Blessing the World: Ritual and Lay Piety in Medieval Religion

3. Sacred Persons: Blessing the Laity

133 Chapter3 sACred Persons BlessingtheLaity sacRed PeoPle: a BRief suRvey Thecivilizationof theLatinWestduringtheMiddleAgesunderstoodsacred qualities and power to pass to individuals primarily through ritualized formulas of ordinationandconsecration.Theserituals were performed byindividuals placed high within the hierarchy of the church, who imparted the graceandsacralitytheythemselveshadacquiredthroughapostolicandpriestly succession dating back to the beginning times of the church.1 The earliest rituals of ordination and consecration of persons were kept in separate libelli, the first collection of which is the Sacramentarium veronense, or Leonine sacramentary . Ordination prayers for the clergy are found within this and later sacramentaries,often with instructional rubrics,as well as in the thirty-forth, thirty-fifth,and thirty-sixth Ordinesromani of Andrieu’sedition.2 1.TheMiddleAgessawlittledifferencebetweenordinationandconsecration,andwhenan individual sought to enter the clergy he was thought to enter simultaneously into both orders and a specific order, the definitions of which were the subject of constant debate. In general, holyorderswereconsideredtobeaspecialstatusconferredonamemberof theclergy,whilethe specific order entered into was an individual grade or status within the clergy. For a survey of theliturgicalritualsemployed,seeRogerReynolds,“Ordination,Clerical,”DMA9:263–69. 2. These rituals were later included in the newly devised pontificals for the use of bishops , who performed these rites on certain days deemed, since the early years of the church, most appropriate for ordination. Such ceremonies were held in the chief basilicas of a city or town,preferably at the bishop’s cathedral,where ordinands were examined by the bishop and accepted or rejected (at least in the RGP) at the will of the congregation (ibid.,263–64).Bad behavior could disqualify a candidate from office, and even (within monastic communities) exclude the offender from receiving any blessings.See Ruleof St.Benedict, chap.25. z 134 sACred Persons At the heart of these Latin rituals were the prayers and the benedictions spoken by the bishop. Blessings were spoken over both the ordinands and their instruments of office, which acted both as symbols of their new status and obligations and as a focus for the power and authority with which they were entrusted.3 While these elements are characteristic of the consecration of clergy and have been much studied,similar ritual elements manifest themselves in blessings of the laity that have received less attention.4 During the high Middle Ages,the church made a concerted effort to extend participation in holy activities and vocations to a laity growing dissatisfied with their secondary role in the worship of the church. In particular, rituals were developed to distinguish the occupation of pilgrim, crusader, and knight from mundane professions,rituals that marked the persons and created sacred insignia for their profession in much the same way that older ordination rituals conferred sacred status on the clergy.5 It is these rituals, partaking in the character of ecclesiastical ordinations but set apart from the institutional hierarchy of the church, that interest me for what they can reveal about the popular medieval understanding of the blessing and its uses. Together with blessings for individuals fallen prey to illness and travail, these rituals are the subject of this chapter. PilgRiMs, tRaveleRs, and WayfaReRs The words of blessing spoken over expectant pilgrims in the votive masses and rites of the late medieval liturgy served a dual transformational purpose. As an act that essentially restored God’s creation to its former goodness, blessings hallowed the person of the pilgrim, beseeching inter3 . Reynolds, “Ordination, Clerical,” 266. The traditio instrumentorum, a solemn handing over of the instruments,was an important part of these rites,as were the gestures of the participants . 4.Baptism,marriage,anddeathritualsfitthiscategory,buttheirassociationwiththeformal sacraments makes them unsuitable for this study.I focus instead on three types of blessings :for pilgrims,for knights,and for health.Portions of the first section of this chapter have appeared in Derek A.Rivard,“Pro iter agentibus: The Ritual Blessings of Pilgrims and Their Insignia in a Pontifical of Southern Italy,”Journalof MedievalHistory 27 (2001):365–98. 5.This may be seen in the rise not only of these rituals but also of lay penitential groups, acommonfeatureof twelfth-andthirteenth-centurycities,especiallyItaliancommunes.Such penitential groups are of interest here because some adopted a simple blessing, much less complex than the blessing of a monk’s habit, for their own simple “habit” worn during their public and private life in the commune.See Thompson,Citiesof God, 84,102. 135 sACred Persons cession from divine powers and instilling in the pilgrim’s mind remembrance of the duty to fulfill the dictum...