354 BuoniCattolici
The Poor Catholics, a lay penitent group converted from heresy, prescribed
fifteen Paters for each of the hours by their rules of 1208 and 1212. To these
they added, once a day, the recitation of the Credo, the ‘‘Miserere,’’ and
some other easily memorized prayers. There were some literates among
these penitents: their 1212 rule stipulated that the ‘‘learned’’ could chant the
canonical Office instead.^72 Repetition of Pater Nosters became the ‘‘lay of-
fice’’ of the thirteenth century. Marian confraternities added Ave Marias to
it. In the 1260 s, an Arezzo confraternity of the Virgin committed its members
to the daily recitation of Paters and Aves for each canonical hour. Before
bed, they added the verse ‘‘In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum
meum.’’ And when they said Paters and Aves for the dead, they closed the
recitation with ‘‘Requiem eternam dona eis, Domine.’’^73 These verses were
well-known invocations from the public liturgy and reassociated the lay office
with the public cult from which it was born. The truly unlettered could say
these verses in the vernacular, but the Paters and Aves were always in the
Church’s holy language.
Peter the Chanter’s manual records a version of the lay office that con-
sisted in saying one hundred Paters for Matins, thirty each for Lauds and
Vespers, fifty for Mass, and twenty for Prime.^74 Repetitions often reflected
sacred numbers. A group of Piacenza flagellants of the late 1200 s prescribed
three Paters and three Aves, kneeling, each day to honor of the Blessed
Trinity, followed by five Paters in honor of the five wounds of Christ. They
said a Pater and an Ave before each meal as grace.^75 Andrea de’ Gallerani
of Siena used to recite fifty Paters and Aves each morning and evening.
When possible, he extended the recitation to three sets of fifty each. Lest he
nod and fall asleep during the recitation, he tied his hair to a nail in the
wall above the place where he was kneeling.^76 Confraternities always tended
toward a clericalized piety. But even as literacy increased, the lay office en-
dured in the confraternities. Like the clergy, the literate might recite prayers
from books, but the illiterate (and those who so preferred) stuck to the lay
office and repeated their Paters quietly in the back of the room.^77 The multi-
plication of repetitions allowed lay prayer to match the length of liturgical
services.
The bastion of the lay office was always the ordinary faithful themselves,
especially the women. An elderly woman taught the young Sibyllina Biscossi
to recite a certain number of Paters for each of the canonical hours of the
- Meersseman,Dossier,App. 2. 4 ( 1208 rule); App. 4. 13 ( 1212 rule).
- ‘‘Nuovo statuto della congregazione della Vergine di Arezzo’’ ( 1262 ), 15 , Meersseman,Ordo,
2 : 1015 – 27. - Peter the Chanter,De Oratione, 185 (longer version of the text).
- Piacenza Battuti Stat. ( 1317 ), 59 – 60. The group also compiled vernacular prayers for the members
to recite: ibid., 66 – 69.
76 .Vita [Beati Andreae de Galleranis], 1. 7 ,p. 54. - De Sandre Gasparini,Statuti,ciii–cv.