I agree that visiting the bedridden is one explanation for the
priest's confessional visits; but Avril's brief description of the
document suggests that it's tenements and not individuals receiving the
visits. 48 tenements, or even 48 individuals, seems an awful lot of
people to be bedridden in a small parish, even over 2 weeks.
Of course if it was a full blown epidemic, this might explain it.
It does raise the question of just how sick you had to be in the Middle
Ages for a priest to be called to your house. "In articulo mortis" would
seem to be the commonly assumed standard for summoning him; but I'm sure a
bad bout of flu would meet that standard over most of the world even
today.
But the priest's decision to record his visits is very unusual, at
least from the records I know. Why would he be recording sick visits? He
couldn't (legitimately) exact a fee for them, so keeping his accounts in
order wouldn't explain it. My first instinct is that he's keeping track
of who has been shriven in the parish, making sure that everyone is living
up to the Fourth Lateran's requirement that everyone be confessed annually
at Eastertide. If the document's date is around Easter, this would
suggest that we're dealing with a curate following carrying out one of the
most fundamental requirements of parish life: annual confession.
I'm intirgued with the document because of its potential to throw
a little more light on the mechanics of confession. We know people were
required to confess; we know priests were supposed to examine them
carefully, often with a list of questions about their sins in hand (like
the friar confessing the sick Ser Ciapelleta in the _Decameron's_ First
Day). But the details of what typically went on between penitent and
priest (how long an average confession took, whether people queued up
outside the church, how penance was administered, etc.) are still sketchy.
Best,
John
> >I am working on English parish life (in one particular parish) in the late
> >15th century, having found a hitherto unnoticed itinerary of a priest
> >visiting 48 tenements over two weeks to hear confessions (ad peccata
> >confitenda). In a small, deeply rural Devonian parish with a fine church
> >dating from the 12th-century this takes some explaining. I think, but
> >cannot prove, that it may be connected with the presence of large numbers
> >of itinerant workers employed in the Royal Silver Mines, operating from 12th
> >century. Have you perhaps come across anything similar? Has anyone else?
> >
> >The obvious reason for visiting people in their homes to hear their confessions
> is that they were sick or housebound. The friar in Chaucer's Summoner's
> Tale invites the bedridden Thomas to make his confession. One might include
> a round of such home confessions in one's parish routine. We might also be
> dealing with an epidemic
> of 'flu.
>
> Bill.
>
>
--
John R. Shinners e-mail: [log in to unmask]
Associate Professor Phone (office): (219) 284-4494
Humanistic Studies Program Phone (dept.): (219) 284-4485
Saint Mary's College Fax: (219) 284-4716
Notre Dame, IN 46556
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