ABSTRACT
The penitentials are guides for confessors on sin and penance. The extracts here are taken from a penitential guide associated with Theodore of Tarsus, archbishop of Canterbury, which has been assembled not by Theodore himself, but by an anonymous Northumbrian cleric who purports to collect together Theodore's judgements as reported by a cleric named Eoda. This brief reference from an early eleventh-century ecclesiastical text shows the tolerance of clerical marriage in England prior to the reform papacy's campaign against clerical marriage and concubinage later in the eleventh century. The penance of 15 years contrasts with the lesser penance of ten years offered previously. Frantzen notes that even within a single penitential text, multiple and perhaps contradictory options are offered for penances. The ineffectiveness of the vows of wives without the consent of the husband applied throughout the Middle Ages.
