After the State and the Church, the most well organized membership system of medieval and early modern Europe was the confraternity. In cities, towns, and villages it would have been difficult for someone not to be a member of a confraternity, the recipient of its charity, or aware of its presence in the community. In 'A Companion to Medieval and Early Modern Confraternities', Konrad Eisenbichler brings together an international group of scholars to examine confraternities from various perspectives: their origins and development, their devotional practices, their charitable activities, and their contributions to literature, music, and art. The result is a picture of confraternities as important venues for the acquisition of spiritual riches, material wealth, and social capital.
Author(s): Konrad Eisenbichler (ed.)
Series: Brill's Companions to the Christian Tradition, 83
Publisher: Brill
Year: 2019
Language: English
Pages: 492
City: Leiden
List of Illustrations xi
Notes on Contributors xii
1. Introduction: A World of Confraternities / Konrad Eisenbichler 1
Part 1. Birth and Development
2. Confraternities as Such, and as a Template for Guilds in the Low Countries during the Medieval and the Early Modern Period / Paul Trio 23
3. Change and Continuity: Eucharistic Confraternities in Ticino and Switzerland before and after Trent / Davide Adamoli 45
4. The Development of Confraternities in Central Europe in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period / Beata Wojciechowska 65
Part 2. Devotion and Prayer
5. The Ethics of Confraternities / Gervase Rosser 91
6. 'A Single Body': Eucharistic Piety and Confraternities of the Body of Christ in Sixteenth-Century Italy: Texts, Images, and Devotion / Danilo Zardin 109
7. Confraternities and the Inquisition: For and Against / Christopher F. Black 133
Part 3. Good Works
8. Guides for a Good Life: The Sermons of Albertano da Brescia and other Instructions for Citizens and Believers in Italian Medieval Confraternities / Marina Gazzini 157
9. Cities of God or Structures of Superstition: Medieval Confraternities and Charitable Hospitals in the Early Modern World / David D’Andrea 176
10. Confraternities in Late Medieval Ireland: The Evolution of Chantry Colleges / Colm Lennon 194
11. Confraternities and Capital Punishment: Charity, Culture, and Civic Religion in the Communal and Confessional Age / Nicholas Terpstra 212
Part 4. Confraternities in a Transcultural World
12. National Confraternities in Rome and Italy in the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Period: Identity, Representation, Charity / Anna Esposito 235
13. At the Crossroads of Cultures: The Orthodox Confraternities of Central and Eastern Europe from the 16th to the 18th Century / Dominika Burdzy 257
14. Confraternities in Colonial New Spain: Mexico and Central America / Murdo J. MacLeod 280
15. The Generative Space of Jewish Confraternities in Medieval and Early Modern Europe / Federica Francesconi 307
Part 5. Arts and Letters
16. Singing Praises to God: Confraternities and Music / Jonathan Glixon 329
17. 'Serio Ludere': Confraternities and Drama in Central Italy, 1400–1600 / Nerida Newbigin 345
18. Faith on Stage: The Chambers of Rhetoric and Civic Religion in the Low Countries, 1400–1700 / Anne-Laure Van Bruaene 365
19. Confraternities and Poetry: The Francophone Puys / Dylan Reid 385
20. Iconography, Spectacle, and Notions of Corporate Identity: The Form and Function of Art in Early Modern Confraternities / Alyssa Abraham 406
21. Art as Confraternal Documentation: Homeless Children and the Florentine Misericordia in the Trecento / William R. Levin 433
Index 459
