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Penance in the Age of Gregorian Reform

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Sarah Hamilton*
Affiliation:
University of Exeter

Extract

On 28 January 1077 at the castle of Canossa in the northern Appenines King Henry IV was absolved from his excommunication by Pope Gregory VII. Henry’s reconciliation with the Church represented the successful conclusion to what had been a hazardous mission for both him and his small entourage, one which had involved a difficult journey through the alpine passes in winter. It culminated in the king, having abandoned his royal garb for simple woollen clothing and with bare feet, standing for three days before the gates of the castle of Canossa, ceaselessly weeping and imploring divine mercy.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2004

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References

1 Das Register Gregors VII, ed. Erich Caspar, MGH Epistolae selectae (Berlin, 1920-3; repr. 1955), iv. 12, 313 [hereafter Reg.].

2 Lampert of Hersfeld, Annales, a. 1077, in Lamperti monachi Hersfeldensis opera, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separatim editi [hereafter SRG] 38 (Hanover and Leipzig, 1894), 286-7; Berthold of Reichenau, Annales, MGH Scriptores [hereafter SS], V: 264-326, 288. Knonau, G. Meyer von, Jahrbücher des deutschen Reiches unter Heinrich IV. und Heinrich V., 6 vols (Leipzig, 1890-1907), 2: 747 Google Scholar; Robinson, I. S., Henry IV of Germany, 1056-1106 (Cambridge, 1999), 1601 Google Scholar.

3 Reg. iv.12, 313. See also Robinson, Henry IV, 161; Cowdrey, H. E. J., Pope Gregory VII, 1073-85 (Oxford, 1998), 1538.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Texts include: Reg. iv.12, 312-14, iv.12a, 314-15, vii.14a, 484; The Epistolae Vagantes of Pope Gregory VII, ed. H. E. J. Cowdrey (Oxford, 1972), no. 19, 52; Lampert, , Annales, 1077, 28996 Google Scholar; Berthold, , Annales, 1077, 28890 Google Scholar; Donizo, , Vita Mathildis comitissae metrica, ed. Bethmann, L., MGH SS, XII: 348409, II.i, 3812 Google Scholar; Bernold of St Blasien, , Chronicon, MGH SS, V: 40067, 433 Google Scholar; Vita Heinrici IV imperatoris, ed. W. Wattenbach and W. Eberhard, MGH SRG 58 (Hanover, 1899), 16-17; Crassus, Peter, Defensio Heinrici TV regis, ed. de Heinemann, L., MGH Libelli de lite imperatorum et pontificum saeculi XI. et XII. conscripti, 3 vols (Hanover, 1891-97), 1: 43253, ch. 6, 4456 Google Scholar; Holder-Egger, O., ‘Fragment eines Manifestes aus der Zeit Heinrichs IV’. Neues Archiv der Geselbchaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde 31 (1906), 18393, 189 Google Scholar. See also the work defending royal penance, De paenitentia regum et de investitura regali collectanea, ed. H. Böhmer, MGH Libelli de lite, 3: 608-14; this text is preserved in a Bamberg codex which includes various polemics produced during the Investiture Contest, and was interpreted by its editor as a pro-royalist text, an argument developed further by Ute-Renate Blumenthal, ‘Canossa and Royal Ideology in 1077: Two Unknown Manuscripts of De penitentia regis Salomonis’, Manuscripta 22 (1978), 91-6. But Claudia Märtle argues, in ‘Ein angeblicher Text zum Bussgang von Canossa: De penitentia regum’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 38 (1982), 555-63, that the text is independent of Canossa. Never theless its inclusion in the Bamberg collection suggests Canossa may have given it a renewed relevance.

5 The historiography for Canossa is vast. Amongst other works see Zimmer-mann, Harald, Der Canossagang von 1077. Wirkungen und Wirklichkeit (Wiesbaden, 1975)Google Scholar; Ullmann, Walter, A Short History of the Papacy in the Middle Ages (London, 1972), 1579 Google Scholar; Cowdrey, , Pope Gregory VII, 15367 Google Scholar.

6 Althoff, G., ‘Das Privileg der ‘deditio’: Formen gütlicher Konfliktbeendigung in der mittelalterlichen Adelsgeselschaft’, in idem, Spielregeln der Politik im Mittelalter: Kommunikation in Frieden und Fehde (Darmstadt, 1997), 99125 Google Scholar; Reuter, T., ‘Unruhestiftung, Fehde, Rebellion, Widerstand: Gewalt und Frieden in der Politiken der Salierzeit’, in Stephan Weinfurter, ed., Die Salier und das Reich, 3 vols (Sigmaringen, 1991), 3: 297325 Google Scholar.

7 For the rituals associated with excommunication and the reconciliation of excommunicants, see Le Pontifical romano-germanique du dixième siècle, ed. Cyrille Vogel and Reinhard Elze, Studi e Testi 226, 227, 269 (Vatican City, 1963, 1972), 1: lxxxv-xci, 308-21 [hereafter PRG], discussed by Reynolds, Roger E., ‘Rites of Separation and Reconciliation in the Early Middle Ages’, Segni e riti nella chiesa altomedievale occidentale, Spoleto 11-17 aprile 1985, Settimane di studio del Centro italiano di studi sull’Alto Medioevo 33 (Spoleto, 1987), 40533 Google Scholar. On the canonical distinction between penance and excommunication, see e.g. Burchard of Worms, Decretutn, XI: De Excommunicatione and XLX, De Poenitentia, PL 140, 855-76, 949-1014; Bonizo of Sutri, Liber de vita christiana, ed. Ernst Perels (Berlin, 1930; repr. Hildesheim, 1998), ii.52, 60-2 (reconciliation of penitents), ix.4, 278-9 (reconciliation of excommunicants); Anselm of Lucca, Collectio canonum, XI (de poenitentia), XII (de excommunicatione): partial edition in Anselmi episcopi Lucensis collectio canonum, una cum collectione minore, ed. F. Thaner (Innsbruck, 1906-15); unfortunately most of book XI and all of book XII remain unpublished.

8 Reg. vii. 14a, 484: ‘Quern ego videns humiliatum multis ab eo promissionibus acceptis de suae vitae emendatione solam ei communionem reddidi’; Gregory continues ‘non tamen in regno, a quo eutn in Romana synodo deposueram, instauravi nec fidelitatem omnium, qui sibi iuraverant vel erant iuraturi, a qua omnes absolvi in eadem synodo, ut sibi servaretur, precepi’; English transi, by Cowdrey, H. E. J., The Register of Pope Gregory VII, 1073-85. An English Translation (Oxford, 2002), 343 Google Scholar. For the debate as to the truth of Gregory’s claims, see Fliche, A., ‘Grégoire VII, à Canossa, a-t-il réintégré Henri IV dans sa fonction royale?’, Studi Gregoriani 1 (1947), 37386 Google Scholar; Arquillière, H.-X., ‘La sens juridique de l’absolution de Canossa (1077)’, in Actes du Congrès de droit canonique: cinquantenaire de la Faculté de droit canonique: Paris, 22-26 Avril 1947 (Paris, 1950), 15764 Google Scholar; idem, , ‘Grégoire VII, à Canossa, a-t-il réintégré Henri IV dans sa fonction royale?’, Studi Gregoriani 4 (1952), 126 Google Scholar; Morrison, K. F., ‘Canossa: a Revision’, Traditio 18 (1962), 12148 Google Scholar.

9 Reg. vii. 14a, 486-7: ‘Sicut enim Heinricus pro sua superbia inoboedientia et falsitate a regni dignitate iuste abicitur, ita Rodulfo pro sua humilitate oboedientia et veritate potestas et dignitas regni conceditur.’ Transl. Cowdrey, Register, 344.

10 Reg. vi.5b, 401: ‘[XIV] De falsis paenitentiis. [XV] Qualiter vera paenitentia detur’. On Gregory’s actions in respect of penance, see Cowdrey, , Pope Gregory VII, 51013, 655 Google Scholar; idem, , ‘The Spirituality of Pope Gregory VII’, in The Mystical Tradition and the Carthusians, Hogg, J., ed., Analecta cartusiana 130 (Salzburg, 1995), 122 Google Scholar, 14.17, repr. in Popes and Church Reform in the Eleventh Century (Aldershot, 2000), II; The Reform Papacy and the Origin of the Crusades’, in Le Concile de Clermont de 1095 et l’appel à la croisade: actes du Colloque universitaire international de Clermont-Ferrand, 23-25 juin 1995 (Rome, 1997), 65-83 and ‘Pope Gregory VII and the Bearing of Arms’, in Kedar, B. J., Riley-Smith, J. and Heistand, R., eds, Montjoie. Studies in Crusade History in Honour of Hans Eberhard Meyer (Aldershot, 1997), 2136 Google Scholar.

11 Reg. vi.5b, 404: ‘Falsas paenitentias dicimus, quae non secundum auctoritatem sanctorum patrum pro qualitate criminum imponuntur. Ideoque quicunque miles vel negotiator vel alicui officio deditus, quod sine peccato exerceri non possit, culpis gravioribus irretitus ad penitentiam venerit vel qui bona alterius iniuste detinet vel qui odium in corde gerit, recognoscat se veram penitentiam non posse peragere, per quam ad aeternam vitam valeat pervenire, nisi arma deponat ulteriusque non ferat nisi consilio religiosorum episcoporum pro defendenda iustitia vel negotium derelinquat vel officium deserat et odium ex corde dimittat, bona, quae iniuste abstulit, restituat; ne tamen desperet, interim, quicquid boni facere poterit, hortamur ut faciat, ut omnipotens Deus cor illius illustret ad paenitentiam.’ Transl. Cowdrey, Register, 284. This decree is one of the few of Gregory VII’s decretals to be taken up by the twelfth-century canonists: Gilchrist, J. T., ‘Was There a Gregorian Reform Movement in the Eleventh Century?’, The Canadian Catholic Historical Association. Study Sessions 37 (Ottawa, 1970), 110 Google Scholar, repr. in idem, Canon Law in the Age of Reform, 11th-12th Centuries (Aldershot, 1993), no. VII; The Reception of Pope Gregory VII into the Canon Law (1073-1141)’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stifiung für Rechtsgeschichte: Kanonistiche Abteilung 59 (1973), 35-82 and 66 (1980), 192-229, 223, repr. in idem, Canon Law, nos. VIII and IX.

12 Reg. vii.10, 472: ‘Qua in re hoc summopere vos cavere oportet aliosque monere debetis, quia, si quis in homicidium adulterium periurium vel aliquod huiusmodi lapsus in aliquo talium criminum, permanserit aut negotiationi, quae vix agi sine peccato potest, operam dederit aut arma militaria portaverit, excepto si pro tuenda iustitia sua vel domini vel amici seu etiam pauperum nee pro defendendis ecclesiis, nee tamen sine religiosorum virorum consilio sumpserit, qui aeternae salutis consilium dare sapienter noverunt, aut aliena bona iniuste possederit aut in odium proximi sui exarserit, vere penitentiae fructum facere nullatenus potest. Infructuosam enim paenitentiam dicimus, quae ita accipitur, ut in eadem culpa vel simili deteriori vel parum minori permaneatur’; transl. Cowdrey, Register, 334.

13 Reg. vii.14a (5), 481-2: ‘Sicut enim falsum baptisma non lavat originale peccatum, ita post baptismum falsa paenitentia non delet nefas commissum. […] Haec est enim vera penitentia, ut post commissum alicuius gravioris criminis, utpote meditati homicidii et sponte commissi seu periurii pro cupiditate honoris aut pecuniae facti vel aliorum his similium, ita se unusquisque ad Deum convertat, ut relictis omnibus iniquitatibus suis deinde in fructibus bonae operationis permaneat.’; transl. Cowdrey, Register, 341.

14 Reg. i.47, 73: ‘Pone itaque finem in voluntate peccandi et prostrata coram illa ex corde contrito et humiliate (Ps. 50: 19) lacrimas effunde’; transl. Cowdrey, Register, 53.

15 Cowdrey, ‘Spirituality of Gregory VII’, 14: ‘Gregory foreshadowed and prepared the way for twelfth-century developments both inside and outside the monastic order by his endeavours to base penance more largely upon personal contrition and penitence’.

16 Peter Abelard’s Ethics, ed. and trans. Luscombe, D. E. (Oxford, 1971), 428, 546 Google Scholar. On twelfth-century theology of penance see Anciaux, P., La Théologie du sacrement de la pénitence au XIIe siècle (Louvain and Gembloux, 1949), 63113 Google Scholar; Müller, Karl, ‘Der Umschwung in der Lehre von der Busse während des 12. Jahrhunderts’, in Adolf Harnack, ed., Theologische Ahhandlungen. Carl von Weizsäcker zu seinem siebzigsten Geburtstage, 11 December 1802 (Freiburg, 1892), 289320 Google Scholar; Mansfield, Mary C., The Humiliation of Sinners: Public Penance in Thirteenth-Century France (Ithaca, NY, 1995), 1859 Google Scholar.

17 Peter Abelard’s Ethics, 88, 101.

18 Hugh of Saint Victor, De sacramentis christianae fidei, II.xiv, PL 176, 549-78.

19 Lanfranc, , Libellus de celanda confessione, PL 150, 62532 Google Scholar; although Margaret Gibson rejected Lanfranc’s authorship of this work in her Lanfranc of Bee (Oxford, 1978), 244, I follow here the arguments of Alexander Murray, ‘Confession before 1215’, TRHS ser. 6, 3 (1993), 51-81, 53, and Mansfield, Humiliation of Sinners, 21-3.

20 Pseudo-Augustine, De vera et falsa poenitentia, PL 40, 1113-30; this work has variously been attributed by modern historians to any time between the early eleventh and the early twelfth centuries: Müller, ‘Umschwung’, dated it to the late tenth-early eleventh century; Bernhard Poschmann, Penance and the Anointing of the Sick, trans. Francis Courtney (Freiburg, 1964), 158, to the eleventh century; Anciaux, Theologie, 15 at n. 2, to the second half of the eleventh century; but the modern consensus seems to be for the later dating: Ludwig Hõdl, Die Geschichte der scholastischen Literatur und der Théologie der Schlüsselgewalt, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters. Texte und Untersuchungen 3 8.4 (Münster, 1960), 158-63.

21 PL 150,629.

22 Millier, , ‘Umschwung’; Anciaux, Théologie, 6576 Google Scholar; Poschmann, , Penance, 15760 Google Scholar; Vogel, Cyrille, Le Pécheur et la pénitence au Moyen Âge (Paris, 1969), 2736 Google Scholar; Hamilton, Sarah, The Practice of Penance, 900-1050 (Woodbridge, 2001), 7 Google Scholar.

23 Hamilton, Practice, 13-15.

24 For example Gratian’s Decretum, the Glossa Ordinaria and Peter Lombard’s Sentences. This trend had begun earlier with the production of systematic collections in the early eleventh century, such as Burchard of Worms’s Decretum, c.1020; on eleventh-century systematization, see Anciaux, Théologie, 7-55.

25 Anciaux, , Théologie, 15 Google Scholar.

26 There is one important exception to this trend for a different period: Mary Mansfield’s research on public penance in thirteenth-century northern France (see above, n. 16). She examined both liturgy and canon law and drew attention to the disjunction between the reality of penitential practice and the ideals of the new scholastic theology.

27 On the French bias of current work on eleventh-century penance, see Bull, Marcus, Knightly Piety and the Lay Response to the First Crusade, the Limousin and Gascony, c.970-c.1130 (Oxford, 1993)Google Scholar; Cowdrey, H. E. J., The Cluniacs and the Gregorian Reform (Oxford, 1970), 12156 Google Scholar; Mansfield, , Humiliation of Sinners; the majority of the examples in Murray, ‘Confession before 1215 ‘, are from northern France and Norman EnglandGoogle Scholar.

28 The argument for the importance of the Italian context for the eleventh-century papal reform movement is set out in Howe, John, Church Reform and Social Change in Eleventh-Century Italy. Dominic of Sora and His Patrons (Philadelphia, 1997), passim, but especially xvixviii Google Scholar.

29 Ep. viii, PL 149, 930-2; transl. Cowdrey, Cluniacs, 128.

30 On Peter Damian’s life and work see Jean Leclercq, Saint Pierre Damien ermite et homme d’église (Rome, 1960).

31 Die Briefe des Petrus Damiani, ed. Reindel, Kurt, MGH, Die Briefe des deutschen Kaiserzeit IV, 4 vols (Munich, 1983-93), Ep. 14, 1: 14550.Google Scholar

32 The foundation charter of San Pietro Avellano (1026): Historia abbatiae Cassinensis per saeculorum seriem distributa, ed. Erasmo Gattula, 2 vols (Venice, 1733), 1: 238; Howe, Church Reform, 108, 115.

33 Howe also suggests it was a form prevalent in the region: Church Reform, 115-16. For a more positive interpretation of such formulae see Bull, , Knightly Piety, 1556 Google Scholar.

34 Howe, Church Reform, 60.

35 Ibid., 107.

36 Reg. viii.9, 527-8: ‘Quoniam iiicliil in terra sine causa, sicut sapientis verba testantur, quod dudum sancta aecclesia fluctuum procellarumque mole concutitur quodque tyrannice persecutionis hactenus rabiem patitur, non nisi peccatis nostris exigentibus evenire credendum est, nam iudicia quidem Dei verissime omnia iusta sunt… Quodsi culparum morbis penitentiae medicamen adhibuerimus et excessus ac negligentias nostras ipsi districte corrigendo ad iustitiae formam mores nostros instituerimus, profecto superna virtute auxiliante et inimicorum rabies cito peribit et diu desideratam pacem atque securitatem aecclesia sancta recipiet.’ Transl. Cowdrey, Register, 374.

37 On Gregory’s conscious debt to Gregory the Great see Ladner, G. B., ‘Gregory the Great and Gregory VII’, Viator 4 (1973), 126 Google Scholar; Cowdrey, , Pope Gregory VII, passim, but especially 6957 Google Scholar.

38 On this letter see Cowdrey, , Pope Gregory VII, 2056 Google Scholar.

39 Bishop, E., Liturgica historica: Papers on the Liturgy anil Religious Life of the Western Church (Oxford, 1918), 298 Google Scholar.

40 For this argument see Mansfield, , Humiliation of Sinners, 159247 Google Scholar; Hamilton, , Practice, 10472 Google Scholar.

41 Die Bussbücher und Bussdisciplin der Kirche: nach handschriftlichen Quellen dargestellt, ed. H. J. Schmitz, 2 vols (Mainz, 1883 and Düsseldorf, 1898; repr. Graz, 1958) [hereafter Bussbücher I and Bussbücher II]. Bussbücher I, 397: ‘Ita quoque nullus sacerdotum vel pontifex peccatorum vulnera curare potest aut animabus peccata auferre, nisi praestante sollicitudine et oratione lacrimarum’. This text is also found in Halitgar of Cambrai’s ninth-century penitential: Bussbücher II, 291. For the manuscript’s date: Newton, Francis, The Scriptorium and Library at Monte Cassino, 1058-1105, Cambridge Studies in Palaeography and Codicology 7 (Cambridge, 1999), 273, n. 126 Google Scholar. On this penitential see Fournier, P., ‘Études sur les pénitentiels’, Revue d’histoire et de littérature religieuses 7 (1902), 1217 Google Scholar; Motta, G., ‘Collezioni canoniche dell’area cassinese nell’età dell’abate Desiderio’, in Avagliano, Faustino and Pecere, Oronzo, eds, L’età dell’abate Desiderio, III. I: Storia arte e cultura. Atti del W Convegno di Studi sul Medioevo meridionale, Montecassino-Cassino, 4-8 ottobre 1987, Miscellanea Cassinese 67 (Monte-cassino, 1992), 36372, 3656 Google Scholar.

42 Bussbücher I, 398: ‘Sicut ergo superius diximus, humiliare se debent episcopi sive presbyteri et cum tristitiae gemitu lacrimisque orare non solum pro suis delictis, sed etiam pro Christianorum omnium, ut possit cum beato dicere Paulo: Quis infirmatur et ego non infirmor; quis scandalizatur et ego non uror? Videns autem ille, qui ad poenitentiam venit, sacerdotem tristem et lacrymantem pro suo facinore magis ipse timore Domini perfusus amplius tristatur et timet. Postea si vides eum ex toto corde conversum apprehende manum eius dexteram et promitte emendationem vitiorum suorum et due eum amoto altare, ut confiteatur peccata sua.’ The text of this ordo is derived from the Frankish tradition: cf. Halitgar of Cambrai, Bussbücher II, 291.

43 Ein Rituale in beneventanischer Schrift: Roma, Biblioteca Vallicelliana, Cod. C32. Ende des 11. Jahrhunderts, ed. Ambros Odermatt, Spicilegium Friburgense 26 (Freiburg, 1980).

44 Ibid., no. III, 284: ‘Postea interroget eumsacerdos et dicat: Quid queritis, fratres, ut quid confugistis ad ecclesiam dei? R. penitens: Penitere, querimus de peccatis nostris’.

45 Ibid.: ‘Et sacerdos dicat: Ex toto corde estis conversi ad deum omnipotentem et redemptorem omnium animarum? R. Ex toto’.

46 Ibid., no. 128, 290-1. An alternative admonition which emphasises the parallels between penance and baptism and the need to turn away from sin follows: ibid., no. 129, 291-2.

47 Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. lat. 4772, Bussbiicher II, 405 (my emphasis). It is not found in the Romano-German pontifical: PRG, 2: cxxxvi.5, 23 5.

48 Reg. vii. 10, 472: ‘Qua in re hoc summopere vos cavere oportet aliosque monere debetis, quia, si quis in homicidium adulterium periurium vel aliquod huiusmodi lapsus in aliquo talium criminum permanserit aut negotiationi, quae vix agi sine peccato potest, operam dederit aut arma militaria portaverit, excepto si pro tuenda iustitia sua vel domini vel amici seu etiam pauperum nee pro defendendis ecclesiis, nee tamen sine religiosorum virorum consilio sumpserit, qui aetemae salutis consilium dare sapienter noverunt, aut aliena bona iniuste possederit aut in odium proximi sui exarserit, vere penitentiae fructum facere nullatenus potest.’ Transl Cowdrey, Register, 334.

49 Somerville, R., The Councib of Urban E. 1. Decreta Claromontensia, Annuarium historiae conciliorum. Supplementum 1 (Amsterdam, 1972), 74 Google Scholar. For this interpretation, see Cowdrey, , ‘Pope Gregory VII and the Bearing of Arms’, and also the earlier comments of Carl Erdmann, The Origins of the Idea of Crusade, trans. Baldwin, Marshall W. and Goffart, Walter (Princeton, NJ, 1977), 148228, especially 1712 Google Scholar.

50 Burchard, , Decretum, xix. 66, PL 140, 999 Google Scholar. On ninth-century interpretations of this law see Leyser, K. J., ‘Early Medieval Canon Law and the Beginnings of Knighthood’, in idem, Communications and Power in Medieval Europe, I: The Carolingian and Ottoman Centuries, ed. Reuter, Timothy (London, 1994), 5771 Google Scholar.

51 Mansi, J. D., Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio (Venice, 1759-98; repr. Graz, 1960), 18A: 3456; Hamilton, Practice, 193 Google Scholar.

52 The possible Italian origin of this rite is suggested by the reference to ‘castaldius’, presumably meaning the Italian office of ‘gastaldius’; cf. PRG, 2: cxxxvi.14, 240: ‘Deinde interroga eum, quale ministerium faciat, si est comes, aut castaldius…’. On the history of the Romano-German pontifical see Les Ordines romani du haut moyen âge, ed. M. Andrieu, 5 vols (Louvain, 1931-61), 5: 72-9; Vogel, C., ‘Précision sur la date et l’ordonnance primitive du pontifical romano-germanique’, Ephemerides Liturgicae 74 (1960), 14562 Google Scholar; idem, , ‘Le Pontifical romano-germanique du Xe siècle: nature, date et importance du document’, Cahiers de civilisation médiévale 6 (1963), 2748 Google Scholar; Hamilton, , Practice, 10435 Google ScholarPubMed.

53 PRG, 2: cxxxvi.14, 240.

54 On the PRG’s Nachleben in Rome see Le Pontifical romain au Moyen-Âge I, ed. M. Andrieu, Studi e Testi 86 (Vatican City, 1938); Andrieu’s argument has now been revised by Gyug, Richard F., The Pontificals of Monte Cassino’, in Avagliano and Pecere, eds, L’età dell’abate Desiderio III. I: 41339 Google Scholar. This instruction is also repeated in Rome, Biblioteca Vallicelliana, Cod. C 32: Rituale, ed. Odermatt, no. 131, 292.

55 Vogel, , Pécheur, 2736 Google Scholar.

56 Howe, , Church Reform, 107 Google Scholar. Chronica monasterii Casinensis, iv.n, ed. Hartmut Hoffmann, MGH SS 34 (Hanover, 1980), 475.

57 Briefe des Petrus Damiani, Ep. 44 (1055-7), 2: 22.

58 Ibid.

59 Ibid.

60 Briefe des Petrus Damiani, Ep. 65,2: 228-47. The dating is by no means certain: on the problems of dating this visit more accurately than c.1059-61, see ibid., 2: 230, n. 10. On the background to this visit, see Cowdrey, H. E. J., The Papacy, the Patarenes and the Church of Milan’, TRHS ser. 5, 18 (1968), 2548 Google Scholar. For more detail on the penitential aspects: Hamilton, Practice, 186-8.

61 Petri Damiani Vita Romualdi, ed. Giovanni Tabacco, Fonti per la storia d’Italia 94 (Rome, 1957), ch. 1, 13-15.

62 Ibid., ch. 5 (Peter of Orseolo), 21-5; ch. 25 (Otto III), 32-3; also ch. 11, 52-4 (Count Oliba of Cuxa confesses his sins to Romuald and is sent on pilgrimage to Monte Cassino). On Otto Ill’s penance see Sarah Hamilton, ‘Otto Ill’s Penance: a Case Study of Unity and Diversity in the Eleventh-Century Church’, in Swanson, R. N., ed., Unity and Diversity in the Church, SCH 32 (Oxford, 1996), 8394 Google Scholar.

63 See also Tolra, H., Saint Pierre Orséolo, doge de Venise puis bénédictin du monastère de Saint-Michel de Cuxa en Roussillon (Confient). Sa vie et son temps (928-987) (Paris, 1897)Google Scholar.

64 Mansi, , Conciliorum, 19: 721; Blumenthal, Ute-Renate, The Investiture Controversy (Philadelphia, 1988), 74 Google Scholar.

65 It should be noted that penance seems also to have played an important role in the work of the early eleventh-century popes, as demonstrated by the chance survival of several letters in English manuscripts. See the letters of Pope Gregory V (996-99) and Pope John [there is some debate as to whether they refer to John XVII (1003), XVIII (1003-9) or XIK (1024-33)] in Councils and Synods with Other Documents Relating to the English Church I: AD 871-1204, ed. Dorothy Whitelock, Brett, M. and Brooke, Christopher N. L., 2 vols (Oxford, 1981), 1: no. xliii. 48, 2347 Google Scholar. See also one from Pope Leo IX (1049-54) to Archbishop Eadsige of Canterbury prescribing a seven-year penance for a priest, Andrew, who had committed homicide, but also absolving him and restoring him to priestly office: Aronstam, Robin Ann, ‘Pope Leo DC and England: an Unknown Letter’, Speculum 49 (1974), 53541 Google Scholar.

66 These mostly survive in the Collectio Britannica (London, British Library, MS Additional 8873). Bull observed that the compiler of this manuscript seemingly had an interest in penance: Knightly Piety, 75. But on the compilation of what is really a canon law collection, probably drawn up in central Italy but copied in northern France between the end of the eleventh and the beginning of the twelfth century, see now Somerville, Robert, Pope Urban II, the Collectio Britannica and the Council of Melfi (1089) (Oxford, 1996), 140 Google Scholar. As Somerville noted elsewhere, the Collectio Britannica contains some eighty per cent of known papal letters ‘from a crucial period in the history of the eleventh century’: idem, ‘Mercy and Justice in the Early Months of Urban II’s Pontificate’, in Chiesa, diritto e ordinamento della ‘Societas Christiana’ nei secoli XI e XII, Atti della nona settimana internazionale di studio, Mendola, 28 agosto-2 settembre 1983 (Milan, 1986), 138-54, 148; repr. in idem, , Papacy, Councils and Canon Law in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Aldershot, 1990), IV Google Scholar.

67 Ep. 141, PL 146,1414.

68 Epistolae pontificum romanorum ineditae, ed. Loewenfeld, S. (Leipzig, 1885; repr. Graz, 1959), no. H2, 556 Google Scholar: ‘Stephano Alvernensi episcopo. Que in canonibus determinata est, penitentia est omnino observanda. Sed misericordie gratia, que nulla lege concluditur, nullo temporis spatio cohercetur, non est pie penitentibus deneganda. Pastoralis itaque discretionis est, uniuscuiusque contrictionem cordis et doloris affectum magis quam temporis spatium attendere, et pro meritis operum fructuque penitentiae misericordiae oleum adhibere’.

69 Ibid., no. 107, 53.

70 Ibid.: ‘Hoc anno ecclesiam ne ingrcdiaris, neque communices nisi pro necessitate mortis’.

71 Ep. 100, PL 146, 1386.

72 Reg. ii.48, 188.

73 Epistolae vagantes, no. 68, 151-2. Attributed to Gregory VII in a canonical collection (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat 8922, fol. 173r), and accepted by Cowdrey as having ‘probably emanated from Rome during the pontificate of Gregory VII’, ibid., 150.

74 Epistolaepontificum, no. 132, 64; also inSomerville,Po/»e Urbanll, 164. Somerville suggests this case might be linked to the interdict placed by Archbishop William of Rouen (1079-1110) on the entire duchy of Normandy in 1090 because of an attack by Duke Robert on the castle of Gisors. See also Cowdrey, ‘Pope Gregory VII and the Bearing of Arms’, 21.

75 Reg.i.34, 55.

76 Epistolae pontificum, no. 107, 53.

77 Jungmann, Josef A., Die lateinischen Bussriten in ihrer geschichtlichen Enturicklung (Innsbruck, 1932), 1906; Hamilton, Practice, 16670 Google Scholar.

78 Andrieu, Whilst, Pontifical romain, thought the twelfth-century Roman pontifical was composed in Rome, Gyug, The Pontificals of Monte Cassino’, has suggested the origins of this influential text lie in the revision of the Romano-German pontifical made at Monte Cassino under Abbot Desiderius. There is no rite for public penance in the twelfth-century Roman pontifical. On the absence of evidence for this practice from tenth- and eleventh-century Italy see Hamilton, Practice, 170, 208 Google Scholar.

79 Diuersorum patrum sententie siue Collectio in LXXIV titulos digesta, ed. J. T. Gilchrist, Monumenta iuris canonici, series B: Corpus collectionum 1 (Vatican City, 1973); the absence of penitential material may explain the penitential tinge of the south Italian appendix to the Collection in Seventy-Four Titles, identified by Reynolds, Roger E. in Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, MS 16.15: The South Italian Collection in Five Books and its Derivatives: a South Italian Appendix to the Collection in Seventy-Four Titles’, Mediaeval Studies 63 (2001), 35365 Google Scholar.

80 Die Kanonessammlung des Kardinals Deusdedit, ed. Victor Wolf von Glanvell (Paderborn, 1905; repr. Aalen, 1967).

81 Collectio Canonum in V libris (Lib. i-iii), ed. M. Fornasari, CChr.CM 6 (Turnhout, 1970); unfortunately the penitential books iv and v remain unedited. See the description of Monte Cassino, Cod. Lat CXXV (second quarter of the eleventh century) in Bibliotheca Casinensis seu codicum manuscriptorum qui in tabulario Casinensi asservantur, Monachorum ordines Benedicti, S. abbatiae Montis Casini, eds, 5 vols (Montecassino, 1873-94), 3: 519 Google Scholar.

82 See above, n. 7. The manuscripts of Anselm’s Collection fall into two main groups, A which includes the penitential book XI, and B which excludes book XI. I have consulted an Italian twelfth-century manuscript of recension A: Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 269; see Kéry, Lotte, Canonical Collections of the Early Middle Ages (ca. 400-1140). A Bibliographical Guide to the Manuscripts and Literature (Washington, DC, 1999), 21819 Google Scholar. On this collection see now Cushing, K. G., Papacy and Law in the Gregorian Revolution: the Canonistic Work of Anselm of Lucca (Oxford, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, although she does not consider book XI in any detail.

83 Liber de vita Christiana, ed. Perels (see n. 7), book DC, 277-304; on Bonizo’s work, see Walter Berschin, Bonizo von Sutri: Leben und Werk, Beiträge zur Geschichte und Quellenkunde des Mittelalters 2 (Berlin and New York, 1972).

84 Anselm, , Collectio, XI. 20 Google Scholar.

85 Ibid., XI.29.

86 Burchard, , Decretum, xix. 37 and 66, PL 140, 987, 999 Google Scholar. On this work’s rapid and wide diffusion in Italy, see Meyer, O., ‘Überlieferung und Verbreitung des Dekrets des Bischofs Burchard von Worms’, Zeilschrift der Savigny-Stifiung für Rechtsgeschichte: Kanonistische Abteilung 24 (1935), 14183 Google Scholar; Hamilton, , Practice, 33 at n. 40 Google Scholar.

87 Liber de vita Christiana, ii.52, 60: ‘In cena Domini antiqua traditione a Sanctis patribus accepimus reconciliari specialiter debere penitentes, ideo quia eo die sacramentorum, baptismi scilicet et sanguinis Domini, apostolis a domino Christo donata fuit traditio. Et quia hoc officium, scilicet reconciliatio et confectio crismatis, solis debetur episcopis’.

88 Ibid., 61: ‘Nunc vero de his, qui iuxta apostolum traditi sunt sathane in interitum carnis, ut spiritus salvus sit in die Domini, qualiter in cena Domini secundum aecclesiasticum morem ab episcopo debeant reconciliari, breviter enarremus’.

89 Ibid., 61-2.

90 Ibid., 62: ‘Et hoc secundum Romanos, quos omnes orientales et Germanorum imitantes aecclesiae’.

91 PRG, 2: xcix.224-51, 59-67; on this liturgy see Hamilton, Practice, 118-28.

92 For eleventh-century records of this rite: Hamilton, Practice, 150-66; on its twelfth-, thirteenth- and fourteenth-century life, see Mansfield, Humiliation of Sinners, 188-247.

93 Berschin, , Bonizo; Fournier, Paul and Bras, Gabriel Le, Histoire des Collections canoniques en Occident de Puis les fausses decrétales jusqu’au Décret de Gratien, 2 vols (Paris, 1931-32), 2: r 3950 Google Scholar; Fournier, Paul, ‘Bonizo de Sutri, Urbain II et la comtesse Mathilde, d’après le Liber de vita Christiana de Bonizo’, Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes 78 (1917), 11734 Google Scholar.

94 This evidence goes against the trend of modern scholarship which tends to dismiss the Lotharingian influence on the canon law of the papal reformers: Fuhrmann, Horst, Einfluβ una Verbreitung der pseudoisidorischen Fälschungen: von ihrem Auftauchen bis in die neuere Zeit, MGH Schriften 24, 3 vols (Stuttgart, 1972-4), 2: 340 Google Scholar; Robinson, I. S., Authority and Resistance in the Investiture Contest: the Polemical Literature of the Late Eleventh Century (Manchester, 1978), 111 Google Scholar; Blumenthal, Ute-Renate, The Papacy and Canon Law in the Eleventh-Century Reform’, CathHR 84 (1998), 20118, 205 Google Scholar.

95 He also records a variant on this rite, ascribed to ‘certain westerners’, for which I have not been able to discover any precedent; see Liber de vita christiana, ii.52, 62: ‘Sciendum tamen est, quia non omnes, qui redduntur per manus episcopi ecclesiae, eo die sacre communionis merentur gratiam, set hii tantum, qui peracta penitentia celestis mensae redintegrantur convivio’.

96 Burchard, , Decretum, xix.100, PL 140, 10034 Google Scholar; the Collection in Five Books, iv.$4; Anselm, Collectio, xi.8-10 and 19. See also Collectio canonum Barberiniana, ed. Fornasari, M., Apollinaris: commentarius iuris canonici 36 (1963), 12741, 21497 Google Scholar, ch. lxiii, 259; the source for this canon is Hincmar of Rheims, Epistola synodica, PL 125, 776; the collection was composed in Italy between 1050 and 1073: Kéry, Canonical Collections, 283. Finally, cf. the early twelfth-century collection, The Collectio canonum Casinensis duodecimi seculi (codex terscriptus). A Derivative of the South-Italian Collection in Five Books. An Implicit Edition with Introductory Study, ed. Reynolds, Roger E., Studies and Texts 137 (Toronto, 2001), V; its source is Burchard, Decretum, xix.100 Google Scholar.

97 On their influence in the tenth and early eleventh centuries, see Fuhrmann, H., ‘Pseudoisidor in Rom vom Ende der Karolingerzeit bis zum Reformpapsttum’, Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 78 (1967), 1566 Google Scholar.

98 Jong, Mayke de, ‘What Was Public about Public Penance? Paenitentia publica and Justice in the Carolingian World’, in La Giustizia nell’Alto Medioevo: secoli DC-XI, Settimane di studio del Centro italiano di studi sull’Alto Medioevo 44 (Spoleto, 1997), 863902 Google Scholar; eadem, , ‘Power and Humility in Carolingian Society: the Public Penance of Louis the Pious’, Early Medieval Europe 1 (1992), 2952 Google Scholar.

99 C. 25: Concilia aevi Karolini, ed. Albertus Werminghoff, MGH Concilia II. 1, 2 vols (Hanover, 1906), 1: 278: ‘Paenitentiam agere iuxta antiquam canonum constitutionem in plerisque locis ab usu recessit, et neque excommunicandi neque reconciliandi antiqui moris ordo servatur. Ut a domno imperatore impetretur adiutatorium, qualiter, si publice peccat, publica multetur paenitentia et secundum ordinem canonum pro merito suo et excommunicetur et reconcilietur’.

100 C. 38: ibid., 1: 281.

101 Nelson, Janet L., ‘Kingship and Empire’, in Burns, J. H., ed., The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought c.350-c.1 450 (Cambridge, 1988), 2256 Google Scholar.

102 C. 32: Concilia aevi Karolini, 2: 633; this description is by de Jong. ‘What Was Public about Public Penance?’, 901.

103 Ibid.

104 For the view that Carolingian reforms were effective see Rosamond Pierce, The “Frankish” Penitentials’, in Baker, Derek, ed., The Materials, Sources and Methods of Ecclesiastical History, SCH n (Oxford, 1975), 319; for the view that penitentials continued to circulate, see Frantzen, Allen J., The Significance of the Frankish Penitentials’. JEH 30 (1979), 40921 Google Scholar; on the penitentials composed by Halitgar and Hrabanus Maurus and their manuscripts see Kottje, Raymund, Die Bussbiicher Halitgars von Cambrai und des Hrabanus Maurus: ihre Überlieferung und ihre Quellen (Berlin and New York, 1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

105 Tender, Thomas N., Sin and Confession on the Eve of the Reformation (Princeton, NJ, 1977), 34962 Google Scholar. See in this volume the essays by Bagchi, David, ‘Luther and the Sacramentality of Penance’, 11977 Google Scholar and Bossy, John, ‘Satisfaction in Early Modern Europe, c. 14001700’, 10618 Google Scholar.