Séville, quatrième ville d’Espagne, constitue un exemple de société contemporaine « hybride », prise entre modernité et mémoire. Ce travail de thèse, à vocation comparative, appuyé sur une patiente immersion de terrain, interroge les modalités du renouveau, de la permanence et de la stabilité de l’identité de la ville, au miroir des complexités de son fait religieux populaire. L’étude révèle d’abord les singularités d’un principe relationnel à l’œuvre dans la cité : segmentaire et médiatisé, de type familial extensif. Elle détaille ensuite la nature des dévotions portées aux multiples images locales du Christ et de la Vierge. Réellement présentes, les images entrent dans le jeu des interactions mondaines et les liens qui les unissent aux hommes se déploient au fil d’un calendrier liturgique hautement festif. Le travail en décrit les principales séquences. Il dévoile également l’action géopolitique des variations morphologiques que cette boucle cérémonielle produit dans la ville. Enfin, au-delà de ce que les seuls yeux peuvent percevoir, la thèse questionne plus particulièrement certains secrets de l’herméneutique locale du mystère pascal. L’observation des différentes étapes du sacrifice du Fils, puis de sa résurrection locale invisible, sensible et progressive, vient en effet mettre à jour un principe original de renouvellement du social, impliquant rituellement les vivants, leurs morts, ainsi que les générations à naître.Cette thèse présente ainsi différents aspects d’un même système politico-religieux local. L’articulation complexe de l’ensemble y ordonne cycliquement pouvoir et autorité, politique et imaginaire, au sein d’un même espace de sens symbolique. / Seville, Spain's fourth largest city, constitutes an example of a « hybrid » contemporary society caught between modernity and memory. This thesis, aiming to be comparative and supported by a patient field immersion, questions the modalities of the renewal, the permanence and the stability of the city's identity, in the mirror of its popular religious phenomenon.The study first reveals the singularities of a relational tenet at work in the city : segmental and mediated, while also shaped as an extensible family. It then details the nature of the devotion shown to the multiple local images of Christ and the Virgin. Through their real presence, these images fit into a pattern of social interactions, with the links that unite them to people unfolding throughout a highly festive liturgical calendar. The research describes its main sequences. It also reveals the geopolitical action of the morphological changes created by this ceremonial periodicity in the city.Finally, beyond what bare eyes can perceive, the thesis questions more specifically some of the secrets in the local hermeneutics of the Paschal Mystery. An observation of the different stages of the sacrifice of Christ, and his ensuing invisible local resurrection, emotionally perceptible and progressive, indeed furthers an original principle of social renewal, ritually involving the living, their dead as well as the future generations to come.This thesis thus presents different aspects of the same local political-religious system, wherein the complex articulation of the whole cyclically orders power and authority, politics and imagery, all within one space of symbolic meaning.

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This thesis explores the relationship between image and text in four devotional books printed in Münster Germany between 1589 and 1660, and shows how this relationship supported the Catholic confessionalization programs of the three prince-bishops of those years. These confessionalization strategies, though varied, all emphasized the reinforcement of religious conformity leading to the consolidation of the authority of the ecclesiastical and secular leadership of the prince-bishop. The success of the confessionalization strategies of the three prince-bishops through this medium were the result of three contributing factors. The first of these was the printer of the works, the Raesfeldt printing house, which held a printing monopoly from all three of the prince-bishops. The second factor was the Jesuits who were responsible for education and indoctrination in Münster and shaped a significant portion of this literature. The last contributing factor was the readers, a group with a relatively wide spectrum of abilities in literacy who bought, read, and exchanged the books. Among the readers were a significant number of women readers who took up the confessional message of these books, wound it into their devotional lives, and strove to perpetuate Catholic piety within their homes. Although conventional wisdom suggests that images played a minor role in such programs, images were crucial elements in the communication of Catholic orthodoxy. This thesis shows how images were an equal partner in the conveyance of a nuanced Catholic confessional message in which the text directed a specific Catholic viewing and reading experience. The majority of the images do not carry an intrinsic Catholic message but rather present a traditional visual vocabulary that established an unbroken lineage between the Catholic Church and the pre-Reformation Church. These images provided the standard recurring theme around which the confessionalization message of the text was fashioned. As a distinctly regional literature, these devotional works reveal a localized Catholic response to Protestant polemic. They give valuable insight into the influence of confessionalization programs on regional devotional practices. The lasting effects of these confessionalization programs are still visible in Münster’s Catholic character today.

The aim of this study is to examine intangible aspects of medieval church architecture from an art historical perspective, by using the theoretical frameworks of  the theologist Alf Härdelin’s theory on multidimensionality and the philosopher of languages  John Langshaw Austin’s the­ory on speech acts and performativity. It studies the relationship between church architecture and liturgy during the 15th century. This case study’s main material is the Upland parish church Ärentuna and the liturgical sources Missale Upsalense novum (1513) and the devotional book Siælinna thrøst (15th century). The interior of the church has been examined to understand how the church interior may have been furnished during the 15th century.  During the 15th century the church had many more altars and devotion pictures than what one can see in the current furnishings of the church. There is a narratological succession in the construction of the building, as well as the iconographical motifs, from West to East, thus the meaning of it becomes increasingly sacred. In that way, the construction of the building, as well as the wall paintings converses, with the liturgy – which has its core in the choir. When lay­people entered the sacred space of the church, they perceived things in a specific order, which creates a sense of order and cohesion within the liturgy. The study found that liturgy produces meaning in the church architecture by giving a visual expression to faith through images. Through performative speech acts found in the liturgy, a multidimensional experience is created by the (theological) fact of Christ's presence in the church. The nave's paintings enhance the visitor’s experience of the church interior as an eternal heavenly presence with motifs such as the Seven days of Creation, the Ten Commandments, the Passion of Christ and finally the Last Judgment.