88 LaCitadeSancta
their patrons, Saint Dominic, Saint Peter of Verona, and Saint Catherine of
Alexandria. At Bologna in the 1240 s the confraternity dedicated to Saint
Dominic met in the Dominican church where he was buried. Their monthly
Mass and assembly were on the last day of the month. They celebrated their
patron’s feast with a solemn Mass and candle offering at his altar. Like other
confraternities, they maintained a perpetual lamp before their patron saint’s
image.^124
Religious confraternities, like the secular associations of their age, sealed
their comradeship by table fellowship. Dinner followed the monthly Mass at
the common time of the medieval Italian main meal, noon. The ministers of
the society organized the Mass, meeting, and dinner. The treasurer paid the
expenses from a collection taken up at the Mass; the ‘‘Memoriale’’ set each
brother’s contribution at 1 d. The treasurer set aside any remainder to assist
poor members and provide them with suitable funerals. Any further surplus
became poor alms.^125 At Sant’Ilario near Florence, the peasants of one con-
fraternity met at the local church and then dined under the direction of their
rectors, who had responsibility for provisions and calculation of expenses.
Local statutes usually included elaborate legislation governing distribution of
food and drink and the sharing of expenses.^126
Until the late 1200 s, penitent groups met and prayed wherever was conve-
nient, and that place determined their patron saint. One Padua confraternity
celebrated its patronal feast of Saint Lucy with Mass, poor alms of 12 d., and
a candle offering. Their poor alms were a public affair and its date well
known. The brothers sent a trumpeter around the city to announce the
event, bringing in, one assumes, a significant crop of beggars. But when
the parish was rededicated to Saint Rocco, they changed the patronal feast
accordingly and moved the poor dole to the new day.^127 The Marian peni-
tents who met in the church of Santa Margherita of Montici in Florence
came for annual Mass on feasts of both the Virgin and Saint Margaret.
When they moved to the cathedral in 1310 , the brothers dropped Margaret
as their patron, even though that meant forfeiting the indulgence of forty
days that Bishop Francesco Monaldeschi had granted them in 1296 for devo-
tions on her feast.^128 A local group took its identity from its place of assembly
and that church’s titular. Common penitential life and mutual fraternity
gave the members their common identity, not some shared special devotion.
The ‘‘Memoriale’’ stipulated that a ‘‘pious man’’ (vir religiosus) preach in
- ‘‘Statutum Fraternitatis S. Dominici’’ ( 1244 ), Meersseman,Ordo, 2 : 628 – 29 ; Lucca, Biblioteca
Statale,ms 1310, fols. 6 r–v. - On the collection, see ‘‘Memoriale,’’ 19 – 20 , Meersseman,Dossier, 102 , and Lucca, Biblioteca
Statale,ms 1310, fols. 3 v– 4 r. - ‘‘Forma Statuti,’’ 5 , Meersseman,Ordo, 1 : 19.
- ‘‘Statuti della Confraternita di s. Lucia’’ (Statuti L, 1334 ), 17 and 27 , De Sandre Gasparini,Statuti,
71 and 73 – 74. - Raffaello Morghen, ‘‘Vita religiosa e vita cittadina nella Firenze del duecento,’’La coscienza
cittadina nei comuni italiani nel duecento, 214 – 15.