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This article reconsiders the evidence provided by the late antique and early medieval penitentials (c. 550–800) for the study of slavery and other dependency relations. The main body of the article identifies and describes three sets of social practices of penance, which can be perceived as actions that contributed to the emergence, perpetuation, or stabilization of dependency relations: the social exclusion and othering of penitents, the assignment of penal measures, and the varying treatment of penitents according to their gender and social status. These social practices are then linked to contemporary theological and socio-legal frameworks that likely informed the practice of penance in Merovingian Gaul. The survey shows that the handbooks of penance provide important material for the study of dependency relations and that the ecclesiastical ritual of penance should be considered as a context in which these relations emerged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the difficulty of working with testaments, they have been the subject of study for many years, providing a window into the economic, social, and spiritual life of local communities throughout medieval Christendom. The religious significance of testaments has also attracted some attention; however, few have put thirteenth-century testamentary practice in conversation with the complex theology of penance developing in that time. Claims that making a testament was an act of charity, an exchange of earthly for heavenly goods, or a guarantee of memorialization, while valid to a certain extent, do not take into account the nuances of the penitential system. Based on the writings of thirteenth-century canonists such as Raymond of Peñafort and theologians such as Thomas Aquinas, and wills from the Franciscan convent of Bologna, this article argues that testaments can be seen as penitential instruments, much like indulgences, creating a real change in the spiritual state of the testator. Testaments worked in the penitential realm through the mechanism of suffrages. Good works of satisfaction were believed to be transferable from one person to another through the intention of the actor. The testament uses money to facilitate this transaction, exchanging coins for substitutionary penance, which can be exchanged for time in purgatory. In this framework, the long lists of pious bequests to various religious houses not only reflect personal loyalties or spiritual preferences of testators but also individualized solutions to penitential problems. Thus, making a testament involved much lay agency, but a spiritually adept executor was also vital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thirty-five years after J. Mahoney published The Making of Moral Theology: A Study of the Roman Catholic Tradition, I published A History of Catholic Theological Ethics. Mahoney’s argument was fundamentally an indictment of the moral tradition arguing that it was primarily focused on sin. Building on his research but also on subsequent research that was published since then I argue that from its inception moral theology was primarily interested in pathways of holiness. Even research on the Irish Penitentials shows that the practice of penance there and then was always with an anamchara, that is, a soul friend who accompanied the penitent monk or nun in their struggles to live their life of discipleship. Rather than being fixated on sin, they were aiming to follow and serve Christ in their love of neighbor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As commonly used in its moral sense I will, for the purposes of this paper, take the concept of "conscience" to be the inherent ability of every healthy human being to perceive what is right and what is wrong and, on the strength of this perception, to control, monitor, evaluate and execute their actions. Such values as right or wrong, good or evil, just or unjust, and fair or unfair have existed throughout human history and are also shaped by an individual's cultural, political and economic environment. The medieval penitential literature offers just one such historical snapshot. These manuals or guides for confessors, including prayers, lists of questions to be asked by the confessor, and penances to be assigned for various sins were an integral part of the practice of private penance which began in the Celtic Church and later spread through Europe with the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon missions. Penitential books for use by confessors in private penance appeared in the sixth through ninth centuries. These texts were not as a rule decreed by episcopal synods. Their authority generally rested on the reputation of their compiler or editor. Public penances were assigned for public sins that caused scandal for the church. Private penances were assigned for private sins or matters of conscience. The Penitentials were generally more flexible than the churches' ancient canonical penitential system which they largely replaced. While later European Penitentials tended to provide more complete guidance for the confessor instead of mere lists of rules and penalties; such instruction is not entirely absent from the earlier Irish texts and ancillary documents. Thus, the goal of penance in the early middle ages was not only sacramental but also didactic. It would have been an occasion to inculcate Christian beliefs, an opportunity to model proper Christian behaviour and by extension a key part of the formation of conscience. As was the case with later expressions of casuistry (Etym. Latin casus, case, or problem to be solved) the purpose of the penitential literature was thus to adapt and apply the unchangeable norms of Christian morality to the changing and variable circumstances of human life albeit in somewhat rudimentary fashion. As such this literary genre and the pastoral practices stemming from it are a valid and worthy object of any historical study and theological analysis concerning the 'formation of conscience.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Patrimônio e Memória is the property of Centro de Documentacao e Apoio a Pesquisa and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Archivio Giuridico is the property of Mucchi Editore and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper examines the evidence for slavery in the late antique and early medieval penitentials. This body of sources has only recently been rediscovered for the study of slavery. Most of the earliest extant penitentials contain canons that deal in one way or another with slaves (servus or ancilla) or slavery (servitium). These canons can roughly be grouped into three categories according to the aspect under which slavery is considered in them: In the first category of canons, slaves are merely mentioned in the description of a sin in which they are either involved in or the victim of. The second category of canons considers slavery as a penitential punishment. The third category, finally, offers more general rules or laws on slavery. Samples for these three categories and their analysis form the main part of the paper. The presented evidence is then evaluated with regard to the questions what kind of insights the penitentials offer for the study of slavery in general, and the involvement of the Church in slavery in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Vox Patrum is the property of Wydzial Teologii KUL and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista de Historia del Derecho is the property of Instituto de Investigaciones de Historia del Derecho and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

As the nineteenth book of his Decretum, Bishop Burchard of Worms (d. 1025) included a penitential titled the Corrector or Medicus. Although the Corrector has traditionally been described as a manual of private confession, this article argues that it was primarily used to judge public penances at church courts and synods. Focusing on the manuscript transmission of the Decretum in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, we find that the Corrector was almost never copied apart from the rest of the Decretum and that it was almost always copied alongside other legal texts. Turning to individual abbreviations, we also find that Burchard's collection was frequently reworked and rearranged so as to integrate canonical and penitential texts. These findings call into question current definitions of canon law collections and penitentials which presume functional exclusivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The word "interest" was defined by the Latin word usura from Classical Times. Even canon law, which rejected the charging of interest on the basis of the arguments of moral-legal rules contained in the writings of the Old and New Testament and their interpretations in the works of the Church Fathers, used this substantive from the beginning. In this account usura, in the sense of taking more than was initially lent when applying the institution of a loan, was forbidden. This was the reason for criticizing and blaming the Catholic Church for its reaction and for slowing down economic development, namely not only on the part of economic theorists. Several researchers state, however, that this prohibition was not consistently enforced by the ecclesiastical courts, discussing actually a dead letter in this case. The main goal of this article is to point out the enforcement of the prohibition of the charging of interest by means of rules of Medieval canon law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This article undertakes a "history of the present" as a means of intervening in current debate around the closure of the Rikers Island jail complex and its replacement with smaller "state of the art" jails. We argue that the telling of carceral history is potentially a powerful weapon capable of shaping unfolding events, as well as, helping to preserve the memory of those who have suffered from the practice of human caging. To this effect we reconstruct the history of the Rikers Island penal colony predating its officially-recognized opening in 1935; a history defined by the forced prison labour that was used to expand the island and construct the original penitentiary. We illustrate how the labour of these prisoners, lives on in the physical structure of Rikers, as well as in its scandalous carceral existence. In defiance of current efforts at piecemeal reform or of preserving the status quo, we offer this historical intervention as a means of problematizing the present effort to solve the problems of jails with more jails, suggesting instead that the past calls for more drastic action—an escape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe the Catholic natural law tradition by examining its origins in the medieval penitentials, the papal decretals, the writings of Thomas Aquinas, and seventeenth century casuistry. Catholic natural law emerges as a flexible ethic that conceives of human nature as rational and as oriented to certain basic goods that ought to be pursued and whose pursuit is made possible by the virtues. We then identify four approaches to natural law that have evolved within the United States during the twentieth century, including the traditionalist, proportionalist, right reason, and historicist approaches. The normative implications of these approaches are discussed in relation to ethical issues in the tobacco industry, ITT under Geneen, the marketing of Pharmaceuticals, affirmative action, and bribery. It is argued that Alasdair Maclntyre is correct in claiming that the natural law tradition is superior to the liberal ethics of modern deontology and utilitarianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some of the earliest references to ritual lamentation or keening in the early Irish sources are found in the penitential handbooks dated to around the seventh and eighth centuries. In previous scholarship, these passages have commonly been interpreted as evidence of the continuous attempts of the Church to curb pagan practices among the ‘nominally Christian’ populace, thus assuming that such regulations were primarily used as a means of social control. This article examines the wider theological and intellectual context of these texts, by focusing in particular on the influence of the Old Testament on early Irish ecclesiastical writing. It will be argued that the demonstrable preoccupation of these sources with issues such as ritual purity and proper religious observance suggests that the stipulations pertaining to lamentation were not solely intended to regulate lay behavior.

The article examines the evidences on food and nutrition found in the Slavic penitentials. Unlike the law texts in the Western historical tradition, the Slavic mediaeval law texts are poorly researched and (rarely) used as a source of information about the Bulgarian history and culture. The manuscript tradition of the Slavic penitentials (the volume of manuscripts, their frequency, editorial interventions) shows that for a long period of time (almost until the 18th century) they have remained among the main texts used by the priests during the sacraments of confession and repentance. Therefore, they can be a source of important information about the everyday life of the Bulgarians. An emphasis is put on the diet, the ban on certain foods, the role of food and nutrition in relation to the people following other traditions such as heretics, Jews, Armenians. It is argued that penitentials reflect a kind of duality. On the one hand, they may be regarded as attesting the everyday lifestyle – the Christian calendar, the observance of certain hygienic norms, while, on the other hand, they reflect, to the highest degree, the concepts of purity and impurity which are characteristic for the “primitive” cultures and the blurring of which might have led to supernatural punishment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of moral discernment is often used to describe the inspired decision-making of a conscientious Christian, but Pope Francis uses it relationally in terms of accompaniment and often enough, more broadly than an individual’s choice. Rather, he suggests that bishops and their local churches ought to morally discern how they should settle issues addressing contemporary pastoral challenges. This article argues that in its history, moral discernment was a social practice used in a variety of relational ways to determine a pathway for living out the summons of the gospel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the Pearl-poem for its anticipation and regulation of reader response. The poet constructs a visionary world just on the cusp of revelation and as such provides the reader the opportunity to finish the vision when the Dreamer wakes. Pearl is a kind of self-contained gem, complete and wholly enticing. However, the Dreamer's inability to understand and the author's apparent powerlessness to produce a perfect form have driven some critics to see the poem as the sum of its failures. These "flaws" in form and character are better understood as authorial strategies to activate and regulate the reader's response. This article suggests that the author purposefully constructed Pearl at the point of near completion to allow the reader to finish the vision in controlled, and orthodox, ways. The Pearl-poet manages this by exploiting the reader's expectations for a visionary text. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the expansion of jurisprudence in the twelfth century was a direct outgrowth of theological scholasticism, several historians of law such as Richard Helmholz have noted that the use of sacred scripture as a basis for jurisprudence steadily declined in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. He identified the increasing relegation of biblical references to an ornamental, rather than a fundamental, mode of citation beginning with the earliest post-Gratian glosses and treatises. Because the Dominican Order of Preachers, renowned for their biblical preaching, also produced many great canonists and legal texts, the question of whether their legal writings experienced a similar decline is of particular interest. In the present study, a close reading of two Dominican procedurals for confessors and penitents will conclude that the Dominicans themselves recognized the difference between fundamental and ornamental citation and that they began to streamline their biblical references, removing ornamental and leaving only fundamental citations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Res Rhetorica is the property of Polish Rhetoric Society and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article discusses varieties of penitential practices cultivated on Benedictine women religious community in Central Medieval England during the tenth and eleventh centuries. It discusses pressure of male monastic communities to conform their practice of penance to the church. It also discusses prayers of confession that are evident in surviving prayer books and psalters, produced by religious women.

This article examines the reform of the penitential system during the reign of Henry VIII. It considers the call to reform, and analyses official statements from the Ten Articles (1536) to the King's Book (1543), which is usually regarded as a victory for traditional religion. A careful assessment of the section of the King's Book on the sacrament of penance, and of the King's Primer, reveals that in this area evangelical reformers made gains. It shows Cranmer influencing Henry's religious policy, and as such challenges George Bernard's position. The article therefore argues for the major significance of penitential reform in the English Reformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses a model of human experience that considers the embodied brain, religion, and social context in an integrated system of bio-cultural approaches. The study of grief and its strategic arousal in ritual contexts can highlight fundamental differences between modern and ancient religious understandings of the self, ultimately helping us to become more aware of our own scholarly biases and anachronisms. Such methods complement traditional historical-critical methods and shed light on how Ezra's penitential prayer could have functioned in a Second Temple context. This study examines the similarities between the ritual performance of actions and discursive traditions that are said to have been performed by Ezra (Ezra 9-10) and discusses their resemblance to two passages that preserve foundational events of remaking the covenant (Exodus 32-34; Deuteronomy 9) and dedicating the first Temple (1 Kings 8; 2 Chronicles 6-7). The reenactment of scripted grief is identified as a strategy for bridging the breach between foundational events and the authors and readers in the Second Temple period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

That there is a growing focus and elaboration of prayers in the Old Testament scholarship on the postexilic biblical writings suggests that such prayers received an authoritative status in postexilic Yehud. Firstly, this paper argues that not only did the remembrance of the story of Israel confer an authoritative status to Nehemiah 9:6-37, it also served the purpose of casting a hopeful and prophetic imagination of a liberated community in Yehud. Secondly, it is argued in this paper that the prayer of Nehemiah 9:6-37 shaped the identity of the Jews in Yehud amidst socio-economic injustices. This identity was linked to the patriarch Abraham (cf. Neh 9:7-8), to the liberation of the Jews from Pharaoh under the leadership of Moses (cf. Neh 9:9-15, 21), to the possession of the Promised Land (cf. Neh 9:22-25), to the caution about the consequence of disobedience to Yahweh - the exile (cf. Neh 9:16-21, 26-30)- and to the demise of the kingdom in the Babylonian exile (cf. Neh 9:31-37). On the whole, it is argued in this paper that the prayer of Nehemiah 9:6-37 was composed and transmitted with the view to remember and construct the identity of the Jews in postexilic Yehud. Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: Not only does this article explore the religious aspect of Nehemiah 9:6-37, it equally investigates the socio-economic and political undertones in the text in order to determine the context from which the penitential prayer emerged. It is argued here that in the postexilic Yehud context, Nehemiah 9:6-37 served to remember and construct the identity of the Jews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's views on two documents prepared by propagator Ludwig Schmugge on papal penitentiary. Various topics discussed include lecture given by Schmugge in 2011 on the archives of penitentiary, electronic presentation of such documents and increased interest in digital collection.

Canon law and theology were not distinct, well-developed fields in the twelfth century. In theory, many if not all scholars recognise this, and yet, in practice, much scholarship on the intellectual and institutional history of the century operates as if the contrary were true. Often labeled as canonists or theologians, the intellectual figures of the century frequently devoted attention to the church's law and to the Bible, to issues of ecclesiastical structure and discipline as well to theological questions. One way of gauging the scholarly world of the century is to examine the reception of a particular text by various intellectual figures. This article surveys the historiographical problem, explores the reception of Gratian's Tractatus de penitentia from ca 1150 to ca 1200, and attempts to reformulate the nature of the intellectual climate in the period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the tendency to interpret the stake metaphor in Ezra 9:8 as a reference to security is out of step with the sentiments of the penitential prayer in which it is used. The prayer emphasizes community vulnerability. Other uses of the stake as a metaphor in the Hebrew Bible include an element ofdivine dependence either explicitly or implicitly. The metaphor is precisely in rune with the sentiments of the prayer and represents Yahweh-dependenr support. Interpretations iseed to reflect the nuances of the metaphor while translations must be careful not to obscure its subtleties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter discusses the process of reconciliation between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people launched by Pope John XXIII in 1960. In order to heal the wounds left by a troubled history, the Church chose to proceed on a path of conciliatory gestures without any explicit request for forgiveness or apology. Some steps were unilateral pronouncements by the Church, others acts of engagement with the Jewish people and the State of Israel. This long, challenging process began at Vatican II in 1965 with the declaration Nostra Aetate, Part 4, proceeded via the establishment of diplomatic relations with Israel in 1994, and culminated in Pope John Paul II's Millennium pilgrimage to Israel in 2000 when he inserted a prayer of repentance - teshuva in Hebrew - into Jerusalem's Western Wall. This moving and original penitential gesture is analyzed within the context of Church thinking and the logic of the papal visit. Emphasis is placed on the pope's deep personal commitment to fraternal ties with the Jewish people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the hagiography from medieval Ireland which celebrated saints who performed abortions and restored women to a virginal state. Medieval Irish hagiographers' perspective on illegitimate children, including their ability to become saints and bishops, is discussed. An overview of medieval Irish penitentials' permissive attitudes concerning the female body and reproductive systems, pregnancy, sexuality and contraception is provided. The role of saints and women as abortionists is discussed.

El principio de legalidad, como eje vertebrador de todo el sistema penal, despliega sus efectos también en el ámbito penitenciario. El genérico principio de legalidad en materia penal incluye la llamada garantía ejecutiva. A las garantías criminal, penal y jurisdiccional se suma esta garantía penitenciaria o ejecutiva que se corresponde con la fase de ejecución de las condenas privativas de libertad impuestas a los autores de hechos delictivos. El trabajo que sigue pretende determinar de forma más precisa las consecuencias de la aplicación del principio de legalidad al sistema de ejecución de las penas privativas de libertad, así como pasar al análisis de algunas de ellas. En este sentido se quiere señalar los presupuestos del principio, su recogida normativa en el sistema jurídico español, las consecuencias fundamentales que para el cumplimiento de las penas privativas de libertad trae el principio de legalidad, así como algunas particulares consideraciones respecto a su aplicación en el sistema penitenciario vigente. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the short treatise on confession from the 13th century known as "Sciendum est autem sacerdotibus" or "Penitens accedens ad confessionem." According to the author, the manuscripts demonstrate a number of variations, mainly because men who copied the works felt free to alter the text to suit their own interests. She claims that the "apparatus fontium" provided more details on the ways the author of the original treatise used his sources, with reference to certain editions.

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