Medicine for Sin as Prescribed in the Penitentials

1932 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
John T. McNeill

During the past century the textual criticism and literary history of the Penitentials have received considerable attention, but the investigation of their actual function in social and church life has only begun. Yet the field is inviting. The Penitentials have, for instance, notable legal and economic aspects; they offer considerable information on ascetic practices, they have a bearing on ritual developments; and the relation of their relaxations, compositions and commutations of penance to the development of Indulgences is itself an important question. It is not the purpose of the present article to investigate any of these, but to suggest still another angle of approach. I wish to present some elementary considerations toward the answer to a question which is perhaps more basic than any of those just suggested. The question may be stated thus: What did the Penitentials contribute, and what were they designed to contribute, to the cure of souls? The cure of souls (cura animarum ) means of course the general ministry of religion in the care, and only incidentally the healing, of souls. But the penitent was regarded as one morally diseased and ill, and his treatment is, in the Penitentials, repeatedly, even habitually, referred to as the task of the moral physician. His sins are the symptoms of disease. The penalties enforced are “medicamenta,” “remedia,” “fomenta”—measures designed to restore his moral and spiritual health.

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. e1
Author(s):  
Fulvio Melia

I have recently had the privilege of being appointed Editor-in-Chief of this very exciting and innovative Open Access Journal, and hereby extend a warm welcome to everyone as we launch Astronomy Studies Development, which will seek to publish high quality, peer-reviewed, original manuscripts in all fields of astronomy and astrophysics, though with a particular focus on mathematical techniques and methodology and innovative ideas for instrumental development and modeling in astronomy and astrophysics. The journal will also seek to publish simulations in all areas, including cosmology, particle astrophysics, accretion, and diffuse media. Our journal will include both full length research articles and letter articles, and its coverage extends over solar, stellar, galactic and extragalactic astronomy and astrophysics, and will report original research in all wavelength bands. Astronomy and Astrophysics are rather mature disciplines, with a history of quality journals over the past century or more. So one may reasonably ask why a new journal such as this is needed. Obviously, I myself have answered this question in the affirmative. After a long career in research and publishing, I have the perspective to provide several good reasons for helping to promote the evolution of publishing in Astronomy and Astrophysics to a place more in line with present technology..........


Author(s):  
Konstantinos I. Kakoudakis ◽  
Katerina Papadoulaki

Abstract This chapter illustrates the process of social tourism development in Greece, from the interwar years until the present day. The chapter first sets the discussion within the context of the country's turbulent political, social and economic background, throughout most of the past century, which has exercised significant influence on the development of Greek tourism in general, and social tourism specifically. It then identifies and presents two main phases of social tourism development, highlighting important initiatives and key players that contributed to the incremental evolution of social tourism programmes in Greece, and also events that impeded their implementation and smooth running. Specific emphasis is given to the past four decades, since this time period has largely shaped the contemporary form of Greek social tourism programmes. Therefore, the chapter explicates the close linkages between the establishment of the modern Greek welfare state in the early 1980s, and the development of social tourism as we know it today. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion on the developmental process of contemporary Greek social tourism over time, and the important socioeconomic implications of its current practice in the aftermath of the Greek financial crisis, and in the midst of the refugee crisis in Europe, and the Covid-19 pandemic.


1975 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 137-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. M. Kennedy

Yet another survey of the much-traversed field of Anglo-German relations will seem to many historians of modern Europe to border on the realm of superfluity; probably no two countries have had their relationship to each other so frequently examined in the past century as Britain and Germany. Moreover, even if one restricted such a study to the British side alone, the sheer number of publications upon this topic, or upon only a section of it like the age of ‘appeasement’, is simply too great to allow a compression of existing knowledge into a narrative form that would be anything other than crude and sketchy. The following contribution therefore seeks neither to provide such a general survey, nor, by use of new and detailed archival materials, to concentrate upon a small segment of the history of British policy towards Germany in the period 1864–1939; but instead to consider throughout all these years a particular aspect, namely, the respective arguments of Germanophiles and Germanophobes in Britain and the connection between this dialogue and the more general ideological standpoints of both sides. In so doing, the author has produced a survey which remains embarrassingly summary in detail but does at least attempt to offer a fresh approach to the subject.


Author(s):  
Rachel Hallote

When the artistic canon of the Southern Levant coalesced in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, scholars thought of the region, then Ottoman Palestine, as the locus of the Bible. The small-scale nature of the archaeological finds as well as their relative dearth reinforced a reliance on biblical narratives as a framework for understanding the culture of the region. Moreover, early scholarship did not recognize the complex regionalism of the Southern Levant or the diversity of its populations. Consequently, the artistic canon that developed did not represent the historical and archaeological realities of the region. This chapter examines the history of how the artistic canon of the Southern Levant formed over the past century of scholarship, why various scholars of the early and middle twentieth century included particular items in the canon, and why these now entrenched representations may or may not be helpful to the discipline’s future.


Author(s):  
Maria Helena Roxo Beltran ◽  
Vera Cecilia Machline

Studies on history of science are increasingly emphasizing the important role that, since ancient times, images have had in the processes of shaping concepts, as well as registering and transmitting knowledge about nature and the arts. In the past years, we have developed at Center Simão Mathias of Studies on the History of Science (CESIMA) inquiries devoted to the analysis of images as forms of registering and transmitting knowledge about nature and the arts – that is to say, as documents pertaining to the history of science. These inquiries are grounded on the assumption that all images derive from the interaction between the artistic technique used in their manufacture and the concept intended to be expressed by them. This study enabled us to analyze distinct roles that images have had in different fields of knowledge at various ages. Some of the results obtained so far are summarized in the present article.


Author(s):  
Changming Duan ◽  
Kristen Sager

Empathy, one of the most studied and most multidisciplinary theoretical constructs, has garnered the attention of scholars from psychology as well as the social and biological sciences. The scholarship of empathy has developed significantly in the past century, with the most notable knowledge emerging in the areas of the neuroscience of empathy and the interplay between race/culture and empathy in recent decades. The positive psychology of empathy also continues to occupy researchers, as the links between empathy and individual and societal health abound. Future empathy research by socially and scholastically responsible scientists must overcome a long history of Euro-ethnocentric biases and integrate social justice into the understanding of this important construct. The scholarship and application of empathy will continue to be an important source of positivity for humans and for society as a whole.


Traditio ◽  
1958 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 269-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sister Mary Denise

By some inexplicable accident of literary history, The Orchard of Syon, in the nearly five hundred years of its existence, has not found its critical editor, nor is there any study of it available to readers. The first to rescue it from oblivion was Sir Richard Sutton, steward of Syon Monastery in the early sixteenth century, who, as Wynkyn de Worde informs us, found it ‘in a corner by it selfe’ and deemed it worthy of costly publication. Although it belongs to a body of medieval literature which has been in recent years the object of much critical research by medievalists, the work has, so far as modern readers are concerned, continued for over four centuries to lie ‘in a corner by it selfe.’ The energetic surge of vernacular devotional prose in the fourteenth century, not only in England, but in Italy, Germany, and Flanders — countries whose spiritual climate must have been especially favorable to mysticism — did not recede in the fifteenth century. Following upon the age of Chaucer, this century may seem to some present-day scholars literarily poor and unproductive, but it was a great age of English prose; an age, that is, when translations and experiments with original prose in the vernacular were building on the past, borrowing from other languages to meet the needs of the present, and shaping the prose of the future. The Orchard of Syon is an important specimen of this emerging prose, as well as of current devotional literature. Its connection with Syon Monastery, renowned in the history of England and of the Church, gives it added prestige.


2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-225
Author(s):  
Kelsey Cheshire ◽  
Jennifer Stout

Purpose This study aims to explore the question of whether or not librarians can ethically remain politically neutral in the wake of the 45th administration. The authors take a critical look at the American Library Association’s Code of Ethics, as well as the concept of vocational awe, and recommend challenging the “sacredness” of neutrality as a core tenet of the profession. Additionally, the authors describe the history of white privilege within libraries and argue that it is time to actively fight white supremacy and disavow the profession’s history of replicating racist social structures. Design/methodology/approach This study is a researched think piece designed to encourage critical thought about long-held idealistic beliefs in the profession. Findings This study suggests that despite the profession’s history of outwardly valuing “neutrality,” libraries are not and have never been neutral. Libraries have chosen, time and again, to value white privilege and a white frame of reference to the detriment of librarians and patrons of color. Because many librarians also see the profession as upholding “sacred” ideals like neutrality, we fall into the trap of being unable to criticize our own profession and practices and, therefore, are unable to make much needed changes. Research limitations/implications This study is based on the opinions of the authors and on the opinions of authors they have cited. It contains no original quantitative or qualitative research. Originality/value This study challenges the long-held assumptions that the profession has taken for granted over the past century. The authors argue that it is good and necessary to question the Code of Ethics, vocational awe and neutrality with the goal of improving the profession in light of the current cultural and political climate.


2002 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 123-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Welsh ◽  
Martin Deahl

‘The practice of psychiatry is more vulnerable to criticism than any other area of medicine’ (Mason & McCall Smith, 1999). The interventionist philosophy of psychiatry and the legacy of the psychiatric practices of the past century have left an imprint on society's mind of coercive treatments against a background of unscientific evidence of benefit. Other medical specialities conversely are forgiven their history of barbarism (has anyone been to a medical museum lately?) on the grounds that they were using the only tools available to them at the time. Public attitudes, including stigma and suspicion, make it more difficult for us to claim a similar defence, and modern day psychiatrists appear to bear the indelible scars of our predecessors' actions.


1992 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 307-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Bradford De Long

Over the past century in six major economies, economic growth has been strongly associated with machinery investment, as is the case for a larger group of nations since 1950. Both macroeconomic patterns and narratives of the history of technology suggest that this association is causal—that a high rate of machinery investment appears to be a necessary prerequisite for rapid long-run growth—and points away from possibilities that rapid growth is the cause of high machinery investment or that a high rate of machinery investment is a good proxy for other factors that are important causes of growth.


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