ABSTRACT
According to a generally accepted denition, confraternities, a typical and widespread phenomenon found throughout Europe since the Middle Ages, were brotherhoods of Christian laymen, organized for religious or charitable service. Moving in time and space, and studying in detail their mission, actions, and relationship within the social context of which they were part, we nd their apparent homogeneity conceals even signicant dierences (Dompnier and Vismara 2008). Scant attention has been paid by economic historians to the history of confraternities, above all if compared to what other branches of historiography have produced.1 Nevertheless, their socioeconomic importance, both for their key role in many productive sectors and for the welfare work oen entrusted to them, is now well established. Recently, the need to investigate the economic history of the confraternities has been encouraged, as they are regarded as “businesses” and as having the same cultural matrix at the roots of the for-and non-prot activities in the societies of the ancien régime.2 Our purpose here is to get a more general understanding of the role of the confraternities in the local socioeconomic system and how they supported the governance of the place. ese issues have hardly been touched upon, above all, for rural areas, where,
1 It would be impossible here, even briey, to list the works of historiography on the subject, for which refer to the historiographic synthesis of Zardin 1987; Gazzini 2004, 2006, 2009.
