Handling Sin: Confession in the Middle Ages

by Peter Biller, Alastair J. Alastair J. Minnis, Alexander Murray, Jacqueline Murray, John Baldwin

Overview

Penance and confession were an integral part of medieval religious life; essays explore literary evidence.

Penance, confession and their texts (penitential and confessors' manuals) are important topics for an understanding of the middle ages, in relation to a wide range of issues, from medieval social thought to Chaucer's background. These essays treat a variety of different aspects of the topic: subjects include the frequency and character of early medieval penance; the summae and manuals for confessors, and the ways in which these texts (written by males for males) constructed women as sexual in nature; William of Auvergne's remarkable writing on penance; and the relevance of confessors' manuals for demographic history. JOHN BALDWIN's major study ‘From the Ordeal to Confession', delivered as a Quodlibet lecture, traces the appearance in French romances of the themes of a penitent's contrition, the priest's job in listening, and the application of the spiritual conseil and penitence.

PETER BILLER is Professor of Medieval History at the University of York; A.J. MINNIS is Douglas Tracy Smith Professor of English, Yale University.

Contributors: PETER BILLER, ROB MEENS, ALEXANDER MURRAY, JACQUELINE MURRAY, LESLEY SMITH, MICHAEL HAREN, JOHN BALDWIN

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780952973416
Publisher:	BOYDELL & BREWER INC
Publication date:	10/29/1998
Series:	ISSN , #2
Pages:	230
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x (d)

About the Author

PETE BILLER is Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at the University of York.

JACQUELINE MURRAY is UniversityProfessor Emeritus of History at the University of Guelph.

PETE BILLER is Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at the University of York.

Table of Contents

‘Medieval Confession' and ‘‘Confessors' manuals and the avoiding of offspring'. - Peter Biller
‘The Frequency and Nature of early medieval Penance'. - Rob Meens
‘Counselling in Medieval Confession'. - Alexander Murray
‘Gendered Souls in Sexed Bodies: the Male Construction of Sexuality in Some Medieval Confessors' Manuals'. - Jacqueline Murray
‘William of Auvergne and Confession'. - Lesley Smith
‘Confession, Social Ethics and Social Discipline in the ‘Memoriale Presbiterorum'' and ‘The Interrogatories for Officials, Lawyers and Secular Estates of the ‘Memoriale Presbiterorum''.and Secular Estates of the ‘Memoriale Presbiterorum''. - Michael Haren
‘The 1996 York Quodlibet Lecture, ‘From the Ordeal to Confession: In Search of Lay Religion in Early Thirteenth Century France''. - John Baldwin

Editorial Reviews

Interesting, learned.

MEDIUM AEVUM

Interesting, learned. MEDIUM AEVUM

From the Publisher