Between Creativity and Norm-Making: Tensions in the Early Modern Era (Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions)

This volume deals with contrasting developments in the period between 1400-1550. It is one that is characterized by a search for greater personal liberty and more opportunities for creative expression, on the one hand, and a quest to secure stability by establishing binding norms, on the other. Contents 8 Contributors 10 Introduction: Between Creativity and Norm-Making 14 From Virtue Ethics to Normative Ethics? Tracing Paradigm Shifts in Fifteenth-Century Commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics 22 Sine Auctoritate Nulla Disciplina Est Perfecta: Medieval Music Theory in Search of Normative Foundations 44 "Ÿeglichs Nãch Sín Vermugen”: Johannes Nider’s Idea of Conscience 74 Amt, Lehramt, Charisma. Die Bedeutung von Prudentia, Discretio und Norm zur Zeit der Ersten Melker Reform 90 „...Den Seelen helfen“. Neues und Traditionelles in der Spiritualität des Ignatius von Loyola und der ersten Jesuiten 116 Business Morality at the Dawn of Modernity: The Cases of Angelo Corbinelli and Cosimo De’ Medici 144 Anthropology Before and After the Discovery of America: Continuity and Change in the Question of the Sameness of Souls 162 The Change of Geographical Worldviews and Francisco De Vitoria’s Foundation of a Modern Cosmopolitanism 178 The Better Human Being: The Dispute on Morality in Humanism and the Reformation 202 Justification Theology and Human Action: On the Foundation of Ethics in Early Lutheranism 216 Confession as an Instrument of Church Discipline: A Study of Catholic and Lutheran Confessional Manuals from the 16th and 17th Centuries 228 “Policing” and Morality: On the State Regulation of Faith and Morality in the Policy Decrees of the Early Modern Period 254 Beholding Saint Christopher: A Contrast to the Belief in Death 266 Bibliography 286 Index Personarum 310 Index Rerum 313 "The time of the transition from the Middle Ages to the onset of early modernity (c. 1400-1550) is a very complex one. It brought what on first sight appear to be contradictory developments. Human creativity and freedom became much more important; yet, at the same time, the foundations were laid for systems that allowed control to be exercised over virtually every aspect of human social life. How can we put these two phenomena together? Which tendency is the stronger one? The contributions in this volume focus on the tension between creativity and norm-making from the perspective of different academic disciplines, so as to shed light on this fascinating period in our history."--Publisher's website.