Last update: May 9, 2024
Caleb Abraham (Université de Lausanne): Books and Itineraries: New Perspectives on the Genevan Collège de Rive Before the Academy (1559)
Scholarship concerning the Geneva Academy (1559–) and the nascent years of the Collège de Rive (1536–1538) abounds, yet the intermediary period between the establishments of these institutions remains comparatively underexplored. Prevailing historiography often presents a skewed, predominantly negative portrayal of the Collège de Rive during the 1540s and 1550s. This paper aims to rectify this oversight by offering fresh insights into the educational landscape of Geneva in the decade preceding the foundation of the Academy. Drawing upon overlooked sources, notably the records of the Hospital, this study reveals a curriculum at the Collège de Rive encompassing Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, consistent with the institution’s original mandate outlined in 1538. Through an examination of neglected archival materials, this paper posits the existence of a functional educational establishment capable of fostering proficient students in the liberal arts. Additionally, it scrutinizes the academic trajectories of select pupils who, having received instruction at the Collège de Rive, subsequently excel in their studies at various European universities. These findings challenge prevailing narratives and enrich our understanding of early modern pedagogy in Geneva.
Jack Arnold (Boston University): Noble Autonomy and the Development of Multiconfessionalism in Late Fifteenth Century Moravia
The large-scale settlement in the 1460s of the Unity of the Brethren to the Margraviate of Moravia, the eastern portion of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, coincided with an increase in autonomy on the part of Moravian nobility in relation the center of royal power in Bohemia. Amidst the Bohemian-Hungarian War (1468–1478) and the subsequent twelve-year period which saw Moravia transferred to Hungary before its return to the Bohemian crown in 1490, the Moravian nobility were able to successfully consolidate their newfound freedom from royal oversight, including now their de facto protection of the heterodox Unity of the Brethren whom they had accepted as their subjects. Through this, multiconfessionalism became a part of Moravian policy and identity. Following the only major expulsion of the Unity in 1481 at the orders of the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus, the nobility of Moravia protested and secured their return in 1485. This paper argues that these developments, autonomy for the nobility and the implementation of multiconfessionalism, were intrinsically intertwined. The Moravian nobility saw their autonomy from the political centers of power, be it Prague or Buda, as their right, and protecting their heterodox subjects was part of that. Through this, Moravia became the first multiconfessional society already by the end of the fifteenth century, setting the stage for its status as a religious haven following the beginning of the wider Reformation in the next century.
Jakub Basista (Jagiellonian University): A fruitful treatise of fasting wherin is declared what ye Christen fast is… Fasting and Humiliation in the Time of the English Reformation: Do We Know Everything?
In 1549 the archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, published the Book of Common Prayer, which was to become the fundamental book of the new religious order in the reformed English church. The Book contains prayers, defines holidays, discusses the administration of newly defined sacraments – in other words defines the everyday functioning of the changed Anglican religion. What may be striking is the absence of fasting in the church calendar. Fasting was abolished along with other superstitious and unholy practices of the Roman Catholic Church. This presentation wants to look at the phenomenon of fasting in the years of the English Reformation until 1662 and the publication of the third version of the Book of Common Prayer, which reintroduced the fasting days again. This issue has been looked at by various researchers, yet no full study and full answer why was fasting abolished and next restored, as well as how did it function in the 113 years, has been provided by historians. This presentation shows possible areas of research and future analysis of the topic.
Peter Benka (Department of Slovak History, Faculty of Arts, Comenius University in Bratislava): Languages of Confessional Communities in the Royal Towns of Upper Hungary in the Seventeenth Century
The royal towns of Upper Hungary present a case of multilingual communities. During the early modern period, the town elites were still mostly German. The rural background of the towns – one of the sources for immigration into the urban communities – were mostly Slovak, with admixture of Ruthenian and Hungarian speakers in individual cases. Moreover, the burghers were involved in distant trade that brought new inhabitants from nearby Poland as well as from more distant regions in the German lands to the west or Balkan regions to the south-east. In terms of religion, the burghers accepted the Reformation ideas already around the middle of the sixteenth century and subsequently established Lutheran church organization. It remained in place until the last quarter of the seventeenth century when it was confronted with Counter-Reformation measures of the Habsburg rulers. This paper will look at the ways how the local churches managed to accommodate the above-mentioned linguistic heterogeneity during the seventeenth century, addressing questions such as: how was the Reformation ideal of making the faith available in vernacular languages put into practice in that context? What were the tools used on the institutional level and what were the expectations put on clergy that was supposed to serve speakers of various languages (often from quite different language groups)? What were the attitudes to non-Lutheran urban dwellers, distinct not only linguistically, but also confessionally – Uniate or Eastern Orthodox Ruthenians or “Greeks” from the Balkans, Polish Catholics or Calvinist Hungarian nobility? What challenges – and eventually changes – were brought by the Counter-Reformation, organized by the Habsburg court circles at the end of the seventeenth century? Thus, even though the Upper Hungarian towns were not large communities in terms of population, they represent an interesting case of interplay of confessional, linguistic, cultural, and ethnic identities in one place.
Jan-Andrea Bernhard (Institut für Schweizerische Reformationsgeschichte, Universität Zürich): Ulrich Bolt: Ein Reformator und Täufer auf der Flucht
Im September 1524 kam Ulrich Bolt in die Kaplanei Fläsch (bei Maienfeld, CH), auf Empfehlung Ulrich Zwinglis hin. Er soll das Abendmahl unter beiderlei Gestalt ausgeteilt haben. Als aber der Täufer Konrad Grebel Mitte 1525 in Maienfeld auftrat, liess sich Bolt begeistern und sympatisierte immer mehr mit den Täufern. Nach dem vom Bundstag durchgeführten Täufergericht am 12. März 1526 in Maienfeld, verliess Bolt Fläsch, zog ins Amt Grüningen (CH), später nach Basel. 1528 trat er in Bern bei der Disputation auf. Seine Täuferhaltung blieb zeitlebens kryptisch. Seit über 100 Jahren sind keine ernsthaften Forschungen zu Bolt mehr betrieben worden, obwohl er einer der faszinierendsten Reformatoren der frühen Stunde war. In dem short paper sollen neue Erkenntnisse zum Täufertum in Graubünden im Allgemeinen und zu Ulrich Bolt im Speziellen präsentiert und kontextualisiert werden.
Martin Berntson (University of Gothenburg): Were Muslim Turks Forcibly Baptized in Stockholm in the Seventeenth Century?
In a number of studies two or sometimes three forced baptisms of Turkish Muslims in Stockholm are mentioned during the seventeenth century. This paper argues that one or perhaps even two Turkish Muslims were indeed baptized in Stockholm 1672, but these baptisms were not forced. Likewise, there is no indication that the baptism of a Turkish Muslim 1691 should have been performed by any means of force. In the year 1686, at least seven Turks were baptized in Stockholm. Even though it is not possible to affirm that all baptisms were willingly accepted, and while it is not unreasonable that at least some of the baptized children and women initially had been forced to Sweden, there is no evidence of the acts of baptism being forced upon individuals. This paper discusses the idea that it should have been illegal to live as a Muslim in Stockholm during the last decades of the seventeenth century. It also discusses the function of the presumed forced baptism in immigration narratives being used as evidence of a Lutheran intolerant state which forced the people of Sweden to remain in a monolithic faith-culture until the late nineteenth century (or even later). This narrative has sometimes had a normative political undertone and is based on the presumption that a forceful legal policy issued through an intolerant Lutheranism still influences today’s Swedish citizens.
Ana Biočić (Catholic Faculty of Theology, University of Zagreb, Croatia): The Union of Marča – a Source of Conflict or Cooperation
The early modern period in Croatia was characterized by Ottoman conquests, leading to the migration of the indigenous population and the arrival of Orthodox communities in Croatian lands. One of such settlements was Marča, which was originally owned by the bishop of Zagreb. Here, the Orthodox settlers established a monastery and a church on the ruins of a former Roman Catholic church. Since the 1054 schism, there had been several attempts to unify the Eastern and Western Churches, such as the Council of Lyons in 1274 and the Council of Florence in 1439. A similar endeavor took place in Marča, thanks to the efforts of pastor Martin Dobrović, bishop Petar Domitrović of Zagreb, and bishop Simeon Vratanja of Marča. The idea was supported by Emperor Ferdinand II, who, in March 1611, appointed Simeon as the bishop, who subsequently convened an assembly in Marča. During this assembly, the union between the Orthodox Vlachs and Uskoks and the Roman Apostolic See was accepted, as confirmed in Pope Paul V’s apostolic letter Divinae maiestatis arbitrio. This paper seeks to address key research questions, including the territorial extent of the Marča diocese and its precise name. It argues that the success of this union depended on factors such as the politics of the Vienna court, the stance of Zagreb’s bishops, and the intricate relations between Greek Catholics and the Orthodox communities which kept arriving. Consequently, the paper delves into topics such as the selection of bishops in Marča and the attitudes of Emperors Ferdinand II and Leopold I toward Greek Catholics and Orthodox believers throughout the seventeenth century. In conclusion, the case of the Marča Union exemplifies the complexity of Christian relationships and highlights the influence of socio-political circumstances on religious communities and their survival.
Mattias Sommer Bostrup (Aarhus University): To Cross the Line: Interconfessionality and Interreligiosity in Early Modern Schleswig-Holstein
During the seventeenth century, several sites of religious toleration were established in Schleswig-Holstein, i.e. Altona, Glückstadt, Friedrichstadt, and Nordstrand. Here, the ‘domestic’ Lutherans of the Danish-German borderland encountered ‘foreign’ Christians of other denominations, as well as Jews, and vice versa. These encounters meant different things to different people: for some, they were a reason to continue or even enhance confessional selfing/othering discourses; for others, being exposed to the ‘religious other’ was an experience that could lead to crossings of borders and to interconfessional or even interreligious acts. This paper focuses on religious life shaped by interconfessionality and interreligiosity with a special emphasis on Glückstadt and Nordstrand in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and it discusses the labelling of such cases as “tolerance”.
Valentina Bottanelli (FSCIRE): Cross Confession Contamination in Early Modern China and Dutch Batavia: Justus Heurnius’ Chinese-Latin Compendium Doctrinae Christianae (Bodleian Library, Marsh 456)
In the colonial context, interactions between the Catholic and Reformed churches were often marked by sheer conflict and mistrust. This was also the case in seventeenth-century Dutch Batavia, where the Portuguese legacy and the different doctrines on Baptism led Reformed consistories to see native Catholic converts as no more than Christians de nomine. At the time, the Batavian society was characterised by a mélange of ethnicities and languages, including a substantial community of Chinese immigrants, of whom a few had some elementary education in Mandarin language and classics, and were possibly familiar with the Jesuit catechetics in southern China. This set the stage for a unique experiment: Justus Heurnius, pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church, compiled in 1628 a Compendium Doctrinae Christianae in Mandarin Chinese and Latin. This text stands out significantly in terms of contents and structure when compared to other Protestant catechisms or doctrines, such as the coeval translation of the Heidelberg Catechism in Malay, by Sebastiaen Danckaerts, another pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church in Batavia (Catechismus attau Adjáran derri agamma christáon, 1623). However, it shares terms and forms with the simultaneous Jesuit mission in China, even including a chapter of prayers directly from the euchologies of the Jesuit mission itself. The aim of this paper is to highlight the inter- and cross-confessional elements of Heurnius’ Doctrina in relation to the progress of the Dutch mission in Batavia and the Jesuit mission in southern China. The paper will focus on MS Marsh 456, of the Oxford Bodleian Library, the earlier existent version of Heurnius’ Compendium. Heurnius’ manuscript will then be compared with three editions of the Jesuits’ Chinese euchologue: 1602 edition, nihil obstat by Niccolò Longobardi (ARSI Jap-Sin I 172); 1605 edition, nihil obstat by Francisco Furtado (ARSI Jap-Sin I 57a); and 1628 edition, nihil obstat by Figueredo Rodrigue (BAV Racc. Gen. Or. III 214).
Theo Brok (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam): Revisiting the Emergence and Spread of Anabaptism in the Southern Habsburg Netherlands (1530–1555)
To this day, the historiography of early Anabaptism in the Habsburg Netherlands has traditionally been shaped by the seventeenth-century perspective of the Dutch Republic of the Seven United Provinces. This narrative intentionally sidestepped the tumultuous events in Münster (1534–1535) and portrayed the rise of Dutch Anabaptism as primarily emerging from Friesland, Groningen, and Holland since 1530, while disregarding the (pre-)Anabaptist movements in the neighboring Lower Rhine. The prevailing view of the spread of Anabaptism in the southern provinces oversimplifies the interpretation of the past by suggesting a primarily unidirectional movement from north to south. This paper aims to challenge this dominant historiography, perpetuated and reconstructed in the nineteenth century within the new Kingdom of the Netherlands (1830–1839), which systematically ignored the enduring influence of key figures from the Lower Rhine, including Johannes Campanus (1500–1574), the ‘Wassenberg Predicants’, Gerhard Westerburg (d. 1558) and (post-)Münsterite Anabaptist bishops. Despite some previous scholarly interrogations of this retro-projected historical framework, the prevailing narrative persists, raising doubts about its accuracy. This paper seeks to underscore the east-to-west influence by tracing the spread and coherence of Anabaptism in the southern cities such as Aachen, Liège, Maastricht, Hasselt, Ghent, Antwerp, and Bruges. Through an examination of archival materials and a comparative analysis of existing historiographical narratives, this presentation seeks to provide an alternative to a ‘small (Northern) Netherlandish’ perspective, fostering a more comprehensive understanding of the broader territorial landscape of Dutch Anabaptism from the 1530s to the 1550s. This reassessment prompts scholars to reconsider established notions and re-examine the broader religious, economic, and socio-political contexts that contribute to the Anabaptist historical narrative.
Benedikt Brunner (IEG Mainz): Contesting Sacralities. Native Americans, Puritan Missionaries, and the Fight for a New Sensescape in Colonial New England
The Puritan mission among Native Americans in the seventeenth century has not yet been studied from the perspective of sensory history. Yet the sources describing this missionary activity – mostly from the white, colonial perspective – are extensive and offer a variety of reference points. It is clear that very different concepts of what was considered sacred and how individual and communal life was to be led on this basis clashed here. A particularly telling example is the Puritan mission on Martha’s Vineyard among the Wampanoag. On this island, Puritan missionary efforts were perceived as relatively successful, as they were relatively permanent. Experience Mayhew, whose Indian Converts from 1723 is an important account, was already a third-generation missionary on the Island. Mayhew’s work was mainly aimed at demonstrating the successes of the missionary efforts to the international, mostly English donors of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. This paper will focus on the descriptions and evaluations of Native American sensory experiences that Mayhew repeatedly highlights at length as evidence of the success of missionary efforts. However, Native American conversions were, not infrequently, also a step of self-empowerment that enabled them to belong to the Christian community. These different assessments and experiential worlds are to be compared with each other. The question of the senses leads to the centre of the conflicts of norms that were characteristic of seventeenth-century New England.
Amy Burnett (University of Nebraska-Lincoln): Erasmus and Reuchlin in the Correspondence Network of German Humanists on the Eve of the Reformation
The two most controversial issues that engaged German intellectuals on the eve of the Reformation were the Reuchlin affair and Erasmus’s edition of the Greek New Testament. Reuchlin was at the center of a correspondence network that linked German humanists during the second decade of the sixteenth century, and Erasmus joined that network when he moved to Basel in the summer of 1514. This paper will examine the correspondence of Germany’s two most famous humanists between 1510 and 1517 both as ego-networks and as components of this larger network. Using both quantitative and qualitative analysis, it will show how Reuchlin and Erasmus consciously used their letters, both private and published, to win support against their critics. It will also highlight the very different strategies that each employed to defend their reputation and ward off charges of heresy. Network visualization will demonstrate the geographic scope of the larger correspondence network to which the two men belonged and draw attention to those individuals who held significant places within the network. Finally, the paper will discuss the significance of network analysis for identifying the flow of news and information on the eve of the Reformation.
Stephen Burnett (University of Nebraska-Lincoln): Luther’s Against the Sabbatarians (1538) and Judaizing Christians in Electoral Saxony
Martin Luther wrote Against the Sabbatarians against Jews and Judaism, but also against Judaizing Christians who sought to impose Old Testament law on other Christians. This paper argues that the book reflects Luther’s theological worries about sectarians in Electoral Saxony. His attacks on Christian observance of the Sabbath and imposition of Old Testament laws, and his worries about Jews teaching and circumcising Christians reflect challenges to church and magistrate in mid-1530s Saxony. Luther sought to address not only Moravian Sabbatarianism in his book, but also Saxon sectarianism.
Simon Burton (University of Edinburgh): Reformed Scotism Revisited: The Case of William Ames
William Ames was one of the leading Puritan theologians of the seventeenth century and a pioneer of Reformed and Ramist system. Yet scholars still remain polarised between differing interpretations of Ames’ scholastic heritage with Richard Muller arguing for his “Calvinist Thomism” and Philip Fisk and Henri Krop arguing for major Scotist and even Nominalist elements in his theology. Discussion of Ames’ Scotism has also become deeply entangled with a welter of claims concerning his marked voluntarism. By resituating Ames in his Ramist context, with its marked drive towards a Christian philosophy, this paper supports a Franciscan and Scotist interpretation of Ames, while fully accepting his scholastic eclecticism and his appreciative reception of Thomist analogical and exemplaristic reasoning. Through examination of Ames’ use and transformation of important Scotist devices such as the formal distinction, esse cognitum, instants of nature and synchronic contingency it argues for his profound debt to Scotus and his school. At the same time, it also seeks to explain the definite fit of Calvinist Thomist and Nominalist elements within his broader Ramist and Scotist approach.
Ian Campbell (Queen’s University Belfast): Orthodoxy and Failure in Later Seventeenth Century Franciscan Political Thought: Cardinal Lorenzo Brancati da Lauria (1612–1693) and Angelo Volpi da Montepeloso (d. 1647)
Cardinal Lorenzo Brancati was described by Diomede Scaramuzzi in 1927 as “the most luminous figure of the golden century of Scotism”; he was certainly the most institutionally powerful Scotist theologian in Rome during the second half of the seventeenth century. Graduate of the College of St Bonaventure in the Conventual Franciscan house of SS. XII Apostoli, Brancati taught at Conventual studia throughout Italy before obtaining the chair in Holy Scripture at the Sapienza in 1654. He was nominated consultor and qualificator at the Inquisition in 1658, and prefect of studies at the Collegio Urbano de Propaganda Fide in 1665. He was appointed keeper of the Vatican Library in 1670. Innocent XI created him cardinal in 1681. Scaramuzzi argued that Brancati’s Commentaria on the third and fourth books of John Duns Scotus’s Ordinatio interpreted Scotus as a far-sighted precursor of the Council of Trent. Brancati defended Scotus vigorously against Jesuit criticism and sought to bring the Scotist theological textbook of his former senior colleague, Angelo Volpi da Montepeloso, to a conclusion. Is Scaramuzzi’s argument that Brancati sought to make Scotus safe for the Counter-Reformation true with regard to Scotus’s political doctrines? In what ways did Brancati retrieve or innovate doctrines of virtue, natural law, the origins of human society, and the powers of the prince? This paper will explore these questions, alongside the possibility that Brancati defended Volpi’s Sacrae Theologiae Summa Ioannis Duns Scoti against criticism in the Roman Inquisition during the 1650s, delaying the wholesale condemnation of Volpi’s combative and erratic brand of Scotism by fifty years.
Liliana Castilho (Politecnic University of Viseu / CITCEM – Oporto University): Cardinal D. Miguel da Silva and the Introduction of Renaissance Aesthetics in Northern Portugal
Miguel da Silva had a broad humanist culture, acquired at the universities of Paris and Siena and during his years as ambassador of the king of Portugal in Rome. From his long stay in Italy and constant contact with the pontifical court, its customs, achievements and agents, upon his return to Portugal, in 1525, he brought a new aesthetic and artistic taste. A lover of the arts and humanities, D. Miguel da Silva promoted the Renaissance architectural taste in Portugal and particularly in the spaces under his supervision, the bishopric of Viseu, S. João da Foz in Porto, and the monastery of Santo Tirso, counting on the work of architect Francesco de Cremona. He also became one of the great patrons in the national territory, promoting and contextualizing the spirit, the greatest example of which will be the infusion of the pictorial model of the pale commissioned by Vasco Fernandes, for the five chapels of the cathedral. He was the personification of il perfetto cortegiano (Baldesar Castiglione, 1528), who, in writing and through writing, marked an era, at the national and international level. In the city of Viseu, he renovated the episcopal palace of Fontelo, providing it with gardens designed in the Italian style, woods, lakes and huge cages that greatly impressed contemporaries. The low cloister of the cathedral church of Viseu also was commissioned by this prelate. After his appointment to the cardinalate in 1539, he also bequeathed the high choir chair to the city, against the will of D. João III, and had to flee to Rome. He resigned from the bishopric of Viseu in 1547, and never returned to the country: he died in Rome in 1556 and was buried in Santa Maria in Trastevere. He was responsible for the introduction of a purely Renaissance aesthetic, both at an architectural and pictorial level, in a geography (northern Portugal) and chronology (second quarter of the sixteenth century) in which these models were still unknown.
Massimo Cattaneo (Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II): Natural Earthquakes and Revolutionary “Scourges”: Central Italy in 1799
On Sunday 28 July 1799, the city of Camerino – formerly a duchy and, during the eighteenth century, the seat of a papal governor – after some tremors that had occurred in the preceding days, was hit by a very strong earthquake that caused about sixty deaths and destroyed a large part of the city. Starting from this peculiar event, this paper aims to reconstruct, on the one hand, the impact of the earthquake on a wider territory, between Marche and Umbria but also Rome and Abruzzo (kingdom of Naples); on the other hand, this paper will place the seismic events in the context of the dramatic situation of the war provoked by the clash between the French and the Republicans following the invasion by the Austro-Russian army and the “insurgents” (counter-revolutionary troops). In this situation of confusion, in which the control of the territory was unstable, local institutions tried in some way to intervene, with innovative results if compared to the past. Moreover, the clergy and some religious orders, such as the Oratorian fathers of St. Philip Neri, played an important role in an area where the presence of former and pro-Jesuit priests and reluctant French priests who had found shelter in the Papal States, remained strong. The earthquakes also led to the ultimate “success” as a patron saint of earthquakes of St Emidio, as result of a long process that saw an important moment during the 1703 earthquake and affected not only from Norcia in Umbria to L’Aquila in Abruzzo, but also the rest of the Umbrian-Marchigiana Apennine ridge. Finally, this paper will analyze the policies and dynamics related to the reconstruction of Camerino, with the proposals made by the writers of the Georgian Academy of Treia for a more productive, rational management of the agricultural land, and with the interpretation of the French Revolution and its Italian consequences, as a scourge, a plague, an earthquake, as suggested by the most anti-Enlightenment and anti-revolutionary sectors of the Roman Church.
Sigrid Christensen (University of Copenhagen): Pietist Cross-Theologies in the Orphanages in Copenhagen and the Duchies
At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Pietist ideas began to cross the borders of the Danish-Norwegian kingdom. The Pietist influence led to a rise in welfare institutions in Denmark and the duchies, as seen in the establishment of orphanages in Schleswig, Flensburg and Copenhagen. In both Schleswig and Flensburg, it was the awakened – including both laypeople and clergy – who were the driving forces behind the establishment of orphanages. In Copenhagen, however, it was the king, Frederik IV (1671–1730), who early on had a strong desire to establish an orphanage in Copenhagen, while more indirectly supporting the orphanages in the duchies. On the king’s birthday, 11 October 1727, the Royal Orphanage opened in Copenhagen, which was seen as a monument to Pietism in Halle. Modelled upon the orphanage in Halle, it also housed a church, a pharmacy and a printing press that distributed a wealth of Pietistic devotional literature. But was the theology within the Royal Orphanage so straightforward? Hitherto unexplored sources indicate that it was not exclusively the Hallensian-inspired theology that dominated the orphanage. This paper examines the cross-theologies within the walls of the Royal Orphanage in Copenhagen, emphasizing the care of the children and not least their religious education to make them good Christians and useful citizens, with perspectives on how this was achieved in the duchies.
Mattia Corso (Università Roma Tre): Between Devotion and Exploitation: Natural Sites and the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land between the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
On 8 February 1637, Father Andrea d’Arco, the newly-appointed Custodian of the Holy Land, issued a decree calling for the preservation of the material traces left by Christ in the landscape of the Holy Land. A primary concern for the Custodian was the behaviour of the pilgrims who, blinded by a form of “unrestrained devotion”, avidly collected fragments of the places and objects which, during Christ’s life, were said to have come into contact with his sacred body, thus absorbing a permanent trace of his divine essence. Under the severe threat of excommunication, the decree forbade the collection of any material from some of the most sacred churches of the Christian religion, built on the sites associated with Christ’s birth, life, and death in the Gospels. These included the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Chapel of the Mount of Olives, both located in Jerusalem, as well as the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. The order also extended its reach to several places where the divine traces were not enclosed within the walls of a church. As a result, natural sites in the Catholic topography of the region were equally brought under the religious authority of the Custodian, with excommunication imposed for cutting branches from trees and removing stones from streams. Beginning with Andrea d’Arco’s decree, this paper examines the Franciscan Order’s approach to natural sites in the Holy Land from the sixteenth to the seventeenth centuries, arguing that in the Franciscan mission in Ottoman-controlled Palestine nature was a crucial yet fragile resource, one that required a nuanced balance between exploitation and conservation. Focusing on the case study of the sacralisation and subsequent exploitation of a tree, the paper explores the complex interplay between spirituality and resource management in an early modern mission land.
Didier Course (Hood College, Maryland): Hagiography, Geopolitics, Adventure Novel, or Amorous Tale? A Study on the Arabo-Muslim Motif in French Literature
The Moorish narrative experienced a unique popularity throughout the seventeenth century. Serving as a remarkable source of inspiration, it took on various forms and adapted its themes – pirates, abductions, interfaith loves, international politics, religious interference, emerging Orientalism, and even spiritual exercises – according to the rules of storytelling and genres. This paper aims to delineate the different incarnations that constitute a corpus delimited by the relationship between the Christian and the Muslim worlds in the literature of the time. While the theme was favored and addressed by nearly all forms of written expression – theater, novels, hagiographical literature, memoirs, travel accounts, or diplomatic reports – it is still necessary to extract the rules that govern not so much the genres themselves but the subject matter in general. This paper will be organized around three directions. Firstly, the Moorish narrative between fiction and historical reality; then, between generalization and individualism, and finally, between romance and religious edification. In order to conduct this study, we will analyze various texts, ranging from novels to the religious accounts of the Trinitarian fathers in North Africa, from the captivity of Saint Vincent de Paul to the memoirs of a French ambassador to Morocco, Pidou de Saint Olon.
Maria Craciun (Babeş-Bolyai University of Cluj): Not Entirely a Man’s World: The Impact of the Reformation on the Lives of Early Modern Transylvanian Women
Ever since Susant Karant-Nunn discussed the impact of the Reformation on the lives of the women of Zwickau, scholarship, particularly of feminist ilk, has been tempted to deal with this issue. The impulse and motivation may stem from Karant-Nunn’s answer to the question asked. Based on the evidence analysed, Karant-Nunn concluded that, at least in Zwickau, apart from the lives of nuns and prostitutes, which had been completely disrupted by the decisions of the city councils to close convents and brothels, the Reformation had changed very little in the lives of ordinary women, in their traditional roles of wives and mothers, in their less-acknowledged presence as laborers or in their attitudes as pious individuals. Since the 1980s, a gendered perspective on the study of history has led to the exploration of the definition of women’s roles, their participation in religious life and their presence in the public sphere as opposed to the home and family. Within this broader geographical and historiographical context, a closer look at the history of Transylvanian women and their encounter with the Reformation would provide a new, peripheral perspective from the edges of Europe. Moreover, wishing to disengage from a focus on the elites, this study aims to integrate the issue of gender as an analytical category with other categories such as class, community and agency, highlighting social hierarchies and gendered power relations, while taking into account the intersection rather than the dichotomy of private and public. This study will consequently look at women’s relationship with groups, particularly gendered groups, such as nuns and tertiaries, at women’s position as wives in a world that idealised marriage and at women’s devotional patterns, forcefully redefined in the wake of the Reformation.
Davide Dainese (University of Bologna | FSCIRE): Between Coexistence and Domination. Pietrino Belli as a Benchmark of an Ongoing Juridico-Political Transformation
Canon law disciplining the presence of Latin Christendom in the Holy Land between the late eleventh century and the end of the thirteenth stands as testimony to to a decisive shift: from the logic of war (i.e. crusade) to that of coexistence. This periodization operates along two lines: that of the construction of a peculiar kind of auctoritas and that of an unappealable (and total) denial of rights shifting from the figure of the infidel to the heretic. During the age of the ius commune, this very legal framework shaped a new form of sovereignty, which, over the course of the long Iron Age, was remodeled by the wars of Italy and the wars – characterized by a religious dimension – that erupted following the Reformation. This paper presents a specific case: that of Piedmontese judge Pietrino Belli (one of the main hidden sources for Alberico Gentili and Hugo Grotius), 1502–1575, who served first under Charles V and Philip II of Spain and, after Cateau-Cambrésis, at the court of Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy as state counselor. Belli is an extraordinary witness to the forging of at least some characteristics of the modern state, as, in its theoretical assumptions, matured between Hobbes and Rousseau.
Daniele De Camillis (DREST, Italian Doctoral School of Religious Studies): Intersecting Worlds: The Pious Schools and Rome’s Jewish Community in the Early Modern Era
Against the backdrop of the connection between Jewish communities and religious institutions particularly focusing on the Catholic Church in the early modern era, Rome stands out as a remarkable case. The “Eternal City” has harbored one of the communities in Italy and across Europe for centuries. The coexistence of this Jewish community within Rome, a hub, makes it a crucial setting for studying interfaith, religious and cultural dynamics. Numerous studies delve into the history of Rome’s Jewish community and its interactions with both secular authorities and the Papacy. Within our discussion, we have an opportunity to explore a scenario involving the initiatives of the Pious Schools established by San Giuseppe Calasanzio and their impact on young Romans, including those from Jewish backgrounds. This research seeks to delve into an instance where the Pious Schools intersected with the Roman Jewish community. Accounts of Calasantian practices found in archival material have been transmitted through various narratives about the saints’ life presenting a unique model, within their orders’ historical tradition. In examining this case in relation to studies, the goal is to shed light on an intriguing angle regarding the potential connections between the Jewish community and the religious institutions of early modern Rome. Moreover, analysis of documents, such as Calasanctian correspondence addressing purported ties between the Piarists and the Jewish community, offers a chance to present a distinctive perspective on this dynamic.
Julia Derzsi (Romanian Academy, Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities; Arbeitskreis für Siebenbürgische Landeskunde Sibiu): Social Order in the Multi-Ethnical and Multi-Confessional Communities of Southern Transylvania: Town Councils and their Rural Subjects in the Early Modern Period
Under the administration of the Saxon towns and seats in southern Transylvania (Sibiu/Hermannstadt and Brașov/Kronstadt), there were several serf villages whose inhabitants belonged to different ethnic groups (Romanians, Serbs or Bulgarians, Hungarians, and Germans), sometimes even within the same village. In the early modern period, the inhabitants of these villages, who often had different legal statuses, were subject to two different ecclesiastical jurisdictions, one under the German Lutheran bishop and the other under the Orthodox diocese. These communities were culturally very different, and their linguistic and (ethno-)religious identities did not always overlap. In addition to enforcing Protestant religious principles (translation and printing of the Bible and catechisms for the Orthodox and church visitation for the Protestants), the town councils also relied on good governance as a means of establishing social control and stability in the exercise of its landowning powers. In addition to enforcing public order (good policing) in many areas of daily life, it also sought to favour culturally homogeneous groups (Lutheran and German-speaking) to suppress mixed identities. This paper examines how the town councils used political instruments to manage social and religious tensions. How did the town councils reconcile the need to organise practical church life with measures to promote public order, and how did they extend their authority over the communities under their administration.
Antonio Pio Di Cosmo (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia): The Virgin and Her Patronage: Analysis of Two Typologies of Devotion Productions and their Implications on Visual Culture
The lithographs connected to Loreto’s litanies, produced by the Kauber brothers, and published in 1763 represent the Virgin, who like a “lawyer” intercedes in favour of her Son and places her mantle between the Earth and God, focused on throwing arrows. The gesture connected to the mantle recalls the “covenant of Mercy” of the Coptic tradition, as the maximum expression of maternal care of the Virgin and the remarkable product of her intercessory power. We observe that the Enlightenment era welcomes the ancient function of the Virgin as a mediator and intercessor. The role of “lawyer”, winning all the court cases, is masterfully expressed in the prayer of Bernard of Clairvaux: “Memorare, Piissima Virgo Maria, a saecula non esse auditum quemquam ad Tua currentem praesidia, Tua implorantem auxilia, Tua petentem suffragia esse derelictum.” Thus, we considered that the religious material culture of Christianity generated a visual typus as the Aghiosoritissa or Advocata. Such descriptive formulas achieved success in the everyday devotion of Roman citizens between the eighth and thirteenth centuries. The effigy of the Virgin contemplates a singular proxemic, and represents the Madonna which turns to Christ her right hand, while her left is open to receive grace. Such an image reflects a belief shared in the collective unconscious: indeed, wives, mothers, and sister always exercised their influence on powerful men and convinced them to desist from exercising acts of force on the people. We encounter a successful woman, who exercises the role of “lawyer” and opposes her rhetorical ability against the exercise of violence, as an anthropological component of established power. The powerful attitude of the Virgin is proclaimed in a passage of the Libellus de Laudibus Mariae Virginis written by the monk Arnold of Bonneval (PL 189, col.1726C-D). The representation must convince the beneficiary about the effectiveness of Mary’s patronage.
Silvia Di Giovanna (DREST, Italian Doctoral School of Religious Studies): Rabbis: Blessed or bien aventuradi? On the Death of Livornese Jews, between Suspicion and Outrage in the City of Nations
Article XXXVII of the Livornine Constitution, issued by Ferdinand I in 1591, reads: “Vi concediamo, che possiate comprare in Pisa & in Liuorno un campo di terra, per poter in esso sopelire i vostri morti, e che in esso non possiate esser molestati per quanto haueranno caro la gratia nostra” [We grant you that you may buy a field of land in Pisa and Livorno, and that you may bury your dead in it, and that in it you may not be harassed if you wish to have Our Grace]. Since then, the people of Livorno by birth and adoption of any nazione, on the strength of this grand-ducal concession that has permitted this exceptional experiment in cohabitation, the city have officiated the funerals of their deceased and buried their dead in cemeteries that can still be visited. Despite the great freedom granted, the case of Rabbi Malachaim Montefoscoli’s funeral in 1680 repeatedly returns to the chronicles and to the attention of scholars. The solemn funeral that was celebrated for this important rabbi of the community raised the suspicions of the young Livornese Gregorio Bonfigli, who decided to turn to the vicar of the Roman Inquisition to ask it to investigate whether there had been any wrongdoing. But why did the pompous funeral of a rabbi attract the attention and investigation of the Inquisition in Pisa? In truth, not only such ceremonies caused a stir: inscribing epitaphs on graves was considered an abuse, and inscriptions on Jewish tombstones often aroused suspicion and indignation in Catholic hierarchies, for fear that they might contain blasphemous concepts. The central question is tracing how under the Grand Duke’s shadow it was possible to preserve and enhance the specificity of the minorities, in this case the nazione ebrea, and how over time these minorities found obstacles to respecting their traditions. Is it possible that this compromise, between concession and resistance, produced the result made up of bilingual epitaphs and syncretic traditions.
Yunus Dogan (European University Institute, EUI): A Tale of Two Faiths: When Local Christians Encounter New Christians
In Part II, Chapter 54 of Cervantes’ Don Quijote, Morisco Ricote sits at the foot of a beech and talks to his old friend Sancho Panza in pure Castilian: “I left our village, as I said, and went to France… I crossed into Italy, and reached Germany, and there it seemed to me we might live with more freedom, as the inhabitants do not pay any attention to trifling points…. I know well that Ricota my daughter and Francisca Ricota my wife are Catholic Christians, and though I am not so much so, still I am more of a Christian than a Moor…” This brief paragraph by Ricote in fact summarizes the displacement of more than 300,000 Moriscos, forcing them to seek temporary or permanent settlements in a wide geographical space that included Europe, North Africa, the Balkans, the interior of Anatolia, and the Middle East. The forced emigration of the Moriscos to the vast region in question created a social and religious identity crisis, particularly as they passed through Christian territories, mainly France and Italy. As they began to arrive in Christian lands, their presence sparked tension, curiosity, and religious conflict between two groups: on the one side Moriscos with their ambiguous identities as “Muslims”, “new Christians” or extraneus; and the local Christian population, who already saw these newcomers with suspicion, on the other side. From this point of view, this paper, based on Spanish, Italian, and French documents, seeks to provide insight onto the religious identity crisis Moriscos experienced when they encountered local Christian communities on their journey across France and Italy from 1600 to 1614. This study examines cross-cultural and religious interaction in the early modern Mediterranean space, focusing on the Moriscos’ understanding of their religious identity, as well as the local Christians’ perceptions of these newcomers whose identities shifted between Christianity and Islam.
Aneke Dornbusch (Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn): “wolle uns hiemit iren rat und gutbedunken wissen machen” – The Persecution of Anabaptists as a “Shared Concern” of South German Imperial Cities
As the Anabaptist movement gained ground in South Germany from 1525 onwards, the imperial cities in this area faced the crucial question on how to react to this phenomenon which threatened the cooperation between city dwellers and local authorities. For many centuries, the portrayal of the persecution of Anabaptists has been shaped by biased and tendentious research. The field was also mostly determined by local, and therefore very limited studies, failing to recognize that Anabaptism – and its persecution – was not a local, but very much a transregional occurrence. This paper aims to provide a more differentiated look into the early years of Anabaptist persecution by analysing letters between imperial cities on this subject. These letters, largely overlooked until now and often difficult to access, reveal how Anabaptism was perceived by city authorities and which measures the cities employed to handle this threat. The letters also show that the strategy against Anabaptism was developed as a “group effort” of the cities and that inter-city cooperation was a key aspect of their tactics. Cities shared lists of suspected deviants, issued warnings to one another or simply sought advice on how to proceed. In cooperating in such ways, they fostered a sense of shared identity, in a time when the cities began to understand themselves as Protestant religious authorities. This paper intends to offer some preliminary insights into structural and content-related aspects of the persecution of Anabaptists as an inter-city phenomenon. It will combine features of historical network analysis and a close reading of the concerning early modern High German letters.
Rasmus H.C. Dreyer (University of Copenhagen): Early Modern Danish Hospital Institutions. Cross-confessional Inspirations
Traditional national historiography of the Danish Reformation marks its beginning in 1536, but recent research suggests that its roots go back to the early 1520s. Urban centres such as Husum in Schleswig, and cities in Denmark proper as Viborg, Copenhagen and Malmö were hotbeds of reformatory activity during this period, influenced not only by Lutheranism but also by the theology and practice of Zwinglianism. Bernd Moeller’s seminal work, Reichstädte und Reformation (1962), highlighted the urban dimension of the Reformation, particularly its association with Zwinglianism and the transformative role of city magistrates. Despite some scholarly efforts to integrate this perspective, the traditional narrative of the Danish Reformation remains largely unchanged. This paper proposes to explore the urban dimension of the Danish Reformation, focusing on institutional reform and the emergence of social welfare practices and institutions in early modern Denmark and the Duchy of Schleswig. An often-overlooked aspect of the Reformation in these urban centres is the reuse of monastic institutions by city councils. Former monasteries were transformed into ecclesiastical welfare institutions, often called hospitals, to care for the sick, elderly, and infirm. In addition, some monasteries were converted into Latin schools (gymnasia) or municipal offices. The influence of these reforms extended beyond national borders, with inspiration coming from across the Baltic region and various local and regional reform movements, whether Lutheran or Zwinglian. While sources on the political and social history of Danish and Schleswegian cities during the Reformation are limited, this paper seeks to identify common trends and unique developments in institutional reform and social welfare practices. By examining the development of hospital foundations in the sixteenth century this study aims to trace their impact on the subsequent development of Danish municipal welfare and care institutions.
Paweł Dziwiński (Jagiellonian University of Kraków): Paulus Vladimiri and John of Falkenberg at the Council of Constance, 1415–1417: The Debate that Failed to Shape Modern Natural Law
During the Council of Constance (1414–1418), the Polish-Lithuanian union and the Teutonic Order aimed to combine their territorial disputes over the borders of Semigalia and the Vistula mouth with the main topic of synodal discussion, which was ecclesiastical reform in capite et in membris. To achieve this, Cracovian scholar Paulus Vladimiri drafted and circulated two treatises among the Council’s participants. In his treatises Tractatus de potestate papae et imperatoris respectu infidelium and Opinio Ostiensis, the author did not directly defend the Polish-Lithuanian claims. Instead, he questioned the existing perception of international law regarding the sovereignty of states, the rights of non-believers, and the theological justification of conversion by force. This challenges the foundations of the Order’s functioning in Prussia. According to some scholars, both texts are the first synthetic interpretation of public international law. This interpretation inspired the Salamanca school of natural rights, especially Vitoria’s De iure belli and De Indis. However, Vladimiri’s claims on the papacy and the Church’s authority over infidels were met with opposition from John of Falkenberg, who informally defended the Order’s position. In his Liber de doctrina, he strongly opposed Vladimiri’s theses and argued that the international community had the right to deprive sovereignty and even liquidate a nation that acts against the Christianitas. This paper aims to provide a fresh perspective on the scientific impact of both authors regarding the formation of natural law. It will examine their methodology, internal structure, and ideas in terms of the changes popularized by the Renaissance discourse. The first section will evaluate their reasoning by focusing on the sources that inspired them. The following section will briefly summarise the main differences between the Vladimiri-Falkenberg debate and those found in Vitoria’s works.
William Engel (Sewanee, The University of the South): ‘The Wandering Jew’ in the Reformation Allegorical Imagination
This paper revisits the perennial specter which received renewed life during the Reformation: Judeophobia. By examining some key stages in an ever-abiding, composite trope in pan-European cultural consciousness, the figure of the “Wandering Jew,” we begin to understand the extent to which “the Jew” was associated with being the migratory figure par excellence. Jews of the Middle Ages and later during the century of Reformation were subjected to a variety of – and often quite arbitrary – laws, differing region to region, prince to prince, and bishop to bishop, depending on any of innumerable factors, though usually financially motivated and bolstered by blatant racism and anti-Semitism. This is made quite clear by Martin Luther, in his 1543 On the Jews and their Lies: “We let them get rich on our sweat and blood, while we remain poor and they suck the marrow from our bones.” Although Judeophobia is pan-European in its sweep and scope, there are decisive Germanic roots to be found in late medieval legislation about sumptuary regulations for Jews, for example, in Worms and in Würzburg (among other jurisdictions), perpetuated further by Luther’s appeal addressed to the princes of Mitteleuropa: “I wish and I ask that our rulers who have Jewish subjects exercise a sharp mercy toward these wretched people.” My paper will conclude with Thomas Browne’s conciliatory English, post-Reformation, “new science” approach to investigating specific allegations about “the Jews” so as to break the cycle of perpetuating “vulgar errors” that had bolstered the Jewish imaginary in pre-Enlightenment Europe.
Hanna Filipova (University of Gothenburg): Banquet of Chestnuts, Hats Nailed to Heads and Sodomy: Image Transformation of Religious Othering in Renaissance and Early Modern Europe
In 1501 Johann Burchard, Master of Ceremonies of the Papal Court, recorded in his famous diary how, at a banquet hosted by Pope Alexander VI, guests were amused by watching naked courtesans crawl along the floor, picking chestnuts. In 1571, the Livonians Taube and Kruse, who were in the service of the Russian Tsar Ivan IV, described a similar scene, arranged by the Tsar, only the women were catching chickens. In 1555, Magnus of Denmark mentioned another “joke” by the Tsar: he ordered a hat to be nailed to the head of the Italian ambassador. The no less legendarily cruel Vlad the Impaler allegedly did the same thing, only in relation to the Turkish ambassadors. This story is recorded in the Tale of Dracula (1490s), which was popular in Muscovy. In 1453, after the fall of Constantinople, European chronicles described Turks led by Sultan Mehmed II raping Christian boys and young men; in 1704, German pamphleteer Martin Neugebauer attributed similar behavior to couriers of the Russian Tsar Peter I, summing up the stereotype of the “sodomitical Muscovite”. What could unite the Wallachian ruler, the Ottoman Sultan, the Pope and the Moscow Tsar? All became targets of propaganda attacks based on religious and political confrontations in fifteenth- to eighteenth-century Europe. Accusations of “unnatural” behavior, contrary to the Divine order of the universe, were among the most popular and many-sided weapons in the ideological struggle. Thus, the “Borgia black legend”, in the wake of the Reformation, echoes in Swedish Protestant propaganda against the Russians during the Great Northern War 1700–1721, although there seem to be no direct connections between them. In this report, I trace the paths of wandering plots, that became, at different times and in different contexts, the embodiment of othering, largely based on religious identity. My research question is why these stories arose in one form or another and were adopted, what stereotypes they were based on and what ones they created.
Antonio Gerace (Università degli Studi di Bologna | KU Leuven): Sovereign Ordination: Biblical Exegesis of Romans 13 in Renaissance Rome Political Theology
The project “The Renaissance Papacy’s Political Theology and Its Projects of Religious Reform (PRIN 2022 – 2022BXT33X)” takes the pre-Tridentine Church as an institution promoting an ambivalent and complex project of religious reform, where the ideal of the affirmation of a new political power, nourished by classical and Roman cultural models, coexists – in dialectic tension – with the attempt to absorb and channel claims for the spiritual renewal of the Church, based on Biblical motifs. The crux of Renaissance Rome’s political theology lies not solely within the institutional dominion of the Papacy but also within the interpretation of the Bible as it pertains to governance. In particular, the exegesis of Romans 13, a keystone New Testament passage concerning the Christian’s relationship to authority, was employed and interpreted to cement the religio-political nexus that defined the era. In examining the exegetical tradition of Romans 13 during the Renaissance – by focusing in particular on Iacopo Sadoleto, Tommaso de Vio Cajetan and Ambrogio Catarino Politi – we probe into the interpretive techniques used by theologians of the time to propagate a vision of divine sovereignty that inherently justifies the political structure of the Papal States. The purpose of this analysis is twofold: firstly, to discern the hermeneutical nuances that shaped the comprehension of Papal and princely authority as God’s earthly representatives; secondly, to evaluate how such theological interpretations impacted the public’s perception of authority. By threading the historical with the textual, this presentation aims to shed light on how biblical interpretation functioned as both a mirror and a motor for political thought and action in Renaissance Rome. It argues for a sophisticated theological-political landscape, where biblical exegesis played a pivotal role in both reflecting and shaping the socio-political realities of the time.
Phillip Haberkern (Boston University): Conceptualizing a Trans-confessional Religious Community: The “Bohemian Church” Across Two Centuries
From the middle of the fifteenth century until the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War, the Czech lands harboured a pluralistic religious landscape. Certainly, the distinctive religious groups in this polity (i.e. Utraquists, Catholics, Unity of Brethren, Lutherans, and Anabaptists) came into conflict during these centuries, but the region was characterized by a stable, if uneasy, regime of de facto toleration during this period. This paper will therefore examine how the leaders of different churches articulated a shared religious identity at crucial moments in the history of the Bohemian reformation in order to justify their existence independent of Rome. That identity drew on the Augustinian conception of the “true church” as refracted through the writings of the martyr Jan Hus (d. 1415), and the leaders of the non-Catholic factions in the Czech lands emphasized the existence of a confessionally-ambiguous ecclesia Bohemica to advocate for their political rights throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Focusing specifically on the negotiations around the composition of the Bohemian Confession in 1575 and the efforts of Jan Amos Comenius to garner support for Czech exiles during the Thirty Years’ War, this paper will argue that the invocation of the “Bohemian Church” was intended to minimize confessional differences and emphasize the shared history of the evangelical Czech churches. By affirming the shared genealogy of these different religious groups, the deliberately amorphous conception of the Bohemian church allowed their leaders to act together and put aside potentially contentious issues like sacramental theology and collectively demand royal recognition of their right to continued existence.
Joachim Haddad (Aix-Marseille Université): Peregrinatio and Spiritual Pilgrimage in Augustine’s Late Works
In his 1543 Traité des reliques Calvin offered a radical critique of the cult of relics, which led him to question the practice of pilgrimage. This mistrust of pilgrimage is not new in theology, and we would like to examine this notion in the work of Augustine, since he had a great influence on Calvin. While the notion of peregrinatio is fundamental to describing the development of the city of God on earth, the notion of pilgrimage is absent from Augustine’s work. We would like to take a closer look at this paradox, which B. Bitton-Ashkelany has already highlighted in her important 2005 book Encountering the Sacred. In this work, she sees peregrinatio as a spiritual pilgrimage. This idea is defended with convincing arguments, but in our view needs to be nuanced, insofar as it cannot be understood in the same way depending on whether we are dealing with the writings of the young Augustine or Augustine’s later writings, marked by the Pelagian controversy. First of all, we would like to show that Augustine’s lack of emphasis on the idea of an earthly pilgrimage is explained by his eschatological conception of the city of God as a heavenly city. We will then analyse the idea of a peregrinatio understood as a spiritual pilgrimage to show that it reveals a tension in Augustine’s work: if a pilgrimage is understood as progress towards a goal, then the peregrinatio must be understood as progress for the individual and for humanity in this earthly existence. However, by placing great emphasis on the notion of grace, the Pelagian controversy calls this idea into question. So how should we understand this spiritual pilgrimage? We would like to show that it can only be understood in the context of a global history, which is no longer that of a single man, but of humanity as a whole. From this spiritual pilgrimage, we can then better understand Augustine’s, and therefore Calvin’s, rejection of earthly pilgrimage.
Isabel Harvey ((Université du Québec à Montréal | Université Catholique de Louvain): Mountains, Forests, and a Lot of Rain: The Impacts of Natural Environment on the Domestic Missions of Calabria during the Seventeenth Century
The 1636 New France Jesuit relations explained how the harsh natural environment of the New World influenced their travels to reach the Huron communities. “The travelers’ food is a little Indian or Turkish corn, crushed between two stones and cooked in simple water. There is no salt, vinegar or anything else mixed in. We sleep either on the ground or on the awful rocks that line this great river, and always under the sign of the moon.” In New France, nature – unfamiliar and unruly – was everywhere, forcing the Jesuits to adapt and review their itineraries and, more broadly, their evangelization program. While environmental challenges were obvious in these remote regions, nature is much less present in the writings of the missionaries who remained in Europe and worked on the domestic missions aimed at strengthening the Catholic faith and establishing its practices among populations already part of the Roman Church. However, in Europe too, the environment was a protagonist of evangelization, especially in peripheral, rural or mountainous areas, where most of these missions took place. How did natural environments met during missions create constraints on missionaries’ everyday work, influence their views of the world and, ultimately, force them to adapt their goals and practices? Based on Jesuit case studies from Southern Italy, in perspective with the Jesuits sources from New France, this paper will problematize a new research path in environmental history from ecclesiastical sources. It will show, on the one hand, how the environmental history of missions is not just an additional aspect of history but a central one in the definition for Rome of what was possible or not to achieve in their search for a Universal Church. On the other hand, following the refusal of Simon Ditchfield in 2010 of the concept of “global Catholicism” for instead talking about a plurality of “Catholicisms”, it will show the role of natural environment in the construction of such localisms.
Abigail Hayton (University of Oxford): Does Jewish Law Mandate Infant Baptism by Sprinkling? The Perspective of John Lightfoot (1602–75)
This paper assesses the development of John Lightfoot’s conception of infant baptism by sprinkling as an ancient Jewish practice through his participation in the debates of the Westminster Assembly, where his interventions meant that the resultant Directory of Public Worship did not allow for any other option to his hugely influential Horae Hebraicae (1658–1678), which defined the Reformed case for the traditional baptismal rite for over a century. It demonstrates the role played by Lightfoot’s familiarity with seemingly very obscure Jewish sources in his emergence as the most authoritative biblical commentator of his era. This is the story of how a seemingly marginal scholarly pursuit, post-biblical Jewish legal exegesis, could come to occupy a central role in the construction of Reformed doctrine, and, as such, forms part of an emerging case for the abandonment of the term “Christian Hebraism” in favour of a much broader recognition of the diversities of Jewish scholarly influences upon Early Modern Christianities.
Bernhard Holl (Archdiocese of Berlin): And the Land Rested for Forty Years: Spanish New Christians at the Beginning of the Fifteenth Century
Compared to the massive social conflict that surrounded the Iberian “conversos” (newly baptized former Jews and their descendants) in the latter half of fifteenth century Castile and Aragon, the previous relatively peaceful period usually receives rather little attention. Most historians deem the widespread pogroms and massacres of 1391 a pivotal moment in time, ushering in the era of mass conversions with all its drastic consequences – including the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition and the expulsion of all Jews from the Iberian Peninsula. However, there are almost no explanations as to why the first documented hostilities between Old and New Christians can only be dated back to 1430s at the earliest. This paper proposes five different (but possibly related) hypotheses to account for this previously unexplained observation. Theoretical approaches refer to phenomena observed in sociology and cultural anthropology such as the integration paradox, collective memory and ambiguity tolerance. Historical evidence is drawn upon with particular attention to the Council of Basel’s decree on neophytes, the rise of converso officials under John II and his minister Álvaro de Luna and the opposing factions within the Spanish Old Christian community.
Andrew Hope (Oxford University): Judaism, Islam, and the Work of William Tyndale
William Tyndale produced the first modern English translation of the New Testament, the first English translation from the Greek, and the first English printed translation. He also substantially contributed to the English Old Testament equivalents of each of these from the Hebrew, although his work was unfinished at the time of his martyrdom in 1536. Traditionally his work was valued principally as the basis of the King James Bible of 1611, for long the standard English translation. Over the last quarter century or so there has been increasing appreciation of his Greek scholarship and of Tyndale as a Renaissance figure. As yet almost no attention has been paid Tyndale’s Jewish links or the evidence of his Arabic scholarship. Tyndale’s closest associate in the production of the first printed English New Testament (1526), was William Roye, a Christian of Jewish descent. Roye’s outlook in his polemical work, particularly after his parting from Tyndale, shows the influence of his Jewish background. In 2002, Thomas E. Burman discovered a manuscript of the Qur’an with a Latin translation in Cambridge University Library. Watermark evidence suggests it may have originated in Palermo. At some later point it was owned by William Tyndale, and contains extensive marginalia in Tyndale’s hand, correcting or further explaining the Latin translation of the Arabic. Although the manuscript has attracted the attention of scholars of the Qur’an, there has been little attempt to use it as a source for Tyndale’s scholarship. It was once argued that Tyndale did little more than translate Luther’s German into English. On the contrary, it can now be argued that, despite his lonely exile, he was one of the most accomplished English humanist scholars of his generation,
Emilia Hruszowiec (Historical Institute/University of Wrocław): Polish Anti-Jewish Literature in the Attempt to Shape Christian-Jewish Relations (Sixteenth-Seventeenth Centuries)
The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was not a socially homogeneous state. Its territories were inhabited by the representatives of various faiths and nationalities, but it was the Jews who were particularly seen as others and strangers. Early modern anti-Jewish literature especially contributed to this. The situation was facilitated by the fact that the representatives of the Jewish faith never fully assimilated into the society, although they had been present in the Polish lands since the Middle Ages. They were simply different, and authors emphasised this otherness by trying to push it beyond the limits of acceptability in order to achieve intended goals. Hence the negative perception of otherness enabling the authors to affect people’s imagination and change their attitudes towards Jews. Anyone may feel fear and might do everything to avoid danger and to survive, and redirecting social tensions to the Jews could have helped mitigate those directed, inter alia, towards the Church or the State. Religious and social issues in particular contributed to this. The discussed subject was also an important part of the Church’s polemic stance against the Jews, which was based on manifold reasons. The situation became more specific as the authors often transformed and reshaped the reality of the time. They, for example, took advantage of unfavorable circumstances and social tensions such as wars, natural disasters or epidemics. For instance, the legend of ritual murders, alleged profanations and other stereotypes concerning Jewish people took on a slightly different meaning. Portraying the Jews as murderers, enemies of Christianity or representatives of the devil had a certain reason – that which meant to evoke fear or even anxiety. Owing to that, popular imagination could be more easily and effectively affected, and thus manipulated, which helped to shape social attitudes towards Jews at the time and in the centuries to come.
Anis Issa (École Pratique des Hautes Études): The Catholics under the Feather of the Coptic Historians, Efforts for Unity or a Conspiracy of Subjugation?
The ecumenical relations between the Coptic Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church continue to be friendly on the leaders’ level. However, no tangible achievements when it comes to Christian unity, were ever achieved. This could be interpreted in the light of a long tradition of Coptic skepticism towards the Roman Church. The paper will try to shed light on the Coptic perception of Catholic rapprochement attempts during the early modern period. To this aim, we will present an analytical reading for the nine-volume book History of the Coptic Church by Iris Habib Elmasry where we will only focus on the segments related to the Catholic Church and its envoys to the Copts. Given how widespread and respected it was in the Coptic milieus, Elmasry’s work represents an important source to understand the roots of Coptic perception of Western Christendom.
Gábor Ittzés (Debrecen Reformed Theological University): A Tenacious Myth of Authenticity: The Reception History of the Dream of Frederick the Wise
Somnium Friderici is an apocryphal early modern text that burst onto the scene at the first Reformation centenary in 1617. It took the stage by storm, and wrote itself indelibly into the memory of the beginnings of the renewal movement for about three and a half centuries. It was not until the late 1960s that modern scholarship conclusively challenged its ostensible provenience and relocated its birth to the context of early Lutheran orthodoxy in the latter half of the sixteenth century. This paper will review Somnium Friderici’s remarkable reception history. After summarising the work’s contents, structure, and sophisticated strategies of self-legitimisation, it will briefly present its early publication history. The first broadsheets are famous for their quality of text and image. The latter, widely regarded as the first pictorial representation of the “nailing” of the Ninety-Five Theses, had its own effective history, which cannot be pursued here. Instead, the paper will follow the afterlife of the text, tracing the dissemination and reception of Somnium Friderici. Beyond sketching the overall story from the early seventeenth to the twenty-first century, this paper will discuss the text’s gradual assimilation into historical works on the Reformation and will focus especially on two episodes that poignantly illustrate the tenacity of the myth of this work’s authenticity. The first was a notable scholarly debate around the turn of the eigtheenth century which falsely confirmed the historicity of the work in the face of some reasonable challenges that still seem valid today, while renewed attention around the tricentennial of the Reformation ultimately gave it a new lease on life for another 150 years. The paper will conclude by offering some contemporary signs of doubt about the critical deconstruction of the claim of authenticity, illustrating the myth’s refusal to fully dissolve under the weight of scholarly evidence to the contrary. [Research for this paper was supported by Debrecen Reformed Theological University]
Theis Schønning Johansen (Faculty of Theology, University of Copenhagen): Christology, Scriptural Interpretation, and Scepticism in Erasmus of Rotterdam
In his new book on the Christology of Erasmus of Rotterdam (2024), Prof. Terence J. Martin emphasizes the ethical aspect of the Erasmian concept of philosophia Christi. This philosophy, Martin states, is a religious ethic embodied in Christ that is set before human beings as the measure and ultimate target. Obviously, Martin is not the first among scholars to stress the exemplary character of Christ and the restraint of metaphysical speculations in Erasmus, since these notions are crucial to understanding his theology. However, even though morality and the notion of a virtuous and spiritual life play a significant role in Erasmian theology, this paper will argue that one ought to be cautious in rendering the Christology of Erasmus in mere moral tenets. This paper will investigate Erasmus’ De libero arbitrio (1524) to present an additional interpretation of his Christology in relation to his hermeneutics, his academic scepticism, and his anthropology. In this regard, it is essential to pay attention to how Erasmus – against the backdrop of his scriptural interpretation – formulated thoughts on human capabilities, original sin, and spirit that do not necessarily reflect the ‘optimistic’ anthropology and the unambiguous morality implied in other works of his as well as in scholarly contributions on Erasmian theology. Erasmus did indeed accentuate the human moral endeavor, but he also stressed that no human being could make any claims for their own powers – evidently, though sometimes overlooked in the debate with Martin Luther. Therefore, this paper seeks to look behind the veil of ethical prescriptions for a virtuous Christian life and to reconsider the rich complexity and demanding ambiguity of the theology of Erasmus in order to gain a deeper understanding of his authorship, both in his own right and in relation to the Lutheran Reformation.
Grigori Khislavski (Erfurt University): “Judenherz” and “Judengehirn”. Anti-Semitic Vocabulary of the Early New High German Period
If one were to lexicographically determine how the lexeme Jude (and its collocations) was already semanticized in Early Modern High German texts (1450–c.1750) and subsequently in New High German texts (1750–1945), one would find that this lexeme appears, for example in compounds with the determiner Jude (lexicographic evidence 1450–c.1750) such as Judenarzt, Judenarznei, Judenbad, Judenbegierde, Judenblut, Judenbube, Judenbüchlein, Judendienst, Judeneid, Judenfeind, Judenfreund, Judengasse, Judengesicht, Judenherz, Judengehirn, Judengeißel, Judengekröt, Judengeld, Judengenosse, Judengeschenk, Judengeschlecht, Judengeschmeiß, Judengeselle, Judengönner, Judenhand, Judenhaus, Judenheucheln, Judenkind, Judenklage, Judenknecht, Judenkopf, Judenkur, Judenlatein, Judenliebhaber, Judenpatient, Judenpatron, Judenrotte, Judensache, Judenschatz, Judenschmalz, Judensau, Judenschulden, Judenschule, Judenschutz, Judenschutzbüchlein, Judenschützer, Judenschwarm, Judenspiegel, Judenspieß, Judenstadt, Judenturm, Judenvater, Judenverteidiger, Judenvolk, Judenwucher, Judenzettel, Judenzucht, Judenzwang. It is clear that Martin Luther’s body of work strongly influenced the general parlance of other German authors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This holds especially true for his 1543 work Von den Juͤden und jren Luͤgen. The lexemes “Judenherz” and “Judengehirn” suggest a linguistic stigmatization that far exceeds the usual scope of the Christian Adversus-Judaeos literature. With regards to language and cultural history, it seems therefore pertinent to ask about the significance of Luther’s anti-Semitic vocabulary for the literary construction of the collective Jew in the early New High German period.
Jonas Kjøller-Rasmussen (University of Copenhagen): Psychagogics and Meditation: Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches to Sabbati Sanctificatio (1635–38)
The concept of ‘meditation’ in early modern devotional literature is not easy to get a hold of, since it is often used in various contexts to denote either specific literary genres, structured devotional practices, or mystical piety. In the scholarship on one of the most influential seventeenth century devotional writings in Denmark, Sabbati Sanctificatio (1633) by the professor of theology and bishop of Zealand Jesper Rasmussen Brochmand (1585–1652), neither concept of ‘meditation’ has so far been considered applicable. However, recently Günter Butzer has suggested considering looking at early modern meditation as a subset of a broader, longer tradition of psychagogics, which has roots in classical literature (in particular Seneca). Psychagogics is a praxis of self-formation that works with the disciplines of ethics, rhetoric, and medicine to shape virtues and affects. This paper will first introduce Butzer’s concept of psychagogics as an analytical tool for working with early modern devotional literature and then demonstrate the benefits of applying it to an analysis of Brochmand’s Sabbati Sanctificatio. Analysis will include the use of visual and affective elements, but will focus on the dialogical aspects of Sabbati Sanctificatio, which emerge through a strategic use of perspective changes in the text, whereby the reader is drawn in to engage dialogically with scripture as a devotional praxis.
Brandt Klawitter (NLA University College, Bergen, Norway): In or Out? Ulpian’s Understanding of Natural Law and the Wittenberg Reformers
By the 1520s, Wittenberg figures such as Philipp Melanchthon and then also Martin Luther had turned away from a more traditional definition of natural law based upon Domitius Ulpian’s quod natura omnia animalia docuit. The justification for such a turn was based on the fact that “nature” (that which was held in common with the animals) was not properly the realm of reason. Given that the animals were unreasonable, their urges and instincts could not properly be considered under the term “law”. As a result, the Wittenberg reformers shied away from Ulpian’s definition of natural law, though they nevertheless maintained what was an unmistakably elevated understanding of nature’s normativity under differing terminology. Despite this being the case, it is notable that Melanchthon – who had led the turn away from the traditional definition of natural law already in his Loci Communes of 1521 – takes up a more Ulpianic understanding of natural law in his 1531 Apology to the Augsburg Confession (Ap. 23), thus demonstrating that Ulpian had not entirely fallen out of Melanchthon’s purview – not even under the term “natural law”. In this paper I propose to explore these events, their implications for reformation theology, and then also seek to formulate a thesis for why Melanchthon made use of an otherwise generally discarded conception of natural law.
Skirmantas Knieža (Vilnius University): The Purger or The Reconciler: The Mission of the Nobleman in Sixteenth-Century Jesuit Literature of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
The ethnically diverse polity of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the sixteenth century faced internal tensions fueled by the clash of Protestantism and Catholic Reformation, not to mention the external threats posed by the Duchy of Moscow and the Ottoman Empire. The establishment of the Society of Jesus and, subsequently, their academy in Vilnius, fuelled the intellectual debate, with university students reflecting the tension with the Other and the noblemen’s role in establishing order and peace. This paper will focus on the late sixteenth-century Jesuit occasional poetry of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, dedicated to monarchs, bishops, and noblemen, analyzing how their missions were reflected and understood amid the political and religious tensions.
Jakub Koryl (Jagiellonian University): Muslim-Dressed Greek Philosopher among His Fellow Christians: Cultural Hybrids, Polyphonies and Luther’s Part in the Aristotelian Tradition
This paper focuses on the transcultural development of Luther’s research area, that is, in the ways in which the image of Aristotle was multiplied and pluralized in the post-antique tradition, as well as in the reconstruction of the image of Aristotle as a Muslim-Christian hybrid rather than a Greek philosopher that was vivid in the Lutheran collective consciousness and popular culture. Despite its detailed and professional approach during the Heidelberg Disputation of 1518, Luther’s philological and philosophical investigation into various “Aristoteles” – the Greek one and his different Latin variants – was not merely an armchair exercise or endeavor left hanging in the air and thus devoid of any cultural significance and resonance. Hand in hand with Luther’s academic undertakings, popular ideas about the unprecedented meaning and content of his dispute with Latin Aristotelianism were entering the collective consciousness of German Lutheranism. Revealed by Luther in Heidelberg, and then visualized in pamphlets and visual propaganda between 1519 and 1523, the hybrid image of Latin Aristotle not only did not fall within the intellectual and confessional divisions within the Christian commonwealth, but also was already extending beyond European borders. Drawing on the example of Aristotle’s hybrid images, I will be interested to examine the manners the early-modern image of a stranger was conceptualized, stigmatized and pluralized. So far, this non-academic, popular framework of early modern Aristotelianism has not received any attention.
Chrysovalantis Kyriacou (Theological School of the Church of Cyprus): Hilarion Kigalas (Cigala) and the Fortunes of Eastern Orthodoxy in Ottoman Cyprus between Calvinism and Roman Catholicism
This paper explores the life and times of Hilarion Kigalas (1624–1682), an Orthodox-born Cypriot of probably Genoese descent and one of the most fascinating figures in the history of seventeenth-century Cyprus. An alumnus of the Greek College of Saint Athanasius at Rome, Kigalas served as director of the Cottunian College at Padua before travelling in the Ottoman Empire as a Catholic missionary and teacher. Following his public return to Orthodoxy, Kigalas received the office of the “great theologian” of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. In 1668 he was the mind behind the condemnation of Calvinism during the Synod of Nicosia, under Archbishop Nikephoros (1641– 674), who was pro-Catholic for political reasons. Kigalas also collaborated with Nektarios, the former patriarch of Jerusalem, to refute the arguments of Franciscan missionaries in the Holy Land. The increasing need to defend Eastern Orthodoxy against Catholic penetration in the East offered Kigalas the opportunity to forge his public image as a representative of the “authentic” tradition of the Orthodox Church, against Nikephoros, whom he replaced as archbishop of Cyprus between 1674 and 1678. During Kigalas’ tenure, Nikephoros maintained his claims over the throne, in a power game involving the Ottomans, the Catholic consuls and merchants of Cyprus, and various groups within the Orthodox hierarchy. Although Kigalas was himself deposed in 1678 and died four years later in Constantinople while trying to regain his office, his tenure marked the fortunes of Eastern Orthodoxy on the island for centuries to come. By dynamically associating the invented tradition of the Orthodox archbishop’s “imperial privileges” with Byzantium and Orthodoxy, Kigalas promoted the veneration of Saint Barnabas, apostolic founder of the Cypriot Church, as a symbol of spiritual regeneration. Last but not least, Kigalas’ rhetoric of power visualised the increased responsibilities of the archbishop in Ottoman administration.
Alysée Le Druillenec (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne): For a Comparative Environmental Theology of New-France Wendats and French Missionaries
This paper focuses on the landscape in the painting La France apportant la foi aux Wendat de la Nouvelle France (1666) and its uncanny resemblance with the iconographic tradition of St Christopher. In the center of the composition, the sea looks like the tormented river he had to cross to get Christ through. On both sides, the shores are rocky, and the composition, together with the houses and trees in the background and foreground, pushes them up the sides of the picture to the middle. This type of composition is well known for St Christopher’s iconography, especially because his hagiography tells the story of a baptism. Moreover, what makes this painting a unicum, is that St Joseph, Canada’s future patron saint, appears twice alongside Christ in an unusual way: on one hand, in a mise en abîme image, and on the other hand, in the heavens, at the same level as Mary. In 1666, his cult was still developing in France where he was promoted as the best intercessor at the time of death because of the grace he received from God to carry the Christ. Through a multidisciplinary approach using comparative theology, missiology, religious art history, and religious history, this paper aims to show how the Counter-Reformation Josephology and the survival of St Christopher’s iconographic tradition resonates with the Wendats’ theology. It aims to show how the carrying of the Christ, which was attributed to saint Christopher in arts, is re-actualized into saint Joseph’s posture as the custos prudens of the Holy Family and what is at stake when put into the context of the Wendats evangelization.
Tapio Leinonen (University of Helsinki): Encounters and Experiences Behind Martin Luther’s Political Theology
This paper analyzes a shift in Martin Luther’s theological teaching by comparing two scarcely researched theological sources: Luther’s Lectures on Deuteronomy (1525) and Sermons on Deuteronomy (1529). The paper presents examples of Luther’s teaching in the sources and examines the encounters and experiences Luther and his contemporaries had that influenced his theological teaching. The paper argues that Luther’s teaching on Deuteronomy is founded on the theological foundation of faith-based love. Through faith established in the heart, human beings can follow the law by conducting works of love. The two sources reveal a shift in Luther’s application of his theology in different contexts. While the foundation remains the same for Luther, he argues for different kinds of actions for princes and their subjects in different times. The paper analyzes how Luther’s encounters in early modern society with the leadership of the Teutonic Order which shortly after converted to the Lutheran faith in 1525, and Zwingli’s supporters at the Marburg Colloquy in 1529, directed Luther’s words on how a Christian ruler or commoner should relate to their neighbor of different faith, nationality, or opinion. During a short period of time, the historical and political context had major shifts due to the political threat posed by the Turks, the Peasants’ War, and the arguments between different Reformation confessions. This paper presents changes in Luther’s biblical and political teaching related to the lived experiences in the 1520s. The research proposes that Luther stays true to his teaching on faith as a foundation for love and good works in societal and ecclesial realms. However, the context affects Luther’s teaching on how love is expressed to ensure the stability of faith in a changing political context with uprising threats.
Urs Leu (Institut für Schweizerische Reformationsgeschichte, Universität Zürich): Presentation of the Forthcoming Collection of Sources on the History of Anabaptism in Zurich (1534–1636)
On 21 January 1525, the first adult baptism was performed in Zurich, according to the chronicles of the Hutterite Brethren. This event is not only regarded as the birth of the free churches in Switzerland, but also marks the beginning of the movements that we now call the Amish and Mennonite churches. Until now, the Zurich Anabaptist sources were only available up to 1533 in a critical edition, but this is now set to change. In the early summer of 2025, two further extensive volumes will be available containing the Zurich Anabaptist sources from the years 1534 to 1636. They will not only cover the periods of the famous antistes Heinrich Bullinger, Rudolf Gwalther and, in part, Johann Jakob Breitinger, but will also provide far-reaching insights into persecution, congregational life, dissemination and the structure of the Anabaptist communities. These turbulent times also saw the last execution of a Zurich Anabaptist in 1614 (Hans Landis) and the beginning of the systematic destruction of Anabaptist life in the canton of Zurich (1635/36). The largely unknown source material sheds new light on Anabaptism in Zurich in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Johannes Ljungberg (University of Copenhagen): Generational Dissent in the Lutheran North? Early Adopters of New Platforms in Shifting Media Ecologies, 1700–1774
This paper investigates how religiously dissenting people navigated three shifting media ecologies in the Lutheran North between 1700 and 1774. By examining the dissenters’ use of expanding epistolary networks around 1700, clandestine manuscript collections in the 1730s, and the world-unique, far-reaching freedom of print in Sweden 1766–1774 and in Denmark 1770–1772, it discusses different ways to examine what we might call “generational dissent”. This paper fleshes out three empirical examples which indicate generational patterns and discusses how these connects to a variety of theoretical definitions of generation: as indirect belonging to age cohorts by year of birth, as connection to certain cohorts by socialization, and as self-aware articulation of connections and contentions between old, young, past, present and future generations. It discusses the usefulness of the concepts of ‘early adopters’ and ‘natives’ of media ecologies, in conversation with how Thomas Kaufmann has introduced the term ‘print natives’ into Reformation studies in his book Die Druckmacher. Wie die Generation Luther die erste Medienrevolution entfesselte (Munich, 2022). Thereby, the paper aims to nurture a continuing discussion on the intersection of shifting media ecologies, religious dissent and generational patterns. It does so with a point of departure in examples from the Nordic Countries, generating a more general question to the conference concerning potential comparisons with other geographical areas and chronological frameworks within the studies on early modern Christianity from 1500 onwards.
Diego Lucci (American University in Bulgaria): Transubstantiation, the Trinity, and the Rule of Faith in England under James II
In 1686-87, during the Anglican controversy with Catholicism, some English Catholic polemicists and Church of England clergymen focused on transubstantiation and the Trinity in debating the rule of faith. Drawing on anti-Trinitarian arguments on the impossibility of deducing the Trinitarian dogma from Scripture alone, anonymous Catholic writers maintained that the Protestant doctrine of sola Scriptura led to the denial of not only transubstantiation but also the Trinity. Accordingly, they insisted on grounding biblical exegesis in ecclesiastical tradition. Anglican theologians such as Richard Kidder, William Sherlock, Edward Stillingfleet, and Thomas Tenison replied that the Trinity was a “truth above reason” revealed in Scripture. However, this solution, implying that the Trinity was not plainly comprehensible to reason, led to further doubt about the role of rational inquiry in biblical hermeneutics, the perspicuitas of Scripture, and the doctrinal authority of ecclesiastical institutions. Catholics indeed denounced the fallibility of individual interpretation of Scripture, while Protestants argued that Church Councils were not exempt from mistakes. The Unitarian leader Stephen Nye joined that controversy with A Brief History of the Unitarians, Called also Socinians (1687) and was soon followed by other anti-Trinitarians. While sticking to sola Scriptura and rejecting ecclesiastical tradition, Unitarian authors exposed the aforesaid fallacies of the claim that the Trinity was above reason, thereby questioning the scriptural foundations of the Trinitarian doctrine and eliciting different responses from Trinitarian apologists. Consequently, that inter-confessional debate about the rule of faith provoked the Trinitarian crisis that shook the English theological arena in the late seventeenth century.
Tomasz Mantyk (KU Leuven | Catholic University of Lublin): Theology of the Eucharist in Erasmus’ and Titelmans’ Paraphrase on John 6
After publishing his epoch-making Novum Instrumentum in 1516, Erasmus (re)invented a genre of biblical paraphrase. The humanist strove to render the biblical message in a clear and elegant manner. The work of paraphrasing was inevitably also an interpretation, which alerted some conservative theologians such as Noël Beda. The syndic of the Parisian theological faculty considered paraphrases as per se false interpretations. Surprisingly, Beda’s protegee, Francis Titelmans, a young Franciscan scholar from Leuven, started composing his own paraphrases of biblical books in a poorly disguised competition with Erasmus. The aim of the presentation is to confront biblical paraphrases of both authors and establish the degree of Titelmans’ dependence on the older author and theological differences between them. The case study is John 6, one of the key texts for the doctrine of the Eucharist, especially the concept of “the real presence”. The paper will demonstrate how Titelmans sought to “catholicise” Erasmus, filling a progressive form (paraphrase) with a conservative message.
Robert Aleksander Maryks (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland): From the IJssel Valley to the Vistula Valley: Jesuits and Devotio Moderna in the Commonwealth of Poland–Lithuania
Jesuits played a pivotal role in the early modern era in Poland-Lithuania, countering the Protestant Reformation’s progress through theological debates and printing. They also promoted forms of devotion rooted in the tradition of devotio moderna, a movement predating Protestantism, that advocated spiritual exercises, self-discipline, and introspection. This movement, championed by the Brethren of the Common Life and the Augustinian Canons Regular, spread to German-speaking regions, northern France, and Catalonia. In Montserrat, Abbot García Jiménez de Cisneros incorporated devotio moderna texts into Benedictine reform, compiling a book of spiritual exercises. These practices became fundamental to the spiritual journey of Ignatius of Loyola, the future co-founder of the Jesuits. The devotio moderna had marked its influence in Paris, and notably, Jan Standonck, founder of the Collège de Montaigu, had ties with the movement. Ignatius of Loyola studied there, absorbing the devotio moderna authors’ works, which informed his Spiritual Exercises and led to the formation of his group. Once the group became an official religious order in 1540, the Spiritual Exercises became the Jesuit spirituality and ministry’s cornerstone. Loyola was especially attached to à Kempis’s Imitation of Christ, a devotio moderna text, which later became central to Jesuit literature and was translated into multiple languages, including Polish. Once the Jesuits arrived in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1564, they published translations of à Kempis’s Imitation, which remained popular well into the nineteenth century. Its popularity was not limited to the Jesuits; Protestants and other Catholics also published its editions in Latin and Polish. This paper attempts to trace the circulation of devotio moderna texts in the Commonwealth which played a pivotal role in the early modern era focusing on the Imitatio Christi, highlighting the Jesuits’ role in integrating the devotio moderna into the new religious culture of Poland-Lithuania.
Yelena Matusevich (University of Alaska Fairbanks): Amicitia in morte: Continuity and Discontinuity in Early Modern Death Preparation Texts
Outside medical professionals the word “palliative” became current only about twenty years ago, when it was introduced as a euphemism in order to replace a centuries-old concept of death preparation or ars moriendi. The absolute majority of ars moriendi focused on the spiritual well-being of the dying person and their readiness to face God’s judgment. In a society entirely dominated by Christian worldview, the soul had the priority over the body, salvation over personal happiness, suffering over health. It would be logical, in such a cultural context, to suppose that death preparation would be reserved exclusively for “clerical management of the dying” (Tingle) and making members of the clergy “deathbed specialists”. It was, however, not always the case. In ars moriendi texts by the most famous late medieval theologian Jean Gerson (1363–1429), it was the figure of amicus (friend, companion) that took central stage in a Christian death preparation. This paper seeks to trace the posterity of Gerson’s idea of amicus in morte in the sixteenth century by analyzing several most influential death preparation manuals of the time.
Sini Mikkola (University of Eastern Finland): Women Encountering Men in the Early Reformation
One of the first women standing up for the evangelical movement was Bavarian noblewoman Argula von Grumbach. In the famous yet imaginary depiction of her encounter with the academics of the Ingolstadt university she is portrayed standing alone, holding a book (probably Scripture), facing a group of male academics standing together in tight formation. This title page of von Grumbach’s open letter serves as inspiration for this paper, which investigates how women of the early Reformation encountered men of different convictions. Previous scholarship has suggested that, more often than emphasizing confessional and doctrinal differences, laypeople tended to prioritize the love of neighbor as the guiding principle when encountering others. This paper will test this claim and analyze what kind of narrations women presented to their audience regarding encounters with their male opponents and how they depicted these men in their narratives. Particular attention will be paid to gendered concepts and imagery. For example, the narrated encounter with an opposing male figure could be based on a factual interaction and, thus, be a part of correspondence: it could also be imaginary, as in many polemical writings, and constructed on the grounds of the woman’s motives to, for example, downplay her opponents. This paper thus provides gender-sensitive analyses of women’s writings in relation to encounters with Otherness, considering the intersections of gender and conviction, and the discursive construction of these others.
Graeme Murdock (Trinity College Dublin): Isaac Basire and the Fortunes of Eastern Orthodoxy in Transylvania between Calvinism and Anglicanism
This paper explores the career of Isaac Basire (1607– 1676). Basire, possibly born in France, and certainly of French origins, was an Anglican clergyman who in the 1640s served as a chaplain to Charles I. In 1649 Basire travelled via Sicily to Rome. He then moved on to the eastern Mediterranean, aiming to engage in dialogue with Orthodox patriarchs (Basire had no knowledge of any of the languages of the region). Reaching Aleppo and Jerusalem, Basire’s ambition was to encourage Orthodox churches to join in ‘communion with our old church of England’. By 1653 Basire was at Pera from where he wrote of his apparent success in persuading Orthodox patriarchs of the ‘catholic doctrine’ of the English church. This mission effort bore no practical results. Basire moved on to Transylvania where he was employed by György II Rákóczi to lead the reform of the princely academy at Alba Iulia. The Reformed church in Transylvania, under the authority of a bishop (of a kind), was then engaged in a sustained campaign to ‘reform’ the Romanian Orthodox church. While Basire took some interest in promoting better contacts with the Orthodox church in the principality, his greater concern was to combat presbyterianism within the Transylvanian Reformed church. Basire warned his prince of the dangers posed by puritans and of the dire political consequences of presbyterianism. Protestant interest in seeking better relations with Orthodox churches was normally driven by seeking strategic advantage against the Roman church. This paper will explore Isaac Basire’s concern to advance his vision of divine-right episcopalianism. Finding common cause with Orthodox clergy in the Ottoman empire or in Transylvania proved entirely unrealistic, but reflected Basire’s desire to establish a common Anglican-Orthodox alliance against Roman claims of unique apostolic continuity and against the dangers posed by presbyterians and republican radicals.
Radu Nedici (University of Bucharest): “…like Mandarins in China”: Jesuits, the Greek Orthodox, and the Rites Controversy in Early Eighteenth-Century East-Central Europe
Following their successful defense of Vienna in 1683, the Habsburgs waged an outstanding war against the Ottomans over the next decade and a half. It led to the expansion of the monarchy into central and southern Hungary, and into Transylvania, thus pushing the boundaries of Catholic Europe deep into contact with the territories of Byzantine tradition in the Balkans. Since the newly acquired lands lacked a strong Catholic presence, the archbishop of Esztergom, Cardinal Kollonich, came up with the plan of enrolling the Greek Orthodox to counterbalance the weight of the Lutherans and Calvinists present there. Initially, this goal has been pursued by instilling new life into the church unions earlier proclaimed by the Croats and Ruthenians in Hungary and through the union with Rome of the Romanians in Transylvania. However, by the turn of the century, Cardinal Kollonich grew dissatisfied with the lack of real conversions among the Byzantine Catholics and began looking for ways of bridging the gap still separating them from the Latins. This paper explores the proposal he advanced in the context, to allow for some of the Jesuit missionaries active in Hungary to take up the Greek rite in order to ease their penetration into the Greek Orthodox communities, which would otherwise reject Catholic preaching. Despite securing full support from the Austrian province of the Society of Jesus, the idea failed to account for the global implications it entailed. The decades-long Chinese rites controversy had just been settled in 1704 against the Jesuits, prompting a similar disavowal of Kollonich’s plan in Rome by 1706. Nevertheless, the writings delivered to the Apostolic See by those who favoured the suggestion offer valuable insights on the missionary strategies contemplated with regard to the confessional Otherness of east-central Europe. They are equally relevant for exploring how this European periphery took part in the strands of global Catholicism.
Octavian-Adrian Negoiță (Institute for South-East European Studies, Romanian Academy): Sophronios of Kilis and His Polemic Against Purgatory
This paper discusses the polemical discourse against purgatory of the Arabic-speaking theologian Sophronios of Kilis (c.1700–1780) as reflected in his work Kitāb midrār sayl al-matar fi tafi nār al-mathar. Sophronios composed his work in Arabic in 1740 before he became bishop of Acre as a response to the intense confessional pressure the Catholics amplified over the Arab Orthodox. In his polemical argumentation, Sophronios adopted a systematic approach through which he lays down the Catholic teachings on purgatory in eight statements for which he offered copious refutations full of biblical and patristical references. Kitāb midrār is a compilatory work in which Sophronios gathers testimonies by the Church Fathers and previous theological arguments, which he organizes in an original comprehensive manual of refutation against Purgatory. The work is an important source for the religious controversies between Catholics and the Arabic-speaking Christians during the eighteenth century, and an example of interpreting and organizing the biblical and patristical material for articulating a polemical discourse directed towards one of the major theological differences on the West-East axis. The sources used by Sophronios also makes him an important agent of the cultural transfer(s) that took place between the Greek-speaking Orthodox theologians and the Arabic-speaking milieu. Lastly, in the context of this year’s commemoration of the 1724 split of the Church of Antioch into the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch and the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, the still unedited theological works of Sophronios are of paramount importance for understanding the confessional dynamics in the Ottoman Near East during the eighteenth century.
Nina Niedermeier (University of Augsburg): Fortuna, Providentia, and Salvation History: The Book of Esther as a Jewish-Christian Image Subject in Early Modern Venice
As an image subject that was received across religions and depicted in Christian as well as in Jewish art, the biblical Book of Esther has been subject to a series of artistic innovations in the early modern period, which developed in the multi-religious context of the Republic of Venice under the influence of numerous points of contact between the Jewish and the Christian reception. Despite this closely intertwined reception of the Book of Esther, particularly in the sixteenth century, the theological assessment of the biblical text remained very different in both religions and subsequently led to adjustments to liturgical meanings and higher-level theological theories, which increased from the seventeenth century onwards religion-specific ways of artistic forms of representation. In accordance with this dynamic of interweaving and disentanglement, this lecture will initially concentrate – as an example of a field of meaning shared by both religions – on the reading of the figure of Esther as Fortuna, which has been central in Jewish and Christian exegesis since the Middle Ages, as well as on the numerous turns of fate in the plot of the Book of Esther as the work of divine providentia. Afterwards, the various interpretations in terms of salvation history, that became more important from the seventeenth century onwards, are presented. In Jewish art the story of the Book of Esther is read in a messianic way, connecting to the contemporary expectation of the Messiah and the situation of the crypto-Jews, while in Christian art Esther is understood mariologically as a prefiguration of the Immaculata, the Assunta and the Coronation of Mary, sticking to medieval typology and early modern devotion of Mary.
João Nunes (Polytechnic University of Viseu; CHSC, University of Coimbra): Save the Enslaved: The Marriage of Enslaved People in Lisbon Between 1612 and 1623
During the Council of Trent (1545–1563), within the scope of the reform of the sacraments, the Catholic Church instituted Tridentine marriage in the universe of the faithful, among which slaves were included. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, enslaved people were highly increasing in number in Portugal, due to the dynamics of the Portuguese Empire. The encounter between the Church and enslaved people, regarding marriage, was not easily achieved due to social and cultural issues concerning enslaved people. This study seeks to further investigate and discuss this topic through aspects related to the marriage of enslaved people in Lisbon in the first quarter of the seventeenth century, more specifically at the end of the prelature of Archbishop D. Miguel de Castro, between 1612 and 1623. The aim is also to know who those enslaved people were, the composition of their families and what obstacles they faced in being able to get married. Enslaved people, coming from different parts of the Empire, mostly from Africa, were commonly prevented from marrying by their masters since they were considered mere objects of work. Marriage was an obstacle to the exercise of servile activities. The fact of being prevented from marrying meant that many lived in unions that were not considered valid by the Church. In other words, according to the Church, those couples were living in mortal sin. In order to promote the salvation of enslaved people, the Church condemned the masters who “with malice” prevented the marriage of their slaves and simultaneously encouraged the celebration of marriage among the enslaved. Moreover, the Church stimulated the regularization of the existing unions among enslaved couples, through the consummation of marriage. To carry out this study, mainly sources from the Ecclesiastical Chamber of Lisbon were used, more specifically the Matrimonial Summaries dating back to the seventeenth century.
Julia Paduch (University of Wrocław): Indications Dedicated to French Diplomats Regarding Religious Issues during the Thirty Years’ War
This paper investigates the goals of French diplomacy during the Thirty Years’ War regarding religion based on the indications for French diplomats held in the Archives of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. France remained one of the crucial participants of this conflict, although, as a Catholic country (according of the idea of Gallicanism), it kept its alliances with Protestant powers. It is therefore interesting to specify central indications for the diplomats regarding religious issues. This kind of analyses help understand the manner in which the French monarchy was able to combine its contradictory purposes with the allies’ (particularly Sweden) goals. Within the framework of this paper, indications for French representatives active in Sweden, the Holy Roman Empire, the Holy See, England as well as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth will be included. This paper will focus on the main goals of the diplomacy led by Cardinal Richelieu and Mazarin due to the temporal extent. However, this general perspective, as well as considering the most important European powers at that time, can help expose contradictions between raison d’état (reason of state) and the Holy See’s objectives concerning France during the Thirty Years’ War.
Mária Pakucs (N. Iorga Institute of History, Bucharest): The Influence of the Reformation of Johannes Honterus on the Saxon Town Councils in Transylvania
This paper will analyse the impact of the Church Ordinance written by Johannes Honterus from Brașov (Kronstadt), adopted by the University of Saxons in 1547, on the political discourse and action of town councils. It will argue that a new vocabulary emerged as a result of the cooperation between the political and ecclesiastical bodies of the Transylvanian Saxons, wherein town councils embraced their role as authority (Obrigkeit) and their divine mission to govern. Further, it will discuss how Johannes Honterus’s ordinance offered political magistrates of the main towns of the Transylvanian Saxons a blueprint for measures implemented to achieve their tasks to govern over their subjects.
Marco Papasidero (University of Palermo): Religious Encounters and Miraculous Conversions in Early Modern Marian Legends
Some of the legends behind the establishment of early modern Marian shrines between 1450 and 1750 feature explicit references to encounters among various religious traditions, notably Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. These legends often describe sudden conversions resulting from apparitions or miracles associated with miraculous images. This paper – as part of the research conducted within the Sanctuaria Work Package of the ITSERR (Italian Strengthening of the ESFRI RI RESILIENCE) project – aims to analyse a collection of Italian Marian legends that touch upon the theme of spontaneous conversion, particularly among individuals of Jewish or Muslim faith. The goal is to examine the narrative and historical-cultural methods with which the theme of encounters and conversions is presented and debated. Additionally, the paper seeks to comprehend how Jews and Muslims are portrayed and characterized, as well as how their beliefs or devotional practices are depicted and defined. The objective is to grasp the representation of the ‘religious Other’ as depicted in the texts and the role that the conversion of these individuals plays in the establishment of the emerging sanctuary or the associated new cult. Furthermore, the paper seeks to ascertain whether these hagiographic traditions and the miracles associated with them occasionally promoted tolerance towards other faiths and the freedom to express one’s own beliefs, or if the sole emphasis lied on conversion and the relinquishment of one’s beliefs in favour of Christianity. When possible, the narrative portrayals of individuals from other religions will be compared with depictions and painting cycles within the sanctuary connected to individual foundation legends. This comparison aims to examine how these figures were represented and according to what criteria or stereotypes they were depicted.
Philipp Pilhofer (University of Rostock): An Orthodox Patriarch’s Transconfessional Studies at the Lutheran University of Helmstedt: The Academia Iulia and its Only Greek Student Metrophanes Kritopoulos
After finishing his studies at Balliol College in Oxford, the Greek Orthodox Metrophanes Kritopoulos travelled through central Europe for several years. In 1624, he enrolled at the progressive Lutheran university of Helmstedt and studied there for nearly a year. At Helmstedt, he composed his ὁμολογία τῆς Ἀνατολικῆς Ἐκκλησίας and was in close contact with local theologians such as Georg Calixt. Later on, Metrophanes became Patriarch of Alexandria. A fresh look at old and new sources in Wolfenbüttel and Athens will illuminates the close transconfessional connections he built to Helmstedt’s professors and reveals unknown details about his stay.
João Pinheiro da Silva (Central European University): Francisco de Vitoria’s Rejection of Natural Slavery
Francisco de Vitoria was one of the most prominent interlocutors in the debates surrounding the legal status of the Indians during the discovery of the “New World”, as he rejected the various philosophical and theological arguments, along with the chroniclers’ and navigators’ accounts of indigenous customs, which defended the idea that the Indians were the “empirical referent” of what Aristotle called “natural slaves”, given their supposed rational deficiencies. In this paper, we analyze how the Aristotelian defense for natural slavery was received by Thomas Aquinas and ultimately rejected by Vitoria. Aquinas’ discussion of the subject appears in the Treatise on Justice of his Summa, which was later commented on by Vitoria. For Aquinas, the ius gentium is natural law secundum quid, or relatively, but not simpliciter, or absolutely. He thus understands natural slavery as a natural right secundum quid. This already softens the original Aristotelian understanding of natural slavery, defending it in terms of its “consequent utility”, but not conceiving it absolutely. Vitoria goes further than Aquinas because he has a different interpretation of the status of the ius gentium as mere positive law. As such, Vitoria can reject the naturalistic justification of slavery. He argues that only conduct or institutions that are absolutely just can form natural law and, as Aquinas himself believed, this is not the case with slavery – which is not just absolutely, but only relatively. This is expanded upon in his famous relectio, De Indis, where Vitoria argues that the Indians, being fully rational, had full “dominium” of themselves and their land. Vitoria’s argument, however, did not just apply to the Indians. His language is consistently universal, and his contribution to the ius gentium can be interpreted as an early-modern precursory defense of human rights, which everyone possesses, as Vitoria would phrase it, in virtue of being a rational animal created in God’s image.
Martin Pjecha (Centre for Medieval Studies, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague): A Paradoxical Pacifist? Peter Chelčický (d. c.1460) on Antichristian Politics
As an interesting paradox repeated in the early modern West, the most chaotic outcomes of confessional diversity are often the inspiration for the most conservative political reactions, even among religious freethinkers themselves. Well-known examples include Martin Luther or Thomas Hobbes who, countering religious radicalism and civil wars, called for strong rulers to crush the very dissenting views which had contributed to their own success. A similar situation led one dissident intellectual, Peter Chelčický, to an intriguingly opposite conclusion in fifteenth century Hussite Bohemia. Here, in the midst of many years of brutal civil war and sectarian violence, Chelčický discovered not the hegemony of the state, but anarchism and pacifism. According to him, all coercion, including political rule, has its roots in paganism; it remains important to provide order to heretics and infidels who lust after worldly possessions and powers, but plays no role for true Christians who have moved beyond such distractions. True Christians can live in polities alongside such unbelievers and suffer them cathartically, but no Christian can hold a political office. Yet despite the subversive potential of this message, Chelčický’s passivism teaches against undue attention to altering the status quo: the rebellions of his Hussite co-religionists, or the strong ruler they yearn for, cannot crush the rule of Antichrist as they claim, but only perpetuate it. The world can only be transformed through free will, one individual at a time. This paper will explore some of these interesting paradoxes in Chelčický’s thought by reference to the most important intellectual influences shared by all Hussites, Augustine and the Oxford dissident John Wyclif. It will show that Chelčický’s innovative position borrows but re-interprets their concepts of rulership, legitimacy, and jurisdiction, representing an overlooked chapter in Western political thought and inter-religious history.
Andrea Profeta (DREST, Italian Doctoral School of Religious Studies): Tommaso Israel. The cursus honorum of a Converso in the Catholic Hierarchy of Aeolian Islands
In the middle of the fifteenth century, a group of Jews moved from Sicily to the Aeolian islands, devoting themselves to coral fishing, craftsmanship and financial loan. The number of families must have been substantial, since the community was able to build a synagogue in the island of Lipari, although far from the inhabited centers. Even though the Islands (which were subject to the Kingdom of Naples) were spared by the Alhambra Decree of 1492 that concerned Sicily, the fate of the Aeolian Jewish community was no less difficult. Only two years later, the Regia Camera della Sommaria of Naples commanded the Captain of Justice in Lipari to gather information on a memorial, sent directly to the King by the Jews, that was probably referring to contrasts with the natives. In 1510, the law under which Ferdinand II of Aragon expelled the Jews from Naples decreed the end of the Aeolian Jewish community and the synagogue, used for grain storage, was converted into a church in 1575. Probably, not all Jews were banished from the archipelago, but the ones who converted to Christianity (maybe driven by economic interests in the Islands) were allowed to stay. Actually, in the second half of the sixteenth century, at least two ‘Israel’ families lived in Lipari and this surname is attested among the communities that, between 1450 and 1492, left Sicily forever. Tommaso Israel, baptized in 1586 at the Cathedral of Lipari, was the eldest of six children born to Bernardo Israel, owner of vineyards, fishing boats and even African slaves. Despite his misconduct, and being taken to court for violence, the young Tommaso had a rapid ecclesiastical career: clerk since 1602, deacon in 1609 and priest as Canon of the Cathedral in 1614; finally, after a change of the bishop, he carried out the crucial function of vicarius generalis, the highest office in the diocesan administration below the bishop. Is his story the mark of the unusual cursus honorum of a converso in the Catholic hierarchy?
Marta Quatrale (Freie Universität Berlin): Anfechtung/tentatio: Hatred Towards God and Conflicting Emotions as a Criterion to Discern Lutheran Sources?
The Letter to the Romans had a significant impact on the development of Lutheranism, as its interpretation played a crucial role in shaping its core features from the very beginning. One of its primary concepts deals with the experience of encountering Otherness. This can take many forms, such as being in close proximity, facing an insurmountable distance, experiencing visceral hate, or achieving healing reconciliation. In an existential way, the process of developing faith in God involves confronting one’s hatred towards Him. This can evoke intense and conflicting emotions, but it is only by acknowledging and facing them that one can fully embrace God’s grace and salvation. While this framework is not unique to Lutheranism, the succession and/or the simultaneity in which these emotions are experienced and whether or not one is expected to overcome them can narrow the framework. Namely, one question that arises when examining recurring patterns in Lutheran interpretations of the Letter to the Romans is whether we can identify unique Lutheran characteristics that distinguish a Lutheran approach from a non-Lutheran one in areas that are not clearly defined. This is particularly relevant in the case of sixteenth-century Italian sources, which even today represent an apparently unapproachable confessional grey area for several reasons. But does the presence of grey areas exclude setting clear criteria or do they call for them? And, assuming that such criteria exist, which version of pre-concordistic Lutheranism are we referring to?
Niels Reeh (University of Southern Denmark): The Early Modern Concept of Religion as Translation across the Religious Divide(s)
The origin and history of the Latin concept of religio has been disputed. In antiquity, most scholars do however agree that the concept wasn’t used to describe what we today would call another religion. This paper explores the use of the concept of religion in the early modern period as a translational device across religious divides through three examples. In De Pace Fide from 1453, Cusanus seems to have started a new use of religio, namely as a reference to the religious practice of the Ottomans. Similarly, Johannes Reuchlin used religio in his Augenspiegel from 1511 to refer to the religion of the Jews. Shortly hereafter Martin Luther began to use the Latin religio and its vernacular derivative religion, for instance in a foreword to a translation of the Qur’an. After the Reformations, the concept of religion made its way into the new Protestant church ordinances, the preamble to the Augsburg Confession and in peace treaties from Nurnberg, Augsburg and Westphalia. Finally, this paper discusses if and how the concept of religion has been a product of complex historical processes of confessionalization in which religious conflicts and the attempt to overcome these played a key role.
Jonathan Reid (East Carolina University): How Much did the Development of the French Reformed Communities Depend on Geneva (1553–1563)? Evidence from Their Correspondence and Archival Records
This paper starts by describing the riches of a large but under-exploited corpus of over six hundred letters exchanged by the nascent French Reformed communities from across France with Geneva (1553–1563). The vast majority of those date to 1560–62 and provide crucial first-person accounts of the “Huguenot Revolution,” when French Reformed communities grew by 400% and became vibrant and militant. It then focuses on those letters relating to four major Reformed centers (Amiens, Rouen, Bourges, and Poitiers) and their immediate environs. Based on the extant epistolary evidence, it contends – corroborating Kingdon’s work in part – that Calvin and Geneva did play, episodically, important pastoral roles in the formation of the churches at Bourges and Poitiers, notably by supplying them with authorized pastors, but little to none directly in those of Amiens and Rouen. The formation of their churches appears to have been almost wholly independent, or rather ‘indigenous’ and autonomous. Archival evidence shows that Geneva and the reformers of francophone Switzerland did, however, provided churches not in direct contact with models of church formation and inspiration. It concludes by discussing the complexity of understanding how the Reformed churches integrated via regional and national synods 1559–1562.
Marco Alexandre Ribeiro (Centro de História da Universidade de Lisboa): Thinking about Religious Encounters through Gender and Work: A Case Study or the Opening of New Horizons
Religious encounters in Europe at the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of modernity have been at the center of the concerns of historians for many years. For the Portuguese case, inserted in a complex religious and cultural context, this has been a relatively frequent theme in several studies, focusing on the possible dynamics of exclusion or inclusion, segregation or integration. However, it still seems to be lacking a renewed perspective on this issue focusing on the limitations or potentialities that gender imposes on the contact between different cultures and religions. It seems urgent to think about how gender could determine different interreligious and intercultural social relations and question its role in the religious universe. Taking the Portuguese urban reality of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as a case study, specifically through the study of women artisans, we will explore how their gender could mean a different contact with the Jewish and Muslim urban population in several cities, focusing on the possible limitations they could encounter in the exercise of their professional occupations, or that of Jewish or Muslim artisans. Through the analysis of the documentation available for the study of the regulation of urban labor at the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of modernity, this paper will explore the different dynamics of social relations established in this urban space, with a focus on the contact between Christian women and Jewish or Muslim artisans in the multiple workshops inside or outside the (religiously) designed neighborhoods, understanding their distinctions in comparison with contacts within the male world of urban labor. This perspective will allow us to uncover previously little-researched contacts between the different cultures and religions that made up the heterogeneous Portuguese urban world between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and assess how gender and religion impacted communication within the work environment.
Gideon Rossouw (Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary): Ministers to the Bride of Christ: The Puritan View of Angels in the Liturgical Setting
This paper places a specific focus on the Reformation in England and the view of angelic influence in the worship service within the English puritan tradition. It is clear that the puritan view of angels did not exist in a vacuum. By examining the view of angels throughout the history of the Church, this article shows that several Patristic and medieval thinkers influenced the puritan notion of angels. The influence of the Catholicism, John Calvin and Heinrich Bullinger are all considered to make sense of the continuities and discontinuities between the puritan view of the liturgy and the role of angels and the views of those prior to the Reformation, on whose theology the angelic tradition relies.
Pieter Rouwendal (Theological University of Apeldoorn): Hypothetical Universalism: The Marvelous Modern Misadventures of a Seventeenth-Century Concept
“Hypothetical Universalism” was coined by Rivet as a reference to the teachings of Amyraut, and that is how the term functioned for several centuries. However, in recent decades the term has taken on a broader meaning in the field of historical theology, so much so that it is now even applied to persons who contested Amyraut’s universalism. This paper will examine what Rivet originally meant with “hypothetical universalism”, how it is possible that now even opponents of Amyraut are being labeled as hypothetical universalists, and whether it is possible to get more clarity on the meaning of this term as a historical-theological concept for seventeenth-century theology.
Tadeusz Rubik (University of Warsaw, Faculty of “Artes Liberales”): The Apostolic Letters in the Polish Catholic Leopolita Bible (1561) and its Revised Edition (1575). A Research Project
The Leopolita Bible (1561) was the first printed Bible fully in Polish, developed at the time of intensified Reformation activity in Poland. It was based on an anonymous manuscript translation, revised by Jan Leopolita (of Lviv), dean of the Cracow Academy’s faculty of arts, and published on permission of the king, Sigismund II Jagiellon. Dependencies on the Greek New Testament (especially Erasmus Desiderius’ scholarship) resulted in controversies, and in later periods authors of this version, despite their Catholic alignment, were even considered to be “heretics” or “crypto-Protestants”. In 1575, when the Catholic Reformation was gaining momentum in Poland, a revised edition was published. Preliminary research shows that its objective was to adjust the Polish text to the Vulgate. In a research project entitled Apostolic Letters from the Leopolita Bible (1561) and its Revised Edition (1575). The Philologia Sacra Controversies and the Formation of the Catholic Orthodoxy in the Early Modern Poland (funded by the National Science Center, NCN), the author of this paper seeks to offer a textual and translatory case study of the Apostolic Letters as an example of early modern biblical philology. The main research areas are: scholarship of the authors of the 1561 edition; scope and effects of the 1575 revision; cultural-confessional context of the 1561 edition and its revision, both European and Polish (where the vernacular version drawing from the legacy of biblical humanism may be considered as a project aimed to address expectations and needs raised by the Reformation and new cultural-intellectual currents). This paper will discuss the development and context of the Leopolita Bible’s editio princeps and the revised issue, together with textual examples from the Gospels and Apostolic Letters, and the project’s source and methodological outlines.
Illia Rudyk ((University of Wrocław): Begging and Almsgiving: The Wandering Greek Orthodox Clergy in the Early Modern Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
In the seventeenth century, the Greek hierarchy faced numerous challenges due to the political and financial constraints imposed by the Ottoman Empire. The fall of the Byzantine Empire had resulted in the loss of state support for the post-Byzantine Church, leaving it in a precarious position. To overcome these difficulties, Orthodox clergymen embarked on extensive travels, primarily seeking financial assistance and resources for the maintenance of church structures. Numerous churchmen journeyed to confessionally-related countries abroad, where they represented the needs and concerns of the Greek Orthodox Church. As a consequence, while the overriding consideration of the travelling Greeks was obtaining material assistance, in some instances they became involved in the concerns and activities of the Orthodox. The central objective of this paper is to investigate this circular migration by focusing on the example of the Polish-Lithuanian state at the end of the sixteenth and seventeenth century.
Patryk M. Ryczkowski (Innsbruck University): Uniate Church between Vilnius and Rome: Josaphat Kuntsevych in the Hagiographic Sources of the Mid-Seventeenth Century
The paper will be devoted to the consolidation and dissemination of the cult of Josaphat Kuntsevych, which can be observed to have been an intensive, yet slightly diffuse, campaign pursued in Rome around 1649 and 1665 by his countrymen from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Kuntsevych suffered a martyr’s death for the cause of unification of the Byzantine rite with the Roman Church, as he tried to take over the Orthodox churches in Vitebsk on 23 November 1623. This was immediately recognised by the Church and lay authorities as a chance to strengthen the political and confessional impact of the so-called Church Union of Brest (1596). The process of Josaphat’s saint-making had started directly thereafter, yet his beatification in 1643 did not achieve its ultimate goal, which was the authorisation of his cult in the whole Church. Therefore, in order to support his expected canonisation, blessed Kuntsevych was profiled as a prospective saint in works published in Rome in the mid-seventeenth century. Apart from a new canonical Vita drafted by Jakub Jan Susza, several speeches were held, and occasional works circulated in print, to make his cult visible outside his local area, or rather to bring a peripheral cult closer to the Roman centre of Christianity. Focusing on these occasional speeches and prints, the paper will discuss two questions: firstly, which literary strategies were applied to make Josaphat’s cult, practiced in a distant region, comprehensible and attractive for Roman audience? Secondly, in which way(s) was the promotion of his status of saint indicated?
Steffie Schmidt (University of Osnabrück): How to Recognise an Anabaptist. Profiling Anabaptism in Early Modern Dialogue Literature
Especially in the early years of the Reformation before the Peasants’ War, fictional dialogues conquered the book market. By reducing complex theological discussions to manageable lines of argument in well-considered dialogues, they brought current points of contention to a wider audience. But what function did dialogue literature fulfil in the further course of the early modern period, when the positions had long been established and the arguments had been exchanged? In this context, it can be observed that Anabaptists also repeatedly appeared as dialogue partners. This paper will examine what their staging reveals about the perception of Anabaptist identity.
Avner Shamir (University of Copenhagen): Hebrew as a Field of Christian-Jewish Encounter in the Sixteenth Century
The history of Hebrew scholarship presents an interesting question: was the surge in Christian Hebraica in Europe north of the Alps in the sixteenth century a result of the availability and willingness of Jewish tutors, or, on the contrary, was it achieved despite the unavailability and unwillingness of Jewish tutors? To learn reading and writing, grammar and syntax, Christian Hebraists needed access to Hebrew teachers, grammar books and texts. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, these were hardly available outside the confines of Ashkenazi Jewish society. However, access to these resources proved difficult. The theoretical knowledge of Hebrew among the Jews was limited, study tools were hardly known, and the willingness to instruct non-Jews in reading Hebrew was not universal. Sharing Hebrew texts with Christian scholars and clergymen was not necessarily appealing to Jews, who were often suspicious of the intentions of their Christian neighbours. While some of the first Christian practitioners of Hebrew expressed gratitude to their Jewish tutors, others criticized the Jews’ theoretical understanding of the language and their capability to teach it. This paper discusses a distinctive intellectual as well as social early modern encounter: on the one hand, the “custodians” of Hebrew – literate Jews who read and wrote Hebrew but apparently knew little about language as such, and on the other hand, Christian intellectuals, equipped with academic education and language skills but with no intimate knowledge of Hebrew, no study tools, and no access to Hebrew texts. Although the initial question of what enabled the surge in Christian Hebraica cannot be exhaustively answered, this paper seeks to direct scholarly attention to early modern Hebrew as a scholarly concern shared by Christians and Jews, however uneasy the cooperation between them was.
Carl Springer (University of Tennessee Chattanooga): Mark’s Eyes: Albrecht Dürer and Martin Luther
A persistent question about Dürer’s last oil painting (1526) commonly known as The Four Apostles (influenced by a Venetian altarpiece by Bellini) is why Mark is included with Peter, John, and Paul. Unlike Peter and John, Mark was not one of the original twelve apostles, “sent out” by Jesus, and he was rejected by Paul, “the apostle to the Gentiles,” as a suitable companion for his second missionary trip. It is known that Dürer was an enthusiastic supporter of Luther’s Reformation (the painting bears inscriptions from Luther’s German Bible). It is also known from a letter written to Spalatin in 1520 that he had always wanted to make a portrait of Luther (Dürer drew an engraving of Luther’s colleague, Melanchthon, in 1526). He was certainly acquainted with one or more of the depictions of Luther by Cranach, including an early woodcut of him sporting a beard (like Dürer’s Mark). This paper seeks to suggest that the portrayal of Mark in this painting is the closest the artist ever got to depicting Luther. There are three clues in the painting that might support this hypothesis. First of all, Mark stands directly behind and stares intently at Paul, the author of the passage in Romans (1:17) that became the cornerstone of Luther’s theology. Secondly, Mark’s eyes have an unusually piercing, even fierce expression. The intensity of Luther’s own dark eyes was frequently observed by friends and foes alike: Melanchthon compared them to the eyes of a lion; Selnecker thought that they resembled a predatory bird’s fiery eyes; others said that his eyes sparkled like stars. Finally, this paper points to an association made early on between the figures in Dürer’s painting and the four humors: John with his red robe represents the sanguine character, while Peter, gazing downward, is phlegmatic; Paul, with his haunted side-ways look, represents melancholy, and Mark is, therefore, choleric, an adjective used more than once by biographers to describe Luther’s bellicose temperament.
Linda Steele (Carleton University, Ottawa): Fortune Favours the Bold: An Examination of Conflicting Messaging in Chaucer’s Man of Laws Tale
By means of the character Constance, in the Man of Law’s Tale, Geoffrey Chaucer depicts a model of Christian piety for men and women that he both affirms and criticizes. Constance embodies Christian purity through the pain she suffers at the behest of her mothers-in-law, the Sultana, and Donegild. Since her tribulations result in miraculous events, the text illustrates the transformative power of patience and suffering. However, since Constance also suffers as a result of her faith, the text criticizes this forbearance and the lack of agency that goes with it. The teachings of St Paul and Bernard de Clairvaux provided Christian philosophical instruction regarding patience. Chaucer used these ideologies to frame the character of Constance as a selfless, patient, and saintly woman. Chaucer provided a narrative that portrayed both a devout married mother, in the character of Constance (a Christian) and foiled to her in the characters of her mothers-in-law – the Sultana (a Muslim) and Donegild (a pagan). Constance suffers much at the behest of these women, yet she remains steadfast and patient, determined to believe that her faith will save her. Thus, through Constance, Chaucer affirmed this Christian philosophy. Yet, although Constance is eventually triumphant, the breadth of her trials and tribulations at the hands of these women also criticize the Christian doctrine of patience and suffering in the name of the church. Therefore, it is difficult to discern whether Constance is the victim in this tale or the victorious saintly woman. This paper will explore the interaction of Christian philosophy within the narrative of Chaucer’s Man of Law’s Tale to illustrate how Chaucer used the character of Constance to both affirm and criticize the Christian narrative of heroic patient suffering as a means to salvation.
Anna Szyrwińska-Hörig (University of Vechta): Early Protestant and Late Scholastic Roots of the Idea of Tolerance: Members of the School of Salamanca and Fathers of the Reformation on Otherness and Dealing with Strangers
The first half of the sixteenth century was a period full of encounters with Otherness, for example through interactions with indigenous inhabitants of the Americas or with followers of various Christian denominations that emerged in the wake of the Reformation. Still, in the period of late scholasticism and at the beginning of the Reformation, the systematic reflection on tolerance did not exist at all. The first treatises directly dealing with the topic of tolerance were written in the mid-sixteenth century, while the systematic philosophic reflection on tolerance fully developed only in the seventeenth century. The aim of this paper is to present the situation that took place in philosophy and theology even before the emergence of systematic reflection on tolerance. The question that needs to be answered is what attitude towards Otherness – other than acceptance and rejection – was postulated. Two paradigms of dealing with Otherness can be differentiated: the first one characterized the philosophy of some Jesuit members of the School of Salamanca, who emphasized the assumption about individual freedom. According to it, even slaves or inhabitants of colonized territories had a right to decide for themselves. The second paradigm characterized the theories of the fathers of the Reformation, who were dealing with problems arising from multiconfessionalism. The notion of Otherness typical of the second paradigm was delineated by its egalitarianism – in this case otherness concerned belonging to different Christian denominations and the others were no strangers in the literal sense of the word. Based on the analysis of such theories by Luis de Molina, Francisco Suárez, Martin Luther and Jean Calvin among others, the thesis will be presented, that the combination of both paradigms resulted in the emergence of the modern understanding of tolerance, that can be found in the theories of Sebastian Castellio, Dirck Coornhert, but also Hugo Grotius, Samuel von Pufendorf as well as of later Enlightenment thinkers.
Nicholas Thompson (University of Auckland): Semper, ubique et ab omnibus: Using the Church of Ethiopia to Calibrate “Catholicity” in Confessional Europe
The Syllabus of irenic literature, published in 1628 by Jean Hotman, Hugo Grotius and Mathias Bernegger, lists several travel accounts related to the Holy Land, Eastern Europe and Russia, Syria, Armenia and Ethiopia. Although the Syllabus says little about why these books are included, it seems clear that they serve an anti-confessional purpose. For the compilers, the ancient churches of the East offered not an example of decadence and heresy, but models for how to reconcile religious diversity with catholicity. This paper looks at the subset of these travellers’ accounts dealing with Christianity in Ethiopia – Franz Titelmans, De fide et moribus Aethiopum (1534); David Chyträus, Oratio de statu ecclesiarum hoc tempore (1583); Joseph Justus Scaliger, De emendatione temporum (1598) – and considers the uses to which this knowledge could be put in the context of confessionalisation.
Anna Tóth (Hungarian “Széchényi” National Library): The Pammakaristos Church, Constantinople, 1455–1588: A Case Study on Interreligious Contacts
After the Turkish conquest of Constantinople, the Theotokos Pammakaristos church served as the see of the patriarch between approximately 1455 and 1588. From this period, many accounts of this church have surprisingly survived, mostly written by Western travellers who visited Constantinople (Hans Dernschwamm, Hans Jacob Breuning, Salomon Schweiger, Stephan Gerlach, John Malaxos, Martin Gruneweg, Reinhold Lubenau). These travellers arrived as participants in diplomatic missions, or with the intention to establish connections between the Protestant churches and Greek Orthodoxy – opposing Catholicism. Although the travellers did not realise its importance, during this period the Pammakaristos church housed the relics of Parasceve, an important saint for the entire Orthodox Balkans. Our sources, coming from the humanist intellectual elite, unintentionally preserved the memory that a completely different kind of interreligious and interdenominational dialogue took place around these relics. The texts contain allusions to the veneration of Parasceve among the local Catholic, Orthodox, and possibly even Muslim population.
Zsombor Tóth (Centre for Reformation Studies, Budapest): Les Consolations de l’ame fidele contre les frayeur de la mort: A French Bestseller and its Hungarian Reception in the Eighteenth Century (a Case Study)
Charles Drelincourt’s (1595–1669) oeuvre had a most vivid reception amongst Reformed readers of almost all nations in early modern Europe. Yet, until now, little has been known of the unexpectedly vivid Hungarian reception of Drelincourt’s bestseller, Les Consolations…, that had been translated twice to Hungarian during the 1750s. While the first translation (dated 1750) never made it to the printing shop and survived as an unpublished manuscript, the second rendering was indeed published in 1758. It appears that the two translators were not aware of each other’s existence: thus, Drelincourt’s popular text became accessible in two equally remarkable versions, standing as tesimony to the sustained and committed attention of a Hungarian Reformed readership towards Huguenot devotional culture and literature. This case study is all the more important as it appears that a consistent corpus of unpublished Hungarian manuscript translations of French Huguenot texts has survived: this suggests that after 1680 there was a permanent concern among Hungarian Reformed intellectuals to collect, translate, and disseminate influential texts of Huguenot devotion amongst Hungarian readers. It is worth pausing on this reception of French texts authored by influential Huguenot theologians for it constitutes a scarcely-explored dimension of the long Reformation (1500‒1800) in Royal Hungary and Transylvania.
Anat Vaturi (Reichman University, University of Haifa): Encountering Neighbors? The Portrayal of Jews in the Calvinist Discourse for Tolerance in Post-Reformation Poland
With the victories of the Counter-Reformation, the decline in the status of the Protestants, and the intensifying attacks on them, Calvinists in Poland raised the subject of religious tolerance for discussion. In a vivid discourse, Protestants used various examples and points of reference, including religious pluralism, as well as Jews and their status in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, to foster a tolerant attitude towards their denomination. This paper intends to analyze how Jews were portrayed and used in evangelical discourses on tolerance. First, while analyzing the Protestants’ emphasis on maintaining the Polish long tradition of multi-religious coexistence and their appraisal of Jewish standards of religiosity, this paper intends to show that regarding the description of Jews, Calvinist attitudes were deeply rooted in Catholic arguments and tradition. Second, through close examination of anti-Catholic polemics, it will show that tolerance towards Jews was mentioned in the discourse as a sort of guarantee for an even better attitude towards Protestants. Calvinists believed that, as long as the Catholics tolerated Jews, they would even more readily endure the Protestants, who – although of a different Christian denomination – still believed in Christ’s divinity. Finally, this paper intends to confirm Janusz Tazbir’s claim that “persecution has not brought the Jews and the supporters of Geneva, Wittenberg and Raków any closer”, (1983) and emphasize the functional character of Polish Calvinist attitudes towards both religious pluralism and the Jews.
Anna Vind (University of Copenhagen): Words and Things in the Time of Renaissance and Reformation
This paper addresses the classical topic of the relationship between words and things, verba et res, in rhetorical theory in the time of Renaissance and Reformation. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, humanists lined up against prevalent medieval concepts of philosophy and language – especially Aristotelian formal logic and teaching of the ten categories – and turned towards classical antiquity, rhetoric and dialectics, translation and historical textual criticism. Their work left its mark on sixteenth-century reformers such as Erasmus, Melanchthon and Luther. It could be argued that a turn towards outer concrete utterances, spoken or written, took place, whereas references to the concept of an inner, common, mental language independent of outer words as scholastic language philosophy envisaged, progressively faded out. Furthermore, internal differences seem tu subsist among humanists (and reformers) in their views of the relation between philosophy, dialectics and rhetoric. Some seem to praise rhetoric at the expense of philosophy, and subsume dialectics hereunder, whereas others privilege dialectics over rhetoric. The paper seeks to investigate whether these distinctions were caused by the following (cautiously formulated) split: 1) the view of verbum as a form transporting a specific content, res, which needs to be analyzed and defined simply and clearly, prior to any interest in amplifying eloquence (dialectics before rhetoric). 2) Verbum as a form inseparably connected to, and mediating, res, which again means that it is possible to reach a simple analytical clarification of the expression only at the expense of the res (rhetoric above dialectics/philosophy). These differences are subtle and nuanced, but if sustained they could be of momentous importance, such as in 1) the understanding of language as a tool and of the linguistic work as analytical and instrumental; 2) the understanding of language as a fundamental manifestation which has to be characterised and sustained by constant hermeneutical practice.
Mikołaj Walkowicz (Jagiellonian University | Research Centre for Armenian Culture in Poland): Between Trade and Religion: Royal Economic Law for Armenians in the Polish Kingdom before 1630
Armenians were one of the nations that had been present on the territory of the Polish Kingdom since the fourteenth century. Despite professing Christianity, the law treated them differently than other Catholic inhabitants, although Armenians were among the most active merchants operating on the territory of the Polish kingdom and the East. This paradox bears influence on the content and scope of the rights granted to Polish Armenians throughout the early modern period, which could perhaps marked by the caesura of 1630, when the process of integrating Armenians into the bosom of the Catholic Church began (and was eventually completed forty years later). Prior to this period, the ratio of official acts put Armenians in a position far worse than other Catholic burghers (mostly Polish or German). One of the main accusations against Armenians was that they were deliberately harmful to the bourgeois community as a whole (e.g. by speculations, buying up properties, introducing monopolies). At the same time, some Armenians held high positions in the embassies sent to the Ottoman Empire and were involved in supplying the royal court with goods from the Orient, in addition to holding individual royal privileges, both improving and deteriorating their position towards other citizens. This paper will offer a general outline of the monarch’s policy towards the Armenian community living in the territory of the kingdom of Poland until the union with the Roman Catholic Church. Particular attention will be paid to the correlation between religion, socio-political position and the scope of rights and freedoms granted, as well as to the comparison between legislations for Armenians and for other religions, such as the Jews or non-Catholic denominations such as the Ruthenians.
Marcin Wisłocki (University of Wrocław): Between Criticism and Recognition: On Visual Images in Theological Works by Daniel Cramer
Daniel Cramer (1568–1637), pastor and professor at the Paedagogium in Stettin, was among the most eminent Lutheran theologians of his time, known above all for his biblical commentaries, re-issued in Strasburg even decades after his death. Being a zealous adherent to Lutheran orthodoxy, he issued a number of polemical treatises, mainly against the Jesuits and the Calvinists. The scathing criticism of some of his uncompromising statements against Jesuit teachings and devotional practices resulted in even stronger diplomatic consequences. However, Cramer was also among those theologians who, thanks to explicit inspirations taken from late-medieval texts (by Franciscan and Dominican theologians among others), opened a new perspective for Lutheran devotion. Moreover, some of the meditative texts he quoted could even bring a danger of unorthodox interpretation. This paper will examine visual images included in Cramer’s works in the context of the complexity of his theological work: on the one hand, genealogical trees of heresies (1620 and 1623), depicting Catholicism and Islam as the culmination of erroneous religious thought; on the other hand, emblematic compositions in his Emblemata Sacra (1617) may point to a conscious adoption of some elements and motifs used by his adversaries, such as the cult of the Name of Jesus and the Christogram as its visual equivalent. The purpose of that adoption was eminently polemical, in an effort to oppose Jesuit claims to monopolize the cult of the Name of Jesus and the title of the true Society of Jesus.
Krzysztof Witczak (University of Lodz): Alessandro Guagnini (1538–1614) on Religions and Nations of Eastern Europe
Alessandro Guagnini (1538–1614), an Italian born in Verona and ennobled in Poland as Alexander Gwagnin (1571), authored three historical and geographical works with very similar themes and contents: 1) Sarmatiae Europaeae descriptio (Cracow 1578, with a pre-edition in 1574; Speyer 1581; Basel 1582); 2) Rerum Polonicarum libri tres (Frankfurt 1584) and 3) Chronica Sarmatiae Europaeae in ten books, which was ultimately not published, but became a basis for a Polish translation entitled Kronika Sarmacyji Evropskiey (Cracow 1611). In his works, Guagnini described numerous states and countries of eastern Europe, paying attention to the religions and cultures of individual nations. He considers the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as Catholic states, within whose borders numerous followers of Orthodoxy, Protestantism, Islam, Armenian and Jewish religion nonetheless dwelled. He paid much attention to Russian Orthodoxy in his description of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, but he also characterized other religions to a lesser degree. He also drew attention to other peoples of eastern Europe professing Islam (e.g. Tatars, Mordvins) or pagan religions, especially the cult of the Golden Grandmother among unbaptized Uralic tribes. He described the ancient beliefs of the Lithuanians, Samogitians and Prussians, emphasizing that these peoples had long ceased to be pagan. Guagnini was a professing Catholic: therefore, he called the Protestant, Orthodox, Islam and Jewish religions ‘heresies’ (Lat. haeresis) in his Cracow editions, although he mitigated this statement by using the term doctrina in his later editions. He highlighted the tolerance and religious freedom granted in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, noting the harmonious coexistence of Catholic, Armenian, and Orthodox churches, synagogues, mosques, and evangelical congregations in the topographical description of several towns (e.g. Lublin, Lviv, Vilnius).
Mirjam Wulff (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin): The Apocalypsis Nova – Reform Theology on the Eve of the Reformation
In early-fifteenth-century Rome, a particular text attracted the attention of scholars and churchmen alike. Not only did The Apocalypsis Nova, written around 1500, fascinate many by the mysterious powers ascribed to it: it also clearly called for reform in the Roman Catholic Church. While this aura surrounding the early discourses about the text is by itself fascinating, it is even more puzzling to look at its actual contents. Besides boasting broad scholastic and Mariological knowledge, the Apocalypsis Nova contains theological discourse and doctrinal positions now rather ascribed to Protestant theology, such as the call for communion under both kinds or a strong emphasis on justification by God’s grace. This paper aims to shed light on this text as an example of the complexity of theological ideas precursing the Reformation(s). The Apocalypsis Nova shows that many theological positions were actually being negotiated before Luther and other reformers stepped onto the scene. This can not only be seen in the text itself, but also in the vast annotations contained in the great number of manuscripts all over Italy, Europe and even the Americas, where the text circulated far into the eighteenth century. This example can therefore be seen as a window allowing insight into the highly-complex theological and scholarly discourses on church reform in the early modern period.
