As suggested by its subtitle, Nicole Reinhardt's fine new book undertakes a double mission. On the one hand, this is a study of a specific practice and the men who participated in it. Like other Catholics, the kings of 17th-century Spain and France were expected regularly to undergo the sacrament of confession, acknowledging their sins, accepting a priest's criticisms and admonitions, repenting, and finally receiving absolution. Unlike other Catholics, though, kings could choose the priests to whom they thus subjected themselves, and to some extent they could also define the scope of their priests' questioning. In both Spain and France, those choices took on a new degree of formality around 1600. The king's confessor became an officially acknowledged court figure, and contemporaries discussed his duties at length. On a narrow reading, Reinhardt's book is about the 40 or so men who held this position in the ensuing 150 years. She asks how they did their jobs, what culture and reasoning they brought to the task, what questions they asked or failed to ask. Given their potential influence over royal consciences, confessors had a necessarily fraught relationship with other power players at court, and Reinhardt seeks to chart these relations as well.

中文翻译：

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良心之声：17 世纪西班牙和法国的皇家忏悔者和政治顾问，由妮可·莱因哈德 (Nicole Reinhard) 撰写

正如副标题所暗示的那样，妮可·莱因哈特（Nicole Reinhardt）的新书承担了双重使命。一方面，这是对特定实践和参与其中的人的研究。像其他天主教徒一样，17 世纪西班牙和法国的国王被期望定期接受忏悔圣事，承认自己的罪过，接受神父的批评和训诫，忏悔，并最终获得赦免。然而，与其他天主教徒不同的是，国王可以选择他们所服从的神父，并且在某种程度上，他们还可以定义他们的神父质询的范围。在西班牙和法国，这些选择在 1600 年左右有了新的正式程度。国王的忏悔神父成为官方认可的宫廷人物，同时代的人详细讨论了他的职责。从狭义上看，莱因哈特的书讲述了在随后的 150 年中担任这一职位的 40 名左右的人。她询问他们是如何完成工作的，他们为任务带来了什么样的文化和推理，他们提出了什么问题或没有提出什么问题。鉴于他们对皇室良心的潜在影响，忏悔者与宫廷中的其他权力人物必然存在紧张关系，莱因哈特也试图描绘这些关系。