Priests Under Pressure in Southern Moravia: History and Identity in Roman Catholic Polemics (1575–1615)
- Format:
- Dissertation
- Year:
- 2009
- University:
- University of Chicago
- University URL:
- Thesis type:
- Doctoral Dissertation
- Place published:
- Chicago
- Language:
- Abstract:
This project tells the story of Roman Catholic counter-reform on the Nikolsburg (Mikulov) estate in southern Moravia and in the nearby Lower Austrian town of Feldsberg (Valtice) between the years 1575 and 1615 from the perspective of two parish priests, Christoph Erhard and Christoph Andreas Fischer. Working in the aftermath of the Council of Trent, these priests sought to establish a Roman Catholic identity for their parishioners while living and working in the midst of Protestants, Anabaptists, Hussites, and Jews. Anabaptists in particular found patronage under local Moravian lords willing to tolerate them for a number of reasons, including economic utility and personal conviction. An examination of the writings of Erhard and Fischer reveals a number of issues that permeated the course of Catholic counter-reform in this area of confessional pluralism. For in the absence of support from their overlords, these priests had to rely heavily on persuasive strategies in their published polemics. They drew upon a genealogy of heresy grounded in the history of the Roman Church, sought to trouble the
consciences of those lords who tolerated confessional pluralism in their domains, and promoted public Roman Catholic ritual practices, especially Eucharistic devotion through the annual Feast of Corpus Christi. Their work serves as an excellent point of departure for understanding how representatives of the Roman Church approached the problem of heresy in the Holy Roman Empire in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, especially in regions where the Church lacked the full support of local and regional secular authorities.
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