Preliminary communication
https://doi.org/10.21857/mnlqgcr1dy
About a Miraculous Event and the Founding of the Confraternity of the Holy Weeping Cross in Rab in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century
Zrinka Novak
orcid.org/0000-0002-9551-3778
; Department of Historical Research of the Institute of Historical and Social Sciences of CASA in Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
Based on various types of sources (the statute of the Confraternity of the Holy Weeping Cross, Rab’s notarial records, the apostolic visitation of Augustine Valier from 1579 and some narrative sources, such as the Great Camphor Chronicle by Fr. Odoriko Badurina), the author analyses the influence of the supernatural event from December 1559 (when the crucified Christ from the altarpiece wept) on the changes in the piety of the denizens of the commune of Rab in the second half of the sixteenth century. This miraculous event greatly influenced on the increased phenomenon of piety of the entire community, which manifested itself through the founding of the Confraternity of the Holy Weeping Cross in the city church of Saint Anthony, changing the patrocinium of the church (from 1560) into the church of the Holy Cross, the establishment of regular liturgy in the church and the proclamation of the feast of Christ’s tears (the Weeping Christ) on 14 December, which has since then been celebrated in the territory of the Diocese of Rab. Among others, the aut hor analyses unpublished Rab’s notarial records (mostly the last wills), in which is notable the intimate devotion of the inhabitants of the commune of Rab to worshiping of Christ’s passion and his tears, mostly through the membership of individuals in the newly founded confraternity and the testamentary legacies ad pias causas in favour of the confraternity and the church of Holy Cross. This essay demonstrates the crucial role of the miraculous image in shaping the devotional experience of the faithful, regardless whether they were patricians, commoners, peasants, clerics, laymen, men or women. The paper also performs a comparative analysis of similar phenomena in other eastern Adriatic communes and find out that the Rab phenomenon is not unique, but fits into the general religious trends and the frameworks of “popular” piety and devotion at the turn of the late Middle Ages and the early modern period. Finally, in the appendix of the article a transcription of the statute of the confraternity (from 1560 and 1765), from the confraternity book is given, as well as excerpts from the visitation of the confraternity and the church of the Holy Cross of Apostolic Visitor Augustine Valier from 1579, recorded as a part of his visit to the Diocese of Rab.
Keywords
miraculous image; Confraternity of the Holy Weeping Cross; Commune of Rab; Early Modern Age; Statute
Hrčak ID:
302155
URI
Publication date:
17.5.2023.
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