 They reduce the duration of the penance very much, and are more merciful towards the lapsi or apostates.These texts, with the translations of the Eastern councils, passed into the Western canonical collections.More striking in the penitential canons of Anglo-Saxon and Irish origin is the particular fixation of the penitential acts imposed on the sinner to insure reparation, and their duration in days, quarantines ("carina"), and years; these consisted in more or less rigorous fasts, prostrations, deprivation of things otherwise allowable; also alms, prayers, pilgrimages etc.