Summary
The Dïme de Pénitance, also known as La Disme de Penitanche, is a manual written in Old French verse that serves as a guide for laypersons seeking to confess and gain forgiveness for their sins. In the poem, the author identifies himself as John of Journey, a French knight who came to the East on Crusade in the late-thirteenth century and who wrote the Dïme while sick in Nicosia, Cyprus in 1288. The work is divided into two parts. The first instructs the reader on the causes of sin and the different ways to attain remission for them. In the second section, which is more didactic than the first, the author prays for the sins of various monarchs and cardinals and laments the sinful nature of the kingdoms of western Europe
Representative MSS
London, British Library, MS Add. 10015.
Edition
Glynn Hesketh, ed. La Disme de Penitanche. London, UK: The Modern Humanities Research Association, 2006.
Secondary Literature
See Arlima.