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thought first to preserve relations with his home town, Florence,93 and only then about
his corporate relations in Avignon. His third bequest went to the marshal of the Roman
Court (head of justice for non-native residents). Then he offered various bequests to the
church of Saint Peter in Avignon in order to fulfil the necessary funeral ceremony on the
day of his death (money was left for tapers and masses). Afterward, he turned to several
Avignonese confraternities; the confraternity of Notre Dame beate Marie Maior cuius
sum confrater, to which he donated three gold florins; the confraternity of Saint John the
Baptist in Avignon, to which he donated three gold florins; and the confraternity beate
Lucie in Avignon, to which he donated two gold florins.
The point of interest in this discussion is that Andrea did not count solely on the
suffrages of Notre Dame la Majour (he is listed in the matriculation on folios 1 and 62).
As with Eliseo Mamelini in early sixteenth-century Bologna, he counted on the
complementarity of joining several associations to multiply his spiritual benefits,
corporate acts of charity, and political or social connections.94 Andrea requested masses
from the clergy of the church of Saint Peter, and one has to assume that he expected
suffrages from members of other confraternities in Avignon as well as from members of
91
Hayez, La stanza , 237 240, discusses at length the roles of names in Italian commercial societies.
92
Avignon, Archives Départementales du Vaucluse, archives hospitalières d Avignon, Sainte Marthe, H30, 19
Feb. 1366.
93
His first bequest is to the Confraternity of Saint Michael in Florence (Orsanmichele), and his second to the
alm-house of Saint Reparate, also in Florence.
94
Regarding Mamelini and his multiplication of membership see Terpstra, Lay confraternities, 69, 78.
Forever after: the dead in the Avignonese confraternity of Notre Dame la Majour (1329 1381) 135
the Florentine societies to which he donated. In this he followed the pattern of increased
demand for individual masses delineated by Chiffoleau in La comptabilité de l au-delà.
In addition, as a member in good standing of Notre Dame la Majour he offered proof
of his buona fama. Joining the association was a form of personal insurance for himself
and the other members. When, for example, Matteo Benini arrived in Avignon in 1360,
he joined the association (he is recorded on folio 95v.). He left soon after for Arles
where he became a trading partner of the Avignonese Florentine.95 He nevertheless
remained a member of the organization, at least up to 1364, even though he did not
reside in the city any more.96 His participation in Notre Dame la Majour served as a
reference for his good social and commercial practices.
In an echo of things to come, time and money became of the essence for this
association. A regular payment of dues bound the brothers and secured corporate
survival, even if one was away from the community. But what the association failed to
recognize (at least in its statutes) is that payments did not bind brothers forever. Even
though members left bequests to their association, usually a donation of 2 to 3 gold
florins, those bequests did not guarantee their corporate survival after death.97
This confraternity s procedure shows in extreme fashion what happened to mobility
when mobility was not yet the norm. The association was set in a large international city
made up of an extremely fluid population. The association s purpose, as inferred from
the statutes, was to by-pass the transient character of its adherents and to offer a
traditional confraternal structure.98 The association adapted to the condition of its
adherents by replacing the temporary loss of kinship ties and personal affiliations,
predominantly absent in a confraternity of transients, with the brotherhood. Still, the
mobility of its adherents caught up with the association. Members left and were
seemingly forgotten. The dead did not live on in Notre Dame s corporate memory
because the brothers of Notre Dame did not need their names . The ties that bind were
not, for this group of Italians, in Avignon. They primarily remained at home . The dead
were remembered generically by professionals, paid to say masses, but not as named
individuals. The particular social or commercial usefulness of each had vanished with
each life.
The role confraternities played in social cohesion has long been established, and
nowhere else with more eminence than in late medieval England. When M. Rubin
describes English Corpus Christi fraternities, she states let us try to understand
fraternities as providers of essential personal, familial, religious, economic and political
services, as providing security in some essential areas of life; and let us see these
95
Hayez, La stanza , 235.
96
He is recorded as having paid up to 1364 in ND2.
97
See, for example, the fourteenth-century testaments of Andrea di Ruspo, Avignon, Archives Départementales
du Vaucluse, hôpitaux d Avignon, Sainte Marthe, H30; Bartholomeo Cardini, Avignon, Archives com-
munales de la ville d Avignon, notaires, Martin, 46, ff. 3 6V, and Delphina Menduelle, wife of Petrus
Poncii alias Raubati, Avignon, Archives Départementales de Vaucluse, 8G9. They donated, respectively,
three, one and four gold florins to Notre Dame la Majour. They all left additional bequests to other
confraternities.
98
The statutes of Notre Dame la Majour are very similar to the ones of other contemporary confraternities; see
Pansier, Les confréries d Avignon , 6 48.
136 Joëlle Rollo-Koster
activities as articulated most frequently in symbols from the language of religion .99
Could we argue that in Avignon, as in many other places, some confraternities acted as
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