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This article reconsiders the evidence provided by the late antique and early medieval penitentials (c. 550–800) for the study of slavery and other dependency relations. The main body of the article identifies and describes three sets of social practices of penance, which can be perceived as actions that contributed to the emergence, perpetuation, or stabilization of dependency relations: the social exclusion and othering of penitents, the assignment of penal measures, and the varying treatment of penitents according to their gender and social status. These social practices are then linked to contemporary theological and socio-legal frameworks that likely informed the practice of penance in Merovingian Gaul. The survey shows that the handbooks of penance provide important material for the study of dependency relations and that the ecclesiastical ritual of penance should be considered as a context in which these relations emerged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the difficulty of working with testaments, they have been the subject of study for many years, providing a window into the economic, social, and spiritual life of local communities throughout medieval Christendom. The religious significance of testaments has also attracted some attention; however, few have put thirteenth-century testamentary practice in conversation with the complex theology of penance developing in that time. Claims that making a testament was an act of charity, an exchange of earthly for heavenly goods, or a guarantee of memorialization, while valid to a certain extent, do not take into account the nuances of the penitential system. Based on the writings of thirteenth-century canonists such as Raymond of Peñafort and theologians such as Thomas Aquinas, and wills from the Franciscan convent of Bologna, this article argues that testaments can be seen as penitential instruments, much like indulgences, creating a real change in the spiritual state of the testator. Testaments worked in the penitential realm through the mechanism of suffrages. Good works of satisfaction were believed to be transferable from one person to another through the intention of the actor. The testament uses money to facilitate this transaction, exchanging coins for substitutionary penance, which can be exchanged for time in purgatory. In this framework, the long lists of pious bequests to various religious houses not only reflect personal loyalties or spiritual preferences of testators but also individualized solutions to penitential problems. Thus, making a testament involved much lay agency, but a spiritually adept executor was also vital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thirty-five years after J. Mahoney published The Making of Moral Theology: A Study of the Roman Catholic Tradition, I published A History of Catholic Theological Ethics. Mahoney’s argument was fundamentally an indictment of the moral tradition arguing that it was primarily focused on sin. Building on his research but also on subsequent research that was published since then I argue that from its inception moral theology was primarily interested in pathways of holiness. Even research on the Irish Penitentials shows that the practice of penance there and then was always with an anamchara, that is, a soul friend who accompanied the penitent monk or nun in their struggles to live their life of discipleship. Rather than being fixated on sin, they were aiming to follow and serve Christ in their love of neighbor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As commonly used in its moral sense I will, for the purposes of this paper, take the concept of "conscience" to be the inherent ability of every healthy human being to perceive what is right and what is wrong and, on the strength of this perception, to control, monitor, evaluate and execute their actions. Such values as right or wrong, good or evil, just or unjust, and fair or unfair have existed throughout human history and are also shaped by an individual's cultural, political and economic environment. The medieval penitential literature offers just one such historical snapshot. These manuals or guides for confessors, including prayers, lists of questions to be asked by the confessor, and penances to be assigned for various sins were an integral part of the practice of private penance which began in the Celtic Church and later spread through Europe with the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon missions. Penitential books for use by confessors in private penance appeared in the sixth through ninth centuries. These texts were not as a rule decreed by episcopal synods. Their authority generally rested on the reputation of their compiler or editor. Public penances were assigned for public sins that caused scandal for the church. Private penances were assigned for private sins or matters of conscience. The Penitentials were generally more flexible than the churches' ancient canonical penitential system which they largely replaced. While later European Penitentials tended to provide more complete guidance for the confessor instead of mere lists of rules and penalties; such instruction is not entirely absent from the earlier Irish texts and ancillary documents. Thus, the goal of penance in the early middle ages was not only sacramental but also didactic. It would have been an occasion to inculcate Christian beliefs, an opportunity to model proper Christian behaviour and by extension a key part of the formation of conscience. As was the case with later expressions of casuistry (Etym. Latin casus, case, or problem to be solved) the purpose of the penitential literature was thus to adapt and apply the unchangeable norms of Christian morality to the changing and variable circumstances of human life albeit in somewhat rudimentary fashion. As such this literary genre and the pastoral practices stemming from it are a valid and worthy object of any historical study and theological analysis concerning the 'formation of conscience.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the evidence for slavery in the late antique and early medieval penitentials. This body of sources has only recently been rediscovered for the study of slavery. Most of the earliest extant penitentials contain canons that deal in one way or another with slaves (servus or ancilla) or slavery (servitium). These canons can roughly be grouped into three categories according to the aspect under which slavery is considered in them: In the first category of canons, slaves are merely mentioned in the description of a sin in which they are either involved in or the victim of. The second category of canons considers slavery as a penitential punishment. The third category, finally, offers more general rules or laws on slavery. Samples for these three categories and their analysis form the main part of the paper. The presented evidence is then evaluated with regard to the questions what kind of insights the penitentials offer for the study of slavery in general, and the involvement of the Church in slavery in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the nineteenth book of his Decretum, Bishop Burchard of Worms (d. 1025) included a penitential titled the Corrector or Medicus. Although the Corrector has traditionally been described as a manual of private confession, this article argues that it was primarily used to judge public penances at church courts and synods. Focusing on the manuscript transmission of the Decretum in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, we find that the Corrector was almost never copied apart from the rest of the Decretum and that it was almost always copied alongside other legal texts. Turning to individual abbreviations, we also find that Burchard's collection was frequently reworked and rearranged so as to integrate canonical and penitential texts. These findings call into question current definitions of canon law collections and penitentials which presume functional exclusivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of moral discernment is often used to describe the inspired decision-making of a conscientious Christian, but Pope Francis uses it relationally in terms of accompaniment and often enough, more broadly than an individual’s choice. Rather, he suggests that bishops and their local churches ought to morally discern how they should settle issues addressing contemporary pastoral challenges. This article argues that in its history, moral discernment was a social practice used in a variety of relational ways to determine a pathway for living out the summons of the gospel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses varieties of penitential practices cultivated on Benedictine women religious community in Central Medieval England during the tenth and eleventh centuries. It discusses pressure of male monastic communities to conform their practice of penance to the church. It also discusses prayers of confession that are evident in surviving prayer books and psalters, produced by religious women.

This article examines the reform of the penitential system during the reign of Henry VIII. It considers the call to reform, and analyses official statements from the Ten Articles (1536) to the King's Book (1543), which is usually regarded as a victory for traditional religion. A careful assessment of the section of the King's Book on the sacrament of penance, and of the King's Primer, reveals that in this area evangelical reformers made gains. It shows Cranmer influencing Henry's religious policy, and as such challenges George Bernard's position. The article therefore argues for the major significance of penitential reform in the English Reformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses a model of human experience that considers the embodied brain, religion, and social context in an integrated system of bio-cultural approaches. The study of grief and its strategic arousal in ritual contexts can highlight fundamental differences between modern and ancient religious understandings of the self, ultimately helping us to become more aware of our own scholarly biases and anachronisms. Such methods complement traditional historical-critical methods and shed light on how Ezra's penitential prayer could have functioned in a Second Temple context. This study examines the similarities between the ritual performance of actions and discursive traditions that are said to have been performed by Ezra (Ezra 9-10) and discusses their resemblance to two passages that preserve foundational events of remaking the covenant (Exodus 32-34; Deuteronomy 9) and dedicating the first Temple (1 Kings 8; 2 Chronicles 6-7). The reenactment of scripted grief is identified as a strategy for bridging the breach between foundational events and the authors and readers in the Second Temple period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

That there is a growing focus and elaboration of prayers in the Old Testament scholarship on the postexilic biblical writings suggests that such prayers received an authoritative status in postexilic Yehud. Firstly, this paper argues that not only did the remembrance of the story of Israel confer an authoritative status to Nehemiah 9:6-37, it also served the purpose of casting a hopeful and prophetic imagination of a liberated community in Yehud. Secondly, it is argued in this paper that the prayer of Nehemiah 9:6-37 shaped the identity of the Jews in Yehud amidst socio-economic injustices. This identity was linked to the patriarch Abraham (cf. Neh 9:7-8), to the liberation of the Jews from Pharaoh under the leadership of Moses (cf. Neh 9:9-15, 21), to the possession of the Promised Land (cf. Neh 9:22-25), to the caution about the consequence of disobedience to Yahweh - the exile (cf. Neh 9:16-21, 26-30)- and to the demise of the kingdom in the Babylonian exile (cf. Neh 9:31-37). On the whole, it is argued in this paper that the prayer of Nehemiah 9:6-37 was composed and transmitted with the view to remember and construct the identity of the Jews in postexilic Yehud. Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: Not only does this article explore the religious aspect of Nehemiah 9:6-37, it equally investigates the socio-economic and political undertones in the text in order to determine the context from which the penitential prayer emerged. It is argued here that in the postexilic Yehud context, Nehemiah 9:6-37 served to remember and construct the identity of the Jews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canon law and theology were not distinct, well-developed fields in the twelfth century. In theory, many if not all scholars recognise this, and yet, in practice, much scholarship on the intellectual and institutional history of the century operates as if the contrary were true. Often labeled as canonists or theologians, the intellectual figures of the century frequently devoted attention to the church's law and to the Bible, to issues of ecclesiastical structure and discipline as well to theological questions. One way of gauging the scholarly world of the century is to examine the reception of a particular text by various intellectual figures. This article surveys the historiographical problem, explores the reception of Gratian's Tractatus de penitentia from ca 1150 to ca 1200, and attempts to reformulate the nature of the intellectual climate in the period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the tendency to interpret the stake metaphor in Ezra 9:8 as a reference to security is out of step with the sentiments of the penitential prayer in which it is used. The prayer emphasizes community vulnerability. Other uses of the stake as a metaphor in the Hebrew Bible include an element ofdivine dependence either explicitly or implicitly. The metaphor is precisely in rune with the sentiments of the prayer and represents Yahweh-dependenr support. Interpretations iseed to reflect the nuances of the metaphor while translations must be careful not to obscure its subtleties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the hagiography from medieval Ireland which celebrated saints who performed abortions and restored women to a virginal state. Medieval Irish hagiographers' perspective on illegitimate children, including their ability to become saints and bishops, is discussed. An overview of medieval Irish penitentials' permissive attitudes concerning the female body and reproductive systems, pregnancy, sexuality and contraception is provided. The role of saints and women as abortionists is discussed.

El principio de legalidad, como eje vertebrador de todo el sistema penal, despliega sus efectos también en el ámbito penitenciario. El genérico principio de legalidad en materia penal incluye la llamada garantía ejecutiva. A las garantías criminal, penal y jurisdiccional se suma esta garantía penitenciaria o ejecutiva que se corresponde con la fase de ejecución de las condenas privativas de libertad impuestas a los autores de hechos delictivos. El trabajo que sigue pretende determinar de forma más precisa las consecuencias de la aplicación del principio de legalidad al sistema de ejecución de las penas privativas de libertad, así como pasar al análisis de algunas de ellas. En este sentido se quiere señalar los presupuestos del principio, su recogida normativa en el sistema jurídico español, las consecuencias fundamentales que para el cumplimiento de las penas privativas de libertad trae el principio de legalidad, así como algunas particulares consideraciones respecto a su aplicación en el sistema penitenciario vigente. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the short treatise on confession from the 13th century known as "Sciendum est autem sacerdotibus" or "Penitens accedens ad confessionem." According to the author, the manuscripts demonstrate a number of variations, mainly because men who copied the works felt free to alter the text to suit their own interests. She claims that the "apparatus fontium" provided more details on the ways the author of the original treatise used his sources, with reference to certain editions.

Abstract: This article uses thirteenth-century hospital sermons as a window into the moral and religious environment of these charitable institutions, large numbers of which were founded during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. What emerges from the reportationes of sermons preached in the hôtel-dieu of Paris and ad status sermons directed at hospitals'' personnel and inmates by Jacques de Vitry, Humbert of Romans and Guibert de Tournai is a spirituality that stressed the penitential (and potentially salvific) power of doing works of mercy (in the case of hospital workers) and bodily suffering (in the case of hospital inmates). The particular social context of hospital preaching is also evident in preachers'' anxieties about the quality of hospital administration. The sermons that were preached in thirteenth-century hospitals reflect the heightened value placed on caring for the sick and poor, a historical development more often associated with the later middle ages. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In the Visigothic kingdom of Toledo (507-711) a Christendom emerged with peculiar traits: creativity and autonomy, expressed in a liturgical rite of its own; importance of Synods as decision-making organs for both Church and Kingdom; and a strong dependence between political and ecclesiasti-cal powers. Against this background, the paper studies some moral issues: penitential practice, sexual life of clergy, slavey and the relationships with the Jews. The author also considers the posterior idealization of a socio-political reality that was quite frail in its own time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's view on the relevance and impact of penitential education and contemplative literature in the theatrical production "Wisdom," which depicts morality. The author includes the idea of Walter Hilton, which was written on his book, "The Scale of Perfection," concerning the fourteenth-century guide on contemplative life and mentions Hilton's statement on penitential restoration of the soul from sin. Further, it highlights how the author of "Wisdom" based his the genre of the play in Hilton's ideas.

The article discusses the Christian conversion as a moment in the human life when God manifested himself and produced a radical change in a believer. It is stated that the language of conversion for a lay person within a Christian community are the Seven Penitential Psalms in the Bible. These psalms were specifically recommended for Lenten recitation.

This article presents the preliminary results of an investigation into the history of the Penitential of Pseudo-Theodore. It outlines the text's manu-script history, the scope of its contents, and its sources, arguing that it was a comprehensive, systematic collection. It also reconsiders the evidence for when and where it was composed, suggesting it was probably written in north-eastern France or the eastern Rhineland in the 820s or 830s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section discusses various articles published within the issue, including one by Roger Reynolds on an overview of manuscripts in which penitential material is combined with collections of canon law and another by Adriaan Gaastra on the analysis of the inclusion of penitential canons in a particular canon law collection from Italy.

This article reconsiders the function of penitentials in the tenth and eleventh centuries; were they used mainly to support priests in the administration of penance, or rather as legal texts in either the episcopal court or in the schoolroom? Through an examination of the evidence of the manuscripts from across Europe, it shows that whilst few new penitentials were composed, many older ones, especially those which gave their authorities, continued to be copied in this period, and that most were preserved in a legal rather than pastoral context. Finally, it suggests that this shift towards collections of a legal nature indicates not only tighter episcopal control, but also a concern for the better legal training of priests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article outlines the evidence for penance in pre-Gratian canon law manuscripts from southern and central Italy. It includes a handlist of those canon law collections compiled in this area between the tenth and the twelfth centuries which include penitential materials, divided into those manuscripts which were dependent on the south Italian Collection in Five Books, and those which were were not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the characteristics and function of Book 19 of Burchard's Decretum. It demonstrates how the penitential questionnaire, usually considered the most original part of this text, was the result of Burchard's systematic expansion upon his main source, Regino of Prüm. It argues that Book 19 was not a conventional penitential, to be used to support the administration of penance by priests, but rather that it was meant to be both an exemplary penitential and a summary of the preceding eighteen books. Burchard thus sought to ensure there was no contradiction between his collection of canon law and his penitential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the south Italian tenth-century Collection in Nine Books, one of the first Italian compilations of canon law to incorporate a penitential handbook. It places this work in the context of other tenth-century collections, investigating its sources, and the way in which its compiler chose to include penitential canons. It therefore contributes to the current debate about the purpose and function of penitentials as a genre in this period, arguing that they were probably intended to support the efforts of bishops to educate priests in the administration of penance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the association of the "Book of Penance" with "Cursor Mundi," a Middle English poem about religious history. Similarity of the "Book of Penance" to penitential manuals; Manuscripts of the book; Ideas on integral confession between the two literary works.

The article focuses on the issue of continuity of English spiritual traditions. It discusses the significance of Anglo-Saxon evidence in those traditions. Anglo-Saxon penitentials usually had two parts: first part consisted of an introductory ritual including private prayer for confession, followed by lists of sins and second listed corresponding penances for them. Private penitential practice was an area of broadly continuous spiritual development from the early to late Middle Ages.

This essay examines the illustrations that accompanied the seven Penitential Psalms in medieval and Renaissance Books of Hours. Until the end of the fifteenth century, the Penitential Psalms were glossed visually by a wide range of subjects, including the Last Judgment Christ enthroned David playing a musical instrument, and (most commonly) David repenting for his sins. But from the beginning of the sixteenth century it became customary to represent the Penitential Psalms with an image of David observing Bathsheba as she bathes. Moreover, the subject of David and Bathsheba rapidly migrated from Books of Noun into a variety of devotional catechetical, and educational texts It even crossed the Atlantic to colonial America, where, in The New England Primer, it was used to teach young children how to read. These facts not only suggest a shift in attitudes towards penance and sin at the end of the Middle Ages, but also challenge modern assumptions about the historical relationship between sexuality, catechesis, and literacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the character of penitential canons found in the manuscript "Vienna." Description of penance by priests; Legal decisions of Theodore, the seventh-century archbishop of Canterbury, England; Canonical canons which are based upon the penitential of the Irish peregrinus Columbanus.

Focuses on the clergy-penitent privilege in the U.S. Views on parishioner's disclosure to a clergy; Purposes of the clergy-penitent privilege; Evolution and expansion of the privilege in state and federal courts.

In an attempt to treat a relatively neglected aspect of the inmate social system, this paper analyzes friendship patterns among inmate-addicts sentenced to a NARA program in a federal penitentiary. Two important features of these relationships are the fact that most of the friendships were not indigenous to the institution but instead were developed prior to confinement and that, second, these friendships became the basis for contractual arrangements which enabled the inmates to cope with the therapeutic stresses imposed on them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the queer theory and the history of homosexuality. Differences in the way history is viewed by queer theorists and historians of sex; Sexual and social categories that are established in Anglo-Saxon penitentials; Modern fears and hatred of homosexuals; Queer theorists' work in relation to popular culture.

Discusses the relationship between religion and politics in Europe during the 9th century. Details on the series of fasts instituted by Emperor Charlemagne in the year 805; Communal aspect to private penance; Elements in medieval penitential practice; Details on the text 'On the Twelve Abuses of the World.'

Some of the earliest references to ritual lamentation or keening in the early Irish sources are found in the penitential handbooks dated to around the seventh and eighth centuries. In previous scholarship, these passages have commonly been interpreted as evidence of the continuous attempts of the Church to curb pagan practices among the 'nominally Christian' populace, thus assuming that such regulations were primarily used as a means of social control. This article examines the wider theological and intellectual context of these texts, by focusing in particular on the influence of the Old Testament on early Irish ecclesiastical writing. It will be argued that the demonstrable preoccupation of these sources with issues such as ritual purity and proper religious observance suggests that the stipulations pertaining to lamentation were not solely intended to regulate lay behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the 400th anniversary of the Church of San Francisco. Topics discussed include history of Apostolic Penitentiary, Franciscan order followed by priests, history of the Eucharistic Communion, penitential liturgies in Chile, rehabilitation of Christians and communications in the Franciscan Order.

The author comments on the use of black as the color of mourning at funeral services. Topics include the distinction between the colors of the penitential seasons and mourning, the use of color white by the Americans to subvert the sense of mourning and the traditional Gregorian Requiem which is capable to elevate and give an objective expression of the mourning proper.