The Holy Land and the Early Modern Reinvention of Catholicism

Explores the Holy Land as a critical site where Catholics sought spiritual and political legitimacy during a period of profound change.

Megan C. Armstrong (Author)

9781108832472, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 20 May 2021

414 pages
15 x 23 x 2.5 cm, 0.76 kg

'A book about the complexities of identity in early modern Catholicism. Both the failures of the Catholic Church (the Reformation or the Ottoman conquests) and its successes (papal revival, global expansion) created ever more points of contest and ambiguity … Armstrong is very sensitive to the ways this cultural power was transmitted, contested, and appropriated. She casts a wide net for her sources, though she is clear that this is a study seen from the West, particularly from Roman archives and from a European print discourse in which Protestants remain largely offstage.' Jotham Parsons, Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

A shared biblical past has long imbued the Holy Land with special authority as well as a mythic character that has made the region not only the spiritual home for Muslims, Christians, and Jews, but also a source of a living sacred history that informs contemporary realities and religious identities. This book explores the Holy Land as a critical site in which early modern Catholics sought spiritual and political legitimacy during a period of profound and disruptive change. The Ottoman conquest of the region, the division of the Western Church, Catholic reform, the integration of the Mediterranean into global trading networks, and the emergence of new imperial rivalries transformed the Custody of the Holy Land, the venerable Catholic institution that had overseen Western pilgrimage since 1342, into a site of intense intra-Christian conflict by 1517. This contestation underscored the Holy Land's importance as a frontier and center of an embattled Catholic tradition.

1. A Catholic gateway to the Holy Land: the Custodia Terrae Sanctae
2. Altars in the holy places and the pursuit of Christian precedence
3. The order of the holy sepulcher
4. Franc, the protector of the holy places
5. The congregation of the propaganda fide and the custody
6. A Franciscan Holy Land.

Subject Areas: Roman Catholicism, Roman Catholic Church [HRCC7], Christianity [HRC], History of religion [HRAX], Medieval history [HBLC1], European history [HBJD]