11 May 2023
The Twelfth Annual REFORC Conference on Early Modern Christianity returned to one of its hometowns: the city of Leuven and more specifically the KU Leuven.
There they commemorate this year the 400th anniversary of the death of the Jesuit thinker Leonard Lessius. Born in Brecht in 1554, he died in the odor of sanctity in Leuven in 1623 after a studious life spent in the service of doctrine, law, economics, and ethics.
This unique combination of theology and economy was the topic of the two first plenary lectures. Eleonora Rai (University of Turin | KU Leuven) dealt with Lessius in particular in her lecture called The Salvation of the Soul: Leonard Lessius’ Theology of Freedom and Moral Economy (1554-1623), raising the question: how can human beings knock on heaven’s door?
Germano Maifreda (University of Milan) focused more on the legal aspects of the topic with a challenging presentation on: Church/State, Canon/Civil Law, Sin/Crime: Three Comfortable Juxtapositions Economic Historians Should Discard.
After these introductory plenaries, the participants found their ways to a variety of short papers, using the coffee breaks for personal contacts. After COVID disturbed so many in person contacts, it was good to see the enthusiasm of seeing each other again. That also is one of the key elements of the REFORC conference: just enjoying the academic fellowship, and the Great Beguinage is the perfect place for this.
