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INDRE-ET-LOIRE INDULGENCE 255 for the last 44 of which it is navigable. The climate, except in the district of La Brenne, is mild and healthful. The soil is rather light and gravelly, hut not ill adapted for the growth of cereals. Nearly two thirds of the whole area is arable. Grain is raised for exportation ; next in importance are the crops of hemp and flax. The wine produced is not highly esteemed. There are large numbers of sheep with a very fine quality of wool. Iron mines are worked, and there are a few quarries of marble, mill- stones, granite, and mica. Linen cloths, ho- siery, scythes, paper, porcelain, and earthen- ware are the principal manufactures. The de- partment is divided into the arrondissements of Chateauroux, Le Blanc, Issoudun, and La Chatre. Capital, Chateauroux. INDRE-ET-LOIRE, a central department of France, in the old province of Touraine, bor- dering on Sarthe, Loir-et-Cher, Indre, Vienne, and Maine-et-Loire ; area, 2,361 sq. m. ; pop. in 1872, 317,027. It is named from the rivers Indre and Loire, which unite within its limits. The Vienne and the Creuse water it in the south. In the N. districts are several arid wastes, and all over the department many ex- tensive forests, the largest of which are those of Amboise, Loches, and Chinon. The climate is remarkable for its mildness and salubrity. The soil is in general extremely fertile. The land on both sides of the Loire is called the gar- den of France, and consists of a light but deep vegetable loam. Grain, hemp, flax, anise, and coriander are grown on a large scale. Fruit is very abundant, and the Tours prunes are large- ly exported. Much wine is made, some of which bears a high reputation. Bees and silk- worms are carefully tended ; game and fish are abundant. The chief industrial products are bar iron, hardware, powder, woollen cloth, silk, leather, paper, and pottery. The depart- ment is divided into the arrondissements of Tours, Chinon, and Loches. Capital, Tours. IMIKI. See LEMUB. INDULGENCE (Lat. indulgere, to yield, to grant), in the Roman Catholic church, the re- mission of the temporal penalty to be under- gone by the sinner, after his sin has been for- given in confession. The term originated in the discipline of the early church, when noto- rious sinners were sentenced, after they had been absolved in confession, to periods of pub- lic penance sometimes extending to the hour of death. The sincere sorrow of the offend- ers, the intercession of those who were impris- oned or about to suffer death for the faith, and occasionally even the prayers of the civil magistrates, induced the bishops to be indul- gent to the penitents, by granting them a re- mission of the imposed canonical penance, or by relaxing its rigor. The use of public pen- ances passed away with that of public confes- sion, and was replaced both in the eastern and western churches by good works, private aus- terities, and devotional exercises. When Chris- tianity spread among the northern nations of 430 VOL. ix. 17 Europe, the canonical penances were found to be inapplicable to their condition. Their pa- gan jurisprudence had accustomed them to pe- cuniary mulcts, so that persons guilty of theft or murder could purchase exemption, and com- pound with the injured parties or their rela- tives, by paying a stipulated fine. This system was applied by the church to penitential atone- ments; and the money thus contributed was employed in almsgiving, or for the redemption of captives, the freeing of slaves', or the ex- penses of public worship. The directions drawn up by Theodore of Canterbury and Egbert of York in the 8th century, and by Halitgar of Cambrai in the 9th, were framed for the pur- pose of administering penance in conformity with these national customs. But this substi- tution of pecuniary fines gave rise to serious misapprehensions and gross abuses. It was easy for the unlettered multitude to confound the remission of the canonical penalty thus ob- tained for money with the purchase of pardon for sin. Many councils and ecclesiastical wri- ters of these times either denounced the prac- tice altogether, or urged upon the clergy the duty of instructing the people on the true na- ture of penitential satisfaction. The synod of Cloveshoo or Abingdon in 742 stigmatized the prevalent error that almsgiving releases the sinner from the more stringent kinds of pen- ance; and in 813 the second council of Chalons uttered a similar warning. In 1095 the coun- cil of Clermont, by the authority of Pope Urban II., offered a " plenary indulgence " to all who took the cross for the purpose of de- livering Jerusalem. It was enacted that all who, having confessed their sins with true repentance, might engage in the expedition, should be exempted, in consequence of the la- bor and dangers to which they voluntarily ex- posed themselves, from the canonical penances to which they were otherwise liable. The council of Lyons in 1274 extended the same indulgence to all who, unable to join the cru- sade in person, should by voluntary donations contribute to its success. From that period indulgences began to be multiplied, and as often as money was required for any object connected with the interests of the church, they were offered to the people. Out of this practice grew abuses of two kinds. The money thus obtained was frequently diverted from its original destination ; and the office of collect- ing it being committed to inferior agents, sec- ular as well as ecclesiastical, it became their interest, as they received a percentage on the amount, to exaggerate the advantages of the indulgence, and to impose upon the credulity and simplicity of the people. Severe consti- tutions were enacted by several popes to pre- vent such abuses, and to punish the rapacity and impiety of the collectors ; but these laws were not enforced, and fell into disuse. Be- sides, during the great western schism the rival pretenders to the papacy lavished indulgences among their supporters. This brought both the