GoodCatholics atPrayer 359
One scholar has suggested that the cost of books of hours restricted their use
to the wealthy.^100 I doubt this was the only reason. Use of the Little Office in
Italy seems restricted to those, like Oringa Cristiana and Margherita, who
were in the process of becoming nuns or religious. The Office was clerical
and monastic; its use suggested a departure from lay piety. During my
searches of Italian manuscript collections, I only rarely found books of hours,
and those were seldom local products.
While my sounding of manuscripts of devotion is admittedly provisional
and hardly scientific, it is possible to inventory the contents of devotional
collections likely to have been used by the laity. Bonvesin de la Riva gave
examples of suitable prayers for lay use; they were mostly collects from the
Church’s liturgy, addressed to Christ, to the Virgin, to a martyr, to a virgin,
to a confessor, or ‘‘to any saint.’’^101 After praising repetition of the Pater
Noster and the Ave Maria, Peter the Chanter recommended for lay use the
collects of the liturgical year and liturgical texts, like the Magnificat, the
Gloria in Excelsis, and the Credo in Deum.^102 Both authors expected that
these prayers would be read in Latin. Early-thirteenth-century Italian devo-
tional collections follow this lead: most consist of Latin collects or collectlike
prayers addressed to God, Christ, the Virgin, and the saints. Only later in
the century do other forms appear, these often in the vernacular.
Paleographic and internal evidence can, with some certainty, identify de-
votional manuscripts as produced in communal Italy. I will restrict my dis-
cussion to manuscripts that can with some certainly be localized there. Only
rarely does hard evidence indicate that a manuscript was intended for a lay
audience. Language is not relevant. The habits of Oringa Cristiana and
Benvenuta Bojani warn us that laypeople used Latin texts, even if they un-
derstood them only imperfectly. Some clerics probably preferred vernacular
texts. Latin devotional manuscripts copied by monks or clerics might have
passed into lay use. To some extent, the question of lay or clerical presents a
false dilemma. The differences between the piety of the literate laity and that
of the clergy can be exaggerated. Peter the Chanter and Bonvesin de la Riva
suggested prayers for use by anyone who could read.
Two manuscripts, one preserved in Cesena, the other in Florence, suggest
examples of clerical or monastic compilation. The Cesena manuscript is a
small booklet ( 5 7 ) of fourteen leaves, probably copied in the early thir-
teenth century.^103 It once was property of the church of Sant’Andrea of
Pergula, which pertained to the monastery of Avellena. The compiler ex-
cerpted sections from a work similar to theDe Sacramentisof Hugh of Saint
100. Ibid., 2 : 942 – 43.
101. Bonvesin de la Riva,Vita Scholastica, 63 – 65.
102. Peter the Chanter,De Oratione, 226 – 27.
103. Ravenna, Biblioteca Comunale Classense,ms 95(ca. 1200 ?),Opusculum Liturgicum Anecdotum.