Cleansing on Consciences: Some Observations regarding the Fifteenth-Century Registers of the Papal Penitentiary

"Cleansing on Consciences: Some Observations regarding the Fifteenth-Century Registers of the Papal Penitentiary." This article presents a summary analysis of the registers of the office of the papal Penitentiary during the pontificate of Pope Pius II. It explains the origins of the fifteenth-century Penitentiary, its personnel and administrative structure, and it sets out how and why people from all over Europe brought their cases before this papal office. The reasons for the rare direct involvement of the pope himself in the business of the Penitentiary are discussed, as well as the financial aspects of the applications to the Penitentiary. This article then proceeds to analyze some aspects of the 3540 entries in the registers of the Penitentiary between 1458 and 1464 which concerned petitions from the German-speaking countries. Closer attention is given to the following types of cases, which the Penitentiary dealt with most frequently: marriage dispensations, homicide and murder, impediments to ordination, and confessional privileges.