By Force and Fear: Taking and Breaking Monastic Vows in Early Modern Europe

4. Waging Law in the Congregation of the Council

89  Chapter 4 Waging Law in the Congregation of the Council Judicial sources constitute the main evidentiary base of this book. Since most readers will instinctively think in terms of law in its Anglo-American version, the very different workings of the ecclesiastical court considered here require explanation. The SCC operated on the basis of canon law,which from the twelfth century on followed the principles and practices of Roman civil law. The term processus applies to the entire course of legal proceedings,not just what happened in sessions of the court that adjudicated the case. Because the English translation of that word, “trial,” would convey a misleading impression, I do not use it here. Except during the investigative phase conducted on the diocesan level, during which witnesses responded to questions and statements framed by procurators and put to them by vicars general,these proceedings did not feature live courtroom encounters. Neither did witnesses’and others’furnishing fedi (written attestations made in the presence of notaries) on one or more points at issue. Although legal representatives performed many services for their clients,they did not appear in court to examine witnesses,challenge the contentions of opposing counsel,object to judges’rulings,and bring forward at the last moment surprise witnesses and decisive new evidence à la Perry Mason. Legal proceedings before the SCC, as well as the decisions this judicial body issued, occurred almost entirely on paper. 90 BY FORCE AND FEAR During their meetings, held once or twice a month on Saturday afternoons in the Quirinal Palace,1 cardinal-members of the SCC discussed cases and made interim and final rulings. At first, unlike sentences pronounced by inquisitors and decisions of the Rota, their rulings were not “motivated,” that is, they did not present the reasoning behind the conclusions judges reached. Only in the latter part of our period, from the 1740s on, did secretaries ’ summaries included in the Libri Decretorum (LD) begin to provide such explanation. In other words, from the point of view of judgments, the records render at best some elements of a closet drama. Filing for Release As explained earlier,the Council of Trent mandated that monks,friars,clerks regular, and nuns seeking release from monastic vows within five years of having taken them approach their ordinaries (the archbishops, patriarchs, or bishops who administered the dioceses in which they had professed) and their local monastic superiors. Many involuntary religious,especially women, knew nothing about this five-year rule. Those who were better informed usually found it impossible to initiate legal proceedings within five years. As long as relatives who had forced adolescents into monastic life were alive,the risk of thwarting their will seemed too great to contemplate. Most unwilling religious had been explicitly told what would happen if they attempted to get out. At the very least,they would be deprived forever of their families’financial and emotional support; at worst, they would be done to death by beating , stabbing, shooting, or poisoning. Even when they were not threatened in such ways, young people’s ingrained deference toward their elders—in legal language, “reverential fear”—posed a powerful disincentive to opposing them. So did the attitude of their monastic brothers and sisters. Although discontented , disobedient inmates disturbed communal life in monasteries and convents, their efforts to leave constituted a clear challenge to the vaunted superiority, widely accepted by religious and lay folk alike, of life “in religion .” Superiors and fellow members dissuaded them from departing by evoking the unfavorable publicity and dishonor that would inevitably ensue for all concerned. To cite a particularly explicit articulation of this view, one 1. On the Quirinal Palace, where from the early seventeenth century on most papal business was conducted, see Menniti Ippolito. No evidence I have come across supports his assertion (152) that the SCC met also on Thursdays at the residence of the dean (senior member) of the College of Cardinals. WAGING LAW IN THE CONGREGATION OF THE COUNCIL 91 nun stated that Teresa Livia Felice Pallavicini’s leaving the Franciscan Tertiary house of San Bernardino ai Monti in Rome “would redound to the dishonor of our convent and all us other nuns, and I think that it could not profit the soul of Suor Maria Costanza [Pallavicini’s name in religion].” Two others expressed similar sentiments.2 By the time the agent or agents of involuntary monachization had died, or had belatedly repented and...