Around the turn of the eighth century, a scribe who elusively refers to himself only as a student of the Umbrians undertook a daunting task on behalf of Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 690): to compile for ‘all Catholics of the English, especially the physicians of souls’, the Archbishop's decisions regarding ‘diverse questions on the remedy of penance’. To meet this task, he explains, he consulted the ‘confused digest’ of judgments made by Theodore on the various issues brought by what he describes as crowds of faithful men and women who sought the ‘remarkable knowledge’ of the Archbishop. To supplement these sources, he also consulted the answers Eoda, a ‘presbyter blessed of memory’, received from the archbishop on questions related to penitential discipline, and supplemented them with ‘the things which that man is rumored to have searched out from a little book of the Irish’, a book Theodore reportedly considered a reliable source. His efforts produced the Paenitentiale Umbrense, more commonly referred to as the Penitential of Theodore, one of the nine early penitentials that form the basis of this study.

Produced between the mid-sixth and late eighth centuries, the early penitentials were designed to meet the needs, real or perceived, of diverse communities in Wales, Ireland, England, and Francia. The earliest penitential proper is the Penitential of Finnian, a relatively brief handbook dating from the mid-sixth century that incorporated material from earlier prescriptive texts. This manual in turn influenced the composition of the Penitential of Columbanus, much of which was likely written by the saint whilst he was in Burgundy in the late sixth and early seventh century. Around the same time, likely in Ireland or Britain, an anonymous scribe created the Ambrosian penitential, which uses a scheme of principal vices to classify sins and penances. A closely related text, the seventh-century Penitential of Cummean also employs the scheme of eight principal vices as an organizing principle, but expands on earlier manuals in a number of areas, including the discipline of young penitents. This manual in turn influenced the anonymous Burgundian penitential. Further expansion appears in the Penitential of Theodore, which provided material for the Penitential of Egbert, a relatively brief, and rather disorganized, manual likely dating from the eighth century.