Per Déu o per diners: Els mendicants i el clergat al País Valencià by Jill R. Webster (review)

72BOOK REVIEWS Per Déu o per diners: Els mendicants i el clergat al Pais Valencia. By Jill R. Webster. [Col.lecció recerca i pensament,Vol. 6.] (Catarroja and Barcelona: Editorial Afers. 1998. Pp. 202. Paperback.) Conflict between diocesan and regular clergy is one of those issues that has lingered on the periphery of medieval ecclesiastical studies. Jill Webster brings this question into the forefront with a study set in fourteenth-century Valencia. Prefaced by Robert I. Burns, SJ., who argues to the centrality of the mendicants within Valencian society, the study begins with a brief description of the Valencian church and its twofold mission to serve Christians and convert Muslims and Jews. Webster paints a gloomy picture of the secular clergy of this era, plagued with problems of absenteeism and poor education. Her treatment of the mendicants is far more positive. It begins with a description of the mendicant presence in Valencia. The fullest treatment is accorded to the Franciscans, who are the subject of Webster's Els Menorets (1993), from which much of this material is drawn. Essentially new is the overview given to the Carmelites and Augustinians, while the Dominicans are hurriedly passed by. Anecdotal detail concerning individual friars and convents adds texture. Another topic deals with the advantages that the mendicants enjoyed over their diocesan rivals. The first is royal patronage that derived from a strategy to utiliZe the friars as missionaries to Jews and Muslims as well as from the king's appreciation of the friars ' following among the bourgeoisie. The second is a popularity among urbanités that grew out of the friars' superiority at preaching and an admiration for mendicant spirituality, particularly as exemplified by St. Francis. The third derives from papal privileges that exempted friars from episcopal control and granted them virtually unlimited access to the laity. This placed the mendicants in a position where they could seriously challenge the function of local parishes and, by diverting revenues to themselves, undermine parochial finance . Webster sees the ensuing jurisdictional conflicts over preaching, the sacraments , and burial to be inevitable and gives specific examples drawn from throughout the entire Crown of Aragon that illustrate the universality and pettiness of the problems. Particularly contentious was burial because of the offerings and legacies left behind by the deceased.While a modus vivendi was often negotiated that divided oblations between the friars and parish clergy, still disputes arose concerning prominence and position within the ceremonies of death. Webster argues that the situation grew more serious in the economic downturn of the later fourteenth century that eventually shrank the pool of offerings from which both seculars and mendicants drew. In an effort to restore peace, the Valencian clergy, diocesan and mendicant, reached an agreement in 1406 (whose text Webster has transcribed) over the conduct of funerals and the sharing of revenues that remained intact until the sixteenth century. This topic is an important one that addresses such varied issues as popular spirituality, parochial life, the balance of power between bishop and pope, and the varieties of religious life and experience. Webster's study has implications BOOK REVIEWS73 beyond Valencia and the mendicants and so makes a valuable contribution to our consideration of these issues. James William Brodman University ofCentralArkansas Dynast und Kirche. Studien zum Verhältnis von Kirche und Staat im späteren Mittelalter und in der Neuzeit. By Alfred A. Strnad. Edited by Josef Gelmi und Helmut Gritsch in collaboration with Caroline Baldemair. [Innsbrucker Historische Studien,Vols. 18/19·] (Innsbruck: Studien Verlag. 1997. Pp. xxxii, 688. ÖS 650.00.) This is a collection of twenty-three studies, six of which were hitherto unpublished , by the Ordinarius for modern history at the University of Innsbruck, the chair established originally in 1887 for Ludwig Pastor, the well-known historian of the popes. The anthology was edited by his students on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday. It reflects the honoree's distinguished career as a historical researcher. Having obtained his doctorate under Alphons Lhotsky, the Nestor ofAustrian medievalists, he then worked in the Institut für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, that nursery of painstaking diplomatics, as assistant to its director, Leo Santifaller. In 1964 he transferred to the department for historical...