Preaching in East Central Europe in the Late Middle Ages

Messages, Styles, and Infrastructures

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Extent: 400 pages

Publisher: Wiley-VCH

Subjects: Medieval Studies, Religious Studies

Series: Sermo

Language: English

Hardback (Forthcoming)

(March 2027)

ISBN: 9782503622897

Price: $157.00

This collection of essays analyses a wide range of historical, literary, and theological factors crucial to the development of preaching in East-Central Europe in the late Middle Ages.


In late medieval East Central Europe, preaching served as a medium of cultural transformation, participatied in negotiating multi-ethnic polities, and stirred up social movements amounting to political upheavals. The area comprising Bohemia, Poland, and Hungary has been under-represented in international sermon studies. Making up for this research gap, the fourteen chapters adopt an interdisciplinary approach and analyse East-Central-European preaching through socio-religious and cultural lenses. Key aspects covered are preachers’ educational background and interaction with university and monastic communities; forms and languages in which sermons were transmitted; their textual structure and strategic use of preaching aids; rhetorical fashioning, performative techniques, and charismatic presentation of pastoral and theological ideas to intended audiences. By introducing previously unknown sources and testing approaches specific to the region and period under scrutiny, the volume intends to portray the practice of preaching and its textual output in a new light and offer a fresh look at the cultural and intellectual history of late medieval East Central Europe.