Occulta cordis. Contrôle de soi et confession au Moyen Âge (II) (original) (raw)

Medievales, 1996

Abstract

Occulta cordis. Self-control and Confession in the Middle Ages - Two forms of silence existed in the Middle Ages : the silence of monastic asceticism and that of aristocratic prudence. This dual silence concealed the most intimate secrets of the heart, intended for the scrutinatio of God alone. A resulting parallel art of self-control, hindering all spontaneous communication, corresponded to the hermeneutics of the « exterior man ». This elementary structure of social behaviour was rendered more complex by the pressure of another religious imperative : the duty of self-examination and of confession to God to perfect sincerity. The historical turning point came with the institution of obligatory auricular confession by the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), stressing not so much introspection as avowal, as disclosure of the occulta cordis, on which depended eternal fate. Stemming from the search for hidden sins of thought was the logical corollary to confession, the Inquisition, which, like God's central gaze, was intended to pierce the secrets of the heart. Absolute transparency, which had been the exclusive prerogative of God, became the main purpose of this institution both sacred and potilical, which claimed to be God's representative on earth.

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