Proving Woman (5 page)

THE SEAL OF CONFESSION AND “KNOWING AS GOD”

“Confess your sins to the priest and after they will make fun of you and joke among themselves about your sins.” (Petrus Maurinus
(fl. 1320), shepherd of Montaillou)
⁹⁵

Despite Lateran IV’s heavy sanctions against the offending confessor who revealed the contents of a confession, certain authorities
clearly sympathized with Raymond’s view that the sacrament should, under certain circumstances, be made to work in favor of
the health of Christ’s corporate body. Innocent III himself may have been of this persuasion—despite the fact that most scholastic
defenses of the seal entail a citation of Lateran IV’s weighty injunctions, frequently invoking Innocent by name.
⁹⁶
But the council foregrounded the sacraments’ salvific function in the conferral of grace as well as their utility in policing
the church. A roughly contemporaneous anecdote by the Cistercian monk Caesarius of Heisterbach shows how the latter motive
could simultaneously both defend and overwhelm the former, thus emphasizing the pragmatic vein in Innocent’s theological initiatives.
Apparently an unordained monk confessed sacramentally to his abbot that he was in the habit of performing illicit masses.
Nor had he any intention of desisting, cringing before the shame of discovery that would inevitably follow the cessation of
his fictive celebrations. The despairing abbot referred the problem to the papal curia, where the cardinals and various learned
men consulted agreed almost unanimously (
omnibus pene in hoc consentientibus
) that the monk’s confession must be protected. Innocent III, however, adamantly opposed this view, arguing instead that “such
a confession is no confession at all, but sheer blasphemy; and the confessor has no right to conceal so infamous a madness
and bring disaster on the whole church.”
⁹⁷
The monk should be exposed. Moreover, this view would be circulated in later exempla collections under suggestive headings
such as “That a confessor in some cases is not bound to conceal the confession.”
⁹⁸
Toward the end of the thirteenth century, Rotlandus de Valle Brito’s similar usurpation of the power to perform mass was treated
by the papal inquisitors of Toulouse as if it were a heresy—a designation that would have automatically suspended his confessional
rights according to Raymond of PeÑafort’s way of thinking.
⁹⁹

Some of the earliest reports of the mendicant orders’ confessional activities betray similar discrepancies in the observance
of the seal. The mendicant orders were fostered by the papacy, at least in part, to implement Lateran IV’s mandate for annual
confession, acting both as preachers to educate the laity in their new penitential role and as confessors to supplement the
overtaxed parochial clergy.
¹⁰⁰
It is certainly ironic that the first extant testimony to the Franciscans’ responsibility of hearing lay confessions was framed
in the context of their purported breach of the seal—a breach occurring in the course of their preaching, no less. Thus in
a bull of 1234 addressed to the duke of Austria, Gregory IX performs a rearguard defense of the order by denouncing “certain
men of perverted hearts,” who have reported to the duke that “certain of the Friars Minor dwelling in [his] land revealed
the secrets of confession through certain circumlocutions in their preaching.”
¹⁰¹
The mendicant dual function of confessor-inquisitor may also have been tempting fate: certainly among the heretics of southern
France, the Dominicans had the reputation for breaking the seal of confession with impunity.
¹⁰²
An ominous exemplum by James of Vitry (d. 1240) further relates some awkward confessional exchanges that occurred between
the early Dominicans and various religious women in the Low Countries. “Certain of the said women showed their infirmities
and temptations and the failing of their fragile nature to those men just as they would to religious men, in order to be helped
particularly by their prayers. But those men not only rashly suspected them to be otherwise, but in different lay and clerical
congregations . . . they preached that the renowned communities of holy virgins were really prostitutes rather than religious
groups and thus the defects of the few were poured out to all . . . [and] they scandalized many.”
¹⁰³

Indeed, Thomas of Cantimpré(d. ca. 1272), an ardent admirer of James, might even be cast as one of those indiscreet preachers.
Thomas produced an ambitious collection of spiritual anecdotage known as
Concerning
Bees
. This work used the figure of the well-regulated life of bees—a species much admired in late antiquity and the Middle Ages
for its industry, self-discipline, and purported chastity—to meditate on the state of contemporary spirituality, generally,
in conjunction with the development of the Dominican order. A central strategy for Thomas in authorizing his work is to stress
his firsthand knowledge. In particular, the formula “when I was hearing confession for the episcopacy of Cambrai,” or variants
thereof, achieves a potentially dangerous prominence.
¹⁰⁴
Nor does he restrict his account to his own confessional experience; he further volunteers some very explicit details drawn
from the experiences of others as well: “The Venerable Boniface, formerly bishop of Lausanne, now rector in theology at Paris
reported to me that a certain cleric that he himself heard in confession was accustomed to this bad practice [of masturbation]
and provoked himself by illicit touchings.”
¹⁰⁵
In one passage in particular, Thomas offers himself up as a veritable untapped treasure trove of Dominican sin:

I am unaware of what may happen in other religious orders, nor if I were to know is it my role to judge. But about the Dominican
order, certainly more familiar and known to me, I know almost all those of the holy order who fell into scandal. . . . I believe,
however, that to this very day, in which I presently write this book, there is one from that order whom the Lord Jesus Christ
in his piety guarded most sweetly with his grace. And this is what he experienced—he who followed the ways of bishops into
different regions while hearing confessions.
¹⁰⁶

This passage establishes Thomas beyond question as an insider, and a pure one at that.

While providing an impressive evidentiary base that adds credibility to his account, such reportage can only undermine the
seal of confession. Confessional authorities argue against precisely the kind of instantiation that Thomas almost routinely
provides in his anecdotes. But one need not look to confessors’ manuals alone to censure Thomas’s practice: in the course
of his indictment of indiscreet disclosures, Antoninus of Florence (d. 1459) will cite Humbert of Romans (d. 1277)—master
general of the Dominican order at the time Thomas was writing
Concerning Bees
and to whom the work is dedicated. Humbert accordingly cautions that “one should never even say that ‘in that abbey or castle
or village or city in which I heard confessions, many sins of this kind occurred’ because the simple would believe that one
is revealing a confession.”
¹⁰⁷
Thomas habitually goes much further than this.

Various authorities would, in turn, be sympathetic to the anxiety that indiscretions, malicious or inadvertent, must generate.
There is an exemplum that turns on a priest’s revealing a wife’s confession to her husband. 108 One of the few legitimate
reasons that a penitent might avoid his or her parish priest and seek another confessor was if the confessor was a notorious
betrayer of confessions.
¹⁰⁹

These and other depredations were in the air in the wake of Lateran IV. Hence it is not surprising that, with Bonaventure
and Aquinas taking the lead, most theologians would rally around the seal of confession by refuting Raymond of PeÑafort’s
assumption of the complicity between the respective confessional fora. Bonaventure maintained that, in the case of the heretic
who refused to repent, as with other instances of individuals who seemed intent on perpetrating sins that would affect others,
¹¹⁰
a confessor was obliged to remain silent. At the most, the priest was permitted to warn the bishop to be vigilant of his flock.
¹¹¹
Any other line of action might provoke a serious scandal.
¹¹²

Aquinas also vigorously resisted hypothetical encroachments on the seal of confession, since, to his mind, the essence of
the sacrament was the act of concealment. “God indeed hides the sin of him who subjects himself to God through penance. Whereupon
it is fitting that this be signified in the sacrament of penance. And on that account, it is from the necessity of the sacrament
that someone conceals a confession, while he who reveals it is like a violator of the sacrament.” He adds, incidentally as
it were, that there are “certain other utilities” for this concealment: particularly, it is much easier to attract penitents
if they know that their confessions will be kept secret.
¹¹³
When Aquinas succinctly restates aspects of his position in a quodlibetal question,
¹¹⁴
he will argue that revealing a confession, even that of a heretic, goes against the “truth of the sacrament”—the integrity
of which is in no way lessened by a sinner’s hardened resistance to amendation.
¹¹⁵
He further champions the seal by according church statute the status of divine law (
de jure divina
). In so doing, Aquinas is both anticipating and preparing the way for the Council of Trent’s mandate to this effect.
¹¹⁶

These theological protections of the seal, including the rebuttal of Raymond’s position regarding the unrepentant heretic,
were picked up and endorsed by subsequent confessors’ manuals, works that had considerably more impact on practice than would
purely academic theological treatises. Of particular significance was Dominican John of Freiburg’s
Summa confessorum
, completed by 1298, which would eventually surpass Raymond’s manual in popularity. Although borrowing its format and much
of the content from Raymond’s earlier manual, John’s
Summa
also incorporated the theological teachings of Thomas Aquinas, which he tended to endorse in his own deliberations.
¹¹⁷
When John of Freiburg embarks on his examination of the seal of confession, the first question he raises is “whether the priest
in every case is bound to conceal a confession”—a question inspiring a lengthy reiteration of Thomas Aquinas’s view, supplemented
by other authorities who also support this position.

And yet any rebuttal of Raymond’s position was necessarily incomplete. Not only would his original manual, and hence his contested
view, continue to be circulated, but his argument was necessarily repeated by those who sought to refute it. John of Freiburg’s
treatment is a case in point. Although endorsing Aquinas’s position and according it pride of place, he nevertheless preserves
Raymond’s opposing view, along with select supporters.

Raymond, however, and Innocent [IV] posit the view held by some that when [a priest] knows something from confession which
threatens some future danger, then he can reveal this to such men as are able to help, not hinder.
¹¹⁸

Despite John’s concluding reiteration that this view was “entirely reproved by Thomas” and other theologians, the rejected
alternative nevertheless remains available for potential use.
¹¹⁹
Moreover, while the priest’s ability to denounce a penitent on the basis of sacramental confession remains tacitly in circulation,
the corresponding power of the priest to exculpate a former heretic by testifying to his confession and absolution was foreclosed.
Already in 1243 the Council of Narbonne would disallow a priest’s testimony in this context—a view reiterated by subsequent
manuals for inquisitors.
¹²⁰

But unavoidable gray areas remain even for those who policed the seal most vigorously. Bonaventure and Aquinas both permit
a priest to reveal a confession, provided he has the permission of his penitent.
¹²¹
Bonaventure, in particular, raises a host of difficulties that he never manages to allay entirely. What if a person confesses
a crime to silence a priest who had witnessed the incident? Does a priest sin mortally in hearing the confession about a crime
he has witnessed? Is he at fault if he refuses to testify?
¹²²
If the priest was a witness, could he subsequently refuse to accept the criminal’s confession under the protection of the
seal of confession? 123 Bonaventure finally concludes that a confessed sin known through a medium other than sacramental confession
could be revealed, but only if the priest is compelled under oath or by virtue of obedience.
¹²⁴
A parallel problem arises in the event that someone divulges a secret which, strictly speaking, has nothing to do with the
remission of sins—the true business of penance. According to Aquinas, the seal of confession was not perceived as extending
to such disclosures, although authorities hasten to add that a priest should avoid revealing such matters unless absolutely
necessary, owing to the danger of scandal.
¹²⁵
This lesser protection was often referred to as the seal of secrecy.

Such limits or exceptions to the seal were often the center of the rough-and-tumble of university exercises in the form of
quodlibetal questions.
¹²⁶
The very frequency of the seal as a point of contention is interesting insofar as these questions may have been framed in
response to issues raised from the floor of a public lecture hall, resonating with the immediate concerns of the audience.
¹²⁷
Thus Henry of Ghent, writing between 1276 and 1292 and whose preferred theological idiom seems to have been the quodlibet,
will argue that the prelate who commissions another priest to hear someone’s confession, insisting on a full report of the
sins detailed, is within his rights—provided the penitent gives his consent.
¹²⁸
Sometimes the incursions into the seal are very subtle, however. In the case of an abbot who is made aware through the confession
of a monk entrusted with the cure of souls that he is corrupting his lay charges, the abbot is
not
permitted to report this offense to a superior. But he
is
permitted to remove the monk from office on some other pretext.
¹²⁹
The seal is further eroded with the disparagement of lay confession, which had hitherto been an efficacious alternative when
no priest was available. Thus Godefroid of Fontaines maintains in a disputation of 1295 that the seal of confession did not
pertain to the lay confessor.
¹³⁰