The Provincial Synod at Toulouse in A.D. 1229 (§ 109, 2) insisted on compulsory confession and communion three times a year, at Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. The three penitential requirements, enforced first by Hildebert of Tours, and adopted by the Lombard, _Contritio cordis_, _Confessio oris_, and _Satisfactio operis_ continued henceforth in force. But Hugo’s and Richard’s theory of absolution displaced not only that of the Lombard, but, by an extension of the sacerdotal idea to the absolution of the sinner from guilt, led to the introduction of a full-blown theory of indulgence (§ 106, 2). As the ground of the scientific construction given it by the Schoolmen of the 13th century, especially by Aquinas, the Catholic Church doctrine of penance received its final shape at the Council of Florence in A.D. 1439. Penance as the fourth sacrament consists of hearty repentance, auricular confession, and satisfaction; it takes form in the words of absolution, _Ego te absolvo_; and it is efficacious for the forgiveness of sins. Any breach of the secrecy of the confessional was visited by the fourth Lateran Council with excommunication, deposition, and lifelong confinement in a monastery. The exaction of a confessional fee, especially at the Easter confession, appears as an increment of the priest’s income in many mediæval documents. Its prohibition by several councils was caused by its simoniacal abuse. By the introduction of confessors, separate from the local clergy, the custom fell more and more into disuse.