The Early Modern Parish Church and the Religious Landscape

教区教堂即使在今天很大程度上是世俗社会，仍然是欧洲农村或城市环境中容易识别的（通常是受欢迎的）地标；它们的塔和尖顶作为节点，在景观中识别神圣的空间。在近代早期更是如此，当时教区教堂往往是唯一的石头建筑，而且往往是任何社区中最高、最坚固的建筑。虽然教区教堂一直是个别案例研究或国家调查的主题，但没有一次尝试从更广泛的景观和跨欧洲的角度来评估这些建筑的重要性。教区教堂需要同时被视为地理、社会和宗教实体；它们形成了当地景观的基石，因为与大教堂和修道院不同，它们是“治愈灵魂”的中心，也是其特定地理区域或教区内的社会活动中心。该项目将考察教区教堂在更广阔的景观中的作用，该景观本身充满了其他神圣的焦点，如水井、神龛、十字架和朝圣地。最近的研究集中在神圣的景观上，但没有试图定位和确定其中的教区教堂，尽管它是每个社区的主要仪式中心。教区教堂和这些神圣社区内的其他场所之间的关系是怎样的，这些场所在技术上属于这些教堂的教区管辖范围？该项目将提供一个比较研究，考虑教区教堂不仅在英格兰，而且在丹麦，法国和低地国家，从而反映忏悔的多样性早期现代欧洲。此外，教区教堂可以从多个角度进行探索，以便更好地了解它的位置和仪式和礼拜仪式的定义方式，以及作为一个独特的圣地的社会，法律，艺术和文化。通过借鉴历史和艺术史的学科，目的是利用档案资料以及视觉和物理证据来进行分析。通过拥抱早期的现代时期，该项目也考虑了由于宗教改革带来的激进变化而受到挑战、改变和重新配置的方式。路德和加尔文都否认在一个地方做礼拜比在另一个地方做礼拜更有效，拒绝神圣空间的概念，但他们的追随者仍然将行为规范和仪式应用到这些需要尊重和尊敬的地方。被新教教会拒绝的奉献仪式在17世纪开始重新出现，这表明，在许多普通人和神职人员的脑海中，仍然存在着神圣与世俗之间划分的概念。对于天主教徒来说，在宗教战争的破坏和亵渎之后，教会不仅要和解，而且要重申其内在的神圣性。此外，仪式、陈设和这些教堂在更大范围内的存在可能成为宗教暴力的焦点。影响教区教堂的不仅仅是宗教冲突：在近代早期，随着环境的发展和利用——农业变化、排水和土地复垦、原始工业化以及采矿和采石——留下了印记，宗教景观也随之演变。这片土地对宗教景观的影响，例如通过在这一不断变化的景观中建立新的礼拜场所，尚未得到考虑。因此，该项目将在现代早期不仅宗教动荡，而且深刻的经济和环境变化的背景下评估教区教堂的景观。

Parish churches remain even in today's largely secular society readily identifiable (and often popular) landmarks within both the rural or urban environment across Europe; their towers and spires serve as nodal points identifying sacred space within the landscape. This was even more so during the early modern period when the parish church was frequently the only stone building and often the tallest and most substantial structure within any given community. While parish churches have been the subject of individual case studies or national surveys, there has been no single attempt to assess the importance of these buildings within the wider landscape and from a trans-European perspective. Parish churches need to be regarded as simultaneously geographical, social, religious entities; they formed the bedrock of the local landscape, for unlike cathedrals and monastic houses, they were centres for the 'cure of souls' and also for social activities within their own specific geographical area or parish.This project will examine the role of the parish church within the wider landscape, which itself was full of other focal points of the holy, such as wells, shrines, crosses and pilgrimage sites. Recent studies have concentrated on the sacred landscape but have not attempted to locate and identify the parish church within this, even though it was the principal ritual centre within each community. What was the relationship between the parish church and these other sites within the sacred community, which technically fell within the parochial jurisdiction of these churches? The project will provide a comparative study by considering the parish church not only in England but also in Denmark, France and the Low Countries, thereby reflecting the confessional diversity of early modern Europe. Furthermore the parish church can be explored from a number of perspectives in order to gain greater understanding of its place and the way in which it was defined by ritual and liturgy, as well as socially, legally, artistically and culturally as a distinct and holy site. By drawing on the disciplines of History and History of Art, the intention is to employ archival sources as well as visual and physical evidence for this analysis.By embracing the early modern period this project also considers the way in which the scared landscape was challenged, altered and reconfigured as a result of the radical changes that came about through the Reformation. Luther and Calvin both denied that it was more efficacious to worship in one place rather than another, rejecting the concept of sacred space but their followers nonetheless applied norms of behaviour and ritual to these places which required deference and reverence. Rituals of consecration which had been rejected by the Protestant Churches began to re-emerge during the course of the seventeenth century, suggesting that the notion of a landscape divided between the sacred and the temporal still existed in the minds of many ordinary people as well as churchmen. For Catholics, in the wake of the devastation and desecration of the religious wars, it was important for the churches not only to be reconciled but for their intrinsic holiness to be reasserted. Furthermore the rituals, furnishings and very presence of these churches in the wider landscape could serve as a focal point for religious violence.It was not only religious conflict that affected the parish church: the religious landscape evolved during the early modern period as the development and exploitation of the environment - agricultural change, drainage and land reclamation, proto-industrialisation as well as mining and quarrying - left their mark. The impact that this land had on the religious landscape, such as through the establishment of new sites for worship within this evolving landscape have not been considered.This projectwill therefore assess the parish church within the landscape against the background of not only religious upheaval but also profound economic and environmental change during the early modern period.