Contained in:
  • Pain fragments
  • Edited by Tine Van Osselaer, Leonardo Rossi, Kristof Smeyers, Maria Heidegger
Book Chapter

Strings and trouser buckles. An exploration of the material culture of suffering

  • Tine Van Osselaer

This chapter examines the material dimension of idealised suffering in 20th-century Catholic culture, offering new insights into pain practices through material culture, emotions, and material religion studies. It focuses on Maria Van den Broeck (1891-1928), a Flemish mystic, her natural and supernatural suffering (illnesses, self-inflicted pain, and mystical pain), and her associated material culture. Exploring visual, textual, and material sources, the study analyses two key aspects: Maria’s personal pain management (her ideal of reparatory suffering and related practices) and the memory of her suffering among supporters. The article demonstrates the crucial role of suffering in her self-construction, the prevalence of self-inflicted pain, and how her suffering reflected and influenced interpersonal relations.

  • Keywords:
  • reparatory suffering,
  • Catholicism,
  • material culture,
  • mysticism,
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Tine Van Osselaer

University of Antwerp, Belgium - ORCID: 0000-0002-7623-2292

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  • Publication Year: 2026
  • Pages: 157-177
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
  • © 2026 Author(s)

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  • Publication Year: 2026
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
  • © 2026 Author(s)

Chapter Information

Chapter Title

Strings and trouser buckles. An exploration of the material culture of suffering

Authors

Tine Van Osselaer

Language

English

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-1072-0.12

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2026

Copyright Information

© 2026 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

Book Title

Pain fragments

Book Subtitle

Practising Catholicism in the 19th and 20th centuries

Editors

Tine Van Osselaer, Leonardo Rossi, Kristof Smeyers, Maria Heidegger

Peer Reviewed

Number of Pages

184

Publication Year

2026

Copyright Information

© 2026 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Publisher Name

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-1072-0

ISBN Print

979-12-215-1071-3

eISBN (pdf)

979-12-215-1072-0

eISBN (epub)

979-12-215-1073-7

Series Title

Fragmentaria. Studi di storia culturale e antropologia religiosa

Series ISSN

2975-1217

Series E-ISSN

2975-1225

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