Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral)--Catholic University of America, 2010, under title: Gratian's Tractatus de penitentia: a textual study and intellectual history

Gratian's Decretum is one of the major works in European history, a text that in many ways launched the field of canon law. In this new volume, Atria Larson presents to students and scholars alike a critical edition of De penitentia (Decretum C.33 q.3), the foundational text on penance, both for canon law and for theology, of the twelfth century. This edition takes into account recent manuscript discoveries and research into the various recensions of Gratian's text and proposes a model for how a future critical edition of the entire Decretum could be formatted by offering a facing-page English translation. This translation is the first of this section of Gratian's De penitentia into any modern language and makes the text accessible to a wider audience. Both the Latin and the English text are presented in a way to make clear the development of Gratian's text in various stages within two main recensions. The edition and translation are preceded by an introduction relating the latest scholarship on Gratian and his text and are followed by three appendices, including one that provides a transcription of the relevant text from the debated manuscript Sankt Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek 673, and one that lists possible formal sources and related contemporary texts. This book provides a full edition and translation of the text studied in depth in Master of Penance: Gratian and the Development of Penitential Thought and Law in the Twelfth Century (CUA Press, 2014) by the same author.

Marqus ibn Qunbar's Master and Disciple offers the critical edition and translation of a theological treatise that is published here for the first time. Marqus (+1208), a Coptic priest, was a controversial figure who challenged the Coptic hierarchs and eventually joined the Melkites. He argued that auricular confession is indispensible for salvation, but his superiors considered such teaching foreign to the Coptic heritage and incompatible with the Bible and Didascalia. For them, forgiveness is granted through repentance, the liturgy, and general absolution. The contentious disagreement sparked by Marqus among the Coptic community remains a subject of ongoing debate among Christians.

Music, magic, demons... and love beyond hope. In a world where music is magic, Sarya dyr-Rusac can hear music no one else hears. Once a respected arranger of musical magic rituals, now she's in exile after a wedding ritual she wrote led to the tragedy it was supposed to prevent. As disasters shake the world, unaffected by the chants that should control them, she hears haunting new music in the wind - music that heralds terrible new forces at work, or forces so old they have long been forgotten. In search of answers, Sarya returns to the Skola of Music she left in disgrace. Confronted with the mistakes of her past, she defies the Masters who think long-forgotten secrets are best left forgotten - and resumes her complicated relationship with the talented singer Adan Muari, friend, sparring partner, the man she can never have. Then a beautiful, nameless man in chains begins to appear in her dreams, begging her to sing the song she heard in the wind, the song that will set him free. Is he a god with the power to save the world or the power to destroy everything she knows and loves? As catastrophe closes in on Sarya, the Skola, and the man she loves, she must race to discover the chained man's identity and the meaning of his song before the world itself is torn apart. Epic romantic standalone fantasy in a world where music is magic. (Content warning: Contains disturbing themes including memories of abuse and of child loss, violence including sexual violence, and mild to moderate sensual content.)

Medieval Italian communes are known for their violence, feuds, and vendettas, yet beneath this tumult was a society preoccupied with peace. Peace and Penance in Late Medieval Italy is the first book to examine how civic peacemaking in the age of Dante was forged in the crucible of penitential religious practice. Focusing on Florence in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, an era known for violence and civil discord, Katherine Ludwig Jansen brilliantly illuminates how religious and political leaders used peace agreements for everything from bringing an end to neighborhood quarrels to restoring full citizenship to judicial exiles. She brings to light a treasure trove of unpublished evidence from notarial archives and supports it with sermons, hagiography, political treatises, and chronicle accounts. She paints a vivid picture of life in an Italian commune, a socially and politically unstable world that strove to achieve peace. Jansen also assembles a wealth of visual material from the period, illustrating for the first time how the kiss of peace—a ritual gesture borrowed from the Catholic Mass—was incorporated into the settlement of secular disputes. Breaking new ground in the study of peacemaking in the Middle Ages, Peace and Penance in Late Medieval Italy adds an entirely new dimension to our understanding of Italian culture in this turbulent age by showing how peace was conceived, memorialized, and occasionally achieved.

For generations, early Franciscan thought has been widely regarded as unoriginal: a mere attempt to systematize the longstanding intellectual tradition of Augustine in the face of the rising popularity of Aristotle. This volume brings together leading scholars in the field to undertake a major study of the major doctrines and debates of the so-called Summa Halensis (1236-45), which was collaboratively authored by the founding members of the Franciscan school at Paris, above all, Alexander of Hales, and John of La Rochelle, in an effort to lay down the Franciscan intellectual tradition or the first time. The contributions will highlight that this tradition, far from unoriginal, laid the groundwork for later Franciscan thought, which is often regarded as formative for modern thought. Furthermore, the volume shows the role this Summa played in the development of the burgeoning field of systematic theology, which has its origins in the young university of Paris. This is a crucial and groundbreaking study for those with interests in the history of western thought and theology specifically.