New Projects

Ostritz, St Marienthal Abbey, aerial view (2019), CC BY-SA 4.0 Wolkenkratzer (Commons Wikimedia)

Saxonia Cisterciensis: Netzwerke und Verflechtungen sächsischer Zisterzen (12. bis 16. Jahrhundert) [Networks and Interconnections of Cistercian Monasteries in Saxony (12th–16th Centuries)]

Last year, the holdings of the library and archive of St Marienthal Abbey were successfully secured for the Free State of Saxony and thus for the general public. They are not only outstanding testimonies to Cistercian history, but also exemplify the once rich monastic culture of Saxony. Of course, they can only be brought to life through scientific research. Against this backdrop, the Saxonia Cisterciensis project aims to make Saxony's monastic culture, which has hardly been analysed to date, accessible in an exemplary manner. The aim is to record and analyse the network of Cistercian monasteries in Saxony.
The archival and library records of St Marienthal Abbey are certainly unique in terms of their contents and history. The aim is to use them as a starting point to shed light on the spiritual, but also political and social connections that have significantly shaped the history of Saxony over the centuries. In this way, Saxony's once rich monastic culture can be identified, analysed and brought to the attention of a wider public as an essential and identity-forming element of this cultural area. In this way, the project also contributes decisively to the preservation and development of the cultural heritage of the Free State of Saxony. The research is being carried out in close cooperation with the Manuscript Centre at Leipzig University Library and the Saxon State and University Library (SLUB) in Dresden. This type of project cooperation between a university research centre (FOVOG) and library-based research projects in a joint project is innovative and makes it possible to evaluate the relevant sources appropriately.
From a broad perspective, such an analysis promises new insights into the monastic culture of Saxony. The expected project results will not only significantly expand our knowledge of this hitherto little-noted but central part of Saxon history, but will also provide a new foundation. In addition to the academic results in the fields of history, book research, collection history and the history of writing, the project will be of interest to the Saxon public and far beyond in its progress and results.

© P. Gruhl

New doctoral project: "Indigene Kinder als Träger der Evangelisierung – Das franziskanische Erziehungsprojekt im kolonialen Mexiko am Beispiel der Halbinsel Yucatán" [Indigenous Children as Agents of Evangelization - The Franciscan Educational Project in Colonial Mexico Using the Example of the Yucatán Peninsula]

In the middle of the 16th century, the Franciscans arrived on the Yucatán peninsula, a region of the indigenous Maya, as part of the expanding colonization of Mexico. The aim of the friars was to spread the Christian faith among the indigenous population and thus turn away from the indigenous faith.
However, the religious soon realized that such a deeply rooted faith among the indigenous people could not simply be replaced by Christianity in mass baptisms. The Franciscans realized that in order to permanently adopt Christianity and European values, the indigenous people had to be integrated into the European-Christian cultural system, which at the same time meant replacing the pre-Hispanic memory (memoria) with a European-Christian memory. To achieve this, the indigenous population had to be "educated" to a certain extent by the religious – the foundation stone for the Franciscan education system in colonial Mexico.
The Franciscan religious concentrated on the education of indigenous children because they were still considered free from paganism and idolatry. They were also expected to pass on Christianity to their parents' generation. Education was differentiated according to class and gender. For example, the sons of the normal population were taught the basics of Christianity in the churchyards of the monasteries (patios), while the sons of the nobility received a higher education in the monastery schools.
For the Maya on the Yucatán peninsula, it was specific that they already had their own writing system (hieroglyphic writing) and thus possessed reading and writing skills – a basic prerequisite for evangelization in Mexico.
Within this cross-epochal and cross-cultural doctoral project, in addition to the European view of the Franciscan educational project, the indigenous view of the events is also to be filtered out in the study of sources, insofar as this is possible. Reports by chroniclers, letters to the Spanish and religious authorities and administrative documents are available for the study of sources. From an indigenous perspective, there are documented cases in which the indigenous people turned to the authorities. There were also indigenous chroniclers.
As a further and fundamental aspect, it is important to take a look at the conditions of the Franciscans in medieval Europe and how they viewed education in general and the Christian education of the population. In accordance with current research in this field, the education of the religious will also be examined and a comparison drawn with the situation on the Yucatán peninsula.

Oldest library catalogue of the Cistercian Abbey of Santes Creus, saec. XII4/4
Tarragona, Biblioteca pública, Ms. 139, fol. 137va/vb

‘Carolingian Reform’ and Transformation: Religious Networks, Congregations, and Orders as Cultural Brokers in the Post-Visigothic World

Prof. Dr. Matthias M. Tischler MAE (ICREA/UAB, Barcelona/Bellaterra)
 
Southern Gaul (‘Septimania’) and the north-eastern corner of the Iberian Peninsula (‘Catalonia’) occupied a special religious and cultural position in the Frankish empire as the north-eastern periphery of the former Visigothic kingdom. Soon coming under the political and ecclesiastical control of the Carolingians, local and foreign churchmen of the recreated ecclesiastical province of Narbonne – which now also extended to dioceses south of the Pyrenees – not only fought against emerging Christological views of the Hispanic church (‘Adoptionism’), but also reformed the ecclesiastical and social life of the region in the course of the so-called ‘Carolingian Reform’. Intensive research carried out in recent years on the surviving and attested manuscripts of these reform efforts has not only revealed the astonishing extent, but also the profound and long-term impact of this reform, which lasted far beyond the end of the Carolingian empire into the central Middle Ages. This finding raises new questions about the role and significance of the results of the ‘Carolingian Reform’ before and after the second, the so-called ‘Gregorian Reform’.
 
The same “middle ground” between the post-Carolingian Frankish empire and the post-Visigothic Iberian world was also the playing field of several new monastic and clerical-canonical networks and congregations from the tenth century onwards, before the international reform orders penetrated and further transformed the area between southern France and northern Spain from the twelfth century onwards. In the first phase of my research programme ‘The Social Intelligence of the Monks (SIM): The Transformation of Monastic Networks and Collective Memory in the Post-Visigothic World’, I will explore the extent to which the transfer of this rich, but widely-unknown Carolingian text and manuscript heritage contributed significantly to the (trans-)formation of the spiritual identity and institutional self-conception of these various religious networks, congregations, and orders between southern France, northern Spain, and Portugal, and in this way to the (trans-)formation of ecclesiastical and social life in south-western Europe.

 

Associated Scientists

In 2024, three internationally renowned researchers in the field of vita religiosa were appointed as associated scientists of FOVOG. They are the art historian Dr. Vera Henkelmann (Erfurt), the historian and specialist in medieval Latin philology Prof. Dr. Matthias M. Tischler MAE (ICREA/UAB, Barcelona/Bellaterra), and the historian Prof. Dr. Marko Jerković (Zagreb).
At this point, we would like to present two of them and their projects

Matthias M. Tischler (Barcelona)

Prof. Dr. Matthias M. Tischler studied Medieval and Modern History, Ancillary Sciences, Ancient and Medieval Latin and Romance Studies at the Universities of Heidelberg and Munich from 1989–1995 and received his doctorate in Heidelberg in 1998. Tischler also studied Islam at the Faculty of Philosophy and Theology in Sankt Georgen, Frankfurt am Main from 2003–2008 and habilitated in Dresden in 2008. In the academic year 2014/15, Tischler was Visiting Director of Studies at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris, in spring 2016 he was a Visiting Scholar at the Medieval Institute of Notre Dame University, USA, and in spring 2019 he was a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, USA. In January 2020, he was a Senior Fellow at the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel, Germany. Tischler has also been an ICREA Senior Research Professor in Barcelona since 2017 and a member of the Academia Europaea (membership number 5397) since 1 September 2020.
Matthias Tischler has published widely on the transcultural history of Jews, Christians and Muslims and their identity formation in the Euro-Mediterranean Middle Ages, focussing on the transfer of knowledge, religious discussions and the function and use of religious texts in the historiography and polemical and apologetic literary production of Latin Christians. All his work is based on the in-depth codicological and palaeographical study of manuscripts and contributes to the creation of a transcultural palaeography of the Middle Ages. From 2015 to 2019, together with Walter Pohl, he led the FWF project ‘Bible and Historiography in Transcultural Iberian Societies, 8th to 12th Centuries’ at the Institute for Medieval Studies of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna. From 2016 to 2019, he led the project ‘From the Carolingian Periphery to the European Central Region: The Written Genesis of Catalonia’ at the Institute of Medieval Studies of the Autonomous University of Barcelona as part of the HERA project ‘After Empire: Using and Not Using the Past in the Crisis of the Carolingian World, c. 900-c.1050 (UNUP)’. Since 2020, he has been leading the bilateral project ‘Carolingian Culture in Septimania and Catalonia: The Transformation of a Multi-Ethnic Middle Ground of the Euro-Mediterranean World’ together with Walter Pohl.

 

Winter Term 2024/25

FOVOG Colloquium on the Comparative History of Religious Orders

16.10.2024
Johannes Luther (Zürich), Feci mihi cantores et cantrices. Geistliche Deutungen von weiblichem Gesang im 13. Jahrhundert
30.10.2024
Clara Renedo (Barcelona), Tracing the Pathways of Latin Hagiography in Catalonia: The Barcelona Cathedral as a Case Study
13.11.2024
Gitta Windt (Göttingen), Eingehegter Eigensinn. Einsiedlerinnen im Hochmittelalter
27.11.2024
Sabine Miesgang (Wien), De monialibus nostris pænes canoniam ad Sanctam Magdalenam – Forschungen zu Stift Klosterneuburg als Doppelkloster
08.01.2025
Christian Schmidt (Leipzig), Klostergründung mit Reliquienraub. Das Braunschweiger Aegidienkloster und die Bertold Meyer zugeschriebene Auctor-Chronik (um 1460/65)
22.01.2025
Vera Henkelmann (Erfurt), Von Wundern und Realien – Leuchter und ihr Licht im Dialogus Miraculorum des Caesarius von Heisterbach
05.02.2025
Jan Lemmer (Köln), Lieber Electus als Consecratus? Die Erzkanzler und ihre Bischofserhebungen im 12. Jahrhundert (1106–1165)

A digital participation is possible, please register via e-mail.

 

Courses

 

Conference Reports

© J. Mixson

The Divine Between Heaven & Earth. Access, Use, & Embodiment of the Transcendent in Premodern European Culture (Tuscaloosa, 2 to 5 October 2024)

An international conference entitled “The Divine between Heaven and Earth. Access, Use, and Embodiment of the Transcendent in Premodern European Culture” took place from October 2–5, 2024, at Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The conference was hosted by The University of Alabama in partnership with the project “Klöster im Hochmittelalter: Innovationslabore europäischer Lebensentwürfe und Ordnungsmodelle” funded by the Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities and located at the Research Center for Comparative History of Religious Orders (FOVOG) at TUD Dresden University of Technology. The conference papers will be published in the internationally renowned publication series Vita regularis in 2025.
The conference sought to explore the paradox of a transcendent God who was made flesh, a God who was beyond creation and yet ever present in the Eucharist and other sacraments through the lens of three specific perspectives: Through the perspective of “Access,” it explored how women and men in the premodern era sought to approach and to encounter transcendent power, or sought to prevent others from doing so. Through the perspective of “Use,” it explored how they sought to control, to deploy, or otherwise manipulate transcendent power in the pursuit of what were often all-too worldly interests of power, politics, family, and money. Through the perspective of “Embodiment,” it explored how the transcendent, paradoxically, took root in this world, in sacred objects, spaces, and so on, and yet also pointed to the world beyond.

A detailed conference report will follow and be published on H-Soz-Kult.

Körper und Geistlichkeit im Mittelalter: Zwischen Konvention und Unkonventionalität? [Body and Clerical Order in the Middle Ages: Between Convention and Unconventionality?] (Cologne, 25 to 27 September 2024)

An international and interdisciplinary workshop entitled "Körper und Geistlichkeit im Mittelalter: Zwischen Konvention und Unkonventionalität?" ["Body and Clerical Order in the Middle Ages: Between Convention and Unconventionality?"] took place at the University of Cologne from 25 to 27 September 2024. It was organized in cooperation between the DFG Research Training Group 2212 "Dynamics of Conventionality (400-1550)", which is based at the University of Cologne, and the working group "Body and Clerical Order in the Middle Ages. Virtue, Power and Representation". This working group was founded in December 2023 by Daniela Bianca Hoffmann (FOVOG-Dresden), Jan Lemmer (University of Cologne) and Matthias Weber (Ruhr-Universität-Bochum); it was the first workshop of the working group, which will be followed by others.
At the workshop, the relationship between body and clerical order was examined with a particular focus on convention and conventionality. In four sections, firstly imagined and interpreted bodies, secondly suffering and disciplined bodies, thirdly the body as a medium of episcopal self-presentation and finally the body conventions of various social groups were examined. Both the body of members of the clerical order and the view of the body by members of the clerical order were addressed.
The fourteen lectures came from the fields of history (Middle Ages and early modern period), philosophy, theology and art history. They were devoted to a variety of topics such as the depiction of “heretical” bodily practices by the clergy, the gender-specific description of bodies in the vitae of saints, the handling of relics in political rituals, the body in medieval religiosity, the evaluation of bishops' eating habits and the assessment of the female body in the context of secular rituals. The concluding contribution by Brendan Röder opened up numerous perspectives for a comparison between the Middle Ages and the early modern period.
FOVOG members and an associated scholar were also present at the workshop: Marko Jerković (Zagreb) spoke on the topic of “Disciplining the Body in the Order of Preachers”, Marcus Handke (FOVOG-Dresden) on the topic of „Grundpraktiken der Frömmigkeit. Der „äußere Mensch“ als Modell multifunktionaler Repräsentation und Kommunikation bei David von Augsburg († 1272)“ (“Basic Practices of Piety. The “outer man” as a model of multifunctional representation and communication in David of Augsburg († 1272)”) and Nathalie Schmidt and Mirko Breitenstein (FOVOG-Dresden) on the topic of „Konventionen der Versehrtheit. Die Antoniter und ihre Kranken“ (”The convention of infirmity. The Antonites and their sick”).

A detailed conference report will follow and be published on H-Soz-Kult.

Two Workshops on Church and Religious Culture in Zagreb in May 2024

In May 2024, two workshops on Church and Religious Culture were held in Zagreb with the participation of Marko Jerković, associated scientist of FOVOG Dresden.
On May 18, a workshop dedicated to the Chapter of Zagreb was organised at the Croatian Catholic University, Zagreb. The workshop focused on the historiographical texts of the 18th century cathedral canon Toma Kovačević, in which he described the history of local monasteries and the experiments with various forms of religious life in the cathedral community. At this workshop, Marko Jerković presented the lecture on identity transformations of the community of cathedral canons of Zagreb and their establishment into the community of secular canons instead of the community of regular canons.
Another workshop took place on May 28 at the Croatian Institute of History in Zagreb. This workshop aimed to discuss the various strategies of implementing Franciscan observance in late medieval Europe (with special emphasis on the activities of John of Capistrano) and to ascertain the directions of future research concerning the Central European observant movements. Here, Marko Jerković delivered a lecture about the current trends in research of late medieval observant movements.
 

Authority and Discipline in Religious Communities (Zagreb, 16 to 17 May 2024)

On May 16-17 2024, the conference "Authority and Discipline in Religious Communities" took place at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Croatian Studies. The conference was part of the project "Religious Entrepreneurs: Cultural Imprints of Religious Communities in Croatia and Europe" (2020–2026), headed by Marko Jerković, associated scientist of FOVOG Dresden, who also organized the conference. It represents the ongoing research of religious culture at the Faculty of Croatian Studies, and was organized with the following project partners: University of Pécs, Hungary, and University of Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The conference, which included 14 presentations, was divided into five sessions: 1) Concepts and Structures I: Durability; 2) Concepts and Structures II: Church – Monastery – Organisation; 3) Concepts and Structures III: Self-discipline; 4) Application and Function I: Centres and Sub-centres; 5) Application and Function II: Micro level. The aim of the conference was to analyze various forms of disciplinary authority, the background of such authority, the goals of discipline in the cloistered environment, the manifestations of discipline in local monasteries as well as the conceptions of discipline on general level of the entire orders and the influence of Church on the structures of religious discipline. The presentations encompassed both the medieval and early modern period. It should be also emphasized that various scholarly disciplines were included: historiography, philology, theology, and theory of literature.
The conference presentations will be published in a form of an edited volume. It will be the second volume published within the project. The first one, entitled "Biography, hagiography, charisma. The functionalization of text in Croatian and European religious communities", was published in 2021.

 

Visiting Scholars

 

Publications

At this point, we would like to showcase the latest articles published by FOVOG staff.

Gert Melville

Desire and Perseverance. Observations on the Anthropology of Monks and Nuns in the Middle Ages, in: Images of Desire in the Mediterranean World, ed by Agostino Paravicini Bagliani / Pietro Silanos, Firenze 2024, pp. 87-106.

Il superamento di norme canoniche. Le origini dell’Ordo Praedicatorum e il IV concilio Lateranense; in: Memorie Domenicane, N. S. 53-54 (2022-2023), pp. 35-48. [published 2024].

 

Miscellaneous

 

Upcoming Events

Workshop "The Paradox of Monastic Bishops. A Comparison between the Eastern and Western Churches in the Middle Ages" (Dresden, 31 March to 2 April 2025)

Workshop as part of the DFG project "Heilige Mönchsbischöfe. Zu Diskursen über die Vereinbarung von Mönchtum und Bischofsamt in Heiligenviten des 11.–13. Jahrhunderts" [Holy Monk-Bishops. Discourses on the Compatibility of Monasticism and Episcopacy in Hagiographic Vitae (11th–13th Centuries)] (Principal Investigator: Daniela Bianca Hoffmann)
 
Monks had already been elevated to bishops since the 4th century; nevertheless, monk-bishops were judged controversially in medieval Latin Europe. On the one hand, they were idealised (such as St. Martin of Tours), but on the other hand they were also repeatedly criticised, as monasticism and the office of bishop were often seen as incompatible. Why should a monk who had dedicated his life to obedience, poverty and seclusion in the monastery return to the world to become a rich and powerful bishop? Was he not breaking his vows? How was it possible to reconcile these two very different ways of life and legitimise his becoming a bishop?
These questions arose all the more as the sources relevant to Latin canon law had stipulated since late antiquity that a monk-bishop should continue to live a monastic life. The monks, their monastic communities and later the religious orders were thus faced with the task of finding suitable models for reconciling the two ways of life that did justice to their original vows. The often sceptical attitude in the Latin West stands in an interesting contrast to the Eastern churches, in which the monastic bishop developed into the predominant ideal during the Middle Ages, so that it can be assumed that it was the non-monastic bishops who came under pressure to justify themselves.
This and other differences between East and West and their causes have hardly been investigated by research to date, which is the starting point for the planned workshop. The comparison between different Eastern churches and these in turn with the Latin West has not yet been undertaken, nor has an investigation of mutual disputes and exchange processes with regard to monk-bishops. The workshop would like to offer initial approaches to closing this research gap and encourage further studies on the topic.

 

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