Today we had a full fascinating day listening to scholars working with handbooks for priests. The event was finely organised by Dr Carine van Rhijn who invited scholars from the Netherlands, Germany and England and gave them a number of questions as home work. The guest speakers raised a number of important questions such as ‘Does size matter?’, ‘Does language matter?’, ‘Do contents’ matter?’, among many others. Many manuscripts were investigated, and established knowledge questioned and revised. Some preliminarily conclusions were drawn, such as: these manuscripts were written with clear purposes in mind, and there are enormous regional variations of practices. As Carine concluded, there are work to be done for another decade and by many scholars until we uncover further knowledge about carolingian handbooks for priest, about priest’s education and their activities.
A big congratulations to all the speakers!
Medieval Penitential Literature 