Missachtung, Anerkennung und Kreativitat

Katharina Ulrike Mersch

Was excommunication the Church's worst punishment or just a blunt weapon of the clergy in their futile struggle against lay people? In any case, those who experienced religious, legal and social disregard through them were very committed to warding off the excommunication. This book is written from their point of view. It shows how banned dukes, counts and citizens used legal instruments to find ways out and evasions and to shape the community from which they should actually be excluded. The author shows that the story of the reactions to the excommunication does not necessarily have to be one of the struggle between laypeople and clergy. It can also be a story of the structure of the church, about which all the classes negotiated with one another, even if at times quite brutally.