150 LaCitadeSancta
bishop and his escort were the image of the Trinity. Like Christ, he was
received by the Gentiles (the three incense-bearing acolytes are the Magi)
and proclaimed by the Old Testament (the subdeacon carrying the Bible).
At Pisa, on the feast of the Holy Cross, a procession carried a relic of the
True Cross from the sacristy to the altar; other holy days also had their own
special processions.^50 The procession was too powerful a symbol to relegate
to the interior of the duomo. At Pisa again, on the feast of the dedication of
the duomo, the bishop arrived for High Mass on horseback from his resi-
dence. The city clergy, present already for the night Office, welcomed him
at the cathedral’s great western doors.^51 In cities of the so-called Ambrosian
Rite, such as Milan, morning Lauds and evening Vespers both ended with a
procession out of the cathedral for a circumambulation of the baptistery.^52
In late-twelfth-century Bergamo, custom dictated a procession of cathedral
clergy each Sunday to a different cloister of nuns. The canons arrived chant-
ing the praises of the Blessed Virgin, whose handmaids the nuns were. Each
Sunday was a symbolic little Easter, and the virgin nuns symbolized the Holy
Virgin. As good medieval Catholics knew, even if the Bible did not mention
it, the resurrected Christ appeared first to the Virgin Mary before showing
himself to the Magdalene. These processions reenacted the Lord’s appear-
ance to his mother on Easter morning.^53
The clergy of Pisa had a procession each Friday to the Camposanto, the
cemetery of the cathedral complex, to recall Christ’s death on Good Friday
for the sins of humanity. In this procession, a litany for the dead suitably
replaced Verona’s Sunday chants to the Virgin. The processional used in
this rite was written in large letters for myopic bishops—and the edges of the
pages are black with grease from centuries of episcopal thumbs.^54 Clerical
processions like these focused on the clergy and the bishop. The primary
readers of their symbols were the city priests who came to participate, and
read them they must. At Bergamo in 1135 , Bishop Gregorio, a Cistercian
who had taken office the previous year, requested from Pope Innocent a
letter commanding the city clergy to be present for the major processions of
the cathedral clergy.^55 Every time they participated, they reaffirmed their
subordination to their new monk bishop. Participation was a sign of submis-
sion to the Ecclesia Matrix.
Processions did more than express subordination and hierarchy. They
validated the identity and dignity of the neighborhood chapels. Sometimes
- Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria,ms 1785(latexiicent.), Rolando the Deacon,Liber de Ordine
Officiorum,fol. 45 r; for the saints’ days, see ibid., fols. 36 v– 37 r. - Ibid., fols. 51 r–v.
- Enrico Cattaneo, ‘‘Il battistero in Italia dopo il Mille,’’Miscellanea Gilles Ge ́rard Meersseman,ed.
Maccarrone et al., 1 : 181. - Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare,ms lxxxiv(xiicent.), fol. 107 r.
- Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare,ms dccxxxvi(xiiicent.),Ordo Benedicendi seu Rituale ad Usum Ecclesie
Pisane,‘‘Ordo Processionis,’’ fols. 55 v– 57 v. - Valsecchi,Interrogatus, 68.