Irene Bueno: “The worst of all oriental schismatics”: lists of errors and polemical works against Eastern Christians, 14th-15th century

Medieval anti-heresy writings rarely engage in polemical discussions against Eastern Christians. However, a few polemical works compiled in the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries contain lists of errors attributed to the Greeks, Armenians, Jacobites, and other Eastern communities, along with refutations. A comparative analysis of these texts not only illuminates specific elements of disagreement with regard to the groups under examination, but also the authors’ varying ambition to equate them with major past and present heresies. This lecture will highlight the connections between these texts and examine the different ways in which theologians at the papal court, Eastern converts to Catholicism, and mendicant missionaries contributed to the shaping of polemical discourse.

Irene Bueno is an Associate Professor of Medieval History, focusing on the religious and cultural history of the late Middle Ages. Her research interests cover the history of heresy and inquisition in France, the Avignon papacy, and East/West relations in the late Middle Ages. After receiving her PhD from the European University Institute in Florence, she has held research fellowships at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris and Leiden University. With Vincenzo Lavenia and Riccardo Parmeggiani, she co-directs INQUIRE, International Centre for the Study of Inquisitions. Her current research investigates the circulation of information about the Christian and non-Christian East at the papal court of Avignon. She is the local coordinator of the PRIN 2022 "The Angevin World, the Papacy and the East: 1250-1450".

The lecture is held under the auspices of the Czech Association for the Study of Religions.