著者

五十嵐 修

出版者

公益財団法人 史学会

雑誌

史学雑誌 (ISSN:00182478)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.109, no.6, pp.1121-1142,1257-, 2000

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In early medieval times, penance took on two forms : public and private, corresponding to how widely a certain sin was known to people. The synodal courts of the carolingian period represented one form of public penance. The main purpose of this essay is to illuminate the context in which public penance functioned during the Carolingian period. The revival of public penance was, in the view of this paper, one of the most important outcomes of the Carolingian theocracy. The author examines this form of penance for this period, because it has been very underestimated by historians to date. Public penance included not only strictly religious penances, but also sanctions invoked by both secular and ecclesiastical authorities, since there was the idea that both secular and ecclesiastical authorities should suppress crime and maintain the public order. Public penance is seldom mentioned in the penitentials, but we find much mention of it in the capitularies, episcopal decrees and conciliar acts. Through studying public penance, we can learn the basic ideas about preservation of public law and order during this period.