Band 12, Heft 2

The problem of whether Dominican nuns adopted the order’s official liturgy, implemented in 1256, remains a complex topic. The rarity of liturgical sources containing instructions for the performance of religious ceremonies in female communities hinders the study of this subject. This is complicated by the fact that a substantial number of these texts were redacted in the masculine form, thus not reflecting the reality of the nuns’ performance. Analysis of a codex from the Dominican convent of Jesus of Aveiro (1491), containing gendered vernacular versions of the ordines for the nuns’ reception and profession ceremonies, can contribute to further clarification of this issue. Through comparison with surviving ordines from other territories (Spain and Italy), this study shows how, in the particular case of these ceremonies, female communities adapted and deviated from the friars’ liturgy in order to mirror and respond to their own identities and realities, which, as will be shown, varied from convent to convent and revealed different degrees of autonomy and enclosure.

This paper demonstrates the effectiveness and importance of taking a longue durée approach to expressions of Observant Franciscan identity communicated through material and visual culture, paying attention to continuities from medieval monastic architecture and memory arts in early modernity. From the sixteenth century onward several religious orders with medieval roots possessed institutionalized “Observant” branches. Early modernists rarely pay sustained attention to these orders, focusing instead on the Jesuit order, which is considered archetypal and representative for this period. Yet, Observant Franciscans likewise attained a global presence and had considerable societal impact. My analysis of how a community of Observant Franciscan religious gradually achieved a centrally located convent in the city of Brescia, as well as of how they visually commemorated their trajectory of architectural consolidation, demonstrates the relevance of studying visual and architectural sources for the long history of Observant movements in the European context. Each of the three sections of my paper proposes a different methodological approach for doing so.

The article intends to shed light on the manifold reception of medieval and early modern prophetic literature by Guillaume Postel in his attack of the Roman Papacy as the embodiment of an “Antichristic” force within the context of his eschatological vision of the supposedly imminent restitutio omnium . In particular, the Roman pontiff is seen by Postel as the opposer of at least three major forces that would bring about the final age of restitution: the council, the French king, and the pastor angelicus . Within this framework, the article aims at highlighting the previous French prophetic tradition that attributed to the French monarch notable responsibilities in the ecclesiastical affairs and presented him as the future universal ruler. On the other hand, the article shows the relation of Postel’s original understanding of the “angelic Papacy” (identified with Madre Zuana , a Venetian Virgin and the second manifestation of Christ within a female body) with the late medieval prophetic tradition revolved around the expectation of a saintly Pope reformer of the Church and the early modern Italian tradition of the so-called “living saints” ( sante vive ).

This article examines Desiderius Erasmus’ (ca. 1466–1536) translation of 1Cor 14:34–35, with a particular focus on his rendering of the Greek verb σιγάτωσαν in verse 34. Erasmus translated this verb as sileant rather than taceant , thereby diverging from the Vetus Latina and the Vulgate as well as from his own general preference for concordance. Nowhere else in his Novum Testamentum did Erasmus translate σιγᾶν as silere . Instead, he consistently used tacere or its derivative conticere , including in 1Cor 14:28 and 14:30, where he translated σιγάτω as taceat . These verses, however, belonged to the same context as 1Cor 14:34 and in all three of them σιγᾶν was conjugated in the same mood (imperative), tense (present) and voice (active). Given this coherence, the question arises as to why Erasmus uniquely rendered the Greek verb in verse 34 as silere , particularly since this choice influenced the interpretation of the verse. Through Paul, Erasmus now asked the women of Corinth for a different form of silence ( sileant ) than the one he demanded of the glossolalists in verse 28 ( taceant ) and the prophets in verse 30 ( taceant ). Through a contextual analysis of tacere and silere in Erasmus’ Novum Testamentum and a close reading of his Paraphrases , this article argues that Erasmus’ choice of silere in 1Cor 14:34 was both intentional and significant. It was intentional because Erasmus did not use silere and tacere synonymously but rather to convey distinct forms of silence. It was significant because this choice advanced a particular reading of the command to be silent – one that excluded women from participation in public life.

This article seeks to present post-Reformation priestly missions in England as a practice rooted in a maritime structure of seaports, sea routes, and mariners. While historiography has traced the networks that brought priests to England in the second half of the sixteenth century, it has not focused exclusively on their maritime dimension. As a result, the role of sea conveyors in assisting travelling priests has been largely overlooked, leaving an incomplete picture. By examining landing sites, methods of conveyance, and the mariners involved, this article aims to address that gap. It also offers additional analysis to support the conclusions of scholars such as John Bossy, Alan Dures, and Michael Williams.

This article examines the role of emotions in confessions during witchcraft trials in Old and New England between approximately 1560 and 1692. Drawing on the reading and analysis of primary sources – including demonological treatises, pamphlets, and court records – it argues that religious and judicial authorities expected the confessions of those accused of witchcraft to unfold within an emotional framework centred on guilt, repentance, shame, and fear of God. This expectation, which remained consistent throughout the period on both sides of the English Atlantic, was not only linked to the need for the accused to acknowledge the reality of the crime, but also aimed at their rehabilitation before both the divinity they had offended and the community they had harmed. Yet the documents reveal not only what members of the judicial bureaucracy and the theological establishment sought from the accused, but also the forms of resistance and challenge that defendants posed to these emotional demands.

The concept of piety occupies a central, if hidden or obscure place in Blaise Pascal’s theological anthropology. As a product of the Fall, the human self is “hateful” and perpetually incapable of fulfilling any sense of duty or purity before God. As the means by which the human self is “annihilated,” piety entails endurance and an embrace of uncertainty. At the same time, however, piety does not exclusively involve self-annihilating acts. There are also different states of piety – what Pascal refers to as the “beginning,” “progress” and “consummation” of piety – that are increasingly “filled” and directed toward a final, heavenly state. There is thus a way in which pious acts and states work in tandem and toward the same end. As I seek to show, piety, for Pascal, is fundamentally a childlike phenomenon – an act and state simultaneously whereby a person, rather than presenting him- or herself before God, is brought into God’s presence.

Embellished textiles were popular covers for early-to-mid seventeenth-century English books, with wool-stitched canvases or silk embroideries fitted to sewn and boarded volumes. These small books, primarily texts used for worship or devotional study – like the Bible and psalm books – became components of Protestant appearance as they were carried or depicted in portraiture. Scholarship on these items, in book history and in studies of English needlework of this period, has noted how they could function as fashion accessories, pronouncing piety as they ornamented the body. This article critically considers how fashion was manifest in the context of Protestant worship in this period. It argues that the trend for religious books with embroidered covers shows a usage of materials and motifs in similar ways to fashionable clothing, but with an understanding of their theological and devotional usefulness in signifying contemporary time.

Stavanger Museum (Norway) preserves an embroidered artefact dating from ca. 1680–1700, known as the Utstein antependium. Depicting six scenes of a woman zealously preparing for the afterlife under divine observation before receiving the Crown of Life, the antependium has puzzled the few scholars who have studied it, as its iconography appears “too Catholic” in post-Reformation Norway. In this article, we argue that the embroidered images and accompanying texts emphasize how a life lived faithfully and charitably on earth would secure one’s place in heaven is also applicable to a Lutheran context. Comparing the antependium’s iconography with previously overlooked votive paintings from the same period, we aim to demonstrate how the maker(s) ingeniously combined image, text, and theological concepts into an unprecedented iconography in textile form in early modern Norway, showing how “she” would receive “the Crown of Life” at the end of time thanks to her spiritually advanced disposition.

Résumé Les ordres religieux ont souvent dépensé des sommes considérables pour rehausser leurs cérémonies par des textiles liturgiques éblouissants. L’ordre des Carmes n’a pas fait exception. Dans les premières décennies du XVII e siècle, afin de compléter l’ornementation de leurs nouvelles églises conventuelles à Anvers et à Namur, ils ont commandité de somptueux ornements dont la décoration n’a pas été choisie au hasard. À Anvers, ils utilisent ce support pour mettre à l’honneur les figures les plus sacrées de leur ordre dans un contexte de controverse virulente, et pour affirmer leurs thèses face à leurs détracteurs. À Namur, loin des polémiques, ils consacrent deux superbes ensembles à leurs dévotions habituelles – en particulier à la Vierge – sur lesquels s’épanouissent rinceaux et motifs floraux, reflets de la mode contemporaine et particulièrement appréciés de ces contemplatifs.