Resurrection andRenewal 333
effects of the Resurrection by a special chanting of the Gospel. Three dea-
cons mounted Giovanni Pisano’s pulpit. The first declaimed the opening
verse of the Gospel in Hebrew, the next the second verse in Greek, and the
third chanted his verse in Latin. The choir then chanted the rest of the
Gospel, accompanied by the great organ.^149 At the end of the Mass, the
bishop blessed lambs to be prepared for the Easter dinner.^150
For the citizenry, these rites were secondary to the general Communion
at the people’s Mass that followed Prime. Even before the Lateran Council
made the Easter Communion the sole obligatory Communion of the year,
Easter was already the greatest of the three general Communions. The
Sienese ordo (just before the council) described how, at morning Mass, sac-
ristans in every church of the city filled ciboria with sufficient Hosts to com-
municate all those expected. They were to communicate worthily.
Conscientious preachers, like the Dominican Bartolomeo of Vicenza, kept
the need for confession before Easter Communion ever in the ears of their
hearers.^151 Before the Communion itself, the celebrating priest warned sin-
ners against profaning the Sacrament by irreligious Communion. He ex-
cluded from Communion those guilty of usury, withholding tithes, public
crimes, and ‘‘harboring hate in their hearts toward their neighbors.’’ While
some of these sins might have demanded public penance, the last was known
only to the individual. The priest warned those who fomented discord in the
community that they could not approach the Sacrament without confession
and restoration of harmony. If any parishioners were known troublemakers,
the priest was to prevent their Communions ‘‘willy-nilly’’ and stop the ser-
vice until a reconciliation had been achieved.^152 Sins against church, city,
and neighbor profaned this rite, but abstaining from Communion was anti-
social, if not heretical. Excluding the outcast sinners, all people approached
the altar, and all received the Lord. The Easter Communion was, above all,
a sacrament of the community’s unity and identity. Not only Sicardo’s desire
for convenience urged moving the children’s Communion from the vigil to
Easter day. The newly baptized who received Communion at this Mass so
demonstrated their full incorporation into the community of the city.^153 The
children were now fully citizens and neighbors.^154
Special observances prolonged Easter festivities. Easter Monday and
149 .Ordo Senensis, 1. 197 ,p. 181.
150. See Sicardo,Mitrale, 6. 15 , col. 350 , for the blessing; for the menu of dinner, seeOrdo Senensis,
- 198 ,p. 183.
- E.g., Bartolomeo of Vicenza,Sermones de Beata Virgine ( 1266 ),Sermo 55. 6 ,p. 369.
152 .Ordo Senensis, 1. 194 , pp. 177 – 78. - Although some churches did communicate the babies on Saturday: see, e.g.,Ordo Officiorum della
cattedrale [volterrana], 127 (Volterrams 222, fol. 51 r; San Gimignanoms 3, fol. 58 r). - Lett,Enfant, 111 , notes that Lateraniv,c. 21 , which required children over the age of ‘‘reason’’
to receive Communion at Easter, triggered legislation in France that forbade giving Communion to those
younger. I find no such prohibitions in Italian synods. Italian priests’ rituals include Communion even at
private baptisms of children: e.g.,Manuale Ambrosianum, 1 : 143 – 47.