Diversity and Competition within the Latin Church: The Secular-Mendicant Controversy and its Long Aftermath (13th–20th Centuries) hero image.
Diversity and Competition within the Latin Church: The Secular-Mendicant Controversy and its Long Aftermath (13th–20th Centuries)

The so-called ‘secular-mendicant-controversy’ escalated between the traditional local clergy and the new mendicant friars of 13th-century Europe, two competing pastoral elites within the medieval Latin Church. After some local conflicts, a massive escalation of hostilities and polemical exchanges at the University of Paris during the 1250s transformed local issues into a large-scale ecclesiastical controversy. The conflict touched on fundamental issues of ecclesiology, and had immediate practical consequences for pastoral care. It drew the interest of laypeople, encouraging public debate and propaganda, which resurfaced frequently over the course of the later medieval period. The accumulating archive of debate, satire, and protest was then re-used, particularly in the context of the reform movements of the 15th and 16th centuries, which translated them into forms of anticlericalism. When the modern Catholic church faced reform debates during the 20th century (especially around the Second Vatican Council), relevant Latin texts came to the fore again, furnishing discordant sources of ‘tradition’ for modern Catholic groups.

This Special Collection seeks to revise and reframe scholarship on this controversy and its medieval and modern aftermaths. It discusses different European regions and proposes a multi-disciplinary viewpoint, drawing on perspectives from history, literature, and Religious Studies.

Banner image: Heretics disputing with the Dominican St. Peter of Verona. Detail from the fresco ‘Ecclesia militans et triumphans’ by Andrea di Bonaiuto, Florence, St. Maria Novella Spanish chapel, c. 1365. Photo: Sailko, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC-BY 3.0.

Editors: Sita Steckel (Guest Editor), Julia Bühner (Guest Editor)


Diversity and Competition within the Latin Church: The Secular-Mendicant Controversy and its Long Aftermath (13th–20th Centuries)

Plesaunt was his absolucioun? Friars and Light Penances in English History and Literature
Plesaunt was his absolucioun? Friars and Light Penances in English History and Literature

William H. Campbell

2025-02-18 Volume 11 • Issue 1 • 2025

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Special Collection: Diversity and Competition within the Latin Church: The Secular-Mendicant Controversy and its Long Aftermath (13th–20th Centuries)

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