Confraternities in Paris and Milan

Both Paris and Milan contained a wide range of confraternities. Some were open to everyone, while others were for specific groups: a single trade, those living in a particular parish, only men, or only women. In both cities there were certain highly exclusive, elite associations. But all confraternities were, in practice, voluntary associations. Admittedly, in the guilds all the masters or mistresses were nominally members and were, in theory, required to pay annual dues. And it is likely that in occupational groups with small numbers, like the 24 Paris scrap-iron merchants, it would have been almost impossible to withdraw from the confraternity (Pary Reference Pary1766: 227). In the rare cases in which we have registers of meetings, however, the numbers attending seem to have been much lower than the number in the guild, suggesting a core of active participants and a periphery of only nominal members (AN Z1E 219–20; AN S118).

Nearly all confraternities in these two cities were entirely lay associations. Although the authorities often insisted that a priest be present at meetings of the governing body, disputes and even lawsuits indicate many confraternities asserting their independence from the clergy. Each one was run by a small number of officials who were elected for a fixed term, usually two years, but who on all important matters were obliged to consult a broader governing group. In Paris this body usually comprised the former officials, who in some cases elected the new administrators. But most of the Milanese confraternities and many of the Paris ones invited all the members to elections (Garrioch Reference Garrioch2005: 58–66; Reference Garrioch, Terpstra, Jurdjevic and Eckstein2009: 321–23).

Despite its secular character, Paris contained a remarkable concentration of religious confraternities. In 1700 it had approximately 460 confraternities, and by 1750 there were perhaps 530, for a population of more than half a million. The numbers began to decline in the 1760s, and some 250 confraternities were swept away by government reforms in the 1770s. Just more than 100 seem to have survived in the 1780s. The numbers are approximate because the sources are fragmentary—there may have been more at any one time, but we cannot be certain that all of them were active throughout the period. Roughly half were occupational bodies, mostly associated with the artisanal and merchant guilds, although some trades that were not organized into guilds, like the market women or the workers on the ports, also had their own confraternities. So did some professions of higher status, such as the lawyers attached to certain courts.

It is impossible to know what proportion of the population participated in their activities. Membership varied from a couple of dozen to hundreds. If we assume that each confraternity had an active membership of 50 to 100, the total in the mid-eighteenth century would be between 26,000 and 52,000 individuals, 5 to 10 percent of the city's population. Given that the majority of members we know about were male, and that the involvement of a male head of household probably implied some participation by his wife and children, this figure is likely to underestimate greatly the proportion of Paris residents who joined in at least some of the activities of the confraternities.

It is sometimes difficult to judge how active they were. There are many that we know only from a set of statutes or a mention in an almanac, and it is quite possible that they had only an intermittent existence. Some were certainly in decline before 1760. The membership of the Grande Confrérie des Bourgeois de Paris, formerly very prestigious, fell steadily after 1740 (Croq Reference Croq1999). A number of confraternities died of financial failure. But others remained healthy. The Archiconfrérie du Saint-Sépulcre in Paris recruited actively in the 1770s (AN Y13620), and the Blessed Sacrament confraternities also seemed to be thriving. In the one at the church of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie, in 1775 and 1776, 52 members paid their annual dues, while in 1780 77 did so (AN LL790, nos. 7–22). The picture was similar in the parish of Saint-Paul (AN LL900, fols. 5–8, 94). A further indication of health is the creation of new confraternities: More than 160 first appear in the records between 1700 and 1750, and more than 80 between 1750 and 1775. Gaps in the sources mean that some of these probably did exist before then, but others were entirely new, demonstrating that this was a living form of sociability. Nor was it only the newly founded confraternities that show signs of vitality because some of the older ones renewed their statutes and obtained papal briefs in the second half of the eighteenth century.

The associations that remained popular were, not surprisingly, those that had most to offer their members. The Blessed Sacrament confraternities were actively encouraged by the parish clergy. They were often allowed to hold their services at the main altar, which gave their members a prominence in the church that other confraternities did not enjoy. Their devotion to the Eucharist also gave them a place of honor in the Corpus Christi processions, one of the most important ceremonies in the liturgical calendar. In some parishes the churchwardens—the lay administrators of the church, who played a leading role in parish life—were recruited from the ranks of the Blessed Sacrament confraternity. Other thriving bodies, like the Archiconfrérie du Saint-Sépulcre (AN T1489), the confraternity of the Virgin at the Quinze-Vingts hospital (BN 8o Z Le Senne 12243), or the Holy Family at Saint-André-des-Arts (JF 1590, fols. 232–42), were equally prestigious—the first two counted the royal family as nominal members, and the third included a wide circle of wealthy families. The more humble bodies that remained similarly healthy were those that, as we shall see, offered substantial spiritual or practical assistance.

In Milan the confraternities involved a larger proportion of the population than in Paris, and played a more important role in the life of the city. In 1767 there were more than 400, almost as many as in the much larger French capital. Half of these remained in existence in 1786. The government then abolished most of them, but it is likely that many escaped official notice (Castiglioni Reference Castiglioni1958: 19–25; Zardin Reference Zardin, Acerbi and Marocchi1988: 184). A census of one of the six quarters of the city, undertaken in 1767, indicated that 21 percent of the population belonged to a confraternity of some kind (LP, p.a. 39). As in Paris, many were open to all comers, but a larger number were restricted either to particular parishes or to smaller, carefully demarcated neighborhoods. Unlike in Paris, there were many Penitents, and a significant number of confraternities had their own chapels, entirely independent of parish or monastic churches. Occupational confraternities were much less numerous than in Paris, although some did exist. There is fragmentary evidence that the membership of many confraternities was growing, at least until the 1770s, although once again this probably varied according to the specific role that each one played: There are hints that the parish-based ones remained popular, while the Penitents were losing support (Zardin Reference Zardin, Acerbi and Marocchi1988: 180–81, 190–91, 203–4, 210–12).

Whereas in Paris most of the parish confraternities were run by merchants and artisans, with very few patricians actively involved, in Milan a number of bodies, such as the Congregazione de’ Signori Quaranta Crocesegnati privilegiati di San Pietro Martire, included members of the male elite. The Entierro, hosted by the Jesuits, brought together 150 or so noblemen, including many of those who governed the city, and there were quite a number of other prestigious associations, some for men and others for elite women (Garrioch Reference Garrioch2004; Zardin Reference Zardin, Acerbi and Marocchi1988: 204–8). The Milanese confraternities were also more active than those in Paris. In addition to basic services on major feast days, most participated in regular parish processions and many sponsored weekly and even daily gatherings of members. The 80 or so confraternities of the Cross, each one based at a cross or statue situated in a major intersection or a piazza, met every evening for prayers and chants. On festive occasions some of them arranged musical events, erecting stages decorated with lamps and candles, hanging flags and banners in the street. They frequently conducted processions in the locality (Bottoni Reference Bottoni, Maddelena, Rotelli and Barbarisi1982; Signorotto Reference Signorotto1983, Reference Signorotto, Peruta, Leydi and Stella1985). Other local bodies that had their own independent chapels afforded serious competition to the parish churches, providing services on Sundays and feast days. Some even had their own bells and chaplains. When the confraternity of Santa Marta revealed plans to install a confessional the local clergy petitioned the archbishop to stop them: “Little remains but the name,” they said, “to believe it a parish church” (FR 247, petition of January 14, 1749).

At the same time, many confraternities—even the very local ones—played a significant role in civic life. Those of the Cross formed a federation under the direct authority of the archbishop, and each Friday night they processed to the cathedral. They also had a place in city processions on important religious festivals. Another group of confraternities known as the “scuole della Dottrina Cristiana,” which had an educational role, were federated in the same way and also participated in major celebrations. On such occasions they specialized in recitations of edifying works and songs and in living “quadri,” costumed representations of key religious themes. The different types of Penitent confraternities also processed together across the city on particular days of the year (Zardin Reference Zardin, Acerbi and Marocchi1988: 184–86). On the really big festivals, like the feast day of San Carlo, all the confraternities were on display. Every Easter the Entierro organized elaborate pageants, commissioning the scripts and the music from leading artists. These, like the events arranged by other confraternities, were an important part of the Holy Week celebrations, attended by people from all over the city. The confraternities were also mobilized for civic occasions, such as a royal entry in 1745, and to join in processional prayers: for an end to an animal sickness in 1745; for the recovery of the archbishop in 1783; and for the repose of his soul after his death (Ambros. N.6.Suss., fol. 20: October 1745 and N.41.Suss., fols. 6, 53: 16 February, 1783; April 29, 1783; Zardin Reference Zardin, Acerbi and Marocchi1988: 223, 33–35).

Confraternities and Civil Society

What forms of behavior and what values did the confraternities promote? As religious associations, of course, they encouraged Christian charity and stressed mutual consideration and concern, in the present world and in the afterlife. This operated both within the confraternity, whose members were supposed to have a particular responsibility for each other and, more broadly, within the wider urban community and indeed the whole Catholic world.

Relationships within confraternities used the language of brotherhood and sisterhood to describe the ideal relationship between the members (Le Bras Reference Le Bras1956, 2: 423; Terpstra Reference Terpstra2000). Internally, all were equal, both spiritually and in their entitlements, and the systems of elections and decision making were in many cases surprisingly democratic. When they accorded places of honor to particular individuals, most confraternities did so either on the basis of seniority or of service to the association. Published membership lists, for example, except in the most elite confraternities, were not in order of rank. They usually put the names of the current administrators first, often in larger print, followed by the list of other members in the order in which they had joined. The administrators had pride of place at ceremonies, often followed by past officials, the ordinary members coming last. In some cases, the officeholders were of higher rank, but many eighteenth-century confraternities seem to have been socially quite homogeneous, and what determined election was organizational ability and the willingness and capacity to give up the time required. This obviously created some distinctions. Gender was also a key factor, with women being elected to lead only exclusively female associations. But in most cases occupational and social standing do not appear to have been major considerations. All of this was consistent with the rhetoric of brotherhood.

Christian virtue was a crucial dimension of the ideology of the confraternities. Members were supposed to offer a model to other people. This meant attending religious services assiduously, saying daily prayers, and setting an example of piety and modesty. Some confraternities attempted to monitor the behavior of their adherents, fining those who missed services and punishing misdemeanors: In 1752 the officials of Santa Catterina al Ponte de’ Fabbri reprimanded two men for their shortcomings and put them on probation for a month. The statutes of the Archiconfrérie du Saint-Sépulcre, in Paris, threatened with a reprimand any member who was regularly drunk or violent, blasphemed, or lived in vice. The ultimate sanction was expulsion (AFR 1512, Riscatto at San Lorenzo, rules of 1714; AN T1489, statutes of Archiconfrérie du Saint-Sépulcre, 1723; ASM Culto p.a. 1502, San Nicola at San Daminiano, rules of 1740; FR 535, libro di ordinazioni, November 12, 1752).

Another centrally important manifestation of Christian virtue was charity. The statutes of the Paris seamstresses’ confraternity exemplify the ideal. The members were to pray for each other each day, “in order to be more perfectly bound by ties of charity,” and they were encouraged to assist any sister who fell into poverty. A member who fell sick would have special prayers said for her and, if mortally ill, would have the last rites brought, accompanied by all the members who were free to attend. The confraternity also paid for a funeral service, and each member was supposed to offer individual prayers for the repose of her soul (Franklin Reference Franklin1906: 195–96). These were common stipulations in the rules of both Parisian and Milanese confraternities.

Nor was this “spiritual mutualism” (Zardin Reference Zardin1987: 99) simply rhetorical. In 1772, a member of the Penitents' confraternity at San Bernardino in Brera, who fell sick and was unable to rely on his sons because of their own poverty, was given the significant sum of 40 lire by two other members of the confraternity, who also agreed to pay his annual dues (AFR 1466, fol. 102). Many confraternities offered material assistance to brothers or sisters in distress, and in Milan the distributions to poor girls of dowries—a major expense for families—were often in practice directed to the daughters of members of the confraternity.Footnote ²

The provision of funeral services—either contributing to the funeral and burial or paying for subsequent services for the repose of the soul of the deceased—was an extremely important form of assistance. It had a vital religious function because the prayers of the living were believed to improve a person's chances of salvation. This conviction that spiritual collaboration was to the advantage of all the members was an important reason for joining a confraternity. At the same time, the collective endeavor extended to the material world. Providing funerals “without inconvenience or expense for the bereaved,” as one Milanese confratello put it (ASM Culto p.a. 1501, petition of Giorgio Maria Capella, September 27, 1791), was of huge benefit to poor families, who otherwise found themselves facing the cost of candles, mourning clothes, and fees charged by the clergy, the gravediggers, the pallbearers, and others, at precisely the moment when their income was reduced by the loss of a wage earner. It also guaranteed a good attendance at the funeral, important not only for the soul of the deceased but also as a sign of the standing of the family (Baldissarri Reference Baldissarri1985: 133). And it was not only poor families that might find it difficult to defray the expense involved. In both cities, funerals were a vitally important aspect of family honor and reputation, and the number of priests and candles, the music, and the richness of the accoutrements needed to be commensurate with the rank of the departed and the aspirations of the family. Although in Paris it became conventional for testators to request a simple funeral, in practice the amount spent did not decline (Croq Reference Croq2009: 300–11; Lyon-Caen Reference Lyon-Caen2010: 267–68).

In the French capital it seems to have been common for confraternities to say a mass or prayers separate from the funeral. In Milan, where the taste for funereal pomp was even greater, many confraternities established a special fund, with additional annual payments, to enable those with the means to set aside money for more elaborate funerals. The musicians’ confraternity introduced this in 1707, and many others subsequently adopted the same system (ASM Culto p.a. 1512, Maria Immacolata at San Sebastiano, January 15, 1730; Zardin Reference Zardin, Acerbi and Marocchi1988: 194, 229n84). After the abolition of nearly all the Milanese confraternities in 1786, the authorities were deluged with requests for the reimbursement of savings invested in the funeral funds (ASM Culto p.a. 1502, 1512).

As the century went on, some of these funds began to adopt rules placing them on a sounder financial footing. The confraternity of Santa Catterina al Ponte de’ Fabbri in Milan required that new members be under 40 and obliged anyone who entered between the ages of 35 and 40 to pay more. It demanded a baptismal certificate as proof of age. The Beata Vergine at San Sebastiano, established in 1730, had a fixed number of members and a sliding scale of fees according to the age of new entrants. It had two levels of membership, those paying higher fees being entitled to a more elaborate funeral (ASM Culto p.a. 1512, rules of B.V. Maria Immacolata, San Sebastiano, May 1730; FR 535, libro di ordinazioni, April 3, 1777). In some cases, these funds in practice became a kind of health insurance. Francesco Canziani, sick and unable to pay his rent, was able to withdraw half of his contributions to the funeral fund. This was specifically permitted for women belonging to the Consorzio del suffragio de Morti at San Lorenzo who found themselves in poverty in their old age, as long as they were not in the hospital (AFR 1466, register of San Bernardino in Brera, fol. 102; ASM Culto p.a. 1507, rules of 1755).

A parallel development took place in Paris. Although specific funeral funds were not common there, and members relied on the normal funeral arrangements offered by confraternities, a growing number of associations put in place mutual aid arrangements designed to assist those too sick or too old to work, or even in some cases unemployed. The confraternity of Saint-Prix, for example, admitted only men under 45 and promised, in addition to religious services, assistance to any who were sick or who found themselves in prison for debt. The employees of the sellers of old clothes (fripiers) obtained approval for their confraternity in 1770, requiring new members to be under 40 and promising weekly payments to any members unable to work through sickness or infirmity (JF 1590, fols. 94–5, 119–26).

The charitable and religious activities of the confraternities encouraged frequent contact between the members. The requirement, in many of the statutes, that they should “charitably correct” each other if they strayed into immorality, and even that they should notify the administrators if any member fell sick, suggests an expectation that they would have contact outside religious celebrations, and in many cases they socialized actively. As the governor of Milan pointed out in 1767, “[A]fter religious services, after the evening meal, they converse among themselves” (Zardin Reference Zardin, Acerbi and Marocchi1988: 184). The less elite confraternities had to tread carefully because the authorities in both cities frowned on unauthorized assemblies and festivities, and were suspicious of associations that might facilitate political discussion. The statutes generally ban feasting and stipulate that there will be no general meetings of members. Nevertheless, we sometimes stumble upon evidence of celebrations like the one at a wineshop in central Paris where a dozen or so members of a local confraternity had repaired after the mass, taking with them bread that had been blessed at the service, and that now accompanied their libations (AN Y15364, September 17, 1741). This was a logical dimension of their collective religious culture, an extension of the celebration of the communion table to the dinner table.

Certainly, we should not romanticize this culture. The behavior of the members did not always correspond to the rhetoric of brotherly feeling and charity: In 1759 a confratello of Santa Catterina actually killed another with his sword (FR 535). Confraternities often competed for members and occasionally took each other to court to claim the leading place in processions. Mutual aid funds were sometimes threatened when a member ran off with the cash-box (JF 1590, fol. 154). Charitable action could be at least partly driven by selfish motives, a desire for esteem, a taste for giving orders, or personal or family rivalries. Regular encounters and collaboration do not necessarily create close fraternal bonds. Nevertheless, as Danilo Zardin (Reference Zardin1992) has shown, there is also ample evidence that some members did develop close affective ties, something facilitated by the fact that they were often linked by prior bonds of neighborhood, occupation, or kinship. A high level of trust was necessarily present, too, when people of modest means handed over monies that over time amounted to quite significant sums, in exchange for a funeral or a promise of assistance in old age. The basis of such trust, and of the bonds that members formed, was partly their spiritual brotherhood and partly the sometimes intense sociability they fostered.

If the charity embraced by the confraternities began at home, it often extended further. In three large Paris parishes, Saint-Eustache, Saint-Jean-en-Grève, and Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie, much of the parish poor relief was handled by confraternities, in the latter case one dedicated to the Milanese reforming bishop Carlo Borromeo. In the vast plebeian parish of Sainte-Marguerite, the bakers’ confraternity provided significant quantities of flour for the local poor, while the confraternity of the journeymen carpenters at Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs lent its pall for pauper burials in the parish (AN H4474; BN Fonds Thoisy 9, fols. 279–80; JF 292, fol. 65; S7492B; S7493A). In Milan this work was routinely done by confraternities, often called the “Carità” (charity). The male members divided the parish among their number and in each section visited the sick and distributed alms to the poor, offered religious instruction, and watched particularly for poor girls who might “fall.” They organized groups to go out on feast days checking for people skipping mass, and specific officials were nominated to settle quarrels. They worked closely with the women of another confraternity, the Dottrina Cristiana, who assumed the same tasks among the female population of the parish (AFR 1468).

If the parish was an obvious community to which the charity of the faithful should extend, there were also many examples of wider concern. In Milan the confraternity of Nostra Signora della Salute at San Giorgio al Palazzo, founded in 1748, looked to the spiritual and material welfare of inmates of the central hospital, and some years later purchased a house where homeless teenagers could be housed and educated. In 1767 a group in the parish of San Calimero sought permission to form a confraternity to accompany the bodies of those who died at the central hospital with no one to pray for them (although they were refused permission) (ASM Culto p.a. 2084, April 16, 1767; Zardin Reference Zardin1992: 401–2). Other confraternities paid for the release of debtors. The Paris Archiconfrérie du Saint-Sépulcre, originally a pilgrim confraternity, had specialized in good works in Palestine, but as this was no longer possible by the mid-eighteenth century it turned to paying the debts of fathers who had been imprisoned for failing to pay their children's wet nurses. This was also done by the Blessed Sacrament confraternity at Saint-Roch (AN C38, no. 340, April 10, 1790; BN n.a.f. 2667, fol. 128 verso). There was at least one confraternity in each city that paid ransoms for Christians enslaved in North Africa. Others offered medical and legal assistance to the poor, and paying the dowries of poor girls was a favorite cause (AFR 1513; Anon. 1673; Zardin Reference Zardin1987: 103–4).

Both religious celebration and charity built on, but also encouraged, a sense of social responsibility. This might be primarily at the local level of the neighborhood, the guild, or the parish: The work of the confraternities gave the injunction to love thy neighbor a very concrete meaning. Yet in many cases it fostered a wider sense of identification. This is very evident in Milan, where religious celebration contributed to a strong civic culture. The companies of the Cross traced their origins to San Carlo Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan, whose feast day was celebrated with great pomp. Many of them were dedicated to a saint, often a former archbishop, whose relics were held in the city (Ambros. Q.38.inf, No. 4, p. 9; Latuada Reference Latuada1996 [1737–8], 3: 218, 65, 92). The local Ambrosian liturgy was used there, and many of the confraternities of Penitents self-consciously followed Ambrosian rites: They processed together on key feast days. The frequent citywide processions and celebrations gave at least some members of the confraternities a strong civic sense. One of them later observed that the confraternities of the Cross “produced the effect in Milan that the whole city was at certain hours transformed as if into a single, and vast temple” (Ambros. Q.38.inf, no. 4, p. 4). This was less evident in Paris, but there too on some occasions the entire city appeared to be united in worship. Corpus Christi was the most important such moment, when every parish undertook a procession through streets lined with tapestries and flowers, filling the city with music and incense. Easter and Christmas were celebrated with similar pomp (Cradock Reference Cradock1896: 21, 43, 48, 111; Mercier Reference Mercier1782–88, 3: 78–80).

If one of the key contributions that associations make to civil society is to empower individuals, give them a sense of worth, and thus encourage participation in collective endeavor, then this too was a product of confraternal culture. There are many examples where confraternities allowed expressions of collective independence, which on many occasions challenged conventional hierarchies. Many of the journeymen's confraternities in Paris played a key role in industrial disputes, organizing work stoppages and taking legal action to preserve the working conditions of their members (Garrioch and Sonenscher Reference Garrioch and Sonenscher1986).

Nor were they the only type of confraternities that actively defended the rights of their members. The Santa Croce at San Michele alla Chiusa in 1754 claimed the right to collect alms in the parish whenever it wished, and it told the priest as much: “We of the Santa Croce are the masters” (AFR 1477). The administrators of the confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament in the Paris parish of Saint Sulpice were more respectful, but in 1722 they complained that the churchwardens were infringing their rights (this was the term they used) by failing to consult them, notably when the font and the confraternity's pew were moved because of building work being done in the church. They were so angry that they arranged a formal meeting with the head priest and the churchwardens and even went to see the honorary first churchwarden, the Maréchal de Marignon. These were very bold actions. The parish was one of the wealthiest in the city and its churchwardens were men of substance, the honorary churchwarden a high-ranking nobleman. The administrators of the confraternity, by contrast, were shopkeepers and artisans: butchers, grocers, a wineshop keeper, a porcelain maker (AN LL957, May 22, 1722). If one of the contributions that voluntary associations make to civil society is to encourage people to stand up for themselves and take responsibility for their own lives, then these confraternities seem to have done exactly that.

Despite significant differences between eighteenth-century Paris and Milan, notably in the strength and levels of activity of the confraternities, it is the similarities that are most striking. In both cities, they fostered the kinds of values and behaviors that most modern writers associate with the formation of civil society. They promoted cooperation, charity, a sense of responsibility, and peaceful interaction both among the members and between them and others in society. They fostered social participation. At the same time, many of them encouraged a culture of independence and cultivated a strong sense of rights among their members. They also offered experience of organization to a very large number of men and a smaller number of women. These observations support the argument of Katherine Lynch that civil society existed well before the Enlightenment because most of these features of confraternities can be found in earlier centuries as well. Lynch sees civil society as an informal public sphere located in the space between formal politics and the individual household, and constructed through “organized community-building activities” (Black Reference Black1984: 32–43; Lynch Reference Lynch2003: 18–19, 170, 220–21).

What, then, did existing civil society look like in the eighteenth-century cities I have been examining, and how might it have been evolving during the period? A defining feature of eighteenth-century civil society is revealed by a court case of 1765. It was brought by a stallkeeper, a man of very modest means, who was expelled from one of the Paris confraternities because, his colleagues insisted, he had refused to perform his duties as elected administrator, had rarely attended religious services, and had on one occasion turned up inappropriately dressed. He responded that these were vicious calumnies and that he had been a faithful member of the confraternity for 30 years. He took them to court to demand reparation for the assault on his honor that, as his lawyer pointed out, “is one of the first benefits and... one of the first advantages which, in civil Society, must naturally accrue to every citizen” (JF 1860, fol. 240).Footnote ³ “Civil society” is here being used in the common eighteenth-century sense of a well-ordered society, but crucially it is linked both to natural rights and honor, something that all individuals, however humble, can enjoy.

Honor and reputation were central to social relations in eighteenth-century European societies (Castan Reference Castan1974; Farr Reference Farr1988). This is entirely consistent with the internal egalitarianism of the confraternities and with the way they defended their independence and the rights of their members. They operated within a corporate framework in which people possessed rights primarily by virtue of their membership of a particular collectivity. In this sense, as Olivier Christin has pointed out, their egalitarian and democratic processes were entirely compatible with an inegalitarian society and with absolute monarchy (Christin Reference Christin2001). They functioned as units within that society, and their defence of their rights made them part of a hierarchy of collectivities. Indeed, it was necessary for the maintenance of that hierarchy. As long as they did not try to export those values, to apply them beyond the confines of the association, there was no problem. They contributed to a civil society that was based on corporate and hierarchical principles. Furthermore, they remained outside formal politics, a domain in which in an absolute monarchy only a small elite had the right to participate. The kind of civil society they were part of was very different both from Cicero's societas civilis and modern liberal democracy.

Corporatism and the importance of honor were certainly not confined to the eighteenth century. Nor was charity (Pullan Reference Pullan and Zardin1998). But in certain respects the confraternities of that period, and the values they embodied, were different from those of earlier times. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, confraternities became central to the defence of Catholicism, notably against Protestantism and Islam. Subsequently, although not all followed exactly the same itinerary, their general evolution in the late seventeenth and across the eighteenth century was toward a more Eucharistic theology and a greater emphasis on charity. As recent work has pointed out, there was a further trend in eighteenth-century confraternities toward more individual forms of piety (Froeschlé-Chopard Reference Froeschlé-Chopard2006; Polizzotto Reference Polizzotto2004; Rideau Reference Rideau2009: 103–17; Simiz Reference Simiz2002). At the same time, as far as we can tell from the sparse information available, confraternities in both Paris and Milan (and probably other places) became more socially homogeneous. Certainly, across the eighteenth century we find a gradual rejection, by the urban elites, of this form of sociability. This is reflected in growing criticism of confraternities, both by churchmen and lay commentators, who increasingly equated them with “superstition,” which in turn was associated with “the people” (Froeschlé-Chopard Reference Froeschlé-Chopard2006: 273–75). Greater homogeneity may have strengthened their internal egalitarianism and increased their potential for rebellious behavior: The authorities certainly saw them this way, as the earlier quotation from Delamare's Traité de la police demonstrates. These were key factors that led to the eventual dissolution of the confraternities in many parts of Europe.

At the same time, eighteenth-century confraternities were becoming, in a certain sense, more secular. This may sound a strange thing to say about religious associations. It is not that they were losing their religious functions, but that growing numbers of them were concerned with the material as well as the spiritual world. Their increased emphasis on charity is the most important dimension of this change, and particularly where it took the form of dedicated mutual aid funds, it was an eighteenth-century development. The same is true of the journeymen's confraternities that played a key role in industrial disputes in Paris: They were not new in the eighteenth century, either, but they did become more numerous and more active. Confraternities were thus changing, and in certain ways were becoming more like other eighteenth-century forms of association, more focused on individuals, and more concerned with assistance in the here and now. It was only a short step, as Maurice Agulhon showed in the case of Provence, from confraternal to masonic sociability (Agulhon Reference Agulhon1984; Garrioch Reference Garrioch, Terpstra, Jurdjevic and Eckstein2009).

There remained, of course, some very significant differences between the confraternities and the new forms of association associated with the Enlightenment. The latter were more secular still, in the sense that their goals were rarely primarily religious. Most were also nonconfessional, even if religious minorities were not always actively welcomed, and this does reflect a major shift in thinking and values. In the seventeenth century, most writers saw religious intolerance as a crucial guarantee of social and political stability: This was true of Catholics and Protestants alike, and even John Locke preached only a very limited toleration (Grell and Porter Reference Grell and Porter2000; Negroni Reference Negroni1996). Only in Poland and the Dutch Republic was there a majority in favor of toleration. But leading figures of the Enlightenment and a growing number of others perceived religion to be a matter of private belief and personal conscience, not something of public concern. Defenders of intolerance were very much on the defensive, and the new forms of sociability reflected this.

Nor, unlike the confraternities, were the new kinds of associations corporations in the Old Regime sense. They were not bounded by the conventional divisions of Old Regime society: religion, occupation, parish, even the city. They were more aligned with new conceptions of society in which rights, duties, and forms of civic engagement were increasingly imagined and spoken of as things determined by belonging to a wider polity, the developing nation-state, and less by membership of a particular corporation or community within it. The new political thinking of the eighteenth century was broadly hostile to collectivities that claimed rights, seeing rights as adhering to individuals, primarily adult males. This culminated in the abolition, in many parts of Europe, of trade guilds—now widely perceived to be selfish monopolies rather than (as they had earlier been viewed) bodies that defended the public interest—and of religious confraternities. The French Revolution made this shift in thinking explicit, abolishing all of the older corporate bodies, whether in the trades, churches, or form of communities of inhabitants in villages across the country. But until then, older forms of association like confraternities continued to play an important role in the construction of civil society in Catholic cities.

Historically, then, there was no necessary opposition between religious purpose and the values associated with civil society. On the contrary, this article has suggested that those values could have religious roots as well as social ones. This is consistent with recent work that explores the religious origins of the Enlightenment (Bradley and Van Kley Reference Bradley and Van Kley2001; Burson and Lehner Reference Burson and Lehner2014; Sorkin Reference Sorkin2008). The crucial factor is the ability of associations to remain free from external controls: The confraternities of Paris and Milan, and indeed those in many other places, were technically subordinate to religious hierarchies but were often quite independent. These are important facts to remember today, when the issue of the relationship between religion and civil society is again on the agenda in many parts of the world.

Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century writers could not imagine the mass of the population having any role in the creation of civil society. “The first law of civil society is subordination,” wrote Sir Brooke Boothby in the early 1790s (Boothby Reference Boothby1793: 515). For Tocqueville too, it was a bulwark against the dangers of democracy, the tyranny of the majority. Marxist interpretations, from a very different ideological standpoint, have equally insisted on the creation of “bourgeois civil society” as a necessary precursor to more democratic forms, and many non-Marxist authors have adopted the same argument. But civil society has a longer and more complex history. It should not be seen exclusively as an outcome of middle-class and elite practices that developed as a product of modernity, but as a phenomenon to which much humbler forms of association also contributed. Nor should it be seen as taking only one form: As is demonstrated in the essays in this collection, it could operate in different ways in different places, and as societies changed over time.

Abbreviations

AFR

Amministrazione del fondo di religione, Archivio di Stato, Milan

Ambros.

Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan

AN

Archives nationales, Paris

ASM

Archivio di Stato, Milan

BN

Bibliothèque nationale, Paris

FR

Fondo di religione, Archivio di Stato, Milan

JF

Joly de Fleury Collection, Bibliothèque nationale, Paris

LP

Luoghi Pii, Archivio di Stato, Milan