100 LaCitadeSancta
vored the same civic and neighborly purposes as the early penitents. They
made special provision for their poor, and for the material and spiritual
needs of sick members.^203 Only in their tendency toward a more centralized
government, with a single ‘‘prior’’ instead of a pair of ministers, did they
depart from older forms of organization.^204 Even when a group of flagellants
received statutes from a Dominican bishop, as at Mantua in 1308 , they pre-
served their freedom to choose any priest as their chaplain.^205
In origin and development, the conversi were a lay creation. And until
the late 1200 s, they managed to avoid subordination to the clergy and direct
clerical control.^206 For their governance, they invented new forms of organi-
zation, not based on clerical models. Only in their piety did they draw on
monastic asceticism, but even this they adapted to their life in the world.
They bequeathed their genius for participatory and democratic organization
to the communes themselves. The ‘‘Propositum’’ answered the laity’s desire
for a more ordered penitential life, and they adopted it voluntarily, not be-
cause ecclesiastical authorities imposed conformity. The ‘‘Memoriale’’ of
1221 shows no sign of clerical supervision; penitents adopted it spontane-
ously, as they had the ‘‘Propositum.’’ Only the provision making the rule
bind, not under pain of sin, but under an imposed penalty, hints at Domini-
can influence, since this principle was typical of that order’s discipline. It was
a very minor contribution. The rest of their rule is the product of the lay
ethos. In 1280 , Bolognese jurists, themselves laymen, not clerics, compiled
the most important commentary on the rule.^207 Until the last decade of the
century, the blessing and imposition of the penitent habit could be done by
a layman without priestly involvement.^208
But by the 1270 s, penitent autonomy began to suffer from the attentions
of their most successful offshoot, the Franciscans. The rival Dominicans too
sought to bring penitent groups under their supervision. So arose the schism
between ‘‘Gray’’ and ‘‘Black’’ Penitents, perhaps at Florence in the 1270 s.^209
Clerical domination of most penitent groups would be the result. By the
late 1280 s, the two mendicant orders vied with each other in subordinating
penitents to their direction. On 18 August 1289 , the Franciscan pope Nicho-
las IV, by the bullSupra Montem,subordinated all penitents to Franciscan
- E.g., Lucca, Biblioteca Statale,ms 1310, fols. 6 v– 7 r(Lucca flagellants, 1299 ); Milan, Biblioteca
Nazionale Braidense,msAC.viii. 2 , fols. 36 r–v(Pavia flagellants, 1332 ). - E.g., Lucca, Biblioteca Statale,ms 1310, fols. 2 r– 3 v, 8 v– 9 r; Milan, Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense,
msAC.viii. 2 , fols. 28 v– 30 v. - For these statutes and a commentary on them, see Thompson, ‘‘New Light,’’ esp. 155 , 162.
206 .PaceDe Sandre Gasparini, ‘‘Laici devoti,’’ 222 , who emphasizes clerical control, which is cer-
tainly typical after our period: e.g., the ‘‘Statuti della Confraternita di s. Lucia’’ (Statuti L, 1334 ), 1 – 2 ,De
Sandre Gasparini,Statuti, 68. - See Meersseman,Dossier, 11 – 17 ; on the Bolognese commentary, see ‘‘Expositiones Regule,’’ ibid.,
113 – 17. - Meersseman,Ordo, 1 : 420 – 22.
- Meersseman,Dossier, 9 ; for the history of these schisms, see ibid., 28 – 37.