374 anne jacobson schutte
Venetian subjects’ attaining the rank of master in a guild-regulated craft,
as in some German cities, appears unlikely. Wills studied for other pur-
poses reveal the occasional nubile non-elite woman. For reasons outlined
above regarding the remarriage of non-elite widows, one can infer that
few women would have voluntarily chosen the single life.
Life Status: Religious Profession
In the Venetian Republic, as everywhere else in early modern Europe, all
professed nuns came from the elite. The social range of professed monks,
friars, and other male religious was somewhat broader. Only second-class
monastic servants, converse/i, had humble origins. As indicated earlier,
making surplus daughters nuns constituted an important element in pat-
rimonial strategies. Until now, almost no one has recognized that the same
economic imperatives dictated thrusting sons as well into monastic life.
Some men and women experienced a genuine calling to the religious
life. Many others, however, did not: they were forced into monasteries and
convents by elders intent on removing them from the inheritance stream.
In the fondo Congregazione del Concilio of the Archivio Segreto Vaticano,
I have found 978 religious who petitioned the pope for release from their
vows between 1668 and 1793—83 per cent of them men. About half of the
petitions proceeded to judgment by the Congregation of the Council; 153
men and 68 women (38.7 per cent and 70.8 per cent, respectively, of those
in whose cases a final decree was issued) obtained favorable rulings.76
Reluctant religious from Venice and its subject territories naturally fig-
ured among those from all over the Roman Catholic world who petitioned
the pope, although not in numbers approaching the throngs from the
Papal State and the Kingdom of Naples. The legal stories their attorneys
told resembled those from elsewhere: a wide variety of cruel physical and
psychological means employed by elders that induced terror sufficient to
propel them into religious houses. One unusual feature of the situation
in the Republic was the secular government’s prohibiting nuns and their
representatives from filing petitions in Rome. As a consequence, forced
nuns determined to obtain release from their vows had to flee to states
where such a restriction was not in effect.77
76 Anne Jacobson Schutte, By Force and Fear: Making and Breaking Monastic Vows in
Early Modern Europe (Ithaca, 2011).
77 Anne Jacobson Schutte, “Between Venice and Rome.”