Objects of Devotion: Religion and its Instruments in Early Modern Europe
(05-05-2021) International conference examining how religious ideas and practice were realized through interaction with objects
20-22 May 2021 – Zoom Virtual Meetings
Historians of the late medieval and early modern period have created an antithesis between spiritual (inward) and physical (outward) devotion, branding the latter as superficial, ritualistic and mechanistic. More generally, from the first Protestant historians to Max Weber and his followers, the Reformation has come to be represented as the classic watershed between material, magical devotion and spiritual, rational belief. In a similar vein, art historians have opposed the notion of the medieval cult image, material and functional, to the early modern work of art, subject to aesthesis (Carolyn Walker Bynum, Hans Belting). Yet, does it make sense to distinguish between late medieval and early modern religious culture, given the fact that the definitions and boundaries of these periods are notoriously problematic and considerably overlap? We will examine the degree to which these differing traditions dictated separate approaches to objects and their role in forming beliefs and practices.
Conference organizer: Anne-Laure Van Bruaene (Ghent University)
All participants (including speakers) are invited to register via this online registration tool. On Monday, May 17th, we will send a zoom link to everyone registered.