This compelling book, first published in 1995, changed historians' understanding of the history of public penance, a topic crucial to debates about the complex evolution of individualism in the West. Mary C. Mansfield demonstrates that various forms of public humiliation, imposed on nobles and peasants alike for shocking crimes as well as for minor brawls, survived into the thirteenth century and beyond.
This compelling book, first published in 1995, changed historians' understanding of the history of public penance, a topic crucial to debates about the complex evolution of individualism in the West. Mary C. Mansfield demonstrates that various forms of public humiliation, imposed on nobles and peasants alike for shocking crimes as well as for minor brawls, survived into the thirteenth century and beyond.
In the literature of this vast and compelling subject, A. B. Bruce’s great book, The Humiliation of Christ stands alone and apart. Spoken of as having “won for himself the foremost place among Christian apologists” in the nineteenth century. A. B. Bruce crowned his New Testament studies (which included such famous books as The Training of the Twelve, and St. Paul’s Conception of Christianity, etc.) with this brilliantly impressive study of a subject which he especially was equipped to write. Here Bruce employs the teaching of Scripture, as it deepens and sharpens our perceptions of the sufferings of our Lord, to form dynamic as well as correct views of Christ’s person experience, and work; and having complete grasp of the relevant literature, ancient, modern, and that of his own contemporaries, he acts as a reliable and sure guide in the criticism of the various theories of Christ as Lord and Redeemer. A book every advanced student of the New Testament will cherish.
Using hitherto unconsidered source materials from late antiquity to the early modern period, this volume charts new views about the role of penance in shaping western attitudes and practices for resolving social, political, and spiritual tensions, as penitents and confessors negotiated rituals and expectations for penitential expression.
Medieval Considerations of Incest, Marriage, and Penance focuses on the incest motif as used in numerous medieval narratives. Explaining the weakness of great rulers, such as Charlemagne, or the fall of legendary heroes, such as Arthur, incest stories also reflect on changes to the sacramental regulations and practices related to marriage and penance. Such changes demonstrate the Church's increasing authority over the daily lives and relationships of the laity. Treated here are a wide variety of medieval texts, using as a central reference point Philippe de Rémi's thirteenth-century La Manekine, which presents one lay author's reflections on the role of consent in marriage, the nature of contrition and forgiveness, and even the meaning of relics. Studying a variety of genres including medieval romance, epic, miracles, and drama along with modern memoirs, films, and novels, Linda Rouillard emphasizes connections between medieval and modern social concerns. Rouillard concludes with a consideration of the legacy of the incest motif for the twenty-first century, including survivor narratives, and new incest anxieties associated with assisted reproductive technology.
Canon law touched nearly every aspect of medieval society, including many issues we now think of as purely secular. It regulated marriages, oaths, usury, sorcery, heresy, university life, penance, just war, court procedure, and Christian relations with religious minorities. Canon law also regulated the clergy and the Church, one of the most important institutions in the Middle Ages. This Cambridge History offers a comprehensive survey of canon law, both chronologically and thematically. Written by an international team of scholars, it explores, in non-technical language, how it operated in the daily life of people and in the great political events of the time. The volume demonstrates that medieval canon law holds a unique position in the legal history of Europe. Indeed, the influence of medieval canon law, which was at the forefront of introducing and defining concepts such as 'equity,' 'rationality,' 'office,' and 'positive law,' has been enormous, long-lasting, and remarkably diverse.
Every now and again, a work will be published by a reformer or puritan that Christians find to be of such great spiritual worth, that it is hard to put into words the incalculable and infinite good that such a work is to the Christian soul. This book, friends, is one of those works. Burroughs expounds Matthew 11:28, “Come unto me all ye that labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Christ invites sinners to come to Him for rest. Sinners, in this way, can be either Christians or unbelievers. Both are beckoned to “come.” In this work Burroughs shows first, the burden of sin, the burden of the Law, the burden of legal performances with the misery of those that are under them, the burden of corruption, and the burden of outward affliction. Secondly, he shows that Christ graciously offers to them that come to him, rest from all those burdens. In this he demonstrates what it is to come to Christ; that Christ requires nothing but to come to him. Several Rules to be observed in right coming to Christ, the means to draw souls to Christ, that in coming to Christ God would have us have respect toward ourselves, that there is no rest for souls out of Christ, and the reasons for this, with some conclusions from it. Thirdly, Burroughs shows the rest believers have from sin, that the deliverance from the Law by Christ is, privatively, and positively. He will show the rest believers have from the burden of the Law by coming to Christ, how Christ gives rest from the burden of legal performances, how Christ gives rest from the burden of corruption; in which is shown how sanctification and holiness comes only from Christ. And Burroughs demonstrates encouragements to come to Christ for holiness. He will explain how Christ gives rest from outward afflictions, and then considers some directions on how to get rest from Christ in spiritual desertions. God’s people have been personally helped by Burroughs throughout the centuries by all his works, and in this volume on coming to Christ, he again shows the inestimable spiritual value of his preaching and writing. This is a life-transforming work which will enable Christians to inwardly examine themselves as they consider how the Law of God correlates to their abiding in the Lord Jesus, and what steps they must take to come to Christ in a saving and sanctifying manner. This work is not a scan or facsimile, has been carefully transcribed by hand being made easy to read in modern English, and has an active table of contents for electronic versions.
Although John Calvin often likened sacramental confession to butchery, the Council of Trent declared that for those who approached it worthily, it was made easy by its "great benefits and consolations." Thomas Tentler describes and evaluates the effectiveness of sacramental confession as a functioning institution designed "to cause guilt as well as cure guilt," seeing it in its proper place as a part of the social fabric of the Middle Ages. The author examines the institution of confession in practice as well as in theory, providing an analysis of a practical literature whose authors wanted to explain as clearly as they safely could what confessors and penitents had to believe, do, feel, say, and intend, if sacramental confession were to forgive sins. In so doing he recreates the mentality and experience that the Reformers attacked and the Counter-Reformers defended. Central to his thesis is the contention that Luther, Calvin, and the Fathers of Trent regarded religious institutions as the solution to certain social and psychological problems, and that an awareness of this attitude is important for an assessment of the significance of confession in late medieval and Reformation Europe. Originally published in 1977. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
