This article is an exercise in the study of penitentials in their manuscript context: it focuses on Carolingian miscellanies of a didactic nature, which include fragments of penitential texts, in an effort to decipher what their exact purpose and audience may have been. It will argue that two distinct categories of ‘educational penitentials’ can be discerned in books produced during the period of cultural growth of the late eighth and ninth century known as the Carolingian Renaissance. The first comprised collections of a morally educative character; in the context of these manuscripts, the penitentials resemble moral treatises. The second were more obviously school books, since they also included texts such as glossaries and treatises on the seven liberal arts; some of them were used to educate future confessors, while others reflect the need to include moral education about sin in Carolingian school curricula.Footnote ¹ In these educational manuscripts, penitentials were often excerpted and presented in a more succinct matter, sometimes as lists of sins, in the systematic fashion of a school text. The article will also argue that lists of sins in the context of educational penitentials often functioned as mnemonic schemes.

The promotion of penitential ideals was part and parcel of the Carolingian programme of reform. The Carolingian reformers were preoccupied with the concept of religious and moral correctio. School subjects such as grammar were taught with an emphasis on spiritual and moral betterment: for example, those who knew how to read well could engage with the Gospels and those who were aware of the basics of harmony could participate in ecclesiastical hymnody.Footnote ² In the context of Carolingian society, penance was therefore extremely important since a Christian society ought to have mechanisms in place for dealing with sin. Penitential handbooks of Irish origin were available and known on the European mainland from the sixth century, but in the ninth century Frankish penitentials also emerged and there was an upsurge in the production of penitential manuscripts.Footnote ³ In addition, texts widely utilized in the Carolingian education system often included a strong moral and penitential component: Carolingian students learned how to read by using the Psalms, often committing them to memory. Alcuin of York, one of the protagonists of the Carolingian programme of reform, was the first to comment on the seven penitential psalms as a distinct group, in his Exposition on the Penitential Psalms.Footnote ⁴ Alcuin also wrote a text which sheds light on the importance of penance, addressed to the young monks of St Martin at Tours. This text, entitled Ad pueros sancti Martini, is interesting in its dismissal of feelings of shame, presented in a discussion of the physiological symptom of blushing, which, according to Alcuin, often kept students from confessing their sins.Footnote ⁵ This discussion of penance in a school context shows that there was an educational aspect to the theological discussion about the sacrament. Throughout Alcuin's oeuvre, sins and virtues are perceived as being constantly in battle with one another, with each vice having its antidote: this echoes Prudentius's Psychomachia, another influential work often used as a school text.Footnote ⁶

Penitential handbooks were important texts throughout the Middle Ages and remain invaluable sources for the study of a range of aspects of medieval history, from episcopal power to personal religiosity and attitudes towards gender and sexuality.Footnote ⁷ In addition, the notion that some penitentials may have had an educational aspect to them has not been left entirely unexplored: the idea that specific manuscripts may have been used for educational purposes, either for the laity or for ministers hearing confessions, has been suggested by Rob Meens who, in his study of the so-called ‘Tripartite penitentials’ (those drawing on three traditions, Irish, Anglo-Saxon and Frankish) noted eight ‘educational’ manuscripts.Footnote ⁸ However, Meens hesitated to suggest an audience for these educational books.Footnote ⁹ Four of them contain extracts from the Carolingian penitential of Halitgar of Cambrai, one of the so-called ‘reform penitentials’ written to counterbalance what were thought to be inconsistencies between the penitential handbooks which were in circulation at the time.Footnote ¹⁰

The presence of this type of book in Carolingian monastic or cathedral libraries can be examined in the context of the debate surrounding the use of penitential handbooks before 1215, when the promulgation of the canon Omnis utriusque sexus at the Fourth Lateran Council made annual confession compulsory.Footnote ¹¹ Following research by Franz Kerff, Alexander Murray asserted that the penitentials were mainly used by bishops in a judicial context, as guides to the imposition of penalties.Footnote ¹² In contrast, Raymund Kottje, after examining the vocabulary and terminology of the texts, concluded that most were actually used in a pastoral context by priests, for the administration of penance.Footnote ¹³ It has also been suggested that there was a move from the use of penitentials in a pastoral context in the ninth century to a juridical or episcopal context in the tenth and eleventh centuries.Footnote ¹⁴ Determining the audience for what I will refer to as ‘educational penitentials’ is helpful for the ongoing rewriting of the existing grand narratives regarding the use of penitential handbooks and consequently regarding the practice of penance. Most of the educational penitentials occupy an awkward position between pastoral and judicial manuscripts, sharing some common characteristics with each category but defying precise categorization as either. It is worth noting, however, that by contrast with judicial manuscripts, the tariffs in educational penitentials are in most cases presented as remedies for sin, rather than as punishments for sinners.Footnote ¹⁵ Their nature is more informative than preventative: often the tariffs for sins are not included in the manuscript, as seen in the many books which include only the opening chapters of Halitgar's penitential, which provide definitions of sins and their corresponding virtues. When the tariffs are included, they are presented more as remedies than as punishments: for example, in the rubrics of the penitential texts in a Vatican Library manuscript discussed below, BAV, MS Pal. Lat. 485, the word ‘remedy’ is used frequently in the titles of the penitential texts included and at one point a text is called ‘salutary medicine for the soul’.Footnote ¹⁶ For these reasons, therefore, ‘educational penitentials’, even though they form their own distinct category, can be seen as part of the same movement that led to the proliferation of pastoral manuscripts in the ninth century.

As mentioned above, I have made a broad distinction between books that read like collections of moralizing texts with an emphasis on penitential themes and books resembling school manuscripts. Moralizing collections including penitentials may have been a Carolingian innovation, but their transcription and proliferation was not limited to the ninth century: a large number of these manuscripts were actually produced during the tenth and eleventh centuries. For example, the tenth-century Zurich, Zentralbibliothek, MS Rh. 102 also contains texts from Augustine, Jerome, Isidore, Bede, Alcuin and Gennadius.Footnote ¹⁷ This particular manuscript addresses theological questions and includes a creed, an epistle by Jerome regarding the assumption of Mary, and extracts from Isidore of Seville's Etymologies concerning God, the Holy Spirit and the Trinity. It was, perhaps, intended for the basic theological education of young priests or monks. Similarly, the tenth-century Paris, BN, MS 2077 focuses on theology, with a specific interest in heresiology, including texts such as Augustine's works against the Manichees and Arians, as well as other patristic extracts, notably by Fulgentius of Ruspe and Gregory the Great.Footnote ¹⁸

Books that belong in the second category of educational penitentials resemble miscellanies more closely: they are essentially school books, including such items as glossaries and computus texts, as well as penitentials. The penitentials themselves are often excerpted. This article focuses on these books, since they constitute a unique but understudied category of manuscripts.Footnote ¹⁹ Most of the manuscripts discussed here date from the second half of the ninth century and their conception can be examined in the context of the Carolingian Renaissance.Footnote ²⁰ There are more educational manuscripts with penitentials than the few examples following indicate; I have focused on those including works which were Carolingian schoolbooks par excellence.

One example of a miscellany including both educational and penitential texts is Vatican City, BAV, MS Pal. Lat. 485, a late Carolingian compilation from Lorsch. According to Frederick Paxton, this book functions as ‘a manuscript tool needed to translate the goals of the reform into reality’.Footnote ²¹ The manuscript contains votive missal formulae, collectively known as the ‘Lorsch confession’, a computus and calendar, Instructiones cryptographicae, a manual for dream analysis, interpretations of Hebrew and Greek names, pseudo-Alcuinian expositions on the mass and an epistle of Jesse of Amiens on baptism, along with canons and various penitential works (including penitentials by pseudo-Egbert and Cummean). This manuscript, in short, combines penitential works with liturgical material and other texts intended to have a practical use, such as the computus, as well as reference works on dreams and Greek and Hebrew names and expositions on the sacraments. Overall, the tome appears as a compendium which could function simultaneously as a reference work, a teaching manual and a book to be used during the liturgy. The inclusion of capitularies addressed to the clergy, texts providing education on basic sacramental theology and information on the meaning of Greek and Hebrew words shows beyond doubt that the manuscript was used for the education of priests. This collection of texts is indicative of the expectations placed upon clergy by Carolingian reformers and of the pivotal role that education was considered to play in the fulfilment of their ministry.

Another educational miscellany, St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, MS Cod. Sang. 184 (codicological unit 2), is a particularly interesting manuscript, the purpose of which only becomes clear upon closer inspection.Footnote ²² Bound with another, slightly later book, it contains texts by Augustine and the beginning of Halitgar's penitential (under the title De octo principalibus vitiis, ‘On the eight principal sins’), as well as computistical and astronomical texts. The first text in the collection, Augustine's sermon De disciplina christianorum, makes the purpose of the compilation clear: in it Augustine uses the word ‘discipline’ in the sense of learning.Footnote ²³ The ‘learning’ to which Augustine refers is Christian instruction and teaching, the knowledge of how to ‘live well’, essential for Christians who wish to inherit eternal life.Footnote ²⁴ Learning is seen, in Augustine's text, as a means to fulfil God's plan on earth. This hints that the collection has a moral educational value, with Halitgar's penitential extract having a preventative as well as an educational function in the context of the manuscript. The penitential fragment therefore, fits well with the computistical texts, schemata, tables and glossaries which were also included in the manuscript, as each had its own part to play in providing a complete Christian education. The make-up of this collection suggests that learning about capital sins and their corresponding virtues was essential for educated Christians, and especially priests and those being prepared for the monastic life.

A third example of a penitential used in a school environment can be found in BAV, MS Reg. lat. 215, possibly written in Tours. This book includes an excerpt from Halitgar's penitential, along with letters by, and excerpts from works by, the Church Fathers Jerome and Isidore, glosses on the Gospels, a list of synonyms attributed to Cicero (Synonyma Ciceronis) and Isidore's Chronicle. The manuscript also contains the Scolica grecarum glossarum, which are considered to be lecture notes from a Greek class.Footnote ²⁵ The excerpts from Halitgar's penitential are once again the chapters on the cardinal virtues, consisting entirely of passages borrowed from Julianus Pomerius and Alcuin's De vitiis et virtutibus. Moreover, the same passage from Halitgar's penitential is excerpted in another manuscript, the ninth- or tenth-century BN, MS Lat. 242 (codicological unit 3), another school book, containing among other texts the aforementioned Synonyma Ciceronis.Footnote ²⁶ In these collections, penitentials, works by Church Fathers and glossaries enhanced and complemented one another, all considered as works possessing significant educational value for Christians.

The emphasis on the enumeration and description of sins, as seen in the excerpted passages from Halitgar's penitential and found in two of the three manuscripts mentioned above, provides a systemization that would be useful in an educational context. A school manuscript which demonstrates this is one that does not contain a penitential text: Leiden, Universiteitsbibliotheek MS Voss. Lat. F. 48, a copy of the famous late antique tract on the seven liberal arts, The Marriage of Philology and Mercury, with the addition of extensive glosses, is one of the best-known ninth-century school books.Footnote ²⁷ The final pages of this manuscript are dedicated to diagrams and notes. One, in particular, seems out of place. It reads:

This is the beginning of a sixth- or seventh-century Irish moral tract which lists, as its title proclaims, the twelve ‘abuses’ committed by specific categories of people.Footnote ²⁹ This text has attracted interest in modern scholarship mainly because of the ninth abuse, the ‘unjust king’, which has been considered as a precursor of, or an example for, the Carolingian ‘mirrors of kingship’.Footnote ³⁰ This text has no obvious connection to the rest of the notes and diagrams, nor does it seem to be related to the original text and the glosses: its position between diagrams connected to the disciplines of harmony and mathematics may be connected to medieval theories on the philosophical resonance of numbers and the order of a Christian universe.Footnote ³¹ However, the complete text was also often transmitted with penitential literature, as can be found in two ninth-century manuscripts, St Gallen, MSS Cod. Sang. 277 and 570, which combine De duodecim abusivis with the penitential of Halitgar. This is not entirely unexpected, since De duodecim abusivis is, essentially, a list of sins. What is more, it could be used as a mnemonic device similar to the lists of vices in penitentials.Footnote ³²

In a moralizing movement with a perfect society as its ultimate goal, such as was the Carolingian Renaissance, precise catalogues of moral entities, transmitted by the clerical elite, were used to convince penitents of the importance of discretion and restraint. It was important to define the sins, to discuss them at length and then to exercise the self-control needed to refrain from them. The notion of self-control as the root of sinlessness and as something to be taught can be found in the Church Fathers whose early lists of principal sins were very influential on penitential literature, especially in the works of Gregory the Great and John Cassian, written primarily with a monastic audience in mind but by the Carolingian period definitely reaching the laity. In them the reader is warned that sinners often rationalize their behaviour and claim to be innocent. Gregory's definition of sin is based on lack of reason: reason helps the Christian not to become a slave to his or her passions and also to avoid making absurd rationalizations which would lead to more sinning.Footnote ³³ Penitential education was required to cultivate this kind of reason.

Educational penitentials should probably be understood in the context of Carolingian efforts to reform and educate the clergy, both secular and monastic. They are an expression of the ideal combination of liberal arts and divine learning, as promoted in such formative works as Cassiodorus's Institutions and Augustine's On Christian Doctrine. The manuscripts described here were probably used in a ‘school’ setting, where pupils were studying under a master. Some were used as reference works, books which could be referred to for information when needed, or as core texts in the library of their respective foundation. They were transcribed for the needs of these pupils, who were probably either future clergymen or oblates.Footnote ³⁴ Lay students of possibly ‘external’ monastic schools or cathedral schools are a more unlikely choice for an ‘audience’ of educational penitentials, due to the overall lack of evidence for an existence of a regular, institutionalized form of education for lay people during the Carolingian period, especially during the mid-to-late ninth century when internal struggles and Viking attacks took their toll on education.Footnote ³⁵

In conclusion, there is a specific category of books that can be considered ‘educational penitentials’. These can be studied separately from pastoral and judicial penitentials, since their use and purpose are entirely different. They were not conceived as handbooks with lists of penalties or as confessors’ manuals; instead, their purpose was to inform and instruct. Some of them were conceived as collections of morally edifying texts, while others were transcribed to be used as handbooks for the education of priests and future confessors. The excerption of the penitential texts and the layout of these manuscripts points to the desire of the compilers to promote memorization, but only to a degree: it was important to keep the contents of the manuscripts in mind rather than learning them by heart. This is made apparent by the fact that many of the excerpted penitentials are accompanied in the manuscripts by common reference works, such as computistical texts, schemata, tables and glossaries. Students needed to keep the harmful effects of sinning in mind, but they could always refer back to the book for more detailed information.

Despite their seemingly miscellaneous nature, these manuscripts show a remarkable passion for cohesion and organization. In fact, many of their attributes can be related to values formulated and established during the Carolingian Renaissance: the passion for the collecting, rewriting and rearranging of texts, the attempt to organize thought processes, and the emphasis on proper conduct and discipline. It is also easy to trace the creation of these collections back to the higher echelons of clerical hierarchy, who were interested in the formation of a clergy that could properly administer the sacraments. Perhaps these attributes can be seen as authentically Carolingian; more importantly, they provide evidence that there was almost always an undeniable purpose behind medieval ‘miscellaneous’ collections. The purpose, in this case, was to serve as useful handbooks for the moral cultivation and education of a priesthood that would be able to fulfil God's plan on earth.