Feasting,Fasting,andDoingPenance 299
TheCityDoesPenance
So Lenten confession took its modest place in the annual round of corporate
piety that united the Christian community. I say modest because Lent was
above all the time to reconcile those alienated from city and Church, that is,
those guilty of public crimes or laboring under excommunication. In Italy
public penance and the solemn rites for reconciling penitents did not disap-
pear in the early Middle Ages.^182 A mid-thirteenth-century Florentine priests’
manual explains the difference between private and solemn public penance:
‘‘Penance is either solemn, public, or private. Solemn penance begins on
Ash Wednesday when the penitents are expelled in ashes and sackcloth; it is
also called public because it is done publicly. Public penance that is not
solemn, such as a pilgrimage, is imposed before the church without the afore-
said solemnity. Private penance is done individually, at home or before a
priest.’’^183 Public or solemn penance required the presence of the bishop and
could only be undertaken once. The author of this manual especially noted,
in addition to the usual crimes, that sins impeding marriage required public
penance: incest, abduction, spousal homicide, murder of blood relatives.
Public penance was never imposed for secret sins.
A communal Italian could be excommunicated deliberately by a judicial
sentence (ferenda sententia) or automatically by statutory penalty (lata senten-
tia).^184 Once excommunicated, at least for more serious offenses, the delin-
quent had to receive penance from the bishop, do that penance, and secure
formal permission, in order to be readmitted to communion. Some excom-
munications were of a special sort. After the institution of papal inquisitions
during the 1230 s, bishops no longer handled those excommunicated for her-
esy.^185 The inquisitors, usually Franciscan or Dominican friars, imposed pen-
- Public penance persisted into the 1200 s in northern France as well: see Mary C. Mansfield,The
Humiliation of Sinners: Public Penance in Thirteenth-Century France(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994 ),
which confirmed the suspicions of Cyrille Vogel, ‘‘Les rites de la pe ́nitence publique auxeetxiesiecles,’’ Me ́langes offerts aRene ́Crozet al’occasionne de son soixante-dixieme anniversaire,ed. Pierre Gallais and Yves-Jean
Riou (Poitiers: Socie ́te ́d’E ́tudes Me ́die ́vales, 1966 ), 1 : 137 – 44. - Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana,msAed. 37 , fol. 108 r: ‘‘Penitentia alia sollempnis alia
publica alia privata. Sollempnis est que fit in capite ieiunii quando cum sollempnitate in cinere et cilitio
eiciuntur, publica dicitur etiam quia fit publice. Publica non sollempnis est que fit in fatie ecclesia sine
predicta sollempnitate, ut peregrinatio. Privata que fit singulariter in domo vel coram sacerdote.’’ See
also, on public penance, Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana,msAed. 214 (ca. 1200 ), fol. 51 r. - For an example of a judicial excommunication, see Matteo Griffoni ( 1255 ), 13 ; for the list of
statutory excommunications, see Innocent IV,Apparatus super Libros Decretalium, X 5. 39. 1 ,v.Super eo(Lyons:
Moylin, 1525 ); Hostiensis (Enrico of Susa),Summa Aurea(Venice: Sessa, 1570 ), 5. 59. 3 , col. 1880 – 84 .On
these texts, see Elisabeth Vodola,Excommunication in the Middle Ages(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University
of California Press, 1986 ), 34 n. 27. Bishops could add other statutory excommunications subject toLiber
Sextus, 5. 11. 5 (available, e.g., in vol. 2 ofCorpus Iuris Canonici, 2 d ed., ed. E. Friedberg [Leipzig: Tauchnitz,
1881 ]); for an example, see Lucca Synod ( 1308 ), 32 ,p. 182. - Parish priests, however, were expected to report suspected heretics among their people. For the
procedures for doing so at Bologna, see Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria,ms 1515(xivcent.): Documenta
Officialium Ss. Inquisitionis (xivCent): fols. 18 r–v, ed. Lorenzo Paolini,Il De Officio Inquisitonis: La procedura
inquisitoriale a Bologna e a Ferrara nel trecento(Bologna: Editrice Universitaria Bologna, 1976 ).Utriusque Sexus
wasnota heresy-detection device: Gy, ‘‘Pre ́cepte de la confession annuelle (Latraniv,c. 21 ),’’ 444 – 50 ,
esp. 444 – 45 , and Vodola,Excommunication, 32 – 33.