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IMC 2018: Sessions

Session 541: Memory and Inquisitio, I: Miracles, Healings, and Malefactors

Tuesday 3 July 2018, 09.00-10.30

Sponsor:Department for the Study of Religions, Masarykova univerzita, Brno
Organiser:David Zbíral, Department for the Study of Religions, Masarykova univerzita, Brno
Moderator/Chair:Sari Katajala-Peltomaa, School of Social Sciences & Humanities, University of Tampere
Paper 541-aInquisition, Memory, and Miracle in the 15th Century: Examples from the Canonizations of Bernardino of Siena and Vincent Ferrer
(Language: English)
Laura Ackerman Smoller, Department of History, University of Rochester, New York
Index terms: Archives and Sources, Hagiography, Lay Piety, Religious Life
Paper 541-bMemories of Healing and Healers in Late Medieval Italian Canonization and Inquisition Protocols
(Language: English)
Jenni Kuuliala, School of Social Sciences & Humanities, University of Tampere
Index terms: Hagiography, Lay Piety, Medicine, Social History
Paper 541-cInquisitorial Processes in Italian Judicial Registers (Libri Maleficiorum) and Canonization Processes at the End of the Middle Ages: Changing Individual Reminiscences within Collective Memory
(Language: English)
Didier Lett, Laboratoire Identités, Cultures, Territoires (EA337), Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 / Institut Universitaire de France, Paris
Index terms: Archives and Sources, Hagiography, Law, Social History
Abstract

Even if canonization processes and inquisition trials scrutinized the opposite ends of religious spectrum, 'heretical depravity' or saint and miracles, they were both based on similar judicial form, inquisitio. As public fame of an incident or person was a prerequisite for a case to be tried under inquisitio, both these sources contain a lot of recollection of past events. It goes without saying that there were also huge differences in the quantity and quality of free narration, hierarchal relationships during the hearing, methods of recording, etc. both between different types of hearings and various collections. Both fields of study are currently quite separate, and not much in-depth comparative work has been done. However, nuanced comparison would offer potential for fuller comprehension of how people gave meaning to their past experiences, how memories were reconstructed and elements of lived religion narrated. The aim of these sessions is to begin to fill this gap and scrutinize the similarities and differences and ask how past events were interrogated, remembered, narrated, and recorded in these two sets of sources.