Wycliffism and Hussitism: Methods of Thinking, Writing, and Persuasion, c. 1360 – c. 1460

0552692 - FLÚ 2022 RIV BE eng M - Monography Chapter
Soukup, Pavel
Scriptural Exegesis and Clerical Discourse in Hussite Preaching.
Wycliffism and Hussitism: Methods of Thinking, Writing, and Persuasion, c. 1360 – c. 1460. Turnhout: Brepols, 2021 - (Ghosh, K.; Soukup, P.), s. 341-360. Medieval Church Studies, 47. ISBN 978-2-503-58382-2
R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GX19-28415X
Institutional support: RVO:67985955
Keywords : Exegesis * Preaching * Hussitism
OECD category: History (history of science and technology to be 6.3, history of specific sciences to be under the respective headings)
https://doi.org/10.1484/M.MCS-EB.5.124381

This paper searches for the method of Hussite preaching. It asks how preachers produced the content they wanted to convey in sermons and what relationship their preaching had to religious and social changes in fifteenth-century Bohemia. One focus is the genres and styles in sermon texts. Scholars have pointed out the mutual penetration of scholastic methodology and popular discourse as a key aspect of Wycliffite and Hussite religious thinking. Taking into consideration the production and transmission context of medieval preaching, this paper suggests that the elements of scholastic methodology in sermons may have been intended just for preachers and not presented to the audience. Another focus of this chapter is the homiletical interpretation of Scripture. It examines the construction and sources of selected Hussite sermons from the time of Jan Hus up to the collections dated to the 1480s. It shows that the range of authors quoted in extant Hussite sermons did not differ from Catholic ones. It was the notion of the true Church that influenced the content of Hussite preaching more than a literary method. What was peculiar about Hussite preaching is not found on the level of intertextual composition, but has to do with changing the overall interpretative framework.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0328381