Le bureau des âmes. Écritures et pratiques administratives de la Pénitencerie apostolique (XIIIe-XIVe siècle) by Arnaud Fossier

Abstract

Reviewed by: Le bureau des âmes. Écritures et pratiques administratives de la Pénitencerie apostolique (XIIIe-XIVe siècle) by Arnaud Fossier Peter D. Clarke Le bureau des âmes. Écritures et pratiques administratives de la Pénitencerie apostolique (XIIIe-XIVe siècle). By Arnaud Fossier. [Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d’Athèthes et de Rome, fasc. 378.] (Rome: École Française de Rome. 2018. Pp. xvi, 617. €39,00. ISBN 978-2-7283-1286-3.) The papal (now apostolic) penitentiary was one of the major departments of the late medieval Roman Curia. It granted absolution of sins in cases reserved to [End Page 605] the pope, and other graces that were also a papal monopoly, notably certain dispensations. Recent research on this office has concentrated on its late medieval registers, comprising successful petitions for these favors. Arnaud Fossier takes a different approach, focussing on the office’s thirteenth- and fourteenth-century formularies, which predate its registers and thus supply evidence of its early organization and activity. Fossier’s book complements and updates Emil Göller’s Die päpstliche Pönitentiarie von ihrem Ursprung bis zu ihrer Umgestaltung unter Pius V., still the standard history of the office to 1569, though published in 1907–11 and at a time when the registers were unavailable to researchers. Fossier has the advantage of drawing on recent studies of the registers and the evidence of the first extant register (1410–11). Chapters 1 and 2 trace the origins and evolution of the office from c. 1200 down to this first register. Its personnel and their careers receive close attention, notably the cardinal or major penitentiary in charge of the eponymous office and the minor penitentiaries subordinate to him by the mid-thirteenth century. More might be said here, however, about the proctors who increasingly represented petitioners before the office. Chapter 3 provides a useful survey of the formularies constituting Fossier’s main evidence, comparing their different formats and functions. Chapter 4 analyzes the diplomatic of form letters in these collections as models or examples for the letters the office issued in response to petitions. Comparison with original letters is an avenue for further research, enhancing understanding of how formularies were used, and the administrative processes involved in producing letters. Chapter 5 explores the juristic language used in form letters, notably the subtle distinctions between different kinds of fault absolved or dispensed by the office. The letters often commissioned local bishops to investigate the circumstances of petitioners’ faults, and this procedure is contextualized well in twelfth- and thirteenth-century jurisprudence. Chapter 6 focusses on dispensations, which relaxed canonical rules in specific cases, especially impediments to marriage and ordination. The canonistic background is effectively treated for the twelfth century but might have been explored into the later period of the formularies. Fossier again shows acute attention to legal terminology in the form letters and rightly notes the difficulty in differentiating dispensations from related graces, especially licenses. Chapter 7 discusses the different kinds of absolution the office granted. It concerned remission of sins in the penitential forum when conferred by minor penitentiaries, but penitentiary letters generally absolved from wrongs and their penal consequences in the judicial forum. Fossier further distinguishes between absolution in cases reserved to the pope, often from spiritual sanctions incurred ipso facto under canon law, and from general censures often proclaimed by popes against the Church’s enemies. The final chapter (8) is arguably the most original and important. It discusses the concept of “scandal” marking the difference between private and public sins. Theologians and canonists agreed by the thirteenth century that private sins confessed in the penitential forum should remain private, lest they provoke “scandal,” i.e., set others a bad example. Scandal was thus the negative effect of public sins on public opinion and was to be avoided. Form letters hence made certain graces conditional [End Page 606] on the absence of scandal, for example, dispensation of clergy for ordination despite physical defects providing these did not cause scandal (i.e., reputational damage to the Church). Marriage dispensations were similarly justified by the need to avoid the scandal that might arise if they were not...