Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality.
Log in
- Convenors:
-
Karsten Schuil
(Central European University)
Davide Politi (Central European University)
Mariano Ciarletta (University of Salerno)
Vincenzo Zocco (University of Catania)
Send message to Convenors
- Chairs:
-
Karsten Schuil
(Central European University)
Davide Politi (Central European University)
- Format:
- Panel
- Location:
- Gamma room
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 6 September, -
Time zone: Europe/Vilnius
Short Abstract:
An exploration of religious practices in the Italian peninsula, examining case studies from the 13th to the 19th century, emphasising the techniques used and interaction with their performers' Christian and Jewish religious identity.
Long Abstract:
Historians of religion aim to elucidate the context in which religions are created, developed, and influence society and its intuitions. Inspired by anthropology and sociology, historians have focused on religious practices as a way to understand religion. These practices connect religion to society's cultural, economic, and political spheres, thus making them an excellent research tool for investigating the religious context.
The historians in this session will discuss religious practices as techniques to construct, develop and consolidate religious identities on the Italian peninsula between the thirteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The first speaker will investigate how embodied emotional practices are applied by Thomas of Celano (ca. 1190 –ca. 1260) to integrate his first hagiography of Saint Francis into the highly emotional and bodily devotional context of his time. In the process, this contribution will explore the development of the identity of Francis as a saint.
The second presenter will focus on the peculiar character of the Franciscan friar Salimbene de Adam from Parma (1211 – 1288) and on his point of view on exorcism and demonic magic, which was shaped by his identity as a preacher.
The third speaker proposes the study of the inquisitorial trial of Baordo Carafa. He was probably a member of the Neapolitan nobility who had contact with a necromancer. Analysing the pages of the trial, it is interesting to understand the techniques through which the inquisitors dealt with the crime of necromancy and the reaction of the young Baordo Carafa.
The last paper will follow the vicissitudes of a small eighteenth-century community of Jewish Sephardi as they struggle for integration into the Kingdom of Naples, focusing on how the new context shaped their rituals.
Overall, the panel will present a varied picture of different religious practices and techniques, linking them with the practitioners' religious identity.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 6 September, 2023, -Paper short abstract:
This paper investigates how Thomas of Celano applied embodied emotional practices as a technique to integrate his first hagiography of Saint Francis into the highly emotional and bodily devotional context of his time, in the process exploring the development of the identity of Saint Francis.
Paper long abstract:
Thomas of Celano (1190-1260) was an Italian Franciscan friar who wrote the Vita Prima (1228), which was the first hagiography of Saint Francis of Assisi (1181-1226). In the Vita Prima, Celano describes Francis as imitating Christ, while in later hagiographies, Francis is subsequently described as a mirror image of Christ, close to Christ, and finally identified with Christ. The latter sparked an Imitatio Francisci tradition. In other words, the identity of Saint Francis as a saint changed between de Vita Prima and a later imitation Francisci tradition.
There are several reasons why the hagiographical tradition developed from Francis' imitation of Christ to an Imitatio Francisci. In this paper, I highlight one reason not yet articulated in the literature: his contemporaneity and recognisability. Francis illustrated how Christ could be followed and how the life's pilgrimage could be translated into the context of the period. To substantiate the latter, I will illustrate in this paper how the Vita Prima was able to translate the life's pilgrimage to the highly emotional and bodily context of the devotional life of the high and late medieval period.
The paper aims to illustrate how this emotional and bodily devotional life comes to the fore in the account of Celano. Moreover, the paper will reveal how these emotional and bodily devotional lives are interwoven. To investigate this, I will employ the embodied emotional practices of Monique Sheer as a theoretical and methodological framework. This methodology connects bodily actions to emotions, making them more tangible and opening them up for comparison. Lastly, I will argue that these embodied emotional practices were used as a technique to ingrain the Prima Vita in the context of the time and unknowingly started the identity transformation process of Saint Francis.
Paper short abstract:
This paper will analyze the Cronica written by the Franciscan friar Salimbene de Adam from Parma (1211 – 1288), focusing on his point of view on exorcism and necromancy, and how the two practices bear many resemblances one to the other.
Paper long abstract:
Salimbene de Adam was a 13th century north-Italian Franciscan friar known for his only surviving work, a chronicle of his times. Salimbene’s Cronica’s uniqueness resides mainly in how the author strongly conveys his opinions and his points of view on the events of his time. Among many things, Salimbene also lingers on the way in which, according to him, exorcisms should be performed. The unusual techniques he speaks of outline what can be defined as a “charismatic exorcism”, as opposed to what I see as a more common type of exorcism, that could be defined as ceremonial. Furthermore, similar techniques are mentioned when Salimbene writes about demonic magic: not only is such an unsanctioned practice linked to clergymen, as was usual in medieval literature, but the performers are also presented as charismatic actors who interact with demons in a non-ceremonial way. Necromancy and exorcism can even go as far as sharing similar goals and outcomes, such as divination or the salvation of souls. Overall, this paper explores how Salimbene’s background and his role as a preacher influenced his views on exorcisms and, furthermore, how his conceptual framework on exorcism in turn changed his perception of the topos of necromancy, resulting in a peculiar, not explicitly moralizing approach to this forbidden art.
Paper short abstract:
The contribution intends to analyse, firstly, the trial of Baordo Carafa, a nobleman accused of having had contact with a neo-gentleman. At the same time, the contribution highlights other examples of trials brought against neapolitan nobles and gentlemen accused of witchcraft and necromancy.
Paper long abstract:
The present work investigates the social and confessional climate in Naples during the second half of the 16th century and the first half of the 17th century. Among the numerous trials in the diocesan archives of Naples, an interesting correspondence concerns the trial of the nobleman Baordo Carafa. In this contribution, by analysing the different parts of the trial, we wish to reflect on the techniques through which the inquisition proceeded to analyse and then condemn the crime of necromancy. From a first reading, it seems that the accusation concerned - exactly as for heresy - the 'contact' between the necromancer's ideas and the young nobleman's soul. A further question mark concerns the presence of a sophisticated network of necromancers in the Kingdom of Naples. The diocesan inquisition repeatedly intervened against this dangerous presence. In fact, the necromantic and witchcraft practices that had taken root among the various social classes were followed by meticulous inquisitorial trials. Therefore, in this contribution, we also intend to proceed - for the 16th-17th centuries - with a general study of the various cases involving further trials conducted against Neapolitan nobles and gentlemen and preserved, to this day, in the Diocesan Archive in Naples.
Paper short abstract:
This paper will analyze the Sephardi community, which arrived in Naples in the early part of the eighteenth century, focusing attention on the inevitable conflict with the local community but also with the Jews themselves and their religious practices.
Paper long abstract:
This research aims to investigate the internal conflict within the Jewish community in the Kingdom of Naples. The analysis and study of the written sources, found in the State Archive of Naples, allow to interrogate the historical document in order to try to understand and interpret the difficulties of a social minority, such as the Jewish one. The Sephardi arrived in Naples in 1740, not only from the Italian Jewish communities but also from the Dutch and French European ones, perhaps represented an absolute minority, since overall, only a hundred Jews accepted the invitation of Charles of Bourbon and his reintegration policy which sees them as protagonists. In a clear minority compared to the local community of Naples, the Jews tried to reconstruct their local history through the main strength "commerce", as well as the reason that prompted Charles to issue the edict to restore the economy of the Kingdom. In addition to the conflicts in commercial matters with the representatives of the Neapolitan trade, the Jews had to face up to ethnic and religious discomforts, difficulties that leads to a not indifferent divergence between communities. The conflict, a complex and multidimensional phenomenon, has repercussions not only outside the Jewish community but also within it. Example of this conflict is the religious practice of the Jewish community which, in addition to having to coexist with the Christian practice, present in the territory, was established internally by principles useful for the balance of the community itself. And it is precisely on this theme that the study of the sources wants to give a scientific contribution and a perspective of analysis that intends to place the themes of conflicts and practices in their social and religious dimension at the center of reflection.