Hearth and Cloister: Families and Forced Monachization in Early Modern Europe

FAIN: FA-50042-04

Anne J. Schutte
University of Virginia (Charlottesville, VA 22903-4833)

This study explores families and members of the younger generation whom they forced into monastic life during the period 1573-1798. It focuses on 547 reluctant religious from all over the Catholic world who sought annulment of their vows and restoration to secular status by submitting petitions to a department of papal government, the Congregation of the Council. This massive body of material, held in the Archivio Segreto Vaticano, has never before been explored systematically for this or any other purpose. The investigator will illuminate the operations of the patriarchal, "positional," coercive family, which (contrary to the claims of Lawrence Stone and others) remained very much the norm at least until the end of the eighteenth century. Because forced monachization was not, as previously assumed, an exclusively female problem (82% of the petitioners were men), she will conduct a close, nuanced examination of gender from an entirely novel perspective.

Associated Products

By Force and Fear: Taking and Breaking Monastic Vows in Early Modern Europe (Book)
Title: By Force and Fear: Taking and Breaking Monastic Vows in Early Modern Europe
Author: Anne Jacobson Schutte
Abstract: Drawing on record of the Congregation of the Council, held in the Vatican Archive, I examine nearly one thousand petitions for annulment of monastic vows (83% of them from men) submitted to the pope and adjudicated by the Congregation of the Council between 1668 and 1793. I consider petitions from Roman Catholic regions across Europe and a few from Latin America and find that in about half of these cases the congregation reached a decision. Many women and a smaller proportion of men got what they asked for: decrees nullifying their monastic profession and releasing them from religious houses. I also reach important conclusions about relations between elders and offspring in early modern families, which were by no means as loving and gentle as some previous scholars have claimed. Parents and other close relatives were the main agents of physical and psychological force, and resultant fear, used to force unwilling adolescents into religious houses. Most dared not petition for release until those who had forced them were dead.
Year: 2011
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9780801449772

By Force and Fear: Taking and Breaking Monastic Vows in Early Modern Europe (Book)
Title: By Force and Fear: Taking and Breaking Monastic Vows in Early Modern Europe
Author: Anne Jacobson Schutte
Abstract: Drawing on records of the Congregation of the Council, held in the Vatican Archives. I examine nearly one thousand petitions for annulment of monastic vows submitted to the pope and adjudicated by the Congregation between 1668 and 1793. Contrary to previous assumptions, 83% of them came from men. The petitions arrived in Rome from all over Europe, a few from Latin America. In about half these cases, the Congregation reached a decision. Many women and a smaller proportion of men got what they asked for: decrees nullifying their monastic profession and releasing them from religious houses. This study invalidates the picture of increasingly egalitarian and warm relations between early modern elders and offspring. Primarily for financial reasons, elders (including elder siblings) used a battery of cruel psychological and physical tactics to force adolescents into monastic life. The victims were so intimidated that most dared not petition for release until those who had forced them were dead.
Year: 2011
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9780801449772

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