102 LaCitadeSancta
but in Brescia, at least, they balked at this rule and continued to meet, as
they always had, in their neighborhood chapels.^218
The conversi were the fruit of a peculiarly lay piety dating from the earli-
est days of the communes. They became a fixture of communal life, their
‘‘lay’’ habit a visible witness to a more intensely spiritual, yet lay, life in the
world. Their ranks numbered many lay communal saints, both female and
male. But their slide to clericalization was far advanced by the end of the
communal period.^219 The 1289 revision of the penitents’ rule included a pro-
vision (§ 28 ) granting exemption from military service, but this right lapsed
soon after 1300.^220 At Bologna in 1289 , the city closed public offices and
supervision of public works to the penitents.^221 In a crushing blow to lay
autonomy, Bishop Arrigo of Lucca, by a ruling of 1308 , forbade rectors of
the city chapels to hear the vows of private conversi. Was he yielding to
mendicant pressure? In any case, Bishop Arrigo ‘‘grandfathered in’’ those
already professed and living in their houses, so long as they avoided secular
affairs.^222 This marked the end of the old independent style of lay penance.
By the 1300 s the golden age of the communes was over, and with it that of
the Brothers and Sisters of Penance.
- Meersseman, ‘‘Il manuale dei penitenti di Brescia,’’ ibid., 1 : 410 – 50.
- See Benvenuti Papi, ‘‘I penitenti,’’ 42 – 49 , on clericalization at Florence.
- Meersseman,Ordo, 1 : 424 – 45.
- ‘‘Ordinatione Fratrum de Penitentia’’ (Bologna, 1289 ), 9 , Meersseman,Dossier, 174 ; cf. Bologna
Stat.i( 1259 / 67 ), 8. 97. Parma had already excluded them in 1266 : Parma Stat.ii, 137 , 239. - Lucca Synod ( 1308 ), 23 , pp. 180 – 81.