The Middle High German Bihte buoch, first German treatise on confession
vulgarizing the teachings of scholastic Summæ on this subject to survive, is a text still
largely unknown to the public. Especially the question of the sources of the German
treatise was not seriously tackled up to the present. Surprisingly not very much
better known is Wilhelm Peraldus’s Summa de vitiis, though „the most ambitious
of the scholastic treatises on the vices“ and „among the most widely circulated,
the most influential, and the most original“ of them, as Michael Evans stated. As
is shown here, the Summa de vitiis was received in the last portion of the Bihte
buoch. So, the present study is a first essay in unearthing the sources of the German
treatise. More specifically, the reception of the Summa de vitiis in the Bihte buoch is
demonstrated in this paper not to be the result of the simple processes of translating
a Latin source and so compiling a German text, but more as an active adoption and
new creation after a scholastic antetype, with distinct emphases from the author of
the German text showing his personal focal points in pastoral care – an issue rather
new at the time of the redaction of the text, but eminently stimulated especially in
treatises on confession.

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