Wednesday 20 October 2021

10.30 Introduction

11.00 Session I: Networking radicals

Marina Benedetti (Milano): Religious Books and Inquisitorial Trials: circulation of men, ideas and manuscripts

Reima Välimäki (Turku): Late medieval Waldensian communities in Pomerania: a social network analysis

Robert Novotný (Praha): Tábor and Its Allies

Discussion

12.45 Lunch break

14.30 Session II: Charismatic leadership

Frances Kneupper (Mississippi): The Social Status of Late Medieval German Prophets and their Readers (online)

Tamar Herzig (Tel Aviv): Female leadership in the Savonarolan movement (online)

Discussion

15.40 Coffee break

16.00 Session III: Post-revolutionary configurations

Phillip Haberkern (Boston): Legalizing Radical Reform: Law and Justice in the Wake of Theopolitical Revolultion (online)

Zdeněk Žalud – Zdeněk Vybíral (Tábor): Hussite Memory in Post-Hussite Tábor

Discussion

17.15 Tábor walking tour

Thursday 21 October 2021

9.30 Session IV: Opposing religious sectarianism

Luciano Micali (Praha): The struggle against Beghards and Lollardies in the works of Felix Hemmerlin (1388-1458)

Pavel Soukup (Praha): Hussite Factionalism seen from outside: Bohemian ‚sects‘ in the imagination and diplomatic strategy of Catholic churchmen

Discussion

10.40 Coffee break

11.00 Session V: Ideal and practice of radical community

Georg MODESTIN (Zürich): The Waldensians of Strasbourg: religious radicalism and social conformism (1400)

Michael VAN DUSSEN (Montreal): Wycliffite Views on Communal Fasting

Discussion

12.15 Lunch break

14.00

Stella Marega (Trieste): The Monastic Community as Model of Social „Perfectio“ in Joachim of Fiore

Delfi I. Nieto-Isabel (Harvard): Radical Poverty: Community Building and System Disruption within an Alternative Philo-Franciscan Religious Culture  (online)

Discussion

15.10 Coffee break

15.30 Session V: Testing the borders of orthodoxy

Martin Pjecha (Praha) – Matthias Riedl (Budapest): Knowing the elect from the damned: Politics of discernment and segregation in the Hussites and the Radical Reformation

Yeliz Teber (Oxford): Muslim Heretics in Ottoman Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries

Pavlína Cermanová (Praha): Radical ‚Sects‘ in Hussitism: Conflict and negotiation between Hussite groups

Discussion

18.30 Banquet & Music performance in the Gothic hall of Tábor’s Old Town Hall

Friday 21 October 2021

10.00 Commemorative event on the occasion of 600th anniversary of the extermination of Picart radicals in Tábor-Klokoty, organized by the City fo Tábor and the Hussite Museum (optional)

Paper length: 25 minutes.
Time slots indicated in Central European Summer Time (UTC+2).

A conference on the occasion of the (postponed) 600th anniversary of the foundation of Tábor

The emergence of dissenting and radical religious groups was a logical consequence of the pursuit of renewal in premodern Christianity. The separation of such groups from the mainstream can in turn be seen as resulting from the diversity of solutions to the tension between religious idealism and the demands of social and political stability. The relatively intensive research of late medieval and early modern religious separatism has operated in a field demarcated by concepts such as heresy, reform and reformation, revolution, religious movements, apocalypticism, and others. By building upon this research tradition, but not limited by the restraints of any single terminology, this conference has a twofold aim: to facilitate a more comparative approach by bringing together scholars of various religious communities of premodern Europe, and to situate the study of dissident religion within its local social, political, and communal context.

Founded in February 1420, Tábor is just one—albeit in many respects an exceptional—example of a radical religious community. Born from millenarian expectations, Tábor underwent swift development, from a sectarian revolutionary commune to a military-political power within Hussitism and a properly established medieval town. In other cases like Florence, Zürich, Münster, Prague, and many more, religious radicalism settled into the pre-existing social and political structures of municipal communities, while other radical groups pursued a clandestine or secluded existence. This conference will deal with the religiously motivated group-formation from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, focusing on movements and ideologies such as (but not limited to) Waldensianism, Wycliffism, Hussitism, spiritual Franciscanism, the radical Reformation, and various other utopian and religiously-inspired visions.

Speakers are invited to explore the social dimension of radical religion in the medieval and early modern periods. Instead of social-economical determinism, we would like to focus on local networks, interpersonal bonds, and communal dynamisms. As a counterpart to the study of intellectual influences and ideological pedigrees, we propose to examine how emerging religious groups strove to propagate their message. While investigating the reactions of the of society, we hope to look beyond the mere reproduction of the ‚image of the other‘ to more practical deliberations about possible solutions to religious separatism, as well as to proposals for reintegration of radical groups.

The conference programme will be structured by the following themes:
• The social background of radical ideologies: group identity and goals; means of recruitment; media of mobilisation; signs and conditions of success and failure; norms and authority
• Religious leadership in urban communities: old and new elites; theocratic tendencies and the extent of clerical influence; longevity of religious enthusiasm; the ‚stabilisation‘ of the situation
• Reactions to religious separatism: strategies of dealing with dissident religious groups; the limits of inclusion; the aim of persecution (extermination, or reintegration); redefining the semantics of difference

The conference is organized jointly by the Centre for Medieval Studies (Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences) and the Hussite Museum in Tábor. Papers will be allotted 20-25 minutes. The conference language is English, with simultaneous translation into Czech. Speakers will be offered accommodation in Tábor. Limited funding to cover travel expenses (economy train or air tickets) is available, though limited. A collection of the contributions is planned for publication.

Organizing committee: Pavlína Cermanová, Robert Novotný, Martin Pjecha, Jakub Smrčka, Pavel Soukup, Zdeněk Vybíral

Please send a paper title with a 300-word abstract and a short CV before 31 July, 2020.

Contact: pjecha_martin@phd.ceu.edu