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
- 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.