Christians oriented their lives towards the expectation of a life in the hereafter and yet had to orient themselves in this world. This resulted in very different attitudes. While some were fundamentally anti-family or, rather, against sex in general, others thought about what it meant to have a Christian marriage. While some wanted to participate in the pleasures of everyday life, others rejected this. All tried to live a humble life and do good works, especially towards the poor, orphans and widows. Penance was an institution that allowed Christians to be absolved of their sins, but it also allowed bishops to gain power, albeit in varying degrees Therefore, the question of a Christian way of life was always controversial.

Charalambos Gasparis assesses the implications of the dissolution of the Orthodox ecclesiastical hierarchy in Venetian Crete and the influence this had on the imagery of Hell. He offers an overview of the continuities and novelties in the political, administrative, economical and ecclesiastical realm that shaped a society that produced numerous images of Hell. The study of the Cretan images of Hell has become essential for our understanding of social norms as well as the enforcement of Venetian penal law and the survival of Byzantine law on the island. By providing a detailed analysis of the organisation of the local Orthodox Church as well as a comparative analysis of offences, presented in both pictorial and textual form, as found in hitherto unpublished documents from the Venetian archives, where the social, economic and religious profile of the donors is also reflected, Gasparis correlates iconography to its social background and demonstrates how images can mirror aspects of the society that depicted Hell in their churches.

Charalambos Gasparis assesses the implications of the dissolution of the Orthodox ecclesiastical hierarchy in Venetian Crete and the influence this had on the imagery of Hell. He offers an overview of the continuities and novelties in the political, administrative, economical and ecclesiastical realm that shaped a society that produced numerous images of Hell. The study of the Cretan images of Hell has become essential for our understanding of social norms as well as the enforcement of Venetian penal law and the survival of Byzantine law on the island. By providing a detailed analysis of the organisation of the local Orthodox Church as well as a comparative analysis of offences, presented in both pictorial and textual form, as found in hitherto unpublished documents from the Venetian archives, where the social, economic and religious profile of the donors is also reflected, Gasparis correlates iconography to its social background and demonstrates how images can mirror aspects of the society that depicted Hell in their churches.

Chapter 2 analyzes how congregations charged men and women with different sins, defined sins in gendered terms, and created distinctive expectations for male and female confessions. By gendering sins, laymen created a different Puritanism for men than for women. First-generation ministers preached communal obligation and individual piety. As discipline increased through the second and third generations, the focus of sermons changed, emphasizing individual piety for women and communal responsibility for men, which contributed to the formation of different religious identities. By the third generation, women outnumbered men 3 to 2 in the feminized setting of the church, which more frequently focused on an individual’s relationship with God. The Puritan focus on female piety put more of an emphasis on individual spirituality for women, while contributing to the development of a male religiosity that focused on public and civic affairs. While women stayed in the pews and developed a “religious self,” men went out into the secular arena and expressed their religiosity through their sense of duty to their communities, their families, their businesses, and their country.