Episcopal reform and politics in early modern Europe

✍ Scribed by Jennifer Mara Desilva, Jennifer Mara Desilva

• Publisher: Truman State Univ Press
• Year: 2012
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 242
• Series: Early modern studies series 10
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

In the tumultuous period of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when ecclesiastical reform spread across Europe, the traditional role of the bishop as a public exemplar of piety, morality, and communal administration came under attack. In communities where there was tension between religious groups or between spiritual and secular governing bodies, the bishop became a lightning rod for struggles over hierarchical authority and institutional autonomy. These struggles were intensified by the ongoing negotiation of the episcopal role and by increased criticism of the cleric, especially during periods of religious war and in areas that embraced reformed churches. This volume contextualizes the diversity of episcopal experience across early modern Europe, while showing the similarity of goals and challenges among various confessional, social, and geographical communities. Until now there have been few studies that examine the spectrum of responses to contemporary challenges, the high expectations, and the continuing pressure bishops faced in their public role as living examples of Christian ideals

✦ Table of Contents

Content: Foreword: The local nature of episcopal reform in the age of the Council of Trent / William V. Hudon --
Introduction: A living example / Jennifer Mara DeSilva --
A hierarchy that had fought : episcopal promotion during the reign of Mary I (1553-58) and the roots of episcopal resistance to the Elizabethan religious settlement / Raymond A. Powell --
Bishops in the Habsburg Netherlands on the eve of the Catholic renewal, 1515-59 / Hans Cools --
Office and patronage in mid-sixteenth-century Tortona / Antonella Perin and John Alexander --
The absentee bishop in residence : Paris de' Grassi, Bishop of Pesaro, 1513-28 / Jennifer Mara DeSilva --
Papal authority, episcopal reservation, and abortion in sixteenth-century Italy / John Christopoulos --
Ministering to Catholics and Protestants alike : the preaching, polemics, and pastoral care of François de Sales / Jill Fehleison --
Gender, resistance, and the limits of episcopal authority : Sébastian Zamet's relationships with nuns, 1615-55 / Linda Lierheimer --
Challenges to episcopal authority in seventeenth-century Padua / Celeste McNamara --
Trials that should have been : the question of judicial jurisdiction over French bishops in the seventeenth century and the self-narration of the Roman Inquisition / Jean-Pascal Gay.

✦ Subjects

Catholic Church -- Bishops -- History -- Congresses. Counter-Reformation -- Congresses. Church and state -- Europe -- History -- 16th century -- Congresses. Church and state -- Europe -- History -- 17th century -- Congresses. Church renewal -- Catholic Church -- History -- 16th century -- Congresses. Church renewal -- Catholic Church -- History -- 17th century -- Congresses.