Walter POHL – Andre GINGRICH (Eds.)
medieval worlds • no. 7 • 2018
VERGING ON THE POLEMICAL: EXPLORING THE BOUNDARIES OF MEDIEVAL RELIGIOUS POLEMIC ACROSS GENRES AND RESEARCH CULTURES
Melanie Brunner
S. 80 - 97
doi:
10.1553/medievalworlds_no7_2018s80
Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften
doi:
10.1553/medievalworlds_no7_2018s80
Abstract:
medieval worlds • No. 7 • 2018 • 80-97 This study examines the use of polemical strategies in the internal Franciscan debates during the first half of the fourteenth century, focusing on the exchanges between Ubertino of Casale and his opponents during the Spiritual crisis, and between Michael of Cesena and Gerald Odonis in the aftermath of the so-called theoretical poverty controversy. By comparing the use of polemical tropes and patterns across the two conflicts, it is possible to isolate some of the strategies used by the participants in the debates, as well as highlighting the shifting boundaries of inclusion and exclusion in the definition of what constituted a »true« Franciscan. While outsiders contributed to the debates, this article focuses particularly on the ways in which members of the Franciscan order responded to challenges posed to the authors’ understanding of the Franciscan vocation by other members of the order. All sides in these debates agreed on poverty and obedience as central values of the Franciscan life, but they did not accept that their opponents might share their regard for the order’s rule and vocation. The debates therefore produced overlapping and competing visions of the Franciscan life which personalised and polarised the underlying larger issues, as well as establishing and defending the boundaries between »true« and »false« Franciscans, and thereby creating and reinforcing a sense of identity against those members of the order which fell outside the vision.
Ubertino of Casale; Raymond de Fronsac; Michael of Cesena; Gerald Odonis; Franciscan poverty; polemics; rhetoric; papal authority; poverty controversy
Published Online:
2018/06/29 15:07:23
Document Date:
2018/06/29 15:02:00
Object Identifier:
0xc1aa5572 0x00390b0c
Rights:All rights reserved.For questions regarding copyright and copies please contact us by email.
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Verging on the Polemical: Towards an Interdisciplinary Approach to Medieval Religious Polemic
Sita Steckel
Escalations and/in the Different Contexts of Polemical Engagements
Anti-Jewish Polemics in Business Documents from Late Medieval Austria
Birgit Wiedl
Good and Bad Friars: Polemical Patterns and Strategies between Franciscans in the Early Fourteenth Century
Melanie Brunner
Obediencia, reformatio and veritas: Ecclesiological Debates during the Western Great Schism (1378-1417)
Bénédicte Sère
Polemics Investigated in a Late Fifteenth-Century Fastnachtspiel (Shrovetide Play)
Claudia Daiber
Embedding and Disembedding Polemical Texts
The Text as Heretic: Mixed Genres and Polemical Techniques in a Refutation of the Mirror of Simple Souls
Justine Trombley
Transfers of Anti-Waldensian Material from a Polemical Treatise to a Didactic Text
Reima Välimäki
Magistra magistrorum: Hildegard of Bingen as a Polemicist against False Teaching
Andra Alexiu
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