Indulgences and pardons

Use in the book

The early imagined survey of Catholic worship places indulgences and pardons beside saints’ pictures, vigils and fasts; Bale’s original marginal list begins with Latin indulgentiis. Later, the satire of wealth claims that rich offenders buy pardons and redeem their souls from purgatory and even hell. Its escalation exposes the rhetoric of impunity. The clause is an accusation about money’s apparent power, not proof that an indulgence authorizes wrongdoing or releases a damned person.

In the attack on enforced celibacy, Burton says he does not know what “Merits and Indulgences” its adherents accumulate, then turns to a confident catalogue of alleged harms. In the religious partition he joins pardons and indulgences to meritorious good works and hope of heaven, picturing the willing devotee as an overdriven horse. The vocabulary explains the supposed benefits that make the inducement work; the charges of exploitation and bodily or moral injury remain his historical polemic.

A further catalogue alleges “indulgences for 40000. years to come.” The supplied note confirms that the scan reads forty thousand, but does not identify a supporting document. Burton repeats the future duration when describing general pardons. The first context proceeds to terrified consciences and readiness to despair if a ceremony is omitted; the second abruptly claims that abundant remission should make Catholic despair impossible. Reading them together reveals the sarcastic reversal rather than a consistent statistical account of religious distress.

The later sequence provides a small vocabulary of distribution. A “Treasure of Indulgences and merits” is a store of spiritual benefits; dispensator names its administrator, identified as the pope. “Jubilies” are special observances associated with indulgences. Burton then brings in general pardons, masses, altars, prayers, penance and releases from purgatory as if their abundance guaranteed freedom from scruple. These are different acts, occasions and benefits within his argument, not interchangeable meanings of indulgence.

The price language sharpens the taunt. “Easie rates” are low charges; dispensations are releases from obligations, here linked by Burton to a sweeping allegation about offences. His title Taxa Cameræ Apostolicæ names a fee schedule. The apparatus notes tax schedules printed before his claimed first publication under Leo X, without identifying his particular edition or authenticating its contents. The existence of administrative charges does not by itself prove the sale of forgiveness. His further “me thinks” marks the inference that such a system invites people to sin.

The “parable” pardon is obtainable, not a story with a moral. Small “cost and suit” are the expense and effort of applying for it. Burton’s closing accusation makes confessors skilled at raising and relieving scruples for their own advantage. Yet his subsequent consolation includes Catholic writers, and his own assurance that no sin is inherently unpardonable invokes God’s mercy, followed by promises addressed to believers who are truly penitent, grieved for their offences and desirous of reconciliation. Institutional satire does not exhaust the work’s language of pardon.

Related entries

Despair; Affection; Custom and education; Parents and children; Suit; Tax. Grace (Grace), Satisfaction (Satisfaction), Supererogation (Supererogation), and Purgatory and limbo (Purgatory and limbo), all Batch 4, distinguish divine help, penitential reparation, claimed works beyond duty, and afterlife states.

Places to read

1. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraph 23; Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 10–12; Note 514; Subsection 2 Education as a Cause of Melancholy · paragraph 48; Subsection 6 Poverty and Want as Causes of Melancholy · paragraphs 36–40authorial pardon; the worship catalogue and its marginal entry; ordinary parental indulgence; wealth and purchased impunity. The parental passage’s printed page number 145 corresponds to sequence page 149.
2. Subsection 5 The Last and Best Cure for Love Melancholy Is to Let Lovers Have Their Desire · paragraphs 9–14; Causes of Religious Melancholy. From the Devil, Through Miracles, Apparitions and Oracles. His Instruments or Agents: Politicians, Priests, Impostors, Heretics and Blind Guides. In Them: Credulity, Fear, Blind Zeal, Ignorance, Solitude, Curiosity, Pride, Vanity, Presumption and So On. His Devices: Fasting, Solitude, Hope, Fear and the Rest · paragraphs 28–33; General Symptoms: Love of Their Own Sect; Hatred of All Other Religions; Obstinacy and Ill Temper; Readiness to Undergo Any Danger or Adversity for It; Martyrs; Blind Zeal and Blind Obedience; Fasts and Vows; Belief in Incredible and Impossible Things. Particular Symptoms Among Pagans, Muslims, Jews and Christians; and Among Christians, Heretics Old and New, Schismatics, Scholastic Theologians, Prophets, Enthusiasts and So On · paragraphs 40–48; Member 2 Subsection 1 Religious Melancholy From Deficiency: Those Affected—Epicures, Atheists, Hypocrites, the Worldly and Complacent, Carnalists, All Impious People, Impenitent Sinners, and Others · paragraphs 20–21celibate vows and supposed spiritual gain; religious exploitation; the forty-thousand-year accusation and frightened conscience; indulgence of passions.
3. Causes of Despair: The Devil, Melancholy, Meditation, Distrust, Weakness of Faith, Harsh Ministers, Misunderstanding Scripture, Guilty Consciences, and So On · paragraphs 14–19; Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraphs 15–16; Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraphs 21–25treasury, plenary remission, jubilees and prices; consolatory reading; divine pardon and its pastoral conditions.

In this edition

“Plenary remission” becomes “complete remission”; “Treasure” becomes “treasury”; and “the Pope is dispensator” becomes “the pope administers.” The last rendering changes a noun describing a role into a verb while keeping the pope as subject and the treasury as object. “Jubilies” becomes “jubilees,” and “easie rates” becomes “low rates.” The translated terms clarify Burton’s construction without verifying his accusations.

“So gentle and parable a pardon” becomes “so lenient and easily obtained a pardon”: gentle supplies lenient, parable supplies easily obtained, and pardon is what can be obtained. The following “cost and suit” becomes “expense and effort.” Parable’s other applications are treated in the supplementary note to Living and preferment (Living and preferment, Batch 3; Parable). In the parental passage, “Two much indulgence” becomes “Too much indulgence”; the page’s sequence number 149 and printed number 145 remain distinct.

indulgence: ecclesiastical remission

An ecclesiastical remission of penalties for sin, as the edition explains the institutional word; Burton associates it with pardons, merit, vows and alleged financial exploitation.

Grammar: English count noun, principally plural indulgences/Indulgences.

Access scope (indulgence): Normalized singular headword for institutional plural attestations; not an attested singular in this sense.

Original text: “pictures of saints, indulgences, pardons, vigils”. In the modern column: “pictures of saints, indulgences, pardons, vigils”. The term names ecclesiastical remissions in a catalogue of worship. Hypothetical Democritus survey with hostile descriptions of Catholic observance. Indulgences remains indulgences; the adjacent pardons is separately retained.

Original text: “for their mony get pardons, indulgences, redeem their souls from Purgatory and Hell it self”. In the modern column: “for their money, obtain pardons and indulgences and redeem their souls from purgatory and hell itself”. Indulgences enter Burton’s accusation that wealth purchases religious as well as civil impunity. Burton’s satire of wealthy offenders, not authoritative Catholic doctrine or a guarantee that an indulgence releases a damned soul. For their mony marks the alleged price; the objects pardons and indulgences are distinct from the exaggerated ensuing claim about hell.

Original text: “What Merits and Indulgences they heap unto themselves by it, what commodities, I know not”. In the modern column: “What merits and indulgences they accumulate for themselves by it, what benefits, I do not know”. Merits and indulgences are alleged spiritual advantages of the celibate vows under discussion. Burton disclaims knowing the benefits, then asserts harms. The latter historical medical/moral accusations are not confirmed by the vocabulary. Heap becomes accumulate; I know not is preserved, and by it refers back to that vowed manner of life.

Original text: “by Buls, Pardons, Indulgences, and their doctrine of good works, that they be meritorious, hope of heaven”. In the modern column: “through bulls, pardons, indulgences, their doctrine that good works earn merit, and hope of heaven”. The term belongs to the institutions and promises Burton accuses churchmen of using for enrichment. Burton’s allegation of exploitation; the note explains remission of penalties for sin, not a blanket permission to sin. By becomes through; indulgences is one means in a longer coordinated list.

Original text: “buying and selling of pardons, indulgences for 40000. years to come”. In the modern column: “buying and selling of pardons, and indulgences for forty thousand years to come”. The institutional term is given an extravagant prospective duration in the accusation. The editorial note confirms the scan’s number but not its documentary basis. The subsequent sequence alleges terror and readiness to despair, contrary to the later sarcastic reassurance. 40000. becomes forty thousand; to come remains future-directed as Burton prints it.

indulgentia

An indulgence or remission, here a Catholic religious practice listed polemically.

Grammar: Latin feminine noun; printed indulgentiis is ablative plural governed by de.

Original margin: “Quid dicam de eorum indulgentiis, oblationibus, votis, solutionibus”. Supplied note translation or expansion: “What shall I say of their indulgences, offerings, vows, payments”. Bale’s quoted marginal catalogue begins with indulgences before other religious gifts and acts. Bale as quoted by Burton; the English is a supplied translation within a mixed Burton-labelled note. Indulgentiis contributes indulgences; de eorum supplies of their. The rest of the catalogue is not the noun’s translation. Complementary earlier route: Simulacra. Shared marginal catalogue: Simulacra already records another noun in the same original quotation; this is the opening indulgence noun.

pardon: ecclesiastical remission

A grant of religious remission, or the forgiveness it is claimed to convey; Burton’s rhetoric often treats it as obtainable, general or purchasable.

Grammar: English noun pardon, plural pardons; modified by free, general, gentle and parable.

Access scope (gentle): Adjective modifying pardon at 165-18; lenient, not the complete pardon definition.

Access scope (lenient): Modern adjective rendering gentle in the pardon construction.

Original text: “indulgences, pardons”. In the modern column: “indulgences, pardons”. Pardons names grants of ecclesiastical remission beside indulgences. Hypothetical survey and confessional satire, not an explanation of every juridical distinction. The coordinated nouns remain distinct in the modern column.

Original text: “buying and selling of pardons”. In the modern column: “buying and selling of pardons”. Pardons are the objects of the asserted transaction. Read through 159-48 for the alleged terror and obedience, not only the immediate price phrase. The whole verbal-noun construction is retained; it describes Burton’s accusation, not evidence independently establishing a sale.

Original text: “he may have free pardon and plenary remission of all his sins”. In the modern column: “he can receive free pardon and complete remission of all his sins”. The pardon is presented as freely available to even the monstrous sinner in a sarcastic challenge. The pope’s supposed treasury is the named source; the same passage’s claim that no Catholic should despair is sarcastic. May have becomes can receive. Free qualifies pardon; all his sins remains Burton’s broad stated object, not the definition of an indulgence. Complementary earlier route: Despair. Shared sequence: Despair already identifies Burton’s sarcastic denial. This record explains a distinct institutional term, not a new discovery of that irony.

Original text: “so many general pardons for ages to come, 40000. years to come”. In the modern column: “so many general pardons for ages to come—for forty thousand years to come”. General pardons introduce the catalogue of supposedly abundant remissions. No supporting document for that number is supplied; jubilees, masses and purgatorial releases are adjacent but distinct terms. General remains general and the forty-thousand-year future claim is retained without endorsement. Complementary earlier route: Despair. Shared sequence: Despair already identifies Burton’s sarcastic denial. This record explains a distinct institutional term, not a new discovery of that irony.

Original text: “so gentle and parable a pardon, so ready at hand, with so smal cost and suit obtained”. In the modern column: “so lenient and easily obtained a pardon, so ready to hand and secured at such little expense and effort”. The pardon is characterized as easy to procure, linking the accusation about cost with the taunt about relief from despair. Continues the preceding fee allegation; the conclusion about impossibility of distress is polemical rather than a clinical finding. Gentle is lenient; parable easily obtained; suit contributes effort of application, not the pardon itself. Complementary earlier route: Suit. Shared phrase: Suit explains the effort of application; Parable continuation parable (obtainable) explains obtainability. This record indexes the pardon being characterized. Related vocabulary in this batch: Parable. Same adjective at the same passage already fully explained in the continuation to Living and preferment.

plenary remission; remission

Remission is release or forgiveness; plenary marks it as full or complete. Here Burton presents the alleged extent and comfort of ecclesiastical pardon sarcastically.

Grammar: English noun remission with adjective plenary or comfortable; plenary is qualitative completeness, not a count of years.

Access scope (plenary): The adjective means complete/full, not the entire remission construction.

Access scope (complete): Adjective rendering plenary in complete remission.

Access scope (full): Explanatory access synonym for plenary, not a quoted complete construction.

Access scope (comfortable): Adjective of remission meaning consoling or comforting, not physically convenient and not the complete remission construction.

Access scope (comforting): Consolatory adjective modifying remission, not the whole remission construction.

Original text: “plenary remission of all his sins”. In the modern column: “complete remission of all his sins”. Plenary specifies the alleged remission’s completeness. Definition of plenary does not validate Burton’s identification of the institution with unrestricted pardon for every offence. Plenary contributes complete; remission remains remission; of all his sins is Burton’s own sweeping object. Complementary earlier route: Despair. Shared sequence: Despair already identifies Burton’s sarcastic denial. This record explains a distinct institutional term, not a new discovery of that irony.

Original text: “such comfortable remission”. In the modern column: “Such comforting remission”. The release is described as consoling in the sarcastic passage. Burton’s exaggerated reassurance is answered by the following accusation of manipulation. Comfortable means comforting, not physically convenient; remission names the supposed removal of the religious burden. Complementary earlier route: Despair. Shared sequence: Despair already identifies Burton’s sarcastic denial. This record explains a distinct institutional term, not a new discovery of that irony.

treasure of indulgences and merits

A figurative treasury or accumulated store of religious merits and remissions from which Burton says the pope distributes pardon.

Grammar: English noun phrase headed by Treasure, with of linking the stored spiritual benefits; merits is plural.

Original text: “out of that Treasure of Indulgences and merits of which the Pope is dispensator”. In the modern column: “from that treasury of indulgences and merits which the pope administers”. The treasury metaphor makes spiritual benefit an accumulated resource with a named administrator. Burton’s polemical description. The phrase explains his distribution metaphor without affirming his unlimited-pardon conclusion. Out of becomes from; Treasure becomes treasury; the following dispensator supplies administration, not the content of the store. Complementary earlier route: Despair. Shared sequence: Despair already identifies Burton’s sarcastic denial. This record explains a distinct institutional term, not a new discovery of that irony. Related vocabulary in this batch: Supererogation. Component merits is defined separately; treasury construction is the current record’s scope.

dispensator

An administrator or distributor; the pope is assigned this role with respect to the named treasury.

Grammar: Latin masculine agent noun, nominative singular; the English clause supplies is, and the modern renders the role with a verb.

Original text: “of which the Pope is dispensator”. In the modern column: “which the pope administers”. The grammatical subject is the pope and the administered object is the treasury, not the sinner. Role assigned in Burton’s sarcastic description, not a neutral account of all papal powers. Dispensator becomes administers through nominal-to-verbal recasting; it does not mean the entire treasury or plenary pardon. Complementary earlier route: Despair. Shared sequence: Despair already identifies Burton’s sarcastic denial. This record explains a distinct institutional term, not a new discovery of that irony.

jubilee

A special religious observance associated with indulgences, here counted among the occasions for alleged general remission.

Grammar: English plural noun, printed Jubilies and modern jubilees.

Original text: “so many Jubilies”. In the modern column: “so many jubilees”. The observances are one item in a rhetorically abundant catalogue. An accompanying note supplies the explanatory definition; the body does not describe the conditions or exact schedule of a jubilee. Jubilies is modernized to jubilees; so many retains the emphasis on number. Complementary earlier route: Despair. Shared sequence: Despair already identifies Burton’s sarcastic denial. This record explains a distinct institutional term, not a new discovery of that irony.

dispensation

An authorized relaxation or release from an obligation; Burton associates dispensations with his allegation of low charges for offences.

Grammar: English plural noun dispensations, coordinated with rates in the original.

Original text: “sets down such easie rates and dispensations for all offences”. In the modern column: “sets such low rates and grants dispensations for every offence”. The noun names dispensations, while rates names the alleged charges; the modern supplies grants to unpack the coordination. Burton’s accusation, with me thinks marking his inference that it invites sin. An accompanying note warns that administrative fees do not automatically constitute selling forgiveness. Dispensations stays dispensations; grants is supplied, not a separate original verb. For all/every preserves the author’s sweeping assertion. Complementary earlier route: Tax. Shared fee-schedule passage: Tax already explains the Latin title, publication qualification and administrative-fee distinction. This is its separate dispensations noun.

easy rates

Low charges or fees; ease here concerns the alleged cost, not an exchange-rate calculation or a moral permission.

Grammar: English adjective easie modifying plural noun rates.

Access scope (easie): Adjective of rates: low charges, not moral permission.

Access scope (low): Adjective of rates or charges, not moral permission.

Original text: “such easie rates and dispensations for all offences”. In the modern column: “such low rates and grants dispensations for every offence”. Burton calls the fees low and then alleges that the prospect encourages wrongdoing. The preceding Taxa title is a schedule of fees; the editorial apparatus qualifies the chronology and refuses an automatic identification with selling forgiveness. Easie rates becomes low rates; the price phrase does not by itself establish the alleged legal or spiritual effect of payment. Complementary earlier route: Tax. Shared title context, not a new Taxa record. The financial adjective is distinguished from the alleged institutional effect.

indulgence: permissive leniency

Giving way to desires or allowing excessive freedom, whether in upbringing or in one’s own passions; not an ecclesiastical indulgence.

Grammar: English mass noun indulgence in excessive-leniency constructions.

Original text: “Two much indulgence causeth the like”. In the modern column: “Too much indulgence has the same effect”. Excessive parental leniency is blamed alongside excessive severity for harmful upbringing. The Terentian Latin is Syrus’s speech, Micio is the indulgent model; the historical harms are Burton’s claims, not a modern psychological finding. Printed Two becomes Too; the noun retains the ordinary permissiveness sense. Complementary earlier route: Parents and children. Shared parental-leniency passage: Parents and children explains the patris construction and correct dramatic attribution.

Original text: “indulgence to corrupt affection”. In the modern column: “indulgence of corrupt passions”. Permitting disordered desires is named as a common root of several errors. The ensuing contrast keeps different growth, symptoms, causes and remedies despite the common root. To becomes of and affection becomes passions; no clerical grant is involved. Complementary earlier route: Affection. Shared phrase: Affection already explains corrupt affection and the different-outcomes qualification; this is the permissive-indulgence component.

pardon: forgiveness

Forgiveness of an offence or fault, sought from a reader or possible through divine mercy without a reference to a purchased ecclesiastical grant.

Grammar: English noun pardon and adjective pardonable; not restricted to institutional instruments.

Access scope (not pardonable): Occurs inside no sin... not pardonable; the negative class is denied, not affirmed.

Access scope (unpardonable): Occurs inside no sin is so heinous as to be unpardonable; the claim denies inherent unpardonability.

For merits, the passage, the passage, see Supererogation.

Original text: “I can only crave pardon now for what is amisse”. In the modern column: “I can only ask pardon now for what is wrong”. The author asks the reader to forgive flaws in the work he now wishes he could revise. The authorial apology admits changed judgment and lack of time or assistants. Crave becomes ask; pardon remains forgiveness, not a papal document.

Original text: “there is no sin so haynous which is not pardonable in it self”. In the modern column: “no sin is so heinous as to be unpardonable in itself”. The pastoral argument rejects the sufferer’s claim that the enormity of sin makes pardon impossible. God’s mercy is the agent of possible forgiveness; the next unit addresses believers who are truly penitent, grieved for their offences and desirous of reconciliation, not an unconditional licence to sin. Original no sin... not pardonable becomes no sin... unpardonable; the nested negation is preserved. Related vocabulary in this batch: Grace. Shared pastoral passage: Grace treats divine mercy and help; pardonability is the distinct attribute indexed here.