Research team
The devotion and promotion of stigmatics in Europe.
Abstract
This project represents a research contract awarded by the University of Antwerp. The supervisor provides the Antwerp University research mentioned in the title of the project under the conditions stipulated by the university.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Mertens Thom
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project
In tune with eternity: song and spirituality of the Modern Devotion.
Abstract
The textual culture of the Modern Devotion is more differentiated than previous scholarship has acknowledged, with respect to transmission, production, reception, and content. The project will provide new perspective to the field by developing an innovative view on the pragmatic functionality and the thematic uniqueness of Middle Dutch devotional song, particularly by including sermons and sister books into song research, and by methodological integration. The project aims to expand the established research paradigm and will yield new insights in the unique position of devout song.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Mertens Thom
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project
Female authorship and authority in late medieval and early modern vernacular sermons from the Low Countries.
Abstract
The project aims to investigate female authorship and authority within the complete genre of Dutch 'father confessor sermons' of the 1 5th and 16th centuries. This typically clerical (and therefore male) genre has almost exclusively been handed down by sister scribes. Recent research has shown that these women made substantial creative contributions to the written sermons. Therefore they are exceptionally important for a better understanding of female authorship and female religious authority, often linked to it. The main research questions are: what is the contribution of the sisters to the textualization of sermons? To what extent were they able to leave their own mark on these texts and derive religious authority from their writings? Is there any divergence between convents and is there continuity or change in the course of time as a result of religious and other evolutions?Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Clemens Theo
- Promoter: Mertens Thom
- Fellow: Stoop Patricia
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project
Mobility of Ideas and Transmission of Texts Vernacular Literature and Learning in the Rhineland and the Low Countries (ca.1300-1550) (MITT).
Abstract
"Mobility of Ideas and Transmission of Texts" (MITT) is a research training programme (2009-2013) that studies the medieval transmission of learning from the ecclesiastical and academic elites of the professional intellectuals to the wider readership that could be reached through the vernacular. The programme focuses on the medieval dynamics of intellectual life in the Rhineland and the Low Countries, nowadays divided over five countries (Switzerland, Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands) but one cultural region in the later Middle Ages. Here, the great fourteenthcentury mystics Meister Eckhart, Johannes Tauler, Jan van Ruusbroec and their contemporaries produced a sophisticated vernacular literature on contemplative theology and religious practice, introducing new lay audiences to a personal relation with the Supreme Being. The project seeks to develop a new perspective on this literary culture by looking at the readership, appropriation and circulation of texts in the contemporary religious and intellectual contexts.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Mertens Thom
- Co-promoter: Schepers Kees
- Fellow: Nanay Bence
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project
Ruusbroec's Words. A lemmatised concordance of Jan van Ruusbroec's Writings.
Abstract
The nearly completed critical edition of Ruusbroec's writings lays the foundation for solid research of Ruusbroec's thought. The project aims to broaden this reliable foundation and to make it still more operational by means of a lemmatised concordance of the complete word material of Ruusbroec's works, which can also serve as a basis of a future Ruusbroec lexicon. The proposed project will make it possible to buy the needed expertise, which the research unit, the Ruusbroecgenootschap, has not at its disposal.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Mertens Thom
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project
Middle Dutch Sermons.
Abstract
The sermon is one of the major genres of Middle Dutch literature. It is a very understudied genre in spite of its historical signifcance. This project has two objectives: (1) an impulse to advance wide research on the Middle Dutch sermon in manuscript and print and to excite the interest of various historical disciplines for this research object, by means of general studies from a historical an a historical literary perspective, and studies on the tradition and dissemination of the Middle Dutch sermon, and case studies. (2) An efficient inventory of the Middle Dutch sermons. Repertories are essential for the research of genres that are characterised by the multiplicity and diversity of the texts. The second objective is an necessary condition for the first one. //..The results of this project will be published in these ways: an inventory of Middle Dutch sermons and a collection of essays on the Middle Dutch sermon. This collection contains two general studies written by the two principal applicants, from a historical literary perspective; the results of the project research of the project research on the dessemination of the Middle Dutch sermons and several case studies.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Mertens Thom
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project
Exemplary Lives. The Tension between the Historiographical and the Hagiographical Discourse in the Devotio Moderna.
Ruusbroec's Crossing. Communicative contexts of the Middle English Ruusbroec translations (manuscripts, vernacularity, reception, spirituality) : A Comparison of the English and the Continental Perspectives.
Abstract
In this project, the Middle English Ruusbroec translations (Vanden blinkenden steen and excerpts from Die geestelike brulocht) will be studied in their manuscript context in order to assess their literary, cultural and historical importance. The research project will focus on translation strategies (language-related as well as cultural) and reception environments of both the Middle English texts and the Middle Dutch originals. The translations will be studied with reference to the spiritual culture of late medieval England.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: De Baere Guido
- Promoter: Mertens Thom
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project
Memory in the Middle Ages. The role of memory in a semi-oral culture.
Abstract
Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Willaert Frank
- Co-promoter: Braet Herman
- Co-promoter: Mertens Thom
- Co-promoter: Venckeleer Theo
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project
Middle Dutch Sermons
Abstract
The sermon is one of the major genres of Middle Dutch literature. It is a very understudied genre in spite of its historical signifcance. This project has two objectives: (1) an impulse to advance wide research on the Middle Dutch sermon in manuscript and print and to excite the interest of various historical disciplines for this research object, by means of general studies from a historical an a historical literary perspective, and studies on the tradition and dissemination of the Middle Dutch sermon, and case studies. (2) An efficient inventory of the Middle Dutch sermons. Repertories are essential for the research of genres that are characterised by the multiplicity and diversity of the texts. The second objective is an necessary condition for the first one. //..The results of this project will be published in these ways: an inventory of Middle Dutch sermons and a collection of essays on the Middle Dutch sermon. This collection contains two general studies written by the two principal applicants, from a historical literary perspective; the results of the project research of the project research on the dessemination of the Middle Dutch sermons and several case studies.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Mertens Thom
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project
Flemish and catholic commitment in the first quarter of the twentieth century: the early period of the Ruusbroec Society from a cultural and social perspective.
Abstract
A fundamental research into the foundation and the early years of the Ruusbroec Society, as an exponent and a particular case of Flemish and Catholic commitment in the first decade of the twentieth century. The key must be sought in the persons who founded the Ruusbroec Society: they were more than mere scholars and they situated their scholarly activities in a broader socio-cultural frameResearcher(s)
- Promoter: Mommaers Paul
- Co-promoter: De Baere Guido
- Co-promoter: Mertens Thom
- Co-promoter: Simons Ludo
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project