Laienfrömmigkeit im späten Mittelalter: Formen, Funktionen, politisch-soziale Zusammenhänge ed. by Klaus Schreiner and Elisabeth Müller-Luckner

Abstract

Laienfrommigkeit im spaten Mittelalter: Formen, Funktionen, politischsoziale Zusammenhange. Edited by Klaus Schreiner with the aid of Elisabeth Muller-Luckner. [Schriften des Historischen Kollegs, Kolloquien, 20.] (Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag. 1992. Pp. xii, 411. DM 108,-.) This volume contains sixteen essays written for a colloquium organized by Dr. Klaus Schreiner in Munich in 1988 on the topic oflay piety in the social and political context of the late Middle Dr. Schreiner opens the book with a long conceptual introduction which rejects the tendency of recent scholarship to frame the study of medieval religion within the categories of and piety. He argues that this dualistic approach, which contrasts the religion of the literate clerical elite with that of the illiterate laity, is not flexible enough to account for the diverse forms of religious expression found in the primary sources. He finds the German term Volksfrommigkeit (folk piety) particularly objectionable, since it is burdened with the conceptual and political prejudices of the previous half century (p. 7) and thus represents a poor equivalent for the notion of popular religion. Moreover, because the concept of Volk refers not to a social class, but most of society, it is useless for establishing connections between particular social groups and their religious outlooks. To reinforce this argument, Shreiner presents evidence documenting how literate, non-elite laymen developed their own religious culture in the later Middle Ages. He concludes the essay by urging historians to reject the category of Volksfrommigkeit in favor of the less problematic and more flexible concept of Laienfrommigkeit (lay piety). The other fifteen essays address various aspects of lay piety and are grouped into seven sections. The first contains two essays on legal and dynastic influences on lay piety. Based on an analysis of the connection between devotion and spiritual patronage, Wolfgang Bruckner argues that in medieval and early modern Europe devotion meant not only emotional commitment, but also concrete, legal submission to a spiritual overload.Then Elisabeth Kovacs describes the efforts of the early Habsburg rulers to represent the dynasty as a stirps regia et beata which included saints such as the Babenberger Margrave Leopold III (d. 1136), who was canonized in 1485. The next section offers three essays on the piety of the peasantry and nobility. Francis Rapp characterizes the pilgrimage practices of the Alsatian peasantry by examining thirty-four late-medieval saints' shrines in the Bishopric of Strassburg, especially their patrons, geographical and social appeal, finances, and reputations for wonder-working. Adalbert Mischlewski describes the rise and fall of the late medieval cult of St. Anthony in both its plebian and noble forms, including the curious custom of donating pigs (Antoniusschweine) to the Antonine Hospitallers. Franz Machilek surveys the piety of the Franconian nobility, especially the religious foundations they established, the spiritual patrons and pilgrimage sites they favored, and the confraternities they joined. …