Preaching in East Central Europe in the Late Middle Ages

In late medieval East Central Europe, preaching served as a medium of cultural transformation, participatied in negotiating multi-ethnic polities, and stirred up social movements amounting to political upheavals. The area comprising Bohemia, Poland, and Hungary has been under-represented in international sermon studies. Making up for this research gap, the fourteen chapters adopt an interdisciplinary approach and analyse East-Central-European preaching through socio-religious and cultural lenses. Key aspects covered are preachers’ educational background and interaction with university and monastic communities; forms and languages in which sermons were transmitted; their textual structure and strategic use of preaching aids; rhetorical fashioning, performative techniques, and charismatic presentation of pastoral and theological ideas to intended audiences. By introducing previously unknown sources and testing approaches specific to the region and period under scrutiny, the volume intends to portray the practice of preaching and its textual output in a new light and offer a fresh look at the cultural and intellectual history of late medieval East Central Europe.

I. Introducing the Field

Late Medieval Preaching in East Central Europe: An Introduction
OLGA KALASHNIKOVA – PAVEL SOUKUP

Preaching from Western to East Central Europe: Medieval Circulation and Modern Interest
NICOLE BÉRIOU

II. Preaching Careers and Infrastructure

The Dominican Priory of St. Adalbert in Wrocław as a Preaching Centre in the Fifteenth Century
ANNA ZAJCHOWSKA-BOŁTROMIUK

John of Capestrano Preaching and Miracle-Working in Hungary, 1455–1456
GÁBOR KLANICZAY

Bernard Fabri, the Preacher and his Sermons
EWELINA KACZOR

Parish Preaching in Late Medieval Transylvania (15th – 16th Centuries)
PAULA COTOI

III. Approaches to Style and Communication

Long-rhymed divisiones thematis in the Sermon Collection of Henry of Wildenstein (OFM): A Poetic Way to Structure
VOJTĚCH VEČEŘE

Multilingualism, Transcoding, and Metalanguage? The Role of Latin in Latin-Czech Sermons from the Middle Ages
JAN ODSTRČILÍK

‘Frater Fredericus predicavit’: The Sermons of a ‘Translator’ of Giovanni of Capestrano
PIETRO DELCORNO

IV. Fashioning the Sermons’ Message

The Earliest Sermon Collections from the Territory of the Bohemian Kingdom: Searching for Sources and Originality
ANNA PUMPROVÁ

Between the Ox and the Donkey: Animalizing Preachers in Jan Hus’s Sermons
OLIVIER MARIN

History, Politics, and Morals, in One Sermon. Sermo de divisione Apostolorum on the Victory of Grunwald/Tannenberg (1410) from the Cistercian Manuscript of Mogiła/Kraków
KRZYSZTOF BRACHA

Disease and Medicine in the Sermons of Two Hungarian Franciscans around 1500
OTTÓ GECSER

The Czech Heaven: Medieval Utraquist Sermons on Czech Patron Saints
JINDŘICH MAREK

Manuscript Index

Index of Names

Index of Places

General Index