POPULAR RELIGIOUS FEASTS. - Not outside the Church, but alongside it and together with it, the people have created and preserved interesting manifestations that accompany the official cult and integrate it with notes of color, with testimonies of ardent faith, with humble and significant offerings, with songs and other expressions of strong religious feeling. And if in certain forms of popular festivity some trace of pre-Christian ceremonies and customs can be discerned, it is also true that the Church has always kept watch over these popular manifestations, seeking to regulate them so that they do not conflict with liturgical norms.
Various classifications of these popular religious feasts have been attempted: some scholars (e.g., Canon F. Polese) have taken as their basis the motives that determine them (feasts on a liturgical or legendary theme, on a miraculous foundation, seasonal feasts, feasts of an extra-liturgical character, processional, expiatory, etc.); others (A. Van Gennep) have linked and interpreted them as periodic cyclical ceremonies, connected with agricultural work and formed in the ethnographic field since antiquity (the cycle of the twelve days comprising the feasts from Christmas to Epiphany, of Carnival-Lent, of Easter, of May, of St. John and St. Peter, etc.). But such classifications prove more or less artificial: nevertheless a practical division can be made into two great categories: 1) calendar feasts that accompany the most solemn forms of cult over the course of the year; 2) patronal feasts that satisfy particular local needs.
In the great variety of expressions of popular religiosity during feasts, it is nevertheless possible to highlight the most important common forms and expressions, and some of the most typical aspects.
The participation of the popular classes is already revealed in the preparation of the feast, in the competition with which families, confraternities, and allied neighborhoods [organize] the various forms of ornamentation and festive expression. Often the organization of the feast is assumed by qualified and responsible persons, the "festaioli," who provide for it through collections, through auctions for the right to carry the statue of the saint or other sacred images during the procession. Sometimes this right is hereditary in certain families. Also typical of the preparatory phase is the custom of the novenas, played and sung by pifferari or by blind ballad-singers, at street corners or in front of the houses of the devout who "take the novena" by offering a small coin.
To the popular element are due the ardent manifestations of joy that take place on the day of the feast, with shouts, songs, dances, games, races, and palli that create an atmosphere of joyful fervor. Also characteristic are certain intense expressions of religious and mystical feeling with invocations of grace, and prayers, and tears and moved voices, especially at the passing of the sacred image or at the fulfillment of the miracle, as for the feast of St. Januarius in Naples, or for that of St. Nicholas in Bari, etc. In some places, as for example at Matera (Lucania), at the end of the feast the triumphal float of the Madonna della Bruna is assailed and reduced to pieces, which the crowd fights over and then preserves as amulets. In the propitiatory processions against drought, in some villages of the Mezzogiorno, grace is asked of the saint with violent invocations, or his statue is plunged into a stream or a spring. In many regions of central-southern Italy and in Sicily the sacred effigy or the principal saint is followed or surrounded by the cortege of statues of minor saints (called "santoni"). For the feast of St. Dominic of Cocullo (Abruzzo) the statue of the Saint goes out in procession wrapped in serpents and followed by the faithful who carry snakes coiled around their bodies or hurl them against the effigy itself.
Of particular interest for their spectacular grandeur are the sacred carts, the processional machines, and the corteges of gigantic statues. The sacred carts can be divided (according to R. Corso) into two groups: votive and scenic, for graces or favors received; the others relate to sacred representations that used to be performed in commemoration of miraculous or legendary events. Among the first are to be counted the candles of Gubbio, the candelabra of Sassari and Nulvi, the lilies of Nola; among the second the machine of St. Rose at Viterbo and of St. Rosalia at Palermo, the twelve mysteries of Campobasso for the feast of Corpus Christi, the bier of the Madonna della Lettera in Messina, and the processional machines in the form of boats or ships, evoking the landing or the miraculous apparition of a saint, as at Nola for St. Paulinus, at Mazara (Sicily) for St. Vitus, at Potenza for St. Gerard, and so on.
Famous are the "géants de cortège" of Belgium, great processional statues representing Samson, the shepherd David, the Devil Magnon, the Wild Man, etc., with the following of rare and fantastic animals; in the procession of Nivelles appear the fish, the unicorn, the dromedary, the dragon, as well as "cheval Bayard" (ridden by the "quatre fils Aymon"), "cheval-godet," etc. Processional giants are known also in Italy: it suffices to recall the two Giants of Mistretta that come out for the feast of the Madonna (Sept. 8) and those of Messina, carried in procession for Corpus Christi (v.).
But the widest popular participation in religious feasts is found in the true and proper sacred representations that here and there continue to survive in various forms, from simple dramatic processions, consisting of groups of statues, or animated by sacred or symbolic personages, to the dramas and tragedies inspired by the life of Christ: famous is the Passion of Oberammergau, but almost everywhere, and also in Italy, analogous manifestations are numerous and interesting, from the Passion of Sordevolo (Piedmont) and that of Sezze (Latium), to the "Struggle of the angel and the devil" of many villages of the Irpinia, to the "Pighiana" (that is, the capture of Christ) of Gagliano and other localities of Calabria, to the "Journey of the Magi" that is performed in the countryside of Taranto for the Epiphany. In all these forms of sacred theater the personages are, as a rule, represented by common people. As an integration of a great part of the popular religious feasts, the adornments such as flowers and branches are to be considered, which sometimes give rise to manifestations of high artistic value, like the flower festival of Genzano (Rome) for the feast of Corpus Christi. Very common is the use of strewing flowers on the streets where the procession passes, or of throwing flowers from the windows onto the statue of the saint and onto the processional ranks. A picturesque element of notable value is also given by the custom of adorning the balconies and window sills with carpets, coverings, draperies, and damasks. Famous in Bologna are the decorations for the Sundays following Corpus Christi: garlands of herbs and flowers and multicolored hangings link the houses facing each street, while the windows and doors are adorned with carpets and draperies and precious brocades.
Another integrative element of popular initiative is constituted by the illuminations, by the use of torches in nocturnal processions, and by the great fires and bonfires that are lit for certain feasts such as for St. Anthony Abbot, for the Ascension and above all for St. John the Baptist. This last custom harks back to very ancient agrarian rites that survive, in a Christian climate, especially in the solemnities connected with the great labors of the fields.
For particular information relating to the principal feasts, of Christmas, of Easter, etc., v. the relevant entries.
Bibliography12 works
Paolo Tocchi