In October 2015, the Centre d’études supérieures de la Renaissance at the University of Tours hosted an international conference dedicated to “Religious Transformation in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe.” The conference was in turn part of a larger project (under the auspices of EU COST funding) dedicated to “Communities of Interpretation: Contexts, Strategies, and Processes of Religious Transformation in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe.” This volume is a product of that scholarly collaboration. Its interventions focus on the still contested chronological space between the “late Middle Ages” and “early modernity,” and in particular on what is framed here as the “long fifteenth century.” John Van Engen and others have now sketched new interpretive possibilities for this period, but relatively few studies aim, as this one does, to transgress its traditional boundaries so explicitly. In broadly interpretive but still focused ways, these essays move across the tenacious divide of 1500, and across the lingering national and disciplinary boundaries that have so long fragmented the study of this chapter in European history.
The volume's introduction frames eleven essays that focus on the laity as key catalysts in the era's religious transformations, and on following wherever its multifaceted textual traditions might lead. Within that general approach, the essays group themselves within five thematic clusters: on the divide (and the interconnections) “between heaven and earth”; on lay literacy; on vernacular texts and censorship; on the intertwining of political and religious cultures; and on daily life in the multi-confessional settings of the sixteenth century. Considerations of space preclude any detailed summary of each of the essays, but a few general points regarding their collective merits deserve emphasis. First, their primary (if not exclusive) focus on the textual worlds of the laity provide a fresh purchase on the workings of “reform” in this era, which are still too often framed in terms of a clerical/monastic perspective. Second, their dedicated effort to genuinely rupture the divide of 1500 provides still more concrete evidence of the complexities of continuity and change across the period. Third, the essays range broadly in geography, complementing a more traditional focus on France and Italy with studies that center themselves in Poland, Bohemia, Hungary, Bosnia, and beyond.
The result is a challenging range of materials and approaches, presented from often strongly interdisciplinary perspectives. For all these reasons, this volume stands as a collection that will be not only useful as a whole, but also for its individual contributions. The concrete examples in these essays will help both newcomers and specialists see more clearly the richness and diverse possibilities of studying this contested era.
