Penitentials, Books of

PENITENTIALS, BOOKS OF. - They are collections of canons, more or less extensive, in which are listed the various penances (mortifications, prayers, fasts, alms, etc.) that can be imposed on sinners, according to the nature and number of the sins committed. Simple tariffs proportioning the reparation to the fault at the beginning, the penitentials later become complete treatises for the use of confessors.

They presuppose a form of penance different from the ancient canonical penance: they ignore the ordo poenitentium, the imposition of penance at the beginning of Lent, the solemn reconciliation on Holy Thursday, the state of poenitentes and the obligations connected with it; finally they admit the iteration of penance. In this way the state of penitent is succeeded by the regime of private penances. Although the idea of proportioning the penalty to the fault is ancient (councils, decretals, letters of the Fathers), only in the 6th century were such catalogues collected. Often attributed, wrongly, to some prominent personality (Columbanus, Cummean, Theodore, etc.), the penitentials arose in Ireland and Scotland through the private initiative of confessors, under the influence, it seems, of monastic customs and of the practice of the Germanic Wergeld; the disciples of Columbanus contributed to spreading them on the continent. The penalties prescribed by the penitentials redeem sins just as legal composition redeems crimes; and, according to the principle de arreis, long mortifications are commutable into shorter but harsher mortifications (e.g., a year of fasting on bread and water can be replaced by three days of complete fasting on the tomb of a saint).

The relations between this tariffed penance, ancient penance and current discipline concern the history of penance; here only the results acquired regarding the origin and development of the penitentials will be set out.

Despite the researches of A. Augustin in the 16th century, of P. Pithou, of Luc d'Achery, of E. Martène, of J. Morin, the scientific study of the penitentials begins only in the 19th century. Wasserschleben, Kunstmann, Hildenbrand hold the penitentials to be of Celtic or Anglo-Saxon origin and see in them the application to the laity of the private penance of monks. Schmitz, in his edition of 1885, attempted to demonstrate that the Roman Church also had its penitential books based on authentic texts of the hierarchy. P. Fournier then proved how this hypothesis was erroneous, given that the majority of the texts cited by Schmitz are of insular origin.

The penitentials can be classified in the following way:

I. INSULAR PENITENTIALS

1. The oldest penitentials are Irish. The Synod of St. Patrick (ca. 450) punishes clerics and laymen who are murderers, fornicators or idolaters. Then there are the canones Hibernenses, which comprise the de stipulatione Hibernensis Sinodi, the de arreis, the canones Sinodi Hiberniae and the de icctione; finally, the penitential of Vinnian, ca. 550, which considers among other things sins of thought and sexual offenses.

2. The Breton penitentials comprise the 16 excerpta ad libro Davidis (ca. 550-600), the penitential of Gildas (ca. 550), the penitentials A and B of Columbanus in 42 canons, which would have been drawn up partly at Bobbio, partly at Luxeuil. All these penitentials, poorly ordered, consider especially the offenses of clerics and laymen, and above all offenses of a sexual character; as penances are imposed fasts on bread and water, exile, almsgiving, fines and the manumission of slaves. From the 7th to the 8th century the penitentials have a very notable development. Here are the most important: 1) the penitential of Cummean, in 11 titles, according to the ornade of Cassian, of Scottish or Irish origin, drawn up between 650 and 700; the original (cod. Vat. Pal. lat. 485) was published in 1902 by Zettinger. The sources of this penitential are the insular collections mentioned above, arranged methodically according to the principle contraria contrariis sanantur. 2) The Theodorean collections, falsely attributed to Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury (668-90), in five collections: the canons published by d'Achery, the canones Gregorii published by Kunstmann, the 214 canones Cettoni, a series of the Sangallense tripartitum, the discipulus l'intrensium in 2 books. These various collections are in a relationship to one another not yet precisely determined; they were composed between 690 and 740 in England. Although they declare that they follow Rome, they cause astonishment for their laxism, especially in matrimonial matters. To these must be added many penitentials that derive from them: the penitential of Bede of the 8th century, that of Egbert, whose author is probably the archbishop of York (ca. 732-66), the compilation of the Barberini codex published by Albers (in Archiv für kathol. Kirchenrecht, 81 [1901], p. 393 ff.), the liber de remediis peccatorum and the confessional Egberti.

II. CONTINENTAL PENITENTIALS

From the 8th century onward the p. were compiled on the continent, but the sources always remained the insular ones, augmented by extracts from canonical collections. They can be divided as follows:

1) The p. of Bobbio, of Fleury, of Merseburg, deriving from Columbanus; 2) the Lexcarpism Commeani, the Bigotinum, the Remense and the tripartite ones, deriving from the Commeanus and from Theodore; furthermore a Spanish p. of the same period, the Vigilianum. The reforming Councils of 813 reacted against these books quas poenitentiales vocant, quorum sunt certi errors incerti auctores (Council of Chalon, can. 38) and attempted to replace them with p. composed using authentic canonical collections; the result was the Dacheriana. More usable for confessors were the p. of Halitgar, in 6 books, the Quadripartitus, the p. of pseudo-Theodore and the two p. of Rabanus Maurus of 841-53.

From the 9th century, insular collections and Carolingian collections contended for the favor of confessors, by then obliged to have a p. The most important of this period is the Corrector sive medicus, composed between 1008 and 1012, which constitutes the XIX book of the Decretum of Burchard of Worms, in 159 chapters (on the p. derived from it cf. P. Fournier, in Revue d'histoire ecclés., 12 [1911], p. 695).

The partisans of the reform later called Gregorian, such as Atto of Vercelli and Peter Damian, were unanimous in protesting against the p. The only p. included in a Gregorian collection is that of Anselm of Lucca, inserted in book XV of the Decretum of Ivo of Chartres in 1094. Finally, around 1140, Gratian, by inserting certain texts on penances into his Decretum, closed the era of the libri p.

Of these it can be said that they contributed to generalizing the practice of confession; with their prohibitions they favored the progress of civilization, defending the weak, repressing acts of violence, inculcating certain principles of hygiene; while, by prohibiting sins of thought, they refined the moral conscience of men.

Kirchenrechtsquellen, Leipzig 1839; F. Kunstmann, Die latein. Poenitentialbücher der Angelsachsen, Mainz 1844; K. Hildenbrand, Untersuch. über die germanischen Poenitentialbücher, Würzburg 1851; E. Friedberg, Aus deutschen Busbüchern, Halle 1868; J. Zettinger, Das Poenit. Cumeneons (Vat. Pal. Int. 485), in Archiv f. kath. Kirchenrecht, 82 (1902), p. 501 ff.; P. Oakley, English penitential discipline and anglo-saxon law in their joint influence, New York 1923; R. Otazo, El penitential Silense, Madrid 1928; W. Finsterwalder, Untersuch. zu den Busbüchern des VII. VIII. und IX. Jahrb., Weimar 1929; G. Le Bras, Judicia Theodori, in Rev. hist. de droit français et étranger, 1931, pp. 95-115.

Cirillo Vogel