Global Governance, Local Dynamics. Transnational Regimes of Grace in the Roman Dataria Apostolica (17th Century)
This Franco-German research project (École nationale des chartes, University of Reims, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, German Historical Institute in Rome) is dedicated to the papal grace regime in the seventeenth century. A period of which it is still assumed today that the heyday of the papacy was over and that it was replaced by princes and absolutism and “national” churches. Contrary to this research assumption, however, we can already detect a stream of thousands and thousands of petitions to Rome, asking among other graces to pertain the provision of an ecclesiastical office (benefice) and its income. The bulk of these graces were granted by a particular office in Rome which fully developed in the early modern age: the Apostolic Datary. The Datary was the gateway for petitions from the entire catholic orbis christanus. By examining the registers of the Apostolic Datary in the Vatican Archive, the project aims to investigate the vast dimensions and resilience of this papal "empire of grace" in the early modern period. The investigation of this "global governance" however must not lead back to top-down narratives of centralization but takes in consideration the many petitioners addressing the papal source of grace. Doing so, we hope to trace the local, bottom-up dynamics behind (transnational) governance as well as it flows from an endless range of localities and communities to the equally polycentric and polymorphic headquarters in Rome.
As we could detect in the first weeks of the project, the petitions coming from the different territories of the Holy Roman Empire are far less numerous than from Spain, Italy, or France. A local case study on the archdiocese of Cologne will evolve around the basic questions which will be further elaborated: What kind of ecclesiastical benefices exist in the archdiocese? Who can distribute them? Who can apply for and actually get them?
In addition to the research in the Vatican Archive it seems very promising to explore the Imperial Archives in Vienna as well as local archives such as the archive of the archdiocese of Cologne. This will help to detect different players providing graces and competing for rights of nomination to ecclesiastical offices as well as layering out different strategic possibilities for the petitioners to obtain and keep a benefice.
Valentino Verdone
