Civic Christianity In Renaissance Italy

A compelling examination of how a religious brotherhood administered charity in its local community and acted as mediator between provincial elites and the early modern state. Civic Christianity in Renaissance Italy explores the often subtle and sometimes harsh realities of life on the Venetian mainland. Focusing on the confraternity of Santa Maria dei Battuti and its Ospedale, the book addressesa number of well-established and newly articulated historiographical questions: the governance of territorial states, the civic and religious role of confraternities, the status of women and marginalized groups, and popular religious devotion. Adapting the objectives and methods of microhistory, D'Andrea has written neither a traditional history of political subjugation nor a straightforward survey of poor relief. Instead, thematic chapters survey the activities of a powerful religious brotherhood [Santa Maria dei Battuti] and document the interconnected local, regional, and international factors that fashioned the social world of Venetian subjects. Grounded in previously unexplored archival material, the book is an innovative study of the nexus between local religion and Venetian territorial power, providing scholars with this first scholarly monograph of the city that served as the keystone of Venice's mainland empire. This original approach to the critical relationship between provincial powers and the central government also contributes to other important areas of historical inquiry, including the history of popular religion, poor relief, medicine, and education. David D'Andrea is Associate Professor of History at Oklahoma State University.

Students of the Italian Renaissance who wish to go beyond the standard names and subjects will find in this text abundant information on the lives, customs, beliefs, and practices of those who lived during this exciting time period. The World of Renaissance Italy: A Daily Life Encyclopedia engages all of the Italian peninsula from the Black Death (1347–1352) to 1600. Unlike other encyclopedic works about the Renaissance era, this book deals exclusively with Italy, revealing the ways common Italian people lived and experienced the events and technological developments that marked the Renaissance era. The coverage specifically spotlights marginal or traditionally marginalized groups, including women, homosexuals, Jews, the elderly, and foreign communities in Italian cities. The entries in this two-volume set are organized into 10 sections of 25 alphabetically listed entries each. Among the broad sections are art, fashion, family and gender, food and drink, housing and community, politics, recreation and social customs, and war. The "See Also" sources for each article are listed by section for easy reference, a feature that students and researchers will greatly appreciate. The extensive collection of contemporary documents include selections from a diary, letters, a travel journal, a merchant's inventory, Inquisition testimony, a metallurgical handbook, and text by an artist that describes what the author feels constitutes great work. Each of the primary source documents accompanies a specific article and provides an added dimension and degree of insight to the material.

An analysis of the social, political and religious role of confraternities in Renaissance Bologna, first published in 1995.

Public religious practice lay at the heart of civic society in late medieval Europe. In this illuminating study, Andrew Brown draws on the rich and previously little-researched archives of Bruges, one of medieval Europe's wealthiest and most important towns, to explore the role of religion and ceremony in urban society. The author situates the religious practices of citizens - their investment in the liturgy, commemorative services, guilds and charity - within the contexts of Bruges' highly diversified society and of the changes and crises the town experienced. Focusing on the religious processions and festivities sponsored by the municipal government, the author challenges much current thinking on, for example, the nature of 'civic religion'. Re-evaluating the ceremonial links between Bruges and its rulers, he questions whether rulers could dominate the urban landscape by religious or ceremonial means, and offers new insight into the interplay between ritual and power of relevance throughout medieval Europe.

The towns of Italy in the later Middle Ages presents over one hundred fascinating documents, carefully selected and coordinated from the richest, most innovative and most documented society of the European Middle Ages: the urban civilization of Italy. After a general introduction, the book is divided into five sections on physical environment, civic religion, economy, society and politics. Each document is individually introduced and set in its own context.

A People's Church brings together a distinguished international group of historians to provide a sweeping introduction to Christian religious life and institutions in medieval Italy. Each essay treats a single theme as broadly as possible, highlighting both the unique aspects of medieval Christianity on the Italian peninsula and the beliefs and practices it shared with other Christian societies. Because of its long tradition of communal self-governance, Christianity in medieval Italy, perhaps more than anywhere else, was truly a "people's church." At the same time, its exceptional urban wealth and literacy rates, along with its rich and varied intellectual and artistic culture, led to diverse forms of religious devotion and institutions. Contributors: Maria Pia Alberzoni on heresy; Frances Andrews on urban religion; Cécile Caby on monasticism; Giovanna Casagrande on mendicants; George Dameron on Florence; Antonella Degl'Innocenti on saints; Marina Gazzini on lay confraternities; Maureen C. Miller on bishops; Agostino Paravicini Bagliani and Pietro Silanos on the papacy and Italian politics; Antonio Rigon on clerical confraternities; Neslihan Şenocak on the pievi and care of souls; Giovanni Vitolo on Naples.

This volume brings together the latest scholarship on the beliefs, practices, and institutions of the Christian Church between 400 and 1500 AD. The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Christianity is about the beliefs, practices, and institutions of the Roman Church between 400 and 1500AD, and brings together in one volume a host of cutting-edge analysis. The book does not primarily provide a chronological narrative, but rather seeks to demonstrate the variety, change, and complexity of religion across this long period, and the numerous different ways in which modern scholarship can approach it. It presents the work of thirty academic authors, from the US, the UK, and Europe, addressing topics that range from early medieval monasticism to late medieval mysticism, from the material wealth of the Church to the spiritual exercises through which certain believers might attempt to improve their souls. Each chapter tells a story, but seeks also to ask how and why "Christianity" took on a particular shape at a particular moment, paying attention to both the spiritual and otherwordly aspects of religion, and the very material and political contexts in which they were often embedded. The book aims to be an indispensable guide to future discussion in the field--Publisher description.

The Southern Low Countries were among Europe’s core regions for the repression of sodomy during the late medieval period. As the first comprehensive study on sodomy in the Southern Low Countries, this book charts the prosecution of sodomy in some of the region’s leading cities, such as Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp, from 1400 to 1700 and explains the reasons behind local differences and variations in the intensity of prosecution over time. Through a critical examination of a range of sources, this study also considers how the urban fabric perceived sodomy and provides a broader interpretive framework for its meaning within the local culture.