History

Court gentlemen entrusted with delicate tasks related to the exercise of papal power, the Pontifical Grooms constituted a corps similar to the Squires of the imperial or royal court. They left the Lateranense Palace to follow Innocent II (1198-1216) when, on Mons Saccorum, already fortified by Leo IV (847-855), he built the Palace for himself and his Court.

The origins of the Archconfraternity have been traditionally traced back to 1378 when, with Pope Urban VI’s approval, the Order of the Pontifical Grooms began to meet regularly near an altar of the previous Basilica of St. Peter’s. The altar was dedicated to St Anne, whom they chose as their protector. This appears almost certain because that same year the Pope extended her cult to England and, with the bull Splendor, established her feast on 26 July.

The dignity enjoyed by the Pontifical Grooms reaches a remarkable degree also in relation to the duties they were called to perform. They were vested with titles of Prelate and Count Palatinate, that is Palace Count, a very high papal appointment, superior to such titles as Earl or Marquis conferred by Princes of lesser States. They were also conferred the title of Notary, Chaplain, Noble, Beneficiary, and even Canon. Moreover, they had the faculty of creating Doctors in Theology and Letters, award a Bachelor’s degree, appoint Notaries, and have bastards made legitimate. Such concessions and confirmations belonged to Innocent VIII, Clement VII, Paul III, and Julius III. On 19 April 1507 Julius II set up the ‘Noble College of Pontifical Grooms’, later confirmed by Leo X on 15 April 1517. The application of the decrees regarding ecclesiastical benefices, issued by the Council of Trent, irremediably hit the Grooms who thus lost some of their privileges. The Archconfraternity suffered the consequences too.

In the Confraternity of the Pontifical Grooms others were in turn admitted, such as those of cardinals, ambassadors, and the ‘crowned heads’ of Europe like the Empire, France, Spain, and Venice (1613); also admitted in 1696 were those of the Prelates who made use of made use of the tassel in their biretta, while in 1702 those of the Senator of Rome, of the major-domos of His Holiness, and of the Princes.

The Dean, who presided over the government of the Confraternity, was elected every year from among its brethren. Given the great number of foreign Grooms, the institution was divided into four ‘Nations’ – Teutonic, French, Spanish, and Italian. The Dean was elected from each of these Nations in turn. Then, with the decline in numbers of foreign Grooms, Pope Paul V, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, ordered that in future ‘the Dean could be elected from any Nation’.

Composed of people very close to the Holy Father and belonging to the Papal Court, the Confraternity enjoyed several spiritual privileges and wide protection from the popes. With a motu proprio of 20 November 1565, Pius IV allowed the building of a church dedicated to Saint Anne on a site belonging to the Archconfraternity and close to the Apostolic Palace, which eventually became the confraternity’s headquarters.

Designed by Vignola and with its construction begun that same year, the church was the first in Rome to boast an elliptical plan. It was inaugurated in 1583 and completed in 1775.

Consequent on the new headquarters, the brethren grew in number and Sixtus V, with the brief of 1589, decreed that the Sodality had the power to set a convict free ‘from any penalty, even that of death’. Other popes granted further privileges and contributed to the maintenance and restoration of the church.

In 1603 the Confraternity commissioned Caravaggio to paint a picture of the Saint with the Virgin and Child, to be placed on her altar in Saint Peter’s. For reasons not yet entirely clear, the work was rejected by the Canons, and the Sodality decided to hand it over to Cardinal Scipione Borghese.

Today it is kept at the Borghese Museum and bears the name of Our Lady of the Grooms.

With the decline in the use of the horse as a means of transport, the class of the Grooms merged by right with that of the bearers of the papal chair, i.e. those who carried the pope on the gestatorial chair. This practice survived until fairly recently, when it was brought to an end with the pontificate of John Paul I. Today the Grooms have been employed in the Antechamber, during official ceremonies, in private and general audiences, and in those reserved for ambassadors and heads of State.

Meetings of the Sodality were held in the above-mentioned church until 1929 when,

following the Concordat, both the temple and the annexed premises became a parish of the Vatican City with the help of Pius XI, who wanted to give the Confraternity new headquarters in the Church of Santa Caterina della Rota, in Via di Monserrato in Rome.

By an old title, the Cardinal Dean of the Sacred College was the Protector of the Venerable Archconfraternity. Among all the Protectors, it is worth mentioning Cardinal Enrico Benedetto Stuart IX, Duke of York. Eugenio Tisserant was the last Cardinal before such an office was abolished.

The Prefect of the Pontifical House is the head of the Archconfraternity. Moreover, the Sodality embraces the members of the Prefecture of the Pontifical Household, including Prelates, the members of the Pontifical Antechamber, those of the Secretariat of State, those of the Apostolic Palaces, and some worthy external individuals.

The members of the Archconfraternity can be divided into Professed Brothers and Sisters, Brothers and Sisters of Devotion, and Ecclesiastical and Lay. The Archconfraternity boasts an uninterrupted continuity in its service to the Pope, in the cult, and in the revered custody of its own burial-ground in Campo Verano, Rome.

For the spirit of the past a new conscience has been substituted, one that after Vatican II has assumed the identity of a community mission of lay people who live in the world, dealing with worldly things, but treating them according to the teachings of the Church, in order to have them manifested to others as witness to a way of life, reflecting the tradition that has distinguished the Archconfraternity for more than six centuries.