New Communities of Interpretation: Contexts, Strategies and Processes of Religious Transformation in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (COST) - Management Committee Member - Country Representative for DK

The aim of this project is to co-ordinate research activities currently being undertaken at several European universities and research institutes and to create a (virtual) centre of expertise for the study of religious culture in late medieval and early modern Europe; a period traditionally depicted as one of great cultural discontinuity with binary oppositions between learned (Latin) and unlearned (vernacular) texts and ecclesiastical hierarchy and the lay believers. Challenging stereotypical descriptions of the exclusion of lay and non-Latinate people from religious and cultural life, the project -- which includes researchers from over thirteen European countries -- concentrates on the reconstruction of the process of emancipation of the laity and the creation of new "communities of interpretations". We analyse patterns of social inclusion and exclusion and examine shifts in hierarchical relations amongst groups, individuals and their languages.