Feasting,Fasting,andDoingPenance 291
refined food; envy included political sins, like plotting and flattery.^125 The
system of the seven sins meant that the sinners could not confess merely by
listing infractions of a set of rules like the Decalogue. Penitents had to identify
their sins and fit them into the structure of vices.^126 One anonymous Italian
layman, who seemingly had served in positions of major responsibility for at
least one northern commune,^127 struggled to use this method for a written
confession, probably just after 1327.^128 The purpose was almost certainly for
public penance. This was a general confession; that is, it covered the man’s
entire life. The document is in a fine, clear professional hand, with red initial
letters, on good-quality parchment. This penitent (doubtless with assistance
from his priest) made his work easier by using the very popular ‘‘formula
for confession’’ devised by the canonist Johannes Teutonicus.^129 Johannes’s
formula listed various infractions under each vice, giving concrete reality to
the abstract capital sins. Before preparing his text, this penitent listed the
qualities of a good confession. Addressed to a priest, it was to be simple,
humble, voluntary, pure and faithful, true, regular, shamefaced, complete,
secret, tearful, self-accusatory, and fully prepared.^130 As he prepared his con-
fession, this man copied, adapted, or omitted from his model to fit his partic-
ular needs. In the process, the abstract Latin formulas became actual
personal sins in the Italian vernacular.
The man’s sins of gluttony (gula) may serve as an example.^131 First, he
admitted that he took too much delight in food and drink, just as his formula
suggested. He did not try to decide whether he would have been willing to
break divine law to satisfy his hunger, thus committing mortal sin, or
whether he would have avoided breaking the law, and thus have sinned only
venially. He jumped over the seven grades of gluttony (borrowed by Johan-
nes from Pope Gregory the Great) and focused on the most concrete sections
of the formula. Johannes listed actual sins, giving concrete specifics for each.
The man’s responses track the formula. Yes, he stayed too long at table. Yes,
- Casagrande, ‘‘Moltiplicazione,’’ 265 – 66.
- Very occasionally, however, owners of devotional books did supplement the vices system with
other schemata for organizing their sins. For an example, a user of Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria,ms
2530 , added a list of sins through the five senses to those of the vices, on fols. 31 r– 32 r, and a user of
Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria,ms 158, wrote the Ten Commandments on fol. 56 v, after the vices, but
his control of the commandments seems vague. He got the first four right, but the rest are somewhat
original: ‘‘Ama il prossimo come te stesso. Non togliere laltrui. La donna altrui non disiderare. Non fare
usura. Non rendere falsa testimonanza. Non fare homicidio.’’ - Most likely this man was one of the‘‘podestrie,’’thepodestates terrae,who governed outlying districts
for the communes; see Bologna Stat.ii, 2. 5 , 1 : 54 – 56 ; 2. 6 , 1 : 56 – 67. - Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria,ms 158, fols. 54 v– 56 v. This document is found with lists of
virtues and elements of a good confession on fols. 52 r– 54 v. The text is in an Italian typical of Emilia or
the Veneto and datable paleographically to the early 1300 s. Frati’s cataloguing of the codex omits it:
Lodovico Frati and Albano Sorbelli,Indice dei codici italiani conservati nella R. Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna,
Inventari dei manoscritti delle biblioteche d’Italia(Forlı`: Bordandini; Florence: Olschki, 1909 ), 15 : 155 – 57. - Iohannes Teutonicus’sConfessionalehas never been edited. In the following, I have consulted the
version in Mantua, Biblioteca Comunale Centrale Teresiana,ms 399(xvcent.), fols. 2 r– 17 v. - Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria,ms 158, fol. 53 r.
- Ibid., fol. 56 v; cf. Mantua, Biblioteca Comunale Centrale Teresiana,ms 399, fols. 15 r–v.