FromConversion toCommunity 97
cant orders.^181 Dominican-directed individual penitents promoted ortho-
doxy, which replaced the older focus on temporal works of mercy.^182 At
Vicenza in the 1280 s, the most visible penitent was Sor Mabilia di fu fra
Guidone Zenoese, herself the daughter of a penitent, as her name implies.
She handled the confiscated goods of heretics convicted by the local Francis-
can inquisition and, after the pope removed the Minorites for financial cor-
ruption, worked for the new Dominican-run tribunal. Sor Mabilia seems to
have done well for herself—detractors accused her of retaining confiscated
property. In 1305 she and her friend Sor Meltruda Bellasoro drafted wills
leaving money to a number of charities.^183 She requested burial in the Fran-
ciscan church of San Lorenzo, near the altar she herself had constructed in
honor of Saint Peter. The local Poor Clare abbess was her executor. We are
a long way from the poor rural penitents of San Desiderio.
LayAutonomy and theMendicants
By mid–thirteenth century, sexual segregation had become the norm among
the penitents. At Padua, confraternity statutes from the communal period
and later never mention women.^184 This is exceptional, since women peni-
tents appear everywhere else and, by the late 1200 s, probably outnumbered
the men.^185 Perhaps the male confraternities’ growing involvement in gov-
ernment dictated this; perhaps it reflected increasing restrictions on women;
or, more likely, it arose from the women’s aversion to elaborate organization
and their desire for autonomy. Because the female penitent style was more
independent and freelance than that of the men, their absence from statutes
means little. Women’s desire for companionship and support encouraged
formation of more informal communities or, better, networks. ‘‘Microcon-
vents’’ and anchor-holds for individualreclusemultiplied in many communes,
although their transience meant that they left few documents or records.^186
Sibyllina Biscossi became a conversa on her own. She felt drawn to the
Dominican church at Pavia, met some friars there, and became a penitent
under their direction.^187 She never joined a group. Umiliana dei Cerchi lived
a life of penance at home. Eventually another conversa, Sobilia of Sasso,
- Mariano D’Alatri, ‘‘I minori e la ‘cura animarum’ di fraternita
e congregazioni,’’I frati minori e il terzo ordine: Problemi e discussioni storiografiche, 17 – 20 ottobre 1982 ,Convegni del Centro di studi sulla spiritualita
medievali, 23 (Todi: Accademia Tudertina, 1985 ), 150 – 53 ; De Sandre Gasparini, ‘‘Laici devoti,’’ 223. - See Meersseman,Dossier, 24 ; id.,Ordo, 1 : 379.
- Mantese, ‘‘Fratres et sorores,’’ 697 – 98.
- De Sandre Gasparini,Statuti,xl–xlii.
- E.g., at Bergamo: Maria Teresa Brolis, ‘‘A Thousand and More Women: The Register of
Women for the Confraternity of Misericordia Maggiore in Bergamo, 1265 – 1339 ,’’Catholic Historical Review
88 ( 2002 ): 231 – 46. On the feminization of the confraternities, see Casagrande,Religiosita`, 211 – 314. - On such written records, see Benvenuti Papi, ‘‘Donne religiose,’’ 614 – 15 ; for women penitents
(and their male counterparts), see Casagrande,Religiosita`, 28 – 33 ; and on penitents’ networks and active
life, see Maiju Lehmijoki-Gardner,Worldly Saints: Social Interaction of Dominican Penitent Women in Italy,
1200 – 1500 (Helsinki: Suomen Historiallinen Seura, 1999 ). - Tomasso of Bossolasco,Vita [B. Sibyllinae Papaiensis], 1. 5 ,AS 9 (Mar.iii), 68.