Religion shaped the early modern world not only through confessional and political rearrangements, but also through the impact of Latinity, which marked Catholicism, on post-Tridentine culture. Thus, various groups were integrated into the matrix of the Roman Church by using cultural codes owed to Latinity, as shown on the basic level, e.g., by the dictionaries of native languages; in turn, the newcomers claimed such codes to adapt themselves to the discourse dominating in the Church.

This subproject will determine the strategies of inculturation into/of the Catholic matrix pursued in relation to local or group-specific centres of the post-Tridentine culture grasped through literary sources in three main aspects: (1) legal and institutional discourse of/with the Roman curia, including liturgical and dogmatic aspects, (2) hagiographic discourse, (3) discourse on the past of enculturated groups and of the Catholic Church. Firstly, the project will concentrate on the (re-)inculturation of the communities from an already established Christian background; then, it will focus on the inculturation of newly Christianized communities. The patterns of legal argumentation will be investigated at both stages.