Papal Global Ambitions and Local Resistance through Franciscan Accounting Documents: The Case of the Custody of the Holy Land in the Seventeenth Century

Abstract This article studies seventeenth-century accounting documents produced by the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land (est. 1342) in light of attempts by the Roman Congregation de Propaganda Fide (est. 1622) to expand its authority over the Custody’s finances. Through the combined analysis of two sets of accounting documents, the article explains the documents’ structure and functions and discusses the bearing of organisational and normative changes on accounting practices. Furthermore, the analysis of the production of accounting documents aimed at Propaganda Fide is the starting point to investigate the congregation’s attempts to control the Custody’s administration of alms and their outcomes. By doing so, the article first expands the research on accounting documents produced in missionary territories. Second, it contributes to research on religious orders’ struggles facing Rome’s administrative centralisation and standardisation, which were embodied by Propaganda Fide and ultimately intertwined with the globalisation of Catholicism. From a wider perspective, the article contributes to research on the global expansion of Catholicism by confirming the highly localised and negotiated nature of Rome’s centralisation and providing further evidence for how papal and imperial authority was negotiated in local contexts.