dear richard landes
this is a very interesting area, and i don't have enough time to talk
about it properly right now - but you might like to look at Mary
Mansfield's excellent book *The Humiliation of Sinners* which talks about
the continuation of public penance in the 13th c., and an equally
wonderful article by Mayke de Jong on public penance in the 8th-10th cs.
in Early Medieval Europe vol.1 (1990?)
Confession - lay confession - was certainly a very different thing before
the institution of private confession; and the date at which one can
take that to be so in practice is heavily debated.
cheers
john arnold
centre for medieval studies, york, england
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