Chapter 7 Confraternities and the Inquisition: For and Against
Christopher F. Black
1 Introduction1
The interconnections between confraternities and inquisitions start in the 13th century, and thereafter were diverse, intermittent, friendly and hostile. As far as surviving documentary evidence indicates, not many confraternities were involved. Secrecy surrounding many confraternities could cause suspicion from ecclesiastical and civilian authorities, leading to denunciations. Secrecy similarly inhibits knowledge about those confraternities that supposedly as- sisted the inquisitions. Historians are impeded by the poor survival of both confraternal and inquisitorial records. More is currently known about the inter-connections between confraternities and inquisitions in northern and central Italy than in the Italian south, or in Iberia and the Spanish and Portu- guese colonies. Having written books and articles initially on Italian confra- ternities and later on the Inquisitions in Italy, I have a bias of knowledge and perspective towards them, but advice from colleagues and contacts dealing with Iberia as well as my sampling the historical secondary literature suggests that the interconnections in Iberia have, in fact, been under-studied. This may reflect the lack of information, but also different roles of confraternities and local inquisition tribunals in the Iberian world. The “For” in my sub-title covers those confraternities established to support local inquisitors, often embracing inquisition officials and “familiars”; the “Against” covers those confraternities that were denounced to inquisitors as needing investigation for heretical or suspicious practices, and harbouring religious dissidents. No confraternity de- liberately set out to undermine the Inquisition as such, but some did battle to resist intervention and control by a local inquisitor and tribunal. My concern in this chapter is primarily with the early modern period, from the late 15th to 18th centuries, when the centralised Inquisitions were estab- lished in Spain, Portugal, and Rome. However, it is worth first highlighting a
1 I am very grateful for Elena Sánchez de Madariaga’s guidance on matters Spanish, and for Anne Lawrence’s questioning and stylistic improvements.
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2 Reasons Why Confraternities Might Come under Suspicion
Lay confraternities in western Europe had been founded from early days to foster the spiritual life of the laity, to prepare members for a good death and speedy paths to heavenly salvation. Some fostered good works and charitable assistance for poor members and their dependents, possibly influenced by Byzantine concepts of hospitality and Jewish communal solidarity. One would expect church authorities, whether monastic or secular, to look with favour on such confraternities and not be too suspicious. In the early Middle Ages the older religious orders watched over lay confraternal offshoots, but by the 13th century lay confraternities were proliferating, some encouraged by the Dominicans, with limited clerical supervision, employing priests and curates
2 Christopher F. Black, Italian Confraternities of the Sixteenth Century (1989; repr. Cambridge: 2003), 26–27, 76–77; Black, “Confraternities and the Italian Inquisitions,” in Brotherhood and Boundaries. Fraternità e barriere, eds. Stefania Pastore, Adriano Prosperi and Nicholas Terp- stra (Pisa: 2011), 293–305, esp. 294, 299–304; Black, “Confraternite, Italia,” Dizionario Storico dell’Inquisizione, [hereafter dsi] (eds.) Adriano Prosperi, Vincenzo Lavenia and John Tedes- chi, 5 vols., (Pisa: 2009), 1:377–81; N.J. [Norman] Housley, “Politics and Heresy in Italy. Anti- heretical Crusades, Orders and Confraternities, 1200–1500,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 13 (1982), 193–208; Bruno Fietler, “Pietro Martire,” dsi 3:1209–1210; James E. Wadsworth, “Cel- ebrating St Peter Martyr: the Inquisitional Brotherhood in Colonial Brazil,” Latin American Historical Review 12 (2003), 173–227, esp. 174, 183–184.