Religious Orders and Societies Entangled. The Examples of the Croatian Historical Lands and the Holy Roman Empire (ROSE)

Organisationsteam: Daniela Bianca Hoffmann (Projektverantwortung Dresden), Marko Jerković (Projektverantwortung Zagreb), Nathalie Schmidt, Lucija Krešić

In contrast to today, religious orders and their members were apparent and influential in the societies of premodern Europe. This project intends to research the interplay between various religious orders and the respective societies in the Croatian Historical Lands and the Holy Roman Empire. It wants to study in a comparative and interdisciplinary way how different religious orders identified themselves as communities on their own, which were distinct from the societies around them, how the societies around them nonetheless affected the religious orders and how, on the other hand, religious orders reshaped the societies around them. Thereby, it is not only possible to gather knowledge about the particular identities and the interrelation between diverse orders and the societies around them, but also similarities and divergences between the Croatian Historical Lands and the Holy Roman Empire.

The project wants to analyze selected religious orders with regard to the topic, discuss them in four workshops held in Zagreb and Dresden and compile a manual about the topic for teaching at universities, which shall be publicized online and open access. The project shall be conjoined with teaching activities in Dresden and Šibenik, i.e. an externally funded summer and winter school.

To allow a comparison between the Croatian Historical Lands and the Holy Roman Empire, religious orders will be examined which were present in both regions (e.g. Cistercians), had an impact on religious life in both regions (e.g. Carthusians, Order of St Anthony, Jesuits) or can be compared with other orders in the respective other region with respect of a similar religious concept or similar problems (e.g. female monasteries, contemplative or active orders, practice of mendicancy).

As the manual will serve didactic goals, the selection of religious orders will on the one hand include ones which are suitable to demonstrate the most important concepts and basic developments of regular life between the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period (Benedictines, Cistercians, mendicants, Jesuits); to stimulate future studies, on the other hand, also ones will be chosen which are less known and in need of further research (e.g. Pauline Order, Order of St Anthony).

Projektmitglieder:
Dresden:
Mirko Breitenstein, Marcus Handke, Marion Feise, Rebecca Hoppe, Alina Schaarschmidt, Marie Wogawa

Zagreb:
Daniel Patafta, Ivana Jukić Vidas, Petar Bilobrk, Petar Ušković Croata, Anastasia Gobin, Mariela Markić