Religious Plurality At Princely Courts

Early modern European monarchies legitimized their rule through dynasty and religion where ideally the divine right of the ruler corresponded with the official confession of the territory. It has thus been assumed that at princely courts only a single confession was present. However, the reality of the confessionalization paradigm commonly involved more than one faith. Religious Plurality at Princely Courts explores the reverberations of bi-confessional or multi-confessional intra-Christian settings at courts on dynastic, symbolic, diplomatic, artistic, and theological levels addressing a significant neglected understanding of interreligious dialogue, religious change, and confessional blending. Incorporating perspectives across European studies such as domestic and international politics, dynastic strategies, the history of ideas, women's and gender history, and material culture, the contributions to this volume highlight the intersections of religious plurality at court.

Early modern European monarchies legitimized their rule through dynasty and religion where ideally the divine right of the ruler corresponded with the official confession of the territory. It has thus been assumed that at princely courts only a single confession was present. However, the reality of the confessionalization paradigm commonly involved more than one faith. Religious Plurality at Princely Courts explores the reverberations of bi-confessional or multi-confessional intra-Christian settings at courts on dynastic, symbolic, diplomatic, artistic, and theological levels addressing a significant neglected understanding of interreligious dialogue, religious change, and confessional blending. Incorporating perspectives across European studies such as domestic and international politics, dynastic strategies, the history of ideas, women’s and gender history, and material culture, the contributions to this volume highlight the intersections of religious plurality at court.

France was the largest unified political entity in early-modern Europe to attempt a major, institutionalised degree of religious pluralism. For a monarchy that had its roots in catholic traditions this was, indeed, an adventure full of unexpected consequences. This volume is based on papers delivered at a colloquium at the University of Exeter in 1999 and takes as its starting-point the various edicts - culminating in the famous edict of Nantes of 1598 - that epitomised religious pluralism. Its authors explore the national, international and local dimensions of a pluralism that challenged established notions of political authority and social behaviour at every turn. At the national level, the king issued edicts which embodied the royal intent but to what extent did they carry the endorsement of the parlements, the sovereign courts whose task was to interpret the law and adapt it to circumstance? How were these edicts carried out locally in the provinces? How different was the security of France's protestant minority within the wider community after the king had granted them such controversial privileges? How does the pluralism accorded a religious minority compare with other countries? The chapters in this volume tackle these questions from new and interesting viewpoints, encourage a comparative approach and reflect the new agenda for the subject that emerged in the light of the 400th anniversary commemoration of the edict of Nantes in 1998.

This book tells the story of the Jesuit mission to Cluj, Transylvania (now Romania) from 1693, when the Jesuits were allowed to return after almost a century of restricted activity in the region, until 1773, when the order was suppressed. During these eight decades the Jesuits created a complex, multi-faceted community whose impact reached throughout Transylvania and beyond into neighbouring regions. In addition to an ongoing missionary program in this predominantly non-Catholic region, the Jesuits established a cluster of schools and a university that trained the elite, introduced Baroque architecture, music and literature, and became the masters of extensive properties. The Jesuits' schools staged dramas in several languages, their printing press produced a wide range of publications, including a Hungarian 'ABC for Girls' and a catechism in Ukrainian, and Jesuit scientists, including Miksa Hell, later Court Astronomer in Vienna, conducted experiments and observations. Among the unique features of this study are the accounts of how Jesuits sought to impose social conformity on the ethnically and religiously diverse community, the Jesuits' project to develop a 'Uniate Church' that would retain the Eastern Rite while acknowledging the authority of Rome, and the story of the long-forgotten Jesuit 'brothers', who contributed their talents as craftsmen and artists to the Jesuit enterprise. A chapter is devoted to the ill-fated 1743 mission to Moldavia, in which Transylvanian Jesuits hoped to establish a missionary and educational outpost in this Ottoman-dominated principality. Special attention is given to Jesuit interactions with the many minority groups present in Cluj: Armenians, Jews, Roma (Gypsies), and German speaking 'Saxons', as well as encounters with ethnic Romanians, who made up the majority of the population of Transylvania and among whom the Uniate Church was promoted. Cluj, a city where the cultures of Eastern and Western Europe meet, represented the furthermost penetration into Orthodox Europe of the Baroque aesthetic and of the domination of the Habsburgs, supported and glorified by the Jesuits. The successes and failures of this religious order helped shape the history of the region for the next two centuries.

For the first time, this volume brings together the history of the royal spare in the monarchy of early modern France, those younger brothers of kings known simply as ‘Monsieur’. Ranging from the Wars of Religion to the French Revolution, this comparative study examines the frustrations of four royal princes whose proximity to their older brothers gave them vast privileges and great prestige, but also placed severe limitations on their activities and aspirations. Each chapter analyses a different aspect of the lives of François, duke of Alençon, Gaston, duke of Orléans, Philippe, duke of Orléans and Louis-Stanislas, count of Provence, starting with their birth and education, their marriages and political careers, and their search for alternative expressions of power through the patronage of the arts, architecture and learning. By comparing these four lives, a powerful image emerges of a key development in the institution of modern monarchy: the transformation of the rebellious, politically ambitious prince into the loyal defender – even in disagreement – of the Crown and of the older brother who wore it. This volume is the perfect resource for all students and scholars interested in the history of France, monarchy, early modern state building and court studies.

This anthology explores religious diversity in Asia seen through the lenses of history, identity, state, ritual and geography. The chapters furthermore address theoretical and methodological reflections using Asia as a laboratory for broader comparative research of 'religious diversity'.

Breaching the Bronze Wall deals with the idea that the words of honorable Muslims constitutes proof and that written documents and the words of non-Muslims are of inferior value. Thus, foreign merchants in cities such as Istanbul, Damascus or Alexandria could barely prove any claim, as neither their contracts nor their words were of any value if countered by Muslims. Francisco Apellániz explores how both groups labored to overcome the ‘biases against non-Muslims’ in Mamlūk Egypt’s and Syria’s courts and markets (14th-15th c.) and how the Ottoman conquest (1517) imposed a new, orthodox view on the problem. The book slips into the Middle Eastern archive and the Ottoman Dīvān, and scrutinizes sharīʿa’s intricacies and their handling by consuls, dragomans, qaḍīs and other legal actors.

The clash of modernity and an Amish buggy might be the first image that comes to one’s mind when imagining Lancaster, Pennsylvania, today. But in the early to mid-eighteenth century, Lancaster stood apart as an active and religiously diverse, ethnically complex, and bustling city. On the eve of the American Revolution, Lancaster’s population had risen to nearly three thousand inhabitants; it stood as a center of commerce, industry, and trade. While the German-speaking population—Anabaptists as well as German Lutherans, Moravians, and German Calvinists—made up the majority, about one-third were English-speaking Anglicans, Catholics, Presbyterians, Quakers, Calvinists, and other Christian groups. A small group of Jewish families also lived in Lancaster, though they had no synagogue. Carefully mining historical records and documents, from tax records to church membership rolls, Mark Häberlein confirms that religion in Lancaster was neither on the decline nor rapidly changing; rather, steady and deliberate growth marked a diverse religious population.