Composed between the sixth and ninth centuries, penitentials were little books of penance that address a wide range of human fallibility. But they are far more than mere registers of sin and penance: rather, by revealing the multiple contexts in which their authors anticipated various sins, they reveal much about the ways those authors and, presumably, their audiences understood a variety of social phenomena. Offering new, more accurate translations of the penitentials than what has previously been available, this book delves into the potentialities addressed in these manuals for clues about less tangible aspects of early medieval history, including the innocence and vulnerability of young children and the relationship between speech and culpability; the links between puberty, autonomy, and moral accountability; early medieval efforts to regulate sexual relationships; and much more.
- Cover
- Table of Contents
- Introduction
- 1. Little Books of Penance
- Introduction to the Sources
- The Penitential of Finnian
- The Ambrosian Penitential
- The Penitential of Columbanus
- The Penitential of Cummean
- The Burgundian Penitential
- The Penitential of Theodore
- The Penitential of Ecgbert
- The Bigotian Penitential
- The Old Irish Penitential
- Influences
- Community
- Penance
- Subjectivity in Practice
- 2. The Aetas Infantes
- Speech and the Limits of Childhood Innocence
- The Language of Childhood
- An Age of Infancy
- Doli Capax
- Little Sinners
- Vulnerable Infants
- Shared Anxieties
- 3. The Games of Youth
- Puberty, Culpability, and Autonomy
- Between Childhood and Adulthood
- Youths in Religious Communities
- Sexual Oppression and Pollution
- A Spectrum of Youth and Culpability
- Young Females
- Dependence and Autonomy
- Sex, Age, and Status
- 4. Children of Eve
- Lawful Marriage and the Regulation of Sexual Intercourse
- Regulating Sex in Marriage
- Adultery
- Challenging Illicit Unions
- Dissolution of Conjugal Unions
- Religious Vows and Sexual Legitimacy
- 5. Heirs of Sodom
- Sexual Deviance, Pollution, and Community
- Lust, Pollution, and Self-Discipline
- Pastoral Duties and Temptation
- Terminology, Placement, and Equivalence
- Transmitting Pollution
- Incest and Social Contamination
- Women and Deviant Sex
- The Sin of Sodom
- 6. Siblings of Cain
- Social Violence and the Gendering of Sin
- Maleficia
- Abortion as Violence
- Violence against Children
- Violence as a Gendered Sin
- Violence and Status
- Reverberations
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
- List of Tables
- Table 1 Demographics
- Table 2 General Topics
- Table 3 Penitential Components
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