Description: In 1517, the usually tranquil friary in Körmend, Hungry found itself at the centre of controversy when its Augustinian friars, charged with drunkenness, sexual abuses and liturgical negligence, were driven out and replaced with Franciscans. Based on the surviving interrogations of a papal enquiry into these events, this book illuminates the tensions that lurked within the religious culture of a seemingly unremarkable town. By focussing on the trial documents, the book reveals the spaces of individual and communal action within the dynamic of lay-clerical relations negotiated in a friary reform at the beginning of the 16th century.
Review Quotes:
"The publication in English of A cloister on trial at a time when the quincentenary of the Reformation is being celebrated brings one of the best examples of Hungarian microhistory within easy reach of the interested general reader in Europe and beyond."
- ISTVÁN SZIJÁRTÓ, EÖTVÖS UNIVERSITY, HUNGARY
"It constitues a very welcome addition to the growing literature that spans the late medieval and the early modern period, investigating continuities, and also provides a wonderful combination of microhistorical research with a macrohistorical questioning of the evidence."
- NORA BEREND, UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE, UNITED KINGDOM