Feasting,Fasting,andDoingPenance 283
there was no way to convince people not to stuff themselves with meat and
wine until the stroke of midnight ushered in Ash Wednesday. This was im-
memorial custom and could not be broken.^72
In Shrovetide—the time to be ‘‘shriven,’’ to go to confession—just before
Ash Wednesday, some acted wildly and foolishly; such was the custom of
Christian cities, remarked Fra Salimbene. Men paraded around in women’s
clothing, wearing pale masks to hide their gender, oblivious of scriptural
condemnations of cross-dressing. At Reggio, the millers once tricked the
Franciscans into giving them their old habits, which they wore while dancing
and singing in the streets. In the countryside, the rustics burned their sheds
and huts.^73 At Padua, this was the season for tournaments in the Prato Sant’
Ercolano.^74 Parma also had its war games. These activities so often got out
of hand that the city council required those who put them on to apply for a
permit.^75 The mock wars of Shrovetide sometimes brought serious injury or
death to the participants and provoked condemnations from the moralists.
Most people turned a deaf ear. Pietro Parenzi tried to stamp out carnival
tournaments at Orvieto because of the homicides. He failed, even after he
resorted to leveling the houses and towers of those who fought with swords
and pikes in the piazza on Shrove Tuesday. These delinquents must have
been heretics, Pietro’s biographer opined.^76 More likely they were good
Catholics enjoying immemorial custom.
Shrovetide put the ascetic piety of the communes in conflict with their
love of celebration. A well-wisher presented the Tuscan penitent Torello a
basket of meat for carnival. Torello accepted it with gratitude, only to be
struck by a crisis of conscience. The holy man prayed for guidance, and
suddenly out of nowhere a wolf showed up to eat the meat. The donor went
away edified.^77 A blind man, Martino of Agello, had been healed at the tomb
of Saint Pietro Parenzi, whose dim view of carnival was notorious. The man
expressed his gratitude by keeping vigil before the tomb with a lighted can-
dle. When melting wax flowed down and burned his hand, Don Matteo, the
prior of the church, suggested he put the taper in the candelabrum. Martino
explained he would happily undergo a little pain to show appreciation, espe-
cially because it was carnival, ‘‘the time when irreligious people [homines
seculares] are accustomed to eat in excess.’’^78
With the arrival of the fast on Ash Wednesday, the cities themselves took
on a somber air. In the churches, on the night before Ash Wednesday, the
great Lenten curtain was hung between the choir and the nave, where it
72. Gratian,Decretum,D. 4 c. 6.
73. Salimbene,Cronica, 913 – 15 , Baird trans., 632 – 35 ; ibid., 931 , trans., 645.
74. Ibid. ( 1283 ), 759 , trans., 529.
75. Parma Stat.iii( 1316 ), 106.
76. Giovanni of Orvieto,Vita [S. Petri Parentii], 1. 5 ,p. 87.
77 .Acta [B. Torelli Puppiensis], 2. 8 ,p. 496.
78. Giovanni of Orvieto,Vita [S. Petri Parentii], 5. 34 ,p. 96.