Search

In the context of the Catholic Reformation serious concerns were expressed about the affective potency of naturalistic depictions of beautiful, sensuous figures in religious art. In theological discourse similar anxieties had long been articulated about potential contiguities between elevating, licit desire for an extraordinarily beautiful divinity and base, illicit feeling. In the later fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, in the decades preceding the Council of Trent, a handful of writers, thinkers and artists asserted a positive connection between spirituality and sexuality. Leonardo da Vinci, and a group of painters working under his aegis in Lombardy, were keenly aware of painting's capacity to evoke feeling in a viewer. Pictures they produced for domestic devotion featured knowingly sensuous and unusually epicene beauties. This article suggests that this iconography daringly advocated the value of pleasurable sensation to religiosity. Its popularity allows us to envisage beholders who were neither mired in sin, nor seeking to divorce themselves from the physical realm, but engaging afresh with age-old dialectics of body and soul, sexuality and spirituality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study attempts to highlight the originality of the Romanian Enlightenment in Transylvania, looking at the way in which the pre-Enlightenment ideas belonging to Dimitrie Cantemir, grounded in the ideological structure of pre-Romanticism in Central Europe, germinated into the discourse of the members of the Transylvanian School. On the one hand, the author of the study investigates, for each member of the Transylvanian School (Gherontie Cotore, Samuil Micu, Gheorghe Șincai, Petru Maior, Ioan Budai-Deleanu), the takeovers from Cantemir's work, and, on the other hand, their civic, militant, pragmatic interpretation appropriate to the political priorities in Transylvania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines Francis de Sales's Introduction to the Devout Life through the framework of caregiving. It also uses de Sales's correspondence with two elite women, Jeanne de Chantal and Marie Brûlart, to demonstrate how de Sales's guidance for laity was put into practice. Exploring women that yearned for a richer spiritual yet also had extensive caregiving obligations that did not allow for complete withdrawal from the secular world, reveals the increased labor these women faced. Women could not neglect household and family to spend more time in prayer and devotional practices. Caregiving duties were ongoing for most women of Early Modern Europe and continue today. Exploring how caring was viewed as part of women's obligations as Christians, highlights the often-hidden labor of women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the second half of the sixteenth century, the Jesuits considered the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth a missionary territory. This perception was linked to the exceptional writing and publishing activity. The Jesuits not only had about seven hundred editions of their writings published before 1620, they also established their own printing presses. This article identifies the main purposes of Jesuit publishing activity, demonstrates the Society's proficiency with various printed media and reflects on their role in the dissemination of printing craft throughout the Commonwealth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advocate General in the Parliament of Paris, Jérôme Bignon is remembered in history both as one of the great names of parliamentary eloquence, and as a highly respected scholar of the Republic of Letters for his erudition. With the help of his Vie published in 1747 by the Abbé Pérau, this article tries to better identify the links between the legal culture of a high-ranking officer, his public career, and his scholarly research, in which religious controversies occupy a central part. This also leads us to take into consideration the very great place he gives to Catholic devotion.

Copyright of Cauriensia: Revista Anual de Ciencias Eclesiásticas is the property of Instituto Teologico San Pedro de Alcantara de Caceres and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article argues that Ignatius Loyola, in proposing the "hierarchical Church" as norm for judgment and feeling, meant to evoke and commend aspects of the Dionysian tradition—especially its principle of hierarchical mediation and its affective portrait of spiritual perfection. Supporting this interpretation are considerations of the world behind the text (the reforming Dionysianism abroad in Ignatian Paris), the world of the text (the culminating position and concerns of the "hierarchical Church"), and the world in front of the text (its reception by Peter Faber and Jerome Nadal). Interpreted against a Dionysian backdrop, Ignatius's hierarchical church becomes a charter for ecclesial mysticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article begins by examining what is meant by the Catholic Reformation and how it relates to the other frequently used term, Counter–Reformation. It then discusses the different ways Catholics and Protestants in the early 16th century understood ecclesial reform. Next there is a consideration of the call for a general or ecumenical council to resolve the differences between the Catholics and Protestant reformers; the reasons for the delay of the council; and the reasons why the Protestants did not participate. The article then provides a summary of the three main periods of the Council of Trent: 1545–1547; 1551–1552; and 1562–1563 along with the 1547–1549 Bologna period. This is followed by a detailed overview of the reforms of the council, which were both doctrinal and disciplinary. The article shows that, while abuses related to various Catholic practices and the sacraments were addressed, the main concerns in the various disciplinary decrees related to clerical corruption and immorality. The article addresses the need for bishops to reside in their dioceses; stop clerical corruption, greed, and nepotism; and establish seminaries for the proper formation of priests. After the review of the disciplinary reform decrees, attention is given to the Catechism of the Council of Trent that served as a resource for parish priests in their instruction of the faithful. The final section considers viewpoints of different historians regarding the effect of the Council of Trent on reform within the Catholic Church.

For Europeans, Matteo Ricci's mission memoirs proved to be the most comprehensive and accessible book about China. Ricci's account of the early Jesuit mission was immensely popular, receiving translations into most European languages. Until the twentieth century, however, anyone who read Ricci's narrative was not reading what Ricci himself had written. Rather, they were reading a curated translation produced by one of his successors, Nicolas Trigault. The resulting work, De Christiana Expeditione apud Sinas, was an edited translation, substantially the same but often different than Ricci's original manuscript. This article reexamines Trigault's translation, on its own terms, as an artefact of globalisation. Not only does the adaptation reveal information about the Jesuit missions that Ricci's manuscript did not, but it also had a significant impact on European Catholics, as its dissemination inspired would-be missionaries to seek their vocations in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the Protestant Reformation has traditionally been the focus of research on early modern England, the last two decades have witnessed a rapid increase in scholarship on the experience of the country's Catholics. Questions surrounding the implementation of the Catholic Reformation in England have been central since the topic's inception as a subject of academic interest, and the field has more recently captured the attention of, amongst others, literary scholars, musicologists and those working on visual and material culture. This article is a position paper that argues early modern English Catholicism, though not doing away with all continuities from before the country's definitive break with Rome, was fully engaged with the global Catholic Reformation, both being influenced by it, but also impacting its progression. Whether through reading and writing, or more physical expressions of mission and reform, English Catholicism was a vital part of the wider Catholic Reformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Post-Tridentine liturgical books printed in Poland have not attracted much attention from book historians. However, given their special, sacred, and confessionally unifying status, they provide interesting material for comparative study of printing in the large European cities (e.g., Antwerp, Venice), and smaller provincial centers such as Kraków. The paper presents as products of the printing press the Psalterium, Antiphonarium and Graduale Romanum printed in Kraków in 1599-1600 by Andrzej Piotrkowczyk as well as later editions of these works. The decision to commission them in a local print shop rather than abroad came after prolonged debates within the Polish Catholic hierarchy. Materials used by the printer (paper, type, ornaments etc.) and the results he achieved (typography) are analysed at the backdrop of European printing and related to more general problems involved with the production of complex and voluminous books in the economic and cultural realities of an Eastern European city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The canonization of 1622, in wich Blessed Isidore the Farmer, Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier, Teresa of Avila and Philip Neri were inscribed in the Canon of Saints, was memorable for several reasons. It’s period of gestation was not easy. Pope Paul v had decided to canonize Isidore the Farmer, a decisión that was accepted by his successor, Gregory xv. The strong pressure to which the Pope was subjected both by the Catholic Monarchs and by the Orders to which the new saints belonged, especially the Jesuits, determined their joint canonization in the short term, first adding Blessed Teresa, then Ignatius and Xavier, and, finally, in order to avoid an exclusively Spanish ceremony, at the request of the Congregation itself, Philip Neri. Without denying the political side of the canonization, this paper offers several convergent lines of interpretation in order to demonstrate that the canonization in 1622 was not only the canonization of the protagonists of the Catholic Reformation but, symbolically, of the Church’s own Reformation itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revue Historique (0035-3264) is the property of Presses Universitaires de France and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Bartolomeu dos Mártires, O.P., Archbishop of Braga (1559-1582), became an important character to the Order of the Preachers as a model of the new archetype of episcopacy consolidated during the last period of the Council of Trent (1562-1563). Due to his protagonism in the tridentine debates, his published treatises about the episcopal pastorate, his ruling over Braga and his good reputation regarding common ecclesiastical sins, the friar was considered a model to be followed in the post-tridentine Church and soon turned into a candidate for sanctity. Bartolomeu dos Mártires’ biographies, written by two of the most important dominicans of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the theologian Luis of Granada and the chronicler Luis de Sousa, indicated the signs of holiness in his characteristics and behavior, reproduced in the canonization process initiated in 1631. However, proposing him as a holy example meant creating a sanctified memory and silencing his several political conflicts and controversies. The aim of this paper is to propose an analysis of the sanctification of Friar Bartolomeu dos Mártires, based on the Archbishop’s hagiographies and canonization process as a way to glorify the Order and propagate the pastoral archetype, putting aside his political feature, comparing History and Memory.

Copyright of Hipogrifo: revista de literatura y cultura del siglo de oro is the property of Hipogrifo: revista de literatura y cultura del siglo de oro and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article aims to analyze the proposal of reform of the Church defended by part of the priests during the third stage of the Council of Trent (1562-1563) through the 'Petitiones' written by the Archbishop of Braga Friar Bartolomeu dos Mártires. His requisitions are representative of the most polemic Tridentine debates and presented many of the topics that would be discussed during the assembly as the agenda of a group that indicated the necessity of a deep reform to be conducted by the bishops in their dioceses. Although many of the demands have remained in the field of debate, others have found expression on the decrees, especially those of disciplinary character. However, the biggest requisition, clearly expressed in the Petitions and topic of dissension during the Council, was the episcopal protagonism and rise of the bishop as head of the reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revue d'Histoire Moderne & Contemporaine is the property of Societe d'Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Charles of Guise, Cardinal of Lorraine, archbishop of Reims since 1538 until his death in 1574, was a major, but complex and enigmatic character, whose capacity to develop several strategies according to changing circumstances, in France and Europe baffled both his contemporaries and historians. The research on the liturgical policy he conducted in his city, diocese and ecclesiastical province of Reims provides better understanding of Cardinal’s aims and level of seriousness. This investigation is rather instructive, because the history of liturgy has been neglected by historians of the Early modern time, whereas it played a central role in the diocesan religious life and in the confessional conflicts of the 16th century. The parochial manual printed in 1554 reveals an enterprise of moderate, gallican and diocesan reform, which, while perfectly Orthodox also developed the use of the French language. The provincial Council of 1564 was a Tridentine turn, but also a logical continuation of the liturgical reform of the 1550’s, aiming desirable purification of chanting and developing a dream of returning to the antique custom. Finally, the processions clearly expressed the personal devotions of the Cardinal of Lorraine, especially to the Blessed Sacrament and to the Holy Cross, as well as the penitential aspect of the last years of his life.

Title in English: Saint Francis and the Iconography of Chastity. – During the second half of the 16th century, images of a naked Saint Francis of Assisi, lying on a bed of burning coal accompanied by a female prostitute, started to appear in Franciscan art – first in illustrated manuscripts and then in oil paintings and murals. The motif is known as La castitá essemplaria di san Francesco (St Francis’s Exemplary Chastity) or Le tentazioni di san Francesco (The Temptations of St Francis) and forms part of the new Franciscan iconography that developed as a result of the Catholic reformation (1545–1563). Many of the episodes illustrated by Giotto and the artists of the 14th and 15th centuries were replaced by others that focused on Francis’s poverty, humility and exemplary chastity. In this article, the iconography of St Francis’s Exemplary Chastity in Italian art is studied from its origin in late 16th-century engravings through its developments in oil painting and murals until the early 18th century. The origin of the story is found in I Fioretti di San Francesco (The Little Flowers of St Francis). The Saint is pictured as a potent and muscular Miles Christi offering an example of his spotlessly chaste character through resisting a young prostitute, but who also performs a miracle and saves her soul. This image, it is argued, reflects the position of the reformed Catholic Church, where the individual’s own responsibility for salvation was clearly emphasized.

Based on a thorough reading of Saint Ignatius of Loyola's Spiritual Exercises (1541), this article inquires about the theological foundation that prompted a spiritual revolution and allowed the consolidation of a visually centered religious culture in Spain during the second half of the sixteenth century. Given the treatises's handbook nature, part of the study will center on certain authors, Jerónimo Nadal and Fray Luis de Granada, for example, who were responsible for interpreting and expanding it. One element that is traced and examined within this new way of comprehending the visual is the role of the faithful as a spectator confronting a sacred image. How should he respond to the image and how must he conceive the nature of the divine with regard to it? By trying to answer these questions, the reader is encouraged to reflect upon a key period in the history of European religious art, the moment in which the confessional battle consolidated two very distinct ways of approaching divinity: word and image. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions is the property of Editions EHESS and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In the sixteenth century, the Italian port city of Ancona witnessed the settlement of a significant number of Greek merchants, artisans and sailors, who formed a community and were granted the use of the church of Sant'Anna in 1524. Their religious life was strongly influenced by the developments that took place in the Roman Curia between 1520 and 1595, and in particular by the changes in attitude brought by the Catholic Reformation in the second half of the century. This article will analyse how the changing attitudes of the Catholic Church interacted with the social structure of the community, which was characterised by fluidity, internal divisions and the absence of a relationship of mutual interdependence with the local authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the social status of widowhood during the Catholic Reformation as described by male canonical authors. Widows were traditionally viewed in a negative light in the early modern period. After the Council of Trent, clerics and moralists argued that they could become useful to society. By exploring the canonical discourse on widows that emerged during the Catholic Reformation this article aims to point out that charitable acts as well as the act of providing education to children or other members of society became key elements in the shifting views on widowhood. These canonical authors offered advice on how women could become «perfect widows» and thus serve their family, the Church, the state and, as a result, the society as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bartolomeu dos Mártires, O.P., Arcebispo de Braga (1559-1582), tornou-se um importante personagem na Ordem dos Pregadores como modelo do novo arquétipo episcopal consolidado durante a última fase do Concílio de Trento (1563-1563). Por seu protagonismo nos debates tridentinos, seus tratados publicados sobre o pastorado episcopal, seu governo sobre Braga e sua boa reputação no que diz respeito aos pecados comuns do clero, o frei foi considerado modelo a ser seguido na Igreja tridentina, e logo tornou-se candidato a santo. Suas biografias, escritas por dois dos mais importantes teólogos dos séculos XVI e XVII, o teólogo Luis de Granada e o cronista Luis de Sousa, indicavam os sinais de santidade em suas características e comportamento, reproduzidos no processo de canonização iniciado em 1631. No entanto, propo-lo como exemplo sagrado significou criar uma meória santificada e silenciar seus diversos conflitos e controvérsias políticas. O objetivo deste artigo é propor uma análise da santificação de Frei Bartolomeu dos Mártires, baseada em suas hagiografias e no processo de canonização como forma de glorificar a Ordem e propagar o arquétipo pastoral, deixando de lado seu caráter político, comparando História e Memória. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Catholic missionaries baptized thousands of Vietnamese in the seventeenth century. To strengthen identification with Catholicism, they encouraged converts to marry other Catholics and discouraged traditional polygyny and divorce. However, missionaries complained that Catholics continued to wed gentiles, that they divorced, and that men married multiple wives. So while missionaries celebrated large numbers of baptisms, they worried that they had failed to construct a strong boundary around their religious community. The problem was that their rules were socially disruptive. Even European Catholic countries, such as France, undermined ecclesiastical control of marriage to meet the imperatives of family formation and state building. So too in Vietnam Catholics claimed that, in marrying non-Catholics, practicing polygyny, and allowing divorce, they were only following their laws and the "customs of the country." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the course of the 17the century, the free royal city of Prešov underwent stormy religious development with many changes, which fundamentally influenced its further development. The development of the Confessional composition built up on its previous period, and continued so, almost undisturbed and without any external intervention, until the last third of the century, which was characterized by the complete Evangelic, or more precisely Lutheran dominance. The Lutheran or later Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession (ECAV) was until 1671 the only religious organisation in the town of Prešov. Forced Catholic Reformation in the 70s meant not only the transitional extinction of the Evangelical Church, but also the establishment of the Roman Catholic parish, which maintained its position even during the period of restitution of religious freedom for the Protestants during the uprising of Emeric Thököly. Further strengthening of the Catholic Church was brought by the new Catholic Refomration after 1687 and the unlawful denial of the right for the Evangelicals to public religious practice. The Rákóczi Uprising (1705 - 1711) was the first and for long the only period of the real religious tolerance in the history of the town, during which the Evangelical and Catholic parish co-existed, and following the year 1707, even the Reformed Church was active. The population of other religions was quite rare and they did not establish their own Church organisation. Those were predominantly Orthodox trade-men present in the town from the end of the century and the Jews residing in the town during annual and weekly markets only. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this edition of Marcin Białobrzeski's Kazanie o przyjmowaniu ciała i krwie Pana Jezu Krysta pod jedną osobą is to remind an important voice in the discussion between Catholics and Protestants about the manner of receiving the sacrament of the Eucharist under one or two kinds. Beginning with Jan Hus, one of the postulates raised by the supporters of the reform of the Catholic Church was to introduce the practice of administering Holy Communion to the laity under two kinds, to which the Catholic Church's legislation opposed. In Protestant communities, the Eucharist was administered under both kinds and lay Catholics also demanded the introduction of this practice. In 1578, in response to ever more frequent postulates, bishop Marcin Białobrzeski gave the Good Thursday sermon in Kamieniec Podolski, in which he explained to the audience the reasons why Catholics were administered Holy Communion under one kind only. The sermon was written down and published a year later in Cracow in the press house of Andrzej Piotrkowczyk, and next included in a collection of his sermons entitled Postylla ortodoxa (1581) as a sermon for Good Thursday. The bishop mainly called for retaining love and unity recommended by Jesus during the last supper. The main message of the sermon was to prove the complete sufficiency of receiving the Eucharist under the form of bread only. He also strove to demonstrate that the Eucharistic kinds are disproportionately insignificant as compared to the question of faith in Christ's sacramental presence in the Holy Communion. Białobrzeski drew his arguments from the Holy Scripture, the writings of the Church Fathers, the council and synodal legislation, as well as from the studies of history and nature. Apart from the rational line of thought, he also tried to convince his listeners to this practice by engaging in an apparent dialogue with them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study attempts to highlight the inter-ecclesiastical relations in the 18th century Transylvania, and to recover two new documentary collections issued in the 18th and 19th centuries, currently stored in the Batthyaneum Library and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese Archives of Alba Iulia. Ignatius Batthyány (1780-1798) is a Roman Catholic Bishop whose interest in the history and culture of the Romanian Church is generally known. The novelty of the present approach brings up the intellectual bishop's effort to collect and systematize previous and contemporary documents of his age about the Romanians' ecclesiastical history. Unknown documents support the author of the study to retrace the institutional and personal relations between the Roman Catholic bishop of Alba Iulia Ignatiu Batthyány and two united Greek Catholic bishops of Blaj: Grigorie Maior (1773-1782) and Ioan Bob (1782-1830). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article has three aims. First, it reacts to the doubts expressed recently about the possibility of making generalizations about Catholicism after the Council of Trent. Second, it discusses the different uses of the term "Catholic Reformation" and proposes a definition that involves a movement toward the universalization of divine love. And third, it also discusses the success of confessionalization in some parts of Europe and the reasons why it was not a top-down process. The emphasis on disciplining endeavors in the analysis of the history of confessionalization misses the integrative character of various devotional practices in Baroque Europe and fails to pay sufficient attention to the religious constraints affecting political actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the reactions among the Philippine clergy after the erection of the Archbishopric of Manila in 1595 and therefore the imposition of the Tridentine decrees at the ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the Pacific, until the death of Archbishop Diego Vázquez de Mercado (1616). Unpublished correspondence between ecclesiastical figures from the Philippines serves as the main basis for this paper, which intends to show how the general disobedience of the clergy might have delayed the introduction to the Philippines of the spirit of the Counter-Reformation, which had already governed Spanish pastoral ministry for over twenty years.

There are now a number of ways to describe the phenomena which come under the umbrella of innovations in Roman Catholicism in the early modern period including "Counter Reformation"; "Catholic Reformation" and "Early Modern Catholicism." After a brief survey of the various labels used by scholars over the last half century or more, this article seeks to rehabilitate the use of the label "Counter Reformation" in the light, particularly, of the determining role played by the Holy Office (aka Roman Inquisition) in shaping the Catholic Church down to Vatican II (1962-65). A key role in this was played by Gian Pietro Carafa, who was made head of the congregation of the Holy Office at its foundation in 1542 and who became pope as Paul IV in 1555. During the key decades from the 1540s to 1570s the Inquisition in Rome set the agenda and by means, not only, of a series of trials of prominent members of the clerical establishment whom they regarded as their enemies, succeeded in intimidating their opponents. In doing so they also subverted episcopal authority, whose strengthening had been a watchword at the Council of Trent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]