Papers by Frances C Kneupper
Boydell & Brewer eBooks, Sep 1, 2018
Oxford University Press eBooks, May 1, 2016
Oxford University Press eBooks, May 1, 2016
De Gruyter eBooks, May 23, 2016
In 1467,Livin Wirsberger, anobleman from the region of Egerland, was apprehended and broughttoReg... more In 1467,Livin Wirsberger, anobleman from the region of Egerland, was apprehended and broughttoRegensburgtobetried for heresy.(Egerland is todaylocated in the far north west of the Czech Republic. It was at the time part of the HolyRomanEmpire, situated on the border of Bavaria and Bohemia.This was apoliticallyand religiously significant area in the fifteenthcentury,asitlay on the border between orthodoxGermanya nd Hussite Bohemia,w heret he Hussites had violentlyr ejected the Roman Church.) Livin was prosecuted for heresy,c ondemned as ah eretic, and sentenced to life in prison. He died within the year. Although Livinw as the onlyo ne to stand trial, he had not been acting alone. Throughout the 1460s, Livin, along with his brother Johannes(nicknamed Janko), had been busy writing prophetic letters spreadingtheir interpretationofthe Gospels, calling for the reform of Church and society,a nd announcing the imminent End Times.¹ The writingsofthe Wirsbergerbrothers,though highlyunorthodox, borrowed from contemporary eschatological thought to createaradical narrative of the ap-proachingE nd of the World. Perceiving themselvesa sm en with am essage, the brothers sent ominous and incendiary communications to various authorities in the Empire, including members of the German nobility,cities of the Reich, the Franciscan Provincialminister of Saxony, and the theological faculties of the universities of Erfurt,L eipzig,a nd Vienna.² Very few of these communications survive,and thereforemost of our knowledge of the brothers and their ideas has come from their persecutors:t he inquisitors and religious authorities who condemned their writings.³ However,in2001 Günter Hägele
Oxford University Press eBooks, May 1, 2016
Oxford University Press eBooks, May 1, 2016
Late Medieval Heresy: New Perspectives, 2018
The Empire at the End of Time, 2016
The Empire at the End of Time, 2016
The Empire at the End of Time, 2016
Viator
This essay explores a meaningful counter-trend to the prevailing hostility towards prophetic wome... more This essay explores a meaningful counter-trend to the prevailing hostility towards prophetic women in the fifteenth century. In particular, within the Holy Roman Empire, some supporters of the Council of Basel (1431-49) spoke out in support of prophetic and visionary women. They averred not only that females could prophesy, but that they were more likely than men to receive visions during the troubled times in which they lived. This essay investigates the way that disillusionment with clerical authority during and after the Council of Basel (1431-49) led to the clerical defense of female visionaries. As a result of this disillusionment, advocates for Birgitta of Sweden and other female visionaries justified women’s gifts by referring to them as outsiders and associating them with conciliarism and radical reform. Such advocacy appears in the writings of several clerical reformers: Heymericus of Campo (1395-1460), Jacobus of Jüterbog/Paradiso (ca.1381-1465), Vincent of Aggsbach (ca.1389-1464), an anonymous writer of a treatise on Antichrist (1454), and an anonymous writer of a Sentimentum super Infestationem Turcorum (1459). This essay interrogates the arguments employed to justify female spiritual gifts and the context in which these justifications were made. These arguments would continue to frame opportunities for women to exert spiritual authority not only in the fifteenth century, but in the confessional battles of the following centuries as well.
Renaissance Quarterly, 2020
VIATOR, 2021
This essay explores a meaningful counter-trend to the prevailing hostility towards prophetic wome... more This essay explores a meaningful counter-trend to the prevailing hostility towards prophetic women in the fifteenth century. In particular, within the Holy Roman Empire, some supporters of the Council of Basel (1431-49) spoke out in support of prophetic and visionary women. They averred not only that females could prophesy, but that they were more likely than men to receive visions during the troubled times in which they lived. This essay investigates the way that disillusionment with clerical authority during and after the Council of Basel (1431-49) led to the clerical defense of female visionaries. As a result of this disillusionment, advocates for Birgitta of Sweden and other female visionaries justified women’s gifts by referring to them as outsiders and associating them with conciliarism and radical reform. Such advocacy appears in the writings of several clerical reformers: Heymericus of Campo (1395-1460), Jacobus of Jüterbog/Paradiso (ca.1381-1465), Vincent of Aggsbach (ca.1389-1464), an anonymous writer of a treatise on Antichrist (1454), and an anonymous writer of a Sentimentum super Infestationem Turcorum (1459). This essay interrogates the arguments employed to justify female spiritual gifts and the context in which these justifications were made. These arguments would continue to frame opportunities for women to exert spiritual authority not only in the fifteenth century, but in the confessional battles of the following centuries as well.
Renaissance Quarterly, 2020
Festschrifts chiefly comprised of the honoree's students demand attention to generational change.... more Festschrifts chiefly comprised of the honoree's students demand attention to generational change. Indeed, Richard Kieckhefer's affectionate portrait of Robert E. Lerner, which opens the volume, observes that Lerner has "always had a strong sense of academic lineage," his place, and thence that of his students, in an ancestry of scholars (xi). The editors of the volume embrace that lineage, outlining a "'Lernerian' approach to late medieval heresy" in their work and in the broader field (2). This approach means a periodization that "takes the late medieval period on its own terms" (5); a related awareness of that period's vibrancy and continuity with earlier phenomena; insistence upon the new, particularly via manuscript discoveries; and the recognition of the "elusive but real intellectual lineages connecting people and texts" (7). Sean Field's opening essay argues that the Templars' trial was King Philip IV's ambitious attempt at a state inquisition, anticipating by two centuries the later creation of the Spanish Inquisition. Field importantly notes how the various (energetic or lackadaisical) responses of Dominican inquisitors in different regions to Philip's call influenced its success. Although their topics differ widely, we might group Field's piece with that of Deeana Copeland Klepper, which presents the Speculum clericorum, a pastoral manual by Augustinian Albert of Diessen. Citing R. I. Moore's thesis of a persecuting society, Klepper's essay "re-examines the notion that medieval heresy was fundamentally linked with Judaism and Islam" (138). Albert was inattentive to Muslims and heretics in his manual, focusing on Jews as most likely to be encountered by his clerical audience in southern Germany. Yet Moore's thesis does not imply that every medieval text on heretics, Jews, or Muslims would equally treat the other two members of the trifecta; Albert's strategy does not surprise. Likewise, Samantha Kelly's fascinating piece argues that while miaphysite Ethiopian Orthodoxy was technically heretical to Latin Christians, attitudes toward it depended tactically upon other, greater, ecclesiastical concerns. All three essays voice the unwisdom of adopting a blunt theory of persecution that discounts ground-level contingencies and complexities. The medieval ideology of otherness, now visible from our vantage point, is a composite, not a prescription. Other essays feature troubled or troubling figures on the edges of heresy and orthodoxy. Michael Bailey observes that while mystic Marguerite Porete might frown upon John of Morigny's risky ritual magic, both figures and their controversial texts exemplify struggles over discernment and interiority in the early fourteenth-century church. Justine L. Trombley writes on the discovery in Bohemia of the Latin translation of Marguerite's original French Mirror of Simple Souls, indicating its wide European dissemination. Sylvain Piron examines several manuscript witnesses of Spiritual Franciscan RENAISSANCE QUARTERLY 314 VOLUME L XXI II , NO. 1
Astrology for Everyday Life-La "Rou d'astronomie" page 23 Translation and Adaption: The Continuou... more Astrology for Everyday Life-La "Rou d'astronomie" page 23 Translation and Adaption: The Continuous Interplays between Astrology and Foreign Culture page 26 Prognoses of Decline-Coping with the Future. Reforms in 19 th Century Theravada Buddhism in Myanmar Dear Readers, Welcome to the supplement of our seventh issue of fate-the newsletter of our Consortium at the University Erlangen-Nuremberg. We are one of ten topically-focused Käte Hamburger Centers in Germany fostering advanced study in the Humanities.
Uploads
Papers by Frances C Kneupper