The Ermenfrid Penitential is an ordinance composed by the Bishops of Normandy following the Battle of Hastings (1066) calling for atonement to be completed by the perpetrators of violence in William the Conqueror's invading army during the Norman Conquest of England.
Additional clauses prescribe penance for further sins of the Conquest, chiefly adultery, rape, fornication and violation of church property.
[1]: 225 It is apparent that he occupied his see in Sion for than 30 years, a period in which he presided over several Councils in his capacity as papal legate to Pope Alexander II (1061-1073).
The text of the ordinance was preserved in a manuscript at Worcester, which was later printed by the English antiquarian Henry Spelman (c. 1562-1641)[1]: 225 Regarding authenticity, analyses by medieval historian and Anglican priest H. E. J. Cowdrey concluded that "when it is compared with other evidence for the penitential system of the early Middle Ages and especially of its own century, the Norman penitential ordinance has the stamp of authenticity.
There is no good reason for doubting either that the Norman bishops of the time would have enacted it, or that a papal legate such as Ermenfrid of Sion would have confirmed it on behalf of the papacy.
It has been suggested by Draper that the Ermenfrid Penitential lacks such impartiality as it was felt that the miseries of the defeated Saxons were great enough without the added imposition of penance.
The first surviving piece of evidence for rethinking the nature of homicide can be found in a letter sent by Pope Alexander II to the clergy of Volturno in 1063.
Let a measure of penance be imposed on each and every one of them who shall confess, according to the quality of his sins, to his bishop or spiritual father, so that the devil may not accuse them of impenitence.
At William's request, Pope Alexander sent his three legates: Ermenfrid, Peter and John to England with the task of reforming the English clergy.
Despite this, the decree precedes the Gregorian Reform movement of Pope Gregory VII and his papal curia and the seismic debates that followed regarding plurality as well as other supposed ills and corruption of the Church.
Burchard of Worms was influential in adding weight to the notion that any murder was sinful, regardless of the authority which directed it — a school of thought that lasted up until the First Crusade (1096-1099).