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Since the records of the late medieval Apostolic Penitentiary have been made available to a select group of scholars in 1983, a considerable amount of work on the subject has been published, including repertories with original documentation from Norway, Poland, and the Empire. France, on the other hand, has not been the focus of major studies. Following a section devoted to bibliography, the present article provides a brief introduction to the functioning of the papal office from its origins in the 1200s to the abandonment of its medieval format by way of reform in 1569. The final two parts discuss concrete case material in connection with violence, surveying absolutions from sin, dispensations from sacramental impediments, and more extensively, the so-called declaratory letters, the contents of which invite further comparison with contemporary royal Letters of pardon from England and the French Lettres de rémission.