On Wed, 20 Aug 1997, Daniel Williman wrote:
> Is this discussion to be directed toward remissions of sin or of penance?
> This is a big part of the topic "indulgences," but the medieval western
> church knew other indulgences, and the earliest ones produced in large
> numbers by the papal chancery were different: exceptions to interdict,
> private altars, free selection of a confessor in articulo mortis, singing
> Mass before dawn, favors like that.
>
> Daniel Williman
> Binghamton University
>
>
Dear Daniel,
We were hoping to treat indulgences in the widest sense in the sessions.
For example, the group of preachers I am studying offer supposedly very
specific 'plenary' indulgences for going on crusade, but they often
presented these in much wider 'lay-man's' terms, so one wonders what
impression the audience was getting--official papal bull, or preacher's
interpretation of that bull. Then too, these preachers were always
complaining about how privileges granted to exempt monasteries, esp.
Benedictines and the military orders, were undermining their attempts to
reform usurers, etc., through the threat of excommunication, b/c these
privileges parties did things like accept excommunicates' alms and give
them burial, thus nixing the effect of a priestly or episcopal
excommunication. It seems clear that one basic question underlay all
the fuss about indulgences: who is in control of penance, either in the
external forum of justice or the internal forum of confession. A matter
both of control over pastoral care and legal jurisdiction.
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