'Remembraunce for Confession': A Study of Memory in Late Medieval Penitential Literature

This thesis analyses the connection between studies of memory and practices of penance in late medieval Europe, and specifically England, and investigates cultural and literary responses to the socio-religious imperative to remember to repent. As the edicts of the Fourth Lateran Council made annual confession obligatory and stressed the need for pastoral teaching, the council occasioned the blossoming of the great and varied volume of late medieval penitential literature, and reshaped its purpose towards the education of the laity (Boyle 1985, p.31). By illuminating the pedagogical techniques deployed within penitential texts, their portrayals of penitential remembering, and codicological evidence of how readers interacted with such texts, this thesis will demonstrate how medieval theories of memory and penance interacted in light of significant cultural developments like the council. Through an unprecedented close analysis of late medieval primary sources, this thesis will recognise the abundant thematic and textual connections between medieval memory and penance, enriching our understanding of a neglected yet crucial aspect of medieval memory.