Resurrection andRenewal 317
Christ’s genealogy from Matthew, in particular, reminded the hearers that
the names of the catechumens were now inscribed in heaven.^49
Next came a mystical catechesis, symbolically completing the promise of
the sacred Scriptures just chanted, the giving of the Credo and the Pater
Noster. An acolyte presented a chosen boy at the chancel-screen door, and
a priest read over him the Apostles’ Creed in Latin. The same was then
done for a girl, with the Creed this time read in Greek. The same ceremony
was repeated for the Lord’s Prayer, again in both sacred languages.^50 The
reading of the Credo, with its twelve phrases, traditionally believed to have
been composed by the twelve apostles, was the most important part of this
rite, imparting as it did the essence of the faith. People knew this day as
the Saturday for Giving the Credo. In Milan, at least, the catechumens’
godparents made the children’s baptismal vows renouncing Satan immedi-
ately before the giving of the Credo.^51 Mass continued with the Gospel of
the day. The general practice was to ‘‘expel’’ the ‘‘neophytes’’ before the
chanting of the Gospel and the sacrifice of the Eucharist. But Bishop Si-
cardo did not like the practice and, in Cremona, allowed his neophytes to
stay for the reading of the Gospel and the Eucharist that followed.^52 The
catechumens were now prepared to enter into the most holy week of the
Christian year.
The rites of Holy Week, from Palm Sunday, with its great processions, to
Easter, with its baptisms and general Communion, were the most splendid
and important events of the year in communal Italy.^53 Palm Sunday reen-
acted the events of Christ’s last days, and its Gospel was the entire narrative
of the Passion according to Matthew. When the neophytes were baptized on
Holy Saturday, they were sacramentally incorporated into Christ’s death on
the cross and his Resurrection. The whole city participated in these events,
and the city became sacramentally what it was otherwise only metaphori-
cally, the Holy City Jerusalem.^54 The communes forbade profane activities,
such as gambling, in this sacred time.^55 For the participants, the Palm Sun-
day procession overshadowed all else. This procession had the same form
everywhere. City chapels closed for the day so that the entire population
could attend. As the clergy sang antiphons and hymns, the community went
49 .Ordo Senensis, 1. 120 – 21 , pp. 107 – 8.
50. Sicardo,Mitrale, 6. 8 , cols. 279 – 80 ;Ordo Senensis, 1. 120 ,p. 107 ; Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Lau-
renziana,msAed. 214 , fols. 44 r– 46 r; on the giving of the Pater, see Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana,ms
256 , fols. 137 v– 139 r.
51 .Manuale Ambrosianum, 2 : 168 – 70 (Sabbato in Traditione Symboli). I do not find the baptismal vows
at this point in churches outside Milan.
52. Sicardo,Mitrale, 6. 8 , col. 283.
53. Valsecchi,Interrogatus, 97 n. 259 , quoting Enrico Cattaneo’s pamphlet,Cittae religione nell’etadei
comuni(Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1979 ), 53.
54. See, on these rites, Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare,ms lxxxiv(xiicent.), fols. 88 v– 90 r; Valsecchi,
Interrogatus, 97 – 99 ;Carpsum, 254 – 65 (Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare,ms xciv[latexicent.], fols. 39 r– 48 v).
55. On gambling, see Modena Stat. ( 1327 ), 4. 37 ,p. 405 ; on business closing, see ibid., 4. 87 ,p. 433.