Book Cover
E-book
Author Schutte, Anne Jacobson

Title By force and fear : taking and breaking monastic vows in early modern Europe / Anne Jacobson Schutte
Published Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2011

Copies

Description 1 online resource (xii, 285 pages) : illustrations (some color), portraits (some color), maps
Contents Forced monachization, 1668-1793 : an overview -- Literary and historiographical contexts -- Elders and forced monachization -- Waging law in the congregation of the council -- Contracts and fear in monachization and marriage -- Witnesses to forced monachization -- Degrees of separation -- War and coerced monachization -- Continuity and change in forced monachization
Summary Drawing on records of the Congregation of the Council, held in the Vatican Archive, Schutte examines nearly one thousand petitions for annulment of monastic vows submitted to the Pope and adjudicated by the Council during a 125-year period, from 1668 to 1793. She considers petitions from Roman Catholic regions across Europe and a few from Latin America and finds that, in about half these cases, the congregation reached a decision. Many women and a smaller proportion of men got what they asked for: decrees nullifying their monastic profession and releasing them from religious houses. Schutte also reaches important conclusions about relations between elders and offspring in early modern families. Contrary to the picture historians have painted of increasingly less patriarchal and more egalitarian families, she finds numerous instances of fathers, mothers, and other relatives (including older siblings) employing physical violence and psychological pressure to compel adolescents into "entering religion." Dramatic tales from the archives show that many victims of such violence remained so intimidated that they dared not petition the pope until the agents of force and fear had died, by which time they themselves were middle-aged. Schutte's innovative book will be of great interest to scholars of early modern Europe, especially those who work on religion, the Church, family, and gender.-- Book jacket
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes In English
Print version record
Subject Vows -- History
Profession (in religious orders, congregations, etc.) -- History
Vows (Canon law)
Dispensations (Canon law)
Monastic and religious life -- Europe -- History
HISTORY -- Renaissance.
Dispensations (Canon law)
Monastic and religious life
Profession (in religious orders, congregations, etc.)
Vows
Vows (Canon law)
Geistliches Leben
Mönchtum
Gelübde
Freiwilligkeit
Zwang
Dispens
Profess
Exklaustrierung
Säkularisierung Kanonisches Recht
Kanonisk rätt -- historia -- Europa.
Klosterliv -- historia -- Europa.
Europe
Europa
Genre/Form Electronic book
History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780801463174
0801463173