A New History of Penance

Using hitherto unconsidered source materials from late antiquity to the early modern period, this volume charts new views about the role of penance in shaping western attitudes and practices for resolving social, political, and spiritual tensions, as penitents and confessors negotiated rituals and expectations for penitential expression.

Abigail Firey, Ph.D. (1995) in Medieval Studies, University of Toronto, is Associate Professor of History at the University of Kentucky. Her publications explore the cultural and intellectual contexts of early medieval canon law, most recently in A Contrite Heart: Prosecution and Redemption in the Carolingian Empire (Brill, in press).