192 confession, auricular
See alsoARMIES AND MILITARY ORGANIZATION;HAW K-
WOOD,JOHN.
Further reading:Kenneth Fowler, Medieval Merce-
naries,Vol. 1, The Great Companies(Oxford: Blackwell,
2001); John Larner, The Lords of the Romagna: Romangnol
Society and the Origins of the Signorie(London: Macmil-
lan, 1965); Michael Mallett, Mercenaries and Their Mas-
ters: Warfare in Renaissance Italy(London: The Bodley
Head, 1974); Geoffrey Trease, The Condottierri: Soldiers of
Fortune(London: Thames and Hudson, 1970).
confession, auricular SeeSEVEN SACRAMENTS.
confirmation SeeSEVEN SACRAMENTS.
confraternities(fraternities) Confraternities began as
prayer groups and mutual aid societies formed by lay
believers. They played major roles in religious life along-
side more clerically dominated structures such as the
PARISH. Each confraternity invoked one or more patron
saints, whom the confraternity celebrated at an annual
feast with both religious and convivial ceremonies to pro-
mote the group’s identity and solidarity.
By the late 11th century, groups designated by the
unspecific word confraria,“fraternity” or “confraternity,”
were under the jurisdiction of BENEDICTINEmonasteries.
Confraternities of clerics were founded in cathedral
chapters to help poor priests. At the same time, the LAITY,
anxious to contribute personally to their salvation, were
supportive of and began practicing the confraternities’
penitential renunciation and fraternity.
The confraternities reached their high point the last
two centuries of the Middle Ages, when they proliferated
in both towns and the countryside. Primarily religious
but with some political and social implications, these
large confraternities called on the saints and the practice
of charity to contribute to the salvation of members. They
jointly and especially concentrated on prayers, visits to
the sick, and funeral arrangements, later expanding their
activities to promoting peace within communities and
financing hospitals and poverty relief.
The attitude of political and ecclesiastical authorities
was ambivalent. As autonomous groups bound by oath
and as possible factions feared by the ruling regime, con-
fraternities aroused suspicion and were regularly but
ineffectively condemned. The church granted them offi-
cial recognition if they confined themselves to charitable
and liturgical activities under the careful guidance of the
clergy.
ISLAMIC CONFRATERNITIESIn ISLAMconfraternities (tarlgat)arose in SUFISM. Every
confraternity or order was tied to a sheikh or a master
whose disciples assembled to submit to a discipline of
prayer and teaching. After a master’s death, his teaching
was passed down orally and through hagiographical
accounts. The meeting place of the confraternity was gen-
erally near the founder’s tomb, to which a PILGRIMAGE
might be made. These different orders were varied in
structure and hierarchy. The religious life of a Muslim
confraternity was organized around vigils, fasting, prayers
reciting the names of GOD, and particular spiritual and
mystical practices. A novice entered the confraternity by
initiation and, after a period of apprenticeship, had the
right to wear the distinctive cloak of the Sufis and the
headwear of the particular order. Some confraternities or
extremist branches of the official orders showed open
contempt for social and religious conventions. Some
became wandering dervishes in the later Middle Ages,
especially in areas of more recent Islamization, including
the border regions of the Balkans, the Caucasus, central
Asia, and black AFRICA.
See alsoAL-GHAZALI;RUMI.
Further reading: Michel Bàlivet, “Confraternities,
Muslim” in EMA,1.353–354; Andrew E. Barnes, The Social
Dimension of Piety (New York: Paulist Press, 1994);
Maureen Flynn, Sacred Charity: Confraternities and Social
Welfare in Spain, 1400–1700(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Uni-
versity Press, 1989); Nicholas Terpstra, Lay Confraterni-
ties and Civic Religion in Renaissance Bologna(Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1995).Conrad of Marburg (ca. 1180–1233)preacher, zealous
inquisitor
Born about 1180, Conrad of Marburg, after study in
Bologna, was appointed the first inquisitor in Germany in- He collaborated with two other figures, Conrad
Dorso and John the Blind. Conrad was not a member of a
religious order. This “triumvirate” of inquisitors acted
with cruelty and publicly humiliated heretics, especially
in the Rhineland, from 1231 to 1233. Opposition to Con-
rad of Marburg and his fanatical associates soon arose.
On July 30, 1233, he was killed with Conrad the Francis-
can near Marburg; Conrad Dorso was killed at Strasbourg
and John the Blind was hanged near Friedberg.
See alsoELIZABETH OFHUNGARY.
Further reading:Albert Clement Shannon, The Popes
and Heresy in the Thirteenth Century (Villanova, Pa.:
Augustinian, 1949).
consanguinity SeeFAMILY AND KINSHIP; MARRIAGE.Constance, Council of Summoned to end the Great
SCHISM, this ecumenical council was convoked on
November 5, 1414, by the antipope, John XXIII (d.
1419), at the insistence of the future emperor SIGISMUND
of Luxembourg. This 16th ecumenical assembly drew
together nearly 400 prelates and dignitaries of the