Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Vol. 45, JVo.

s, April igg4
Copyright © 1994 Cambridge University Press

'Adapt Yourselves to the People's

Capabilities': Missionary Strategies,
Methods and Impact in the Kingdom
of Naples, 1600-1800
by DAVID GENTILCORE

A t a time when European missionaries were active in the New

World to capture the souls of the ' heathen' for Catholicism, their
confreres were conducting missions throughout Europe itself. For
more than two centuries these missions - variously known as internal,
parish or popular - were a crucial aspect of religious life, with numerous
religious orders and congregations seeking to weave a fabric of
evangelisation and catechetical instruction in areas of Europe that were
nominally Catholic but were in many ways cut off from orthodox
Tridentine Catholicism. This was particularly so in isolated areas on the
European periphery. Southern Italy is a case in point. The persistent
absence of an efficient parish structure and the dominance of a rather
worldly collegiate clergy in the Kingdom of Naples left a large gap in
organised religious life in the years following the end of the Council of
Trent (1563), a gap that the missions attempted to fill. The mobilisation
of preachers, confessors and instructors was vast, concentrated and
unceasing. Such is the significance of the missions that they have been
identified as the 'most characteristic and important' phenomenon of
Italian religious history in the seventeenth century.1 One way to examine

ARSI, Neap. = Archivium Romanum Societatis Iesu, Provincia Neapolitana; ASV =

Archivio Segreto Vaticano; SHCSR = Spicilegium Historicum Congregationis SS.mi Redemp-
toris
I should like to express my gratitude to the British School at Rome for allowing me to carry
out the research for this article as a Rome Scholar in History, 1989-90. My thanks also
to Fr Francis Edwards at the Archivium Romanum Societatis Iesu, and to Peter Burke,
Bob Scribner, Giovanni Pizzorusso and the two anonymous readers for this JOURNAL for
their comments and suggestions.
1
Carlo Ginzburg, 'Folklore, magia, religione', Storia dItalia, I: I caratteri originali,
Turin 1972, 603-76, at p. 656.
269
 DAVID GENTILCORE

their scale and impact would be to map the areas missionised by the
various congregations. But this serial approach would tell us very little,
other than the fact that all of the towns and villages were visited, most of
them repeatedly, over the centuries. Moreover, the varying quality of the
surviving records would permit only partial results. Rather, we need to
know how the missions were carried out, how they were received locally
and whether the missioners succeeded in their attempts to 'evangelise'
peripheral areas of Europe, at least in the terms they themselves set out.
The focus of this article will be the Neapolitan province of Terra
d'Otranto, which corresponds to modern-day southern Apulia. The
choice of a restricted area allows for the comparative analysis of
missionary activity over a relatively long time span, whilst serving as a
case study that may throw light on other areas on the periphery of
Europe. I shall stress the work of the Society of Jesus, as it could be said
to have made the most important - and, as we shall see, the most
controversial - contribution to missionising the Kingdom of Naples.
Moreover, their records are by far the most detailed and best preserved,
due in part to the conscious centralising concerns of the Society (past and
present). The Jesuits were active in the Terra d'Otranto as early as 1573,
almost a century and a half before the other missionary congregations
established themselves there. Their work will be compared to that of some
of the other congregations which followed. The two most active in
southern Apulia were the Fathers of the Mission, founded by St Vincent
de Paul (known also as the Lazarists or Vincentians), present in Terra
d'Otranto from 1729, and the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer,
founded by St Alfonso de' Liguori in 1732 (the Redemptorists). Mention
will also be made of the Congregation of the Apostolic Mission, founded
in 1646 and based in Naples. I shall begin by looking at the strategies of
the various missionary congregations. I shall then compare the methods
and techniques they adopted to put their strategies into practice, and
conclude with an analysis of the impact they had on the local populations,
of reactions from within the Church, and of the effect these had on
reshaping missionary techniques.
Several themes characterise the missioners' attempts to 'evangelise' (to
adopt the term most used by the missioners themselves) the 'heathen' on
their own doorstep. Most apparent is the religious message itself,
simplified and insistent, miraculistic and fearful. Its effectiveness
depended on an intense series of sermons and processions, and a no less
intense resort to sacramental confession and reconciliations, both staged
and spontaneous. The success of this message should not be under-
estimated, despite evidence that it could be misinterpreted or shaped to fit
popular mentalities. Related to this are the subjects of the missions,
distinguished by the missioners as 'rural' or 'urban', 'ignorant' or
'civilised', and the tensions between missioner and missionised, centre
and periphery. Of course these themes are not unique to the European
missions, as the missioners' frequent references to 'the Indies' demon-
270
 KINGDOM OF NAPLES, 16OO-18OO
strates, and some attempt will be made to compare them to related
developments in Asia and the Americas.
To begin with, let us look at Jesuit missionary strategy. Through their
missions the Jesuits did not seek to develop and implant an elite religion,
but one that was accessible and comprehensible to everyone. Their use of
and reliance upon the miraculous intervention of saints, the power of
relics, devotions and penitence formed part of this strategy (even though
we might regard it rather as an impediment to the eradication of
'superstition'). 2 For the 'conquest' of the masses the Jesuits depended on
preaching and the evocative power of language and gesture, stressing
affectivity and emotionalism in order to appeal to the imagination of the
faithful and to bring about conversion.3 It was an approach which would
later provoke opposition to their missionary activity, whilst at the
same time conditioning the strategies adopted by the other missionary
congregations. The form of popular mission most commonly practised by
the Jesuits was the central or Segnerian mission, so called because it was
formulated by the Modenese Jesuit Paolo Segneri, Sr (i624-94).* ^
involved choosing an urban locale so that people of both the town and
surrounding countryside could participate, and it generally lasted from
eight to ten days before missioners moved on to another locality nearby.
It relied on its intensity and extraordinary character as an event in the
lives of the townspeople to bring about repentance. Complementing this
was the parish mission, lasting several days, which saw the missioners
going from village to village on a working tour through the countryside.
Because of their short duration these missions were described as ' raids'
(missioni scorriere)}
While the central missions are well represented in surviving records, the
parish missions are less so, perhaps because they tended to be more
workaday and repetitive in style and structure. If they are mentioned at
all it is usually in the litterae annuae, which contain a synthesis of
noteworthy events and accomplishments, gathered from reports sent by
every college in the kingdom. They are at once more generic, citing rather
stereotypical achievements or occurrences, and more specific than the so-

2
Ibid. 652.
3
Paola Vismara Chiappa,' Forme della pieta barocca nelle campagne lombarde tra Sei
e Settecento', in A. De Maddalena, E. Rotelli, and G. Barbarisi (eds), Economia, istiluzioni,
cultura in Lombardia nell'eta di Maria Teresa, II: Cultura e societa, Bologna 1982, 815-16.
4
For biographies of Jesuit missioners active throughout the Italian peninsula, see
Armando Guidetti, Le missioni popolari: i grandi Gesuiti italiani, Milan 1988.
5
For a description ofJesuit missionary procedure, see Elisa Novi Chavarria,' L'attivita
missionaria dei Gesuiti nel Mezzogiorno d'ltalia tra xvi e xvm secolo', in G. Galasso and
C. Russo (eds), Per la storia sociale e religiosa del Mezzogiorno d'ltalia, ii, Naples 1982, 159-85.
For a study of the other orders active in and around Naples, see Maria Gabriella Rienzo,
' II processo di cristianizzazione e le missioni popolari nel Mezzogiorno: aspetti istituzionali
e socio-religiosi', ibid. i. 440-81. An introductory study of the early Jesuit missions in
Apulia is Mario Rosa, 'Strategia missionaria gesuitica in Puglia agli inizi del Seicento',
in his Religione e societa tra Cinque e Seicento, Bari 1976, 245-72.
271
 DAVID GENTILCORE
called mission 'relations', because they do not seek to recount the mission
itself but one or two salient events.6
The central missions, on the other hand, allowed for elaborate
penitential processions and ardent sermons, staged acts of reconciliation
and the conversion of obstinate sinners before large crowds in the
cathedral or main square, as we shall see. They were perfectly suited to the
mission relations which the missioners wrote and often published:
detailed, vivid, rhetorical and triumphalist in style. These were meant to
serve as models and sources of inspiration for future missions, as well as
recording the triumphs and successes of the Jesuit missioners for posterity
to the general glory of the Society. It is clear too that the published
relations, with which every missioner would have been familiar, tended to
influence the way in which other missions were perceived and recorded,
even as they were taking place. For this reason the accounts contain
numerous stereotypes and topoi, such as the ignorance and superstition of
the rural masses. Regions like southern Italy, Andalusia, the Dauphine
and parts of Brittany were referred to as 'the Indies', a conception which
served to heighten the 'successes' of the missioner. This topos had its
origins in attempts to transfer the crusading impulse of extra-European
missionary activity into the interior regions of Europe. Thus when the
missioner and preacher St Francesco de Geronimo (i 642-1716) asked his
Jesuit superiors to send him to Japan to give his life for the faith, he was
told instead that' he was worthy to be the Apostle in the Indies of this city
and Kingdom of Naples'. 7 The predominance of such a topos meant that
missioners tended not to distinguish the specific situations which they
faced.8 The non-Christian religions of New World 'heathen' and the
' superstitious' beliefs of European peasants were comparable, since both
were seen to occupy the same end of the religious spectrum, in opposition
to true faith. Both were in equal need of evangelisation. In both the New
World and the Old the 'cultural colonisation'9 of the Jesuits was meant
to be both evangelising and civilising. Thus the establishment of Marian
congregations for the laity was accompanied by the foundation of
educational colleges for the formation of local elites. The crusade-like
impetus behind Jesuit missions in the New World was translated to the
internal missions within Europe. The 'relations' reflect this sense of firm

6
For the year 1649 there exist both a relation of the mission in Lecce and a reference
to it in the annual letters, allowing this comparison, whereas generally in the surviving
records the relation of a mission takes the place of a reference in the annual letters: ARSI,
Neap. 74, xxvi; xxvii, fos 251-2V, 254.
7
ASV, Congregazione dei Riti, no. 2022, fo. 232.
8
Cf. Adriano Prosperi, '"Otras Indias": missionari della Controriforma tra contadini
e selvaggi', in Scienze, credenze occulte, livelli di cultura: convegno internazionale di studi, Florence
1982, 206-34, a t PP- 217-18; and Jean Delumeau, 'La storia della cristianizzazione', in
his Cristianita e cristianizzazione, Casale Monferrato 1983, 177.
9
The expression is used by Alain Croix with regard to the Jesuit missions in rural
Brittany: La Bretagne aux i6e el lye siecles: la vie, la mort, lafoi, Paris 1981, ii. 1242.
272
 KINGDOM OF NAPLES, l60O-l800
conviction. According to these the missioners could do no wrong, and
their struggles always bore fruit, no matter what the opposition. Although
this attitude may distort the ' facts' of the mission, it is consistent with the
sense the missioners themselves had of the importance of their activities.
First of all, the presence of the missioners had to be demonstrated to have
divine sanction. The numerous miracles achieved through devotions they
had introduced - especially to St Francis Xavier, the 'Apostle of the
Indies'-were testimony to this. So were visions by townspeople which
described the future coming of the missioners before anyone could have
known of their imminent arrival. When snow fell during a mission in the
summer of 1650 it was interpreted as a divine sign forecasting the mission's
success.10
The various other missionary congregations active in the Italian
peninsula sought to take into account some of the criticisms levelled at the
Jesuits, each developing its own orientation and strategy. Opposition to
the emotionalism and theatricality of Jesuit devotions and the fear-
inducing nature of their sermons will be further explored below. In 1746
the Jesuit-educated friar and missioner St Leonardo da Porto Maurizio
(1676-1751) wrote to the bishop of Ferrara about the various forms of
mission then in operation. In his letter, he does not condemn the Jesuit
missions primarily for their externalised devotions, but for their relatively
short duration:

I see two ways of missionising in the Church of God. The first is of the Fathers
of the Society [of Jesus], which is all fire with many processions and outward
forms. The second is of the Missionary Fathers of St Vincent [de Paul, or the
Lazarists], all calm, excluding all outward forms. Both are fruitful, and yet I, who
travel the world, have seen with my own eyes that the second way is much more
fruitful than the first, which lasts but eight or ten days, and no more, nor does
it provide enough time for the loosening of all knots in the confessional.... On the
contrary, in the second way of missionising work is done in the confessional and
each mission lasts a month, and even more, and consciences are calmed.... With
all this, I have judged it wise to adopt a middle course: I make use of the
outwardness of the Jesuits, but with moderation, and I reject the brevity of
time.11

The Lazarists founded their first Italian house in Rome in 1642, but it
was not until 1729 that they were able to establish themselves in the
province of Terra d'Otranto, at Oria. The missioners, many from
Piedmont, emphasised the catechetical element, and besides teaching
moral theology and conducting spiritual exercises at their residence, were

10
11
ARSI, Neap. 75, ii, fo. 21.
St Leonardo da Porto Maurizio, Opere complete, Venice 1868, iv. 556-9; cited in
Giuseppe Orlandi, 'La missione popolare redentorista in Italia, dal Settecento ai giorni
nostri', SHCSR xxxiii (1985), 51-141, at p. 59. The issue is devoted to the popular missions
of the Redemptorists in Europe.
273
 DAVID GENTILCORE
soon called to run the Oria seminary. In 1732 they established a residence
at Lecce as well and, despite the financial difficulties brought about by
this overextension, managed to complete construction of their house in
1743.12 As at Oria, the Lazarists here combined active missionary work13
with the teaching of ordinands and the directing of the diocesan seminary,
entrusted to them in 1740. The sermons of the Lazarist missioners dealt
with the typical baroque themes of the fear of death, divine wrath and the
risk of final impenitence. Yet the simplicity of their sermons is in striking
contrast to the theatricality adopted by the Jesuits. In their manner of
presentation Lazarist preachers sought to be 'popular', to ensure
comprehension by all the faithful. Thus their Rule directed:
Be very popular; that is, adapt yourself to the people's capabilities, leaving out
subtleties in order to stick to what is fruitful and useful, and always make use of
our ordinary method, above all not forgetting these four points in every sermon:
(1) state and explain with clarity what you want to convince the people of; (2)
talk on those of its themes which are most perceptible to and in keeping with the
capabilities of those to whom you are speaking; (3) give specific and easy means
of developing or doing it; (4) never neglect to anticipate the objections which
could be made, nor ever say anything confusing which might leave the simple
people in some error or doubt.14
The Redemptorists of St Alfonso de' Liguori sought to mix the
penitential and catechistic missionary styles, a strategy believed to be the
most suited to the rural masses of southern Italy. Whilst their preaching
was thus every bit as emotive and theatrical as that of the Jesuits,
de' Liguori believed that it had to be followed by pious devotions and
practices {funzioni) in order to bring about lasting conversions. The
strategy of the Redemptorists, more so than that of the Jesuits, tended to
be popolareggiante, meeting popular culture half way. Theirs was a piety at
once influencing and influenced by local concepts of the sacred, a world
which de' Liguori knew intimately. De' Liguori himself ensured that the
emphasis of the Redemptorists would be on missionising in rural areas,
which he believed provided more fertile ground than the cities. In part
this was a reaction to the increasing opposition shown by urban elites
towards the Jesuit central mission, as will be shown in the final section of
this article. It was also due to a more generalised ecclesiastic trend
towards the countryside. During the eighteenth century, in marked
contrast to the seventeenth, it is no longer ' the city which has to unify the
scattered, suspect and feared world of the countryside with its religion;
12
Pompeo Silva, Cenni storici sulla Congregazione delta Missione in Italia (1642-^25),
Piacenza 1925, 170-8.
13
'Libro in cui si notano le Missioni fatte dalla Casa della Missione di Lecce', Archivio
della Casa della Missione, Lecce, i. 1733-1902.
11
Archivio del Collegio Leoniano, Rome, 'Ordini per quelli che vanno in Missione',
fo. 17V; cited in Luigi Mezzadri, 'Le missioni popolari della Congregazioni della Missione
nello Stato della Chiesa (1642-1700)', Rivista di storia della Chiesa in Italia xxxiii (1979),
12-44, a t P- 35-
274
 KINGDOM OF NAPLES, l600-l800

rather, it is the religion of the countryside which has to be safeguarded

and proposed as a model for the cities undergoing progressive dechristiani-
sation'. 15

Different missionary strategies demanded different methods and tech-

niques. An examination of these necessarily involves a survey of the
devotions introduced, first those of the Jesuits, reactions to them and
adaptations made by the other congregations. The mission held in Lecce
in 1639 is typical of the Jesuit central mission.16 On the Saturday
afternoon before it began, notices were posted announcing the mission.
Missioners processed with banner and crucifix inviting people to
congregate on Sunday at the bishop's palace for the start of the mission.
The next morning the Blessed Sacrament was exposed in the city's three
parishes. It was exposed again in the afternoon at the bishop's palace
(where it would be exposed every afternoon of the mission), during which
time a sermon was also preached. This was followed by a procession of the
sacrament through the city, led by the mayor, who carried the banner of
the city, and the nobility. There followed the rector of the Jesuit college
carrying a crucifix, with four priests bearing lighted torches, confratern-
ities of the city, and finally the clergy bearing the sacrament. The
activities of the mission began on each of the following weekdays at dawn,
with an exposition of the sacrament and sermons for those who worked.
This was followed by preaching in the parishes, after which the sacrament
was borne in procession back to the bishop's palace. Every morning
processions would arrive from the nearby towns, the people dressed as
penitents, converging on the bishop's palace. In the afternoons children
were taught the rudiments of Christian doctrine in preparation for First
Communion. In the evenings, after vespers, general instruction was given,
along with meditation and prayer. Confessions were heard throughout the
day. At night processions from the college, consisting of priests with
crucifix and torches, and confraternity members holding skulls and
singing the Miserere, wound their way into various infamous parts of the
city, where sermons were preached, urging sinners to repent. People
attending the sermon were then urged to follow the procession back to the
Jesuit church, outside which another sermon was preached. Afterwards
the men went inside to participate in penitential exercises. On the
morning of the final day, a Sunday, the principal mass of the mission was
celebrated. In the afternoon another sermon was followed by a pontifical
benediction. The mission was brought to a close with a final procession.
The Redemptorists followed in the missionary tradition of the Jesuits,
whilst at the same time seeking to remedy the shortcomings of the
penitential mission. For example, they introduced particular devotional
practices [funzioni). Such were the exercises of the Devout Life: regular

15
Adriano Prosperi, 'II missionario', in Rosario Villari (ed.), L'uomo barocco, Rome
16
1991, 179-218, at p. 216. ARSI, Neap. 73, xliv, fos 453-5.

275
 DAVID GENTILCORE
half-hour instruction on prayer, preparation and thanksgiving for
communion, followed by an explanation of the 'Rule of Life for the
Devout Christian' and brought to a close by brief meditation on the
Passion or the sorrows of the Virgin.17 While innovating in such ways, the
Redemptorists adopted many Jesuit practices and expanded upon them.
Examples of these are the sentimenti di notte, evening exhortations consisting
of a procession from the church following the evening sermon, with
torches and crucifix, and hymn-singing, leading to the main square where
a hn&{fervorino would be preached, after which the procession would wind
its way back to the church. To prolong the mission's impact further, the
Redemptorist missioners would return for several days four or five months
later to conduct an ' exercise of spiritual renewal', consisting of confessions,
brief sermons, instruction and spiritual counselling.
Like the other congregations, the Redemptorists too taught the need for
thorough and complete confession and the associated reception of the
eucharist, with the hope that these would become regular habits. As the
missioner Vincenzo Gagliardi wrote: ' Since the aim of the mission is to
return all souls into God's grace and on to the straight road to eternal life,
therefore [the missioner] should not ask for more from the mission than a
good confession and a fervent communion.>18 The missioners put great
emphasis on general confession, aware of the large numbers of
'sacrilegious' (i.e. incomplete) confessions made to parish priests. Even
these were often infrequent, perhaps made only on one's deathbed. This
widespread resistance among the faithful to confession can be attributed
not so much to religious indifference as to the difficulty inherent in
confessing one's sins to the parish priest, a member of the same face-to-face
community. The missioner, an outsider, unknown to the townspeople and
only temporarily in the community, did not pose the same psychological
problem.19 Furthermore his training, education and experience in the
confessional certainly placed him in a better position than the average
parish priest of the time. The emphasis on frequent confession, first
adopted by the Jesuits, was thus to be a common feature of all missionary
strategies. Not only was it an important part of baroque piety; it also
offered a tangible sign of' conversion' during the course of the mission,
and its habitual practice provided a means of prolonging the mission's
effects. The importance of confession was such that it came to dominate
religious instruction during the mission, basic as this was. The same was
17
Samuel Boland, 'The missionary methods of the Redemptorists', SHCSR xxx (1982),
401-47, at p. 409.
18
Vincenzo Gagliardi, ' Direttorio Apostolico o sia Metodo di Missione in cui ci sono
gli esercizj da farsi in essa per bene delle anime', 1806, fo. 156: manuscript reprinted with
introduction and appendixes by Giuseppe Orlandi in SHCSR xxx (1982), 5-289. Orlandi
notes that it was written in a very fine hand to minimise the use of paper and bound
compactly in robust leather covers (160) so that it could be carried from town to town on
missions, given the fact that many areas were without books or else the missioner might
not have time to prepare himself: introduction, 29.
19
Jean Delumeau, 'Missioni "interne" nel XVII secolo', in Cristianita, 206-9.
276
 KINGDOM OF NAPLES, l6oO-l8oO

true for all the missionary congregations. Catechetical instruction was

regarded by the missioners not as an end in itself but as a means to an end:
' both for a good confession which is the effect of the holy mission, and in
order to remedy previous invalid and sacrilegious confessions', as the
Redemptorist Gagliardi put it.20 Likewise, the lessons of Catholic doctrine
imparted by the Jesuit missioners had as their focus sin and the need for
confession. The subjects of the ten lessons (roughly one a day) were as
follows: (1) On the need for a complete confession; (2) On the sorrow
necessary for confession; (3) On the resolve necessary for confession; (4)
On the obligation to make restitution and give alms; (5) On baptism and
matrimony; (6) On the most serious sins of blasphemy; (7) On the
seriousness of mortal sin; (8) On the passions of hate and love; (9) On the
seriousness of sins of dishonesty; (10) On the remedies for avoiding falling
into sin.21
In general terms, the Lazarist mission was much simpler and less
sensational than that of either the Redemptorists or the Jesuits. It was
characterised by three features: a sermon early in the morning before
people went to work, a 'little catechism' for children in the afternoon, and
catechism for everyone else in the evening. It differed from the Jesuit
mission in its length: at least two weeks in the smaller communities and
up to a month in the larger ones, allowing for the careful confession of the
entire population. Moreover, reports of these missions sought to be
relatively objective. They contain few references to miracles during the
missions or to divine justification of the activities of the missioners (in
contrast to the Jesuit mission relations) and they judge responses to the
missions as either 'very fervent', 'fervent' or 'cold'. 22
As part of their missionary method all congregations relied on the
introduction of new devotions or the further spread of already established
ones. The Jesuits stressed devotions such as the rosary, 'something which
occasioned great affection for the Society on the part of the Order of
Preachers', as one relation put it.23 In this way they sought to complement
rather than replace what local pastoral activity there was and to avoid
alienating other members of the clergy. They encouraged typical Counter-
Reformation devotions such as the cult of the guardian angel, the 'good
death', and of their own St Francis Xavier. Other devotions reflected the
Jesuits' strategy of'accommodation'. This meant replacing practices they
considered unorthodox - the result of what they regarded as ignorance
and superstition - with more orthodox customs.24 In this way the
20
Gagliardi, 'Direttorio Apostolico', fo. 134.
21
Giovanni Pietro Pinamonti, 'Istruzioni per le Missioni', ARSI, Opera Nostrorum, 225.
22
Mezzadri,' Missioni popolari', 21. For this shift in emphasis cf. Delumeau,' Missioni
23
"interne"', 185. ARSI, Neap. 1, iv, fo. 28.
24
In the overseas missions ' accommodation' also entailed the assuming of local dress
and customs, but only in societies considered advanced and whose religions were deemed
non-idolatrous, such as that of China. Missions here were reserved for the ruling classes.
(For an example of this strategy, see Jonathan Spence, The memory palace of Matteo Ricci,
London 1984.) The strategies used in the European missions, however, had more in
277
 DAVID GENTILCORE

celebrations of Carnival, May Day, St John's Eve and other feasts,

considered scandalous and unchristian, were replaced by processions and
religious drama, and exercises of piety like the Forty-hours devotion. By
means of such substitutions, the Jesuits attempted to put Tridentine
reforms into practice, taking religious initiative away from the laity. For
instance, the first time the Forty-hours devotion was 'staged' during
Carnival was at Macerata in 1556, to lure responsible citizens away from
a Carnival comedy which the Jesuits had labelled impure and obscene. To
achieve this they exposed the blessed sacrament 'with a beautiful and
unusual apparato of lights and decorations'. 25 Such was its success that by
the end of the century the devotion was practised at all Jesuit colleges and
houses during Carnival. Another Jesuit but typically baroque devotion
was the act of humility called the strascino ('exercise of the trailing of the
tongue'). This entailed the penitent's kneeling down, lowering his head
and dragging his tongue along the ground in self-abasement. The
missioners realised that newly introduced devotions such as this would
have more appeal if first performed or adopted by influential members of
society. Thus the relation of a 1669 mission to the town of Putignano
happily records that the vicar, ' realising that his action was all the more
meritorious because it would serve as an example,... sought to bring lost
lambs back into the fold of Christ by the renown of this public
mortification'. Along with many of the local clergy, he performed the
strascino after the sermon and acts of penance, dragging his tongue along
the ground 'from the door of the church to the main altar, so as to come
to know his Creator, by seeking pardon from Him for his offences'.26
The Jesuits were als"o responsible for the practice of the ' Slaves of the
Virgin Mary'. This was an ad hoc sodality consisting of seven men chosen
from amongst the citizens of the town. In a typical devotion the 'slaves'
would process in chains to the parish church, the leader holding a crucifix,
where they prostrated themselves before the main altar seeking forgiveness
for their sins and dedicating themselves to the Queen of Heaven.
To introduce greater devotion to the Virgin Our Lady, we saw to the making of
several slaves of the Virgin in each town... including priests, noblemen and
commoners, who were to act as so many mirrors for the rest of the people. It is
hard to believe with what desire and craving each person desired such glorious
chains.27
The 'Slaves of the Virgin' resulted in short-term, shock responses of great
fervour, though it is difficult to establish how long this state lasted.
According to the relation recounting the missions of 1666 just cited, 'some
[clerics] offered to fast for many Saturdays, others to say the mass of the
common with those applied in the Americas, whose peoples were regarded as idolatrous
and less advanced. According to this categorisation, American 'savage' equalled
European 'peasant': Prosperi, 'II missionario', 203.
25
Nicolo Orlandini, Historiae Societatis Iesu prima pars, Rome 1615, 540, cited in Pietro
Tacchi Venturi, Storia della Compagnia di Gesit in Italia, narrata col sussidio difonti inedite, i,
26
Rome 1950, 240-1. ARSI, Neap. 76 1, xviii, fos 96-7. " Ibid, iv, fo. 27.
278
 KINGDOM OF NAPLES, 16OO-18OO
Virgin on Saturday, [and] some young members of the clergy wanted to
cut their hair, by whose example all the town's clergy cut their hair and
some performed various acts of charity in aid of the poor'. 28 On occasion
this devotion took on carnivalesque forms, not only by bringing rich and
poor together, but by the use of masquerading as well. Thus in one town
' the landowners of the place wanted to be Slaves of the Virgin in the chain
of the commoners. The Duke of Secli did likewise, as did a knight of
Matino, who even dressed as a peasant, with a cross on his shoulders,
[and] wanted to lead his peasants'. 29 The fact that carnivalesque elements
should play such an important role in these devotions may seem
somewhat ironic considering the missioners' desire to eliminate Carnival.
But in fact it was part of the strategy of accommodation, mentioned
above. In this sense we might speak of the Christianisation of the
carnivalesque, although Jesuit opponents of the time were less charitable.
The carnivalesque element is especially evident in the all too numerous
accounts of penitential processions. These processions came to constitute
one of the most controversial aspects of the Jesuit mission. A typical
procession was a real mise-en-scene, including not only flagellants, but
people dressed up as saints. It might also take the form of the procession
which wound its way from the town of Surbo to meet the urban mission
in Lecce, 'with a beautiful representation of the sacred passion with living
characters'. 30 A 1646 procession through the town of Squinzano must
have been quite a gruesome spectacle: it brought together all the town's
clergy, nobility and people, covered with ashes, barefoot and bound
together with chains and cords, like prisoners, according to the analogy
made by the author of the relation. One local baron beat himself with a
stone, aided by his ten-year-old son, the latter dressed in a Franciscan
habit. A reformed prostitute appeared as Mary Magdalene, dressed in
sackcloth and with a trap about her neck, beating her breast with a stone.
And a hermit, dressed as St Jerome, scourged himself.31 The theatricality
was not limited to penitential processions. In one community procession
which wound its way from a small village to participate in the eucharist
during a central mission, ' all the married women wore crowns of thorns
and carried babes in their arms, likewise crowned, like so many statues of
the Virgin', according to the author of the relation.32 Indeed masquer-
ading seems to have been particularly important in the procession
preceding the children's First Communion, as the Jesuits sought to
impress upon the faithful the importance of the event. The boys were
dressed as angels, bearing garlands of laurel and palm, while the girls
' portrayed various Virgins: among others, one girl portrayed St Ursula,
[walking] beneath her banner, [whilst] other girls depicted the mysteries
of St Apollonia, St Lucy, St Catherine virgin and martyr and countless
others'. 33
28 29 30
Ibid. fo. 27V. Ibid. ARSI, Neap. 73, xliv, fo. 454V.
31 32
Ibid. Neap. 74, xvi, fo. 215. Ibid. Neap. 76 i, iv, fo. 27.
33
Ibid, xviii, fo. io8v.
279
 DAVID GENTILCORE
Another important facet of the mission was what the Jesuits called 'the
spectacle of universal forgiveness'. This entailed a publicly celebrated act
of reconciliation or arbitration between two disputing parties. The aim
was to encourage those witnessing the event to forgive in turn those who
had wronged them, with the missioners acting as experienced mediators.34
This was an application of the mediaeval arbitrato, a form of judicial
process often used to end the private feuds and vendettas so common in
face-to-face societies. The arbitrato supplemented the activity of the
regular tribunals and was based on the free choice of judges by the two
parties, followed by a public ceremony of'pacification', all of which was
recorded by a notary. The act of reconciliation itself was highly
choreographed and prearranged, including spoken parts to be recited by
both parties.35 Such was the importance of these 'pacifications' to the
Jesuit missioners that they generally merit a section of their own in the
mission 'relations'. They were held in church, following the sermon, when
the feet of Christ crucified were kissed. If the case required it, both parties
swore that they would abide by the decision to be taken by two judges
within twenty-four hours.36 The two men - women were not deemed
appropriate subjects for so public a ceremony - then remained for the
discipline or mortification which followed. If the relations are anything to
go by, the results of the ceremony could be quite impressive. One example
will suffice. In the town of Soleto, in the Greek-speaking area of Grecia,
the two opposing heads of a violent feud and their respective followers
were reconciled in 1668, after an attempt by the missioners during a
previous mission had failed. In this rare case the normal triumphalism of
the relations is contradicted briefly by the real difficulties of missionising
which confronted the Jesuits in Soleto. The missioners at first turned
down the requests of the archbishop to conduct another mission there,
saying they had 'other cities to evangelise' and citing the obstinacy and
pride of some of the townspeople, the 'Greek faith' of others (the
Orthodox rite was still prevalent in some towns of the Grecia) and the
unwillingness of those guilty of causing and perpetuating the feud to
humble themselves. But in the end they decided to brave the town once
more. The acknowledgement of their initial failure and reluctance to
persevere served only to dramatise and heighten the importance of the
final achievement, the reconciliation of the two warring factions and the
pacification of the town.
In order to bind them closer together in holy peace the priest made them Slaves
of the Virgin with a rope about their necks, and they all bound themselves
34
Scipione Paolucci, Missioni depadri della Compagnia di Giesu nel Regno di Napoli, Naples
1651, 127.
36
Anna Maria Corbo, 'Relazione descrittiva degli archivi notarili romani dei secoli
xiv-xv nell'Archivio di Stato e nell'Archivio Capitolino', in P. Brezzi and E. Lee (eds),
Sources of social history: private acts of the late Middle Ages, Toronto 1984, 49-67, at pp. 61-2.
My thanks to Dr Lee for drawing this to my attention.
36
Paolucci, Missioni de padri, 138.
280
 KINGDOM OF NAPLES, 16OO-18OO
together with much affectionate tenderness and tears. Thus bound, they went
down into the church where the other [missionary] priest hadfinishedgiving the
meditation to the women and was engaging them with the holy Rosary to
implore peace from the Virgin and St Anne. As soon as the women saw [the men]
so bound, they wept in jubilation, and all the wives and other relatives were
reconciled with one another. In an instant the news spread throughout the town
and, as if an earthquake had occurred, everyone immediately left their houses
and children, and with their hands raised heavenwards they praised God, the
mission, the priests, and ran to the church, the girls even kissing the ground,
saying over and over in their Greek tongue, 'Lu, loghimeno o theos': that is, ' Praise
God, praise God'.37
The preaching style of the Jesuit missioner priests was particularly
intense. These 'sacred orators' sought to move the hearts and minds of
their listeners to confession and repentance during the brief duration of
the mission. To help bring about the desired effect, they made frequent
use of props: skulls, whips, chains and torches (used to singe the skin to
recreate the torments of Hell before a captive audience). Certain sacred
orators were past masters and had 'for their particular task that of going
about the entire Kingdom [of Naples], conducting missions'.38 One such
'star missioner' was Onofrio Saraco (1605-50). He brought about many
conversions by his fervent preaching, despite having a pronounced stutter,
the Jesuit historian Paolucci informs us.39 Saraco made use of the
following technique. Upon arrival at a town, he would secretly find out
the names of some of the principal townspeople who had died recently.
Before beginning a sermon he would call out these names one by one. On
being told that they had all recently passed away, he would launch
suddenly into his sermon - on death and the pains of Hell - 'not without
the palpable horror of whoever was present; and, as in hearts already half
won by those pious sentiments, the impression made by his words was no
less immediate than great'. 40
A feature of the mission which sought to bring about permanent
change, or at least prolong the mission's impact, was the introduction of
Marian congregations or sodalities. This technique was employed
especially by the Jesuits. The founding of congregations in every town and
village, as one Jesuit relation put it, ' was the greatest good that could be
achieved, because with their partaking of the sacrament, their exhort-
ations and disciplines, all the good done during the mission is
maintained'. 41 The Jesuit network of congregations, oratories and
conservatories (for girls) expanded rapidly from the 1590s onwards
through missionary activity, to the point where they became a
characteristic and comparatively permanent sign of Jesuit passage
37 3S
A R S I , Neap. 76 1, x, fo. 53r-v. Ibid. Neap. 75, viii, fo. 5 3 .
39
Paolucci, Missioni depadri, 278. T h e reserved section of the Jesuit Catalogue (catalogus
secretus) for 1649 describes Saraco as being o f ' b o n i ingenij, iudicij, ac prudentiae... aptus
ad d o c e n d u m rheotricam & ad missiones': A R S I , Neap. 83, fo. 167.
40 41
Paolucci, Missioni di padri, 281. A R S I , Neap. 76 1, iv, fo. 28.
281
 DAVID GENTILCORE
through the diverse areas of the kingdom, from important urban centres
to the smallest rural communities.42
The associations were formed in order to bring about a lasting
missionary spirit in the community, and could influence religious life in a
way that the missions alone could not. Members of congregations
sometimes accompanied the Jesuits on their missions, participating in
processions, chanting litanies to the Virgin, listening to sermons, going to
confession, performing acts of penance and mortification, preparing
themselves for communion and giving alms: in short, demonstrating how
best to follow a mission and benefit from it.43 Furthermore, the sodalities
provided the laity with important roles, which included providing a
Christian example to the community through piety and charitable works,
teaching catechism and encouraging 'correct' beliefs in others.44 The
practices adopted — morning prayer, evening examination of conscience,
bi-monthly confession, frequent communion and religious retreats -
eventually became accepted devotional models for, if not always actual
practices in, the wider community.
These sodalities were not only for the laity. In fact, the founding of
special sodalities for the local clergy was an important initiative, in that
it was the clergy alone who could ensure that the momentum established
by the mission was not dissipated immediately. Throughout the early
modern period, the local clergy of southern Italy continued to be woefully
inadequate, despite the reforms proposed by the Council of Trent. This
was due primarily to the lack of proper seminaries in the province - most
dioceses had no seminary at all till the mid eighteenth century - and the
organisation of the clergy into chiese ricettizie, whose closed collegiate
structure rendered the clergy impervious to reform.45 The Jesuits'
insistence on frequent communion and a knowledge of the catechism,
however basic, overturned long-standing rules and traditions.46 However,
they realised that the success or failure of their reforms and devotions
depended on a well-prepared and well-disposed clergy. Thus where the
Jesuit missioners found that the local clergy was uneducated and not even
capable of celebrating mass properly, the founding of a congregation was
one way of bringing about improvement.47 Or, where the clergy fell short
in its duty to say masses for the dead, they were given a sermon and
spiritual exercises on the subject (aimed at an immediate impact) and a
42
Cf. Rosa, 'Strategia', 165. The list compiled in July 1607 is testimony to this: ARSI,
'De Sodalitatibus in prov. Neap.', Neap. 72, xv.
43
Louis Chatellier, The Europe of the devout: the Catholic Reformation and the formation of a
new society, trans. J . Birrell, C a m b r i d g e 1989, 2 1 .
44
Pasquale Lopez, 'Le confraternite laicali in Italia e la Riforma Cattolica', Rivista di
studi salernitani ii (1969), 153-238, at p. 183.
45
The 'condition of the clergy' and Tridentine reform is discussed in David Gentilcore,
From bishop to witch: the system of the sacred in early modern Terra d'Otranto, Manchester 1992,
46
ch. ii. Prosperi, 'Missionario', 205.
47
This was the method adopted in an unnamed town during a mission in 1650: ARSI,
Neap. 75, ii, fo. 2iv.
282
 KINGDOM OF NAPLES, l 6 0 0 - l 8 0 0

congregation 'della Buona Morte' was instituted for them (for long-term
effect).48 Such attempts were not always well received.
How do the other missionary congregations compare? To remain with
the sodalities, it is worth mentioning that the Lazarists sought to establish
a compagnia della carita in each parish they missionised, similar in intent to
the Marian congregation of the Jesuits. However, not all the congregations
favoured the setting up of associations for the laity. The Apostolic
Missioners for instance, founded at Naples in 1646 and brought to Lecce
in 1705, founded their congregations - dedicated to 'cases of conscience'
— amongst the clergy only. This dedication is another example of the
importance placed on the confessional as the place where religious
conversion was consolidated. Moreover, the experience of the Apostolic
Missioners taught them that the lay associations, 'besides alienating the
parishioners from the parish churches, eventually become a seed-bed for
disputes'. 49 By the time this was written, in their 1768 rules for
missionising, lay confraternities were increasingly regarded as an
impediment to the building of a strong and flourishing parish structure.
What was once seen as a solution to the problem was now believed to
perpetuate it. The parish itself, and the preparation of the parish clergy,
took on an increasing importance for late eighteenth-century missions, a
focus and aim that was to become predominant during the nineteenth
century.
Although the other missionary congregations largely rejected the Jesuit
penitential procession, for reasons that will be explored later, they
carefully staged the public arbitrations between disputing parties which
were so important to the Jesuits. However, this did not necessarily mean
an acceptance of the sort of preaching that would accompany such
occasions. The various congregations reacted quite differently to the
preaching methods used by the Jesuits. The Lazarist preachers, for
example, adopted a very different style, based on simplicity and directness.
Though the topics they chose for their sermons were similar to those of
both the Jesuits and Redemptorists, the Lazarists sought to bring about
conversion by emphasising the intrinsic nature of their themes rather than
by the external and theatrical means used by the other two groups.
The Jesuit method was in many ways perpetuated by the Redemp-
torists. They shared the same emotive style, the latter borrowing much
from the former. To bring images of everlasting torment in Hell to life for
the villagers, a Redemptorist technique was to call upon a 'deceased
countryman' to preach to the assembled faithful about the torments of
Hell. In the darkened church, the preacher would proceed to light a torch
beneath a skull he held up in one hand, with which he would conduct a
48
Ibid. Neap. 76 i, xi, fos 6 8 - 9 .
49
'Regole particolari per le sante missioni di fuori della Congregazione delle
Apostoliche Missione', Naples 1768, 36, 45-6; cited in Marcello Semeraro, Le Apostoliche
Missioni: la congregazione dei 'Padri Salesiani' 0 'Preti Pietosi' nel Sette-Ottocento Leccese, Rome
1980, 36.
283
 DAVID GENTILGORE
dialogue, posing questions such as 'what is it like in the other life?', and
answering in a different tone of voice.50 Another technique, even more
theatrical, was called the 'sermon of the veils' and dealt with the Last
Judgement. Following a sermon inducing all sinners to repentance before
it was too late, the preacher was to raise the crucifix in order to give the
blessing but then say:
'How can I bless them', Christ asked me, 'if one day I shall have to damn them?
And so, no, I cannot bless them tonight', Jesus Christ told me. So, sinners, there
will be no blessing tonight; in fact, Jesus Christ has turned his back on you.
At this point the preacher was to turn the crucifix around, showing its
back to the congregation and to cover it with one of the veils. But this was
only the beginning. According to specific instructions, he was to remove
the crown from the statue of the Virgin before the sermon and procure
some pins ('because a needle is no good'). He then invited the sinners to
have recourse to the Virgin Mary:
'But do you know what Mary says? " I cannot be the Queen of Mercy any longer,
and therefore I take off my crown."' The crown will then be rotated about on
stage and placed on a chair, and then [the preacher] returns to [the statue of]
Mary and says: 'And why won't you be our Queen anymore? "What Queen?
I shan't even be your Mother, and so as not to see you damned I'll cover my
face."' At this point the Madonna will be covered with the other veil. Then the
draped crucifix and veiled Madonna will be held up and [the preacher] will say:
'There is no blessing'. And in saying this, he will put out the torches, the candles
before the Madonna and the other lamps.51
Through their heated sermonising and favouring of emotive devotions
like the strascino - appropriately practised following a sermon on blas-
phemy - the Redemptorists sought to reject the austere faith being
proposed in many church circles during the second half of the eighteenth
century and to speak directly to the people they were evangelising. On the
penultimate evening of a mission they would plant five Calvary crosses
outside the town and distribute little crosses to be taken home, bestowing
indulgences, in memory of the mission.52 As tangible reminders of their
missions the Redemptorist missioners also distributed blessed rosaries,
crosses and the so-called abitini di Maria, each accompanied by
indulgences. The abitini di Maria were little cloth pouches, often printed
with the image of the Virgin or a saint, worn like scapulars about the neck
or sewn into clothes to protect the wearer. They were popularly believed
to have thaumaturgical powers.

What was the impact of this missionary activity in the Terra d'Otranto?
How did it compare with the aims of the missioners themselves? What the
Jesuit missioners expected as the successful outcome of a standard mission
60
Gagliardi, 'Direttorio Apostolico', fo. 154. A similar sermon by the Redemptorist
Ludovico Altarelli is cited by Gabriele De Rosa in Vescovi, popolo e magia nel Sud, Naples
51
1983, 215. Gagliardi, 'Direttorio Apostolico', fos 173-4.
52
Ibid, fos 267-8.
284
 KINGDOM OF NAPLES, 16OO-18OO
is indicated at the end of the 1639 mission relation (quoted at the
beginning of the previous section). It stressed the confessions and
conversions achieved, and the recognition received by the mission:
Confessions which for many years and even all life long had been badly made,
were made anew. Many loans for different sums were repaid, as we found out
from the people to whom the money had been returned, who came to thank us.
Many people went to confession, not having done so for the space of twenty or
twenty-five years Lecce resembled another Nineveh converted; we cannot
walk through the streets without everyone blessing and honouring us.53
The ' successes' of the Jesuit missions, what we could refer to as their
impact, are comparatively easy to document over the short term. Let us
take again the example of confession. The relations and the remarks in the
annual letters are quite specific in this regard. A frequent topos is a
description of the high numbers anxious to make confession during the
mission, with crowds gathering outside the church the previous night in
order to make confession first thing in the morning. A variant was that the
turn-out was so large and beyond expectations that additional confessors
had to be called in. But these are more than simple literary motifs. The
fear of imminent damnation aroused during the course of the mission
drove people to the confessional. It also led to public conversions and
repentances and to participation in penitential processions.
Mission relations are also full of accounts of the immediate effects of
penitential processions. One procession 'led to such devotion' that a
bystander ' got up immediately to go to confess himself of a resolution he
had made to kill his wife and the man who had dishonoured her, forgiving
both of them and making peace with his enemy'. 54 Such was the anxiety
created and the desire to participate in the practice of mortification that
people would beat themselves with whatever was to hand. In rural areas
this meant men scourging themselves with farming implements, like the
chains used to tie horses' hooves together, halters for mules 'and every
other iron tool which could be had'. 55 The intensity of these mortifications
was certainly genuine, visible even through the rhetoric of the mission
relations. A detailed description of a 1630 penitential procession reports
that' those [men] who beat themselves with iron chains, far from turning
red with a lot of blood, actually turned white as their bones were revealed
through lacerated flesh'.56 Frequently the 'discipline' was conducted in
the evenings after a procession, inside the church, and the women would
be sent home. Despite being encouraged to pray and perform acts of
contrition at home, the women would sometimes linger outside the
church, 'and while the men beat themselves, these women implored
mercy from God with tears and loud cries'.57
A collective fervour seems to characterise various phases of the mission,
from the penitential processions to the staged reconciliations and public
83
ARSI, Neap. 73, xliv, fo. 455. " Ibid. fo. 454.
55 5e
ARSI, Neap. 74, xvi, fo. 215. Ibid. Neap. 73, xxix, fo. 2581-.
57
Ibid, xii, fo. 113V.
285
 DAVID GENTILGORE
repentances. This fever of emotion, typical of periods of high tension, was
highly contagious within the community, one conversion often leading to
another. In a 1655 Jesuit mission to Torre Paduli adulterers confessed
their sins and performed a penitential procession together, culminating in
the strascino from the church doors to the altar. The citizens of the town
shouted 'with one voice' that evil had been chased out of the town.58
Descriptions of a quantitative sort reflect this, the typical one being the
topos of having to preach or say mass out of doors or in a field outside the
town because the local church could not accommodate the crowds of
people assembled. Peasants would sacrifice hours of all-important work in
often far away fields in order to attend the sermons, and sick nuns would
even deprive themselves of their medicine and physicians' visits during the
spiritual exercises held at the convents.59 When the preacher scourged or
singed himself some of the faithful would participate in this mortification,
slapping themselves or beating themselves with stones or ropes, increasing
the atmosphere of tension and anxiety. It is no wonder that people were
moved to tears and terror. The relationship established between preacher
and faithful in this sacred performance would be further developed by the
burning of playing-cards, ribbons and other ornaments, and obscene and
forbidden books. The relations note occasions when members of the
audience took the crucifix in hand and carried on a dialogue with it, in
the style of the preachers.60 But more often they record reactions of
terrible fear and desperation. During the course of one sermon on death,
three distinguished women - the 1734 relation notes - rushed forward on
to the platform and threw themselves down on their knees in front of the
crowd, imploring forgiveness and prayers. And later during the same
sermon a man rushed forward and tore the scourge from the priest's hands
(a prop during the sermon), knelt down in front of the crucifix and
whipped himself, weeping bitterly.61
The missioners sought to capitalise on this wave of devotion and
outpouring of emotion - a mixture of fervour and fear - to bring about
conversion. Their preaching techniques - we might even call them
histrionics - were such that they provoked the criticism of the Jesuit-
educated priest and archivist-librarian Antonio Muratori (1672-1750). ' I
have known some [preachers]', he wrote, 'who stooped down, contorted
themselves and waved their arms about with all their might, jumping to
and fro in the pulpit, stretched out in pain all over Others, with curious
twists of the body, imitated a despairing sinner, a martyr on the rack, a
damned soul.' 62 Muratori criticised the missionary style of preaching

68
Ibid. Neap. 75, xi, fos 86v~7r. The whole account is presented in terms of a military
reconquest. Indeed, military terminology and imagery is used throughout the mission
relations - common are the 'little raids', or excursiunculae, into the countryside - along with
agricultural (tending the vineyard, reaping a good harvest).
69 60
Ibid, vii, fo. 41V, for one example. A R S I , Neap. 76 i, x, fo. 54V.
61
Ibid. Neap. 76 11, lxxiii, fo. 542.
82
Ludovico A n t o n i o M u r a t o r i , Dei pregi della eloquenza popolare, Venice 1750, 30.
286
 KINGDOM OF NAPLES, 16OO-18OO
which emphasised the pains of Hell and the severity of God's judgment
from which no one escaped. He wrote:' I have known women who, on the
occasion of a clamorous sacred mission have become insane, so that it then
took much effort to restore them to normal.>63 The vivid images presented
in the course of a sermon - and a mission lasting eight days meant as
many sermons, not to mention the shorter homilies - had their effect on
the local populace. During a Jesuit mission in 1651, one local priest
dreamed of Christ on the cross, blood dripping from his wounds, scolding
the priest (who kept a concubine) for his licentious ways. Awoken from his
sleep, the priest later told a missioner that St Francis Xavier appeared
before him, showing him scenes of Hell, complete with a fire-breathing
dragon. When the priest fell to the ground in terror the saint caused the
scene to vanish and his kind words led the priest to repentance.64 The
relations and annual letters are full of this type of dream/vision,
frequently containing scenes of or descent into Hell, all of which was
recounted in detail to the missioners. A kind of delirium often seemed to
result from the preaching, as in the following strange case where a woman
saw the preacher as the figure of Christ,
with a head of blond hair to his shoulders, and with a crown of thorns on his head,
his forehead and face spattered with blood.... On seeing the priest in this manner,
she beat her breasts with both hands clenched into fists, in view of the other
women listening to the sermon, saying to herself that she was not worthy of seeing
Christ in this way. As soon as the sermon was over she went to find the preacher,
and although there were men and women [present], she began to crawl from the
doorway through two rooms with her tongue [dragging] on the ground until she
arrived at the place where the preacher stood.65
This emotionalism reached a peak in the treatment of the missioners
themselves by the local populace. Frequently they were regarded as living
saints, with all the power - and the ambivalence - of the sacred that this
entailed.66 This is a feature shared with the missions of the New World.
There the desacralisation of native beliefs and practices was accompanied
by an inflow of the sacred in the form of the sacralisation of the
missionaries. In New Granada (Colombia), for example, the Indios
regarded the Jesuits as shamans. In addition, they worshipped
('idolatrised') the objects the Jesuits introduced, like the rosary.67 In
southern Italy we find similar popular attitudes towards the power of the
rosary. Here, the emphasis the missioners put on the rosary - the ' ladder
to Paradise', according to a Redemptorist sermon68 - had lasting impact,
63
I d e m , Delia forza delta fantasia umana, V e n i c e 1753, 119.
64 66
A R S I , Neap. 75, iv, fo. 3 0 . Ibid. Neap. 74, xvi, fo. 216.
66
Much has been written about 'living saints' in early modern Italy; for a discussion
and bibliography, see David Gentilcore, 'The Church, the devil and the healing activities
of living saints after the Council of Trent', in Ole Peter Grell and Andrew Cunningham
(eds), Medicine and the Reformation, L o n d o n 1993, 134—55.
67
Serge Gruzinski, ' Christianisation ou occidentalisation? Les sources romaines d'une
antropologie historique', Melanges de I'Ecole Frangaise de Rome: Italie et Mediterranee, ci
68
(1989), 733-50, at pp. 744, 748. Gagliardi, 'Direttorio Apostolico', fo. 22.
287
 DAVID GENTILCORE
even though popular culture could develop its own interpretations of the
rosary's virtues. Thus from a means of meditation the rosary acquired a
life of its own as a devotional article with all the power of a relic. The
Apostolic Missioners contributed to this by demonstrating the importance
of the rosary with the 'narrative of miracles': episodes illustrating the
miraculous protection offered by Our Lady of the Rosary to her devotees.
However, at the same time, the efficacy of mechanical and repeated
prayer attached to the rosary could be given a different twist by popular
culture. Such was the rosary recited 'for those executed by hanging'.
According to a 1742 denunciation to the episcopal court of Oria, ' this
rosary had to be recited with one's hands behind one's back, in the dark,
and without turning around, since by turning around the person reciting
it would see the hanged men's heads with their tongues hanging out'. The
woman describing the practice made the mistake of turning around and
saw the hellish scene.69
Likewise, the impact of the missioners' message stressing the necessity of
a complete and sincere confession was not always what the missioners
intended. The emphasis put on the confessional could acquire different
meanings, reflecting the immediate needs of the local culture. For
instance, St Francesco de Geronimo was an indefatigable confessor during
his missions. After his death, however, it was not the increased practice of
confession amongst the faithful which most struck the witnesses testifying
at the process for his beatification. It was the fact that sick people briefly
sat themselves (or had themselves seated) in the confessional where the
saint had been wont to hear confessions in the hope of bringing about a
miraculous cure. In addition, splinters of the confessional were taken
away as healing relics.70
But let us return to the widespread sacralisation of the missioners
themselves. According to Scipione Paolucci, people were afraid to leave
town during the missions for fear of being excluded from Paradise, a belief
that the Jesuits certainly did nothing to dispel.71 Paolucci goes on: 'In the
case of an earthquake during a sermon, all the people would crowd
around the missionary fathers, to die, they said, near the holy fathers, or
be freed from death by virtue of their merits.>72 This mixture of fear,
devotion and a belief in the apotropaic power of the missioners
accompanied the Jesuits when they left one town on their way to
evangelise another. They would be followed by 'the clergy, men and
women, the whole population... singing hymns and spiritual canticles'.
Members of this following would continually approach them 'to kiss their
hands, pilgrim's staffs, mozzettas and the crucifixes they wore on their
chests, touching their rosaries to them', to imbue the rosaries with their
sacred power.73 On one occasion this 'pious credulity' led the people to
69
'Dorotea Rossi denuncia diverse donne per pratiche magiche', 24J11I. 1742, Archivio
70
Diocesano, Oria, Magia 11. ASV, Congregazione dei Riti, no. 2022, fos 339^-4 iv.
71 n
Paolucci, Missioni de padri, 75. Ibid. 273.
73
ARSI, Neap. 74, xvi, fo. 215V.
288
 KINGDOM OF NAPLES, 16OO-18OO
cut off pieces of the habits the missioners wore, 'keeping them not just in
reverence of [the missioners'] merits, but as a remedy for their own
maladies'. 74 However, equating the missioners with saints was not simply
a matter of popular belief concerning their proximity to sources of sacred
power. The missioners' total dedication, asceticism, self-denial and
miraculous works fit the period's orthodox models of sanctity. This was in
sharp contrast to the reality offered by the local parish priest. The holiness
of the missioners, 'like their sermons, despite having something of the
theatrical, was real', according to Jean Delumeau. 'Listeners and
penitents had the sensation of finding themselves in the presence of
exceptional priests who sacrificed well-being and health for their apostolic
mission.>75 However, this sacred power also had its negative connotations.
This is an ambivalence typical of the popular conception of the sacred
which took in both divine and diabolical, good and evil, healing and
disease. Thus on a mission to Matera in 1687 the missioners encountered
strong local opposition to their presence. This was due to the fact that
their previous mission, ten years earlier, had been followed by a year of
drought and infertility, which the townspeople attributed to the mission.76
The reception the missioners received from the local populace could
condition to no small extent a mission's short and long-term impact. In
the early years, for instance, the novelty of missions often resulted in local
resistance and hostility. On their first visit to one town, in 1618, a rumour
circulated there that the Jesuits were government officials come to apply
a new gabella of twenty grane per household.77 Later, of course, they came
to be treated as saints by the local populace, according to the standard
motif. In this regard, the relations must be approached with care, and a
good deal of scepticism, because they were written in such a way as to
show the missioners and their activities in a positive if not heroic light. A
mission lasting just over a week could not hope to eliminate practices
which had formed part of the popular consciousness for centuries.
However, the following claim is typical:
Due to the inattention of confessors, in two towns there was an infinite range of
magical practices. They were performed by everyone without scruple, and for
every occasion: whether for marriage, sin, medicine or dispute, there was a
recourse to magic, charms and other diabolical things. This [situation] was
noticeably remedied with this mission, to the very great pleasure of the prelates
helped and the people enlightened.78
It is obvious that such successes were at best temporary, like the Jesuits'
ongoing battle against gaming, blasphemy and the circulation of
prohibited books. Other historical sources - from local chronicles to
74 75
Paolucci, Missioni depadri, 273. Delumeau, 'Missioni interne', 223.
76
ARSI, Neap. 76 1, xxxiii, fo. 185. As an indication of the ambivalence, there are
examples of missions being requested in cases of natural calamities like drought or pests,
where the ' ecclesiastical remedies' of the local clergy - blessings, exorcisms, processions
7?
with relics- had failed. Ibid. Neap. 73, xii, fo. 114.
78
Ibid. Neap. 76 1, vii, fos 40-v.
289
 DAVID GENTILCORE
79
diaries and trial records - would doubtless prove useful in putting the
claims of the mission relations into perspective. However, to assemble the
various scattered bits of information would be the work of a lifetime and
would depend largely on the archival serendipity of finding relevant
documents. But some small insight is possible. What, for example, was the
impact of a book-burning held in Francavilla in 1678, when a local
practitioner of learned magic like Nicodemo Salinaro could hide his books
of magic until the missioners had departed without feeling guilt? In this
episcopal trial for the practice of learned magic the presence of the Jesuit
missioners figures like a recurring motif. It was their preaching that
persuaded one of the witnesses to confess her acquaintance with the
accused magician to the town's archpriest and later to testify against the
accused.80 Another witness was worried whether the healing rituals used
by the accused were in fact magical and diabolical. To put him at ease,
Salinaro told him that he had burnt all his books of magic during the
mission.81 Yet while the Jesuits might strive to combat popular forms of
magic with their own orthodox devotions, they had nothing to offer in
place of learned magic, generally practised by members of the educated
elite, lay and clerical alike. Thus the accused magician in this case reacted
to the missioners not by burning his books as he claimed to have done, but
by hiding them, as he later did before being arrested and imprisoned.82
Admittedly a single example such as this is of limited use. But, if nothing
else, it warns us to be on our guard when reading records penned, not for
the use of historians, but for the greater glory of the Society of Jesus.
Where the relations mention the difficulties encountered by the
missioners they only serve to dramatise further their eventual triumphs.
Despite this intent, such occasions are important in that they allow us to
come face-to-face with the tensions present and the sort of opposition the
missioners encountered. They also give us the opportunity to penetrate
the code of the mission relations, if only to a limited extent, and to
reconstruct those conditions, events and responses that went undescribed
because they reflected negatively on the missioners and their work. For
instance, with regard to the opposition of the 1687 Matera mission
mentioned above (in the context of the missioners' sacred powers), the
relation also remarks that many townspeople had performed ardent
79
With trial records one could also include records of beatification and canonisation
processes. The testimony of witnesses can be quite revealing. I consulted the records
regarding St Francesco de Geronimo, a native of Terra d'Otranto who conducted missions
throughout the Kingdom of Naples (nn. 7, 70). However, the nature of the source means
that the emphasis of testimony tends to be on the extraordinary gifts and achievements of
de Geronimo, which qualify him for eventual canonisation. Witnesses who had experienced
his missions dwelt on his saintliness to such an extent that it is difficult to get a feel for how
they were affected by ordinary missions, conducted by ordinary missioners.
80
Deposition of Donatantonia de Milato, 'Contro Nicodemo Salinaro per sortilegi',
Francavilla 1678, Archivio Diocesano, Oria, Magia m, fos 52r~3r.
81
Antonia Quaranta, ibid, fos 86V-7V.
82
Tommaso de Milato, ibid, fos i66v-8v.
290
 KINGDOM OF NAPLES, 16OO-18OO
mortifications during the previous mission, and that, once the fervour had
died down, they came to regret their actions and 'for a long time they
reproached one another for [them], some in jest, some for other ends, so
that various quarrels took place; and so upset were they that no one
wanted the missions'.83
The unpleasant memory of a previous mission could result in opposition
to subsequent missions. One Jesuit wrote in 1699 that many people
complained in unbecoming ways of the weariness caused them by the endless
[penitential] processions, so that they had occasion to blaspheme when they
returned home in the darkness of evening. Likewise they complained of the
[preachers'] liberty in speaking from the pulpit, relating certain facts that would
have been better dealt with in private.84
Although as far as the Jesuit relations are concerned the missioners always
managed to overcome this resistance, in fact traces of a more widespread
opposition to the 'popular' and excessive nature of the Jesuit mission are
found from the second half of the seventeenth century. This opposition
increased during the course of the eighteenth century, as the mission
became increasingly associated with the countryside. Its histrionic
preaching and macabre mortifications were no longer deemed suitable for
the 'cultured' cities.85 The elites became embarrassed and critical of such
practices. As early as 1688, in the town of San Pietro in Galatina, the
missioners met with opposition from those who interpreted their presence
as a suggestion of the town's inferiority, as if to imply that it was some
rural backwater in need of evangelisation. The relation cited one man as
grumbling: 'What do these Jesuits think of us, that maybe we don't
believe in God? Or do they think that the town of S. Pietro, the most
celebrated of this province, is some puny hamlet [casalotto] ?' In keeping
with the general purpose and tone of the relations, this one concludes that
those people who had complained of the missioners' presence were in the
end the most penitent.86
The Jesuits occasionally encountered the hostility of the local clergy.
The mere presence of a mission in a community seemed to suggest that the
clergy were not living up to their pastoral responsibilities. However, the
Jesuit Antonio Baldinucci (1665-1717) gave rather short shrift to the
ensuing opposition of the local clergy, putting it down to pride:
Pride... very often in the guise of an ecclesiastical or religious habit, renders its
lies at once more authoritative and more compromised, [affirming] that the
missions are fine amongst the infidel who do not believe, or at most amongst
country yokels, unruly and ignorant, but not in cultured and civil towns, and
83
A R S I , Neap. 76 1, xxxiii, fo. 185.
84
Relation of Fr Pier Maria Terusio to Revd Bernardini, provincial of Rome, 16 June
1699, ARSI, Rom. 136, fos 169-70; cited in Giuseppe Orlandi, 'Missioni parrocchiali e
drammatica popolare', SHCSR xxii (1974), 313-48, at p. 341.
85
For instance, in Milan in 1767 Jesuit urban missions were forbidden, in anticipation
of the suppression of the Society, but they were allowed to continue with their rural
86
missions: Vismara Chiappa, 'Forme', 827. ARSI, Neap. 76 1, fo. 56V.
291
II ECH 45
 DAVID GENTILCORE
even less in cities worthy of great respect, which do not lack those who could
instruct the ignorant and correct those led astray as do the missioners.87
It was because of these elite critics and opponents that, for instance, the
Jesuit Paolo Segneri, Jr (1673-1713) preferred to evangelise in the
countryside. In addition, he felt that the rural populace - lacking a strong
pastoral base - had greater need of the missions. His experience led him
to prefer parish missions to the traditional, central style developed by his
uncle, Segneri, Sr.88 But the difference was but one of degree. In
correspondence with Segneri, J r during the summer of 1712, Muratori
criticised certain excesses, such as the habits worn and instruments used
by the penitents, the near nudity of the men during public flagellations
and the place given the cult of images. He suggested that only minor
changes to missionary strategy would be required, but Segneri's reply was
a categorical refusal.89 And this from a friend and admirer of Segneri, J r
who was to write his biography seven years after Segneri's death !90 The
criticism was that much greater when it came from people outside the
Jesuit camp, from, for example, the Quietist movement and from within
Jansenist circles. The latter criticised not only the 'excesses' of the Jesuit
mission, but what they considered its theological underpinnings. Referring
to the Jesuit practice of 'accommodation', the Jansenists accused the
Jesuits of being influenced and contaminated by the superstition-
whether European or American - they sought to evangelise.91
Muratori, however, limited himself to the excesses of the Jesuit mission,
criticisms which were more applicable to the religious reality of Italy.
Indeed, with the success of the Redemptorists in the Kingdom of Naples
in mind, his comments have an almost prophetic quality. Several decades
after his brief correspondence with Segneri, Jr, Muratori wrote in his Delia
regolata divozion de' Cristiani (1747) that it was his intention to discover the
nature of 'true and sound devotion, distinguishing it from those
devotions which are superficial and touching lightly upon others which
have the appearance or substance of superstition'.92 In the process, he
condemned the Jesuits' ' Slaves of Mary' devotion and Corpus domini
processions. He described the latter as parades of 'ornate platforms,
people dressed up, floats, ostentatious spectacles' which served only to
bring about 'the people's wonder and idle talk'. 93 Yet at the same time
87
Antonio Baldinucci,' Avvertimenti utilissimi a chi desidera impiegarsi nelle missioni,
cavati dall'esperienza di quei che le han fatte per molti anni', ARSI, Opera Nostrorum 299,
fo. 5; cited in Orlandi, 'Missioni parrocchiali', 339.
88
Giuseppe Orlandi, 'L. A. Muratori e le missioni di P. Segneri Jr.', SHCSR xx (1972),
158-93, at pp. 172-4.
89
Letters of 20 J u n e , 6 J u l . 1712 in Epistolario di L . A . Muratori, ed. M . C a m p o r i ,
Modena 1902, iv. 1472, cited in Orlandi, 'Muratori', 183-4.
90
L u d o v i c o A n t o n i o M u r a t o r i , La vita di P. P. Segneri iuniore, M o d e n a 1720.
91
Cf. Girolamo Imbruglia, 'Dalle storie dei santi alia storia naturale della religione:
l'idea moderna di superstizione', Rivista storica italiana ci (1989), 35-84, esp. pp. 70-8.
92
Ludovico Antonio Muratori, Delia regolata divozion de' Cristiani, Venice 1761, vi.
93
Ibid. 379, 343.
292
 KINGDOM OF NAPLES, 16OO-18OO
he defended popular devotions such as religious medals, Agnus Dei,
rosaries, scapulars, ribbons, images of saints and brevi,94 all of which were
to form an important part of the Redemptorist missionary method which
was being formulated at precisely this time.
The Jesuit missioners were not deaf to the criticisms being levelled at
them by Muratori and others. In addition to the gradual shift to the
countryside, a reading of the annual letters regarding the colleges of Lecce
and Taranto would suggest that the missioners toned down the penitential
processions from the 1690s onwards. But as the annual letters are a
synthesis of the information sent to Rome, this may also reflect slight
changes in what the centre found noteworthy about activities and
achievements, rather than the way the missions were still being practised
at the periphery.95 More of the relations dealing with the Italian
provinces of the Society over the longue duree need to be examined to test
this hypothesis.
What can be said about the long-term impact of the missions? This is
a much more difficult question given the relative lack of data. Because the
Jesuit mission relations stress the sensational over the more subdued
techniques used in missionising, it is difficult to gauge the impact of
something like religious instruction on the towns and villages missionised.
Although all the congregations emphasised the teaching of catechism as
a central part of the mission, it was the tone and character of the devotions
and religious exercises introduced which seem to have made the most
impression on the people. Perhaps this was due to the very basic nature
of religious instruction. Religious knowledge took second place to correct
religious practice, as has already been indicated in the context of
confession. The emotionalism which characterises popular piety in
southern Italy today is at least in part the result of the missionary activity
of the Jesuits and other congregations involved in 'evangelising' in the
peninsula. The strascino, for example, was destined to survive well into the
1950s in local pilgrimages throughout the Mezzogiorno, long after it had
passed out of favour in other levels of society (and with church
authorities).96
Other devotions have survived but with their meanings shifted to meet
the needs of peasant culture. Thus the abitini di Maria, introduced by the
Redemptorists, have survived down to the present day as extra-liturgical
talismans worn by infants and young children to protect them from
maleficent magic.97 Most notable, however, has been the impact of Jesuit

64
Ibid. 347. The Agnus Dei was a small wax medallion stamped with the figure of a
paschal lamb, whilst a breve was a small pouch into which was sewn a written prayer or
other devotional object. Both were frequently used in popular culture as talismans and
healing relics.
95
The last surviving mission relation penned locally dates from 1687, so that the
relations themselves cannot shed further light on this possible development.
96
Cf. A n n a b e l l a Rossi, Lefeste dei poveri, P a l e r m o 1986, 7 5 - 6 .
97
Ernesto de Martino, Sud e magia, Turin 1966, 36-8.

293 11-2
 DAVID GENTILCORE
penitential forms, elements of which survive even now in local,
spontaneous and extra-ecclesial processions of male penitents beating
themselves bloody during Holy Week. Two things are of interest here.
First, the gender distinction, since it echoes the one originally imposed by
the missioners themselves. Second, the 'analogy with Christ' provided by
the penitent's suffering and shedding of blood has now acquired the
meaning of a salvific rite and an affirmation of masculine strength and
endurance. 98
The impact of the penitential processions and religious drama staged by
the Jesuits was thus both very sudden and striking, according to the
incidents described in the mission relations, as well as cumulative and of
longer duration, as indicated by its survival outside organised religion.
The latter was already evident in the decades immediately following the
expulsion of the Society of Jesus from the Kingdom of Naples in 1767. A
royal edict issued in 1779, while anti-Jesuit feeling was still strong, is
worth quoting at length.
The scandalous abuses of some of the lower orders have come to the attention of
His Majesty (D.G.). In a good many places throughout the Kingdom, on Holy
Thursday and Good Friday, these people, instead of honouring the memory of
the Passion of our Divine Redeemer with true internal compunction and a secret
repentance of their sins, dishonour it instead, and profane it, by means of various
scenic representations and vulgar performances: some by going naked through
the streets and squares, beating themselves bloody, others by performing the
sacred mysteries of the Passion, dressed, some as Christ, some as Jews and some
as executioners. Therefore, His Majesty, impelled by zeal for the faith and in
order to obviate such false devotions, has resolved that from now on no one shall
dare appear as a penitent or perform the mysteries of the Passion, either during
Holy Week or at any other time of the year, under pain of being condemned to
the whip."
Although the secular and ecclesiastical authorities had dealt with the
Jesuits, they had to pick up the pieces left by the Jesuits' departure. This
article has sought to demonstrate that it was the other missionary
congregations active in the Kingdom of Naples which were most able to
reshape Jesuit strategies and methods in the wake of earlier criticisms,
while keeping in mind the reality of a largely uneducated and wretchedly
poor population. The Virgin Mary's sweet love was stressed over the
threat of damnation and the constant need for lugubrious penitential acts.
What we might call the post-Jesuit missions attempted, above all, to work
in harmony with the local authorities, both secular and ecclesiastical.
98
Novi Chavarria, 'L'attivita', 181. The sociologist Michael Carroll refers to these
surviving penitential forms as an example of what he calls ' Mezzogiorno masochism':
Madonnas that maim: popular Catholicism in Italy since the fifteenth century, Baltimore 1992,
129-37.
99
' Interdictum sacrae passionis mysteriae exprimere', Naples, 4 May 1779, in Lorenzo
Giustiniani, Nuova coU.ez.ione delleprammatiche del Regno di Napoli, Naples 1803-5, ' v - 2 7 ^ - I t
is somewhat ironic that the punishment for public flagellation should be an equally public
whipping.

294
 KINGDOM OF NAPLES, 16OO-18OO
Bishops had long used missions to restore the quality of religious
observance in their dioceses, as when Bishop Fabrizio Pignatelli of Lecce
requested Jesuit missions following the interdict of 1711-19.100 But the
Redemptorists also acted as a force for social calm and stability. Bishops
made requests for Redemptorist missions directly to the king, who made
a modest financial contribution to them, whilst at the same time using the
mission to re-establish social order and peace in the wake of disturbances.
Thus the activity of the missioners was increasingly called upon during the
revolutionary disturbances beginning in 1799. In that year Bishop
Fabrizio Cimino of Oria requested permission for missions, and obtained
eight Redemptorist priests who went about the diocese for six months,
preaching the word of God, obedience to. ecclesiastical and secular
authorities, respect for the crown and its laws, and peace amongst the
people.101 This continuing activity was accentuated after the Restoration.
This period saw the establishment of a new missionary congregation, the
Congregation of the Most Precious Blood. Along the lines of the
Redemptorists, but without their baroque hell fire sermons, it contributed
to the 'evolution towards a more fervent piety, but one also more facile,
more external, a manifestation of religiosity naturally present from the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but which becomes prevalent
during the nineteenth'. 102

Whether preaching styles were theatrical and externalised, like that of the
Jesuits, Apostolic Missioners and Redemptorists, or more sober, like that
of the Lazarists, they shared one basic feature: simplicity and directness
of message. For all the missionary congregations regarded preaching as a
useful tool for instilling the fear of God and eternal damnation into the
faithful, a vital stage in bringing them to repentance and a sincere and
complete confession. In the various strategies we have examined, this was
combined with the introduction of typical baroque devotions, to maintain
the people on the right path. The persistence, until today, of such
devotions in southern Italy is testimony to the contribution made by the
missions, as well as their limitations. Such is the case, too, with the
Americas, where the ' idolatrisation' of Christian devotional objects on
the part of the indigenous peoples accompanied the cultural colonisation
wrought by the missionaries. On both continents, the introduction of
devotions proved to be an effective missionary technique, even in areas
where the local clergy was still negligent in its pastoral duties and did not
provide the proper example.
As in Brittany and elsewhere, the missioners in the Kingdom of Naples
largely contented themselves with ensuring the correct practice of the
Church's norms. Their achievements in this regard, at least, gave them
100
Giovanni Barrella, La Compagnia di Gesii nelle Puglie, Lecce 1941, 79, n. 12.
101
C a r m e l o Turrisi, La diocesi di Oria nell'OUocento, R o m e 1978, 331-2.
102
Guido Verucci, 'Chiesa e societa nell'Italia della Restaurazione (1814-1830)',
Rivista di storia della Chiesa in Italia xxx (1976), 25-72, at p. 61.
295
 DAVID GENTILCORE
103
cause for satisfaction. But the attempts of the missioners to 'adapt
themselves to the people's capabilities', so as not to confuse them or sow
doubts in their minds, meant a message that was simple to the point of
superficiality. It stressed religious devotion over religious knowledge, the
miraculous powers of the rosary over spiritual meditation. Because of the
miraculous content of the message and the way it was presented,
devotional forms were taken on and assimilated, effectively stripped of
their doctrinal context.
In some cases the strategies of the missions were even transformed to fit
the local ritual system, in a process of negotiation between different levels
of culture. As we have seen, the missioners' own sacred presence could be
more significant than the religious example they offered. Nevertheless, the
overall impact and effects of the missions are not qualitatively very
different from the message which the missioners themselves strove to
present over the course of several centuries. The missioners could thus be
said to have attained their basic goals. As far as the enduring effects of
religious instruction are concerned, it is more difficult to arrive at a
conclusion. But since a mission only lasted for several weeks at a time, and
since the emphasis was on conversion and repentance, they are unlikely to
have been very profound. It was only in the nineteenth century that the
local clergy was able to take on the burden and responsibility of basic
religious instruction: and this was due in no small part to the preparation
given them by the missioners.

Croix, Bretagne, ii. 1240.

296