Table of Contents

Acknowledgments     vii
Abbreviations     ix
Indulgences and the Persistent Historiography of Confessional Polemics     1
A Powerful Historiographical Construct     2
Indulgences in the Historiography of the Sixteenth Century     5
Indulgences in the Historiography of the Nineteenth Century     13
Old Roads but New Directions     17
Confessional Paradigms and Vatican II     19
Beyond the Historiography of Confessional Polemic     23
Notes     28
The Emergence and Variety of Indulgences     35
The Tradition of the Penitential Regime     37
The First Indulgences     44
Indulgences and Pious Building     58
Indulgences, Devotionalism, and Catechesis     63
Notes     69
The Treasury of Merit     79
Sources of the Image     84
Further Refinements     88
Indulgences and Contritionism     94
The Authority of the Church     97
The Mid-Thirteenth-Century Systematization     102
Notes     106
Indulgences, the Saints, and Devotionalism at the End of the High Middle Ages     115
The Cancellation of "Purgatories"     116
The Piety of the Saints and Indulgences     123
Saintly Visions and Indulgences     131
Notes     138
Controversy and Indulgences Prior to The Great Western Schism I     145
A Pena Et a Culpa?     147
Indulgences for the Dead     159
Notes     171
Controversy and Indulgences Prior to The Great Western Schism II     179
The Jurisdiction of Bishops     184
The Magnitude of Indulgences     188
Overlapping Jurisdictions?     191
The Efficacy of the Canons and "Arithmetic Piety"     195
Notes     202
Conclusion: Unde indulgentiae?     211
Bibliography     219
Index     233