Overview

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. The essays collected here treat a variety of topics, including the frequency and character of early-medieval penance, the ""summae"" and manuals for confessors and the ways in which these texts (written for males by males) constructed women as sexual in nature, William of Auvergne's remarkable writing on penance, and the importance of confessors' manuals for demographic history. John Baldwin's 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 medicine of ""conseil"" and penitence.

Full Product Details

Author:   Professor Peter Biller ,  Professor Alastair J Minnis (Customer) ,  Alexander Murray ,  Jacqueline Murray (Customer)
Publisher:   York Medieval Press
Imprint:   York Medieval Press
Volume:   v. 2
Dimensions:   Width: 15.60cm , Height: 1.90cm , Length: 23.40cm
Weight:   0.520kg
ISBN:  

9780952973416

ISBN 10:   0952973413
Pages:   230
Publication Date:   29 October 1998
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
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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

Reviews

Interesting, learned. MEDIUM AEVUM

Author Information

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

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