Die ‘bekentenisse van die vlees’ in die sentrale Middeleeue: ’n Verruiming van Foucault se lesing in Histoire de la sexualité 1 (La volonté de savoir)

Abstract

The ‘confessions of the flesh’ in the central Middle Ages: An expansion of Foucault’s reading in Histoire de la sexualité 1 (La volonté de savoir). This article  expands Michel Foucault’s (1926–1984) reading of the ‘confessions of the flesh’ in handbooks of penance written during the central Middle Ages in the  first volume La volonté de savoir of his (current) four-volume series Histoire de la sexualité. After the posthumous publication of the fourth volume Les  aveux de la chair (2018), in which Foucault takes his analysis of the historical foundations of confessional practices in the late 12th century to the first half  of the 14th century even further back, to the ‘confessions of the flesh’ in the patristics of the 3rd to the 5th centuries, it has become sensible to illuminate Foucault’s condensed reading of confessional scripts in La volonté de savoir itself. This exposition pertinently applies to Foucault’s correct conclusion that  sex was prioritised above all other ‘sins’, ‘vices’, and ‘transgressions’ in central Medieval confessional scripts; therefore, as he famously noted, becoming a  ‘seismograph of subjectivity in Christian cultures’. Against this  ackdrop, it is considered how thinkers from the central Middle Ages themselves reflected  on the sacramentalisation of confession after the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 – since Foucault himself did not substantially elaborate on it. The  reflections of three philosophers from the central Middle Ages on the relation between sex, confession and absolution are subsequently presented as an  expansion of Foucault’s reading in La volonté de savoir. Firstly, Alan of Lille’s (d.1203) interpretation of the Summae confessorum in his Liber poenitentialis  is revisited, concluding that Lille’s perspective was ‘hermeneutical’, in terms of his insistence that the confessor should adjust his  interrogations according to seven Aristotelian topoi or detailed questions, designate the context in which the transgression occurred very thoroughly and  ‘actively participate’ in the confessional act, rather than simply recording it. Lille’s ‘hermeneutical’ approach to confession is also reflected in Robert  Grosseteste’s (ca.1168–1253) De modo confitendi et paenitentias iniungendi, in which a moderate phronetic approach allows for the full discretion of the  confessor, rather than following the rigid prescriptions of the Summae confessorum only. Secondly, William of Auvergne’s (ca.1180–1249) contribution to  the interpretation of the Summae confessorum in his Poenitentia is indicated in his utilitarian ethics, in which the interests of the ethical ‘other’ is related  to the confessing ‘self’: even though matrimony is for Auvergne the only realm where the other’s interests are not necessarily compromised by sexual  contact, several considerations regarding ‘improper sex’, precisely within matrimony, apply according to the relevant penitential guidelines. Thirdly, Paul  of Hungary’s (ca.1180–1241) De confessione is considered in terms of his reflections on ‘paying sexual debt’, and on the relation between regulated  sexual release and the legitimacy of sexual gratification, again within the context of matrimony.

Contribution: This article contributes to Foucault- scholarship by elucidating and expanding Foucault’s condensed reading of 13th-century confessional scripts in La volonté de savoir, with reference to the  relevant texts of Alan of Lille (d.1203), William of Auvergne (ca.1180–1249) and Paul of Hungary (ca.1180–1241).