Servasanto da Faenza: preaching and penance in the work of a thirteenth-century Franciscan

My dissertation, Servasanto da Faenza: Preaching and Penance in the Work of a Thirteenth Century Franciscan, uses a careful study of the sermons and preaching material of the Franciscan Servasanto da Faenza in order to shed light on the Franciscans’ role as preachers and confessors and on the place of penance in their ministry, which played a formative role in the views of Christianity of their lay audiences. His preaching material shows that penance was a significant concern and that it was central to his conception of his and his fellow friars’ mission to the laity of medieval Europe. For him the task of penance was not purely negative, that is, to wipe away sin. Rather, it was also positive, to lay the foundation for the growth in virtue that would let one “see” the highest good, God. Partly, as a result of this, Servasanto clearly preached penance in largely a positive way. To him confession was less about going to a harsh judge than going to skilled, sensitive, and discrete doctor of souls who would seek to cure the person sick with sin. Indeed, ultimately, penance was less an act of judgment than an act of love, as one should be driven by penance by a sorrow for sin that sprang from a sincere love of God. The positive nature of this preaching, its ubiquity, and the well-known popularity of the Franciscans as preachers and confessors, among other factors, suggests that previous tendencies to see medieval penance as part of a story of surveillance and repression should be revised. The laity were not helpless objects of social control terrified by a harsh and threatening penitential regime; rather, penance offered significant opportunity for lay choice and agency, supporting the work of popular friars like Servasanto and choosing them as preachers and confessors.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical referencesby Raymond Joseph Danserea