ABSTRACT
Imagine a triptych representing Catholic religious orders and lay patronage in east central Europe. The first panel, to the viewer's left, depicts the later middle Ages, and consists of three detailed portraits of the mendicant orders in the predominantly German-speaking towns of Transylvania. In German-speaking Austria, the convents were also in need of reform; and, similar to the situation in Krmend, it took a strong hand from above to set the procedure in motion. But whereas the Archbishop of Esztergom combined secular and ecclesiastical authorities in one person, monastic reform in Austria below the Enns was mired in jurisdictional disputes between the Bishop of Passau and secular authority, as expressed by the Imperial Monastery Commission. While the friars might have ceded the glory of Catholic reconquest to the fathers of the Company, they adroitly revived late medieval popular piety, notably in the form of popular pilgrimages.
