Republican and Monarchical Religion

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maurizio Viroli
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
Church Community ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Political Body ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Church

This chapter focuses on republican and monarchical religion in late medieval Europe. Republican religion spread in a late medieval Europe dominated by monarchies that, from the thirteenth century on, had endowed themselves with a sacred dimension similar to that of the church. Jurists and political philosophers transferred the concept of corpus mysticum—intended to designate the church community as a body that cannot be seen by the eyes but can only be grasped by the intellect—to the state. Applied to the state, the concept of a mystical body referred mainly, but not exclusively, to the monarchy, where the king is at the head of the mystical-political body, just as Christ or his vicar on earth is at the head of the mystical body of the church. Thus, the main difference between the royal and the republican religion is that the former celebrates an individual mystical body—the king; the latter celebrates a collective mystical body—the republic.

Confraternities and the Church in Late Medieval Florence

1986 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 69-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Henderson
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
Southern Europe ◽  
Religious Service ◽  
Council Of Trent ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
The Alps ◽  
The Church ◽  
Beer Drinking

The confraternities of late-medieval Europe have been seen as associations which were in some ways almost independent of the Church, and drew their special dynamism from the fact that the parish was supposedly in decline and had ceased to provide an adequate religious service to the lay community. However true this may have been north of the Alps, the problem when this proposition is applied to southern Europe, and particularly Italy, is that very little is known about the late-medieval parish to ascertain whether confraternities were really syphoning off the adherence of the local inhabitants. So often our impressions about the state of the Italian church derive from the sporadic visitations of local bishops or the ribald stories of a Boccaccio or Franco Sacchetti, later repeated and taken almost at face value by such influential writers as Burkhardt. But we may also be in danger of seeing late-medieval religion filtered through sixteenth-century eyes and taking for granted the correctness of the criticisms of the Council of Trent or for that matter following Luther’s gripes that confraternities had become no more than beer-drinking clubs.

At the Edge of Reformation

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Linehan
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Black Death ◽  
The West ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
History Of ◽  
Portuguese Society ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

This book springs from its author’s continuing interest in the history of Spain and Portugal—on this occasion in the first half of the fourteenth century between the recovery of each kingdom from widespread anarchy and civil war and the onset of the Black Death. Focussing on ecclesiastical aspects of the period in that region (Galicia in particular) and secular attitudes to the privatization of the Church, it raises inter alios the question why developments there did not lead to a permanent sundering of the relationship with Rome (or Avignon) two centuries ahead of that outcome elsewhere in the West. In addressing such issues, as well as of neglected material in Spanish and Portuguese archives, use is made of the also unpublished so-called ‘secret’ registers of the popes of the period. The issues it raises concern not only Spanish and Portuguese society in general but also the developing relationship further afield of the components of the eternal quadrilateral (pope, king, episcopate, and secular nobility) in late medieval Europe, as well as of the activity in that period of those caterpillars of the commonwealth, the secular-minded sapientes. In this context, attention is given to the hitherto neglected attempt of Afonso IV of Portugal to appropriate the privileges of the primatial church of his kingdom and to advance the glorification of his Castilian son-in-law, Alfonso XI, as God’s vicegerent in his.

The Trocadéro

2021 ◽  
pp. 193-246
Author(s):  
Jennifer Walker
Keyword(s):  
Religious Right ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Music ◽  
State Apparatus ◽  
French Republicanism ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Concert Programs ◽  
A Site ◽  
The Church

This chapter takes for its focus the high point of the Parisian musical season in 1900: the ten state-sponsored concerts officiels of the 1900 Exposition Universelle de Paris. As had been the case in 1878 and 1889, the goal of these concerts was to promote specifically Republican ideals through music. Yet in 1900, these ideals had transformed into a secular construction of Frenchness that absorbed Catholicism as a foundational trait of national identity. Although the Church was not represented in any official capacity either on the musical planning commission or on the concert programs themselves, the repertoire performed throughout these concerts created a narrative that centered around a sense of reconciliation between Church State. The carefully crafted vision put forth by the State relied heavily on transformations of the Church for the formation of a cohesive Republican identity such that the Church was present in its displays, theaters, and concerts in a way not seen in any previous Exposition. In the heart of Paris, the Trocadéro hosted a significant amount of explicitly religious music that, when mediated through actors deployed through the state apparatus on an international stage, transformed the Church into an integrated facet of French Republicanism that could be proudly displayed to the Exposition’s international audiences. These concerts functioned not as nostalgic emblems of a Revolutionary past nor as attacks against the political and religious right, but, rather, as a site of transformation at which the Republic co-opted Catholicism as an indispensable aspect of its own French identity.

scholarly journals Zmiany społeczno-polityczne przeprowadzone przez Ministerstwo Administracji Publicznej w latach 1944–1950 dotyczące spraw Kościołów i związków wyznaniowych w Polsce

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 197-210
Author(s):  
Edyta Włodarczyk
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
The State ◽  
Trial And Error ◽  
Religious Associations ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Trial And Error Method ◽  
One Year ◽  
The Church ◽  
Error Method

The Ministry of Public Administration was established pursuant to the Act of 31 December 1944 on the appointment of the Interim Government of the Republic of Poland. The matters arising from the relations between the State and the Churches and religious denominations were handled by Department V, which in 1946 consisted of two sections addressing Christian and non-Christian denominations, respectively. The Socio-Political Departments in the Provincial Offices, which employed officials responsible for matters relating to religious denominations, were subordinate to Department V. The same held true in Starostwa Powiatowe [County Offices]. In 1947, Department V was divided into three units addressing matters of the Catholic Church, Christian Denominations and Non-Christian denominations, respectively, and one year later still one more department, i.e. the Department of General Matters, was established. Since 1947 matters relating to religious denominations fell within the competences of Department IV. The Department of Religious Denominations in the Ministry of Public Administration from its beginnings was responsible for shaping the policy of the State towards religious denominations. The aforementioned policy was supposed to be concordant with the directives and principles of the communist party. The socio-political reforms conducted by the Ministry of Public Administration in relation to the Churches and religious associations were one of the means of repression, which within the years 1944-1950 was in its initial phase based on the trial-and-error method. However, it was the cooperation of the Ministry with Urząd Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego [Public Security Office], and later the establishment of Urząd ds. Wyznań [Office in charge of Religious Denominations] in 1950 which changed and regulated actions of the communist authorities towards the Churches and religious associations in Poland regarding the matters concerning the relations between the State and the Church and religious associations. From then on the competences to date of Department IV of the Ministry of Public Administration were transferred onto the Office in charge of Religious Denominations.

Resistance to the State and the Mistreatment of Jews

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael P. DeJonge
Keyword(s):  
Direct Relationship ◽  
Church And State ◽  
The State ◽  
Jewish Question ◽  
Church Community ◽  
Nazi Regime ◽  
Two Kingdoms ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church ◽  
As If

This chapter relates Bonhoeffer’s resistance to the state to the issue of his concern for the persecution of Jews under the Nazi regime. Although it has been common to see a direct relationship between these two—as if Bonhoeffer resisted the state above all because of its mistreatment of Jews—this chapter argues that the relationship is better understood as mediated by other theological concerns, namely, the two kingdoms and the doctrine of justification. This chapter advances that argument in connection with “The Church and the Jewish Question,” the first part of which is governed by the proper roles of church and state under the two kingdoms, the second part of which is governed by the concern for the message of justification that defines the church community.

Peasant Houses

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Suggett
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Social Identity ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
High Status ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Central Aspect ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
Late Medieval England

Archaeology (excavation, building survey, scientific dating) has established that peasant houses in much of Britain had a durability that was probably exceptional in late medieval Europe. Peasant houses in late medieval England and Wales (Scotland and Ireland were more complex) were not self-built homes but professionally made by craftsmen, and a central aspect of material culture. Building the late medieval peasant house was an aspect of consumption that entailed important choices relating to expenditure, construction, and, above all, the plan that structured household life. The widespread adoption by peasants of the hierarchical hall-house plan was in part an appropriation of high-status housing culture and inseparable from the construction and maintenance of free peasant social identity. The eventual rejection of the hall-house in the sixteenth century ended a peasant building tradition that had begun in the thirteenth century and matured during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

Rhetoric and Politics

2014 ◽  
pp. 328-340
Author(s):  
Virginia Cox
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
Northern Italy ◽  
Religious Language ◽  
Practical Application ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
New Methodologies ◽  
Political Intent ◽  
The City

It has often been asserted that medieval culture was little concerned with politics as a practical application for rhetoric, at least outside the city republics of central and northern Italy. This chapter argues that robust and self-conscious traditions of political eloquence were more widespread in late medieval Europe than is generally thought, especially following the development of parliaments from the thirteenth century onward. The point is illustrated through a discussion of the speech cultures of the parliaments of Catalonia-Aragon and England. More broadly, the chapter argues that new methodologies are needed to make medieval political rhetoric more historically visible. Nonverbal eloquence must be studied alongside verbal, and it must be recognized that medieval political eloquence is often profoundly nonclassical in form and frequently deploys religious language that may disguise its political intent to the modern eye.

POLITICAL ACTIVITIES OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN INDEPENDENT LATVIA

Via Latgalica ◽  
2009 ◽  
pp. 78
Author(s):  
Vladislavs Malahovskis
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
The State ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Church

The aim of the paper is to reflect the political activities of the Roman Catholic Church in two periods of the history of Latvia and the Roman Catholic Church in Latvia – in the period of First Independence of the Republic of Latvia, basically in the 1920s, and in the period following the restoration of Latvia’s independence. With the foundation of the independent state of Latvia, the Roman Catholic Church experienced several changes; - bishops of the Roman Catholic Church were elected from among the people; - the Riga diocese was restored the administrative borders of which were coordinated with the borders of the state of Latvia; - priests of the Roman Catholic Church were acting also in political parties and in the Latvian Parliament. For the Church leadership, active involvement of clergymen in politics was, on the one hand, a risky undertaking (Francis Trasuns’ experience), but, on the other hand, a necessary undertaking, since in this way the Roman Catholic Church attempted to exercise control over politicians and also affect the voters in the elections for the Saeima. The status of the Church in the State of Latvia was legally secured by the concordat signed in the spring of 1922 which provided for a range of privileges to the Roman Catholic Church: - other Christian denominations in Latvia are functioning in accordance with the regulations elaborated by the State Control and confirmed by the Ministry of the Interior, but the Roman Catholic Church is functioning according to the canons set by the Vatican; - releasing the priests from military service, introduction of the Chaplaincy Institution; - releasing the churches, seminary facilities, bishops’ apartments from taxes; - a license for the activity of Roman Catholic orders; - the demand to deliver over one of the church buildings belonging to Riga Evangelical Lutherans to the Roman Catholics. With the regaining of Latvia’s independence, the Roman Catholic Church of Latvia again took a considerable place in the formation of the public opinion and also in politics. However, unlike the parliamentarian period of the independent Latvia, the Roman Catholic Church prohibited the priests to involve directly in politics and considered it unadvisable to use the word “Christian” in the titles of political parties. Nowadays, the participation of the Roman Catholic Church in politics is indirect. The Church is able to influence the public opinion, and actually it does. The Roman Catholic Church does not attempt to grasp power, but to a certain extent it can, at least partly, influence the authorities so that they count with the interests of Catholic believers. Increase of popularity of the Roman Catholic Church in the world facilitated also the increase of the role of the Roma Catholic Church in Latvia. The visit of the Pope in Latvia in 1993 was a great event not only for the Catholic believers but also for the whole state of Latvia. In the autumn of 2002, in Rome, a concordat was signed between the Republic of Latvia and the Vatikan which is to be classified not only as an agreement between the Roman Catholic Church in Latvia and the state of Latvia but also as an international agreement. Since the main foreign policy aim of Latvia is integration in the European Union and strengthening its positions on the international arena, Vatican as a powerful political force was and still is a sound guarantee and support in international relations.

A Walking Memory: State-Designed Processions as a Tool of Collective Remembering in Late Medieval and Early Modern Dubrovnik

2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 458-469
Author(s):  
Nella Lonza
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
The State ◽  
Historical Event ◽  
Memory State ◽  
Historical Experience ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Collective Remembering ◽  
The Republic

The state authorities of late medieval and early modern Dubrovnik used processions as a cultural tool to create a collective remembrance of traumatic historical experience, such as conspiracy, pestilence, or earthquake. Until the sixteenth century, the commemoration was amalgamated with the saint’s cult (“watermark” model), while in the last two centuries of the Republic the link to an underlying historical event became explicit. This shift may be accounted by the growing dominance of the secular over ecclesiastical authorities, and the increasing ambition of the state to manage its self-representation.

Between Reform and Reformation: The English Church in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries

1990 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 647-678 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Heath
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Medieval England ◽  
Current Version ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Late Medieval England ◽  
The Church

Forty years ago the story of the Church in late medieval England was a simple one and not very different from the version which had prevailed half a century before that. The interpretation presented by W. Capes in 1900 had been slightly modified but largely underlined by 1950, and the Church and its development which was commonly depicted in that year would not have been strikingly unfamiliar to him. The current version was that, after the reforming efforts of the thirteenth century, which failed to achieve their end, and the advent of the friars, who even by the middle of that century were departing from their earlier zeal and purity, the Church in the following hundred years was exploited by the pope when it was not saved or oppressed by the Crown. The resulting corruption of the clergy contributed to its negligence and provoked an eruption of heresy which in due course was savagely suppressed and virtually expunged; rid of this threat, the fifteenth-century clergy were so notorious for their laxity, greed and mediocrity that a few devout members of the laity, perhaps inspired by the mystical writings, took refuge in private devotions which anticipated the individualism of the Protestant. The Reformation was viewed as the inescapable result of these circumstances.

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