IMC 2023: Sessions

Over the late 14th and 15th centuries, when urban laity gradually became more involved in religious activities, various strategies were developed to spread the ideas of religious reform among religious communities and social groups in urban contexts. In the 15th century, urban milieus formed a backdrop to local religious developments, with strong internal differentiation (such as client systems, patronage, confraternities), which, in the 16th century, grew into even more complex denominational urban stratification. These varied developments were closely related to the developments of religious houses in the urban and suburban space, which, since the late Middle Ages, played a crucial role in urban religious developments. They, too, were going through a period of profound transformation, ranging from destruction and decline through different level of acceptance of reform, to creating powerful alliances leading to social and economic flourishing.

In the 15th century the observant movement added to the growing complexity of the relationship between the convents, and the surrounding urban society. It affected the existing networks both inside and outside of monastic communities. In the regions of Central Europe, the reform was received with varying degrees of acceptance, often hindered by local traditions and powerful local actors, but also succeeded in bringing in new forms of piety and religious experience. The reformists faced opposition from the convents, and local elites, based on resisting kinship and political bonds and urban economy networks. In Bohemia it was furthermore complicated by the development of open religious dissent, which culminated in the Hussite wars, the separation of the Bohemian Church from Rome and anti-clerical manifestations directed primarily against the conventuals.
The first of our two sessions will focus on the responses to the reform efforts and other challenges inside and outside of the convents, the transformation of monastic communities to observant ones and its manifestations, but also on the decline of houses due to various adverse factors, in some cases resulting in the weakening and disappearance of monastic communities. The second session tackles the ways the religious reform was reflected and absorbed by urban laity in different Central European regions.