The Consumption of the Sacred : Popular Piety in a Late Medieval Hungarian Town

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 practice by the principle of intercession and the institution of good works. The paper argues that the divergent strands of late medieval religious culture generated a ‘ consumption ’ of the sacred. The mendicant friars had a special role in the late medieval religious market as they provided opportunities for religious experiences which differed in kind from parish observances