FORPRAL · Forbidden Prayers Library. Shaping Private Piety in Counter-Reformation Europe (16th-18th)
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2020-09-01 → 2022-10-10
- EU contribution
- €172,932
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Forbidden Prayers Library. Shaping Private Piety in Counter-Reformation Europe (16th-18th)
FORPRAL focused on the analysis of vernacular prayers prohibited in Spain, Portugal and Italy between the 16th and 18th centuries. These prayers were used as protection against adversity or illness, and were effective whether they were read, carried or worn round the neck like talismans e incluso si se ingerían. Because of the variety of uses, which were not always aimed at reading, the prayers were widely, but not exclusively, used by illiterate people, and imply consideration in the category of text-object. From a hitherto unexplored corpus, FORPRAL compiled an exhaustive catalogue of the prayers contained in the indexes of forbidden books promulgated between 1551 and 1790, in the records of local inquisitions in Italy and in censorship reports preserved in the Spanish National Historical Archive. From a comparative perspective, it has explored this pan-European heritage of piety by recovering preserved or indirect testimonies and performed a rigorous analysis of the censorship policies aimed at regulating the practices of private devotion. The study of the documentation revealed the importance of the prayers as instruments of popular reinterpretation of regulated forms of devotion or as conflicting manifestations of private devotion, understood as that which was not subject to the guidance of the ecclesiastical authorities and took place independently of the obligatory rites, in the domestic space or outside the places of official worship. Analysis of the material aspects revealed that the way the prayers were used as portable objects was reflected in the choice of printing format, as they were often printed in small sizes to be worn as pendants for easy portability. The proven popularity and persistence of these texts throughout the modern period is indicative of their relevance in European religious culture, which confirms the need for a comparative approach to study this phenomenon. In short, FORPRAL have provided an study of forbidden prayers in their historical, symbolic, and material dimensions, and have integrated a gender perspective into the analysis of certain devotions that have proved to be of exclusive interest to women.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, the Indexes of prohibited books alone included more than seventy prayers in the vernacular, all deeply rooted in the daily practice of everyday piety and widely disseminated in pamphlets and books of hours. These prayers were mainly used to ask for favours: curing sickness, seeking protection from sudden death or controlling the will of a lover and were effective whether they were read out, worn round the neck like reliquaries or amulets, in contact with the diseased part of the body or used with herbs or other elements. For this reason, they were widely disseminated among the uneducated and represent a hybrid category of text-object. Taking into account the nature of the prayers as a whole, the Indexes tried to eradicate objects, practices and forms of piety looked upon as vain or superstitious. The effectiveness of these prohibitions in the countries of the so-called Counter-Reformation was such that many texts and pamphlets were, or were thought to have been, lost for ever. This project proposes to fill the bibliographical gap in this corpus neglected by the studies on early modern censorship, to consider extending the prohibitory categories of the text to include the devotional object, to restore this pan-European heritage of piety by recovering preserved or indirect testimonies of forbidden prayers, and to perform a rigorous analysis of the censorship policies aimed at regulating simple forms of religiosity. The use of a corpus unexplored to this day and the approach to the study of prayers in their historical, symbolic and material dimensions are some of the novelties of this proposal. The action will culminate with the compilation of a digital repository, the Forbidden Prayers Digital Library: a catalogue raisonné and a space of open access to the text and object that will contribute to the recovery of a part of the European religious culture erased by the effects of Inquisitorial censorship.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITAT AUTONOMA DE BARCELONA · Cerdanyola Del VallesCoordinatorSpain
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union