This article examines the textual and manuscript evidence for the practice of penance in late Saxon England. It also examines the significance for pastoral care of the linguistic evidence for specialized vernacular terms for penance: 'scrift' for 'confessor', 'daedbote' and compounds of 'hreow' for 'penance' and 'remorse'. The linguistic and textual evidence suggests that penance was a regular part of lay piety. The manuscript evidence, on the other hand, supports recent contentions that penitentials were used by bishops and should be linked to canon law. However, the manuscript evidence cannot be properly understood unless the scant survival rate of humble priestly handbooks is taken into account. Moreover, bishops in this period were deeply involved in furthering pastoral care and their interests and concerns should not be divorced from a pastoral and local context. In conclusion, the article will argue that penitential practices were firmly rooted in the Anglo-Saxon church's ministry for the laity.'Three principal things God has appointed to men for purification: one is baptism, the second is communion, the third is penance, with cessation from evil deeds and practice of good works. Baptism washes us from all our sins, communion hallows us, true penance heals our misdeeds.' 1 These words of the vernacular homilist, AElfric, were intended to send out a strong message to the Anglo-Saxon laity concerning the necessity of communion, baptism and penance in the life of the faithful. Contemporary historians, however, have been rather more sceptical than AElfric concerning his church's ability to provide such ministry to its flock. There is still much that remains obscure about the organization 1 AElfric's Catholic Homilies : The Second Series , ed. Malcolm Godden, EETS SS 5 (Oxford, 1979), II, 3, p. 26. ' P reo healice ∂ ing gesette god mannum to claensunge. An is fulluht. O ∂ er is huselhalgung. P ridde is daedbot mid geswicennysse yfelra daeda. and mid bigencge godra weorca; P aet fulluht us a p weh ∂ fram eallum synnum. Se huselgang us gehalga ∂ . Seo so ∂ e daedbot gehael ∂ ure misdaeda.' Translation (with slight modifications) from B. Thorpe, The