Feasting,Fasting,andDoingPenance 303
compiled, with the help of their priest, a written general confession and
sometime before Ash Wednesday presented it to the archdeacon. In Ber-
gamo during the 1180 s, Don Giovanni di Bolgare of Sant’Alessandro ex-
plained that the parish priest summoned the sinner and presented him to a
canon of either Sant’Alessandro or San Vincenzo. The canon had the arch-
priest of his church enroll the malefactor in the penitential state and deter-
mined the proper penance. Don Giovanni remarked that he had been
present for this processmultociens—many times—showing the frequency of
solemn penance in north Italy in the late 1100 s.^208
The sharing of responsibility by the clergy of two churches at Bergamo
was unusual. Elsewhere, the cathedral canons jealously guarded their right
to enroll penitents. At Siena, the city clergy imposed the penances on public
sinners under the direction of the bishop and canons. Just before Terce on
Ash Wednesday, parish priests received from the bishop during a ceremony
at the duomo the commission to impose penances. The clergy first chanted
the seven penitential psalms, and the bishop then gave a sermon on how to
impose penances. All prostrated themselves for the singing of Psalms 50 and
129 , the ‘‘Miserere Mei Deus’’ and the ‘‘De Profundis.’’ The bishop led the
clergy in a general confession of sin, and all returned to their parishes to
prepare their parishioners and public penitents for the rite later in the day.^209
Bishop Sicardo sketched the public rites of Ash Wednesday at Cremona.
These included the Mass of the day (chanted just before None, as usual in
Lent), the procession of barefooted penitents, the general imposition of ashes
on the penitents and the faithful, the expulsion of the penitents from the
cathedral, and their incarceration.^210
Deacon Rolando explains in detail actual rites of Ash Wednesday at Pisa
a little before 1200 (see fig. 49 for the preface of this treatise).^211 At Sext, the
bishop blessed ashes made by burning the previous year’s palms in the choir.
He then went to the center of the nave. Meanwhile, the archpriest and a
deacon stood on the steps outside the great western door of the church.
These two clerics took the barefooted penitents, each holding a lighted can-
dle, by the hand and let them into the nave. The penitents prostrated them-
selves between the archbishop and the choir screen. When all had entered
and prostrated themselves, the archbishop went among them, sprinkling
- ‘‘Instrumentum Litis,’’ 6 ,p. 212 ; 1. 1 ,p. 132. The Aquileia Constitutiones ( 1339 ), 10 ,p. 1119 A,
required that each cathedral have trained penitentiaries.
209 .Ordo Senensis, 1. 99 , pp. 88 – 89. - Sicardo,Mitrale, 6. 4 , cols. 255 – 56.
- Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria,ms 1785, Rolando the Deacon,Liber de Ordine Officiorum,fol.
15 v. The rite follows that described in Pont. Rom. (Durandus), 3. 1. 1 – 25 , pp. 552 – 57 (textMartene,De Antiquis, 1 : 821 – 23 , Ordo 19 ), which I have used for missing details. On this pontifical, see Vogel,Introduction aux sources, 208 – 10. For Italian practice, see Zafarana, ‘‘Cura pastorale,’’ 520 – 21. A briefer form of these rites is found in Pont. Rom. (xiii), App. 3. 1 – 3 ,p. 578 , and Pont. Rom. (xii), 28. 1 – 7 , pp. 209 – 10 (text Martene,De Antiquis, 1 : 818 – 20 , Ordo 17 ). Milan is again the exception; ashes were distributed there on
the Saturday before the second Sunday of Lent:Manuale Ambrosianum, 2 : 142 – 43.