Hearing the Body of Christ in Early Modern Prague

Abstract

The multi-confessional cities of early modern Central Europe resounded with sacred music. People sang to express faith, to challenge the beliefs of others, and to lay claim to shared urban spaces. This study considers how such music was heard in Prague, the capital of the Holy Roman Empire, during the reign of the Habsburg Emperor Rudolf II (1576–1612). During this period, the city’s Catholics jostled for supremacy with Czech-speaking Utraquists (followers of Jan Hus), who vastly outnumbered them, and a growing population of German-speaking Lutherans. Focusing on the sonically rich Corpus Christi processions held by Prague’s Jesuits, this article examines how sounds that aggressively promoted Catholic Eucharistic doctrine were received by those who were––by chance or by design––within earshot. Viewing Catholic claims alongside non-Catholic resistance suggests that music’s power lay as much in the fact of its performance as in its deployment of specific texts and sounds.