Focusing on the theory and practice of Cistercian persuasion, the articles gathered in this volume offer historical, literary critical and anthropological perspectives on Caesarius of Heisterbach's Dialogus Miraculorum (thirteenth century), the context of its production and other texts directly or indirectly inspired by it. The exempla inserted by Caesarius into a didactic dialogue between a monk and a novice survived for many centuries and travelled across the seas thanks to rewritings and translations into vernacular languages. An accomplished example of the art of persuasion...

Deutsch Niemand ist mehr verantwortlich fur die Entstehung jenes Denksystems, das auf Ignatius von Loyola (1491-1556) und seinen Exerzitien basiert, als Jeronimo Nadal. Ignacio Ramos legt in seiner Studie Jeronimo Nadal (1507-1580) und der "verschriftlichte" Ignatius: Die Konstruktion einer individuellen und kollektiven Identitat die ursprunglichen Konturen der sogenannten "ignatianischen" Spiritualitat dar. Es wird deutlich, wieviel Einfluss Nadal auf die Herausbildung des "Ignatianischen" hatte. Anhand Nadals lange verkannten Selbstzeugnisses (Chronicon Natalis) wird hermeneutisch...

In Defining Heresy, Irene Bueno investigates the theories and practices of anti-heretical repression in the first half of the fourteenth century, focusing on the figure of Jacques Fournier/Benedict XII (c.1284-1342). Throughout his career as a bishop-inquisitor in Languedoc, theologian, and, eventually, pope at Avignon, Fournier made a multi-faceted contribution to the fight against religious dissent. Making use of judicial, theological, and diplomatic sources, the book sheds light on the multiplicity of methods, discourses, and textual practices mobilized to define the bounds of...

Late Medieval and Renaissance art was surprisingly pushy; its architecture demanded that people move through it in prescribed patterns, its sculptures played elaborate games alternating between concealment and revelation, while its paintings charged viewers with imaginatively moving through them. Viewers wanted to interact with artwork in emotional and/or performative ways. This inventive and personal interface between viewers and artists sometimes conflicted with the Church's prescribed devotional models, and in some cases it complemented them. Artists and patrons responded to the desire for...

The early modern system of brokerage as a widespread practice of transmission and dissemination of political, intellectual and cultural ideas and objects has, in recent years, received some scholarly attention. Agents from different professional backgrounds - diplomats, scholars, artists, priests, booksellers and merchants - have, however, been studied mostly from a single, disciplinary perspective. The chapters making up this present volume all focus on individuals and professional groups who, in the course of their careers, became involved in multiple modes of cultural and political...

This book explores the dynamics of peaceful coexistence in the Dutch Republic by tracing the literary responses to one of the key controversies between Protestants and Catholics - the role of religious imagery in worship. Why and to what extent were people in the Republic willing to reconcile theological differences and combine elements from their own religious cultural practices with those of another? The intermingling of practices, the author shows, was unexpectedly complicated in the Republic. Restraints were imposed on the use of images in religious literature of all denominations till...

Prevailing scholarly analysis of the public disputations between D.V. Coornhert (1522-1590) and Dutch Reformed ministers is firmly rooted in a principled view of early modern tolerance. This study proposes a new point of departure, which involves breaking away from a Coornhert-centred reading of the debates in Leiden and the Hague, while focusing on the formal status of these disputations instead. Government support of the Reformed Church proved the backbone of these illuminating 'disputations by decree'. The public legitimization of the Reformed Church - a goal with both political and...

'Nationalism' may be a modern phenomenon, but national identities are not. The medieval and early modern Low Countries are a case in point. In this myriad of political and clerical territories, identities proved dynamic. Princes and rebels, soldiers and poets, all played a part in the shaping of new imagined communities. The essays in this volume show how regional and interregional identities developed, old ones survived, and novel ones came into being. They offer a fascinating insight into the continuities and discontinuities in the formation of (national) identities in the Low Countries and...

The Sentences Commentary of Giles of Viterbo embodies the intellectual and spiritual vision of one of the luminaries of the Italian Renaissance and a reformer of his religious order. Giles strove to locate in ancient wisdom truths revealed in the Bible and Christian doctrine. He composed "according to Plato's mind," but, influenced by Ficino and the revival of theologia Platonica, he integrates material from Greek myth and metaphysics with the Bible and Christian theology. Until now only a small portion of Giles's Commentary has been published, yet this major work contains some of the best...

In recent years, historians have questioned the notion that belief was central to the Reformation's success, arguing rather for a variety of social, political, economic, and psychological forces. This study examines one of the intra-Lutheran doctrinal debates, the Flacian controversy over original sin, as means to analyze lay religiosity in the late Reformation. It focuses on the German territory of Mansfeld, where the conflict had miners brawling in the streets, and where a wealth of sources from the laity have survived. This extraordinary evidence demonstrates that although diverse forces...