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Making Bishops in the Malta of the Knights, 1530-1798

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 April 2015

FABRIZIO D'AVENIA
FABRIZIO D'AVENIA*
Affiliation:
G. Galilei n. 38, 90145 Palermo, Italy; e-mail: fabrizio.davenia@unipa.it
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Abstract

During the early modern age the appointment of Maltese bishops involved conflicts in the management of ecclesiastical patronage, jurisdictional issues and international diplomacy. The procedure for appointment, established by Charles v in 1530 when he granted Malta to the Order of St John, was the result of a compromise: safeguarding rights of royal patronage without undermining the independence of an international military order. It is important, however, to underline the reforming activity conducted by bishops appointed in such political ways, especially through the application of some institutions provided by the Council of Trent, such as diocesan synods.

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Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 66 , Issue 2 , April 2015 , pp. 261 - 279
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 
AGS, SP

Archivo General de Simancas, Secretarías Provinciales

AHN

Archivo Histórico Nacional

MH

Melita Historica

MRS

Mediterranea-ricerche storiche

NLM, AOM

National Library of Malta, Archive of the Order of St John

During the early modern age the diocese of Malta assumed an importance disproportionate to its small size and wealth. This reflects the close ties that it had with the Order of Malta. The international nature of this military order changed the appointment of the island's bishops from a local matter to one with much wider implications, which involved conflicts in the management of ecclesiastical patronage, jurisdictional issues, the micropolitics of patronage (client relations and social networks) and international diplomacy.Footnote 1

For these reasons, the reconstruction of this complex ‘game’ of episcopal appointment goes far beyond the analysis of a case study. It can be regarded as a key to understanding in more depth the mechanisms characterising bishops' appointments all over Catholic Europe. As a result it might reveal an early modern Investiture Controversy, albeit more complicated than that of the medieval period, and not only because of the greater number of actors involved. The ‘Catholic renewal’ of the Tridentine reform,Footnote 2 in which bishops had to be the ‘transmission belt’, also undoubtedly played an important role. This was in spite of the fact that the canons of the Council of Trent did not succeed in reforming ‘radically the procedure for assignment and appointment of major benefices [bishoprics first] because it was linked to political issues’.Footnote 3 In fact, as Joseph Bergin wrote in a seminal essay on Counter-Reformation bishops,

Throughout most of Europe, the effective right to choose new bishops lay with secular rulers, whether by virtue of a formal concordat agreed with the papacy or, as in much of Italy, by informal understandings based on mutual interest, and part of the pressure on bishops to play a more interventionist role within their dioceses came from rulers concerned about religious orthodoxy as well as social order and political control.Footnote 4

The grant of the Maltese Islands to the Order of St John by Charles v in March 1530 had the specific strategic goal of countering Turkish expansion in the western Mediterranean.Footnote 5 The emperor was at that time king of Sicily, on which Malta had depended as a fief from the time of the Norman conquest by Great Count Roger in 1091.Footnote 6 Together with all the Sicilian bishoprics, which had been founded or re-founded by the Norman kings during and after the end of Arab rule,Footnote 7 the bishopric of Malta was also subjected to royal patronage, and therefore to the royal right of presentation. The latter was formally relinquished to Ferdinand ii by the papacy in 1487.Footnote 8 The dependence of the bishops on the crown of Sicily was also made stronger by the king's wide ecclesiastical prerogatives as titular papal legate. They arose from the controversial privilege of the Apostolica Legazia, granted to Count Roger by Pope Urban ii in 1098, and were exercised through the jurisdiction of a court called the Regia Monarchia, ‘a weapon in the hands of the monarch to counter papal claims to a right to interfere in religious life and in the Church in Sicily’.Footnote 9

However, the wide jurisdictional privileges ceded by Charles v to the Order of St John in his grant of Malta actually constituted a ‘delegated sovereignty’ of the island and its people, which the grand masters of the order immediately sought to make increasingly independent from the control of the Sicilian kings. The effects of this ‘monarchisation’ of the order were particularly evident in the eighteenth century when, in response to increasingly insistent attacks by European states on the jurisdictional privileges of the order and its wealth, the grand masters worked towards ‘transforming the decentralized government of a monastic order into the centralised government of a small principality’.Footnote 10 In this context the appointment of a bishop of Malta was the setting for negotiation and confrontation, especially so because for the first time the order had taken possession of a territory coinciding with a diocese that already had its own Catholic bishop.

Indeed, Charles v's grant of Malta also established the procedure for the appointment of the bishop of the island. This involved the grand master proposing a list of three candidates to the Spanish king through the viceroy of Sicily. This list had to be previously approved by the Council of the Order and should include at least one Sicilian. The candidates had to belong to the rank of conventual chaplains, that is, those priests who had responsibility for the spiritual care of the knights and for the liturgy in the churches belonging to the order.Footnote 11 So, after consultation with the Council of Italy (Consejo de Italia) the king had the final decision, which was then subject to papal confirmation.Footnote 12 This procedure was the result of a compromise which would prove precarious: formally safeguarding the rights of royal patronage without substantially undermining the independence of an international military order. Indeed, a clause in Charles's grant established that the bishop of Malta became a member of the restricted Venerable Council of the order, with the title of Grand Cross (reserved for knights of the highest level)Footnote 13 and second in dignity only to the grand master, thus bypassing the position hitherto held by the prior of the order. The latter, however, retained jurisdiction over the conventual chaplains and henceforth claimed to extend his jurisdiction over all the island and its inhabitants, thereby replacing that of the bishop.Footnote 14

From the time of Charles v's grant up to the expulsion of the knights from the island after the French occupation (1798), sixteen bishops were appointed to the diocese of Malta. During this period of almost three centuries, it is possible to identify certain phases that characterised the complex negotiations between the courts in Malta, Palermo, Rome and Madrid (the latter being replaced by Vienna and Naples in the eighteenth century) regarding the selection and appointment of the bishop.

In the first appointment (1531) there was complete agreement between the grand master (de l'Isle d'Adam), the king of Spain (Charles v) and the pope (Clement vii), since the grant of Malta to the order was very recent, and made in the context of the new-found alliance between the empire and the see of Rome. The new bishop, Tommaso Bosio, was the brother of Antonio, the knight of St John who had distinguished himself during and after the Turkish siege of Rhodes (1522), and who not coincidentally was present in Bologna for the coronation of Charles v by that same Clement vii. The pope was personally putting pressure on the emperor for this nomination, which shows the strength of the royal right of presentation.Footnote 15

Nevertheless the deal between Madrid, Rome and Malta did not last long and the new appointment procedure established by Charles v went through a difficult ‘breaking-in’ period. Indeed, the five appointments between 1540 and 1635 were characterised by conflicts within the order or between the order and the Spanish Crown. These concerned the candidates ‘recommended’ by the grand master, and on two occasions also the validity of the triad voted by the council of the order. Subsequent to these clashes, general agreement on the grand master's candidates marked the appointments of the following four Maltese bishops, from 1666 to 1684.

However, in the first half of the eighteenth century, European wars and dynastic changes in Sicily predictably created new conflicts between crown and order. Indeed, the four appointments of this period, from 1713 to 1757, called into question the candidates' suitability, particularly regarding their nationality. It was no coincidence that once the international balance of power was restored, the ‘nationalisation’ of the appointments of Malta's bishops did not encounter specific obstacles. That was the case in 1780 and 1790 under pressure from the Bourbon crown of Naples and Sicily, bypassing for the first time the autonomy of the order. It was the only time that a Sicilian was appointed as bishop of Malta.

The grand master's choices played a determining role and with the exception of the first and two final appointments, subsequent choices can be interpreted as an often troubled effort on his part to acquire a sort of ‘delegated’ right of presentation. One way or another, until 1757, it was the grand master who chose the new bishop of Malta: twelve out of sixteen appointments, and six of them in favour of his countrymen (consecutively from 1666 to 1722). In all cases he exerted strong pressure in favour of his most trusted men, already entrusted with important positions such as prior or vice-chancellor of the order, auditor or almoner of the grand master.

In some cases the trio of names sent to the viceroy was ‘rigged’ in the sense that it joined the grand master's candidate with two others manifestly unfit for the episcopal dignity, who would necessarily be rejected by the crown. It was actually an indirect violation of the procedure set up by Charles v, about the nature of which the Council of Italy frequently reminded successors. The ruling body, however, suggested that this issue should not be raised formally in order to avoid longer delays in the appointment of bishops, which would leave room for the Holy See to resolve the deadlock by appointing its own candidate. From the earliest appointments it also became customary for the grand master unofficially to recommend the candidate whom he preferred to the viceroy of Sicily or directly to the king. This was done in a letter separate from the bull containing the trio nominated by the Council of the Order (where the ranking of the candidates corresponded to the length of membership of the order).

The grand master's ability to control the appointment of the bishop of Malta resulted in a strengthening of his powers in the territory and over the inhabitants of the island. A bishop of his choice would in fact favour his network of relatives and patronage in the provision of diocesan benefices, the administration of mensal revenue and the cases under episcopal court jurisdiction, on which the Maltese secular clergy depended (1,361 individuals in 1782, constituting 1.6 per cent of the total population of 86,296).Footnote 16 The grand master tried in every way to limit the right of appeal to the metropolitan see of Palermo, to which Malta was suffragan,Footnote 17 or to the court of the Regia Monarchia, which had ultimate jurisdiction over cases concerning ecclesiastics in Sicily. In cases where an ‘unwelcome’ bishop was appointed, sponsored by the crown (especially if he were Spanish), the grand master did all he could to obstruct the acquisition of the diocese by the new prelate, even over a period of years. Regular disputes also erupted between the bishop and the prior of the order, who, with the grand master's support, strove to limit episcopal jurisdiction by removing from it people linked to the order for reasons of kinship and professional or military services. Provocations prompted by the clergy against the bishop, his officers and servants were frequent (abuse, arrests, violence), after which excommunications and complaints to the Holy See followed; Rome would often summon the parties concerned to resolve the conflict. Particularly significant was the case of Bishop Cagliares.

At stake behind the formalities of this jurisdictional conflict was actually the grand master's recognition of an external sovereignty over Malta: in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that of the king of Spain, or in the eighteenth century, the Austrian emperor and later the king of Naples. Such recognition was especially significant when the grand master was French. In the background of this dispute were the national rivalries within the order, particularly between French knights (belonging to the Langues of France, Provence and Auvergne, three of the eight geographical and administrative constituencies of the order) and Spanish knights (the Langues of Castile and Aragon), a replica of the broader international conflict between the two most powerful monarchies in Europe. This can be seen particularly in the six appointments of bishops between 1566 and 1670, just over a century during which seven Frenchmen and five Spaniards took turns in holding office as grand master. Yet the French office holders ruled for much longer (eighty years against twenty) in the order, in which there was also a clear preponderance of French knights, 44 per cent of the total in 1631, compared to the Iberians' 20 per cent.Footnote 18 These power relations were reflected in the international position of the order, which from the 1630s ‘was closely tied to French Mediterranean policy, without, however, becoming its offshoot’.Footnote 19 These were years in which ‘in the light of the dramatic break between the Iberian Habsburgs and France, and later the friction between Rome and Madrid during Urban viii's pontificate, the knights of St John began to practice an ambiguous and covert francophile policy’.Footnote 20 This was revealed by their paying the homage of a falcon to the king of France in 1625, 1637 and 1687, despite the fact that it was actually a symbol of vassalage for the knights of St John, traditionally offered to the heirs of Charles v, that is, the kings of Sicily.Footnote 21

The two appointments of bishops in 1566 and 1578 were the first occasions of tension between the grand master and the Spanish king. On both occasions two of the three candidates proposed unsuccessfully by the grand master were the same. They were the prior and the vice-prior of the order, both admitted as conventual chaplains in the Langue of France. The grand masters who sponsored them were also French, Jean de la Vallette (1557–68) and Jean de la Cassière (1572–81).Footnote 22 However in 1567 Philip ii chose a Spanish candidate, the Castilian Martin Rojas de Portalrubeo, formerly respected ambassador of the order during the Council of Trent, and in 1578 the Catalan Tomás Gargal. Both were vice-chancellors of the order.

The nomination of Rojas, in particular, was sponsored by a large ‘Spanish party’, composed of two members of the Venerable Council, the head of the Langue of Castile, always faithful to the minister Olivares' orders, and the head of the Langue of Aragon, the captain general of the galleys and the viceroy of Sicily. All of these were naturally Spanish. However, according to the testimony of the Council of Italy and viceroy of Catalonia, the ‘French party’, captained by the grand master, had a natural ally in the queen, the French Elizabeth of Valois, wife of Philip ii.Footnote 23 Not only did Rojas have to wait five years to obtain papal confirmation in 1572,Footnote 24 because of the hostility of the grand master,Footnote 25 but ‘persecution’ against him did not weaken even under the next grand master, another Frenchman, the famous and controversial Jean de la Cassière (1572–81). Consequently the bishop handed over the island to Rome, where he died in 1577.Footnote 26 In the same year the grand master asked Rome for an inquisitor, who took away Bishop Rojas's inquisitorial powers. From that moment on, the office of inquisitor of Malta was firmly established, thus increasing the control exercised by the Holy See over the order. The grand master had clearly not foreseen this, and it complicated the competition for jurisdictional powers on the island of the knights.Footnote 27

The contrast between Rojas and La Cassière regarding matters of ecclesiastical jurisdiction had serious consequences for the diocese. During the eight years of La Cassière's time as grand master, Malta was almost always deprived of the presence of its bishop, except for the eight-months residence of Rojas and the other eight months of Gargal, his successor. It was a bitter fight, especially for the grand master,Footnote 28 who was deposed by the Council of the Order, and even summoned with Gargal to Rome where he died shortly afterwards.Footnote 29

In 1614 there came the election, after seventy-four years of Spanish bishops, of the only native of Malta in the period under discussion: Baldassar Cagliares (1614–33). He too was subjected to a virulent ‘persecution’ orchestrated by the French grand master de Wignacourt (1601–22) and by the prior of the order, Pedro Camarasa, who had tried unsuccessfully to get himself elected bishop.Footnote 30 The grand master established a parish where the sacraments were administered to all those who in one way or another depended on the order (relatives, servants, employees, soldiers, artists) by declaring them, together with their families, exempt from episcopal jurisdiction and subject to that of the prior. French novices and knights also felt provoked by Cagliares. They beat up some of his collaborators, forcing the bishop to flee to Rome.Footnote 31

Actually, the real reason for the hostility towards Cagliares was political. The French knights and the grand master saw him as a pawn of Spain, and they were right. In fact, in 1632, on the occasion of the appointment of his successor, both the ambassador of the order in Madrid and the knights of the Langue of Castile recommended a Spanish candidate to the king. This was seen as a better guarantee of the rights of the monarchy against the interference of the Roman inquisitor and the grand master, and it would balance the majority that the French held in the Council of the Order.Footnote 32

The new bishop was Miguel Balaguer, nephew of Prior Camarasa, and his appointment was the most hard-won in the history of the diocese.Footnote 33 The mudslinging conducted by other conventual chaplains to discredit him in the eyes of the Spanish Crown was particularly intense, as were the espionage activities organised by the viceroy of Sicily to ascertain the true extent of these suspicions. Balaguer was in fact suspected of having a French father, of being too young (these accusations proved false) and also of having been admitted to the honorary rank of ‘chaplain of grace’, whereas an indispensable requirement for members of the Venerable Council (and therefore also for the bishops of Malta) was admission as ‘chaplain of justice’, the highest rank for the order's priests. Moreover, the appointment of Balaguer, an Aragonese strongly supported by a French grand master, Antoine de Paule (1623–36), also crossed the boundaries between the ‘Spanish’ party and the ‘French’.

In fact, two ‘Spanish parties’ were in conflict over Balaguer's nomination. One was headed by the prior of the Castellania of Amposta (the priory within the kingdom of Aragon), the other by the head of the Langue of Castile. Furthermore, relations between Bishop Balaguer and the new grand master, Lascaris Castellar (1636–57), French like his predecessor, were immediately strained, reflecting the precedence which personal ties of patronage had over national identity.Footnote 34 The disagreements were once again of a jurisdictional nature and naturally involved the Roman inquisitors of Malta. Among the issues debated was that of so-called ‘married clergy’, which had already been discussed at the time of Cagliares. These ‘chierici coniugati’ were part of that particular group of clerics in minor orders, also known in southern Italy, Sardinia and Sicily as ‘chierici [sometimes diaconi] selvaggi or selvatici … who were allowed legitimately to add the worldly joys of marriage and fatherhood to the clerical privileges associated with tonsure’.Footnote 35 Often acting as farmers or surveyors of ecclesiastical lands, sacristans and armed guards at the service of episcopal jurisdiction, they were in fact exempted from secular tribunals.Footnote 36 Thus, by conferring minor orders on anyone who requested them, Bishop Balaguer had in fact removed a large number of people from the grand master's jurisdiction, thereby exempting them from military service in defence of the island.

The long standoff that had led to the appointment of Balaguer undoubtedly marked a turning point in negotiations between Crown and Order for the selection of future bishops of Malta. By imposing his candidate, the grand master de Paule had set the stage for his successors' choices to be accepted without discussion. In fact all four subsequent appointments, occurring between 1666 and 1682, were listed as the first candidate in the magisterial triad and always coincided with the candidate sponsored by the grand master and his fellow countryman. The Aragonese grand master Nicolás Cotoner (1663–80) proposed chaplains from the Aragonese Castellania of Amposta on three consecutive occasions, while his successor, the Neapolitan Gregorio Carafa (1680–90), only proposed subjects from the Kingdom of Naples in the triad. He also arranged for the existing bishop, a Spaniard, to be promoted by Charles ii to another see (‘promoveatur ut amoveatur’) to make room for his candidate, the Neapolitan Cocco Palmieri.Footnote 37

The magisterial trio was accepted without objection by the Council of Italy, although it was not in possession of detailed information on the quality of those nominated.Footnote 38 Instead the problems arose after royal presentation because Cocco Palmieri resisted appointment to a see burdened with a high cost of pensions (2,800 ducats). This sort of protest was not a ‘Maltese’ exception, for the same Council of Italy recommended in general more caution in imposing new pensions on the occasion of episcopal presentations, in order to avoid the opposition of the bishops appointed.Footnote 39 Only in May 1684, three years after royal presentation and the promise of an assignment of an expiring pension, did Cocco Palmieri accept the appointment, receive the papal bull of election and consecration as a bishop.Footnote 40

It will by now be appreciated how much the appointments in the next century were likely to be influenced by the international context (the various wars of succession, and the Seven Years' War) and the application of the principle of balance. The appointment in 1711 was the first made by a king of Spain belonging to the new Bourbon dynasty, the French Philip v. The War of the Spanish Succession was still in progress, and heading the order after an interlude with the French Adrien de Wignacourt (1690–7), was once more an Aragonese, Ramon Perellos y Roccaful (1697–1720). Negotiations for the choosing of a new bishop could not help but be influenced by the war, calling into question the situation established in favour of the grand masters in the four previous appointments. The trio voted by the Council of the Order gave first place to the Majorcan Jacobo Cañaves, prior of the order since 1700, the second place to the Tuscan Gaspare Gori and the third to the Maltese Joseph Xaberra. However the nomination of Cañaves was opposed by the viceroy of Sicily, the marquis of Balbases, because of his nationality. In fact in 1706 Majorca had been occupied without resistance by allied pro-Austrian forces and had promptly recognised Charles iii of Habsburg as its new sovereign. It was therefore evident that at that time Majorcans did not enjoy a good reputation in the eyes of Philip v's ministers.Footnote 41 The Council of Italy did not approve of the second in the list either. This was Gaspare Gori, recommended by the Tuscan ambassador in Madrid. He was not to be considered for similar reasons, given the position taken by Cosimo iii Grand Duke of Tuscany, in support of the same Charles of Habsburg, rival of Philip v. Despite the insistence of the council in favour of the third candidate, the Maltese Xaberra, and the grand master in favour of Gori, in the end Philip v appointed the Majorcan Cañaves.

Significantly, in 1721, after the death of Cañaves, the Tuscan Gaspare Gori was proposed again by the Council of the Order. However this time he was at the head of the list presented by Emperor Charles vi (also king of Sicily after the Treaty of The Hague of 1720), and he was elected bishop of Malta in July 1722.Footnote 42 Again it is evident that both the nationality of the grand master at the time, the Italian Marcantonio Zondadari (1720–2), and the changed international context were decisive in the choice. The Grand Duke of Tuscany was an ally of the emperor. However, Charles vi initially rejected the magisterial trio, because it included no Sicilian. In fact two Maltese had been inserted together with Gori. It was the first time that the grand master's proposal was dismissed on the grounds of non-compliance to the letter of the clause in the concession of 1530, which provided for the inclusion of at least one subject of the Kingdom of Sicily among the three candidates. In practice, only the trios of 1632, 1634 and 1663 had fulfilled this condition. It is true that the Maltese included in some of these (1614, 1668, 1676 and 1711) were regarded as ex directo dominio of the king of Sicily, but in other cases the restrictive clause in favour of Sicilians had been interpreted more broadly (it was enough to be a vassal of the Spanish king, who was also king of Sicily). The inflexibility of 1721 can be explained by the fact that this was the first appointment ‘managed’ by the recent (and as it turned out, precarious) Austrian administration. The emperor Charles vi clearly wished to reaffirm his rights of sovereignty in this way, guaranteeing continuity with the grant of Charles v, of whom he was now the most direct descendant.

The two subsequent appointments were also influenced by changes in international power relations. In 1728, for the first time, a Frenchman, Paule Alpheran de Bussan, was appointed. This was at the behest of the Austrian Charles vi, who a few months earlier had secured acceptance of the Pragmatic Sanction from European powers, including France, thereby allowing his daughter Maria Theresa to succeed to the throne, in the Treaty of Paris of May 1727.

The appointment of 1757 was the first ‘managed’ by the Bourbon dynasty, rulers of Naples and Sicily. King Charles of Bourbon, son of the late Philip v and brother of the king of Spain, Ferdinand vi, highly recommended to the Holy See the Majorcan Bartolomé Rull, prior of the order, and the same candidate was also recommended by the Portuguese grand master Pinto de Fonseca (1741–73). The role of the well-established Family Pact of the Bourbon dynasties (France, Spain, Parma, Naples and Sicily), led by Paris and operating during the Seven Years' War (1756–63), certainly played a part in this agreement. A French bishop, Alpheran, was followed by a Spanish bishop, Rull, both subjects of the Bourbons.Footnote 43

The last two appointments in the eighteenth century (1770 and 1780) revealed a partial change in this situation. Firstly, the international jurisdiction of the order was increasingly subject to attack by European powers, especially regarding its commanderies scattered over Europe, which rulers wanted to assign to their own knights (in Italy this was sanctioned in 1784). Secondly the new Bourbon dynasty had now stabilised in Naples and Sicily, becoming increasingly independent of the decisions of Madrid, but adopting a similar policy guided by the principles of jurisdictionalism.

Indeed, during the government of grand masters Pinto de Fonseca (1741–73) and de Rohan (1775–97), the tiny principality of Malta was at the centre of a larger struggle between the Bourbon crown and the Holy See. The king claimed his ancient feudal rights on the island of knights and ‘national’ bishops (subject to his rule), and imposed his will on the grand master. However Rome sought to reaffirm her ‘protectorate’ on the order through her local inquisitor. In the grip of this double pressure, the grand master tried to use the conflict between Rome and Naples to give credit to his position as a sovereign independent of both. Grand Master Pinto, writing in July 1768 to his ambassadors to the Holy See and to Naples, even hoped that the order would ‘resist the will of the Pope, unite with the Bourbon family, and break away from Rome, which has nothing to do with Us, who are purely a military Order’.Footnote 44 As a result, Ferdinand iii of Sicily (1759–1815), son of Charles iii, now king of Spain, did not encounter resistance when he listed two of his subjects at the top of the magisterial trio to obtain their bishop appointments. In 1770 this was the Sicilian Giovanni Pellerano,Footnote 45 and in 1780, the Apulian Vincenzo Labini. Especially in the latter case, the king's will was seen by the Council of the Order as undue interference, but for diplomatic and logistical reasons (the existence of Malta depended almost exclusively on Sicilian supplies), the council advised the grand master, de Rohan, against engaging in an argument with the Bourbons.Footnote 46 The expulsion of the knights from Malta in 1798 then eradicated all disputes.

This analysis of political and diplomatic methods of patronage in negotiations to choose bishops of Malta might not encourage a positive view of the pastoral qualities of bishops so often appointed in quite ‘non-spiritual’ ways. That argument can be applied more generally to all appointments subject to the royal right of presentation in Spanish and other Catholic monarchies. In any case, as Ronald Po-chia Hsia rightly observes, ‘since all bishops owed their nominations to patronage, political appointments as such did not necessarily imply unwillingness to reform’.Footnote 47 For rulers in the confessional age church renewal within their states was an integral part of their affirmation of power.Footnote 48

It is possible to estimate the reforming activity of these bishops through an examination of some of the provisions set up by the Council of Trent: seminaries, diocesan synods, pastoral visitations.Footnote 49 These indicators are insufficient in themselves to measure the pastoral performance of bishops of the ancien régime and especially the effectiveness of their reforms. However, they provide at least a useful comparison between the bishops of Malta and their counterparts in Catholic Europe.

A diocesan seminary was not established in Malta until 1703, by Bishop Cocco Palmieri, because of the ‘strong opposition … offered by the cathedral chapter, reluctant to contribute its financial share’.Footnote 50 It is the same period in which seminaries in Italian dioceses such as Florence (1701) and Lecce (1709) were established.Footnote 51 This delay in the application of one of the most important Tridentine decrees is also detectable in Spain and France.Footnote 52 The Maltese seminary was founded therefore much later than the instructions given during the apostolic visit of Mgr Dusina in 1575,Footnote 53 the decrees of Bishop Gargal's synod in 1591 and the instructions contained in all papal bulls of appointment from Balaguer to the same Cocco Palmieri. In reality from 1592 the education of clergy was at the local Jesuit college, founded in the same year through the good offices of Bishop Gargal.Footnote 54 This situation was not an exception in Catholic Europe – from Rome,Footnote 55 the capital of Christianity, to the ‘very margins of early-modern Europe: the diocese of Ourense in Galicia in north-western Spain’Footnote 56 – where ‘for many bishops, Jesuit colleges served as substitutes for the diocesan seminaries stipulated by the reform of Trent, which were often not established due to the lack of funding’.Footnote 57

There are some surviving data on the number of diocesan synods held by Maltese bishops from 1564, just after the end of the Council of Trent, to 1798 when the knights left the island. There were ten, the first in 1575 and the last in 1703.Footnote 58 Sixty-five synods were held in the same period in the nine Sicilian dioceses subject to royal patronage, with an average of 7.2 per diocese, while the average for the 315 Italian dioceses was 5.11 (only synodal constitutions published) and that for the fifty-five Spanish dioceses was 11.98. In almost the same period (1570–1789), the average number of synods held in the 113 French dioceses was 9.35.Footnote 59 These figures, though partial, might show a uniform pastoral performance: the bishops of Malta were no more or no less reformers than their counterparts in Italy, Spain and France.

Moreover, like other bishops, when they tried to exert discipline and radically to reform the customs of the clergy and laity, the bishops of Malta met strong opposition, as happened to Bishop Lucas Bueno at the synod of 1668, when he ‘was intent on correcting the corruption in his diocese’.Footnote 60 In Italy, for example, especially in the south, ‘the hostility of certain sectors of the clergy and laity towards convening synods seems to have been a particularly widespread phenomenon’.Footnote 61 This hostility may have been one of the main reasons for the average number of synods held in Italy being significantly lower than for those held in Spanish and French dioceses.

However, even more than synods, the ‘real test of bishops' implementation as the Trent fathers had conceived it’, was the pastoral visitation. This was the real occasion to verify effective application of synodal provisions and to remedy any shortcomings.Footnote 62 From 1564 to 1798 there were at least twenty-nine pastoral visitations in the diocese of Malta (2.63 per bishop). That reflects very incomplete data, which may explain the disparity with more than double the number of visitations in French dioceses, where there was an average of sixty-five per diocese (7.19 per bishop), from 1590 to 1789, the age of the ‘Second Catholic Reformation’.Footnote 63 For Spain and Italy there are no precise statistics, but a few studies on particular cases may, however, provide some indication.

In the archdiocese of Palermo, two Spanish bishops, Jaime de Palafox (1677–84) and Fernando Bazan (1686–1702), made three visitations each.Footnote 64 This was nothing compared to two of the most prominent figures of the post-Tridentine Italian episcopate: Cardinal Carlo Borromeo, archbishop of Milan, and Annibale d'Afflitto, archbishop of Reggio Calabria. Although the former ‘made visitations within the diocese almost annually in his eighteen years residence in Milan (1566–84), he was only able to visit the entire diocese twice’. The latter, however, in an episcopate of more than forty years (1594–1638), carried out in person no more than nine visits.Footnote 65 It can be argued, in line with studies on Counter-Reformation Europe, that ‘the development of pastoral visitations, synods, [and also] spiritual exercises, ecclesiastical conferences, retreats, and pastoral letters suggests that the Counter-Reformation Church in Malta was attempting to improve the cohesion and discipline of the diocesan corps and impose the marks of a profession on the clergy’.Footnote 66

But what were the results of these efforts? The answer cannot be univocal, as results differed from one diocese to another. Certainly they were not proportional to the efforts made.Footnote 67 It is undoubtedly true that ‘there was renewal’, but this particularly involved the clergy with responsibility for the cure of souls, who, according to the Italian and Spanish Church, were seen to stand on ‘higher moral ground (at least in appearance)’.Footnote 68

The state of the small diocese of Malta was not so different from the rest of Catholic Europe. The picture given by Frans Ciappara for the end of the seventeenth century confirms this. In spite of synods and pastoral visitations, the priests in Malta without responsibility for cure of souls ‘differed very little from their neighbours and, like priests in southern Italy, led at best semi-secular lives'.Footnote 69 At the same time, among the faithful ‘popular religion still retained much of its former overgrowth and the need for reform was urgent’.Footnote 70 This situation explains why the parish priests, undoubtedly better prepared and motivated than two centuries earlier, ‘were not able to govern the community or control local religious life’.Footnote 71 Because of the slow and difficult implementation of the Tridentine decrees, it can be argued that in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, resistance to religious reform began to fall back. Bishops and parish priests were now protagonists in regulating the faithful (or in attempting to).

New ideas and social changes in the eighteenth century, however, would have put into question the hard won results, perhaps just when it seemed that victory was at hand.Footnote 72 First of all papal authority was heavily questioned from within the same Church and with the favour of the Catholic princes. This happened, in particular, during the Jansenist controversy as well as in the context of the so-called ‘Enlightened Catholicism’ (Van Espen, Febronius, Muratori). But these critics also

reflected the new challenge that faced the Church. By the eighteenth century, in an era of deism, philosophy, science, and sensuality, the mysteries and glory of Tridentine Catholicism were going out of fashion for the elites: sermons of hellfire and brimstone lost their power to strike fear; sensual and theatrical rituals embarrassed those who preferred a more sober and less obtrusive religion; … and the fervour of popular religious rituals demonstrated the persistent superstitions of the common people. The world of Catholic renewal was long over before the French Revolution.Footnote 73

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11 ‘Praeterea quod jus patronatus episcopatus melivetani remaneat prout est dispositioni et presentationi nostrae, ac successorum nostrorum Regni predicti Siciliae: ita tamen quod … in quemcumque casum vacationis deinceps secuturum dictus Magnus Magister et Conventus [Council] dicti Ordinis S. Joannis habeant nominare viceregi Regni praefati Siciliae tres personas eiudem Ordinis: quarum una saltem sit et esse debeat ex subditis nostris, nostrorum ac in dicto Regno successorum, idoneas et sufficientes ad ipsam pastoralem dignitatem exercendam ex quibus tribus sic nominandis Nos nostrique successores in Regno praedicto presentemus ac presentare debeamus et debeant ad dictum espiscopatum eum quem idoneorem judicaverimus aut judicaverint’: Emperor Charles v's diploma, Castelfranco Bolognese, 23 Mar. 1530, NLM, AOM, arch. 70. See also arch. 62, which contains the papal bull of confirmation and the exequatur by the Kingdom of Sicily.

12 On the procedure of bishops' appointments in the Spanish Monarchy see Ortiz, Antonio Domínguez, La sociedad española en el siglo XVII, II: El estamento eclesiástico, Granada 1992, 18–20Google Scholar; Gozalo, Maximiliano Barrio, ‘La jerarquía eclesiástica en la España moderna: sociología de una élite de poder (1556–1834)’, Cuadernos de Historia Moderna xxv (2000), 17–59Google Scholar at pp. 23–9; and Rawlings, ‘Secularisation’, 55–8.

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16 See Ciappara, Frans, ‘The financial condition of parish priests in late eighteenth-century Malta’, this Journal liii (2002), 93–107Google Scholar at p. 105. For the distorted perception of a much higher number of Maltese clerics, reported by all eighteenth-century observers, see Blondy, L'Ordre de Malte, 82–3. For instance, in the opinion of the French chargé d'affaires, in 1775 there were ‘1200 prêtres, auxquels il ajoutait 100 diacres et sous-diacres, 5000 clercs célibataires ou mariés, 6 à 700 alarii (ou gens d'armes de l’évêque), sacristains, fermiers, patentats …, tous exempts de la justice civile, ainsi que leur famille, leurs domestiques et leurs esclaves, et ne relevant que de l’éveque seul. Il estimait qu'ainsi un quart à un tiers des Maltais échappait à la domination de Grand Maître’: ibid. 82. On the attempts of grand masters Pinto and de Rohan to reduce this presumed excessive number of clerics see Ciappara, Frans, ‘The Maltese Catholic Enlightenment’, in Lehner, Ulrich L. and Printy, Michael (eds), A companion to the Catholic Enlightenment in Europe, Leiden 2010, 251–94Google Scholar at p. 268.

17 The diocese of Malta was suffragan to Palermo from 1156 until 1831: Raffaele Manduca, ‘Agrigento’, in Zito, Storia delle Chiese di Sicilia, 279–317 at p. 285; Buhagiar, Mario, ‘The re-Christianisation of Malta: Siculo-Greek monasticism, their toponyms and rock-cut Churches’, MH xiii/3 (2002), 253–83Google Scholar at p. 253; Bonnici, Arturo, ‘The dismemberment of the Maltese see by the metropolitan see of Palermo’, MH ii/3 (1958), 179–81Google Scholar.

18 Sire, H. J. A., The knights of Malta, New Haven–London 1996, 281–3Google Scholar. The four missing years are those of the only Italian grand master in the period, Pietro del Monte (1568–72). The total number of knights, according to the census of 1631, was 1,755, of whom 776 were French and 349 Spanish (and Portuguese). A proportional ‘political’ weight did not correspond to the high number of 584 Italian knights (33.2%), because of the division of the peninsula into several independent states (ibid. 77).

19 Labatut, Jean–Pierre, Le nobiltà europee dal XV al XVIII secolo, Bologna 2002, 174Google Scholar.

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21 Petiet, Claude, Le Roi et le grand maître: l'Ordre de Malte et la France au XVIIe siècle, Paris 2002, 86–9Google Scholar.

22 Original magisterial bulls, 22 Nov. 1566 and 31 Jan. 1578, AHN, Estado, leg. 2162, provisión del obispado de Malta (1566–1712), unnumbered. All the following references to appointments from 1566 to 1713 are taken from this source.

23 ‘Podría ser que con favor de la Reyna nuestra señora procurassen que vuestra magestad eligiese al frances … lo qual seria en muy gran prejuicio del servicio de vuestra magestad, por ser esta dignidad la mayor que entra en aquel consejo despues del Maestre’: ibid.

24 Philip ii to the Spanish ambassador in Rome and to the pope, 17 Feb. 1567, ibid.

25 Rocco Pirri, Sicilia sacra, Palermo 1733, 916–17.

26 Ibid. 917; Hirschauer, Charles, ‘Recherches sur la déposition et la mort de Jean Levesque de La Cassière, grand maître de l'Ordre de Malte’, Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire xxxi (1911), 75–141Google Scholar.

27 Cassar, Carmel, ‘1564–1696: the inquisition index of Knights Hospitallers of the Order of St John’, MH xi/2 (1993), 157–96Google Scholar at pp. 159–60.

28 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, fondo Barberini Latino, ms 5333, fos 107r–110v. This is quoted in Bonnici, Alessandro, ‘Due secoli di storia politico-religiosa di Malta nel fondo Barberini latino della Biblioteca Vaticana’, MH iv/4 (1967), 229–56Google Scholar at p. 235.

29 Pirri, Sicilia sacra, 917–18. In 1604 Gargal quarrelled with the archbishop of Palermo, refusing to recognise the archbishop's preeminence as metropolitan. The latter then seized the revenues enjoyed by the Maltese bishopric in Sicily (three fiefs in the territory of Lentini), returned only when Gargal recognised the ‘suffraganeam subiectionem’: ibid. See also Giovanni Francesco Abela, Della descritione di Malta isola del mare siciliano con le sue antichità, ed altre notizie: libri quattro: del commendatore fra Giovanni Francesco Abela vicecancelliere della Sacra ed Eminentissima Religione Gierosolimitana, Malta 1647, 326.

30 Cf. NLM, AOM, arch. 105, fo. 61. This is quoted in Gabarretta, Antonio Zammit, The presentation examination and nomination of the bishops of Malta in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Malta 1961, 75.Google Scholar

31 Cf. Fatto delle liti mossi contro il vescovo di Malta, AHN, Estado, leg. 2162.

32 ‘Para la quietud de aquella islas y de la religion conviene mucho que el obispo sea español por estar mas sugeto a la ordenes de su Magestad mediante las quales se consigue mayor paz y la jurisdizion de su Magestad y que el gran Maestre y la Religion tienen en su nombre se conserva mas facilmente, escusando los encuentros que ay sobre ello con los ministros de su Santitad’: Roman ambassador Sotomayor to Philip iv, undated, but before 27 Oct. 1632; ‘juntamente con honrar a la naçion española es muy de servicio de Vuestra Magestad que el obispo de la dichas islas lo sea por ser el primer voto del consejo de la Religion y tener esta naçion menos grandes cruzes que los franceses, por lo que en muchas ocassiones les llevan la mejor parte en sus intereses': memorial of the Langue of Castile, undated but before Oct. 1632, ibid.

33 Relación de todo lo que passa çerca del Obispado de Malta desde antes que muriesse Don Balthasar Callares Obispo de dicha Isla y despues de su muerte, undated ibid.

34 Bonnici, Alessandro, ‘I vescovi di Malta Baldassarre Cagliares (1615–1633) e Michele Balaguer (1635–1663): edizione critica del Monoscritto 6687 del Fondo Barberini Latino della Biblioteca Vaticana’, MH v/2 (1969), 123–54Google Scholar.

35 Greco, La Chiesa in Italia, 75. In Sicily there were 303 in 1737, concentrated in particular in the diocese of Syracuse, and represented 1.3% of all clerics (22,586), while in Malta there were 87 in 1782, 0.6% of the total clergy (1,361): Manduca, Raffaele, Le chiese lo spazio gli uomini: istituzioni ecclesiastiche e clero nella Sicilia moderna, Caltanissetta–Rome 2009, 70, 78–79Google Scholar; Ciappara, ‘Financial condition’, 105.

36 For interesting data about the number of ‘chierici selvaggi’ and ‘chierici coniugati’ in the first half of seventeenth century within the Kingdom of Naples (with the exception of the capital and its neighbourhood) see Rosa, Mario, ‘La Chiesa meridionale nell'età della Controriforma’, in Chittolini, Giorgio and Miccoli, Giovanni (eds), La Chiesa e il potere politico dal medioevo all'età contemporanea (Storia d'Italia: Annali ix), Turin 1986, 293–345Google Scholar at pp. 317–21, and Greco, Gaetano, ‘Fra disciplina e sacerdozio: il clero secolare nella società italiana’, in Rosa, Mario (ed.), Clero e società nell'Italia moderna, Rome–Bari 1992, 45–113Google Scholar at pp. 82–6. There were about 5,000, almost 9% of the total clergy.

37 Bartolomeo Dal Pozzo, Historia della sacra religione militare di S. Giovanni Gerosolimitano detta di Malta, Venice 1715, ii. 486–7; consulta of the Council of Italy, 21 Feb. 1682, AGS, SP, libro 784, fos 408v–410v. This was the only case of a vacancy due to the transfer of a bishop, contrary to the common practice within the Roman Church in which the bishops' transfers (because of promotion, health, interpersonal conflicts or political expediency) were very frequent. This peculiarity can be explained by the nature of the bishopric of Malta, assigned only to priests of the order, which placed them outside the regular channels of ecclesiastical careers. On the use (and abuse) of transfer from one diocese to another, the so-called ‘carousel of bishops’, see Barrio Gozalo, ‘La jerarquía eclesiástica’, 53–7.

38 ‘Aunque aqui no se tiene mas formal conozimiento de los sujetos que comprehende que el de los titulos con que vienen condecorados, concurre en todo el Consejo [de Italia] con la nomina referida y representacion del Gran Maestre’: consulta of the Council of Italy, 21 Feb. 1682, AGS, SP, libro 784, fos 408v–410v.

39 ‘Porque de otra suerte suelen despues los prelados repugnarlas y se da ocasion a pleitos’: consulta of the Council of Italy, 17 Apr. 1682, ibid. fos 410v–412r. A memorial written a few years earlier by one of the closest collaborators of the future Innocent xi (1676–89), denounced the abuse of the ‘weighty and insufferable pensions that are imposed on the bishoprics’ so that ‘the most deserving ecclesiatics refuse bishoprics unwisely burdened’: memorial of Mariano Sozzini. This is quoted in Claudio Donati, ‘La Chiesa di Roma tra antico regime e riforme settecentesche (1675–1760)’, in Chittolini and Miccoli, La Chiesa e il potere politico, 721–66 at pp. 722–3. For Spain several examples of this kind are presented by Domínguez Ortiz, La sociedad española, ii. 160–4.

40 Del Pozzo, Historia della sacra religione militare di S. Giovanni, ii. 487; consulta of the Council of Italy, 13 Oct. 1683, AGS, SP, libro 784, fos 480v–482v. According to data from a report of 1681, the ten Sicilian bishoprics, including Malta, paid annual pensions for nearly 18,000 onze, distributed among seventy-eight subjects, which amounted to 28% of total revenue, about 64,000 onze: Relación de provisiones ecclesiasticas del Real Patronato en el Reyno de Sicilia, 18 Jan. 1681, prepared by Carlo Maldonado, ‘razionale del Conservatore del Real Patrimonio’, AHN, Estado, libro 521–d. In the same period in the bishoprics of the Kingdom of Naples pensions accounted for 26.3% of revenues: Rosa, Mario, ‘Curia romana e pensioni ecclesiastiche: fiscalità pontificia nel mezzogiorno (secoli xvi–xviii)’, Quaderni storici xlii (1979), 1015–55Google Scholar at pp. 1039, 1043–5.

41 Vidal, Josep Juan, ‘La pérdida de Menorca como consecuencia de la Guerra de Sucesión a la Corona de España’, in Álvarez-Ossorio, Antonio, José, BernardoGarcía, García and Sanz, Virginia León (eds), La pérdida de Europa: la Guerra de Sucesión por la Monarquía de España, Madrid 2007, 717–56Google Scholar at p. 724.

42 Zammit Gabarretta, Presentation, 68–9.

43 Blondy, L'Ordre de Malte, 145.

44 Grand Master Pinto to ambassadors de Breteüil and Pignatelli, 5, 16 July 1768, NLM, AOM, arch. 1524, fos 104v, 135r. This is quoted in Ciappara, Frans, ‘Malta, Napoli e la Santa Sede nella seconda metà del ‘700’, MRS xii (2008), 173–88Google Scholar at p. 179.

45 Between August 1774 and May 1775 he had a major disagreement with the Aragonese Grand Master Ximenes de Texada (1773–5) again because of jurisdictional precedence: Blondy, L'Ordre de Malte, 202–4.

46 Zammit Gabarretta, Presentation, 75–9, Blondy, L'Ordre de Malte, 274.

47 Po-chia Hsia, World of Catholic renewal, 117.

48 For Spain see Domínguez Ortiz, La sociedad española, ii. 38–9, where he points out that ‘because of the care put in their choice and which was under surveillance, the Spanish bishop with the inevitable exceptions, was a faithful adherent of his pastoral duties’. Similarly Helen Rawlings underlines that ‘Trent was not ignored in Spain, as has sometimes been asserted, but came increasingly to be subordinated to the interests of the Crown, as well as to those of the ecclesiastical hierarchy’: ‘Secularisation’, 65–7. For France, where the appointment of bishops was subject to closer crown control after the Concordat of Bologna of 1516, see Bergin, Joseph, The making of the French episcopate, New Haven–London 1996, 44–89Google Scholar, and Hayden, J. M. and Greenshields, M. R., 600 Years of reform: bishops and the French Church, 1190–1789, Montreal/Kingston–London–Ithaca 2005, 99–100Google Scholar. The latter emphasise, for example, that a significant percentage of bishops engaged in ‘serious reform activities' between the 1480s and 1580s, ‘were members of or closely allied to the royal bureaucracy and had received their positions through royal intervention, both before and after the Concordat of Bologna’.

49 I do not account for provincial councils, which Malta did not hold because of its status as a suffragan diocese.

50 Ciappara, Frans, ‘Parish priest and community in 18th century Malta: patterns of conflict’, Journal of Early Modern History ix (2005), 329–47Google Scholar at p. 331. On the financial sources for the upkeep of the seminary, among which was a tax of 3% on some parochial prebends, see Borg, Vincent, The seminary of Malta and the ecclesiastical benefices of the Maltese islands, Malta 1965, 28–9Google Scholar, and Borg, Anthony Joseph, The reform of the Council of Trent in Malta and Gozo, Malta 1975, 21–8Google Scholar.

51 Borromeo, Agostino, ‘I vescovi italiani e l'applicazione del Concilio di Trento’, in Mozzarelli, Cesare and Zardin, Danilo (eds), I tempi del Concilio: religione, cultura e società nell'Europa tridentina, Rome 1997, 27–105Google Scholar at pp. 69–71. However many seminaries were opened in the decades following the closure of the Council: thus 125 between 1563 and 1594, including Milan (1564), Rome (1565), Turin and Bologna (1567), Naples (1568) and Venice (1579). At the beginning of the seventeenth century the nine Sicilian dioceses had their seminaries. It is important to remember, however, ‘that much of the clergy continued not to be trained in these institutions’: Claudio Donati, ‘Vescovi e diocesi d'Italia dall'età post-tridentina alla caduta dell’antico regime’, in Rosa, Clero e società nell'Italia moderna, 321–89 at p. 349.

52 Between 1564 and 1610 twenty-three seminaries were opened in Spain and ‘in the following years growth was very slow; in France the situation was no better’: Maurilio Guasco, ‘La formazione del clero: i seminari’, in Chittolini and Miccoli, La Chiesa e il potere politico, 631–715 at pp. 648–9.

53 First Roman Inquisitor in Malta in 1577.

54 Bonnici, ‘I vescovi di Malta’, 117, 124; Pirri, Sicilia sacra, 919–20; Zammit Gabarretta, Presentation, 35, 40, 49, 64; Borg, The seminary of Malta, chs i–ii, and ‘Developments in education outside the Jesuit Collegium Melitense’, MH iv/3 (1974), 215–54.

55 Borromeo, ‘I vescovi italiani’, 72.

56 Poska, Allyson M., Regulating the people: the Catholic Reformation in seventeenth-century Spain, Leiden 1998Google Scholar, 3, 45. For similar cases in southern Italy see Rosa, ‘La chiesa meridionale’, 323–4.

57 Po-chia Hsia, World of Catholic renewal, 33, 121–2.

58 Borg, Reform of the Council of Trent in Malta, 17–18.

59 Hayden and Greenshields, 600 years of reform, 266, 277; Nadro, Silvino Da, Sinodi diocesani italiani: catalogo bibliografico degli atti a stampa (1534–1878), Rome 1960Google Scholar; Savagnone, Francesco Guglielmo, Concili e sinodi di Sicilia: struttura giuridica, storia, Palermo 1910Google Scholar; Vaquero, Quintín Aldea, Tomás Marin Martinez and José Vives Gatell, Diccionario de historia eclesiástica de España, Madrid 1972–5, iv. 2489–94Google Scholar.

60 Ferris, Achille, Descrizione storica delle Chiese di Malta e Gozo, Malta 1866, 42Google Scholar. Bishop Buenos's synod is published in Savagnone, Concili e sinodi, appendix, pp. vii–xxxix.

61 Borromeo, ‘I vescovi italiani’, 53.

62 Ibid. 57.

63 Borg, Reform of the Council of Trent, 16–19; Ferris, Descrizione storica, passim; Hayden and Greenshields, 600 years of reform, 117–18, 155–6, 304–5, 409, 545, 561. The average of French visitations per diocese and per bishop scales down to 28.5 and 3.16, taking into account only the visits carried out in person by the bishop and not his delegates.

64 Francesco Michele Stabile, ‘Palermo’, in Zito, Storia delle Chiese di Sicilia, 579–663 at pp. 628–9. On the archival sources for Italian pastoral visitations see Emanuele Boaga, ‘Le visite pastorali negli archivi ecclesiastici italiani’, and Zito, Gaetano, ‘La visite pastorali in Sicilia: situazione archivistica e computerizzazione dei dati’, in Nubola, Cecilia and Turchini, Angelo (eds), Visite pastorali ed elaborazione dei dati, Bologna 1993, 369–78, 389–405Google Scholar.

65 Borromeo, ‘I vescovi italiani’, 64.

66 Ciappara, Frans, ‘Trent and the clergy in late eighteenth-century Malta’, Church History lxxviii (2009), 1–25Google Scholar at p. 3.

67 Cf. Greco, La Chiesa in Italia, 83.

68 Borromeo, ‘I vescovi italiani’, 65; Ortiz, Antonio Domínguez, ‘Aspectos sociales de la vida eclesiastica en los siglos xvii y xviii’, in Sanchis, Antonio Mestre (ed.), Historia de la Iglesia en España, IV: La Iglesia en la España de los siglos XVII y XVIII, Madrid 1979, 5–72Google Scholar at p. 37; Poska, Regulating the people, 50, 159–62.

69 Ciappara, ‘Trent and the clergy’, 25.

70 Idem, Society and the Inquisition in early modern Malta, Malta 2001, 502Google Scholar. For a definition of popular religion, and selected references, see Rosa, Mario, Settecento religioso: politica della Ragione e religione del cuore, Venice 1999, 225–6Google Scholar.

71 Ciappara, ‘Parish priest and community’, 332, and also p. 347. The action of the Inquisition proved to be more effective in cleaning up the clergy and laity and ‘promised to succeed where the parish clergy failed’. At the end of the eighteenth century the Inquisition was still very active, unlike similar Italian and Spanish tribunals of the faith: Ciappara, Society and the Inquisition, 65, 504: for more details see chs i (‘In Trent's footsteps’) and ii (‘A sacramentalizing mentality’).

72 Hayden and Greenshields, 600 years of reform, 176–87, esp. p. 177. For Spain and Italy see respectively Domínguez Ortiz, ‘Aspectos sociales’, 65–72, and Rosa, Settecento religioso, 185–204.

73 Po-chia Hsia, World of Catholic renewal, 231.