The Phoenix and the Flame: Catalonia and the Counter Reformation - Hardcover

Kamen, Henry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300054165 ISBN 13: 9780300054163

Verlag: Yale University Press, 1993

Inhaltsangabe

Book by Kamen Henry

Über diesen Titel

Reseña del editor:

It is commonly assumed that the Counter-Reformation touched Spain only lightly, affecting the religious institutions but not the ordinary Spaniards. Henry Kamen now challenges this view by providing an intimate look at what life was like in one small but distinctive rural Spanish community from the mid-sixteenth to mid-seventeenth centuries. By examining the Catalan village of Mediona as a microcosm of Spanish society, Kamen shows that in fact the Counter Reformation led to powerful changes in the daily lives, beliefs, and customs of the common people of Catalonia and Spain. Kamen portrays the popular culture of Mediona, studying the shifting habits revealed by its administrative reforms during the Counter Reformation; the place of religious belief within the community; the attempts to change popular festivities and celebrations; the far-reaching innovations in marriage and sexuality; the role of the Inquisition and of the Jesuits; the problem of witchcraft, and the impact of books from the expanding presses of France, Italy, and the Netherlands on local language and ideas. Kamen concludes that the Counter Reformation was in some instances liberating rather than repressive in Mediona and the broader Mediterranean society of which it was part. By contemplating popular religion and culture as it was practiced by ordinary citizens, he offers new insights into an epoch normally studied only in the light of great political events, and he presents a wholly original vision of culture and society in Spain's Golden Age.

Contraportada:

In sixteenth-century Europe, culture and religious belief were so enmeshed that they informed and underpinned every act, however mundane, of every ordinary man or woman. But while the Reformation is acknowledged to have brought revolutionary change to Western society, the people of Catholic Europe have usually been regarded as little affected. Spain, in particular, is supposed to have escaped the winds of change entirely. Now, by considering the life of one small, but lively and distinctive, rural community - the Catalan village of Mediona - and the broader Mediterranean society of which it was part, Henry Kamen shows that, in fact, the Counter Reformation led to powerful changes in the dally life, belief and culture of the common people. Drawing exclusively on unpublished documents and on the wealth of books published during the period, the author looks at the popular culture of Catalan Spain, at the changes wrought by the Counter Reformation, at administrative reforms, the place of the community in religious belief, attempts to change popular festivities and celebrations, the far-reaching innovations in marriage and sexuality, the role of the Inquisition and of the Jesuits, the problem of witchcraft, and the impact of new ideas - introduced from abroad - on local language and the printed word. This pioneering study, the first of its kind on any Catholic society of the pre-industrial period, offers important new perspectives on the basis of the evidence for Catalonia, Spain's most vital and individual province. Kamen's Catalonia was a traditional society in which official dogma and morality played little part in everyday life, in which church marriage and the concept of Purgatory werelittle known, a society where control by the Inquisition was scorned, and extensive freedom of the Press survived. By contemplating popular religion and culture from the bottom rather than from the top, Henry Kamen offers new insights into an epoch normally studied and assessed only in the light of great political events, and presents a wholly original vision of culture and society in Golden Age Spain.

Über diese Auflage

• Verlag: Yale University Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0300054165
• ISBN 13: 9780300054163
• Einband: Tapa dura
• Anzahl der Seiten: 528