The Moresca Dance in Counter-Reformation Rome: Court Medicine and the Moderation of Exceptional Bodies

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Kavvadia
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Medical Discourse ◽  
Religious Discourse ◽  
Court Culture ◽  
Dance Culture ◽  
Counter Reformation ◽  
Body And Soul ◽  
Spiritual Reform ◽  
The Catholic Church

In the early modern elite court culture, dance held a prominent sociopolitical position. Nevertheless, in the Counter-Reformation era, the Catholic Church put dance culture under scrutiny. The moresca, one of the most popular dance spectacles that expressed the elite’s taste in exceptional and wondrous bodies, was criticized as deviant by Catholic reformers. In this criticism, the religious discourse often overlapped with contemporary medical discourse, which considered aspects of dance culture as unhealthy for both body and soul. In Counter-Reformation Rome, Girolamo Mercuriale, the court physician of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, following the aspirations of the Counter-Reformation papacy for spiritual reform, moderates in his medical treatise De arte gymnastica the controversial moresca: by modifying it into a medical exercise, he regulates the moresca in both medical and religious terms, making it an appropriate body practice for the elite.

scholarly journals They Tore God Limb From Limb

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Katlyn Kichko
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Religious Discourse ◽  
Singular Case ◽  
Historical Discourse ◽  
Counter Reformation ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Catholic Church

This paper interacts specifically with two separate texts, that is Michel de Certeau’s The Possession at Loudun and Carlo Ginzburg’s The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth Century Miller. Both of these texts present a narrative of religious turmoil, demonic possessions and a heretical Inquisition, respectively, and the events which surround a single religious dissenter. Examining the two heretical men presented within these texts in comparison allows for an understanding of Catholic Church dogma during the age of the Counter Reformation, and how such an institution managed threats, both external and internal. Moreover, this paper also examines the methodologies behind the historical discourse, in order to understand the validity of the narratives presented, and the scope of historical depth sought. Addressing methodology is crucial when one narrows focus to two singular case studies by two separate historians. Thus, this paper intends to illustrate the threats to normative religious discourse which Urbain Grandier and Menocchio possessed in the face of the Catholic Church, while also demonstrating the methodologies by which the two men are presented within their respective histories.

A Tridentine Response

2020 ◽  
pp. 104-131
Author(s):  
Kenneth Austin
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Council Of Trent ◽  
Catholic Reformation ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Counter Reformation ◽  
The Catholic Church

This chapter analyzes “Counter Reformation,” a terminology that implies the developments within the Catholic Church in the sixteenth century and beyond of reactions to the Protestant challenge. It explains how historians generally prefer the term “Catholic Reformation” over Counter Reformation as it is more neutral and better able to accommodate the range of initiatives witnessed in the period. It also points out reform efforts that predate the Protestant challenge, in which a new ethos developed within the Catholic Church in the middle of the sixteenth century. The chapter talks about the fathers of the Council of Trent, who sought to address a wide range of issues relating to belief and practice. It looks at the “Tridentine” decrees that were implemented alongside various papal initiatives and efforts at the local level.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brianna Leavitt-Alcántara
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Single Women ◽  
Spanish American ◽  
Local Religion ◽  
Female Autonomy ◽  
Holy Women ◽  
American Cities ◽  
Source Materials ◽  
The Catholic Church

This chapter introduces the book’s methodology, arguments, and scholarly significance. Most works on women and early modern religion focus on nuns, holy women, or religious “deviants,” and emphasize rising hostility toward female autonomy as officials moved to enclose unmarried women and intensive female religiosity (e.g. mysticism, asceticism). This book takes a different approach and examines ordinary laywomen, particularly the broad population of non-elite women who frequently lived outside of both marriage and convent in colonial Spanish American cities. Through an analysis of approximately 550 wills, as well as a variety of other source materials such as hagiographies, religious chronicles, and ecclesiastical records, this study argues that the complex alliances forged between non-elite single women and the Catholic Church shaped local religion and the spiritual economy, late colonial reform efforts, and post-Independence politics in Guatemala’s capital.

From the “Land of Diverse Sects” to National Religion: Converts to Catholicism and Reformed Franciscans in Early Modern Poland

2001 ◽  
Vol 70 (3) ◽  
pp. 482-526
Author(s):  
Waldemar Kowalski
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Social History ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Religious Conversion ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Catholic Church

Religious conversion is undoubtedly one of the most-explored aspects of medieval and early modern social history. Thefact that the literature concerning that problem is still significantly on the increase proves its scholarly importance. The subject has found a permanent place among works dealing with denominational relations in pre-partition Poland, and the list of such works is substantial. Theyshow a significant number of dispersed pieces of information con-cerning reconversions to the Catholic Church, with no lack of more general observations on this matter.

The Mind of the Censor: Girolamo Rossi, a Physician and Censor for the Congregation of the Index

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 14-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Marcus
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Note Taking ◽  
Counter Reformation ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Lay Experts ◽  
The Catholic Church

Abstract Girolamo Rossi (1539-1607) was a historian, physician, and prolific censor for the Catholic Church. This article examines Rossi’s manuscripts in Ravenna and the Vatican to explore how a physician contributed to the expurgation efforts of the Congregation of the Index in the years following the publication of the Clementine Index (1596). I argue that participating in these censorship efforts trained physicians and other lay experts to read like censors, repurposing the humanist tools of reading, excerpting, and note taking to accomplish the censorship goals of the Counter-Reformation Church.

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