Sacred Charity: Confraternities and Social Welfare in Spain, 1400–1700 PDF
Preview Sacred Charity: Confraternities and Social Welfare in Spain, 1400–1700
SACRED CHARITY Sacred Charity Confraternities and Social Welfare in Spain, 1406-1700 Maureen Flynn AssistantProfessorofHistory UniversityofGeorgia M MACMILLAN ©Maureen Flynn 1989 SoftcoverreprintofthehardcoverIstedition1989 All rightsreserved. No reproduction,copyor transmission of thispublication maybe madewithout written permission. Noparagraph ofthispublication maybe reproduced,copied or transmitted save with written permission orinaccordance with the provisionsof the Copyright Act 1956(asamended), or under the termsof anylicence permitting limited copying issued bythe Copyright Licensing Agency,33-4 Alfred Place, London WClE7DP. Anyperson who doesany unauthorised actin relation to thispublication maybe liable to criminalprosecution and civilclaimsfor damages. First published 1989 Published by THE MACMILLAN PRESSLTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG212XS and London Companiesand representatives throughout the world Flynn, Maureen, 1955- Sacred charity:confraternities and socialwelfare inSpain, 1400-1700. 1.Spain. (City) Zamora.Confraternities. Welfare work, 1400-1700 I. Title 361.7'5 ISBN978-1-349-09045-7 ISBN978-1-349-09043-3(eBook) DOl i0.1007/978-1-349-09043-3 To my parents Contents List ofFigures viii Acknowledgements IX Introduction The Confraternal Structure of Zamora 12 Corporate Finances 34 Rituals of Solidarity 39 2 The Charitable Activities ofConfraternities 44 'To feed the hungry...' 49 'To offer hospitality...' 56 'To redeem captives' 62 'To bury the dead' 64 The Confraternal Welfare System 70 3 Welfare Reform: Attempts to Displace Charity 75 4 TheCatholic ReformationandTradition 115 Conclusion:The PsychologyofConfraternalPiety 141 NotesandReferences 146 SourcesandBibliography 183 Index 198 List of Figures 1.1 Mapshowingthe confraternitiesinthe cityof Zamorainthe mid-sixteenthcentury 18 1.2 Tableshowing Zamora'sparishesand their confraternities 19 2.1 The ActsofMercy:TheDistributionofBreadand Wine to the Needy 49 2.2 A man and awoman inmourninginCastile 68 4.1 ACastilian flagellant on HolyThursday 129 4.2 Aflagellant from Zaragoza 130 4.3 TableshowingconfraternitiesinSpain in1771 139 4.4 Mapshowingthe incidence ofconfraternitiesin relation to populationsofSpanish Provincesin 1771 140 Acknowledgements Many mentors walked with me through the heap of broken images that traditional Spanish culture has left behind. Andifweallpuzzled at times over the unusual signs of life that the archives delivered, no-one wasmore baffled than me. I turn with gratitude nowto those who helped me find meaning. My dissertation adviser, Stanley G. Payne, provided essential guidance in the interpretation of Spanish history.HisdemandsthatI constantlysubjectarchivalfactstocritical analysisand synthesize them into issues of broad intellectual appeal ring in myears like the urgent ad all-too-distant callof a foghorn to the lost voyager. I am indebted as well to other teachers at the University of Wisconsin who have broadened the vista of this local studybysuggesting issuesfor considerationthatextendbeyond Spain to include the entire European continent. Professor William Courtenay lent invaluable assistance in medieval source material to locate the roots of many sixteenth-century religious ideas. Professor Robert Kingdon's knowledge of social conditions across sixteenth century Europe served as a mirror to catch the reflection of Spanish events in other places. With kind yet insistent patience, Professor Domenico Sella cautioned me more than once from overzealously presenting popular religious beliefs as if they were doctrine, an enchantingillusionfor socialhistorians. Professors Jerzy Kloczowski, Henry Kamen and William Christian, Jr. made useful recommen dations on aspects of the social context of poverty and charity. For opening the doors to Spain and its archives, I thank the Fulbright Commission aswellasthe archivistsinZamora, Valladolid and Madrid.They graciouslyfacilitated research and have inspired in meaperpetual desire to return to the archives. Specialthanks belong to Jose Luis Rodriguez for assistance with paleography. Many other Spaniards, some untrained in the discipline of history but eager to reveal the secrets of their past, aided in the recovery of insights and information. Guadalupe Ramos de Castro and Chano Lorenzo Sevillanoassisted withtheirknowlege oflocalZamoranhistoryinthe reconstruction of pilgrimage routes to medieval Leonese churches and shrines, and Antonio Reina Romero tracked down numerous sourceson confraternitiesthatcould not havebeen found inarchives. For sharing all the early struggles while I set the course of dissertation chapters, OliverHayward,thank you.And finallyWilly, ix x Acknowledgements lowe you a lifetime of ritual gestures of gratitude for the innumerableactsofmercy thatyouofferedwhileIwrote, not least of which was your patience in enduring periods of obsession with confraternitiesinconversation.Butconversations,likealms-gifts,are mutally and unboundedlyindebting, aren't they? Mygreatest joy has been in this debt of ours. Introduction Among the illiterate folk of medieval Europe, history shows us few individual personalities. The paucity of written records expressing their personal views makes it virtually impossible to capture the multiple dimensions oftheir private lives.The communal livesofthe common people, however, are much more accessibletoinvestigation. Collected into groups, the faceless individuals merge to form corporate personalities whose features are clear enough to appear in historicaldocuments.Confraternities,guildsandyouth associationsof various sorts provided their undistinguished members not only the monetarymeans but alsothe self-confidencetocommissionscribesto documenttheirthoughts. Using records drawn up by confraternities in the city of Zamora, situatedinthe oldSpanish kingdomofLeon-Castile,Ihaveattempted to reconstruct the religious experiencesofSpanish Catholics between thefourteenth and the seventeenthcenturies. Bytracing the activities of Zamoran confraternities across generations of membership, I was able to note long-term patterns in the devotional habits of the populace. The purpose in joining confraternities was to exercise Christian piety, particularly charity, long heralded by medieval theologians as the most desirable of the cardinal virtues. This study analyzeshowmembers'preoccupationswithcharitypertainedtotheir beliefsinthe afterlife and howtheir almsgivingpractices affected the material conditions of society's poor. It is therefore essentially an examination of the way in which religious values shaped the moral community and controlled poor relief before the creation of the modern welfarestate. The perspective presented in this local study has been deeply influenced by a group of ethnographers and sociologists whose research into spiritual customs of both western and non-western civilizationsmoved them awayfromviewingthe evolutionofreligions asthe work of founding fathers and turned their attention instead to the role ofthe communityinthe growth and developmentofreligious systems. The sociologist Emile Durkheim argued that all religions were the productofsocialforces.I Collective portrayalsofthe sacred led to organized religious creeds. Durkheim specificallyrejected the approachofwesternchurchhistorianswhosoughttheoriginsofbeliefs in great intellectual figures of the past. According to Durkheim, religion was created neither by nor for individuals. It is a collective 1
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