Excommunication in Thirteenth-Century England: Communities, Politics, and Publicity by Felicity Hill;

Author:Felicity Hill; [Hill, Felicity]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780192576743
Publisher: OxfordUP
Published: 2022-04-29T00:00:00+00:00

Conclusions

The regulation that excommunicates were to be removed from all social interaction with other Christians ought to have been the most immediate impetus for those under the ban to seek absolution. However, getting all Christians, or even a sufficient proportion within the relevant area, to treat excommunicates as heathens and publicans was an impossibly tall order. There were a myriad of reasons for this, but it is hard to sustain an argument that using the sanction less would have made any significant difference. Shunning is no trivial undertaking; it asks a lot of the ostracizers. Although ostracism of various sorts is common to most societies, the problem here was perhaps the routine nature of its use and the fact that it did not occur naturally because individuals or groups wished to punish or correct behaviour but because the church did. Any sanction imposed by only a select group within a community but that is to be carried out by all is bound to face difficulties.

This is not to deny that excommunication was sometimes used for trivial offences, undermining the seriousness with which it might be received. Yet here again clergy had limited options; it is easy to see why they resorted to it so often and for their own gain. The development and proliferation of latae sententiae only added to this problem, for clerics were obliged to deal with those who had already incurred one of these sentences. Unjust sentences were another matter, but no legal system is free from such abuses. The issue, once again, was that everyone, rather than a select few who worked in ‘law enforcement’, was tasked with imposing the penalty. This was not unique, in medieval legal practices, to excommunication, but it was certainly a key part of why excommunications proved less coercive than the ideal. The absence of appeals, though understandable from the perspective of an institution that could not afford to have its judgments questioned, again added to the sense of injustice that individuals and communities felt.

Excommunication’s weakness in this respect is thus not surprising. It does not, however, mean it was a worthless sanction. Even without complete acceptance amongst the population it could have deleterious effects. Moreover, its reception by communities reveals a good deal about medieval society—how communities functioned and where loyalties lay. In particular, the way that clergy and laity alike made up their own minds—in the face of threats of contagion and sanction—is evident. Excommunication was automatically a matter that invited gossip. Sentences had to be publicized or they would not be enforced. The consequences of the inevitable discussion of sentences are evident in this chapter. The publicity attached to excommunication was in fact its most important aspect. It was damaging to individuals and used by clergy in ways that affected communities considerably. The remainder of the book focuses on the public nature of excommunication and its consequences.

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