fairly steady flow of pilgrims, the ratio of clerics to laity was
fairly constant: twenty percent or thereabouts were men of various orders,
year in and year out. It seems reasonable to conclude that the hospice enjoyed
a good reputation among those contemplating a pilgrimage to Rome. It had
been established to succor them and it clearly fulfilled this mission.
41. Ronald C. Finucane, Miracles and Pilgrims: Popular Beliefs in Medieval England, 1st
ed. (New York, 1995), 39.
42. At present there are about thirty men in residence, training for the Roman Catholic
priesthood in England and Wales. The College now owns a “summer retreat,” the splendidlooking Villa Palazzola, “open all year round to parishes, schools and individuals.”

JOEL T. ROSENTHAL

67

One mystery remains. As well as those hundreds named on the guest
list, there were huge numbers simply summed up in their collective
anonymity as “sick.” As this is not a history of the hospice as such, nor a
foray into medical history, how the many sick were handled—their recovery rate, the presence of skilled physicians, access to medicines, etc.—is not
part of this brief paper. Nevertheless, one should at least note that, beyond
what the hospice offered to those hundreds who can be identified, it was
also called upon to deal with almost as many who passed by unregistered
in the note-taking of history.
While the hospice may never have been the place to stay for those who
could aspire to something grander, it had an open-door policy, whether for
three days or eight and whether for a single pilgrim or for a cluster of thirteen. In its draw of pilgrims from all over England and Wales it was a geographical melting pot. Within its walls, clerics and layfolk, men and
women, and those of occupations ranging from the mechanical arts to
those of the sea of the parish clergy could rub elbows. The hospice was
indeed a “home away from home,” where the likes of Dominus Edmund
Martyn, a doctor of laws who had come with his servant, could break bread
with Thomas Draper, a Franciscan and a doctor, or with James Syde, a
hermit from Sittingbourne, or with John of the North, or with the mysterious “Joanna,” or with Thomas Brenstrete, a humble tiler from Rye, or
with John Mortimer, nuncius of the king. If the pilgrimage to Rome was
not a great leveler, it was at least a good mixer. The journey from England—an act of piety, of curiosity, of adventure, and perhaps of some business on the side—continued to draw impressive numbers in these years,
whatever dark clouds might have been gathering on the horizon of the sixteenth century. And for many of those who made the journey, their days
in Rome and their stay in the hospice—well-located in terms of sights both
ancient and “modern”—may well have been the adventure of a lifetime.

Women and the Economic Administration
in the Franciscan Missions of Valdivia, Chile:
The Syndic Clara de Eslava y Lope
CRISTIÁN LEAL PINO AND DAVID REX GALINDO*
This article analyzes the role of women in the public space of a colonial
frontier territory in Spanish America, focusing on the female syndics of the
Franciscan missions of Valdivia, Chile near the end of the colonial era.
The article develops the case study of Clara de Eslava y Lope, who, as a
syndic, administered financial matters for the Chillán Franciscan College
for the Propagation of the Faith in the Valdivia missions. While Clara de
Eslava y Lope’s role as a syndic for the Franciscans was not unique in the
Hispanic Catholic world, this essay sheds light on the position of female
syndics, largely ignored by colonial and early modern historiographies.
Through the lens of female syndics, this paper argues that women fulfilled
an essential role within the Valdivia Hispanic-Creole population in the
late colonial era, influenced not only by their economic power, but also
their social recognition, education, and marital status as widows.
Keywords: Female syndics, Franciscan missions, economic
administration, Chile, colonial era.
* Cristián Leal Pino is an associate professor of history at the Universidad del Bío-Bío,
Chile; David Rex Galindo is an assistant professor of history at the Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez
and a researcher at its Centro de Estudios Americanos. This article is part of Regular DIUBB
Project No. 191324 2/R, entitled “Cultura material en la Orden franciscana: El Colegio de
misiones de Chillán en tiempos de la Colonia y la República en Chile” (Material Culture in the
Franciscan Order: The Mission College of Chillán during the Colonial and Republican Eras),
financed by the Universidad del Bío-Bío, Chile. The authors thank the Vicerrectoría Académica
at the Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez and its Dirección de Investigación for their financial
contribution to the translation of an earlier version of this essay from Spanish, which was
superbly done by Thomas Rothe, an adjunct professor at the Universidad Católica de Chile. He
translated all quotes from Spanish. Previous drafts were presented at the Workshop “Iglesia y
sociedad en Chile durante la Colonia y la República” organized by the Universidad del Bío-Bío,
the Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, and the “X Jornadas sobre Identidad Cultural y Política Exterior
en la Historia Argentina y Americana,” Universidad del Salvador, Argentina. The authors also
thank those attending these academic meetings for their comments and the three anonymous
reviewers for their thoughtful suggestions in improving this article. We also thank the CHR
editor Dr. Nelson H. Minnich for guiding us through the publication process and Ms. Madelyn
Reichert for her excellent copy-editing of the text. The authors’ email addresses are: David Rex
Galindo, david.rex@uai.cl; and Cristián Leal Pino, cleal@ubiobio.cl.

68

CRISTIÁN LEAL PINO AND DAVID REX GALINDO

69

Introduction
On April 8, 1791, doña Clara de Eslava y Lope, syndic of the
Franciscan missions of Valdivia in southern Chile, requested in a letter
to the governor of Valdivia, Mariano de Pusterla, his cooperation in
restituting extra rations of “bread, jerky, and fat” for the Franciscan
missionaries. The previous year, the Royal Treasury (Real Hacienda) of
the Kingdom of Chile had suddenly suspended these provisions, which
had been delivered to the Franciscan missionaries since 1773. Syndic
Eslava y Lope expounded that the annual royal stipend (sínodo) of 330
pesos was insufficient to support the friars and, therefore, she requested
that the governor open an investigation, presenting “trustworthy
witnesses,” to restore the additional supplies. In case these were not
reestablished, Eslava y Lope threatened the inquiry would serve as
justification for the Franciscan College for the Propagation of the Faith
of Chillán (colegio de propaganda fide de Chillán), which ran the missions,
to present an appeal to the King and the Council of the Indies. Eslava y
Lope’s signed letter included an appendix with fifteen questions meant to
gather information on the hardships Franciscan missionaries faced on the
Valdivia frontier.1
The military governor and the garrison in Valdivia must have felt the
syndic’s urgency. With no delay, Clara de Eslava y Lope secured eight
witnesses from the highest military ranks familiar with the work of the
Franciscan missionaries, and, on April 12, the governor and a notary
conducted the interrogations. This process, both in form and objectives,
was a standard judicial procedure brought before colonial authorities and a
typical channel for missionaries as well as other colonial subjects and
corporations throughout Spanish America to express their needs and
1. Clara de Eslava y Lope, “Carta enviada al Gobernador de la plaza de Valdivia por la
síndica Clara de Eslava y Lope,” Valdivia, April 8, 1791, in Santiago, Archivo del Colegio de
Propaganda Fide de San Ildefonso de Chillán (hereafter ACPFCh), Asuntos Varios, vol. 7,
fol. 11r–11v, images 021899–021900. Her letter is one part of the whole petition, including
the “Interrogatorio,” (fols. 11v–12v, images: 021900–021902) and the witnesses’ replies (fols.
12v–28r, 021902–021933), all of it written in Valdivia, April 8–12, 1791, and stored in
Santiago, ACPFCh, Asuntos Varios (1791–1792), vol. 7, fols. 11r–28r, images 021899–
021933. This case has been described by Roberto Lagos, Historia de las misiones del Colegio de
Chillán (Barcelona, 1908), 375–86. A copy of the 1773 order from the Board of the Royal
Hacienda to deliver bread, jerky, and fat to the missionaries of Valdivia can be found in
ACPFCh, Asuntos Varios, vol. 3, fol. 45r–45v, images 020250–020251. The authors have
consulted the digitized documents in the archive, hence the use of image references in
addition to folios.

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WOMEN AND ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

complaints. Franciscans relied on their local and regional networks to
collect testimonies of civil and religious authorities that backed their
demands through the Spanish judicial and institutional systems.2 The
unusual aspect in this case is that the syndic of the Franciscan missions was
a woman, which, as this article’s research shows, became the norm in the
missions of Valdivia run by the College for the Propagation of the Faith of
Chillán and in the college itself (see Figure 1).3
This article explores the attributes of female syndics (síndicas) who,
like Clara de Eslava y Lope, managed the economic assets of the
Franciscan missions of Valdivia. The institution of the syndic had
medieval roots in the prohibition of Franciscan friars to handle money,
and thus their entrustment of the administration of money to trustworthy
laypeople. Antonio Cruz y Saavedra succinctly summarizes in his study
on Franciscan syndics in the Canary Islands that eventually syndics “were
qualified to establish all demands, injunctions, subpoenas, executions,
prison sentences, nominations, sale and auction of goods, oaths of libel,
present witnesses and evidence, and any kind of proof necessary to
defend the interest of the cloistered friars.”4 As this article shows, the
College of Chillán turned to women to oversee the mission’s economic
operations, manage resources, protect missionary interests, and spend
funds for the Franciscan community of friars of the Valdivia jurisdiction.
Clara de Eslava y Lope’s case was nonetheless not unusual.
2. It was common for Franciscans and other colonial authorities, corporations, and
subjects to raise petitions with local support to higher civil authorities in the viceroyalties and
Spain. See Adrian Masters, “A Thousand Invisible Architects: Vassals, the Petition and
Response System, and the Creation of Spanish Imperial Caste Legislation,” Hispanic
American Historical Review 98, 3 (2018), 377–406. See also a Franciscan petition case from
the California missions in “Judicial Proceedings,” in: Writings of Fermín Francisco de Lasuén,
trans. and ed. by Finbar Kenneally, O.F.M., 2 vols. (Washington DC, 1965), I, 109–19.
3. Witnesses’ replies, Valdivia, April 8–12, 1791, in Santiago, ACPFCh, Asuntos
Varios (1791–1792), vol. 7, fols. 12v–28r, images 021902–021933. However, the fact that
Clara de Eslava y Lope knew legal procedures and threatened with litigation is not surprising.
According to Spanish and colonial laws, women, particularly widows, could and did litigate
in Spanish and colonial courts. Elite, literate women like the syndics in this study understood
the legal culture of their time and employed their knowledge and power accordingly. Richard
L. Kagan, Lawsuits and Litigants in Castile, 1500–1700 (Chapel Hill, 1981); María Eugenia
Albornoz Vásquez, “Pleitos judiciales por injurias: Nuevas miradas para la historia cultural y
social de los conflictos, los sentimientos y las justicias. Chile, 1670–1874,” in: Mujeres: Olvidos
y memorias en los márgenes: Chile y América, siglos XVII–XXI, ed. Yéssica González Gómez
(Temuco, 2020), 169–87.
4. Antonio Cruz y Saavedra, “La figura del síndico en la Orden franciscana en el
convento de San Antonio de Padua de la villa de Gáldar (1520–1835),” Revista de Historia
Canaria, 190 (2008), 39–67, here 40.

CRISTIÁN LEAL PINO AND DAVID REX GALINDO

71

FIGURE 1. Franciscan missions in the jurisdiction of Valdivia, 1791.
Map of Franciscan Missions of the Jurisdiction of Valdivia, Chile, in the second half of the
eighteenth century. Map produced by Cristián Leal and Juan Pablo Troncoso. Map based on:
Ximena Urbina Carrasco, La frontera de arriba en Chile colonial: Interacción hispano-indígena en
el territorio entre Valdivia y Chiloé e imaginario de sus bordes geográficos, 1600–1800 (Santiago,
2009), 223; and Roberto Lagos, Historia de las misiones del Colegio de Chillán (Barcelona,
1908), 327.

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WOMEN AND ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

Contemporaries doña María Loreto Riquelme de la Barrera y Goycochea
(b. 1737–d. 1798) and doña Margarita Álvarez served as syndics in
Chillán, and doña María Ignacia Carrillo de Córdoba Garth y
Lisperguer, countess of Vista Florida and a contemporary of Eslava y
Lope, did the same for the Franciscan College for the Propagation of the
Faith of Ocopa. In Valdivia, after her death in 1800, doña Clara was
followed by doña María Candelaria Adriasola y Martel (b. in Valdivia in
1777, d. unknown) (see Table 1).5 These influential women took leading
roles in the administration of male religious institutions. Even if
infrequent, a closer look at other scenarios shows that female syndics
carried out similar tasks within the Franciscan Order.
In his 1697 Chronicle of the Franciscan province of the Holy Gospel
of Mexico, fray Agustín de Vetancurt mentioned that doña Leonor de
Silva, syndic of the convent of Tlaxcala, had supported the friars during the
secularization crisis of the mid-seventeenth century.6 In San Luis Potosí,
doña Rosalía Rosa Martínez Brano, one of the most important mining
entrepreneurs in the region, became the syndic of the Franciscan Province
of Zacatecas after her husband don José de Erreparaz’s death in 1758. Her
case was not unique. Previous widows had inherited their husbands’ syndic
office in the Zacatecas province early in the century.7 Doña Tomasa Pérez
was the syndic of the Franciscan convent of Ayamonte, Spain, in 1828,
when she rented the convent’s orchard from the friars.8 Fake female
syndics might have also existed. In the 1750s, in the Audiencia de Quito,
fray Juan Castro, doctrinero in Chambo, referred to his criada (maid)
5. Lagos, Historia de las misiones, 376; Gabriel Guarda, La sociedad en Chile Austral antes
de la colonización alemana: Valdivia, Osorno, Río Bueno, La Unión, 1645–1850, 2nd ed.
(Santiago, 2006), 193, 231–32.
6. Fray Agustín de Vetancurt, Chronica de la Provincia del Santo Evangelio de Mexico.
Quarta parte del Teatro Mexicano de los successos Religiosos (Mexico City, 1697), Tratado 1, Ch.
5, paragraph 44, p. 15. This case is mentioned in José Refugio de la Torre Curiel, Vicarios en
entredicho: Crisis y desestructuración de la provincia franciscana de Santiago de Xalisco, 1749–1860
(Zamora, 2001), 109n161, who points out that female syndics were rare and that she was a
widow.
7. Isabel María Povea Moreno, “Mineras y parcioneras: La participación de las mujeres
en la minería de San Luis Potosí, una aproximación a través de los pleitos, siglo XVIII,”
Chronica Nova, 46 (2020), 53–82. Chronicler fray José de Arlegui mentioned that the wife of
a distinct authority in Zacatecas inherited the office when her husband passed away, though
her functions are not straightforward as it seems to be an honorary office: see, Joseph de
Arlegui, Crónica de la Provincia de N.S.P.S Francisco de Zacatecas [1737] (Mexico City, 1851),
Ch. 18, pp. 353–55.
8. María Antonia Moreno Flores, “La ventura histórica de un pueblo: La huella de los
riojanos: Ayamonte en el siglo XIX” (PhD diss., University of Seville, 2015), 93.

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73

TABLE 1. Syndics for the College of Chillán and its frontier missions
in Valdivia 1756–1801
Franciscan Syndics

Years

College of Chillán
Don Francisco Javier de la Barrera
Don Antonio de Acuña
Doña Margarita Álvarez*
Doña María Loreto Riquelme de la Barrera**

1764–1775

Don Domingo Villegas
Doña María Loreto Riquelme de la Barrera**

1775–1784

Don Santiago Roldán
Doña María Loreto Riquelme de la Barrera**

1785–1813

Don Domingo Amunátegui

1814–1818

Valdivia Missions
Doña Clara de Eslava y Lope
Doña María Candelaria Adriasola

1773–1800
1801–?

*She appears as “our sister syndic” to owe 50 pesos in silver to the College in 1769 and again
253 pesos in silver in the period 1764-1768. She was the syndic Don Francisco Javier de la
Barrera’s wife and kept that role after his death in 1783.
** She appears as “our sister syndic” to donate eight and a half pounds of wax to the College
in 1769 and to receive a pig in 1796. She died two years later.
Sources: Lagos, Historia de las misiones del Colegio de Chillán, 586; Cristián Leal, “Temporalidades franciscanas en Chillán. El fundo Los Guindos, primera parte,” Anuario de Historia de
la Iglesia en Chile, 22 (2004), 133–34; Cristián Leal y Rigoberto Iturriaga, Disposiciones Colegio
Apostólico de Propaganda Fide de San Ildefonso de Chillán, 1764–1779 [Publicaciones del
Archivo Franciscano, 107] (Santiago, Chile, 2013); and Cristián Leal y Rigoberto Iturriaga,
Disposiciones Colegio Apostólico de Propaganda Fide de San Ildefonso de Chillán, 1779–1810
[Publicaciones del Archivo Franciscano, 109] (Santiago, Chile, 2014).

Eugenia Velasco as his syndic.9 Since scholars have not paid much
attention to the roles of female syndics within male religious orders, more
archival research is needed to ascertain whether these were exceptions or
not. What seems plausible, and the research suggests, is that religious men
entrusted their businesses to honorable, pious widows (in some cases wives
of previous male syndics) who proved their financial skills by taking care of
9. Sabrina Guerra Moscoso, “La disputa por el control de las doctrinas en la Real
Audiencia de Quito: Un estudio microhistórico sobre la tensión entre y dentro del Estado,
la Iglesia y las redes de poder local, Guano, siglo XVIII” (PhD diss., Universitat Jaume I,
2008), 175.

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WOMEN AND ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

the family business after the deaths of their husbands.10 These widows were
members of the local elites and had economic, social, and political leverage
in their communities. However, these women’s intervention in Franciscan
conventual and mission economic management has gone unnoticed by
colonial and early modern historiographies. More female syndics might
emerge as more archival research is done for other Franciscan convents,
apostolic colleges, and mission territories.
This essay aims at answering the following questions: Why did the
College of Chillán in Chile appoint women as syndics to their frontier
missions, and why did these women accept this position? What was their
function? Given their social prestige, did they have executive power, or were
they merely representative figures? Finally, were these syndics representatives
of women’s empowerment in frontier societies in the early modern period?
In the Chilean frontier region of Valdivia, this paper argues, women fulfilled
an essential role within the Hispanic-Creole population toward the end of
the colonial era, influenced not only by their economic power, but also their
social recognition, education, and marital status as widows. All these factors
might have favored selecting women as syndics to advocate for improving the
missionary material conditions in a jurisdiction with significant geographic
contrasts, deprived resources, and challenging missionary work. This paper
aims to address these questions: firstly, to connect the economic roles of
women to the rich historiographical analysis of women within colonial
society in the Americas and frontier history, then to explain the role of a
syndic within the Franciscan Order as a framework, and finally, with the case
study of Clara de Eslava y Lope in Valdivia, to show women’s roles as
economic administrators of Franciscan assets.
Scholars have shown that some women, primarily from the Spanish
colonial elites, participated in the financial administration of the colonial
economy. Studies demonstrate that some women had economic influence
by administering properties to protect family fortunes. In doing so, they
gained financial knowledge inaccessible to other women. Whether they
had absent or deceased husbands, were single, or took religious vows, some
women managed and controlled their assets by buying, selling, and renting
real estate and other properties, granting credits and other financial
10. Antonio Martínez Borrallo shows the leading role of widows in the financial
management of their family businesses in “Élites ilustradas al servicio de la Monarquía
española: las redes de comerciantes vascos y navarros en Madrid, 1700–1830” (PhD diss.,
Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2021), 155–60. According to Spanish law, widows
could and did manage family assets after the death of their husbands.

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75

mechanisms to generate economic returns.11 Women belonging to the
colonial elite, such as doña Clara de Eslava y Lope and doña María
Candelaria Adriasola, both syndics for the Franciscans missions in
Valdivia, or doña María Loreto Riquelme in Chillán, often owned
property in urban and rural areas, managed businesses, and operated as
moneylenders. These women administered, bought, sold, and rented their
properties and businesses.12
For the Chilean frontier, scholars have also revealed that frontier
Hispanic women had access to land properties and thus achieved
socioeconomic relevance in areas like the Araucanía frontier, between the
Maule and Biobío rivers, and on the Island of Laja (Isla de Laja). Analyzing
the wills drafted by notaries in Concepción, Patricia Cerda Pincheira
explores the role of women in frontier territories of the Araucanía,
highlighting their agricultural work and how, throughout the eighteenth
century, a high percentage of them became property owners of agricultural
lands. On the other hand, in a detailed study of land property on the Island
of Laja from the late seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries, Ignacio
Chuecas observes, through several case studies, the existence of a female
estate-owning elite which took hold of “communal land grants and actively
[took on] the exploitation and administration of their estates.” Therefore,
the frontier in Chile had the “face of a woman,” Chuecas asserts.13 This
11. See the synthesis by Susan Migden Socolow, The Women of Colonial Latin America,
2nd ed. (Cambridge, UK, 2015), particularly Chapters 6, 7, and 8. Based on relevant studies
to date, Susan Socolow takes readers on a journey through the history of women in Spanish
and Portuguese America from the pre-Hispanic period to the Independence of the Americas.
Socolow shows how some women owned properties and administered estates, agricultural
production, and pastoral economies in rural and frontier areas, see 134–37.
12. According to Silvia Arrom, the women of Mexico City’s colonial elite, regardless of
their marital status, took on responsibilities in the businesses they owned, although the
majority were widows. These tasks were in some ways related to their administrative work at
home, where women would assume financial responsibilities in the absence of a husband, as
indicated by Arrom’s study of notary transactions in 1803. For further information, see Silvia
Marina Arrom, The Women of Mexico City, 1790–1857 (Stanford, 1985), 172–73, 184–86:
“old age brought many well-to-do women’s independence, along with new financial
responsibilities” (quote is on 186).
13. Patricia Cerda Pincheira, “Las mujeres en la sociedad fronteriza del Chile colonial,”
Jahrbuch für Geschichte Lateinamerikas, 26 (1989), 157–71; Ignacio Chuecas, Dueños de la
frontera: Terratenientes y sociedad colonial en la periferia chilena, Isla de La Laja (1670–1845)
(Santiago, 2018), 215–63. In a recent edited volume on women in colonial and early
republican Chile, authors highlight the role of Hispanic and indigenous women in diplomacy,
as litigants in cases of honor, as criminals and social transgressors, and their participation in
family notarial activities; see: Yéssica González Gómez, ed., Mujeres: Olvidos y memorias en los
márgenes: Chile y América, siglos XVII–XXI.

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WOMEN AND ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

could explain why, in the case of Valdivia—a military peripheral area with
a reduced number of interconnected local elite families linked to the
military garrisons—the Franciscan missionaries named renowned women
as syndics to administer their economic goods. Two Chilean scholars who
gave partial attention to these female syndics underscored their position
within the local societies and mentioned Eslava y Lope’s role in the 1791
petition. Nonetheless, they mainly highlighted their “irreplaceable
obligations of educating and safeguarding the spiritual health of their
progeny and kin.”14 The study of female syndics within male religious
orders is even more striking because it is difficult to find women managing
businesses or properties they did not own. Aside from the cases of nuns
administering the convents where they lived, which have duly been studied
by scholars such as Asunción Lavrin and Kathryn Burns, it seems rare to
find women managing ecclesiastical economic assets.15
On the other hand, secular women’s agency in shaping the religious
colonial world is just now drawing more attention. In a recent book, Jessica
Delgado highlights the importance of colonial women in the formation of
Catholicism in colonial Mexico. She demonstrates that
. . . religious authority, church institutions, theological concepts, and
spiritual practices are only one part of the story of women’s participation
in religious culture. First, because these responses were not merely
responses. They were active engagements, and they formed a part of a
dialogue. And second, because that dialogue, which included men and
women, laypeople, clergy, and nuns in both ordinary and extraordinary
interactions, is itself what shaped and forged the contours of colonial
Catholicism.16

14. Gabriel Guarda, La Edad Media: Historia de la Iglesia: Desde la fundación de Santiago
a la incorporación de Chiloé 1541–1826 (Santiago, 2016), 240; and Lagos, Historia de las
misiones, 375–77, where he minimizes her work in securing provisions for the Franciscan
missionaries in what he describes as a “long and tedious issue,” by instead focusing solely on
the scarcity of economic resources in the missions.
15. Kathryn Burns, Colonial Habits: Convents and the Spiritual Economy of Cuzco, Peru
(Durham, 1999); Asunción Lavrin, Brides of Christ: Conventual Life in Colonial Mexico
(Stanford, 2008); Guillermo Nieva, “El obispo, el síndico y la priora. El reformismo
borbónico y el monasterio de Santa Catalina de Córdoba del Tucumán (1780–1810),” Archivo
Dominicano, 32 (2011), 53–91. The studies conclude that, in general, convent women were
active in the spiritual economy in which ecclesiastical institutions would turn into financial
centers that granted credits and other financial products, considered a part of their work in
spiritual salvation.
16. Jessica Delgado, Laywomen and the Making of Colonial Catholicism in New Spain,
1630–1790 (New York, 2018), quote is on 259.

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77

Certainly female syndics like Clara de Eslava, María Loreto Riquelme,
and María Candelaria Adriasola took active parts in forging colonial
Catholicism. These were devout women who served their God as principal
members of their communities through confraternities, alms, and pious
devotions, as well as their financial skills and social connectivities. By focusing
on the latter, this article shares Alison Weber’s call to “refine the paradigm of
women as the prototypical subject of church-state discipline.” It sheds new
light on colonial women’s involvement in the salvific enterprise put forward
by Franciscan missionaries.17 Although the authors recognize the power
disparity between men and women, the cases studied in this article—while
perhaps exceptional in the early modern Hispanic world—demonstrate how
women from the local elite acquired spaces of socioeconomic and spiritual
power in a male-dominated ecclesiastical world. In a sense, the examples in
this article contravene the gender norms commonly ascribed to the colonial
and early modern periods—and even to recent times.
Syndics as an Economic Institution in Franciscan Colleges
and Their Missions
Which powers did Clara de Eslava y Lope and María Candelaria
Adriasola enjoy as syndics of the Franciscan missions in Valdivia? As
administrators, Clara de Eslava and the other female syndics adopted an
essential role within the traditional hierarchical system of the Franciscan
Order and received authorization from the highest Franciscan authorities
in Rome and Madrid as well as local provincial ministers, guardians
(executive heads of convents and colleges), and mission presidents. Oddly
enough, despite their importance in administering convents and missions,
scholarship on syndics has remained lacking among researchers of
Franciscan history.18 Since the beginning of the Order, Franciscan
17. The works in Alison Weber’s edited volume focus on those early modern women
who, through strict devotion and retreat, lived what she calls a third category of status within
early modern Catholic societies: married women, nuns or “an official third vocation . . . in the
spaces between marriage and the convent.” Most female syndics were widows, which could
add more complexity to categorizing the role of colonial women within rigid frames of
religious, devout, and marital status. Alison Weber, “Introduction: Devout Laywomen in the
Early Modern World: The Historiographical Challenge,” in: Devout Women in the Early
Modern World, ed. Alison Weber (Abingdon, UK, 2016), 1–27, quotation from the book
description. For nuns and devout women who took a contemplative vow with salvific aims,
see Magnus Lundberg, Mission and Ecstasy: Contemplative Women and Salvation in Colonial
Spanish America and the Philippines [Studia Missionalia Svecana, 115] (Uppsala, 2015).
18. The authors have only found a few studies on syndics within the Franciscan Order
in the Hispanic world: on syndics in the Franciscan convent of San Antonio de Padua in the

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WOMEN AND ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

legislation endorsed the nomination of a layperson or “spiritual friend,”
using the 1223 Rule’s words, to handle friars’ monetary transactions,
particularly the reception of money, vehemently prohibited to friars.
Accumulation of wealth disobeyed the vow of poverty Franciscans had
taken when professed as friars. Hence, in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, the Franciscan Order consolidated the institution of syndics to
manage Franciscan provincial and conventual assets.19
From a normative viewpoint, the Colleges for the Propagation of
Faith encompassing the Valdivia missions adopted Franciscan legislation
and adapted it to their circumstances. The Franciscan Estatutos de Barcelona
(Statutes of Barcelona), first published in 1622, which governed
Franciscans in the Americas until the nineteenth century, pronounced that
syndics should be appointed to maintain “the purest observation of our
[religious] state” with the objective of “receiving and spending money for
the benefit of the religious men.”20 Franciscan convents, colleges,
provinces, and missions appointed syndics to handle their income and
spending following the needs of local Franciscan authorities.21 Syndics
were the only people who could receive and store alms and stipends in a
safe in their personal residences.22 Even in the southern isolation of
Valdivia, syndics Clara de Eslava y Lope and her successor María
Candelaria Adriasola oversaw the economic operations of Mission San
Francisco (the head mission) and the other missions, managing and
protecting the resources and interests of the missionary community. One
Canary Islands, see Cruz y Saavedra, “La figura del síndico en la Orden franciscana,” 39–67;
Adriana Rocher Salas focuses on syndics in the Franciscan province of Yucatán, “Los síndicos
de San Francisco: administradores seglares para bienes espirituales,” Revista Memoria, 9
(2003), 74–95. Despite the title, Juan Guillermo Muñoz’s study merely lists benefactors to the
Franciscan convent of San Antonio in Malloa, Chile, some of whom happened to be syndics,
without engaging in its meaning, “El convento de San Antonio en la doctrina de Malloa:
Síndicos y benefactores, siglo XVII y XVIII,” in: Los franciscanos en Chile: Una historia de 450
años, eds. René Millar and Horacio Aranguiz (Santiago, 2005), 69–102.
19. The syndic or proctor attributes changed over time in the early centuries of the
Order, with some conflicts over their meaning in the handling of Franciscan assets and the
issue of property and ownership; see John Moorman, A History of the Franciscan Order from its
Origins to the Year 1517 (Oxford, 1968), 185–86. The office of syndic was officially established
through Innocent IV’s 1247 bull Quanto studiosius; see Félix Saiz Díez, Los Colegios de
Propaganda Fide en Hispanoamérica, 2nd ed. (Lima, 1992), 141n290.
20. Estatutos generales de Barcelona: para la familia cismontana de la regular observancia de
N.P.S. Francisco, ultimamente reconocidos, y con mejor metodo dispuestos en la Congregacion
General, celebrada en la ciudad de Segovia el año del Señor de 1621 (Madrid, 1622), 18.
21. Ibid., 18
22. Ibid., 17.

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79

routine activity was checking and signing the logbooks and ledgers where
all revenue and expenses were noted. That role Eslava y Lope fulfilled
mindfully every month for twenty-three years.23
Particular legislation for the Franciscan Colleges of Propaganda Fide,
from Innocent XI’s 1686 constitutions to local municipal constitutions of
particular colleges (including the College of Chillán under which the
Valdivia missions operated), underscored missionaries’ prohibitions to
accumulate wealth and handle money.24 These apostolic Colleges for the
Propagation of the Faith had been established in Spain and its American
colonies in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to revitalize
Franciscan spirituality and their evangelical commitment. Colleges
operated frontier missions on the edges of imperial control. That was the
case of the Valdivia missions, which the College of Chillán inherited and
expanded after the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767. Thus, colleges and
mission clusters like the Valdivia missions appointed their respective
syndics to manage money, stipends (sínodos), alms, jewels, provisions, or
other valuable objects.
In exchange for their responsibility as mediators, syndics were granted
certain privileges. Those who worked for the Colleges for the Propagation
of Faith and their missions were allowed to enter convents and missions
without any restriction, access religious services for themselves or their
family, dine with the friars, and enjoy a religious community who treated
them with cordiality, prudence, gratitude, and moderation, as long as the
visit did not violate the Franciscan vow of poverty.25 As a result, syndics
were supposed to be served “the same delicacies as the friars, but they
should not proceed to make expressions that subtly contradict the religious
state.”26 One can assume that neither Clara nor María Candelaria (or the
other female syndics for that matter) were treated differently and that both
might have enjoyed these privileges. Because Clara de Eslava y Lope’s
23. Lagos, Historia de las misiones, 376.
24. Innocent XI, Bull Ecclesiae Catholicae, October 16, 1686, in: Breve apostólico de Pio
Sexto, y Estatutos Generales para la erección y gobierno de las custodias de misioneros observantes de
Propaganda Fide en las Provincias Internas de Nueva España (Madrid, 1781), 48–49.
25. See for instance, Estatutos y ordenaciones del Colegio de Propaganda Fide de Ntra.
Señora de los Angeles de la Villa de Tarija, October 9, 1807, in: Díez, Los Colegios de Propaganda
Fide en Hispanoamérica, appendix 4, p. 272. A recent general overview of the colleges of
propaganda fide is David Rex Galindo, To Sin No More: Franciscans and Conversion in the
Hispanic World, 1683–1830 (Stanford, 2018).
26. Estatutos y ordenaciones del Colegio de Propaganda Fide de Ntra. Señora de los Angeles
de la Villa de Tarija, in: Díez, Los Colegios de Propaganda Fide en Hispanoamérica, 272.

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WOMEN AND ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

property bordered the mission in Valdivia, and both properties lacked a
solid separation until at least 1791, daily interactions between the syndic
and the missionaries seem likely. This is particularly interesting, as the
Order expressly prohibited women from entering friaries.27
As Cruz y Saavedra points out in his study on Franciscan syndics in
the Canary Islands, female syndics (like their male counterparts) might
have used this institutional role to secure “their social condition, all the
while enjoying a privileged position in order to expand their assets and
assure their eternal salvation.”28 Likewise, Franciscans relied on these
influential women to protect their missionary obligations and prerogatives.
Definitively, the appointment of the female syndic was a strategy of social
and spiritual consolidation in the colonial environment of the Valdivia
frontier.
Women in the Economic Administration of the Valdivia Missions:
The Case of Clara de Eslava y Lope
Both female syndics of the Franciscan Valdivia missions belonged to the
most distinguished families of Valdivia, with deep connections to the
military authorities of this frontier territory. Biographical data on Clara de
Eslava y Lope and María Candelaria Adriasola could be drawn from Gabriel
Guarda’s exhaustive studies of southern Chilean colonial society.29 In the
case of Clara de Eslava y Lope, her father, Rafael de Eslava y Lassaga, a
military officer born in Spain, served as governor of Valdivia between 1718
and 1723 and had a prominent role in Chile, Peru, and the Kingdom of New
Granada, where he was Captain General from 1733 until his death in 1737.
In 1716, King Felipe V (r. 1700–1746) appointed Rafael de Eslava as Knight
of Santiago, a distinguished honor reserved to the nobility or those with the
highest accomplishments in their service to the crown. Rafael de Eslava
fathered several children, including two natural daughters, Aurelia and Clara
de Eslava y Lope, born to Gabriela Lope y Lara, a single woman with whom
he had an affair during his time in Valdivia. Both daughters were recognized

27. Chapter XII of 1221 Regula non bullata and Chapter XI of 1223 Regula bullata
clearly prohibited the presence of women within Franciscan conventual walls; see Jacques Le
Goff, San Francisco de Asís, trans. Eduardo Carrero Santamaría (Madrid, 2003), 123–24. Fray
Benito Delgado and fray Joaquín Millán, “Estado y Disposición en que queda y se halla la
Misión de Valdivia,” Valdivia, December 30, 1791, in Santiago, ACPFCh., Asuntos Varios,
vol. 7, fols. 115r–116r, images: 022058–022060, here fol. 116r, image: 022060.
28. Cruz y Saavedra, “La figura del síndico en la Orden franciscana,” 40.
29. Guarda, La sociedad en Chile Austral, 188–93, 230–32.

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81

by their father, though their parents never married and were thus not
legitimized.30 In his will, he left an inheritance of 6,000 pesos for each
daughter, a substantial amount in that time. Aurelia de Eslava y Lope, born
in 1719, owned a spacious house within the presidio or fort of Valdivia, which
turned her into one of its most distinguished residents. The exact birthdate
for Clara is unknown, but fell between 1720 and 1724. In 1769, when
Mission San Francisco was constructed in Valdivia, the sisters donated “a
plot of land for the construction.”31
Clara de Eslava y Lope’s house adjoined that of the Franciscan friars
within Mission San Francisco, the residence of the mission president and,
therefore, the most relevant religious outpost in this area. Mission San
Francisco received alms and royal stipends (primarily in goods), took in sick
priests and lay people escaping rebellions, and served as military barracks
when indigenous uprisings intensified. The mission also housed a significant
population of indigenous peoples and mestizos (people of mixed European
and indigenous descent) who, after receiving an education, would become
servants for the local Spanish and Creole elites.32 Understandably, the
financial management of this missionary nucleus in the frontier jurisdiction
of Valdivia required a person with solid connections to the community,
financial solvency, education, initiative, and identification with the Church
and missionary work of the Franciscan priests.
Being a natural daughter did not impede Clara de Eslava y Lope’s
socioeconomic influence within Valdivia society or her role as syndic for
the Franciscan missionaries. She was the administrator for the
Brotherhood of the Virgin Carmen (Cofradía del Carmen) and an
established member of the Catholic Church of Valdivia. She was
30. Luis Lira, Las Ordenes y corporaciones nobiliarias en Chile (Santiago, 1963), 173, 191;
Guarda, La sociedad en Chile Austral, 230.
31. Guarda, La sociedad en Chile Austral, 231.
32. María Pía Poblete, “Prácticas educativas misionales franciscanas, creación de
escuelas en territorio mapuche y significado de la educación para los mapuches-huilliche del
siglo XVIII y XIX,” Revista Espacio Regional, 2 (2009), 23–33. See also, Cristián Leal and
Andrés Quitral, “Evangelización y occidentalización en la frontera sur del Reino de Chile:
Los Franciscanos del Colegio de Misiones de Chillán, s. XVIII,” Historia y Memoria, 15
(2017), 139–68. In 1786, the College of Chillán assumed the responsibility of educating the
children of indigenous chiefs (caciques) by means of Spanish instruction, resulting in the
trades of clockmakers, carpenters, blacksmiths, and eventually priests; see Karin Pereira,
“Del Colegio al Seminario de Naturales: Los franciscanos y la educación indígena en Chile,
1786-1811,” in: Los Franciscanos en Chile: Una historia de 450 años, 171–86, and Karin
Pereira Contardo, El Real Colegio de Naturales [Publicaciones del Archivo Franciscano, 73]
(Santiago, 2002).

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continuously recalled as a witness, godmother, and representative of the
community in baptisms, marriages, and religious ceremonies, which
discloses her connections to those living in the Valdivia military garrison
and her convening authority when it came to supporting the Franciscans’
demands. In addition to her plot adjacent to Mission San Francisco, she
owned numerous properties in the Valdivia hinterlands, houses, jewels,
silver, and slaves.33 She cultivated economic relationships with the Jesuits,
as evinced by the Books of Accounting and Purpose (Libros de Cuenta y
Razón) stored at the Jesuit House of Valdivia.34 She married twice, first to
Spanish-born don Antonio Valentín y Muñoz (b. in Cádiz, Spain, in c.
1703, d. in Lima in c. 1751) and with whom she had seven children; and
then to Spanish-born don Miguel Francisco de Luque (b. in Córdoba,
Spain, in c. 1703, d. in Valdivia in 1770), with whom she gave birth to four
children. Miguel Francisco de Luque died in 1770, three years before Clara
de Eslava would assume the position of syndic. While this is a snapshot of
Clara’s life and significance, it is remarkable that regardless of her birth
status as natural daughter, she reached such recognition and status within
the Franciscan Order and the Catholic Church—a fact not to be
underestimated and which further emphasizes Clara de Eslava’s political
and social prominence.35
The managerial practices of female syndics in the Valdivia Missions
Clara de Eslava y Lope’s lawsuit to the Royal Audiencia of Chile (the
last court of appeal in colonial Chile) to vindicate the rations of bread,
jerky, and fat for the Franciscans of the Valdivia missions showcases her
juridical role as female syndic. The litigation has its origins in the
Audiencia of Chile’s concession of two daily rations of bread, jerky, and
other staples to each Franciscan missionary in the Valdivia frontier in
1773. This allowance paralleled what earlier Jesuits as well as infantry
lieutenants and other military officials in the same jurisdiction enjoyed
33. Guarda, La sociedad en Chile Austral, 232.
34. Gustavo Valdés, “Temporalidades jesuitas en Valdivia,” Anuario de Historia de la
Iglesia en Chile, 5 (1986), 151–68. He points out that at the time of the Jesuit expulsion, in
1767, Clara de Eslava y Lope appears to have owed money to the Society, after having
benefited from a loan.
35. Further biographical information on Clara de Eslava y Lope can be found in
Gustavo Opazo, Familias del Antiguo Obispado de Concepción, 1551–1900 (Santiago, 1957);
Mario Céspedes and Lelia Garreaund, Gran Diccionario de Chile (Biográfico-Cultural), 2 vols.
(Santiago, 1988), I; Julio Retamal, Carlos Celis, and Juan Muñoz, Familias fundadoras de
Chile, 1540–1600 (Santiago, 1993); Valdés, “Temporalidades jesuitas en Valdivia,” 151–68;
and Guarda, La sociedad en Chile Austral, 231–32, 311–12, 323–24.

CRISTIÁN LEAL PINO AND DAVID REX GALINDO

83

during their frontier deployments. In 1790, the Royal Treasury of Chile
(Real Hacienda) suspended the said rations, claiming the need to reduce
treasury costs. The president of the missions’ unsuccessful challenges to the
supply cuts stirred syndic Clara de Eslava y Lope to raise a juridical report
for the college to contest the suspension and, if necessary, appeal to the
King of Spain and his Council of the Indies. To do so, she requested
Governor of Valdivia Mariano de Pusterla to prepare an interrogation of
witnesses who would corroborate the deplorable conditions in which the
Franciscan friars lived and performed their missionary work.36
The jurisdiction of Valdivia was indeed a bittersweet territory. The
region had been evangelized by the Jesuit Order until their expulsion in
1767, and later administered by the Franciscan missionaries of the College
of Chillán. During Clara de Eslava y Lope’s time, the missionary space
consisted of Mission San Francisco and nine additional missions between
the Río Bueno and Toltén rivers (see Figure 1). At the time of her 1791
petition, around twenty Franciscan missionaries worked in this Valdivia
Mission jurisdiction.37 Mission San Francisco, the missionary headquarters
located within the walls of the fort (presidio) of Valdivia, had eventually
relocated two blocks away from the fort after being damaged in a major
fire. Mission San Francisco, where Eslava y Lope worked as a syndic,
received “all the wages and supplies required for the annual provisions of
eight different missions, each one with growing numbers of guests.”38 The
mission served as a “hospice, infirmary, pantry, and warehouse for eight
different missions and eighteen friars who currently work[ed] in the
missions.”39
It was not easy for the missionaries in Mission San Francisco to attend
to a languishing population in Valdivia that had been reduced from 400
inhabitants to 336 from a plague of typhus fever in 1779, and which by
1784 did not surpass 310.40 The mission ledgers display that all provisions
were sent from Lima and Valparaíso. According to the receipts and
expenditures recorded by fray Benito Delgado (mission president) and

36. Lagos, Historia de las misiones, 376.
37. “Informe chronológico de las missiones instruido por el guardian del Colegio de
Chillán Miguel de Ascasubi,” Chillán, December 1784, in Santiago, ACPFCh., Asuntos
Varios, vol. 5, fols. 82r–114v, images: 021234–21298, here fol. 98r–98v, images: 021265–
021266.
38. Ibid., ACPFCh., Asuntos Varios, vol. 5, fol. 98v, image: 021266.
39. Ibid.
40. Ibid., ACPFCh., Asuntos Varios, vol. 5, fol. 92r, image: 021254.

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WOMEN AND ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

friars Joaquín Millán and Lucas Alias, on December 30, 1791, the mission
would collect various shipments from Valparaíso for the upcoming year of
1792. These included two bundles of sugar, six arrobas of chocolate, one
and a half arrobas of oil, two and a half arrobas of soap, one arroba of wax,
one large sack of rice, two bushes of peppers (one from Lima and another
from Chile), several reams of paper, gunpowder, thirty yards of calico, one
pound of thread, one quintal of nails, two pounds of ground pepper, four
ounces of cinnamon, and two pitchers of liquor, among others. Mission
San Francisco was to receive sixteen pitchers of wine, several pitchers of
liquor, two arrobas of pig lard, five leathered bundles of tallow (retobos de
sebo), two pouches of beans, one pouch of chickpeas and another of lentils,
seventy-nine arrobas of flour, forty-three arrobas of jerky, twenty pounds
of almonds and a similar quantity of raisins, four arrobas of herbs, two
quintals of white fish, and chicha to distribute among the missions. To this
list, one must add construction materials used for periodic improvements
and repairs to the mission buildings, such as the living quarters, the chapel,
and the kitchen. One of the most significant improvements was finishing
the “Ravelin that extends between our orchard and that of the sister
syndic.”41 Based on these needs, Clara de Eslava y Lope advocated for
improving missionary living conditions through petitions that embraced
local support.
The juridical language in Eslava y Lope’s letter of April 8, 1791, to
Governor Mariano de Pusterla showed her authority to request the
petition, “in the most suitable form which my rights permit.”42 This
formula invokes her legal power as the mission syndic to submit the
petition and gather legal information on witnesses which she herself
would present. She signed her petition and the questionnaire (Figure 2).
Her juridical report, supported by accounts from “trustworthy” witnesses,
could later be used by the Franciscan guardian in Chillán to advance the
missionaries’ complaint to the highest authorities in Madrid: Charles IV
(r. 1788–1808) and his Council of the Indies. She prepared fifteen
questions, which sought to confirm the need for increasing the
missionary stipend, reiterating the extremely high costs of living in a
frontier territory like Valdivia. In the letter, Eslava y Lope left no doubt
about her right to represent Franciscan interests in civil, business, and
41. Fray Benito Delgado and fray Joaquín Millán, “Estado y Disposición en que queda
y se halla la Misión de Valdivia,” Valdivia, December 30, 1791, quote is on fol. 116r, image
022060.
42. Clara de Eslava y Lope, “Carta enviada al Gobernador de la plaza de Valdivia por
la síndica Clara de Eslava y Lope,” Valdivia, April 8, 1791, quote is on fol. 11r, image 021899.

CRISTIÁN LEAL PINO AND DAVID REX GALINDO

85

FIGURE 2. Signature of Syndic Clara de Eslava y Lope.
Source: Clara de Eslava y Lope, “Carta enviada al Gobernador de la plaza de Valdivia por la
síndica Clara de Eslava y Lope,” Valdivia, April 8, 1791. Courtesy of the Archivo Franciscano
de Santiago de Chile Fr. Rigoberto Iturriaga Carrasco.

legal actions involving negotiations between the community and any
authority. As syndic, she carried out demands and injunctions with
witnesses and presented the necessary evidence to defend the
missionaries’ interests.43
Syndic Clara de Eslava y Lope’s cautious pick of witnesses reveals
her position within the local society. She prepared the questionnaire and
selected eight witnesses from high-ranking military personnel in the
Valdivia community. The results were compiled into an inquiry and sent
to the College of Chillán. Despite Eslava y Lope’s threat to reach the
highest authorities of the Spanish Crown, it seems that the Franciscans
preferred to keep litigation within Chilean authorities; thus, the petition
never reached Spain. Moreover, when fray Javier de Alday, procurator of
the missions, raised the issue of the rations again in 1797, Clara de
Eslava y Lope’s petition had inexplicably been lost in the governmental
offices in Santiago.44
Who were the witnesses and how do they reveal the syndic’s
connections to local authorities, and subsequently, her relevance to the
Franciscans? The interrogation, which occurred between April 8 and April
12, 1791, brought forth eight military officials who fulfilled or had fulfilled
duties in the presidio or fort of Valdivia: don Juan de Santillán y Adriasola
(b. in Valdivia c. 1716–d. in Valdivia c. 1801), captain of infantry of the
permanent battalion of Valdivia; don Francisco Ventura Carvallo
Goyonete (b. in Valdivia 1744–d. in Valdivia 1825), captain of infantry of
43. The juridical report includes Clara de Eslava y Lope’s letter to the governor and her
questionnaire, in Clara de Eslava y Lope, “Carta enviada al Gobernador de la plaza de
Valdivia por la síndica Clara de Eslava y Lope,” and “Interrogatorio,” Valdivia, April 8, 1791,
in Santiago, ACPFCh., Asuntos Varios, vol. 7, fols. 11r–12v, images 021899–021902.
44. Lagos, Historia de las misiones, 380–81.

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WOMEN AND ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

the same battalion; don José de Ulloa Santa Cruz y Requena (b. in
Santiago c. 1741–d. in Valdivia 1822), infantry lieutenant; don Pablo de
Asenjo y Cotera (b. in Valdivia c. 1752–d. after 1806), infantry lieutenant;
Gregorio Henríquez y Santillán (b. in Santiago c. 1741–d. in Valdivia
1822), second lieutenant of the permanent battalion of Valdivia; brothers
Esteban Fernández de Lorca y Aparicio (b. in Concepción 1739 or 1740–
d. in Valdivia 1794), assistant of the permanent battalion, and Felipe
Fernández de Lorca y Aparicio (b. in Concepción 1737–d. in Valdivia
1824), captain; and Vicente de Agüero Godarte (b. in Valdivia c. 1730–d.
in Valdivia c. 1800), retired captain. They were veterans between forty and
seventy-five years old from Concepción, Santiago, and Valdivia, with
kinship and probably godparenthood relations among themselves and with
both Valdivia syndics doña Clara and doña Candelaria through marriages
and baptisms. On the Valdivia frontier, like in other frontier territories of
the Spanish monarchy, honor and kinship fueled social relations and
obligations known well to their vecinos, particularly those of the highest
social status.45
Witnesses had reached high military ranks in the Valdivia garrison,
lived close to the Eslava y Lope sisters within the palisade of the
presidio, and kept properties as well as slaves and indigenous servants.
They were also in charge of the royal “situado” or military income.
Because of their military careers and civil functions in a militarized
territory, witnesses enjoyed a comfortable situation, and even high social
status within Chilean colonial society for their wealth accumulation. Of
the eight, Vicente de Agüero stood out. He was the most powerful man
in Valdivia and the eighth wealthiest man in the Kingdom of Chile,

45. While this paper’s goal is not to write a genealogical tree, the following helps to
understand the witnesses’s kin connections within Valdivia military community: Juan de
Santillán married into the Carrión family before he remarried Vicente de Agüero’s mother,
Francisco Ventura Carvallo married into the Pinuer-Zorita family, José de Ulloa into the
Adriasola-Carrión family, Pablo Asenjo married into the Pinuer and Carvallo-Pinuer
families, Gregorio Henríquez married into the Fernández de Lorca family, Esteban
Fernández de Lorca married into the Santillán-Adriasola family and his daughters married
into the Goyonete, Adriasola and Carrión families, Felipe Fernández de Lorca married into
the Vega Bazán-Valenzuela family, and finally Vicente de Agüero married into the
Henríquez-Santillán family. Clara de Eslava’s daughters had married into the GuardaPinuer, Cruz-Goyonete, and Carvallo-Goyonete families by the time of the depositions.
Guarda, La sociedad en Chile Austral, 202–03, 213–14, 229, 249, 231–32, 311–14, 317–18,
323–24, 338, 378. For a similar social instance of kinship inner connections among settlers
on New Spain’s remote northern frontier, see James F. Brooks, Captives and Cousins: Slavery,
Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands (Chapel Hill, 2002).

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87

with a fortune of around 100,000 pesos in 1790, a Spanish administrator, ten black slaves, and over a hundred native servants. Agüero had
close connections to the Franciscans in Valdivia. He was a generous
benefactor of Mission San Francisco, and he and his descendants were
exempted from paying for their burials, anniversaries, and other
religious solemnities. Eslava y Lope’s selection was wise to secure her
goals, as much as it evidenced her association of military and missionary
interests. It further disclosed her local connections to a militarized
society, owing to her father being a military governor of Valdivia, and
the convenience she presented the friars in handling the administration
of their income (sínodo) and assets.46
According to their depositions, the witnesses were well familiarized
with the missions and their problems. Their declarations vouched that the
missionaries were resolutely devoted to the ministry and confirmed that
missionaries spent their inadequate royal stipend of 330 pesos per
missionary to feed the indigenous population and to maintain the
missions, but delayed provisions from Valparaíso or Lima placed an
arduous strain on missionary subsistence. They were also certain that the
Jesuits received a higher stipend than the Seraphic missionaries,
amounting to more than 737 pesos per religious man; and that the 250
pesos offered to establish a mission was insufficient, for such a task
required from 700 to 800 pesos. All agreed that the Franciscan
missionaries did not participate in commerce or profited from selling crops,
relying mostly, at least they claimed, on royal subsidies. On April 12, 1791,
Governor Mariano de Pusterla attested to the witness’ honorable natures,
and granted credibility to the testimonies, subsequently remitting the case
to higher authorities in Santiago.47
The problem of bread, jerky, and fat rations for the Valdivia
missionaries persisted intermittently until the end of colonial rule. From
1774 until 1790, provisions flowed normally. When provisions were
suspended in 1791, Clara de Eslava y Lope’s petition secured a normal flow
between 1791 and 1797. In 1797, civil authorities suspended provisions
once again, and this time mission apostolic procurator fray Francisco
Xavier de Alday protested before the Junta Superior of the Royal
Audiencia to restore the said rations. Once again, his plea was successful in
46. Data comes from Guarda, La sociedad en Chile Austral, 213–14.
47. The answers to Clara de Eslava y Lope’s questionnaire are right after her letter to
the governor and the “Interrogatorio,” Valdivia, April 8–12, 1791, in Santiago, ACPFCh.,
Asuntos Varios, vol. 7, fols. 12v–28r, images: 021902–021933.

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WOMEN AND ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

reinstating the rations for the Seraphic missionaries over the course of the
next year.48
As her fundamental duty, Clara de Eslava y Lope recurrently supported
the arrival of missionaries’ stipends and provisions from the ports of
Valparaíso and Callao in Lima, where mission supplies were stored. A 1778
letter from the Valdivia mission president to the inspector (veedor) Manuel
Marzán reveals Eslava y Lope’s critical role in securing and storing the
stipends and provisions in Valdivia. The mission president had determined
“that the stipends (sínodos) should be collected with anticipation” with “the
support of the sister syndic of this plaza (stronghold) and all the missionary
fathers of this jurisdiction.” Moreover, he suggested that in “the future, all
silver from the said stipends (sínodos) should come” with the Santiago Royal
Treasury’s annual shipments meant to assist the fort of Valdivia, so syndic
Clara de Eslava y Lope could facilitate “the needs of the missionaries.”
Moreover, the mission president reiterated that only the inspector (veedor)
and the syndic, Eslava y Lope, had the authority to release the money from
the Royal Treasury (Real Hacienda) to their designated representative in
Santiago.49 It clearly rested on Clara de Eslava y Lope’s power, as syndic of
the missions, to receive the stipend in silver and work with the missionaries
on how to manage this royal income.
Clara de Eslava y Lope, as well as her successor María Candelaria
Adriasola y Martel, dealt with the syndics of the College of Chillán and
their assistant syndics (sota síndicos) and agents stationed in Valparaíso and
Callao. That implied solving logistical problems that emerged from the
unpredictable flow of materials from these ports to Valdivia, forcing the
religious men to secure loans from Valdivia residents. In 1781 and 1782,
Marcelino Sánchez, the assistant syndic (sota síndico) in Valparaíso, did not
send the remittance of provisions from the port, forcing the missionaries to
purchase products in Valdivia at a higher price. To make things worse, and
probably the cause of his lack of response, Marcelino Sánchez had resigned
from his position as the Valdivia missions’ assistant syndic in Valparaíso
with a debt of over 857 pesos from 1000 pesos in silver he received in 1781
48. Fray Francisco Xavier de Alday, “Expediente de Francisco Xavier de Alday sobre
las raciones de pan y charqui,” July 10, 1798, in Santiago, ACPFCh., Asuntos Varios, vol. 9,
fols. 60r–68v, images 022967–022984.
49. Fray Joaquín Millán y Finol, president of the missions, “Copia de carta al veedor
Manuel Marzan a raíz de la dificultad de transportar los sínodos desde la ciudad de Santiago,”
Valdivia, July 11, 1778, in Santiago, ACPFCh., Asuntos Varios, vol. 4, fol. 45r–45v, images:
020744–020745.

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to buy the supplies he failed to send to the missionaries. Being deprived of
their sustenance, the mission president felt forced to travel to Valparaíso to
collect this debt, gather the provisions for the current year, and find
someone else to manage the shipments, either a new assistant syndic or a
representative for the syndic Clara de Eslava y Lope.50
On January 31, 1783, Clara de Eslava y Lope signed a power of
attorney to recover Marcelino Sánchez’s debt in her name. Her power
granted that an unspecified person in Valparaíso could “request, claim and
receive and judicially or extrajudicially collect” the 857 pesos from
Marcelino Sánchez, or, if necessary, his trustees and heirs. The power of
attorney stated that this money was to be used to “purchase necessary stock
to support the revered missionary fathers.” Eslava y Lope thus granted the
authority to represent her before a judge in Valparaíso to conduct the
necessary juridical businesses to collect the due amount.51
The problem with shipments from Valparaíso to the Valdivia
Franciscans had reached Lima. In 1782 the viceroy of Peru, Manuel de
Amat, intervened to secure captains for the boats which brought provisions
for the military in Valdivia in order to “dispatch that of the father
missionaries, without charging any interest whatsoever.” Clara de Eslava y
Lope had earlier complained to the governor of Valdivia that one of the
ships refused to load thirty-eight wine pitchers in Valparaíso, and of what
was unloaded at the Valdivia dock, two wine and two brandy (aguardiente)
pitchers were broken. Her unsuccessful request for compensation from the
ship’s bookkeeper (contador) forced the mission president fray Francisco
Pérez to threaten that if shipping delays and shipping fees persisted the
“friars would be obliged, though with immense pain in their hearts, to
abandon the apostolic ministry, for not having enough of said alms to
subsist and support all the costs and damage referred to.”52
50. Fray Francisco Pérez, “Carta de fray Francisco Pérez, presidente de las misiones de
la jurisdicción de Valdivia al gobernador para hacer ver la tardanza de las provisiones y
bastimentos encargadas a Marcelino Sánchez, vecino de Valparaíso,” Valdivia, January 20,
1783, in Santiago, ACPFCh., Asuntos Varios, vol. 5, fol. 60r, image: 021199. The authors
thank John Chuchiak, Jay Harrison, Cameron Jones, and Fritz Schwaller for helping with the
translation of sota-síndico into English.
51. Clara de Eslava y Lope et al. (signers), “Poder otorgado por Clara de Eslava para
que se cobre dinero adeudado por Marcelino Sánchez,” Valdivia, January 31, 1783, in
Santiago, ACPFCh., Asuntos Varios, vol. 5, fols. 73r–74v, images: 021221–021223.
52. Fray Francisco Pérez, “Copia de la Representación que acompañan las misiones de
Valdivia a otra de la Plaza sobre los perjuicios que siguen de conducir los víveres embarcación
del Rey,” Valdivia, January 20, 1783, in Santiago, ACPFCh., Asuntos Varios, vol. 5, fol. 65r–
65v, images: 021208–021209.

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These complaints on stipend and provision delays, freight charges, and
discrimination against shipping packages from Lima and Valparaíso,
brought forward by civil and religious authorities on behalf of the
Franciscans, showcase a corporative society where institutions and peoples
struggled to secure their survival on frontier territories. Indeed, this set of
obstacles negatively impacted the Franciscan missions in Valdivia, not only
because it produced unnecessary and increasingly inflated costs, but also
because it spread discouragement amongst missionaries and within the
community they served. At least in the Valdivia frontier, civil authorities
considered that delayed stipends or provisions for the Franciscans took a
negative toll on their military jurisdiction. In all of this, as their syndic,
Clara de Eslava y Lope voiced her opinion and led the initiative with the
support of the local religious and civil authorities.
Conclusions
Clara de Eslava y Lope’s designation as a syndic was no coincidence—
she belonged to the most influential echelons of Valdivia society. María
Candelaria Adriasola y Martel, her successor as the Valdivia syndic and a
member of la crème de la crème of Valdivia society, also relied on her own
connections to go about her business. Other female syndics had similar
stories. This essay aimed to address why a community of religious men
appointed women as their civil representatives. It sought to know what
their role as syndics entailed in the late colonial Valdivia frontier, and the
authors hope a new research window will open to recognize the
significance of women within male religious orders. Even if Franciscan
rules and legislation, including the Colleges of the Propaganda Fide’s
constitutions, refer to the “síndico,” not “síndica” (female syndic in
Spanish), these regulations did not explicitly prohibit women from taking
this role. Clara de Eslava y Lope litigated on behalf of Franciscan friars
over the delay of stipends and the bureaucracy in the shipment of
provisions from Lima and Valparaíso to Valdivia. More than an issue of
gender, her designation seems to have been influenced by meeting all the
qualities required of a syndic: social prestige, education, commitment to
the faith, local contacts, and economic solvency.
Clara de Eslava y Lope took her position as syndic and its obligation
to defend the missionaries with great conviction. She threatened to contact
the highest authorities, such as the King himself or the Council of the
Indies, to improve the Franciscans’ condition in Valdivia. In this task, she
revealed the value of her social prestige, education, and networks in
Valdivia and colonial Chile. Her work engaged with governors, mission

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91

presidents, guardians, and the discretorium (governing body) of the College
of Chillán, as well as active and retired high-ranking military officials of
the Valdivia frontier. This article has hoped to demonstrate that her vital
role within the Valdivia frontier probably echoes other instances of female
syndics in other scenarios. Far from being a decorative figure, religious and
civil authorities held her in high esteem and her work was crucial in Chile’s
southern frontier. Her knowledge of the system in which the missions
functioned, her alertness to the geographic difficulties, population, and
lack of resources, and her knowledgeable navigation of the legal intricacies
of that same system, earned her the respect and recognition of the
missionaries of the jurisdiction of Valdivia. As a corollary, this study hoped
to demonstrate that women in colonial Chile, as in other parts of Spanish
America, were not only active in the religious public space—with a central
role in religious brotherhoods and sacramental rites of passage—but also in
the economic sphere of male religious orders.

“Three Cheers for the Union”:
Catholic Chaplains and Irish Loyalty
during the American Civil War
DAVID J. ENDRES*
During the American Civil War (1861–65), the Irish-American
Catholic contribution to the Union effort included 145,000 soldiers
and 40 priest chaplains. Studies of Irish participation, while highlighting the role of nationalism, have not offered significant discussion
of chaplains in asserting and shaping Irish-American loyalty to the
Union. This study provides character sketches of three lesser-known
Union chaplains: Fathers Thomas J. Mooney, Thomas M. Brady, and
William T. O’Higgins—each of Irish parentage. These chaplains were
vocal and strident in their Unionism. They were not politically agnostic, as Catholics are sometimes depicted, but were champions of the
cause—when others fell silent. The war provided them with an opportunity to prove their dual allegiance to Ireland and America and
strengthen it among their comrades.
Keywords: American Civil War; Irish Americans; Irish nationalism; Catholic chaplains; Union

I

rish immigrants to the United States seized the opportunity provided by
the American Civil War to prove their loyalty to the Republic. Though
many had lived in the U.S. for less than a generation and did not support
Northern abolitionists’ quest to end slavery, they were nonetheless enthusiastic supporters of the Constitution and the Union. They volunteered in
large numbers, especially early in the war, totaling some 145,000 soldiers
backing the Federal cause. Irish nationalism and American patriotism were

* David J. Endres is academic dean and professor of church history at Mount St. Mary’s
Seminary and School of Theology/The Athenaeum of Ohio. His email address is
dendres@mtsm.org. The author is grateful to William B. Kurtz for sharing the correspondence of Fathers Mooney and Brady, and to William B. Kurtz and Robert J. Miller for their
comments on a draft of this article. A version of this essay was presented as “The Proving
Ground of War: The Experience of Irish Chaplains,” at the Catholic Record Society (UK),
Sixty-Third Annual Conference, July 20, 2021.

92

DAVID J. ENDRES

93

successfully combined as the fight to preserve the Union became linked to
aspirations for Irish freedom at home and abroad.1
With few exceptions, studies of Irish participation in the war have not
offered significant discussion of priest chaplains’ roles in asserting and
shaping Irish-American loyalty. This study provides character sketches of
three lesser-known Federal chaplains: Fathers Thomas J. Mooney, Thomas
M. Brady, and William T. O’Higgins—each of Irish parentage. These
three chaplains, who have been overlooked in the scholarly literature, are
remarkable for their unflinching support of the Union war effort.2 Fathers
Mooney, Brady, and O’Higgins highlight Irish-American patriotism,
unequivocal support for the Constitution, and the desire to be considered
true and good Americans. Their examples help to confirm the theses of
Randall M. Miller and Sean Fabun, who have argued for the role of priest
chaplains in attempting to further the place of Irish Catholics in a sometimes-hostile, majority-Protestant society. For Miller, especially since “any
hint of Irish Catholic disloyalty” would feed prejudice, the war was a
chance “for a show of American patriotism that would at once counter
nativism and anti-Catholicism.” Fabun articulated a similar position, writing of the war’s potential to “promote acceptance for Catholicism . . . as a
genuinely American faith.”3

1. Among the studies of the Irish in the war, see Randall M. Miller, “Catholic Religion, Irish Ethnicity, and the Civil War,” in: Religion and the American Civil War, ed. Randall M. Miller, Harry S. Stout, and Charles Reagan Wilson (New York, 1988), 261–96;
Susannah Ural Bruce, The Harp and the Eagle: Irish-American Volunteers and the Union Army,
1861–1865 (New York, 2006); Ryan W. Keating, Shades of Green: Irish Regiments, American
Soldiers, and Local Communities in the Civil War Era (New York, 2017); Arthur H. Mitchell,
ed., Fighting Irish in the American Civil War and the Invasion of Mexico (Jefferson, NC, 2017);
William L. Burton, Melting Pot Soldiers: The Union’s Ethnic Regiments (Ames, IA, 1988),
112–54.
2. None of the three chaplains, for instance, are among the eleven priests detailed in
Sean Fabun, “Catholic Chaplains in the Civil War,” Catholic Historical Review, 99, no. 4
(October 2013), 675–702. There are only brief references to them in William B. Kurtz,
Excommunicated from the Union: How the Civil War Created a Separate America (New York,
2016); David Power Conyngham, Soldiers of the Cross: The Authoritative Text: The Heroism of
Catholic Chaplains and Sisters in the American Civil War, ed. David J. Endres and William B.
Kurtz (Notre Dame, IN, 2019); and Aidan Henry Germain, Catholic Military and Naval
Chaplains (Washington, DC, 1929). Though Irish priests also served the Confederacy, this
article is limited to Irish-American Catholic chaplains serving the Federal Army. For Confederate Irish chaplains, see David T. Gleeson, The Green and the Gray: The Irish in the Confederate States of America (Chapel Hill, NC, 2013), and Gracjan Kraszewski, Catholic Confederates: Faith and Duty in the Civil War South (Kent, OH, 2020).
3. Miller, “Catholic Religion, Irish Ethnicity, and the Civil War,” 261–96, especially
263–64 (quotes at 264 and 274); Fabun, “Catholic Chaplains in the Civil War,” 675–702,

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In asserting a common cause with the non-Catholic majority, the
three chaplains challenge the depiction of Irish Catholics as detached,
unprincipled, and barely patriotic. Their stories offer important insight into
pro-Union Irish Catholics, while acknowledging that their experiences and
perspectives were not necessarily normative—even if they attempted to
influence their compatriots.4 Catholics’ allegiances generally followed sectional identities, but Northern Catholics were often equivocal in their support of the Federal cause, especially as the war drew on. For this reason,
Irish Catholic support has been perceived as conservative or conditional, a
pathway between the South’s extremism and the North’s fanaticism. This
conditional Unionism viewed both abolitionism and secessionism as dual
threats. According to this mode of thinking, justice and truth lay in the via
media, leading to calls for peace even if it meant recognizing the Confederacy. Consequently, the voice of Irish Catholics in support of the Union
has often been muted by the more vocal elements of Unionism’s abolitionist, pro-Lincoln, Republican camp.5
As members of a church that prized moderation and scorned preaching politics, the Irish Catholic chaplains studied here provide an interesting contrast to conditional Unionists. Though their Union support did not
equate with membership in the Republican party, these chaplains were
vocal and strident. They were not politically agnostic, as Catholics are often
depicted, but were champions of the cause—when other Irish Catholics
fell silent. The war provided them with an opportunity to prove their allegiance to the nation and strengthen it among their comrades.6
especially 679–81, 700–01 (quote at 700). See also Kurtz, Excommunicated from the Union,
77–80. Kurtz acknowledged priest chaplains’ attempts to dispel religious prejudice but modified the theses of Miller and Fabun by accentuating the war’s “alienating” potential as it failed
to usher in an era of Catholic tolerance. Instead, he argued, “Catholics’ well-known opposition to the war and emancipation reinforced traditional prejudices in the minds of many
Americans” (Excommunicated from the Union, 162).
4. As William L. Burton argued, efforts to generalize Irish Catholic contributions are
“insulting” and “unhistorical.” Often the Irish soldier was depicted as a “happy-go-lucky, even
simple-minded, fellow who saw the war as a lark and who drank whiskey as part of his jolly
nature” (Melting Pot Soldiers, 152).
5. Support for the Union did not equate with being pro-Lincoln, pro-Republican party,
or pro-emancipation. On Catholics’ “spontaneous patriotism” and its limits, see Kurtz,
Excommunicated from the Union, 29–51, 108–28; Miller, “Catholic Religion, Irish Ethnicity,
and the Civil War,” 277–78.
6. On Catholics’ apolitical moderation before and during the war, see Timothy L.
Wesley,  
 

 
   (Baton Rouge, 2013), 16–17, 54–55, 100–
02; George C. Rable, God’s Almost Chosen Peoples: A Religious History of the American Civil War
(Chapel Hill, NC, 2010), 28, 37, 60; Mark A. Noll,         

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In addition to their common convictions, the three chaplains’ experiences before, during, and after the war show some similarities. Each
clashed with religious superiors prior to the conflict. All three joined the
military early in the war, enthusiastically promoted enlistment, and
combined ethnic nationalism with patriotic fervor. Mooney’s brief service (since his bishop recalled him) is emblematic of initial Irish enthusiasm, while Brady and O’Higgins served for much of the conflict’s duration, remaining committed when many Irish wavered. Mooney’s
thoughts on slavery are unknown, but both Brady and O’Higgins were
anti-slavery, suggesting a further motivation for sustained support for
the war effort.7
Fathers Mooney, Brady, and O’Higgins were among the forty Irish
priests (more than half of all Catholic priest chaplains) who served Union
forces.8 Since few bishops and religious superiors prioritized the chaplaincy, priests in the field were few and far between, representing less than
two percent of Federal chaplains. In nearly all cases, priests were chosen as
regimental chaplains only when Catholic soldiers were the majority. Compared to Protestant chaplains, Catholic priests were more likely to be
younger, formally-trained, and foreign-born, often with Irish roots.
Almost to a man, they were lauded as heroic and self-sacrificing, risking
life and limb to minister to the sick and dying. Their duties were diverse;
besides providing the sacraments of confession and anointing (and occasionally baptism), priest chaplains lifted morale, guarded against immorality, wrote letters for soldiers, and assured their pay made it home.9
(Chapel Hill, NC, 2006), 129–32; Kurtz, Excommunicated from the Union, 29–30; Benjamin
J. Blied, Catholics and the Civil War (Milwaukee, 1945), 36–39. Catholics’ “silence” on the
chief political issues of the day had a variety of interpretations, and could have been at times,
argues Wesley, the “only tenable means of opposing the Union effort” (55).
7. Many Irish were neither abolitionists nor anti-slavery; however, some strands of
Irish nationalism led to emancipationist views. Anti-slaveryism was common, however,
among Union chaplains, if not among priest chaplains. See Warren B. Armstrong, For
Courageous Fighting and Confident Dying: Union Chaplains in the Civil War (Lawrence, KS,
1998), 95–119.
8. The Irish were the most significant ethnic group among Catholic chaplains serving the
Federal cause. Of sixty-nine known priest chaplains (both official and unofficial), twenty-eight
were native Irish (41%) and twelve others were of Irish ancestry (17%), totaling 58%. American-born priest chaplains numbered thirteen (19%). All other nationalities (French, German,
Italian, etc.) and those chaplains whose nationalities are unknown combined to total only 23%.
See Robert J. Miller, Faith of the Fathers: Catholic Civil War Chaplains (forthcoming).
9. Kurtz, Excommunicated from the Union, 68–80; Fabun, “Catholic Chaplains in the
Civil War,” especially 681–95. On Union chaplains more generally, see Armstrong, For
Courageous Fighting and Confident Dying; Rable, God’s Almost Chosen Peoples, 107–26.

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“THREE CHEERS FOR THE UNION”

Chaplains were highly influential; they were looked to by their soldiers
(and others) for guidance and support—religiously, morally, and politically.
Sharing identities as immigrants, priests, and soldiers, Fathers Mooney,
Brady, and O’Higgins stood before their fellow countrymen, parishioners,
and comrades as patriots—during and after the war. Their individual and
collective experiences of American life, Irish nationalism, and priestly ministry offer evidence of the American Civil War as a proving ground for IrishAmerican loyalty through the exercise of a staunch, unapologetic Unionism.
Forging an Identity through War
Popular accounts of the Irish in the Civil War emphasize their bravery, fervent nationalism, and fierce militarism. The legend of the “fighting
Irish,” having pre-immigration antecedents, developed as an identity
forged through hardship and alienation both in Ireland and the United
States. English rule of their homeland, the suffering and death brought by
the famine, and the nativism and anti-Catholicism experienced in the
United States combined to impact the Irish response to the war—and how
that response would be remembered.10
Irish-American wartime allegiances and motivations were not
uniform.11 Early enthusiasm for the Federal war effort waned as lives were
lost, the draft was announced, and emancipation of the enslaved became an
aim. Many eventually aligned with the Peace Democrats, who desired the
war’s end even if it meant Southern independence. Still, many prominent
Irish-American leaders considered the preservation of the Union as the best
means of assuring freedom and repelling tyranny, some viewing the American Civil War as a proxy conflict for Irish liberation (in part because Britain
appeared sympathetic to the Confederacy). The Irish, who largely distrusted
abolitionism and abhorred emancipation, may have fought for the Constitution and the Union but not what they viewed as Northern radicalism.12
10. For a discussion of the myth and reality of the Irish as a “martial race,” see Thomas
Bartlett and Keith Jeffery, “An Irish military tradition?” in: A Military History of Ireland, ed.
Thomas Bartlett and Keith Jeffery (New York, 1996), 1–25. For the role of the “fighting Irish”
motif in recruiting soldiers for the Federal war effort, see Burton, Melting Pot Soldiers, 120–21.
11. For a short introduction to the topic, see Daniel Rayner O’Connor Lysaght, “What
Made the ‘Fighting Irish’ Fight,” in: Fighting Irish in the American Civil War and the Invasion
of Mexico: Essays, ed. Arthur H. Mitchell (Jefferson, NC, 2017), 114–20.
12. For the wider context of the Irish Catholic response to and participation in the war,
see Bruce, The Harp and the Eagle, and Kurtz, Excommunicated from the Union, especially 29–
67. On the distrust of Northern radicals, see Max Longley, “The Radicalization of James
McMaster: The ‘Puritan’ North as an Enemy of Peace, the Constitution, and the Catholic
Church,” U.S. Catholic Historian, 36, no. 4 (2018), 25–50.

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According to historian Susannah Ural Bruce, the Irish exhibited
blended motivations for participating in the war, ranging from economic
incentive to political allegiance. Both Irish and American identities
impacted their view of the war. She asserted that even those Irish who were
not Fenians or radical nationalists still maintained connections to Ireland,
an awareness of their Irish Catholic heritage, and a sense of duty to their
new homeland.13
Historian Christian Samito similarly emphasized the war’s contribution to the Irish quest for recognition. For many Irish, the “choice of allegiance to the Union consummated membership in the nation” as American
allegiance and Irish nationalism were joined. He contended that Irish
nationalism served as a motivator, linking enthusiasm for the war with
Fenian military aims of defeating the English and freeing their homeland,
while at the same time seeking approbation of their place in the United
States.14 Out of a sense of religious duty and ethnic opportunity, Fathers
Brady, O’Higgins, and Mooney served predominately Irish Catholic regiments, asserting an Irish-American nationalism reinforced through military service and religious ministry.
Thomas J. Mooney: The Fighter
Father Thomas J. Mooney, the chaplain to the legendary Sixty-Ninth
New York State Militia (part of the eventual Irish Brigade), epitomized the
fervor of the “fighting Irish.” Though he never carried a weapon, his speech
and conduct indicate the importance of war to his identity as a priest and
an Irishman. His enthusiasm for the fight was mirrored by the Fenians, an
Irish nationalist organization seeking the overthrow of the British. The
large membership of Fenians in the Sixty-Ninth was well known. Though
warned by his bishop about the Fenians’ misplaced zeal (indicating that
they could not receive the Church’s sacraments), Mooney seems to have

13. Bruce, The Harp and the Eagle, 2-3, 42–81.
14. Christian G. Samito, Becoming American Under Fire: Irish Americans, African
Americans, and the Politics of Citizenship During the Civil War Era (Ithaca, NY, 2009),
103–33, quote at 104. For a case study of the nationalism of two significant Irish Americans, see Christian G. Samito, “Thomas F. Meagher, Patrick R. Guiney, and the Meaning
of the Civil War for Irish America,” in: So Conceived and So Dedicated: Intellectual Life in
the Civil War-Era North, ed. Lorien Foote and Kanisorn Wongsrichanalai (New York,
2015), 193–216. On Fenianism as a military failure but an ideological success, see Ryan
W. Keating, “Rethinking the Failure of Fenianism in America,” New Hibernia Review, 23,
no. 1 (2019), 138–54.

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been amicable toward them.15 His militarism was accepted within army
life. Like other chaplains, he found his service exhilarating. As historian
Leslie Tentler concluded, “Those [chaplains] capable of withstanding the
hardships of military life reported a newfound physical vigor.”16 For
Mooney, the war provided an opportunity—though short-lived—to assert
a youthful, if sometimes imprudent, energy.
Pre-War Experiences
Thomas J. Mooney, born in 1824 in Manchester, England, of Irishborn parents, came to the United States in 1840. He began studies for the
priesthood at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Fordham and was ordained in 1853
by New York’s Archbishop, John Hughes. He was soon assigned to Manhattan’s St. Brigid Church, first as assistant-priest and then as pastor.17
Father Mooney was dynamic but dangerous. A biography of Hughes
described Mooney as “a consistently imprudent young man who said all the
wrong things to the wrong people at the wrong time.” He was “foolish
without malice,” requiring the archbishop to remind him that he “ought to
be tenfold more cautious than lay persons.”18 Still, he was acknowledged to
be an outstanding pastor who contributed to the growth of the parish and
school. Hughes called him “one of the most devoted priests of my diocese
when under proper restraint in presence of his superior”—a restraint lacking during the war.19

15. On the Fenian Brotherhood and the Sixty-Ninth, see Burton, Melting Pot Soldiers,
113; Patrick O’Flaherty, “The History of the Sixty-Ninth Regiment of the New York State
Militia, 1852–1861” (PhD diss., Fordham University, 1963); on Hughes’s warning to
Mooney, see O’Flaherty, “The History of the Sixty-Ninth Regiment,” 254–55; Letter from
Archbishop John Hughes to Father Mooney, May 22, 1861, Archbishop John Hughes Collection, Collection 02, stored in New York, Archives of the Archdiocese of New York.
16. Leslie Woodcock Tentler, American Catholics: A History (New Haven, CT,
2020), 129.
17. “Obituary: Rev. Thomas J. Mooney,” New York Herald, September 14, 1877.
18. Richard Shaw, Dagger John: The Unquiet Life and Times of Archbishop John Hughes of
New York (New York, 1977), 326; Letter from Archbishop John Hughes to Father Mooney,
May 7, 1860, Archbishop John Hughes Collection, Collection 02, stored in New York,
Archives of the Archdiocese of New York.
19. Letter from Archbishop John Hughes to Archbishop Francis Patrick Kenrick, July
3, 1861, Archbishop Francis Patrick Kenrick Papers, microfilm copy, stored in Notre Dame,
IN, University of Notre Dame Archives, Archdiocese of Baltimore Collection (ABA);
Shaw, Dagger John, 341.

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99

Wartime Service
The “fighting Irish” were heirs of a military tradition dating back centuries, one that became connected to their religiosity.20 When the all-Irish,
all-Catholic Sixty-Ninth New York marched off to war, it was unthinkable
that a priest would not accompany them. To answer this need, Archbishop
Hughes chose Mooney as chaplain (but only temporarily in Hughes’s
mind—he initially granted him leave from his parish of only ten days).
Mooney joined the regiment on April 20, 1861.21
Despite the probationary aspect of the appointment, Mooney’s suitability for chaplaincy was evident. He was characterized as “an admirable
specimen-priest of the true high type, who, if he were not chaplain, would
certainly be a candidate for Colonel” since his sanguine temper gave him
“equal adaptation to the sword of the spirit and the ‘regulation sword’—a
veritable son of the church-militant.”22
Mooney possessed zeal for the cause.23 Before departing the city, he
exhorted his fellow countrymen to join him, gaining as a recruit Maxwell
O’Sullivan, St. Brigid’s choirmaster and music teacher, who joined the
Irish Brigade and later became captain of the Eighty-Eighth New York.
Hundreds more New York Irish joined, some of whom he had likely
known from his ministry in the city. The Sixty-Ninth soared from 245 men
to 1,040, with hundreds more turned away from service.24

20. See Colleen McDannell, “‘True men as we need them’: Catholicism and the IrishAmerican Male,” American Studies, 27, no. 2 (1986), 19–36.
21. Letter from Archbishop John Hughes to Father Thomas Mooney, July 14, 1861,
Archbishop John Hughes Collection, Collection 02, stored in New York, Archives of the
Archdiocese of New York; Letter from Archbishop John Hughes to Archbishop Francis
Patrick Kenrick, undated [1861], Archbishop John Hughes Collection, Collection 02, stored
in New York, Archives of the Archdiocese of New York.
22. “Our War Correspondence,” New York Times, May 26, 1861. The term “church militant” designates the members of the Church on earth (as opposed to the souls in purgatory—
the “church suffering”—and the souls in heaven—the “church triumphant”). The use of “church
militant” in this context is meant to convey Father Mooney’s martial or warrior-like status.
23. It is unclear whether Mooney’s support for the Union was impacted by anti-slavery
beliefs. It seems a minority of the men in the Sixty-Ninth New York opposed slavery; see
Samito, “Thomas F. Meagher, Patrick R. Guiney, and the Meaning of the Civil War for Irish
America,” 206–07, for the conversion to anti-slaveryism by the Sixty-Ninth’s General
Thomas Francis Meagher.
24. “A Voice from the Ranks,” [New York] Irish American, September 14, 1861. O’Sullivan died in April 1862 after suffering injuries in a tent fire while convalescing from illness. For
recruiting for the Sixty-Ninth, see Joseph G. Bilby, The Irish Brigade in the Civil War: The 69th
New York and Other Irish Regiments of the Army of the Potomac (Conshohocken, PA, 1998), 5.

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FIGURE 1. Father Thomas Mooney offering Mass for the Sixty-Ninth at Fort Corcoran, Virginia, June 1, 1861 (Library of Congress).

When the regiment left New York in late April 1861, Mooney accompanied the regiment by steamship to Washington. While en route, the
chaplain began attending to the moral and religious wellbeing of the soldiers. He said Mass and insisted upon a daily rosary and regular confession.
His ministry was diverse—from beginning a regimental temperance society to advocating for a soldier who had been sentenced to death for killing
a comrade (the sentence was commuted to imprisonment).25
Father Mooney entered easily into chaplain life by all accounts, combining piety with positivity. Quick to offer a joke or break into a song
(including his own odes to America “rehearsing the indebtedness of Ire25. On his chaplain duties, see O’Flaherty, “The History of the Sixty-Ninth Regiment,”
252–54. On the effort to obtain a pardon for James Foley, see “Endorsement: Petition of Citizens of Pekin, Illinois, for Pardon of James Foley, May 28, 1861,” and “Rev. Thomas J.
Mooney to President Abraham Lincoln, June 14, 1861,” in: Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln,
ed. Roy P. Basler, 8 vols. plus index (New Brunswick, NJ, 1953–1955, here 1953), IV, 389. On
Foley’s murder trial, see “Local News,” National Republican, April 5 and April 6, 1861.

DAVID J. ENDRES

101

land to America”), he endeared himself to the soldiers.26 During his brief
service, he conveyed his affection for America: “He loved his adopted
country” and “his satisfaction [was] . . . in sharing with them the same, true
loyal spirit of patriotism which had always distinguished America.”27
After Virginia seceded from the Union, the Sixty-Ninth crossed the
Potomac River on May 4 and began building fortifications near Arlington,
which they named “Fort Corcoran” (after the Sixty-Ninth’s Colonel
Michael Corcoran). The impressive fort of 650 by 450 feet was expected to
be completed in three weeks; it was completed in one. The Sixty-Ninth had
not yet directly engaged in battle, but they did encounter some casualties
from nearby skirmishes.28 In the meantime, Mooney took every opportunity to increase morale. With an inclination toward the dramatic, the stout
but athletic Mooney climbed a flag pole in camp to unfurl an American
flag that had become entangled. The feat (and his patriotic zeal) may have
impressed the soldiers, but news of the chaplain’s behavior worried Archbishop Hughes.29
A similarly comical incident followed about two weeks later. On June
12, Mooney was asked to “baptize” one of the new cannons at Fort Corcoran. His accompanying remarks, which were meant to be humorous,
likened the weapon to the many babies he had baptized. As a child first
learns to speak, he said, the newly-baptized cannon would soon erupt “in
a thundering voice, to the joy of his friends and the terror of his enemies.”
And as the gun thundered, it would say not, “Papa, Papa!” but “Patria mia”
(my country).30 At the same time, he may also have excitedly encouraged
the men to “flail” the traitorous secessionists, leading Hughes to apologize
for Mooney’s “furnishing incentives to bloodshed.”31

26. See, for instance, [New York] Post, June 1, 1861, in O’Flaherty, “The History of the
Sixty-Ninth Regiment,” 253–54.
27. “Return of Father Mooney,” Metropolitan Record and New York Vindicator, July 20,
1861.
28. “Progress of the War,” [New York] Irish American, June 29, 1861; on Fort Corcoran, see Phillip Thomas Tucker, The History of the Irish Brigade: A Collection of Historical Essay
(Fredericksburg, VA, 1995), 56–58.
29. “The Irish Regiment’s Camp Amusements,” [New York] Evening Post, June 1,
1861; “News from the Seat of War,” [New York] Irish American, June 8, 1861.
30. For the full text, see “The Baptism of One of the Big Guns of the New York SixtyNinth by Father Mooney,” in: The Rebellion Record: A Diary of American Events, ed. Frank
Moore, 11 vols. (New York, 1861–1868, here 1862), II, 42–43.
31. Miller, “Catholic Religion, Irish Ethnicity, and the Civil War,” 269; Letter from
Archbishop John Hughes to Archbishop Francis Patrick Kenrick, July 3, 1861.

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News of the “baptism” and the accompanying commentary spread and
reached the ears of church hierarchs. The response from Hughes was swift.
The archbishop wrote to Mooney: “You have disappointed me. . . . Your
inauguration of a ceremony unknown to the Church, viz., the blessing of a
cannon was sufficiently bad, but your remarks on that occasion are infinitely worse. Under the circumstances, and for other reasons, I wish you to
return, within three days from the receipt of this letter, to your pastoral
duties at St. Brigid’s.”32 Hughes reminded him that his appointment was
meant to be temporary. He scolded him: “You have enough to do at home
in your ministry, whether home or abroad I shall expect that you will bear
yourself in all things with gravity and decorum such as becomes a Catholic
priest that has the cura animarum (care of souls).”33
The trail of letters suggests that Hughes may not have viewed the incident with as much gravity as his brother bishops, but since, without correction, it was an embarrassment to him, he acted decisively. Hughes
seemed aware that Mooney’s misguided enthusiasm could reflect poorly on
Irish Catholics, as was already evident from the negative attention Mooney
received from the Protestant and secular press.34 Members of the SixtyNinth begged for Mooney to remain, but Hughes did not waver, sending
in his place the Jesuit priest Bernard O’Reilly, someone (in Hughes’s
words) “in whose prudence I shall have more confidence.”35
Post-War
Though Mooney “the fighter” (ironically) did not engage in any significant battles, he reentered civilian life as a war hero. Returning to New York
on July 10, 1861, several hundred parishioners met him at the rail station,
and when he arrived back at St. Brigid, he found 1,400 school children gath32. Letter from Archbishop John Hughes to Father Thomas Mooney, July 5, 1861,
Archbishop John Hughes Collection, Collection 02, stored in New York, Archives of the
Archdiocese of New York; Shaw, Dagger John, 341.
33. Letter from Archbishop John Hughes to Father Thomas Mooney, July 14, 1861,
Archbishop John Hughes Collection, Collection 02, stored in New York, Archives of the
Archdiocese of New York.
34. Bruce, The Harp and the Eagle, 67. See, for instance, the criticism of Mooney in “A
Religious Farce,” Lewiston [ME] Evening Journal, July 29, 1861. His lack of seriousness even
in religious matters caused the paper to doubt whether “Irishdom gets any religious benefit
from such ministers of the Most High.” Similar sentiments, fused with anti-Catholicism, can
be found in “Baptizing a Gun,” [Boston] Christian Watchman, July 25, 1861, and “Personal,
Religious, and Miscellaneous,” [New York] Evangelist, July 4, 1861.
35. Letter from Archbishop John Hughes to Archbishop Francis Patrick Kenrick, July
3, 1861.

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FIGURE 2. Father Thomas Mooney, pictured in this signed lithograph, was celebrated as a pastor and war hero (Catholic Historical Research Center of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia).

ered to greet him. That evening brought a crowd of 4,000 to laud him, sing
patriotic songs, and join him in a cheer: “Three cheers for the Union were
given with hearty vehemence, followed by three more for Father Mooney.”36
According to the newspaper reports, the church bells rang, cannons were
fired, and “the Stars and Stripes and the Green Flag of Ireland were displayed from the tower of the church,” eliciting “rapturous applause.”37
Time did little to dull the luster of a chaplain who would be forever
associated with the Fighting Sixty-Ninth. Shortly after returning, Mooney
celebrated a requiem Mass for the thirty-eight members of the regiment
who had died at Bull Run, the first major battle of the war.38 When the sol36. “Return of Father Mooney,” Metropolitan Record and New York Vindicator, July 20,
1861.
37. “Return of the Rev. T.J. Mooney,” [New York] Irish American, July 20, 1861; “War
Events and Movements,” [New York] Atlas, July 14, 1861; O’Flaherty, “The History of the
Sixty-Ninth Regiment,” 260.
38. “Requiem Mass for the Dead of the Sixty Ninth Regiment,” New York Times,
August 15, 1861.

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diers of the Sixty-Ninth, who had initially enlisted for only ninety days, laid
down their arms, he marched among them in a celebratory parade, explaining that he had remained with them “in spirit.”39 In August 1861, a massive
benefit event was planned for the families of Irish soldiers who had died at
Bull Run. Mooney shared the stage with the Sixty-Ninth’s famed Thomas
Francis Meagher (later, brigadier general), who addressed tens of thousands
on the topic, “The National Cause—Its Soldiers and Its Martyrs.”40
Though his service was short-lived, Mooney had remained long
enough with the regiment to have his memory well preserved. A year after
he had returned to St. Brigid, as hostilities continued, Mooney used the
occasion of a church festival to lead his parishioners in a boisterous public
show of patriotism. Together they sang “The Union” and “The Gallant
69th,” the latter song containing a mention of Mooney in the second verse:
When rebels first attempted desolation
And swore they our land would deform,
The “69th” our brave Army’s foundation.
Swore our Country should ride the foul storm.
With the stars and Stripes, so glorious, floating o’er them.
And nought but Patriotic feelings in view,
With “Father Mooney” bravely marching before them,
In defence (sic) of the Red, White, and Blue.41

Mooney, for his part, carried the soldiers of the Sixty-Ninth in his
prayers. The sacrifices made for the Union’s preservation were always on his
mind. Upon learning of the assassination of President Lincoln, he preached
to his parish members of the Godly sacrifices of “tens of thousands of noble
fathers, and sons, and brothers [who] have laid down their precious lives.”
And he prayed that since “our devoted, noble-minded President was made
the unhappy victim,” through his martyrdom, the nation might achieve
unity: “one in country, one in heart, one in mind, one in glory.”42
39. “The Ovation to the 69th Regiment,” [New York] Commercial Advertiser, July 27,
1861.
40. “Monster Hibernian Festival at Jones’ Wood,” New York Herald, August 30, 1861;
Samito, Becoming American Under Fire, 30–31.
41. “Festival of St. Bridget’s Parochial School,” New York Times, July 9, 1862; Ned
Kirby, “The Gallant 69th Regiment” (New York, 1861) from “American Song Sheets, Slip
Ballads and Poetical Broadsides Collection, 1850–1870,” Library Company of Philadelphia,
https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/digitool%3A45659.
42. “The National Mourning,” New York Times, April 21, 1865. Public statements by
Catholic clergy eulogizing the fallen president were not unusual; see Kurtz, Excommunicated
from the Union, 125–26; Blied, Catholics and the Civil War, 138–50.

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Mooney’s American patriotism did not conflict with an intense
attachment to Ireland. After visiting Ireland, he delivered a public lecture,
“What I Saw in Ireland.” He was inaccurately quoted in the New York
Times as saying that he had seen snakes in Ireland (a challenge to the pious
myth that St. Patrick had rid the isle of them). Mooney clarified: The only
“snakes” he had seen were the Royal Irish Constabulary, the police that
served as an arm of the English oppression of the Irish. Any doubt about
the strength of his Irish nationalist sentiments was put to rest.43
Mooney was a celebrated war veteran, popular rhetorician, and
esteemed pastor. When famed Civil War general William Tecumseh
Sherman’s daughter Minnie married Thomas Fitch (a son of St. Brigid’s
parish) in 1874 in Washington, D.C., Mooney joined them on the altar.
As part of a grand New York homecoming, he welcomed the couple to St.
Brigid’s a few days later to celebrate Mass.44
Father Mooney mixed easily with generals and soldiers, laborers and
paupers, native-born and immigrants. He believed in a nation of promise
in which tranquility and prosperity were not out of reach. This sense of
optimism served him well in war and peace. Father Mooney died unexpectedly in 1877 from injuries sustained when his carriage overturned on
Fifth Avenue. His funeral was attended by thousands, including the members of St. Brigid and his beloved Irish Brigade.45
Thomas M. Brady: The Liberator
Father Thomas M. Brady, who became chaplain to the Fifteenth Michigan Volunteer Infantry, was motivated to join the war effort by a strong proUnion and anti-slavery position. Many Irish Americans supported the
quelling of the rebellion, but not emancipation. But those who supported
emancipation seem to have been influenced by the Irish struggle against England, seeing echoes of Irish subservience in the American slavery dispute.
Pre-War Experiences
Thomas M. Brady was born in County Fermanagh in 1824. He immigrated with several family members to the United States around 1850 and
43. “‘What I Saw in Ireland’—A Discourse by Rev. Mr. Mooney,” New York Times,
February 3, 1868; “Father Mooney’s Lecture—A Note of Correction,” New York Times, February 5, 1868.
44. “The Sherman Wedding,” New York Tribune, October 2, 1874; “Fitch-Sherman
Bridal Party,” New York Tribune, October 5, 1874.
45. “Obituary: Thomas J. Mooney,” [New York] Irish American, September 22, 1877.

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became a teacher in Rochester, New York. Buffalo’s bishop, John Timon,
persuaded him to consider a call to priesthood and ordained Brady on
April 9, 1854. After ordination, Brady lived with Bishop Timon in Buffalo
and ministered as a teacher and hospital chaplain. He then served as pastor
of St. Patrick Church in Seneca Falls (1855–59) and St. Mary Church in
Medina (1859–60). During these years, he became acquainted with the
Brigidine Sisters, a group of Irish religious.
Brady had been raised in Ireland at the time of Daniel O’Connell,
“The Liberator.” The example of O’Connell’s support for Irish emancipation propelled a minority of Irish Americans toward anti-slaveryism. On
this question, Father Brady supported emancipation, believing race-based
slavery to be a form of servitude not unlike the plight of the Irish. Brady
was said to be a “great Abolitionist” who “has taken more interest in the
poor slaves than any man I ever knew.”46 He fostered five youths, including
two who became priests and a “full-blooded African.”47
For reasons unknown, Brady received an exeat from Bishop Timon
and, along with two Brigidine sisters and three postulants, relocated to
Grand Rapids, Michigan. Michigan was suffering a severe lack of religious
personnel. Whether or not Timon recommended Brady and the sisters,
Detroit coadjutor bishop Peter Paul Lefevere was eager to welcome
them.48 After meeting with Lefevere, Brady was offered the pastorate of St.
Andrew Church, a mainly Irish parish, in which the sisters would also
establish themselves. Brady arrived in Grand Rapids in May 1860 along
with his nephew, Dr. John Brady, who had just graduated from medical
school in New York. What drew them to Lefevere and Grand Rapids is
unclear, though family members may have already resided there.49
A short time later, the relationship between Brady and the Brigidine
superior, Mother Angela McKey, soured over Brady’s insistence that,
46. “Rev. Father Brady and the Fifteenth Mich. Vols.,” [New York] Irish American,
September 16, 1865. Few of the Irish identified with abolitionism, seeing it as a threat to the
Union, but some embraced anti-slaveryism. See Angela F. Murphy, “‘Though Dead He Yet
Speaketh’: Abolitionist Memories of Daniel O’Connell in the United States,” American Journal of Irish Studies, 10 (2013), 11–38.
47. “Rev. Thos. M. Brady, Army Chaplain,” [New York] Irish American, August 5,
1865.
48. Bishop Peter Paul Lefevere, “Testim. Rev. Dr. Thomae Brady,” May 27, 1860,
Detroit Episcopal Register, Book IV, 167, stored in Detroit, Archives of the Archdiocese of
Detroit; Leslie Woodcock Tentler, “‘How I Would Save Them All’: Priests on the Michigan
Frontier,” U.S. Catholic Historian, 12, no. 4 (1994), 19–20.
49. Albert Baxter, History of the City of Grand Rapids, Michigan (New York, 1891), 701.

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107

FIGURE 3. Father Thomas Brady, circa 1854 (Courtesy of Seamus McCaffrey).

despite her judgment, she receive two novices into her community. The
dispute reached Bishop Lefevere, who appears to have sided with McKey.
According to the testimony of Brady’s housekeeper, Margaret Mehin,
Lefevere and Brady were “at first cordial.” Brady had gone to see Lefevere
“at the request and the expense of the Bridgitine (sic) Nuns” who were
searching to relocate, but within several months, “Father Brady did not like
the Bishop.”50 Brady and Lefevere soon entered into their own dispute,
feuding over property ownership. Lefevere went so far as to threaten Brady
with suspension, citing his insubordination.51 Through it all, Brady continued to serve as pastor of St. Andrew, but the relationship with the bishop
remained strained.
50. Deposition of Margaret Mehin of Seneca Falls, New York, in Thomas M. Brady
Estate, File 5015, Wayne County, Michigan, Wills and Probate Records, Wayne County
Probate Court, Detroit, Michigan.
51. Bishop Peter Paul Lefevere to Father Thomas Brady, January 16, 1861, Detroit
Episcopal Register, Book IV, 181, stored in Detroit, Archives of the Archdiocese of Detroit.

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“THREE CHEERS FOR THE UNION”
Wartime Service

When news of the war reached Grand Rapids, the town quickly
organized. A week after the firing on Fort Sumter, Brady addressed a
“Union meeting” on April 22, 1861, which encouraged the formation of
a regiment (what would become the Third Michigan Volunteer
Infantry).52 A second meeting was held a week later. Brady joined in the
recruitment efforts, encouraging involvement and offering the meeting’s
closing benediction.53
Brady brought the message to his parishioners, and they responded
accordingly. A careful study of recruitment patterns indicated that Irish
Catholics in Grand Rapids enlisted during the war’s first year in per-capita
numbers that nearly matched the native-born and Protestant populations.
At St. Andrew’s Church, a remarkable 25% of those eligible for service
enlisted in the war’s first year (far outpacing the other Catholic parish in
town, the mainly-German St. Mary’s).54
Not surprisingly, Brady considered military service himself, perhaps as
early as November 1861. An attempt to form a primarily Irish regiment in
Michigan was unsuccessful (the men ultimately joined the Twenty-Third
Illinois Regiment, known as Mulligan’s Brigade or the Irish Brigade of the
West).55 Word, however, was spreading that Brady was enlisting. In a
letter to Bishop Lefevere, Mother Angela claimed that Brady had
appointed several women of the parish to collect “necessaries for the poor
soldiers,” while some farmers were “collecting for a horse or 2, which they
say he will need.” The letter contended that he would not serve in a local
regiment: “The army he is going to act for, they are not of this place, but a
Mr. Mulligan’s regiment”—perhaps an illusion to the Twenty-Third Illinois. Mother Angela, who continued in her dispute with Brady over
52. History of Kent County, Michigan (Chicago, 1881), 349; Peter Bratt, “A Great Revolution in Feeling: The American Civil War in Niles and Grand Rapids, Michigan,” Michigan
Historical Review, 31, no. 2 (2005), 51.
53. Steve Soper, The “Glorious Old Third”: A History of the Third Michigan Infantry 1855
to 1927 (n.p., 2007), 77–78.
54. Bratt, “A Great Revolution in Feeling,” 49–50. See also the larger thesis from
which his work was drawn: Peter Albertus Bratt, “‘A Great Revolution in Feeling’: The
American Civil War in Niles and Grand Rapids, Michigan,” (master’s thesis, Ohio State
University, 2004), 44–46, 90–91.
55. George N. Fuller and George B. Catlin, eds., Historic Michigan: Land of the
Great Lakes, 3 vols. (Dayton, OH, 1924–28), III: Local History of Detroit and Wayne
County, 88.

DAVID J. ENDRES

109

finances, was concerned that he would use funds meant for her community
to outfit himself for the war.56
Brady did not immediately enlist, perhaps delayed in doing so by pastoral responsibilities (or given the ongoing feud with the Brigitine sisters
and the bishop—perhaps pastoral complications). When the Fifteenth
Michigan Volunteer Infantry was recruited from the residents of Grand
Rapids, Detroit, and Monroe, Michigan, Brady was commissioned as
chaplain. On January 8, 1862, Brady entered the army and departed Grand
Rapids on January 17.57
Brady’s service included accompanying the Fifteenth Michigan and
serving as a hospital chaplain to wounded soldiers in Tennessee, where his
ministry resulted in numerous conversions and baptisms. Here he acted the
part of the “Good Samaritan,” rendering aid “regardless of religion or politics.”58 As the Fifteenth Michigan moved southward, he joined in the
“privations, hardships, and dangers” of the soldiers, being present at the
battles of Shiloh, Corinth, Vicksburg, and Sherman’s March.59 One correspondent claimed that Brady had been wounded three times in battle and
had received commendations by Generals Don Carlos Buell, William S.
Rosecrans, and John M. Oliver for his “undaunted courage on the battlefield.”60 Oliver reported that during the Battle of Corinth, Father Brady
“was with me under the hottest fire, and volunteered to go for ammunition,
and, when brought up, I think helped to give it out.”61
As the war continued, President Lincoln made a strategic choice: to
order the emancipation of enslaved people in the states that had seceded.
56. Letter from Mother Angela McKey to Bishop Peter Paul Lefevere, Grand Rapids,
Michigan, November 13, 1861, III-2-j-3, stored in Notre Dame, IN, University of Notre
Dame Archives, Archdiocese of Detroit Collection (DET).
57. Some histories contend that Father Brady was commissioned first as the captain of
Company F—in a combatant role, not as a chaplain. However, two men named Thomas M.
Brady were commissioned for service in the Fifteenth Michigan, one of whom became captain and the other of whom became chaplain. See George H. Turner, Record of Service of
Michigan Volunteers in the Civil War, 1861–1865, 46 vols., (Kalamazoo, MI, 1903?), XV, 20.
58. Conyngham, Soldiers of the Cross, 227, 229–30.
59. “Death of a Michigan Chaplain,” Grand Rapids [MI] Daily Eagle, November 11,
1865.
60. “Rev. Father Brady and the Fifteenth Mich. Vols.,” [New York] Irish American,
September 16, 1865.
61. John M. Oliver, Headquarters, Second Brigade, Sixth Division, Camp near
Corinth, Miss., October 13, 1862, in The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official
Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, 53 of 127 vols. (Washington, DC, 1886),
XVII, 356.

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“THREE CHEERS FOR THE UNION”

The order dated September 22, 1862 (effective January 1, 1863) changed
the war’s aim from preserving the Union to undoing slavery. Though many
Irish Americans were dismayed, leading to plummeting enlistment numbers and frequent defections, Brady was surely pleased—a step toward
achieving, in his mind, a more perfect Union.
As the war moved into its final stage, Brady contemplated his future.
His assessment of Bishop Lefevere and his standing in the Detroit Diocese
weighed on him, prompting him to resolve to leave Michigan at the war’s
end. Mehin reported that when Brady’s service in the army was completed,
he determined to return to New York, “but no fixed place as to where to
go.” When he drafted a will on January 6, 1863, Brady directed that the
residue of his estate go to St. Mary’s Hospital in Rochester and to Buffalo’s
Bishop Timon for the care of orphans. In Brady’s mind, the break with
Bishop Lefevre and the Diocese of Detroit would be complete. He would
return to Michigan only to “get his discharge” and then leave for New
York. But Brady did not live to actuate his plans.62
Post-War
Father Brady’s regiment returned to Detroit on September 1, 1865,
and his health soon declined. As David Power Conyngham wrote of him
after his death, “The excitement of active, hard duties [during the war]”
had sustained him but “in three days after the disbandment of the men,
he sickened.”63 Brady died of “cold and hardships entailed by the war” at
St. Mary’s Hospital, Detroit, on September 9, 1865. Still, as his obituary
noted, he had the solace of “seeing his country fully preserved, the rebellion suppressed, and peace and Union restored.”64 However, there must
have been something more in Brady’s mind: not just peace and Union, but
liberation.

62. Deposition of Margaret Mehin of Seneca Falls, New York, in Thomas M. Brady
Estate, File 5015, Wayne County, Michigan, Wills and Probate Records, Wayne County
Probate Court, Detroit, Michigan. Brady’s estate was disputed by Buffalo’s Bishop John
Timon who argued that an earlier will naming Brady’s sister as beneficiary of his estate was
supplanted by the will he had written during the war, dated January 6, 1863, Grand Junction
[Tennessee].
63. Conyngham, Soldiers of the Cross, 231.
64. History of Kent County, Michigan, 370; “Death of a Michigan Chaplain,” Grand
Rapids [MI] Daily Eagle, November 11, 1865.

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111

William T. O’Higgins: The Penitent
Father William T. O’Higgins, the chaplain to the Tenth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, experienced the trials and tribulations of missionary life,
first in British Guiana and then the United States.65 Plagued by interpersonal struggles, problems with authority, and a sense of inadequacy, he
escaped to the army. His chaplain experience helped him secure a sphere
of autonomy and influence. His penitential stance, seen especially in the
correspondence with his bishop, was perhaps not unlike the insecurities of
many fellow Irish whose nationalism was born of privation, alienation, and
perhaps, regret. His desire for approval and recognition points to the need
to assert his worth as an Irishman, an American, and a priest.
Pre-War Experiences
William T. O’Higgins was born in 1829 on the border between
Counties Leitrim and Longford. His uncle, also named William O’Higgins, was the Catholic bishop of Ardagh. With his uncle’s blessing, he
began studying for the priesthood, but his uncle’s death left him without
a patron. Recruited for missionary work in South America, O’Higgins
left for British Guiana in 1853. He was soon ordained a priest, but his
ministry was frustrated by acculturation issues, difficulties with superiors and other missionaries, and infectious diseases. When his mission
territory was handed over to the Jesuits, O’Higgins was permitted to
pursue ministry elsewhere. Without specific plans or a bishop to accept
his services, O’Higgins left for the United States in 1857. From
Philadelphia, he wrote to Archbishop John B. Purcell, offering to come
to Cincinnati to help minister to the new arrivals from Ireland. Purcell
responded affirmatively.
Upon his arrival to Cincinnati, O’Higgins was appointed as pastor of
St. Lawrence Church in Ironton, a small parish in Lawrence County,
Ohio, along the Ohio River. A year later, he was appointed pastor of St.
Thomas Church, the home of a small English-speaking congregation in
Cincinnati. Then in 1860, he was asked to serve as assistant pastor at the
much larger St. Patrick Church, also in Cincinnati. Known as an eloquent
65. See David J. Endres and Jerrold P. Twohig, “With a Father’s Affection: Chaplain
William T. O’Higgins and the Tenth Ohio Volunteer Infantry,” U.S. Catholic Historian, 31,
no. 1 (2013), 97–127; David J. Endres, “An Ohio ‘Holy Joe’: Chaplain William T. O’Higgins’ Wartime Correspondence with Archbishop Purcell of Cincinnati, 1863,” Ohio Civil War
Genealogy Journal, 13, no. 2 (2009), 73–78.

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“THREE CHEERS FOR THE UNION”

speaker, he became known for his “panegyrics” on the life of St. Patrick—
a talk that he frequently offered to eager listeners.66
But here, as in British Guiana, O’Higgins had difficulties with his
superiors. Writing to Purcell, O’Higgins explained that he feared being
dismissed by St. Patrick’s pastor, Father Richard Gilmour. Though the
nature of the dispute was unclear, it seemed to revolve around O’Higgins’s failure to hear confessions at the assigned time. O’Higgins thanked
Purcell for always being “lenient towards my faults and paternal in your
treatment of me. . . . When your authority bore heaviest upon me I
believed in my soul that you acted for my good even while I could not see
the justice of the act itself.” Now, however, he feared such leniency was
at an end. He ended the letter: “My Lord I beg of you to withdraw your
expulsion and believe my sincere sorrow. . . . I am My Lord, Your obedient servant.”67
Wartime Service
The timing of O’Higgins’s plea was fortuitous, written only five days
after the firing on Fort Sumter and the war’s beginning. O’Higgins wrote
to Purcell again a month later, this time with a solution: “Many persons
have told me that I ought to apply for the situation of chaplain to the
Army.” The neurotic O’Higgins explained that he desired to become a
chaplain. He was too ashamed, however, to meet with the bishop: “I would
have gone personally and solicited you for it, but for that shame-facedness
which so long has kept me from the cathedral. . . . [M]y life is a life of
unutterable misery. I have not slept two consecutive hours for a month.”
He concluded with a direct appeal:
O My Lord do give me one more chance of redeeming my character and
feeling that I am not a pariah—a reprobate. I am anxious not only to do
good but to repair for all past negligences. I appreciate fully the serious
obligations of a chaplain in the American Army, and I trust in God I
shall not be wanting in my efforts to meet them.68

66. Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, March 17, 1861.
67. Letter from William T. O’Higgins, St. Patrick’s, Cincinnati, to “My Lord” John
B. Purcell, April 17, 1861, Archbishop John B. Purcell Papers, Record Group 1.2, series 1.202, box 11, stored in Cincinnati, Archives of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati (hereafter
AAC).
68. Letter from William T. O’Higgins, St. Patrick’s, Cincinnati, to “My Lord” John B.
Purcell, May 24, 1861, Archbishop John B. Purcell Papers, Record Group 1.2, series 1.2-02,
box 11, AAC.

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113

FIGURE 4. Father William O’Higgins during the war (L.M. Strayer Collection).

Archbishop Purcell granted his request. When the Tenth Ohio Volunteer Infantry was reorganized on June 3, 1861, O’Higgins was named
chaplain. O’Higgins quickly felt at home in the primarily Irish Catholic
regiment. His duties included saying Mass daily, hearing confessions, and
organizing a sodality, as well as less formal priestly activities like conversing
with soldiers, comforting the troubled, or instigating a practical joke to
increase morale.
During his three years of service, Father O’Higgins was praised for
staying with the regiment in the thick of battle. At the Battle of Carnifex
Ferry, [West] Virginia, the regiment’s first real engagement, a contemporary reported, “O’Higgins, was constantly with [his men]. He courageously
crawled between the lines amidst enemy fire to bring water from a spring
to help soothe the parched throats of the wounded Tenth Ohioans.” The
Cincinnati Catholic Telegraph offered a similar report: “In the din and
tumult of the battle, there he stood, fearing not death and coveting a
martyr’s grave, bending now over the wounded and administering them the

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last rites of the Church, and again pushing his way to find some fresh
object of his care.”69
His service was infused with his Irish identity; he wore it as a badge of
honor—literally. He was gifted with a hat badge during the war, consisting
of a “bugle, supporting a cross, enwreathed with shamrocks and the olive
branch.”70 And each St. Patrick’s Day, he assured that the men celebrated
appropriately, offering an oration on the life and virtues of St. Patrick and
gifting the men with some celebratory grog.71
O’Higgins earned the respect of his men. As one related, “He is
unquestionably one of the most popular (and, I think, very deservedly so)
officers in the army. He has always a kind word for everybody, and feels as
much at home in the soldier’s tent as in the General’s marquee.”72 Despite
his popularity, O’Higgins continuously clashed with superiors and fellow
chaplains—to the point of considering resignation. He wrote to Purcell:
“For a while I felt very uncomfortable & if it were not through fear of
annoying You . . . I would have run away from the Army anywhere—anywhere.”73 However, he explained, he felt increasingly comfortable: “I am in
very good health and spirits. In better health and spirits than I have been
in for many, many years. . . . I am the priest and the gentle man and not
the adjunct and underling as I was compelled to be of old.”74
His assessment of his fellow priest chaplains was not positive, calling
several whom he met in Nashville “those scallywags of priests who are
roaming about here seeking some poor devils’ hard earnings.”75 He mentions several by name in his letters but omits any reference to Father

69. Charles P. Poland, Jr., Glories of War: Small Battles and Early Heroes of 1861
(Bloomington, IN, 2004), 388; “Head-Quarters Montgomery Regiment,” Catholic Telegraph,
October 19, 1861.
70. Catholic Telegraph, June 10, 1863.
71. Alfred Pirtle, Journal, March 17, 1862, Alfred Pirtle Papers, box 7, stored in
Louisville, KY, Filson Historical Society.
72. “MEJ,” Camp Jefferson, KY, Cincinnati Daily Press, December 26, 1861.
73. Letter from William T. O’Higgins to “My Dear Lord” John B. Purcell, Corpus
Christi (June 4), 1863, Archbishop John B. Purcell Papers, Record Group 1.2, series 1.2-02,
box 13, AAC.
74. Letter from William O’Higgins to “My Dear Lord” John B. Purcell, November 13,
1863, Chattanooga, Tennessee, Archbishop John B. Purcell Papers, Record Group 1.2, series
1.2-02, box 13, AAC.
75. Letter from William O’Higgins to “My Dear Lord” John B. Purcell, May 28, 1863,
Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Archbishop John B. Purcell Papers, Record Group 1.2, series 1.202, box 13, AAC.

DAVID J. ENDRES

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Thomas Brady, with whom he likely became acquainted during their proximate service in Tennessee.76
While he could clash with his bishop, O’Higgins’s approach to slavery
matched Purcell’s. O’Higgins was at the archbishop’s side when on September 1, 1862, Purcell dramatically proclaimed slavery’s inconsistency,
insisting that “a people could not long survive the fatal contrast between
the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United
States, the one asserting that all men are born free, sovereign and independent, that the other millions may be slaves.”77 Midway through the
war, he affirmed his position, congratulating Purcell on the anti-slavery
stance of the Catholic Telegraph: “God bless Father Edward [Purcell]78 for
the triumphant vindication of our dear old Mother Church from the
advancing blotch of slavery. Yes, she always hated it. She hates it now, and
would give the world’s treasures to see such a rank smelling sin blotted
from the face of the earth.”79
Encouraged by the justice of the cause and the war’s progress, O’Higgins remained with the Tenth Ohio for the duration of its service. Except
for a medically necessitated absence during summer 1863, he stayed with
his soldiers, experiencing war’s difficulties, dangers, and privations. On
June 17, 1864, he mustered out at Camp Dennison near Cincinnati, left to
wonder about his place in Purcell’s diocese.80

76. Conyngham, Soldiers of the Cross, 229.
77. See “Lecture of the Most Rev. Archbishop, His Impressions in Europe,” Catholic
Telegraph, September 3, 1862; David J. Endres, “Rectifying the Fatal Contrast: Archbishop
John Purcell and the Slavery Controversy Among Catholics in Civil War Cincinnati,” Ohio
Valley History, 2, no. 2 (2002), 23–33.
78. A reference to Archbishop John Purcell’s brother, Father Edward Purcell, who
edited the Catholic Telegraph. By this time, the Catholic Telegraph’s editorial position was
becoming increasingly anti-slavery. See Satish Joseph, “‘Long Life the Republic!’ Father
Edward Purcell and the Slavery Controversy: 1861–1865,” American Catholic Studies, 116, no.
4 (2005), 25–54.
79. Letter from William T. O’Higgins to John B. Purcell, May 28, 1863, AAC.
80. “William T. O’Higgins to Lt. Col. C. Goddard, August 28, 1863, Camp 10th
Ohio Vols. Near Stevenson (Alabama),” Compiled Military Service Record, stored in Washington, DC, National Archives and Record Administration; “Homer C. Shaw to [Lt. Col. C.
Goddard], August 28, 1863, Stevenson, Alabama,” Compiled Military Service Record,
National Archives and Record Administration; Germain, Catholic Military and Naval Chaplains, 92.

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Post-War

Archbishop Purcell must have been impressed enough with O’Higgins’s wartime service to readmit him. He was first assigned to a mission
near the Ohio River, but like so many of his assignments, it was less than
a year. For reasons unknown, he was reassigned as chaplain to a convent of
the Sisters of Mercy.81
Though the historical record does not provide the reasons, O’Higgins
left Cincinnati in about 1868, this time for service in the Diocese of Little
Rock, Arkansas, a vast diocese with a sparse Catholic population of about
1,500 laity shepherded by ten priests. At St. Andrew’s Cathedral in Little
Rock, O’Higgins joined Bishop Edward Fitzgerald, with whom he had
likely become acquainted while they both were serving in the Cincinnati
diocese before the war. O’Higgins served the Little Rock cathedral parish
and outlying missions for a few years.82
Soon, O’Higgins was moving again, this time to Cleveland, Ohio,
where he was a philosophy instructor at St. Mary’s Seminary.83 He taught
for only the autumn 1871 term before becoming pastor of St. Augustine’s
Church. However, again fortune was not on his side. The pastor in Cincinnati with whom he had feuded, Richard Gilmour, was named bishop of
Cleveland in early 1872. While Gilmour did not dismiss him, O’Higgins’s
health declined, and he was hospitalized in June 1872. The last notice of his
service in the Cleveland diocese was characteristic, “an able and eloquent
discourse” on the life of St. Patrick, commemorating the saint’s feast at a
gathering at the cathedral.84 A short time later, O’Higgins returned to Ireland hoping that he might restore “his shattered constitution.”85 His health,
however, faltered further; he died on November 4, 1874, in County Leitrim
at the home of his sister. He was only forty-five years old, but he had experienced much in his life as a missionary, pastor, and chaplain.

81. Sadlier’s Catholic Almanac and Ordo (New York, 1865), 125.
82. Sadliers’ Catholic Directory, Almanac and Clergy List Quarterly (1869), 207; Sadliers’
Catholic Directory, Almanac and Ordo (1872), 208. See James Woods, Mission and Memory: A
History of the Catholic Church in Arkansas (Little Rock, 1993), 91.
83. Sadliers’ Catholic Directory, Almanac and Ordo for the Year of Our Lord 1872 (New
York, 1872), 159.
84. “Ireland’s Patron Saint,” Cleveland [OH] Leader, March 19, 1872.
85. George Francis Houck, The Church in Northern Ohio and in the Diocese of Cleveland:
from 1749 to 1890 (Cleveland, 1890), 169. Quote from “Father O’Higgins: A Short Sketch
of his life, and a Tribute to his Memory,” Leitrim Advertiser, March 11, 1875 (reprint from
the Little Rock Republican).

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117

His lengthiest service in the United States was as chaplain to the
Tenth Ohio, enabling him to serve far afield from religious superiors. His
letters to Archbishop Purcell and the frequency of his reassignments suggest he could be disagreeable, mean-spirited, and jealous, often begging for
forgiveness. However, O’Higgins also showed himself a gifted orator and
a zealous priest. His wartime service evinces a principled, zealous chaplain
who held firmly to his Irish heritage while supporting his new homeland
in time of trial.
Conclusion
The experiences of the three doggedly Unionist priest chaplains show
commonality. Before the war, Fathers Brady, O’Higgins, and Mooney
skirmished with their superiors, making a chaplaincy assignment especially
appealing. Each shared strongly patriotic, pro-Union sentiments and, at
least in the cases of Brady and O’Higgins, some anti-slavery and emancipationist views (unlike most Irish Americans). All three entered into the
chaplaincy early in the war and convinced their fellow Irish to enlist. Each
served valiantly, becoming popular among the soldiers, and in military life,
they appeared comfortable, perhaps even more than in parochial duties.
Both during and after the war, their American patriotism coexisted easily
with elements of Irish nationalism. More so than many of their fellow
chaplains and ethnic and religious peers on the home front, they displayed
unequivocal support for the Federal cause—even as other Irish Catholics
wavered.
The degree of impact on their compatriots, parishioners, and comrades
(let alone the non-Catholic majority) is not easy to quantify. Still, the
strength of the leadership they provided and the esteem in which they were
held indicate their influence. Their assignments to mostly-Irish regiments
bolstered enlistments and increased confidence in the cause. Among soldiers (even non-Catholics), they were respected as clergy and officers. Back
home, in their respective cities, they were celebrated as heroes. They evidence the merging of nationalist aims, in which the link between faith and
homeland, patriotism and freedom was sustained. Whether as fighter, liberator, or penitent, each championed their Irish-American identity while
seeking acceptance and recognition in their new nation. In doing so, they
reflected not only their convictions and ambitions but also the aspirations
of their people.

Bishops in France, Pope Pius XII,
and the Rescue of Jews, 1940–1944
LIMORE YAGIL*
France, after Italy, was one of the countries of occupied Western Europe
where the Jewish community best survived the Holocaust. French
Catholic bishops, religious congregations, and priests and nuns also
contributed to this situation in great measure. Even though most bishops supported Maréchal Pétain, head of the Vichy government, most of
them also rescued Jews.
government.
supported by the Vatican. Eugenio Pacelli (the future Pius XII) knew
them very well as the Secretary of State to Pope Pius XI, before 1939.
During World War II, the Vatican sent large sums of money to rescue
Jews and other fugitives interned in France, including women and
children.
XII were widely distributed in France, and they encouraged Catholics
to help Jews and other fugitives. Pius XII was close to the Catholic
community in France, and he fully supported their rescue activities in
favor of Jews there.
the Catholic Church’s record in France during the years 1940–1945.
Keywords: French clergy, Jews, Pius XII, Vichy France
Introduction
It is recognized by most historians that only a quarter of the Jews of
France were deported (totaling seventy-six thousand out of a population of
about three hundred twenty thousand).1 On the one hand, the Germans,

*Limore Yagil is a Professor in Contemporary History Habilited (HDR) and researcher
at the Sorbonne University, Paris IV, and Bar-Ilan University, the Arnold and Leona Finkler
Institute of Holocaust Research. The author has published since 1997 numerous studies,
including ten books concerning the history of France under German Occupation, Resistance
and the history of the rescue of Jews, and civil disobedience. Her email address is
ylimore@yahoo.fr.
1. François and Renée Bédarida, “La persécution des Juifs,” in: La France des années
noires, eds. Jean Pierre Azéma and François Bédarida, 2 vols. (Paris, 1992), II: De l’Occupation

118

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with the assistance of the actively anti-Semitic Vichy government and of a
certain number of actively anti-Semitic French citizens, deported to their
deaths a shocking number of the Jews living in France between 1940 and
1944. On the other hand, the proportion of Jews deported from France
was much smaller than those deported from the Netherlands, Belgium, or
Norway. Is it not surprising that among the Nazi-dominated countries of
Western Europe, the country reputedly most anti-Semitic had one of the
highest survival rates? The answer to this French “paradox” is the assistance
given by French individuals, or by voluntary organizations, both Jewish
and non-Jewish. Statistically, France appears to have been a relatively
“safe” country for Jews. In order to explain this “paradox,” some historians
such as Samuel P. Oliner used the term Altruistic personality, or the term
Resistance, or even Humanitarian Resistance.2
In previous books,3 the author has proposed detailed analysis concerning those individuals who disobeyed the laws and decrees of German
authorities and the Vichy regime in order to rescue Jews. Rescue activities
included many forms of illegal activity, including hiding people, helping
them escape, and providing false identities, food, and shelter.4 These activities had to be carried out in great secrecy, since there was extreme danger
in being discovered. Rescuers who were caught—if they were not executed
on the spot, as in Poland—were invariably sent to prisons and concentration camps, where many perished.
Civil disobedience can be understood as the individual reaction to a
situation that is no longer tolerable. One can find instances of this among
social workers, nurses in hospitals, doctors, teachers and educators, policemen and civil servants such as prefects (a prefect is the head of the adminà la Libération, 128–52; Asher Cohen, Persécutions et sauvetages: Juifs et français sous l’occupation
et sous Vichy (Paris, 1993); André Kaspi, Les Juifs pendant l’occupation (Paris, 1991).
2. Samuel P. Oliner and Pearl M. Oliner, The altruistic personality: Rescuers of Jews in
Nazi Europe (New York, 1988); Limore Yagil, “Rescue of Jews: between History and
Memory,” Humboldt Journal of Social Relations, 28, no. 2 (2004), 105–38.
3. Limore Yagil is the author of several books concerning rescue of Jews: Des catholiques
au secours des Juifs sous l’Occupation (Paris, 2022); Les “anonymes” de la Résistance en France
1940–1942: motivations et engagements de la première heure (Paris, 2019); Le sauvetage des Juifs
dans la région d’Angers: Indre-et-Loire, Mayenne, Sarthe, Maine-et-Loire, Loire Inférieure,
1940–1944 (Le Crèche, 2014); La France terre de refuge et de désobéissance civile 1936–1944:
sauvetage des Juifs, 3 vols. (Paris, 2010–11); Chrétiens et Juifs sous Vichy 1940–944: Désobéissance
civile et sauvetage (Paris, 2005).
4. Many examples can be found in: Yagil, Chrétiens et Juifs; Yagil, La France terre de
refuge; Yagil, Le sauvetage des Juifs; Limore Yagil, Les “anonymes” de la Résistance; Limore
Yagil, Des catholiques au secours des Juifs.

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BISHOPS IN FRANCE AND THE RESCUE OF JEWS

istrative unit of the department), secretaries of prefectures, artists, priests,
pastors, bishops, and religious sisters.
The main purpose of this article is to analyze the contribution of several bishops and also the priests and nuns in their dioceses to rescue Jews.
Their participation in the rescue of Jews in France was statistically very
important, and yet has not been taken into enough account by historians.
Moreover, participation in the rescue of Jews does not indicate that French
Catholics suddenly became philo-Semitic, but rather that the confrontation with the pain and suffering of Jews and their situation since the
German occupation of France and the publication of the anti-Semitic laws
by the Vichy encouraged many Catholics to act illegally.
Nevertheless, one has to take into account that generally most
priests and bishops appreciated the Vichy government’s support of
Catholicism and its crusade against traditional church enemies such as
the communists.5 Yet by looking at the local level, one can observe an
important number of priests, nuns, and bishops who were engaged in
rescuing Jews.
Also, through the study of documents in the Vatican concerning the
bishops in France, and through analysis of documents in France concerning
the relations between bishops and Pius XI and Pius XII, one can discern an
important correlation between the attitude of the Vatican and the attitude
of bishops in France concerning the situation of the Jews.6 This article is
based on primary source material and archival documents collected in
France, Israel, and Italy since 2005. It is also based on the Pius XII archives,
5. See the following publications: Pierre Pierrard, Juifs et catholiques français: d’Edouard
Drumont à Jacob Kaplan 1886–1994 (Paris, 1997); Pierre Pierrard, Un siècle de l’Église de
France, 1900–2000 (Paris, 2000); and Jacques Duquesne, Les Catholiques français sous l’Occupation (Paris, 1966).
6. The article is based on different sources: documents and publications from the diocesan archives in Lyon, Limoges, Annecy, Le Mans, Nice, Paris, Albi, Toulouse, Poitiers, Perpignan, Rodez, Angers, Tours, Nancy, Grenoble, and Marseille; documents from the departmental archives (AD) in Vienne, Indre-et-Loire, Sarthe, Mayenne, Toulouse, Vaucluse, and
Marseille; documents from National Archives in Paris (AN), including fonds AJ38/Commissariat aux Questions Juives, F7/Police, F1A/Ministère de l’Interieur, F1CIII/Rapports des
préfets, 72AJ/Seconde Guerre mondiale, AJ/40 Archives allemandes, 2AG/Etat Français; the
Archives des Jésuites—Vanves (AJ); the Centre de Documentation Juif Contemporain—
Paris (CDJC); the Yad Vashem: Righteous Among the Nations Archive, série M31, in
Jerusalem, Israel; the Archives du Vatican (AAEE.SS: Francia) in Italy; and lastly, documents
of specials congregations such as Jesuits, Dominicans, etc. For more details, readers can consult the author’s books since 2005.

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Portrait de Philippe Pétain, 1926, painting. Painting is in the public domain.

which were opened to the public in March of 2020.7 The book of Johan
Ickx, director of the Archive of the Section for Relations with States,8 has
already confirmed the author of this paper’s conclusions and assumptions:
Pius XII had not only sent money but also asked many bishops in France to
act in order to rescue Jews. This is why it is important to present some of
this paper’s conclusions with direct relevance to Pius XII.
Situation of France in 1940
In summer of 1940, the German armies had overrun most of France.
On June 17, the new head of the French government, Marshal Philippe
Pétain, a World War I hero, asked for an armistice, which was signed on
June 22, 1940. France was divided into two main zones, the one occupied
by the Germans and centered on Paris (the Occupied Zone), and the
other, unoccupied by the Germans, which included the Channel and
7. The conclusion of this research was presented in an international conference about
Pope Pius XII, on January 27, 2020, at the United Nations in New York.
8. Johan Ickx, Le Bureau: Les Juifs de Pie XII (Paris, 2020).

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Atlantic coastal areas (the Unoccupied Zone) and was placed under the
control of a new French Government, established in the spa town of Vichy.
At the same time, the French general Charles de Gaulle, who bitterly
opposed Pétain’s surrender to the Germans, fled to Great Britain, where
he set up a French government-in-exile and rallied around him other
Frenchmen who wanted to free France from the tyranny of the Germans
and the collaborating Vichy Government.
In the summer of 1940, after France fell to Germany, there were three
hundred and fifty thousand Jews living in France. More than half the
Jewish population were not French citizens, but Jews who had moved to
France after World War I or Jewish refugees from Germany and other
areas already occupied by the Nazis. Almost immediately after the occupation, both the Jews living in the Occupied Zone and those in the Unoccupied Zone were subjected to the first wave of anti-Jewish measures. In the
German-controlled zone, Jews were stripped of their jobs, their freedom of
movement became restricted, and many were arrested. At the same time,
the Vichy Government actively commenced persecuting the Jewish community. In October 1940, it passed a set of anti-Jewish laws called the
Statut des Juifs. These laws strictly defined who was to be considered a Jew,
calling for the drastic reduction of Jewish involvement in French society.
In March 1941 the Vichy authorities, under pressure from the Germans,
set up an Office for Jewish Affairs under the direction of Xavier Vallat. The
office was responsible for instituting and carrying out France’s anti-Jewish
legislation, including the confiscation of Jewish property and businesses
(see also Aryanization). In June 1941, the Vichy government promulgated
the second Jewish Law, which worsened the Jews’ condition.
Initially, the anti-Jewish measures placed into effect by the Vichy
Government were directed against Jews who were not native French citizens. Thousands were sent to forced labor camps or imprisoned. However,
at the end of April 1942, Pierre Laval joined the Vichy Government as
prime minister. Laval was proactively committed to collaborating fully
with the Nazis. In May, Vallat, the Director for the Office for Jewish
Affairs, was replaced by a rabid anti-Semite named Louis Darquier de
Pellepoix, who willingly persecuted all Jews in France, irrespective of their
citizenship. After two years of inflicting suffering upon the Jews, the Germans and the Vichy authorities commenced deportations. The French
police agreed to round up and arrest the Jews for deportation, in exchange
for a great deal of independence. In June 1942, the Germans forced the
Jews in the Occupied Zone to wear the Jewish yellow sign (Judenstern) for
easy identification, began arresting large groups, and restricted the move-

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ments of the remaining community. The “roundups” (rafles), carried out
mostly by the French police, continued throughout the summer.
The American historian Robert Paxton says the first clear opposition
to anti-Semitism comes from Protestants.9 But, in fact, some isolated
prelates, Jesuits, priests, Dominicans, nuns, religious congregations, etc.,
began to act as individuals in order to resist anti-Semitism and Nazism.10
To help Jews did not signify that the person was becoming philo-Semitic.
Generally, Catholic attitudes towards Jews were largely determined by
local considerations and local leaders. Moreover, most of them condemned
the arrest and deportations of Jews, while at the same time they confirmed
loyalty to Marshal Pétain, head of the Vichy government.
Many Catholics saw Pétain as the man who would bring France back
to its Christian principles; a sort of savior, promising order, hierarchy, discipline, and respect for religious and traditional values. The Church’s primate, Cardinal Pierre Gerlier, led the chorus of praises for Pétain and the
so-called National Revolution proclaimed by the Vichy government
(“family, homeland, and work”). “Pétain is France, and France is today
Pétain,” Gerlier told a large crowd who welcomed Pétain on his visit to
Lyon on November 19, 1940. Praises for Pétain were also voiced by Cardinal Emmanuel Suhard in Paris, Msgr. Delay in Marseilles, and Msgr.
Gabriel Piguet, bishop of Clermont-Ferrand. By the autumn of 1940,
messages of support flowed in from all sections of the Church.11
July 16, 1942 in France marks one of the most shocking events of the
Second World War: the arrest and deportation of 13,152 Jewish men,
women and children from Paris (the Rafle du Vel d’Hiv, or the Vel d-Hiv
Roundup). The arrest lists included naturalized citizens and French-born
9. Michael R. Marrus and Robert O. Paxton, Vichy France and the Jews (New York,
1981), 203–08.
10. About this aspect see: Yagil, Chrétiens et Juifs; Yagil, La France terre de refuge; JeanMarie Lustiger, Le Choix de Dieu (Paris, 1987), 104–06
11. For a better understanding of the evolution of the Catholic Church in France, see:
Jacques Duquesne, Les Catholiques français sous l’Occupation; Xavier de Montclos, François
Delpech, and Pierre Bolle, eds., Églises et chrétiens dans la II° Guerre mondiale: La France
(Lyon, 1982); Michèle Cointet, L’Église sous Vichy 1940–1945: La repentance en question
(Paris, 1998); Renée Bédarida, Les Catholiques dans la guerre, 1939–1945 (Paris, 1998); JeanLouis Clément, Les évêques au temps de Vichy (Paris, 1998); Bernard Comte, L’Honneur et la
Conscience: Catholiques français en résistance, 1940–1944 (Paris, 1998); Wilfred D. Halls, Politics, Society and Christianity in Vichy France (Oxford, 1995); and Sylvie Bernay, L’Église de
France face à la persécution des Juifs, 1940–1944 (Paris, 2012).

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children. Most of them were deported to Auschwitz. The assembly of Cardinals and Archbishops of the Occupied Zone met on July 22. In spite of
their genuine disapproval, they maintained their public silence, leaving the
faithful unaware of the danger of falling in with Nazism. Instead, they
chose to send a protest letter to Marshal Pétain personally. However, following the roundups of foreign Jews carried out in the Zone Libre in the
summer of 1942, there was a crucial change in the attitude of Catholics and
their spiritual leaders.12 A total of six indignant messages, which reflected
the reawakening of the Christian conscience, were written by three bishops
and three archbishops:
From August 23 until September 20, 1942, six bishops and cardinals
wrote messages to be read out in their churches: Msgr. Saliège, archbishop
of Toulouse, followed by Msgr. Pierre-Marie Théas (1894–1977), bishop
of Montauban, Msgr. Jean Delay, bishop of Marseille (1879–1966), Cardinal Gerlier, archbishop of Lyon, Msgr. Edmond Vanstenberghe of Bayonne (1881–1943), and Msgr. Jean-Joseph Moussaron (1877–1956),
bishop of Albi. Additionally, Msgr. Martin, bishop of Puy-en Velay,
issued a pastoral letter to be read from the pulpit in all the parishes of his
diocese, on Sunday October 18, 1942, highlighting the principle of charity
and the duty of mutual aid to persecuted peoples, especially Jews.13 Public
protests from Bishops had a considerable impact, because the denunciation
of the brutality of the roundups was tantamount to an attack on the entire
system of brutal persecutions and deportations.
Furthermore, Msgr. Piguet, bishop of Clermont-Ferrand,14 and Msgr.
Rémond,15 bishop of Nice, were recognized by Yad Vashem in Israel as
“Righteous Among the Nations,” even though they did not protest publicly.16 This means that public silence about the persecutions did not nec12. For more information concerning the fifty-five bishops, see Yagil, Chrétiens et Juifs;
Yagil, La France terre de refuge.
13. Halls, Politics, Society and Christianity in Vichy France, 113–47.
14. Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, série M31, file 6968; Martin Randanne and Marc Alexis
Roquejoffre, 1940–1945, Les Années sombres (Clermont-Ferrand, 2002); Yagil, Chrétiens et
Juifs, 479–81.
15. Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, série M31, file 5061; Yagil, Chrétiens et Juifs, 262–68.
16. Yad Vashem, the Shoah Memorial, in Israel has granted since 1953 a special distinction to anyone recognized as Righteous Among the Nations, who took risks to help one
or more Jews during the years 1933–44. This distinction is granted according to certain criteria: the rescuer must have provided assistance in situations where the Jews were powerless and
threatened with death or deportation to concentration camps; the rescuer was aware of the
fact that by providing this aid he was risking his life, his safety, and his personal freedom (the

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essarily indicate cowardice in the face of evil and collaboration, but rather,
wise prudential decisions to save quietly Jewish lives. In fact, according to
this author’s previous studies, more than fifty-five bishops (out of eighty)
encouraged Jewish rescue operations by the placement of Jews in religious
congregations, boarding schools, and free schools.17 They supported the
initiatives of priests and nuns in placing Jews with host families, escorting
them to Switzerland or Spain, and equipping them with false papers and
false baptism certificates. The bishops were fully aware of these life-saving
activities, even as they pledged outward respect for the Vichy regime and
its leader, Marshal Pétain, who remained in national memory as the one
who had led the French Army to victory at the nine-month-long Battle of
Verdun during the First War World. As Cardinal Jean Marie Lustiger, the
late archbishop of Paris, memorably commented: “The bishops had been
able to keep intact the requirements of the Christian conscience on the
fundamental issues concerning the human person and in particular the
anti-Semitic persecution.”18 Faced with the brutal attacks against the Jews,
they supported the various actions of mutual aid, and encouraged the
priests and nuns of their dioceses to defy evil acts of the regime and protect
endangered Jews. In short, Catholicism in France, a country considered to
be “the eldest daughter of the Church,” placed at the disposal of the Jews
its powerful and vast network of convents, churches, and colleges in the
hearts of cities and rural localities. Each bishop reacted differently, of
course, according to his personal character.
In fact, prelates could also exercise influence over individual monasteries, convents, seminaries, and welfare and educational institutions even
when these were not directly controlled by the diocese.19 Moreover, these
prelates’ names could be invoked in order to encourage the laity to co-oper-

Nazis considered assisting the Jews a major crime); the rescuer did not demand any reward or
material compensation in return for the assistance provided; and the rescue or assistance is
confirmed by those rescued or attested by direct witnesses and, where possible, by authentic
archival documents. The historian can consult those documents in Yad Vashem, série M31,
which this author has done for more than three thousand persons, among them many religious Catholics.
17. All the historians mentioned only six bishops who publicly protested in the summer
of 1942. See for instance: Semelin, Persécutions et entraides dans la France occupée; Cointet,
L’ Église sous Vichy 1940–1945; Cohen, Persécutions et sauvetages. For more information see
Yagil, Chrétiens et Juifs; Yagil, La France terre de refuge.
18. Lustiger, Le Choix de Dieu, 104–06.
19. Yagil, Chrétiens et Juifs; Yagil, La France terre de refuge; Yagil, Le sauvetage des Juifs
dans la région d’Angers. In this author’s books, more than fifty-five bishops who rescued Jews
are mentioned, along with and many priests and nuns.

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Mgr. Paul Rémond (1873–1963), 1933, photograph. Image is from the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Image is in the public domain in the United States.

ate in sheltering Jews. This all said, however, if most of them had condemned Nazism and Racism, they also supported Pétain with great enthusiasm. The rescuers and their ecclesiastical supporters customized their
approach, depending on their particular circumstances and locale. It was a
diverse but well-connected rescue network, made possible by a combination of courage, goodwill, and personal friendships. This remarkable network of rescue proved invaluable when successful. Although some bishops
did not always approve of the open resistance shown by certain priests
towards the Vichy regime, they still encouraged private rescue. Others,
however, felt compelled to speak out, notwithstanding the dangers.20 In
the following pages, this paper proposes to study three dioceses among the
eighty, but in fact this attitude was common to more than seventy dioceses
from the total of eighty dioceses in France.

20. Frédéric Le Moigne, Les évêques français de Verdun à Vatican II: Une génération en
mal d’héroïsme (Rennes, 2005).

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Examples of the Behavior of Several Bishops in France
1. Diocese of Annecy (Department of Haute-Savoie)
From 1940 to 1942, Haute-Savoie benefited from its unique geographical position. It became the door of France into Switzerland. The
Franco-Swiss border, which was closely watched by customs officers and
the Swiss and French police, was not always easy to cross, but it was widely
used in both directions throughout the period. Entry from Switzerland can
be done either through the plain, in the Lake Geneva region, or through
the mountains, in the area of Chablais and the upper valley of the Arve.21
Aid to the Jews began in the summer of 1940. Even if it is difficult to find
a precise directive from the bishop, many priests and nuns acted courageously to help the Jews. According to René Nodot, “the Bishop of
Annecy and the chaplain for the youth movement, Camille Folliet, played
the role of dispatcher for refugees. They had obtained the opening of
hiding places in many rectories.”22 Placed in the context of the time, the
tacit approval of the bishop was a way for this prelate to give his consent
without having to become publicly involved.
Bishop Léon Augustin August Cesbron, of Annecy (Haute-Savoie),
chose to adopt a “cautious” position. Appointed in September 1940, at the
age of fifty-three, as bishop of Annecy, Auguste Cesbron was originally from
Angers. He was a professor of philosophy at the Petit Séminaire de
Beaupréau before becoming superior in 1918. He was a man of duty and discipline. In public, he displayed support for Marshal Pétain’s policy. In the
name of the neutrality of the Church and its loyalty to the “established government,” he endeavored to limit the involvement of his clergy in the Resistance and in the Militia, beginning in 1943. Nevertheless, at the same time,
he encouraged those who want to help Jews, especially priests and nuns.23

21. For more details, see Emmanuel Haymann, Le camp du bout du monde: 1942, des
enfants Juifs de France à la frontière Suisse (Paris, 1984); Célestin Freppaz, La Haute Tarentaise
dans la tourmente: la guerre 1939–1945 (Grenoble, 1979); Michel Germain, Les maquis de
l’espoir: l’Occupation italienne en Haute Savoie (Paris, 1990); François Boulet, “Les Juifs en
Isère, Savoie et Haute-Savoie (1940–1944): de la touristophobie aux montagnes-refuges,”
Revue d’Histoire de la Shoah: Le monde juif, 172 (May–August, 2011), 174–227; and Yagil,
Chrétiens et Juifs, 425–70.
22. Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, série M31, file 4872; AD Annecy, box 3: Guerre 1939–
1945: testimonies, journals, official documents. Yagil, La France terre de refuge, II, 304–25,
and II, 62–66; and René Nodot, Résistance non violente (Lyon, 1978.)
23. Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, série M31, file 4872, and série M31, files 1595–1597;
René Nodot, Résistance non violente 1942–1944 (Lyon, 1978), 52–53; Yagil, La France terre

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One of the advantages of the diocese was the fact that since the 1920s, the
Catholic Action movement had provided a large contingent of speakers,
advisers, Christian trade unionists, and young Christian workers, all of
whom contributed to the civic reflection of activists confronted with totalitarianism and anti-Semitism.24 Many of the priests acted according to their
hearts and their consciences, often influenced by the reading of the Cahiers
du Témoignage Chrétien, which had been disseminated since 1941 by, among
others, the youth of the Catholic Action movements, especially influential in
the diocese of Annecy. This publication strongly influenced the French
Church and especially the mentality of the priests who protected Jews and
resisted collaboration with the Nazis.25
At the Monastery of the Visitation in Annecy, which had been located
outside the city since the nineteenth century, the sisters housed several
Jews. The Canon of Annecy, Gilbert Fromaget, hid Jews in Switzerland. Sometimes he used another nearby facility as a place of secret accommodation.26 He was arrested but soon released, almost certainly by the
intervention of the local bishop, Msgr. Cesbron. At the convent of the
Capuchins at Annecy, Brother Superior Alphonse Baud benefited from
the secret help of the other friars, and it was said that the whole convent
participated in various initiatives of mutual aid and rescue. Brother Baud
was also chaplain at the hospital in Annecy and placed Jewish children or
adults waiting for their departure to Switzerland.
Father Marie-Amédée Folliet of the parish of Saint-Joseph des Fins
in Annecy opened the doors of his presbytery to the fugitives in 1941, first
to the Jews and then to the rebels of the S.T.O. (Service du travail obligatoire, or Compulsory Work Service).27 This is how, in autumn 1942, Elisabeth and Albert Bach, German Jewish refugees, escaped deportation and
arrived in Annecy. They met Father Marie-Amédée, who hid them and fed
them for many days. The Bachs wanted to try to cross the mountain paths
into Switzerland, but the priest convinced them it was too dangerous. He
de refuge, II, 304–25, and II, 62–66. Note also Esther Deloche, Le diocèse d’Annecy de la Séparation à Vatican II (1905–1962) (PhD diss., Lumière University Lyon 2, 2009); the author
simply copied, without quotation, all the information presented in Yagil, Chrétiens et Juifs,
178–94.
24. About forty-five priests in the Haute-Savoie helped Jews. Yagil, Chrétiens et Juifs,
162–94; Yagil, La France terre de refuge, II, 307–27.
25. Michel Germain and Robert Moos, Les sauveteurs de l’ombre: Haute-Savoie 1940–
1944 (Annecy, 2010).
26. Ibid., 108.
27. Henri Baud, Le diocèse de Genève-Annecy (Paris, 1985), 266–83.

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found them asylum in the village of Nazaire de Bourgogne, a relatively safe
place where they could count on the help of French resistance fighters.
Unfortunately, Father Folliet was arrested by the Gestapo on 6 July 1944
and deported to a concentration camp because of his resistance activities.28
Likewise, schools were used to hide children. Such is the case of the
Collège Saint-Joseph in Thônes, a diocesan college overseen by the bishopric since 1933. Throughout the War, all refugees who presented themselves were accepted. The superior of the college, Canon Pasquier, falsified
students’ entry records, allowing the school to hide Jewish children.29 At
the Church of Saint Andrew of Annemasse, Father Eugène Marquet hid
Jews until he was able to pass them to Switzerland. Appointed to
Annemasse in 1897, he knew the city very well. He did not hesitate to criticize the Germans in his sermons. With his two vicars, Father André
Masson and Father Victor Paour, he managed to hide several Jewish
women and children. In association with the priests of Collonges-sur
Salève, Douvaine, and Évian, he helped many to flee to Switzerland.30 Father Gaston Desclouds (1892–1963) provided the links between
Annemasse and Génève.31 As for Father Charles Philippe, the parish priest
of Les Gets, a ski resort, he quickly joined the local resistance. He assisted
many Jews seeking to enter Switzerland.32
Father Marius Jolivet had been the parish priest of Collonges-sousSalève since 1941. Born in 1906 into a modest family from Haute-Savoie,
he became a priest after his military service in the Palatinate (a part of Germany then occupied by the French army). Appointed as parish priest in
August 1941 in Collonges-sous-Salève, he specialized in the passage of
children, women, and the elderly. A door led from the church to the
orphanage run by the Sisters of Saint Joseph, where people were waiting
for safe passage to Switzerland.33 Father Claudius Fournier of Vers, near
28. Jerusalem, Yad Vashem série M31, file 16: Folliet: documents concerning his activities; Yagil, Chrétiens et Juifs, 178.
29. Paris, AN, fond F1A, box 4576: report of police, July 1, 1942. Charles Rickard, La
Savoie dans la Résistance: Haute Savoie et Savoie (Rennes, 1993), 426–28; and Yagil, La France
terre de refuge, I, 304.
30. Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, série M31, file 3925; série M31, file 4454: numerous documents relevant to this topic.
31. Jean-Pierre Chenu and Roger Schorer, Histoire de
(Geneva, 1989), 228–33.
32. AD, Haute-Savoie, fond 162 J, box 18.
33. Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, série M31, file 3507; Francois Delpech, “Les souvenirs d’un
passeur non violent. René Nodot et le Service social des étrangers,” Revue d’Histoire de la Deuxième Guerre Mondiale et des conflits contemporains (RHDGM), 125 (January, 1982), 73–85.

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the Swiss border (Saint-Julien-en Genevois), welcomed many Jewish
refugee families to his presbytery, which served as a relay for those fleeing
the Vichy regime or the German police and trying to pass into Switzerland.
In the spa and resort town of Evians-les-Bains, located on Lake Leman,
separating France and Switzerland, several clerics helped refugees cross
into Switzerland, either by land or by boat.
Father Jean-Joseph Rosay was a parish priest of Douvaine, also on the
Franco-Swiss border. He decided first to fight against racism by reminding
the faithful of the spiritual values of Christianity in the face of Nazi paganism. In 1941 he created a small network of parishioners determined to
act—young people from the JAC, mainly readers of Témoignage Chrétien. Father Rosay asked Father Michel Chevrier, a veteran of the Great
War, to recruit trustworthy men to carry out human smuggling. Father
Rosay continued to help Jews in every way possible until his arrest by the
Germans in February 1944.34
Father Louis Favre of the Ecole St François (Juvenat) seminary
assisted hundreds of people secretly crossing the French border to Switzerland. The seminary, located in the village of Ville-la-Grand, was situated
on the Swiss border. The crossings were attempted during a window of two
and a half minutes when German border guards rounded a forty-five
degree turn after passing within feet of the school.35 A signal would be
given by Father Raymond Boccard, who had a room under the roof on the
seminary’s outer perimeter, which constituted the border between France
and Switzerland. From there he could observe the arrival of German
patrols. He gave the signal from his window, and then the fugitives had
two minutes and thirty seconds to make the crossing. In the winter of
1944, Father Favre was betrayed to the Gestapo. After being tortured, he
was executed near Annecy on July 14, 1944. The seminary was shut down
and its residents were expelled.36
34. Limore Yagil, “Des Français et des Suisses qui désobéirent pour sauver des Juifs
1940–1944,” in: Le refuge et le piège: les Juifs dans les Alpes (1938–1945), ed. Jean-William
Dereymez, (Paris, 2008), 261–83; and Yagil, Chrétiens et Juifs, 153–95
35. Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, série M31, file 193; Alain Perrot, ed., Ma vie pour la tienne:
Épopée œcuménique de la résistance chrétienne au secours des Juifs pourchassés et au service de la
libération de la France (Fribourg, 1987) 43–47; Jean François Pierrier, Chronique des années
brunes à la frontière genevoise (Geneva, 1984); and Emmanuel Haymann, Le camp du bout du
monde, 130–32.
36. Yagil, La France terre de refuge, II, 307–12. Most of the priests, such as Father
Rosay, Father Favre, etc., were arrested in 1944, either by the Milice or by the Gestapo. This
was the result of the politics of repression employed against the Resistance, especially from

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Louis Favre (1910–1944), Righteous Among the Nations, 1935. Author unknown.
Image is in the public domain in the United States.

The numerous initiatives to help Jews show that rescue was not limited
to the Italian period, from November 1942 to September 1943; it began
long before then. According to the police report of 1945, “Bishop Cesbron
was involved ‘from the beginning in the cause of the Allies’” and was constantly distant from the Vichy government.37 In fact, with the support of the
bishop, the clergy was engaged in many different activities to help Jews and
prevent their deportation by the Germans.38 For instance, at the end of
October 1940, Rabbi Robert Meyers arrived in Annecy to provide religious
service and coordinate charitable assistance in Savoie-et-Haute-Savoie. He
devoted a large part of his time to facilitate and organize personally the pasSeptember 1943 onwards, when the Haute-Savoie was occupied by the Germans. The activities of the maquis (French resistance movement) also encouraged this repression.
37. Paris, AN, fond F7, box 15291: notes of the police concerning religious people, 1945.
38. A list of the priests who rescued Jews is as follows: Alfred Denis Clavel, MarieAmédée Folliet, Riguet, Jules César Dompmartin, Antoine Veyrat, Henri Revol, Camille
Folliet, Jean Joseph Rosay, Louis Favre, Gilbert Pernoud, Raymond Boccard, Pierre Frontin,
Eugène Marquet; Jean Bovet, Philibert Bublens, Maurice Cofy, Claudius Fournier, Pierre
Frontin, Simon Gallay, Abel Jacquet, Albert Simond, Claudius Longeray, Pierre Mopty, and
Henri Revol. For more information, read: Yagil, Chrétiens et Juifs, 178–89; and Yagil, La
France terre de refuge, II, 307–25.

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sage of many families in Switzerland.39 With his wife Suzanne-Esther, he
had warned most of the people before they could be arrested.
As a result, the gendarmerie arrested “only” about thirty Jews. In this
activity, the rabbi was supported by Bishop Cesbron and his rescue network, made up of many priests and nuns, who facilitated placement in convents and in private homes.40 With the encouragement of the bishop and
the aid of more than forty-five priests, the activists of the Ligue féminine
d’action catholique française (LFACF) helped to place about seven hundred Jewish families in convents, boarding schools, and monasteries in the
diocese, and likewise placed many children in religious institutions or private homes. Many other Jews received help to pass over to Switzerland. All
of these activities were known and encouraged by the bishop, Msgr. Cesbron, even though he did not issue public protests.
2. Diocese of Limoges (Department of Haute-Vienne)
Politically, the department of Haute-Vienne was considered to be leftleaning, where even the peasantry was not insensitive to the republican
ideas. The influence of the clergy had been relatively weak for many
decades and the département had an old tradition of anticlericalism. However, many clerics and religious people committed themselves to helping
Jews.41 Msgr. Louis Rastouil, bishop of Limoges, publicly protested several
times from 1941 to 1943 against the Vichy regime’s desire to create a
“Single Youth” movement following the example of fascist and totalitarian
countries. Bishop Rastouil openly opposed the measures taken by the
Vichy government against the Jews. He found them “barbaric and inhuman” and above all “contrary to the doctrine of charity and mutual aid of
the Catholic Church.”42 He condemned both this “shameful trafficking”
and the abduction of Jewish children.
39. Paris, CDJC, file CDLXXII-93: rabbin Meyer; Paul Lévy, Hommes de Dieu dans la
tourmente: L’histoire des rabbins déportés (Paris, 2005), 187–88, 394–95. The rabbi was arrested
in December 1942 and sent to Drancy. From there, he was sent with his wife to Auschwitz.
40. Christian Villermet, A moi Savoa: Histoire de l’occupation italienne en Savoie novembre 1942–septembre 1943 (Chambéry, 1991), 70; and Yagil, Chrétiens et Juifs, 178–90.
41. Dominique Danthieux, Le département rouge: République, socialisme et communisme
en Haute-Vienne 1895–1940 (Limoges, 2005); Louis Perouas, Le catholicisme en Limousin aux
XIX° et XX° siècles, à travers sa presse les semaines religieuses (Limoges, 2000); and Lard Boswell,
“Fissures dans la nation française: les réfugiés Alsaciens et Lorrains en 1939–1940,” in: 1940,
La France du repli: L’Europe de la défaite, ed. Max Lagarrigue (Toulouse, 2001), 197–208.
42. Semaines Religieuses Limoges, no. 3 (1943), 8–11; Semaines Religieuses Limoges, no.
32 (1942) 221–25; Semaines Religieuses de Tulle, no. 6 (1943) 341–45 Others historians

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Msgr. Rastouil founded a local network for refugees escaping towards
Switzerland in particular. This was possible because he enjoyed real support
from the Vatican and was not afraid of being dismissed by his hierarchical
superior. Financial help was also sent from the Vatican to help Spanish
refugees, Jews, and others refugees entering into his diocese.43 The Department of the Diocese of Limoges confirmed the existence of a project relating to “Secours du Pape” (Papal Rescue) for foreigners residing in France.
It included instructions to be taken all over the region of Limousin (including the départements of Haute-Vienne, Creuse, Corrèze, and Dordogne).
Since 1939, an organization called Catholic Charitable Works, founded
by Msgr. Rastouil, brought together different religious orders such as the
Visiting Sisters of the Parishes, the Sisters Guard, and the Ladies of Charity, alongside the organizations of the Society of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul
and the Women’s League of Catholic Action. Msgr. Rastouil was extremely
favorable to the formation of diocesan committees, especially in the localities where camps were situated. He also formed local organizations charged
with ensuring the charitable service desired by the Holy Father.44 As for
Msgr. Saliège in Toulouse, the Vatican adopted the same attitude in Limousin, through Msgr. Rastouil and its Catholic network which was particularly loyal to the Vatican. The same situation was also true in the département of Loiret (Beaune-la-Rolande camps and others), through Msgr.
Louis Fillon, who did not hesitate to criticize Nazi policies or to encourage

mentioned: Semaine Religieuse du Puy-en-Velay, (August 22, 1941). For a bibliographical
guide to the Semaines Religieuses, see Émile Poulat, Les Semaines Religieuses: approche sociohistorique et bibliographique des Bulletins Diocésains Français [Collection du Centre d’Histoire
du Catholicisme, 8] (Lyon, 1972). See also Vatican City, AAEE.SS: Francia, 835–836:
1938–1940.
43. Yagil, Chrétiens et Juifs, 425–29; and Yagil, La France terre de refuge, III, 112–16.
44. Paris, AN, fond F7, box 15291: Letter from Henri Basset, Notary, to the Society
of Saint Vincent de Paul, July 3, 1942, Diocese of Limoges: ”La Direction des œuvres du Diocèse
de limoges a transmis à notre Conseil Central ( qui exerce son action sur la Haute-Vienne et sur la
Creuse) le projet relatif au “Secours du Pape” pour les étrangers résidant en France et l’a chargé d’envisager les mesures à prendre dans notre Pays Limousin et Marchais. Nous nous somme empressés de
faire appel au groupement des Œuvres charitables Catholiques de Limoges fondé en 1939 par Msgr.
Rastouil, qui réunit en vue d’une collaboration effective les Sœurs Visiteuses des paroisses, les Sœurs
Garde malades, les Dames de la Charité, avec les organisations de la Société de Saint Vincent de Paul
. . . et la Ligue féminine d’Action Catholique. . . . Msgr. Rastouil se montre extrêmement favorable
à la formation d’un comité diocésain, soit deux comités départementaux dans les localités où se trouvent les camps; des organismes locaux chargés d’assurer le service charitable souhaité par le Saint-Père
et qui semble si désirable.” Also, see: AD, Haute-Vienne, fond 185W1, box 220; Paris, AN,
fond F7, box 15292; AN, fond F1A, box 3784; AN, fond F1A, box 4000; AN, fond 72AJ,
box 112; and AN, fond 2AG, box 493.

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priests to rescue Jews, going so far as to encourage them to act well beyond
their priestly functions to engage in rescue activities.45 In 1943, after the
monsignor died, his successor in Bourges, Msgr. Joseph Lefèvre, former
bishop of Troyes, had already taken a stand against religious persecution in
Germany and Austria and also encouraged the different initiatives to help
Jews in this region, often with money sent from the Vatican.46
3. Diocese of Rodez (Department of Aveyron)
According to reports from the prefecture, the clergy of Rodez and the
surrounding area (Séverac) were not very enthusiastic about the National
Revolution.47 Msgr. Charles Challiol preached trust and obedience to
Pétain, along with most bishops in France under the Vichy regime. Yet,
with his support, several Jewish children were sheltered at the Abbey of
Notre-Dame de Bonnecombe, in an orphanage run by the Franciscan Sisters of Our Lady of Saint-Martin-de Lenne, and at the Convent of La
Clause in Réquista.48 With Msgr. Challiol’s undoubted encouragement,
Jews were welcomed into the convents, religious institutions, and congregations of the diocese, including the Brothers of the Christian Schools, the
White Fathers, the Sisters of Saint-Joseph d’Estaing (now the Union
Saint-Joseph de Rodez), and others. Despite the fearful silence, complicit
indifference, and the approval of state anti-Semitism, many took initiatives
to help the Jews, and this with the encouragement of the bishop.49 If Msgr.
Challiol preached trust and obedience to Pétain, he was also recognized by
the Gestapo as an “anti-collaborationist” bishop. Indeed, it was with his
support and encouragement that Jews were welcomed in the convents, religious institutions, and congregations of the diocese—among the Brothers
of the Christian Schools, the White Fathers, the Sisters of Saint-Joseph
d’Estaing (now the Union Saint-Joseph de Rodez), and so forth. Several
Jewish children were hidden in the convents of Cougousse (orphanage),
and Ceignac. More than eighty Jewish children were hidden on the
instructions of the bishop at the boarding school of Notre-Dame de

45. Museum of the National Resistance and the Departmental Center of Pedagogical
Documentation of Cher, La résistance dans le Cher 1940–1944 (Bourges, 2002), 81.
46. For more information, see the author’s new book: Limore Yagil, Des catholiques au
secours des Juifs sous l’Occupation (Paris, 2022).
47. Jean Pierre Denis, Nos enfants de la guerre (Seuil, 2002), 89; and Yagil, La France
terre de refuge, III, 78–89.
48. Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, série M 31, file 5638.
49. Christian Font and Henri Moizet, Juifs et antisémitisme en Aveyron (Toulouse,
1994), 24–37; and Yagil, La France terre de refuge, III, 78–82.

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Massip run by the Order of Mary Notre-Dame, the same place where
Msgr. Saliège, bishop of Toulouse, sent Jews to hide.
Each summer, Denise Bergon and Marguerite Rocques, her assistant,
organized a summer camp for the children of the diocese of Toulouse, in
Capdenac, in the same place where Msgr. Saliège, bishop of Toulouse, also
sent Jews to be hidden. Some arrived on the recommendation of Msgr.
Béguin, Bishop of Auch (Gers). Assisted in her task by Marguerite, Denise
Bergon traveled constantly to Toulouse, Rodez, Figeac, Villefranche-surRouergue, and so forth to look for children and accommodate them in the
convent. It is estimated that around eighty people of Jewish origin (including sixty children) were hidden there in 1942.50 Jean-Marie Lustiger,
future cardinal of Paris, also found refuge in Aveyron, when his mother
had recently been arrested and deported.51
The Vatican also sent several million francs in order to help refugees
in internment in camps in the Southwest and place them in the SainteGermaine boarding school in Vendine, thirty kilometers from Toulouse
and at the convent in Capdenac (Aveyron). In 1941, the Vatican sent one
million francs to Msgr. de Courrèges, who served as coadjutor to Msgr.
Saliège in Toulouse, to place Jewish children and adults released from
French internment camps. Father Lagarde and Father Roger Braun distributed some of the money from the Holy See to help the internees. The
money was also used by the Caritas organization in Lucerne, Switzerland,
which distributed funds through Father Albert Gross, chaplain in Gurs,
who provided services to the internees. In 1942, Pius XII sent one million
francs to help the internees at the request of Marius Besson, bishop of
Lausanne, Geneva, and Fribourg.52
In March 1942, Msgr. de Courrèges wrote,
The Holy Father, as you know, during the past year had granted subsidies
to alleviate some of the sufferings of the internees of certain camps [. . .]

50. Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, série M31, file 1807: Denise Bergon; Font and Moizet,
Juifs et antisémitisme en Aveyron, 39–42.
51. AD, Aveyron: fond 2W, box 17, and fond 12W, box 3; Jean Pierre Denis, Nos
enfants de la guerre; Yagil, La France terre de refuge, III, 79–80; and Armand David Mendelson,
Millau: Terre d’accueil des Juifs à l’ombre de l’Occupation, 1940–1944 (Paris, 2010).
52. Concerning the implication of the Catholic Mission in Switzerland, and of the
abbé Gross, see: Ickx, Le Bureau, 227; Ruth Fivaz-Silbermann, “Un prêtre suisse contre le
pouvoir de Vichy: l’abbé Albert Gross auprès des juifs internés,” Traverse—Zeitschrift für
Geschichte—Revue d’histoire, 7, no. 3 (2000), 90–98.

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BISHOPS IN FRANCE AND THE RESCUE OF JEWS
For the moment, I will send to the Catholic Committee of Toulouse
200,000, [. . .] I transmit the said amount by the same mail to Msgr. de
Courrèges your Auxiliary Bishop, so that he will be kind enough to work,
with Father Arnou and Father Lagarde, to use the sums sent [. . .].53

In fact, there were three bishops who provided logistical support to convents and holiday camps to hide Jews: Msgr. Saliège of Toulouse; Msgr.
Challiol, bishop of Rodez (Aveyron); and Msgr. Béguin, bishop of
Auch.54 Even if the “National Revolution” remained in the eyes of the
bishops the only route to salvation, they still contributed to the rescue of
many Jews in their dioceses. Humanitarian motivations prevailed over
religious proselytizing.
4. Diocese of Paris
Since the 1930s, Paris had been an active center of religious renewal
in France. Installed in 1940, the Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Emmanuel
Célestin Suhard, was a resident of the French Seminary in Rome, and
taught philosophy at Laval. His promotion to bishop of Reims in 1931 was
a sign of confidence by the Vatican nuncio Luigi Maglione in France. He
had taken an unequivocal stand against National Socialism even before
1940.55 On June 18, 1940, the same day that General de Gaulle addressed
his Appeal to the French to resist, Suhard addressed his first message to
the clerics of his diocese, encouraging them to resist spiritually the Nazis.
On July 26, 1940, the German police kidnapped Cardinal Suhard, by then
Archbishop of Paris, and two trucks of archive materials were taken from
his diocese. The Cardinal, the numerous priests, and the nuns, in particular
the sisters of Notre-Dame de Sion, were regularly watched and some were
arrested and deported during the years 1940–44. Following the roundups
of Jews in Paris (1941 and 1942), the Cardinal gave instructions for the
clandestine reception of many Jewish children. It is estimated that more
than seven hundred Jewish adults were saved from deportation by Cardinal
Suhard, most of whom were given refuge in the Zone Libre or abroad. The
53. Diocesan Archives, Toulouse: fonds Mgr. Courrèges, II, Letter from nuncio
Valerio Valeri to Msgr. Saliège, March 8, 1942; and Joseph Chansou (Msgr.), Sous l’épiscopat du cardinal Saliège (1929–1956): Contribution à l’histoire du diocèse de Toulouse (Toulouse,
2006), 144.
54. Limore Yagil, Des catholiques au secours des Juifs. Diocesan Archives, Toulouse,
fonds Mgr. Courrèges, I, dossier “Don du Pape,” 1942. Pierre Blet, Pie XII et la Seconde
Guerre mondiale d’après les archives du Vatican (Paris, 1997), 290.
55. Jean Pierre Guérend, Cardinal Emmanuel Suhard: Archevêque de Paris (1940–1949)
(Paris, 2012), 164–71.

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number of children saved was even greater.56 Although he did not protest
publicly after the mass arrest of Jews in Paris (July 16 and 17, 1942), Cardinal Suhard had encouraged his clergy to help Jews. As a matter of fact,
many religious institutions in Paris such as the Sisters of the Visitation, the
Carmélites, the Sisters of Saint Thomas de Villeneuve, the Sisters of Saint
Vincent de Paul, the Orphelins d’Auteuil, the Religieuses de Sion, the
Franciscaines missionnaires, the Soeurs de la doctrine chrétienne, and the
Religieuses de Marie Auxiliatrice et Filles de la Charité, accepted and hid
more than three hundred children.57 A significant number of Catholic
priests and lay people of the diocese engaged in additional rescue efforts
with the support of Cardinal Suhard.58 In 1943, Suhard left for Rome to
meet with Pope Pius XII. Following those meetings and his discreet interventions, and with guidance from Pius XII, many Jews were able to find
refuge in Italy.59 Cardinal Suhard knew Pacelli very well before 1940, and
the Vatican regularly sent financial help to Cardinal Jean Verdier (193839) and afterwards to Cardinal Suhard, in order to help refugees, prisoners,
and also Jews.
Father Théomir Devaux, head of Fathers of Notre-Dame-de-Sion,
was involved in finding false papers and hiding places for those in danger
of deportation from as early as 1941.60 Using his contacts within the
Church, he was able to place children in religious institutions across the
country or with rural families. He facilitated the rescue of hundreds of children, in collaboration with Sister Francia of the Sisters of Zion convent,
and in coordination with various Jewish organizations (UGIF, OSE, Rue
Amelot and Wizo). About five hundred Jewish children were hidden
thanks to this network.61
The Convent of the Sisters de Notre-Dame-de Sion had some of its
buildings requisitioned by the Germans in 1940 and had been in danger of
56. Historical archives of the archdiocese of Paris, fonds Suhard, 1D XIV-1–D XIV24: documents and letters; Yagil, Chrétiens et Juifs, 518–22. Jean Vinatier, Le cardinal Suhard:
l’évêque missionnaire en France 1874–1949 (Paris, 1983); Msgr. Charles Molette, Résistances
chrétiennes à la nazification des esprits (Paris, 1996).
57. Yagil, Chrétiens et Juifs, 522–29.
58. The list can be found in the author’s books, Yagil, Chrétiens et Juifs, 649–707 and
Yagil, La France terre de refuge, III, 15–192 and tables on 327–347.
59. Paris, AN, fond 2AG, box 492: situation of the Church; Vinatier, Le cardinal
Suhard, 155; Yagil, Chrétiens et Juifs, 516–25; and Guérend, Cardinal Emmanuel Suhard.
60. Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, série M31, file 7245; Yagil, Chrétiens et Juifs, 521–23.
61. Paris, CDJC, File DCLXVIII-1; Madeleine Comte, Sauvetage et baptêmes: Les
religieuses de Notre-Dame de Sion face à la persécution des Juifs en France (1940–1944) (Paris,
2001), 95–138.

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being closed as a reprisal for the singing of an anti-German hymn in praise
of Joan of Arc in 1942. In fact, it was saved only by Suhard’s direct intervention.62 Sister Agnese set up a placement network allowing several children to go to Vézelay to the convent of Sainte-Madeleine where the boarding school, headed by Sister Léocadie (Marie Arnol), agreed to hide them.
Generally, Jewish girls were registered under false Christian names and
attended religious services.63
Among the priests in Paris that were involved in rescue activities one
deserving of mention is Father Daniel Pézeril,64 who was appointed vicar
of the St Etienne du Mont church in Paris in 1941 and, together with
other Catholic priests and students, made more than a thousand false certificates of baptism, especially for persecuted Jews. Also particularly noteworthy is the contribution of the Jesuit fathers of Haxo Street, Father
Henri Diffiné65 and Father Emile Joseph Planckaert, who, together with
Simone Loucheur, worked to supply endangered Jews with false identity
papers, allowing them to escape Nazi capture, and aided them by other
actions.66 Likewise in 1943, Father Planckaert penetrated the Drancy
camp and succeeded in rescuing numerous Jews from within it, supplying
them with false papers and finding refuge among private persons or in convents.67 He also assisted Father Theomir Devaux in saving Jewish children.
Father Michel Riquet was a classic example of a rebellious yet disciplined churchman.68 Ordained a priest on August 28, 1928, he became
director of the Laennec Conference in Paris, an association of Catholic medical students who acted in conjunction with various solidarity groups
during the 1930s. Most of those who frequented this circle were driven by
62. Yagil, Chrétiens et Juifs, 518–21; and Cointet, L’Église sous Vichy, 293–98.
63. Archives de Notre Dame de Sion Paris: série 4M, file 5: Publications of the Congregation; série 4M, file 6: Testimonies; série 4M, file 8: Sisters of the Congregation that
were recognized as Righteous Among the Nations; different internal publications of the congregation in the Library. Héléna Rigaud, Isabelle Denis, Gérard Dufour, Notre-Dame de Sion
Maison Mère de Paris 1939–1945 (Paris, 2021). Comte, Sauvetage et baptêmes, 90–93.
64. Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, série M31, file 5097; and Israel Gutman, Dictionnaire des
Justes de France, ed. Lucien Lazare (Paris, 2003), 457.
65. Marc Flichy, Diffiné: Fils du bon Dieu, fils du Bon peuple (Paris, 1982); and François
Graffin, Henri Diffiné 1890–1978, prêtre de la Compagnie de Jésus, mystique et guide spirituel
(Paris, 2000), 169–70.
66. Vanves, Archives des Jésuites, Papiers Riquet: boxes 5–42. Michel Riquet, Chrétiens
de France dans l’Europe enchaînée: genèse du Secours catholiques (Paris, 1973), 95–115; and Anny
Latour, La résistance juive en France 1940–1944 (Paris, 1970), 48–55.
67. Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, série M31, file 733.
68. Yagil, La France terre de refuge, III, 146–48.

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a Christian spirit to serve mankind and were apt to disobey laws and rescue
Jews or other persecuted people during the Occupation. It was a vital network of several thousand people in hospitals, clinics, dispensaries, hospices,
congregations, etc. It was in the great encyclical, Mit brennender Sorge
(1937), that Riquet and his friends, like other rescuers, found the justification for their attitude.6 9
Conclusion
In the context of this study, which does not pretend to be exhaustive, one
can observe that the aid brought to the Jews by the Church emerged from a
real desire to save human lives, joining Catholicism’s fight against Nazism
with a strong awareness of the obligation to provide assistance to those in
need. It was begun by individual initiatives in the local sphere, starting in
1940. According to Father Henri de Lubac, “the efforts of these priests to
rescue the Jews in France were regularly encouraged by Pope Pius XII.”70
How to Explain the Attitude of Most of the Bishops in France?
Among the bishops who were engaged in wartime rescue, many of them
had been faithful to Vatican policy since the 1930s. Following the Vatican’s
condemnation of Action Française (a far-right monarchist movement) in 1926,
a series of major changes took place. Over the next decade, thirty-nine bishops were replaced, with twenty episcopal appointments taking place in just
the first few years of Bishop Valerio Valeri’s nunciature (July 1936 to 1939).
These newly-appointed bishops had a progressive theological outlook. Those
appointed by Pius XI were often close to the aspirations of social Catholicism
and Christian-inspired democracy, favoring a more vibrant culture, drawn
from the Church’s best traditions. They were willing to fight exaggerated
nationalism and the attempted secularization of Catholic schools, determined
to apply firmly the instructions of the Pope for the common good.
Pius XI’s episcopal appointments brought about his goals: the promotion of Catholic Action, the combating of nationalism and Action Française,
and strong opposition to Nazism and racism.71 This was the time when the
69. Riquet, Chrétiens de France dans l’Europe enchaînée; Jean Lacouture, Jésuites, 2 vols.
(Paris, 1992), II, 354–55; and Yagil, La France terre de refuge, III, 121–28.
70. Henri de Lubac, Résistance chrétienne antisémitisme Souvenirs 1940–1944 (Paris,
1988).
71. Alain-René Michel, Catholiques en démocratie (Paris, 2006 ); Gérard Cholvy, Histoire des organisations et mouvements chrétiens de jeunesse en France (XIXe–XXe siècles) (Paris,
1999); Msgr. Charles Molette, L’association catholique de la jeunesse Française 1886–1907: Une

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BISHOPS IN FRANCE AND THE RESCUE OF JEWS

Catholic Action movements appeared, including the Christian Working
Youth, the Christian Agrarian Youth, and the Christian Student Youth,
which combined civic action and faith. Catholic intellectual life was further
strengthened by the rise of such thinkers as Etienne Borne, Maurice
Blondel, and Jacques Maritain, who sought to apply Catholic teachings to
the social domain.72 Different schools of thought encouraged various forms
of opposition to Nazism and anti-Semitism and prepared those who would
be engaged later in the rescue of Jews, the helping of refugees, and in other
acts of humanitarian resistance.
On March 14, 1937, Pius XI published his famous anti-Nazi encyclical Mit brennender Sorge, which denounced the doctrinal errors of Nazism.
This encyclical was, above all, an unambiguous condemnation of racism as
an idolatrous and demonic doctrine, opposed to Catholic teaching and to
humanity. Catholics in France, including the bishops, were deeply influenced by Mit brennender Sorge. Of course, it was Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli,
the future Pope Pius XII, who drafted Pius XI’s famous encyclical. Numerous bishops, priests, and lay Catholics who chose to carry out the clandestine rescue of Jews from 1940 to 1944 later mentioned this encyclical as a
primary motivating factor. The encyclical was qualified as the “basic pontifical document” against the Nazi ideological poison.
In September 1938, Pius XI made his famous statement to a group of
Belgian pilgrims that “anti-Semitism is inadmissible; spiritually we are all
Semites.” In December of that year, Cardinal Pacelli declared that the
Holy Father approved of all the efforts made by Christianity to help “the
innocent victims” of religious persecution in Germany, of whom the Jews
were the main target. This declaration encouraged all those who wanted to
help the Jews in Germany, as well as those in other countries such as
France where the German and Austrian refugee populations included
numerous Jews who had been forced to flee their countries. On March 6,
1939, four days after his election as Pope, Pius XII had the Holy Office
issue a warning against Mussolini’s anti-Semitic policy. His first encyclical,
prise de conscience du laïcat catholique (Paris, 1968); Jacques Pévotat, Les catholiques et l’Action
Française (Paris, 2001). Alain-René Michel, La J.E.C.: Jeunesse étudiante chrétienne face au
nazisme et à Vichy 1938–1944 (Lille, 1988); Alain René Michel, “Pape et l’Action catholique
en France,” in: Achille Ratti: Pape Pie XI: Actes du colloque organisé par l’Ecole Française de Rome
et l’Université de Lille III (Rome, 1996), 657–73; Jean Daujat, Le Pape de l’Action catholique:
l’auteur et son message (Paris, 1995); and Yagil, La France terre de refuge, III, 15–45.
72. Maurice Blondel, (1861–1949), French philosopher. Étienne Fouilloux, Une Église
en quête de liberté: La pensée catholique française entre modernisme et Vatican II (1914–1962)
(Paris, 1998), 149–92.

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141

Pius XI, Mit brennender Sorge, scan of 1937 document. Document is in the public
domain.

Summi Pontificatus, published that same year, reinforced that clear-eyed
warning by denouncing all forms of racism. These declarations confirmed
Pius XII’s moral and spiritual resistance to evil, particularly the intensifying
fight against Nazism and racism.73
From 1939 on, the Vatican regularly sent financial and logistical aid
to help refugees and especially Jews escape from France. Beginning in
73. Pierre Blet, Pie XII et la seconde guerre mondiale d’après les archives du Vatican (Paris,
1997); Andrea Tornelli, Pio XII: Eugenio Pacelli: un uomo sul trono di Pietro (Milan, 2007);
Giovanni Miccoli, Les Dilemmes et les silences de Pie XII (Bruxelles, 2005).

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BISHOPS IN FRANCE AND THE RESCUE OF JEWS

1938, the Vatican had tried to help the victims of the Spanish Civil War
and then the victims of the Second World War. The Pope sent substantial donations to Spanish refugees in 1939–40 and then to the Jews
interned in camps in France (1939–42), in particular via Cardinal Verdier
in Paris. In fact, the Vatican sent several millions of francs to help
refugees among them, as well as Jews in Lyon, Toulouse, Limoges,
Poitiers, Marseille, Paris, Bourges, Lourdes, Perpignan, Auch, Rodez,
and in others dioceses.74 In 1942, Cardinal Saliège’s letter explicitly condemned the deportation and proclaimed: “Jews are men. Jews are women.
. . . They are part of mankind. They are our brothers. A Christian cannot
forget that.” 75 After that, the Pope sent a new donation to the bishop of
Toulouse, made through the Catholic Association for Aid to Foreigners.
In December 1940, Cardinal Gerlier, Archbishop of Lyon, sent Msgr.
Guerry to plead with the government the cause of the Jews confined to
the Gurs camp (for whom Pope Pius XII sent two significant financial
donations): “It is not for us, people of the Church, that I take this step
on behalf of the Cardinal-Archbishop of Lyon: it is for the Israelites, victims of measures of violence.”76
This paper concludes with the example Father Marie-Benoît, whose
story has no equal in the annals of help of Jews by clergy during the Holocaust. Born in 1895 as Pierre Péteul to a family of flour millers in northern
France, he was admitted to the Capuchin order as a novice in 1913. He
continued his theological studies in Rome after World War I, and when
Italy entered the war against France in June 1940, Father Benoît moved to
the Capuchin monastery in Marseille, which soon became a beehive of
clandestine activities on behalf of fleeing Jews. In 1943, he took initiative,
making use of his contacts with smugglers, the French resistance, and
Catholic and Jewish religious organizations. From monasteries first in
Marseille and later in Rome, Father Marie-Benoît worked with Jewish coconspirators to build remarkably effective Jewish-Christian rescue networks. Acting independently without Vatican support but with help from
some priests, nuns, and local citizens, he and his friends persisted in their
clandestine work until the Allies liberated Rome. He successfully requested
Pius XII to intervene on behalf of the Jews in the Italian zone, and to work
to obtain more humane treatment, to simplify the administrative proce74. Paris, CDJC, file DCLVII-7; and Yagil, Des catholiques au secours des Juifs.
75. Jean Estèbe, dir., Les Juifs à Toulouse et en Midi toulousain au temps de Vichy
(Toulouse, 1996); Yagil, Chrétiens et Juifs, 360–75; and Jean-Louis Clément, Monseigneur Saliège: archevêque de Toulouse: 1929–1956 (Paris, 1994), 211–15.
76. Emile Guerry, L’Eglise catholique en France sous l’occupation (Paris, 1947), 38.

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143

dure, and to facilitate the repatriation to their country of origin for those
who were of Spanish nationality and located in France.77
In fact if most bishops encouraged loyalty to the regime and especially
to Pétain, whom they all admired, nevertheless at the same time they also
worked as individuals to rescue Jews by giving them false identification
cards, by finding them safe places to hide, by encouraging priests and nuns
to take them over the border to safety, and by informing Jews of their
impending arrests.78 Not all the bishops reacted in the same way, nor at the
same time. Every bishop decided when and how to react against Nazism
and the Vichy government’s policies against Jews.79 This suggests that the
bishops made different decisions during this time period, and there is no
uniformity in their attitudes concerning the Vichy regime and its policies.
Furthermore, Vatican messages against anti-Semitism were regularly
broadcasted via Vatican Radio in France, encouraging Christians to refuse
to coexist complacently with Nazism. The defense of the persecuted Jew,
the hospitality to be given to the unfortunate, whether he was an escaped
prisoner or not, the refusal to accept the breaking up and destruction of
families—all of these were values which the clergy were urged to defend.
The anti-Nazi public protests of the six bishops and archbishops of France
in the summer of 1942 following Jewish roundups (rafles) were strongly
backed by Pius XII, who respected the right of bishops to determine the
best strategy to fight Nazism and rescue Jews in their dioceses.
Finally, according to Sir Martin Gilbert, during the entirety of the war,
the Catholic Church—acting under the instructions and inspiration of
Pope Pius XII—saved hundreds of thousands of Jewish lives, including one
hundred thousand in France alone, by ordering religious institutions to hide
them.80 The courage of those bishops and religious who worked closely with
77. Paris, CDJC, files: CCCCXXIII-2, CCCLXXIII-25, CCXVIII-81, CCXVIII89; XI-18, and I-59; Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, série M31, file 201; and Paris, AN, fond 72AJ,
box 71; Nicola Caracciolo, Uncertain Refuse: Italy and the Jews during the Holocaust (Champaign, IL, 1995), 37–39; Gérard Cholvy, Marie-Benoït de Bourg d’Iré (1895–1990): itinéraire
d’un fils de saint François “Juste des nations” (Paris, 2010); and Yagil, Chrétiens et Juifs, 299–304.
78. One cannot find the same attitude concerning the arrest of the resistants or
communists.
79. Jean-Louis Clément, Les évêques au temps de Vichy; Jean-Louis Clément, La Collaboration des évêques 1920–19145 (Paris, 2011); Pierre Bolle and Jean Godel, eds., Spiritualité,
théologie et résistance (Grenoble, 1987); and Yagil, La France, terre de refuge, III, 15–45.
80. See, “The Untold Catholic Rescuers of Jews,” interview by William Doino Jr. with
Sir Martin Gilbert, Inside the Vatican, August 2003, 26–36; Joseph Bottum and David G.
Dalin, The Pius War. Responses to the critics of Pius XII, (Oxford, 2004); and Michael Hesemann, Der Papst und der Holocaust (Stuttgart, 2018).

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BISHOPS IN FRANCE AND THE RESCUE OF JEWS

the Vatican, and who protected Jews and supported the various initiatives
to rescue them during the Holocaust, is ample proof of the success of the
life-saving policies of Pope Pius XII. As this author has proven in her own
books, in France, under the direction of Pius XII, several bishops took different initiatives in their dioceses in order to rescue Jews. One can observe
the development of a network of knowledge and friendship, built up over
time, which made it possible to rescue Jews and other people in danger
during the War (1939–45). The possibility of developing this topic by
studying the archives of the Vatican, now in 2022 and moving forwards, will
certainly reinforce these conclusions and those of Johan Ickx.81 Furthermore, after having enjoyed the opportunity to consult the historical archives
in the Vatican concerning Pius XII, this author has found many documents
that confirmed her thesis, and also the fact the Vatican was involved in the
rescue of Jews and others fugitives likewise in Belgium, Poland, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria, Albania, and Romania. It is time to recognize the courage of
these bishops and others religious people who worked closely with the Vatican, and who protected Jews and supported the various initiatives to rescue
them during the Holocaust. There is no need to deploy syllogistic arguments in studying the relations between bishops in France since 1926, and
also their relations with Pope Pius XII after 1940. There is solid, irrefutable
evidence concerning the Vatican’s relations with them and their activities in
rescuing Jews. In France, the fact that there were more than seventy bishops
among the eighty, as this author has recently discovered,82 who rescued Jews
(an impressive number) should change our interpretations concerning their
response to Vichy persecution of the Jews and also concerning the attitude
of Pius XII during the Second World War.
Appendices: List of the Priests and Congregations that Rescue Jews
Diocese of Annecy
Sœurs de la Croix de Chavanod
Sœurs Trapistes de l’Abbaye de Tamié
Couvent des Capucins
Paroisse Saint-Joseph des Fins
Eglise La Bénite Fontaine
Monastère de la Visitation
Couvent de la Chartreuse du Reposoir
Couvent de la Congrégation du Sacré
Cœur

Annecy
Annecy
Annecy
Annecy
Thonon-les-Bains

81. Johan Ickx, Le bureau; and Yagil, Des Catholiques au secours des Juifs.
82. Yagil, Des Catholiques au secours des Juifs.

LIMORE YAGIL
Sœurs infirmières de Saint-Joseph
Filles de la Charité de Saint Vincent
de Paul
Sœurs Oblates de l’Assomption
Frères des Ecoles Chrétiennes
Pensionnat de la Sainte-Famille
Lycée Berthollet
Lycée du Juvénat
Collège Saint-Joseph
Priests
1. Père Louis Favre
2. Abbé Raymond Boccard
3. Abbé Frontin Pierre
4. Abbé Gilbert Pernoud
5. Abbé Claude Charbonnel
6. Père François Favrat
7. Abbé Meynet,
8. Abbé Camille Folliet
9. Marie-Amédée Folliet
10. Frère Alphonse Baud
11. Abbé Fromaget Gilbert
12. Truffy, Jean
13. Chavanne, Joseph
14. Abbé Camille Benoît
15. Vicaire Albert Simon
16. Vicaire Pierre Mopty
17. Père Albert Simon
18. Abbé Simon Gallay
19. Abbé Camille Blanc
20. Abbé Jean Rosay
21. Abbé Michel Chevrier
22. Figuet, A
23. Abbé Eugène Marquet
24. Abbé André Masson
25. Abbé Victor Paour
26. Père Gaston Desclouds
27. Père André Payot
28. Abbé Vuichard Ignace
29. Père Marius Jolivet
30. Abbé Abel Jacquet
31. Chanoine Philibert Bublens32. Tavernier, Pierre
33. Père Maurice Coffy
34. Chanoine Denis Clavel
35. Père Henri Revol

Evian-les-Bains
Evian-les Bains

Annecy
Thônes
Ville-la-Grand
Ville-la-Grand
Ville-le-Grand
Ville-le-Grand
Ville-le-Grand
Ville-le-Grand
Ville-le-Grand
Annecy
Annecy
Annecy
Annecy
Annecy
Annecy
Annecy
Evian
Evian
Evian
Evian
Evian
Douvaine
Douvaine
Douvaine
Annemasse
Annemasse
Annemasse
Annemasse
Annemasse
Annemasse
Collonges-sous-Salève
Juvigny
Thonon-les-Bains
Thonon-les-Bains
Bernex
Saint-Gervais-les-Bains
Saint-Gervais-les-Bains

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BISHOPS IN FRANCE AND THE RESCUE OF JEWS

36. Abbé Claudius Longeray
37. Abbé Jules César Dompmartin
38. Abbé Rossillon
39. Abbé Jean Truffy
40. Père Duret Aimé
41. Abbé François Bastard-Bogain
42. Abbé Paul Chevallier
43. Abbé Claudius Fournier
44. Gavard, Gustave
45. Chevrier, Michel
46. Abbé Saultier
47. Abbé Jean Premat
48. Chanoine Pasquier
49. Abbé Antoine Veyrat

Sainte-Martin-Bellevue
Monnetier-Mornex
Saint-Gingolphe
Saint-Gingolphe
Maximilly-sur-Leman
Taninges
Cluses
Saint-Julien–en-Genevois
Valleiry
Veigy-Foncenex
Cran-Gevrier
La Clusaz
Thônes
La Muraz

It is clear that the engagement of priests and nuns in this diocese was very important.
However, only twenty-one priests have been recognized as Righteous by Yad Vashem.

Diocese Limoges
Religieuses du Bon Pasteur
Sœurs de Saint Joseph
Sœurs de la Miséricorde Beaulieu
Sœurs Hospitalières de Saint Alexis
Soeurs de Bon-Secours
Maison de Charité de Saint Vincent
de Paul
Congrégation du Sacré Cœur de Marie
Couvent Saint-Joseph
Hospice des orphelins, dit de la
Miséricorde,
Ecole Saint Joseph
Institution catholique Saint-Jean
Priests
Abbé Georges Julien
Abbé Achille Glorieux
Abbé Paul Elias
Abbé Robert Bengel
Abbé Henri Galice
Abbé Jean Sigala

Limoges

Château de la Juvénie
Cadouin
Bergerac
Périgueux
Allanche

Saint-Saud-La Coussière

Diocèse of Rodez
Abbé Jules Soulié Rodez
Abbé Louis Codis Grèzes

LIMORE YAGIL
Abbé Blanadet Espalion
Abbé Fugit Espalion
Abbé Emile Cance Camboulazet
Abbé Lauret Capdenac
Abbé Gayraud Saint-Martin
Abbé Abel Thiard Vic-Fezensac
Abbé Chalendar Decazeville
Abbé Philémon Dumoulin Vimenet
Msgr. Odilon Carles Espinasse
Priests
1. Abbé Louis Codis
2. Abbé Blanadet
3. Abbé Fugit
4. Abbé Emile Cance
5. Abbé Chalendar
6. Abbé Philémon Dumoulin
7. Abbé Lauret
8. Abbé Gayraud
9. Abbé Abel Thiard
10. Abbé Bétous
11. Abbé Kooyman,
12. Abbé Arthur Sentex
13. Msgr. Odilon Carles
14. Msgr. Le Clan

Camboulazet
Decazeville
Vimenet
Capedenac
Saint-Martin
Vic-Fezensac
Lecoture
Lectoure
Lectoure
Millau

Diocese of Paris
Sœurs de Notre Dame de Sion
Filles de la Charité de Saint Vincent
de Paul
Sœurs Carmélites.
Sœurs de la Doctrine Chrétienne
Sœurs Dominicaines
Sœurs de Marie Auxiliatrice
Congrégation du Sacré-Coeur
Sœurs du Sacré-Cœur de Jésus de
Coutances
Sœurs de Notre-Dame de Charité—
Paris
Sœurs de Notre de la Retraite
(Notre-Dame du Cénacle)
Sœurs Franciscaines Missionnaires
Sœurs de la Sainte-Agonie
Petites Sœurs des Pauvres
Sœurs de la Visitation—rue Vaugirard

Paris—12° arrondissement
Paris
Paris—18° arrondissement

Paris
Paris
Paris

147

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BISHOPS IN FRANCE AND THE RESCUE OF JEWS

Sœurs de Saint Thomas de Villeneuve
Sœurs Servantes du Sacré Coeur
Pères de Notre-Dame de Sion
Dominicains—rue Saint Jacques
Paris
Couvent des Franciscains
Paroisse Saint-Laurent, (Xe)
Paroisse Saint-Martin-des-Champs, (Xe)
Paroisse Saint-Vincent-de-Paul (Xe)
Paroisse Saint-Marcel (XIIIe)
Paroisse Sainte-Hippolyte (XVIe)
Eglise Notre-Dame de Paris
Eglise Saint-Etienne du Mont
Eglise Orthodoxe
L’œuvre des Orphelins d’Auteuil
Priests
1. Père Théomir Devaux
2. Abbé Raymond Dumortier
3. Abbé Lombard
4. Chanoine Lancrenon
5. Père Daniel Pézeril
6. Abbé Michel Boucard
7. Abbé Buchère de Lépinois,
8. Abbé Gilson
9. Abbé Verdrie
10. Abbé Raymond Dumoutier
11. Abbé Louis Canet
12. Abbé Michel Boucard
13. Père Emile Joseph Planckaert
14. Père Henri Diffiné
15. Père Hennnecque
16. Père Dimitri Klépinine
17. Père Georges Chomkine
18. Père Netchaev Athanase
19. Père Michel Belsky
20. Père Louis-Jean Beirnaert
21. Père Jacques Sommet
22. R.P. Desobry
23. Père Joseph Guihaire
24. Abbé Jean Rodhain

Paris
Paroisse Sainte Marguerite d’évacuation
Paroisse Saint-Germain-des-Prés (VIe)
Paroisse Saint-Germain-des-Prés (VIe)
Saint-Etienne-du-Mont (VIe)
Paroisse Saint-Sulpice, (VIe)
Paroisse Sainte-Clothilde (VIIe)
Paroisse Sainte-Clothilde (VIe)
Paroisse Sainte-Clothilde (VIe)
Paroisse Sainte-Marguerite (XIe)
Paroisse de Saint Pierre du GrosCaillou (VII)

Eglise Orthodoxe
Eglise Orthodoxe
Eglise Orthodoxe
Eglise Orthodoxe

For more information, see Limore Yagil’s other works (2005, 2010-2011, 2014,
and her new book in 2022).

Miscellany
Activities of the Association of Church Archivists
in Poland
ROBERT KUFEL*
In an effort to preserve an accurate reflection on its past, all institutions
must be prepared to maintain the integrity of their archival resources.
The following article shall trace the formation of the church archives in
Poland by considering the various sources of their documents, the people
collecting them, and the problems particular to their situation. To that
end, what constitutes an ecclesiastical document will also be defined. In
order to sketch a complete picture, a detailed history of the formation of
the Society of Church Archivists (SAK being the Polish acronym) and
an account of its activities will be thoroughly set down, along with the
professional recognition that it has obtained from other institutions.
Keywords: Church documents, ecclesiastical archives, Polish
Church history, Polish archival societies
Introduction
The Catholic Church, like any institution, produces records that document its activities and preserve its memory.1 As the years pass, the
Church’s archival resources grow, including not only the records produced
by its own offices, but also those inherited or acquired by other institutions.
The proper place for the collection of ecclesiastical resources is the church
archive, which organizes, inventories, preserves, and makes the collected
material available.2
* The Reverend Robert Romuald Kufel is the director of the Diocesan Archives in Zielona
Góra and, since 2016, he has been the president of the Board of the Association of Church
Archivists in Poland. He is the author of numerous articles and books on church history, administration, archives, art, and architecture. His email address is: R.Kufel@diecezjazg.pl.
1. Tadeusz Grygier, “Problemy regulacji prawnej archiwistyki [Issues in the Legal Regulations of Archives],” Archiwa, Biblioteki i Muzea Kościelne [hereafter ABMK], 59 (Lublin,
1990), 153 (ABMK is a semi-annual).
2. Robert Kufel, “Stan polskiej archiwistyki kościelnej. Próba oceny [The state of Polish
ecclesiastical archival science. An attempt at assessment],” ABMK, 89 (2008), 43.

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ACTIVITIES OF THE ASSOCIATION OF CHURCH ARCHIVISTS

Archives do not merely consist of their resources, but also the specific
people who work in them. It was with them in mind that an initiative was
born to establish a structure that would be a forum for people rather than
institutions. As Bishop Jan Kopiec said: “What we need is a platform for
meeting one another and mutual cooperation, rather than a formal definition of the tasks of institutionally treated church archives.”3
Outline of the History of Church Archives on Polish Territory
The beginnings of Polish church archives date back to the twelfth century. Church archives, which were collected by cathedrals, monasteries,
and collegiate and parish churches, were divided into the categories of
diocesan and monastic. Diocesan compilations were grouped into three
collections: higher, middle, and lower (particular). The first group included
the episcopal collection as well as those of the general consistory and cathedral chapters. The second group included the archives of collegiate chapters. The third group consisted of deanery and parish records.4 The earliest
monastic documents were created in the monasteries themselves, where
they were stored next to the valuables in treasuries.5
The group of episcopal records included records of the activities of
individual bishops (episcopalia), the establishment of diocesan offices,
archdeaconries, deaneries, parishes, canonries, collegiate churches, vicariates, churches, and confraternities, records of the visitation of churches and
parishes (visitationes), pastoral letters and synodal statutes, as well as
accounts of episcopal property and inventories of such property. The general and district consistory offices produced a series of official records (acta
consistorii, acta officialia). The most important archives of cathedral and collegiate chapters contained statutes and acts of chapter activity (acta capituli), installation books of individual canons, liturgical acts, accounts, and
business inventories. The lower clergy of cathedrals and chapters (vicars,
mansionaries, psalterists, penitentiaries) also had their own offices and

3. Jan Kopiec, “Potrzeba Stowarzyszenia Archiwistów Kościelnych w Polsce [The Need
for an Association of Church Archivists in Poland],” Archiva Ecclesiastica, 1 (2004), 48.
4. Stanisław Librowski, “Archiwa Kościoła katolickiego w Polsce [Archives of the
Catholic Church in Poland],” Catholic Encyclopedia, editor Franciszek Gryglewicz [and
others], 20 vols. (Lublin 1989–2014), vol. 1 (1989), 877–79, here 877.
5. Hieronim Eugeniusz Wyczawski, Polskie archiwa kościelne, Księga tysiąclecia katolicyzmu w Polsce [Polish church archives, The Book of the Millennium of Catholicism in
Poland], editor Marian Rechowicz, 3 vols. (Lublin 1969), part II: Kościół a nauka i sztuka [The
Church and Science and Art], edited by Andrzej Wojtkowski and Czesław Zgorzelski, 59.

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151

archives. The main series of records of the lower clergy were records of clerical activities, records of choir activities, and accounts.
Deans appeared on Polish soil in the Middle Ages. They were called
rural deans or, less frequently, archpresbyters. Decanal records appeared
only in the seventeenth century. In the strict sense of the word, one can talk
about decanal archives from the time of the partitions as well as the nineteenth century. Deans did not have clear instructions regarding the keeping of records or regulations for their archiving, so they had to be guided
by their own inventiveness. Also, the deanery archives did not have a permanent location, because the deans were pastors of different parishes. The
group of deanery records included, among other items, records of congregations and visitations conducted by deans, inventories of churches in the
deanery, personal files of deanery priests, and collections of circular letters
and decrees of ecclesiastical and secular authorities.6
Parish archives, understood in a broad sense, existed in all parish
churches. As for the contents of these archives, it is difficult to give detailed
information on all the collections. Rather one can only provide a general
indication of what can be found in them. Many parish archives disappeared, either in whole or in part, during various historical events and cataclysms: wars, evolution of nations, thefts and fires, and through the negligence of individuals who did not know the scientific value of the archives.
What remains in the parish archives can be grouped as follows:
• Diplomas (erection privileges, other endowment documents, foundation documents related to the parish, prebends, brevia with indulgences, documents of consecration of church and altars, etc.).
• Decreta reforniationis left by the bishop’s visitator or complete
excerpts of visitation minutes from the Libri visitutionum.
• Decreta reforniationis of the deans or copies of the minutes of their
visitations.
• Pastoral letters and circulars (currenda) of the Ordinariate.
• Property books with various contents (copies of documents of
endowment, descriptions of beneficiaries’ property, copies of
bishop’s records, copies of records of ongoing proceedings, property
inventories, accounts, excerpts and extracts from the Liber beneficiorum of the diocese, etc.

6. Librowski, “Archiwa Kościoła katolickiego [Archives of the Catholic Church in
Poland],” cols. 877–78.

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ACTIVITIES OF THE ASSOCIATION OF CHURCH ARCHIVISTS
• Metric registers, which came into common use after the Council of
Trent (second half of the sixteenth century).7

The monastic archives consisted of the archives of the provinces and of
the individual monasteries. The provincial archives contained, among other
things, copies of bulls, breviaries, and other papal documents; records of
the provincial government meetings, personal records of the monks,
accounts of the pastoral, educational, and charitable activities of the individual monasteries, records of the provincial revenues and expenditures,
and chronicles or synthetic histories of the particular order, province, and
monastery. For example, the Bernardines, Dominicans, Franciscans,
Jesuits, Capuchins, Reformati, Missionaries of St. Vincent, Piarists, and
Pauline monks have produced rich collections of provincial records in
Poland.8 The monastic archives included, not exclusively, copies of relic
certificates, indulgences, consecrations of churches and altars, personnel
files (lists of novices and the professed), minutes of sessions of the convent’s board, also known as the chapter, disquisitions or consulta, economic
files, and inventories of land and monastic buildings.9
The presentation of monastic archives is not easy, since one is dealing
with individual monasteries that differed in their systems, activities, and
assets as well as in their practices and customs of record-keeping. Monastic
resources are older than provincial ones.
In general, from the twelfth to the eighteenth century, church archives
were well cared for by the clerical authorities. They were located in the
vaults, sacristies, or chapter-houses of cathedral churches, together with
book collections and other valuables. The collections were kept in locked
chests or closets. The collection was looked after by clergymen delegated by
their superiors. In the eighteenth century, the situation of church archives
changed significantly. Invaders, alongside the liquidation of church institutions and offices, stole, scattered, or destroyed many ecclesial Polish documents. After the partitions, some dioceses (e.g. Gniezno and Włocławek,
Kuyavia, and Pomerania) themselves transported files, whose previous place
of storage had been changed by the invaders. However, the Diocese of
Cracow, on whose territory the bishoprics of Kielce, Lublin, Sandomierz
7. Hieronim Eugeniusz Wyczawski, Wprowadzenie do studiów w archiwach kościelnych
[An Introduction to the Study of Church Archives], (Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, 1989), 94–95.
8. Librowski, “Archiwa Kościoła katolickiego [Archives of the Catholic Church in
Poland],” col. 878.
9. Wyczawski, Polskie archiwa kościelne, [Polish church archives], II, 83.

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and Tarnów were established at the beginning of the nineteenth century,
did not transfer any records from its repository to those mentioned above.
In the post-partition period at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries, some church circles felt the need to archive files produced before
the partitions of Poland. However, this did not spur the creation of separate
church archives, which are nowadays defined as specialized institutions
established to collect, preserve, process, store, and make archival materials
available to the public. The records of the abolished offices and institutions
were transferred to other church institutions, where they were stored in the
archives’ repositories. They were not often accessed by historians.
Polish archival science and church archives began to develop as Polish
society and the Polish state regained independence in 1918. One might
even say that it was initiated by the Decree of the Head of State as of February 7, 1919 on the organization of state archives and the maintenance of
archives.10 It was at that time that new people appeared alongside numerous theoreticians of archival knowledge, such as Kazimierz Konarski.11 The
establishment of state archives was followed by the organization of church
archives, often starting from scratch.
The first to do so was the Diocese of Przemyśl. As early as 1918, the
clerical authorities entrusted the task of organizing the diocesan archives
and taking care of the records collected therein to Rev. Dr. Jan Kwolek
(1885–1958). Soon Father Kwolek became one of the best specialists in
archival science. He announced the introduction of changes in the inter-war
period in the following sentence: “In a revived Homeland we wish to have
revived church archives as well; we wish to put them in order and revive scientific activity in them for the good of the Church and the Homeland.”12 It
is worth mentioning that Father Kwolek was also an official of the bishop’s
court, a scholastic of the cathedral chapter, and a professor at the seminary
in Przemyśl. From 1927 to 1955, he served as director of the Przemyśl
diocesan archives. In the seminary, he taught classes in archival science and
engaged the seminarians in helping to organize files. He co-founded the
section on church archives in the monthly journal Ateneum Kapłańskie.13

10. Journal of Laws of the Republic of Poland, 14 (1919), item 182.
11. Kazimierz Konarski, Nowożytna archiwistyka polska i jej zadania [Modern Polish
archivistics and its aims], (Warsaw, 1929), 5–11.
12. Jan Kwolek, “Archiwa-przeszłości skarbnice [Archival Treasures],” Ateneum
Kapłańskie, 36 (1935), 524.
13. Julian Ataman, “Ks. Jan Kwolek 1885–1958 [Ks. Jan Kwolek 1885–1958],” ABMK,
1 (1959), notebook 1, p. 159–61.

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ACTIVITIES OF THE ASSOCIATION OF CHURCH ARCHIVISTS

On October 13, 1925, Cardinal Edmund Dalbor established the first
Polish archdiocesan archives14 in Poznań with Father Edmund Majkowski
as its director.15 This was a good opportunity for the scholarly community
(especially historians) to arouse wider interest in the subject of church
archives. At the Fourth Congress of Polish Historians, held in Poznań on
December 6–8, 1925, Dr. Kazimierz Kaczmarczyk, director of the local
state archives, delivered a paper entitled, “Organizing the Diocesan
Archives,” thus initiating a reform intended to give the diocesan archives
the character of scientific and service institutions. The participants in the
Congress made an appeal to all the ordinary bishops in Poland to follow
the Cardinal’s example and establish diocesan archives.16 In 1927, thanks
to Father Jan Kwolek, the Archives of the Diocese of Przemyśl were
opened. Later on, other archives were created: in 1928 in Płock, in 1931 in
Lwów, in 1937 in Łódź and in 1939 in Kielce. In the interwar period, six
diocesan archives were created for twenty-one dioceses in Poland.17
It should be added that the Archdiocesan Archives in Wrocław, which
existed within the present-day borders of Poland, were outside its territory
in the interwar period. It was opened on July 1, 1896, during the reign of
Cardinal Georg Kopp. It is currently the oldest of the existing diocesan
archives in Poland.18
In 1927, Rev. Dr. Jan Kwolek described the resources of the church
archives of Przemyśl.19 A year later, a brochure on the metric extracts was
14. Pope Benedict XV required bishops to establish archives in their dioceses. He left
to the bishops the question of how to organize the archives, without dictating how they
should proceed. Pius X, Codex Iurii Canonici, compiled by order of Pope Benedict XV, actoritate promulgatus, preface by Petri Card. Gasparri (Friburgi Brisgoviae-Ratisbonae, 1918).
15. Feliks Lenort, Z dziejów organizacji i zasobu Archiwum Archidiecezjalnego w Poznaniu [From the history of the organization and resources of the Archdiocesan Archives in
Poznań], (Lublin, 1967), 70; Leszek Wilczyński, “Archiwum Archidiecezjalne w Poznaniu w
latach 1925–1939 [Archdiocesan Archives in Poznań in the years 1925–1939],” Archiwariusz:
Bulletin of the Archdiocese Archive in Poznań, 1 (2005), 11–53.
16. Stanisław Librowski, “Dotychczasowe osiągnięcia w dziedzinie reformy organizacji
archiwów kościelnych w Polsce [Previous achievements in the reform of the organization of
church archives in Poland],” ABMK, 3 (1961), notebook 1–2, p. 12.
17. Librowski, “Archiwa Kościoła katolickiego w Polsce [Archives of the Catholic
Church in Poland],” col. 879.
18. Wincenty Urban, “Archiwum Archidiecezjalne we Wrocławiu [Archdiocesan
Archives in Wrocław],” Archeion, 25 (1956), 309–20; Wincenty Urban, “Katalog Archiwum
Archidiecezjalnego we Wrocławiu [Catalogue of the Archdiocesan Archives in Wrocław],”
ABMK, 10 (1965), 16.
19. Jan Kwolek, “Archiwa diecezji przemyskiej obrządku łacińskiego [Archives of the
Roman Catholic Diocese of Przemyśl],” Kronika Diecezji Przemyskiej, 27 (1927), 223–76.

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published.20 In the journal Archeion (1928), he published a dissertation on
the scientific organization of church archives.21 Each year he wrote reports
on the activities of the archives, which he published in the “Chronicle of
the Diocese of Przemyśl.” In the December 1936 issue of the Ateneum
Kapłańskie, there appeared an article on the diocesan archives22 that,
together with earlier articles, became a guide to the holdings.
Dr. Kwolk’s work and publications inspired scholars and contributed
to the development of ecclesial archives. Comparisons of archives were
published by Edward Chwalewik23 and Karol Buczek, based on a survey
conducted in 1927.24 In this period, the most important authors of
monographs on archival matters were: Father Józef Nowacki25 from
Poznań, Father Henryk Rybus from Łódź, Father Władysław Kwiatkowski26 from Warsaw, Wincenty Łopaciński27 from Łódź, Stanisław
Zajączkowski28 from Lviv, Kazimierz Kaczmarczyk,29 and Tadeusz
20. Jan Kwolek, “Ekstrakty metrykalne w Archiwum Diecezjalnym Przemyskim
[Metric extracts in the Przemyśl Diocesan Archives],” Kronika Diecezji Przemyskiej, 28
(1928), 231–49.
21. Jan Kwolek, “Naukowa organizacja archiwów diecezjalnych [The scientific organization of church archives],” Archeion, 4 (1928), 15–35; Jan Kwolek, “Naukowa organizacja
archiwów diecezjalnych [The scientific organization of church archives],” Nasza Myśl Teologiczna, 1 (1930), 1–37.
22. Jan Kwolek, “Archiwum Diecezjalne przy Kurii Biskupiej ob. łac. w Przemyślu
[Diocesan Archives at the Bishop’s Curia of the Ob. Latin Province of Przemyśl],” Ateneum
Kapłańskie, 38 (1936), 514–26.
23. Edward Chwalewik, Zbiory polskie, bibljoteki . . . i inne zbiory pamiątek przeszłości w
ojczyznie i na obczyznie w porządku alfabet. według miejscowości ułoź [Polish Collections], 2
vols. (Warsaw 1926–27).
24. Karol Buczek, “Archiwa polskie [Polish Archives],” Nauka Polska, 7 (1912), 1–97;
supplement to vol. 7: Nauka Polska, 12 (1930), 1–85.
25. Jan Nowacki, “Archiwum Archidiecezjalne w Poznaniu [Archdiocesan Archives in
Poznań],” Ateneum Kapłańskie, 38 (1936), 198–205.
26. Władysław Kwiatkowski, “Archiwum Archidiecezjalne Warszawskie [Archdiocesan Archives of Warsaw],” Wiadomości Archidiecezji Warszawskiej, 26 (1936), 283–85.
27. Wincenty Łopaciński, “Statut i regulaminy Muzeum Diecezjalnego w Łodzi [Statute
and Regulations of the Diocesan Museum in Łódź],” Archeion, 15 (1937–38), 132–34.
28. Librowski, “Dotychczasowe osiągnięcia [Previous achievements],” pp. 12–14, notebook 1–2.
29. Kazimierz Kaczmarczyk , Gustaw Kowalski, Katalog Archiwum Opactwa Cystersów
w Mogile [Catalog of the Archives of the Cistercian Abbey in Mogiła], (Kraków 1919), 1–
104; Kazimierz Kaczmarczyk, “Archiwum oo. Paulinów na Jasnej Górze w Częstochowie
[Archives of the Pauline Fathers at Jasna Góra in Częstochowa],” Archeion, 6–7 (1930), 123–
59; Kazimierz Kaczmarczyk, “Egzemplarz częstochowski inwentarza Archiwum Koronnego
z r. 1613 [A copy of the Częstochowa inventory of the Crown Archive from 1613],” Archeion,
14 (1936), 36–47.

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Glemma.30 The issue of church legislation concerning archives was dealt
with by Władysław Abraham.31
The interwar period was a turning point in the development of church
archives. A systematic ordering of church collections was started, and
research laboratories were opened in order to make the resources available.
After the end of World War II, Poland found itself in a new political
reality. Government authorities subjected archives, including ecclesial
ones, to marginal treatment. It looked at the Church and its resources as
remnants of feudalism, and thus had to be destroyed. To this end, the
authorities sought to confiscate completely the Church’s archives, whose
further fate was to depend solely on state officials. The Church had to find
its place in the new political reality and face the actions of the authorities
aimed at annihilating ecclesial administration. Among the administrative
activities of the church authorities, maintaining an autonomous structure
and providing personnel for pastoral activities were undoubtedly more
important. It is understandable that in such a situation, as a question of
priorities, the Church could not deal with archival matters.
In such a situation, the pioneering work of the post-war church
archivists, such as Father Stanislaw Librowski and Father Hieronim
Eugeniusz Wyczawski, O.F.M., who, despite the hardships of the last
war, were able to summon up their energy for creative work, deserves
admiration and appreciation.32 Despite enormous difficulties, the Archdiocesan Archives in Wrocław resumed its work after 1945.33 Archives
were established in Pelplin and Włocławek.34 New theoreticians of church
chronicles also appeared, among them Rev. Stanisław Librowski from
Włocławek and Rev. Wincenty Urban from Wrocław.35 Father Librowski
30. Tadeusz Glemma, “O archiwach warmińskich we Fromborku [On the Warmian
archives in Frombork],” Archeion, 9 (1931), 19–35.
31. Władysław Abraham, “Ustawodawstwo kościelne o archiwach [Church legislation
on archives],” Archeion, 4 (1928), 1–14.
32. “Calendar of the life, sufferings, activities, works, and recognition of Father Stanislaw Librowski,” ABMK, 58 (1989), 455–56.
33. Wincenty Urban, “Archiwum Archidiecezjalne we Wrocławiu [Archdiocesan
Archives in Wrocław],” Archeion, 25 (1956), 309–20.
34. Stanisław Librowski, Archiwum Diecezjalne we Włocławku 1945–1958 [Diocesan
Archives in Włocławek 1945–1958], (Włocławek 1958), 2–10.
35. Józef Pater, “Życie i działalność Ks. Biskupa Prof. Wincentego Urbana (1911–
1983) [Life and Work of Bishop Prof. Vincent Urban (1911–1983)],” in: „Misericordia et Veritas.” Księga pamiątkowa ku czci Księdza Biskupa Wincentego Urbana [Misericordia et Veritas.

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took part in the Meeting of Historians of Pomerania and Prussia on February 19–20, 1947 in Toruń, where he delivered a paper entitled: “Diocesan Archives in Włocławek.” In 1950, he was the only clergyman to participate in the conference of archival and library researchers in Warsaw.
At the beginning of the fifties, the education of students in this discipline
reached the universities. Father Librowski was a lecturer of auxiliary sciences of Church History at the Catholic University of Lublin. From 1954,
Father Wyczawski lectured one hour a week on Introduction to the Study
of Church Archives at the Faculty of Church History, a sub-department
of the Faculty of Theology, and at the Faculty of Law of the Academy of
Catholic Theology in Warsaw.
At the request of the Episcopate and with the support of the General
Director of the State Archives, Father Romuald Gustaw, O.F.M., Director
of the University Library (BU) of the Catholic University of Lublin, organized a course for diocesan and religious archivists from September 3–15, 1956.
On September 12, at a three-hour discussion meeting, the course participants
made a proposal to establish an information center for church archivists. The
bishops received this proposal with kindness and acceptance.36
Against this background, the creation of the Center for Archives,
Libraries, and Museums on December 20, 1956, became an important
event dubbed The Centre of Archives, Libraries and Museums of the
Church (ABMK Centre) at the Catholic University of Lublin. The initiator and creator of the ABMK Center was Father Romauld Gustaw,
O.F.M. The first director of the Centre was Fr. Eugeniusz Reczek, S.J.,
who was succeeded in March 1958 by Fr. Witold Nowodworski.37 The
statutory tasks of the center were as follows:38
(a) constant communication with archives, libraries, and church museums;
(b) recording and providing descriptions of church collections;

A memorial book in memory of Rev. Wincenty Urban], eds. Jozef Mandziuk and Urban
Wincenty (Wrocław, 1986), 18–21.
36. Stanisław Librowski, “Pierwszy kurs archiwalny dla pracowników archiwów
kościelnych przeprowadzony w Lublinie w r. 1956 [The first archival course for church
archival workers held in Lublin in 1956],” Archeion, 27 (1957), 325–33
37. Stanisław Librowski, “Ośrodek Archiwów, Bibliotek i Muzeów Kościelnych
[Center for Church Archives, Libraries, and Museums],” ABMK, 1 (1959), pp. 12–14, notebook 1.
38. Stanisław Librowski, Statut Ośrodka Archiwów, Bibliotek i Muzeów Kościelnych przy
KUL [Statute of the Center for Church Archives, Libraries and Museums at the Catholic
University of Lublin], (Lublin 1958), 1–4.

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(c) photographing and microfilming of the more valuable archival,
library, and museum objects or those currently needed for scientific
research work
(d) initiating and supporting scientific research;
(e) raising the professional qualifications of the staff of archives,
libraries, and church museums;
(f) methodical bibliographical advice to assist in the development of
collections
(g) counseling on the conservation of church collections.

In order to fulfill its statutory tasks, the center intended to carry out
activities on many levels that were available in the political and material
conditions of the time. These included:
(a) maintaining direct contact with archives, libraries, and museums
(correspondence and field work of the ABMK Center management);
(b) organizing courses and conferences for staff;
(c) brokering the exchange of duplicates;
(d) maintaining a microfilm and photographic station;
(e) publishing its own periodical;
(f) preparing queries and bibliographical lists;
(g) establishing and maintaining central catalogs of church collections.39

At a meeting of a special commission, convened on October 22, 1958, the
ABMK Center was separated from the University Library and given the
status of an independent scientific and service university institution. From
1959, it began to publish a periodical entitled, Archives, Museums, and
Church Libraries.40 It should be mentioned that it was the third periodical
of this type in the world (following Scrinium in Spain and Archiva Ecclesiae
in Italy). The center was located in the building of the Catholic University
of Lublin (BU KUL) at 27 Chopina Street. Prof. Józef Rybczyk, ViceChancellor of the Catholic University of Lublin, was appointed director of
the new institution. His deputy, Rev. Stanisław Librowski, became editorin-chief of ABMK.41 The editor-in-chief prepared annual reports on the
39. Stanisław Librowski, “Ośrodek Archiwów, Bibliotek i Muzeów Kościelnych [Center
for Church Archives, Libraries, and Museums],” ABMK, 1 (1959), 16–17, notebook 1.
40. In the years 1959–1961 the journal ABMK was published as a quarterly (from the
1st to the 3rd volume inclusive), from 1 January 1962 to the present it has been issued as a
biannual. Maria Dębowska, Ośrodek Archiwów, Bibliotek i Muzeów Kościelnych Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego Jana Pawła II 1956–2006 [The Centre of Archives, Libraries and Church
Museums of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin 1956–2006], (Lublin 2006), 107.
41. Stanisław Librowski, “Ośrodek Archiwów, Bibliotek i Muzeów Kościelnych [Center
for Church Archives, Libraries, and Museums],” ABMK, 1 (1959), 15–16, notebook 1.

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activities of the center, which were printed in the periodical ABMK.42 The
periodical was published twice a year. It published, among other things,
inventories, catalogs, and guides to the holdings of church archives, as well
as articles on individual archives and on the problems of organizing, valuing, and conserving files.43
On the initiative of the ABMK Center and with the support of the
Polish Episcopate, the First Convention of Church Archivists, Librarians,
and Museologists was held on June 26–27, 1957 in Jasna Góra, Częstochowa. The main aim of the convention was to assess the state and needs of
archives, libraries, and museums, and to prepare a program of work for the
future in these fields.44 Three parallel papers were presented. Fr. Romuald
Gustaw presented a paper on libraries,45 Fr. Władysław Smoleń on museums,46 and Fr. Stanisław Librowski devoted his paper to archives.47 Father
Librowski’s paper was divided into two parts. In the first part, discussing the
basic organizational principles, the speaker emphasized that an archive is an
institution that should have appropriate premises, qualified staff, and a fixed
budget. Its employees should have appropriate professional qualifications.
In the second part, Father Librowski advocated for the creation of new
diocesan and provincial religious archives that would function on the basis
of statutes and regulations approved by ecclesiastical authority.48 He called
for organizing resources and making them available for research purposes.
He also emphasized the need for the conservation and microfilming of
archival materials. Finally, he mentioned the cooperation between the
42. Stanisław Librowski, “Sprawozdanie z działalności Ośrodka za lata 1958/59
[Report on the activities of the center for 1958/59],” ABMK, 1 (1959), 131–32, notebook 2.
43. Ryszard Kiersnowski, “Nauki pomocnicze historii w okresie powojennym [The auxiliary sciences of history in the postwar period],” Kwartalnik Historyczny, editor Jerzy Michalski, Warsaw 1 (1987), 314.
44. Stanisław Librowski, “Pierwszy Zjazd Archiwistów, Bibliotekarzy i Muzeologów
Kościelnych. 1. Przebieg Zjazdu [The First Congress of Church Archivists, Librarians and
Museologists. 1 The Course of the Congress],” ABMK, 1 (1959), 18–20, notebook 1.
45. Romuald Gustaw, “Stan i potrzeby bibliotek kościelnych oraz program pracy na
najbliższy okres [The condition and requirements of church libraries and a program of work
for the coming period],” ABMK, 1 (1959), 34–42, notebook 1.
46. Władysław Smoleń, “Stan i potrzeby muzeów kościelnych oraz program pracy na
najbliższy okres [State and needs of church museums and work program for the nearest
period],” ABMK, 1 (1959), 43–56, notebook 1.
47. Stanisław Librowski, “Stan i potrzeby archiwów kościelnych oraz program pracy na
najbliższy okres [State and needs of church archives and work program for the nearest
period],”ABMK, 1 (1959), 20–33, notebook 1.
48. Stanisław Librowski, Projekt statutu i regulaminu archiwum diecezjalnego [Draft
Statutes and Regulations of the Diocesan Archives], (Lublin 1960), 1–5.

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ABMK Center and the Head Office of the State Archives, e.g., the
exchange of experience and training of personnel. Father Librowski’s speech
met with the good will and support of the convention participants.
The convention was a very important event in the history of the postwar Church in Poland and the stimulant needed by church archivists to
work under the difficult Polish political situation. On the fifth anniversary
of the congress, Father Librowski wrote:
Today, less than five years after that congress, much has changed for the
better in this field. Both diocesan and religious authorities have since then
shown much understanding for the needs of the archives under their jurisdiction and a permanent fund has been set aside everywhere; archival
facilities have been renovated and improved. . . . Finally, we have our own
organ, Archives, Libraries, and Church Museums, which has gained recognition both in Poland and abroad and in which we publish methodological and descriptive papers, inventories of archival materials, and sources.49

The outcome of the convention was an increase in the number of diocesan and religious archives. In 1974, Father Librowski wrote that in Poland
there were various archdiocesan archives, twenty diocesan ones, and thirty
to forty significant male and sixty to seventy important female religious
archives (approximate data). In 1989, the same author listed twenty-four
diocesan and fifteen more religious archives. Presumably, there may be several hundred monastic archives together with those of the abbots.50
In 2002, there were thirty-two diocesan archives (including curia and
chapters) and seventy-nine religious archives.51 The “Address Guide” published by the National Archives Administration (NADA) in 2004 lists thirtytwo diocesan and fifty-seven monastic archives.52 The reason for the discrepancy in numbers between the two guides is the fact that not all ecclesiastical
institutions have notified the NDAP of the existence of their archives.

49. Stanisław Librowski, “Ośrodek Archiwów, Bibliotek i Muzeów Kościelnych [Center
for Church Archives, Libraries, and Museums],” ABMK, 1 (1959), 18–19, notebook 1.
50. The exact number of particular archives (decanal, parish, and monastery archives) is
unknown because no one has kept records of them. See Stanisław Librowski, “Dotychczasowe
osiągnięcia w dziedzinie reformy organizacji archiwów kościelnych w Polsce [Current state of
access to resources held in church archives],” ABMK, 28 (1974), 5–8.
51. Maria Dębowska, Kościelne archiwa historyczne w Polsce [Archives of the Catholic
Church in Poland. Directory], (Kielce, 2002). (The guide contains a list of diocesan archives
and major religious archives with addresses, personnel, and resources.)
52. Archives in Poland: Address Guide, NDAP (Warsaw 2004). (This is a directory of
state archives also containing the data and addresses of personnel.)

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The basis for the functioning of the archives of the Roman Catholic
Church are the norms contained in the Code of Canon Law (CCL),
promulgated by Pope John Paul II in 1983, in particular canon 486, paragraphs 1–3, canon 491, paragraphs 1–2, canon 535, paragraph 4, and
canon 1284, paragraph 2, no. 9.53 Since the promulgation of the CCL, a
series of diocesan synods have been held in Polish dioceses, the purpose of
which was, among other things, to implement the norms of the code. The
synods reiterated according to the CCC that the diocesan bishop is to take
special care of the church archives within the diocese. All the archives of
diocesan institutions are subject to him.54
The 1983 norms of the Code of Canon Law list three types of
archives: the curial archive, which is called the diocesan archive in the
Code, the secret (private) archive, and the historical archive. According to
the CCC, the secret archive can only be used with the permission of the
diocesan bishop. Each diocese is expected to have its own central historical
archive, whose purpose is to collect the documentation of the episcopal
curia, cathedral chapters, collegiate chapters, and the decanal and parish
collections. This documentation constitutes a national heritage and plays a
fundamental role in historical research.
In addition to the archives of the diocesan level mentioned above,
independent ecclesiastical legal entities, e.g. parishes and deaneries, have
their own files. Synodal records for individual Polish dioceses do
likewise.55
The special importance and role of archives in the life of the Church
was recalled by Pope St. John Paul II in a circular letter to the diocesan
bishops entitled Pastoral Function of Church Archives (1997). In the letter,
the Pope indicated, among many things, the role of the Church in caring
for the archival heritage, mentioned the proper preservation of archival

53. Józef Marecki, “Archiwa kościelne i ich funkcjonowanie w obecnym prawodawstwie Kościoła katolickiego [Archives of the Church and their functioning in the current legislation of the Catholic Church],” in: Lex et praxis: Prawodawstwo archiwalne [Lex et praxis.
Archival legislation], ed. Jozef Marecki (Cracow, 2007), 55–66.
54. Mieczysław Różański, “Archiwa w ustawodawstwie synodalnym polskim po
wprowadzeniu nowego Kodeksu Prawa Kościelnego [Archives in the Polish Synodal Legislation (after the introduction of the new Code of Church Law],” in: Lex et praxis. Prawodawstwo archiwalne [Lex et praxis. Archival legislation], 83–85.
55. Różański, “Archiwa w ustawodawstwie synodalnym polskim [Archives in the
Polish Synodal Legislation],” 87.

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materials, and drew attention to the value of documentary heritage in the
area of historical culture.56
In the 1990s, cooperation between church and state archivists developed. In this field, several joint initiatives are worthy of note, such as the
organization of conventions of archivists, the participation of church representatives in lay organizations of archivists, etc. At this point, one should
mention the late Father Konrad Lutyński, former director of the Archdiocesan Archives in Poznań, who in the years 1997–2002 was a member
of the Board of the Association of Polish Archivists (SAP).57 His death on
June 5, 2002 prevented him from participating in the Fourth General
Meeting of Polish Archivists organized by SAP on September 12–14,
2002 in the Castle of Pomeranian Dukes in Szczecin. The director managed to prepare the program, Section III—Ecclesiastical Archives, which
included six papers representing a range of issues related to the archives
and archival records of Catholic and other Christian churches. After his
death, the session was chaired by Roman Stelmach.58
One should appreciate the efforts made by the NDAP and lay staff at
universities (e.g. Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, University of
Silesia) to integrate archivists from various church institutions and to provide
opportunities for the joint education of specialist archival staff. For example,
the Toruń center has stepped forward to meet these tasks and takes into
account the specificity of church archives in its educational program. Secular
universities have opened their doors to church archivists who put their
acquired knowledge into practice in diocesan and religious archives.
One very important element of cooperation is the employment of
church archivists at institutions of higher learning or having them give lectures on church records to history students at humanities faculties as part of
56. Francesco Marchisano, “Duszpasterska funkcja archiwów kościelnych. List okólny
do Biskupów Diecezjalnych, Watykan, dnia 2 lutego 1997 [The Pastoral Function of Church
Archives, Circular Letter to the Diocesan Bishops, Vatican City, February 2, 1997],” trans.
Rafal Rybacki, in the series of books: Pomoce archiwalno-historyczne z okazji 85 rocznicy
utworzenia Archiwum Archidiecezjalnego w Poznaniu [Archival and historical exhibits on the
occasion of the 85th anniversary of the Archdiocesan Archives in Poznań], (Poznań, 2010).
57. Leszek Wilczyński, “Ks. Konrad Lutyński (1940–2002) [Rev. Konrad Lutyński
(1940–2002)],” Archiva Ecclesiastica (Katowice), ed. Josef. Marecki, 1 (2004), 81–84.
58. Bolesław Woszczyński, “Stowarzyszenie Archiwistów Polskich (1965–2005)
[Association of Polish Archivists (1965–2005)],” in: Stowarzyszenie Archiwistów Polskich
1965–2005 [Association of Polish Archivists 1965–2005], ed. Jarosław Poraziński (Warsaw,
2005), 51.

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optional classes. It would be to the benefit of church archivists to make
instructional visits and to undertake professional internships in state archives.
A joint initiative of state and church archivists was the establishment
of a working group under the auspices of the General Director of State
Archives in Warsaw. One of the tasks of the collaboration of state and
church archivists is to develop aids for church employees based on the
experience of the state specialists. Members of the group include representatives of the Association of Church Archivists.
The Beginnings of the Association
The initiative to establish an association that would unite church
archivists was born in Katowice. The first meeting of the employees of the
Archdiocesan Archives in Katowice with the Secretary of the Polish Episcopal Conference, Bishop Piotr Libera, took place on April 11, 2002 in the
headquarters of the Secretariat of the Polish Episcopate in Warsaw. During
the two-hour meeting, it was decided to prepare a contact database of
diocesan archives, religious archives, and records in Catholic universities, to
set the program for the next meeting in June 2002, and to gather materials
on the activities of the Association of Church Archivists in Italy.59
The next meeting of church archivists took place on June 18, 2002 at
the headquarters of the Secretariat of the Polish Episcopal Conference in
Warsaw. At the beginning, Bishop Piotr Libera welcomed the guests and
introduced the topics of the meeting. Halina Dudała from the Archdiocesan Archives in Katowice summed up the experiences of the Association of
Polish Archivists, Cracow Branch, at the Jagiellonian University. Fr.
Wiktor Gramatowski, S.J. presented the activities of the International
Association of Church Archivists in Italy. Bishop Jan Kopiec discussed the
relationship between state and church archival services, and Fr. Jan Link
spoke on the role and tasks of the archivist in the Church. The meeting in
Warsaw resulted in a resolution to establish the Association of Church
Archivists in Poland.60
After the June meeting, a draft statute for the association was prepared. In a letter dated April 3, 2003, Bishop Jan Kopiec wrote to Cardinal
59. Archiwum Stowarzyszenia Archiwistów Kościelnych (dalej ASAK) [Archive of the
Association of Church Archivists Zielona Góra (hereafter ASAK)], Folder title: correspondence from 2002–2007, ASAK ref. 6.
60. ASAK ref. 6, letter from Bishop Piotr Libera to Halina Dudała, Warsaw, May 8,
2002.

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Józef Glemp, among others, stating: “I ask you to get acquainted with the
draft statute of the association. The body assembled on June 18, 2002
passed a resolution to establish an association that would gather people
connected with the activities in church archives. This kind of association
would integrate the environment of church archivists, provide an opportunity for the efficient flow of information, and create the possibility of raising the professional qualifications of its members, which is necessary
nowadays. . . . I kindly ask you . . . to take further formal steps to have the
statute approved by the Polish Episcopal Conference.”61 Bishop Secretary
Piotr Libera received a letter of similar content.
Establishment of the Association
The Society of Church Archivists (hereafter referred to as SAK) was
erected by the Polish Episcopal Conference by a decree of December 1,
2003, in accordance with canon 312, § 1, point 2, of the Polish Code of
Criminal Procedure.62 It acquired legal personality in Poland on the basis
of article 4, paragraph 3 of the Concordat Between the Apostolic See and the
Republic of Poland (Journal of Laws, no. 51 (1998), item 318) in connection
with article 10 and article 34, paragraph 1, point l and paragraph 3 of the
Act of 17 May 1989 on the Relation Between the State and the Catholic
Church in the Republic of Poland.63
The first meeting of the SAK board members took place on July 6,
2004 in Katowice, at which the following were present:
• Fr. Jan Związek—President of the Board (Częstochowa);
• O. Józef Marecki (Cracow)—deputy chairman of the board;
• Julia Dziwoki (Katowice)—treasurer;
• Halina Dudała (Katowice)—Secretary.
Fr. Witold Kujawski (Włocławek), Vice President of the Board, was
absent. The first meeting dealt with membership, finances, registration,
and the association’s newsletter.64
61. ASAK ref. 6, letter from Bishop Jan Kopiec to Cardinal Józef Glemp, Opole, April
3, 2003.
62. ASAK ref. 6, decree of the Polish Bishops’ Conference, Warsaw, December 1,
2003.
63. ASAK ref. 6, statutes of the Association of Church Archivists, approved by the
Polish Episcopal Conference, Warsaw, November 28, 2003.
64. ASAK ref. 6, minutes from the first meeting of the Main Board of the Association
of Church Archivists in Poland held on July 6, 2004.

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The first General Assembly of SAK took place on June 17, 2004 at the
headquarters of the Polish Episcopal Conference in Warsaw. The most
important problems were discussed, namely, the statute, finances, and the
publication of the bulletin. Bishop Jan Kopiec, who became the assistant of
SAK on behalf of the Polish Episcopal Conference, discussed the leading
tasks of the association. He said, among other things, that the association
is one of archivists and not archives. It is a platform for meeting and cooperation among people working with church records. One should look for a
way to make these institutions function in the Church. An important task
facing the association would be the integration of the professional community of church archivists. There was a need, not only for the exchange of
information about archival resources, but also for professional formation
aimed at creating a worthy platform for serving others. After the intermission, the gathered archivists had the opportunity to fill out a declaration to
join SAK. Forty-four people applied. This was followed by the election of
the Association’s Board of Directors and Audit Committee.65
The Association in the Years 2005–2019
After a four-year term, a new SAK Board was elected in 2008. Fr.
Jozef Marecki (Cracow) was elected president, Fr. Mieczysław Różański
(Lodz) and Fr. Roman Dworacki (Poznań) were elected Deputy Presidents, Julia Dziwoki (Katowice) was elected Treasurer, and Fr. Robert
Kufel (Zielona Góra) was elected Secretary.
The next board from 2012–2016 was represented by: Rev. Władysław
Wlaźlak (Rzeszów) as president, Rev. Roman Dworacki (Poznań) and
Karol Dowgiała (Warsaw) as deputies, Sr. Lucyna Witczak ABMV (Łódź)
as treasurer, and Sr. Karolina Kołodziejczyk CSFB (Lublin) as secretary.
Since 2016, the Board has been headed by Fr. Robert Kufel (Zielona
Góra), who serves as president of the board. His deputies are Fr. Michał
Sołomieniuk (Gniezno) and Fr. Jarosław Wąsowicz, S.D.B. (Piła). The
treasurer Sr. Karolina Kołodziejczyk CSFB (Lublin) is responsible for the
finances, and the secretary is Fr. Artur Hamryszczak (Lublin). The term of
that board ended in 2020.
In the years 2005–2019, there were fifteen general assemblies of SAK
and thirty meetings of the board of the association, which are organized
several times a year. To date, the Association has 117 members.
65. ASAK ref. 6, minutes of the First General Meeting of the Association of Church
Archivists, Warsaw, Juny 17, 2004.

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In 2017, the newsletter Archiva Ecclesiastica was transformed into an
annual, published in a revised layout, thus giving it the character of a scholarly publication. The circle of its scientific council66 and reviewers was
expanded. The publication was registered in the district court in Katowice.
From the establishment of the association until 2018, eleven issues were
published. As of 2018, the annual Archiva Ecclesiastica has been registered
in the International System of Information on Continuing Publications
(ISSN).67 The entire journal is indexed in BazHum, which is maintained
by the Museum of Polish History.68
As of 2019, SAK has a new website, www.stowarzyszenie-archiwistowkoscielnych.pl, and a new account with ING Bank.
SAK obtained a REGON (National Official Business Register) identification number on June 26, 2017 and a tax identification number (NIP)
on February 18, 2019.
Activities of the Association
According to the statute (Article 6), the purpose of the association is
as follows:
1. The dissemination of knowledge about records, church archives, and about
the legal basis of dealing with documentation;
2. The improvement of the professional qualifications of archivists and
increasing their general knowledge;
3. Representing the community of church archivists in contact with the state
archival services;
4. The integration of the community of church archivists;
5. Ensuring a high level of ethics and building public trust and respect for this
profession and archival matters.69

The association (Article 7) pursues its goals through:
66. The Scientific Council of the journal is a consultative and advisory body to the
Editor-in-Chief. The tasks of the Scientific Council and its members include in particular:
overseeing the substantive level of the journal and promoting the journal in the national and
international scientific community.
67. Robert Kufel, “Kalendarium działalności Zarządu Stowarzyszenia Archiwistów
Kościelnych w 2018 roku [Calendar of activities of the Board of the Association of Church
Archivists in 2018],” Archiva Ecclesiastica, 12 (2019), 189.
68. Ibid.
69. ASAK ref. 6, statutes of the Association of Church Archivists, approved by the
Polish Episcopal Conference, Warsaw, November 28, 2003, article 6.

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1) Research activities and studies on the application of new techniques;
2) Educational activity;
3) Exchange of experience in the form of meetings, conferences, and publishing activities;
4) Acquiring funds for its own activities and supporting the activities of individual archives, as well as the institutional entities to which they belong, all
the time aiming at the acquisition of funds for computerization and implementation of technical progress of the respective branches.70

From its inception until now, the association has consistently met all
the objectives and tasks set before it. The most important events in which
the members of the association have actively participated include various
conventions, conferences, seminars, and workshops. On September 6–7,
2007 in Olsztyn, the members of the association took part in the Fifth
General Meeting of Polish Archivists.71 From September 3–6, 2008, the
Association of Archivists of Justice Institutions invited SAK to participate
in a training conference entitled, “The problems in securing archival documents and making them available.”72 The association was represented by its
president, Józef Marecki. On November 28, 2008 in Warsaw, SAK members took part in the conference, “Integrated Archive Information System
(ZoSIA),” organized by the National Digital Archives. From January 23–
25, 2009 in Zakroczym, Poland, the Fourth Archival Workshop, “Collections of Files in Religious Archives,” took place, to which SAK was invited
and attended. The members took part in the International Archives Day,
which was celebrated on June 9, 2010 in the archdiocesan archives in
Poznań. SAK representatives participated in the Third Meeting of
Archives of Institutions of the Polish Academy of Sciences, entitled
“Modern Archives in the Light of Practice and Legal Changes,” which
took place on December 16, 2011 in Warsaw.73 Members of the association were present at a scientific conference, “Modern Trends in Conservation, Archiving and Exhibition of Religious Collections,” organized on

70. ASAK ref. 6, statutes of the Association of Church Archivists, approved by the
Polish Episcopal Conference, Warsaw, November 28, 2003, article 7.
71. ASAK, Folder title: correspondence from 2008–2010, ref. 7, minutes of the 4th
General Assembly of the Association of Church Archivists at the headquarters of the Polish
Episcopal Conference on May 29, 2008.
72. ASAK ref. 7, letter from Seweryn-Dudy to Rev. Józef Marecki, Wrocław July 25,
2008.
73. ASAK, Folder title: correspondence from 2011-2012, ref. 8, invitation Third Meeting of Archives of Institutions of the Polish Academy of Sciences, entitled “Modern Archives
in the Light of Practice and Legal Changes,” which took place on December 16, 2011 dated
Warsaw, December 1, 2011.

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November 19, 2012 by the archdiocesan archives in Łódź and the Museum
of the Archdiocese of Łódź.74 A special event was held on December 1,
2013, when the tenth anniversary of the association was celebrated. On
this occasion, the Rev. President Władysław Wlaźlak issued a proclamation for the occasion entitled, “Letter of the President on the Occasion of
the Tenth Anniversary of the Founding of SAK.” He highlighted the
founding, activities, and most of all, the achievements to date.75 The same
president received an invitation to the National Forum of Diocesan
Archives Directors, which took place from October 19–21, 2014 in
Poznań.76 The Polish Archival Society together with the Polish Academy
of Sciences invited SAK to the scientific session, “Archives—Museums—
Collectors,” on November 25, 2014 in Warsaw.77 SAK members participated in the Seventh General Convention of Polish Archivists on September 20–22, 2017 in Kielce.78 Rev. Robert Kufel, President of the Board,
participated in the VI Seminar of the Project, “Archives of the 1989–1991
Breakthrough,” on December 6, 2017, in Belvedere79 and in the VIII Seminar of the Project, “Archives of the 1989–1991 Breakthrough,” and “The
Catholic Church and Society in the Period of the Breakthrough,” on
October 8, 2019 at the Belvedere.
The association is the organizer of scientific conferences. On October
15, 2013 in Jaroslaw, a scientific conference titled “Archives and chancelleries in the service of the Church and science” was held.80 On October 11–
13, 2017 in the John Paul II Center for Dialogue and the School of Theology at the Nicolas Copernicus University in Torun, SAK was the
organizer of a scientific conference together with the Thirteenth General
74. ASAK ref. 8, invitation scientific conference, “Modern Trends in Conservation,
Archiving and Exhibition of Religious Collections,” organized on November 19, 2012 by the
archdiocesan archives in Łódź and the Museum of the Archdiocese of Łódź. Invitation of
October 27, 2012.
75. ASAK, Folder title: correspondence from 2012–2014, ref. 9, letter from the president Rev. Władysław Wlaźlak on the 10th anniversary of SAK’s erection.
76. ASAK ref. 9, invitation to the National Forum of Diocesan Archives Directors,
which took place from October 19–21, 2014 in Poznań.
77. ASAK ref. 9, invitation scientific session, “Archives—Museums—Collectors,” on
November 25, 2014 in Warsaw.
78. Robert Kufel, “Kalendarium działalności Zarządu Stowarzyszenia Archiwistów
Kościelnych od 30.11.2016 do 31.12.2017 r. [Calendar of activities of the Board of the Association of Church Archivists from 11/30/2016 to 12/31/2017],” Archiva Ecclesiastica, 11
(2018), 179.
79. Ibid., 180.
80. ASAK ref. 9, invitation scientific conference entitled: “Archives and chancelleries
in the service of the Church and science,” October 15, 2013 in Jaroslaw.

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Assembly.81 Dr. Wojciech Woźniak, the chief director of the state
archives, was a special guest. The conference was devoted to archival issues
in church records. The association assembled at the Conference and
Retreat Center of the Archdiocese of Łódź in Łódź-Porszewice on
November 18–20, 2018. The Fourteenth General Convention was combined with a scholarly session. The convention was hosted by Rev. Dr.
Kazimierz Dąbrowski, director of the Archdiocesan Archives in Łódź.82
The conference was opened by Archbishop Grzegorz Ryś, the Metropolitan of Łódź. The topic of the academic session was preparations for the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the diocese of Łódź. The speakers
talked, among other subjects, about the history of the diocese, historic
buildings, and plans for the development of the diocese in the future.83
The association also helps to co-organize scientific conferences. SAK
co-organized the international conference “Archives of Central Europe,”
which took place on September 10–13, 2008 in Nowy Sącz.84 On May 11,
2009 in Warsaw, SAK co-organized with the Polish Archival Society and
the Archives of the Polish Academy of Sciences the Second National Seminar on “Ethics in the Profession.”85 On October 15, 2014, the IPN
Branch in Rzeszów together with the University of Rzeszów organized a
scientific conference in which archivists invited from Germany participated. From October 9–12, 2015, a joint scientific conference, “Securing
and Making Available the Archival Resources of Church Archives,” which
had been organized by the General Directorate of State Archives and
SAK, took place in Falenty near Warsaw. From October 14–16, 2019,
another conference, “Church Archives in Independent Poland,” organized
by NDAP and SAK, was held in Łódź. In all the organized and co-organized conferences, members of the association actively participated.
The association also conducts academic classes and practical courses.
One important achievement was the organization in the academic year of
81. Robert Kufel, “Kalendarium działalności Zarządu Stowarzyszenia Archiwistów
Kościelnych od 30.11.2016 do 31.12.2017 r. [Calendar of activities of the Board of the Association of Church Archivists from 11/30/2016 to 12/31/2017],” Archiva Ecclesiastica, 11
(2018), 179.
82. Robert Kufel, “Kalendarium działalności Zarządu Stowarzyszenia Archiwistów
Kościelnych w 2018 roku [Calendar of activities of the Board of the Association of Church
Archivists in 2018],” Archiva Ecclesiastica, 12 (2019), 189.
83. Ibid., 189.
84. ASAK ref. 7, report on the work of the Board of the Association of Church
Archivists for the period May 29, 2008 to May 28, 2009.
85. Ibid.

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2005–2006 of two-semester post-graduate studies in church archives at the
Faculty of Theology, University of Silesia. 360 hours of classes in twenty
subjects were completed. Thirty people concluded these postgraduate studies. In the same academic year, also at the Faculty of Theology of the University of Silesia, a course in parish archives was held, focusing on the bases
of archival science, which for ecclesiastical records are parish archives. The
course was completed by twenty-five persons. On March 21–23, 2006, 124
religious sisters took part in a course in archival management for the secretaries of the superiors of women’s orders in Warsaw.86 The association
also organized practical courses, like the Digilitazor Workshop (May 6–7,
2019) and Awkward Users in Archives (September 5–9, 2019) in Bierzgow
Castle, coordinated by Dr Mateusz Zmudziński from the Archiwum Akt
Dawnych in Toruń.
The association has been invited to public consultations. The Board of
Directors of the Association joined the public consultation on the draft
law, “Law on handling documents and on archives,” presented by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. It also took part in the public consultation of the draft, “Social Capital Development Strategy 2011–2020,”
announced by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.87
SAK is a patron of various archival projects. It has assumed the
patronage of:
• XXI National Congress of Students of Archival Science in Cracow on
April 24–26, 2019.
• The archival conference. Hidden Pearls of Archival Studies, organized by
the Department of Archival and Auxiliary Sciences of History of the
Faculty of History and Cultural Heritage of the Pontifical University
of John Paul II in Cracow on May 24, 2019.
• Heritage Fair, Securing Heritage for Future Generations in Cracow on
October 10–11, 2019.

The association cooperates with archives in Poland and abroad. The
signing of the “Declaration of Accession to the archival associations of the
Visegrad Group (Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland) on Sep86. ASAK ref. 6, activity report of the main board of the Association of Church
Archivists in Poland for the period 2006–07.
87. ASAK ref. 8, Invitation by email dated 05/24/2011 The board of directors of the
Association headed by the President, Rev. Robert Kufel, to participate in public consultation
of the draft, “Social Capital Development Strategy 2011–2020,” announced by the Ministry
of Culture and National Heritage in Warsaw.

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tember 19, 2013 in Jabłonna near Warsaw is of particular importance for
SAK.88 On September 24–25, 2014, at the convention of church archivists
in Magdeburg, cooperation with church archivists in Germany was initiated. Within the framework of cooperation with the NDAP, members of
the SAK board have been part of the working group for church archives
since October 11, 2017.89 SAK was invited to the Third Conference of the
Church Archivists of Europe on November 7–9, 2018 in Poznań.90
Individual members of the association, moreover, take an active part
in various local undertakings organized by their own ecclesiastical and secular circles (e.g. exhibitions, lectures, conferences, anniversary celebrations,
press, as well as radio and television interviews). It should be added that
the association’s members also engage in educational and scientific activities, publish the results of their work, and are involved in pursuits outside
of just archival circles.
Conclusion
Saint John Paul II wrote about the ethos of the vocation of a church
archivist, calling the archive a temple of wisdom. For this reason, care for the
preservation and proper presentation of the resources of the Church’s archives
for scholarly purposes is a service to the Truth, written with a capital “T.”91
In accordance with St. John Paul II’s words, the daily service of an
archivist allows for the development of religious, moral, and social awareness. Within society, archivists have a great opportunity to put into practice the Pope’s recommendations and to revive and encourage creative service to the Truth.
88. ASAK ref. 9, rev. Wladyslaw P. Wlaźlak (president), memo, dated September 19,
2013.
89. Robert Kufel, “Kalendarium działalności Zarządu Stowarzyszenia Archiwistów
Kościelnych od 30.11.2016 do 31.12.2017 r. [Calendar of activities of the Board of the Association of Church Archivists from November 30, 2016 to December 31, 2017],” Archiva
Ecclesiastica, 11 (2018), 179.
90. Robert Kufel, “Kalendarium działalności Zarządu Stowarzyszenia Archiwistów
Kościelnych w 2018 roku [Calendar of activities of the Board of the Association of Church
Archivists in 2018],” Archiva Ecclesiastica, 12 (2019), 189.
91. Cf. John Paul II, Przemówienie do pracowników Tajnego Archiwum Watykańskiego
18.10.1980 i 4.04.1981 [Address to the staff of the Vatican Secret Archives October 18, 1980 and
April 4, 1981], https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/it/speeches/1980/october/
documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_19801018_deposito-archivistico.html, https://www.vatican.va/
content/john-paul-ii/it/speeches/1981/april/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_19810404_archiviosegreto.html.

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Church archivists are as professional as their colleagues working in
state archives. They additionally supplement their knowledge and training
by participating in training courses organized by both the Church (e.g.
Center for Church Archives, Libraries and Museums, Association of
Church Archivists) and the State (e.g. Nicolaus Copernicus University,
Association of Polish Archivists). The exchange of experience between
state and church archivists brings about mutual benefits, e.g. the development of a Good Practice Catalogue, joint work on the organization and the
course of the Eighth General Meeting of Polish Archivists in Łódź (2022).
The question of financing archives and church archivists remains to be
settled. Unlike state archives, which are supported by the state budget,
church archives are dependent on religious or diocesan authorities. They
are far from state standards. Both religious and diocesan archives are subject to their superiors, who fund the archives and archivists as they see fit.
Thus, there are no set equal budgets for the archives or employee salaries
common to all church archives in Poland. This issue should be addressed
by the Polish Episcopal Conference and by the Consults of Major Superiors of Religious Orders in Poland. The Association of Church Archivists,
which is the voice and spokesperson of the Polish church archivists, is a
bridge between archival workers and their superiors. It is an appropriate
partner to undertake dialogue on common financial regulations.
During this period, the association’s activity has proven that it is possible to integrate the circles of church archivists working in diocesan or
religious archives and academic centers; that it is possible to meet and
exchange experiences; that it is possible to draw examples from work done
in an exemplary manner, though not always properly appreciated; and that
time devoted to archival work is not and will not be wasted.

Forum Review Essay
Peter Cajka, Follow Your Conscience: The Catholic Church and the Spirit of the
Sixties (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021. Pp. vii, 232.
$45.00. ISBN 13: 978-0-226-76205-0)

INTRODUCTION
David J. Endres (Mount St. Mary’s Seminary of the West, Cincinnati)
Peter Cajka’s Follow Your Conscience argues for acknowledging the
Catholic contribution to safeguarding conscience and individual rights. He
notes that historians have often ceded to Protestants and secularists the
role of affirming personal liberties. But the increased use of conscience language among U.S. Catholics in the 1960s and 70s is connected to a centuries-old moral tradition. Cajka’s basic thesis then is that “modern autonomy is not only Protestant and secular but also Catholic and medieval” (4).
In developing the argument, Cajka cites Thomas Aquinas and Alphonsus Liguori, among other venerable thinkers, who influenced the understanding of and language surrounding conscience. The great balancing act
that the author describes is the proper relationship between law and conscience. While conscience was often spoken of as inviolate (going back to
Thomas, if not before), it was usually defined as a correct judgment “according to the law,” which is to say that a properly formed and exercised conscience would not defy the moral law. But this exclusive interpretation did
not always hold, especially when conscience was considered an individual’s
ultimate authority and—even if plagued by error—needed to be followed.
In considering these differing (and potentially conflicting) emphases, Cajka
explores conscience as a multivalent reality with both conservative and radical tendencies. He asserts that these two seemingly opposing directions of
valuing “law above conscience” or “conscience above law” are observable
within the Church (even before the 1960s) and, at times, depending on the
issue, could be espoused by the same thinkers and theologians.
Follow Your Conscience unfolds through several focused studies related
to conscience—all connected in one way or another to war or sex. Instead
of viewing these studies as examples of the diversity of appeals to con173

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science, Cajka sees them as complementary. In both the cases of sex and
war, civil laws (which had been generally accepted as authoritative) were
increasingly seen as potentially in conflict with conscience. He begins with
the rise of the security state, the implementation of the draft during World
War II, and a meager number of Catholic conscientious objectors (COs).
He then turns to the Vietnam conflict and the rapid increase in consciencemotivated selective COs. Here, Cajka acknowledges, “Catholic men
stretched the teaching [on conscience] . . . considerably, but not beyond
the tradition” (81).
Cajka shifts from the battlefield to the bedroom for the following case
study, taking up the responses to Humanae Vitae’s affirmation of artificial
contraception’s immorality. By studying Cardinal Patrick O’Boyle’s disciplining of dissenting priests, Cajka affirms that both sides appealed to conscience: “The rebel priests took up the emancipatory aspects of the tradition, while O’Boyle favored restraint of conscience under law” (89). After
considering the rise of modern psychology and its impact on understanding
conscience, Cajka then moves to hospitals and doctor’s offices in considering conscience protections for the healthcare workers asked to assist in
abortion. In the early 1970s, after the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade, conscience rights moved decisively from antidraft to pro-life. While the U.S.
bishops were slow to embrace selective conscientious objection during
Vietnam, they quickly moved to support conscience rights for healthcare
workers. Cajka explains the difference: traditional sexual morality enjoyed
a greater magisterial clarity than the application of just war theory.
Those lobbying for conscience protection for COs and those demanding protection for doctors and nurses may not have been the same clergy
and laity, but Cajka detects a common root. Whether a response to Vietnam or opposition to participation in legalized abortion, a broad antiauthoritarianism animated each. The age of totalitarianism had convinced
many that strict obedience to the law could be terribly destructive. Especially by the late 1960s, distrust of authority was expressed within society
and the Church, and conscience language was evidence of that change. As
moral legalism waned, priests and laity saw objective Church teachings as
subjective. At the same time, concern with group and family rights morphed into a focus on individual rights.
In citing a wide variety of thinkers (from Father John Ford, S.J., Germain Grisez, and William Buckley, Jr., to Gordan Zahn, Thomas Cornell,
and Eileen Egan), Cajka’s research indicates that priests and laity joined
together to advance the role of conscience. He asserts that on every side of

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the conscience discussion, however, priests have been “overrepresented,”
arguing that the “story of American freedom will need to include a much
larger role for men of the cloth as creators and sustainers of the nation’s
central values” (193).
In assessing the importance of his topic, Cajka does not necessarily celebrate it. Fidelity to conscience had an undesirable side: a legitimation of
moral subjectivity and an individualistic ethic, both of which could undermine the foundation of Christian conscience. For this reason, Cajka considers that “this is not a story of progress. Freedoms for conscience came at a
high price” (7). The lasting result of the turn to conscience has been an
intellectual, political, and theological stalemate: a “seemingly insoluble
debate” over law and conscience, which has become one of the primary legacies of the 1960s (170). We are left with a paradox: the call for Catholics to
be both submissive and subversive, depending on circumstance.
Follow Your Conscience is a work of historical scholarship centered in
the 1940s through the 1970s, but its essential thesis is not bounded by the
mid-twentieth century. It extends back to the Scholastic period and
reaches forward to the present. It helps explain church and society’s intellectual and social fracturing, from which neither has recovered.

REVIEWS
E l i z a b e t h S w e e n y B l o c k (Saint Louis University).
“A double agent,” “a well-formed inner nucleus,” “a sacred internalized
orb.” These are some of the creative phrases that Peter Cajka uses to
describe conscience in his book Follow Your Conscience: The Catholic Church
and the Spirit of the Sixties. Through his telling of the history of Catholic
clergy’s participation in advocating for the rights of conscience in America
in the 1960s and 1970s, Cajka vividly illustrates the paradox of the Catholic
doctrine of conscience that was evident then and remains today: it is both
emancipatory and conservative, subversive and submissive. Conscience permits deviation from unjust laws but also requires formation by and allegiance to Catholic doctrine. Conscience is a tool to combat the overreach of
civil law but also a mechanism by which Catholics can assert their subjective
will over and against church teaching. The very doctrine of conscience,
Cajka observes, “gave [the church’s] own laity and priests the tools to undermine authority” (114). Cajka ensures that the irony of this is not lost on his
readers. It is certainly a timely book. One cannot help but compare the
responses to vaccine and mask mandates in our third year of the COVID19 pandemic to the appeals to conscience about which Cajka writes.

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Theologians have recognized the push and pull of conscience for
decades and have been navigating this tension between the subjective and
objective poles of the moral life. Cajka’s book provides valuable historical
context for the theological debates about conscience in the years following
Vatican II, when conscience became less of a mechanism for judging discrete decisions and more of a representation of a person’s moral self, as
Cajka notes in his chapter on psychology. Following Vatican II, a paradigm shift occurred; morality became more person-centered and less actoriented. Morality was now linked not solely to a person’s actions but also
to her character and relationship to God. Therefore, when our conscience
made a determination about our ability to fight in a war or the permissibility of using artificial contraception, it was now not only navigating between
obedience and self-determination; it was also a symptom of and a driving
force in the shift away from a static legalism and towards an appreciation
for the complex and evolving nature of morality.
Cajka contends that in the documents of Vatican II, conscience’s
“twinned nature of restraint and liberation was less a symbiosis and more
of a fault line” (42). “The antinomies” that Thomas Aquinas built into the
theology of conscience “locked liberal and conservative antagonists into a
recurring debate about restraint and freedom that has never been solved”
(190). From a moral theologian’s perspective, to solve this debate would
mean to choose firmly either restraint or freedom, which would undermine
conscience as a process of moral striving and moral formation that must
hold in tension and constantly evaluate the subjective and objective poles
of morality. Conscience is free inso far as it is formed and informed by a
multitude of sources. One cannot decide in the abstract that conscience
should err on either the side of law or subjectivity. Rather, conscience will
always need to track between these extremes. Catholic scholar of conscience Linda Hogan has described it as the self-conscious integration of
collective wisdom with the individual’s own learned insights. Moreover,
conscience is now understood not as an individual but a social phenomenon; moral reasoning does not take place in a vacuum because moral truths
are understood and lived out in particular situations, communities, and
contexts. The complexities and intricacies of conscience formation further
illuminate the “seesawing” between law and subjectivity that Cajka
recounts in this important history.
J o s e p h P . C h i n n i c i , O . F . M . (Franciscan School of Theology at the
University of San Diego)
I would like to begin by commending Peter Cajka for an insightful
and challenging book that raises an important intellectual theme within

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American Catholicism: the role and interpretation of conscience in the
social tumult of the sixties and seventies. The work has been summarized
well by Professor David Endres, so I would like to concentrate on three
more problematic issues that occurred to me in the course of reviewing this
fine work. I hope I am interpreting the text correctly, as it is dense and
complex in its argument.
Context is everything when trying to interpret, and although the study
of conscientious objection to the Vietnam War and the appeal to conscience to protect the rights of health care workers in the conflicts over
abortion are connected, a narrow focus on “conscience” as defined by these
issues shapes the work in a certain direction. The author seems to overattribute too much historical causality to the Catholic debate. Observe the
following citations: “Catholic concepts of subjectivity influenced ecumenism, the rise of global human rights, and most significantly the fate of
reproductive rights and religious freedom” (10). “The Catholic language of
conscience and the theological concept itself set the terms for the debate
over reproductive freedom in the United States for the remainder of the
twentieth century.” (179) “Clergymen, long cast as opponents of independent thought, revealed themselves as liberators of conscience and subjectivity throughout the twentieth century” (193). So anxious is the book to
argue for a Catholic contribution to the rise of conscience in the 1960s,
that context is forgotten. Yet “conscience” is a polyvalent reality (something the author acknowledges) and therefore calls for cultural embeddedness. And, it is a context that may indicate not Catholic influence on the
culture but the culture’s influence on Catholic discourse. A wider frame of
interpretation is needed. There are few references to the pervasive influence
of the civil rights movement and none to its manifesto “Appeal to Conscience” at the end of the 1963 ecumenical gathering in Chicago. Whether
lay Catholics drew from “the same idea as Martin Luther King Jr.” in their
arguments (81) goes against the thrust of King’s more classical appeal to
the connection between conscience and a “higher law.” Feminism, “consciousness raising,” and its protest against “patriarchal social structures”
receives not a word. The advent of a personalist language of freedom disappears from the cultural description, as does the critique of social structures in strains of Marxist thought. Pius XII’s statement forbidding conscientious objection from a particular war receives some attention (61–62),
yet its continuous shadow over the experience of the ordinary Catholic is
underplayed. The whole struggle during the 1960s cannot be interpreted
outside of this directive. These elements among many others shaped the
discourse of protest against law and system. All are realities that might
nuance the argument and indicate a more symbiotic relationship between

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Catholic issues and the society at large. Significant work by Sara Evans,
Thomas Vernon Reed, James Farrell, Van Gosse, Kristin Luker, and others
would greatly enhance and widen, I believe even change, the overall argument. Perhaps “conscience” surfaces so ambiguously given the context
because it represents in a linguistic code word an argument over social
order, authority, and public morality, all themes that open up the argument
to wider cultural development.
What exactly is “conscience.” The author makes the following statements, telescoping very distinct intellectual arguments into a single line of
interpretation. The 1960s see “a modern conscience discourse with
medieval roots”; “modern autonomy is Catholic and medieval.” (4). Is this
connection derived from the material embedded in the rhetorical statements made by lawyers and conscientious objectors? If so, it surely seems a
misinterpretation of Aquinas who then becomes “a master craftsman of
religious subjectivity” (19). The Angelic Doctor’s texts from Disputed Questions on Truth in this view “speak a subtle language of liberation from ecclesiastical and political authority.” In this reviewer’s mind it would be best to
leave the thirteenth century to the thirteenth century, and perhaps note
how reliance on Question 17 is preceded by Aquinas’s argument in Question 16 on that great medieval connection between God and the human
being, synderesis. Even in the question 17, Aquinas notes that his argument
applies to the false conscience “with some qualification and imperfectly.”
“Law” in Cajka’s many statements appears external to conscience. The
“conscience” of the 1960s and 1970s is described throughout as a “sacred
subjectivity” (81), “self rule” (159), “autonomy” (7), “self-sovereignty” (154,
184), “selfdom” (38), an “inner nucleus.” This sharp division between internal and external surfaces again in the dichotomy enunciated between
resistance and acquiescence (185). But the medieval synthesis argues
against such dichotomous divisions and focuses on the relationality
between conscience and truth. The author’s analysis too often treats the
“autonomous conscience” as a univocal term in the discussion over War
and the argument over abortion. This conflates a socio-political argument,
which deals with positive law, with a moral-theological argument, more
connected to divine and natural law embedded within the individual. Clarification of terms and clear identification of the sphere of life being
addressed would perhaps sharpen the argument in a helpful way. Certainly,
there was crossover, but was that crossover itself part of one whole argument stretching from the thirteenth to the twentieth century? If so, one
ends up with the following problematic statement: “John Paul II and
Ratzinger claimed that the entire push for conscience was based on a misreading of theology. But perhaps, more to the point, both the pontiff and

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his leading cardinal wished to repudiate the Thomistic inheritance of the
twentieth-century Catholic Church” (186–187).
Lastly, timeframes are important. Terms expressed by one body of
people does not make reception by another body of people at a different
time and place equivalent. A final example can be found in the exposition
of the thought of Francis Connell (40–41). Does Connell’s speech to the
Knights of Columbus in December 1949 deal with “conscience” as it was in
the 1960s, or is his defense of the non-culpability but not the truth of the
conscience of “those who hold the lawfulness of contraception and divorce
and euthanasia” really keeping the door open for the personal salvation of
non-Catholics as was determined by the Holy Office in the Leonard Feeney
controversy of the same year? In a similar vein, the movement from liberal
to radical within the cultural context of the 1960s needs more consideration
when discussing the evolution of the meaning of conscience. Ideas without
roots in time and place can tend to overemphasize consistency.
Throughout the book, Cajka is careful in his balancing of Catholic
positions, as David Endres points out very well. However, I call attention
to some of these issues not to downplay a stimulating and informative book
so much as to anticipate a fruitful conversation about the interplay between
history, culture, and ideas. A great change took place in the approach to
“conscience” detailed in this book, but is it exactly the change described in
Follow Your Conscience? But this question would not even have arisen without the scholarship Cajka has provided.
William Dinges (The Catholic University of America)
Peter Cajka’s Follow Your Conscience is a tightly packed exposition on
an issue long begging historical scrutiny. The topic also proved something
of a “memory lane” experience for this stalwart of the Sixties reader, especially the chapters addressing the law/conscience issues during that tumultuous era.
As Cajka makes clear, the law/conscience tension is an old one.
Although petering out at times, the tension hardly goes away as new historical currents have a way of re-igniting the embers of a moral theory
developed in premodern times.
Among other noteworthy insights, Cajka’s research highlights the role
of priests, especially in the 1960s, as “liberators” who encouraged laity to
embrace the Augustine/Thomas Aquinas legitimation of following one’s
conscience—contrary to longstanding anti-Catholic tropes casting priests

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as Svengali-like manipulators of the laity. The point is well taken, but
invites broader contextual considerations.
Social science research on American Catholics proliferated in the
wake of Vatican II. These studies made pointedly clear that the hierarchy
faced an ever more challenging task of ensuring lay compliance behavior.
Catholics were increasingly making up their own minds on a wide variety
of Church teachings and moral prescriptions. Catholic identity became
more pluriform, more voluntarist and “choice”-driven, and more a consequence of what academics dubbed identity “reflexivity.”
While the above trends found some legitimation in the Vatican II call
for lay Catholics to assume greater responsibility for their own spiritual and
religious well-being, they were also fed by broad cultural currents. As
Cajka rightly notes, these included personalism, existentialism, and
modern psychological theories of moral development. Other socio-cultural
factors driving the streams—some would say “excesses”—of American
individualism include the anti-authoritarianism of the counter culture in
general, a generation-gap disillusionment with authority of all kinds, the
diffusion of the “do your own thing” mentalité, the general protest ethos of
the era, not to mention the increases in college enrollments and higher
levels of educational attainment.
As Cajka notes, John Paul II, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, and other
Catholic critics queued in on some of these developments in an attempt to
put the brakes on individual conscience. Aside from dramatizing Catholic
culture-war strategies, the manner in which these deeper currents made
their way into Catholic consciousness and moral deliberation invites additional consideration.
Conscience judgments hardly occur in a vacuum. They are not made
solely on the grounds of individual moral calculus, theological criteria—or
clerical advice. As Max Weber long ago demonstrated, broader social and
cultural dynamics impact the legitimation of authority and, therefore, the
working of conscience. This necessitates a deep parsing out as to how much
of following one’s own conscience stems from actual moral and theological
deliberation, and how much reflects cultural momentum, or the fact that
the type of law operative at the ecclesial level has diminished plausibility in
a modern/postmodern context.
Catholicism has been lauded for its “both/and” approach to life’s complexities. Peter Cajka’s finely balanced study exposes the conundrums of
this formula as it relates to what he rightfully calls the law/conscience “con-

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ceptual bomb.” His study is historical in nature, but highly relevant to
additional sociological theorizing on the dynamics of cultural authority.
Cajka shows how core values (conscience) transfer over time, but need
to be reinterpreted and clarified by each generation and the social and cultural context in which they find themselves. The obvious questions here—
aside from contemporary abortion-related issues—are: “What looms ahead
in this regard?” and, “What might the conscience/law tension mean in light
of the depleted postmodern status of traditional church authority in general?”
L e s l i e W . T e n t l e r (The Catholic University of America, Emerita professor)
Back in the summer of 1964, when I was working with a radical student group in Chicago, I encountered northern civil rights activists for the
very first time and discovered that some were Catholics. I met Catholics at
sit-ins and on picket lines, which I found little short of astonishing. Being
from Detroit, I assumed that most Catholics were Democrats. But I also
assumed that theirs was an authoritarian church and that, in consequence,
Catholics seldom thought for themselves. In Mayor Daley’s Chicago, however, sit-ins and picketing—at least in the cause of racial equality—were
sufficiently provocative that only the independent-minded were apt to participate. Thus prompted, I began to reexamine my assumptions about
Catholics. The events of the next few years—growing Catholic participation
in civil rights activism, Catholic resistance to the draft and the war in Vietnam, lay challenges to church teaching on contraception—completed the
process. In the end, I became a Catholic myself, albeit for reasons that went
deeper than my more sophisticated understanding of the tribe I had joined.
Given this personal history, I can only applaud the heart of Peter
Cajka’s argument. Catholic “conscience talk” did indeed seem in the mid1960s to explode into public view. And that talk made a difference—certainly in terms of how Catholics were perceived by their compatriots but
also in terms of Catholic self-understanding and ultimately in terms of
Catholic communal cohesion. Cajka makes his case persuasively, bolstered
by extensive reading in Catholic moral theology and the personal papers of
influential theologians. Jesuits figure prominently here, none more interesting than John C. Ford, a fierce proponent of conscience claims in matters of warfare but a strict legalist when it came to Catholic sexual teaching.
(As Cajka notes, Ford almost certainly had a direct hand in the drafting of
Humanae Vitae.) Although his subject is social and cultural change, Cajka’s
is primarily an intellectual history, and for this reason priests are its principle protagonists. “Priests have been overrepresented in every phase and

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iteration of the modern conscience rights movement,” he argues, which
may or may not be true. Much depends on how one defines the boundaries
of this putative movement. But it is indisputable that Catholic priests over
the past seven decades have produced a disproportionate share of the most
nuanced and thoughtful explorations of law, conscience, and personal
responsibility available in English. Cajka’s focus on priests gives this
important reality the prominence it merits.
Cajka’s book is provocative in the best sense of the word, sparking
insights for the reader. But questions do remain. Why was the Catholic
laity so receptive by the mid-1960s to a liberating version of conscience
talk? It was the laity, after all, who raised the issues which moral theologians explored so creatively, first with regard to marital contraception and
then to conscription and military service in Vietnam. Indeed, a majority of
Catholic married couples had decided in conscience that they could
employ forbidden modes of contraception prior to 1968 and Cardinal
O’Boyle’s notorious suspension of the priests in his archdiocese who dissented publicly from Humanae Vitae. (That painful drama, I would argue,
had primarily to do with the conscience rights of priests, the laity by this
time having solved the problem of birth control on their own initiative.)
Cajka often writes as if “the sixties” were sui generis, which seemed at the
time to be true. But historians know that periods of rapid social and cultural upheaval nearly always have deep roots and Cajka’s book would have
profited from greater attention to change among Catholics in the 1950s, as
well as a more nuanced chronology of the turbulent decade that followed.
The “spirit of the sixties” burned with different intensities at different times
and in different places, and 1965 was profoundly different from 1968.
Cajka clearly knows this to be true but the point gets lost at times in the
course of his wide-ranging narrative.
Am I saying that Cajka should have written a different book from the
one he chose to write—a social rather than an intellectual history? I do not
think so. I am simply asking for more, which is probably the highest compliment a reviewer can pay an author.

RESPONSE
P e t e r C a j k a (University of Notre Dame)
I want to begin by thanking Nelson H. Minnich for organizing this
forum. I appreciate the careful description of the book offered by David
Endres. The four reviewers—Leslie Tentler, Joseph Chinnici, William
Dinges, and Elizabeth Sweeney Block—are, to put it mildly, a dream team

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of interdisciplinary readers. I am grateful for the time and effort that went
into creating these reports.
Professor Tentler asks where the boundaries of the movement are to
be drawn. She rightly points out that the laity initially pushed for rights of
conscience. I agree with this observation to some extent. The laity called for
recognition of subjectivity in periodicals, personal correspondence, and the
confessional as early as 1963. Jim Forest and Thomas Cornell, two laymen
involved with the Catholic Worker, organized the Catholic Peace Fellowship in 1964. Dozens of laymen included excurses on conscience in their
paperwork for the draft. Lay married couples expounded on these theologies in letters to Patty Crowley in 1965 and 1966. The laity—many of
whom were well versed in the dynamics of the Church’s teaching on conscience—did indeed raise this issue for priests to consider.
The evidence I encountered convinced me that the issue was very far
from settled after this broader social turn to conscience, however. The conscience rights movement, as I read it, was not just about raising issues: the
campaign for recognition of subjectivity included open intellectual combat
in the Church itself, and between church and state. Priests appeared consistently in these struggles, from debates over conscription in the 1930s to
arguments over the liberalization of abortion policy in the 1970s. The laity,
importantly, also drew upon theologies generated by priests in textbooks,
confession manuals, catechisms, and books.
The priests who took part in the “painful struggle” (an apt phrase) with
Archbishop Patrick O’Boyle in 1968 believed they were campaigning for
their own rights of conscience and, rightly or wrongly, for the liberation of
lay subjectivities. In other words, though the laity might have already
turned to moral autonomy, men like Father Shane MacCarthy wanted
formal recognition from the Archbishop that Catholics could follow conscience on matters of family life. He wanted to be able to tell laypeople they
could follow conscience and remain in the good graces of the Church. I
accept Tentler’s observation, however, that the priests wanted to secure
their own rights of conscience. But I do think these priests, like 1968 rebels
more globally, had a broader liberation in mind.
In many ways, the source base itself (collections of priests’ papers and
theologians’ papers, periodicals, and moral manuals) gave me a certain perspective on the campaign for conscience. But Tentler is right to remind us
that layers of social and cultural change are important to consider here.
Perhaps we could say the laity raised the issue of conscience rights and the
priests tried to settle the conflict in public. The challenge remains in linking

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intellectual change to the social and cultural flows of modern life. Focusing
on priests as agents of liberation, it should be added, also has the advantage
of speaking to some of the deeper currents of American history.
For my own part, after writing the book, I concluded that historians
of modern America and American Catholicism need a comprehensive history of the priesthood that considers social, cultural, intellectual, and institutional factors. In this, I was merely affirming something Professor
Tentler called for in her 2003 breakthrough study, Catholics and Contraception. That book had a profound influence on the questions I asked in
Follow Your Conscience.
Professor William Dinges and Professor Joseph Chinnici ask for more
contextualization. Dinges brings in Weber to call attention to the cultural
factors that shape a pivot away from authority. He helpfully observes that
we ought to draw distinctions between moral reflection, on the one hand,
and broader “cultural momentum” on the other. Chinnici suggests it would
have been productive for more engagement with feminism, civil rights,
Marxism, and secular personalist languages. Both reviewers suggest that I
attribute too much historical change to a conscience discourse I have
bracketed off of the wider secular and cultural milieu.
This offers an opportunity to reflect on the methodological choices I
made in researching and writing the book. To examine more closely what
Chinnici describes as “the interplay between history, culture, and ideas.” I
would describe Follow Your Conscience as the history of an idea, a label
which I think implies an effort to track the zig-zagging of a concept across
domains and between sources. The designation of “intellectual history”
would describe, perhaps, more of a history of the intellectuals themselves.
In seeing the fluidity of ideas in history, I was shaped by the works of historians Sarah Igo (The Known Citizen: A History of Privacy in Modern America) and Daniel Rogers (Age of Fracture), not to mention John McGreevy
(Catholicism and American Freedom). I agree that my approach was a times
quite “narrow” and that I engaged in “telescoping” the discourse into a
smooth tradition. The creativity generated by assembling an intellectual
genealogy is what excited me about the project from the very beginning. I
followed the language of conscience across a wide variety of sources: private
letters, moral manuals, published books, government documents, theological treatises, legal briefs, and organizational memos. In a sense, I saw my
work as connecting dozens upon dozens of documentary dots. The sources
entered into a big conversation that I then tried to relay to the reader over
the course of the book. The pay-off of this approach, after tracking con-

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science in debates over contraception, conscription, and abortion, was also
to see how conscience discourse shaped interreligious connections
(Catholics finding common ground with Jews and mainline Protestants),
the rise of human rights in the 1970s, and the dynamics of reproductive
politics.
This allows the historian to make connections that sometimes transcend time and space. In the Catholic tradition, you can see analogies and
frameworks that thread together Thomas Aquinas, Alphonsus Liguori, a
laywoman’s letters on contraception, and the provocative writings of
Redemptorist Francis Connell. I would argue that a stable Catholic imagination of balancing subjective and objective has endured over the last 600
years. One encounters the law/conscience split first in Thomas Aquinas but
similar musings about conscience and law can be found in the statements
of lawyers and conscientious objectors. John Noonan, the famous jurist
who authored a significant internal memo on conscience rights in the lead
up to an important Supreme Court case, connected the Acts of the Apostles, Aquinas, Suarez, Liguori, and German conscientious objector Franz
Jägerstätter in a long line of conscience theorists and activists. In the
Protestant tradition, the same specters of conscience-less Catholics haunt
the books of twentieth-century writer Paul Blanshard as do the much more
sophisticated seventeenth-century writings of John Locke.
Igo inspired me to chart the movement of ideas from academic to
non-academic realms; Rogers showed how to shadow ideas that move
across disciplinary lines; and McGreevy expertly analyzed the attractions
and repulsions between the Catholic and liberal traditions. These methods
that track an idea help to see the significance of conscience discourse in
modern America. I thought this method also allowed the historian to take
advantage of the insights of social and cultural history by bringing a wide
range of individuals (penitents, confessors, theologians, draft activists,
parish priests, bishops, etc.) into the frame.
I do not entirely agree with Professor Chinnici when he writes “context is everything when trying to interpret,” but I accept the need for a
grounding of ideas. I may see ideas as having a freer hand than he does;
ideas dance across contexts in interesting ways. In this sense, to focus on
just one of his questions, while positive law (state law) differs considerably
from natural or divine law, the broader anti-authoritarian turn to conscience often melded these two strands of law together in Catholics’ imaginations. Law itself became the external force of authority and, as such,
something to be resisted with the internal powers of conscience. Thus, we

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can see connections between moral and political domains that are often
separated in histories of theology. Sex and war blended together. We can
also challenge the ways a more secular historiography centers the political
at the expense of moral formations. Context is essential—I attempted to
provide a tight chronology of World War II and the Vietnam War, along
with the global history of 1968—but it is not king. I think he and Dinges
are right, however, to ask how the argument might have changed if my
analysis went beyond a Catholic realm to consider feminists, Marxists,
postmodernism, and the wider civil rights movement. My response is that
perhaps we would lose the potency of Catholic conscience discourse as a
discrete unit of analysis.
All of the above is why I also disagree with Chinnici’s warning that “it
would be best to leave the thirteenth century to the thirteenth century.”
Aquinas set the tone for the long-running theology of conscience with his
Summa Theologiae and his Disputed Questions on Truth. I would suggest he
left Catholic theology with a permanent tension between subjective and
objective. Moral manualists quoted Aquinas on subjectivity; laypeople who
filed draft paperwork attributed the Church’s strong position on conscience
rights to Aquinas; and numerous theologians marked the Angelic Doctor’s
writings as the origins of the Church’s robust theology of conscience.
I am not suggesting that my protagonists correctly interpreted
Aquinas. They read him selectively. I read him selectively! Modern
Catholics tended to push aside Aquinas’s warnings about the importance
of the law in a rush to focus on his more provocative defenses of conscience. Here again we see the benefits of analyzing the flow of idea across
vectors. Historical subjects read classical ideas in self-serving manners that
can at times be both immensely creative and wildly irresponsible.
Importantly, Aquinas was a firm defender of the erroneous conscience,
the notion that an individual could be objectively wrong but still create
truth out of the power of subjectivity. Erroneous conscience bound the
individual under the pain of sin because it created a truth for the individual.
The erroneous conscience is the key to understanding Catholic respect for
subjectivity. O’Boyle had to backtrack in his attacks on the Association of
Washington Priests to clarify that he still believed in the rights of erroneous consciences. John Ford and Francis Connell took Pope Pius XII to
task for his failure to deal adequately with erroneousness in his now infamous 1956 Christmas Allocution on conscientious objection. Both John
Paul II and Joseph Ratzinger found themselves in the early 1990s trying to
upend the entrenched status of the erroneous conscience.

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The advantage of the history of ideas, as I see it, is to trace paradox,
tension, and misinterpretation across time—and, as these excellent reviewers suggest, this comes at the expense of context, thicker reads of culture,
and tight chronological framing. I wanted Follow Your Conscience to speak
to the entirety of American history as it also shaped how we think of the
1960s and its aftermath. In the end, I hope this method has thrown some
light on how and why Catholic conscience discourse exploded into prominence in the late twentieth century.
My goal became to hew closely to the Catholic sources to then widen
out to consider the implications of my analysis. The laser-targeting of
sources on conscience across time can generate a creative—and hopefully
plausible—interpretation of American history. I began making connections between the 1960s and the thirteenth century, along with the Reformation, American Revolution, and the Enlightenment. Busting out of our
normal historiographical confines can help us to shed some light on the
dominant secular-Protestant narratives of American history and their limitations. We study Catholic ideas not simply to reconstruct Catholic ideas
on their own terms, but to deconstruct the prevailing non-Catholic frameworks of American history.
I agree, however, that the book could have benefitted from a more precise unpacking of the shift from the liberal Sixties to the radical Sixties. The
move to conscience did take place in the context of demographic upheaval,
deeper changes in the 1940s and 1950s, the expansion of higher education,
generational disputes, and wider cultural developments. A focus on conscience language as the unit of analysis might have obscured other cultural
factors that brought Catholics to embrace individualism. But honing in on
this discourse closely might also have been the very move that allowed a
broader intervention.
Professor Elizabeth Sweeny Block explores an illuminating answer to
Dinges’s question about what looms ahead. Her review captures how
Catholics deployed conscience for liberation from law, and at other times,
submission to law. One of my favorite motions to trace in the book was the
abrupt swings between emancipatory and conservative takes on conscience.
But she also shows how the idea of conscience is migrating beyond a purely
subjective/objective dichotomy. Block suggests that conscience will be
linked less to acts and more to character; it might still be shaped by liberation and subservience, but conscience formation will consider “situations,
communities, and contexts.” Block articulates nicely how the subjective/
objective dilemma may linger, but she sets our eyes on new horizons. And

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yet, I agree with Dinges that the law/conscience “conceptual bomb” can go
off under the right circumstances of legal pressure from church and state.
Chinnici asks tough questions. I am thankful for the way he, and
others, have taken my book seriously. “A great change took place in the
approach to ‘conscience’ detailed in the book,” he writes, asking “but is it
exactly the change described in Follow Your Conscience?” Perhaps not
exactly, but perhaps it is a starting point. We will need more than just my
book to understand this hugely significant phenomenon of proliferating
and exploding conscience discourse in Catholic modernity. I hope Follow
Your Conscience has moved us closer to understanding the reality of this
transformation.

Review Essay
Politiche di misericordia tra teoria e prassi: Confraternite, ospedali e Monti di
Pietà (XIII–XVI secolo). Edited by Pietro Delcorno. (Bologna: Società
Editrice Il Mulino. 2018. Pp. 376. €30.00 paperback. ISBN 978-8815-27347-5.)
This anthology of dense, erudite studies—twelve in Italian, two in
English, and one in French—abundantly annotated and supplemented by
thirteen figures pertaining to three of them and the editor’s introduction,
itself a short essay, emerged from papers presented at a pair of conferences
convened in 2016, declared by Pope Francis as the Year of Mercy (misericordia in Italian). The Seven Corporal Works of Mercy, six of them itemized in one much-cited biblical passage (Matt. 25:31–46) and the seventh
derived from another (Tob. 2:1–7), are the contributors’ point of departure. As pathways to salvation, they were often the subject of commentary
mainly by churchmen during the tumultuous continuum of the late Middle
Ages and the Renaissance. Multidisciplinary in nature, but principally historical, theological, and/or rhetorical in their orientation, the essays presented here elucidate and exemplify the differing ways in which the concept of mercy was defined and implemented by cities and institutions as
European society emerged from the far more static preceding era and laid
the groundwork for its more recent interpretations and manifestations.
In his introduction, volume editor Pietro Delcorno identifies the
common thread here. Together, these studies investigate how the scriptural ideal of rendering assistance “was utilized, not without ambiguities, to
experiment with untried solutions to new problems. . . , [and] to reflect on
how reference[s] to charity also served to mask or justify the politics of
domination, discipline, exclusion, and on how diverse ‘cultures of charity’
confronted one another within the vibrant core of [that] society.” Delcorno
then proposes considering the essays in respective groups of three.
The first group examines definitions of mercy supplied by prominent
theologians of the twelfth through fourteenth centuries. Emmanuel Bain’s
contribution suggests ways in which the understanding of mercy promoted
the Church’s claim to supremacy over secular society, beginning with theologians’ insistence that works of justice, implicit in Matt. 25, are more difficult
and valuable to perform than those of mercy, rendering salvation impossible
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to persons who assist the needy while leading sinful lives. Similarly, they
maintained the superiority of the Seven Spiritual Works of Mercy—
nowhere specifically itemized in the Bible—to the corporal works insofar as
they stem from, and affect, the soul, not the body, reinforcing faith through
forgiveness, compassion, and consolation. Confession followed by penance,
conferred by priests, provides the spiritual wherewithal for laypersons to perform the corporal works, and in this way, the practice of charity, previously
the province of priests and monks, passed largely to the laity. Finally, Bain
notes the near unanimity of opinion among exegetes that priorities be set on
whom to aid—just persons, family and community members, the neediest—
given the impossibility of helping all the poor, yet no matter who the recipients are, works of mercy are most beneficial to those who perform them,
especially in the life to come. Paolo Vian’s study centers on Franciscan theologian Pietro di Giovanni Olivi (Petrus Joannis Olivi), who addressed the
topic of mercy not only through its formulation in Matt. 25 but elsewhere in
the gospels. Differing from his Dominican contemporary Thomas Aquinas,
Olivi claimed that the “least of these my brethren” who benefit from the
works of mercy, identified by Christ as mortal images of Himself, are those
who humbly and out of choice embrace and then preach apostolic poverty,
namely, Olivi’s Franciscan comrades. In the next life, Olivi claimed, they will
sit alongside Christ, judging others and selecting the merciful among
humankind to join them in Heaven. As such, while performing good works
is necessary for and can lead to salvation, voluntary poverty (and benefiting
as necessary from those actions) is a higher calling. Luca Parisoli presents the
thinking of Duns Scotus, another Franciscan, who proposed the sacrament
of confession as a means of uniting social norms with a Christian ideal, and
its use not in a punitive manner but rather as an instrument to push society
in a positive direction. To accomplish this best, however, Scotus offered several reasons why the confessor must maintain secrecy vis-à-vis the sins
revealed to him. Parisoli views Scotus’s insistence on confessional secrecy as
a type of charity defined by an accepted societal need for restraint and distinct from mercy and its implications of purely gratuitous love.
The next three essays concern expressions of mercy in the context of
predominantly lay associations. Federico Botana finds the source for both
the renowned Allegory of Mercy and a fresco cycle depicting the lives of Old
Testament protagonists Tobit and his son Tobias inside the former seat of
the Florentine Misericordia confraternity in a mid-fourteenth-century
manuscript that he speculates the Misericordia once owned. The number of
vignettes in the fresco cycle centered on the young Tobias suggests that it
served a didactic purpose directed at the parentless children cared for by the
confraternity. Botana proposes that the Allegory was a focus for confraternity

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members themselves during recitations and readings from the manuscript,
and that they viewed the Allegory principally as a Madonna of Mercy, which
in some ways it resembles. Gervase Rosser shifts the attention to guilds in
England, though he appears to encompass confraternities within that term.
According to various theologians cited, human relationships within a sodality, and in the larger community outside, are superficial and therefore insufficient if lacking in love, but in both cases where love, grounded in personal
relationships, is present, works of mercy enhance it. Conceived thus, guild
members regarded paupers less as anonymous recipients of indiscriminate
charity than as fellow human beings in need with whom personal bonds
were forged. And too, as in Italy at this time, the guilds (and confraternities)
began to vie with monasteries not only as heirs of testators’ charitable benefactions, but in turn also as administrators of hospitals for the sick and
almshouses for the growing number of transients, and as suppliers of cash
and material necessities to the poor. Lorena Lucia Barale moves the discussion to the subalpine region of Italy. Following an excellent summary of the
confusing variety of legal terms employed to describe associations of people,
she singles out the local, exclusionary confrarie of the Holy Spirit, each of
them characterized by an annual shared Pentecostal meal that doubled as a
business meeting, and ties of family, neighborhood, and/or commerce. Participation included men and women and was largely in the hands of the
non-élite classes of society. In their informality and loose organization, the
confrarie were an alternative to the charitable confraternities proliferating in
cities further to the south. Barale acknowledges that our present understanding of them relies strictly on archival records of finance, testamentary
clauses, and other documents of communal life, revealing that, as for confraternities, members’ donations, bequests, and rents on assets and properties owned by confrarie were their sources of money for good works. Their
principal aim, however, was not charity toward the poor but the maintenance of mutual ties to ensure continuity in their members’ business transactions with one another to prevent them from falling into penury.
Hospital reform during the fifteenth century is the subject of the following three studies. Francesco Bianchi’s contribution commences with a
useful, concise overview of charitable assistance to the involuntary poor
from the Early Christian era through the Middle Ages, highlighting the
transition in leadership in this regard after A.D. 1000 from monastic communities of the voluntary poor to associations of laypersons, eventually
joined by the Franciscans. Consistently, salvation for the providers of merciful aid was the main goal. This development occurred simultaneously
with the commercial expansion and urban growth of the late-medieval
period. However, the concomitant increase in poverty encouraged many to

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view indigence as a public menace, in response to which laypersons formed
confraternities, with donations, bequests, and other sources of income to
support distributions of alms and material goods as well as hospitals and
hospices staffed by oblates located in city centers. Bianchi’s discussion then
focuses on Venice and its hinterland cities during the fifteenth century,
summarizing the reforms effected by local patricians often in concert with
confraternities and, indirectly, communal governments. The devotional
aspect of charity remained intact, but bureaucratic practices along with
selective criteria that prioritized recipients of aid increasingly entered into
consideration. Both old and newly founded hospitals chose areas of specialization, and individual institutions within the same locale sometimes
coordinated their activities. The patrician overseers hired and salaried
administrative personnel who brought to bear their commercial acumen in
running them. Thomas Frank transfers the topic of hospital reform to
Lombardy, specifically Pavia and Lodi, and north to German-oriented
Strasbourg. The Ospedale Maggiore of Lodi materialized in 1466 as a unification of existing local hospitals, run by a mostly lay confraternity that
included many jurists, and served by male and female oblates. Frank questions the odd circumstance that the statutes governing the hospital have
two prologues, the first predominantly religious in character and the
second more humanistic, in explanation of which Frank suggests shifting
notions of mercy. The Ospedale di San Matteo of Pavia arose in 1451, likewise supervised by a confraternity. Careful examination of the statutes of
the two institutions implies differences regarding the status of oblate
women, and wavering degrees of willingness to accept pilgrims, decrepit
seniors, and chronically or incurably ill persons. Noting these facts, Frank
again infers malleable conceptions of mercy. Certain concerns in Strasbourg paralleled those elsewhere in Europe described by Frank, but generally, debates on the nature of assistance in German-speaking areas were
somewhat different—more strictly theological—and rare prior to the Reformation. A sermon of 1523 delivered by Martin Bucer, chief theologian
of Strasbourg, provided the henceforth-standard Protestant position on the
issue. Faith is the basis of a Christian community, and acts of mercy begin
with faith and depend on the love of God. Those actions are a proof of
faith, the presence of which confirms that their performance exemplifies
mercy and not vanity, and that they are not simply a means to ingratiate
oneself with God. Thus, faith and works reinforce one another. Despite
resistance, Germany of the Reformation witnessed the suppression of
monasteries and convents and their patrimonies relegated to hospitals and
as alms with the conviction that this process reversed the abuses perpetrated by those foundations. Like Botana’s study, the essay by volume
editor Pietro Delcorno emphasizes the importance of the visual arts within

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a general discussion of mercy and, more specifically, of hospital reform. A
fresco cycle of 1476-77 in Lodi located close to that city’s Ospedale Maggiore, opened a mere decade earlier, celebrates the assistance that the
youthful San Bernardino da Siena—not yet a Franciscan—and members of
his confraternity rendered to the plague-stricken at Siena’s famed Ospedale
della Scala during the epidemic of 1400. The Scala, long a centralized communal institution, was the principal model for newly unified city hospitals
throughout Lombardy, and Bernardino’s confraternity was, according to
Delcorno, implicitly the prototype for the group that directed the new
institution in Lodi. Both associations worked for the good of their respective cities and, like the hospitals that they served, were exemplars that drew
fellow residents to lives of charity. Delcorno proposes that the fresco cycle
aimed to endorse the nearby hospital by reference to such an admirable
forerunner and its venerated servant. In the process, his paper usefully
summarizes aspects of the early hagiographies of Bernardino, canonized in
1450 and regarded as the re-founder of the Franciscan order, including
accounts of his service at the Scala. Some biographers quoted Bernardino’s
sermon-like exhortation to his confraternal brethren during the plague
outbreak in which he referred to Matt. 25, likened the poor and sick to
Christ, and affirmed that helping them was worth the risk of death by contagion, for this would ensure salvation for the caregivers. In other sermons,
Bernardino and his Observant Franciscan disciples went further, employing the plague as a symbol for society’s ills—partisanship, sodomy, usury,
blasphemy—all of them resulting from a lack of attention to the common
good within a community. As such, Delcorno notes, these preachers effectively equated caritas with civitas, a goal that their sermonizing promoted.
The ensuing trio of essays address the innovative but controversial communal institution known as the Monte di Pietà, the Mountain—or Pile—
of Piety, which played an important role in the reform of charitable assistance in Renaissance Italy. (Today this Italian expression indicates a
pawnshop, barely comparable to its initial meaning.) Perugia was the first
city to create such an entity, in 1462, according to Maria Giuseppina Muzzarelli, followed closely by a host of other cities such that by 1539 there were
over one hundred Monti di Pietà in Italy. Supported by the Observant
Franciscan movement and city governments as Christian alternatives to the
high interest rates charged on money loaned by Jewish creditors, their
intention was primarily to serve not the hopelessly indigent but the poveri
meno poveri, artisans who needed to borrow capital and were capable of
repaying it at a markedly reduced rate of interest. Often overseen by confraternities, the Monti encouraged cash donations by promoting the idea that
contributing money was equivalent to performing all the scriptural works of

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mercy insofar as currency was convertible to any charitable use. Noting that
the terms pietà and misericordia both evoke the notion of compassion in the
face of trouble, Muzzarelli maintains that the latter term in addition implies
a subsequent active response to relieve that trouble. Consequently, she
explains, images of the Christ in Piety and the Madonna of Mercy were
appropriate for adoption by Monti di Pietà. Roberto Ferrari discusses an
influential pair of treatises by Milanese jurist and popular Observant Franciscan preacher Bernardino de Busti, published together in 1497 and
reprinted frequently, that summarize contemporary arguments for and
against the Monte di Pietà as an institution. Much of his Defensorium
montis pietatis reflects the favorable point of view of fellow Observant
Bernardino da Feltre, a key figure in the controversy whom Bernardino de
Busti knew personally, and Ferrari opines that the Defensorium probably
clinched the ongoing debate within the order, which gave its official
approval of the Monte one year later. A tract filled with juridical and theological positions, including numerous citations from Psalms to signal divine
approval of the institution, part one of the first treatise recapitulates contrary arguments, centered on the judgment that the Monte is by definition
usurious and enmeshes the entire community in sin. Points made in parts
two and three refute those of part one, while part four advocates for the formation of Monti everywhere to fulfill God’s commandment for people to
love one another, and because each Monte benefits its entire community,
circulates money freely, and eliminates usury, keeping wealth in the hands
of Christians and not usurious Jews. Divided into seven parts, the Defensorium’s second treatise reiterates and develops arguments presented earlier,
cites opinions favoring the Monte, offers suggestions on governance and
ways to augment services, and considers how all classes of society must
donate to it. Perhaps most intriguing is part three, a complex discourse on
the legality of loaning at interest that, among other things, holds that the
Monte’s money belongs not to the community but to its now and future
paupers. Antonio Ciceri’s paper gathers the scattered mentions of the
Monte di Pietà found in the voluminous early-seventeenth-century Annales
minorum of Irish Franciscan theologian and historian Luke Wadding. His
text refers frequently to the writings of others in support of the Monte,
alluding to past controversies and summarizing the 1498 decision of the
Franciscan general chapter to approve the institution. Here and there, the
Annales reviews the reasons for instituting the Monte, in the process
denouncing Jews in vile terms for their usurious practices while applauding
the Monte’s normalization of previously variable interest rates on loans. In
this vein, too, Wadding’s account mentions instances in which donations of
surplus money collected by various Monti had supported worthy causes
such as dowries, artisan organizations, orphan care, monasteries, and con-

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fraternities, and how his Franciscan forebears preached the importance of
morality in society as exemplified by the Monte di Pietà.
The final three essays move the discussion of the reform of charitable
theory and practice fully into the sixteenth century. Michele Camaioni offers
an excellent survey of the contribution of the Capuchins, an offshoot of the
Franciscan order formally recognized in 1528. With widespread support, the
Capuchins desired to return to the hermetic life of Francis of Assisi while
simultaneously serving the plague-stricken, victims of new diseases, and the
poor in an age of endemic warfare and famine. They rejected the transactional aspect of late-medieval and early-Renaissance charity, which held that
performance of the works of mercy plus a reliance on ceremony sufficed to
earn salvation. Their sermons were both apocalyptic and penitential in thrust,
but also evangelical and consoling in promoting forgiveness of sins and charitable assistance at institutions, some of them new, organized according to
the rational and centralizing tenets of the day. Camaioni presents evidence
of the impact that, city after city, the sermons of Bernardino Ochino, an early
Capuchin from Siena, had throughout Northern and Central Italy. Ochino
and his colleagues refrained from the anti-Semitic polemics of Observant
Franciscans and, like many in Italy, he found attractive Luther’s confidence
in justification by faith rather than by good works and rituals, a conviction
that nonetheless maintained the inevitability and value of works, and the
related Protestant belief in predestination. Countering attacks on Luther’s
basic premises, Ochino asserted that assurance of salvation did not permit sin
or the absence of good works, and that faith in a God of infinite mercy available even to non-Christians—of predestination to God’s grace and not to
salvation per se—can overcome despair over fears of human impotence and
the impossibility of divine forgiveness. Forced to leave Italy in 1542 for his
beliefs, Ochino embraced the Reformation. His theological journey illustrates the gentler, more tolerant contribution of the Capuchin order to the
transformations underway to the idea of mercy. Lorenzo Coccoli’s study
explores sixteenth-century notions regarding the roles of charity and discipline within debates about assistance. Recalling Bain’s essay, he notes how
the spiritual works of mercy took precedence over the corporal works in conjunction with the preeminence accorded to the clergy over the laity. Yet an
interweaving of the two concepts informed discussions about support for the
needy in their insistence that recipients of help in material terms (corporal
aid) take instruction on how to limit sinfulness in their lives and on doctrines
pertinent to salvation (spiritual aid). This was, Coccoli contends, part of that
era’s general redefinition of the relationship of the civil to the religious, as
secular entities increasingly attempted to improve the religious and moral
lives of the poor even as they aided them materially. He recounts aspects of

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the reform of assistance covered in other essays within this anthology, all
facilitated by the growing involvement of local governments, and all, Coccoli
avers, tending to impose collective controls upon the behavior of individuals.
To illustrate this development, he cites mid-century anti-reformist writings
favoring a separation between the administrations of justice and mercy, with
justice strictly in the hands of lay authorities in cases resulting from truly evil
deeds, but mercy—corporal and spiritual—in everyone’s hands and available
to all persons whether in cases involving material needs or those concerning
private wrongdoings. Specifically regarding aid to the needy in the public
realm, however, the belief was that even after the rendering of justice, it is
better to let ecclesiastical authorities supervise spiritual improvement, thus
keeping separate corporal and spiritual mercy and avoiding the danger in
allowing secular authority to predominate in both ways for the sake of political stability. Other writers backed the reformers in preferring the simultaneous administration of corporal and spiritual mercy at the hands of secular
authorities, claiming that justice and mercy are joined in the Bible (2 Thess.
3:14–15), and the poor and the unjust who refuse spiritual instruction
deserve to starve until for hunger or fear they accept it alongside material aid.
They favored expanding the traditional bond of love between donor and
recipient, described in Rosser’s paper, to the communal or state level, thus
inhibiting potentially seditious ideas and outright revolts by society’s havenots. Stefano Zamagni begins his essay on the Franciscan contribution to
economic thought with a panoramic yet concise description of developments
leading to the emergence, from the eleventh through fourteenth centuries, of
the European market economy. He then describes how Francis of Assisi and
his followers, mimicking the Cistercians, renounced communal property and
income from rents and tithes while embracing both extreme poverty and
physical labor. Yet unlike the Cistercians, who accepted huge donations
from the laity that paradoxically permitted their foundations to thrive, the
Franciscans found a way for profit and charity to coexist with their own commitment to poverty. In their eyes, money, loans, and goods were social elements, and thus morally positive ones. Franciscans believed it necessary to
use resources donated to them, especially alms, though not to possess them,
sustaining their poverty by turning over the unused portion of those donations to the needy through their own charity, that is, what they did not need
for themselves, the voluntary poor, they gave to the involuntary poor, thus
putting it back into circulation. For the Franciscans, therefore, their chosen
life of poverty was not only a path to personal spiritual perfection, following
Christ, but also part of the socio-economic order of society collectively that
contributed to the common good, a goal championed by the Observant
branch of the order. The Monte di Pietà, which they supported enthusiastically, proved to be a wise and innovative administrator of surplus resources,

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helping the lay poor through low-interest loans and, eventually, in turn creating opportunities for profit—additional useful wealth—through interest
earnings by persons capable of saving money and investing in it. By involving
and helping many people simultaneously, the Monte was a significant contributor—and in a sanctified way through its bestowal of mercy—to social
cohesion in the early-modern era. Zamagni concludes his study pessimistically, lamenting that with the triumph of capitalism beginning in the late
eighteenth century, society has abandoned the idea of commerce for the
common good, and the spiritual ideal of communal cooperation has largely
vanished. Profit abetted by consumerism is now the rule, with the result that
today’s expectation and goal is only for markets to be efficient. Consequently,
inequality and a general unhappiness stemming from expenditures on systems of public welfare are endemic, and people—the human element—have
become nothing more than faceless components in the means of production.
Clearly, as its title proclaims, this anthology is a treasury of information
and ideas about the evolving concept of mercy, both corporal and spiritual,
and about the implementation of those ideas by institutions offering charitable assistance during the time period covered. Every essay is rewarding in
itself, and the points of intersection among them only add to their scholarly
utility, as do the numerous references to earlier literature provided in the
notes to each. This reviewer found several of the papers more abstruse than
others, but that is unsurprising given his limited prior familiarity with much
of the material covered, and other readers may encounter the same difficulty. Intellectual wrestling, however, often yields great rewards, as it did in
this case. Embedded in the title of the volume is a further point worth mentioning. The word “politics” means different things to different people, and
while to this reviewer it connotes—or has come to connote—the give and
take among various parties with an interest in a governmental, cultural, or
religious entity, profound societal and ideological issues do not necessarily
play a role. They often cede to more superficial and purely practical matters.
While undoubtedly those lesser concerns are present in this volume’s
respective contributions, the stakes are higher in every case here—sociologically, intellectually, philosophically, and spiritually—and therefore use of
the term “politics” sells the volume somewhat short. Admittedly, this may
be purely a matter of semantics, of a native English speaker’s misunderstanding of the fuller meaning of an Italian word. True or not, he was
unable adequately to ascertain the content of this book by its cover. Its
breadth, and value, became evident only as he read each page.
Centre College, Danville, KY (emeritus)

WILLIAM R. LEVIN

Book Reviews
GENERAL
The Education of a Historian: A Strange and Wonderful Story. By John W. O’Malley,
S.J. (Philadelphia: Saint Joseph’s University Press. 2021. Pp. v, 192. $30.00.
ISBN 978-0-916101-12-1.)
The title of the book is apt—this is “the story of how a young man of modest
background from a small town in Ohio achieved international eminence as a historian of the religious culture of modern Europe” (p. 2). It is a tale told by a master
storyteller gifted with a remarkable memory, high intelligence (small fraction of the
top one percent), disciplined work habits (product of his Jesuit training), restless
curiosity, and charming wit. The story straddles the categories of memoir and an
apologia for the study of history. Only the briefest hints are given of the author’s
spirituality: a disciple of Saints Augustine and Ignatius Loyola and of Erasmus of
Rotterdam, fidelity to the practice of meditation, concern for others, and a trust in
divine providence.
O’Malley’s formal education began in the public schools of Tiltonsville, a
small Ohio-River town of about 2,300. It continued briefly at John Carroll University where he learned Latin in preparation for entering the Jesuit novitiate at Milford, Ohio, and then followed the lengthy training at Milford (affiliated with
Xavier University) and West Baden College in rural Indiana (a division of Loyola
University of Chicago). In the novitiate he came under the influence of Father
William Young, who studied the early history of the Jesuits, and at West Baden
that of Father Charles Metzger, an Americanist. His theology professors, Fathers
William LeSaint (patristics) and John L. McKenzie (Old Testament), were in
effect historians. Instead of pursuing American history, O’Malley decided to follow
his true interest in the Reformation era but wound up in Renaissance history due
to a trip to Italy where he admired its people, their culture, and gelato. His formal
training in Renaissance history was at Harvard University where he survived Heiko
Oberman and had as his mentor Myron Gilmore, who became a dear friend. He
gave him the topic of his dissertation: Giles of Viterbo, the noted humanist, general
of the Augustinian friars, and cardinal, and helped to secure for him fellowships at
the American Academy in Rome and at Villa I Tatti in Florence.
O’Malley’s informal education as a historian came from multiple sources.
From his youth he was a voracious reader of library books and magazines, studying
the history of the music he practiced on the piano, of French kings, and of foreign
lands. When in Italy he loved to visit museums and examine carefully their works
of art. At the American Academy and Villa I Tatti he engaged in conversations
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with art historians and conservators. He had a remarkable knack for making friends
and meeting important persons: Hubert Jedin, Augustin Bea, Carlo Maria Martini,
Pedro Arrupe, Paul Oskar Kristeller, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, John Shearman, the
list goes on and on. He found himself present at major events: the 1963 international conference on the Council of Trent, the announcement of the election of the
Jesuit general Pedro Arrupe, public sessions of Vatican Council II, the aftermath
of the Arno flood in 1966, Jesuit general congregations (1965, 1974), the canonization inquest for Arrupe (2019), and innumerable major academic conferences
where he conversed with other scholars. He was invited to join organizing committees and editorial teams of significant academic projects—the Collected Works of
Erasmus, conferences on Raphael and Michelangelo—and he co-founded conferences on Jesuit history. Fellow scholars and editors encouraged him to explore new
themes: rhetorical style (Kristeller and Helen North), the writings of Erasmus
(James McConica and Ronald Schoeffel), the Counter-Reformation (Steven
Ozment), the meaning of the Jesuits’ fourth vow (fellow Jesuits), the history of the
papacy (Michael Bloom), the four cultures of the West (Lindsay Waters), the
Council of Trent (David Collins), and so on. At times initially reluctant, he threw
himself into the projects and learned from them.
In many ways, O’Malley was a self-taught historian. When confronted with
chaotic and unexpected materials he did not despair, but stuck with his investigations until an interpretative pattern emerged. The seemingly “impenetrable nonsense” (p. 76) of Giles of Viterbo’s treatise on the twenty ages of humanity was
eventually seen as Giles’ attempt to synthesize ancient learning in the footsteps of
Pico della Mirandola. The unusual style of the sermons preached in the papal
chapel was recognized with the serendipitous help of Aurelio Brandolini as examples of the new epideictic rhetorical style that had become popular there. O’Malley
took these insights to a new level of interpretation. He entered into the mindset of
their authors and demonstrated the significance of his findings. Giles saw reform
as a return to a mythical golden age; novelty was to be avoided. The chapel preachers were not out to prove a doctrine or call to repentance, but to celebrate the great
works of God. The style of their message influenced its purpose and contents.
When asked to survey the field of scholarship on the Counter-Reformation,
O’Malley felt that the Catholicism of that period was too rich to be encapsulated
in the category of “Counter-Reformation.” This led him to study the origins of the
term and to propose the more expansive nomenclature of “Early Modern Catholicism.” O’Malley’s research into the meaning of the Jesuits’ fourth vow opened up
other questions regarding the early history of the Society of Jesus and led him to
debunk the myth of its military ethos and primary purpose of countering the
Protestant Reformation. Instead, the Society of Jesus started out as a group of itinerant preachers, performing tasks neglected by parish priests. Their accidental
entrance into the field of education transformed the Jesuits, tying them down to
schools and forcing them to engage with secular culture. Noting the style of the
decrees of the Second Vatican Council (not laws imposing public order, but reflections on the Church’s identity and mission), he rejected the historiography on the
council that emphasized either its continuity or discontinuity with the past.

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Instead, O’Malley called for a balanced interpretation that acknowledged continuity, but also recognized a new ecclesiology of collegiality, the development of doctrine, and an effort to reconcile with other religions. His study of the documents of
the Council of Trent led him to reject claims that the council fathers wanted to
condemn polyphony and cover the frontal nudity of Michaelangelo’s “Last Judgment.” By immersing himself in the documents of a period, O’Malley came to his
own understandings and challenged the prevalent orthodoxy of scholars.
His teaching responsibilities also shaped him as a historian As a regent
scholastic he taught world and American history to teenage boys at St. Ignatius
College Prep in Chicago (1953–56), where he quickly learned the need to “make
history attractive and meaningful” (p. 37). Years of teaching at the University of
Detroit (1965–79) the Western civilization survey with its multitude of names and
dates was an “unsatisfing experience” (p. 82), but it trained him in the sweep of history. When he joined the faculty of Weston College in Cambridge, Massachusetts,
he was assigned the medieval and early modern periods of church history (1979–
2006). Instead of focussing on the institutional church with its prelates and doctrines, he formulated his narrative as the history of the religious culture of the
West. When Weston left Cambridge for Brighton, O’Malley accepted an offer
from Georgetown University, where he taught church history in the Theology
Department (2006–20), retiring to the Colombiere Jesuit Residence in Baltimore.
His teaching responsibilities had pulled him out of the Renaissance and Reformation periods and gave him a broader perspective.
The bibliography of O’Malley’s works is extensive and impressive. Of the
twelve monographs he has authored, four are his favorites since they proved to be
“game-changers.” They dealt with epideictic rhetoric (Praise and Blame), early
modern Catholicism (Trent and All That), the early years of the Jesuits (First
Jesuits), and Vatican II (What Happened). Scholars of all persuasions from around
the world have recognized O’Malley’s contributions to the study of the religious
culture of modern Europe. He has been honored with membership in elite learned
societies, with numerous honorary degrees, and by lifetime achievement awards.
His career has indeed been “a strange and wonderful story” made possible by his
great intellect, indefatigable work habits, putting aside preconceptions and letting
the documents speak for themselves, and reflecting on their significance. The lessons he learned should be of service to all historians.
The Catholic University of America

NELSON H. MINNICH

Unbelievable: 7 Myths About the History and Future of Science and Religion. By
Michael Newton Keas. (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books. 2019. Pp. vii, 246.
$11.99 paperback. ISBN: 1610171535.)
This new volume by Michael Keas joins a growing chorus of popular books
attempting to debunk “myths” of conflict between science and religion, particularly
Christianity. The first half of the book addresses specific episodes of conflict, which
most readers will have encountered at some point in their lives. Most have heard,

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for example, the “myth” that the Copernican revolution demoted humans from the
center of the cosmos. By making our universe “bigger,” the new cosmology undermined the teaching of the Church, who, allegedly, placed great stock in human significance. But according to Keas, the size of the universe was irrelevant to this significance. Indeed, most theologians have always recognized our insignificance in the
grand scheme of the God’s plan. Our value comes not from our place in the universe but in our relationship with the Creator, in that we are created in His image.
The irony here is that the removal of the earth from the center of the universe actually promoted the status of humanity! This anticipates Keas’s emphasis in the
second part of his book, that the scientific achievements of humanity did not bring
humility but just the opposite, hubris.
Another common myth is that the Middle Ages was a period of intellectual
stagnation and “darkness,” largely due to Church opposition to scientific progress.
On the contrary, as Keas correctly points out, the medieval period made significant
progress in learning. One only needs to consider that the modern university had its
origins in the cathedral schools of Bologna, Paris, Oxford, Palencia, and Cambridge. From the twelfth century on, almost all European universities grew from
Roman Catholic Church schools. “Between 1200 and 1450,” writes Keas, “hundreds of thousands of university students studied Greco-Arabic-Latin science,
medicine, and mathematics—as progressively digested and improved by generations of European university faculty” (p. 37). Thus, according to Keas, no churchdriven opposition to scientific progress ever occurred.
In the second half of the book, Keas shows that many of these myths of conflict were propagated through the genre of science fiction writing. Indeed, foundational to many of these utopian (and dystopian) stories of the future is a narrative
of conflict between scientific thinking and traditional beliefs. You have authors
such as H. G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Gene Roddenberry, Douglas
Adams, Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan, and Stephen Hawking, to name just a few, who
wrote popular science fiction in an attempt to undermine traditional religious
beliefs. The most recent example of this genre is the expensive and entertaining
productions of Sagan’s Cosmos and its reboot. But it was the Christian worldview,
Keas argues, that gave birth to modern science. And here Keas is indeed in good
company, with such scholars as Robert K. Merton, Michael Foster, Amos
Frankenstein, John Hedley Brooke, Peter Harrison, and others making similar
claims in their own respective scholarly works.
Perhaps the most original and insightful portions of Keas’s story are those
chapters where he traces how many of these myths appeared in American science
textbooks. Following an extensive survey of old and new texts, Keas concludes that,
interestingly enough, “None of the textbooks published before 1789 contained any
of these myths” (p. 185). By contrast, “About 79 percent of currently used college
astronomy textbooks contain at least one of these myths” (p. 186).
At times, at least for this reader, Keas’s occasional reference to pop culture
seemed like a desperate attempt to sound relevant. But no doubt this material will

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connect with the wider audience this book intends to reach. And in this sense
Keas’s book is a welcome addition to the ever-increasing genre of scholars publishing more popular-level books of their research. This needs to be done if we indeed
want to effectively make the “conflict thesis” unbelievable.
JAMES C. UNGUREANU

Trinity Classical Academy
Valencia, California

MEDIEVAL
Dark Age Nunneries: The Ambiguous Identity of Female Monasticism, 8 0 0 –1 0 5 0 . By
Steven Vanderputten. (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press.
2018. Pp. xiii + 309. $36.95. ISBN 9781501715952.)
At the close of Dark Age Nunneries, Steven Vanderputten compares researching his subject, women religious in Lotharingia in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh
centuries, to “listening to a badly tuned shortwave radio. Clear, reliable information
comes through in short bursts, alternating with long stretches of silence and ‘white
noise’” (p. 155). Of the forty institutions he considers, names of monastic officers
or individuals survive from only twenty-five and in six cases there is but one name
(pp. 159–166). There is a single surviving biographical account of a Lotharingian
abbess between 816 and 1050, that a mere 500 words embedded in the vita of an
abbot (p. 138; the passage is edited and translated on pp. 195–197). A documentary
record this thin may be in large part responsible for the standard narrative of
women’s religious life starting in the ninth century that finds “disempowerment
and descent into social and spiritual redundancy” (p. 37). What Vanderputten finds
through close and imaginative reading of the surviving textual sources, to which he
adds artistic, archeological, and numismatic evidence, is something quite different.
The “ambiguous identity” of his subtitle refers to religious life organized in a variety
of ways across 250 years. There were internal debates about its meaning across the
entire period, as the evidence points to ongoing discussion among women religious—and, often, their male interlocutors: the cooperation of sympathetic men is
another theme throughout the book.
The book is organized primarily on chronological lines in six chapters whose
conclusions I summarize very briefly. Early ninth-century legislative efforts by Carolingian churchmen did not intend to do away with diversity of female religious
practice “but instead aimed to set the boundaries for legitimate experimentation”
(p. 36). Religious life organized along strict Benedictine lines, then, was the exception rather than the rule. To combat the limitations of enclosure, communities
reconfigured their claustral spaces and developed the cults of the saints whose relics
they housed to maintain links with the laity and lay spirituality, what Vanderputten
calls “coping strategies.” This allowed at least some communities to thrive even in
the half-century starting ca. 880, when they faced Norman raids, power struggles
in the fragmenting Carolingian state, and the imposition of lay management on
their estates. The reforms in the tenth century were first of all a way for the indi-

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viduals behind insistence on strict adherence to Benedict's Rule, usually bishops, to
strengthen their own power and authority and that of their families and allies. The
imposition of a Benedictine regime does not appear to have been uniformly advantageous materially or even spiritually, as rejection of ambiguity also entailed dismissal of women’s “attested capacity to reflect on and debate the purpose of religious life” (p. 110). In the face of more pressure to limit multiformity that could
even take the form of smear campaigns, religious women from ca. 970–ca. 1050
revived earlier coping strategies, seeking recognition of their status from kings and
emperors while pursuing “additional ‘cultic capital’” (p. 146).
Vanderputten’s revisionist narrative is careful to limit its claims and acknowledge speculative elements. His book is a master class on how to marshall fragmentary and complex evidence to form a coherent picture of a female monastic world
livelier than reputed. Dark Age Nunneries offers not a golden age but a nuanced and
convincing riposte to interpretations of general decline and decadence. Instead, it
shows women with considerable agency in defining and organizing their spiritual
lives and the material support that facilitated them. Ambiguity here fosters creativity and vice versa, a happy thought.
Independent Scholar

BRUCE L. VENARDE

Before the Gregorian Reform: The Latin Church at the Turn of the First Millennium. By
John Howe. (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. 2016. Pp. xiv, 353;
44 illustrations and two maps. $33.95 paperback. ISBN: 78080142801452895.)
John Howe’s remarkable book, Before the Gregorian Reform, intends to illuminate the fate of Latin Europe from the Viking invasions to the threshold of the
pontificate of Pope Leo IX (1049–1054), a pontificate that placed the papacy in the
center of Church Reform. The paradigm “Reform,” the author explains, is a “Black
Hole” (p. 9) accepting all kinds of definitions. He himself wishes to present postCarolingian and post-invasion indications of non-papal developments in the
Church and throughout society. In the process he tries to reinsert the Church into
the general revival of the West (p. 6). Accordingly, the book tries to cover all
aspects of western society in the period of the late eighth to the mid-eleventh century omitting, however, any discussion of political and institutional developments.
The author turns in particular to material culture, such as architecture, using the
Romanesque churches of France as example. Many changes related to the Church,
such as in the liturgy, the creation of books of Hours, the splendor of ecclesiastical
garments, saints’ presentations such as that of Sainte Foy of the Abbey of Conques,
as well as festivals, pilgrimages, and general innovations were ushered in by the
“creative” Viking destructions. The Viking invasions led, according to the author,
last not least to the “feudal revolution” by way of internal fortifications such as
defensive Motte-and-bailey castles and the creation of knights (pp. 54, 56, 57).
The volume that was nearly twenty years in the making (p. 1), is addressed to
medievalists as well as to the general reader interested in medieval and church his-

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tory (p. 10). For this reason the author explains some basic principles, and uses
“modern language” even if this leads to some misunderstandings. There is, for
instance, his use of the terms France and Germany, even though the entities so
described convey little of the medieval meaning of these terms. The map (p. 60)
makes up for this to some extent. In the same context it should be mentioned that
the expression “millennial Church” is used frequently, but only because “it is a simpler label than ‘the tenth- and early eleventh-century Church’” the author explains
(p. 12). It seems nonetheless odd to see a reference to the invading Magyars of the
tenth century as jihadis (p. 47). The book takes up the changes caused by the Vikings
and the subsequent evolution of western society. The task is as complicated as it is
vast, but the survey fills a noteworthy gap in the medieval development of Latin
Europe. There is little analysis; readers have to rely on the very extensive, detailed
footnotes that accompany many seemingly innocuous statements. An excellent feature of the volume is the use of the very helpful black and white illustrations in addition to two maps. The book concludes with an index and a bibliography. Both scholars and the broader public will be grateful for this very learned volume and will pick
up many hints regarding this hitherto neglected period of medieval history.
The Catholic University of America (Emerita)

UTA-RENATE BLUMENTHAL

Wissensordnungen des Rechts im Wandel: Päpstlicher Jurisdiktionsprimat und Zölibat
zwischen 1000 und 1215. By Stephan Dusil. (Leuven: Leuven University Press.
2018. Pp. 642. €95.00. ISBN: 9789462701335.)
An ambitious work combining close textual and manuscript analysis with an
innovative narrative interpretation, Dusil’s study challenges the long-standing division in medieval canon law circles into pre-Gratian, Gratian, and post-Gratian
groupings. Dusil does it all, a
Decretum (especially in its first major recension) in the development of canon law and canonistic
jurisprudence while also painting a complex and nuanced picture depicting the
change in the structure of legal knowledge. If “change in the structure of legal
knowledge” sounds rather theoretical, it is; Dusil balances theory with technical
textual study. Not every reader will be able to manage the more than 500 pages in
the body of this book, but all can make use of Dusil’s helpful introductions and
summarizing conclusions in every chapter and the book as a whole.
In my limited space, I will focus on Dusil’s terminology, established in chapter
one. He speaks of canonical collections as storerooms of knowledge, the collective
memory or cultural remembrances of ecclesiastical legal culture. But one must
explain how legal knowledge is generated such that members of the same society
all “know” the same things as normative. Legal knowledge can be simple/singular,
such as knowing an individual decree because it is accessible in a collection. Legal
knowledge can be complex, such as knowing that an individual decree fits historically or systematically into a body of laws that handle similar topics because numerous canons are gathered in an organized fashion in a collection. Legal knowledge
can also be relational, whereby one knows how individual canons relate to one

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another to form a unified system of knowledge on the basis of extensive glossing
and commentary. Dusil’s study examines to what extent individual canonical collections represented or were an end-product of legal knowledge (p. 15) and to what
extent the canonical collection as a genre could be responsible for a fundamental
shift in the ordering of legal knowledge.
Since it would be difficult to analyze the structure of legal knowledge without
concrete examples, Dusil selected two topics on which to focus, namely, papal jurisdictional primacy and clerical celibacy. Thus, while the heart of Dusil’s study consists of tracing structural changes in legal knowledge and situating various figures
and texts in the history of canon law within that development, his study also contributes to the study of those two issues. He utilizes Burchard’s Decretum, the Collection in 74 Titles, Deusdedit, and the Ivonian Panormia (chapter 2) before turning
to the Collectio trium librorum (3L), Alger of Liège’s De misericordia et iustitia,
Bernold of Constance’s writings, Bonizo of Sutri’s Liber de vita christiana, and Ivo
of Chartres’ Prologue (chapter 3). He turns to Gratian in chapter 4, arguing that
Gratian advanced beyond what the other collections and authors did, for he framed
his discussion through questions, gave arguments utilizing dialectic and rhetoric,
formulated rubrics, and wrote dicta to order and weigh various conflicting authorities and present a reasonable conclusion on a massive range of subjects. This was
the type of work upon which a new form of legal knowledge, a system of interrelated
elements in a body of legal norms and jurisprudence, could be formed. The fifth
chapter examines decretist literature in various genres up to 1215. For all the fanfare declaring Gratian the beginning of a new canonistic science, it is clear from
Dusil’s overview that scholars need to avoid a simplistic conceptualization, for it is
not the case that the study of canon law immediately became, in every context, a
standardized affair. Nevertheless, a new reader emerged, the professional jurist, and
in time they developed relationales Rechtswissen.
With his focus on the ordering of legal knowledge, Dusil has provided scholars with a significant book that should have lasting impact. Historians of medieval
schools, theology, philosophy, the liberal arts, and Roman law should all give attention to Dusil’s research; it helps us understand not just how canon law could start
to develop as its own discipline but how intellectual culture as a whole could so fundamentally change between 1000 and 1200.
Saint Louis University

ATRIA A. LARSON

Cistercian Stories for Nuns and Monks. The Sacramental Imagination of Engelhard of
Langheim. By Martha G. Newman. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press. 2020. Pp. 320. $59.95. ISBN 978-0-812-25258-3.)
Martha Newman examines Engelhard of Langheim’s views of salvation in a
thorough analysis of his late-twelfth-century book of exempla addressed to the
nuns of Wechterswinkel. This is a wise and authoritative depiction of how Engelhard thought differently about salvation from only slightly earlier Cistercians, and

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of how his opinions looked forward to those of thirteenth-century mendicant
groups. An introduction and opening chapter describe her methodology and what
we can know about Engelhard and his audience. In chapter 2 she outlines his
assumptions about community as central to salvation and his insistence that his stories came from oral, not written sources. Chapter 3, “Sign, Sight and Faith,”
describes his assertion that sensory experiences rather than scholastic arguments are
what confirm the veracity of visions described in his exempla. Chapter 4 considers
the Eucharist and Eucharistic stories involving the conversion of Jews, but its argument downplays the role of priests as opposed to personal experience in furthering
salvation. It is reception, not consecration, that is important to Engelhard. As seen
in chapter 5 Engelhard similarly rejects Cistercian assumptions of their own automatic access to heaven, and chapter 6 underscores his view that conscience and
faith coming from experience are what lead to salvation, not one’s affiliation with a
particular practice or one’s personal status.
Newman argues that while Engelhard’s is a monastic theology as opposed to
that of the schools, his vision of salvation and of the social organization of the Cistercians comes not from a Clarevallian tradition of exemplars that continued even
into the early thirteenth century in such compilations as the Exordium Magnum.
Engelhard’s work instead stems from a different, more eastern European tradition
associated with the daughters and granddaughters of Morimond. As Newman
shows, Engelhard’s world as elicited from this work challenges many of the more
traditional beliefs about the Order’s social structure, beliefs still found among some
of her modern Cistercian interlocutors. In that older view, noble knights became
monks, converted peasants became lay-brothers, and women “only imitated” the
practices of Cistercian monks.
Newman concludes that for Engelhard, faith and the hope of salvation were
shared within a community whose members were much more responsible for one
another’s access to heaven than were priests, Eucharistic miracles, confession, or the
penitence enjoined by priests. Newman thus sees Engelhard’s view of salvation as
treating monks and lay-brothers as equal and treating women and especially nuns as
equivalent to men and monks; according to Engelhard, for all of them there should
be little use for the sacramental efforts of priests. One must ask whether Engelhard’s
assertions of the equality of women and nuns is about all women, or only about the
women he most often encountered—that is, elite women whose status “trumped”
their gender? On that issue there may be more to be discussed, for it appears that
Engelhard’s interactions with women may have been skewed towards those women
associated with powerful families. The evidence of a diversity of women founding
and entering thirteenth-century houses of Cistercian nuns in France, however, suggests the relaxing of strictures against allowing women from different classes to
become members of Cistercian communities.1 Such is the tendency for important

1. On this see Constance H. Berman, The White Nuns: Cistercian Abbeys for Women in
Medieval France (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018), which is cited by

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work such as Newman’s to be ever complemented by even more recent work. All
said, this is a fine publication, beautifully produced and well worth the read.
University of Iowa

CONSTANCE HOFFMAN BERMAN

Women’s History in the Age of Reformation: Johannes Meyer’s Chronicle of the Dominican Observance. Translated by Claire Taylor Jones. [Saint Michael’s College
Mediaeval Translations: Mediaeval Sources in Translation, Volume 58.]
(Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. 2019. Pp. x, 306. $35.00.
ISBN 9780888443083.)
Claire Taylor Jones has provided a highly readable translation of Johannes
Meyer’s lively account of Observant reforms of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The sisters who mocked their prelate with their rude singing (4.20), the
twelve noble maidens of Wijk who learned to sing and read in preparation for
enclosure (5.3), the male reformers who protected themselves from assault by
bringing handfuls of flour to throw in resistant women’s faces at St. Catherine’s in
Nuremberg (4.5), and the evil spirit which resisted reform by ruining a kitchen
attendant’s beautiful Book of Hours by throwing it in a pot of boiling water (5.92):
such anecdotes of enclosure provide a very human testament to the behaviors and
thoughts of those who were facing significant changes to both spiritual practices
and daily lifestyle with the adoption (or imposition) of a stricter religious practice.
Meyer’s Buch der Reformacio Predigerordens [Book of the Reformation of the Order of
Preachers], written in 1468 and updated until 1477, was intended for the edification
of an audience of Observant women, and takes spiritual renewal as a primary
theme. Meyer’s personal presence as a reformer makes him what modern scholars
would designate a participant-observer in these processes. As Jones articulates, he
supplements his personal knowledge of the Observance with a reliance on letters,
treatises, documents, and witnesses’ stories, making the chronicle an important
source for our knowledge of the Observance. Divided into five books, the volume
begins with the story of the women’s house of Schönensteinbach from its foundation to its destruction by the English in 1375. Book 2 then turns to its successful
refoundation as an Observant Dominican women’s convent in a politically unsettled landscape. In Book 3, Meyer gives vitae for many of the convent sisters, echoing the woman’s genre of the Sisterbook, and then expands his attention in Book
4 to treat the stories of the reforming Dominican friars. Book 5 concludes with a
looser assembly of stories of the transmission of Observant reforms from one house
to another, with prominent attention to women’s agency in making those reforms.
Jones translates directly from Strasbourg, Bibliothèque Nationale et Universitaire, MS 2934 (available https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/ btv1b10235202h), the

Newman, but which only appeared when her book was close to publication, or see the even
more recent article by Marlène Helias-Baron, “L’implication des cisterciennes dans la vie
religieuse urbaine. Saint-Antoine-des-Champs et Paris au XIIIe siècle,” Histoire Urbaine no.
60 (April 2021), 9–27, which considers Saint-Antoine as a ceremonial site.

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oldest source for Meyer’s account and the closest to the original, sidestepping the
flawed edition by Benedict Maria Reichert (Leipzig, 1908–1909), which has served
as the basis of scholarly research until now. She preserves the manuscript’s chapter
numberings and headers, and helpfully cross-references the folio numbers. (Happily, Christian Seebald’s planned critical edition will draw from the same manuscript.) The translation itself is an important contribution to the field, and joins
Sara DeMaris’s translation of Meyer’s Das Amptbuch (Rome, 2015) in making the
works of this important Dominican reformer and chronicler available to an English-reading audience.
Equally important, however, Jones’s robust and nuanced introduction explains
the complexities of the political and familial networks that shaped the course of
such reforms, providing context for the challenges that Observance posed to the
Dominican governance structure. She also attends to Meyer’s sympathetic treatment of women’s agency in the process, for he notes their strengths in liturgical
practice, praises their devotion to the Observance, and has a deep appreciation for
their intellectual capacity “from translation to copying to commission to conversation,” as Jones puts it (p. 25). In keeping with the manuscript tradition, Jones provides chronological and historical lists that give an important context for Meyer’s
narrative, including a map of Dominican communities within the German province
(Brabantia, Alsatia, Suevia, and Austria), and a list of Masters General and Provincial Priors of Teutonia. Footnotes throughout the volume identify important personages, clarify dates and events, and provide ready access to the secondary literature. In all, Jones has managed that unusual balance of providing a book readable
enough to appeal to the history novice but insightful enough to be an important
resource for the scholarly community.
Vanderbilt University

CYNTHIA J. CYRUS

Roma dal Medioevo al Rinascimento (1378–1484). By Arnold Esch. Translated by
Maria Paola Arena Samonà. [La storia (Viella), Temi. Volume 81.] (Roma:
Viella. 2021. Pp. 414. €35,00. ISBN 9788833134536.)
An old proverb recalls that the master opens the door, but you must enter
alone. In the same way, Arnold Esch and his volume open the doors to the multifaceted universe that was Rome between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance,
providing an admirable and precise fresco of the great political struggles (international politics, the affirmation of papal power over the city, the different forms of
resistance of citizenship, the clashes and encounters between different trends), as
well as the daily life of the men and women who lived in the city (work, production,
trade, studies, etc.). Taking up a previous edition in German (Rom: Vom Mittelalter
zur Renaissance 1378–1484, München: Verlag CH Beck, 2016), the Italian volume
is presented not as a simple translation but as an integrated and carefully updated
work through the most recent studies and bibliography. The volume is divided into
fourteen chapters, which offer a precise description of the city interspersing the history of the great political and institutional changes (the fourteenth-century transfer

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of the curia to Avignon; the project of Cola di Rienzo and the organization of the
municipality in Rome; the return of the papacy in the Urbs, the beginning of the
Great Schism and its termination with the Council of Constance; the progressive
affirmation of the papal lordship over the city and the forms of resistance of the citizenship; the presence and affirmation of foreigners in the curia and in the city context) and the picture of economic and social life (the role of farmers and agricultural
entrepreneurs, nevertheless proponents of municipal Rome, against the power of
the great baronial families, primarily the Colonna and Orsini; the influence of the
mercatores romanam curiam sequentes, in particular of Tuscan origin; the increase in
demand and relative supply of goods and services in a continuous and growing relationship influx of foreigners from all over Europe: kings, princes and ambassadors,
curia staff, prelates and their entourage, bankers, merchants and artisans, bakers,
printers, innkeepers, etc., with different degrees of integration, to whom the composite Roman market offers food, textiles, paintings, books, glasses, musical instruments, weapons, exotic and luxury items, credit and financial products, etc.). In a
complementary way, other important aspects are not neglected, such as art and culture (urban renovations, the construction of new buildings, the rediscovered taste
for antiquity, the search for manuscripts and ancient objects, the creation of the
first collections, the lively humanistic debate, the foundation of the Vatican
Library, the university) and the image and expectations of Rome from the outside
(the iconography of the city, the guides, the jubilees, the indulgences, the pilgrims,
with their languages, their religious and reception institutes, their economic needs).
Apparently complex, moving on different but strongly correlated levels, in reality,
this structure is helpful to understand better the articulated relationship between
the Rome of the Popes and the Rome of the Romans between the late Middle Ages
and the Renaissance, characterized by profitable encounters (the affairs of Romans
prospered thanks to the presence of the pope and the curia in the city, to the jubilee
years, to political events and religious manifestations), as well as by never completely subsided conflicts (with the popular revolt that in 1434 forced Eugene IV
to flee the city; with the insurrections of Pietro Mattuzzi in 1400, Stefano Porcari
in 1453 and Tiburzio di Maso in 1460; even with nostalgic communal sentiments
that transpire in the canonization process of Santa Francesca Romana, exponent of
the Roman nobility). The final result will be constructing a very particular princely
kingdom and its capital: a State of the Church in which the prince, the pope, is also
the supreme authority of Christianity and his monarchy is elective, not dynastic.
Sapienza University of Rome

ANDREA FARA

Image, Knife, and Gluepot. Early Assemblage in Manuscript and Print. By Kathryn M.
Rudy, (Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers. 2019. £59.9.5. ISBN: 978-178374-517-3).
In this engaging study, Kathryn Rudy investigates both failed and successful
experimentation in book production in the transitional era from manuscript to
print. In particular, she deals with how pasted printed images were used to decorate
handwritten books. The focus of her attention is a Book of Hours (London, BL,

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Add. 24332) a paper manuscript written in the year 1500 in Middle Dutch by the
beghards of Maastricht, who pasted into the manuscript approximately 158 printed
images as decoration.
Written in the first person, Rudy’s book is a tale, on the one hand, of the
author’s iter of research, her method, her successful effort to retrace and reconnect
what in 1861 was cut out and separated for good, according to the fashionable
method of the time that advocated separating different classes of supports. On the
other hand, her book traces the iter of the manuscript: it was looted the Napoleonic
army after they invaded the Low Countries in 1797, sold in the antiquarian book
market, and acquired by the British Museum in 1861. Subsequently the prints were
separated from the folios and what was left of the dismembered manuscript transferred to the British Library.
Rudy’s thorough and patient archival work allowed her to chase down the
numerous membra disiecta of the beghards’ book of hours and allowed her to
identify the missing parts in a considerable number of manuscript and print collections. Narrating her research journey, the author unveils bit by bit her findings:
the identity of the beghards who wrote and decorated the manuscript, their methods and ideas concerning the page design, how the informations in the manuscript
was indexed and organized, especially concerning their management of the calendar, the nature of the manuscript itself as a book for teaching (the beghards ran a
school), and the activity and personality of the primary author of most of the
printed images in the manuscript, Israhel van Meckenem. In addition, Rudy discusses every print in detail, always including an image (either reproduced in full or
with a link for those available on the Internet) and identifying every saint or figure.
Relevant also is the reconstruction of the activity and spirituality of the beghards
of Maastricht, a community formerly attached to the Franciscan Order, but
making a living from their own labor which included teaching, weaving linen,
binding books.
Rudy’s final chapter recounts a decade of research she pursued on this and
related tracks, visiting countless public and private collections, perfecting her
knowledge on the method of using prints in manuscript to form multimedia
objects. In a rather unusual but always interesting way, the author interweaves her
scholarly narrative with her personal history, especially highlighting the difficulties
she encountered in finding financial support for her research, showing just how
challenging it is nowadays for a scholar to conduct large-scale image-based research
projects scattered across many libraries and collections.
The book offers, together with an updated bibliography, inspiration and
insights that may be useful to a wide range of scholars including book historians,
art historians, scholars interested in devotion, hagiography, chronology, and
pedagogy.
The Catholic University of America

MASSIMO CERESA

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RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION
Renaissance Religions: Modes and Meanings in History. Edited by Peter Howard,
Nicholas Terpstra, and Riccardo Saccenti. (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers.
2021. Pp. 400. €100.00. ISBN: 9782503590691.)
Peter Howard, Nicholas Terpstra, and Riccardo Saccenti have produced a
sumptuous volume that deserves the studied attention of all interested in the religious history of early modern Italy. There’s hardly need for a review, as Terpstra
provided one in a brilliant closing essay that reads like a contribution to The New
York Review of Books. Terpstra, like Howard in the introduction, indicated that
readers will find a “kaleidoscope of religious beliefs,” as Francesca Mattei said in
perhaps the signature phrase for the book, drawn from her essay on the religious
elements in sixteenth-century Italian palace architecture (p. 148).
Other authors deliver one or another variation on the theme in this beautifully
illustrated book. Sabrina Corbellini steers us from the standard elite/popular culture distinction to see that urban literates became users, producers, and distributors
of religious knowledge. Tamar Herzig urges readers to reconsider Jewish conversion through Renaissance religiosity, insisting there were multiple models of transformation in the conversion experience, not uniformity. Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby
studied seventeenth-century depictions of Venetian diplomatic heroes and found
some clues about how art can be used to create the myth of martyrdom out of political and diplomatic actors through hostility-provoking religious ideology. Constant
Mews and Marika Räsänen found a broadening of definitions of sanctity in
Dominican circles in the early fifteenth century. Both Grace Harpster and Daniel
Unger focused on that archetypal “Counter-Reformer,” Carlo Borromeo, and
found complexity in his use of religious images in churches, plus creativity in the
way he was portrayed post-canonization, that undermine some cherished ways of
thinking about him and Tridentine reforms. Steven Stowell demonstrated that
some early modern Italian authors considered sacred images capable of purging the
soul of lust, far from the common view that early modern Romanists were all-concerned with eliminating dangerously sexual or lascivious images from religious art.
Gioia Filocamo studied laude produced for comforting condemned prisoners at the
gallows, and found early lay appropriation of new theological concepts about salvation. Xavier Torres presented evidence to show that musical oratorio in late seventeenth-century Bologna built social bonds and strengthened community, rather
than representing repressive rejection of Protestant ideas. Rebecca Gill and Sally
Cornelison both emphasize the continuity and change observable in Renaissance
art, arguing it can not only bridge the reform ideas of Gian Matteo Giberti with
those of Carlo Borromeo, but also explain Giorgio Vasari’s commitment to sacred
regional traditions rather than presumed Tridentine views of saints, shrines, and
chapels during the final decade of his life. Giorgio Caravale and Serena Quagliaroli
found abundant ambiguity: Caravale in inquisitorial transcripts, and Quagliaroli in
decorative Milanese organ covers. Based on their findings we must be careful: avoid
adopting rigid doctrinal categories that inquisitorial interrogators used, for Chris-

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tian differences had mutable boundaries, just as regional variation affected how
artists depicted interaction between God and humanity in church décor. And while
these essays show far more continuity than change, flashes of old oversimplifications appear. Mattei relied on one when discussing the 1527 sack of Rome as a
decisive turning point. That’s vintage Burckhardt. So was Torres’s statement about
“univocal” Catholic identity. Don’t those comments contradict the thesis of the
volume?
This collection demonstrates the variety and complexity of religiosity in early
modern Italy. The variety included Judaic, Muslim, and animist expressions, in
addition to myriad Christian devotional assertions. But such realities often go
unnoticed, as the opposition between Renaissance and Reformation, Protestantism
and Catholicism, continues to animate all sorts of professional and popular historical literature. Scholars pointing this out have been taken to task—overtly or
subtly—for beating a dead horse. By reviewing the long history of the interpretative
problem and providing some brilliant evidence to the contrary with these essays,
the editors have shown that the horse lives and is in just as much need of being corralled as ever.
Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania

WILLIAM V. HUDON

Stratton Churchwardens’ Accounts, 1512–1578. By Joanna Mattingly. (Woodbridge,
Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 2018. Pp. viii, 322. £30.00. ISBN: 9780901853608.)
From the 2d. for “gress to gress the bellys” (1512) and 2d. for “a pownd of
frankencens” (1514) to the 6s. 8d. paid to “George the penter for drayng of the x
comodements” in 1577, the Stratton churchwardens’ accounts are full of fascinating
details of the religious life of the parish, both the humdrum and the radical. Covering
sixty-six crucial years of the sixteenth century from 1512 to 1578, they span the Henrician and Edwardian Reformations, the Marian Reaction and the Elizabethan Settlement and thus provide an important record of the impact of far-reaching religious
change at parish level, as well as the transition from manorial to parish government.
Building on recent scholarly debates which have given us a much clearer
understanding of the strengths and limitations of churchwardens’ accounts, Joanna
Mattingly has edited them meticulously. The volume comprises two principal
sources, the High Cross wardens’ and churchwardens’ books (1512–78) and the
general receivers’ account books for 1531, 1534–49, and 1557–81, to which an
appendix of supplementary related documents has been added—a draft rood loft
contract, three draft accounts, three church inventories and the extensive records of
a court case concerning the church house in 1583.
The scholarly apparatus the editor supplies is particularly impressive—the
depth of scholarship underpinning the accounts is a major strength. A thirty-page
introduction provides the all-important context of the parish, which was an important market town in north Cornwall. Stratton’s social and economic structure is set
out after which the topography of the church, Catholic worship, the impact of the

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Reformation, and care for the poor are discussed. Four maps and two rare sixteenth-century pictorial plans place Stratton in its geographical context, and a plan
and photos of the church help visualise it.
In addition, Joanna Mattingly supplies four invaluable research aids for scholars. As well as the standard index of people and places, there is an exceptionally
thorough and useful twenty-page subject index. As a result, references to the full
range of parish life—whether it be archdeacons’ visitations, traveling players, St
Armel, organs, pews, or Irish soldiers—are quickly and easily found. The glossary
is equally comprehensive.
Perhaps the most innovative of these scholarly aids is the biographical register
in which the editor’s thoroughness and extensive research brings into focus the
people whose names appear in the accounts. Many are fleeting references to
humble lives: 4d. paid by Alsyn Gilberd for the knell of her son in 1520; and 2d.
given to Elizabethe White, one of twenty-three poor to whom distributions were
made in 1580. Alongside parish gentry, such as Sir John Chawmond (d. 1544) and
John Marreys (b. 1503), gentleman, the lives of ordinary working people living in
extraordinary times are glimpsed. Thomas Clarke, a carpenter, kept the church bells
from the 1530s to the 1560s but also helped build the scaffold on which some of
those involved in the Western Rebellion of 1549 were hanged. In his old age the
parish looked after him, providing him with “another pair of shoes” in 1572 and
12d. in his sickness in 1574.
In short, Joanna Mattingly’s edition of the Stratton accounts is a notable addition to the relatively small corpus of modern scholarly editions of churchwardens’
accounts. It is a model of editorial method and scholarly generosity, one that uses
her detailed understanding of local conditions to relate Stratton’s religious life to
the wider national trends of the Reformation.
University of Exeter

DAVID LEPINE

Living I was your plague: Martin Luther’s World and Legacy. By Lyndal Roper.
(Princeton: Princeton University Press. 2021. Pp. 296. $29.95. ISBN:
9780691205304.)
Luther as a man and not a theologian, is the subject of Lyndal Roper’s
research, presented in an exemplary manner in her major biography of the
reformer, Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet, published in 2017. Following this
line in her new publication, she refocuses the discussion of Luther on the relationship between his person, his ideas, and the means by which his ideas were spread.
In this way, it offers surprising insights into Luther’s thinking, even if the topics are
not entirely new.
Better known aspects are the role of Lucas Cranach in the formation of
Luther’s image, Lutheran anti-papal propaganda, and Luther’s view of the Jews
(Chaps. 1, 5, 6). “Luther and Dreams” (Chap. 2) deals with the roles of dreams in

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the Reformation, treating figures including Philip Melanchthon, Thomas Müntzer,
and the commemoration of The Dream of Frederick the Wise. Luther himself liked to
recount his dreams, not as prophecies, but as images or parables. In this respect, it
is exaggerated when she concludes that dreams reveal a good deal about his hidden
psychology (p. 63). Chapter 3 is but one case of Lyndal’s emphasis on Luther’s
“Manhood und Pugilism.” Luther challenged the rulers of his day, particularly with
“quill fights.” Quite the opposite of a prince’s servant, Luther “managed to create a
kind of polemical equality that few religious figures would later attain” (p. 79). The
chapter called “Names“ (Chap. 4) reveals the way Luther ordered his world with
names and terms and what role vulgarity (e.g., “ass-fart pope“) played in that (pp.
94–98). The importance of names and words for Luther’s theology is rightly
emphasized, but when Lyndal refers to baptism as a “ritual of naming” (p. 106) in
the context of Luther’s use of names, the limitations of an interpretation, which
demotes theology to a secondary or tertiary consideration, become apparent.
In Chapter 6 Roper presents her “own attempt to come to terms with Luther’s
anti-Semitism” (p. 136). This topic serves as a case study for Roper’s Luther, the
man, who uniquely combines theological thoughts, human instincts, and feelings.
In the same way as Luther hurls invectives at the pope and other enemies of the
Church and of Christ, Luther also targets the Jews with tirades peppered with
filthy language. A lot of room for creative interpretation and research of Luther’s
subconsciousness is opened when he defends Maria, as a mother and as a virgin,
against Jews, as well as when he attacks the rite of circumcision. For Roper, the crucial point is the question of one’s own identity. Metaphorically speaking, both connection and demarcation to Judaism are united in Luther in “ingestion and emetic
defecation“ (p. 164). Indeed, “Luthers anti-Semitism” was very special. That’s the
reason, why there’s no direct line from Luther to the racist anti-Semitism in nineteenth-century Germany, as Johannes Wallmann and others have shown. Roper
contends that Luther’s attitude toward the Jews “was linked to his view of the
church and Lutheran identity” (p. 165). But her direct jump from the sixteenth
century to the “anti-Semitism” of the Luther Statue in Wittenberg of 1817 (and,
later, to the first edition of the Playmobil Luther figure) lacks evidence.
Lyndal Roper offers inspiring, fresh looks at Luther, especially for those who
already know him. It will however be difficult to understand Roper’s Luther without having first read a book dealing with Luther, the theologian.
University of Tübingen

MATTHIAS A. DEUSCHLE

EARLY MODERN EUROPEAN
The Secular Enlightenment. By Margaret C. Jacob. (Princeton: Princeton University
Press. 2019. Pp. xi, 339. $29.95. ISBN 9780691161327.)
The author of the seminal Radical Enlightenment (1981) has proposed another
category encapsulating intellectual, social, and political metamorphoses spurred by

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the “Age of Enlightenment.” In eight chapters that take the reader through Western European and trans-Atlantic spaces and times spanning from the late seventeenth century until the 1790s, Margaret Jacob pictures the emergence of “the secular world” in which human life would increasingly center on the here and now
without “a necessary reference to a transcendent order” (pp. 1–2). For Jacob, secularization does not imply a complete repudiation of religion, but redefining its
meaning as a cultural practice, an approach traceable to The Religious Ceremonies
and Customs (1723–43) by Jean Frederick Bernard and Bernard Picart.
The secular Enlightenment turned toward science under Newton’s auspices,
witnessed budding sensitivity to social injustice and inequalities, criticized the
alliance between church and state, and brought the development of the university
culture. Clandestine literature and new forms of sociability, practiced in masonic
lodges, city clubs, and cafés, created a global space of shared ideas and ideals: equality, cosmopolitanism, universal brotherhood. Inventions, such as that of the pendulum clock, prompted changes in the perception of time dedicated more and more
to this-worldly activities. The secular ways became manifest in the lives of countless
travelers, publishers, industrialists, academics, scientists, and poets—both minor
figures, some of them female, and the leading protagonists of the epoch. France
prepared the ground for the outbreak of its 1789 revolution: the deism, materialism, and atheism of the philosophes provided a setting in which the absolute monarchy and priestly privilege could be challenged. The Scottish enlighteners favored
pragmatic topics: taxes, commerce, and how to counteract poverty, which would set
the background for the development of capitalism and the conception of historical
progress. Germany staged the advocacy of secular ethics and politics, the publication of subversive writings attacking organized religion, conflicts between rationalist philosophers and state authorities, and finally the resurgence of Spinozism that
constituted the naturalist underpinnings for “a universal humanism” (p. 197). The
Italians, overcoming tensions between the Catholic Church and the enlightened
values, contributed to political economy with theories of money and trade, and to
political theory by laying the foundations for a constitutional republic that would
later serve as a model for the Americans. The way was also paved for abolishing torture, slavery, and eventually death penalty. Social and political unrest accompanied
the demise of the Enlightenment, which set in motion the “creation of the democratic citizen,” necessitating a “personal transformation . . . often transgressive of
customs and mores” (p. 236), particularly those related to family life. The Enlightenment, which persisted in the writings of the Romantics, brought along “the secular” that “had become all pervasive” (p. 264).
Jacob’s fascinatingly many-layered and multifaceted account of the Enlightenment unfolds the extent to which its ideas have shaped our times, yet occasionally
her usage of ‘”enlightened” slips from merely descriptive into normative. Jacob does
not side with the proponents of the “religious Enlightenment”—the claim that religious controversies could have triggered the secularizing impulse (Jeffrey D. Burson)
or that the “Age of Reason” made possible new forms of belief (David Sorkin). Her
allegiance stays with those who, like Peter Gay, link the Enlightenment with the

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secular. However, although Jacob’s account expresses attachment to the secular
values which have come to be associated with liberal democratic culture that some
believe to prevail nowadays, it also perpetuates the view of those critics of the
Enlightenment who would see in it a movement of dissent from Christianity.
Jagellonian University in Krakow

ANNA TOMASZEWSKA

Rational Dissenters in late eighteenth-century England, “An Ardent Desire of Truth.”
By Valerie Smith. [Studies in Modern British Religious History, 42]. (Woodbridge The Boydell Press, 2021. Pp. xvii + 345. $99.00. ISBN 9781800100701).
Too often references to the so-called Rational Dissenters of the last three
decades of the eighteenth century presume that the utterances of Joseph Priestley
and Richard Price were typical of this influential body of opinion. That will no
longer be allowable following the publication of the late Valerie Smith’s one and
only book on the subject. She throws her net across the entire nationwide witness
of Unitarians (the preferred term from the 1790s) and Arians, lay and ministerial,
male and female, genteel and artisan, and the result is a more rounded and complete picture than ever previously attained. Smith uses unpublished sources, statistical evidence, subscription lists, and Eighteenth-Century Collections Online
(ECCO) to break down and detail the multiple constructions and intellectual
spaces that lay behind Rational Dissent as an emerging term. And she is repeatedly
insistent that the commitment these dissenters continually evidenced for political
rights and liberties was driven not by any proto-secularist or utilitarian notions of
social improvement, but by theological concepts and doctrinal debates. Given the
evidence presented here (backed by fifty pages of appendixes), this underlying contention will be hard to overturn.
Rational Dissenters had to endure any amount of shrill, generalised criticism
from both Anglicans and fellow dissenters: that they were unscriptural, unchristian,
and republican. Smith shows how wide of the mark so many of these tirades fell.
In their various ways, Rational Dissenters were driven primarily by the need to
assert Biblical fidelity (as they saw it) and to repudiate Articles and Creeds. Theirs
was a faith without either original sin or atonement, doctrines which, as the novelist Mary Hays put it, were “totally inconsistent with the justice, goodness and
mercy of the Almighty” (quoted p. 64). She was a member of one of the many
informal networks mapped out by Smith (especially strong in the south-west of
England) that were mutually supportive and exercised philanthropy on a regular
basis. Within Rational Dissenting circles there were two loose groupings between
those who adhered to Arian views and those who embraced full-blown Socinianism. Smith confirms that momentum lay with the latter as its adherents gradually
edged towards denominational status with its associated centralizing tendencies,
found initially in the setting up of two Unitarian Societies in 1791 and 1792.
Arians, by contrast, became numerically insignificant over time.
Smith argues that the urge of Rational Dissenters to explore the scriptures
without constraint was not incompatible with loyalty to the existing constitution,

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but that was not a widespread contemporary perception. Even during the French
Revolution (and Smith shows that they were willing to admit its abuses as it developed), Rational Dissenters never put aside their aspiration to extend liberty wherever opportunity offered, particularly via the extension of the franchise and the
removal of all religious legal disabilities, with Roman Catholics included among the
beneficiaries. Given the varying shades of doctrinal opinion held by this loose
grouping, Smith scorns any description of them as “radical,” a term she deems “not
only anachronistic, but also simplistic” (p. 133). She is undoubtedly corrcct in that
regard, but tends to minimise the untimeliness and insensitivity of many of their
political interventions. Taken cumulatively, these may actually have hindered Radical Dissenters from gaining sympathy from the public at large. Eventually, from
1813, it was no longer an offence to deny the Holy Trinity and Unitarianism was
free to assume the forms of a denomination that, as Smith shows, somewhat took
the edge off the daring theological enquiry its earlier informality had made possible.
It was symptomatic of this trend towards early Victorian respectability and inwardness that the term ‘Rational Dissent’ itself lapsed.
Valerie Smith’s death removes any prospect of her building on the solid scholarly foundations laid here, but her excellent book, carefully prepared for publication
by David Hopkins and Grayson Ditchfield, will endure as a lasting marker for historians of eighteenth-century religion.
NIGEL ASTON

University of York

LATE MODERN EUROPEAN
Charity and Social Welfare. Edited by Leen Van Molle. [The Dynamics of Religious
Reform in Northern Europe 1780-1920, Volume 4.] (Leuven: Leuven University Press. 2017. Pp. 311. €69.50. ISBN 978-94-6270-092-5.)
The eleven authors of this volume, all historians, in the period covered by this
series, take up the topic in eight countries, one by one: Great Britain, Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. While many
readers may come to this work with a specialized interest in just one or a few of these
countries’ histories, let me recommend to every reader the introduction (pp. 7–37) by
Leen Van Molle, with its accompanying bibliography. For many a student of European history, this chapter, surveying the different religious perspectives on social
reform from 1780 to 1920, may by itself be worth the effort to consult the book.
In each of their contributions, the authors show how religious attitudes, positive and negative, affected the history of social reform in the course of the period
from after the French Revolution through the upheavals of 1848 to the First World
War era (1920). As the contexts changed, attention shifted, but certain areas predominate throughout: poverty and poor relief, hence economics and politics as well
as church-state relationships. Other topics also require and receive the attention of
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The parishes of the Church of England continued to be the broadest purveyors
of help for their poor, in the belief that it was their Christian duty. Clergymen,
notably Thomas Malthus (1766–1834), influenced an ongoing change of attitudes
about poverty. Malthus took an economist’s approach to examine the causes of
poverty. He zeroed in on excessive population growth. Too many births and not
enough sources of income made poverty rage. Migration was no cure. Therefore,
births outside of marriage and large families of properly married couples were to be
discouraged. His Essay on the Principle of Population, first published in 1798, was
widely influential, though controversial. In Scotland in 1819, Thomas Chalmers
began an experiment in a new parish he led in Glasgow that focused on house-tohouse visits by volunteer lay appointees, collecting case histories. He described these
innovations in a work read not just by Presbyterians in Britain and North America.
The Irish situation, never enviable, is covered in a separate chapter (pp. 71–98);
it covers a difficult age, which saw the decline of “Protestant Ascendency” and the
“emergence of an effective Catholic hegemony in the realm of welfare provision.”
Coming to the continent: in Belgium, the Catholic Church remained the
pre-eminent organizer of charities after its constitution as a kingdom separate from
the Netherlands, following the revolution of 1830. A pattern of “mutual dependence—the state needing the Church’s input and the Church needing the state’s
good will . . .—ensured continuity in poor relief and healthcare throughout the
nineteenth century” (p. 104).
In the Netherlands as elsewhere, poor relief was an issue carried on in the
public realm largely between churches and state. With the failure of potato and
cereal harvests, uprisings broke out across Europe in 1848; the churches could not
fill the needs, and the state, with successive Poor Laws, was still “unwilling to help”
(p. 131). By the 1890s, the concern about “social” issues induced a prominent association to put out a welfare report (the 1891 Nutsrapport) that led to “modest
improvements” (p. 145).
In regard to Germany, three authors contribute solid chapters, two on
“Catholic Germany,” early and later, and one on “Diakonie and Protestantism” (pp.
221–238).
Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, Protestant Nordic Countries, also get their
due in two chapters (pp. 249–304).
All told: important essays, to be made accessible in all scholarly libraries.
Marquette University (Emeritus)

PAUL MISNER

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219

Jesuit Superior General Luis Martín García and His Memorias: “Showing Up.” By
David G. Schultenover, S.J. [Jesuit Studies, Volume 30.] (Leiden: Brill. 2021.
Pp. xiv, 945. Hardback $284.00. ISBN: 978-90-04-43308-3. $284.00.
EBook. ISBN: 9789004435384.)
Schultenover first learned of Martín’s memoirs as he was researching a followup volume to his doctoral thesis later published as George Tyrrell: In Search of
Catholicism (Shepherdstown, WV: Patmos Press, 1981). That volume appeared as
A View from Rome: On the Eve of the Modernist Crisis (New York: Fordham University Press, 1993). Martín was superior general of the Society of Jesus during the socalled Modernist Crisis, and was responsible for Tyrrell’s expulsion from the
Jesuits. The memoirs, written in six different languages, consist of 5,424 manuscript
pages, most of which were subsequently edited into two volumes by José Ramón
Eguillor, S.J., Manuel Revuelta González, S.J., and Rafael María Sanz de Diego as
Memorias del P. Luis Martín, General de la Compañía de Jesús (1846–1906) (Rome:
Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 1988). When A View from Rome appeared,
one Jesuit reader was so shocked by extracts quoted from Martín that he contended
that the editors of Memorias, whose identities were unknown to him, intended to
discredit Martín and embarrass the Society. With this monograph, Schultenover
has changed his approach. Previously he studied the memoirs as an important historical text; here, he examines them more as a spiritual autobiography, an honest
recollection and reflection of Martín’s interior growth as he guided first his
province and later the Society into the twentieth century.
Born in the small town of Melgar de Fernamental in Old Castile (Spain) in 1846,
Martín entered the Society at Loyola in 1864. Ordained priest in 1876, he attended
the provincial congregation in 1886 and was elected its representative (procurator) to
the Society’s triennial congregation of procurators in Fiesole. After the congregation’s
closure, he was nominated provincial of Castile. The Society in Spain was divided
between supporters of the current monarch and the more politically and theologically
conservative Carlists, who supported a dierent candidate for the throne. Political
conflict divided the province. Playing the Platonic charioteer, Martín stressed internal
spiritual unity by reining in his men and reminding them: “Let us abstain absolutely
from [politics], and let us play the role of apostles, not of politicians.” To this end,
when dealing with liberalism, Jesuits must be careful to speak with moderation, gravity, and mansedumbre [the mean between irascibility and impassivity] proper to a true
minister of Christ who is guided by the love of truth and not by political passion” (p.
453). In his rules for preachers, he exhorted Jesuits to work closely with the local bishops and to avoid naming secular or ecclesiastical officials. Instead of combating the
errors of liberalism head-on, preachers should expound on the truths of Catholicism.
Within the Society of Jesus, Martín forbade personal reprimands, “let alone is any
Jesuit to accuse another of liberalism or some sort of error” (p. 458). Martín, as Schultenover stressed in his earlier monograph, denounced liberalism: “Not only must all
liberalism be absolutely proscribed, but especially the hypothesis of freedom or toleration of religions, of the press, of teaching, etc., which is not permitted in Spain and
was condemned by the pope and the bishops” (p. 460).

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Summoned to Fiesole by Superior General Anton Maria Anderledy to be subsecretary of the Society, Martín was nominated by Anderledy on his deathbed in
January, 1892, to serve as his vicar. This meant that on Anderledy’s death, Martín
would be responsible for convoking the general congregation to elect his successor.
The continuing political situation in Italy made convening a general congregation
in Rome unfeasible. Instead Jesuits met at Loyola. Martín, ever attentive to detail,
micro-managed everything: “from the assignment of rooms, to the identifying signs
to be posted on each guests room’s door, to how the rooms were to be appointed .
. . to how the tables were to be set in the refectory and the napkins arranged, to the
reading at table, . . . to the laundering of underwear, to the preparation of food . .
. and drink . . . , to how the delegates are to be received on their arrival at Loyola”
(p. 626). The congregation convened in September, 1892; Martín was elected superior general on the second ballot.
Martín’s opening address as superior general quelled but did not eliminate
the resentment, at times hostility, directed towards Anderledy and his governance.
Among Martín’s musings on the other congregants, was his censorious observation that several fathers, “especially the Dutch, English, and Americans” (p. 665),
dressed as diocesan clergy with bowler hats, whereas most of the others wore cassocks and wide-brimmed straw sombreros. More important than clerical haberdashery was a perceived division between two mindsets as the congregation
addressed religious discipline, poverty, etc.: a “severe one, represented by the
whole assistancy of Spain . . . and supported by many in the assistancy of Italy and
the provinces of Germany and Missouri” and a “more benign and perhaps somewhat lax, represented by almost the whole Assistancy of England and supported
by not a few in the Assistancies of Germany and France” (p. 669). [Within the
Society, assistancies were groups of provinces generally linked along linguistic
lines. At this time there were six assistancies: Italian, Portuguese, Spanish,
German, French, and English.]
The congregants, however, agreed on the revival of Jesuit historiography with
histories of provinces and assistancies according to contemporary critical standards.
Martín transferred the curia from Fiesole to the German College, Rome, in 1895.
In 1893, he had arranged for the Society’s archives to be smuggled out of Rome to
Exaten (Netherlands) to prevent their confiscation. The collection was returned to
Rome in 1939. At Exaten, the archives were under the direction of the Jesuit historian Franz Ehrle, later prefect of the Vatican Library and a cardinal. The archives,
now organized, were open to historians of the Society of Jesus. Carlos Sommervogel, S.J., at Martín’s encouragement, began compiling a bibliography of Jesuit writings. Finally, Martín decided against one historian as had been the tradition in the
pre-Suppression Society, and established a team, a “college” of historians, two for
each Jesuit assistancy—one for the pre-Suppression Society and the other for the
Restored Society—for critical accounts of the Society’s work in their geographical
areas. Schultenover covers this in greater detail in “Luis Martín García, the Jesuit
General of the Modernist Crisis (1892–1906): On Historical Criticism,” Catholic
Historical Review, 89 (2003) 434–63.

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Liberalism remained the specter that haunted Martín because “the spirit of liberty and permissiveness that is breathed everywhere . . . is as contrary as can be to the
humility and obedience that we profess by our Institute. . . . If this infirmity . . . were
to contaminate the body of the Society, that would be the end of her” (pp. 709–10).
He exhorted superiors to vigilance with “the reading of newspapers—almost always
the cause of this sickness—not be allowed in our scholasticates” (p. 731).
Spanish politics had plagued the generalate of Anderledy and threatened to do
the same for Martín. Fortunately, Martín had a reputation as a religious priest and
not as a political partisan, and thus he successfully resisted efforts by the Spanish
government and the Spanish hierarchy to pull him into one camp or another. As
provincial he had explained to various critical audiences that the Jesuits attracted
candidates from all classes of society, and thus it was impossible to impose one particular view upon all of them. Instead, Martín exhorted his men to avoid any external manifestation of party affiliation and to promote religious piety.
“The war in Cuba [1895–90],” Martín wrote, “was for me a great source of
pain” (p. 812). He confided the sufferings he endured as Spain lost its empire to the
United States: “the year 1898 was for me a year of martyrdom” (p. 819). He suffered not only because of Spain’s humiliations “but also because of the difficult situation in which I found myself as general of the Society in dealing with the Americans [Jesuits] and my physical illness that worsened because of the moral torments
(pp. 820–21). Schultenover notes that Martín’s formation in Ignatian indifference
had not eradicated his Spanish nationalism. His view of the American Jesuits—and
their frequent English allies—was bleak and jaundiced. Yet he albeit reluctantly
allowed the gradual removal of Spanish Jesuits from the Philippines and their
replacement by Americans from the Maryland province. Martín distrusted the victors and their Americanization of everything. From 1902, he suffered from periodic
illnesses and died in Rome on April 18, 1906.
Martín’s name may be recognized only by historians of the post-Restoration
Society of Jesus. But even they may be surprised by the author’s opening assertion:
“This book intends to give exposure to one of the most important and remarkable
figures in the history of the Jesuit order” (p. 1). That is quite a claim, and Schultenover works assiduously at its demonstration. Each reader will evaluate his success. Martín began writing his memoirs in 1895, years, decades after the events.
The three Spanish editors clearly believed that Martín intended his memoirs to be
published—a view endorsed by Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, superior general of the
Society of Jesus at the time, and by Schultenover. This opus is not a translation,
although the author does cite it extensively, but a study of the Society of Jesus in a
changing world as seen by a Spaniard in the twilight of the country’s imperial past.
Equally, if not more, important, it is the study of one flawed individual in a position
of power. Martín embarked on this project because he wanted “to make a general
examination of conscience of my life, to confess many miseries, and to give thanks
to God who has shown me such abundant indulgence and is infinitely merciful” (p.
6). The volume’s subtitle, “Showing Up,” pertains to all of Martín’s interlocutors but

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ultimately to “how one ‘shows up’ before God” (p. 864). Some episodes may make
some readers cringe as they did my Jesuit friend in London, but such honesty is
demanded by a thorough examination of conscience. Schultenover sees Martín’s
Memorias closely related to St. Augustine’s Confessions in that each is an “autobiography of grace” (p. 864). Martín’s experience of God’s grace amid his sexual and
spiritual struggles makes clear that he grew “in holiness despite his sinfulness; or
indeed that his sinfulness was for him a medium for God’s grace” (pp. 872–73).
Occasional problems with disordered affections regarding other Jesuits or students
and consequent spiritual aridity troubled him. The memories of these struggles
remained vivid as he wrote about them decades later. Yet, in the end, “the Lord,
despite my ingratitude for the many benefits he had given me before and now, did
not completely abandon me and, in addition to the interior calls, allowed some
things that made me enter into myself and give myself more truly to his service” (p.
179). Fearful perhaps of the fate of his manuscripts if they remained in Rome,
Martín dictated on his deathbed that the manuscripts be sent to his home province
for better preservation.
A formal portrait of Luis Martín adorns the cover of this monograph. Sitting
somewhat uncomfortably on an overly upholstered chair, a painting of St. Peter’s
and a copy of one volume of the most recent (and last) edition of the Institutum
Societatis Iesu on his right, and his breviary on his lap, Martín appears to be selfcollected and in control. Beneath this façade, however, was an emotional, sensitive,
and, at times, troubled man.
Loyola University Maryland

THOMAS M. MCCOOG, S.J.

The Life of Luigi Giussani. By Alberto Savorana. Translated by Mariangela C. Sullivan and Christopher Bacich (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
2018. Pp. xx, 1396. $39.95. ISBN: 978-0-7735-5185-5.)
This volume provides us with a biography of Father Luigi Giussani (19222005), one of the most important religious leaders in twentieth-century Italian and
world Catholicism. Leader since 1954 of one of the organizations of the Catholic
youth in post-war Milan, close to Catholic Action (Gioventù Studentesca), after
Vatican Council II, in 1969, Giussani founded a new movement, “Communion
and Liberation,” which has become one of the most important of the new “Catholic
movements.”
This volume is the English translation of the original, which was published in
Italian in 2013, and it is a massive book. Thirty-nine chapters grouped in three
parts, plus an epilogue and a historical note. The primary sources are found in thirteen archives and eleven collections of private papers; the bibliography ranges from
numerous pro manuscripto books by Giussani, to publications on Communion and
Liberation and to a rich repertoire of historical, theological, and philosophical
texts; there are 183 pages of endnotes. The index of names ranges from maestro
Claudio Abbado to Protestant reformer Zwingli.

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Part one of the book covers the years between 1922 and 1964: Giussani’s formation and early years in priestly ministry, teaching in high school, and leadership
in Gioventù Studentesca in Milan. Part two covers the period 1964-1986: Giussani’s experience in the United States for his book on Protestant theology, the
aftermath of Vatican II and of 1968, the birth and flourishing of Communion and
Liberation. Part three is about the years 1986-2005: the Vatican recognition of his
movement, the political and civil crisis in Italy with the collapse of the ChristianDemocratic Party (Democrazia Cristiana), the celebrations for the fiftieth anniversary of the movement, until the death and funeral of Giussani in February, 2005,
celebrated by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, just a few weeks before the death of John
Paul II.
The author is an Italian journalist and author who oversees the press, public
relations, and publication offices of CL. This book is not a critical biography and
does not claim to be objective. (Nor is the publishing house, McGill, which has
translated and published many works of Giussani in English.) More than an interpretive biography, this is a chronological account of Giussani’s life mostly through
the voice of Giussani himself. By reading this book, one would not know the strong
feelings that the name of Giussani and of CL evokes in other quarters of Catholicism, especially in Italy.
Savorana’s massive book is part of an important effort by members of CL to
write the autobiography of Giussani’s creature, as one could see already from the
three volumes written by Massimo Camisasca on the history of the movement (in
Italian: 2001, 2003, and 2006) and the one-volume synthesis published in 2014. It
is particularly difficult to write about the new Catholic movements and their
founders: church politics aside, there is the genuine issue of the protection of the
founders’ charisma from forgetting but also from distortion, and there is the problem in the transition from the founders’ generation to the second generation and
the third today. This biography enters an even more complex ecclesial and ecclesiastical situation. The first reason is that in 2012 Giussani’s cause for beatification
was opened in Milan, and this biography can be seen as part of the effort, by the
author but also by the movement he created, to cement a certain narrative on the
candidate. The second is that this volume tries in the epilogue (pp. 1175–1182) to
create a link, a transmission of legitimacy between the founder of Communion and
Liberation, Giussani, and his successor, Father Julián Carrón, chosen by Giussani
before his death. In November, 2021, Father Carrón resigned from the leadership
of CL, because of the new regulations for the leadership of the movements decided
by Pope Francis earlier in the year, but also as a result of tensions between different
cultures within the movement. It is one more evidence of the difficulty to capture
objectively the first half a century of history of an ecclesial movement like CL, for
which this volume provides partial but important information.
Villanova University

MASSIMO FAGGIOLI

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AMERICAN
In Missouri’s Wilds: St. Mary’s of the Barrens and the American Catholic Church, 1818–
2016. By Richard J. Janet. (Kirksville: American Midwest Truman State University Press. 2017. Pp. xi, 276. $25.00. ISBN: 9781612481982.)
Spanning from 1818 to 1985, St. Mary of the Barrens Seminary in Perryville,
Missouri, was the first such Catholic institution west of the Mississippi River and
became one of the oldest, longest-lasting in the United States. Richard Janet’s history of this motherhouse of the Vincentian Congregation in America offers a case
study in how St. Mary’s adapted over time to the changing situations of the
Catholic church in this country. In the first half of the book, Janet approaches the
study of St. Mary’s through two complementary, developmental paradigms identified by historian Philip Gleason. One of those paradigms postulates an institution’s
“movement from amorphous, ad hoc, dynamic growth to more regularized and differentiated development.” The other is the movement “from one of ‘boundlessness,’
in which all things are possible (or necessary, given the limitations on available
resources) . . . to one of ‘consolidation,’ in which more careful . . . leaders sought to
manage growth in a more standardized manner” (pp. 35–36).
Janet chronicles how from its inception through the Civil War, St. Mary’s was
an undifferentiated, contracting and expanding institution serving as a farm, local
parish, day school and/or boarding school for lay students, diocesan major seminary, Vincentian novitiate, and mission outreach center. At times, it embodied all
those functions, at others several of them, and at still others only one. By the Civil
War, the process of differentiation had begun, but that conflict all but reduced St.
Mary’s to a parish and languishing minor seminary.
In the wake of that conflict, growth of Catholicism in America brought an
increase in vocations, and Vincentian leaders, concentrating on consolidation, differentiation, and standardization, turned St. Mary’s into their house of formation
in the United States, embracing the novitiate, the philosophy division, and the theological department. After division of the Vincentian mission into two provinces in
1888, the seminary formed Vincentians to serve in states west of Indiana in the
north and of Alabama in the south. Though geographically isolated “In Missouri’s
Wilds,” the seminarians and priests of St. Mary’s participated in outreach efforts
touching that state, the nation, and abroad. From the late 1920s and into the
1950s, traveling bands of street preachers fanned out to rural towns explaining the
faith to folk steeped in anti-Catholic prejudice. These Motor Missions gave rise to
the seminary’s establishment of Catholic Correspondence Courses for people interested in knowing more about or wishing to convert to Catholicism. The seminary
also established the Vincentian Foreign Mission Society to raise awareness of and
funds for Catholic missions in China.
After World War II, it became increasingly necessary for Catholic seminaries
to align themselves in accord with American institutions of higher education

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through standardized gradation, curricular reform, and accreditation. Janet ably
recounts how Vincentian leaders successfully concluded that process just as Vatican
Council II ushered in changes in Catholicism that led to a decline in vocations. His
final chapters recount the painful process that resulted in closure of the seminary,
the sale of some property, the demolition of buildings, and the repurposing of the
grounds to a working farm on which sit the offices of the Miraculous Medal Association and a modern, graduated-living center for active and retired Vincentians.
Janet aptly concludes his study by noting that “institutional histories tell us
who we were, how we got to the present, and (by both positive and negative example) where we might go in the future.” He hazards no guess as to what that future
might be either for the Barrens or the Vincentians. “For the sake of the Barrens,
the American Vincentian community . . . and the broader American Catholic community, the story of the Barrens deserves remembrance” (pp. 251–252).
In an otherwise error-free account, Janet misidentifies Father Blase Raho as
John Baptist Raho (p. 60).
National University (Emeritus)
San Diego, California

DOUGLAS J. SLAWSON

Ice & Oil: The Life and Legacy of Dan Murphy, California’s Unlikely Titan. By Joseph
Francis Ryan. (Los Angeles: Angel City Press. 2020. Pp. 310. ISBN: 978-162640-095-5.)
Who is Dan Murphy? The question would stump most of the scholars of the
history of Southern California today, even though he was in the top tier of wealthy
and successful Los Angeles businessmen in the early decades of the twentieth century. But more remarkable is that the question “Who is Dan Murphy” would also
be met with blank stares even in the years he was walking the streets of the city. So
the task of author Joseph Francis Ryan in putting together this biography of
Murphy, Ice & Oil, became that much more difficult in his attempt to answer the
question. For sources were few and scattered throughout the country, and the
newspapers of the day rarely celebrated Murphy’s work; he was a very private man.
Dan Murphy (1858–1939) was born in Pennsylvania to an Irish Catholic
family that moved to Illinois and then Kansas in the 1860s. The latter move was a
homestead, and the family struggled to make a living on the harsh prairie. As he
approached adulthood, Murphy began working for a local railroad, and, moving to
Los Angeles, secured employment as a brakeman on the Southern Pacific route to
Yuma. Murphy’s engineer on this route was Frank Monaghan, an experienced
trainman, ten year’s Murphy’s senior. As fortune would have it, Charles Crocker,
one of the owners of the Southern Pacific line, came to Yuma, became acquainted
with Monaghan and Murphy, and persuaded them to develop the new town of
Needles, a way-stop on the railroad. Monaghan and Murphy laid out the town and
established the general mercantile store that serviced the passengers on the train,

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the miners along the Colorado River, and the Mohave Indians in the area. From
there Murphy expanded his reach to invest in local mining ventures, to develop an
ice house to make it possible to transport the citrus crop in Southern California to
eastern markets, and to invest in the Portland Cement Company in Colton.
The big change in Dan Murphy’s life came around 1900, when he moved to
Los Angeles, invested in the Brea oil lands, and married Antoinette Sinnott, a
thirty-five-year-old spinster with family ties in San Jose and Leadville, Colorado.
The Brea Cañon Oil Company became fabulously successful with several oil gushers over the next twenty years. It was so successful that Murphy built a pipeline to
the Standard Oil Refinery in El Segundo and became the largest stockholder of
Standard Oil of California.
This unending wealth allowed Murphy to settle down with his wife in a luxurious home on West Adams Street. He began to donate much of his largess to the
Roman Catholic Church, including especially the Archdiocese that encompassed
Los Angeles. This beneficence continued for the last three decades of his life, and
it was carried on into the present by his adopted daughter, Bernardine, and the
organization she created, the Dan Murphy Foundation.
Ryan’s biography of Dan Murphy investigates the diverse aspects of the life of
this mysterious benefactor. Parts of the text are written to provide historical context
to Murphy’s endeavors, including the development of local railroads, mining,
cement, and oil. The style is a sympathetic narrative of the subject. There are some
minor errors (the use of the “j” form in naming the Mohave Indians, for example),
and at times the author attributes a positive motivation to Murphy without evidence. These, however, do not detract from a major contribution in filling a gap in
our knowledge of the history of Southern California and the Archdiocese of Los
Angeles.
Downey, California
Newport Beach, California

NICHOLAS A. CURRY
STUART F. ROBINSON

Respectably Catholic & Scientific: Evolution and Birth Control between the World Wars.
By Alexander Pavuk. (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America
Press. 2021. Pp. 332. $75.00. ISBN 9780813234311.)
This provocative book by Alexander Pavluk, an associate professor of history
in Morgan State University, has three protagonists: Fathers John A. Ryan (1869–
1945), John Montgomery Cooper (1881–1949), and John A. O’Brien (1893–
1980). Ryan was and remains the best known of the trio, given his pioneering work
on Catholic social teaching and eventual prominence as a New Deal Democrat.
Cooper was clearly the most accomplished with regard to academic achievement.
Like Ryan, he served for many years on the faculty of the Catholic University of
America, where he founded the Department of Religious Studies in 1928 and
engaged, as an anthropologist, in field work of lasting value to his chosen profes-

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sion. He served as president of the American Anthropological Association in 1941
and was a fellow of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science. John
A. O’Brien, who earned a doctorate in education at the University of Illinois, was
primarily a popularizer and presumably for that reason figures more modestly than
the others in Pavuk’s narrative. Catholic chaplain at Illinois from 1917 until 1939,
O’Brien was a hero of sorts to Catholics who hoped to promote and legitimize
Catholic ministry to students on secular college campuses.
Pavuk, however, is not concerned with O’Brien’s work in education or indeed
with Ryan’s views on economics or Cooper’s on anthropology. He focuses instead
on two subjects, evolution and contraception, which his protagonists addressed in
limited fashion and only on occasion. All three embraced what is usually called theistic evolution, which the Holy See effectively tolerated—mostly by remaining
silent—even in the early decades of the twentieth century. All three published articles on the subject, with O’Brien eventually producing a book. Each man also wrote
about birth control, although Ryan’s work was directed almost solely at his fellow
priests. Each endorsed the so-called “rhythm method” of family limitation as
morally licit for married couples when new information about the female reproductive cycle made “periodic continence” theoretically effective as a means of spacing
children. They were far from alone in their endorsements and hardly singular, at
least among priests, in their optimistic assessment of rhythm’s effectiveness. Nor
did they challenge their church’s prohibition on any use whatsoever of so-called
“artificial” contraceptives.
Why, then, are their views on evolution and birth control of such interest to
Pavuk? Mainly because of language: by relying almost exclusively on what Pavuk
calls “naturalistic argumentation” when they addressed these sensitive subjects, the
three priests unwittingly contributed to a broader cultural shift whereby both evolution and contraception were removed from the sphere of moral deliberation and
surrendered wholly to scientific experts. Such language came naturally to the three,
Pavuk argues, as participants in the progressive movement and heirs to the Americanist and modernist movements within the Catholic Church. Eager to win
acceptance from their non-Catholic professional peers and enhanced respect for
Catholics generally from an increasingly science-minded public, the three priests
eschewed traditional Catholic modes of argumentation, by which Pavuk appears to
mean neo-scholasticism, in favor of empirical arguments derived from the social
sciences and sometimes facile assurances that science itself could be a source of religious revelation. The effect, presumably unintended, was a fatal weakening of
Catholic moral distinctiveness.
Pavuk’s book is impressively researched. But his argument, admittedly
provocative, suffers from over-simplification. He does succeed in showing that the
three priests could be naïve with regard to the ameliorative impact of the social and
physical sciences. Like others in their own and succeeding generations, they
endowed the sciences—often quite uncritically—with sometimes inordinate prestige. He also raises important questions about the involvement of both Ryan and

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Cooper in the eugenics movement, where each saw himself as exercising a moderating influence. One doubts, however, that the three men had significant impact on
the nation’s scientific discourse, to which—with the possible exception of
Cooper—they were marginal at best. Pavuk asserts their importance but fails to
offer substantive evidence for his case. Nor does he address their impact on conversations among Catholics, save to imply that it was both great and deleterious. The
book often reads like a bill of indictment, with the reader left to wonder just what
the crime in question might be. That the three priests lived through, and participated in, a critical phase of a long-term shift in Catholic consciousness is indisputable. But that shift had multiple causes, all of which need to be considered for
an adequate understanding of Catholic life today.
The Catholic University of America (Emerita)

LESLIE WOODCOCK TENTLER

LATIN AMERICA
Promiscuous Power: An Unorthodox History of New Spain. By Martin Austin Nesvig.
(Austin: University of Texas Press. 2018. Pp. xii, 252. $45.00 hardbound;
$29.95 paperback. ISBN 978-1-4773-1582-8.)
In this fascinating collection of stories focusing on actors in early colonial
Michoacán, Nesvig has wonderfully turned any number of tropes about imperial
society, politics, and power on their respective heads. Rather than being the Eden
that was depicted in many colonial letters and chronicles, Michoacán was, instead,
the site of conflicts, lawlessness, rapine, and sheer cussedness that marked many
frontier areas of the colonial state. In discussing the province, he has recourse to
several methodological concepts, but perhaps most central was one developed by
the Mexican scholar, Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán, namely as a region of refuge. It was
to this lawless and wild frontier that so many fled to avoid the power and centralizing authority of the various bureaucracies based in Mexico City.
Politically and administratively the province of Michoacán was part of New
Spain, whose capital was Mexico City, over 500 miles away from the farthest
reaches of the province. At the same time, just to the north of Michoacán, was the
separate Kingdom of New Galicia. Thus, while geographically much of Michoacán
had similarities with that northwestern kingdom, it was linked to Mexico City. The
book begins with a thorough and thought-provoking introduction. It is a quite
strong essay on the nature of imperial authority and other questions raised in the
book. Then Nesvig considers the period of the Spanish invasion and the participation of the missionary friars. The next chapter considers the series of conflicts
between the secular and regular clergy. He then turns to the authority and role of
the Inquisition in the province. Since the Holy Office was based in Mexico City,
commissioners or agents were sent out to Michoacán, or enlisted from among local
clerics. But it was a huge territory to police. The smaller region of Colima is the
focus of the next chapter, looking at the interplay of the power and authority of
magistrates, privileged immigrants with royal grants for labor (encomenderos), and

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the clerics. The last chapter considers the role of what Nesvig characterizes as
“caudillo priests,” local clerics who came to dominate the regions they served. A
conclusion focuses on the aftermath of some of the stories of the earlier chapters
(the rest of the story) and provides an incisive analysis of his findings.
As noted, Nesvig turns many of the tropes about the colonial period on their
heads. Rather than finding the various agencies of the Church and State working
toward imperial aims, he shows that there were deep divisions among them and
that in many instances they acted in counter purpose to one another. The diocesan
and regular clergy lost no love for each other, engaged in pitched battles, and had
two very different visions for the Christianization of the natives. The Inquisition
was often draconian, but in so many parts of the province it was unknown and certainly unheeded. Scholars have often concluded that, at least in central Mexico,
there were Spaniards or agents of the Spanish crown scattered throughout the hinterland. In Michoacán, nothing could have been further from the truth. Moreover,
when a Spaniard was encountered, he might well be a renegade or refugee from
that centralizing authority. This is a perfectly delightful book. It engages and draws
the reader along while making very profound observations about the nature of the
colonial state. It should become a classic of microhistory.
University at Albany (Emeritus)
University of Kansas, Research Associate

JOHN F. SCHWALLER

The Worlds of Junípero Serra: Historical Contexts and Cultural Representations. Edited
by Steven W. Hackel, (Oakland, CA: University of California Press. 2018.
Pp. viii, 300. $70.00. ISBN: 9780520295391)
The extensive scholarship on Junípero Serra (1713–1784) has largely passed
over Serra’s education and preaching on Mallorca and his ministry in Mexico City
and the Sierra Gorda before he founded the Franciscan missions in California.
The point of departure of this superb collection of essays is the need to better
understand these two important periods of Serra’s career. Edited by the distinguished Serra biographer Steven W. Hackel, the book contains twelve chapters by
fourteen historians, art historians and literary critics from the United States,
Mexico and Europe.
José Juan Vidal places Serra’s work in California against the background of his
preaching to illiterate farmers in the interior of Mallorca, where he was imbued
with the passion for the global missionary church that had been a characteristic feature of the Franciscans of Mallorca dating back to Ramon Llull. Serra “would leave
the island in 1749, never to return, but in ways that would shape his missionary
career he in a sense never left the island” (21).
David Rex Galindo, building on his recent book on the Franciscans in Spain
and Latin America, analyzes Serra’s decisive influence on the Apostolic College of
San Fernando in Mexico City from the time of his arrival in 1750 until his death

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BOOK REVIEWS

in 1784. Rex Galindo underscores Serra’s commitment to ministering not only to
Indigenous people but also to Europeans throughout central Mexico. As a result,
by the time Serra began his work in California in 1769, “he had already accumulated decades of theoretical and practical missionary schooling” (101). Karen
Melvin likewise focuses on Serra’s ministry to both Indians and Europeans in popular missions in Mexico City and the Sierra Gorda. She underscores Serra’s place
in the Franciscan tradition of the “experiential preacher” and paints a vivid portrait
of the popular missions as “Baroque theater . . . where audience members were also
participants” (116).
Rosemarie Beebe and Robert Senkewicz, who, like Hackel, have written a
ground-breaking biography of Serra, provide a deft study of Serra’s conflicting
impulses as a missionary. Serra was torn between his desire to peacefully convert
Indigenous people and his willingness to resort to coercion—assisted by Spanish
soldiers—when peaceful methods failed. Beebe and Senkewicz argue that the tensions within Serra would continue to shape the theory and practice of conversion
in California after Serra’s death. Other excellent essays—on Serra’s notes as a student in Mallorca, his influence on Franciscan art and architecture, the influence on
Serra of Sor María de Jesús de Ágreda, and confessional practices—underscore the
scope of Serra’s ministries and the complexity of his legacy.
The appropriation of Serra’s legacy in the United States is the subject of a
wide-ranging essay by Richard Kagan entitled “The Invention of Junípero Serra and
the ‘Spanish Craze.’” The craze—a term coined by Kagan—was “inextricably linked
to commercial interests and touristic concerns” (227). It was also linked to the secularization of Serra that was promoted by writers who were determined “to create
for California a founding father comparable in stature and importance” to the Puritans of New England, “and in doing so create for the state a colonial history in
which all its residents, Catholics and Protestants alike, could take pride” (245).
Among the powerful dissenting voices that Kagan cites is that of Carey
McWilliams, who lamented the exclusion of Mexicans and Indians from the celebration of the Spanish heritage in California. A new generation of scholars and
activists has taken up McWilliams’s lament, especially in connection with the canonization of Serra in 2015. Steven Hackel observes that Serra remains a “polarizing” figure, and that the controversy surrounding Serra’s canonization led Pope
Francis to acknowledge the “grave sins” that members of the church committed
during the evangelization of the Americas. This book eloquently demonstrates that
Junípero Serra possessed an abiding consciousness of these sins in the course of
navigating the many worlds into which he entered in America.
The Catholic University of America

THOMAS M. COHEN

BOOK REVIEWS

231

Victory on Earth or in Heaven: Mexico’s Religionero Rebellion. By Brian A. Stauffer.
(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. 2019. Pp. 392. $75.00. ISBN:
9780826361271.)
Brian A. Stauffer’s masterfully written and researched monograph treats one
of the lesser-known or understood religious conflicts of the nineteenth century—
Mexico’s Religionero Rebellion, 1873–1877. One of the more significant contributions that Stauffer makes (one of a list certainly far too long to include in this brief
review) is that the Religionero Rebellion established, or made possible, the mending
of the relationship between Church and state that came with the liberal and anticlerical governments of Benito Juarez and Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada. Church-state
détente, as Stauffer asserts, provided the lasting stability of the Mexican state over
the course of the Porfiriato, “allowing for both the consolidation of the Porfirian
state and the institutional renaissance of the Catholic Church” (p. 2). More precisely, Stauffer argues that Porfirio Díaz’s rise to power depended on his capacity
to negotiate with a rising Catholic conservatism typified by the Religioneros in
Michoacán. There is welcomed nuance in the analysis of the institutional history of
the Church in the period of rapid political and social change between Independence and the Religionero Rebellion. “Catholic restorationism,” as Stauffer terms it,
involved a series of internal Church reforms that reinforced the Church’s alignment
with the Vatican and the prerogatives of the Pope, but also often bowed to the liberal and secular state. This restorationism divided rural parishioners in their support
of the Church and shaped the regional character of the Religionero Rebellion itself.
In his analysis, Stauffer makes clear that the rebellion often spilled over the neat
boundaries of Church-state conflict.
With sources ranging from local newspapers and military reports to the personal correspondence of Porfirio Díaz and his supporters in the state of Michoacán,
the details of the rebellion, its context, and the federal military response are incredibly well researched. As Stauffer points out, however, motivations of those involved
in popular movements are notoriously difficult to identify. In order to approach the
problem of motivations, Stauffer employs a rich combination of parish records, correspondence between rural priests and urban counterparts, and records pertaining
to the division of indigenous lands in the years leading up to the rebellion that allow
the author to identify convincingly the impacts of the liberal-era reparto on local
Religionero mobilization. It is his attention to the local-level dynamics, as well as
his grasp on the push and pull between popular faith and major reforms within the
nineteenth-century Church that makes Stauffer’s research of particular import to
the field of nineteenth-century Mexican history. Unlike previous works on the
topic, which tended to paint participants as the unwitting dupes of the clergy,
driven on by the admonitions of the priest and the landlord, and the Church itself
as predatory, monolithic, and unflinchingly anti-modern, Stauffer provides an
important view of the rebellion from the local level and a much more nuanced
understanding of the multiplicity of factors that motivated the belligerents in the
rebellion. The more nuanced understanding of a Church in transition and internally
divided regarding its relationship with liberalism and the state is a much-needed

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revision to the extant historiography on the nineteenth-century Church. Stauffer’s
research and methodologies are of value not only to the scholar of the late nineteenth-century Mexican Church, but certainly also the historian of popular religious and agrarian conflict of the postrevolutionary period. Victory on Earth or in
Heaven is refreshingly clearly written, well-researched, and a much-needed addition to the literature on religious conflict in nineteenth-century Mexico.
JULIAN F. DODSON

Washington State University

ASIAN
Global entanglements of a man who never traveled. A Seventeenth-Century Chinese
Christian and his Conflicted Worlds. By Dominic Sachsenmaier. (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2018, Pp. 280. $65.00. ISBN: 9780231187527).
This book tells the story of Zhu Zongyuan, a Confucian Christian from
Ningbo—a port city in the Zhejiang province—and an elite member at the Chinese
provincial level, who penned several pro-Christian texts in the late Ming and early
Qing periods. This study reconstructs Zhu’s personal and academic life, despite the
fragmentary sources and lacunae that might explain the absence of comprehensive
studies about this Chinese convert so far. However, Zhu’s life serves to a major purpose in this book, as Sachsenmaier turns it into a lens through which explore multifaceted interconnections between the globalizing Catholic Church and the late
Ming society and culture and, eventually, the troubled Ming-Qing transition. In a
brilliant and concise book, Sachsenmaier engages the reader in a fine interweaving
of local, regional and global history throughout five chapters.
The first chapter reconstructs Zhu’s local life in Ningbo, from his monographs, essays, and introductory writings, as well as from writings by European
missionaries, among others. Zhu’s date of birth, his academic degrees—he became
a juren degree holder in 1648—, his conversion to Christianity, his relationship
with European missionaries, as well as his—inferred—acceptance of the Qing
dynasty are here analyzed at the backdrop of the Ming-Qing transition. The second
chapter analyzes Zhu’s pro-Christian writings, including two major works,
Responses to the Question of a Guest (Da kewen) and A Summary of World Salvation (Zhengshi lüeshuo), framed in the broader context of the Chinese-Christian
text production during the Ming-Qing transition. Portraying Zhu as a connector
between European missionaries and the Ningbo communities, this chapter also
includes a refreshing analysis of the local dimension of Christian communities
entangled in major networks of global Catholicism. The third chapter examines the
Confucian-Christian synthesis in Zhu’s works. This synthesis, an expression of the
so-called “accommodation method” encouraged by the Jesuits in China, which in
the seventeenth century harbored increasing rivalries within the Catholic Church,
is here addressed in the light of a late Ming broader background of syncretisms and
diversified Confucian teachings, which shaped Zhu’s interpretation of Christianity.
The fourth chapter focalizes on Zhu’s works against the backdrop of the relation-

BOOK REVIEWS

233

ship between China and the outside world, contesting an alleged Chinese cultural
self-sufficiency in his pro-Christian writings. His interpretations of the Chinese
classics, among other texts, underpin the contribution of foreign elements in the
history of China, a stance that promoted the credibility of Christianity on local soil.
The fifth chapter focuses on an idealized, filtered vision of Europe that (European)
missionaries—mainly Jesuits—conveyed in China in the late Ming period, reproduced in the writings of men like Zhu. Zhu sought to harmonize local tensions and
incongruences with Catholicism in China, conveying an idealized vision of Europe
as the realization of Confucian ideas and values of a Chinese bygone era. Final
reflections assess Zhu’s silent struggle to bring together and find unity between two
complex universes, i.e. Confucianism and Christianity in the late Ming period and
during the Ming-Qing transition.
Through the study of the life and works of Zhu, an understudied, self-effacing
figure, Sachsenmaier provides multiple fresh angles to analyze the interactions
between Confucian and Christian thought, between a globalized Catholicism—
which harbored and concealed tensions and contradictions that helped shape early
modern Europe—and China during the Ming-Qing transition. It is an excellent
book for teaching global history and a must read, groundbreaking study for academics in the field of global history, Ming-Qing China, Jesuit studies, early
modern history and early modern missions. Moreover, this concise, clearly written
study caters to the broad public interested in Sino-Western relations from a historical perspective.
National Council for Scientific and Technical Research
(CONICET), Argentina

ANA CAROLINA HOSNE

Editor’s Report for 2021
Volume 107 of the journal consisted of 660 pages of articles, essays, fora, book
reviews, and the quarterly sections Notes and Comments, Periodical Literature,
and Other Books Received, with an additional nine pages of preliminary materials
and thirty-eight pages of the general index. In all, volume 107 contained 707 pages.
Subsidies from authors and contributions from others made directly to the journal
allowed for the addition of pages above those budgeted. Professor Paul F. Grendler
of Chapel Hill, NC (emeritus of the University of Toronto) has once again made
a generous contribution.
Of the seventeen regular articles published, excluding the two “Journey in
Church History” essays, two articles treated a medieval topic, seven an early
modern European, one a late modern European, four an American, one a Latin
American, and two an Asian theme. Eight of their authors came from American
institutions, the others from Argentinian (1), Chinese (2), Georgian (1), Israeli (1),
Italian (1), Polish (1), and United Kingdom (2) universities.
In 2021 the journal published eighteen book reviews. The book reviews can be
subdivided into the following categories: ancient (1), medieval (6), early modern
(4), late modern (1), American (4), African (1), and Chinese (1). Their authors
came mostly from institutions in the United States (16 or 89%), but a couple from
those in other countries were also represented (5.5%) in England (1), and 5.5% in
China (1) Please see Table 1.
TABLE 1. Book Reviews Published in 2021
Area
General
Ancient
Medieval
Early Modern
Late Modern
American
Asian
TOTAL

Winter

Spring

Summer

1

1
1
1

Autumn

4
3

2
1
1
3

2

3
3

10

TOTAL
0
1
6
4
2
4
1
18

The paucity of book reviews published in 2021 is attributed primarily to the
Covid-19 epidemic. The university that houses the journal closed down on-campus
work activities and sent home students who assist in positions around the university.
The editors received thirty-one new submissions of articles in 2021. They came
primarily from the United States (17), but also from Argentina (2), Austria (1),
234

EDITOR’S REPORT FOR 2021

235

Canada (1), Croatia (1), Czech Republic (1), India (1), Norway (1), Poland (4),
and Tanzania (1). Table 2 shows the current disposition of these submissions.
During the year 2021, fourteen articles submitted prior to 2021 were accepted and
published.
TABLE 2. Manuscripts Submitted in 2021

Area

General
Ancient
Medieval
Early Modern
Late Modern
American
Canadian
Latin American
African
Asian
TOTAL

Rejected
Conditionally
or
Published
Accepted Accepted Withdrawn Pending in 2021 TOTAL

1

1
7
3
2

4
3
4

2
1

1
1
1

0

1
14

13

3

2
6
10
8
2
1
1
1
31

The Nelson H. Minnich Prize for the best article published in the CHR
during 2021 has been awarded by the prize committee (Drs. Jennifer Paxton,
Joseph M. White, Robin Darling Young) to Professor Emeritus Christopher M.
Graney for his study “Galileo Between Jesuits: The Fault Is in the Stars,” CHR106
(2021), 191-225. Citation: This article explains how seventeenth-century scholars
could have opposed the Copernican universe, leading to the condemnation of
Galileo. Graney brilliantly demonstrates that the Copernican view of the nature
and size of the stars, which was abandoned not long after Galileo’s death, led many
scholars to reject heliocentrism. Thus, the church opposed Galileo not just on theological but on scientific grounds. Graney is to be commended for showing that
there is more nuance to one of the most famous confrontations in the history of the
church than scholars have hitherto supposed.
During most of 2021, the journal experienced serious staffing problems due
to safety measures taken because of Covid-19 and to other health problems. To
remedy the situation, in the Fall semester, Dr. Julia G. Young, a specialist in Latin
American history, has been brought on as associate editor, Ms. Madelyn Reichert
as copyeditor, and Ms. Julia Sedlack as graduate assistant to the book review editors. Their assistance is most welcomed. We have been blessed by the continued
dedicated support of the Associate Editors, Msgr. Robert Trisco and Dr. Jennifer
Paxton. We appreciate everyone’s patience and understanding during this trying
period.
NELSON H. MINNICH
EDITOR

Notes and Comments
ASSOCIATION NEWS
R e p o r t o n t h e a n n u a l A C H A m e e t i n g t h a t r e s u m e d J a n u a r y 6–8, 2022 i n N e w
Orleans.
Forty-six papers and twenty-one panels were accepted. Among the panels
were three joint sessions with the American Historical Association, the most in
recent years. The spike in Covid-19, however, had an impact on the conference.
Because of some participant withdrawals, sixteen panels needed to be canceled.
Though a smaller conference than originally planned, the New Orleans meeting,
nonetheless, proved a success. The conference began with a tour of Black Catholic
New Orleans that culminated in an opening panel on Black Catholic archives at
Xavier University of Louisiana. Likewise, a special Friday night session at the All
Ways Lounge engendered enormous excitement for “Highway to Purgatory:
Catholic Sounds and Sensibilities in the Age of Cocaine,” which will be remembered for opening new pathways into Catholic studies and offers a model for future
conversations. Over the course of three days, a host of sessions generated many
fruitful conversations about the many dimensions of Catholic history. Finally, the
historic Antoine’s restaurant hosted the ACHA luncheon and awards ceremony
where many members had the opportunity to engage with one another in person
after a much too long absence.
2021 P r i z e s ( a n n o u n c e d a t t h e 2022 A n n u a l M e e t i n g )
(1) Th e J o h n G i l m a r y S h e a P r i z e :
The American Catholic Historical Association awards the 2021 Shea Prize to
Theresa Keeley of the University of Louisville for her book, Reagan’s Gun-Toting
Nuns: The Catholic Conflict Over Cold War Human Rights Policy in Central America
(Cornell University Press, 2020).
This gripping book focuses on a Catholic-driven rightward turn in American
foreign policy in the late 1970s and into the 1980s that aided and abetted repressive
governments and death squads in Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador that
killed thousands. Keeley documents the ways conservative and traditionalist U.S.
Catholics in the post-Vatican II era had an outsized impact on foreign policy, especially during Reagan’s first term (1980–84). These anticommunist Catholics saw an
opportunity in foreign policy and human rights discussions to advance a battle
being fought within the church between leftists informed by liberation theology
and “true Catholicism” rooted in individual liberty and ostensibly apolitical personal spirituality. Aligning with Protestant conservatives in a broad “post war
restructuring,” these Catholics offered the president a religious rationale for secret
236

NOTES AND COMMENTS

237

as well as explicit military and financial support of right-wing governments and
their violent goons.
The haunting image on the book’s cover—a memorial chapel built in Santiago
Nonualco, El Salvador at the site where the bodies of four murdered American
churchwomen were found in 1980—offers a stark reminder of the heavy stakes the
book lays out. The book ingeniously zeros in on the Maryknolls, a title for two
orders, one for men and one for women, who began the postwar period celebrated
by McCarthyites as martyrs for American anticommunism. By the 1980s, most
Maryknolls had been transformed by their on-the-ground witness of the damaging
effects of American foreign policy on human rights in Central America. For rightleaning Americans, the Maryknolls became a symbol of the slipping away of the
Catholic Church (which had been identified with anti-Communism at least since
the 1920s), the loss of alignment between American ambition and Catholic moral
imaginaries. This is what made foreign policy debates so intense. When images of
the four murdered churchwomen being dragged from a shallow grave were broadcast over U.S. television, the Reagan administration responded by suggesting,
against all evidence, that the women had been shot while exchanging gunfire and
attempting to run a military blockade. This fabrication provides the ingenious title
of the book, the Reagan supporters’ conjured image of nuns wielding weapons in a
misguided fight to install communism around the globe.
The book is detailed and profoundly rooted in archival research conducted in
dozens of archival collections across multiple countries and continents, as well as
scores of English- and Spanish-language news sources, U.S. government and particularly FBI documents, and Congressional records. The coverage extends past the
extended debate about the fallout from the churchwomen’s murder and includes
analysis of the Bush administration’s response to the 1989 execution of Jesuits,
their cook, and her daughter at the Universidad Centroamericana (UCA) and the
continuing terrorizing of church workers affiliated with the UCA. The U.S.
approach to this atrocity, while less starkly deceptive than that of the Reagan
administration, was still deeply invested in shoring up the American-friendly government rather than finding justice for the martyred advocates of the poor. Keeley
is a skilled writer who threads her way through complex policy matters and offers
indelible images that crystallize her argument—for example, a political cartoon
published by the right-wing newspaper Washington Times that depicted Maryknoll
supporting politician Tip O’Neill (a Boston Catholic) dressed in a nun’s habit while
Reagan got remade as a manly Rambo.
Keeley’s book makes several significant historiographical interventions that
will be of interest to a wide variety of audiences. In supporting the notion of a postwar restructuring across denominational lines, it also sheds light on contemporary
ideological commitments and voting patterns shared by both white Protestants and
white Catholics alike. It breaks new ground by rewriting Cold War history as a
Catholic history, on not one, but both sides, and by highlighting the role of women
in Cold War history, especially women religious who worked in situations of

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NOTES AND COMMENTS

remarkable danger in defense of the poor. It also contributes to the transnationalization of Catholic history, noting the ways internal Catholic struggles exceeded
national boundaries with considerable effects. In so doing, it sheds light on divergent attitudes within US Catholic circles toward Latin American Catholicism and
toward Pope Francis, the first Latin American and the first Jesuit pontiff. Keely’s
book also attends to Catholic aesthetics as a factor in American politics (including
especially bloodied bodies and the clothing of the ordained). Perhaps most importantly, it highlights the very real influence of American power around the world
and puts Catholics at the center of those decisions. The book is a remarkable
achievement, clearly an original and distinguished contribution to the history of the
Catholic Church.
This year’s Shea Prize committee was comprised of A. Katie Stirling-Harris
(University of California at Davis, Chair), Massimo Faggioli (Villanova University), and John Seitz (Fordham University).
(2) The Helen and Howard R. Marraro Prize in Italian History
The American Catholic Historical Association awards the 2021 Marraro Prize
to Hannah Marcus of Harvard University for Forbidden Knowledge: Medicine, Science and Censorship in Early Modern Italy (University of Chicago Press, 2020).
In this broadly researched book on censorship of medical treatises, Marcus
presents an unexpected discovery of how the censorship process, expurgating books
and licensing readers, contributed to the professionalization of medical science and
practice. Motivated by a dual understanding of “utility,” as a matter of good policy
in this world, and of salvation of souls in the next, censors influenced and relied
upon discussion among disciplinary experts, relativizing the influence of theologians.
This year’s Marraro Prize committee was comprised of Thomas Behr of the
University of St. Thomas-Houston and two scholars named by the AHA and the
Society for Italian Historical Studies.
(3) The Peter Guilday Prize
The American Catholic Historical Association awards the 2021 Peter Guilday
Prize to Richard T. Yoder, doctoral candidate in History at Pennsylvania State
University, for his article “From the Dove to the Eagle: Jansenist Visual Culture
Between Piety and Polemic,” Catholic Historical Review, 107, no. 4 (Autumn,
2021), 528–60.
In his article on Jansenist visual culture, Richard T. Yoder makes creative use
of visual material in order to demonstrate a political turn in the Jansenist movement
during the eighteenth century. Elegantly written and analytically strong, the article
provides a fascinating new contribution to existing studies of Jansenism and offers
readers a new way to understand the way the movement changed during its late

NOTES AND COMMENTS

239

middle period. By deftly examining artistic changes in the annual frontispieces of
the Jansenists’ journal Nouvelles ecclésiastiques—images that were seen not only by
the journal’s readers, but also by a much wider population of illiterate and less-educated people—Yoder demonstrates how Jansenists disseminated new forms of
patriotic politics during a time of “intense upheaval in church and state.” Yoder’s
fine scholarship offers a welcome contribution not only to the study of Jansenism,
but also to the history of eighteenth-century French print culture and politics.
The Guilday Prize committee consisted of Jennifer Paxton and Julia Young of
the Catholic University of America.
(4) The John Tracy Ellis Dissertation Award
The American Catholic Historical Association awards the 2021 Ellis Dissertation Award to Glauco Schettini, a doctoral candidate at Fordham University. His
dissertation is entitled: “The Catholic Counter-Revolution: A Global Intellectual
History, 1780s–1840s.”
It examines Catholic responses to the intellectual turmoil released by the
Enlightenment and French Revolution in Iberian Europe and the Americas, regions
that until now have received little attention in the historiography. Schettini plans on
using the award to visit the archives of Augustin Barruel, a key antirevolutionary
polemicist, and Henri Gregoire, a bishop in the French Constitutional Church.
This year’s Ellis Award committee was comprised of Robert W. Shaffern
(University of Scranton, chair), Jim McCartin (Fordham University), and Mary
Dunn (St. Louis University).
(5) The Cyrian Davis, O.S.B. Prize in the History of African-American
Catholicism
The University of Notre Dame’s Cushwa Center for the Study of American
Catholicism and the American Catholic Historical Association are pleased to
announce that Leah Mickens has been named the inaugural recipient of the Cyprian
Davis, O.S.B., Prize for her book project, “In the Shadow of Ebenezer: A Black
Catholic Parish in the Age of Civil Rights and Vatican II.”
Mickens recently earned her doctorate from Boston University’s Graduate
Program in Religion. Her project takes as its focus Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic
Church in Atlanta, the city’s oldest historically Black parish, located one block
from Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King Jr. served as co-pastor.
Mickens examines how Black Catholics at Our Lady of Lourdes influenced and
were influenced by the religious and social change ushered in by the Second Vatican Council and the civil rights movement. Among other things, the study considers the liturgical inculturation and ecumenical exchange whereby the parish
affirmed and reinterpreted its Black Catholic identity in a postconciliar, Southern,
and Protestant-majority urban context.

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NOTES AND COMMENTS

(6) Research and Travel Grants
The 2021 Research and Writing Grants have been awarded to: Haley Bowen,
University of Michigan; Madeline Gambino, Princeton University; Sofía Maurette, University of Maryland; and Brian Mueller, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Carroll University.
The 2022 Presidential (Conference) Travel Grants were awarded to Sean
Jacobson, Loyola University Chicago; and Sofiía Maurette, University of Maryland.
(7) Distinguished Awards
(A) ACHA Distinguished Scholarship, to Rev. Kevin P. Spicer, CSC, Dean
of the May School of Arts & Sciences, James J. Kenneally Distinguished Professor
of History, Stonehill College
Kevin P. Spicer, C.S.C., a prolific scholar and dedicated teacher, has produced
relevant, thought-provoking narratives and engaging scholarship that examines the
complicity and resistance of the Catholic Church under National Socialism. His most
recent work, The Evil That Surrounds Us: The WWII Memoir of Erna Becker Kohen (Indiana University Press, 2017), a Holocaust memoir that he translated and edited with
Martina Cucchiara, provides a first-hand account of the persecution of Catholics of
Jewish heritage through the lens of one faith-filled woman. His magisterial work,
Hitler’s Priests: Catholic Clergy and National Socialism (Northern Illinois University
Press, 2008/2017), reveals the role of “brown priests,” Catholic priests who supported
Adolf Hitler and National Socialism. Encompassing archival research from more than
fifty archives, it is a ground-breaking study that has not been surpassed.
(B) ACHA Distinguished Teaching, to Rev. Steven Avella, Professor,
Department of History, Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Father Avella has been a member of the Department of History at Marquette
University since 1991 and served as department chair from 1994–99. His research
and teaching interests range from politics and culture to American religious history.
He is prolific scholar of the American West with special emphasis on the place of
religion in the region. Most important he is a dedicated and outstanding teacher
focusing much of his energies towards undergraduates. His teaching prowess was
recognized by Marquette University in awarding him the “Faculty Star” award for
service to the university, excellence in teaching, and contributions to scholarly discourse. He was also the recipient of the Robert and Mary Gettel Teaching Excellence Award, the highest honor afforded a faculty member for teaching excellence.
He served as President of the ACHA in 2010 and inaugurated the distinguished
awards that are presented at the annual meeting.
(C) ACHA Distinguished Service, to the Cushwa Center for the Study of
American Catholicism, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana
The Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism is the premier
resource for researching and promoting the history of American Catholicism. The

NOTES AND COMMENTS

241

Cushwa Center was established in 1975 at the University of Notre Dame. The four
directors—Jay Dolan, R. Scott Appleby, Tim Matovina, and Kathleen Sprows
Cummings—have expanded the scope of the Center’s research and activities.
Recently, international programs, particularly cataloging and studying archives in
Rome, have added a very valuable dimension to the Center’s research. The Cushwa
Center is nationally and internationally recognized for insightful seminars, major
conferences, a number of publications, and substantial research funding for scholars. One of the signature endeavors of the Center is supporting the History of
Women Religious Triennial Conference. In 2021 the Center inaugurated the
Cyprian Davis, O.S.B., Award for scholarship on African-American Catholicism.
Deadlines:
—For informaiton on the deadline for the submission of papers for the annual
meeting in Philadelphia in 2023, please see https://achahistory.org/philadelphia
2023/.
—Registration for the Spring meeting at Scranton University will open on February 25th, please see https://achahistory.org/scranton2022/.
—The deadlines for the submission of candidates for ACHA prizes are: May 9th
for the John Gilmary Shea Prize and for the John Tracy Ellis Prize; May 15th
for the Helen and Howard Marraro Prize; and December 31st for the Cyprian
Davis Prize.
—The deadline for the applying for the Summer Research and Travel Grants is
March 30th.

CAUSES OF SAINTS
On January 22, 2022, Fr. Rutilio Grande, S.J., (1928–77) a Salvadoran Jesuit
priest, together with an elderly man, Manuel Solórzano (1905–77), and a teenage
boy, Nelson Rutilio Lemus Chávez (1960–77), were beatified in a ceremony in San
Salvador led by by Cardinal Gregorio Rosa Chávez. They had been assassinated by
a government-sanctioned death squad while they were on their way for Fr. Grande
to celebrate Mass. He was a close associate of Archbishop Oscar Romero. Also
beatified was Fr. Cosma Spessotto, O.F.M. (1923–80), who denounced the abuses
of the junta and was shot at point blank range while preparing to celebrate Mass.
On January 31, 2022, Archbishop Sebastian Shaw of Lahore announced that
the Congregation for the Causes of Saints authorized the Lahore archdiocese to
open the cause of the martyrdom of Akash Bashir (1994–2015), and it has accepted
him as a Servant of God, the title given to a candidate for the sainthood while his
or her life and work is closely examined. The archbishop made the announcement
about Bashir, an alumnus of the local Don Bosco Technical Institute, on the feast
of St. John Bosco.
When on March 15, 2015, Jamaatul Ahrar, a member of the Pakistani terrorist group Tehreek-e-Taliban, attempted to enter St. John’s Catholic Church in
Lahore, Pakistan, a twenty-year-old volunteer security guard named Akash Bashir

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NOTES AND COMMENTS

blocked him. “I will die but I will not let you go in,” he reportedly told the terrorist
armed with explosives. The attacker then set off a bomb, immediately killing himself and the man now recognized as a candidate for canonization, Akash Bashir.
Because of his actions, the church—with more than 1,000 Catholics inside—was
saved from a direct blast.

WORKSHOPS
On February 1, 2022 a workshop organized by Gloria Bell and Beatrice Falcucci was held at the American Academy in Rome on the theme “Re-thinking and
Re-positioning Missionary Collections and Museums.” For centuries missionaries
collected sacred and secular materials from Indigenous communities across the
globe. The workshop sought to unpack the colonial legacy of missionary collecting
and chart new perspectives on the actors and agents involved. The following speakers sought to investigate the legacy of missionary museums and exhibitions across
time and space, reflecting on the ongoing capitalization of heritage and curatorial
practices: Sabina Brevaglieri, Humboldt University Berlin, “Missionary collecting
and competing heritagizations: rethinking the early modern origins of the Vatican
Ethnological Museum”; Gloria Bell, McGill University, “Indigenous Artists and
Activists at the 1925 Vatican Missionary Exhibition”; Beatrice Falcucci, Università
dell’Aquila, “Mapping the collections from the Italian colonies in Missionary
museums”; and Emanuela Rossi, Università di Firenze, “Artification to decolonize:
the case of the National Gallery of Canada.”
On July 11–22, 2022, the Newberry Center for Renaissance Studies’ Summer
Institute in Italian Paleography will offer an intensive two-week residential course,
an introduction to reading and transcription of handwritten Italian vernacular texts
from the late medieval through the early modern periods. It will be directed by
Maddalena Signorini, Università degli Studi di Roma “Tor Vergata.”This graduatelevel course will be taught in Italian and requires advanced language skills. While
the emphasis will be on building paleographical skills, the course also offers an
overview of materials and techniques, and considers the history of scripts within the
larger historical, literary, intellectual, and social contexts of Italy. Participants practice on a wide range of documents, including literary, personal, legal, notarial, official, and ecclesiastical works. The course provides insight into the systems of Italian
archives and allows participants to work with inventories, letters, diaries, and other
primary source materials from the Newberry Library.
The institute enrolls fifteen participants by competitive application. It welcomes applications from advanced graduate students and junior faculty from universities, from professional staff of libraries and museums, and from qualified independent scholars. First consideration will be given to applicants from Center for
Renaissance Studies Consortium institutions. For more information about the
institute, including a link for submitting an application, please visit the Institute
calendar page here: https://www.newberry.org/07112022-summer-institute-italianpaleography

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243

EXHIBIT
The Catholic University of America Special Collections, which includes the
Archives, Manuscripts, Rare Books and the Museum, are pleased to announce a
new digital and physical exhibit based upon one of its premiere manuscript collections, the papers of Labor and Immigration leader Terence V. Powderly (18491924). The exhibit is titled Terence Powderly’s World and was created by Special
Collections Curator Dr. Maria Mazzenga. Using a broad assembly of documents,
photographs, and artifacts from this unique collection, Dr. Mazzenga has deftly
curated Powderly’s eventful life and career into six distinct parts: The Coal Breaker
of the Family, A Brief but Fiery Rise, the Catholic Church and the Knights of
Labor, Fighting for Ireland, Politics and Immigration, and The Labor Hall of
Fame. In addition to being posted online, the physical version can be viewed on
campus in the Special Collections reading room in 101 Aquinas Hall. For more
information, please contact William John Shepherd, University Archivist and
Head of Special Collections, email address: shepherw@cua.edu.

PUBLICATIONS
The eighth centenary of the birth of St. Thomas Aquinas is celebrated in the
Anuario de Historia de la Iglesia for 2021 (Volume 30) with six “Research Studies”
on “Santo Domingo y el legado de una orden (1221–2021).” Álvaro Fernández de
Córdova has written a “Presentación” (pp. 15–21), which is followed by Guillermo
Nieva Ocampo, “Santo Domingo entre la historia y la tradición hagiográfíca castellana (siglos XIII–XVI)” (pp. 23–63); Eugenio Serrano Rodríguez, “«Laudare,
benedicere, praedicare»: Toledo y la Orden de Predicadores. Historia y fuentes
documentales para su estudio” (pp. 65–102); María del Mar Graña Cid, “Sancho
IV, María de Molina y la promoción de la Orden de Predicatores: modelo de
realeza y cultura política” (pp. 103–39); Javier Vergara Ciordia, “Los dominicos de
primera hora y su contribución a la sistematización pedagógica medieval: la figura
clave de Vicente de Beauvais (1190–1264)” (pp. 141–73); Alfonso Esponera
Cerdán, O.P., “Santo Domingo de Guzmán según Jerónimo Savonarola OP” (pp.
175-90); and Gabriella Zarri, “La «mamma» di Guglielmo Paleologo: Maddalena
Panattieri da Trino, terzaiaria OP (1443–1503)” (pp. 191–212).
“500 Years of Christianity in the Philippines (Quincentenario 1521–2021)” is
the theme of a special issue of Philippiniana Sacra (Vol. LVI [September–December, 2021]). Following an “Editor’s Note” by Jorge Mojarro (pp. v–vi) are six articles: Rona Catherine R. Repancol, “Sa Bayan ng Meycauayan (In the Town of
Meycauayan)—the Quarries, the People and Their Church” (pp. 663–95); Ana M.
Rodríguez-Rodríguez, “Mártires, santos, beatos: discursos de lo extraordinario en
la expansión católica en Filipinas” (pp. 697–714); Regalado Trota José, “The Participation of the Local Clergy in late 18th Century Philippine Art” (pp. 715–46);
Matthew J. K. Hill, “Real Patronato, Military Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction, and the
Licensing of Royal Chaplains in Manila, 1734–1737: A Case Study” (pp. 747–98);
Roberto Blanco Andrés, “Agustín Pedro Blaquier, Obispo agustino de Nueva

244

NOTES AND COMMENTS

Segovia y promotor del clero Filipino” (pp. 799–830); and María Dolores Elizalde,
“Las órdenes religiosas, agente de colonización en Filipinas. Una Mirada exterior”
(pp. 831–68).

OBITUARIES
The Reverend John Thomas Ford, C.S.C.
(1932–2021)

The Reverend. John Thomas Ford, C.S.C, retired professor of the School of
Theology and Religious Studies, died on December 29, 2021 at the age of 89. He
was born on November 21, 1932 in Dallas, Texas, but grew up in Logansport,
Indiana, the hometown of his mother Leonara (Senn), whose Swiss German family
traced its roots in the area back to 1834. Up to the fourth grade, John attended the
Daniel Webster Public School, and then transferred to the St. Vincent’s Elementary School, conducted by the Sisters of the Holy Cross, and then graduated from
Logansport High School in 1950.
At the end of his freshman year at the University of Notre Dame where he
majored in mathematics, John entered on August 15, 1951 the novitiate of the
Holy Cross Fathers, initially located in South Bend but then moved to Jordan,
Minnesota. He professed final vows on August 16, 1955, and was ordained a Holy
Cross priest on June 10, 1959.
After graduating from the University of Notre Dame in 1955 with a bachelor’s
degree in philosophy, he went on to Holy Cross College in Washington, D.C. to
earn his master’s degree in theology in 1959. He then earned his licentiate (1960)
and doctorate (1962) in sacred theology from the Gregorian University in Rome,
with a dissertation on “Saint Irenaeus and Revelation” under the direction of Father
René Latourelle S.J.
In 1962, Fr. Ford taught theology at the University of Notre Dame and prefected in Cavanaugh Hall, before he left that fall to teach the Introduction to The-

NOTES AND COMMENTS

245

ology, Ecclesiology, and Church History at Holy Cross College in Washington,
D.C. until 1967. In 1964, he was appointed assistant superior at the Foreign Mission Seminary in Washington, and in 1967 served as its Superior until 1968, when
the Holy Cross College was closed.
From 1968 to 2018, he was professor of theology and coordinator of Hispanic/Latino studies in the School of Theology and Religious Studies at Catholic
where he authored over 100 essays, 680 book reviews, and some fifty prefaces,
introductions, and miscellaneous items.
Fr. Ford published widely in a number of areas, including nineteenth-century
Roman Catholic theology, Vatican I, Hispanic/Latino theology, and ecumenical
studies, and served as an area editor for Liberation Theology for the Religious Studies Review. He was perhaps best recognized as one of the leading John Henry
Newman scholars in the United States and throughout the world. Fr. Ford was a
longtime member of the St. John Henry Newman Association of America, including as a member of its Board of Directors for more than a decade, and as Association President and Program Director for the annual conference for many years. He
was a life-time member of the American Catholic Historical Association and
established the Catholic Historical Review’s Minnich Prize for the best article.
He also served as the founding editor of the Newman Studies Journal, a publication of the National Institute for Newman Studies (NINS), a private research
institute affiliated with Duquesne University of the Holy Spirit. For his extensive
work on Newman, Fr. Ford was the inaugural recipient of the Gaillot Award for
Newman Studies by the NINS in 2016.
In addition to his duties at Catholic University, Fr. Ford served as president
of the North American Academy of Ecumenists, a member of the United
Methodist Roman Catholic Dialogue, an observer-consultant for the Consultation
on Church Union, a member of the Ecumenism Committee of the Washington
Theological Consortium, and as a member of the Faith and Order Commission of
the National Council of Churches.
In 2018, after fifty years of dedicated service, he retired from the University
and offered parish assistance and Hispanic ministry for the diocese of Lafayette,
Indiana, until becoming seriously ill and moving into Holy Cross House, Notre
Dame, Indiana, where he died on December 29, 2021.
The Catholic Unversity of America

NELSON H. MINNICH

246

NOTES AND COMMENTS
The Reverend John W. Padberg, S.J.
(1926–2021)

On Christmas Day, 2021, John W. Padberg, S.J., died in Saint Louis at the
age of ninety-five. He had been a Jesuit for seventy-seven years and a priest for
sixty-four. Father Padberg had enjoyed reasonably good health for his age, but on
December 20, he fell with a broken hip. The doctors had no choice but to operate,
which they did on the 23rd. After the operation, Father Padberg never fully
regained consciousness.
Widely known and respected for his scholarship, he was a life-long member
of the American Catholic Historical Association, which in 2014 conferred upon
him its Lifetime Achievement Award.
A Jesuit himself, John Padberg specialized in the history of the Jesuit order.
He was thus an important figure in a movement that significantly reconfigured the
ethos and spirituality of the Society of Jesus. The movement began in Spain and
France in the early years of the twentieth century and moved to North America
decades later, just as John Padberg reached his maturity as a historian.
Father Padberg was born in Saint Louis on May 22, 1926, to John Francis and
Emily C. (Albrecht) Padberg. He was predeceased by his brothers William H.
Padberg and Charles Padberg and by his sisters Mary Frances Padberg, S.S.N.D.
and Mary Xavier Padberg, S.S.N.D. He is survived by a sister, Carol J. Padberg and
a sister-in-law, Rosemary Padberg.
After graduating from Saint Louis University High School in 1944, John
entered the novitiate of the Missouri Province of the Society of Jesus. Once he finished his long course of Jesuit training and was ordained, he in 1959 began his doctorate in French history at Harvard University. When he a few years later completed his dissertation, written under the direction of Professor H. Stuart Hughes,
Harvard University Press published it. The subject was Jesuit schools in France in

NOTES AND COMMENTS

247

the nineteenth century, Colleges in Conflict. The book was the pioneering study of
this difficult and important subject and remains the basic work in the field.
He returned to his native city to take up a position in the history department
of Saint Louis University and soon was promoted to academic vice-president.
Insiders saw him as destined to become the next president of the university, but in
1975 he instead assumed the presidency of the Weston School of Theology in
Cambridge, Massachusetts.
At the time, Weston was one of the three theological schools in the United
States sponsored by the American Society of Jesus primarily for the training of
Jesuits. When John went there, he found the school in a bad way. It had recently
moved from the countryside to Cambridge in order to benefit from an association
with Harvard.
No such uprooting occurs without difficulty, and in this case the difficulty was
badly compounded by the exciting but disrupting energies released by Vatican
Council II. The sudden departure from the school and from the Society of Jesus of
John’s predecessor as president gave the impression of serious disarray.
Father Padberg took charge with a firm but gentle hand and set to work as his
first task building up a well-trained faculty, which he accomplished in relatively
short order. He communicated to the faculty a vision for the school that he substantiated by concrete measures to accomplish it. While at Weston, John also
served as founding president of the International Conference of Catholic Theological Institutions.
The best measure of John’s success as president of Weston is the current prosperity of the school, now located at Boston College as its School of Theology and
Ministry. John saved the school at a critical moment and laid the foundations for
it today.
After a decade at Weston, John returned to Saint Louis. At this point, he had
established himself as a successful administrator, but, instead of pursuing that path,
he returned to scholarship and went to work with George E. Ganss, S.J., at the
Institute of Jesuit Sources, which Ganss had in effect founded. As its title suggests,
the Institute took as its primary mission translations into English of early Jesuit
texts and of important modern commentaries on them. In 1970, Ganss himself
produced the first translation into English of Saint Ignatius’ Constitutions for the
Society of Jesus. It was a landmark event, which helped shift studies of Jesuit ethos
and spirituality from an almost myopic focus on the Spiritual Exercises and moved
it to a broader horizon.
The book was symptomatic of the new, text-based approaches to Jesuit history
mentioned earlier. These approaches were a complex and rich phenomenon that led
to a transformation of the image of Saint Ignatius from a disciplinarian and commander-in-chief of papal shock-troops to a master of a spiritual wisdom easily

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NOTES AND COMMENTS

adaptable to today. This development concurrently brought to the fore the essentially pastoral and cultural ethos of the Society of Jesus itself.
John Padberg was keenly sensitive to what was happening. He had written his
dissertation in Paris, which was then the movement’s epicenter. Moreover, his
province elected him a member of two crucially important General Congregations
of the Society—Thirty-two (1974–75) and Thirty-three (1983). These congregations were to a large extent official efforts to harness for practical purposes the
implications and ramifications of the new vision of the Jesuit charism.
John Padberg’s experience of the two congregations gave shape to his subsequent scholarship at the Institute. He took the history of the congregations from the
very first in 1558 until those of his own day as his specialty, and he soon became recognized as the world expert on them. One of his most important books was Together
in Companionship: A History of the Thirty-First through the Thirty-Third General Congregations of the Society of Jesus. Not surprisingly, he agreed to serve from 1986 to
2002 as editor of the series, Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits. He at the same time
served as founding chairman on the National Seminar on Jesuit Higher Education
and as first editor of the journal Conversations on Jesuit Higher Education.
In 2001 colleagues and former students published in honor of his 75th birthday a Festschrift, Spirit, Style, Story, and in 2016 the Institute for Advanced Jesuit
Studies at Boston College conferred upon him the George E. Ganss Award for distinguished service.
Important as John’s scholarship and other accomplishments were, his influence on the lives of those who knew him was just as important. He had, for
instance, a profound influence on me. He persuaded me that Harvard was where I
should do my doctorate in history and, once he became president of Weston, persuaded me to join the faculty. These were perhaps the two most important and
happy decisions of my Jesuit life, and to them I owe almost everything that I have
been able to accomplish. Others who were influenced by John Padberg can offer
similar testimony.
John was deeply devoted to the Society of Jesus and tried to make actual in his
own life the Society’s ideals. He was a kind, warm-hearted person, and I never
heard from him an unkind word or a complaint about any injustice, real or imagined, that he may have suffered. Unstintingly helpful to those in need, he was an
excellent raconteur and fun to be with. When he died, he took with him a piece of
everybody who knew and loved him.
St. Claude La Colombiere Jesuit Community, Baltimore JOHN W. O’MALLEY, S.J.

NOTES AND COMMENTS

249

Bernard F. Reilly
(1925–2021)

Bernard F. Reilly, who passed away on December 11, 2021, at the age of
ninety-six, was a pioneering scholar in the field of medieval Iberian history in the
United States.
Born in New Jersey on June 8, 1925, Reilly was a World War II veteran who
rose to the rank of corporal during the war in the Philippines and participated in
the U.S. occupation forces in Japan. He later remarked that the U.S. bombing of
the Japanese mainland, and the nuclear holocausts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
had made him a pacifist, and he would retain a vigorous skepticism towards contemporary U.S. foreign policy, which he described in his memoirs as “the major
threat to the welfare of the globe.”1 After World War II, Reilly received his bachelor’s degree from Villanova University (1950) and his Master’s degree from the
University of Pennsylvania (1955); he then returned to his first alma mater to
become an instructor of history at Villanova, and would remain on the faculty
until 1992.
During the postwar years, Reilly became part of a closely-knit group of pioneering scholars who would transform the fortunes of medieval Iberian studies in
the United States: a group that also included Father Robert I. Burns and Prof.
Joseph O’Callaghan, as well as a senior scholar, Prof. Charles Julian Bishko,
whom Reilly recalled consulting as he began preparation for archival research
towards his doctoral dissertation at Bryn Mawr. Writing to Bishko with some
trepidation, he “received in response two pages, typewritten, both sides, setting

1. Bernard F. Reilly, A studied elegance: Memoir (Bernard F. Reilly, A studied elegance:
Memoir (North Haven, CT, 2013), p. 168.

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NOTES AND COMMENTS

forth a guide to archives and archivists in Spain without which I might have been,
quite literally, lost.”2
When these pioneering scholars began their research, Spanish archives were
in a lamentable condition. “Wars, civil discord, and general political repression had
left Iberian archives in the most dreadful state and the publication of their contents
at a level scarcely above that of the eighteenth-century España sagrada volumes,”
Reilly observed; it was an experience encompassing “breath-taking discoveries
alongside institutional frustrations, tedium, bad lighting, and insufficient heat.”3
Having nevertheless reckoned with the challenges of archival research in Santiago,
Madrid, and Salamanca, Reilly completed his doctoral thesis in 1966; it was entitled “The Nature of Church Reform at Santiago de Compostela during the Episcopate of Don Diego Gelmírez, 1100–1140 A.D.” His subsequent scholarly output
was formidable: he was author of many works that remain essential both for experts
in the field and for the classroom, helping to forge our understanding of the rise of
Christian Spain and the genesis and consolidation of the kingdom of Leon-Castile
in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
Convinced that the study of individuals in the historical past was an ethical
obligation, “at once at act of faith and an act of filial piety,” Reilly was drawn to the
study of prominent men and women in their political context: to the biographical
mode. “If one accepts the proposition that every human being is destined to have
an infinite eternal existence, then the chronicle of her or his life deserves attention.”4 His scholarly monographs include The Kingdom of Leon-Castilla under Queen
Urraca 1109–1126 (Princeton University Press, 1982); The Kingdom of Leon-Castilla
under King Alfonso VI, 1065–1109 (Princeton University Press, 1988); The Contest
of Christian and Muslim Spain, 1031–1157 (Blackwell, 1992); The Medieval Spains
(Cambridge University Press, 1993); and The Kingdom of Leon-Castilla under King
Alfonso VII 1126–1157 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998). The last of these
books had been in the works for a number of years, but Reilly keenly felt the need
to explore, in person, the physical and cultural terrain that shaped Alfonso VII’s
reign: what is sometimes known as the ‘archive of the feet.’ “I needed to tread the
paths, appraise the cities, gauge the mountains and look at the likely streams that
would facilitate or obstruct his movements and dictate his stratagems.”5 In the final
years of his life, Reilly invited me to complete his final book project, a study of
León-Castile under King Fernando I and Queen Sancha; it is forthcoming with the
University of Pennsylvania Press. It was his firm view—one that will underlie this
volume—that, as he expressed in a private letter, Fernando was “a traditional king
of the Asturian line,” preoccupied with the Iberian northwest rather more than
2. Bernard F. Reilly, “Medieval Iberian Studies in the United States,” in: The Emergence
of León-Castile, c. 1065–1500: Essays presented to J.F. O’Callaghan, ed. James J. Todesca (Farnham, UK, and Burlington, VT, 2015), 1–8, at p. 2.
3. Reilly, “Medieval Iberian Studies,” p. 4.
4. A studied elegance, p. 170.
5. A studied elegance, p. 161.

NOTES AND COMMENTS

251

with the Castilian meseta. In contrast, Galicia and especially Portugal were, in his
view, surprisingly central.
Reilly’s major book projects were complemented by his edition of a volume of
essays entitled Santiago, Saint-Denis, and Saint Peter: The reception of the Roman
liturgy in León-Castile in 1080 (Fordham University Press, 1985), and by important
articles in Speculum, Medieval Studies, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History,
Viator, and the Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies, as well as the Catholic Historical
Review, as well as numerous book chapters; he contributed no fewer than 33 articles to Medieval Iberia: An Encyclopedia. In addition to his prolific scholarly output,
he was also the author of three historical novels set in medieval Iberia: Treasure of
the Vanquished: A Novel of Visigothic Spain (Combined Books, 1994); Secret of Santiago: A Novel of Medieval Spain (Combined Books, 1997); and Journey to Compostela: A Novel of Medieval Pilgrimage (Combined Books, 2001).
Reilly’s meticulous scholarship has proven profoundly important for several
scholarly generations and will continue to be so. He was awarded the John Nicholas
Brown Prize of the Medieval Academy of America for the best first book in the
area of medieval studies, and remains the only scholar to have won the American
Historical Association’s Premio del Rey award twice. Over the course of his career,
he was the recipient of Fellowships and Research grants from the Fulbright Foundation (1982), the American Philosophical Society (1979), and the American
Council of Learned Societies (1969). He was named Academic Correspondent of
the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de Toledo (1981), Honorary Fellow of the Hispanic Society of America (2003), to which he bequeathed his personal papers
before his death, and a Corresponding Member of the Academia Portuguesa da
História (2004). As president of the American Association of University Professors
(AAUP) chapter at Villanova University, Reilly represented faculty interests in collective bargaining with the University; he also headed the Pennsylvania Division of
the American Association of University Professors (1969–72) and was a Member
of the Executive Committee of the National Council of the American Association
of University Professors (1971–73). He also served as president of the American
Catholic Historical Association.
Reilly’s role in the formation of one particular organization, founded in 1974, is
worthy of particular note: the American Academy of Research Historians of
Medieval Spain (AARHMS), a slightly cumbersome name designed—by Father
Burns—to ensure that it would appear towards the top of alphabetically-organized
conference listings. The move was born of a need to carve out a congenial professional
space for medieval Iberianists. At “the rather august meetings of the Medieval Academy of America, its attendees ordinarily did not know what to make of us,” Reilly
wrote. “Things Iberian for them largely meant unpleasant associations with the like
of Franco and Salazar and the victory of the wrong side in the Spanish Civil War.”6

6. Reilly, “Medieval Iberian Studies,” p. 3.

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NOTES AND COMMENTS

While Father Burns served as the organization’s first president, Reilly served
as its first Acting Secretary, an unglamorous task which he performed with characteristically wry elan. Following the presidency of Joseph O’Callaghan, he was then
elected president of AARHMS in 1982, and re-elected to that position two years
later. He relished the academic sociability that it provided. Reflecting on its tenth
anniversary, he wrote: “It is pleasant to recall those whom the Academy has been
able to assist to their first serious scholarly exposure. . . . One thinks fondly of the
camaraderie, the banter, the leisurely meals, and the occasional libation which
smoothed away the frazzle of strange rooms, large crowds, late planes, and
absolutely incomprehensible points of view.” A great many scholars will remember
Prof. Reilly and his work with equal fondness. His acuity, his compassion, and his
unmatched familiarity with the archives will be missed by every medieval Iberian
historian.
Hofstra University

SIMON R. DOUBLEDAY

Periodical Literature
G ENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
Presence and Absence of the Feast of the Divisio Apostolorum: Toul, Rheims and
Other French Dioceses. Anthony Ward. Ephemerides Liturgicae, 135 (July,
2021), 281–325.
L’Évolution des éloges des martyrologes des fêtes de martyrs inscrites au calendrier
romain préconciliaire pour le mois de octobre. Philippe Beitia. Ephemerides
Liturgicae, 135 (July, 2021), 326–45.
Politica francescana. Ottocento anni dopo la nascita dell’ordine francescano
secolare. Gianluigi Pasquale. Laurentianum, 62 (2–1, 2021), 93–114.
I cappuccini in Sardegna: appunti per una storia. Fabrizio Congiu. Teologica &
Historica, 27 (2018), 187–217.
Les trois visages de la loi des Frères prêcheurs: la forme du droit dominicain
moderne. Ninon Maillard. Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France, 106 (Jan.,
2020), 96–116.
De l’ “extrême-onction” au “sacrement des malades”: fin de vie, réforme liturgique
conciliaire et transformations rituelles dans la seconde moitié du xxe siècle.
Guillaume Cuchet. Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France, 106 (Jan., 2020), 117–39.

ANCIENT
The Apocalyptic Number 616 and the Donatist Church. Jesse Hoover. Journal of
Ecclesiastical History, 72 (Oct., 2021), 709–25.
Eusebius of Caesarea, the Roman Empire, and the Fulfillment of Biblical
Prophecy: Reassessing Byzantine Imperial Eschatology in the Age of
Constantine. Christopher Bonura. Church History, 90 (Sept., 2021), 509–36.
Propter copiam puellarum: Interreligious Marriages among Christians and ‘Pagans’ in
Late Antiquity. Gaetano Colantuono. Vetera Christianorum, 55 (2018), 113–33.
Notas para una “liturgia fundamental” en Agustín de Hipona. Bruno N. D’Andrea.
Ephemerides Liturgicae, 135 (July, 2021), 257–80.
Usque ad barbaras nationes. Alcuni aspetti del rapporto con i barbari nei discorsi al
popolo di Agostino. Americo Miranda. UUJ, Urbaniana University Journal, 24
(1, 2021), 137–57.
Pericoli, patimenti e disavventure dei pellegrini in Occidente tra tarda antichità e
Medioevo. Giorgio Otranto. Vetera Christianorum, 55 (2018), 5–32.
253

254

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Class and Race in Pelagius’s, Jerome’s, and Augustine’s Thoughts on Demetrias’s
Consecration. Annamaria Laviola-Svensäter. Viator, 51 (1, 2020), 137–46.
Posuerunt me custodem in vinea. L’iconografia del “custode della vigna” sulla ceramica
sigillata africana tra V e VI secolo. Marco Muresu. Vetera Christianorum, 55
(2018), 181–99.

MEDIEVAL
Le prime conquiste islamiche in Oriente: la percezione dei cristiani in alcune opere
di VII e VIII secolo. Immacolata Aulisa. Vetera Christianorum, 55 (2018), 39–
59.
Race-ing Plainchant: Theodore of Tarsus, Hadrian of Canterbury, and the Voices
of Music History. Gillian L. Gower. Viator, 51 (1, 2020), 103–20.
Agobard, Deuteronomic Curses, and an Anti-Jewish Exegetical Discourse in
Carolingian Lyon. Yin Liu. Viator, 51 (1, 2020), 205–39.
Liberté personnelle et dynamique sociale dans la Catalogne carolingienne.
L’exemple du comté de Conflent autour de l’abbaye d’Eixalada-Cuxa. Alain
Sigoillot. Journal des Savants, (Jan., 2021), 165–89.
Pax et concordia: The Paul and Antony Panel on the Tower Cross at Kells. Meredith
Cutrer. Viator, 51 (1, 2020), 171–85.
L’alimentazione nella Guida del pellegrino di san Giacomo. Antonella Torre. Vetera
Christianorum, 55 (2018), 201–20.
Le mythe des lois de saint Óláf et l’invention des lois fondamentales dans la
Norvège médiévale. Gilduin Davy. Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale X e–XII e
siécle, 64 (July, 2021), 197–210.
Gregory the Great as Intermediary Figure between East and West: The EleventhCentury Manuscript Context of the Old English Dialogues. Katie Menendez.
Viator, 51 (1, 2020), 241–7.
Colonialism and the Multicultural Turn in the Study of the Crusades. Christopher
MacEvitt. Viator, 50 (3, 2019), 49–78.
Reformed Monasticism and the Narrative of Cistercian Beginnings. Martha G.
Newman. Church History, 90 (Sept., 2021), 537–56.
Zur Reise Gelasius’ II. nach Frankreich (mit Itineraranhang und Karte). Beate
Schilling. Francia: Forschungen zur westeuropäischen Geschichte, 48 (2021),
259–77.
Underground Churches in Frankish Famagusta, Cyprus. Tomasz Borowski. Viator,
50 (2, 2019), 261–306.
Construction of Christian Identity in the Northern Periphery: The Sawley World
Map in Twelfth-Century England. Mihai Dragnea. Journal of Ecclesiastical
History, 72 (4, 2021), 726-50.

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William of Malmesbury’s Polyhistor: The Work of a Historian, an Antiquarian, or
a Rambling Raconteur? John O. Ward. Viator, 50 (3, 2019), 165–96.
Associati laici al Tempio e all’Ospedale nel Mezzogiorno italiano tra XII et XIV
secolo. Vito Ricci. Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, 116 (3–4, 2021), 646–86.
The Passio Raginaldi of Peter of Blois: Martyrdom and Eschatology in the
Preaching of the Third Crusade. Alexander Marx. Viator, 50 (3, 2019), 197–
232.
“Vicit!”. Il grande fregio della Esaltazione della Santa Croce (1190/95) del
cistercense magister Paulu, nel Sant’Antioco di Bisarcio (Parte II). Gian
Gabriele Cau. Teologica & Historica, 27 (2018), 157–85.
I protomartiri francescani Berardo, Pietro, Accursio, Adiuto e Ottone: cinque
frati dell’Umbria meridionale. Paolo Rossi. Itinerarium, 66 (July, 2020),
285–351.
Os Mártires de Marrocos e a vocação franciscana de S. António. Henrique Pinto
Rema. Itinerarium, 66 (July, 2020), 353–66.
Caesarius of Heisterbach Revisited. New Approaches to the Eight Miracle Books
(Libri VIII miraculorum). Julius Burkhardt and Anuschka Holste-Massoth.
Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, 116 (3–4, 2021), 593–617.
Nepos domini episcopi. L’affaire de Ranieri II Ubertini entre Arezzo et Volterra
(1254-1273). Jacopo Paganelli. Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, 116 (3–4, 2021),
620-45.
Zwischen hochadeliger Gründung und Ordensinkorporation. Die Anfänge des
Klarissenklosters Seußlitz (1273). Jörg Voigt. Archivum Franciscanum
Historicum, 114 (Jan., 2021), 47–79.
Olivi on the Hebrew Bible and the Jews: Scholastic Texts from Languedoc in the
1290s. Elsa Marmursztejn. Speculum, 97 (Jan., 2022), 77–111.
La textualidad de la representación política: el ejemplo de los franciscanos en los
dominios catalano-aragoneses (siglos XIII–XIV). Rogerio R. Tostes.
Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, 114 (Jan., 2021), 81–126.
L’abbaye de Fontfroide et son abbé devenu vice-chancelier de l’Église romaine,
Arnaud Nouvel (1296–1317). Véronique de Becdelièvre. Revue d’histoire de
l’Église de France, 106 (Jan., 2021), 5–34.
La corrélation poétique du miracle marial et de la Passion de Jésus dans le codex
Vatican, BAV, Pal. Lat. 1969. Ilsiona Nuh. Le Moyen Age, 127 (2, 2021),
335–53.
Death and a Clothing Swap: An Unusual Case of Death and Burial in the
Religious Habit from Fourteenth-Century Naples. Kirsty Schut. Viator, 50 (2,
2019), 185–226.

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Gil Sánchez Muñoz y Liñán, un testigo de excepción en el Cisma de Occidente.
Su declaración en 1379 ante el rey de la Corona de Aragón. Edición crítica.
Xavier Serra Estellés. Anthologica Annua, 65 (2018), 665–820.
Les évêques et le pouvoir ducal en Bretagne sous les premiers Montforts. Laetitia
Giuchet. Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France, 106 (Jan., 2021), 53–80.
Die Schritte zur Einführung des Stimmrechts per nationes auf dem Konzil von
Konstanz (1414–1418). Federico Tavelli. Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, 116 (3–
4, 2021), 687–727.
Taxes, Wagenburgs and a Nightingale: The Imperial Abbey of Ellwangen and the
Hussite Wars, 1427–1435. Mark Whelan. Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 72
(Oct., 2021), 751–77.
Identity and Liminality: Jews, Conversos, Foreigners, and Muslims in Christian
Ávila, 1440s-1492. Teofilo F. Ruiz. Viator, 51 (1, 2020), 373–405.
L’évêque et le péché. La juridiction pénitentielle épiscopale au XVe siècle.
Véronique Beaulande-Barraud. Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France, 106 (Jan.,
2021), 35–52.
John Dygon and the Ars moriendi. Siegfried Wenzel. Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique,
116 (3–4, 2021), 729–42.
Enclosed Gardens, Female Networks, and Spiritual Kinship in Late Medieval
Northern Europe. Rachel M. Delman. Viator, 51 (1, 2020),437–64.
Croisade, tyrannie et conspirations antichrétiennes: l’ambiguïté des zones frontières
chez quelques auteurs français de la fin du Moyen Âge. Loïc Chollet. Le
Moyen Age, 127 (2, 2021), 313–33.
El cardenal Juan Alfonso de Mella y su vinculación a obras artísticas en Roma y
Zamora en el siglo XV. José Ángel Rivera de las Heras. Anthologica Annua, 65
(2018), 149–212.
La trayectora del Cardinal Serra (c. 1427–1517). Clientelismo, gobierno y
promoción artística hispana en la Roma del Renacimiento. Álvaro Fernández
de Córdova. Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, 116 (3–4, 2021), 745–801.
El herrero Yosef Bitón—Alonso de Palencia y la catedral de Segovia: una relación
singular (c.1473–c.1530). Bonifacio Bartolomé Herrero. Anthologica Annua,
65 (2018), 11–92.
Ein Ketzer in der Leibgarde des Borgia-Papstes (1501): Aus den Appellationen
gegen die spanische Inquisition in den Registern der Poenitentiaria
Apostolica 1478–1503. Arnold Esch. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte: Archive
for Reformation History, 112 (1, 2021), 308–25.

SIXTEENTH CENTURY
Syon at 1500: Observant Reform? Mary C. Erler. Viator, 51 (1, 2020), 407–35.

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257

La interrupción de las peregrinaciones etíopes a Tierra Santa en el contexto de
la rivalidad entre otomanos y portugueses a principios del siglo XVI. Victor
de Lama de la Cruz. Anuario de Historia de la Iglesia, 30 (June, 2021), 309–
34.
Martin Luther’s Views on Superstition, Witchcraft, and Faith between 1518 and
1529. Peter A. Morton. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte: Archive for
Reformation History, 112 (1, 2021), 7–34.
The Comunero Revolt and Luther’s Impact on Castile: Rebellion, Heresy, and
Ecclesiastical Reform Impulses, 1520–1521. Claudio César Rizzuto. Archiv
für Reformationsgeschichte: Archive for Reformation History, 111 (1, 2020), 31–
54.
“Nova propemodum translatio”: Luther and the Vulgate. Wolf-Friedrich
Schäufele. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte: Archive for Reformation History,
110 (1, 2019), 7–22.
Zwischen Tradition und Innovation: Lukas von Prag als liturgischer Theologe der
Böhmischen Brüder. Tabita Landová. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte:
Archive for Reformation History, 110 (1, 2019), 23–48.
Vom Netzwerk zur Institution: Der Zweibrücker Reformator Johannes Schweblin
und seine Korrespondenz. Hannes Amberger. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte: Archive for Reformation History, 112 (1, 2021), 35–65.
En handbok på svenska und die Einführung der Reformation im schwedischen
Reich. Hannah M. Kreß. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte: Archive for
Reformation History, 112 (1, 2021), 117–48.
“Such an Illumination Cannot Occur”: Anthonius Margaritha, the Reformation,
and the Polemic against the Jews. Daniel Lehmann. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte: Archive for Reformation History, 111 (1, 2020), 55–77.
Luther, Melanchthon, and the Specter of Zwingli during the Diet of Augsburg in
1530. Terence McIntsoh. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte: Archive for
Reformation History, 111 (1, 2020), 78–108.
Luther-Rezeption beim jungen Calvin. Christoph Strohm. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte: Archive for Reformation History, 110 (1, 2019), 49–68.
“To resurrect the collapsed religion”: Dantiscus as a Key to Catholic Reform in
Central Europe. Bryan D. Kozik. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte: Archive for
Reformation History, 112 (1, 2021), 149–79.
When Melanchthon Became a Freemason: The So-Called 1535 Charter of
Cologne and Its Long Aftermath. Zachary Purvis. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte: Archive for Reformation History, 111 (1, 2020), 109–142.
The Question of Obedience and the Formation of Confessional Identity in the
Irish Reformation. Mark A. Hutchinson. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte:
Archive for Reformation History, 111 (1, 2020), 143–69.

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Der Kaiser als Verteidiger des Antichristen—Zur Legitimitätsfrage des
protestantischen Widerstandes gegen den Kaiser in der Zirkulardisputation
über Matthäus 19,21. Laura Claudia Achtelstetter. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte: Archive for Reformation History, 110 (1, 2019), 69–93.
Francesco Stancaros Schrift “Collatio doctrinae Arrii et Philippi Melanchthonis et
sequacium” Kontextualisierung und Edition. Judith Steiniger. Archiv für
Reformationsgeschichte: Archive for Reformation History, 110 (1, 2019), 94–137.
Mennonite Martyrs and Multimedia: On the Form and Function of Intermediality
in Reformation Communication. Louise Vermeersch. Archiv für
Reformationsgeschichte: Archive for Reformation History, 111 (1, 2020), 194–
216.
Consoling the Huguenot Refugees in Late Sixteenth-Century Geneva. Kirk
Summers. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte: Archive for Reformation History,
110 (1, 2019), 237–67.
Un inquisitore nella Toscana medicea, padre Dionigi Sanmattei OFMConv.
(†1603). Herman Schwedt. Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, 114 (Jan.,
2021), 233–58.
Caught between Canon and Secular Law: Catholic Marriage Practices in the
Dutch Golden Age. Jaap Geraerts. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte: Archive
for Reformation History, 111 (1, 2020), 246–88.
Rerum Boemicarum Ephemeris (1584) und die protestantische Geschichtsschreibung in den böhmischen Ländern: Zur Adaptation in einem multikonfessionellen Umfeld. Lucie Storchová. Archiv für Reformations-geschichte:
Archive for Reformation History, 112 (1, 2021), 180–210.

SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES
EASTERN HEMISPHERE
Las relationes ad limina de los obispos tudenses (1593–1927). Una fuente vaticana
para la historia de la Iglesia gallega. José Ramón Hernández Figueiredo.
Anthologica Annua, 65 (2018), 215–579.
„Sehet, daß jhr ewre Seelen errettet“. Trost- und Ermahnungsschriften für die
Prager nach der Vertreibung der lutherischen Prediger im Jahre 1622 und
Warnung vor der Konversion. Radmila Prchal Pavlíčková. Archiv für
Reformationsgeschichte: Archive for Reformation History, 112 (1, 2021), 211–42.
An Extraterritorial Privacy Zone? Dutch Protestants and their Embassy Chapel in
Early Modern Portugal. Tom-Eric Krijger. TSEG—The Low Countries Journal
of Social and Economic History, 18 (3, 2021), 41–74.
Gender, Space, and Religious Privacy in Amsterdam. Natália da Silva Perez and
Peter Thule Kristensen. TSEG—The Low Countries Journal of Social and
Economic History, 18 (3, 2021), 75–106.

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259

Muzio Vitelleschi Replies to Litterae Indipetae: Two Case Studies from the
Austrian Province in the Seventeenth Century. Elisa Frei. Archivum
Historicum Societatis Iesu, 90 (2021, 1), 63–87.
En aras de la salvación eterna: obra pía y patronato de don Pedro de Granada
Venegas Manrique, marqués de Campotéjar (1643). José Antonio García
Luján. Anuario de Historia de la Iglesia, 30 (June, 2021), 363–81.
Parish Politics and Godly Agitation in Late Interregnum Scotland. Chris R.
Langley. Church History, 90 (Sept., 2021), 557–78.
Eucharistisches Handeln und Wissen an der St. Blasii Gemeinde Nordhausen in
der zweiten Hälfte des 17. Jahrhunderts. Patrick Nehr. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte: Archive for Reformation History, 110 (1, 2019), 268–300.
Le “fléau de Dieu”. Une lecture théologique des relations franco-allemandes en
Allemagne dans la seconde moitié du XVIIe siècle. Jean Schillinger. Francia:
Forschungen zur westeuropäischen Geschichte, 48 (2021), 99–121.
To Wear or Not to Wear a Hat During Mass? The Canton Conference and
Giovanni Francesco de Ferrariis SJ’s Report of 1668. Thierry Meynard, S.J.,
and Yang Hongfan. Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 90 (2021, 1), 5–61.
Vallabrix, une paroisse catholique de la périphérie cévenole au temps de la guerre
des Camisards (vers 1680—vers 1725). Denis Breysse et Éric Suire. Revue
d’histoire de l’Église de France, 106 (Jan., 2021), 84–104.
Documenti sulla decadenza del monastero delle monache cappuccine di Tempio
(1687–1835). Cristiana Campus. Teologica & Historica, 27 (2018), 141–56.
“Saviezza in ischifar le profanità nelle imagini sacre.” La pittura in giudicio (1697)
di Carlo Gregorio Rosignoli. Daniela Caracciolo. Rivista di Storia e
Letteratura Religiosa, 57 (1, 2021), 83–110.
Tagalogs Voicing their Faith in 1600s Vernacular Documents (3) The Settlement
of Doña Juana Manahin’s Will towards the Foundation of a Capellanía, 1697.
Regaldo Trota José. Philippiniana Sacra, 56 (Sept., 2021), 871–908.
Religion Subdued: The Political Figure of Christ in the work of Giovanni Battista
Comazzi (1654–1711). Matteo Al Kalak. Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 72
(Oct., 2021), 778–99.
Autour de Pierre de Quesneville. Les commissaires généraux de la Terre sainte en
France (XVIIe–XVIIIe siéles). Pierre Moracchini. Archivum Franciscanum
Historicum, 114 (Jan., 2021), 259-80.
L’adoration de Naaman. Pour une histoire croisée des querelles des rites. Cesare
Santus. Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, 116 (3–4, 2021), 804–29.
La intervención del derecho de patronazgo en las disputas entre jurisdicciones
eclesiásticas: la colegiata de Aguilar de Campoo y el arzobispo de Burgos en
1748. Alberto Corada Alonso. Anuario de Historia de la Iglesia, 30 (June,
2021), 383–404.

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PERIODICAL L ITERATURE

El monasterio de Santa Clara de Manila durante la ocupación de la ciudad por los
ingleses (1762–1764). Cayetano Sánchez Fuertes, OFM. Archivum
Franciscanum Historicum, 114 (Jan., 2021), 127-98.
Los colegios-seminarios de nación de las islas Británicas en España: una memoria
inédita de 1767. Cristina Bravo Lozano. Anuario de Historia de la Iglesia, 30
(June, 2021), 405–31.
When the Canaanite Conquest Met the Enlightenment: How Christian
Apologists of the English Enlightenment Harmonized the Biblical Canaanite
Conquest with the Moral Values of the Eighteenth Century. Daniel K.
Williams. Church History, 90 (Sept., 2021), 579–602.
Reformation History between Accident, Ambition, and Anguish: Barthold
Nicolaus Krohn (1722–1795) and his Project for a General History of
Anabaptism. Markus Friedrich. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte: Archive for
Reformation History, 111 (1, 2020), 301–29.
Un raro libro de fiestas manileño de 1791: Descripción de la Proclamación y Jura
del padre Manuel Barrios, OP. Una edición anotada. Jorge Mojarro.
Philippiniana Sacra, 56 (Sept., 2021), 909–48.

NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES
EASTERN HEMISPHERE
Les prêtres constitutionnels dans les chapitres cathédraux du Concordat. François
Hou. Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France, 106 (Jan., 2021), 105–19.
Dwight L. Moody in Ulster: Evangelical Unity, Denominational Identity and the
Fundamentalist Impulse. Andrew R. Holmes and Stuart Mathieson. Journal
of Ecclesiastical History, 72 (Oct., 2021), 800–21.
Il ruolo della scuola gesuita di Scutari nella cultura albanese. Edlira Tonuzi Macaj.
Rivista di Storia e Letteratura Religiosa, 57 (1, 2021), 141–48.
Os Colégios Seráficos e a projecção do seu valor formativo. António de Sousa Araújo.
Itinerarium, 66 (July, 2020), 381–421.
L’Azione pastorale di Francesco Emanuelli ad Ales tra fascismo e guerre
mondiali (1911–1946). Tonino Cabizzosu. Teologica & Historica, 27 (2018),
113–39.
D. Teófilo de Andrade: Um bispo missionário. Paulo Jorge Rodrigues de Faria.
Itinerarium, 66 (July, 2020), 423–554.
Diario de Ignacio Oñatibia Audela. Roma, 21 de octubre de 1943–31 de marzo de
1944. Ignacio Tomás Cánovas. Anthologica Annua, 65 (2018), 581–664.
Église Vivante (1949–1971). Le porte-parole missiologique de la Société des
auxiliaires des missions (SAM). Toon Ooms. Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, 116
(3–4, 2021), 831–59.

PERIODICAL L ITERATURE

261

(R)évolutions de la mixité en contexte catholique. La jeunesse indépendante
catholique féminine des sixties: une étude de cas. Camille Banse. Revue
d’histoire ecclésiastique, 116 (3–4, 2021), 861–91.
Gabriel Le Bras et la Société d’histoire ecclésiastique de la France. Bernard
Barbiche. Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France, 106 (Jan., 2021), 121–28.
Juan Pablo II y los obispos polacos hablan sobre Iglesia y política a propósito de la
primera visita papal a Polonia en junio de 1979. Pablo Pérez López and Anna
K. Dulska. Anuario de Historia de la Iglesia, 30 (June, 2021), 433–63.
“No Pope Here”: Britain, the Vatican, the IRA, and the Papal Visit to Ireland,
September 1979. Martin Doherty. Church History, 90 (Sept., 2021), 603–20.
Leonard Van Balen une inteligence au service de la charité. Joseph Bosokpale
Langali. Laurentianum, 62 (2–1, 2021), 57–74.
‘Be Patient, Ladies! Be Patient!’: Women and the Australian Church (WATAC),
1982–2021†. Patricia Madigan. Australasian Catholic Record, 98 (July, 2021),
259–83.

AMERICAN
Concordia Theological Seminary: Practical Lessons from its German Period
(1846–1945). Charles P. Schaum. Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly, 94
(Fall, 201), 9–31.
The Role of the Seminaries in the LCMS, 1847–2001. John C. Wohlrabe, Jr.
Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly, 94 (Fall, 201), 33–55.
Secondhand Memories: Springfield Class of 1942. Cameron A. MackKenzie II.
Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly, 94 (Fall, 201), 57–76.
An Evangelical is Anyone who Likes Billy Graham: Defining Evangelicalism with
Carl Henry and Networks of Trust. Daniel Silliman. Church History, 90
(Sept., 2021), 621–43.

LATIN AMERICAN
Caring for pobres dementes: Madness, Colonization, and the Hospital de San
Hipólito in Mexico City, 1567–1700. Christina Ramos. The Americas, 77
(Oct., 2020), 539–71.
Exhuming the Nahualli: Shapeshifting, Idolatry, and Orthodoxy in Colonial
Mexico. Anderson Hagler. The Americas, 78 (Apr., 2021), 197–228.
Cofradías de esclavos negros, morenos y mulatos libres en la Catedral de Santo
Domingo, Primada de América. Virginia Flores Sasso and Esteban Prieto
Vicioso. Anuario de Historia de la Iglesia, 30 (June, 2021), 335–62.
La práctica deportiva en los colegios jesuitas en Cuba entre 1854 y 1940. Leonardo
M. Fernández. Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 90 (2021, 1), 89–116.

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PERIODICAL LITERATURE

Veterans of Christ: Soldier Reintegration and the Seventh-day Adventist
Experience in the Andean Plateau, 1900–1925. Yael Mabat. The Americas, 77
(Apr., 2020), 187–216.
Las Damas de la Corte y su protagonismo en el Santuario de la Virgen de El
Pueblito, Querétaro, México. Ana Cristina Alvarado García. Antonianum, 96
(July, 2021), 649–75.

Other Books Received
Bellabarba, Marco and Camilla Tenaglia, eds. Chiesa e nazione ai confini d’Italia.
[Quaderni di storia.] (Milan: Mondadori Education. 2021. Pp. vii, 258.
€19.00).
Bucklow, Spike, Richard Marks, and Lucy Wrapson, eds. The Art and Science of the
Church Screen in Medieval Europe: Making, Meaning, Persevering. (Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press. 2017. Pp. xviii, 310. $34.95).
Chatfield, Leroy and Jorge Mariscal. To Serve the People: My Life Organizing with
Cesar Chavez and the Poor. (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico
Press. 2019. Pp. xiv, 250. $34.95).
Clayton, Lawrence A. and David M. Lantigua, eds. Bartolomé de las Casas and the
Defense of Amerindian Rights: A Brief History with Documents. (Tuscaloosa,
AL: University of Alabama Press. 2020. Pp., xvi, 142. $29.95).
Conover, Cornelius. Pious Imperialism: Spanish Rule and the Cult of Saints in Mexico
City. (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press. 2019. Pp. xx, 274.
$65.00).
De Temple, Jill. Making Market Women: Gender, Religion, and Work in Ecuador.
(Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. 2020. Pp. x, 200. $55.00).
Díaz Balsera, Viviana. Guardians of Idolatry: Gods, Demons, and Priests in Hernando
Ruiz de Alarcón’s Treatise on the Heathen Superstition. (Norman, OK:
University of Oklahoma Press. 2018. Pp. xii, 210. $45.00).
Dures, Alan and Francis Young. English Catholicism 1558–1642. 2nd ed. [Seminar
Studies] (New York, NY: Routledge. 2022. Pp. viii, 156. $44.95).
Gearhart, Heidi C. Theophilus and the Theory and Practice of Medieval Art.
(University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press. 2017. Pp. xvi,
196. $94.95).
Gonzalez, Johnhenry. Maroon Nation: A History of Revolutionary Haiti. (New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Pp. xiv, 302. $40.00).
Griffith, James S. Saints, Statues and Stories: A Folklorist Looks at the Religious Art of
Sonora. (Tucson, AZ: The University of Arizona Press. 2019. Pp. x, 166.
$16.95).
Haefeli, Evan, ed. Against Popery: Britain, Empire, and Anti-Catholicism. [Early
American Histories] (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press. 2020.
Pp. xiv, 344. $39.50.)
263

264

OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED

Joshi, Khyati Y. White Christian Privilege: The Illusion of Religious Equality in
America. (New York, NY: New York University Press. 2020. Pp. viii, 278.
$28.00).
Kreiner, Jamie. Legions of Pigs in the Early Medieval West. [Yale Agrarian Studies
Series.] (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 2020. Pp. xxiv, 340. $40.00).
Lara, Jaime. Birdman of Assisi: Art and the Apocalyptic in the Colonial Andes.
Medieval and Renaissance Latin America: Volume 1. [Medieval and
Renaissance Texts and Studies, 476.] (Tempe, AZ: copublished by the
Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies and Bilingual
Press/Editorial Bilingüe, Arizona State University. 2016. No price listed.)
Levering, Matthew. The Abuse of Conscience: A Century of Catholic Moral Theology.
(Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 2021. Pp. viii, 360.
$45.00).
Levy, Ian Christopher. Introducing Medieval Biblical Interpretation: The Senses of
Scripture in Premodern Exegesis. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, a
division of Baker Publishing Group. 2018. Pp. xiv, 306. $33.00).
Mathiowetz, Michael D. and Andrew D. Turner. Flower Worlds: Religion,
Aesthetics, and Ideology in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest. [Amerind
Studies in Anthropology.] (Tucson, AZ: The University of Arizona Press.
2021. Pp. xvi, 336. $65.00).
Morgan, Nigel J, ed. English Monastic Litanies of the Saints After 1100. Volume III:
Addenda Commentary Catalogue of Saints Indexes. [Henry Bradshaw Society,
123] (London: The Boydell University Press, on behalf of the Henry
Bradshaw Society. 2018. Pp. xii, 376. $99.00).
Ortí, M.a Milagros Carcél. Diplomatica Episcopal. (Valencia: Universitat de
Valéncia. 2018. Pp. 312. Price unknown.)
Palmer, Andrew N, trans. The Life of the Syrian Saint Barsauma. (Oakland, CA:
University of California Press. 2020. Pp. xiv, 142. $24.95).
Poole, Stafford. Our Lady of Guadalupe: The Origins and Sources of a Mexican
National Symbol, 1531–1797. Revised ed. (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona
Press. 2017. Pp. xii, 348. $35.00).
Poole, Stafford, ed. and trans. The Directory for Confessors 1585: Implementing the
Catholic Reformation in New Spain. (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma
Press. 2018. Pp. x, 358. $65.00).
Sellers-García, Sylvia. The Woman on the Windowsill: A Tale of Mystery in Several
Parts. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 2020. Pp. xiv, 282. $32.50).
Sherman, John W. Mexico: A Concise Illustrated History. (Lanham, MD: Rowman
& Littlefield. 2020. Pp. xii, 258. $99.00).

OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED

265

Stanfield-Mazzi, Maya. Clothing the New World Church: Liturgical Textiles of
Spanish America, 1520–1820. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame
Press. 2021. Pp. xxii, 410. $50.00).
Venable, Cecilia Gutierrez and the Sisters of the Holy Spirit and Mary
Immaculate. The Sisters of the Holy Spirit and Mary Immaculate. [Images of
America.] (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing. 2018. Pp. 128. $21.99).