The state of the Venetian Hospitaller Commandery of Saints Simone and Giuda of Parma in the eighteenth century

Abstract

The Order of St John, also know as the Order of the Hospital, was administratively divided into eight different European nationalities or langues, with each langue being in turn composed of a number of priories. The landed estates and other properties of the priory were grouped into preceptories or commanderies. A portion, ranging over the years from one-fifth to one-third, of the revenue earned from these lands went to the Common Treasury at the Order’s conventual headquarters to finance all its various activities. The present dissertation concerns one such commandery, that of Saints Simone and Giuda of Parma, a northern Italian city in the region of Emilia Romagna. This commandery formed part of the Grand Priory of Venice, one of the seven priories constituting the Order’s Langue of Italy. The main focus will be on the eighteenth century, with occasional glimpses into earlier times. The ultimate purpose of the present work is to try and reconstruct the state of the Hospitaller Commandery of Saints Simone and Giuda of Parma in the eighteenth century. This has been possible through the close survey of a number of original documents recording the outcome of official visits, known as miglioramenti, prioral, or cabrei, paid at regular intervals to these estates as dictated by the Order’s statutes. Each of these documents reports the state of the estates constituting the Commandery at that particular point in time. My approach to these documents is twofold. The historical document is both a means to an end, but it is also an end in itself. As a primary source of information, it provides insight into the past, essential information, reliable and authentic, that helps the historian reconstruct aspects or segments of the past. It is a vital tool without which this exercise of rebuilding from scratch cannot be adequately performed. This has been one way that I have approached the documents for the present dissertation. The other way is to treat the document as a sacred remnant of the past, a holy relic that has survived the often destructive passage of time. For this reason I have felt it necessary in the present dissertation to discuss the document itself, in its own right, to approach it, in other words, with reverence. I felt it is unfair to simply exploit this historical object, extract the information it offers, and then discard it in a footnote. Without its survival no historical reconstruction can be decently done.