The title Handbook for a Confessor, or in full, Late Old English Handbook for the Use of a Confessor, refers to a compilation of Old English and Latin penitential

Penitential

A penitential is a book or set of church rules concerning the Christian sacrament of penance, a "new manner of reconciliation with God" that was first developed by Celtic monks in Ireland in the sixth century AD.-Origin:...

 texts associated with – and possibly authored or adapted by – Wulfstan (II), Archbishop of York (d. 1023). The handbook was intended for the use of parish priests in hearing confession and determining penances. Its transmission in the manuscripts (see below) seems to bear witness to Wulfstan's profound concern with these sacraments and their regulation, an impression which is similarly borne out by his Canons of Edgar, a guide of ecclesiastical law also targeted at priests. The handbook is a derivative work, based largely on earlier representatives of the penitential genre such as the Confessional of Pseudo-Egbert and the Old English Penitential (also called Penitential of Pseudo-Egbert). Nevertheless, a unique quality seems to lie in the more or less systematic way it seeks to integrate various points of concern, including the proper formulae for confession and instructions on the administration of confession, the prescription of penances and their commutation.

Manuscripts

The original exemplar is lost, but extracts from the handbook survive in six manuscripts, three of which have been identified by scholars as Wulfstan's so-called 'commonplace books', i.e. collections used by Wulfstan for a large variety of purposes.

• 1. Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale, MS 8558–63 (2498), ff. 132–9v. Commonplace book.
• 2. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 201, pp. 114–25, 170. The principal text for Fowler's edition; associated with Wulfstan's commonplace books.
• 3. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 265, pp. 72–83. Commonplace book.
• 4. London, British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius A.iii, ff. 55–6v, 94v–7.
• 5. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Junius 121, ff. 23v–4, 54v–7v. Commonplace book.
• 6. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 482, ff. 28v, 40–3v, 464. Of Worcester provenance.

Contents

The most complete copies of the handbook are represented by CCCC MS 201 and MS Cotton Tiberius A.iii, while the other four manuscripts present a narrower selection of texts. As a whole, the collection contains six texts, one in Latin (I) and five in Old English (II-VI).

• I. Ordo Confessionis (in Latin); broadly similar to the early 8th-century Othmarus ad discipulos by Othmar, abbot of St Gall
  Saint Othmar
  St. Othmar, O.S.B., was a monk and priest appointed as the first abbot of the Abbey of St. Gall, a Benedictine monastery in St. Gall, Switzerland....
  
  .
• II. A confessional formula for recitation, consisting of a list of sins and the penitent's request for forgiveness. A longer version appears in Cotton Vespasian D XX (mid-10th century).
• III. General directions for a confessor
  Confessor
  -Confessor of the Faith:Its oldest use is to indicate a saint who has suffered persecution and torture for the faith, but not to the point of death. The term is still used in this way in the East. In Latin Christianity it has come to signify any saint, as well as those who have been declared...
  
  . This text recalls passages in law-codes drafted by Wulfstan for King Æthelred, such as V Æthelred and VI Æthelred.
• IV. A short penitential
  Penitential
  A penitential is a book or set of church rules concerning the Christian sacrament of penance, a "new manner of reconciliation with God" that was first developed by Celtic monks in Ireland in the sixth century AD.-Origin:...
  
  , based chiefly on the Old English Penitential.
• V. Be dædbetan (“For penitents”), further instructions for the confessor, with commentary on types of penance, the attention to be given to the penitent's character and situation, provisions of commutation in the form of monetary payments and alms-giving, and a concluding paragraph on concessions for the sick.
• VI. Be mihtigum mannum (“For powerful men”), on commutations for the rich.

For three Old English texts, here numbered III, V and VI, no specific relationship to earlier authorities can be pinpointed, except in individual passages.

Edition

• Fowler, Roger (ed.). "A Late Old English Handbook for the Use of a Confessor." Anglia 83.1 (1965). Pp. 1-34; edition of Old English texts (16-34).

Secondary sources

• Fowler, Roger. "A Late Old English Handbook for the Use of a Confessor." Anglia 83.1 (1965): 1-34: Introduction (1-15).
• Heyworth, Melanie. “The "Late Old English Handbook for the Use of a Confessor." Authorship and Connections.” Notes and Queries 54:3 (2007): 218-22.
• Wormald, Patrick. “Archbishop Wulfstan: Eleventh-Century State-Builder.” In Wulfstan, Archbishop of York. The Proceedings of the 2nd Alcuin Conference, ed. Matthew Townend. Turnhout, 2004: 9-27.

Further reading

• Cubitt, Catherine. “Bishops, priests and penance in late Saxon England.” Early Medieval Europe 14.1 (2006): 41-63.
• Frantzen, Allen J. The Literature of Penance in Anglo-Saxon England. New Brunswick, 1983.

External links

• The Anglo-Saxon Penitentials by Allen J. Frantzen, including a description and editions.
• Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 265, Parker Library on the Web. Subscription required.