WorldWithoutEnd.Amen. 395
both sounding in unison the death knell.^79 All knew the meaning of the bells.
For a layman, it tolled three times, symbolizing the Trinity whose image is
found in every man. For a laywoman, the bell rang twice, since, in Eve,
Adam found a second worthy of him. If the deceased was in holy orders, the
bell rang once for each order he had received: doorkeeper, exorcist, lector,
acolyte, subdeacon, and deacon—up to seven strokes for a priest.^80 And the
people prayed. Something mysterious and potent attended the moment of
death and the prayers around it. Folklore and pious story confirmed this.
When Verdiana died, the bell of her parish church sounded the death call
without a hand placed to the rope.^81 A sinful, scoffing woman failed to offer
a prayer when she heard the death bell ring for Filippo Benizzi of Siena. She
was struck mute. But she soon repented and received back her voice.^82 In
Borgo San Giovanni at Parma during the late 1230 s and early 1240 s, a dog
belonging to the de’ Nauli could smell out deaths. The dog would become
frantic to leave the house and go where someone had died. The dog sta-
tioned itself outside the house as long as the body remained there, in its own
way begging prayers for the dead. Then it followed the corpse in the proces-
sion to the church and quietly took its place under the bier during the Re-
quiem Mass. They called it the ‘‘dog of the dead.’’ It was a dog that knew its
pious duty.^83
The liturgical books of Verona provided chants and prayers to be intoned
over the body preceding its preparation for burial. They prescribed the re-
sponsory ‘‘In Paradiso,’’ which also accompanied the funeral procession
from the church to the cemetery. This beautiful chant was long and com-
plex, and its use was probably restricted to monastic communities. For the
laity, the preparation of the body was an intensely private task, the particular
duty of the family, though lay custom probably differed little from that in
religious houses, where members of the community, the deceased’s spiritual
family, had responsibility.^84 Bertramo del Foro, a canon of San Vincenzo
at Bergamo, explained that when one of his community died, the canons
themselves washed and prepared the body (and got to keep the deceased’s
clothing).^85 Washing the body had sacramental symbolism, recalling the de-
ceased’s first washing in baptism and the later washing of penance that pre-
- Reggio Stat. ( 1277 ), p. 48.
- Sicardo,Mitrale, 9. 50 , col. 427 ;Ordo Senensis, 2. 93 , pp. 498 ; Bologna Stat.ii( 1288 ), 4. 91 , 1 : 246 ;
Pisa Stat.ii( 1313 ), 3. 58 , pp. 350.
81 .Vita Sancte Viridiane, 10.
82 .Processus Miraculorum B. Philippi [Benitii], 2. 6 , fol. 54 r.
83 .Chronicon Parmense( 1246 ), 23. - As in Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare,ms mcix, fols. 41 r– 45 v; the rituals of other cities provide no
particular ceremony to precede the washing of the body:Rituale di Hugo [di Volterra], 302 ; Florence,
Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale,msConv. Soppr. D. 8. 2851 , fol. 8 v; Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare,ms
dccxxxvi, fol. 30 r(Pisa). The Milanese rite included prayers to be said while washing the body: Milan,
Biblioteca Ambrosiana,msA 189 Inf., 76 r–v. - ‘‘Instrumentum Litis’’ (September 1187 ), 1. 2 ,p. 134 ; 2. 12 ,p. 146. For a summary of the funeral
material in these documents, see ibid., p. 73 – 82.