As a source for historical studies, wills and testaments have long attracted the attention of scholars and enjoyed a rich historiography. This is, in fact, what Attilio Bartoli Langeli points out in his preface to this volume (pp. xi-xv) and Maria Teresa Brolis reiterates in the second paragraph of her introduction (pp. xxi-xxiii). The volume itself examines a core group of 47 wills and testaments drafted between 1253 and 1399 by 45 different women from the city of Bergamo, in northern Italy. Being only a sampling of a much larger number of wills and testaments, the volume does not attempt to carry out a quantitative analysis of the collection, but rather a qualitative reading of the selected group. The decision to focus on women's wills reflects the long-standing interest in the history of "gender" that has had so much success in the last decades.Editing primary sources is always a very revealing and rewarding experience. In this case, the editor and the reader enter into a microcosm of women consisting of 37 widows, 6 single women, and 3 married women. It is not surprising that in this sampling widows should be in the majority: with the death of their husbands, they generally became the primary point of reference for the family-or for what remained of it-, and gained more "autonomy" than they enjoyed before, becoming freer to chose and to decide their own matters. The women present in these wills all come either from the nobility or from the middle and upper-middle classes of Bergamo. As Brolis points out, "in light of their own specific situation, Bergamasque women chose as their heirs three major categories of persons: sons and grandsons, members of their birth families, the MIA [the confraternity of the Misericordia Maggiore of Bergamo, which ran the local hospital]" (p. xxxi).The confraternity of the Misericordia was, in fact, the major association in the social and religious life of Bergamo. Between 1265 and 1339, the MIA had 1,730 women enrolled as members-the enrolment list of these women was published a few years ago by Maria Teresa Brolis and others as La matricola femminile della Misericordia Maggiore di Bergamo (1265Bergamo ( -1339 (Rome, 2001). It thus seems completely "normal" that women should direct their testamentary dispositions towards this confraternity, as is also completely "normal" that these wills and testaments should have been kept and preserved in the confraternity's archive. Each of these wills and testaments contains a story that tells us something about the attitudes, interests, relationships, and even the feelings of the individual testators.In looking at the various types of wills and testaments, Brolis often focuses on the items these women left behind (pp. xxxiii-xxxviii) and notes that
Frontera", which looks at the religious role of the Genoese community at Jerez . According to Mingorance Ruiz, the Ligurian colony was first associated with a late-fifteenth-century "congregation" dedicated to St. Catherine of Siena located in the convent of St. Dominic, which was in charge of a religious hospice that helped those in need (348). In 1546, the congregation moved the Church of St. Catherine of Siena and became known officially as the Confraternity of the Name of Jesus. Devotion to the Name of Jesus first developed among the Franciscans, who wished to emphasise Christ's humanity, but later spread to the Dominican Order, where it was used to combat the sin of blasphemy (346-347). Mingorance Ruiz posits that it is in the latter context that the Genoese confraternity developed (349). The paper is rich in information and, while its arguments become muddled at certain points, they are clarified in the conclusion (354) and also by the inclusion of an appendix of the many primary documents cited (355)(356)(357)(358)(359)(360)(361)(362)(363).This collection of fine articles is a testament to the rigorous scholarship practiced and taught by the volume's honoured recipient, professor José Sánchez Herrero. While there is still much that remains to be said about the confraternities of Seville, the research included in this collection makes significant headways into previously unstudied areas. The reader will be left in happy anticipation of future studies to come.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.