GoodCatholics atPrayer 377
carnis resurrectionem, vitam aeternam,provided an opportunity to elaborate on
the general judgment, the horrors of hell, and the joys of heaven.^162 Pietro’s
work had pretensions to literary grandeur and was long. Other anonymous
poets, such as the one who recast the text into vernacular tercets, attempted
less elaborate presentations of the Creed.^163 More common than poetic ver-
sions were short treatises explaining the Creed. The commentary on the
Creed I discussed in Chapter 8 , that prepared by a godfather for his godson,
is a good example.^164 There were also small works on specific doctrinal top-
ics. These often used numbers as a memory device. A tiny Latin treatise in
a Bologna manuscript of the early 1300 s gives the ‘‘five ways’’ in which God
chastises people.^165 The author supplies biblical authorities for all except the
last: when God decides to begin punishing people, while they are still alive,
who are going to hell. God may also chastise people in order to prove their
constancy to others, as in the case of Job or Tobit. He may afflict them so
that Jesus or a saint can heal them in a display of power or mercy, as with
the man born blind through no sin of his own or of his parents. Or, he may
do it so that the person does not become proud, as with Saint Paul’s thorn in
the flesh. And so forth. Why bad things happen to good people is a perennial
Christian problem.
Another theological summary is the tiny vernacular treatise on ‘‘fifteen
signs to appear before the judgment,’’ found in another Bologna codex.^166
This author claimed to draw on both the Bible and the sibyls, but all his
signs were actually biblical. The list consisted of horrible cataclysms such as
the sundering of oceans from their beds, starvation of all animals, and a rain
of fire from heaven. The reader is left with a conviction that since none of
this is happening yet, time remains for repentance before the dreadful day.
Bridging the gap between doctrinal and moral treatises was a genre that
rivaled both in popularity, confessional aids. These rank with the virtues
literature in popularity and are often found in the same manuscripts. Since
I have discussed the character of these works in Chapter 7 , there is no reason
to do so here.
Praying inSilence
The devotional literature examined so far has a direct concrete quality,
whether it concerns belief or morals. The prayers focused on Christ’s re-
demptive death and the Virgin’s loving intercession. They elaborated on the
Pater Noster and the Ave Maria, the two mainstays of the lay office. Moraliz-
ing works focused on practical spiritual growth (virtues) and on the predica-
- Ibid., 144 – 57.
- Modena, Biblioteca Estense Universitaria,ms.R. 2. 3 , fols. 1 ra–b.
- Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria,ms 158, fols. 47 v– 50 v.
- Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria,ms 1563, fol. 9 v.
- Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria,ms 158, fol. 2 v. The ‘‘fifteen signs’’ would have a great vogue
in the latter Middle Ages, as in England: Duffy,Stripping of the Altars, 70 , 72 , 82 , 227.