5 - Confession and Circumstantial Inquiry

Summary

Focused on confession, Chapter 5 opens with a vignette in which a royal justice prods a first-time criminal defendant to confess to being a horse thief. The chapter argues that medieval English culture was imbued with the practice of confession, which occurred not only in the ecclesiastical context but was also a central part of felony procedure. Moreover, it demonstrates that the priest-confessor’s art of circumstantial inquiry, designed to ensure that a person confessed his or her sins fully to receive the appropriate penance, was adapted and adopted by the king’s coroners, who undertook an inquiry into the facts underlying homicide offenses. Downplaying the English exceptionalist narrative of the diverging paths in criminal procedure in England and continental Europe after Lateran IV, the chapter emphasizes the central role played by confession in medieval English felony procedure.