Abstract
While universities have fulfilled a central role in education, their multifaceted amalgamations of economic, political, judicial and epistemological relations of power have been paid little attention by accounting historians. This study examines the role of accounting in the power/control relationship between the Papal State and an eighteenth–nineteenth century Italian University using a Foucauldian episteme of disciplinary power and governmentality. Our findings show a separation of accounting from the exercise of education or the reproduction of a meticulous grammatocentric and panoptic system for human accountability (Hoskin and Macve, 1986, 1988; Carmona et al., 1997). However, this work reveals how supervised education gradually became a more refined tool of Christian morality, along with papal control of the institution and its expenses.
Introduction
The Church and higher education in Europe have a long and interconnected history (Finke and Stark, 1998; Wood, 2005). This is not only because of the cultural model origins of University lectures (lectiones magistrales) delivered by Catholic scholars from the eleventh century, but also due to the early Church mission of educating people to Jesus Christ’s message, instilling faith and principles of the doctrine in their minds and hearts (Giussani, 2003; Pontificio Consiglio della Giustizia e della Pace, 2004). Nevertheless, the field of education in accounting history research has been relatively under-represented. For instance, Bisman (2012) argues that despite a recent relative growth in accounting studies concerning the public sector (see also Carnegie and Napier, 2002, 2012; Napier, 2006; Gomes, 2008), the dichotomization between private and public sector organizations has failed to encompass many nuances of a more detailed typology of institutions, such as schools (Rodrigues et al., 2004) and universities (Lord and Robb, 2010).
The University has long been a “regulated system”, where individuality was “shaped in a new form and submitted to a set of very specific patterns” (Foucault, 1982: 783). However, it has also been a powerful tool of “knowledge creation”, integrated with the political elements of the Papal State. Deacon (2006) highlights an area for further research by revealing how Foucault’s (1975a, 1979) best-known discussion of education (Part III of Discipline and Punish), while intertwined with parallel discussions of military, monastic, medical and penal manifestations of disciplinary techniques, is without an exclusive focus on education. Foucault’s (1975a, 1979) work concentrates on elementary schools, apprenticeship schools (generally serving major industries), secondary schools and Jesuit colleges. However, there has been minimal attention paid to the specific extension of the analysis to higher education institutions, including universities.
The focus of this study is the specific shape of the “disciplinary power” within the University of Ferrara and the relationship of this University with the Papal State. The research is concerned with the innovations in higher education and its accountability, introduced by papal legislation in 1771 and 1824.
Foucauldian genealogical investigations of disciplinary power have their blueprint in the Panopticon (Bentham, 1791), a model of the English prison (Foucault, 1975a, 1979), and have attracted the attention of accounting scholars (Roberts and Scapens, 1985; Loft, 1986; Miller and O’Leary, 1987; Hopwood, 1992; Hopper and Macintosh, 1993; Hoskin and Macve, 2000). In investigating the role of accounting, power and education, this work is enriched by accounting analyses that explore the relationship between students’ examinations (Hoskin and Macve, 1986), organizational hierarchies (Quattrone, 2004) and accounting practices, to make subjects calculable and accountable. Hoskin and Macve (1986) argue that the passage to a structure of grading with a constant recording and exchange of information enforced control over students and teachers, achieving the full accountability that is implied in Foucault’s “disciplinary power” and marking the passage from the medieval universities to modern higher education.
Drawing on Foucault’s idea of “disciplinary power” (Hoskin and Macve, 1986; Miller and O’Leary, 1987; Ezzamel et al., 1990 and Ezzamel et al., 2007) as a part of the broader “governmentality” framework (Miller, 1990; Rose, 1991; Rose and Miller, 1992; Miller and Rose, 1995; Dean, 1999; Neu, 2000), this work contends that between the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, the Papal State exercised a power/knowledge control over the University through a full range of governmentality technologies, among which the “disciplinary power” was exercised through the construction of a “discourse of truth” affecting the expected behaviours of students and teachers. Meanwhile, accounting played the role of enabling University accountability towards the Papal State, but with a loose relationship with higher education per se. Although some important contributions to the Foucauldian tradition (including Edwards et al., 1999; Davies and Thomas, 2002) have been made in the education literature through the formation of “discourses of truth” (archaeological studies) on some types of educational institutions (i.e. public schools and the higher education sector in the UK or post-apartheid schooling system in South Africa), this analysis rests in the genealogical quest to identify the practices of power (examining “techniques and procedures for directing human behaviour” – disciplinary power) and the role played by accounting. Therefore, this analysis extends the scope of previous assessments of other types of educational institutions, firstly by analysing the various aspects of disciplinary discourse at play, and secondly by seeking to bring to light the particular form of governmentality that characterizes the administration of the University of Ferrara in the two non-consecutive moments under investigation (1771 and 1824).
Following Dean’s (1999) scheme, adapted by Skalen et al. (2006) and Yayla (2011), three research questions contribute to addressing the above central aim:
How were moral obligations depicted within the University?
How did the Papal State control the University?
How were accounting tools and procedures used to control the University?
A subsidiary question for item (c) is: Was the way to value/consider the University accounting information by the centre (Papal State) fully consistent with the exercise of “disciplinary power”?
The first research question lies in the nature of “disciplinary power” and the development of a University “regime of truth” by which Papal State power is exercised on students and teachers. The second research question seeks for organizational and/or accounting technologies defining a panoptic control of the Papal State over the University. The third research question deepens the loci and foci of accounting practices in the Papal State government of the University and their coherence (subsidiary question for item (c)) with the nature of “disciplinary power”.
The article is structured as follows. Following the introduction, the second section highlights the cardinal principles of Foucault’s “disciplinary power” and governmentality (1991c) framework. The third section describes our research approach to data collection and analysis. The fourth section provides a brief outline of the history of the University of Ferrara. The results of the analysis are developed and commented upon in the fifth, sixth and seventh sections, following the research questions. We conclude with a discussion of the main findings and delineate our contribution and future streams of research.
Theoretical frame of reference: Discipline, governmentality and education
Foucault’s work has provoked enormous cross-disciplinary interest in the social and political sciences, and since the mid-1980s accounting historians have employed Foucauldian concepts and perspectives (see Stewart (1992) and Armstrong (1994), for a comprehensive account). According to Baker (2011), Davidson (1986), and Miller and O’Leary (1987), Foucault’s work has been concentrated in the areas of systems of knowledge, modalities of power and the self’s relationship with itself. In each area, Foucault referred to different positions, namely archaeology (see, for instance, Hopwood, 1987; Miller and O’Leary, 1987; Baker, 2011), genealogy and ethics (Davidson, 1986: 221).
The notion of genealogy applied to the modalities of power is concerned with the connection between “regimes of truth” (created by discursive practices) and the exercise of power. Some studies (Hoskin and Macve, 1986; Loft, 1986; Miller and O’Leary, 1987) have specifically addressed this position and focused on the modes by which human beings are made subjects (“power refers … to various forms of domination and subordination that operate whenever and wherever social relations exist” (Garland, 1986: 852)).
The identification of the dividing practices through which the subject is split off from himself or from others is one of the modalities of power for which Foucault introduces the concept of “disciplinary practices”, such as enclosure, surveillance, reward and punishment, pyramidal hierarchy: “it [disciplinary power] separates, analyses, differentiates, carries its procedures of decomposition to the point of necessary and sufficient single units” (Foucault, 1991a: 71). Making reference to Bentham’s Panopticon, Foucault (1979: 197) identifies “disciplinary power” as a total architectural design where prisoners and guards (and ostensibly soldiers and officers, physicians and inmates, teachers and students) become visible subjects of an invisible supervision.
While the education literature highlights a number of studies drawing on the archaeological perspective to give insights into policy-making rationales (see, for instance, Ball, 1994, 2006; Trowler, 1998; Edwards et al., 1999; Peters 2001a, 2001b, 2003; Powell and Edwards, 2005; Tikly, 2003; Peters and Burbules, 2004; Christie, 2006; Simons, 2006, 2007), further studies have deepened the genealogical positions of subjectivity, technologies of self and normalization (see Ball, 1990; Marshall, 1996; Popkewitz and Brennan, 1998; Meadmore et al., 1999; Olssen, 1999; Symes and Meadmore, 1999; Tambouku, 2003; Baker and Heyning, 2004). However, little attention has been dedicated to the role of accounting in the “disciplinary power” relationship between the State and University.
A few studies, such as Hassard and Rowlinson (2002), have covered Foucault’s desire to explain the “microphysics” of disciplinary power by focusing their analysis on the mundane activities of day-to-day practice in Lancaster’s school where the realized form of education resonated with the Benthamian philosophies of discipline and control through heightened surveillance and bodily order. Nevertheless, Deacon (2006: 185) argues that Foucault’s relevance for education could be further extended: “it deserves to be mined and exploited more thoroughly”.
In the accounting history literature, there are some notable examples of “disciplinary power”, such as Hoskin and Macve (1986, 1988) who explore the micro-technology of marked examination as a practice of subjectification and accountization of students and teachers at the US military academy at West Point. This example seems to trace the full potential of Foucault’s “disciplinary power” through accounting/accountability means, but it leaves open the possibility of further exploring the agenda of the relationships between accounting and “disciplinary power” in the historical moments (between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) when institutions, such as universities, were supposed to be part of the modern society.
To further that agenda, this work refers to the broader concept of “governmentaliy”. With regard to the specific nature of power, Foucault uses the term “conduct”, which means both “lead others” and “a way of behaving” (that is, a problem of self-control (Lemke, 2002)). Foucault argues that “the exercise of power consists in guiding the possibility of conduct and putting in order the outcome” (Foucault, 1982: 789) and he links this to the concept of government (“conduct of conduct”, see also Allen, 1991; McKinlay and Pezet, 2010). Lemke (2002: 50) suggests that the problems of government (and, more broadly, “governmentality”) are the “missing link” between Foucault’s Discipline and Punish (1975a, 1979) and his studies on the “genealogy of the modern State” (see also Tilly, 1975; Poggi, 1978). This is because Foucault traces the development of modern societies in terms of a shift of modalities of power exercise, in particular from sovereign power to “disciplinary power” (in the nineteenth century) that “entails penetrating into the very web of social life through a vast series of regulations and tools for the administration of entire populations and the minutiae of people’s lives” (Miller and O’Leary, 1987: 238).
The concept of “governmentality” comes into existence as a distinctive activity of the government, which rationalizes the exercise of power (production of “truth” in social, cultural and political spheres (Fimyar, 2008: 4)) and draws on areas of knowledge of human and social sciences which become integral to it (Dean, 1999). “We should admit … that power and knowledge directly imply one another; that there is no power relation without the correlative construction of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute at the same time power relations” (Foucault, 1979: 27).
To this extent, the role of universities seems to be crucial for the designated production and reproduction of knowledge, the education of the élites of power and the spread of Christian morality. But “the degree to which the targets of disciplinary power are isolated” (Armstrong, 2014: 10) needs to be further addressed. Foucault (1979: 228) states: “It is surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons?”. According to Armstrong (2014), this generalization was used by early enthusiasts for Foucault in critical accounting (e.g. Burchell et al., 1980; Hopwood, 1984; Loft, 1986) to challenge the mainstream view of accounting as politically neutral tools of record-keeping, calling for in-depth analysis of the accounting/accountability relationship of an organization (i.e. University) with the State. Therefore, governmentality includes procedures, calculations and tactics (e.g. accounting) that allow the exercise of government, and knowledge plays a role in rendering aspects of existence “thinkable, calculable and amendable to deliberated and planful initiatives” (Miller and Rose, 1990: 3).
In the accounting history literature, Sargiacomo (2008, 2009), Sargiacomo et al. (2012), Alvarez-Dardet et al. (2002), Sánchez-Matamoros et al. (2005), Yayla (2011) and Lai et al. (2012) have provided evidence of the role of accounting as a link between “governmentality” and “disciplinary power”, exploring the capacity of accounting to manage populations at a distance (Latour, 1987; Miller and Rose, 1990). Their analyses also refer to accounting calculation as a way to construct spheres of economic activity (Hopwood, 1992).
Nevertheless, Armstrong (2014: 10) notices that Foucault’s examples, such as schools and hospitals, are neither unitary nor total in their “internal discourses” (Strauss et al., 1963) and that accounting is only one of those discourses. Therefore, accounting targets alone would not constitute a sufficient system of control and the tendency to treat accounting as a regime of power-knowledge should be verified. This article tries to gather three aspects of the Foucauldian episteme: the exercise of disciplinary power over students and professorial bodies, the control relationship between the Papal State and the University, and the role of accounting technologies in that relationship, if any.
Methodological issues
The research was developed around the analysis of the University of Ferrara at two non-consecutive historical moments of papal dominion: 1771 and 1824 (the non-consecutiveness concerns the Napoleonic occupancy). The analysis was conducted on the original documents of the University of Ferrara stored in various archives: the Historical Archives of the University of Ferrara, the State Archives of Ferrara, the Municipal Archives of Ferrara, the State Archives of Modena, the Municipal Library of Ariostea, the Bookkeeping Office of the University of Ferrara and the Archiepiscopal Archives. 1 Following a chronological analysis of the depository lists of all these archives, most of the documents were found in the Bookkeeping Office of the University of Ferrara and the Historical Archives of the University of Ferrara. 2
Underpinning this documentary search was the need to refer to secondary sources (Visconti, 1950; Franceschini, 1969; Borsetti, 1970; Guarini, 1970; Livatino, 1981; Pepe, 1987). Given that the majority of historical records were not available as a structured series, secondary sources supported the effort to locate and gather a comprehensive data set from various filing systems. For instance, the list of the accounting series pertained to the Bookkeeping Office of the University of Ferrara, but the list of the non-accounting series and the original documents (accounting and non-accounting) were mainly stored in the Historical Archives of the University. Moreover, the series were in a numerical order which did not represent any chronological classification. Series and documents were selected primarily according to their period of reference to have a complete understanding of the actual amount of historical material.
Foucault states that “discourses are practices that systematically form the object of which they speak” (1991a: 54). Drawing from Rogers (2004), Tenorio (2011) and Bloor and Bloor (2007), the analysis of the recurring disciplinary practices (e.g. moral obligations within the University: the first research question) has been focused on units of reference such as the subsections (Capitoli, in 1771 and Titoli, in 1824) of the 1771 Statutes and 1824 Regulation of the University of Ferrara, regarding the organization, coordination and assessment of students and professorial bodies. Although Fairclough and Wodak (1997), Jäger and Maier (2009) and Wodak and Meyer (2009) stress that discourses are partly realized in ways of using language, Merton’s (1957) nomenclature refers to the manifest content (explicit vocabularies present in the text) of language and Van Leeuwen (2009) supports the use of text to contextualize social practices and cognitions (first research question). Therefore, the analysis assumes that Statutes and Regulation are official and (sufficiently) comprehensive documents enacted by the Papal State to regulate the University of Ferrara.
Prahalad and Bettis (1986) further specify that the text is representative of a dominant organizational logic. Therefore, the Statutes and Regulations lead to the reconstruction, through organizational charts, of the University’s structure, hierarchies and tasks, which can eventually be retraced to Foucault’s episteme and to the Papal State’s control over the University (second research question). Hopwood (1990) identifies the potential of accounting to create a quite particular (“calculative”) visibility in the organization of processes, objects and also organizational figures, and therefore the analysis of the Statutes and Regulation of the University of Ferrara in 1771 and 1824 has been followed by a study of the accounting records, with attention on the accounting tools, procedures and the relationships (e.g. authorizations) they created among the relevant managerial figures and by which the means of exerting control are revealed (third research question).
Following the rationale of these considerations, a second selection of the archival documents was made according to the aim of the study, more specifically:
For an understanding of the “moral obligations” within the University of Ferrara (first research question) and its organization (second research question) we referred to the following:
Series 3, the constitution documents, “Costituzioni Statuti e Regolamenti, 1614–1851” (“Bull of Establishment, Statutes and Regulations, 1614–1851”), from which we selected the “Statuti dell’Almo Studio di Ferrara approvati dalla Santità di Nostro Signore Papa Clemente XIV e pubblicati con sua apostolica costituzione nell’anno MDCCLXXI” (“Statutes of the University of Ferrara, signed by his Sanctity of our Lord, Pope Clement XVI and published with his apostolic constitution in the year MDCCLXXI”), 59 pages in Latin and Italian, hereafter “1771 Statutes”; “Regolamento degli Studi da osservarsi in Roma e in tutto lo Stato Ecclesiastico in virtù della Bolla di Nostro Signore Leone Papa XII dei 28 agosto 1824 che incomincia ‘Quod divina sapientia etc.’” (“Regulation of the universities to be followed in Rome and in the whole Papal State under the Bull of our Lord, Pope Leo XII, on the 28th day of August 1824, which starts ‘Of the divine knowledge etc.’”), 57 pages in Latin and Italian, hereafter “1824 Regulation”, and attached documents that dictate how these rules and regulations should be interpreted and applied. Series 24 to 30, Statutes, privileges and acts of the old colleges (professors grouped according to homogeneity of subject) of the University of Ferrara starting from 1824.
For an understanding of the accounting procedures and tools (third research question), we referred to the following:
Series 64, 65 (and subpartitions), 75 and 76, inventories, accounting records (ledger, journal ledger, financial reports of the incomes), the Livelli (rents paid to the University), the Affrancazioni (payment of properties) and the Liti (controversies) that register transactions regarding real estate either belonging to the University or from which the University enjoyed financial returns.
University of Ferrara: A brief history
The choice of 1771 and 1824 as non-consecutive moments of analysis is embedded in the specific history of Italian universities (La Penna, 1973; Brambilla, 1997; Diaz, 1979; Sani, 2007) and the University of Ferrara (Cugusi Persi, 1873; Bottoni, 1882; Roveri, 1981) which was established, at the behest of the Este family, 3 on 6 March 1391, by a papal bull issued by Boniface IX. 4 Upon its foundation, the University became one of the most important institutions of the town, at the centre of cultural, political, financial and religious interests (Visconti, 1950; Livatino, 1981; Pepe, 1987). 5
The history of the University of Ferrara was strongly marked by the devolution of power over the town to the Papal State, in 1598, following the fall of the Este dynasty. A long period of unchecked decline for the University 6 was finally halted by Pope Clement XIV who, with his 1771 bull, reformed the University (“Statutes of the University of Ferrara, signed by his Sanctity of our Lord, Pope Clement XVI and published with his apostolic constitution in the year MDCCLXXI”) by granting it semi-autonomous management (Rüegg, 1996) under the authority of the Papal State (see also Frizzi, 1975; Gamberini, 1981; Roveri, 1981; De Paoli, 1991; Bresadola, 2003; Sani, 2007). The effects of this reform, however, were brusquely interrupted in 1796, when, with the arrival of Napoleon’s troops in Italy, Ferrara became part of the Cisalpine Republic (Sani, 2005). During the years of French rule, the University was suppressed by the Napoleonic order and only in 1815 was the University of Ferrara re-established under the restored Papal State and involved in the 1824 reform of Pope Leo XII whose aim was the creation of an ordered system of papal universities (Gemelli and Vismara, 1933; Sani, 1994; Tognon, 1994; Fantappiè, 2008).
The steady connection with the Papal State ended in 1859 when the University of Ferrara was recognized as a “free” University (free from the influence of the Papal State, but also free from a strict bond with the Ministry of Higher Education, therefore depending solely on the municipality for fund raising) and it was ruled by a municipal committee (Fantappiè, 2008). After World War II, the University of Ferrara became a public national University (funded by the government).
The history of the University of Ferrara evidences a strong institutional link with the papal domination, but also a long prominence of the Papal State in higher education (between 1598 and 1859, excluding the 10 years of Napoleonic occupancy). In this study, we focus on two cornerstones of the papal domination: the 1771 and 1824 University reforms. Even though these reforms were enacted over the Napoleonic break, historians agree that they were more affected by the Church’s impetus to gain a leading role in higher education than by the Napoleonic stalling (Pepe, 1987).
Table 1 illustrates the student population of the University of Ferrara between 1771 and 1824. The distinction between the college of Law (similar to the actual Faculty of Law) and the other colleges depended on the high status that law studies had in that period. In Ferrara, this college was the most ancient and, excluding the Napoleonic period, its student population remained quite stable over the years. Fine Arts and the other colleges showed a rapid increase in their enrolments after Napoleon’s domination, but they did not reach the prominence of the college of Law.
Student population between the periods analysed.
Note: In the periods analysed, bachelor’s degrees were not conferred by the University itself but by the colleges of the University, indicating a professorial prominence within the University organization. The data on the student population are stored in the State Archives of Ferrara (Ancient Notary Archives) and the Archiepiscopal Archives.
Source: Elaboration from Pinghini (1927: 15 and 21).
Implications of the 1771 Statutes and 1824 Regulation from a Foucauldian perspective: Moral obligations
The pervasiveness of the Papal State in the life of the University needs to be examined considering the reciprocal relationship between personal and institutional spaces (Foucault, 1982). Returning to an earlier idea, Foucault (1982: 777) attempts to reconstruct the ways by which human beings are subjected to disciplinary power. Among these ways he singles out what he calls “dividing practices”. To understand how these mechanisms operated in the organizational rationale established by the 1771 Statutes, an in-depth analysis of the recurrence of “moral obligations” imposed upon the various organizational figures was meant to identify several mechanisms by which behaviour was regimented.
Figure 1 is an extract from the 1771 Statutes (Chapter XIII) regarding the enrolment of students. The English translation highlights the characteristics required by the candidate (“moral values”, e.g. Catholic religion, public morals and decency, respectability) and the procedures of access to the University of Ferrara (e.g. provision of proofs and witnesses on the candidate’s demographics, former studies and habits, introduction of the candidate to the lecturer of reference, examination, transcription in the students’ register of the year upon passing exam).
Example of text analysis.
This analysis was repeated for the 1771 Statutes, highlighting the following elements:
The academic steps that students could take within the University of Ferrara fits with the Panopticon metaphor, explored by Foucault (1975b, 1991b);
The definition of institutional responsibilities, including ensuring punctuality and continuity of teaching (by the lecturers) and learning (by the students) foresaw a continuous and reciprocal surveillance;
The explicit definition of the professorships, to impart higher education, seems to be a disclosure of partitions of knowledge (University) conceptually similar to the Benthamian architectural construction of the prison (1791, Panopticon). These professorships were divided between “lawyers” (college of Law), “artists” (colleges of Medicine, Physics and Mathematics, and Hydrostatics) and “sacred scriptures” (college of Theology). It is interesting to note how all the subjects having to do with human endeavour are grouped together in a single “Fine Arts” category, that is, extraneous to religious spirituality (the “Sacred Scriptures”), and the supremacy accorded to legal studies. These latter two subjects constituted the cornerstones of teaching, between which moved a magmatic group of disciplines that, in contrast, dealt with matters of the flesh, reason and human activity and experience; and
The myth of “merit” (i.e. “having given proof of his intelligence and valour”, Chapter II of the 1771 Statutes) is always a frame of reference to access the University and an academic career (e.g. lectureship). However, the description of “merit” is always intertwined with a required individual obedience to a transcendental duty, of divine origin and perfectly aligned with the Catholic faith. Therefore, the Papal State was in charge of defining this merit and thereby exercised power through the creation of that myth. For example, “the lessons must be in line with the Catholic faith” (Chapter IV). Not even the highest academic authorities were exempt – “the professor of the Sacred Scriptures and Ecclesiastical History makes the Profession of the Faith before the college, and every lecturer should do the same, hand in hand, according to the precedence of the rank” (Chapter IV).
Despite some differences between the 1771 Statutes and 1824 Regulation (on the process of students’ evaluation and professorial appointment), the analysis revealed similar mechanisms of subjugation of individuals. In the latter case, the analysis of disciplinary power (to unravel the “moral obligations”) is far more concerned with the instances of control of the schema of differential allocation (who the person is, or must be, how to characterize and recognize that person, and how to exert constant individual surveillance). It is in this way that conferring greater visibility becomes a trap because the visible individual becomes an object of information (Bentham, 1791; Hopwood, 1990). In the 1824 Regulation, the following elements are highlighted:
The academic career of the student has a precise definition, by way of the different progressive steps of University education;
The definition of institutional responsibilities becomes more detailed, accompanied by accurate recording, in apposite registers, of the punctuality of students and professors and the continuity of teaching and learning, with sanctions imposed for repeated absences;
The move towards the rigid systematization of professorships into colleges is fully disguised, and behind the apparent autonomy of each college, we can see a refined version of the Panopticon metaphor (Bentham, 1791) becoming more emphasized, along with an absolute immovability of professorships and a rigid identification of their number. Whereas in 1771 the medical and surgical disciplines (including pharmacy) and philosophical subjects were categorized as “Fine Arts”, in 1824 their role in the transmission of knowledge is explicitly recognized and given concrete visibility, alongside the two great cornerstones (which remained as such) of the legal (college of Law) and religious/spiritual (college of Theology) subjects. It is this new visibility itself that brings these disciplines under subjugation and serves the education of forms of human capital with specific skills and capabilities; and
The emphasis on merit for both access to the University and appointment of professorships is once again synonymous with a series of expected behaviours that led back to the power of the Papal State to set them, in a precisely parallel fashion to that provided for in 1771.
The 1771 Statutes, 1824 Regulation and registers available in the Archives (e.g. students’ registers of attendance or conduct) were analysed in relation to the academic career of students and lecturers to identify formal evaluations or transcriptions of examinations. This did not reveal any evidence of a grammocentric and panoptic system of marked examinations as identified by Hoskin and Macve (1988) at the US Military Academy at West Point after 1817. This does not mean that the circulation of a “discourse of truth” was decentred and diffused but, on the contrary, it was referred to an invisible and central eye (in this case, the Church). Even if a measure of individual profit and loss (marked examinations) was not provided, the “merit” progression did exist and it delivered a moral message around the production and reproduction of the true Catholic morality.
Moreover, the analysis revealed that the University was an ordinal system functioning on rewards and punishments, where students and lecturers moved up and down in rank according to their alignment to expected moral behaviour. Within that structure, there was a constant recoding and exchange of information (such as registers of attendance or conduct), supporting a certain extent of control and accountability. The system operated not only with teachers as guards of students, but also with students as guards of teachers (e.g. registers of punctuality, see Hoskin and Macve, 1986).
The evolution towards a systematization and categorization of colleges is interpreted as a panoptic means of segregation or visibility: the recognition of multiple areas of knowledge results in their submission to control mechanisms.
Implications of the 1771 Statutes and 1824 Regulation from a Foucauldian perspective: Further technologies of control
Although the features of the University grades and reproduction of Catholic morality did not completely fulfil the “disciplinary” paradigm illustrated by Hoskin and Macve (1986, 1988), the analysis of the 1771 Statutes and 1824 Regulation offers the opportunity to identify a comprehensive account of the control technologies and accountability relationships between key organizational figures of the University and the Papal State. That analysis reveals a progressive articulation of the University of Ferrara’s organizational chart (see Figures 2 and 3).
Organizational chart of the University of Ferrara (1771), reconstructed from information in the 1771 Statutes.
Organizational chart of the University of Ferrara (1824), reconstructed from information in the 1824 Regulation.
Figures 2 and 3 are traced following the textual analysis of the 1771 Statutes and 1824 Regulation: the formal University positions are represented through boxes, with boxes shaded in grey referring to positions involved with accounting or administration tasks. Specific (i.e. emphasized) areas of responsibility (e.g. teaching or management of the library) are identified with long dash line boxes around the involved positions. In Figures 2 and 3, the mechanisms of surveillance are depicted through two types of connectors: a direct hierarchical relationship (Foucault, 1991a), implying formal accountability, is shown through a solid line arrow, whereas an indirect relationship of surveillance or monitoring (without direct hierarchical implications, e.g. between peers) is indicated through a dash line arrow.
Organizational chart in the 1771 Statutes
The organizational chart for 1771 (Figure 2) shows how the University of Ferrara was subject to the supreme authority of a Reform Committee (Collegio de’ Reformatori), made up of noblemen (Reformers) strongly rooted in the area (Chapter II of the Statutes). Although the Reform Committee was “independent” from any other judiciary or authorities (Chapter I), it maintained close ties with both the Grand Council and the Cardinal Legate via the procedure for nominating the Reformers. The Grand Council was a municipal body, representing the principal economic and political forces of the town (mainly noblemen, physicians and notaries): in its 1771 conformation it recognized 12 deputies, identified as Savi, or elders, and a chair, the Giudice dei Savi, who was also called upon to sit on the Reform Committee.
The Cardinal Legate represented the central authority of the Papal State, according to Canonical Law (can. 358). If one excepts the involvement in the proposed nominations of future Reformers, in 1771, the role of Cardinal Legate was ill-defined but paternalistic; in Chapter IV of the Statutes, we read “it will be greatly beneficial that the Lord Cardinal Legates show themselves particularly loving towards them [the Reformers], and seek with particular care to protect, support and value them, as would seem to merit those who valiantly toil for the public good and advantage”.
The Reform Committee was charged with performing various functions, from the election of the lecturers (by competition), to performing the teaching activities itself (the modern teaching personnel) and the nomination of the figure responsible for the ancillary teaching services (museum and library). In addition, the Reform Committee nominated a series of staff members who not only assisted its function (like the Secretary and the Caretaker, charged with supervising the lecturers, and the Private Judge, charged with resolving disputes between students and lecturers), but who also gave it control over the University’s financial administration (e.g. the accountant). The interconnections between the positions of authority of the University, as traced from the 1771 Statutes, let us envisage the discrete autonomy of the institution, which appeared to be both firmly rooted in the municipal area and monitored by the Cardinal Legate. The chart further revealed that the main mechanisms of surveillance are based on a double surveillance: for example, the lecturers watching the students and the caretakers watching the lecturers and the students.
Organizational chart in the 1824 Regulation
The 1824 Regulation substituted a collegial management of the University (the former Reform Committee) with a monocratic organizational role (the Chancellor). Both the new configuration of the university system (definition of primary and secondary universities) and the academic hierarchy of each university had been brought back under the ageist authority of the Papal State. In fact, the Chancellor himself was the Bishop of the city (effectively ending the posting of the Cardinal Legate, which subsequently disappeared from Ferrara), and he reported directly to the highest authority in the affairs of school and university education, namely the Congregation.
The Congregation was a collegial body made up of only high-ranking ecclesiasts (Cardinals, the Secretary of State, the Chamberlain of the Roman Church, the Vicar of Rome, the Prefect of the Index, the Prefect of Good Government and Cardinals elected by the Pope) tasked with regulating, supervising and inspecting the entire university system. As illustrated in our visual reconstruction of the University organization from the 1824 Regulation (Figure 3), the Congregation exerted direct power over the Chancellor, and indirect power (proposing, approving and confirming) over key figures like the Rector, the Administrator, the professors and their substitutes. This guaranteed the Church a decisive influence on both decision- and strategy-making, as well as the administrative and didactic aspects of every University.
With respect to the previous period of domination, the Papal State authority seemed almost to sever the links between the University and its local area, that is, the municipal authorities, as if to render the University, at least from a hierarchical perspective, a simple emanation of central power. Indeed, in 1824, there was no more talk of the Municipal Council. Instead, this was replaced by the City Magistrate, a type of peripheral administrative arm of the Papal State, whose influence was exercised on the financial administration. Delineation of the relationships within the University (those afferent to teaching and to the teaching support services) had given weight to the roles of both the Chancellor and the Rector. The Chancellor was called upon to oversee good order and observance of the rules; he had jurisdiction over crimes committed within the boundaries of the University (while previously this role, in a much more restricted manner, was outsourced to the Private Judge), presided over the selection of professors by competitive examination, supervised the teaching activities, and approved the budgets and expenditure of the University.
The Rector contributed to supervision of the teaching activities of the professors, ensuring discipline and the good moral and religious conduct of the professors, students, attendants and other members of staff. In this way his presence (and that of the vice-Rector, if appointed) guaranteed double surveillance, divesting the authority of the Caretaker figure of the previous regime, and bringing this surveillance to a higher and more strategic level.
Teaching and support activities also underwent greater diversification; for example, as well as the library, there was now an astronomy observatory, a museum, a cabinet (equivalent to the modern anatomy lab) and a botanical garden. Teaching was carried out by professors and any substitutes, all chosen by competitive examination and based in precise colleges. The colleges also served as archaic “regulated partitions of knowledge”: each college allocated a fixed number of professorships (permanent), had its own President (the college Dean) and a Secretary (the youngest member of the college), as well as its own working statutes (approved by the Congregation, naturally). In 1824, Ferrara had four colleges: Theology, Law, Medicine and Surgery, and Philosophy. The apparent autonomy of the colleges is, however, belied as partial by the mechanisms of homogenization of the professors. In fact, the Chancellor, the Rector, the Head Magistrate, the Congregation, along with the college, each had a say in their election. Furthermore, a professor’s potential sphere of influence was not necessarily confined to the professorship, as demonstrated by the fact that the Professor of Sciences was also the Director for the observatory, museum, cabinet and botanical garden.
In comparison with the 1771 Statutes, the mechanism of surveillance became more sophisticated – not merely a double surveillance (as in 1771 in the triangle between caretaker, lecturers and students, see Figure 2), but now three- or four-fold surveillance. For instance, following the solid and dashed arrows in Figure 3, it becomes clear that the Congregation watches the Chancellor; the Chancellor watches the Rector; the Chancellor, Rector and college watch the professors; the professors, college and Rector watch the students; the professors also watch the teaching support service staff and the college looks over all, and keeps the Congregation constantly informed.
This exercise of “disciplinary power”, through increasing levels of hierarchy (Carmona et al., 1997; Foucault, 1991a), reciprocal monitoring relationships (Foucault, 1991a) and centralization of the organizational figures enhances the interconnection/transmission of “truth” between the University and the Papal State (see Sargiacomo, 2009). The emphasis on partitions of knowledge (i.e. colleges) reveals how steady and refined were the techniques of papal control, even in a structure “which had not yet achieved the full accountability the mark was to bring” (Hoskin and Macve, 1986: 126).
Accounting at the University of Ferrara: Roles, procedures and tools in 1771 and 1824
The aim of this section is to reflect on the means by which the Papal State exerted control over the economic activity of the University of Ferrara in the two non-consecutive moments analysed. A close examination of the Statutes, Regulation and financial series in 1771 and 1824, with a focus on administration, helped us visualize the accounting roles, relationships and tools presented in Figures 4 and 5.
The economic cycle of the University and its protagonists (1771), reconstructed from the 1771 Statutes and available financial series.
The economic cycle of the University and its protagonists (1824), reconstructed from the 1824 Regulation and available accounting records.
Roles, procedures and accounting figures in 1771
The 1771 administration provided for three figures: two from inside the institution, the Reform Committee and the accountant, and an external treasury, the Monte di Pietà, 7 as illustrated in Figure 4.
The Reform Committee took on a central role, as it was charged with exclusive authority over the economic affairs of the institution 8 (Chapter XII, 1771 Statutes). Among its administrative functions, the Reform Committee appointed and made use of a particular member of staff, the Computista, or accountant. The job of this functionary was to note down, in a register kept especially for that purpose (Libro Mastro or ledger), the cash transactions carried out during the course of the academic year. On this subject, it is interesting to note that the 1771 Statutes prescribed that the books should be orderly. This expression imposed rigour on the accountant, charging him with recording operations in a timely and accurate fashion. Thus, “discipline” was exerted even on the economic administration, as one of the cardinal values that permeated the entire organizational structure of the institution during the first period of analysis. Last but not least, the Monte di Pietà intervened in the administrative activity as the University treasurer, making payments on its behalf to cover its expenses during the course of the academic year.
From a procedural perspective, the Regulation governed the way in which expenses were incurred and the annual income was handled. Expenses (Figure 4) had to be approved beforehand by the Reformers, and subsequently paid by the Monte di Pietà upon the receipt of written authorization (the equivalent of a modern-day money order) signed by the Reform Committee and the accountant. As regards to income, the Statutes charged the Reformers with diligently endeavouring to increase it. For this reason, any cash surplus had to be deposited at the Monte di Pietà to allow it to earn interest. 9 Furthermore, the Reform Committee was forbidden from ceding the institution’s goods or revenue without the authorization of the Cardinal Legate.
Examination of the accounting records of the era prompts us to make several considerations: in 1771 the method of accounting was fairly simple. It rested on the drafting of two fundamental documents: a register with periodic accounting registrations, the Libro Mastro, or ledger; and an annual one, the assets statement (called Bilancio), recording the assets controlled – but not owned – by the University, such as properties belonging to the city that had been made available for use by the University. The assets statement was drawn up at the end of every academic year and proffered to the representatives of the local government and Papal State at the helm of the University. By means of this document, the Cardinal Legate and the Giudice dei Savi exerted control after the fact. In reality, the Papal State kept a tight rein on the University administration by deciding the size of its annual purse.
Analysis of the Libro Mastro C (ledger #C) reveals the composition of the University’s revenue of the time. To be precise, in 1773 the institution boasted revenues of 6,805 scudi. Of these resources, 6,310 scudi (approximately 93 per cent of the overall revenue) came from duties imposed on salt by the Papal State that were transferred to the University to finance its activities. The remaining 7 per cent (little more than 495 scudi) derived mainly from rents accrued from properties belonging to the city. Thus, the vast majority of the funds at the University’s disposal came from the Papal State. These figures force us to consider that the strong financial dependence on the Papal State overpowered the position of the municipal government.
Roles, procedures and accounting figures in 1824
In 1824 the financial affairs of the University of Ferrara were run by an external organ, the City Magistrate (a sort of peripheral arm of the Papal State), alongside the Chancellor; these authorities were supported by the Administrator. As shown in Figure 5, the Magistrate was charged with the task of estimating the cash budget for the following academic year. The forecast expenses could be modified or approved by the Chancellor, meaning that it was the delegate of the Church who made the final decision on the financial planning of the University.
The appointment of the Administrator was entrusted to the Magistrate himself, but the final stamp of approval was given by the Congregation. According to Title XII of the Regulation, the Administrator, unlike the accountant, had to provide sicurtà idonea, or suitable security. This expression could be interpreted in different ways, 10 the most likely of which is that the expression indicates obedience to the heads of the University, and, precisely because of their ecclesiastical origin, observance of religious values. It is evident that this is a far different requisite than that required of the accountant at the end of the eighteenth century. In 1824, the equivalent figure, the Administrator, was not scrutinized by the appointing body for his actions, but rather for his personal obsequiousness and respect for papal authority.
In the area of economic activity, the Administrator had the job of spending according to the cash budget set down by the Magistrate and approved by the Chancellor. Furthermore, at the end of the academic year, the Administrator had to account for the income and expenditure of the previous year. Despite what first appears to be the case upon examination of the 1824 Regulation, analysis of other documentation from the era (Libro Mastro B or ledger #B, 1824) reveals that in actual fact more organizational figures were involved in running the financial affairs of the University (the treasurer and the “provisional” administrator) than are mentioned in the 1771 Statutes. 11
From a procedural perspective, Pope Leo XII’s dictates focused only on the institution’s expenditures. In fact, no mention whatsoever is made of income anywhere in the 1824 Regulation, although they were included in the accounting records of the time. Ordinary and extraordinary expenditures of an academic year involved the Chancellor, acting for planning or authorization. At the end of the academic year, the Administrator had to account for the annual expenditures, both ordinary and extraordinary, first to the Magistrate and Chancellor, then to the Congregation. The evidence shows that the accounting system in 1824 involved drafting four main documents (see also Table 2): a cash budget (Tabella Preventiva), two separate ledgers (Giornale and Libro Mastro) and a final cash statement (Rendiconto or Conto Consuntivo).
Comparison of the accounting records in 1771 and 1824.
The Tabella Preventiva, or cash budget, was drafted at the beginning of every academic year (by 15 October), for planning and control purposes; in reality, annual expenditures were pre-defined in concert with the Chancellor, and thereby authorized through the release of the Tabella Preventiva itself. This implies a great reduction of autonomy in financial matters with respect to the previous period of analysis. At the end of the academic year – by the end of September of the following year – the Administrator had to draw up a cash statement showing the income and expenditures of the University over the course of the year. This document was then transmitted to both the Magistrate and the Chancellor so that they could verify whether the Administrator had adhered to the initial cash budget.
Once approved by both figures, the final cash statement was then transmitted to the Congregation for their definitive ratification. This step represents a further element of difference from 1771; at that time the Papal State monitored the situation indirectly through the Cardinal Legate, the local delegate of central power. In 1824, on the other hand, the Church’s control was notably more direct, with the central power intervening explicitly, with a decisive and decisional role, in the procedure for ratifying the final cash statement. On the whole, the reform in accounting procedure between 1771 and 1824 seemed to increase the Papal State control on the economic affairs of the University: the obligation to draw up a cash budget as well as a final cash statement led to greater rigidity in the accounting procedure and a wider monitoring of the entire economic process.
In the accounting records of 1824, the revenue section of the final cash statement (1824) records a total of 7,302 scudi, of which:
813 scudi (11.1 per cent of the total) was the balance (income) carried over from the preceding year;
6,101 scudi (83.6 per cent of the total) came from usi, livelli e affitti; that is, rent from commercial buildings, farmland and residential buildings;
22 scudi (0.3 per cent of the total) was the “ex-Jesuitic remainder” and
366 scudi (5 per cent of the total) came from various revenues.
With respect to the composition of the revenue in 1771, the main source of funds was not direct transfer from the Papal State, but rent deriving from lands and buildings. To be precise, these assets belonged to the Church, but were assigned to the University, as was the resulting income from their rent (the series “Livelli 1695–1942”). Despite this form of indirect financing, therefore, the University purse was also directly controlled by the central government in this second period of papal rule.
Table 2 compares the accounting books in 1771 and 1824, suggesting a decisive preference for cash accounts in 1824. In 1771, the cash transactions are merely recorded and verified against the available revenues through the register (Libro Mastro) without any ad-hoc planning of the expenditures. Instead, in 1824, the focus is shifted towards a precise planning (cash budget), on-going recording (Libro Mastro and Giornale) and control (final cash statement) of the University expenditures, within the given revenues. With respect to 1771, the accounting archival data of 1824 did not mention or contain any record of assets, suggesting that the University was deprived of both ownership and control over assets. Therefore, Table 2 shows an increase in the complexity of the accounting system in 1824, a prevailing focus on cash accounts, and the overthrow of the University’s accounting autonomy.
This accounting analysis reveals the limited role of accounting as a means of accountability for the “core activity” of the University in 1771 and 1824. The tools and procedures of accounting certainly played a role in the “governmentality” framework of papal control (Miller and Rose, 1990; Rose and Miller, 1992), but were limited to the authorization of the University expenditures in a given setting of provisions. It seems that the Papal State explicitly renounced the use of accounting means to extend “disciplinary” practices to the students and professorial bodies, who are not made visible from the available bookkeeping records.
This choice clearly separated the academic hierarchies from the administrative ones, maintaining the sole point of connection at the highest managerial role of the University: Cardinal Legate via Reform Committee (1771) and Congregation via University Chancellor (1824). But the highest managerial roles of the University in the two non-consecutive periods under analysis emanated from the papal authority in the peripheral institutions.
To some extent, these findings enlighten the role of the Papal State between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and its supposed moral and economic superiority over other institutions (including the University). The economic superiority seemed to be already established through a comprehensive setting of University provisions (the University could rely only on papal provisions and/or assets) with limited recourse to the accounting agenda, except for the monitoring of expenses. Such a use of accounting technologies, whose development as “disciplinary power” arguably emerges as marginal, ensured a constant (direct or indirect) presence of the Papal State in every financial aspect of the University, but nonetheless bounded its economic support to the pastoral mission of moulding individuals into the “regime of truth”.
Final remarks
This study was undertaken with the aim of making a further contribution to the existing accounting history literature by extending Foucault’s intertwined concepts of “disciplinary power” and “governmentality” (Foucault, 1980 and 1991c; Miller, 1990; Miller and Rose, 1990; Rose, 1991; Rose and Miller, 1992; Dean, 1999; Neu, 2000) to the higher education sector. To date, few studies (see Deacon, 2006; Fimyar, 2008; Peters et al., 2009 for a comprehensive anthology) have focused on this sector and especially on university institutions. Moreover, the period of analysis, between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, was particularly fervid: Foucault (1991a), Poggi (1978), Rose and Miller (1992) and Tilly (1975) situate in that period the birth of the “modern state” and the reorganization of the relationships between central apparatuses and an ensemble of procedures, rules and institutions, such as universities, within a defined territory.
The Papal State, as an institutionalized form of the Catholic Church, was seemingly involved in that process. In line with both the pastoral mission and a centennial tradition of pre-eminence in the education sector, the Papal State tried to maintain a position of influence over the university system, through a series of reforms and regulations with the aim of guiding and disciplining academic activities that were brusquely interrupted by the Napoleonic occupancy of Italy (between 1796 and 1814).
This study on a papal University, Ferrara, with its particularly important historical tradition, shows a full range of governmentality technologies, among which the “disciplinary power” covered moral and behavioural obligations (first research question) on professorial and student bodies (Foucault, 1991a), monitoring practices (such as the use of attendance registers) built around the dichotomy of reward and punishment, and methods of surveillance (e.g. the Caretaker watching the students and lecturers, the college watching its professors, students and, indirectly, the Chancellor).
The analysis of the two main papal reforms to the University of Ferrara (1771 Statutes and 1824 Regulation) revealed an extreme coherence in the basic “moral obligations” of the University; in fact, the idea of discipline seemed to evolve during the interval between the first and second period, hiding behind the category of “merit”, a tendency to legitimize Catholic morality and increasingly stringent procedures. Furthermore, the 1824 reform renounced a circumstantial approach in order to support a centralistic approach, resulting in an increase of hierarchical levels, with the upper levels (i.e. the Magistrate and the Papal State, represented by the Congregation and the Chancellor, or rather the Bishop) emanating from and answering exclusively to the Church and organized in monocratic organs. More visibility and apparent autonomy was given to the internal organization of the organs of teaching (the so-called colleges). Therefore, along with Foucault (1979, 1982, 1991a), the ensemble of institutions (such as universities), in relationship with central apparatuses, not only reflected a disciplinary power (see also Bentham, 1791; Garland, 1986; Hassard and Rowlinson, 2002; Quattrone, 2004) but also contributed to reveal levers and layers of power and control (second research question).
When analysing the evolution in the accounting administration of the University of Ferrara between the two non-consecutive moments of papal domination (third research question), through a broader “governmentality” framework (Miller and Rose, 1990), the results showed that the accounting system ended in a configuration where ample space was given for two- and three-fold systems of authorizations, all reporting back to the central authority of the Congregation (Papal-State-directed), in its guise of homogenizing body. However, both accounting mechanisms and additional administrative participants were loosely coupled with higher education per se and academic hierarchies. The control emerging from the analysis (subsidiary component of the third research question) is more similar to a control of expenses than a system of control based on accounting information in order to exercise “disciplinary power” on the University. On one hand, the explicit choice of setting up the accounting practices around a tightened control of University expenditures (within the given provisions) apparently constrained the creation of a more comprehensive set of “disciplinary power” (Hoskin and Macve, 1986, 1988; Carmona et al., 1997). On the other hand, this perfectly suited the Papal State interest of identifying a precise source of economic support for the fulfilment of its pastoral mission in higher education. It remains that academic apparatuses (i.e. colleges) were made visible from an organizational point of view, but freed from providing direct accountability under the bookkeeping system (“accounting visibility” – see Hopwood (1990)). This gave them the opportunity to cultivate a degree of management autonomy, upon the obedience to the Catholic morale. This autonomy can be considered the base of academic legitimation, supporting Armstrong’s (2014) depiction of pluralistic organizational discourses, where accounting does not necessarily play an overarching “disciplinary” influence.
Future research may determine how this state of affairs compares with that of other institutions of higher education, both those run by the Papal State and those under non-Catholic dominion.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this article was presented at the seventh Accounting History International Conference, Seville, 25–27 September 2013. The authors are grateful for the valuable comments and advice of the participants at that Conference, and also the comments of Delfina Gomes, Christopher Napier, Massimo Sargiacomo, Lee Parker, Warwick Funnell, Garry Carnegie and three anonymous referees. The authors thankfully acknowledge the Archivists in Ferrara, including Corinna Mezzetti. While this work has been a joint effort of the authors, the individual contributions can be identified as follows: Abstract; Introduction; Accounting at the University of Ferrara; Roles, procedures and accounting figures in 1771: S. Madonna; Theoretical frame of reference; Methodological issues; Implications of the 1771 Statutes and 1824 Regulation from a Foucauldian perspective: moral obligations; Final remarks: L. Maran; University of Ferrara: a brief history; Implications of the 1771 Statutes and 1824 Regulation from a Foucauldian perspective: further technologies of control; Organizational chart in the 1771 Statutes; Organizational chart in the 1824 Regulation; Roles, procedures and accounting figures in 1824: G. Cestari.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.