The Benedictine face of religious poverty: The formation and growth of the Silvestrine congregation in the medieval March of Ancona

The Silvestrine Congregation of Benedictines, founded in the 1230s in the March of Ancona by Silvestro Guzzolini, is frequently presented alongside the Celestine and Olivetan orders under the rubric "later Benedictine reform movements." Noted for its austere application of the Rule and embrace of religious poverty, the order consisted of about 120 monks in twelve monasteries at the time of the founder's death in 1267. By 1325 the order had expanded into Umbria, Tuscany, and Lazio and evolved from its rural roots into an urban order with parish responsibilities. This study presents the First Silvestrines as a case study of the evolutionary dynamics of new religious orders in late medieval Italy.;Notarial documents recount a symbiotic relationship between the Silvestrine mother house and the elites of Fabriano as each pursued strategies of success in the changing environment of the late thirteenth century. The study argues that the parallel trajectories of the new religious movements in the thirteenth century Marches---Silvestrine, Augustinian, and Franciscan---were consumer-driven. The new orders shared a language of religious poverty; they praised the simplicity of the eremitic life and the spiritual fecundity of the lonely, deserted places, but were swept inexorably into the cities in the competition for patrons and adherents. The Silvestrine archive provides a documentary look at this process of evolving spiritual ideals in a time of great demographic change and religious ferment.;The thirteenth century was a time of rapid urbanization and economic change in Italy, witnessing the ascendancy of the commune, and the extension of communal authority into the countryside. The growing urban centers featured new religious movements preaching religious poverty in competition with older religious corporations. The study begins by locating the Silvestrines within the currents of late medieval religious movements and tracing the rise of the commune of Fabriano to regional prominence. The second part of the study examines the archival evidence of the early Silvestrines as they employed ideals of religious poverty to negotiate a new role as hub of a network of urban patrons and clients in the commune of Fabriano.