Symposium Religious Connectivity in Urban Communities: nog enkele plaatsen beschikbaar!

Reading, Worshipping, and Connecting in the Continuum of Sacred and Secular (1400-1600).

24-25 September 2015

Current research on religious literature of the period 1400-1600 increasingly focuses on processes of transmission and appropriation, on readers, users, and their social networks, and on “communities of interpretation”. In social history, on the other hand, religious activities and religious identities are more and more considered as part of social life in civic societies. This symposium is organized around a theme where both research traditions meet, namely, religious connectivity in urban communities.

Taking into account that “sacred” or “religious” and “secular” or “profane” should not be understood as opposites, but rather as a continuum, we wish to investigate how religious connectivity was established in late medieval urban communities and how producers and consumers of religious literature, artefacts, and rituals were engaged in the creation of social cohesion. By focusing on religious connectivity, we wish to explore the socio-religious domain between civic religion and private devotion, and between religious communities and more varied communities of interpretation.

There is space for extra participants, who are welcome. If you wish to attend this symposium, please contact Suzan Folkerts (s.a.folkerts@rug.nl) 15 September 2015 at the latest.

Programme

Location: Open Universiteit, Studiecentrum Groningen, Oude Boteringestraat 24, room 13 (2nd floor)

Thursday 24 September 2015

9:00 Room open, welcome

9:30-10:45 Session 1: Approaching urban communities

(Moderator: Catrien Santing, University of Groningen)

Suzan Folkerts (University of Groningen),

• Introduction: Religious Connectivity as a Holistic Approach to Urban Society

Riitta Laitinen (University of Turku)

• Needles in Haystacks – Looking for (Private) Devotion in Secular Sources of A Seventeenth-Century Town

10:45-11:15 Coffee break

11:15-12:30 Session 2: Methods and sources for urban networks

(Moderator: Catrien Santing)

Cora Zwart (University of Groningen)

• The Utrecht Religious Civic Web (ca. 1450-1520): Sacred and Secular

Margriet Hoogvliet (University of Groningen)

• Common profit books and urban networks in northern France (c. 1450-c.1530)

12:30-13:30 Lunch in Bruins room, Academy building, Broerstraat 5

13:45-15:30 Session 3: The variety of urban networks: confraternities and guilds

(Moderator: Mathilde van Dijk, University of Groningen)

Marina Gazzini (University of Parma)

• Urban society and lay-religious communities in the late Middle Ages. Notes on confraternities in northern and central Italy

Arie van Steensel (University of Amsterdam)

• The Social Ecology of Religious Confraternities in Late-Medieval Norwich and Leiden

Laura Crombie (University of York)

• Building Identities and Building Communities: Saints’ Lives in the Ghent Masons’ Register

15:30-16:00 Tea break

16:00-17:15 Session 4: Interaction of religious and lay

(Moderator: Mathilde van Dijk)

An-Katrien Hanselaer (University of Ghent)

• Between lay devotion and monastic experience. Asceticism and penitential culture in late medieval semi-religious communities in the Southern Low Countries

Marika Räsänen (University of Turku)

• Domestic lay devotion in late medieval Italian towns

17:30 Drinks in Bruins room, Academy Building, Broerstraat 5

[19:00 Speakers’ Diner in Goudkantoor, Waagplein 1]

Friday 25 September 2015

9:00 Room open

9:30-10:45 Session 5: Transfer of manuscripts

(Moderator: Bart Ramakers, University of Groningen)

Abigail Brundin (University of Cambridge)

• Reading, marking and sharing books in sixteenth-century Italian convents

Johanneke Uphoff (University of Groningen)

• The Laity, the Convent and the Transmission of Religious Knowledge

10:45-11:15 Coffee break

11:15-12:30 Session 6: Transmission of knowledge

(Moderator: Bart Ramakers)

Sabrina Corbellini (University of Groningen)

• Translators and Cultural Brokers: Laypeople as Translators of Religious Texts in Late Medieval Italy

Catrien Santing (University of Groningen)

• Teaching the town. Leipzig university professors and their civic duties

12:30-14:00 Lunch at Mr. Mofongo, Oude Boteringestraat 26-28

14:15-15:30 Session 7: Constructing connections

(Moderator: Suzan Folkerts)

Kristof Papin (Independent, University of Ghent),

• Monastic reading and writing in an early 17th-century Capuchin cloister in Northern France

Lianne van Beek (University of Groningen)

• How to construct a cult. Observations on late medieval cults for the Virgin Mary in the Low Countries

15:30-15:45 Tea break

15:45-16:00 Closing remarks and publication plans

Link to map of Groningen with all locations

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zzvx1eSLJsIo.kfp7PJSWZ_Ew&usp=sharing