The fourteenth-century Bohemian priest John of Nepomuk was allegedly martyred for his refusal to break the seal of the confessional. Even today U.S. law recognizes the right of a priest to withhold evidence confided to him in the sacrament of confession. How then is it possible for historians to reconstruct the experience of sacramental confession for early modern Spaniards? Patrick J. O'Banion draws on manuals for confessors and penitents, synodal statutes, and Inquisition records to give a glimpse of confession's function and practice in The Sacrament of Penance and Religious Life in Golden Age Spain. His study draws attention to a prominent aspect of early modern Spanish Catholicism, even if he is not fully successful in breaking the silence that surrounds the dialogue between priest and penitent.

O'Banion challenges the view that sacramental confession was simply a tool of social control that subjected the laity to the clergy and that reinforced existing ecclesiastical and social hierarchies. He describes a number of loopholes that allowed the laity to escape the parish discipline imposed by ecclesiastical leaders, especially the requirement of yearly confession to one's parish priest. As a result of these loopholes, he argues, the confessional experience was a negotiation between priest and penitent that allowed the laity some leeway in determining when, where, what, and to whom they confessed.

O'Banion builds his case in six chapters. The first chapter is based on prescriptive literature, especially the many manuals written in the vernacular to instruct both priests and laypeople in the art of confession. The variety of advice given in these works allowed both sides some freedom in determining what constituted a complete confession, especially in the context of Probabilism, the approach to moral theology that taught that as long as a particular position was taught by at least one authority, it could be accepted as probable. The next two chapters describe the ritual and frequency of confession. Inquisition records suggest that by the end of the sixteenth century, the laity knew the proper behaviors and prayers that accompanied sacramental confession. They also reveal that an increasing proportion of lay people made their yearly confessions to someone other than their parish priest. Although episcopal authorities tried to tighten regulations concerning the required Easter confession, these regulations proved very difficult to enforce. Chapter 4 describes one of the main reasons for this: the proliferation of the cruzado, or crusade bull, which allowed buyers to choose their own confessor. Granted by the pope to allow the Spanish crown to protect the interests of the Church, the cruzado was a major source of royal revenue, but it also undermined the church's attempts to enforce parish discipline.

In the final two chapters, O'Banion considers the experience of confession among different groups. The burden of confession fell most lightly on the wealthy, who could maintain private chapels for confession and communion. Those lower down the social scale could also exercise some influence on their confessors, however, as evidenced by the lives of beatas or holy women. Women's experience of confession proves particularly difficult to analyze. Inquisition records show priests accused of sexually soliciting women who came to them for confession. Although some women obviously complained about such behavior, in a society that emphasized women's subordination to male authority and understood female honor in terms of a public reputation for sexual purity, such solicitation may often have gone unreported. O'Banion devotes a separate chapter to the practice of confession by those groups most marginalized in early modern Spain. The Inquisition used disrespect for or avoidance of confession as evidence against conversos, but over the long term conversos were able to assimilate into Spanish society. At the other extreme, the itinerant lifestyle of Gypsies allowed them to escape the parish structure. Although their babies were supposed to be baptized, it proved impossible to enforce the requirement of yearly confession for those who had no fixed residence. Moriscos proved the most difficult group for the church to deal with, until the problem they posed was “solved” with their expulsion in the early seventeenth century. In his conclusion, O'Banion compares his findings with studies of sacramental confession elsewhere in Europe, pointing to both the particular importance given to the sacrament in Spain and the influence of Spanish practice on Catholicism elsewhere.

O'Banion's focus is squarely on the early modern period, which does not allow for explicit comparison with late medieval prescriptions and practices. This chronological limit makes it difficult to see long-term continuities and may obscure larger changes resulting from the Council of Trent. Despite his best efforts, the confidentiality that marks the sacrament of confession forces him at times to make assertions about confessional practice that are either bland or overly general: confession was a form of social control but it was also a source of spiritual comfort for the devout; some confessed frequently while others fulfilled their annual obligation to confess only in a perfunctory fashion. It is difficult, however, for any historian to elucidate the religious experience of the average layperson in the early modern period. If the workings of the sacrament of penance remain secret, O'Banion has succeeded in explicating a vital part of religious life in early modern Spain.