WorldWithoutEnd.Amen. 385
tolled her help at the time of death, but it was better to make more timely
preparations.
Those visiting the sick, be they physicians or friends, were to urge those
in even the slightest danger of death to confess quickly and be reconciled to
God.^17 Priest, monk, nun, layperson, bishop, pope—all needed to confess.
The first words addressed to a sick monk in one monastic sick-call ritual were
an admonition that he call for the abbot and make a complete confession of
sins.^18 Only after confessing was the monk ready for the other rites of the
deathbed. But, as Zucchero Bencivenni reminded his readers, those who
waited till they were dying risked forgetting to confess important sins and so
failed to repent properly. This was a great sin.^19 Confession early in illness
allowed the sinner time to reconsider his life and decide whether he needed
to make a clean breast of forgotten crimes by confessing again. Good works
were worthless without a complete and humble confession. One couple
wanted children but failed to conceive. After trying other religious remedies,
the husband went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land. His wife proved unfaith-
ful and had two children by a ‘‘young man’’ during her husband’s absence.
When word came that her husband had died in the Holy Land, she repented
and did many good works, but, out of shame, she failed to confess her sin.
After she died, one of her sons longed to know her condition and asked a
monk to say a ‘‘special Mass’’ for her. On the way to the altar, the monk
had a vision of the woman in hell. Her good works had been worthless
because of her failure to confess. The woman had told the monk: ‘‘There is
no need to pray to God for me, because now I can never receive his
mercy.’’^20 She had made a bad death.
The confession of those in danger of death, well prepared and prompt,
involved a more elaborate rite than the routine confession of sins. For clergy
and laity, the ritual was identical.^21 When, at the urging of his friends, family,
and physician, a sick person ‘‘raised his mind to God’’ and called for a
confessor, his priest put on the purple stole, took in hand his penitential
manual, and went in procession to the sick bed. If the one dying were a
monk, his abbot came, accompanied by the brothers; for a layperson, the
parish priest came with his clerics. Those sitting (sedentibus) around the death-
bed joined the ministers, who intoned the antiphon ‘‘Sana Eum Domine’’
(Heal him Lord) and chanted the seven penitential psalms and the litany of
found in the fourteenth-century Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale,msPalat. 1 , fols. 14 r–v, seem to
be lacking in the communal period.
17. Lucca Synod ( 1300 ), 58 , pp. 233 – 34 ; on the ‘‘ritualization’’ of dying, see Arie`s,Western Attitudes,
11 – 13.
18. Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale,msConv. Soppr. D. 8. 2851 (xivcent.), fol. 1 r.
19. Zucchero Bencivenni,Sposizione, 51.
20. Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria,ms 158(xivcent.), fols. 20 v– 21 r: ‘‘Non e ́bisogno che tu preghi
Idio per me, ch’io mai non posso avere misericordia da Dio.’’
21 .Ordo Senensis, 2. 87 , pp. 487 – 90 ; the same chants and prayers are also prescribed in theRituale di
Hugo [di Volterra], 283 – 85.