Fiction’s Truths – False Confessions in Vernacular Literature, 1190–1400

This book makes a contribution to the growing literature on the practice of confession, which includes the studies by Jeremy Tambling, Peter Brooks, and Chloë Taylor, by focusing on medieval literary texts that coincide with the development of the sacrament of penance.Within the narrower field of medieval studies, which has seen a number of monographs published recently by scholars such as Mary Flowers Braswell, Katherine C. Little, Kisha G. Tracy, and Jerry Root, the monograph wishes to offer a comparative approach which attempts to demonstrate the links between three linguistic traditions, all while tracing a genealogy of literary influence.Every individual work is therefore considered both in the context of contemporary theological and ecclesiastical developments and in relation to the literary texts that precede and condition it, with each chapter seeking to make an intervention within its respective field by providing new perspectives on canonical texts through the lens of confession.