ABSTRACT
The earliest dateable text for the imposition of excommunication is in a tenth-century Rheims manuscript. Alongside a collection of canon law, is a record of the sentence imposed by the bishops of the province of Rheims upon the murderers of Archbishop Fulk, which is very precisely dated to 6 July 900 CE. Regino also includes various alternative texts: one for the bishops initial address and three other versions of an actual excommunication formula. The Freising Pontifical is considered a member of the Romano-German group. It contains a more detailed and more legalistic account of excommunication than that provided in the Bamberg codex. The rite for the reconciliation of excommunication is similarly suggestive of a local tradition which shares many features with that recorded in both the 'Romano-German' tradition and Burchard's redaction of Regino. Thus the rubric is found elsewhere within the Romano-German group, but the prescription to recite the seven penitential psalms and the versicles and responses comes from Burchard.
