... Being a "good Christian" was of vital importance to them, and the posthumous sanctions were known to be very severe for failure in this respect. As a result, the elites were keen to appear to be good Christians, in that they made a show of learning the Lord's Prayer, the Apostle's Creed, stopped work on Sundays, went to hear Mass, confessed at least once annually, upheld the fasts, venerated the saints, sought the sacraments and left money for masses for their own souls. The sacrament of confession was an important part of religious life, especially within the ruling classes. Whilst Cameron sees some ruling class supervision of the lower rungs of society via confession, he accepts that reconciliation was not a cynical means of domination, and that there was a great need for confessors, reflected in the ruling classes' maintenance of house-hold priests. Just as late medieval Catholicism offered a ...

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