Cleanliness at home is one of the most salient features of modern
houses. Cleanliness has not been however a valid normative concept for
all times and spaces. During the Early modern period discourses about
cleanliness in towns, related to medical issues such as the combat
against plagues, came up in Europe. Cleanliness at home, ...
(Show more)Cleanliness at home is one of the most salient features of modern
houses. Cleanliness has not been however a valid normative concept for
all times and spaces. During the Early modern period discourses about
cleanliness in towns, related to medical issues such as the combat
against plagues, came up in Europe. Cleanliness at home, one could
argue, was not so much an issue at that time. Nevertheless, I will
argue in my presentation that the claim to cleanliness at home arose
at least partially out of ecclesiastical discourses in the early
modern period. Catholic noble homes can serve as a domain in which
these discourses were implemented. After the Concil of Trent parochial
churches were meant to monopolize the community's religious life, so
that other religious and devotional spaces are under ecclesiastical
control. By the mid of the 17th century private chapels came into the
focus of an increased ecclesiastical control. In this context
cleanliness and `decorum' became important concepts in shaping the
arrangement of private chapels. It should therefore be analyzed to
what extent ecclesiastical discourses and practices, such as chapel
visits, contributed to and interacted with other discourses of
cleanliness and to what extent these discourses contributed to a kind
of `hygienisation' of the home.
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