| Summary: | <p>This dissertation explores the development of the concept of <em>synderesis</em> between 1150 and 1450. In medieval moral psychology, <em>synderesis</em> referred to the innate capacity of the mind to know the first principles of natural law, or, alternatively, the will to follow these principles. But it was also interpreted as a mystical power of the soul, capable of uniting it to God. <em>synderesis</em> also appears in Late Medieval vernacular literature, as a character in moralising texts. By approaching <em>synderesis</em> from the point of view of conceptual history I synthesise these fields and explore how <em>synderesis</em> operated beyond the formal treatises of scholastic theology.</p> <p>Chapter two explores how <em>synderesis</em> developed in medieval scholasticism from Peter Lombard up to Thomas Aquinas. Chapters three and four explore how the mystical interpretation of <em>synderesis</em> first proposed by Thomas Gallus of Vercelli was incorporated into the mystical treatise <em>Itinerarium mentis in Deum</em> by Bonaventure of Balneoregio. Here, I analyse when, where and how Bonaventure integrated this mystical interpretation into his pre-existing moral-psychological interpretation of it and how his use of <em>synderesis</em> relates to the historical context in which the <em>Itinerarium</em> was written. I argue that <em>synderesis</em> should be seen as existing on a continuum of interpretations between moral psychology and mysticism. After Bonaventure and Aquinas, the concept undergoes a period of stagnation in academia, which is the subject of Chapter five. However, <em>synderesis</em> also appears in a number of non-academic texts in which the moral-psychological and mystical interpretations of the term coexist. Chapter six explores how Late Medieval vernacular authors drew on previous scholastic discussions of the concept. I focus here in particular on Guillaume de Deguileville’s <em>Le pèlerinage de l’âme</em>, where <em>synderesis</em> appears not as the moral guide of the soul, but as the accuser of the soul before the court of heaven.</p>
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