Nunneries of the Upper Lusatia in the XVIth and XVIIth centuries. The nuns among the temporal and spiritual powers in the time of Reforms
Abstract
The book deals with three nunneries of medieval origine, which survived the Lutheran Reformation in the historical Upper Lusatia: the abbeyes of Cistercians in St. Marienthal and St.
Marienstern and of penitent sisters of Mary-Magdalen in Lauban (today Poland). They survived thanks to their social importance, solid economical basis, relations to Bohemia, but certainly also thanks to their ideals and traditions, which the nuns were able to preserve, in spite of all troubles.
The sources and the literature are analysed, the Upper Lusatia and its medieval abbeye landscape is characterised. The main chapters are consecrated to the reformation and to the confessional conflicts of these abbeyes and to the relations of them to the temporal and spiritual power.
The study is closed by the analysis of the inner development of the abbayes in the 16th and 17th century, with the impact on their crisis and revival, and of the social composition of their communities The microhistoric probe to the specific circumstances of the region of the Central Europe integrate the abbayes in the wide context of the development of Europe and enriches the knowledge of monastic history with the unknown pages, above all from the view of confessional coexistence and social communication.