Bridging North and South: Inquisitorial Networks and Witchcraft Theory on the Eve of the Reformation

2008 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 361-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamar Herzig
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Italian Peninsula ◽  
Northern European ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Alps ◽  
North And South

AbstractThis article reconstructs a network of Dominican inquisitors who facilitated the reception and adaptation of northern European demonological notions in the Italian peninsula. It focuses on the collaboration of Italian friars with Heinrich Kramer, the infamous Alsatian witch-hunter and author of the Malleus Maleficarum (1486). Drawing on newly-discovered archival sources as well as on published works from the early sixteenth century, it proposes that Italian inquisitors provided Kramer with information on local saintly figures and were, in turn, influenced by his views on witchcraft. Following their encounter with Kramer in 1499-1500, they came to regard witches as members of an organized diabolical sect, and were largely responsible for turning the Malleus into the focal point of the Italian debate over witch-hunting. I argue that Kramer's case attests to the important role of papal inquisitors before the Reformation in bridging the cultural and religious worlds south and north of the Alps.

scholarly journals ERASMUS AND JUAN LUIS VIVES ON RHETORICAL DECORUM AND POLITICS

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
KAARLO HAVU
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
Rhetorical Theory ◽  
History Of Rhetoric ◽  
Rhetorical Situation ◽  
Internal Development ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
History Of

Abstract The article analyses the emergence of decorum (appropriateness) as a central concept of rhetorical theory in the early sixteenth-century writings of Erasmus and Juan Luis Vives. In rhetorical theory, decorum shifted the emphasis from formulaic rules to their creative application in concrete cases. In doing so, it emphasized a close analysis of the rhetorical situation (above all the preferences of the audience) and underscored the persuasive possibilities of civil conversation as opposed to passionate, adversarial rhetoric. The article argues that the stress put on decorum in early sixteenth-century theory is not just an internal development in the history of rhetoric but linked to far wider questions concerning the role of rhetoric in religious and secular lives. Decorum appears as a solution both to the divisiveness of language in the context of the Reformation and dynastic warfare of the early sixteenth century and as an adaptation of the republican tradition of political rhetoric to a changed, monarchical context. Erasmus and Vives maintained that decorum not only suppressed destructive passions and discord, but that it was only through polite and civil rhetoric (or conversation) that a truly effective persuasion was possible in a vast array of contexts.

Refugee Orthodox Congregations in Western Europe, 1945–1948

1969 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 312-326
Author(s):  
Timothy L. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Central Theme ◽  
Roman Catholicism ◽  
Territorial Expansion ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Urban Conditions ◽  
North And South America ◽  
North And South

The twentieth-century migration of Orthodox peoples from Eastern to Western Europe and to North and South America thrust the heirs of that ancient faith into the role of persisting minorities, and imposed upon them the necessity of rapid and complex adjustments to urban conditions of life. To be sure, territorial expansion, involving both the migration of the faithful and the conversion of the heathen, had been a central theme in Orthodox history for a thousand years or more. One fruit for the loyalty of bishops and congregations, a rivalry that magnified the tension between the desire of nascent nationalities for an “autocephalic” church (that is, one having its own head as well as the power of self-government) and the preference of the patriarchs for “autonomous” bodies dependent upon a supreme hierarch elsewhere. Another result was the Orthodox confrontation with Protestantism and Roman Catholicism in Central Europe. Saxons who settled in the highlands of Transylvania in the thirteenth century became Lutherans at the time of the Reformation, and a majority of Hungarians occupying the broad plains lying east of Budapest became Calvinists. From the seventeenth century onward the Papacy accepted the submission of numerous Orthodox dioceses in Romania, Poland, Hungary, Croatia and the western parts of Russia, under agreements that allowed congregations to retain their Eastern ritual and dogma.

Borduurwerkers aan het werk voor de Utrechtse kapittel- en parochiekerken 1500-1580

1991 ◽  
Vol 105 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Saskia De Bodt
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Historical Data ◽  
Complete Picture ◽  
Parish Church ◽  
The North ◽  
Yield Information ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
School Influence ◽  
North And South

AbstractThe article starts by taking stock of research into North and South Netherlandish professional embroidery in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Such embroidery, which was rarely or never signed, and much of which has been lost, has hitherto been studied largely on stylistic grounds and grouped around noted schools of painting. Classifications include 'circle of Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen', for instance, or 'Leiden school/influence of Lucas van Leyden'. The author advocates a more relative approach to such classification into schools. She suggests that only systematic archive research in each location can shed new light on the production of embroidery studios and that well-founded attributions hinge solely on such research. The embroidery produced in Utrecht between 1500 and 1580 is cited as an example. The invoices of Utrecht parish and collegiate churches from circa 1500 to the Reformation record not onlv commissions to painters, goldsmiths and sculptors but also many items referring to textiles, notably embroidery. Together they provide a clear and relatively complete picture of the activities of sixteenth-century Utrecht embroiderers, whose principal customers were the churches. The items in question moreover exemplify the craft of the North Netherlandish embroiderer in that period in general in terms of what was produced as well as of the method and position of these artistic craftsmen, who were less overshadowed by painters than is generally assumed. A brief introduction outlining the organization of professional Utrecht embroiderers, who became independent of the tailors' guild in 1610 and acquired their own warrant, is followed by the analysis of an order from the Buurkerk in Utrecht for crimson paraments in 1530: three copes, a chasuble and two dalmatics. The activities of all those involved in their production are recorded : the merchants who supplied the fabric, the tracers of the embroidery patterns, the embroiderer, the cutter, various silver-smiths and the maker of the chest in which the set of garments was kept. The embroiderer was the best-paid of all these specialists. It is interesting to note that some Utrecht guild-members worked free of charge on these paraments, and that the collection at the first mass at which they were worn was very generous. There were probably political reasons for this: some of the donators, Evert Zoudenbalch and Goerd van Voirde, had been mayors at the time of the guild rebellion in Utrecht, and the Buurkerk was the parish church where the guild altars stood. After this detailed example the author discusses Utrecht embroiderers known by name and their studios,comparing them with a list of major commissions carried out for churches in Utrecht (appendix I). It transpires that in each case one studio received the most important Utrecht orders. This is followed by the reconstruction of three leading figures' careers. First Jacob van Malborch, active till 1525; a contract (1510) with the Pieterskerk in Utrecht regarding blue velvet copes is cited (appendix 11). He is followed by the embroiderers Reyer Jacobs and Sebastiaen dc Laet. Among his other activities, the latter was responsible for repairing and altering the famous garments of Bishop David of Burgundy. Items on invoices arc then cited as evidence that the sleeves of two dalmatics now in the Catharijneconvent Museum, embroidered on both sides with aurifriezes donated by Bishop David, were made by Jacob van Malborch in 1504/1505. This shows that systematic scrutiny of invoices and the results of archive research concentrated on individual embroiderers in a single city, compared with preserved items of embroidery, yield information that can lead to exact attributions to an artist or a studio (figs.4a to c and 5a to c). The Catharijneconvent Museum also possesses a series of figures of saints embroidered by the same hand (fig. 14). Finally, the author points out that a group of embroidered work (previously mentioned by H. L. M. Defoer in the catalogue Schilderen met gouddraad en zyde (1987)) which historical data suggest was done in Utrecht and which was produced in the same period, are almost certain to have come from Jacob van Malborch's studio, despite the lack of archival evidence (figs. 6 to 13).

Writing the history of parliament in Tudor and early Stuart England

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Culture ◽  
Stuart England ◽  
Political Pamphlets ◽  
Historical Thought

The enduring controversy about the nature of parliament informs nearly all debates about the momentous religious, political and governmental changes in early modern England – most significantly, the character of the Reformation and the causes of the Revolution. Meanwhile, scholars of ideas have emphasised the historicist turn that shaped the period’s political culture. Religious and intellectual imperatives from the sixteenth century onwards evoked a new interest in the evolution of parliament, shaping the ways that contemporaries interpreted, legitimised and contested Church, state and political hierarchies. For much of the last century, scholarship on parliament focused on its role in high politics, or adopted an administrative perspective. The major exception was J. G. A. Pocock’s brilliant The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law (1957), which argued that competing conceptions about the antiquity of England’s parliamentary constitution – particularly its common law – were a defining element of early Stuart political mentalities and set in motion a continuing debate about the role of historical thought in early seventeenth-century England. The purpose of this volume is to explore contemporary views of parliament’s history/histories over a broader canvas. Historical culture is defined widely to encompass the study of chronicles, more overtly ‘literary’ texts, antiquarian scholarship, religious polemic, political pamphlets, and of the intricate processes that forge memory and tradition. Over half of the essays explore Tudor historical thought, showing that Stuart debates about parliament cannot be divorced from their sixteenth-century prelude. The volume restates the crucial role of institutions for the study of political culture and thought.

scholarly journals Benefits of Empire? Capital Market Integration North and South of the Alps, 1350–1800

2018 ◽  
Vol 78 (3) ◽  
pp. 637-672 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Chilosi ◽  
Max-Stephan Schulze ◽  
Oliver Volckart
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Capital Market ◽  
Market Integration ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
Capital Market Integration ◽  
The Alps ◽  
North And South

This article addresses two questions. First, when and to what extent did capital markets integrate north and south of the Alps? Second, how mobile was capital? Analysing a unique new dataset on pre-modern urban annuities, we find that northern markets were consistently better integrated than Italian markets. Long-term integration was driven by initially peripheral places in the Netherlands and Upper Germany integrating with the rest of the Holy Roman Empire where the distance and volume of inter-urban investments grew primarily in the sixteenth century. The institutions of the Empire contributed to stronger market integration north of the Alps.

Defining Heresies: Catholic Heresiologies, 1520–50

2007 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 241-251
Author(s):  
David Bagchi
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Causal Connection ◽  
Traditional Definition ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Medieval Heresy ◽  
Traditional Understanding

Few historians nowadays would endorse a simple causal connection between the Reformation and the rise of toleration. Indeed, reformations Protestant and Catholic have become almost synonymous with ‘confessionalization’ and ‘social disciplining’. Nonetheless, the transition from the persecuting society of the Middle Ages to something approaching a pluralist society was an early modern phenomenon which has attracted renewed attention in recent years. This transition was facilitated by the breakdown of the traditional understanding of heresy. The role of Protestantism in de-stabilizing the heresy discourse of mid-seventeenth century England has been expertly delineated by Ann Hughes in her study of Thomas Edwards’s Gangraena and the responses to it. But it would be a mistake to suppose that the Catholic understanding of heresy was entirely stable during this period. As I hope to show in this survey of Catholic heresiologies from the period 1520 to 15 50, controversialists encountered difficulties when they tried to conscript patristic and medieval heresy discourses into the sixteenth-century conflict. An instability at the heart of the traditional definition of heresy – over whether heresy is primarily a doctrinal error or a moral failing – seemed at first to provide a solution to these difficulties. Ultimately and ironically, however, it made their case vulnerable to a Protestant charge of subjectivism.

Lap Books and Lectern Books: The Revelatory Book in the Reformation

2004 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 163-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Aston
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Direct Bearing ◽  
Printed Books ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Lift Off

The size of books has always mattered – for manuscript books as well as printed books. It makes a great difference to the fate of its contents and eventual influence whether the page is in a heavy folio or a portable pamphlet. Differences of format affected authority and influence and had a direct bearing on the circulation of ideas, the critical lift-off that could take place when vocalization took the silent word into mouths and minds away from the lettered page. This may seem self-evident, but even so, given the recognized role of the book in the Reformation (or reformations) of the sixteenth century, some reflections on this aspect seem worthwhile. The revelatory quality of the book in this period is here approached first by looking at the role of small lap books, and then by considering the challenge in England to the accepted order of books, when the great lectern book of Scripture was first laid open for general reading in church naves.

The psalms as a mark of Protestantism: the introduction of liturgical psalm-singing in Geneva

2011 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Trocmé-Latter
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Protestant Church ◽  
Lutheran Church ◽  
Music Making ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The World ◽  
Congregational Singing ◽  
Musical Practices

ABSTRACTIt is widely believed that musical creativity suffered under the control of many sixteenth-century Protestant church leaders, especially in the Reformed (as opposed to Lutheran) branch of Protestantism. Such views are generalisations, and it is more accurate to say that music in Geneva and other Reformed strongholds developed in a very different way from the music of the Lutheran Church. The very specific beliefs about the role of music in the liturgy of Jean Calvin, Genevan church leader, led to the creation and publication of the Book of Psalms in French, in metre, and set to music. The Genevan or Huguenot Psalter, completed in 1562, formed the basis for Reformed worship in Europe and throughout the world, and its impact is still felt today. Despite the importance of the Psalter, relatively little is known about the precise liturgical musical practices in Geneva at the time of the Reformation, and little research has been carried out into the aspirations of either reformers or church musicians in relation to the Psalter. This article explores the significance of Calvin's interest in the Psalms as theological material, observing how this interest manifested itself, and outlines Calvin's views on music and the ways in which his plans for psalm-singing were implemented in Geneva from the 1540s onwards. After giving a brief explanation of the process through which the psalm melodies were taught and learnt, it also asks whether Calvin's vision for congregational singing would, or could, have been fully realised, and to what extent the quality of music-making was important to him. This article suggests that in the Genevan psalm-singing of the sixteenth century, matters of spiritual significance were most important.

The Reformation and Elizabeth Bowes: a Study of a Sixteenth-century Northern Gentlewoman

1990 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 325-333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine M. Newman
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
English Reformation ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Role Of Women ◽  
To Come

More than twenty years ago, in the Introduction to his influential article which focused upon the life of Anne Locke, Patrick Collinson bemoaned the lack of recognition given to the role of women in the English Reformation. Happily, over the last few years this situation has been somewhat rectified, as modern scholarship has increasingly emphasized the degree of feminine participation in the spiritual upheavals of the period. The problem, however, remains that there is little evidence of personal feminine testimony, especially for the immediate post-Reformation period. The example of Elizabeth Bowes is, unfortunately, a case in point. Mrs Bowes, the wife of a prominent Durham gentleman, is well known to historians as a devoted follower and later the mother-in-law of the Scottish reformer, John Knox. Particularly during the early 1550s, Elizabeth maintained a regular correspondence with Knox. Of this, some thirty of Knox’s letters have been preserved, mainly in the form of a transcript copied from the originals in 1603. These letters, indeed, provide the main source of evidence for the life of the reformer during this period. Yet it is also apparent, from the tone of Knox’s replies, that much of the correspondence was devoted to the discussion and analysis of Mrs Bowes’s religious anxieties and aspirations, as she struggled to come to terms with her conversion to the Protestant Faith.

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