Brigitta Schvéd, research assistant at our Institute, delivered a paper on 19 May 2026 at the Fifteenth Annual REFORC Conference on Early Modern Christianity, an international academic conference held this year between 19 and 21 May 2026 in Wrocław, Poland. The conference was organised by the University of Wrocław in cooperation with the University of Cologne and the University of Bonn.
This year’s conference of the Reformation Research Consortium (REFORC) focused on the theological, liturgical, and cultural dimensions of materiality in early modern Christianity. Among other topics, the delivered papers and keynote lectures examined how the understanding of the material world, corporeality, the sacred space, and religious practices changed during the Reformation and the early modern period.
Brigitta Schvéd in front of the main building of the University of Wrocław on 19 May 2026
Brigitta Schvéd delivered her paper, entitled Embodied Equilibrium: The Habsburg Monarchy, the Hungarian Cause, and the Performative Theology of Balance in English Political Sermons (1701–1714), on the first day of the conference, in the panel “Church of England 2: Discussing Theological Convictions”. In her presentation, she examined English political sermons produced during the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), with particular attention to how the concept of the “balance of power” appeared in these texts not only within a diplomatic and political register, but also as a theological, moral, and performative category.
Approaching political sermons as a distinctive medium of early modern political communication, she argued that English political sermons – most often thanksgiving sermons – did not simply comment on domestic and international events from a religious perspective. Rather, through the liturgical space in which they were delivered, their performative character, and their subsequent printed circulation, they actively contributed to the interpretation of European geopolitical relations. In this framework, the concept of the balance of power was connected, in the English context, with the questions of Protestant security and succession, as well as with the issue of European peace.
Building on her related EKÖP research, our colleague paid particular attention to the English representation of the Habsburg Monarchy and the Kingdom of Hungary. In the sermons examined, the Habsburg Monarchy often appeared during the first phase of the war as a counterweight to French universal monarchy and as one of the safeguards of European order. The Rákóczi War of Independence (1703–1711), by contrast, became intelligible in English religious and political discourse in a more indirect way, as part of the wider political and confessional crisis in Central Europe. At the same time, Schvéd also demonstrated that the Tory shift after 1710, the death of Emperor Joseph I in 1711, and the Utrecht peace process fundamentally transformed English political-theological interpretations of both the Habsburg Monarchy and the balance of power.
Reception closing the first day of the conference in the Oratorium Marianum of the historic main building of the University of Wrocław
Our colleague’s presentation was based partly on the findings of her doctoral research and on the results of her related EKÖP research. At the same time, it is closely connected to her postdoctoral research project, which examines the Central European dimensions of English political and religious discourses, with particular attention to the role of the Habsburg Monarchy and the Kingdom of Hungary in early modern interpretations of the European balance of power.
The official website of the conference, including the full programme and abstracts, is available here; the full programme booklet is available here.