What is a penitential?
Handbooks of penance, or penitentials, are catalogues listing sins and the penances assigned to each by the priest in confession. Penitentials usually have two parts: 1) an introduction instructing the priest in how to receive the penitent, sometimes called the ordo confessionis; and 2) a list of sins with graded penances for them (usually called the “tariff penitential”). In the Old English corpus, only the Canons of Theodore lacks an introduction addressed to the priest (although it does contain a preface). In manuscript form, penitentials survive more often as parts of larger manuscript codices rather than as the small, self-contained handbooks presumably common in the Middle Ages. A few such handbook-sized ` do, however, exist; MS Y, Laud Misc. 482, is one of them. Although penance was not a sacrament in Anglo-Saxon England, there was, as these texts suggest, a well-developed penitential theology during the period. The introduction tells the priest how to administer confession, int
