Project Details
Projekt
Intermedial spheres of action in sacred performances: Rogation processions as intermedial practices in South German Catholicism
Subject Area
Early Modern History
Roman Catholic Theology
Roman Catholic Theology
Term
since 2021
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 435118611
Based on examples from Southern Germany, this sub-project will investigate the phenomenon of Rogation processions – a highly intermedial form of practising piety in the Early Modern period, which has not yet received the attention it deserves in research into piety and religiosity. It will examine processions that took place routinely during Rogation week, for example, as well as those held in times of war, bad weather or plague. Processions conducted as a special type of pious exercise were built upon the interaction of various forms of media; they always included spoken texts, songs, pictures and sacred artefacts (such as processional flags and altars at prayer stations). These horizontal media fused together into a single intermedial entity and turned the procession as a whole into a medium of vertical communication with God. A further aim is to analyse the wide range of procession-related media that existed in this period and the use of media in terms of theological, social and everyday aspects, with particular attention being paid to referencing between the different forms of media. A key aspect of this analysis is that religious processions invariably have a performative nature as pious intermedial events – the intermediality occurs solely in the act of staging the procession. In so far as a procession can be perceived as the act of passing through a physical space, special emphasis will also be placed on the moment of itinerancy, both in theological and practical terms: what role did the physical act of walking or striding play with regard to the planning and impact of intermediality?The project will work on the assumption that religious processions had (or were intended to have) a significant impact on the participants’ personal and communal experience of faith, serving as horizontal intermedial performances with a vertical communication character that came into effect specifically through the modality of walking. Drawing on the research concept of ‘religious atmosphere’, the group will explore the question of the intended ‘mood’ of a procession and what was actually achieved, and specifically look into participants’ deviant attitudes to processions, i.e. cases where the events were regarded from a worldly viewpoint (as an opportunity to get drunk, for example) or rejected on the grounds that they constituted an unpaid absence from work.The members of the sub-project will work closely with SP 3 to investigate the performative nature of the intermedial practice of piety and with SP 1 with regard to the role of music in Early Modern media. The role of the body in this context will be examined in detail together with SP 7. The joint research findings will be presented in two monographs and a number of jointly written articles, and a conference with an accompanying anthology is also planned.
DFG Programme
Research Units
