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IMC 2009: Sessions

Session 1320: Power, Piety, and Politics: Reproaches of Heresy as Political Measure

Wednesday 15 July 2009, 16.30-18.00

Sponsor:Historisches Institut, Ruhr-Universität Bochum
Organiser:Miriam Czock, Lehrstuhl für Mittelalterliche Geschichte, Heinrich-Heine Universität Düsseldorf
Moderator/Chair:Albrecht Diem, Department of History, Syracuse University, New York
Paper 1320-aPeter Clergue, Priest of Montaillou: A Smart Dealer of Orthodoxy in Times of Inquisitorial Persecution?
(Language: English)
Alexander Berner, Bochum International Consortium for Research in the Humanities, Ruhr-Universität Bochum
Index terms: Lay Piety, Mentalities
Paper 1320-bHeresy in the Cantigas de Santa Maria
(Language: English)
Ditte Gurack, Bochum International Consortium for Research in the Humanities, Ruhr-Universität Bochum
Index terms: Hagiography, Religious Life
Paper 1320-cAuthority, Legitimacy, and Preaching: Wandering Preachers and Heresy
(Language: English)
Miriam Czock, Lehrstuhl für Mittelalterliche Geschichte, Heinrich-Heine Universität Düsseldorf
Index terms: Lay Piety, Religious Life
Abstract

Discourse about heresy is frequently judged to be of a predominantly religious nature. But accusations and likewise literary models of heresy although religious in nature carry deeper social and political implications, as heresy was often perceived to be a threat to the order of society. Since one individual's religion was not only a private matter but of social relevance and even a defined part of a person's status, the proposed session takes a closer look at why, how, and by whom someone was, or a group of people were, shaped as heretics. Thus the papers will try to uncover the motives that underlie the accusations of heresy. As religious relations in the middle ages are intertwined in power structures we are especially concerned with the way heresy as a concept was interpreted through the lens of and subjected to political gains.