This volume rounds out an important trilogy of studies by Pierre
Payer on the topic of sex in the ecclesiastical thought and
writings of the middle ages that began with Sex and the
Penitentials: The Development of a Sexual Code, 550-1150
(1984) and continued with The Bridling of Desire: Views of Sex
in the Later Middle Ages (1993).
In every way the equal of the two magisterial studies that
preceded it, this third volume examines the treatment of sex in the
'new' literature of penance and confession. Composed by canon
lawyers and by theologians for the instruction of priests, it is
one of the most popular genres of writing of the later middle ages,
although it remains largely unknown and underutilized as a
historical source.
Pierre Payer guides readers through this varied and heterogenous
corpus with great patience and erudition. His analysis ranges over
the origin and development of the idea of lechery as one of the
capital sins and the distinction between natural and unnatural
acts, and explores the moral consequences of sexual beahviour even
within marriage, providing us much insight into the act, and art,
of confession and the intimate relationship between priest and
penitent that underlies it.