WorldWithoutEnd.Amen. 383
freedom.^9 That freedom gave the power to surrender one’s soul to God
without fear when death came.
To use Zucchero Bencivenni’s chivalric language, the final battle with evil
came on the deathbed. Here the enemy, the Devil, might visibly appear,
even to good Christians, and tempt them to despair of heaven. Those assist-
ing at the deathbed had to be ready with their prayers to help the dying fend
off these manifestations of the Evil One.^10 No true Christian undertook the
final battle alone; that would have been not the valor of a knight but the
recklessness of a fool. It would have been pride, the sin that brought the fall
of both Adam and the evil angels. Humility was to admit the need for mercy
and accept the aid of God, one’s neighbors, and the saints.^11
Drama of theDeathbed
The vernacular vita of Saint Petronio, patron of Bologna, described his final
days and showed readers how to prepare for a good death. Holy as he was,
the bishop had to acknowledge his sins. He called his clergy and household
to the bedside for his last words and prayers, and greeted them with an
edifying discourse, charging them to love one another and, above all, to act
always in ways pleasing to God. He received Communion and improvised a
prayer of thanksgiving. He thanked God for his graces and gifts, both known
and unknown. Next, in a prayer modeled on the articles of the Creed, he
praised God for Christ’s birth, death on the cross, and bodily resurrection.
The prayer was proof of his Catholic orthodoxy. Then he turned to the
Blessed Virgin, praying the Ave Maria in the Church’s Latin. His Ave, as
was then the form, lacked the verse requesting help ‘‘at the hour of our
death.’’ But Petronio’s other prayers manifested his conviction that Mary
was the surest help for sinners at that time. He praised the Blessed Mother
for her role in the Incarnation and begged her intercession in his hour of
need. He commended his city to her protection, asking that the crosses he
had erected at its four corners drive off the powers of the Devil and any
tyrant who might seek to destroy the city’s liberties. Last of all, he placed
himself under divine protection by making the sign of the cross and com-
mending his spirit to God. Those about the deathbed heard a voice from
heaven promising that God had heard his prayers. Saint Michael and the
hosts of heaven, the author of his legend tells us, arrived rejoicing to take
Petronio’s soul to heaven.^12 ‘‘Last words’’ were no mere expression of piety.
- Ibid., 20 – 24 , esp. 22.
10 .Ordo Senensis, 2. 91 , pp. 496 – 97. This author seems to have drawn his inspiration from Augustine,
Enchiridion ad Laurentium,cc. 109 – 10 , and from canon law, Gratian,Decretum,C. 13 q. 2 c. 23. - As explained in Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria,ms 1767, fol. 98 r.
- Corti,Vita, 46 – 48 , from Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria,ms 2060(xivcent.), fols. 19 r– 20 v.A
deathbed scene, with a similarly edifying final discourse, is recorded at Bologna for Saint Dominic: see
Jordan of Saxony,Libellus de Principiis Ordinis,pp. 92 – 94 , andProcessus Canonizationis S. Dominici, 128 – 30 ,as
well as the introduction thereto, 69 – 70.