HolyPersons andHolyPlaces 181
period was the great age of the neighborhood saint.^9 Before 1200 , the trian-
gular region framed by Verona, Milan, and western Tuscany venerated a
legion of pious laymen.^10 Born in the cities of their later cults, they grew up
there, practiced trades, married, and exhibited a prayerful charity toward
their neighbors.^11 Throughout the thirteenth century, the cities continued
to produce homegrown saints. In contrast to the bishop saints of the early
communes, those of the thirteenth century included many laywomen, often
of humble background, like the serving girl Zita of Lucca.^12 The popular
communes added new requisites to the earlier formula of holiness: pilgrim-
age, personal asceticism, and social work.^13 These later saints came from
the culture of the Brothers and Sisters of Penance, and they remained lay
freelancers. Their clerical patronage came from the secular clergy, not men-
dicants.^14 Only at the end of the thirteenth century did the late medieval
model of holiness—clerical orders for men, ascetical and mystical seclusion
for women—begin to eclipse the neighborly style of holiness.^15
TheConversion toPenance
Penance implied a turning from sin, a conversion, followed by a life of self-
denial. The pursuit of holiness through asceticism was a congenial theme for
the clerical biographers of communal saints. For clerics, ‘‘conversion’’ meant
leaving the ‘‘world,’’ that is, the lay state. Consequently, saints’ lives written
by clerics exaggerate the contrast between a lay saint’s habits before and
after conversion. But clerical authors could not hide the reality: the commu-
nal saints continued to live in the same world after their conversion. Only
among female saints of aristocratic background, like the Este abbesses Be-
atrice (d. 1226 ), daughter of Azzo VI, and Beatrice II (d. 1263 ), daughter of
Azzo VII, did cloistered holiness find exemplars in communal Italy.^16 But
- As remarked by Andre ́Vauchez, ‘‘Lay People’s Sanctity in Western Europe: Evolution of a
Pattern (Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries),’’Images of Sainthood in Medieval Europe,ed. Blumenfeld-
Kosinski and Szell, 21 – 32. Vauchez,Laity in the Middle Ages, 59 , reflects on their generally humble status.
On the shift from episcopal patron saints to lay saints, see Golinelli,Citta`e culto, 65 – 86 , esp. 86. - Andre ́Vauchez, ‘‘Une nouveaute ́duxiiesie
cle: Les saints laı ̈cs de l’Italie communale,’’L’Europa dei secolixiexiifra novitae tradizione: Sviluppi di una cultura: Atti della decima Settimana internazionale di studio,
Mendola, 25 – 29 agosto 1986 (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1989 ), 65 – 66 ; trans. as ‘‘A Twelfth-Century Novelty:
Lay Saints of Urban Italy,’’Laity in the Middle Ages, 51 – 72. - On the social dimensions of this piety, see Vauchez, ‘‘Lay People’s Sanctity,’’ 27 – 28.
- On the late appearance of female lay saints, see Vauchez,Laity in the Middle Ages, 58. On holy
women in Florence, see Benvenuti Papi, ‘‘Donne religiose nella Firenze del due-trecento,’’In Castro
Poenitentiae, 593 – 634. - Noted by Vauchez, ‘‘Nouveaute ́,’’ 67 – 69 , and by Antonio Rigon, ‘‘De ́votion et patriotisme com-
munal dan la genese et la diffusion d’un culte: Le bienheureux Antoine de Padoue surnomme ́ le ‘Pelle- grino’ ( 1267 ),’’Faire croire: Modalite ́s de la diffusion et de la re ́ception des messages religieux duxiieauxvesiecle,
Collection de l’E ́cole franc ̧aise de Rome, 51 (Rome: L’E ́cole Franc ̧aise, 1981 ), 263 – 64. - So Miccoli, ‘‘La storia religiosa,’’ 807 – 8 , agreeing with Andre ́Vauchez, ‘‘Saintete ́laı ̈que auxiiie
sie`cle: La vie du bienheureux Facio de Cre ́mone (v. 1196 – 1272 ),’’Me ́langes de l’E ́cole franc ̧aise de Rome: Moyen
Aˆge–temps modernes 84 ( 1972 ): 37. - On this, see Vauchez, ‘‘Nouveaute ́,’’ 79 – 80.
- On these two women, seeChronicon Marchiae Trevisinae et Lombardiae( 1226 ), 51 – 52 , andAnnales
Sanctae Iustinae Patavini( 1263 ), 184 – 85.