78 LaCitadeSancta
in their Own Houses.’’Memorialehere means ‘‘record of an intended way of
life.’’ The pope’s recognition gave the penitents formal ecclesiastical status
as a group, something they corporately lacked in the earlier period. Popes
and bishops soon granted them a vast range of ecclesiastical privileges. In
1225 , Honorius III, by letter to all the bishops of Italy, granted the penitents
exemption from both episcopal and papal interdict. This gave them access
to Mass and Divine Office when these were forbidden to a city or area.
Provided that they did not admit excommunicates, they could conduct ser-
vices behind closed doors, with low voices and no bells. This privilege in-
cluded the right to funerals and Christian burial at such times.^54 Bishop
Giacomo Calvacante of Citta`di Castello, in a common practice, granted
indulgences to new penitents.^55
Individual penitents remained ‘‘ecclesiastical persons,’’ even when not af-
filiated with a local group. The ‘‘Memoriale’’ was not a piece of original
legislation.^56 The group that had the ‘‘Memoriale’’ drafted probably arose
during the preaching of Saint Francis in the Marches, Romagna, and Lom-
bardy during 1209 – 10 and was probably already following the ‘‘Propositum’’
of 1215. The final document differs from the ‘‘Propositum’’ in its inclusion of
legal glosses and elaborations, citation of the papal letter of approval, and a
‘‘Dominican’’ provision that the rule bind only under pain of penance, not
sin.^57 Much of the document is borrowed from legal formularies and canon-
law sources. Hardly a single line of the ‘‘Memoriale’’ lacks a model in an
earlier rule or penitential canon.^58 As the document’s full title indicates, the
individuals living under it dwelt at home in their houses. They were ‘‘secu-
lars’’ living on their own, not ‘‘regulars’’ enclosed in a monastery and holding
their goods in common.^59 The lack of originality and the simplicity of this
document and of similar confraternity and communal statutes led the notary
Boncompagno of Signa to doubt whether such legislation deserved the name
of statutes (statuta) at all.^60 Papal approval made this ‘‘Memoriale’’ the sole
normative rule for all conversi and penitents until the 1290 s. Local groups of
- ‘‘Bullarium,’’ 2 (Honorius III, 1 December 1225 ), Meersseman,Dossier, 42 ; for which, see alsoBF
1 : 19 , and August Potthast,Regesta Romanorum Pontificum(Berlin: Decker, 1874 – 77 ), 7. Renewals of the
privilege: ‘‘Bullarium,’’ 7 (Gregory IX, 23 August 1229 ), Meersseman,Dossier, 47 ; ‘‘Bullarium,’’ 10 (Greg-
ory IX, 5 April 1231 ), ibid., 48 ; ‘‘Bullarium,’’ 40 (Alexander IV, 15 July 1260 ), ibid., 67. The privilege
applied to special groups: Lombard penitents: ‘‘Bullarium,’’ 21 (Innocent IV, 15 March 1246 ), ibid., 57 ;
women penitents: ‘‘Bullarium,’’ 27 (Innocent IV, 15 September 1251 ), ibid., 60 ; Florentine penitents:
‘‘Bullarium,’’ 30 (Innocent IV, 13 October 1251 ), ibid., 61 ; ‘‘Bullarium,’’ 42 (Urban IV, 5 July 1264 ), ibid.,
68 ; ‘‘Bullarium,’’ 45 (Honorius IV, 28 January 1286 ), ibid., 70 – 71. - ‘‘Cartulaire,’’ 20 – 21 , Meersseman,Dossier, 204 – 6.
- Meersseman,Dossier, 6 – 7 ; Meersseman,Ordo, 1 : 359 – 60 ; Robert W. Stewart,‘‘De Illis qui Faciunt
Penitentiam’’: The Rule of the Secular Franciscan Order: Origins, Development, Interpretation(Rome: Istituto Storico
dei Cappuccini, 1991 ), 183 – 84 ; Casagrande,Religiosita`, 79 – 93. - Meersseman,Dossier, 11 , 84 , 112. See also later legislation, ‘‘Memoriale,’’ 39 ; see Meersseman’s
comments inDossier, 112 n. 39. - Meersseman,Ordo, 1 : 32 ; Meersseman,Dossier, 93 – 112.
- ‘‘Memoriale,’’ Meersseman,Dossier, 92 – 93.
- De Sandre Gasparini,Statuti,xxi.