Grant allows scholars to study faith upheaval

TWO York University scholars are to become the guiding lights of a major investigation into the religious upheavals in 16th and 17th century as Europe became a melting pot of multiple faiths.

Simon Ditchfield and Helen Smith have received a research award of more than 450,000 to examine the nature of conversion and people’s individual accounts of their changing beliefs.

Their researchers, Peter Mazur and Abigail Shinn will travel to France, Belgium, Italy, Spain and Portugal to trace stories of converts, missionaries, and travellers.

Two international conferences in June next year and July 2012 will place the work in a global context and the project, called Conversion Narratives in Early Modern Europe, will also generate an important series of publications.

Between 1550 and 1700, the Protestant and Catholic Reformations, pressure from the Ottoman Empire and the expansion of global trade, meant an unprecedented number of people across the world were confronted by new beliefs.

Dr Ditchfield, of the history department, said: “Some people changed faith voluntarily, while others were forced to do so. For others still, conversion meant not a change but an intensification of religious belief which changed their sense of identity.

“Our project will explore a huge range of printed and manuscript accounts, as well as paintings, statues, and other materials, by and about individuals who converted from and to Judaism, Islam, Christianity, and other faiths.

“Our aim is to explore how these people – from slaves to merchants and ambassadors – made stories from their experience of conversion.”

Dr Ditchfield is an expert on the history of religion and is currently writing a book charting the growth of Roman Catholicism as a world religion.

Dr Smith, of the literature department, said: “Stories of conversion feature in many literary works. Shakespeare’s Othello is a converted Christian. Christopher Marlowe explored the tensions between different faiths.

“A better understanding of the part religion played in early modern cultures, will help us gain fresh perspectives on topical issues such as the way interfaith communities work together.”