Confraternity, Mendicant Orders, and Salvation in the Middle Ages: The Contribution of the Hungarian Sources (c.1270-c.1530) (Europa Sacra) 9782503578712, 2503578713

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Confraternity, Mendicant Orders, and Salvation in the Middle Ages

EUROPA SACRA Editorial Board under the auspices of Monash University General Editor Peter Howard, Monash University Editorial Board Megan Cassidy-Welch, University of Queensland David Garrioch, Monash University Thomas Izbicki, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey Carolyn James, Monash University Constant J. Mews, Monash University M. Michèle Mulchahey, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto Adriano Prosperi, Scuola Normale di Pisa

Previously published volumes in this series are listed at the back of the book.

Volume 23

Confraternity, Mendicant Orders, and Salvation in the Middle Ages The Contribution of the Hungarian Sources (c. 1270–c. 1530) by

Marie-Madeleine de Cevins

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

© 2018, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. D/2018/0095/111 ISBN: 978-2-503-57871-2 e-ISBN: 978-2-503-57872-9 DOI: 10.1484/M.ES-EB.5.114586 ISSN: 2030-3068 e-ISSN: 2406-5838 Printed in the EU on acid-free paper

I wish especially to thank, for their advice, their practical assistance, and their encouragement: Iris Black Esther Dehoux Gábor Dreska Antonín Kalous Balázs Kertész Gergely Kiss Gábor Klaniczay Pavel Krafl Marielle Lamy Edit Madas Olivier Marin Pierre Moracchini Deborah A. Oosterhouse Beatrix Romhányi Ludovic Viallet Catherine Vincent

Contents

List of Illustrations

viii

Introduction xiii Chapter 1. Spiritual Confraternities of the Mendicant Orders — in a Blind Spot of Research

1

Chapter 2. The Hungarian Documentary Corpus

41

Chapter 3. The Success of Mendicant Spiritual  Confraternities in Hungary until about 1530

75

Chapter 4. The Process of Spiritual Affiliation with the Mendicants

119

Chapter 5. Mendicant Uses of Spiritual Confraternity

163

Chapter 6. Confraternity and Salvation: The Affiliates’ View

209

Conclusion 247 Biblio­graphy

255

Appendix. Edition of Sixteen Letters of Confraternity

277

Figures 293 Maps 310 Tables 313 Graphs 345 Index of Proper Names

353

List of Illustrations Figures Figure 1. Letter by which Michael, prior of the Dominican province of Hungary, associates (the nobleman) Andrew and his wife with the spiritual benefits of the friars of the province, with the same celebrations as for the deceased friars. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293 Figure 2. Letter by which George, prior of the province of the Augustinian Hermits of Hungary, grants participation in the good works of the friars to Benedict of Turiec/Turóc and institutes three masses for his salvation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294 Figure 3. Letter by which John of Capistrano, inquisitor general of the Franciscans of the Observance, admits the knight George Joranth and his family into the major confraternity of the order. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295 Figure 4. Letter by which James of Stubach, prior of the Dominican friary of Vienna, admits John and Sigismund, counts of Svätý Jur/ Szentgyörgy and Pezinok/Bazin, into the ordinary con­fra­ternity of the order. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296 Figure 5. Letter by which Francis of Peklenica/Bánya, Observant Fran­ ciscan custodian of Slavonia, admits Stephen Dersfi of Središče/ Szerdahely and his family into the ordinary confraternity of the order. . 297 Figure 6. Letter by which John Carpentarius, provincial prior of Upper Germany of the Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, grants parti­ cipation in the spiritual goods of the order, with commemoration, to the royal notary Peter of Söpte. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298 Figure 7. Letter by which Stephen of Rechnitz/Rohonc, prior of the Hungarian province of the Hermits of Saint Augustine, admits Ladislas of Grebenac/Gerebenc and his son-in-law Balthazar of Batthyán into the ordinary confraternity of the order. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

ix

Figure 8. Letter by which Stephen of Sopronca, Observant Franciscan vicar of Hungary, admits Peter of Szegfalu and his family into the ordinary confraternity of the order. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300 Figure 9. Letter by which Andrew of Hust/Huszt, Observant Franciscan custodian of Sárospatak, admits John Nagy of Babin Potok/Balpatak and his family into the ordinary confraternity of the order. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301 Figure 10. Letter by which Andrew of Bácsa, minister of the province of Conventual Franciscans of Hungary, admits Simon of Velika Bijhany/Nagybégány and his wife and children into the major confraternity of the order. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302 Figure 11. Letter by which Andrew of Bácsa, minister of the province of Conventual Franciscans of Hungary, admits Ambrose Sárkány of Ákoshaza and his family into the major confraternity of the order. . . . . . . 303 Figure 12. (Printed) letter by which Francis Licchetti, minister general of the Order of Friars Minor (Observant), admits John of Gyula and his family into the major confraternity of the order. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304 Figure 13. Letter by which Anthony of Segesd, minister of the province of Conventual Franciscans of Hungary, admits George of Csop/Csap and his wife into the major confraternity of the order and confirms that they will be able to choose burial in the friary of Košice/Kassa. . . . . . 305 Figure 14. Letter by which Francis of Lipova/Lippa, minister of the Conventual Franciscan province of Hungary, admits Benedict of Bajon and his family into the ordinary confraternity of the order. . . . . . . . 306 Figure 15. Seal of the letter by which John Carpentarius, provincial prior of Upper Germany of the Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, grants participation in the spiritual goods of the order, with commemoration, to the royal notary Peter of Söpte. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307 Figure 16. Seal of the letter by which Stephen of Rechnitz/Rohonc, prior of the Hungarian province of the Hermits of Saint Augustine, admits Ladislas of Grebenac/Gerebenc and his son-in-law Balthazar of Batthyán into the ordinary confraternity of the order. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

x

LIST OF iLLUSTRATIONS

Figure 17. Seal of the letter by which Joachim Turriani, master general, admits Peter of Söpte with his wife and his brothers and sisters into the major confraternity of the Dominican Order. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308 Figure 18. Seal of the letter by which Valentine of Kisd, Dominican provincial prior of Hungary, admits George Karácson with his wife and children and other family members into the ordinary confraternity of the order. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308 Figure 19. Seal of the letter by which Blaise of Nyár, vicar of the Observant Franciscans of Hungary, admits John of Ajka with his family into the ordinary confraternity of the order. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308 Figure 20. Seal of the letter by which Andrew of Bácsa, minister of the province of Conventual Franciscans of Hungary, admits Ambrose Sárkány of Ákoshaza and his family into the major confraternity of the order. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309 Figure 21. Seal of the letter by which Peter of Darány, Observant Fran­ cis­­can custodian of Sárospatak, admits Gregory of Csop/Csap of Esen/ Eszeny and his family into the ordinary confraternity of the order. . . . . . . . . 309 Figure 22. Seal of the letter by which Anthony of Segesd, minister of the province of Conventual Franciscans of Hungary, admits George of Csop/Csap and his wife into the major confraternity of the order and confirms that they will be able to choose burial in the friary of Košice/Kassa. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309

Maps Map 1. Places of issue of the letters of confraternity of the Hungarian corpus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310 Map 2. Places of issue of mendicant letters of confraternity in Hungary . . . 311

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

xi

Tables Table 1. Letters of confraternity delivered by mendicant friars to  inhabitants of the Kingdom of Hungary (1270–1524) . . . . . . . . . . . 314–37 Table 2. Spiritual goods enumerated in the letters of confraternity (1270–1524) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339–44

Graphs Graph 1. Number of letters of confraternity issued by decade (1250–1526) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345 Graph 2. Division of the letters of confraternity by chrono­logical period (1250–1526) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345 Graph 3. Distribution of the letters of confraternity by mendicant order (%) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346 Graph 4. Evolution of the distribution by order of letters of confraternity (%) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346 Graph 5. Evolution of the distribution by order of letters of confraternity (number of letters) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347 Graph 6. Hierarchical position of the issuers of letters of confraternity . . . . 347 Graph 7. Number of words in letters of confraternity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348 Graph 8. Socio­graphy of the addressees of letters of confraternity . . . . . . . . . 348 Graph 9. Evolution of the social origin of the addressees of letters of confraternity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348 Graph 10. Socio­graphy of the affiliates by mendicant order (%) . . . . . . . . . . . 349

xii

LIST OF iLLUSTRATIONS

Graph 11. Chrono­logical division of letters of confraternity issued by the Observant Franciscans (by decade) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350 Graph 12. Chrono­logical distribution of letters of confraternity issued by the Observant Franciscans (by five-year period) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350 Graph 13. Letters of confraternity issued by the Observant Franciscans (comparative curves) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351 Graph 14. Letters of confraternity issued by the Observant Franciscans (superimposed representation) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351

Introduction Ego frater A. etc. vos ad universa et singula nostri ordinis suffragia et ad confra­ ternitatem recipio, in vita pariter et in morte, plenam participacionem bonorum omnium tenore presentium concedendo, que per fratres nostros in regno Ungarie operari dignabitur clementia Salvatoris.1

T

his little book owes its existence to a strange conjunction of circum­ stances.2 While investigating the collections of the Hungarian National Archives in the hope of unearthing new documents that might shed light on the material functioning of Hungarian mendicant friaries between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries,3 I became aware of an astonishingly high proportion of letters of confraternity among the acts, composed in the name of mendicant superiors, which are preserved there today.4 While poor in strictly 1 

‘I, Brother A., receive you into the entire and several suffrages of our Order, and into its confraternity, in life as in death, granting to you by the present document full participation in all the spiritual wealth that the clemency of the Saviour shall judge our brothers of the Kingdom of Hungary worthy to achieve.’ Extract of a Franciscan formulary composed between about 1282 and 1320. Alba Iulia, Batthyaneum, MS Cod. E 5. VI-8, fol. 126r. Early edition: Karácsonyi, ‘A magyar ferencrendűek formulás könyve a Batthyány-könyvtárban’, p. 29 no. 13. See Table 1, LC 2. The letters of confraternity (LC) which have served as the foundation for this study, listed in Table 1, are indicated in subsequent notes by their number. 2  A first version of this mono­graph has been published in Hungarian: de Cevins, Koldu­ lórendi konfraternitások a középkori Magyarországon. 3  This was the objective of the MARGEC programme (acronym of ‘Marginality, Economy and Christianity: The Material Running of Mendicant Friaries in Central Europe (c. 1220– c. 1550)’), a collaborative research programme funded by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (no. ANR-12-BSH3-0002) from 2012 to 2016. The website of the programme is located at [accessed 28 August 2017]. 4  I thank Beatrix Romhányi for drawing my attention to this group of documents when the division of tasks of the MARGEC programme was being organized. The (relative) abundance of

xiv

Introduction

economic information, these nonetheless opened exciting research perspectives: first by their overall volume, higher than that suggested by studies on Hungary, and more significant also than those thus far inventoried in other geo­ graphical areas; and then by their characteristics, as distinct from letters coming from non-Hungarian collections. It was thus fitting that they should merit their own research study. Spiritual confraternity (confraternitas) will here be taken to mean the spiritual community born of the practice by which, today as in the past, the superior of a religious institution, itself a community — whether belonging to the world of the regular religious (monastery or friary, province, order, congregation) or to the secular Church (in the case of a chapter of canons) or organized by lay people (as in the case of a confraternity in its common sense, i.e. a pious lay brotherhood) — grants to an individual, cleric or layperson, or to a group of individuals a share in the salvational merits that have been acquired by the said institution.5 Consequently, spiritual confraternities should not be confused with prayer associations, nor (standard) confraternities, nor thirdorder fraternities — despite their many shared traits, beginning with their usual name in medi­eval Latin (confraternitas or fraternitas)6 and including, in the case of tertiaries, the idea of affiliation with an order.7 We will study the links of confraternity formed by the members of the four religious orders recognized as mendicantes in 1274 and established within the limits of medi­eval Hungary, that is to say the Franciscans, the Dominicans, the Hermits of Saint Augustine, and the Carmelites. The geo­graphical scope of the the letters of confraternity preserved in the Hungarian National Archives had already aroused the astonishment of Pál Engel and András Kubinyi (two eminent specialists on the final centuries of the Hungarian Middle Ages) in the 1990s. Kubinyi, ‘Vallásos társulatok’, p. 351 n. 59. 5  Until we come to the further development of this definition in the subsequent chapters, we will take as our point of departure du Cange, Glossarium, iii, ‘Fraternitas’, meaning 5, pp. 402–04, cols 598c–600a. This entry gathers together the principal medi­eval terms characterizing confraternity. 6  To dispel all ambiguity, we will be careful to use the adjective ‘confraternal’ (which may refer to non-spiritual confraternities, that is (mostly) pious lay brotherhoods, as well as to spiritual confraternities) only as a modifier for the nouns ‘affiliation’ or ‘admission’. 7  This is why we will also speak, in this book, of ‘affiliation’ (and of ‘affiliated’) in the sense of a process of joining a spiritual confraternity (and of being a member of it) — and not to designate the attachment (by derogation or transfer) of a religious to a friary other than the one in which he had taken his vows, which is another meaning of the term filiatio (or affiliatio) used in particular in the general legislation of the Dominicans and Carmelites in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Constitutiones, ed. by Jandel, p. 25; Smet, The Carmelites, p. 71.

Introduction

xv

study is based on the beneficiaries of the participation in spiritual merits, all subjects of the king of Hungary,8 and not on its mendicant dispensers, who had come from the four corners of the orbis christianus. This point of view imposed by archival topo­g raphy thus shifts the cursor, from the outset, onto the addressees of the letters of affiliation, in contrast to historio­g raphical tradition. It will not exclude incursions into other regions of the Latin West, for comparative purposes. Chrono­logical limits will similarly be based on documentary reality. The first known mendicant letter of confraternity destined for a Hungarian dates to 1270. At the other extremity, it would have been more satisfying to extend the field until 1541 to know the fate of mendicant spiritual confraternities at the time of the influence of the Reformation and under the Ottoman occupation. But since acts of affiliation later than 1526 have rarely survived, it was necessary to close our investigations around the year 1530. Mendicant spiritual confraternities have a bad reputation. As an illidentified spiritual object, somewhere between requests for intercession, necro­ logical commemoration, and pious associations, they may appear to have been, in the hands of the mendicants, what indulgences had become in the hands of the bishops and the papacy at the end of the Middle Ages: a bait handed out left, right, and centre to extort funds from the faithful while extending to them the glowing image of virtually immediate access to paradise. Due to this, they seem to have known the same fate as indulgences, gradually emptied of their substance and denounced even before Martin Luther as glaring evidence of the corruption of the Roman Church. Many general works limit themselves to this rather unflattering portrait, when they do not ignore them altogether (as will be shown in Chapter 1). The ambition of this mono­graph is not to be a definitive analysis of the dossier, complex and very poorly documented, of mendicant spiritual confraternities in the Middle Ages. It simply seeks, in an approach based on interstitial history stricto sensu,9 to fill in some ‘blanks’ of 8 

We should be reminded that the Kingdom of Hungary included, at the end of the Middle Ages, present-day Slovakia and Croatia, the far west of the Ukraine, the centre and the west of Romania (Transylvania and Partium), the north of Serbia, the east of Slovenia, and the western fringe of Austria (Burgenland). The Franciscan, Dominican, and Augustinian provinces of Hungary roughly mirrored its limits, as outlined in Chapter 3. 9  If it does not exactly conform to the ‘dialectic of the individual and the community’ which makes interstitial history a ‘history of freedom’ (according to the definition of Jacques Dalarun in his foreword to ‘Dieu changea de sexe, pour ainsi dire’, p. xvi), this approach is a part of the same will to enrich the knowledge of large-scale historical movements by paying special attention to facts habitually considered minor, therefore negligible — or history ‘by the service entrance’ (Dalarun, ‘Dieu changea de sexe, pour ainsi dire’, p. xvii).

xvi

Introduction

the puzzle by drawing on sources of Hungarian origin. It will therefore limit itself to the facets that these sources can illuminate — facets which concern the practical implementation of this grace rather than its theoretical element. Hungary certainly possesses, in the current state of cataloguing of medi­ eval European manu­scripts, a quite significant collection of mendicant letters of confraternity (described in Chapter 2). At first glance, it seems, then, that spiritual association had greater success here than elsewhere. This success may reflect the particularly dense distribution of the mendicants in Hungary — before and especially after the expansion of the Observant Franciscan movement, begun around 1450. But might it not simply be the case of a ‘source effect’, letters of spiritual confraternity having evidently benefited from a privileged treatment in Hungary, for reasons perhaps more secular than religious? Herein lies an enigma that is both archival and historic, which must closely affect our analysis. Keeping in mind these constraints, and after briefly presenting the mendicant and religious context in medi­eval Hungary, we will verify (in Chapter 3) that there really was concomitance between the development of the four mendicant orders in the Magyar kingdom and the rise of their spiritual confraternities. The membership curve would thus become a valuable indicator of the vitality of these orders and of their expansion in Hungarian society. We should not, however, limit ourselves to this quantitative approach — especially given such a fragmentary documentary base. Letters of suffrages provide previously unknown information about the support network of the friars, sketching out a circle of benefactors which does not coincide exactly with the one which emerges from charters of foundation and of donation, from wills, and from friary records of memorial services. In order to understand the attraction of the mendicant spiritual confraternities, we must come back to the meaning that was attributed to them. The laconic nature of the acts of affiliation concerning doctrinal matters will not prevent us from asking questions about their theo­logical content (in Chapter 4). We will test against the sources the assumption that the friars simply appropriated for their own use a monastic procedure founded mainly on the commemoration of the dead, adapting it to the obligation of poverty. We must also explore the problem of the motivations of the mendicants. The Hungarian data encourage us to wonder (in Chapter 5) whether the dilatation of the mendicant spiritual confraternities in the fifteenth century did not constitute part of a strategy aimed at protecting the friars — in particular those who had adopted the Observant reform — from absolute precariousness, without denying, nevertheless, their identity as mendicants, or making themselves

Introduction

xvii

vulnerable to the accusations of simony which were being revived at the end of the fourteenth century. Finally, since the initiative of spiritual association came less often from the mendicants than from the faithful, we will try to define the expectations of the applicants. What was spiritual confraternity ‘worth’ on the market — already plethoric — of instruments of salvation (Chapter 6)? After responding to these questions, we will be able to restore this practice to its rightful place in the history of the mendicant orders, in that of the confraternal movement, and in that, finally, of late medi­eval piety in Hungary. Beyond this scope, the highlighting of a possible ‘Hungarian exception’ will shed new light on what we already knew — or thought we knew — about regular spiritual confraternities in the lands of old Christendom.

Chapter 1

Spiritual Confraternities of the Mendicant Orders — in a Blind Spot of Research

T

he spiritual confraternities of the mendicant orders are among the neglected subjects of historical research.1 To date, no single comprehensive study has been devoted to them. General works are silent on their very existence or, at best, deal with them in a few lines, as if these associations invited neither definition nor explanatory comment. It is not rare for such works to confuse them with other pious communities or devotional practices. Mono­graphs concerning them are published only sporadically. Focusing on a narrow corpus, the latter do not succeed in resolving the contradictions that emerge from the documentation and explore the subject no further, for fear of getting bogged down. This unimpressive historio­graphical record stems first from the object itself: complex, invisible in its effects, and difficult to detach from other religious practices similarly derived from the communio sanctorum. It also results from the crushing weight of the monastic heritage. Although protean itself, the latter is today very well-charted territory, thanks to the many research works that have been devoted to it over more than a century. The same cannot be said for mendicant spiritual confraternities, although these are situated in the immediate lineage of the associations developed by monks and by canons regular. Following on from investigations carried out since the interwar period 1 

A preparatory version of this chapter appears in de Cevins, ‘Les Confraternités mendiantes au Moyen Âge’.

Chapter 1

2

in north-western Europe, explorations undertaken very recently in Central European archive collections could produce materials capable of significantly advancing knowledge of this field.

An Elusive Object of Study Regular spiritual confraternities lie at the conjunction of three fields of study: the history of the (numerous) regular orders which granted participation in their merits, from the Benedictines to the eremitic, hospitaller, and mendicant orders; the history of the confraternal movement, since spiritual confraternities (in the same way as their homonyms, confraternities (in French, ‘confréries’)) number among various associations pursuing a religious goal; and the history of religious practices (aimed at securing salvation) flowing from the dogma of the communion of saints, and more specifically from the belief in a ‘treasury of merit’ accumulated by the Church to be redistributed by certain of its members, by their own power or by delegation. Only — and here is the entire problem — the subject of spiritual confraternity is not at the centre of any of these thematic approaches. Following its emergence among the monks of Saint Benedict in the eighth and ninth centuries and its Cluniac expansion over the tenth to twelfth centuries,2 the idea of spiritual confraternity is considered insignificant in the life of the various religious orders of the ensuing centuries, and this is as true for those associations stemming from Benedictine origins (including the Cistercians)3 as for the mendicant orders.4 Similarly, if the contribution of monastic spiritual confraternities to the birth of pious lay brotherhoods is now 2 

Concerning this golden age of regular spiritual confraternities, according to historio­ graphy, see the references indicated in the following para­graph. 3  Since we cannot enumerate the syntheses by order or by group of orders, we refer the reader to the accounts of Western monasticism in Mayeur and others, Histoire du christianisme, vols v–vii. For an illustration applied to France, at the turning point between the Middle Ages and the modern era, see Le Gall, Les Moines au temps des réformes, where the word ‘confraternité’, used just once (p. 368), is applied to unions of prayer with other monks, whereas spiritual links with the laity (mentioned on pp. 361–69) are confined to pro anima celebrations and recommendations to prayer. 4  The first reference indicated in the preceding note again frees me from providing a list of general histories by mendicant order. Among those which mention, briefly, mendicant spiritual confraternities, we find Merlo, Au nom de saint François, p. 183; Moorman, A History of the Franciscan Order, pp. 120 and 355; Gutiérrez, Los Agustinos en la edad media, i.1, 234–35.

Spiritual Confraternities of the Mendicant Orders

3

confirmed,5 along with the involvement of guilds in the prayer chains woven between the laity and monks from the early Middle Ages on,6 exclusively spiritual communities appear as a marginal phenomenon in the confraternal proliferation that affected Western Christendom starting in the thirteenth century. In the introductory chapter of his imposing three-volume study on the subject, Gilles Gérard Meersseman notes the thriving of monastic fraternities in the early Middle Ages and until the turn of the first millennium. Later in the same work, he devotes a dozen or so pages to mendicant affiliations. But, given his main purpose of describing the vitality of the Dominican Marian (lay) confraternities in Italy, he limits his consideration of this practice to those devotional associations which were rewarded by the friars with participation in their merits.7 Recent efforts to provide a coherent response to the question are no more forthcoming.8 Ultimately, when it comes to late medi­e val piety, membership in regular spiritual confraternities rarely appears in the inventory of religious practices motivated by the quest for salvation at the end of the Middle Ages. According to the existing literature on the subject, in order to quench their ‘insatiable thirst’ for intercession,9 the faithful seem to have turned essentially toward pro anima celebrations — preferably in an institutionalized community context (monastery or friary, chapter of canons regular or secular, lay confraternity). Spiritual affiliation seems to have occupied a place of negligible importance among the strategies of preparation for death and of the reduction of the punishments to be endured in purgatory.10 5 

Duhr, ‘Les Confréries dans la vie de l’Église’; Vincent, Les Confréries médiévales dans le royaume de France, pp. 99–106; Vincent, Des charités bien ordonnées, pp. 83–89; Jamroziak and Burton, Religious and Laity in Western Europe, 1000–1400, in particular the contribution of Arnoud-Jan Bijsterveld, ‘Looking for Common Ground’. 6  See the works of Otto Gerhard Oexle on the religious functions of sworn associations in the Middle Ages, in particular Oexle, ‘Liturgische Memoria und historische Erinnerung’. 7  Meersseman, Ordo fraternitatis, pp. 13–17 and 979–89. Similarly, in the chapter of his synthesis on the history of the Hermits of Saint Augustine, which he devotes to the influence of Augustinian monasteries in the Middle Ages, David Gutiérrez only mentions spiritual association through the example of devotional lay brotherhoods rewarded with participation in the merits of the friars by the superiors of the order. Gutiérrez, Los Agustinos en la edad media, i.1, 234–35. 8  See for example the articles collected in Terpstra, Prosperi, and Pastore, Faith’s Boundaries. 9  Vincent, Les Confréries médiévales dans le royaume de France, p. 106. 10  It is again impossible to cite all the works, principally English, French, and Italian, which describe the most frequent salvation-seeking practices in Western Europe at the end of the Middle Ages. There is an up-to-date overview in Lupescu Makó, ‘Death and Remembrance’,

4

Chapter 1

The beginning of a general reconsideration of the question took place in 1992. It was then that the staff of the Centre Européen de Recherches sur les Congrégations et Ordres Religieux (CERCOR) drew the attention of researchers to the networks of individuals and communities that had gravitated around regular foundations since the early Middle Ages, at an international conference on this theme entitled ‘Les Mouvances laïques des ordres religieux’ (‘Lay spheres of influence of religious orders’).11 At the beginning of the volume of articles that resulted from this colloquium, Pierrette Paravy defines these ‘spheres of influence’ as ‘border zones where fruitful encounters developed, beyond the fundamental separation from ordinary life entailed in entering a monastic order’.12 In opposition to members of the laity living within the walls of a monastery and attached to its service — conversi (oblates) and donati (lay brothers) — she presents a second group, much more difficult to define since it escapes all material or institutional formalization: the ‘outside’ laity, those who maintained preferential links with the religious to highly varied degrees and according to very diverse models of engagement (recluses, confratres and conso­ rores, tertiaries, etc.).13 An essential element of the confraternal relationship is here brought to the fore: the desire of the faithful to associate themselves — in the etymo­logical sense of the term — with the monks, in other words to form one body with them and to partially embrace their condition. The studies gathered in this heavy and dense volume lengthen the list of examples of regular spiritual confraternities, principally in France. They highlight, behind the disparity of different situations, common ground shared by these regular spiritual confraternities. But affiliation pales in comparison to the other ‘spheres of influence’ that are examined. Only three papers out of thirty-three credit spiritual affiliation with specific developments.14 The single contribution dealing with medi­eval mendicant orders does not mention spir-

pp. 94–96. On strategies for preparing for death, see Ariès, L’Homme devant la mort; Geary, Living with the Dead; Alexandre-Bidon, La Mort au Moyen Âge. On France, just as examples, see Vincent, Les Confréries médiévales dans le royaume de France, p. 106; Chiffoleau, La Compt­ abilité de l’au-delà. 11  Les Mouvances laïques des ordres religieux. CERCOR is now a part of the LEM – CNRS UMR 8584 at the Université Jean-Monnet (Saint-Étienne). 12  Les Mouvances laïques des ordres religieux, p. 7 (‘Préface’). 13  Les Mouvances laïques des ordres religieux, pp. 7–8. 14  Chibnall, ‘Liens de fraternitas’; Teunis, ‘Societas monachorum dans les cartulaires de Marmoutier’; Ardura, ‘Les Différentes formes d’affiliation’, pp. 410–12.

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itual association.15 The last two centuries of the Middle Ages, the crucial link between the blossoming of monastic spiritual confraternities in the thirteenth century and the denunciation of their principle by Luther (following John Wyclif and Jan Hus), followed by their rejuvenation in the wake of Catholic Reform, are underrepresented. Finally, it is regrettable that clerics, both secular (parish priests, secular canons, and bishops) and regular,16 were excluded from the outset from all consideration, given that they also belonged to the ‘spheres of influence’ of the religious orders. In his conclusion to the volume, André Vauchez refines the binary typo­ logy proposed by Pierrette Paravy, distinguishing four ‘concentric circles’: (1) conversi; (2) ‘familiars’, oblates, and ‘prebendaries’; (3) ‘spiritual friends’, that is, benefactors and others whose memory was preserved by the religious, as well as members of the (lay) confraternities which were attached to monasteries; and lastly, (4) lay people with economic links to the brothers (tenant farmers and other leaseholders).17 He reminds us of their common impetus, which was their desire to share in the ‘treasury of merit’ accumulated by the professed, despite lacking the capability (and the will?) to take the habit themselves.18 All types of religious affiliation are thus examined in their various forms and presented according to a specific hierarchy, without any explicit mention of the members of the (spiritual) confraternitas, whom one would expect to find grouped among the ‘spiritual friends’. We should add that since this halo-like schema takes a specific regular establishment as its epicentre, it quite logically passes over those ‘spheres of influence’ of the friars which, like spiritual confraternity, often involved several communities or even an entire order, instead of a single community. In all fairness to the previously cited authors, it is very difficult to isolate the regular spiritual confraternities from two circles of material and spiritual solidarity which are more easily identified in the documentation, and with which, in the Middle Ages, they partially overlapped: ‘benefactors’ on the one hand and confraternities (pious lay associations) on the other. 15 

Lopez, ‘Frères et sœurs extérieurs’. It is true that a previous scholarly meeting organized by the same research centre had dealt with the question of networks between monasteries, addressing the theme of spiritual confraternities from this perspective. Bouter, Naissance et fonctionnement des réseaux monas­ tiques et canoniaux. 17  Vauchez, ‘Les Mouvances laïques des ordres religieux’, pp. 518–21. 18  Vauchez, ‘Les Mouvances laïques des ordres religieux’, p. 523. 16 

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Benefactores, that is, the recognized donors (including the founders of private liturgical services, but others as well) who were often listed in specific registries (records of memorial services, necro­logies) were — implicitly or explicitly — recommended for prayer by the monks from the early Middle Ages on.19 Like confratres, they also benefited, consequently, from the spiritual graces that were dispensed by the religious — even if, in the case of the benefactors, these graces did not necessarily go as far as spiritual affiliation. The members of the (lay) confraternities attached to a monastery — in which certain occasional donors to the establishment were also sometimes found20 — often benefited from the same advantages (recommendation and participation in merits), as is stated in their statutes.21 In general, trying to dissociate confraternities — those visible, organized communities, characterized by rules, common meeting and worship places (specifically, the altar of a patron saint), and finally, holding a legal status — from spiritual confraternities, which by definition had none of these, is a difficult undertaking, as Gilles Meersseman admitted in 1977.22 For along with their title, the confraternities borrowed from Benedictine spiritual confraternities their function of multilayered intercession and sometimes even their charitable manifestations (distribution of food to the poor, as mentioned below), together with the same idea of continuous support before and beyond death.23 If the accumulation of case studies now allows us to better characterize those associations evolving in the shadow of the monasteries,24 it also indicates a growing overlap between such confraternities and spiritual confraternities after 1200.25 By their recruitment (open to the deceased as well as to the living), by their functioning (the absence of a material federating framework in the case of the confraternities of the Rosary), and by their spiritual commitments (to pray for members and their loved ones, living or dead, in other words, ‘to memorialize’; to grant a remission of punishment, as 19 

See the following para­graph. Examples in Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, pp. 202–04. 21  Norman examples in Vincent, Des charités bien ordonnées, pp. 83–86. 22  Meersseman, Ordo fraternitatis, pp. 13–14. 23  Vincent, Les Confréries médiévales dans le royaume de France, pp. 100–102; Frank, ‘Confraternities, Memoria and Law in Late Medi­eval Italy’, pp. 2–3. Background information: de la Roncière and Matz, ‘Le Mouvement confraternel’, p. 243. 24  Long list of examples in Chibnall, ‘Liens de fraternitas’. 25  Examples of confraternities attached to mendicant friaries and authorizing admission into the spiritual confraternity of the order: Martin, Les Ordres mendiants en Bretagne, p. 340; Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, pp. 202–04. 20 

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well as the prayers of the religious and burial on monastic grounds, but also to grant access to the merits of the professed in the case of confratrie affiliated with a monastery or mendicant friary), a good number of hybrid groupings blended the traits of the ‘visible’ confraternities with those of immaterial communities.26 We must remind ourselves that medi­e val termino­logy is of no assistance: texts make indiscriminate use of the terms confraternitas (or fraternitas), confratria (or confraria), sometimes even of (fraterna) societas, of familia, or of c(h)aritas, referring to the entire range of benefactors, members of confraternities, conversi, tertiaries, or spiritual affiliates.27 The confusion has continued to this day in the vernacular languages.28 This is hardly surprising: united in one family by the solidarity of salvation flowing from caritas, all of these people were mentally a part of the ‘society of monks’. Thus, the subject of spiritual confraternities is not easily approached. Might it be no more than an intellectual concept? No, because it did generate its own texts. Following on from the libri confraternitatum of the Carolingian age and the letters of ‘fraternity’, ‘association’, or ‘communion’ exchanged between monastic communities (from the early Middle Ages to the modern period),29 the Cistercians issued, from the 1140s on, veritable certificates of affiliation, called ‘letter(s) of confraternity’ (epistola or littera confraternitatis) or ‘letter(s) of affiliation’ (littera affiliationalis), addressed to members of the laity as well as to secular clerics. These served as a model for the mendicants. The codification of these acts of chancery, under a distinctive title, in Benedictine, Cistercian, and then mendicant formularies copied in the late Middle Ages, is enough to prove the unquestionable originality of the grace that they granted.30 To glimpse this 26  Monastic examples: Vincent, Les Confréries médiévales dans le royaume de France, p. 100; Frank, ‘Confraternities, Memoria and Law in Late Medi­eval Italy’, p. 3; Bijsterveld, ‘Looking for Common Ground’, pp. 306–07. 27  Meersseman, Ordo fraternitatis, pp. 3–7. 28  The ambiguity exists in English (which has only one term: ‘confraternity’), in German (‘Bruderschaft’), and in Italian (if ‘confraternita’ and ‘confraternità’ are often conflated, notes Gilles Meersseman in Ordo fraternitatis, pp. 13–14). Like Hungarian (in which ‘testvérület’ and ‘vallásos társulat’ distinguish themselves from ‘konfraternitás’), French has the good fortune to possess two distinct words (‘confrérie’ and ‘confraternité’). But their use, in both languages, remains rather random, with some authors taking them as synonyms (Duhr, ‘Les Confréries dans la vie de l’Église’, p. 439). 29  The first to have remarked on this is Delisle, ‘Des monuments paléo­graphiques’, pp. 364–67. 30  Meersseman, Ordo fraternitatis, pp. 13–14 (Cistercian examples); Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’ (Franciscan examples).

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originality accurately, we must return to the genesis and progressive blossoming, in the monastic context, of spiritual confraternity.

The Link between confraternitas and the Monks Historians (especially those writing in English and German) are inclined to attribute to St Boniface (Winfrid), and before him to the Venerable Bede, the initial authorship of letters of spiritual affiliation — if not of spiritual confraternity in general — based on missives that he sent to those, clerics or laypeople, men or women, who supported him spiritually or materially in his pastoral and missionary undertakings. He would promise, in return, to pray for the salvation of their souls, in their lifetime and after their deaths, and he uses the terms communio, communio fraterna, sodalitas, or familiaritas in this context in his letters — terms that later reappear in relation to spiritual confraternities.31 Boniface concluded actual ‘spiritual contracts’ (to adopt Joseph Duhr’s expression) with the bishops of England and with the abbot of Monte Cassino, contracts which stipulated that each would remember the other and his people in his prayers, communicating to each other the names of the deceased from each community. These clauses created a ‘familiarity of fraternal charity’ (‘ut familiaritas fratern[a]e caritatis inter nos sit’).32 But this was in fact a union of prayer, with no real affiliating dimension; the latter was limited to the shared registry of the deceased.33 The affiliating dimension is similarly lacking in other documents of the same period, though the latter are considered precursors in the area of spiritual confraternity; for example, the one in which Lull, Bishop of Mainz and disciple of Boniface, was honoured by Abbot Dodo with prayers in favour of all his ‘friends’ living and dead;34 or the one in which the same Lull promised, in about 755, to have the priests of his diocese celebrate masses for the Bishop of Meaux and for two members of the laity.35

31 

Duhr, ‘Les Confréries dans la vie de l’Église’, pp. 453–56; Schneider, ‘L’Intercession des vivants pour les morts’, p. 46. 32  Duhr, ‘Les Confréries dans la vie de l’Église’, p. 455 n. 7. 33  As Jan Gerchow in fact established in the introduction to Gerchow, Die Gedenküberlief­ erung der Angelsachsen, pp. 28–56. 34  Duhr, ‘Les Confréries dans la vie de l’Église’, p. 456. 35  Mériaux, ‘“Boni agricolae in agro Domini”’, p. 73. I thank the author for sending me the manu­script before publication.

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Herbert Schneider points out, moreover, that Bavarian synods practised the commemoratio fratrum (as early as 800 in Salzburg), instituting specific prayers at the death of each of their members, parish clergy as well as monks.36 Bishop Aldric of Le Mans established analogous practices in his diocese in 840.37 And Chrodegang seems to have preceded them in these practices in Metz as early as 762.38 These episcopal initiatives seem to have brought into being invisible fraternal groupings, arising from the sharing of the same commemorative services, beginning in the Carolingian period. However, as well as openness to nonclerics (absent from the previous examples), the notion of incorporation into a pre-existing community held to be superior because of its power of intercession and its merits is still missing — and it is this notion which marks the difference between prayer associations and spiritual confraternities in the fullest sense: that is, spiritual associations in which the confrater is not only someone for whom one prays or whom one memorializes after death, but also someone with whom one shares one’s merits.39 In the early Middle Ages and until the twelfth century, only monastic establishments had this superior stature — and therefore this merit-sharing capacity — in the eyes of Christians. It is thus no coincidence that the word (con)frater­ nitas was born in this context — and initially among monks.40 Even if the birth of spiritual confraternities is a broader expression of the evolution of Western spirituality (and in particular of the progress of intercession in the salvation economy), it remains, consequently, inseparable from the rise of monasticism. It is therefore here that we must begin. Research on the spiritual solidarities woven between the non-professed and monasteries, initiated by the documentary discoveries of Léopold Delisle and

36 

Schneider, ‘L’Intercession des vivants pour les morts’. Examples from not much later of unions sealed in the course of conciliar assemblies in Duhr, ‘Les Confréries dans la vie de l’Église’, p. 460. Complementary information and background in Mériaux, ‘“Boni agricolae in agro Domini”’, p. 73. 37  Mériaux, ‘“Boni agricolae in agro Domini”’, p. 74. 38  Duhr, ‘Les Confréries dans la vie de l’Église’, pp. 459–60. 39  See Chapter 4. 40  The earliest written traces of links of confraternity woven by non-monks come from com­munities of canons — who, we know, positioned themselves in a sort of mid-zone between secular clergy and regular clergy; and these written traces are no earlier than the 1110s. Bijsterveld, ‘Looking for Common Ground’, p. 293 (which cites a Flemish example from 1116). Moreover, these unions were established between sister communities, and not with laypeople.

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Georg Zappert in the mid-nineteenth century,41 followed by those of Adalbert Ebner shortly before 1900 and of (Dom) Ursmer Berlière in the 1920s,42 has progressed significantly since the 1970s. Nourished by ideas from anthropo­logy and socio­logy, the notion of the monastic familia is now understood not only as ‘all the secular persons who were attached to [the Church’s] service, whether within the monastery or in its outbuildings and rural farms’ (the narrow definition proposed by Ursmer Berlière),43 but also and above all as the ‘chosen family’ uniting the monks to their spiritual ‘relations’ (including confratres and consorores, spiritual brothers and sisters) and to their benefactors.44 This understanding has given rise to important publications, mainly in Germany ( Jan Gerchow, Karl Schmid, and Joachim Wollasch, 45 following Georg Schreiber), then in France (Michel Lauwers, Dominique Iogna-Prat),46 in the Netherlands (Arnoud-Jan A. Bijsterveld), in England ( James G. Clark),47 and in North America (Barbara H. Rosenwein).48 The foundation and maintenance of monasteries had depended, since the early Middle Ages, on the generosity of protectors who expected in return to have access, in this life and in the hereafter, to dividends from the ‘capital’ that had been invested, according to a process of uninterrupted exchange of material benefits for spiritual ones, which had been legitimized for centuries by patris41 

Delisle, ‘Des monuments paléo­graphiques’, pp. 364–69; Zappert, ‘Über sogenannte Verbrüderungsbücher’. 42  Ebner, Die klösterlichen Gebets-Verbrüderungen bis zum Ausgang des karolingischen Zei­ talters; Berlière, ‘Les Confraternités monastiques au Moyen Âge’. The latter author summarizes the theo­logical bases for spiritual associations, emphasizes the necessity of distinguishing them from the confréries attached to monasteries and priories (p. 135), and describes the ceremony for admission into a spiritual confraternity (pp. 136–38). However, with little regard for chrono­logy, he draws indiscriminately on sources from the ninth century to the end of the fourteenth century. 43  Berlière, La ‘Familia’ dans les monastères bénédictins du Moyen Âge, p. 3. 44  Iogna-Prat, ‘Les Morts dans la comptabilité céleste’, pp. 58–62. Updated clarifications in Gazeau, ‘La Mort des moines’; Schneider, ‘L’Intercession des vivants pour les morts’. 45  Among other German publications which constituted a decisive turning point in the research: Schmid and Wollasch, Memoria; Schmid, ‘Mönchtum und Verbürderung’. 46  Lauwers, La Mémoire des ancêtres, le souci des morts; Iogna-Prat, ‘Les Morts dans la comptabilité céleste’. Brilliant analysis enriched with little known Iberian examples in de Miramon, Les ‘Donnés’ au Moyen Âge, pp. 59–96. 47  Clark, ‘Monastic Confraternity in Medi­eval England’. 48  Rosenwein, To Be the Neighbor of Saint Peter.

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tic tradition.49 However, in the beginning, in the Rule of Saint Benedict, for example, nothing predisposed the monks to carry out a function of memoria — whether that of monks or of all Christians50 — nor to become dispensers of salvational merits. The promotion of the communion of saints by Gregory the Great, followed by the dynamic process of monastic reform, changed the situation progressively from the eighth century on. Monks were viewed as privileged intercessors, the ones who, out of all the oratores, were best equipped to discharge the duties of Ecclesia, as defined by St Augustine,51 toward the deceased. More generally, they became the dispensers par excellence of salvational graces. From that point on, spiritual associations linking powerful laypeople, bishops, and even (beginning in the ninth century) simple parish clerics to monasteries began to flourish, under the names of fraternitas, societas, familia, and amic­ itia.52 These associations were obedient not only to spiritual considerations: their spatial-temporal deployment shows the existence of reciprocal manipulation. As part of the lineage-affirming strategies (in landowning, social, and political contexts) of the abbey benefactors, these associations also participated simultaneously in a deliberate policy of stabilization of the monastic temporal on the part of the abbots.53 The commemoration of the dead seems to occupy the lion’s share of the group of the spiritual services which the ‘friends’ of the monks expected. This is why historians often group these services together under the generic term memoria.54 However, upon closer examination, we notice that in fact these services combined three graces: the recommendation for prayer (by the monks), necro­logical commemoration, and finally fraternitas (or confraternitas) itself.55 Entry into a spiritual confraternity procured, to a greater or lesser degree, access to the first two favours without totally overlapping with them. Working to 49 

gneur. 50 

On the development of this theo­logical background, see Toneatto, Les Banquiers du Sei­

Wollasch, ‘Les Moines et la mémoire des morts’, pp. 47–48. Iogna-Prat, ‘Les Morts dans la comptabilité céleste’, pp. 57–61. 52  Mériaux, ‘“Boni agricolae in agro Domini”’, pp. 155–58. 53  Examples in Les Mouvances laïques des ordres religieux and in Jamroziak and Burton, Religious and Laity in Western Europe, 1000–1400. Overview of the principal orientations of recent research in Mazel, ‘Monachisme et aristocratie aux xe–xie siècles’, pp. 59–64. 54  See the titles of the works cited in the preceding notes. In the same vein, Herbert Schneider defines monastic confraternities as ‘associations for prayer and masses for the deceased’. Schneider, ‘L’Intercession des vivants pour les morts’, p. 46. 55  Rosenwein, To Be the Neighbor of Saint Peter, p. 39. 51 

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refine the blurred image inherited from Léopold Delisle and Ursmer Berlière,56 the research findings of Karl Schmid, Joachim Wollasch, and then Barbara Rosenwein have attempted to isolate what pertains more precisely to spiritual confraternity. Their studies show that, especially for the period after 1100, we cannot be satisfied with definitions as vague as the one that was still offered by Franz Neiske at the end of the 1980s: ‘a sort of corporation that may take the form of a political union, the amicitia, which guaranteed its members a brotherhood in this life and commemoration in the next’.57 Barbara Rosenwein specifically admonishes us to stop systematically conflating ‘books of confraternities’ (libri confraternitatum) and ‘books of life’ (libri vitae),58 as well as ‘memorial books’ (libri memoriales), the last being devoted exclusively to memoria.59 These correspond to different periods and practices, which would seem to express a change in monastic customs for the commemoration of the dead, and consequently, a change in the notional content of confraternitas. The following para­graphs will attempt to reconstruct the chrono­logical trajectory of this change in the light of existing studies, which are sometimes contradictory. In the eighth and ninth centuries, monastic spiritual confraternities kept monks and their ‘friends’ (relatives, acquaintances, religious peers, protectors, etc.) in a closely woven network of intersecting solidarities, not exclusive of other links originating in (and converging towards) each monastery; hence, the plural of (liber) confraternitatum.60 The incorporation of members external to the establishment was formalized by the register (liber) in which were inscribed the names of all the confratres and consorores (‘fratres conscripti’), liv56 

Delisle, ‘Des monuments paléo­g raphiques’, pp. 364–69; Berlière, ‘Les Confraternités monastiques au Moyen Âge’. 57  Neiske, ‘Communities and Confraternities in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries’. This definition is reproduced in Iogna-Prat, ‘Les Morts dans la comptabilité céleste’, p. 59. 58  As Arnoud-Jan Bijsterveld still does in 2006 in Bijsterveld, ‘Looking for Common Ground’, p. 292. 59  Rosenwein, To Be the Neighbor of Saint Peter, p. 40. For (Dom) Ursmer Berlière, from the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries, the libri vitae recorded the names of all the members of the spiritual society of a monastery, while obituaries and necro­logies list the benefactors and other persons honoured with specific celebrations. Berlière, ‘Les Confraternités monastiques au Moyen Âge’, pp. 140–41. Still, as indeed the examples in this article prove, this dichotomy is invalid: it is not the titles of these registries, fluctuating and added later, which are at the basis of the distinction between participation in merits and liturgical recommendation, but their content. 60  Meersseman, Ordo fraternitatis, pp. 13–14; Teunis, ‘Societas monachorum dans les cartulaires de Marmoutier’, pp. 241–42.

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ing or dead.61 The monks had their own rubric in the register,62 but their names increasingly appeared alongside those of bishops and members of the laity. These names were read day after day in a liturgical context and, in particular, in a Eucharistic one, which meant that the register had to be placed in immediate proximity to the altar.63 As the number of confratres increased (to as many as forty thousand in Reichenau!) a collective mention replaced the individual litany, from a date which is difficult to pinpoint with precision.64 In any case, this participation in absentia by supporters of the monastery, living and dead, in the liturgy of the monks helped to drive a process of ‘brother-becoming’ (‘affratellamento’)65 which drew them nearer to the monks, recognizing them as ‘brothers’,66 that is, as ‘near-monks’.67 In this model, the ideal community born of this rapprochement seems to be more important than the post mortem commemoration which flowed from it more or less automatically.68 Starting in the tenth century, the registers changed name (becoming ‘books of life’, a term which is generally translated as ‘obituary’) and structure (necro­ logies or martyro­logies following the order of the calendar). At least in terms of vocabulary, the notion of ‘spiritual confraternity’ was moving into the background. In parallel, in the wake of reforms originating in Burgundian and Lotharingian foundations, the community of those admitted became concentrated around the monks of the order or of the congregation, in an ever-widening geo­graphical sphere. In terms of numbers, the religious far outweighed their lay supporters (‘familiars’ or ‘friends’). Simultaneously, we see a new densification of liturgical services, with the naming within the chapter of those 61 

Berlière, ‘Les Confraternités monastiques au Moyen Âge’, pp. 134–35. Delisle, ‘Des monuments paléo­graphiques’, pp. 363–64. 63  Berlière, ‘Les Confraternités monastiques au Moyen Âge’, p. 141. Sometimes the names were engraved directly onto the altar stone. Bijsterveld, ‘Looking for Common Ground’, p. 292. 64  Wollasch, ‘Les Moines et la mémoire des morts’, pp. 47–48. 65  Meersseman, Ordo fraternitatis, p. 14. 66  See the oldest affiliation formulae (eleventh century) such as ‘in fratres et monachos recipi’, reported in du Cange, Glossarium, iii, ‘Fraternitas’, meaning 5, p. 402, col. 598c. The phrase fratres conscripti used in the eleventh century in the registries of Saint Gall and Saint Denis is just as meaningful. Berlière, ‘Les Confraternités monastiques au Moyen Âge’, pp. 134 and 142. 67  Charles de Miramon speaks of ‘moine(s) de fiction’ — fictional monks. Les ‘Donnés’ au Moyen Âge, p. 64. 68  Teunis, ‘Societas monachorum dans les cartulaires de Marmoutier’, pp. 241–42, based on the German studies cited above. 62 

14

Chapter 1

who were inscribed, but also the celebration of tricenaries (consecutive masses for thirty days) for them. This was reinforced by economic practices that were becoming a heavy burden on the revenues of the communities: to reflect the temporal confraternity, each confrater received a daily prebend which, upon the death of the said confrater, was given to a pauper, his ‘symbolic substitute’.69 The recentring upon the professed was accompanied by a vigorous return to necro­logical commemoration — and, more widely, by the production of works (masses and alms) intended to snatch the souls of the departed away from the Devil.70 This did not eliminate the affiliating dimension, as is evident in such formulae as ‘incorporate into the fraternity of the monastery’, ‘receive’ into the ‘benefits of the cloister’ (beneficium loci) or into the ‘society of the monks’ (soci­ etas monachorum), which were used recurrently in the eleventh century with reference to both clergy and laity.71 The attribution to each confrater of a ‘charity prebend’, or an alimentary pittance, in imitation of that of the monks, had the same significance.72 In the twelfth century, the continued inflation of numbers of members of monastic spiritual confraternities — who by then numbered in the tens of thousands at Cluny — incited the Cistercians, and then all the monks with roots in the Benedictine movement, to give up on the individual commemorations on fixed dates imposed by the obituary. They opted instead for a single annual celebration recalling the memory of all the dead (con)fratres (‘commemoratio omnium fratrum defunctorum ordinis nostri’), with a reading in the chapter of each name73 — or, in the case of cross-affiliations with other monasteries, for the concentration, on a single day, of the remembrance due to all its departed members.74 We thus observe, a century before the appearance of the mendi69  Wollasch, ‘Les Moines et la mémoire des morts’, p. 49–52; Iogna-Prat, ‘Les Morts dans la comptabilité céleste’, pp. 63–64; Berlière, ‘Les Confraternités monastiques au Moyen Âge’, p. 136; Bijsterveld, ‘Looking for Common Ground’, pp. 294–98. 70  Teunis, ‘Societas monachorum dans les cartulaires de Marmoutier’, pp. 241–42. 71  In the Marmoutier cartulary, for example. Teunis, ‘Societas monachorum dans les cartulaires de Marmoutier’, pp. 241–44. 72  Bijsterveld, ‘Looking for Common Ground’, p. 295; Iogna-Prat, ‘Les Morts dans la comptabilité céleste’, pp. 63–64. 73  Wollasch, ‘Les Moines et la mémoire des morts’, p. 53; Chibnall, ‘Liens de fraternitas’, pp. 235–36. 74  This has just been confirmed by Lecouteux, ‘Réseaux de confraternité et histoire des bibliothèques’, a doctoral thesis whose results (in press) were presented at the 140th Congress of the Comité des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques (Reims, 27 April 2015).

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cant orders — who would take the opposite approach — a depersonalization of necro­logical commemoration. In fact, the twelfth century is precisely the time when enrolments in spiritual confraternities by the non-professed experienced a second wind, first at Cîteaux and then among the Black Monks. Indeed, the lightening of the liturgical constraints concerning the confratres allowed the circle of the included to be reopened. In parallel, admission into spiritual confraternity, while not wholly eschewing earlier practices, took place through new routes. It was no longer the ‘books of confraternity/ies’, co-populated until then by monks and ‘friends’ of monks, which formalized this link first and foremost and assured its perpetuity. Certainly, records of memorial services, obituaries, and books of benefactors continued to record the names of supporters of the religious recommended to them for prayer. But, with few exceptions,75 these no longer reserved a particular section for affiliates. They also stopped including the names of monks who had died, which were most often inscribed in other lists.76 Thus the border between monks and non-monks was closing again, at least visually. At the same time, the affiliating religious (monks or canons regular) were composing individual ‘certificates’ which they conferred (with a certain degree of solemnity) on new confratres: these were letters of spiritual confraternity. Their formulation took its inspiration both from the documents which, since Carolingian times, monasteries (and later chapters of canons) had exchanged among themselves (to consolidate existing links and to compensate for the absence of priories or of subsidiaries)77 and from the charters by which the religious thanked the formal protectors of their abbeys or their distinguished donors. For the Cistercians, these letters alone could suffice to concretize admission into the spiritual community of the religious — although liturgical sources describe a ritual of entry into societas beginning in the 1130s.78 The White Monks may also have been, according to certain hypotheses, the first to extend these attestations to non-monks — with formal 75 

See Chapter 2. Except in the registries of the canons regular of Bohemia, who continue to list them together. Krafl, Mutlová, and Stehlíková, Řeholní kanovníci sv. Augustina v Lanškrouně, pp. 55–64 (English summary pp. 100–101); Krafl, ‘Konfraternita kartuziánů’; Krafl, ‘Konfraternita lanškrounského’; Krafl, ‘Pozdnestredoveké konfraternity’, pp. 43–45; and Krafl, ‘Dokumenty konfraterni’, pp. 14–15. 77  Illustration of this type of logic in England in Chibnall, ‘Le Problème des réseaux monastiques en Angleterre’. 78  Bijsterveld, ‘Looking for Common Ground’, pp. 300 and 311–12. 76 

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readjustments such as the use of the word confraternitas (or fraternitas) in the singular, which seems to have expressed the one-way transmission (from the monks to the laity) of this grace. The ceremony of entry into a confraternitas, as indicated by charters, notes, and liturgical rules (starting with the Cluniac customary of 1078),79 shows the importance accorded to the affiliating dimension of this grace until the end of the Middle Ages. It consisted, in the twelfth century, of a procession, followed by the solemn inscription of the new member’s name into the liber, in the presence of monks in the chapter house or (more rarely) in front of the high altar of the abbey church.80 In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the English Benedictines reproduced the ritual of the professio in very spectacular fashion: in the chapter house and in the presence of the monks, presided over by the abbot, the applicant (male or female) prostrated him or herself and made his or her request for incorporation; then he or she would stand up again and extend his or her hands over the rule while the abbot read the formula of association; next, he or she would kiss the rule, possibly the abbot and the monks (or the liber, in the case of women), and would then go to sit in the choir, in the seat that had been allocated to him or her.81 Only the vestment ceremony was missing! The logic of ‘brother-becoming’ also appears in the vocabulary used in letters of spiritual confraternity: the lexical field of association (particeps, consortium, participatio) which is used there recalls the texts of the charters in which donors ad sepulturam would express their vow to enter into the ‘society of monks’ (particeps et consors, consortium)82 and to obtain burial in the sacred space of the monastery, with or without the habit.83 In this ultimate version of spiritual confraternity, individualized necro­ logical commemoration — which was already taking various separate channels (obits or death notices, the foundation of masses and other private services) — had lost ground. Indeed, Cistercian letters of the twelfth century do not speak of memoria (or at least no evidence has been found of this). Those 79 

Bijsterveld, ‘Looking for Common Ground’, pp. 296–97. Bijsterveld, ‘Looking for Common Ground’, pp. 296–97. 81  Berlière, ‘Les Confraternités monastiques au Moyen Âge’, pp. 136–38; Clark, ‘Monastic Confraternity in Medi­eval England’, p. 327; de Miramon, Les ‘Donnés’ au Moyen Âge, p. 67. 82  Iogna-Prat, ‘Les Morts dans la comptabilité céleste’, p. 66. 83  Léopold Delisle had already pointed out, in the middle of the nineteenth century, numerous resemblances between the request to be buried in the habit and the entry into spiritual confraternity. Delisle, ‘Des monuments paléo­graphiques’, p. 365. 80 

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admitted to spiritual confraternity only benefited — by default, we might say — from the collective annual remembrance instituted for all the fratres of the order.84 The procedure and the objective — making the monks the auxiliaries of salvation — remained unchanged. The texts of the acts of affiliation emphasize, as early as the beginning of the twelfth century, the salvational effects of incorporation into the spiritual confraternity by specifying that the fortunate recipient would be entitled to share in the benefits (beneficia) or spiritual goods (bona spiritualia) achieved by the religious.85 It was a question not only of being integrated into the monastic liturgy (by the liber) nor even of drawing nearer to the monastic state (by being recognized as a ‘brother’ of the order), but also of tasting the salvational fruits that the monks were amassing day by day. In terms of subject matter, here again, the composers of these letters of affiliation were inventing nothing new. They were merely clarifying the content (and thus the raison d’être) of grace that had existed for centuries, drawing together all the consequences of recent developments in the doctrine of salvation in the West — particularly the ‘theo­logy of merits’ as it was flourishing in the twelfth century, itself inseparable from the ‘birth of purgatory’ and the ultimate extension of the promotion of the communio sanctorum which had underpinned the birth of the first spiritual confraternities four centuries earlier.86 Thus rejuvenated, the link of the monastic fraternitas met with considerable success from the start of the twelfth century until the end of the thirteenth. The inventories made in England in the 1920s by William Clark-Maxwell (covering all orders combined)87 and the mono­graphs published over the last thirty years 84  Conversely, the confratres inscribed in the registry of the Benedictine abbey of Saint Albans, in England, seem to have obtained for themselves, from the twelfth century on, the same post mortem services as deceased monks. Clark, ‘Monastic Confraternity in Medi­eval England’, pp. 322 and 326–27. However, the author interprets the phrase in plenam confraternitatem as evidence of a ‘major’ affiliation (with commemoration modelled on that of the monks), which was not necessarily the case, as we will note in Chapter 4 regarding the mendicants. 85  See the Cistercian letters edited in Meersseman, ‘Two Unknown Confraternity Letters of St. Bernard’ (which end in ‘participem vos facimus omnium bonorum que fiunt et fient in ordine nostro usque in eternum’); Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 58–59 (where we read: ‘concendentes vobis participationem specialem in omnibus bonis nostris spiritualibus’, or again: ‘ut habeant speciale consortium in omnibus beneficiis’). Outside the Cistercian milieu, the charters by which monastic and canonical superiors of Flanders granted, as early as the 1090s, fraternitas to their donors used the same formulae. Bijsterveld, ‘Looking for Common Ground’, pp. 295 and 297. 86  The theo­logical foundations of spiritual confraternity will be addressed in Chapter 4. 87  Clark-Maxwell, ‘Some Letters of Confraternity’ and Clark-Maxwell, ‘Some Further

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in France as well as in neighbouring countries attest to this.88 In Cîteaux, this link benefited from the impetus provided by Bernard of Clairvaux himself.89 The canons regular (Premonstratensians, Canons of Saint Victor, and Austin Canons) were not the last to adopt the process (including the admission ceremony, preferably in the chapter house),90 and were soon followed by the Carthusians,91 by the military and hospitaller orders,92 and finally by the hospitaller congregations (the Roman confraternity of the Holy Spirit, starting in 1564).93 Their innumerable letters or registers constitute as many signs of the ability of monasteries to remain, for centuries, ‘fountains of spiritual benefits’ where ‘the faithful who had stayed in the world’ could come to drink.94 However, a falling back began at the end of the thirteenth century among both the White and the Black Monks. This probably had less to do with the reservations expressed by canon lawyers — which date from the previous century95 — than with the rise of new forms of semi-religious life which better corresponded to the expectations of the laity who wished to draw nearer to the monks.96 The Benedictine spiritual confraternities only came out of their leth-

Letters of Confraternity’. 88  See the three contributions to the volume Les Mouvances laïques des ordres religieux previously mentioned (Marjorie Chibnall, Henk Teunis, Bernard Ardura), which are supplied with abundant biblio­g raphical references, and those of the volume Jamroziak and Burton, Religious and Laity in Western Europe, 1000–1400 (in particular Arnoud-Jan Bijsterveld and James Clark). 89  Meersseman, ‘Two Unknown Confraternity Letters of St. Bernard’. In England, see Clark-Maxwell, ‘Some Further Letters of Confraternity’, p. 180, and catalogue, pp. 206–16. 90  They took their inspiration from Cistercian regulations, themselves derived from Cluniac customaries of the end of the eleventh century. In Flanders: Bijsterveld, ‘Looking for Common Ground’, pp. 295–303. In Ireland: Gribbin and Ó Clabaigh, ‘Confraternity Letters’, p. 466. In Bohemia and Poland, see the editions of sources by Pavel Krafl, cited above, note 76. 91  Irish and English examples: Gribbin and Ó Clabaigh, ‘Confraternity Letters’, p. 466; Clark-Maxwell, ‘Some Further Letters of Confraternity’, p. 184; Swanson, ‘Mendicants and Confraternity in Late Medi­eval England’, p. 123. 92  Carraz, L’Ordre du Temple dans la basse vallée du Rhône, pp. 332–45; de Miramon, Les ‘Donnés’ au Moyen Âge, pp. 87–95. 93  Brune, Histoire de l’Ordre Hospitalier du Saint-Esprit, in particular pp. 155–56. See also below, concerning the Roman confraternity of the Holy Spirit. 94  Vincent, ‘Fraternités laïques et monastères bénédictins au xiie siècle’, pp. 293–94. 95  See Chapter 4. 96  De Miramon, Les ‘Donnés’ au Moyen Âge.

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argy in the middle of the fourteenth century (in England)97 and more generally after 1450, in the context of the regular reforms. Reactivating, in some cases, spiritual unions which had been forgotten for centuries, they linked together several establishments of the same congregation, or opened themselves to other orders — each informing the other of the deaths of its members through the celebrated ‘rolls of the dead’ which dated back to the Carolingian era.98 But their acts of admission were not addressed to the laity nor to the secular clergy (with a few exceptions, notably in England).99 These groups figured only in the records of memorial services and registers of benefactors maintained by each establishment. The expansion of these compilations at the end of the Middle Ages owed nothing to the principle of spiritual confraternity. Rather, it resulted from the proliferation of private masses, the fruit of the individualization of commemorative practices, and from the increased tendency of the laity to demand that monks scrupulously respect their commitments toward them.100

Do Mendicant Spiritual Confraternities Even Exist? After 1250, spiritual confraternities were born around secular and semi-secular ecclesiastical communities. Cathedral churches and chapters, 101 collegiate 97 

In the Benedictine monastery of Saint Albans, this new departure explains the com­ position, begun around 1350, of its extraordinary register of benefactors. Clark, ‘Monastic Confraternity in Medi­eval England’, p. 321. 98  French examples in Le Gall, Les Moines au temps des réformes, p. 368. On the rolls of the dead, see Delisle, Rouleaux des morts and Delisle, ‘Des monuments paléo­graphiques’. 99  The liber benefactorum of the Benedictine monastery of Saint Albans shows that letters of affiliation were still issued to members of the laity there at the very end of the Middle Ages. Other English abbeys were still continuing to admit lay auxiliaries into their confraternities at that time. Clark, ‘Monastic Confraternity in Medi­e val England’, especially pp. 320 and 329. This longevity of Benedictine confraternities in England may have a link with the absence of ‘donnés’ — who, on the continent, seem to have carried on from lay confratres after 1200. De Miramon, Les ‘Donnés’ au Moyen Âge, in particular, pp. 58, 60, and 96. Hungary, where the donati seem to have been rare, and where letters of regular (non-mendicant) affiliation are still found at the end of the Middle Ages, seems in this to be close to England. The following chapters will show, nevertheless, the limits of this kind of reasoning, the degree of commitment of the donati being clearly more intense than that of the confratres, who changed nothing about their way of life after their admission. 100  Berlière, ‘Les Confraternités monastiques au Moyen Âge’, pp. 140–41 — even as he amal­ gamated books of confraternities (libri confraternitatum) and registers of benefactors (libri vit(a)e). 101  We know of no early examples of cathedral or collegiate confraternities. No liber

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churches, university colleges, and finally hospitaller confraternities 102 all became, in turn, the centre of spiritual associations open to the laity. Although their size and their recruitment varied considerably — from circles limited to donors recorded by name to associations welcoming all past, present, and future benefactors to the community — they all had in common the granting to their supporters of spiritual ‘benefits’ (participation in the merits of the affiliators but also recommendation for their prayers, remission by indulgence, etc.) as well as the title of confrater (or of concanonicus, depending on the situation), all this outside of any formal, material, or institutionalized framework.103 Only parish churches remained excluded from the movement, since they lacked the status of community.104 In this context, the appropriation of the spiritual confraternity model by the mendicants, and its thriving in the final centuries of the Middle Ages, is no surprise. Both stemmed first from the popularity of the ordines mendicantes, both in its initial phase and as renewed in the fifteenth century, once the challenges of the previous century had been overcome. Privileged intercessors in the eyes of princes, prelates, nobles, and city dwellers, the friars raised themselves ipso facto to the rank of the most sought-after repositories and dispensers of merits, gradually overshadowing the monks in this respect. Moreover, in contrast to what the reservations expressed in the middle of the twelfth century by Salimbene di Adam might lead us to believe,105 spiritual confraternity was confraternitatum has been found related to a cathedral or collegiate church, except for those, numerous in England, which were served by monks or canons regular. Wollasch, ‘Les Moines et la mémoire des morts’, p. 48. The register listing the members of the societas Saint-Maurice of the cathedral of Tours, which dates to the tenth century, cited by Gilles Meersseman (Ordo fraternitatis, pp. 99–108) seems to describe a lay brotherhood (with paying subscriptions) rather than a spiritual association. Atypical examples of ‘concanonicatus’ dating to the the twelfth century, in Aragon, may be found in de Miramon, Les ‘Donnés’ au Moyen Âge, pp. 78–86. 102  The case of the Roman lay brotherhood of the Holy Spirit, much valued by Hungarian Christians but which did not yet affiliate its members with the merits of the foundation in the Middle Ages, will be examined in Chapter 3. 103  French examples in Vincent, Les Confréries médiévales dans le royaume de France, p. 103. Examples of spiritual confraternities woven by cathedral churches and by university colleges in Clark-Maxwell, ‘Some Further Letters of Confraternity’, notably in the inventory (pp. 213–14) — which Robert Swanson includes in ‘Mendicants and Confraternity in Late Medi­eval England’, pp. 121–22. 104  Robert Swanson notes this in England in ‘Mendicants and Confraternity in Late Medi­ eval England’, p. 123. 105  Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 59.

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not fundamentally incompatible with the mendicant state. It even suited it (the mendicant state) particularly well since the friars could reward their benefactors by this means, without being subject to the same constraints as when granting them burial within the friary walls or the celebration of private masses in the friary church,106 not to mention the heavy burden entailed by the support and supervision of pious lay associations or tertiary organizations.107 To avoid suspicion that they were slavishly imitating the monks, all the mendicants had to do was adapt the formula to the requirement of poverty, that is, to make sure confraternal memberships were not subject to the obligation of payment of goods or revenues.108 Furthermore, they could not adopt the practice of spiritual confraternity too widely, nor recommend it to their faithful too openly, since their pastoral ethos invited those same faithful to place the practice of the virtues above all else. Under these conditions, spiritual confraternity was simply an extension of the spiral of exchanges of spiritual benefits for material benefits to which the mendicants owed their founding and their day-to-day subsistence. When they do not overlook their very existence, current researchers minimize the importance of mendicant spiritual confraternities. Joachim Wollasch concludes his fine article on the commemoration of the dead at Cluny by declaring how this function, formerly allocated to monks, was transferred to (lay) confraternities and urban parishes starting in the thirteenth century, without even mentioning the spiritual confraternities of the mendicant orders.109 General histories of individual mendicant orders devote at best a few lines to them.110 Gilles Meersseman mentions nothing of this practice except 106 

The ‘private’ character of these moreover raised recurrent criticism from German municipalities in the fifteenth century. Nyhus, The Franciscans in South Germany, pp. 9–14. Ludovic Viallet sees in this one of the driving forces behind the involvement of German and Silesian towns (from Nuremberg to Wrocław) in the reform of Franciscan monasteries. Les Sens de l’observance, pp. 166–67. Chapter 6 will revisit the connection between private services and spiritual confraternity. 107  For Grado Merlo, the concession of the first letters of confraternity by the minister general John of Parma in the 1250s likely expressed the resistance by Franciscans to hosting communities of penitents. Au nom de saint François, p. 183. This point is debatable, however, since benefactors and penitents did not belong to the same circles and did not have the same life goals. The mendicant spiritual confraternities did not furthermore hamper the development of fraternities of tertiaries from the end of the thirteenth century on. 108  Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 50–51. 109  Wollasch, ‘Les Moines et la mémoire des morts’, p. 54. 110  See above.

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with reference to the Marian confraternities attached to mendicant friaries which obtained letters of affiliation from the Franciscans and the Dominicans.111 Studies on the social influence and economic supports of the mendicants either do not speak of them at all,112 or propose their existence as anecdotal.113 From the perspective of the history of spirituality, the record is just as disappointing. In recent scholarly literature, participation in the merits of the friars figures rarely among the tools that were available to prepare oneself for death or to shorten the punishments of purgatory.114 The latest research on the development of the notion of ‘spiritual family’ among late medi­e val mendicants is silent on the subject.115 Mono­graphs (devoted to a city, a friary, or a mendicant province) are scarcely more forthcoming. To give just two recent examples, Jens Röhrkasten’s expansive volume on medi­eval mendicant establishments in London as well as Jørgen Nybo Rasmussen’s book on Scandinavian Franciscans each devote only a short para­graph to confraternal affiliations.116 What is more unsettling is how these confraternal affiliations suffer from deforming or caricatural representations. John Moorman summarizes the process of admission to the spiritual confraternity of the Franciscans in these terms: ‘For a sum of money, left normally to a third party to administer on behalf of the friars, a layman or woman could acquire the privilege of being buried in the Franciscan habit and of being prayed for by the friars’. Three errors mar this definition: the obligation of giving a sum of money to become a confrater or consoror; the recruiting of members only from among the laity; and the concomitant obtaining of burial in the habit.117 Another example from 111  Meersseman, Ordo fraternitatis, pp. 979–89 and edited documents pp. 1006–08 and 1014–15. 112  A few recent examples: Volti, Les Couvents des ordres mendiants; Bériou and Chiffoleau, Économie et religion. 113  Bertrand, Commerce avec dame Pauvreté, pp. 468–69. 114  The issue of the Cahiers de Fanjeaux entitled La Mort et l’au-delà en France méridionale (xiie–xve siècle) (1998) includes a single article that alludes to mendicant spiritual confraternities — without specifically naming them: Picard, ‘Les Suffrages’. 115  Vauchez, Saints, prophètes et visionnaires, p. 76. 116  Röhrkasten, The Mendicant Houses of Medi­eval London, pp. 465–66. This is not mentioned at all in the article by the same author: ‘The Mendicant Orders in Urban Life and Society’ (beyond a vague allusion to amici spirituales, p. 348), an article which concentrates, it is true, on the first century of the implantation of the mendicants. Rasmussen, Die Franziskaner, pp. 408–09. 117  Moorman, A History of the Franciscan Order, p. 120. The author returns to the last affirmation, clarifying later on (p. 355) that certain letters of confraternity granted burial in the habit, while others did not.

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this florilegium: in his study on the mendicant friaries of Groningen, Folkert Bakker sees the practice of confraternal affiliations as a system which, having allowed the friars to repay their donors, seems to have served to extract more alms from the faithful to support their friaries.118 It is true that, reproducing a system that was widespread among monks in the twelfth century — in which one-time or annual payments accompanied admission into the (con)fraternitas — the admission procedures into a spiritual confraternity sometimes took on an air of disguised collection, particularly in the fourteenth century: the friars would accept gifts on this occasion or would ask that new confratres renew their previous acts of generosity, thus revealing their dependence with respect to their benefactors.119 Still, at least in their written texts, they never set out the payment of a sum of money or the deeding of a possession as a formal condition of entry into spiritual confraternity. It was out of gratitude, and not as something owed, that the affiliation was given, alone or in addition to other spiritual rewards.120 To date, Hugolin Lippens is the only author to have sketched out (in 1939) a general overview of mendicant spiritual confraternities in the Middle Ages.121 Focusing only on the Franciscans, and occupying only forty or so pages, this study received limited circulation.122 On the Dominican side, Servatius Wolfs edited about thirty letters of affiliation addressed to Flemish recipients over the course of the Middle Ages, recalling in his introduction their theo­logical principle and the apparition of spiritual confraternities in the legislation of the Friars Preachers.123 Unlike Marie-Humbert Vicaire, who mentions no trace of them in the Languedoc in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,124 Daniel Picard alludes to letters of suffrages sent within the Dominican province of 118 

Bakker, Bedelorden en begijnen, p. 88 — quoted by Bertrand, Commerce avec dame Pau­ vreté, p. 469 n. 175. Similarly, the short passage which Charles de Miramon devotes to Franciscan letters of fraternity (in Les ‘Donnés’ au Moyen Âge, pp. 68–69) posits, wrongly, the impossibility for custodians and guardians to produce letters of confraternity and, more generally, establishes an intrinsic relationship between confraternity and indulgences. 119  Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 50. 120  See Chapters 4 and 5. 121  Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’. 122  Neither Andrew G. Little (in ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’), nor more recently Robert Swanson (in the titles noted below), nor Marcin Starzyński (‘Il re, il vescovo ed il predicatore’) drew upon it. 123  Litterae de beneficiis, ed. by Wolfs. 124  See the contributions by this eminent specialist on the first century of Dominican his-

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Toulouse until 1300; but he limits their purpose to necro­logical commemoration and he combines them with spiritual services of a different nature.125 We must wait until the turn of the millennium to find a handful of medi­evalists — English and Irish — who are interested in the phenomenon for itself, building on the insular documentation inventoried between 1920 and 1940 by William Clark-Maxwell and Andrew Little.126 Their work tends, nevertheless, to dilute the spiritual confraternity into the whole range of graces granted by the mendicants — whether in their own name or by apostolic delegation (indulgences or remission of the punishments of purgatory, free choice of confessor, right of burial while under interdict). Finally, and very recently, in his book analysing the driving forces behind the Franciscan Observance in the Germanic sphere, Ludovic Viallet links the expansion of spiritual confraternity in this region to the reforming dynamic of the fifteenth century,127 a stimulating key to reading and understanding, but one which obviously cannot take account of the entirety of the phenomenon. How can this long historio­g raphical disaffection be explained when the proliferation of research on mendicant orders has produced so many works on the other ‘spheres of influence’ of the mendicant friaries (fraternities of tertiaries, groups of penitents, and lay confraternities) for half a century? The rather limited rate of conservation of sources does not constitute a sufficient explanation.128 Hugolin Lippens expressed regret as early as 1939 that the innumerable copies of letters of affiliation consigned to the approximately six hundred regular formularies that were known in his lifetime — material which lent itself to study by individual order and on a comparative basis — were not being further exploited.129 The disappearance of nearly all the letters produced in England has not dissuaded British researchers from pursuing their investi­g ations by examining other sources (wills, records of memorial services,

tory published in the different numbers of the Cahiers de Fanjeaux and collected in Vicaire, Les Prêcheurs et la vie religieuse des Pays d’Oc au xiiie siècle. 125  Picard, ‘Les Suffrages’. 126  Swanson, ‘Mendicants and Confraternity in Late Medi­eval England’; Swanson, ‘Letters of Confraternity and Indulgence’; Gribbin and Ó Clabaigh, ‘Confraternity Letters’; Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’. 127  Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, pp. 159–204 (Chapter 3, ‘Usages de l’association spirituelle’), and ‘Indulgences’. 128  See the following chapter. 129  Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 57–58.

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formularies, etc.).130 Conversely, in Hungary, where letters of affiliation have survived in comparatively favourable proportions, they have not so far been the object of specific research. The formal monotony of the letters of confraternity — constructed according to a fixed ‘canvas’ and formulated in an almost unchanging way over three centuries — is enough to dampen the ardour of the most enthusiastic scholars, it must be admitted. It hampers a priori any diachronic or spatial analysis of the process.131 Worse, it has given the impression that this was a practice so banal and standardized that (just as in the case of indulgences) neither the dispensing religious nor the beneficiaries of spiritual confraternity really took it seriously.132 If mendicant spiritual confraternities awaken so few research vocations, it is also because they draw on sources that are both external and previous to the ordines mendicantes, who were themselves never the exclusive users of this grace. Going against the initial plan of their founders, and a certain historio­ graphical tradition, spiritual confraternities pull them towards the practices of the monks. Consequently, it is impossible to see a ‘mendicant marker’ in them. Finally, without necessarily going back to the initial hesitations of certain Franciscans, which may have left their traces on Franciscan historio­graphy, spiritual associations are viewed to this day with the same reproving denigration as indulgences. Accused of being tainted with simony by Wyclif, Hus, and then Luther, they seem to illustrate the nefarious relationship between the Catholic Church, promises of salvation, and money in the Middle Ages. To the question ‘Should letters of spiritual confraternity be saved?’ mischievously alluded to by Ludovic Viallet,133 researchers answer (most often a silentio) in the negative.

130 

Clark-Maxwell, ‘Some Further Letters of Confraternity’, p. 196; Swanson, ‘Mendicants and Confraternity in Late Medi­eval England’, pp. 123 and 125. The problem of conservation of letters of confraternity will be considered in the following chapter. 131  In fact, the general uniformity does not exclude inflections in time and in space. These are only perceptible through painstaking analysis of the texts of the letters of confraternity — a tedious but indispensable task to get beyond the level of generalizations. 132  Monastic confraternities suffer from the same discredit at the end of the Middle Ages, as James G. Clark laments: ‘the formulaic language and the open-ended nature of the grants do tend to reinforce the impression that this form of monastic confraternity was little more than a petty form of indulgence in which neither the monastery nor the laity invested in a serious way’. Clark, ‘Monastic Confraternity in Medi­eval England’, p. 320. 133  Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, p. 159.

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Established Historio­graphical Facts Some of the ground work has nonetheless been done. The spiritual background in which mendicant spiritual confraternities exist has benefited from the recent work of André Vauchez on the notion of spiritual family — avatar of the beata stirps which blossomed among the Dominicans and even more among the Franciscans starting in the fourteenth century. Reactivating the monastic tradition, mendicant friars created a discourse on the familia which, by founding the notion of family not on fleshly links but on spiritual ones, validated all forms of affiliation with the mendicants. Since the order became the ‘privileged site for the transmission of sanctity’, ‘the mere fact of becoming a member or adherent allowed the person who did so to connect, as it were, to the flow of grace which spouted from the heart of the poverello, and to benefit from it’.134 This conception expressed itself icono­graphically by the theme, flourishing at the end of the Middle Ages and at the start of the modern era, of the ‘ordo-tree’ — described by Dominique Donadieu-Rigaut in her doctoral thesis. It united friars, nuns, and tertiaries in a vast nebula going back to the founder, ‘overarchingly present’, or even to Christ himself.135 No doubt the members of spiritual confraternities found their place in this ‘mystical body’, itself housed in Ecclesia. Spiritual confraternity experienced, manifestly, a hesitant start among the Franciscans, who were immediately accused by their detractors of accentuating their dependence on their benefactors and of violating their vow of poverty. The delays in general (and notably, pontifical) legislation expose this difficult genesis: not until the fourteenth century, under Pope Urban V (with the Beneficia sanctorum bull) was the right of the mendicant friars to affiliate formally given, a right which was confirmed several times at the end of the following century.136 The Dominicans had had fewer scruples: they officially gave themselves this power starting in the middle of the thirteenth century.137 This did not prevent the Franciscans from establishing themselves as the widest issuers of letters of affiliation after 1400. 134 

Vauchez, Saints, prophètes et visionnaires, p. 76. Donadieu-Rigaut, Penser en images, pp. 279–335. 136  Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 50–51. 137  In the De vita regulari, Humbert of Romans mentions the litterae affiliationales among the letters which the general master is qualified to produce. Humbertus de Romanis, Opera de vita regulari, ed. by Berthier, ii, 191. The General Constitutions of 1241 already evoked the benefactores et familiares, whose deaths were to be commemorated once a year along with those of the family members of the friars. Picard, ‘Les Suffrages’, p. 118. 135 

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Hugolin Lippens was the first to have asked the question concerning the appropriation, by the mendicants, of a monastic practice that had existed for several centuries.138 His response was nuanced. Having examined the content, the formal mould, the issuers, and the addressees of several dozen letters of affiliation from 1250 to the bull of union in 1517 — of which he provides and introduces eleven atypical examples in an annex — he recognizes the weight of the Cistercian heritage.139 The archival discoveries of Gilles Meersseman confirm this continuity for the Friars Preachers: the Dominicans of Vienna were still drawing inspiration from the letters of confraternity of Bernard of Clairvaux as late as the fifteenth century.140 For all that, it was not a matter of identical reproduction. Lippens identifies three major modifications which left their imprint on the mendicant letters (even if they were rapidly imitated by other regular orders):141 first, the explicit distinction between two degrees of affiliation, one ‘common’ and the other ‘special’, that is, including post mortem commemoration; second, the progressive lengthening of the detailed lists of benefits achieved by the religious and shared with the intended recipients; and finally, the multiplication of signs of authentication (diplomatic structure, formulation, sealing ) which make these letters of affiliation into true official documents. It seems that, by these procedures, the Franciscans were able to preserve their identity, while simultaneously responding to the requests of their external supporters. Lippens thus touches on the key question of the tension between ‘offer’ and ‘request’. He also emphasizes the openness of the circle of the admitted to all social categories, a tendency which he sets in opposition to the (supposedly) elitist recruitment by monastic confraternities. He observes, finally, the hierarchical diversity of the 138 

William Clark-Maxwell had already noted a few formal and hierarchical differences between mendicant letters and monastic letters in ‘Some Further Letters of Confraternity’, passim. Robert Swanson asks the question, but gives up on finding an answer, for lack of sources: ‘what, if anything, made mendicant confraternity different? […] Such questions cannot be successfully answered, because the evidence available for assessment is generally insufficient’. Swanson, ‘Mendicants and Confraternity in Late Medi­eval England’, p. 123. 139  Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 58–59. 140  A letter of affiliation written by Bernard of Clairvaux figures in a Dominican formulary in use among the Preaching Friars of Vienna. Meersseman, ‘Two Unknown Confraternity Letters of St. Bernard’ — reprinted in Meersseman, Ordo fraternitatis, p. 15. 141  Unless the monks were their real authors? The following chapters will show that certain usages, terms, and notions, attributed by Hugolin Lippens to the Franciscans, came in fact from monastic writings.

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senders of the letters (guardians, custodians, provincial superiors, or superiors general).142 Thus, the mendicants profitably redirected a formula which, among monks, had been simply marking time since the end of the thirteenth century. Its proliferation after 1350 and then after 1450 brought with it the adoption of mass production techniques, in particular the establishment, in the second half of the fifteenth century, of ‘fill-in-the-blanks letters’ (litter(a)e in albo). These were firmly condemned by the general chapter of the Franciscans sub ministris which met in Laval in 1505.143 British studies have taken a position not only from the point of view of the friars, but also from that of their affiliates. Based on the letters of confraternity inventoried by William Clark-Maxwell and Andrew Little, from wills but also from literary texts (such as the Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer) and polemical writings (since the mendicant orders were among the favourite targets of Wyclif-era anti-mendicant treatises), Robert Norman Swanson has attempted to determine the place of spiritual affiliation in the pastoral strategy of the friars as well as in lay religious practices in England.144 He includes it in the commerce of spiritual graces (‘indulgence business’) practised at the time by all regular orders, with the mendicants leading the way.145 The sparing use of the word confraternitas in English Franciscan letters of confraternity leads him, indeed, to cast doubt on the autonomy of the notion.146 According to different criteria from those of Hugolin Lippens, Robert Swanson distinguishes between two types of affiliation, which he names, respectively ‘specific’ and ‘open confraternity’.147 In his view, admission into the ‘specific confraternity’, pronounced in the provincial chapter, gave rise to the establishment of personal, named letters delivered individually to their 142 

Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 49. Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 75. 144  In the two articles mentioned above: Swanson, ‘Letters of Confraternity and Indulgence’ and Swanson, ‘Mendicants and Confraternity in Late Medi­eval England’. 145  Swanson, ‘Mendicants and Confraternity in Late Medi­eval England’, pp. 121–22. 146  Swanson, ‘Mendicants and Confraternity in Late Medi­eval England’, p. 126. 147  Not having read Lippens, Robert Swanson seems to discover the distinction between ‘minor’ and ‘major’ confraternity in the English documentation. Swanson, ‘Letters of Confraternity and Indulgence’, p. 52, and Swanson, ‘Mendicants and Confraternity in Late Medi­eval England’, pp. 138–39. He interprets the qualifying adjectives common and full attached to the word ‘confraternity’ in a Carmelite registry of the beginning of the sixteenth century as expressing an opposition between open confraternity and specific confraternity. ‘Mendicants and Confraternity in Late Medi­eval England’, p. 126 n. 24. 143 

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beneficiaries. The entry into the ‘open confraternity’, on the contrary, used mass techniques. Letters of incorporation, first manu­script and then printed, starting in the 1470s, and always pre-filled in, were distributed in the course of collections organised by friaries. Their diffusion was the result of a veritable commercial strategy (‘marketing methods’). Their texts, ending in an ‘open’ enumeration, granted, on top of spiritual confraternity, various graces (free choice of confessor, remission of sins at the moment of death, the right to Christian burial while under interdict, indulgences).148 To explain the enthusiasm for spiritual confraternity in England, Robert Swanson posits recognizing it as a possible palliative for the absence of third-order fraternities. 149 Andrew Little attributed it to the difficulty of obtaining burial in the Franciscan habit.150 Whatever the case, members of the laity recognized a certain value in the practice: not only did they mention the purchase of letters of affiliation from different clerics or ecclesiastical organizations in their account registries,151 but they carefully deposited these letters in their family archives, with titles of possession.152 The article by Joseph Gribbin and Colmán Ó Clabaigh (2002) on Irish letters of confraternity confirms this attachment. On the other hand, it contradicts Robert Swanson’s hypothesis of a disorganized accumulation of graces coming from all orders: the Irish faithful chose their orders rigorously, and their choice was not necessarily dictated by the proximity of a friary or other institution of the dispensing order.153 Irish sources also indicate a close parallel

148 

Swanson, ‘Mendicants and Confraternity in Late Medi­e val England’, pp.  126–35; Swanson, ‘Letters of Confraternity and Indulgence’, pp. 42–43. Benedictine examples of the letters of multiple graces have been located in England at the very end of the Middle Ages. Clark, ‘Monastic Confraternity in Medi­eval England’, pp. 320–21. 149  Swanson, ‘Mendicants and Confraternity in Late Medi­e val England’, pp.  137–38. Ludovic Viallet refutes this interpretation in Les Sens de l’observance, p. 161. It fails to take into account the situation in Ireland, where third-order fraternities were numerous at the end of the Middle Ages (Gribbin and Ó Clabaigh, ‘Confraternity Letters’, pp. 459–60), as well as in many other regions. 150  Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, pp. 19–20. 151  Swanson, ‘Letters of Confraternity and Indulgence’, pp. 47–49. 152  In the accounts of the lineage of the Willoughby family established around 1520, for example. Swanson, ‘Mendicants and Confraternity in Late Medi­eval England’, pp. 140–41, and Swanson, ‘Letters of Confraternity and Indulgence’, p. 57. 153  Gribbin and Ó Clabaigh, ‘Confraternity Letters’, pp. 467–68.

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between the proliferation of affiliations by letter and the rise of the Franciscan Observance, whereas the Conventuals seem to have had no part in it.154 This correlation has been confirmed in several recent investigations devoted to the Germanic and Central European spheres. John of Capistrano imprinted a new twist — qualitatively and quantitatively — on the confraternal admission practices followed by the Friars Minor, as Hugolin Lippens has already noted, building upon the remarks with which Johannes Hofer introduced his repertory of letters of affiliation produced by that preacher.155 But Capistrano was not the only reforming mendicant leader who used letters of confraternity, manifestly, as a pastoral tool. Petra Weigel closely connects Franciscan reform in Germany — under the two institutional reforms, sub vicariis and sub ministris — with the rapid expansion of Franciscan affiliations in the fifteenth century.156 Forced to abandon the foundation of private masses — a practice which presumed the prerequisite and definitive transfer of goods or income to the friaries, and which was incompatible with the observant understanding of Franciscan poverty and furthermore increasingly contested by German municipalities157 — the reformed friars seem to have consolidated their external support by opening the doors of their spiritual confraternity to their supporters. Drawing on Silesian and Lusatian examples, Ludovic Viallet nuances these proposals. He does not perceive a desire by Franciscan reformers to make confraternal admissions into a divisive issue with the Conventuals (contrary to the situation in Ireland) nor even a weapon in the duel which placed the two groups on opposing sides at the time.158 He links the development of the formula to the content of the Observant propositum vitae: characterized by the ‘return to the cloister’ — whose trace seems to be found in the list of graces enumerated in the letters of confraternity — the latter encouraged reforming friars to have recourse to spiritual association ‘to labour at the densification of the intermediate space […] between the world and the desert’.159 154 

Gribbin and Ó Clabaigh, ‘Confraternity Letters’, p. 461. Hofer, ‘Bruderschaftsbriefe des heil. Johannes Kapistran’, pp. 326–28. 156  Weigel, Ordensreform und Konziliarismus — cited by Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, pp. 187–88. 157  Nyhus, The Franciscans in South Germany, pp. 9–14. Ludovic Viallet sees in this reticence one of the driving forces behind the involvement of Germanic municipalities in the reform of Franciscan monasteries. Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, pp. 166–67. 158  Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, pp. 164–65 and p. 188. 159  Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, p. 159. 155 

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In all cases, the Observant movement appears as a major turning point in the history of mendicant spiritual confraternities. It was not limited to the Franciscans. The curve of Dominican affiliations, according to the inventories of available letters, also follows the progress of the reform — discreet but real — of the Friars Preachers.160

Unresolved Questions Is there really a Franciscan specificity, among the mendicants, concerning the notion of confraternitas? Nothing is less certain. Hugolin Lippens does not find any true originality on the part of the Friars Minor (in content nor in form) outside of the ‘Capistrano case’.161 Ludovic Viallet emphasizes the relationship of the Franciscan spiritual confraternity to the third order, and its willing adaptation to the demands of fifteenth-century reformers.162 This does not prevent us from imagining similar convergences among the Dominicans. In truth, there is a lack of points of comparison, since the Franciscans have attracted the most attention. Daniel Picard does describe a practice that was standard among the Dominicans of southern France as early as the start of the fourteenth century, according to provincial registers.163 The English catalogues of letters of affiliation show that, following the Franciscans and the Dominicans, the Augustinian Hermits and the English Carmelites produced a fair number of their own letters at the end of the Middle Ages — not to mention the Trinitarians, the ‘fifth mendicant order’.164 It is not impossible that, notably in Italy, the Servants of Mary also had recourse to such letters. Many other elements of the history of mendicant spiritual confraternities remain obscure. We know nothing of their possible regional variants. The investigations carried out in the British Isles, in Germany, and in Scandinavia are based on documentation that is too heterogeneous and too sparse to allow fruitful comparisons with the German examples studied by Petra Weigel and Ludovic Viallet. The chrono­logical inflections of the admissions curve are no easier to perceive, except in large-scale movements such as the Observant 160 

See the lists of William Clark-Maxwell previously cited. The ‘Hungarian’ corpus reinforces this hypothesis, as we shall see. 161  Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, passim. 162  Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, pp. 160 and 166. 163  Picard, ‘Les Suffrages’, in particular p. 113. 164  Swanson, ‘Mendicants and Confraternity in Late Medi­eval England’, pp. 125 and 133.

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boom among the Franciscans.165 The extended influence of mendicant spiritual confraternities within the strata of Christian society is the subject of assessments that are vague, hesitant, or rendered fragile by the most recent research.166 Their impact on the religious practices of their affiliates is never considered. Some proposals create additional confusion. This is the case with the distinction between ‘specific confraternity’ and ‘open confraternity’ posited by Robert Swanson. It artificially links three aspects which the discourse and practices of the mendicants in fact dissociated: the hierarchical level of the sender of the letters of affiliation (friary, custody, provincial chapter or superior, order), the content of the salvational graces granted (confraternity alone or confraternity combined with other benefits), and the techniques of composition and dissemination of the letters (individualized or anonymous mass production). Whether or not the friars added additional favours to the affiliation changes nothing about its spiritual tenor.167 Above all, upon close examination of series of acts of affiliation, we notice that priors general sometimes produced ‘fill-inthe-blank letters’ and that these could only grant confraternity, whereas others, delivered by friary superiors, were nominative and conferred ‘major’ confraternity upon their recipient. The only (though non-negligible) interest of this dichotomy is to suggest two usages of spiritual confraternity by mendicant offi­ ciales in the late Middle Ages: the one selective, nominative, non-extendable, and non-payable, which more often (though not exclusively) characterized the letters issued by provincials and superiors general; the other, more unrestricted

165 

The English and Irish examples referred to by Robert Swanson, Joseph Gribbin, Colmán Ó Clabaigh, and Jens Röhrkasten concentrate on the period from about 1480 to 1520; the Scandinavian examples mentioned by Jørgen Rasmussen begin in 1404 but are not set out in detail afterwards; the Dominican letters noted by Daniel Picard only cover the first half of the fourteenth century. See the references given above. 166  Andrew Little (‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, p. 20) says he is unable to pin down the origin of the affiliates in the fifty-seven Franciscan letters that he collected, since he was unable to identify them. The idea that the mendicants widened the social circle of their affiliates, proposed by Hugolin Lippens, is based on the assumption that the monastic recruitment to spiritual confraternities was limited to high-ranking members of the clergy and laity, an assumption that was partially contradicted by the research of James Clark and of Charles Mériaux. See above. 167  Robert Swanson also includes in his discussion letters which limit themselves to granting to their recipient the same spiritual favours as to the confratres and consorores (following the bulls of 1479 and 1485) without expressly recognizing them as members of the confraternity of the friars.

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and given in exchange for money, which certain friary leaders clearly abused in order to deal with their treasury problems.168 When we leave behind the terrain of interpretative schemas to return to the generally accepted one of the concrete workings of the spiritual confraternity, we are confronted with new impasses. The Anglo-Irish studies show an unexplained gap between England, where wills are practically the only traces of the delivery of mendicant letters of affiliation,169 and Ireland, where the letters are scarcely better preserved but where wills are absolutely silent on their existence.170 This makes us wonder about the treatment reserved for written proof of admission into a spiritual confraternity, as much by the confratres as by the mendicants themselves. In England, as Robert Swanson recognizes, the circulation of the letters remains enigmatic. Almost all the nominative letters have disappeared. It must then be the case that, considered useless at a certain point in time, they were destroyed en masse as ephemera.171 When? Probably upon the death of the interested party, just like numerous letters of indulgence.172 By whom? English testators frequently asked their designated executors to return the letter(s) to the friary (friaries), doubtless so that the friars could add their name immediately to the register of ‘friends’ of the community. Indeed, the final clauses of certain letters of confraternity specify this.173 But how can we explain the fact that these letters have partially survived, and this less often (in England as in Hungary) in friary collections than in family archives? Could this mean that they were never transmitted to the religious (neither to the local friary which served as intermediary, nor to the provincial or general chapter in charge of celebrating their memoria)? And why do certain testators ask that correctly formulated official letters of affiliation be established for them after their death?174 168 

See Chapter 5. Röhrkasten, The Mendicant Houses of Medi­eval London, p. 465; Swanson, ‘Mendicants and Confraternity in Late Medi­eval England’, pp. 139–40. 170  Gribbin and Ó Clabaigh, ‘Confraternity Letters’, p. 461. Hungarian wills are just as silent on this, as we shall see. 171  This statement already appears in Clark-Maxwell, ‘Some Further Letters of Confraternity’, p. 196, without documentary references. But these destructions were not systematic. In Ireland: Gribbin and Ó Clabaigh, ‘Confraternity Letters’, pp. 463–65. 172  On the fate of letters of indulgence in England, see Swanson, ‘Letters of Confraternity and Indulgence’, p. 57. 173  Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, p. 14. 174  Swanson, ‘Mendicants and Confraternity in Late Medi­eval England’, pp. 139–40, and 169 

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Contrary to the early assumptions of Andrew Little, 175 no mendicant establishment seems to have set up a registry exclusively enumerating the members of the spiritual confraternity, as had been done by the liber con­ fraternitatum of the Carolingian period. The names of confratres might be recorded, in England as in Silesia176 or in Hungary,177 in a book grouping together all the donors and benefactors of the establishment, affiliated or not — as in monastic establishments. But their recording was not at all automatic: certain affiliates, as has been formally proven, do not figure in these lists.178 Since confraternal membership implied no change to the liturgy for the friars,179 it is understandable that the latter did not trouble to duplicate each letter of confraternity — a practice only attested to in the framework of overlapping admissions with other regular communities — in order to keep a copy of it. The association with merits, which began, in principle, during the very lifetime of the recipients (‘in vita et in morte’), gave rise to post mortem citations in its ‘major’ version. In this case at least, a list of members could (or should) therefore have been constituted. But none has survived. Negligence? It is certainly true that English testators manifestly feared being ‘forgotten’. But, by requesting that the letters be returned to the dispensing friars, they were depriving their descendants (named among the recipients) of proof of their affiliation.180 And this does not explain why so many other testators (Irish, Provençal, Hungarian) felt no need to add these clauses to their wills.181 Overall, the question of the operating method of the spiritual confraternity, as much from the side of the mendicants (more or less scrupulous in acquitting their commemorative obligations) as from the viewpoint of the affiliated (moderately confident) remains unresolved.

Swanson, ‘Letters of Confraternity and Indulgence’, p. 57. 175  Little, The Grey Friars in Oxford, pp. 89–90. 176  Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, p. 164. 177  See Chapter 2. 178  Only the ‘major’ admissions (with memoria) pronounced at the level of the convent appear explicitly in the book of benefactors of the Dominicans of Sighişoara, described in the following chapter. Ipolyi, ‘Adalékok a magyar domonkosok történetéhez’, pp. 590–609 and 662–73. 179  As Hugolin Lippens reminds us in ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 49 and 52. 180  Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, pp. 17–18. 181  See Chapter 2.

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Central European Trajectories Works on the regular spiritual confraternities of the former kingdoms or mendicant provinces of Bohemia, Poland, and Hungary are scarcely more developed than those produced by Western research. Several recent studies, however, have highlighted the vitality of the link of confraternity in this geo­ graphical area from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century. Here as elsewhere, little may be expected of syntheses devoted to individual orders: whether focused on the Benedictines, the Paulists,182 or on the mendicant orders, they reserve a limited place for links of confraternity. The publications of Pavel Krafl reveal the density of spiritual networking that united the Augustinian canons regular and the Carthusians of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Lesser Poland, and Sepusia (in the north-east of present day Slovakia) between the end of the fourteenth century and the end of the fifteenth.183 The author sees in this reality an indication of the influence of these establishments. But this is a case, exclusively, of mutual affiliations between non-mendicant regular orders: lay benefactors or secular clerics only come into contact with deceased professed, at best, in necro­logies. Works on the establishment of the mendicants in Central Europe hardly touch on spiritual confraternities — except in the previously mentioned study by Ludovic Viallet and in the literature dealing with John of Capistrano’s tour.184 Neither the panoramic overviews provided by Jerzy Kłoczowski, nor the works of Petr Hlaváček on the Franciscans of Bohemia of the end of the Middle Ages, nor studies centred on Poland allude to their success.185 The research is a little more advanced in Hungary, whether from the perspective of the history of the mendicants, the history of (non-spiritual) confraternities, or the history of religious life. In his summa — a little dated but very well documented — on Hungarian Franciscans from their origins until 1711, János Karácsonyi mentions a good twenty letters of confraternity issued before 1526; he uses them to identify the benefactors of the monasteries of 182 

Among the rare notations on the spiritual confraternity of this half-eremitic, half-mendicant order of Hungarian origin: Romhányi, ‘A lelkiek a földiek nélkül nem tarthatók fenn’, p. 10 n. 11. 183  See the list given as a note 76, above. 184  Dřimal, ‘K brněnskému pobytu’; Starzyński, ‘Il re, il vescovo ed il predicatore’. 185  Selective inventory of the works published on the medi­eval history of the mendicant orders in Central Europe in de Cevins, ‘Le Fonctionnement matériel des couvents mendiants en Europe centrale’, pp. 86–108.

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the province of Hungary and to measure their sphere of influence.186 My own research on the Franciscan Observance in Hungary has allowed me to observe the durability of the formula until the 1530s, well beyond the propagation of Lutheranism and into the middle of the Ottoman expansion;187 but I did not suspect its wide development, since at the time I had not had access to all the manu­script collections of the National Archives of Hungary.188 The single work of synthesis available to date on Hungarian Dominicans limits itself to indicating that, in the province of Hungary as elsewhere, the Friars Preachers consolidated their external sources of support by giving them a share in their spiritual merits.189 The Hermits of Saint Augustine were not ignorant of these affiliations, observed Elemér Mályusz in 1943 on the basis of a single example, inviting his successors to continue these investigations.190 The chapter which Lajos Pásztor devoted in 1940 to religious associations, in his short book on Hungarian piety at the very end of the Middle Ages, evokes regular spiritual confraternities more directly. These confraternities seem to have allowed the mendicants to maintain their influence over the laity, as well as over fraternities of tertiaries, at a time when the attachment of most (nonspiritual) confraternities (devotional or trade) to parish churches was depriving the friars of numerous supporters.191 He notes in passing the names of several parish clerics among the affiliated — skewering the myth of a fierce hostility arising from competition between curates and friars in the pastoral realm.192 Half a century later (1999), in a short update on the confraternal movement in Hungarian cities at the end of the Middle Ages, András Kubinyi took care to count regular spiritual confraternities as examples of pious associations and

186 

Karácsonyi, Szent Ferencz rendjének. De Cevins, Les Franciscains observants, pp. 262–64. 188  The cataloguing and digitalization of the National Archives of Hungary having only just begun at the time, I could only add twelve items to the twenty-two observant Franciscan letters identified by János Karácsonyi. De Cevins, Les Franciscains observants, pp. 572–75. 189  Harsányi, A domonkosrend Magyarországon, p. 305. The chapter devoted to confraternal associations (‘Ájtatosságok – confraternitások’, pp. 312–17) only speaks of fraternities of tertiaries and the pious lay brotherhoods affiliated with the order (those of the Rosary in particular). 190  Mályusz, ‘Az ágostonrend a középkori Magyarországon’, p. 433. 191  Pásztor, A magyarság vallásos élete, p. 37. 192  Pásztor, A magyarság vallásos élete, p. 8. 187 

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emphasized their vigour until the start of the sixteenth century, while giving up on tackling the documentary mass which pertains to them.193 Studies on lay piety have yielded promising results, less in the case of syntheses, which are evasive,194 than in case studies. Ágnes Kurcz expressed astonishment in the 1980s at the importance of confraternal affiliations in the religious practices of Hungarian nobles as early as the fourteenth century, affiliations which are repeatedly mentioned as much in literary sources as in diplomatic ones.195 Kornél Szovák described the taste of Baron Benedict Himfi for regular spiritual confraternities, in particular mendicant ones (from three different orders) under the Angevins.196 Depicting the religious practices of the royal notary Peter of Söpte (or Septe) in the second half of the fifteenth century, Beatrix Romhányi enumerates the links of confraternity that he created with the mendicants as well as with other orders.197 Today, the involvement of nobles in the development of regular spiritual confraternities (and particularly mendicant ones) is taken for granted by Hungarian medi­evalists.198 However, sometimes biased by debatable a priori,199 their works lack a comparative dimension. They do not ask questions regarding possible national or regional distortions. In fact, despite trends common to the whole of 193 

Kubinyi, ‘Vallásos társulatok’, pp. 351–52. In the picture of the religious life of the Hungarians under the Jagellons painted by Lajos Pásztor, first place goes to votive and pro anima masses instituted by the benefactors of secular and regular churches, as well as to requests to be buried in the habit. Pásztor, A mag­ yarság vallásos élete, pp. 66–93. 195  Kurcz, A lovagi kultúra, p. 156. 196  Szovák, ‘“Meritorum apud Dominum fructus cumulatorum”’, p. 82. 197  Romhányi, ‘“Meretur vestre devocionis affectus …”’. 198  Surprised to find no written trace of the affiliation of the Ilok (of Újlak or Újlaki) family, an aristocratic lineage that was well known for its active support for the mendicants, Tamás Fedeles sees this as the effect of documentary losses. Fedeles, ‘Egy középkori főúri család vallásossága’, pp. 383–86 and 413. 199  Kornél Szovák (‘“Meritorum apud Dominum fructus cumulatorum”’, p. 80) places the maximum expansion of the confraternal link among the mendicants in the fourteenth century, between ancient forms of participation in merits (anniversary masses or other pro anima foundations, attested to in Hungary since the eleventh century) on the one hand, and the rise of private devotional practices in the fifteenth century (notably the pious lay brotherhoods) on the other hand; the latter would, it seems, have taken over from the spiritual confraternities, presented by the author as in decline after 1450. This sequence is contradicted by the proliferation of letters of affiliation after 1450. For their part Beatrix Romhányi and Tamás Fedeles do not always distinguish between confraternity and recommendations for the prayers of the religious. 194 

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Christendom — the proliferation of the second half of the fourteenth century, among others — we glimpse certain characteristics specific to Central Europe and more particularly to Hungary: the introduction into the country of this practice by the mendicants (and not by monks or canons regular); more frequent recruitment among the nobility (and aristocracy) than among the bourgeois; a wobbly growth curve of admissions until the thrust accompanying the proliferation of the friaries of Observant Franciscans, principal issuers of letters of confraternity after the middle of the fifteenth century. All this seems to reflect the history of the mendicants in this region — where they were welcomed early thanks to the support of princely and aristocratic elites, and where they experienced a renewed surge of vitality after 1450, soon inspiring other regular orders. Overall, spiritual confraternity seems to have met with particular success in Central Europe; and this as early as the fourteenth century, attracting (as much as in England) criticism from Prague reformers and, in the Catholic milieu, the reservations of the Carthusian Stephen of Dolany in 1408.200 With regard to the Franciscans, Ludovic Viallet points out the exceptional vigour of the formula within the boundaries of Germany, Bohemia, and Poland in the fifteenth century.201 He considers that, paradoxically, the promotion by Jan Hus and his emulators of intermediate states between the clergy and laity probably favoured the rise of spiritual affiliation in Central Europe.202 The practice of confraternal affiliations does not always proceed, as Ludovic Viallet has also shown, from the imitation or emulation between the two forms of observance.203 The figure of John of Capistrano gave it a new energy, undoubtedly. True, this energy acted with a certain time lag in Hungary: while the Crusade against the Ottomans preached by Capistrano had a character of fight for survival and while the Observant Franciscans were triumphing over all the other regulars in numbers and influence (from the royal court to the peasantry) after the middle of the fifteenth century,204 the production of letters did not really take off until two or three decades after his death.205 Nevertheless, it was in Central Europe that Capistrano issued almost all of the surviving letters of confraternity that 200 

Marin, L’Archevêque, le maître et le dévot, pp. 292–93. Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, pp. 159–60. 202  Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, p. 160. 203  Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, pp. 187–88. 204  De Cevins, Les Franciscains observants, pp. 43–62 and 231–74. 205  See Chapter 3. 201 

Spiritual Confraternities of the Mendicant Orders

39

he penned, as Johannes Hofer has pointed out.206 Might these simply have been better preserved there than elsewhere? The argument seems insufficient. Long condemned to a blind spot of research, the spiritual confraternities of the mendicant orders have suffered from numerous unfavourable factors, ranging from the hybrid and immaterial character of their content to the monotony of their documentation. Often amalgamated with other salvational graces, they have not acquired the status of independent object of study. It is true that their ancestors, the monastic fraternities, had themselves undergone significant mutations since their birth in the eighth century, finally consolidating themselves again around the professed in the last centuries of the Middle Ages. Consequently, historians have a tendency to minimize the importance of spiritual affiliation in the functioning of mendicant establishments, in associative life as well as in the piety of the faithful. What was the real diffusion of this practice at the end of the Middle Ages? Why is the rate of preservation of letters of affiliation so low? What, in the eyes of the friars and of the faithful, did this grace have that was so particular that specific documents were reserved for it? Even the most elementary questions await answers. The astonishingly high number of letters of confraternity that escaped destruction in Central Europe — at least in Hungary — makes this region a privileged observatory from which to offer the beginnings of a response.

206 

Hofer, ‘Bruderschaftsbriefe des heil. Johannes Kapistran’, p. 326.

Chapter 2

The Hungarian Documentary Corpus

T

he medi­eval history of mendicant spiritual confraternities faces a significant obstacle: the almost total disappearance of material vestiges of these communities which belonged, by their very essence, to the world of spiritualia rather than that of realia.1 This disappearance explains (among other factors identified in the previous chapter) their abandonment by researchers and the fragility of the results obtained by those few who have ventured into this hostile terrain. By their unexpected richness, the collections of the archives of Hungary open up promising perspectives. The aim of this chapter is to present this little-known material, drawing attention to its similarities to other sources already inventoried in other geo­graphical spheres. The approach, essentially descriptive, will flag along the way the problems raised by the documentation concerning mendicant spiritual confraternities. We will begin by listing, briefly, the different types of sources which, according to the present state of investigations, relate to the phenomenon of spiritual association with the mendicants throughout the Latin West between 1250 and 1530. The ‘Hungarian’ documentation — in the sense that it concerns the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Hungary, wherever its place of production and of modern preservation might be — consists primarily of letters of confraternity. It is impossible to know, at this stage of the inquiry, why these have survived over the centuries in such high proportions. But the study of their fabrication, their circulation, and their formal mould will provide valuable clues and will allow us to define the possible ways they can be used historically. 1 

Certain passages in this chapter revisit, in an enriched and updated form, the main points of de Cevins, ‘Autour d’un mystère archivistique’.

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Sources on the Spiritual Confraternities of the Mendicant Orders in the Middle Ages Among the diverse kinds of textual evidence for the existence of mendicant spiritual confraternities,2 we will retain, for this study, only those in which the word confraternitas (or one of its synonyms fraternitas, societas, familia, and occasionally confratria) is used in the sense of ‘spiritual confraternity’, as well as texts which include other terms or formulae describing the constitutive process of spiritual confraternity: ‘affiliation’ (affiliatio), ‘participation’ (participa­ tio, communio) in the ‘goods’ (bona), ‘benefits’ (beneficia), ‘merits’ (merita), or ‘suffrages’ (suffragia) which the members of the order enjoyed.3 Conversely, sources which relate indirectly to this practice — in particular those which grant or mention favours which entail ipso facto the association with the merits of the mendicant community (burial in the habit, entry into a third-order fraternity, or even into a confraternity attached to a mendicant friary) — will not be considered. Despite these restrictions, the corpus forms a heterogeneous group. Few Discursive and Normative Sources The homiletic or pastoral literature produced by the mendicants does not mention spiritual confraternity, neither to encourage it — thus stimulating donations in favour of the affiliating orders — nor, on the contrary, to criticize it by inviting the faithful to practise the virtues rather than to count on the merits (or prayers) of others to ensure their salvation, in line with the discourse that mendicant preachers had been maintaining since the thirteenth century.4 2 

We know of no icono­graphic representation. The writings which the friars are depicted delivering in exchange for alms in certain miniatures or paintings could just as easily be letters of indulgence as of spiritual association. See, for example, the miniature in a Franciscan manu­script copied in the friary of Bechyně about 1516: Prague, NkCr, MS xviii A II, fol. 27v. The only scenes representing the practice of spiritual confraternity that we have are literary in nature. Thus, in his Summoner’s Tale from the Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer vividly portrays a mendicant friar bringing back a sealed letter to a couple who had just joined the spiritual confraternity. Swanson, ‘Mendicants and Confraternity in Late Medi­eval England’, p. 129. 3  These terms, characteristic of regular affiliation, figure, as we have pointed out in the Introduction, in du Cange, Glossarium, iii, ‘Fraternitas’, meaning 5, pp.  402–04, cols 598c–600a. On the nuance between ‘merits’ and ‘suffrages’, see Chapter 4. 4  Among other references on this vast subject, see Martin, Le Métier de prédicateur, pp. 295–420 (chs 9 and 10); D’Avray, The Preaching of the Friars.

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There is little more to be found in their theo­logical treatises. While the multiplication of forms of semi-religious life had mobilized so many quills, inside and outside the mendicant orders, since the twelfth century, 5 these voices are surprisingly taciturn on the subject of regular spiritual confraternity prior to the 1350s. A window did open, however, between the last third of the fourteenth century and the 1430s. Without occupying the centre of the debates, regular spiritual confraternities — and particularly mendicant ones6 — were, for more than a century, at the heart of the polemics which opposed the partisans and detractors of Lollardism and Hussitism. Masters of theo­logy and spiritual guidance — from Wyclif to Giles Charlier — mentioned them in their writings and in their public declarations. Either they sought to justify their existence, in response to the attacks of the Wycliffites and later of the Hussites,7 or, on the contrary, they sought to sap their foundations, denying any validity to the transferability of merits and the power of the mendicants to dispense spiritual graces in exchange for money, the friars being accused of using affiliation only for their material gain (according to Wyclif,8 as well as Hus and his followers9). Since this mono­graph is primarily interested in practices, within a defined space, it will not venture into the meanders of these controversies, whose begin5 

De Miramon, Les ‘Donnés’ au Moyen Âge. We must emphasize that in the texts indicated in the following notes, it is much more frequently a question of fratres (mendicant friars) than of monachi (monks). 7  The Bohemian Carthusian Stephen of Dolany thus took on the defence of regular spiritual confraternities in 1408 in his Medulla tritici seu antiwikleffus (ii, cap. 11, cols 235 ff.). Reference communicated by Olivier Marin, as a complement to Marin, L’Archevêque, le maître et le dévot, pp. 292–93. 8  Swanson, ‘Mendicants and Confraternity in Late Medi­e val England’, pp. 129 and 131. These attacks also pepper English satirical texts of the fourteenth century, in particular in Chaucer’s Piers the Plowman’s Crede. 9  Like Wyclif in his Trialogus, Jan Hus vigorously condemned regular affiliations as guilty of simony in the Knížky o svatokupectví (Books on Simony). Following him, the Taborite priest Nicolas of Pelhřimov (known as Biskupec) twice criticized them before the fathers of the Council of Basel in 1433. Giles Charlier responded to him, repeating in part the argumentation of Thomas Netter in his Oracio de punitione peccatorum publicorum then in his Responsio ad replicas domini Nicolai Taboritae. Řeči Mikuláše, ed. by Bartoš, pp. 75–77; Sacrorum con­ ciliorum, ed. by Mansi, xxix (1788), cols 930–32, and xxx (1792), cols 381–83 and 444–48. I thank Olivier Marin for orienting me towards these texts which are both relatively inaccessible (speaking of the edition by František Bartoš) and rarely evoked by historians to illuminate religious practices. 6 

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nings date back to the twelfth century.10 We may, however, draw two lessons from them: first, they indicate a practice that was already very widespread in about 1400 from England to Bohemia; second, crystallized around the question of simony, they show that, as had been the case during the time of monastic spiritual confraternities,11 entry into a spiritual confraternity was spontaneously associated (in the popular opinion of the time) with a transfer of wealth.12 Later, on the other hand, even as they endeavoured to promote third-order associations and developed spiritual confraternities in record proportions after 1450, the leaders of the Observant reform (whether carried out sub ministris or sub vicariis) were evidently not numerous in leaping to the defence of spiritual confraternity. The minister of the Franciscan province of Saxony, Nicolas Lackman (d. 1479), wrote, after 1463, a Tractatus de confraternitate coinciding with the expansion of spiritual confraternity in his province.13 In it, from the very first lines, he expresses his desire to refute the arguments of the practice’s detractors. The author does not limit himself to recalling its doctrinal foundations (the communio sanctorum). He links it to the legislation of the Franciscans, describes its virtues at length, and raises, one by one, the ‘doubts’ (dubia) that weigh against it.14 But this is the only writing by a mendicant 10 

De Miramon, Les ‘Donnés’ au Moyen Âge, pp. 194–96. See the Compilatio prima of Ricardus Anglicus (about 1196) and canon 57 of the Fourth Lateran Council (which evoke those of the confratres who achieved fraternity after paying two or three deniers). De Miramon, Les ‘Donnés’ au Moyen Âge, pp. 133–34 and p. 160 n. 3; Concilium Lateranense III. 12  Nicolas of Pelhřimov accuses the mendicants of only granting letters of confraternity in order to extract funds from the faithful (‘non superest ipsius causa, nisi ut populus illusus per fraudes subdolas ad dandum fratribus de suis bonis temporalibus excitetur’). Řeči Mikuláše, ed. by Bartoš, pp. 76–77. On the Catholic side, Stephen of Dolany acknowledged that the spiritual confraternities did give rise to a regrettable trafficking. Medulla tritici seu antiwikleffus ii, cap. 11, cols 235 ff. 13  This opus, whose auto­graph manu­script has disappeared, survives in three codices dating from the decades that followed the composition of the work. Wrocław, BUW, MS Cod. I Qu.  73a, fols  46v–70r; Gdańsk, PANB, MSS  Cod. 1965, fols  102v–121v, and Cod. 2043, fols 48r–61r. 14  Ludovic Viallet (Les Sens de l’observance, p. 217 n. 201) rightly wonders about the Capistranian inspiration of this text, alleged by Johannes Hofer (Johannes Kapistran, p. 470), on the basis of Meier, Die Barfüsserschule zu Erfurt. The brief summary the latter gives of it (p. 55: ‘Der Tractatus de confraternitate sucht bezüglich des im Spätmittelalter ins Kraut schiessenden Bruderschaftswesens kirchenrechtliche und pastorale Klarheit zu schaffen’) does not begin to reveal the interest of this treatise, which would merit an in-depth study (currently being conducted by the author), if only because so far it has no known equivalent. 11 

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45

reformer to emerge from current inventories of records which takes on the defence of spiritual confraternity. Although, beginning in the twelfth century, canon law was committed to dissociating more clearly the religious from the secular, the clergy from the laity, and regular life from non-regular life, it devotes no legal content to confrater­ nitas, whether formed with monks, with canons, or with friars. Canon lawyers use the idea of confraternitas as a counterpoint — if not an actual foil — to better define the recognized status of members of other monastic spheres (nuns, conversi, then donati). Even before the birth of the first mendicant orders and of their spiritual confraternities, canon lawyers formally excluded confratres and consorores from the privileges granted to the semi-religious.15 This may explain the silence of council canons and synod statutes concerning confraternitas in the late Middle Ages. Unlike that of the Hospitallers of Saint John, the general and provincial legislation of the mendicants only evokes spiritual confraternities in an allusive, laconic way. Missing from the earliest constitutions, the association with the merits of the friars makes its appearance around the middle of the thirteenth century in the constitutions, statutes, and capitulary acts of the Dominicans, the Franciscans, then of the Hermits of Saint Augustine and of the Carmelites, on the general level and occasionally on the provincial one.16 But these documents struggle to give stable contours to the idea of spiritual confraternity. Thus, when the Dominican general chapter which was gathered at Buda mentions the spiritual benefits of the order in 1254, it is in a negative context, to decree that gyrovague friars would be deprived of them.17 Mendicant legislative texts, when they enumerate the prayers and celebrations planned for the intention of their supporters, do not always distinguish affiliates from the benefactors of the friars.18 When, in the 1460s, Nicolas Lackman tries to dem15 

De Miramon, Les ‘Donnés’ au Moyen Âge, pp. 112–16, 128–42, and 156–94. For an overview of the (few) extracts of mendicant legislation concerning spiritual confraternity, see (for the Franciscans) Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 53 and 60; (for the Dominicans) Lemaître, ‘Mort et sépulture’; Picard, ‘Les Suffrages’. 17  ‘ipsum statuto presenti suffragiis societate ac omnibus beneficiis ordinis tam in vita quam in morte privamus’. Acta capitulorum generalium, ed. by Reichert, iii, 67. 18  The Constitutions of Narbonne (1260), repeated word for word until 1500 on this point, detail the services provided for deceased friars and ‘familiars’ (‘pro fratribus nostris et familiaribus defunctis’), without defining the latter term — which Hugolin Lippens translates (perhaps hastily?) as ‘affiliates’. Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 53 n. 1. The so-called ‘Farinier’ Constitutions of 1354 and the ‘Martinian’ Constitutions of 1430 are no more precise. In the case of the Domini16 

46

Chapter 2

onstrate in his Tractatus de confraternitate that spiritual confraternity was in line with Franciscan regulations, the only extracts he invokes (taken from the 1354 and 1430 Constitutions) concern the ‘friends’, ‘familiars’, ‘benefactors’, and consepulti, and not the beneficiaries of participation in the merits of the friars.19 Mendicant leaders were most preoccupied with restricting the offi­ ciales certified to admit confratres (by removing this prerogative from the friary superiors)20 and with condemning practices considered abusive (such as anonymous admissions).21 Taken all together, mendicant legislation concerning spiritual confraternities occupies less than a page, whether for the Franciscans or for the Dominicans. As for its application, it proved random and uneven.22 The sources on the practice have the upper hand by a long way, in relative weight if not in documentary interest, in the corpus that has so far been established. Some of them had an aim or agenda — as when a given mendicant chapter or a given confraternity attached to a friary would launch periodic fundraising tours, with the showing of relics and the association of donors ‘per modum cans, we must wait more than half a century to see the acts of the Dominican chapters distinguish clearly between benefactors and members of the spiritual confraternity. The General Constitutions had included, since 1241, a rubric De suffragiis mortuorum, which imposed the rule of celebrating ‘the anniversary [of the death] of benefactors and familiars’ (‘anniversarium benefactorum et familiorum anniversarium’) on the third day after the Nativity of the Virgin (8 September). Lemaître, ‘Mort et sépulture’, pp. 125–26. It was only in 1315 that the acts of the provincial chapters of the French Midi (in Toulouse) ordered all the priests of the province to celebrate a Mass for ‘those who have letters of suffrages from the order’ (‘et pro illis qui habent litteras de suffragiis ordinis’) as they did for deceased friars. Picard, ‘Les Suffrages’, pp. 106, 113, and 117–18. We find the same dispositions in the General Constitutions of the middle of the fourteenth century, which shift the anniversary of the ‘familiars’ to the tenth of October. Lemaître, ‘Mort et sépulture’, pp. 126–27. The first acts of the Dominican chapters of the province of Poland distinguishing prayers for benefactors (living and dead) of the order and prayers to be recited for those affiliated by letter (‘pro illis sunt recepti ad beneficia ordinis ’) date from 1507 and 1510. Acta capitulorum, ed. by Madura, pp. 173–74 and 182–83. 19  Wrocław, BUW, MS Cod. I Qu. 73a, fol. 48r–v. 20  Among the Franciscans: Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 63–65. Among the Dominicans, after those of Humbert of Romans, the Constitutions adopted at the General Chapter of Limoges in 1335 were briefly statutory on the question of the hierarchical level of the dispensers and on the selection of affiliates. Constitutiones, ed. by Jandel, p. 267; Picard, ‘Les Suffrages’, p. 107. 21  For the Franciscans, see Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 75. 22  Among the Franciscans, for example, we see simple guardians issue letters of spiritual confraternity starting in the fourteenth century, regardless of the general prescriptions. Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 63–65.

The Hungarian Documentary Corpus

47

confratrie’.23 Others, like letters of suffrages, were situated, on the contrary, in the ‘present’ of the affiliation process. The rare studies focusing on mendicant spiritual confraternities are based on these certificates.24 Letters of Confraternity It is still necessary to agree on the meaning of the phrase ‘letters of confraternity’25 — also called ‘confraternal letters’ (litter(a)e confraternalis), ‘letters of suffrages’ (litter(a)e de suffragiis), or ‘letters of benefits’ (litter(a)e beneficiis) in medi­e val mendicant formularies. The word confraternitas only gradually makes an appearance in the texts of letters issued by the mendicants,26 and as with the monks,27 its use remains unstable.28 The presence of terms that are characteristic of the process of spiritual affiliation (mentioned above) does allow us to identify beyond all possible doubt letters of spiritual confraternity, and especially to differentiate them from documents in which friars granted other graces, ranging from the recommendation for prayer by the religious to the right of burial in the friary, and including the free choice of confessor and the remission of sins. Following Robert Swanson, British historians distinguish two types of letters of confraternity: those which specify, in an individualized way, the association with the merits of the friars (which Swanson calls ‘letters of specific confraternity’); and those which, in an impersonal way (‘fill-in-the-blanks’) and without instituting post mortem commemoration, grant the participation in merits alongside other favours (‘open confraternity’).29 Is this dichotomy, reflecting the physiognomy of the documentation from the other side of the 23 

Examples (from the Auvergne and Brittany) cited in Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, pp. 202–04. 24  The documents are often evident in the title, from the article of Hugolin Lippens cited above to the publications of English and Irish researchers presented in the previous chapter. 25  We prefer this term to ‘confraternal letter’, literally translated from the Latin littera con­ fraternalis, but ambiguous in the vernacular. 26  See the Franciscan examples cited in Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 59 and 76. The Hungarian letters are no exception, as we shall see. 27  Clark-Maxwell, ‘Some Further Letters of Confraternity’, p. 181, concerning English Benedictine letters. 28  The Hungarian corpus will confirm this. 29  See Chapter 1, and Swanson, ‘Mendicants and Confraternity in Late Medi­eval England’, in particular pp. 127–28 and 130–33.

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Channel, transposable elsewhere? Only the documents from the first category actually correspond to the formal genre of the letter of confraternity since their diplomatic structure, their formulation, and their use were dominated by the idea of participation in merits. The supplementary graces — incidentally, rather exceptional (among both the Franciscans and the Dominicans) — were always specified in distinct clauses (which will here give rise to the term ‘combined letters’).30 In the ‘letters of open confraternity’ (which we will call ‘letters of mixed graces’), spiritual affiliation, swamped in a long list of graces, arrives far behind the reduction of temporal punishments to be expiated in purgatory. The letters of confraternity so far inventoried have survived, for the most part, in their original, nominative version — that is, giving the identity, the title, and the role of the dispenser and of the addressee(s) — and in their entirety, with the exception of those which were damaged by a later reuse of their physical material (for binding,31 for writing down fragments of seigneurial accounting,32 or for the inventory of a liturgical treasury33). Copies were also transmitted by mendicant chroniclers (beginning with Salimbene di Adam),34 through document collections (cartularies, collections of papal bulls) and above all collections of chancery models composed and used by scribes of the mendicant orders. Hugolin Lippens points out the presence of letters of affiliation in several Franciscan formularies of Italian or German origin as early as the turn of the fourteenth century.35 Polish Dominican collections provide abundant examples from the second half of the fourteenth century.36 30  The ‘combined letters’ mentioned or edited by Hugolin Lippens (Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 58–63) do not reflect the ordinary situation, in particular at the end of the Middle Ages, as demonstrated in Chapter 4. For the Dominicans, see Picard, ‘Les Suffrages’, pp. 111–14. 31  English examples: Clark-Maxwell, ‘Some Further Letters of Confraternity’, p. 192; Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, p. 17. 32  An example from the Hungarian corpus: LC 12 (Table 1). 33  LC 16. 34  Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 59. 35  Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 60. 36  Dictamina Litterarum, ed. by Woroniecki and Fijalek, a formulary which includes about forty models (more or less truncated) of Dominican letters of confraternity, copied between about 1370 and 1410: p. 56 no. 16, p. 57 no. 20, p. 63 no. 37, pp. 63–64 no. 38, p. 64 no. 39 and 40, pp. 64–65 no. 41, p. 65 nos 42 and 43, pp. 65–66 no. 44, p. 66 nos 45, 46, and 47, pp. 66–67 no. 48, p. 67 no. 49, p. 69 no. 54, p. 70 no. 57, p. 71 no. 58, p. 75 no. 69, pp. 78–79 no. 76, p. 79 no. 77, pp. 79–80 no. 78, p. 80 no. 79, pp. 81–82 no. 83, pp. 82–83 no. 84, p. 83

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49

Obviously, these texts do not offer the same possibilities for analysis as ‘real’ letters: proper names and dates are replaced, as was customary, by generic forms (N. for nomen, T. for talis), and the text, often truncated, is broken up with elliptical formulae (etc., ut supra).37 For all that, they are no less an illustration of the efforts towards codification, on both conventual and provincial levels, of a religious practice that was well established in the daily life of the friars.38 As for the letters of mixed graces, these never appear in these collections. This absence suggests only occasional use, in response to the needs of the friaries (according to Swanson’s hypothesis), 39 similar to the admissions ‘per modum confratrie’ mentioned above. It might also suggest a practice that was meant to be discreet, deployed far from the attention of the authorities and inspectors, provincial and general — especially after these authority figures prohibited it.40 Moreover, certain archive collections have yielded no ‘real’ letters of this type, in Hungary for example. Assuming that such acts were indeed promulgated there, a whole aspect of the history of mendicant confraternities seems to elude observation. This prevents us, notably, from forming an idea, even approximate, of the proportion of Christians who were united through links of spiritual confraternity.41 It sometimes happens that letters of affiliation (in the strict sense of the word) appear in other writings. Chroniclers note in passing their granting by certain superiors of their order.42 Mendicant reporters do the same when they describe measures taken by inspectors (general, visitatores, commissaries) durno. 85, p. 86 no. 91, p. 101 no. 126, p. 104 nos 132 and 133, p. 108 no. 145, p. 118 no. 168, pp. 118–19 no. 170, p. 147 no. 240, p. 152 no. 263, p. 154 no. 268, pp. 154–55 no. 269, p. 155 no. 271, p. 162, nos 294 and 295, pp. 162–63 no. 296, p. 163 no. 297, pp. 163–64 no. 298, p. 164 no. 301, pp. 164–65 no. 302, pp. 184–85 no. 3. 37  Van Dievoet, Les Coutumiers, pp. 75–84. 38  Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 57–58. 39  Swanson, ‘Mendicants and Confraternity in Late Medi­eval England’, p. 129. Their poor conservation seems to go in the same direction. Swanson, ‘Mendicants and Confraternity in Late Medi­eval England’, p. 127. 40  The condemnation of ‘fill-in-the-blanks letters’ by the chapter of the Franciscans sub ministris of 1505 is a part of this trend. Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 75. 41  See Chapter 3. 42  Nicolas Glassberger thus reports, in his Chronicle, that John of Maigrefort delivered letters of confraternity to the bourgeois of Nuremberg who had requested them of him in 1465. Edition: Chronica Fratris Nicolai Glassberger, p. 417 — cited in Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, p. 168 n. 160.

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ing their visits.43 As for documentation concerning those admitted to spiritual confraternity, the traces are slim. Alongside rare mentions in family accounts, some English testators ask (as we have seen in the previous chapter) that their letters of suffrages be returned to the dispensing friaries upon their death. While these provisions are the only evidence for the existence of mendicant spiritual confraternities in London,44 they are nonetheless absent from other wills, whether Irish, French, or Hungarian — including those of testators who bequeath goods or revenues to mendicant friaries.45 Other Documents We do not know of any mendicant books recording, separately, the names (or the deaths) of the confratres and consorores of the order — in contrast to what had been practised for centuries, and would be until the very end of the Middle Ages, in certain communities of canons or of monks.46 This is a factor which suggests a priori a very loose, if not completely abstract, perception of the link of spiritual confraternity among the mendicants. However, the title of confrater (or consoror) of an individual — in the sense of beneficiary of the merits of the order, and not of manager of an establishment or member of a lay confraternity affiliated with a mendicant friary — is on occasion indicated in books of benefactors organized by individual community.47 As for the revenues that the friars drew from entries into their spiritual con­fraternity, these have left no trace. The accounts of communities never 43 

For example in the registry compiled at the time of the inspection tour by the Prior General Peter Terrasse in the friaries of the English Carmelites in 1504–05. Swanson, ‘Mendicants and Confraternity in Late Medi­eval England’, p. 129. Edition (in English translation): Copsey, ‘The Visit of the Prior General’. 44  Röhrkasten, The Mendicant Houses of Medi­eval London, p. 465. 45  Gribbin and Ó Clabaigh, ‘Confraternity Letters’, p. 461. See also Chapter 1. The Hungarian examples will be considered below. In Brittany, recognized benefactors sometimes ask, in their wills, to be recommended for the prayers of the members of the general chapters; but the subject of confraternity is not raised in this context (at least not in the summary given by the author). Martin, Les Ordres mendiants en Bretagne, p. 389. Also in western France, Angevin wills also seem silent on this point, according to the indications provided by Jean-Michel Matz. 46  In the necro­logy of the Austin Canons of the Priory Cathedral of Dublin (Holy Trinity) in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: Gribbin and Ó Clabaigh, ‘Confraternity Letters’, p. 460. For English monastic examples, see Clark, ‘Monastic Confraternity in Medi­eval England’, in particular pp. 317–18. 47  We will see several Hungarian examples of this later in this chapter.

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mention the fraternitatis redditibus denounced by Wyclif,48 no more in the fourteenth century than in the 1530s, neither in England, nor in Provence, nor in Flanders.49 Wilful dissimulation on the part of the friars (like that of those friary superiors who surreptitiously provided ‘fill-in-the-blanks’ letters granting multiple graces) or lack of administrative rigour (the superiors provincial and general, the principal known affiliators, having produced few accounting balance sheets)? On the opposite side, that of the recipients, traces are also lacking.50 At the very least, these lacunae weaken the thesis of a mercantile and systematically paid use of the institution of spiritual confraternity51 — if not for the letters of mixed graces, sold during organized fundraising tours, then at least as far as letters of confraternity stricto sensu are concerned. To conclude this rapid documentary overview, it is worth mentioning that, although they do not directly evoke mendicant spiritual confraternities, texts proving the existence of a prioritized mutual relationship (material support and protection on the one hand, the granting of spiritual graces on the other) between an individual (layperson or cleric) and a community of friars (friary, province, order) are of no small interest in understanding the flourishing of these communities. Charters of foundation, of endowment, and of donation to mendicant friaries, along with the wills that mention them, books of benefactors, registers of confraternities, and fraternities of tertiaries, not forgetting objects and icono­graphic representations (tombstones, family crests, kneeling donors at the corners of altarpieces or of stained-glass windows in mendicant churches, etc.) all help sketch out for us the circle of benefactors of the friars. The latter benefited, a minima, from recommendations for prayer at the level of 48 

Quoted in Swanson, ‘Mendicants and Confraternity in Late Medi­eval England’, p. 131. Swanson, ‘Mendicants and Confraternity in Late Medi­eval England’, p. 123 (examples of accounts of the Franciscan friaries of Cam­bridge and York). They are absent from the daily accounts of the Franciscans of Avignon: Lenoble, L’Exercice de la pauvreté. Neither is there any trace of them in the accounting documents concerning the mendicant friaries of Liège: Bertrand, Commerce avec dame Pauvreté, p. 469. 50  Robert Swanson has found, in the accounts of the Willoughby family (in the county of Nottingham), notations mentioning the purchase, in the 1520s, of letters of indulgence and of confraternity, among other regular expenses. But the titles of these rubrics are too vague to allow us to distinguish what pertains specifically to spiritual affiliation and to separate, within this group, what was destined for the mendicants from what was destined for other ecclesiastical institutions. Swanson, ‘Letters of Confraternity and Indulgence’, pp. 47–48. 51  See the presentations given by Moorman, A History of the Franciscan Order, p. 120, and Bakker, Bedelorden en begijnen, p. 88 — cited by Bertrand, Commerce avec dame Pauvreté, p. 469 n. 175. 49 

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the friary. Combining this data with the data pertaining to spiritual confratres allows us to see the interpenetration of these two groups of ‘friends’ of the mendicants, which historio­graphy tends spontaneously to confuse. In the final analysis, there is no shortage of written testimony to the existence and vitality of mendicant spiritual confraternities, attested from one end to the other of the Christian West, in diverse forms, in the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, by their dissemination and their different types of composition according to region, these documents constitute a material resource that is too broken up to be useful for general exploitation. Hungary, as defined by its medi­eval borders, offers a more coherent documentary landscape.

The Documentation Pertaining to Hungary: Overview The sources preserved in Hungary may be roughly divided into two groups of very unequal volume: on the one hand, sources on the practice, and on the other hand, formal examples. Sources on the Practice No sermon or theo­logical treatise of Hungarian production alluding to mendicant spiritual confraternities has come down to us, not even from the time when the polemic on the subject was raging most strongly, at the turn of the fifteenth century. Although their works were composed at the peak of memberships in spiritual confraternity in the Hungarian kingdom, the two most eminent figures of the Franciscan Hungarian Observance, Pelbart of Temesvár (today Timişoara, in Romania) and Oswald of Laskó (Lug, now in Slovakia), authors of hundreds of sermons and a good number of short theo­ logical guides,52 do not breathe a word on the subject, neither to promote them to their flock, nor to defend their principle outside the order, nor to define a ‘correct usage’ of spiritual confraternity for their religious colleagues. The Hungarian provincial regulations, at least what is left of them — including those of the Franciscans, the principal issuers of letters of confraternity — give scant attention to spiritual confraternity. The (reformed) ‘Conventual’ Franciscan statutes of 1454 ignore them.53 The constitutions of the Observant 52 

See the references given in Kertész, ‘Two Hungarian Friars Minor’. Mag yar, ‘Die Ungarischen Reformstatuten des Fabian Igali aus dem Jahre 1454’, pp. 91–103. 53 

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Province of Hungary, adopted in 1499 at the vicarial chapter of Šarengrad (Atya), limit themselves, in one line, to authorizing custodians to deliver letters of confraternity.54 Local mendicant chronicles are no more forthcoming on the subject.55 Sources on the practice are fortunately more numerous. According to the present state of research, a single book of benefactors from a Hungarian mendicant friary, alone of its kind, has survived: the Libellum seu inventarium benefactorum kept by Anthonius Fabri (Anton Schmidt), the Dominican prior of Saint Mary of Sighişoara (Segesvár), during the 1520s.56 Discovered during restoration work on the Dominican church in 1859, it lists, in twenty-five entries, the donations made to the Dominicans of Sighişoara between 1460 and 1526. It draws on charters of donation and earlier wills (now lost) without rigorously respecting chrono­logical order. As a glimpse into the revenues of the priory,57 this register is invaluable in helping accurately place the link of confraternity among the graces granted by the friars to their supporters.58 Although certainly less detailed than the fabulous Liber benefactorum of the Abbey of Saint Albans unearthed by James Clark,59 it does specify which gifts 54 

Batthyány, Leges ecclesiasticae, p. 614. On the Observant Franciscans, see Toldy, Analecta monumentorum, pp.  213–315 (‘Blasii de Zalka et continuatorum eius Cronica fratrum minorum de observantia provinciae Boznae et Hungariae’). 56  It has been edited twice: Fabritius, ‘Zwei Funde’; Ipolyi, ‘Adalékok a magyar domonkosok történetéhez’. It is this later version to which I will refer in the pages which follow, though I have not been able to check it by consulting the manu­script. The haphazard transcription of personal names and geo­graphical names suggests that a more rigorous edition would be justified. 57  Romhányi, ‘Domonkos kolostorok birtokai a későközépkorban’. 58  There is a glimpse of the content of this registry in Lupescu Makó, ‘Death and Remembrance’. The author describes it (p. 94 n. 4) as a list of wills and donations. She does not mention the confratres who figure in it. 59  Clark, ‘Monastic Confraternity in Medi­eval England’, in particular pp. 315–19, 321–22, and pp. 330–31, figs. 8 and 9. The registry of Saint Albans gives some six hundred names of benefactors — of whom half are confratres — extending from 1077 to 1500, detailing the donations made to the monastery before and after their admission into the spiritual confraternity and, for the most illustrious of them, the admission ceremony which was given to them, sometimes enhanced with an illuminated portrait in which their incorporation is symbolically represented. This text was previously identified by William Clark-Maxwell, who entitled it Cata­ logus benefactorum et omnium eorum qui in plenam confraternitatem monasterii S. Albaniusque ad an.1463 recepti sunt. But the author points out no equivalents for the English mendicants. Clark-Maxwell, ‘Some Further Letters of Confraternity’, p. 180. 55 

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or favours preceded the granting, by the friars, of admission into spiritual confraternity and describes the other graces accorded to the inscribed benefactors. A scattering of texts (wills on the one hand,60 charters of donation on the other61) occasionally mention Hungarian confratres. The term may refer to members of lay confraternities or beguinages attached to a mendicant friary, or to lay administrators,62 but also, with no possible ambiguity, to spiritual associates. Documents pertaining to other graces granted by Hungarian mendicants — recommendation for their prayers (at the level of the friary, province, or order), pro anima masses (at all three levels), or burial in the friary — allow measurable points of comparison, whether they signify to the religious in question their new obligations,63 or whether they address themselves to the beneficiaries of the aforementioned graces, underlining the commitment on the part of the issuer.64 It is not these fragments which constitute the interest of the Hungarian corpus, but its letters of confraternity — in the narrow sense, as defined earlier, a meaning which is all the more important in this context since, so far, no letter of multiple graces has been found in Hungary. Against all expectations, the manu­script repositories of this country, which has been repeatedly devastated since the Middle Ages, contain an exceptional collection (relatively speaking!) of medi­e val mendicant letters of affiliation. 65 Its volume runs to 125 acts, 60 

The best known example is the will of Madeleine, widow of the stone engraver George of Cluj dated 19 December 1531. In it, she calls herself, from the first lines, ‘confratrissa fratrum Minorum claustri Beatissime Virginis Marie in eadem Coloswar fundati’. Monumenta ecclesias­ tica, ed. by Bunyitay, Rapaics, and Karácsonyi, ii, 178–81, no. 159. 61  The title of confrater, applied to the donor, rarely appears explicitly there. It is the case, for example, in the charter in which the prior of the Carmelite priory of Buda thanks Peter of Söpte (or Septe) for goods given to the priory; he calls him confrater noster specialis. Budapest, MNL, MS DL 93640 (8 September 1494). 62  For example in the letter (dated 13 October 1510) in which the guardian of the Observant Franciscan friary of Voćin (Atyina, in present-day Croatia) declares to the patronus of the friary (Balthazar of Batthyán) that the donation given by the bishop in exchange for masses for his salvation is entrusted to a layman named Lucas confrater. Budapest, MNL DL 104224. 63  The specimens preserved in Hungary are rare, whether among actual certificates or among collections of models. See, for example, Budapest, MNL DL 81810; A zichi és vasonkeoi, ed. by Nagy, Kammerer, and Véghely, xi, 215–16 no. 122 (14 July 1478). 64  A few examples drawn from the Hungarian archives: Karácsonyi, ‘A mag yar ferencrendűek formulás könyve a Batthyány-könyvtárban’, p.  26 no.  5 (c.  1288); Iványi, Dominikánus levelek, pp. 35–36 no. 4 (1376); Budapest, MNL DF 285854 (1388); A zichi és vasonkeoi, ed. by Nagy, Kammerer, and Véghely, vi, 387 no. 259 (1415). 65  These are listed in Table 1 in the chrono­logical order of their issuing.

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considering only those addressed to the subjects of the king of Hungary. 66 These constitute the documentary basis for our investigation, the one which has served, in particular, to establish the ‘statistical’ data.67 These letters are primarily of Hungarian production: of the seventy-seven issuing provincial superiors, seventy-one are Hungarian provincials, to whom are added seven custodians and three friary superiors, also Hungarian; 65 per cent of the corpus thus comes from Hungary. The remaining documents come either from non-Hungarian provincials (for the Carmelites, whose provincial was based in Germany) or from superiors general or supra-provincial, often Italian or writing from Central Europe (such as John of Capistrano, author of ten letters in the corpus).68 These letters have survived in their original form (most frequently), in later transcriptions, in an early edition (one example),69 or, in addition, via confirmable mentions in medi­eval texts (three cases) or modern inventories.70

66 

One of these (LC 109) nonetheless poses a geo­g raphical difficulty: its addressee (and its place of issue) could just as easily be Croatian as Bosnian, since the indicated place name does not correspond to any known friary in the Franciscan vicariate of Bosnia (according to Džambo, Die Franziskaner, particularly pp. 167–69). 67  To use the statistical method based on such a meagre corpus is evidently debatable from a methodo­logical perspective. This mode of investigation of the data will only serve to give us an idea of what might have been, without claiming to faithfully reconstruct a reality that eludes any form of observation. This is why the results which will emerge will always be communicated in the conditional mood in subsequent chapters, prioritizing the comparative approach. 68  See Map 1 and Graph 6. These will be discussed in Chapter 5. 69  Indeed, we have been unable to locate the original of LC 34. Its editor, István Kaprinai, only indicates in Hungaria diplomatica, pp. 445–46 no. 44, n. 1: ‘Ex auto­grapho ab amico Posoniensi communicatum’. 70  The three letters of confraternity attested to only by external mentions (and whose complete texts therefore remain unknown) are LC 27, 98, and 103. The letter of the general of the Carmelites addressed in March 1437 to the municipality of Prešov (present-day Eperjes) — edited in Fejér, Codex diplomaticus, x.7, 899–903, and Diplomatarium comitatus Sarosiensis, ed. by Wagner, pp. 524–27 — does not figure in this database for the following reason: although it grants in fine entry into the major spiritual confraternity of the order to the magistrates of the city, it does not fulfil the formal criteria of the genre of letters of confraternity; it is only after having presented an (alarming) depiction of the situation of the priory of Prešov that the prior general grants ‘major’ affiliation to the magistrates, in order to secure their help.

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Composed exclusively in Latin,71 more than half of them are unpublished,72 but relatively accessible to researchers thanks to their topo­graphical concentration and their almost complete availability online, in the database of medi­eval charters established by the Hungarian National Archives.73 The series that has been gathered so far is not definitively completed. Limited to consultable letters (in original form or in reproduction) in the principal archive and library collections of Budapest, as well as to those edited or mentioned in the historio­graphy (see references), it does not take into account the documents preserved in the central (Roman) collections of the mendicant orders.74 Furthermore, new discoveries are still possible in Hungary,75 as well as in Slovakia, in Romania (particularly in Transylvania),76 and in Austria.77 71 

To date, I have not found any mendicant letters of affiliation composed in German, although the friaries of Austria, Bohemia, and Germany did produce some starting in the fifteenth century; England, moreover, has several Benedictine letters of confraternity labelled in Anglo-Norman. See respectively Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 87–88; Clark, ‘Monastic Confraternity in Medi­eval England’, p. 324. 72  The (thirty-eight) letters delivered by the Observant Franciscans of Hungary preserved in the original state and listed in the catalogue of the Hungarian National Archives have just been edited: A magyarországi, ed. by Kertész. In total, including these letters, fifty-five mendicant letters have so far been the subject of a complete edition — counting inadequate or faulty editions. See the references given in the last column of Table 1. 73  With the exception of four of them (three letters which may be consulted in the original in the Franciscan Archives of Hungary, and the one edited in 1771 by István Kaprinai), the letters that have come down to us in their entirety are gathered in the Hungarian National Archives. The majority of these (seventy-seven) have survived in the original manu­script; the others have been the subject of black-and-white photo­g raphs, of mediocre quality for the moment (most of the photos date to the 1970s). All may be consulted online. See Biblio­graphy. 74  It seems that there would be little to expect from these. The catalogue of the central collection of the Dominican Order (Archivio Generale dell’Ordine dei Predicatori) reproduced by Siptár in ‘A domonkos rend’, does not indicate any series of letters of confraternity. 75  The investigations undertaken by Balász Kertész with the aim of an edition of writings by Hungarian Observant Franciscans (A magyarországi, ed. by Kertész) have not unearthed any letters by Observant Franciscans other than those that I had already found in the National Archives of Hungary and in the Hungarian Franciscan Archives, in Budapest. But the diocesan and private collections of the country, even though they are mostly to be found in the National Archives, may yet yield some surprises. 76  Indeed, numerous manu­scripts probably missed out on the campaign of mass reproduction launched in the 1970s by the Hungarian authorities in these two countries. 77  In the weeks following the final composition of this book, I found, in a recent mono­ graph, the mention of a letter of confraternity preserved in Vienna, in the State Archives of Aus-

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Models Model letters provide useful complementary information, as Hugolin Lippens emphasized in relation to Christendom generally.78 The oldest collection of formulae for the use of mendicant friars that has been found in Hungary dates to the first quarter of the fourteenth century. According to János Karácsonyi, it was probably composed in the Franciscan friary of Székesfehérvár in about 1320, based on charters that had been kept in the establishment since the 1280s.79 To be exact, it is not an autonomous work but fragments: fourteen models of charters, all truncated, were inserted into the middle of a codex comprising mainly thirteenth-century Parisian sermons. 80 A marginal annotation indicates the purpose of these texts: ‘Forma littere discreti mittendi ad capitulum provinciale’.81 Among them, we find an example of a letter of confraternity, sufficiently precise to suggest that it reproduces a real letter.82 Prosopo­g raphical cross-checks concerning the issuer (who was probably the Franciscan Provincial of Hungary A[drianus]) and the addressee (probably a cantor of the cathedral chapter of Győr whose first name was Dominic) led tria. It was issued in 1519 by the minister general of the Observant Franciscans for the intention of the Bishop of Zagreb Simon Erdődy, a member of an aristocratic lineage well known for its active support of the Franciscan Observance. Erdélyi, Egy kolostorper története, p. 183, and A Cloister on Trial, pp. 191–92; original manu­script (not consulted): Vienna, Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Familien Archiv, MS Urkunden 11106. 78  Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 57–58. 79  Karácsonyi, ‘A mag yar ferencrendűek formulás könyve a Batthyány-könyvtárban’, pp. 30–31. 80  Alba Iulia, Batthyaneum, MS Codex E 5. VI-8. This collection — very well known by philo­logists for its versified glosses in Hungarian, called Gyulafehérvári sorok in Hungarian, Glossele de la Alba Julia in Romanian — was digitized by the National Library of Romania. The model letters occupy fols 124v–126r of the codex (according to the pagination added in pencil by the discoverer, Elemér Varjú, in 1898, to which I refer). Janós Karácsonyi edited them (in Karácsonyi, ‘A magyar ferencrendűek formulás könyve a Batthyány-könyvtárban’) using a different numbering of folios, which is neither the original one indicated on certain pages in ink (not counting the first folios of the codex) nor that of Elemér Varjú (which takes these folios into account). 81  Alba Iulia, Batthyaneum, MS Codex E 5. VI-8, fol. 124v. János Karácsonyi does not reproduce this annotation in his edition, and he gives this group a title of his own devising: ‘Formulae epistolarum ad franciscanos Hungariae et ab his ad diversas personas Hungariae missarum’. Karácsonyi, ‘A magyar ferencrendűek formulás könyve a Batthyány-könyvtárban’, p. 25. 82  This is why, in the end, I have incorporated this text into the statistical database of nominative letters (LC 2).

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János Karácsonyi to date the original to the period 1282–87, which would make it Hungary’s oldest known Franciscan letter of affiliation.83 Nevertheless, a certain amount of doubt persists about this proposed dating.84 The Franciscan collections are clearly later. They come from the Hungarian province of the Observant Franciscans.85 One of them, composed between about 1510 and 1525, presents, under the title littere confraternales, six model letters in two widely separated places in the collection.86 A second formulary covers the years 1530 to 1535, which makes the fact that ‘real’ specimens for this period are impossible to find all the more interesting.87 It gathers, in a single section, fourteen models, all of them different from those of the preceding collection. Sometimes presented in several variant forms, they are classified according to the hierarchical position of the issuer (from minister general to custodian) and the position of the beneficiary (aristocrat, noble, secular or regular cleric, widow, all the members of a lay confraternity, etc.). But the degree of distortion in comparison with the originals seems to be higher here than in the previous Franciscan formularies,88 thus restricting their possibilities of exploitation. In about 1350, the (anonymous) composer of the Ars notarialis, a cleric in the diocese of Eger, inserted among the secular and ecclesiastic texts of his col83 

Karácsonyi, ‘A mag yar ferencrendűek formulás könyve a Batthyány-könyvtárban’, pp. 30–32. 84  If the calli­g raphy of the manu­script orients us towards a fourteenth-century production, the formulation of the preamble is strangely similar to letters of confraternity composed in the following century! 85  I had the chance to present them in de Cevins, Les Franciscains observants, pp. 24–25 and 628–29; complementary information in de Cevins, ‘“O inobedientie filii contumaces!”’, p. 155 n. 15. 86  Budapest, OSzK, MS Cod. Lat. 432. The letters of confraternity occupy fols 55v–56r, 56r–58r, 58r–v, 58v–59r (I) and 115v–117r, 117r–v (II). There is a partial edition in de Cevins, Les Franciscains observants, pp. 477–552; there is a transcription of the other texts of the manu­ script (with introduction, codico­logical analysis, and critical apparatus) in Mathieu, ‘Édition du Formularium’. A complete edition (with introduction and notes) is in preparation, by Antal Molnár (in Analecta Franciscana) with the following formulary. 87  Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fols 108r–116v. I am deeply grateful to Edit Madas and Gábor Sarbak for sending me the photo­graphs of these folios. 88  The names of the sender and addressee are systematically reduced to ‘N’, ‘N. of N.’, or ‘T.’, or sometimes repeat a generic first name (Nicholas for men, Anne for women). Certain models combine elements drawn from several letters at a time (widows and virgins, for example, Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fol. 113r–v).

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lection a Dominican example entitled Super confraternitate, by which the provincial prior of Hungary, Paul of Győr, had associated a layman and his wife, unfortunately not named (‘T.’), with the merits of the order.89 For the Hungarian Carmelites, we also have a single model of a letter of confraternity. Entitled littera confraternitatis nostre, dated 26 January 1461, and established in the name of the prior of the friary of Pécs, it comes from a formulary that combines episcopal charters and Carmelite administrative correspondence, completed in the 1460s in the friary of Pécs at the request of Guy Hündler.90 Originally from Lower Austria, the latter had been prior of the friary of Pécs (1441–43, 1449) and of Buda (1447). In 1447–48, he obtained the bishopric of Vidin (Bodony in Hungarian) in partibus infidelium; he kept this charge until 1469, even after being elected provincial of the Carmelites of Upper Germany (a jurisdiction which included the friaries of Hungary) in about 1462.91 On the other hand, we know of no models of letters of affiliation transcribed by Hungarian Hermits of Saint Augustine. The examples produced in the same period by the Hermits of Saint Paul — who were also firmly established in Hungary and who resembled the mendicants in their pastoral vocation92 — highlight certain specificities.93 From the outset, we notice a significant difference in comparison to the mendicants: the Paulist models include, under the generic term ‘confraternal letters’, writings that announce to the beneficiary or prescribe to the religious the celebration of masses, vigils, and prayers, with or without burial, without affiliation,94 whereas 89 

Formulae solennes styli, ed. by Kovachich, pp. 366–67 no. 384 (‘284’). Liber fratris Viti Huendler ordinis fratrum Beate Marie Dei Genitricis de monte Carmeli Dei et Apostolice sedis gracia episcopus Bonodiensis, anno Domini MCCCCLXI. Klosterneuburg, Augustiner Chorherrenstift, MS Cod. 941, fol. 313. Edition (partial): Koller, Historia episcopa­ tus Quinqueeclesiarum, iv (1796), 269. Since the name of the recipient and that of the sender were truncated (Conradus N. in the first instance, frater N. of N. in the second) this letter has not been incorporated into the series of ‘real’ acts that were statistically considered. For an overview of the content of this codex, see Regényi, Die Ungarischen Konvente, pp. 52–53; Fedeles, Sarbak, and Sümegi, A pécsi egyházmegye története, i, 579 and 584 n. 70. 91  Fedeles, Sarbak, and Sümegi, A pécsi egyházmegye története, i, 124, 167–69, and 386; Mályusz, Egyházi társadalom a középkori Magyarországon, pp. 174–75. 92  See Chapter 3. 93  Formularium maius, ed. by Romhányi and Sarbak, p. 22 no. 23, pp. 22–23 no. 24, pp. 23–25 no. 25, pp. 66–67 no. 94, p. 67 no. 96, p. 70 no. 100, p. 71 no. 101, p. 71 no. 102, p. 72 no. 103, p. 72 no. 104, pp. 72–73 no. 105, pp. 74–75 no. 107, p. 75 no. 108, pp. 136–37 no. 217. 94  Most of these certificates, indeed, are addressed to the religious charged with carrying 90 

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the litter(a)e confraternales produced in the mendicant collections explicitly mention the participation in merits. The codex for the use of Hungarian Franciscans dating to about 1300 includes two letters (relatively far apart within the series), one prescribing the celebration of pro anima masses, the other the sharing of suffrages.95 The Observant Franciscan formularies of the beginning of the sixteenth century apply the same formal separation.96 Generally, the Franciscans hold the lion’s share of the collection of letters so far assembled. Out of the 125 ‘real’ letters that have been identified, eighty-seven (or nearly 70 per cent) are of Franciscan origin, of which sixtysix (53 per cent of the total) come from the Observants.97 The Dominicans issued twenty-eight of them (22 per cent of the total), ahead of the Hermits of Saint Augustine (seven letters) and the Carmelites (three). These imbalances are also found in the model letters reproduced in the mendicant formularies, even though the other orders continue to offer association with merits until the end of the period studied.98 This distribution roughly reflects the establishment of the four mendicant orders in Hungary with, however, a few disparities, which show that spiritual confraternity alone may not suffice as a barometer for measuring their respective success.99 The overwhelming proportion of letters of confraternity in the Hungarian corpus invites us to examine these rather little known documents more closely.

out prescribed services, and not to the affiliated. Formularium maius, ed. by Romhányi and Sarbak, pp. 66–67 no. 94, p. 67 no. 96, p. 70 no. 100, p. 71 no. 102, p. 72 no. 104, pp. 72–73 no. 105, p. 74 nos 107–08, p. 75 no. 108. In these letters, it is also a question of confratria, with the same meaning (pp. 72–73 no. 105). 95  Karácsonyi, ‘A magyar ferencrendűek formulás könyve a Batthyány-könyvtárban’, p. 26 no. 5 and p. 29 no.13. 96  An exception which proves the rule: one of the models from the formulary composed in the Hungarian Observant Franciscan milieu at the beginning of the 1530s, entitled littere confraternales pro kalendos, makes provision for the institution of masses for the salvation of the letter’s addressees, without mentioning affiliation with suffrages or entry into spiritual confraternity. In addition to the fact that the text is addressed to members of a confraternity (to which the adjective confraternalis may also refer), it is immediately followed by another letter granting entry into the spiritual confraternity. Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fol. 114. 97  See Graph 3. 98  See Graphs 4 and 5. 99  See Chapters 3 and 5.

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‘Hungarian’ Letters of Confraternity Ignored or underestimated,100 occasionally overvalued,101 letters of confraternity constitute a body of documentation that is as yet little exploited by scholars, including in Hungary. It is true that they present multiple difficulties, first and foremost archival. Exceptional Preservation? Throughout Christendom, the ratio of identified existing medi­eval letters of confraternity to letters that were apparently or potentially issued is extremely low. Despite the success of the mendicants (especially the Observant Franciscans) in Ireland at the end of the Middle Ages, a grand total of three letters of mendicant spiritual confraternity have been found there, of which only one (dated 1515) is in its original state.102 Few have survived in England,103 their existence being proven only by their mention in wills on the one hand and, in a more general way, in polemical and literary sources on the other. Not a single one has been unearthed in Brittany, according to Hervé Martin,104 nor in Anjou105 for the period from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries. Collections from

100 

Robert Swanson prefers letters of mixed graces to them: ‘Despite their formality, the letters of specific confraternity are in many ways less interesting than the “open confraternity” grants’. Swanson, ‘Mendicants and Confraternity in Late Medi­eval England’, p. 129. 101  The enthusiasm expressed by Johannes Kist in ‘Klosterreform im spätmittelalterlichen Nürnberg’ (cited in Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, p. 168) seems disproportionate. We will see why in Chapters 4 and 5. 102  The two others are known through copies, one from the nineteenth century, the second from a formulary. Gribbin and Ó Clabaigh, ‘Confraternity Letters’, p. 461. 103  William Clark-Maxwell considered in 1929 that only an infinitesimal proportion of the original letters had survived (‘Some Further Letters of Confraternity’, p. 196). In the same vein, Robert Swanson writes (in Swanson, ‘Mendicants and Confraternity in Late Medi­e val England’, p. 123): ‘While several mendicant confraternity letters survive, the main evidence for mechanisms comes from literary and controversial documents’ (my emphasis). 104  It is true that the Breton collections have suffered from various waves of destruction (War of the Succession of Brittany, Hundred Years War, revolutionary confiscations). But, beyond the previously mentioned wills, it is surprising that neither necro­logies, nor registries of benefactors, nor narrative texts (chronicles or hagio­graphy) mention letters of confraternity. 105  In three decades of diligent research in Angevin manu­script archives, Jean-Michel Matz has not come across a single one. I thank him for this input.

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the south of France seem scarcely any richer.106 A handful of acts have emerged from the archives of Northern France,107 and from random forays into mendicant collections.108 Even those delivered by the leading figures of the mendicant orders have practically all disappeared, with those by Bonaventure109 and John of Capistrano constituting only a partial exception to the rule. Johannes Hofer was surprised to identify only seventy-eight letters of affiliation issued by John of Capistrano (including seventy-three found in Central Europe and only five in Italy!) when the preacher had prided himself, addressing his Viennese audience at the start of his Central European tour in 1451, on having already granted 1400 of them.110 On the Dominican side, the officiales and university preachers whose letters have come down to us are rare.111 Two explanations, not mutually exclusive, compete to account for this particularly low yield: first, the inadequacy of the investigations undertaken in 106 

In his article on commemorative services celebrated by the Dominicans of the province of Toulouse (which included confraternal affiliations, as we have seen), Daniel Picard affirms that he can only base his findings on the indications retained in provincial registries — where only one member of the laity is associated with the merits of the Friars Preachers. Picard, ‘Les Suffrages’, pp. 109–10. 107  The archives of the Département du Nord seem to contain only four mendicant letters of confraternity, according to the present inventories (which are, we must remember, approximate and incomplete) of the H series (regular clergy): those issued by the provincial Franciscan ministers Jean Moreau and Raynald in 1446 and 1495 for a couple and one laywoman, one (undated in the inventory) linking the Dominicans of Lille to the convent of the Dominican sisters of Notre-Dame of l’Abbiette, and finally one by which the general master of the Dominicans admits the Augustinian sisters of Lille into the spiritual confraternity of his order in 1484. Lille, Archives Départementales du Nord, series H, subseries of the Couvent des Récollets of Lille, 87 H18, MSS 18 and 19; subseries of the Couvent dominicain of Lille, 127 H11, MS (not numbered) 116–26; subseries of the Black Sisters or Augustinian Sisters of Lille also known as the ‘soeurs ensacquées’, 56 H2, MS 4. 108  ‘Father Christian’ had thus, among other Franciscan documents, collected four Franciscan letters of affiliation, the earliest of which dates to 1508. Dedieu, ‘Documents franciscains originaux’, pp. 109–10 no. 2. 109  See Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, which refers to the editions, pp. 53–54 and 60–61. 110  Hofer, ‘Bruderschaftsbriefe des heil. Johannes Kapistran’, p. 326. 111  The seven acts of affiliation composed between 1367 and 1380 in the name of Elias Raymond of Périgueux (master of theo­logy in Prague, vicar general in 1365, and then master general from 1367 to 1369) constitute one of the longest series among the letters issued by the Dominicans that have so far been identified (although not exhaustively, it is true) in Kaeppeli, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum, i, 365–66, and iv, 77.

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manu­script collections, public and especially private; and second, the almost systematic destruction of the letters ‘after use’, by the issuers or by the affiliates. Since Johannes Hofer succeeded in increasing threefold (from twenty-five to seventy-eight) the number of known letters of Capistrano in fewer than ten years of serious digging,112 he leaned towards the first hypothesis.113 The problem is that, since 1935, the Italian collections have yielded no further letters by the Abruzzese preacher. It is true that Ottokar Bonmann enriched the collection by six letters, but not one of these is Italian.114 Conversely, William Clark-Maxwell (followed in this by Robert Swanson) considered that letters of affiliation were by nature destined for destruction, like letters of indulgence which were buried with the deceased,115 or destroyed at the moment of death.116 This could explain the fact that the rate of preservation of these letters is no better in Catholic territory (Ireland, Italy) than in regions that were massively won over by Protestantism in the sixteenth century (England, Germany, the Netherlands). Except that in two decades, between 1929 (the date of the last list established by Clark-Maxwell, identifying twenty Franciscan letters, including letters granting various graces)117 and the beginning of the 1950s (when Andrew Little noted, in an unfinished inventory that was posthumously published in 1956, fifty-seven letters of confraternity strictu sensu for the Franciscans),118 the volume of English Franciscan letters tripled. The thirty Dominican letters collected and edited in 1963 by Servatius Wolfs for Flanders were, until then, unknown to scholars.119 Conversely, the cataloguing of the entire group of the acts of the English Augustinian Hermits that was carried out between 1950 and 1960 yielded only about fifteen letters of affiliation, out of a total of 1177 documents.120 112  The previous list, established by Aniceto Chiappini in 1927, only included twenty-five items. Chiappini, La produzione letteraria di S. Giovanni da Capestrano. 113  Hofer, ‘Bruderschaftsbriefe des heil. Johannes Kapistran’, p. 326. 114  Bonmann, Gedeon, and Miskuly, ‘A Provisional Calendar I’, p. 258. The Hungarian ‘detour’ allowed me to unearth three letters of affiliation issued by John of Capistrano, which had escaped the attention of Johannes Hofer, of Ottokar Bonmann, and then of Ludovic Viallet: LC 28, 29, and 30. 115  Clark-Maxwell, ‘Some Further Letters of Confraternity’, p. 196. 116  See the previous chapter. 117  Clark-Maxwell, ‘Some Further Letters of Confraternity’, pp. 210–11. 118  Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, pp. 20–25. 119  Litterae de beneficiis, ed. by Wolfs. 120  Roth, The English Austin Friars.

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Since there has been no renewal of systematic research since then (in England, or in Italy, or in France), the mystery remains unsolved. Against all expectations, it is in Hungary — a country particularly hard hit, as we know, by the destruction of archives — that the rate of preservation of mendicant confraternity letters seems to have been the best in all of Western Christendom. The ‘Hungarian’ corpus constitutes, in any case, the largest ‘national stock’ that may be identified today, though it is (possibly?) rivalled in this respect by that of Flanders.121 Is this because mendicant spiritual confraternities had greater success there than elsewhere? The key to an explanation seems mainly archival. It resides in the concentration of Hungarian collections and archival inventories, which suggests that the majority of the letters which escaped destruction (deliberate or simply by happenstance) are now known. In this respect, Hungary is much better off than the numerous European states whose mendicant collections, urban and especially familial and noble, remain dispersed, instead of being deposited in national or regional archives. There is a second possible reason for the survival of these documents: the particular care paid to their preservation by those who held them. Perhaps for spiritual reasons, the heirs of the recipients having wished to keep a trace of a grace which often extended to all the descendants of the addressee. Most certainly, out of concern for the perpetuation of the family memory. Indeed, more than half of the letters of affiliation preserved in the Hungarian National Archives come from noble or aristocratic collections.122 In a country where consciousness of lineage was particularly vigorous123 — noble milieus having always cultivated the commemoration of their ancestors — the affiliates and their heirs were probably reluctant to destroy these documents. In this, they seem similar to those families of the English nobility, Anglican for several 121 

Servatius Wolfs inventoried thirty letters of suffrage addressed to Flemings (clergy or lay) by Dominican superiors over the course of the Middle Ages (between 1243 and 1524), of which two come from formularies. Litterae de beneficiis, ed. by Wolfs. 122  Of the 122 letters whose origin is known, 64 came initially from family collections, according to twentieth-century inventories (beginning with the Hungarian National Archives). The real proportion of acts coming from the archives of nobles is doubtless slightly higher, since certain families later ‘restored’ a part of their collections of a religious nature to ecclesiastical institutions — according to the annotations on certain letters of confraternity (see LC 73, commented upon below). 123  See Fügedi, ‘Sepelierunt corpus eius in proprio monasterio’ and Fügedi, ‘Quelques questions’.

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generations, who, as Robert Swanson was surprised to find, had kept letters of confraternity granted to their ancestors, if only for probative genealogical purposes, as is evident in this dorsal annotation from the seventeenth century: ‘kept only for the tryall of the pedegre’.124 In fact, in Hungary, as in England, non-nobles — secular clerics, bourgeois, or peasants — do not seem to have shown the same cautious forethought. A distorting mirror, the letters which have survived, far from constituting a representative social sample, probably reflect, above all, the practices of nobles. This difference in treatment according to social milieu could explain the destruction (complete, as far as Hungary goes) of letters of mixed graces, pre-filledin: provided in exchange for money to addressees having neither the material resources nor the will to preserve them, they seem to have disappeared with those recipients. What is certain is that the letters of affiliation found in Hungary form an infinitesimal proportion of those which were in fact issued: between 1 and 2 per cent, if we apply to them the average rate of survival of Hungarian documents from before 1526 that has been proposed by Pál Engel,125 perhaps as much as 5 per cent (as for the Hungarian codices preserved in Hungary and surrounding countries),126 and certainly less than 10 per cent (the proportion considered plausible in France). Of the six model letters of confraternity from the Observant Franciscan formulary written between the years 1510 and 1525 (described above), only one is found in the corpus of nominative letters.127 The one addressed to the Palatine of Hungary, reserved for high dignitaries (insig­ nibus personis) does not figure there, neither with that function nor with any other.128 In the ‘real’ letters, the combination between the name or hierarchical level of the sender, the social rank of the addressee, and the detail of the graces specified is always different from the one which appears in the Hungarian formularies. Even taking into account the fact that, according to the law of the 124 

Clark-Maxwell, ‘Some Letters of Confraternity’, p. 49; reproduced in Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, p. 18, and Swanson, ‘Letters of Confraternity and Indulgence’, p. 57. 125  Engel, The Realm of St Stephen, p. xvii. 126  See the publications of Edit Madas presenting the project Fragmenta Codicum Műhely, [accessed 16 April 2016]. 127  The second model copied in the collection evidently compiles elements contained in the two letters (LC 91 and 92) issued by James of Mantua in 1503. Budapest, OSzK, MS Cod. Lat. 432, fols 56r–57r. 128  Budapest, OSzK, MS Cod. Lat. 432, fols 115v–117r. It is true that its length (573 words!) made it an unwieldy tool.

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genre, the composers intermingled several passages from the examples that they had before them in order to compose their models, the yield is slim. The acts of admission into spiritual confraternity delivered to the individuals whom wills, registers of benefactors, and charters of donation call confratres — whether barons129 or bourgeois — have all disappeared, with one lone exception.130 Finally, signs of voluntary destruction do exist in Hungary. The operations of Turkish conquest and reconquest are not solely responsible for the documentary losses; if this were the case, we would have many more letters of confraternity originating in Transylvania or in Upper Hungary (the future Slovakia) — less affected by the destruction of archives than the centre of the Carpathian Basin.131 Hungarian mendicants continued to grant admittance to their spiritual confraternity until the 1530s: we have seen that the second formulary of the Observant Franciscans of Hungary contained twice as many models as the previous one, for a total number of copied acts that was roughly equivalent. Having become both useless and compromising with the rise of Protestantism — as early as 1520 to 1530 among the urban patriciate and mainly after 1541 among the nobility and a fraction of the aristocracy — the most recent letters were probably the priority target of this documentary ‘purging’. This would explain — alongside the breaking up of the modern collections of the Hungarian National Archives, which hampers comparisons with the medi­eval period — the infinitesimal quantity of nominative letters dating from 1526 to 1541 that have so far been identified in Hungary. Function and Use Since their development in the twelfth century by the Cistercians, letters of confraternity had fulfilled a different function than that of the ‘books of confraternity’ of the Carolingian era and of the registers of benefactors established at the level of each monastery.132 Oriented towards the outside world, they addressed themselves to the new confrater (named in the second 129 

Nicolas of Bethlen, named in the Dominican registry of Sighişoara as having received a letter of confraternity from the master general (Ipolyi, ‘Adalékok a magyar domonkosok történetéhez’, pp. 602–03) is absent from the corpus of letters. 130  The letter of the provincial prior of the Carmelites of Upper Germany affiliating (in 1480) the royal notary Peter of Söpte (or Septe) — described as ‘confrater noster specialis’ by the prior of the Carmelite priory of Buda in 1494, as we have mentioned above — has been found (LC 50). 131  See Map 2 and Chapter 3. 132  See Chapter 1.

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person and in the dative), to whom they provided proof of his spiritual affiliation, and not to the religious. As for the friars themselves, they kept no duplicates of these letters in the friary. Logically, they should have kept a written record, at least for ‘major’ admissions, which included the same commemorative celebrations as for deceased friars, so as to be able to cite the name of the affiliate in the chapter after his death. The Hungarian documentation confirms the observation of Hugolin Lippens, according to which the mendicants did not practice simultaneous duplication of the letters: no pair (or duplicate letter, even abridged) has been found — either in Hungary or in England.133 The eschatocol of Hungarian letters and model letters never refers to an issuing in duplicate.134 It is possible that, in order to honour their commitments to their confratres and consorores, the friars might have recorded the names of those affiliated by letter in specific lists, as the monks and canons regular did, until the composition (at the end of the fifteenth and at the beginning of the sixteenth centuries) of the first conventual registers of benefactors in which appear (intermingled with other benefactors) confratres and confratiss(a)e. At least, this hypothesis has been proposed for England.135 But no list of this type has survived in Hungary, either at the level of the friaries, whose inventories, stored without any great care, were certainly destroyed at the moment of their secularization after the rise 133 

According to the inventory of regular English letters compiled by William Clark-Maxwell (‘Some Letters of Confraternity’ and ‘Some Further Letters of Confraternity’). 134  This annotation only appears explicitly in the context of mutual affiliations between regular communities. And even in this context, simultaneous duplication was rare, according to the letters of confraternity delivered at the end of the fourteenth century by the Augustinian Canons regular of Bohemia, Moravia, and Poland, recently edited and analysed by Pavel Krafl, Petra Mutlová, and Dana Stehlíková in Řeholní kanovníci sv. Augustina v Lanškrouně; Krafl, ‘Dokumenty donfraterni’; Krafl, ‘Konfraternita kartuziánů’; Krafl, ‘Konfraternita lanškrounského’; Krafl, ‘Pozdnestredoveké konfraternity’. It must be said that this practice presumed the physical presence of the leaders of each establishment of the pair, named from the intitulatio as coauthors of the littera confraternitatis. We read in one of these (dated 1 July 1381 and edited in Krafl, Mutlová, and Stehlíková, Řeholní kanovníci sv. Augustina v Lanškrouně, p. 136 no. 11): ‘Ne autem quisque nostrum de ignorancia huiusmodi se valeat excusare, presentes literas duplicari iussimus’ (my emphasis). The other letters do not include this detail. Furthermore, the monasteries and priories of the canons regular recently associated with the suffrages of another community took several months or years to issue a letter by which they welcomed, in return, the members of the second. Krafl, Mutlová, and Stehlíková, Řeholní kanovníci sv. Augustina v Lanškrouně, table ii, p. 58. 135 

Little, The Grey Friars in Oxford, pp. 89–90; Swanson, ‘Mendicants and Confraternity in Late Medi­eval England’, p. 139.

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of Protestantism; or at the provincial level, although the provincials were the issuers of the great majority of the letters of the corpus and of almost all those granted with memoria.136 Doubt persists, therefore, as to the diligence with which the mendicants recorded admissions into their spiritual confraternity and discharged their corresponding obligations. Some letters, it is true, were found (and are still found) in the friaries — at least in the form of copies, those which served the writers of mendicant formularies as material for their rubric(s) of litter(a)e confraternales. But in Hungary, their presence does not result from the same process as the one observed in England, where the usual circuit of acts of admission was as follows: after the letter was issued to the beneficiary, he would request in his will that it be returned to the issuing friary, itself charged with communicating it to the provincial or general minister of the order.137 Hungarian wills do not include a clause of this kind. The letters of affiliation (even ‘major’) do not explicitly envisage the restitution of these letters to the friars — neither in the main text nor in marginal or dorsal annotations.138 The possibility of a systematic return of the letters to the affiliating friaries or dignitaries at the time of the death of each confrater — in any case, problematic since it removed from his descendants and other family members the proof of their association, as we have said — therefore appears weak. It is for contingent reasons that part of the corpus of letters, much reduced,139 ultimately ended up in the collections 136 

We note that, in the case of the Hermits of Saint Paul, the list of those affiliated by letter that is noted in the Formularium maius only dates from the start of the seventeenth century. Formularium maius, ed. by Romhányi and Sarbak, p. 9. 137  The English testators would accompany this request with a bequest of money, to ensure that the friars would transmit their letters to the authorities (provincial or general) of the order. Andrew Little provides an extract of a will which alludes to this obligation, accompanied by a donation for the pitancia of the friars (Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, p. 14 n. 3): ‘Volo quod in capitulo generali Anglie quando littere mee quas habeo de eorum fraternitate debent ostendi et anima mea missis et oracionibus commendari quod utrique fratres minores et predicatores habent XX s. ad eorum pitanciam’. See also Röhrkasten, The Mendicant Houses of Medi­eval London, p. 465. 138  Unlike several English letters, according to Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, p. 14. In Hungary, the acts of affiliation content themselves with promising that the death of the confrater will be announced in the chapter (with recurrent turns of phrase such as ‘obitus alicuius vestrum nostro fuerit capitulo nunciatus’) and that he will benefit from the same measures as those put in place for deceased friars (‘pro vobis fiat quod pro nostris fratribus defunctis ibidem communiter fieri est consuetum’). These clauses will be analysed in Chapter 4. 139  The catalogue of the Franciscan archives of Gyöngyös, a collection which held what

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of the Hungarian monasteries. The known examples of the depositing of family archives in monastic or mendicant collections are found in the context of the dissolutions ordered by Emperor Joseph II between 1780 and 1790.140 Formal Structure The apparent insouciance of the mendicants for keeping in their possession a list of affiliates contrasts with their rigorous respect for the rules of composition and of formulation of the letters of confraternity, as defined by their predecessors. After a short period of uncertainty and setting aside a few singular examples by the Franciscans,141 mendicant letters conformed, starting at the end of the thirteenth century, to a single mould. This formalism reflects the authentication function of these documents, which had the value of official charters, above and beyond the classic tools of validation (seal and in some cases auto­g raph subscription). The scrupulous application by the mendicant scriptores, throughout all of Christendom, of the diplomatic canons in effect during the medi­e val period is well known.142 This finds confirmation in the letters of affiliation delivered by the mendicant officiales of Hungary. There is no stylistic fancy or structural change on their part. With only a few tiny variations, the scribes followed a uniform canvas from the end of the thirteenth century to the 1530s.

little remained of the archives of the Hungarian Observant Province, lists only four letters of confraternity (including two issued by John of Capistrano and one conventual one) among the hundreds of medi­eval documents inventoried in 1930. A gyöngyösi zárda oklevéltára, p. 8 nos 50 and 51, p. 10 no. 71, and p. 11 no. 88. 140  The dorsal annotation on a letter of confraternity from 1493 (LC 73) indicates that the descendant of the beneficiary, a member of the dynasty of the Balpataki family, had made a donation of the said letter to the Hungarian Franciscan archives in 1780: ‘Donavit archivo nostro D. Antoni Balpataki degens in Balpataki comitatus Saarosiensis 27 Aug. 1780, scilicet Wamosinum admissiola’. 141  Examples of particularly original Franciscan letters in Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, notably the letters of Michael of Cesena (p. 63 n. 3) and the majority of the documents published in the annex (pp. 74–88), with the proviso that not all of these are letters of confraternity stricto sensu. 142  Concerning the Franciscans, see Pratesi, ‘Nolo aliud instrumentum’ — cited by Donatella Nebbiai Dalla Guarda, ‘Introduction’ to Nebbiai Dalla Guarda, Bériou, and Morard, Entre stabilité et itinérance, p. 9.

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Since, until now, this canvas has never been presented — beyond the general observations formulated by Hugolin Lippens based on exclusively Franciscan letters,143 and by Jaroslav Dřimal from eleven Moravian letters issued by John of Capistrano144 — it is appropriate to outline its structure here. In doing so, we will try to grasp what the letters of confraternity can — and cannot — tell us about the phenomenon of spiritual association with the mendicants. The letters of affiliation issued by mendicant superiors apply more or less the same broad divisions used in this type of document by Benedictine and Cistercian dispensers since the middle of the twelfth century, themselves modeled closely on the usages of civil and ecclesiastical chanceries of their time, starting with the usual protocolary triad of initial – text – eschatocol. Without any invocation, the protocol always begins with the address, and not with the intitulatio, except among the Augustinian Friars;145 whereas, in the charters by which the friars grant other graces (burial in the friary, recommendation for prayer with liturgical services, indulgences, etc.) the opposite is true.146 The anteposed address is found neither among the Cistercians,147 nor among the

143 

Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 57–63, and especially pp. 68–73. Dřimal, ‘K brněnskému pobytu’, especially pp. 388–91. 145  Just one Augustinian letter from the Hungarian corpus begins with the address: LC 15 (1393). The intitulatio also appears at the opening English Augustinian acts of affiliation: Roth, The English Austin Friars, pp. 428–29, with the exception of the earliest letter (1279). 146  The intitulatio (granter’s name and status) formula precedes the address in the model letters of non-confraternal graces inscribed in the formularies — for example in Karácsonyi, ‘A magyar ferencrendűek formulás könyve a Batthyány-könyvtárban’, p. 26 no. 5, fol. 125r — as in the ’real’ acts. Iványi, Dominikánus levelek, pp. 35–36 no. 4 (1376) (=Budapest, MNL DL 103341); Budapest, MNL DF 285854 (1388); Budapest, MNL DL 62601 (1469); Budapest, MNL DL 88521 (1471); Budapest, MNL DL 81810 (1478); Budapest, MNL DL 45866 (1481); Budapest, MNL DL 95123 (1481); Budapest, MNL DL 45870 (1481); Budapest, MNL DF 258274 (1501); Budapest, MNL DL 21859 (1508); Budapest, MNL DF 250355 (1521). This sequencing is also followed by the Augustinian Hermits: Budapest, MNL DL 79302, in A zichi és vasonkeoi, ed. by Nagy, Kammerer, and Véghely, vi, 387 no. 259 (1415). Outside of Hungary, letters of confraternity (non-Augustinian) beginning by the letterhead formula often grant complementary graces. See, for example, Godet, ‘Jean Standonck et les Frères mineurs’, p. 406 (a letter by which the Franciscan general Giles Delfin incorporates John Standonck into the major spiritual confraternity of the order and grants him burial in the habit, dated 30 March 1503). 147  An example, delivered by the Abbot of Heiligenkreuz to Peter of Söpte: Budapest, MNL DL 93676 (1498). 144 

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Carthusians,148 nor among the Paulists149 at the end of the Middle Ages. It would be illusory to see in this a spirituality that placed the ‘outside’ ahead of the ‘interior’. Perhaps this sequencing, which was adopted at all the hierarchical levels, simply allowed the friary scribes to identify the letters quickly, in order to transmit them to their addressees and possibly to record the names of the recipients without risk of error. This first compositional distinction pinpoints the question of the ‘trademark’ of mendicant letters. Combined with other specificities,150 it helps us learn about the chancery practices that pertained to the mendicants — and thus about their written culture.151 The name of the addressee is almost always preceded by the formula ‘In Christo sibi c(h)arissimo / dilecto’. It includes indications concerning his or her social rank — one or several distinctive qualifiers (nobilis, magnificus, egregius, honestus, etc.), in accordance with local usage — as well as the possible explicit naming of his or her titles or public functions, whether civil or ecclesiastical. This all constitutes very valuable material when we do not know the identity or the position of the recipient. These details allow us to appreciate without question the influential nature of spiritual association in Hungarian society. The intitulatio indicates the identity of the sender of the letter with the same sober style from century to century: frater X (de X) followed by the name of the order to which he belongs and his office (guardian, custodian, vicar, provincial, minister general, inquisitor, commissary) in accordance with the usage of each order (‘minister et servus’ among the Franciscans, for example, beginning in the fourteenth century). Uni­ver­sity degrees are added from the middle of the fifteenth century onwards, according to a trend apparent among the Franciscans from the 1430s152 and rapidly extended to all the mendicants. 148 

In letters of spiritual affiliation issued by Hungarian Carthusian superiors, the intitula­ tio comes after the address at the end of the fourteenth century, but always precedes it during the following century. Budapest, MNL DL 7179 (1385); Budapest, MNL DL 15841 (1463); Budapest, MNL DL 93301 (1464); and Budapest, MNL DL 93376 (1467) — similarly as at the chief of the order: Budapest, MNL DL 93608 (1490). 149  An example of a ‘real’ letter: Budapest, MNL DL 86589 (1456). It is corroborated in the models inscribed in the Paulist formulary of the beginning of the sixteenth century. Formu­ larium maius, ed. by Romhányi and Sarbak. 150  See Chapters 4 and 5. 151  Libri, biblioteche et letture dei fratri mendicanti; Nebbiai Dalla Guarda, Bériou, and Morard, Entre stabilité et itinérance. 152  Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 70.

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They help flesh out the (slim) prosopo­g raphy of the mendicant officiales and inform us about their intellectual training. If the letter was promulgated in the provincial or general chapter, this annotation appears immediately after the intitulatio in more or less developed form: ‘in capitulo nostro X’ or ‘necnon ceteri patres et fratres in capitulo X in conventu X capitulariter congregati’. These annotations are invaluable for narrowing down the chrono­logy of these assemblies, little known with respect to medi­eval Hungary. Next comes a brief salutation formula (‘salutem’ or ‘salutem et pacem in Domino sempiternam’ among the Franciscans), sometimes enhanced with additional elements (‘cum oracionum suffragio’, ‘et sinceram in Domino charitatem’). The corpus opens with a preamble of varying length which recalls, in an expostulation of greater or lesser development, the necessity for the friars to recompense material benefits with spiritual benefits. Certain formulae are only found in one mendicant order or another, which offers possibilities for comparative study. The differences begin to fade away, however, starting in the 1450s, when the concessive clause beginning ‘Quamvis ex caritatis debito’ becomes widespread, making spiritual affiliation the corollary of the ‘duty of charity’ of all Christians, in the direct line of the Cistercian preambles but with new, carefully phrased remarks. The exposition of motives first testifies to the affection (devotio, dilectio, sin­ ceritas, affectus, etc.) and the benevolence of the addressee toward the order or the friary — a favourable disposition which is often said to have been reported to the author of the letter by pious relation (‘pia relacione’) on the part of the friars. But the concrete actions by which this ‘affection’ has manifested itself are not specified (except when other graces are attributed at the same time as spiritual confraternity). This hampers any purely economic approach to the phenomenon. The dispositive part is articulated in three stages. First, it enumerates the different beneficiaries, that is, the principal addressee, his wife, his children (already born and sometimes individually named, or yet to be born) as well as his other relatives (by blood or alliance) and possibly his friends. Second, it specifies the grace(s) granted to the above-mentioned recipients: entry into spiritual confraternity (expressed in these terms: ‘te/vos in confraternitatem nostri ordinis […] recipio’) and the participation in or association with the merits or suffrages acquired by the members of the order. These two aspects tend to be dissociated from each other, at least syntactically, starting in the middle of the fifteenth century.153 Third, the dispositive clause sets forth the list (of vary153 

See Chapter 4.

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ing length) of spiritual goods with whose merits the recipients are associated (masses, prayers, fasts, sermons, etc.). As applicable, other benefits, granted ‘by special grace (or favour)’ are detailed: the same offices as for deceased friars (which defines ‘major spiritual confraternity’ as we will recall), supplementary celebrations (masses, prayers), burial within the friary close (with or without the habit). It is evident that the names of the addressees and of their family members constitute a veritable gold mine of information, demo­graphic (since the family lists extend to as many as thirteen persons), genealogical (since births, deaths, marriages, and remarriages are quite closely reflected in these documents),154 and anthroponymic (from the most common forenames such as John, Nicolas, Catherine, and Anne to lesser used ones such as Euphrosyna and Seraphin). But it is the later parts of the dispositive clause which obviously attract the most attention for our purposes. These shed light on the content of the link of confraternity (what was meant by ‘participation’, in what, with or without post mortem commemoration?) and highlight certain ‘spiritual goods’ pertaining to particular orders — or branches of orders — rather than to others.155 The degree of participation (‘ordinary’ or ‘major’) also allows us to measure the role of necro­logical commemoration in the success of the mendicant spiritual confraternities, visibly secondary according to the preserved Hungarian letters, since two-thirds of the admissions are ‘minor’.156 The presence of additional graces, enumerated according to an order which owes nothing to chance, also helps to situate spiritual affiliation on the palette of salvational benefits proposed to the faithful by the friars. The eschatocol, given without a list of witnesses or a formula of appreciation, provides the place (which is always a friary of the order) and the date, as well as, sometimes, the type of seal (associated with a specific officium within the order, from the friary superior to the head of the order) and the manner of sealing (hanging or affixed). An auto­g raph subscription, ‘Frater X (qui supra) manu 154 

Where there are blanks, we may guess at a brutal death, unless there is simply a lack of scribal information. Conversely, the appearance of new names from one letter to another allows us to follow the enlargement of the families. Pál Engel has drawn upon just a few of the letters of affiliation preserved in the Hungarian National Archives to establish the Hungarian civil ‘archonto­logy’ for the late Middle Ages. Engel, Magyar középkori adattár. Their systematic exploitation would allow us to complete these noble genealogies. 155  They will be analysed in Chapter 5. 156  Of the 122 letters for which we know what level of incorporation they pronounced, seventy-six specify minor admission, and forty-six major.

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propria (scripsit/concedit)’, was gradually added to this, beginning in the 1450s for the Franciscans. This gave the letter an additional air of authenticity.157 Overall, even if we should not count on the letters of confraternity of the Hungarian corpus to renew fundamentally our knowledge of the spirituality of the mendicants and of the religious beliefs of their external supporters, they do constitute an irreplaceable material resource for understanding how the friars and their partisans used spiritual affiliation over the final three centuries of the Middle Ages. The archives on the Hungarian mendicant confraternities, exceptionally centralized and of very homogeneous composition, are a long way from providing answers to all the questions posed by the sources on the history of mendicant spiritual confraternities. In Hungary, as in other geo­ graphical spheres, the letters of affiliation that have survived over the centuries form the tip of an ‘iceberg’ of documentation whose total dimensions unfortunately must elude observation. They show a minima that the fate of these letters was not uniform in the West. The first challenge that this study would like to take on is not so much to understand why confraternal affiliations were so numerous in Hungary (since we lack points of comparison to acquire any certainty about this) as to explain the relative abundance of the documents which have preserved the memory of their existence. The great care taken by families of the Hungarian nobility in the conservation of their archives, out of attachment to their lineage, probably played a role in this. Nonetheless, we cannot reject the idea that spiritual confraternity had a particular meaning and importance for these families. The hypothesis of a less widespread, and therefore more valued, usage of spiritual confraternity in a kingdom where mendicant friars maintained, until the 1530s, a strong influence over the elites as well as over the masses cannot be set aside a priori. It will serve as our working hypothesis.

157 

If we are to believe the request addressed to John of Capistrano by Ladislas of Szécsény in July 1455 (LC 27), the affiliates cherished this particularly. The reputation of the preacher certainly played a role. On the relationship between sanctity and auto­g raph writings of the Observant Franciscans, see the proposals of Giovè, ‘Sante scritture’.

Chapter 3

The Success of Mendicant Spiritual Confraternities in Hungary until about 1530

A

ssessing and understanding the influence of mendicant spiritual confraternities in the Kingdom of Hungary in the Middle Ages, based on the thin and unbalanced documentary evidence that has just been described, is a difficult task. The Hungarian sources do, however, allow us to propose certain estimations which, although provisional and tentative, will at least be able to serve as a departure point for future research, whether concerning Hungary or other regions. The history of mendicant spiritual confraternities cannot be isolated from its religious context. Consequently, this chapter opens with a succinct description of the establishment of the mendicants in Hungary during the medi­eval period, and of the principal forms of piety that were manifested there at that time. With the setting thus established, we will attempt to sketch the contours of spiritual affiliation with the mendicants as practised in the Kingdom of St Stephen from the last third of the thirteenth century (when it emerges for the first time from the sources) to about 1530. (This limiting of the discussion is due to the restrictions presented by the archival sources, as explained in the previous chapter.) Even if, from the outset, we must give up on establishing any absolute values due to immeasurable documentary losses, the scope of the phenomenon does emerge quite clearly from the small number of comparative data available to us. A diachronic study will highlight, as much as possible, the mutability of memberships in spiritual confraternities over the three centuries examined. I will then provide a general picture of the geo­graphical distribution of the affiliates, exploring the question of its links with the territorial networks

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of the mendicant establishments. But above all, I focus on the social profile of the confratres, insofar as it allows us to evaluate the degree of openness of the mendicant spiritual confraternities and their overlap with the circle of traditional benefactors as recognized by the friars.

The Hungarian Religious Context Two elements of the religious landscape of medi­eval Hungary must be taken into consideration before going further. The first concerns the ascendancy of the mendicants, which must be assessed in relation to the social and political context of the country. The second relates to the practices by which Hungarian Christians sought to ensure the salvation of their souls. The Establishment of the Mendicant Orders in Hungary The multiplication, over the last thirty years, of publications on the medi­ eval history of the mendicant orders in Hungary will excuse us from a lengthy survey of the subject.1 Despite the persistence of several ‘grey areas’, we are now able to get a fairly clear image of the network of their foundations: of the density, the geo­g raphical distribution, and the place of their friaries in local topo­graphy.2 The evolution that is particular to each of the four ordines mendicantes established within the limits of the Kingdom of Hungary as well as the social bases for their respective development are also well known, especially in the case of the Franciscans. Having arrived in the Carpathian Basin as early as the 1220s, the Dominicans and Franciscans progressed there, roughly speaking, in two waves. The first took place in the middle of the thirteenth century, in the context of the reconstruction movement which followed the Mongol invasion of 1241; after that, the Friars Preachers and Friars Minor were joined by the Augustinian Hermits and finally by the Carmelites, the last to arrive, in the 1370s. The second wave began in the fifteenth century, more specifically after 1450, in the context of the Observant reforms. By the first decade of the sixteenth century, 1 

See the historio­graphical overview in French, accompanied by numerous biblio­graphical references, principally in Hungarian, in de Cevins, ‘Les Frères mendiants et l’économie en Hongrie médiévale’, pp. 174–76; Romhányi, ‘Le Fonctionnement matériel des couvents mendiants dans le royaume de Hongrie aux xiiie–xvie siècles’, pp. 47–50. 2  On the establishment of the mendicants in medi­e val Hungary, set into the perspective of transalpine Europe, see Romhányi, ‘Kolostorhálózat — településhálózat — népesség’.

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the number of mendicant establishments in Hungary — of which nine-tenths were male3 — amounted to nearly two hundred, accommodating about three thousand male and female religious. These made up just over half of the total regular communities in the country, taking account of all orders together, and controlled nearly thirty tertiary fraternities (or beguinages) for women around the year 1520. Except for the virtually uninhabited zones of the Great Hungarian Plain, the network of their establishments covered the whole of the Carpathian Basin.4 The concentration of mendicant foundations was particularly strong in the cities and towns, where mendicant friaries were often more numerous than parish churches. 5 The Franciscans, especially the followers of the Observant movement, were also active in rural areas.6 With the exception of the Carmelites, whose priories were integrated into the province of Upper Germany (Germania superior), the Hungarian mendicants all belonged to one province, whose headquarters were in Hungary itself, if not always in Buda — the permanent residence of the royal court beginning in the fourteenth century, and the most populous city in the kingdom, closely followed by its neighbour, Pest — then at least nearby (in Óbuda, for the Conventual Franciscans). The Franciscans were by far the most numerous of the Hungarian mendicants, with about 110 friaries at the turn of the sixteenth century. At that time, about seventy of those friaries, populated by 1700 to 2000 friars, belonged to the Observant vicariate of Hungary, which was founded in 1448 by seceding from the vicariate of Bosnia. After being detached from the (predominantly Italian) familia cismontana for half a century (1458–1502), it adopted, in 1517, the name of the province of the Holy Saviour (or ‘Salvatorian’ province).7 The 3  The book on the history of female monasticism in medi­eval Hungary is still waiting for its author. Meanwhile, see the specific observations, based principally on mendicant examples, collected in de Cevins, ‘Les Femmes dans l’Église à la fin du Moyen Âge’, especially pp. 263–64. For a recent study, limited to the province of Transylvania and considering the question of fraternities of tertiaries, see Florea, ‘Women and Mendicant Orders’. 4  A repertory of the regular establishments of medi­e val Hungary (with notes, biblio­ graphy, and maps) can be found in Romhányi, Kolostorok és társaskáptalanok a középkori Mag­ yarországon. For complementary information and updates on male mendicant establishments in the georeferenced database (currently being finalized) produced in the context of the ANR MARGEC programme, see . 5  Fügedi, ‘Koldulórendek és városfejlodés Magyarországon’; de Cevins, L’Église dans les villes hongroises, pp. 50–51. 6  De Cevins, Les Franciscains observants, pp. 51–53. 7  De Cevins, Les Franciscains observants, pp. 231–32.

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expansion of the Observant Franciscans owed a great deal, in addition to the support of the papacy, to royal intervention and to the support (political, diplomatic, legal, and material) of powerful aristocratic and noble dynasties often close to the Hunyadi family. The ‘Conventuals’, who had carried out their own reform in adopting the statutes of 1454 on the initiative of Fabian of Igal, had only at most forty houses around 1500, generally less populous than those of Observant movement. Threatened by repeated attempts to transfer them to the Observance, they sought support among the few prelates, nobles, and especially members of the urban elite who defended them against their Observant detractors.8 As early as 1254, the Dominican province of Hungary was stable enough to host (in Buda) the general chapter of the order. It included about forty establishments at the turn of the sixteenth century, populated by four hundred to six hundred religious.9 Like the Carmelites (with three or four priories),10 the Dominicans were found primarily in towns or cities. The Augustinian Hermits, for their part (with between thirty and forty priories),11 also had establishments in modest small towns and villages.12 In Hungary, the mendicants benefited above all from the support of the elites. Their most valuable ally was the king himself — from Béla IV (1235–70) to Matthias Corvinus (1458–90).13 The kings’ support for the mendicants was rapidly imitated by the bishops and lay lords, who were all involved in the foundation and endowment of mendicant establishments as early as the fourteenth century.14 Members of the bourgeoisie, whether individually or collectively, took longer to commit to these movements. The founders of religious establishments and their heirs maintained a right of patronage over them (ius patronatus) that was scarcely different from the one which had applied to Benedictine monasteries and to parish churches since the era of the Arpadian kings.15 The material dependence of the friars on the faithful increased with 8 

Karácsonyi, Szent Ferencz rendjének. Harsányi, A domonkosrend Magyarországon. 10  Regényi, Die Ungarischen Konvente. 11  Fallenbüchl, Az ágostonrendiek Mag yarországon; Fallenbüchl, Die Augustiner; de Cevins, ‘Les Ermites de saint Augustin en Hongrie médiévale’. 12  De Cevins, ‘Les Religieux et la ville au bas Moyen Âge’, pp. 111–14. 13  Kubinyi, ‘Mátyás király és a monastikus rendek’; de Cevins, Mathias Corvin, pp. 214–17. 14  De Cevins and Koszta, ‘Noblesse et ordres religieux’, pp. 587–88 and 590–96. 15  Fügedi, ‘Sepelierunt corpus eius in proprio monasterio’ and Fügedi, ‘Quelques questions’. 9 

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the adoption of the Franciscan Observance, which limited the stable revenues of the friaries at the very time when this movement was leading them, in many cases, to establish themselves in modest small towns.16 To this day, tombstones and keystones preserve the visual memory of this tradition of noble protection, corroborated by charters of donation found in the Hungarian archives.17 The social recruitment of the friars is not very well known, since the sources only provide us with first names, occasionally accompanied by the name of a friary, until the start of the sixteenth century. It might, however, confirm the attractiveness of the mendicant propositum to the Hungarian nobility — first in the Angevin century, then in favour of the Franciscans of the Observance (before 1500), and sometimes in favour of the Friars Preachers. 18 Sons of bourgeois families eagerly entered the friaries of the ‘Conventual’ Franciscans, as well as the communities of the Dominicans and the Carmelites.19 City dwellers were more likely than nobles and aristocrats to seek burial within the grounds of these establishments, or to institute pro anima services there.20 Nevertheless, in Hungary, as in other regions that were distant from the Mediterranean cradle of the mendicant orders,21 fidelity to secular ecclesiastical frameworks prevailed in religious practices. Outside of noble and princely wills, mendicant friaries generally only arrived in third place when it came to pious gifts given to the Church at the approach of death, behind parishes on the one hand and charitable establishments on the other.22 16 

For the diffusion of studies by the group working for the ANR MARGEC programme, see, in French, de Cevins, ‘Les Frères mendiants et l’économie en Hongrie médiévale’; in Hungarian, Romhányi, ‘Domonkos kolostorok birtokai a későközépkorban’, Romhányi, ‘Adalékok a soproni ferences kolostor gazdálkodásához’, and Romhányi, ‘Kolostori gazdálkodás a középkori Magyarországon’. 17  Kiss, ‘Les Chartes de fondation’. 18  De Cevins, L’Église dans les villes hongroises, p. 180, and de Cevins, Les Franciscains observants, pp. 259–61. Later, from 1530 to 1550, the recruitment by Hungarian Observant Franciscan friaries expanded to include the peasantry. Romhányi, ‘Le Réseau social et les resources des Observants en Hongrie à la fin du Moyen Âge’. 19  Regényi, ‘Karmeliták a középkori Magyarországon’ and Regényi, ‘Az eperjesi Szentháromság karmelita konvent története’. 20  Majorossy, ‘Church in Town’. 21  In Anjou and in Brittany, as Jean-Michel Matz has recently reminded us, on the basis of earlier research: ‘Paroisses urbaines et polycentrisme religieux dans les cités épiscopales de la France de l’Ouest’ (particularly the conclusion, pp. 93–94). 22  In the cities of Sopron, Bratislava, and Bardejov, fewer than one testator in ten mentions one or more mendicant friaries. These received only a small fraction of the chaplaincies,

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Chapter 3

Ensuring One’s Salvation in Hungary at the End of the Middle Ages The few clues we have about the religious behaviour of Hungarian Christians at the end of the Middle Ages describe a religion enacted through ‘works’.23 Punctuated by cultural obligations and great sacramental gatherings, it emphasized, with no particular originality, the exterior manifestations of faith: attendance at mass on days of obligation and participation in processions, rather than private devotions and individual penance; the receiving of the sacraments of ‘passage’ (baptism, marriage, extreme unction) rather than those which establish direct contact between God and his faithful servant (communion and confession). Mortification was hardly sought out, to judge by the timid and ephemeral success of the penitential confraternities in Hungary on the one hand, and by the weak influence of the cults of the Passion and of the Holy Cross (distinctly less active than that of devotion to the Holy Sacrament, which generated numerous pilgrimages, within Hungary (at Báta) and beyond) 24 on the other. Thus, the piety of the Hungarians distanced itself both from the penitential ideal which had presided over the birth of the mendicant orders and from the devotio moderna which was emerging from Rhenish and Flemish centres in the fourteenth century. Even in the fifteenth century, the bestsellers of the devotio moderna were found in clerical libraries (monastic and mendicant, and occasionally parish, canonical, or episcopal), rather than in private residences. To lighten the feared sufferings of purgatory, the faithful multiplied their pro anima foundations (grouped or perpetual masses and collective prayers). They made sure, too, to cede a portion of their earthly goods to the poor, with the clearly expressed intention of contributing, by that act, to the salvation of and the value of the capital associated with them was also lower. De Cevins, L’Église dans les villes hongroises, pp. 223–27. 23  Concerning manifestations of piety among the Hungarians at the end of the Middle Ages, the single synthetic study so far available remains Pásztor, A mag yarság val­ lásos élete. Complementary information may be found in Hermann, A katolikus egyház, pp. 100–102, 115–19, 180–82. On the cult of saints, see Bálint, Ünnepi kalendárium; Klaniczay, Holy Rulers and Blessed Princesses. On the undertaking of pilgrimages, see Csukovits, Középkori magyar zarándokok. On the confrontation between Hungarian religious practices and the recommendations of mendicant preachers, see de Cevins, ‘The Influence of Franciscan Friars’. On the religious practices of urban Hungarians, see de Cevins, L’Église dans les villes hongroises, pp. 215–46; Majorossy, ‘Church in Town’. 24  De Cevins, ‘Entre conformisme et particularisme régional’; Tüskés and Knapp, ‘A szent vér tisztelete Magyarországon’.

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their own souls. In this, they were conforming to the recommendations of the Observant Franciscan preachers Pelbart of Temesvár and Oswald of Laskó: in their sermons composed at the end of the fifteenth century, these preachers depict alms, presented with penitent intent, as more meritorious than prayer or fasting.25 In parallel, the Christians of Hungary solicited indulgences for the sanctuaries they founded or visited, and they enthusiastically frequented the establishments which had already received such indulgences. They founded vigils for the adoration of the Holy Sacrament, and financed long pilgrimages (as far as Rome and Compostella) without necessarily participating in them personally. In towns, devotional confraternities with professional recruitment, attached to secular churches rather than to mendicant friaries,26 experienced a surge of popularity in the fifteenth century. City dwellers entered these with their only obligations, other than periodic deposits of subscription money, being a few meetings and annual devotions. 27 As early as the 1480s, many burghers and artisans of Hungarian towns, along with clerics (secular and regular) and nobles or aristocrats of the kingdom, were requesting enrolment in the register of the Roman confraternity of the Holy Spirit. Such enrolment procured (from 1446 on) the plenary remission of sins at the hour of death, without requiring (from 1477 on) physical travel to the Eternal City, in exchange for a payment (first fixed, later variable) followed by annual dues.28 A change began at the turn of the sixteenth century. The appearance of the first (lay) confraternities of the Rosary, and the practice of the rosary, along 25 

De Cevins, ‘La Religion des laïcs’ and de Cevins, ‘Le Stéréotype du bon laïc’. This institutional positioning is not at all unusual in late medi­e val Christendom, as soon as one moves away from the Italian peninsula. See the assessment in de la Roncière and Matz, ‘Le Mouvement confraternel’, p. 245. 27  De Cevins, ‘Les Confréries de Bratislava’ and de Cevins, ‘Les Confréries en Hongrie à la fin du Moyen Âge’. 28  Csukovits, ‘A római Szentlélek-társulat magyar tagjai’, information substantially reissued in Középkori magyar zarándokok, pp. 168–89. This confraternitas, relaunched by Eugene IV in 1446 to save the hospice founded in Rome by Innocent III and endowed with supplementary privileges by Sixtus IV in 1477, was neither precisely a regular (lay) confraternity (since its members did not meet physically and did not, in the Middle Ages, follow any rule imposing, among other things, common devotions and solidarity of prayer) nor a regular spiritual confraternity (since enrolment in its registry did not explicitly provide affiliation with the Hospitallers of the Holy Spirit, a benefit which was only added in 1564 to the regula of the association); the money paid into it went to the Roman hospital of the Holy Spirit. See (as a complement to Brune, Histoire de l’Ordre Hospitalier du Saint-Esprit): Liber confraternitatis Sancti Spiritus de Urbe, ed. by Bunyitay, pp. xvii–xxviii; Csukovits, Középkori magyar zarándokok, pp. 168–69. 26 

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with the manner in which saints were described and represented in texts and icono­graphy, reveal a general trend towards the interiorization of faith. In the 1520s, at the time when Lutheranism was gaining ground in those towns which were predominantly German-speaking, some manifestations of the ‘religion of works’ — from votive masses to pilgrimages by delegation to enrolment in the Roman registry of the Holy Spirit — receded or disappeared, though this tendency did not yet affect the dynamism of the beguinages and (lay) confraternities. From this brief overview, we should note three characteristics likely to favour the flourishing of mendicant spiritual confraternities: the particularly strong hold (institutional, human, and spiritual) by the mendicants over the Kingdom of Hungary; the unshakeable support of the noble elites for their establishments — and particularly for those of the Observant branch of the Franciscans — until the 1530s; and the persistence, at the same period, of a piety which favoured visible manifestations of faith over interior conversion.

The Infatuation with Mendicant Spiritual Confraternities Judging by the quantity of preserved letters of affiliation, mendicant spiritual confraternities seem to have met with solid success in Hungary, over more than two and a half centuries. To reinforce and refine this first impression, it is useful to specify what instruments of measurement may be used, and with what degree of reliability. The Scope of the Phenomenon How many Hungarian Christians were held in links of spiritual confraternity with the mendicants at the end of the Middle Ages? We will never know since, for the archival reasons outlined in the previous chapter, we do not know what multiplying coefficient to apply to the acts of affiliation which have survived: the surviving percentage lies somewhere in a band ranging from 1 to 2 per cent (the average rate of preservation of medi­eval charters of Hungarian production) to 5 per cent (which we may consider an absolute maximum for Hungary).29 We only note that the complement of membership in Hungarian mendicant spiritual confraternities may respectably be compared with that of other well-documented religious associations, such as the Roman confraternity of the Hospital of the Holy Spirit. With an enrolment of 3833 persons 29 

See Chapter 2.

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between 1446 and 1523 (according to the meticulous counts made by Enikő Csukovits), the Hungarians are second only to the inhabitants of the Italian peninsula as members of the aforementioned confraternity.30 If we apply a rate of conservation of 5 per cent to the mendicant letters of confraternity, we obtain a total number of Hungarian affiliates that approaches 2500 individuals, if we limit ourselves only to the principal addressees (128); this rate reaches 8500 persons with a ratio of 1.5 per cent. But that is only one general indication of size. For, along with the unknowns concerning the proportion of documents that have been preserved, there are several parameters that are difficult to measure, such as the juxtaposition (widely practised, as we shall see) of several spiritual confraternities by the same individual, as well as the problem of grouped admissions. In the case of (lay) confraternities, for example, the complement of incorporated persons is never specified — not to mention the deceased members.31 Only one collectivity, among the addressees of letters in the Hungarian series, lends itself to a relatively precise count: the bourgeois (cives) of the city of Bratislava (Pozsony, Pressburg), admitted with women and children by the minister general of the Conventual Franciscans in 1464,32 who numbered about 1500.33 It is notable that these affiliated persons make scarcely any mention of this grace in the years that followed — neither collectively, nor individually — which suggests an inverse relationship between the recognized value of participation in merits and the scale of its attribution.34 Even with regard to admissions presented as reserved for an individual or a couple (with or without children), the total number of the admitted remains impossible to determine with absolute certainty. Indeed, affiliations were not only valid in the present. They were applicable in the future, extending over two generations typically (as the address and the dispositive clause indicate) or even to all the descendants of the principal addressee.35 They could also be retroactive, including the deceased family members of the affiliates.36 Finally, the ‘friends’ of the principal addressees in letters of affiliation were sometimes 30 

Csukovits, Középkori magyar zarándokok, p. 172. LC 24 and 35. 32  LC 39. 33  Granasztói, A középkori magyar város, p. 155. 34  This relationship will be examined in later chapters. 35  LC 61 and 107. 36  Concerning the admission of the deceased, see the end of this chapter. 31 

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simultaneously included, without any further precision as to their number. We must therefore abandon, once and for all, the idea of quantitative estimates, either as an absolute value or as a percentage of the local or national Christian population. Only the comparative approach remains. Considering the extent of the destruction that has affected Hungarian medi­ eval charters, the number of known letters of affiliation established for subjects of the king of Hungary before 1530 never ceases to amaze. The 125 nominative letters preserved or attested to with certainty, as an absolute value, is an insignificant number. Nevertheless, it is more than everywhere else in the Western world, according to the present state of archival cataloguing.37 If we limit ourselves to Franciscan documents, the (eighty-nine) letters of the Hungarian corpus constitute almost twice as many as those (fifty-seven) that have so far been discovered in England,38 where the medi­e val archives (at least family ones, in contrast to ecclesiastical collections) have undergone fewer losses than in Hungary. And this is for a Hungarian population that was certainly larger at the end of the Middle Ages (3.5 million inhabitants in the Carpathian Basin in about 1500, versus approximately 2.7 million inhabitants in England), but for a number of friaries and mendicant friars that was more or less equivalent.39 It is true that, in the province of Dacia which corresponds to Scandinavia (about half as populated as Hungary and unquestionably less well provided with mendicant establishments — fewer than eighty in about 1500),40 about forty Franciscan letters have allegedly been identified for the medi­eval period. But we are so far lacking information about them.41 Let us recall that John of Capistrano boasted, upon his arrival in Vienna in 1451, that he had already granted at the very least 1400 letters of confraternity. How much credit should we give to these declarations? Italian collections have not yielded, thus far, any groups of letters proportionate to such a large quantity of acts. Returning to England, must we really follow Robert Swanson in taking the diatribes of 37 

See the inventories indicated in the previous chapter. See the counts and the catalogue provided by Clark-Maxwell in ‘Some Further Letters of Confraternity’, p. 188 and pp. 206–16 (bearing in mind that not all of these documents are letters of confraternity), as well as the list of Franciscan letters of affiliation published by Little in ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, pp. 20–25. 39  On these demo­g raphic data, recently revised, see Romhányi, ‘Kolostorhálózat — településhálózat — népesség’, p. 32. 40  Romhányi, ‘Kolostorhálózat — településhálózat — népesség’, p. 35. 41  Unfortunately, Jørgen Rasmussen gives neither the list nor the documentary references to support this assertion. Rasmussen, Die Franziskaner, p. 408. 38 

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Wyclif and other adversaries of the mendicants as proof of the proliferation of confraternal acts beginning in the fourteenth century, even when these are lacking in the archives of the island nation?42 Yes, probably, in the case of letters of mixed graces, whose mass sales generated the virulent criticism that we know; but this reasoning is not necessarily valid for acts of affiliation stricto sensu. Being at the very gates of Hungary, Bohemia offers, at first glance, a good point of comparison; at least after the Hussite movement had been restricted, in the context of the Catholic reinforcement of the 1450s and again of the 1470s, periods that witnessed the multiplication of foundations of Observant Franciscan friaries which,43 as we will recall, were highly active in the matter of spiritual confraternity. But in fact, the printed and digital catalogues of the Czech National Archives show a grand total of twelve acts of affiliation issued by mendicants — among about fifty letters coming, for the most part, from monastic and canonical establishments and decreeing mutual affiliations between regular communities.44 Out of these twelve mendicant letters, eight are from Observant Franciscans, including four by John of Capistrano. They range in date from 1451 to 1506. 45 For the same period, the Observant Franciscans issued at least eighty letters addressed to Hungarian beneficiaries.46 It is true that, at the time, their houses were seven times more numerous than in Bohemia (there were ten Bohemian friaries at the very most at the turn of the sixteenth century)47 and were often located in rural or semi-rural milieus — unlike the Czech foundations, which were established intra muros to guarantee their safety.48 Nevertheless, the ratio still leans in favour of Hungary. The other orders present roughly the same gap.49 In Poland, where the Observant 42 

Swanson, ‘Mendicants and Confraternity in Late Medi­eval England’, p. 130. Hlaváček, Die böhmischen Franziskaner im ausgehenden Mittelalter. 44  Printed catalogue: Pazderové, Státni Ústřední Archiv v Praze, p. 97, pp. 125–27, and p. 129. Online catalogue: . 45  Prague, Národni Archiv, Oddělení fondů samosprávy a státní správy do roku 1848 a církevních institucí, MSS nos 23 (1451), 25 (1452), 26 (1453), 28 (1453) 56 (1474), 67 (1482), 91 (1499), 96 (1506). 46  See Table 1. 47  Hlaváček, Die böhmischen Franziskaner im ausgehenden Mittelalter; general summary: Hlaváček, ‘Les Ordres mendiants dans le royaume de Bohême au Moyen Âge’, pp. 14–15. 48  Hlaváček, ‘Les Ordres mendiants dans le royaume de Bohême au Moyen Âge’. 49  A single Bohemian letter comes from the Conventual Franciscans, and three come from the Hermits of Saint Augustine. Documents numbered respectively 17 (1447), 122 (1482), 2289 (1511), and 2295 (1516) in the catalogue of the Central State Archives of Prague. 43 

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Franciscan movement rapidly gained ground under the impetus of John of Capistrano, 50 it is hard to find any ‘Bernardine’ letters. 51 The formulary composed by the Dominicans of Krakow contains forty-five models dating from the years 1370 to 1410 out of a total of 348 texts.52 But their trace is lost in the decades that followed, and ‘real’ letters are missing altogether. Consequently, the collected data are insufficient to prove that the Christians of Hungary entered mendicant spiritual confraternities en masse, while those same spiritual confraternities were apparently shunned elsewhere. This is all the more true in that, as we should recall, the volume of the Hungarian letters remains dependent on the fate reserved for acts of confraternity — which might have been more favourable in this country than elsewhere — and on the centralization of the Hungarian archives, which has increased since the middle of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, the volume of these letters does stand out when compared to the acts issued by regular, non-mendicant religious. Whether in manu­script collections, collections of printed sources, or historio­graphy, monastic letters of affiliation are rare pearls in Hungary, with the (relative) exception of those produced by the Paulists.53 In the final centuries of the Middle Ages, spiritual association had become the near-exclusive prerogative of the mendicants. 50  Kłoczowski, Zakony franciszkańskie w Polsce, i; Kłoczowski, ‘Les Ordres mendiants en Po­logne’; Kłoczowski, ‘The Mendicant Orders’; Kłoczowski, ‘Les Ordres mendiants en Europe du Centre-Est et du Nord’; Karczewski, Franciszkanie w monarchii Piastów i Jagiellonów w średniowieczu. 51  This is only a hypothesis, founded on the difficulty of finding Observant Franciscan letters of confraternity in Polish manu­script and printed collections. It needs confirmation through more thorough investigations, because it is difficult to believe that, in a country where the Franciscan Observance was so profoundly marked by the model of Capistrano, this practice, which he held so dear, had no real posterity. The Archives of the Bernardine Province of Krakow contain (under the call number Rkps XXII-a-1) the handwritten transcription, made in 1895, of a Liber vitae seu catalogus fundatorum, confratrum et benefactorum conventus Leopoliensis ad S. Andream Apostolum Fratrum Minorum de Observantia defunctorum (1460–1754). This document would be worth analysing in this perspective. For the moment, a brief overview of the collections of printed sources has provided just one Polish example of a mendicant letter of confraternity, issued by the Hermits of Saint Augustine: Codex diplomaticus Warmiensis, iii, 649, no. 657 (25 May 1383). 52  Dictamina Litterarum, ed. by Woroniecki and Fijalek (see the previous chapter for detailed references). 53  Although the Paulist formularies provide fine models of letters of affiliation at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the ‘real’ letters have almost all disappeared. See Chapter 2. The question of regular affiliation in Hungary would merit a specific study, covering all religious orders.

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Early Diffusion and Late Blossoming The first letter of the Hungarian series, issued by the prior of the Dominican province of Hungary, dates back to the year 1270.54 We cannot overstress the earliness of this date. It was written fewer than thirty years after the issue of the first known Dominican letters in the West,55 and scarcely twenty years after Humbert of Romans, confirming a practice that had existed for two decades, had recorded affiliation as one of the prerogatives of the master general.56 Letters of affiliation emanating from provincial priors were still rare during this period. We only find them from the middle of the fourteenth century on in England,57 and only after 1420 in Flanders.58 Since we know the unimpressive rate of preservation of Hungarian sources prior to 1300, the survival, in its original state, of a letter from the prior of the Dominican province of Hungary dating to 1270 is almost miraculous. On the Franciscan side, the minister general Jerome of Ascoli had admitted the Bishop of Worcester as early as 1277.59 Still, we must wait until 1407 for an act issued by the minister of the province of England to appear in British manu­ script collections.60 In Hungary, the composition of letters of confraternity 54 

LC 1. It was previously unknown to researchers. One of the oldest Dominican letters is probably the one granted to the king of France, Louis IX, in the general chapter, in 1241. Picard, ‘Les Suffrages’, p. 107. A Flemish formulary reports a model established in the name of the Master General John of Wildeshausen (Teutoni­ cus), who, we note, had been prior of the province of Hungary ten years earlier, from 1231 to 1233 — in favour of the canons of Antwerp, dated December 1243. Litterae de beneficiis, ed. by Wolfs, pp. 1–2; Kaeppeli, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum, iii, 48 no. 2764. 56  Humbertus de Romanis, Opera de vita regulari, ed. by Berthier, ii, 191 — cited by Picard, ‘Les Suffrages’, p. 107. 57  Not a single letter from the provincial of the Friars Preachers of England (in the original or in transcription) is to be found prior to 1368. Clark-Maxwell, ‘Some Further Letters of Confraternity’, pp. 209–10. The letter from Jordan of Saxony addressed to King Henry III, which figures in the list, does not seem to be a letter of confraternity. In his will established in 1259, Martin de S. Cruce, master of the hospital of Sherburn (near Durham) calls himself (con)frater of the Cistercian and Dominican orders, and he formulates the vow to be buried among them; but the attestations have disappeared, like those issued by the provincial of the Dominicans and the provincial of the Franciscans in favour of Thomas of Macclesfield, who mentions them in his will of 1301. Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, p. 14. 58  Litterae de beneficiis, ed. by Wolfs, pp. 11–12 (1428). 59  Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, p. 20. 60  Clark-Maxwell, ‘Some Further Letters of Confraternity’, p. 210. 55 

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seems to be a practice that was already well established among the Friars Minor at the end of the thirteenth century: a model which faithfully reproduces the mould of the littera confraternitatis figures in the formulary fragment that was copied in about 1300, a model which probably dates back to the 1280s, according to János Karácsonyi.61 Unlike the Carmelites, whose first Hungarian letter dates to 1376 (only four years after their arrival in Hungary),62 the Hermits of Saint Augustine seem to have been particularly slow to follow the movement. While the English Augustinian Hermits were already participating in the practice of spiritual affiliation in 1279, 63 the oldest surviving letter of the corpus issued by a provincial from Hungary dates to 1393.64 The number of entries into spiritual confraternity recorded in the letters preserved in Hungary grows more or less continuously between 1270 and 1520.65 There is no observable slowdown following the multiplication of admissions that included the descendants of the addressees beginning in the 1450s, quite the contrary — a trend which shows a preference for nominal affiliations.66 But the progression is not steady, far from it. The curve follows roughly two sequences, on different sides of a pivot situated in about 1450. Only nineteen letters have been found for the two centuries from 1250 to 1450, whereas there are eighty just for the half century from 1476 to 1526. The first phase indicates an episodic practice (fewer than one letter every ten years) but involving (by the 1390s at the latest) all four mendicant orders. After a fairly well-defined gap in the first half of the fifteenth century, a second phase begins, compressed into three quarters of a century (1451–1526) and characterized by a brusque change of scale: 106 letters in total (85 per cent of the whole), with a minimum issuing frequency of one to two letters per year. This acceleration is not an exclusively Hungarian phenomenon — it has parallels in Ireland, in England, and in Flanders67 — but it seems to have been particularly vigorous there.68 61 

LC 2. On the problematic dating of this formulary, see the previous chapter. LC 14. 63  Roth, The English Austin Friars, pp. 37–38 no. 66. 64  LC 15. 65  See Graphs 1 and 2. 66  See Chapter 4. 67  Gribbin and Ó Clabaigh, ‘Confraternity Letters’, p. 460; Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, p. 15 and inventory pp. 20–25; Litterae de beneficiis, ed. by Wolfs. 68  Of fifty-seven Franciscan letters spread over the period 1277 to 1533 listed by Andrew Little, thirty-four are later than 1450, which is 60 per cent of the total; of the thirty Dominican 62 

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In more detailed terms, the chrono­logical distribution of the letters examined reveals five episodes. From the final third of the thirteenth century until about 1350, affiliation per litteras evidently concerned only a minority of the ‘happy few’ (six letters in total). The Dominicans seem to have been its most numerous practitioners (four letters). The only Franciscan letter preserved in its original state comes from the minister general (Guiral Ot) in 1339, and it recompenses two members of a dynasty with a very high profile in the Angevin court, Nicolas and Paul of Zics.69 The model inscribed in the Franciscan formulary that was copied in about 1300 reports the entry of a canon of the cathedral of Győr into the spiritual confraternity of the Friars Minor, not that of a layman.70 Could the overcautiousness of the Franciscans reflect the reticence of the followers of the ‘spiritual’ influence (such as Salimbene di Adam)71 — a movement supported in Hungary by the last Arpadian rulers and the kings of the Angevin dynasty72 — with respect to confraternitas? The documentation does not allow us any certainty on this. The second half of the fourteenth century saw a renewed interest in the Hungarian admissions, although certainly a timid one (nine nominative letters in total). In this it joins the rising trend observed with regard to the Franciscans, in France as well as in Italy, in England, in Bohemia, and in the German countries.73 The Hermits of Saint Augustine — whose houses flourished in Hungary under the impetus of King Charles-Robert of Anjou (1301–42), and then of Louis the Great (1342–82) and his mother Elizabeth Piast (Łokietek)74 — and the Carmelites contributed to it in their turn. A low-water mark occurred in the first half of the fifteenth century (a grand total of just four letters).75 This was not a uniquely Hungarian phenomenon letters identified in Flanders by Servatius Wolfs until 1524, twenty-two (73 per cent) are of similar later date. See, respectively, Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraterntiy’, pp. 20–25; Litterae de beneficiis, ed. by Wolfs. 69  LC 5. 70  LC 2. 71  Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 59. 72  Karácsonyi, Szent Ferencz rendjének, i; de Cevins, ‘L’Alliance du sabre et du goupillon en Hongrie au xive siècle’. 73  Moorman, A History of the Franciscan Order, p. 355; Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’. The English Benedictines experienced the same inflation in the second half of the fourteenth century. Clark, ‘Monastic Confraternity in Medi­eval England’, p. 321. 74  De Cevins, ‘Les Ermites de saint Augustin en Hongrie médiévale’, pp. 86–88. 75  An analogous thin period affected the entries into the spiritual confraternity of the

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and affected monastic communities as well. Did it result from the spread of Waldensian, then Wycliffite, and finally Hussite ideas, hostile to the mendicants and, more generally, to the belief in the transferability of merits?76 The public polemics on spiritual confraternity, which spread over the years from the 1360s to the Council of Basel (1433), may have tarnished its image for the faithful, a century before Lutheranism definitively assimilated it into the indulgence business. In Hungary, this stage may have to do with the subsidence, against a backdrop of political instability, in the creation of mendicant friaries. Indeed, only a handful of establishments, generally peripheral and attached to the young Observant Franciscan movement, saw the light of day in the first years of the fifteenth century, originating in the Bosnian sphere. 77 Inspired with missionary zeal, given to radical poverty, and unstable, these could not envisage the admission of confratres. After 1450, the expansion of mendicant confraternities developed exponentially. It continued uninterrupted until about 1475 (twenty-six letters) — when we observe a brief hiatus — starting up again all the stronger until about 1510: fifty-six letters between 1481 and 1510, with a total of six letters for 1485 alone and a second peak in the decade from 1501 to 1510 (twentytwo letters, or more than two per year). Did this rapid increase result from the privileges accorded by the pope to the confratres and consorores of the two principal mendicant orders around the year 1480? Papal bulls were issued in 1479 and 1486 for the Franciscans, and in 1485 for the Dominicans, according free choice of a private confessor, who could grant absolution with plenary remission of reserved sins — that is, to be absolved by the pope. The impact of these new privileges is especially obvious in England. There, the number of Franciscan letters breaks all records in 1479.78 Their content reflects its effects: the privileges granted by Sixtus  IV are enumerated before the admission formula, which is often enhanced with an absolution. Delivered in the name of Benedictine abbey of Saint Albans. Clark, ‘Monastic Confraternity in Medi­e val England’, p. 321. The current state of the Hungarian inventories does not allow us to know whether the number of monastic admissions in Hungary dropped during that period. In Flanders, on the other hand, there is no perceptible diminution among the Dominicans in the first half of the fifteenth century, according to the series of acts edited in Litterae de beneficiis, ed. by Wolfs. 76  See the next chapter. On the impact of these heresies in Hungary, see the recent updates in Galamb, ‘Francescani, eretici e repressione antiereticale’. 77  De Cevins, Les Franciscains observants, pp. 49–50. 78  Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, p. 16 and inventory pp. 20–25 (eighteen letters out of fifty-seven date from the year 1479!).

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friary superiors, these acts were ‘fill-in-the-blanks’ certificates, reflecting mass production.79 Flemish Dominican letters also recall these remissions, at various hierarchical levels, at the beginning of the 1480s.80 But the Hungarian letters of these years undergo no changes — not in their hierarchical distribution, nor in their composition, nor in their formulation, which very rarely mixes affiliation and absolution. The effect of the bulls of remission of 1479 to 1485 on the success of mendicant spiritual confraternities thus seems to have been minimal in Hungary. The correlation between the development of spiritual confraternity and the rise of the Observant Franciscan movement, on the other hand, is beyond doubt. The Observant Franciscans produced 62 per cent of the letters of the corpus dated from 1451 to 1475, and 54 per cent of the ones from the following quarter century.81 These were most frequently Hungarian (twenty-five letters issued between 1451 and 1500, as opposed to twelve letters from outside Hungary, of which ten were by John of Capistrano).82 The Conventual Franciscans and the other mendicant orders nonetheless remained active until the sixteenth century. The Dominicans produced nearly a third of the letters of affiliation (31 per cent) in the last quarter of the fifteenth century; the majority of the issuers had earned renown for their reforming zeal, thus confirming the link between mendicant spiritual confraternities and the reform of the regular order.83 The monopoly of the Observant Franciscans intensified at the beginning of the sixteenth century. They issued 71 per cent of the letters from the collection for the years 1501 to 1525. For institutional reasons that we will see later, the contribution of the Hungarian superiors diminished slightly (fourteen of twenty-nine Hungarian letters came from the Franciscan Observance, whereas in the previous quarter century there had been nineteen, as opposed to two letters from outside).84 A general decline began after 1510. This was in no way a collapse — we still count nineteen letters, from all orders combined, between 79 

Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, p. 16; Clark-Maxwell, ‘Some Further Letters of Confraternity’, pp. 188–89. 80  Litterae de beneficiis, ed. by Wolfs, pp. 43–45 no. 17 (admission of canons regular by the master general, in 1481) and pp. 49–50 no. 19 (admission of a lay couple by the prior of the friary of the Hague, in 1482). 81  See Graphs 4 and 5. 82  See Graphs 11, 12, 13, and 14. 83  See Chapter 5. 84  See Graphs 13 and 14.

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1511 and 1526 — but the years 1510, 1512, 1525, and 1526 are ‘blank’ years. To the internal dissentions that were tearing the reforming Franciscans apart85 were progressively added the Lutheran criticisms. We should, however, refrain from any conclusion regarding the general discrediting of confraternitas after 1520: the increase of the number of models (from six to fourteen) recorded in the two Hungarian Observant Franciscan formularies, the first composed in the years 1510–25 and the second between 1530 and 1535, suggests instead a rapid renewal in the issuing of letters after 1526 — a renewal which the dispersal of archive collections from periods later than the Battle of Mohács unfortunately prevents us from verifying. Although documentary lacunae do not allow us to map out a detailed periodization of spiritual affiliation to the mendicants in Hungary, it seems that the faithful did accompany the deployment of the fratres mendicantes there, by incorporating themselves into their orders through spiritual confraternity. Did they stimulate this deployment or merely follow it? The geo­graphical distribution of the affiliates, as we shall see, does not really allow us to draw a definite conclusion one way or the other. A Homogeneous Geo­graphic Coverage The geo­g raphical origin of the addressees of letters of suffrages is extremely difficult to establish. The place of issue of the letters provides only vague indications.86 It effectively traces the institutional carto­graphy of the mendicants (that of the friaries, of provincial or custodial sees, of the meeting places of general or provincial chapters) but does not necessarily have any relevance to the localization of the affiliates. Only the inferior levels (letters delivered by friary superiors or custodians) may be used in this way. But these only account for about ten acts from the Hungarian corpus.87 In contrast to other ecclesiastical sources, the names of the beneficiaries of letters of confraternity are never followed by that of the diocese or parish to which they belonged. The toponym associated with their forename could refer to the land of their ancestors — property which may not always be identified, owing to the lacunae in the historical geo­graphy of Hungary, not to mention the additional obstacle constituted by numerous homonyms — as well as to their own territorial 85 

De Cevins, Les Franciscains observants, pp. 275–406. See Maps 1 and 2. 87  See Graph 6. 86 

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charges (with or without any obligation of residence). Moreover, it does not always coincide with the locality where the affiliated spent most of their lives and exercised their cultic obligations. Furthermore, the high mobility of the social elites — who are over-represented in the corpus — at the end of the Middle Ages is very well known. Individuals who obviously came from very distant regions sometimes figure alongside the principal addressee. These difficulties prevent us from localizing more than fifteen recipients or so (out of 128), to which we may add at least five cases that are problematic or dubious. The following remarks, therefore, will go no further than the level of conjecture. Adding up all the grouped admissions (from entire towns to (lay) confraternities) as single units, and taking into consideration all the addressees that may be localized from each letter of the corpus, it seems that the geo­graphical distribution of the Hungarian affiliates covered almost all of the Hungarian kingdom. In any case, it shows neither a significant gap nor an obvious concentration. Each region provides a total number of affiliates that varies between approximately fifteen and approximately thirty individuals: twenty-nine seem to have come from Transdanubia, twenty-three from the centre (from the Great Plain to the Partium), thirty-three from present-day Slovakia and its Ukrainian extension to the north-east, sixteen from Slavonia-Croatia and from the southern limits of the kingdom, and finally sixteen from Transylvania. Apart from the deferred arrival of the Transylvanian addressees (beginning only in the 1450s), there are no major upheavals in these patterns over the years. This geo­g raphy corresponds, overall, to the spatial distribution of the mendicant establishments in Hungary. Considering all orders and branches together,88 the southern and eastern margins of the country (where the density of Observant Franciscan friaries was particularly high), as well as Transdanubia (where the greatest number of mendicant houses were concentrated), are quite well represented. Certainly, we would expect a higher proportion of confratres in Transylvania — a province relatively spared from documentary destruction — and even in Transdanubia, because it benefited greatly from the success of the Franciscan Observance in the fifteenth century.89 In about twenty situations, the place of issue of the charter and the locality of origin of the recipient are roughly similar, within a variable radius that can be as much as fifty kilometres or so. It is no surprise that this is the case in just about all of the admissions pronounced by custodians and by friary superiors. 88  89 

See the information given at the beginning of this chapter. De Cevins, Les Franciscains observants, pp. 49–51 and map on p. 557.

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Thus, the Hungarian faithful willingly affiliated themselves to the orders whose establishments they regularly frequented — and which they also favoured when they chose their burial place or composed their last wishes. However, the correspondence between the network of friaries and the geo­ graphy of the affiliates per litteras does not always check out, in cases where the data allow us to compare the two — far from it. Entries into spiritual confraternity that were granted by provincial or general superiors — which form the majority in the corpus — do not obey this logic of proximity, except in rare cases. Fewer than ten letters of affiliation established by a provincial (Franciscan or Dominican, Conventual or Observant) follow this rule,90 as well as just one of the ten acts drawn up by John of Capistrano, during his stay in Transylvania,91 followed half a century later by the one drawn up by the cismontane commissary James Grumelli in favour of Andrew of Karácsond.92 These discrepancies echo the dissemination of donations to ecclesiastical institutions, secular as well as regular, described by the charters of donation and wills of the wealthiest benefactors.93 The little we know about the spatial distribution of the addressees of letters of spiritual affiliation shows no close, systematic correlation between the origins of the confratres and the map of the mendicant friaries. The spiritual power of attraction of the mendicants thus did not limit itself to the Christians living in their immediate neighbourhood. This spread is more likely a reflection of the social recruitment of the mendicant spiritual confraternities than of their immaterial aspect.

Socio­graphy of the Affiliates The best barometer of the success of spiritual affiliation with the mendicants is doubtless their degree of social openness. It allows us to know, in particular, whether this grace was restricted to the circle of recognized supporters of the friars — the auxiliaries of the friaries on the one hand, and their benefactors on the other.

90 

LC 90, 95, 104, 122, 124, and 125. LC 31. 92  LC 98. 93  See Chapter 6. 91 

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Familiars, Benefactors, and confratres Among the monks, the merits amassed by the religious were extended traditionally to the individuals who were attached to the service of the monastery, or even to all the laity (tenant farmers, renters, receivers, and procurators, even architects and servants) who entertained economic relations with the religious. In any case there was no watertight separation between these individuals and the donors gratified by the prayers of the religious.94 Until the end of the Middle Ages, the notices, charters, and registers of the English Benedictine abbeys (at Westminster as at Saint Albans) are full of the names of auxiliaries to the monks — whether these were noted for a one-time project (the participation in the renovation of a particular building) or were rewarded in this way for several decades of work in the service of the monastery.95 We find the same porousness among the mendicants. It was encouraged by general legislation following the bull Beneficia sanctorum of Urban  V (1362–70), which authorized mendicant dignitaries to grant spiritual graces to the managers (procuratores) of the establishments, as well as to their ‘devoted persons’ and to their ‘benefactors’.96 The word confrater could designate, in Hungary as in various countries,97 the lay intermediary charged with receiving or transmitting pecuniary goods destined for the mendicant friaries. This termino­logy thus includes from the outset the ‘interposed persons’ in the sphere of influence of the religious. 94 

To give a French example, the lay personnel of the Benedictine priory of Saint-Martindes-Champs frequently accorded donations to the establishment in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, thus weaving ‘relationships in which socio-economic necessities were mingled with spiritual needs’. Racinet, ‘Familiers et convers’, p. 34. 95  Clark, ‘Monastic Confraternity in Medi­eval England’, p. 320 and pp. 322–23. The auxiliaries represent about one-sixth of the admitted in the Abbey of Saint Albans. See pp. 322–23 and 325. 96  ‘suffragia indulgentiarum et orationum ac beneficiorum spiritualium tam procuratoribus quam quibuscumque devotis personis et benefactoribus suis’ — quoted in Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 51. 97  See, for example, the letter addressed on 13 October 1510 by the Observant Franciscan guardian of the friary of Voćin, Valentin of Kalnik (Kemlék) to the patronus of the friary, Balthazar of Batthyán, attesting to the giving of an elemosina coming from the Bishop of Zagreb to the confrater Lucas (‘Lucas confrater noster presencium scilicet ostensor’), alms given in exchange for masses and other prayers to be recited by the friars for the salvation of the soul of the said bishop. Budapest, MNL DL 104224. For other countries, see Viallet, ‘Procureurs et “personnes interposées” chez les Franciscains’.

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Nevertheless, it is not sufficient to prove their systematic inclusion in spiritual confraternity. In Upper Lusatia and in Silesia, several letters from the provincial of Saxony Matthias Döring incorporated lay intermediaries into the spiritual confraternity of the order;98 it must therefore be the case that their incorporation was not automatic. The series of Hungarian letters presents no similar example. The intendants mentioned in the urban registers, accounts, and charters external to the friaries (by the terms procurator, vitricus, or kirchmaister)99 are never qualified as confrater, amicus, or socius. Not a single one of these intendants is the addressee of a letter of confraternity in his own name.100 Must we deduce from this that in Hungary, the managers of mendicant establishments benefited ‘by default’ from the merits of the friars, without any need to make this situation explicit?101 The registers of the Dominican friaries of Kosiče and Sighişoara answer this question in the negative. Since the task of the intendant included a certain amount of risk and demanded great abnegation — the procurators who supervised the management of the mendicant foundations in the name of the city advanced the necessary sums for the smooth running of the community, without any certainty that they would one day be repaid102 — it is not rare to find these individuals among the registered benefactors of the friaries concerned. Paul Darholtz, vitricus of the Franciscan friary of Košice, consul of the city, bought from the friary a piece of land bequeathed to this establishment by another consul, Nicolas Gwman; a mass was to be celebrated by the friars for him and his wife, stipulates the charter established by the guardian of the friary on 28 December 1481.103 But there is no question of affiliation in his case, whereas other donors inscribed in the registry are expressly designated as 98 

Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, p. 188. Such as the kirch(en)vater or kirch(en)maister Christopher Gräzer (1518–22) and Paul Moritz (1524–27), who left remarkably precise accounts for the (Conventual) Franciscan Friary of Sopron. Neumann, ‘A soproni ferences’. 100  The charge of provisor curie Waradiensis, held by Benedict of Bajon in 1523 (LC 124) has no relationship with the friary of the town of Oradea. He was the administrator of the bishopric of Oradea. See in particular Budapest, MNL DL 47084 (1514). 101  This is what Beatrix Romhányi supposes, in ‘Les Sources comptables’, p. 92, without, however, distinguishing between spiritual affiliation and recommendation for prayer by the brothers. 102  Romhányi, ‘Les Sources comptables’, pp. 91–92. 103  Budapest, MNL DF 269672 (‘nobili domino Paulo Dörholcz consuli dicte civitatis Cassoviensis et vitrico pronunc ecclesie nostre prenarrate’). 99 

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members of the spiritual confraternity. Similarly, John Bessel, who for many years held the charge of vitricus in the Dominican friary of Sighişoara, figures in the ‘book of benefactors’ of the year 1501, at his request, for having given a meadow to the friary ‘pro perpetua memoria’. His extreme charity towards the friars of the community is praised there, but for all that, he is not given the title of confrater.104 Even if the lay intendants were not all admitted into the mendicant spiritual confraternities, we might expect a priori to find there a complete list of the high-ranking protectors of these friaries, beginning with their founders. It was on this basis that monastic spiritual confraternities had operated for centuries, sometimes until the fifteenth century.105 In fact, however, just one patronus is found among the addressees of the letters of suffrages in the Hungarian corpus: Nicolas of Bethlen, at the beginning of the sixteenth century.106 Moreover, his status does not work as an argument to justify his admission. Had he discharged his obligations to the Dominican friary of Sighişoara in a particularly exemplary way? We do not know. Additionally, Count Michael Frankopan, recognized as procurator — in the sense of general protector, this time, and not of administrator of wealth — of the communities of the entire vicariate of Bosnia in 1514, was simultaneously affiliated to the Observant Franciscans.107 These are the only examples we have. And with reason: the phantom presence in the documentation of the powerful figures who participated actively in the 104 

‘Item tempore prioratus reverendi patris fratris Michaelis de Ruppe s. t. professoris anno Christi 1501 providus et honestus Johannes Bessel, multis annis vitricus huius conventus, maxima iunctus charitate omnibus fratribus consignavit conventui adhuc in humanis constitutus pratum prope pontem […] pro perpetua memoria. Unde conventus se obligauit iuxta ipsius petita ad registracionem registri abonis [sic] perpetuis temporibus’ (Similarly, under the priorate of the Reverend Father Friar Michael of Ruppe, professor of theo­logy, in the year of Our Lord 1501, the upright and honest man John Bessel, vitricus of this friary for many years, motivated by a very great charity towards all the brothers, gave this friary a field situated near the bridge […] for perpetual memory. This is why the friary has committed itself to inscribing him in the pulpit registry for perpetuity, in accordance with his request). Edition: Ipolyi, ‘Adalékok a magyar domonkosok történetéhez’, p. 604 no. ix. 105  They occupy the majority of the entries in the book of confraternity of the Benedictine monastery of Saint Albans, in England, until about 1500 — although James G. Clark does not always distinguish the legal supporters (patroni) from the other benefactors, whether involved in one-off donations or over the long term. Clark, ‘Monastic Confraternity in Medi­eval England’, p. 323. 106  LC 103. 107  LC 110.

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foundation and maintenance of mendicant establishments is not only the result of archival losses. They obtained, as we will observe, spiritual favours that were more highly valued than affiliation. The mendicant spiritual confraternities were in no way extensions of the friaries, since neither their ‘familiars’ nor their illustrious or official protectors are to be found there. Were they identical reproductions of the wider circle of their benefactors, as it appears from the charters of foundation, of donation, or of privileges, as well as from wills? This is what the recurrent use of the term benefactor, in the acts of affiliation, applied to the principal addressee, might lead us to believe. As with the monastic milieu, 108 we should resist amalgamating the ‘benefactors’ of the mendicants with their confratres. 109 The papal bulls extending the right to choose their private confessor to all the benefactores and confratres of the mendicant friars beginning in 1479 (as mentioned previously) take care to name them separately. The texts of mendicant superiors, general and provincial, echo this distinction. It is true that, to slow the exponential growth in foundations of private services, mendicant superiors (outside of Hungary) sometimes admitted, as a block, the benefactors of one (or several) establishments into the spiritual confraternity of the order. 110 But these exceptional measures prove, indeed, that the two groups were not intermingled. From the first to the second, there was a threshold in the nature of the graces obtained — since the recipients passed from the recommendation for prayer (generally formalized by inscription in the ‘register of benefactors’) to the participation in merits.111 Hungarian provincial legislation does not define the relationship between benefactors and members of the spiritual confraternity. The Constitutions of the Observant province of Hungary adopted at Šarengrad in 1499 limit themselves to recommending the benefactores for the prayers of the friars112 — which seems self-evident — without specifying which services were specifically 108 

As recalled by Clark, ‘Monastic Confraternity in Medi­eval England’, p. 316. The notion of benefactor as it was used among the mendicants will be the subject of an explanation in Chapter 5. 110  Hugolin Lippens cites the case of the benefactors of the monastery of Poor Clares of the Vorarlberg, collectively admitted into the spiritual confraternity of the Order of Friars Minor in 1434 on the decision of the minister general William of Casale, a decision confirmed in 1479 by his successor Francis Samson. Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 56. 111  On the spiritual content of the confraternitas, see Chapter 4. 112  Batthyány, Leges ecclesiasticae, p. 632. 109 

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reserved for the confratres. As for the letters of affiliation in the corpus, if most call their addressee benefactor, they are not a sufficient criterion in and of themselves: the admission is presented as rewarding the exemplary steadfastness of these ‘benefactors’.113 They thus corroborate what the registers of benefactors (monastic as well as mendicant) had long shown throughout the Christian West: the inclusion of the group of confratres in another, wider concentric circle, that of the ‘benefactors’ of the friars. In other words, if all, or almost all, of the confratres were benefactors to the religious, not all the benefactors entered into their spiritual confraternity. The socio­graphy of the affiliates partially confirms this pattern. Over-Representation of the Nobility The mendicants are traditionally credited with having broadened the institution of spiritual confraternity (and, more generally, the whole of their sphere of influence) to include all levels of Christian society. In this respect, they seem to have broken with the monastic version of spiritual association — which, it was long believed, was reserved for the ‘cream’ of its benefactors, in other words for princes, for great lords, and for prelates, while the humble hurried to join the (lay) confraternities gravitating around the orbit of the abbeys.114 This is supposed to be particularly true of the Franciscans,115 whereas the Dominicans, for their part, seem to have paid more attention to the respectability of the admitted — at least in their legislation.116 This social openness would be explained not only by the original identity of the ordines mendicantes, but also by the material conditions set for entry into spiritual confraternity: among the mendicants, it could follow one (or several) modest donations, or even a nonmonetary service (promotion of the friars’ interests to the king, the pope, or other influential figures, particularly in court proceedings); whereas among the monks, it sought to reward the perpetual concession of property or of a substantial amount of money.117 However, even taking into account the often 113 

See Chapter 5. Chibnall, ‘Liens de fraternitas’, pp. 238–39; Bijsterveld, ‘Looking for Common Ground’, pp. 306–07. See the reservations noted regarding this vision in Chapter 1. 115  This is the view developed in Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, from the very start of his study, p. 49. 116  The constitutions of the Friars Preachers adopted in 1334 reserved letters of suffrages ‘pro personis conditionis et status multum honesti’. Constitutiones, ed. by Jandel, p. 267. 117  Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 51. In reality, the monks also sometimes granted 114 

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noble or aristocratic origins of the Hungarian letters, and the absence, in Hungary, of acts deeded in exchange for money to run-of-the-mill addressees, the social profile of the confratres that emerges from the documentation studied suggests that we should not overestimate the rate of ‘democratization’ of the mendicant spiritual confraternities. In order to determine the social origin of the addressees of the letters of confraternity, we must put together several indicators. It would not be right to consider only the formal characteristics of the letters: the quality and the size of the material evidence, the length of the text, and the ornamentation of the charter vary with the rank of the beneficiary, but they also reflect the hierarchical level of the issuer.118 The titles or qualifiers which accompany the name of the addressee, in the address and in the text of the letters, constitute a first criterion. As a general rule, magnificus dominus (or magnificencia vestra) is used for a baron, nobilis for a noble, and civis for a burgher. The adjective strenuus (‘valiant’) is traditionally associated with the nobility.119 But this taxonomy turns out to be unstable. 120 And it does not always align with the functions occupied by the persons concerned at the date of issue of the letters,121 nor with their material situation or their positioning in the pyramid spiritual confraternity in exchange for a very low annual payment: one denier according to the Compliatio prima of Richard of Mores (Ricardus Anglicus), written in about 1196, ‘two or three’ deniers in 1215, according to canon 57 of the Fourth Lateran Council. De Miramon, Les ‘Donnés’ au Moyen Âge, p. 160 n. 3. In England, the accounts of the Willoughby family report sums of a similar order (from four to twelve deniers), for indulgences and confraternities (with the reservations expressed in Chapter 2 as to their identification). These were not annual deposits. Swanson, ‘Letters of Confraternity and Indulgence’, pp. 47–48. It is not impossible that these amounts corresponded to the cost of producing the letters of admission, even though the accounts of mendicant friaries did not keep a record of receipts of this kind. 118  See Chapter 2. 119  On these denominations and their evolution at the end of the Middle Ages, see Kristó, Korai magyar történeti lexikon, pp. 57–58, 83–84, 423, 483–84; Fügedi, A 15. századi magyar arisztokrácia mobilitása, passim; Engel, Honor, vár, ispánság, pp. 225–28. 120  Thus, John of Gyula is sometimes qualified as magnificus (in 1507, LC 102), sometimes egregius (1518, LC 115, as well as in a charter of 1517, Budapest, MNL DF 232466); the latter adjective is associated with the name of his father, George of Gyula, in 1492 (LC 70). Michael of Szob, called magnificus in 1498 (LC 83) receives the qualifier egregius in 1504 (LC 94). 121  The Zics sons (in 1339, LC 5) and Benedict Himfi (in a letter of 1357, LC 7) receive the evasive title of nobilis or dominus, when they already had a toehold on the aristocracy. On the political and social ascent of Benedict Himfi, formally referred to as baron in 1376, see Chapter 6. Peter of Söpte, a former bourgeois of Buda who had become a notary in the royal chancellery, is alternately qualified, in letters, as nobilis and as magister (LC 42, 50, 64, and 67).

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of intra-nobility dependence (familiaritas).122 Furthermore, certain terms are ambiguous or change meaning over the course of the decades. The word magister could designate a literate worthy, cleric or lay, but not necessarily a member of the bourgeoisie; or it could denote a noble or knight (magister, nobilis, and miles sometimes being combined), or even an aristocrat. The adjective nobilis (not followed by dominus) sometimes refers to individuals of importance, lay or ecclesiastic, but not necessarily of noble blood.123 The adjective egregius, initially reserved for barons, was used after the middle of the fifteenth century to qualify any member of the high nobility.124 At the culmination of this evolution at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the adjectives nobilis and egregius became interchangeable — as is indicated, indeed, in a model from the Observant Franciscan formulary of the 1530s.125 Similarly, the title of baron, which had become hereditary over the course of the fifteenth century, was widened to barones solo nomine and no longer to veri barones, the high dignitaries currently holding their positions or having held them during their lifetime. These fluctuations in vocabulary, added to the permeability of the categories in question (as much through promotion as through falls from grace) led to a division of the privileged laity into two subgroups (instead of the usual three): ‘aristocrats’ or members of the high nobility on the one hand, a group within which the barones and magnates formed the highest level; and ‘nobles’ (nobiles viri) on the other, a median and inferior stratum of the nobility. By considering the various socio­logical indicators and the bio­graphical data so far available,126 we can define — with a margin of error that is considerably 122 

Peter Botos (LC 18), probably of the aristocratic lineage (related to the Gara family) of the Botos who were settled in Croatia (if we are to trust in the accuracy of the place of issue of the letter that is addressed to him), is not graced with a single honorific qualifier even though he can be classified (as a minimum) as a member of the nobility. 123  For example in LC 30. 124  The letters of confraternity of the corpus readily combine nobilis and egregius beginning in the 1450s. 125  ‘egregio vel nobili domino si est nobilis’: Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fol. 109. 126  Engel, Magyar középkori adattár; Kristó, Korai magyar történeti lexikon; Fügedi, Ispánok, bárók, kiskirályok. Wherever there is distortion between the titles or qualifiers indicated in the letters on the one hand, and the (ennobling) positions occupied by the beneficiaries at the time of the documents — among other indications provided by the sources or the historio­g raphy (material position and relations of familiaritas with other powerful figures) — on the other hand, it is the latter information that has been favoured to establish the percentages and ­graphs. Peter Botos (LC 18) has thus been counted as a noble, along with Peter of Söpte. In case of doubt, it is the highest position which has been retained. Like Michael of Szob, John of Gyula

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narrower than the one concerning their geo­graphical origin — the social status of nearly all the addressees of the letters of confraternity in the corpus.127 The results obtained show that the recruitment of the mendicant spiritual confraternities in medi­e val Hungary was socially elitist. In contrast to other pious associations,128 the most privileged of the laity, nobles and aristocrats, form an overwhelming majority of the members of the confraternitas (83.6 per cent). It is important to note that their over-representation is not contradicted by the statistics established through letters from sources other than the collections of the great families of the Hungarian nobility.129 Neither the sovereign nor the members of the royal family (recognizable in the sources by the title of illustrissimus princeps) are mentioned as recipients of acts of affiliation. We do, however, have famous examples from Christendom, starting with St Louis, admitted into the spiritual community of the Dominicans as early as 1241. 130 King Matthias Corvinus, founder and benefactor of several mendicant establishments (especially Observant Franciscan establishments), does not seem to have benefited from this grace. Yet he entered into the confraternitas of the Hermits of Saint Paul in 1472,131 (occasionally qualified as magnificus, as we have seen) has been counted among the aristocrats; but his father George, whose possessions and whose links of familiaritas have recently been clarified by Balázs Kertész, has been counted among the nobility. Kertész, ‘A Gyulaiak és a ferencesek’, pp. 236–44. 127  Of the 128 principal addressees named in the letters of the corpus, only two individuals have not been able to be characterized in terms of social level. Here are a few clarifications on the methods used to calculate this: I have limited myself to a single addressee per letter and per social category; a family, a (lay) confraternity, or an entire town thus count for one unit. On the other hand, when the representatives of several milieus appear as addressees of a single letter, they are counted separately (a cleric and a bourgeois for a group of parishioners accompanying their curate, for example). When the same individual is the addressee of several letters, he is counted as many times as the letters. See Table 1, third column, and Graphs 8, 9, and 10. 128  The indications provided by the registry of the Roman Confraternity of the Holy Spirit, not very precise, it is true, do not suggest such a selective recruitment. Csukovits, Középkori magyar zarándokok, pp. 182–83. 129  The sixty-four letters of confraternity that do not come from the collections of Hungarian aristocratic dynasties (according to the indications provided by the Hungarian National Archives, as well as mendicant or departmental inventories) are addressed, for the most part, to nobles (53 per cent) and to aristocrats (21 per cent) ahead of bourgeois (13 per cent) and clerics (11 per cent). 130  Picard, ‘Les Suffrages’, p. 107. 131  Romhányi, ‘A lelkiek a földiek nélkül nem tarthatók fenn’, p. 11 n. 11; source: Budapest, MNL DL 37646.

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with his mother Elizabeth of Szilágy, who had also been affiliated with the Carthusians since 1463.132 The aristocrats — almost all of them barons — occupy the place of honour among the confratres of the mendicants in the light of their demo­g raphic numbers (about fifty heads of household at the end of the fifteenth century).133 Thirty-one received letters of association, which is 24.2 per cent of the total of 128 principal addressees as identified according to the aforementioned criteria and calculation methods, criteria which tend to give them a privileged position. Eight of them are associated with the merits of the entire order.134 Although it was low key until the 1470s, their participation approaches one-third of the total beneficiaries over the subsequent decades.135 In a letter of affiliation from 1507, Matthew of Dej, the prior of the province of Augustinian Hermits of Hungary, made this effectively an obligation: he declared to the baron John Bánffy that ‘the more his rank was elevated in the terrestrial nobility, the greater was his need to benefit from the suffrages of the greatest number in order to obtain his incorporation among the knights of the celestial court’.136 The most robust group, considering all periods together, is that of the nobles, with seventy-six recipients — or 59.4 per cent of the total, although they represented less than 4 per cent of the total population of Hungary in around 1500. It is true that proportionately, the nobles are more rarely associated with the merits of an entire order than the barons (twelve cases).137 But the members of the (middle and lesser) nobility predominated numerically in (at least) three of the four mendicant orders established in Hungary, in particular among the Observant Franciscans (66 per cent).138 The letters studied differ strikingly in this respect from the (eighty-one) affiliations pronounced by John of Capistrano in Central Europe between 1451 and 1456 (only 21 per cent 132 

Budapest, MNL DL 15841. Kubinyi, Változások a középkor végi Magyarországon. 134  LC 9, 27, 49, 61, 75, 103, 114, and 115. 135  See Graph 9. This is clearly less than what András Kubinyi presupposed, who writes, in ‘Vallásos társulatok’, p. 352: ‘A szerzetesi confraternitasokban elsősorban főurakat, tekintélyes nemeseket vettek fel’ (It was mainly the great lords and high-ranking nobles who entered regular confraternities). 136  ‘Et quanto quis maiorem gradum nobilitatis tenet in terris, tanto opus est, ut suffragiis pluriorum fulcitus intra celestis aule milites connumerari mereatur’. LC 99. 137  LC 10, 25, 26, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 67, 91, 94, and 117. 138  See Graph 10. 133 

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of which were addressed to nobles and aristocrats, according to the count of Ludovic Viallet) and still more from those issued by Matthias Döring (13.6 per cent).139 How should we account for the elitism of the Hungarian mendicant spiritual confraternities? At this stage of the investigation, we will limit ourselves to evoking general factors. In contrast to the densely urbanized regions of the West, where the friars could count on the financial support of the bourgeoisie, the survival of the mendicant friaries (especially the Observant friaries) of Hungary depended mainly on noble and aristocratic support.140 Conversely, the instrument of salvation represented by spiritual confraternity, which was both selective and minimally constraining, had everything it needed to be particularly attractive to donors from the highest levels of lay society. The aristocratic and noble tone of spiritual affiliation is certainly not exclusive to Hungary. It has been noted in England, relative to the Franciscans.141 We may, however, observe a slight nuance, which the randomness of documentary preservation does not explain: the low representation of aristocrats among the Hungarian confratres — very relative, it is true, especially if we link it to their small proportion of the population of the country. These were apparently more numerous in England (although the tallies do not always distinguish between nobles and aristocrats) and in Burgundy, where only very high-ranking figures entered into the spiritual confraternities (at least at the general level) of the Franciscans and the Dominicans.142 Similarly, great nobles occupied a predominant place among the spiritual affiliates of the Dominicans in the French Midi in the fourteenth century.143 We must explain this Hungarian singularity, which tempers the idea of a formula seemingly reserved for the aristocratic elite of the kingdom. A Spiritual Aristocracy? When we leave behind the noble milieu, the social designations present in the letters are even vaguer. The qualifiers of providus, honestus, discretus, and circumspectus (vir) are applicable just as much to members of the urban elite 139 

Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, tables 8 (p. 184) and 9 (pp. 189–91). See the beginning of this chapter. 141  Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, pp. 20–22. 142  The dukes of Brabant were admitted as early as the 1330s, and the Countess of Flanders in 1366. Bertrand, Commerce avec dame Pauvreté, p. 469. 143  Picard, ‘Les Suffrages’, p. 110. 140 

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(the iudex and other members of the urban patriciate) as to ordinary city dwellers (cives) or even any lay person at all — as specified by the Franciscan model of the 1530s. The intermediate and higher levels of urban society, along with the worthies of small towns and villages, referred to indiscriminately as cives in the sources (in Sárospatak),144 along with all the other commoners, will thus be classified here in the category, artificial but convenient for analysis, of ‘bourgeois’. The peasantry, although numerous, does not appear in the corpus studied, not even its wealthiest stratum. It is true that, unlike the monks, the mendicant friars did not have (in principle) tenant farmers in their service, which would constitute, objectively, a first obstacle to the ‘democratization’ of their confraternities. The semi-rural distribution of the Franciscan friaries, especially the Observant ones, could nonetheless have allowed a few names from this milieu to appear. We do encounter notables from villages, and bourgeois from towns (cives). They form a very small minority of the addressees: only ten or so (counting one unit per group admitted collectively), or 7.8 per cent of the total. Yet there is no reason to think that burghers were not also attracted by the salvational effects of entry into spiritual confraternity. Their scant presence in the corpus could result from the treatment reserved for the letters, since those delivered to members of prestigious dynasties have better survived over the centuries than the others.145 Moreover, bourgeois are often admitted collectively, and not as individuals. Except for James Kutufel, a burgher from Buda affiliated with the Carmelites in 1376,146 no commoner obtained individual entry into the ‘major’ confraternity. This did not prevent them from founding specific masses.147 There was consequently no absolute aristocracy of spiritual graces. The cives seem to link themselves especially to two mendicant orders: the Carmelites — although the corpus is limited to three letters, to which are added the collective concession of March 1437 in favour of the cives of Prešov (Eperjes) mentioned in Chapter 2 — and the Dominicans. Bourgeois represent 14 per cent 144 

LC 8. The remark is valid for letters of indulgence, transmitted mainly through noble collections. Of the ten letters of Capistrano addressed to Hungarians that have come down to us, only two (LC 24 and 30) have survived that admit commoners. 146  LC 14. 147  LC 35. They are rare among the nobles (LC 15 and 40). Conversely, the examples of Franciscan letters granting pro anima masses cited by Hugolin Lippens only apply to princes. Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’ p. 54. 145 

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of the addressees of the Dominican letters.148 It is doubtless no coincidence that the oldest notarized Hungarian Dominican model, copied in about 1350 and established in the name of the provincial of Hungary, concerns a burgher (‘providi T. de T. ac honeste domine T. conjugi eiusdem’).149 Four of the ten letters addressed to bourgeois (as individual recipients or collectively) were issued by the Dominicans. For the Franciscans, on the other hand, bourgeois admissions are limited to three examples: the two collective entries granted by John of Capistrano in 1453 and 1455,150 and the one given by the minister general in 1464.151 Far from progressing with the rise of urban activities and of the mendicant foundations, the place of commoners declines steadily with the decades.152 We witness, after 1500, a shrinking of the phenomenon around the most privileged of the laity. While the barons are becoming more numerous, the bourgeois are disappearing. Taking all the mendicant orders together, the last entries into spiritual confraternity by cives date to 1488 (in the case of an individual) and 1493 (in the case of a lay confraternity).153 Ought we see in this the effect of the destruction (involuntary or deliberate) of acts of affiliation, or rather a disaffection by city dwellers for spiritual confraternity, a generation before the tumbling of most Hungarian towns into Lutheranism in the 1530s? It is nevertheless the case that the story of the links between the bourgeoisie and mendicant spiritual confraternities in Hungary does not end there. The Observant Franciscan formulary composed shortly before 1535 provides — a first in the Hungarian collections — two models established in favour of (lay) confraternities, and the burghers are more numerous here than in the preceding collection.154 It is therefore not impossible that, after regressing in the years 1510 to 1520, bourgeois memberships (in the wider sense, including the elites of small towns and village ‘bigwigs’) might have experienced a significant, though ephemeral, resurgence after that. This resurgence might echo the widening of the recruitment by the friars to include the peasantry, according to the lists of names that we have starting in the 1530s.155 148 

See Graph 10. Formulae solennes styli, ed. by Kovachich, pp. 366–67 no. 384. 150  LC 24 and 30. 151  LC 39. On the crisis that reigned at the time of this letter, see Chapter 6. 152  See Graph 9. 153  LC 63 and 72, respectively. 154  Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fols 114r and 114r–115r. 155  See the beginning of this chapter. 149 

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Overall, the socio­g raphy of the lay affiliates recalls — by the over-repre­ sentation of nobles and aristocrats — that of the official benefactors of the friaries named in wills, charters of donation, and letters instituting pro anima masses, as well as in the rare registries or obituaries which have been preserved. However, looking at it more closely, we notice that it describes a sort of intermediate level between two strata of amici rather little represented among the confratres. At the base are the ordinary donors — nobles or patricians from the towns, simple burghers or artisans (or even peasants)156 — who populate the registers of benefactors (such as the one of the Dominican friary of Sighişoara), obtaining prayers of recommendation, or even burial in the establishment, or who entered into their lay confraternities and fraternities of tertiaries.157 At the summit are the aristocrats and wealthy nobles who participated actively in the foundation, endowment, and material upkeep of the friaries (such as the Újlak family),158 receiving in return graces that were more valued than spiritual affiliation (grouped or perpetual masses, burial with or without the habit).159 The (relatively) discreet presence of aristocrats among the addressees of letters of suffrages could thus be explained by a difference of means and of objectives — and not by their lesser contribution to the flourishing of mendicant friaries.160 The Discreet Place of the Clergy The Hungarian corpus describes a reality generally passed over in silence, since the idea of a visceral hostility between secular and regular clerics over the final 156 

In 1437, the prior of the Dominican friary of the modest burg of Gorjani (Gara) granted burial to Paul Tapse and his brother, called cives although they belonged to the village elite. Budapest, MNL DL 13036 (5 April 1437). 157  De Cevins, L’Église dans les villes hongroises, pp. 223–26; Lupescu Makó, ‘“Item lego”’. 158  See Chapter 1. 159  See Karácsonyi, Szent Ferencz rendjének. The benefactors of the Paulists belonged to the same circle. Romhányi, ‘A lelkiek a földiek nélkül nem tarthatók fenn’. 160  Ágnes Kurcz thought she had identified a contrast in the attitude towards the mendicants by Hungarian nobles and barons beginning in the fourteenth century. The first group seemed to have entered the friaries more enthusiastically, taking the habit, whereas the second, less motivated, seemed to have been happy with spiritual confraternity (among the mendicants as among the Paulists). Kurcz, A lovagi kultúra, p. 156. This analysis does not stand up to the documentary evidence: firstly because, as early as the Angevin century, the nobles were (in absolute numbers) apparently more numerous than the barons in joining mendicant spiritual confraternities; secondly because the barons had, in any case, sufficient material clout to obtain from the friars graces that were more highly valued than confraternitas, as Chapter 6 will show.

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three centuries of the Middle Ages remains so entrenched: that mendicant spiritual confraternities admitted clerics, parish curates as well as monks, canons, and bishops. There is no doubt as to their status in the Hungarian letters: it is indicated right from the address by specific titles, often confirmed by the name of their function or, if applicable, the specific naming of their religious order. The rather vague honorific terms of providus, honestus, magister, and dominus used at the end of the thirteenth century161 are replaced, beginning in the 1450s, by the more explicit ones of venerabilis, venerandus, and commendabilis.162 The Observant Franciscan formulary of the 1530s rigorously codifies the adjectives applying to major clerics, distinguishing two levels: that of bishops, to whom one gives the qualifier reverendissimus, and that of all other clerics, regular or secular — that is, according to the order of the model, provosts, canons, archdeacons, abbots, curates, and secular priests.163 In practice, however, some ambiguities persist. A litteratus may very well have received clerical orders. 164 Only the mention of a wife permits us to exclude the hypothesis of his belonging to the clergy, unless it is a question of a minor cleric. As we have said, the title of magister was not the exclusive purview of clerics. In the absence of any indication concerning the benefice, function, ecclesiastical rank, or religious order of an addressee, we must put together several different criteria to establish his clerical state.165 Even if we count as clerics individuals whose status remains uncertain, members of the clergy form a very small minority of the Hungarian addressees of mendicant letters of confraternity: there are nine of them, which is 7 per cent of the total who were affiliated by letter.166 Incidentally, this is scarcely surprising : since they had not received clerical orders, the laity judged

161 

LC 2. LC 12, 22, 59, and 88; Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fols 111v–112r. Yet the (only lately known) letter of confraternity granted to Simon Erdődy, Bishop of Zagreb, dates from the year 1519. See Chapter 2. 163  Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fol. 109r. 164  See (with the clerical orders) LC 30 and 71; (without the orders) LC 109. 165  Thus, Emeric Edenfi (LC 59) has been counted as a cleric because he receives the qualifiers of venerandus and of magister, without any mention of family; the letter does not, however, identify any ecclesiastical charge. 166  The letter of confraternity granted in 1519 to Simon Erdődy provides a tenth example. See above. 162 

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themselves to be further from paradise than the clergy, and were therefore more desirous of participating in the merits of the mendicants. Stretching over more than two centuries — going back to the years 1280–1300 and extending until 1502167 in the ‘real’ letters — the clerical presence seems to diminish at the very end of the Middle Ages. 168 The intervention of John of Capistrano (a third of whose letters issued in Central Europe were given to clerics, regular or secular, from 1451 to 1456)169 slowed this erosion for a certain period (two letters); but in Hungary the clerical presence takes the impersonal form of collective admissions concerning priests surrounded by their flocks.170 Since the archives of parishes and of secular institutions have rarely survived, the apparently weak clerical presence in the corpus may be deceiving. It does, however, find confirmation in the models given by the Hungarian Franciscan formularies: although the act of affiliation copied at the very beginning of the fourteenth century admits a cleric, none of the six Observant examples of the years 1510 to 1525 does so. The end of the 1520s may have marked the return of Hungarian clerics to mendicant spiritual confraternities: the Observant Franciscan formulary of the 1530s, after having enumerated the honorific qualifiers to be used for each level of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, gives two models of clerical affiliations, apparently authentic.171 Which categories of secular clerics entered mendicant spiritual confraternities in Hungary? No bishops, in contrast to the French Midi and to England172 (except for a recently discovered case, Simon Erdődy, a member of a high-ranking family which supported the Observant Franciscans). Some lived in an aristocratic vicinity (as the servants of aristocrats, though not themselves aristocratic), which may have influenced their choice. Emeric, the chaplain of the baron Sigismund of Bazin, was admitted into the Carmelite confraternity in 1460.173 But his entry does not go along with the preferences of his master, which evidently lay with the Dominicans.174 Two categories predominate among the affiliates belonging to the secular clergy: canons (of a cathedral or of a college) 167 

See LC 2 and 88 respectively. See Graph 9. 169  Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, table 8, p. 184. 170  LC 24 and 30. 171  Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fols 111v–112r. 172  Picard, ‘Les Suffrages’, p. 110; Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, p. 20. 173  LC 34. 174  LC 37. 168 

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and parish priests. The nominative letters and the formularies mention, from the period 1280–1300 to the 1530s, three cathedral canons, all dignitaries, affiliated with the Franciscans or the Dominicans: one cantor at the cathedral of Győr (if we follow the identification proposed by János Karácsonyi), an archdeacon from Zemplín (Zemplén), and an archdeacon from Vác.175 The attraction of secular canons for mendicant spiritual confraternities may have something to do with their recruitment, for the most part, among the nobility and the aristocracy,176 milieus that were traditionally close to the mendicant orders. They would thus have been following family practices. This is what one of the oldest letters of the Hungarian series (1452) seems to prove, since in it three members of the same noble family, the Sebes, including one canon, are graced together with participation in the suffrages of the Dominicans.177 But we would need further examples to be sure of this. The two parish curates mentioned in the letters (one probably along with his chaplain, qualified as litteratus) are the ones incorporated into spiritual confraternity by Capistrano: in the first case with the other members of a lay confraternity, and in the second case with several parishioners. The only admission of a parish priest on an individual basis is late: according to a model from the Observant Franciscan formulary of the 1530s, Nicolas of Eger, curate and vice-archdeacon of Somlyó, entered into the confraternitas of the order. He may have frequented the Franciscan friary of Șumuleu Ciuc (in Hungarian, Csíksomlyó) which had become an important intellectual and spiritual centre at the beginning of the sixteenth century.178 This weak presence of the Hungarian parish clergy — who came more from the bourgeoisie than the nobility179 — does not mean that they doubted the effectiveness of the graces received from the mendicants. Although, in Hungary as elsewhere, material conflicts recurrently placed curates and mendicants in opposition to each other on the subject of pastoral care,180 the register of Sighişoara groups them among 175 

LC 2 and 22; Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fols 111v–112r. 176  Concerning the socio­graphy of secular canons in medi­eval Hungary, see the following leading sources: Köblös, Az egyházi középréteg; Fedeles, A pécsi székeskáptalan. 177  LC 22. 178  Karácsonyi, Szent Ferencz rendjének, ii, 26–28 and 548; György, A ferencrendiek élete és mükodése Erdélyben, pp. 146–66. Unless it is a question of another Somlyó, a toponym referring to several different places in eastern Hungary. 179  De Cevins, L’Église dans les villes hongroises, pp. 163–70. 180  De Cevins, ‘A plébániai papság és a koldulórendi barátok kapcsolatai a magyar városokban a késő-középkorban’ and ‘Clercs de paroisse’.

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the most active benefactors of the Dominican friary; indeed, two of them are qualified as confratres.181 As for the regular religious, they remained an exception. We should remember, of course, that among the mendicants there was no possibility of uniting several houses of a single order together on their own initiative, as the monks of non-centralized orders as well as the Austin Canons had been doing for three or four centuries.182 In the Franciscan family, Hugolin Lippens reminds us, all the foundations were already linked in spiritual (and therefore eschato­logical) solidarity.183 This did not prevent the superiors of male establishments from incorporating female houses into their order well into the fifteenth century184 — as demonstrated by Dominican examples in Flanders.185 Still in the Flemish sphere, out of the thirty Dominican letters of confraternity unearthed by Servatius Wolfs, about ten are presented to non-mendicant regular communities, and this as late as the 1520s.186 At the same time, just one Dominican example has emerged from the Hungarian collection — in 1366, a date when the prior of the Hungarian Dominican province affiliated the Premonstratensian prior of Leles (Lelesz).187 Among the Franciscans, John of Capistrano introduced this usage. 188 More than a fifth of the acts dispensed by this preacher in Central Europe (1451–56) are addressed to regular establishments, canonical or monastic.189 But none of these communities is Hungarian. In 1502, the Observant Franciscan vicar of Hungary incorporated a commendatory Benedictine abbot, clearly non-

181 

See Chapter 6. It was the appearance of orders, monastic and canonical, organized according to a pyramid and reticular structure, such as those of Citeaux and of Prémontré, which seems to have incited the Benedictine establishments and certain regular and secular communities of canons to multiply, from their side, the cross-affiliations between establishments of the same order or of the same type, from the twelfth century onwards. Bijsterveld, ‘Looking for Common Ground’, pp. 293–94. 183  Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 66. 184  In Chapter 5 we will revisit the question of the difficult integration of female religious into the merits of the mendicants. 185  Litterae de beneficiis, ed. by Wolfs, pp. 29–30 no. 12 (1467), and pp. 32–33 no. 13 (1473). 186  Litterae de beneficiis, ed. by Wolfs. 187  LC 12. 188  Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 66–68. 189  Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, table 8 p. 184. 182 

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professed, Caspar of Murga (or Morgai).190 Since the latter came from a dynasty that was closely linked to the Observant Franciscans,191 and was admitted along with his brother, this step probably had nothing to do with the commend he was practising at that time. Alongside the previously mentioned Dominican letter of 1366, this is the only act of the Hungarian series to pronounce the entry of a Hungarian monk or canon regular into a mendicant spiritual confraternity. The Observant Franciscan formulary of the 1510s does not envisage this type of scenario. There was thus a manifest reticence on the part of the non-mendicant regular religious of Hungary to enter into mendicant spiritual confraternities — and, conversely, to have mendicants participate in the merits of their own establishments.192 Elsewhere, however, affiliations between regular religious (as much between mendicant and non-mendicant orders as between mendicants),193 sometimes reciprocal, were common and could link establishments that were very far apart (from England to as far away as the Holy Land and Mount Sinai).194 The ‘watertight’ barriers between orders in Hungary could be explained by, among other factors, the lesser attractiveness of the Benedictine establishments of the kingdom between the fourteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth century, and still further by the sharp competition for maintaining the support of the king and the elites that the mendicants brought to bear.195 The friars and monks of Hungary seem only to have begun to share their respective merits with each other after 1530. The Observant Franciscan formulary of the 1530s includes, in any case, a model of this type, developed with several variants according to the orders: the Friars Preachers, the Paulists, the 190 

LC 88. See Chapter 6. 192  There is no trace in the Hungarian monastic documentation of mendicant friars sharing in the spiritual merits of the monks — neither in the ‘real’ letters nor in the formularies — not even among the hermits of Saint Paul (according to the collection Formularium maius, ed. by Romhányi and Sarbak,). 193  In addition to the Flemish Dominican examples previously mentioned, see the Franciscan ones reported by Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 66–67. See the examples from Liège provided in Bertrand, Commerce avec dame Pauvreté, pp. 468–69. 194  According to the inventory lists already mentioned: Clark-Maxwell, ‘Some Further Letters of Confraternity’, pp. 206–16; Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, pp. 20–25. 195  Concerning the very numerous publications on occidental monasticism in Hungary, see the exhaustive catalogue compiled in Romhányi, Kolostorok és társaskáptalanok a középkori Magyarországon, pp. 86–109. 191 

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Augustinian Hermits, followed by an ‘etc.’196 The presence of two mendicant orders in this list may express the sentiment of proximity felt by the Observant Franciscans toward the Dominicans (and vice  versa). The absence of the Carmelites is scarcely surprising, considering their minor presence in Hungary. The absence of the Conventual Franciscans signals the failure of the institutional fusion proclaimed by the bull of ‘union’ of 1517. Conversely, the priority position of the Paulists, second on the list, might reflect the esteem in which they held the Observant Franciscans and, more generally, their numerous similarities to the mendicants.197 We must, nevertheless, resist over-interpreting this text: lacking any specific names (unlike the subsequent models, destined for secular clerics), it distances itself, in its formulation, from the ‘real’ letters addressed to regular religious a few years earlier.198 It thus offers no formal proof that monastic entries did indeed take place, whether in the 1530s or earlier. Rather, it simply shows that after 1526, in the slump engendered by the Turkish progression and the advances of Lutheranism, the Hungarian Observant Franciscans did not find it incongruous to admit monks and other mendicants into their confraternitas. The Contribution of Women and of the Dead On first consideration, the role of women in mendicant spiritual confraternities was minimal, according to the Hungarian documentation. Seven nominative letters, Dominican and Franciscan, are labelled with women as their principal addressees.199 They emerge from the shadows — and from anonymity — in the 1450s, only to disappear again after 1509. Their recipients are widows, all, without exception, from the nobility or the aristocracy. Nevertheless, the Observant Franciscan formularies of the beginning of the sixteenth century provide examples of female incorporations in increasing

196 

Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fol. 111r–v. 197  They called themselves ‘friars’ and were very active in the pastoral domain. Mályusz, ‘A pálosrend a középkor végén’. 198  In this model, the preamble highlights the charitas uniting dispensers and recipients, as in the time of the apostles; the admission is pronounced ‘cordially’ (‘in nostram confraternitatem vel fraternitatem cordialiter suscipimus’) and extends to the entire community (‘vos unacum religiosis fratribus vestri ordinis videlicet N. de N.’). Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fol. 111r–v. 199  LC 21, 23, 33, 43, 53, 80, and 104.

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numbers (one model in the first, four in the second).200 The formulation of the preamble, of the exposition of motives, and of the graces granted, rigorously identical to that of the letters intended for men, shows a complete equality of treatment, which is not an essential feature of this type of document.201 We should not forget, as well, that when the principal addressee is a man (in 94 per cent of the cases), his spouse is also mentioned. Her first name appears as early as 1364 (with a formula placing the new consoror at the same rank as her husband),202 episodically until the middle of the fifteenth century, then almost systematically. Other women swell the ranks of the secondary addressees of the letters: the daughters, sisters, sisters-in-law, mothers-in-law, or daughters-in-law of the main beneficiaries. To what extent did these women influence the decision to solicit spiritual affiliation with the friars? We will never know. They only seem to acquire a certain autonomy in the 1530s: the four women (out of seven principal lay addressees) mentioned in the Observant Franciscan formulary of the latest date are no longer exclusively widows. Unlike in the ‘real’ letters from before 1526 and the models of the previous collection, they are married women (the wife of the prefect Stephen Báthori, with her six children, received without her husband)203 and young unmarried women. They contribute simultaneously to the opening of access to spiritual confraternities to commoners: two of the four women who entered the confraternitas of the Observant Franciscans (one widow and one young unmarried woman) came from the Pest bourgeoisie.204 The French and English Benedictine monks had welcomed some deceased members into their spiritual confraternity since the eleventh century (at the latest) and were still doing so at the very end of the Middle Ages.205 There was nothing surprising about this since the effects of the grace continued after 200 

Budapest, OSzK, MSS Cod. Lat. 432, fol. 117r–v, and Oct. Lat. 775, fols 112v–113v. The charters of recommendation or of indulgences issued by the mendicants are identical for male and female addressees. 202  ‘Nobilibus et in Christo dilectis magistro Petro filio Chenik ac domine consorti sue’. LC 11. 203  Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fols 112v–113r. Stephen Báthori is the addressee of another letter of confraternity copied in the same collection, on fol. 108r. 204  Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fol. 113r–v. We should specify that, in this codex, just one of the seven models addressed to lay recipients (excluding lay confraternities) mentions a main addressee as bourgeois, on fol. 116v. 205  Berlière, ‘Les Confraternités monastiques au Moyen Âge’, pp. 138–39; Clark, ‘Monastic Confraternity in Medi­eval England’, p. 323. 201 

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death.206 Overall, however, post mortem admissions remained, even considering all orders together, rather rare. A  few cases have been noted among the Franciscans in England.207 The formulary that was copied by the Dominicans of Krakow at the beginning of the fifteenth century provides eight models specifically reserved for the deceased (that is, almost one-fifth of the model letters in the collection!), 208 but the ‘real’ specimens have apparently disappeared. We know of no Hungarian wills requesting an affiliation after death, neither for the testator nor for any of his family or entourage. Nevertheless, seventeen nominative letters expressly include the deceased members of a family or of an association among the new confratres.209 The dead appear at the end of the list (‘ac etiam / necnon animas [omnium] defunctorum vestrorum’) or in the penultimate position, just before the nebula of the family members and loved ones that the affiliates wished to have admitted with them into the spiritual confraternity (‘ac omnis pro quibusque intenditis’). The impetus came from Capistrano, who provided the first example in the Hungarian series in 1451, and who conforms to it in the nine letters which followed. He gained a following among the Dominicans (from the conventual level to the Hungarian provincial level) as well as the Conventual Franciscans,210 aside from a long hiatus between 1465 and 1505. Whether the chain of spiritual solidarity that the confraternitas created included (implicitly or not) the departed, it presupposed, in Hungary, the membership of their family members who were still living, whereas the Polish Dominican models from the end of the fourteenth century report admissions of isolated deceased members, at the request of their living relatives. Curiously, the Hungarian Observant Franciscans do not mention the deceased in their acts of affiliation — unlike the neighbouring prelati (such as the Austrian provincial and cismontane commissary Christopher de Monaco).211 206 

See the following chapter. See the two wills from 1490 and 1528 cited by Andrew Little in ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, p. 19. 208  Dictamina Litterarum, ed. by Woroniecki and Fijalek, pp. 66–155 nos 44, 45, 46, 47, 69, 268, 269, and 271. 209  LC 20, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 35, 40, 97, and 102 (‘major’ confraternity); LC 21, 104, and 124 (‘ordinary’ confraternity). 210  See respectively LC 21 and 40 (Dominicans), and 35, 97, 104, and 124 (non-Observant Franciscans). 211  LC 102. 207 

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The models in the two formularies from the beginning of the sixteenth century are no more forthcoming on this, except for one from the 1530s, delivered in the name of the minister general.212 An example from the same collection, attributed to the provincial of Hungary, admits the deceased husband of a widow along with the widow herself, 213 thus prolonging the conjugal link beyond death. But, in the series of ‘real’ letters, none of those addressed to a widow follows this formula.214 How can we explain this prolonged reticence by the mendicants, and more particularly by the Hungarian Franciscans of the Observance, to admit the dead? It is possible that they had wanted to avoid drying up the source of revenue which pro anima masses represented for their establishments — whereas the Dominicans and the Conventual Franciscans, who had more stable resources, could do without these without endangering their subsistence.215 Although we lack external points of comparison to set mendicant spiritual confraternities in Hungary against the practices of other regions of the medi­ eval West, the Hungarian documentation indicates that they experienced a success that was lively, that began early, and that had remarkable longevity — since it extends from the 1270s to the 1530s inclusive. It encompassed the whole of the kingdom, without being restricted to those regions where the network of foundations was densest. After slowing down in the early years of the fifteenth century, the momentum started up again stronger than ever after 1450, reaching unprecedented proportions around 1500. Certainly, not all the strata of Hungarian society felt the same attraction to the formula. The socio­logical study of the addressees of the Hungarian letters presents us with two opposite readings: one which considers that spiritual affiliation with the mendicants, as the inheritance of the monastic tradition, would only have involved high-ranking benefactors; and one which credits the friars with a mass expansion to include the lowly. In Hungary, even taking into account the documentary imbalances, it is clear that mendicant spiritual confraternities recruited their members mainly from the nobility and, especially from the end of the fifteenth century on, the aristocracy. They did not, however, close the door to commoners, receiving burghers from cities and small 212 

Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fol. 108v. ‘Te unacum prefato domino et marito quondam tuo […] ad nostram confraternitatem’: Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fol. 113v. 214  Budapest, OSzK, MSS Cod. Lat. 432, fol. 117r–v, and Oct. Lat. 775, fol. 113r. 215  We will return to this differentiated use of the confraternitas in Chapter 5. 213 

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towns. After 1530, we glimpse a more marked openness towards women (on an individual basis, and not simply to accompany their husbands), to bourgeois, and perhaps also to monks — an openness which remains to be confirmed by more detailed research. Until any possible reversal in these findings, it appears that the enthusiasm for mendicant spiritual confraternities did not touch either the summit or the base of Hungarian society. It is as if the sovereigns, the bishops, and the various official supporters of the friars preferred other salvational graces to spiritual association, graces which were more in accordance with their rank and the extent of their largesse; at the other extreme of the social scale, ordinary or anonymous benefactors contented themselves, at best, with recommendation for the prayers of the friars. The following chapters will attempt to verify the relevance of this scheme of distribution and to shed light on the reasons for it. In order to do this, they will examine the content given to the confraternitas, its use by the mendicant superiors, and its integration into the religious practices of the Christians of Hungary.

Chapter 4

The Process of Spiritual Affiliation with the Mendicants

T

he term ‘spiritual confraternity’ inevitably engenders a certain malaise in the reader, even one who is fascinated by religious history. In it, he or she sees a hybrid spiritual object which confusedly mixes associative grouping, collective prayer, and the remission of sins. The historians who allude to it rarely take the trouble to explain its spiritual content, which is supposedly well known, or else they present a blurred, if not distorted, image of it.1 Raised in relation to the Franciscans, the question of the appropriation of spiritual affiliation by the mendicants has received an initial response only with regard to the reformed Friars Minor (Observant and sub ministro) of the Germanic area, whereas the restrictions brought to pro anima foundations by members of the mendicant orders, for example, have been highlighted by the historio­graphy for more than three decades.2 The objective of this chapter is to capture, using the Hungarian sources, the understanding that friars and confratres brought to the expressions ‘confraternitas’, ‘to associate with’, ‘to affiliate with’, or ‘to make participate in’ the ‘suffrages’ or the ‘merits’. Did they give such terms the same meaning as they had held in the golden age of monastic confraternities? What was the contribution of commemorative intercession, founded on the powers attributed to community prayer and oriented towards the hereafter, versus that of the act of ‘brother-becoming’, inscribed in the present of the affiliates? 1  2 

See Chapter 1. Chiffoleau, La Comptabilité de l’au-delà.

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Spiritual confraternity presents itself, in the letters of admission, as a bouquet of spiritual benefits, not exactly identical, but with overlapping effects. As our first consideration, we will attempt to isolate the ‘central core’ that this discursive deployment tends to mask. The modus operandi of spiritual confraternity also cries out for clarification. What was the role of the littera con­ fraternitatis — simultaneously stereotyped and individualized — in its workings? Beyond its function of certification, which theoretically guaranteed the recipient the execution of the prescribed measures, the specific form of the letter could express a kind of interdependence — from the double perspective of religious anthropo­logy and cultural history — between the written expression of affiliation and its effectiveness. Finally, we must investigate the relationship between community and individual in (and through) spiritual confraternity. Did people tend to enter spiritual confraternity alone or as a group, and did the same ‘salvational’ assurances and the same experience of solidarity apply in either case? Combined with the preceding indications, this last one will allow us to complete our testing of the thesis of a link that had become slack, not to say unreliable, at the end of the Middle Ages.

A Nebula of Graces Even excluding the ‘fill-in-the-blanks’ letters which swamp the idea of affiliation in a heteroclite flood of spiritual favours (outlining what Robert Swanson calls ‘open confraternity’), mendicant letters of confraternity do not describe a single grace — the entry into the spiritual confraternity of the order or its corollary, the participation in the merits of the religious — but rather several. To add to the complexity of the question, in the ‘real’ letters as in the models copied in formularies, the benefits to be shared may cover a range (in general and even within the same document) on various different scales. The Theo­logical and Canonical Background The theo­logical base on which medi­eval spiritual confraternities were built has long been established.3 Like intercession — from which it stems, in part (we will return to this point) —spiritual affiliation flows from the dogma, defined 3 

The para­g raph which follows repeats, in substance, the conclusions of Dictionnaire de spiritualité, 2/ii, cols 1292–94 (‘Communion des saints’), 2/iii, cols 2379–82 (‘Corps mystique’), and x, cols  1042–46 (‘Mérite et vie spirituelle’); Dictionnaire de théo­logie catholique, iii, cols 429–47, and x, cols 574–710; Moeglin, L’Intercession du Moyen Âge à

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between the second and the fifth centuries, of the communio sanctorum.4 This should be understood both as ‘communion with holy things’ and ‘community of saints’. Flowing from the organicist idea which makes Ecclesia the ‘mystical body’ of Christ, it serves as a background canvas for the doctrine of salvation and the ‘theo­logy of merits’ which were developed more or less definitively over the twelfth and thirteenth centuries — around Anselm of Canterbury and then under the influence of a few leading figures from the mendicant orders, including Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas. They are part of the ‘unitary and circular logic explaining the exchanges between this life and the hereafter in terms of economic relations’, which originated with Augustine and had been developed by the episcopal and monastic elites since the very early Middle Ages,5 a discourse which promoted the idea of a continuous circulation of riches, as much spiritual as material, among Christians in the name of caritas.6 The notion of ‘merit’ (meritum), much debated in the West, from the groundwork paved by Tertullian and Augustine until the theses of the Reform movement, expresses the idea of a value that is at once personal (private) and objective (recognized), more qualitative than quantitative, which will be taken into account on Judgement Day. It establishes a correlation between the act, the person who produces it, and its consequences (punishment if the act is bad, reward if it is good). However, if merits call for reward (making God, held by his promises, a ‘debtor’) they are also a divine ‘gift’. God dispenses justice for the good actions of men — the fundamental principle of theodicy — but he remains, in parallel, the source of those good actions. Bona opera have no value other than in the light of God’s goodness. Following in the footsteps of Alan of Lille and Bernard of Clairvaux, Franciscan theo­logians (Bonaventure, Duns Scotus, William of Ockham) insist, furthermore, on divine arbitrariness. l’époque moderne, in particular the contributions of Nicole Bériou, Yvette Duval, Barbara Faes de Mottoni, Herbert Schneider, and Catherine Vincent. These general presentations should be refined, adding details based exclusively on the medi­eval writings produced by the detractors and partisans of regular spiritual confraternities. 4  The defenders of spiritual confraternity remind us of this again in the fifteenth century. In response to the attacks of Jan Hus, the Carthusian Stephen of Dolany justified in 1408 (in the Medulla tritici seu antiwikleffus, ii, Cap. 11, cols 235 ff.) the principle of spiritual association by linking it to the dogma of the communion of saints. Marin, L’Archevêque, le maître et le dévot, p. 293. The Tractatus de confraternitate of Nicolas Lackman (written after 1463) opens with the same doctrinal reminder. Wrocław, BUW, MS Cod. I. Qu. 73a, fols 46v–47r. 5  Toneatto, Les Banquiers du Seigneur, in particular pp. 18–19. 6  Todeschini, Ricchezza francescana.

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For them, there is no ‘right’ to eternal life, the payments by God being a grace rather than a salary or a due. Whence the repeated warnings against the temptation of appropriating and amassing merits for oneself, a temptation which is at once vain and presumptuous: vain because their salvational effectiveness is never guaranteed (‘Sufficit ad meritum scire, quod non sufficiant merita’, wrote Bernard of Clairvaux);7 presumptuous since God maintains total freedom of judgement and of decision. Jan Hus drew on this idea of divine arbitrariness to demonstrate the inanity of the principle of spiritual confraternity, with the religious laying claim, through it, to a power which in reality God alone can exercise.8 And even in the Catholic milieu, merits were presented as tools for spiritual progression, not as passports to paradise.9 By virtue of the communion of saints, all the members of the Church, from the saints in paradise (including angels) to the faithful living on earth, are united (commembra) — united with Jesus Christ and united with each other — by a communion and a communication of services, of graces, and of spiritual gifts. These gifts include prayers of intercession as well as merits, as Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas specify. Each member participates in the work (and therefore in the salvation) of all, and all contribute to the work of each

7 

Sermones in Cantica canticorum, Sermo 68, 6 — cited in Dictionnaire de spiritualité, x, col. 1046. 8  In his Books on Simony (edited by Amedeo Molnár, Drobné spisy české, p. 229) Jan Hus writes: ‘There is yet another breach by which the religious commit simony: they give to the people letters which assure their participation in their good works, as they say in these letters, in fasts, in prayers, in masses, in mortifications, and in all sorts of other things. But they are mistaken when they write: “we make you a participant”, because making someone participate in good works that will be useful to their salvation is a right which belongs to God alone.’ I thank Olivier Marin for translating this text from old Czech. The (Taborite) Hussite Nicolas of Pelhřimov was still declaring, at the Council of Basel in 1433: ‘cuius [fraternitatis] participii precipuus distributor est Deus’; and further: ‘nemo debet presumere sibi, quod Deo est proprium, sed communicare indifferenter cuicumque volenti emere partem fraterni meriti videtur Deo esse proprium’. Řeči Mikuláše, ed. by Bartoš, pp. 76–77. About the extension by Luther of the issue of God’s full freedom, see Freyer, ‘A ferences teológia befolyása a reformációra’, pp. 154–56. The common roots of Franciscan (Duns Scotus, Ockham) and Lutheran theo­logy could explain the connection between the first wave of reformers and the Franciscan, together with the shock of the Turkish expansion after 1521. Őze, ‘A ferences’. 9  ‘If we give their true name to what we call merits, they are the seeds of hope, the stimulators of charity, the signs of predestination, the presages of future felicity, the way of the kingdom, not the cause of kingship’, we read still in Bernard of Clairvaux. De gratia et libero arbitrio, 13. 15 — quoted in Dictionnaire de spiritualité, x, col. 1046.

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one; the benefits received by each one belong to all.10 The interdependence of the faithful resulting from these mutual and uninterrupted exchanges creates the possibility not only of praying for others, but of deserving merit for others (since merits are transferable) and, consequently, of counting on the suffrages and merits of the ‘saints’. What is at stake is at once individual (reducing the sufferings expected in purgatory by every ‘average sinner’, over the time which separates his earthly death from Parousia) and collective (discharging the ‘penitential debt’ of humanity towards God).11 But this circulation does not benefit all Christians to the same degree. In this sense, the Church cannot be simply assimilated into a vast spiritual confraternity. The righteous, the real ‘accumulators’ of merits (because they ‘produce’ more benefits than others) are also their main beneficiaries (or shareholders, to continue the economic metaphor). This is because of their very close proximity to Christ and to the other righteous. They are the ‘friends’ and ‘brothers’ of Christ and their fellow righteous because they are driven by c(h)aritas, the engine of this uninterrupted circulation and the active cement between the souls of all the just.12 Certainly, warns Thomas Aquinas, taking inspiration from a reservation that was already expressed by Augustine, the benefits of this circulation are subject to the receptivity of the faithful, in other words to the vigour of their faith and of their charity. We note that in this matter the practice of spiritual confraternity differentiated itself from that of indulgences insofar as candidates for spiritual affiliation were not required to submit to a certain penance or to make confession in order to enjoy the effects of this grace. In this system, the ecclesiastical institution plays an essential role, as much at the level of production as at the level of communication of spiritual benefits. As well as being the repository of a treasury that it continually increases, it also ensures its distribution. How? By its action of continuous intercession, which procures for believers the support of the saints in Heaven who are their ‘advocates’; by the sacraments, at once creators and dispensers of merits, beginning with the Eucharist, which reproduces the sacrifice, the most meritorious 10 

‘Quia omnes fideles unum sunt corpus, bonum unius alteri communicatur’, writes Thomas Aquinas in Expositio in symbolum apostolorum, 10 — quoted in Dictionnaire de spir­ itualité, 2/ii, col. 1292. 11  Dictionnaire de théo­logie catholique, iii, col. 446. 12  ‘propter communicantiam in radice operis quae est charitas’, writes Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theo­logica (suppl. q.71 a 1c.), cited above. From the eleventh century, the links of confraternity made by monks and canons sometimes took the name of c(h)aritas or karitas. Bijsterveld, ‘Looking for Common Ground’, p. 294.

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of all and the source of all merits, of the Passion of Christ; and by the sanctity of those of its members who, like the monks, devote their existence to divine praise and are already as close as possible to Christ. This does not, however, lead to the isolation of two categories of Christians — the ‘issuers’ (or ‘producers’) of graces on the one hand and the ‘receivers’ (or ‘consumers’) on the other. For the founders of masses also generate merits, as does any faithful Christian who accomplishes charitable or penitential works (alms, fasting, abstinence, pilgrimages) similarly capable of freeing souls from purgatory (according to the preachers and to the icono­g raphy).13 This representation is nonetheless the instituter of a hierarchy, insofar as it establishes the superiority of certain Christians, among the top rank of whom we find the regular religious (monks, canons, then mendicant friars). Credited since their origins with a power of intercession that was second to none, the daily enactors of the Eucharistic sacrifice, and finally, authorized (by papal delegation) to grant remission through indulgences, the religious also held a fourth salvational power: that of sharing the merits that had been credited to them by God himself.14 This was true not only in an abstract way, to the advantage of all Christians if they were at all receptive (to repeat the Augustinian restriction carefully handled by Thomas Aquinas), but also through the concentration of these benefits on those they judged worthy of priority in receiving them. The fortunate chosen ones thus found themselves gratified with the same eschato­ logical ‘bonuses’ as the religious, and this without having to take the habit, in the same way as tertiaries — until the latter were themselves recognized as producers of merits. Such is the fundamental principle of spiritual confraternity. More than inter­cession, with which it is too easily confused — because of the overlapping of commemoration and fraternitas in the Carolingian and post-Carolingian periods, in addition to the polysemy of the term ‘suffrages’15 — it draws all the 13 

Fournié, Le Ciel peut-il attendre?, pp. 39–41. Berlière, ‘Les Confraternités monastiques au Moyen Âge’, p. 134. 15  In the historio­g raphy, suffrages are normally understood as the prayers, liturgical services (starting with Mass), and acts of penitence by which Christians — living (starting with clerics, the privileged mediators) or dead (the saints being the most ‘efficient’) — intercede with God in favour of other Christians, thus bringing to the latter their help (the common meaning of the word suffragium, in the singular, in medi­e val Latin) in obtaining eternal salvation, notably by shortening their sufferings in purgatory. But the ‘suffrages’ referred to in texts relating to confraternity designate above all the salvational advantages that the religious received and amassed by their works — for their own benefit, even if they may use them for 14 

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consequences of the communio sanctorum. In the triangle linking the intercessor (situated halfway between God and men), the person for whom he intercedes, and God, each one stays in his place and separated from the others.16 Spiritual confraternity also involves three actors (or groups of actors), but it does not keep them exactly at their initial level. The dispensing religious elevate the confratres to a position that approaches their own, by their symbolic incorporation into the order and (in the case of a ‘major’ admission) by their integration into the commemorative liturgy. They thus create a new community around themselves, bound together a minima by the ‘accelerated’ circulation of graces among its members. It is true that, according to the law of the Church, this community had no real existence. The canon lawyers had denied it any legal entity since the twelfth century, in a concomitant rejection of the inverse movement of integration of conversi.17 In their eyes, although belonging a priori to the informal group of ‘God’s pious’ mentioned by the Decretum of Gratian,18 confratres were not religious, even largo modo — unlike conversi, but also oblates and donati, whose position gradually came to be recognized as ‘semi-religious’ (according to current termino­logy). They were distinguished from them by their title and especially by their lifestyle, which had nothing in common with that of the the benefit of other Christians — without mediation, exactly like the merits with which they were confused at the time. Indeed, the provincial minister of Saxony Nicolas Lackman uses the terms ‘merits’ and ‘suffrages’ as synonyms from the start of his treatise on spiritual confraternity (‘participes meritorum sive/et suffragiorum’, ‘communicationes meritorum et suffragiorum’). Wrocław, BUW, MS Cod. I Qu. 73a, fol. 46v; Gdańsk, PANB, MS Cod. 1965, fol. 102v. We also remember that the Franciscan letter of affiliation that opens this book uses (in about 1300) the formula ‘Ego frater A. etc. vos ad universa et singula nostri ordinis suffragia et ad confraternitatem recipio’. In the acts of general and provincial chapters (notably Dominican), the word ‘suffrages’ sometimes designates prayers of recommendation and masses recited or sung by the friars for the salvation of individuals, living (suffragia pro vivis / vivorum) or dead (suffragia pro mortuis / mortuorum), and sometimes the spiritual benefits shared with affiliates (littera de suffragiis ordinis). Acta capitulorum, ed. by Madura. This explains the spontaneous tendency of historians to attach spiritual confraternity to the mechanism of intercession, as shown in Chapter 1. 16  Moeglin, L’Intercession du Moyen Âge à l’époque moderne. 17  De Miramon, Les ‘Donnés’ au Moyen Âge, pp. 112–16, 128–42, and 156–94. 18  The qualifier of ‘God’s pious’ (Dei devoti) was denied by Huguccio and his canon law successors of the thirteenth century. De Miramon, Les ‘Donnés’ au Moyen Âge, pp. 158–59. This does not prevent Nicolas Lackman from again classifying them in this category at the beginning of his Tractatus de confraternitate: ‘Sepe reperiuntur fideles plurimi domino Deo nostro devoti, qui’. Wrocław, BUW, MS Cod. I Qu. 73a, fol. 46v.

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professed. Thus, confratres and consorores, swamped in the amorphous mass of ‘friends’ of the religious, were excluded, from the start of the thirteenth century, from the jurisdictional privileges granted by the papacy to the orders and establishments with which they were associated.19 ‘Ordinary’ Spiritual Confraternity Unlike the Cistercians, Franciscan and Dominican superiors issued, starting in the middle of thirteenth century, two separate versions of letters of affiliation. The first (not necessarily the oldest)20 granted a ‘minor’ admission (also called ‘common’ or ‘ordinary’),21 that is, limited to participation in the spiritual benefits of the religious. The second added to this grace a post mortem service of commemoration which mirrored the one provided for members of the order (‘major’ admission).22 This dichotomy alone proves that spiritual affiliation, among the mendicants, may not be reduced to its necro­logical function.23 ‘Ordinary’ admission is separated, in the dispositive clauses of these acts, into two graces which were more or less equivalent: entry into the confrater­ nitas as a community (which will be considered at the end of this chapter) on the one hand, and participation in the merits of the religious on the other. Strengthened from the middle of the fifteenth century by a syntactic dissociation that was more and more marked, and by the distinction of two scales (explained below), the procedure creates an impression of profusion that is 19 

De Miramon, Les ‘Donnés’ au Moyen Âge, pp. 156–68. One of the oldest known examples of entry into mendicant spiritual confraternity is a ‘major’ admission: when the king of France Louis IX was associated, in 1241, with the suffrages of the Order of Friars Preachers, along with his mother and his wife, he was favoured with the same post mortem celebrations as those provided for the master general. Picard, ‘Les Suffrages’, p. 107. 21  These terms coined by Hugolin Lippens are not medi­eval. See Chapter 1. 22  See the two preceding chapters and Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 53–54, concerning the Franciscans. 23  This double version seems to have won over the Benedictines in the thirteenth century. Berlière, ‘Les Confraternités monastiques au Moyen Âge’, pp. 136 and 140; the author even describes three degrees of spiritual confraternity for the Benedictines (‘full confraternity’, ‘common confraternity’, and ‘individual contract’) without, however, providing either a rigorous definition or references or chrono­logical indications. Conversely, James G. Clark considers that all the members of the spiritual confraternity of the Benedictine monastery of Saint Albans benefited from the same services, mirroring those of the deceased religious. Clark, ‘Monastic Confraternity in Medi­eval England’, pp. 317 and 326. 20 

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certainly intentional, since it allows the friars to emphasize, in this way, the richness of the grace being granted. However, it in no way changes the tenor of this grace: as the theoretical and polemical texts of the fifteenth century on the subject show, its ‘heart’ resides in the participatio of the new confratres in the meritorious spiritual goods produced by the members of the order. Which members? Those of the first order, as a minimum, and potentially those of the second and third orders.24 The contribution of the latter multiplied the effects of the grace granted, according to a cumulative logic which — despite the reservations raised by theo­logians concerning the merits, as previously mentioned — clearly appears in the numerical figures which certain mendicant superiors take pains to provide in their letters. Matthias Döring, the Franciscan provincial of Saxony, thus proudly lined up ‘2186 friaries’ in the middle of the fifteenth century.25 In the acts of the Hungarian corpus, the ‘participation’ in spiritual goods is often qualified, beginning in the thirteenth century, as ‘full’ among the Franciscans and as ‘special’ among the Dominicans.26 This formula of insistence emphasized the fullness and the value of the grace granted, without necessarily involving post mortem celebrations.27 Three Dominican letters issued by the master general between 1480 and 1494 precede the word participatio with the term communio (or communicatio),28 which explicitly refers to the communion of saints. This doubling up is not an invention of the Dominicans: it already figured in the customaries of Cluny at the end of the eleventh century.29 Thus, the foundation of affiliation to the mendicants lay well within the belief in the existence of ‘spiritual goods’ (or ‘graces’, or ‘treasures’), 30 24 

See Chapter 5. Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, pp. 197–98, drawing on Weigel, Ordensreform und Kon­ ziliarismus, p. 338. 26  LC 1 and 5. 27  This is the reason that, in contrast to Hugolin Lippens (‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 53–54), we prefer to speak of ‘major’ confraternity when referring to the superior form of affiliation, rather than ‘full’ or ‘special’ confraternity. 28  LC 49, 64, and 75. 29  Berlière, ‘Les Confraternités monastiques au Moyen Âge’, p. 134. 30  The appellation (spiritual) ‘goods’ is the most frequent in the letters of confraternity of the Hungarian corpus. That of thesauri spirituales, exceptional (LC 35), also appears in letters instituting pro anima services. We read, for example, for the Augustinian Hermits in 1415: ‘de suis thesauris spiritualibus vicissitudinem rependere cupientes salutarem’. Budapest, MNL DL 79302; A zichi és vasonkeoi, ed. by Nagy, Kammerer, and Véghely, vi, 387 no. 25. 25 

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accomplished by the religious and held by them thanks to their religious activities (masses, prayers, fasts, sermons, and other ‘works’). Such goods amassed themselves into a veritable ‘celestial treasury’, 31 an element, among others, of the ‘benefices of the saints’ (beneficia sanctorum), not quantifiable but capitalizable.32 It was because the religious had accomplished them (fieri, operari) by divine benevolence (or clemency, grace, or mercy) — according to a widespread formula (used in Hungary as well as in England)33 in the letters issued by all the mendicant prelati, as well as by the White and Black Monks34 — that the friars could distribute them outside the walls of their friaries, thus making others ‘experience’ the spiritual ‘privileges’ that were reserved for them.35 Various formulations, whose matrix dates to the 1250s for the Franciscans,36 express this in the letters of the corpus. More than a faculty, it was a duty, an obligation (debitum), specify the letters. The friars were the guardians of their ‘treasury’, for the salvation of all, and not only their own salvation, as recognized in the concessive clause ‘Quamvis ex caritatis debito omnibus teneamur’ which opens the preamble of the letters of the Hungarian corpus beginning in the 1450s.37 This clause was probably a response to the criticisms of the Hussites, who set the universality of Christian fraternity, as posited by the scriptures, in opposition to its ‘privatization’ by 31 

This formula is found in an English model of a letter of confraternity composed in the name of, and for the use of, the Austin Friars in 1525. Roth, The English Austin Fri­ ars, pp. 428–29 no. 1052. 32  These are the first words of the bull by which Pope Urban V reserved for the regular pre­ lati the power to distribute the contents of the spiritual treasury of the order to its procurators and other ‘friends’. Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 66. 33  Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, p. 14 (including Benedictine examples). 34  Certainly, the Cistercian letters did not always trouble to specify this: ‘in omnibus bonis nostris spiritualibus’ — cited by Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 59. 35  According to a formula introduced into the Hungarian corpus by John of Capistrano: ‘ut ab ipso ordine prerogativam sentiatis spiritualium graciarum’. LC 24–31. It also applies to other Central European letters: Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, p. 193 n. 183. 36  Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 59; Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, p. 13. In the Hungarian mendicant letters, we read: ‘[bona …] que per fratres [et sorores] nostri ordinis Dominus Jhesus Christus […] fieri dederit’; or: ‘que per fratres nostros […] operari et acceptare dignebitur clemencia Salvatoris’; another variant: ‘que […] sunt facienda et a benignitate divina acceptanda’. See respectively: LC 33 (1456, master general Martial Auribelli); LC 2 and 24–32 (letters of John of Capistrano); Budapest, OSzK, MS Cod. Lat. 432, fol. 117v. 37  Chapter 5 will return to the function of this clause, recurrent in the letters of the Hungarian corpus, and to its place in the controversies of the fifteenth century.

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regular spiritual confraternities.38 The argumentation developed by the men­ dicants in their defence was the following: the friars, having received (material) goods repeatedly from certain of the faithful, ought to pay off their debt without delay, by providing them with the (spiritual) goods that they had accumulated through their religious state. A model letter instituting pro anima masses, copied in the Hungarian Franciscan formulary of the beginning of the fourteenth century, explains this in simple but effective language: the friars, like all of ‘God’s servants’, have neither silver nor gold in abundance, but they do have at their disposition ‘the fruit of the merits accumulated from God’;39 it is for this reason that Stephen, the minister of Hungary, was instituting, in the provincial chapter, three masses, to be recited by all the priests of the Hungarian province, for the salvation of the recipient, a noble (who has remained anonymous), who had previously promised to pay for the completion of the construction of a friary he had just founded.40 Sometimes enumerated — in seventy-nine nominative letters of the corpus, in lists that were more or less developed according to the different orders and periods — sometimes generically identified, the goods dispensed by the friars to the affiliated receive quite varied designations, even within a single letter. The most frequent is that of ‘goods’ (bona) or ‘spiritual goods’ (spiritualia bona), already used by the Cistercians.41 It eclipses the term beneficia as early 38 

See, notably, the declarations of Nicolas of Pelhřimov at the Council of Basel in 1433 (‘Illa fraternitas erat communis, non privata’). Řeči Mikuláše, ed. by Bartoš, p. 76. Continuation by Martin Luther: Freyer, ‘A ferences teológia befolyása a reformációra’, pp. 148–51. 39  ‘Ceterum […] more servorum Dei, in quibus non argenti vel auri copia deservit sed meritorum apud Dominum fructus cumulatorum, unde beneficentie preter quotidiana et generalia orationum suffragia, quibus nos ante oculos misericordie Dei tanquam precipuum nostri ordinis benefactorem prosequi optamus incessanter, nunc …’ (According to the usage of the other servants of God […] whose subsistence comes not from an abundance of silver or of gold but from the fruit of merits accumulated through God, whence come the favours with which, in addition to the daily and general suffrages of prayers, we wish to grace without delay such a remarkable benefactor of our order in the eyes of the mercy of God, [we grant] now …). Alba Iulia, Batthyaneum, Cod. E 5. VI-8 (Szentiványi, no. iii, 89), fol. 125r; Karácsonyi, ‘A magyar ferencrendűek formulás könyve a Batthyány-könyvtárban’, p.  26 no.  5. Kornél Szovák draws the title of his article from this (‘“Meritorum apud Dominum fructus cumulatorum”’), though he omits to point out that it is not a letter of affiliation. 40  Alba Iulia, Batthyaneum, Cod. E 5. VI-8 (Szentiványi, no. iii, 89), fol. 125r; Karácsonyi, ‘A magyar ferencrendűek formulás könyve a Batthyány-könyvtárban’, p. 26 no. 5. 41  Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 58–59.

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as the first Franciscan letters identified in Italy.42 Similarly, the word ‘suffrages’ (suffragia) — frequently used at the start of the letter, in the preamble, or the formula of admission (notably in the oldest known letter of the Friars Minor, that John of Parma) — does not refer, unless exceptionally,43 to the spiritual goods which are enumerated. The terms ‘good works’ (bona opera, more rarely bona acta, bone operationes) and ‘pious labours’ (pii labores), which emphasize the remarkable capacity of the religious to produce merits, are used in preference to it. It is sometimes a question, from the middle of the fourteenth century for the Dominicans,44 and then from the quill of Capistrano and in the two Franciscan branches after 1500, of ‘spiritual charisms’ (spiritualia carismata). This positioned the mendicants as both receptacles and propagators of the Holy Spirit. After 1520, the Observant Franciscan letters end up with ‘spiritual exercises’ (spiritualia exercitia).45 These various terms assuredly reflect the religious climate of the time: faith inscribed in works, the rise of mysticism, the devotio moderna. Finally, we note that affiliation is always described in the letters as effective ‘in life as in death’ (‘in vita pariter et in morte’). Present from the first (Italian) Franciscan examples reported by Salimbene di Adam in 1254,46 this annotation is found in the Hungarian ‘real’ letters47 as well as in the models (Franciscan, Dominican, and Carmelite). Whenever it is not placed immediately after the formula of admission (‘te […] in confraternitatem nostri ordinis recipio’) — the most frequent configuration by far — it appears directly after the expression of the participation in the ‘spiritual goods’.48 It is sometimes even repeated a few lines later.49 This phrase makes the confraternitas an instrument of salvation at work in the present (on a par with recommendations for prayer)50 and during 42 

Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 59; Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, p. 13. The word subsists only in the preamble, concerning the necessity of reimbursing material ‘benefits’ by spiritual ‘benefits’. 43  LC 47 (1480). 44  Formulae solennes styli, ed. by Kovachich, p. 366 no. 384. 45  LC 118 and 119; Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fols 109v and 111r. 46  Lippens, ‘De Litteris confraternitatis’, p. 59; Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, p. 13. 47  LC 1, 3, 4, 10, and 12. Only five letters, among the oldest of the corpus (1270–1366) and not Franciscan, omit to specify this. 48  LC 23. 49  LC 22. 50  The letters of recommendation produced by the Hungarian mendicants at the end of the Middle Ages specify that they take effect upon delivery. See, for example, Budapest, MNL DL 103341 (1376).

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all of earthly life, until the crucial moment of death — when the faithful Christian, soul and body still joined, may yet receive a complete pardon for his sins in a final act of repentance.51 ‘Major’ Confraternity In the ‘ordinary’ version of spiritual confraternity, the deceased confratres benefited only from the commemorative services instituted for ‘familiars’ and ‘benefactors’ (of the friary, the province, or the order). These services consisted of recalling their memory, collectively and anonymously, by entrusting them to the prayers of the assembled religious (in the chapter and for liturgical celebrations).52 Codifying a usage that was certainly very old, the constitutions of the Observant Franciscan province of Hungary adopted in 1499 thus reserved, in the proceedings of the provincial chapter, a specific time devoted to the recommendation (probably grouped) of benefactores, living and dead, for the prayers of the friars.53 In this, they perpetuated the practices of monastic communities. The superior degree of affiliation to the mendicants added to these practices the necro­logical measures fixed by the legislation of each order for the intention of its deceased members. The formulation of ‘major’ letters of affiliation emphasizes their supplementary and unusual nature: they are introduced by the participle addens/addentes (or adiiciens, superaddens) insuper (or ut) and explicitly granted by ‘special’ or ‘singular’ ‘grace’ or ‘gift’ (‘de dono et gratia speciali/singulari’).54 In Hungary, judging from the letters which have survived, ‘major’ confraternity remained a privilege, since only a third of the acts in the examined series confer it. Other than the Carmelites, who practised only this type of

51 

See the biblio­graphical references given at the beginning of Chapter 1. Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 53 n. 1; Picard, ‘Les Suffrages’, p. 106. 53  The ceremony took place just before the enumeration of the deceased friars, during the last days of the assembly, after the election of the new vicar, and before the announcement of the place where the next chapter would gather: ‘Deinde fiat recommendatio benefactorum vivorum et mortuorum et post recitetur numerus fratrum defunctorum a tempore precedentis capituli, pro quibus dicatur’. Batthyány, Leges ecclesiasticae, p. 632. 54  The formula ‘de gratia speciali’ is not found, however, in all the letters of ‘major’ confraternity (see for example LC 90: ‘Addens insuper ut …’), which provides a second reason not to call affiliation with commemoration ‘special confraternity’. 52 

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affiliation,55 the general or cismontane superiors seem to be the only ones who granted it widely — especially among the Friars Minor and the Augustinian Hermits.56 While little represented in the Polish Dominican formulary of the beginning of the fifteenth century,57 it seems to have been more frequent in England, at least among the Franciscans,58 as well as perhaps among the Dominicans of the south of France in the fourteenth century.59 In Hungary itself, some of the non-mendicant orders practised it more frequently.60 The dispositive clause of the letters distinguishes two stages in the procedure applied at the death of each confrater: the solemn announcement of his death in the chapter (general or provincial) after the names of the deceased friars (‘vester obitus nostro fuerit capitulo nuntiatius’), together with his recommendation for the prayers of the assembled religious (as certain letters specify);61 and the celebration by all the religious (priests, novices, and lay brothers) of the same services as those prescribed for the deceased friars (‘pro vobis idem fiat [officium], quod pro nostris fratribus defunctis fieri consueverit’).62 Presumed to be well known, the detail of these services is never recalled in the acts of affiliation. We know that the Dominican constitutions imposed ever 55 

The three Carmelite letters of the corpus pronounce major affiliations, similarly to the one granted by the general of the order to the municipality of Prešov in 1437 and the model dated 1461 established in the name of the prior of the priory of Pécs. Diplomatarium comitatus Sarosiensis, ed. by Wagner, pp. 524–27; Fejér, Codex diplomaticus, x.7, 899–903; Koller, Historia episcopatus Quinqueeclesiarum, iv, 269. The practice of the English Carmelites seems more hesitant at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Swanson, ‘Mendicants and Confraternity in Late Medi­eval England’, p. 126 n. 24. 56  The following chapter will refine the nuances according to each mendicant order. 57  Dictamina Litterarum, ed. by Woroniecki and Fijałek. 58  Andrew Little considers that all the Franciscan letters of the fifteenth century favoured their addressees with the same post mortem celebrations as those prescribed for the friars. Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, pp. 14–15. 59  Picard, ‘Les Suffrages’, pp. 109–11. 60  The Hungarian Carthusians seem to have been more generous than the mendicants: Budapest, MNL DL 7179 (1385), 15841 (1463), 93301 (1464), and 93376 (1467). More indepth investigations would be necessary to extend this remark to other non-mendicant orders. If the Paulists did not always grant superior admissions, we shall see in the next para­graph that they often added pro anima celebrations to them. 61  LC 1: ‘Volumus nichilominus ut post decessum vestrum anime vestre fratrum totius provincie recommendentur in nostro capitulo provinciali’. 62  These formulations are obviously not unique to the Hungarian letters. Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, Documentum x, p. 87.

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more numerous celebrations for the salvation of the souls of deceased friars over the centuries — at the time of their death, in the friary where they died, and then at all levels (friary, province, order), once a year.63 Similarly, among the Franciscans, the Constitutions of Narbonne (dating to 1260 and repeated almost word for word until 1500) ordered, in addition to the citation with recommendation for prayer of the deceased friars in the general chapter, the celebration or recitation each year of a Mass in their memory by the priests, of fifty psalms by the non-priests, and of a hundred Pater nosters by the lay brothers.64 The Dominican constitutions had decreed, since 1261, that the addressees of letters of suffrages should be associated with the annual celebrations commemorating the members of the order65 — without, at that point, explicitly limiting this favour to superior affiliates.66 They evidently took their inspiration from monastic rules, which had prescribed an annual reading of the names of the deceased monks and of the benefactors inscribed in the liber as early as the eleventh century.67 However, the mendicants relaxed the content of these 63  According to the General Constitutions of 1241, on 9  October (Saint-Denis), in Advent, the clerical friars had to recite a psalter, the priests three masses, and the lay brothers fifty Pater nosters; members of each friary would thus celebrate in the same way the anniversary of the friars of the friary and of the provincial and general superiors; in each province, the priests were to recite a mass in common, the clerics seven psalms, and the conversi one hundred Pater nosters for the deceased of each province. Lemaître, ‘Mort et sépulture’, pp. 125–27; Picard, ‘Les Suffrages’, pp. 106–07. Such heavy obligations cause a certain doubt to hang over the question of their rigorous application — for the friars and even more for the confratres. Jean-Loup Lemaître observes that the written recording of the names of deceased friars was not made obligatory among the Dominicans until 1286, in the General Chapter of Paris. In southern France, the first annual nominative lists of deceased friars transmitted by the acts of Dominican chapters are no earlier than the end of the thirteenth century. Lemaître, ‘Mort et sépulture’, pp. 128–29. 64  As Lippens reminds us, in Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 53. 65  Lemaître, ‘Mort et sépulture’, pp. 125–27; Picard, ‘Les Suffrages’, p. 107. We must specify that originally, the Dominican constitutions established several levels of commemoration. The highest, reserved for the religious and for kings, were those due the masters general who had died in office, followed by the provincial superiors. Picard, ‘Les Suffrages’, p. 110. Exceptionally, these provisions are absent from the Hungarian corpus as from the Polish Dominican models copied between 1370 and 1410. Dictamina Litterarum, ed. by Woroniecki and Fijałek. 66  Perhaps because the Friars Preachers were only delivering letters of suffrages with commemoration at that time — according to the oldest specimens in the Hungarian series (LC 1, 3, and 4). 67  See Chapter 1, in particular Chibnall, ‘Liens de fraternitas’, pp. 235–36.

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rules. The imprecision of the previously cited normative texts (concerning the memoria of benefactors as well as of deceased friars) and the absence of registers of benefactors (not to mention of confratres) other than those of the friaries (no provincial or general lists of confratres and benefactores having survived)68 lead us to think that, in practice, the names of the ‘major’ affiliates — like those of the religious who had died — were only read in public on one occasion, at the chapter which followed the death, and not each year in perpetuum.69 In spite of these modifications, superior admissions brought the mendicants and their spiritual associates into closer contact with the Benedictine origins of spiritual confraternity. By uniting friars and confratres in the same commemorative services, they advanced the idea of incorporation into the regular community that had already been launched by the (simple) participation in merits.70 Supplementary Graces Other spiritual favours that were more or less distant from the process of affiliation were sometimes granted to the addressees of the letters of confraternity, rather than forming the subject of separate documents. Although it was typical in the letters distributed in exchange for money to ordinary applicants (absent from the Hungarian documentation, as we have noted), this juxtaposition remains the exception in the corpus studied: just seven letters mention supplementary graces. These graces were clearly reserved for the most generous benefactors: their largesse is described in detail in the exposition of motivations, an unusual element in letters of confraternity.71 In this, the 68 

See Chapter 2. Incidentally, the mendicants were no longer the only ones to have given up on the annual nominative memorialization of their deceased members and benefactors at the end of the Middle Ages. There is every reason to believe that the Benedictines contented themselves with placing the liber benefactorum on the high altar for the annual commemoration ceremony. Clark, ‘Monastic Confraternity in Medi­eval England’, pp. 326–27. 70  The ordo prescribed by the Observant Franciscan Constitutions adopted at Šarengrad in 1499 — first, the collective recommendation of the benefactores (a group which included the ‘minor’ confratres), then the reading of the names of the deceased friars (along with those of the ‘major’ confratres) — may express this gradation in the symbolic integration into the order. But the article does not explicitly mention the members of the spiritual confraternity (whatever their level of admission was), and consequently we do not know whether they were recommended for prayer along with the ‘benefactors’ or rather with the ‘brothers’. See the extract quoted above. 71  In Hungary as in other regions: Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp.  54–56, 69 

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mendicants set themselves apart from other regular religious, in particular the Paulists, who were more accustomed to producing ‘mixed’ letters.72 Unsurprisingly, since prayers were allotted to all benefactores, we find no prayers of recommendation among the graces accompanying association with the merits of the friars.73 Burial within the monastery walls (friary or church), pronounced without the habit, appears in three letters, all Franciscan and addressed to nobles.74 One of these specifies that it is only confirming on this point a commitment that was previously contracted in writing by the friars of the friary of Košice.75 These data point to a practice that was not widespread — similarly to what is observed for other geo­graphical regions76 — and generally granted separately from the confraternal admission. The Observant Franciscan formulary of the 1510s provides two models of affiliation with burial — in the habit this time — (out of six examples of letters of confraternity),77 and that of the 1530s provides three (out of fourteen).78 But they say nothing of the frequency of such situations. Granted without the habit, burial in the friary (in claustro) or in the church of the mendicants (in ecclesia) had procured, since the end of the thirteenth century, a more distinguished incorporation than the simple association with merits (the minimum degree of ‘brother-becoming’) but evidently less comconcerning Franciscan letters; English examples in Röhrkasten, The Mendicant Houses of Medi­ eval London, pp. 465–66. 72  According to the letters preserved or copied in the formularies of the beginning of the sixteenth century. Budapest, MNL DL 86589 (1456); Formularium maius, ed. by Romhányi and Sarbak, p. 70 no. 100. 73  An exception which proves the rule: the Franciscan letter of 1516 which prescribes, at the start of the dispositive clause and before the affiliation formula, the citing of the name of the recipient at the weekly Mass celebrated in honour of the Holy Sacrament at the church of the Friars Minor of Székesfehérvár. It confirmed his title of benefactor of that friary, above the affiliation, here pronounced at the scale of the province. LC 113. 74  LC 17, 18, and 120. 75  ‘necnon ex votum fratrum in conventu Cassoviensi pro tempore commorantium presentium et futurorum de perpetuarum missarum celebratione factum, iuxta continens litterarum super hoc iam dudum traditarum accepto et confirmo’. LC 120. 76  The only Franciscan example cited by Hugolin Lippens concerns an exceptional figure, who had moreover already obtained ‘ordinary’ confraternity at the provincial level: John Standonck. Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 54–55; Godet, ‘Jean Standonck et les Frères mineurs’, pp. 405–06. 77  Budapest, OSzK, MS Cod. Lat. 432, fols 55v–56r, 117r–v. 78  Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fols 114r–v, 115r.

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plete than burial in habitu — for lack of profession in vita. There is evidence of this in the absence of any request for affiliation (at least on the conventual scale and in the ‘minor’ degree) emanating from an individual who has already obtained burial (with or without the habit) in the friary — whereas we do have Benedictine examples of affiliation after inhumation in the abbey cemetery.79 In the Hungarian Franciscan models, when burial in the friary or in the church is granted simultaneously, it always appears after the granting of association with the merits.80 It is true that, between ‘major’ affiliation and burial in the friary (without the habit), the difference was tenuous. The General Constitutions of the Dominicans provided for community celebrations once a year for the salvation of the souls of those who were buried in the cemeteries of the order’s friaries; initially distinct from those reserved for deceased friars, these celebrations later became shared.81 Like entry into spiritual confraternity, burial in the sacred close of the friary initiated celebrations in which the memorialization of the beneficiaries intermingled with that of the religious. The remaining additional graces are only comparable to spiritual confraternity and burial in the friary by their commemorative and, more broadly speaking, salvational aims. Three letters from the Hungarian corpus mention the celebration of masses for the salvation of the new confrater or the new confratres — by the Augustinian (1393), Reformed Franciscan (1461), and Dominican (1465) provincials of Hungary.82 These dispositions figure most frequently in the letters of affiliation delivered by the Paulists.83 Absolutions and the free choice of private confessor, which proliferated throughout Christendom starting in the 1470s among the Franciscans and the Dominicans (echoing the bulls of 1479 and 1486), then among the Augustinians, are absent from the letters of confraternity of the Hungarian corpus. The foldover of an Augustinian letter of 1507 includes a later annotation, in a different hand, adding the free choice of confessor to the 79 

Berlière, ‘Les Confraternités monastiques au Moyen Âge’, p. 138. Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fols 114r–v, 115r. 81  Picard, ‘Les Suffrages’, pp. 107 and 118 (Constitutions of 1303). 82  LC 15, 35, and 40. 83  Out of fourteen models from the Paulist formulary of the 1530s, eleven simultaneously prescribe the foundation of perpetual masses for the intention of the new confrater. Formu­ larium maius, ed. by Romhányi and Sarbak. The next chapter will attempt to explain this difference. 80 

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graces contained in the body of the letter. But, by the scribe’s own admission, this annotation is only applying a generic privilege extended to all the benefactors of the order by Pope Julius II.84 The absence of graces procuring the remission of sins in the latest letters of affiliation in the series is in fact logical, since, by virtue of the bulls just mentioned, these graces applied ‘automatically’ to all the benefactors of the friaries. One of the dispensers of letters of the Hungarian corpus, the provincial of the Conventual Franciscans of Hungary Anthony of Segesd, refers to this in 1522, when he mentions the ‘indulgences and graces’ which the friars have been given the power to distribute by pontifical delegation.85 It is certain that, even when it was granted alone (the most frequent case), admission into spiritual confraternity with the mendicants was related de facto to a nebula of graces, since it conferred not only the recommendation for the prayers of the members of the order (in minimalist form in the case of a ‘simple’ admission, more developed for the ‘major’ entries), but also a beginning of integration (symbolic or conceptual) into the order. These graces, which could be amassed and held in terrestrial life but which reached towards the horizon of the (particular and last) Judgement, sometimes augmented with post mortem prayers and liturgical services (themselves producers of merits) constituted as many aids to salvation. Although intercession was not absent, it did not occupy the place it had held in the early Middle Ages in monastic confraternities and in prayer unions — in which the commemoratio ‘made’, so to speak, the (con)frater.86 Among the mendicants, ‘brother-becoming’ resulted first and foremost from the sharing in the same spiritual treasury which the religious were amassing day after day.

84 

LC 99: ‘Addentes insuper ex speciali gracia pro ut sanctissimus Julius papa secundus concessit ordini nostro et confratribus ac ordinis benefactoribus ut confessorem idoneum eligere possitis et concedimus vobis auctoritatem absolvendi a pena et a culpa semel in vita et in mortis articulo totiens quotiens a Sede apostolica nobis concessa’ (Adding as well by special grace that, in accordance with what has been granted by the holy Pope Julius II to our order, to our confratres, and to the benefactors of the order, you may choose an appropriate confessor, who, we grant you, may absolve of punishment and sin as much in life as at the hour of death, as many times as this has been recognized to us [= our order] by the Apostolic See). 85  ‘unacum indulgenciis et graciis a summis pontificibus prefatis ordinibus graciose largissimeque concessis’. LC 120. 86  To use the terms of the celebrations prescribed by the ordo of the synod of Salzburg in 800 (commemoratio fratrum). Schneider, ‘L’Intercession des vivants pour les morts’, p. 57.

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The Letter in Spiritual Affiliation The mendicants did not organize a specific ceremony to mark entry into spiritual confraternity, unlike the canons regular or the Benedictine (particularly English) and Cistercian monks. They did not record the names of the confratres and the consorores; the (rare) lists that they compiled grouped together all the benefactors of the establishments indiscriminately, affiliated or not.87 It was the littera confraternitatis that took the place of a ritual of inclusion. Thus, it is appropriate to examine it a little more closely (as a complement to the general information provided in Chapter 2) in order to understand its function in the process of spiritual affiliation. A Made-to-Measure Document Even at the peak of admissions into confraternity, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the mendicant friars of Hungary balked at applying the two techniques of standardized production and edition (mass production) used from the fourteenth century on (particularly in England) for confraternal admissions as well as for dispensing indulgences: the ‘fill-in-the-blanks’ letter, and later the printed letter. The number of acts of the Hungarian corpus written according to a framework showing a blank space instead of the name of the sender, addressee, date, and place of composition is limited to a grand total of three examples.88 Although Andrew of Bácsa, minister of the (nonObservant) Franciscan province of Hungary had recourse to this procedure in 1503,89 he subsequently abandoned it, as did all his successors.90 The two other ‘fill-in-the-blanks’ letters, dated 1494 and 1518 — the only printed documents in the series — come from the Italian generals Joachim Turriani and Francis Lichetti.91 In the same years, we must clarify, simple superiors of friaries were issuing — like other clerics, regular and secular — printed (there87 

See Chapters 1 and 2, respectively. LC 75, 90 (Figure 10), and 115 (Figure 12). The letter delivered in 1438 by the minister of the Franciscan province of Hungary Andrew of Eger (LC 18), which adds the right of the addressee (Peter Botos) to choose burial in the friary of Oradea (Nagyvárad), features the name of the recipient and of the friary in large characters, but with the same handwriting, and leaving no blank in the date. Therefore it is not a littera in albo. 89  LC 90 (Figure 10). 90  LC 97 (1505, Figure 11), 100 (1507), and 104 (1509). 91  LC 75 and 115 (Figure 12). 88 

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fore ‘fill-in-the-blank’) indulgences.92 The letter of confraternity, at least in the Hungarian kingdom, certainly had special status. Like the acts by which mendicant superiors granted other spiritual graces, letters of affiliation were structured, as we have noted, according to the composition model of charters issued by the civil and ecclesiastical chanceries of the period. As a sign of authenticity, this model helped fulfil their primary function, certification. However, certain formal elements are specific to these documents. The first of these is their rigour. Whereas acts instituting specific celebrations are found in infinite variants (in their exposition of the motivations, when the generosity of the addressee is described, but also in their dispositive clauses), letters of confraternity adhere to an almost unchangeable formal mould. This rigidity is only found elsewhere, taken to the extreme, in letters of indulgences.93 It is evidently explained by the performative value of their written text, which may be compared to the formulae for administering the sacraments. A second singular trait (medi­e val, since it would ultimately be abandoned after the Counter-Reformation):94 the acts of affiliation of the Hungarian corpus always begin with the address (rather than the intitulatio) except among the Augustinians. Aside from the ease of delivery and recording of the letters offered by this procedure, it may have sought to respond to the requests of lay addressees, some of whom could read no more than their own name in Latin. Whatever the case, by placing the accent on the recipient rather than the dispenser, the letters of confraternity thus distinctively formatted established a personal, or individualized, link between the friars and the new confratres. In 1433, the Taborite Hussite Nicolas of Pelhřimov saw in the luxury of letters of confraternity ‘finely traced with gold letters and decorated with threads 92  Stephen of Doroszló, guardian of the Observant Franciscan friary of Buda, promulgated one of them by using the technique of printing in 1508, as did Francis of Szöllős, guardian of Kolut (Kölyüd), the following year. Budapest, MNL DL 21859 and 82293; Kertész, ‘Újabb adatok’, p. 92 — where the author refers to various studies concerning letters of indulgence in Hungary and mentions the existence of a (single) manu­script example (pp. 96–97 n. 24). 93  A few examples of Hungarian letters of indulgences delivered by mendicant superiors (alone or associated with a parish rector): Budapest, MNL DL 62601 (1469, OFM Obs); Budapest, MNL DL 88521 (1471, OFM Conv); Budapest, MNL DL 45866 (1481, OP with the curate of Košice); Budapest, MNL DL 95123 (1481, OP); Budapest, MNL DL 45870 (1481, OP); Budapest, MNL DF 258274 (1501, OFM Obs); Budapest, MNL DL 21859 (1508, OFM Obs); Budapest, MNL DL 82293 (1509, OFM Obs). 94  See Chapter 2, and the late documents mentioned or cited in the Conclusion.

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or cords of silk’ proof of the hypocrisy of the affiliating regular religious, who lured the faithful by this dishonest practice.95 In fact, the solemnity of the acts of affiliation in the corpus studied, originally tenuous, does tend to increase over the decades. First, the written expression of the confraternal admission became a document of growing length. The average length of the text of the nominative letters is around 220 or 230 words. Scarcely more developed at the start than the Cistercian letters of affiliation of the preceding century (about a hundred words), the ‘Hungarian’ letters are constantly being extended, in particular after the middle of the fifteenth century,96 among the Franciscans and then among the Dominicans. This swelling is as evident in the preamble as in the exposition of motivations and the enumeration of the spiritual benefits which the new confratres would receive. At the conclusion of this inflation, we find specimens which may exceed five hundred words, in the real letters (up to 550 words in 1516 at the provincial level)97 and in the models (the Observant formulary of the 1510s presents an example, also established in the name of the provincial of Hungary, that is 573 words long).98 They confirm the ascending curve described by Hugolin Lippens with regard to the Friars Minor within the whole of Christendom: two centuries after the first Franciscan letters of affiliation, which did not exceed about sixty words around the year 1250,99 John of Capistrano used a formulary composed of more than three hundred words.100 The mendicants had thus created a gulf between themselves and the Cistercians, whose letters maintained a certain austerity until the end of the Middle Ages.101

95 

‘eorum littera, quantumcunque subtiliter sit exarata litteris aureis et filis seu fibulis sericis perornata’. Řeči Mikuláše, ed. by Bartoš, p. 76. 96  See Graph 7. 97  LC 113. 98  Budapest, OSzK, MS Cod. Lat. 432, fols 115v–117r. 99  The minister general John of Parma limited himself to about sixty words in the 1250s. See the truncated model (without intitulatio, nor address nor date) given by A. G. Little in ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, p. 13, and Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 59. 100  Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 59; Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, pp. 192–93. 101  The letter of affiliation addressed to Peter of Söpte by the Cistercian abbot of Heiligenkreuz in 1498 still follows the old model, expeditious: ‘We, abbot of X […] of the diocese of Z, give to Y […] these letters of our confraternity because of the zeal and favour he has for our monastery’. Budapest, MNL DL 93676. Partial edition: Romhányi, ‘“Meretur vestre devocionis affectus …”’, pp. 42–43 n. 25.

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The material support of the written text pronouncing admission contributed to its solemnity. Parchment occupies a privileged place in the Hungarian corpus: it was used for seventy of the 119 letters whose original material is known. Generally oblong in shape, its average dimensions (about twenty centimetres wide by fifteen centimetres long) increase over the decades (to as much as forty by twenty-five centimetres) accompanying the inflation of the text. Letters of confraternity were made to last. The use of paper becomes more common, however, beginning in the middle of the fifteenth century. After 1500, parchment (occasionally printed) hardly survives except at the level of superiors general, as well as among the Augustinian Hermits and the Conventual Franciscans. As with letters of recommendation and indulgences, the other Hungarian affiliators virtually no longer used anything but paper. We should not see in this evolution some sort of ideo­logical significance, in particular linked to the Observant movement. As it happened, the choice of paper was less a reflection of the attachment of the reformed friars to radical poverty than of the possibilities of local supplies. Thus, John of Capistrano sometimes used paper (in Krakow) and sometimes parchment (in Padua, Buda, and Caransebeş).102 The rank of the issuer and especially the social position of the addressee were more influential in the choice of material. Clearly, whatever the degree of incorporation granted (‘minor’ or ‘major’), the more elevated one was on one or the other of the two hierarchical scales (if not both), the longer the text of the act — about 260 words for letters produced by superiors general, with the record of 573 words coming from a provincial but addressed to the Palatine (the highest civil dignitary of the Kingdom of Hungary)103 — and the more likely parchment was to be used instead of paper. About twenty specimens, of large format and addressed to aristocrats or nobles, include beautiful initials enhanced in red.104 The Hungarian mendicant scribes did not, however, go so far as to adorn the acts with dropped initials, decorated with silver or gold or with emblems as we find in other regions;105 this was less due to the refusal of 102 

LC 20, and 24–32. Budapest, OSzK, MS Cod. Lat. 432, fol. 116r–v. 104  LC 14, 21, 26, 35, 37 (Figure 4), 44, 45, 47 (Figure 5), 51, 52, 53, 54, 59, 60, 66, 74, 81, 97 (Figure 11), 100, and 104. 105  Franciscan examples: Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p.  73; Godet, ‘Jean Standonck et les Frères mineurs’, p. 406; Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, p. 15 (emblazoned letters). 103 

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superfluitates than to the weak icono­g raphic production of their scriptoria at the end of the Middle Ages.106 Despite their standardized canvas, letters of confraternity were ‘made to measure’. Redoubled Signs of Validation Since admission into spiritual confraternity represented an engagement of a regular community towards an outside individual (or group of individuals), there is nothing surprising about finding a seal on all the Hungarian letters of affiliation, just as on letters of recommendation and of indulgences. A habitual practice among the monks, its use was all the more necessary among the mendicants as it compensated for the absence of a public ceremony comparable to the one which, according to Cistercian liturgical books and Benedictine registers, had solemnized the conferring of letters of association on the new affiliates starting in the twelfth century, if not earlier.107 About sixty seals have survived (at least partially) among those affixed to the acts of the Hungarian collection, including twenty-six of wax alone and thirty-three in the form of prints on paper; if they are missing, traces of sealing are still visible on the material supports (cords and slits for hanging seals, wax marks in the case of stamped seals). The final clauses of numerous letters mention the affixing of a sigillum, as early as the first preserved examples — in the Dominican letter which opens the Hungarian series (dated 1270),108 in the Dominican model provided by the Ars notarialis of about 1350,109 and from the first letters issued by the Hermits of Saint Augustine and the Carmelites.110 Conversely, the mention of a seal is missing in the letters issued by the Franciscans, whether as an undivided order, Conventual, or (especially) Observant, at all hierarchical levels (including models).111 Hugolin Lippens 106 

See the research in progress of Marie Charbonnel in the framework of the MARGEC programme. 107  See Chapter 1. 108  ‘In cuius rei testimonium sigillum nostrum presentibus duximus apponendum’. LC 1. 109  ‘In cujus testimonium presentes litteras sigilli officii nostri provincialatus munimine consignatas duxi appendens’. Formulae solennes styli, ed. by Kovachich, p. 367 no. 384. 110  LC 7 and 14. Among the Carmelites, this usage is confirmed, at the level of the individual friary, by the model of 1461. Koller, Historia episcopatus Quinqueeclesiarum, iv, 269. 111  It appears in none of the examples inscribed in the Observant formulary of 1510–20 and only arises in a single model of the collection copied in the 1530s: Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fol. 111v.

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had already noted this lacuna in the letters originating in England, Germany, and Italy, despite the very old counterexample constituted by the letter of John of Parma cited by Salimbene di Adam in his Chronicle.112 A distant reminiscence of the time when the Franciscans refused to see their friaries transformed into a personna authentica and when the holding of a seal was considered a dereliction of duty towards poverty? It is nevertheless the case that Franciscan seals do exist. The preserved examples do not differ from those used elsewhere by the mendicants since the thirteenth century:113 almond-shaped, wax of various colours — red (for the highest levels of the mendicant hierarchy), more rarely green (guardians, conventual priors) or natural. Sealing techniques, which were varied among the Franciscans in general,114 show a preference, in the Hungarian corpus, for hanging or stamped seals (at the bottom of the letter or, more often, on the reverse side), and later prints on paper in the fifteenth century. The field of the seal depicts the symbols of the identity of each order (or branch of the order):115 St Dominic, at the foot of the Cross or standing as a shepherd, for the Dominicans;116 the Crucifixion for the Augustinians;117 the Virgin and Child for the Carmelites;118 the Cross and the instruments of the Passion for the Franciscans of the Observance,119 then later, occasionally (beginning in the 1510s) St Francis receiving the Stigmata;120 a Madonna, sometimes surrounded by kneeling friars for the Conventual Franciscans121 (or more rarely, 112 

Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 70–71. Mauzaize, ‘Étude sur les sceaux franciscains de France’; Mauzaize, Essai de sigillo­graphie franciscaine; Eichenlaub, Les Sceaux. In Hungary: Takács, A magyarországi káptalanok és kon­ ventek középkori pecsétjei. 114  Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 70–71. 115  We will return to the function of seals in Chapter 5. 116  Among the best preserved Dominican seals of the Hungarian corpus: LC 55, 64 (Dominic at the foot of the Cross, Figure 17), and 86 (Dominic as a shepherd, Figure 18). 117  LC 15 (Figure 2), 62 (Figure 16), and 65. 118  LC 50 (Figure 15). The Madonna is placed above a rectangular cartouche inside which we can partly discern two haloed figures, perhaps the Virgin Mary (on the left) presenting a scapular to Simon Stock, while a kneeling friar occupies the lower corner of the seal. 119  LC 74, 89, 96 (Figure 19), 119, and 125. 120  LC 107 and 123. St Francis receiving the Stigmata also appears, in a very similar depiction, on an initial engraving of the letter of the minister general Francis Licchetti, dated 1518. LC 115. 121  LC 97 (Figure 20) and 104. 113 

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the Annunciation)122 linked with the name of the province of Hungary starting in 1523.123 Figures deviating from these models — evoking the name of a certain mendicant church, for example — are rare.124 The inscriptions figuring on the seals, as well as details added to the final clauses of certain letters, usually link the seals to the function of the issuer (guardian, custodian, provincial, vicar general, superior general). We observe a certain personalization beginning in the 1480s, when the name of the head of the order makes its appearance.125 The Observant Franciscan custodian of Sárospatak, Peter of Darány, also had his own nominative seal in 1511,126 a unique instance among the intermediate prelati of the Hungarian series. In a Dominican letter of affiliation instituting the foundation of an anniversary Mass in 1465, two seals are mentioned successively: that of the provincial of Hungary, issuer of the act, and that of the friary of Pest, whose friars had made the commitment to their friar to celebrate the perpetual Mass requested by the addressee in addition to his entry into spiritual confraternity. 127 The other acts of the corpus — even those combining affiliation and the foundation of masses — do not present this double sealing, which the centralization of the mendicant orders made superfluous, a priori. More surprisingly, two letters issued by the prior general of the Hermits of Saint Augustine (in 1357 and 1362) mention and affix the ‘seal of our confraternity’ 128 — a seal which is unfortunately lost. Rather than the recognition of a hypothetical judicial personality for the confraternity (which as we have seen was always refused to it), this formula expresses the unity of the wider family bringing together the friars and those who were associated with them. The Augustinian prior of the province of Austria-BavariaBohemia-Poland used an announced seal in exactly the same way in the 122 

LC 120 (Figure 22). The opposition between Dominican seals dominated by the Marian figure and Franciscan seals depicting Christ, identified in Upper Alsace (Eichenlaub, Les Sceaux, p. 196) and in Liège (Bertrand, Commerce avec dame Pauvreté, p. 375), is thus not valid for the Hungarian collections. 124  LC 47. The figure occupying the centre of the seal cannot be identified. 125  LC 64 (Figure 17). 126  The external ‘stringcourse’ of the seal reads S. Petri de Daran Custodie de Pathak (‘Seal of Peter of Darány, custodian of Sárospatak’). LC 107 (Figure 21). 127  LC 40. 128  ‘sigillum nostre confraternitatis / sigillum confraternitatis dicti ordinis’. LC 7 and 10. 123 

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fifteenth century,129 whereas the Hungarian provincial, for his part, kept to the traditional formulations. Certain Franciscan letters display a supplementary mark of validation beginning in the 1430s: an auto­graph subscription, in the first person, by the issuer of the act.130 In the Hungarian corpus, this appears with John of Capistrano in 1451,131 but does not become standard practice until after 1500, at the level of the province and of the order. It takes the largely fixed form of ‘Frater X [qui supra] manu propria [scripsit]’, sometimes written in a different hand from that of the body of the text.132 The addressees manifestly attached great importance to this manual signature. This is evident in the letter addressed in July 1454 by Ladislas of Szécsény to John of Capistrano: he thanks the preacher for having sent him an act of affiliation, but he asks for a second one, signed by his own hand, for he had heard that other letters included his cyro­graphum, and he regretted that this had been forgotten in the letter that he had received.133 Does this step only reflect the saintly reputation of Capistrano?134 A letter of affiliation that was issued in 1491 by the minister of the Conventual Franciscan province of Hungary, Luke of Segesd, develops the auto­g raph subscription over four lines, without 129 

Monasterium S. Clarae, pp. 451–52 and 459 (letters of affiliation granted by Prior Erasmus Sunther of Munich to Catherine Reyswaldin and to Elisabeth Holzhawserin in 1447 and 1449). 130  Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 72–73; Godet, ‘Jean Standonck et les Frères mineurs’, pp. 405–06 (in 1492 by the provincial of France, 1503 by the minister general Giles Delfin). 131  LC 20. 132  This is sometimes found in the Franciscan letters of indulgences. Budapest, MNL DL 62601 (1 March 1469: letter from the Observant Franciscan guardian of the friary of Skalica / Szakolca). 133  ‘Attamen non modicum animum nostrum id turbando molestavit, ut quia in aliis vestris litteris ceteris datis vestrum conspeximus cyro­g raphum, quod nobis destinatis, ignoramus de re, fuit denegatum. Et si illa desiderabilis presentia personalis nequit, saltem vestrum illud nos dignaretur letificare cyro­g raphum’ (However, our spirit has been greatly troubled by the fact that, while in others of your letters granted to different persons we have seen an auto­g raph, in the one which you addressed to us, this has been omitted for reasons that we do not know. Therefore, lacking a personal presence which is [hoped for but] impossible, at least your auto­ graph would fill us with joy). LC 27. 134  The auto­g raph writings of the great figures of the Franciscan Observance were the object of a special treatment in the Italian friaries of the second half of the fifteenth century. Giovè, ‘Sante scritture’.

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hesitating to repeat the formula of incorporation that was already present in the text of the letter.135 It was therefore not only the authenticity of the act which was at stake, but also its performativity, or even its sacredness. In fact, a little as in the marvel through contact,136 the subscription manu propria, coming from the hand of a friar, guaranteed almost physically the transfer of the grace that it expressed. Ladislas of Szécsény sees in it, as he writes, the substitute for the dispenser.137 We may simultaneously compare this practice to the miracles by correspondence that Nicolas Glassberger describes in his chronicle concerning James of the Marches — another ‘pillar of the Observance’ — at the end of his life: the preacher-inquisitor sent to sick people, in particular women, short notes on which he had written the name Iesus so that divine grace might be exercised through him.138 The name of Jesus (in the trigram form YHS or IHS, or fully written out) appears in a few Observant Franciscan letters of the Hungarian series — first with John of Capistrano (following in the footsteps of Bernardino of Siena) beginning in 1451,139 then with the vicar of Hungary Stephen of Vassány in 1461.140 It probably had a similar function, beyond possible pastoral aims. Overall, letters of affiliation could not be reduced to simple ‘administrative documents’.141 They had an authentic and performative nature, both solemn and personal. It is as if the friars had wanted to compensate for the intangible character of the content of the grace that was being granted by using a quasi-absolute editorial conformism and an overabundance of authenticating signs. The ceremonial pomp of the letters of the Hungarian corpus exceeds (at 135 

‘Altissimus Deus in suorum sanctorum consortium ita vos assumere dignetur, quemadmodum ego frater Lucas, artium et sacre pagine doctor, et minister et servus indignus, in nostri ordinis confraternitatem vos accipio etc. Ego frater Lucas manu propria’ ( Just as God in the Highest has deigned to take you into the society of his saints, so I, Brother Luke, doctor of Arts and Theo­logy, unworthy minister and father, welcome you into the spiritual confraternity of our order. I, Brother Luke, by my own hand). LC 68. 136  Sigal, L’Homme et le miracle dans la France médiévale. Among recent works, see Bozóky, Le Moyen Âge miraculeux. 137  See the second sentence of the extract of his request for an auto­graph, cited above (‘si illa desiderabilis presentia personalis nequit’). 138  Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, pp. 200–201. 139  He uses the trigram YHS in 1451 (LC 20) as well as the name Yesus, written in large characters at the top of one of his letters dated 1455 (LC 29, Figure 3). 140  LC 36. 141  Swanson, ‘Letters of Confraternity and Indulgence’, p. 50.

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equal levels for the issuer and the addressee) that of acts of recommendation and of indulgences, even though the effects of the latter documents were just as ‘unverifiable’ as those of spiritual confraternity. After 1450, they included a sacred element through the manual subscription of their issuer (among the Friars Minor) and the occasional indication of the name of Jesus (among certain Observant Franciscans). If they had let these letters be destroyed, their recipient-proprietors would certainly have reduced the chances of salvation for themselves and their loved ones. This could explain the care that they took for their preservation, unlike for letters of mixed graces (absent from the Hungarian collections) and letters of indulgences (extremely rare). So much vigilance also encourages us to consider a ‘privatization’ of spiritual confraternity, not very compatible, at first glance, with its community-oriented dimension.

From Individual to confraternitas Like any associative grouping of a religious nature, spiritual confraternity poses the problem of the join between individual and community. The series of letters examined shows that in Hungary, the mendicants recruited isolated individuals less frequently than pre-constituted groups. This first observation casts doubt as to the cohesive effect of the confraternitas. It is still necessary to specify about which groups we are speaking, and under what circumstances they were incorporated, before examining the links which welded the confratres to each other. A Family Surrounding the Family The vast majority of the preserved letters of suffrages are addressed to not one but several recipients. Setting aside (lay) confraternities and municipalities, these individuals were always linked by blood or by marriage. The basic unit of the spiritual confraternity was thus the flesh-and-blood family. Even (secular) clerics were affiliated with their relatives, sometimes numerous. 142 When the text does not specify the link unifying the principal addressee to the other persons mentioned, external documentation confirms that we remain within the family circle.143 By comparison, the domestic household 142 

LC 22 (1452). John and Sigismond of Szentgyörgy, addressees of a Dominican letter in 1462 (LC 37) were brothers; similarly, Ladislas [Hermannfi] of Gerebenc was the father-in-law of Balthazar of Batthyán, the second addressee of an Augustinian letter dated 1488 (LC 62); Ladislas of 143 

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(familia)144 is a more discreet presence, along with the ‘friends’ — included by Capistrano in evasive formulae such as ‘and all your blood relatives and friends, current and to come’ (‘omnesque consanguineos et amicos vestros presentes atque futuros’), or even, in a circle that could be stretched to infinity, ‘all those whom you want’ (‘ac omnes pro quibus intenditis’).145 The deceased family members of the recipients were not forgotten: they appear explicitly in about fifteen of the letters (‘all their deceased’ or ‘the souls of all their deceased’).146 Then, projecting themselves into the future, forty or so of the acts of the Hungarian corpus include children ‘born or yet to be born’. Spiritual confraternity crossed the frontiers between past, present, and future, within the family. The letters strongly emphasize this family dimension. Whereas charters granting burial in the friary, founding anniversary services, or delivering indulgences limit themselves to mentioning the spouse and the children of the principal addressee, the letters of confraternity of the Hungarian corpus take care to name (and to incorporate) individually the spouse of the recipient (as early as 1270, then practically systematically from the end of the fourteenth century on, as we have seen), as well as his progeny, possibly accompanied by other blood relatives (father and mother, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts) or relatives by marriage (fathers-in-law and mothers-in-law, brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, sons-in-law, etc.) Starting in the 1450s, children are almost systematically designated by their forenames — while generic formulae (‘and their children born or to be born’, ‘with all their/your blood relatives’, ‘with all his/ her/your descendents’) become rarer. Younger children also figure in these letters, rather than only those children who had reached the age of legal majority, as was the case in secular documents.147 Even the two Franciscan formularies of the beginning of the sixteenth century enumerate six forenames or more, rather than limiting themselves to the usual abbreviations (N. or T.) These lists are not only evidence of the paternal (or, as applicable, maternal, fraternal, etc.) affection of the principal addressee. They express the belief in the ‘power’ of the written word, whose motivations recall the preceding obserKanizsa was related through his wife to the Bánfis of Alsólendva (LC 81). We could multiply the number of examples, based on the genealogies established in Engel, Magyar középkori adattár. 144  LC 20. 145  LC 28–32. 146  LC 20, 21, 24–32, 35, 40, 97, 102, 104, and 124. 147  Three generations are simultaneously present in certain letters. LC 80.

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vations concerning auto­g raph subscription. Indeed, it is not rare to see the descendants of affiliates who had omitted to have their progeny appear by name demand, later, a letter of confraternity in their own name.148 Since the confraternitas already symbolically presented itself as a brotherhood — if only through etymo­logy149 — it constructed a spiritual family around the flesh-and-blood one. This confirms the vigour of the family framework in medi­e val society, and more particularly in Christian soterio­logy. Reinforced from the fourteenth century by the cult of the Holy Family, it gave each individual the duty of working not only towards his or her own salvation, but also towards that of his or her family members.150 The religious themselves, despite the rupture with the fleshly family that the professio entailed, in principle, did not forget their bio­logical brothers. Since the Carolingian period, the suffrages of the monks had extended to their relatives, whose names were inscribed alongside their own in the ‘rolls of the dead’ and integrated into their spiritual confraternity.151 This was one of the motives for oblation.152 Even if they prohibited, from the outset, the admission of children into their friaries, the mendicants did perpetuate this vision of benefits which radiated out from the friars and sisters of the order to their loved ones who had remained in the world. The General Constitutions of the Dominicans widened the annual commemorations for deceased friars to include their parents. 153 Nevertheless, the latter did not automatically enter the confraternitas. When, in 1489, Peter of Söpte solicited his affiliation with the Dominicans, his son John had already taken the habit, it seems.154 For, among the mendicants, it 148 

See Chapter 6. Certainly, the medi­eval affiliators did not yet say that they were ‘receiving [their addressees] as the spiritual children of our religion’, as the Capuchins would do in the seventeenth century. Mauzaize, ‘Le Rôle et l’action des Capucins’, iii, 1503–04 no. vii (15 July 1638). We may only note that, in line with Observant termino­logy, the Observant Franciscan vicar of Hungary sometimes called his province familia. LC 36, 38, 87, and 96. 150  Dehau, Famille et Sainte Famille; Russo, ‘La Sainte Famille dans l’art chrétien au Moyen Âge’. 151  In Saint Albans, a third of the members of the monastery’s spiritual confraternity who figured in the registry of benefactors (between 1077 and the start of the sixteenth century) were identified as related to the monks, sometimes posthumously; practically, this makes the relatives of the religious ‘members as of right’ in their spiritual confraternity. Clark, ‘Monastic Confraternity in Medi­eval England’, p. 323. 152  De Jong, In Samuel’s Image; de Miramon, Les ‘Donnés’ au Moyen Âge. 153  Picard, ‘Les Suffrages’, p. 106. 154  LC 64. 149 

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was necessary to fulfil other conditions in order to obtain this favour.155 No addressee of the letters from the Hungarian collection is in fact presented as directly related to a professed mendicant.156 The families of the religious and those of the affiliates formed two distinct spiritual circles. Few Mass Admissions The admission into spiritual confraternity of all the inhabitants of a parish, of an entire town, or of its town councillors — a usage for which monastic commemorations provided a precedent157 — had been inaugurated, for the Franciscans, by William of Casale, in 1437.158 Widely taken up by John of Capistrano (see below), it also inspired non-Observant reforming leaders, such as Matthias Döring.159 In the corpus studied, the examples of collective admissions applying neither to a family nor to a lay confraternity are restricted to a grand total of two letters, which are not of Hungarian production. The first, issued by John of Capistrano, affiliates a parish rector, along with his chaplain and four other parishioners, in 1455.160 The Hungarian Observant superiors did not repeat the experiment, if we can trust the evidence of the ‘real’ letters and models which have come down to us. For instance, the curate Nicolas of Eger, addressee of an act that was reproduced in the formulary of the 1530s, was incorporated without his flock.161 The second example is the charter by which the Conventual minister general Francis della Rovere, along with the general chapter who were meeting in Perugia, admits the magistrates and bourgeois of Bratislava (in Hungarian, Pozsony, the former Pressburg) into ‘major’ confraternity in May 1464.162 He wanted to set up an obstacle to plans for the transfer of new friaries to the Observants, twenty years 155 

See Chapter 5. In the best case, the applicant could count on the intervention of his professed son to enter the spiritual confraternity of the order to which the latter belonged, as for Peter of Söpte. See Chapter 6. 157  Examples in Duhr, ‘Les Confréries dans la vie de l’Église’, p. 464. 158  Viallet, ‘Indulgences, associations spirituelles et diffusion des dévotions’, p. 50. 159  Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, pp. 184 and 190. 160  LC 30. 161  Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fol. 112r. 162  ‘Circumspectis et honestis viris iudici magistro civium ceterisque juratis ac civibus totius communitatis Posoniensis’. LC 39. 156 

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after the first wave which had caused the loss, to the Conventuals, of establishments as populous and prestigious as those of Buda, Pest, and Esztergom.163 At a time when the Observants had the wind at their back, strengthened by the support of King Matthias Corvinus and of most of the bishops of the kingdom, he had to prevent the citizens of Bratislava — who kept tight control over the local Franciscan friary — from giving in to royal and pontifical pressure. The charter issued by the prior general of the Carmelites John Faci of 14 March 1437 and granting to the municipality of Prešov participation in the merits at the level of the entire order,164 with commemoration in the general chapter, also occurs in a tense context. In it, the prior general of the Carmelites exhorts the magistrates to put an end to the disorder in the town friary, turbulence which he had just become aware of de visu on the occasion of his visit to the establishment.165 He only grants them participation in the merits after describing the situation at length, and after indicating very concretely the measures to be taken in order to remedy it (prevent the selling of the goods of the friary, put its books and precious metal liturgical objects under lock and key, place sanctions on incompetent priors, and require semi-annual budget reports). In Hungary, mass incorporations visibly constituted a last resort for mendicant superiors. Capistrano himself wielded this instrument with moderation on Hungarian soil. According to the estimations of Ludovic Viallet, 12.3 per cent of letters granted by the Italian preacher in the course of his Central European tour between 1451 and 1456 affiliated towns, or at least their aldermen (in Nuremberg as early as 1451).166 Not a single one of these is Hungarian, according to the surviving letters, the Franciscan chronicles, and the hagio­graphic sources that fill the ‘Capistrano file’. And Hungary did not experience any episodes as spectacular as the integration, by Capistrano, of all the hearers of his sermons — or even that of all the Christians in the world (!) — as reported at Most (Brüx, in Bohemia) and then in Vienna in 1452.167 In a country where the Observant 163 

De Cevins, Les Franciscains observants, pp. 54–61. ‘venerabilibus dominis iudici et consulibus civitatis seu oppidi Eperiesiensis qui sunt et in futuro erunt’. Fejér, Codex diplomaticus, x.7, 899–903; Diplomatarium comitatus Sarosiensis, ed. by Wagner, pp. 524–27 no. ix/11. 165  On the detail of this case, see Regényi, ‘Az eperjesi Szentháromság karmelita konvent története’, pp. 103–07, and Regényi, Die Ungarischen Konvente, p. 65. 166  Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, table 8, p. 184. 167  Hofer, ‘Bruderschaftsbriefe des heil. Johannes Kapistran’, p. 328, with corrections and commentary in Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, pp. 199–200. 164 

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Franciscans benefited from the support of the sovereign and the aristocracy, the use of such procedures may have seemed superfluous. Whatever the case, the transplant of mass admissions introduced by John of Capistrano into Central Europe — with its easily imagined risks of dilution and banalization — did not take root in Hungary, not even among the Franciscans. Spiritual Confraternity and Lay Confraternities The filiation between spiritual confraternities and lay confraternities and their increasing interweaving at the end of the Middle Ages, in addition to their homonymy,168 could have engendered at least a partial superimposition of these two forms of pious association. The Hungarian documentation does not go in this direction. First, because it does not preserve any record of the (lay) confraternities having contributed, notably by the distribution of acts of affiliation, to swelling the ranks of members of the mendicant spiritual confraternities — although such records did exist in other regions169 — but also because of the low numbers of Hungarian lay confraternities which, according to the preserved acts, became members of the spiritual associations of the mendicants. The grouped admission of the members of a lay confraternity (devotional or trade) into the confraternitas of a mendicant order, attested to in Italy and in France as early as the thirteenth century for both the Franciscans and the Dominicans,170 was regularly practised there over the following two centuries.171 It represents between a quarter and a fifth of all the affiliations pronounced 168  See the references indicated at the start of the Chapter 1. We recall that, in the Hungarian corpus, when an act of affiliation is addressed to the members of a lay confraternity, the word fraternitas applies to the latter, in opposition to confraternitas. It is true that in the same context, confraternitas can also mean ‘lay confraternity’. LC 35; Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fol. 114. 169  In Brittany, for example, the confratria of Notre-Dame-de-la-Conception played this role for the Franciscans of Vannes. Martin, Les Ordres mendiants en Bretagne, p. 340; Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, pp. 203–04. 170  In addition to the numerous Italian examples in Meersseman, Ordo fraternitatis, see Vincent, Les Confréries médiévales dans le royaume de France, p. 101 (Confraternity of the Barbers of Arras, 1247–48); Kaeppeli, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum, ii, 294 no. 2025 (four confraternities affiliated by Humbert of Romans between 1255 et 1261). 171  Numerous Franciscan examples in Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 67–68. For the Dominicans, the three letters of suffrages of Garin of Gy-L’Évêque identified by Thomas Kaeppeli all concern the confraternities (from 1346 to 1348); out of six acts of affiliation granted by Elias Raymond of Périgueux between 1367 (the year of his election as general)

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by the Saxon provincial Matthias Döring (1427–61) and continues after him, under Nicolas Lackman.172 John of Capistrano encouraged it widely in the Central European countries that he visited.173 Capistrano is also the author of one of the three letters of the Hungarian corpus addressed to a lay confraternity — the powerful Mater Misericordiae association of Bardejov (Bártfa) — in 1453.174 Since this city had no Franciscan friary, this was a means of extending the influence of the order beyond its institutional network. Overall, the members of Hungarian lay confraternities — which were thriving in the fifteenth century, although rarely attached to regular churches175 — do not often seem to have joined mendicant spiritual confraternities. The two other letters of the ‘Hungarian’ corpus incorporating lay confraternities, one Franciscan (1461) and the other Dominican (1493) gratify associations that were already attached — by their oratory or by their statutes — to a mendicant friary. 176 This is also the case for the two lay confraternities mentioned in the Observant Franciscan formulary of the 1530s.177 We note, incidentally, that in contrast to certain monastic confraternities of the eleventh and twelfth centuries,178 entry into a lay confraternity that adjoined a mendicant establishment did not suffice for participation in the merits of the religious of the order in question. The Franciscan letter of 1461, issued by Fabian of Igal, the leader of the sub ministris reform in Hungary, three years before the one granted by the minister general to the burghers of the entire city of Bratislava, is a part, like the latter, and 1380, four are addressed to confraternities. Kaeppeli, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum, i, 365–66 nos 1018, 1020, 1023, and 1031, and ii, 11–12 nos 1190, 1191, and 1193. 172  Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, p. 43 (the Marian confraternity of Kamenz, 1469), p. 190. 173  Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 66–68; Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, p. 184. 174  LC 24. Concerning the history of this confraternity, see de Cevins, ‘Les Confréries en Hongrie à la fin du Moyen Âge’. 175  See Chapter 3. 176  LC 35 and 72. This is a common practice, on the scale of Christendom, in particular among the Friars Preachers in the fourteenth century. The three lay confraternities admitted into the Dominican spiritual confraternity by Garin of Gy-L’Évêque, as indicated in note 171, above, were institutionally linked to a Dominican friary, like at least three of the four lay confraternities incorporated by Elias Raymond of Périgueux. See the references given above, among other examples mentioned in the catalogue of Thomas Kaeppeli. 177  Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fols 114r–115r. 178  Vincent, Les Confréries médiévales dans le royaume de France, pp. 101–02. This was not the case for all of them. Berlière, ‘Les Confraternités monastiques au Moyen Âge’, p. 135.

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of the policy of resistance by the Conventuals to transfers in the direction of the Observants. Particularly solemn (close to 450 words) it institutes an annual Mass in honour of the Virgin — who was patron of both the receiving lay confraternity and the local Franciscan friary — to be recited by all the priests of the province of Hungary for the souls of the members of the association, who were already favoured with the same commemorative measures as those prescribed for the deceased friars. For its part, the Dominican letter of 1493, delivered by the master general Joachim Turriani, responds to a request conveyed by the provincial of Hungary on behalf of the lay confraternity of Saint Nicholas, attached to the non-Observant Dominican friary of Sebeș (Szászebes). These three examples encourage us to think that, apart from John of Capistrano and until 1530, the affiliation of members of lay confraternities not attached to a mendicant establishment primarily concerned those friaries which remained distant from the Observant movement, Franciscan or Dominican. This may have been either because the Hungarian Observants balked at practising admissions of this type, with the rationale that they risked, as with the incorporation of entire towns, debasing the grace that was granted, or (the hypothesis which corresponds to the situations described above, but which is not exclusive of the preceding alternative) because the members of the lay confraternities who did not have their oratory in a mendicant church, confident in their own works, did not feel the need to acquire participation in the merits of the mendicants. The collections of formulae of the Hungarian mendicants confirm that the grouped admissions of members of lay confraternities remained exceptional in Hungary. The earliest ones do not envisage this situation at all, up to and including the Observant Franciscan formulary of the 1510s — which does, however, contain an example of the concession of indulgences for the intention of members of a lay confraternity.179 Two models established in the name of the provincial of Hungary do finally appear in the Observant collection of the 1530s.180 The first grants perpetual celebrations and burial in the friary grounds to members of the lay confraternity attached to the friary of Saint John of Buda, without mentioning affiliation. The next authorizes, at their request, the members of the lay confraternity attached to the friary of Saint Mary of Esztergom to use one of the altars of the Franciscan church for the celebrations 179 

Budapest, OSzK, MS Cod. Lat. 432, fol. 57v. 180  Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fols 114r–115r.

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of their association, and grants them burial there, as well as — literally stuck between the other two graces — entry into spiritual confraternity. At this period, what members of lay confraternities in the orbit of mendicant establishments were looking for was thus not so much participation in the spiritual benefits of the friars as the graces that could accompany it. There is nothing surprising in this: already institutionally attached to the mendicants, they had higher expectations than those of the ‘ordinary’ faithful. And the religious context had evolved. A Community? The composers of the mendicant letters in the Hungarian corpus habitually start the dispositive clause by the declaration of the entry of the recipient into the confraternitas: ‘ego […] te / vos […] ad/in confraternitatem nostram/nostri ordinis […] recipio’.181 To speak of confraternitas is to place emphasis, from the outset, on the aspect of solidarity, association, and fraternity in the participation in the merits of the friars, by presenting it as ‘substitute family’ — comparable to the one formed by lay confraternities.182 This reminds us that each religious was a member of two communities: the one material and visible, and the other spiritual, with more extensive dimensions, in which he joined the confrater.183 Both seemed able to procure the ‘sweetness of being included’.184 However, the hesitant use of the word confraternitas in the letters of the Hungarian corpus (except for those of the Franciscans) makes us doubt the attachment of the mendicants to this cohesive dimension. In Hungary as elsewhere, not all charters of affiliation use the word confraternitas — or its equivalent fraternitas. These terms, which came later to the Cistercian letters185 and are absent from those delivered by the Franciscans in the middle of the thirteenth century,186 remain little used by the English 181 

See Chapter 2. Vincent, Les Confréries médiévales dans le royaume de France. 183  De Miramon, Les ‘Donnés’ au Moyen Âge, p. 64 (concerning monastic confraternities). 184  Morineau, ‘La Douceur d’être inclus’, p. 19. 185  The twelfth-century letters do not use it: Meersseman, ‘Two Unknown Confraternity Letters of St. Bernard’. The first Cistercian example to use one of these terms, cited by Hugolin Lippens, dates from 1301 (‘Recipimus insuper vos in nostram fraternitatem’). Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 58–59. 186  Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 59. 182 

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Franciscans (especially Conventual) at the end of the Middle Ages,187 as well as by the Dominicans of the French Midi, who preferred to refer to ‘letters of suffrages of the order’ (littere de suffragiis ordinis) in the middle of the fourteenth century.188 The Hungarian series indicates an unstable usage of the word. Fewer than thirty acts (twenty-eight) — that is, less than a quarter of those whose text has come down to us — do not employ the term (con)fraternitas. Used before 1300 in a Franciscan model, it only appears in 1357 in the ‘real’ nominative letters,189 and does not become the norm until after 1400 — except among the Carmelites.190 The Franciscans, taking all branches and all levels of the hierarchy together, then remain attached to this term until the sixteenth century inclusive,191 as do the Augustinian Hermits.192 Conversely, the word ‘confraternity’ disappears totally, after the middle of the fifteenth century, from the Dominican letters, whether issued by masters general or produced by the provincial of Hungary,193 even though it figured in the model by the prior of Hungary copied in the 1350s.194 In the intervening years, some non-mendicant affiliating orders had definitively adopted it, in particular the Paulists.195

187 

Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, pp. 13–14 and 16. Picard, ‘Les Suffrages’, p. 117 n. 41. 189  See respectively LC 2 and 8. 190  LC 14, 34, and 50. The Carmelite model dated 1461 and situated in Pécs, although entitled Littera confraternitatis nostre, does not speak of confraternitas in the body of the text. Koller, Historia episcopatus Quinqueeclesiarum, iv, 269. 191  A single exception: the (long) model from the formulary of the Hungarian Franciscan Observance written between 1510 and 1520, established in the name of the cismontane commissionaire and in the general chapter, which associates the Palatine of Hungary with the suffrages of the order. Perhaps something was forgotten by the transcriber? Budapest, OSzK, MS Cod. Lat. 432, fol. 116r–v. 192  See Chapter 5. 193  Provincial priors: LC 46, 48, 55, 56, 57, 58, 63, 86, and 95; vicars: LC 22, 37; masters general: LC 33, 64. Two exceptions, in the letters delivered by the same provincial of Hungary (Mark of Debrecen): LC 40 and 42. 194  Formulae solennes styli, ed. by Kovachich, no. 384, p. 366. Chapter 5 will look for the meaning of these variants within the different orders. 195  Budapest történetének okleveles emlékei, ed by Kumorovitz, p. 58 no. 788 (1421); formulary copied in the 1530s: Formularium maius, ed. by Romhányi and Sarbak. On the other hand the Hungarian Carthusians avoided the word confraternitas (Budapest, MNL DL 7179, 93301, 93376, and 15841) — like the prior of the Grande Chartreuse (Budapest, MNL DL 93608). 188 

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The way in which entry into spiritual confraternity and participation in merits is syntactically articulated in the dispositive clause of the acts of affiliation of the Hungarian corpus until the middle of the fifteenth century reinforces doubts as to the community ‘weight’ with which the word confraternitas might have been invested. Whatever the order and the hierarchical level of the issuer, these two (spiritual confraternity and participation in merits) are presented as two sides of a single grace, with the participation in merits, expressed in second place,196 being a sort of immediate and unique translation of the entry into spiritual confraternity, itself more abstract. In seven letters of the Hungarian corpus, no coordinating conjunction (et or ac) separates the formulation of admission from that of the association with suffrages (‘ad universa et singularia suffragia […] recipio’)197 — a juxtaposition which we find at the same period in Cistercian letters.198 We observe an editorial change beginning in the 1450s. Except among the Dominicans and the Carmelites (who still do not speak of confraternitas, as we have seen), the two components of affiliation are henceforth dissociated by the systematic use of the conjunction et or ac, by the anteposing in the clause of the verb recipio (placed just after confraternitatem), procedures often reinforced by a punctuation mark between the two clauses. Moreover, the two elements of the grace also set themselves apart from each other by their scale. Admission into spiritual confraternity was extended, by default, at the level of the entire order.199 Even lower level dispensers (provincial, custodian, even friary superior) use the formula ‘ad/in confraternitatem 196 

An exception: LC 49 (1480). LC 8, 17, 18, 19, 35, 39, and 40. We read, for example, in a letter from the minister of the Franciscan province of Hungary dated 1357 (LC 8): ‘te […] in confraternitatem nostri ordinis ad universa et singula nostre religionis suffragia in vita recipio pariter et in morte, plenam vobis omnium bonorum participationem tenore presentium concedendo que per fratres nostros in regno Hungarie constitutos operari dignabitur clemencia Salvatoris’. 198  Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 58–59 (1301). In Hungary, we also find it among the Paulists. Budapest történetének okleveles emlékei, ed. by Kumorovitz, p. 58 no. 788 (1421). 199  In the whole of Christendom, among both the mendicants and the Cistercians. Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 58–59 and 65. We do, however, find counterexamples in England and in Silesia. Examples of English guardians associating with the merits of the province of England in 1479 (‘per totam administrationem Anglie’) in Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, pp. 15–16. See also the letter edited in Lippens (‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 78–79) by which the Franciscan guardian of Wrocław admits a deceased man into the confraternity of the custody (‘ad confraternitatem conventuum nostre custodie recipio’) in 1378. 197 

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nostri ordinis’200 — which we might have imagined reserved for superiors general — without referring either to the authority of the head of the order or to that of the pope.201 This apparent anomaly confers on confraternitas a universal character, in the image of the order and of Ecclesia, exalted in their totality and their uniqueness (hence the singular of confraternitas), regardless of the circumstances (level of the issuer, rank of the affiliate, motives for the admission, etc.). It expresses the conviction according to which all the members and affiliates of the order, wherever they may be and whoever they may be, should enjoy the same spiritual merits. Conversely, the second element, the association with benefits, receives, starting in 1450, specific administrative or geo­graphical limits. These coincide with the sphere of influence of the authority of the issuer: the order or ‘the entire world’ (per mundum universum, per orbem universum, per totum orbem, in toto orbe) if the letter is issued by a superior general; the vicariate or the province — sometimes designated by a politicogeo­g raphical term (per Ungariam, in regno Ungarie) — when the mendicant and political boundaries coincide; the custody; the friary.202 These indications inscribe the participation in merits into a concrete framework, formed of circles of greater or lesser size, set one inside the other until the level, universal, of the order. By distinguishing these two planes, did the dispensers of letters of affiliation intend to posit the existence of two ‘effects’ of entry into spiritual confraternity, the one concerning ‘being’ (the state of ‘associate’, therefore of ‘almost-brother’ which incorporated the confratres, through the spirit, into the congregation of the religious),203 and the other concerning ‘having’ (the advantages expected post mortem from the accumulation of merits produced by a certain countable 200 

LC 8, 17, 18, 19, 21, 35, and 41, as well as the letters of John of Capistrano (LC 20, 24–32). 201  English counterexamples: Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, pp. 15–16, who cites examples of letters from guardians who place themselves under the joint authority of the minister and of the chapter of the province — at the same time observing that this notation does not necessarily indicate hierarchical submission, as mentioned in Chapter 5. 202  Some formulae also bring the friars back to their jurisdictional link with the dispenser (per nos et fratres nobis commissos, per fratres meos, per fratres et sorores mihi creditos, a fratribus mee cure commissis, per fratres mee cure subiectos). They thus reflect the strengthening of the institutional frameworks that accompanied the mendicant reforms starting in the middle of the fifteenth century. See Chapter 5. 203  This would lead us to nuance the radical opposition that Charles de Miramon establishes between a ‘donatus’ and a ‘confrater’: ‘If the confrater or the familiar defines himself by his relationship with the monastery, the donatus possesses a state.’ Les ‘Donnés’ au Moyen Âge, p. 60.

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number of religious)? At the very least, they underline the richness of a grace which, as a true ‘two in one’ could not be reduced to its salvational effects, since it also created a community. We should nevertheless not speak of cohesion, since the links which united the members of this community were slack. First, the circulation of salvational goods described by the mendicant letters of affiliation happens only in one direction, from the friars to the non-friars.204 This contrasts with the reciprocity that the monks had introduced: the latter expected that the newly admitted, even members of the laity, would also make them participants in the prayers and the good works that they accomplished (according to the solemn formulae pronounced at the moment of their incorporation in the fourteenth century).205 There was nothing of the kind among the mendicants. The formula of recommendation by which John of Parma ended his letters in about 1250 (‘I commend myself, and my order, to you’)206 rapidly disappeared. We only find, in two letters by the master general Joachim Turriani, a short request for prayer (in 1493 and 1494).207 These omissions seem to me to be significant. The oneway nature of the sharing of spiritual benefits kept the non-friars at a distance, putting limits on the process of ‘brother-becoming’ at work in spiritual confraternity at the very moment when it was pronounced. The ecclesiastical hierarchy was safe, because the friars kept their place as privileged mediators between earth and Heaven, while the field of action of the confratres remained quartered in the material sphere. 204 

The generosity and the devotion of the addressees, evoked in the preamble or in the exposition of motives, belong to the past and are not credited with being able to ‘produce’ merits, as detailed in Chapter 3. 205  Berlière, ‘Les Confraternités monastiques au Moyen Âge’, pp. 137–38. The statutes of the Norman lay confraternity of Saint-Vulgan approved by the abbot of Saint-Ouen in 1365 express the request made by the monks of Saint-Ouen, with whose merits the members of the confraternity were associated, to participate in their turn in the ‘sainctes prières et oraisons qui sont et seront faictes en ladite confrairie’ (holy prayers and orisons which are and will be made in the said confraternity). Vincent, Des charités bien ordonnées, p. 92. It is true that in certain cases (also Benedictine) reported by Ursmer Berlière, these formulations reflected ill-hidden material intentions with immediate weight: the ceding of a piece of property belonging to the confrater to the abbey (or the renunciation of a building whose ownership had been contested by him to the religious a little earlier) were among the meritorious works accomplished (or to be accomplished) by the new confratres. Berlière, ‘Les Confraternités monastiques au Moyen Âge’, pp. 137–38. 206  Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 50. 207  LC 72 (‘Deum pro me exorate’) and LC 75 (‘pro me et ordine meo Deum orate’).

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Second, spiritual confraternity did not weave any ‘active’ link between confratres — in contrast to the lay confraternities and prayer unions (between monks, canons, diocesan priests, and members of the laity) attested to since the Carolingian era.208 They were not even obliged to pray for one another, as the statutes of lay confraternities had demanded since the beginning of the eleventh century.209 No ordo fraternitatis, then, to use the singular expression pointed out by Gilles Meersseman in the rule of the Confraternity Sant’Appiano in Valdesa.210 In the final analysis, it is difficult to see in the confraternitas as it was practised by the mendicants in Hungary anything other than a conceptual community. Deprived as it was of a ceremony of inclusion and of lists of members, and without active solidarity either between confratres or in the direction of the friars, it effectively excluded the confratres from the ordo-tree. In the end, it was only the sum of the individuals (or of the families) favoured with salvational benefits by the religious. Its members were diluted into the whole group of Christians recommended for their prayer, to whom they were already united for the generic commemorations prescribed in mendicant legislation. By developing spiritual affiliation, the mendicants thus paradoxically encouraged the growing individualism of religious practices at the end of the Middle Ages — an individualism which ensured that, even in lay confraternities, the community found itself placed at the service of each of its members.211 The formulation of mendicant letters of confraternity destined for Hungarian Christians shows that they applied a logic of incorporation, at least symbolic, and not only of intercession — unlike prayers of recommendation and pro anima liturgical foundations — with, as a ‘natural’ extension (without taking the habit of the friar or tertiary), burial in the friary. Spiritual affiliation thus did have its own content, different from that of other graces dispensed by the mendicants, and one which was not limited to memoria. The diplomatic mould followed by the composers of these letters, a proof of authenticity, did not take away from the acts of admission their personal 208 

This confirms the inadequacy of the syntagme ‘confraternity (or fraternity) of prayer’ to designate mendicant spiritual confraternities at the end of the Middle Ages. 209  Meersseman, Ordo fraternitatis, pp. 55–65. 210  Meersseman, Ordo fraternitatis, p. 58 (Cap. i, 3: ‘recipiat eos abbas [name of the leader of the lay confraternity] in ordine fraternitatis’). It is this extract, taken from the statutes of the lay confraternity of Sant’Appiano in Valdesa, a secular rural confraternity whose foundation dated to the year 1000, which gave Gilles Meersseman the title of his summa on the subject. 211  Vincent, Les Confréries médiévales dans le royaume de France.

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nature, due to the techniques of fabrication and the compositional procedures used (no pre-filled-in letters, frequent anteposition of the address, and enumeration of all the loved ones of the principal addressee). More and more solemn, they acquired a sacred character (notably through seals, which displayed the symbols of each order, and through manual subscription) which partially explains the attachment of the recipients to these documents. Outside the family circle, which was predominant, collective entries limited themselves to a handful of lay confraternities already gravitating around mendicant establishments. Rather than creating ‘substitute families’, spiritual confraternity consolidated pre-existing solidarities by perpetuating them into the hereafter. But it did not weave active links among confratres. Moreover, the dispensers, in particular the Hungarian ones, seem to have kept the members at a good distance from themselves, thus watering down the federating effects of a grace that theoretically linked them to the common trunk of the order.

Chapter 5

Mendicant Uses of Spiritual Confraternity

A

lthough the leaders of the mendicant orders only give spiritual confraternity a tiny place in their internal rules and administrative correspondence, and although they never speak of it in their pastoral writings, there is abundant documentary proof of its expansion in the Christian West until the first third of the sixteenth century, especially in Hungary. Reinforcing the paradox, the rare declarations on spiritual affiliation by mendicant superiors take pains to hold it in check rather than to encourage it. All this goes against the prevailing view in the historio­graphy, according to which the friars cannily used this grace to promote their religious family, extend their spiritual influence, and above all stimulate donations in their favour. Might it not rather be the case that they simply endured, as a cumbersome inheritance, the multicentury attraction of benefactors of regular orders for spiritual confraternity? From the outset, the mendicants were confronted with the contradiction inherent in the principle of spiritual affiliation. By infinitely dilating the contours of their congregatio to swell the ranks of the chosen in paradise, they were not only exposing themselves, despite the low rate of ‘paid’ confraternal admissions, to the accusations of simony revived by Wyclif and later Hus, and still being debated in the 1430s. An additional problem was that by becoming excessively commonplace, this grace would inevitably lose some of its value on the ‘market’ of salvational benefits; it might even end up tarnishing the image of the orders who dispensed it. The friars thus needed to be careful to grant it parsimoniously. The Friars Preachers were the first to become aware of this. As early as 1334, the Chapter of Limoges stated the desire to ‘prevent,

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due to the immoderate and too easy granting of letters of confraternity, that such a precious thing should be received with lesser devotion and deference towards our order’.1 The interdiction of 1505 forbidding the Franciscans from delivering ‘fill-in-the-blanks’ certificates expressed the same worry.2 How were these restrictions applied in situ? It seems that the provincial and general leaders had a fair amount of trouble controlling the actions of the friary superiors who were preoccupied first and foremost with the subsistence of the friars in their charge. At the beginning of the fourteenth century, the Dominicans of the French Midi managed the salvational graces (including affiliation) like a family treasury, guarded ‘jealously’ and distributed ‘in a reasoned way’, according to Daniel Picard.3 After 1350, the situation was quite the opposite in those friaries which, in England as in Bohemia, by the admission of certain Catholics themselves, made unrestrained use of spiritual confraternity.4 In Hungary, the impressive series of acts of affiliation issued by Hungarian mendicant superiors (eighty-one out of 125 in the corpus) orients us right away towards the idea of a liberal, if not lax, management of the spiritual treasures accumulated by the friars — with this not inconsiderable caveat, that we have not found any letters issued in advance of expected donations.5 Can we identify in this corpus signs of the deliberate manipulation of spiritual affiliation by the mendicants? Did the reforming dynamic in Hungary, from the middle of the fifteenth century on, limit the spread of earlier abuses? After taking the measure of the degree of initiative allowed to the friars concerning admissions into spiritual confraternity, we will examine the reasons, as much material as ideo­logical, which they invoked as motivation for this act. Since not all the mendicant orders had the same ‘policy’ on this subject, we will then focus on the question relative to each one, giving priority to the Franciscans, by far the most represented group in the Hungarian documentation. 1 

‘Ne ex excessiva et nimis facili concessione literarum de beneficiis Ordinis res tam praetiosa minori devotione et reverentia nostri Ordinis admittatur’. In consequence of which the new constitutions restricted the issuing of the littere de beneficiis to the provincial priors, in the chapter, and asked them to be sure of the worthy condition of the beneficiaries as well as the vigour of their devotio. Constitutiones, ed. by Jandel, p. 267. 2  See Chapter 1. 3  Picard, ‘Les Suffrages’, p. 115. 4  We recall that the Bohemian Carthusian Stephen of Dolany, when he was defending the mendicant spiritual confraternities against Wyclif and Hus in 1408, admitted himself that the massive sale of letters of affiliation was a regrettable deviation. See Chapter 2. 5  With one exception, among the Hungarian letters (LC 90).

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The Involvement of the Mendicants in the Development of Spiritual Confraternities It is impossible to know what use the mendicants made of spiritual confraternity without knowing whether they admitted new members on their own initiative, or whether they contented themselves with responding to the requests, more or less insistent, of their outside supporters. We must therefore begin by clarifying this crucial point, first by defining the position of the dispensers of this grace. Provincial Superiors at the Helm Initially, the decision to admit someone into confraternity was the prerogative, among the Dominicans and the Franciscans, of the superiors general and general chapters, by virtue of their jurisdictional authority. They officially extended this prerogative to the provincials, alone or in the chapter — beginning with the Franciscan Chapter of Narbonne in 1260 for the Friars Minor and the Chapter of Limoges in 1334 for the Dominicans.6 Custodians had nevertheless delivered letters of confraternity since the fourteenth century (in northern France) and this practice extended as far as simple friary superiors, as often Dominican (which led to the restrictive measures of 1334) as Franciscan (starting in the fourteenth century in Silesia, and then recurrently through the fifteenth century in England, Prussia, and Livonia).7 Certain issuers, being cautious, made reference to the authority of the prior or minister general or provincial, or even to that of the sovereign pontiff, but not all.8 In the tense context of the contestation by secular clerics of the spiritual privileges and powers of the mendicants, the papacy endorsed these irregularities a posteriori. By the bull of 26 July 1486 (which cites a bull of Benedict XI) Innocent VIII authorized all the mendicant officiales (local, provincial, and general) to receive affiliates into spiritual confraternity (‘confratres recipere, participes et consortes facere’).9 Locally, provincial superiors and chapters in turn relaxed the rules that were in effect, some6 

Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 63–64; Constitutiones, ed. by Jandel, p. 267. Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 64–65 and 78–79. 8  Hugolin Lippens points out, moreover, that the reference to a superior authority, when it was expressed (see the English examples in the previous chapter) served essentially to give more weight to the grace being granted, whatever the level of the admission. Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 65. 9  Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 51. 7 

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times going down as far as the level of friary superiors. When it condemned the ‘fill-in-the-blanks’ letters granted in exchange for money, which the guardians were manifestly abusing, the Franciscan general chapter of 1505 did not go so far as to remove the prerogatives of affiliation from the latter.10 In Hungary as in England,11 provincial superiors are in the front rank of the dispensers of participation in merits. They authored seventy-seven of the letters in the corpus (61 per cent of the total). Almost all Hungarian (except for six),12 they far outstrip the supra-provincial officiales (the vicars and commissaries, general or cismontane, who produced nineteen letters of the series) and superiors general (responsible for eighteen letters).13 As for lower-level officiales, their presence is very discreet: custodians produced seven letters and friary superiors just four — which is fewer, it seems, than in England.14 It might be added that the affiliators were all ‘brothers’ and not ‘sisters’. Not a single female superior appears in this role — although the Poor Clares and the Dominican nuns had about ten convents in Hungary, which sometimes enjoyed great prestige, through royal protection, aristocratic recruitment, and the commemoration of figures of saintly reputation, such as Margaret of Hungary.15 This is consistent with the fact that examples of admissions pronounced by female religious belonging to the mendicant orders remained the exception throughout Christendom.16 10 

Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 75. Even if we include the letters of mixed graces (and ‘fill-in-the-blanks’ letters) established by friary superiors, the series of acts of affiliation which have survived in England show the predominance of the provincial authority in the expansion of mendicant spiritual confraternities, for the Franciscans as well as the Augustinians. Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’ (letters by Franciscans); Roth, The English Austin Friars (Augustinian letters). 12  These are by the vicars of the Observant Franciscan provinces of Austria, Bohemia, Bosnia, Poland, and Tuscany. 13  See Graph 6. 14  Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, pp. 15 and 21–25 (twenty-one letters by the provincial minister, not one by a custodian, twenty-five letters by guardians, out of a total of fifty-seven items); Roth, The English Austin Friars (two letters by friary priors, dated 1481, with the thirteen others having been issued by the Augustinian provincial of England). 15  See Chapter 3. Concerning the life and promotion of Margaret of Hungary, see Deák, La Légende de sainte Marguerite de Hongrie. 16  Hugolin Lippens notes the existence of two letters of confraternity delivered by superiors of the Poor Clares in the fourteenth century. Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 65–66 and 76–78. Servatius Wolfs reports one, established in 1424 by the dominican prioress of Wijk, in favour of the Dominican nuns of Vrouwenklooster, near Utrecht. Litterae de 11 

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The collections of forms copied and used by the mendicant friars of Hungary confirm the decisive weight of the provincial superiors in the rise of spiritual confraternities. The Franciscan and Dominican models going back to the fourteenth century were established in the name of the provincial, as were four of the six examples recorded in the Observant Franciscan formulary of 1510 to 1525 and eleven of the fourteen examples copied into the collection of the 1530s — presented, in the latter case, in the form of numerous variants which reveal a widespread practice. Only the Carmelite example of 1461 pronounces an admission on the authority of a lower-level official, that of the prior of the friary of Pécs.17 The map of the places of issue of the letters reflects this involvement by the Hungarian provincials in the rise of mendicant spiritual confraternities.18 Buda, the centre of the undivided Franciscan province and then of the Observant one, as well as of the Dominican and Augustinian provinces, dominates the whole group (twenty-eight letters), far ahead of Pest (seven letters) and Óbuda (three letters issued by the minister of the Conventual Franciscan province, which had withdrawn to this city after the transfer of the friary of Buda to the Observance in 1444) as well as ahead of several Observant Franciscan custodial sees such as Szécsény (three letters) and Sárospatak (four). The over-representation of the provincial level comes from the fact that it was situated midway between the level of the friary — within reach of the most modest donors, whose letters have less successfully survived the passage of the centuries — and the centre of the order, only accessible to high-ranking benefactors. We note that in Hungary, except among the Carmelites whose provincial boundaries greatly exceeded the political ones of the kingdom, this overrepresentation gave spiritual confraternity a national dimension. The decision rarely emanated from a chapter. We count only ten mentions relating to a chapter — general or provincial — in the preserved letters.19 The formularies for internal usage, whether by Dominicans, undivided Franciscans, or Observant Franciscans, contain none.20 The Hungarian documentation thus beneficiis, ed. by Wolfs, pp. 9–10. Even in the ancient monastic orders, charters of fraternitas authored by abbesses, attested to from the end of the eleventh century in Flanders, seem to disappear after 1300. Bijsterveld, ‘Looking for Common Ground’, p. 295. 17  Koller, Historia episcopatus Quinqueeclesiarum, iv, 269. 18  See Maps 1 and 2. 19  In the letters, the chapter is announced in the intitulatio, or as a minimum, in the eschatol (‘in capitulo nostro provinciali X. celebrato’). LC 3, 33, 39, 61, 94, and 114 (general chapter); LC 15, 18, 46, and 100 (provincial chapter). 20  A model from the 1530s, established in the name of the (Observant) minister general,

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goes against the hypothesis of Hugolin Lippens by which, among the Friars Minor, admissions per litteras were habitually pronounced in the chapter (general, provincial, or friary).21 According to him, nothing could be more normal, since it was there that the friars, assembled under the presidency of their superior, decreed those measures affecting the whole of the community, there where they granted the spiritual favours that have been recorded, there too where the superior could show off the requests for graces that had been addressed to him. The Franciscan reformers of the fifteenth century would seem, according to other sources, to have perpetuated this usage. Half of the letters issued by Matthias Döring reflect this constraint, notes Ludovic Viallet, setting the practice of the German reformer in contrast to that of John of Capistrano, whose itinerant career prevented him from issuing acts during assemblies.22 We should not, however, generalize. The minutes of the Dominican chapters of the province of Toulouse cast doubt on the issuing of letters of suffrages on such occasions in the fourteenth century.23 Most of the models of the acts of affiliation gathered in about 1400 in the formulary of the Dominicans of Krakow do not indicate the involvement of any chapter.24 This fact can be easily explained: the temporal spacing of provincial and general chapters, separated by two to three years from each other, imposed lengthy months of waiting on both the candidates for affiliation and on those who dispensed it. The ‘buy-in’ of the assembled friars does not seem to have been really necessary except when other graces, more constraining for the religious, were added to spiritual confraternity. Of the four letters of the Hungarian corpus issued at a provincial assembly, two add specific masses or burial in the friary to the grace of affiliation. 25 Similarly, the letters of recommendation matched with pro anima services consulted for this study (including that of

situates the decision in a capitulary context, but its inconsistencies lead to doubt, as we have noted, as to whether it is reproducing an authentic original. Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fol. 108r. 21  Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 64. In England, even the guardians specified that they had obtained the assent of the friars of their friary. Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, pp. 15–16. 22  Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, p. 188. 23  Picard, ‘Les Suffrages’, p. 114. 24  Dictamina Litterarum, ed. by Woroniecki and Fijalek. Rare counterexamples: pp. 81–82 no. 83, and pp. 118–19 no. 170. 25  LC 15 and 18.

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the Franciscan formulary produced in about 1300),26 were promulgated in the chapter. For their part, the letters of the Hungarian corpus providing affiliation alone are spread uniformly over the whole year, without prioritizing either the ‘season’ of the provincial chapters (around Pentecost) or the important dates in the liturgical calendar — the feast days of ‘identity saints’ honouring the patron saints of the issuing order, play no role, for example.27 Ordinary decision, ordinary day. Admissions on Demand? A half-dozen letters from the Hungarian series specify, right from their first lines, that the affiliation has been granted at the request of the addressees.28 Among the Friars Preachers, such a request was supposed to be brought before the chapter, according to the General Constitutions, which had made this a prerequisite for the issue of letters of suffrages since 1334.29 Hungary has not preserved any trace of the application of this rule. But the applicants sometimes went through an intermediary who was a member of the order. There were no powerful protectors intervening in favour of their dependents, as we find among the English Benedictines of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.30 The mediators who appear in the Hungarian corpus are professed. Thus, the members of the lay confraternity of Saint Nicholas attached to the Dominican friary of Sebeş (Szászebes) obtained, from the master general Joachim Turriani, their participation in the suffrages of the Friars Preachers in 1493 by the intervention of the provincial of Hungary, Valentine of Kisd.31 In 1489, it was the Dominican friar John, a student (studens) of theo­logy in Buda, who had informed the master general of the ‘devotion’ of Peter of Söpte — who may 26 

no. 5. 27 

Karácsonyi, ‘A magyar ferencrendűek formulás könyve a Batthyány-könyvtárban’, p. 26

The corpus includes just one letter issued on the day of the founding saint of the order (LC 21, on St Dominic’s day). Another date might have a link with the identity of the Franciscan order (LC 41, the feast day of St Elizabeth of Hungary) but there is no certainty of this. 28  LC 7, 10, 27, 40, 65, and 72. 29  ‘Volumus et ordinamus quod amodo nullus prior provincialis tales literas concedat nisi solum […] pro personis conditionis et status multum honesti, et quae personae hoc ipsum cum magna devotione petierint et in suis capitulis provincialibus’. Constitutiones, ed. by Jandel, p. 267. 30  Clark, ‘Monastic Confraternity in Medi­eval England’, p. 324. 31  LC 72.

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have been his father — towards the Dominicans and therefore of his desire to enter into their spiritual confraternity.32 Those are the only mentions of prior requests available to us — except when other graces are added to spiritual confraternity.33 Either the writers do not talk about prior requests at all (by far the most frequent scenario), or they are content to make conventional and abstract declarations — the will of the friars to respond to the ‘pious supplications of the faithful’, notably in the letters of the Augustinian Hermits. In this, they break with monastic practice, both that of the customaries of Cluny34 and of the Cistercian documents (‘ad preces vestras devotas’),35 which did not mask these preliminary steps. The Franciscan provincial of Saxony Matthias Döring began his acts of affiliation systematically with the apposition: ‘Piis vestris petitionibus cum ad salutem anime pertineant inclinatus’.36 The Polish Dominican formulary of the end of the fourteenth century reproduces similar formulae, and not just concerning the deceased whose admission had been requested by their loved ones.37 Let us not be deceived by this discourse. Letters granting recommendations for prayer and founding pro anima masses, or even burial in the friary, do not always report the request of the addressee in the exposition of motives either,38 although the fact that this request existed is beyond doubt. The chroniclers depict mendicant preachers or superiors delivering letters of confraternity to 32 

LC 64. Masses for the soul of the future confrater (LC 40), or burial within the church (Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fols 114r–115r). 34  The Cluny customaries specify, in the eleventh century, that societas was granted to strangers after they had solicited it from the abbot. Berlière, ‘Les Confraternités monastiques au Moyen Âge’, p. 134. 35  Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 58–59 (1301). The Paulists make no mention of a prior request either and content themselves with, at most, evasive formulae about the ‘prayers of the faithful’. Formularium maius, ed. by Romhányi and Sarbak, p. 22 no. 23. An exception which proves the rule: Formularium maius, ed. by Romhányi and Sarbak, p. 72 no. 103 (‘tamen vestris peticionibus et saluberrimis desideriis’), which renews an old affiliation. 36  Weigel, Ordensreform und Konziliarismus, p. 342 no. 57 — quoted by Viallet in Les Sens de l’observance, p. 192. 37  Dictamina Litterarum, ed. by Woroniecki and Fijalek, p. 104 no. 133 (‘supplicastis’), and p. 118 no. 168 (‘iuxta peticionem vestram’). Certainly, the formula ‘Petitionibus vestris inclinatus’, particularly explicit, only appears in this collection relative to the free choice of personal confessor (p. 106 no. 140). 38  Manu­script examples from Budapest, MNL: DL 103341 (1376), DF 285854 (1388), DL 79302 (1415), and DL 13036 (1437). 33 

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the faithful who were clamouring for them ( John of Maigrefort to the bourgeois of Nuremberg,39 John of Capistrano during his Central European tour40). The provincial of Saxony Nicolas Lackman begins his Tractatus de confrater­ nitate by acknowledging these numerous zealous partisans of the friars who support them with the aim, specifically, of participating in their merits.41 The register of benefactors established in the Dominican friary of Sighişoara by the Prior Anthonius Fabri specifies (on three occasions, and not necessarily in the context of the foundation of a Mass or of burial in the friary) that association with the merits of the friary has been granted at the petition of the beneficiary.42 Contrary to what a rapid reading of the acts of admission into confraternity might lead us to believe, it is thus indeed the candidates for affiliation, and not the religious, who (except for the distribution-sale of ‘fill-in-the-blanks’ letters, of which no trace has survived in Hungary, as we know) are the originators of the blossoming and expansion of mendicant spiritual confraternities. Why keep silence on these solicitations in the texts of the letters of confraternity? They may have seemed to go without saying. Above all, the mendicant officiales avoided, through their silence, giving credence to those who, in orthodox or heretical reforming circles, accused them of giving in to every caprice of their benefactors without regard for ‘Gregorian’ principles, and of selling their spiritual powers. The initiative for entry into spiritual confraternity thus appears to have been taken by the candidates for affiliation, much more than by the mendicants 39 

Nicolas Glassberger reports in his chronicle that in 1465, John of Maigrefort granted letters of affiliation to the bourgeois of Nuremberg who had requested them from him (‘multas litteras confraternitatis civibus illas petentibus’). Edition: Chronica Fratris Nicolai Glassberger, p. 417 — quoted by Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, p. 168 n. 160. 40  According to his hagio­g raphers, especially Christopher of Varese and Nicolas Fara. Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, pp. 199–200. 41  ‘Sepe reperiuntur fideles plurimi domino Deo nostro devoti qui diversorum ordinum sunt zelatores pii et fautores seduli in hunc utique finem ut valeant esse participes meritorum sive suffragiorum que per fratres ac sorores ordinum illorum operatur clemencia Salvatoris’ (There are often gatherings of numerous members of the faithful, devoted to our God, who are the pious champions and esteemed protectors of various orders, with the goal of being able to participate in the merits or suffrages which the clemency of the Saviour makes available through the friars and sisters of these orders). Wrocław, BUW, MS Cod. I Qu. 73a, fol. 46v. 42  At the beginning of the registry (nos iii and ix) and as late as the 1520s (xxv), three names of donors to the friary are followed by: ‘petens oraciones et participacionem bonorum operum fratrum conventus. Igitur singuli fratres studeant hiis prenotatis benefactoribus satisfacere’. Ipolyi, ‘Adalékok a magyar domonkosok történetéhez’, pp. 600–604 and 665.

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themselves. Despite this reality, the question of the motives of the friars remains relevant for two reasons: on the one hand, mendicant superiors retained total freedom to accept or refuse requests for participation in their merits; on the other, several letters of the corpus describe situations where it was they who made the first move.

The Benefit of Spiritual Association for the Friars What reasons, official and unofficial, did the mendicants have for developing spiritual confraternity, or allowing it to develop? Did they see in it, like the Benedictines of the eighth to twelfth centuries, a means of strengthening, stimulating, and broadening their base of supporters — a convenient method since it did not add to their liturgical obligations? It must be acknowledged that, since the acts of affiliation unfailingly invoke the same universal principles without taking into account the particular context that prevailed at the time of their issue, the exact motives of the friars cannot be clearly identified. We may nonetheless put forward a few hypotheses. The Discourse on the ‘Debt of Charity’ To judge by the preambles of the letters of confraternity, the friars had no choice. No matter what the order or the period, they justify their decision by the moral obligation to repay (rependere, reddere, compensare, etc.) the temporal benefits that they have received from their external supporters by granting them other benefits, the latter spiritual in nature, the only ones of which they were the depositories and the administrators.43 They make this obligation a ‘duty’ (or a ‘debt’) ‘of charity’ (caritatis debitum). Previously invoked by the Benedictines and then by the Cistercians,44 the notion stayed in favour for three centuries with the Franciscans (whether undivided, Observant, or Conventual) throughout Christendom, from the minister general to the local superiors.45 It appears throughout the Hungarian corpus, from the 1280s to the 1530s (in the

43 

See Chapter 4. See the extracts of Cistercian letters (twelfth to fourteenth centuries) quoted by Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 58–59. We know that the ‘charter of charity’ defined the relationship between Cîteaux and its daughter houses as early as 1119. See Chapter 1. 45  Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 50 and pp. 58–61. 44 

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Observant Franciscan formularies) at all the levels of the mendicant hierarchy, without being limited to the Franciscans.46 In nearly half of the preserved letters, it is expressed by the sentence: ‘Although we are committed to this towards all (Christians) by the duty of charity, we still have a much greater obligation to those whose affection we have experienced, on many occasions, through the sure signs of their benefits.’47 Attested for the first time among the mendicants from the quill of the minister general Jerome of Ascoli in the 1270s,48 it was used in Hungary from about 1300,49 and became a fixed formula in the Franciscan letters after 1450. It appears among the Dominicans from the 1450s on (though still less frequently than among the Franciscans) 50 and also surfaces among the Augustinian Hermits.51 This insistence may reflect a response to the arguments of the detractors of spiritual confraternity, expressed publicly as late as 1433 at the Council of Basel, which emphasized the universality of Christian fraternity, the Church having been defined since its birth as an ecclesia fratrum.52 The Carmelites followed the Dominican editorial mould of the start of the fourteenth century until the end of the fifteenth century. Although this speaks neither of caritas nor of debitum, it nevertheless considers that the devotion of a faithful Christian to the order ‘calls for’ his or her recompense, either by spiritual confraternity,53 or by the recommendation for prayer by the 46 

We count more than fifty direct occurrences of the notion in the series of Hungarian letters, to which are added related formulations (ex zelo caritatis, ex caritatis affectu, etc.). 47  ‘Quamvis ex c[h]aritatis debito omnibus [christifidelibus] teneamur, illis tamen longe amplius obligamur, quorum dilectionem certis beneficiorum indiciis frequentius experimur. Proinde’. 48  Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 61. 49  LC 2. 50  LC 21, 22, 71, and 95. 51  LC 62 (‘ex caritatis affectu’). 52  Thus, at the opening of his Replica of 1433, Nicolas of Pelhřimov declares that regular letters of confraternity are incompatible with the obligation undertaken towards all Christians to consider each other as brothers, without restriction or preference. Řeči Mikuláše, ed. by Bartoš, pp. 75–76. For a succinct account of the origins of Christian fraternity — which made, in a way, all of ecclesia into a confraternitas — see Duhr, ‘Les Confréries dans la vie de l’Église’, p. 440. 53  For the Carmelites, the preamble limits itself to a formula such as ‘Exigente vestre pie devotionis affectu, quem ad nostrum habetis ordinem’. LC 14, 34, and 50, which may be compared to the first Dominican letters of the corpus: LC 1, 4, and 3. In the Dominican model reproduced in the Ars notarialis, we read: ‘Devotionis vestra sinceris affectus, quem ad nostrum

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religious.54 Thus, it is indeed the need for the friars to reimburse their debt to their benefactors which appears as the principal motivation for spiritual affiliation in the letters delivered by the mendicants — as was the case among other regular religious.55 A second salient trait: what the granting of confraternity seeks to ‘re­ compense’, according to the texts of the letters, is not exactly one (or several) tem­poral service(s) or benefit(s), but rather a disposition of spirit; that is, the devotio (or affectus, dilectio, zelus, fervor, benevolentia, sinceritas, etc.) which the addressee has for the order — and possibly for its historical (Francis, Dominic) or tutelary (Augustine) founder.56 Already in use by the Cistercians,57 these terms are found at the end of the Middle Ages in the letters of confraternity issued in Hungary by the Carthusians58 and the Paulists.59 They are applied indiscriminately to all addressees, except for lay confraternities and clerics.60 At best, we learn that this ‘affection’ has shown itself by repeated signs, as exordinem relatione fratrum nostrorum vos gerere intellexi exigit beneficia nostro collata ordini, a copiosa clementia nostri Redemptoris vobis gratiosius impertire. Quapropter’. Formulae solennes styli, ed. by Kovachich, p. 266 no. 384. A very similar formula is found in LC 6. 54  Budapest, MNL DL 103341 (1376): ‘Quapropter, in recompensivam vicissitudinem largifluorum beneficiorum vestrorum nobis per vestram magnificentiam inpensorum habundanter statuimus’; Budapest, MNL DF 285854 (1388): ‘exigunt et requirunt ut fratrum nostrorum oracionibus sitis vos et liberi vestri specialiter recommandati’. We will return to the resemblance between letters of affiliation and letters of recommendation (among the Friars Preachers) at the end of the chapter. 55  In Hungary, the Paulists reproduced the same formulations. Budapest, MNL DL 86589 (1456); Formularium maius, ed. by Romhányi and Sarbak, p. 136 no. 217. The Hospitallers of Saint John seem less attached to them: Budapest, MNL DL 46604 (Hospitallers of Székesfehérvár, 1502). 56  Francis: LC 18, 19, 23, 124, and in the models from the two Observant formularies of the 1510s to 1530s; Dominic: LC 105; Augustine: LC 7, 62, and 65. 57  Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 58. 58  Budapest, MNL DL 7179 (1385), DL 93301 (1464), and DL 15841 (1463), letters of affiliation issued by the Carthusian prior of Lövöld (‘pie vestre devocionis affectus’, ‘pie intencionis fervor’, ‘bonitas vestra’, ‘devocio’). 59  The terms devocionis sinceritas or affectus are also used in their letters of confraternity. See Budapest, MNL DL 86589 (1456) and the models of the formulary edited in Formularium maius, ed. by Romhányi and Sarbak. For their part, the Hospitallers used a more concrete vocabulary (elemosin(a)e). Budapest, MNL DL 46604 (1502). 60  The preamble and the exposition of motives of the letters of the master general of the Dominicans affiliating Bavarian and Austrian Benedictine and Cistercian nuns in the 1280s is repeated almost word for word in those which the prior general of the Augustinian Hermits

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pressed by the adverbs frequentius, frequenter, or sepius in both the ‘real’ letters and the models.61 This is in line with the data provided by monastic registers which, especially where powerful members of the laity are concerned, habitually present admission into spiritual confraternity as the well-deserved reward for many years of activities (material donations, arbitration or intercession in favour of the order at court or with a prelate) that have been of value to the community.62 Although they say nothing of the concrete manifestations of this devotio, the composers of the letters insist on its veracity, as if to prove the validity of a decision that should not be based on rumour — or worse, on false declarations. They invoke ‘sure signs’ (‘certis beneficiorum indiciis’). They sometimes identify the channel by which the issuer learned of this devotion (an intermediary, as we have seen) but most often refer to the testimony of the members of the order (fratrum relacio). Those members, evoked collectively and anonymously, are presented as fidedigni.63 Present in 85 per cent of the nominative letters of the Hungarian corpus, this detail comes to light as early as the end of the thirteenth century (in the ‘real’ letters and in the Dominican model transmitted by the Ars notarialis),64 and it survives until the 1530s (in the Observant Franciscan formularies). Its success is evidently time-honoured, since the minister general John of Parma used it from the 1250s onwards, following the model of the Cistercians.65 It was no longer limited to the mendicants at the end of the Middle Ages.66

sent to several Hungarian nobles in the middle of the following century. We may compare LC 7 and 10 with Zappert, ‘Über sogenannte Verbrüderungsbücher’, p. 6 (1281). There is a more original preamble in 1507, adapted, for once, to the rank of the addressee: LC 99. 61  These adverbs figure in three models (out of six) of the Observant Franciscan formulary of 1510–25 (Budapest, OSzK, MS Cod. Lat. 432, fols 55v, 56v, and 116r, where the word frequentius is abridged, which indicates a common usage), and they return often in those of the 1530s (Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fols 108v, 109r, 110r, 110v, and 113r). 62  Clark, ‘Monastic Confraternity in Medi­e val England’, pp. 323–24. Certainly, these details do not figure in all the mendicant letters. It is thus possible that, as with the monks (see Clark), a one-time action may sometimes have been sufficient to lead to affiliation. 63  LC 62. 64  Formulae solennes styli, ed. by Kovachich, p. 366 no. 384. 65  Lippens, ‘De Litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 58–59; Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, p. 13. 66  We find it among the Paulists. Formularium maius, ed. by Romhányi and Sarbak.

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John of Capistrano added a supplementary guarantee: his own faculties of discernment (‘veluti clara experientia cognovi’).67 This later reappeared in (at least) six letters of the corpus — first from the quill of the provincial of Hungary Fabian of Igal, then from the cismontane superiors and the Dominican and Franciscan superiors general (Conventual or Observant), alone or as a complement to the relatio of the friars.68 It is found in different variants among the Augustinian Hermits.69 The superiors of the Franciscan Observance reinforced it with the notion of ‘growing renown’ (fama crebrescente), which implied a public recognition of the good disposition of the beneficiary.70 Being selective, confraternal charity required solid evidence, convergent and unanimous. Gift, Counter-gift, and Simony These moralizing and conventional declarations are unsuccessful in hiding a more down-to-earth objective — the necessity that the friars ensure the loyalty of their benefactors. For the mendicants as for the monks, the letter of confraternity held the function (principally if not exclusively) of a receipt for a debt paid.71 Previous to the letter of affiliation there was always a material gift or service — and not simply moral support or a convergence of spiritual views. From the end of the thirteenth century, and explicitly beginning in the middle of the fifteenth century, the issuers of the Hungarian letters justified the granting of spiritual goods (gratia or beneficia spiritualia) by the previous obtaining of material goods (temporalia bona or beneficia). This is indicated without ambiguity among the Dominicans,72 the Augustinian Hermits (from the prior general to the provincial of Hungary),73 the Observant Franciscans starting in 146174 67 

In the Hungarian corpus, as well as in the Moravian and Cracovian letters of confraternity issued by Capistrano. See Dřimal, ‘K brněnskému pobytu’, p. 389, and Starzyński, ‘Il re, il vescovo ed il predicatore’, p. 511. 68  LC 35, 67, 71, 91, 92, 102, and 117. 69  For example: LC 99. 70  Budapest, OSzK, MS Cod. Lat. 432, fol. 56v. 71  See Chapter 1. Letters of spiritual confraternity originated with charters delivered by certain Benedictine abbots to donors, beginning in the eleventh century. Chibnall, ‘Liens de fraternitas’, pp. 236–38. 72  LC 42 (1466). 73  LC 99 (1507): ‘Vobis pro terrenis celestia pro temporalibus sempiterna spirituali vicissitudine rependere cupiens’. 74  LC 36.

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(echoing the particularly developed formulations of Capistrano),75 and the non-Observant Franciscans (whose argumentation, explicit from 1461 on, is no shorter).76 In general, the addressee is very often called benefactor (in the real letters as well as in the models)77 — a term which medi­eval usage normally reserved for the author of a material donation — rather than amicus or devotus. A corroborative sign: in the registry of benefactors of the Dominican friary of Sighişoara, the prior Anthonius Fabri appears to link the affiliation of Nicolas of Bethlen with the order of the Dominicans, pronounced by the master general (between 1508 and 1518), to the donations that the latter had made to his friary.78 How, under these conditions, could the mendicants escape the accusation of simony relayed by the supporters of Wyclif and of Hus? A first parry: in the letters and the registries, the gifts and benevolence mentioned are never situated in the future, but always in the past — a past rendered virtually atemporal, it is true, by the absence of any chrono­logical signposts. It is impossible to turn the association by letters into a disguised collection since no material condition had been set for the enjoyment of the grace received. There is not a single letter requesting that the addressee take responsibility for the subsistence of the friars of such-and-such a friary, postulating the deposit (one-time or regular) of a sum of money or the transfer of property, in contrast with traditional monastic examples.79 This explains why the registers of benefactors and the account 75  LC 24,  25,  26,  28,  29, and 30. See also the standard letter edited in Dřimal, ‘K brněnskému pobytu’, pp. 388–91. 76  See LC 35 (from 1461), then 120 (1522) and 124 (1523). We read in the last of the three: ‘Verumque nudi temporalibus bonis, nudum Christum crucifixum Salvatorem nostrum sequimur, charitatis vestre subsidiis dignam rependere vicem nequaquam valemus temporaliter spiritualibus nichilominus beneficiis ipsam recompensare affectamus. Eapropter …’ (And we who, stripped of temporal goods, follow the naked Christ, our crucified Saviour, have no capacity to compensate with a return gesture in temporal help that would be worthy of your charity, but we aspire nonetheless to reward it with spiritual benefits. That is why …). 77  Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fol. 109r. 78  ‘egregius dominus dominus Nicolaus Bethleni perpetuus cum suis patronus huius conventus et receptus cum suis ad beneficia ordinis per litteras reverendissimi patris magistri ordinis generalis Thome Gaytani, dedit et consignavit huic conventui tres sessiones iobagionum in possessione Hetur’ (the distinguished Lord Nicholas Bethleni, perpetual patron of this friary along with his family, and having been received into the benefits of the order with his loved ones by the letter of the Very Reverend Father and master general Thomas Cajetan, gave and assigned to this friary three country holdings on the Hetur domain). Ipolyi, ‘Adalékok a magyar domonkosok történetéhez’, pp. 602–03. 79  A prospective large gift sometimes underpinned the granting of fraternitas by Benedic-

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books of the friaries have kept no trace of payments made upon entry by the confratri — neither in Hungary, nor in Silesia, nor in Scandinavia.80 Nor do we find in the Hungarian collections any text pronouncing collective admission of the benefactors (present or future) of a given mendicant church or friary (on the model of indulgences in favorem manus adiutrices), although these do exist elsewhere.81 A single exception proves the rule: this is the charter of March 1437 in which, after having described at length the pitiful state of the friary of Prešov, the prior general of the Carmelites immediately begs the local authorities to take the city friary in hand, stimulating their zeal by the granting, as expressed in the last lines of the charter, of ‘major’ affiliation.82 Secondly, the transfers of goods which preceded affiliation are invoked in an abstract way. With few exceptions, the letters do not provide information about the nature and the importance of the gift(s) being recompensed by spiritual affiliation. The term ‘benefits’ (beneficia) is used rather than ‘services’ (servitia),83 and dona or subsidia84 are rarely mentioned; alms (elemosin(a)e)85 are almost never mentioned. The candidates for entry themselves, when they address a mendicant authority, do not mention gifts previously granted to the religious.86 Does Capistrano really wish to imply that spiritual confratertine monks in the twelfth century, to the extent that this possibility appears as a pactum linking the monastery to its protectors. See, as well as the references given in Chapter 1, Bijsterveld, ‘Looking for Common Ground’, p. 297. 80  Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, pp. 183–84; Rasmussen, Die Franziskaner, p. 409. 81  In 1473, the minister of the province of France, Nicolas Guyotel, admits all the benefactors of the church of Poitoise. Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 50. 82  ‘Et ut affectus vestri in huiusmodi pietatis operibus magis ac magis inardescant, cupimus vobis in spiritualibus vicem refundere salutarem. Quare vobis omnibus, qui ad dictum opus soliciti fueritis, participationem concedimus …’ (And, so that your zeal for pious works may burn more and more, we wish to fill you, in return, with salvational spiritual goods. That is why we grant to all of you who will contribute to the above-mentioned task participation …). Diplomatarium comitatus Sarosiensis, ed. by Wagner, pp. 524–27; Fejér, Codex diplomaticus, x.7, 899–903. 83  This word is used by the Cistercian abbot of Heiligenkreuz when he admits Peter of Söpte in 1498. Budapest, MNL DL 93676 (1498). 84  The term appears in several letters of the Hungarian series (notably those of John of Capistrano) and, as a complement to beneficia, in the long model recorded in the Observant Franciscan formulary of the 1510s, destined for the Palatine of Hungary. Budapest, OSzK, Cod. Lat. 432, fols 115v and 116r. 85  LC 49. 86  LC 27.

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nity rewarded important acts of generosity by praising the ‘stripping of your material goods [caused by] the subsidies granted through your charity’ (in the nine letters of the Hungarian corpus,87 as in other acts delivered by the Italian preacher in Central Europe,88 imitated by the Franciscan vicar of Hungary in 146189) as a recent translation suggests?90 We may doubt this, on strictly grammatical grounds.91 On the other hand, one Dominican letter evokes the ‘large alms and innumerable benefits’ lavished by the recipient.92 Naturally, it would be fruitless, on the basis of such vague indications, to seek to establish a minimum threshold of donations likely to open the doors to mendicant spiritual confraternities. The charters by which the friars agreed to institute celebrations for the salvation of the soul of the beneficiary, or which granted him or her the right to be buried within the friary walls, are sometimes more explicit. They report the support brought by the addressee for the holding of provincial chapters, and the donations or payments (dona, elemosin(a)e, subsidia) made in kind or in money, in goods or in real estate, for the intention of a given specific friary.93 Among the letters of confraternity in the corpus, the ones which add pro anima celebrations or burial in the cloister to affiliation are the only ones to provide these details,94 which clearly places them within the logic of ‘gift for gift’ which characterized ancient societies, according to Marcel Mauss.95

87 

LC 20 and 24–32. Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, pp. 192–94. 89  LC 36. 90  ‘And since we aim to repay […] the stripping of your temporal goods due to the subsidies granted by your charity’. Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, p. 193. 91  The complete Latin sentence is: ‘Et quia nudi temporalibus bonis caritatis vestre subsidiis dignam rependere vicem nequaquam temporaliter valemus, spiritualibus nihilominus beneficiis prout in nostris apud Dominum Deum nostrum servamus desideriis compensare spiritualiter affectamus.’ The determinant ‘nudi temporalibus bonis’ (denuded of temporal goods) here qualifies the subject of the verb, that is, the friars to whom the text has been referring since the previous phrase, and not the addressee of the letter. We may compare this extract to the one cited and translated in note 76, above (‘Verumque nudi temporalibus bonis’). 92  LC 49 (‘largas elemosinas et innumera beneficia’). 93  For example: Budapest, MNL DL 103341; Iványi, Dominikánus levelek, pp. 35–36 no. 4 (1376). 94  LC 40 (1465), 113 (1516), 120 (1522). 95  Mauss, Essai sur le don. 88 

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Why did the mendicants — soon followed in this by the monks, according to the Hungarian sources96 — balk at indicating the ‘price’ of entry into spiritual confraternity? Is it because it was much lower than that of pro anima masses or of burial? This simplistic argument does not align with what we know, in any case, about the confratres.97 Did the friars take more precautions in their writings where spiritual affiliation was concerned, since it had become (along with indulgences) the target of particularly virulent attacks at the end of the fourteenth century? Perhaps they were skilfully preparing themselves against the demands of the faithful, who could have argued, comparing their largesse to that of other affiliates, that they had done enough to have a legitimate share in the merits of the friars. But these evasive formulations may say something more essential, which brings us back to the question of the specificity of spiritual confraternity by establishing a kind of correspondence between the cause and effect of affiliation. ‘Unquantifiable’, it did not seek to recompense a particular gesture, nor the accumulation, duly added up, of benevolent acts, but rather a privileged relationship with the religious. More than a counter-gift, it was the solemn acknowledgement of a state of affairs which — however reluctant the friars may have been to act upon it — was already bringing the future confratres closer to the friars.98

96  The Hungarian Cistercians took similar precautions at the end of the Middle Ages. Budapest, MNL DL 93676 (1498). The letters of affiliation of the Paulists only describe donations made by the new affiliates when there was to be the foundation of an anniversary Mass: Budapest, MNL DL 86589 (1456), 16869 (1470), 17454 (1473); whereas simple letters of confraternity do not include these indications: Budapest, MNL DL 15254 (1458), 37646 (1472, in favour of King Matthias Corvinus and his mother) — with rare exceptions (Budapest, MNL DF 229059, 1493). Similarly, in the Paulist formulary, letters of ordinary confraternity are without this information. The time — in the eleventh and twelfth centuries — when the Benedictines would spell out prior donations, thus giving themselves judicial weapons capable of preventing the heirs of their benefactors from taking back or claiming the conceded goods or from hampering their taxation (since they had become goods of the Church) was well and truly over. See the references provided in Chapter 1, in particular: Chibnall, ‘Liens de fraternitas’, pp. 236–38; Teunis, ‘Societas monachorum dans les cartulaires de Marmoutier’, p. 241. 97  See Chapter 6. 98  This reading has been proposed, concerning monastic spiritual confraternities, by Clark, ‘Monastic Confraternity in Medi­eval England’; de Miramon, Les ‘Donnés’ au Moyen Âge, p. 67.

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Exalting the propositum vitae of the Mendicants? Beyond these declarations dictated by imperatives which are at once theo­ logical, moral, and practical, and which have no specifically mendicant elements — except, perhaps, the insistence with which the Franciscans stress the destitution which prevents them from repaying their benefactors in material goods — the editorial particularities of the letters of the Hungarian corpus invite us to re-examine the hypothesis of a possible use, by the friars, of spiritual affiliation to propagate a certain image of themselves, and thus to demarcate their difference relative to the monks, for purposes of greater prestige, but also for pastoral ends. Beginning in the fifteenth century, throughout Christendom, letters of confraternity issued by the mendicants enthusiastically list, among the ‘makers’ of merits, nuns, and later tertiaries — despite the obvious impossibility for women to ‘produce’ the first of the bona spiritualia mentioned in the letters of affiliation: the Mass. The objective was to ‘add to the numbers’ in a belief system that valued intercession in multiple forms, but also to stress the plurality of the experiences lived by members of the order. Having appeared in England for the first time in about 1410 (for nuns), then again twenty years later (this time with regard to tertiaries) in the letters of the minister general William of Casale,99 the second and third orders figure in most of the letters issued after the middle of the fifteenth century by the Saxon reformer Matthias Döring, and in all the letters of Capistrano.100 However, within the Hungarian corpus, their place is quite limited. After John of Capistrano (from 1451), the superiors general (Dominican starting in 1456, Conventual Franciscan starting in 1464), the Conventual Franciscan provincials (starting in 1461), and all the Dominicans (the reforming vicars from 1452, the Hungarian provincials from 1477, even the friary priors, in the case of double monasteries such as that of Sighişoara)101 mention the sorores. The letter of the provincial prior of the Carmelites of 1480 also refers to them,102 but those of 1376 and of 1460 do not, nor does the model established in the name of the prior of Pécs in 1461. The silence of the Augustinian Hermits 99 

Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 62–63. Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, pp. 197–98; Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 63. 101  LC 105. See also the registry of the prior of this establishment, composed in the 1520s: ‘in graciarum accionem ad omnia beneficia fratrum et sororum se obligavit’. Ipolyi, ‘Adalékok a magyar domonkosok történetéhez’, p. 600 no. iv. 102  LC 50. 100 

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is not surprising in a country which had no convent of Augustinian nuns.103 The letters issued by the Observant Franciscans (except Capistrano) give little space to the Poor Clares: the cismontane vicars only mention them beginning in 1498 and the (Observant) minister general only in 1517;104 the commissaries general do not speak of them,105 and neither do the provincial ministers of Hungary106 and of Poland,107 nor the Hungarian custodians. The formularies from the beginning of the sixteenth century confirm this omission: the only model which evokes (in the 1530s) female religious comes from the minister general.108 This lacuna also characterizes the English Franciscan letters,109 but not the Irish ones after 1490.110 In Hungary, it probably has to do with the fact that the Observant Franciscans only had two houses of Poor Clares in their charge.111 Even more than the mention of nuns, the mention of tertiaries could be present as a mendicant ‘marker’. Very largely made up of women (especially in Hungary),112 third-order fraternities are designated in the letters of the corpus by various expressions, sometimes precise (‘sisters of the third order’, ‘order of penitence’, ‘tertiaries’), sometimes vague (‘the other orders’ and ‘all persons of the order’ in the letters of the masters general starting in 1480).113 The Franciscan writers often group them with the nuns.114 Consequently, we find the same trends described earlier relative to the second order, in particular the silence of the Observant Franciscan provincials on the subject. But the argu103 

De Cevins, ‘Les Ermites de saint Augustin en Hongrie médiévale’, p. 110. LC 114. 105  LC 92, 100, 102, 112, and 123. 106  A single exception: LC 88 (1502). 107  LC 59. 108  Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fol. 109. 109  In England, Poor Clares and tertiaries only figure in the letters issued by the cismontane commissioners (or the vicars of the cismontane commissioner general), in 1514 and then in 1533. Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, p. 16. 110  Gribbin and Ó Clabaigh, ‘Confraternity Letters’, pp. 461–62. 111  In Cluj and Sárospatak. De Cevins, Les Franciscains observants, Synoptic table of mendicant establishments, pp. 576–602. 112  Which the formula ‘sorores sancte Clare et tercii ordinis’, used by the minister of the Conventual Province of Hungary in 1522 (LC 120) clearly expresses. 113  LC 49 and 75. 114  Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 63. 104 

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ment of the number of establishments can no longer be considered, since the Friars Minor of the Observance had the care of nearly twenty beguine (begine) houses in about 1510.115 Curiously, the ‘excessive value of the third order’ granted by the cismontane Observance116 does not seem to have reached the Hungarian Observants. Other instances of reluctance appear outside of the Franciscan Observance. The Conventual Franciscans took almost forty years to add tertiaries to the female religious in their letters of affiliation (starting in 1503), 117 preceded in 1491 by the minister general Francis Samson.118 Among the Dominicans, although the master general mentions tertiaries in 1480,119 the Hungarian provincial and local superiors never make up their minds to do so — although they did have fraternities in Hungary,120 unlike the Carmelites and the Augustinian Hermits. When added to the absence of any female issuer, these elements confirm the unimpressive integration of consecrated women into the image that the mendicants projected of themselves at the end of the Middle Ages (from the perspective, in this case, of their capacity to generate salvational and redistributable ‘benefits’).121 Although there was some variation according to different orders and hierarchical levels, this situation clearly prevails among the Hungarian superiors. Was the spirituality that the mendicants put forward in their letters more explicitly attached to their identity as mendicantes? The theo­logical argument 115 

De Cevins, Les Franciscains observants, pp. 267–70. Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, p. 199. 117  LC 90. 118  LC 67. 119  LC 49. 120  Harsányi, A domonkosrend Magyarországon, pp. 312–17. 121  The Dominican sisters had only begun benefiting from the annual community suffrages in 1280, Daniel Picard reminds us in ‘Les Suffrages’, p. 109. And we know of the reservations of numerous Franciscans, such as Pseudo-Bonaventure (in a determinatio a little earlier than 1290, to which Charles de Miramon refers in Les ‘Donnés’ au Moyen Âge, p. 141 n. 1), concerning the aggregation of the Poor Clares into the order of Friars Minor at the end of the thirteenth century. A century and a half later, the gulf had still not been filled between the first and second order among the Dominicans: the Sisters of Notre-Dame de l’Abbiette requested their incorporation into the spiritual confraternity of the Friars Preachers of Lille. Lille, Archives départementales du Nord, 127 H11, MSS 116–26. Two priors of Flemish Dominican friaries admitted the female religious of neighbouring convents into their spiritual confraternity in 1467 and 1473. Litterae de beneficiis, ed. by Wolfs, pp. 29–30 no. 12, and pp. 32–33 no. 13. 116 

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deployed in the first lines of the letters of confraternity had accents that were more Augustinian (and later, monastic) than strictly mendicant, as we have noted. The dispositive part may provide more information. Seventy-eight letters (out of 122 whose content we know in detail) enumerate the ‘spiritual goods’ acquired by the friars — which the monks did not necessarily do.122 These expanded into an ever-lengthening list, which could suggest that the letters were expressly displaying a spiritual identity.123 The Franciscans seem to have been, according to Hugolin Lippens, the first of the mendicants to have established the inventory of these ‘spiritual goods’, at the very beginning of the fourteenth century.124 At first reduced to four bona (masses, sermons, vigils, prayers), this list later developed by stages, eventually reaching about fifteen items in the middle of the fifteenth century.125 The collection of letters gathered for this study confirms this inflation, in particular among the Franciscans and the Dominicans. Enumerations of spiritual goods are the general rule in Franciscan letters from the middle of the fifteenth century on. On the Conventual side, the provincial minister lists eight to twelve bona, with the minister general going as far as fourteen.126 The Hungarian Observants do better: if they never attain the sixteen bona of 122 

The oldest known Cistercian letters of confraternity, written by Bernard of Clairvaux in 1142 and 1148, conclude with ‘participem vos facimus omnium bonorum que fiunt et fient in ordine nostro usque in eternum’. Meersseman, ‘Two Unknown Confraternity Letters of St. Bernard’, p. 178. Hugolin Lippens cites another Cistercian letter, originating in the Abbey of Flines and dated 1301, which is just as laconic. Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 59. But, contrary to Lippens’s assumption, the paternity of these lists seems to belong to the monks or the canons regular, and not to the mendicants, who only further developed the practice. A charter of fraternitas granted in 1101 by the Benedictine abbot of Saint-Jacques of Liège to a Flemish noble already includes the enumeration of five bona, and another, Premonstratensian, lists four of them in 1186. The Cluniac statutes of 1078, for their part, limit themselves to orationes and elemosin(a)e. Bijsterveld, ‘Looking for Common Ground’, pp. 297, 307, and 311 — based on the edition by Gerzaguet, ‘Les Confraternités de l’abbaye de Marchiennes’, p. 321. 123  This is the line of inquiry explored by Ludovic Viallet in Les Sens de l’observance, pp. 195–96. 124  The claim is doubly erroneous since the monks were already practising these lists (as mentioned in a previous note) and since, among the mendicants, the Dominicans seem to have been the first to report them, according to the Hungarian corpus. 125  Fifteen goods in William of Casale, sixteen in John of Capistrano and then in Nicolas Guiotel, minister of the province of France, in 1473. Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 61–62. 126  See the tables of spiritual goods (Table 2) — as for all the following developments.

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Capistrano, only reproduced by the vicars general, they never go below twelve — or half that number for custodians. The overall record, taking account of all categories, is found in the Observant Hungarian formulary of the 1530s, which provides an example listing eighteen ‘goods’.127 We observe an analogous movement among the Dominicans. Contrary to the claims of Hugolin Lippens, they were visibly ahead of the Franciscans in this respect: the original letter of 1270 presents a list of ‘goods’ composed of seven elements.128 The one copied in the Ars notarialis of about 1350 includes eight.129 That is the base number in the ‘real’ acts of the following century. A provincial letter of 1504 reaches fourteen ‘goods’.130 The friary superiors count out ten or so (in 1451 and in 1509).131 Less prolix, the Augustinian Hermits and the Carmelites limit themselves to seven or eight items, with the Augustinian provincial of Hungary rarely reaching a dozen.132 These long catalogues reinforce the previously mentioned impression of profusion, more emphasized than in the monastic letters. But is the spirituality that they describe truly ‘mendicant’? For this to be the case, these letters would need firstly to set themselves apart from those of the other affiliating orders, and secondly to attach themselves to the guiding principles of the mendicant propositum. Yet the investigations into the Hungarian corpus confirm neither of these two hypotheses. At the head of the list, practically without exception, we find miss(a)e. We know the role of the mendicants in the rise of the Eucharistic cult, from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, and the importance accorded to the Mass in their pastoral ethos.133 They were not, however, its only promoters. As early as the beginning of the twelfth century, the Black Monks had begun their inventories with miss(a)e. 134 As a general rule, both secular and regular 127 

Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fol. 109v. LC 1. 129  Formulae solennes styli, ed. by Kovachich, p. 366 no. 384. 130  LC 95. 131  LC 21, 105. 132  LC 62. 133  See the nuanced assessment in Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, pp. 157–58. 134  The charter of fraternitas delivered by the Benedictine abbot of Saint-Jacques of Liège in 1101 (referred to in an earlier note) mentions the ‘masses, psalms, prayers, fasts, vigils, and other good works’ whose benefits will be shared with the new member. Bijsterveld, ‘Looking for Common Ground’, pp. 296–97. 128 

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preachers, won over by the icono­graphy of the last two centuries of the Middle Ages, strongly insisted on the effectiveness of the Holy Sacrifice in the reduction of the sufferings of purgatory.135 Generally, it is ‘orisons’ (oraciones) which appear in second position, confirming, unsurprisingly, the place of the mendicants among the oratores. Next, the Friars Minor, both the Conventuals and the Observants, name ‘divine offices’, followed by predicationes, whereas the Dominicans, the Augustinians, and the Carmelites generally place sermons in third place, with the offices (or canonical hours) being relegated to a lower position in the list, or omitted entirely. The mention and the order of appearance of the remaining graces vary so much from one letter to another that they escape any attempt at generalization. In the whole group, no element refers to humility and poverty (or to humility through poverty). The alms are those distributed by the friars, and not the ones they receive. Moreover, the phantom presence of charitable activities in the lists of bona136 (in contrast to their place in documents of Benedictine monks137 and of the Hospitallers of Saint John138) confirms the secondary importance of these activities in the life of the mendicants and in the image they projected of themselves. Preaching is relegated to the background, thus breaking with the tradition of the oldest Franciscan lists. The indefatigable preacher John of Capistrano only mentions predicationes in eleventh position in his letters! The promotion of the mass, of prayers — by default, collective139 — and of the divine office (or of the ‘canonical hours’) turned the mendicants into priests, monks, contemplatives.140 Although this promotion tied in with one of the major preoccupations of the Observants (we will return to this point), it was not the exclusive prerogative of the mendicants. Masses and orisons open the enumerations in a number of letters issued by the Paulists141 and by the 135 

Fournié, Le Ciel peut-il attendre?, pp. 39–40 and 89–91. A single late model mentions them: Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fol. 111v. 137  Bijsterveld, ‘Looking for Common Ground’, p. 297; Vincent, Des charités bien ordon­ nées, p. 88 (Abbey of Fécamp). 138  A Hungarian example: Budapest, MNL DL 46604 (1502). 139  As long as the adjective privata or interna is not applied to the word oracio (or recollec­ tio), which is the case here. Viallet, ‘Prière au cloître’. 140  The same observation, based on Observant Franciscan normative texts, appears in Viallet, ‘Prière au cloître’, p. 103. 141  Preserved nominative letters: Budapest, MNL DL 86589 (1456), 15254 (1458), 37646 (1472), 93644 (1495). Models recorded in the formulary of the 1530s: Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fols 55v–56r, 56r–58r, 58r–v, 58v–59r, 115v–117r, and 117r–v. 136 

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Carthusians142 to the faithful of Hungary. They also head the lists in the acts established by the canons regular of Třeboň (in Bohemia) for their Augustinian coreligionists of Lanškroun.143 Fasting, penance, and disciplines, unevenly represented in the Hungarian mendicant corpus, drew the friars towards asceticism, and the ‘spiritual exercises’ mentioned beginning in the 1450s and especially after 1500 took them in the direction of the devotio moderna. Signs of the interiorization of faith (‘meditations’, ‘contemplations’, ‘silences’) become increasingly frequent. But here again, the mendicants were by no means the exclusive practitioners of these trends. The letters of the Paulists and the Carthusians speak, at the same period, of ‘fasting’ and ‘abstinence’ and stress mystical contemplation (‘contemplations’, ‘public and secret orisons’, ‘devotions’).144 At best, these sketch out a relationship between the mendicants and the eremitic or contemplative orders. By widening the field, we notice that the most stable elements of the lists of bona found in the letters of confraternity we have studied reflect the forms of suffrages favouring the souls of the departed that late medi­eval preachers enumerated to their public: Mass, alms, prayer, and fasting, to which they sometimes add abstinence and pilgrimage or crusade.145 These must therefore also be reset into the framework of the medi­eval theo­logy of salvation. Furthermore, the variations are so great within each mendicant order (including at equal hierarchical levels and at the same period) that it is difficult to see in these lists of bona an intentional public image.146 These variations were conditioned in particular by the rank of the addressee: the longest series are found in the letters addressed to powerful recipients.147 Last but not least, more than a third of the acts of the corpus (or forty-three letters, issued by all four 142  Letters from Hungarian priors: Budapest, MNL DL 15841 (1463), 93301 (1464), 93376 (1467); the prior general of the Grande Chartreuse: Budapest, MNL DL 93608 (1490). 143  Krafl, Mutlová, and Stehlíková, Řeholní kanovníci sv. Augustina v Lanškrouně, p. 154 no. 19. 144  See the references given in notes 141 and 142, above. 145  Fournié, Le Ciel peut-il attendre?, p. 39. 146  Consequently, we should not consider letters of confraternity as ‘very interesting documents on Franciscan piety’, despite the hopes formulated in 1929 by Johannes Kist in ‘Der hl. Johannes Kapistran’, p. 195 — quoted by Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, p. 168. 147  When the Observant vicar of Hungary Valentine of Sziget affiliates Barbara of Rozgony, widow of the aristocrat Ladislas of Szécsény, in 1468, he cites twelve spiritualia bona; two years later, the same vicar of Hungary dispenses with any enumeration in the letter that he addresses to the nobles of Zala. LC 43 and 44.

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mendicant orders and as late as the 1520s) include no enumeration — whereas the canons regular of Bohemia had been including these lists continuously since at least 1387,148 and the Paulists had done so assiduously since the 1450s.149 The Franciscans themselves did not always hold themselves to this practice, and this was true both over their years as an undivided order (no lists of bona in their letters before those of Capistrano), and still more after the Observant scission. Although the Conventuals gradually adapted to the practice, the Hungarian Observants (provincials and custodians) rarely followed it until about 1500, and only intermittently after that.150 The neighbouring vicars and provincial ministers, of Poland (in 1487), Austria (1507), Bohemia (1509), and Bosnia (1513 and 1519) had greater recourse to it.151 Whatever the reasons for this Hungarian instability, it weakens the thesis of the use (even as a secondary purpose) of these acts of affiliation by the friars to promote mendicant spirituality beyond their friary walls. In the light of these different indicators, trying to see letters of confraternity as a ‘concentrate’ of mendicant spirituality seems risky. The thesis of a strictly mendicant use of spiritual affiliation — a use which would have been conquering rather than defensive — is thus indisputably weakened. Before dismissing it definitively, however, we should make a closer examination of the situation within each order.

148 

In 1387, the Augustinian Canons of Lanškroun extended participation in the ‘masses, abstinences, vigils, alms, and all other goods’ to the Canons of Třeboň, who responded to them using an almost identical list (‘masses, orisons, abstinences, vigils, alms, and all other goods’). Krafl, Mutlová, and Stehlíková, Řeholní kanovníci sv. Augustina v Lanškrouně, p. 152 no. 18, and p. 154 no. 19. 149  Formularium maius, ed. by Romhányi and Sarbak. The letter granted by the abbot of Heiligenkreuz to Peter of Söpte in 1498 allows us to measure the distance which then separated the Cistercians from the mendicants, the Carthusians, and the Paulists: there is no enumeration of bona opera, and the entire document is only ten lines long! Budapest, MNL DL 93676. 150  This is confirmed by the letters written in the formularies of the start of the sixteenth century: out of six models from the formulary of 1510–25, three have no list. Budapest, OSzK, MS Cod. Lat. 432, fols 55v–56r, 58r–v, 58v–59r. The one from the 1530s suggests a more stable usage. 151  LC 59, 102, 106, 109, and 116.

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The Franciscans and Spiritual Confraternity Without any doubt, the Franciscans were the ones, of all the ordines mendi­ cantes, who gave spiritual confraternity its maximum scope in the late Middle Ages throughout the Christian West.152 Seventy per cent of the Hungarian series of letters of affiliation are Franciscan.153 The predominance of the Friars Minor appears particularly strong in Hungary,154 even when considered in the context of their establishment in the kingdom. Once past the reflux of the first part of the fifteenth century, which the Franciscans seem to have resisted better than the Dominicans, their place as the principal issuers of letters of suffrages in Hungary was assured.155 The composition of these letters employed a large number of their scribes: these acts represent the majority of Franciscan documents preserved in the Hungarian archives (especially for the Observants);156 whereas only a handful of their acts granting indulgences, free choice of personal confessor, and burial in the friary have survived. Might the Franciscans have set spiritual confraternity at the very heart of their relationships with the ‘outside world’? The Undivided and Conventual Franciscans The meagre stock of nominative letters issued by the undivided Franciscans (eight letters prior to 1448) and then the Conventuals (thirteen letters) fixes our analysis within narrow limits. It is nonetheless revealing of several trends. 152 

See Chapter 1. This imbalance does not relate, we must remember, to the structure of the archive collections explored in the context of this study, since that structure gives priority to no single order, as specified in Chapter 2. 154  In England, the geo­graphical sphere best explored to date, the proportions that appear from the inventory of William Clark-Maxwell in 1929 (twenty Franciscan letters out of a total of sixty-six mendicant letters of affiliation, the Dominicans almost tied with nineteen letters, just ahead of the seventeen Augustinian letters) were modified by the more systematic investigations of Andrew Little and of Francis Roth in the English archives, which seem to show a clear Franciscan predominance (fifty-seven acts, this time only considering letters of confraternity stricto sensu, versus about fifteen Augustinian letters) in the absence, for now, of an exhaustive inventory of the Dominican letters. See Chapter 2. 155  See Graphs 4 and 5. 156  Two-thirds of the acts composed by the ‘Brothers of Cseri’ are letters of affiliation: according to Balázs Kertész, they constitute thirty-eight of the sixty-six writings (forty-four charters and seventeen letters) preserved in their original state in Hungary and its surrounding countries. A magyarországi, ed. by Kertész, p. 28. 153 

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In its early iteration, the practice of affiliation was spread over all the hierarchical levels of the order, from the minister general to the guardians, half a century before the Franciscan and papal authorities gave permission to all the officiales to admit confratres. Of the eight letters emanating from the undivided Franciscans that have survived, two were established by the minister general, five by a provincial minister, and one by a guardian.157 This last confirms that the logic of proximity, which prevailed among the monks, also played a role in the blossoming of the Franciscan spiritual confraternity. The affiliations continued after the birth of the Observant vicariate of Hungary (in 1448) and then the adoption by the non-Observant friaries — grouped in the ‘Hungarian province of reformed Conventuals’ — of the reformed statutes of 1454.158 Noticing that they were losing the favour of the elites, who preferred the Observant Franciscans to them, the Conventuals visibly sought to consolidate, by spiritual confraternity, the support that they still had. In support of this hypothesis, we see that the degree of incorporation increases: at the time of the undivided order, the Franciscans (unlike the Dominicans) only granted admittance into ‘ordinary’ confraternity;159 whereas after 1448 (as in England),160 they prioritized ‘major’ incorporation — in particular between 1461 and 1491, after which they oscillated between the two levels. They had massive recourse to spiritual confraternity at the height of their rivalry with the Observants in Hungary, at the turn of the sixteenth century.161 The provincial minister Andrew of Bácsa issued a ‘fill-in-the-blanks’ letter (one of very few in the Hungarian corpus) in 1503, a sign of regular, ongoing production.162 Luke of Segesd, the provincial minister in the 1490s, and again from 1507 on,163 was himself the author of three letters in the corpus.164 On the other hand, we find no further guardians (and still no custodians) among the dispensers of association with the merits. The provincial minister becomes the principal issuer (eight letters out of eleven) far ahead of the minister general. Did the restrictions in effect for the Observants inspire the Conventuals? Probably. 157 

LC 19 (1442). See Chapter 3. 159  At most, they added burial in the friary to (minor) entry into spiritual confraternity. LC 17 and 18. 160  Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, p. 14. 161  De Cevins, Les Franciscains observants, p. 60. 162  LC 90. 163  De Cevins, Les Franciscains observants, pp. 112, 281. 164  LC 68, 104, 113. 158 

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Without moving away from the common mould described earlier, the formulation of several letters of the Conventual Franciscans explicitly proclaimed the heritage of the poverello. The devotion of the future confrater to St Francis is invoked there as part of the exposition of motives — and not just to designate the order.165 This devotion is associated with the Virgin Mary from the time when the province of the Franciscans officially bore the name of the Marian province (1523). But the indicators of a traditional Franciscanism stop there. And they are tenuous: Marian devotion also appears in other letters, both previous to the Observant scission and non-Franciscan.166 Overall, the corpus studied seems to prove that the Conventuals (in particular, Hungarian) identified themselves, above all, as reformati. The provincials of Hungary, from Fabian of Igal in 1461 to Francis of Lippa in 1523,167 reproduce, almost word for word, the formula launched by Capistrano invoking the impossibility for the friars of ‘reimbursing’ material benefits other than in the form of spiritual goods. They go even further than him. In a unique trait (one which is found neither among the Observant Franciscans nor among the other mendicants), they enrich the argument of Capistrano with an explicit reference to the sequela Christi inspired by the celebrated formula of St Jerome (‘follow, naked, the naked Christ’)168 — while the Observants were content to refer to themselves as ‘destitute of temporal goods’.169 Radical poverty is thus reaffirmed. In a convergent indicator, the lists of bona enumerated in the letters of the Conventual Franciscans from 1461 on resemble those of the Observant Franciscans so closely as to be virtually indistinguishable from them.170 The triad instructiones – studii – exercitationes, which seems to have characterized the Conventuals in opposition to the Observants throughout Christendom,171 appears via the quill of the minister general in the period from the 1460s to 165  We read, for example: ‘Proinde devotionem vestram laudabilem, quam ob Dei omnipotentis amorem, sanctissimeque Virginis Marie reverentiam ac beatissimi patris nostri seraphici Francisci merita fratrum meorum relatione cognovi’. LC 124. 166  LC 18 (1438), and notably in two Dominican letters: LC 72 (1493) and 105 (1509). 167  LC 35 and LC 124, respectively. 168  LC 35, 120, and 124 (‘nudum Christum crucifixum Salvatorem nostrum sequimur’, a longer extract of which has been quoted and translated as note 76, above). 169  See the previous section. 170  See Table 2. 171  Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 62 and pp. 79–80; Viallet, Les Sens de l’obser­ vance, p. 197.

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the 1480s,172 then disappears after 1490;173 and it is never employed by the provincials of Hungary. Simultaneously, without even considering ‘spiritual charisms’,174 which were polysemic (as we have seen) or auto­graph subscriptions (discussed in the preceding chapter), the elements reflecting a reforming orientation are advancing, in particular contemplations and, more discreetly, meditations. The ‘observance’ or ‘observance of regular vows’, on the other hand, is only cited by the ministers general.175 Thus, the letters of the Hungarian Conventuals did not merely preserve a Franciscan unity of tone overshadowing divergent choices in the area of administrative organization (sub ministris versus sub vicariis). Even more than the Observants, they emphasized regular reform, confirming the commitment of the Hungarian Conventuals to this orientation. They thus illustrate a very different situation from the one we observe in England, where the use of the word confraternitas was sufficient to distinguish the two branches of Franciscans from each other176 — not to mention in Ireland, where the Observants seem to have been the only Friars Minor to practise affiliation.177 For all that, the Conventuals did not make spiritual confraternity the pivotal point of their relations with their benefactors. The number of letters which have survived appears low at the ell of their establishment in Hungary,178 although this alone is not a sufficient criterion for judgement.179 The explanation may be economic. The material foundation of their houses (until the restrictions imposed by Luke of Segesd beginning in 1507) and their mainly urban establishment (which generated bequests often linked to pro anima foundations on the part of the bourgeois) preserved the Conventuals sufficiently against material uncertainties that they could dispense with massive recourse to spiritual 172 

LC 39 (1464) and LC 61 (1488). LC 67 (1491) and the following letters. 174  From LC 35 on. 175  See Table 2. 176  Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, p. 16. 177  Gribbin and Ó Clabaigh, ‘Confraternity Letters’, p. 461. 178  While (as Chapter 3 has recalled) the Conventuals had about forty friaries around the year 1500 and the Observants had seventy, the former left only ten letters of affiliation, while the Observant Franciscans produced fifty between 1476 and 1525. See Graphs 4 and 5. 179  Since the benefactors of the Conventuals were largely recruited among the urban bourgeoisie, it is possible that their letters of affiliation have disappeared in greater proportions than those of the Observants. 173 

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confraternity.180 The Observant Franciscans, on the other hand, did not have this freedom. The Franciscans of the Observance Specialists in Franciscan history have shown that between the rise of mendicant confraternities and the movements of regular reform (within and outside of the Observance), there is not only concomitance but also convergence of substance. This was true in particular in central-eastern Europe and in the German countries, where the two forms of Observance, that promoted by Capistrano and that of Matthias Döring, had recourse to spiritual confraternity.181 In sync with the notion of spiritual family reinvigorated by the reforming Franciscans, spiritual confraternity offered them the practical possibility of rewarding their donors without getting involved in the system of perpetual foundations, which contravened the principle of radical poverty by positing as a prior condition the transfer of a property or revenue.182 John of Capistrano, engaged in a fierce struggle against heresy and the infidels, made spiritual confraternity into a weapon of a ‘conquering pastoral care’, notably during his Central European tour.183 The Hungarian documentation corroborates the existence of a regional reform dynamic that was associated with spiritual confraternity — as much among the Friars Minor as among the Friars Preachers. The scale of incorporation in ten or so Franciscan and Dominican letters reproduces the great spatial entities carved out in the middle of the fifteenth century to promote the Observance in Central Europe, englobing Austria, Poland, Bohemia, and Hungary in the same group.184 The Franciscans of the Observance were unquestionably the largest issuers of the letters of the Hungarian series: sixty-six acts, or 62 per cent of the letters delivered between the foundation of the Observant Vicariate of Hungary in 1448 and the year 1526. They never ceased consolidating their position, attaining 71 per cent of the total in the first quarter of the sixteenth century185 and 180 

De Cevins, ‘Les Frères mendiants et l’économie en Hongrie médiévale’. See Chapter 1, where the essential biblio­graphic references relative to the history of the Franciscan Observance may be found. 182  Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, pp. 166–67. 183  Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, pp. 199–200. 184  LC 22, 24–27, 37, 59, 102, and 106. See also Map 1. 185  See Graphs 4 and 5. 181 

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far exceeding their rate of national establishment (38 per cent of the mendicant friaries of Hungary around the year 1500).186 The friars of Hungary took an active role in this expansion, with thirty-nine letters (59 per cent). The admissions curve and the hierarchical level of the dispensers of letters quite faithfully reproduce the inflexions of their history. The expansion of the second half of the fifteenth century in fact corresponds to the peak of the foundations of new friaries in Hungary — except for a slight subsidence in the 1470s and 1480s, doubtless resulting from the efficiently run reform of the Conventuals.187 It is worth mentioning, however, that the involvement of the Hungarian Observant superiors was not immediate: a lag of at least three decades separates the letters issued by John of Capistrano, the initiator of the movement between 1451 and 1456, and the ‘boom’ of admissions per litteras granted by Hungarian officiales, in the 1490s.188 The reflux of the years 1505 to 1515 reflects the internal rifts that preceded, accompanied, and followed the peasant war of 1514;189 it is only partially offset by the production of the general and cismontane superiors. The Hungarian affiliations finally start up again in the 1520s — proof that, on the eve of the decisive confrontation with the Ottoman invaders, and right in the midst of the propagation of Lutheranism, the ‘Friars of Cseri’ had regained the trust of the Hungarian elites. The institutional evolution, singular to say the least, of the vicariate and then the province of Hungary is apparent through the various offices of the issuers. From the time when the institution was only a vicaria, its head was rapidly recognized as the main affiliator (thirty-one letters), in line with the general legislation, which authorized Observant vicars (general but also provincial) to grant admissions into the spiritual confraternity of the order as early as 1415.190 After John of Capistrano,191 some vicars and commissaries general addressed a dozen or so acts of association to Hungarians, 192 without ever 186 

See Chapter 3. De Cevins, Les Franciscains observants, ­graph I, p. 562. 188  See Graphs 11, 12, 13, and 14. 189  De Cevins Les Franciscains observants, pp. 337–66. 190  Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, pp. 63–64. 191  He is careful to specify, starting in 1453, that he was qualified, although his charge was that of inquisitor and no longer of vicar general, to admit members into the confraternity of the order. ‘Eapropter ego qui specialem auctoritatem habeo recipiendi quoscumque devotos nostri ordinis ad confraternitatem fratrum minorum de Observancia nuncupatorum’. LC 24–32. 192  LC 83, 91, 92, 94, 98, 101, 102, 110, 112, and 123. 187 

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equaling the output of Capistrano, who, on his own, had granted (at least) ten letters over the course of six years (1451–56). The cismontane officiales become particularly discreet over the long half century during which the vicariate of Hungary, detached from the ‘cismontane family’, answered directly to the minister general of the order (1458–1502), who left no letter prior to the fusion of 1517. The predominance of the provincial echelon in the process of confraternal admission therefore reflects, beyond doubt, the strong centralization of the vicariate of Hungary, but also its prolonged autonomy with respect to the cismontane Observance.193 A contrario, the return to the familia cismontana that was decided in 1502 brought about a sudden augmentation in cismontane affiliations, followed after 1517 by interventions by the minister general (three letters in four years, from 1517 to 1520),194 of which the formulary of the 1530s preserves a final record.195 They are part of the context of the resubmission of the Observant provinces at the time of the heated polemics that had led to the institutional scissions of 1517 and 1523. The Observant Hungarian guardians did not deliver letters of confraternity. Although the provincial Constitutions of 1499 did allow them the ancient capacity to grant burials (including in the habit, of the first order for men, and of the tertiary order for women),196 they only explicitly attribute the power of delivering acts of affiliation to custodians.197 By doing so, they confirmed a practice that had been rising in the Hungarian vicariate since the 1480s: five letters by Observant custodians follow one another from 1480 to 1495.198 By restricting this prerogative to the upper hierarchical echelons, the Hungarian provincials sought to protect the guardians from the temptation of ‘selling’ let-

193 

De Cevins, Les Franciscains observants, pp. 151–93. LC 114, 115, and 117. 195  Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fol. 108r. This is a purely fictional model: the minister general in it is given the (generic) name of Nicolaus of N, when there was no minister with that name at the head of the order in those years. 196  ‘Item patres guardiani possunt concedere devotis secularibus habitum nostrum ut in illo moriantur et sepeliantur’. Batthyány, Leges ecclesiasticae, p. 615. 197  ‘Item custodes possunt concedere litteras confraternales’. Batthyány, Leges ecclesiasticae, p. 614. 198  After 1499, on the other hand, custodians only established two nominative letters (one in 1511 and the other in 1522) and provide no model in the formulary of the years 1510 to 1525 — with the one from the 1530s including two letters out of fourteen. Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fol. 116v. 194 

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ters in response to the slightest material difficulty. Successfully, if the absence of letters from guardians in the Hungarian collections is any indication. Other signs lead us to believe that the Hungarian Observant leaders were circumspect in their use of spiritual confraternity. At the editorial level, they pushed mimicry to the maximum. Once we move beyond the initial tentative production of letters (in the 1450s),199 we need only read two or three letters from the Hungarian corpus to get an idea of the content of all the rest — except for tiny details, manifestly arbitrary, in word order or punctuation. The numerous variants encoded by the formularies of the start of the sixteenth century, which establish subtle distinctions according to whether the addressee is a lay person of more or less high birth, man or woman, cleric, lay confraternity, etc., are not reproduced in the ‘real’ letters. Might this immobility of form reflect mass production? The pace of the issuing of acts of incorporation leads us to doubt this.200 It may be a reflection of the spirit of the Observance, the strict application of the rule being in this case transposed into the realm of editorial composition. The matrix used by the Hungarian editors of letters of confraternity draws largely, from the 1460s onward,201 on the archetypal formulary followed by Capistrano during his stay in Central Europe.202 It is recognizable, as we will recall, by the concessive formula concerning the ‘debt of charity’, by the mention of ‘spiritual charisms’, and (although this practice would not spread until the end of the fifteenth century) by the auto­graph manual signature. Capistrano, who was associated with the Christian victory at Belgrade and soon credited in Hungary with numerous miracles around his body buried in Ilok (Újlak), and who was the author of the very first Observant Franciscan letters granted to Hungarians, seems to have brought a sacred guarantee to the texts of later letters. Still, despite the three borrowings of form previously mentioned, the rest of the model was, so to speak, emptied of its Observant ‘markers’, in particular the ‘Capistranian’ ones. First, while John of Capistrano always granted ‘major’ confraternity,203 the officiales of Hungary pronounced ‘ordinary’ admissions.204 199 

LC 23. See Graphs 11 and 12. 201  Beginning with LC 36 and remaining true until the formulary of the 1530s. 202  It is described (with translation and commentary) in Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, pp. 192–94. 203  Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, p. 161. 204  One exception, granted to a commendatary abbot, in 1502: LC 88. 200 

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The collection from the years 1510 to 1525 includes two ‘superior’ models (as compared to four models of ‘simple’ admission), but one is in the name of the cismontane commissary;205 similarly, in the formulary of the 1530s, one of the two ‘major’ admissions (as opposed to twelve ‘minor’ ones) is established in the name of the minister general.206 The vicars of the neighbouring provinces, for their part, showed themselves to be more generous.207 Did the Hungarian Observants fear sullying this grace by granting it too easily at its higher level? Pragmatically, they may have sought to avoid drying up the source of revenues represented by pro anima foundations. The Hungarian sources in fact invite us to avoid diametrically opposing spiritual confraternity and individual celebrations by assuming that the first, being ‘observant-compatible’, would have replaced the second: the Observant Franciscans also accepted private foundations, on condition that they consist of grouped (and not perpetual) celebrations and that they be backed by a capital donation (rather than property or revenue).208 Moreover, in contrast to Capistrano, the Hungarian superiors did not practise collective admissions.209 We will recall, furthermore, that the Poor Clares and the tertiaries, systematically mentioned by the Italian preacher, only appear very late as producers of merits among the Hungarian Observants. The list of bona enumerated in their acts, shorter than those of Capistrano, fluctuates from one letter to another, according to a random order.210 As confirmation of the lesser pastoral function of letters of confraternity, the cult of the name of Jesus, promoted by Bernardino of Siena and then by Capistrano, and men-

205 

Budapest, OSzK, MS Cod. Lat. 432, fols 56r–57r (in the name of the cismontane commissary James of Mantua) and fols 115v–117r (on behalf of a vicar of Hungary, also a commissary general, who is not named). 206  Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fols 109r–110r. 207  LC 59, 102, 106, and 109. 208  De Cevins, ‘Les Frères mendiants et l’économie en Hongrie médiévale’, pp. 191–92. As proof, in 1510, the guardian of Voćin declared to the patronus (in the sense of recognized protector) of the friary that he had received alms from the bishop (of Zagreb?) for ‘missas pro eodem dicemus plures ac certas oraciones’. Budapest, MNL DL 104224. After 1526, to remedy difficulties of subsistence for the friaries, the Hungarian Observant leaders no longer hesitated, according to a model from the formulary of 1530, to grant, along with spiritual confraternity, pro anima celebrations. Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fol. 115. 209  See Chapter 4. 210  See Table 2.

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tioned by the Hungarian provincial Constitutions of 1499,211 is rarely brought to the fore: out of three letters containing a trigram or the name of Jesus, two are by Capistrano and the third, dated 1461, comes from Stephen of Vassány.212 Stripped of his functions the following year at the request of the members of his province, this figure visibly represented a minority current within the Hungarian Observance.213 The vicar of Hungary, Gabriel of Pécsvárad, is one of the few issuers in the corpus to evoke devotion to the Divine Name in 1511.214 The commemoration of the poverello, rarely present (except on a few seals, as detailed in Chapter 4) seems to be a holdover from the period when the order was undivided, rather than an expression of the will to restore Franciscanism to its origins.215 After 1510, we see the appearance, in both letters and formularies, of several bona attaching a particular value to asceticism (penance, discipline, abstinence, and fasting) as well as elements of the devotio moderna (in particular the spiritualia exercitia at the end of the list)216 or even of mysticism (following the ‘inspirations’ of Capistrano, we see ‘sighs’ and ‘tears’ in two models from the formulary of the 1530s).217 ‘Readings’, ‘meditations’, and ‘contemplations’ were all elements of the return of the friars to the cloister which accompanied the Franciscan reforms, from Italy to Central Europe.218 But they took half a century to appear in the letters issued by the Hungarian superiors,219 and they were not reserved for the Observant Franciscans. Added to the fact that almost all of the acts of affiliation issued by the superiors of the Franciscan Observance were evidently responding to external solicitations, these data encourage us to think that the Hungarian Observant Franciscans made a very different use of affiliation per litteras than that of the Italian and German leaders of Franciscan reform. It had no other function, in their eyes, than to satisfy the benefactors — noble or aristocratic, for the 211 

De Cevins, Les Franciscains observants, p. 251. LC 20, 29, and 36. 213  De Cevins, Les Franciscains observants, p. 66. 214  ‘devotionem itaque tuam laudabilem quam divini nominis pariter et amoris ob respectum ac beatissimi patris nostri seraphici Francisci merita preclara nostrum prefatum ad ordinem gerere comprobaris’. LC 108. 215  LC 23, 36, and 108. 216  Budapest, OSzK, MSS Cod. Lat. 432, fols 57r–58r, 116v, and Oct. Lat. 775, fol. 109v. 217  Budapest, OSzK, MS Oct. Lat. 775, fols 109r and 116r. 218  Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, in particular ch. 2, pp. 75–124; Viallet, ‘Prière au cloître’. 219  See Table 2. 212 

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most part — who demanded it from them. Acting out of necessity, they distributed it parsimoniously (to a lesser degree and individually), integrating it into their plan of strengthening their institutional frameworks (whence the concentration of affiliations in the hands of provincials and custodians, and the early standardization of the text of the letters), even if this meant stripping their acts of a large part of the ‘Capistranian’ heritage. Thus, the Hungarian file, if it does not invalidate the hypothesis of a privileged relationship, in Central Europe, between spiritual confraternity and Franciscan reform, brings forward additional evidence for the diversity of the faces of the Observance in this geo­ graphical sphere. The Observant Franciscans set themselves apart by their will to take part in the initiatives launched by Capistrano, while bending them to local conditions.220

The Other Mendicants The predilection for the Friars Minor among most of the researchers working on the mendicants and their influence does not erase the fact that spiritual confraternity was never a Franciscan monopoly, no more in Hungary than in the rest of Christendom. The earliest letter of the Hungarian corpus (1270) is Dominican, we should recall. The four mendicant orders that were established in Hungary all associated non-religious with their merits as early as the 1370s. They remained active in this area until the end of the 1520s. The Dominicans Quantitatively, the Dominicans are in second place after the Franciscans, having produced slightly under a quarter of the letters of confraternity that have been inventoried in Hungary (twenty-eight). Taken in relation to the number of their Hungarian houses and of their members, this figure reflects a respectable involvement in the development of mendicant spiritual confraternities.221 The acts of affiliation issued by Hungarian superiors predominate here again: they form almost two-thirds of the total of known Dominican letters. It is true that they make up only a small proportion of the writing activity of the friaries.222 220 

De Cevins, Les Franciscains observants, pp. 195–229. We should remember that they had about forty houses around the year 1500 — versus about 110 Franciscan friaries in around 1520. See Chapter 3. 222  The index of the Hungarian National Archives lists 260 charters delivered by Dominican superiors, almost all Hungarian. 221 

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But, as with the Conventual Franciscans, we must take into account documentary losses: principally based in the towns, the Dominicans probably affiliated numerous burghers whose personal archives have disappeared. The Dominicans became involved in the rise of spiritual confraternities in Hungary very early: they issued six of the fifteen mendicant letters for the period 1270 to 1400, which is 40 per cent of the ones which have survived.223 They stood their ground against the Observant Franciscan ‘success story’ in Hungary (producing 31 per cent of the acts of the last quarter of the fifteenth century), only slowing down after 1500 (four letters, or less than 10 per cent of the total).224 All the hierarchical levels took part in the movement: eight letters (out of twenty-eight) came from the master general and three from a friary prior (two of these Hungarian), with the remaining letters coming from priors of the province of Hungary (sixteen) or, more rarely, reforming vicars (two issuers, one of whom was also the prior of the friary of Vienna). Unlike the Franciscans, the friary superiors continued to affiliate after the middle of the fifteenth century, at least in those houses which stayed apart from the reform movement.225 If some priors stud their letters with turns of phrase of their own invention,226 the Hungarian provincials, like the superiors general, resist all editorial caprice.227 We find, after 1480 and until the first printed letters, preambles which could be equally at home in the middle of the fourteenth century.228 At least until the Observant fracture, the Dominican letters express a vision of spiritual confraternity which recalls, in many respects, the monastic tradition. It inextricably combines prayers of intercession by the friars and participation in their merits, and the community aspect of the grace is here reduced 223  They seem to be more active in this area than in Flanders, according to the collection of letters gathered by Servatius Wolfs in Litterae de beneficiis (after the one from 1243, the next one dates from 1397). 224  See Graphs 4 and 5. 225  See Table 1. 226  See for example LC 105. 227  The letters of the Polish formulary of about 1400 are more inventive, notably when it comes to theo­logical justification. Dictamina Litterarum, ed. by Woroniecki and Fijalek, pp. 78–79 nos 76 and 77, p. 80 no. 79, pp. 81–82 no. 83, p. 83 no. 85, p. 101 no. 126, and pp. 162–64 nos 294 to 298. 228  LC 55, 56, 57, 58 (1485–86), and 75 (1494), which may be compared to LC 6 (1348), 12 (1366). The preamble and the exposition of motives only differ in the letters addressed to (lay) confraternities (LC 72).

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to its salvational effects. A first sign of this is found in the rarity of occurrences of the word confraternitas (or fraternitas), present in the model of the Ars notarialis written in about 1350,229 but only used by friary superiors and the reforming provincial Mark of Debrecen.230 The term suffragia, recurrent in the Dominican letters of affiliation in the corpus,231 maintains the confusion.232 Letters of recommendation issued by the Hungarian Dominicans have recourse, for their part, to similar turns of phrase.233 The identity of the order is no more emphasized than for the Friars Minor. The only allusion to the devotion of the future confrater to St Dominic, associated with his devotion to the Virgin Mary, appears through the quill of the prior of the non-reformed friary of Sighişoara in 1509.234 We notice only the higher ranking (in third place) of predicaciones in the classification of spiritual goods, in comparison to the Franciscans, especially Observant. Overall, the list of bona fluctuates little from one letter to another: masses, prayers, sermons, and fasts are systematically cited in that order, followed by vigils and abstinence. The labores, very monastic, are present beginning with the model of the Ars notarialis in about 1350, and they close the enumeration until around

229 

Formulae solennes styli, ed. by Kovachich, p. 366 no. 384. Indeed, it is not restricted to the Hungarian letters. See Picard, ‘Les Suffrages’, examples given in footnotes. In the Polish Dominican formulary, on the other hand, numerous models bear the name of littera fraternitatis, in alternance with vaguer names (littera de suffragiis, pro beneficiis). Dictamina Litterarum, ed. by Woroniecki and Fijalek. 231  LC 22, 72, 105, etc. 232  On the ambiguity of this term, see Chapter 4. 233  For example, in 1376: ‘quod merito fratrum orationibus nostri ordinis una cum liberis vestris estis recommandandi cordialiter et haspiranter’. Budapest, MNL DL 103341; Iványi, Dominikánus levelek, pp. 35–36 no. 4. However, the amalgamation is not pushed as far in Hungary as in Poland, where several Dominican models copied in about 1400 assimilate participation in merits and intercession. We read in one of them, applying to a deceased person: ‘Quia pium et salubre est pro defunctis exorare […], recipio animam Laurencii […] ad suffragia X conventuum, faciens eam participem omnium bonorum, que per fratres’. Dictamina Litterarum, ed. by Woroniecki and Fijalek, p. 155 no. 271. Another letter declares: ‘Hec vos diligencius attendentes fratrum nostre provincie suffragiis devote petistis commendari, utpote’ (followed by the formula for participation in merits, with commemoration), p. 101 no. 126. The assimilation is certainly not total since the preamble of this last model distinguishes merits and prayers (‘per merita precesque dignorum’). 234  LC 105: ‘ob Dei omnipotentis amorem sanctissimeque virginis Marie favorem et beatissimi patris nostri almifici Dominici reverentiam’. 230 

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1500, after which they disappear.235 Only the figure of Dominic featured on the seals (instead of, and in the same place as, Mary, who was a more frequent figure in other regions)236 refers specifically to the Friars Preachers. Less divisive than for the Friars Minor, the Observant movement nevertheless marks a rupture in Dominican usage of affiliation starting in the 1460s. After half a century of absence, the Dominicans take up the procedure again at the height of the reforming initiatives launched in Hungary. After 1450, the higher- and intermediate-level issuers are practically all promoters of reform. This is true of the supra-provincial or general authorities, from Leonard Huntpichler237 to Thomas of Vio (known as Cajetan),238 including Martial Auribelli239 and James of Stubach.240 Leonard Mansueti (1480)241 and especially Joachim Turriani (who, although he represented the conventual trend, pronounces four Hungarian affiliations on his own between 1489 and 1494)242 had admittedly adopted less radical positions. But the observation is the same at the provincial level. According to the indications gathered by András Harsányi — certainly fragile, because they are based on the toponym which accompanies the names of the leaders, supposedly designating their previous friary243 — all the provincial priors of Hungary who issued letters in the corpus were reformers: John (Episcopi) of the friary of Cluj (who pronounces an affiliation in 1477, giving himself the title ‘vicar general of the province of Hungary’); Paul of Győr, from the friary of Pécs (one affiliation in 1480); Mark of Debrecen, from the friary of Székesfehérvár (five affiliations from him alone in the 1480s, perhaps the same Mark of Debrecen who delivered two letters in the 1460s); Valentine of Kisd, or of Pécs (issuer of one letter in 1501 and interceder with the master general for the obtaining of another as early as 1493); and finally 235 

See Table 2. See Chapter 4. 237  Called by John of Hunyad to come and reform the Hungarian friaries after the fruitless attempts of James Riecher, he issues, in 1452, a letter which obviously borrows from Capistrano the inclusion of the female religious among the producers of the merits of the order, as well as the affiliation of an entire collectivity. LC 22. 238  LC 103. 239  As an ardent reformer also, this master general issues a letter in 1456. LC 33. 240  An affiliator in 1462 (LC 37), he is also known for his reforms from the Viennese house. 241  LC 49. 242  LC 64, 71, 72, and 75. 243  Harsányi, A domonkosrend Magyarországon, p. 73. 236 

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Michael of Fehérvár of the friary of Székesfehérvár, reformed in about 1470 (one affiliation in 1504).244 The adoption of reform by the Dominicans simultaneously led them, like the Franciscans, to make a moderated use of spiritual affiliation. Pronounced in the ‘major’ mode until the middle of the fourteenth century, it became henceforward a ‘minor’ affiliation. And it was granted only by general or provincial superiors, the friaries who stayed clear of reform being the only ones which continued to establish acts of admission.245 The evolution of the list of spiritual goods enumerated in the Dominican letters confirms, at first glance, the relationship between spiritual confraternity and mendicant reform among the Friars Preachers, at the same time as it draws them singularly nearer to the Franciscans — a less well-known fact. The ‘spiritual charisms’, fallen into disuse for a century, but restored to the taste of the day by Capistrano, reappear in force in the Dominican acts of affiliation from the 1460s on.246 After 1485, at all levels of the hierarchy, sermons moved lower on the list of bona, passing from third place to seventh, superseded by ‘divine offices’.247 The elements which make their appearance starting in the 1490s coincide with the strengthening around community celebrations on the one hand and private devotional practices (contemplaciones, accompanied by ‘sighs’ in 1504,248 that is, a generation before the Observant Franciscans, as well as studii) on the other, which the reformers of both orders promoted. However, these Observant ‘signals’ remain partial. Although they do, quite early, integrate nuns among the producers of merits of the order, the Hungarian Dominicans never include tertiaries, as we have noted. Furthermore, a letter of suffrages delivered by the reforming provincial Mark of Debrecen simultaneously grants perpetual masses for the intention of the addressees in 1465,249 something an Observant Franciscan would never have accepted before the slump of the 1530s. 244 

See Table 1. The friary of Sighişoara (LC 105) is not one of the friaries identified as reformed according to Harsányi, A domonkosrend Magyarországon, pp. 66–71. The letter issued by the prior of the friary of Pest (LC 21) is previous to the application of reform in Hungary. James of Stubach, prior of the friary of Vienna and an affiliator in 1462 (as we have seen), was also the vicar general of the reformed friaries of Austria. 246  From LC 40. 247  See Table 2. 248  LC 95. 249  LC 40. 245 

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The Augustinian Hermits and the Carmelites In Hungary, the Augustinian Hermits and the Carmelites have left us, respectively, only seven and three nominative letters. Consequently, we will limit ourselves to identifying, in the conditional mood, their apparent specificities. Though still rare in the fourteenth century in England,250 letters of affiliation delivered by the Augustinian Hermits are found in Hungary from 1357 on. The impetus seems to have come from the top: the two oldest letters were issued by the prior general (in 1357 and 1362),251 probably as an echo of the initiatives of King Charles-Robert and his son Louis the Great (in the first phase of his reign) in favour of the Augustinian Hermits, after which the provincials of Hungary took up the torch beginning in 1393.252 Even if the scanty nature of the corpus forbids us from reasoning a silen­ tio, the absence of any act of affiliation between 1415 and 1488 contrasts with chrono­logical continuity of English Augustinian letters of the same period.253 This may be explained by the lesser dynamism of the order in Hungary until the end of the reign of Matthias Corvinus. Challenged in its propositum vitae by the Paulists, this order was only slightly affected by the developments of reform.254 The Hungarian priories of the order benefited from a material stability based on the enjoyment of real estate ceded to them by landowning proprietors.255 It is thus no accident that the seven Augustinian letters of the Hungarian corpus are addressed to nobles or aristocrats, and that the sole mendicant affiliator who establishes a privileged relationship between spiritual affiliation and noble origins is in fact a Hungarian Augustinian prior.256 It is not impossible that certain letters which have come down to us accompanied plans for reform. The one issued by the prior of Hungary in 1393, in Esztergom, closely follows the order given to the same provincial in 1388 250  The earliest Augustinian letters inventoried in England date from 1279, 1361, and 1383. Roth, The English Austin Friars. 251  LC 7 and 10. 252  LC 15, 16, 62, 65, and 99. 253  After the three that have been cited previously, the inventoried English letters are dated 1400, 1404, 1438, 1440, 1442, 1445, 1469, 1475, 1481 (2 items), 1500, and 1526. Roth, The English Austin Friars. 254  De Cevins, ‘Les Ermites de saint Augustin en Hongrie médiévale’, pp. 86 and 102–04. 255  De Cevins, ‘Les Ermites de saint Augustin en Hongrie médiévale’, pp. 87–88 and 98–105, which refer to existing Hungarian studies. 256  See Chapter 3.

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by the prior general to put a stop to the abuses committed in the friary of Esztergom.257 The acts of 1488 and 1489 correspond to the second reforming wave, supported by Pope Sixtus IV, about seven years after the destitution of the provincial of Hungary of his functions by the general chapter.258 Although episodic, the entries into spiritual confraternity nevertheless continue into the 1530s,259 sometimes linked with the reforms undertaken. The letter of 1507, issued in Buda by a prior from Transylvania, Matthew of Dej,260 precedes the addition of new articles concerning discipline in the statutes of the Augustinian province of Hungary, and the arrival in the libraries of various Hungarian friaries (such as that of Oradea, in Transylvania) of the printed version of the privileges granted by the pope to the Lombard Observant congregation.261 Initially modelled closely on those of the Dominicans,262 the acts of affiliation issued by the Augustinian Hermits subsequently set themselves apart by the anteposition of the intitulatio in the initial protocol, already noted, and by the gradual introduction of the word confraternitas in the acts of the provincial of Hungary, beginning in the 1480s.263 Might these inflections reflect a renewed vision of spiritual confraternity? We do not have sufficient evidence to prove this. The notion of ‘duty of charity’, common to all the mendicant letters, takes some side roads among the Augustinians, which could sometimes lead, at the end of the fifteenth century, to singularly long preambles. If, unlike in England,264 they do not spell out the dogmatic and jurisdictional bases for association with merits, they do describe in ever-changing ways the existence 257 

LC 15. LC 62 and 65. 259  According to an incunabulum originating in the friary of Oradea, preserved in the Uni­ver­sity Library (Egyetemi Könyvtár) of Budapest (Ac 4r 816), the prior of Hungary Blaise of Pécs issued, in about 1531, a letter of affiliation in albo. Mályusz, ‘Az ágostonrend a középkori Magyarországon’, p. 432, n. 10. 260  LC 99. 261  De Cevins, ‘Les Ermites de saint Augustin en Hongrie médiévale’, p. 104. 262  We may compare the preamble of letters LC 7 and 10 with that of the Dominican letter of 1281 edited in Zappert, ‘Über sogenannte Verbrüderungsbücher’, p. 6. The English corpus shows the same dominant inspiration. Roth, The English Austin Friars. 263  Whereas it remains absent from the English letters until the 1520s. Roth, The English Austin Friars, pp. 37–38 no. 66, and 428–29 no. 1052. 264  The latter (according to the real letters and to the Augustinian formularies of the start of the following century) recall the apostolic origin of the privilege of redistributing the merits, grown into a ‘treasury’, notably those acquired through the masses and other ‘pious suffrages’ of the friars. Roth, The English Austin Friars, pp. 428–29 no. 1052. 258 

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of a ‘spiritual treasury’, used as a currency of exchange against material benefits, using the same terms as in the writings by which they grant pro anima celebrations.265 In 1507, the provincial prior Matthew of Dej writes, for example: ‘The King of Peace, in the marvellous clemency of his goodness and in his unfathomable wisdom, has ordained that, by the orisons of his servants, the faults of sinners may be reduced and contrite hearts may receive the charisms of the graces.’266 This editorial freedom may stem from the absence of Augustinian models for letters of confraternity, unless these have simply disappeared. The veneration of St Augustine is only sporadically mentioned by the general or provincial prior.267 While the saint occupies the centre of the seal of a letter granting masses in 1415,268 it is the Crucifixion which seems to predominate in the seals that are affixed or hung on the Hungarian letters of affiliation.269 The list of bona enumerated almost always includes the same opening trio: missae, oraciones, and predicationes, followed (unlike in the early Dominican letters) by vigilie.270 It often concludes with the mention of labores salutiferi. But it is characterized above all by a great flexibility in the selection and order of the goods that are mentioned, at least among the provincials.271 For lack of elements pointing to a tableau that is both specific and coherent, it is difficult to see in the Augustinian letters of affiliation the display of a unique identity — unless it is one based precisely on their variety, which 265 

The provincial prior of Hungary writes in a letter instituting masses for the salvation of the soul of Ladislas Töttös of Bátmonostor in 1415: ‘cum multiplicum beneficiorum effectu geritis et gessisti, de suis thesauris spiritualibus vicissitudinem rependere cupientes salutarem’. Budapest, MNL DL 79302; A zichi és vasonkeoi, ed. by Nagy, Kammerer, and Véghely, vi, 387 no. 25. 266  ‘Rex pacificus mira sue bonitatis clementia et incomprehensibili sapientia disposuit, ut oracionibus sibi serviencium delinquencium relaxentur crimina et corda contrita suscipiant graciarum charismata.’ LC 99. 267  LC 7, 62, and 65. It does not figure in the English letters of confraternity published in Roth, The English Austin Friars. 268  Budapest, MNL DL 79302. 269  See Chapter 4. In England, the seals of the Augustinian letters of confraternity also make room for the Virgin Mary. Roth, ‘A History of the English Austin Friars’, p. 175 n. 739 (example from 1442). 270  See Table 2. 271  England offers a similar tableau. The two examples published by Francis Roth are very divergent: masses, vigils, fasting, abstinence, orisons, and other divine exercises in 1279; masses, sacred acts and divine offices, vigils, abstinence, and very pious suffrages in 1525. Roth, The English Austin Friars, pp. 37–38 no. 66, and 428–29 no. 1052.

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reflects the polychrome nature of an order that had drawn on multiple sources since its birth. From 1376 to 1480 (at least) the priors of the Order of Mount Carmel of the province of Upper Germany, including the Hungarians, use the same formulary, no matter what the level of the issuer (from provincial to priory superior) or the rank of the beneficiaries (a bourgeois, a secular priest, and a royal notary), only pronouncing ‘major’ admissions.272 The text is inspired by the Dominican models, but is briefer. It never refers to confraternitas, the incorporating formula being: ‘vos participes facimus et consortes’. The list of bona (opera) successively presents masses, orisons, sermons, and vigils, after which come fasts or disciplines, finishing with ‘labours’.273 The sentence of Bonaventure which the prior general of the Carmelites had adopted as his own in a letter addressed to two nobles from the Auvergne in 1309 (which had no greater influence on the Franciscans for all that)274 is absent from it. This immobility and laconism, observable in England at the same period,275 are very different from the inventiveness of the Dominican and especially the Augustinian letters, and cannot really be explained. The above-mentioned letter written by the prior general to the municipality of Prešov in March 1437 — the same year as William of Casale, the inaugurator of collective admission for the Franciscans — offers a rare example of the use of spiritual confraternity as a tool of persuasion by Hungarian mendicants. It is only after having described the disastrous situation of the local friary at length and indicated to the town magistrates the concrete measures they should take to remedy it that the provincial grants them ‘major’ affiliation, with the declared intention of stimulating their zeal. Responding as it does to an emergency situation, this letter is too isolated to lead us to believe in the existence of a tactical usage of spiritual confraternity which might have more specifically characterized the Carmelites. 272  LC 14, 34, and 50; Koller, Historia episcopatus Quinqueeclesiarum, iv, 269 (model from 1461). 273  See Table 2. 274  Letter addressed 18 May 1309 by the prior general Gerard to Bernard and Bertrand de la Tour, edited in Drouot, Recueil des actes, p. 122 no. 83. The extract borrowed from the letters of confraternity of Bonaventure is: ‘Divini muneris donativa sacre communionis participatione profisciunt […] diffunduntur’. Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 61. 275  A letter granted by the prior of the friary of Gloucester in 1462 to two laymen very closely follows the canvas of the ‘Hungarian’ letters. Gloucester, Gloucestershire Archives, Minsterworth and Hartpury, MS D640/T57.

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Despite small formal differences, the letters of the Hungarian corpus reveal no fundamental divergence between the four mendicant orders present in Hungary regarding their use of spiritual confraternity. Except under exceptional circumstances — of which the the Central European tour of John of Capistrano offers an illustration as ephemeral as it is striking — Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites, and Augustinian Hermits did not see it as an instrument that was really likely to promote their order or their way of life. On the contrary, it seems to put them on the defensive. Like their Benedictine predecessors, they were doing no more than satisfying the expectations of their benefactors, for the most part. They did not even take advantage of spiritual confraternity to exalt their individual identity and spirituality, readable on the seals of the letters, but very discreetly expressed in the text, even among the Franciscans. On the other hand, we do see them being very attached to parrying in advance the accusation of simony, by deploying a discursive strategy which referred from the very first lines to the old principle of circulation of material and spiritual goods in the name of charity, and by carefully avoiding any mention of gifts which had preceded the incorporation into spiritual confraternity. The mendicant affiliators, particularly the Hungarians, redoubled their precautions in the second part of the fifteenth century, in the context of the Franciscan and Dominican Observant movements. While reform increased de facto the precariousness of the friars — and therefore their dependence on their donors — they abstained from having recourse to mass production of letters of suffrages (as the preceding chapter has shown). Simultaneously, they reserved the faculty of extending confraternity for the higher and intermediate levels of the mendicant hierarchy, in order to keep it under control and to avoid the possibility that it might become (or re-become?) a disguised collection. The letters stressed, in their preamble, the selective character of the grace granted, and ‘major’ incorporation became exceptional. Because of all this, despite an ever-intensifying use, the friars managed to prevent the depreciation of spiritual affiliation in Hungary — at the time when, notably in England, the delivery in exchange for money of innumerable letters mixing spiritual confraternity and indulgences discredited both simultaneously. Thus corseted, it could not truly structure the relationships between mendicant establishments and the outside world. It remains to be seen what it was really worth in the eyes of the faithful.

Chapter 6

Confraternity and Salvation: The Affiliates’ View

R

eversing the perspective, this chapter will adopt the point of view of the members of mendicant spiritual confraternities. For, as the previous chapter has shown, letters of affiliation were rarely issued on the initiative of the friars, even to deal with a worrying situation, and still more rarely as random acts. They generally followed a request. Knowing the multiplicity of salvational tools available to the faithful at the end of the Middle Ages — from prayers of recommendation to remission of sin by indulgence to private masses — we may be surprised that Hungarian Christians seem to have felt the need to solicit participation in the merits of the mendicants. Did they see in this participation a grace unlike all others, for which it was necessary to make a special place in their salvational strategy? Was its function only to emphasize their support for the friars, or did they really count on its effects in the hereafter? To answer these questions, we would have to be able to approach each con­ frater in order to establish the exact circumstances of his affiliation, to situate it in relation to the whole group of his pious practices, and to set it in the context of his exchanges with the friars, nuns, or mendicant establishments. Reconstituting this backdrop presupposes access to sufficient information on the religious behaviour of the affiliates. This may sometimes be glimpsed through bequests and donations, as well as in requests for prayers and pro anima services. But the available elements are too scarce to reveal general trends. We will therefore limit ourselves to suggesting plausible interpretations, until perhaps in the future we can draw on a more extensive range of examples. A detour by way of the analysis of documents not exclusively linked to confraternity will provide a first estimation of the relative value attributed to spir-

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itual affiliation in the area of salvation. Next, it will be time to address directly the question of why the faithful were attached to this grace, drawing on the motives invoked by the candidates as well as on what we know of their religious practices and those of their family members. Finally, without claiming to sound the privacy of individual hearts, we will follow the spiritual journey of three Hungarians who were members of mendicant spiritual confraternities and on whom we have particularly substantial documentary dossiers.

The Value of Spiritual Confraternity on the Market of Salvation Evaluating spiritual confraternity in relation to the other aids to salvation dispensed by the friars obliges us to open the documentary field to extra-confraternal sources. There is nothing to be expected from wills since, contrary to those from England (which sometimes ask that their executors return the letters of affiliation of the deceased to the issuing friaries), Hungarian testators do not mention their affiliation(s), present, past, or future.1 Other private acts are no more forthcoming on the subject. We must therefore come back to the texts produced by the religious themselves. One of these, the register of benefactors (Libellum seu inventarium benefactorum) produced in the 1520s by the Dominican prior of the friary of Saint Mary of Sighişoara named Anthonius Fabri, establishes a classification that is very instructive thanks to its coherence. The Lessons of the Dominican Register of Sighişoara Being late, the composition of this collection is set in the context of the proliferation of foundations of private masses in Hungary that had begun in the middle of the fifteenth century, which constrained the religious to keep rigorous accounts of funds and revenues associated with these foundations, most likely at the request of the members of the laity concerned.2 Prior Anthonius declares in the preamble of his register: Because forgetting is the mother of ingratitude, I, Brother Anthonius Fabri, general preacher, son of the friary of Sighişoara of the Order of Friars Preacher, so that I may not be accused of ingratitude by the friars to come, have had the idea of compiling a register (libellum) or inventory of the benefactors of the said friary 1  See Chapter 2. We know of only one exception, late and limited to the level of the friary: the will of Madeleine of Cluj, which will be discussed at the end of this chapter. 2  See de Cevins, L’Église dans les villes hongroises, pp. 239–40.

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of Sighişoara in such a way that the friars who will live in this place successively in future times are not ignorant of but know and understand what they are held to, themselves and all who will succeed them in the said friary, in the line of actions of thanksgiving (in graciarum accionem) [to thank] for the [things] received through the benefactors whose names follow, for the memory of posterity.3

The objective, clearly announced, was thus to ensure that the commitments made by the friars of the friary of Sighişoara towards each one of their benefactors (benefactores), protectors (fautores), or friends (amatores) be truly kept. The lines which follow then report, benefactor by benefactor, the nature of the help provided to the friary by each one and by what spiritual benefits this help should be recompensed — until the discharging of the liabilities (‘ad satisfaccionem’) — if not by ‘duty of charity’ (an expression which is absent from the register), then at least by gratitude or ‘thanksgiving’.4 In this list figure all the services granted by the Dominicans — and not only pro anima celebrations, as is the case in a number of western or Central European mendicant obituaries — from recommendations for prayer to participation in the merits of the friars to burial (with or without the habit). Only the graces accorded by the friars as mediators of the Roman Church, by apostolic privilege (indulgences, absolution, free choice of private confessor) do not appear in this table, since they were not reserved for the ‘benefactors’ of their friary. As the majority of the notices give no pecuniary estimate of the value of the gifts which preceded the granting of these spiritual favours, we must give up on attributing a terrestrial ‘price’ to these favours. But the entries do say enough about them to allow us to draw up a scale on which to position spiritual affiliation. The rubrics of the Libellum of Sighişoara, whether considered together or separately, sketch out a three-level progression. At the lowest degree, the individuals recognized by the friars as benefactores of the friary benefited from being 3 

‘[Q]uoniam mater ingratitudinis est oblivio, igitur ego frater Anthonius Fabri predicator generalis, filius conventus huius Schegeswariensis nativus ordinis fratrum predicatorum, ne vicio ingratitudinis a posteris arguar fratribus, excogitavi mihi in animo compillare libellum seu inventarium benefactorum huius conventus Schegeswariensis, quod et ipsi fratres succedentes futuris temporibus et in loco iam sepe dicto degentes non ignorent, sed sciant et intelligant, ad que se obligarunt, et posteros succedentes fratres pretacti conventus in graciarum accionem perceptorum a benefactoribus subscriptis pro memoria futurorum’. Ipolyi, ‘Adalékok a magyar domonkosok történetéhez’, pp. 597–98. 4  This is made explicit in: ‘thanksgiving for such benefits / for such alms’ (‘in graciarum accionem tantorum beneficiorum / tante elemosine’). Ipolyi, ‘Adalékok a magyar domonkosok történetéhez’, pp. 600 and 607.

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inscribed in the register of the establishment. This meant that their names were read during the masses and other prayers that were collectively recited each day in the friary, so that they were recommended for the prayers of the religious — and for those of the faithful in attendance, as one notice specifies5 — in their lifetime as well as after their death. Whence the practical necessity of keeping the register physically within reach of the celebrants.6 This gave it the recurring appellation of ‘pulpit register’ (registrum benefactorum et/necnon ambonis, registrum ambonis). In a superior variant of this recommendation, one of the benefactors is graced — still without participation in the merits — with ‘special commemoration’ (specialem memoriam facere), that is, with the perpetual reading of his name and of the names of his loved ones in the daily friary chapter, in the sermons, and in the prayers of the religious.7 If we set aside this last form of recommendation, apparently exceptional, association with the merits of the friars occupies the median level of the hierarchy of spiritual rewards granted to the benefactors. In the Libellum, it is signalled not by the word confraternitas (absent from most of the Dominican letters of affiliation, as we have seen) but instead by the word confrater — possibly accompanied by an adjective of insistence (verus, singularissimus)8 — or rather by phrases expressing the ‘participation’ of the named individual ‘with his family members’ in the ‘goods’ (bona, bona opera) or the ‘benefits’ (ben­ eficia) accomplished by the friars of the house ‘through Divine benevolence’. Occasionally reinforced by the phrase ‘in vita pariter et in morte’, these formulations naturally echo the text of the letters of confraternity.9 5 

‘in ambone oracionibus fidelium eos commendandos’. Ipolyi, ‘Adalékok a mag yar domonkosok történetéhez’, p. 600 no. iii. 6  Pásztor, A magyarság vallásos élete, p. 78. 7  ‘unde perinde moti fratres conventus in graciarum accionem tante elemosine obtulerunt se et obligarunt posteros semper fieri sui ac suorum specialem memoriam in recitacione benefactorum in capitulo quottidiano, insuper perpetuis temporibus in sermonibus et aliis oracionibus facere specialem semper memoriam eius atque suorum’ (the friars of the said friary have committed themselves in return and obliged their successors, in thanksgiving for such alms, that his special commemoration and that of his loved ones should always be made by the recitation of the benefactors in the daily chapter, and also to always make special commemoration for him and for his family in the sermons and other prayers to come). Ipolyi, ‘Adalékok a magyar domonkosok történetéhez’, p. 600 no. iii. 8  Ipolyi, ‘Adalékok a magyar domonkosok történetéhez’, p. 600 no. iv and p. 609 no. xix. 9  Ipolyi, ‘Adalékok a magyar domonkosok történetéhez’, p. 600 no. iii (‘necnon participacionem omnium missarum et bonorum que Dominus fieri dederit per patres et fratres huius conventus Schegeswariensis’); pp. 602–03 no. vii (‘obligavit se conventus eum cum suis reci-

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The scale of affiliation, rarely specified, is restricted (unsurprisingly) to the friary.10 Although we do see some superiors of Dominican friaries delivering letters of ‘major’ admission in these same years, 11 the entries in the register all refer to the ‘ordinary’ degree. It is never a question, in this document, of an announcement or citation in the (friary) chapter, nor of prayers or offices comparable to those prescribed for the deceased friars. How may we explain this restriction? The recommendation for prayers was already guaranteed by the inscription in the register. Its most developed form, described earlier, strongly resembled the major affiliation pronounced at the level of the friary. Those of the benefactors who wanted to obtain more — a commemoration modelled on that of the friars, that is, announced in the chapter (local or provincial) and incorporated into the celebrations prescribed for the deceased religious — would solicit a ‘major’ letter of confraternity, which dispensed the friars from inscribing them in the register.12 One thing is certain: despite its lesser level and amplitude, the association with merits granted by the Dominicans of Sighişoara had a ‘value’ far superior to the (simple) inscription in the register. A first indicator: it was granted only to a minority of recognized benefactors. Six of the twenty-eight individuals named in the register (so less than a quarter of the whole) received it. This rate is much lower than at the Benedictine monastery of Saint Albans (one recorded benefactor out of two),13 for example. The lucky chosen ones all occupied the very top of the social scale. Other than the patronus of the friary (Baron Nicolas of Bethlen) we find among them a vice-voivode and two curates. Furthermore, although the register does not necessarily present their largesse as vastly superior to that of the other benefactors, their affiliation seems to follow important pere ad omnia beneficia conventus tam oracionum quam missarum participandarum’); similar formulae, pp. 606–07 no. xiii and pp. 664–65 no. xxiii. 10  Ipolyi, ‘Adalékok a magyar domonkosok történetéhez’, p. 600 no. iii, p. 603 no. vii, pp. 606–07 no. xiii, p. 665 no. xxv. The affiliations pronounced on a wider scale may sometimes complete the portrait of the benefactor: the notice concerning Nicolas of Bethlen thus reports that he had received a letter of suffrages from the master general Thomas of Vio. Ipolyi, ‘Adalékok a magyar domonkosok történetéhez’, pp. 602–03 no. vii. It has been found, as we know (LC 103). 11  At the same friary of Sighişoara: LC 105 (1509). 12  This would explain the absence from the Libellum of a notice devoted to George of Nyujtód, although he had been admitted into the ‘major’ spiritual confraternity of the order by the prior of the Dominican friary of Sighişoara. LC 105. 13  Clark, ‘Monastic Confraternity in Medi­eval England’, p. 321.

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gifts — precious plate,14 real estate,15 or liquid assets (more than sixty florins according to two notices).16 Finally, it is enhanced, in two cases, by the obtaining of very sought-after graces: the foundation of a series of perpetual masses (for the intention of Baron Bethlen) and entry into the friary at the end of life, followed by burial in the habit (for the curate Michael). In this system, the con­ fratres form a minority of ‘happy few’ within the already limited group of the benefactores of the friary. It is in connection with burial in the habit that the praise for the zeal of the beneficiaries toward the friary or the order as a whole is most emphasized.17 Burial in the habit procured, in addition to the state of ‘friar’ (far superior, as we know, to that of confrater) the commemorative services accorded to ‘major’ affiliates.18 This grace, a ‘sure passport to heaven’ (to borrow the expression of Andrew Little), was granted parsimoniously throughout the West: reserved as early as the eleventh century for the most generous donors and members of monastic fraternities,19 it was scarcely more widespread at the end of the Middle Ages, either in England or in Hungary.20 The registry of Sighişoara lists four burials in the Dominican habit over six decades (from the 1460s to 1526). Only one of these applies to a confrater, or to be more exact, a consoror, authorized to wear the habit of a tertiary. The three other inhumations in habitu concern parish curates. Even if they do not have the stature of a John Standonck,21 the cleri14 

Ipolyi, ‘Adalékok a magyar domonkosok történetéhez’, p. 600 no. iii and pp. 602–03 no. vii. 15  Ipolyi, ‘Adalékok a magyar domonkosok történetéhez’, p. 600 no. ii. 16  Ipolyi, ‘Adalékok a magyar domonkosok történetéhez’, p. 600 no. iv and 609 no. xix. 17  Ipolyi, ‘Adalékok a magyar domonkosok történetéhez’, pp. 607–08 no. xiii (‘ex toto accensus zelo amoris erga religionem’), pp. 663–64 no. xxi (‘singularis amator religionis nostre et conventus’). 18  The English sources provide formal proof of this: John Fernandes, who obtained burial in the Franciscan habit in 1484, clearly intended that the same celebrations as for the friars of the friary should be organized in his honour, and for the same length of time. Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, pp. 18–19. 19  Examples in Bijsterveld, ‘Looking for Common Ground’, pp. 296–97. 20  Andrew Little only identifies eight verified examples in England of burial in the Franciscan habit between about 1300 and 1519: Little, ‘Franciscan Letters of Fraternity’, pp. 19–20. The three letters of confraternity in the Hungarian corpus which grant burial in the friary do so without the habit; see Chapter 4. 21  Doctor of Theo­logy, master at the Sorbonne, he was Canon of Beauvais and founder of the congregation of Montaigu when he obtained burial in the habit of the Franciscans in 1503. Godet, ‘Jean Standonck et les Frères mineurs’, pp. 405–06.

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cal preference is evident. It confirms that burial in the friary, in particular in the habit, was among the most prized of the graces that the mendicants dispensed. A Classification Confirmed by Other Sources A single register, of late composition and limited to one mendicant establishment (non-reformed to boot), would not suffice to reconstitute the hierarchy of salvational graces in the conception of the faithful of Hungary who were linked to the four ordines mendicantes present in the kingdom over the three centuries being considered here. Moreover, since the scales and levels of affiliation were variable — from the friary to the entire order, in ‘minor’ mode as well as in ‘major’ — they make any absolute classification impossible. The one which appears through the register of Anthonius Fabri nevertheless finds confirmation in the other sources consulted. If the recommendation for prayer at the level of the friary could be pronounced by any establishment superior, as soon as pro anima celebrations were added to it, the decision belonged to the provincial chapter. All the letters of confraternity founding specific masses or granting burial in the habit were issued in this framework, according to the preserved copies.22 This is a first indication of the value that was given to them. The order of appearance of different graces in those acts of affiliation in the Hungarian corpus which grant several of them at once leads in the same direction. Whether these are ‘real’ letters or models transmitted by the Observant formularies of the beginning of the sixteenth century, all mention the celebrations of masses and burial in the friary close (in claustro or in ecclesia) at the end of the enumeration, after the formula of affiliation — or (in the case of a ‘major’ entry) just before the evocation of the measures of commemoration, in accordance with their chrono­ logical positioning.23 The recommendation for prayers, for its part, appears before the declaration of affiliation.24 The diachronic study of the various graces received from the friars by the same persons over the course of their lifetime orients us towards the same classification. When an individual was admitted several times into the spiritual confraternity of the same mendicant order over his lifetime, there was no 22 

See Chapter 5. LC 15, 17, 18, 35, 40, and 120; Budapest, OSzK, MSS Cod. Lat. 432, fols 56r and 117v, and Oct. Lat. 775, fols 114r and 114r–115r. 24  LC 113. 23 

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redundance: the circle of incorporation was widening (from the friary right to the level of the order, sometimes passing by the custody and the province or the vicariate) or its degree was increasing (from ‘ordinary’ confraternity to ‘major’ admission).25 But we also observe a gradation in the successive obtaining of graces of different natures.26 We do not see an affiliate, even a ‘minor’ one, receiving a letter granting him prayers of recommendation. It is not rare, on the other hand, for confratres to obtain pro anima services in a mendicant church or inhumation in a mendicant cemetery. Thus, Peter of Söpte founded masses to be celebrated de vivo and post mortem by the Carmelites of Buda in 1494 and was assured at that time of being buried in their friary, nearly fifteen years after receiving ‘major’ admission into the order (in 1480).27 The widow of Michael Frankopan, Barbara of Rozgony, who had entered the cismontane spiritual confraternity of the Franciscan Observance in 1514, prescribed in her will, written ten years later, the celebration of anniversary masses in the Franciscan friary of Slunj (Szluin in Hungarian) in Croatia, where she simultaneously chose to be buried.28 A contrario, none of the individuals identified in the Hungarian documentation seems to have solicited participation in the merits of the friars after having obtained pro anima services or burial in the friary from them.29 25 

The anomalies are rare: Michael of Szob, admitted with memoria by the Cismontane Vicar general Louis of Torre in 1498, was again affiliated by his successor Francis of Zeno in 1504, under the same conditions and with the same persons, with no allusion to a previous admission. LC 83 and 94. The letter of suffrages that Nicolas of Bethlen had received from the master general before being associated with the ‘benefits’ of the friary of Sighişoara, according to the registry of the benefactors of the friary already described, probably did not prescribe either memoria or perpetual masses. Ipolyi, ‘Adalékok a magyar domonkosok történetéhez’, pp. 602–03 no. vii. 26  Outside of Hungary, Hugolin Lippens mentions the case of the canons of Schönenwerd, admitted into the major confraternity of the Franciscan Order by the provincial of Co­logne in 1284 and then recommended for the prayers of the friars by his successor in the leadership of the province. Lippens, ‘De litteris confraternitatis’, p. 57. Might this anomaly come from the fact that these were ecclesiastical communities, and not lay benefactors, a priori more worried about their chances of salvation and therefore more attached to the idea of increasing them in a ‘rational’ or quasi-mathematical way? It is still true that, in the Hungarian documentation, the only analogous example applying to a layperson is found in the will of Madeleine of Cluj (1531) studied at the end of this chapter; and this does not go as far as the establishment of letters of recommendation. 27  Budapest, MNL DL 93640. See the complementary information given below. 28  Budapest, MNL DL 89187 (7 March 1524). 29  Outside of Hungary the scheme of progression is identical. John Standonck first entered ‘ordinary’ confraternity at the level of the Franciscan province of France (1492) before

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The faithful of Hungary consequently maintained the idea of a significant distance, in terms of salvational efficacy, between simple recommendation for prayers, at the bottom of the scale, and burial in the friary as well as pro anima masses at the other extreme, with spiritual confraternity situated somewhere between the two. We observe, moreover, that it is these two last graces (burial and pro anima masses) which were prioritized at the approach of death. Benedict Himfi, whose spiritual itinerary will be outlined later, offers a first example of this at the end of the fourteenth century. When George of Derencsény established his will on 4 September 1521, on the eve of a campaign against the Ottomans — a campaign which he feared (he says) might be fatal to him — he took care to found masses in the priory of the Paulists of Háromhegy.30 He bequeathed nothing to the mendicants and only joined the spiritual confraternity of the Observant Franciscans of the province of Hungary two and a half months later, on 20 November 1521.31 In the same way, as we have said, Hungarian wills do not express requests for spiritual affiliation, even ‘major’ ones. Hungarian Christians thus knew that spiritual confraternity, even more than prayers of intercession, was only effective over time — in this case, the time over which the bona spiritualia with whose merits the recipients were associated were accomplished. In an urgent situation, as at the passage from life to death, it was necessary to mobilize other tools, more immediately ‘active’. Let us not, for all that, imagine a fixed scale and watertight partitions between different spiritual favours. In Hungary, just as in the whole of Christendom, the benefactors of the mendicants hoped to have a share, at whatever degree possible, in the merits of the friars. When the court pages Philip and John ceded some of their land to the Augustinian friary on the outskirts of Zagreb in 1354, they did so trusting in the ‘divine works’ of the friars.32 Four years later, the Bishop of Győr authorized the Augustinian Hermits of the province of Hungary to construct a new friary at Pápóc, endowing it with goods bequeathed by Margaret, widow of Paul known as Magyar, on condi-

being admitted into ‘major’ confraternity at the level of the entire order and with burial in the habit (1503). Godet, ‘Jean Standonck et les Frères mineurs’, pp. 405–06. Analogue trajectories among the Benedictines in Berlière, ‘Les Confraternités monastiques au Moyen Âge’, p. 139. 30  Budapest, MNL DL 72196. 31  LC 119. 32  ‘confidentes insuper oracionibus, vigiliis et ieiuniis ac aliis operibus divinis virorum religiosorum fratrum heremitarum’. Quoted by Kurcz, A lovagi kultúra, p. 52, according to Codex diplomaticus regni Croatiae, ed. by Smičiklas, pp. 236–37.

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tion that they should carry out her commemoration and add to it the merits amassed by the friars.33 This interpenetration between benefactors recommended for the prayers of the mendicants and members of the spiritual confraternity could result from monastic practices and their very comprehensive idea of spiritual confraternity, which strove to make it into the conceptual union of all the benefactors of the monastery.34 In 1347, the comes of Trenčín (Trencsén) Leopold (Lypoldus) bequeathed a part of the revenues of his land named Gaza to the Benedictine monks of Hronský Beňadik (Garamszentbenedek) ‘so that they would be responsible for recalling his memory in the prayers of their spiritual confraternity’.35 In the 1530s, the formulary composed by the Paulists gave the title of (littera) confraternalis or of confratria to seven model letters instituting anniversary foundations (without affiliation) as well as to certain letters granting burial in the habit.36 The dispensers from the mendicant orders avoided this joyful mixture of genres by applying a rigorous termino­logy which distinguished the processes at work in these different graces.37 But the faithful, who sometimes amassed both mendicant and monastic affiliations, probably had a more confused image of the favours which were being bestowed upon them. Despite these amalgams, it seems that, on the value scale of the salvational graces dispensed by the mendicants, association with merits was credited with a value higher than recommendation for the prayers of the friars (granted at the level of the friary to all the benefactors inscribed in the register of the establishment) but distinctly lower than burial in the friary (preferably in the habit), as sought after as the foundation of pro anima masses at the approach of death. Here is confirmation, firstly, that Western Christians still held the state of the regular religious (in this case, of the mendicant friar) in high esteem, and sec33 

‘ita quod predicte domine sit memoria apud Deum et ei augeatur cumulus meritorum’. Budapest, MNL DF 238354; Fejér, Codex diplomaticus, ix.3, 192–93. 34  See Chapter 1. 35  ‘pro salute anime nostre testamentum facientes pro eo, quod ipsi assumserint nos in orationes confraternitatis ipsorum meminisse’. Fejér, Codex diplomaticus, ix.1, 554–55, no. 304, here p. 555. 36  See Chapter 2. The title includes only the complementary mention super missarum suscepcione / pro missa / pro anniversario. Formularium maius, ed. by Romhányi and Sarbak, pp. 66–67 no. 94, p. 67 no. 96, p. 71 no. 102, p. 72 no. 104, pp. 72–73 no. 105, pp. 74–75 no. 107, and p. 75 no. 108. The only example in the collection simultaneously granting an anniversary service and the participation in spiritual goods: p. 70 no. 100. 37  See Chapter 2.

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ondly, of the importance of the Mass, ‘good work par excellence’, invoked at the moment of death as an extension of the Augustinian tradition until the very end of the Middle Ages — as is proven repeatedly by sources on (lay) confraternities (French as well as Hungarian) and wills.38 This intermediate positioning allows us to better understand why the socio­ graphy of the confratres does not touch either the summit or the base of the social pyramid of the benefactors of the mendicant friaries:39 the most fortunate and magnanimous donors solicited pro anima masses, or burial in the friary, without ‘passing via’ spiritual confraternity; the least well-off and the least generous contented themselves, at best, with a simple recommendation for prayers. On the other hand, it does not explain what incited the ‘average’ benefactors to associate themselves with the mendicants, instead of amassing indulgences,40 or soliciting recommendations for prayer with memoria, or simply counting on the bonus inherent in the gifts that they had granted to the religious, at a time when parish curates and preachers were emphasizing the salvational power of alms.41

Why Affiliate Oneself with the Mendicants? If the Christians of Hungary sought to enter mendicant spiritual confraternities, it was because they saw in this action a means of reducing the expected punishments of purgatory. However, did they apply to spiritual affiliation the same tendency for systematic accumulation that has been noted regarding pro anima services or indulgences? Above all, what specific interest did they find 38 

Vincent, Des charités bien ordonnées, pp. 143–44. As a complement to the references given in Chapter 3, on the importance of the mass in the religious practices of the Hungarians, notably at the approach of death, at the end of the Middle Ages, see Pásztor, A magyarság val­ lásos élete, pp. 66–93. It is found at the heart of the celebrations organized by the Hungarian lay confraternities at the same period: de Cevins, ‘Les Confréries de Bratislava’, pp. 16–17, and de Cevins, ‘Les Confréries en Hongrie à la fin du Moyen Âge’, pp. 507–08. 39  See Chapter 3. 40  Unless they did this too, and in proportions at least as high, the written traces of these indulgences having simply disappeared? This takes us back to the question of the preservation of the letters of confraternity. 41  In the West generally, see Zink, La Prédication en langue romane, pp. 443–45; Bériou, La Prédication de Ranulphe de la Houblonnière, i, 137–38. In Hungary, see de Cevins, ‘Le Stéréotype du bon laïc’, p. 34.

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in it in relation to the other tools of salvation: its community aspect, which brought them nearer to the religious (even in an intangible way), or rather its commemorative dimension, which perpetuated the monastic tradition? To Be and to Have Alas, no Hungarian affiliate has left any text explaining his personal idea of spiritual association with the mendicants and of the benefit he expected from it for himself and his family. For their part, the friars only speak of the motivations of the recipients in their letters when it is not a matter of spiritual confraternity. Reproducing the formulations used by the benefactors in the preambles of their acts of donation or their wills,42 these specified that the said benefactors were obtaining the recommendation for prayer by the friars or were founding celebrations ‘for the salvation of their soul’ (pro salute / refrigerio / remedio anime sue)43 or even for their ‘life, prosperity and salvation’.44 The fact that these motives are never invoked in the letters of affiliation is no surprise, since the request that preceded the letters is generally passed over in silence.45 Spiritual confraternity was itself motivated by the seeking of salvation; that went without saying. The examples given in the rest of this chapter confirm that it had its place, alongside many other graces, in the ‘mathematics of salvation’. Still, added to the fact that spiritual affiliation took the form of charters that were exclusively reserved for it, these silences may perhaps express something else. They allow us to think that, in the eyes of the affiliates as of the dispensing friars, spiritual association did not have as its only function 42 

In the charter of donation composed in 1354 in the name of Philip and John, pages of the Angevin court, for the benefit of the Augustinian friary on the outskirts of Zagreb, the two men justify their act by their desire to ensure the salvation of their souls as well as by their devotion to the Virgin Mary. Kurcz, A lovagi kultúra, p. 52, referring to Codex diplomaticus regni Croatiae, ed. by Smičiklas, pp. 236–37. 43  Karácsonyi, ‘A magyar ferencrendűek formulás könyve a Batthyány-könyvtárban’, p. 26 no. 5; Iványi, Dominikánus levelek, pp. 35–36 no. 4; Budapest, MNL DL 79302; Budapest, MNL DF 269672. 44  In 1288, in a letter from the Franciscan provincial of Hungary: ‘pro vestra et domine consortis vestre necnon et omnium ad vos spectantium vite, prosperitate, pariter et salute’; in 1376, in a letter from the Dominican prior of Hungary: ‘pro salubri ac prospero statu vestro liberorumque vestrorum’. Karácsonyi, ‘A magyar ferencrendűek formulás könyve a Batthyánykönyvtárban’, p. 26 no. 5; Iványi, Dominikánus levelek, pp. 35–36 no. 4. 45  See Chapter 5.

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the provision to its recipients of ‘bonus points’ (or ‘coupons’) for paradise. It procured a supplement which no other grace could grant, an advantage which every Christian, unless he had already crossed the threshold of the professio, coveted a priori: the attachment (if only conceptual) to a regular community, by virtue of the process of ‘brother-becoming’ already described. This original combination of salvational bonus and symbolic incorporation into the sphere of the regular religious could explain the fact that despite its great age — not to say archaism — spiritual confraternity had survived, and even prospered, in a market already saturated with tools of salvation, and did so until the spread of the Reformation. Were the confratres of the mendicants truly attached to this affiliating dimension? Judging from the charters established in the name of the benefactors, it had great importance in Cluny in the tenth and eleventh centuries.46 The problem is that, except for the late example of Madeleine of Cluj (discussed below), we lack proof that this was still true in the eyes of the mendicants and their associates in the last centuries of the Middle Ages. Certain documents incline us to think, on the contrary, that the objective pursued by the candidates for affiliation was not so much entry into the confraternitas as its immediate ‘translation’, that is, the participation in the merits of the friars, which led more directly to salvation. The friary superiors, closer to the expectations of the faithful than the leaders of the order or the province, knew this. John of Colonia, guardian of the Franciscan friary of Levoča (Lőcse in Hungarian) specifies in a letter of confraternity dated 1442 that he is granting simultaneously to Benedict of Görgő (present-day Spišský Hrhov, in Slovakia) entry into the ‘fraternity of the order’ and participation in the suffrages accumulated by the ‘good works’ of the friars of the conventus et monasterium of Levoča with the aim of having him ‘participate’ in these same bona opera.47 Such a ‘shortcut’ allows us to suppose that, even if other applicants were certainly aware of the affiliating power of spiritual confraternity, the will to have a share of the benefits (in the capitalist sense of the term) was the principal motivator of requests for admission.

46 

The acts of donation established in favour of Cluny express the will of the donors to obtain the salvation of their soul after death but also to enter, in this life, into association (con­ sortium, societas) with the monks. Iogna-Prat, ‘Les Morts dans la comptabilité céleste’, p. 66. 47  ‘vos cupiens omnium bonorum operum que in dicto monasterio in cultum orthodoxe agerentur fieri participes’. LC 19.

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Infinite Possibilities for Accumulation From a pragmatic, not to say managerial, point of view, spiritual association presented undeniable advantages to the faithful. Inscription in the register of the local friary guaranteed them the prayers of the friars of that establishment — whose complement rarely exceeded twenty in Hungary48 — not those of large communities. Burial in the friary (with or without the habit) was only effective after death, and like profession, it could obviously only be obtained in one order at a time. Spiritual confraternity, on the other hand, offered the limitless possibility of obtaining suffrages and participation in the merits of the friars and nuns of several houses, of several provinces, and this within several orders. In fact, accumulations are recurrent in the corpus of Hungarian letters. We could certainly not call this a habitual practice since, in the corpus of ‘real’ letters, only a dozen of the principal addressees received at least two acts of affiliation, and the number of these acts is never higher than four per individual. But we must assume considerable documentary losses. It is not rare to see Hungarians enter spiritual confraternities of different mendicant orders or different branches of orders, possibly even competing ones. Ladislas of Gerebenc was welcomed into the confraternitas of the Dominicans in 1485 and then into that of the Augustinian Hermits three years later.49 Stephen of Tah and Benedict of Bajon did not hesitate to apply to both the Conventual and the Observant Franciscans, a few months apart in the case of the Benedict.50 While Gregory of Csap (or Csop) had favoured the Observants in 1511 (on two occasions, obtaining his confraternal incorporation from the custodian of Sárospatak and then from the provincial of Hungary) and in 1516 (taking advantage of the passage of the cismontane commissary general James of Porcaria through Sárospatak), his descendent George of Csap turned to the Conventuals in 1522.51 We will see multiple traces of discontinuities within families in the next section. To sum up, for the Christians of Hungary as for those of the Germanic Empire,52 no matter what 48 

See Chapter 3. LC 56 and 62. 50  LC 68 and 85; LC 124 and 125. 51  LC 107, 108, and 112; LC 120. 52  Ludovic Viallet notes that the Prince-elector of Brandenburg Frederick II obtained letters of confraternity from John of Capistrano and from Matthias Döring six months apart. Les Sens de l’observance, p. 205. 49 

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options the mendicants adopted in the area of reform, they all had the same capacity to produce and share merits. The eclecticism of the mendicant affiliations reflects that of the gifts that had been granted by nobles and barons to Hungarian friaries since the fourteenth century, distributed among several orders and establishments.53 The letters of confraternity accentuate the impression of dispersion already provided by the charters of donation (and vice versa) on the scale of individuals as of dynasties. Ladislas of Gerebenc, admitted into the spiritual confraternity of the Dominicans, then into that of the Augustinian Hermits, established his will in 1490 in favour of the Observant Franciscans of Podborje (Szentlászló in Hungarian, near Daruvar, in Croatia).54 While John and Sigismund of Bazin (present-day Pezinok, in Slovakia) had been associated with the merits of the Dominicans in 1462,55 and while the chaplain of the first, called Emeric, had been affiliated two years earlier with the Carmelites,56 their cousin, Ladislas of Szentgyörgy, lord of Pezinok and royal cupbearer, set up, along with his nephew Simon, a very important perpetual foundation (two weekly masses in exchange for an annuity in money and provisions) at the friary of Conventual Franciscans of Pressburg (present-day Bratislava) in 1472.57 Similarly, Baron Ladislas of Egervár, affiliated by the Conventual Franciscans with memoria in 1488, organized the building, two years later, of the Observant Franciscan friary of Egervár, finished by his nephew in 1493.58 We could give many more examples. Finally, even a cursory exploration of the extra-mendicant documentation shows that links of spiritual confraternity were not limited to the mendicants. As early as the fourteenth century, the benefactors of the friars also affiliated themselves with other categories of regular religious. Stephen, son of Benedict, admitted in 1362 into the spiritual confraternity of the Augustinian Hermits, had entered that of the Paulists two years earlier.59 Sigismund of Szentgyörgy, Count of Bazin, who had been associated, along with his brother John, with 53 

Kurcz, A lovagi kultúra, p. 156; Fügedi, ‘Koldulórendek és városfejlődés Magyarországon’, pp. 75–76. 54  Karácsonyi, Szent Ferencz rendjének, ii, 174–75; Budapest, MNL DL 101638. 55  LC 37. 56  LC 34. 57  Karácsonyi, Szent Ferencz rendjének, i, 232. 58  Karácsonyi, Szent Ferencz rendjének, ii, 38–40. 59  LC 10; Kurcz, A lovagi kultúra, p. 156, but the given references are incoherent.

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the suffrages of the Dominicans of Vienna since 1462,60 became a confrater of the Paulist Hermits in 1470.61 Peter of Tah had been incorporated along with his family into the Paulist spiritual confraternity in 1473,62 a generation before Stephen of Tah entered that of the Conventual Franciscans (1491) and then that of the Observants (1501).63 We may wager that if the acts of affiliation with regular orders established in Hungary had been better preserved, they would show a dense tangle of relations of confraternity between religious and non-religious, in particular in the noble and aristocratic levels of Hungarian society, whose members were very involved in the foundation and upkeep of the monasteries, friaries, priories, and commanderies of the kingdom.64 What was the role of the ordines mendicantes in this web? It will remain impossible to judge as long as the systematic analysis of the whole of the documentation on regular Hungarian spiritual confraternities remains to be accomplished. Coupled with the documentary imbalances already noted, the individual paths so far studied and the examples that will be analysed later in this chapter do, however, orient us towards a strong presence by the mendicants in this area. Between Family Tradition and Personal Affinities Far from being anarchical, the accumulation of spiritual affiliations was governed by various factors, with dynastic tradition among the most important. Forty-five letters of the Hungarian corpus have as their addressee an individual whose patronymic appears several times over the entire series. But we should not speak of a monopoly: barely thirty letters grace different representatives of a single lineage. These belong to ten or so dynasties: those of the Appony, Bánffy, Batthyány, Csap (or Csop), Dörögd (or Deregd), Gyula, Karácsond, Kenderes, Murga (or Morgai), Szécsény, and Tah families. The familial concentration seems to grow stronger over the years — unless this impression only comes from the magnifying effect caused by the better preservation of the archives of these families. 60 

LC 37. Budapest, MNL DL 16869. 62  Budapest, MNL DL 17454. 63  LC 68 and 85. 64  Kurcz, A lovagi kultúra; Fügedi, ‘Sepelierunt corpus eius in proprio monasterio’; Fügedi, ‘Quelques questions’; de Cevins and Koszta, ‘Noblesse et ordres religieux’. 61 

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The data available to us on the dynasties mentioned in the letters of confraternity, moreover, shows that family traditions exerted considerable weight on the choices made. The Szécsény family had numbered among the identified founders and benefactors of Franciscan friaries since the fourteenth century,65 like the Rozgony family — also linked by marriage to the former.66 Dorothy Bánffy, widow of John of Rozgony, founded an additional fraternity of tertiaries linked with the friary of Gyöngyös at the end of the fifteenth century.67 Franciscan tradition credits the Botos family with having instituted, a little before 1433, the Observant Franciscan friary of Rokovci (Harapk);68 Peter Botus (Botos) received affiliation with the order, along with burial in the friary, in 1438, from the provincial minister of Hungary, who was then visiting the Croatian friary of Virovitica.69 The Gyula family multiplied their links — both personal and institutional — with the Franciscans (especially Observant) between 1490 and 1520.70 The corpus of letters gathered for this study furnishes, in itself, excellent testimony to the perpetuation of family traditions when it came to support for the mendicant orders. George of Gyula, incorporated as confrater with the Observant Franciscans in 1492, is the father of John of Gyula, who entered their spiritual confraternity in 1507 and then in 1518.71 Apollina of Appony had been accepted into the same confraternitas in 1485; her son George followed her in this in 1494.72 The Dörögd and Murga families also favoured the Franciscan Observants from one generation to the next.73 It is true that several lineages oscillated between the Conventual Franciscans and the Observants, such as the Bánffy, Tah, and Csap families. The Gyulas themselves, so close to the Observant Franciscans, seem to have guaranteed the 65 

They seem to have been responsible for the foundation of the friary of Gyöngyös, in the middle of the fourteenth century. Karácsonyi, Szent Ferencz rendjének, ii, 58–63. 66  They probably founded, before 1413, the friary of Vranov nad Toplou (Varannó) which received exemptions from them (1490) and then gifts in the form of furnishings (1519). Karácsonyi, Szent Ferencz rendjének, i, 287–88. 67  Karácsonyi, Szent Ferencz rendjének, ii, 549–50. 68  Karácsonyi, Szent Ferencz rendjének, ii, 73. 69  LC 18. 70  Kertész, ‘A Gyulaiak és a ferencesek’, pp. 244–48. 71  LC 70, 102, and 115. 72  LC 53 and 77. 73  See Table 1.

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protection of the provincial chapter of the Conventuals gathered at Varaždin (Varasd) — of whose county seat John of Gyula was then vice-ispan — in 1518.74 While Gregory of Csap had been associated with the merits of the Observant Franciscans in 1511 and 1516 (as we have seen), his son (or other relative) George entered the spiritual confraternity of the Conventual Franciscans in 1522 and obtained burial in the friary of Košice (Kassa), whose future construction work he financed for the paltry sum of 220 florins.75 Distortions also existed within the orders chosen by the members of a single dynasty. Balthazar of Batthyán, whose father-in-law had associated him with the merits of the Dominicans and of the Augustinian Hermits in the 1480s, preferred the Observant Franciscans to them when he became the principal addressee of a letter of affiliation in 1503. 76 A charter from 1510 recognizes him as patronus (protector) of the Observant friary of Voćin.77 Stephen of Daróc entered the spiritual confraternity of the Hungarian Dominicans in 1504, while his relative (?) Nicolas had chosen burial among the Observant Franciscans of Perecske in his will dated 1501.78 We must certainly consider, once again, documentary disappearances: these do not exclude the possible existence of supplementary links of confraternity which might at least partially account for these hiatuses. The attachment of the members of the above-named dynasties to the link of spiritual confraternity with the mendicants is evident in their determination to solicit the delivery of letters in their own names, as principal addressees, even though their parents or family members had already had them inscribed into earlier acts. The widow of Ladislas of Szécsény, Barbara of Rozgony, thus joined the spiritual confraternity of the Friars Minor of the Observance in 1468, although her husband had obtained both their admission at the universal level from John of Capistrano in 1454.79 George of Dörögd affiliated himself to the Observant Franciscans in 1488, although his brother had already 74 

Kertész, ‘A Gyulaiak és a ferencesek’, p. 246. Karácsonyi, Szent Ferencz rendjének, i, 182–85. 76  LC 56, 62, and 92. 77  The guardian of the friary of Vočin qualifies him as ‘patronus et dominus noster graciosus’ and reports to him the deposit of alms by the bishop in exchange for perpetual masses. Budapest, MNL DL 104224. 78  LC 95; Budapest, MNL DL 25160 (1501). The family relationship between Nicolas and Stephen nevertheless remains obscure. 79  LC 27 and 43. 75 

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obtained this grace for him in 1474, at the provincial level and at the same ‘ordinary’ degree.80 George of Appony received participation in the merits of the Observant Franciscans in 1494, despite the steps undertaken by his mother in his favour nine years earlier.81 The information available to us concerning the families which have just been mentioned confirms that the circle of confratres cuts across, partially at least, that of the benefactors of the friaries or of their descendants. Only partially, however, for certain dynasties known for their support for the friars — the Újlak (or Ilok) family,82 the Tárca family,83 and many others who exercised protocolary protection (as patronus) over the friars — do not figure among the addressees of letters of affiliation. As we have suggested in the preceding pages, their high level of commitment, often combined with an eminent social position, gave them the possibility of access to graces that were judged to be superior, such as pro anima foundations or burial in the friary close.84 Consequently, the series of letters of confraternity studied here brings several families and individuals out of the shadows, since their continuing support for the mendicants was previously unknown. It thus draws a concentric circle around the mendicant establishments which is wider than the narrow core of the eminent protectors of the friars. The internal discontinuities within families might indicate preferences that were limited, at least in certain cases, to individuals. Indeed, we should not dismiss the hypothesis of requests for affiliation motivated by a personal admiration, sincere and spontaneous, for the mendicant orders — the fruit of the attractiveness of their propositum vitae, of the sanctity of their major figures, or even of the exemplarity of their members, whom the candidates for entry into spiritual confraternity frequented day after day. Except that, according to the current state of research, arguments for backing up this hypothesis are lacking. Thus, the anthroponymic usages of the affiliates are scarcely convincing. Out of ninety-four male forenames mentioned as those of the children (or, more rarely, the grandchildren) of the principal addressees of the letters of the Hungarian 80 

LC 45 and 60. LC 53 and 77. 82  Fedeles, ‘Egy középkori főúri család vallásossága’. 83  Kertész, ‘Újabb adatok’. 84  The red marble tombstone of John of Tárca, buried in 1510 in the church of the Observant Franciscans of Skalica (Szakolca) is the most imposing one that has ever been found on Hungarian soil, as Balázs Kertész stresses in ‘Újabb adatok’, p. 88. 81 

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corpus,85 we count twelve Francises — of whom six are eldest sons. This figure is distinctly higher than in the general lists of forenames given in Hungary at this period, particularly among the nobility.86 This honourable score could be evidence for the prestige of the Franciscans and of their founder, were it not for the obstacle that half of the occurrences of the name Francis are found in non-Franciscan letters! Moreover, we meet only one Bernardino, and not a single Dominic. The link is even more tenuous when it comes to daughters: out of seventy-two female forenames, we find only two Clares, one Agnes, two Elizabeths, and two Margarets — the last two names not necessarily having any relationship to the mendicants. This leaves doubt as to the power that spiritual confraternities might have had to consolidate fundamentally the spirituality links between affiliates and affiliating orders. A Factor in rapprochement with the Friars? Once admitted into spiritual confraternity, did the affiliates redouble their generosity towards the friars, or take the step of joining the third order, or orient their children towards the professio with the mendicants? Or rather, did they relax their efforts, confident in the effectiveness of the grace obtained, even though they may have pursued the same initiative with different orders to multiply their chances of being saved? For the time being, investigations into the Hungarian documentation give contradictory results — apparently more than in the English Benedictine milieu.87 After his major affiliation with the order of the Hermits of Saint Augustine in 1357, Benedict Himfi does not seem to have brought particularly active support to the members of the order.88 The magistrates of Prešov showed no haste to apply the reforming measures decreed by the general of the Carmelites in exchange for their superior incorporation into the order in 1437, since the provincial prior had to reiterate his calls in 1450.89 The only mendicant friary cited by Ladislas of Gerebenc — admitted into the spiritual confraternity of the Dominicans in 1485 and that of the Augustinian Hermits in 148890 — in his will of 1490, that of Podborje, is 85 

The individuals mentioned several times have been counted as one unit. In particular in the genealogies established by Pál Engel in Magyar középkori adattár. 87  Clark, ‘Monastic Confraternity in Medi­eval England’, pp. 328–29. 88  As Kornél Szovák points out in ‘“Meritorum apud Dominum fructus cumulatorum”’, p. 82. 89  See Chapter 5. 90  LC 56 and 62. 86 

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neither Dominican nor Augustinian but Observant Franciscan.91 The last dispositions, extremely detailed, of Ambrose Sárkány of Kövend (1522) — who was received by the provincial of Hungary into the spiritual confraternity of the Conventual Franciscans in 150592 — do not breathe a word concerning the Friars Minor.93 Conversely, the spiritual path of several affiliates shows a strengthening of links with the friars post confraternitatem. The son of Peter of Söpte, named John, seems to have taken the Dominican habit in the years which followed his father’s entry into confraternitas, granted by the provincial of Hungary in 1466 — if not immediately after this act, then at least before 1489.94 Nicolas Székely of Kövend had become affiliated with the Observant Franciscans twice, in 1500 and then in 1507;95 in his will drawn up in 1517, he chooses burial in the Observant Franciscan friary of Saint Ladislas of Podborje, bequeathing to the establishment a sum of twenty florins — the largest among the amounts he left to clerics or to ecclesiastical institutions.96 In her last wishes (1524), the widow of Michael Frankopan, Barbara of Rozgony, a member (as we have noted) of the cismontane spiritual confraternity of the Franciscan Observance since 1514, founded anniversary masses for two hundred florins at the friary of Slunj, to which she also gave three hundred florins for repairs to be made;97 and she granted her daughter Anne, who had joined the Poor Clares, two hundred florins.98 The illustration of a maximal fidelity to the mendicants dates from 1531. The confratrissa of the Observant Franciscan friary of Cluj named Madeleine, widow of George, bequeathed at that time the highest sums in her will, as well as her house and some objects of precious metal, to the Observant Franciscan friary of the town, with whose merits she was associated and where she had 91 

Budapest, MNL DL 101638. It is true that only a fragment of this act remains. LC 97. 93  Edition: Füssy, ‘Ákosházi Sárkány Ambrus’. 94  LC 42 and 64. See also Chapter 5. 95  LC 84 and 101. 96  ‘Item fratribus de Subbor tum pro sepultura tum etiam pro orationibus perpetuis lego florenos XX, ita ut corpus meum honorifice sepeliant’. Karácsonyi, Szent Ferencz rendjének, ii, 174–75; Karácsonyi, ‘Kövendi Székely Miklós’. 97  Budapest, MNL DL 89187 (the word trigentos is corrected there as tricentos). 98  Doubtless the link of family and affection (‘filie nostre carissime’) won out, nevertheless, in this specific case, over fidelity to the Franciscan Order. Barbara of Rozgony bequeaths larger sums to her other children, notably to her daughter Dorothy (1000 florins). Budapest, MNL DL 89187. 92 

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chosen to be buried. Moreover, she left money to the tertiary sisters attached to this friary, as well as to twelve Observant friaries in Hungary — in the order of their appearance in the will: Esztergom, Buda, Pest, Gyöngyös, Jászberény, Tata, Visegrád, Oradea (Nagyvárad), Târgu Mureş (Márosvásárhely), Suseni (Felfalu), Teiuş (Tövis), and Caransebeş (Karánsebes). By contrast, the donations made to the Dominicans of Cluj (for masses and the rebuilding of an altarpiece in a lateral chapel of their church) as well as to the Dominican nuns, and to the parish of Saint Michael — the principal parish church of Cluj — were, in comparison to those destined for the Observant Franciscans, modest.99 These last examples might lead us to believe that, in the eyes of Hungarian Christians, entry into a mendicant spiritual confraternity punctuated their desire to draw ever nearer to the friars. This was manifestly its function at the Benedictine monastery of Saint Albans: outside of a minority of members who showed little assiduity, wilfully ‘accumulating’ and rather well off, for whom it was just one salvational grace among others, spiritual confraternity accompanied gifts granted to the monks by their benefactors and regular contacts of the laity with them (as personal confessor or spiritual director, for example) up until burial in the sacred ground of the monastery.100 Can we apply this model to the Hungarian mendicant spiritual confraternities? Only a very thorough prosopo­graphical investigation concerning all the confratres and con­ sorores emerging from the sources would allow us to know whether, generally, entry into confraternitas really marked an important turning point in the evolution of the links (spiritual and material) which united the non-religious to the mendicant friars, and whether differences may further be observed between the wealthier members (hypothetically less faithful) and the more modest ones (disposed towards greater assiduity). According to the current state of research, it seems that the process of membership in a spiritual confraternity only reinforced, rather than revived, the pro-mendicant orientation of the affiliates. The traces of complete abandonment are thin, as we have seen, but those of a spectacular redoubling of efforts accorded in favour of friaries are just as scanty. Moreover, whatever the social origin of the confratres, we do not find among them a multiplication of signs of devotion towards the great mendicant figures following their entry into spiritual confraternity: no pilgrimages to Assisi, no joining of a (lay) confraternity of the Rosary, no foundations of altars or chap99  Monumenta ecclesiastica, ed. by Bunyitay, Rapaics, and Karácsonyi, ii, 178–81, no. 159. See also de Cevins, Les Franciscains observants, p. 405. 100  Clark, ‘Monastic Confraternity in Medi­eval England’, p. 329.

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els placed under the protection of Francis, Dominic, or Bernardino, no change in anthroponymic usage (as we have observed). In short, everything happens as if the affiliation had only been superimposed on previous religious practices (cultual, sacramental, and devotional, prescribed or supererogatory, community or private). Faced with these fragile and mitigated results, the study of the spiritual course of a few individuals becomes indispensable. Not to conform to the genre of portrait gallery, but to determine what, from among the attractiveness of the mendicant model, the weight of family traditions, previous commitments, or personal affinities, was most important in the decision to enter the spiritual confraternity of the mendicants.

Three Itineraries of Spiritual Associates Light has been shed upon the religious practices of three members of mendicant confraternities of the Kingdom of Hungary through several scholarly mono­ graphs.101 These examples, if we set them alongside the data collected in this study and in other similar works, offer a more detailed image of the place occupied by affiliation in the salvational strategies of Hungarian Christians at the end of the Middle Ages. They are all the more instructive since they concern individuals who lived between the middle of the fourteenth century and the first third of the sixteenth century, and who belonged to contrasting social categories. Benedict Himfi Benedict Himfi (?–1380/81), son of Paul, himself the son of Hem of Döbrönte (or Debrente) was one of those Hungarian nobles of the fourteenth century who managed to raise himself into the ranks of the baronage thanks to the coming to power of the Angevin dynasty in Hungary. Appearing for the first time in the sources in 1343, a knight of the court of Louis I in 1347, he was pursuing his political and social ascension at the time of his affiliation with the Augustinian Hermits, in 1357. As a diplomat valued by the king for his talents 101 

We think in particular of the following four studies: Kurcz, A lovagi kultúra; Szovák, ‘“Meritorum apud Dominum fructus cumulatorum”’; Szovák, ‘A győri ferences őrség’; Romhányi, ‘“Meretur vestre devocionis affectus …”’. Complementary information in Kertész, ‘A Gyulaiak és a ferencesek’ and Horváth, ‘Bigámista volt-e Himfi Benedek bolgár bán’.

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as a negotiator, a valiant and educated warrior, he held various offices simultaneously or successively: territorial (he was the ispan of sixteen counties), diplomatic (as royal ambassador to the Avignon Curia), and military (as fortress commander and then head of the campaigns launched against Venice, he was sent to several Italian theatres). The high point of his career, his nomination as Ban of Bulgaria in 1366, confirmed his position as baron and close advisor of Louis the Great, a position he kept until his death in 1380 or 1381.102 A single letter of the Hungarian corpus is addressed to Benedict Himfi, the one by which the prior general of the Augustinian Hermits, Gregory, grants him participation in the good works of the order and gives him the same necro­ logical dispositions as those for deceased friars, in 1357.103 But he also appears in a letter established by the prior and the chapter of the Dominican province of Hungary, who were meeting in Győr on All Saints’ Day in 1376, by virtue of which Benedict and his son Nicolas are recommended for the prayers of the friars of the province and obtain specific celebrations (masses, psalms, and prayers) for their salvation and that of their children.104 The exposition of motives specifies that Benedict had provided most of the food provisions necessary to hold the provincial chapter.105 We note that a century later, in 1485, his great-great-grandson Emeric Himfi of Döbrönte — who no longer occupied a social and political rank as elevated as that of his ancestor, being only Captain of Torna — received a letter of affiliation, this time (Observant) Franciscan.106 Other documents allow us to learn more about the religious practices of Benedict Himfi, particularly those involving mendicant establishments. Shortly after his promotion to the Banate of Bulgaria in 1366, he seems to have 102  Hóman and Szekfű, Magyar történet, p. 307; Kristó, Korai magyar történeti lexikon, ‘Himfi Benedek’, p. 263; Engel, Magyar középkori adattár; Szovák, ‘“Meritorum apud Dom­ inum fructus cumulatorum”’; and Szovák, ‘A győri ferences őrség’, pp. 11–12. 103  LC 7. 104  Iványi, Dominikánus levelek, pp. 35–36 no. 4. 105  ‘sincerissime devocionis affectus, quem ad ordinem sancti Dominici geritis indesinenter, quem affectum sincerum ac devotum nobis ostenditis evidenter in tam solenni celebratione capituli nostri ordinis, quod quidem capitulum anno in presenti in festo omnium sanctorum Jaurini procurastis tam affluenter tam liberaliter’ (of the very sincere devotion that you continually bear to the order of Saint Dominic, this sincere and devoted affection which you manifest to us in an evident way for the solemn celebration of the chapter of our order, chapter of this year held at Győr on the feast-day of all the saints, whose needs you provide for with abundance and munificence). Iványi, Dominikánus levelek, pp. 35–36 no. 4. 106  LC 54.

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founded the Franciscan friary of Gherman (Ermény in Hungarian, in presentday Romania), a friary that was initially attached to the Franciscan vicariate of Bosnia, like that of Caransebeş, erected not far from there in the same time period (about 1368) by King Louis I.107 Benedict Himfi thus contributed to the programme of the conversion of the Walachian (Romanian) and Bulgarian ‘Schismatics’ planned by Louis the Great with the collaboration of the first Italian Observants. Established in Bosnia, they had instituted a vicariate there and created, before 1385, a ‘custody of Bulgaria’ to support it.108 At the beginning of the will which Benedict Himfi established in 1376, on the eve of his departure for the Holy Land, he designates as his executors two Franciscans from Sebes (probably Caransebeş) — Arnold, ‘custodian of Sebes’ and John of Buda, ‘guardian of Sebes’ — which confirms his links with the cradle of the Hungarian Franciscan Observance.109 In the last months of his life, Benedict seems to have supported, with his own funds, the holding of the provincial chapter of the (undivided) Franciscans which started in 1380 in Győr — the seat of the county which Benedict had administered since 1379 — according to a letter from the custodian of Győr probably written in July 1380.110 Kornél Szovák deduces from this that he had probably entered the Franciscan confraternitas — with no other proof than this short letter of uncertain date which does not mention participation in the merits.111 Whatever the case may be, this support for a mendicant chapter, more107 

Karácsonyi, Szent Ferencz rendjének, ii, 88. Kornél Szovák does not point out this creation, admittedly ephemeral, since the friary was destroyed by the Ottomans in 1399. 108  Karácsonyi, Szent Ferencz rendjének, ii, 43–44 and 88. On the aims of Louis the Great, see de Cevins, ‘L’Alliance du sabre et du goupillon en Hongrie au xive siècle’. 109  Budapest, MNL DL 42026 (Arnaldus custos de Sebes, Johannes gardianus de eadem Seb­ bes). Kornél Szovák (‘A győri ferences őrség’, p. 13) only mentions John of Buda, and describes him as the confessor of Benedict, which the text does not specify. The only problem: in 1376, there was no ‘custody of Sebeş’ — neither among the Conventuals nor among the Observants, who did create, a little later, a ‘custody of Bulgaria’ (according to the inventory of 1385). Karácsonyi, Szent Ferencz rendjének, ii, 88. Copying error? The text is only a notice, not an original. Unless it uses this contracted formulation to simplify the chrono­logical succession of the Observant foundations of the region, since the friary of Caransebeş was already de facto the centre of the custody of Bulgaria that was then in gestation. 110  Szovák, ‘A győri ferences őrség’, according to a document which he edits (p. 17, no. 2), rectifying the dating indicated in a previous edition (about 1320): Sedlák, Regesta diplomat­ ica, ii, 255 no. 552. Budapest, MNL DL 47976 (dating given in the notice in the Hungarian National Archives: 1369–71). 111  Szovák, ‘“Meritorum apud Dominum fructus cumulatorum”’, p. 82. The custodian of

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over one that was meeting in the town of Győr, matches the one mentioned by the Dominican letter of recommendation of 1376. It illustrates the trend for Hungarian nobles and aristocrats of the Angevin period to contribute to the material organization (financial and logistical) of provincial chapters. 112 The letter that the custodian of Győr sent to Benedict Himfi in 1380 — if we accept the dating proposed by Kornél Szovák — provides concrete details on this practice (delivery of wheat and of wine, maintenance of a registry of accounts) which confirm the involvement of the baron in the preparation of the Franciscan chapter which met that year. The religious practices of Benedict Himfi linked him as much to secular churches as to regular ones. They resembled in every respect those of the Hungarian aristocrats of the end of the Middle Ages for whom we have at least a minimum of documentation. On the occasion of a diplomatic mission in Avignon on the business of King Louis I in 1359, Benedict solicited from the pope the right to choose his private confessor, and he obtained indulgences thanks to chapels founded by his immediate ancestors and by himself.113 Two documents of 1366 and 1372 allow us to identify these sanctuaries: the first indicates the existence of a chapel of St Ladislas — a saint who was particularly venerated within the Hungarian aristocracy, especially since his promotion by the Angevins114 — built into the cathedral of Veszprém at the request of the Himfi family; the second mentions an altar dedicated to St Benedict — the eponym of its donor — founded in the royal collegiate church of Székesfehérvár, and over which Benedict Himfi and his heirs exercised patronage (ius patronatus).115 However, it was neither in the one nor the other that Benedict had planned to be buried, according to his will (1376), but within the walls of the convent of Dominican nuns of Veszprém, dedicated to St Catherine and sanctified by the fact that (St) Margaret of Hungary had stayed there a century earlier. Benedict had graced the establishment with several gifts of land.116 His spouse, Dorothy of Essegvár, was charged with conveying them Győr named John signs himself vestre dominationis fidelis orator, which indicates a recommendation for prayers, not an affiliation. 112  De Cevins and Koszta, ‘Noblesse et ordres religieux’. 113  Szovák, ‘“Meritorum apud Dominum fructus cumulatorum”’, p. 81. 114  Klaniczay, ‘Le Culte des saints dynastiques’ and Klaniczay, ‘La Noblesse et le culte des saints dynastiques’. 115  Szovák, ‘“Meritorum apud Dominum fructus cumulatorum”’, p. 81. 116  Budapest, MNL DL 42026; Horváth, ‘Bigámista volt-e Himfi Benedek bolgár bán’, p. 118.

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to the nuns. It is not impossible that her husband had thus prepared the stay which Dorothy, once widowed, would make later (under the religious name of Margaret, to be specific)117 in this prestigious convent which had received the widows and daughters of the Hungarian aristocracy since its foundation by Bishop Bartholomew in 1240.118 Finally, when he had reached a very advanced age, Benedict undertook a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, accompanied by his son, in about 1376, after having obtained from the apostolic penitentiary in 1375 the authorization to travel accompanied by his escort.119 It was at this specific time that he composed his (first) will. He had already sought a derogation in this direction in the spring of 1357, at the time of his first stay in Avignon.120 Did this pilgrimage plan express the Franciscan immersion of Benedict, as Kornél Szovák supposes, or perhaps the adherence to the dreams of reconquest of the East (held by the Angevins of Naples since the end of the previous century and perhaps reaffirmed by his charge as Ban of Bulgaria)? In fact, the Hungarian pilgrims who left for Jerusalem at the end of the Middle Ages did not necessarily have close ties with the Franciscans, any more than with the oriental mirages of the reigning sovereigns.121 Might the pious journey then have corresponded to personal motives, in particular to the desire of Benedict to find his daughter, kidnapped by the Ottoman bands who had burst into the east of the kingdom in 1375 (?) then resold as a slave in Crete, from where she only returned in 1405? No, since according to recent research, Margaret was probably captured well after the death of her father, around 1391 or 1392.122 What is certain is that the piety of Benedict Himfi tallies well with what we know of the forms of religiosity of the Hungarian aristocracy under the Angevins: punctuated by the foundations of friaries, chapels, and oratories, it translated itself legally as the exercise of rights of patronage and was made 117 

Horváth, ‘Bigámista volt-e Himfi Benedek bolgár bán’, pp. 117–18. Harsányi, A domonkosrend Magyarországon, pp. 103–04; Kralovánszky, ‘The Settlement History’, p. 71. 119  Szovák, ‘“Meritorum apud Dominum fructus cumulatorum”’, pp. 82–83. Concerning these preparations, see Csukovits, Középkori magyar zarándokok, p. 103 and pp. 108–09. 120  Szovák, ‘“Meritorum apud Dominum fructus cumulatorum”’, p. 83. 121  See the examples gathered in Csukovits, Középkori magyar zarándokok. 122  Engel, ‘A török-magyar háborúk’, pp.  567–68; Kovács, ‘Egy magyar rabszolganő’, p. 105. For an analysis of this update, see Horváth, ‘Bigámista volt-e Himfi Benedek bolgár bán’, p. 116. 118 

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concrete by continuous support for male and female mendicant establishments — as well as for the houses of the Paulists — and concluded with the choosing of burial in a regular cemetery.123 As a witness of the ravages of the Black Death and of the wars during his stays in Italy, Benedict may have committed himself to it more resolutely than other aristocrats of his time, suggests Kornél Szovák.124 He nevertheless sets himself apart by the diversity of the mendicant orders by which he was recognized as a benefactor and by the multiple routes via which he entered into their influence. With the exception of the Carmelites, who arrived in Hungary only a few years before his death, all the mendicant orders established in the kingdom benefited in one way or another from his largesse: the Augustinian Hermits, the Dominicans — friars and nuns — the Franciscans of the province of Hungary and those (who would soon be called Observants) of the Vicariate of Bosnia. The early support of Benedict Himfi for the Hermits of Saint Augustine, beginning in the 1350s, is an extension of that of the Angevin kings, who we know gave a new élan to this order which had long been in the shadow of the Franciscans and the Dominicans.125 The manifestations of his attachment to the mendicants are astonishingly varied: the foundation of a friary (‘Bosnian’ Franciscan), periodic material support to chapters (Hungarian Dominican and Franciscan), donations of property to a women’s establishment, recommendation for the prayers of the friars and perpetual celebrations (with the Hungarian Dominicans), major affiliation at the scale of the entire order (with the Augustinian Hermits), designation of friars as executors of his will, burial in a mendicant cemetery. The only missing element is the choice of a private mendicant confessor, and we may well simply have lost the trace of that act. On first consideration, limited to a single certain mention, membership in regular spiritual confraternities occupies an insignificant place in this whole. And it did not characterize the mendicants any more than other regular orders. Five years after the death of Benedict, in 1385, his widow received a letter of spiritual association, with memoria, from the prior of Saint Michael of Lövöld, a Carthusian priory founded by Louis the Great in about 1364.126 It is not impossible that during his lifetime, Benedict had obtained the same grace from 123 

Kurcz, A lovagi kultúra. Szovák, ‘“Meritorum apud Dominum fructus cumulatorum”’, p. 83. 125  De Cevins, ‘Les Ermites de saint Augustin en Hongrie médiévale’, pp. 114–15. 126  Horváth, ‘Bigámista volt-e Himfi Benedek bolgár bán’, p. 118; Budapest, MNL DL 7179. 124 

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the superiors of eremitic or monastic communities, a grace whose documentary record may simply have disappeared. A useful detail: he could not ask it of the Franciscans of the vicariate of Bosnia; the participation in merits, associated with stability (monastic or administrative) did not suit these friars who were experiencing ‘frontier Franciscanism’.127 It is still true that spiritual affiliation responded in an ideal fashion to the preoccupations of a pious aristocrat of the Angevin period, insofar as it permitted, unlike burial in the friary, the participation in the merits of several orders at once — even if the documentation does not allow us to confirm that Benedict Himfi entered the spiritual confraternities of all the orders to which he gave his support. Furthermore, it offered the possibility of going beyond the conventual level and even that of the province or the kingdom. This is no doubt the reason that Benedict took advantage of his mission to Avignon to obtain, as early as 1357, from the Augustinian prior general who was then in Montpellier, a charter affiliating him to the entire order. Still, it was not this favour that Benedict Himfi sought on the eve of his departure for the Holy Land in 1376. He was preparing himself to die on the journey, as he recognizes at the beginning of his will established that year with the Franciscans. He had recourse, in this eventuality, to pro anima celebrations. He probably addressed himself to the Dominican prior of Hungary, assuring him that he would facilitate the holding of the next assembly of the province in exchange for liturgical services. It was in response to these promises that the latter, in the chapter, instituted a long list of masses and prayers, quite close to what was prescribed for the friars of the order128 (five masses to be recited by the priests, five psalms by the minor clerics, a hundred Pater nosters and Aves by the lay brothers, to be repeated five times), but whose effectiveness was described as immediate and extended to his children (‘pro salubri ac prospero statu vestro liberorumque vestrorum’).129 These generous dispositions may explain why the will of Benedict, established in the presence of the Franciscans a few months later, does not found any supplementary offices. The example of Benedict Himfi seems to prove that, in the second half of the fourteenth century, spiritual confraternity remained marginal in the religious practices of the important members of the laity, including those who were actively involved in the material functioning of the mendicant friaries. Were 127 

We know that the situation was different in the following century, at the height of the Observance. 128  See Chapter 4. 129  Iványi, Dominikánus levelek, pp. 35–36 no. 4.

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some unaware of the existence or the virtues of spiritual affiliation? It is not impossible that Benedict Himfi first heard of it during his stay in Avignon in the late 1350s. At that period, the existing salvational tools, liturgical in nature and founded on intercession, seemed sufficient to the majority of the faithful, even those who held the mendicants in very high esteem. Peter of Söpte A century separates Benedict Himfi from Peter of Söpte (or Septe), the second lay addressee of letters of confraternity from the Hungarian corpus for whom we have relatively extensive data. In contrast to his predecessor, Peter has the highest total number of letters in the series, four acts, spread over a quarter century (between 1466 and 1491).130 He is moreover called confrater noster specia­ lis in a letter written by the Carmelites of Buda in 1494,131 which likely refers to the admission pronounced by the provincial of the order in 1480. There is enough here to suggest from the outset a significant development in the links of confraternity in aristocratic piety in the fifteenth century.132 The bio­graphy and spiritual profile of Peter of Söpte are unfortunately less well documented than those of Benedict Himfi. They do, however, converge in several respects. First of all, their social ascension stemmed from their service to the king. This was particularly spectacular in Peter’s case: Matthias Corvinus incorporated this former bourgeois of Buda into the nobility at the beginning of the 1460s, as thanks for the zeal he had shown to the royal chancery whose notary he had been for three decades.133 Another shared trait: Peter of Söpte maintained privileged relationships with all four of the mendicant orders that were established in Hungary. The books that he gave to the Augustinians of Buda — assuming that they had initially been part of his personal library — may reflect this eclecticism: we find among them the Aurea Catena and the Summa theo­logica of Aquinas in company with the sermons of Bonaventure.134 It was for the Dominicans that Peter showed the steadiest support, which earned him two successive affiliations. He was first admitted in 1466, with his spouse and his son, into the ‘ordinary’ confraternity of the Friars Preachers, 130 

LC 42, 50, 64, and 67. Budapest, MNL DL 93640. 132  As Beatrix Romhányi has shown in Romhányi, ‘“Meretur vestre devocionis affectus …”’. 133  See Bónis, A jogtudó értelmiség, p. 295 and pp. 304–05. 134  Bónis, A jogtudó értelmiség, pp. 304–05. 131 

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according to a letter from the provincial of Hungary Mark of Debrecen. It invokes his affectus towards the friars, without detailing (as always) its manifestations.135 Twenty-three years later, in 1489, the master general Joachim Turriani gave him ‘communion’ with the suffrages of the entire order, with post mortem commemoration.136 The act informs us that it was a student (studens) of theo­logy from Buda named John who had reported to the master general the largess generously distributed by Peter. Was he Peter of Söpte’s own son, as Beatrix Romhányi supposes?137 His family tie with the entrant is not indicated in the act of 1489.138 However, the Johannes mentioned among the children of Peter who were associated with the merits of the Dominicans of the province of Hungary in 1466 disappears from the later letters. This may be explained — without certainty, since the given name is very common — by the fact that John no longer needed to be affiliated since he had already taken his vows with the Dominicans. In the intervening period, Peter of Söpte had been associated with the merits of the Carmelites. The provincial of Upper Germany, who was staying in Buda at that time, granted him participation, in the ‘major’ form, in the spiritual goods amassed by the friars and nuns of the province in 1480. The letter, once again, contains no indication concerning the forms of his assistance to the religious.139 But a charter established on 8 September 1494 by the prior of the friary of Buda states that Peter had bequeathed to the friary a house in the capital, located in the Felhévíz sector, in exchange for perpetual masses for the salvation of his soul and those of his family, to be celebrated during his lifetime and in presence of his mortal remains (‘in presentia sui funeris’).140 It was thus clear that he intended to be buried with the Carmelites. The notations relating to the Augustinian Hermits and to the Franciscans are scarcer. Other than five books, Peter of Söpte left, in 1488, three vineyards to the friary of Augustinian Hermits on the outskirts of Buda, in exchange for per135 

‘Inde est quod vestre dilectionis sincerus affectus, quod in cordis armariolo ad nostrum ordinem gerere conspicimini’. LC 42. 136  LC 64. 137  Romhányi, ‘“Meretur vestre devocionis affectus …”’, p. 40. 138  ‘vestrarum devotionis affectus quem fideli et grata fratrum nostrorum et per maxime fratris Johannis sacre theo­logie studentis de Buda didicimus vos habere’. LC 64. 139  ‘Exigente vestrarum, quem pia fratrum relacione intelleximus vos habere ad nostram religionem’. LC 50. 140  Budapest, MNL DL 93640.

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petual masses.141 Lastly, in 1491, the minister general Francis Samson admits him into the ‘major’ spiritual confraternity of the Conventual Franciscans.142 Peter of Söpte was not only affiliated with the mendicants. The oldest letter concerning him comes from the Carthusian Order. In 1464, Sigismund, prior of Saint Michael of Lövöld, extended participation in the merits of his priory, with commemoration, to him and his wife.143 Three years later, in 1467, Barnabas, the Carthusian prior of Tárkány, granted him the same grace, again with memoria.144 Finally, in 1490, the prior of the Grande Chartreuse, in the general chapter, admitted him, at the request of the prior of Lövöld, into the spiritual confraternity of the order, still at the superior degree.145 These three letters prove the influence of the Carthusians among the cultivated lay elites of Hungary. Perceptible as early as the end of the fourteenth century (according to the example of the widow of Benedict Himfi mentioned above) this influence was still vigorous at the end of the fifteenth century. Their power of attraction, also observed in other regions of Western Christendom at the end of the Middle Ages,146 seems to have been translated in Hungary into the participation in their merits. Two other non-mendicant orders also welcomed the royal notary into their communities of merits at the end of his life. In 1495, the prior general of the Paulists granted him entry into his spiritual confraternity,147 and three years later, in 1498, the Cistercian abbot of Heiligenkreuz granted him the same favour at the level of the Austrian houses of his order.148 In consequence of all this, Peter was united with an impressive range of regular orders: at least three mendicant orders, as well as three non-mendicant monastic or eremitic orders, to which may have been added the Hospitallers of the Holy Spirit in 1493 (according to Beatrix Romhányi).149 Far from suffering 141 

Romhányi, ‘“Meretur vestre devocionis affectus …”’, pp. 39–40; Budapest, MNL DL 93590. This document does not qualify Peter as confrater. 142  LC 67. 143  Romhányi, ‘“Meretur vestre devocionis affectus …”’, pp. 38–39; Budapest, MNL DL 93301. 144  Romhányi, ‘“Meretur vestre devocionis affectus …”’, p. 39; Budapest, MNL DL 93376. 145  Romhányi, ‘“Meretur vestre devocionis affectus …”’, p. 40; Budapest, MNL DL 93608. 146  See the recent volume Excoffon, Les Chartreux et les élites. 147  Romhányi, ‘“Meretur vestre devocionis affectus …”’, pp. 38 and 42; Budapest, MNL DL 93644. 148  Romhányi, ‘“Meretur vestre devocionis affectus …”’, pp. 38 and 42; Budapest, MNL DL 93676. 149  Romhányi, ‘“Meretur vestre devocionis affectus …”’’, p. 41, who observes that the registries of the Roman Confraternity of the Holy Spirit have, however, preserved no trace of the enrolment of Peter of Söpte. Liber confraternitatis Sancti Spiritus de Urbe, ed. by Bunyitay,

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on account of the criticisms of the preceding century, the attraction of the regular religious thus remained intact for the lay elites at the dawn of the sixteenth century — a situation for which there is also evidence outside of Hungary.150 The ‘Peter of Söpte file’ simultaneously illustrates the trend, recurrent in the Hungarian documentation starting in the middle of the fifteenth century, of multiplying entries into spiritual confraternity. It explains the proliferation of litter(a)e confraternitatis in all the orders established on Hungarian soil, as well as within individual orders. According to the scheme of progression described earlier, incorporation proceeded by stages in a halo-like manner: the admissions granted to Peter of Söpte within a single order (mendicant or not) continue ever crescendo, from ‘ordinary’ entry to ‘major’ entry, and from the friary level to that of the entire order.151 Everywhere, spiritual affiliation seems to have become the almost-automatic consecration of donations to regular communities. The example of Peter of Söpte moreover reveals the growing element of personal motives — to the detriment of family traditions and political incentives. As a native of Buda, exercising his offices in the capital, Peter of Söpte was linked to almost all the mendicant friaries that were established there. As a grand finale to the process of ‘brother-becoming’, one of his sons seems to have taken vows with the Dominicans of Buda, as we have seen. These choices reflect, to a great extent, Peter’s social origin. At that period, the burghers of Hungary gave their preference to the Dominicans and the Carmelites, as well as to the Conventual Franciscans, rather than to the Franciscans of the Observance — pp. 19–35 (year 1493). In reality, the charter of 1 April 1493 (Budapest, MNL DL 93631) established in the name of the preceptor of the Roman hospital of the Holy Spirit in Saxia does not grant to Peter of Söpte participation in the merits of the members of the Order of the Hospitallers of the Holy Spirit, but only inscription in the registry of the establishment (‘in libro sancti confraternitatis dicti hospitalis inscripsit’). Before the rule of 1564 (Chapter 4: ‘Qualiter societas nostra petentibus detur’), this registration did not ‘automatically’ procure spiritual affiliation with the order (as specified in Chapter 3), which explains the presence of Hospitallers of the Holy Spirit themselves among the inscribed names; a Hungarian example is furthermore given in Csukovits, Középkori magyar zarándokok, p. 180. 150  See the influx of London merchants in the registry of the Benedictine monastery of Saint Albans, starting at the turn of the sixteenth century, pointed out in Clark, ‘Monastic Confraternity in Medi­eval England’, p. 325. 151  On the other hand, the absence of members (living or dead) of the family of the addressee did not justify the issuing of a new letter of confraternity — contrary to what one might deduce from the approximate transcription of the letter of Francis Samson (LC 67): we should read ‘animas vestrorum defunctorum’, instead of ‘animas uxorum defunctarum’ (Romhányi, ‘“Meretur vestre devocionis affectus …”’, p. 41 n. 20).

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whose benefactors were generally nobles or barons.152 Even for such a faithful servant of King Matthias Corvinus as Peter of Söpte, this attraction won out over the imitatio regis. Indeed, this was true to the point that he ignored the Franciscans of the Observance, who were openly supported by the king as well as numerous aristocrats, and had been installed beginning in 1444 in the friary of Saint John of Buda, the most important one in the province of Hungary. Even abundantly accumulated, affiliations consequently maintained a certain coherence in the eyes of their beneficiaries, who made up their own palettes of them according to their own criteria. The advantages presented by affiliation, for a man like Peter of Söpte as for any faithful Christian with the desire and the means to support the religious, had not fundamentally changed since the previous century. The range of regular families had simply widened, which allowed one to participate in an everincreasing number of merits amassed by all types of monachi. As an objective limit of the system, but also as a gage of its success, the maximum engagement through the taking of the habit, even if only at the hour of death, lost part of its ‘interest’: like Benedict Himfi in the fourteenth century, Peter of Söpte was content (according to the charter of 1494 mentioned above) with burial within the walls of a mendicant friary sine habitu. The accumulation of entries into spiritual confraternity reinforced the non-exclusive nature of this grace, inevitably weakening the preferential fidelity that had long reigned in recruitment to monastic spiritual confraternities. Overall, the path of Peter of Söpte illustrates the rise, both quantitative and qualitative, of mendicant affiliations in Hungary at the end of the Middle Ages and their correlation, manifestly closer than before, with the religious sensibility of the confratres. Without taking the place of pro anima foundations or of burial within the friary close, they incorporated the faithful of high rank into communities that were ever more diverse and extended. Madeleine, Widow of Cluj The case of Madeleine, spouse and then widow of a stonecutter of Cluj (Kolozsvár) named George (Georgius Lapicida) will retain our attention for a shorter time: not only because of its chrono­logical position at the limit of the period studied, but because it cannot be investigated in the same way as the previous ones. In fact, the only mention of the confraternal affiliation of 152 

See Chapter 3.

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Madeleine comes to light in her will, established 19 December 1531, and it is not confirmed by a letter of affiliation in due form. At least that letter, if it existed, has not survived. Her incorporation is moreover restricted to the local community, that is, the friary of the Observant Franciscans of Cluj.153 Nevertheless, Madeleine’s will, which paints a detailed picture of the forms of Catholic piety in Hungary on the eve of the spread of Protestantism,154 adds valuable complementary information for measuring the place held by mendicant spiritual confraternities within that piety. First, it concerns a women, an underrepresented sex among the principal addressees of letters of association; and what is more, this woman expresses herself in the first person — an impossible configuration in letters of affiliation. Second, Madeleine belonged to the (middle-class) urban bourgeoisie, a social category which is not frequently represented in the preserved corpus of these acts.155 A third point of interest in her will is that it was written at the time when the followers of Luther (more and more numerous in Hungarian towns) were openly contesting, except for intercession, the dogma of the communion of saints, the doctrinal basis of spiritual confraternity. Finally, the simultaneous mention of various salvational tools allows us to refine our understanding of the positioning of spiritual confraternity among the strategies of preparation for death. For the first time, spiritual confraternity visibly occupies a central place in the religious life of the interested party. When she details her identity at the start of her will, Madeleine titles herself: ‘Ego Magdalena uxor circumspecti condam Georgy lapicide de Coloswar confratrissa fratrum Minorum claustri Beatissime virginis Marie in eadem Coloswar fundati’.156 We should clarify that the widow was manifestly not a member of the third order of the Franciscan friary. The text of the will mentions tertiary sisters whom Madeleine knew personally in Cluj, as well as the chapel built by her intervention and various furnishings or buildings granted by her to the fraternity. But it does not speak at all of her entry (accomplished or planned) into it. It is thus indeed as a member of the spiritual confraternity that she seems to express herself. We do not 153 

Jakab, Kolozsvár története: Oklevéltár, pp. 372–75 no. 237; Monumenta ecclesiastica, ed. by Bunyitay, Rapaics, and Karácsonyi, ii, 178–81 no. 159. 154  Commented on by Elek Jakab, János Karácsonyi (Szent Ferencz rendjének, ii, 101–02), and Lajos Pásztor (A magyarság vallásos élete), this document continues to be consulted in recent studies on late medi­eval religiosity in Hungary (Mária Lupescu Makó, Carmen Florea, Beatrix Romhányi, and the author of this book). 155  See Chapter 3. 156  Monumenta ecclesiastica, ed. by Bunyitay, Rapaics, and Karácsonyi, ii, 178–81 no. 159.

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know what procedure was used to formalize her incorporation: the delivery of a letter of confraternity being theoretically forbidden to guardians among the Observant Franciscans157 — unless there was a late softening of this rule, a hypothesis which we cannot totally exclude in the context of the upheavals of the 1530s — it may have been limited to inscription in the register of benefactors of the friary of Cluj, a register which is now lost. We do not know whether she benefited from ‘minor’ or ‘major’ incorporation. Whatever the case may be, the manner in which Madeleine presents herself in her will shows that, in her eyes, this grace did not just provide a supplementary chance of being saved. It incorporated her into the family of the members of the friary and of the order. A second observation: this link is reserved for a specific establishment, long favoured and having been the object of assiduous attendance, which would receive in fine the sepulchre of the affiliate. The generosity of the widow, for its part, showed itself in multiple ways: we count seventeen regular establishments, male and female, in her will. But in fact she only attaches herself expressly (or ‘confraternally’) to one of them, the Franciscan friary of Saint Mary of Cluj. The link of confraternity thus appears to be much more exclusive than in the previous profiles. It reinforces an old, tried-and-true solidarity. Madeleine had had a chapel built for the tertiaries attached to the Observant Franciscan friary of Cluj, as we have noted, and it is to this friary that she grants the largest gifts, in particular her house and numerous precious objects, to celebrate masses and to make new liturgical ornaments, but also to provide clothing for the friars. It is here, finally, that she chooses to be buried.158 Her predilection was longstanding. In the lifetime of her husband, the friary had already benefited from repeated acts of generosity by the couple. George had been buried within the walls of the establishment — whose stones he might have cut himself.159 He had charged his wife, the will specifies, with executing his dispositions in favour of the friary. In a way, Madeleine’s will thus extended his own. A contrario, this document shows the secondary role of confraternity in the preparation for death. Liturgical services retained first place. The widow indeed prescribed the celebration, in the friary of the Observant Franciscans of Cluj, for thirty-two florins a year, of seven times seven masses, as well as a requiem every Monday, with vigils for the dead, for a year; she founded other masses in 157 

See Chapter 5. Monumenta ecclesiastica, ed. by Bunyitay, Rapaics, and Karácsonyi, ii, 178–81, no 159. 159  According to the hypothesis, touching but unverifiable, formulated by János Karácsonyi, Szent Ferencz rendjének, ii, 101. 158 

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two Observant Franciscan friaries of the province (Oradea and Caransebeş) as well as with the Dominicans of Cluj; finally, she instituted a tricenary in the parish church of Saint Michael of Cluj. The fact of having been affiliated with the Friars Minor of Cluj did not remove, in her eyes, the usefulness of the prayers that they would say for her: she gave them fourteen florins for clothing, ‘so that they might pray for her and for her departed’, a sum that she said she was bequeathing through the same devotion that she had always felt towards them, ‘in order to be recommended by their prayers’.160 We must accept that this closer look at three individuals representing different spiritual careers allows no general deduction. Nevertheless, it acts to corroborate three trends that the corpus of letters and various non-confraternal sources (such as the Dominican register of Sighişoara) allow us to glimpse: first, the almost exponential spread of confraternal admissions into mendicant spiritual confraternities between the middle of the fourteenth century and the first third of the sixteenth century; second, their late opening to the urban bourgeoisie; third, their more personal dimension, sometimes experienced as preferential, at the start of the century of Luther. Overall, being reserved for a narrow band of benefactors of friaries, spiritual confraternity occupied an ‘annex’ position among the spiritual favours which Hungarian Christians solicited from the mendicants at the end of the Middle Ages. More highly valued than simple prayers of recommendation (without post mortem commemoration), it was less sought after than liturgical foundations and burial in the friary, which were prioritized at the approach of death. But it was willingly distributed among several orders. This treatment indicates that the faithful, even if they probably did not grasp all the theo­logical subtleties, had understood its general principle, founded on the accumulation of benefits produced by the religious. Their objective was to draw on the salvational dividends of a ‘treasury’ to whose enrichment they had contributed through their own material sacrifices. We understand from this why the mendicants had not placed great hopes in the formula. ‘The use of the letter of confraternity by the Franciscan reform160 

‘Item ad vestituras fratrum Minorum claustri Beate Virginis memorati lego florenos quattuordecim, ut orent pro me et meis defunctis; quas lego ex illa devocione, quam ad eorum ordinem habui, ut oracionibus eorum sim commendata’ (In the same way I bequeath fourteen florins for the clothing of the Friars Minor of the aforementioned friary of Saint Mary, so that they may pray for me and for my departed; I leave them with the same devotion as that which I have felt towards their order, in order to be recommended by their prayers). Monumenta ecclesi­ astica, ed. by Bunyitay, Rapaics, and Karácsonyi, ii, 178–81, no 159.

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ers evokes a mitigated impression, between the consciousness of an emphasized usage and the feeling of a relative failure, or in any case of a limited resonance,’ writes Ludovic Viallet, drawing on German and Silesian examples.161 In Hungary, the observation is essentially identical. Despite the infatuation with spiritual affiliation with the mendicants that is suggested, on the one hand, by the volume of the letters of admission which have survived in a country adversely affected in its medi­eval archives, and on the other, by their particularly careful conservation, the continued development of the confraternities until the spread of Lutheranism does not seem to have transformed either the religious practices of the non-professed or their relationships with the mendicants, which were often part of a long family tradition and caught up in a tangle of links involving other regular communities.

161 

Viallet, Les Sens de l’observance, p. 199.

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lluminating a corner of the tableau that had remained in shadow, on the basis of unexploited documentation issuing from the practice of spiritual affiliation, the results of this investigation, however fragile and provisional they may be, corroborate, in many respects, what earlier research had already allowed us to glimpse. Thus, they confirm the minor role of mendicant spiritual confraternities in the functioning of mendicant friaries and provinces, which yielded to requests for affiliation more than they encouraged it. They also confirm its limited place in the confraternal movement, lay confraternities sharing no more than their name and the idea of a solidarity in life and beyond death with mendicant spiritual confraternities, without any interaction between the two. Finally, they show its restricted influence on the religious practices of Christians, with spiritual confraternity not directly forming part of the group of strategies of preparation for death. They nevertheless highlight several new facts. The first concerns the specificity of the Hungarian sphere. It is primarily documentary. The gulf which separates the number of letters of confraternity which have survived in Hungary from the series that are preserved in other regions — still difficult to measure, it is true, as long as programmes of systematic cataloguing have not been concluded in all European states — never ceases to amaze when we consider the archival destruction that affected Hungary up to and including the Second World War. This would seem to constitute tangible proof, if not of the extraordinary success of spiritual affiliation in the Hungarian kingdom — particularly among the noble elite, who provided members for large battalions of confratres until the 1530s — then at least of the special care taken in the preservation of its written notification. Why? Perhaps in response to secular considerations — perpetuating the memory of prestigious ancestors, named individually in most of the letters of confraternity, while they

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were not always named in letters of indulgences — but doubtless also because they truly believed in the ‘powers’ of spiritual affiliation with the mendicants. Three factors made Hungary a particularly favourable terrain for the development of mendicant spiritual confraternities. The first lies in the very dense distribution of the four main mendicant orders in Hungary — where in the cities, friaries were sometimes more numerous than parish churches. Second, we must note the spectacular rise of the Observant reform in the fifteenth century, among the Friars Minor, then among the Dominicans and the Augustinian Hermits. Their adherence to this movement made the mendicants more materially dependent on their external supports. Seldom established in large cities, they needed to give priority to the consolidation of links with nobles and aristocrats. For their part, such patrons were most likely attached to a certain monastic conservatism, even to a form of spiritual elitism which spiritual confraternity was able to satisfy by its selective attribution and its commemorative dimension, while at the same time seducing them through its minimally constraining nature, in comparison with lay confraternities, entry into the third order, and, obviously, the taking of the habit. Finally, as a third reason, there was the evident reticence on the part of Hungarian mendicant leaders to organize sales tours of ‘fill-in-the-blanks’ letters and to use the medium of print to widen the diffusion of affiliation. This certainly spared spiritual confraternity the devaluation it suffered in other places (from England to Bohemia) as early as the fourteenth century — and we do know how much such strategies harmed the practice of indulgences in fine. Through this ‘moderate use’ of affiliation, the Hungarian mendicants succeeded in maintaining their most influential external sources of support, and in escaping accusations of simony that could have tarnished their image. Beyond the context of medi­eval Hungary, this study allows us to better situate confraternitas in the many-hued mosaic of solidarities, both visible (donations, entries into lay confraternities attached to friaries, fraternities, burial in the friary, etc.) and invisible (prayer unions, shared devotions) that had been woven outward from mendicant friaries since the middle of the thirteenth century. Intermingling participation in merits, collective intercession, and necro­ logical commemoration (in its ‘major’ degree), confraternitas nevertheless was not confused with the other aids to salvation dispensed by the regular religious. Visibly, it constituted a kind of intermediate internal frontier between prayers of recommendation in a community and Eucharistic commemoration or burial in the friary close. Granted more often to individuals (with their families) than to extended (and therefore anonymous) collectivities, spiritual confraternity also received the departed and the descendants of their members, thus creating

Conclusion

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a true spiritual family relationship between the mendicants and certain dynasties, pious associations, or entire towns, varying from the level of the friary to that of the entire order, and inscribed in eternity. The foundations of spiritual affiliation were ancient: it was part of the continuous exchange of spiritual goods for material ones that had been encouraged among Christians since St Augustine, a principle which is described in the preamble of the mendicant letters of affiliation. But it did so in a particular way which the paradigm ‘gift, counter-gift’ does not fully describe. Non-tariffed, it appeared to be an a posteriori gratification, left to the appreciation of the friars, and its granting was subject to a preliminary investigation, with the seeking of witnesses to prove the constancy of the benefactor. The genius of the mendicants was their emphasis on these distinctive powers of spiritual confraternity which went back to the monastic and canonical fraternities from before the year 1000. They created a ‘new’, ‘mendicant-compatible’ formula, even if it was a priori ill-matched with a pastoral discourse inviting the faithful to practise the virtues rather than counting on the prayers or the merits of others. Paradoxically, the weight of the monastic heritage is all the more striking for this and confirms the ‘re-monasticization’ of the mendicants at the very end of the Middle Ages. Spiritual confraternity was most fully developed by the Observants in the fifteenth century and prolonged the fundamental idea, going back to the early Middle Ages, that the prayers of the monks (even without the sharing of their merits) were a key source of salvation. Without changing its meaning, the friars simply clarified its content and widened its diffusion. In doing so, they reaffirmed firstly the importance of the Eucharistic liturgy and of collective prayer as guarantees of salvation (‘masses’ and ‘orisons’ figuring at the top of the lists of bona spiritualia enumerated in the letters), and secondly the superiority of the state of religious to that of layperson (since friars, nuns, and later tertiaries were the only producers of these prized salvational merits). The functioning of the mendicant spiritual confraternities encourages us moreover to nuance the commonly received idea that an ‘economy of death’ was the main (if not the only) reason for the longevity and solidity of support for the mendicants — or more generally, that it was the keystone of the relationship between ‘economy and religion’ at the end of the Middle Ages.1 For, contrary to pro anima services, admission into confraternitas did not have as its sole objective the lightening of the expected sufferings of purgatory. Like burial in the friary or integration into a third order, it assimilated hic et nunc the beneficiary as an 1 

Chiffoleau, ‘Conclusions’, pp. 442–45.

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‘almost brother’, thus procuring for him, in addition to salvational benefits, an immediate ‘added value’ — indeed, a supplement to his very being. Thus, there existed an economy of salvation with no specific numerical value, one not exclusively articulated at the time of terrestrial death. Nevertheless, it too reached towards the horizon of the Last Judgement, in which collective solidarity, starting in the here and now and continuing over time, won out over complicated accounting attributing a quantified remission to every sin.2 The content assigned to spiritual confraternity inclines us, incidentally, not to make diametrical opposites of a logic of perpetual repetition (practised by the monks in their works) and a logic of short-term accumulation (which the mendicants are said to have applied to post mortem services to the exclusion of the perpetual form): the two systems or representations are inextricably mixed within this grace. The affiliates proceed by accumulation (adding together affiliations with different orders), and the principle of spiritual confraternity is also cumulative (since merits are added to each other over time). But this ‘capitalization’ does not deprive confra­ ternitas of its affiliating dimension in the strict sense of the word, the one which reflects and brings about a rapprochement with the mendicants. The preceding observations are offered — I stress this since the documentary base on which they rest is so thin — as hypotheses. It will be up to researchers working on other regions or exploring new sources to put their solidity to the test. It will be necessary, in particular, to confirm that a ‘Hungarian exception’ does indeed exist. Could the success of the mendicant spiritual confraternities in Hungary be a trait of archaism, the atrophy of the bourgeoisie (and consequently the weak influence of the merchant mentality) and the all-powerful nature of the nobility having promoted the development of non-monetary exchanges between friars and non-friars there? That argument, a risky one, is based on debatable a priori, given that we know the harshness with which some lords (Hungarian or not) administered their domains and grumbled at delivering to churches and clerics the alms that they had promised. And the success of mendicant spiritual confraternities is not limited, as we know, to the Hungarian sphere. Much remains to be done to reveal possible regional or national trends in the uses of affiliation with the mendicants. May this ‘Hungarian’ overview serve as the departure point for new investigations! What became of the mendicant spiritual confraternities after 1530? The handful of exploitable Hungarian sources (the formulary of the Observant 2 

Ludovic Viallet has suggested this in ‘The Material Running of the Mendicant Friaries in Central Europe’, pp. 23–24 n. 7.

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Franciscan province of Hungary of the 1530s, and the acts of the chapters of that province, the will of Madeleine of Cluj dated 1531) suggest a widening recruitment. Bourgeois seem to have entered the mendicant confraternitas — until then mostly populated by nobles and aristocrats — more frequently than previously. Women were finally finding a place there. Monks were also being admitted, tightening the links with their mendicant ‘cousins’. This was also the time when, in at least one case (that of the widow Madeleine), confraternal exclusivity seems to be advancing. May we see in this, despite the lack of clear proof, the expression of solidarity in a time of trial, brought about by the arrival of Lutheran ideas, by the Ottoman advance, by political crisis and economic stagnation? A few reflections on the fate of mendicant spiritual confraternities after the middle of the sixteenth century will serve as an epilogue to this book. Although they had recovered, in two or three decades, from the effects of the diatribes of the Lollards and the Hussites, they never recovered, evidently, from the Protestant fracture. In Hungary, there are no acts of affiliation after 1530, including in the part of the kingdom that had remained under the control of the Habsburgs since 1526. In France, random investigations into French Franciscan sources of the modern period indicate that nobles and bourgeois were still affiliating themselves with the Capuchins, the Recollects, and the Regular Third Order in the seventeenth century.3 Even if the preamble of the letters of association issued in the wake of the Counter-Reformation moves away from the medi­e val examples through its reference to papal delegation,4 the formula3 

See the letters edited in Dedieu, ‘Documents franciscains originaux’, pp. 115–16 no. 4 (1639), pp. 122–23 no. 9 (1707), pp. 138–39 no. 20 (1785), as well as, in the annex to the doctoral thesis of Jean Mauzaize, ‘Le Rôle et l’action des Capucins’, iii, ‘Pièce justificative’ no. vii, pp. 1503–04 (1638); see also Paris, Archives des Capucins de France, G/333/9, Marseille (documents concerning the Third Order of Marseille, under obedience to the Récollets) (1695–c. 1750). I thank Pierre Moracchini for bringing these and the following documents to my attention. 4  This is particularly developed in the act of 1696 (see the last documentary reference of the preceding note). After the intitulatio and the space reserved for the name of the addressee, the text of the letter begins with: ‘Les souverains pontifes comme vicaires de Jésus Christ sont les dispensateurs fidèles et légitimes de ses mérites infinis, qu’il a laissés comme un trésor inépuisable en héritage à son Église, de même que des œuvres de surerrogation [sic] de la sainte Vierge et de tous les saints dont ils font l’application aux fidèles vivans [sic] et trepassés avec cette libéralité qui est conforme à l’amour que Jésus Christ a pour tous les hommes. Ce même Esprit qui les anime les a obligés entre un très grand nombre de graces [sic] et de privilèges qu’ils ont accordés à notre saint Ordre, de rendre participants nos Généraux et nos Provinciaux d’une

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tion of the grace, its justification, and its definition have not changed. Only the commemoration (or ‘major’ admission) disappears, and the dispensers are all of provincial or general rank. Spiritual confraternity seems to falter in the following century. The Archives of the Capuchins of France contain a ‘fill-in-the-blanks’ letter of confraternity, coming from the Recollects of Marseille. Composed in 1696, under Séraphin Picot, the provincial minister of the Recollects of the Saint-Bernardino province (corresponding to the south-east of France) between 1695 and 1698, it was only countersigned half a century later, by René Bilhion, minister of the same province from 1747 to 1750. And the part indicating the beneficiary was never filled in. One of the last French testimonies to the use of this grace dates from the middle of the nineteenth century. On 11 July 1853 (the Blessed) Frédéric Ozanam (1813–53) thanked (Father) Venanzio da Celano, minister general, for his admission into the spiritual confraternity of the Franciscans in these terms: Most Reverend Father, I have received with respect and gratitude the charter by which you wish to have me participate in the merits for the Franciscan orders gathered under your authority. I have nothing to make me worthy of such a favour, if not my most affectionate veneration for Saint Francis and my admiration for the noted services which his disciples have rendered to the Church, to peoples as well as to sacred and secular letters.5 How many times, in the blessed period when I was able to stay in Rome during a voyage across Italy, how many times did I climb, filled with emotion, the stairway of the Ara Coeli! […] What admirable sweetness spread through my soul at très petite partie de leur pouvoir en leur concedant l’autorité d’affilier à notre Ordre tous nos bienfaiteurs, et de les rendre participans de toutes les bonnes œuvres qui s’i [sic] font pour reconnoitre par des biens spirituels les temporels qu’ils nous font par leurs charités’ (The sovereign pontiffs as vicars of Jesus Christ are the faithful and legitimate dispensers of his infinite merits, which he has left as an inexhaustible treasury as his bequest to his Church, as well as works of surerogation of the Holy Virgin and of all the saints which they administer to the faithful, living and deceased, with this liberality that is in accordance with the love that Jesus Christ bears to all men. This same spirit which animates them has obliged them, out of a very great number of graces and of privileges that they have accorded to our holy Order, to make our Generals and our Provincials participants in a very small part of their power by conceding to them the authority to affiliate to our Order all our benefactors, and to make them participants in all the good works which are accomplished there to recognize with spiritual goods the temporal ones that they make to us by their charity). 5  Frédéric Ozanam was the author of a book entitled Les Poètes franciscains en Italie au e xiii siècle (Paris, 1852) including, among other Franciscan texts, a French translation of the Fioretti which had very wide circulation.

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the holy tomb of Assisi, at the Porziuncola and in so many places where the living memories of your Fathers still breathe! […] As for me, merely a man of letters, a professor absorbed for too many long years by the passion for terrestrial sciences, what merit have I that I may plunge my hand into this treasury of good works which, for six hundred years, has been built up by so many thousands of missionaries, including several martyrs, by so many preachers, by so many penitents, by so many virgins? However, never more than at present have I had need of the share that you wish to grant me in their prayers, their fasts, their holy works.6

Although the act of affiliation itself has not been found, the continuity with medi­e val formulations leaps off the page. The letter of confraternity, recognized as a ‘charter’, serves to recompense ‘the affectionate veneration’ for the founder of the order and his ‘admiration’ for the friars, by participation in the ‘merits’ amassed by the members of the three ‘orders’ (friars, nuns, and tertiaries), a ‘treasury’ composed of ‘prayers’, ‘fasts’, and ‘holy works’. As the letter addressed to the bearer of this missive shows, moreover, incorporation affirmed the attraction of Frédéric Ozanam for the order and its founder (‘I feel more than ever attached to the order of Saint Francis’.) The only difference, and not an insignificant one, is that the granting of this grace, at the initiative of the minister general and not at the request of the recipient, follows a manifestation of moral support. In other words, spiritual confraternity serves as the ‘Legion of Honour’ of the order. The communion of merits still unites orders and congregations to each other, but it no longer includes the non-professed.7 Was it this honorific use of spiritual confraternity which finally doomed it? And yet it had the advantage of no longer mechanically linking money and celestial reward, unlike indulgences — whose buyers are becoming rare. Might it be too abstract for the Christians of today? The fact is that zealous supporters of the mendicants now prefer ‘concrete’ associations, such as secular fraternities, to the idea of spiritual confraternity. Its extinction probably reflects the retreat of the communion of saints and of the transferability of merits in the beliefs of today, Catholics being more absorbed by the merits ‘of the self ’ than by those of others.

6 

Ozanam, Lettres, ed. by Franconnet, iv, 669–71, nos  1323 (letter of 11 July 1853) and 1324 (letter addressed the same day to Father Francesco Frediani, charged with giving the preceding letter to its addressee). 7  As Joseph Duhr observed as early as 1939 in ‘Les Confréries dans la vie de l’Église’, p. 459.

Biblio­graphy Manu­scripts and Archival Sources Alba Iulia, Batthyaneum, MS Codex E 5. VI-8; no. iii, 89 in Róbert Szentiványi, Catalogus concinnus librorum manu­scriptorum Bibliothecae Batthyányanae (Szeged: Bibliotheca Universitatis Szegediensis, 1958) Bardejov, Štátny archív v Prešove, pobočka Bardejov, fond Magistrát mesta Bardejov (U 425), no. 720 Budapest, Magyar Ferences Levéltár (Franciscan Archives of Hungary) [MFL], Collection of Manu­scripts: nos 71 (1493), 88 (1503), 104 (1522) Budapest, Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár, Országos Levéltár (National Archives of Hungary) [MNL], Collectio Diplomatica Hungarica: Diplomatikai Levéltár (Collection of original documents) [DL]: 91119 (1270), 76602 (1339), 103272 (1348), 77198 (1357), 41472 (1361), 49716 (1362), 25824 (1364), 47976 (1369–71), 86178 (1370), 42003 (1376), 42026 (1376), 103341 (1376), 7179 (1385), 73471 (1393), 79273 (1415), 79302 (1415), 13036 (1437), 13269 (1438), 63824 (1442), 61118 (1451–59), 102914 (1452), 44665 (1453), 31660 (1454), 38854 (1455), 14980 (1455), 69831 (1455), 61026 (1456), 86589 (1456), 15254 (1458), 15751 (1462), 15841 (1463), 99016 (1464), 93301 (1464), 107574 (1464), 16159 (1465), 45187 (1465), 93358 (1466), 93376 (1467), 62601 (1469), 16869 (1470), 88521 (1471), 37646 (1472), 17454 (1473), 45558 (1474), 81810 (1478), 18310 (1480), 18323 (1480), 81839 (1480), 93538 (1480), 45866 (1481), 95123 (1481), 45870 (1481), 63868 (1484), 19045 (1485), 102227 (1485), 102635 (1485), 19097 (1485), 46031 (1486), 19343 (1487), 46080 (1488), 20683 (1488), 93590 (1488), 101777 (1488), 50114 (1488), 93592 (1489), 56795 (1489), 93608 (1490), 101638 (1490), 93620 (1491), 19782 (1491), 69167 (1492), 93631 (1493), 93640 (1494), 46260 (1494), 65981 (1494), 66741 (1495), 93644 (1495), 93676 (1498), 20705 (1498), 94623 (1500), 21052 (1501), 25160 (1501), 69883 (1501), 88877 (1502), 46604 (1502), 82194 (1503), 94301 (1503), 101800 (1503), 232141 (1504), 21294 (1504), 66374 (1504), 84588 (1504), 103070 (1505), 94671 (1507), 21859 (1508), 64799 (1509), 82293 (1509), 88995 (1509), 104224 (1510), 82328 (1511), 82338 (1511), 22436 (1513), 38570 (1514), 47084 (1514), 94921 (1515), 82463 (1516), 22930 (1517), 47257 (1518), 23489 (1520), 70111 (1521), 23593 (1521), 72196 (1521), 57939 (1522), 68002 (1523), 23837 (1523), 23914 (1524), and 89187 (1524)

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Diplomatikai Fényképgyűjtemény (Collection of reproductions) [DF]: 253566 (1301), 264715 (1306), 238354 (1354), 257423 (1357), 233763, no. 1 (1366), 285854 (1388), 248930 (1428), 250358 (1451), 213409 (1453), 255266 (1454), 275508 (1455), 254933 (1455), 275600 (1455), 283072 (1455), 222691 (1455–1457), 274759 (1461), 259565 (1461), 240490 (1464), 253905 (1470), 228923 (1477), 269672 (1481), 272020 (1485), 273884 (1485), 254955 (1490), 260141 (1492), 207964 (1493), 229059 (1493), 277613 (1493), 275529 (1493), 231896 (1494), 272029 (1494), 271240 (1495), 254961 (1497), 266800 (1498), 275538 (1498), 258274 (1501), 244397 (1501), 232141 (1504), 266809 (1507), 266810 (1507), 279504 (1507), 244476 (1509), 244257 (1516), 232466 (1517), 253552 (1519), 250355 (1521), 275558 (1522), 260436 (1522), and 257780 (1522)1 Budapest, Országos Széchényi Könyvtár (Széchényi National Library) [OSzK], Kézirattár (Department of Manu­scripts), MS Codex Latinus medii aevi no. 432 —— , MS Oct. Lat. no. 775 Cluj-Napoca, Arhivele Naționale, Direcția Județeană, RS Gdańsk, Polska Akademia Nauk Biblioteka Gdańska (Library of the Polish Academy of Sciences) [PANB], MS Codex 1965 —— , MS Codex 2043 Gloucester, Gloucestershire Archives, Minsterworth and Hartpury, MS  D640/T57, [accessed 3 July 2017] Klosterneuburg, Augustiner Chorherrenstift, MS Codex 941 (Liber fratris Viti Huendler ordinis fratrum Beate Marie Dei Genitricis de monte Carmeli Dei et Apostolice sedis gracia episcopus Bonodiensis, anno Domini MCCCCLXI) Lille, Archives Départementales du Nord, series H, subseries of the Couvent des Récollets of Lille, 87 H18, MSS 18 and 19; subseries of the Couvent dominicain of Lille, 127 H11, MSS  (not numbered) between 116 and 126; subseries of the Black Sisters or Augustinian Sisters of Lille also known as the ‘soeurs ensacquées’, 56 H2, MS 4 Prague, Národni Archiv (Central State Archives), Oddělení fondů samosprávy a státní správy do roku 1848 a církevních institucí (Department of self-government and state administration fonds until 1848 and of religious institutions), MSS  23, 25,  26, 28, 56, 67, 91, and 96 Prague, Národní knihovna České republiky (National Library of the Czech Republic) [NkCr], MS xviii A II Wrocław, Biblioteka Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego (Library of the Uni­ver­sity of Wrocław) [BUW], Department of Manu­scripts, MS Codex I Qu. 73a, fols 46v–70r (Nicolaus Lackman, Tractatus de confraternitate)

1 

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Biblio­graphy

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Röhrkasten, Jens, The Mendicant Houses of Medi­eval London, 1221–1539, Vita Regularis, 21 (Münster: Lit Verlag, 2004) —— , ‘The Mendicant Orders in Urban Life and Society: The Case of London’, in Religious and Laity in Western Europe, 1000–1400: Interaction, Negotiation, and Power, ed. by Emilia Jamroziak and Janet Burton, Europa sacra, 2 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), pp. 333–55 Romhányi, Beatrix, ‘Adalékok a soproni ferences kolostor gazdálkodásához’ [Data on the Running of the Franciscan Friary in Sopron], Soproni Szemle, 64 (2010), 194–98 —— , ‘Domonkos kolostorok birtokai a későközépkorban’ [The Possessions of Dominican Monasteries at the End of the Middle Ages], Századok, 144 (2010), 395–410 —— , ‘Le Fonctionnement materiel des couvents mendiants dans le royaume de Hongrie aux xiiie–xvie siècles: Apercu des sources et de l’historio­graphie’, Études franciscaines, n.s., 6.1 (2013), 47–56 —— , ‘Kolostorhálózat — településhálózat — népesség: A  középkori Magyar Királyság demográfiai helyzetének változásaihoz’ [Network of the Friaries and Population: About the Demo­graphic Changes in the Kingdom of Hungary During the Middle Ages]’, Történelmi Szemle, 57.1 (2015), 1–49 —— , ‘Kolostori gazdálkodás a középkori Magyarországon’ [Monastic Economy in Medi­eval Hungary], in Gazdaság és gazdálkodás a középkori Magyar­or­szá­gon: gazdaságtörténet, anyagi kultúra, régészet [Economy and Management in Medi­eval Hungary: Economic History, Material Culture, Archaeo­logy], ed. by András Kubinyi, József Laszlovszky, and Péter Szabó (Budapest: Martin Opitz, 2008), pp. 401–12 —— , ‘A lelkiek a földiek nélkül nem tarthatók fenn’: Pálos gazdálkodás a középkorban [‘Things of the Spirit Cannot Survive without Terrestrial Things’: The Economy of the Hermits of Saint Paul in the Middle Ages] (Budapest: Gondolat, 2010) —— , ‘“Meretur vestre devocionis affectus …”: Egy vallásos középkori budai polgár — Söptei Péter kancelláriai jegyzo’ [A Pious Bourgeois of the Middle Ages: Peter of Söpte, Chancellery Notary], in ‘Es tu scholaris’: Ünnepi tanulmányok Kubinyi András 75. születésnapjára [Studies in Honour of András Kubinyi’s 75th Birthday], ed. by Beatrix Romhányi and others (Budapest: Budapest Történeti Múzeum, 2004), pp. 37–44 —— , ‘Le Réseau social et les resources des Observants en Hongrie à la fin du Moyen Âge’, paper presented at the colloquium ‘L’Osservanza francescana fra Italia ed Europa Centrale: Istituzioni, società, religiosità’, Szeged (Hungary), 5 December 2014; published as ‘Social Network and Resources of the Observant Franciscans in Hungary at the End of the Middle Ages’, Chronica, 15 (2017), 125–35 —— , ‘Les Sources comptables, documents de gestion et d’administration des couvents mendiants en Hongrie médiévale’, Hereditas Monasteriorum, 3 (2013), 77–96 Roncière, Charles-Marie de la, and Jean-Michel Matz, ‘Le Mouvement confraternel’, in Structures et dynamiques religieuses dans les sociétés de l’Occident latin (1179–1449), ed.  by Marie-Madeleine de Cevins and Jean-Michel Matz (Rennes: Presses Univer­ sitaires de Rennes, 2010), pp. 243–53 Rosenwein, Barbara H., To Be the Neighbor of Saint Peter: The Social Meaning of Cluny’s Property, 909–1049 (Ithaca: Cornell Uni­ver­sity Press, 1989)

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Roth, Francis, ‘A History of the English Austin Friars’ (part IX), Augustiniana, 15 (1965), 175–236 Russo, Daniel, ‘La Sainte Famille dans l’art chrétien au Moyen Âge: Étude icono­graphique’, in Marie et la Sainte Famille: Récits apocryphes chrétiens (Paris: Médiaspaul, 2006), ii, 97–119 Schmid, Karl‚ ‘Mönchtum und Verbürderung’, in Monastische Reformen im 9. und 10. Jahrhundert, ed. by Raymund Kottje and Helmut Maurer (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1989), pp. 117–46 Schmid, Karl, and Joachim Wollasch, eds, Memoria: Der geschichtliche Zeugniswert des liturgischen Gedenkens im Mittelalter (München: W. Fink, 1984) Schneider, Herbert, ‘L’Intercession des vivants pour les morts: L’Exemple des synodes du haut Moyen Âge’, in L’Intercession du Moyen Âge à l’époque moderne: Autour d’une pratique sociale, ed. by Jean-Marie Moeglin (Geneva: Droz, 2004), pp. 41–66 Sigal, Pierre-André, L’Homme et le miracle dans la France médiévale (xie–xiie siècle) (Paris: Cerf, 1985) Siptár, Dániel, ‘A domonkos rend római központi levéltárának magyar vonatkozású és eredetű anyaga’ [Material of Hungarian Origin or on the Subject of Hungary from the Romanian Central Archives of the Dominican Order], Levéltári Szemle, 55.2 (2005), 14–38 Smet, Joachim, The Carmelites: A History of the Brothers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, 2 vols (Darien IL: Carmelite Spiritual Center, 1975–82) Starzyński, Marcin, ‘Il re, il vescovo ed il predicatore: Giovanni da Capestrano a Cracovia, 1453–1454’, Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, 104 (2011), 485–518 — regesta and partial edition: pp. 514–18 Swanson, Robert Norman, ‘Letters of Confraternity and Indulgence in Late Medi­eval England’, Archives, 25 (2000), 40–57 —— , ‘Mendicants and Confraternity in Late Medi­eval England’, in The Religious Orders in Pre-Reformation England, ed.  by James  G. Clark (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2002), pp. 121–41 Szovák, Kornél, ‘A győri ferences őrség (custodia) xiv. szazadi történetéhez’ [Contribution to the History of the Franciscan Custody of Győr in the Fourteenth Century], Levéltári Szemle, 39.3 (1989), 11–17 —— , ‘“Meritorum apud Dominum fructus cumulatorum”: Megjegyzések a 14. századi főúri vallásossághoz’ [Observations on Aristrocratic Piety in the Fourteenth Century], in R.  Várkonyi Ágnes emlékkönyv születésének 70. évfordulója ünnepére [Studies for the 70th Birthday of Ágnes R. Várkonyi], ed. by Péter Tusor, Zoltán Rihmer, and Gábor Thorockay (Budapest: ELTE Bölcsészettudományi Kar, 1998), pp. 79–87 Takács, Imre, A magyarországi káptalanok és konventek középkori pecsétjei [The Medi­eval Seals of the Hungarian Convents and Chapter Houses] (Budapest: MTA, 1992) Terpstra, Nicholas, Adriano Prosperi, and Stefania Pastore, eds, Faith’s Boundaries: Laity and Clergy in Early Modern Confraternities (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012) Teunis, Henk B., ‘Societas monachorum dans les cartulaires de Marmoutier: Étude sur les rapports entre moines et laïcs’, in Les Mouvances laïques des ordres religieux: Actes du

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Appendix

Edition of Sixteen Letters of Confraternity

T

he selection which follows is not representative of the whole group of Hungarian letters of confraternity thus far catalogued. It is limited to previously unedited documents, favouring those which present singular formulations relative to the entire group of acts (or models of acts) known to us. Abbreviations (in addition to those indicated at Table 1, on p. 313)

W H / //

width height line break change of column

Norms Adopted for this Edition The spelling i/j, u/v reproduces the original, unless this could cause confusion. An initial double f is simplified as f. The letter ÿ is written ii. Word breaks and punctuation apply the same principles. Only contemporary dorsal annotations concerning the writing of the letter (according to the calli­graphy) have been transcribed.

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1. [LC 1] 1270, Hungary (OP) (Figure 1) Letter by which the prior of the Dominican province of Hungary, friar Michael, gives to Andrew and his wife participation in the spiritual benefits granted to the Friars Preachers of the province and accords them the same celebrations as those prescribed for the deceased members of the order. Parchment. 19 cm W × 9.5 cm H.  Red vesica seal on the reverse side (fragments). MS: MNL DL 91119 Dilecto in Christo nobili viro magistro Andree et domine [blank] uxorj eius, frater Michael prior / provincialis fratrum ordinis predicatorum per Hungariam, salutem in omnium Salvatore. Exigente vestre pie / devotionis affectu, quem ad nostrum habetis ordinem, vobis omnium missarum, orationum, predicationum, ieiu/niorum, abstinentiarum, vigiliarum, laborum ceterorumque bonorum que per fratres nostri ordinis in provin/cia Hungarie Dominus fieri dederit, participationem concedimus specialem. Volumus nichilominus ut / post decessum vestrum anime vestre fratrum totius provincie recommendentur in nostro capitulo / provinciali si vester ibidem obitus fuerit nunciatus et iniungantur pro animabus vestris misse et oraciones  / sicut pro ordinis nostris defunctis communitter fieri consueverit. In cuius rei testimonium sigillum nostrum  / presentibus duximus apponendum. Datum anno Domini MCCLXX°.

2. [LC 2] c. 1282–87(?), Hungary (OFM) Letter by which the minister of the Franciscan province of Hungary, A. [Adrian] receives Dominic, cantor of Győr, into the confraternity of the order and grants him participation in the spiritual benefits acquired by the Friars Minor of the Kingdom of Hungary. Model copied in two columns in a Franciscan codex written in about 1320 (?). MS: Alba Iulia, Batthyaneum, Cod. E 5. VI-8 (Szentiványi, no. iii, 89), fol. 126r (‘123’) Edition (defective) and dating: Karácsonyi, ‘A magyar ferencrendűek formulás könyve a Batthyány-könyvtárban’, p. 29 no. 13. Viro provido et honesto magistro / Dominico cantori ecclesie Jaurinensis /, frater A. etc. Quamvis ex debito / caritatis affluentissime omnibus // teneamur, precipue tamen illis nosci/mur obligari, quorum dilectionem frequentius / certis beneficio-

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rum indiciis experimur./ Proinde vestre devotionis fervorem at/tendentes, quam ad nostrum geritis ordinem ob / Dei reverentiam, ut pia fratrum meorum / relatione percepi, dignum putavi di/vineque acceptabile fore volun/tati, ut ab ordine nostro aliquam / sentiatis recompensationem spiritua/lium gratiarum. Ego igitur qui curam habeo / fratrum per Ungariam de divina be/nignitate meritisque sanctissimi pa/tris nostri beati Francisci confisus, / vos ad universa et singula nostri / ordinis suffragia et ad confraterni/tatem recipio, in vita pariter et / in morte, plenam participa/cionem bonorum omnium tenore presen/cium concedendo, que per fratres nostros / in regno Ungarie operari digna/bitur clementia Salvatoris.

3. [LC 15] 25 May 1393, Esztergom [H.] (OESA) (Figure 2) Letter by which the prior of the Hungarian province of the Hermits of Saint Augustine, friar George, has Benedict of Turiec (Turóc) participate in the good works of the friars and institutes three masses for his salvation. Parchment. 20 cm W × 14.5 cm H. On the reverse, green vesica seal representing the Crucifixion (fragments). MS: MNL DL 73471 Nobili viro et strennuo militi magistro Benedicto de Thurucz, humilis frater Georgius  / prior provincialis provincie Ungarie ceterique diffinitores convocacionis in Strigoniense in festo  / Pentecostes celebrati ordinis fratrum heremitarum sancti Augustini, oraciones continuas et de/votas in prole virginis gloriose. Considerantes devocius quante pyetatis benivolentia vestra / dominacio prestantissima affecta nostrum ordinem pauperculum benignis favoribus prosequatur tenemur / ex intimis cordis medullis eandem altissimo Domino commendare precibus qui Deus gloriosus, ut vos vestrosque hic in presenti oculo pietatis aspiciat et in futuro feliciter coronet, oracionum  / nostrarum omniumque bonorum operum que operari dignabitur per nos clemencia Salvatoris / vestram dominacionem participem facimus in vita pariter et in morte. Singulariter autem in/jugimus ut omnes et singuli fratres sacerdotes nostre provincie Ungarie pro vestro vestrorumque  / felicissimo statu singulari devocione celebrent tres missas clerici vero et layci oracionum / impendant suffragia sicut nostri ordinis instituta. Datum die et loco quibus supra anno Domini / MCCCLXXXXIII. In cuius rei testimonium sigillum nostri provincialatus officii presentibus est impressum.

[on the reverse, in the same hand] Nobili viro ac strennuo militi / magistro Benedicto de Thurucz / domino eorum gracioso

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4. [LC 19] 9 October 1442, Levoča / Lőcse [Slovakia] (OFM) Letter by which the guardian of the Franciscan friary of Levoča, John of Colonia, admits Benedict of Spišský Hrhov (Görgő), his wife, and their children into the spiritual confraternity of the order and grants them participation in the suffrages amassed by the friars of the said friary. Parchment. 22.4 cm W × 6 cm H. Green vesica seal on the reverse (traces). MS: MNL DL 63824 Devotis sibi in Christo filiis strennuo Benedicto de Gargaw et Clare eius consorti / necnon omnibus liberis filiis et heredibus eorundem, frater Johannes de Colonia ordinis fratrum minorum gardianus conventus et monasterii Beate Marie Virginis / in Lewcza, salutem et pacem in Domino sempiternam. Devocionem vestram laudabilem et affectum, quem ad nostrum geritis ordinem specialem animadvertens ob reverenciam / sancti patris nostri Francisci, vos cupiens omnium bonorum operum que in dicto monasterio  / in cultum orthodoxe agerentur fieri participes, in fraternitatem nostri ordinis / et ad universa et ad singula nostre religionis suffragia recipio in vita pariter / et in morte, plenam vobis omnium bonorum participacionem faciendum que per fratres / meos in predicto monasterio et conventie [sic] constitutos operari dignabitur clemencia / divina Salvatoris. Datum in predicto nostro conventu ipso die Dyonisii martiris / die nono mensis octobris, anno Domini millesimo quadringentesimo quadra/gesimo secundo sub mei conventui sigillo.

5. [LC 22] 15 June 1452, Vienna [Austria] (OP) Letter by which Leonard Huntpichler, the Dominican vicar responsible for the reformed friaries of Bohemia and Hungary, grants participation in the suffrages of the order to George of Ľubotice (?) (Sebes), provost of Saint Mary of Eger and archdeacon of Zemplín (Zemplén), as well as to Ladislas of Sebes. Parchment. 26 cm W × 17.3 cm H. Hanging seal (slits). MS: MNL DL 102914. Venerando ac egregie nobilitatis viro domino Georgio de Sebes preposito capelle Beate Virginis Agriensis  / necnon archidiacono comitatus Zempliensis, egregio domino Ladislao de eadem Sebes ac consorti eiusdem videlicet  / domine Elene, filiis et filiabus eorumdem scilicet Nicolao cum Johanne, Barbare et Dorothee tumque domine Margarethe  / et Veronice sororibus dicti domini Ladislai carnalibus de predicta Sebes, necnon alteri domino Ladislao filio Pauli de prefata Sebes  / ac coniugi eiusdem videlicet domine Margarethe, frater Leonardus de

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Vallebrixinensi artium et sacre theo­logie professor, vicarius / reverendissimi magistri generalis super conventus reformatos personarum utriusque sexus ordinis predicatorum in terris et regnis / serenissimi principis et domini domini nostri Ladislai regis, salutem et pacem in Domino sempiternam cum affluencia spiritualium  / gaudiorum oracionumque suffragio. Quamvis caritatis debitum omnibus teneamur illis tamen longe amplius quorum dilectionem certis beneficiorum / aut favorum indiciis experimur, proinde vestrorum vestrarumque omnium caritatis sinceritatem attendens, quam ad nostrum devotissime geritis / ordinem dignum duxi et divine voluntati non inmerito acceptabilem fore credens piis ipsam vicissitudinibus compensari. Quapropter / vos omnes in Jhesu Domino precordialissimos ad omnia et singula nostre religionis suffragia in vita recipio pariter et in morte  / specialem vobis omnium missarum, oracionum, predicacionum, ieiuniorum abstinenciarum, vigiliarum, laborum ceterorumque bonorum  / que per personas utriusque sexus dictorum conventuum reformatorum Dominus noster Jhesus Christus fieri dederit tribuo participacionem / tenore presencium in vita pariter et in morte, multiplici suffragiorum presidio adiuti et hic augmentum gracie et in futurum mereamini / regnum consequi sempiternum. In cuius concessionis testimonium sigillum officii mei duxi presentibus apponendum. Valeant devote vestre caritates feliciter et longeve. Datum Wyenne in octava sanctissimi Corporis Christi, anno eiusdem millesimo quadringentesimo quinquagesimo II°.

6. [LC 24] 1 December 1453, Krakow [Poland] (OFM Obs.) Letter by which John of Capistrano, inquisitor general of the Order of Franciscans of the Observance, admits the curate of Bardejov (Bártfa) and the other members of the Mother of Mercy (lay) Confraternity into the ‘major’ spiritual confraternity of the order. Parchment. 30 cm W × 21.5 cm H. MS: Bardejov, Štátny archív v Prešove, pobočka Bardejov, fond Magistrát mesta Bardejov (U 425), no. 720; MNL DF 213409 (photo­graph). Commendabili viro Cristanno plebano in Bartpha fratri principali fraternitatis Matris Misericordie ibidem et specialiter omnibus / fratribus et sororibus eiusdem fraternitatis presentibus et futuris ordinis seraphici patris nostri sancti Francisci benefactoribus  / ac benefactricibus devotissimis, frater Johannes de Capistrano eiusdem ordinis minimus et indignus heretice pravitatis generalis  / inquisitor, salutem et pacem in Domino sempiternam. Quamvis ex caritatis debito omnibus teneamur, illis tamen longe amplius obligamur quorum / dilectionem certis beneficiorum indiciis frequentius experimur. Proinde vestre devocionis sinceritatem attendens, quam ad nostrum et prefati patris / nostri sancti Francisci geritis ordi-

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nem, veluti clara experiencia cognovi, dignum putavi et divine acceptabile voluntati ut ab ipso ordine / prerogativam sentiatis spiritualium graciarum. Et quia nudi temporalibus bonis caritatis vestre subsidiis dignam rependere vicem nequaquam temporaliter valemus / spiritualibus nichilominus beneficiis prout in nostris apud Dominum Deum nostrum servamus desideriis compensare spiritualiter affectamus. Eapropter ego, / qui specialem auctoritatem habeo recipiendi quoscumque devotos nostri ordinis ad confraternitatem fratrum minorum de Observancia nuncupatorum et sororum  / minorissarum et sancte Clare seu sancti Damiani de Observancia nuncupatarum et eorum religiosorum de penitentia ordinum in partibus  / cismontanis, vos supratactum Cristannum cum omnibus fratribus et sororibus ut supradictum est necnon omnes vestrorum defunctorum ad confraternitatem nostram  / et ad universa et singula nostre religionis suffragia in vita recipio pariter et in morte, plenam vobis participationem omnium carismatum et spiritua/lium bonorum videlicet missarum, orationum, suffragiorum, officiorum divinorum, ieiuniorum, abstinentiarum, disciplinarum, penitentiarum, peregrinationum, in/spirationum, predicationum, lectionum, meditationum, contemplationum, observantiarum, devotionum et omnium aliorum spiritualium bonorum tenore presentium / gratiose conferendo, que per fratres nostros et dictorum ordinum sorores necnon aliorum de penitentia sive de tertio ordine beati Francisci / in partibus cismontanis degentes operari et acceptare dignabitur clementia Salvatoris. Addens insuper de dono et gratia singulari, / quod cum divine placuerit voluntati de exilio instantis miserie vos vocare vesterque obitus, multo annuente Domino tempore differendus, nostro fuerit / capitulo nuntiatus, idem volo ut pro vobis fiat officium quod pro fratribus nostris defunctis recitatis ibidem annuatim ex more per totum ordinem fieri / consuevit. Valeat feliciter vestra devota et fervens caritas in Christo Ihesu Domino nostro in eternum, Amen. Datum Cracovie prima die mensis decembris / anno Domini millesimo quadringentesimo quinquagesimo tertio.

7. [LC 29] 7 August 1455, Buda [H.] (OFM Obs.) (Figure 3) Letter by which John of Capistrano, inquisitor general of the Order of Franciscans of the Observance, admits the knight George Joranth and his family into the ‘major’ spiritual confraternity of the order. Parchment. 22 cm W × 16.5 cm H. At the top, centred, in large characters: YESUS. MS: MNL DL 14980.

Edition of Sixteen Letters of Confraternity Egregio viro strenuoque militi Georgio Joranth et Anne consorti sue, Johanni, Thome, Tobie, Michaeli, Katherine, Helizabet liberis eorundem necnon Margarethe uxori dicti Iohanis liberisque eorundem natis et nascendis ordinis seraphici / patris nostri sancti Francisci benefactoribus devotis, frater Johannes de Capistrano eiusdem ordinis minimus et indignus heretice pravitatis / generalis inquisitor, salutem et pacem in Domino sempiternam. Quamvis ex caritatis debito omnibus teneamur, illis tamen longe amplius obligamur quorum  / dilectionem certis beneficiorum indiciis frequentius experimur. Proinde vestre devocionis sinceritatem attendens, quam ad nostrum et prefati sancti patris nostri Francisci / geritis ordinem, veluti clara experiencia cognovi, dignum putavi et divine acceptabile voluntati, ut ab ipso ordine prerogativam sentiatis / spiritualium graciarum et quia nudi temporalibus bonis caritatis vestre subsidiis dignam rependere vicem nequaquam temporaliter valemus spiritualibus nichilominus  / beneficiis prout in nostris apud Dominum Deum nostrum servamus desideriis compensare spiritualiter affectamus. Eapropter ego, qui specialem auctoritatem / habeo recipiendi quoscumque honestas personas nostri ordinis devotas ad confraternitatem fratrum minorum de Observancia nuncupatorum et sororum / minorissarum et sancte Clare seu sancti Damiani de Observancia nuncupatarum et eorum religiosorum de penitentia sive de tertio ordine sancti  / Francisci in partibus cismontanis, vos nobiles supratactas personas omnesque consanguineos vestros necnon animas vestrorum defunctorum ac omnes / pro quibus intenditis ad confraternitatem nostram et ad universa et singula nostre religionis suffragia in vita recipio pariter et in morte, plenam / vobis participationem omnium carismatum spiritualium bonorum videlicet missarum, orationum, suffragiorum, officiorum divinorum, ieiuniorum, abstinentiarum,  / disciplinarum, penitentiarum, peregrinationum, inspirationum, predicationum, lectionum, meditacionum, contemplationum, devotionum, silentiorum  / et omnium aliorum spiritualium bonorum tenore presentium gratiose conferendo, que per fratres nostros et dictorum ordinum sorores necnon aliorum de penitentia / sive de tertio ordine beati Francisci operari et acceptare dignabitur clementia Salvatoris. Addens insuper de gratia singulari, quod cum divine pla/cuerit voluntati de exilio instantis miserie vos vocare vesterque obitus, multo annuente Domino tempore differendus, nostro fuerit capitulo / nuntiatus, volo ut officium idem quod pro fratribus nostris defunctis pro vobis fiat annuatim sicut per totum ordinem fieri consuetum / est. Valeat feliciter vestra devota et fervens caritas in Christo Iesu Domino nostro in eternum, Amen. Datum Bude anno 1455 / septima die augusti.

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8. [LC 35] 8 April 1461, Bratislava / Pozsony [Slovakia] (OFM Conv.) Letter by which Fabian of Igal, minister of the Franciscan province of Hungary, admits into the ‘major’ spiritual confraternity of the order all the members of the (lay) Confraternity of the Holy Virgin Mary attached to the Franciscan friary of Bratislava (Pozsony) and institutes annual masses in honour of the Virgin for the salvation of their souls. Parchment. Hanging seal (slits). Dorsal annotation: Fabianus minister 61. MS (photo­graph): MNL DF 274759. Torn document. Providis et circumspectis personis utriusque sexus fraternitatis beate Marie semper virginis in ecclesia ordinis Fratrum minorum in Posonio constitutis omnibusque / eorum successoribus ac confraternitatem predictam sequi et imitari volentibus necnon pro augmento dicte fraternitatis manus adiutrices porrigere cupientibus / ordinis sanctissimi patris seraphici Francisci benefactoribus devotissimis. Frater Fabianus de Igal, ordinis Minorum regni Hungarie minister et servus / ac reverendissimi patris nostri generalis ministri vicarius [?] et commissarius licet indignus, salutem cum oracionum suffragio salutari. Quamvis ex caritatis debito omnibus teneamur / illis tamen longe amplius obligamur, quorum dilectionem certis beneficiorum indiciis frequentius experimur, proinde vestre devocionis sinceritatem attendens quem ad nostrum et prefati / patris nostri Francisci geritis ordinem veluti fratrum meorum veridica relacione percepi et ego ipse clara experiencia cognovi dignum putavi et divine acceptabile voluntati ut / ab ipso ordine prerogativam sentiatis spiritualium graciarum, verumque nudi temporalibus bonis caritatis vestre subsidiis digna rependere vicem minime temporaliter valemus spiritualibus  / nichilominus beneficiis prout in nostris aput Deum servamus desideriis compensare spiritualem affectamus. Eapropter ego qui licet indignus curam fratrum minorum et sororum sancti/ monialium sancte Clare virginis per Hungariam habeo specialem, vos universos et singulos de prefata fraternitate ac etiam animas omnium defunctorum vestrorum in confraternita/tem nostri ordinis ad universa et singula nostre religionis suffragia in vita recipio pariter et in morte, / plenam vobis omnium carismatum et spiritualium bonorum, videlicet missarum, / oracionum, officiorum divinorum ieiuniorum, abstinenciarum, peregrinacionum, predicationum, devocionum et omnium aliorum bonorum participationem tenore presencium generose conferendo que per / fratres meos et dicti ordinis … … acceptari dignabitur clemencia Salvatoris. Addens in super de gracia singulari quod, cum divine placuerit voluntati de exilio / presentis miserie vos seu … … … … obitus, annuente Domino plurimo tempore differendus, nostro fuerit provinciali capitulo nunciatus, volo ut pro vobis fiat officium / suffragiorum quod pro fratribus ex more [?] defunctis [?] nostris [?] annuatim per totum ordinem feceri consuevit. Item ut predicta fraternitas augmentetur et de bono in melius progre/ diatur, de thesauris spiritualibus … duxi numeribus [?] decorandam, videlicet quod

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quilibet frater sacerdos ad honorem beate Marie Virginis per totam Hungariam constitutus teneatur / singulis annis succedentibus … duas missas perpetuis futuris temporibus. Et quicumque iam sepe dictam fraternitatem conservari et augmentari procuraverit benedictionibus omnipotentis / Dei repleatur et in futuro perpetuam consequitur gloriam. Qui vero suis suasionibus consiliis seu quibusvis modis alienare diminuere et penitus dimittere ausu teme/rario aut livore invidie procuraverit [?] de libro viventium deleatur nomen eius et cum iustis non scribatur ac in die novissimo in districtissimo iudicio Dei reddat racio/nem. In quorum omnium premissorum et memoriam perpetuam presentes duxi pendentis sigilli nostre provincie munimine roborandas. Valeat vestra devota caritas feliciter in Domino / Jhesu Christo. Datum in Posonio octava die mensis aprilis, anno Domini M° CCCC° LX° primo.

9. [LC 50] 10 September 1480, Buda [H.] (OCarm) (Figure 6 and Figure 15) Letter by which John Carpentarius, provincial prior of Upper Germany of the Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, grants participation in the spiritual goods of the order, with commemoration, to the royal notary Peter of Söpte. Parchment. 23 cm W × 12.5 cm H. Hanging red vesica seal representing the Madonna framed by two kneeling friars. MS: MNL DL 93538. Partial edition: Romhányi, ‘“Meretur vestre devocionis affectus …”’, p. 39, n. 14. In Cristo Jhesu sibi dilectis [sic] honesto viro magistro Petro de Sephe [sic] cancelarie regie maiestatis notarii /, frater Johannes Carpentarius humilis venerandissimi in Christo patris magistri Christofori Martiguani totius ordinis fratrum gloriosissime Dei / genitricis semperque Virginis Marie de Monte Carmeli prioris generalis super plurimas videlicet Alamanie superioris, Saxonie, Bohe/mie et Dacie cum plena potestate vicarius necnon iam dicte provincie Alamanie superioris prior provincialis, salutem in Domino sempi/ternam. Exigente vestrarum [sic] quem pia fratrum relacionem intelleximus vos habere ad nostrum religionem, omnium missarum, oracionum, predicacionum,  / vigiliarum, ieiuniorum, disciplinarum, laborum ceterorumque bonorum omnium que per nos et fratres nobis commissos operari dignabitur divine / clemencia Salvatoris, tenore presencium vos participes facimus atque consortes in vita pariter et in morte. Addentes nichilominus / et de gracia speciali concedentes, ut cum obituum vestrorum memoria in nostro provinciali capitulo fuerit recitata, idem pro vobis / fiet quod pro nostris fratribus defunctis fieri est consuetum. In cuius rei testimonium sigillum nostri provincialatus officii presentibus / est appensum. Datum in nostro conventu Budensi, anno Domini M° CCCC octuagesimo infra octavas nativitatis Virginis gloriose dominica videlicet die.

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10. [LC 62] 22 July 1488, Buda [H.] (OESA) (Figure 7) Letter by which Stephen of Rechnitz (Rohonc), prior of the Hungarian province of the Hermits of Saint Augustine, admits Ladislas of Grebenac (Gerebenc) and Balthazar of Batthyán (his son-in-law), with their families, into the ‘ordinary’ spiritual confraternity of the order. Parchment. 28  cm W  ×  22  cm H.  Seal on paper print representing the Crucifixion. MS: MNL DL 101777 Frater Stephanus de Rohoncz, lector sacre theo­logie, prior provincialis / provincie regni Hungarie licet immeritus, ordinis fratrum heremitarum sancti Augustini. In Cristo nobis dilectis / egregiis domino Ladislao de Ghereben et domino Balthasar de Bothÿan, salutem in Eo qui omnium vera existit salus, / felicem progressum et exitum presente exilii, cum augmento celestium virtutum incrementa. Quia sancti / desiderii propositum, ex humane infirmitate lapsu, a suo sepius retardatur salutari effectu, nisi divinis obtentis  / sufragiis, pia supplicacione fidelium adiuvetur, et quamvis ex caritatis affectu omnibus spiritualibus teneamur  / illis tamen longe amplius obligamur, quorum dilectionem certis beneficiorum indiciis experimur, ymo a  / fidedignis filiis nostris, laudabilem vestram commendacionem benigne et attente susceptimus. Vestre igitur caritatis  / devocionem et affectum celibem, atque ob reverenciam omnipotentis Dei et beati Augustini patris nostri honorem / ad nostrum sacrum geritis ordinem dignum duximus et non immerito volontati divine sacrificium acceptabiliter  / putavimus. Quapropter vos unacum consortibus vestris videlicet domina Ursula et domina Elena, ac liberis vestris, / nostram recipientes in confraternitatem, omnium missarum, oracionum, suffragiorum, divinorum officiorum, predicacionum / peregrinacionum, indulgenciarum, ieiuniorum, abstinenciarum, vigiliarum, disciplinarum, penitenciarum / ceterorumque regularium observanciarum ac bonorum operum universorum, que per fratres nostri ordinis clementissimus  / Deus ex gracia et misericordia sua per prefatum regni Hungarie operari dignabitur. In cuius rei testimonium  / sigillo nostri provincialatus officii presentibus est impressum. Datum Bude, feria secunda proxima in profesto / beate Marie Magdalene, anno Domini millesimo quadringentensimo octuagesimo octavo.

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11. [LC 72] 5 June 1493, Venice [Italy] (OP) Letter by which Joachim Turriani of Venice, master general, grants participation in the merits of the Order of Friars Preachers to the members of the (lay) Confraternity of Saint Nicolas attached to the Dominican friary of Sebeș (Szászsebes), at the request of the provincial of Hungary, Valentine of Kisd. Parchment. Hanging seal. MS (photo­graph): MNL DF 277613. Document pierced and wrinkled. Devotis et in Christo dilectissimis universis et singulis hominibus et personis utriusque sexus de consortio et societate sew confraternitate que congregata / est in honore beatissimi Nicolai episcopi in opido Mẅllembachensi Albensis diocesis et in conventu fratrum predicatorum  / presentibus et futuris, frater Joachimus Turrianus Venetus, sacre theo­logie professor ac eiusdem ordinis humilis magister et servus, / salutem et spiritus sancti consolacionem et si a celi cinibus [?] celestia obtinere suffragia contra mundi huius dampnosa discrimina cu/pientes beatum Nicolaum pontificem et confessorem intercessorem vestrum et specialissimum patronum vobis eligere provide decrevistis. In / ipsius honorem gratam Deo societatem et congregacionem sicud accepi cum vestrorum cumulo meritorum statuentes ut eius adniti/meritis et intercessionibus donis celestis gracie copiosius impetratis reddeamini culparum recepta venia, in fide stabiles / in opere efficaces et celestis glorie participacione capaces. Et ut predicta celerius, facilius et copiosus assequi valeatis / ex parte vestra fuit in fideliter et h[umiliter] supplicatum per reverendum patrem fratrem Valentinum de Kÿst sacre theo­logie professorem / eiusdem ordinis, ut fratrum [nostrorum] [?] creditis Deo domesticos et amicos vos facerens, bonorum omnium spiritualium comunionem / et participacionem gaudere … … reverenciam Dei et piissime matris eius ac propter merita … vestrorum [?] que per multa indicia largas elem[osinas] … beneficia singularem affectum ostendistis ad ordinem nostrum et presertim ad conventum / nostrum Mẅllembachensem … … existimamur annuere precibus vestris et bona omnia spiritualia ac suffragia ordini / nostro collata a copiosa clemencia Salvatoris [?] vobis generosius impartiri. Quare vobis omnium missarum, oracionum, predicacionum, ieiuniorum, / abstinenciarum, vigiliarum, laborum [?] ceterorumque bonorum omnium, que Dominus noster Jhesus Christus per fratres et sorores nostri ordinis per mundum / fieri dedit universum, participacionem concedo in omnibus, specialem in vita pariter et in morte, ut multiplici suffragiorum / adiuti presidio et hic augmentum gracie continuumque profectum et in futuro vite eterne premium ac celeste / regnum facilius et copiosus adipisci et consequi valeatis. In quorum omnium fidem et testimonium sigillum / officii mei duxi presentibus apponendum. Bene valete et Deum pro me exorate. Datum Venetiis apud sanctos / Johannem et Paulum quinto die mensis junii 1493.

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12. [LC 86] 16 August 1501, Pest [H.] (OP) (Figure 18) Letter by which Valentine of Kisd, provincial prior of Hungary, grants participation in the merits of the Order of Friars Preachers to George Karácson(y) and his family. Paper. 31 cm W × 21 cm H. Seal on paper print representing St Dominic, standing. MS: MNL DL 69883. Devotis sibi in Cristo sincere dilectis nobilibus viris Georgio Karachon, domina Elena coniugi, / Caspari, Balthalan, Petro, Michaeli et Sophie liberis eorumdem, Gregorio fratri iam fati domini Georgii Karachon, Cristine coniugi*, / Martino, Georgio, Katherine et Elene liberis domini Gregorii iam dicti, Ladislao et Georgio consanguineis eorumdem, / frater Valentinus helÿe de Kÿsdh divine theo­logie professor ac per totum regnum Hungarie prior provincialis ordinis  / Predicatorum, salutem et felicem exitum. Pro pio vestre affectu, quem ad nostrum geritis ordinem, sicuti ex certa fratrum  / relacione didici, vobis volens grata vicissitudine spiritualium bonorum occurrere, omnium missarum, oracionum, predicacionum, / vigiliarum, abstinenciarum, ieuiniorum ceterorumque piorum laborum que per fratres et sorores michi creditos imposterum / fieri, vobis tenore presencium participacionem concedo specialem in vita pariter et in morte, ut multiplici suffragiorum presidio adiuti  / pro hac presenti et momentanea vita futuram et permanentem feliciter possidere valeatis. In cuius concessionis testimonium presentes / litteras sigillo officii mei provincialatus munitas duxi vobis concedens. Datum in conventu Pestiensi secundo die Assumpcionis  / Virginis gloriose, anno domini millesimo quingentesimo primo.

*Name inserted vertically in the righthand margin. 13. [LC 99] 14 April 1507, Buda [H.] (OESA) Letter by which Matthew of Dej (Dés), prior of the Hungarian province of the Hermits of Saint Augustine, admits Baron John Bánffy and his family into the ‘major’ spiritual confraternity of the order. Parchment. Hanging seal, lost (ties). MS (photo­graph): MNL DF 266809.

Edition of Sixteen Letters of Confraternity Frater Matheus de Dees, sacrarum litterarum magister,  / et prior provincialis regni Hungarie ordinis fratrum Heremitarum parentis omnium doctorum aurelii Augustini,  / magnifico ac preclarissimo domino Johanni Bamfy, ac domine Margarethe* consorti eiusdem, necnon liberis  / eorumdem, Paulo, Francisco, Sigismundo, Anthonio, Dorothee, Chaterine [sic] et Anne, salutem in Domino sempiternam.  / Rex pacificus mira sue bonitatis clementia et incomprehensibili sapientia disposuit, ut oracionibus sibi serviencium  / delinquencium relaxentur crimina et corda contrita suscipiant graciarum charismata. Et quanto quis maiorem / gradum nobilitatis tenet in terris, tanto opus est, ut suffragiis pluriorum fulcitus intra celestis aule milites / connumerari mereatur. Eapropter pium vestre magnificencie affectum, quo divinitus inspirati ordinem nostrum / sacratissimi sinceris affectibus estis prosecuti, prut rerum magistra docuit experiencia et fratrum nostrorum / publica reseravit relacio, vobis pro terrenis celestia, pro temporalibus sempiterna spirituali vicissitu/dine rependere cupientes, harum vigore literarum, vos et quemlibet vestrum in confraternitatem nostri  / ordinis recipimus in vita pariter et in morte, omnium missarum, oracionum, predicacionum, vigiliarum, / ieiuniorum, peregrinacionum, laborum ceterorumque bonorum actuum que per fratres nostri ordinis infra / limites regni Hungarie operari dignabitur clemencia Salvatoris, vos et quemlibet vestrum  / participes facientes, in nomine Patris et Filio et Spiritus Sancti, Amen. Addentes insuper de gracia / nostra speciali ut, cum vocante Domino vos e seculo migrare contigerit, idem pro vobis suffragium / fiat, quod pro fratribus nostris constitucio nostra mandat specialis. In quibus omnibus participes  / effecti facilius eternam possitis adipisci gloriam, Amen. In quorum fidem robur et testi/monium sigillum nostri provincialatus officij presentibus est impressum. Datum Bude  / in nostro conventu sancti Stephani prothomartiris, anno dominice Incarnacionis millesimo / quingentesimo septimo, die quartadecima mensis aprilis.

[On the fold, in a different hand] Addentes insuper ex speciali gracia pro ut sanctissimus Julius papa secundus concessit ordini nostro et confratribus  / ac ordinis benefactoribus ut confessorem idoneum eligere possitis et concedimus vobis auctoritatem absolvendi / a pena et a culpa semel in vita et in mortis articulo totiens quotiens a Sede apostolica nobis concessa.

*Name written over another word which was previously scratched out.

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14. [LC 105] 19 June 1509, Sighişoara / Segesvár / Schassburg [Romania] (OP) Letter by which Francis of Sighişoara, prior of the Dominican friary of Sighişoara, admits George of Lunga (Nyujtód) and his family into the ‘major’ spiritual confraternity of the order. Paper. Vesica seal on paper print representing St Dominic. MS (photo­graph): MNL DF 244476. Dilectissimo in Christo filio egregio* Georgio Nÿuythodi unacum generosa domina Ursula sua conthorali  / legitima ac natis atque nascendis , frater Franciscus Scheespolitanus sacri ordinis Predicatorum humilis  / prior conventus Scheespurgensis, salutem in omnium Salvatore. Devotionem vestram laudabilem et affectum, quem  / ob Dei omnipotentis amorem sanctissimeque virginis Marie favorem atque beatissimi patris nostri almifici Dominici /reverentiam ad nostrum geritis ordinem specialem, ut veridica experiencia expertus sum, ut talis favor vicissitu/dinem recipiat, vos in confraternitatem nostri ordinis ac ad universa et singula nostre religionis suffragia in vita pariter / et in morte recipio, plena vobis omnium spiritualium charismatum videlicet missarum, horarum canonicarum, oracionum / devotarum, vigiliarum, ieiuniorum, disciplinarum, predicacionum, peregrinacionum, studiorum, contempla/cionum et omnium aliorum spiritualium bonorum participacionem tenore presencium generose confero, que per fratres et soro/res nostri conventus dignabitur operari clemencia Salvatoris. Et dum divine fuerit beneplacitum voluntati vos / vel vestros ex hac vita erumpnosa migrare ad Christum et obitus vester vel vestrorum fuerit conventui nostro nunciatus, / ex tunc volumus, ut pro vobis idem fiat recommendacionis officium suffragiumque sicuti pro fratribus / et sororibus nostris in capitulo nostro de more recitatis fieri consuevit. Datum in Scheeszpurg, die martis / sanctorum martirum Gervasy et Prothasy anno Christi 1509.

*Inserted word. 15. [LC 120] 1 February 1522, Óbuda [H.] (OFM Conv) (Figure 13 and Figure 22) Letter by which Anthony of Segesd, minister of the Hungarian province of Conventual Franciscans, admits George of Csop (Csap) and his wife into the ‘major’ spiritual confraternity of the order and confirms that they will be able to choose burial in the friary of Košice (Kassa). Parchment. Red vesica hanging seal, representing the Annunciation. MS: MFL no. 104; MNL DF 275558 (photo­graph); MNL DL 57939 (1763 transcription).

Edition of Sixteen Letters of Confraternity In Christo sibi devotissimo filio egregio viro Georgio de Czap, frater Anthinus de Segesd ordinis Minorum et sacre theo­logie  / professor provincieque regni Hungarie minister et servus quamvis immeritus ac reverendissimi patris generalis ministri in eadem vicarius / et commissarius cum plenitudine potestatis, salutem et sinceram in Domino charitatem. Quamvis ex charitatis debito omnibus christifidelibus  / teneamur, illis tamen longeamplius obligamur, quorum dilectionem certis beneficiorum indiciis frequentius experimur. Proinde devocionem  / tuam laudabilem quam erga beatissimum patrem nostrum seraphicum Franciscum et ordinem eius habes specialem, sicuti ex fratrum / nostrorum veridica accepi relacione, presertim in conventu nostro Cassoviensi pro tempore commorantium, hancque tuam devocionem ex specialium elemosi/narum ducentorum videlicet florenorum ad structuram interioris ambitus prefati conventus nostri Cassoviensis pia largitione, cetorum [sic] etiam multi/pplicium beneficiorum frequentacione prout ab ipsis fratribus accepi, sole clarius declarasti. Et quod nudi temporalibus bonis nudum Christum  / Jesum sequentes, tuis beneficiis temporaliter dignam recompensacionem impendere non valemus, nihilominus tamen spiritualibus beneficiis  / ipsam recompensare studemus. Quapropter dignum duximus ut ab ipso ordine specialem sentias spiritualium gratiarum prerogativam. Eapropter ego / qui licet indignus curam gero prefate provincie, te unacum generosa domina Elizabeth . xx . fidelissima coniuge tua, in confraternitatem  / nostri ordinis in vita recipio pariter et in morte, plenam vobis participationem omnium spiritualium carismatum, videlicet missarum, horarum / canonicarum, divinorum officiorum, ieiuniorum, abstinentiarum, disciplinarum, contemplacionum, predicationum, sanctarum meditationum,  / devotarum oracionum, studiorum et lectionum sacre scripture, ceterorumque omnium bonorum spiritualium que per fratres meos et sorores sancte  / Clare et tercii ordinis sub meo regimine degentes operari et acceptare dignabitur clementia Salvatoris, unacum indulgenciis et graciis / a summis pontificibus prefatis ordinibus graciose largissimeque concessis, tenore presentium graciose conferens, necnon et votum fratrum / in conventu Cassoviensi pro tempore commorantium presentium et futurorum de perpetuarum missarum celebratione factum, iuxta continens litterarum / super hoc iam dudum traditarum* accepto et confirmo. Addiciens insuper ex speciali gratia ut, cum Domino vos vel quemlibet vestrum ad suam gloriam / innaccessibilem de hoc seculo nequam evocare placuerit, et per vos ipsis fratribus consultum et intimatum fuerit, fratres ipsi teneantur funus vestrum / ad locum sepulture honorifice deducere et debitis divinis officiis persolutis ibidem condere sepulture, et dum obitus vester nostro capitulo / relatum fuerit, fiat pro vobis eadem memoria que fieri* consuevit pro defunctis fratribus. In quorum omnium perpetuam memoriam et testimonium / presentes pendenti sigillo nostri officii munimine roboratas fideliter duximus concedentes. Valete in Domino Jhesu ad eternam felicitatem. Datum / Veteri Bude in vigilia Purificationis virginis gloriosissime anno eiusdem partus virginiei M D vigesimo secundo.

*Inserted word.

291

292

Appendix

16. [LC 123] 3 February 1523, Buda [H.] (OFM Obs.) Letter by which Andrew Almanus of Florence, minister of the (Observant) Franciscan province of Tuscany, commissary general for the province of Hungary, admits Nicolas Liptay of Kisfalud and his family into the ‘ordinary’ spiritual confraternity of the order. Paper. 19 cm W × 20.2 cm H. Vesica seal on paper print representing St Francis receiving the stigmata. MS: MNL DL 68002. In Christo sibi charissimo egregio domino magistro Nicolao Lypthai de / Kÿsfalwd, frater Andreas Almanus de Florentia ordinis minorum regularis observancie  / provincie Tuscie ac reverendissimi generalis minister commissarius provincie Hungarie / super omnes fratres cum plenitudine potestatis licet indignus, salutem et pacem in Domino / sempiternam. Cum oracionem suffragio salutari ex charitatis debito omnibus ad incrementa / virtutum teneamur, illis tamen longeamplius obligari noscimur, quorum dilectionem / certis beneficiorum indiciis frequentius experimur, proinde tue devocionis considerata sinceritate /, quod ob Dei omnipotentis reverentiam ac beatissimi patris nostri seraphici Francisci merita gloriosa / ad nostrum ordinem gerere probaris, dignum censui et divine acceptabile voluntati, quatenus / ab ipso ordine prerogativam spiritualium sentias graciarum verumquia nudi temporalibus  / bonis, charitatis tue subsidÿs dignam temporaliter vicem nequaquam rependere valemus / spiritualibus nihilominus beneficÿs recompensare exoptamus. Ea propter, ego qui licet / indignus curam fratrum predictorum gero, te unacum egregia consorte tua domina / Elena ac liberis vestris Valentino et Barbara necnon heredibus vestris in futurum  / nascendis ad nostram confraternitatem ac ad universa et singula predictorum fratrum/ suffragia in vita recipio pariter et in morte, plenam vobis participationem omnium charismatum  / et spiritualium bonorum que per fratres jam prefatos operari et acceptare dignabitur clemencia / Salvatoris tenore presentium generose conferendo. Datum in loco Sancti Johannis Budensi / in die februarii anno domini millesimo quingentesimo vigesimo tertio.

[At the bottom of the charter, to the right of the seal, in a different hand] [Frater Andre]as qui supra propria manu subscripsi

Figure 1. Letter by which Michael, prior of the Dominican province of Hungary, associates (the nobleman) Andrew and his wife with the spiritual benefits of the friars of the province, with the same celebrations as for the deceased friars. Budapest, Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár, MS DL 91119. 1270. [LC 1]

Figures

I. Letters of Confraternity

Figure 2. Letter by which George, prior of the province of the Augustinian Hermits of Hungary, grants participation in the good works of the friars to Benedict of Turiec/Turóc and institutes three masses for his salvation. Budapest, Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár, MS DL 73471. 25 May 1393. [LC 15]

294

Figures

Figure 3. Letter by which John of Capistrano, inquisitor general of the Franciscans of the Observance, admits the knight George Joranth and his family into the major confraternity of the order. Budapest, Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár, MS DL 14980. 7 August 1455. [LC 29]

Figures 295

Figure 4. Letter by which James of Stubach, prior of the Dominican friary of Vienna, admits John and Sigismund, counts of Svätý Jur/Szentgyörgy and Pezinok/Bazin, into the ordinary con­fra­ ternity of the order. Budapest, Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár, MS DL 15751. 13 July 1462. [LC 37]

296

Figures

Figure 5. Letter by which Francis of Peklenica/Bánya, Observant Franciscan custodian of Slavonia, admits Stephen Dersfi of Središče/Szerdahely and his family into the ordinary confraternity of the order. Budapest, Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár, MS DL 18310. 6 January 1480. [LC 47]

Figures 297

Figure 6. Letter by which John Carpentarius, provincial prior of Upper Germany of the Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, grants participation in the spiritual goods of the order, with commemoration, to the royal notary Peter of Söpte. Budapest, Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár, MS DL 93538. 10 September 1480. [LC 50]

298

Figures

Figure 7. Letter by which Stephen of Rechnitz/Rohonc, prior of the Hungarian province of the Hermits of Saint Augustine, admits Ladislas of Grebenac/Gerebenc and his son-in-law Balthazar of Batthyán into the ordinary confraternity of the order. Budapest, Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár, MS DL 101777. 22 July 1488. [LC 62]

Figures 299

Figure 8. Letter by which Stephen of Sopronca, Observant Franciscan vicar of Hungary, admits Peter of Szegfalu and his family into the ordinary confraternity of the order. Budapest, Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár, MS DL 69167. 13 July 1492. [LC 69]

300

Figures

Figure 9. Letter by which Andrew of Hust/Huszt, Observant Franciscan custodian of Sárospatak, admits John Nagy of Babin Potok/Balpatak and his family into the ordinary confraternity of the order. Budapest, Magyar Ferences Levéltár, MS no. 71. 25 September 1493. [LC 73]

Figures 301

Figure 10. Letter by which Andrew of Bácsa, minister of the province of Conventual Franciscans of Hungary, admits Simon of Velika Bijhany/Nagybégány and his wife and children into the major confraternity of the order. Budapest, Magyar Ferences Levéltár, MS no. 88. 12 February 1503. [LC 90]

302

Figures

Figure 11. Letter by which Andrew of Bácsa, minister of the province of Conventual Franciscans of Hungary, admits Ambrose Sárkány of Ákoshaza and his family into the major confraternity of the order. Budapest, Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár, MS DL 103070. 8 July 1505. [LC 97]

Figures 303

Figure 12. (Printed) letter by which Francis Licchetti, minister general of the Order of Friars Minor (Observant), admits John of Gyula and his family into the major confraternity of the order. Budapest, Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár, MS DL 47257. 20 July 1518. [LC 115]

304

Figures

Figure 13. Letter by which Anthony of Segesd, minister of the province of Conventual Franciscans of Hungary, admits George of Csop/Csap and his wife into the major confraternity of the order and confirms that they will be able to choose burial in the friary of Košice/Kassa. Budapest, Magyar Ferences Levéltár, MS no. 104. 1 February 1522. [LC 120]

Figures 305

306

Figures

Figure 14. Letter by which Francis of Lipova/Lippa, minister of the Conventual Franciscan province of Hungary, admits Benedict of Bajon and his family into the ordinary confraternity of the order. Budapest, Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár, MS DL 23837. 6 October 1523. [LC 124]

Figures

307

II. Seals

Figure 16 (below). Seal of the letter by which Stephen of Rechnitz/Rohonc, prior of the Hungarian province of the Hermits of Saint Augustine, admits Ladislas of Grebenac/Gerebenc and his son-in-law Balthazar of Batthyán into the ordinary confraternity of the order. Budapest, Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár, MS DL 101777. 22 July 1488. [LC 62]

Figure 15 (above). Seal of the letter by which John Carpentarius, provincial prior of Upper Germany of the Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, grants participation in the spiritual goods of the order, with commemoration, to the royal notary Peter of Söpte. Budapest, Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár, MS DL 93538. 10 September 1480. [LC 50]

308

Figures Figure 17. Seal of the letter by which Joachim Turriani, master general, admits Peter of Söpte with his wife and his brothers and sisters into the major confraternity of the Dominican Order. Budapest, Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár, MS DL 93592. 20 February 1489. [LC 64]

Figure 18. Seal of the letter by which Valentine of Kisd, Dominican provincial prior of Hungary, admits George Karácson with his wife and children and other family members into the ordinary confraternity of the order. Budapest, Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár, MS DL 69883. 16 August 1501. [LC 86]

Figure 19. Seal of the letter by which Blaise of Nyár, vicar of the Observant Franciscans of Hungary, admits John of Ajka with his family into the ordinary confraternity of the order. Budapest, Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár, MS DL 66374. 9 November 1504. [LC 96]

Figures

309 Figure 20. Seal of the letter by which Andrew of Bácsa, minister of the province of Conventual Franciscans of Hungary, admits Ambrose Sárkány of Ákoshaza and his family into the major confraternity of the order. Budapest, Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár, MS DL 103070. 8 July 1505. [LC 97]

Figure 21. Seal of the letter by which Peter of Darány, Observant Franciscan custodian of Sárospatak, admits Gregory of Csop/ Csap of Esen/Eszeny and his family into the ordinary confraternity of the order. Budapest, Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár, MS DL 82328. 8 May 1511. [LC 107]

Figure 22. Seal of the letter by which Anthony of Segesd, minister of the province of Conventual Franciscans of Hungary, admits George of Csop/Csap and his wife into the major confraternity of the order and confirms that they will be able to choose burial in the friary of Košice/Kassa. Budapest, Magyar Ferences Levéltár, MS no. 104. 1 February 1522. [LC 120]

Maps

310

Maps

Map 1. Places of issue of the letters of confraternity of the Hungarian corpus

Maps

311

Map 2. Places of issue of mendicant letters of confraternity in Hungary

Tables Letters of confraternity delivered by mendicant friars to  inhabitants of the Kingdom of Hungary (1270–1524) Abbreviations Bp bur. chap. Conv. ed. gen. H. LC M MC MFL min. MNL DF DL MS / MS° Obs. OC OCarm OESA OFM OP pr. prov. rg s. sd transcr. vic.

Budapest burial in the friary (without the habit) chapter Conventual edition general Hungary letter of confraternity mass(es) major confraternity Magyar Ferences Levéltár (Hungarian Franciscan Archives) minister Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár, Országos Levéltár (Hungarian National Archives) Diplomatikai Fényképgyűjtemény (Collection of reproductions) Diplomatikai Levéltár (Collection of original documents) original manu­script / manu­script reproduction Observant ordinary confraternity Order of Carmelites Order of Hermits of St. Augustine Order of Friars Minor Order of Preachers printed provincial regestum / regesta son(s) supporting document (documents edited in the appendix) transcription vicar

Toponyms and anthroponyms derived from toponyms are indicated in their modern form, followed, as applicable (in italics) by their Hungarian form, and as warranted, their German form. See also the Index of Proper Names.

Table 1

314

Letters of confraternity delivered by mendicant friars to inhabitants of the Kingdom of Hungary LC no. Order

Date (dd.mm.yyyy) / Place (friary of …) [modern state] / Hungarian name

1

OP

?? 1270 / ? [H.]

2

OFM

model: c. 1282–87 (?); copied A[drian] (frater A.) / in about 1320 (?) / ? [H.] prov. min. of H.

OC

3

OP

?? 1301 / Co­logne [Germany] Bernard [of Jusix] (frater Bernardus) / master gen. / in gen. chap.

MC

4

OP

20.06.1306 / Székesfehérvár [H.]

5

OFM

02.11.1339 / Esztergom [H.] Guiral Ot (frater Geraldus) / min. gen.

6

OP

30.09.1348 / Vasvár [H.]

John (frater Johannes) / prov. prior of H.

OC

7

OESA

01.06.1357 / Montpellier [France]

Gregory (frater Gregorius) / prior gen.

MC

8

OFM

03.07.1357 / Sárospatak [H.] Clement (frater Clemens) / prov. min. of H.

9

OFM

07.03.1361 / Rome [Italy]

10

OESA

08.06.1362 / Vienna [Austria] Matthias (frater Mathias) / prior gen.

MC

11

OP

15.08.1364 / Győr [H.]

Ladislas (frater Ladislaus) / prov. prior of H.

OC

Issuer / Position Michael (frater Michael) / prov. prior of H.

Paul (frater Paulus) / prov. prior of H.

Mark [of Viterbo] ( frater Marchus) / min. gen.

Degree of confraternity MC

MC

OC

OC

OC

Letters of confraternity delivered by mendicant friars

315

Addressee / Others included / Social position References Andrew (nobilis vir magister Andreas) / with his wife / noble

MS: Bp, MNL DL 91119 [sd 1]

Dominic (vir providus et honestus magister Dominicus), canon cantor of the cathedral of Győr / secular cleric

MS (letter copied in a formulary): Alba Iulia, Batthyaneum, Cod. E 5. VI-8 (Szentiványi, no. iii, 89), fol. 126r [sd 2] ed.: Karácsonyi, ‘A magyar ferencrendűek’, p. 29 no. 13

Luke and Andrew, brothers (Lucas et Andreas MS°: Bp, MNL DF 253566 fratres) / with Luke’s wife and their children / ? Paul of Lad, lord of Ladiuca (nobilis vir et honestus comes Paulus de Ladh, castellanus in Ladiuca [=?]) / noble

MS°: Bp, MNL DF 264715

Nicolas and Paul, s. of John (or Ivan) of Zics (or Zich, Zichy) (nobiles vires et honestes filii mastri Ywan Nicolaus Paulus de Zec) / with their wives and children / aristocrats

MS: Bp, MNL DL 76602 ed.: Nagy, Kammerer, and Véghely, A zichi és vasonkeoi, i, 568 no. 541

Michael, s. of Dennis of Köcsk (nobilis vir et honestus Michael filius Dÿonisii de Kuchk) / with his wife and children / noble

MS: Bp, MNL DL 103272 ed.: Iványi, Dominikánus levelek, p. 35 no. 3

Benedict, s. of Hem [Himfi] [of Döbrönte] (dominus Benedictus filius Hem) / with his wife and children / aristocrat

MS°: Bp, MNL DF 257423 ed.: Szovák, ‘“Meritorum apud Dominum”’, p. 84 no. 1

Nicolas, s. of Martin (Nicolaus filius Martini MS: Bp, MNL DL 77198 civis Pothokensis) / with his wife and children / ed.: Nagy, Kammerer, and Véghely, bourgeois (civis) of Sárospatak A zichi és vasonkeoi, xii, 31–32 no. 30 MS: Bp, MNL DL 41472 Nicolas of Szécs, ban of Croatia and Slavonia (magnificus et potens dominus dominus Nicolaus rg: Fejér, Codex diplomaticus, ix.7, 511 de Zech pro serenissimo principe domino rege Hungarie banus regnorum Dalmatie et Croatie) / with his wife and children / aristocrat Stephen, s. of Benedict (magnificus ac strennuus MS: Bp, MNL DL 49716 militus magister Stephanus filius Benedicti) / Bio­graphy of the addressee: with his wife and children / noble Kurcz, A lovagi kultúra, p. 156 Peter, s. of Chenik (nobilis magister Petrus filius Chenik) / with his wife / noble

MS: Bp, MNL DL 25824

Table 1

316

Letters of confraternity delivered by mendicant friars to inhabitants of the Kingdom of Hungary LC no. Order

Date (dd.mm.yyyy) / Place (friary of …) [modern state] / Hungarian name

Issuer / Position

Degree of confraternity

12

OP

25.01.1366 / Sárospatak [H.] Ladislas (frater Ladyzlaus) / prov. prior of H.

13

OFM

20.02.1370 / Győr [H.]

John (frater Johannes) / prov. min. of H.

OC

14

OCarm

16.04.1376 / Buda [H.]

Gunther (frater Cunter) / prov. prior of Upper Germany and Bohemia

MC

15

OESA

25.05.1393 / Esztergom [H.] George (frater Georgius) / prov. prior of H. / in prov. chap.

OC + M

16

OESA

27.08.1415 / Batăr [Romania] John of Topoľčany / Tapolcsány / Bátmonostor (frater Johannes de Thapolcano) / prov. prior of H.

MC

17

OFM

25.03.1428 / Nagykanizsa [H.] Peter of Szombathely (frater Petrus de Sabbaria) / prov. min. of H.

OC + bur.

18

OFM

?? 1438 / Virovitica [Croatia] Andrew of Eger (frater Andreas / Verőce de Agria) / prov. min. of H. / in prov. chap.

OC + bur.

19

OFM

09.10.1442 / Levoča [Slovakia] John of Colonia (frater Johannes de / Lőcse Colonia) / guardian of Levoča

OC

20

OFM Obs. 05.03.1451 / Padua [Italy]

John of Capistrano (frater Johannes de Capistrano) / cismontane Obs. vic. gen.

MC

21

OP

? (frater …) / prior of the friary of Pest

OC

05.08.1451–59 / Pest [H.]

OC

Letters of confraternity delivered by mendicant friars

317

Addressee / Others included / Social position References John, Premonstratensian prior of Leles / Lelesz MS°: Bp, MNL DF 233763 no. 1 (venerabilis pater et dominus dominis Johannes ordinis premonstatensium prepositus de Leles) / regular cleric Lawrence and George of Kayard (Laurentius Geordius uterini de Kayard) / with their wives and children / ?

MS: Bp, MNL DL 86178

James Kütüfel (Jacobus Kütüfel) / with his wife / bourgeois

MS: Bp, MNL DL 42003 ed.: Fejér, Codex diplomaticus, ix.6, 200 no. 233

Benedict of Turiec / Turóc (nobilis vir et MS: Bp, MNL DL 73471 [sd 3] strennus magister Benedictus de Thurucz) / noble Gregory of Sana, commander of the fortress of MS: Bp, MNL DL 79273 [?] / Zsembéc (discretus et honestus vir dominus ed.: Nagy, Kammerer, and Véghely, Gregorius de Sana, castelanus de castro Zembecz) A zichi és vasonkeoi, vi, 365–66 no. 240 / with his wife and children / noble Adalbert, s. of Paul of Domanyntsi / Domonya MS°: Bp, MNL DF 248930 (nobilis et honestus vir Adalbertus filius Pauli de Domonÿa) / with his wife and children / noble Peter, s. of Peter Botos (Petrus filius Petri Botus) MS: Bp, MNL DL 13269 / with his wife and children / noble Benedict of Spišský Hrhov / Görgő (strennuus Benedictus de Gargaw) / with his wife and children / noble

MS: Bp, MNL DL 63824 [sd 4]

Ladislas of Csikvánd (egregius miles Ladislaus de Chithvand) / with his wife and children, his familia, and their departed / noble

MS°: Bp, MNL DF 250358 rg: Bölcskey, Capistranói szent János, iii, 400 no. 185 (‘Chithnand’); Hofer, ‘Bruderschaftsbriefe’, no. 5 ed.: Horváth, ‘Egy ismeretlen levél’

MS: Bp, MNL DL 61118 Helen, widow of Paul of Rede (or Rhédey) (nobiles … domina Elena relicta condam Pauli de Reede) / with her son, her daughter-in-law, and their children / noble

Table 1

318

Letters of confraternity delivered by mendicant friars to inhabitants of the Kingdom of Hungary LC no. Order

Date (dd.mm.yyyy) / Place (friary of …) [modern state] / Hungarian name

Issuer / Position

Degree of confraternity

22

OP (Obs.) 15.06.1452 / Vienna [Austria] Leonard Huntpichler (frater Leonardus de Vallebrixinensi) / vicar of the master general for the reformed friaries ‘of the lands of King Ladislas’ (= Bohemia and H.)

OC

23

OFM Obs. 17.05.1453 / Sajóvámos [H.]

OC

24

OFM Obs. 01.12.1453 / Krakow [Poland] John of Capistrano (frater Johannes de Capistrano) / inquisitor gen.

MC

25

OFM Obs. 04.03.1454 / Krakow [Poland] John of Capistrano (frater Johannes de Capistrano) / inquisitor gen.

MC

26

OFM Obs. 14.03.1454 / Krakow [Poland] John of Capistrano (frater Johannes de Capistrano) / inquisitor gen.

MC

27

OFM Obs.