Feasting,Fasting,andDoingPenance 293
tic rule, such as willfulness against her abbess. Even without ‘‘worldly’’ sins
to confess, her list grew to be long and searching. One can see why Giovanni
Pilingotto and others decided to write down what they intended to say.
Confession was a penance in itself—especially if the priest did not pose
questions and the penitents had to discover their sins for themselves. Jesus
once appeared to Margherita of Cortona and told her to correct a priest
who was either too unlettered or too shy or too lazy to quiz his penitents on
their sins. Had he done so, he would have saved them considerable anxiety
and labor. The good confessor gave his penitents some help and treated
them in a gentle way.^137 Confessional manuals produced in the 1200 s drove
this point home. Johannes de Deo, in hisSumma,reminded confessors that
their first task was to comfort their penitents. They should listen to them,
not argue with them about sins. And, of course, the confessor should not
accept gifts from them.^138 A short anonymous treatise, which perhaps be-
longed to an Augustinian friar, told the confessor how to treat his penitents:
Now something should be said about how the confessor should treat
the one confessing. First, it is necessary that the confessor show a
mild face to an honest sinner coming to confession and exhort him
to confess all his sins honestly and completely, using perhaps words
something like this: I myself am a sinner who could have done any-
thing you have done, had God not helped me. I am ready to offer
advice, sympathy, mercy, and prayers for you. I will impose a merci-
ful penance because that pleases God, who is the Father of mercy.^139This friar’s codex, like many ad hoc compilations to aid confessors, included
a wide range of catechetical tools.^140 The good confessor was to detect and
give penance for sins, but also help aid the spiritual formation of his peni-
tents. Compilers adapted outlines of vices and commandments so that they
became directly applicable to ordinary people’s daily lives. One anonymous
early-thirteenth-century cleric composed a little treatise on how to question
sinners. It had a remarkable immediacy and specificity. He questioned peni-
- Giunta Bevegnati,Legenda... Margaritae de Cortona, 8. 16 , pp. 362 – 63.
- Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale,msMagl.xxxiii. 13 , fols. 18 v– 22 r. The owner of this
codex had another penitential manual, Johannes Cappellanus’sTractatus de Penitentia(on fols. 35 r– 143 v),
bound with it. - Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana,msQ 38 Sup. (latexiiicent.?), fol. 70 v: ‘‘Quomodo autem confes-
sor se debet habere confessor erga confitentem sic nunc dicendum est. Debet ut puro confessor peccatori
ad confessionem venienti primo faciem benignam ostendere et exortari ut confiteatur pure et integre et
omnia peccata sua dicat, addens si videatur expediens: Ego ipse peccator sum, qui forsan fecissem que
tu fecisti nisi me Deus invisset, et ideo paratus sum tibi consulere, compatri, et misereri, et orare per te.
Et penitentiam misericorditer imponam, quia ita placet Deo, qui est Pater misericordiarum.’’ The full
treatise is on fols. 70 r– 75 v. - See Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana,msQ 38 Sup.: on the cardinal virtues, fols. 52 r– 53 v; the gifts
of the Holy Spirit, fols. 61 v– 62 v; the laws of the Church, fols. 62 v– 66 r; the articles of the creed and the
seven virtues, fols. 66 r– 67 r; and the seven sacraments, fols. 67 r– 70 r.