and requiring suitable medicines prescribed by a
physician. The monastery was the place where these
received chronic therapy following a dominant
assumption of late antique medicine: “contraries heal
contraries”—just as, for instance, the physical illness
of fever needs cold, so the spiritual illness of gluttony
requires fasting. Thus in extant libellieven when
Cassian is not quoted, medical language is applied
to the reconciliation process, and the sins are
arranged systematically under the vices which produce
them. Since the actual practice depends on this theo-
logical underpinning, legal texts with penitential-
like materials should not be seen as proto-penitentials,
as often happens, but as legal supplements to an
established system of penitence based in the use of
penitentials.
The penitentials’ originality lay in extending to
everyone and every action, however serious, a method
for helping monks overcome ongoing imperfections.
This avoided the problems of public penance in being
repeatable and linking penance for sins with everyday
penitential practice. There is no evidence that new
discipline met resistance in Ireland, but the system did
encounter some resistance among Anglo-Saxon clergy,
and later much sterner opposition among Frankish
clergy. However, the practice gradually gained ground
probably due to its pastoral practicality, and left a
complex legacy to the Western church: it generated an
increasing awareness of the place of internal contrition
and conscience in sin, it led directly to the develop-
ment of indulgences whereby one penance was
replaced by another of equal worth but with less physical
demands, and it provided the practical—and some of
the theological—background to all later Western sys-
tems of penance (e.g., what the twelfth-century canon-
ists called the “sacrament of penance”).
THOMASO’LOUGHLIN
References and Further Reading
Bieler, Ludwig, ed. The Irish Penitentials: Scriptores Latini
Hiberniae V. Dublin: The Dublin Institute for Advanced
Studies, 1975.
McNeill, John T., and Gamer, Helena M. Medieval Handbooks
of Penance. New York: Columbia University press, 1938.
O’Loughlin, Thomas. Celtic Theology: Humanity, World and
God in Early Irish Writings. London: Continuum, 2000,
pp.48–67.
O’Loughlin, Thomas. “Penitentials and Pastoral Care.” In A
History of Pastoral Care, edited by Gillian R. Evans, 93-
- London: Cassell, 2000.
O’Loughlin, Thomas, and Conrad-O’Briain, Helen. “The ‘Bap-
tism of Tears’ in Early Anglo-Saxon Sources.” Anglo-Saxon
England22 (1993): 65-83.
See alsoAdomnán; Biblical and Church Fathers
Scholarship; Brehon Law; Canon Law;
Columbanus; Christianity, Conversion to
PEREGRINATIO
The classical meaning of peregrinusis “stranger”; in
the Middle Ages the term was used to express the
concept of “pilgrim.” While the stranger was by defi-
nition a person without legal standing, the pilgrim,
inprinciple at least, was to enjoy a privileged status.
In Irish society peregrinatiostood for an ascetic
Christian ideal in the form of a self-imposed, life-long
exile in pursuit of the personal salvation in a life lived
according to Christ’s commands.
This peregrinatio comes into view first with
Columbanus who left Ireland in 590 and lived for the
rest of his life in Gaul and Italy. He died November
23, 615, in Bobbio (diocese of Piacenza). In his own
writings the term peregrinus does occur without
being further defined, but the concept of peregrinatio
pro Christocan be deducted from the corpus of his
writings as a whole, and in particular from his
Instructiones. However, the concept is clearly artic-
ulated in the Life of Columbanus, written by Jonas
of Bobbio one generation after the saint’s death. This
shows that the basis of Columbanus’s Christian con-
cept was cherished in Bobbio beyond his death.
According to Jonas, Columbanus was confronted
with the concept of two degrees of peregrinatio, a
lesser one practiced in the form of a self-chosen exile
within Ireland and a stronger one by leaving Ireland.
(I, 3). Jonas also reports that Columbanus successfully
resisted plans to have him brought back to Ireland
when he was forced to leave his monasteries in Burgundy
circa 610.
Contrary to widespread views the Irish peregrinatio
pro Christowas not connected with missionary inten-
tions but remained the pursuit of personal salvation.
This emerges clearly in Columbanus’s letter to Frank-
ish bishops of circa 602 when he refused to attend a
synod and instead expressed his wish for his commu-
nity to be left alone to mourn their dead brethren in
the wilderness (Ep. 2 p. 16: mihi liceat cum vestra
pace et caritate in his silvis silere et vivere iuxta ossa
nostrorum fratrum decem et septem defunctorum “that
I may be allowed with your peace and charity to enjoy
the silence of these woods and to live beside the bones
of our seventeen dead brethren”). In Lombard, Italy,
Columbanus did preach Catholicism against the Arians,
and he wrote a treatise on the subject (which has not
survived). He did this at the request of the king, and
it would appear that this was the price he had to pay
for the permission to settle there.
It is most likely that the Irish concept of pererinatio
pro Christowas developed under the inspiration of
Irish secular law (not yet written) which knew two
groups of foreigners, one within Ireland and one from
overseas. The two classes of “foreigners” implied dif-
ferent status.PENITENTIALS