Robert de Sorbon’s De consciencia, edited here, is a pastoral work which concentrates on the examination of conscience as a preliminary to confession. Robert uses the structural motif of the university examination and explores the parallels and contrasts between the relatively severe Chancellor of the university of Paris and the uncompromisingly severe Judge of the Last Judgement. Apart from its pastoral contents the work presents illuminating glimpses of university life in 13th-century Paris. Though known to students in Chambon’s edition of (...) 1902, the De consciencia has hitherto never been printed in full. The reason for this is that Chambon and his 16th and 17th-century predecessors based themselves on a truncated manuscript version which presents only the first part, which constitues no more than half the treatise. An examination of all twenty hitherto identified manuscript versions of the work reveals, however, the existence of as many as four mutually independendent redactions of the work, three of which represent complete versions, whereas the fourth, represented by the Chambon version, is deficient. The present article contains a critical, annotated edition of what is probably the most interesting of the three full redactions, namely the one preserved in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS Latin 3218. The introduction to the edition contains sections discussing the contents of the work, its redactions and paraphrases, its structure and sources, as well as the relationship to Robert de Sorbon’s other works, including his sermons. (shrink)

Robert de Sorbon’s Cum repetes — or De modo audiendi confessiones et interrogandi as it is called in the Bruges manuscript — is for the clergy what Robert’s Qui vult vere confiteriis for laymen. It is a guide for confessors, specifically addressed to those charged with the cura animarum to provide practical instruction on how to interrogate the penitent and assist him in examining his conscience. It is this subject that determines and delimits its scope. In terms of the tripartite (...) nature of the sacrament of penance, i.e. contrition, confession and satisfaction, Cum repetes concentrates almost exclusively on the central part, confession, and on the proper method of interrogation by the confessor. A characteristic feature of Robert’s treatise is the introduction of a number of model dialogues between the confessor and the penitent, comparable to the interchanges in Robert of Flamborough’s Liber Poenitentialis, but much more incisive and inspired by great sollicitude as well as personal involvement. (shrink)

This study presents examples, not previously available in print, of the frequent use of the imagery of commerce in Robert de Sorbon’s sermons and discusses the imagery’s relation to scriptural and patristic sources, in particular the apostle Paul and Augustine of Hippo. It is argued that Robert’s use of the language of the marketplace in discussions of theological and moral matters functions as a rhetorical tool which emphasizes the boundlessness of God’s mercy through the redemption.