"No Country for Old Men". Ireland, Europe and the Invention of the Confessional Divide (ca. 1600-1642)

模棱两可是人类的基本经验。但近年来，人文科学和社会科学的研究表明，社会有非常不同的方式来处理模糊性，尤其是宗教模糊性：它们要么容忍，要么缓和，要么寻求摧毁它。在这种背景下，爱尔兰是一个特别有说服力的例子，因为在17世纪爱尔兰出现的教派边界似乎非常不受影响，持久且敌视任何形式的宗教歧义。本项目从忏悔歧义的角度分析爱尔兰天主教“忏悔”的形成阶段（即大约1600年至1641/42年爱尔兰叛乱）。我认为，对自己的宗教信仰要求明确的压力，反过来又产生了伪装和欺骗的策略，随着新一代受过大学教育的神职人员试图影响爱尔兰社会的日常生活，这些策略变得越来越精细。因此，忏悔区隔的“发明”并没有消除歧义，反而给宗教歧义的新形式留下了余地：符合宗教正统的期望越迫切，忏悔区隔就越明显，忏悔区隔就变得越精致，越多样。这个假设将在几个步骤中得到验证。首先，我将确定一些传记案例，这些案例被特别充分地记录下来，以突出在爱尔兰社会中如何构建忏悔正统，以及在此过程中发生的裂缝和差距。在此基础上，我将进行两个微观历史案例研究。在爱尔兰南部重要的海港沃特福德（案例研究1），我询问新一代神职人员如何试图执行其信条正统观念，以及教派界限是如何设定、转移和反对的。在《都柏林》（案例研究2）中，我考察了忏悔的“消歧义”是否以及如何鼓励了伪装策略，从而产生了新的歧义，而不是保证清晰。为了实现这些目标，我们参考了来自爱尔兰、英国和法国的档案材料。

Ambiguity is a fundamental human experience. But in recent years, research in the humanities and social sciences has shown that societies have very different ways of dealing with ambiguity, and with religious ambiguity in particular: they either tolerate, moderate or seek to destroy it. In this context, Ireland is an especially telling case, as the denominational boundaries that emerged in 17th century Ireland seem remarkably impervious, long-lasting and hostile to any form of religious ambiguity. This project analyses Catholic "Confessionalisation" in Ireland in its formative stages (i.e. ca. 1600 to the Irish Rebellion 1641/42) from the point of view of confessional ambiguity. I assume that the pressure to be unambiguous in terms of one's denomination generated, in turn, strategies of camouflage and deception that became increasingly refined as a new generation of university-trained clerics tried to influence everyday life in Irish society. Instead of eliminating ambiguities, the "Invention" of the confessional divide thus gave leeway to new forms of religious ambiguity: The more pressing the expectation to conform to religious orthodoxy, the more palpable the confessional divide, the more elaborate, the more versatile confessional camouflage became. This assumption is going to be tested in several steps. Initially, I will identify a number of biographical cases that are particularly well documented in order to highlight how confessional orthodoxy was constructed in Irish society, but also the fissures and gaps that occurred during this process. On that basis, I will conduct two micro-historical case studies. In Waterford, an important seaport in the south of Ireland (case study 1), I ask how the new generation of clerics tried to enforce its notions of confessional orthodoxy and how denominational boundaries were set, shifted and opposed. In Dublin (case study 2), I examine if and how confessional "disambiguation" encouraged strategies of camouflage and thus produced new ambiguities instead of guaranteeing clearness. To achieve those aims, archival materials from Ireland, England and France are consulted.