Sex in the Middle Ages by Joyce E. Salisbury

Author:Joyce E. Salisbury
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780429613821
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2019-01-17T05:00:00+00:00

SEX AND CONFESSION IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

Pierre J. Payer

[D]epuis la pénitence chrétienne jusqu’aujourd’hui, le sexe fut matière privilégiée de confession.

(Michel Foucault)

Of its many reforming decrees the twenty-first canon of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) likely had the most effect on the lives of ordinary people and on the parish clergy alike. That canon required of all who had reached the age of reason to confess their sins at least once a year to their own priest, and required of confessors a satisfactory degree of knowledge and understanding to fulfill their duties.1 Within a short time a heightened awareness of this canon became widespread, diocesan statutes provided instructions for confessors, and a torrent of writings was unleashed to meet the needs both of confessors and of penitents. The writings for priests were of two types, those with an academic focus to provide summaries of the knowledge required of confessors, and those with the practical aim of offering instruction in the actual administration of confession. For the sake of consistency the former will be called summas for confessors (summae confessorum), the latter will be referred to as manuals or handbooks.2 My principal aim is to explore the presentation of sex as it is reflected in confessional manuals of the thirteenth century.

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