Clergy, confraternities and the finance of the parish

The reformed priest as administrator

The Tridentine reform demanded a new type of parish priest. He was to reside in his parish, to preach on Sundays and feast days, to teach the catechism to children, to keep the registers of baptisms, marriages and deaths, to hear confessions regularly and to lead a life that set an example. He was also to administer the property of his benefice with care, to keep it intact and to account for it at the visitation. Before his appointment he was examined by the bishop or by examiners appointed in synod, while the visitors checked his conduct and his books at every visit.¹ In the valleys of Ticino the reform of the clergy proceeded slowly. The visitation records of the seventeenth century still record concubinary priests, absentee holders of benefices and parishes left vacant for years because the income was insufficient to attract a priest. They also record a steady improvement. By the eighteenth century most parishes had resident priests trained in Milan or Como, with registers, inventories and accounts in order.²

The reform of the priesthood had an economic precondition: each parish needed an income large enough to support a resident priest. Where the old benefice was too small, the visitors ordered the community to increase it, either by assigning land, by imposing a contribution in kind on each household or by uniting several small benefices. Where a village wished to become a separate parish, it had to prove that it could endow a benefice. The decree of separation therefore regularly followed a notarial deed by which the community or its wealthier members assigned land, rents or capital to the new benefice.³ Each new parish was thus founded on a capital contract. Its priest lived from rents, interest and the produce of land, so that the security of that income depended on the solvency of the debtors and tenants of the benefice.

Confraternities: piety with statutes and capital

Confraternities were associations of lay men and women who met for common devotions, processions, works of charity and the burial of their members. They had existed in the Lombard Alps since the Middle Ages, the most widespread being the Disciplini or Battuti, who practised public penance. The Catholic reform transformed them. Borromeo regarded confraternities as instruments of religious education and discipline and promoted new types, above all the confraternity of the Most Holy Sacrament, which was to exist in every parish and to care for the cult of the Eucharist, and later the confraternity of the Rosary, spread by the Dominicans after the victory of Lepanto in 1571.⁴ At the same time he subjected confraternities to episcopal control. Their statutes needed approval, their officers were elected under supervision, their meetings were regulated and their accounts were examined at visitations. Banquets, the traditional social core of many confraternities, were restricted or prohibited.⁵

In economic terms, a confraternity was a fund with members. It received entry fees, annual dues, alms collected at processions and, above all, bequests. A testator who left a field, a vineyard or a sum of money to the confraternity of the Holy Sacrament of his parish usually imposed an obligation in return: a mass on the anniversary of his death, an annual distribution of bread or salt to the poor, a dowry for a poor girl of the village. The confraternity invested the capital, collected the income and fulfilled the obligations. Over two centuries, many confraternities accumulated considerable property in land and rents and lent their liquid funds to members and neighbours against censo or simple acknowledgment of debt.⁶ In villages without a bank, a notary or a merchant with capital, the confraternity was often the most important local lender.

Notes

1. Saulle Hippenmeyer, "Parrocchia" (above): after Trent "Vennero ridefiniti i compiti, i diritti e i doveri del parroco", who had among other things to reside in the parish and to keep the parish registers; "Trento, Concilio di", Enciclopedia Treccani (above), on the obligation of residence and "l'erezione dei seminari per la formazione del clero (15 luglio 1563)"; Thier, "Patronato" (above), on the bishop's power to refuse an unsuitable candidate. The conciliar provisions are Session XXIV (11 November 1563), Decretum de reformatione, c. 4 (preaching), c. 7 (instruction on the sacraments) and c. 18 (examination of candidates), and Session XXIII (15 July 1563), Decretum de reformatione, c. 1 (residence) and c. 18 (seminaries). ↩
2. Ceschi (ed.), Storia della Svizzera italiana dal Cinquecento al Settecento (above). ↩
3. Saulle Hippenmeyer, "Parrocchia" (above), confirms the passing of parish rights to new village churches. See also Chapter A.III. ↩
4. Véronique Mariani-Pasche and Franz Xaver Bischof, "Confraternite", transl. Maddalena Disch, in DSS, version of 3 February 2011, https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/it/articles/046924/ (the disciplinati of Daro and Carona; renewal of the confraternities in the Catholic regions after the Reformation; "A partire dal XVII sec. le confraternite più diffuse furono probabilmente quelle del Rosario"; regulation by Clement VIII in the bull Quaecumque of 1604). For the Milanese decrees see the Acta Ecclesiae Mediolanensis (Milan 1582). ↩
5. Acta Ecclesiae Mediolanensis (as above), decrees of the provincial councils on confraternities. ↩
6. Mariani-Pasche and Bischof, "Confraternite" (above): "Le confraternite occupavano un ruolo di rilievo anche nell'economia cittadina, nel campo del prestito". For a comparable case see Bolognesi (below), on the lay confraternities as lenders in Romagna in the second half of the seventeenth century. See also Ceschi (as above). ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of August 2025.