Sex and the Penitentials: The Development of a Sexual Code, 550-1150 - Paperbackby Pierre J. Payer (Author) The sexual ethic of the early Christian church was simple: sexual relations were permitting only between a man and a woman married to one another and then only for the purpose of procreation. It soon became necessary to articulate and then to refine this ethnic, to analyse departures from it, and to provide for a range of penances suitable to each kind of sexual sin. The penitential a confessional manual for the guidance of