The Phenomenon of the 18th Century Institutional Printing House of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: The Case of the Franciscans

Many of the printing houses in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania that operated during the 17th-18th centuries belonged to institutions the biggest part of which consisted of Catholic monk monasteries. Despite belonging to one group, the development path of each printing house and its contribution to book culture has unique features. Of the four institutional prin­ting houses operating in the 18th century in Vilnius, the printing house of the Franciscan Conventuals Monastery was the first to be closed and its operations terminated. The purpose of the article is to identify the following causes behind the issues and eventual closure of this printing house. Based on the expenses and income book of this printing house for the period 1752–1769 (it is preserved at the Department of Manuscripts of Vilnius University Library,) this paper examines various aspects of the Vilnius Franciscan Conventuals monastery printing house: funds, sources of equipment and paper, building location, relations with employees and hired craftsmen, orders, sources of income, profitability. In order to better understand the specificity of the institutional press, an effort was made to establish a link between the research outcome and the wider context by addressing the question of the impact of both the society of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Franciscan Order itself on the destiny of the printing house. In addition, the book of expenses and income reveals new biographical data about Vilnius engraver Franciszek Balcewicz.

Skąd wziął się w Krakowie traktat Franciszka Eiximenisa "Ars praedicandi populo"? Trzy możliwe drogi

This article aims to present three hypotheses about how the preaching treatise of the Catalan author, Francesc Eiximenis, entitled 'Ars praedicandi populo', ended up in Krakow in the library of Mikołaj Spycymir. For this purpose, three codices, which contain copies of the Eiximenis treatise, were compared to each other. The article also presented in more detail the biography of Nicolaus Spycymir, the owner of the oldest copy of the treatise. The first two hypotheses are related to the Franciscan Order and diplomatic travels and pilgrimages to Compostela. They seem not to be as well-grounded in the sources as the third hypothesis, which concerns the Polish delegations to the Council of Basel and Council delegations coming to Kraków. One of the delegates of the Council was Marc Bonfill, a Catalan theologian and well-known preacher, associated, like Eiximenis, with the University of Lerida and Girona. The article also pays special attention to Bonfill’s associate, Stanisław Sobniowski, who was a close friend of Spycimir. It is possible that Spycymir obtained the treatise on the preaching arts through these connections (Bonfill or Sobniowski). This hypothesis, however, requires further research.

Franciscan Characters in Bosnian-Herzegovinian Drama Literature: On the Phenomenon Of Remembrance and Memory

In seven dramatic texts written by six Bosnian-Herzegovinian authors – Borivoje Jevtić, Štefa Jurkić, Nikola Šop, Nasko Frndić, Nada Đurevska and Dževad Karahasan – from the perspective of the art of memory we follow the construction of literary imaginaria on the examples of three Bosnian-Herzegovinian Franciscans (Anđeo Zvizdović, Matija Divković and Ivan Frano Jukić). The paper examines the relationship between historic reality and fiction, where in history was an inspirational incentive for dramatic texts, with individual members of the Franciscan order transformed into a collective place of traumatic memory. For this conscious work on cultural memory we are to thank both the history of remembrance and memory (mnemohistory) and the motivational associative images that have been cultivated in literature and the historiography of literature for more than a century.

The Conflicts Among Religious Orders of Christianity in China During the 17th and 18th Centuries

Introduction. The article studies the conflicts between the Spanish Mendicant Orders (Dominican Order, Franciscan Order, etc.) as well as the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris with Portuguese Society of Jesus, which took place during the 17th and 18th centuries in China. Methods and materials. To study this issue, the author used the original historical materials recorded by Western missionaries working in China during the 17th and 18th centuries and research works by Chinese and international scholars related to the Chinese Rites Controversy as well as the process of introduction and development of Christianity in this country during the 17th and 18th centuries. The author combines two main research methods of History Science (historical and logical methods) with other research methods (systemic approach, analysis, synthesis, comparison, etc.) to complete the study of this issue. Analysis. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the struggle for faith of the peoples in the Far East, especially China, became the desirable goal of religious orders of Christianity. Therefore, during this period, Western missionaries belonging to various religious orders of Christianity, such as the Society of Jesus, Mendicant Orders, Society of Foreign Missions of Paris, etc., gradually entered this country. In the course of evangelization, the struggle for influence as well as the right to manage missionary affairs in China at that time created conflicts among Christian religious orders. It is manifested in the form of a debate about Chinese rituals. In fact, these conflicts not only caused great losses to the missionary career of contemporary Christian religious orders taking place in China but also made the relationship between China’s ruling authorities and The Holy See became very tense. Results. Based on the study of the conflicts among religious orders of Christianity in China during the 17th and 18th centuries, the article clarifies characteristics, the root and direct causes leading to this phenomenon, making a certain contribution to the study of the relationship among religious orders in the process of introduction and development of Christianity in China in particular and the history of East-West cultural exchange in this country in general in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Miles tutus fuit – Venator interiit

The study deals with the history of a tombstone found at the archaeological excavations in the Franciscan church of Szigetvár in the winter of 2020. Th e archaeological find is remarkable in several respects. Its unique character is provided by the fact that its upper surface is covered not only with a coat of arms, but also with a lengthy Latin text. An investigation of the inscription revealed that the deceased, a certain Major (Supremus Vigiliarum Praefectus) Johann Collet, died in 1703 during a hunt in the vicinity of Szigetvár. The study briefly presents the historical context of the case: the situation of Szigetvár in the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries, the use of the church by the Franciscan order, as well as the most important moments of the 2020 archeological excavation.

Franciscan Order from Reform of Fr. Paolo a Trinci to the Division of the Order in 1517. The Evidence from the Franciscan sources

These article examine the circumstances which bring to the division of Franciscan Order in 1517. It begins with beginning of small Reform movement of Fr. Paolo of Trinci at 1368 which outgrow in 15th century in strong Observant movement. The question of observing the Rule of St. Francis was basic problem between Observants and Conventuals, and it grow in big ecclesiastical, political and social problem which was solved at 1517 bay division of the Order. Article is mostly based on published different sources of Franciscan history. Most of these sources are original sources published in various publications of Collegii di S. Bonaventura, in 19th and 20th century.

Iacopone da Todi

Iacopone da Todi (b. 1230/36–d. 1304/06) is the most important writer of laude between the 13th and 14th centuries and is considered an unavoidable model for laude collections of subsequent centuries. The genre of laude, which are religious poetic texts in the vernacular, came to life in the 13th century under the impulse of penitential movements, within the mendicant groups and the newly constituted religious confraternities. It prospered in the context of paraliturgical celebrations in the vernacular, thanks to which the faithful lay people reinterpreted the official Latin liturgy in forms that were more suited to them. After a worldly youth—according to ancient biographical accounts—Iacopone joined the Franciscan Order and participated in the bitter disputes between Spiritual and Moderate Franciscans, siding with the Spirituals and defending a more rigorous interpretation of Francis’s Rule. His inflexible stand also originated his conflict against Pope Boniface VIII, which caused his incarceration between 1298 and 1303, after the fall of the fortress of Palestrina where Iacopone was involved in a resistance together with other papal opponents. He wrote a collection of approximately one hundred spiritual laude and two Latin texts, the Tractatus utilissimus and Verba. The attribution to him of the Latin sequence “Stabat Mater” is debated. Some of Iacopone’s laude are catechetical texts, moral exhortations, political and ideological diatribes (for example, against incoherent Franciscan friars and clerics), ascetic meditations, and mystical confessions. At the heart of Iacopone’s mysticism is the concept of esmesuranza (extra-measure), or the infinite love human beings are called to give back for God’s infinite love on the cross. That is how human beings can transcend themselves, transforming into the image of God. Iacopone’s language includes the most disparate expressive registers, oscillating between a jongleur’s vigorous realism and passionate lyrical outbursts. His relationship to his contemporary Dante Alighieri is still much debated by literary criticism, although no philologically credible proof exists that the two ever knew of each other’s work or existence. Dante’s passion for Franciscan themes, such as poverty as an essential component of church purification and the mystical union with divinity, creates interesting parallels in the works of the two poets. Over the years, criticism has acknowledged the importance of the Iacoponian poetic model for the construction, over the course of the 13th and 14th centuries, of a lyrical grammar of divine love, which was shared by the European tradition of ecstatic confessions.

Radical Succession: Hagiography, Reform, and Franciscan Identity in the Convent of the Abbess Juana de la Cruz (1481–1534)

In this article, I study in depth the first vita of the Franciscan Tertiary abbess Juana de la Cruz (Vida y fin de la bienaventurada virgen sancta Juana de la Cruz, written c. 1534), examining it as a chronicle that narrativizes the origins and reform of a specific religious community in the Castile of the Catholic Monarchs. I argue that Vida y fin constitutes an account that was collectively written inside the walls of the enclosure that can help us understand themes, motifs, and symbolic Franciscan elements that were essential for the self-definition of its original textual community. I first discuss the narrative of the convent’s foundation and then examine the penitential identity of the community, highlighting the inspiration that Juana’s hagiography takes from the infancy of Caterina da Siena, as described in the Legenda maior by Raimondo da Capua, and analyzing to what extent the represented penitential practices related to the imitatio Christi reflect a Franciscan Tertiary identity in opposition to a Dominican one. Finally, I address the passages in which the hagiographer(s) discuss(es) the sense of belonging to the Franciscan order rather than the Dominicans, and the mystical figure of Francesco d’Assisi as a founder, guide, and exemplar.

South American Missions

While it is certainly true that more academic studies have focused on the North American missions, in terms of their historical impact South American missions were just as important to the frontiers of Spain and Portugal’s American empires. The massive size alone of the frontier region, stretching from the upper reaches of the Amazon basin to the headwaters of the Paraná as well as stretching across the lower Southern Cone, meant numerous missionary enterprises emerged in an attempt to evangelize the peoples who inhabited these regions. While small handfuls of Dominicans, Mercedarians, and Augustinians would engage in such efforts, most missions were established by the Jesuits or Franciscans. Certainly, for the Jesuits, or the Society of Jesus as they are properly known, American missions represented an extension of the Counter-Reformation for which they were created. Starting in the mid-16th century, this relatively new organization, founded in 1534, began in earnest to “reduce” the Indigenous peoples into their missions. These activities, however, abruptly ended when the Jesuits were expelled from both the Portuguese and Spanish empires in 1759 and 1767 respectfully. The much older Franciscan order had extensive experience in popular missions in Europe and was one of the first orders of regular clergy in the Americas. Franciscans, like the Jesuits, engaged in evangelizing activities throughout both North and South America from the colonial period to the present. The expulsion of the Jesuits, however, pushed them further to the forefront of missionizing efforts in the late colonial period. This acceleration of Franciscan missionary activity was aided by the establishment of the Apostolic Institute in 1682. The Institute created a pipeline of missionaries from Spain to come directly to frontier areas with funding from the crown. While this aided missionary efforts throughout South America, particularly in areas abandoned by the Jesuits, it embroiled the missionaries in the politics of the Bourbon reforms and their obsession with limited clerical power. Ultimately, while missionizing efforts continued into the Republican period, their association with the Spanish and Portuguese crowns led to widespread suppression and secularization following independence. The historiographical divide in the field tends to lie between usually older, Eurocentric histories by scholar-clerics which focus on the missionaries themselves, and newer studies carried out by more secular professional historians that examine how Indigenous populations were affected by the inherent imperialism of the missions, though exceptions abound.

From Papal Envoys to Martyrs of the Faith: An Attempt in Generalization of Franciscan preaching in China in the 13th– 18th Centuries

The article is an attempt to systematize the preaching of the Franciscan order in China, starting with the papal embassies to the Great Khans who conquered the Middle Empire and founded the Yuan dynasty until the end of the 20th century. The author groups the information into several major periods, suggesting a five-stage periodization of the Franciscan presence in the Far East. A change in the preaching paradigm is noted during the 700 centuries of the fickle Minorites’ presence in China. While the first reconnaissance missions, achieving modest success in preaching to non-Chinese subjects of the Mongol emperors, were mainly diplomatic in nature, in modern times the mission, enjoying the support of the Spanish Padroado system, is purposefully concentrated on preaching work, especially among the poor segments of the population. Since the 16th century begins a change in the entire logistic paradigm of the Far Eastern missionary work. If in the Middle Ages the Pope had enough to send several barefoot Franciscans to the Tatars, then in modern times the church is already forced to reckon with the countries that divided the world, initiating the Age of Exploration, first of all, with Spain and Portugal, the two then superpowers, each of which supported their own preachers, competing for influence in India, China and Japan and giving the task of preaching Christianity an additional political dimension, laden with rivalry and intrigue. The article is a continuation of the piece by the same author, focusing on theoretical foundations of the Franciscan proselytization, published earlier [Dubrovskaya, 2020(1)].