Catholic Church. Dataria Apostolica

As early as the fourteenth century, the precise date on which the pope granted a particular favor was often a matter of crucial importance. The dating of the supplication, which could be also antedated, signaled the moment from which the grant of the grace had juridical validity. This became important if the same benefice was granted to two persons, because the earliest dated concession generally carried priority. There were other instances where a date might be important, for example, if a cleric was ineligible for particular promotions until a certain age, or if the grant of a benefice might be made before or after the day on which its quarterly incomes were due.

In the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries, an official of the Chancery was responsible for dating supplications received. Up until 1406, this person was simply called "he who dates, or will date." Under the pontificate of Martin V (1417-1431) the duty of assigning a date to all pontifical letters granting favors was completely separated from the Apostolic Chancery and assigned to an autonomous officer. This is evident from the uninterrupted series of datarii beginning with Giovanni de Feys, called supplicacionum apostolicarum datarius, in a document as early as September 1, 1418, in which is recorded for the first time the term Dataria for his office.

Although the original function of the datarius and his staff was simply to date approved petitions, especially those requesting nonconsistorial (or minor) benefices, indulgences, and dispensations, the responsibilities and functions of this office grew dramatically in the course of the fifteenth century. The formally established curial department that emerged at the end of the fifteenth century quickly gained major stature, largely owing to the booming practice of selling curial offices. Some would argue that it came to function as a second treasury, supplementing the Apostolic Camera and serving more directly than the older treasury the financial needs of the pope.

The Datary's ability to generate money was the momentum behind its growth as an office. One observes frequently in the history of the curia how certain offices and officers sought to expand their areas of responsibility, creating new bureaucratic mechanisms (often with a fiscal dimension) and coopting business from other departments. Likewise, the nature and consistency of office records could change in response to talented leadership or expediency. The Datary of the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries offers a dramatic example of bureaucratic metamorphosis. "At the beginning of the fifteenth century the datarius had been an obscure minor official responsible for dating petitions; at its close he had become one of the main papal officers, and his bureau had assumed key importance in papal finance" (Partner, The Pope's Men, pp. 21-22).

From the early fifteenth century Datary officials increasingly handled and received compositions or fees for grants of favor: principally minor or nonconsistorial benefices, certain indulgences, and certain dispensations from canon law, particularly in the area of sacerdotal, monastic, and matrimonial law. Although the Chancery and the Secretaria Apostolica continued to administer grants of favor, in the sixteenth century the Datary became the main office through which the pope exercised his gracious jurisdiction in the external forum, that is, in this case the routine concession of requests regarding benefices, legal intervention, confirmation of rights and privileges, indults, dispensations, and indulgences. In addition, the Datary administered venal or salable offices. With the resources deriving from grants of favor and sale of offices, the Datary functioned increasingly as a private treasury for the popes. From these funds the popes met ordinary and extraordinary expenses, such as pensions, gifts, alms, building projects, patronage interests, and household and military expenses.

So important was the sale of offices to the growth of the Datary that more must be said regarding this form of income. What follows owes a heavy debt to Barbara Hallman's Italian Cardinals, pp. 129-163. Hallman notes four developments in the administration of church finances in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries that significantly shaped the functioning of the Datary and hence the production, nature, and contents of its documents. To a lesser degree, the Apostolic Camera, some of whose fiscal power and functions the Datary usurped, underwent parallel transformations. These four developments were: (1) a dramatic rise and routinization of the sale of curial offices (also referred to as venal offices or saleable offices), beginning with the pontificate of Sixtus IV, 1471-1484; (2) the separation of the Dataria from the Camera Apostolica as a distinct treasury under Sixtus IV; (3) the invention, beginning with Leo X, of a new category of venal offices, the Honorary Knighthoods or cavalierati; and (4) the institution by Clement VII in 1526 of the Monte della Fede, which offered the public an opportunity to invest in shares (luoghi) of the church, creating a sort of investment bank.

Venal offices functioned as lucrative sources of income both for the popes and for those who invested in them. Examples of salable offices were camerlengo, abbreviator, writer of briefs, secretary, cameral clerk, consistorial advocate, treasurer, and shield-bearer. The honorary knighthoods included: Cavalieri or Knights of St. Peter (1520), Knights of Loreto (1545), Knights of St. George and Knights of the Lily (1546), and Cavalieri Pii (1560).

Venal offices had to be purchased with gold and those requiring actual labor, such as abbreviator, writer of briefs, or secretary, were much more expensive than the honorary knighthoods. Clerks of the Camera Apostolica paid 10,000 scuti for the office in 1514, with the price rising dramatically every decade. The highest offices of the church were very expensive. For example, Francesco Armellini paid 50,000 ducats to Leo X for the position of camerlengo in 1521. The same office went for 70,000 ducats in 1554.

Investments in venal offices by curial servants created opportunities for other Italians to participate in investment. Office titleholders could share the office with others at a fixed price for a fixed annual return. In this way, vested interest in venal offices spread far beyond the titleholders themselves to clergy, nuns, laymen, bankers, citizens, or anyone with money to invest. The system was versatile and capacious: it was possible to buy an office for a person under age, to hold plural offices, and to obtain dispensations to possess curial offices and sacred offices simultaneously. Relatives often assumed positions vacated when an officeholder became a cardinal. Women also could gain control of vacated offices or positions. For example, in August 1547, the Datary paid 150 gold scuti to Madonna Bernadina Capodisserro for the full value of half of the offices left vacant by the death of her nephew or grandson, Giulio Mignanelli.

Venal offices were not only lucrative, they also could offer a means of advancement in the church hierarchy. By the strategic ascent of their members through the papal bureaucracy, Italian dynasties, like the Borghese family, could rise to prominence and achieve noble status (Wolfgang Reinhard, Papstfinanz und Nepotismus unter Paul V (1605-1621) [Stuttgart, 1974]).

The Datary was responsible to the pope alone, and funds from this office were directly at his disposal. The Datary thus had the characteristics of a "secret treasury," or private purse for the pope. Cameral funds were also at the disposition of popes, but those transactions were public in nature, and more complicated in procedure. The head of the Apostolica Camera, the camerarius, or in vernacular Italian, camerlengo, had a certain independence from the pope as well. His appointment did not cease with the death of the reigning pope, as did that of the datarius. "Unlike gifts or grants of money from the Camera Apostolica, few people were involved in administering grants of money from the Datary. The pope simply ordered the Datary to pay moneys directly to the recipient or to his or her agent. Disbursements from the Apostolic Camera were not so simple" (Hallman, Italian Cardinals, p. 148). The important difference between the two departments meant that the popes of the sixteenth century gained a new freedom to support their families and friends with funds from their private treasury, the Datary.

As the private treasury of the pope, the Datary functioned in the sixteenth century as a source for monthly pensions for cardinals, and helped support members of curial households and extended family members, especially female, of popes and cardinals. In fact, most papal pensioners in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were women. Male pensioners were usually children. Pensions could be ordinary or extraordinary (i.e., issued for particular needs or purposes). Occasionally pensions continued after the death of the benefactor or beneficiary. However, the use of the datarial funds varied from pontificate to pontificate, and from year to year.

Survival of a handful of introitus et exitus (income and expenditure) volumes that have been identified as Datary in origin allows a glimpse into the full range of papal expenditure from Datary funds. Seven volumes, once missing, came to light during the prefecture of Father F. Ehrle and were acquired by him for the Vatican Library manuscript collection, where they now may be found cataloged as Vat. Lat. 10599-10605. These volumes yield information regarding papal patronage, financial arrangements, and creditors and debtors of every sort.

During this period there were specific documents that affirmed changes in the structure and function of the datary. Pius IV (1560-1565) expanded the functions of the office; Sixtus V (brief Decet Romanum Pontificem, Apr. 5, 1588, and constitution Immensa aeterni Dei, Jan. 22, 1588) clarified the functions of the Datary and gave it broader authority in matters relating to matrimonial dispensation. Throughout this period the office acquired such importance that it was called oculus papae (eye of the pope) or organum mentis et vocis papae (mind and voice of the pope).

From the middle of the seventeenth century, the office was usually entrusted to a cardinal with the title of pro-datarius. Under him there were three major officials: the sub-datarius, the officialis per obitum (for vacancies through death), and the officialis per concessionem (in charge of dispensations or concessions). In addition the pro-datarius had a considerable staff of minor officials.

The importance of the Datary gradually diminished from the end of the eighteenth century, as a result of the lessening of ecclesiastical benefices reserved to the Holy See and the abolition of venal offices. Benedict XIV was the first to restrict the tasks of the Apostolic Datary. With his constitution Gravissimum Ecclesiae universae (Nov. 26, 1745), he removed from the office many duties unnecessary or unrelated to its main purpose.

Leo XIII, by statute of 1897, regulated petitions for dispensations, and on February 6, 1901, approved a new Regolamento drawn up at his request by a special commission of cardinals. This reorganization divided the business of the Datary into three sections, each with its own head or prefect: a section for conferring benefices, a section for matrimonial dispensations, and an administrative section. These modifications aimed at a simplification of procedure and a greater expedition and regularity of business. In accordance with article 2 of the Regolamento there were added to the office a secretary and a theological consultant.

The curial reform of Pius X (constitution Sapienti consilio, Jun. 29, 1908) brought about more rigorous restrictions on the Datary. The office lost its autonomy and was reunited to the Apostolic Chancery; its faculty of granting dispensations from matrimonial impediments and irregularities was withdrawn and divided between the newly erected Congregation of the Sacraments and the Congregation of the Holy Office. Likewise, every power of conceding graces and special favors was withdrawn.

The document stated that in the future the special function of the Dataria would be to investigate the fitness of those who aspired to nonconsistorial benefices reserved to the Apostolic See; to draw up and forward the apostolic letters conferring these benefices; to dispense from the requisite conditions for conferring of these benefices; and to look after the pensions and charges that the pope shall have imposed for the conferring of them. The document also stated that henceforth "the office is under the charge of a cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, who would henceforth have the title of datarius," rather than pro-datarius. The cardinal datary was named the first of the palatine cardinals. Pius X also established that, in the case of a legitimate impediment of the cardinal datary, the bulls would be signed by the cardinal secretary of state and countersigned by the first of the officials present in the office.

Paul VI's constitution Regimini Ecclesiae universae (Aug. 15, 1967) indicated that "there would be one single office for sending apostolic letters." The Dataria Apostolica ceased to exist on January 1, 1968.

To see a general agency history for the Curia Romana, enter "FIN ID VATV214-A"

From the description of Agency history record. (University of Michigan). WorldCat record id: 145567143