Composing the Statutes – Norms and Franciscan Identities among Observants in Central and Eastern Europe (c. 1450–1520): A Lexicometrical Approach

Abstract

Central and eastern Europe constitutes a privileged space to capture the dynamics of rivalry and cooperation affecting the order of the Friars Minor at the end of the Middle Ages. From a comparative perspective, I propose approaching defining texts – statutes and constitutions – of central European observant vicariates with a global analysis to detect their proximities, differences, and accents. Then, focusing on the regulations governing the visitatio, I discuss the process of normalization in a vicariate with a changing institutional position: the Hungarian vicariate from the 1490s to the 1520s. The codification of the visitatio allowed for rivalries and cooperation in the process of writing norms to be highlighted, while relations with the Cismontanes became strained and the peasant war broke out in the spring of 1514.