The Sacrament of Penance

The new vision of purgatory, which exercised so powerful an influence on the religious imagination of the West in the eleventh and twelfth centuries and thereafter, was accompanied by important liturgical developments relating to the sacrament of penance.

Although the sacrament was still called "penance" (poenitentia), the penitential works, which were postponed and to that extent dissociated from contrition, confession, and absolution, were for the first time expressly identified with "punishment" (poena) for previous sinful acts. The leading eleventh­century tract on the subject, Concerning True and False Penance, which had a strong influence on later theological and legal writings, identifies poenitentia with poenam tenere, "to undergo punishment." ¹¹ The author states: "Properly speaking, punishment (poena) is a hurt (laesio) which punishes and avenges (vindicat) what one commits... Penance (poenitentia) is therefore an avenging (vindicatio), always punishing in oneself what he is sorry to have done." ¹² This was an important shift in emphasis away from the earlier meaning of penance as works of contrition symbolizing a turning from sin and toward God and neighbor.

The priest's power of absolution was said to derive from Christ's transfer to St. Peter of "the keys of the kingdom," with "the power to bind and to loose" (Matt. 16:19). This had been originally understood solely as the power to impose or remit eternal punishment. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, however, the power to impose punishment in the form

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of penitential works was said to derive from the same source: by confession, eternal punishment c ould be converted into temporal punishment. 13 This w a s a far cry from the "charismatic" penance of the East, with its emphasis on healing and spiritual counsel; 14 it was also far removed from the penitential discipline that had been practiced in the monasteries of the West from the sixth to the eleventh centuries (and which had also been extended outside the monasteries), for that earlier discipline had been m uch less formal and had retained to a far greater extent the "Eastern" character. Also in that earlier period penitential discipline was entirely local and varied from place to place. Finally, while in the East, as in the earlier period in the West, the priest invoked divine forgiveness but could not himself declare the sinner to be absolved, after the Papal Revolution a new formula was introduced in the West: Ego te absolvo ("I absolve you"). This was at first interpreted as the priest's certification of God's action, resulting from contrition and confession. In the twelfth century, however, it was interpreted as having a performative, that is, a sacramental, as well as a declarative, effect. 15