This book results from an effort to understand the complicated relationship in the Carolingian world between law and religion. This relationship was particularly close when concerned with matters of correction of unlawful behaviour, and the author therefore focuses her attention on the field of ecclesiastical courts and the concepts of confession, penance and punishment. In the field of law as well as in that of Christian morality, confession of wrong-doing was a central feature as the author illustrates by means of a discussion of the famous divorce case of Queen Teutberga and Lothar ii in the 860s. The fear of pollution, evident in this case, is then further explored in a chapter discussing ritual pollution by food as it is expressed in dietary rules included in penitential handbooks, texts which Firey assumes to have been employed in the legal training of Carolingian clerics. Such forms of pollution did not only touch upon the individual, but could affect whole communities, as is illustrated by the ways in which Bishop Amulo of Lyon used this concept as a form of political aggression against the Jews.

The book argues for a major change in the use of penance in juridical cases starting from a close analysis of the conflict between Boniface and Bishop Adalbert (to whom the author refers consistently as a priest). In this conflict Boniface preferred to use canon law and its procedures as a tool rather than the instruments of penance. Firey even questions the common assumption that Boniface was familiar with penitential books. In the ninth century the author perceives a ‘revolution in moral theology’ (p. 167) resulting in what she defines as ‘penitentialism’. With this term she indicates an increasing use of the tools of confession and penance, not so much in response to half-pagan forms of behaviour, but rather to messianic forms of popular Christianity. Charlemagne and his advisors then used this ‘new framework for penitential analysis’ in order to secure peace, order and hierarchy in the vastly expanded Carolingian empire, thus framing their ambition to ‘govern both the disposition of individual souls and an empire’ (p. 180). The bishops convening at Chalon-sur-Saône in 813 formulated this ambition in great detail. Dissenting voices and modifications to this all-encompassing programme were however heard at other councils convening in the same year, for example at Rheims. The author concludes her book with an assessement of the implications of this new penitentialism through a discussion of the Life of Liutbirg and Thaïs, a play written by Hrotswitha of Gandersheim.

This brief synopsis indicates that the author of this study uses a great variety of sometimes idiosyncratic sources. She tries to convince her readers not by means of a sustained and organised argument, but by a detailed discussion of her sources, enabling her to give voice to ‘Carolingian discussions and debates’ (p. 7). In so doing she presents new insights into the Carolingian uses of penance and confession, although her conclusions are often hard to evaluate. For an author who has worked so intensively with canon law manuscripts, the omission of any detailed discussion of the dissemination of manuscripts and of codicological issues is surprising. The one detailed discussion of a particular manuscript (Munich, Clm 6243) is not only stored away in a footnote (p. 194) but also based on an outdated catalogue description. The book ends with an appendix containing a curious selection of dietary rules from penitential handbooks.