The economy of charity and forgiveness. Alms and indulgences in late medieval Lombardy

Abstract

In the late Middle Ages, one of the ways to support hospitals and confraternities was the collection of alms, associated with the granting of indulgences. Through confession, the believers acquired the forgiveness from sins, and through acts of devotion and charity the reduction of the punishment to expiate in the afterlife (in Purgatory). Although studies on the topic are scarce, it is not risked to say that the indulgences had a particular luck in charities. The following pages are designed to provide new elements about the ways in which, in Lombardy, hospitals and confraternities guaranteed themselves privileges for indulgences given by the Pope and by the bishops. A special effort has been made to quantify (whenever the sources allowed to do it) the costs that the institution had to incur for the management of a campaign of indulgences and the economic benefits derived from it. If in certain hospital orders the economic impact of collecting money seems to be relevant, in other cases it appears marginal. This latter is the case of the Great Hospital in Milan, which does not seem to depend on the collection of money linked to indulgences. But, despite this reduced economic impact, the Hospital reserved an important role on the "festa del Perdono" (indulgence granted by Pope Pius II), because, in the context of charity and assistance, the symbolic and communicative value was important like the material aid to the poors.