Confessors

Abstract

The chief aim of Chapter 4 is to reassess the impact of both local and more universal reform efforts to clericalize the practice of penance in communities of Benedictine nuns during the central Middle Ages. According to the prevailing historiography, various reform efforts over the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries effectively charged priests with hearing nuns’ confessions. Yet, as this chapter shows, study of the extant prayer books and psalters, produced by or altered for nuns’ use, demonstrates that they served as confessors not only for their consorors but also for visiting pilgrims and laity affiliated with their communities. Several of these prayers are adaptations of mass-texts traditionally said by priests within the context of the Mass and would have cast the women who recited them in markedly sacerdotal roles and even recognized their performance of ministries around the altars of their churches, including handling the eucharistic vessels and consecrated elements.