The Apostolic Penitentiary
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chapter 12 The Curia: The Apostolic Penitentiary Kirsi Salonen 12.1 Introduction The Apostolic Penitentiary1 was one of the most important offices within the medieval papal curia. The penitentiary is often called “the supreme tribunal of conscience,” since the main task of this office was to deal with sins reserved to the authority of the pontiff. But this definition is not adequate because the medieval penitentiary was not a tribunal but an office.2 The medieval penitentiary had a double function. On the one hand the offi- cials of the officium minus of the penitentiary, called papal or minor penitentiaries,3 handled the care of souls (cura animarum) of Christians. These were priests working in the central churches of the papacy, like the Lateran Church or St Peter’s basilica, where they heard confessions, absolved sinners, and imposed penance upon them. The powers of the penitentiary allowed the confessors to absolve Christians even from the most severe sins, the absolving of which was reserved to the authority of the pope.4 1 The “Apostolic Penitentiary” is a modern term for an office known as the papal or pope’s penitentiary in the Middle Ages. About the name, see Peter D. Clarke and Patrick N.R. Zutshi, “Introduction,” in Supplications from England and Wales in the Registers of the Apostolic Penitentiary 1410–1503, vol. 1 (1410–1464), (ed.) idem (Woodbridge: 2013), xiii. 2 It is important to keep in mind that even if the Sacra Penitenzieria Apostolica is classified as a tribunal in the present hierarchy of the papal curia, the medieval penitentiary was not considered a tribunal. 3 The medieval sources refer to these confessors as poenitentiarii pape or poenitentiarii minores. Since the minor penitentiaries were dealing with confession, there are no records of their activities on account of the principle of the seal of confession. The only testimonies about their activity are the so-called litterae ecclesiae, which were letters issued by the minor peni- tentiaries testifying that a certain person had confessed his or her sins and had been absolved. The confessed sins are not mentioned in the letter. Kirsi Salonen and Ludwig Schmugge, A Sip from the “Well of Grace”: Medieval Texts from the Apostolic Penitentiary (Washington, d.c.: 2009), 16, 111–13; Kirsi Salonen, The Penitentiary as a Well of Grace in the Late Middle Ages: The Example of the Province of Uppsala 1448–1527 (Helsinki: 2001), 52–56. Because of the lack of source material, this chapter does not discuss the activity of the minor penitentiaries. 4 As canon law and the central administration of the church developed, certain of the most severe sins were reserved to the pope, meaning that only he could absolve persons of them. Confession to a local priest was not sufficient; the sinner had to seek pardon from the Holy © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi �0.��63/97890043�5�80_0�4 <UN> 260 Salonen On the other hand the officials of the officium maius of the penitentiary had the powers to grant four kinds of grace to Christians who turned to the papacy with a petition related to sins they had committed or to a wish to act against the regulations of canon law. These powers allowed the penitentiary to grant to its clients four different types of grace: (1) absolutions for those who had bro- ken the regulations of canon law,5 (2) dispensations that allowed Christians to act against the regulations of the Church,6 (3) licenses that allowed Christians not to observe ecclesiastical norms regarding the exercise of one’s faith,7 and (4) official declarations.8 The penitentiary functioned under the guidance of the cardinal or major penitentiary, poenitentiarius maior, who had received a papal mandate to han- dle certain kinds of cases on behalf of the pontiff. The cardinal penitentiary did not have to take care of all matters entrusted to the penitentiary alone; he was assisted by a number of officials. The most important of them was the regent, who acted as the right hand of the cardinal and in his absence could make decisions in all kinds of cases. In times of an itinerant papacy, there could be more than one regent. One was placed permanently in Rome, where pilgrims visited the Holy See, and another followed the pope in his travels. This ensured that everyone in need of a grace would get their issues solved regard- less of whether they visited the pope on tour or the eternal city.9 See. The first reserved sin was violence against clerics, which according to canon 15 (Si quis suadente diabolo) of the Second Lateran Council (1139) was reserved to papal authority (codg, 109; cod, 200). See Salonen, The Penitentiary, 58–77; Salonen and Schmugge, A Sip, 13–14. 5 The powers of the penitentiary allowed it to absolve Christians even from sins reserved to papal authority. 6 The dispensations granted by the penitentiary allowed Christians, for example, to marry a close relative, to become a priest despite an impediment of illegitimacy, minority, or bodily defect, or to continue in an ecclesiastical career after becoming irregular because of a severe sin or crime. 7 This category includes issues such as confessing to a priest other than one’s own parish priest, consuming meat and dairy products during Lent, carrying a portable altar, or transferring from one monastery to another. 8 In certain cases, petitioners had to be able to demonstrate that they were not guilty or that they had been forced to marry or take monastic vows. The penitentiary could grant declara- tions testifying that a cleric was not guilty of murder or mutilation despite (unjust) accusa- tions or that a forced marriage or monastic profession was void. 9 Kirsi Salonen, “L’attività della Penitenzieria Apostolica durante il pontificato di Pio ii (1458–1464),” in La Penitenzieria Apostolica e il suo archivio, (ed.) Alessandro Saraco (Vatican City: 2012), 67–72. <UN>.