IMC 2016: Sessions

Session 1617: Religious Communities and Dissenting Identities

Thursday 7 July 2016, 11.15-12.45

Sponsor:	Institut de Recerca en Cultures Medievals (IRCUM), Universitat de Barcelona
Organiser:	Delfi-Isabel Nieto-Isabel, Departament d'Història Medieval, Paleografia i Diplomàtica, Universitat de Barcelona
Moderator/Chair:	David Zbíral, Department for the Study of Religions, Masarykova univerzita, Brno
Paper 1617-a	What Gui's Practica Can Tell Us about the Place of Dissidents in the Languedoc in the Early 14th Century (Language: English) Derek Hill, Department of History, Classics & Archaeology, Birkbeck, University of London Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Lay Piety, Mentalities, Religious Life
Paper 1617-b	Networks of Dissent: Social Network Analysis of Nonconformist Religious Communities in Languedoc in the 13th and 14th Centuries (Language: English) Delfi-Isabel Nieto-Isabel, Departament d'Història Medieval, Paleografia i Diplomàtica, Universitat de Barcelona Index terms: Computing in Medieval Studies, Lay Piety, Mentalities, Religious Life
Paper 1617-c	Time and Utopia: The Construction of the Collective Narrative of the Beguine Movement of Languedoc (Language: English) Carlos López-Arenillas, Institut de Recerca en Cultures Medievals, Universitat de Barcelona Index terms: Anthropology, Mentalities, Philosophy, Religious Life
Abstract	14-century Languedoc provides the ideal showcase for the study of religious communities, and in particular, for the analysis of the behavioural patterns, social links, and future expectations of religious dissenters. This session aims to explore the possibilities of reconstructing the reality of those communities through the application of different methods to the interpretation of inquisitorial sources. Inquisitorial records and Bernard Gui's 'Practica Inquisitionis heretice pravitatis', among others, will be presented by means of a threefold approach that combines the historical analysis of texts with the methods of social network analysis, and the perspectives of political philosophy, and sociology. Was the apparent structure of these groups the result of a theoretical construct created by inquisitors and perpetuated by scholarly tradition, or were they actual organized communities? Their ideals of community and the ways in which they created their collective narratives will be also examined in order to try and shed some new light on the context of late medieval spirituality.