The Culture of Inquisition in Medieval England. Edited by Mary C. Flannery and Katie L. Walter. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2013. viii + 194 pp.

Abstract

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)The Culture of Inquisition in Medieval England . Edited by Mary C. Flannery and Katie L. Walter . Cambridge : D.S. Brewer , 2013. viii + 194 pp.Book Reviews and NotesAside from the crusades, there may be no phenomenon more associated with medieval religion and more disdained by modern opinion than the inquisition. Now nearly synonymous with interrogation, the mere term evokes institutional repression and persecution of scientists, free thinkers, and heretics, of anyone, in other words, who dares question church or state doctrine. Yet, as the editors and contributors to this collection make clear, the practice of inquisitio emerged from and developed within a complex set of ecclesiastical and juridical contexts in the years following the Fourth Lateran Council. And, attending to these larger cultural contexts complicates many of our long-held assumptions about inquisition. Rather than being solely a strict system ferreting out heresy and prosecuting dissenters, this book shows that inquisition was often a flexible set of practices that emphasized correction, advocated discernment, and even created new spaces theological inquiry, self-expression, and literary invention. Like confession (its more private sibling), medieval inquisition was a dialogic mode that was generative as well as restrictive, enabling opportunities personal and social identity formation. Focusing on the cultural effects of inquisitional processes in England, this collection offers an important and novel set of studies of the public and private significance of inquisition, confession, and the dynamics of religious dissent in England from the late Middle Ages through the early years of the English reformations.The book is falls into two parts. Its first three chapters examine the legal and ecclesiastic contexts in which the practice of inquisition takes shape in medieval England, with the remaining chapters building on this background to explore the ways in which Middle English literature engages, reflects upon, and appropriates inquisitional practices and modes. Henry Ansgar Kelly's impressive opening essay surveys the juridical and historical terrain of inquisition in medieval England, considering its rise in the ecclesiastical courts, its association with the prosecution of heretics, and its emphasis on prior public knowledge (publica fama ) of the accused person's crime. Edwin Craun's chapter, on the other hand, explores the practice of disclosing another's private sin to the authorities, showing that medieval pastoral writers and canonists such denunciation was an alternate way of beginning the process of inquisition, and one that aimed to move the accused to penance. The next chapter, Ian Forrest's essay on lollardy, inquisition, and English provincial constitutions, finds a revival of provincial canon law in the wake of heresy in England. Ultimately, as Forrest shows, for English churchmen, inquisition was an intellectually creative activity and an activity inseparable from their broader pastoral and judicial operations (59).As the remaining essays in this collection make clear, this creative potential extended far beyond legal culture. After establishing the historical and juridical contexts of and issues surrounding inquisition in England, the volume turns toward the literary engagements with it. …