Medieval Handbooks of Penance

Rating:
Summary: High entertainment from an unlikely source
Review: An old girlfriend of mine gave me this book as a lark a few months before we broke up; I seem to recall it from a time when things were still going well.

My own interests have nothing to do with this area so I can't comment on it academically. However I have to say it's one of the strangest and most entertaining books I own. The lists of potential or actual sins seem more indicative of the range of folk superstitions and clerical nosiness than the principles of Christianity. I particularly enjoy the one about women trying to make their husbands impotent by smearing themselves with honey and rolling around in flax seed and flour that was ground counterclockwise, etc. Lots of important information about what do if your goat vomits the host, or how long a dead mouse can sit in your beer before you can't drink it.