Confession and intimacy in England, 1851-1913

This thesis examines the history of confession as an intimate practice in England through four microhistorical case studies. In the introduction, I briefly outline a broad history of confession and trace the outline of what I argue already forms the history of intimacy. I propose that a promising way to deepen the study of the history of intimacy is to study intimate practices. I further suggest that the history of nineteenth-century confession—in both the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England—offers fruitful material with which to do this. The first chapter looks at the 1852 ‘Achilli Trial’, in which a convert ex-priest sued John Henry Newman for libel. The second chapter follows the development of confession in the Church of England through a controversial book written for priests wishing to hear confessions, which became the subject of a major scandal in 1877. The third chapter deals with a confessional scandal in Kensington, culminating in allegations of the breaching of the seal of the confessional in 1882. Throughout, I seek to use confession to illustrate broader themes, drawing on cases relating to medical surgery, divorce law, detective work, legal practice, obscenity legislation and, finally, trance mediumship; the final chapter turns to the Society for Psychical Research, and examines the way secrets took on evidentiary value in what I argue was an intimate science. Overall, this thesis argues that confession was not only the site of broader cultural anxieties about gender and sexuality, but that it was a practice which united proponents and opponents in awareness of its radical, and potentially threatening, intimacy. It thus allows us to construct a history of intimacy in modern Britain with broader implications. This thesis contains discussion of sexual violence, suicide, abortion, drug use, and female genital mutilation.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2022

Author dc:creator

• Morris, George

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Griffin, Benjamin

• Modern British History
• Intimacy
• Confession
• Religion

Licence

• http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved

Language dc:language

eng

DOI dc:identifier.doi

https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.86509

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/339098