This dissertation examines the tract De penitentia of Gratian's Decretum. The sources, composition, and contents of this tract, I argue, show that Gratian was a local, Italian intellectual interested in both law and theology. Commitment to logical consistency and pastoral concern, I maintain, lie at the heart of his theological thought and explain why he took the positions that he did, for instance, refusing to affirm the necessity of confession to a priest.

The dissertation begins by identifying the theological sources which Gratian used to compile the De penitentia. These sources, I show, connect Gratian not to famous contemporary French masters, such as Peter Abelard, Hugh of St. Victor, or Gilbert of Poitiers, but rather to local masters most closely associated with the school of Laon. After examining how Gratian used these sources to compose the De penitentia, the focus shifts to an analysis of Gratian's penitential theology. Reading the De penitentia in the light of his theological sources and paying attention to how he modifies them, I show that Gratian held some unusual theological views. Gratian had reservations about the necessity of confession to a priest, believed that penance was useful even for Christians unwilling to repent of all their sins, and interpreted the reviviscence of sins in a very atypical fashion. Gratian's stance towards these issues, I argue, reveals his commitment to logical consistency and his pastoral bent. Along with the local nature of his theological sources, the peculiarities of his penitential theology suggest that he learned his dialectical method for reconciling contradictory authorities from the early scholastic sentence collection Deus itaque summe and not from Abelard's Sic et non, as previous scholars have almost unanimously supposed.