Tanya Heath

Research Topic

The devotional and spatial practice of confession and Penance in late medieval England (c.1350-1500).

Penance was one of the most participative and repeatable of the medieval church's sacraments, incorporating the processes of confession, contrition, penitential punishments and absolution. As the only sacrament about which late medieval people could make active choices about participation, Penance's rituals can illuminate the nature of lay devotion in this period. However, despite its importance, Penance's secrecy has discouraged scholarship concerned with its performance. It is particularly interesting that there appears to be no record of whereabouts in the English church building confessions were heard, or the furniture involved in an age before the invention of the 'confessional'. 

To investigate this lacuna, my research synthesises a wide variety of documentary material, from confession manuals to sermons, to understand how confession was prescribed, perceived and practice. In particular, I use material artefacts, visual imagery, wall-paintings, furnishing and spatial analysis of church buildings to move towards an understanding of the visual and physical performance of confession and its spatial dynamics. 

Supervisor: Professor Ian Forrest