Cities of God: The Religion of the Italian Communes 1125-1325

 266 BuoniCattolici tion if too many were consecrated. With disgust, Salimbene watched a sacris- tan climb up to put extra Host ...

TheCityWorships 267  ences connected to sacramental Communion. Writing about 1140 , the can- onist Gratian observed that lay Ch ...

 268 BuoniCattolici later 1200 s took a similarly permissive line. That author claimed that Saint Thomas Aquinas himself had sa ...

TheCityWorships 269  What is it that I should receive? This is the body and the blood of my Creator. This is Jesus Christ in fl ...

 270 BuoniCattolici This text beautifully expresses the sacramental mysticism that complemented the visual mysticism of the Euc ...

TheCityWorships 271  of Don Bonaventura, priest of San Salvatore in Ferrara. Bonaventura vowed that he had, on numerous occasio ...

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Chapter Seven Feasting, Fasting, and Doing Penance  The liturgical calendar of the medieval Church molded religious sensibiliti ...

 274 BuoniCattolici TheCityFeasts Feasts had a social as well as a religious role. Cities fixed their court sessions according ...

Feasting,Fasting,andDoingPenance 275  stipends on Christmas and Easter, the days on which craft associations gave a bonus to th ...

 276 BuoniCattolici Christmas itself began with predawn Matins, announced by the pealing of the church bells. After Matins, the ...

Feasting,Fasting,andDoingPenance 277  Friday fast if it fell on that day.^29 Students at Bologna gathered for dinner parties on ...

 278 BuoniCattolici honor the tiny martyr saints of the day. They not only sat in their elders’ stalls; one even took the bisho ...

Feasting,Fasting,andDoingPenance 279  man escaped death by hanging because the Virgin came and supported his feet. When the thi ...

 280 BuoniCattolici feast of importance marked the calendar. But May was traditionally the Virgin’s month, and the crowning of ...

Feasting,Fasting,andDoingPenance 281  and Saturday was sometimes not observed. Medieval piety knew two other fasts. In the spri ...

 282 BuoniCattolici confessional practice, and the calculation of the date of Easter. If they passed, he set their ordination f ...

Feasting,Fasting,andDoingPenance 283  there was no way to convince people not to stuff themselves with meat and wine until the ...

 284 BuoniCattolici would remain until Good Friday. On the evening before the first Sunday of Lent, clerics covered the images ...

Feasting,Fasting,andDoingPenance 285  whether it was best to give heavy penances or light ones, Pietro replied that if the peni ...