Informal Penance in Early Medieval Christendom

Throughout the modern period Catholic and Orthodox Christians alike have taken it for granted that forgiveness for sins committed after baptism is obtained first and foremost through confession to a priest and absolution by a priest, the humility of confession plus the power of the sacrament being deemed the most effective remedy for human weakness. Other elements in overcoming sin, such as regular religious observance and the avoidance of the occasions of sin, were not forgotten, but were put in second place. The falling away from sacramental confession in the Catholic Church today is doubtless a complex phenomenon, but one reason for the decline is the widespread perception that this remedy does not work, that a penitential discipline that places so heavy a reliance on the power of priestly absolution, without adequate attention to the other aspects of repentance and forgiveness, is ineffectual. It also represents what is arguably an impoverished and clericalized Catholicism. The aim of this paper is to explore those elements of penitential practice in the early middle ages that belong to a tradition at once richer and more flexible.