IMC 2026: Sessions
Session 550: A Time for Heresy?, I: Timelessness, Change, and Continuity
Tuesday 7 July 2026, 09:00-10:30
| Sponsor: | Blurred Boundaries of Religious Dissent Research Initiative |
|---|---|
| Organiser: | Delfi I. Nieto-Isabel, Department of History, Queen Mary University of London |
| Moderator/Chair: | Laura Smoller, Department of History, University of Rochester, New York |
| Paper 550-a | Was There Ever a 'Time of the Beguines' in Italy?: The Case Study of Viterbo in the 15th Century (Language: English) Index terms: Lay Piety, Religious Life, Women's Studies |
| Paper 550-b | Shifting Boundaries between Sorcery and Heresy: Two Case Studies from 14th-Century England (Language: English) Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Law, Social History |
| Paper 550-c | The Timely Persecution of a Timeless Foe: Understanding Late Medieval Witchcraft in Time (Language: English) Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Sermons and Preaching, Women's Studies |
| Abstract | From the climactic expectations of apocalyptic thinkers, to portraying the timelessness of one’s enemies, to an individual recounting their daily activities in front of inquisitors and secular courts, the passage, perception, construction, and marking of time played a crucial role in the way in which religious dissent was constructed as heresy and then persecuted. In this first session of this strand we will pick up where the sister-strand A Time for Dissent left off and move into the Late Middle Ages and the paradigm changes in religious persecution that this period brought about. |