The Quintuple Canonization of 1622: Between the Renewal of the Making of Saints and Claims for Pontifical Monopoly

1 Canonization and Concession of Cult

The pontifical reservation in matters of canonization was imposed progressively during the last centuries of the Middle Ages.^[4] From the middle of the eleventh century, the papacy sought to transform the habit of the bishops of consulting it on the elevation of the bodies of new saints into an obligation, to the point that in 1234 the Decretals of Gregory IX recorded this already ancient desire for pontifical reservation: only the pope can validly canonize saints, that is, propose their liturgical cult to Christendom. This reservation was reinforced at the end of the thirteenth century by the strengthening of the doctrine of papal inerrability (or even infallibility), which tended to encompass the canonization of saints.^[5] In this logic, from the eleventh century, when the term canonizare appeared, the pope and his entourage demanded that bishops provide proof of the miracles attributed to those they wished to see venerated as saints; then, in the twelfth century, proof of their virtues was demanded; and finally, in the thirteenth century, the reputation of the servant of God as a saint had to be demonstrated. Since no better evidence could be found, in the eyes of the jurists of the Roman Curia, than the testimony of direct witnesses in a meticulously conducted investigation, the trial became the keystone of the system. The main consequences of this evocation were a lengthening of the procedure and a marked decrease in the number of canonizations from the 1275s onwards, and the Holy See retreated to a very sparing practice throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.^[6]

But the resistance, both popular and episcopal, to this centralizing and restrictive practice of the medieval papacy should not be overlooked. In various parts of Christendom, particularly in Mediterranean Europe, episcopal translations continued until the end of the Middle Ages, and even beyond, and cults were rendered without waiting for the uncertain results of the increasingly severe selection carried out by the Holy See. So much so that, tacitly, over the centuries, a coexistence was established between two categories of figures: on the one hand, the sancti, canonized regularly by Rome and whose number has been growing very slowly since the end of the thirteenth century, and, on the other hand, an increasing number of beati, those figures who received a local cult which has not been recognized by the Holy See but which, more and more often, nonetheless tends to become solemn and public, at the instigation of bishops or religious orders.^[7]

This paradoxical situation, which at the very least risked rendering the pontifical reservation meaningless, led the Holy See to gradually introduce pontifical authority into the recognition of local cults. Thus, several popes granted, by bull, the authorization to render a local cult to people they did not wish to canonize.^[8] These concessions of a solemn cult (mass and office) strictly limited to a monastery, a town, a religious order or a country, which were few in number until the end of the fifteenth century, were sometimes wrongly equated with canonizations.^[9] However, the multiplication of these concessions of cult granted without legal procedure risked ruining their credibility in the long term and calling into question the whole edifice patiently set up by the papacy around the canonization process, which had been introduced to provide the necessary guarantees for a serene cult.

The link between the concession of cult and the canonization process began in 1509, when the briefs granting new concessions of cult systematically opened a process on the life and miracles of the figure.^[10] Julius II, when granting the concession of cult for Notker of Saint Gall, in December 1512, which served as a model for the following ones, explicitly specified that the concession of public cult did not mean canonization in any way.^[11] Under these conditions, the question quickly arose as to whether one could pass from the status of blessed to that of saint. The answer was given in 1516, when Leo X agreed to examine the request of the Minims and the French sovereigns for the canonization of Francis of Paola (d. 1507), whose cult as a blessed had already been authorized by Julius II in July 1513. Faced with a completely new situation and lacking a model, the Curia decided to undertake a revision of all the trials of 1512–1513 and, at the same time, ordered new trials in Calabria on the miracles that had occurred since 1513.^[12]

2 The Lutheran Critique

While no new saints were created between 1485 (Leopold III of Austria) and 1519 (Francis of Paola), a resumption of canonization took shape at the very beginning of the sixteenth century, since, after Francis of Paola in 1519, the archbishop of Florence, Antonio Pierozzi (d. 1459), and the bishop of Meissen, Benno (d. 1105), were canonized on the feast of the Trinity on 31 May 1523. The choice of these two figures was significant in the troubled context of the beginning of the Reformation and the recurrent denunciation of abuses concerning the cult of saints.^[13] Indeed, this cult of the saints had taken a large place in Christian life at the end of the Middle Ages, and the abuses it generated, both in practices and in doctrinal assertions, were denounced as superstition by some theologians, such as Erasmus, who wished for a reform in this area.^[14] Luther gradually embraced this critique.^[15] It should be remembered that this cult of the saints was multifaceted: it covered and intersected communion of the saints, merits of the saints, indulgences, veneration, intercession, miracles, cult of relics, cult of images, shrines, sanctoral cycle, various patronages, feasts, pilgrimages, hagiographies and canonization. Luther’s challenge to this cult began with a very particular aspect of it: the sale of indulgences by the Dominican Tetzel to finance the reconstruction of Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome.^[16] It is known that this sale was taking place in the duchy of Saxony, a few kilometres from Wittenberg, and that Martin Luther, an Augustinian friar and professor of theology in that city, was scandalized by it for several months. In his 95 theses of 31 October 1517, he rejected the “papal indulgences,”^[17] their sale, “the true treasures of the church, out of which the pope distributes” these indulgences (thesis 56), which were no longer, he explained, the “merits of Christ and the saints” (merita Christi et sanctorum, thesis 58), “the true treasure of the Church, [being] the most holy gospel of the glory and grace of God” (thesis 62).

When Luther attacked the sale of “papal indulgences” on the eve of All Saints’ Day, he knew that on the next day the public veneration of the 17,000 relics accumulated by Elector Frederick of Saxony in the ducal castle church of Wittenberg, which was dedicated to All Saints, would take place.^[18] The castle church also served as the chapel of the university where he taught. He was well aware that, in the minds of the faithful and the local clergy, this veneration would allow one-day pilgrims, in exchange for money, to obtain indulgences of tens, hundreds or thousands of years. By denouncing indulgences in general, Luther’s theses also implicitly condemned the acquisition of indulgences attached to the collective veneration of the following day.^[19] This seems to be a rather decisive argument in favour of the reality of the display of these theses, a question debated since the assertions of Erwin Iserloh in 1961.^[20] Furthermore, and this is better established, on 31 October 1517 Luther addressed his theses to Albert of Brandenburg, Archbishop of Mainz and Magdeburg, who supported Tetzel’s campaign but who was also a major collector of relics, having accumulated thousands in his residence of Moritzburg in Halle.^[21]

In the following months, the Augustinian friar specified his position on indulgences (Sermon on Indulgences and Grace, in April 1518)^[22] and he often returned to this first aspect of the cult of the saints in which he had taken an interest, although the subject of the pope’s authority took precedence over the question of indulgences in his controversies with Catholic theologians, from the Dispute of Leipzig held in June and July 1519.^[23] He also added to the criticism of indulgences that of certain aspects of the veneration of saints. Thus, in his Sermon on the Ten Commandments Preached to the People of Wittenberg, published in July 1518, in which he again mentions indulgences, he also condemns this time the superstitious veneration of the most popular saints (Anthony, Sebastian, Valentine, Christopher), while maintaining the idea of a “true” cult of saints.^[24] He went a step further in October 1520 when he denounced the cult of saints as “perverse” in The Babylonian Captivity of the Church. This cult led, according to him, to idolatry:

They […] actually teach and approve things which are against the service of God, against faith and the chief commandments – such as their running about on pilgrimages, the perverse worship of the saints, the lying legends of saints, the various ways of trusting in works and ceremonies and practicing them, by all of which faith in God is extinguished and Idolatry encouraged.^[25]

He used the same concept of idolatry the following year when he condemned the ostension of relics that Albert of Brandenburg, who had become a cardinal in 1518, had organized from 13 to 22 September 1521 in Halle, where his residence of Moritzburg was located.^[26] The archbishop had obtained from Rome the creation of new indulgences, the sale of which during these celebrations was to finance the construction of a new church where his collection of relics would be presented. Between 1520 and 1521, this had increased from 8255 to 21,441 pieces, while the number of years of indulgence attached to the veneration of each of them, fixed at 4000 years, had been further raised.^[27] These ceremonies, which included an ostentation and a procession of these relics, culminated on Saint Maurice’s Day (22 September), a saint to whom the cardinal had a special devotion, and whose relic was the most important in the new shrine.^[28] Luther, who had taken refuge in the Wartburg, decided to denounce these ceremonies in a book entitled Widder den Abgott zu Halle (Against the Idol of Halle).^[29] This book was never published and the manuscript has disappeared.^[30] However, the mention of an idol in its title suggests that Luther was probably addressing the veneration of the relic of St. Maurice.^[31]

A few months later, in the winter of 1521–1522, while Luther was still in the Wartburg, the reformers Gabriel Zwilling and Andreas Karlstadt, who had been associated with Luther’s work on the Halle idol, decided to move from denouncing idols to destroying them in accordance with certain biblical accounts. In the iconoclastic violence they unleashed in Wittenberg, many representations and statues of saints were either mutilated (their hands and heads were broken to show that they had no power) or completely destroyed in the city’s churches.^[32] We do not have any accounts of the destruction of relics of saints.^[33] To stop this violent movement, which risked frightening the princes and sweeping away his reform movement, Luther decided to leave his refuge and return to Wittenberg, which had just adopted the reform.^[34] In the eight sermons he gave there in the spring of 1522, he called for moderation and an end to violence. He stated that he was not personally in favour of the images, but that he neither wished to ban them nor to accept their violent destruction.^[35] Also, when a similar iconoclastic movement developed at the same time in Erfurt, Luther again defended a moderate position in two letters to his friend Johannes Lang. He argued that the strong could do without the cult of the saints, but that the weak should not be deprived of it too quickly.^[36]

3 The Crisis of 1523

It was in this context that Adrian VI decided, in a consistory in May 1523, to canonize Benno of Meissen.^[37] The ceremony took place on 31 May in Saint Peter’s in Rome with the presence of the Bishop of Meissen.^[38] But this choice proved unfortunate. Benno of Meissen was an obscure eleventh-century Saxon bishop. His canonization was sought from the fifteenth century by both the Saxon princes and the local clergy.^[39] At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the cause was pushed by a theologian from Meissen, Jerome Emser (1478–1527), secretary to Duke George of Saxony, who wrote a life of the bishop in 1512 based on a supposedly ancient document.^[40] This somewhat fanciful life was in fact the only document in the file concerning the virtues.^[41] If George the Bearded had been pushing the cause of this bishop for years with a political will to reform and control the Saxon Church – which displeased the bishop of Meissen – the context of the Lutheran reformation actually changed the meaning of this canonization.^[42] The Duke of Saxony, who remained a Catholic, eventually fell out with Luther over the Hussite heresy.^[43] The role of Charles V in this canonization deserves to be emphasized, for it was his intervention with Adrian VI, his former tutor, the “Louvain’s crowned ass” as Luther called him, that broke the deadlock.^[44] And his ambassador had reminded the previous Pope Leo X in 1520 that his hesitations on this matter demonstrated that he had an “extraordinary fear” of the Saxon reformer.^[45] It is therefore difficult not to see this canonization as an opportunity for the emperor and the pope to reaffirm Catholic concepts contested by Luther and to challenge him on this sensitive subject.

The bull of canonization was signed in November 1523 by the new pope Clement VII, and, in March 1524 the bishop of Meissen announced the transfer of the new saint’s body on 14 June with posters displayed as far away as Wittenberg, recalling that canonization was also a production of holy bodies and thus of new relics. And Luther decided to react at that moment, not at the canonization itself, by publishing a new pamphlet against the new idol that Benno of Meissen had become through this canonization. He used the same title as the one he had planned to use to denounce the idolatry of Halle: Widder den newen Abgott und allten Teuffel, der zu Meyssen sol erhoben werden (Against the new idol and old devil who is to be raised to Meyssen).^[46] Perhaps he was also using arguments that he had already worked on in his earlier text, which remained in manuscript. In this text we find criticisms that Luther had already made of the cult of the saints, such as the fact that Benno’s life was legendary. He summarized in one formula the link between canonization, which he did not seem to have been interested in before, and the various aspects of the cult of the saints (relics, the sale of indulgences and idolatry) that he had progressively denounced: “Was kan Benno dazu, das man seyner gepeyn so braucht zum abgott, die leute umbs gellt und seele zu bringen?”^[47] A formula that the English translator of the text a few decades later made even more explicit: “what shall Benno do, yf we do vse his bones and his relyques to Idolatrye, for cause to wrast out money from men, to the destruccyon of so many soules?” This was a condensation of his thinking on the question, with the backdrop of a vigorous denunciation of the pontifical power of the late Adrian VI, whom he attacked by name. This text was also an opportunity for Luther to clarify his views on holiness, based on biblical references. He argued that a distinction should be made between false saints, those created by the popes, and true saints, those killed by the popes,^[48] attacked the miracles and concluded that, because of its mendacious nature, Benno’s canonization was a work of the devil and even a willingness of the devil to be adored under the name of Benno.^[49]

The first copies of the virulent pamphlet, which went through seven successive editions, were ready at the beginning of June 1524, a few days before the planned ceremonies in Meissen. In the following months, Jerome Emser, an advocate of the cause, Benno’s biographer and one of Luther’s fiercest Saxon opponents, published Antwort auff das lesterliche buch wider Bischoff Benno zu Meyssen (A Reply to the Last Book against Bishop Benno of Meissen).^[50]

Did this polemic reach Rome? It is more than likely that it did, although we have no formal proof. Did it influence pontifical practice by bringing to the fore the old criticisms of canonization to which the papacy had tried to respond through the canonization process? There is no direct evidence of this, but from 1523 onwards there was another interruption in the canonization process, this time of unprecedented length, which has not been repeated since: it took 65 years, three generations, and nine pontificates, i.e. 1588, before a pope added a new name to the list of saints. Luther’s pamphlet and the ensuing controversy were probably not the only factors. In the first half of the century, Erasmian influences in the Roman palaces may also have dampened the zeal of the cardinals. More prosaically, in the midst of the Italian wars, the Curia was brutally disorganized after the sack of Rome by the imperial troops in May 1527.

If canonization was halted after 1523, the recognition of limited cult continued until 1542, at a less sustained rate than between 1509 and 1523, but at a regular rate, as if the Holy See was content to give satisfaction locally and discreetly to claims, often old and mainly Italian, while taking greater care with the procedure. But soon the concession of cult became rare in its turn. Indeed, after the one granted for Raymond of Penyafort (d. 1275) in 1542, it was not until 1560 that a new one was granted in favour of Gundisalvus of Amarante (d. ca. 1259), then 1566 for Margaret of Savoy (d. 1464) and Columba of Rieti, 1582 for Norbert of Gennep (of Xanten) (d. 1134), 1583 for the English martyrs, and then 1601 for John of Sahagún (d. 1479). It should be noted that the Council of Trent had little influence on this tendency. The question of canonization was not addressed for its own sake, but the legitimacy of the invocation and veneration of saints and of the cult of relics and images was reaffirmed on 3 December 1563, while the Protestants’ accusations of idolatry were deemed inadmissible and those who supported them were anathematized.^[51]

4 The Year 1588

The year 1588 marks a turning point in the history of modern canonization for two reasons: on the one hand, because on 22 January the Congregation of Rites was instituted, which, on the occasion of the reorganization of the Roman Curia by Sixtus V,^[52] was entrusted with the preparation of canonizations, and on the other hand, because on 27 June the pope announced in consistory his decision to celebrate the first canonization of the Tridentine era, that of Diego (Didacus) of Alcalá de Henares (d. 1463), in the following month.^[53]

In July 1588, Sixtus V (r. 1585–1590) chose to break the long Roman silence on canonization by including in the list of saints a Spanish Franciscan who had come to Rome in 1450 for the canonization of another Franciscan, Bernardine of Siena. Beyond the merits of the person, this canonization marks both the culmination of an already long-standing request by Philip II and the culmination of the very political alliance sealed between Pope Sixtus V and the Spanish sovereign at the height of his glory. In fact, Philip II (d. 1598), who perhaps had as a model his father’s intervention with Pope Adrian VI in 1523 for the canonization of Benno de Meissen, in turn requested a halo for an Andalusian Franciscan, Diego of Alcalá, to whose intercession he attributed the miraculous recovery of his son Carlos, who had fallen down the stairs of the palace of Alcalá and had been brought back to life by the relics of the saint. He immediately asked Pius IV (d. 1565) to canonize the effective intercessor, and then, despite the death of the infant in troubled circumstances, he repeated his request to Pius V (d. 1572), then to Gregory XIII (d. 1585) and Sixtus V (d. 1590). Cardinals were charged with the case, in 1564 by Pius IV. Under Pius V, an apostolic trial was held in Alcalá from February 1567 and sent to Rome, where it arrived in August. But the matter remained unresolved. It was not until the election of Sixtus V in April 1585 that Spanish pressure brought Rome out of its inertia, even its paralysis, which, beyond this Spanish case, had prevented any canonization for more than 60 years. In June 1585, the new pope set the curial machinery in motion by entrusting the revision of the trial to two auditors of the Rota, the dean De Rossi and the Aragonese Cristóbal Robuster, appointed by Philip II to this post in 1561.^[54] It is difficult to believe that the choice of a Spanish auditor for this task was merely a happy coincidence, especially as Robuster was promoted to the episcopal see of Orihuela in August 1587, which seems like a reward for good and loyal service. Once this revision was completed, the process was then entrusted to eight cardinals for a new revision during the consistory of 23 January 1587.^[55] When the latter was completed, Sixtus V was able to call together the three consistories and announce on 27 June 1588 the canonization of the Spanish Conventual Franciscan on 2 July. He did this all the more willingly because he was himself an observant Franciscan and had been general of his order. But pressure had been mounting for several months from Philip II through his representative in Rome since 1582, Don Enrique de Guzmán, Count of Olivares. The reason for this renewed pressure from the king was given by P. Galesini:

the difficult and perilous war in England, which he had decided to wage, out of piety and for a very just cause, against the most infamous Elizabeth, full of all the filth and stained with all the stains of heresy, was near […] The King having made a great war apparatus […] he needed above all things celestial protectors […] so the Pope […] decided to canonize Blessed Diego, the King having such faith in his merits.^[56]

The elevation of Diego to the rank of patron saint of the expedition was therefore a further contribution by Sixtus V to the success of the Invincible Armada expedition, which was to lead to the re-establishment of Catholicism in England and which he was already supporting financially and spiritually.

It should be noted that it was during these negotiations, in October 1585, that Philip II, in a letter to the Count of Olivares, his ambassador in Rome, asked the latter to obtain from the pope the canonization of the Dominican Louis Bertrand (d. 1581) and, if this took too long, to obtain his beatificatione in the meantime.^[57] Through the creation of this neologism, which would later be taken up by the Curia, Philip II gave a name to the second stage of the canonization procedure, which had arisen with the causes of Francis of Paola and Hyacinth of Poland.

This new saint did not bring about the victory expected by Philip II, but he brought a lasting end to the Roman silence on canonizations. His elevation to the altars was followed by those of the Dominican Hyacinth of Poland (d. 1257) in 1594, of Raymond of Penyafort (d. 1275) in 1601, of Frances of Rome (d. 1436) in 1608, of and Charles Borromeo (d. 1584) in 1610.

5 The Congregazione dei Beati

The Holy See’s revived taste for canonization was quickly embraced by many Catholics long deprived of new devotions.^[58] Cities and sovereigns, monastic and religious orders, old and new, began to dream of the glory of the altars for one or other of their fellow citizens, subjects, brothers or sisters who had recently or formerly died in the odour of sanctity. These expectations were frustrated by the length and complexity of the canonization procedures set up by the Congregation of Rites.^[59] And in some cases, the impatience was such that, once again, public liturgical services were held for recently deceased persons, whose sanctity or beatitude has not been formally recognized by the Congregation of Rites. Images were also distributed in which they were described as beati and represented with the attributes of sanctity (rays, halo).^[60] These practices mainly concerned the outstanding figures of the Catholic Reformation of the sixteenth century: Ignatius of Loyola, Francis Xavier, Teresa of Ávila, Philip Neri and Charles Borromeo, to name but a few. The organizers of these cults were aware that they were breaking the rules, with the support of cardinals, including Baronius, who questioned the Holy See’s control of the cult of the saints.

Pope Clement VIII (r. 1592–1605) tried to resist these manoeuvres. First, he prohibited the presence of ex-votos on the tomb of Ignatius of Loyola in Rome, then on that of Philip Neri, for whom he had initially made an exception. At the same time, in the same logic of reaffirming the pontifical reserve, he resumed the series of pontifical concessions of cult with that of the Spaniard John of Sahagún (d. 1479) in 1601. He then set up a congregation on the subject of the Blessed (beati), also called the “Congregation of the Blessed,” which met for the first time on 25 November 1602, in the Apostolic Palace in his presence. Its task was to define, according to the Avviso of 14 December 1602, the nature of and the difference between canonization and beatification.^[61] This congregation met again in December 1602 and in January 1603. It was composed of 17 cardinals and 10 theologians. The Congregation of Rites was represented by at least four cardinals, Tolomeo Galli, Dean of the Sacred College and de facto prefect of the Congregation, Alessandro de’ Medici, Domenico Pinelli and Caesar Baronius, and by its new secretary since June 1602, Giovanni Paolo Mucanzio. Clement VIII immediately gave a list of non-canonized figures, who were worshiped.^[62] Although he readily admitted that he wanted all of them to be recognized as blessed, he recalled that he could not tolerate this being done without his authorization. While most of the cardinals supported the Pontiff, several of the participants, as was to be expected, argued that beatification could be a matter for the bishops, whereas only canonization would be a matter of papal reservation.^[63]

However, all the participants admitted that the question could only arise for the modern blesseds (beati moderni) who had not yet been the object of recognition of cult by “particular papal briefs.” It seems that the pope had chosen to compromise, since this commission drew up a first list of modern blesseds for whom a derogatory treatment was requested. This list included the names of seven people, six of whom died in Rome: Ignatius of Loyola (d. 1556), Philip Neri (d. 1595), Charles Borromeo (d. 1584), Felix of Cantalice (d. 1587), Angel del Pas (d. 1596), Philip de Rebaldis (d. 1598) and Evangelista Gerbi, known as il Marcellino (d. 1593). It may be thought that Clement VIII reluctantly agreed to tolerate a quasi-public cult for these non-beatified beati, the forms of which have been examined in detail. But no conclusion was given to these theological debates.^[64] Some claim that the debate resumed under Paul V but there is no evidence for this.^[65] The list of exceptions soon included newcomers such as Teresa of Ávila (d. 1582).

6 The Canonization of 1622

The pope’s inability to impose a point of view during the Congregation of the beati showed how important the canonization of the founders of recent orders was for them, who were ready to force the pope’s hand if necessary. These new orders, while obtaining these derogations for their beati, nevertheless followed in parallel the ordinary ways with the Congregation for Rites to obtain their beatification and then their canonization in due form.^[66] Thus, investigations into the virtues and miracles of Francis Xavier, who died off the coast of Canton in 1552, were ordered from 1556 onwards by the King of Spain in the various dioceses of the East Indies where the Jesuit missionary had lived. However, these trials were rare in the sixteenth century and were not immediately successful. But the canonization of Diego of Alcalá in 1588 awakened the hopes of the postulators, especially as many of the candidates in question were subjects of the Spanish kings. Thus, various ordinary trials were opened by the bishops in the last years of the sixteenth century: in 1591 for Teresa of Ávila (d. 1582), in 1593 for Ignatius of Loyola and Paschal Baylón (d. 1592), in 1595 for Philip Neri (d. 1595) and in 1596 for Maria Toribia (or de la Cabeza), wife of Isidore the Farmer. Apostolic trials were then opened in turn for Teresa of Ávila in 1604, Ignatius of Loyola in 1606, Philip Neri in 1609 and Isidore the Farmer in 1613. Concessions of cult followed with the same regularity: in 1609 for Ignatius of Loyola, in 1614 for Teresa of Ávila, in 1615 for Philip Neri and in 1619 for Francis Xavier and Isidore the Farmer.

Philip IV then obtained from Pope Gregory XV an exceptional canonization of four of his subjects at the same ceremony in Saint Peter’s in Rome.^[67] Philip Neri, whose cult was very much alive in Rome, was added to the list: “four Spaniards and one saint,” as the Romans would have said according to an undocumented tradition.^[68]

In several respects, this canonization was fairly representative of the making of saints in the seventeenth century. In addition to the clear Spanish domination, there was also an over-representation of male saints in the following decades, both among the saints and among the blessed or the beneficiaries of casus excepti. For the whole century, there was one female saint for every five male saints, which was the exact situation in 1622. The low presence of laymen was also the norm (one layperson for every seven clerics among the saints).^[69]

Finally, if in 1622 the new or reformed orders triumphed, it should not be forgotten that the mendicants, religious and nuns together, remained the masters of canonization in the Baroque Age, as they had been in the Middle Ages, with, on their own, about a third of the saints and blessed of the seventeenth century (including Teresa of Ávila, even though she reformed her order). With 12 beatifications and six canonizations, the new orders are not far behind, however, and benefit from the papacy’s desire to highlight the great figures of the Catholic Reformation. Francis Borgia (d. 1572) and Cajetan of Thiene (d. 1547) in 1671 and John of God (Portuguese: João de Deus d. 1550) in 1690 were in turn raised to the altars in this spirit. The new orders therefore did not deploy a great deal of energy in vain at the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth century to ensure that their founders found their place in the procession of saints.

7 The Reforms of Urban VIII

The progressive beatification or canonization of most of these figures soon brought the practice of the cult of non-beatified persons back into line with the theory of papal reservation, but the Holy See was seriously alarmed in this crisis of the beati and the lesson would not be forgotten.

Indeed, when Urban VIII (r. 1623–1644) decided to tackle the “abuses” that persisted in the cult of the non-beatified and to impose pontifical reservation once and for all, he chose, as a good connoisseur of the Curia and as a well-informed jurist,^[70] to override the reluctance of the Congregation of Rites by having recourse to the jurisdiction of the Holy Office, of which he was, like all popes, the direct prefect.^[71] Thus, by two decrees of the Sacred Inquisition, dated 13 March and 2 October 1625, he forbade any public manifestation of cult towards persons not beatified or canonized by the Holy See, without prior authorization: the public veneration of images, the representation of halos or rays on images, the publication of writings concerning revelations, miracles or graces obtained, the presence on tombs of ex-votos, wax or silver effigies, candles or lamps were prohibited.

After beatifying the Florentine Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi (d. 1607) in 1626, 19 years after her death,^[72] Urban VIII issued a decree on 15 January 1628, which stipulated that the Congregation of Rites could no longer discuss the life and virtues of a candidate if 50 years had not elapsed since her/his death.^[73] This measure was intended to prevent beatifications and canonizations from happening too quickly.^[74] It was also forbidden to publish anything about a cause before the canonization.

The brief Cælestis Hierusalem Cives of 5 July 1634 strengthened the system by making it a sine qua non condition for the opening or continuation of a canonization procedure that a special trial should verify compliance with the clauses defined in the two previous decrees. This process, instructed by the bishop of the place of burial, led to a decree super non cultu issued by the ordinary tribunal in charge of the instruction. This decree had to be confirmed by the Congregation of Rites.

In order to perfect the system, a commission of cardinals and prelates from the Congregation of Rites, which, faced with a fait accompli, regained its rights somewhat belatedly, was appointed by Urban VIII in 1640 to bring some order into these new measures. It completed its work on 12 March 1642 by publishing decrees, which provided some clarifications but which essentially only repeated and ratified the decisions of the Holy Office of 1625 and the brief of 1634.

This set of measures, whose implementation was entrusted to the Inquisition, had a considerable influence on devotional practices. Despite a certain amount of resistance, the halos and rays have gradually disappeared from the portraits of candidates for sainthood; the titles of saint and blessed became the prerogative of the canonized and beatified; burials were supervised.^[75] But private devotions were not forbidden by the brief of Urban VIII, and crowds still came in great numbers to visit the graves of men and women who had died in the odour of sanctity. Pious donations, especially of ex-votos, could continue, but these objects had to be kept in a secret place to serve as proof of fama sanctitatis when the time came …

It was also licit and even recommended to have recourse privately to the intercession of the servants of God whom one had reason to believe are already in Paradise: the miracles that were always necessary to achieve beatification were thus sometimes minutely recorded in a Liber miraculorum worthy of the Middle Ages, but which remained discreet.

The legislation of Urban VIII does, however, make an exception for certain cults. The decree of 1625 established that the prohibition did not concern cults that had been tolerated since time immemorial. It became customary to call these cults or causes casus excepti, understood to mean “to the decrees of Urban VIII.” The brief of 1634 had to specify what was meant by “time immemorial” and set the limit at one hundred years. The Congregation of Rites stipulated in 1652 that, in order to enter into the category of casus excepti, the cult must be one hundred years old at the date of publication of the decree of Urban VIII (1634) and not only at the date of the request for a decree super casu excepto. Moreover, the text of 1642 added to this category all the cults which had previously been recognized ex Indulto Summorum Pontificum, i.e. all those which had been the object of a pontifical concession.

For all of these “excepted cases,” the brief of 1634 required that the continuity of the cult up to the date of the request for pontifical recognition would be proven by a particular process before the canonization proceedings was initiated or continued. The ordinary then examined this super casu excepto process, which was the counterpart of the super non cultu process for recent causes, and may issue a super casu excepto decree. This decree must then be approved and confirmed by the Congregation of Rites. This was the procedure known as per viam casus excepti or per viam cultus, as opposed to that known as per viam non cultus, which was imposed on all causes of persons who had died within the last hundred years. From 1642 onwards, therefore, the causes of the beatified should have gone through this additional process. In fact, in 1645, when the first case arose, the Congregation of Rites chose to exempt them, being satisfied with the presentation of the decree of beatification to grant the decree super casu excepto. The procedure was therefore quite formal in these latter cases and this declaration of casus exceptus was no longer required for those beatified after 1634, since to obtain this beatification it was necessary to proceed with a super non cultu process, according to the norms of Urban VIII. Equipollent canonizations of persons previously beatified by the Holy See were not required to go through this stage, since by definition this type of canonization bypassed all the rules.

Finally, it should be noted that some persons who died after 1534, or even 1552, and who were not beatified in 1634 and who should not therefore have fallen into this category, were the subject of trials per viam cultus. This is a sure indication that the prohibition of Urban VIII did not end all public cult of the non-beatified, and that accommodation was subsequently granted. These cases are fairly few in number and are mainly the Brazilian martyrs of 1570, a dozen Italians and a few others such as the French Jesuit Pierre Favre (d. 1546).

8 Conclusions

The momentum of the early seventeenth century was clearly broken. Thus, Urban VIII himself did not canonize anyone between 1634 and 1644, whereas at the beginning of his pontificate he had canonized Elizabeth of Portugal (d. 1336) in 1625 and Andrew Corsini (d. 1373) in 1629. Similarly, whereas he had granted 10 concessions of cult or beatifications in the first part of his reign, he granted only one after 1634, that in 1643 for the Uniate archbishop Josaphat Kuntsevych who had been murdered in the Ukraine in November 1623, at the very beginning of his pontificate, and whose cause had been dispensed with the fifty-year rule in January 1629 at the opening of the apostolical processes.^[76] He thus returned to medieval parsimony, as he had set out to do. Rome thus regained control of the pace of canonizations and imposed new canonization rules on bishops around the world that would delay many causes in the following decades. However, in this restored parsimony, a new quintuple canonization took place on 12 April 1671 when Clement X canonized Cajetan of Thiene, Francis Borja, Louis Bertrand, Philip Benizi and Rose of Lima.

The quintuple canonization of 1622, which featured the triumph of the figures of the Catholic Reform and founders of new orders, demonstrated Spanish power in European Catholicism, but also served as a reminder, by contrast, that Catholic space had shrunk considerably for a century as a result of the Protestant Reform. If the canonization of Benno of Meissen in 1523 had accelerated and exacerbated Lutheran criticism of the cult of saints, which in turn had disrupted papal canonization, in some way, a hundred years later Luther’s shadow was still present. The canonization and the cult of the saints had become an element of the confessionalization of the continent, which was once again affected by religious wars. In this context, the elevation of new saints to the altars could have suggested that the papacy would multiply these events. But, for internal reasons linked to the long history of pontifical canonization, Urban VIII chose instead to limit the possibility of such events, giving this quintuple canonization, in retrospect, the brilliance of the extraordinary.