[Footnote 111: ESMEIN, _op. cit._, II, 65.]
[Footnote 112: These decrees are for the most part included in the collection of Gratian; "mais il se fera tout un travail pour les mettre d'accord avec la règle triomphante de l'indissolubilité; elles contribueront néanmoins à introduire, dissimulées sous la forme de nullités, de véritables exceptions à cette règle."--ESMEIN, _op. cit._, II, 69.]
Finally there is a singular omission which has called forth an instructive comment from a modern scholar. "It is remarkable that neither of these decrees mentions adultery as a cause of divorce. This is so without doubt because the capitulary of Soissons already gave that quality to the sin of the woman who alone was considered. Besides, in that rude society, this cause of divorce in most cases was probably superfluous. The deceived husband had no need to invoke it. Not merely when he surprised his wife _flagrante delicto_, but also when he had grave suspicion against her, did he take justice into his own hands, killing the guilty woman; and the deed probably went unpunished. In this regard the church appears to have shown ample indulgence. No doubt she entirely forbade a new marriage to the spouse who slew a partner; but that was never more than a prohibitive impediment for which dispensation was granted with sufficient ease. Here a means was admitted by law and custom for evading the rule of indissolubility of the conjugal bond. St. Augustine had already contemplated it; and various passages of Hincmar of Rheims show clearly that more than one husband had recourse to it in his time."[113]
It is strange that so wide a relaxation of the principle accepted by the early church, in part under the sanction of Rome itself, should have preceded by so few years its complete triumph in the capitularies of Charles the Great. From 774 onward, with slight wavering, the rigid doctrine is maintained both by imperial and papal authority; as likewise it is expounded in the canonical literature of Gratian's predecessors, notably by Benedict Levita and Hincmar of Rheims.[114]
[Footnote 114: _Cf._ GEFFCKEN, _Ehescheidung_, 57-62; FREISEN, _Geschichte des can. Eherechts_, 792 ff.]
But there is other testimony of a most convincing nature that the practice of the church could not keep pace with her theory. It is afforded by the penitentials. These are private manuals designed for the practical guidance of priests in their daily ministrations, one of the oldest and most interesting of which is that bearing the name of Theodore of Tarsus,[115] the reorganizer of the English church and president of the Council of Hertford, where the orthodox rule relating to divorce was proclaimed. On this penitential and the somewhat older one of the Irish Columban the earlier Frankish penitentials are modeled, sometimes with literal exactness. Divorce with remarriage is allowed to one or both persons on various grounds. In case of adultery a discrimination is made in favor of the husband. He is given the right of repudiating the guilty woman; and, in case it be a dissolution of the first marriage, he may take a new spouse without delay. Even the divorced woman may remarry after a penance of five years. For the like sin, however, the wife is forbidden to send the husband away, except to enter a monastery.[116]