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The Summa for Confessors as an Instrument of Social Control
... Consider the Christian Church's decision to make confession mandatory for all at least once a year, from the 13 th century onwards (Bériou, 1983;Tentler, 2015). In line with the mutual policing model, historians have argued that the Christian hierarchy deliberately designed mandatory confession as a technology of social control (Little, 1981;Martin, 1983;Tentler, 1974Tentler, , 2015. First, a huge number of manuals provided priests with very precise techniques about how to conduct confession, making clear that people construed confession as an instrumental technology: ...
What explains the ubiquity and cultural success of prosocial religions? Leading accounts argue that prosocial religions evolved because they help societies grow and promote group cooperation. Yet recent evidence suggests that prosocial religious beliefs are not limited to large societies and might not have strong effects on cooperation. Here, we propose that prosocial religions, including beliefs in moralizing gods, develop because individuals shape supernatural beliefs to achieve their goals in within-group, strategic interactions. People have a fitness interest in controlling others' cooperation-either to extort benefits from others or to gain reputational benefits for protecting the public good. Moreover, they intuitively infer that other people could be deterred from cheating if they feared supernatural punishment. Thus, people endorse supernatural punishment beliefs to manipulate others into cooperating. Prosocial religions emerge from a dynamic of mutual monitoring, in which each individual, lacking confidence in the cooperativeness of conspecifics, attempts to incentivize their cooperation by endorsing beliefs in supernatural punishment. We show how variants of this incentive structure explain the variety of cultural attractors towards which supernatural punishment converges-including extractive religions that extort benefits from exploited individuals, prosocial religions geared toward mutual benefit, and moralized forms of prosocial religion where belief in moralizing gods is itself a moral duty. We review cross-disciplinary evidence for nine predictions of this account and use it to explain the decline of prosocial religions in modern societies. Prosocial religious beliefs seem endorsed as long as people believe them necessary to ensure other people's cooperation, regardless of their objective effectiveness in doing so.
... To begin with, works of religious instruction were to some extent prescriptive rather than descriptive of actual attitudes, emotions, and behaviours. In fact, Thomas Tentler suggested that manuals for confession like the Defecerunt should be considered instruments of social control, inculcating a 'guilt culture' in the laity (Tentler 1974(Tentler , 1977. 7 It seems legitimate to characterize for instance the questionnaires of the Defecerunt in this way. ...
Medieval theologians considered that it was a mortal sin to act against one’s conscience, even though they knew that conscience sometimes erred. This article inquires how they, as pastors, nevertheless engaged with the laity’s real-world experiences of conscience and with problems that this involved. In focus of the inquiry are pastoral tracts written by Jean Gerson (d. 1429). In these tracts, Gerson described troubling behaviour that he associated with malfunctions of conscience, and he observed how the precept that conscience obliged was a burden that some individuals could not handle. Gerson offered an analysis of these problems as well as alleviating pastoral advice. He agreed that one should obey one’s conscience, but this article argues that his analysis and advice went far towards circumscribing the force of this precept.
... A few years earlier than Foucault, but not dissimilar to his intuitions, the English historian John Bossy had argued that Tridentine Catholicism had effectively shifted the focus of sacramental confession from the communal to the individual, and he examined in detail how this process was reflected in structure and content of confessional manuals (Bossy 1975(Bossy , 1985. Since then, the debates on how confession worked in practice have oscillated between an emphasis on its disciplining aspects (Delumeau 1990;Tentler 1974;Briggs 1989, 277-338;De Boer 2001), doubts as to its efficacy (Myers 1996), and finally an exploration into its contribution to shaping individualized notions of conscience and identity (Shluhovsky 2013). Paolo Prodi and Adriano Prosperi have pointed out that the tension between law and conscience acutely shaped the Catholic development towards modernity, and that confession was the space where the struggle between individual conscience and religious and secular norms took center stage (Prosperi 1996, 476-484;Prodi 2000, 325-389;Lavenia 2006). ...
This article investigates how the notion of individual conscience has to be understood within the early-modern development of Catholic moral theology. It highlights that 16th-century Catholic theologians continued to understand conscience mainly in Thomist terms as a rational judgment. Yet they also came to investigate more deeply questions of intention and individual circumstances that might interfere with the perfect execution of moral reasoning. Particular emphasis is given to the question of probabilism and whether this new method of analyzing moral agency provided a stepping stone towards a more individualized conception of conscience, as some intellectual historians have contended. The article argues that whilst probabilism sharpened the awareness for problems of conscience, this development cannot be disconnected from the culture of counsel of conscience, inscribed into the fundamentally Thomist definition of it.
Why do humans believe in moralizing gods? Leading accounts argue that these beliefs evolved because they help societies grow and promote group cooperation. Yet recent evidence suggests that beliefs in moralizing gods are not limited to large societies and might not have strong effects on cooperation. Here, we propose that beliefs in moralizing gods develop because individuals shape supernatural beliefs to achieve strategic goals in within-group interactions. People have a strategic interest in controlling others’ cooperation, either to extort benefits from them or to gain reputational benefits for protecting the public good. Moreover, they believe, based on their folk-psychology, that others would be less likely to cheat if they feared supernatural punishment. Thus, people endorse beliefs in moralizing gods to manipulate others into cooperating. Prosocial religions emerge from a dynamic of mutual monitoring, in which each individual, lacking confidence in the cooperativeness of conspecifics, attempts to incentivize others’ cooperation by endorsing beliefs in supernatural punishment. We show how variations of this incentive structure explain the variety of cultural attractors toward which supernatural punishment converges, including extractive religions that extort benefits from exploited individuals, prosocial religions geared toward mutual benefit, and forms of prosocial religion where belief in moralizing gods is itself a moral duty. We review evidence for nine predictions of this account and use it to explain the decline of prosocial religions in modern societies. Supernatural punishment beliefs seem endorsed as long as people believe them necessary to ensure others’ cooperation, regardless of their objective effectiveness in doing so.
Biondo understood the relationship with God in terms of ranks and hierarchy. Men could upset their bond with God and thus begin a history of conflicts and antinomies by either retreating from God or moving too close to God. Sections 4.1 and 4.2 of this chapter examine the first and second options, respectively. In both cases, the model used was Lucifer. In the first case, Lucifer drove himself towards ontological self-destruction. In the second case, Lucifer stole from Jesus the office of mediatoship, replacing with the figments of his own imagination and agency. In Sect. 4.3, I connect the doctrinal points raised in the first two sections to two specific historical and social classes of human beings. This investigation will allow me to reiterate Biondo’s critical stance toward both current philosophical positions and the ideas advocated by the spiritual literature. In particular, it will us allow to examine what aspects of the ordinary prayer Biondo heavily criticised. Finally, in Sect. 4.4, I examine how Biondo understood self-love as the root of rebellion against God. My examination does not follow a systematic set of doctrinal ideas; rather, I choose to emphasise how Biondo delivered his preoccupations and worries concerning egocentric love through a range of potent images capable of emotionally impacting his readers.KeywordsAbyssBeautyBeingImaginationImprisonmentKenosisLuciferMediatorshipNarcissismPrayerSelf-love
Taxes were at the heart of late medieval political discourse because tax extraction was a tangible and sore point of interaction between subjects and their rulers. At no point in Swedish history was this more obvious than in the reign of Christian I (1457–64), and this article takes his reign as a moment to explore the parameters of the fiscal discourse where taxes were refuted or accepted. The first part examines the fiscal norms of law and custom, which were expressed in the pamphlets and chronicles that testify to Sweden’s burgeoning public sphere. The second part, however, focuses on the moralizing tenor of these narratives, where the tax abuse by Christian and other rulers is considered not only a crime but also a sin, and in particular avarice. The third part of the inquiry maps this moralizing tenor to its source in the penitential literature that guided the pastoral care of rulers and subjects alike. Taxes, this article contends, were not only talked about in the idioms of law and custom but also in the language of moral theology and pastoral care. Penance and politics were entwined in a way that shaped how taxes were talked about in public life.
Starting with depictions of rituals associated with penance as illustrated in such works as La Fille du Comte de Ponthieu and La Manekine, this chapter considers the subtle changes in attitudes toward contrition, clerical absolution, and penitential acts described by theologians and canonists, and reflected in medieval poems such as Li Contes del graal, La Vie de Saint Gilles, Li Chevalier au barisel, and Le Dit du buef, among others. There remains a need even in the modern age for some kind of public avowal of oneʼs moral failings, serving as a kind of secular penance. The modern public televised admissions of failings by political figures who acknowledge their transgressions (often of a sexual nature) and beg for their constituentsʼ pardon reenact the purifying humiliation of public penance.
Implementation of the canons of the Fourth Lateran Council dramatically expanded the practice of auricular confession among laypeople. Although the Council's canons also insist upon the seal of confession in order to keep the content of confessions secret, thirteenth-century authorities differ over the boundaries of the seal. As a result, the “secrets” of confession are often revealed in at least general terms in order to provide preachers with entertaining exempla for moral or doctrinal instruction. What is revealed from confession not only provides a window onto medieval private lives, but it also provided confessors with information about human activities—especially sexual practices—that might otherwise be unavailable to them. With such information, learned confessors not only encouraged moral reform but also defended claims of Aristotelian biology on human nature and sexuality.
En droit canonique, l'excommunication est une censure, une peine médicinale, qui vise à mener le pécheur à faire pénitence afin d'être réintégré dans le giron de l'Église. À la fin du Moyen Âge, l'excommunication apparaît aux yeux des réformateurs comme galvaudée par son usage courant pour des causes mineures, endettement ou contumace essentiellement. Quel est le poids réel de l'excommunication pour les fidèles qui l'endurent ? Sources normatives et liturgiques définissent l'excommunication comme une peine prononcée par les pouvoirs ecclésiastiques envers ceux qui sont rétifs à l'autorité de l'Église : l'excommunié est banni de la communauté des chrétiens jusqu'à ce qu'il obtienne son pardon. Mais les archives des officialités révèlent à la fois les usages réels de la censure, arme de l'Église pour défendre ses droits et surtout pour obtenir des fidèles un comportement conforme aux exigences chrétiennes, et la perception de l'excommunication par ces mêmes fidèles. L'attachement à la communauté est indéniable et l'excommunication abusive est vécue comme une atteinte à l'honneur de chacun, comme une mise en cause du lien social existant au sein de la paroisse. Cependant, les relations entre proches, parents, amis, voisins, dépassent la portée de l'excommunication, réduisent l'efficacité de celle-ci en maintenant l'excommunié au milieu des siens. L'idéal reste une participation pleine et entière à la vie liturgique paroissiale, par laquelle la communauté se forme et s'affirme. Abus de l'Église peut-être, mais l'excommunication est indéniablement un révélateur du lien existant entre l'Église et les fidèles en cette fin du Moyen Âge.
Much of medieval ethics was practical. Christian spiritual guidance, monastic culture, the regulatory interests of the Church and princes, as well as numerous other factors merged to create a moral framework with a distinct emphasis on application. Because moral and theological guidance were largely intertwined, practical ethics evolved under the guise of pastoral concerns. The subject area of medieval practical ethics was of course much broader than these brief remarks indicate – so broad, in fact, that systematization appears difficult. Certain key areas of practical ethics, however, have remained the same since the High Middle Ages, including the Church and culture, war and violence, family and sexuality, the economy and social justice, and health and medicine. In the Middle Ages, much effort was put into the regulation of monastic discipline and the correct administration of sacraments, often with ethical ramifications. The medieval ethics of war included not only criteria for just wars but also rules for their appropriate conduct. Norms for sexual behavior and married life found sometimes surprisingly open discussion. Burchard of Worms, for instance, describes certain deviant sexual practices that may even puzzle the post-sexual-revolution reader. The growing significance of the market economy in the Middle Ages resulted in an increasingly complex economic ethics. The ban on usury and the doctrine of the sterility of money explain its backward image in modern eyes, yet its forward-looking attitude towards risk demonstrates that this view is one-sided. Medical ethics was discussed largely in treatises and handbooks for doctors, but not all regulation concerning the human body related to medical matters. Attitudes towards suicide or cosmetic embellishment are examples in point.
In the European Middle Ages, the area in which the majority of lay Christians came into contact with the so-called institutional Church was pastoral care. Three principle areas of this care were preaching, confession, and catechesis. All three provide a window into popular religious practice, and thus, the study of pastoral care benefitted from the social-historical turn of the 1960s and 1970s and an increased emphasis on “the people.” One of the key aspects of this study of pastoral care has been in investigation of pastoralia, those works of literature meant to help clergy with the cure of souls carry out their tasks. The study of pastoralia begins with the manuscripts, but then aids several different approaches: history of sexuality, feminism, social and cultural history, and history of universities all make abundant use of pastoral literature.
Much has been written about the masters of theology at the University of Paris in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries and their views on the nature of theology. Less work has been done on their view of themselves as a social group and what they were supposed to do with their distinctive kind of knowledge, however they defined it. Furthermore, analysis of their self-image has remained very general, included within studies of masters in all subjects in all universities over several centuries. This broad approach is entirely justified in that many sources deal with learning in general and because study of the Paris theologians contributes to wider debate about the social and political significance of medieval universities and intellectuals. It is, however, important to examine the self-image of the masters of theology at Paris specifically because, whatever the wider contemporary ideals, the world of learning was in reality far from homogeneous and harmonious.
‘The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages’– a two-part article – questions the widely held belief in canonical race theory that ‘race’ is a category without purchase before the modern era. Surveying a variety of cultural documents from the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries – chronicles, hagiography, literature, stories, sculpture, maps, canon law, statuary, illustrations, religious commentary, and architectural features – the study considers racial thinking, racial law, racial formation, and racialized behaviors and phenomena in medieval Europe before the emergence of a recognizable vocabulary of race. One focus is how a political hermeneutics of religion – so much in play again today – enabled the positing of fundamental human differences in biopolitical and culturalist ways to create strategic essentialisms demarcating human kinds and populations. Another focus is how race figures in the emergence of homo europaeus and the identity of Western Europe (beginning as Latin Christendom) in this time. Part I –‘Race Studies, Modernity, and the Middle Ages’– surveys the current state of race theory, and puts in conversation race studies and medieval studies, fields that exist on either side of a vast divide. Part II –‘Locations of Medieval Race’– identifies and analyzes specific concretions of medieval race, while continuing to develop the theoretical arguments of Part I.
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