Preaching office in royal towns of Upper Hungary in the 16th and 17th centuries: expectations of the town community and the church

Abstract

The article looks into tasks assigned to the preaching office in Protestant communities in towns of Upper Hungary in the 16th and 17th centuries (Pentapolitana league). It tackles the issue from the perspective of the history of ideas and contextual historical analysis. The analysis is based on a corpus of theological and normative texts of secular and religious character from the studied region. An outline of the theological frame (given by basic dogmatic texts) that for the Protestant communities served as the background for defining the nature of preaching office is followed by an analysis of expectations set by the representatives of the local church and town communities. Key to these are the matters of dogmatic orthodoxy and issues related to the contents of preaching, the expected social impact, and requirements set on preachers by secular and religious bodies. The article also outlines the opportunities and limitations for implementation of the idealised image of the preaching office in specific conditions of individual towns, especially with regards to educational and dogma-related requirements and the conflicting potential of preaching with respect to the secular power.

Keywords

• protestant preaching
• town in early modern era
• 16th and 17th centuries