74 LaCitadeSancta
of lay penitents. The group’s organization was also strikingly similar to that
of the neighborhood corporations (societa`) that dominated the thirteenth-cen-
tury communes. But this group had no penitential aspects or civil functions.
One can only assume that the communal corporations derived their struc-
tures from pious societies like this one rather than vice versa.^31 I discuss the
communal neighborhood societies in the next chapter.
Like the San Cassiano d’Imola group, early societies of conversi were
rural foundations. A well-documented group of conversi gathered around
the church of San Desiderio in the Vicentine contado. They were active
from 1187 to 1236 and present a good example of the structure and goals of
such a lay association.^32 These penitents formed a voluntary community and
supported themselves by agriculture. Lowland flooding, which destroyed
their livelihood, probably explains their disappearance in the late 1230 s.^33
Members of this group married, had children, cultivated their fields in com-
mon, and practiced an asceticism based on that of canonical public penance
(save for celibacy). The association was spontaneous and voluntary.^34 Their
religious identity was paramount. They vowed conversion of life, wore a kind
of habit (saio), recited the traditional hours, if literate, or the Pater Noster (as
medievals knew the Our Father, or Lord’s Prayer), if not. They met for
periodic Masses, sermons, and chapters of faults. The group held common
property, but they were not monks, nor were they attached to a monastery.
A document of 21 November 1222 records the self-oblation of Adriano of
Grancona and his wife, Richelda, to the San Desiderio community. The
couple give their property, including Richelda’s dowry, to the group, and
the document carefully itemizes it. Fortunately, the document also includes
the couple’s ceremony of oblation. After offering their property, the conversi
of the church wrapped the couple with cloths from San Desiderio’s altar,
thereby symbolizing that the group’s patron had taken the new members
under his protection.^35 This gesture is strikingly like that by Bishop Guido of
Assisi, who wrapped his mantle around Saint Francis as a sign of ecclesiasti-
cal protection when that layman converted to penance and disburdened
himself of property and clothing.
Although eleventh-century conversi were ‘‘freelancers,’’ they sought spon-
sorship from local ecclesiastical authorities. The turn of the thirteenth cen-
tury was a fertile time for such affiliation. Excepting their common
- Cf. De Sandre Gasparini,Statuti,xlix–l, and Ronald Weissman, ‘‘From Brotherhood to Congre-
gation: Confraternal Ritual Between Renaissance and Catholic Reformation,’’Riti e rituali nelle societa`
medievali,ed. Jacques Chiffoleau, Lauro Martines, and Agostino Paravicini Bagliani (Spoleto: Centro
Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 1994 ), 79. - Documents in Vicenza, Archivio di Stato, San Bartolomeo, Busta 1 , on which, see Gilles Ge ́rard
Meersseman, ‘‘Penitenti rurali comunitari in Italia alla fine delxiisecolo,’’ Meersseman,Ordo, 1 : 305 – 54. - Meersseman, ‘‘Penitenti,’’ 321.
- Ibid., 335. On use of canonical penance forms, see Meersseman,Ordo, 1 : 326 – 27.
- ‘‘Pergamene dei Penitenti di S. Desiderio’’ 25 , Meersseman,Ordo, 1 : 349 – 51 , esp. 350 ; on this
ceremony, see ibid., 1 : 312.