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‘Principium et origo ordinis’: the Humiliati and their origins
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
The origins of the Humiliati have long been a subject of discussion amongst historians. In the twentieth century the first person to grapple with the problems was Antonino de Stefano, who was quickly followed by Luigi Zanoni, later by Herbert Grundmann and Ilarino da Milano, and more recently by Michele Maccarrone, Brenda Bolton, and Maria Pia Alberzoni. The modern writers have accepted de Stefano’s view that the Humiliati first emerged in northern Italy in the late twelfth century. The earliest references, dating from the 1170s, describe both a small group of lay men and women devoted to the religious life (humiliati per deum), and an association of clerics living in community at the church of San Pietro Viboldone. Although they initially sought papal approval, those who ‘falsely called themselves Humiliati’ were condemned in 1184 by Lucius III, not because they were guilty of doctrinal error but because they refused to stop preaching without authority or holding private meetings, probably also because of their rejection of oath-taking. In spite of this setback the Humiliati flourished, and by the end of the twelfth century three distinct elements were recognizable: married or single lay men and women living a religious life while remaining in their own homes, male and female monastics living in common under a rule, and clerics living in some sort of canonical communities. In June 1201 these groups were brought back into the Church under the auspices of Innocent III. He gave approval to the three groups or ‘orders’ which recent research has revealed were already distinct before curial intervention, but which were now organized into one framework along Cistercian lines. It was a fortunate decision. Although groups described as ‘Humiliati’ were expelled from Cerea in 1203 and Faenza in 1206, the Order of the Humiliati went on to enjoy spectacular success, becoming a major presence in the religious, economic, and administrative life of northern Italy in the thirteenth century.
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References
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6 Alberzoni has re-examined the register copy of the papal letter Licet multitudini credentium, sent to the Humiliati in December 1200, before the intervention of the papal delegates. It was partially mistranscribed in PL and her revisions show that it is already addressed to the three separate groups, demonstrating that tliey were already defined and that the three-tiered structure was not, as was previously believed, imposed by Innocent III and the Curia. The new transcription also reveals specific reference to clerics amongst the Humiliati. Alberzoni, ‘Gli inizi’, pp. 201 n.40, 205 n.47.
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9 The fullest modern account of the thirteenth-century history of the order remains Zanoni, Gli Umiliati.
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53 John of Brera, Chronicon, ch. 12, p. 237. For earlier examples of this topos of relics resisting the action of thieves, see P.J. Geary, Furta Sacra. Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages (Princeton, NJ., 1978), pp. 128, 184–6.
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57 John of Brera, Chronicon, preface, pp. 229–30. The relevant papal letters are in VHM, 2, pp. 198–200, 329–32.
58 John of Brera, Chronicon, preface, p. 229.
59 Ibid., ch. 16, p. 241: ‘quia contra humiliatos tunc murmurabatur, quoniam ipsi in aliquibus errabant; licet essent Religiosi sanctae vitae.’
60 Ibid., ch. 27, pp. 251–3, ch. 33, p. 263.
61 Ibid., preface, p. 230.
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