Handling Sin

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