Introduction 9
more eloquently than words to the laity. Nevertheless, words did matter.
The unlettered ‘‘got’’ and ‘‘took away’’ much more from the chanted Latin
than we give them credit for. The liturgy of the cities, except for Milan, with
its Ambrosian Rite, was that of the Roman Church in a north Italian form.^35
I have privileged liturgical sources localized in that region. One witness has
proved indispensable, Bishop Sicardo of Cremona, whoseMitraleis a trove
of riches for Italian worship in the late 1100 s.^36 Next to him in importance
are the canons of Siena, who produced a revision of their early-twelfth-
century ordo about 1210.^37 Equal in importance is the work of Rolando, a
deacon of Pisa, who compiled his study of local Pisan usages in the late 1100 s
(fig. 49 ).^38 For the lay perspective on the rituals described by these clerics, I
have drawn on hagiography and narrative sources.
The first of the three liturgical chapters focuses on the Divine Office and
the Mass. These, and especially the latter, formed the shared devotional
patrimony of medieval Italians, as they did for Christians throughout Eu-
rope. The next two chapters follow the liturgical year, that catechetical tool
of the medieval Church. First, I examine the period from Christmas to Lent,
briefly glancing at the feasts of the saints. Lent, especially after 1215 , was the
time for confession, and in this context I examine that sacrament and the
pious practices that surrounded it. It is not my intention to reproduce the
massive scholarship treating penitential and confessional manuals in the pe-
riod. Rather, I try to recover the people’s experience of going to confession
and doing penance. The concentration of private confessions in Lent follow-
ing Lateranivand their linkage with public reconciliations had a transform-
ing impact on the sacramental rite. The last liturgical chapter moves through
Holy Week to Pentecost. Its centerpiece is the civic rite of the Easter vigil,
with its mass baptism of infants, a ritual innovation distinctive of the com-
munes. Baptism made the children citizens of both the commune and of
heaven. At Easter the commune renewed itself and reaffirmed its identity as
a sacred society. These rites came to be so closely associated with republican
identity that they were among the first things to go as princes established
seignorial rule in the early 1300 s.
The ninth chapter focuses on the prayer life of ordinary people outside of
- On Roman and Ambrosian liturgical customs, see Pierre-Marie Gy, ‘‘La papaute ́et le droit
liturgique auxxiiemeetxiiiemesie`cles,’’The Religious Roles of the Papacy: Ideals and Realities, 1150 – 1300 ,ed.
Christopher Ryan (Toronto: PIMS, 1989 ), 229 – 45.
36 .Mitrale; seu, De Officiis Ecclesiasticis Summa, PL 213 : 13 – 432. On the exemplarity of Sicardo for our
period, see Enrico Cattaneo, ‘‘Lo spazio ecclesiale: Pratica liturgica,’’Pievi e parrocchie,ed. Erba et al.,
1 : 475 , and Webb,Patrons, 19 – 20. - For Sienese use about 1213 , seeOrdo Senensis,which edits Siena, Biblioteca Comunale degli Intro-
nati,msG.v. 8 (latexiicent.); on which, see Lorenzo Ilari,La biblioteca pubblica di Siena disposta secondo le
materie(Siena: Ancora, 1849 ), 5 : 74. See Mino Marchetti,Liturgia e storia della chiesa di Siena nelxiisecolo: I
calendari medioevali della chiesa senese(Roccastrada: Istituto Storico Diocesano di Siena, 1991 ), 45 – 60 ,on
dating this manuscript; but cf. Webb,Patrons, 20 – 21. - Unedited, text in Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria,ms 1785.