OrderingFamilies,Neighborhoods,andCities 161
preaching and the sacraments. The commune itself represented the priest
Simeon and the prophetess Anna, who held Jesus, the Light of the World, in
their arms when Mary presented him in the temple.^116 Mary’s Purification,
her ‘‘churching,’’ involving as it did the offering of candles, was a fitting time
also to bless candles.
On the Purification at Siena, the canons chanted Terce as they came into
the duomo in procession. The celebrant, usually the archpriest, blessed and
mixed salt and water, creating holy water. He then handed a lighted candle
to each present, clergy and laity, as they kissed his hand.^117 Then, as the
canons chanted Simeon’s Song from Lk 2 : 29 – 32 , the ‘‘Nunc Dimittis,’’ he
sprinkled the tapers with holy water. The candles carried in procession that
day were alight.^118 Each of the faithful carried a living flame, not a dead
candle, and so bore a fitting symbol of the living Christ—as the Dominican
preacher Bartolomeo of Braganze explained in his sermon for the day.^119
Then the bishop and clergy, followed by the laity, went in procession, carry-
ing their candles, to an altar erected outside the church, where the clergy
sang chants in honor of the Virgin. The procession returned to the duomo
for the Mass, entering the church singing the chant ‘‘Cum Induceret Puerum
Iesum’’ (When they brought the boy Jesus into the Temple).^120 The worship-
ers came forward to offer their candles at the altar. After Mass, the people
received blessed tapers for devotional use at home, thereby allowing them to
extend the festival throughout the year. The cathedral canons of Siena re-
called this special day by a candle-lighting ceremony on the vigils of major
feasts.^121 In some cities, magistrates gave public banquets on that day, Saint
Mary of the Candlemakers, to celebrate entry into office.^122
The candle-offering ritual recommended itself to lay piety. Zita of Lucca
offered a candle to Saint Mary Magdalene each year on her feast. What Zita
did privately, offering a candle on a day special to her, the communes did
corporately. Candle offerings punctuated the civic year. They accompanied
municipal elections. At Padua, according to an enactment of 1267 , the forty
members of the Paduan Great Council, which elected the three rectors of
the subject city of Vicenza, began their consultation by going two by two to
the altar of the Palazzo Comunale and offering a lighted candle. This ritual
- Sicardo,Mitrale, 5. 11 , cols. 243 – 44.
117 .Ordo Senensis, 1. 322 , pp. 298 – 99. - Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria,ms 1785, Rolando the Deacon,Liber de Ordine Officiorum,fols.
41 r–v. - Bartolomeo of Vicenza,Sermones de Beata Virgine ( 1266 ),Sermo 111. 3 ,p. 739 : ‘‘Candela sine lumine
dicitur mortua.’’Ordo Officiorum della cattedrale [volterrana], 68 – 70 (San Gimignano, Biblioteca Comunale,
ms 3, fols. 19 r– 20 r; Volterra, Biblioteca Comunale Guarnacci,ms 273, fols. 19 v– 21 r), places special emphasis
on each individual’s carrying a lighted candle, so as to imitate Mary when the procession enters the
church. - See Pont. Rom. (xii), 27. 1 – 11 , pp. 206 – 8. A sermon by the bishop sometimes followed, e.g.,Ordo
Senensis, 1. 319 – 25 , pp. 297 – 301. - See Kempers, ‘‘Icons,’’ 95.
- E.g., Biella Stat. ( 1245 ), 1. 1. 5 ( 5 ).