Page 158 - Upland Families, Elites and Communities

Sandro Guzzi-Heeb

gan to detach themselves from the churches and instead turned towards
the Enlightenment or towards ideologies inspired by the French Revolu-
tion, women seemed to have maintained or reinforced their loyalty to the
churches, where their roles were often less visible but traditionally recog-
nized (Van Osselaer and Buerman 2008; Pasture 2012; Johner 2022).
The registers of the confraternities written in the villages of Bovernier
and Liddes in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, both of which are
situated on the commercial route towards the Grand-Saint-Bernard pass
and Italy, include systematic lists of members. In Bovernier there were
three local confraternities competing for the attention of the faithful be-
tween 1749 (thedatetheparish was founded)and1900. These were the
Confraternities of St Joseph, the Blessed Sacrament, and the Rosary (Reg-
isters in mgsb, apb, e2). All three were open to women as well as men,
and all had a dual hierarchy to some extent, with parallel offices for both
female and male members. However, the lists of members show that there
were always significantly more female than male members. This imbalance
was even more marked during the French Revolution period, between 1790
and 1810, and most notably during the rise of radicalism, which was partic-
ularly pronounced in Bovernier between 1825 and 1860. Women were espe-
cially attracted by the Confraternity of the Rosary which remained an es-
sentially female society until the 1860s. The Confraternities of the Rosary
were fairly long established in the Alpine region. In the French-speaking
area of Valais they seemed to gain new momentum after a relative crisis at
the end of the Ancien Régime (Aymard 2017). Liddes experienced similar
trends, but the chronology and modalities were not the same. The gen-
der imbalance was not as marked as it was in Bovernier, but it was signifi-
cant nonetheless, especially during certain periods of religious and politi-
calconflict,suchasfrom1780to1800and in the1840s.It shouldbenoted
that these figures represent the number of new members of the confrater-
nities rather than the actual membership numbers. In this sense, there is
a cumulative effect to some extent if one assumes that the majority of new
male and female members remained active with the association for several
years.
In fact, the nature of the devotional societies changed between the eigh-
teenth and nineteenth centuries. The 1780s and 1790s, in particular, saw a
dramatic decline in membership. This was a period of intense political con-
flicts: influenced by the French Revolution, Valais saw an uprising against
the authorities in the Western districts of Martigny and Saint-Maurice in
1790–1, and seven years later the presence of French troops put an end

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