This volume can be viewed either as a collection of independently valuable articles or as a collaborative study of interlocking themes. The first perception may seem more obvious, given that the articles are on the whole quite specialized, treating diverse subject matter, spanning a generously defined “long fifteenth century,” and drawing from regions as distant as England and the Balkans, with little explicit cross-referencing. Even the articles that fall into clusters, those on death and on prayer beads, are not explicitly linked. It is mainly Géraldine Veysseyre’s bravura concluding essay that draws together the rich and diverse material offered by the rest of the articles, and that conclusion stands out as not just the most important part of the volume but a key to the significance of those individual contributions.
The first three articles deal in different ways with religious communities. Adéla Ebersonová, “Religious Practices of the Canons Regular of St Augustine in the Czech Lands: The Statutes of Roudnice” (23-48), shows how the statutes of Roudnice, a house founded exclusively for Czech-speakers, became authoritative in Central Europe, providing detailed supplement to the brief Rule of Saint Augustine. The reason for this influence is not clear, but Ebersonová suggests patronage from the see of Prague and from Charles IV as a key factor. David Carrillo-Rangel, Blanca Garí, and Núria Jornet-Benito compare the diurnal of a Poor Clare house in Barcelona with the martyrology of Syon Abbey in “The Devotional Book in Context and Use: Catalan Poor Clares and English Birgittines: Spaces, Performance, and Memory” (49-75). They focus not only on the contents and uses of these books but also on the locations where they were kept, their role in the preservation of memory, and what they indicate regarding relations between female and male members of the communities. Gilberto Coralejo Moiteiro, “Literacy, Books, and the Community: Textual Evidence from a Portuguese Dominican Nunnery” (77-98), introduces the community of Aveiro, which at its inception could be variously perceived (as an oratory, a house of pious women, or as a beguinage) but became an influential center of the Dominican Observance under royal and aristocratic patronage. The Constituições and Livro dos Oficios were read by the nuns and served as guides to their reading patterns and to their writing practices (for example, in preparation for confession). Likewise, the Crónica de Fundação was both itself read and reported on the nuns’ reading habits, which were not fundamentally different from those of nuns in other parts of Europe.
The two chapters on prayer beads or rosaries approach the topic from fundamentally different and thus complementary perspectives. Monika Saczyńska-Vercamer, “Change and Continuity in Lay Devotion as Evidenced by Prayer Beads in Medieval Poland and Central Europe” (101-128), focuses on the concrete objects, while Erminia Ardissino, “A Daily Devotion of the Long Fifteenth Century: Italian Literature on the Rosary” (129-150), discusses rosary-related texts. Saczyńska-Vercamer emphasizes the variety of forms and nomenclature for prayer beads, as reflected on sepulchral art and votive panels, in manuscript miniatures, in inventories and confraternity statutes, in archaeological evidence, and even in names (for people known to use, make, or perhaps import prayer beads). The distinction between prayer beads and jewelry was not always clear: when a man declared in 1404 that he had not stolen a pacierz from a woman, he may have been referring to a string of Pater Noster beads, but then he may have meant a necklace. Ardissino focuses on the later form of prayer beads recognized as the rosary, as promoted in the late fifteenth century by confraternities (with their prescription of weekly or daily recitation) and by a liturgical feast. Her chief interest lies in the literature meant to accompany use of the rosary, with meditations keyed to images, such as the book of Alberto da Castello (1521), and the poetic meditations in the spirit of Petrarch and Tasso by Francesca Turini Bufalini (1595).
The complex relationship between orthodoxy and heresy comes under examination in the next set of articles. Jan Dienstbier, “The Prayer Book of George of Poděbrady and Books of Private Devotion in Post-Hussite Bohemia” (151-173), examines a manuscript, long thought to be lost, that challenges clear distinctions between Utraquism and Catholicism. The Hours of the Virgin Mary feature in this prayer book as in other Utraquist books, reflecting continued veneration of the Virgin and the saints, while the Office of the Dead is less popular, whether or not this is because the Utraquists rejected the notion of Purgatory, and of course there is no reference to indulgences. Ian Johnson, “The ‘Goostly Chaffare’ of Reginald Pecock: Everyday Craft, Commerce, and Custom Meet Syllogistic Polemic in Fifteenth-Century London” (175-199), examines the curious case of a bishop who fell into disgrace for his efforts to counter Lollardy. Pecock offered what he represented as spiritual merchandise (“goostly chaffare”), and in so doing developed elaborate mercantile imagery, but in the process exalted the powers of human reason to a degree that caused him to fall under suspicion of heresy. Refutation of Lollardy was all well and good, but an attempt to engage the Lollards on their own ground and engage them in rational disputation met with little sympathy, and Johnson deftly unfolds the complexities and ironies of this story. More straightforward is the case of Martinus Mosvidius, whose Lithuanian Catechism (1547) was decidedly Protestant. Dalia Marija Stančiene, “The Reformation and the First Book in the Lithuanian Language” (201-214), shows how this catechism responded to educational as well as religious developments in early modern Lithuania.
Four articles in the volume deal with the artes moriendi and related material. Joost Robbe, “‘The Kingdom of Heaven cannot be denied to you justly because you have fought correctly’: Tracing the Evolution of Ars moriendi Literature in the Fifteenth Century” (217-239), is a particularly useful comparison of Jean Gerson’s De arte bene moriendi, the widely diffused Speculum artis bene moriendi, and the Picture ars moriendi. The Speculum introduces the devil as a character and gives greater agency and individuality to the dying person, while the Picture ars moriendi creates a dynamic triad by depicting a guardian angel over against the devil. Delphine Mercuzot, “Caxton and the Reception of the Artes moriendi” (241-272), suggests that Caxton’s abridged and unillustrated text may have served as a tool for long-term preparation for death, putting everyday life into a different context. If Caxton’s English had a strongly Continental flavor, Mercuzot suggests that may have given it more authenticity rather than less. Daniela Rywiková, “Death Multiplied: The Legend of the Three Living and the Three Dead in Bohemian Art in the Context of Late Medieval Religious Practice” (273-304), discusses the admonitory legend as it is shown in the Broumov charnel house and the Dominican church at České Budějovice, which she places in relationship to other versions of the Legend and also the Triumph of Death. She suggests that the Legend is multifunctional, not reducible to a memento mori. And Nikola Samardžić, “De praeparatione ad mortem: The Dying and Death of Charles V (1500-1558)” (305-221), examines the elderly Charles in the context of writings on death by his early tutor Erasmus.
Three articles on Eastern Europe extend their chronological range well into the sixteenth century and have to do with relations either between Christianity and Islam or between Catholicism and Protestantism. Vladimir Abramović and Haris Dajč, “The Phenomenon of Crypto-Christianity in the Balkans during the Sixteenth Century” (323-334), places the phenomenon of clandestine adherence to Christianity within the context of the shifting border between Christianity and Islam: in the tenth century there were Crypto-Christian villages in Iraq, later in Asia Minor, and in the Balkans from the fourteenth century into recent times, meeting strict censure from Catholic authorities but greater tolerance from the Orthodox. Marcell Sebők, “Traditions and Transitions: Examples of Parallel Practices in a Sixteenth-Century Central European Region” (335-354), deals with the Szepes region in Hungary and shows how Protestants and Catholics maintained parallel practices (such as elevation of the host in liturgy) longer than is generally recognized. And Melina Rokai, “Continuity and Discontinuity in Everyday Religious Life in Southern Hungary before 1526 in the Light of Supplications to the Holy See” (355-374), shows how appeal to the papal Curia for absolution from sin and excommunication, annulment of marriage, and various special privileges continued to be frequent until coming to an abrupt halt with the introduction of the Reformation.
Faced with the challenge of drawing this diverse material together, Géraldine Veysseyre, in “Books and Objects Supporting to Quotidian Devotion: Conclusions and Prospects for Investigating Daily Religious Practices during the ‘Long Fifteenth Century’” (377-402), succeeds to a remarkable degree. She emphasizes the importance of the religious orders as transregional bodies that served to link diverse regions, along with shared experience such as the “common and acute awareness of human mortality” (382). Moving toward her own area of research, Veysseyre emphasizes that book culture moved in two directions: toward greater specialization or toward increased mobility within expanded communities of readers that extended across linguistic boundaries. Why is it, she wonders, that books loom so large in this collection, more than other objects such as prayer beads and other sacramentals? Did they in fact have a more significant and widespread role in everyday piety? She hazards and defends an affirmative answer, and in the process of laying out the various ways books dominated late medieval religious culture she ties together effectively much of the content of this wide-ranging book.