Guides for a Good Life: Instructions for Citizens and Believers in Italian Medieval Confraternities

Men and women in the Middle Ages were constantly trying to improve themselves and their life. Their ultimate goal was to become good Christians, which often meant acquiring the skills necessary to be a valuable member of society and to work for the common good. In Italy, these two requirements came to the fore during the “Age of the Communes” (12th-13th centuries) when the peninsula was wrought by bloody and destabilizing conflicts between opposing factions: pro-imperial vs pro-papal, nobles vs popolo, etc. As this article will show, confraternities played an important role in trying to attenuate this climate of conflict. Starting in the thirteenth century, many confraternities intensified their devotional and charitable efforts by calling upon people to seek peace and the ‘good’, both common and personal. This led to the need to instruct not only ‘good’ Christians, but also the ‘good’ citizens. After some general observations on these points, this article will use the sermons that a famous politician and lawyer of the time, Albertano da Brescia, addressed to his confraternity brothers as a case study that illustrates these confraternity attempts at fostering peace and improving both society and the individual.