ABSTRACT
In Flanders by the fourteenth-century diocesan statutes instructed priests to remind parishioners of their annual duty to confess before receiving communion at Easter. Many studies of late medieval Christianity suggest that these local attempts to enforce canon 21 were effective, even encouraging more frequent religious observance than the canon stipulated. Historians have found comparable examples in other parts of Europe, notably Murray for thirteenth-century Italy, Wakefield for thirteenth-century France, and Edwards for fifteenth-century Spain, and seen them as evidence of religious doubt, scepticism and even disbelief. As John Arnold has argued, such evidence points to a ‘middle’ group of medieval Christians between the orthodox and heretics. Eamon Duffy rather gives the impression that late medieval English religion was polarised between the majority of devout Catholics with Books of Hours in hand and a minority of Lollard heretics. Underutilised sources for enforcement of canon 21 are, however, the medieval church court records.
