Resurrection andRenewal 321
importance. Secular business resumed Monday to Wednesday, and only
Wednesday’s solemn fast had an impact on devotional consciousness. That
fast, recalling Judas’s betrayal of the Savior for thirty pieces of silver, was
the prototype for the Wednesday fast throughout the year, just as the fast
commemorating Christ’s death on Good Friday was for that of the Fridays
of the year.^71 The last three days of this week—the Paschal Triduum—were
the culmination of the Church’s year. On Palm Sunday, the cities celebrated
Christ’s entry into Jerusalem and his Passion. Now in this preparation period
for Easter, they would meditate on that death. At Vespers on Thursday the
bells of the city rang for the last time and then fell silent. In their place,
wooden clappers announced the Offices and hours until Easter.
Popular piety focused on the combined Offices of Matins and Lauds,
called Tenebrae (‘‘Shadows’’), on these three days. The readings of Matins
were from the Lamentations of Jeremiah, adapted to mourning the death of
Christ as recounted in the Passion Gospels of Palm Sunday, Monday, and
Tuesday. The cantor sang these lessons in a tone peculiar to this Office,
which some believed to date from the ancient synagogue. As the lessons
progressed, Christ’s slow death on the cross was manifested in the successive
snuffing of candles fixed on a special, usually triangular, stand in the midst
of the choir, called in English the hearse. Bishop Sicardo noted that the
number of candles— 12 , 24 ,or 72 —varied, but all had to be out by the
chanting of the last canticle of Lauds, the song of Zachariah (Luke 1 : 68 – 79 ).
The choir chanted this canticle in complete darkness, recalling the darkness
of the tomb. All the music of the day was executed in a mournful and solemn
tone, especially the litanies, with their Kyrie Eleisons, at the end of the rite.^72
But at Siena, a foretaste of Easter was added. As the litanies progressed, the
candles were relighted, and at the end of the rite the custodian carried a
candle to the people, who took tapers and relighted all the lamps of the
duomo. On Holy Thursday morning, Siena celebrated a Requiem Mass for
the dead.^73
For pastors of the chapels and pievi, the most important ceremony was
the bishop’s Thursday-morning Mass at the cathedral, with its blessing of
the holy oils, the Chrism Mass.^74 Only a bishop could consecrate the holy
oils used to confirm the neophytes on Holy Saturday and anoint the sick
throughout the year. Parish priests procured these oils anew each year, and
as Bertramo Duramal, custodian of the duomo in Bergamo explained, the
archpriests of all baptism churches in the outlying parts of the diocese were
obligated (ex precepto) to come to the cathedral for the distribution.^75 At Ve-
- Sicardo,Mitrale, 6. 10 , col. 295.
- Ibid., 6. 11 , col. 297.
73 .Ordo Senensis, 1. 138 – 40 , pp. 121 – 23. - On this rite, see Pont. Rom. (xii), 30 b–c, pp. 227 – 34 ;Ordo Senensis, 1. 141 – 52 , pp. 124 – 34 ; Sicardo,
Mitrale, 6. 12 , cols. 302 – 3. - ‘‘Instrumentum Litis’’ (September 1187 ), 2. 15 ,p. 150 ; 7 : 3 ,p. 255.