GoodCatholics atPrayer 345
gna drew up their statutes in 1260 , they required that members visit a local
church each day, before they commenced work. The requirement allowed
no exemption. In contrast, members’ attendance at daily Mass was obliga-
tory only ‘‘if there was no impediment.’’^9 Enrico of Treviso daily visited each
of the churches of his native city. When he found an open church, he entered
and recited his prayers prostrate on the floor, ‘‘as was his custom.’’ If the
church happened to be closed, he knelt outside before the doors and ‘‘and
prayed even longer.’’^10 After completing this daily round, he went to the
cathedral. Under the portico, in the corner facing the episcopal palace, was
a painting of the Blessed Virgin. There Enrico recited his prayers for the rest
of the day, on his knees, leaning against the stone of the portico. His were
not silent meditations but vigorous recited prayers. People next door, in the
vestibule of the palace, could hear him quite clearly.^11
Prayer implied both presence in a sacred place—the church, before an
altar or image—and sacred gestures—bowing, kneeling, prostrating. I have
previously mentioned Peter the Chanter’s small treatise on prayer. Since it
gives illustrations of gestures of prayer used by the laity, I now consider it
directly. The Italian version is found in manuscripts at Venice and Padua
and has recently been edited.^12 The text was popular and found imitators in
clerical circles.^13 The text is particular, even revolutionary, in several ways.
It focuses on physical gestures and motions and makes use of biblical authori-
ties.^14 Drawings portray each ‘‘mode’’ or posture of prayer (fig. 52 ). Although
the book’s users were probably literate, the illustrations made it accessible to
the unlettered.^15 The men portrayed in the Italian illustrations are clearly
lay.^16 The text probably circulated in confraternity circles; its audience, if the
images reflect the audience, consisted of young males. The book was equally
applicable to women—so said Peter, and he praised Saint Mary Magdalene
because she said the canonical hours with full attention of mind and heart.^17
Although stylized and idealized, the images present lay gestures of devotion
described in other sources. Peter does not ignore the words. He emphasizes
- ‘‘Statuto dei Disciplinati di Bologna’’ ( 1260 ), 7 , Meersseman,Ordo, 1 : 480 ; for identical legislation
in Vicenza, see ‘‘Statuto dei Disciplinati di Vicenza’’ ( 1263 ), 23 , Meersseman,Ordo, 1 : 481. - Pierdomenico of Baone,Vita B. Henrici, 1. 7 ,p. 366.
- Ibid., 1. 8 ,p. 366.
- Peter the Chanter,De Oratione, 178 – 234 , edited from Padua, Biblioteca Antoniana,ms 532(xiii
cent.), fols. 1 r– 78 v, and Venice, Archivio di Stato, S. Maria della Misericordia in ValverdemsB. 1 (xiii
cent.), which depends on the Paduan text. - E.g.,The Nine Ways of Prayer of St. Dominic,ed. Simon Tugwell (Dublin: Dominican, 1978 ), a
thirteenth-century Dominican product. - Trexler,Christian at Prayer, 119. On gesture in prayer, see Desmond Morris,Gestures: Their Origin
and Distribution(New York: Stein & Day, 1979 ). For further bibliography, see Trexler,Christian at Prayer,
125 n. 31. - Although Trexler (Christian at Prayer, 50 ) suggests that the volume was so textually oriented that it
was probably meant only for the literate. - Ibid., 59 – 60. The Venice text was owned by a confraternity, the Paduan by the Franciscan
tertiaries: ibid., 68. - Peter the Chanter,De Oratione, 182.