260 BuoniCattolici
Mass one day at a nave altar. From nowhere, a woman, Viridiana of Tolen-
tino, arrived and interrupted him. She demanded that he say a Pater Noster
over her head. She had a splitting headache. Nicola did so, blessed the
woman, and recommenced his Mass. God could not have been too dis-
pleased; the headache vanished.^163
TheMostHolySacrament
The elevation of the Host, illumination torches, and incense after the Conse-
cration all came on the heels of the laity’s growing devotion to the Blessed
Sacrament.^164 Although the layfolk of the communes might receive sacra-
mental Communion three times—or perhaps only once—a year, Christ’s
sacramental presence played an ever more central role in their piety. At the
Consecration, all knelt, if they were not already kneeling; the men uncovered
their heads and, after viewing the Host, bowed in homage. Clerics tried to
respond to the people’s needs. Peter the Chanter’s manual, in the short
version known in Italy, suggested a prayer for lay use at the Consecration
and elevation. That there is only one prayer suggests the period before the
institution of an elevation of the chalice: ‘‘May the consecration, receiving,
and accepting of your Flesh and Blood, Lord Jesus Christ, not bring me and
all the faithful, living and dead, into judgment or condemnation, but by your
mercy let it be for us protection of mind, soul, and body, and let it bring us
true salvation and the reward of eternal life. Who live and reign for ever and
ever. Amen.’’^165 This prayer is stiff, rather formal, and, by its reference to
the reception of the Host, a sacerdotal, rather than lay, prayer. Peter adapted
it from the priest’s private preparation for Communion found in most medie-
val missals. One wonders if any of the laity ever used it. The layman Bonve-
sin de la Riva, writing directly for an Italian audience, suggested forms less
clerical, more warmly emotional, the kind that became so beloved of the
laity. He gives two, indicating that his audience already knew the elevation
of both the Host and chalice. At the elevation of the Host: ‘‘Hail, O Body of
Christ, born of the Holy Virgin! Living Flesh, wholly God yet very Man!
True Salvation, Way, Life, and Redemption of the world, free us by your
arm from all our sins!’’ And at the elevation of the chalice: ‘‘Hail Blood of
Christ, most holy drink from heaven, Flood of Salvation, washing away our
sins. Hail Blood flowing from the wound of Christ’s side; O saving flood
- Pietro of Monte Rubiano,Vita [S. Nicolai Tolentinatis], 5. 40 ,p. 654.
- On Eucharistic devotion, especially in northern Europe after 1300 , see Miri Rubin,Corpus Christi:
The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991 ). - Peter the Chanter,De Oratione, 190 : ‘‘Confectio, suscepio, susceptio carnis et sanguinis tui, dom-
ine Jesu Christi, non proveniat mihi et cunctis fidelibus tuis, tam vivis quam defunctis, in iudicium et
condempnationem, sed ex tua pietate sit nobis tuta mentium, animarum, et corporum, et prosit nobis ad
veram salutem, atque premia vite eterne recipienda. Qui vivis et regnas.’’ (Doxology expanded in the
translation.)