Gabriella Erdélyi | Institute of History of Hungarian Academy of Sciences (original) (raw)

Papers by Gabriella Erdélyi

Routledge eBooks, Jan 10, 2023

Remarriage and Stepfamilies in East Central Europe, 1600-1900, 2023

Due to high adult mortality and the custom of remarriage, stepfamilies were a common phenomenon i... more Due to high adult mortality and the custom of remarriage, stepfamilies were a common phenomenon in pre-industrial Europe. Focusing on East Central Europe, a neglected area of Western historiography, this book draws essential comparisons in terms of remarriage patterns and stepfamily life between East Central Europe and Northwestern Europe. How did the specific economic, military-political, legal, religious, and cultural profile of the region affect remarriage patterns and stepfamily types? How did the greater propensity of widowed parents to remarry in some of the East Central European communities compared to Western ones shape the children’s lives? And how did the routine divorce before Orthodox courts by ordinary men and women shape relationships among children and adults belonging to blended families?

By drawing on quantitative as well as qualitative approaches, the book offers an historical demographical narrative of the frequency of stepfamilies in a comparative framework, and also assesses the impact of stepparents on the mortality and career prospects of their stepchildren. The ethnic and religious diversity of East Central Europe also allows for distinctions and comparisons to be made within the region.

Remarriage and Stepfamilies in East Central Europe, 1600-1900 will appeal to researchers and students alike interested in the history of family, marriage, and society in East Central Europe.

Péter Katalin csaknem ötven éve kutat és ír. Ez idő alatt, kivált az 1970-es évektől számos törté... more Péter Katalin csaknem ötven éve kutat és ír. Ez idő alatt, kivált az 1970-es évektől számos történeti iskola, többféle "fordulat", megközelítés és irányzat váltotta egymást. Péter Katalin mindig nagy érdeklődéssel figyelte, illetve reflektálta a történetírás útkereséseit. Ezek rá gyakorolt hatása elsősorban nem témaválasztásai újdonságában ragadható meg, bár az is fontos, ahogyan a nemzet történetéről, a nemzeti politikát irányító államférfiakról-amely a hagyományos történetírás elsődleges vizsgálati kerete-figyelme a kisebb társadalmi csoportok és az egyének, a család, a gyermekek és a nők története felé fordult.

Specimina Nova Pars Prima Sectio Medaevalis, May 12, 2022

The study examines the social practices and cultural attitudes concerning kin-marriages of both t... more The study examines the social practices and cultural attitudes concerning kin-marriages of both the aristocracy and the common man. The analysis of lay petitions handed in to the papal curia asking the dispensation of kin-marriages highlights the dynamic relationship of social practices and official norms and reveals changing attitudes and practices to marriage, kinship and law from the 15 th to the 17 th century.

The case study explores the family dynamics of a Lutheran pastor, István Csulyak of Miskolc, who ... more The case study explores the family dynamics of a Lutheran pastor, István Csulyak of Miskolc, who remarried six times in Counter-reformation Habsburg Hungary, through an analysis of his manuscript autobiography and familial correspondence. Serial remarriages were an important tool for the pastor to enhance his masculine identity and social prestige through fulfilling the role of husband and father. The study shows that even though Csulyak devotedly cared for the children brought to his household by his subsequent wives (his stepchildren), they did not appear in the narrative of his life, which was shaped by the concept of patrilineality rather than the daily practice of family life, in which in-laws and other horizontal kin played an essential role. It argues, moreover, that the expectations from, and the emotions, fears and hopes concerning the subsequent wives in the role of stepmother surface in the pastor’s wedding poems, since the dramatization of the remarriage served as a plac...

The History of the Family, 2022

This special issue investigates the families arising from death and the remarriage of a parent to... more This special issue investigates the families arising from death and the remarriage of a parent to consider the outcomes for the children, parents and stepparents from 1550 to 1900. It investigates historical demography to establish the numbers and types of stepfamilies. The introduction sketches several themes such as: the lingering effects of parental loss; how remarriage shapes stepfamily patterns in Western and East Central Europe; the effects of being a stepchild; stepparent caregiving and the household economy; when illegitimate children become stepchildren; household structure, property and inheritance regimes; and avenues for future research. This stepfamilies issue explores the cleavages as well as similarities in stepfamilies from Western Europe to Eastern Europe and looks beyond the continent into the overseas territories of the Dutch and Portuguese empires.

The issue of clandestine marriages has been approached, in contrast to other studies, by comparin... more The issue of clandestine marriages has been approached, in contrast to other studies, by comparing Catholic and Protestant ways. It seems that the institution of clandestine marriage was generally known and prohibited. Over centuries, Catholics referred to it as the opposite of in conspectu ecclesie marriage, while Protestants did not use the latter definition. The ever repeated. words might have lost their original meaning by then: marriages were celebrated in the church, in the presence of the congregation. Protestants and Catholics differed significantly over the issue of parental. consent: for Protestants, it was the • most important condition of marriage. For Catholics,' the participation of parents was not a constituent of a valid marriage. Was that a difference in social practices or in language? The question needs further investigation

Stepfamilies across Europe and overseas, 1550-1900 This special issue investigates the families a... more Stepfamilies across Europe and overseas, 1550-1900 This special issue investigates the families arising from death and the remarriage of a parent to consider the outcomes for the children, parents and stepparents from 1550 to 1900. It investigates historical demography to establish the numbers and types of stepfamilies. The introduction sketches several themes such as: the lingering effects of parental loss; how remarriage shapes stepfamily patterns in Western and East Central Europe; the effects of being a stepchild; stepparent caregiving and the household economy; when illegitimate children become stepchildren; household structure, property and inheritance regimes; and avenues for future research. This stepfamilies issue explores the cleavages as well as similarities in stepfamilies from Western Europe to Eastern Europe and looks beyond the continent into the overseas territories of the Dutch and Portuguese empires.

Social History, 2015

Abstract This article explores the intricate relationship between representations and social prac... more Abstract This article explores the intricate relationship between representations and social practices in the context of aristocratic conversion, non-conversion and marriage. The autobiography of a Calvinist magnate woman, who lived in a mixed marriage and resisted conversion, is discussed and interpreted as a non-conversion narrative. It is compared to other extant documentation (both ego-documents and third-person narratives) regarding the conversion to Catholicism of four aristocratic men, whose political and social positions were enhanced as a result of conversion. The construction of Habsburg rule and its concomitant pressure for Catholicism provides the common political context of both eighteenth-century Transylvania and seventeenth-century Habsburg Hungary, where these stories take place. Offering a further comparative perspective, the study aims to highlight the similarities and differences between Hungarian and European accounts. It also pinpoints the underlying similarities within the conversion models of rival confessions (Catholic and Protestant) and brings to the fore the social practices that entailed the crossing of confessional boundaries. Its most surprising finding is that in the propagandistic climate of the confessional age even the autobiographical narrative was turned into a tool of propaganda against mixed marriages. Amid this confessional rivalry, not only were the appeal of female agency and the story of conversion for love and marriage lost but, in Habsburg Hungary, politics was also excluded from conversion models due to the ambivalent relationship of the elite to the foreign king. Similarly to patterns identified in other regions of Europe, martyrdom played a significant role in both Protestant and Catholic conversion models.

The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 2011

This paper interprets late medieval religious culture by considering lay expectations of and atti... more This paper interprets late medieval religious culture by considering lay expectations of and attitudes towards the clergy. The analysis is prompted by and framed around a convent controversy, which was extensively documented in the course of an ecclesiastical trial. Contemporary ‘convent reform’ is not conceived as an ecclesiastical event, but rather as a symptom of the changing relationship between town and convent. The description of religious provision in the town shows that there was a strong lay demand for the clergy and the rituals performed by them, and that parishioners were ready to invest financially in maintaining local priests, even if it involved considerable additional expenses. The conflict between town and convent can therefore be considered as a result of a liturgical deficit in the spiritual market of the town. The parishioners' behaviour is interpreted as a symptom of the eucharistic and penitential devotional culture of the time, which was regulated in practi...

Hungarian Historical Review, 2020

The case study focuses on the tactics of aristocratic women to negotiate their familial roles and... more The case study focuses on the tactics of aristocratic women to negotiate their familial roles and identities primarily as wives and widows. By reading closely the rich family correspondence of the Várdai-Telegdi family in the first half of the seventeenth century and concentrating on the intensive negotiating period between getting widowed and remarrying the study argues that the role of the go-between and the marginal status of women in the patrilineal and patriarchal family created some space for them to maneuver. Moreover, the cultural context of female familial roles and ties (mother and daughter, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, half-sisters) was the female court, which created horizontal and intimate ties between women, which also empowered them.

The friars [...] neglected the convent in terms of divine service as well as the number of friars... more The friars [...] neglected the convent in terms of divine service as well as the number of friars so much, that only three, two or even one, occasionally not even one friar lived there. In this way, there was such a huge deficit of not only primes and other canonical hours, but holy masses, said or sung, too, that sometimes there was no mass celebrated at all [...]. If, by papal authority, the convent had not been provided for by introducing other friars of better life in place of the Augustinians, the convent would have totally and fatally devastated." 1 The articles put against the Augustinian friars in the market town of Körmend were framed primarily in religious terms. They were designed to legitimize post factum the reform of the convent. In this case, the reform meant that the Augustinians were expelled and observant Franciscans took their place. In 1517, when the articles were formulated, observant Franciscan friars lived in the convent. 2 The other set of arguments was morality, or rather immorality, which mirrored the familiar figure of the womanizing and drunkard friar, typical and central figures of contemporary common talk and literary genres of all sorts. 3 "In the taverns of the market town and villages the friars gorged and guzzled with peasants, just as they squabbled and quarrelled, and words often turned into fistfights and blood [...]. They took bad women and women of ill repute into the convent and the refectory, where they conversed with them contrary to the rules

The study examines the social practices and cultural attitudes concerning kin-marriages of both t... more The study examines the social practices and cultural attitudes concerning kin-marriages of both the aristocracy and the common man. The analysis oflay petitions handed in to the papal curia asking the dispensation of kin-marriageshighlights the dynamicrelationship of social practices and official normsand reveals changingattitudesand practices to marriage, kinship and lawfrom the 15th to the 17th century.

Miert tartja a koztudat erőszakosnak a kozepkort? Milyen lehetősegei voltak akkoriban egy fiataln... more Miert tartja a koztudat erőszakosnak a kozepkort? Milyen lehetősegei voltak akkoriban egy fiatalnak a felemelkedesre? Hogyan buntettek egy papot, ha erőszakos tettet kovetett el? Miert tabusitottak az 1514-es Dozsa-felkelest az első emlekezők? Erdelyi Gabriella tortenesz konyvenek főszereplői olyan keső kozepkori diakok, szegeny papok es a baratcsuhat letevő szerzetesek, akik mindennapjaik soran erőszakos konfliktusokba keveredtek, es ezert a papai udvarhoz fordultak, hogy bűnuk alol feloldozast nyerjenek. Torteneteik reven bepillantast nyerhetunk az iskolai csetepatek vilagaba, az ejszakai eletbe es a nagy falusi unnepekbe, akarcsak a torokok es az urak elleni harcokba. Sorsukban kozos, hogy fiatalok voltak, akik megelhetesuket es boldogulasukat kerestek egy olyan korszakban, amely Europa nagy szellemi es tarsadalmi atalakulasat keszitette elő.

In the preindustrial period, children were significantly more likely to lose a parent before they... more In the preindustrial period, children were significantly more likely to lose a parent before they reached adulthood for a number of reasons, including disease, childbed mortality, famines and wars. To secure the upbringing of surviving children (or even simply the birth of children) and to ensure economic survival, many widowed parents sought to rebuild broken families by remarrying. As a result, it was not uncommon for people to live as members of stepfamilies, either as stepchildren with halfsiblings and/or stepsiblings or as stepparents. Until divorce became largely a civil institution in the so-called West and, in the twentieth century, began to become more economically feasible and socially acceptable, stepfamilies came into being primarily because of death and not divorce. Thus, it follows that stepfamily experiences before these changes differed for children in some key aspects, while there were also important similarities on the basis of which meaningful comparisons can be m...

Routledge eBooks, Jan 10, 2023

Remarriage and Stepfamilies in East Central Europe, 1600-1900, 2023

Remarriage and Stepfamilies in East Central Europe, 1600-1900 will appeal to researchers and students alike interested in the history of family, marriage, and society in East Central Europe.

Specimina Nova Pars Prima Sectio Medaevalis, May 12, 2022

The History of the Family, 2022

Social History, 2015

The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 2011

Hungarian Historical Review, 2020

The study examines the social practices and cultural attitudes concerning kin-marriages of both t... more The study examines the social practices and cultural attitudes concerning kin-marriages of both the aristocracy and the common man. The analysis oflay petitions handed in to the papal curia asking the dispensation of kin-marriageshighlights the dynamicrelationship of social practices and official normsand reveals changingattitudesand practices to marriage, kinship and lawfrom the 15th to the 17th century.

Ashgate, 2015 (Catholic Christendom, 1300-1700 Series), 2015

In 1517, the usually tranquil friary in Körmend, Hungry found itself at the centre of controversy... more In 1517, the usually tranquil friary in Körmend, Hungry found itself at the centre of controversy when its Augustinian friars, charged with drunkenness, sexual abuses and liturgical negligence, were driven out and replaced with Franciscans.
Based on the surviving interrogations of a papal enquiry into these events, this book illuminates the tensions that lurked within the religious culture of a seemingly unremarkable town. By focussing on the trial documents, the book reveals the spaces of individual and communal action within the dynamic of lay-clerical relations negotiated in a friary reform at the beginning of the 16th century.
« Kevesebb

The edited volume aims to re-contextualize revolts in early modern Central and Southern Europe (H... more The edited volume aims to re-contextualize revolts in early modern Central and Southern Europe (Hungary, Croatia, Czech Lands, Austria, Germany, Italy) by adopting the interdisciplinary and comparative methods of social and cultural history.

Instead of structural explanations like the model of state-building versus popular resistance, it wishes to put back the peasants themselves to the historical narratives of revolts. Peasants appear in the book as active agents fighting or bargaining for freedom, which was a practical issue for them. Nonetheless, the language of lord-peasant negotiation was that of religion, just as official punishments used Christian symbols.