‘Unclean Hands’: Purity, Penance and the Chaplain

In 742, unit commanders in the Frankish army were granted priests to hear their soldiers’ confessions. These clerics prescribed penance according to ‘tariff books’ which had been introduced from Ireland and Anglo-Saxon England. This repeatable practice supposedly maintained military morale by assuring soldiers of salvation. However, killing in battle had never been deemed a damnable sin. Soldiers, moreover, could atone without confessing to a priest. This article proposes that the primary aim was not to maintain morale but to purify the army and thereby secure divine providence in war.