Penitential Hierarchies in the Later Middle Ages

Workshop organized by Emily Corran, lecturer in medieval history at University College London, 2022-2023 Paris IAS Fellow, and Arnaud Fossier, Université de Bourgogne.

Limited number of seats, please contact: emily.corran@ucl.ac.uk

Presentation

This workshop explores the relationship between priests, bishops and popes in the administration of sin. The later medieval church systematised penitential business, with complex rules relating to excommunication, absolution for serious crimes, dispensations and broken vows. Yet, this was not a full bureaucracy: there was considerable overlap of offices and functions and the papal and bishops’ courts operated as a series of self-contained households. With regard to dispensations and reserved sins, both popes and bishops pursued their own initiatives, not always with much regard for each other’s rulings. Penitential matters were also complicated at the bottom of the hierarchy. Secular priests and mendicants often were in competition for penitential jurisdiction. These tensions culminated in the university controversies between secular and mendicant masters. Pastoral and archival material from the period reveal considerable debate as to which ecclesiastical sanctions a parish priest or mendicant could absolve, and a sense that both groups were apt to overstep their jurisdiction.

We therefore invite speakers at this workshop to consider topics that relate to these penitential hierarchies. This may include, but need not be limited to, talks on the reservation of sins, papal and episcopal dispensations, the imposition and absolution of excommunications, disciplinary hierarchies within the church, the relationship between different genres of penitential rule-making. The aim of the workshop is to promote discussion with a view to possible future collaborations and scholarly networks.

Program

10.00 Welcome
Emily Corran (UCL, IEA de Paris)
Arnaud Fossier (Université de Bourgogne)

10.15 - 11.30
David d’Avray (UCL)
‘The Concept of Hierarchy and its Application’
Kirsi Salonen (Bergen)
‘The Far-Away Diocese of Turku and the Penitential Hierarchies in the later Middle Ages’

11.30 Coffee

11.45 - 13.00
Peter Clarke (Southampton)
‘Papal dispensations and the church courts in later medieval England’
Ninon Dubourg (Université de Liège, FNRS)
‘The collective Butterbriefe and the Apostolic Penitentiary (1455-1521)’

13.00 Lunch

14.00 - 15.15
Emilie Rosenblieh (Université de Franche-Comté/Centre Lucien Febvre)
‘The pope’s confessor. A penitential case in the later Middle Ages’
Véronique Beaulande-Barraud (Université Grenoble-Alpes)
‘Péchés sexuels et hiérarchie de la pénitence, XIIIe-milieu XVIe siècle’

15.15 Coffee

15.30 - 16.45
Emily Corran (UCL, IEA de Paris)
’Penitential Jurisdictions between Bishop, Mendicant and Priest: The View
from a Confessors’ Manual’
Arnaud Fossier (Université de Bourgogne)
‘Bishops, priests and Mendicants : which hierarchy ? The reserved cases of absolution in the 13th century synodal statutes (France, Italy)’

17.00 Concluding Discussion

19.30 Dinner