Clerical Households in Late Medieval Italy (I Tatti Studies in Italian Renaissance History): 20

Roisin Cossar brings a new perspective to the history of the Christian church in fourteenth century Italy by examining how clerics managed efforts to reform their domestic lives in the decades after the arrival of the Black Death. Priests at the end of the Middle Ages resembled their lay contemporaries as they entered into domestic relationships with women, fathered children, and took responsibility for managing households, or familiae . Cossar limns a complex portrait of daily life in the medieval clerical familia that traces the phases of its development. Many priests began their vocation as apprentices in the households of older clerics. In middle age, priests fully embraced the traditional role of paterfamilias patriarchs with authority over their households, including servants and, especially in Venice, slaves. As fathers they endeavored to establish their illegitimate sons in a clerical family trade. They also used their legal knowledge to protect their female companions and children against a church that frowned on such domestic arrangements and actively sought to stamp them out. Clerical Households in Late Medieval Italy refutes the longstanding charge that the late medieval clergy were corrupt, living licentious lives that failed to uphold priestly obligations. In fashioning a domestic culture that responded flexibly to their own needs, priests tempered the often unrealistic expectations of their superiors. Their response to the rigid demands of church reform allowed the church to maintain itself during a period of crisis and transition in European history. " This book takes up the familiar topic of church reform in the later Middle Ages, but does so in a novel way: by examining the relationship between reform and the domestic lives of parish priests, their female companions, and other members of the priests' households or familia in the fourteenth century. Focusing on northern Italy, including Venice, and drawing on a wide range of archival records, the book challenges traditional characterizations of the late medieval clergy as "corrupt." Instead, it shows priests responding to the regulation of their domestic lives. They responded by carefully shaping written records in which household members appeared, for instance by presenting their sexual partners as servants and their children as apprentices. The book also traces, in many cases for the first time, the life cycle and status of priests' kin and household members, including their female companions, children, mothers, and slaves. In addition, the book explores both the work and material cultures of the clerical household in the decades after the Black Death. Throughout, the author argues that the priest's household was a community with roots in both ecclesiastical and lay society. Approaching the history of church reform through the lens of the clerical household, the book provides a new perspective on the history of the Christian church and domestic life in Italy at the beginning of the Renaissance.-- Provided by publisher Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Contents Introduction Part I: Making Records 1. Notaries, Registers, and Archives Notaries Notarial Registers Archiving Notarial Registers Conclusion 2. Records as Artifacts and Historical Events Testaments Inventories and Lists of Household Objects Visitation Records Conclusion Part II: The Clerical Familia 3. Priests as Patriarchs: The Clergy and Their Households Clerical Culture in Venice Naming the Clergy The Clerical Life Cycle Youth Middle Age Bonds with Extended Family An Aging Cleric: Graciolus de Sangervasio of Bergamo Aging Notaries Conclusion 4. “She Is Not My Wife but a Servant”: Clerics’ Companions Names Titles and Labels Treatment of Women in Venetian Priests’ Testaments Vulnerability and Invisibility Support Companions as Mothers Clerics’ Companions as Priests’ Mothers Conclusion 5. Material Culture and Work in the Clerical Domus Descriptions of Clerical Housing in City and Countryside The Material Culture of the Clerical Residence Work in the Clerical Residence Conclusion Conclusion Notes Acknowledgments Index Roisin Cossar brings a new perspective to the history of the Christian church in fourteenth century Italy by examining how clerics managed efforts to reform their domestic lives in the decades after the arrival of the Black Death. __Clerical Households in Late Medieval Italy__ refutes the longstanding charge that the late medieval clergy were corrupt, living licentious lives that failed to uphold priestly obligations. In fashioning a domestic culture that responded flexibly to their own needs, priests tempered the often unrealistic expectations of their superiors. Their response to the rigid demands of church reform allowed the church to maintain itself during a period of crisis and transition in European history.