The sins of the Fathers: a study of the lay concept of guilt in late medieval England

Deposited with permission of the author. © 2010 Dr. Alison J. WareThis dissertation is an enquiry into why there was an explosion of lay devotion and piety in fourteenth- and fifteenth century England when the Church offered faithful penitents the perfect, divinely ordained means of forgiveness, absolution, reconciliation and salvation through the administration of the sacraments. Certainly the late medieval period was one of persistent social, political and economic upheavals and corruptions and inefficiencies in both spiritual and secular institutions, but these have occurred throughout history without resulting in such profound and sustained steriological angst. It is the contention of this thesis that for the laity there was another influential factor at work, a concept I have labelled ‘collective guilt’. Guilt results in punishment, therefore it would seem that punishment is indicative of guilt; however, from biblical exegesis theologians demonstrated that the conversion of the argument is untenable. But for those without access to scholarly discourse the experience of widespread and ongoing disasters which were interpreted as divine punishment for post-baptismal human sin but suffered by the good and wicked as though they were equally guilty, was evidence that the guilt of personal sin was shared; a theologically erroneous concept but nonetheless seemingly confirmed by ecclesiastical sanctions and punishments meted out by both church and secular courts. Moreover, and again contrary to theological opinion but unexplained, lay people believed that the same collective punishment would continue after death. This was a frightening prospect because as every soul had to be entirely cleansed of sin and guilt before it could enter heaven, the length of purgation for others’ post-baptismal sin and guilt would exceed the time left before the Last Judgement. Thus, collective guilt not only resulted in communal punishment on earth but threatened personal salvation. This thesis is a study of the origins of the misconception, and the influence of the belief in collective guilt in the devotional lives of the laity in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century England and as such, the study is divided into two parts. In the first, I trace the theological justification for the punishment of communities for the sins of one or a few, and of children for the sins of their parents, through the works of Thomas Aquinas, the foremost scholar of his age. I examine the inferences of collective guilt in texts and sermons, and in the celebration of Baptism, Penance, the Mass, and Last Rites – those sacraments by which the individual was identified with Christ and reconciled with the Church and the universal community outside of which there could be no hope of salvation. In the second part I demonstrate how, by forming religious gilds which by common consent admitted only people with a pious reputation and regulated and disciplined the behaviour of members, lay people endeavoured to control the sinful behaviour of members, and augment the collective merit of the community with which they were spiritually identified. Private devotions are then considered. I argue that, by enlisting the help of the most powerful mediators in heaven, penitents sought to overcome the burden of collective guilt at death; and postulate that the visionary experiences of mystics encouraged others to seek personal identification with the supreme salvific act of atonement wrought by Christ on the Cross. And finally, I show that the similarities between ecclesiastical and folk rituals suggest that traditional charms were practiced to draw down divine power to counteract the physical effects of collective guilt. My conclusion is that the concept of collective guilt, albeit theologically wrong, was the cause of profound spiritual angst, and that as a facet of late medieval religious thinking it is a useful tool for helping to explain the fervour of lay devotion and piety of the laity in fourteenth and fifteenth century England