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Being a Catholic in the House of Austria: The Religious Formation of Matthias Habsburg, 1557-1612

Grudnicka, Anastazja Maria; (2021) Being a Catholic in the House of Austria: The Religious Formation of Matthias Habsburg, 1557-1612. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This dissertation studies the religious formation of Matthias Habsburg (1557-1619) in the years leading to his accession to the imperial throne to illuminate what it meant to be a Catholic in the House of Austria at the turn of the seventeenth century. This period saw the emergence of the distinctly confessional dynastic ideology of the Habsburgs, who thereby became one of the leading Catholic powers in the early modern world. Previous historians have studied in some detail the Habsburgs’ mature ideology, characterised by animosity towards Protestantism and manifested through public performances of Catholic piety. They have never, though, adequately examined the processes by which it came into being and how the Habsburgs understood their Catholicity. The case of Matthias Habsburg provides a unique insight into the nature and making of Habsburg Catholicism at this turning point. Relatively neglected by previous scholarship, Matthias was a pious man, deeply involved in the dynasty’s religious affairs in the Low Countries and Central Europe. Throughout his life, he remained attached to Catholicism, but resisted the confessional extremes of the age, both within the dynasty and outside of it. Matthias’s Catholicity evolved over the years, as he gradually shed his interest in aspects of Protestantism. But Matthias continued to eschew antagonism toward Protestantism, lacked a strong commitment to enforce confessional uniformity, and instead promoted peace among Christians. He also continued to cultivate less confessional aspects of Catholicism, such as fondness for a-confessional types of piety, resistance to dogmatism, and finely calibrated displays of his Catholicity. These were important strands of Habsburg Catholicism around the turn of the seventeenth century. Studying Matthias also increases our understanding of the important, albeit diverse and elusive, group of early modern Christians, who evaded the confessional totalities of the age.

Type: Thesis (Doctoral)
Qualification: Ph.D
Title: Being a Catholic in the House of Austria: The Religious Formation of Matthias Habsburg, 1557-1612
Event: UCL (University College London)
Language: English
Additional information: Copyright © The Author 2021. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request.
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > SSEES
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10138901
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