This blog is intended as a platform for the dissemination of the results of COST Action IS1301 "New Communities of Interpretation. Contexts, Strategies and Processes of Religious Transformation in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (2013-2017) and short publications by its members.
Amongst many other positive outcomes, the Training School has offered me ideas for how I could conceptualize my research. The papers presented by the different speakers discussed a wide variety of source material – devotional texts, images, places and literature – and examples were given of how emot...
Over the course of a three-day workshop, papers on diverse time periods, regions, and with different methodological approaches revealed intersecting ideas and complimentary devotional practices across medieval and early modern Europe. At the same time, each paper highlighted different aspects of the...
7th Training School COST Action IS1301 Organisation & Aims COST Action IS1301, studying „New Communities of Interpretation. Contexts, Strategies and Processes of Religious Transformation in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe“ is a research network uniting over 120 researchers from 25 European co...
The Passionate Devotions training school provided three days of stimulating and lively discussion, bringing together scholars working on a wide range of topics, spanning different timeframes and using diverse sources. Despite the breadth and diversity of our topics, it was very interesting to note t...
"There is a lot to digest!" This simple phrase stated at the closing discussion of the workshop by one of the participants, best describes the deep intellectual impact the Münster days will have on our future research. Skimming through the notes I have written down during the presentations and discu...
The latest Training school organized by COST Action IS1301 discussed „Passionate devotions. Emotions in Late Medieval and Early Modern Religious Texts, Images and Music“. It built on the impression that the study of late medieval and early modern religious culture and the emerging history of emotion...
Life of St Margaret, opening folio. Hart MS 41020, f. 167r. Photo F. Cook. Courtesy of Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery, 2017 Many extant material and visual artefacts bear witness to the flourishing cults of a variety of female saints in late-medieval England. How can an examination of these artefa...
Late medieval devotional literature was one of several interacting media (images, preaching, drama, sculpture etc.) through which the late medieval believer could engage with the figure of the suffering Christ. These texts may function as scripts: often written in the first person singular, they pro...
The Devotio Moderna has left us with an extensive textual heritage of various sources that offer us insight into the norms, values, devotional practices and daily life in this religious movement of the 14th and 15th century. Among the texts are vitae, sermons, theoretical texts and prayers, of which...
The popularity of the virgin martyrs reached its peak in late medieval Europe, including Hungary. The legends of these saints represented an important model for women from the high Middle Ages. Their legends center upon a confrontation where a pagan man threatens the saint’s virginity with an offer...
Penitential literature is a valuable source for the study of emotions in relation to sin, custom and morality. The development of the private sacramental penance after the IV Lateran Council (1215) promoted an increasing production of penitential texts which were meant to provide confessors the nece...
Trying to reconstruct the history and geography of polyphonic music pro mortuis in Italy between 1550 and 1650, we face a situation full of contradictions, where theory and practice, official regulations and extant sources rarely agree. In order to gain a proper understanding of the role of plaincha...
Third crucifix from Zadar, c. 1200 In my paper I intend to reflect upon the pious response to the thirteenth-century monumental crosses once enshrined in the churches of the Eastern Adriatic city of Zadar. The up to date literature on these objects has devoted much attention to their stylistic kinsh...
The power of place to incite an emotional response in either an individual or a community is a defining aspect of all cultures. Certain spaces are synonymous with the emotional response tied to them: the childhood home conjures longing and nostalgia, while the poorly lit alleyway might evoke fear an...
Despite its centrality in Christian religious teaching, in the Middle Ages many believers were unable to ever visit Jerusalem. How, then, did they imagine the Holy City? What tropes were used to embed Jerusalem in the imagination of those in the West? How did the capture and subsequent loss of Jerus...
In 1715, the Jesuits introduced a new form of popular mission to the duchy of Jülich-Kleve. Two Southern German Jesuit preachers, Georg Loferer (1680–1756) and Konrad Herdegen (1670–1724), who had studied the so-called apostolic method (or Segneri method) in Italy conducted the first mission accordi...
In two weeks, the University of Muenster will host the next Training school run by COST Action IS1301, co-organized by us, Ragnhild Martine Bø (University of Oslo) and Sita Steckel (Münster). While the full programme is listed below, this post also announces further activity on the blog: Over the ne...
The deadline for applications for the Training school, to take place at Muenster, 26.-28. April 2017, has been extended to January 15th. COST Action IS1301 „New Communities of Interpretation. Contexts, Strategies and Processes of Religious Transformation in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe“ is...
Call for applications: Training school "Passionate Devotions. Emotions in religious texts, images and music in late medieval and early modern Europe", Muenster, 26.-28. April 2017 Deadline for Applications: 15. December, 2016 COST Action IS1301 „New Communities of Interpretation. Contexts, Strategie...
Call for papers: Working Group 2 Meeting, Ghent, June 1-2, 2017 For members or affiliates of COST Action 1301- New Communities of Interpretation: Contexts, Strategies and Processes of Religious Transformation in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Winning Hearts and Minds: Multimedia Events, Reli...
Training School COST Action IS1301 - Budapest, 7-9 December 2015 Organisation & Aims COST Action IS1301, studying „New Communities of Interpretation. Contexts, Strategies and Processes of Religious Transformation in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe“ is a research network uniting over 120 resear...
There are still some places available in the next Training School of COST Action IS1301 'New Communities of Interpretation', in Rome, 23-25 March. The Training School will be of special interest to PhD-students and advanced MA students working with (complicated) text traditions, and/or those editing...
By Louise Vermeersch (PhD Candidate, University of Ghent, Louise.Vermeersch@ugent.be) This is a revised version of my presentation at the COST action IS1301 training school “Production and Use of Religious Texts in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe”. It gives you an overview of the objectives of...
By Stephan Lauper, Universität Freiburg (Schweiz) (stephan.lauper@unifr.ch) The so-called Briefbuch, on which I focus in my PhD thesis, occupies an important role within an ensemble of manuscripts written in the late fourteenth century in the convent of the Order of St- John in Strasbourg. This conv...
By Monika Michalska, Jagiellonian University (michalska.monika@gmail.com) The Cistercian monastery in Henryków, which was founded officially in 1228 by the rulers of Silesia, possesses a complex founding tradition which changed over the centuries. There were two traditions about the origins of the...