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Central authority and local powers: the apostolic penitentiary and English church in the fifteenth century

Central authority and local powers: the apostolic penitentiary and English church in the fifteenth century
Central authority and local powers: the apostolic penitentiary and English church in the fifteenth century
The apostolic penitentiary was the central office of the late medieval Western church concerned with matters of conscience. It authorized absolution of sins in cases reserved to the papacy. It also issued other graces that were a papal monopoly, including dispensations and licences. The office's registers of supplications in the Vatican Archives record requests for these favours from 1410 onwards. This article surveys this valuable evidence for social and religious history and, using local ecclesiastical sources, shows how bishops acted as executors for these papal graces in the fifteenth-century English church, sometimes denying the requests of supplicants in their dioceses.
0950-3471
416-442
Clarke, P.D.
3889aaf5-80ba-4bad-8a76-10e0715c639e
Clarke, P.D.
3889aaf5-80ba-4bad-8a76-10e0715c639e

Clarke, P.D. (2011) Central authority and local powers: the apostolic penitentiary and English church in the fifteenth century. Historical Research, 84 (225), 416-442. (doi:10.1111/j.1468-2281.2010.00558.x).

Record type: Article

Abstract

The apostolic penitentiary was the central office of the late medieval Western church concerned with matters of conscience. It authorized absolution of sins in cases reserved to the papacy. It also issued other graces that were a papal monopoly, including dispensations and licences. The office's registers of supplications in the Vatican Archives record requests for these favours from 1410 onwards. This article surveys this valuable evidence for social and religious history and, using local ecclesiastical sources, shows how bishops acted as executors for these papal graces in the fifteenth-century English church, sometimes denying the requests of supplicants in their dioceses.

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e-pub ahead of print date: 5 October 2010
Published date: August 2011
Organisations: History

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 145473
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/145473
ISSN: 0950-3471
PURE UUID: 9fcf364a-a884-45b7-a397-df793ea58dd3

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Date deposited: 19 Apr 2010 10:34
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 00:51

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