Working group „Körper und Geistlichkeit im Mittelalter. Tugend, Macht und Repräsentation“ (Web) in coop. with the Faculty of Croatian Studies, Univ. of Zagreb; Forschungsstelle für Vergleichende Ordensgeschichte (FOVOG), Technische Univ. Dresden
Zeit: 25.-27.11.2026
Ort: Dresden
Anmeldung bis: 20.11.2026
The conference will examine the relationship between the body and communication from various perspectives. Firstly, it will consider how members of the clerical order communicated about the body; secondly, how they communicated through the body; and thirdly, how the bodies of members of the clerical order were discussed. Particular attention will be paid to the purposes served by each form of communication and the discourses within which the respective statements can be situated. Attention will also be given to the question of how physicality could be used in communicative acts as a metaphor for other meanings. Furthermore, the conference will examine the means or media through which communication about the body took place, as well as the relationship between mediality and communication about the body. In line with the working group’s concept, we are particularly interested in the communicative distinction between the bodies of different groups within the clerical order (e.g. monks, nuns, priests, bishops), as well as between the bodies of laypeople and members of the clerical order.
Programme (Web)
Sections: The Disciplined Body | Outward Appearance and Clothes | Sick and Poor Bodies | Holy and Unholy Bodies
Working group „Körper und Geistlichkeit im Mittelalter. Tugend, Macht und Repräsentation“ / “Body and Clerical Order in the Middle Ages. Virtue, Power and Representation”
Founded in December 2023, the working group aims to focus on a field of research that has been underexposed to date but is central to understanding the medieval world. The position of power and the special social influence and status of clerical actors are considered typical of the period; this position was often communicated visually and ritually by means of the body, which was also typical of the era. Although body-related practices in the Middle Ages have been intensively researched for the secular sphere, which has led to the identification of various rituals, social rules and the like, body practices and concepts of the clerical order, including their medial communication, have so far only been examined selectively and in relation to individual groups of actors (especially popes and bishops).
Analysing these bodily practices and concepts can help to shed light on a factor that should not be underestimated when it comes to the status identity and social positioning of the clerical order. Three dimensions in particular – the body as a means of expressing virtue and of attaining and representing power and status – appear to be important here. For through various body-related actions, one could not only approach God as a priest, monk or nun and demonstrate virtue, but also rise or fall in reputation as a political or social actor, gain or lose power and represent and legitimise one’s own status. The working group aims to systematically and comparatively analyse these bodily practices and concepts, including their mediation, and to find out how they were used to differentiate from the laity, for social differentiation within the clerical order (such as between bishop and priest, monk and nun, Continue reading →