Schmitz (R.C.): Die Bussbücher und die Bussdisciplin der Kirche. Nach handschriftl. Quellen.
Mainz 1883 (XVI. and 864 p.). Comp. the review of this book by Wasserschleben in the "Theol.
Literaturzeitung," 1883, fol. 614 sqq.
Bingham, Bk XIV. Smith and Cheetham, II. 608 sqq. (Penitential Books). Herzog,2 III. 20 sqq.
(Bussbücher). Wetzer and Welte2 II. 209–222 (Beichtbücher); II. 1561–1590 (Bussdisciplin).
Comp. Lit. in § 87.
The discipline of the Catholic church is based on the power of the keys intrusted to the apostles
and their successors, and includes the excommunication and restoration of delinquent members. It
was originally a purely spiritual jurisdiction, but after the establishment of Christianity as the
national religion, it began to affect also the civil and temporal condition of the subjects of
punishment. It obtained a powerful hold upon the public mind from the universal belief of the
middle ages that the visible church, centering in the Roman papacy, was by divine appointment
the dispenser of eternal salvation, and that expulsion from her communion, unless followed by
repentance and restoration, meant eternal damnation. No heresy or sect ever claimed this power.
Discipline was very obnoxious to the wild and independent spirit of the barbaric races. It
was exercised by the bishop through synodical courts, which were held annually in the dominions
of Charlemagne for the promotion of good morals. Charlemagne ordered the bishops to visit their
parishes once a year, and to inquire into cases of incest, patricide, fratricide, adultery, and other
vices contrary to the laws of God.^389 Similar directions were given by Synods in Spain and England.
The more extensive dioceses were divided into several archdeaconries. The archdeacons represented
the bishops, and, owing to this close connection, they possessed a power and jurisdiction superior
to that of the priests. Seven members of the congregation were entrusted with a supervision, and
had to report to the inquisitorial court on the state of religion and morals. Offences both ecclesiastical
and civil were punished at once with fines, fasting, pilgrimages, scourging, imprisonment. The civil
authorities aided the bishops in the exercise of discipline. Public offences were visited with public
penance; private offences were confessed to the priest, who immediately granted absolution on
certain conditions.
The discipline of the Latin church in the middle ages is laid down in the so-called "Penitential
Books."^390 They regulate the order of penitence, and prescribe specific punishments for certain
sins, as drunkenness, fornication, avarice, perjury, homicide, heresy, idolatry. The material is mostly
derived from the writings of the fathers, and from the synodical canons of Ancyra (314), Neocaesarea
(314), Nicaea (325), Gangra (362), and of the North African, Frankish, and Spanish councils down
to the seventh century. The common object of these Penitentials is to enforce practical duties and
to extirpate the ferocious and licentious passions of heathenism. They present a very dark picture
of the sins of the flesh. They kept alive the sense of a moral government of God, who punishes
every violation of his law, but they lowered the sense of guilt by fostering the pernicious notion
that sin may be expiated by mechanical exercises and by the payment of a sum of money.
There were many such books, British, Irish, Frankish, Spanish, and Roman. The best known
are the Anglo-Saxon penitentials of the seventh and eighth centuries, especially that of Theodore,
(^389) See the passages in Gieseler IL 55 (Harpers’ ed.) The Synodical courts were calledSendgerichte(a corruption from
Synod).
(^390) Liber Poenitentialis, Poenitential, Confessionale, Leges Poenitentium, Judicia Peccantium.