In two weeks, the University of Muenster will host the next Training school run by COST Action IS1301, co-organized by us, Ragnhild Martine Bø (University of Oslo) and Sita Steckel (Münster). While the full programme is listed below, this post also announces further activity on the blog: Over the next few days, it will be our pleasure to host brief texts written by the ten early stage researchers participating in the Training school, in which they will set out their themes and approaches to the nexus of religion and emotions. While the resulting mini-series of texts also kicks off our own methodological discussion, it is expressly intended as an invitation to participate to the scholarly audience, offering both an overview of the intriguing work currently being done by younger scholars and the opportunity to comment or participate. The plan is to end the first part of the mini-series with a report on the discussions of the Muenster event, though some further posts by younger scholars working in the thematic area may follow. The series is, in principle, open to interested other scholars, though submissions need to be closely related to the Training school’s theme.[1]

Continue reading →

The deadline for applications for the Training school, to take place at Muenster, 26.-28. April 2017, has been extended to January 15th.

COST Action IS1301 „New Communities of Interpretation. Contexts, Strategies and Processes of Religious Transformation in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe“ is proud to present a Training school on „Passionate Devotions. Emotions in Religious Texts, Images and Music in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe“, held in cooperation with the University of Münster.

Continue reading →

Call for papers: Working Group 2 Meeting, Ghent, June 1-2, 2017

For members or affiliates of COST Action 1301- New Communities of Interpretation: Contexts, Strategies and Processes of Religious Transformation in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe.

Winning Hearts and Minds: Multimedia Events, Religious Communication and the Urban Context in the Long Sixteenth Century

During the long sixteenth century a media revolution took place that offered unprecedented possibilities to adopt, express and exchange ideas and opinions, often of a religious nature. Many studies have revealed the importance of media such as script, print, images, theatre, songs, ritual, preaching, rumours, etc. Yet, media, an aspect of early modern communication we fail to grasp due to the institutionalisation of academic disciplines, never function in isolation. A real understanding of how different media interacted and functioned in specific settings is therefore still lacking. In this workshop, we propose to look at the phenomenon of multimediality during the long sixteenth century by focusing on the micro-level of specific multimedia events (or series of events) that took place in an urban setting, such as civic festivals, religious ceremonies, public sermons, urban revolts, executions of heretics and book burnings. Continue reading →

Training School COST Action IS1301 –

Budapest, 7-9 December 2015

Organisation & Aims

COST Action IS1301, studying „New Communities of Interpretation. Contexts, Strategies and Processes of Religious Transformation in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe“ is a research network uniting over 120 researchers from 21 European countries. To contribute to the creation of research networks within and outside academia, it furthers connections between experienced scholars, regional and national archives and libraries as well as the upcoming generations of researchers.

The COST Action is proud to present a Training school on “Crossing borders. The transmission of religious texts and the migration of scholars in late medieval and early modern Europe”. The focus of the Training School is on European networks of knowledge exchange, focussing on shared texts, practices, experiences and attitudes in the domestication and commodification of knowledge sources.

The venue of the Training School is the Library and Information Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, V. arrond., Arany János str. 1. Organizers: Dr. Farkas Gabor Kiss (Eötvös Loránd University), prof.dr. István Monok (Library and Information Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences) & prof.dr. August den Hollander (Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam).

Call for Applications: Closing 9 November, 2015!

The third Training School of the COST Action IS 1301 will be organized in cooperation with the Library and Information Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and the Eötvös Loránd University. Ten Ph.D. (or advanced M.A. candidates) can be offered the opportunity to participate in lectures and workshops during a three-day event. The participants will have also the opportunity to present their own research project and ponder its challenges together with their peers and the teachers of the TS. The three-day Training School will include lectures, workshops, and visits. Some of the lectures will be open for other (local) MA- and PhD-students as well, the presentations will be limited to just the ten TS participants.

How to apply

The Training School can accept no more than ten participants. A selection will be made on the basis of a letter of motivation, sent to prof. dr. August den Hollander ultimately by the 9th of November. For this Training School a fee of 50 euros is required. Participants will be fully refunded for three nights’ accommodation (up to max. 70 euro per night), travel costs (max. 250 euro), lunches (3×20 euro) and dinners (3×20 euro), according to COST regulations. All expenses will be reimbursed as soon as possible after the event. Sessions will be conducted in English and participants should bring a portable computer.

Commitment: each participant should present a relevant research project in a ten minute presentation, and write up experiences in a short report after the event.

Application papers

Applicants should submit a single PDF document containing:

– Cover sheet stating name, nationality, permanent address (including e-mail and telephone), university affiliation, last degree obtained, degree in progress, research director/advisor, research topic.

– Curriculum vitae (including level of competence in Latin/English/other languages, e.g. good/fair/poor).

– Letter of incentive describing your experience in the areas of teaching proposed by the Training School, explaining why you are applying and what you expect from the training in the framework of your current resarch suggested length c. 500 words).

– Attestation documenting suitability/thematic relevance from research advisor or director.

– Copy of student ID card.

Please send e-mails containing the application as a single PDF document to a.a.den.hollander@vu.nl. Successful applicants will be notified by 10 November 2015. Applications must be submitted by midnight, 9 November, 2015.

 

Preliminary Programme

7/12 – Location morning session: The Library and Information Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, V. arrond., Arany János str. 1, small conference room

9:30	Welcome, introductions and preliminaries	prof.dr. István Monok, prof.dr. August den Hollander István Monok is General Director of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Professor for Cultural History at the Eszterházy Károly Hochschule, Eger, and Professor for Book- and Information Sciences at Szeged University.
10:30	Coffee break
10:45	Lecture/workshop 1, incl. discussion	prof.dr. Pál Ács: Erasmus and the Maccabees Pál Acs is senior fellow of the Center of Renaissance Studies, Institute for Literary Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences
11:40	Lecture/workshop 2, incl. discussion	prof.dr. Mirjam van Veen:   “Nous sommes tousiours au chemin”. How did 16th century reformed exiles identify themselves? Mirjam van Veen is professor for Church History, Faculty of Theology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
12:35	Departure for Lunch at a nearby restaurant Location afternoon session: National Széchényi Library
13:45	Walking to location afternoon session
14:15	Visit to the National Széchényi Library, and presentation of some relevant objects from the collections at the Department of Special Collections	dr. Gábor Farkas Gábor Farkas is Head of the Department of Special Collections of the National Library.
15:45	Refreshments
16:00	Four presentations of research by participants of Training School – intervision and discussion	chair: August den Hollander
18:00	Departure for drinks in a local pub	Guide: local PhD-student

 

 

8/12 – Location morning session: The Library and Information Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences

9:00	Lecture/workshop 3, incl. discussion	dr. Ottó Gecser: Plague Sermons between Medicine and Religion Ottó Gecser is a member of the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Eötvös Loránd University
10:00	Coffee break
10:15	Lecture/workshop 4, incl. discussion	dr. Orsolya Réthelyi : Cultural transfers and myths of ancestry: the House of Croy and Hungary
		dr. Réthelyi is a member of the Department of Dutch Studies, Eötvös Loránd University
11:15	Lecture/workshop 5, incl. discussion	dr. Marcell Sebők: Communicating Knowledge: Early Modern Practices of Scholarly Exchanges, Centers and Networks   Marcell Sebők is a member of the Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University
12:15	Departure for Lunch at a nearby restaurant Location afternoon session: The Library and Information Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
13:45	Visit to library of Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and presentation of some important objects out of the Special Collections of the Academy	prof.dr. István Monok & dr. Gábor Tóth Gábor Tóth is Deputy Head of the Department of Manuscripts and Rare Books
15:45	Refreshments
16:00	Four presentations of research by participants Training School – intervision and discussion	chair: Mirjam van Veen
18:00	Drinks in local pub

 

 

 

9/12 – Location morning session: The Library and Information Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences

 

9:30	Two presentations of research by participants Training School	chair: August den Hollander
10:30	Coffee break
10:45	Lecture/workshop 6	dr. Dávid Falvay: The most popular vernacular devotional texts in late medieval Italy Dávid Falvay is a member of the Italian Studies Department, Eötvös Loránd University
11:45	Evaluation	August den Hollander (chair)
12:30	Lunch at a nearby restaurant
13:30	End of programme

 

 

There are still some places available in the next Training School of COST Action IS1301 ‘New Communities of Interpretation’, in Rome, 23-25 March. The Training School will be of special interest to PhD-students and advanced MA students working with (complicated) text traditions, and/or those editing (parts of) texts.

The brochure is attached – note that the new closing date is February 20th.

brochure TS 2015 2

By Louise Vermeersch (PhD Candidate, University of Ghent, Louise.Vermeersch@ugent.be)

This is a revised version of my presentation at the COST action IS1301 training school “Production and Use of Religious Texts in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe”. It gives you an overview of the objectives of my PhD project that focusses on multimedia practices in the sixteenth century (‘Multimedia practices and urban contexts in the Reformation Low Countries’, Supervisor: Prof. Van Bruaene, BOF fund University of Ghent). This overview is followed by some preliminary results of a case-study on the Dutch Anabaptists and their mediapractices in Ghent. Mind that this is work in progress that is not yet ready for publishing. I am grateful though to present some thoughts to the COST action network by this blog post.   Continue reading →

By Stephan Lauper, Universität Freiburg (Schweiz)

(stephan.lauper@unifr.ch)

The so-called Briefbuch, on which I focus in my PhD thesis, occupies an important role within an ensemble of manuscripts written in the late fourteenth century in the convent of the Order of St- John in Strasbourg. This convent was founded by Rulman Merswin (1307–1382), a rich merchant and patrician of Strasbourg, who withdrew from secular life at the age of 40. From then on, he dedicated himself to a religious life, and in 1366 he leased the former Benedictine monastery on the island called Grüner Wörth. There he established a communal form of the devotional life together with a small group of laypersons. Little is known about Merswin’s life as a homo religiosus, and little is documented of the early years of the community in the convent, called zum Grünen Wörth, until its incorporation into the order of St John in 1371.

Continue reading →

By Monika Michalska, Jagiellonian University

(michalska.monika@gmail.com)

 

The Cistercian monastery in Henryków, which was founded officially in 1228 by the  rulers of Silesia, possesses a complex founding tradition which changed over the centuries. There were two traditions about the origins of the monastery, the first created by monks and the second in a lay community.

The problem of founding tradition of the Cistercian monastery in Henryków is part of my doctoral dissertation: “Foundation traditions of  Cistercian Cloisters in Silesia in the Middle Ages and in the Modern Age”, in which I concentrate on the following Silesian monasteries: Lubiąż, Henryków and Krzeszów. In the dissertation I focus on the role played by the transition from the oral transmission of traditions about the founder and about the beginnings of the foundation of the above-mentioned communities to the form of written text. The issue is whether the content of the tradition underwent the process of canonization, becoming the object of faith, or whether the creation of its written version provoked the emergence of successive variations on the foundation and the founder of the monastery. In this contribution, I will focus only on the monastic, medieval tradition up to the fifteenth century.

Continue reading →

 

I am at the beginning of a personal research taking place within a Sinergia project of FNS (Swiss National Research Foundation), “Lactation in history: a cross-cultural research on suckling practices, representations of breastfeeding and politics of maternity in a European context”[1].

This project aims to investigate lactation as a complex historical and bio-cultural reality, engendering social and symbolic constructions. It explores how suckling developed and evolved in discourses, representations and practices, from Antiquity to the present day. The research team is organized in four subgroups, set out according to chronology and disciplinary fields and led by a team of specialists from the fields of anthropology, archaeology, literature, history, medical history, history of religion and art history.

Beyond this strong diachronic frame, each subproject concentrates on a specific theme relevant to the future collaborative work and will generate inputs to be discussed and integrated into the general design. I am a part of the subproject, “Nutrition, education and health: maternal milk between cultural norms and social practices (1500-1900)”, which includes medical historians, cultural and social historians and art historians. This group covers the early modern period and focuses on maternal milk conceived as a vehicle of both physical and moral health; as a variable affecting collective and individual identities; as a cultural image used to characterize learning or transmission or as a representation of symbolic or spiritual filiation.

II. Research interests

Since I joined this project only a few months ago, I am still at the beginning of my reflection, so my subject is in a very preliminary state of research. My personal interests are focused on the feminine body and the religious and moral constructions of it in both public and domestic spaces during Renaissance and Reformation.

Continue reading →

Alisa van de Haar, University of Groningen, the Netherlands

(a.d.m.van.de.haar@rug.nl; http://www.rug.nl/staff/a.d.m.van.de.haar/)

In the second half of the sixteenth century, the Low Countries – considered as the whole of the Seventeen Provinces – were characterized by multilingualism, that is, the co-existence of multiple languages.[1] As far as the vernacular was concerned, both Dutch and French (each taken as the totality of their regional varieties) were used. From 1550 onwards, the form and role of a by many desired standard and purified Dutch language became a topic for debate. This so-called ‘language question’ was an expression of emerging attention for vernacular languages witnessed in several linguistic regions throughout Europe.[2] This phenomenon has been interpreted as the parallel rise of the individual vernaculars at the expense of the international Latin language. In a similar manner, the pursuit of a pure and standardized Dutch language has been explained as a reflection of a growing national consciousness, expressing itself in the expulsion of foreign influences.[3]

In 2013, I began a doctoral research project at the University of Groningen, titled A Tale of Two Tongues: The Interplay of Dutch and French in the Literary Culture of the Low Countries, 1550-1600. This project places the Netherlandish language question in the multilingual context in which these discussions arose in order to offer a new perspective on the increasing vernacular awareness,[4] that is, the growing sense of the particular position and form of the mother tongue in relation to other languages.[5] The research question central to the project is: To what extent and how was the striving for a single pure Dutch vernacular related to the multilingual situation in the Low Countries in the second half of the sixteenth century? The search for an answer to this question will take place within the local literary culture. In accordance with sixteenth-century practice, the project uses the term literary culture in a broad sense, comprising not just les belles lettres (poetry and drama), but also for example religious and educational texts and other fields of vernacular learning.[6]

Continue reading →

By Germán Jiménez Montes, Universidad de Sevilla/Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

(g.jimenez.montes@rug.nl)

The following paper was presented during the Cost Action IS1301 – Training School “Production and Use of Religious Texts in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe”, Antwerp 29^th-31^st October 2014. It represents a social and economic approach to the ‘production and use of religious texts’, the topic of the Antwerp Training School. However, the analysis will neither focus on the production nor on the use of religious texts, but rather on the process in between: the distribution.

Continue reading →

On October 29 to 31st 2014, the first Training School organized by COST Action IS1301 took place at Antwerp. Organized by August den Hollander (Univ. Antwerp/BE/VU-Univ. Amsterdam/NL) and Sita Steckel (Univ. Münster/DE), the event was designed to provide training to doctoral and advanced master students, to familiarize them with the research agenda of the COST Action and to establish connections between heritage institutions, early stage researchers and established scholars. To document the outcomes of the event, a report and, more importantly, some of the revised presentations given by the participating doctoral students, will be published on this blog over the next few days.

 Report – Antwerp, 29-31 October 2014

The programme for the three intensive days at Antwerp – mostly spent in the congenial setting of the library of the Ruusbroecgenootschap (Ruusbroec Institute of the University of Antwerp) therefore combined three elements: Local and external experts presented lectures and hands-on training for the participants in the mornings. The afternoons started with visits to three local exhibitions of high relevance for the topic of the event, and ended with sessions of short presentations given by the participating doctoral and master students.

Continue reading →

Deadline for Applications: 1 July 2014

COST Action IS1301 „New Communities of Interpretation. Contexts, Strategies and Processes of Religious Transformation in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe“ is a research network uniting over 120 researchers from 21 European countries. To contribute to the creation of research networks within and outside academia, it furthers connections between experienced scholars, regional and national archives and libraries as well as the upcoming generations of researchers.

The COST Action is proud to present a Training school on „Production and Use of Religious Texts in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe“, held in cooperation with the University of Antwerp, and organized by August den Hollander (Antwerp/Amsterdam) and Sita Steckel (Münster). The event is highly focused on the IS1301 outlook, but includes a broad range of subtopics from typography to religious prints, from seventeenth century religious manuscripts to Antwerp’s tradition of book production.

As the material culture of religious texts, the history of writing and printing and cultures of religious reading are essential to our approach, half of the sessions will be held in collaboration with the heritage collections of the town of Antwerp, world book capital. Antwerp will host a prestigious double exhibition from September 2014 to January 2015. One part will run in the Museum aan de Stroom (MAS) orbiting around ‘Sacred Places and Pilgrimage’, the other will take place in the Hendrik Conscience Library and will focus on ‘Sacred Books’. The chosen topics will allow us to discuss cultural dynamics and strategies of appropriation within lay formal and informal communities, instead of merely focussing on texts and objects with fixed meanings.

Ten Ph.D. or advanced M.A. candidates can be offered the opportunity to participate in lectures and visits during a three-day event and to present their own research. Based on preparatory reading and lectures, participants will discuss with local and external experts, visit the specialized exhibitions and give presentations.

 

Programme 

29.10.2014 – Location: Museum Plantin Moretus

9:00-10:15 Antwerp and its role in the religious book production (Prof. dr. Hubert Meeus)

The first book printed in Antwerp was Simon van Venlo’s Boexken van der officien ofte dienst der missen (1481), a book explaining the catholic mass. From then until the end of the hand-press period Antwerp remained a center for the production of religious books in all shapes and kinds not only for the Netherlands but for the whole world. In my lecture I will treat the evolution and diversity of religious printing in Antwerp.

10:15-10:30 Coffee break

10:30-11:30 The typographical title page and its development between c. 1500 and c. 1800 (Dr. Goran Proot)

This workshop will focus on the development of the layout and design of Early Modern typographical title pages of religious books produced over a period of about 300 years, especially of Bibles. In contrast to the first fifty years of printing, the changes in the design of title pages seem to be much less radical. With examples from the Antwerp book production between 1500 and 1800, it will be explained how printers constantly reinvented the physical appearance of their products, and what the implications of that process are for scholars dealing with Early Modern religious books.

11:30-12:30 Publishers’ Strategies: the Verdussen Family, Antwerp 1589-1689 (Dr. Stijn van Rossem)

In this lecture, Dr. Van Rossem will explore the (mainly religious book) production and (inter)national publishing strategies of the Verdussen family, an Antwerp based family of printers from the 16th to the 17th century.

12:30-14:00 Lunch at the Museum Plantin Moretus

14:00-14:45 Guided tour through the Exhibition devoted to the unpublished polyglot Bible by Balthasar Moretus (Dr. Dirk Imhof)

14:45-16:00 Demonstration of a printing press at the Museum Plantin Moretus  and visit of the Museum

16:00-16:15 Refreshments

16:00-18:00 Four presentations of Training school participants’ reearch (Chair: Prof. dr. Sita Steckel)

18:00-19:00 Drinks in local pub

30.10.2014 Location: Erfgoedbibliotheek Hendrik Conscience

9:00-10:00 From Monastery to Market Place: The Production and Reading of Middle Dutch Bibles (Dr. Suzan Folkerts)

In 1477 two Middle Dutch Bible translations from the fourteenth century were put into print. They were given a second life – or third, or fourth, depending on the phases one wishes to discern in the afterlife of medieval texts. The transition from manuscript to print meant a transition from monastic production centres to commercial printers’ workshops, led by laymen. Also, the reception moved from a mainly religious public to a more mixed public of religious and laypeople. In this session we will investigate what marginalia and ex librises tell about the reading and the readers of these Middle Dutch Bibles. Were printed editions read differently than manuscript copies? Are there differences between the reading of the Old Testament and the New Testament? What do marginalia tell about the transition from manuscript to print?

10:00-10:15 Coffee break

10:30-11:30 Strategies of Publishing: The Case of Franciscus Costerus S.J. (Dr. Patricia Stoop)

The Jesuit Franciscus Costerus (1532–1619) was an important pioneer of the Counterreformation. In the last 25 years of his life he was a passionate preacher. His attacks against Lutheran and Calvinist theologians, as well as against rather pagan forms of Humanism, gave him the nickname Heretics’ Hammer. His sermons have been preserved in both manuscripts (2 collections) and early printed books (5 collections in 10 vols). In her contribution Patricia Stoop will investigate what these different forms of ‘publishing’ tell us about authorship, strategies of transmission, and printing and marketing of religious books.

11:30-12:30 Were Catholics in the Low Countries allowed to read the Bible? (Dr. Els Agten)

This contribution will focus on the legitimacy of vernacular Bible translations and the implementation of the so-called Regula Quarta of the Tridentine Index (1564) in the Low Countries in the sixteenth and seventeenth century. This regulation was not so strictly observed and gave birth to a multitude of discussions in the Low Countries. Particular attention will be paid to the ideas of the Messieurs de Port-Royal who were known as vehement defenders of vernacular Bible reading, and to the Catholic (Jansenist-inspired) Bible production in the Northern Low Countries.

12:30-14:00 Lunch

14:00-16:00 Guided Tour through the prestigious exhibition ‚Holy Books‘, hosted by the Hendrik Conscience Library

16:00-16:15 Refreshments

16:15-18:00 Four presentations of research by participants Training school (Chair: Prof. dr. August den Hollander)

18:00-19:00 Drinks in local pub

31.10.2014 Morning session location: Ruusbroec Institute, University of Antwerp

9:00-10:00 Manuscripts relating to spiritual and mystical culture in the 17th-century Southern Low Countries (Prof. dr. Kees Schepers)

Kees Schepers will present a recently revealed set of texts and manuscripts relating to spiritual and mystical culture in the seventeenth-century Southern Low Countries, and specifically in the Malines monastery Thabor. Two of the manuscripts that testify to spiritual life in Thabor were acquired in recent years by the Ruusbroec Institute. Remarkably, the one manuscript containing a unique mystical dialogue belonged to the sister who was the scribe of the other manuscript containing unknown sermons by the convent priest. A third, related manuscript, was discovered in Auxerre.

10:00-10:15 Coffee break

10:15-11:15 Miracles as facts. Miraculous healings from procedure to publication in the seventeenth-century Low Countries (MA Jonas van Mulder)

The seventeenth-century upsurge of miraculous saint devotion in the Southern Low Countries inspired Henri Platelle to label this era as a veritable climat miraculeux. Shrines mushroomed and miracles ascribed to saintly intercessors were reported, printed and published with devotional and apologetic alacrity. The publication of such ‘miracles’, however, required official episcopal approbation. Instigated by the decrees dictated at the Council of Trent, by the Congregation of Rites and by Urban VIII, reports of miraculous healings were subjected to extensive episcopally commissioned investigation. Jonas Van Mulder will offer an insight into the witness hearings, medical attestations and ecclesiastical commissioners’ reports that documented such procedures initiated in the dioceses of the archdiocese of Malines, and how these testimonies were subsequently translated into the published accounts.

11:15-12:00 Two presentations of research by participants Training School (Chair Prof. dr. Sita Steckel)

12:00-12:15 Evaluation (Chair Prof. dr. August den Hollander)

12:15-13:30 Lunch at mensa academica

13:30-14:00 Walking to location afternoon session

Afternoon session location: Museum aan de Stroom (MAS)

14:00-16:00 The Exhibition ‚Holy Places‘ (Guus van den Hout, M.A.)

As a guest-curator for the Museum aan de Stroom (MAS) in Antwerp Guus Van den Hout is working on the exhibition Holy Places. He is responsible for the part of the exhibition devoted to christian pilgrimage. Judaism and Islam form the other two parts of this revolutionary show on pilgrimage. Van den Hout is excited to show you around, discuss the concept and share ideas and views on the visualisation of the idea of pelgrimage and the obvious relevance for today’s society.

16:00 End of Programme

Lecturers

Prof. Dr Hubert Meeus

is a professor at the Department of Literature (ISLN) at the University of Antwerp. His research and publications mainly cover the history of literature (songs) and theatre in the Low Countries during the sixteenth and seventeenth century and the history of the printed book from its invention till 1800.

Dr Goran Proot

is Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Rare Books, Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC. He is editor of the book historical journal De Gulden Passer and he is active in the Flanders Book Historical Society. His research focuses on the history of layout and design of Early Modern handpress books.

Dr Stijn van Rossem

is a book historian, started his career at the Short-Title Catalogue, Flanders (STCV). His fields of interest lie primarily in revolutionary imagery and publishing strategies during the Ancien regime. He teaches History of graphic design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent (KASK) and is the current president of the Flemish Book Historical Society.

Dr Dirk Imhof

is curator of rare books and archives at the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp. His research focuses on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century book history in Antwerp and the Plantin Press in particular. Together with Karen Bowen he published Christopher Plantin and Engraved Book Illustrations in Sixteenth Century Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2008). His bibliography of the editions of Jan Moretus I, published in Antwerp between 1589 and 1610, will appear in 2014.

Dr. Suzan Folkerts, University of Groningen

is postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the Department of History of the University of Groningen. She is a historian of medieval religious culture, specialized in religious books and their users. She worked on medieval historiography, hagiography and, most recently, Bible translations. Having concentrated mainly on manuscripts, she currently studies the readers of the first printed Middle Dutch Bibles in their urban socio-cultural contexts.

Dr. Patricia Stoop

is a member of Department of Literature (ISLN) of the University of Antwerp. Her main research interests are female authorship and authority, nuns’ literacies, and sermon literature in the late medieval and early modern period. She also explored commercial book production in the late Middle Ages.

Dr Els Agten

is a member of the Research Unit of History of Church and Theology at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of KU-Leuven, Belgium. She recently successfully defended her PhD-thesis Meint gy dat gy ook wel verstaet, het gene gy leest?” The Catholic Church and the Dutch Bible: From the Council of Trent to the Jansenist Controversy (1564-1733).

Prof. dr Kees Schepers 

is a member of the Ruusbroec Institute of the University of Antwerp. His main research interests are mystical culture in Guelders and the Rhineland, and intellectual culture in the Bois de Soignes. He also explored more recent instances of mystical culture.

MA Jonas Van Mulder

is a member of the Ruusbroec Institute of the University of Antwerp. He studied history at the University of Antwerp and the Università Ca’Foscari Venezia. He is preparing a doctoral thesis on the representation of objectivity and subjectivity in late medieval and early modern texts concerning contemporary miracles produced in the Low Countries.

Guus van den Hout, M.A.

studied history of art at the University of Leiden. Caring for artifacts associated with Christian heritage and creating awareness for this often neglected field has always been his passion. As a cultural entrepreneur he works as an independent curator for museums.

How to apply – Conditions

Applicants must be Doctoral or M.A. students/researchers in history, literature or art history, who have worked with medieval or early modern religious texts and have some knowledge of manuscript and print culture. The number of places is limited to ten and priority is given to persons from the 21 countries participating in the COST Action (see the list of participating countries). Basic knowledge of Latin is expected.

The training is free and three nights’ accommodation will be provided. If travel cannot be subsidized at the home university, a letter documenting the unsuccessful application can be sent in to obtain a contribution towards travel cost, to be reimbursed within 60 days after the event. The exact amount of travel subsidies will depend on the overall spendings, but we envisage being able to pay graded contributions to participants depending on the real amount of travel costs incurred, e.g. 50€ to participants from Benelux countries, but c. 200€ to participants traveling longer distances.

Sessions will be conducted in English and participants should bring a portable computer. Commitment: Each participant should present a relevant research project in a fifteen minute presentation, and write up experiences in a short report after the event.

Application papers and deadline

Applicants should submit a single PDF document containing:

• Cover sheet stating name, nationality, permanent address (including e-mail and telephone), university affiliation, last degree obtained, degree in progress, research director/advisor, research topic.
• Curriculum vitae (including level of competence in Latin/English/other languages, e.g. good/fair/poor).
• Letter of incentive describing your experience in the areas of teaching proposed by the Training School, explaining why you are applying and what you expect from the training in the framework of your current resarch (suggested length c. 500 words).
• Attestation documenting suitability/thematic relevance from research advisor or director.
• Copy of student ID card.

Applications must be submitted by midnight, 1 July, 2014.

Please send e-mails containing the application as a single PDF document to Sita Steckel, sita.steckel@uni-muenster.de
Successful applicants will be notified by 15 July 2014.

Organization: Prof. dr. August den Hollander (Antwerp/Amsterdam), Junior-Prof. dr. Sita Steckel (Münster), on behalf of COST Action IS1301.