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The Significance of the Frankish Penitentials

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Allen J. Frantzen
Allen J. Frantzen
Affiliation:
Department of English, Loyola University, Chicago, Ill
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Extract

It has been argued that the handbooks of penance known as the ‘Frankish’ penitentials, though ‘an important and necessary stage in the development of medieval church and society’, were an ‘ephemeral and ultimately despised intrusion’ into the Frankish Church of the eighth and ninth centuries. The importation of these books by Irish and Anglo-Saxon missionaries and the adverse reaction of the Frankish bishops to the Irish system of private penance which they introduced is a story too well known to require rehearsal here; after spreading rapidly in the eighth century the penitentials were challenged and condemned by several synods in the century which followed. This reaction had important consequences for the penitentials, to be sure, but to my knowledge it has not previously been asserted that the Frankish penitentials were merely transitional or that their impact on the Frankish Church was either peripheral or minimal. On the contrary, Fournier, Watkins and McNeill and Gamer, among others, believe the Carolin-gian era to have been heavily influenced by these texts and, in turn, to have been decisive in their development.

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , October 1979 , pp. 409 - 421
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

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References

1 Pierce, Rosamond, ‘The “Frankish” Penitentials’, Studies in Church History, xi (1975), 31–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar These conclusions are reasserted in The Frankish Church and the Carolingian Reforms, 789-895, London 1977, 16, 32,Google Scholar by Rosamond McKitterick (same author).

2 For an account of this controversy, see Pierce, 32-4, and Watkins, O. D., A History of Penance, New York 1920, rpt. 1961, ii. 688–713Google Scholar.

3 Fournier, Paul and Bras, G. Le, Histoire des collections canoniques en Occident, Paris 1931,. i 98–112.Google Scholar

4 , Watkins, op. cit., ii. 708.Google Scholar

5 McNeill, John T. and Gamer, Helena, Medieval Handbooks of Penance, New York 1938, rpt. 1965, 26–8.Google Scholar

6 Fournier, P., ‘De l'influence de la collection irlandaise sur la formation des collections canoniques’, Nouvelle Revue historique de droit française et etranger, xxiii (1889), 27–8Google Scholar (see also above note 3). For literature and general orientation cf. Hove, A. van, Prolegomena ad Codicem Juris Canonici, 2nd and edn, Mechlin-Rome 1945, 298ff;Google ScholarBuchner, Rudolf, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter: Die Rechtsquellen, Weimar 1953, 62ff,Google Scholar and especially n. agiff; and Feine, H. E., Kirchliche Rechtsgeschichte, 5th edn, Cologne-Vienne 1974, 122, 124Google Scholar.

7 Fournier and Le Bras (above note 3), i. 112. Fournier earlier put forth this opinion in ‘Le Liber ex lege Moysi et les tendances bibliques de droit canonique irlandaise’, Revue Celtique, xxx (1909), 230Google Scholar.

8 See the handlist of manuscripts in McNeill and Gamer (above note 5), 432-50: one does not need to accept their dating of every MS to see that the preponderance of penitentials is contained in MSS later than the eighth century; many penitentials are in fact collected into MSS which contain materials first written in the ninth and tenth centuries, as I indicate in note 33 below.

9 Wasserschleben, F. W. H., Die Bussordnungen der abendländischen Kirche nebst einer rechtsgeschichtlichen Einleitung, Halle 1851, rpt. 1958.Google Scholar

10 Schmitz, H. J., Die Bussbücher und die Bussdisciplin der Kirche, Mainz 1883 andGoogle ScholarDie Bussbücher [und das Kanonische Bussverfahren nach Handschriftlichen Quellen], Düsseldorf 1898Google Scholar.

11 See Hughes, Kathleen, ‘Synodus II S. Patricii’ in Latin Script and Letters, A.D. 400-900, ed. O'Meara, John J., Naumann, Bernd, Leiden 1976, 141–5.Google Scholar The text is edited by Wasserschleben, F. W. H., Die irische Kanonensammlung, Leipzig 1885Google Scholar.

12 ‘De l'influence’ (above note 6), 34-71.

13 According to C. H. Turner, the earliest canonical collections were somewhat disorderly; it was only in the eighth century that they began to be chronologically and systematically arranged into complex compilations; see ‘Chapters in the History of Latin Manuscripts’ Journal ofTheological Studies, ii (1900-1901), 72–3Google Scholar.

14 See ‘De l'influence’(above note 6), 73-4, and ‘Le Liber’(above note 7), 229-31.

15 Stancliffe, Clare, ‘Early “Irish” Biblical Exegesis’, Studia Patristica, xii (1975) (= Texte und Untersuchungen, 115), 361-70.Google Scholar

16 See ‘De l'influence’ (above note C), 59-71, for Fournier's summary of Italian MSS containing excerpts of the Collectio.

17 Oakley, T. P., ‘The Origins of Irish Penitential Discipline’, Catholic Historical Review, xix (1933-1934), 320–32.Google Scholar

18 Ibid., 331.

19 The MS is described by Jorgensen, Ellen, Catalogus codicum Latinorum medii aevi bibliothecae Regiae Hafniensis, Copenhagen 1926.Google Scholar See the discussion by Deanesly, Margaret and Grosjean, Paul. ‘The Canterbury Edition of the Answers of Pope Gregory 1 to Augustine’, in this JOURNAL, x (1959), 1–46.Google Scholar An important contribution to this discussion, qualifying some of Deanesly's and Grosjean's comments, has been made by Meyvaert, Paul, ‘Bede's Text of the Libellus Responsionum of Gregory the Great to Augustine of Canterbury’, in England Before the Conquest, ed. Clemoes, Peter, Hughes, Kathleen, Cambridge 1971, 15–33Google Scholar.

20 The handbook as a separate manuscript is briefly discussed by Gwynn, E. G., ‘An Irish Penitential’, Eriu, vii (1914), 123Google Scholar.

21 Edited by , Haddan, , Stubbs, Councils and Documents Relating to Great Britain and Ireland, Oxford 1871, iii. 417.Google Scholar

22 , M. G. H., Cap., i, 365;Google Scholar listed with two similar documents by Pierce (above note I), 32.

23 P.L., cv. 681-82.

24 Edited by Vogel, Cyril, Elze, Reinhard, Studi e Testi, cocxvi-vii (1963);Google Scholar for the Homilia, see i. 286-9.

25 Ibid., ii. 234-45.

26 Edited by Schmitz, Wilhelm, Regula Canonicorum, S. Chrodegangi Metensis Episcopi, Hanover 1889Google Scholar.

27 For the enlarged version of the Regula, see P.L., lxxxix, 1057-95, and , M. G. H., Condi., ii. 312–421.Google Scholar The date suggested for the enlarged version is late ninth century; see Werminghofi, A., ‘Die Beschlüsse des Aachener Concils in Jahre 816’, Neues Archiv, xxvii (1902), 607–51;Google Scholar cf. Feine, 197 and van Hove, 181 ff (above note 6).

28 Edited by Napier, A., E[arly] E[nglish] T[ext] S[ociety], o.s., cl, London 1916, 84.Google Scholar

29 Edited by Fehr, Bernard, Die Hirtenbriefe Aelfrics in altenglischer und lateinischer Fassung, Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa, Hamburg 1914, ix. 13Google Scholar (c. 52), 51 (c. 137), and 127 (c. 157).

30 Edited by Fowler, Roger, Wulfstan's ‘Canons of Edgar’, EETS, London 1972, 8–9 (c. 34).Google Scholar

31 Edited by Wasserschleben, F. W. H., Reginonis abbatis Prumiensis, libri due de synodalibus causis et disciplinis ecclesiasticis, Leipzig 1840, 26 (Book I, c. 96).Google Scholar

32 Pierce (above note 1), 35, citing McNeill and Gamer (above note 5), 64, and Bieler, Ludwig, ed., The Irish Penitentials, Scriptores Latini Hiberniae, v, Dublin 1963.Google Scholar Pierc e says ‘all’ MSS of penitentials used or written on the continent show insular symptoms; Bieler claims only that ‘many’ of the MSS he lists on pp. 12-16 show such symptoms. It is at any rate needless to suppose that the community using the penitentials was limited to the community producing them.

33 For MSS containing earlier penitentials and part of the work of Halitgar (which will be discussed shortly), see Heiligenkreuz 217: Halitgar, the St Gall Penitential, and a penitential falsely ascribed to Bede; Munich, CLM 12673: pseudo-Bede (brief extract), the Penitential of Egbert, and Halitgar (both tenth century); Rome, Valicella t. A xviii: Collectio Canonum Hibernensis and Halitgar (late tenth century). (The contents of the Heiligenkreuz and CLM MSS can be verified by consulting McNeill and Gamer (above note 5), 445-6; Gamer, who wrote the section on MSS in Medieval Handbooks of Penance, noted that insular authorship could not be claimed for Frankish and Visigothic penitentials but thought that certain copies of Halitgar (tenth and eleventh century) ‘show definite contact with Insular script’(66).)

34 Edited by Schmitz (above note 10), 252-300.

35 Fournier, P., ‘Le livre VI du pénitentiel d'Halitgar’, Revue d'histoire et de littérature religieuses, viii (1903), 528–53.Google Scholar

36 In CLM 12673 (cited above, note 33), Book VI appears separately; in Heiligenkreuz 217 and Paris BN (Fonds Lat.) 3878 Halitgar's Books III–V are followed by pseudo-Bede penitential tariffs, which replace Book VI; Books III–V also occur separately in Valicella A xviii. See Raith's, Josef brief discussion of these MSS, Die altenglische Version des Halitgar'schen Bussbuches (sog. Poenitentiale Psuedo-Ecgberti), Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa, Hamburg 1933, xiii, xxiiGoogle Scholar.

37 Ibid., 46-70.

38 P.L., ex. 467-94; c. 25, col. 490, although listed as a canon from the Council of Ancyra, is taken from Theodore, Book I, ii. 12, 13 and xiv. 15.

39 Fournier and Le Bras (above note 3), i. 245. See also Buchner (above note 6), who discusses Regino's work as an outgrowth of the Carolingian reform (761F.); his discussion of the Frankish penitentials, 62ff., is excellent.

40 Seeed. cit. (above note 31), 26.

41 Ibid., 310.

42 See Fehr (above note 29), 51-2, for this reference to MS Vienna 694., printed in Appendix III in Wasserschleben's edition, 485 (above note 31).

43 See McNeill and Gamer (above note 5), 179; among these sources is Paul the Deacon's History of the Lombards.

44 , Wasserschleben, Die irische (above note n), 12Google Scholar (c. I, 22), and 217-18 (c. LIV, 12, 13, 14); Theodore is named in the latter three.

45 These include Cotton Nero A i, Corpus Christi College Cambridge 190 (parts only) and 265; for a discussion see Bethurum, Dorothy, ‘Archbishop Wulfstan's Commonplace Book’, Publications of the Modem Language Association, lvii (1942), 918,Google Scholar and Fowler (above note 30), lviii.

46 Laistner, M. L. W., ‘Was Bede the Author of a Penitential?’, The Intellectual Heritage of the Early Middle Ages, ed. Starr, Chester G., Ithaca 1957, 165–77.Google Scholar

47 For Plummer's comments, see Venerabilis Bedae Opera, Oxford 1896, i, clvi–clviiiGoogle Scholar.

48 The letter is edited by Plummer, ibid., 405-23; for Laistner's comment, see ‘Was Bede…?’, 170.

49 Albers edited a text he claimed to be the genuine work of , Bede in ‘Wann sind die Beda-Egbertschen Bussbücher verfasst worden, und wer ist ihr Verfasser?’, Archiv für katholisches Kirchenrecht, lxxxi (1901), 399–418Google Scholar.

50 McNeill and Gamer (above note 5), 220.

51 See McNeill and Gamer's handlist, ibid., 435-7; two MSS of the pseudo-Bede text can be added to this list: Paris BN (Fonds Lat.) 2998 (contents listed by Lauer, Ph., Catalogue Général des Manuscrits Latins, Paris 1952, iii. 387–8); andGoogle Scholar London BM Royal 5 E xiii (contents listed by Warren, George F. and Gilson, Julius P., Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King's Collections in the British Museum, London 1921, 116)Google Scholar.

52 See, for example, MS St Gall 679 (tenth century), in which Ebbo's letter is followed by Halitgar's complete six-book work; listed in Schmitz (above note 10), 256.

53 Fournier and Le Bras (above note 3), i. 253; the MSS include Heiligenkreuz 217, Paris 3878, Düsseldorf B 113, Cologne 118, and CLM 3853, all tenth-century, and CLM 3851, ninth-century.

54 , Wasserschleben edited this pseudo-Bede text in Die Bussordnungen (above note 9), 248–82;Google Scholar for the ordo in Regino, see , Wasserschleben, Reginonis (above note 31), 141–8;Google Scholar compare the ordo in Vogel and Elze (above note 24), ii. 234-7.

55 See the reference to what the priest says ‘in questiuncula penitentia’ in the Bigotian Penitential, Bieler (above note 32), 218-19.

56 Fehr (above note 29), xciv and xcvii.

57 See the sources listed by , Raith for the pseudo-Egbert Penitential (above note 36), xxviii–xxxivGoogle Scholar.

58 ‘The Tenth-Century Anglo-Saxon Penitential Tradition’, forthcoming.

59 Symons, Thomas, ‘Sources of the Regularis Concordia’, Downside Review, n.s., xl (1941), 14–36,CrossRefGoogle Scholar 143-70, 264-89; see especially 274-5 and 287-8, where Symons shows that the Concordia reflects tenth-century Lotharingian customs; the point is argued more briefly in ‘Regularis Concordia: History and Derivation’, , Symons's essay in Tenth-Century Studies, ed. Parsons, David, London 1975, 37–59Google Scholar.

60 Pierce (above note 1), 37.

61 The ordo does not always include the interrogation used by Regino; for another version, found in eight MSS, see Schmitz (1898) (above note 10), 199; and for a third, see Vogel and Elze (above note 24), ii. 234-7.

62 In addition to Raith (above note 36), xli-xlvi, see Fowler, R., ‘A Late Old English Handbook for the Use of a Confessor’, Anglia, lxxxiii (1965), 16–19,Google Scholar and Spindler, R., Das altenglische Bussbuch (sog. Confesiionale Pseudo-Egberti), Leipzig 1934, 170–2Google Scholar.

63 As in Corpus Christi College Cambridge 190, Bodleian Juaius 121 and Cotton Tiberius A iii, listed by Raith (above note 36), xii, xiv and xx respectively.

64 See Jungmann, Josef A., Die lateinischen Bussriten in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung, Innsbruck 1932, 48,Google Scholar and The Gelasian Sacramentaryi ed. Wilson, H. A., Oxford 1894, 15,Google Scholar 63 and 66 for versions of the ordo used in the liturgy.

65 This is inferred from the statement in Theodore's Penitential about the lack of public reconciliation ‘in hac provincia’(see Haddan andStubbs (above note 21), iii. 187) (Book I, xiii. 4).

66 Bethurum points out that when Wulfstan speaks of public penance in his ‘Sermo de Cena Domini’ he is discussing a practice foreign to the English Church: see The Homilies of Wulfstan, Oxford 1957, 347.Google Scholar Wulfstan's source is a homily by Abbo of St Germain. Provisions for public penance in the Old English pseudo-Egbert Penitential are taken from Halitgar's third book, chapter 12; see Raith (above note 26), 10-11. There are several foreign orders for the public reconciliation of penitents in English service books of this period; see Hohler, C. E., ‘Some Service Books of the Later Saxon Church’, in Parsons (above note 59), 226, n. 74Google Scholar.

67 Pierce (above note 1), 31-3.

68 See Fournier (above note 6), 78, n 1: ‘La force des choses conduisait aussi naturellement à la généralisation de la confession secrète, qu'au droit laissé au confesseur de fixer la penitence. La pratique ne pouvait s'accomoder ni de l'aveu public, ni de la penitence fixée par un tarif rigide.’

69 As Pierce notes (above note 1), 33, Hrabanus Maurus assigned public penance for public sins, and private penance for those sins committed privately. This system is endorsed by Wulfstan's sermon on public penance; see Bethurum (above note 66), 234.

70 For useful remarks on the compatibility of public and private penitential systems, see Mitchell's, Gerard little-noticed essays, ‘St Colombanus on Penance’, I[rish] T[heological] Quarterly), xviii (1951), 43–54. andCrossRefGoogle Scholar‘The Origins of Irish Penance’, ITQ xxii (1955), 1–14Google Scholar.

71 Isidore's De ecclesiasticis officiis would seem to serve such a purpose, especially Book II, ‘De origine ministrorum’: P.L., Ixxxiii. 737-826.

72 See Bateson, Mary, ‘A Worcester Cathedral Book of Ecclesiastical Collections’, English Historical Review, x (1895), 712–31, andCrossRefGoogle Scholar Bethurum, ‘Archbishop Wulfstan's Commonplace Book’ (above note 45).

73 See Henry Bradshaw's comments on MSS Corpus Christi College Cambridge 279 and Bodleian Hatton 42, the latter in part a Breton MS, the former a copy of a Breton MS, both in England tenth/eleventh century; The Early Collection of Canons Known as the Hibemensis: Two Unfinished Papers, Cambridge 1893Google Scholar.

74 For a discussion of these texts, see Boyle, Leonard E., ‘Three English Pastoral Summae and a “Magister Galienus”’, Studia Gratiana, xi (1967), 134–44Google Scholar.

75 Oakley, P., ‘The Penitentials as Sources for Medieval History, Speculum, xv (1940), 25–53.Google Scholar

76 This is the opinion of Firth, J. J. Francis, ed., Liber Poenitentialis ofRobert of Flamsborough, Toronto, 1971, 10,Google Scholar who holds that the development from ‘mere tariffs of penance for various sins into manuals of pastoral instruction’ begins with the Decretum of Burchard of Worms (1020).

77 See Book II, 190-203 in Haddan and Stubbs (above note 21), which makes specifications about the administration of sacraments, the mass, dedication of churches, etc.

78 Pierce (above note 1), 38.

79 Ibid.

80 The educational standards of the late tenth century are subjected to rather vigorous attack by Hohler (above note 66), 71-4 especially, and are also questioned by Farmer, D. H., ‘The Progress of the Monastic Revival’, also in Parsons (above note 59), 10–19.Google Scholar Hohler's views are challenged by John, Eric in his review of this collection, The English Historical Review, xcii (1977), 411-12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

81 Research for the project of which this essay is part has been generously funded by the Oberlin College Research and Development Committee and the American Council of Learned Societies; their assistance is gratefully acknowledged. The reader's attention is directed to the project directed by Professor R. Kottje of the University of Augsburg which aims at a full inventory of the extant penitentials in MS, with full bibliography and their eventual edition. An undertaking so massive measures the importance of this subject; it has long been recognised that a systematic analysis of all the penitentials is a requisite for a better understanding of early medieval society.