Resurrection andRenewal 331
Although many, if not most, children were privately baptized on account
of the danger of death, the numbers baptized at the vigil were sizable. In
1500 , when the city of Pisa had a lower population than in the communal
period, the number of baptisms a year averaged about 1 , 155.^138 If only the
babies born in Holy Week were baptized at the vigil (the later Tridentine
rule), that meant a minimum of twenty baptisms. This number is certainly
too small; the total of all the babies born in Lent, about a hundred, seems
most likely. And Pisa was far smaller than Florence, Bologna, or Milan. The
great communal baptisteries, with their large fonts allowing for simultaneous
immersions, had ample space for the crowds. The assembly line must have
worked, with only occasional confusion or mix-up.
When the priests had finished baptizing, cantors again intoned the litany,
and all circumambulated the baptistery three times. As the bells pealed for
the first time since Holy Thursday, this procession entered the cathedral by
the great doors. After the clergy had lit all the candles and lamps, Easter
Mass began with the singing of the Gloria.^139 The great bells pealed through-
out this hymn; in Pisa, this gave the signal for the custodians of all the city
churches to ring their church bells.^140 In many cities, the newly baptized
infants received Communion at this Mass, thus completing their incorpora-
tion into the Church.^141 Bishop Sicardo did not approve of this practice. In
his opinion, the shortness of the vigil Mass, with its exceedingly brief Vespers
service, was a concession to the fussy little neophytes. They were ready to go
home for their evening feeding; it would not do to delay this by Commu-
nions. Indeed, it would prove difficult to convince mothers not to breast-feed
their cranky infants and so not break their Eucharistic fast. At Cremona, the
newly baptized received their first Communion, their ‘‘rights,’’ along with
all the other citizens at the Mass of Easter Sunday morning.^142 Before the
disappearance of Communion from the chalice in the early 1100 s, infants
received a drop of the Precious Blood from the priest’s finger; in the later
communal period, their Communion would have been a very tiny fragment
of the Host. In the fourteenth century, anxiety over children’s spitting out
the Blessed Sacrament led to a decline in the practice of baptismal Commu-
nion, although it was not officially abolished until the Council of Trent.^143 In
Pisa, the vigil ended with a second festive singing of the Gloria. The clergy
- M. Luzzati, ‘‘Primi dati sulla distribuzione della popolazione nelle parrocchie e nei sobborghi
di Pisa fra 1457 e 1509 in base agli elenchi battesimali,’’Pievi e parrocchie,ed. Erba et al., 2 : 833 – 35. - On this Mass, see Sicardo,Mitrale, 6. 14 , col. 337.
140 .Ordo Senensis, 1. 186 , pp. 169 – 70 ; Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare,ms lxxxiv, fol. 103 v; Bologna,
Biblioteca Universitaria,ms 1785, Rolando the Deacon,Liber de Ordine Officiorum,fol. 28 r. - Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare,ms lxxxiv, fol. 102 r;Ordo Officiorum della cattedrale [volterrana],
124 – 25 (Volterrams 222, fols. 50 r–v; San Gimignanoms 3, fols. 55 r–v); Mantua, Biblioteca Comunale Cen-
trale Teresiana,ms 331, fol. 38 r; but cf. Sicardo,Mitrale, 6. 14 , col. 310 C. - Sicardo,Mitrale, 6. 14 , col. 340.
- On infant Communion in Milan up to Trent, see Fisher,Christian Initiation, 106 – 7.