Confessional Coexistence in the Habsburg Netherlands

For decades, early modern historians have stressed the religious differences between the Dutch Republic and the Habsburg Netherlands. The former is usually represented as a tolerant Reformed state, while the latter is represented as a repressive Catholic regime. By consequence, the similarities in terms of confessional coexistence have never been considered. This article seeks to fill that gap by reviewing the Geuzenhoek, a small rural Reformed minority group in Flanders. Fortunately, a plethora of available sources allows us to research the interactions between the Protestants and the Catholic majority. This article shows that the divide between public worship and private devotion played a key role in keeping peaceful interreligious relations and that a stable system of connivance dominated the local framework. This situation was very similar to that of the Dutch Republic. As a result, this study concludes that confessional coexistence in the Habsburg Netherlands should be re-evaluated and merits further investigation. Vroegmoderne historici hebben jarenlang vooral de religieuze verschillen tussen de Republiek der Verenigde Nederlanden en de Habsburgse Nederlanden benadrukt. De een werd gewoonlijk voorgesteld als een tolerante gereformeerde staat, terwijl de andere bekendstond als een repressief katholiek regime. De gelijkenissen op vlak van confessionele co-existentie zijn daarom nooit nader onderzocht. Dit artikel wil dit hiaat opvullen door de Geuzenhoek, een kleine landelijke gereformeerde minderheidsgroep in Vlaanderen, onder de loep te nemen. Dankzij een ruime collectie aan bronnen konden de interacties tussen de protestanten en de katholieken in beeld gebracht worden. Dit artikel toont aan dat de scheiding tussen publieke en private devotie een grote invloed had op het bewerkstelligen van vredige contacten, en dat in deze lokale context een systeem van ‘oogluikendheid’ domineerde. Deze situatie is vergelijkbaar met die in de Republiek. De conclusie van deze studie is dan ook dat de confessionele co-existentie in de Habsburgse Nederlanden een herevaluatie en verder onderzoek verdient. ActualiteitsparagraafVrienden noch vijanden? Katholieken en protestanten in vroegmodern Vlaanderen Over de interacties van protestanten en katholieken in het verleden overheersen ook vandaag nog hardnekkige clichés: ze konden elkaars bloed wel drinken, geweld tussen religieuze groepen kwam vaak voor en verdraagzaamheid was vrijwel onbestaand. Toch was de historische realiteit vaak anders. Roman Roobroeck toont in zijn artikel in BMGN – Low Countries Historical Review over de Geuzenhoek aan dat de verhoudingen tussen katholieken en protestanten in het zeventiende-eeuwse overwegend katholieke Vlaanderen opvallend vreedzaam waren. Tussen de leden van deze rurale protestantse groep nabij Oudenaarde en hun katholieke buren ontsponnen zich conflicten, maar over het algemeen waren hun relaties vreedzaam. De protestantse dorpelingen profiteerden van het afwachtende beleid van de Habsburgers en ontwierpen samen met de lokale katholieken een gedoogsamenleving. Deze vorm van religieuze co-existentie kwam dus niet enkel in de Noordelijke Nederlanden voor, maar ook in de Habsburgse Nederlanden. Misschien was het religieuze klimaat in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden dan toch niet zo rigide als vaak gedacht?

Ruthenian Devotional Songs As Collectors’ Items?

At the turn of the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries, syllabic devotional songs in Ruthenian (RDS) make their first appearance as occasional appendices or notes in the margins of manuscripts serving quite divergent functions (triodia, evangelia and the like). The first systematic collections of RDS were compiled abroad by Ruthenian monks having left Ukraine for monasteries around Moscow from the 1660s onwards. It required several more decades, till the beginning of the eighteenth century, before these songs were also being systematically collected in song manuscripts throughout the Ruthenian lands themselves. The article argues against established views to the effect that this documentary gap was due to a massive loss of seventeenth-century Ruthenian song manuscripts. It should rather be taken at face value as an indication that some perceptual change with respect to devotional songs is likely to have taken place among Ruthenian literate classes at the beginning of the eighteenth century. It is argued that the rise of Ruthenian song manuscripts marks the beginning of a collecting culture, which treats devotional songs as a cherished and coveted collectable, where heretofore no particular value seems to have been accorded to these songs. The article explores the social profiles of song collectors and the individual makeup of song collections to offer a hypothetical outline of this emerging collecting culture, addressing issues of modes of exchange, methods of collecting and compiling, the specific relationship between collector and collectable, with a view to arguing for a highly individualized and intimate culture between private devotion and incipient object-oriented consumerism.

Die Capella Speciosa in Klosterneuburg 2. Teil: Vergleichende Studien zur Pfalzkapelle Herzog Leopolds VI. von Österreich

The Capella Speciosa has to be seen as an exportation of the type of Gothic architecture that characterised the architecture of the royal court in France at the time. As the work of French architects, the chapel occupies a unique position within the medieval architecture of Austria. The close similarities to the choir chapels of the cathedral at Reims and the details found in the cathedral at Auxerre enable a precise dating. If we trace the development of chapels in France, we see that there was a distinct intensification of architectural narratives at that time. The veneration of relics in private devotion went from being a mere testament to scholasticism to being a mystical experience. The Capella Speciosa thus has to be understood in the same way as the French Saintes-Chapelles. Its refined structures, like the walkway in which relics were displayed, the exquisite nature of the building materials and the quality of the architectural sculptures combined to facilitate a more spiritual form of veneration within an all-encompassing work of art. For Duke Leopold VI, the Capella Speciosa was not only a magnificent shrine in which to house his collection of relics but was also a place in which he experienced a mystical beatific vision. In the second part of this book, French works of architecture built near the royal court in Hungary are presented, in which High Gothic forms can be discerned from as early as around 1220. Is there a connection between these central European works of architecture? What historical circumstances led to them being built? What do we know about the people who commissioned the buildings and the master builders? What do the connections between the structural elements and the details reveal? And what does the mysterious figure of Villard de Honnecort and his momentous journey to Hungary have to do with all of this? Tibor Rostás explores the subject in nine chapters, taking a variety of approaches. The appendix to the book contains a summary of the results of research into red marble.

Planting Catholicism in America

The third chapter explores how Catholic seminaries formed an American priesthood equipped to engage American religious pluralism. There were three models of formation. The first was the diocesan seminary founded by Sulpicians, a French order dedicated to the education of diocesan priests, founded by Fr. Jean Jacques Olier. Bishop John Caroll brought them to Baltimore to build St. Mary’s Seminary in 1791, where they combined the scholastic study of theology with a spirituality of interiorizing the mystical states of Christ’s life, as developed by Fr. Pierre Berulle. Priests became “little Christs” of self-sacrifice and formed an “ecclesiastical spirit” that prepared them as leaders of Catholic culture. The second model was that of religious orders like the Benedictines. Fr. Bonifacio Wimmer came from Bavaria to begin St. Vincent’s seminary in Pennsylvania in 1846. He established a regimen of private devotion, study, work, and the liturgy of the hours that focused on lectio divina of the Psalms. The oral/aural engagement with Scripture accompanied a liberal arts rather than scholastic approach to sacred texts. The third kind of Catholic seminary was the modern, professional seminary pioneered by “Americanists” like Bishop John Ireland. He sought a “civic minded Catholicism” that demonstrated the legitimacy and public value of the faith. Following the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, Ireland founded a minor seminary (1885), then a major seminary which included historical-critical studies, a science lab, modern periodicals, and a professional ethos.

Performance, Object, and Private Devotion: The Illumination of Thomas Butler’s Books of Hours

This article considers the major cycles of illumination in two Books of Hours belonging to Thomas Butler, seventh Earl of Ormond (c.1424–1515). The article concludes that the iconography of the two manuscripts reflects the personal and familial piety of the patron and was designed to act as a tool in the practice of devotion.

The Cult of Old Believers’ Domestic Icons and the Beginning of Old Belief in Russia in the 17th-18th Centuries

The aim of this paper is to present the cult of icons in the Old Believer communities from the perspective of private devotion. For the Old Believers, from the beginning of the movement, in the middle of the 17th century, icons were at the center of their religious life. They were also at the center of religious conflict between Muscovite Patriarch Nikon, who initiated the reforms of the Russian Orthodox Church, and the Old Believers and their proponent, archpriest Avvakum Petrov. Some sources and documents from the 16th and 18th centuries make it possible to analyze the reasons for the popularity of small-sized icons among priested (popovtsy) and priestless (bespopovtsy) Old Believers, not only in their private houses but also in their prayer houses (molennas). The article also shows the role of domestic icons from the middle of the 17th century as a material foundation of the identity of the Old Believers movement.

Ritual Settings II

How did the church building become sacred space? This chapter examines the second model: sanctity as represented by the presence of relics or the tombs of martyrs and saints. The popularity of the refrigerium in the fourth century provides ample testimony to the attraction of the tombs of saints and martyrs to the early church. And although the official celebrations ad sanctos were terminated by the end of the century, the cult of saints continued, finding an outlet in the practice of pilgrimage and the veneration of relics. While both were accepted customs, neither was officially sanctioned by the church. They may be best understood as manifestations of popular piety or of private devotion, satisfying the spiritual needs of the individual.

What Julian Saw: The Embodied Showings and the Items for Private Devotion

The article traces potential visual sources of Julian of Norwich’s (1343–after 1416) Revelations or Showings, suggesting that many of them come from familiar everyday devotional objects such as Psalters, Books of Hours, or rosary beads. It attempts to approach Julian’s text from the perspective of neuromedievalism, combining more familiar textual analysis with some recent findings in clinical psychology and neuroscience. By doing so, the essay emphasizes the embodied nature of Julian’s visions and devotions as opposed to the more apophatic approach expected from a mystic.