Piety and heresy in medieval Orvieto: the religious life of the laity, c.1150-1350
Abstract
Piety and heresy were, for the medieval Inquisitor and a great many of his
contemporaries, at opposite ends of the religious spectrum, with nothing in common
but the mutual suspicion and hatred of orthodox and deviant alike, With benefit of
hindsight, however, many points of contact can be seen between the two, and the
object of this thesis will be to examine aspects of both piety and heresy within the
general context of the religious life of lay people in one medieval Italian
community, In the relevant period (from roughly the mid-twelfth to the midfourteenth
centuries), Orvieto was a flourishing independent communeo f mediums ize,
It was located just within the northern boundary of the Papal States, and came into
conflict with the papacy on numerous occasions, generally over the extent of its
territorial rights in the contado,
The foundation documents for this study are, on the one hand, an Inquisition
Process of 1268/9, recording the trials of somee ighty-eight local mena nd womenw ho
had been involved with the Cathar sect prior to that date, and, on the other hand, a
codex containing a variety of material relating to the lay confraternities associated
with the Franciscan Order in Orvieto from 1313 onwards, The two documents are too
far apart in date for there to be any possibility of finding personal links between
individual heretics and confraternity members, In a more general way, however, the
thesis will examine the sort of people attracted to the Cathar movement, and those
who joined lay confraternities or gave them financial, support, An attempt will be
made to analyse the nature of the attraction of both heresy and confraternity
membership for lay people in Orvieto, and, from this, to determine whether similar
people were, in fact, attracted to both for similar sorts of reason,
The emphasis throughout will be on people rather than politics, although the
political background, and in particular the ongoing conflict between guelfs and
ghibellines, is, of course, relevant insofar as it affected the lives of ordinary
Orvietan citizens, Some people, for example, may have become involved in heresy for
a mixture of political and religious reasons, Nonetheless, Catharism was a religious
movemenfti rst and foremost, and it is primarily its religious appeal which is under
consideration here, The essence of the thesis is that the key difference between
orthodox and heretical expressions of piety lay not so much in theological content,
lifestyle or forms of worship, as in the fact that the Church authorities gave
approval to the one and not to the other, The Cathar faith was more than Just a
deviant form of Christianity, but most ordinary people would have been unaware of the
finer points of theology, and would have seen the 'perfect' as holy men and women
like many others whose cult was tolerated, if not actively encouraged by the Church,
The important fact is that there was a market at this time for religious associations
which offered lay people the chance to explore new forms of worship in the company of
like-minded people, The proliferation of lay confraternities in the late thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries is evidence of the Church's recognition of this fact, and of
its determination that such associations, if they had to exist, should be officially
sanctioned and supervised, so that there was no danger of heresy taking hold once
more,
The terminal date of 1350 is not a rigid one, and some late fourteenth century
documentation has been taken into account, However, there was a genuine turningpoint
in every aspect of Orvietan life around the middle of the century, because of
the plague which swept through the town in the summer of 1348. The long-term effects
of this disaster are outwith the scope of this thesis to consider, but its immediate
impact will be examined in some detail, particularly in relation to the Franciscan
confraternity, whose membership soared at precisely the time when the plague was at
its worst, Religious reaction to one specific catastrophe will serve as a case-study
of the broader relationship between spirituality and the everyday lives of medieval
lay people, which this thesis sets out to investigate,