Literature overtakes history, for literature gives you more than one life. It expands experience and opens new opportunities to readers.
Lechers and Sodomites
After the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, the classification of sins into groups and degrees of severity had even more pragmatic consequences. Drawing on earlier canon law, a principal focus of the pastoral function became the redemption of sinners through sermon and confession, and new compendia of writings on the priestโs role in confession as well as practical instructional manuals for administering confession appeared. Discussions of sexuality … Read the rest
Marriage
Three principal bodies of texts discussed marriage in late medieval Europe: theology, law, and literature. Theologians focused on marriage not only as a socially sanctioned state of mutual love between a man and a woman, but also as many possible relationships among the individual, the Church, and Christ. Hence, earthly marriage, and particularly the wife, ranked lower on a scale below other possible marriages, the married woman less favored … Read the rest