Private Chapel

This thesis examines the English medieval household chapel. Such chapels have only been studied previously in a partial and disjointed manner, as ‘private’, ‘domestic’ or ‘castle’ chapels, to name some categories. Past scholarship has assumed them to be maintained in an ad hoc manner, as the extraordinary consequence of individual piety, or the desire for social display.
Instead, this thesis defines, for the first time, a discrete class of chapels based upon their primary function: the religious provision of medieval lordly households. It argues that individual households were instances of a wide-ranging and well-established ecclesiastical institution: ‘the household chapel’. It posits that this institution had five principal elements: a basis in canon law; systems of maintenance and regulation; personnel (household chaplains); architectural and material expressions (household-chapel buildings and furnishings); and domestic religious routines. It argues that these elements were common to most household chapels between c. 1100 and c. 1500 (up to the English Reformation).
Although aspects of these elements have received scholarly attention, none has been examined from an institutional perspective. This thesis focuses primarily upon two: the canonical basis of the household chapel; and methods of establishment, maintenance and regulation. It argues that the household chapel possessed a clear remit in canon law, which enabled the widespread and uncontentious maintenance of such chapels; and that this canonical character was shaped in parallel with that of the English parish (and in some respects pre-dated its formation). This thesis also demonstrates that household chapels were maintained in an institutional manner, by the receipt of chapel grants, episcopal licences and papal privileges. Close examination of these demonstrates that household chapels were maintained on a large scale – by the majority of greater and gentle households – throughout this period, and that this maintenance was actively facilitated and supported by the contemporary ecclesiastical hierarchy. Alongside other classes of chapel (as yet unstudied), household chapels were a ubiquitous element of the English medieval church.
This examination of the canonical and regulatory foundations of the household chapel establishes a framework within which chapel buildings, chaplains and domestic religious routines may be further studied, in an interdisciplinary manner, as elements of one institution. For instance, the disposition and form of some 250-350 extant chapel buildings must be considered in light of their institutional functions.
Finally, this thesis challenges the scholarly assumption that household chapels were maintained either for the spiritual satisfaction of individual lords, or as a form of social display. Rather, it argues that the household chapel, as an institution, was a necessary and ubiquitous means of enabling the orthodox religious provision of greater and gentle medieval households who could not, for a variety of reasons, be served by the medieval parish, or fully belong to its communities.

In 1556, the cardinal Alessandro Farnese begins the building of the Palazzo Farnese in Caprarola, a village north of Rome. Its decoration attests of his wealth and his power by showing his family’s glorious deeds and his role in the defense of the Catholic Church. Loren Partridge, the specialist of the Palazzo Farnese, has noticed such a discourse in the room of maps and the room of Farnese deeds among others. This paper will show that the cardinal’s private chapel has a part in this panegyric. Since the Palazzo Farnese is located outside urban centers, the mass, attended by the cardinal, his famiglia and his guests, is celebrated in its chapel on a regular basis. Consequently, the chapel’s architecture and iconography are used as a display of Alessandro Farnese’s papal ambitions.

In the first place, the circular form of the room and the parallel between the altar and the tomb of Christ recall the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. This analogy is part of the cardinal’s plan to establish Caprarola as a new Jerusalem. At the same time, Pope Gregory XIII applies the same allegory to Rome, in order to assert its power over Christianity and to enhance his own qualities. By recuperating the papal strategy, Alessandro Farnese shows his guests his ability for the papal throne.

In the second place, the Eucharistic symbolic is really important in the global iconography of the chapel. This prominence shows the filiation between Alessandro Farnese and his grandfather, the pope Paul III, who made the defense of the sacrament his main concern in the fight against Protestantism. This could be a strategy to present the former as worthy of the papal tiara as the later. In fact, this example shows that private chapels in countryside palaces are not so private and can be used as a public display of the political ambitions of their owner.

Au moment où se poursuit l’établissement des princes de l’Église dans la campagne romaine par la construction de somptueuses villas, le Concile de Trente (1545-1563) adopte une série de décrets qui entendent réaffirmer les dogmes catholiques et réformer les mœurs du clergé, critiqués par les protestants. Puisque la villa est perçue au 16e siècle comme un lieu où le fidèle peut faire l’expérience d’une retraite spirituelle, ce mémoire souhaite lever le voile sur les pratiques dévotionnelles suburbaines post-tridentines. Pour ce faire, les cycles picturaux de trois chapelles de villas romaines dont la décoration a été réalisée à la suite de cet important concile sont examinés : la chapelle du palazzo Farnese à Caprarola, appartenant au cardinal Alessandro Farnese (1520-1589), la chapelle de la villa d’Este à Tivoli, construite pour le cardinal Ippolito II d’Este (1509-1572), et la chapelle de la villa Mondragone à Frascati, commanditée par le cardinal Marco Sittico Altemps (1533-1595) pour le pape Grégoire XIII (1502-1585). Il s’agit de vérifier l’impact des pratiques dévotionnelles sur le choix des décors dans ces lieux de culte privés. S’attarder à la perception du regardeur de l’époque et au rapport spirituel du public à l’image implique que nous analysions notre corpus à l’aide d’un cadre anthropologique.


The taste for countryside palaces among the Princes of the Church was already well established when the Council of Trent (1545-1563) moved to counter the protestant Reformation. This council asserted catholic dogmas and significantly reformed clerical mores. In this context, villas are seen as the perfect stage to realize spiritual ambitions. This thesis thus studies extra-urban devotional practices by examining three chapels in countryside palaces around Rome decorated after the Council of Trent: Cardinal Alessandro Farnese’s (1520-1589) chapel in his villa at Caprarola; the Villa d’Este chapel at Tivoli built for Cardinal Ippolito II d’Este (1509-1572); and the Villa Mondragone chapel at Frascati, ordered by Cardinal Marco Sittico Altemps (1533-1595) for Pope Gregory XIII (1502-1585). We seek to examine the influence of contemporary devotional practices on the iconographic cycles in the private sphere. The public’s perception and spiritual response to the frescoes will be probed through an anthropological approach to images.

The importance of the chapel in Palazzo Scordia can be assessed, aesthetically,  for the astonishing beauty of its frescoes and, historically, as one of the few surviving examples of domestic chapels in Palermo.  However, the aim of this paper is not to examine the aesthetic or historical value of this space. Rather, my intent is to question, through this case study, the motivations that are often univocally used to explain the excess in baroque art and architecture, namely the ostentation of political power and the display of artistic expertise. By investigating the structural and not accessory nature of baroque decorative abundance, I will argue that the Scordia chapel responded to the devotional needs and practice of a person whose identity the chapel helped to produce.

A b s t r a c t. Palace Chapels which used to take part in representational program of the most of the aristocratic residences remain still rather unknown. In Poland researches on this issue are particularly difficult because of the tragic historical events that led to the situation in which there is no original, untouched 18 th century palace as Mariusz Karpowicz has stated. The lack of information on palace chapels in Poland should be then completed in other way. The attitude of the Catholic Church in Poland towards private places of worship, which is a subject of this article, can be regarded as one of the ways to broaden our knowledge about them. The text shows some efforts of the Polish hierarchs since the 17 th till end of the 18 th centuries to limit creating and existing of the chapels which has been presented with the comparison to similar actions of the French bishops.