72

The noble lay founders who invested in the development of Jesuit schools in France and Italy during the first half of the seventeenth century demonstrated a strong human agency, well beyond a simple response to the Catholic imperative of charity. The financial relations between the founders and the Society of Jesus have unfolded as long term links entailing – through successive capitalizations, promises of long-term funding, and negotiation with descendants – a form of lasting dependency of the Jesuit establishments on these lay benefactors. These Jesuit institutions were therefore entangled in a web of financial constraints. By simultaneously fulfilling the worldly needs of the order and the desires of noble endowers, the Society integrated the circuits of the local economy, and these pious foundations led to the elaboration of social devices binding together various lay actors to the Jesuit project.