Achard on the Transfiguration

CHAPTER 7: ON LUST	<Cap. viii.> DE LUXURIA
222. Have you committed lechery (“luxuria”)? These things pertain to lechery: . . . (list of 12 aspects, each with brief definition and explanation for the priest to give) ...	222 Luxuria laborasti ? Ad luxuriam pertinent ista: prodigalitas, impudicitia, lascivia, petulantia, titubatio, blanditiae, deliciae, voluptas, dissolutio, imbecillitas, scurrilitas et coitus.
223. PRIEST: There remains intercourse which is lechery in the strict sense of the word. Have you ever been polluted with lechery?	223 Restat coitus, qui stricto vocabulo dicitur luxuria. Umquam luxuria pollutus cs ?
PENITENT: Many times.	POENITENS. Nimis.
PRIEST: Ever against nature?	SACERDOS. Umquam contra naturam?
PEN: Many times.	POENITENS. Nimis.
PR: Ever with a man?	SACERDOS. Umquam cum masculo ?
PEN: Many times.	POENITENS. Nimis.
PR: With clerics or with laymen?	SACERDOS. Cum clericis an cum laicis ?
PEN: With both.	POENITENS. Et cum clericis et cum laicis.
PR: Married laymen or single?	SACERDOS. Cum laicis conjugatis an solutis?
PEN: Both.	POENITENS. Et cum istis et cum illis.
PR: With how many married people?	SACERDOS. Cum quot conjugatis?
PEN: I don't know.	POENITENS. Nescio.
PR: So you don't know how many times?	SACERDOS. Ergo nec vices scis?
PEN: That's right.	POENITENS. Ita est.
PR: Let us find out what we can. How long were you with them?	SACERDOS. Accipiamus ergo quod possumus: Quanto tempore fuisti cum eis?
PEN: 7 years.	POENITENS. Per scptennium.
PR: In what Order?	SACERDOS. In quo ordine?
PEN: (I have been) 2 years in the priesthood, 2 in the diaconate, 2 in the sub-diaconate, a year as an acolyte. I sinned with unattached people, but I don't know the number of people or times.	POENITENS. In sacerdotio per biennium, in diaconatu per biennium, in subdiaconatu per biennium, in acolythatu per annum. Cum atiis solutis peccavi, quorum nescio numerum nec viccs.
PR: Did you sin with clerics?	SACERDOS. Cum clericis peccasti ?
PEN: I sinned both with seculars and with religious.	POENITENS. Peccavi et cum saecularibus et cum religiosis.
PR: Tell me how many seculars and how many religious, and what order you and they were in when you sinned together, and whether they possessed the dignity of archdeacon, dean, abbot or bishop? Did you ever introduce any innocent person to that sin? Say how many and what order you were then in?	SACERDOS. Dic cum quot saecularibus ct cum quot religiosis, et cujus ordinis eratis tu et quando simul peccastis, et an in dignitate erant, an archidiaconi, an decani, an abbates, an episcopi. Umquam innocentcm aliquem introduxisti in istud peccatum ? Dic quot, et cujus ordinis eratis.
224. Afterwards, he may be asked whether he ever sinned further against nature, if he had intercourse in a bizarre way? If he asks in what way bizarre, I do not answer him. He can figure it out. I never mention anything from which he could derive reason for sinning, but only generalities which everyone knows to be sins. I painfully (“dolose”) extract (an admission of) masturbation from him, and similarly from a woman, but the method by which to extract this should not be written down. Just as I asked concerning a man, whether he has done anything against nature, so I ask concerning a woman, and indeed about every kind of fornication. Secondly, I ask about adultery and then about every kind of fornication; afterwards about incest in this way:	224 Postea potest quaeri si umquam plus contra naturam peccavit, si cxtraordinarie habuit aliquem. Si quaerat quomodo extraordinarie, non respondebo ei; ipse viderit. Numquam ei mentionem de aliquo faciam de quo peccandi occasionem accipere possit, sed tantum de generalibus quae omnes sciunt esse peccata. Mollitiem autem dolose ab eo extorqueo, et de muliere similiter, sed modus extorquendi scribendus non est. Sicuti etiam quaesivi de masculo si contra naturam aliquid egerit, ita quaero de muliere, immo de omni genere fornicandi. Secundo quaero de adulterio et deinceps de omni genere fornicandi; postea de incestu hoc modo.
225. Did you have relations with your female cousin? ... with a nun or other religious? with a virgin ... with a menstruating woman? with a woman not yet purified [after childbirth]. In all these matters I inquire as above	225 Ad consanguineam tuam accessisti ? ... Ad monialem accessisti vel aliam conversam. ... Virginem deflorasti? Ad menstruatam? Ad infidelem, scilicet judaeam, gentilem, haereticam? Dic ad quot et quotiens ad quamlibet. In puerperio? Ad non purificatam ? In omnibus istis quaere ut supra.
226. Did you have relations with a pregnant woman? I ask this, because many tiny children are in this way debilitated, crippled and oppressed. If anyone is affected by your having sex, in my opinion you should never minister in any order or receive any promotion without papal dispensation. In time of menstruation or (recent) childbirth are generated many lepers, epileptics and children bearing themselves badly in other ways.	226 Ad praegnantem accessisti? Hoc quaero, quia multi parvuli tunc debilitantur et claudi efficiuntur et opprimuntur. Si ex concubitu tuo aliquis oppressus est, de consilio meo numquam ministrabis in aliquo ordine vel promoveberis sine papae dispensatione. In menstruo et puerperio multi gcnerantur leprosi, epileptici et aliter male se habentes.
227. Have you fornicated in a holy place or on a holy day? Ask where and how often, (with a partner) in what order, with what person and in what kind of fornication? ...	227 In loco sacro vel die fornicatus es? Quaere quo et quotiens, in quo ordine, cum qua persona, quo genere fornicandi.
228. Have you gone to prostitutes? You should be afraid that she might be your kin or affine, or vowed to religion, or that some kinsman of yours had had her, or for some other (aggravating) circumstance. ...	228 Ad meretrices accessisti ? Timendum est tibi ne sint consanguineae vel conjugatae vel de religione, vel aliquis consanguineus tuus eam habuit, vel aliam aliquam circumstantiam.
Were you ever “notorious” for fornication? (Something has been said above about “infamy”.) Did you ever approach the altar (for the eucharist) after fornication or in hatred or with the will of sinning and not confess or express contrition? Ask how often, and with what will and what kind of fornication, etc.	Infamis fuisti pro fornicatione? Superius dictum est de infamia. Umquam inconfessus vel non contritus ad altare accessisti post fornicationem vel in odio vel in voluntate peccandi? Quaere quotiens et voluntatem et genus fomicandi et alia similia
229. Have you looked with evil intent at many people, men and women, have you desired, solicited, .. kissed them? ..	229 Multas personas, et masculos et feminas, male aspexisti, concupivisti, llicitasti, tractasti, osculatus cs.

Early in the thirteenth century the Englishman Robert of Flamborough was canon-penitentiary at the abbey of Saint-Victor in Paris, where he heard confessions of clerics studying at the university. Richard Poore asked him to write a manual for the guidance of confessors. The resulting Liber Poenitentialis (1208–1213) has until now remained unprinted except for brief citations and Schulte’s partial and scarce edition. In this critical edition, Francis Firth’s painstaking examination of the manuscripts yields a text divided into five books, along with an analysis of textual variants.

Book I treats requirements for a fruitful confession. Book II discusses marriage, while Book III concerns orders and includes a treatise on simony. Book IV explains the seven deadly sins and their concrete manifestations. Book V lists the traditional penances for specific sins, drawn primarily from Bartholomew of Exeter and Ivo of Chartres.

Robert’s two major innovations appear to be the use of an extended dialogue between priest and penitent in Books I–IV, and the inclusion of Decretists’ opinions and papal decretals. The dialogue form was designed to instruct the confessor on how to make the penitent conscious of his sins. On occasion the penitent disputes the judgment of the confessor, and often the interrogation develops into a small treatise on a specific point. Robert appears to have been infatuated with the possibilities offered by the application of canonistic opinion to the confessional, for he drew upon Rufinus, Huguccio, and recent papal decretals. He thus made this body of opinion available to the ordinary confessor. His treatment was part of the movement away from the earlier rigid and mechanical tariff-penitentials toward penances set by the confessor himself.

Yet in applying the technical rules of church courts Robert may have introduced a new and inappropriate form of rigidity. He supported the maintenance of both older penitentials and new canon law positions, but he did favor mitigation of severe penances. Often he is overcautious and legalistic, and he even criticizes canonical judgments that he feels conflict with divine law. The treatment of the sins of ordinary Christians in Book V followed traditional lines rather than incorporating recent practice and opinion.

There is relatively little of sociological interest here compared with Thomas of Chobham and others. Writing shortly before the Fourth Lateran Council made confession obligatory, Robert stood in the vanguard of the movement to reform Christian life, and he composed one of the first examples of the genre of Summae Confessorum that soon included Raymond of Pennafort’s Summa de casibus. Firth’s handsome, careful, and well-documented edition will take its place among recent critical editions of such writers as Peter the Chanter, Alain of Lille, and Thomas of Chobham, and should stimulate further study of Robert’s use of sources and of his influence. We may be able to ascertain whether Peter of Poitiers, also of Saint-Victor, was justified in accusing Robert of a rigid adherence to outdated penitentials uninformed by recent law and theology. – Frederick H. Russell, Catholic Historical Review

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