ABSTRACT
Sacramental confession as both an act and a body of ideas featured prominently in the regional campaign to fortify parish worship. Although promoting more frequent confession was a goal of many Catholic reformers, regional sources suggest that the annual requirement still dominated episcopal preoccupations in the sixteenth century. This is not to say that the French clergy saw no need to reinforce sacramental discipline. However, their endeavours to this effect went beyond the individual act into the realm of the communal rites of parish worship. In both medieval and Reformation France, the Sunday parish mass formed the core of these rites, for it brought parishioners together every week to celebrate the sacred liturgy of the Church. French expositions of the mass indicate that the prone was a vital component of lay religious experience on the eve of the Reformation. Individual religious orthodoxy was linked to the parish community as a body of beliefs and believers.
