Cities of God: The Religion of the Italian Communes 1125-1325

(Darren Dugan) #1

GoodCatholics atPrayer 361 


prayers are often highly devotional, focusing on Christ’s Passion and some-


times using litanic form, as in a prayer to the Blessed Trinity (fols. 26 v– 27 v).


There is also a model confession (fols. 8 v– 10 r) of the sort examined in Chapter



  1. Except when the prayers request monastic virtues or invoke monastic


saints, these might be the kind of devotions used by a literate layperson.


Another Bolognese miscellany has bound into it theElucidariumascribed


to Honorius Augustodunensis and some material for preparing for confes-


sion, both in a twelfth-century hand. But this insertion interrupts a later


florilegium of Latin prayers (fols. 16 v– 17 v, 52 r– 53 v) in a distinct hand and on


different-size folios.^108 The selection of prayers is heavily Marian, and mostly


poetic, including the hymns ‘‘Gaude Virgo,’’ ‘‘Ave Maris Stella,’’ and ‘‘O


Sancta Virgo.’’ There are also three hymns directed to the Trinity, and a


Eucharistic hymn, ‘‘O Vivens Hostium.’’ The section closes with a prayer


against fever. This florilegium is heavily liturgical and hardly accessible to


those with weak Latin. Nonetheless, the prayers are poetic and pick up


themes popular in lay piety—the Virgin and the Eucharist. One could easily


imagine their use by nonclerics.


The clerical devotional collections considered so far contain, at best, sec-


tions that might have appealed to laypeople. The university library at Padua


has a Latin devotional volume from the mid–thirteenth century that is al-


most certainly lay in origin.^109 This small ( 4. 5  6 ) collection of prayers is


filthy, literally worn out by use. The content may be taken as typical, except


for the little Office of the Virgin (fols. 65 r– 95 v). The focus of the book is on


penance and the Virgin. It includes the seven penitential psalms (fols. 3 r– 11 v)


and the gradual psalms (fols. 12 r– 20 r), each set ending with a verse and col-


lect. The penitential theme is picked up later in a section of prayers (fols.


104 v– 111 v) that includes three prayers specifically focused on the crucified


Christ. Devotion to the Virgin is represented by eleven prayers (fols. 96 r–


104 v), including a litanic invocation of her titles, each preceded by the greet-


ings ‘‘Ave’’ or ‘‘Gaude.’’ The collection ends with a prayer to the guardian


angel and a prayer honoring the cross. Perhaps the most interesting item in


this section is the litany of the saints (fols. 96 r– 116 v) (fig. 54 ). Although the


manuscript once passed through Franciscan hands, the litany contains no


Franciscans. It does include both Saint Omobono of Cremona and Saint


Raimondo Palmerio of Piacenza. The absence of mendicants and the inclu-


sion of Lombard lay saints gives the book a very local feel. This is indeed the


world of communal piety: penitential, focused devotionally on the cross of


Christ and his Blessed Mother, the very world of Omobono and Raimondo.


This is a rare book. In spite of diligent searching in collections throughout


communal Italy, I found no other thirteenth-century Latin codex so unam-


biguously in accord with lay piety.


108. Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria,ms 1563.
109. Padua, Biblioteca Universitaria,ms 469.
Free download pdf