Penitential practice in the Holy Roman Empire 900-1050, examined through
records in church law, the liturgy, monastic and other sources.
This study examines all forms of penitential practice in the Holy Roman
Empire under the Ottonian and Salian Reich, c.900 - c.1050. This crucial
period in the history of penance, falling between the Carolingians'
codification of public and private penance, and the promotion of the
practice of confession in the thirteenth century, has largely been
ignored by historians.
Tracing the varieties of penitential practice recorded in church law,
the liturgy, monastic practice, narrative and documentary sources, Dr
Hamilton's book argues that many of the changes previously attributed to
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries can be found earlier in the tenth
and early eleventh centuries. Whilst acknowledging that there was a
degree of continuity from the Carolingian period, she asserts that the
period should be seen as having its own dynamic. Investigating the
sources for penitential practice by genre, sheacknowledges the
prescriptive bias of many of them and points ways around the problem in
order to establish the reality of practice in this area at this time.
This book thus studies the Church in action in the tenth and
eleventhcenturies, the reality of relations between churchmen, and
between churchmen and the laity, as well as the nature of clerical
aspirations. It examines the legacy left by the Carolingian reformers
and contributes to our understanding of pre-Gregorian mentalities in the
period before the late eleventh-century reforms.
SARAH HAMILTON teaches in the Department of History, University of
Exeter.
