Spaces of Confession: Lust and the Construction of the Self in Monastic Communities of the 10th-12th Centuries

• Grant number: 24/22187-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: December 01, 2025
• End date: March 31, 2028
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - Ancient and Medieval History
• Principal Investigator: Neri de Barros Almeida
• Grantee: Arthur Rocha Martins Rodrigues Teixeira
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 21/02912-3 - A connected history of the Middle Ages: communication and circulation from the Mediterranean Sea, AP.TEM

Abstract

The aim of this research is to investigate how individuals were led to decipher themselves as subjects through the mechanisms of confession and penance observed in canonical collections of the 10th-12th centuries and their relationship with sexuality, represented in the sin of lust. The study examines how these mechanisms resulted in a new conception of the subject in relation to sexuality during this period and how Christianity contributed to the formation of heterogeneous communities around the sacrament of confession. The research proposes to examine two key moments: a set of penitentials produced between the 6th and 9th centuries and canonical collections from the 10th-12th centuries. The primary focus is an analysis that prioritizes the treatment of lust within the canonical collections, particularly in the monastic experience. These collections reveal a complex scenario in which a common foundation of confessional practices is adapted to regional nuances.The study of the subject through confession uncovers a relationship between the spatial constitution of Christianity and the formation of heterogeneous communities united by a single sacrament. The breadth of the documentary corpus will be approached through the methodology of Connected History, understanding the diversity of subjects in a heterogeneous and highly interconnected European space, spanning the insular regions to the heart of Western Europe-namely the territories of Ireland and England, central-eastern France, the far west of Germany, and central-northern Italy. This approach challenges the notion of Europe as a homogeneous bloc centered on Christianity.The central hypothesis is that the practices of confession and penance significantly contributed to the formation of the medieval subject, revealing, through sexuality, the nuances and contradictions between individual and subject in this period. The European space is considered as mediated by tensions across different spatial scales, in which Christianity, through the sacrament of confession, responds to local particularities in the treatment of sin, fostering a multiplicity of subjects and communities. (AU)