The Duality of Sin and Delict - Penance to God, Penalty to Men - A Legal Perspective

Recognition of an offence in early Irish law entailed not punishment but compensation by payment. Some of these offences were also regulated in the penitentials and in canon law, posing the question of how penance and payment intertwined and to what communities they catered. This paper investigates the influence of this perceived duality in the paradigm of liability and sin from a legal perspective.