Where did indulgences start?

Answer 1

The first known use of plenary indulgences was in 1095 when Pope Urban II remitted all penance of persons who participated in the crusades and who confessed their sins. Later, the indulgences were also offered to those who couldn't go on the Crusades but offered cash contributions to the effort instead. In the early 1200s, the Church began claiming that it had a "treasury" of indulgences (consisting of the merits of Christ and the saints) that it could dispense in ways that promoted the Church and its mission. In a decretal issued in 1343, Pope Clement VI declared, "The merits of Christ are a treasure of indulgences." (c)

See the related link.

AnswerIndulgences had their root in the early Roman martyrs. People would go to visit Christians in prisons right before their execution and ask their prayers. The prayers of those being martyred for their faith were considering very efficacious. The following three paragraphs from the Catholic Encyclopedia explain this practice and how it grew into what we know as indulgences today:

During the persecutions, those Christians who had fallen away but desired to be restored to the communion of the Church often obtained from the martyrs a memorial (libellus pacis) to be presented to the bishop, that he, in consideration of the martyrs' sufferings, might admit the penitents to absolution, thereby releasing them from the punishment they had incurred. Tertullian refers to this when he says (To the Martyrs 1): "Which peace some, not having it in the Church, are accustomed to beg from the martyrs in prison; and therefore you should possess and cherish and preserve it in you that so you perchance may be able to grant it to others." Additional light is thrown on this subject by the vigorous attack which the same Tertullian made after he had become a Montanist. In the first part of his treatise "De pudicitia", he attacks the pope for his alleged laxity in admitting adulterers to penance and pardon, and flouts the peremptory edict of the "pontifex maximus episcopus episcoporum". At the close he complains that the same power of remission is now allowed also to the martyrs, and urges that it should be enough for them to purge their own sins - sufficiat martyri propria delicta purgasse". And, again, "How can the oil of thy little lamp suffice both for thee and me?" (c. xxii). It is sufficient to note that many of his arguments would apply with as much and as little force to the indulgences of later ages.

During St. Cyprian's time (d. 258), the heretic Novatian claimed that none of the lapsi should be readmitted to the Church; others, like Felicissimus, held that such sinners should be received without any penance. Between these extremes, St. Cyprian holds the middle course, insisting that such penitents should be reconciled on the fulfillment of the proper conditions. On the one hand, he condemns the abuses connected with the libellus, in particular the custom of having it made out in blank by the martyrs and filled in by any one who needed it. "To this you should diligently attend", he writes to the martyrs (Epistle 15), "that you designate by name those to whom you wish peace to be given." On the other hand, he recognizes the value of these memorials: "Those who have received a libellus from the martyrs and with their help can, before the Lord, get relief in their sins, let such, if they be ill and in danger, after confession and the imposition of your hands, depart unto the Lord with the peace promised them by the martyrs" (Epistle 13). St. Cyprian, therefore, believed that the merits of the martyrs could be applied to less worthy Christians by way of vicarious satisfaction, and that such satisfaction was acceptable in the eyes of God as well as of the Church.

After the persecutions had ceased, the penitential discipline remained in force, but greater leniency was shown in applying it. St. Cyprian himself was reproached for mitigating the "Evangelical severity" on which he at first insisted; to this he replied (Epistle 52) that such strictness was needful during the time of persecution not only to stimulate the faithful in the performance of penance, but also to quicken them for the glory of martyrdom; when, on the contrary, peace was secured to the Church, relaxation was necessary in order to prevent sinners from falling into despair and leading the life of pagans. In 380 St. Gregory of Nyssa (Ep. ad Letojum) declares that the penance should be shortened in the case of those who showed sincerity and zeal in performing it - "ut spatium canonibus praestitum posset contrahere (can. xviii; cf. can. ix, vi, viii, xi, xiii, xix). In the same spirit, St. Basil (379), after prescribing more lenient treatment for various crimes, lays down the general principle that in all such cases it is not merely the duration of the penance that must be considered, but the way in which it is performed (Ep. ad Amphilochium, c. lxxxiv). Similar leniency is shown by various Councils--Ancyra (314), Laodicea (320), Nicaea (325), Arles (330). It became quite common during this period to favor those who were ill, and especially those who were in danger of death (see Amort, "Historia", 28 sq.). The ancient penitentials of Ireland and England, though exacting in regard to discipline, provide for relaxation in certain cases. St. Cummian, e.g., in his Penitential (seventh century), treating (cap. v) of the sin of robbery, prescribed that he who has often committed theft shall do penance for seven years or for such time as the priest may judge fit, must always be reconciled with him whom he has wronged, and make restitution proportioned to the injury, and thereby his penance shall be considerably shortened (multum breviabit poenitentiam ejus). But should he be unwilling or unable (to comply with these conditions), he must do penance for the whole time prescribed and in all its details. (Cf. Moran, "Essays on the Early Irish Church", Dublin, 1864, p. 259.)