Religious Dissent and Revolt - Comparative Perspectives on Europe in the 12th to 17th centuries

Level: 
Master's
Course Status: 
Elective
CEU credits: 
4
Academic year: 
2011/2012
Semester: 
Fall
Start and end dates: 
19 Sep 2011 - 9 Dec 2011
Co-hosting Unit(s) [if applicable]: 
Department of History
CEU Instructor(s): 
Matthias Riedl
Additional information: 
The seminar presents the history of religious dissent as an interconnected cross-epochal and pan-European history, yet focuses on the world of the Latin Church between the mid-12th and the mid-17th centuries. We will explore the common features and the differences between major dissenting communities with respect to doctrine, social organization, economic and political attitude, etc. After several introductory sessions on historiographical and methodological questions, we will evaluate a number of significant historical examples, focusing on the self-interpretation of religious dissenters as found in contemporary sources. We will begin our journey with the origins of medieval sectarianism on the Balkans and conclude with the Puritan revolution in England. We will assess the contribution of religious dissenters to the formation of modernity but also look at the historical conditions of their emergence. Furthermore, the historical and systematic analysis of the manifold relations between dissent and revolt, between piety and violence ensures the relevance of the course. FORMAT OF THE COURSE: In order to reevaluate the character and significance of late medieval and early modern religious dissent and revolt the seminar will combine contextualizing lectures with a careful analysis of the primary sources in reading seminars. The lectures will provide historical background information as well as a survey of research literature and scholarly debates; while the reading seminars will have workshop character implying intensive group work with primary texts. The first four sessions will provide an overview over key concepts, historiographical approaches, and grand narratives, while the remaining sessions will be devoted the evaluation of significant historical examples from five centuries. NOTE: Students need to register separately for both elements of the course, the lecture on Tuesdays and the reading seminar on Thursdays.
Learning Outcomes: 
The following key questions will determine the analytical work in the seminars: Under what conditions do dissenting religious groups emerge? What is the role of religious and political experiences? In what sense do their theologies deviate from the orthodox dogma? Did the dissenting groups choose to dissent or were they pushed into the position of “heterodoxy”? Under what conditions did dissent turn into revolt? If “religious violence” occurred, was it supported by the theological ideas of dissenting groups? Or do dissenting communities become violent only in reaction to suppression and persecution? What is the relation of religious and social reform in these movements? What is the role of gender, considering that women played often a more significant role in dissenting groups than in the official church? To what extent did the social and religious innovations actually become formative elements of modernity?
Assessment : 
Attendance at all sessions is mandatory and will be kept record of. In case of inevitable absence a previous email notification is expected. Students taking the class for grade must not miss more than two sessions. Students taking the class for audit must not miss more than three sessions. Assessment: 1) A midterm exam in week six (25 %) 2) A final exam in week twelve (25 %) 3) Summaries of primary readings& discussion protocols (25%) 4) Class participation (25%) NOTE: It is possible (though not recommended) to take the lecture without the reading seminar. In this case, students will earn two credits and be assessed on the basis of the exams only (50% each).
Full description: 

Schedule & Readings

Part I: Introduction to theories, concepts, and approaches

 

Week 1: Dissent and revolt: Historiographical approaches & methodological debates
Sept 20) Introduction
• Leff, Gordon, “Prologue,” in: Heresy in the Later Middle Ages. The Relation of Heterodoxy to Dissent c. 1250-c. 1450, vol.1, Manchester: Manchester University Press/Sandpiper, 1999, pp. 1-47.  [savepdf]
• Housley, Norman, Religious Warfare in Europe, 1400 – 1536, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, pp. 1-32.  [savepdf]

Sept 22) Reading Seminar
•  “A Glimpse of Sion’s Glory,” in Puritanism and Liberty: Being the Army Debates (I647-9) from the Clarke Manuscripts with Supplementary Documents, ed. A.S.P Woodhouse, University of Chicago Press, 1951, pp. 233-241. [savepdf]
• Müntzer, Thomas, “On Contrived Faith,” in Revelation and Revolution: Basic Writings of Thomas Müntzer, ed. Michael G. Baylor, Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1993, pp.77-84. [savepdf]

 

Week 2: The sectarian legacy: grand narratives
Sept 27) Lecture
• Eisenstadt, S.N., Fundamentalism, Sectarianism, and Revolution. The Jacobin Dimension of Modernity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp.1-50. [savepdf]
• Cohn, Norman, “Conclusion,” in The Pursuit of the Millennium. Revolutionary and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages, London: Pimlico, 1993, pp. 281-288.[savepdf]
• Kersken, Norbert, “Reformation and the writing of national history in East-Central and Northern Europe,” in Karin Maag (ed.), The Reformation in Eastern and Central Europe, Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1997, pp. 50-71. [savepdf] 

Sept 29) Reading Seminar
• Kautsky, Karl, Communism in Central Europe in the Time of the Reformation, London: Fischer Unwin, 1897, pp. 2-154.  [savepdf]
• Voegelin, Eric, “The People of God,” in: History of Political Ideas vol. IV: Renaissance and Reformation (The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin vol. 22), Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press, 1998, pp. 131-213. [savepdf]

 

Week 3: Church & sect, orthodoxy & heresy: historical and conceptual considerations
Oct 4) Lecture
• Troeltsch, Ernst, The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches, Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992, vol. 1, pp. 89-101, 328-349 and notes pp. 431-436. [savepdf]
• King, Karen, L., “Social and Theological Effects of Heresiological Discourse,” in in Heresy and Identity in Late Antiquity, ed. Eduard Iricinschi and Holger M. Zellentin, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008, pp. 28-49.[savepdf]
• Cameron, Averil, “The Violence of Orthodoxy,” in Heresy and Identity in Late Antiquity, ed. Eduard Iricinschi and Holger M. Zellentin, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008, pp. 102-115.[savepdf]
• McGrade, Arthur Stephen, “The medieval idea of heresy: What are we to make of it?,” in The Medieval Church: Universities, Heresy, and the Religious Life, Essays in Honour of Gordon Leff, ed. Peter Biller and Barrie Dobson, Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1999, pp. 111-139.[savepdf]
• Kaminsky, Howard, “The Problematics of ‘Heresy’ and ‘Reformation’,” in: František Šmahel (ed.), Häresie und vorzeitige Reformation im Spätmittelalter, Munich: Oldenburg, 1998, pp.1-22.[savepdf]

Oct 6) Reading Seminar
• The Acts of the Apostles 2 [savepdf]
• 1 Corinthians 12-13 [savepdf]
• Didache, retrieved from www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/didache-lake.html (July 2011) [savepdf]
• Irenaeus of Lyon, Against the Heresies, book IV, ch. 26 & 33, retrieved from www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103.htm (July 2011) [savepdf]
• Eusebius of Caesarea on the Montanist movement, retrieved from http://danielrjennings.org/AncientReferencesToMontanism.html#Eusebius (July 2011) [savepdf]
• Augustine, The City of God Against the Pagans, trans. R. W. Dyson, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, book XV, ch. 1-9, pp. 634-650 [savepdf]

 

Week 4: Persistent symbolic forms: Apocalypticism, Mysticism, Gnosticism
Oct 11) Lecture
• Collins, John J., “From Prophecy to Apocalypticism,” in idem (ed.): The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism vol.1: The Origins of Apocalypticism in Judaism and Christianity, New York: Continuum, 2000, pp.129-161.[savepdf]
• Riedl, Matthias, “Christian Mysticism,” in New Dictionary of the History of Ideas, ed. Maryanne Cline Horowitz, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2005, vol. 4, pp. 1546-1549. [savepdf]
• Williams, Michael, “Gnosticism,” in Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011, retrieved from www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/236343/gnosticism (July 2011) [savepdf]

Oct 13) Reading seminar
• Selections from the Book of Daniel (King James Bible) [savepdf]
• Selections from the Revelation of John (King James Bible) [savepdf]
• Pseudo-Dionysius, “The Mystical Theology,” in Pseudo-Dionysius. The Complete Works, trans. Colm Luibheid, New York/Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1987, pp. 133-141.[savepdf]
•  “The Hymn of the Pearl” (from the Acts of Thomas), in J.K. Elliott, The Apocryphal New Testament, Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993, pp.488-490.[savepdf]
• “The Gospel of Truth,” in James M. Robinson (ed.), The Nag Hammadi Library, New York: Harper Collins, 1990. pp.38-51.[savepdf]
• A selection of sources on Manicheism, including the Kephalaia, the Epistula Fundamenti and the Acta Archelai, ed. Prods Oktor Skjærvø, retrieved from www.fas.harvard.edu/~iranian/Manicheism (July 2011) [savepdf]

 

Part II. Case studies

 

Week 5: The Cathars
Oct 18) Lecture
• Lambert, Malcolm, “The Cathars,” in Medieval Heresy. Popular Movements from the Gregorian Reform to the Reformation, 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992, pp. 105-146.[savepdf]
• Biller, Peter, “Christians and heretics,” in The Cambridge History of Christianity vol.4: Christianity in Western Europe c.1100 – c.1500, ed. Miri Rubin and Walter Simons, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, pp. 170-186. [savepdf]
• Hamilton, Bernard, “The Cathars and Christian Perfection,” in The Medieval Church: Universities, Heresy, and the Religious Life, Essays in Honour of Gordon Leff, ed. Peter Biller and Barrie Dobson, Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1999, pp. 5-23.[savepdf]

Oct 20) Reading seminar
• Selected sources, in R. I. Moore, The Birth of Popular Heresy, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995, pp. 88-98, 111-154. [savepdf]
• Selected sources, from The Medieval Sourcebook, retrieved from www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook1s.html#Medieval Heresy (July 2011)  [savepdf]
• Selections from the “The Book of the Two Principles” in: Walter R. Wakefield and Austin P. Evans (eds.), Heresies of the High Middle Ages, Columbia University Press, 1991. [savepdf]

 

Week 6: Spiritual Franciscans &Joachites
Oct 25) Lecture
• Riedl, Matthias, “Joachim of Fiore as Political Thinker,” in Julia Wannenmacher (ed.): Joachim of Fiore and the Influence of Inspiration. Essays in Memory of Marjorie E. Reeves (1905 2003), Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011 (forthcoming)..[savepdf]
• Lambert, Malcolm, “Spiritual Franciscans and heretical Joachimites,” in Medieval Heresy. Popular Movements from the Gregorian Reform to the Reformation, 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992, pp. 189-214.[savepdf]
• Postestà, Gian Luca, “Radical Apocalyptic Movements in the Late Middle Ages,” in The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism vol.2: The Origins of Apocalypticism in Judaism and Christianity, New York/London: Continuum, 2000, pp. 110-142.[savepdf]
• Whalen, Brett Edward, Dominion of God. Christendom and Apocalypse in the Middle Ages, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009, pp. 204-227.[savepdf]

Further reading:
• Burr, David, The Spiritual Franciscans. From Protest to Persecution in the Century After Saint Francis, Penn State University Press, 2001. (No PDF available)

Oct 27) Reading Seminar
• Selections from the works of Joachim of Fiore, in Bernard McGinn (ed.), Apocalyptic Spirituality, Mahwah, Paulist Press, 1979, pp. 97-148. .[savepdf]
• Selected sources on Spirituals and Joachites, in Bernard McGinn, Visions of the End. Apocalyptic Traditions in the Middle Ages, New York: Columbia University Press, 1979, pp. 158-167, 203-221, 226-229. .[savepdf]
• Angelo of Clareno, “A Letter to the Pope concerning the False Accusations and Calumnies Made by the Franciscans,” & Peter John Olivi, “Letter to the Sons of Charles II,” in Bernard McGinn (ed.), Apocalyptic Spirituality, Mahwah, Paulist Press, 1979, pp.159-182. .[savepdf]

 

Week 7: Lollards
Nov 1) Public holiday – No class!!!

Nov 3) Lecture & Reading seminar
• Lambert, Malcolm, “John Wyclif,” and “The English Lollards,” in Medieval Heresy. Popular Movements from the Gregorian Reform to the Reformation, 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992, pp. 225-283. .[savepdf]
• Justice, Steven, “Religious Dissent, Social Revolt and ‘Ideology’,” in Past & Present, Supplement 2 (2007), pp. 205-216..[savepdf]
• Gosh, Kantik, “Wycliffism and Lollardy,” in The Cambridge History of Christianity vol.4: Christianity in Western Europe c.1100 – c.1500, ed. Miri Rubin and Walter Simons, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, pp. 433-445..[savepdf]
• Wyclif, selections from section 2 of the Trialogus, retrieved from The Online Library of Liberty, http://files.libertyfund.org/files/1838/Wycliffe_0882_EBk_v5.pdf (July 2011) .[savepdf]
• “Pope Gregory XI : The Condemnation of Wycliffe 1382 and Wycliffe's Reply, 1384,” from The Medieval Sourcebook, retrieved from www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook1s.html#Medieval Heresy (July 2011) .[savepdf]

Further Reading
• Rex, Richard: The Lollards, New York: Palgrave, 2002. (no PDF)

 

Week 8: Hussites
Nov 8) Lecture
• Fudge, Thomas A., The Magnificent Ride. The First Reformation in Hussite Bohemia, Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998, pp. 60-122. [savepdf]
• Cohn, Norman, “The Taborite Apocalypse” & “Anarcho-communism in Bohemia,” in The Pursuit of the Millennium. Revolutionary and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages, London: Pimlico, 1993, pp. 205-222. [savepdf]

Nov 10) Reading seminar
• Huss, Jan, De ecclesia. The Church, trans. David S. Schaff, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1915, pp. 1-26, 52-66, 183-194, 263-274. [savepdf]
• Selected sources on the Hussite movement, in Bernard McGinn, Visions of the End. Apocalyptic Traditions in the Middle Ages, New York: Columbia University Press, 1979, pp. 259-269.[savepdf]
• Sources and documents for the Hussite Crusades, in Fudge, Thomas A., The Crusade against Heretics in Bohemia, 1418-1437, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002, pp. 58-60, 64-68, 285-295, 308-311, 378-379.[savepdf]

 

Week 9: Revolting peasants & radical reformers
Nov 15) Lecture
• Cohn, Norman, “Thomas Müntzer,” in The Pursuit of the Millennium. Revolutionary and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages, London: Pimlico, 1993, pp. 234-251.[savepdf]
• Housley, Norman, Religious Warfare in Europe, 1400 – 1536, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, pp. 62-130. [savepdf]
• Stayer, James M., “The German Peasants’ War and the Rural Reformation,” in The Reformation World, ed. Andrew Pettegree, London/NewYork: Routledge, 2000, pp. 127-145. savepdf]
• Blickle, Peter, “Communal Reformation and Peasant Piety: The Peasant Reformation and Its Late Medieval Origins,” in Central European History, Vol. 20, No. 3/4 (Sep. - Dec., 1987), pp. 216-228.[savepdf]
• McLaughlin, R. Emmet, “The Radical Reformation,” in The Cambridge History of Christianity vol.6: Reform and Expansion 1500-1660, ed. R. Po-Chia Hsia, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 37-55.[savepdf] 

Nov 17) Reading seminar
• Müntzer, Thomas, “Sermon to the Princes,” in Michael G. Baylor, trans., The Radical Reformation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp.11-32. [savepdf]
• “The Eleven Mühlhausen Articles” & “The Twelve Articles of the Upper Swabian Peasants,” in Michael G. Baylor, trans., The Radical Reformation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp. 227-238. [savepdf]
• Anonymous, “To the Assembly of the Common Peasantry, May 1525,” in Michael G. Baylor, trans., The Radical Reformation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp. 101-129.[savepdf]

 

Week 10: Anabaptists
Nov 22) Lecture
• Baylor, Michael, “Introduction,” in The Radical Reformation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp. xi-xxxii. [savepdf]
• Cohn, Norman, “The Egalitarian Millennium (iii)” in The Pursuit of the Millennium. Revolutionary and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages, London: Pimlico, 1993, pp. 252-280.[savepdf]
• Haude, Sigrun, “Anabaptism,” in The Reformation World, ed. Andrew Pettegree, London/New York: Routledge, 2000, pp. 237-256.[savepdf]
 

Nov 24) Reading seminar
• Hut, Hans, “On the Mystery of Baptism,” in The Radical Reformation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp. 152-171.[savepdf]
• Hubmaier, Balthasar, “On the Sword,” in The Radical Reformation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp. 181-209. [savepdf]
• Hergot, Hans, “On the New Transformation of the Christian Life,” in The Radical Reformation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp. 210-225.[savepdf]
• “The Forty-six Frankfurt Articles," in The Radical Reformation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp. 246-253.[savepdf]

 

Week 11: Calvinists
Nov 29) Lecture
• Hesselink, John, “Calvin’s Theology,” in The Cambridge Companion to John Calvin, ed. Donald K. McKim, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.74-92. [savepdf]
• Kingdon, Robert M., “The Calvinist Reformation in Geneva,” in The Cambridge History of Christianity vol.6: Reform and Expansion 1500-1660, ed. R. Po-Chia Hsia, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 90-103. [savepdf]
• Kingdon, Robert M., “Calvinism and Resistance Theory, 1550-1580,” in The Cambridge History of Political Thought 1450 – 1700, ed. J.H. Burns, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp. 193-218. [savepdf]
• Mentzer, Raymond A., “The French Wars of Religion,” in The Reformation World, ed. Andrew Pettegree, London/New York: Routledge, 2000, pp. 323-343.[savepdf]

Further Reading:
• Murdock, Graeme, Calvinism on the Frontier 1600-1660. International Calvinism and the Reformed Church in Hungary and Transylvania, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000, pp. 258-290. [savepdf]
• Murdock, Graeme, “Eastern Europe,” in The Reformation World, ed. Andrew Pettegree, London/NewYork: Routledge, 2000, pp. 190-210. [savepdf]

Dec 1) Reading seminar
• Calvin, Jean, “On Civil Government” (Institutio Christianae Religionis, book IV, ch. 20), in Luther and Calvin on Secular Authority, ed. Harro Höpfl, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 47-86. [savepdf]
• Knox, John, “Appellation to the Nobility and Estates,” in John Knox on Rebellion, ed. Roger A. Mason, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 72-114. [savepdf]
• Beza, Theodore, On the Rights of Magistrates, retrieved from www.constitution.org/cmt/beza/magistrates.htm (July 2011) [savepdf]

 

Week 12: Puritans, Levellers, Diggers
Dec 6) Lecture
• Wootton, David, “Leveller democracy and the Puritan Revolution,” in The Cambridge History of Political Thought 1450 – 1700, ed. J.H. Burns, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp. 412-442. [savepdf]
• Voegelin, Eric, “The English Revolution” & “Cromwell,” in: History of Political Ideas vol. VII: The New Order and Last Orientation (The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin vol. 25), Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press, 1999, pp. 73-114. [savepdf]
• Sharp, Andrew, “Introduction: the English Levellers,” in The English Levellers, ed. Andrew Sharp, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. vii-xxx. [savepdf]

Dec 8) Reading seminar
• Lilburne, John, “Postscript to The freeman’s freedom vindicated,” in The English Levellers, ed. Andrew Sharp, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 31-32.[savepdf]
• “An Agreement of the People,” in The English Levellers, ed. Andrew Sharp, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 92-101. [savepdf]
• The Heads of the Proposals offered by the Army, retrieved from www.constitution.org/eng/conpur071.htm (July 2011) [savepdf]
• “The Putney Debates” (Oct 28 & Nov 1, 1647), in Puritanism and Liberty: Being the Army Debates (I647-9) from the Clarke Manuscripts with Supplementary Documents, ed. A.S.P Woodhouse, University of Chicago Press, 1951, pp. 38-124. [savepdf]
• Milton, John, “The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates,” in Areopagitica and other political writings of John Milton, Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1999, pp. 52-97. [savepdf]
• Winstanley, Gerrard, The Law of Freedom (1652), retrieved from www.bilderberg.org/land/lawofree.htm (July 2011) [savepdf]