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4. The Cofrancescos in S. Lorenzello in the 1600s

          What happened to all these Cofrancescos in the 17^th century?  What we can say with great certainty is that, except for some isolated and often-temporary cases, most of them remained in S. Lorenzello where they were well established.  

          Some were craftspeople. For example, in 1650 Mattia and his children were owners of a "workshop" in the center of S. Lorenzello. Others had land. Nearly all lived in a house of their own, some of which were large.  Brothers Vincenzo and Marco, sons of Simone Cofrancesco, owned a house of seven rooms, as shown by a legal act of 1 March 1700.

S. Lorenzello at the foot of Mount Erbano from the road to Cerreto

Throughout the 1600s the Cofrancescos generally lived in districts near the center of S. Lorenzello, in the old part of town.  According to the Stato dell’anime of 1714 places had very picturesque names, many of which survive today, with only some small changes: Vico dello Puzzo (Well Alley), Vico delli Panella (Alley of the Panella), Contrada che va verso avanti Santo (District "towards the Saints"),  Contrada in mezzo alla Piazza (District "in the middle of the Square"), Contrada sopra la Rua (District "above the Rua"), and Vico delli Brunelli (Alley of the Brunelli). Those who live in S. Lorenzello today immediately recognize the names of these streets and places in the town that survived, by the way, the disastrous earthquake of 1688.

 
Hand painted ceramic signs of historic street of S. Lorenzello already existing in 1714

          There are also names of places the memory of which is lost, or at least officially there are no districts or roads that perpetuate those names. A very interesting example for the history of Cofrancescos is the Vicinato Franzese, which could translate into modern English as the "French District".  This was the place where Mattia had bequeathed the previously mentioned workshop to his children.  Other Cofrancescos also had homes here in the 1600s.  Some elderly persons identify the Vicinato Franzese with a small dead-end alley that opens immediately to the left of Avantisanti Street, near the parish church of S. Lorenzo.  Today Mattia’s workshop is not readily identifiable, but under the recently repaired plaster, are buildings of the 1600s which survived the earthquake.

  
The Vicinato Franzese (French District) where Mattia Cofrancesco may have had his shop  

          Numerous Cofrancescos survived both the earthquake of 1688 and the plague epidemic of 1654.  In the 17^th century there obviously were other epidemics, since death records in the parish church of S. Lorenzello show more than 100 funerals in the space of about three months, from July to September 1623.  Included were many women and children, and nearly 10% of the resident population of S. Lorenzello died.

          The infant mortality rate at the time was generally very high, especially among the poorest families, where the economic conditions did not permit proper nutrition and hygiene was not the best.  The people did not have the means to treat infections, and illness was often fatal, especially among children. But the families were very prolific and the death of a child of a tender age was a fact so common that it was accepted as part of the natural order of things.  Even mothers died in childbirth at a young age.  There were many widowers, and husbands, often left with a large number of small children to care for after the death of his wife, were remarrying quite soon after. Even women, in the event of death of her husband, very frequently remarried. Women usually married at a very young age; 15 years of age was almost normal for a "vergine in capillo" (a not-married young girl) to wed her husband.  For example, Caterina Pacelli married Giovanni Donato Cofrancesco, son of Mattia, on 19 June 1645 before she was 16.  Giovanni Donato, on the other hand was 32, more that 16 years older than Caterina.

          During the 1600s at least 150 Cofrancesco children were born in S. Lorenzello, as documented by acts of baptism of the Parish.  We do not know exactly how many of them actually reached adulthood, because today the second and the third register of the dead are no longer available at the Parish, but certainly there were many, judging by the number of Cofrancesco marriages faithfully recorded in the records of the Parish.  In 1714 about 60 Cofrancescos, divided among 21 households of which 9 had a Cofrancesco male head, were living in S. Lorenzello.  The elderly were between 50 and 60 years old and thus were born in the mid 1600s.  Most of the others were young people, less than 30 years old.  Forty years later, in 1754, the Catasto Onciario of S. Lorenzello lists 10 families with a Cofrancesco male head plus another 6 families with wives born as a Cofrancesco, and 3 widows.

          These numbers show the continued presence of Cofrancescos in S. Lorenzello for almost two centuries, from the mid-1500s until the middle of the 1700s.  Only in the years between 1740 and 1750 did some Cofrancesco families moved to the nearby towns of Cerreto and Massa Inferiore, probably for economic reasons, giving rise to other genealogical lines which developed independently in later centuries.