Handbook for a Confessor
Handbook for a Confessor (also Old English Handbook, or in full, Late Old English Handbook for the Use of a Confessor) is a compilation of Old English and Latin penitential texts associated with – and possibly authored or adapted by – Wulfstan (II), Archbishop of York (d. 1023). The handbook was intended for the use of parish priests in hearing confession and determining penances. Its transmission in the manuscripts (see below) seems to bear witness to Wulfstan's profound concern with these sacraments and their regulation, an impression which is similarly borne out by his "Canons of Edgar , a guide of ecclesiastical law also targeted at priests. The handbook is a derivative work, based largely on earlier vernacular representatives of the penitential genre such as the Scrifboc" (or "Confessionale Pseudo-Ecgberhti") and the "Old English Penitential" (or "Paenitentiale Pseudo-Ecgberhti"). Nevertheless, a unique quality seems to lie in the more or less systematic way it seeks to integrate various points of concern, including the proper formulae for confession and instructions on the administration of confession, the prescription of penances and their commutation. Manuscripts. The original exemplar is lost, but extracts from the handbook survive in six manuscripts, three  of which have been identified by scholars as Wulfstan's so-called 'commonplace books', i.e. collections used by Wulfstan for a large variety of purposes. Contents. The most complete copies of the handbook are represented by CCCC MS 201 and MS Cotton Tiberius A.iii, while the other four manuscripts present a narrower selection of texts. As a whole, the collection contains six texts, one in Latin (I) and five in Old English (II-VI). For three Old English texts, here numbered III, V and VI, no specific relationship to earlier authorities can be pinpointed, except in individual passages. Handbook for