OrderingFamilies,Neighborhoods,andCities 149
one could take part in processions, laity and clergy, men and women. A
procession was one rite where laity and clergy were on equal footing, if not
in positions of equal honor. One did not need to be ordained or know Latin
to march in procession. From the 1100 s forward, processions proliferated
until the streets of the communes suffered from liturgical congestion. In Flor-
ence on feasts of the Virgin, confraternity processions were rerouted through
Piazza Santa Maria Novella to avoid traffic jams with the communal proces-
sions going past the duomo.^46 Processions, by their order of march, made
social order visible. When formed by particular groups—neighborhood asso-
ciations or cappelle—they made these intentional communities visible. Cor-
porate participation in a procession expressed the group’s identity to
onlookers; an individual’s presence indicated membership. A successful pro-
cession not only claimed social place, it ordered those who occupied the
place. It expressed a living order.^47
To those whose spiritual senses could pierce the heavens, the other world
presented itself in similar ordered motion. The blessed Benvenuta Bonjani
saw the saints entering the heavenly sanctuary. They came in procession. As
in the earthly rite, the women came first, followed, in place of honor, by the
Blessed Virgin. Then came the male saints, according to their rank and
dignity. Finally, Christ himself. Like a celebrant at High Mass, he entered
after two angelic acolytes, a subdeacon, and a deacon. Arriving two by two
before the altar of heaven, each celestial pair made a profound bow and filed
into the choir stalls. Having reached the throne, Christ intoned the Mass
Rorate Caeli,which all sang melodiously.^48 High Mass, whether in the duomo
or the court of heaven, followed the same rubrics.
The procession before solemn Mass was the origin and model of all other
processions. Bishop Sicardo of Cremona commented on this procession; he
must have participated in it countless times.^49 His text fills the gaps in Ben-
venuta’s vision. At Cremona, the bishop entered his cathedral to the sound-
ing of all the church bells. Before him went all the others in the procession:
Seven acolytes with lighted candles led. Next came seven subdeacons, seven
deacons, and seven priests, representing the ranks of the ecclesiastical hierar-
chy. Preceded by three acolytes with lighted censers came the priors of the
city’s twelve collegiate churches. Last, in the place of honor, came the
bishop. Before him a subdeacon carried the sacred Scriptures; to his left
walked the deacon for Mass, and to his right the archpriest of the cathedral.
The numerology of the procession provided Sicardo the allegorist with food
for thought: seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, seven virtues, twelve apostles. The
- See, on processions, Meersseman,Ordo, 2 : 950 , and Webb,Patrons, 16 – 17.
- On use of rituals to create order, see Mary Douglas,Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology
(London: Routledge, 1996 ), and Victor Turner,The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure(Chicago:
Aldine, 1969 ). - Corrado of Cividale,Vita Devotissimae Benevenutae, 3. 28 ,p. 157.
- Sicardo,Mitrale, 3. 2 , cols. 92 – 93.