Sin, Interiority, and Selfhood in the Twelfth-century West

Download or read book Sin, Interiority, and Selfhood in the Twelfth-century West written by Susan R. Kramer and published by Studies and Texts. This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What lay behind this shift? Should we attribute it to changes in priestly status? To the development of new techniques for breaching the heart's secrecy? Was new value placed on the secrets subject to confession? These questions are provocative because much recent scholarship implicates medieval penance in evolving western notions of selfhood and the part played by interiority in defining the self. Lateran IV's mandate to confess is characterized as a critical juncture in the history of subjectivity and the rise of a modern sense of self with its noted attributes of inwardness and autonomy. The aim of Sin, Interiority, and Selfhood in the Twelfth-Century West is to uncover the conception of self that underlay the demand that all Christians confess their innermost thoughts. Drawing on sources from the world of the medieval schools, it juxtaposes discussions that treat topics ranging from the difficulties of discerning the source of tears to the mechanics of original sin.