IMC 2015: Sessions

Session 217: Late Medieval Church Reform

Monday 6 July 2015, 14.15-15.45

Moderator/Chair:	Fiona Somerset, Department of English, University of Connecticut
Paper 217-a	The Battle of the Parishes: Curial Networks Infiltrate in the Netherlands to Establish Church Reform (Language: English) Frans Gooskens, Departement Sociologie, Tilburg University Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Local History, Political Thought, Religious Life
Paper 217-b	Reforming the Church and the Community of the Realm: Links between Church Reformers and the Montfortian Movement in 13th-Century England (Language: English) Andrew Reeves, Department of History & Political Science, Middle Georgia State College Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Political Thought, Religious Life, Theology
Paper 217-c	Renewal after Reform in Medieval Transylvania (Language: English) María-Magdolna Lupescu Makó, Facultatea de Istorie şi Filosofie, Universitatea Babeş-Bolyai, Cluj-Napora Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Monasticism, Religious Life
Abstract	Paper -a At the end of the Middle Ages a curial network infiltrated in the Netherlands and the Rhineland to increase their influence in parishes. They set up alliances with local partners (monasteries, chapters, local lords, bishops) so that members of the network were appointed as parson. There they could start church reform on a local level. The targets of this cural network will be compared with the ideas of leading theologians who developed ideas for church reform. These theologians are Pierre d'Ailly, Jean Gerson, and Nicholas of Cusa. Nicholas was active member of this curial networks. Paper -b Maddicott, Carpenter, and others have shown how Simon de Montfort's movement eventually turned into a broad-based social revolution, drawing in everyone from magnates to peasants. Church reformers such as Cantilupe, Grosseteste, and Marsh influenced de Montfort and his movement, both in their desire to protect the liberties of the Church and also in their desire to protect the interests of all of the crown's subjects. These reformers' moral and political theology was formative not only in how the Montfortians understood tyranny, but also in their understanding of what we today would call social justice. Paper -c For the Church the 15th century was a period of great reforms. The whole ecclesiastical life was marked by the claim announced already at the Council of Konstanz that the Church needed a deep reform 'in capite et in membris'. The Hungarian Kingdom was not an exception to this general tendency. In the second half of the 15th century the Hunyadis (John and his son, King Matthias) sustained constantly the reforms in the ecclesiastical sphere. The reformation of the mendicant friaries started at the mid-15th century and benefited from the great support of the governor John Hunyadi. The implication of laity in the reforms and the results of the observant movement among mendicants in the eastern part of the kingdom, respectively in Transylvania, will constitute the theme of this paper.