CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2024
| Author | Razum, Igor |
|---|---|
| Title | The Changing Face of Reform: Roman Ideals and Central European Reflections following the Fourth Lateran Council |
| Summary | The dissertation deals with the thirteenth-century ecclesiastical reforms in Central Europe following the Fourth Lateran Council. The analysis is based on comparative sources (papal letters, local chronicles, charters) from the three polities, Hungary-Croatia, Poland, and Bohemia. Although similar knowledge-transfer studies had been done related to Western Europe, a comparative perspective on these territories has heretofore been lacking. This study also moves away from traditional center-periphery or transfer studies and engages in assessing the contemporary developments within a paradigm of entangled histories and vibrant communication between the papacy and the region. The material allowed for a review of not only the fundamental aspects of reform, which was directly defined in the canons of the Lateran Council but also of underlying papal policies, related to asserting the papacy’s power and authority within the ecclesiastical structures and hierarchies of the region, as well as bolstering those structures to withstand secular contestation. The dissertation reveals the connections between the polities from an ecclesiastical perspective, as well as the papacy’s expansive approach to these Church provinces. The dissertation is divided into four chapters. The introduction sets up the territorial scope as well as the time period of the research. It also provides a discussion of the quality of the various sources, important historiographical constructs, and the methodological aspects of the analysis. Another important section presents the specific scholarship on the Fourth Lateran Council, within a broad period of the past century of research. Finally, the introduction establishes the main questions that the dissertation addresses in the chapters and places them within the context of previous scholarly work. The first chapter provides an overview of the Fourth Lateran Council within the context of the three councils that preceded it in the twelfth century. It contextualizes both the invitations to the assemblies, meaning the convocation bulls as well as the political implications of these councils, considering the investiture contest and the ongoing tensions between the empire and the papacy during this time. The main part of the chapter is an analysis of the canons of the Fourth Lateran Council, comparing them again with the preceding Lateran councils, interpreting their meaning within the contemporary ecclesiastical and societal developments, as well as providing insight into scholarly work on the possible impact of the conciliar decrees predominantly in Western Europe. The following chapter further details the ecclesiastical and political situation in Central Europe in the High Middle Ages, giving an overview of the main social, cultural, and political processes and events during this period, primarily through the scope of modern historiography, while delving deeper into select events that paint a distinct picture of ecclesiastical policies by the papacy and local agents as well as their interaction with the rulers. The key part of the thesis is the third chapter, which analyzes the particular aspects of the reform of the Fourth Lateran Council as well as the papal policies of Innocent III and his successors in the Central European polities. It shows the actions and interactions of papal agents, mainly legates, in these Church provinces, as well as the instrumental roles played by mendicant preachers in crusade preaching, missionary, and anti-heretical activities. The importance of local synods is shown as well, exemplifying in a normative way the interaction and appropriation by local agents of the Lateran reform, not in a simple transfer but through meaningful modifications applicable to the realities of Central Europe. The final chapter further develops the construct of the ideal or normative cleric as imagined by these thirteenth-century local synodal acts. It demonstrates a convincing image of contemporary clerical life and its intended reform of morals, structures, organization, everyday piety, and devotion, as well as the interaction with the laity based on the legislation of local clerics, comparing the extant synods, most prominently the Buda synod of 1279. The dissertation finds its place within the studies of medieval ecclesiastical history approaching the particulars of thirteenth-century Lateran reform and the papacy’s specific policy. However, rather than being a comprehensive national ecclesiastical history it provides a thematic view towards the comparison of the three Central European realms and determines the similarities of papal action towards these areas as well as the distinct responses of the local actors. Within these interactions lays the mosaic of the Lateran reform, both the rule of canon law and the underlying theme of papal power and authority, making this process a foundational development for both the papacy and the local institutions. |
| Supervisor | Ziemann, Daniel; Klaniczay, Gábor |
| Department | Medieval Studies PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2024/razum_igor.pdf |
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