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The Medieval Church · c. 1208–1215
The Penitential Book
Robert of Flamborough · d. c. 1224
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What it is
A confessor's manual in dialogue form, showing how to question a penitent gently, in what order, and how to avoid suggesting sins they had not thought of.
Why it lasted
Written just as annual confession became universal, and unusually attentive to the psychology of the confessional.
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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