Revivalism and Populism in the Franciscan Observance of the Late Quattrocento
Revival, as this volume shows, has had many different meanings within Christian history, and has taken many different, forms. Institutional revitalization, for example, is one thing; popular revivalism is another. Of course, they may be intertwined, as they were in the case of the Franciscan Observa...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2008
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| In: |
Studies in church history
Year: 2008, Volume: 44, Pages: 62-76 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Revival, as this volume shows, has had many different meanings within Christian history, and has taken many different, forms. Institutional revitalization, for example, is one thing; popular revivalism is another. Of course, they may be intertwined, as they were in the case of the Franciscan Observance of the late Quattrocento. The ‘re’ of ‘revivalism’ is usually taken in a retrospective sense -that which previously existed is brought to life once more. Renaissance classicism is an obvious instance. With the Franciscan Observance, it is true, one does get a sense of the desire to restore, to re-institute, the idealized primitive poverty of the order in the days of St Francis. For the Observants, pristine Franciscanism would have been the equivalent of the early Church in the eyes of the Protestant reformers. Yet ‘revivalism’ can also be thought of as pertaining to remarkable occasions of religious intensity, moments of collective enthusiasm, moments, as Emile Durkheim puts it, of ‘general effervescence.’ But champagne is too light-headed and celebratory to do justice to the phenomenon. A better symbol of ‘revivalism’ would be the flames of Pentecost. Here I shall attempt to show how the Observance rose to prominence, and eventually triumphed within the Franciscan order, through the raging fires - creative as well as destructive - of popular, indeed populist revivalism. |
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| ISSN: | 2059-0644 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Studies in church history
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S042420840000348X |
