En remission des peches: Recherches sur les systemes penitentiels dans l'Eglise latine (review)

Anyone who has worked in the field of liturgical history is familiar with Cyrille Vogel’s name. His Medieval Liturgy: An Introduction to the Sources (a revised and updated translation of Introduction aux sources de l’histoire du culte chrétien au Moyen Âge) is indispensable. Vogel is especially well known for his work in the history of penance and penitential systems—four books and many articles. This book will be a useful resource for the history of penance, as it gathers twelve of Vogel’s significant articles on aspects of penance in the Western Church.

The book keeps the pagination of the original publications and provides a detailed and useful index. The first and last essays provide general overviews. The remaining essays are more in the style of what I have come to expect from French historians: specific, detailed, precise, with few generalizations or conclusions. There is no discernible logic to the arrangement of the essays in this collection, but they do illustrate the wide-ranging scope of Vogel’s historical interest.

The first essay is a posthumously published reflection on the history of Western penance. It carefully delineates the historical periods and the various penitential systems that have existed, calling attention to often neglected aspects. It concludes with some comments on the refusal of Catholic Church authorities to accept the draft of a reformed ritual of penance prepared by the commission on which Vogel served. That draft was tabled because of objections from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith—a new commission was appointed later, which prepared the Rite of Penance approved in 1973—although Vogel mentions none of this, leading to some confusion for the reader who is not well informed on the process leading to the present Catholic ritual.

Three essays deal with punitive aspects of penance: the interrelation of penance and excommunication in the ancient and high medieval periods, sanctions imposed on laity and clerics by councils in Gaul, and peregrina communio (in effect, a temporary suspension of a cleric). Though Vogel draws no conclusions, much of the data gathered here is not otherwise easily available.

The next essay is a valuable and lengthy discussion of penitential commutations and redemptions and their relationship to civil compositio. In it Vogel challenges the view that tariff penance was simply the transposition into the moral and religious realm of the Germanic Wergelt. He admits that commutations were analogous to the civil compositio but sees a likelier origin in the bishop’s supervision and adaptation of the penitential system in the ancient period.

Vogel’s doctoral work was on the penitential system in Gaul prior to the tenth century. One essay here shows to what extent the system can be reconstructed using lives of the saints. He notes the multiple means of remission of sins and the lack of a single institution. The study is detailed and contains data otherwise not readily available. Another essay looks in detail at a particular means, pilgrimage. Although this has been studied by other authors, Vogel offers several valuable insights.

A detailed analysis of the various rituals of public penance in the tenth and eleventh centuries shows the survival into the Middle Ages of elements of the ancient order of penitents. Unfortunately, Vogel offers no opinion on the extent to which this was more than a literary survival, a suspicion that has been voiced by some historians.

Only one essay deals explicitly with the ancient period, a study of paleo-Christian inscriptions. Vogel concludes that there was little if any distinction at the time between penitens, conversus, and religiosus, and that deathbed penance was becoming increasingly important near the end of the ancient period.

An interesting study of Burchard of Worms’ Corrector sive medicus shows the popularity of certain superstitious practices...