AD AGENDAM PENITENTIAM PERPETUAM DETRUDATUR MONASTIC INCARCERATION OF ADULTEROUS WOMEN IN THIRTEENTH-CENTURY CANONICAL JURISPRUDENCE. (21st November 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: RENO, EDWARD A.
• Is Part Of: Traditio. Volume 72(2017)
• Page Start: 301
• Page End: 340
• Publication Date: 2017-11-21
• Subjects: Bernard of Parma, -- Detrusion (detrusio in monasterium), -- Gregory IX, -- Decretals, -- Huggucio of Pisa, -- Innocent III, -- Johannes Teutonicus, -- Justinian, -- Corpus Iuris Civilis; Middle Ages -- History -- Periodicals; Philosophy, Medieval -- Periodicals; Civilization, Medieval -- Periodicals; Theology -- History -- Middle Ages, 600-1500 -- Periodicals; Canon law -- History -- Periodicals; Philosophy, Ancient -- Periodicals; Civilization, Classical -- Periodicals; 940.1
• DOI: 10.1017/tdo.2017.13
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0362-1529

Abstract

Abstract : Medieval canon law recognized detrusion (detrusio in monasterium) as a sentence for women convicted of adultery. Civil law had made adultery a capital crime, so that detrusio was a milder action. This article traces the history of detrusio in canon law, especially in the thirteenth century, and treats further questions that detrusio raised. Detrusio was originally a pastoral provision, meant to provide a woman rejected by her husband for adultery an opportunity to enter religious life. But in the hands of the jurists detrusio became a coercive ecclesiastical penalty for adultery. The practice raised further concerns, for example: how the woman's property was to be treated; whether the woman sentenced to detrusio became a religious; whether a monastery should be a site of confinement for the laity; and, under what conditions a husband could take his adulterous wife back. The case was also raised of a man who accused his wife of adultery so that he could dissolve his marriage and enter a monastery.