Simony Reading Room

Summa for Confessors

Summa confessorum

1518·Latin·582 pages PDF (84.9MB) Source

John of Freiburg's Summa confessorum, the most influential confessor's manual of the later Middle Ages, completed c. 1297–98. Built on the structure of Raymond of Penyafort's Summa de casibus, it digests Raymond, Hostiensis, Goffredus, William of Rennes, and Thomas Aquinas into practical cases of conscience for use in the confessional. Book I opens with the title De symonia (folio 1r). This 1518 Lyon edition was edited by Heinrich Vortoman of Nuremberg and printed by Jacobus Saccon at the expense of Johann Koberger (9 September 1518). This copy is from the Austrian National Library.

Author

John of Freiburg

John of Freiburg

Johannes de Friburgo

Readings

On Simony, Title I

De symonia, Titulus I

The opening of the first title of John of Freiburg's Summa confessorum, De symonia. After a brief preface noting that simoniacal heresy holds first place among ecclesiastical crimes, John proceeds through sixteen questions in the scholastic quaestio form: what simony is (the studiosa voluntas emendi vel vendendi aliquid spirituale vel annexum spirituali), the three kinds of gift by which it is committed (a manu, a lingua, ab obsequio), ordination and promotion for money, and related cases of conscience. Throughout, John digests and weighs the authorities — Raymond of Penyafort, Hostiensis, Goffredus of Trani, the Glossa, and Thomas Aquinas — whose names are keyed in the margins, exemplifying the method that made the Summa confessorum the standard confessor's manual of the later Middle Ages.

John of Freiburg

John of Freiburg·1298·Latin·Liber I, Titulus I, Quaestiones I–XVI·fol. 1ra–2vb