Early Book Collections | Ephemeral Renaissance

Confraternity of the Rope Charter, 1587

This quintessential Renaissance pope, and great patron of the Vatican Library, Sixtus V declared in the 1585 bull Ex supernae dispositionis the foundation of an Archconfraternity of the Cordigeri (“cord-wearers”) in honor of St. Francis of Assisi at the basilica of the Sacro Convento in Francis’s hometown. Wearing a knotted “rope belt” in honor of a particular saint was a late-antique Christian practice dating back to St. Monica. It was perhaps nowhere more visually redolent of the identity of its patron saint, however, than in the case of St. Francis, whose strict vow of poverty and rejection of all earthly property made his humble rope belt perhaps his only distinctive, life-long possession.

Further papal grants allowed the Friars Minor the right to establish “Confraternities of the Cord” of St. Francis in other churches—a special privilege that created opportunities for financial subscriptions of lay members, and through their performance of ritual acts prescribed within the confraternity charters, opportunities to earn the remission of sins. This powerful sense of community is amply represented in the richly engraved border of this extremely rare legal instrument printed on parchment. Formally uniting Fanciscan friars, nuns, and laypersons together in a legal incorporation dedicated to religious devotion, ecclesiastical patronage, and public charity, these confraternities were especially important in providing the laity with a means of direct civic engagement within the Roman Catholic ecclesiastical hierarchy.

The intricate engraved border of this charter represents pope Sixtus seated on the throne of St. Peter beneath the Holy Trinity. God the Father holds one end of St. Francis’s cord, which wraps simultaneously around Christ and St. Francis bearing the cross, on either side of the pope. Sixtus, in turn, wears the rope as a belt around his waist and manages two lengths of the sacred cord as reins almost in the manner of a charioteer. The confraternal rope then descends along either side of the document, lassoing various idealized groups. From the top, moving left-to-right, the three vows of the regular clergy (“poverty, chastity, and obedience”) appear opposite the three theological virtues (“faith, hope, and charity”). In the middle left, priests and lay brothers of the three branches of the First Order of Franciscan Friars Minor appear (i.e., the “observant” Friars Minor, the Friars Minor Conventual, and Friars Minor Capuchin), and are matched on the right by the three holy states of man (“glory, grace, and nature”).

Bandaroles surround the cord on all three lower sides of the page, echoing the single motto funiculus triplex difficile rumpitur (“a triple cord is difficult to break”), evoking the “triple-cord” passage from Ecclesiastes 4:12. This, in turn, is mirrored at the bottom of the sheet by an image of the three orders of the Franciscans (i.e., the First Order of Friars Minor; the Second Order of cloistered nuns, or Poor Clares; and the Third Order of religious and secular laypersons who live according the example of St. Francis). Each order is dedicated to corresponding activities in keeping with their vows: the First Order to lives of penance, prayer, and preaching; the second to penance, prayer, and cloistered contemplation; and the third to teaching, charity, and social service. Each group of three is shown holding hands in a literal gesture of “concordia” in emulation of the visual and larger theological purpose of the Confraternity of the Cord.

The document was pre-printed on parchment (vellum was a common support for papal legal instruments such as this) to be filled out later in manuscript with the name of the Church to which the privilege of a charter was officially granted. This particular grant was issued to the Church of “St. Viti Castri,” possibly denoting one of two Italian towns known by that name at the time—either San Vito Romano in Lazio, or San Vito dei Normanni in Apulia—on 23 May 1587.

—Earle Havens