314 BuoniCattolici
tisms be done during Holy Week, at least in cathedral churches, so that there
would be at least a small group to baptize at the vigil.^31 The Easter baptisms
became ever more a civic, as well as an ecclesiastical, ceremony. Providing
water for the great immersion pool of the baptistery became a communal
responsibility. At Verona, the communal official responsible for water, on
entering office, took an oath that he would provide a good supply of fresh
water to the cathedral for baptisms and making holy water.^32 Modena
pledged that the city itself would provide the water needed for Holy Satur-
day.^33 Mass Easter baptisms and their civic significance seem distinctively
communal Italian, symbolic of that epoch’s particular union of Church and
city.
MakingCatechumens
The making of new Christians began with the solemn announcement of the
Easter date soon after Christmas. Easter was, and still is, a mobile feast, and
only those with Easter tables and a good grasp of mathematics could deter-
mine the date themselves. Most people heard the date of the spring feast at
this ceremony. At Siena, a procession with candles and incense wound its
way to Giovanni of Pisa’s great pulpit in the choir screen just after the pon-
tifical Mass of Epiphany. From there the deacon proclaimed in song the
dates of Lent and Easter to the assembled congregation.^34 On the fourth
Sunday of Lent, another solemn announcement occurred at the end of the
solemn Mass. One of the priests of the cathedral mounted the pulpit and
announced that on the following Saturday the church would hold the first of
the seven ‘‘scrutinies,’’ the rites during which the children to be baptized
were prepared by prayers and exorcisms. The scrutinies and the other rites
for preparing catechumens, the candidates for baptism, originated in the
ancient Church. At that time most new Christians were adult converts, who
had to be examined—‘‘scrutinized’’—regarding their morals and beliefs.
The Church combined these examinations with prayers and exorcisms in-
tended to erase the clouds of their former paganism. For baptizing infants,
the medieval Church knew no ritual distinct from the ancient rite for adults,
but their ritual books called these ceremonies the ‘‘Rite for Making Children
Catechumens.’’^35 In the communes, on the occasion when there was an adult
31 .Caeremoniale Episcoporum: Editio Princeps, 1600 ,ed. Achille Maria Triacca et al. (Vatican City: Li-
breria Editrice Vaticana, 2000 ), 2. 27 , no. 8.
32. Verona Stat.ii( 1276 ), 4. 181 ,p. 640.
33. Modena Stat. ( 1327 ), 5. 41 – 42 ,p. 554.
34 .Ordo Senensis, 1. 76 – 77 ,p. 65.
35. See, e.g., Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana,msAed. 214 , fols. 42 r– 59 r: ‘‘Quomodo In-
fantes Catechumeni Efficiantur’’ (a twelfth-century ritual); Mantua, Biblioteca Comunale Centrale Tere-
siana,ms 331(xiicent.), fols. 34 r– 25 v; and Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana,msA 189 Inf. (ca. 1200 ), fols.
70 v– 72 v.