The author examines how the decline of religious processions in the late 18th century Central Europe was seen by contemporary satire. In the first part, he presents essential edicts used by Maria Theresa and Joseph II to ban processions. He also notes that the Church, under the influence of Enlightenment tendencies, introduced similar measures. The second and third parts focus on the 1784 The Picture Gallery of Catholic Abuses by Joseph Richter (1749–1813) and the 1782 Sketch for a Rural Good Friday Procession by Anton von Bucher (1746–1817), literary works which so far, despite the prominence of their authors, remained nearly ignored by the humanities; both of them comment on various processions. The author concludes that the satire of the Enlightenment viewed processions just as negatively as the secular and ecclesiastical authorities of that time. By criticising them or treating them even parodically, it legitimized the bans on processions.
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