ABSTRACT
Catholics believed in the sacrament of penance, requiring confession to a priest, but they also practised private and domestic devotions involving the penitential acknowledgement of sin and prayer for grace and forgiveness. The grouping of seven biblical Psalms known as the Penitential Psalms dates from the early Christian church. The acknowledgement of sin continues in Psalm 38, with the Psalmist professing that my wyckednesses are gone over my heade, and are lyke a sore burthen, too hevy for me to beare'. For Christians since Augustine, the appeal of the Penitential Psalms for personal and domestic devotion has likely depended upon several factors. In Bibles and prayerbooks, however, many of the Psalms were preceded by dedicatory or explanatory headnotes, originating in the Hebrew manuscript tradition. The Penitential Psalms were central to traditional Catholic devotions; they were regularly included in medieval Books of Hours and in the English Primers which replaced them in the sixteenth century.
