FromConversion toCommunity 87
all were to attend the funeral.^117 Charity extended beyond sick members, at
least in ritual ways. Not uncommonly, penitents fed a symbolic twelve poor
men before their Palm Sunday banquet. The members ate later and sepa-
rately from the poor, however, indicating the special community they shared
among themselves.^118 This gesture did not imply that the penitents were an
economically privileged group practicing noblesse oblige. If they observed
the spirit of their rule, penitents followed a life, if not of poverty, at least of
simplicity. Their behavior was to be humble enough so that they could be
suitable recipients of alms themselves. Abuse through luxurious living seems
to have happened only in individual cases, the result of the brothers’ inde-
pendence and the freelance quality of their life. Bologna exiled under a ban
of £ 10 bon. any bogus penitent who falsely solicited alms in the morning
and spent the rest of his day blaspheming in the tavern.^119 More typically,
groups of simple-living penitents organized assistance for the indigent and
served the sick. This identification of penitents with charitable service be-
came marked in the period 1220 to 1250. Cities consequently increased their
financial support for penitent groups in the same period. But hospital work
and social service meant increased institutionalization.^120 The conversi’s suc-
cess in such corporate endeavors was always in tension with their origin as
an individualistic lay movement.
Every group of penitents had a monthly solemn Mass and sermon at a
particular church, whose titular they adopted as their saintly patron. Into
the early 1200 s, the church was usually the chapel of the neighborhood
where they lived. The monthly Mass was the pivot and focus of the confra-
ternity’s devotional life, and attendance was mandatory.^121 The most com-
mon day for this Mass was the first Sunday of the month, a practice possibly
derived from ancient Roman (and Jewish) observance of the new moon.^122
Individual groups added particular devotions to the Mass. The flagellants of
Pisa met in the Dominican church of Santa Catarina on the fourth Sunday
of the month. After hearing the monthly Mass and a sermon, the brothers
went in procession, two by two, to the patronal altars and offered candles.^123
In addition, they celebrated the solemnities of Our Lady and the feasts of
- ‘‘Memoriale,’’ 22 – 23 , Meersseman,Dossier, 103 – 4 (cf. Humiliati tertiaries’ provisions ibid., 104 n.
23 ); ‘‘Statuti della Confraternita dei Servi di Dio e della s. Madre del Duomo’’ (Statuti D, 1298 ), 13 ,De
Sandre Gasparini,Statuti, 15. - E.g., ‘‘Statuti della Confraternita dei Servi di Dio e della s. Madre del Duomo’’ (Statuti D, 1298 ),
24 , De Sandre Gasparini,Statuti, 22. - Bologna Stat.i( 1259 – 67 ), 8. 97 s, 2 : 285 – 86.
- See Benvenuti Papi, ‘‘I penitenti,’’ 25 – 39 , esp. 30. See also ead., ‘‘Pubblica assistenza e marginal-
ita`femminile,’’In Castro Poenitentiae, 656 – 58 , on Giovanni Villani,Cronica, 1 : 658 , which speaks of hospital
work as typical of women penitents. - On confraternities and parishes, see De Sandre Gasparini,Statuti,l; on monthly Mass, see Meers-
seman,Ordo, 2 : 583 – 84 ; and for legislation, see Piacenza, Biblioteca Comunale,msPallestrelli 323 , fols.
7 r–v; Milan, Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense,msAC.viii. 2 , fol. 9 v. - So Meersseman,Ordo, 1 : 24.
- ‘‘Regula della ‘vita’ dei disciplinati e laudesi di Pisa’’ ( 1312 ), 4 , ibid., 2 : 1051.