Penance

In ecclesiastical law. An ecclesiastical punishment inflicted by an ecclesiastical court for some spiritual offense. Ayliffe, Par. 420.

In Ecclesiastical Law. An ecclesiastical punishment inflicted by an ecclesiastical court for some spiritual offence. Ayliffe, Parerg. 420.

An act involving shame or suffering, which a convict is required to perform by way of punishment. is law; penance is self-inflicted, being compelled by ecclesiastical censure. The peine forte et dure was, however, sometimes called penance. Penance is an ecclesiastical punishment used in the disciphne of the church, which affects the body of the penitent, by which lie is obliged to give a public satisfaction to the church for the scandal he has given by his evil example. Thus, for incontinence, the offender is usually enjoined to do a public penance in the parish church, bareheaded and barefooted, in a white sheet, and to niake open profession of his crime in a prescribed form of words, which is augmented or moderated according to the quality of the offence and the discretion of the judge. So in smaller faults and scandals, a public satisfaction or penance, as the judge shall decree, is to be made before the minister, church-wardens, or some of the parishioners, respect being had to the quality of the offence and circumstances of the fact; as in case of defamation or laying violent hands on a clerk, or the like. And as these censures may be moderated by the judge's discretion, according to the nature of the offence, so also they may be totally altered by a commutation of penance; and this has been the ancient privilege of the ecclesiastical judge to admit that an oblation of a sum of money for pious uses shall be accepted in satisfaction of public penance. But penance must be first enjoined before there can be a commutation; or otherwise it is a commutation for nothing. Wharton.