PARISH REVENUES AND THE LIFE OF CLERGY OF THE ZADAR ARCHDIOCESE IN THE 16TH CENTURY

The paper's backbone is the original document on the payment of the church levy, which is kept in the holdings of the magistracy Sopraintendenti alle decime del clero in the State Archives in Venice. The paper discusses the economic, pastoral and socio-political relations between parishes and clergy in the Zadar Archdiocese in the 16th century. The work aims to point out the importance of financial documents of church institutions as the prime sources for studying various aspects of society in the early modern age. By comparing the researched archival material with the results of the research published so far, we discuss the organizational model of parish communities in the area of Zadar Archdiocese at the transition from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Age. The paper points out the reasons which made it challenging to implement the reform of parishes according to the guidelines of the Council of Trent in the Zadar Archdiocese in the late 16th century. Numerous data on the income and expenditure of parishes in the mainland and island part of the Zadar Archdiocese show that during the turbulent 16th century, marked by two Venetian-Ottoman wars, the clergy lived in poverty, just like their congregation. As evidenced, the apostolic collectors of the tithe exempted most of the parishes in the Zadar Archdiocese from paying the levy.