Feasting,Fasting,andDoingPenance 297
nion, because an illness had rendered her mute and unable to confess. Saint
Filippo Benizzi answered her prayers and cured her. She went to confes-
sion.^168 So, around 1200 , the ‘‘practicing’’ Catholic went to confession about
three times a year, once for each of the general Communions of the three
great feasts. The pious might go to confession much more regularly, even
when only communicating three times. Preparation for a worthy Commu-
nion required much more than confession and so was always rarer than
confession.^169
The obligation of confession before all Communions and the prevalence
of devotional confession without intention to communicate help explain the
significance of the decreeUtriusque Sexuspromulgated by Innocent III at the
Lateran Council of 1215. This decree introduced only two new obligations:
first, that the confession for Easter Communion be to one’s parish priest,
and second, that failure to confess at that time brought automatic excommu-
nication.^170 This excommunication did not bar one from Communion—
failure to confess already did that—it prevented the delinquent from
receiving the other ministries of the Church, such as the blessing of marriage
or a proper funeral. The enactment did not mean that the old rule of three
annual Communions fell by the wayside. Italian synods, like Innocent III
himself, assumed that the old three-Communions-a-year rule remained in
force and was still the common practice, even if the overall number of Com-
munions declined.^171 Besides the juridical penalty for not confessing, Italian
synodal legislation onUtriusque Sexusfocused mostly on how to observe (or
escape) the requirement that this annual confession be to ‘‘one’s own
priest.’’^172 Mendicants were not so happy with the rule. Saint Bonaventure,
in his commentary on the Lombard, did try to explain the logic of the restric-
tion, but Fra Salimbene quoted the rule only to attack it: Franciscans were
better trained theologically, so people should be allowed to use them as
168 .Processus Miraculorum B. Philippi [Benitii], 1. 33 , fol. 53 r.
169. As noted by De Sandre Gasparini, ‘‘Laici devoti,’’ 227.
170. See text in Heinrich Denzinger and Adolfus Scho ̈nmetzer, eds.,Enchiridion Symbolorum, Defini-
tionum, et Declarationum, 36 th ed. (Barcelona; Herder, 1976 ), 264 , no. 812. The rule applied to those over
fourteen years: see Lucca Synod ( 1308 ), 57 ,p. 189 , and Trexler,Public Life, 175 n. 86. Pierre-Marie Gy,
‘‘Le pre ́cepte de la confession annuelle e la ne ́cessite ́de la confession,’’Revue des sciences philosophiques et
the ́ologiques 63 ( 1979 ): 532 – 38 , correctly explains the juridical effects of the decree, often badly misunder-
stood.
171. So Michele Maccarrone, ‘‘ ‘Cura animarum’ e ‘parochialis sacerdos’ nelle costituzioni deliv
Concilio Lateranense ( 1215 ): Applicazioni in Italia nel sec.xiii,’’Pievi e parrocchie,ed. Erba et al., 1 : 164 ; see
also Innocent III’s letter of 4 January 1216 , edited inActa Innocentii Papae III,ed. Theodosius Haluscynskyi
(Rome: Vatican, 1944 ), 459. Miri Rubin,Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture(Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1991 ), 70 , also notes the persistence of the three-Communions rule. Cf.,
however, Pierre-Marie Gy, ‘‘Le pre ́cepte de la confession annuelle (Latraniv,c. 21 )etlade ́tection des
he ́re ́tiques: S. Bonaventure et S. Thomas contre S. Raymond de Pen ̃afort,’’Revue des sciences philosophique
et the ́ologiques, 58 ( 1974 ): 445.
172. E.g., Lucca Synod ( 1300 ), 57 ,p. 233 ; Lucca Synod ( 1308 ), 57 ,p. 189 ; Ravenna Council ( 1311 ), 15 ,
pp. 457 – 58 ; Padua Synod ( 1339 ), 15 ,p. 1138. On the dissemination of the decree, see Maccarrone, ‘‘Cura
animarum,’’ 81 – 195.