Examining Wrath in the Late Middle Ages
Paper read to the Canadian Society of Medievalists, 31 May 2010
Concordia University, Montreal, PQ
By Marc B. Cels
Assistant Professor of History, Centre for Global and Social Analysis
Athabasca University, Alberta
marcc@athabascau.ca
According to the Summa predicantium by the fourteenth-century Dominican John Bromyard of
Hereford, anger “is a subtle sin and [penitents] rarely confess it... [and when they do] confess it,
nevertheless they rarely make restitution for the loss of reputation or other goods that they have
caused the person against whom they were wrathful.”1 The reason why, he explains, is that
people usually think that their anger is just, rather than sinful. Bromyard’s observation raises the
problem that the late medieval confessors faced when attempting to instill an awareness of
vicious anger and its social consequences. My paper examines their efforts from a sample of
fourteenth-century pastoral manuals. I have used Friar John Bromyard to introduce the topic
because questions have been raised about how effective the mendicants were in encouraging the
wrathful to make restitution and to reconcile. I will therefore compare mendicant manuals to
those intended for secular clergy, especially some familiar Middle English texts. This inquiry
into the treatment of wrath also touches upon two lines of scholarly inquiry about confession as a
form of social control.
The liberal tradition of scholarship has long been fascinated with the Catholic
“…peccatum subtile est, et raro de illo confitentur,… licet de illo confiteantur, rare tamen famam, uel alia
bona, que ille contra quem irascitur, amisit restituunt.” John Bromyard, Summa praedicantium, 2 vols. (Venice:
Dominicus Nicolinus, 1586), s.v. “Ira,” I. viii, p. 394r. The Summa was compiled between 1330 and 1348.
1
Cels: Examining Wrath in the Late Middle Ages
confessional regime and its effects on the modern, individual conscience—especially the sexual
ethic. 2 Thomas Tentler and Jean Delumeau scrutinized the penitential techniques that contributed
to the early modern guilt culture. Their studies generally concurred with Foucault’s theory that
confession imposes discipline upon individuals because they are taught to scrutinize their
thoughts, feelings and actions according to expert clerical norms and knowledge. 3 Although the
clergy vs. laity, elite vs. people approach to medieval religion is increasingly dated, it still
informs the general view of how confession worked on late medieval individuals.
The work of John Bossy represents the scholarship that focuses on the effects of the
confessional regime on social relationships. He argued that, before confession became
preoccupied with personal sexual morality, its function had been to promote the reconciliation of
enmities within the Christian community.4 Social reconciliation had been a prerequisite for
spiritual reconciliation to God. The spread of private confession and the individualized
reconciliation of the sinner to God through the priest, he argued, eroded the social function of
medieval penance, and marks the transition to a more individualist modernity.
Other scholars have noticed a variation in the teachings about reconciliation and penance
2
For an overview, see R. Emmet McLaughlen, "Truth, tradition and history: The historiography of
High/Late Medieval and Early Modern Penance," in A New history of penance, ed. Abigail Firey, Brill's companions
to the Christian tradition, 14 (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 19-71.
3
T. N. Tentler, Sin and Confession on the Eve of the Reformation (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1977). Jean Delumeau, Sin and Fear: The Emergence of a Western Guilt Culture, Thirteenth to Eighteenth
Centuries, trans. Eric Nicholson (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990), 189-244. Michel Foucault, The History of
Sexuality I: An Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Vintage, 1980), 58-67. M. Foucault, Discipline and
Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York: Vintage, 1979), 135-308.
4
John Bossy, "The Social History of Confession in the Age of Reformation," Transactions of the Royal
Historical Society 5th series 25 (1975): 21-38. ———, Christianity in the West, 1400-1700 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1985). ———, Peace in the post-Reformation. (Cambridge, U.K.; New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1998).
2
Cels: Examining Wrath in the Late Middle Ages
during the later Middle Ages. William Campbell, for example, identified several theologies of
reconciliation within thirteenth-century England. Some required reconciliation before absolution
and others did not.5 Jonathan Hughes’ case study of the late medieval Archdiocese of York
documented how the parochial clergy presented a social morality and fostered social concord
through reconciliation and the rooting out of anti-social vices, whereas some members of the
gentry and mid-level clergy were attracted to the more individual and interior piety fostered by
recluses and visionaries—the sort of audience that Anna Lewis mentioned in her paper on
Saturday.6
What about the Dominican and Franciscan friars? Did they promote a social or a more
individualized penitential regime? The friars certainly won a reputation as peace-makers early on
in Italy. Revivalist preachers exhorted crowds to repentance and reconciliation. They were
effective as mediators and arbitrators both because they were charismatic holy men and because
they were outsiders above the fray. Now, although revivalist missions could punctuate the cycle
of vendetta and factionalism, nevertheless, it was not long before the usual strife resumed. 7 But
how did friars confront rancour and promote reconciliation in the course of their ordinary
5
William H. Campbell, "Theologies of reconciliation in thirteenth-century England," in Retribution,
Repentance, and Reconciliation: Papers Read at the 2002 Summer Meeting and the 2003 Winter Meeting of the
Ecclesiastical History Society, ed. Kate Cooper and Jeremy Gregory (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 2004), 84-94.
6
Jonathan Hughes, "The Administration of Confession in the Diocese of York in the Fourteenth Century," in
Studies in Clergy and Ministry in Medieval England, Pervis Seminar Studies, ed. David M. Smith, Borthwick Studies
in History, 1 (York: Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, 1991), 87-163.
7
On mendicant peacemaking, see: Raimondo Michetti, "François d'Assise et la paix revélée. Réflections sur
le mythe du pacifisme franciscain et sur la prédication de paix dans le société communale du XIIIe siècle," in
Prêcher la paix et discipliner la société. Italie, France, Angleterre (XIIIe-XVe siècle), ed. Rosa Maria Dessì,
Collection d'études médiévales de Nice, 5 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), 279-312.; Augustine Thompson, Revival
Preachers and Politics in Thirteenth-century Italy: The Great Devotion of 1233 (Oxford/ New York:
Clarendon/Oxford University Press, 1992). Daniel E. Bornstein, The Bianchi of 1399: Popular Devotion in Late
Medieval Italy (Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press, 1993). Cynthia Polecritti, Preaching peace in Renaissance
Italy: Bernardino of Siena & his audience (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2000).
3
Cels: Examining Wrath in the Late Middle Ages
ministry as confessors and preachers?
In England, the friars do not seem to have enjoyed a reputation as peace-making holy
men. Indeed, they were criticized as lax confessors by their secular rivals, who friars of
pocketing alms in return for offering easier confessions, lighter penances and being less
demanding about restitution and reconciliation.8 These antifraternal stereotypes are most
familiar to us from Chaucer’s portrait of the corrupt friar in the Canterubry Tales (I. 258-61). He
presides at love-days, or peace-making meetings, not as a humble monk or impartial scholar, but
as a pompous hypocrite who would bend the rules for the wealthy.9
Perhaps the seculars had a point. Parochial priests were most familiar with the enmities
among their parishioners. Ideally, when hearing annual confessions before Easter, priests could
interrogate both parties, probe grudges, demand restitution and reconciliation of enemies, and
impose rigorous penances. They could withdraw absolution and even Easter communion from
the impenitent—both of which would have been very public and shameful censures. Parochial
surveillance and discipline were undermined when penitents availed themselves of mendicant
confessors who did not know the penitent’s circumstances or history.
Michael Harren, however, has speculated that antifraternal criticisms may stem from
differences in penitential emphasis.10 The secular clergy approached confession as a juridical
8
The controversy is summarized by Michael Haren, Sin and Society in Fourteenth-Century England. A
Study of the "Memoriale presbiterorum", Oxford Historical Monographs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000),
185-89, 98-200.
9
In love-dayes ther koude he muchel help,
For ther he was nat lyk a cloysterer
With a thredbare cope, as is a povre scoler
But he was lyk a maister or a pope.
10
Haren, Sin and Society, 77.
4
Cels: Examining Wrath in the Late Middle Ages
forum in which they judged the behavior of penitents against canonical norms. With little
education, they were unable to probe the psychology of sin or more complex cases, which they
referred to superiors. Their moral teaching was more interested in external acts and their social
impact, rather than introspection. This social approach to penance made the secular clergy more
likely to admonish their parishioners against antisocial behavior and to demand restitution and
reconciliation.
The friars, on the other hand, were much better educated specialists in the art or “science”
of preaching penitence and hearing confession. With their knowledge of both canon law and
moral theology they felt more confident to assign arbitrary penances. Indeed, the mendicants
were very much a part of the academic culture that was generating a new science of the soul
which stressed individual intentionality, self-scrutiny, and private reconciliation with God
through secret confession to a priest. Ideally, the friars were better equipped to interrogate the
penitent’s psychology and circumstances as well as to offer counsel. This may have tended to
make them less concerned with demanding interpersonal reconciliation or even the application of
legal norms when granting absolution. A more introspective and spiritual penitential regime, it
could be argued, would have been less effective for examining and remedying rancour within a
community.
The rest of this paper compares a small sample of mendicant and secular instructions for
examining anger to see if features that suggest a different penitential emphasis can be discerned:
one more introspective and one more socially oriented. Stress on the exterior manifestation of
5
Cels: Examining Wrath in the Late Middle Ages
anger as well as the need for interpersonal reconciliation will be taken as signs of a social
approach. Emphasis on anger’s psychological and spiritual effects will be taken as indicative of a
more introspective approach.
First, let us consider a mendicant example. The most influential summa for confessors
circulating in the fourteenth-century was the Summa confessorum by Dominican John of
Freiburg, completed by 1298.11 John built on early manuals that digested canon law relevant to
confession and added up-to-date moral theology, especially that of Thomas Aquinas. John’s
manual was a formidable and technical textbook. John, however, also composed a shorter
confessionale, or tract for the instruction of confessors who were less educated or experienced. It
suggests how a priest may have put the summa’s material to practical use.
John’s confessionale lists questions for interrogating penitents organized according to the
familiar schema of the vices. The section on anger is illustrative of his method of applying canon
law and moral theology to questions of conscience.12 The entry is logically organized and the
questions include a very brief explanation of why the antisocial behavior is sinful, based on
legal sources or theological explanations. A confessor using John of Freiburg’s Confessionale
would not only come away with a list of the antisocial transgressions caused by anger, but also
some theological explanation for determining the moral gravity of an angry act. This information
was needed when deciding on what penance to assign and counseling penitents on how to
modify their behavior. Indeed, as other friars imitated or adapted John’s summa, they also tended
11
John of Freiburg, Summa confessorum (Rome1518).
John of Freiburg, Confessionale. Vatican City. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS. Pal. Lat. 712, fols.
138 r-138v.
12
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Cels: Examining Wrath in the Late Middle Ages
to include more information on the virtues for the positive instruction of penitents. Finally,
John’s tract contains information on restitution on ill-gotten gains and instructions for granting
absolution to the contrite penitent willing to make satisfaction, but John does not insist on
reconciliation with enemies as a prerequisite for priestly absolution.
The mendicants also produced summas on the vices and the virtues and theological
compendia that presented moral teachings, not through the technical language of theologians and
lawyers, but through pithy stories, similes, and quotations that made abstract concepts and
psychological processes more concrete. Though these were not instructions for conducting
confessions, such material provided the building-blocks for moral instructions during confession,
from the pulpit, and for devotional reading—the sort of material found in Chaucer’s Parson’s
Tale, as noted by Danny Gorny in his paper Saturday. A Franciscan example from early
fourteenth-century England is the Fasciculus morum, which recycles traditional commonplaces.
Typical of the genre, the Fasciculus morum’s treatment of anger stresses the irrationality of the
vice, and draws on a long ascetical tradition that emphasizes the spiritual dangers caused by
anger in the human soul. For example, the evil consequences of wrath listed by the author are all
essentially spiritual in nature: anger destroys the image of God in man; anger obstructs the flow
of grace into the soul; and wrath makes man like a devil. Nevertheless, we cannot say that this
tract is only concerned with the inner life because it does not neglect the social ills that anger
causes and stresses the danger and violence that hatred causes in society.13 The result is a fairly
well-rounded compendium that balances what I have been characterizing as social concerns with
13
Fasciculus morum: A Fourteenth-century Preacher's Handbook, ed. Siegfried Wenzel (University Park,
Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University, 1989), 116-17.
7
Cels: Examining Wrath in the Late Middle Ages
more introspective, spiritual concerns.
Turning to the secular English manuals for clergy, I begin with the influential Oculus
sacerdotis by William of Pagula composed between 1319 and 1322.14 The first part included
instructions for hearing confessions with an interrogatory based on the deadly sins. William’s
interrogation on anger is practical and to the point, asking penitents if they had harmed anyone
by assault or by insult or if they had conspired to harm anyone, if they had committed arson, tore
up someone’s crops, cursed or blasphemed. Except for a few questions about impatience during
sickness and tribulation, William is entirely concerned with social sins in this section. William
does not delve into the psychology of sin during the interrogation, but a later section in the
summa provides material on what priests should regularly expound, including commonplace
information on the virtues and vices.15 Nevertheless, William seems to emphasize the social
nature of confession and parish life when he pointedly instructs priests to withhold absolution
unless the penitent expresses a willingness to forgive his offenders in accordance with the
requirements of Christian charity.
Two of the best know Middle English manuals are the mid-century Layfolk’s Catechism16
14
On which see Leonard E. Boyle, "A study of the works attributed to William of Pagula with special
reference to the Oculus sacerdotis and Summa summarum" (D. Phil., Oxford University, 1956).
———, "Aspects of Clerical Education in Fourteenth Century England," in The Fourteenth
Century, ACTA, 4, Proceedings of the State University of New York Conferences in Medieval Studies, ed.
Pal E. Szarmach and Bernard S. Levy (Binghamton NY: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance
Studies, 1977). William of Pagula. Oculus sacerdotis. Oxford, New College MS 292, fol.4v, 6v.
15
16
(John Gaytrick), The Lay Folks' Catechism : or, The English and Latin versions of Archbishop Thoresby's
Instruction for the people : together with a Wycliffe adaptation of the same, and corresponding Canons of the
Council of Lambeth, ed. Thomas Frederick Simmons and Henry Edward Nolloth, Original series (Early English Text
8
Cels: Examining Wrath in the Late Middle Ages
and John Myrc’s Instructions for Parish Priests from about 1400.17 Both texts recycle
commonplace material from earlier, Latin manuals, but made it much more accessible through
translation and versification18.
Though intended to help parochial clergy instruct the laity, the vernacular texts use the
very old ascetic framework for explaining anger derived from Gregory the Great and commonly
found in discussions of the vice.19 Anger is defined as an appetite for vengeance that surges up
from the heart and is expressed outwardly against others in argument and insult and finally as
assault and even murder.20 This traditional scheme provided both a ranking of anger’s sins, but
also explained the link between interior states and outward actions. Myrc strays from the pattern,
somewhat and begins his interrogation about anger by asking about arson, no doubt because
arson was a serious sin that had to be absolved by bishops. He also adds various sins of the
tongue to his list—reflecting medieval sensitivities to defamation and loss of face.21 Both
discussions of anger emphasize the social ills that arise from the vice, without delving into the
effects of anger on the inner life of the penitent. This is the sort of down-to-earth advice that we
would expect for hearing confessions in parishes. Myrc, however, includes a section suggesting a
Society) ; no. 118 (London: Published for the Early English Text Society by K. Paul, Trench, Trèubner, 1901).
17
John Mirk, Instructions for parish priests, ed. Edward Peacock, Early English Text Society. Publications.
Original series (London: Pub. for Early English Text Society by Trübner and Co., 1868).
18
On the context of these texts within the Archdiocese of York, see Hughes, "Administration of
Confession," chapter 3.
19
For an overview of the commonplaces associated with wrath, see Carla Casagrande and Silvana Vecchio,
Histoire des péchés capitaux au Moyen Âge, trans. Pierre-Emmanuel Dauzat, Collectione historique (Paris: Aubier,
2003), 93-125.
20
Gaytrick, Lay Folks' Catechism, 90.
21
John Myrc, Instructions for Parish Priests by John Myrc, ed. E. Peacock, Earl English Text Society
(1868), 38-39.; see C. Casagrande and S. Vecchio, Les pechés de la langue. Discipline et éthique de la parole dans
la culture médiévale (Paris: Cerf, 1991).
9
Cels: Examining Wrath in the Late Middle Ages
remedy for the vice, namely that the heat of anger should evoke fear of hell fire.22 We might have
expected that Myrc would have chosen more practical advice for controlling the external
expression of anger—such as holding one’s tongue or seeking mediation for disputes, but the
choice of this commonplace remedy is revealing.
The concrete images, similes and stories that late medieval moral treatises, simple as they
seem, could help convey the more subtle theories of moral theology and likely even encouraged
a type of introspection.23 Fire, for example, was probably the most common concrete symbol for
anger. The heat generated by the physiological response involved with anger—increased heartrate and blood flow and erratic movement--evoked the unpredictable and damaging qualities of
flames. Anger flares up or smolders; it spreads quickly and often burns the hand that wields it
against others. The heat of anger, finally, evokes the eternal hell-fire that punishes human wrath
and the demonic quality of the vice. As with modern anger-management therapies, medieval
moralists could teach their audiences to use physiological signals to monitor their unseen
emotions, associate their thoughts with actions, and those actions with the state of their soul.24
My tentative comparison seems to indicate that, although secular manuals proposed an
interrogation of anger that avoided the theological approach of the more academically oriented
manuals studied by friars, nevertheless, the differences are subtle. And although the mendicant
manuals, for their part, often referred to the theories of moral theologians to explain the interior
22
John Myrc, Instructions for Parish Priests by John Myrc, 51-52.
For an overview of medieval theories of anger, see Silvana Vecchio, "'Ira mala/ira bona.' Storia di un vizio
che qualche volta è una virù," Doctor Seraphicus 45 (1998): 41-62.
24
For examples, see Simon Kemp, "Anger Theory and Management: A Historical Analysis," The American
Journal of Psychology 108 (1995): 397-417.
23
10
Cels: Examining Wrath in the Late Middle Ages
mental and spiritual processes of the emotion, nevertheless, the outward and antisocial
expressions of anger are considered the gravest form of the vice. Moreover, both the friars and
the regular clergy used similes and stories to make concrete the hidden psychological and
spiritual aspects of wrath that taught the wrathful to associate both their outward action and
emotional sensations with a disordered and vicious impulse.
Although both secular and mendicant manuals present elaborate interrogations for
penitents and view confession as an opportunity to probe the penitent’s knowledge of and
conformity to the clergy’s moral science, the reality must have fallen short of their ambitious
goals. Parishioners put off confessing to their parochial priest and only performed this
requirement so they could avoid the shame of being excluded from Easter communion. In the
rush to hear confessions, parochial priests had little time for more than a superficial probing of a
penitent’s conscience. Admonishments by both seculars and friars to frequent confession,
moreover, reveal that most people were reluctant to confess their enmities, make restitution,
accept apologies or be reconciled. Instead, penitents minimized or justified their sins and blamed
others. John Bromyard, for example, noted that hard-hearted penitents were often too ashamed to
negotiate a peace.25
On the other hand, in this age before the confessional booth, penitents confessed in the
open, with other penitents standing by who could witness the priest’s gesture of absolution,
which made even rare confession subject to another sort of shame.26 The shame of being denied
25
John Bromyard, Summa praedicantium, s.v. Ira (I.viii), p.395v-96r. The edition’s meditatio should be read
mediatio.
26
For the social and public emphasis of medieval confession, see Bossy, "The Social History of Confession
in the Age of Reformation," 21-38.. For other depictions of how confession was practiced, see Roberto Rusconi,
11
Cels: Examining Wrath in the Late Middle Ages
absolution and denied communion gave a confessor some leverage in forcing reconciliations.27
Parishioners would have known that Easter-time reconciliations were likely motivated by a
desire to save face. Their suspicions over seasonal peace-making are reflected in sermon stories.
In one on the worthy reception of Easter communion, a wrathful woman, threatened with being
barred from communion, promises to reconcile, but keeps anger in her heart and refuses to
forgive her enemy after receiving the sacrament: she is strangled by a demon.28 In real life,
smoldering suspicions between supposedly reconciled enemies could spark fresh conflict.29 The
pastoral manuals frequently stress that the wrathful should not just forgive, but forgive from the
heart. For example, Myrc’s versified interrogatory asks, “For-gyuest þow with herte fre,/ Alle
þow þat haue trespaset to þe?”30
The anxieties that reconciling neighbours were dissembling and concealing grudges—or
simply unable to forgive despite real intention to do so, was surely not the invention of a clerical
elite. These would have been reasonable anxieties among fourteenth-century parishioners living
in a competitive and invidious society. The social pressure that secular parochial clergy could
apply may have brought the wrathful to confession and even encouraged gestures of
reconciliation—and the secular manuals surveyed in this study encouraged priests to do so more
than mendicant manuals. Nevertheless, both the secular and the mendicant manuals show the
L'ordine dei peccati: la confessione tra Medioevo ed etá moderna, Saggi (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2002).
27
Those who did not take communion or took communion outside their parish without their pastor’s
permission could also face charges before an ecclesiastical court. Punishments included public shaming.
28
“Where fore þat thame any louedayes, loke þat þei be made withowte anny feynynge, and þatt þe herte
and þe tongue a-core in hem, and þan I may well verefie and sey þat ye be in perfite loue and charite.” Woodburn O.
Ross, Middle English sermons, Early English text society. Original series (London: Oxford University Press, 1940),
62.
29
Historians of conflict have taken a great interest in “social emotions” such as anger. For example, see Paul
Hyams, Rancor and Reconciliation in Medieval England, Conjunctions of Religion and Power in the Medieval Past
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2003), 34-68.
30
John Myrc, Instructions for Parish Priests by John Myrc, 45.
12
Cels: Examining Wrath in the Late Middle Ages
same concern for sincere and certain reconciliation that comes through a greater awareness and
discipline of anger.
Bibliography of Works Cited
Manuscripts:
Oxford, New College, MS 292.
Vatican City. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS. Pal. Lat. 712.
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Bornstein, Daniel E. The Bianchi of 1399: Popular Devotion in Late Medieval Italy.
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Bossy, John. Christianity in the West, 1400-1700. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985.
———. "Peace in the post-Reformation." Cambridge, U.K. ; New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1998.
———. "The Social History of Confession in the Age of Reformation." Transactions of the
Royal Historical Society 5th series 25, (1975): 21-38.
Boyle, Leonard E. "Aspects of Clerical Education in Fourteenth Century England." In The
Fourteenth Century, ACTA, 4, Proceedings of the State University of New York
Conferences in Medieval Studies, edited by Pal E. Szarmach and Bernard S. Levy.
Binghamton NY: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1977.
———. "A study of the works attributed to William of Pagula with special reference to the
Oculus sacerdotis and Summa summarum." D. Phil., Oxford University, 1956.
Campbell, William H. "Theologies of reconciliation in thirteenth-century England." In
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and the 2003 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, edited by Kate Cooper
and Jeremy Gregory, 84-94. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 2004.
Casagrande, C., and S. Vecchio. Les pechés de la langue. Discipline et éthique de la parole dans
la culture médiévale. Paris: Cerf, 1991.
Casagrande, Carla, and Silvana Vecchio. Histoire des péchés capitaux au Moyen Âge. Translated
by Pierre-Emmanuel Dauzat, Collectione historique. Paris: Aubier, 2003.
Delumeau, Jean. Sin and Fear: The Emergence of a Western Guilt Culture, Thirteenth to
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Fasciculus morum: A Fourteenth-century Preacher's Handbook. Edited by Siegfried Wenzel.
13
Cels: Examining Wrath in the Late Middle Ages
University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University, 1989.
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Gaytrick), (John. The Lay Folks' Catechism : or, The English and Latin versions of Archbishop
Thoresby's Instruction for the people : together with a Wycliffe adaptation of the same,
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John of Freiburg. Summa confessorum. Rome, 1518.
Kemp, Simon. "Anger Theory and Management: A Historical Analysis." The American Journal
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McLaughlen, R. Emmet. "Truth, tradition and history: The historiography of High/Late Medieval
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Michetti, Raimondo. "François d'Assise et la paix revélée. Réflections sur le mythe du pacifisme
franciscain et sur la prédication de paix dans le société communale du XIIIe siècle." In
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Ross, Woodburn O. Middle English sermons, Early English text society. Original series.
14
Cels: Examining Wrath in the Late Middle Ages
London,: Oxford University Press, 1940.
Rusconi, Roberto. L'ordine dei peccati : la confessione tra Medioevo ed et©* moderna, Saggi.
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