Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis

Modern information technologies (IT) provide progressive tools and methods for data collection, storage, processing, and publication. The essence of historical research is to synthesize new information from different types of historical sources. The analysis of scientific publications proved that IT are still rarely applied to historical research. Several reasons may account for the state of things. One of them is related to rather conservative attitudes of researchers in the field of IT towards collaboration, which also accounts for the absence of specialized software for historical research. The article introduces IT tools and methods which can be used in historical research in a popular way, and the authors expect to promote interdisciplinarity in the field of history.

The article discusses the data provided by visitation of 1569 of the parish of Kuncai in the Curonian Spit in the context of all the visited parishes in Semba diocese. An attempt is made to review the scale of the rooting of confessional norms in daily life, the quality of clergymen‘s education, the level of parishioner indoctrination, the material situation of the parish, etc. The visitation acts are examined through the prism of the aspect of confessionalization, and the characteristics of the process are identified: the priests’ personalities and performance are studied, as well as their control of the subordinates on the basis of the confession, the collaboration of the secular and church authorities, etc.