Confraternity

When a Catholic confraternity has received the authority to aggregate to itself groups erected in other localities, it is called an archconfraternity.

According to historian Konrad Eisenbichler, "After the State and the Church, the most well-organised membership system of medieval and early modern Europe was the confraternity—an association of lay persons who gathered regularly to pray and carry out a charitable activity.

The medieval French term puy designated a confraternity dedicated to artistic performance in music, song and poetry; the German meistersingers were similar, though typically imitating trade guilds in form.

Starting in the fourteenth century, northern France saw the rise of confraternities and other lay communities of men and women, organized around trades and religious devotions dedicated to specific patron saints.

The religiosity of the members and their desire for a personal reward in the afterlife were reflected in confraternity activities, such as assisting with burials by donating burial robes or monetary payment, attending the burial mass, volunteering in the local hospitals, organization of and participation in religious feast days, giving dowries for local orphans, selling and preparing bread used for local religious holidays, escorting the condemned during the inquisition, burying the dead during epidemics and other charitable acts as deemed appropriate by the confraternity members or parish priest.

[8] Society could not function strictly through government programs because there was also a need to take care of matters such as burials, and provide for the poor and indigent.