The ''Paenitentiale Ecgberhti'' (also known as the ''Paenitentiale Pseudo-Ecgberhti'', or more commonly as either Ecgberht's penitential or the Ecgberhtine penitential) is an early

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

penitential A penitential is a book or set of church rules concerning the Christianity, Christian sacrament of penance, used for regular private confession with a confessor-priest, a "new manner of reconciliation with God in Christianity, God" that was prom ...

handbook composed around 740, possibly by Archbishop Ecgberht of York. This work should not be confused with the vernacular works known as the '' Old English Penitential'' (formerly the ''Paenitentiale Pseudo-Ecgberhti'') and the '' Scriftboc'' (formerly the ''Confessionale Pseudo-Ecgberhti'').

Background

Authorship

Sources

Manuscripts and Transmission

There are eleven extant manuscripts that contain the ''Paenitentiale Ecgberhti'', dating from as early as the end of the eighth century to as late as the thirteenth, ranging geographically from southern Germany to Brittany to England. The sigla given below (V₆, O₁, etc.) are based on those established by the Körntgen–Kottje Editionsprojekt for the ''Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina'', vol. 156, a project whose goal is to produce scholarly editions for all major early medieval penitentials; sigla in parentheses are those used by Reinhard Haggenmüller in his 1991 study. Haggenmüller divided these eleven surviving witnesses of the ''Paenitentiale Ecgberhti'' into three groups, based broadly on the regions in which they were produced, the nature and arrangement of their accompanying texts, and shared readings in the ''Paenitentiale Ecgberhti'' itself.Haggenmüller, ''Überlieferung'', 149–55. The 'Norman' group consists of some of the youngest manuscripts (P₂₂, O₅, C₂, O₁), most of which originated in regions under Norman influence or control, namely tenth-century Brittany and eleventh to twelfth-century England; only O₅ originates in a non-Norman context. The 'South-German' group (Se₁, Sg₁₀, V₄, M₁₇) represents a textual tradition emanating from a region in southern Germany (perhaps the Lake Constance area), even though only one constituent witness (Sg₁₀) originates in a South-German centre. Haggenmüller's third group, the 'Lorsch' group, includes three manuscripts (V₆, W₉, V₅), two of which (V₆, W₉) are the oldest extant witnesses to the ''Paenitentiale Ecgberhti'' tradition. Of the three manuscripts in this group, however, only one (V₅) is known with certainty to have been produced at Lorsch (though V₆ had provenance there by the first half of the ninth century). It is currently unknown where the two earliest witnesses of the ''Paenitentiale Ecgberhti'' (V₆, W₉) originate from, though it was likely not in the same place since they present rather different versions of the text. In addition to the eleven main witnesses listed above, the prologue to the ''Paenitentiale Ecgberhti'' is also transmitted in the following manuscripts:
Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 572 (2026), fols 51–106
(written first third of ninth century in northern France), at fols 88r–90r as part of a series of penitential and canonical texts that perhaps once stood as an appendix to the '' Collectio canonum vetus Gallica''.
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, Lat. 10575
(written between ca 950 and 1000 in England), at fols 3r–6v as the introductory text to the ''Pontificale Pseudo-Ecgberhti''.
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, lat. 943
(written ca 1000 to 1050 in Sherborne), at fols 147v–149r (with Ghaerbald's ''Capitula episcoporum I'' appended) as part of the so-called ‘Dunstan’ pontifical. *

Rouen Rouen (, ; or ) is a city on the River Seine, in northwestern France. It is in the prefecture of Regions of France, region of Normandy (administrative region), Normandy and the Departments of France, department of Seine-Maritime. Formerly one ...

, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 368 (A. 27) (written first half of eleventh century in Cornwall)], at fols 176v–178v (with Ghaerbald's ''Capitula episcoporum I'' appended) as part of the so-called the ‘Lanalet’ pontifical. *Rouen, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 1382 (U. 109), fols 173r–198v (written first half of eleventh century in southern England), at fols 196v–198v (with Ghaerbald's ''Capitula episcoporum I'' appended) as the final text in the (incomplete) R recension of Wulfstan's ''Collectio canonum Wigorniensis'' The ''Paenitentiale Ecgberhti'' is also transmitted in somewhat altered form as part of two later penitential texts known as the ''Vorstufe des Paenitentiale additivum Pseudo-Bedae–Ecgberhti'' (or Preliminary Stage of the Unified Bedan-Ecgberhtine Penitential, in which the ''Paenitentiale Ecgberhti'' is affixed to the end of the ''Paenitentiale Bedae'') and the ''Paenitentiale additivum Pseudo-Bedae–Ecgberhti'' (or Unified Bedan-Ecgberhtine Penitential; like the Preliminary Stage, but the whole is now preceded by the prefaces of both the ''Paenitentiale Bedae'' and the ''Paenitentiale Ecgberhti''), and in greatly altered form in the still later ''Paenitentiale mixtum Pseudo-Bedae–Ecgberhti'' (or Merged Bedan-Ecgberhtine Penitential, in which the chapters of both the ''Paenitentiale Bedae'' and the ''Paenitentiale Ecgberhti'' are mixed together and arranged by topic).

Reception

Editions

Notes

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External links

Bibliography

*Reinhold Haggenmüller, ''Die Überlieferung der Beda und Egbert zugeschriebenen Bussbücher'', Europäische Hochschulschriften. Reihe III, Geschichte und ihre Hilfswissenschaften 461 (Frankfurt am Main, 1991). Penitentials 8th-century books in Latin