CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2022
| Author | Dmitry Zharov |
|---|---|
| Title | Quest for Confessionalization via Education. The Jesuit school in Vienna, 1553-1565 |
| Summary | The thesis deals with the problem of employing educational institutions as tools for confessionalization in Early modern Europe. It explores the activities of the Jesuit school in Vienna during the early stage of its history (1553-1565) in context of the recatholization process in the Habsburg monarchy. The thesis focuses on three main issues: 1. Student body of the college and its catchment area, 2. “Social policy” of the Jesuits in education, 3. Struggles for converting Lutheran students. I argue that over one decade the Jesuits managed to create an attractive and stable school appealing to students of all social backgrounds, but especially to not very wealthy families. Having built up a substantial in size, socially diverse, and multinational student community, Jesuits sought to convert Protestant students to Catholicism and to strengthen confessional loyalties among Catholic ones. Constant confrontation with a hostile Protestant environment as well as constant financial difficulties hampered the recatholization work of the school. Despite all odds Jesuits managed to maintain and develop a school which eventually contributed to intensification of conversions and overall bolstered the positions of Catholicism. Moreover, the study on the Jesuit school in Vienna in 1553-1565 has offered a new perspective on a history of confessionalization in Central Europe. The Viennese college is an example of a local, non-state actor operating under circumstances when the secular ruler (Habsburg emperor) was too weak to effectively impose Catholicism by the means of force or legislative measures. Jesuits certainly enjoyed significant support from the emperor but their methods were not at all “top-down”. Establishing a school allowed Jesuits to get incorporated into the urban space and to act from below. Jesuit strategy was based not on force but on persuasion and sophisticated techniques aimed at encouraging student to bolster their faith or to convert to Catholicism. The complexities the College had to show with (with the “social policy” and conversions) show that the process of recatholization was in no way straightforward. Finally, the inquiry into conversion policy at school illustrates a possible ambiguity of a confessional shift. |
| Supervisor | Radway Robyn Dora |
| Department | History MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2022/zharov_dmitry.pdf |
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