The institution for the training of the Friars Preachers in Vienna, which had existed as a studium generale since the middle of the 15th century, suffered a serious crisis during the Protestant Reformation. As part of the efforts to revive the organisation of studies in the Dominican Province of Teutonia, which had been growing since the beginning of the 17th century, the studium generale was re-established in the Vienna convent around 1620 as the main study centre of the natio Austriae existing within the same Province. In 1703, the Austrian convents separated from the Province of Teutonia were joined to the Province of Hungary, which was restored in 1700. The studium generale in Vienna was the most important centre of Dominican education in Austria and Hungary.
Following upon the history of the Dominican studies in Vienna in the Middle Ages that was sufficiently investigated by Isnard Wilhelm Frank OP in the 1960s, this project aims to research the academic-scholarly activities of the Viennese Dominicans in the 17th and 18th centuries. Examined and illustrated are the structure of Viennese studium generale in the modern era, which includes its organisation and personnel composition, the content of its studies, and the most important theological-philosophical positions. The connection of the Friars Preachers to the Faculty of Theology of the University of Vienna, which was cultivated with varying intensity throughout the entire period under investigation, will also be taken into account. Furthermore, the project aims to work out the role and significance of the house of studies within the Province and the Order as a whole. A further, not unimportant aspect of the project is devoted to the relationship between academic theology and Dominican preaching, which is decidedly considered to be the “theology of the pulpit”. Finally, against the background of the Order’s internal education in the province, the participation of Viennese Dominicans in the theological debates of the time as well as the effects of the Catholic Enlightenment and the Theresian-Josephinian church reforms on the Dominican studies will be examined.
This project is being conducted as part of the academic habilitation programme at the Institute of Historical Theology (Church History Section) of the Faculty of Catholic Theology at the University of Vienna.
https://kg-ktf.univie.ac.at/forschung/habilitationen/
Viliam Štefan Dóci OP