The Humiliation of Sinners: Public Penance in Thirteenth-Century France - Paperback

by Mary Mansfield (Author)

This compelling book, first published in 1995, changed historians' understanding of the history of public penance, a topic crucial to debates about the complex evolution of individualism in the West. Mary C. Mansfield demonstrates that various forms of public humiliation, imposed on nobles and peasants alike for shocking crimes as well as for minor brawls, survived into the thirteenth century and beyond.

Author Biography

The late Mary C. Mansfield received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. A graduate of Cornell University, she had been appointed Assistant Professor of History at Stanford University shortly before her death in 1989.