lite linha RHHI
A 1,283,877
tidl.handmade Knitsinddeliuidifilipiinteisiisid:1Hinn!!IRN! KI
S
LIBRARIES
THE UN
..
: MICHIGAN
OF
MICHIGIAN
THE
UNIVERS
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI
BOOKS BY PAUL SABATIER
PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
Life of St. Francis of Assisi
$2.50
Modernism
net
1.25
LIFE OF
ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI
BY
PAUL SABATIER
Qui vere monachus est nihil
reputat esse suum nisi citharam
GIOACCHINO DI FIORE in Apoc. 183
TRANSLATED BY
LOUISE SEYMOUR HOUGHTON
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1917
KrR 4
BX
4200
F 6
$11:3
1917
COPYRIGHT, 1894, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
2.
SORSONER
$
TO THE STRASBURGHERS
Friends!
At last here is this book which I told
you
about
80 long ago.
The result is small indeed in
relation to the endeavor, as I, alas ! see better than
anyone. The widow of the Gospel put only one
mite into the alms-box of the temple, but this mite,
they tell us, won her Paradise. Accept the mite
that I offer you to-day as God accepted that of the
poor woman, looking not at her offering, but at her
love, Feci quod potui, omnia dedi.
Do not chide me too severely for this long delay,
for you are somewhat its cause. Many times a
day at Florence, at Assisi, at Rome, I have for-
gotten the document I had to study. Something in
me seemed to have gone to flutter at your windows,
and sometimes they opened.
One evening
at St. Damian I forgot myself and remained long
after sunset. An old monk came to warn me that
the sanctuary was closed. “Per Bacco !” he gently
murmured as he led me away, all ready to receive
my confidence, “sognava d'amore o di tristitia ?”
Well, yes. I was dreaming of love and of sad
ness, for I was dreaming of Strasbourg.
520005
based dusta
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAOB
INTRODUCTION,
CHAPTER I.
YOUTH,
CHAPTER II.
STAGES OF CONVERSION,
i 15
CHAPTER HII.
THE CHURCH ABOUT 1209,
28
CHAPTER IV.
STRUGGLES AND TRIUMPHS,
53
CHAPTER V.
FIRST YEAR OF APOSTOLATE,
171
CHAPTER VI.
ST. FRANCIS AND INNOCENT III.,
88 X
CHAPTER VII.
RIVO-TORTO,
103
viii
TABLE OF CONTENI'S
PAGE
CHAPTER VIII.
PORTIUNCULA,
120
CHAPTER 1X.
SANTA CLARA,
147
CHAPTER X.
* FIRST ATTEMPTS TO REACH THE INFIDELS,
168
CHAPTER XI.
THE INNER MAN AND WONDER-WORKING,
183
CHAPTER XII.
☆
THE CHAPTER-GENERAL OF 1217,
198
CHAPTER XIII.
*
ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FRANCIS,
217
.
CHAPTER XIV.
Y
THE CRISIS OF THE ORDER,
239
CHAPTER XV.
.
THE RULE OF 1221,
252
CHAPTER XVI.
THE BROTHERS MINOR AND LEARNING,
271
CHAPTER XVII.
THE STIGMATA,
287
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ix
PAGR
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE CANTICLE OF THE SUN,
X
297
>
CHAPTER XIX.
THE LAST YEAR, .
308
CHAPTER XX.
FRANCIS'S WILL AND DEATH,
333
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES,
347
APPENDIX.
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE STIGMATA AND OF THE INDULGENCE
OF AUGUST 2,
433
INTRODUCTION
In the renascence of history which is in a manner the
characteristic of our time, the Middle Ages have been
the object of peculiar fondness with both criticism and
erudition. We rummage all the dark corners of the
libraries, we bring old parchments to light, and in the
zeal and ardor we put into our search there is an inde-
finable touch of piety.
These efforts to make the past live again reveal not
merely our curiosity, or the lack of power to grapple with
great philosophic problems, they are a token of wisdom
and modesty; we are beginning to feel that the present
has its roots in the past, and that in the fields of politics
and religion, as in others, slow, modest, persevering toil
is that which has the best results.
There is also a token of love in this. We love our
ancestors of five or six centuries ago, and we mingle not
a little emotion and gratitude with this love. So, if one
may hope everything of a son who loves his parents,
we must not despair of an age that loves history.
The Middle Ages form an organic period in the life of
humanity. Like all powerful organisms the period began
with a long and mysterious gestation ; it had its youth,
its manhood, its decrepitude. The end of the twelfth
century and the beginning of the thirteenth mark its full
expansion; it is the twentieth year of life, with its
poetry, its dreams, its enthusiasm, its generosity, its dar-
ing. Love overflowed with vigor; men everywhere had
xii
INTRODUCTION
but one desire to devote themselves to some great and
holy cause.
Curiously enough, though Europe was more parcelled
out than ever, it felt a new thrill run through its entire
extent. There was what we might call a state of Eu-
ropean consciousness.
In ordinary periods each people has its own interests,
its tendencies, its tears, and its joys; but let a time of
crisis come, and the true unity of the human family
will suddenly make itself felt with a strength never be-
fore suspected. Each body of water has its own cur-
rents, but when the hurricane is abroad they mysteriously
intermingle, and from the ocean to the remotest mountain
lake the same tremor will upheave them all.
It was thus in '89, it was thus also in the thirteenth
century.
Never was there less of frontier, never, either before or
since, such a mingling of nationalities; and at the present
day, with all our highways and railroads, the people live
more apart.
The great movement of thought of the thirteenth
century is above all a religious movement, presenting a
double character—it is popular and it is laic.
It comes
out from the heart of the people, and it looks athwart
many uncertainties at nothing less than wresting the
sacred things from the hands of the clergy.
The conservatives of our time who turn to the thir-
1
i The mendicant orders were in their origin a true International.
When in the spring of 1216 St. Dominic assembled his friars at Notre
Dame de la Prouille, they were found to be sixteen in number, and
among them Castilians, Navarese, Normans, French, Languedocians,
and even English and Germans.
Heretics travelled all over Europe, and nowhere do we find them
checked by the diversity of languages. Arnold of Brescia, for example,
the famous Tribune of Rome, appeared in France and Switzerland and
in the heart of Germany.
INTRODUCTION
xiii
teenth century as to the golden age of authoritative
faith make a strange mistake. If it is especially the
century of saints, it is also that of heretics. We shall
soon see that the two words are not so contradictory as
might appear; it is enough for the moment to point
out that the Church had never been more powerful nor
more threatened.
There was a genuine attempt at a religious revolution,
which, if it had succeeded, would have ended in a
universal priesthood, in the proclamation of the rights of
the individual conscience.
The effort failed, and though later on the Revolution
made us all kings, neither the thirteenth century nor the
Reformation was able to make us all priests. Herein, no
doubt, lies the essential contradiction of our lives and
that which periodically puts our national institutions in
peril. Politically emancipated, we are not morally or re-
ligiously free.
The thirteenth century with juvenile ardor undertook
this revolution, which has not yet reached its end. In
the north of Europe it became incarnate in cathedrals, in
the south, in saints.
The cathedrals were the lay churches of the thirteenth
century. Built by the people for the people, they were
originally the true common house of our old cities. Mu-
1
1 The Reformation only substituted the authority of the book for that
of the priest; it is a change of dynasty and nothing more. As to the
majority of those who to-day call themselves free-thinkers, they confuse
religious freedom with irreligion ; they choose not to see that in religion
as in politics, between a royalty based on divine right and anarchy
there is room for a government which may be as strong as the first and
a better guarantee of freedom than the second. The spirit of the older
time put God outside of the world ; the sovereignty outside of the
people ; authority outside of the conscience. The spirit of the new times
has the contrary tendency; it denies neither God nor sovereignty nor
authority, but it sees them where they really are.
xiv
INTRODUOTION
seums, granaries, chambers of commerce, halls of justice,
depositories of archives, and even labor exchanges, they
were all these at once.
That art of the Middle Ages which Victor Hugo and
Viollet-le-Duc have taught us to understand and love
was the visible expression of the enthusiasm of a people
who were achieving communal liberty. Very far from
being the gift of the Church, it was in its beginning an
unconscious protest against the hieratic, impassive, esote-
ric art of the religious orders. We find only laymen in
the long list of master-workmen and painters who have
left us the innumerable Gothic monuments which stud the
soil of Europe. Those artists of genius who, like those
of Greece, knew how to speak to the populace without be-
ing common, were for the most part humble workmen;
they found their inspiration not in the formulas of the
masters of monastic art, but in constant communion with
the very soul of the nation. Therefore this renascence,
in its most profound features, concerns less the archa-
ology or the architecture than the history of a country.
While in the northern countries the people were build-
ing their own churches, and finding in their enthusiasm
an art which was new, original, complete, in the south,
above the official, clerical priesthood of divine right they
were greeting and consecrating a new priesthood, that of
the saints
The priest of the thirteenth century is the antithesis of
the saint, he is almost always his enemy. Separated by
the holy unction from the rest of mankind, inspiring awo
as the representative of an all-powerful God, able by a
few signs to perform unheard-of mysteries, with a word
to change bread into flesh and wine into blood, he ap-
peared as a sort of idol which can do all things for or
against you and before which you have only to adore
and tremble,
INTRODUCTION
XV
The saint, on the contrary, was one whose mission was
proclaimed by nothing in his apparel, but whose life and
words made themselves felt in all hearts and consciences;
he was one who, with no cure of souls in the Church, felt
himself suddenly impelled to lift up his voice. The
child of the people, he knew all their material and moral
woes, and their mysterious echo sounded in his own
heart. Like the ancient prophet of Israel, he heard an.
imperious voice saying to him : “Go and speak to the
children of my people.” “Ah, Lord God, I am but a
child, I know not how to speak.” “Say not, I am but a
child, for thou shalt go to all those to whom I shall send
thee. Behold I have set thee to-day as a strong city, a
pillar of iron and a wall of brass against the kings of
Judah, against its princes and against its priests.”
These thirteenth-century saints were in fact true
prophets. Apostles like St. Paul, not as the result of a
canonical consecration, but by the interior order of the
Spirit, they were the witnesses of liberty against au-
thority
The Calabrian seer, Gioacchino di Fiore, hailed the
new-born revolution; he believed in its success and pro-
claimed to the wondering world the advent of a new min-
istry. He was mistaken.
When the priest sees himself vanquished by the
prophet he suddenly changes his method. He takes him
under his protection, he introduces his harangues into
the sacred canon, he throws over his shoulders the
priestly chasuble. The days pass on,
The days pass on, the years roll by,
and the moment comes when the heedless crowd no
longer distinguishes between them, and it ends by believ-
ing the prophet to be an emanation of the clergy.
This is one of the bitterest ironies of history.
Francis of Assisi is pre-eminently the saint of the Mid-
dle Ages. Owing nothing to church or school he was
xvi
INTRODUCTION
!
truly theodidact, and if he perhaps did not perceive the
revolutionary bearing of his preaching, he at least always
refused to be ordained priest. He divined the superi-
ority of the spiritual priesthood.
The charm of his life is that, thanks to reliable docu-
ments, we find the man behind the wonder worker. We
find in him not merely noble actions, we find in him a
life in the true meaning of the word; I mean, we feel in
him both development and struggle.
How mistaken are the annals of the Saints in repre-
senting him as from the very cradle surrounded with
aureole and nimbus! As if the finest and most manly of
spectacles were not that of the man who conquers his
soul hour after hour, fighting first against himself, against
the suggestions of egoism, idleness, discouragement, then
at the moment when he might believe himself victorious,
finding in the champions attracted by his ideal those who
are destined if not to bring about its complete ruin, at
least to give it its most terrible blows. Poor Francis!
The last years of his life were indeed a via dolorosa as
painful as that where his master sank down under the
weight of the cross; for it is still a joy to die for one's
ideal, but what bitter pain to look on in advance at the
apotheosis of one's body, while seeing one's soul-I
would say his thought-misunderstood and frustrated.
If we ask for the origins of his idea we find them ex-
clusively among the common people of his time; he is the
incarnation of the Italian soul at the beginning of the
thirteenth century, as Dante was to be its incarnation a
hundred years later.
He was of the people and the people recognized them-
selves in him. He had their poetry and their aspirations,
| Nemo ostendebat mihi quod deberem facere, sed ipse Altissimus revela.
vit mihi quod deberem vivore secundem formam sancti Evangeliz. Testa
mentum Fr.
INTRODUCTION
xvii
he espoused their claims, and the very name of his insti-
tute had at first a political signification : in Assisi as in
most other Italian towns there were majores and minores,
the popolo grasso and the popolo minuto; he resolutely
placed himself among the latter. This political side of his
apostolate needs to be clearly apprehended if we would
understand its amazing success and the wholly unique
character of the Franciscan movement in its beginning.
As to its attitude toward the Church, it was that of
filial obedience. This may perhaps appear strange at first
as regards an unauthorized preacher who comes speaking
to the world in the name of his own immediate personal
inspiration. But did not most of the men of '89 believe
themselves good and loyal subjects of Louis XVI. ?
The Church was to our ancestors what the fatherland
is to us; we may wish to remodel its government, over-
turn its administration, change its constitution, but we
do not think ourselves less good patriots for that.
In the same way, in an age of simple faith when re-
ligious beliefs seemed to be in the very fibre and flesh of
humanity, Dante, without ceasing to be a good Catholic,
could attack the clergy and the court of Rome with a
violence that has never been surpassed. St. Francis so
surely believed that the Church had become unfaithful
to her mission that he could speak in his symbolic lan-
guage of the widowhood of his Lady Poverty, who from
Christ's time to his own had found no husband. How
could he better have declared his purposes or revealed
his dreams?
What he purposed was far more than the foundation
of an order, and it is to do him great wrong thus to
restrict his endeavor. He longed for a true awakening
of the Church in the name of the evangelical ideal which
he had regained. All Europe awoke with a start when
it heard of these penitents from a little Umbrian town.
xviii
INTRODUOTION
It was reported that they had craved a strange privilege
from the court of Rome : that of possessing nothing.
Men saw them pass by, earning their bread by the labor
of their hands, accepting only the bare necessities of
bodily sustenance from them to whom they had given
with lavish hands the bread of life. The people lifted
up their heads, breathing in with deep inspirations the
airs of a springtime upon which was already floating the
perfume of new flowers.
Here and there in the world there are many souls
capable of all heroism, if only they can see before them
a true leader. St. Francis became for these the guide
they had longed for, and whatever was best in humanity
at that time leaped to follow in his footsteps.
This movement, which was destined to result in the
constitution of a new family of monks, was in the begin-
ning anti-monastic. It is not rare for history to have
similar contradictions to record. The meek Galilean
who preached the religion of a personal revelation, with-
out ceremonial or dogmatic law, triumphed only on con-
dition of being conquered, and of permitting his words
of spirit and life to be confiscated by a church essen-
tially dogmatic and sacerdotal.
In the same way the Franciscan movement was orig-
inally, if not the protest of the Christian consciousness
against monachism, at least the recognition of an ideal
singularly higher than that of the clergy of that time.
Let us picture to ourselves the Italy of the beginning of
the thirteenth century with its divisions, its perpetual
warfare, its depopulated country districts, the impossi-
bility of tilling the fields except in the narrow circle
which the garrisons of the towns might protect; all
these cities from the greatest to the least occupied in
watching for the most favorable moment for falling upon
and pillaging their neighbors ; sieges terminated by un-
INTRODUCTION
xix
speakable atrocities, and after all this, famine, speedily
followed by pestilence to complete the devastation.
Then let us picture to ourselves the rich Benedictine
abbeys, veritable fortresses set upon the hill-tops, whence
they seemed to command all the surrounding plains.
There was nothing surprising in their prosperity.
Shielded by their inviolability, they were in these dis-
ordered times the only refuge of peaceful souls and
timid hearts. The monks were in great majority de-
serters from life, who for motives entirely aside from
religion had taken refuge behind the only walls which at
this period were secure.
Overlook this as we may, forget as we may the demor-
alization and ignorance of the inferior clergy, the si-nony
and the vices of the prelates, the coarseness and avarice
of the monks, judging the Church of the thirteenth cen-
tury only by those of her sons who do her the most honor;
none the less are these the anchorites who flee into the
desert to escape from wars and vices, pausing only when
they are very sure that none of the world's noises will in-
terrupt their meditations. Sometimes they will draw
away with them hundreds of imitators, to the solitudes of
Clairvaux, of the Chartreuse, of Vallombrosa, of the
Camaldoli; but even when they are a multitude they are
alone; for they are dead to the world and to their breth-
ren. Each cell is a desert, on whose threshold they cry
O beata solitudo,
O sola beatitudo.
1 The wealthiest monasteries of France are of the twelfth century or
were enlarged at that time: Arles, S. Gilles, S. Sernin, Cluny, Vézelay,
Brioude, Issoire, Paray-le-Monial. The same was the case in Italy.
Down to the year 1000,1,108 monasteries had been founded in France.
The eleventh century saw the birth of 326 and the twelfth of 702.
The convents of Mount Athos in their present state give us a very
accurate notion of the great monasteries of Europe at ühe close of the
twelfth century.
XX
INTRODUCTION
The book of the Imitation is the picture of all that is
purest in this cloistered life.
But is this abstinence from action truly Christian ?
No, replied St. Francis. He for his part would do like
Jesus, and we may say that his life is an imitation of
Christ singularly more real than that of Thomas à
Kempis.
Jesus went indeed into the desert, but only that he
might find in prayer and communion with the heavenly
Father the inspiration and strength necessary for keep-
ing up the struggle against evil. Far from avoiding the
multitude, he sought them out to enlighten, console, and
convert them.
This is what St. Francis desired to imitate. More than
once he felt the seduction of the purely contemplative
life, but each time his own spirit warned him that this
was only a disguised selfishness; that one saves oneself
i only in saving others.
When he saw suffering, wretchedness, corruption, in-
stead of fleeing he stopped to bind up, to heal, feeling in
his heart the surging of waves of compassion. He not
only preached love to others; he himself was ravished
with it; he sang it, and what was of greater value, he
lived it.
There had indeed been preachers of love before his
day, but most generally they had appealed to the lowest
selfishness. They had thought to triumph by proving
that in fact to give to others is to put one's money out at
a usurious interest. “Give to the poor," said St. Peter
Chrysologus, "that you may give to yourself; give him a
crumb in order to receive a loaf; give him a shelter to re-
ceive heaven.”
1 St. Petrus Chrysologus, sermo viii., de jejunio et eleemosyna. Da
pauperi ut des tibi : da micam ut accipias totum panem ; da tectum, accipe
colum.
INTRODUCTION
xxi
There was nothing like this in Francis; his charity is
not selfishness, it is love. He went, not to the whole, who
need no physician, but to the sick, the forgotten, the dis-
dained. He dispensed the treasures of his heart accord-
ing to the need and reserved the best of himself for the
poorest and the most lost, for lepers and thieves.
The gaps
in his education were of marvellous service to
him. More learned, the formal logic of the schools
would have robbed him of that flower of simplicity which
is the great charm of his life; he would have seen the
whole extent of the sore of the Church, and would no
doubt have despaired of healing it. If he had known the
ecclesiastical discipline he would have felt obliged to ob-
serve it; but thanks to his ignorance he could often vio-
late it without knowing it, and be a heretic quite una-
wares.
We can now determine to what religious family St.
Francis belongs.
Looking at the question from a somewhat high stand-
point we see that in the last analysis minds, like relig-
ious systems, are to be found in two great families, stand-
ing, so to say, at the two poles of thought. These two
poles are only mathematical points, they do not exist in
concrete reality ; but for all that we can set them down
on the chart of philosophic and moral ideas.
There are religions which look toward divinity and re-
ligions which look toward man. Here again the line of
demarcation between the two families is purely ideal and
artificial ; they often so mingle and blend with one an-
other that we have much difficulty in distinguishing them,
especially in the intermediate zone in which our civiliza-
1
Psy what right did he begin to preach ? By what right did he, a
mere deacon, admit to profession and cut off the hair of a young girl of
eighteen? That is an episcopal function, one which can only devolve
even upon priests by an express commission.
xxii
INTRODUCTION
masses.
tion finds its place; but if we go toward the poles we
shall find their characteristics growing gradually distinct.
In the religions which look toward divinity all effort
is concentrated on worship, and especially on sacrifice.
The end aimed at is a change in the disposition of the
gods. They are mighty kings whose support or favor
one must purchase by gifts.
Most pagan religions belong to this category and phari-
saic Judaism as well. This is also the tendency of cer-
tain Catholics of the old school for whom the great thing
is to appease God or to buy the protection of the Vir-
gin and the saints by means of prayers, candles, and
.
The other religions look toward man; their effort is di-
rected to the heart and conscience with the purpose of
transforming them. Sacrifice disappears, or rather it
changes from the exterior to the interior. God is con-
ceived of as a father, always ready to welcome him who
comes to him. Conversion, perfection, sanctification be-
come the pre-eminent religious acts. Worship and prayer
cease to be incantations and become reflection, medita-
tion, virile effort; while in religions of the first class the
clergy have an essential part, as intermediaries between
heaven and earth, in those of the second they have
none, each conscience entering into direct relations with
God.
It was reserved to the prophets of Israel to formulate,
with a precision before unknown, the starting-point of
spiritual worship.
Bring no more vain offerings;
I have a horror of incense,
Your new moons, your Sabbaths, and your assemblies ;
When you multiply prayers I will not hearken.
Your hands are full of blood,
Wash you, make you clean,
INTRODUCTION
xxiii
Put away from before my eyes the evil of your ways,
Cease to do evil,
Learn to do well.1
With Isaiah these vehement apostrophes are but
flashes of genius, but with Jesus the interior change be-
comes at once the principle and the end of the religious
life. His promises were not for those who were right
with the ceremonial law, or who offered the greatest num-
ber of sacrifices, but for the pure in heart, for men of
good will.
These considerations are not perhaps without their use
in showing the spiritual ancestry of the Saint of Assisi.
For him, as for St. Paul and St. Augustine, conversion
was a radical and complete change, the act of will by
which man wrests himself from the slavery of sin and
places himself under the yoke of divine authority.
Thenceforth prayer, become a necessary act of life, ceases
to be a magic formula ; it is an impulse of the heart, it is
reflection and meditation rising above the commonplaces
of this mortal life, to enter into the mystery of the divine
will and conform itself to it; it is the act of the atom
which understands its littleness, but which desires,
though only by a single note, to be in harmony with the
divine symphony.
Ecce adsum Domine, ut faciam voluntatem tuam.
When we reach these heights we belong not to a sect,
but to humanity; we are like those wonders of nature
which the accident of circumstances has placed upon the
territory of this or that people, but which belong to all
the world, because in fact they belong to no one, or
rather they are the common and inalienable property of
the entire human race. Homer, Shakespeare, Dante,
Goethe, Michael Angelo, Rembrandt belong to us all as
much as the ruins of Athens or Rome, or, rather, they be-
* Isaiah i. 10-17. Cf. Joel 2, Psalm 50.
xxiv
INTRODUCTION
long to those who love them most'and understand them
best.
But that which is a truism, so far as men of genius in
the domain of imagination or thought are concerned, still
appears like a paradox when we speak of men of relig-
ious genius. The Church has laid such absolute claim
to them that she has created in her own favor a sort of
right. It cannot be that this arbitrary confiscation shall
endure forever. To prevent it we have not to perform
an act of negation or demolition : let us leave to the
chapels their statues and their relics, and far from be-
littling the saints, let us make their true grandeur shine
forth.
It is time to say a few words concerning the difficul-
ties of the work here presented to the public. History
always embraces but a very feeble part of the reality :
ignorant, she is like the stories children tell of the events
that have occurred before their eyes ; learned, she re-
minds us of a museum organized with all the modern im-
provements. Instead of making you see nature with its
external covering, its diffuse life, its mysterious echoes in
your own heart, they offer you a herbarium.
If it is difficult to narrate an ordinary event of our
own time, it is far more so to describe the great crises
where restless humanity is seeking its true path.
The first duty of the historian is to forget his own time
and country and become the sympathetic and interested
contemporary of what he relates; but if it is difficult to
give oneself the heart of a Greek or a Roman, it is in-
finitely more so to give oneself a heart of the thirteenth
century. I have said that at that period the Middle Age
was twenty years old, and the feelings of the twentieth
year are, if not the most fugitive, at least the most dif-
ficult to note down. Everyone knows that it is impos-
INTRODUCTION
XXV
sible to recall the feelings of youth with the same clear-
ness as those of childhood or mature age. Doubtless
we may have external facts in the memory, but we can-
not recall the sensations and the sentiments, the con-
fused forces which seek to move us are then all at work
at once, and to speak the language of beyond the Rhine,
it is the essentially phenomenal hour of the phenomena that
we are; everything in us crosses, intermingles, collides,
in desperate conflict : it is a time of diabolic or divine ex-
citement. Let a few years pass, and nothing in the world
can make us live those hours over again. Where was
once a volcano, we perceive only a heap of blackened
ashes, and scarcely, at long intervals, will a chance meet-
ing, a sound, a word, awaken memory and unseal the
fountain of recollection; and even then it is only a flash;
we have had but a glimpse and all has sunk back into
shadow and silence.
We find the same difficulty when we try to take note
of the fiery enthusiasms of the thirteenth century, its
poetic inspirations, its amorous and chaste visions-all
this is thrown up against a background of coarseness,
wretchedness, corruption, and folly.
The men of that time had all the vices except triviality,
all the virtues except moderation; they were either ruf-
fians or saints. Life was rude enough to kill feeble or-
canisms; and thus characters had an energy unknown
to-day. It was forever necessary to provide beforehand
against a thousand dangers, to take those sudden resolu-
tions in which one risks his life. Open the chronicle of
Fra Salimbeni and you will be shocked to find that the
largest place is taken up with the account of the annual
expeditions of Parma against the neighboring cities, or
of the neighboring cities against Parma. What would it
have been if this chronicle, instead of being written by
a monk of uncommonly open mind, a lover of music, at
xxvi
INTRODUCTION
1
certain times an ardent Joachimite, an indefatigable
traveller, had been written by a warrior ? And this is
not all; these wars between city and city were complicated
with civil dissensions, plots were hatched periodically,
conspirators were massacred if they were discovered, or
massacred and exiled others in their turn if they were
triumphant. When we picture to ourselves this state
of things dominated by the grand struggles of the papacy
against the empire, heretics, and infidels, we may under-
stand how difficult it is to describe such a time.
The imagination being haunted by horrible or entranc-
ing pictures like those of the frescos in the Campo Santo
of Pisa, men were always thinking of heaven and hell;
they informed themselves about them with the feverish
curiosity of emigrants, who pass their days on shipboard
in trying to picture that spot in America where in a few
days they will pitch their tent.
Every monk of any notoriety must have gone through
this. Dante's poem is not an isolated work; it is the
noblest result of a condition which had given birth to
hundreds of compositions, and Alighieri had little more
to do than to co-ordinate the works of his predecessors
and vivify them with the breath of his own genius.
The unsettled state of men's minds was unimaginable.
That unhealthy curiosity which lies at the bottom of the
human heart, and which at the present day impels men to
seek for refined and even perverse enjoyments, impelled
men of that time to devotions which seem like a defiance
to common sense.
Never had hearts been shaken with such terrors, nor
1 The chronicles of Orvieto (Archivio, storico italiano, t. i., of 1889,
pp. 7 and following) are nothing more than a list, as melancholy as
they are tedious, of wars, which, during the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, all the places of that region carried on, from the greatest to
the smallest.
INTRODUCTION
XXVII
ever thrilled with such radiant hopes. The noblest
hymns of the liturgy, the Stabat and the Dies Irae, come
to us from the thirteenth century, and we may well say
that never has the human plaint been more agonized.
When we look through history, not to find accounts of
battles or of the succession of dynasties, but to try to
grasp the evolution of ideas and feelings, when we seek
above all to discover the heart of man and of epochs, we
perceive, on arriving at the thirteenth century, that a
fresh wind has blown over the world, the human lyre has
a new string, the lowest, the most profound; one which
sings of woes and hopes to which the ancient world had
not vibrated.
In the breast of the men of that time we think some-
times we feel the beating of a woman's heart; they have
exquisite sentiments, delightful inspirations, with absurd
terrors, fantastic angers, infernal cruelties. Weakness and
fear often make them insincere; they have the idea of the
grand, the beautiful, the ugly, but that of order is want-
ing; they fast or feast; the notion of the laws of nature,
so deeply graven in our own minds, is to them entirely a
stranger; the words possible and impossible have for
them no meaning. Some give themselves to God, others
sell themselves to the devil, but not one feels himself
strong enough to walk alone, strong enough to have no
need to hold on by some one's skirt.
Peopled with spirits and demons nature appeared to
them singularly animated ; in her presence they have all.
the emotions which a child experiences at night before
the trees on the roadside and the vague forms of the
rooks.
Unfortunately, our language is a very imperfect instru-
ment for rendering all this; it is neither musical nor
flexible; since the seventeenth century it has been deemed
seemly to keep one's emotions to oneself, and the old
xxviii
INTRODUCTION
words which served to note states of the soul have fallen
into neglect; the Imitation and the Fioretti have become
untranslatable.
More than this, in a history like the present one, we
must give a large place to the Italian spirit; it is evident
that in a country where they call a chapel basilica and a
tiny house palazzo, or in speaking to a seminarist say
“ Your Reverence,” words have not the same value as on
this side of the Alps.
The Italians have an imagination which enlarges and
simplifies. They see the forms and outlines of men and
things more than they grasp their spirit. What they
most admire in Michael Angelo is gigantic forms, noble
and proud attitudes, while we better understand his secret
thoughts, hidden sorrows, groans, and sighs.
Place before their eyes a picture by Rembrandt, and
more often than not it will appear to them ugly; its charm
cannot be caught at a glance as in those of their artists;
to see it you must examine it, make an effort, and with
them effort is the beginning of pain.
Do not ask them, then, to understand the pathos of
things, to be touched by the mysterious and almost fan-
ciful emotion which northern hearts discover and enjoy
in the works of the Amsterdam master. No, instead of a
forest they want a few trees, standing out clearly against
the horizon; instead of a multitude swarming in the pe-
numbra of reality, a few personages, larger than nature,
forming harmonious groups in an ideal temple.
The genius of a people1 is all of a piece : they apply to
? Do not forget that in the thirteenth century Italy was not a mere
geographical expression. It was of all the countries of Europe the one
which, notwithstanding its partitions, had the clearest consciousness of
its unity. The expression profectus et honor Italiæ often appeared from
the pen of Innocent III. See, for instance, the bull of April 16, 1198,
Mirari cogimur, addressed particularly to the Assisans.
INTRODUCTION
xxix
history the same processes that they apply to the arts.
While the Germanic spirit considers events rather in
their evolution, in their complex becoming, the Italian
spirit takes them at a given moment, overlooks the
shadows, the clouds, the mists, everything that makes the
line indistinct, brings out the contour sharply, and
thus constructs a very lucid story, which is a delight to
the eyes, but which is little more than a symbol of the
reality
At other times it takes a man, separates him from the
unnamed crowd, and by a labor often unconscious, makes
him the ideal type of a whole epoch.
Certainly there is in every people a tendency to give
themselves a circle of divinities and heroes who are, so to
say, the incarnation of its instincts; but generally that
requires the long labor of centuries. The Italian charac-
ter will not suffer this slow action; as soon as it recog-
nizes a man it says so, it even shouts it aloud if that is
necessary, and makes him enter upon immortality while
still alive. Thus legend almost confounds itself with his-
tory, and it becomes very difficult to reduce men to their
true proportions.
We must not, then, ask too much of history. The more
beautiful is the dawn, the less one can describe it. The
most beautiful things in nature, the flower and the but-
terfly, should be touched only by delicate hands.
The effort here made to indicate the variegated, waver-
ing tints which form the atmosphere in which St. Francis
| Note what the Fioretti say of Brother Bernard : " Stava solo sulle
cime dei monti altissimi contemplando le cose celesti,” Fior., 28. The
learned historian of Assisi, Mr. Cristofani, has used similar expressions ;
speaking of St. Francis, he says:
Nuovo Christo in somma e pero degno
l'essere riguardato come la piu gigantesca, la piu splendida, la piu cara
tra le grandi figure campeggianti nell' aere del medio evo” (Storia d'Assisi,
t. l., p. 70, ed. of 1885).
XXX
INTRODUCTION
It was per-
lived is therefore of very uncertain success.
haps presumptuous to undertake it.
Happily we are no longer in the time when historians
thought they had done the right thing when they had
reduced everything to its proper size, contenting them-
selves with denying or omitting everything in the life of
the heroes of humanity which rises above the level of our
every-day experience.
No doubt Francis did not meet on the road to Sienna
three pure and gentle virgins come from heaven to greet
him; the devil did not overturn rocks for the sake of
terrifying him ; but when we deny these visions and ap-
paritions, we are victims of an error graver, perhaps,
than that of those who affirm them.
The first time that I was at Assisi I arrived in the
middle of the night. When the sun rose, flooding every-
thing with warmth and light, the old basilica 1 seemed
suddenly to quiver; one might have said that it wished
to speak and sing. Giotto's frescos, but now invisible,
awoke to a strange life, you might have thought them
painted the evening before so much alive they were ;
everything was moving without awkwardness or jar.
I returned six months later. A scaffold had been put
up in the middle of the nave; upon it an art critic was
examining the paintings, and as the day was overcast he
threw upon the walls the beams of a lamp with a reflector.
Then you saw arms thrown out, faces grimacing, without
unity, without harmony; the most exquisite figures took
on something fantastic and grotesque.
He came down triumphant, with a portfolio stuffed
with sketches ; here a foot, there a muscle, farther on a
bit of face, and I could not refrain from musing on the
frescos as I had seen them bathed in sunlight.
The sun and the lamp are both deceivers; they trans-
1 It remains open all night.
INTRODUCTION
Xxxi
1
form what they show; but if the truth must be told I
own to my preference for the falsehoods of the sun.
History is a landscape, and like those of nature it is
continually changing. Two persons who look at it at
the same time do not find in it the same charm, and you
yourself, if you had it continually before your eyes,
would never see it twice alike. The general lines are
permanent, but it needs only a cloud to hide the most
important ones, as it needs only a jet of light to bring out
such or such a detail and give it a false value.
When I began this page the sun was disappearing be-
hind the ruins of the Castle of Crussol and the splendors
of the sunset gave it a shining aureola; the light flooded
everything, and you no longer saw anywhere the damage
which wars have inflicted upon the old feudal manor. I
looked, almost thinking I could perceive at the window
the figure of the chatelaine
Twilight has come,
and now there is nothing up there but crumbling walls,
a discrowned tower, nothing but ruins and rubbish,
which seem to beg for pity.
It is the same with the landscapes of history. Narrow
minds cannot accommodate themselves to these perpetual
transformations : they want an objective history in which
the author will study the people as a chemist studies a
body. It is very possible that there may be laws for
historic evolution and social transformations as exact as
those of chemical combinations, and we must hope that
in the end they will be discovered; but for the present
there is no purely objective truth of history.
To write history we must think it, and to think it is to
transform it. Within a few years, it is true, men have
believed they had found the secret of objectivity, in the
publication of original documents. This is a true prog-
ress which renders inestimable service, but here again
we must not deceive ourselves as to its significance. All
xxxii
INTRODUCTION
the documents on an epoch or an event cannot usually be
published, a selection must be made, and in it will neces-
sarily appear the turn of mind of him who makes it. Let
us admit that all that can be found is published; but
alas, the most unusual movements have generally the few-
est documents. Take, for instance, the religious history
of the Middle Ages : it is already a pretty delicate task
to collect official documents, such as bulls, briefs, con-
ciliary canons, monastic constitutions, etc., but do these
documents contain all the life of the Church? Much is
still wanting, and to my mind the movements which se-
cretly agitated the masses are much more important, al-
though to testify to them we have only a few fragments.
Poor heretics, they were not only imprisoned and
burned, but their books were destroyed and everything
that spoke of them; and more than one historian, finding
scarcely a trace of them in his heaps of documents, for-
gets these prophets with their strange visions, these poet-
monks who from the depths of their cells made the world
to thrill and the papacy to tremble.
Objective history is then a utopia. We create God in
our own image, and we impress the mark of our person-
ality in places where we least expect to find it again.
But by dint of talking about the tribunal of history we
have made most authors think that they owe to themselves
and their readers definitive and irrevocable judgments.
It is always easier to pronounce a sentence than to
wait, to reserve one's opinion, to re-examine. The crowd
which has put itself out to be present at a trial is almost
always furious with the judges when they reserve the case
for further information; its mind is so made that it re-
quires precision in things which will bear it the least; it
puts questions right and left, as children do; if you ap-
pear to hesitate or to be embarrassed you are lost in its
estimation, you are evidently only an ignoramus.
INTRODUCTION
xxxiii
But perhaps below the Areopagites, obliged by their
functions to pronounce sentence, there is place at the
famous tribunal for a simple spectator who has come in
by accident. He has made out a brief and would like
very simply to tell his neighbors his opinion.
This, then, is not a history ad probandum, to use the
ancient formula. Is this to say that I have only desired
to give the reader a moment of diversion? That would
be to understand my thought very ill. In the grand
spectacles of history as in those of nature there is some-
thing divine; from it our minds and hearts gain a virtue
at once pacifying and encouraging, we experience the sal-
utary sensation of littleness, and seeing the beauties and
the sadnesses of the past we learn better how to judge
the present hour.
In one of the frescos of the Upper Church of Assisi,
Giotto has represented St. Clara and her companions
coming out from St. Damian all in tears, to kiss their
spiritual father's corpse as it is being carried to its last
home. With an artist's liberty he has made the chapel a
rich church built of precious marbles.
Happily the real St. Damian is still there, nestled
under some olive-trees like a lark under the heather; it
still has its ill-made walls of irregular stones, like those
which bound the neighboring fields. Which is the more
beautiful, the ideal temple of the artist's fancy, or the
poor chapel of reality? No heart will be in doubt.
Francis's official historians have done for his biography
what Giotto did for his little sanctuary. In general they
have done him ill-service. Their embellishments have
hidden the real St. Francis, who was, in fact, infinitely
nobler than they have made him to be. Ecclesiastical
writers appear to make a great mistake in thus adorn-
ing the lives of their heroes, and only mentioning their
edifying features. They thus give occasion, even to the
xxxiv
INTRODUCTION
most devout, to suspect their testimony. Besides, by
thus surrounding their saints with light they make them
superhuman creatures, having nothing in common with
us; they are privileged characters, marked with the
divine seal; they are, as the litanies say, vials of election,
into which God has poured the sweetest perfumes; their
sanctity is revealed almost in spite of themselves; they
are born saints as others are born kings or slaves,
their life is set out against the golden background of
a tryptich, and not against the sombre background of
reality.
By such means the saints, perhaps, gain something in
the respect of the superstitious; but their lives lose
something of virtue and of communicable strength. For-
getting that they were men like ourselves, we no longer
hear in our conscience the command, “Go and do like-
wise.”
It is, then, a work of piety to seek behind the legend
for the history. Is it presumptuous to ask our readers
to try to understand the thirteenth century and love St.
Francis ? They will be amply rewarded for the effort,
and will soon find an unexpected charm in these too
meagre landscapes, these incorporate souls, these sickly
imaginations which will pass before their eyes. Love is
the true key of history.
A book has always a great number of authors, and the
following pages owe much to the researches of others; I
have tried in the notes to show the whole value of these
debts.
I have also had colaborers to whom it will be more dif-
ficult for me to express my gratitude. I refer to the
librarians of the libraries of Italy and their assistants;
it is impossible to name them all, their faces are better
known to me than their names, but I would here say
that
during long months passed in the various collections of
INTRODUCTION
XXXV
the Peninsula,, all, even to the most humble employees,
have shown a tireless helpfulness even at those periods
of the year when the number of attendants was the small-
est.
Professor Alessandro Leto, who, barely recovered from
a grave attack of influenza, kindly served as my guide
among the archives of Assisi, deserves a very particular
mention. To the Syndic and municipality of that city 1
desire also to express my gratitude.
I cannot close without a warm remembrance to the
spiritual sons of St. Francis dispersed in the mountains
of Umbria and Tuscany.
Dear dwellers in St. Damian, Portiuncula, the Carceri,
the Verna, Monte Colombo, you perhaps remember the
strange pilgrim who, though he wore neither the frock
nor the cord, used to talk with you of the Seraphic Father
with as much love as the most pious Franciscan; you
used to be surprised at his eagerness to see everything,
to look at everything, to thread all the unexplored paths.
You often tried to restrain him by telling him that there
was not the smallest relic, the most meagre indulgence
in the far-away grottos to which he was dragging you,
but you always ended by going with him, thinking that
none but a Frenchman could be possessed by a devotion
so fervent and so imprudent.
Thank you, pious anchorites of Greccio, thank you for
the bread that you went out and begged when I arrived
at your hermitage benumbed with cold and hunger. If
you read these lines, read here my gratitude and also a
little admiration. You are not all saints, but nearly all
of you have hours of saintliness, flights of pure love.
If some pages of this book give you pain, turn them
over quickly ; let me think that others of them will give
you pleasure, and will make the name you bear, if possi-
ble, still more precious to you than it now is.
.
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
CHAPTER I
YOUTH
Assisi is to-day very much what it was six or seven
hundred years ago. The feudal castle is in ruins, but
the aspect of the city is just the same. Its long-deserted
streets, bordered by ancient houses, lie in terraces half-
way up the steep hill-side. Above it Mount Subasio 1
proudly towers, at its feet lies outspread all the Umbriau
plain from Perugia to Spoleto. The crowded houses
clamber up the rocks like children a-tiptoe to see all that
is to be seen; they succeed so well that every window
gives the whole panorama set in its frame of rounded
hills, from whose summits castles and villages stand
sharply out against a sky of incomparable purity.
These simple dwellings contain no more than five or
six little rooms, but the rosy hues of the stone of which
they are built give them a wonderfully cheerful air. The
one in which, according to the story, St. Francis was
born has almost entirely disappeared, to make room for a
church; but the street is so modest, and all that remains
| Eleven hundred and one metres above the level of the sea ; the
plain around Assisi has an average of two hundred, and the town of two
hundred and fifty, metres above.
? As in the majority of Tuscan cities the dimensions of the souses
were formerly fixed by law.
2
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
of the palazzo dei genitori di San Francesco is so precisely
like the neighboring houses that the tradition must be
correct. Francis entered into glory in his lifetime; it
would be surprising if a sort of worship had not from
the first been centred around the house in which he saw
the light and where he passed the first twenty-five years
of his life.
He was born about 1182. The biographies have pre-
served to us few details about his parents." His father,
Pietro Bernardone, was a wealthy cloth-merchant. We
know how different was the life of the merchants of that
The biographies say that he died (October 3, 1226) in his forty-fifth
year. But the terms are not precise enough to make the date 1181 im-
probable. For that matter the question is of small importance. A
Franciscan of Erfurt, about the middle of the thirteenth century, fixes
the date at 1182. Pertz, vol. xxiv., p. 193.
2 A number of different genealogies have been fabricated for Francis;
they prove only one thing, the wreck of the Franciscan idea. How
little they understood their hero, who thought to magnify and glorify
him by making him spring from a noble family! "Quce vero,” says
Father Suysken, S. J., “de ejus gentilitio insigni disserit Waddingus,
non libet mihi attingere. Factis et virtutibus eluxit S. Franciscus non
proavorum insignibus aut titulis, quos nec desideravit.” (A. SS. p. 557a.)
It could not be better said.
In the fourteenth century a whole cycle of legends had gathered
about his birth. It could not have been otherwise. They all grow out
of the story that tells of an old man who comes knocking at the
parents' door, begging them to let him take the infant in his arms,
when he announces that it will do great things. Under this form the
episode certainly presents nothing impossible, but very soon marvellous
incidents begin to gather around this nucleus until it becomes unrecog.
nizable. Bartholomew of Pisa has preserved it in almost its primitive
form. Conform., 28a 2. Francis certainly had several brothers (3 Soc.,
9. Mater .. quce cum præ ceteris filiis diligebat], but they have left
no trace in history except the incident related farther on. Vide p. 44
Christofani publishes several official pieces concerning Angelo, St.
Francis's brother, and his descendants: Storie d'Assisi, vol i., p. 78 ff.
In these documents Angelo is called Angelus Pice, and his son Johan-
rectus olim Angeli domine Pice, appellations which might be cited in
favor of the noble origin of Pica.
YOUTH
3
period from what it is to-day. A great portion of their
time was spent in extensive journeys for the purchase of
goods. Such tours were little short of expeditions. The
roads being insecure, a strong escort was needed for the
journey to those famous fairs where, for long weeks at
a time, merchants from the most remote parts of Europe
were gathered together. In certain cities, Montpellier
for example, the fair was perpetual. Benjamin of Tudela
shows us that city frequented by all nations, Christian
and Mohammedan. “ One meets there merchants from
Africa, from Italy, Egypt, Palestine, Greece, Gaul,
Spain, and England, so that one sees men of all lan-
guages, with the Genoese and the Pisans.”
Among all these merchants the richest were those who
dealt in textile stuffs. They were literally the bankers
of the time, and their heavy wagons were often laden
with the sums levied by the popes in England or
France.
Their arrival at a castle was one of the great events.
They were kept as long as possible, everyone being eager
for the news they brought. It is easy to understand
how close must have been their relations with the no.
bility; in certain countries, Provence for example, the
merchants were considered as nobles of a second order.
Bernardone often made these long journeys; he went
even as far as France, and by this we must surely un-
derstand Northern France, and particularly Champagne,
which was the seat of commercial exchange between
Northern and Southern Europe.
He was there at the very time of his son's birth. The
mother, presenting the child at the font of San Rufino,
had him baptized by the name of John, but the father
1
2
* Documentary History of Languedoc, iii., p. 607.
? The Cathedral of Assisi. To this day all the children of the town
are baptized there; the other churches are without fonts.
4
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
on his return chose to call him Francis. Had he al-
l'eady determined on the education he was to give the
child; did he name him thus because he even then in-
tended to bring him up after the French fashion, to make
a little Frenchman of him ? It is by no means improb-
able. Perhaps, indeed, the name was only a sort of
grateful homage tendered by the Assisan burgher to his
noble clients beyond the Alps. However this may be,
the child was taught to speak French, and always had a
special fondness for both the language and the country.”
These facts about Bernardone are of real importance;
they reveal the influences in the midst of which Francis
grew up. Merchants, indeed, play a considerable part
in the religious movements of the thirteenth century.
Their calling in some sense forced them to become col-
porters of ideas. What else could they do, on arriving
in a country, but answer those who asked for news ?
And the news most eagerly looked for was religious
news, for men's minds were turned upon very different
subjects then from now. They accommodated themselves
to the popular wish, observing, hearkening everywhere,
keeping eyes and ears open, glad to find anything to
tell; and little by little many of them became active
propagandists of ideas concerning which at first they
had been simply curious.
The importance of the part thus played by the mer-
3 Soc., 1 ; 2 Cel., 1, 1. Vide also 3 Soc., edition of Pesaro, 1831.
· The langue d'ożl was at this epoch the international language of
Europe ; in Italy it was the language of games and tourneys, and was
spoken in the petty princely courts of Northern Italy. Vide Dante,
De vulgari eloquio, lib. I., cap. x. Brunetto Latini wrote in French be-
cause the speech of France is more delectable and more common to
all people.” At the other end of Europe the Abbot of Stade, in West-
phalia, spoke of the nobility of the Gallic dialect. Ann. 1224 apud Pertz,
Script. xvi. We shall find St. Francis often making allusions to the
tales of the Round Table and the Chanson de Roland.
YOUTH
5
chants as they came and went, everywhere sowing the
new ideas which they had gathered up in their travels,
has not been put in a clear enough light; they were
often, unconsciously and quite involuntarily, the carriers
of ideas of all kinds, especially of heresy and rebellion.
It was they who made the success of the Waldenses, the
Albigenses, the Humiliati, and many other sècts.
Thus Bernardone, without dreaming of such a thing, be-
came the artisan of his son's religious vocation. The tales
which he brought home from his travels seemed at first,
perhaps, not to have aroused the child's attention, but they
were like germs a long time buried, which suddenly, un-
der a warm ray of sunlight, bring forth unlocked-for fruit.
The boy's education was not carried very far;' the
school was in those days overshadowed by the church.
The priests of San Giorgio were his teachers, and taught
him a little Latin. This language was spoken in Umbria
until toward the middle of the thirteenth century; every
one understood it and spoke it a little; it was still the
language of sermons and of political deliberations.
He learned also to write, but with less success; all
through his life we see him take up the pen only on rare
occasions, and for but a few words. The autograph of
1 We must not be led astray by certain remarks upon his ignorance,
from which one might at first conclude that he knew absolutely noth-
ing; for example, 2 Cel., 3, 45 : Quamvis homo iste beatus nullis fuerit
scientic studiis innutritus. This evidently refers to science, such as the
Franciscans soon came to apprehend it, and to theology in particular.
The close of the passage in Celano is itself an evident proof of this.
? Bon., 219; Cf. A. SS., p. 560a. 1 Cel., 23.
Ozanam, Documents inédits pour servir à l'histoire littéraire d'Italie
du VIIIe au XIIIe siècle. Paris, 1851, 8vo, pp. 65, 68, 71, 73. Fauriel,
Dante et les origines de la littérature italienne. Paris, 1854, 2 vols.,
8vo, ii., p. 332, 379, 429.
• V. 3 Soc., 51 and 67; 2 Cel., 3, 110 ; Bon., 55 ; 2 Cel., &, 99; Eccl.,
6. Bernard de Besse, Turin MS., fo. 96a, calls Brother Leo the seco
retary of St. Francis.
6
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
Sacro-Convento, which appears to be entirely authentic,
shows extreme awkwardness; in general he dictated,
signing his letters by a simple t, the symbol of the cross
of Jesus.1
That part of his education which was destined to have
most influence upon his life was the French language,
which he perhaps spoke in his own family. It has been
rightly said that to know two languages is to have two
souls; in learning that of France the boy felt his heart
thrill to the melody of its youthful poetry, and his imagi-
nation was mysteriously stirred with dreams of imitating
the exploits of the French cavaliers.
But let us not anticipate. His early life was that of
other children of his age. In the quarter of the town
where his house is still shown no vehicles are ever seen;
from morning till night the narrow streets are given over
to the children. They play there in many groups, frol-
icking with an exquisite charm, very different from the
little Romans, who, from the time they are six or seven
years old, spend hours at a time squatting behind a pillar,
or in a corner of a wall or a ruin, to play dice or
ra,” putting a passionate ferocity even into their play.
In Umbria, as in Tuscany, children love above all things
games in which they can make a parade; to play at sol.
diers or procession is the supreme delight of Assisan
children. Through the day they keep to the narrow
streets, but toward evening they go, singing and dancing,
to one of the open squares of the city. These squares
are one of the charms of Assisi. Every few paces an
interval occurs between the houses looking toward the
plain, and you find a delightful terrace, shaded by a few
trees, the very place for enjoying the sunset without
mor-
See page 357, n. 8. Bon., 51 and 308.
? 1 Cel., 16; 3 Soc., 10; 23; 24; 33; 2 Cel., 1, 8; 3, 67. See also
the Testament of St. Clara and the Speculum, 119a.
YOUTH
7
1
losing one of its splendors. Hither no doubt came often
the son of Bernardone, leading one of those farandoles
which you may see there to this day: from his very baby-
hood he was a prince among the children.
Thomas of Celano draws an appalling picture of the
education of that day. He describes parents inciting
their children to vice, and driving them by main force to
wrong-doing. Francis responded only too quickly to
these ynhappy lessons.
His father's profession and the possibly noble origin
of his mother raised him almost to the level of the
titled families of the country; money, which he spent
with both hands, made him welcome among them.
them. Well
pleased to enjoy themselves at his expense, the young
nobles paid him a sort of court. As to Bernardone,
he was too happy to see his son associating with them
to be niggardly as to the means. He was miserly, as
the course of this history will show, but his pride and
self-conceit exceeded his avarice.
Pica, his wife, gentle and modest creature, concerning
whom the biographers have been only too laconic, saw
all this, and mourned over it in silence, but though weak
as mothers are, she would not despair of her son, and
when the neighbors told her of Francis's escapades, she
would calmly reply, “What are you thinking about? I
i Primum namque cum fari vel balbutire incipiunt, turpia quædam et
execrabilia valde signis et vocibus edocentur pueri ii nondum nati : et cum
tempus ablactationis advenerit quoilam luxu et lascivia plena non solum
furi sed et operari coguntur.
Sed et cum paulo plusculum ætate
profecerint, se ipsis impellentibus, semper ad deteriora opera dilabuntur.
1 Cel., 1.
? 2 Cel., 1. Cf. Conform., 14a, 1. There is nothing impossible in her
having been of Provençal origin, but there is nothing to indicate it in
any document worthy of credence. She was no doubt of noble stock,
for official documents always give her the title Domina. Cristofani I.,
p. 78 ff. Cf. Matrem honestissimam habuit. 3 Soc., Edition of Pesara,
1831, p. 17.
8
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
am very sure that, if it pleases God, he will become a good
Christian."1 The words were natural enough from a
mother's lips, but later on they were held to have been
truly prophetic.
How far did the young man permit himself to be led
on? It would be difficult to say. The question which,
as we are told, tormented Brother Leo, could only have
suggested itself to a diseased imagination. Thomas of
Celano and the Three Companions agree in picturing
him as going to the worst excesses. Later biographers
speak with more circumspection of his worldly career.
A too widely credited story gathered from Celano's
narrative was modified by the chapter-general of 1260,
and the frankness of the early biographers was, no
doubt, one of the causes which most effectively con-
tributed to their definitive condemnation three years
later.4
Their statements are in no sense obscure; according to
them the son of Bernardone not only patterned himself
after the young men of his age, he made it a point of
honor to exceed them. What with eccentricities, buffoon-
eries, pranks, prodigalities, he ended by achieving a sort of
celebrity. He was forever in the streets with his com-
panions, compelling attention by his extravagant or fan-
tastic attire. Even at night the joyous company kept
The reading given by the Conform., 14a, 1, Meritorum gratia dez
filium ipsum noveritis afuturum, seems better than that of 2 Cel., 1, 1,
Multorum gratia Dei filiorum patrem ipsum noveritis affuturum. Cf.
3 Soc., 2.
? Bernardo of Besse, Turin MS., 102 b. : An integer carne desiderans
quod non extorsisset a Sancto
meruit obtinere a Deo
quod virgo esset. Cf. Conforin., 211a, 1, and A. SS., p. 560f.
3 " In illa antiphona quæ incipit : Hic vir in vanitatibus nutritus
insolenter, fiat talis mutatis : Divinis karismatibus preventus est cle-
menter.” Archiv., vi., p. 35.
Vide p. 395, the decision of the chapter of 1263 ordaining the de
etruction of legends earlier than that of Bonaventura.
4
Y JUTH
9
up their merrymakings, causing the town to ring with
their noisy songs.
At this very time the troubadours were roaming over
the towns of Northern Italy” and bringing brilliant fes-
tivities and especially Courts of Love into vogue. If
they worked upon the passions, they also made appeal
to feelings of courtesy and delicacy; it was this that
saved Francis. In the midst of his excesses he was
always refined and considerate, carefully abstaining from
every base or indecent utterance. Already his chief
aspiration was to rise above the commonplace. Tortured
with the desire for that which is far off and high, he had
conceived a sort of passion for chivalry, and fancying
that dissipation was one of the distinguishing features of
nobility, he had thrown himself into it with all his soul.
But he who, at twenty, goes from pleasure to pleasure
with the heart not absolutely closed to good, must now
11 Cel., 1 and 2 ; 89; 3 Soc., 2. Cf. A. SS., 560c. Vincent of
Beauvais, Spec. hist. lib., 29, cap. 97.
? Pierre Vidal was at the court of Boniface, Marquis of Montferrat,
about 1195, and liked his surroundings so well that he desired to estab-
lish himself there. K. Bartsch, Piere Vidal's Lieder, Berlin, 1857, n.
41. Ern. Monaci, Testi antichi provenzali, Rome, 1889, col. 67. One
should read this piece to have an idea of the fervor with which this poet
shared the hopes of Italy and desired its independence. This political
note is found again in a tenzon of Manfred II. Lancia, addressed to
Pierre Vidal. (V. Monaci, loc. cit., col. 68.)--Gaucelme Faidit was also
at this court as well as Raimbaud of Vacqueyras (1180–1207).–Folquet
de Romans passed nearly all his life in Italy. Bernard of Ventadour
(1145–1195), Peirol of Auvergne (1180-1220), and many others abode
there a longer or shorter time. Very soon the Italians began to sing in
Provençal, among others this Manfred Lancia, and Albert, Marquis of
Malaspina (1162–1210), Pietro della Caravana, who in 1196 stirred up
the Lombard towns against Henry VI., Pietro della Mula, who about
1200 was at the court of Cortemiglia. Fragments from these poets may
be found in Monaci, op. cit., col. 69 ff.
• 3 Soc., 3 ; 2 Cel., 1, 1.
· Çum esset gloriosus animo et nollet aliquem se præcellere, Giord.
10
LIFE OF ST. FRANOIS
1
and then, at some turning of the road, become aware that
there are hungry folk, who could live a month on what
he spends in a few hours on frivolity. Francis saw them,
and with his impressionable nature for the moment forgot
everything else In thought he put himself in their
place, and it sometimes happened that he gave them all
the
money he had about him and even his clothes.
One day he was busy with some customers in his
father's shop, when a man came in, begging for charity
in the name of God. Losing his patience Francis sharply
turned him away; but quickly reproaching himself for
his harshness he thought, “What would I not have done
if this man had asked something of me in the name of a
count or a baron? What ought I not to have done when
he came in the name of God ? I am no better than a
clown!" Leaving his customers he ran after the beggar.
Bernardone had been well pleased with his son's com-
mercial aptitude in the early days when the young man
was first in his father's employ. Francis was only too
proficient in spending money ; he at least knew well how
to make it. But this satisfaction did not last long.
Francis's bad companions were exercising over him a
most pernicious influence. The time came when he
could no longer endure to be separated from them; if he
heard their call, nothing could keep him, he would leave
everything and go after them.3
All this time political events were hurrying on in Um-
bria and Italy; after a formidable struggle the allied
republics had forced the empire to recognize them. By
the immortal victory of Legnano (May 29, 1176) and the
Peace of Constance (June 25, 1183) the Lombard League
had wrested from Frederick Barbarossa almost all the
11 Cel., 17; 3 Soc., 3 ; Bon., 7. Cf. A. SS.,
Cf. A. SS., p. 562.
? 1 Cel., 2 ; Bon., 6; Vit. sec. apud, A. SS., p. 560.
83 Soc., 9.
YOUTH
11
prerogatives of power; little was left to the emperor buut
insignia and outward show.
From one end of the Peninsula to the other visions
of liberty were making hearts beat high. For an instant
it seemed as if all Italy was about to regain conscious-
ness of its unity, was about to rise up as one man and
hurl the foreigner from its borders; but the rivalries of
the cities were too strong for them to see that local liberty
without a common independence is precarious and illu-
sory. Henry VI., the successor of Barbarossa (1183-
1196), laid Italy under a yoke of iron ; he might perhaps
in the end have assured the domination of the empire, if
his career had not been suddenly cut short by a prema-
ture death.
Yet he had not been able to put fetters upon ideas.
The communal movement which was shaking the north
of France reverberated beyond the Alps.
Although a city of second rank, Assisi had not been
behind in the great struggles for independence. She
had been severely chastised, had lost her franchise, and
was obliged to submit to Conrad of Suabia, Duke of
Spoleto, who from the heights of his fortress kept her in
subjection.
But when Innocent III. ascended the pontifical throne
(January 8, 1199) the old duke knew himself to be lost.
He made a tender to him of money, men, his faith even,
but the pontiff refused them all. He had no desire to
appear to favor the Tedeschi, who had so odiously op-
pressed the country. Conrad of Suabia was forced to
yield at mercy, and to go to Narni to put his submission
into the hands of two cardinals.
Like the practical folk that they were, the Assisans did
not hesitate an instant. No sooner was the count on
1
1 In 1174 Assisi was taken by the chancellor of the empire, Christian
Archbishop of Mayence. A. Cristofani, i., p. 69.
12
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
the road to Narni than they rushed to the assault of the
castle. The arrival of envoys charged to take posses-
sion of it as a pontifical domain by no means gave them
pause. Not one stone of it was left upon another. Then,
with incredible rapidity they enclosed their city with
walls, parts of which are still standing, their formidable
ruins a witness to the zeal with which the whole popula
tion labored on them.
It is natural to think that Francis, then seventeen
years old, was one of the most gallant laborers of those
glorious days, and it was perhaps there that he gained
the habit of carrying stones and wielding the trowel
which was destined to serve him so well a few years
later.
Unhappily his fellow-citizens had not the sense to
profit by their hard-won liberty. The lower classes,
who in this revolution had become aware of their
strength, determined to follow out the victory by taking
possession of the property of the nobles. The latter
took refuge in their fortified houses in the interior of the
city, or in their castles in the suburbs. The towns.
people burned down several of the latter, whereupon
counts and barons made request of aid and succor from
the neighboring cities.
Perugia was at this time at the apogee of its power,
and had already made many efforts to reduce Assisi to
submission. It therefore received the fugitives with
alacrity, and making their cause its own, declared war
upon Assisi. This was in 1202. An encounter took
1 All these events are related in the Gesta Innocentii Ill. ab auctore
coætaneo, edited by Baluze : Migne, Inn. op., vol. i., col. xxiv. See
especially the letter of Innocent, Rectoribus Tuscic : Mirari cogimur, of
April 16, 1198. Migue, vol. i., col. 75-77. Potthast, No. 82.
* See Luigi Bonazzi, Storia di Perugia, 2 vols., 8vo. Perugia, 1875-
1879 vol. i., cap. V., pp. 257-322.
YOUTH
13
1
place in the plain about half way between the two cities,
not far from Ponte San Giovanni. Assisi was defeated,
and Francis, who was in the ranks, was made prisoner.
The treachery of the nobles had not been universal;
a few had fought with the people. It was with them
and not with the popolani that Francis, in consideration
of the nobility of his manners, passed the time of his
captivity, which lasted an entire year. He greatly aston-
ished his companions by his lightness of heart. Very
often they thought him almost crazy. Instead of pass-
ing his time in wailing and cursing he made plans for
the future, about which he was glad to talk to any one
who came along. To his fancy life was what the songs.
of the troubadours had painted it; he dreamed of glori-
ous adventures, and always ended by saying: “You will
see that one day I shall be adored by the whole world." 3
During these long months Francis must have been
pretty rudely undeceived with respect to those nobles
whom from afar he had so heartily admired. However
that may be, he retained with them not only his frank-
ness of speech, but also his full freedom of action. Ona
of them, a knight, had always held aloof from the others,
out of vanity and bad temper. Francis, far from leaving
him to himself, always showed him affection, and finally
had the joy of reconciling him with his fellow-captives.
A compromise was finally arrived at between the
counts and the people of Assisi. In November, 1203,
the arbitrators designated by the two parties announced
their decision. The commons of Assisi were to repair
in a certain measure the damage done to the lords, and
the latter agreed, on their part, to make no further al-
1 3 Soc., 4; 2 Cel., 1, 1. Cristofani, op. cit., i., p. 88 ff.; Bonazzi, op.
cit., p. 257.
* 3 Soc., 4.
3 3 Soc., 4; 2 Cel., 1, 1.
14
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
liances without authorization of the commons.1 Rural
serfage was maintained, which proves that the revolution
had been directed by the burghers, and for their own
profit. Ten years more were not, however, to elapse
before the common people also would succeed in achiev-
ing liberty. In this cause we shall again see Francis
fighting on the side of the oppressed, earning the title
of Patriarch of religious democracy which has been ac-
corded him by one of his compatriots.?
The agreement being made the prisoners detained at
Perugia were released, and Francis returned to Assisi
He was twenty-two years old.
1 See this arbitration in Cristofani, op. cit., p. 93 ff.
* Cristofani, loc. cit., p. 70.
CHAPTER IL
STAGES OF CONVERSION
Spring 1204 - Spring 1206
On his return to Assisi Francis at once resumed his
former mode of life; perhaps he even tried in some de-
gree to make up for lost time. Fêtes, games, festivals,
and dissipations began again. He did his part in them
so well that he soon fell gravely ill. For long weeks he
looked death so closely in the face that the physical crisis
brought about a moral one. Thomas of Celano has pre-
served for us an incident of Francis's convalescence. He
was regaining strength little by little and had begun to
go about the house, when one day he felt a desire to walk
abroad, to contemplate nature quietly, and so take hold
again of life. Leaning on a stick he bent his steps
toward the city gate.
The nearest one, called Porta Nuova, is the very one
which opens upon the finest scenery. Immediately on
passing through it one finds one's self in the open country;
a fold of the hill hides the city, and cuts off every sound
that might come from it. Before you lies the winding
road to Foligno; at the left the imposing mass of Mount
Subasio; at the right the Umbrian plain with its farms,
its villages, its cloud-like hills, on whose slopes pines,
cedars, oaks, the vine, and the olive-tree shed abroad an
incomparable brightness and animation. The whole
11 Cel., 3; of. Bon., 8, and A. SS., p. 563c.
16
LIFE OF ST. FRANOIS-
country sparkles with beauty, a beauty harmonious and
thoroughly human, that is, made to the measure of man.
Francis had hoped by this sight to recover the de-
licious sensations of his youth. With the sharpened
sensibility of the convalescent he breathed in the odors of
the spring-time, but spring-time did not come, as he had
expected, to his heart. This smiling nature had for him
only a message of sadness. He had believed that the
breezes of this beloved country-side would carry away
the last shudders of the fever, and instead he felt in his
heart a discouragement a thousand-fold more painful
than any physical ill. The miserable emptiness of his
life suddenly appeared before him; he was terrified at
his solitude, the solitude of a great soul in which there is
no altar.
Memories of the past assailed him with intolerable bit-
terness; he was seized with a disgust of himself, his
former ambitions seemed to him ridiculous or despicable.
He went home overwhelmed with the weight of a new
suffering.
In such hours of moral anguish man seeks a refuge
either in love or in faith. Unhappily the family and
friends of Francis were incapable of understanding him.
As to religion, it was for him, as for the greater number
of his contemporaries, that crass fetichism with Christian
terminology which is far from having entirely disap-
peared. With certain men, in fact, piety consists in mak-
ing one's self right with a king more powerful than any
other, but also more severe and capricious, who is called
God. One proves one's loyalty to him as to other
sovereigns, by putting his image more or less everywhere,
and punctually paying the imposts levied by his minis-
ters. If you are stingy, if you cheat, you run 1:9 risk of
being severely chastised, but there are courtiers around
the king who willingly render services. For a reason
STAGES OF CONVERSION
17
1
able recompense they will seize a favorable moment to
adroitly make away with the sentence of your condem-
nation or to slip before the prince a form of plenary ab-
solution which in a moment of good humor he will sign
without looking at it.
Such was the religious basis upon which Francis had
lived up to this time. He did not so much as dream of
seeking the spiritual balm which he needed for the heal-
ing of his wounds. By a holy violence he was to arrive
at last at a pure and virile faith ; but the road to this
point is long, and sown thick with obstacles, and at the
moment at which we have arrived he had not yet entered
upon it, he did not even suspect its existence; all he knew
was that pleasure leads to nothingness, to satiety and
self-contempt.
He knew this, and yet he was about to throw himself
once more into a life of pleasure. The body is so weak,
so prone to return to the old paths, that it seeks them
of itself, the moment an energetic will does not stop it.
Though no longer under any illusion with respect to it,
Francis returned to his former life. Was he trying to
divert his mind, to forget that day of bitter thought ?
We might suppose so, seeing the ardor with which he
threw himself into his new projects.?
An opportunity offered itself for him to realize his
dreams of glory. A knight of Assisi, perhaps one of those
who had been in captivity with him at Perugia, was pre-
paring to go to Apulia under orders from Count Gen-
1 It is enough to have lived in the country of Naples to know that
there is nothing exaggerated in this picture. I am much surprised
that intelligent and good men fancy that to change the religious for-
mula of these people would suffice to transform them. What a mis-
take! To-day, as in the time of Jesus, the important matter is not to
adore on Mount Moriah or Mount Zion, but to adore in spirit and in
truth.
? 1 Cel., 3 and 4.
18
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
tile. The latter was to join Gaultier de Brienne, who was
in the south of Italy fighting on the side of Innocent III.
Gaultier's renown was immense all through the Peninsula ;
he was held to be one of the most gallant knights of the
time. Francis's heart bounded with joy; it seemed to
him that at the side of such a hero he should soon cover
himself with glory. His departure was decided upon, and
he gave himself up, without reserve, to his joy.
He made his preparations with ostentatious prodigal-
ity. His equipment, of a princely luxury, soon became
the universal subject of conversation. It was all the
more talked about because the chief of the expedition,
ruined perhaps by the revolution of 1202 or by the ex-
penses of a long captivity, was constrained to order
things much more modestly. But with Francis kindli-
ness was much stronger than love of display. He gave
his sumptuous clothing to a poor knight. The biogra-
phies do not say whether or not it was to the very one
whom he was to accompany. To see him running hither
and thither in all the bustle of preparation one would
1 3 Soc., 5. In the existing state of the documents it is impossible to
know whom this name designates, for at that time it was borne by a
number of counts who are only to be distinguished by the names of
their castles, The three following are possible : 1. Gentile comes de
Campilio, who in 1215 paid homage for his property to the commune of
Orvieto : Le antiche cronache di Orvieto, Arch. stor. ital., 5th series., 1889,
iii., p. 47. 2. Gentilis comes filius Alberici, who with others had made
donation of a monastery to the Bishop of Foligno : Confirmatory Bull
In eminenti of April 10, 1210 : Ughelli, Italia Sacra, 1, p. 697; Pott-
hast, 3974. 3. Gentilis comes Manupelli ; whom we find in July, 1200,
assuring to Palermo the victory over the troops sent by Innocent III.
against Marckwald; Huillard-Bréholles, Hist. dipl., i. p., 46 ff. Cf. Pot-
thast, 1126. Gestu Innocenti, Migne, vol. i., xxxii, ff. Cf. Huillard-
Bréholles, loc. cit., pages 60, 84, 89, 101. It is wrong to consider
that Gentile could here be a mere adjective ; the 3 Soc. say Gentile
nomine.
'1 Cel., 4; 3 Soc., 5.
33 Soc., 6; 2 Cel., 1, 2 ; Bon., 8.
STAGES OF CONVERSION
19
have thought him the son of a great lord. His compan-
ions were doubtless not slow to feel chafed by his ways
and to promise themselves to make him cruelly expiate
them. As for him, he perceived nothing of the jealousies
which he was exciting, and night and day he thought
only of his future glory. In his dreams he seemed to
see his parents' house completely transformed. Instead
of bales of cloth he saw there only gleaming bucklers
hanging on the walls, and arms of all kinds as in a seigno-
rial castle. He saw himself there, beside a noble and
beautiful bride, and he never suspected that in this vision
there was any presage of the future which was reserved for
bim. Never had any one seen him so communicative, so
radiant; and when he was asked for the hundredth time
whence came all this joy, he would reply with surprising
assurance: "I know that I shall become a great prince.”
The day of departure arrived at last. Francis on
horseback, the little buckler of a page on his arm, bade
adieu to his natal city with joy, and with the little troop
took the road to Spoleto which winds around the base
of Mount Subasio.
What happened next? The documents do not say.
They confine themselves to reporting that that very even-
ing Francis had a vision which decided him to return to
Assisi.? Perhaps it would not be far from the truth to
conjecture that once fairly on the way the young no-
les took their revenge on the son of Bernardone for his
airs as of a future prince. At twenty years one hardly
pardons things like these. If, as we are often assured,
there is a pleasure unsuspected by the profane in getting
even with a stranger, it must be an almost divine delight
to get even with a young coxcomb upon whom one has
to exercise so righteous a vengeance.
11 Cel., 5; 3 Soc., 5; 2 Cel., 1, 2; Bon., 9.
23 Soc., 6; Bon., 9; 2 Cel., 1, 2.
1
20
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
Arriving at Spoleto, Francis took to his bed. A fever
was consuming him; in a few hours he had seen all his
dreams crumble away. The very next day he took the
road back to Assisi.1
So unexpected a return made a great stir in the little
city, and was a cruel blow to his parents. As for him,
he doubled his charities to the poor, and sought to keep
aloof from society, but his old companions came flock-
ing about him from all quarters, hoping to find in him
once more the tireless purveyor of their idle wants. He
let them have their way.
Nevertheless a great change had taken place in him.
Neither pleasures nor work could long hold him; he
spent a portion of his days in long country rambles,
often accompanied by a friend most different from those
whom until now we have seen about him. The name of
this friend is not known, but from certain indications one
is inclined to believe that he was Bombarone da Bevig
lia, the future Brother Elias.
2
1 3 Soc., 6 ; 2 Cel., 1,
* These days are recalled by Celano with a very particular precision.
It is very improbable that Francis, usually so reserved as to his personal
experience, should have told him about them (2 Cel., 3, 68, and 42, cf.
Bon., 144). On the other hand, nothing forbids his having been in
Cormed on this matter hy Brother Elias. (I strongly suspect the legend
which tells of an old man appearing on the day Francis was born and
.egging permission to take the child in his arms, saying, “To-day, two
infants were born--this one, who will be among the best of men, and
another, who will be among the worst”-of having been invented by
the zelanti against Brother Elias. It is evident 'that such a story is
aimed at some one. Whom, if not him who was afterward to appear
as the Anti-Francis ?) We have sufficient details about the eleven first
disciples to know that none of them is here in question. There is
nothing surprising in the fact that Elias does not appear in the earliest
years of the Order (1209–1212), because after having practised at As-
sisi his double calling of schoolmaster and carriage-trimmer (sucbat cult.
rus et docebat puerulos parılterium legere, Salimbene, p. 402) he was
scriptor at Bologna (Eccl., 13). And from the psychological point of
STAGES OF CONVERSION
21
Francis now went back to his reflections at the time of
his recovery, but with less of bitterness. His own heart
and his friend agreed in saying to him that it is possible
no longer to trust either in pleasure or in glory and yet to
find worthy causes to which to consecrate one's life. It
is at this moment that religious thought seems to have
awaked in him. From the moment that he saw this new
way of life his desire to run in it had all the fiery im-
petuosity, which he put into all his actions. He was
continually calling upon his friend and leading him apart
into the most sequestered paths.
But intense conflicts are indescribable. We struggle,
we suffer alone. It is the nocturnal wrestling of Beth-
el, mysterious and solitary. The soul of Francis was
great enough to endure this tragic duel. His friend had
marvellously understood his part in this contest. He
gave a few rare counsels, but much of the time he con-
tented himself with manifesting his solicitude by follow-
ing Francis everywhere and never asking to know more
than he could tell him.
Often Francis directed his steps to a grotto in the
country near Assisi, which he entered alone. This rocky
cave concealed in the midst of the olive trees became for
faithful Franciscans that which Gethsemane is for Chris-
tians. Here Francis relieved his overcharged heart by
heavy groans. Sometimes, seized with a real horror for the
view this hypothesis would admirably explain the ascendency which
Elias was destined always to exercise over his master. Still it remains
difficult to understand why Celano did not name Elias here, but the
passage, 1 Cel., 6, differs in the different manuscripts (cf. A. SS. and
Amoni's edition, p. 14) and may have been retouched after the latter's
fall.
Beviglia is a simple farm three-quarters of an hour northwest of
Assisi, almost half way to Petrignano. Half an hour from Assisi in
the direction of Beviglia is a grotto, which may very well be that of
which we are about to speak.
22
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
disorders of his youth, he would implore mercy, but the
greater part of the time his face was turned toward the
future; feverishly he sought for that higher truth to
which he longed to dedicate himself, that pearl of great
price of which the gospel speaks : “Whosoever seeks,
finds; he who asks, receives; and to him who knocks, it
shall be opened.”
When he came out after long hours of seclusion the
pallor of his countenance, the painful tension of his feat-
ures told plainly enough of the intensity of his asking
and the violence of his knocks.1
The inward man, to borrow the language of the mystics,
was not yet formed in him, but it needed only the oc-
casion to bring about the final break with the past. The
occasion soon presented itself.
His friends were making continual efforts to induce
him to take up his old habits again. One day he in-
vited them all to a sumptuous banquet. They thought
they had conquered, and as in old times they proclaimed
him king of the revels. The feast was prolonged far into
the night, and at its close the guests rushed out into the
streets, which they filled with song and uproar. Sud-
denly they perceived that Francis was no longer with
them. After long searching they at last discovered him
far behind them, still holding in his hand his sceptre of
king of misrule, but plunged in so profound a revery
that he seemed to be riveted to the ground and uncon-
scious of all that was going on.
“What is the matter with you ?” they cried, bustling
about him as if to awaken him.
Don't you see that he is thinking of taking a wife ? "
said one.
“Yes," answered Francis, arousing himself and look-
ing at them with a smile which they did not recognize.
11 Cel., 6; 2 Cel., 1, 5 ; 3 Soc., 8, 12 ; Bon., 10, 11, 12.
STAGES OF CONVERSION
23
“I am thinking of taking a wife more beautiful, more
rich, more pure than you could ever imagine.” 1
This reply marks a decisive stage in his inner life. By
it he cut the last links which bound him to trivial pleas-
ures. It remains for us to see through what struggles he
was to give himself to God, after having torn himself
free from the world. His friends probably understood
nothing of all that had taken place, but he had become
aware of the abyss that was opening between them and
him. They soon accepted the situation.
As for himself, no longer having any reason for caution,
he gave himself up more than ever to his passion for
solitude. If he often wept over his past dissipations and
wondered how he could have lived so long without tasting
the bitterness of the dregs of the enchanted cup, he never
allowed himself to be overwhelmed with vain regrets.
The poor had remained faithful to him. They gave
him an admiration of which he knew himself to be un-
worthy, yet which had for him an infinite sweetness. The
future grew bright to him in the light of their gratitude, of
the timid, trembling affection which they dared not utter
but which his heart revealed to him; this worship which
he does not deserve to-day he will deserve to-morrow, at
least he promises himself to do all he can to deserve it.
To understand these feelings one must understand the
condition of the poor of a place like Assisi. In an agri-
cultural country poverty does not, as elsewhere, almost
inevitably involve moral destitution, that degeneration
of the entire human being which renders charity so diffi-
cult. Most of the poor persons whom Francis knew
were in straits because of war, of bad harvests, or of ill-
ness. In such cases material succor is but a small-part
.
Sympathy is the thing needed above all. Francis had
treasures of it to lavish upon them.
13 Soc., 7; 1 Cel., 7; 2 Cel., 1, 3; 3 Soc., 13.
24
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
He was well requited. All sorrows are sisters ; a
secret intelligence establishes itself between troubled
hearts, however diverse their griefs. The poor people
felt that their friend also suffered; they did not precisely
know with what, but they forgot their own sorrows in
pitying their benefactor. Suffering is the true cement of
love. For men to love each other truly, they must have
shed tears together.
As yet no influence strictly ecclesiastic had been felt
by Francis. Doubtless there was in his heart that leaven
of Christian faith which enters one's being without his
being aware; but the interior transformation which was
going on in him was as yet the fruit of his own intuition.
This period was drawing to a close. His thought was
soon to find əxpression, and by that very act to receive
the stamp of external circumstances. Christian instruc-
tion will give a precise form to ideas of which as yet
he has but vague glimpses, but he will find in this form
a frame in which his thought will perhaps lose some-
thing of its originality and vigor; the new wine will
be put into old wine-skins.
By degrees he was becoming calm, was finding in the
contemplation of nature joys which up to this time he
had sipped but hastily, almost unconsciously, and of which
he was now learning to relish the flavor. He drew from
them not simply soothing ; in his heart he felt new com-
passions springing into life, and with these the desire to
act, to give himself, to cry aloud to these cities perched
upon the hill-tops, threatening as warriors who eye one
another before the fray, that they should be reconciled
and love one another.
Certainly, at this time Francis had no glimpse of what
he was some time to become; but these hours are perhaps
the most important in the evolution of his thought; it is
to them that his life owes that air of liberty, that per-
STAGES OF CONVERSION
26
fume of the fields which make it as different from the
piety of the sacristy as from that of the drawing-room.
About this time he made a pilgrimage to Rome,
whether to ask counsel of his friends, whether as a pen-
ance imposed by his confessor, or from a mere impulse,
no one knows. Perhaps he thought that in a visit to the
Holy Apostles, as people said then, he should find the an-
swers to all the questions which he was asking himself.
At any rate he went. It is hardly probable that he re-
ceived from the visit any religious influence, for his biog-
raphers relate the pained surprise which he experienced
when he saw in Saint Peter's how meagre were the offer-
ings of pilgrims. He wanted to give everything to the
prince of the apostles, and emptying his purse he threw
its entire contents upon the tomb.
This journey was marked by a more important inci-
dent. Many a time when succoring the poor he had
asked himself if he himself was able to endure poverty;
no one knows the weight of a burden until he has carried
it, at least for a moment, upon his own shoulders. He
desired to know what it is like to have nothing, and to
depend for bread upon the charity or the caprice of the
passer by.1
There were swarms of beggars crowding the Piazza
before the great basilica. He borrowed the rags of one
of them, lending him his garment in exchange, and a
whole day he stood there, fasting, with outstretched
hand. The act was a great victory, the triumph of com-
passion over natural pride. Returning to Assisi, he
doubled his kindnesses to those of whom he had truly the
right to call himself the brother. With such sentiments
he could not long escape the influence of the Church.
On all the roadsides in the environs of the city there
were then, as now, numerous chapels. Very often he
1 3 Soc., 8–10; Bon., 13, 14; 2 Cel., 1, 4.
26
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
must have heard mass in these rustic sanctuaries, alone
with the celebrant. Recognizing the tendency of simple
natures to bring home to themselves everything that
they hear, it is easy to understand his emotion and
agitation when the priest, turning toward him, would
read the gospel for the day. The Christian ideal was
revealed to him, bringing an answer to his secret
anxieties. And when, a few moments later, he would
plunge into the forest, all his thoughts would be with
the poor carpenter of Nazareth, who placed himself in
his path, saying to him, even to him, “Follow thou me.”
Nearly two years had passed since the day when he
felt the first shock; a life of renunciation appeared to
him as the goal of his efforts, but he felt that his spirit-
ual novitiate was not yet ended. He suddenly experi-
enced a bitter assurance of the fact.
He was riding on horseback one day, his mind more
than ever possessed with the desire to lead a life of
absolute devotion, when at a turn of the road he found
himself face to face with a leper. The frightful malady
had always inspired in him an invincible repulsion. He
could not control a movement of horror, and by instinct
he turned his horse in another direction.
If the shock had been severe, the defeat was com-
plete. He reproached himself bitterly. To cherish
such fine projects and show himself so cowardly! Was
the knight of Christ then going to give up his arms ? He
retraced his steps and springing from his horse he gave
to the astounded sufferer all the money that he had;
then kissed his hand as he would have done to a priest.1
This new victory, as he himself saw, marked an era in
his spiritual life.”
1 To this day in the centre and south of Italy they kiss the hand of
priests and monks.
? See the Will. Cf. 3 Soc., 11 ; 1 Cel., 17 ; Bon., 11; A. SS., p. 566.
STAGES OF CONVERSION
27
It is far indeed from hatred of evil to love of good.
Those are more numerous than we think who, after severe
experience, have renounced what the ancient liturgies call
the world, with its pomps and lusts; but the greater
number of them have not at the bottom of their hearts
the smallest grain of pure love. In vulgar souls disil-
lusion leaves only a frightful egoism.
This victory of Francis had been so sudden that he
desired to complete it; a few days later he went to the
lazaretto. One can imagine the stupefaction of these
wretches at the entrance of the brilliant cavalier. If in
our days a visit to the sick in our hospitals is a real
event awaited with feverish impatience, what must not
have been the appearance of Francis among these poor
recluses? One must have seen sufferers thus abandoned,
to understand what joy may be given by an affectionate
word, sometimes even a simple glance.
Moved and transported, Francis felt his whole being
vibrate with unfamiliar sensations. For the first time
he heard the unspeakable accents of a gratitude which
cannot find words burning enough to express itself, which
admires and adores the benefactor almost like an angel
from heaven.
1 3 Soc., 11 ; Bon., 18.
CHAPTER III
THE CHURCH ABOUT 1209
Sr. FRANCIS was inspired as much as any man may be,
but it would be a palpable error to study him apart from
his age and from the conditions in which he lived.
We know that he desired and believed his life to be
an imitation of Jesus, but what we know about the Christ
is in fact so little, that St. Francis's life loses none of its
strangeness for that. His conviction that he was but an
imitator preserved him from all temptation to pride, and
enabled him to proclaim his views with incomparable
vigor, without seeming in the least to be preaching him-
self.
We must therefore neither isolate him from external
influences nor show him too dependent on them. During
the period of his life at which we are now arrived, 1205-
1206, the religious situation of Italy must more than at
any
other time have influenced his thought and urged
him into the path which he finally entered.
The morals of the clergy were as corrupt as ever, ren-
dering any serious reform impossible. If some among
the heresies of the time were pure and without reproach,
many were trivial and impure. Here and there a few
voices were raised in protest, but the prophesyings of
Gioacchino di Fiore had no more power than those of St.
Hildegarde to put a stop to wickedness. Luke Wadding,
the pious Franciscan annalist, begins his chronicle with
THE CHURCH ABOUT 1209
29
it
this appalling picture. The advance in historic research
permits us to retouch it somewhat more in detail, but
the conclusion remains the same; without Francis of
Assisi the Church would perhaps have foundered and the
Cathari would have won the day. The little poor man,
driven away, cast out of doors by the creatures of Inno-
cent III.,saved. Christianity.
We cannot here make a thorough study of the state
of the Church at the beginning of the thirteenth cen-
tury; it will suffice to trace some of its most prominent
features.
The first glance at the secular clergy brings out into
startling prominence the ravages of simony; the traffio
in ecclesiastical places was carried on with boundless
audacity; benefices were put up to the highest bidder,
and Innocent III. admitted that fire and sword alone
could heal this plague. Prelates who declined to be
bought by propince, fees, were held up as astounding
exceptions !
"They are stones for understanding," it was said of the
officers of the Roman curia, “wood for justice, fire for
wrath, iron for forgiveness; deceitful as foxes, proud as
bulls, greedy and insatiate as the minotaur."9 The praises
showered upon Pope Eugenius III. for rebuffing a priest
who, at the beginning of a lawsuit, offered him a golden
mark, speak only too plainly as to the morals of Rome in
this respect.
The bishops, on their part, found a thousand methods,
often most out of keeping with their calling for extorting
1 Bull of June 8, 1198, Quamvis. Migne, i., col. 220 ; Potthast, 265.
? For example, Pierre, Cardinal of St. Chryzogone and former Bishop
of Meaux, who in a single election refused the dazzling offer of five
hundred silver marks. Alexander III., Migne's edition, epist. 395.
• Fasciculus rerum expetend. et fugiend., t. ii., 7, pp. 254, 255 (Brown,
1690).
• John of Salisbury, Policrat. Migne, p. 15.
2
30
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
money from the simple priests.Violent, quarrelsome,
contentious, they were held up to ridicule in popular
ballads from one end of Europe to the other. As to
the priests, they bent all their powers to accumulate bene
fices, and secure inheritances from the dying, stooping
to the most despicable measures for providing for their
bastards.3
The monastic orders were hardly more reputable. A
great number of these had sprung up in the eleventh and
twelfth centuries; their reputation for sanctity soon
stimulated the liberality of the faithful, and thus fatally
brought about their own decadence. Few communities
had shown the discretion of the first monks of the Order
of Grammont in the diocese of Limoges. When Stephen
de Muret, its founder, began to manifest his sanctity by
giving sight to a blind man, his disciples took alarm at
the thought of the wealth and notoriety which was likely
to come to them from this cause. Pierre of Limoges, who
had succeeded Stephen as prior, went at once to his
tomb, praying:
Among their sources of revenue we find the right of collagium, by pay.
ment of which clerics acquired the right to keep a concubine. Pierre le
Chantre, Verb. abbrev., 24. .
? Vide Carmina Burana, Breslau, 8vo, 1883 ; Political Songs of Eng-
land, published by Th. Wright, London, 8vo, 1893 ; Poésies populaires
latines du moyen âge, du Méril, Paris, 1847. See also Raynouard, Lexique
roman, i., 446, 451, 464, the fine poems of the troubadour Pierre Car-
dinal, contemporary of St. Francis, upon the woes of the Church, and
Dante, Inferno, xix. If one would gain an idea of what the bishop of
a small city in those days cost his flock, he has only to read the bull of
February 12, 1219, Justis petentium, addressed by Honorius III. to the
Bishop of Terni, and including the contract by which the inhabitants of
that city settled the revenues of the episcopal see. Horoy, t. iii., col.
114, or the Bullarium romanum, t. iii., p. 348, Turin.
3 Conosco sacerdoti che fanno gli usura per formare un patrimonio da
lasciare ai loro spurii; altri che tengono osteria coll' insegna del collare e
oondono vino
Salimbene, Cantarelli, Parma, 1882, & vols., 8vo,
ii., P. 807.
1
THE CHURCH ABOUT 1209
31
"U servant of God, thou hast shown us the way of poverty, and
behold, thou wouldst make us leave the strait and difficult path of
salvation, and wouldst set us in the broad road of eternal death. Thou
hast preached to us (the virtues of) solitude, and thou art about to change
this place into a fair and a market-place. We know well that thou art
a saint! Thou hast no need to prove it to us by performing miracles
which will destroy our humility. Be not so zealous for thy reputation
as to augment it to the injury of our salvation. This is what we ask of
thee, expecting it of thy love. If not, we declare unto thee by the obe.
dience which we once owed to thee, we will unearth thy bones and throw
them into the river.'
2
Stephen obeyed up to the time of his canonization
(1189), but from that time forward ambition, avarice, and
luxury made such inroads upon the solitude of Gram-
mont that its monks became the byword and scoff of the
Christian world.1
Pierre of Limoges was not entirely without reason in
fearing that his monastery would be transformed into a
fair-ground; members of the chapters of most of the ca-
thedrals kept wine-shops literally under their shadows,
and certain monasteries did not hesitate to attract
custom by jugglers of all kinds and even by cour-
tesans.
To form an idea of the degradation of the greater
number of the monks it is not enough to read the ora-
torical and often exaggerated reproofs of preachers
obliged to strike hard in order to produce an effect.
We must run through the collection of bulls, where
appeals to the court of Rome against assassinations,
1 Vide Brevis historia Prior. Grandimont.--Stephani Tornacensis.
Epist. 115, 152, 153, 156, 162 ; Honorius III., Horoy's edition, lib. i.,
280, 284, 286,288 ; ii., 12, 130, 136, 383–387.
2 Guérard, Cartulaire de N. D. de Paris, t. i., p. cxi ; t. ii., p. 406.
Cf. Honorius III., Bull Inter statuta of July 25, 1223, Horoy, t. iv.,
ool. 401. See also canon 23 of the Council of Beziers, 1233; Guibert de
Gemblours, epist. 5 and 6 (Migne), Honorius III., lib. ix,, 32, 81; ii.,
193 ; iv., 10 ; iii., 253 and 258; iv., 33, 27, 70, 144 ; V., 56, 291, 420,
430; vi., 214, 132, 139, 204 ; vii., 127; ix., 51.
32
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
violations, incests, adulteries, recur on almost every page.
It is easy to see that even an Innocent III. might feel
himself helpless and tempted to yield to discouragement,
in the face of so many ills.1
The best spirits were turning toward the Orient, ask-
ing themselves if perchance the Greek Church might
not suddenly come forward to purify all these abuses,
and receive for herself the inheritance of her sister.2
The clergy, though no longer respected, still overawed
the people through their superstitious terror of their
power.
Here and there might have been perceived
many a forewarning of direful revolts; the roads to
Rome were crowded with monks hastening to claim the
protection of the Holy See against the people among
whom they lived. The Pope would promptly declare
an interdict, but it was not to be expected that such a
resource would avail forever.3
To maintain the privileges of the Church the papacy
was often obliged to spread the mantle of its protection
over those who deserved it least. Its clients were not
always as interesting as the unfortunate Ingelburge. It
would be easier to give unreserved admiration to the
conduct of Innocent III. if in this matter one could feel
certain that his only interest was to maintain the cause
of a poor abandoned woman. But it is only too evident
that he desired above all to keep up the ecclesiastical
i Vide Bull Postquam vocante Domino of July 11, 1206. Potthast
284C.
? V. Annales Stadenses [Monumenta Germanio historica, Scriptorum, t.
16], ad ann. 1237. Among the comprehensive picturos of the situation
of the Church in the thirteenth century, there is none more interesting
than that left us by the Cardinal Jacques de Vitry in his Historia occi-
dentalis: Libri duo quorum prior Orientalis, alter Occidentalis historia
nomine inscribitur Duaci, 1597, 16mo,
pp. 259-480.
3 V. Honorius III., Horoy's edition, lib. i., ep. 109, 125, 135, 206, 273 :
ü., 128, 164; iv., 120, etc.
THE CHURCH ABOUT 1209
33
immunities. This is very evident in his intervention in
favor of Waldemar, Bishop of Schleswig.
Yet we must not assume that all was corrupt in the
bosom of the Church; then, as always, the evil made
more noise than the good, and the voices of those who
desired a reformation aroused only passing interest.
Among the populace there was superstition unimagi-
nable; the pulpit, which ought to have shed abroad some
little light, was as yet open only to the bishops, and the
few pastors who did not neglect their duty in this regard
accomplished very little, being too much absorbed in other
duties. It was the birth of the mendicant orders which
obliged the entire body of secular clergy to take up the
practice of preaching.
Public worship, reduced to liturgical ceremonies, no
longer preserved anything which appealed to the intelli-
gence; it was more and more becoming a sort of self-
acting magic formula. Once upon this road, the absurd
was not far distant. Those who deemed themselves pious
told of miracles performed by relics with no need of aid
from the moral act of faith.
In one case a parrot, being carried away by a kite,
uttered the invocation dear to his mistress, “Sancte
Thoma adjuva me," and was miraculously rescued. In
another, a merchant of Groningen, having purloined an
arm of St. John the Baptist, grew rich as if by enchant-
ment so long as he kept it concealed in his house, but
was reduced to beggary so soon as, his secret being dis-
covered, the relic was taken away from him and placed
in a church.1
These stories, we must observe, do not come from igno-
Dialogus miraculorum of Cegar of Heisterbach [Strange's edition,
Cologne, 1851, 2 vols., 8vo), t. ii., pp. 255 and 125. This book, with the
Golden Legend of Giacomo di Varaggio, gives the best idea of the state
of religious thought in the thirteenth century.
8
34
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
rant enthusiasts, hidden away in obscure country places;
they are given us by one of the most learned monks of
his time, who relates them to a novice by way of forming
his mind!
Relics, then, were held to be neither more nor less than
talismans. Not alone did they perform miracles upon
those who were in no special state of faith or devotion,
the more potent among them healed the sick in spite of
themselves. A chronicler relates that the body of Saint
Martin of Tours had in 887 been secretly transported to
some remote hiding place for fear of the Danish invasion.
When the time came for bringing it home again, there
in Touraine two impotent men who, thanks to their
infirmity, gained large sums by begging. They were
thrown into great terror by the tidings that the relics
were being brought back : Saint Martin would certainly
heal them and take away their means of livelihood.
Their fears were only too well founded. They had taken
to flight, but being too lame to walk fast they had not yet
crossed the frontier of Touraine when the saint arrived
and healed them!
Hundreds of similar stories might be collected, statis-
tics might be made up to show, at the accession of Inno-
cent III., the greater number of episcopal thrones occu-
pied by unworthy bishops, the religious houses peopled
with idle and debauched monks; but would this give a
truly accurate picture of the Church at this epoch? I do
not think so. In the first place, we must reckon with the
choice spirits, who were without doubt more numerous than
is generally supposed. Five righteous men would have
saved Sodom; the Almighty did not find them there, but
he perhaps might have found them had He Himself made
search for them instead of trusting to Lot. The Church
of the thirteenth century had them, and it was for their
sakes that the whirlwind of heresy did not sweep it away
THE CHURCH ABOUT 1209
35
But this is not all: the Church of that time offered a
noble spectacle of moral grandeur. We must learn to lift
our eyes from the wretched state of things which has just
been pointed out and fix them on the pontifical throne
and recognize the beauty of the struggle there going on:
a power wholly spiritual undertaking to command the
rulers of the world, as the soul masters the body, and tri-
umphing in the end. It is true that both soldiers and
generals of this army were often little better than ruffians,
but here again, in order to be just, we must understand
the end they aimed at.
In that iron age, when brute force was the only force,
the Church, notwithstanding its wounds, offered to the
world the spectacle of peasants and laboring men receiv-
ing the humble homage of the highest potentates of
earth, simply because, seated on the throne of Saint Peter,
they represented the moral law. This is why Alighieri
and many others before and after him, though they
might heap curses on wicked ministers, yet in the depths
of their heart were never without an immense com-
passion and an ardent love for the Church which they
never ceased to call their mother.
Still, everybody was not like them, and the vices of
the clergy explain the innumerable heresies of that day.
All of them had a certain success, from those which were
simply the outcry of an outraged conscience, like that of
the Waldenses, to the most absurd of them all, like that
of Eon de l'Étoile. Some of these movements were for
great and sacred causes ; but we must not let our sym-
pathies be so moved by the persecutions suffered by
heretics as to cloud our judgment. It would have been
better had Rome triumphed by gentleness, by education
and holiness, but unhappily a soldier may not always
choose his weapons, and when life is at stake he seizes
the first he finds within his reach. The papacy has not
+
36
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
always been reactionary and obscurantist; when it over-
threw the Cathari, for example, its victory was that of
reason and good sense.
The list of the heresies of the thirteenth century is
already long, but it is increasing every day, to the great
joy of those erudite ones who are making strenuous
efforts to classify everything in that tohu-bohu of mys-
ticism and folly. In that day heresy was very much
alive; it was consequently very complex and its powers
of transformation infinite. One may indicate its currents,
mark its direction, but to go farther is to condemn one-
self to utter confusion in this medley of impulsive, pas-
sionate, fantastic movements which were born, shot up-
ward, and fell to earth again, at the caprice of a thousand
incomprehensible circumstances. In certain counties
of England there are at the present day villages having
as many as eight and ten places of worship for a few
hundreds of inhabitants. Many of these people change
their denomination every three or four years, returning
to that they first quitted, leaving it again only to enter it
anew, and so on as long as they live. Their leaders set
the example, throwing themselves enthusiastically into
each new movement only to leave it before long. They
would all alike find it difficult to give an intelligible
reason for these changes. They say that the Spirit
guides them, and it would be unfair to disbelieve them,
but the historian who should investigate conditions like
these would lose his head in the labyrinth unless he
made a separate study of each of these Protean move-
ments. They are surely not worth the trouble.
In a somewhat similar condition was a great part of
Christendom under Innocent III. ; but while the sects of
which I have just spoken move in a very narrow circle
of dogmas and ideas, in the thirteenth century every sort
of excess followed in rapid succession. Without the
THE CHURCH ABOUT 1209
37
slightest pause of transition men passed through the
most contradictory systems of belief. Still, a few general
characteristics may be observed; in the first place,
heresies are no longer metaphysical subtleties as in
earlier days; Arius and Priscillian, Nestorius and Euty-
chus are dead indeed. In the second place, they no
longer arise in the upper and governing class, but pro-
ceed especially from the inferior clergy and the common
people. The blows which actually threatened the Church
of the Middle Ages were struck by obscure laboring
men, by the poor and the oppressed, who in their
wretchedness and degradation felt that she had failed in
her mission.
No sooner was a voice uplifted, preaching austerity
and simplicity, than it drew together not the laity only,
but members of the clergy as well. Toward the close
of the twelfth century we find a certain Pons rousing all
Perigord, preaching evangelical poverty before the com-
ing of St. Francis.
Two great currents are apparent: on one side the
Cathari, on the other, innumerable sects revolting from
the Church by very fidelity to Christianity and the desire
to return to the primitive Church.
Among the sects of the second category the close of
the twelfth century saw in Italy the rise of the Poor Mer,
who without doubt were a part of the movement of
Arnold of Brescia; they denied the efficacy of sacra-
ments administered by unworthy hands.?
A true attempt at reform was made by the Waldenses.
Their history, although better known, still remains ob-
scure on certain sides; their name, Poor Men of Lyons,
recalls the former movement, with which they were in
1
1 Recueil des historiens de France. Bouquet, t. xii., pp. 550, 551.
2 Bonacorsi : Vitæ hæreticorum [d'Achery, Spicilegium, t. i., p. 215]
Cf. Lucius III., epist. 171, Migne.
38
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
close agreement, as also with the Humiliants. All these
names involuntarily suggest that by which St. Francis
afterward called his Order. The analogy between the
inspiration of Peter Waldo and that of St. Francis
was so close that one might be tempted to believe
the latter a sort of imitation of the former. It would
be a mistake : the same causes produced in all quarters
the same effects; ideas of reform, of a return to
gospel poverty, were in the air, and this helps us to un-
derstand how it was that before many years the Francis-
can preaching reverberated through the entire world. If
at the outset the careers of these two men were alike,
their later lives were very different. Waldo, driven
into heresy almost in spite of himself, was obliged to
accept the consequences of the premises which he him-
self had laid down;? while Francis, remaining the obe-
dient son of the Church, bent all his efforts to develop
the inner life in himself and his disciples. It is indeed
most likely that through his father Francis had become
| acquainted with the movement of the Poor Men of Lyons.
Hence his oft-repeated counsels to his friars of the duty
of submission to the clergy. When he went to seek the
approbation of Innocent III., it is evident that the prel-
ates with whom he had relations warned him, by the
very example of Waldo, of the dangers inherent in his
own movement.?
The latter had gone to Rome in 1179, accompanied by
a few followers, to ask at the same time the approbation
of their translation of the Scriptures into the vulgar
Vide Bernard Gui, Practica inquisitionis, Douai edition, 4to, Paris,
1886 p. 244 ff., and especially the Vatican MS., 2548, folio 71.
? A chronicle of St. Francis's time makes this same comparison : Bur.
chard, Abbot of Urspurg (+ 1226) [Burchardi et Cuonradi chronicon. Mo-
num. Germ. hist. Script., t. 23], has left us an account of the approba-
tion of Francis by the Pope, all the more precious for being that of a
contemporary. Loc. cit., p. 376.
THE CHURCH ABOUT 1209
39
ܗܝ
tongue and the permission to preach. They were granted
both requests on condition of gaining for their preaching
the authorization of their local clergy. Walter Map
(*- 1210), who was charged with their examination, was
constrained, while ridiculing their simplicity, to admire
their poverty and zeal for the apostolic life. Two or
three years later they met a very different reception at
Rome, and in 1184 they were anathematized by the Coun-
cil of Verona. From that day nothing could stop them,
even to the forming of a new Church. They multiplied
with a rapidity hardly exceeded afterward by the Fran-
ciscans. By the end of the twelfth century we find them
spread abroad from Hungary to Spain ; the first attempts
to hunt them down were made in the latter country.
Other countries were at first satisfied with treating them
as excommunicated persons.
Obliged to hide themselves, reduced to the impossi-
bility of holding their chapters, which ought to have
come together once or twice a year, and which, had they
done so, might have maintained among them a certain
unity of doctrine, the Waldenses rapidly underwent a
change according to their environment; some obstinately
insisting upon calling themselves good Catholics, others
going so far as to preach the overthrow of the hierarchy
and the uselessness of sacraments. Hence that mul-
tiplicity of differing and even hostile branches which
seemed to develop almost hourly.
A common persecution brought them nearer to the
2
2
1 De nugis Curialium, Dist. 1, cap. 31, p. 64, Wright's edition.
Cf.
Chronique de Laon, Bouquet xiii., p. 680.
See, for example, the letter of the Italian branch of the Poor Men of
Lyons (Pauperos Lombardi] to their brethren of Germany, there called
Leonistes. In it they show the points in which they are not in har-
mony with the French Waldenses. Published by Preger : Abhand.
lungen der K. bayer. Akademie der Wiss. Hist. Cl., t xiii., 1875, P
19 ff.
40
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
Cathari and favored the fusion of their ideas. Their
activity was inconceivable. Under pretext of pilgrimages
to Rome they were always on the road, simple and insin-
uating. The methods of travel of that day were pecul-
iarly favorable to the diffusion of ideas. While retailing
nows to those whose hospitality they received, they would
speak of the unhappy state of the Church and the
reforms that were needed. Such conversations were a
means of apostleship much more efficacious than those
of the present day, the book and the newspaper; there
is nothing like the viva vox 1 for spreading thought.
Many vile stories have been told of the Waldenses ;
calumny is far too facile a weapon not to tempt an
adversary at bay. Thus they have been charged with
the same indecent promiscuities of which the early Chris-
tians were accused. In reality their true strength was in
their virtues, which strongly contrasted with the vices of
the clergy.
The most powerful and determined enemies of the
Church were the Cathari. Sincere, audacious, often
learned and keen in argument, having among them some
choice spirits and men of great intellectual powers, they
were pre-eminently the heretics of the thirteenth century.
Their revolt did not bear upon points of detail and ques-
tions of discipline, like that of the early Waldenses; it had
a definite doctrinal basis, taking issue with the whole body
of Catholic dogma. But, although this heresy flourished
in Italy and under the very eyes of St. Francis, there is
1
1 These continual journeyings sometimes gained for them the name
of Passagieni, as in the south of France the preachers of certain sects
are to-day called Courriers. The term, however, specially designates
a Judaizing sect who returned to the literal observation of the Mosaic
law : Döllinger, Beiträge, t. ii., pp. 327 and 375. They should therefore
be identified with the Circonsisi of the constitution of Frederic II.
(Huillard-Brébolles, t. V., p. 280). See especially the fine monograph
of M. C. Molinier : Mémoires de l'Académie de Toulouse, 1888.
THE CHURCH ABOUT 1209
41
need only to indicate it briefly. His work may have
received many infiltrations from the Waldensian move-
ment, but Catharism was wholly foreign to it.
This is naturally explained by the fact that St. Francis
never consented to occupy himself with questions of doc-
trine. For him faith was not of the intellectual but the
moral domain ; it is the consecration of the heart. Time
spent in dogmatizing appeared to him time lost.
An incident in the life of Brother Egidio well brings
out the slight esteem in which theology was held by the
early Brothers Minor. One day, in the presence of St.
Bonaventura, he cried, perhaps not without a touch of
irony, “Alas! what shall we ignorant and simple ones
do to merit the favor of God?” “My brother,” replied
the famous divine, "you know very well that it suffices
to love the Lord." “Are you very sure of that ? ” replied
Egidio; “ do you believe that a simple woman might
please Him as well as a master in theology ?” Upon the
affirmative response of his interlocutor, he ran out into the
street and calling to a beggar woman with all his might,
“Poor old creature," he exclaimed, “rejoice, for if you
love God, you may have a higher place in the kingdom
of heaven than Brother Bonaventura !”
The Cathari, then, had no direct influence upon St.
Francis, but nothing could better prove the disturbance
1 A. SS., Aprilis, t. iii.,
? I would say that between the inspiration of Francis and the Catha-
rian doctrines there is an irreconcilable opposition ; but it would not be
difficult to find acts and words of his which recall the contempt for mat-
ter of the Cathari ; for example, his way of treating his body. Some
of his counsels to the friars: Unusquisque habet in potestate sua inimi-
cum suum videlicit corpus, per quod peccat. Assisi MS. 338, folio 20b.
Conform. 138, b. 2.-Cum majorem inimicum corpore non habeam.
2 Cel., 3, 63. These are momentary but inevitable obscurations, moments
of forgetfulness, of discouragement, when a man is not himself, and
repeats mechanically what he hears said around him. The real St.
Francis is, on the contrary, the lover of nature, he who sees in the
"1
p. 238d.
2
.
42
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
of thought at this epoch than that resurrection of Mani-
cheism. To what a depth of lassitude and folly must
religious Italy have fallen for this mixture of Buddhism,
Mazdeism, and gnosticism to have taken such hold upon
it! The Catharist doctrine rested upon the antago-
nism of two principles, one bad, the other good. The
first had created matter; the second, the soul, which, for
generation after generation passes from one body to
another until it achieves salvation. Matter is the cause
and the seat of evil; all contact with it constitutes a
blemish, consequently the Cathari renounced marriage
and property and advocated suicide. All this was mixed
up with most complicated cosmogonical myths.
Their adherents were divided into two classes_the
pure or perfect, and the believers, who were proselytes
in the second degree, and whose obligations were very
simple. The adepts, properly so called, were initiated
by the ceremony of the consolamentum or imposition of
hands, which induced the descent upon them of the Con-
soling Spirit. Among them were enthusiasts who after
this ceremony placed themselves in endura—that is to say,
they starved themselves to death in order not to descend
from this state of grace.
In Languedoc, where this sect went by the name of
Albigenses, they had an organization which embraced
all Central Europe, and everywhere supported flourish-
ing schools attended by the children of the nobles. In
Italy they were hardly less powerful; Concorrezo, near
whole creation the work of divine goodness, the radiance of the eternal
beauty, he who, in the Canticle of the Creatures, sees in the body not
the Enemy but a brother: Cæpit hilariter loqui ad corpus; Gaude, frater
corpus. 2 Cel., 3, 137.
Quodann die, dicta fabrissa dixit ipsi testi prægnanti, quod rogaret
Deum, ut liberaret cam a Dæmone, quem habebat in ventre
Gulielmus dixit quod ita magnum peccatum erat jacere cum uxore sua
quam cum concubina. Döllinger, loc. cit., pp. 24, 35.
1
THE CHURCH ABOUT 1209
43
1
3
Monza in Lombardy, and Bagnolo, gave their names to
two congregations slightly different from those in Lan-
guedoc.
But it was especially from Milan? that they spread
abroad over all the Peninsula, making proselytes even in
the most remote districts of Calabria. The state of anar-
chy prevailing in the country was very favorable to them.
The papacy was too much occupied in baffling the spas-
modic efforts of the Hohenstaufen, to put the necessary
perseverance and system into its struggles against here-
oy. Thus the new ideas were preached under the very
shadow of the Lateran ; in 1209, Otho IV., coming to
Rome to be crowned, found there a school in which Mani-
cheism was publicly taught.
With all his energy Innocent III. had not been able
to check this evil in the States of the Church. The case
of Viterbo tells much of the difficulty of repressing it; in
March, 1199, the pope wrote to the clergy and people of
this town to recall to their minds, and at the same time
to increase, the penalties pronounced against heresy.
For all that, the Patarini had the majority in 1205, and
succeeded in naming one of themselves consul.
1 Those of the Concorrezenses and Bajolenses. In Italy Cathari be-
comes Gazzari ; for that matter, each country had its special appella-
tives; one of the most general in the north was that of the Bulgari,
which marks the oriental origin of the sect, whence the slang term
Boulgres and its derivatives (vide Matthew Paris, ann. 1238). Cf.
Schmit, Histoire des Cathares, 8vo, 2 vols, Paris, 1849.
? The most current name in Italy was that of the Patarini, given them
no doubt from their inhabiting the quarter of second-hand dealers in
Milan : la contrada dei Patari, found in many cities. Paturi! is still
the cry of the ragpickers in the small towns of Provence. In the thir-
teenth century Patarino and Catharo were synonyms. But before that
the term Patarini had an entirely different sense. See the
very remark,
able study of M. Felice Tocco on this subject in his Eresia nel medio evo,
12mo, Florence, 1884.
3 Cesar von Heisterbach, Dial. mirac., t. i., p. 309, Strange's edition.
: Innocentii opera, Migne, t. i., col. 537: t. ii.. 654.
4
44
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
The wrath of the pontiff at this event was unbounded;
he fulminated a bull menacing the city with fire and
sword, and commanding the neighboring towns to throw
themselves upon her if within a fortnight she had not
given satisfaction. It was all in vain: the Patarini were
dealt with only as a matter of form ; it needed the pres-
ence of the pope himself to assure the execution of his
orders and obtain the demolition of the houses of the
heretics and their abettors (autumn of 1207).?
But stifled at one point the revolt burst out at a hun.
dred others; at this moment it was triumphant on all
sides; at Ferrara, Verona, Rimini, Florence, Prato,
Faenza, Treviso, Piacenza. The clergy were expelled
from this last town, which remained more than three
years without a priest.3
Viterbo is twenty leagues from Assisi, Orvieto only
ten, and disturbances in this town were equally grave. A
noble Roman, Pietro Parentio, the deputy of the Holy
See in this place, endeavored to exterminate the Patarini.
He was assassinated.4
But Francis needed not to go even so far as Orvieto to
become acquainted with heretics. In Assisi the same
things were going on as in the neighboring cities. In
1203 this town had elected for podestà a heretic named
Giraldo di Gilberto, and in spite of warnings from Rome
had persisted in keeping him at the head of affairs until
the expiration of his term of office (1204). Innocent III.,
who had not yet been obliged to use vigor with Viterbo,
1 Computruistis in peccatis sicut jumenta in stercore suo ut fumus ao
fimus putrefactionis vestræ jam fere circumadjacentes regionis infecerit, ao
ipsum Dominum ut credimus ad nauseam provocaverit. Loc. cit.,
col.
654. Cf. 673; Potthast, 2532, 2539.
? Gesta Innocentii, Migne, t. i., col. clxii. Cf. epist. viii., 85 and 105.
Campi, Historia Ecclesiastica di Piacenza, parte ii., p. 92 ff. Cf. In
noc., epist. ix., 131, 166-169; X., 54, 64, 222.
• A. SS., Maii, t. V., p. 87.
3
THE CHURCH ABOUT 1200
45
I
resorted to persuasion and despatched to Umbria the Car-
dinal Leo di Santa Croce, who will appear more than
once in this history. The successor of Giraldo and fifty
of the principal citizens made the amende honorable and
swore fidelity to the Church.
It is easy to perceive in what a state of ferment Italy
was during these early years of the thirteenth century.
The moral discredit of the clergy must have been deep
indeed for souls to have turned toward Manicheism with
such ardor.
Italy.may well be grateful to St. Francis; it was as
much infected with Catharism as Languedoc, and it was
he who wrought its purification. He did not pause
to demonstrate by syllogisms or theological theses the
vanity of the Catharist doctrines; but soaring as on
wings to the religious life, he suddenly made a new ideal
to shine out before the eyes of his contemporaries, an
ideal before which all these fantastic sects vanished
as birds of the night take flight at the first rays of the
x
sun.
A great part of St. Francis's power came to him thus
through his systematic avoidance of polemics. The
latter is always more or less a form of spiritual pride;
it only deepens the chasm which it undertakes to fill
up. Truth needs not to be proved ; it is its own
witness.
The only weapon which he would use against the
wicked was the holiness of a life so full of love as to
enlighten and revive those about him, and compel them
1 Bull of June 6, 1205, Potthast, 2237; Migne, vii., 83. This Cardinal
Leo (of the presbyterial title of Holy Cross of Jerusalem) was one
most valued by Innocent III. To him and Ugolini, the future Gregory
IX., he at this epoch confided the most delicate missions (for example,
in 1209, they were named legates to Otho IV.). This embassy shows
in what importance the pope held the affairs of Assisi, though it was a
very small city.
46
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
to love." (The disappearance of Catharism in Italy, with-
out an upheaval, and above all without the Inquisition,
is thus an indirect result of the Franciscan movement,
and not the least important among them.?
At the voice of the Umbrian reformer Italy roused
herself, recovered her good sense and fine temper; she
cast out those doctrines of pessimism and death, as a ro-
bust organism casts out morbid substances.
I have already endeavored to show the strong analogy
between the initial efforts of Francis and those of the
Poor Men of Lyons. His thought ripened in an atmos-
phere thoroughly saturated with their ideas; uncon-
sciously to himself they entered into his being.
The prophecies of the Calabrian abbot exerted upon
him an influence quite as difficult to appreciate, but no
less profound.
Standing on the confines of Italy and as it were at the
threshold of Greece, Gioacchino di Fiore 3 was the last
link in a chain of monastic prophets, who during nearly
four hundred years succeeded one another in the monas-
teries and hermitages of Southern Italy. The most
famous among them had been St. Nilo, a sort of untamed
John the Baptist, living in desert places, but suddenly
emerging from them when his duties of maintaining the
right called him elsewhere. We see him on one oc-
casion appearing in Rome itself, to announce to pope and
emperor the unloosing of the divine wrath.
| Not once do-we-find him fighting heretics. The early Dominicans, on
the contrary, are incessantly occupied with arguing. See 2 Cel., 3, 46.
It need not be said that I do not assert that no trace of it is to be
found after the ministry of St. Francis, but it was no longer a force,
and no longer endangered the very existence of the Church.
* This strange personality will charm historians and philosopliers for
a long while to come. I know nothing more learned or more luminous
than M. Felice Tocco's fine study in his Eresia nel medio evo, Florence,
1884, 1 vol., 12mo, pp. 261-409.
4 A SS., Sept., t. vii., p. 283 ff.
4
THE CHURCH ABOUT 1209
47
The ages
Scattered in the Alpine solitudes of Basilicata these
Calabrian hermits were continually obliged to retreat
higher and higher into the mountain fastnesses to
escape the populace, who, pursued by pirates, were
taking refuge in these mountains. They thus passed
their lives between heaven and earth, with two seas
for their horizon. Disquieted by fear of the corsairs,
and by the war-cries whose echoes reached even to them,
they turned their thoughts toward the future. The
of great terror are also the ages of great hope; it is to
the captivity of Babylon that we owe, with the second
part of Isaiah, those pictures of the future which have
not yet ceased to charm the soul of man; Nero's per-
secutions gave us the Apocalypse of St. John, and the
paroxysms of the twelfth century the eternal Gospel.
Converted after a life of dissipation, Gioacchino di
Fiore travelled extensively in the Holy Land, Greece, and
Constantinople. Returning to Italy he began, though a
layman, to preach in the outskirts of Rende and Cosen-
Later on he joined the Cistercians of Cortale, near
Catanzaro, and there took vows. Shortly after elected
abbot of the monastery in spite of refusal and even
flight, he was seized after a few years with the nostalgia
of solitude, and sought from Pope Lucius III. a dis-
charge from his functions (1181), that he might conse-
crate all his time to the works which he had in mind.
The pope granted his request, and even permitted him to
go wherever he might deem best in the interest of his
work. Then began for Gioacchino a life of wandering
from convent to convent, which carried him even as far
as Lombardy, to Verona, where we find him with Pope
Urban III.
When he returned to the south, a group of disciples
gathered around him to hear his explanations of the most
obscure passages of the Bible. Whether he would or no
za.
48
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
he was obliged to receive them, to talk with them, to give
them a rule, and, finally, to instal them in the very heart
of the Sila, the Black Forest of Italy,' over against the
highest peak, in gorges where the silence is interrupted
only by the murmurs of the Arvo and the Neto, which
have their source not far from there. The new Athos
received the name of Fiore (flower), transparent symbol
of the hopes of its founder. It was there that he put
the finishing touch to writings which, after fifty years of
neglect, were to become the starting-point of all heresies,
and the aliment of all souls burdened with the salvation
of Christendom. The men of the first half of the thir-
teenth century, too much occupied with other things, did
not perceive that the spiritual streams at which they were
drinking descended from the snowy mountain-tops of
Calabria.
It is always thus with mystical influences. There is in
them something vague, tenuous, and penetrating which
escapes an exact estimation. Let two choice souls meet,
and they will find it a difficult thing to analyze and name
the impressions which each has received from the other.
It is so with an epoch; it is not always those who speak to
her the oftenest and loudest whom she best understands;
nor even those at whose feet she sits, a faithful pupil,
day after day. Sometimes, while on the way to her accus-
tomed masters, she suddenly meets a stranger; she bare-
ly catches a few words of what he says; she knows not
whence he comes nor whither he goes; she never sees
him again, but those few words of his go on surging in
the depths of her soul, agitating and disquieting her.
A. SS., Maii, vii. ; Vincent de Beauvais, Speculum historiale, lib. 29,
cap. 40. La Sila is a wooded mountain, situated eastward from Cosenza,
which the peasants call Monte Nero. The summits are nearly 2,000
metres above the sea.
? Toward 1195. Gioacchino died there, March 30, 1202.
THE CHURCH ABOUT 1209
48
Thus it was for a long while with Gioacchino di Fiore.
His teachings, scattered here and there by enthusiastic
disciples, were germinating silently in many hearts.?
Giving back hope to men, they restored to them strength
also. To think is already to act; alone under the
shadow of the hoary pines which surrounded his cell,
the cenobite of Fiore was laboring for the renovation of
the Church with as much vigor as the reformers who
came after him.
He was, however, far from attaining the height of the
prophets of Israel; instead of soaring like them to the
very heavens, he always remained riveted to the text,
upon
which he commented in the allegorical method, and
whence by this method he brought out the most fantastic
improbabilities. A few pages of his books would wear
out the most patient reader, but in these fields, burnt over
by theological arguments more drying than the winds of
the desert, fields where one at first perceives only stones
and thistles, one comes at last to the charming oasis, with
repose and dreams in its shade.
The exegesis of Gioacchino di Fiore in fact led up to a
sort of philosophy of history; its grand lines were calcu-
lated to make a striking appeal to the imagination. The
life of humanity is divided into three periods : in the
first, under the reign of the Father, men lived under the
rigor of the law; in the second, reigned over by the Son,
A whole apochryphal literature has blossomed out around Gioacchino;
certain hypercritics have tried to prove that he never wrote anything.
These are exaggerations. Three large works are certainly authentic:
The Agreement of the Old and New Testaments, The Commontary on the
Apocalypse, and The Psaltery of Ten Strings, published in Venice, the first
in 1517, the two others in 1527. His prophecies were so well known,
even in his lifetime, that an English Cistercian, Rudolph, Abbot of
Coggeshall ( 1228), coming to Rome in 1195, sought a conference with
him and has left us an interesting account of it. Martène, Amplissima
Collectio, t. V., p. 839.
4
50
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
men live under the rule of grace; in the third, the
Spirit shall reign and men shall live in the plenitude of
love. The first is the period of servile obedience; the
second, that of filial obedience; the third, that of liberty.
In the first, men lived in fear; in the second, they rest
in faith ; in the third, they shall burn with love. The
first saw the shining of the stars; the second sees the
whitening of the dawn; the third will behold the glory
of the day. The first produced nettles, the second gives
roses, the third will be the age of lilies.
If now we consider that in the thought of Gioacchino
the third period, the Age of the Spirit, was about to open,
we shall understand with what enthusiasm men hailed
the words which restored joy to hearts still disturbed
with millenarian fears.
It is evident that St. Francis knew these radiant hopes.
Who knows even that it was not the Calabrian Seer
who awoke his heart to its transports of love ? If this
be so, Gioacchino was not merely his precursor; he was
his true spiritual father. However this may be, St.
Francis found in Gioacchino's thought many of the ele-
ments which, unconsciously to himself, were to become
the foundation of his institute.
The noble disdain which he shows for all men of
learning, and which he sought to inculcate upon his
Order, was for Gioacchino one of the characteristics of the
new era. “The truth which remains hidden to the wise,"
he says, “is revealed to babes; dialectics closes that
which is open, obscures that which is clear; it is the
mother of useless talk, of rivalries and blasphemy.
Learning does not edify, and it may destroy, as is proved
by the scribes of the Church, swollen with pride and
arrogance, who by dint of reasoning fall into heresy."
We have seen that the return to evangelical simplicity
1 Comm. in apoc., folio 78, b. 2.
1
THE CHURCH ABOUT 1209
01
5
had become a necessity; all the heretical sects were on
this point in accord with pious Catholics, but no one
spoke in a manner so Franciscan as Gioacchino di Fiore.
Not only did he make voluntary poverty one of the
characteristics of the age of lilies, but he speaks of it in
his pages with so profound, so living an emotion, that
St. Francis could do little more than repeat his words.
The ideal monk whom he describes, whose only property
is a lyre, is a true Franciscan before the letter, him of
whom the Poverello of Assisi always dreamed.
The feeling for nature also bursts forth in him with in-
comparable vigor. One day he was preaching in a chapel
which was plunged in almost total darkness, the sky be-
ing quite overcast with clouds. Suddenly the clouds
broke away, the sun shone, the church was flooded with
light. Gioacchino paused, saluted the sun, intoned the
Veni Creator, and led his congregation out to gaze upon
the landscape.
It would be by no means surprising if toward 1205
Francis should have heard of this prophet, toward whom
so many hearts were turning, this anchorite who, gazing
up into heaven, spoke with Jesus as a friend talks with
his friend, yet knew also how to come down to console
men and warm the faces of the dying at his own breast.
At the other end of Europe, in the heart of Germany,
the same causes had produced the same effects. From
the excess of the people's sufferings and the despair of
religious souls was being born a movement of apocalyp-
tic mysticism which seemed to have secret communica-
tion with that which was rousing the Peninsula. They
had the same views of the future, the same anxious ex-
pectation of new cataclysms, joined with a prospect of a
reviving of the Church,
Qui vere monachus est nihil reputat esse suum nisi citharam: Apoc.,
ib., folio 183. a 2.
1
52
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
Cry with a loud voice," said her guardian angel to
St. Elizabeth of Schonau (* 1164), “ cry to all nations :
Woe! for the whole world has become darkness. The
Lord's vine has withered, there is no one to tend it. The
Lord has sent laborers, but they have all been found
idle. The head of the Church is ill and her members are
dead.
Shepherds of my Church, you are sleep-
ing, but I shall awaken you! Kings of the earth, the
cry
of
your iniquity has risen even to me.” 1
“Divine justice,” said St. Hildegarde (* 1178), “shall
have its hour; the last of the seven epochs symbolized
by the seven days of creation has arrived, the judg-
ments of God are about to be accomplished; the empire
and the papacy, sunk into impiety, shall crumble away
together.
But upon their ruins shall appear a
new nation of God, a nation of prophets illuminated
from on high, living in poverty and solitude. Then the
divine mysteries shall be revealed, and the saying of
Joel shall be fulfilled; the Holy Spirit shall shed abroad
upon the people the dew of his prophecies, of his wisdom
and holiness; the heathen, the Jews, the worldly and the
unbelieving shall be converted together, spring-time and
peace shall reign over a regenerated world, and the an-
gels will return with confidence to dwell among men."
These hopes were not wholly confounded. In the
evening of his days the prophet of Fiore was able, like a
new Simeon, to utter his Nunc dimittis, and for a few
years Christendom could turn in amazement tú Assisi as
to a new Bethlehem.
' E. Roth, Die Visionen der heiligen Elisabeth von Schönau : Brünn,
1884, pp. 115-117.
CHAPTER IV
STRUGGLES AND TRIUMPH
Spring of 1206—February 24, 1209
The biographies of St. Francis have preserved to us
an incident which shows how great was the religious
ferment even in the little city of Assisi. A stranger
was seen to go up and down the streets saying to every
one he met, “Peace and welfare !” (Pax et bonum.)" He
thus expressed in his own way the disquietude of those
hearts which could neither resign themselves to perpet-
ual warfare nor to the disappearance of faith and love;
artless echo, vibrating in response to the hopes and fears
that were shaking all Europe !
“Vox clamantis in deserto !" it will be said. No, for
every heart-cry leaves its trace even when it seems to
be uttered in empty air, and that of the Unknown of As-
sisi may have contributed in some measure to Francis's
definitive call.
Since his abrupt return from Spoleto, life in his fa-
ther's house had become daily more difficult. Bernar-
done's self-love had received from his son's discomfiture
such a wound as with commonplace men is never healed.
He might provide, without counting it, money to be
swallowed up in dissipation, that so his son might stand
on an equal footing with the young nobles; he could
never resign himself to see him giving with lavish hands
to every beggar in the streets.
13 Soc., 26.
04
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
Francis, continually plunged in reverie and spending
his days in lonely wanderings in the fields, was no longer
of the least use to his father. Months passed, and the
distance between the two men grew ever wider; and the
gentle and loving Pica could do nothing to prevent
a rupture which from this time appeared to be inevitable.
Francis soon came to feel only one desire, to flee from
the abode where, in the place of love, he found only re-
proaches, upbraidings, anguish.
The faithful confidant of his earlier struggles had been
obliged to leave him, and this absolute solitude weighed
heavily upon his warm and loving heart. He did what
he could to escape from it, but no one understood him.
The ideas which he was beginning timidly to express
evoked from those to whom he spoke only mocking
smiles or the head-shakings which men sure that they
are right bestow upon him who is marching straight
to madness. He even went to open his mind to the bish-
op, but the latter understood no more than others his
vague, incoherent plans, filled with ideas impossible to
realize and possibly subversive. It was thus that in spite
of himself Francis was led to ask nothing of men, but to
raise himself by prayer to intuitive knowledge of the
divine will. The doors of houses and of hearts were
alike closing upon him, but the interior voice was about
to speak out with irresistible force and make itself for-
ever obeyed.
Among the numerous chapels in the suburbs of Assisi
there was one which he particularly loved, that of St.
Damian. It was reached by a few minutes' walk over a
stony path, almost trackless, under olive trees, amid
odors of lavender and rosemary. Standing on the top of
a hillock, the entire plain is visible from it, through a
curtain of cypresses and pines which seem to be trying
1 3 Soc., 10.
STRUGGLES AND TRIUMPH
55
+
to hide the humble hermitage and set up an ideal
barrier between it and the world.
Served by a poor priest who had scarely the where-
withal for necessary food, the sanctuary was falling into
ruin. There was nothing in the interior but a simple
altar of masonry, and by way of reredos one of those
byzantine crucifixes still so numerous in Italy, where
through the work of the artists of the time has come down
to us something of the terrors which agitated the twelfth
century. In general the Crucified One, frightfully lac-
erated, with bleeding wounds, appears to seek to in-
spire only grief and compunction ; that of St. Damian, on
the contrary, has an expression of inexpressible calm and
gentleness; instead of closing the eyelids in eternal
surrender to the weight of suffering, it looks down in
self-forgetfulness, and its pure, clear gaze says, not "I
suffer," but, “ Come unto me.” 1
One day Francis was praying before the poor altar :
“Great and glorious God, and thou, Lord Jesus, I pray
ye, shed abroad your light in the darkness of my mind. .
Be found of me, Lord, so that in all things
I may act only in accordance with thy holy will.” 2
Thus he prayed in his heart, and behold, little by little
it seemed to him that his gaze could not detach itself from
that of Jesus; he felt something marvellous taking place
in and around him. The sacred victim took on life, and
in the outward silence he was aware of a voice which softly
stole into the very depths of his heart, speaking to him an
ineffable language. Jesus accepted his oblation. Jesus
desired his labor, his life, all his being, and the heart of the
poor solitary was already bathed in light and strength.
0
3
1 This crucifix is preserved in the sacristy of Santa Chiara, whither
the sisters carried it when they left St. Damian.
? Opuscula B. Francisci, Oratio 1.
3 3 Soc., 13; 2 Cel., 1,6 ; Bon., 12 ; 15; 16.
56
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
This vision marks the final triumph of Francis. His
union with Christ is consummated ; from this time he can
exclaim with the mystics of every age, "My beloved
is mine, and I am his."
But instead of giving himself up to transports of con-
templation he at once asks himself how he may repay
tc
Jesus love for love, in what action he shall employ this
life which he has just offered to him. He had not long
to seek. We have seen that the chapel where his spiritual
espousals had just been celebrated was threatened with
ruin. He believed that to repair it was the work assigned
to him.
From that day the remembrance of the Crucified One,
the thought of the love which had triumphed in immo-
lating itself, became the very centre of his religious life
and as it were the soul of his soul. For the first time,
no doubt, Francis had been brought into direct, per-
sonal, intimate contact with Jesus Christ; from belief
he had passed to faith, to that living faith which a dis-
tinguished thinker has so well defined : “To believe is
to look; it is a serious, attentive, and prolonged look ;
a look more simple than that of observation, a look
which looks, and nothing more; artless, infantine, it has
all the soul in it, it is a look of the soul and not the
mind, a look which does not seek to analyze its object,
but which receives it as a whole into the soul through
the eyes.” In these words Vinet unconsciously has mar-
vellously characterized the religious temperament of St.
Francis.
This look of love cast upon the crucifix, this mysterious
colloquy with the compassionate victim, was never more
to cease. At St. Damian, St. Francis's piety took on
its outward appearance and its originality. From this
time his soul bears the stigmata, and as his biographers
have said in words untranslatable, Ab illa hora vulnera-
STRUGGLES AND TRIUMPH
597
tun et liquefactum est cor ejus ed memoriam Dominicæ
passionis.1
From that time his way was plain before him. Coming
out from the sanctuary, he gave the priest all the money
he had about him to keep a lamp always burning, and
with ravished heart he returned to Assisi. He had
decided to quit his father's house and undertake the
restoration of the chapel, after having broken the last...
ties that bound him to the past. A horse and a few
pieces of gayly colored stuffs were all that he possessed.
Arrived at home he made a packet of the stuffs, and
mounting his horse he set out for Foligno. This city
was then as now the most important commercial town of
all the region. Its fairs attracted the whole population
of Umbria and the Sabines. Bernardone had often tak-
en his son there, and Francis speedily succeeded in sell-
ing all he had brought. He even parted with his horse,
and full of joy set out upon the road to Assisi.3
This act was to him most important; it marked his
final rupture with the past; from this day on his life was
to be in all points the opposite of what it had been; the
Crucified had given himself to him; he on his side had
given himself to the Crucified without reserve or return.
To uncertainty, disquietude of soul, anguish, longing for
an unknown good, bitter regrets, had succeeded a deli-
cious calm, the ecstasy of the lost child who finds his
mother, and forgets in a moment the torture of his heart.
From Foligno he returned direct to St. Damian ; it
was not necessary to pass through the city, and he was
in haste to put his projects into execution.
1 3 Soc., 14.
2 This incident is found in the narrative of 1 Cel., 8: Tot. ex more
venditis.
31 Cel., 8; 3 Soc., 16 ; Bon. 16. Foligno is a three hours' walk
from Assisi,
58
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
1
The poor priest was surprised enough when Francis
handed over to him the whole product of his sale. He
doubtless thought that a passing quarrel had occurred
between Bernardone and his son, and for greater pru-
dence refused the gift; but Francis so insisted upon re-
maining with him that he finally gave him leave to do so.
As to the money, now become useless, Francis cast it as
a worthless object upon a window-seat in the chapel.
Meanwhile Bernardone, disturbed by his son's fail-
ure to return, sought for him in all quarters, and was
not long in learning of his presence at St. Damian.
In a moment he perceived that Francis was lost to him.
Resolved to try every means, he collected a few neigh-
bors, and furious with rage hastened to the hermitage to
snatch him away, if need were, by main force.
But Francis knew his father's violence. When he
heard the shouts of those who were in pursuit of him he
felt his courage fail and hurried to a hiding-place which
he had prepared for himself for precisely such an emer-
gency. Bernardone, no doubt ill seconded in the search,
ransacked every corner, but was obliged at last to return
to Assisi without his son. Francis remained hidden for
long days, weeping and groaning, imploring God to show
him the path he ought to follow. Notwithstanding his
fears he had an infinite joy at heart, and at no price
would he have turned back.?
This seclusion could not last long. Francis perceived
this, and told himself that for a newly made knight of the
Christ he was cutting a very pitiful figure. Arming him-
self, therefore, with courage, he went one day to the city
to present himself before his father and make known to
him his resolution.
It is easy to imagine the changes wrought in his ap-
11 Cel., 9; 3 Soc., 16 ; Bon., 6. Cf. A. SS.,
? 1 Cel., 10; 3 Soc., 16 ; Bon. 17, A. SS.; p. 568.
p.
567.
STRUGGLES AND TRIUMPH
59
t
pearance by these few weeks of seclusion, passed much
of them in mental anguish. When he appeared, pale,
cadaverous, his clothes in tatters, upon what is now the
Piazza Nuova, where hundreds of children play all day
long, he was greeted with a great shout, “ Pazzo, Pazzo ! ”
(A madman! a madman!) “Un pazzo ne fa cento" (One
madman makes a hundred more), says the proverb, but
one must have seen the delirious excitement of the street
children of Italy at the sight of a madman to gain an idea
how true it is. The moment the magic cry resounds they
rush into the street with frightful din, and while their
parents look on from the windows, they surround the
unhappy sufferer with wild dances mingled with songs,
shouts, and savage howls. They throw stones at him, fling
mud upon him, blindfold him; if he flies into a rage, they
double their insults; if he weeps or begs for pity, they
repeat his cries and mimic his sobs and supplications
without respite and without mercy.
Bernardone soon heard the clamor which filled the nar-
row streets, and went out to enjoy the show; suddenly
he thought he heard his own name and that of his son,
and bursting with shame and rage he perceived Francis.
Throwing himself upon him, as if to throttle him, he
dragged him into the house and cast him, half dead, into
a dark closet. Threats, bad usage, everything was
brought to bear to change the prisoner's resolves, but all
in vain. At last, wearied out and desperate, he left him
in peace, though not without having firmly bound him.
A few days after he was obliged to be absent for a
short time. Pica, his wife, understood only too well his
grievances against Francis, but feeling that violence
would be of no avail she resolved to try gentleness. It
was all in vain. Then, not being able longer to see him
thus tortured, she set him at liberty.
11 Cel., 11.
? 1 Cel., 12 ; 3 Soc., 17; Bon., 18.
1
2
60
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
He returned straight to St. Damian.'
Bernardone, on his return, went so far as to strike Pica
in punishment for her weakness. Then, unable to toler-
ate the thought of seeing his son the jest of the whole
city, he tried to procure his expulsion from the territory
of Assisi. Going to St. Damian he summoned him to
leave the country. This time Francis did not try to hide.
Boldly presenting himself before his father, he declared
to him that not only would nothing induce him to aban-
don his resolutions, but that, moreover, having become
the servant of Christ, he had no longer to receive orders
from him. As Bernardone launched out into invective,
reproaching him with the enormous sums which he had
cost him, Francis showed him by a gesture the money
which he had brought back from the sale at Foligno
lying on the window-ledge. The father greedily seized
it and went away, resolving to appeal to the magistrates.
The consuls summoned Francis to appear before them,
but he replied simply that as servant of the Church he
did not come under their jurisdiction. Glad of this re-
sponse, which relieved them of a delicate dilemma, they
referred the complainant to the diocesan authorities.
The matter took on another aspect before the ecclesi-
astical tribunal; it was idle to dream of asking the bishop
to pronounce a sentence of banishment, since it was his
part to preserve the liberty of the clerics. Bernardone
could do no more than disinherit his son, or at least
induce him of his own accord to renounce all claim upon
his inheritance. This was not difficult.
When called upon to appear before the episcopal tri-
2
11 Cel., 13 ; 3 Soc., 18.
1 Cel., 13. It is possible that at this epoch he had received the
lesser order, and that thus he might be subject to the jurisdiction of the
Church.
3 3 Soc., 18 and 19; 1 Cel, 14; Bon.,
STRUGGLES AND TRIUMPH
61
bunal1 Francis experienced a lively joy; his mystical
espousals to the Crucified One were now to receive a sort
of official consecration. To this Jesus, whom he had so
often blasphemed and betrayed by word and conduct, he
would now be able with equal publicity to promise obe-
dience and fidelity.
It is easy to imagine the sensation which all this caused
in a small town like Assisi, and the crowd that on the
appointed day pressed toward the Piazza of Santa Maria
Maggiore, where the bishop pronounced sentence. Ev-
ery one held Francis to be assuredly mad, but they
anticipated with relish the shame and rage of Bernar-
done, whom every one detested, and whose pride was so
well punished by all this.
The bishop first set forth the case, and advised Francis
to simply give up all his property. To the great surprise
of the crowd the latter, instead of replying, retired to
a room in the bishop's Palace, and immediately reap-
peared absolutely naked, holding in his hand the packet
into which he had rolled his clothes; these he laid down
before the bishop with the little money that he still had
kept, saying: “Listen, all of you, and understand it
well; until this time I have called Pietro Bernardone my
father, but now I desire to serve God. This is why I
return to him this money, for which he has given himself
so much trouble, as well as my clothing, and all that I
have had from him, for from henceforth I desire to say
nothing else than 'Our Father, who art in heaven.'
A long murmur arose from the crowd when Bernardone
was seen to gather up and carry off the clothing without
the least evidence of compassion, while the bishop was
? From 1204 until after the death of St. Francis the episcopal throne
of Assisi was occupied by Guido II. Vide Cristofano, 1, 169 ff.
? Piazza di Santa Maria Maggiore o del vescovado. Everything has
l'emained pretty nearly in the same state as in the thirteenth century.
62
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
1
fain to take under his mantle the poor Francis, who was
trembling with emotion and cold.
The scene of the judgment hall made an immense im-
pression; the ardor, simplicity, and indignation of Fran-
cis had been so profound and sincere that scoffers were
disconcerted. On that day he won for himself a secret
sympathy in many souls. The populace loves such ab-
rupt conversions, or those which it considers such. Fran-
cis once again forced himself upon the attention of his
fellow-citizens with a power all the greater for the con-
trast between his former and his new life.
There are pious folk whose modesty is shocked by the
nudity of Francis; but Italy is not Germany nor Eng-
land, and the thirteenth century would have been aston-
ished indeed at the prudery of the Bollandists. The
incident is simply a new manifestation of Francis's char-
acter, with its ingenuousness, its exaggerations, its long-
ing to establish a complete harmony, a literal corre-
spondence, between words and actions.
After emotions such as he had just experienced he felt
the need of being alone, of realizing his joy, of singing
the liberty he had finally achieved along all the lines
where once he had so deeply suffered, so ardently
struggled. He would not, therefore, return immediately
to St. Damian. Leaving the city by the nearest gate,
he plunged into the deserted paths which climb the
sides of Mount Subasio.
It was the early spring. Here and there were still
great drifts of snow, but under the ardor of the March
sun winter seemed to own itself vanquished. In the
midst of this mysterious and bewildering harmony the
heart of Francis felt a delicious thrill, all his being was
calmed and uplifted, the soul of things caressed him
gently and shed upon him peace. An unwonted hap-
11 Cel., 15 ; 3 Soc., 20; Bon. 20.
STRUGGLES AND TRIUMPB
83
pines out over him; he made the forest to resound
with his hymns of praise.
Men utter in song emotions too sweet or too deep to be
expressed in ordinary language, but unworded music is
in this respect superior to song, it is above all things the
language of the ineffable. Song gains almost the same
value when the words are only there as a support for the
voice. The great beauty of the psalms and hymns of the
Church lies in the fact that being sung in an unknown
tongue they make no appeal to the intelligence; they say
nothing, but they express everything with marvellous
modulations like a celestial accompaniment, which fol-
lows the believer's emotions from the most agonizing
struggles to the most unspeakable ecstasies.
So Francis went on his way, deeply inhaling the odors
of spring, singing at the top of his voice one of those songs
of French chivalry which he had learned in days gone by.
The forest in which he was walking was the usual re-
treat of such people of Assisi and its environs as had
any reason for hiding. Some ruffians, aroused by his
voice, suddenly fell upon him. . “Who are you?” they
asked. “I am the herald of the great King,” he an-
swered; "but what is that to you?”
His only garment was an old mantle which the bish-
op's gardener had lent him at his master's request.
They stripped it from him, and throwing him into a ditch
full of snow, “There is your place, poor herald of God,"
they said.
The robbers gone, he shook off the snow which covered
him, and after may efforts succeeded in extricating him-
self from the ditch. Stiff with cold, with no other cover-
ing than a worn-out shirt, he none the less resumed his
singing, happy to suffer and thus to accustom himself the
better to understand the words of the Crucified One.
--
13 Soc., 16 ; Bon., 21.
64
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
Not far away was a monastery. He entered and
offered his services. In those solitudes, peopled often
by such undesirable neighbors, people were suspicious.
The monks permitted him to make himself useful in the
kitchen, but they gave him nothing to cover himself with
and hardly anything to eat. There was nothing for it
but to go away; he directed his steps toward Gubbio,
where he knew that he should find a friend. Perhaps
this was he who had been his confidant on his return
from Spoleto. However this may be, he received from
him a tunic, and a few days after set out to return to his
dear St. Damian.1
He did not, however, go directly thither; before be-
ginning to restore the little sanctuary, he desired to see
again his friends, the lepers, to promise them that he
would love them even better than in the past.
Since his first visit to the leper-house the brilliant
cavalier had become a poor beggar; he came with empty
hands but with heart overflowing with tenderness and
compassion. Taking up his abode in the midst of these
afflicted ones he lavished upon them the most touching
care, washing and wiping their sores, all the more gentle
and radiant as their sores were more repulsive. The
neglected sufferer is as much blinded by love of him who
comes to visit him as the child by its love for its mother.
He believes him to be all powerful ; at his approach the
most painful sufferings are eased or disappear.
11 Cel., 16 ; Bon. 21. The curious will read with interest an article
by M. Mezzatinti upon the journey to Gubbio entitled S. Francesco e
Frederico Spadalunga da Gubbio. [Miscellanea, t. v., pp. 76–78.] This
Spadalunga da Gubbio was well able to give a garment to Francis, but
it is very possible that the gift was made much later and that this
solemn date in the saint's life has been fixed by an optical illusion, almost
inevitable because of the identity of the fact with the name of the
locality.
? 1 Cel., 17; Bon., 11 ; 13; 21; 22 ; 3 Soc., 11 ; A. SS., p. 575.
STRUGGLES AND TRIUMPH
65
This love inspired by the sympathy of an affectionate
heart may become so deep as to appear at times super-
natural; the dying have been known to recover con-
sciousness in order to look for the last time into the face,
not of some member of the family, but of the friend who
has tried to be the sunshine of their last days. The ties
of pure love are stronger than the bonds of flesh and blood.
Francis had many a time sweet experience of this ; from
the time of his arrival at the leper-house he felt that if
he had lost his life he was about to find it again.
Encouraged by his sojourn among the lepers, he re-
turned to St. Damian and went to work, filled with joy
and ardor, his heart as much in the sunshine as the
Umbrian plain in this beautiful month of May. After
having fashioned for himself a hermit's dress, he began
to go into the squares and open places of the city.
There having sung a few hymns, he would announce to
those who gathered around him his project of restoring
the chapel. “Those who will give me one stone,” he
would add with a smile, “shall have a reward ; those
who give me two shall have two rewards, and those who
give me three shall have three."
Many deemed him mad, but others were deeply moved
by the remembrance of the past. As for Francis, deaf
to mockery, he spared himself no labor, carrying upon
his shoulders, so ill-fitted for severe toil, the stones which
were given him.
During this time the poor priest of St. Damian felt his
heart swelling with love for this companion who had at
first caused him such embarrassment, and he strove to
prepare for him his favorite dishes.
Francis soon per-
ceived it. His delicacy took alarm at the expense which
he caused his friend, and, thanking him, he resolved to
beg his food from door to door.
11 Cel., 18; 3 Soc., 21; Bon., 23.
1
66
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
It was not an easy task. The first time, when at the
end of his round he glanced at the broken food in his
wallet, he felt his courage fail him. But the thought of
being so soon unfaithful to the spouse to whom he had
plighted his faith made his blood run cold with shame
and gave him strength to eat ravenously."
Each hour, so to speak, brought to him a new struggle.
One day he was going through the town begging for oil
for the lamps of St. Damian, when he arrived at a
house where a banquet was going on; the greater number
of his former companions were there, singing and danc-
ing. At the sound of those well-known voices he felt as
if he could not enter; he even turned away, but very
soon, filled with confusion by his own cowardice, he
returned quickly upon his steps, made his way into the
banquet-hall, and after confessing his shame, put so much
earnestness and fire into his request that every one de-
sired to co-operate in this pious work.
His bitterest trial however was his father's anger,
which remained as violent as ever. Although he had
renounced Francis, Bernardone's pride suffered none the
less at seeing his mode of life, and whenever he met his
son he overwhelmed him with reproaches and maledic-
tions. The tender heart of Francis was so wrung with
sorrow that he resorted to a sort of stratagem for
charming away, the spell of the paternal imprecations.
Come with me,” he said to a beggar; “be to me as a
father, and I will give you a part of the alms which I
receive. When you see Bernardone curse me, if I say,
' Bless me, my father, you must sign me with the cross
and bless me in his stead."3 His brother was prominent
in the front rank of those who harassed him with their
mockeries. One winter morning they met in a church;
13 Soc., 22; 2 Cel., 1, 9. 3 Soc., 24; 2 Cel., 8; Spec., 24.
3 3 Soc., 23 ; 2 Cel., 7.
2
60
STRUGGLES AND TRIUMPH
67
Angelo leaned over to a friend who was with him, saying:
Go, ask Francis to sell you a farthing's worth of his
sweat." "No," replied the latter, who overheard. . “I
shall sell it much dearer to my God."
In the spring of 1208 he finished the restoration of
St. Damian; he had been aided by all people of good
will, setting the example of work and above all of joy,
cheering everybody by his songs and his projects for
the future. He spoke with such enthusiasm and con-
tagious warmth of the transformation of his dear chap-
el, of the grace which God would accord to those who
should come there to pray, that later on it was believed
that he had spoken of Clara and her holy maidens who
were to retire to this place four years later.!
This success soon inspired him with the idea of repair.
ing the other sanctuaries in the suburbs of Assisi.
Those which had struck him by their state of decay were
St. Peter and Santa Maria, of the Portiuncula, called
also Santa Maria degli Angeli. The former is not other-
wise mentioned in his biographies. As to the sec-
ond, it was to become the true cradle of the Franciscan
movement.
This chapel, still standing at the present day after
escaping revolutions and earthquakes, is a true Bethel,
one of those rare spots in the world on which rests the
mystic ladder which joins heaven to earth ; there were
dreamed some of the noblest dreams which have soothed
the pains of humanity. It is not to Assisi in its marvel-
lous basilica that one must go to divine and comprehend
St. Francis; he must tum his steps to Santa Maria
degli Angeli at the hours when the stated prayers cease,
at the moment when the evening shadows lengthen, when
all the fripperies of worship disappear in the obscurity,
13 Soc., 24; Testament de Claire, Wadding, ann. 1253 v.
? Cel., 21 ; Bon., 24.
68
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
when all the nation seems to collect itself to listen to the
chime of the distant church bells. Doubtless it was
Francis's plan to settle there as a hermit. He dreamed
of passing his life there in meditation and silence, keep-
ing up the little church and from time to time inviting a
priest there to say mass. Nothing as yet suggested to
him that he was in the end to become a religious founder.
One of the most interesting aspects of his life is in fact
the continual development revealing itself in him; he is
of the small number to whom. to live is to be active, and
to be active to make progress. There is hardly anyone,
except St. Paul, in whom is found to the same degree
the devouring need of being always something more,
always something better, and it is so beautiful in both
of them only because it is absolutely instinctive.
When he began to restore the Portiuncula his projects
hardly went beyond a very narrow horizon; he was pre-
paring himself for a life of penitence rather than a life of
activity. But these works once finished it was impos-
sible that this somewhat selfish and passive manner of
achieving his own salvation should satisfy him long. At
the memory of the appearance of the Crucified One his
heart would swell with overpowering emotions, and he
would melt into tears without knowing whether they were
of admiration, pity, or desire.
When the repairs were finished meditation occupied
the greater part of his days. A Benedictine of the
Abbey of Mont Subasio ? came from time to time to say
mass at Santa Maria; these were the bright hours of
St. Francis's life. One can imagine with what pious
care he prepared himself and with what faith he listened
to the divine teachings.
One day, it was probably February 24, 1209, the fes-
3 Soc., 14; 2 Cel., i., 6.
? Portiuncula was a dependence of this abbey.
STRUGGLES AND TRIUMPH
69
tival of St. Matthias, mass was being celebrated at the
Portiuncula. When the priest turned toward him to
read the words of Jesus, Francis felt himself over-
powered with a profound agitation. He no longer saw
the priest; it was Jesus, the Crucified One of St.
Damian, who was speaking : “Wherever ye go, preach,
saying, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the
sick, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils. Freely ye have
received, freely give. Provide neither silver nor gold
nor brass in your purses, neither scrip nor two coats,
nor shoes nor staff, for the laborer is worthy of his
meat.'
These words burst upon him like a revelation, like the
answer of Heaven to his sighs and anxieties.
“This is what I want,” he cried, “this is what I was
seeking ; from this day forth I shall set myself with all
my strength to put it in practice.” Immediately throw-
ing aside his stick, his scrip, his purse, his shoes, he
determined immediately to obey, observing to the letter
the precepts of the apostolic life.
It is quite possible that some allegorizing tendencies
have had some influence upon this narrative. The long
struggle through which Francis passed before becom-
ing the apostle of the new times assuredly came to a
crisis in the scene at Portiuncula ; but we have already
seen how slow was the interior travail which prepared
for it.
The revelation of Francis was in his heart; the sacred
fire which he was to communicate to the souls of others
came from within his own, but the best causes need a
1 This is the date adopted by the Bollandists, because the ancient mis-
sals mark the pericope, Matt. X., for the gospel of this day. This en-
tails no difficulty and in any case it cannot be very far distant from the
truth. A. SS.,
A. SS., p. 574.
* See in particular Bon., 25 and 26. Cf. A. SS., p. 577d.
70
LIFE OF ST. FRANOIS
standard. Before the shabby altar of the Portiuncula he
had perceived the banner of poverty, sacrifice, and love,
he would carry it to the assault of every fortress of sin;
under its shadow, a true knight of Christ, he would
marshal all the valiant warriors of a spiritual strife.
CHAPTER V
FIRST YEAR OF APOSTOLATE
Spring of 1209–Summer of 1210
THE very next morning Francis went up to Assisi and
began to preach. His words were simple, but they came
so straight from the heart that all who heard him were
touched.
It is not easy to hear and apply to one's self the ex-
hortations of preachers who, aloft in the pulpit, seem
to be carrying out a mere formality; it is just as difficult
to escape from the appeals of a layman who walks at our
side. The amazing multitude of Protestant sects is due
in a great degree to this superiority of lay preaching
over clerical. The most brilliant orators of the Christian
pulpit are bad converters; their eloquent appeals may
captivate the imagination and lead a few men of the
world to the foot of the altar, but these results are not
more brilliant than ephemeral. But let a peasant or a
workingman speak to those whom he meets a few simple
words going directly to the conscience, and the man is
always impressed, often won.
Thus the words of Francis seemed to his hearers like
a flaming sword penetrating to the very depths of their
conscience. His first attempts were the simplest possi-
in general they were merely a few words addressed
to men whom he knew well enough to recognize their weak
points and strike at them with the holy boldness of love.
ble;
12
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
His person, his example, were themselves a sermon, and
he spoke only of that which he had himself experienced,
proclaiming repentance, the shortness of life, a future
retribution, the necessity of arriving at gospel perfec-
tion. It is not easy to realize how many waiting souls
there are in this world. The greater number of men
pass through life with souls asleep. They are like vir-
gins of the sanctuary who sometimes feel a vague agita-
tion; their hearts throb with an infinitely sweet and sub-
tile thrill, but their eyelids droop; again they feel the
damp cold of the cloister creeping over them; the deli-
cious but baneful dream vanishes, and this is all they
ever know of that love which is stronger than death.
It is thus with many men for all that belongs to the
higher life. Sometimes, alone in the wide plain at the
hour of twilight, they fix their eyes on the fading lights
of the horizon, and on the evening breeze comes to them
another breath, more distant, fainter, and almost heaven-
ly, awaking in them a nostalgia for the world beyond
and for holiness. But the darkness falls, they must go
back to their homes; they shake off their reverie; and
it often happens that to the very end of life this is their
only glimpse of the Divine ; a few sighs, a few thrills, a
few inarticulate murmurs—this sums up all our efforts
to attain to the sovereign good.
Yet the instinct for love and for the divine is only
slumbering. At the sight of beauty love always awakes;
at the appeal of holiness the divine witness within us at
once responds; and so we see, streaming from all points
of the horizon to gather around those who preach in the
name of the inward voice, long processions of souls
athirst for the ideal. The human heart so naturally
yearns to offer itself up, that we have only to meet along
11 Cel., 23 ; 3 Soc., 25 and 26 ; Bon., 27. Cf. Auct. Vit. Sec. ap., A.
SS., p. 579.
FIRST YEAR OF APOSTOLATE
73
our pathway some one who, doubting neither himself
nor us, demands it without reserve, and we yield it to
him at once. Reason may understand a partial gift, a
transient devotion; the heart knows only the entire sac-
rifice, and like the lover to his beloved, it says to its van-
quisher, “Thine alone and forever.”
That which has caused the miserable failure of all the
efforts of natural religion is that its founders have not
had the courage to lay hold upon the hearts of men, con-
senting to no partition. They have not understood the
imperious desire for immolation which lies in the depths
of every soul, and souls have taken their revenge in not
heeding these too lukewarm lovers.
Francis had given himself up too completely not to
claim from others an absolute self-renunciation. In the
two years and more since he had quitted the world, the
reality and depth of his conversion had shone out in the
sight of all; to the scoffings of the early days had grad-
ually succeeded in the minds of many a feeling closely
akin to admiration.
This feeling inevitably provokes imitation. A man of i
Assisi, hardly mentioned by the biographers, had at-
tached himself to Francis. He was one of those simple-
hearted men who find life beautiful enough so long as
they can be with him who has kindled the divine spark 1
11 Cel., 24. We must correct the Bollandist text: Inter quos quidam
de Assisio puer ac simplicem animum gerens, by : quidam de Assisio pium
ac simplicem, etc. The period at which we have arrived is very clear
as a whole: the picture which the Three Companions give us is true
with a truth which forces conviction at first sight; but neither they
nor Celano are giving an official report. Later on men desired to know
precisely in what order the early disciples came, and they tortured
the texts to find an answer. The same course was followed with regard
to the first missionary journeys. But on both sides they came up
against impossibilities and contradictions. What does it matter whether
there were two, three, or four missions before the papal approbation ?
Of what consequence are the names of those early disciples who are
74
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
1
in their hearts. His arrival at Portiuncula gave Francis
a suggestion ; from that time he dreamed of the possibil-
ity of bringing together a few companions with whom
he could carry on his apostolic mission in the neigh-
borhood.
At Assisi he had often enjoyed the hospitality of a
rich and prominent man named Bernardo di Quintavalle,
who took him to sleep in his own chamber; it is easy
to see how such an intimacy would favor confidential
outpourings. When in the silence of the early night an
ardent and enthusiastic soul pours out to you its disap-
pointments, wounds, dreams, hopes, faith, it is difficult
indeed not to be carried along, especially when the apos-
tle has a secret ally in your soul, and unconsciously
meets your most secret aspirations.
One day Bernardo begged Francis to pass the following
night with him, at the same time giving him to under-
stand that he was about to make a grave resolution upon
which he desired to consult him. The joy of Francis
was great indeed as he divined his intentions. They
passed the night without thinking of sleep; it was a long
communion of souls. Bernardo had decided to distribute
his goods to the poor and cast in his lot with Francis.
The latter desired his friend to pass through a sort of
initiation, pointing out to him that what he himself
entirely secondary in the history of the Franciscan movement ? All
these things took place with much more simplicity and spontaneity
than is generally supposed. There is a wide difference between the
-- plan of a house drawn up by an architect and a view of the same house
painted by an artist. The second, though abounding in inexactitudes,
gives a more just notion of the reality than the plan. The same is true
of the Franciscan biographies.
11 Cel., 24. Bernard de Besse is the first to call him B. di Quinta-
valle: De laudibus, fo. 95 h.; çf. ugon him Mark of Lisbon, t. i.,
second part, pp. 68-70 ; Conform., 47; Fior'., 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 28; 3 Soc.,
27, 30, 39 ; 2 Cel., 1, 10 ; 2, 19; Bon., 28; 1 Cel., 30; Salimbeni, ann.
1829, and Tribul. Arch., ii., p. 278, etc.
FIRST YEAR OF APOSTOLATE
175
practised, what he preached, was not his own invention,
but that Jesus himself had expressly ordained it in his
word.
At early dawn they bent their steps to the St. Nicho-
las Church, accompanied by another neophyte named
Pietro, and there, after praying and hearing mass, Francis
opened the Gospels that lay on the altar and read to his
companions the portion which had decided his own voca-
tion: the words of Jesus sending forth his disciples on
their mission.
Brethren," he added, "this is our life and our Rule,
and that of all who may join us. Go then and do as
you have heard.” 1
The persistence with which the Three Companions
relate that Francis consulted the book three times in
honor of the Trinity, and that it opened of its own
accord at the verses describing the apostolic life, leads
to the belief that these passages became the Rule of the
new association, if not that very day at least very soon
afterward.
If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell that thou hast, and give to the poor,
and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come and follow me.
Jesus having called to him the Twelve, gave them power and author-
ity over all devils and to cure diseases. And he sent them to preach the
kingdom of God and to heal the sick. And he said unto them, Take
nothing for your journey, neither staves, nor scrip, neither bread,
neither money; neither have two coats apiece. And whatsoever house
ye enter into, there abide, and thence depart. And whosoever will not
receive you, when ye go out of that city shake off the very dust from
your feet for a testimony against them. And they departed and went
through the towns, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere.
11 Cel., 24; 3 Soc., 27, 28, 29 ; 2 Cel., 1, 10; 3, 52 ; Bon., 28; A.
SS., p. 580. It is evident that the tradition has been worked over
here : it soon came to be desired to find a miracle in the manner in
which Francis found the passage for reading. The St. Nicholas Church
is no longer in existence; it stood upon the piece of ground now occu-
pied by the barracks of the gendarmerie (carabinieri reali).
76
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me
let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me. For who
soever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life
for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited if he shall gain
the whole world and lose his own soul ?
1
At first these verses were hardly more than the official
Rule of the Order; the true Rule was Francis himself;
but they had the great merit of being short, absolute, of
promising perfection, and of being taken from the Gospel.
Bernardo immediately set to work to distribute his
fortune among the poor. Full of joy, his friend was
looking on at this act, which had drawn together a crowd,
when a priest named Sylvester, who had formerly sold
him some stones for the repairs of St. Damian, seeing so
much money given away to everyone who applied for it,
drew near and said :
Brother, you did not pay me very well for the stones
which you bought of me.”
Francis had too thoroughly killed every germ of av-
arice in himself not to be moved to indignation by hear-
ing a priest speak thus. “Here,” he said, holding out
to him a double handful of coins which he took from
Bernardo's robe, “here; are you sufficiently paid now ? ”
Quite so," replied Sylvester, somewhat abashed by
the murmurs of the bystanders.?
This picture, in which the characters stand out so
strongly, must have taken strong hold upon the memory
of the bystanders : the Italians only thoroughly under-
stand things which they make a picture of. It taught
1 Matt., xix., 21 ; Luke, ix., 1-6 ; Matt., xvi., 24-26. The agreement
of tradition upon these passages is complete. 3 Soc., 29 ; 2 Cel., 1, 10;
Bon., 28; Spec., 5b.; Conform., 37b 2, 47a, 2; Fior., 2 ; Glassberger
and the Chronicle of the xxiv. generals reversing the order (Analecta,
fr., t. ii., p. 5) as well as the Conformities in another place, 87b, 2.
2 3 Soc., 30. Cf. Anon. Pro'18., A. SS., p. 581a. This scene is re
ported neither by Celano nor by St. Bonaventura.
FIRST YEAR OF APOSTOLATE
77
them, better than all Francis's preachings, what manner
of men these new friars would be.
The distribution finished, they went at once to Portiun-
cula, where Bernardo and Pietro built for themselves
cabins of boughs, and made themselves tunics like that
of Francis. They did not differ much from the garment
worn by the peasants, and were of that brown, with its
infinite variety of shades, which the Italians call beast
color. One finds similar garments to-day among the
shepherds of the most remote parts of the Apennines.
A week later, Thursday, April 23, 1209,' a new dis-
ciple of the name of Egidio presented himself before
Francis. Of a gentle and submissive nature, he was of
those who need to lean on someone, but who, the needed
support having been found and tested, lift themselves
sometimes even above it. The pure soul of brother
Egidio, supported by that of Francis, came to enjoy the
intoxicating delights of contemplation with an unheard-of
ardor.
Here we must be on our guard against forcing the
authorities, and asking of them more than they can give.
Later, when the Order was definitely constituted and
its convents organized, men fancied that the past had
been like the present, and this error still weighs upon
the picture of the origins of the Franciscan movement.
The first brothers lived as did the poor people among
whom they so willingly moved ; Portiuncula was their
favorite church, but it would be a mistake to suppose that
they sojourned there for any long periods. It was their
2
This date is given in the life of Brother Egidio : A. SS., Oct.,
t. ii., p. 572; Aprilis, t. iii., p. 220. It fits well with the accounts.
Through it we obtain the approximate date of the definitive conversion
of Francis two full years earlier.
2 1 Cel., 25; 3 Soc., 23 ; Bon. 29. Cf. Anon. Perus., A. SS., p. 582.
and A. SS., Aprilis, t. iii., p. 220 ff.
78
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
place of meeting, nothing more. When they set forth
they simply knew that they should meet again in the
neighborhood of the modest chapel. Their life was that
of the Umbrian beggars of the present day, going here
and there as fancy dictated, sleeping in hay-lofts, in
leper hospitals, or under the porch of some church. So
little had they any fixed domicile that Egidio, having de-
cided to join them, was at considerable trouble to learn
where to find Francis, and accidentally meeting him in
the neighborhood of Rivo-Torto ? he saw in the fact a prov-
idential leading
They went up and down the country, joyfully sowing
their seed. It was the beginning of summer, the time
when everybody in Umbria is out of doors mowing or
turning the grass. The customs of the country have
changed but little. Walking in the end of May in the
fields about Florence, Perugia, or Rieti, one still sees,
at nightfall, the bagpipers entering the fields as the mow-
ers seat themselves upon the hay-cocks for their evening
meal; they play a few pieces, and when the train of hay-
makers returns to the village, followed by the harvest-
laden carts, it is they who lead the procession, rending
the air with their sharpest strains.
The joyous Penitents who loved to call themselves
Joculatores Domini, God's jongleurs, no doubt often did
1
Spec., 25a: Qualiter dixit fratri Egidio priusquam esset receptus ut
daret mantellum ciudam pauperi. In primordio religionis cum maneret
apud Regum Tortum cum duobus fratribus quos tunc tantum habehat. If
we compare this passage with 3 Soc., 44, we shall doubtless arrive at the
conclusion that the account in the Speculum is more satisfactory. It is
in fact very easy to understand the optical illusion by which later on the
Portiuncula was made the scene of the greater number of the events of
St. Francis's life, while it would be difficult to see why there should have
been any attempt to surround Rivo-Torto with an aureola. The Fioretti
say: Ando inverso lo spedale dei lebbrosi, which confirms the indication
of Rivo-Torto. Vita d'Egidio, & 1.
FIRST YEAR OF APOSTOLATE
79
the same. They did even better, for not willing to be a
charge to anyone, they passed a part of the day in
aiding the peasants in their field work. The inhabitants
of these districts are for the most part kindly and se-
date; the friars soon gained their confidence by relating
to them first their history and then their hopes. They
worked and ate together; field-hands and friars often slept
in the same barn, and when with the morrow's dawn the
friars went on their way, the hearts of those they left be-
hind had been touched. They were not yet converted,
but they knew that not far away, over toward Assisi, were
living men who had renounced all worldly goods, and who,
consumed with zeal, were going up and down preaching
penitence and peace. .
Their reception was very different in the cities. If the
peasant of Central Italy is mild and kindly the townsfol.2
are on a first acquaintance scoffing and ill disposed. We
shall shortly see the friars who went to Florence the butt
of all sorts of persecutions.
Only a few weeks had passed since Francis began to
preach, and already his words and acts were sounding an
irresistible appeal in the depths of many a heart. We
have arrived at the most unique and interesting period in
the history of the Franciscans. These first months are
for their institution what the first days of spring are for
nature, days when the almond-tree blossoms, bearing
witness to the mysterious labor going on in the womb of
the earth, and heralding the flowers that will suddenly
enamel the fields. At the sight of these men bare
footed, scantily clothed, without money, and yet so hap-
py--men's minds were much divided. Some held them
to be mad, others admired them, finding them widely
i An. Perus, A. SS., p. 582. Cf. Fior., Vita di Egidio, 1; Spec., 124.
136 ; 2 Cel., 3, 68; h. SS., Aprilis, t. iii., p. 227.
2 Spec., 34a ; Conform., 219b, 1; Ant. fr., p. 96.
80
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
different from the vagrant monks, that plague of Chris-
tendom.
Sometimes, however, the friars found success not re-
sponding to their efforts, the conversion of souls not tak-
ing form with enough rapidity and vigor. To encourage
them, Francis would then confide to them his visions and
nis hopes. "I saw a multitude of men coming toward
us, asking that they might receive the habit of our holy
religion, and lo, the sound of their footsteps still echoes
in my ears. I saw them coming from every direction,
filling all the roads."
Whatever the biographies may say, Francis was far
from foreseeing the sorrows that were to follow this rapid
increase of his Order. The maiden leaning with trem-
bling rapture on her lover's arm no more dreams of the
pangs of motherhood than he thought of the dregs he must
drain after quaffing joyfully the generous wine of the
chalice.?
Every prosperous movement provokes opposition by the
very fact of its prosperity. The herbs of the field have
iheir own language for cursing the longer-lived plants
that smother them out; one can hardly live without
arousing jealousy; in vain the new fraternity showed
itself humble, it could not escape this law.
When the brethren went up to Assisi to beg from door
to door, many refused to give to them, reproaching them
with desiring to live on the goods of others after having
squandered their own. Many a time they had barely
enough not to starve to death. It would even seem that
the clergy were not entirely without part in this opposi-
tion. The Bishop of Assisi said to Francis one day:
“Your way of living without owning anything seems to
me very harsh and difficult.” “My lord,” replied he, “if
1 The Gyrovagi. Tr.
3 Soc.. 32-34; 1 Cel., 27 and 28 ; Bon., 31.
2
FIRST YEAR OF APOSTOLATE
81
"1
we possessed property we should have need of arms for
its defence, for it is the source of quarrels and lawsuits,
and the love of God and of one's neighbor usually finds
many obstacles therein; this is why we do not desire
temporal goods.
The argument was unanswerable, but Guido began to
rue the encouragement which he had formerly offered
the son of Bernardone. He was very nearly in the situ-
ation and consequently in the state of mind of the Angli-
can bishops when they saw the organizing of the Sal-
vation Army. It was not exactly hostility, but a distrust
which was all the deeper for hardly daring to show itself.
The only counsel which the bishop could give Francis
was to come into the ranks of the clergy, or, if asceticism
attracted him, to join some already existing monastic
order."
13 Soc., 35. Cf. Anon. Perus. ; A. SS., p. 584.
2 Later on, naturally, it was desired that Francis should have had no
better supporter than Guido; some have even made him out to be
his spiritual director (St. François, Plon, p. 24)! We have an in-
direct but unexceptionable proof of the reserve with which these
pious traditions must be accepted; Francis did not even tell his bishop
(pater et dominus animarum, 3 Soc., 29) of his design of having his Rule
approved by the pope. This is the more striking because the bishop
would have been his natural advocate at the court of Rome, and be-
cause in the absence of any other reason the most elementary politeness
required that he should have been informed. Add to this that bishops
in Italy are not, as elsewhere, functionaries approached with difficulty by
the common run of mortals. Almost every village in Umbria has it
bishop, so that their importance is hardly greater than that of the curé
of a French canton.
Furthermore, several pontifical documents throw a sombre light on
Guido's character. In a chapter of the decretals of Honorius IIJ.
(Quinta compil., lib. ii., tit. iii., cap. i.) is given a complaint
against this bishop, brought before the curia by the Crucigeri of the hos.
pital San Salvatore delle pareti (suburbs of Assisi), of having maltreated
two of their number, and having stolen a part of the wine belonging to
the convent: pro eo quod Aegidium presbyterum, et fratrem eorem con-
versum violentas manus injecerat
adjiciens quod idem hospitale
6
82
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
If the bishop's perplexities were great, those of Fran.
cis were hardly less so. He was too acute not to foresee
the conflict that threatened to break out between the
friars and the clergy. He saw that the enemies of the
priests praised him and his companions beyond measure
simply to set off their poverty against the avarice and
wealth of the ecclesiastics, yet he felt himself urged on
from within to continue his work, and could well have
exclaimed with the apostle, “Woe is me if I preach not
the gospel !” On the other hand, the families of the Peni-
tents could not forgive them for having distributed their
goods among the poor, and attacks came from this direc-
tion with all the bitter language and the deep hatred
natural to disappointed heirs. From this point of view
the brotherhood appeared as a menace to families, and
many parents trembled lest their sons should join it.
Whether the friars would or no, they were an unending
subject of interest to the whole city. Evil rumors, plenti-
fully spread abroad against them, simply defeated them-
selves; flying from mouth to mouth they speedily found
contradictors who had no difficulty in showing their
absurdity. All this indirectly served their cause and
gained to their side those hearts, more numerous than is
generally believed, who find the defence of the perse-
cuted a necessity.
As to the clergy, they could not but feel a profound dis-
1
quadam vini quantitate fuerat per eumdem episcopum spoliatum. Honorii
opera, Horoy's edition, t. i., col. 200 ff. Cf. Potthast, 7746. The men-
tion of the hospital de Pariete proves beyond question that the Bishop
of Assisi is here concerned and not the Bishop of Osimo, as some critics
have suggested.
Another document shows him at strife with the Benedictines of Mount
Subasio (the very ones who afterward gave Portiuncula to Francis), and
Honorius III. found the bishop in the wrong: Bull Conquerente cco-
nomo monasterii ap. Richter, Corpus juris canonici. Leipzig, 1839, 4to,
Horoy, loc. cit., t. i., col. 163; Potthast, 7728.
FIRST YEAR OF APOSTOLATE
83
trust of these lay converters, who, though they aroused the
hatred of some interested persons, awakened in more pious
souls first astonishment and then admiration. Suddenly
to see men without title or diploma succeed brilliantly in
the mission which has been officially confided to our-
selves, and in which we have made pitiful shipwreck, is
cruel torture. Have we not seen generals who preferred
to lose a battle rather than gain it with the aid of guer-
rillas ?
This covert opposition has left no characteristic traces
in the biographies of St. Francis. It is not to be won-
dered at; Thomas of Celano, even if he had had infor-
mation of this matter, would have been wanting in tact
to make use of it. The clergy, for that matter, possess a
thousand means of working upon public opinion without
ceasing to show a religious interest in those whom they
detest.
But the more St. Francis shall find himself in contra,
diction with the clergy of his time, the more he will be,
lieve himself the obedient son of the Church. Confound-
ing the gospel with the teaching of the Church, he will
for a good while border upon heresy, but without ever
falling into it. Happy simplicity, thanks to which he
had never to take the attitude of revolt!
It was five years since, a convalescent leaning upon
his staff, he had felt himself taken possession of by a
loathing of material pleasures. From that time every
one of his days had been marked by a step in ad-
vance.
It was again the spring-time. Perfectly happy, he
felt himself more and more impelled to bring others to
share his happiness and to proclaim in the four corners
of the world how he had attained it. He resolved,
therefore, to undertake a new mission. A few days were
spent in preparing for it. The Three Companions have
84
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
preserved for us the directions which he gave to his dis-
ciples:
“Let us consider that God in his goodness has not called us merely for
our own salvation, but also for that of many men, that we may go through
all the world exhorting men, more by our example than by our words,
to repent of their sins and bear the commandments in mind. Be not
fearful on the ground that we appear little and ignorant, but simply
and without disquietude preach repentance. Have faith in God, who
has overcome the world, that his Spirit will speak in you and by you,
exhorting men to be converted and keep his commandments.
You will find men full of faith, gentleness, and goodness, who will
receive you and your words with joy ; but you will find others, and in
greater numbers, faithless, proud, blasphemers, who will speak evil of
you, resisting you and your words. Be resolute, then, to endure every.
thing with patience and humility."
Hearing this, the brethren began to be agitated. St. Francis said
to them: “Have no fear, for very soon many nobles and learned men
will come to you ; they will be with you preaching to kings and princes
and to a multitude of peoples. Many will be converted to the Lord,
all over the world, who will multiply and increase his family.”
After he had thus spoken he blessed them, saying to
each one the word which was in the future to be his su-
preme consolation :
' My brother, commit yourself to God with all your cares, and he
will care for you."
Then the men of God departed, faithfully observing his instructions,
and when they found a church or a cross they 'oowed in adoration, say-
ing with devotion, “We adore thee, O Christ, and we bless thee here
and in all churches in the whole world, for by thy holy cross thou hast
ransomed the world." In fact they believed that they had found a
holy place wherever they found a church or a cross.
Some listened willingly, others scoffed, the greater number over-
whelmed them with questions. “Whence come you?" "Of what order
are you?” And they, though sometimes it was wearisome to answer,
said simply, “We are penitents, natives of the city of Assisi.” 1
This freshness and poetry will not be found in the
later missions. Here the river is still itself, and if it
13 Soc., 36 and 37. Cf. Anon. Perus, ap., A. SS., p. 585 ; Test. B.
Francisci.
FIRST YEAR OF APOSTOLATE
85
knows toward what sea it is hastening, it knows nothing
of the streams, more or less turbid, which shall disturb
its limpidity, nor the dykes and the straightenings to
which it will have to submit.
A long account by the Three Companions gives us a
picture from life of these first essays at preaching:
Many men took the friars for knaves or madmen and refused to receive
them into their houses for fear of being robbed. So in many places,
after having undergone all sorts of bad usage, they could find no other
refuge for the night than the porticos of churches or houses. There
were at that time two brethren who went to Florence. They begged all
through the city but could find no shelter. Coming to a house which
had a portico and under the portico a bench, they said to one another,
"We shall be very comfortable here for the night.” As the mistress
of the house refused to let them enter, thev humbly asked her per-
mission to sleep upon the bench.
She was about to grant them permission when her husband appeared.
Why have you permitted these lewd fellows to stay under our por-
tico ?” he asked. The woman replied that she had refused to receive
them into the house, but had given them permission to sleep under the
portico where there was nothing for them to steal but the bench.
The cold was very sharp; but taking them for thieves no one gave
them any covering.
As for them, after having enjoyed on their bench no more sleep
than was necessary, warmed only by divine warmth, and having for
covering only their Lady Poverty, in the early dawn they went to the
church to hear mass.
The lady went also on her part, and seeing the friars devoutly pray-
ing she said to herself: “If these men were rascals and thieves as my
husband said, they would not remain thus in prayer." And while she
was making these reflections behold a man of the name of Guido was
giving alms to the poor in the church. Coming to the friars he would
have given a piece of money to them as to the others, but they refused
his money and would not receive it. Why," he asked, “since you are
poor, will you not accept like the others ?” “It is true that we are poor,"
replied Brother Bernardo, but poverty does not weigh upon us as upon
other poor people ; for by the grace of God, whose will we are accom-
plishing, we have voluntarily become poor."
Much amazed, he asked them if they had ever had anything, aná
learned that they had possessed much, but that for the love of God they
had given everything away.
The lady, seeing that the friars
86
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
had refused the alms, drew near to them and said that she would gladly
receive them into her house if they would be pleased to lodge there.
“May the Lord recompense to you your good will," replied the friars,
humbly.
But Guido, learning that they had not been able to find a shelter,
took them to his own house, saying, “Here is a refuge prepared for you
by the Lord ; remain in it as long as you desire."
As for them, they gave thanks to God and spent several days with
him, preaching the fear of the Lord by word and example, so that in
the end he made large distributions to the poor.
.
Well treated by him, they were despised by others. Many men,
great and small, attacked and insulted them, sometimes going so far as
to tear off their clothing ; but though despoiled of their only tunic, they
would not ask for its restitution. If, moved to pity, men gave back to
them what they had taken away, they accepted it cheerfully.
There were those who threw mud upon them, others who put dice
into their hands and invited them to play, and others clutching them
by the cowl made them drag them along thus. But seeing that the
friars were always full of joy in the midst of their tribulations, that they
neither received nor carried money, and that by their love for one an-
other they made themselves known as true disciples of the Lord, many
of them felt themselves reproved in their hearts and came asking par-
don for the offences which they had committed. They, pardoning
them with all their heart, said, “The Lord forgive you,” and gave them
pious counsels for the salvation of their souls.
A translation can but imperfectly give all the repressed
emotion, the candid simplicity, the modest joy, the fer-
vent love which breathe in the faulty Latin of the Three
Companions. Yet these scattered friars sighed after the
home-coming and the long conversations with their spir-
itual father in the tranquil forests of the suburbs of
Assisi. Friendship among men, when it overpasses a
certain limit, has something deep, high, ideal, infinitely
sweet, to which no other friendship attains.
There
was no woman in the Upper Chamber when, on the last
evening of his life, Jesus communed with his disci-
ples and invited the world to the eternal marriage
supper.
Francis, above all, was impatient to see his young
FIRST YEAR OF APOSTOLATE
87
family once more. They all arrived at Portiuncula al-
most at the same time, having already, before reaching it,
forgotten the torments they had endured, thinking only
of the joy of the meeting.
1 3 Soc., 38-41.
CHAPTER VI
ST. FRANCIS AND INNOCENT IN
Summer 1210 1
SEEING the number of his friars daily increasing, Fran-
cis decided to write the Rule of the Order and go to
Rome to procure its approval by the Pope.
This resolution was not lightly taken. It would be a
mistake in fact to take Francis for one of those in-
spired ones who rush into action upon the strength
of unexpected revelations, and, thanks to their faith
1 The date usually fixed for the approval of the Rule by Innocent III.
is the month of August, 1209. The Bollandists had thought themselves
able to infer it from the account where Thomas of Celano (1 Cel., 43)
refers to the passage through Umbria of the Emperor Otho IV., on his
way to be crowned at Rome (October 4, 1209). Upon this journey see
Böhmer-Ficker, Regesta Imperii. Dei Regesten des Kaiserreichs unter Phi-
lipp, Otto IV., etc., Insbruck, 1879, 4to, pp. 96 and 97. As this account
follows that of the approval, they conclude that the latter was earlier.
But Thomas of Celano puts this account there because the context led
up to it, and not in order to fix its date. Everything leads to the belief
that the Brothers retired (recolligebat, 1 Cel., 42) to Rivo-Torto before and
after their journey to Rome. Besides, the time between April 23d and
the middle of August, 1209, is much too short for all that the biographers
tell us about the life of the Brothers before their visit to Innocent III.
The mission to Florence took place in winter, or at least in a very cold
month. But the decisive argument is that Innocent III. quitted Rome
toward the end of May, 1209, and went to Viterbo, returning only to
crown Otho, October 4th (Potthast, 3727–3803). It is therefore absolute.
iy necessary to postpone to the summer of 1210 the visit of the Penitents
to the pope. This is also the date which Wadding arrives at.
ST. FRANCIS AND INNOCENT III
89
in their own infallibility, overawe the multitude. On
the contrary, he was filled with a real humility, and if
he believed that God reveals himself in prayer, he never
for that absolved himself from the duty of reflection nor
even from reconsidering his decisions. St. Bonaventura
does him great wrong in picturing the greater number of
his important resolutions as taken in consequence of
dreams; this is to rob his life of its profound originality,
his sanctity of its choicest blossom. He was of those
who struggle, and, to use one of the noblest expressions
of the Bible, of those who by their perseverance conquer
their souls. Thus we shall see him continually retouch-
ing the Rule of his institute, unceasingly revising it down
to the last moment, according as the grow uit of the Order
and experience of the human heart suggested to him
modifications of it.
The first Rule which he submitted to Rome has not
come down to us; we only know that it was extremely
simple, and composed especially of passages from the
Gospels. It was doubtless only the repetition of those
verses which Francis had read to his first companions,
with a few precepts about manual labor and the occupa-
tions of the new brethren.?
1
13 Soc., 35.
2 1 Cel., 32 ; 3 Soc., 51 ; Bon., 34. Cf. Test. B. Fr. M. K. Müller
of Halle, in his Anfänge, has made a very remarkable study of the
Rule of 1221, whence he deduces an earlier Rule, which he believes to
be that of 1209 (1210). For once I find myself entirely in accord with
him, except that the Rule thus reconstructed (Vide Anfänge, pp. 14-25,
184–188) appears to me to be not that of 1210, which was very short, but
another, drawn up between 1210 and 1221. The plures regulas fecit of
the 3 Soc., 35, authorizes us to believe that he made perhaps as many as
four-1st, 1210, very short, containing little more than the three passages
of the vocation ; 2d, 1217 (?), substantially that proposed by M. Mül.
ler ; 3d, 1221, that of which we shall speak at length farther on ; 4th,
1226, the Will, which if not a Rule is at least an appendix to tbe Rule.
If from 1221-1226 he had time to make two Rules and the Will, as is
90
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
It will be well to pause here and consider the brethren
who are about to set out for Rome. The biographies are
in agreement as to their number; they were twelve, in-
cluding Francis; but the moment they undertake to give
a name to each one of them difficulties begin to arise, and
it is only by some exegetical sleight of hand that they
can claim to have reconciled the various documents.
The table given below 1 briely shows these difficulties.
The question took on some importance when in the four-
teenth century men undertook to show an exact conform-
ity between the life of St. Francis and that of Jesus. It
is without interest to us. The profiles of two or three
of these brethren stand out very clearly in the picture of
the origins of the Order; others remind one of the pict-
universally admitted, there is nothing surprising in his having made
two from 1210–1221. Perhaps we have a fragment of that of 1217 in
the regulation of hermitages. Vide below, p. 109.
1 Thomas of Celano's list. 1, Quidam pium gerens animum ; 2, Ber-
nardus; 3, Vir alter; 4, Ægidius ; 5, Unus alius appositus ; 6,
Philippus ; 7, Alius bonus vir; 8, 9, 10, 11, Quatuor boni et idonei vir.
1 Cel., 24, 25, 29, 31. The Rinaldi-Amoni text says nothing of the last
four. Three Companions : 1, Bernardus ; 2, Petrus ; 3, Ægidius ; 4,
Sabbatinus; 5, Moritus ; Johannes Capella ; 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, Disciples re-
ceived by the brethren in their missions. 3 Soc., 33, 35, 41, 46, 52. Bon-
aventura : 1, Bernardus ; 2, ... 3, Ægidius ; 4, 5, . 6, Silvestro;
17, Alius bonus viri ; 8, 9, 10, 11, Quatuor viri honesti. Bon., 28, 29, 30,
31, 33. The Fioretti, while insisting on the importance of the twelve
Franciscan apostles, cite only six in their list: Giovanni di Capella, Egidio,
Philip, Silvestro, Bernardo, and Rufino. Fior., 1. We must go to the
Conformities to find the traditional list, fº 46b 1 : 1, Bernardus de Quin-
tavalle ; 2, Petrus Chatanii ; 3, Egidius ; 4, Sabatinus ; 5, Moricus; 6,
Johannes de Capella ; 7, Philippus Longus ; 8, Johannes de Sancto Con-
stantio ; 9, Barbarus ; 10, Bernardus de Cleviridante (sic); 11, Angelus
Tancredi ; 12, Sylvester. As will be seen, in the last two documents
twelve disciples are in question, while in the preceding ones there are
only eleven. This is enough to show a dogmatic purpose. This list
reappears exactly in the Speculum, with the sole difference that Fran-
cis being there included Angelo di Tancrede is the twelfth brother and
Silvestro disappears. Spec., 87a.
ST. FRANCIS AND INNOCENT III
91
ures of primitive Umbrian masters, where the figures of
the background have a modest and tender grace, but no
shadow of personality. The first Franciscans had all the
virtues, including the one which is nearly always wanting,
willingness to remain unknown.
In the Lower Church of Assisi there is an ancient fres-
co representing five of the companions of St. Francis.
Above them is a Madonna by Cimabue, upon which they
are gazing with all their soul. It would be more true if
St. Francis were there in the place of the Madonna; one
is always changed into the image of what one admires,
and they resemble their master and one another. To
attempt to give them a name is to make a sort of psycho-
logical error and become guilty of infidelity to their
memory; the only name they would have desired is that
of their father. His love changed their hearts and shed
over their whole persons a radiance of light and joy.
These are the true personages of the Fioretti, the men
who brought peace to cities, awakened consciences,
changed hearts, conversed with birds, tamed wolves.
Of them one may truly say: "Having nothing, yet
possessing all things ” (Nihil habentes, omnia possidentes).
They quitted Portiuncula full of joy and confidence.
Francis was too much absorbed in thought not to desire
to place in other hands the direction of the little com-
pany.
Let us choose," he said, "one from among ourselves to guide us,
and let him be to us as the vicar of Jesus Christ. Wherever it may
please him to go we will go, and when he may wish to stop anywhere
to sleep there we will stop.” They chose Brother Bernardo and did as
Francis had said. They went on full of joy, and all their conversations
had for their object only the glory of God and the salvation of their
souls.
1
According to tradition, the five compagni del Santo buried there be.
side their master are Bernardo, Silvestro, William (an Englishman),
Eletto, and Valentino (?)
92
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
Their journey was happily accomplished. Everywhere they found
kindly souls who sheltered them, and they felt beyond a doubt that God
was taking care of them. 1
Francis's thoughts were all fixed upon the purpose of
their journey; he thought of it day and night, and natu-
rally interpreted his dreams with reference to it. One
time, in his dream, he saw himself walking along a road
beside which was a gigantic and wonderfully beautiful
tree. And, behold, while he looked upon it, filled with
wonder, he felt himself become so tall that he could
touch the boughs, and at the same time the tree bent
down its branches to him. He awoke full of joy, sure
of a gracious reception by the sovereign pontiff.
His hopes were to be somewhat blighted. Innocent
III. had now for twelve years occupied the throne of St.
Peter. Still young, energetic, resolute, he enjoyed that
superfluity of authority given by success. Coming after
the feeble Celestine III., he had been able in a few years
to reconquer the temporal domain of the Church, and so to
improve the papal influence as almost to realize the theo-
cratic dreams of Gregory VII. He had seen King Pedro
of Aragon declaring himself his vassal and laying his
crown upon the tomb of the apostles, that he might take
it back at his hands. At the other end of Europe, John
Lackland had been obliged to receive his crown from a
legate after having sworn homage, fealty, and an annual
tribute to the Holy See. Preaching union to the cities
and republics of Italy, causing the cry ITALIA ! ITALIA !
to resound like the shout of a trumpet, he was the natural
representative of the national awakening, and appeared to
be in some sort the suzerain of the emperor, as he was
already that of other kings. Finally, by his efforts to
purify the Church, by his indomitable firmness in defend.
1 3 Soc., 46 ; 1 Cel., 32 ; Bon., 34.
? 1 Cel., 33; 3 Soc., 53 ; Bon., 35.
ST. FRANCIS AND INNOCENT III
93
ing morality and law in the affair of Ingelburge and in
many others, he was gaining a moral strength which in
times so disquieted was all the more powerful for being
so rare.
But this incomparable power had its hidden dangers.
Occupied with defending the prerogatives of the Holy
See, Innocent came to forget that the Church does not
exist for herself, that her supremacy is only a transitory
means; and one part of his pontificate may be likened
co wars, legitimate in the beginning, in which the conque-
ror keeps on with depredations and massacres for no
reason, except that he is intoxicated with blood and suc-
cess.
!
And so Rome, which canonized the petty Celestine V.,
refused this supreme consecration to the glorious Inno-
cent III. With exquisite tact she perceived that he was
rather king than priest, rather pope than saint.
When he suppressed ecclesiastical disorders it was less
for love of good than for hatred of evil; it was the judge
who condemns or threatens, himself always supported
by the law, not the father who weeps his son's offence.
This priest did not comprehend the great movement of
his age—the awakening of love, of poetry, of liberty. I
have already said that at the opening of the thirteenth
century the Middle Age was twenty years old. Innocent
III. undertook to treat it as if it were only fifteen. Pos-
sessed by his civil and religious dogmas as others are by
their educational doctrines, he never suspected the un-
satisfied longings, the dreams, unreasoning perhaps, but
beneficent and divine, that were dumbly stirring in the
depths of men's hearts. He was a believer, although
certain sayings of the historians 1 open the door to some
St. Ludgarde (1182-1246) sees him condemned to Purgatory till the
Last Judgment. Life of this saint by Thomas of Catimpré in Surius :
Vitos SS. (1618), vi., 215-226.
94
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
doubts on this point, but he drew his religion rather from
the Old Testament than from the New, and if he often
thought of Moses, the leader of his people, nothing re-
minded him of Jesus, the shepherd of souls. One cannot
be everything; a choice intelligence, an iron will? are
a sufficient portion even for a priest-god; he lacked love.
The death of this pontiff, great among the great ones,
· was destined to be saluted with songs of joy.?
His reception of Francis furnished to Giotto, the
friend of Dante, one of his most striking frescos; the
pope, seated on his throne, turns abruptly toward Francis.
He frowns, for he does not understand, and yet he feels
a strange power in this mean and despised man, vilis et
despectus ; he makes a real but futile effort to compre-
hend, and now I see in this pope, who lived upon lemons,
something that recalls another choice mind, theocratic
like his own, sacrificed like him to his work: Calvin.
One might think that the painter had touched his lips to
the Calabrian Seer's cup, and that in the attitude of these
two men he sought to symbolize a meeting of represent-
atives of the two ages of humanity, that of Law and that
of Love.
A surprise awaited the pilgrims on their arrival in
3
1 Vir clari ingenii, magno probitatis et sapientice, cui nullus secundus
tempore suo : Rigordus, de gestis Philippi Augusti in Duchesne. His-
toriæ Francorum scriptores coætanei, t. V., p. 60.-Nec similem sui
scientia, facundia, decretorum et legum perititia, strenuitate, judiciorum
nec adhuc visus est habere sequentem. Cf. Mencken, Script. rer. Sax.,
Leipzig, 1728, t. iii., p. 252. Innocentius, qui vere stupor mundi erat
et immutator sæculi. Cotton, Hist. Anglicana, Luard, 1859, p. 107.
Cujus finis lætitiem potius quam tristitiam generavit subjectis. Al-
beric delle Tre Fontane. Leibnitz, Accessiones historicæ, t. ii., p. 492.
3 Decidit in acutam (febrem) quam cum multis diebus fovisset nec a
citris quibus in magna quantitatæ et ex consuetudine vescebatur
minime abstineret
ad ultimum in lethargia prolapsus vitam
finivit. Alberic delle Tre Fontane, loc. cit.
* Fresco in the great nave of the Upper Church of Assisi.
ST. FRANCIS AND INNOCENT III
95
Rome : they met the Bishop of Assisi, quite as much to
his astonishment as to their own. This detail is precious
because it proves that Francis had not confided his plans
to Guido. Notwithstanding this the bishop, it is said,
offered to make interest for them with the princes of the
Church. We may suspect that his commendations were
not very warm. At all events they did not avail to save
Francis and his company either from a searching inquiry
or from the extended fatherly counsels of Cardinal Gio-
vanni di San Paolo? upon the difficulties of the Rule,
counsels which strongly resemble those of Guido himself.3
What Francis asked for was simple enough; he claimed
no privilege of any sort, but only that the pope would
approve of his undertaking to lead a life of absolute con-
formity to the precepts of the gospel. There is a deli-
cate point here which it is quite worth while to see
clearly. The pope was not called upon to approve the
Rule, since that came from Jesus himself; at the very
worst all that he could do would be to lay an ecclesiasti-
p. 177.
11 Cel., 32 ; 3 Soc., 47.
? Of the Colonna family; he died in 1216. Cf. 3 Soc., 61. Vide Cardella,
Memorie storiche de Cardinali, 9 vols., 8vo, Rome, 1792 ff., t. i.,
He was at Rome in the summer of 1210, for on the 11th of August he
countersigned the bull Religiosem vitam. Potthast, 4061. Angelo Clareno
relates the approbation with more precision in certain respects : Cum
vero Summo Pontifici ea quæ postulabut [Franciscus) ardua valde et quasi
impossibilia viderentur infirmitate hominum sui temporis, exhortabatur
eum, quod aliquem ordinem vel regulam de approbatis assumeret, at ipse
se a Christo missum ad talem vitam et non aliam postulandam constanter
affirmans, ficus in sua petitione permansit. Tunc dominus Johannes de
sancto Paulo episcopus Sabinensis et dominus Hugo episcopus Hostiensis
Dei spiritu moti assisterunt Sancto Francisco et pro his quc petebat coram
summo Pontifice et Cardinalibus plura proposuerunt rationabilia et effica-
cia valde. Tribul. Laurentinian MS., f 6a. This intervention of
Ugolini is mentioned in no other document. It is, however, by no
means impossible. He also was in Rome in the summer of 1210. (Vide
Potthast, p. 462.)
3 1 Cel., 32 and 33; 3 Soc., 47 and 48. Cf. An. Per., A. SS., p. 590.
96
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
cal censure upon Francis and his companions for having
acted without authority, and to enjoin them to leave to
the secular and regular clergy the task of reforming the
Church.
Cardinal Giovanni di San Paolo, to whom the Bishop
of Assisi presented them, had informed himself of the
whole history of the Penitents. He lavished upon them
the most affectionate tokens of interest, even going so far
as to beg for a mention in their prayers. But such as-
surances, which appear to have been always the small
change of the court of Rome, did not prevent his examin-
ing them for several successive days,' and putting to them
an infinite number of questions, of which the conclusion
was always the advice to enter some Order already exist-
ing.
To this the unlucky Francis would reply as best he
could, often not without embarrassment, for he had no
wish to appear to think lightly of the cardinal's counsels,
and yet he felt in his heart the imperious desire to obey
his vocation. The prelate would then return to the
charge, insinuating that they would find it very hard to
persevere, that the enthusiasm of the early days would
pass away, and again pointing out a more easy course.
He was obliged in the end to own himself vanquished.
The persistence of Francis, who had never weakened for
an instant nor doubted his mission, begat in him a sort
of awe, while the perfect humility of the Penitents and
their simple and striking fidelity to the Roman Church
reassured him in the matter of heresy.
He announced to them, therefore, that he would speak
of them to the pope, and would act as their advocate with
him. According to the Three Companions he said to the
pope: “I have found a man of the highest perfection,
who desires to live in conformity with the Holy Gospel
11 Cel., 33.
ST. FRANCIS AND INNOCENT III
97
1
and observe evangelical perfection in all things. I be-
lieve that by him the Lord intends to reform the faith of
the Holy Church throughout the whole world.” 1
On the morrow he presented Francis and his compan-
ions to Innocent III. Naturally, the pope was not spar-
ing of expressions of sympathy, but he also repeated to
them the remarks and counsels which they had already
heard so often. “My dear children,” he said, "your life
appears to me too severe; I see indeed that your
fervor is too great for any doubt of you to be possible,
but I ought to consider those who shall come after you,
lest your mode of life should be beyond their strength."?
Adding a few kind words, he dismissed them without
coming to any definite conclusion, promising to consult the
cardinals, and advising Francis in particular to address
himself to God, to the end that he might manifest his will.
1 3 Soc.,
48.
2 3 Soc., 49; 1 Cel., 33; Bon., 35 and 36. All this has been much
worked over by tradition and gives us only an echo of the reality. It
would certainly have needed very little for the Penitents to meet the
same fate before Innocent III, as the Waldenses before Lucius III. Traces
of this interview are found in two texts which appear to me to be too
suspicious to warrant their insertion in the body of the narrative. The
first is a fragment of Matthew Paris : Papa itaque in fratre memorato
habitum deformem, vultum despicabilem, barbam prolixam, capillos in.
cultos, supercilia pendentia et nigra diligenter considerans ; cum peti-
tionem ejus tam arduam et executione impossibilem recitare fecisset, des-
pexit cum et dixit: Vade frater, et quære porcus, quibus potius debes
quam hominibus comparari, et involve te cum eis in volutabro, et regulam
illis a te commentatam tradens, officium tuc prædicationis impende.
Quod audiens Franciscus inclinato capite exivit et porcis tandem inventis,
in luto se cum eis tamdiu involvit quousque a planta pedis usque ad
verticem, corpus sylum totum cum ipso habitu polluisset. Sicque ad consis-
torium revertens Papce se conspectibus præsentavit dicens: Domine feci
sicut præcepisti exaudi nunc obsecro petitionem meam. Ed. Wats, p. 340.
The incident has a real Franciscan color, and should have some historio
basis. Curiously, it in some sort meets a passage in the legend of
Bonaventura which is an interpolation of the end of the thirteenth
century. See A. SS., p. 591.
3
98
LIFE OF ST. FRANOIS
Francis's anxiety must have been great; he could not
understand these dilatory measures, these expressions of
affection which never led to a categorical approbation.
It seemed to him that he had said all that he had to say.
For new arguments he had only one resource-prayer.
He felt his prayer answered when in his conversation
with Jesus the parable of poverty came to him; he re-
turned to lay it before the pope.
There was in the desert a woman who was very poor, but beautiful.
A great king, seeing her beauty, desired to take her for his wife, for he
thought that by her he should have beautiful children. The marriage
contracted and consummated, many sons were born to him. When they
were grown up, their mother spoke to them thus : “My sons, you have
no cause to blush, for you are the sons of the king ; go, therefore, to his
ourt, and he will give you everything you need."
When they arrived at the court the king admired their beauty, and
finding in them his own likeness he asked, “Whose sons are you?
And when they replied that they were the sons of a poor woman who
lived in the desert, the king clasped them to his heart with joy, saying
“Have no fear, for you are my sons; if strangers eat at my table, mucb.
more shall you who are my lawful sons. " Then the king sent word to
the woman to send to his court all the sons which she had borne, that
they might be nourished there.
“ “Very holy father," added Francis, “I am this poor woman whom
God in his love has deigned to make beautiful, and of whom he has been
pleased to have lawful sons. The King of Kings has told me that he
will provide for all the sons which he may have of me, for if he sus-
tains bastards, how much more his legitimate sons.
191
1 3 Soc., 50 and 51; Bon., 37; 2 Cel., 1, 11 ; Bernard de Besse,
Turin MS., fo 101b. Ubertini di Casali (Arbor vitæ crucifirce, Venice,
1485, lib. V., cap. iii.) tells a curious story in which he depicts the in-
dignation of the prelates against Francis. Quænam hæc est doctrina nova
quam infers auribus nostris? Quis potest vivere sine temporalium posses-
sione? Numquid tu melior es quam patres nostri qui dederunt nobis tem-
poralia et in temporalibus abundantes ecclesias possiderunt? Then follows
the fine prayer inserted by Wadding in Francis's works. The central
idea is the same as in the parable of poverty. This story, though not
referable to any source, has nevertheless its importance, since it shows
how in the year 1300 a man who had all the documents before his eyes,
represented to himself Francis's early steps.
ST. FRANCIS AND INNOCENT III
99
So níuch simplicity, joined with such pious obstinacy,
at last conquered Innocent. In the humble mendicant
he perceived an apostle and prophet whose mouth no
power could close. Successor of St. Peter and vicar
of Jesus Christ that he felt himself, he saw in the mean
and despised man before him one who with the authority
of absolute faith proclaimed himself the root of a new
lineage of most legitimate Christians.
The biographers have held that by this parable Francis
sought above all things to tranquillize the pope as to the
future of the brethren; they find in it a reply to the
anxieties of the pontiff, who feared to see them starve to
death. There can be no doubt that its original meaning
was totally different. It shows that with all his humility
Francis knew how to speak out boldly, and that all his
respect for the Church could not hinder his seeing, and,
when necessary, saying, that he and his brethren were
the lawful sons of the gospel, of which the members of
the clergy were only extranei. We shall find in the
course of his life more than one example of this indom-
itable boldness, which disarmed Innocent III. as well as
the future Gregory IX.
In a consistory which doubtless was held between the
two audiences some of the cardinals expressed the opin-
ion that the initiative of the Penitents of Assisi was an
innovation, and that their mode of life was entirely be-
yond human power. “But,” replied Giovanni di San
Paolo, “if we hold that to observe gospel perfection
and make profession of it is an irrational and impos-
sible innovation, are we not convicted of blasphemy
against Christ, the author of the gospel ?
These words struck Innocent III. with great force; he
knew better than any one that the possessions of the ec-
clesiastics were the great obstacles to the reform of the
i Bon., 36.
» 1
100
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
Church, and that the threatened success of the Albigen-
sian heresy was especially due to the fact that it preached
the doctrine of poverty.
Two years before he had accorded his approbation to
a group of Waldensians, who under the name Poor Cath-
olics had desired to remain faithful to the Church ;1 he
therefore gave his approval to the Penitents of Assisi, but,
as a contemporary chronicler has well observed, it was in
the hope that they would wrest the banner from heresy.?
Yet his doubts and hesitations were not entirely dis-
sipated. He reserved his definitive approbation, there-
fore, while lavishing upon the brothers the most affec-
tionate tokens of interest. He authorized them to con-
tinue their missions everywhere, after having gained the
consent of their ordinaries. He required, however, that
they should give themselves a responsible superior to
whom the ecclesiastical authorities could always address
themselves. Naturally, Francis was chosen. This fact,
so humble in appearance, definitively constituted the
Franciscan family.
| The attempt of Durand of Huesca to create a mendicant order has
not yet been studied with sufficient minuteness. Chief of the Wal-
denses of Aragon, he was present in 1207 at the conference of Pamiers,
and decided to return to the Church. Received with kindness by the
pope he at first had a great success, and by 1209 had established com-
munities in Aragon, at Carcassonne, Narbonne, Béziers, Nimes, Uzès,
Milan. We find in this movement all the lineaments of the institute
of St. Dominic; it was an order of priests to whom theological stud-
ies were recommended. They disappeared almost completely in the
storm of the Albigensian crusade. Innocent III., epistolce, xi., 196,
197, 198, ; xii., 17, 66 ; xiii., 63, 77, 78,94 ; XV., 82, 83, 90, 91, 92, 93,
94, 96, 137, 146. The first of these bulls contains the very curious Rule
of this ephemeral order. Upon its disappearance vide Ripoli, Bullarium
Prædicatorum, 8 vols., folio, Rome, 1729–1740, t. i., p. 96. Cf. Elie
Berger, Registres d'Innocent IV., 2752.
? Burchard, of the order of the Premostrari, who died in 1226. See
below, p. 234.
33 Soc., 52 ; Bon., 38.
ST. FRANCIS AND INNOCENT III
101
The mystics whom we saw going from village to vil-
lage transported with love and liberty accepted the yoke
almost without thinking about it. This yoke will pre-
serve them from the disintegration of the heretics, but it
will make itself sharply felt by those pure souls; they
will one day look back to the early days of the Order as
the only time when their life was truly conformed to the
gospel.
When Francis heard the words of the supreme pontiff
he prostrated himself at his feet, promising the most
perfect obedience with all his heart. The pope blessed
them, saying: “Go, my brethren, and may God be with
you. Preach penitence to everyone according as the
Lord may deign to inspire you.
Then when the All-
powerful shall have made you multiply and go forward,
you will refer to us; we will concede what you ask, and
we may then with greater security accord to you even
more than you ask.” 1
Francis and his companions were too little familiar
with Roman phraseology to perceive that after all the
Holy See had simply consented to suspend judgment in
view of the uprightness of their intentions and the purity
of their faith.
The flowers of clerical rhetoric hid from them the
shackles which had been laid upon them. The curia, in
fact, was not satisfied with Francis's vow of fidelity, it
desired in addition to stamp the Penitents with the seal
of the Church : the Cardinal of San Paolo was deputed to
confer upon them the tonsure. From this time they were
all under the spiritual authority of the Roman Church.
2
13 Soc., 52 and 49.
St. Antonino, Archbishop of Florence, saw very clearly that it was
quædam concessio simplex habitus et modi illius vivendi et quasi permissio.
A. SS., p. 839. The expression “ approbation of the Rule" by which
the act of Innocent III, is usually designated is therefore erroneous.
102
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
All un-
The thoroughly lay creation of St. Francis had become,
in spite of himself, an ecclesiastical institution : it must
soon degenerate into a clerical institution.
awares, the Franciscan movement had been unfaithful to
its origin. The prophet had abdicated in favor of the
priest, not indeed without possibility of return, for when
a man has once reigned, I would say, thought, in liberty-
what other kingdom is there on this earth ?-he makes
but an indifferent slave; in vain he tries to submit; in
spite of himself it happens at times that he lifts his
head proudly, he rattles his chains, he remembers the
struggles, sadness, anguish of the days of liberty, and
weeps their loss. Among the sons of St. Francis many
were destined to weep their lost liberty, many to die to
conquer it again.
CHAPTER VII
RIVO-TORTO
1210-1211
THE Penitents of Assisi were overflowing with joy.
After so many mortally long days spent in that Rome,
so different from the other cities that they knew, exposed
to the ill-disguised suspicions of the prelates and the
jeers of pontifical lackeys, the day of departure seemed
to them like a deliverance. At the thought of once more
seeing their beloved mountains they were seized by that
homesickness of the child for its native village which sim-
ple and kindly souls preserve till their latest breath.
Immediately after the ceremony they prayed at the
tomb of St. Peter, and then crossing the whole city they
quitted Rome by the Porta Salara.
Thomas of Celano, very brief as to all that concerns
Francis's sojourn in the Eternal City, recounts at full
length the light-heartedness of the little band on quitting
it. Already it began to be transfigured in their memory;
pains, fatigues, fears, disquietude, hesitations were all
forgotten; they thought only of the fatherly assurances
of the supreme pontiff-the vicar of Christ, the lord and
father of the Christian universe — and promised them-
selves to make ever new efforts to follow the Rule with
fidelity.
Full of these thoughts they had set out, without pro-
visions, to cross the Campagna of Rome, whose few inhab-
itants never venture out in the heat of the day. The
104
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
road stretches away northward, keeping at some distance
from the Tiber; on the left the jagged crest of Soracte,
bathed in mists formed by the exhalations of the earth,
looms up disproportionately as it fades in the distance; on
the right, the everlasting undulations of the hillocks with
their wide pastures separated by thickets so parched and
ragged that they seemed to cry for mercy and pardon.
Between them the dusty road which goes straight forward,
implacable, showing, as far as the eye can reach, nothing
but the quivering of the fiery air. Not a house, not a
tree, not a passing breeze, nothing to sustain the traveller
under the disquietude which creeps over him. Here and
there are
a few abandoned huts, their ruins looking
like the corpses of departed civilizations, and on the edge
of the horizon the hills rising up like gigantic and un-
surmountable walls.
There are no words to describe the physical and moral
sufferings to which he is exposed who undertakes without
proper preparation to cross this inhospitable district.
To the weakness caused by lack of air soon succeeds an
insurmountable lassitude. The feet sink in a soft, tenu-
ous dust which every step sends up in clouds ; it covers
you, penetrates your skin, and parches your mouth even
more than thirst. Little by little all energy ebbs away,
a dumb dejection seizes you, sight and thought become
alike confused, fever ensues, and you cast yourself down
by the roadside, unable to take another step.
In their haste to leave Rome Francis and his compan-
ions had forgotten all this, and had imprudently set forth.
They would have succumbed if a chance traveller had
not brought them succor. He was obliged to leave them
before they had shaken off the last hallucinations of fe-
ver, leaving them amazed with the unexpected succor
which Providence had sent them.1
11 Cel., 34; 3 Soc., 53 ; 3on., 39.
RIVO-TORTO
105
They were so severely shattered that on arriving at Orte
they were obliged to stop awhile. In a desert spot not
far from this city they found a shelter admirably adapted
to serve them for refuge ;1 it was one of those Etruscan
tombs so common in that country, whose chambers serve
to this day as a shelter for beggars and gypsies. While
some of the brethren hastened to the city to beg for food,
the others remained in this solitude enjoying the happi-
ness of being together, forming a thousand plans, and
more than ever delighting in the charm of freedom from
care and renunciation of material goods.
This place had so strong an attraction for them that it
required an effort of will to quit it at the end of a fort-
night. The seduction of a life purely contemplative as-
sailed Francis, and he asked himself if instead of preach-
ing to the multitudes he would not do better to live in
retreat, solely mindful of the inward dialogue between
the soul and God.2
This aspiration for the selfish repose of the cloister
came back to him several times in his life ; but love al-
ways won the victory. He was too much the child of his
time not to be at times tempted by that happiness which
the Middle Ages regarded as the supreme bliss of the
elect in paradise-peace. Beati mortui quia quiescunt !
His distinguishing peculiarity is that he never gave way
to it.
The reflections of Francis and his companions during
their stay at Orte only made their apostolic mission
more clear and imperative to them. He, above all, seemed
to be filled with a new ardor, and like a valiant knight
he burned to throw himself into the thick of the fray.
1
Probably at Otricoli, which lies on the high-road between Rome and
Spoleto. Orte is an hour and a half further on. It is the ancient Otric-
ulum, where many antiquities have been found.
? 1 Cel., 35; Bon., 40 and 41.
106
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
Their way now led through the valley of the Nera.
The contrast between these cool glens, awake with a
thousand voices, and the desolation of the Roman Cam-
pagna, must have struck them vividly; the stream is only
a swollen torrent, but it runs so noisily over pebbles and
rocks that it seems to be conversing with them and with
the trees of the neighboring forest. In proportion as they
had felt themselves alone on the road from Rome to
Otricoli, they now felt themselves compassed about with
the life, the fecundity, the gayety of the country.
The account of Thomas of Celano becomes so ani-
mated as it describes the life of Francis at this epoch
that one cannot help thinking that at this time he must
have seen him, and that this first meeting remained al-
ways in his memory as the radiant dawn of his spiritual
life.1
The Brothers had taken to preaching in such places
as they came upon along their route. Their words were
always pretty much the same, they showed the blessed-
ness of peace and exhorted to penitence. Emboldened by
the welcome they had received at Rome, which in all in-
nocence they might have taken to be more favorable than
it really was, they told the story to everyone they met,
and thus set all scruples at rest.
These exhortations, in which Francis spared not his
hearers, but in which the sternest reproaches were min-
gled with so much of love, produced an enormous effect.
Man desires above all things to be loved, and when he
meets one who loves him sincerely he very seldom re-
fuses him either his love or his admiration.
It is only a low understanding that confounds love
with weakness and compliance. We sometimes see sick
1 The only road connecting Celano with Rome, as well as with all
Central and Northern Italy, passes by Aquila, Rieti, and Terni, where it
joins the high-roads leading from the north toward Rome.
RIVO-TORTO
107
men feverishly kissing the hand of the surgeon who per-
forms an operation upon them; we sometimes do the
same for our spiritual surgeons, for we realize all that
there is of vigor, pity, compassion in the tortures which
they inflict, and the cries which they force from us are
quite as much of gratitude as of pain.
Men hastened from all parts to hear these preachers
who were more severe upon themselves than on anyone
else. Members of the secular clergy, monks, learned men,
rich men even, often mingled in the impromptu audiences
gathered in the streets and public places. All were not
converted, but it would have been very difficult for any
of them to forget this stranger whom they met one day
upon their way, and who in a few words had moved them
to the very bottom of their hearts with anxiety and fear.
Francis was in truth, as Celano says, the bright morn-
ing star. His simple preaching took hold on consciences,
snatched his hearers from the mire and blood in which
they were painfully trudging, and in spite of themselves
carried them to the very heavens, to those serene regions
where all is silent save the voice of the heavenly Father.
“The whole country trembled, the barren land was already
covered with a rich harvest, the withered vine began again
to blossom." 1
Only a profoundly religious and poetic soul (is not the
one the other?) can understand the transports of joy
which overflowed the souls of St. Francis's spiritual sons.
The greatest crime of our industrial and commercial
civilization is that it leaves us a taste only for that which
may be bought with money, and makes us overlook the
purest and truest joys which are all the time within our
reach. The evil has roots far in the past. “Wherefore,
said the God of old Isaiah,“ do you weigh money for
that which is not meat ? why labor for that which satis-
11 Cel., 36 and 37; 3 Soc., 54; Bon., 45-48.
10€
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
fieth not? Hearken unto me, and ye shall eat that
which is good, and your soul shall delight itself in fat-
ness.” 1
Joys bought with money-noisy, feverish pleasures
are nothing compared with those sweet, quiet, modest but
profound, lasting, and peaceful joys, enlarging, not weary-
ing the heart, which we too often pass by on one side,
like those peasants whom we see going into ecstasies
over the fireworks of a fair, while they have not so
much as a glance for the glorious splendors of a sum-
mer night.
In the plain of Assisi, at an hour's walk from the city
and near the highway between Perugia and Rome, was a
ruinous cottage called Rivo-Torto. A torrent, almost
always dry, but capable of becoming terrible in a storm,
descends from Mount Subasio and passes beside it. The
ruin had no owner; it had served as a leper hospital
before the construction by the Crucigeri? of their hospital
1 Isaiah, lv., 2.
2 This Order deserves to be better known ; it was founded under
Alexander III. and rapidly spread all over Central Italy and the East.
In Francis's lifetime it had in Italy and the Holy Land about forty
houses dedicated to the care of lepers. It is very probable that it was at
San Salvatore delle pareti that Francis visited these unhappy sufferers.
He there made the particular acquaintance of a Cruciger named Morico.
The latter afterward falling ill, Francis sent him a remedy which would
cure him, informing him at the same time that he was to become his
disciple, which shortly afterward took place. The hospital San Salva-
tore has disappeared ; it stood in the place now called Ospedaletto, where
a small chapel now stands half way between Assisi and Santa Maria
degli Angeli. It was from there that the dying Francis blessed Assisi.
For Morico vide 3 Soc., 35 ; Bon., 49; 2 Cel., 3, 128 ; Conform., 63b.-
For the hospital vide Bon., 49 ; Conform., 135a, 1; Honorii III. opera,
Horoy, t. i., col. 206. Cf. Potthast, 7746 ; L. Auvray, Registres de Grégoire
IX., Paris, 1890, 4to, no. 209. For the Crucigeri in the time of St.
Francis vide the interesting bull Cum tu fili prior, of July 8,
Migne, Inn. op., t. ii., col. 125 ff. Cf. Potthast, 1959, and Cum pastoris,
April 5, 1204 · Migne, loc. cit., 319. Cf. Potthast, 2169 and 4474.
1203 ;
RIVO-TORTO
109
San Salvatore delle pareti; but since that time it had
been abandoned. Now came Francis and his companions
to seek shelter there. It is one of the quietest spots in
the suburbs of Assisi, and from thence they could easily
go out into the neighborhood in all directions; it being
about an equal distance from Portiuncula and St. Da-
mian. But the principal motive for the choice of the
place seems to have been the proximity of the Carceri, as
those shallow natural grottos are called which are found
in the forests, half way up the side of Mount Subasio.
Following up the bed of the torrent of Rivo-Torto one
reaches them in an hour by way of rugged and slippery
paths where the very goats do not willingly venture.
Once arrived, one might fancy oneself a thousand leagues
from any human being, so numerous are the birds of prey
which live here quite undisturbed.?
Francis loved this solitude and often retired thither
with a few companions. The brethren in that case shared
between them all care of their material wants, after which,
each one retiring into one of these caves, they were able
for a few days to listen only to the inner voice.
These little hermitages, sufficiently isolated to secure
them from disturbance, but near enough to the cities
to 'permit their going thither to preach, may be found
wherever Francis went. They form, as it were, a series
of documents about his life quite as important as the
written witnesses. Something of his soul may still be
found in these caverns in the Apennine forests. He
never separated the contemplative from the active life.
A precious witness to this fact is found in the regu-
'3 Soc., 55.
2 All this yet remains in its primitive state. The road which went
from Assisi to the now ruined Abbey of Mount Subasio (almost on the
summit of the mountain) passed the Carceri, where there was a little
chapel built by the Benedictinus.
110
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
1
lations for the brethren during their sojourn in her-
mitage.
The return of the Brothers to Rivo-Torto was marked
by a vast increase of popularity. The prejudiced attacks
to which they had formerly been subjected were lost in
a chorus of praises. Perhaps men suspected the ill-will
of the bishop and were happy to see him checked. How-
ever this may be, a lively feeling of sympathy and admi-
ration was awakened ; the people recalled to mind the
indifference manifested by the son of Bernardone a few
months before with regard to Otho IV. going to be
crowned at Rome. The emperor had made a progress
through Italy with a numerous suite and a pomp de-
signed to produce an effect on the minds of the populace;
but not only had Francis not interrupted his work to go
and see him, he had enjoined upon his friars also to ab-
stain from going, and had merely selected one of them to
carry to the monarch a reminder of the ephemeral nature
of worldly glory. Later on it was held that he had pre-
dicted to the emperor his approaching excommunication.
This spirited attitude made a vivid impression on the
popular imagination. Perhaps it was of more service
in forming general opinion than anything he had done
thus far. The masses, who are not often alive to delicate
sentiments, respond quickly to those who, whether rightly
or wrongly, do not bow down before power. This time
they perceived that where other men would see the poor,
the rich, the noble, the common, the learned, Francis
1 Illi qui religiose volunt stare in eremis sint tres aut quatuor ad plus.
Duo ex ipsis sint matres, et habeant duos filios, vel unum ad minus.
Illi duo teneant vitam Marthe et alii duo vitam Marice Magdalenæ.
Assisi MS., 338, 43a-b ; text given also in Conf., 143a, 1, from which
Wadding borrows it for his edition of the Opuscules of St. Francis.
Cf. 2 Cel., 3, 113. It is possible that we have here a fragment of the
Rule, which must have been composed toward 1217.
? 1 Cel., 42 and 43 ; 3 Soc., 55 ; Bon., 41.
RIVO-TORTO
111
saw only souls, which were to him the more precious as
they were more neglected or despised.
No biographer informs us how long the Penitents re-
mained at Rivo-Torto. It seems probable, however, that
they spent there the latter part of 1210 and the early
months of 1211, evangelizing the towns and villages of
the neighborhood.
They suffered much; this part of the plain of Assisi is
inundated by torrents nearly every autumn, and many
times the poor friars, blockaded in the lazaretto, were
forced to satisfy their hunger with a few roots from the
neighboring fields.
The barrack in which they lived was so narrow that,
when they were all there at once, they had much diffi-
culty not to crowd one another. To secure to each one
his due quota of space, Francis wrote the name of each
brother upon the column which supports the building.
But these minor discomforts in no sense disturbed their
happiness. No apprehension had as yet come to cloud
Francis's hopes ; he was overflowing with joy and kind-
liness; all the memories which Rivo-Torto has left with
the Order are fresh and sweet pictures of him.
One night all the brethren seemed to be sleeping, when
he heard a moaning. It was one of his sheep, to speak
after the manner of the Franciscan biographer, who had
denied himself too rigorously and was dying of hunger.
Francis immediately rose, called the brother to him,
brought forth the meagre reserve of food, and himself
began to eat to inspire the other with courage, explaining
to him that if penitence is good it is still necessary to
temper it with discretion.?
11 Cel., 42-44.
* 2 Cel., 1,15; Bon., 65. These two authors do not say where the event
f.ook place ; but there appears to be no reason for suspecting the indica
won of Rivo-Torto given by the Speculum, fo. 21a.
112
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
Francis had that tact of the heart which divines the
secrets of others and anticipates their desires. At an-
other time, still at Rivo-Torto, he took a sick brother
by the hand, led him to a grape vine, and, presenting
him with a fine cluster, began himself to eat of it. It
was nothing, but the simple act so bound to him the
sick man's heart that many years after the brother could
not speak of it without emotion."
But Francis was far from neglecting his mission. Ever
growing more sure, not of himself but of his duty toward
men, he took part in the political and social affairs of his
province with the confidence of an upright and pure
heart, never able to understand how stupidity, per-
verseness, pride, and indolence, by leaguing themselves
together, may check the finest and most righteous im-
pulses. He had the faith which removes mountains, and
was wholly free from that touch of scepticism, so com-
mon in our day, which points out that it is of no more
use to move mountains than to change the place of
difficulties.
When the people of Assisi learned that his Rule had
been approved by the pope there was strong excitement;
every one desired to hear him preach. The clergy were
obliged to give way; they offered him the Church of St.
George, but this church was manifestly insufficient for
the crowds of hearers; it was necessary to open the
cathedral to him.
St. Francis never said anything especially new; to win
hearts he had that which is worth more than any arts of
oratory--an ardent conviction; he spoke as compelled
by the imperious need of kindling others with the flame
that burned within himself. When they heard him recall
the horrors of war, the crimes of the populace, the laxity
of the great, the rapacity which dishonored the Church,
' 2 Cel., 3, 110. Cf. Spec., 22a.
RIVO-TORTO
113
the age-long widowhood of Poverty, each one felt himself
taken to task in his own conscience.
An attentive or excited crowd is always very impres-
sionable, but this peculiar sensitiveness was perhaps
stronger in the Middle Ages than at any other time.
Nervous disturbances were in the air, and upon men
thus prepared the will of the preacher impressed itself in
a manner almost magnetic.
To understand what Francis's preaching must have
been like we must forget the manners of to-day, and
transport ourselves for a moment to the Cathedral of
Assisi in the thirteenth century; it is still standing, but
the centuries have given to its stones a fine rust of pol-
ished bronze, which recalls Venice and Titian's tones of
ruddy gold. It was new then, and all sparkling with
whiteness, with the fine rosy tinge of the stones of
Mount Subasio. It had been built by the people of
Assisi a few years before in one of those outbursts
of faith and union which were almost everywhere the
prelude of the communal movement. So, when the peo-
ple thronged into it on their high days, they not merely
had none of that vague respect for a holy place which,
though it has passed into the customs of other countries,
still continues to be unknown in Italy, but they felt
themselves at home in a palace which they had built for
themselves. More than in any other church they there
felt themselves at liberty to criticise the preacher, and
they had no hesitation in proving to him, either by mur-
murs of dissatisfaction or by applause, just what they
thought of his words. We must remember also that the
churches of Italy have neither pews nor chairs, that one
must listen standing or kneeling, while the preacher
walks about gesticulating on a platform; add to this the
general curiosity, the clamorous sympathies of many, the
disguised opposition of some, and we shall have a vague
8
114
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
notion of the conditions under which Francis first entered
the pulpit of San Rufino.
His success was startling. The poor felt that they had
found a friend, a brother, a champion, almost an avenger.
The thoughts which they hardly dared murmur beneath
their breath Francis proclaimed at the top of his voice,
daring to bid all, without distinction, to repent and love
bne another. His words were a cry of the heart, an ap-
peal to the consciences of all his fellow-citizens, almost
recalling the passionate utterances of the prophets of
Israel. Like those witnesses for Jehovah the little
poor
man ” of Assisi had put on sackcloth and ashes to de-
nounce the iniquities of his people, like theirs was his
courage and heroism, like theirs the divine tenderness in
his heart.
It seemed as if Assisi were about to recover again the
feeling of Israel for sin. The effect of these appeals was
prodigious; the entire population was thrilled, conquered,
desiring in future to live only according to Francis's
counsels; his very companions, who had remained behind
at Rivo-Torto, hearing of these marvels, felt in them-
selves an answering thrill, and their vocation took on a
new strength; during the night they seemed to see their
master in a chariot of fire, soaring to heaven like a new
Elijah."
This almost delirious enthusiasm of a whole people
was not perhaps so difficult to arouse as might be sup-
posed: the emotional power of the masses was at that
time as great all over Europe as it was in Paris during
certain days of the Revolution. We all know the tragic
and touching story of those companies of children from
the north of Europe who appeared in 1212 in troops of
several thousands, boys and girls mingled together pell-
mell. Nothing could stop them, a mania had overtaken
11 Cel., 47 ; Bon., 43.
RIVO-TORTO
115
them, in all good faith they believed that they were to
deliver the Holy Land, that the sea would be dried up
to let them pass. They perished, we hardly know how, ,
perhaps being sold into slavery. They were accounted
martyrs, and rightly; popular devotion likened them to
the Holy Innocents, dying for a God whom they knew
not. These children of the crusade also perished for an
unknown ideal, false no doubt; but is it not better to
die for an unknown and even a false ideal than to live
for the vain realities of an utterly unpoetic existence? In
the end of time we shall be judged neither by philoso-
phers nor by theologians, and if we were, it is to be hoped
that even in this case love would cover a multitude of
sins and pass by many follies.
Certainly if ever there was a time when religious affec-
tions of the nerves were to be dreaded, it was that which
produced such movements as these. All Europe seemed
to be beside itself; women appeared stark naked in the
streets of towns and villages, slowly walking up and
down, silent as phantoms. We can understand now the
1 There are few events of the thirteenth century that offer more docu-
ments or are more obscure than this one. The chroniclers of the most
diſferent countries speak of it at length. Here is one of the shortest but
most exact of the notices, given by an eye-witness (Annals of Genoa
of the years 1197–1219, apud Mon. Germ. hist. Script., t. 18): 1212 in
mense Augusti, die Sabbati, octava Kalendarum Septembris, intravit civi-
tutem Janue quidam puer Teutonicus nomine Nicholaus peregrinationis
causa, et cum eo multitudo maxima pelegrinorum defferentes cruces et bor.
donos atque scarsellas ultra septem millia arbitratu boni viri inter homines
et feminas et puellos et puellus. Et die dominica sequenti de civitate
exierunt. —Cf. Giacomo di Viraggio : Muratori, t. ix., col. 46 : Dicebant
quod mare debebat apud Januam siccari et sic ipsi debebant in Hierusalem
proficisci. Multi autem inter eos erant filii Nobilium, quos ipsi etiam cum
meretricibus destinarunt (!) The most tragic account is that of Alberic,
who relates the fate of the company that embarked at Marseilles. Mon.
Ger. hist. Script., t. 23, p. 894.
? The Benedictine chronicler, Albert von Stade (Mon. Ger. hist.
Script., t. 16, pp. 271-379), thus closes his notice of the children's cra
116
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
accounts which have come down to us, so fantastic at the
first glance, of certain popular orators of this time; of
Berthold of Ratisbon, for example, who drew together
crowds of sixteen thousand persons, or of that Fra Gio-
vanni Schio di Vicenza, who for a time quieted all North-
ern Italy and brought Guelphs and Ghibellines into one
another's arms. 1
That popular eloquence which was to accomplish so
many marvels in 1233 comes down in a straight line from
the Franciscan movement. It was St. Francis who set
the example of those open-air sermons given in the vul-
gar tongue, at street corners, in public squares, in the
fields.
To feel the change which he brought about we must
read the sermons of his contemporaries; declamatory,
scholastic, subtile, they delighted in the minutiæ of exe-
gesis or dogma, serving up refined dissertations on the
most obscure texts of the Old Testament, to hearers starv-
ing for a simple and wholesome diet.
With Francis, on the contrary, all is incisive, clear,
practical. He pays no attention to the precepts of the
rhetoricians, he forgets himself completely, thinking only
of the end desired, the conversion of souls. And con-
version was not in his view something vague and indis-
tinct, which must take place only between God and the
hearer. No, he will have immediate and practical proofs
of conversion. Men must give up ill-gotten gains, re-
nounce their enmities, be reconciled with their adver-
saries.
sade: Adhuc quo devenerint ignoruntur sed plurimi redierunt, a quibus
cum quæreretur causa cursus dixerunt se nescire. Nudo etiam mulieres
circa idem tempus nihil loquentes per villas et civitates cucurrerunt. Loc.
cit., p. 355.
1 Chron. Veronese, ann. 1238 (Muratori, Scriptores Rer. Ital., t. viii.,
p. 626). Cf. Barbarano de' Mironi: Hist. Eccles. di Vicenza, t. ii., pp.
79-84.
RIVO-TORTO
117
At Assisi he threw himself valiantly into the thick of
civil dissensions. The agreement of 1202 between the
parties who divided the city had been wholly ephemeral.
The common people were continually demanding new
liberties, which the nobles and burghers would yield to
them only under the pressure of fear. Francis took up
the cause of the weak, the minores, and succeeded in rec-
onciling them with the rich, the majores.
His spiritual family had not as yet, properly speaking,
a name, for, unlike those too hasty spirits who baptize
their productions before they have come to light, he
was waiting for the occasion that should reveal the true
name which he ought to give it. One day someone was
reading the Rule in his presence. When he came to the
passage, “Let the brethren, wherever they may find them-
selves called to labor or to serve, never take an office
which shall put them over others, but on the contrary,
let them be always under (sint minores) all those who
may be in that house," 2 these words sint minores of the
Rule, in the circumstances then existing in the city,
suddenly appeared to him as a providential indication.
His institution should be called the Order of the Brothers
Minor
We may imagine the effect of this determination. The
Saint, for already this magic word had burst forth where
he appeared, the Saint had spoken. It was he who was
about to bring peace to the city, acting as arbiter be-
tween the two factions which rent it.
We still possess the document of this pace civile, ex-
1 The Brothers were at first called Viri pænitentiales de civitate As-
sisië (3 Soc., 37) ; it appears that they had a momentary thought of call-
ing themselves Pauperes de Assisio, but they were doubtless dissuaded
from this át Rome, as too closely resembling that of the Pauperes de
Lugduno. Vide Burchardi chronicon., p. 376 ; vide Introd., cap. 5.
? Vide Rule of 1221, cap. 7. Cf. 1 Cel., 38, and Bon., 78.
1 Col., 36.
3
118
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
humed, so to speak, from the communal archives of As-
sisi by the learned and pious Antonio Cristofani. The
opening lines are as follows:
" In the name of God!
"May the supreme grace of the Holy Spirit assist us! To the honor
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the blessed Virgin Mary, the Emperor Otho,
and Duke Leopold.
“This is the statute and perpetual agreement between the Majori and
Minori of Assisi.
“Without common consent there shall never be any sort of alliance
either with the pope and his nuncios or legates, or with the emperor,
or with the king, or with their nuncios or legates, or with any city or
town, or with any important person, except with a common accord they
shall do all which there may be to do for the honor, safety, and advan-
tage of the commune of Assisi,"
What follows is worthy of the beginning. The lords,
in consideration of a small periodical payment, should
renounce all the feudal rights; the inhabitants of the
villages subject to Assisi were put on a par with those
of the city, foreigners were protected, the assessment of
taxes was fixed. On Wednesday, November 9, 1210, this
agreement was signed and sworn to in the public place
of Assisi ; it was made in such good faith that exiles were
able to return in peace, and from this day we find in the
city registers the names of those émigrés who, in 1202,
had betrayed their city and provoked the disastrous war
with Perugia. Francis might well be happy. Love had
triumphed, and for several years there were at Assisi
neither victors nor vanquished.
In the mystic marriages which here and there in his-
tory unite a man to a people, something takes place of
which the transports of sense, the delirium of love, seem
to be the only symbol; a moment comes in which saints,
· Storia d'Assisi, t. l., pp. 123–129.
RIVO-TORTO
119
or men of genius, feel unknown powers striving mightily
within them; they strive, they seek, they struggle until,
triumphing over all obstacles, they have forced trembling,
swooning humanity to conceive by them.
This moment had come to St. Francis
CHAPTER VITT
PORTIUNCULA
1211
It was doubtless toward the spring of 1211 that the
Brothers quitted Rivo-Torto. They were engaged in
prayer one day, when a peasant appeared with an ass,
which he noisily drove before him into the poor shelter.
“Go in, go in!” he cried to his beast; "we shall be
most comfortable here.” It appeared that he was afraid
that if the Brothers remained there much longer they
would begin to think this deserted place was their own.1
Such rudeness was very displeasing to Francis, who im-
mediately arose and departed, followed by his compan-
ions.
Now that they were so numerous the Brothers could
no longer continue their wandering life in all respects as
in the past; they had need of a permanent shelter and
above all of a little chapel. They addressed themselves
in vain first to the bishop and then to the canons of San
Rufino for the loan of what they needed, but were more
fortunate with the abbot of the Benedictines of Mount
Subasio, who ceded to them in perpetuity the use of a
chapel already very dear to their hearts, Santa Maria degli
Angeli or the Portiuncula.
Francis was enchanted; he saw a mysterious harmo-
11 Cel., 44 ; 3 Soc., 55.
* 3 Soc., 56 ; Spec., 32b; Conform., 217b, 1; Fior. Bibl. Angelo,
Amoni, p. 378.
PORTIUNCULA
121
ny, ordained by God himself, between the name of the
humble sanctuary and that of his Order. The brethren
quickly built for themselves a few huts; a quickset hedge
served as enclosing wall, and thus in three or four days
was organized the first Franciscan convent.
For ten years they were satisfied with this. These ten
years are the heroic period of the Order. St. Francis, in
full possession of his ideal, will seek to inculcate it upon
his disciples and will succeed sometimes; but already the
too rapid multiplication of the brotherhood will provoke
some symptoms of relaxation.
The remembrance of the beginning of this period has
drawn from the lips of Thomas of Celano a sort of can-
ticle in honor of the monastic life. It is the burning and
untranslatable commentary of the Psalmist's cry: “Behold
how sweet and pleasant it is to be brethren and to dwell to-
gether."
Their cloister was the forest which then extended on all
sides of Portiuncula, occupying a large part of the plain.
There they gathered around their master to receive his
spiritual counsels, and thither they retired to meditate
and pray. It would be a gross mistake, however, to sup-
pose that contemplation absorbed them completely dur-
ing the days which were not consecrated to missionary
tours: a part of their time was spent in manual labor.
The intentions of St. Francis have been more misap-
prehended on this point than on any other, but it may be
said that nowhere is he more clear than when he ordains
that his friars shall gain their livelihood by the work of
their hands. He never dreamed of creating a mendicant
order, he created a laboring order. It is true we shall
often see him begging and urging his disciples to do as
much, but these incidents ought not to mislead us; they
1 This forest has disappeared. Some of Francis's counsels have been
collected in the Admonitions. See 1 Cel., 37-41.
f
122
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
are meant to teach that when a friar arrived in any
locality and there spent his strength for long days in
dispensing spiritual bread to famished souls, he ought
not to blush to receive material bread in exchange. To
work was the rule, to beg the exception; but this excep-
tion was in nowise dishonorable. Did not Jesus, the
Virgin, the disciples live on bread bestowed ? Was it
not rendering a great service to those to whom they re-
sorted to teach them charity ?
Francis in his poetic language gave the name of mensa
Domini, the table of the Lord, to this table of love
around which gathered the little poor ones. The bread
of charity is the bread of angels; and it is also that of the
birds, which reap not nor gather into barns.
We are far enough, in this case, from that mendicity
which is understood as a means of existence and the
essential condition of a life of idleness. It is the oppo-
site extreme, and we are true and just to St. Francis and
to the origin of the mendicant orders only when we do
not separate the obligation of labor from the praise of
mendicity.
No doubt this zeal did not last long, and Thomas of
Celano already entitles his chapters, “ Lament before God
over the idleness and gluttony of the friars ; ” but we must
not permit this speedy and inevitable decadence to veil
from our sight the holy and manly beauty of the origin.
With all his gentleness Francis knew how to show an
inflexible severity toward the idle; he even went so far
as to dismiss a friar who refused to work. Nothing in
| Vide Angelo Clareno, Tribul. cod. Laur., 3b.
9 2 Cel., 3, 97 and 98. The Conformities, 142a, 1, cite textually 97
as coming from the Legenda Antiqua. Cf. Spec., 64b.—2 Cel., 3, 21.
Cf. Conform., 171a, 1; Spec., 19b. See especially Rule of 1221, cap. 7;
Rule of 1223, cap. 5; the Will and 3 Soc. 41. The passage, liceat eis
habere ferramenta et instrumenta suis artibus necessaria, sufficiently
proves that certain friars had real trades.
PORTIUNCULA
123
- Alla
this matter better shows the intentions of the Poverello
than the life of Brother Egidio, one of his dearest com-
panions, him of whom he said with a smile: “He is one
· of the paladins of my Round Table.”
Brother Egidio had a taste for great adventures, and is
a living example of a Franciscan of the earliest days; he
survived his master twenty-five years, and never ceased
to obey the letter and spirit of the Rule with freedom and
simplicity
We find him one day setting out on a pilgrimage to
the Holy Land. Arrived at Brindisi, he borrowed a
water-jug that he might carry water while he was awaiting
the departure of the ship, and passed a part of every
day in crying through the streets of the city :
fresca ! Alla fresca ! ” like other water-carriers. But he
would change his trade according to the country and the
circumstances; on his way back, at Ancona, he procured
willow for making baskets, which he afterward sold, not
for money but for his food. It even happened to him to
be employed in burying the dead.
Sent to Rome, every morning after finishing his relig-
ious duties, he would take a walk of several leagues, to
a certain forest, whence he brought a load of wood.
Coming back one day he met a lady who wanted to buy
it; they agreed on a price, and Egidio carried it to her
house. But when he arrived at the house she perceived
him to be a friar, and would have given him more than
the price agreed upon. “My good lady,” he replied,
“I will not permit myself to be overcome by avarice,"
and he departed without accepting anything at all.
In the olive season he helped in the gathering ; in grape
season he offered himself as vintager. One day on the
Piazza di Roma, where men are hired for day's work, he
saw a padrone who could not find a man to thrash his
walnut tree; it was so high that no one dared risk him-
124
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
self in it. “If you will give me part of the nuts,” said
Egidio, “I will do it willingly.” The bargain struck and
the tree thrashed, there proved to be so many nuts that
he did not know where to put his share. Gathering up
his tunic he made a bag of it and full of joy returned to
Rome, where he distributed them among all the poor
whom he met.
Is not this a charming incident? Does it not by it-
self alone reveal the freshness, the youth, the kindness
of heart of the first Franciscans? There is no end to
the stories of the ingenuousness of Brother Egidio. All
kinds of work seemed good to him provided he had time
enough in the morning for his religious duties. Now he
is in the service of the Cellarer of the Four Crowns at
Rome, sifting flour and carrying water to the convent
from the well of San Sisto. Now he is at Rieti, where
le consents to remain with Cardinal Nicholas, bringing
to every meal the bread which he had earned, notwith-
standing the entreaties of the master of the house, who
would gladly have provided for his wants. One day it
rained so hard that Brother Egidio could not think
of going out; the cardinal was already making merry
over the thought that he would be forced to accept bread
that he had not earned. But Egidio went to the kitchen,
and finding that it needed cleaning he persuaded the
cook to let him sweep it, and returned triumphant
with the bread he had earned, which he ate at the car-
dinal's table,1
From the very beginning Egidio's life commanded re-
spect; it was at once so original, so gay, so spiritual,?
1 A. SS., Aprilis, t. iii., pp. 220-248; Fior. Vita d'Egidio ; Spec.,
158 ff; Conform., 53-60.
2 Other examples will be found below; it may suffice to recall here
his sally : “The glorious Virgin Mother of God had sinners for par.
onts, she never entered any religious order, and yet she is what she
is!" A. SS., loc. cit., p. 234.
PORTIUNCULA
125
and so mystical, that even in the least exact and most
expanded accounts his legend has remained almost free
from all addition. He is, after St. Francis, the finest
incarnation of the Franciscan spirit.
The incidents which are here cited are all, so to speak,
illustrations of the Rule; in fact there is nothing more
explicit than its commands with respect to work.
The Brothers, after entering upon the Order, were to
continue to exercise the calling which they had when in
the world, and if they had none they were to learn one.
For payment they were to accept only the food that was
necessary for them, but in case that was insufficient they
might beg. In addition they were naturally permitted
to own the instruments of their calling. Brother Gin-
epro, whose acquaintance we shall make further on, had
an awl, and gained his bread wherever he went by
mending shoes, and we see St. Clara working even on
her death-bed.
This obligation to work with the hands merits all the
more to be brought into the light, because it was des-
tined hardly to survive St. Francis, and because to it is
due in part the original character of the first generation
of the Order. Yet this was not the real reason for the
being of the Brothers Minor. Their mission consisted
Labove all in being the spouses of Poverty.
Terrified by the ecclesiastical disorders of the time,
haunted by painful memories of his past life, Francis
saw in money the special instrument of the devil; in
moments of excitement he went so far as to execrate it,
1 The passage of the Will, firmiter volo quod omnes laborent,
has a capital importance because it shows Francis renewing in the most
solemn manner injunctions already made from the origin of the Order.
Cf. 1 Cel., 38 and 39 ; Conform., 219b. 1: Juvabant Fratres pauperes
homines in agris eorum et ipsi dabant postea eis de pane amore Dei. Spec.,
34 ; 69. Vide also Archiv., t. ii., pp. 272 and 299 ; Eccleston, 1 and
15; 2 Cel., 1, 12.
126
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
as if there had been in the metal itself a sort of magical
power and secret curse. Money was truly for him the
sacrament of evil.
This is not the place for asking if he was wrong ; grave
authors have demonstrated at length the economic troub-
les which would have been let loose upon the world if
men had followed him. Alas! his madness, if madness it
were, is a kind of which one need not fear the contagion.
He felt that in this respect the Rule could not be
too absolute, and that if unfortunately the door was
opened to various interpretations of it, there would be
no stopping-point. The course of events and the period-
ical convulsions which shook his Order show clearly
enough how rightly he judged.
I do not know nor desire to know if theologians have
yet come to a scientific conclusion with regard to the
poverty of Jesus, but it seems evident to me that poverty
with the labor of the hands is the ideal held up by the
Galilean to the efforts of his disciples.
Still it is easy to see that Franciscan poverty is neither
to be confounded with the unfeeling pride of the stoic,
nor with the stupid horror of all joy felt by certain devo-
tees; St. Francis renounced everything only that he
might the better possess everything. The lives of the
immense majority of our contemporaries are ruled by the
fatal error that the more one possesses the more one en-
joys. Our exterior, civil liberties continually increase,
but at the same time our inward freedom is taking flight;
how many are there among us who are literally possessed
by what they possess ? 1
Poverty not only permitted the Brothers to mingle with
the poor and speak to them with authority, but, remov-
ing from them all material anxiety, it left them free to
1 Nihil volebat proprietatis habere ut omnia plenius posset in Domino
possidere. B. de Besse, 102a.
PORTIUNCULA
127
enjoy without hindrance those hidden treasures which
nature reserves for pure idealists.
The ever-thickening barriers which modern life, with
its sickly search for useless comfort, has set up between
us and nature did not exist for these men, so full of
youth and life, eager for wide spaces and the outer air.
This is what gave St. Francis and his companions that
quick susceptibility to Nature which made them thrill
in mysterious harmony with her. Their communion
with Nature was so intimate, so ardent, that Umbria, with
the harmonious poetry of its skies, the joyful outburst of
its spring-time, is still the best document from which to
study them. The tie between the two is so indissoluble,
that after having lived a certain time in company with
St. Francis, one can hardly, on reading certain passages
of his biographers, help seeing the spot where the inci-
dent took place, hearing the vague sounds of creatures
and things, precisely as, when reading certain pages of a
beloved author, one hears the sound of his voice.
The worship of Poverty of the early Franciscans had
in it, then, nothing ascetic or barbarous, nothing which re-
calls the Stylites or the Nazirs. She was their bride, and
like true lovers they felt no fatigues which they might
endure to find and remain near her.
La lor concordia e lor lieti sembianti,
Amor e maraviglia e dolce sguardo
Faсean esser cagion de' pensier santi.
To draw the portrait of an ideal knight at the begin-
ning of the thirteenth century is to draw Francis's very
portrait, with this difference, that what the knight did for
1
Their concord and their joyous semblances
The love, the wonder and the sweet regard
They made to be the cause of holy thought.
DANTE : Paradiso, canto xi., verses 76-78.
Longfellow's translation.
128
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
his lady, he did for Poverty. This comparison is not
a mere caprice; he himself profoundly felt it and ex-
pressed it with perfect clearness, and it is only by keep-
ing it clearly present in the mind that we can see into
the very depth of his heart.1
To find any other souls of the same nature one must
come down to Giovanni di Parma and Jacoponi di Todi.
The life of St. Francis as troubadour has been written;
it would have been better to write it as knight, for this is
the explanation of his whole life, and as it were the heart
of his heart. From the day when, forgetting the songs
of his friends and suddenly stopped in the public place
of Assisi, he met Poverty, his bride, and swore to her
faith and love, down to that evening when, naked upon
the naked earth of Portiuncula, he breathed out his life,
it may be said that all his thoughts went out to this lady
of his chaste loves. For twenty years he served her with-
out faltering, sometimes with an artlessness which would
appear infantine, if something infinitely sincere and sub-
lime did not arrest the smile upon the most sceptical lips.
Poverty agreed marvellously with that need which men
had at that time, and which perhaps they have lost less
than they suppose, the need of an ideal very high, very
pure, mysterious, inaccessible, which yet they may pict-
ure to themselves in concrete form. Sometimes a few
privileged disciples saw the lovely and pure Lady descend
from heaven to salute her spouse, but, whether visible or
not, she always kept close beside her Umbrian lover, as
she kept close beside the Galilean; in the stable of the
nativity, upon the cross at Golgotha, and even in the
borrowed tomb where his body lay.
During several years this ideal was not alone that
of St. Francis, but also of all the Brothers. In pov-
1 Amor factus
castis eam, stringit amplexibus nec ad horam
patitur non esse maritus. 2 Cel., 3, 1; cf.1 Cel., 35 ; 51 ; 75; 2 Cel.,
3, 128; 3 Soc., 15; 22 ; 33; 35; 50; Bon., 87; Fior. 13.
PORTIUNOULA
129
erty the gente poverelle had found safety, love, liberty;
and all the efforts of the new apostles are directed to
the keeping of this precious treasure.
Their worship sometimes might seem excessive. They
showed their spouse those delicate attentions, those re-
finements of courtesy so frequent in the morning light of
a betrothal, but which one gradually forgets till they
become incomprehensible.?
The number of disciples continually increased ; almost
every week brought new recruits; the year 1211 was
without doubt devoted by Francis to a tour in Umbria
and the neighboring provinces. His sermons were short
appeals to conscience; his heart went out to his hearers
in ineffable tones, so that when men tried to repeat
what they had heard they found themselves incapable.?
The Rule of 1221 has preserved for us a summary of
these appeals:
“Here is an exhortation which all the Brothers may make when they
think best: Fear and honor God, praise and bless him. Give thanks
unto bim. Adore the Lord, Almighty God, in Trinity and unity, the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Repent and make fruits meet
for repentance, for you know that we shall soon die. Give, and it
shall be given unto you. Forgive, and you shall be forgiven ; for if
you forgive not, God will not forgive you. Blessed are they who die
repenting, for they shall be in the kingdom of heaven.
Ab-
stain carefully from all evil, and persevere in the good until the end."'
We see how simple and purely ethical was the early
Franciscan preaching. The complications of dogma and
scholasticism are entirely absent from it. To understand
how new this was and how refreshing to the soul we
must study the disciples that came after him.
1
Bon., 93.-Prohibuit fratrem qui faciebat coquinam ne poneret legu-
mina de sero in aqua calida quæ debebat dare fratribus ad manducan-
dum die sequenti ut observaverint illud verbum Evangelii : Nolite solliciti
esse de crastino. Spec., 15.
22 Cel., 3, 50.
3 Cap., 21. Cf. Fior., I. consid. , 18; 30; Conform., 103a, 2; 2 Cel.,
3, 99 ; 100; 121. Vide Müller, Anfänge, p. 187.
130
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
With St. Anthony of Padua (* June 13, 1231 ; canon.
ized in 1233'), the most illustrious of them all, the descent
is immense. The distance between these two men is as
great as that which separates Jesus from St. Paul.
I do not judge the disciple; he was of his time in not
knowing how to say simply what he thought, in always
desiring to subtilize it, to extract it from passages in the
Bible turned from their natural meaning by efforts at
once laborious and puerile; what the alchemists did in
their continual making of strange mixtures from which
they fancied that they should bring out gold, the preach-
ers did to the texts, in order to bring out the truth.
The originality of St. Francis is only the more brilliant
and meritorious; with him gospel simplicity reappeared
upon the earth. Like the lark with which he so much
loved to compare himself, he was at his ease only in the
open sky.
He remained thus until his death. The
epistle to all Christians which he dictated in the last
weeks of his life repeats the same ideas in the same
terms, perhaps with a little more feeling and a shade of
sadness. The evening breeze which breathed upon his
face and bore away his words was their symbolical ac-
companiment.
| Vide his Opera omnia postillis illustrata, by Father de la Haye,
1739, fº. For his life, Surius and Wadding arranged and mutilated the
sources to which they had access; the Bollandists had only a legend of
the fifteenth century. The Latin manuscript 14,363 of the Bibliothèque
Nationale gives one which dates from the thirteenth. Very Rev. Father
Hilary, of Paris : Saint Antoine de Padone, sa légende primitive, Mon-
treuil-sur-Mer, Imprimerie Notre-Dame-des-Prés, 1890, 1 vol., 8vo. Cf.
Legendu seul vita et miracula S. Antonii sæculo xiii concinnata er cod.
memb. antonince bibliothecæ a P. M. Antonio Maria Josa min. comv,
Bologna, 1883, 1 vol., 8vo.
· This evangelical character of his mission is brought out in relief
by all his biographers. 1 Cel. 56 ; 84; 89 ; 3 Soc. 25 ; 34; 40; 43 ; 45;
48; 51 ; 57; 2 Cel. 3, 8 ; 50 ; 93.
Spec., 134; 2 Cel., 3, 128.
3
PORTIUNCULA
131
“I, Brother Francis, the least of your servants, pray
and conjure you by that Love which is God himself,
willing to throw myself at your feet and kiss them, to
ive with humility and love these words and all others
of our Lord Jesus Christ, to put them to profit and carry
them out.”
This was not a more or less oratorical formula. Hence
conversions multiplied with an incredible rapidity. Often,
as formerly with Jesus, a look, a word sufficed Francis
to attach to himself men who would follow him until
their death. It is impossible, alas ! to analyze the best
of this eloquence, all made of love, intimate apprehension,
and fire. The written word can no more give an idea of
it than it can give us an idea of a sonata of Beethoven
or a painting by Rembrandt. We are often amazed, on
reading the memoirs of those who have been great con-
querors of souls, to find ourselves remaining cold, finding
in them all no trace of animation or originality. It is be-
cause we have only a lifeless relic in the hand; the soul is
gone. It is the white wafer of the sacrament, but how
shall that rouse in us the emotions of the beloved dis-
ciple lying on the Lord's breast on the night of the Last
Supper?
The class from which Francis recruited his disciples
was still about the same; they were nearly all young
men of Assisi and its environs, some the sons of agri-
culturists, and others nobles; the School and the Church
was very little represented among them.?
The Order was at first essentially lay (at the present time it is, so far
as I know, the only one in which there is no difference of costume be-
tween laymen and priests). Vide Ehrle, Archiv., iii., p. 563. It is the
influence of the friars from northern countries which has especially
changed it in this matter. General Aymon, of Faversham (1240–1243),
decided that laymen should be excluded from all charges ; laicos ad
officia inhabilitavit, quce usque tunc ut clerici exercebant. (Chron. xxiv.
gen. cod. Gadd. relig., 53, fº 110a). Among the early Brothers who
132
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
Everything still went on with an unheard-of simplic
ity. In theory, obedience to the superior was absolute;
in practice, we can see Francis continually giving his com-
panions complete liberty of action.i Men entered the
Order without a novitiate of any sort; it sufficed to say
to Francis that they wanted to lead with him a life of
evangelical perfection, and to prove it by giving all that
they possessed to the poor. The more unpretending
were the neophytes, the more tenderness he had for
them. Like his Master, he had a partiality for those
who were lost, for men whom regular society casts out of
its limits, but who with all their crimes and scandals are
nearer to sainthood than mediocrities and hypocrites.
" Father,” he said, “I would gladly
One day St. Francis, passing by the desert of Borgo San Sepolcro
came to a place called Monte-Casale, ? and behold a noble and refined
young man came to him.
adly be one
of your disciples.”
'My son,” said St. Francis, " you are young, refined, and noble; you
will not be able to follow poverty and live wretched like us."
“But, my father, are not you men like me ? What you do I can do
with the grace of Jesus.” This reply was well-pleasing to St. Francis,
who, giving him his blessing, incontinently received him into the Order
under the name of Brother Angelo.
He conducted himself so well that a little while after he was made
refused ordination there were surely some who did so from humility,
but this sentiment is not enough to explain all the cases. There were
also with certain of them revolutionary desires and as it were a vagu.
memory of the prophecies of Gioacchino di Fiore upon the age succeed
ing that of the priests : Fior., 27. Frate Pellegrino non volle mas
andare come chierico, ma come laico, benche fassi molto litterato e grande
decretalista, Cf. Conform., 71 a., 2. Ar. Thomas Hibernicus sibi
pollecem amputavit ne ad sacerdotium cogeretur. Conform., 124b, 2.
See, for example, the letter to Brother Leo. Cf. Conform., 53b, 2.
Fratri Egidio dedit licentiam liberam ut iret quocumque vellet et staret
ubicumque sibi placeret.
2 The hermitage of Monte-Casale, at two hours walk northeast from
Borgo San Sepolcro, still exists in its original state. It is one of the most
significant and curious of the Franciscan deserts.
PORTIUNCULA
133
guardian' of Monte-Casale. Now, in those times there were three
famous robbers who did much evil in the country. They came to the
hermitage one day to beg Brother Angelo to give them something to
eat; but he replied to them with severe reproaches : What! robbers,
evil-doers, assassins, have you not only no shame for stealing the goods
of others, but you would farther devour the alms of the servants of
God, you who are not worthy to live, and who have respect neither
for men nor for God your Creator. Depart, and let me never see you
here again !
They went away full of rage. But behold, the Saint returned, bring-
ing a wallet of bread and a bottle of wine which had been given him,
and the guardian told him how he had sent away the robbers; then
St. Francis reproved him severely for showing himself so cruel.
“I command thee by thine obedience," said he, to take at once this
loaf and this wine and go seek the robbers by hill and dell until you
have found them, to offer them this as from me, and to kneel there be-
fore them and humbly ask their pardon, and pray them in my name
no longer to do wrong but to fear God ; and if they do it, I promise
to provide for all their wants, to see that they always have enough
to eat and drink. After that you may humbly return hither."
Brother Angelo did all that had been commanded him, while St.
Francis on his part prayed God to convert the robbers. They returned
with the brother, and when St. Francis gave them the assurance of the
pardon of God, they changed their lives and entered the Order, in
which they lived and died most holily.?
.
What has sometimes been said of the voice of the blood
is still more true of the voice of the soul. When a man
truly wakens another to moral life, he gains for him-
self an unspeakable gratitude. The word master is often
1 The office of guardian (superior of a monastery) naturally dates from
the time when the Brothers stationed themselves in small groups in the
villages of Umbria--that is to say, most probably from the year 1211.
A few years later the monasteries were united to form a custodian
Finally, about 1215, Central Italy was divided unto a certain number of
provinces with provincial ministers at their head. All this was done
little by little, for Francis never permitted himself to regulate what did
not yet exist.
? Fior., 26 ; Conform., 119b, 1. Cf. Rule of 1221, cap. vii. Quicumque
ad eos (fratres) venerint, amicus vel adversarius, fur vel latro benigne
recipiatur.
134
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
profaned, but it can express the noblest and purest of
earthly ties.
Who are those among us, who in the hours of manly
innocence when they examine their own consciences,
do not see rising up before them from out of the past
the ever beloved and loving face of one who, perhaps
without knowing it, initiated them into spiritual things ?
At such a time we would throw ourselves at the feet of
this father, would tell him in burning words of our ad-
miration and gratitude. We cannot do it, for the soul
has its own bashfulness; but who knows that our dis-
quietude and embarrassment do not betray us, and un-
veil, better than words could do, the depths of our
heart? The air they breathed at Portiuncula was all
impregnated with joy and gratitude like this.
To many of the Brothers, St. Francis was truly a
saviour; he had delivered them from chains heavier than
those of prisons. And therefore their greatest desire
was in their turn to call others to this same liberty.
We have already seen Brother Bernardo on a mission
to Florence a few months after his entrance into the
Order. Arrived at maturity when he put on the habit,
he appears in some degree the senior of this apostolic
college. He knew how to obey St. Francis and remain
faithful to the very end to the ideal of the early days;
but he had no longer that privilege of the young-of
Brother Leo, for example of being able to transform
himself almost entirely into the image of him whom he
admired. His physiognomy has not that touch of juve-
nile originality, of poetic fancy, which is so great a
charm of the others.
Toward this epoch two Brothers entered the Order,
men such as the successors of St. Francis never received,
whose history throws a bright light on the simplicity
of the early days. It will be remembered with what
PORTIUNCULA
135
zeal Francis had repaired several churches; his solici-
tude went further; he saw a sort of profanation in the
negligence with which most of them were kept; the
want of cleanliness of the sacred objects, ill-concealed by
tinsel, gave him a sort of pain, and it often happened
that when he was going to preach somewhere he secretly
called together the priests of the locality and implored
them to look after the decency of the service. But even
in these cases he was not content to preach only in
words; binding together some stalks of heather he would
make them into brooms for sweeping out the churches.
One day in the suburbs of Assisi he was performing
this task when a peasant appeared, who had left his
oxen and cart out in the fields while he came to gaze at
him.
" for a long
Brother," said he on entering, “give me the broom. I will help
you,” and he swept out the rest of the church.
When he had finished, “Brother,” he said to Francis,
time I have decided to serve God, especially when I heard men speak
of you. But I never knew how to find you. Now it has pleased God
that we should meet, and henceforth I shall do whatever you may
please to command me."
Francis seeing his fervor felt a great joy ; it seemed to him that with
his simplicity and honesty he would become a good friar.
It appears indeed that he had only too much simplic-
ity, for after his reception he felt himself bound to imi-
tate every motion of the master, and when the latter
coughed, spat, or sighed, he did the same. At last Fran-
cis noticed it and gently reproved him. Later he be-
came so perfect that the other friars admired him greatly,
and after his death, which took place not long after, St.
Francis loved to relate his conversion, calling him not
Brother John, but Brother St. John.1
Ginepro is still more celebrated for his holy follies.
12 Cel., 3, 120 ; Spec., 37 ; Conform., 538, 1. See below, p. 385, n. 1.
ܪ
136
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
One day he went to see a sick Brother and offered him
his services. The patient confessed that he had a great
longing to eat a pig's foot; the visitor immediately
rushed out, and armed with a knife ran to the neighbor-
ing forest, where, espying a troop of pigs, he cut off a
foot of one of them, returning to the monastery full of
pride over his trophy.
The owner of the pigs shortly followed, howling like
mad, but Ginepro went straight to him and pointed out
with so much volubility that he had done him a great
service, that the man, after overwhelming him with re-
proaches, suddenly begged pardon, killed the pig and in-
vited all the Brothers to feast upon it. Ginepro was
probably less mad than the story would lead us to sup-
pose; Franciscan humility never had a more sincere dis-
ciple; he could not endure the tokens of admiration which
the populace very early lavished on the growing Order,
and which by their extravagance contributed so much to
its decadence.
One day, as he was entering Rome, the report of his
arrival spread abroad, and a great crowd came out to
meet him. To escape was impossible, but he suddenly
had an inspiration ; near the gate of the city some chil-
dren were playing at see-saw; to the great amazement
of the Romans Ginepro joined them, and, without heed-
ing the salutations addressed to him, remained so ab-
sorbed in his play that at last his indignant admirers
departed.
It is clear that the life at Portiuncula must have been
very different from that of an ordinary convent. So
much youth, simplicity, love, quickly drew the eyes of
men toward it. From all sides they were turned to
those thatched huts, where dwelt a spiritual family
| Fior., Vita di fra Ginepro ; Spec., 174–182 ; Conform. 62b.
* A. SS., p. 600.
PORTIUNCULA
137
1
whose members loved one another more than men lovo
on earth, leading a life of labor, mirth, and devotion.
The humble chapel seemed a new Zion destined to en-
lighten the world, and many in their dreams beheld blind
humanity coming to kneel there and recover sight.
Among the first disciples who joined themselves to St.
Francis we must mention Brother Silvestro, the first
priest who entered the Order, the very same whom we
have already seen the day that Bernardo di Quintevalle
distributed his goods among the poor. Since then he
had not had a moment's peace, bitterly reproaching
himself for his avarice; night and day he thought only
of that, and in his dreams he saw Francis exorcising a
horrid monster which infested all the region.?
By his age and the nature of the memory he has left
behind him Silvestro resembles Brother Bernardo. He
was what is usually understood by a holy priest, but
nothing denotes that he had the truly Franciscan love
of great enterprises, distant journeys, perilous missions.
Withdrawn into one of the grottos of the Carceri, ab-
sorbed in the contemplative life, he gave spiritual coun-
sels to his brethren as occasion served.
The typical Franciscan priest is Brother Leo. The
date of his entrance into the Order is not exactly known,
but we are probably not far from the truth in placing it
about 1214. Of a charming simplicity, tender, affec-
tionate, refined, he is, with Brother Elias, the one who
plays the noblest part during the obscure years in which
the new reform was being elaborated. Becoming Fran-
cis's confessor and secretary, treated by him as his
3
1 3 Soc., 56 ; 2 Cel., 1, 13; Bon., 24.
? Bon., 30; 3 Soc., 30, 31 ; 2 Cel., 3, 52. Cf. Fior., 2. The dragon
of this dream perhaps symbolizes heresy.
Bon., 83 ; 172 ; Fior., 1, 16 ; Conform., 49a, 1, and 110b, 1 ; 2 Cel.,
3, 51.
3
138
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
favorite son, he excited much opposition, and was to the
end of his long life the head of the strict observance.
Messiaen
St Françar
fo
One winter's day, St. Francis was going with Brother Leo from Pe-
rugia to Santa Maria degli Angeli, and the cold, being intense, made
them shiver ; he called Brother Leo, who was walking a little in advance,
and said : “O Brother Leo, may it please God that the Brothers Minor
all over the world may give a great example of holiness and edification ;
write, however, and note with care, that not in this is the perfect joy."
St. Francis, going on a little farther, called him a second time : “O
Brother Leo, if the Brothers Minor gave sight to the blind, healed the
infirm, cast out demons, gave hearing to the deaf, or even what is
much more, if they raised the four days dead, write that not in this is
the perfect joy."
Going on a little farther he cried : "O Brother Leo, if the Brother
Minor knew all languages, all science, and all scriptures, if he could
prophesy and reveal not only future things but even the secrets of con-
sciences and of souls, write that not in this consists the perfect joy."
Going a little farther St. Francis called to him again : “ O Brother
Leo, little sheep of God, if the Brother Minor could speak the language
of angels, if he knew the courses of the stars and the virtues of plants,
if all the treasures of earth were revealed to him, and he knew the
qualities of birds, fishes, and all animals, of men, trees, rocks, roots,
and waters, write that not in these is the perfect joy."
And advancing still a little farther St. Francis called loudly to him :
“O Brother Leo, if the Brother Minor could preach so well as to con-
vert all infidels to the faith of Christ, write that not in this is the per-
fect joy."
While speaking thus they had already gone more than two miles, and
Brother Leo, full of surprise, said to him : Father, I pray you in
God's name tell me in what consists the perfect joy."
And St. Francis replied : “When we arrive at Santa Maria degli An-
geli, soaked with rain, frozen with cold, covered with mud, dying of
hunger, and we knock and the porter comes in a rage, saying, 'Who
are you?' and we answer, We are two of your brethren,' and he says,
'You lie, you are two lewd fellows who go up and down corrupting
the world and stealing the alms of the poor. Go away from here!' and
he does not open to us, but leaves us outside shivering in the snow and
rain, frozen, starved, till night; then, if thus maltreated and turned
away, we patiently endure all without murmuring against him, if we
Bernard de Besse, De laudibus, Turin MS., fº. 102b and 96a. He
died November 15, 1271. A. SS., Augusti, t. ii., p. 221.
PORTIUNCULA
135
think with humility and charity that this porter really knows us truly
and that God makes him speak thus to us, then, O Brother Leo, write
that in this is the perfect joy.
Above all the graces and all
the gifts which the Holy Spirit gives to his friends is the grace to
conquer oneself, and willingly to suffer pain, outrages, disgrace, and
evil treatment, for the love of Christ!”
Although by its slight and somewhat playful character
this story recalls the insipid statues of the fourteenth
century, it has justly become celebrated, its spirit is
thoroughly Franciscan; that transcendent idealism, which
sees in perfection and joy two equivalent terms, and
places perfect joy in the pure and serene region of the
perfecting of oneself; that sublime simplicity which so
easily puts in their true place the miracle-worker and the
scholar, these are perhaps not entirely new ;? but St.
Francis must have had singular moral strength to impose
upon his contemporaries ideas in such absolute contra-
diction to their habits and their hopes; for the intellect-
ual aristocracy of the thirteenth century with one accord
found the perfect joy in knowledge, while the people
found it in miracles.
Doubtless we must not forget those great mystical fam-
ilies, which, all through the Middle Ages, were the refuge
of the noblest souls; but they never had this fine simplic-
ity. The School is always more or less the gateway to
mysticism; it is possible only to an elect of subtile minds;
a pious peasant seldom understands the Imitation.
It may be said that all St. Francis's philosophy is con-
tained in this chapter of the Fioretti.3 From it we foresee
what will be his attitude toward learning, and are helped
'1 Fior, 8 ; Spec., 89b ff.; Conform., 30b, 2, and 140a, 2.
-9-I need not here point out the analogy in form between this chapter
and St. Paul's celebrated song of love, 1 Cor. xiii.
3 We find the same thoughts in nearly the same terms in cap. v. of
the Verba sacrae admonitionis.
140
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
1
to understand how it happens that this famous saint was
so poor a miracle-worker.
Twelve centuries before, Jesus had said, "Blessed are
the poor in spirit. Blessed are they who suffer.” The
words of St. Francis are only a commentary, but this
commentary is worthy of the text.
It remains to say a word concerning two disciples who
were always closely united with Brother Leo in the Fran-
ciscan memorials-Rufino and Masseo.
Born of a noble family connected with that of St.
Clara, the former was soon distinguished in the Order for
his visions and ecstasies, but his great timidity checked
him as soon as he tried to preach: for this reason he is
always to be found in the most isolated hermitages--Car-
ceri, Verna, Greccio.
Masseo, of Marignano, a small village in the environs
of Assisi, was his very opposite; handsome, well made,
witty, he attracted attention by his fine presence and his
great facility of speech; he occupies a special place in
popular Franciscan tradition. He deserves it. St. Fran-
cis, to test his humility, made him the porter and cook of
the hermitage, but in these functions Masseo showed
himself to be so perfectly a Minor that from that time
the master particularly loved to have him for companion
in his missionary journeys.
One day they were travelling together, when they ar-
rived at the intersection of the roads to Sienna, Arezzo,
and Florence.
" Which one shall we take ?” asked Masseo.
" Whichever one God wills."
· He is the second of the Three Companions. 3 Soc., 1; cf. 1 Cel., 95;
Fior., 1; 29, 30, 31 ; Eccleston, 12; Spec., 1104-114b ; Conform., 51b
ff. ; cf. 2 Cel., 2, 4.
Very probably that of the Carceri, though the name is not indicated.
Vide 3 Soc., 1; Fior., 4; 10 ; 11; 12; 13; 16; 27; 32 ; Conform.,
51b, 1ff ; Tribul. Archiv., t. ii., p. 263.
PORTIUNCULA
141
<C
< But how shall we know which one God wills ? "
“ You shall see. Go and stand at the crossing of the
roads, turn round and round as the children do, and do
not stop until I bid you."
Brother Masseo began to turn; seized with a vertigo, he
was nearly falling, but caught himself up at once. Fi-
nally Francis called out, “Stop! which way are you
facing ?”
“ Toward Sienna."
“Very well; God wills that we go to Sienna.” 1
Such a method of making up one's mind is doubtless
not for the daily needs of life, but Francis employed still
others, like it, if not in form at least in fact.
Up to this time we have seen the brethren living
together in their hermitages or roving the highways,
preaching repentance. It would, however, be a mistake
to think that their whole lives were passed thus. To
understand the first Franciscans we must absolutely for-
get what they may have been since that time, and what
monks are in general; if Portiuncula was a monastery it
was also a workshop, where each brother practised the
trade which had been his before entering the Order; but
what is stranger still to our ideas, the Brothers often
went out as servants.?
Brother Egidio's case was not an exception, it was the
rule. This did not last long, for very soon the friars who
entered a house as domestics came to be treated as dis-
tinguished guests; but in the beginning they were liter-
ally servants, and took upon themselves the most menial
labors. Among the works which they might under-
| Fior., 11 ; Conform., 50b, 2; Spec., 104a.
? Rule of 1221, chap. 7. Omnes fratres, in quibuscumque locis fuerint
apud aliquos ad serviendum, vel ad luborandum, non sint camerariä, nec
cellarii, nec præsint in domibus corum quibus serviunt. Cf. 1 Cel., 38
and 40; A. SS., p. 606.
142
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
take Francis recommended above all the care of lepers.
We have already seen the important part which these un-
fortunates played in his conversion; he always retained
for them a peculiar pity, which he sought to make his dis-
ciples share.
For several years the Brothers Minor may be said to
have gone from lazaretto to lazaretto, preaching by day
in the towns and villages, and retiring at night to these
refuges, where they rendered to these patients of God
the most repugnant services.
The Crucigeri, who took charge of the greater number
of leper-houses, always welcomed these kindly disposed
aides, who, far from asking any sort of recompense, were
willing to eat whatever the patients might have left. In
fact, although created solely for the care of lepers, the
Brothers of this Order sometimes lost patience when the
sufferers were too exacting, and instead of being grateful
had only murmurs or even reproaches for their benefac
tors. In these desperate cases the intervention of Fran-
cis and his disciples was especially precious. It often
happened that a Brother was put in special charge of a
single leper, whose companion and servant he continued
to be, sometimes for a long period.?
The following narrative shows Francis's love for these
unfortunates, and his method with them.3
3
It happened one time that the Brothers were serving the lepers and
the sick in a hospital, near to the place where St. Francis was. Among
them was a leper who was so impatient, so cross-grained, so unendur-
able, that everyone believed him to be possessed by the devil, and
cinema
st
is ournis
11 Cel., 103; 39 ; Spec., 28 ; Reg. 1221, ix.; Giord., 33 and 39.
? Vide Spec., 34b.; Fior., 4.
* All the details of this story lead me to think that it refers to Por.
tiuncula and the hospital San Salvatore delle pareti. The story is given
by the Conform., 174b, 2, as taken from the Legenda Antiqua. Cf.
Spec., 56b; Fior., 25.
PORTIUNCULA
143
rightly enough, for he heaped insults and blows upon those who waited
upon him, and what was worse, he continually insulted and blas-
phemed the blessed Christ and his most holy Mother the Virgin Mary,
so that there was no longer anyone who could or would wait upon him.
The Brothers would willingly have endured the insults and abuse
which he lavished upon them, in order to augment the merit of their
patience, but their souls could not consent to hear those which he ut-
tered against Christ and his Mother. They therefore resolved to aban.
don this leper, but not without having told the whole story exactly to
St. Francis, who at that time was dwelling not far away.
When they told him, St. Francis betook himself to the wicked leper ;
“May God give thee peace, my most dear brother,” he said to him as
he drew near.
* And what peace," asked the leper, can I receive from God, who
has taken away my peace and every good thing, and has made my body
a mass of stinking and corruption ?"
St. Francis said to him: “My brother, be patient, for God gives us
diseases in this world for the salvation of our souls, and when we en.
dure them patiently they are the fountain of great merit to us.
How can I endure patiently continual pains which torture me day
and night? And it is not only my disease that I suffer from, but the
friars that you gave me to wait upon me are unendurable, and do not
take care of me as they ought."
Then St. Francis perceived that this leper was possessed by the spirit
of evil, and he betook himself to his knees in order to pray for him.
Then returning he said to him : “My son, since you are not satisfied
with the others, I will wait upon you."
"That is all very well, but what can you do for me more than
they?”
"I will do whatever you wish.”
“Very well ; I wish you to wash me from head to foot, for I smell so
badly that I disgust myself."
Then St. Francis made haste to heat some water with many sweet-
smelling herbs; next he took off the leper's clothes and began to bathe
him, while a Brother poured out the water. And behold, by a divine
miracle, wherever St. Francis touched him with his holy hands the
leprosy disappeared and the flesh became perfectly sound. And in
proportion as the flesh was healed the soul of the wretched man was
also healed, and he began to feel a lively sorrow for his sins, and to
weep bitterly.
And being completely healed both in body and
soul, he cried with all his might : “Woe unto me, for I have deserved
hell for the abuses and outrages which I have said and done to the
Brothers, for my impatience and my blasphemies."
144
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
One day, Brother John, whose simplicity we have
already seen, and who had been especially put in charge
of a certain leper, took him for a walk to Portiuncula, as
if he had not been the victim of a contagious malady.
Reproaches were not spared him; the leper heard them
and could not hide his sadness and distress; it seemed
to him like being a second time banished from the world.
Francis was quick to remark all this and to feel sharp
remorse for it; the thought of having saddened one of
God's patients was unendurable; he not only begged his
pardon, but he caused food to be served, and sitting down
beside him he shared his repast, eating from the same
porringer. We see with what perseverance he pursued
by every means the realization of his ideal.
The details just given show the Umbrian movement,
as it appears to me, to be one of the most humble and at
the same time the most sincere and practical attempts to
realize the kingdom of God on earth. How far removed
we are here from the superstitious vulgarity of the me-
chanical devotion, the deceitful miracle-working of cer-
tain Catholics ; how far also from the commonplace, com-
placent, quibbling, theorizing Christianity of certain
Protestants !
Francis is of the race of mystics, for no intermediary
comes between God and his soul; but his mysticism is
that of Jesus leading his disciples to the Tabor of con-
templation; but when, overflooded with joy, they long
to build tabernacles that they may remain on the heights
and satiate themselves with the raptures of ecstasy,
"Fools,” he says to them, "ye know not what ye ask,"
and directing their gaze to the crowds wandering like
sheep having no shepherd, he leads them back to the
1 In the Speculum, fo 41a, this story ends with the phrase : Qui vidit
hcec scripsit et testimonium perhibet de hiis. The brother is here called
Frater Jacobus simplex. Cf. Conform., 174b.
PORTIUNCULA
145
plain, to the midst of those who moan, who suffer, who
blaspheme.
The higher the moral stature of Francis the more
he was exposed to the danger of being understood only
by the very few, and disappointed by those who were
nearest to him. Reading the Franciscan authors, one
feels every moment how the radiant beauty of the model
is marred by the awkwardness of the disciple. It could
not have been otherwise, and this difference between the
master and the companions is evident from the very
beginnings of the Order. The greater number of the
biographers have drawn the veil of oblivion over the
difficulties created by certain Brothers as well as those
which came from the ecclesiastical hierarchy, but we
must not allow ourselves to be deceived by this almost
universal silence.
Here and there we find indications all the more pre-
cious for being, so to say, involuntary. Brother Rufino,
for example, the same who was destined to become one
of the intimates of Francis's later days, assumed an atti-
tude of revolt shortly after his entrance into the Order.
He thought it foolish in Francis when, instead of leav-
ing the friars to give themselves unceasingly to prayer,
he sent them out in all directions to wait upon lepers.?
His own ideal was the life of the hermits of the The-
baïde, as it is related in the then popular legends of St.
Anthony, St. Paul, St. Paconius, and twenty others. He
once passed Lent in one of the grottos of the Carceri.
Holy Thursday having arrived, Francis, who was also
there, summoned all the brethren who were dispersed
about the neighborhood, whether in grottos or huts, to
observe with him the memories to which this day was
consecrated. Rufino refused to come; “For that mat-
ter," he added, “I have decided to follow him no longer;
i Conform., 51b, 1. Cf. 2 Cel., 2, 4; Spec., 110b; Fior., 29.
10
146
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
I mean to remain here and live solitary, for in this way I
shall be more surely saved than by submitting myself to
this man and his nonsense.'
Young and enthusiastic for the most part, it was not
always without difficulty that the Brothers formed the
habit of keeping their work in the background. Agree-
ing with their master as to fundamentals, they would
have liked to make more of a stir, attract public atten-
tion by more obvious devotion; there were some among
them whom it did not satisfy to be saints, but who also
wished to appear such.
CHAPTER IX
SANTA CLARA
POPULAR piety in Umbria never separates the memorv
of St. Francis from that of Santa Clara. It is right.
Clara 1 was born at Assisi in 1194, and was conse-
quently about twelve years younger than Francis. She
belonged to the noble family of the Sciffi. At the age
when a little girl's imagination awakes and stirs, she
heard the follies of the son of Bernardone recounted at
length. She was sixteen when the Saint preached for
the first time in the cathedral, suddenly appearing like
an angel of peace in a city torn by intestine dissensions.
t.
* Easy as it is to seize the large outlines of her life, it is with diffi-
culty that one makes a detailed and documentary study of it. There is
nothing surprising in this, for the Clarisses felt the rebound of the
struggles which divided and rapidly transformed the Order of the
Brothers Minor. The greater number of the documents have disap-
peared ; we give summary indication of those which will most often be
rited : 1. Life of St. Clara by an anonymous author. A. SS., Aug.,
ii., pp. 739–768. 2. Her Will, given by Wadding (Annales, 1253, No.
5), but which does not appear to be free from alteration. (Compare, for
example, the opening of this will with Chapter VI. of the Rule of the
Damianites approved by Innocent IV., August 8, 1253.) 3. The bull of
canonization, given September 26, 1255—that is to say, two years after
Clara's death; it is much longer than these documents ordinarily are,
and relates the principal incidents of her life. A. SS., loc. cit., p. 749;
Potthast, 16,025. 4. Her correspondence. Unhappily we have only
fragments of it; the Bollandists, without saying whence they drew
them, have inserted four of her letters in the Acta of St. Agnes of Bohe-
mia, to whom they were addressed. (A. SS., Martii, t. i., pp. 506–508.)
148
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
To her his appeals were like a revelation. It seemed as
if Francis was speaking for her, that he divined her secret
sorrows, her most personal anxieties, and all that was
ardent and enthusiastic in the heart of this young girl
rushed like a torrent that suddenly finds an outlet into
the channel indicated by him. For saints as for heroes
the supreme stimulus is woman's admiration.
But here, more than ever, we must put away the vul.
gar judgment which can understand no union between
man and woman where the sexual instinct has no part.
That which makes the union of the sexes something al-
most divine is that it is the prefiguration, the symbol, of
the union of souls. Physical love is an ephemeral spark,
designed to kindle in human hearts the flame of a more
lasting love; it is the outer court of the temple, but not
the most holy place; its inestimable value is precisely
that it leaves us abruptly at the door of the holiest of all
as if to invite us to step over the threshold.
The mysterious sigh of nature goes out for the union
of souls. This is the unknown God to whom debau-
chees, those pagans of love, offer their sacrifices, and this
sacred imprint, even though effaced, though soiled by
all pollutions, often saves the man of the world from
inspiring as much disgust as the drunkard and the
criminal.
But sometimes—more often than we think there are
souls so pure, so little earthly, that on their first meet-
ing they enter the most holy place, and once there the
thought of any other union would be not merely a
descent, but an impossibility. Such was the love of St.
Francis and St. Clara.
But these are exceptions. There is something myse
terious in this supreme purity; it is so high that in
holding it up to men one risks speaking to them in an
unknown tongue, or even worse.
SANTA CLARA
149
The biographers of St. Francis have clearly felt the
danger of offering to the multitude the sight of certain
beauties which are far beyond them, and this is for us
the great fault of their works. They try to give us not
so much the true portrait of Francis as that of the perfect
minister-general of the Order such as they conceive it,
such as it must needs be to serve as a model for his
disciples; thus they have made this model somewhat
according to the measure of those whom it is to serve,
by omitting here and there features which, stupidly in-
terpreted, might have furnished material for the ma-
levolence of unscrupulous adversaries, or from which
disciples little versed in spiritual things could not have
failed to draw support for permitting themselves dan-
gerous intimacies. Thus the relations of St. Francis
with women in general and St. Clara in particular, have
been completely travestied by Thomas of Celano. It
could not have been otherwise, and we must not bear
him a grudge for it. The life of the founder of an Order,
when written by a monk, in the very nature of things
becomes always a sort of appendix to or illustration of
the Rule. And the Rule, especially if the Order has its
thousands of members, is necessarily made not for the
elect, but for the average, for the majority of the flock.
Hence this portrait, in which St. Francis is represented
as a stern ascetic, to whom woman appears to be a sort of
1
Reading the Chronicle of Fra Salimbeni, which represents the aver.
age Franciscan character about 1250, one sees with what reason the
Rule had multiplied minute precautions for keeping the Brothers from
all relations with women.
The desire of Celano to present the facts in the life of Francis as the
norm of the acts of the friars appears still more in the chapters con.
cerning St. Clara than in all the others. Vide 2 Cel., 3, 132 : Non cre.
datis, charissimi (dixit Franciscus), quod eas perfecte non diligam.
Sed exemplum do vobis, ut quemadmodum ego facio, ita et vos faciatia
Cf. ibid., 134.
150
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
incarnate devil! The biographers even go so far as to
assure us that he knew only two women by sight. These
are manifest exaggerations, or rather the opposite of the
truth.1
We are not reduced to conjecture to discover the true
attitude of the Umbrian prophet in this matter. With-
out suspecting it, Celano himself gives details enough
for the correction of his own errors, and there are be-
sides a number of other documents whose scattered
hints correspond and agree with one another in a manner
all the more marvellous that it is entirely unintentional,
giving, when they are brought together, almost all one
could desire to know of the intercourse of these two
beautiful souls.
After the sermons of Francis at St. Rufino, Clara's
decision was speedily taken; she would break away from
the trivialities of an idle and luxurious life and make
herself the servant of the poor; all her efforts should be
bent to make each day a new advance in the royal way
of love and poverty; and for this she would have only
to obey him who had suddenly revealed it to her.
She sought him out and opened to him her heart.
With that exaltation, a union of candor and delicacy,
which is woman's fine endowment, and to which she
would more readily give free course if she did not too
12 Cel., 3, 55. Fateor veritatem
nullam me si aspicerem re-
cogniturum in facie nisi duas. This chapter and the two following give
us a sort of caricature, in which Francis is represented as so little sure
of himself that he casts down his eyes for fear of yielding to desire.
The stories of Francis and Jacqueline of Settesoli give a very different
picture of the relations between the Brothers and the women in the
origin of the Order from that which was given later. Bernard de
Besse (Turin MS., fº. 113) relates at length the coming of Jacqueline
to Portiuncula to be present at St. Francis's death. Cf. Spec., 107; 133 ;
Bon., 112. Also Clara's repast at Portiuncula. Fior., 15 ; Spec., 139
b.; A. SS. Aug. Vita Clar., No. 39 ff.
SANTA CLARA
151
often divine the pitfalls of base passion and incredulity,
Clara offered herself to Francis.
It is one of the privileges of saints to suffer more than
other men, for they feel in their more loving hearts the
echo of all the sorrows of the world; but they also know
joys and delights of which common men never taste.
What an inexpressible song of joy must have burst forth
in Francis's heart when he saw Clara on her knees be-
fore him, awaiting, with his blessing, the word which
would consecrate her life to the gospel ideal.
Who knows if this interview did not inspire another
saint, Fra Angelico, to introduce into his masterpiece
those two elect souls who, already radiant with the light
of the heavenly Jerusalem, stop to exchange a kiss be-
fore crossing its threshold ?
Souls, like flowers, have a perfume of their own which
never deceives. One look had sufficed for Francis to
go down into the depths of this heart; he was too kind
to submit Clara to useless tests, too much an idealist to
prudently confine himself to custom or arbitrary deco-
rum; as when he founded the Order of Friars, he took
counsel only of himself and God. In this was his
strength; if he had hesitated, or even if he had simply
submitted himself to ecclesiastical rules, he would have
been stopped twenty times before he had done anything.
Success is so powerful an argument that the biographers
appear not to have perceived how determined Francis
was to ignore the canonical laws. He, a simple deacon,
arrogated to himself the right to receive Clara's vows
and admit her to the Order without the briefest no-
vitiate. Such an act ought to have drawn down upon
its author all the censures of the Church, but Francis
was already one of those powers to whom much is for-
given, even by those who speak in the name of the holy
Roman Church.
152
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
Francis had decided that on the night between Palm
Sunday and Holy Monday (March 18-19, 1212) Clara
should secretly quit the paternal castle and come with
two companions to Portiuncula, where he would await
her, and would give her the veil. She arrived just as
the friars were singing matins. They went out, the
story goes, carrying candles in their hands, to meet the
bride, while from the woods around Portiuncula re-
sounded songs of joy over this new bridal. Then Mass
was begun at that same altar where, three years before,
Francis had heard the decisive call of Jesus; he was
kneeling in the same place, but surrounded now with a
whole spiritual family.
It is easy to imagine Clara's emotion. The step which
she had just taken was simply heroic, for she knew to
what persecutions from her family she was exposing
herself, and what she had seen of the life of the Brothers
Minor was a sufficient warning of the distresses to which
she was exposing herself in espousing poverty. No
doubt she interpreted the words of the service in har.
mony with her own thoughts :
“Surely they are my people,” said Jehovah.
"Children who will not be faithless 1"
And he was for them a saviour.
In none of their afflictions were they without succor.
And the angel that is before his face saved them. 1
Then Francis read again the words of Jesus to his dis-
ciples ; she vowed to conform her life to them ; her hair
was cut off; all was finished. A few moments after,
Francis conducted her to a house of Benedictine nuns
2
1
Isaiah, lxiii., 8 and 9 (Ségond's (French) translation). At the Mass on
Holy Monday Isaiah lxiii. is read for the Epistle and Mark xiv. for
the Gospel.
9 San Paolo on the Chiasco, near Bastia.
SANTA CLARA
153
at an hour's distance, where she was to remain provi-
sionally and await the progress of events.
The very next morning Favorino, her father, arrived
with a few friends, inveighing, supplicating, abusing
everybody. She was unmovable, showing so much
courage that at last they gave up the thought of carrying
her off by main force.
She was not, however, at the end of her tribulations.
Had this scene frightened the Benedictines? We can-
not tell, but less than a fortnight after we find her in
another convent, that of Sant-Angelo in Panso, at Assisi.1
A week after Easter, Agnes, her younger sister, joined
her there, decided in her turn to serve poverty. Francis
received her into the Order. This time the father's fury
was horrible. With a band of relatives he invaded the
convent, but neither abuse nor blows could subdue this
child of fourteen. In spite of her cries they dragged her
away.
She fainted, and the little inanimate body sud-
denly seemed to them so heavy that they abandoned it
in the midst of the fields, some laborers looking with
pity on the painful scene, until Clara, whose cry God
Lhad heard, hastened to succor her sister.
Their sojourn in this convent was of very short dura-
tion. It appears that they did not carry away a very
pleasant impression of it. Francis knew that several
others were burning to join his two women friends; he
therefore set himself to seek out a retreat where they
1 At the present day diocesan seminary of Assisi, " Seminarium
seraphicum.” In the thirteenth century the north gate of the city
was there. The houses which lie between there and the Basilica form
the new town, which is rapidly growing and will unite the city with
Sacro Convento.
2 Nam steteramus in alio loco, licet parum. Test. Clar. It is truly
strange that there is not a word here for the house where the first days
of her religious life were passed. Cf. Vit., no. 10: S. Angelus de Panse
ubi cum non plene mens ejus quiescerei.
154
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
could live under his direction and in all liberty practise
che gospel rule.
He had not long to seek ; the Benedictine monks of
Mount Subasio always seized every possible opportunity
to make themselves popular. They belonged to that
congregation of Camaldoli, whom the common people
appear to have particularly detested, and several of whose
convents had lately been pillaged. The abbey no longer
counted more than eight monks, who were trying to save
the wreck of their riches and privileges by partial sacri-
fices; on the 22d of April, 1212, they had given to the
commune of Assisi for a communal house a monument
which is standing this day, the temple of Minerva.?
Francis, who already was their debtor for Portiuncula,
once more addressed himself to them. Happy in this
new opportunity to render service to one who was the
incarnation of popular claims, they gave him the chapel
of St. Damian ; perhaps they were well pleased, by fa-
voring the new Order, to annoy Bishop Guido, of whom
they had reason to complain. However this may be, in
this hermitage, so well adapted for prayer and medita-
tion, Francis installed his spiritual daughters. In this
sanctuary, repaired by his own hands, at the feet of this
crucifix which had spoken to him, Clara was hencefor-
ward to pray. It was the house of God; it was also in
good measure that of Francis. Crossing its threshold,
1 Mittarelli, Annales Camaldulenses (Venice, 1755--1773,9 vols., fº.), t.
iv,, app. 431 and 435. Cf. 156.
? The act of donation is still in the archives of Assisi. An analysis of
it will be found in Cristofani, ti., p. 133. Their munificence remained
without result ; the bull Ab Ecclesia of July 27, 1232, shows that they
were suppressed less than twenty years after. Sbaralea, t. 1, p. 81. •
Potthast, 8984. Cf., ib., p. 195, note c, and 340, note a, and the bulls
which are there indicated.
3 See p. 81, note ii.
* 1 Cel., 18; 21; 3 Soc., 24; 2 Col., 1, 8.
SANTA CLARA
155
Clara doubtless experienced that feeling, at once so sweet
and so poignant, of the wife who for the first time enters
her husband's house, trembling with emotion at the ra-
diant and confused vision of the future.
If we are not entirely to misapprehend these begin-
nings, we must remember with what rapidity external
influences transformed the first conception of St. Francis.
At this moment he no more expected to found a second
order than he had desired to found the first one. In
snatching Clara from her family he had simply acted like
a true knight who rescues an oppressed woman, and
takes her under his protection. In installing her at St.
Damian he was preparing a refuge for those who desired
to imitate her and apart from the world practise the
gospel Rule. But he never thought that the perfection
of which he and his disciples were the apostles and mis-
sionaries, and which Clara and her companions were to
realize in celibacy, was not practicable in social positions
also; thence comes what is wrongly called the Tertiari,
or Third Order, and which in its primitive thought was
not separated from the first. This Third Order had no
need to be instituted in 1221, for it existed from the
moment when a single conscience resolved to practise
his teachings, without being able to follow him to Por-
tiuncula. The enemy of the soul for him as for Jesus
was avarice, understood in its largest sense—that is to say,
that blindness which constrains men to consecrate their
hearts to material preoccupations, makes them the slave
of a few pieces of gold or a few acres of land, renders
1 An. Perus., A. SS., p. 600. Cf. 3 Soc., 60. The three Orders are
contemporary, one might even say, the four, including among them the
one that miscarried among the secular priests (see below).
În a letter St. Clara speaks of her Order as making only a part with
that of the Brothers: Sequaris consilia Reverendi Patris nostri fratris
Elice Ministri generalis totius ordinis. A. SS., Martii, t. i., p. 507.
156
LIFE OF ST. FRANOIS
them insensible to the beauties of nature, and deprives
them of infinite joys which they alone can know who are
the disciples of poverty and love.
Whoever was free at heart from all material servitude,
whoever was decided to live without hoarding, every rich
man who was willing to labor with his hands and loyally
distribute all that he did not consume in order to con-
stitute the common fund which St. Francis called the
Lord's table, every poor man who was willing to work,
free to resort, in the strict measure of his wants, to this
table of the Lord, these were at that time true Francis-
cans.
It was a social revolution.
There was then at that time neither one Order nor sev-
eral. The gospel of the Beatitudes had been found
again, and, as twelve centuries before, it could accommo-
date itself to all situations.
Alas! the Church, personified by Cardinal Ugolini, was
about, if not to cause the Franciscan movement to mis-
carry, at least so well to hedge about it that a few years
later it would have lost nearly its whole original char-
acter.
As has been seen, the word poverty expresses only
very imperfectly St. Francis's point of view, since it
contains an idea of renunciation, of abstinence, while in
thought the vow of poverty is a vow of liberty. Property
is the cage with gilded wires, to which the poor larks are
sometimes so thoroughly accustomed that they no longer
| This point of view is brought into relief by an anecdote in the De
Laudibus of Bernard of Besse (Turin MS., 113a). This is how he ends
chap. vii. on the three Orders: Nec Santus his contentus ordinibus sata.
gebat omnium generi salutis et penitentiæ viam dare. Unde parochiali
cuidam sacerdoti dicenti sibi quod vellet suus, retenta tamen ecclesia.
Frater esse, dato vivendi et induendi modo, dicitur indixisse ut annu
atim, collectis Ecclesiæ fructibus daret pro Deo, quod de præteritis super
esset.
SANTA CLARA
157
1
even think of getting away in order to soar up into the
blue. 1
From the beginning St. Damian was the extreme oppo-
site to what a convent of Clarisses of the strict observ-
ance is now; it is still to-day very much as Francis saw
it. We owe thanks to the Brothers Minor for having pre-
served intact this venerable and charming hermitage,
and not spoiling it with stupid embellishments. This
little corner of Umbrian earth will be for our descend-
ants like Jacob's well whereon Christ sat himself down
for an instant, one of the favorite courts of the worship
in spirit and in truth.
In installing Clara there Francis put into her hands
the Rule which he had prepared for her,' which no doubt
resembled that of the Brothers save for the precepts with
regard to the missionary life. He accompanied it with
the engagement 'taken by himself and his brothers to
supply by labor or alms all the needs of Clara and her
future companions. In return they also were to work
and render to the Brothers all the services of which
they might be capable. We have seen the zeal which
Francis had brought to the task of making the churches
worthy of the worship celebrated in them; he could not
endure that the linen put to sacred uses should be less
than clean. Clara set herself to spinning thread for the
1 See the lovely story in the Fior., 13. Cf. Spec., 65a ; Conform.,
168b, 1.
? The text of it was doubtless formerly inserted in chapter vi. of the
Rule granted to the Clarisses of St. Damian, August 9, 1253, by the bull
Solet annuere. Potthast, 15,086. But this chapter has been completely
changed in many editions. The text of the Speculum, Morin, Rouen
1509, should be read. Tract iii., 226b. The critical study to be made
upon this text by comparing the indications given by the bull Angelis
guadium of May 11, 1238, Sbaralea, i., p 242, is too long to find a place
here.
3 2 Cel., 3, 132. Cf. Test. B. Clar.
158
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
1
altar-cloths and corporals which the Brothers undertook
to distribute among the poor churches of the district.
In addition, during the earlier years, she also nursed
the sick whom Francis sent to her, and St. Damian was
for some time a sort of hospital.?
One or two friars, who were called Zealots of the Poor
Ladies, were especially charged with the care of the
Sisters, making themselves huts beside the chapel, after
the model of those of Portiuncula. Francis was also near
at hand; a sort of terrace four paces long overlooks the
hermitage ; Clara made there a tiny garden, and when,
at twilight, she went thither to water her flowers, she
could see, hardly half a league distant, Portiuncula stand-
ing out against the aureola of the western sky.
For several years the relations between the two houses
were continual, full of charm and freedom. The com-
panions of Francis who received Brothers received Sisters
also, at times returning from their preaching tours with
a neophyte for St. Damian.3
1 In illa gravi infirmitate
faciebat se erigi ... et sedens
filabat. A. SS., 760e. Sic vult eas (sorores) operare manibus suis. Ib.
762a.
2 Fior. 33.
3 Rule of 1221, chap. xii. Et nulla penitus mulier ab aliquo frater
recipiatur ad obedientiam, sed dato sibi consilio spirituali, ubi voluerit
agat penitentiam. Cf. below, p. 252, note 1, the remainder of this
chapter and the indication of the sources. This proves, 1, that the
friars had received women into the Order ; 2, that at the beginning
they said The Order in the singular, and under this appellation included
Sisters as well as Brothers. We see how far the situation was, even at
the end of 1221, from being what it became a few years later. It is to
be noted that in all the reforming sects of the commencement of the
thirteenth century the two sexes were closely united. (Vide Burchardi
chronicon, Pertz, 1, 23, p. 376. Cf. Potthast, 2611, bull Cum otim of
Nov. 25, 1205.)
On the 7th of June, 1201 (bull Incunubit nobis), Innocent III. had ap.
proved the Rule of the Humiliants. This was a religious association
whose members continued to live in their own homes, and who offer sur
SANTA CLARA
159
But such a situation could not last long. The intimacy
of Francis and Clara, the familiarity of the earlier friars
and Sisters would not do as a model for the relations of
the two Orders when each had some hundreds of mem-
bers. Francis himself very soon perceived this, though
not so clearly as his sister-friend. Clara survived him
nearly twenty-seven years, and thus had time to see the
shipwreck of the Franciscan ideal among the Brothers,
as well as in almost every one of the houses which had at
first followed the Rule of St. Damian. She herself was
led by the pressure of events to lay down rules for her
own convent, but to her very death-bed she contended
for the defence of the true Franciscan ideas, with a hero-
ism, a boldness, at once intense and holy, by which she
took a place in the first rank of witnesses for conscience.
Is it not one of the loveliest pictures in religious his-
tory, that of this woman who for more than half a cen-
tury sustains moment by moment a struggle with all the
popes who succeed one another in the pontifical throne,
remaining always equally respectful and immovable, not
consenting to die until she has gained her victory ? 1
To relate her life is to relate this struggle; the greater
number of its vicissitudes may be found in the docu-
cap. 28.
prising points of contact with the Franciscan Order, though they took
no vow of poverty. From them issued a more restricted association
which founded convents where they worked in wool; these convents re-
ceived both men and women. Vide Jacques de Vitry, Hist. Occidentalis,
De religione et regula Humiliatorum (Douai, 1597, pp. 334-
337). The time came when from these two Orders issued a third, com-
posed solely of priests. These Humiliati are too little known, though
they have had a historian whose book is one of the noble works of the
eighteenth century: Tiraboschi, Vetera Humiliatorum monumenta
(Milan, 3 vols., 4to, 1766-1768). Toward 1200 they had monopolized
l'arte della lana in all upper Italy as far as to Florence ; it is evident,
therefore, that Francis's father must have had relations with them.
| The bull approving the Rule of St. Damian is of August 9, 1253.
Clara died two days later.
160
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
ments of the Roman curia. Francis had warded off
many a danger from his institution, but he had given
himself guardians who were little disposed to yield any
of their rights ; Cardinal Ugolini in particular, the fut-
ure Gregory IX., took a part in these matters which is
very difficult to understand. We see him continually
lavishing upon Francis and Clara expressions of affection
and admiration which appear to be absolutely sincere;
and yet the Franciscan ideal—regarded as the life of
love at which one arrives by freeing himself from all
servitude to material things — has hardly had a worse
adversary than he.
In the month of May, 1228, Gregory IX. went to As-
sisi for the preliminaries of the canonization of St. Fran-
cis. Before entering the city he turned out of his way
to visit St. Damian and to see Clara, whom he had known
for a long time, and to whom he had addressed letters
burning with admiration and paternal affection.
How can we understand that at this time, the eve
of the canonization (July 16, 1228), the pontiff could
have had the idea of urging her to be faithless to her
vows ?
He represented to her that the state of the times made
life impossible to women who possess nothing, and
offered her certain properties. As Clara gazed at him in
astonishment at this strange proposition, he said, “If it
is your vows which prevent you, we will release you
from them."
Holy Father,” replied the Franciscan sister, "ab-
solve me from my sins, but I have no desire for a dis-
pensation from following Christ.” 2
Noble and pious utterance, artless cry of independence,
in which the conscience proudly proclaims its autonomy!
11 Cel., 122. Cf. Potthast, 8194 ff. ; cf. ib., 709.
- 4. SS., Vita Cl., p. 758. Cf. bull of canonization.
SANTA OLARA
161
In these words is mirrored at full length the spiritual
daughter of the Poverello.
By one of those intuitions which often come to very
enthusiastic and very pure women, she had penetrated to
the inmost depths of Francis's heart, and felt herself in-
flamed with the same passion which burned in him. She
remained faithful to him to the end, but we perceive that
it was not without difficulty.
This is not the place in which to ask whether Gregory
IX. was right in desiring that religious communities
should hold estates; he had a right to his own views on
the subject; but there is something shocking, to say no
more, in seeing him placing Francis among the saints at
the very moment when he was betraying his dearest
ideals, and seeking to induce those who had remained
faithful to betray them.
Had Clara and Francis foreseen the difficulties which
they would meet? We may suppose so, for already
under the pontificate of Innocent III. she had obtained
a grant of the privilege of poverty. The pope was so
much surprised at such a request that he desired to
write with his own hands the opening lines of this
patent, the like of which had never been asked for at
the court of Rome.
Under his successor, Honorius III., the most important
personage of the curia was this very Cardinal Ugolini.
Almost a septuagenarian in 1216 he inspired awe at first
1
1 Vit. S. Clar., A. SS., p. 758. This petition was surely made by the
medium of Francis; and there are several indications of his presence in
Perugia in the latter part of the life of Innocent III. In obitu suo
[Alexandri papæ] omnes familiares sui deseruerunt eum præter fratres
Minores. Et similiter Papam Gregorium et Honorium et Innocentium
in cujus obitu fuit præsentialiter S. Franciscus. Eccl. xv. Mon. Germ.
hist. Script., t. 28 p. 568. Sbaralea puts forth doubts as to the authen.
ticity of this privilege, the text of which he gives ; wrongly, I think,
for Clara alludes to it in her will, A. SS., p. 747.
162
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
1
sight by the aspect of his person. He had that singular
beauty which distinguishes the old who have escaped the
usury of life; pious, enlightened, energetic, he felt him-
self made for great undertakings. There is something
in him which recalls Cardinal Lavigerie and all the prel-
ates whose red robes cover a soldier or a despot rather
than a priest.
The Franciscan movement was attacked with vio-
lence in various quarters; he undertook to defend it,
and a very long time before the charge of protector of
the Order was officially confided to him, he exercised it
with devouring zeal. He felt an unbounded admiration
for Francis and Clara, and often manifested it in a touch-
ing manner. If he had been a simple man he might
have loved them and followed them. Perhaps he even
had thought of doing so. Alas! he was a prince of the
Church; he could not help thinking of what he would do
in case he should be called to guide the ship of St. Peter.
He acted accordingly; was it calculation on his part or
simply one of those states of conscience in which a man
absorbed in the end to be attained hardly discusses the
ways and means? I do not know, but we see him imme-
diately on the death of Innocent III., under pretext of
protecting the Clarisses, take their direction in hand, give
1 He was born about 1147, created cardinal in 1198! Vide Raynald,
ann., 1217, § 88, the eulogy made upon him by Honorius III. Forma
decorus et venustus aspectu .. zelator fidei, disciplina virtutis,
castitatis amator et totius sanctitatis exemplar : Muratori, Scriptores rer.
Ital.. iii., 1, 575.
21 Cel., 74.
The bull Litterce tucs of August 27, 1218, shows him already favor-
ing the Clarisses. Sbaralea, i., p. 1. Vide 3 Soc., 61. Offero me ipsum,
dixit Hugolinus, vobis, auxilium et consilium, atque protectionem paratus
impendere.
* In the Conformities, 107a, 2, there is a curious story which shows
Ugolini going to the Carceri to find Francis, and asking him if he ought
to enter his Order. Cf. Spec., 217.
O
SANTA CLARA
163
1
2
them a Rule, and substitute his own ideas for those of St.
Francis.
In the privilege which as legate he gave in favor of
Monticelli, July 27, 1219, neither Clara nor Francis is
named, and the Damianites become as a congregation of
Benedictines,
We shall see farther on the wrath of Francis against
Brother Philip, a Zealot of the Poor Ladies, who had ac-
cepted this privilege in his absence. His attitude was so
firm that other documents of the same nature granted by
Ugolini at the same epoch were not indorsed by the
pope until three years later.
The cardinal's ardor to profit by the enthusiasm which
the Franciscan ideas everywhere excited was so great
that we find, in the register of his legation of 1221, a sort
of formula all prepared for those who would found con-
vents like those of the Sisters of St. Damian; but even
there we search in vain for the name of Francis or Clara.3
This old man had, however, a truly mystical passion
for the young abbess; he wrote to her, lamenting the ne-
cessity of being far from her, in words which are the lan-
guage of love, respect, and admiration. There were at
1 He succeeded so well that Thomas of Celano himself seems to forget
that, at least at St. Damian, the Clarisses followed the Rule given by St.
Francis himself: Ipsorum vita mirifica et institutio gloriosa a domino
Papa Gregorio, tunc Hostiensi episcopo. 1 Cel. 20. Cf. Fonorii Opera
Horoy, t. iii., col. 363; t. iv., col. 218; Potthast, 6179 and 6879 ff.
* This privilege is inserted in the bull Sacrosancta of December 9,
1219. Honorii opera, Horoy, t. iii., col. 363 ff.
3 G. Levi, Registri dei Cardinali, no. 125. Vide below, p. 400. Cf.
Campi, Hist. eccl. di Piacenza, ii., 390.
* See, for example, the letter given by Wadding : Annals, ii., p. 16
(Rome, 1732). Tanta me amaritudo cordis, abundantia lacrymarum et
immanitas doloris invasit, quod nisi ad pedes Jesu, consolationem solitob
pietatis invenirem, spiritus meus forte deficeret et penitus anima liquefieret.
Wadding's text should be corrected by that of the Riccardi MS., 279,
tº 80a and b. Cf. Mark of Lisbon, t. i., p. 185 ; Sbaralea, i., p. 37.
164
LIFE OF ST. FRANUIS
least two men in Ugolini: the Christian, who felt him-
self subdued before Clara and Francis; the prelate, that
is, a man whom the glory of the Church sometimes
caused to forget the glory of God.
Francis, though almost always resisting him, appears
to have kept a feeling of ingenuous gratitude toward
him to the very end. Clara, on the contrary, had too
long a struggle to be able to keep any illusions as to
the attitude of her protector. After 1230 there is no
trace of any relations between them.
All the efforts of the pope to mitigate the rigor of
Clara's vow of poverty had remained vain. Many other
nuns desired to practise strictly the Rule of St. Francis.
Among them was the daughter of the King of Bohemia,
Ottokar I., who was in continual relations with Clara.
But Gregory IX., to whom she addressed herself, was
inflexible. While pouring eulogies upon her he en-
joined upon her to follow the Rule which he sent to her-
that is, the one which he had composed while he was yet
cardinal. The Rule of the Poverello was put among the
utopias, not to say heresies.1 He never, however, could
induce St. Clara to completely submit herself. One day,
indeed, she rebelled against his orders, and it was the
pope who was obliged to yield: he had desired to bring
about a wider separation between the friars and the Sis-
ters than had formerly prevailed; for a long time after
the death of Francis a certain familiarity had continued
between St. Damian and Portiuncula; Clara especially
loved these neighborly relations, and often begged one or
another Brother to come and preach. The pope thought
ill of this, and forbade, under the severest penalty, that
1 Bull Angelis gaudium of May 11, 1238; it may be found in Sbaralea,
1., p. 242. Cf. Palacky, Literarische Reise nach Italien, Prague, 1838,
4to, no. 147. Potthast, 10,596 ; cf. 11,175.
SANTA CLARA
165
f
1
any friar of Portiuncula should go to St. Damian with-
out express permission of the Holy See.
This time Clara became indignant. She went to the
few friars attached to her monastery, and thanking them
for their services, “Go," she said ; "since they deprive
us of those who dispense to us spiritual bread, we will
not have those who procure for us our material bread.”
He who wrote that “the necks of kings and princes are
bowed at the feet of the priests” was obliged to bow before
this woman and raise his prohibition.
St. Damian had too often echoed with St. Francis's
hymns of love and liberty to forget him so soon and be-
come an ordinary convent. Clara remained surrounded
with the master's early companions ; Egidio, Leo, An-
gelo, Ginepro never ceased to be assiduous visitors.
These true lovers of poverty felt themselves at home
there, and took liberties which would elsewhere have
given surprise. One day an English friar, a celebrated
theologian, came according to the minister's orders to
preach at St. Damian. Suddenly Egidio, though a
simple layman, interrupted him : “Stop, brother, let me
speak,” he said to him. And the master in theology,
bowing his head, covered himself with his cowl as a sign
of obedience, and sat down to listen to Egidio.
Clara felt a great joy in this; it seemed to her that
she was once again living in St. Francis's days. The
little coterie was kept up until her death ; she expired
in the arms of Brothers Leo, Angelo, and Ginepro. In
her last sufferings and her dying visions she had the
supreme happiness of being surrounded by those who
had devoted their lives to the same ideal as she.3
In her will her life shows itself that which we have
1 A. SS., Vit. Clar., p. 762. Cf. Conform., 84b, 2.
* A. SS., Aprilis, t. iii., p. 2398 ; Conform., 54a, 1; 1778, 2.
3 A. SS., Vit. Clar., p. 764d.
166
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
seen it-a daily struggle for the defence of the Francis-
can idea. We see how courageous and brave was this
woman who has always been represented as frail, emaci-
ated, blanched like a flower of the cloister.1
She defended Francis not only against others, but also
against himself. In those hours of dark discouragement
which so often and so profoundly disturb the noblest
souls and sterilize the grandest efforts, she was beside
him to show him his way. When he doubted his mis-
sion and thought of fleeing to the heights of repose and
solitary prayer, it was she who showed him the ripening
harvest with no reapers to gather it in, men going astray
with no shepherd to lead them, and drew him once again
into the train of the Galilean, into the number of those
who give their lives a ransom for many?
Yet this love with which at St. Damian Francis felt
himself surrounded frightened him at times. He feared
that his death, making too great a void, would imperil
the institution itself, and he took pains to remind the
sisters that he would not be always with them. One day
when he was to preach to them, instead of entering the
pulpit he caused some ashes to be brought, and after
having spread them around him and scattered some on
his head, he intoned the Miserere, thus reminding them
that he was but dust and would soon return to dust.3
But in general it is at St. Damian that St. Francis is
* The bull of canonization says nothing of the Saracens whom she put
to flighti
. Her life in the A. SS. relates the fact, but shows her simply
in prayer before the Holy Sacrament. Cf. Conform., 84b, 1. Mark of
Lisbon t. i., part 2, pp. 179–181. None of these accounts represents
Clara as going to meet them with a monstrance.
? Bon., 173 ; Fior. 16 ; Spec., 62b; Conform., 84b, 2; 110b 1 ; 49a, 1.
With these should be compared Spec., 220b : Frater Leo narravit quod
Sanrtus Franciscus surgens orare (sic) venit ad fratres suos dicens : “ Ito
ad scculum et dimittatis habitum, licentio vos.”
2 Cel., 3, 134.
SANTA OLARA
26?
the most himself; it is under the shade of its olive-trees,
with Clara caring for him, that he composes his finest
work, that which Ernest Renan called the most perfect
utterance of modern religious sentiment, the “Canticle of
the Sun."
CHAPTER X
FIRST ATTEMPTS TO REACH THE INFIDELS
Autumn, 1212-Summer, 1215
The early Brothers Minor had too much need of the
encouragement and example of Francis not to have very
early agreed with him upon certain fixed periods when
they would be sure to find him at Portiuncula. Still it
appears probable that these meetings did not become
true Chapters-General until toward 1216. There were at
first two a year, one at Whitsunday, the other at Michael-
SS (September 29th). Those of Whitsunday were the
most important; all the Brothers came together to gain
new strength in the society of Francis, to draw generous
ardor and grand hopes from him with his counsels and
directions.
The members of the young association had everything
in common, their joys as well as their sorrows; their un-
certainties as well as the results of their experiences. At
these meetings they were particularly occupied with the
Rule, the changes that needed to be made in it, and
above all, how they might better and better observe it;
then, in perfect harmony, they settled the allotment of
the friars to the various provinces.
One of Francis's most frequent counsels bore upon the
respect due to the clergy; he begged his disciples to
1
1 3 Soc., 57; cf. An. Perus., A. SS., p. 599.
FIRST ATTEMPTS TO REACH THE INFIDELS
169
show a very particular deference to the priests, and never
to meet them without kissing their hands. He saw only
too well that the Brothers, having renounced everything,
were in danger of being unjust or severe toward the rich
and powerful of the earth; he, therefore, sought to arm
them against this tendency, often concluding his counsels
with these noble words: “There are men who to-day
appear to us to be members of the devil who one day
shall be members of Christ.”
“Our life in the midst of the world,” said he again,
ought to be such that, on hearing or seeing us, every
one shall feel constrained to praise our heavenly Father.
You proclaim peace; have it in your hearts. Be not an
occasion of wrath or scandal to anyone, but by your
gentleness may all be led to peace, concord, and good
works.”
It was especially when he undertook to cheer his dis-
ciples, to fortify them against temptations and deliver
them from their power, that Francis was most successful.
However anxious a soul might be, his words brought it
back to serenity. The earnestness which he showed in
calming sadness became fiery and terrible in reproving
those who fell away, but in these days of early fervor he
seldom had occasion to show severity; more often he
needed gently to reprove the Brothers whose piety led
them to exaggerate penances and macerations.
When all was finished and each one had had his part
in this banquet of love, Francis would bless them, and
they would disperse in all directions like strangers and
travellers. They had nothing, but already they thought
they saw the signs of the grand and final regeneration.
Like the exile on Patmos they saw “the holy city, the
new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven,
like a bride adorned for her husband
and the
throne upon which is seated the Desired of all nations,
170
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
de Messiah of the new times, he who is to make all things
W.
Yet all eyes were turned toward Syria, where a French
knight, Jean de Brienne, had just been declared King of
Jerusalem (1210), and toward which were hastening the
bands of the children's crusade.
The conversion of Francis, radical as it was, giving
a new direction to his thoughts and will, had not had
power to change the foundation of his character. “In
a great heart everything is great.”
In vain is one
changed at conversion--he remains the same. That
which changes is not he who is converted, but his sur-
roundings; he is suddenly introduced into a new
path, but he runs in it with the same ardor. Francis
still remained a knight, and it is perhaps this which won
for him in so high a degree the worship of the finest
souls of the Middle Ages. There was in him that long-
ing for the unknown, that thirst for adventures and
sacrifices, which makes the history of his century so
grand and so attractive, in spite of many dark features.
Those who have a genius for religion have generally
the privilege of illusion. They never quite see how
large the world is. When their faith has moved a moun-
tain they thrill with rapture, like the old Hebrew
prophets, and it seems to them that they see the dawn-
ing of the day “when the glory of the Lord will appear,
when the wolf and the lamb will feed together.” Blessed
illusion, that fires the blood like a generous wine, so that
the soldiers of righteousness hurl themselves against the
most terrific fortresses, believing that these once taken
the war will be ended.
Francis had found such joys in his union with poverty
that he held it for proven that one needed only to be a
man to aspire after the same happiness, and that the
Rev. xxi.; 1 Cel., 46 ; 3 Soc., 57-59; An. Perus., A. SS., p. 600.
FIRST ATTEMPTS TO REACH THE INFIDELS 171
Saracens would be converted in crowds to the gospel of
Jesus, if only it were announced to them in all its simplic-
ity. He therefore quitted Portiuncula for this new kind
of crusade. It is not known from what port he embarked.
It was probably in the autumn of 1212. A tempest have
ing cast the ship upon the coast of Slavonia, he was
obliged to resign himself either to remain several months
in those parts or to return to Italy; he decided to re-
turn, but found much difficulty in securing a passage on
a ship which was about to sail for Ancona.
He had no
ill-will against the sailors, however, and the stock of food
falling short he shared with them the provisions with
which his friends had overloaded him.
No sooner had he landed than he set out on a preach-
ing tour, in which souls responded to his appeals 1 with
even more eagerness than in times past.
We may sup-
pose that he returned from Slavonia in the winter of
1212_1213, and that he employed the following spring in
evangelizing Central Italy. It was perhaps during this
Lent that he retired to an island in Lake Trasimeno,
making a sojourn there which afterward became famous
in his legend. However that may be, a perfectly reli-
able document shows him to have been in the Romagna
in the month of May, 1213.3 One day Francis and his
companion, perhaps Brother Leo, arrived at the chateau
of Montefeltro, 4 between Macerata and San Marino. А
grand fête was being given for the reception of a new
knight, but the noise and singing did not affright them,
and without hesitation they entered the court, where all
11 Cel., 55 and 56; Bon., 129–132.
? Fior., 7; Spec., 96 ; Conform., 223a, 2. The fact of Francis's 80
journ on an island in this lake is made certain by 1 Cel., 60.
• Vide below, p. 400. Cf. A. SS.,
Cf. A. SS., pp. 823 f.
* At present Sasso-Feltrio, between Conca and Marecchio, south of and
about two hours' walk from San Marino.
172
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
the nobility of the country was assembled. Francis then
taking for his text the two lines,
Tanto è il bene ch' aspetto
Ch'ogni pena m'è diletto,
1
preached so touching a sermon that several of those
present forgot for a moment the tourney for which they
had come.
One of them, Orlando dei Cattani, Count of
Chiusi in Casentino, was so much moved that, drawing
Francis aside, “Father," he said to him, “I desire
much to converse with you about the salvation of my
soul." Very willingly,” replied Francis; “but go for
this morning, do honor to those friends who have in-
vited you, eat with them, and after that we will converse
as much as you please.'
So it was done. The count came back and concluded
the interview by saying, “I have in Tuscany a mountain
especially favorable to contemplation; it is entirely iso-
lated and would well suit anyone who desired to do
penance far from the noises of the world; if it pleased
you I would willingly give it to you and your brethren
for the salvation of my soul."
Francis accepted it joyfully, but as he was obliged to
be at Portiuncula for the Whitsunday chapter he post-
poned the visit to the Verna? to a more favorable time.
It was perhaps in this circuit that he went to Imola;
at least nothing forbids the supposition. Always cour-
teous, he had gone immediately on his arrival to present
himself to the bishop, and ask of him authority to preach.
“I am not in need of anyone to aid me in my task,"
The happiness that I expect is so great that all pain is joyful to me.
All the documents give Francis's text in Italian, which is enough to prove
that it was the language not only of his poems but also of his sermons.
Spec. 92a ff. Conform. 113a, 2 ; 231a, 1; Fior., Prima consid.
? See p. 400.
FIRST ATTEMPTS TO REACH THE INFIDELS
173
replied the bishop dryly. Francis bowed and retired,
more polite and even more gentle than usual. But in
less than hour he had returned. “What is it, brother,
what do you want of me again? Monsignor," replied
Francis, “when a father drives his son out at the door
he returns by the window.”
The bishop, disarmed by such pious persistence, gave
the desired authorization.1
The aim of Francis at that time, however, was not to
evangelize Italy; his friars were already scattered over it
in great numbers; and he desired rather to gain them
access to new countries.
Not having been able to reach the infidels in Syria, he
resolved to seek them in Morocco. Some little time
before (July, 1212), the troops of the Almohades had met
an irreparable defeat in the plains of Tolosa; beaten by
the coalition of the Kings of Aragon, Navarre, and Castile,
Mohammed-el-Naser had returned to Morocco to die.
Francis felt that this victory of arms would be nothing
if it were not followed by a peaceful victory of the gospel
spirit.
He was so full of his project, so much in haste to
arrive at the end of his journey, that very often he would
forget his companion, and hastening forward would leave
him far behind. The biographers are unfortunately most
laconic with regard to this expedition ; they merely say
that on arriving in Spain he was so seriously ill that a
return home was imperative. Beyond a few local legends,
not very well attested, we possess no other informa-
tion upon the labors of the Saint in this country, nor
upon the route which he followed either in going or
returning.
This silence is not at all surprising, and ought not to
make us undervalue the importance of this mission. The
* 2 Cel., 3, 85; Bon., 82.
* 1 Cel., 56; Bon., 132.
2
174
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
one to Egypt, which took place six years later, with a whole
train of friars, and at a time when the Order was much
more developed, is mentioned only in a few lines by
Thomas of Celano; but for the recent discovery of the
Chronicle of Brother Giordano di Giano and the copious
details given by Jacques de Vitry, we should be reduced
to conjectures upon that journey also. The Spanish
legends, to which allusion has just been made, cannot be
altogether without foundation, any more than those which
concern the journey of St. Francis through Languedoc
and Piedmont; but in the actual condition of the sour-
ces it is impossible to make a choice, with any sort of
authority, between the historic basis and additions to it
wholly without value.
The mission in Spain doubtless took place between
the Whitsunday of 1214 and that of 1215. Francis, I
think, had passed the previous year? in Italy. Perhaps
he was then going to see the Verna. The March of An-
cona and the Valley of Rieti would naturally have attracted
him equally about this epoch, and finally the growth of
the two branches of the Order must have made necessary
his presence at Portiuncula and St. Damian. The ra-
pidity and importance of these missions ought in no
sense to give surprise, nor awaken exaggerated critical
doubts. It took only a few hours to become a member
of the fraternity, and we may not doubt the sincerity of
these vocations, since their condition was the imme-
| Vide Wadding, ann. 1213-1215. Cf. A. SS., pp. 602, 603, 825–831.
Mark of Lisbon, lib. i., cap. 45, pp. 78-80 ; Papini, Storia di S. Fran-
cesco, i., p. 79 ff. (Foligno, 1825, 2 vols., 4to). It is surprising to see
Father Suysken giving so much weight to the argumentum a silentio.
? From Pentecost, 1213, to that of 1214.-Post non multum vero tem-
poris versus Marochium iter arripuit, says Thomas of Celano (1 Cel., 56),
after having mentioned the return from Slavonia. Taking into account
the author's 2848 loquendi the phrase appears to establish a certain in.
terval between the two missions.
FIRST ATTEMPTS TO REACH THE INFIDELS 175
diate giving up of all property of whatever kind, for the
benefit of the poor. The new friars were barely received
when they in their turn began to receive others, often
becoming the heads of the movement in whatever place
they happened to be. The way in which we see things
going on in Germany in 1221, and in England in 1224,
gives a very living picture of this spiritual germina-
tion.
To found a monastery it was enough that two or three
Brothers should have at their disposition some sort of a
shelter, whence they radiated out into the city and the
neighboring country. It would, therefore, be as much
an exaggeration to describe St. Francis as a man who
passed his life in founding convents, as to deny alto-
gether the local traditions which attribute to him the
erection of a hundred monasteries. In many cases a
glance is enough to show whether these claims of an-
tiquity are justified; before 1220 the Order had only
hermitages after the pattern of the Verna or the Carceri,
solely intended for the Brothers who desired to pass some
time in retreat.
Returned to Assisi, Francis admitted to the Order a
certain number of learned men, among whom was per-
haps Thomas of Celano. The latter, in fact, says that
God at that time mercifully remembered him, and he adds
further on: “The blessed Francis was of an exquisite
nobility of heart and full of discernment; with the great-
est care he rendered to each one what was due him, with
wisdom considering in each case the degree of their dig-
nities."
This does not harmonize very well with the character
of Francis as we have sketched it; one can hardly imag-
ine him preserving in his Order such profound distinc-
tions as were at that time made between the different so-
cial ranks, but he had that true and eternal politeness
176
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
which has its roots in the heart, and which is only an
expression of tact and love. It could not be otherwise
with a man who saw in courtesy one of the qualities of
God.
We are approaching one of the most obscure periods
of his life. After the chapter of 1215 he seems to have
passed through one of those crises of discouragement so
frequent with those who long to realize the ideal in this
world. Had he discovered the warning signs of the mis-
fortunes which were to come upon his family? Had he
come to see that the necessities of life were to sully and
blight his dream ? Had he seen in the check of his mis-
sions in Syria and Morocco a providential indication that
he had to change his method ? We do not know. But
about this time he felt the need of turning to St. Clara
and Brother Silvestro for counsel on the subject of the
doubts and hesitations which assailed him; their reply
restored to him peace and joy. God by their mouth
commanded him to continue his apostolate.
Immediately he rose and set forth in the direction of
Bevagna, with an ardor which he had never yet shown.
In encouraging him to persevere Clara had in some sort
inoculated him with a new enthusiasm. One word from
her had sufficed to give him back all his courage, and
from this point in his life we find in him more poetry,
niore love, than ever before.
Full of joy, he was going on his way when, perceiving
some flocks of birds, he turned aside a little from the
road to go to them. Far from taking flight, they flocked
around him as if to bid him welcome. “ Brother birds,"
he said to them then, “ you ought to praise and love your
Creator very much. He has given you feathers for
Conform., 110b, 1 ; Spec., 62b; Fior., 16 ; Bon., 170-174.
* Village about two leagues S. W. from Assisi. The time is indirectly
ixed by Bon., 173, and 1 Cel., 58.
FIRST ATTEMPTS TO REACH THE INFIDELS
177
elothing, wings for flying, and all that is needful for you.
He has made you the noblest of his creatures ; he per-
mits you to live in the pure air; you have neither to sow
nor to reap, and yet he takes care of you, watches over
you and guides you.” Then the birds began to arch their
necks, to spread out their wings, to open their beaks, to
look at him, as if to thank him, while he went up and
down in their midst stroking them with the border of his
tunic, sending them away at last with his blessing.
In this same evangelizing tour, passing through Al-
viano, he spoke a few exhortations to the people, but the
swallows so filled the air with their chirping that he
could not make himself heard. "It is my turn to speak,"
he said to them ; " little sister swallows, hearken to the
word of God; keep silent and be very quiet until I have
finished." 3
We see how Francis's love extended to all creation,
how the diffused life shed abroad upon all things in-
spired and moved him. From the sun to the earthworm
which we trample under foot, everything breathed in
his ear the ineffable sigh of beings that live and suffer
and die, and in their life as in their death have a part in
the divine work.
“Praised be thou, Lord, with all thy creatures, espe-
cially for my brother Sun which gives us the day and by
him thou showest thy light. He is beautiful and radiant
with great splendor; of thee, Most High, he is the sym-
bol."
Here again, Francis revives the Hebrew inspiration,
the simple and grandiose view of the prophets of Israel.
"Praise the Lord!” the royal Psalmist had sung,
? 1 Cel. 58; Bon., 109 and 174; Fior., 16; Spec., 62b; Conform.,
114b, 2.
? About halfway between Orvieto and Narni.
3 1 Cel., 59 · Bon., 175.
178
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
praise the Lord, fire and frost, snow and mists, stormy
winds that do his will, mountains and all hills, fruit-trees
and all cedars, beasts and all cattle, creeping things and
fowls with wings, kings of the earth and all peoples,
princes and all judges of the earth, young men and
maidens, old men and children, praise the Lord, praise
ye the Lord !”
The day of the birds of Bevagna remained in his
memory as one of the most beautiful of his whole life,
and though usually so reserved he always loved to tell of
it;' it was because he owed to Clara these pure ardors
which brought him into a secret and delicious commun-
ion with all beings; it was she who had revived him
from sadness and hesitation; in his heart he bore an
immense gratitude to her who, just when he needed it,
had known how to return to him love for love, inspiration
for inspiration
Francis's sympathy for animals, as we see it shining
forth here, has none of that sentimentalism, so often
artificial and exclusive of all other love, which certain
associations of his time noisily displayed ; in him it is
only a manifestation of his feeling for nature, a deeply
mystical, one might say pantheistic, sentiment, if the
word had not a too definitely philosophical sense, quite
opposite to the Franciscan thought.
This sentiment, which in the poets of the thirteenth
century is so often false and affected, was in him not
only true, but had in it something alive, healthy, robust.?
* Ad hoc, ut ipse dicebat
1 Cel., 58.
? Francis has been compared in this regard to certain of his contem-
poraries, but the similarity of the words only makes more evident
the diversity of inspiration. Honorius III. may say : Forma rosce est
inferius angusta, superius ampla et significat quod Christus pauper fuit
in mundo, sed est Dominus super omnia et implet universa. Nam sicut
forma rosce, etc. (Horoy, t. i., col. xxiv. and 804), and make a whole
sermon on the symbolism of the rose ; these overstrained dissertations
FIRST ATTEMPTS TO REACH THE INFIDELS
179
It is this vein of poetry which awoke Italy to self-con-
sciousness, made her in a few years forget the nightmare
of Catharist ideas, and rescued her from pessimism. By
it Francis became the forerunner of the artistic move.
ment which preceded the Renaissance, the inspirer of
that group of Pre-Raphaelites, awkward, grotesque in
drawing though at times they were, to whom we turn
to-day with a sort of piety, finding in their ungraceful
saints an inner life, a moral feeling which we seek for
‘elsewhere in vain.
If the voice of the Poverello of Assisi was so well
understood it was because in this matter, as in all others,
it was entirely unconventional. How far we are, with him,
from the fierce or Pharisaic piety of those monks which
forbids even the females of animals to enter their con-
vent! His notion of chastity in no sense resembles this
excessive prudery. One day at Sienna he asked for some
turtle doves, and holding them in the skirt of his tunic,
he said: "Little sisters turtle doves, you are simple,
innocent, and chaste; why did you let yourselves be
caught? I shall save you from death, and have nests
made for you, so that you may bring forth young
and multiply according to the commandment of our
Creator."
And he went and made nests for them all, and the
turtle-doves began to lay eggs and bring up their broods
under the eyes of the Brothers.
At Rieti a family of red-breasts were the guests of the
monastery, and the young birds made marauding expe-
have nothing to do with the feeling for nature. It is the arsenal of
mediæval rhetoric used to dissect a word. It is an intellectual effort,
not a song of love. The Imitation would say: If thy heart were right
all creatures would be for thee a mirror of life and a volume of holy doc
trine, lib. ii., cap. 2. The simple sentiment of the beauty of creation is
absent here also ; the passage is a pedagogue in disguise.
Spec., 157. Fior.; 22.
1
1
1
180
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
ditions on the very table where the Brothers were eating.
Not far from there, at Greccio," they brought to Francis
a leveret that had been taken alive in a trap. “Come
to me, brother leveret,” he said to it. And as the poor
creature, being set free, ran to him for refuge, he took it
up, caressed it, and finally put it on the ground that it
might run away; but it returned to him again and again,
so that he was obliged to send it to the neighboring forest
before it would consent to return to freedom.3
One day he was crossing the Lake of Rieti. The
boatman in whose bark he was making the passage
offered him a tench of uncommon size. Francis accepted
it with joy, but to the great amazement of the fisherman
put it back into the water, bidding it bless God.
We should never have done if we were to relate all the
incidents of this kind, for the sentiment of nature was
innate with him; it was a perpetual communion which
made him love the whole creation. He is ravished with
the witchery of great forests; he has the terrors of a
child when he is alone at prayer in a deserted chapel, but
he tastes ineffable joy merely in inhaling the perfume of
a flower, or gazing into the limpid water of a brook.
This perfect lover of poverty permitted one luxury-
he even commanded it at Portiuncula—that of flowers;
the Brother was bidden not to sow vegetables and useful
plants only; he must reserve one corner of good ground
7
2
1 2 Cel., 2, 16; Conform., 148a, 1, 183b, 2. Cf. the story of the sheep
of Portiuncula : Bon., 111.
Village in the valley of Rieti, two hours' walk from that town, on
the road to Terni.
31 Cel., 60; Bon., 113.
* 1 Cel., 61 ; Bon., 114.
2 Cel., 3, 54; Bon., 109; 2 Cel., 3 ; 103 ff.; Bon., 116 ff.; Bon., 110;
1 Cel., 61 ; Bon., 114, 113, 115 ; 1 Cel., 79; Fior., 13, etc.
• 2 Cel., 3, 101 ff.; Bon., 123.
* 2 Cel., 3, 59; 1 Cel., 80 and 81.
FIRST ATTEMPTS TO REACH THE INFIDELS 181
for our sisters, the flowers of the fields. Francis talked
with them also, or rather ho replied to them, for their
mysterious and gentle language crept into the very depth
of his heart.1
The thirteenth century was prepared to understand the
voice of the Umbrian poet; the sermon to the birds?
closed the reign of Byzantine art and of the thought of
which it was the image. It is the end of dogmatism and
authority; it is the coming in of individualism and in-
spiration; very uncertain, no doubt, and to be followed by
obstinate reactions, but none the less marking a date in
the history of the human conscience. Many among the
companions of Francis were too much the children of
their century, too thoroughly imbued with its theological
12 Cel., 3, 101 ; Spec., 136a ; 1 Cel., 81.
* This is the scene in his life most often reproduced by the predeces-
sors of Giotto. The unknown artist who (before 1236) decorated the
nave of the Lower Church of Assisi gives five frescos to the history of
Jesus and five to the life of St. Francis. Upon the latter he represents:
1, the renunciation of the paternal inheritance ; 2, Francis upholding
the Lateran church; 3, the sermon to the birds; 4, the stigmata ; 5,
the funeral. This work, unhappily very badly lighted, and about half
of it destroyed at the time of the construction of the chapels of the nave,
ought to be engraved before it completely disappears. The history of
art in the time of Giunta Pisano is still too much enveloped in obscu-
rity for us to neglect such a source of information. M. Thode (Franz
von Assisi und die Anfänge der Kunst, Berlin, 1885, 8vo, illust.) and the
Rev. Father Fratini (Storia della Basilica d'Assisi, Prato, 1882, 8vo) are
much too brief so far as these frescos are concerned.
* It is needless to say that I do not claim that Francis was the only
initiator of this movement, still less that he was its creator ; he was its
most inspired singer, and that may suffice for his glory. If Italy was
awakened it was because her sleep was not so sound as in the tenth
century; the mosaics of the facade of the Cathedral of Spoleto (the
Christ between the Virgin and St. John) already belong to the new art.
Still, the victory was so little final that the mural paintings of St. Law-
rence without the walls and of the Quattro Coronate, which are subse-
quent to it by half a score of years, relapse into a coarse Byzantinism.
See also those of the Baptistery of Florence.
182
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
and metaphysical methods, to quite understand a senti-
ment so simple and profound. But each in his degree
felt its charm. Here Thomas of Celano's language rises
to an elevation which we find in no other part of his
works, closing with a picture of Francis which makes
one think of the Song of Songs.?
Of more than middle height, Francis had a delicate
and kindly face, black eyes, a soft and sonorous voice.
There was in his whole person a delicacy and grace
which made him infinitely lovely. All these character-
istics are found in the most ancient portraits.3
2 1 Cel.,
1 Hence the more or less subtile explanations with which they adorn
these incidents. As to the part of animals in thirteenth century legends
consult Cæsar von Heisterbach, Strange's edition, t. ii., pp. 257 ff.
80–83.
31 Cel., 83 ; Conform., 111a. M. Thode (Anfänge, pp. 76–94) makes
a study of some thirty portraits. The most important are reproduced in
Saint François (1 vol., 4to, Paris, 1885); 1, contemporary portrait, by
Brother Eudes, now at Subiaco (loc. cit., p. 30) ; 2, portrait dating about
1230, by Giunta Pisano (?); preserved at Portiuncula (loc. cit., p. 384) ;
3, finally, portrait dated 1235, by Bon. Berlinghieri, and preserved at
Pescia, in Tuscany (loc. cit., p. 277). In 1886 Prof. Carattoli studied with
great care a portrait which dates from about those years and of which
he gives a picture (also preserved of late years at Portiuncula). Mis.
cellanea francescana t. i., pp. 44-48; cf. pp. 160, 190, and 1887, p. 32.
M. Bonghi has written some interesting papers on the iconography of
St. Francis (Francesco di Assisi, 1 vol., 12mo, Citta di Castello, Lapi,
1884. Vide pp. 103-113).
CHAPTER XI
THE INNER MAN AND WONDER WORKING
The missionary journey, undertaken under the en-
couragement of St. Clara and so poetically inaugurated
by the sermon to the birds of Bevagna, appears to have
been a continual triumph for Francis. Legend defini-
tively takes possession of him; whether he will or no,
miracles burst forth under his footsteps; quite una-
wares to himself the objects of which he has made use
produce marvellous effects; folk come out from the vil-
lages in procession to meet him, and the biographer
gives us to hear the echo of those religious festivals of
Italy--merry, popular, noisy, bathed in sunshine--which
so little resemble the fastidiously arranged festivals of
northern peoples.
From Alviano Francis doubtless went to Narni, one
of the most charming little towns in Umbria, busy with
building a cathedral after the conquest of their com-
munal liberties. He seems to have had a sort of predi-
lection for this city as well as for its surrounding vil-
lages. From thence he seems to have plunged into the
valley of Rieti, where Greccio, Fonte-Colombo, San
Fabiano, Sant-Eleuthero, Poggio-Buscone retain even
stronger traces of him than the environs of Assisi.
11 Cel., 62.
? 1 Cel., 66 ; cf. Bon., 180; 1 Cel., 67; cf. Bon., 182 ; 1 Cel., 69;
Bon., 183. After St. Francis's death the Narniates were the first to
come to pray at his tomb. 1 Cel., 128, 135. 136, 138, 141 ; Bon., 275.
184
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
Thomas of Celano gives us no particulars of the route
followed, but, on the other hand, he goes at length into
the success of the apostle in the March of Ancona, and
especially at Ascoli. Did the people of these districts
still remember the appeals which Francis and Egidio
had made to them six years before (1209), or must we
believe that they were peculiarly prepared to understand
the new gospel? However this may be, nowhere else
was a like enthusiasm shown; the effect of the sermons
was so great that some thirty neophytes at once received
the habit of the Order.
The March of Ancona ought to be held to be the
Franciscan province par excellence. There are Offida,
San-Severino, Macerata, Fornaro, Cingoli, Fermo, Massa,
and twenty other hermitages where, during more than a
century, poverty was to find its heralds and its martyrs;
from thence came Giovanni della Verna, Jacopo di
Massa, Conrad di Offida, Angelo Clareno, and those le-
gions of nameless revolutionists, dreamers, and prophets,
who since the extirpés in 1244 by the general of the
Order, Crescentius of Jesi, never ceased to make new
recruits, and by their proud resistance to all powers
filled one of the finest pages of religious history in the
Middle Ages.
This success, which bathed the soul of Francis with
joy, did not arouse in him the smallest movement of
pride. Never has man had a greater power over hearts,
because never preacher preached himself less. One day
Brother Masseo desired to put his modesty to the test.
“Why thee? Why thee? Why thee?” he repeated again and
again, as if to make a mock of Francis. " What are you saying ? "
oried Francis at last. “I am saying that everybody follows thee, every-
one desires to see thee, hear thee, and obey thee, and yet for all that
thou art neither beautiful, nor learned, nor of noble family. Whenon
romes it, then, that it should be thee whom the world desires to follow ?"
On hearing these words the blessed Francis, full of joy, raised his eyes
THE INNER MAN AND WONDER-WORKING
185
to heaven, and after remaining a long time absorbed in contemplation
he knelt, praising and blessing God with extraordinary fervor. Then
turning toward Masseo, “Thou wishest to know why it is I whom men
follow ? Thou wishest to know? It is because the eyes of the Most
High have willed it thus; he continually watches the good and the
wicked, and as his most holy eyes have not found among sinners any
smaller man, nor any more insufficient and more sinful, therefore he
has chosen me to accomplish the marvellous work which God has under-
taken; he chose me because he could find no one more worthless, and
he wished here to confound the nobility and grandeur, the strength, the
beauty, and the learning of this world." ]
This reply throws a ray of light upon St. Francis's heart;
the message which he brought to the world is once again
the glad tidings announced to the poor ; its purpose is
the taking up again of that Messianic work which the
Virgin of Nazareth caught a glimpse of in her Magnificat,
that song of love and liberty, the sighs of which breathe
the vision of a new social state. He comes to remind
the world that the welfare of man, the peace of his heart,
the joy of his life, are neither in money, nor in learn-
ing, nor in strength, but in an upright and sincere will.
Peace to men of good will.
The part which he had taken at Assisi in the con-
troversies of his fellow-citizens he would willingly have
taken in all the rest of Italy, for no man has ever
dreamed of a more complete renovation; but if the end
he sought was the same as that of many revolutionaries
who came after him, their methods were completely dif-
ferent; his only weapon was love.
The event has decided against him. Apart from the
illuminati of the March of Ancona and the Fraticelli of
our own Provence his disciples have vied with one
another to misunderstand his thought.
1 As concerning : 1, fidelity to Poverty ; 2, prohibition of modifying
the Rule ; 3, the equal authority of the Will and the Rule; 4, the
request for privileges at the court of Rome ; 5, the elevation of the
186
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
Who knows if some one will not arise to take up his
work ? Has not the passion for worm-eaten speculations
yet made victims enough ? Are there not many among
us who perceive that luxury is a delusion, that if life is a
battle, it is not a slaughter-house where ferocious beasts
wrangle over their prey, but a wrestling with the divine,
under whatever form it may present itself-truth, beauty,
or love? Who knows whether this expiring nineteenth
century will not arise from its winding-sheet to make
amende honorable and bequeath to its successor one
manly word of faith?
Yes, the Messiah will come. He who was announced
by Gioacchino di Fiore and who is to inaugurate a new
epoch in the history of humanity will appear. Hope
maketh not ashamed. In our modern Babylons and in
the huts on our mountains are too many souls who mys-
teriously sigh the hymn of the great vigil, Rorate cæli
desuper et nubes pluant Justum,' for us not to be on the
eve of a divine birth.
All origins are mysterious. This is true of matter, but
yet more true of that life, superior to all others, which
we call holiness; it was in prayer that Francis found the
friars to high ecclesiastical charges; 6, the absolute prohibition of put-
ting themselves in opposition to the secular clergy ; 7, the interdic-
tion of great churches and rich convents. On all these points and
many others infidelity to Francis's will was complete in the Order less
than twenty-five years after his death. We might expatiate on all
this; the Holy See in interpreting the Rule had canonical right on its
side, but Ubertino di Casali in saying that it was perfectly clear and had
no need of interpretation had good sense on his side ; let that suffice !
Et est stupor quare queritur expositio super litteram sic apertam quia nul-
la est difficultas in regulæ intelligentia. Arbor vitae crucifixo, Venice,
1485. lib. V., cap. 3. Sanctus vir Egidius tanto ejulatu clamabat super
regula destructionem quam videbat quod ignorantibus viam spiritus quasi
videbatur insanus. Id. ibid.
| Heavens drop dovon your der, and let the clouds rain down the Just
One. Anthem for Advent.
THE INNER MAN AND WONDER-WORKING
187
1
spiritual strength which he needed; he therefore sought
for silence and solitude. If he knew how to do battle
in the midst of men in order to win them to the faith, he
loved, as Celano says, to fly away like a bird going to
make its nest upon the mountain.
With men truly pious the prayer of the lips, the for-
mulated prayer, is hardly other than an inferior form of
true prayer. Even when it is sincere and attentive, and
not a mechanical repetition, it is only a prelude for souls
not dead of religious materialism.
Nothing resembles piety so much as love. Formu-
laries of prayer are as incapable of speaking the emotions
of the soul as model love-letters of speaking the trans-
ports of an impassioned heart. To true piety as well as
to profound love, the formula is a sort of profanation.
To pray is to talk with God, to lift ourselves up to
him, to converse with him that he may come down to
us. It is an act of meditation, of reflection, which pre-
supposes the effort of all that is most personal in us.
Looked at in this sense, prayer is the mother of all
liberty and all freedom.
Whether or no it be a soliloquy of the soul with itself,
the soliloquy would be none the less the very foundation
of a strong individuality.
With St. Francis as with Jesus, prayer has this char-
acter of effort which makes of it the greatest moral act.
In order to truly know such men one must have been
able to go with them, to follow Jesus up to the mountain
where he passed his nights. Three favored ones, Peter,
James, John, followed him thither one day; but to de-
scribe what they saw, all that a manly sursum corda added
to the radiance and the mysterious grandeur of him
1 In foramibus petræ nidificabat. 1 Cel., 71. Upon the prayers of
Francis vide ibid., 71 and 72; 2 Cel., 3, 38–43 : Ben., 139-148. Cf. 1
Cel. 6 : 91 ; 103 ; 3 Soc., 8; 12 : etc.
188
LIFE OF ST. FRANOIS
whom they adored, they were obliged to resort to the
language of symbols.
It was so with St. Francis. For him as for his Master
the end of prayer is communion with the heavenly
Father, the accord of the divine with the human; or
rather it is man who puts forth his strength to do the
work of God, not saying to him a mere passive, resigned,
powerless Fiat, but courageously raising his head : “Be-
hold me, Lord, I delight to do thy will.”
“There are unfathomable depths in the human soul,
because at the bottom is God himself.” Whether this
God be transcendent or immanent, whether he be One,
the Creator, the eternal and immutable Principle, or
whether he be, as say the doctors beyond the Rhine, the
ideal objectivation of our Me, is not the question for the
heroes of humanity. The soldier in the thick of battle
does not philosophize as to how much truth or falsehood
there is in the patriotic sentiment; he takes his arms and
fights at the peril of his life. So the soldiers of spiritual
conflicts seek for strength in prayer, in reflection, contem-
plation, inspiration; all, poets, artists, teachers, saints,
legislators, prophets, leaders of the people, learned men,
philosophers, all draw from this same source.
But it is not without difficulty that the soul unites itself
to God, or if one prefers, that it finds itself. A prayer
ends at last in divine communion only when it began by
a struggle. The patriarch of Israel, asleep near Bethel,
had already divined this: the God who passes by tells
his name only to those who stop him and do him violence
to learn it. He blesses only after long hours of conflict.
The gospel has found an untranslatable word to char-
acterize the prayers of Jesus, it compares the conflict
which preceded the voluntary immolation of Christ to
the death-struggle : Factus in agonia. We might say of
Luke, xxii. 44.
THE INNER MAN AND WONDER-WORKING
189
his life that it had been a long temptation, a struggle, a
prayer, since these words only express different moments
of spiritual activity.
Like their Master, the disciples and successors of
Christ can conquer their own souls only through perse-
verance. But these words, empty of meaning for devout
conventicles, have had a tragic sense for men of religious
genius.
Nothing is more false, historically, than the saints that
adorn our churches, with their mincing attitude, their
piteous expression, that indescribably anæmic and ema-
ciated--one may almost say emasculated—air which
shows in their whole nature; they are pious seminarists
brought up under the direction of St. Alphonso di Li-
guori or of St. Louis di Gonzagua; they are not saints,
not the violent who take the kingdom of heaven by force.
We have come to one of the most delicate features of
the life of Francis—his relations with diabolical powers.
Customs and ideas have so profoundly changed in all that
concerns the existence of the devil and his relations with
men, that it is almost impossible to picture to oneself the
enormous place which the thought of demons occupied
at that time in the minds of men.
The best minds of the Middle Ages believed without
a doubt in the existence of the perverse spirit, in his
perpetual transformations in the endeavor to tempt men
and cause them to fall into his snares. Even in the six-
teenth century, Luther, who undermined so many beliefs,
had no more doubt of the personal existence of Satan
than of sorcery, conjurations, or possessions.
1 Felix Kuhn: Luther, sa vie et son cuvre, Paris, 1883, 3 vols., 8vo.
t. i., p. 128 ; t. ii., p. 9; t. iii., p. 257. Benvenuto Cellini does not hes-
itate to describe a visit which he made one day to the Coliseum in com-
pany with a magician whose words evoked clouds of devils who filled
the whole place. B. Cellini, Lu vilu scritta da lui medesimo, Bianchi's
edition, Florence, 1890, 12mo, p. 33.
190
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
Finding in their souls a wide background of grandeur
and wretchedness, whence they sometimes heard a burst
of distant harmonies calling them to a higher life, soon
to be overpowered by the clamors of the brute, our an-
cestors could not refrain from seeking the explanation of
this duel. They found it in the conflict of the demons
with God
The devil is the prince of the demons, as God is the
prince of the angels; capable of all transformations, they
carry on to the end of time terrible battles which will end
in the victory of God, but meantime each man his whole
life long is contended for by these two adversaries, and
the noblest souls are naturally the most disputed.
This is how St. Francis, with all men of his time, ex-
plained the disquietudes, terrors, anguish, with which his
heart was at times assailed, as well as the hopes, consola-
tions, joys in which in general his soul was bathed.
Wherever we follow his steps local tradition has pre-
served the memory of rude assaults of the tempter which
he had to undergo.
It is no doubt useless to recall here the elementary fact
that if manners change with the times, man himself is
quite as strangely modified. If, according to education,
and the manner of life, such or such a sense may develop
an acuteness which confounds common experience—hear-
ing in the musician, touch with the blind, etc.—we may
estimate by this how much sharper certain senses may
have been then than now. Several centuries ago visual
delusion was with adults what it is now with children in
remotest country parts. A quivering leaf, a nothing, a
breath, an unexplained sound creates an image which
they see and in the reality of which they believe abso-
lutely. Man is all of a piece; the hyperästhesia of the
will presupposes that of the sensibility, one is con-
ditioned on the other, and it is this which makes men of
THE INNER MAN AND WONDER-WORKING
191
Ovolutionary epochs so much greater than nature. It
would be absurd under pretext of truth to try to bring
them back to the common measures of our contemporary
society, for they were veritably demigods for good as for
evil.
Legends are not always absurd. The men of '93 are
still near to us, but it is nevertheless with good right
that legend has taken possession of them, and it is piti-
able to see these men who, ten times a day, had to take
resolutions where everything was at stake-their destiny,
that of their ideas, and sometimes that of their country
-judged as if they had been mere worthy citizens, with
leisure to discuss at length every morning the garments
they were to wear or the menu of a dinner. Most of the
time historians have perceived only a part of the truth
about them ; for not only were there two men in them,
almost all of them are at the same time poets, dema-
gogues, prophets, heroes, martyrs. To write history,
then, is to translate and transpose almost continually.
The men of the thirteenth century could not bring them-
selves to not refer to an exterior cause the inner motions
of their souls. In what appears to us as the result of
our own reflections they saw inspiration; where we say
desires, instincts, passions, they said temptation, but we
must not permit these differences of language to make
us overlook or tax with trickery a part of their spiritual
life, bringing us thus to the conclusions of a narrow and
ignorant rationalism.
St. Francis believed himself to have many a time
fought with the devil; the horrible demons of the Etruscan
Inferno still haunted the forests of Umbria and Tuscany;
but while for his contemporaries and some of his dis-
ciples apparitions, prodigies, possessions, are daily phe-
nomena, for him they are exceptional, and remain entirely
in the background. In the iconography of St. Benedict,
192
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
as in that of most of the popular saints, the devil occupies
a preponderant place; in that of St. Francis he dis-
appears so completely that in the long series of Giotto's
frescos at Assisi he is not seen a single time.1
In the same way all that is magic and miracle-working
occupies in his life an entirely secondary rank. Jesus
in the Gospels gave his apostles power to cast out evil
spirits, and to heal all sickness and all infirmity.”
Francis surely took literally these words, which made
a part of his Rule. He believed that he could work
miracles, and he willed to do so; but his religious
thought was too pure to permit him to consider miracles
otherwise than as an entirely exceptional means of reliev-
ing the sufferings of men. Not once do we see him
resorting to miracle to prove his apostolate or to bolster
up his ideas. His tact taught him that souls are worthy
of being won by better means. This almost complete
absence of the marvellous : is by so much the more re-
markable that it is in absolute contradiction with the
tendencies of his time.4
1 On the devil and Francis vide 1 Cel., 68, 72 ; 3 Soc., 12; 2 Cel., 1,
6; 3, 10; 53; 58–65; Bon., 59-62. Cf. Eccl., 3; 5; 13; Fior., 29;
Spec., 110b. To form an idea of the part taken by the devil in the life
of a monk at the beginning of the thirteenth century, one must read
the Dialogus miraculorium of Cæsar von Heisterbach.
2 Matthew, s. 1.
3 Miracles occupy only ten paragraphs (61-70) in 1 Cel., and of this
number there are several which can hardly be counted as Francis's
miracles, since they were performed by objects which had belonged to
him.
4 Heretics often took advantage of this thirst for the marvellous to
dupe the catholics. The Cathari of Monconl made a portrait of the
Virgin representing her as one eyed and toothless, saying that in his
humility Christ had chosen a very ugly woman for mother. They had
no difficulty in healing several cases of disease by its means; the image
became famous, was venerated almost everywhere, and accomplished
many miracles until the day when the heretics divulged the deception
to the great scandal of the faithful. Egbert von Schönau, Contra
THE INNER MAN AND WONDER-WORKING
193
Open the life of his disciple, St. Anthony of Padua
(1231); it is a tiresome catalogue of prodigies, heal-
ings, resurrections. One would say it was rather the
prospectus of some druggist who had invented a new
drug than a call to men to conversion and a higher
life. It may interest invalids or devotees, but neither
the heart nor the conscience is touched by it. It must
be said in justice to Anthony of Padua that his rela-
tions with Francis appear to have been very slight.
Among the earliest disciples who had time to fathom
their master's thought to the very depths we find
traces of this noble disdain of the marvellous; they
knew too well that the perfect joy is not to astound the
world with prodigies, to give sight to the blind, nor
even to revive those who have been four days dead, but
that it lives in the love that goes even to self-immola-
tion. Mihi absit gloriari nisi in cruce Domini.i
Thus Brother Egidio asked of God grace not to per-
form miracles; he saw in them, as in the passion for
learning, a snare in which the proud would be taken, and
which would distract the Order from its true mission.
St. Francis's miracles are all acts of love; the greater
number of them are found in the healing of nervous mala-
dies, those apparently inexplicable disquietudes which are
the cruel afilictions of critical times. His gentle glance,
at once so compassionate and so strong, which seemed
like a messenger from his heart, often sufficed to make
those who met it forget all their suffering.
The evil eye is perhaps a less stupid superstition than
Catharos. Serm. I. cap. 2. (Patrol. lat. Migne t. 195.) Cf. Heister-
bach, loc. cit., v. 18. Luc de Tuy, De altera Vita, lib. ii. 9 ; iii. 9, 18
(Patrol. Migne., 208).
1 “But God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord
Jesus Christ.” Gal. vi. 14. This is to this day ine motto of the
Brothers Minor.
* Spec., 182a; 2008 ; 232a. Cf. 1994.
2
13
194
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
is generally fancied. Jesus was right in saying that a
look sufficed to make one an adulterer; but there is also
a look--that of the contemplative Mary, for example-
which is worth all sacrifices, because it includes them all,
because it gives, consecrates, immolates him who looks.
Civilization dulls this power of the glance. A part
of the education the world gives us consists in teaching
our eyes to deceive, in making them expressionless, in
extinguishing their flames; but simple and straightfor-
ward natures never give up using this language of the
heart, "which brings life and health in its beams.”
“A Brother was suffering unspeakable tortures; some-
times he would roll upon the ground, striking against
whatever lay in his way, frothing at the mouth, horrible
to see; at times he would become rigid, and again, after
remaining stark outstretched for a moment, would roll
about in horrible contortions; sometimes lying in a heap
on the ground, his feet touching his head, he would bound
upward as high as a man's head.” Francis came to see
him and healed him.1
But these are exceptions, and the greater part of the
time the Saint withdrew himself from the entreaties of
his companions when they asked miracles at his hands.
To sum up, if we take a survey of the whole field of
Francis's piety, we see that it proceeds from the secret
union of his soul with the divine by prayer; this intui-
tive power of seeing the ideal classes him with the mys-
tics. He knew, indeed, both the ecstasy and the liberty
of mysticism, but we must not forget those features of
character which separate him from it, particularly his
apostolic fervor. Besides this his piety had certain pe-
culiar qualities which it is necessary to point out.
And first, liberty with respect of observances: Francis
felt all the emptiness and pride of most religious observ.
11 Cel., 67.
THE INNER MAN AND WONDER-WORKING
195
ance.
He saw the snare that lies hidden there, for the
man who carefully observes all the minutiæ of a relig-
ious code risks forgetting the supreme law of love. More
than this, the friar who lays upon himself a certain num-
ber of supererogatory facts gains the admiration of the
ignorant, but the pleasure which he finds in this admira-
tion actually transforms his pious act into sin. Thus,
strangely enough, contrary to other founders of orders,
he was continually easing the strictness of the various
rules which he laid down. We may not take this to be a
mere accident, for it was only after a struggle with his
disciples that he made his will prevail; and it was pre-
cisely those who were most disposed to relax their vow
of poverty who were the most anxious to display certain
bigoted observances before the public eye.
The sinner can fast," Francis would say at such
times; "he can pray, weep, macerate himself, but one
thing he cannot do, he cannot be faithful to God.” Noble
words, not unworthy to fall from the lips of him who
came to preach a worship in spirit and in truth, without
temple or priest; or rather that every fireside shall be a
temple and every believer a priest.
Religious formalism, in whatever form of worship,
always takes on a forced and morose manner. Phari-
sees of every age disfigure their faces that no one may
be unaware of their godliness. Francis not merely could
not endure these grimaces of false piety, he actually
counted mirth and joy in the number of religious duties.
How shall one be melancholy who has in the heart an
inexhaustible treasure of life and truth which only in-
creases as one draws upon it? How be sad when in
? Secundum primam regulam fratres feria quarta et sexta et per licen-
tiam beati Francisci feria secunda et sabbato jejunabant. Giord. 11. cf.
Reg. 1221, cap. 3 and Reg. 1223, cap. 3, where Friday is the only fast
day retained.
1
196
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
spite of falls one never ceases to make progress? The
pious soul which grows and develops has a joy like that
of the child, happy in feeling its weak little limbs grow-
ing strong and permitting it every day a further exertion.
The word joy is perhaps that which comes most of
ten to the pen of the Franciscan authors; 1 the master
went so far as to make it one of the precepts of the Rule.?
He was too good a general not to know that a joyous
army is always a victorious army. In the history of the
early Franciscan missions there are bursts of laughter
which ring out high and clear.3
For that matter, we are apt to imagine the Middle
Ages as much more melancholy than they really were.
Men suffered much in those days, but the idea of grief
being never separated from that of penalty, suffering was
either an expiation or a test, and sorrow thus regarded
loses its sting; light and hope shine through it.
Francis drew a part of his joy from the communion.
He gave to the sacrament of the eucharist that worship
imbued with unutterable emotion, with joyful tears, which
has aided some of the noblest of human souls to endure
the burden and heat of the day. The letter of the dogma
was not fixed in the thirteenth century as it is to-day, but
all that is beautiful, true, potent, eternal in the mystical
feast instituted by Jesus was then alive in every heart.
The eucharist was truly the viaticum of the soul. Like
the pilgrims of Emmaus long ago, in the hour when the
shades of evening fall and a vague sadness invades the
soul, when the phantoms of the night awake and seem to
11 Cal., 10; 22 ; 27; 31; 42 : 80 ; 2 Cel., 1, 1; 3, 65-68 ; Eccl., 5;
0; Giord., 21 ; Spec., 119a ; Conform., 143a, 2.
3 Careant fratres quod non ostendant se tristes extrinsecus nubilosos et
nypocritas , sed ostendant se gaudentis in Domine, hilares et convenientes
gratio808.
* Eccl., loc. cit.; Giord., loc. cit.
• Vide Test.; 1 Cel., 46; 62; 75; 2 Cel., 3, 129 ; Spec., 44a.
THE INNER MAN AND WONDER-WORKING
197
loom up behind all our thoughts, our fathers saw the
divine and mysterious Companion coming toward them;
they drank in his words, they felt his strength descend-
ing upon their hearts, all their inward being warmed
again, and again they whispered, "Abide with us, Lord,
for the day is far spent and the night approacheth.'
And often their prayer was heard.
CHAPTER XIT
THE CHAPTER-GENERAL OF 12171
AFTER Whitsunday of 1217 chronological notes of
Francis's life are numerous enough to make error almost
1 The commencement of the great missions and the institution of pro-
vincial ministers is usually fixed either at 1217 or 1219, but both these
dates present great difficulties. I confess that I do not understand the
vehemence with which partisans of either side defend their opinions.
The most important text is a passage in the 3 Soc., 62: Hæpletis itaque
undecim annis ab inceptione religionis, et multiplicatis numero et merito
fratribus, electi fuerant ministri, et missi cum aliquot fratribus quasi per
universas mundi provincias in quibus fides catholica colitur et servatur.
What does this expression, inceptio religionis, mean? At a first read-
ing one unhesitatingly takes it to refer to the foundation of the Order,
which occurred in April, 1209, by the reception of the first Brothers;
but on adding eleven full years to this date we reach the summer of
1220. This is manifestly too late, for the 3 Soc. say that the brethren
who went out were persecuted in most of the countries beyond the
mountains, as being accredited by no pontifical letter ; but the bull
Cum dilecti, bears the date of June 11, 1219. We are thus led to think
that the eleven years are not to be counted from the reception of the
first Brothers, but from Francis's conversion, which the authors might
well speak of as inceptio religionis, and 1206 + 11 = 1217. The use of
this expression to designate conversion is not entirely without example.
Glassberger says (An. fr., p. 9): Ordinem minorum incepit anno 1206.
Those who admit 1219 are obliged (like the Bollandists, for example),
to attribute an inaccuracy to the text of the 3 Soc., that of having
counted eleven years as having passed when there had been only ten.
We should notice that in the two other chronological indications given
by the 3 Soc. (27 and 62) they count from the conversion, that is from
1206, as also Thomas of Celano, 88, 105, 119, 97, 88, 57, 55, 21. Curi.
ously, the Conformities reproduce the passage of the 3 Soc. (118b, 1),
THE CHAPTER-GENERAL OF 1217
199
impossible. Unhappily, this is not the case for the
eighteen months which precede it (autumn of 1215-
Whitsunday, 1217). For this period we are reduced to
conjecture, or little better.
As Francis at that time undertook no foreign mission,
he doubtless employed his time in evangelizing Central
Italy and in consolidating the foundations of his institu-
tion. His presence at Rome during the Lateran Council
(November 11-30, 1215) is possible, but it has left no
trace in the earliest biographies. The Council certainly
took the new Order into consideration, but it was to re-
.
but with the alteration : Nono anno ab inceptione religionis. Giordano
di Giano opens the door to many scruples : Anno vero Domini 1219 et
anno conversionis ejus decimo frater Franciscus
misit fratres
in Franciam, in Theutoniam, in Hungariam, in Hespaniam, Giord., 3.
As a little later the same author properly harmonizes 1219 with the thir-
teenth year from Francis's conversion, everyone is in agreement in
admitting that the passage cited needs correction ; we have unfortu-
nately only one manuscript of this chronicle. Glassberger, who doubt-
less had another before him, substitutes 1217, but he may have drawn
this date from another document. It is noteworthy that Brother Gior-
dano gives as simultaneous the departure of the friars for Germany,
Hungary, and France; but, as to the latter country, it certainly took
place in 1217. So the Speculum, 44a.
The chronicle of the xxiv. generals and Mark of Lisbon (Diola's ed.,
t. i., p. 82) holds also to 1217, so that, though not definitely established,
it would appear that this date should be accepted until further informa-
tion. Starting from slightly different premises, the learned editors of
the Analecta arrive at the same conclusion (t. ii., pp. 25--36). Cf. Evers,
Analecta ad Fr. Minorum historiam, Leipsic, 1882, 4to, pp. 7 and 11.
That which appears to me decidedly to tip the balance in favor of 1217,
is the fact that the missionary friars were persecuted because they had no
document of legitimation ; and in 1219 they would have had the bull
Cum dilecti, from June 11th of that year. The Bollandists, who hold
for 1.219, have so clearly seen this argument that they have been obliged
to deny the authenticity of the bull (or at least to suppose it wrongly
dated). A. SS., p. 839.
1 Vide A. SS., p. 604. Cf. Angelo Clareno, Tribul. Archir., i., p.
559. A papa Innocentis fuit omnibus annuntiatum in concilio generali
sicut sanctus vir fr. Leo scribit et fr. Johannes de Celano. These
200
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
X new the invitation made to it five years before by the
supreme pontiff, to choose one of the Rules already
approved by the Church. St. Dominic, who was then
at Rome to beg for the confirmation of his institute,
received the same counsel and immediately conformed to
it. The Holy See would willingly have conceded special
constitutions to the Brothers Minor, if they had adopted
for a base the Rule of St. Benedict; thus the Clarisses,
except those of St. Damian, while preserving their name
and a certain number of their customs, were obliged to
profess the Benedictine rule.
In spite of all solicitations, Francis insisted upon re-
taining his own Rule. One is led to believe that it was
to confer upon these questions that we find him at Peru-
gia in July, 1216, when Innocent III. died.?
However this may be, about this epoch the chapters
took on a great importance. The Church, which had
looked on at the foundation of the Order with somewhat
mixed feelings, could no longer rest content with being
the mere spectator of so profound a movement; it saw
the need of utilizing it.
Ugolini was marvellously well prepared for such a
task. Giovanni di San Paolo, Bishop of the Sabine,
charged by Innocent III. to look after the Brothers, died
in 1216, and Ugolini was not slow to offer his protection
lines have not perhaps the significance which one would be led to give
them at the first glance, their author having perhaps confounded consi-
lium and consistorium. The Speculum, 20b says: Eam (Regulam In-
nocentius) approvabit et concessit et postea in consistorio omnibus annun-
tiavit,
1 Ne nimia Religionem diversitas gravem in Ecclesia Dei confusionem
inducat, firmiter prohibemus, ne quis de cætero novam Religionem inve-
niat ; sed quicumquo voluerit ad Religionem converti, unam de approbatis
assumat. Labbé and Cossart : Sacrosancta concilia, Paris, 1672, t. xi.,
col. 165.
? Eccl., 15 (An. franc., t. 1, p. 253): Innocentium in cujus obitu fuit
presentialiter 8. Franciscus.
THE CHAPTER-GENERAL OF 1217
201
to Francis, who accepted it with gratitude. This extraor-
dinary offer is recounted at length by the Three Com-
panions. It must certainly be fixed in the summer of
1216 2 immediately after the death of Giovanni di San
Paolo.
It is very possible that the first chapter held in the
presence of this cardinal took place on May 29, 1216.
By an error very common in history, most of the Fran-
ciscan writers have referred to a single date all the
scattered incidents concerning the first solemn assizes
of the Order, and have called this typical assembly
the Chapter of the Mats. In reality for long years all
the gatherings of the Brothers Minor deserved this
name.
Coming together at the season of the greatest heat, they
slept in the open air or sheltered themselves under booths
of reeds. We need not pity them. There is nothing like
the glorious transparency of the summer night in Umbria ;
sometimes in Provence one may enjoy a foretaste of it,
but if at Baux, upon the rock of Doms, or at St.
13 Soc., 61 ; cf. An. Perus., A. SS., p. 606f.
2 Thomas of Celano must be in error when he declares that Francis was
not acquainted with Cardinal Ugolini before the visit which he made
him at Florence (summer of 1217): Nondum alter alteri erat præcipua
familiaritate conjunctus (1 Cel., 74 and 75). The Franciscan biogra-
pher's purpose was not historic ; chronological indications are given in
profusion ; what he seeks is the apta junctura. Tradition has preserved
the memory of a chapter held at Portiuncula in presence of Ugolini
during a stay of the curia at Perugia (Spec., 137b.; Fior., 18 ; Conform.,
207a ; 3 Soc., 61). But the curia did not come back to Perugia between
1216 and Francis's death. It is also to be noted that according to An-
gelo Clareno, Ugolini was with Francis in 1210, supporting him in the
presence of Innocent III.
Vide below, p. 413. Finally the bull Sacro-
sancta of December 9, 1219, witnesses that already during his legation
in Florence (1217) Ugolini was actually interesting himself for the
Clarisses.
"See, for example, the description of the chapter of 1221 by Brother
Giordano. Giord., 16.
202
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
Baume, the sight is equally solemn and grandiose, it still
wants the caressing sweetness, the effluence of life which
in Umbria give the night a bewitching charm.
The inhabitants of the neighboring towns and villages
flocked to these meetings in crowds, at once to see the
ceremonies, to be present when their relatives or friends
assumed the habit, to listen to the appeals of the Saint
and to furnish to the friars the provisions of which they
might have need. All this is not without some analogy
with the camp-meeting so dear to Americans. As to the
figures of several thousands of attendants given in the
legends, and furnishing even to a Franciscan, Father
Papini, the occasion for pleasantries of doubtful taste, it
is perhaps not so surprising as might be supposed.
These first meetings, to which all the Brothers eagerly
hastened, held in the open air in the presence of crowds
come together from distant places, have then nothing in
common with the subsequent chapters - general, which
were veritable conclaves attended by a small number of
delegates, and the majority of the work of which, done in
secret, was concerned only with the affairs of the Order.
During Francis's lifetime the purpose of these assem-
blies was essentially religious. Men attended them not
1
1 With regard to the figure of five thousand attendants given by Bona-
ventura (Bon., 59) Father Papini writes : Io non credo stato capace alcuno
di dare ad intendere al 8. Dottore simil fanfaluca, ne capace lui di
crederla.
In somma il numero quinque millia et ultra non è del Santo,
incapace di scrivere una cosa tanto improbabile e relativamente impossibile.
Storia di S. Fr., i., pp. 181 and 183. This figure, five thousand, is also
indicated by Eccl., 6. All this may be explained and become possible
by admitting the presence of the Brothers of Penitence, and it seems
very difficult to contest it, since in the Order of the Humiliants, which
much resembles that of the Brothers Minor (equally composed of three
branches approved by three bulls given June, 1201), the chapters-gen-
eral annually held were frequented by the brothers of the three Orders.
Tiraboschi. t. ii., p. 144. Cf. above, p. 158.
THE CHAPTER-GENERAL OF 1217
203
1
to talk business, or proceed to the nomination of the
minister-general, but in mutual communion to gain new
strength from the joys, the example, and the sufferings of
the other brethren.
The four years which followed the Whitsunday of 1216
form a stage in the evolution of the Umbrian movement;
that during which Francis was battling for autonomy.
We find here pretty delicate shades of distinction, which
have been misunderstood by Church writers as much as
by their adversaries, for if Francis was particular not to
put himself in the attitude of revolt, he would not com-
promise his independence, and he felt with an exquisite
divination that all the privileges which the court of Rome
could heap upon him were worth nothing in comparison
with liberty. Alas, he was soon forced to resign himself
to these gilded bonds, against which he never ceased to
protest, even to his last sigh;but to shut one's eyes to
the moral violence which the papacy did him in this mat-
ter is to condemn oneself to an entire misapprehension
of his work.
A glance over the collection of bulls addressed to the
Franciscans suffices to show with what ardor he strug-
gled against favors so eagerly sought by the monastic
orders.
3
1 Vide 2 Cel., 3, 121 ; Spec., 42b; 127b.
Præcipio firmiter per obedientiam fratribus universis quod ubicunque
sunt, non audeant petere aliquam litteram in Curia Romana. Test. B.
Fr.
3 A comparison with the Bullary of the Preaching Friars is especially
instructive: from their first chapter at Notre Dame de Prouille, in 1216,
they are about fifteen ; we find there at this time absolutely nothing
that can be compared to the Franciscan movement, which was already
stirring up all Italy. But while the first bull in favor of the Francis.
cans bears the date of June 11, 1219, and the approbation properly so
called that of November 29, 1223, we find Honorius already in the
eud of 1216 lavishing marks of affection upon the Dominicans ; Decem-
ber 22, 1216, Religiosam vitam. Cf. Pressuti, I regesti, del Pontefico
204
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
A great number of legendary anecdotes put Francis's
disdain of privileges in the clearest light. Even his dear-
est friends did not always understand his scruples.
“Do you not see,” they said to him one day, that often the bishops
do not permit us to preach, and make us remain several days without
doing anything before we are permitted to proclaim the word of God ?
It would be better worth while to obtain for this end a privilege from
the pope, and it would be for the good of souls."
“I would first convert the prelates by humility and respect," he re-
plied quickly ; “' for when they have seen us humble and respectful
toward them, they themselves will beg us to preach and convert the
people. As for me, I ask of God no privilege unless it be that I may
have none, to be full of respect for all men, and to convert them, as our
Rule ordains, more by our example than by our speech.” 1
The question whether Francis was right or wrong in
his antipathy to the privileges of the curia does not come
within the domain of history; it is evident that this at-
titude could not long continue; the Church knows only
the faithful and rebels. But the noblest hearts often
make a stand at compromises of this kind; they desire
that the future should grow out of the past without con-
vulsion and without a crisis.
The chapter of 1217 was notable for the definitive or-
ganization of the Franciscan missions. Italy and the
other countries were divided off into a certain number of
provinces, having each its provincial minister. Imme-
Onorio III., Roma, 1884, t. i., no. 175; same date: Nos attendentes,
ibid., no. 176 ; January 21, 1217, gratiarum omnium, ib., no. 243. Vide
284, 1039, 1156, 1208. It is needless to continue this enumeration.
Very much the same could be done for the other Orders; whence the
conclusion that if the Brothers Minor alone are forgotten in this shower
of favors, it is because they decidedly wished to be. It must be ad.
mitted that immediately upon Francis's death they made up for lost
time.
The authenticity of this passage is put beyond doubt by Ubertino
di Casal's citation. Archiv., iii., p. 53. Cf. Spec., 30a ; Conform..
111b, 1 ; 118b, 1 ; Ubertino, Arbor vitæ cruc., ili., 3.
THE CHAPTER-GENERAL OF 1217
205
diately upon his accession Honorius III. had sought to
revive the popular zeal for the crusades. He had not
stopped at preaching it, but appealed to prophecies which
had proclaimed that under his pontificate the Holy Land
would be reconquered. The renewal of fervor which
ensued, and of which the rebound was felt as far as
Germany, had a profound influence on the Brothers
Minor. This time Francis, perhaps from humility, did
not put himself at the head of the friars charged with a
mission to Syria; for leader he gave them the famous
Elias, formerly at Florence, where he had had opportu-
nity to show his high qualities.
This Brother, who from this time appears in the fore-
ground of this history, came from the most humble ranks
of society; the date and the circumstances of his entrance
into the Order are unknown, and hence conjecture has
come to see in him that friend of the grotto who had
been Francis's confidant shortly before his decisive con-
version. However this may be, in his youth he had
earned his living in Assisi, making mattresses and teach-
ing a few children to read; then he had spent some time
in Bologna as scriptor; then suddenly we find him among
the Brothers Minor, charged with the most difficult mis-
sions.
His adversaries vie with one another in asserting that
he was the finest mind of his century, but unhappily it
is very difficult, in the existing state of the documents,
to pronounce as to his actions ; learned and energetic,
eager to play the leading part in the work of the refor-
p. 377.
1 Burchardi chronicon ann. 1217, loc. cit.,
See also the bulls
indicated by Potthast, 5575, 5585–92.
? Before 1217 the office of minister virtually existed, though its defin.
itive institution dates only from 1217. Brother Bernardo in his mis-
sion to Bologna, for example (1212 ?), certainly held in some sort the
office of minister.
206
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
mation of religion, and having made his plan beforehand
as to the proper mode of realizing it, he made straight
for his goal, half political, half religious. Full of admi-
ration for Francis and gratitude toward him, he desired
to regulate and consolidate the movement for renovation.
In the inner Franciscan circle, where Leo, Ginepro,
Egidio, and many others represent the spirit of liberty,
the religion of the humble and the simple, Elias rep-
resents the scientific and ecclesiastical spirit, prudence
and reason.
He had great success in Syria and received into the
Order one of the disciples most dear to Francis, Cæsar
of Speyer, who later on was to make the conquest of all
Southern Germany in less than two years (1221–1223),
and who in the end sealed with his blood his fidelity to
the strict observance, which he defended against the at-
tacks of Brother Elias himself.
Cæsar of Speyer offers a brilliant example of those
suffering souls athirst for the ideal, so numerous in the
thirteenth century, who everywhere went up and down,
seeking first in learning, then in the religious life, that
which should assuage the mysterious thirst which tort-
ured them. Disciple of the scholastic Conrad, he had
felt himself overpowered with the desire to reform the
Church ; while still a layman he had preached his ideas,
not without some success, since a certain number of
ladies of Speyer had begun to lead a new life; but their
husbands disapproving, he was obliged to escape their
vengeance by taking refuge at Paris, and thence he went
to the East, where in the preaching of the Brothers
Minor he found again his hopes and his dreams. This
instance shows how general was the waiting condition of
Imprisoned by order of Elias, he died in consequence of blows given
him one day when he was taking the air outside of his prison. Tribule,
24a.
THE CHAPTER-GENERAL OF 1217
207
1
souls when the Franciscan gospel blazed forth, and how
its way had been everywhere prepared.
But it is time to return to the chapter of 1217: the
friars who went to Germany under conduct of Giovanni di
Penna were far from having the success of Elias and his
companions; they were completely ignorant of the lan-
guage of the country which they had undertaken to evan-
gelize. Perhaps Francis had not taken into account the
fact that though Italian might, in case of need, suffice in
all the countries bathed by the Mediterranean, this could
not be the case in Central Europe.
The lot of the party going to Hungary was not more
happy. Very often it came to pass that the missionaries
were fain to give up their very garments in the effort
to appease the peasants and shepherds who maltreated
them. But no less incapable of understanding what was
said to them than of making themselves understood, they
were soon obliged to think of returning to Italy. We
may thank the Franciscan authors for preserving for us
the memory of these checks, and not attempting to pict-
ure the friars as suddenly knowing all languages by a
divine inspiration, as later on was so often related.?
Those who had been sent to Spain had also to under-
go persecutions. This country, like the south of France,
was ravaged by heresy; but already at that time it was
vigorously repressed. The Franciscans, suspected of
being false Catholics and therefore eagerly hunted out,
found a refuge with Queen Urraca of Portugal, who per-
mitted them to establish themselves at Coimbra, Guimar-
raens, Alenquero, and Lisbon.3
1 Giord., 5 and 6; 3 Soc., 62.
? Of Giovanni di Parma, Clareno, Anthony of Padua, etc.
* Mark of Lisbon, t. i., p. 82. Cf. p. 79, t. ii., p. 86, Glassberger.
ann. 1217. An. fr., ii., pp. 9 ff.; Chron axiv. gen., MS. of Assisi, no
328, f° 2b.
208
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
298
? Francis himself made preparations for going to France.
This country had a peculiar charm for him because of
his fervent love of the Holy Sacrament. Perhaps also
he was unwittingly drawn toward this country to which
he owed his name, the chivalrous dreams of his youth, all
of poetry, song, music, delicious dream that had come
into his life.
Something of the emotion that thrilled through him on
undertaking this new mission has passed into the story
of his biographers ; one feels there the thrill at once
sweet and agonizing, the heart-throb of the brave knight
who goes forth all harnessed in the early dawn to scan
the horizon, dreading the unknown and yet overflowing
with joy, for he knows that the day will be consecrated
to love and to the right.
The Italian poet has given the one name of “pilgrim-
ages of love" to the farings forth of chivalry and the
journeys undertaken by dreamers, artists, or saints to
those parts of the earth which forever mirror themselves
before their imagination and remain their chosen father-
land. Such a pilgrimage as this was Francis undertak-
ing
“Set forth,” said he to the Brothers who accompanied him, “and
walk two and two, humble and gentle, keeping silence until after tierce,
praying to God in your hearts, carefully avoiding every vain or useless
word. Meditate as much while on this journey as if you were shut up
in a hermitage or in your cell, for wherever we are, wherever we go,
we carry our cell with us ; Brother body is our cell, and the soul is the
hermit who dwells in it, there to pray to the Lord and to meditate."
Arrived at Florence he found there Cardinal Ugolini,
sent by the pope as legate to Tuscany to preach the
crusade and take all needful measures for assuring its
ܪ
1 Spec., 44a. ; Conform., 119a, 2 ; 135a ; 181b, 1 ; 1 Cel., 74 and 75.
* 2 Cel., 3, 129. Diligebat Franciam
volebat in ea mori.
THE UHAPTER-GENERAL OF 1217
209
success. Francis was surely far from expecting the
reception which the prelate gave him. Instead of en-
couraging him, the cardinal urged him to give up his
project.
“I am not willing, my brother, that you should cross the mountains;
there are many prelates who ask nothing better than to stir up diffi- .
culties for you with the court of Rome. But I and the other cardinals
who love your Order desire to protect and aid you, on the condition,
however, that you do not quit this province."
“But, monsignor, it would be a great disgrace for me to send my
brethren far away while I remained idly here, sharing none of the
tribulations which they must undergo.”
"Wherefore, then, have you sent your brethren so far away, expos-
ing them thus to starvation and all sorts of perils ? "
“Do you think,” replied Francis warmly, and as if moved by pro-
phetic inspiration, " that God raised up the Brothers for the sake of
this country alone? Verily, I say unto you, God has raised them up
for the awakening and the salvation of all men, and they shall win
souls not only in the countries of those who believe, but also in the
very midst of the infidels." ?
The surprise and admiration which these words awoke
in Ugolini were not enough to make him change his
mind. He insisted so strongly that Francis turned back
to Portiuncula, the inspiration of his work not even
shaken. Who knows whether the joy which he would
have felt in seeing France did not confirm him in the
idea that he ought to renounce this plan? Souls athirst
with the longing for sacrifice often have scruples such as
these; they refuse the most lawful joys that they may
offer them to God.
| V. bull of January 23, 1217, Tempus acceptabile, Potthast, no. 5430,
given in Horoy, t. ii., col. 205 ff. ; cf. Pressuti, i., p. 71. This bull and
those following fix without question the time of the journey to Flor
ence. Potthast, 5488, 5487, and page 495.
? It is superfluous to point out the error of the Bollandist text in
the phrase Monuit (Cardinalis Franciscum) coeptum non perficere iter,
where the non is omitted, A. SS., p. 704. Cf., p. 607 and 835, which
has led Suysken into several other errors.
14
210
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
We cannot tell whether it was immediately after this
interview or not till the following year that Francis put
Brother Pacifico at the head of the missionaries sent into
France, 1
Pacifico, who was a poet of talent, had before his con-
version been surnamed Prince of Poesy and crowned at
the capital by the emperor. One day while visiting a rel-
ative who was a nun at San Severino in the March of An-
cona, Francis also arrived at the monastery, and preached
with such a holy impetuosity that the poet felt himself
pierced with the sword of which the Bible speaks, which
penetrates between the very joints and marrow, and dis-
cerns the thoughts and intents of the heart.” On the
morrow he assumed the habit and received his symboli-
cal surname.3
He was accompanied to France by Brother Agnello di
Pisa, who was destined to be put at the head of the first
mission to England in 1224.
Francis, on sending them forth, was far from dreaming
that from this country, which exerted such a fascination
over him, was to come forth the influence which was to
compromise his dream-that Paris would be the destruc-
tion of Assisi; and yet the time was not very far distant;
4
1
Bon., 51. Cf. Glassberger, ann. 1217; Spec., 45b.
Heb., iv., 12; 2 Cel., 3, 49; Bon., 50 and 51.
3 Brother Pacifico interests us (the French people) particularly as the
first minister of the Order in France ; information about him is abun.
dant : Bon., 79 ; 2 Cel., 3, 63 ; Spec., 41b.; Conform., 38a, 1; 43a, 1; 71b;
173b, 1, and 176 ; 2 Cel., 8, 27; Spec., 38b; Conform., 181b; 2 Cel., 3,
76 ; Fior., 46 ; Conform., 70a. I do not indicate the general references
found in Chevalier's Bibliography. The Miscellanea, t. ii. (1887), p.
158, contains a most precise and interesting column about him. Gregory
IX. speaks of him in the bull Mugna sicut dicitur of August 12, 1227.
Sbaralea, Bull. fr., i., p. 33 (Potthast, 8007). Thomas of Tuscany, socius
of St. Bonaventura, knew him and speaks of him in his Gesta Impera.
torum (Mon. gerin. hist. script., t. 22, p. 492).
Eccl., 1 ; Conform., 113b, 1.
4
THE CHAPTER-GENERAL OF 1217
211
w few years more and the Poverello would see a part
of his spiritual family forgetting the humility of their
name, their origin, and their aspirations, to run after the
ephemeral laurels of learning.
We have already seen that the habit of the Franciscans
of this time was to make their abode within easy reach
of great cities; Pacifico and his companions established
themselves at St. Denis. We have no particulars of their
work; it was singularly fruitful, since it permitted them
a few years later to attack England with full success.
Francis passed the following year (1218) in evangeliz-
ing tours in Italy. It is naturally impossible to follow
him in these travels, the itinerary of which was fixed by
his daily inspirations, or by indications as fanciful as the
one which had formerly determined his going to Sienna.
Bologna, the Verna, the valley of Rieti, the Sacro-Speco of
St. Benedict at Subiaco, Gaeta ;4 San Michele on Mount
Garganos perhaps received him at this time, but the notes
i Toward 1224 the Brothers Minor desired to draw nearer and build
a vast convent near the walls of Paris in the grounds called Vauvert, or
Valvert (now the Luxembourg Garden), (Eccl., 10; cf. Top. hist. du
vieux Paris, by Berty and Tisserand, t. iv., p. 70). In 1230 they re-
ceived at Paris from the Benedictines of Saint-Germain-des-Prés a
certain number of houses in parocchia SS. Cosmee et Damiani infra
Muro8 domini regis prope portam de Gibardo (Chartularium Universitatis
Parisiensis, no. 76. Cf. Topographie historique du vieur Paris; Région
occid, de l'univ., p. 95; Félibien, Histoire de la ville de Paris, i., p. 115).
Finally, St. Louis installed them in the celebrated Convent of the Cor-
deliers, the refectory of which still exists, transformed into the Dupuy-
tren Museum. The Dominicans, who arrived in Paris September 12,
1217, went straight to the centre of the city, near the bishop's Palace on
the Ile de la Cité, and on August 6, 1218, were installed in the Con.
vent of St. Jacques.
? Fior., 27; Spec., 148b; Conform., 71a and 113a, 2 ; Bon., 182.
The traces of Francis's visit here are numerous. A Brother Eudor
painted his portrait here.
* Bon., 177.
• Vide A. SS., pp. 855 and 856. Cf. 2 Cel., 3, 136.
3
212
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
of his presence in these places are too sparse and vague
to permit their being included in any scheme of history.
It is very possible that he also paid a visit to Rome
during this time; his communications with Ugolini were
much more frequent than is generally supposed. We
must not permit the stories of biographers to deceive us
in this matter; it is a natural tendency to refer all that
we know of a man to three or four especially striking
dates. We forget entire years of the life of those whom
we have known the best and loved the most and group
our memories of them around a few salient events which
shine all the more brilliantly the deeper we make the
surrounding obscurity. The words of Jesus spoken on a
hundred different occasions came at last to be formed
into a single discourse, the Sermon on the Mount. It is
in such cases that criticism needs to be delicate, to
mingle a little divination with the heavy artillery of
scientific argument.
The texts are sacred, but we must not make fetiches of
them; notwithstanding St. Matthew, no one to - day
dreams of representing Jesus as uttering the Sermon on
the Mount all at one time. In the same way, in the nar-
ratives concerning the relations between St. Francis and
Ugolini, we find ourselves every moment shut up in no-
thoroughfares, coming up against contradictory indica-
tions, just so long as we try to refer everything to two or
three meetings, as we are at first led to do.
With a simple act of analysis these difficulties disap-
pear and we find each of the different narratives bringing
us fragments which, being pieced together, furnish an or-
ganic story, living, psychologically true.
From the moment at which we have now arrived, we
must make a much larger place for Ugolini than in the
past; the struggle has definitively opened between the
Franciscan ideal-chimerical, perhaps, but sublime-and
THE CHAPTER-GENERAL OF 1217
213
the ecclesiastical policy, to go on until the day when, half
in humility, half in discouragement, Francis, heartsick,
abdicates the direction of his spiritual family.
Ugolini returned to Rome at the end of 1217. During
the following winter his countersign is found at the bot-
tom of the most important bulls;1 he devoted this time
to the special study of the question of the new orders,
and summoned Francis before him. We have seen with
what frankness he had declared to him at Florence that
many of the prelates would do anything to discredit him
with the pope. It is evident the success of the Order, its
methods, which in spite of all protestations to the con-
trary seemed to savor of heresy, the independence of
Francis, who had scattered his friars in all the four
corners of the globe without trying to gain a confirma-
tion of the verbal and entirely provisional authorization
accorded him by Innocent III.--all these things were cal-
culated to startle the clergy.
Ugolini, who better than any one else knew Umbria,
Tuscany, Emilia, the March of Ancona, all those regions
where the Franciscan preaching had been most success-
ful, was able by himself to judge of the power of the new
movement and the imperious necessity of directing it; he
felt that the best way to allay the prejudices which the
pope and the sacred college might have against Francis
was to present him before the curia.
Francis was at first much abashed at the thought of
preaching before the Vicar of Jesus Christ, but upon the
entreaties of his protector he consented, and for greater
security he learned by heart what he had to say.
1
Among others those of December 5, 1217, Potthast, 5629; February
8, March 30, April 7, 1218, Potthast, 5695, 5739, 5747.
2 1 Cel., 74. O quanti maxime in principio cum hæc agerentur novello
plantationi ordinis insidiabantur ut perderent. Cf. 2 Cel., 1, 16. Vido
bat Franciscus luporum more sevire quamplures.
214
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
Ugolini himself was not entirely at ease as to the
result of this step; Thomas of Celano pictures him as
devoured with anxiety; he was troubled about Francis,
whose artless eloquence ran many a risk in the halls of
the Lateran Palace; he was also not without some more
personal anxieties, for the failure of his protégé might
be most damaging to himself. He was in all the greater
anxiety when, on arriving at the feet of the pontiff, Fran-
cis forgot all he had intended to say; but he frankly
avowed it, and seeking a new discourse from the inspira-
tion of the moment, spoke with so much warmth and
simplicity that the assembly was won.
The biographers are mute as to the practical result of
this audience. We are not to be surprised at this, for
they write with the sole purpose of edification. They
wrote after the apotheosis of their master, and would
with very bad grace have dwelt upon the difficulties
which he met during the early years.?
The Holy See must have been greatly perplexed by this
1
11 Cel., 73 (cf. 2 Cel., 1, 17; Spec., 102a); 3 Soc., 64; Bon., 78.
The fixing of this scene in the winter of 1217–1218 seems hardly to be
debatable; Giordano's account (14) in fact determines the date at which
Ugolini became officially protector of the Order ; it supposes earlier rela-
tions between Honorius, Francis, and Ugolini. We are therefore led
to seek a date at which these three personages may have met in Rome,
and we arrive thus at the period between December, 1217, and April,
1218.
? A word of Brother Giordano's opens the door to certain conjectures.
“My lord,” said Francis to Honorius III., in 1220, "you have given me
many fathers (popes) give me a single one to whom I may turn with
the affairs of my Order.” (Giord., 14, Multos mihi papas dedisti da
etc.)
Does not this suggest the idea that the pontiff had perhaps named a
commission of cardinals to oversee the Brothers Minor ? Its delibera-
tions and the events to be related in the following chapter might have
impelled him to issue the bull Cum dilecti of June 11, 1219, which was
not an approbation properly so called, but a safe-conduct in favor of the
Franciscans.
unum,
THE CHAPTER-GENERAL OF 1217
215
strange man, whose faith and humility were evident, but
whom it was impossible to teach ecclesiastical obedience.
St. Dominic happened to be in Rome at the same
time, and was overwhelmed with favors by the pope. It
is a matter of history that Innocent III. having asked
him to choose one of the Rules already approved by the
Church, he had returned to his friars at Notre Dame de
Prouille, and after conferring with them had adopted that
of St. Augustine; Honorius therefore was not sparing of
privileges for him. It is hardly possible that Ugolini
did not try to use the influence of his example with St.
Francis.
The curia saw clearly that Dominic, whose Order barely
comprised a few dozen members, was not one of the
moral powers of the time, but its sentiments toward him
were by no means so mixed as those it experienced with
regard to Francis.
To unite the two Orders, to throw over the shoulders
of the Dominicans the brown cassook of the Poor Men
of Assisi, and thus make a little of the popularity of the
Brothers Minor to be reflected upon them, to leave to
the latter their name, their habit, and even a semblance
of their Rule, only completing it with that of St. Augustine,
such a project would have been singularly pleasing to
Ugolini, and with Francis's humility would seem to have
some chance of success.
One day Dominic by dint of pious insistance induced
Francis to give him his cord, and immediately girded
himself with it. “ Brother," said he, “I earnestly long
that your Order and mine might unite to form one sole
and same institute ? in the Church.” But the Brother
1 He took possession of St. Sabine on February 28, 1218.
? 2 Cel., 3, 87. The literal meaning of the phrase is somewhat am-
biguous. The text is : Vellem, frater Francisce, unam fieri religionem
tuam et meam et in Ecclesia pari forma nos vivere. Spec. 27b. The echo
216
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
Minor wished to remain as he was, and declined the
proposition. So truly was he inspired with the needs of
his time and of the Church that less than three years
after this Dominic was drawn by an irresistible influence
to transform his Order of Canons of St. Augustine into
an order of mendicant monks, whose constitutions were
outlined upon those of the Franciscans.
A few years later the Dominicans took, so to speak,
their revenge, and obliged the Brothers Minor to give
learning a large place in their work. Thus, while hardly
come to youth's estate, the two religious families rivalled
one another, impressed, influenced one another, yet never
so much so as to lose all traces of their origin—summed
up for the one in poverty and lay preaching, for the
other in learning and the preaching of the clergy.
of this attempt is found in Thierry d'Apolda, Vie de S. Dominique (A. SS.,
Augusti, t. i., p. 572 d): S. Dominicus in oscula sancta quens et sinceros
amplexus, dixit : Tu es socius meus, tu curres pariter mecum, stemus
simul, nullus adversarius prævalebit. Bernard of Besse says: B. Domi-
nicus tanta B. Francisco devotione cohesit ut optatam ab co cordam sub
inferiori tunica devotissimi cingeret, cujus et suam Religionem unam vello
fieri diceret, ipsumque pro sanctitate cæteris sequendem religiosis assereret.
Turin MS., 102b.
1 At the chapter held at Bologna at Whitsunday, 1220. The bull
Religiosam vitam (Privilege of Notre Dame de Prouille) of March 30,
1218, enumerates the possessions of the Dominicans. Ripolli, Bull.
Prod., t. i., p. 6. Horoy, Honorii opera, t. ii., col. 684.
}
CHAPTER XIII
ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FRANCIS
The Egyptian Mission. Summer 1218-Autumn 1220
Art and poetry have done well in inseparably asso-
ciating St. Dominic and St. Francis; the glory of the first
is only a reflection of that of the second, and it is in plac-
ing them side by side that we succeed best in understand-
ing the genius of the Poverello. If Francis is the man
of inspiration, Dominic is that of obedience to orders;
one may say that his life was passed on the road to Rome,
whither he continually went to ask for instructions. His
legend was therefore very slow to be formed, although
nothing forbade it to blossom freely; but neither the zeal
of Gregory IX. for his memory nor the learning of his
disciples were able to do for the Hammer of heretics that
which the love of the people did for the Father of the
poor. His legend has the two defects which so soon
weary the readers of hagiographical writings, when the
question is of the saints whose worship the Church has
commanded.' It is encumbered with a spurious super-
1 One proof of the obscurity in which Dominic remained so long as
Rome did not apotheosize him, is that Jacques de Vitry, who consecrates
a whole chapter of his Historia Occidentalis to the Preaching Friars
(27, p. 333) does not even name the founder. This is the more signifi-
cant since a few pages farther on, the chapter given to the Brothers
Minor is almost entirely filled with the person of St. Francis. This
silence about St. Dominic has been remarked and taken up by Moschus,
who finds no way to explain it. Vide Vitam J. de Vitriaco, at the head
of the Douai edition of 1597.
218
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
course.
naturalism, and with incidents borrowed right and left
from earlier legends. The Italian people, who hailed in
Francis the angel of all their hopes, and who showed
themselves so greedy for his relics, did not so much as
dream of taking up the corpse of the founder of the Order
of Preaching Friars, and allowed him to wait twelve years
for the glories of canonization.
We have already seen the efforts of Cardinal Ugolini to
unite the two Orders, and the reasons he had for this
He went to the Whitsunday chapter-general
which met at Portiuncula (June 3, 1218), to which came
also St. Dominic with several of his disciples. The cere-
monial of these solemnities appears to have been always
about the same since 1216; the Brothers Minor went in
procession to meet the cardinal, who immediately dis-
mounted from his horse and lavished expressions of affec-
tion upon them. An altar was set up in the open air, at
which he said mass, Francis performing the functions of
deacon.
It is easy to imagine the emotion which overcame those
present when in its beautiful setting of the Umbrian land-
scape burst forth that part of the Pentecostal service, that
most exciting, the most apocalyptic of the whole Catholic
liturgy, the anthem Alleluia, Alleluia, Emitte Spiritum
tuum et creabuntur, et renovabis faciem terrce. Alleluia,
does not this include the whole Franciscan dream ?
But what especially amazed Dominic was the absence
of material cares. Francis had advised his brethren not
to disquiet themselves in any respect about food and
2
3
| Francis, who died in 1226, is canonized in 1228; Anthony of Padua,
1231 and 1233; Elisabeth of Thuringia, 1231 and 1235; Dominic, 1221
and 1234.
2 3 Soc., 61.
3 Shed abroad, Lord, thy Spirit, and all shall be created, and thou
shalt renew the face of the earth.
ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FRANCIS
219
drink; he knew by experience that they might fearlessly
trust all that to the love of the neighboring population.
This want of carefulness had greatly surprised Dominic,
who thought it exaggerated; he was able to reassure him-
self, when meal-time arrived, by seeing the inhabitants
of the district hastening in crowds to bring far larger
supplies of provisions than were needed for the several
thousands of friars, and holding it an honor to wait upon
them.
The joy of the Franciscans, the sympathy of the pop-
ulace with them, the poverty of the huts of Portiuncula,
all this impressed him deeply; so much was he moved
by it that in a burst of enthusiasm he announced his res-
olution to embrace gospel poverty."
Ugolini, though also moved, even to tears, did not for-
get his former anxieties; the Order was too numerous
not to include a group of malcontents; a few friars who
before their conversion had studied in the universities be-
gan to condemn the extreme simplicity laid upon them as
a duty. To men no longer sustained by enthusiasm the
short precepts of the Rule appeared a charter all too in-
sufficient for a vast association ; they turned with envy
toward the monumental abbeys of the Benedictines, the
regular Canons, the Cistercians, and toward the ancient
monastic legislations. They had no difficulty in per-
ceiving in Ugolini a powerful ally, nor in confiding their
observations to him.
The latter deemed the propitious moment arrived,
and in a private conversation with Francis made a few
1 2 Cel., 3, 87; Spec., 132b; Conform., 207a, 112a ; Fior., 18. The
historians of St. Dominic have not received these details kindly, but an
incontestable point gained from diplomatic documents is that in 1218
Dominic, at Rome, procured privileges in which the properties of his
Order were indicated, and that in 1220 he led his friars to profess pov.
erty.
2 2 Cel., 3, 9; Spec., 178.
220
LIFE OF ST. FRANOIS
suggestions : Ought he not give to his disciples, espe.
cially to the educated among them, a greater share of the
burdens? consult them,gain inspiration from their views ?
was there not room to profit by the experience of the
older orders? Though all this was said casually and
with the greatest possible tact, Francis felt himself
wounded to the quick, and without answering he drew
the cardinal to the very midst of the chapter.
“My brothers," said he with fire, “the Lord has called
me into the ways of simplicity and humility. In them
he has shown me the truth for myself and for those who
desire to believe and follow me; do not, then, come speak-
ing to me of the Rule of St. Benedict, of St. Augustine,
of St. Bernard, or of any other, but solely of that which
God in his mercy has seen fit to show to me, and of
which he has told me that he would, by its means, make
a new covenant with the world, and he does not will that
we should have any other. But by your learning and
your wisdom God will bring you to confusion. For I am
persuaded that God will chastise you; whether you will
or no you will be forced to come to repentance, and noth-
ing will remain for you but confusion.” 1
This warmth in defending and affirming his ideas pro-
foundly astonished Ugolini, who added not a word. As
to Dominic, what he had just seen at Portiuncula was to
him a revelation. He felt, indeed, that his zeal for the
Church could not be greater, but he also perceived that
he could serve her with more success by certain changes
in his weapons.
Ugolini no doubt only encouraged him in this view,
and Dominic, beset with new anxieties, set out a few
months later for Spain. The intensity of the crisis
through which he passed has not beer sufficiently no«
Spec., 49a ; Tribul., Laur. Ms., 11a-12b; Spec., 183a; Conform.
135b 1.
1
ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FRANCIS
221
ticed; the religious writers recount at length luis sojourn
in the grotto of Segovia, but they see only the ascetic
practices, the prayers, the genuflexions, and do not think
of looking for the cause of all this. From this epoch it
might be said that he was unceasingly occupied in copy- ,
ing Francis, if the word had not a somewhat displeasing
sense. Arrived at Segovia he follows the example of the
Brothers Minor, founds a hermitage in the outskirts of the
city, hidden among the rocks which overlook the town, and
thence he descends from time to time to preach to the
people. The transformation in his mode of life was so
evident that several of his companions rebelled and re-
fused to follow him in the new way.
Popular sentiment has at times its intuitions; a legend
grew up around this grotto of Segovia, and it was said
that St. Dominic there received the stigmata. Is there
not here an unconscious effort to translate into an image
within the comprehension of all, that which actually
took place in this cave of the Sierra da Guaderrama ? 1
Thus St. Dominic also arrived at the poverty of the
gospel, but the road by which he reached it was different
indeed from that which St. Francis had followed; while
the latter had soared to it as on wings, had seen in it the
final emancipation from all the anxieties which debase
this life, St. Dominic considered it only as a means; it
was for him one more weapon in the arsenal of the host
charged with the defence of the Church. We must not
see in this a mere vulgar calculation ; his admiration for
him whom he thus imitated and followed afar off was
sincere and profound, but genius is not to be copied.
This sacred malady was not his; he has transmitted to
his sons a sound and robust blood, thanks to which they
have known nothing of those paroxysms of hot fever,
The principal sources are indicated in A. SS., Augusti, t. i., pp.
470 ff.
222
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
those lofty flights, those sudden returns which make the
story of the Franciscans the story of the most tempest-
tossed society which the world has ever known, in which
glorious chapters are mingled with pages trivial anä
grotesque, sometimes even coarse.
At the chapter of 1218 Francis had other causes for
sadness than the murmurs of a group of malcontents;
the missionaries sent out the year before to Germany
and Hungary had returned completely discouraged,
The account of the sufferings they had endured pro-
duced so great an effect that from that time many of the
friars added to their prayers the formula : "Lord pre-
serve us from the heresy of the Lombards and the feroc-
ity of the Germans.
This explains how Ugolini at last succeeded in con-
vincing Francis of his duty to take the necessary mea-
sures no longer to expose the friars to be hunted down
as heretics. It was decided that at the end of the fiext
chapter the missionaries should be armed with a papai
brief, which should serve them as ecclesiastical pass-
port. Here is the translation of this document:
1
Honorius, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to the archbishops,
bishops, abbots, deacons, archdeacons, and other ecclesiastical superiors,
salutation and the apostolic blessing.
Our dear son, brother Francis, and his companions of the life and the
Order of the Brothers Minor, having renounced the vanities of this
world to choose a mode of life which has merited the approval of the
Roman Church, and to go out after the example of the Apostles to cast
in various regions the seed of the word of God, we pray and exhort you
by these apostolic letters to receive as good catholics the friars of the
above mentioned society, bearers of these presents, warning you to be
favorable to them and treat them with kindness for the honor of God
and out of consideration for us.
Given (at Rieti) this third day of the ides of June (June 11, 1219), in
the third year of our pontificate.?
t
i Giord., 18; 3 Soc., 62.
* Sbaralea, Bull. fr., t. i, p. 2; Porthast, 6081 : Wadding, ann. 1219
ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FRANCIS
223
It is evident that this bull was calculated to avoid
awakening Francis's susceptibilities. To understand pre-
cisely in what it differs from the first letters usually ac-
credited to new Orders it is necessary to compare it with
them; that which had instituted the Dominicans had
been, like the others, a veritable privilege ;1 here there
is nothing of the kind.
The assembly which was opened at Whitsunday of
1219 (May 26) was of extreme importance. It closed
the series of those primitive chapters in which the inspi-
ration and fancy of Francis were given free course. Those
which followed, presided over by the vicars, have neither
the same cheerfulness nor the same charm; the crude
glare of full day has driven away the hues of dawn and
the indescribable ardors of nature at its awakening.
The summer of 1219 was the epoch fixed by Honorius
III. for making a new effort in the East, and directing
upon Egypt all the forces of the Crusaders. Francis
thought the moment arrived for realizing the project
which he had not been able to execute in 1212. Strangely
enough, Ugolini who, two years before had hindered his
going to France, now left him in entire liberty to carry
out this new expedition. Several authors have deemed
that Francis, having found in him a true protector, felt
No. 28, indicates the works where the text may be found. Cf. A. SS.,
P. 839.
1 The title sufficiently indicated the contents : Domenico priori S.
Romani tolosani ejusque fratribus, eos in protectionem recipit eorumque
Ordinem cum bonis et privilegiis confirmat. Religiosam vitam : December
22, 1216 ; Pressuti, t. i., 175, text in Horoy t. ii., col. 141-144.
2 Vide A. SS., pp. 608 ff. and 838 ff.
3 Vide Bull Multi divince of August 13, 1218. Horoy, t. iii., col. 12;
Potthast, 5891.
* The contradiction is so striking that the Bollandists have made of it
the principal argument for defending the error in their manuscript (1
Cel., 75), and insisting in the face of, and against everything that Fran.
cis had taken that journey. A. SS., 607.
224
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
himself reassured as to the future of the Order; he might
indeed have thought thus, but the history of the troubles
which burst out immediately after his departure, the
astounding story of the kind reception given by the court
of Rome to some meddlers who took the opportunity of
his absence to imperil his Order, would suffice to show
how much the Church was embarrassed by him, and with
what ardor she longed for the transformation of his work.
We shall find later on the detailed account of these facts.
It appears that a Romagnol brother Christopher was
at this same chapter nominated provincial of Gascony;
he lived there after the customs of the early Franciscans,
working with his hands, living in a narrow cell made of
the boughs of trees and potter's earth.
Egidio set out for Tunis with a few friars, but a great
disappointment awaited them there; the Christians of
this country, in the fear of being compromised by their
missionary zeal, hurried them into a boat and constrained
them to recross the sea.
If the date of 1219 for these two missions has little
other basis than conjecture, the same is not the case as
to the departure of the friars who went to Spain and
Morocco. The discovery has recently been made of the
account of their last preachings and of their tragic death,
made by an eye-witness. This document is all the more
1
1 He died at Cahors, October 31, 1272. His legend is found in MS.
Riccardi, 279, fº. 69a. Incipit vita f. Christophori quam compilavit fr.
Bernardus de Bessa custodice Caturcensis : Quasi vas auri solidum. Cf.
Mark of Lisbon, t. ii., pp. 106-113, t. iii., p. 212, and Glassberger,
An. fr., t. ii., p. 14.
2 A. SS., Aprilis, t. iii., p. 224 ; Conform., 118b, 1 ; 54a ; Mark of
Lisbon, t. ii., p. 1.-Brother Luke had been sent to Constantinople, in
1219, at latest. Vide Constitutus of December 9, 1220. Sbaralea, Bull.
fr., t. i., p. 6; Potthast, 6431.
3 We owe to M. Müller (Anfänge, p. 207) the honor of this publica
tion, copied from a manuscript of the Cottoniana.
ST. DOMINIC AND 225
.
ST. FRANCIS
precious because it confirms the general lines of the
much longer account given by Mark of Lisbon. It would
be out of place to give a summary of it here, because it
but very indirectly concerns the life of St. Francis, but
we must note that these acta have beyond their historic
value a truly remarkable psychological--one must almost
say pathological-- significance; never was the mania for
martyrdom better characterized than in these long pages,
where we see the friars forcing the Mahometans to pursue
them and make them win the heavenly palm. The for-
bearance which Miramolin as well as his fellow relig-
ionists at first show gives an idea of the civilization and
the good qualities of these infidels, all the higher that
very different sentiments would be natural in the van-
quished ones of the plains of Tolosa.
It is impossible to call by the name of sermons the
collections of rude apostrophes which the missionaries
addressed to those whom they wished to convert; at this
paroxysm the thirst for martyrdom becomes the madness
of suicide. Is this to say that friars Bernard, Pietro, Ad-
jutus, Accurso, and Otho have no right to the admiration
and worship with which they have been surrounded ?
Who would dare say so? Is not devotion always blind ?
That a furrow should be fecund it must have blood, it
must have tears, such tears as St. Augustine has called
the blood of the soul. Ah, it is a great mistake to im-
molate oneself, for the blood of a single man will not
save the world nor even a nation; but it is a still greater
mistake not to immolate oneself, for then one lets others
be lost, and is oneself lost first of all.
I greet you, therefore, Martyrs of Morocco; you do
not regret your madness, I am sure, and if ever some
righteous pedant gone astray in the groves of paradise
undertakes to demonstrate to you that it would have
been better worth while to remain in your own country,
15
226
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
1
and found a worthy family of virtuous laborers, I fancy
that Miramolin, there become your best friend, will take
the trouble to refute him.
You were mad, but I envy such madness, for you felt
that the essential thing in this world is not to serve this
ideal or that one, but with all one's soul to serve the
ideal which one has chosen.
When, a few months after, the story of their glorious
end arrived at Assisi, Francis discerned a feeling of pride
among his companions and reproached them in lively
terms; he who would so have envied the lot of the mar-
tyrs felt himself humbled because God had not judged
him worthy to share it. As the story was mingled with
some words of eulogy of the founder of the Order, he for-
bade the further reading of it.
Immediately after the chapter he had himself under-
taken a mission of the same kind as he had confided to
the Brothers of Morocco, but he had proceeded in it in
an entirely different manner: his was not the blind zeal
which courts death in a sort of frenzy and forgets all the
rest; perhaps he already felt that the persistent effort
after the better, the continual immolation of self for
truth, is the martyrdom of the strong.
This expedition, which lasted more than a year, is men-
tioned by the biographers in a few lines. Happily we
have a number of other papers regarding it; but their
silence suffices to prove the sincerity of the primitive
Franciscan authors; if they had wanted to amplify the
deeds of their subject, where could they have found an
easier opportunity or a more marvellous theme? Francis
quitted Portiuncula in the middle of June and went to
1 Giord., 8.
? 1 Cel., 57; Bon., 133–138; 154 and 155 ; 2 Cel., 2, 2; Conform.,
113b, 2; 114a, 2; Spec., 55b; Fior., 24.
ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FRANCIS
227
Åncona, whence the Crusaders were to set sail for Egypt
on St. John's Day (June 24th).
Many friars joined him-a fact which was not without
its inconveniences for a journey by sea, where they were
obliged to depend upon the charity of the owners of the
boats, or of their fellow-travellers.
We can understand Francis's embarrassment on arriv-
ing at Ancona and finding himself obliged to leave be-
hind a number of those who so earnestly longed to go
with him. The Conformities relate here an incident for
which we might desire an earlier authority, but which is
certainly very like Francis; he led all his friends to the
port and explained to them his perplexities. “The
people of the boat,” he told them, “refuse to take us all,
and I have not the courage to make choice among you;
you might think that I do not love you all alike ; let us
then try to learn the will of God." And he called a
child who was playing close by, and the little one,
charmed to take the part of Providence put upon him,
pointed out with his finger the eleven friars who were to
set sail.
We do not know what itinerary they followed. A
single incident of the journey has come down to us:
that of the chastisement inflicted in the isle of Cyprus on
Brother Barbaro, who had been guilty of the fault which
the master detested above all others—evil-speaking. He
was implacable with regard to the looseness of lan-
guage so customary among pious folk, and which often
made a hell of religious houses apparently the most
peaceful. The offence this time appeared to him the
more grave for having been uttered in the presence of
a stranger, a knight of that district. The latter was
stupefied on hearing Francis command the guilty one to
eat a lump of ass's dung which lay there, adding:
Conform., 113b, 2; cf. A. SS., p. 611.
1
" The
228
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
mouth which has distilled the venom of hatred against
my brother must eat this excrement.” Such indigna-
tion, no less than the obedience of the unhappy offender,
filled him with admiration.
It is very probable, as Wadding has supposed, that
the missionaries debarked at St. Jean d'Acre. They ar-
rived there about the middle of July. In the environs
of this city, doubtless, Brother Elias had been established
for one or two years. Francis there told off a few of his
companions, whom he sent to preach in divers directions,
and a few days afterward he himself set out for Egypt,
where all the efforts of the Crusaders were concentrated
upon Damietta.
From the first he was heart-broken with the moral
condition of the Christian army. Notwithstanding the
presence of numerous prelates and of the apostolic
legate, it was disorganized for want of discipline. He
was so affected by this that when there was talk of battle
he felt it his duty to advise against it, predicting that
the Christians would infallibly be beaten. No one heeded
him, and on August 29th the Crusaders, having attacked
the Saracens, were terribly routed.
His predictions won him a marvellous success. It
must be owned that the ground was better prepared
than any other to receive the new seed; not surely that
piety was alive there, but in this mass of men come tu-
gether from every corner of Europe, the troubled, the
seers, the enlightened ones, those who thirsted for right-
eousness and truth, were elbowed by rascals, adventurers,
12 Cel., 3, 92 ; Spec., 30b. Cf. 2 Cel., 3, 115. Conform., 142b, 1.
This incident may possibly have taken place on the return.
? With the facilities of that period the voyage required from twenty
to thirty days. The diarium of a similar passage may be found in Huil.
lard-Bréholles, Hist. Dipl., t. i., 898-901. Cf. Ibid., Introd., p.
sccxxxi.
* 2 Cel., 22 ; Bon 154, 155 ; cf. A. SS., p. 612.
ST. DOMINIO AND ST. FRANCIS
229
those who were greedy for gold and plunder, capable of
much good or much evil, the sport of fleeting impulses,
loosed from the bonds of the family, of property, of the
habits which usually twine themselves about man's will,
and only by exception permit a complete change in his
manner of life; those among them who were sincere
and had come there with generous purposes were, so
to speak, predestined to enter the peaceful army of the
Brothers Minor. Francis was to win in this mission fel-
low-laborers who would assure the success of his work in
the countries of northern Europe.
Jacques de Vitry, in a letter to friends written a few
days later, thus describes the impression produced on
him by Francis :
“ I announce to you that Master Reynier, Prior of St. Michael, has
entered the Order of the Brothers Minor, an Order which is multiplying
rapidly on all sides, because it imitates the primitive Church and fol-
lows the life of the Apostles in everything. The master of these
Brothers is named Brother Francis; he is so lovable that he is venerated
by everyone. Having come into our army, he has not been afraid, in
his zeal for the faith, to go to that of our enemies. For days together
he announced the word of God to the Saracens, but with little success ;
then the sultan, King of Egypt, asked him in secret to entreat God to
reveal to him, by some miracle, which is the best religion. Colin, the
Englishman, our clerk, has entered the same Order, as also two others
of our companions, Michael and Dom Matthew, to whom I had given
the rectorship of the Sainte Chapelle. Cantor and Henry have done
the same, and still others whose names I have forgotten.” 1
The long and enthusiastic chapter which the same au-
thor gives to the Brothers Minor in his great work on the
Occident is too diffuse to find a place here. It is
It is a liv.
ing and accurate picture of the early times of the Order ;
in it Francis's sermon before the sultan is again related.
It was written at a period when the friars had still neither
Jacques de Vitry speaks only incidentally of Francis here in the
midst of salutations; from the critical point of view this only enhances
the value of his words. See the Study of the Sources, p. 428.
1
230
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
monasteries nor churches, and when the chapters were
held once or twice a year; this gives us a date anterior
to 1223, and probably even before 1221. We have here,
therefore, a verification of the narratives of Thomas of
Celano and the Three Companions, and they find in it
their perfect confirmation.
As to the interviews between Francis and the sultan,
it is prudent to keep to the narratives of Jacques de
Vitry and William of Tyre. Although the latter wrote
at a comparatively late date (between 1275 and 1295), he
followed a truly historic method, and founded his work
on authentic documents; we see that he knows no more
than Jacques de Vitry of the proposal said to have been
made by Francis to pass through a fire if the priests of
Mahomet would do as much, intending so to establish the
superiority of Christianity.
We know how little such an appeal to signs is character-
istic of St. Francis. Perhaps the story, which comes from
Bonaventura, is born of a misconception. The sultan,
like a new Pharaoh, may have laid it upon the strange
preacher to prove his mission by miracles. However
this may be, Francis and his companions were treated
with great consideration, a fact the more meritorious that
hostilities were then at their height.
Returned to the Crusading camp, they remained there
until after the taking of Damietta (November 5, 1219).
This time the Christians were victorious, but perhaps
the heart of the gospel man bled more for this victory
than for the defeat of August 29th. The shocking condi-
tion of the city, which the victors found piled with heaps
of dead bodies, the quarrels over the sharing of booty,
the sale of the wretched creatures who had not suc-
cumbed to the pestilence, all these scenes of terror, cru-
· Vide below, the Study of the Sources, p. 430.
: All this is related at length by Jacques de Vitry.
ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FRANCIS
231
elty, greed, caused him profound horror. The “human
beast” was let loose, the apostle's voice could no more
make itself heard in the midst of the savage clamor than
that of a life-saver over a raging ocean.
He set out for Syrial and the Holy Places. How
gladly would we follow him in this pilgrimage, accompany
him in thought through Judea and Galilee, to Bethlehem,
to Nazareth, to Gethsemane! What was said to him by
the stable where the Son of Mary was born, the work-
shop where he toiled, the olive-tree where he accepted
the bitter cup? Alas! the documents here suddenly
fail us. Setting out from Damietta very shortly after
the siege (November 5, 1219) he may easily have been
at Bethlehem by Christmas. But we know nothing, ab-
solutely nothing, except that his sojourn was more pro-
longed than had been expected.
Some of the Brothers who were present at Portiuncula
at the chapter-general of 1220 (Whitsunday, May 17th)
had time enough to go to Syria and still find Francis
there ;? they could hardly have arrived much earlier than
the end of June. What had he been doing those eight
months? Why had he not gone home to preside at the
chapter? Had he been ill ? : Had he been belated by
some mission ? Our information is too slight to permit
us even to venture upon conjecture.
Angelo Clareno relates that the Sultan of Egypt,
"Cil hom qui comença l'ordre des Frères Mineurs, si ot nom frère
François
vint en l'ost de Damiate, e i fist moult de bien, et
demora tant que la ville fut prise. Il vit le mal et le péché qui comen-
ça à croistre entre les gens de l'ost, si li desplot, par quoi il s'en parti,
e fu une pièce en Surie, et puis s'en rala en son païs." Historiens des
Croisades, ii. L'Est de Eracles Empereur, liv. xxxii., chap. xv. Cf.
Sanuto ; Secreta fid. cruc., lib. iii., p. xi., cap. 8, in Bongars.
Giord., Chron., 11-14.
3 The episode of Brother Leonard's complaints, related below, gives
some probability to this hypothesis.
232
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
touched by his preaching, gave command that he and
all his friars should have free access to the Holy Sepul-
chre without the payment of any tribute.
Bartholomew of Pisa on his part says incidentally that
Francis, having gone to preach in Antioch and its envi-
rons, the Benedictines of the Abbey of the Black Moun-
tain, eight miles from that city, joined the Order in a
body, and gave up all their property to the Patriarch.
These indications are meagre and isolated indeed, and
the second is to be accepted only with reserve. On the
other hand, we have detailed information of what went
on in Italy during Francis's absence. Brother Giorda-
no's chronicle, recently discovered and published, throws
all the light that could be desired upon a plot laid against
Francis by the very persons whom he had commissioned
to take his place at Portiuncula, and this, if not with the
connivance of Rome and the cardinal protector, at least
without their opposition. These events had indeed been
narrated by Angelo Clareno, but the undisguised feeling
which breathes through all his writings and their lack of
accuracy had sufficed with careful critics to leave them in
doubt. How could it be supposed that in the very life-
time of St. Francis the vicars whom he had instituted
could take advantage of his absence to overthrow his
work? How could it be that the pope, who during this
period was sojourning at Rieti, how that Ugolini, who
was still nearer, did not impose silence on these agita-
tors ? 8
Now that all the facts come anew to light, not in an
i Tribul., Laur. MS., 9b. Cf. 10b: Sepulcro Domini visitato festinat
ad Christianorum terram.
? Upon this monastery see a letter ad familiares of Jacques de Vitry,
written in 1216 and published in 1847 by Baron Jules de St. Genois in
t. xiii. of the Mémoires de l'Académie royale des sciences et des beaux arts
de Bruxelles (1849). Conform., 106b, 2; 114a, 2 ; Spec., 184.
3 A. SS., pp. 619-620, 848, 851, 638.
ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FRANCIS
233
1
oratorical and impassioned account, but brief, precise, cut-
ting, dated, with every appearance of notes taken day by
day, we must perforce yield to evidence.
Does this give us reason clamorously to condemn Ugo-
lino and the pope ? I do not think so. They played a
part which is not to their honor, but their intentions were
evidently excellent. If the famous aphorism that the end
justifies the means is criminal where one examines his
own conduct, it becomes the first duty in judging that of
others. Here are the facts :
On July 25th, about one month after Francis's de-
parture for Syria, Ugolini, who was at Perugia, laid
upon the Clarisses of Monticelli (Florence), Sienna, Pe-
rugia, and Lucca that which his friend had so obstinately
refused for the friars, the Benedictine Rule.
At the same time, St. Dominic, returning from Spain
full of new ardor after his retreat in the grotto of Segovia,
and fully decided to adopt for his Order the rule of pov-
erty, was strongly encouraged in this purpose and over-
whelmed with favors.” Honorius III. saw in him the
providential man of the time, the reformer of the monas-
tic Orders; he showed him unusual attentions, going so
far, for example, as to transfer to him a group of monks
belonging to other Orders, whom he appointed to act as
Dominic's lieutenants on the preaching tours which he
believed it to be his duty to undertake, and to serve,
under his direction, an apprenticeship in popular preach-
ing.
That Ugolini was the inspiration of all this, the bulls
3
1 Vide Bull Sacrosancta of December 9, 1219. Cf. those of Septem-
ber 19, 1222 ; Sbaralea, i., p. 3, 11 ff. ; Potthast, 6179, 6879a, b, c.
2 Vide Potthast, 6155, 6177, 6184, 6199, 6214, 6217, 6218, 6220, 6246.
See also Chartularium Universitatis Par., t. i., 487.
3 Bull Quia qui seminant of May 12, 1220. Ripalli, Bul. Præd., t. i.,
P. 10 (Totthast, 6249).
234
LIFE OF ST. FRANOIS
are here to witness. His ruling purpose at that time
was so clearly to direct the two new Orders that he chose
a domicile with this end in view, and we find him contin-
ually either at Perugia—that is to say, within three leagues
of Portiuncula-or at Bologna, the stronghold of the Do-
minicans.
It now becomes manifest that just as the fraternity in-
stituted by Francis was truly the fruit of his body, flesh
of his flesh, so does the Order of the Preaching Friars
emanate from the papacy, and St. Dominic is only its
putative father. This character is expressed in one
word by one of the most authoritative of contemporary
annalists, Burchard of Ursperg (1226).
" instituted and confirmed the Order of the
Preachers.” 1
Francis on his journey in the Orient had taken for
special companion a friar whom we have not yet met,
Pietro di Catana or dei Cattani. Was he a native of the
town of Catana ? There is no precise indication of it.
It appears more probable that he belonged to the noble
family dei Cattani, already known to Francis, and of
which Orlando, Count of Chiusi in Casentino, who gave
“The pope,
he says,
| Mon. Germ. hist. Script., t. 23, p. 376. This passage is of extreme
importance because it sums up in a few lines the ecclesiastical policy of
Honorius III. After speaking of the perils with which the Humiliati
threatened the Church, Burcliard adds : Que volens corrigere domi.
nus papa ordinem Predicatorum instituit et confirmavit. Now these
Humiliati were an approved Order. But Burchard, while classing them
with heretics beside the Poor Men of Lyons, expresses in a word the sen-
timents of the papacy toward them ; it had for them an invincible re-
pugnance, and not wishing to strike them directly it sought a side issue.
Similar tactics were followed with regard to the Brothers Minor, with
that overplus of caution which the prodigious success of the Order in-
spired. It all became useless when in 1221 Brother Elias became Fran-
cis's vicar, and especially when, after the latter's death, he had all the
liberty necessary for directing the Order according to the views of Ugo
lini, now become Gregory IX.
ST. DOMINIO AND ST. FRANCIS
235
him the Verna, was a member. However that may be,
we must not confound him with the Brother Pietro who
assumed the habit in 1209, at the same time with Ber-
nardo of Quintavallo, and died shortly afterward. Tradi-
tion, in reducing these two men to a single personage,
was influenced not merely by the similarity of the names,
but also by the very natural desire to increase the pres-
tige of one who in 1220_1221 was to play an important
part in the direction of the Order.1
At the time of his departure for the East Francis had
left two vicars in his place, the Brothers Matteo of Nar-
ni and Gregorio of Naples. The former was especially
charged to remain at Portiuncula to adinit postulants;
Gregorio of Naples, on the other hand, was to pass
through Italy to console the Brothers.3
The two vicars began at once to overturn everything.
It is inexplicable how men still under the influence of
their first fervor for a Rule which in the plenitude of
their liberty they had promised to obey could have
2
11 Cel., 25; cf. A. SS., p. 581. Pietro di Catana had the title of doc-
tor of laws, Giord., 11, which entirely disagrees with what is related
of Brother Pietro, 3 Soc., 28 and 29. Cf. Bon., 28 and 29; Spec., 5b;
Fior., 2; Conform., 47; 52b, 2 ; Petrus vir litteratus erat et nobilis,
Giord., 12.
: We know nothing more of him except that after his death he had
the gift of miracles. Giord., 11 ; Conform., 62a, 1.
3 He was not an ordinary man ; a remarkable administrator and ora-
tor (Eccl., 6), he was minister in France before 1224 and again in 1240,
thanks to the zeal with which he had adopted the ideas of Brother
Elias. He was nephew of Gregory IX., which throws some light upon
the practices which have just been described. After having been swept
away in Elias's disgrace and condemned to prison for life, he became in
the end Bishop of Bayeux. I note for those who take an interest in
those things that manuscripts of two of his sermons may be found in
the National Library of Paris. The author of them being indicated simply
as fr. Gr. min., it has only lately become known whose they were.
These sermons were preached in Paris on Holy Thursday and Saturday,
MS. new. acq., Lat., 338 fº 148, 159.
236
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
dreamed of such innovations if they had not been urged
on and upheld by those in high places. To alleviate the
vow of poverty and to multiply observances were the
two points toward which their efforts were bent.
In appearance it was a trifling matter, in reality it was
much, for it was the first movement of the old spirit
against the new. It was the effort of men who uncon-
sciously, I am willing to think, made religion an affair of
rite and observance, instead of seeing in it, like St. Fran-
cis, the conquest of the liberty which makes us free in all
things, and leads each soul to obey that divine and mys-
terious power which the flowers of the fields adore, which
the birds of the air bless, which the symphony of the
stars praises, and which Jesus of Nazareth called Abba,
that is to say, Father.
The first Rule was excessively simple in the matter of
fasts. The friars were to abstain from meat on Wednes-
days and Fridays; they might add Mondays and Satur-
days, but only on Francis's special authorization. The
vicars and their adherents complicated this rule in a sur-
prising manner. At the chapter-general held in Fran-
cis's absence (May 17, 1220), they decided, first, that in
times of feasting the friars were not to provide meat,
but if it were offered to them spontaneously they were to
eat it; second, that all should fast on Mondays as well as
Wednesdays and Fridays; third, that on Mondays and
Saturdays they should abstain from milk products unless
by chance the adherents of the Order brought some to
them.1
These beginnings bear witness also to an effort to imi-
tate the ancient Orders, not without the vague hope that
they would be substituted for them. Brother Giordano
has preserved to us only this decision of the chapter of
1220, but the expressions of which he makes use suffi-
· Giord., 11. Cf. Spec., 34b. Fior., 4; Conform., 1848, i.
ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FRANCIS
:237
ciently prove that it was far from being the only one,
and that the malcontents had desired, as in the chapters
of Citeaux and Monte Cassino, to put forth veritable con-
stitutions.
These modifications of the Rule did not pass, however,
without arousing the indignation of a part of the chap-
ter; a lay brother made himself their eager messenger,
and set out for the East to entreat Francis to return
without delay, to take the measures called for by the
circumstances.
There were also other causes of disquiet. Brother
Philip, a Zealot of the Clarisses, had made haste to se-
cure for them from Ugolini the privileges which had
already been under consideration.1
A certain Brother Giovanni di Conpello ? had gathered
together a great number of lepers of both sexes, and
written a Rule, intending to form with them a new Order.
He had afterward presented himself before the supreme
pontiff with a train of these unfortunates to obtain his
approbation.
Many other distressing symptoms, upon which Brother
Giordano does not dwell, had manifested themselves.
The report of Francis's death had even been spread
abroad, so that the whole Order was disturbed, divided,
and in the greatest peril. The dark presentiments which
1 Giord., 12. Cf. Bull Sacrosancta of December 9, 1219.
? Giord., 12. Ought we, perhaps, to read di Campello ? Half way be-
tween Foligno and Spoleto there is a place of this name. On the other
hand, the 3 Soc., 35, indicate the entrance into the Order of a Giovan-
ni di Capella who in the legend became the Franciscan Judas. Invenit
abusum capelle et ab ipsa denominatus est : ab ordine recedens factus le-
prosus laqueo ut Judas se suspendit. Conform., 104a, 1. Cf. Bernard de
Besse, 96a ; Spec., 2; Fior., 1. All this is much mixed up. Perhaps
we should believe that Giovanni di Campello died shortly afterward,
and that later on, when the stories of this troubled time were forgotten,
some ingenious Brother explained the note of infamy attached to his
memory by a hypothesis built upon his name itself.
238
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
Francis seems to have had were exceeded by the reality.
The messenger who brought him the sad news found him
in Syria, probably at St. Jean d'Acre. He at once em-
barked with Elias, Pietro di Catana, Cæsar of Speyer, and
a few others, and returned to Italy in a vessel bound for
Venice, where he might easily arrive toward the end of
July.
· Giord., 12, 13, and 14.
CHAPTER XIV
THE CRISIS OF THE ORDER!
Autumn, 1220
On his arrival in Venice Francis informed himself yet
more exactly concerning all that had happened, and con-
voked the chapter-general at Portiuncula for Michael-
mas (September 29, 1220). His first care was doubtless
to reassure his sister-friend at St. Damian; a short frag-
ment of a letter which has been preserved to us gives in-
dication of the sad anxieties which filled his mind :
“I, little Brother Francis, desire to follow the life and the poverty of
Jesus Christ, our most high Lord, and of his most holy Mother, perse-
vering therein until the end ; and I beg you all and exhort you to perse-
vere always in this most holy life and poverty, and take good care
never to depart from it upon the advice or teachings of any one whom-
soever." S
A long shout of joy sounded up and down all Italy
when the news of his return was heard. Many zealous
brethren were already despairing, for persecutions had
begun in many provinces ; so when they learned that
their spiritual father was alive and coming again to visit
i Giord., 14; Tribul., fº 10.
? Any other date is impossible, since Francis in open chapter relin-
quished the direction of the Order in favor of Pietro di Catana, who
died March 10, 1221.
3 This too short fragment is found in 8 vi. of the Rule of the Damian.
ites (August 9, 1253): Speculum, Morin, Tract. iii., 226b.
240
LIFE OF ST. FRANOIS
1
them their joy was unbounded. From Venice Francis
went to Bologna. The journey was marked by an inci-
dent which once more shows his acute and wise goodness.
Worn out as much by emotion as by fatigue, he one day
found himself obliged to give up finishing the journey on
foot. Mounted upon an ass, he was going on his way,
followed by Brother Leonard of Assisi, when a passing
glance showed him what was passing in his companion's
mind. “My relatives,” the friar was thinking, "would
have been far enough from associating with Bernardone,
and yet here am I, obliged to follow his son on foot.”
We may judge of his astonishment when he heard
Francis saying, as he hastily dismounted from his beast:
Here, take my place; it is most unseemly that thou
shouldst follow me on foot, who art of a noble and pow-
erful lineage.” The unhappy Leonard, much confused,
threw himself at Francis's feet, begging for pardon.
Scarcely arrived at Bologna, Francis was obliged to
proceed against those who had become backsliders. It
will be remembered that the Order was intended to pos-
sess nothing, either directly or indirectly. The monas-
teries given to the friars did not become their property ;
so soon as the proprietor should desire to take them back
or anyone else should wish to take possession of them,
they were to be given up without the least resistance; but
on drawing near to Bologna he learned that a house was
being built, which was already called The house of the
Brothers. He commanded its immediate evacuation, not
even excepting the sick who happened to be there. The
Brothers then resorted to Ugolini, who was then in that
very city for the consecration of Santa Maria di Rheno.?
He explained to Francis at length that this house did not
belong to the Order; he had declared himself its propri-
2 Cel., 2, 3; Bon., 162 ; cf. Conform., 184b, 2, and 62b, 1.
? Sigonius, Opera, t. iii. col. 220 ; cf. Potthast, 5516, and 6086.
1
2
THE CRISIS OF THE ORDER
241
etor by public acts; and he succeeded in convincing
him.1
Bolognese piety prepared for Francis an enthusiastic
reception, the echo of which has come down even to our
times :
“I was studying at Bologna, I, Thomas of Spalato, archdeacon in the
cathedral church of that city, when in the year 1220, the day of the As.
sumption, I saw St. Francis preaching on the piazza of the Lesser Palace,
before almost every man in the city. The theme of his discourse was
the following: Angels, men, the demons. He spoke on all these sub-
jects with so much wisdom and eloquence that many learned men who
were there were filled with admiration at the words of so plain a man.
Yet he had not the manner of a preacher, his ways were rather those of
conversation; the substance of his discourse bore especially upon the
abolition of enmities and the necessity of making peaceful alliances. i
His apparel was poor, his person in no respect imposing, his face not at
all handsome; but God gave such great efficacy to his words that he
brought back to peace and harmony many nobles whose savage fury had
not even stopped short before the shedding of blood. So great a devo-
tion was felt for him that men and women flocked after him, and he
esteemed himself happy who succeeded in touching the hem of his gar-
ment."
ti
Was it at this time that the celebrated Accurso the
Glossarist, chief of that famous dynasty of jurisconsults
who during the whole thirteenth century shed lustre
upon the University of Bologna, welcomed the Brothers
Minor to his villa at Ricardina, near the city? We do
not know
It appears that another professor, Nicolas dei Pepoli,
also entered the Order. Naturally the pupils did not
lag behind, and a certain number asked to receive the
habit. Yet all this constituted a danger; this city, which
in Italy was as an altar consecrated to the science of law,
12 Cel., 3, 4; Spec., 11a; Tribul., 13a ; Conform., 169b, 2.
? Died in 1229. Cf. Mazzetti, Repertorio di tutti i professori di Ba
logna, Bologna, 1847, p. 11.
3 See Mon. Germ. hist. Script., t. 28, p. 635, and the notes.
• Wadding, ann. 1220, po. 9. Cf. A. SS., p. 823.
18
242
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
was destined to exercise upon the evolution of the Order
the same influence as Paris; the Brothers Minor could
no more hold aloof from it than they could keep aloof
from the ambient air.
This time Francis remained here but a very short time.
An ancient tradition, of which his biographers have not
preserved any trace, but which nevertheless appears to
be entirely probable, says that Ugolini took him to pass
a month in the Camaldoli, in the retreat formerly in-
habited by St. Romuald in the midst of the Casentino
forest, one of the noblest in Europe, within a few hours'
walk of the Verna, whose summit rises up gigantic, over-
looking the whole country.
We know how much Francis needed repose. There is
no doubt that he also longed for a period of meditation
in order to decide carefully in advance upon his line of
conduct, in the midst of the dark conjectures which had
called him home. The desire to give him the much-
needed rest was only a subordinate purpose with Ugolini.
The moment for vigorous action appeared to him to have
We can easily picture his responses to Francis's
complaints. Had he not been seriously advised to prof-
it by the counsels of the past, by the experience of those
founders of Orders who have been not only saints, but
skilful leaders of men ? Was not Ugolini himself his best
friend, his born defender, and yet had not Francis forced
him to lay aside the influence to which his love for
the friars, his position in the Church, and his great age
gave him such just title? Yes, he had been forced to
leave Francis to needlessly expose his disciples to all
sorts of danger, to send them on missions as perilous as
they had proved to be ineffectual, and all for what? For
the most trivial point of honor, because the Brothers
Minor were determined not to enjoy the smallest privi-
leges. They were not heretics, but they disturbed the
come.
THE CRISIS OF THE ORDER
243
Church as much as the heretics did. How many times
had he not been reminded that a great association, in
order to exist, must have precise and detailed regula----
tions? It had all been labor lost! Of course Francis's
humility was doubted by no one, but why not manifest
it, not only in costume and manner of living, but in all
his acts? He thought himself obeying God in defending
his own inspiration, but does not the Church speak in the
name of God? Are not the words of her representatives
the words of Jesus forever perpetuated on earth ? He
desired to be a man of the Gospel, an apostolic man, but
was not the best way of becoming such to obey the
Roman pontiff, the successor of Peter? With an excess
of condescension they had let him go on in his own way,
and the result was the saddest of lessons. But the situa-
tion was not desperate, there was still time to find a
remedy ; to do that he had only to throw himself at the
feet of the pope, imploring his blessing, his light, and his
counsel.
Reproaches such as these, mingled with professions of
love and admiration on the part of the prelate, could not
but profoundly disturb a sensitive heart like that of
Francis. His conscience bore him good witness, but
with the modesty of noble minds he was ready enough
to think that he might have made many mistakes.
Perhaps this is the place to ask what was the secret of
the friendship of these two men, so little known to one
another on certain sides. How could it last without a
shadow down to the very death of Francis, when we
always find Ugolini the very soul of the group who are
compromising the Franciscan ideal? No answer to this
question is possible. The same problem presents itself
with regard to Brother Elias, and we are no better able
to find a satisfactory answer. Men of loving hearts
seldom have a perfectly clear intelligence. They often
244
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
become fascinated by men the most different from them-
selves, in whose breasts they feel none of those feminine
weaknesses, those strange dreams, that almost sickly pity
for creatures and things, that mysterious thirst for pain
which is at once their own happiness and their torment.
The sojourn at Camaldoli was prolonged until the
middle of September, and it ended to the cardinal's
satisfaction. Francis had decided to go directly to the
pope, then at Orvieto, with the request that Ugolini
should be given him as official protector intrusted with
the direction of the Order.
A dream which he had once had recurred to his mem-
ory; he had seen a little black hen which, in spite of her
efforts, was not able to spread her wings over her whole
brood. The poor hen was himself, the chickens were
the friars. This dream was a providential indication
commanding him to seek for them a mother under whose
wings they could all find a place, and who could defend
them against the birds of prey. At least so he thought."
He repaired to Orvieto without taking Assisi in his
way, since if he went there he would be obliged to take
some measures against the fomentors of disturbance; he
now proposed to refer everything directly to the pope.
Does his profound humility, with the feeling of culpa-
bility which Ugolini had awakened in him, suffice to
explain his attitude with regard to the pope, or must we
suppose that he had a vague thought of abdicating? Who
knows whether conscience was not already murmuring
a reproach, and showing him how trivial were all the
sophisms which had been woven around him ?
“Not daring to present himself in the apartments of so great a prince,
he remained outside before the door, patiently waiting till the pope should
come out. When he appeared St. Francis made a reverence and said:
* 2 Cal., 1, 18; Spec., 1008-101b.
THE CRISIS OF THE ORDER
245
• Father Pope, may God give you peace.' ‘May God bless you, my son,'
replied he. ' My lord,' then said St. Francis to him, “you are great and
often absorbed by great affairs ; poor friars cannot come and talk with
you as often as they need to do ; you have given me many popes; give
me a single one to whom I may address myself when need occurs, and
who will listen in your stead, and discuss my affairs and those of the
Order." 'Whom do you wish I should give you, my son ?' "The
Bishop of Ostia.' And he gave him to him.” 1
Conferences with Ugolini now began again; he imme-
diately accorded Francis some amends; the privilege
granted the Clarisses was revoked ; Giovanni di Con-
pello was informed that he had nothing to hope from the
curia, and last of all leave was given to Francis himself
to compose the Rule of his Order. Naturally he was not
spared counsel on the subject, but there was one point
upon which the curia could not brook delay, and of which
it exacted the immediate application—the obligation of a
year's novitiate for the postulants.
At the same time a bull was issued not merely for the
sake of publishing this ordinance, but especially to mark
in a solemn manner the commencement of a new era in
the relations of the Church and the Franciscans. The
fraternity of the Umbrian Penitents became an Order in
the strictest sense of the word.
1
Honorius, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to Brother Francis
and the other priors or custodes of the Brothers Minor, greeting and the
apostolic benediction.
In nearly all religious Orders it has been wisely ordained that those
who present themselves with the purpose of observing the regular life
shall make trial of it for a certain time, during which they also shall be
tested, in order to leave neither place nor pretext for inconsiderate
steps. For these reasons we command you by these presents to admit
no one to make profession until after one year of novitiate ; we forbid
that after profession any brother shall leave the Order, and that any
one shall take back again him who has gone out from it. We also for
Giord., 14; cf. 2 Cel., 1, 17; Spec., 102 ; 3 Soc., 56 and 63.
246
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
If any
bid that those wearing your habit shall circulate here and there with.
out obedience, lest the purity of your poverty be corrupted.
friars have had this audacity, you will inflict upon them ecclesiastical
censures until repentance.
It is surely only by a very decided euphemism that
such a bull can be considered in the light of a privilege.
It was in reality the laying of the strong hand of the
papacy upon the Brothers Minor.
From this time, in the very nature of things it became
impossible for Francis to remain minister-general. He
felt it himself. Heart-broken, soul-sick, he would fain,
in spite of all, have found in the energy of his love those
words, those glances which up to this time had taken the
place of rule or constitution, giving to his earliest com-
panions the intuition of what they ought to do and the
strength to accomplish it; but an administrator was
needed at the head of this family which he suddenly
found to be so different from what it had been a few
years before, and he sadly acknowledged that he himself
was not in the slightest degree such a person."
Ah, in his own conscience he well knew that the old
ideal was the true, the right one; but he drove away
such thoughts as the temptations of pride. The recent
events had not taken place without in some degree weak-
ening his moral personality; from being continually
talked to about obedience, submission, humility, a certain
obscurity had come over this luminous soul; inspiration
no longer came to it with the certainty of other days;
i Cum secundum. The original is at Assisi with Datum apud Urbem
Veterein X. Kal. Oct. pant. nostri anno quinto (September 22, 1220). It
is therefore by an error that Sbaralea and Wadding make it date from
Viterbo, which is the less explicable that all the bulls of this epoch are
dated from Orvieto. Wadding, ann. 1220, 57; Sbaralea, vol. i., p. 6;
Potthast, 6561.
? 2 Cel., 3, 118 ; Ubertin, Arbor. V., 2; Spec., 26 ; 50 ; 130b; Con.
form., 136a, 2; 143a, 2.
THE CRISIS OF THE ORDER
247
the prophet had begun to waver, almost to doubt of him-
self and of his mission. Anxiously he searched himself
to see if in the beginning of his work there had not
been some vain self-complacency. He pictured to him-
self beforehand the chapter which he was about to
open, the attack, the criticisms of which it would be the
object, and labored to convince himself that if he did not
endure them with joy he was not a true Brother Minor.1
The noblest virtues are subject to scruples, that of per-
fect humility more than any other, and thus it is that ex-
cellent men religiously betray their own convictions to
avoid asserting themselves. He resolved then to put the
direction of the Order into the hands of Pietro di Catana.
It is evident that there was nothing spontaneous in this
decision, and the fact that this brother was a doctor of
laws and belonged to the nobility squarely argues the
transformation of the Franciscan institute.
It is not known whether or not Ugolini was present at
the chapter of September 29, 1220, but if he was not
there in person he was assuredly represented by some
prelate, charged to watch over the debates. The bull
which had been issued a week before was communicated
to the friars, to whom Francis also announced that he
was about to elaborate a new Rule. With reference to
this matter there were conferences in which the ministers
alone appear to have had a deliberative voice. At these
conferences the essential points of the new Rule were
settled as to principle, leaving to Francis the care of
giving them proper form at his leisure. Nothing better
reveals the demoralized state into which he had fallen
than the decision which was taken to drop out one of the
essential passages of the old Rule, one of his three fun-
12 Cel., 3, 83 ; Bon. 77. One should read this account in the Conform
according to the Antiqua Legenda, 142a, 2 ; 31a, 1 ; Speco,
Spec,, 43b.
? Tribul. Laur. MS., 12b; Magl. MS., 71b.
ܪ
248
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
"1
damental precepts, that which began with these words,
“ Carry nothing with you."
How did they go to work to obtain from Francis this
concession which, a little while before, he would have
looked upon as a denial of his call, a refusal to accept in its
integrity the message which Jesus had addressed to him?
It is the secret of history, but we may suppose there was
in his life at this time one of those moral tempests which
overbear the faculties of the strongest, leaving in their
wounded hearts only an unutterable pain.
Something of this pain has passed into the touching
narrative of his abdication which the biographers have
given us.
“From henceforth,” he said to the friars, “I am dead for you, but
here is Brother Pietro di Catana, whom you and I will all obey.” And
prostrating himself before him he promised him obedience and submis-
sion. The friars could not restrain their tears and lamentations when
they saw themselves thus becoming in some sort orphans, but Francis
arose, and, clasping his hands, with eyes upraised to heaven : “Lord,"
he said, "I return to thee this family which thou hast confided to me.
Now, as thou knowest, most sweet Jesus, I have no longer strength nor
ability to keep on caring for them ; I confide them, therefore, to the
ministers. May they be responsible before thee at the day of judg-
ment if any brother, by their negligence or bad example, or by a too
severe discipline, should ever wander away.'
"2
The functions of Pietro di Catana were destined to
continue but a very short time; he died on March 10,
1221.3
Information abounds as to this period of a few months;
1
Luke, ix., 1-6. Tribul., 12b : Et fecerunt de regula prima ministri re-
movere.
This must have taken place at the chapter of Sep-
tember 29, 1220, since the suppression is made in the Rule of 1221.
2 2 Cel., 3, 81 ; Spec., 26; Conform., 175b, 1 ; 53a ; Bon., 76; A.
SS., p. 620.
3 The epitaph on his tomb, which still exists at S. M. dei Angeli bears
this date : see Portiuncula, von P. Barnabas aus dem Elsass, Rixheim,
1884, p. 11 Cf. A. SS., p. 630.
THE ORISIS OF THE ORDER
249
nothing is. more natural, since Francis remained at Por-
tiuncula to complete the task confided to him, living there
surrounded with brethren who later on would recall to
mind all the incidents of which they were witnesses.
Some of them reveal the conflict of which his soul was
the arena. Desirous of showing himself submissive, he
nevertheless found himself tormented by the desire to
shake off his chains and fly away as in former days, to
live and breathe in God alone. The following artless
record deserves, it seems to me, to be better known.1
One day a novice who could read the psalter, though not without dif-
ficulty, obtained from the minister-general—that is to say, from the vicar
of St. Francis-permission to have one. But as he had learned that St.
Francis desired the brethren to be covetous neither for learning nor for
books, he would not take his psalter without his consent. So, St. Fran-
cis having come to the monastery where the novice was,
" Father."
said he, “it would be a great consolation to have a psalter ; but though
the minister-general has authorized me to get it, I would not have it
unknown to you." “Look at the Emperor Charles," replied St. Francis
with fire, “Roland, and Oliver and all the paladins, valorous heroes
and gallant knights, who gained their famous victories in fighting in-
fidels, in toiling and laboring even unto death! The holy martyrs,
they also have chosen to die in the midst of battle for the faith of
Christ! But now there are many of those who aspire to merit honor
and glory simply by relating their feats. Yes, among us also there are
many who expect to receive glory and honor by reciting and preaching
the works of the saints, as if they had done them themselves !”
A few days after, St. Francis was sitting before the fire, and
the novice drew near to speak to him anew about his psalter,
“When you have your psalter," said Francis to him, “you will want
a breviary, and when you have a breviary you will seat yourself in a
pulpit like a great prelate and will beckon to your comparion, ‘Bring
me my breviary !
St. Francis said this with great vivacity, then taking up some ashes
he scattered them over the head of the novice, repeating, ^ There is
the breviary, there is the breviary!'
Several days after, St. Francis being at Portiuncula and walking up
!'"
1 Spec., 9b; Arbor. V., 3 ; Conform., 170a, 1 ; 2 Cel., 3, 124. Cf.
Ubertini, Archio., iii., pp. 75 and 177.
250
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS'
and down on the roadside not far from his cell, the same Brother came
again to speak to him about his psalter. “Very well, go on,” said
Francis to him," you have only to do what your minister tells you.'
you." At
these words the novice went away, but Francis began to reflect on what
he had said, and suddenly calling to the friar, he cried,“ Wait for me!
wait for me!" When he had caught up to him, “Retrace your steps
a little way, I beg you," he said. "Where was I when I told you to
do whatever your minister told you as to the psalter ?" Then falling
upon his knees on the spot pointed out by the friar, he prostrated him.
self at his feet: “Pardon, my brother, pardon!” he cried, " for he
who would be Brother Minor ought to have nothing but his clothing."
This long story is not merely precious because it shows
as, even to the smallest particular, the conflict between
the Francis of the early years, looking only to God and
his conscience, and the Francis of 1220, become a sub-
missive monk in an Order approved by the Roman
Church, but also because it is one of those infrequent
narratives where his method shows itself with its artless
realism. These allusions to the tales of chivalry, and
this freedom of manner which made a part of his success
with the masses, were eliminated from the legend with
an incredible rapidity. His spiritual sons were perhaps
not ashamed of their father in this matter, but they were
so bent upon bringing out his other qualities that they
forgot a little too much the poet, the troubadour, the
joculator Domini.
Certain fragments, later than Thomas of Celano by
more than a century, which relate some incidents of this
kind, bear for that very reason the stamp of authenticity.
It is difficult enough to ascertain precisely what part
Francis still took in the direction of the Order. Pietro
di Catana and later Brother Elias are sometimes called
ministers-general, sometimes vicars; the two terms often
occur successively, as in the preceding narrative. It is
very probable that this confusion of terms corresponds
to a like confusion of facts. Perhaps it was even inten-
THE CRISIS OF THE ORDER
251
tional. After the chapter of September, 1220, the affairs
of the Order pass into the hands of him whom Francis
had called minister-general, though the friars as well as
the papacy gave him only the title of vicar. It was
essential for the popularity of the Brothers Minor that
Francis should preserve an appearance of authority, but
the reality of government had slipped from his hands.
The ideal which he had borne in his body until 1209
and had then given birth to in anguish, was now taking
its flight, like those sons of our loins whom we see sud-
denly leaving us without our being able to help it, since
that is life, yet not without a rending of our vitals. Ma-
ter dolorosa ! Ah, no doubt they will come back again,
and seat themselves piously beside us at the paternal
hearth; perhaps even, in some hour of moral distress,
they will feel the need of taking refuge in their mother's
arms as in the old days; but these fleeting returns, with
their feverish haste, only reopen the wounds of the poor
parents, when they see how the children hasten to depart
again-they who bear their name but belong to them no
longer.
CHAPTER XV
THE RULE OF 12211
The winter of 1220_1221 was spent by Francis chiefly
in fixing his thought by writing. Until now he had been
too much the man of action to have been able to give
much thought to anything but the living word, but from
this time his exhausted forces compelled him to satisfy
his longing for souls by some other means than evangel-
izing tours. We have seen that the chapter of Septem-
1 Text in Firmamentum, 10; Spec., 189; Spec., Morin. Tract., iii., 2b.
M. Müller (Anfänge) has made a study of the Rule of 1221 which is a
masterpiece of exegetical scent. Nevertheless if he had more carefully
collated the different texts he would have arrived at still more striking
results, thanks to the variants which he would have been able to estab-
lish. I cite a single example.
Text Firm.- Wadding, adopted by Text of the Speculum, 189 ff.
Mr. M.
Omnes fratres ubicunque sunt vel Omnes fratres ubicunque sunt et
vadunt, caveant sibi a malo visu et vadunt caveant se a malo visu et fre-
frequentia mulierum et nullus cum quentia mulierum et nullus cum eis
eis consilietur sovus. Sacerdos ho- concilietur aut per viam vadat solus
neste loquatur cum eis dando pen- aut ad mensam in una paropside
itentiam vel aliud spirituale con- comedat. (!!) Sacerdos honeste lo-
silium.
quatur cum eis dando
etc.
This passage is sufficient to show the superiority of the text of the
Speculum, which is to be preferred also in other respects, but this is
not the place for entering into these details. It is evident that the
phrase in which we see the earliest friars sometimes sharing the repast
of the sisters and eating from their porringer is not a later interpoiation.
THE RULE OF 1221
253
1
ber 29, 1220, on one side, and the bull Cum secundum on
the other, had fixed in advance a certain number of
points. For the rest, complete liberty had been given
him, not indeed to make a final and unchangeable state-
ment of his ideas, but to set them forth. The substance
of legislative power had passed into the hands of the
ministers.
That which we call the Rule of 1221 is, then, nothing
more than a proposed law, submitted to a representative
government at its parliament. The head of authority
will one day give it to the world, so thoroughly modified
and altered that Francis's name at the head of such a
document will give but small promise, and quite indi-
rectly, that it will contain his personal opinion.
Never was man less capable of making a Rule than
Francis. In reality, that of 1210 and the one which the
pope solemnly approved in November 29, 1223, had little
in common except the name. In the former all is alive,
free, spontaneous; it is a point of departure, an inspira-
tion; it may be summed up in two phrases: the appeal
of Jesus to man, “Come, follow me,” the act of man, “He
left all and followed him." To the call of divine love
man replies by the joyful gift of himself, and that quite
naturally, by a sort of instinct. At this height of mysti-
cism any regulation is not only useless, it is almost a
profanation; at the very Teast it is the symptom of a
doubt. Even in earthly loves, when people truly love
each other nothing is asked, nothing promised.
The Rule of 1223, on the other hand, is a reciprocal
contract. On the divine side the call has become a com-
mand; on the human, the free impulse of love has become
an act of submission, by which life eternal will be earned.
At the bottom of it all is the antinome of law and love.
Under the reign of law we are the mercenaries of God,
* Tribul., 12b; Spec., 54b ; Arbor. V., 3; Spec., 8b.
254
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
bound down to an irksome task, but paid a hundred-fold,
and with an indisputable right to our wages.
Under the rule of love we are the sons of God, and
coworkers with him; we give ourselves to him without
bargaining and without expectation ; we follow Jesus, not
because this is well, but because we can do no otherwise,
because we feel that he has loved us and we love him in
our turn. An inward flame draws us irresistibly toward
him: Et Spiritus et Sponsa dicunt: Veni.
It is necessary to dwell a little on the antithesis be-
tween these two Rules. That
of 1210
alone is truly Fran-
ciscan; that of 1223 is indirectly the work of the
Church, endeavoring to assimilate with herself the new
movement, which with one touch she transforms and
turns wholly from its original purpose.
That of 1221 marks an intermediate stage. It is
the clash of two principles, or rather of two spirits; they
approach, they touch, but they are not merged in one
another; here and there is a mixture, but nowhere com-
bination; we can separate the divers elements without
difficulty. Their condition is the exact reflection of what
was going on in Francis's soul, and of the rapid evolution
of the Order.
To aid him in his work Francis joined to himself
Brother Cæsar of Speyer, who would be especially useful
to him by his profound acquaintance with the sacred
texts.
What strikes us first, on glancing over this Rule of
1221, is its extraordinary length; it covers not less than
ten folio pages, while that of 1223 has no more than
three. Take away from it the passages which ema-
nate from the papacy and those which were fixed at the
previous chapter, you will hardly have shortened it by a
column; what remains is not a Rule, but a series of im-
passioned appeals, in which the father's heart speaks, not
.
THE RULE OF 1221
255
to command but to convince, to touch, to awaken in his
children the instinct of love.
It is all chaotic and even contradictory,' without order,
a medley of outbursts of joy and bitter sobs, of hopes
and regrets. There are passages in which the passion
of the soul speaks in every possible tone, runs over the
whole gamut from the softest note to the most masculine,
from those which are as joyous and inspiring as the blast
of a clarion, to those which are agitated, stifled, like a
voice from beyond the tomb.
"By the holy love which is in God, I pray all the friars, ministers
as well as others, to put aside every obstacle, every care, every anx-
iety, that they may be able to consecrate themselves entirely to serve,
love, and honor the Lord God, with a pure heart and a sincere purpose,
which is what he asks above all things. Let us have always in our-
selves a tabernacle and a home for him who is the Lord God most
mighty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who says, “Watch and pray al-
ways, that you may be found worthy to escape all the things which will
come to pass, and to appear upright before the Son of man.'
"Let us then keep in the true way, the life, the truth, and the holy
Gospel of Him who has deigned for our sake to leave his Father that
he may manifest his name to us, saying, 'Father, I have manifested
thy name to those whom thou hast given me, and the words which
thou hast given me I have given also unto them. They have received
them, and they have known that I am come from thee, and they believe
that thou hast sent me. I pray for them;
for them; I pray not for the world,
but for those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one as we
I have said these things, being still in the world, that they
may have joy in themselves. I have given them thy words, and the
world hath hated them, because they are not of the world. I pray not
that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou wilt keep
them from the evil. Sanctify them through the truth ; thy word is
truth. As thou hast sent me into the world I have also sent them into
the world, and for their sake I sanctify myself that they may them-
selves be sanctified in the truth; and neither pray I for these alone,
but for all those who shall believe on me throngh their words, that we
all may be one, and that the world may know that thou hast sent me,
and that thou lovest them as thou hast loved me. I have made known
are one.
Cf. cap. 17 and 21.
256
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
unto them thy name, that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may
be in them and I in them.'
PRAYER
-"Almighty, most high and sovereign God, holy Father, righteous
Lord, King of heaven and earth, we give thee thanks for thine own
sake, in that by thy holy will, and by thine only Son and thy Holy
Spirit thou hast created all things spiritual and corporeal, and that after
having made us in thine image and after thy likeness, thou didst place
us in that paradise which we lost by our sin. And we give thee thanks
because after having created us by thy Son, by that love which is thine,
and which thou hast had for us, thou hast made him to be born very
God' and very man of the glorious and blessed Mary, ever Virgin,
and because by his cross, his blood, and his death thou hast willed to
ransom us poor captives. And we give thee thanks that thy Son is to
return in his glorious majesty to send to eternal fire the accursed ones,
those who have not repented and have not known thee; and to say to
those who have known and adored thee and served thee by repent-
ance, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared
for you from before the foundation of the world. And since we,
wretched and sinful, are not worthy to name thee, we humbly ask our
Lord Jesus Christ, thy well-beloved Son, in whom thou art well pleased,
that he may give thee thanks for everything; and also the Holy
Spirit, the Paraclete, as it may please thee and them ; for this we suppli-
cate him who has all power with thee, and by whom thou hast done
such great things for us. Alleluia.
“And we pray the glorious Mother, the blessed Mary, ever Virgin,
St. Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and all the choir of blessed Spirits, Sera-
phim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Principalities and Powers, Vir-
tues and Angels, Archangels, John the Baptist, John the Evangelist,
Peter, Paul, and the holy Patriarchs, the Prophets, the Holy Innocents,
Apostles, Evangelists, Disciples, Martyrs, Confessors, Virgins, the
blessed ones, Elijah and Enoch, and all the saints who have been, shall
be, and are, we humbly pray them by thy love to give thee thanks for
these things, as it pleases thee, sovereign, true, eternal and living God,
and also to thy Son, our most holy Lord Jesus Christ, and to the Holy
Spirit, the Comforter, forever and ever. Amen. Alleluia.
“And we supplicate all those who desire to serve the Lord God, in
the bosom of the Catholic and Apostolic Church, all priests, deacons,
sub-deacons, acolytes and exorcists, readers, porters, all clerks, all
monks and nuns, all children and little ones, paupers and exiles, kings,
and princes, workmen and laborers. servants and masters, the virgins,
the continent and the married, laics, men and women, all children,
youths, young men and old men, the sick and the well, the small
THE RULE OF 1221
257
and the great, the peoples of every tribe and tongue and nation, all
men in every part of the world whatsoever, who are or who shall be,
we pray and beseech them, all we Brothers Minor, un profitable servants,
that all together, with one accord we persevere in the true faith and
penitence, for outside of these no person can be saved.
"Let us all, with all our heart and all our thought, and all our
strength, and all our mind, with all our vigor, with all our effort, with
all our affection, with all our inward powers, our desires, and our wills,
love the Lord God, who has given to us all his body, all his soul, all his
life, and still gives them every day to each one of us.
He created us,
lie saved us by his grace alone; he has been, he still is, full of good-
ness to us, us wicked and worthless, corrupt and offensive, ungrateful,
ignorant, bad. We desire nothing else, we wish for nothing else; may
nothing else please us, or have any attraction for us, except the Creator,
the Redeemer, the Saviour, sole and true God, who is full of goodness,
who is all goodness, who is the true and supreme good, who alone is
kind, pious, and merciful, gracious, sweet, and gentle, who alone is holy,
righteous, true, upright, who alone has benignity, innocence, and purity;
of whom, by whom, and in whom is all the pardon, all the grace, all
the glory of all peniteuts, of all the righteous and all the saints who
are rejoicing in heaven.
“Then let nothing again hinder, let nothing again separate, nothing
again retard us, and may we all, so long as we live, in every place, at
every hour, at every time, every day and unceasingly, truly and
humbly believe. Let us have in our hearts, let us love, adore, serve,
praise, bless, glorify, exalt, magnify, thank the most high, sovereign,
eternal God, Trinity and Unity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Creator
of all men, both of those who believe and hope in him and of those
who love him. He is without beginning and without end, immutable
and invisible, ineffable, incomprehensible, indiscernible, blessed, lauded,
glorious, exalted, sublime, most high, sweet, lovely, delectable, and
always worthy of being desired above all things, in all the ages of ages.
Amen."
Have not these artless repetitions a mysterious charm
which steals deliciously into the very depths of the heart?
Is there not in them a sort of sacrament of which the
words are only the rude vehicle? Francis is taking
refuge in God, as the child throws itself upon its mother's
bosom, and in the incoherence of its weakness and its joy
stammers out all the words it knows, repeating by them
all only the eternal “I am thine" of love and faith.
17
258
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
ܕ
There is in them also something which recalls, not
only by citations, but still more by the very inspiration
of the thought, that which we call the sacerdotal prayer
of Christ. The apostle of poverty appears here as if
suspended between earth and heaven by the very strength
of his love, consecrated the priest of a new worship by
the inward and irresistible unction of the Spirit. He
does not offer sacrifice like the priest of the past time;
he sacrifices himself, and carries in his body all the woes
of humanity.
The more beautiful are these words from the mystical
point of view, the less do they correspond with what is
expected in a Rule; they have neither the precision nor
the brief and imperative forms of one. The transforma-
tions which they were to undergo in order to become the
code of 1223 were therefore fatal when we consider the
definitive intervention of the Church of Rome to direct
the Franciscan movement.
It is probable that this rough draft of a Rule, such as
we have it now, is that which was distributed in the
chapter of Whitsunday, 1221. The variants, sometimes
capital, which are found in the different texts, can be
nothing other than outlines of the corrections proposed
by the provincial ministers. Once admit the idea of
considering this document as a rough draft, we are very
soon brought to think that it had already undergone a
rapid preliminary revision, a sort of pruning, in which
ecclesiastical authority has caused to disappear all that
was in flagrant contradiction with its own projects for
the Order.
If it is asked, who could have made these curtailments,
one name springs at once to our lips—Ugolini. He crit-
icised its exaggerated proportions, its want of unity and
precision. Later on it is related that Francis had seen
in a dream a multitude of starving friars, and himself
THE RULE OF 1221
259
unable to satisfy their wants, because though all around
him lay innumerable crumbs of bread, they disappeared
between his fingers when he would give them to those
about him. Then a voice from heaven said to him :
“Francis, make of these crumbs a wafer; with that thou
shalt feed these starving ones.
There is little hazard in assuming that this is the pict-
uresque echo of the conferences which took place at this
time between Francis and the cardinal; the latter might
have suggested to him by such a comparison the es-
sential defects of his project. All this, no doubt, took
place during Francis's stay in Rome, in the beginning
of 1221.
Before going there, we must cast a glance over the
similarity in inspiration and even in style which allies
the Rule of 1221 with another of St. Francis's works,
that which is known under the title of The Admonitions.
This is a series of spiritual counsels with regard to the
religious life; it is closely united both in matter and form
with the work which we have just examined. The tone of
voice is so perfectly the same that one is tempted to see
in it parts of the original draft of the Rule, separated
from it as too prolix to find place in a Rule.
However it may be with this hypothesis, we find in
The Admonitions all the anxieties with which the soul
of Francis was assailed in this uncertain and troubled
hour. Some of these counsels sound like bits from a
private journal. We see him seeking, with the simplicity
of perfect humility, for reasons for submitting himself,
renouncing his ideas, and not quite succeeding in finding
them. He repeats to himself the exhortations that others
had given him; we feel the effort to understand and ad-
2
12 Cel., 3, 136.
? See below, p. 354, text in the Firmamentum, 19 ff. ; Specuium,
Morin, tract. iii., 214a ff.; cf. Conform., 137 ff.
260.
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
mire the ideal monk whom Ugolini and the Church have
proposed to him for an example:
The Lord says in the Gospels: “He who does not give up all that he
has cannot be my disciple. And he who would save his life shall lose
it.” One gives up all he possesses and loses his life when he gives him-
self entirely into the hands of his superior, to obey him. . And
when the inferior sees things which would be better or more useful to
his soul than those which the superior commands him, let him offer to
God the sacrifice of his will.
Reading this one might think that Francis was about
to join the ranks of those to whom submission to eccle-
siastical authority is the very essence of religion. But
no; even here his true feeling is not wholly effaced, he
mingles his words with parentheses and illustrations,
timid, indeed, but revealing his deepest thought; always
ending by enthroning the individual conscience as judge
of last resort.1
All this shows clearly enough that we must picture to
ourselves moments when his wounded soul sighs after
passive obedience, the formula of which, perinde ac cada-
ver, goes apparently much farther back than the Company
of Jesus. These were moments of exhaustion, when in-
spiration was silent.
and say:
One day he was sitting with his companions, when he began to groan
There is hardly a monk upon earth who perfectly obeys his
superior.” His companions, much astonished, said : “Explain to us,
father, what is perfect and supreme obedience.” Then, comparing him
who obeys to a corpse, he replied : “ Take a dead body, and put it
where you will, it will make no resistance; when it is in one place it
will not murmur, when you take it away from there it will not object;
? Cum facit (subditus) voluntatem (prælati) dummodo benefacit vera
obedientia est. Admor., iii.; Conform., 139a, 2.—Si vero prælatus sub-
dito aliquid contra animam præcipiat licet ei non obediat tamen ipsum
non dimittat. , Ibid. -Nullus tenetur ad obedientiam in eo ubi committitus
delictum vel peccatum. Epist., ii.
THE RULE OF 1221
261
put it in a pulpit, it will not look up but down ; wrap it in purple, it
will only be doubly pale.”
This longing for corpse-like obedience witnesses to the
ravages with which his soul had been laid waste; it corre-
sponds in the moral domain to the cry for annihilation of
great physical anguish.
The worst was that he was absolutely alone. Every-
where else the Franciscan obedience is living, active,
joyful.”
He drank this cup to the very dregs, holding sacred
the revolts dictated by conscience. One day in the later
years of his life a German friar came to see him, and af-
ter having long discussed with him pure obedience:
“I ask you one favor,” he said to him, “it is that if the Brothers
ever come to live no longer according to the Rule you will permit me to
separate myself from them, alone or with a few others, to observe it in
its completeness.” At these words Francis felt a great joy. “Know,"
said he, “that Christ as well as I authorize what you have just been ask-
ing ;” and laying hands upon him, “Thou art a priest forever,” he
added, “after the order of Melchisedec." 3
We have a get more touching proof of his solicitude
to safeguard the spiritual independence of his disciples :
it is a note to Brother Leo. The latter, much alarmed
by the new spirit which was gaining power in the Order,
opened his mind thereupon to his master, and doubtless
asked of him pretty much the same permission as the
friar from Germany. After an interview in which he re-
plied viva voce, Francis, not to leave any sort of doubt or
12 Cel., 3, 89; Spec., 29b ; Conform., 176b, 1; Bon., 77.
· Pero caritatem spiritus voluntariż serviant et obediant invicem. Et
hæc est vera et sancta obedientia. Reg., 1221, v.
3 Tribul., Laur. MS., 14b ; Spec., 125a ; Conform., 107b, 1; 184b, 1.
4 Wadding gives it (Epist. xvi.), after the autograph preserved in
the treasury of the Conventuals of Spoleto. The authenticity of this
piece is evident.
ܪ
262
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
hesitation in the mind of him whom he surnamed his
little sheep of God, pecorella di Dio, wrote to him again:
Brother Leo, thy brother Francis wishes thee peace and health.
I reply yes, my son, as a mother to her child. This word sums up
all we said while walking, as well as all my counsels. If thou hast
need to come to me for counsel, it is my wish that thou shouldst do it.
Whatever may be the manner in which thou thinkest thou canst please
the Lord God, follow it, and live in poverty. Do this (faites-le '), God
will bless thee and I authorize it. And if it were necessary for thy soul,
or for thy consolation that thou shouldst come to see me, or if thou
desirest it, my Leo, come.
Thine in Christ.
Surely we are far enough here from the corpse of a
few pages back.
It would be superfluous to pause over the other ad-
monitions. For the most part they are reflections in-
spired by circumstances. Counsels as to humility recur
with a frequency which explains both the personal anx-
ieties of the author, and the necessity of reminding the
brothers of the very essence of their profession.
The sojouru of St. Francis at Rome, whither he went
in the early months of 1221, to lay his plan before Ugo-
lini, was marked by a new effort of the latter to bring
him and St. Dominic together.?
1 This plural, which perplexed Wadding, shows plainly that Brother
Leo had spoken in the name of a group.
? This date for the new communications between them seems incontes-
table, though it has never been proposed ; in fact, we are only concerned
to find a time when all three could have met at Rome (2 Cel., 3, 86 ;
Spec., 27a), between December 22, 1216 (the approbation of the Domin-
icans), and August 6, 1221 (death of Dominic). Only two periods are
possible : the early months of 1218 (Potthast, 5739 and 5747) and the
winter of 1220-1221. At any other time one of the three was absent
from Rome.
On the other hand we know that Ugolini was in Rome in the winter
of 1220-1221 (Huillard-Bréholles, Hist. dipl., ii., pp. 48, 123, 142. Cf.
Potthast, 6589). — For Dominic see A. SS., Aug., vol. i., p. 503. The
later date is imperative because Ugolini could not offer prelatures to
THE RULE OF 1221
263
1
The cardinal was at this time at the apogee of his
success. Everything had gone well with him. His
voice was all powerful not only in affairs of the Church,
but also in those of the Empire. Frederic II., who
seemed to be groping his way, and in whose mind were
germinating dreams of religious reformation, and the
desire of placing his power at the service of the truth,
treated him as a friend, and spoke of him with un-
bounded admiration.
In his reflections upon the remedies to be applied to
the woes of Christianity, the cardinal came at last to
think that one of the most efficacious would be the sub-
stitution of bishops taken from the two new Orders, for
the feudal episcopate almost always recruited from local
families in which ecclesiastical dignities were, so to
speak, hereditary. In the eyes of Ugolini such bishops
were usually wanting in two essential qualities of a good
prelate: religious zeal and zeal for the Church.
He believed that the Preaching and the Minor Friars.
would not only possess those virtues which were lacking
in the others, but that in the hands of the papacy they
might become a highly centralized hierarchy, truly
catholic, wholly devoted to the interests of the Church
at large. The difficulties which might occur on the part
of the chapters which should elect the bishops, as well
as on the side of the high secular clergy, would be put to
flight by the enthusiasm which the people would feel for
pastors whose poverty would recall the days of the prim-
itive Church.
At the close of his interviews with Francis and Dom-
the Brothers Minor before their explicit approbation (June 11, 1219),
and this offer had no meaning with regard to the Dominicans until
after the definitive establishment of their Order.
1 See the imperial letters of February 10, 1221 ; Huillard-Bréholles,
vol. ii., pp. 122-127.
264
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
inic, he communicated to them some of these thoughts,
asking their advice as to the elevation of their friars to
prelatures. There was a pious contest between the two
saints as to which should answer first. Finally, Dominic
said simply that he should prefer to see his companions
remain as they were. In his turn, Francis showed that
the very name of his institute made the thing impossible.
“If my friars have been called Minores," he said, “it is
not that they may become Majores. If you desire that
they become fruitful in the Church of God, leave them
alone, and keep them in the estate into which God has
called them. I pray you, father, do not so act that
their poverty shall become a motive for pride, nor ele-
vate them to prelatures which would move them to insol-
ence toward others.” 1
The ecclesiastical policy followed by the popes was
destined to render this counsel of the two founders wholly
useless.
Francis and Dominic parted, never again to meet.
The Master of the Preaching Friars shortly after set out
for Bologna, where he died on August 6th following, and
Francis returned to Portiuncula, where Pietro di Catana
had just died (March 10, 1221). He was replaced at the
head of the Order by Brother Elias. Ugolini was doubt-
less not without influence in this choice.
Detained by his functions of legate, he could not be
present at the Whitsunday chapter (May 30, 1221). He
was represented there by Cardinal Reynerio," who came
2
1 2 Cel., 3, 86 ; Bon., 78; Spec., 27b.
2 Vide K. Eubel: Die Bischöfe, Cardinäle und Päpste aus dem Mino
ritenorden bis 1305, 8vo, 1889.
3 He was in Northern Italy. Vide Registri : Doc., 17–28.
4 Reynerius, cardinal-deacon with the title of S. M. in Cosmedin,
Bishop of Viterbo (cf. Innocent III., Opera, Migne, 1, col. ccxiii), 1 Cel.,
125. He had been named rector of the Duchy of Spoleto, August 3,
1220. Potthast, 6319.
THE RULE OF 1221
265
accompanied by several bishops and by monks of various
orders.About three thousand friars were there assem-
bled, but so great was the eagerness of the people of the
neighborhood to bring provisions, that after a session of
seven days they were obliged to remain two days longer
to eat up all that had been brought. The sessions were
presided over by Brother Elias, Francis sitting at his feet
and pulling at his robe when there was anything that he
wished to have put before the Brothers.
Brother Giordani di Giano, who was present, has pre-
served for us all these details and that of the setting out
of a group of friars for Germany. They were placed
under the direction of Cæsar of Speyer, whose mission
succeeded beyond all expectation. Eighteen months
after, when he returned to Italy, consumed with the
desire to see St. Francis again, the cities of Wurzburg,
Mayence, Worms, Speyer, Strasburg, Cologne, Salzburg,
and Ratisbon had become Franciscan centres, from whence
the new ideas were radiating into all Southern Germany.
The foundation of the Tertiaries, or Third Order, gen-
erally in the oldest documents called Brotherhood of
Penitence, is usually fixed as occurring in the year 1221;
but we have already seen that this date is much too re-
cent, or rather that it is impossible to fix any date, for
what was later called, quite arbitrarily, the Third Order
is evidently contemporary with the First.?
amore
1 Giord., 16. The presence of Dominic at an earlier chapter had
therefore been quite natural.
2 This view harmonizes in every particular with the witness of 1 Cel.,
36 and 37, which shows the Third Order as having been quite naturally
born of the enthusiasm excited by the preaching of Francis immedi-
ately after his return from Rome in 1210 (cf. Auctor vit. sec.; A. SS.,
p. 593b). Nothing in any other document contradicts it ; quite the
contrary. Vide 3 Soc., 60. Cf. Anon. Perus.; A. SS., p. 600; Bon., 25,
46. Cf. A. SS., pp. 631–634. The first bull which concerns the
Brothers of Penitence (without naming them) is of December 16, 1221,
266
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
Francis and his companions desired to be the apostles
of their time; but they, no more than the apostles of
Jesus, desired to have all men enter their association,
which was necessarily somewhat restricted, and which,
according to the gospel saying, was meant to be the
leaven of the rest of humanity. In consequence, their
life was literally the apostolic life, but the ideal which
they preached was the evangelical life, such as Jesus had
preached it.
St. Francis no more condemned the family or property
than Jesus did; he simply saw in them ties from which
the apostle, and the apostle alone, needs to be free.
If before long sickly minds fancied that they inter-
preted his thought in making the union of the sexes an
evil, and all that concerns the physical activity of man a
fall; if unbalanced spirits borrowed the authority of his
name to escape from all duty; if married persons con-
demned themselves to the senseless martyrdom of vir-
ginity, he should certainly not be made responsible.
These traces of an urtnatural asceticism come from the
dualist ideas of the Catharists, and not from the inspired
poet who sang nature and her fecundity, who made nests
for doves, inviting them to multiply under the watch of
God, and who imposed manual labor on his friars as a
sacred duty.
The bases of the corporation of the Brothers and Sis-
ters of Penitence were very simple. Francis gave no
new doctrine to the world; what was new in his message
Significatum est. If it really refers to them, as Sbaralea thinks, with
all those who have interested themselves in the question to M. Müller
inclusively—but which, it appears, might be contested—it is because in
1221 they had made appeal to the pope against the podestàs of Faenza
and the neighboring cities. This evidently supposes an association not
recently born. Sbaralea, Bull. fr., 1, p. 8; Horoy, vol. iv., col. 49;
Potthast, 6736.
THE RULE OF 1221
267
was wholly in his love, in his direct call to the evangelical-
life, to an ideal of moral vigor, of labor, and of love.
Naturally, there were soon found men who did not
understand this true and simple beauty; they fell into
observances and devotions, imitated, while living in the
world, the life of the cloister to which for one reason or
another they were not able to retire; but it would be
unjust to picture to ourselves the Brothers of Penitence
as modelled after them.
Did they receive a Rule from St. Francis? It is im-
possible to say. The one which was given 1 them in 1289
by Pope Nicholas IV. is simply the recasting and amal-
gamation of all the rules of lay fraternities which existed
at the end of the thirteenth century. To attribute this
document to Francis is nothing less than the placing in
a new building of certain venerated stones from an an-
cient edifice. It is a matter of façade and ornamentation,
nothing more.
Notwithstanding this absence of any Rule emanating
from Francis himself, it is clear enough what, in his
estimation, this association ought to be. The Gospel,
with its counsels and examples, was to be its true Rule.
The great innovation designed by the Third Order was
concord; this fraternity was a union of peace, and it
brought to astonished Europe a new truce of God.
Whether the absolūtë refusal to carry arms 2 was an idea
1 Bull Supra montem of August 17, 1289, Potthast, 23044. M. Mül-
ler has made a luminous study of the origin of this bull; it may be
considered final in all essential points (Anfänge, pp. 117–171). By this
bull Nicholas IV.-minister-general of the Brothers Minor before be-
coming pope-sought to draw into the hands of his Order the direction
of all associations of pious laics (Third Order of St. Dominic, the Gau-
dentes, the Humiliati, etc.). He desired by that to give a greater im-
pulse to those fraternities which depended directly on the court of
Rome, and augment their power by unifying them.
? Vide Bull Significatum est of December 16, 1221. Cf. Supra mon.
ten, chap. vii.
268
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
1
wholly chimerical and ephemeral, the documents are there
to prove, but it is a fine thing to have had the power to
bring it about for a few years.
The second essential obligation of the Brothers of
Penitence appears to have been that of reducing their
wants so far as possible, and while preserving their fort-
unes to distribute to the poor at proper intervals the
free portion of the revenue after contenting themselves
with the strictly necessary.
To do with joy the duties of their calling; to give a
holy inspiration to the slightest actions; to find in the
infinitely littles of existence, things apparently the most
commonplace, parts of a divine work; to keep pure from
all debasing interest; to use things as not possessing
them, like the servants in the parable who would soon
have to give account of the talents confided to them; to
close their hearts to hatred, to open them wide to the
poor, the sick, to all abandoned ones, such were the other
essential duties of the Brothers and Sisters of Penitence.
To lead them into this royal road of liberty, love, and
responsibility, Francis sometimes appealed to the ter-
rors of hell and the joys of paradise, but interested love
was so little a part of his nature that these considera-
tions and others of the same kind occupy an entirely
secondary place in those of his writings which remain, as
also in his biographies.
For him the gospel life is natural to the soul. Who-
ever comes to know it will prefer it; it has no more
need to be proved than the outer air and the light. It
needs only to lead prisoners to it, for them to lose all de-
sire to return to the dungeons of avarice, hatred, or fri-
volity.
Francis and his true disciples make the painful ascent
1 The Rule of the Third Order of the Humiliati, which dates from
1201, contains a similar clause. Tiraboschi, vol. ii., p. 132.
THE RULE OF 1221
269
of the mountain heights, impelled solely, but irresistibly,
by the inner voice. The only foreign aid which they ac-
cept is the memory of Jesus, going before them upon
these heights and mysteriously living again before their
eyes in the sacrament of the eucharist.
The letter to all Christians in which these thoughts
break forth is a living souvenir of St. Francis's teachings
to the Tertiaries.
To represent these latter to ourselves in a perfectly
concrete form we may resort to the legend of St. Luc-
chesio, whom tradition makes the first Brother of Peni-
tence.
A native of a little city of Tuscany he quitted it to avoid
its political enmities, and established himself at Pog-
gibonsi, not far from Sienna, where he continued to trade
in grain. Already rich, it was not difficult for him to buy
up all the wheat, and, selling it in a time of scarcity, rea-
lize enormous profits. But soon overcome by Francis's
preaching, he took himself to task, distributed all his
superfluity to the poor, and kept nothing but his house
with a small garden and one ass.
From that time he was to be seen devoting himself to
the cultivation of this bit of ground, and making of his
house a sort of hostelry whither the poor and the sick
came in swarms. He not only welcomed them, but he
sought them out, even to the malaria-infected Maremma,
often returning with a sick man astride on his back and
preceded by his ass bearing a similar burden. The
1 In the A. SS., Aprilis, vol. ii., p. 600–616. Orlando di Chiusi also re-
ceived the habit from the hands of Francis. Vide Instrumentum, etc.,
below, p. 400. The Franciscan fraternity, under the influence of the
other third orders, rapidly lost its specific character. As to this title,
Third Order, it surely had originally a hierarchical sense, upon which
little by little a chronological sense has been superposed. All these
questions become singularly clearer when they are compared with what
is known of the Humiliati.
270
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
resources of the garden were necessarily very limited;
when there was no other way, Lucchesio took a wallet
and went from door to door asking alms, but most of the
time this was needless, for his poor guests, seeing him so
diligent and so good, were better satisfied with a few
poor vegetables from the garden shared with him than
with the most copious repast. In the presence of thei
benefactor, so joyful in his destitution, they forgot their
own poverty, and the habitual murmurs of these wretches
were transformed into outbursts of admiration and grati-
tude.
Conversion had not killed in him all family ties ; Bona
Donna, his wife, became his best co-laborer, and when in
1260 he saw her gradually fading away his grief was too
deep to be endured. “You know, dear companion," he
said to her when she had received the last sacraments,
“how much we have loved one another while we could
serve God together; why should we not remain united
until we depart to the ineffable joy? Wait for me. I
also will receive the sacraments, and go to heaven with
you.”
So he spoke, and called back the priest to administer
them to him. Then after holding the hands of his dying
companion, comforting her with gentle words, when he
saw that her soul was gone he made over her the sign of
the cross, stretched himself beside her, and calling with
love upon Jesus, Mary, and St. Francis, he fell asleep for
eternity.
CHAPTER XVI
THE BROTHERS MINOR AND LEARNING
Autumn, 1221—December, 1223
AFTER the chapter of 1221 the evolution of the Order
hurried on with a rapidity which nothing was strong
enough to check.
The creation of the ministers was an enormous step
in this direction ; by the very pressure of things the
latter came to establish a residence; those who command
must have their subordinates within reach, must know
at all times where they are; the Brothers, therefore,
could no longer continue to do without convents properly
so-called. This change naturally brought about many
others; up to this time they had had no churches. With-
out churches the friars were only itinerant preachers, and
their purpose could not but be perfectly disinterested;
they were, as Francis had wished, the friendly auxiliaries
of the clergy. With churches it was inevitable that they
should first fatally aspire to preach in them and attract
the crowd to them, then in some sort erect them into
counter parishes.
1 All this took place with prodigious rapidity. The dimensions of
the Basilica of Assisi, the plans of which were made in 1228, no more
permits it to be considered as a conventual chapel than Santa-Croce
in Florence, San Francesco in Sienna, or the Basilica San Antonio at
Padua, monuments commenced between 1230 and 1240. Already be-
fore 1245 one party of the episcopate utters a cry of alarm, in which he
speaks of nothing less than of closing the door of the secular churches,
1
272
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
The bull of March 22, 1222,1 shows us the papacy
hastening these transformations with all its power. The
pontiff accords to Brother Francis and the other friars
the privilege of celebrating the sacred mysteries in their
churches in times of interdict, on the natural condition
of not ringing the bells, of closing the door, and pre-
viously expelling those who were excommunicated.
By an astonishing inadvertence the bull itself bear's
witness to its uselessness, at least for the time in which
it was given : “We accord to you,” it runs, “the permis-
sion to celebrate the sacraments in times of interdict in
your churches, if you come to have any." This is a new
proof that in 1222, the Order as yet had none; but it
is not difficult to see in this very document a pressing
invitation to change their way of working, and not leave
this privilege to be of no avail.
Another document of the same time shows a like pur-
pose, though manifested in another direction. By the
bull Ex parte of March 29, 1222, Honorius III. laid
upon the Preachers and Minors of Lisbon conjointly a
singularly delicate mission; he gave them full powers to
proceed against the bishop and clergy of that city, who
exacted from the faithful that they should leave to them
which have become useless. He complains with incredible bitterness
that the Minor and Preaching Friars have absolutely supplānted the
parochial clergy. This letter may be found in Pierre de la Vigue,
addressed at once to Frederick II. and the Council of Lyons: Epistolæ,
Basle, 1740, 2 vols., vol. i., pp. 220-222. It is much to be desired
that a critical text should be given. See also the satire against the two
new Orders, done in rhyme about 1242 by Pierre de la Vigne, and of
which, allowing for possible exaggerations, the greater number of the in-
cidents cannot have been invented : E. du Méril, Poésies pop. lat., pp.
153–177, Paris, 8vo, 1847.
1 And not of the 29th, as Sbaralea will have it. Bull fr., vol. i., 01.
10. Horoy, vol. iv., col. 129; the original, still in the archives of
Assisi, bears the title : Datum Anagnie 11 Kalendas Aprilis pontificatus
nostri anno sexto.
THE BROTHERS MINOR AND LEARNING
273
by will one-third of their property, and refused the
Church's burial service to those who disobeyed.
The fact that the pope committed to the Brothers the
care of choosing what measures they should take proves
how anxious they were at Rome to forget the object for
which they had been created, and to transform them into
deputies of the Holy See. It is, therefore, needless to
point out that the mention of Francis's name at the head
of the former of these bulls has no significance. We do
not picture the Poverello seeking a privilege for circum-
stances not yet existing! We perceive here the influence
of Ugolini, who had found the Brother Minor after his
own heart in the person of Elias.
What was Francis doing all this time? We have no
knowledge, but the very absence of information, so abun-
dant for the period that precedes as well as for that which
follows, shows plainly enough that he has quitted Porti-
uncula, and gone to live in one of those Umbrian her-
mitages that had always had so strong an attachment
for him. There is hardly a hill in Central Italy that
has not preserved some memento of him. It would be
hard to walk half a day between Florence and Rome
without coming upon some hut on a hillside bearing his
name or that of one of his disciples.
1 Potthast, 6809 ; Horoy, iv., col. 129. See also the bull Ecce Venit
Deus of July 14, 1227 ; L. Auvray: Registres de Grégoire IX., no. 129;
cf. 153 ; Potthast, 8027 and 8028, 8189.
? He had finished his mission as legate in Lombardy toward the close of
September, 1221 (see his register; cf. Böhmer, Acta imp. sel. doc., 951).
In the spring of 1222 we find him continually near the pope at Anagni,
Veroli, Alatri (Potthast, 6807, 6812, 6849). The Holy See had still at
that time a marked predilection for the Preachers ; the very trite
privilege of power to celebrate the offices in times of interdict had
been accorded them March 7, 1222, but instead of the formula usual
in such cases, a revised form had kren made expressly for them, with a
handsome eulogy. Ripolli, Bull. Præd., t. i., p. 15.
- 2 Cel., 3, 93 : Subtrahebat se a consortio fratrum.
18
274
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
1
There was a time when these huts were inhabited,
when in these leafy booths Egidio, Masseo, Bernardo,
Silvestro, Ginepro, and many others whose names his-
tory has forgotten, received visits from their spiritual
father, coming to them for their consolation.1
They gave him love for love and consolation for con-
solation. His poor heart had great need of both, for in
his long, sleepless nights it had come to him at times to
hear strange voices; weariness and regret were laying
hold on him, and looking over the past he was almost
driven to doubt of himself, his Lady Poverty, and every-
thing
Between Chiusi and Radicofani-an hour's walk from
the village of Sartiano-a few Brothers had made a shel-
ter which served them by way of hermitage, with a
little cabin for Francis in a retired spot. There he
passed one of the most agonizing nights of his life. The
thought that he had exaggerated the virtue of asceticism
and not counted enough upon the mercy of God assailed
him, and suddenly he came to regret the use he had
made of his life. A picture of what he might have been,
of the tranquil and happy home that might have been his,
rose up before him in such living colors that he felt
himself giving way. In vain he disciplined himself with
his hempen girdle until the blood came; the vision would
not depart.
It was midwinter; a heavy fall of snow covered the
ground; he rushed out without his garment, and gather-
ing up great heaps of snow began to make a row of
images. “See,” he said, "here is thy wife, and behind
her are two sons and two daughters, with the servant and
the maid carrying all the baggage."
1 It is needless to say that local traditions, in this case, though as to
detail they must be accepted only with great reserve, yet on the whole
are surely true. The geography of St. Francis's life is yet to be made.
THE BROTHERS MINOR AND LEARNING
275
1
With this child-like representation of the tyranny of
material cares which he had escaped, he finally put away
the temptation.
There is nothing to show whether or not we should fix
at the same epoch another incident which legend gives
as taking place at Sartiano. One day a brother of whom
he asked, “Whence do you come ? ” replied, “From your
cell.” This simple answer was enough to make the vehe-
ment lover of Poverty refuse to occupy it again. “Foxes
have holes," he loved to repeat, "and the birds of the air
have nests, but the Son of man had not where to lay his
head. When the Lord spent forty days and forty nights
praying and fasting in the desert, he built himself neither
cell nor house, but made the side of a rock his shelter." 2
It would be a mistake to think, as some have done,
that as time went on Francis changed his point of view.
Certain ecclesiastical writers have assumed that since he
desired the multiplication of his Order, he for that very
reason consented to its transformation. The suggestion
is specious, but in this matter we are not left to conject-
ure; almost everything which was done in the Order
after 1221 was done either without Francis's knowledge
or against his will. If one were inclined to doubt this, it
would need only to glance over that most solemn and
also most adequate manifesto of his thought-his Will.
There he is shown freed from all the temptations which
had at times made him hesitate in the expression of his
ideas, bravely gathering himself up to summon back the
primitive ideal, and set it up in opposition to all the
concessions which had been wrung from his weakness.
The Will is not an appendix to the Rule of 1223, it is
almost its revocation. But it would be a mistake to see
in it the first attempt made to return to the early ideal.
2 Cel., 3, 59; Bon., 60; Conform., 122b, 2.
* 2 Cel., 3, 5; Spec., 12a ; Conform., 169b, 2.
276
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
mory
The last five years of his life were only one incessant
effort at protest, both by his example and his words.
In 1222 he addressed to the brethren of Bologna a
letter filled with sad forebodings. In that city, where
the Dominicans, overwhelmed with attentions, were
occupied with making themselves a stronghold in the
system of instruction, the Brothers Minor were more
than anywhere else tempted to forsake the way of sim-
plicity and poverty. Francis's warnings had put on such
dark and threatening colors that after the famous earth-
quake of December 23, 1222, which spread terror over
all northern Italy, there was no hesitation in believing
that he had predicted the catastrophe. He had indeed
predicted a catastrophe which was none the less horrible
for being wholly moral, and the vision of which forced
from him the most bitter imprecations :
“Lord Jesus, thou didst choose thine apostles to the number of
twelve, and if one of them did betray thee, the others, remaining
united to thee, preached thy holy gospel, filled with one and the same
inspiration; and behold now, remembering the former days, thou hast
raised up the Religion of the Brothers in order to uphold faith, and
that by them the mystery of thy gospel may be accomplished. · Who
will take their place if, instead of fulfilling their mission and being
shining examples for all, they are seen to give themselves up to works
of darkness ? Oh ! may they be accursed by thee, Lord, and by all the
court of heaven, and by me, thine unworthy servant, they who by their
bad example overturn and destroy all that thou didst do in the begin-
ning and ceasest not to do by the holy Brothers of this Order.'
This passage from Thomas of Celano, the most mode-
rate of the biographers, shows to what a pitch of vehe-
mence and indignation the gentle Francis could be
worked up.
In spite of very natural efforts to throw a veil of re-
1
Eccl., 6. Vide Liebermann's text, Mon. Germ. hist. Script., t. 28,
P. 663.
2 2 Cel., 3, 93 ; Bon., 104 and 105; Conform., 101a, 2.
THE BROTHERS MINOR AND LEARNING
277
"1
serve over the anguish of the founder with regard to the
future of his spiritual family, we find traces of it at every
step. “The time will come,” he said one day, “when our
Order will so have lost all good renown that its members
will be ashamed to show themselves by daylight.”
He saw in a dream a statue with the head of pure
gold, the breast and arms of silver, the body of crystal,
and the legs of iron. He thought it was an omen of the
future in store for his institute.?
He believed his sons to be attacked with two maladies,
unfaithful at once to poverty and humility ; but perhaps
he dreaded for them the demon of learning more than
the temptation of riches.
What were his views on the subject of learning? It is
probable that he never examined the question as a whole,
but he had no difficulty in seeing that there will always
be students enough in the universities, and that if scien-
tific effort is an homage offered to God, there is no risk
of worshippers of this class being wanting ; but in vain he
looked about him on all sides, he saw no one to fulfil the
mission of love and humility reserved for his Order, if
the friars came to be unfaithful to it.
Therefore there was something more in his anguish
than the grief of seeing his hopes confounded. The rout
of an army is nothing in comparison with the overthrow
of an idea; and in him an idea had been incarnated, the
idea of peace and happiness restored to mankind, by the
victory of love over the trammels of material things.
By an ineffable mystery he felt himself the Man of his
age, him in whose body are borne all the efforts, the de-
1
12 Cel., 3, 93; Spec., 495 ; 182a ; Conform., 182a, 1 ; Tribul., fº
5a ; 2 Cel., 3, 98 ; 113 ; 115 ; 1 Cel., 28, 50; 96; 103 ; 104; 108; 111;
118.
2 2 Cel., 3, 27 ; Spec., 38b ; Conform., 181b, 1; Tribul., 76. Cf.
Spec., 220b; Conform., 103b.
278
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
sires, the aspirations of men; with him, in him, by him
humanity yearns to be renewed, and to use the language
of the gospel, born again.
In this lies his true beauty. By this, far more than
by a vain conformity, an exterior imitation, he is a
Christ.
He also bears the affliction of the world, and if we will
look into the very depths of his soul we must give this
word affliction the largest possible meaning for him as for
Jesus. By their pity they bore the physical sufferings of
humanity, but their overwhelming anguish was some-
thing far different from this, it was the birth-throes of
the divine. They suffer, because in them the Word is
made flesh, and at Gethsemane, as under the olive-trees
of Greccio, they are in agony “because their own re-
ceived them not."
Yes, St. Francis forever felt the travail of the transfor-
mation taking place in the womb of humanity, going for-
ward to its divine destiny, and he offered himself, a living
oblation, that in him might take place the mysterious
palingenesis.
Do we now understand his pain? He was trembling
for the mystery of the gospel. There is in him some-
thing which reminds us of the tremor of life when it
stands face to face with death, something by so much
the more painful as we have here to do with moral life.
This explains how the man who would run after ruf-
fians that he might make disciples of them could be piti-
less toward his fellow-laborers who by an indiscreet,
however well-intentioned, zeal forgot their vocation and
would transform their Order into a scientific institute.
Under pretext of putting learning at the service of God
and of religion, the Church had fostered the worst of
vices, pride. According to some it is her title to glory,
but it will be her greatest shame.
THE BROTHERS MINOR AND LEARNING
279
Must we renounce the use of this weapon against the
enemies of the faith? she asks. But can you imagine
Jesus joining the school of the rabbins under the pretext
of learning how to reply to them, enfeebling his thought
by their dialectic subtleties and fantastic exegesis? He
might perhaps have been a great doctor, but would he
have become the Saviour of the world? You feel that
he would not.
When we hear preachers going into raptures over the
marvellous spread of the gospel preached by twelve poor
fishermen of Galilee, might we not point out to them
that the miracle is at once more and less astounding than
they say? More—for among the twelve several returned
to the shores of their charming lake, and forgetful of
the mystic net, thought of the Crucified One, if they
thought of him at all, only to lament him, and pot to raise
him from the dead by continuing his work in the four
quarters of the world; less—for if even now, in these
dying days of the nineteenth century, preachers would
go forth beside themselves with love, sacrificing them-
selves for each and all as in the old days their Master
did, the miracle would be repeated again.
But no; theology has killed religion. The clergy re-
peat to satiety that we must not confound the two; but
what good does this do if in practice we do not distin-
guish them?
Never was learning more eagerly coveted than in the
thirteenth century. The Empire and the Church were
anxiously asking of it the arguments with which they
might defend their opposing claims. Innocent III. sends
the collection of his Decretals to the University of Bo-
logna and heaps favors upon it. Frederick II. founds
that of Naples, and the Patarini themselves send their
sons from Tuscany and Lombardy to study at Paris.
We remember the success of Francis's preaching at
280
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
Bologna,' in August, 1220; at the same period he had
strongly reprimanded Pietro Staccia, the provincial min-
ister and a doctor of laws, not only for having installed
the Brothers in a house which appeared to belong to
them, but especially for having organized a sort of col-
lege there.
It appears that the minister paid no attention to these
reproaches. When Francis became aware of his obstinacy
he cursed him with frightful vehemence; his indignation
was so great that when, later on, Pietro Staccia was
about to die and his numerous friends came to entreat
Francis to revoke his malediction, all their efforts were in
vain.2
In the face of this attitude of the founder it is
Very
difficult to believe in the authenticity of the note pur-
porting to be addressed to Anthony of Padua :
"To my very dear Anthony, brother Francis, greetings in Christ.
“ It pleases me that you interpret to the Brothers the sacred writings
and theology, in such a way, however (conformably to our Rule), that
the spirit of holy prayer be not extinguished either in you or in the
others, which I desire earnestly. Greetings."
Must we see in this a pious fraud to weaken the num-
berless clear declarations of Francis against learning ?
It is difficult to picture to ourselves the rivalry which
| Francis's successors were nearly all without exception students of
Bologna. Pietro di Catana was doctor of laws, as also Giovanni Parenti
(Giord., 51).-Elias had been scriptor at Bologna.-Alberto of Pisa had
been minister there (Eccl., 6).-Aymon had been reader there (Eccl.,
6).-Crescentius wrote works on jurisprudence (Conform., 121b, 1, etc.,
etc.).
2 This name cannot be warranted ; he is called Giovanni di Laschac-
cia in a passage of the Conformities (104a, 1); Pietro Schiaccia in the
Italian MS. of the Tribulations (fº 75a); Petrus Stacia in the Lauren-
tinian MS. (13b; cf. Archiv., ii., p. 258). Tribul., 13b ; Spec., 184b.
This story has been much amplified in other places. Spec., 126& ; Con-
form., 104b, 1.
THE BROTHERS MINOR AND LEARNING
281
existed at this time between the Dominicans and Francis-
cans in the attempt to draw the most illustrious masters
into their respective Orders. Petty intrigues were or-
ganized, in which the devotees had each his part, to lead
such or such a famous doctor to assume the habit.1 If
the object of St. Francis had been scientific, the friars of
Bologna, Paris, and Oxford could not have done more.?
The current was so strong that the elder Orders were
swept away in it whether they would or no; twenty years
later the Cistercians also desired to become legists, theo-
logians, decretalists, and the rest.
Perhaps Francis did not in the outset perceive the
gravity of the danger, but illusion was no longer pos-
sible, and from this time he showed, as we have seen,
an implacable firmness. If later on his thought was
travestied, the guilty ones--the popes and most of the
ministers-general—were obliged to resort to feats of pres-
tidigitation that are not to their credit. “Suppose," he
had subtility and learning enough
to know all things, that you were acquainted with all
languages, the courses of the stars, and all the rest, what
is there in that to be proud of ? A single demon knows
more on these subjects than all the men in this world put
together. But there is one thing that the demon is in-
would say,
that you
1 Vide Eccl., 3: History of the entrance of Adam of Oxford into the
Order. Cf., Chartularium Univ. Par., t. i., nos. 47 and 49.
? Eccleston's entire chronicle is a living witness to this.
3 Admonitio, V.; cf. Conform., 141a.
Compare the Constitutiones antiquc (Speculum, Morin, iii., fº 195b-
206) with the Rule. From the opening chapters the contradiction is
apparent : Ordinamus quod nullus recipiatur in ordine nostro nisi sit
talis clericus qui sit competenter instructus in grammatica vel logica ; aut
nisi sit talis laicus de cujus ingressu esset valde celebris et edificatio in
populo et in clero. This is surely far from the spirit of him who said:
Et quicumque venerit amicus vel adversarius fur vel latro benigne recipi-
atur. Rule of 1221, cap. vii. See also the Exposition of the Rule
of Bonaventura. Speculum, Morin, iii., fº 21-40.
282
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
2
capable of, and which is the glory of man: to be faithful
to God.” 1
Definite information with regard to the chapters of
1222 and 1223 is wanting. The proposed modifications
of the project of 1221 were discussed by the ministers
and afterward definitively settled by Cardinal Ugolini.
The latter had long conferences on the subject with
Francis, who has himself given us the account of them.3
The result of them all was the Rule of 1223. Very
soon a swarm of marvellous stories, which it would be
tedious to examine in detail, came to be clustered around
the origin of this document; all that we need to retain
of them is the memory that they keep of the struggles
of Francis against the ministers for the preservation of
his ideal.
Before going to Rome to ask for the final approbation
he had meditated long in the solitude of Monte Colombo,
near Rieti. This hill was soon represented as a new
Sinai, and the disciples pictured their master on its
heights receiving another Decalogue from the hands of
Jesus himself.
Angelo Clareno, one of the most complacent narrators
of these traditions, takes upon himself to point out their
slight value; he shows us Honorious III. modifying an
essential passage in the plan at the last moment. I
4
2
1 Upon Francis's attitude toward learning see Tribul., Laur., 14b;
Spec.., 184a ; 2 Cel., 3, 8; 48; 100 ; 116; 119; 120–124. Bon., chap. 152,
naturally expresses only Bonaventura's views. See especially Rule of
1221, cap. xvii.; of 1223, cap. x.
Spec., 7b: Fecit Franciscus regulam quam papa Honorius confir-
mavit cum bulla, de qua regula multa fuerunt extracta per ministros con-
tra voluntatem 1. Francisci. Cf. 2 Cel., 3, 136.
3 Bull Quo elongati of September 28, 1230; Sbaralea, i., p. 56.
4 Bon., 55 and 56 [3 Soc., 62]; Spec., 76 ; 124a; Tribul., Laur., 17b-
19b; Ubertini, Arbor. V., 5; Conform., 88a, 2.
5 Tribul., Laur., 19a; Archiv., t. iii., p. 601. Cf. A. SS., p. 638e.
TIIE BROTHERS MINOR AND LEARNING
283
have already so far described this Rule that there is no
need to return to the subject here.
It was approved November 25, 1223. Many mem-
ories appear to have clustered about the journey of
Francis to Rome. One day Cardinal Ugolini, whose
hospitality he had accepted, was much surprised, and his
guests as well, to find him absent as they were about to
sit down at table, but they soon saw him coming, carry-
ing a quantity of pieces of dry bread, which he joyfully
distributed to all the noble company. His host, some-
what abashed by the proceeding, having undertaken after
the meal to reproach him a little, Francis explained that
he had no right to forget, for a sumptuous feast, the bread
of charity on which he was fed every day, and that he
desired thus to show his brethren that the richest table
is not worth so much to the poor in spirit as this table
of the Lord.
We have seen that during the earlier years the Broth-
ers Minor had been in the habit of earning their bread
by going out as servants. Some of them, a very small
number, had continued to do so. Little by little, in
this matter also all had been changed. Under color of
serving, the friars entered the families of the highest
personages of the pontifical court, and became their con-
fidential attendants; instead of submitting themselves
to all, as the Rule of 1221 ordained, they were above
everyone.
Entirely losing sight of the apostolic life, they became *
courtiers of a special type; their character, half ecclesi-
astic and half lay, rendered them capable of carrying out
a number of delicate missions and of playing a part in
2
1 Potthast, 7108.—The work of this bull was completed by that of
December 18, 1223 (The original of the Sacro Convento bears Datum
Laterani XV. Kal. jan.) Fratrem Minorum: Potthast, 7123.
* 2 Cel., 3, 19; Bon., 95 ; Spec., 18b; Conform., 171a, 1.
284
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
1
the varied intrigues for which the greater number of
Roman prelates have always seemed to live. By way
of protest Francis had only one weapon, his example.
said,
One day, the Speculum relates, the Blessed Francis came to Rome to
see the Bishop of Ostia (Ugolini), and after having remained some time
at his house, he went also to visit Cardinal Leo, who had a great devo-
tion for him.
It was winter; the cold, the wind, the rain made any journey impos-
sible, so the cardinal begged him to pass a few days in his house and to
take his food there, like the other poor folk who came there to eat.
“I will give you,” he added, a good lodging, quite retired,
where if you like you may pray and eat." Then Brother Angelo, one
of the twelve first disciples, who lived with the cardinal, said to Francis :
“There is, close by here, a great tower standing by itself and very
quiet; you will be there as in a hermitage." Francis went to see it and
it pleased him. Then, returning to the cardinal, Monsignor," he
“it is possible that I may pass a few days with you.” The latter
was very joyful, and Brother Angelo went to prepare the tower for the
Blessed Francis and his companion.
But the very first night, when he would have slept, the demons came
and smote him. Calling then to his companion, “Brother,” he said,
“the demons have come and smitten me with violence; remain near
me, I beg, for I am afraid here alone."
He was trembling in all his members, like one who has a fever.
They passed the night both without sleeping. "The demons are com-
missioned with the chastisements of God," said Francis; “ as a podestà
sends his executioner to punish the criminal, so God sends demons, who
in this are his ministers.
Why has he sent them to me? Per-
haps this is the reason: The cardinal desired to be kind to me, and I
have truly great need of repose, but the Brothers who are out in the
world, suffering hunger and a thousand tribulations, and also those
others who are in hermitages or in miserable houses, when they hear of
my sojourn with a cardinal will be moved to repine. 'We endure all
privations,' they will say, 'while he has all that he can desire ; ' but I
ought to give them a good example-that is my true mission.”
Early next morning, therefore, he quitted the tower, and having told
the cardinal all, took leave of him and returned to the hermitage of
Monte Colombo, near Rieti. • They think me a holy man,” he said,
“and see, it needed demons to cast me out of prison.” ?
2 Cel., 3, 61 and 62. Cf. Ecol., 6, the account of Rod. de Rosa
Spec., 47b ff.; 2 Cel., 3, 61 ; Bon., 84 and 85.
THE BROTHERS MINOR AND LEARNING
285
This story, notwithstanding its strange coloring, shows
plainly how strong was his instinct for independence.
To compare the hospitality of a cardinal to an imprison-
ment! He spoke better than he knew, characterizing in
one word the relation of the Church to his Order.
The lark was not dead ; in spite of cold and the north
wind it gayly took its flight to the vale of Rieti.
It was mid-December. An ardent desire to observe to
the life the memories of Christmas had taken possession
of Francis. He opened his heart to one of his friends,
the knight Giovanni di Greccio, who undertook the nec-
essary preparations.
The imitation of Jesus has in all times been the very
centre of Christianity; but one must be singularly spir-
itual to be satisfied with the imitation of the heart.
With most men there is need that this should be pre-
ceded and sustained by an external imitation. It is
indeed the spirit that gives life, but it is only in the
country of the angels that one can say that the flesh
profiteth nothing.
In the Middle Ages a religious festival was before all
things else a representation, more or less faithful, of the
event which it recalled; hence the santons of Provence,
the processions of the Palmesel, the Holy Supper of
Maundy Thursday, the Road to the Cross of Good Fri-
day, the drama of the Resurrection of Easter, and the
flaming tow of Whitsunday. Francis was too thoroughly
Italian not to love these festivals where every visible
thing speaks of God and of his love.
The population of Greccio and its environs was, there-
fore, convoked, as well as the Brothers from the neighbor-
ing monasteries. On the evening of the vigil of Christ-
mas one might have seen the faithful hastening to the
hermitage by every path with torches in their hands,
making the forests ring with their joyful hymns.
286
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
Everyone was rejoicing—Francis most of all. The
knight had prepared a stable with straw, and brought an
ox and an ass, whose breath seemed to give warmth to
the poor bambino, benumbed with the cold. At the
sight the saint felt tears of pity bedew his face; he was
no longer in Greccio, his heart was in Bethlehem.
Finally they began to chant matins; then the mass was
begun, and Francis, as deacon, read the Gospel. Already
hearts were touched by the simple recital of the sacred
legend in a voice so gentle and so fervent, but when he
preached, his emotion soon overcame the audience ; his
voice had so unutterable a tenderness that they also for-
got everything, and were living over again the feeling of
the shepherds of Judea who in those old days went to
adore the God made man, born in a stable.1
Toward the close of the thirteenth century, the author
of the Stabat Mater dolorosa, Giacopone dei Todi, that
Franciscan of genius who spent a part of his life in dun.
geons, inspired by the memory of Greccio, composed an-
other Stabat, that of joy, Stabat Mater speciosa. This
hymn of Mary beside the manger is not less noble than
that of Mary at the foot of the cross. The sentiment is
even more tender, and it is hard to explain its neglect
except by an unjust caprice of fate.
Stabat Mater speciosa
Juxtum fænum gaudiosa
Dum jacebat parvulus.
Quæ gaudebat et ridebat
Exsultabat cum videbat
Nati partum inclyti.
Fac me vere congaudere
Jesulino cohærere
Donec ego vixero.?
11 Cel., 84-87 ; Bon., 149.
? This little poem was published entire by M. Ozanam in vol. v. of his
works, p. 184.
CHAPTER XVII
THE STIGMATA
1224
The upper valley of the Arno forms in the very centre
of Italy a country apart, the Casentino, which through
centuries had its own life, somewhat like an island in the
midst of the ocean.
The river flows out from it by a narrow defile at the
south, and on all other sides the Apennines encircle it
with a girdle of inaccessible mountains.'
This plain, some ten leagues in diameter, is enlivened
with picturesque villages, finely posted on hillocks at the
base of which flows the stream ; here are Bibbiena, Poppi,
the antique Romena sung by Dante, the Camaldoli, and
up there on the crest Chiusi, long ago the capital of the
country, with the ruins of Count Orlando's castle.
The people are charming and refined; the mountains
have sheltered them from wars, and on every side we
see the signs of labor, prosperity, a gentle gayety. At
any moment we might fancy ourselves transported into
some valley of the Vivarais or Provence. The vegetation
on the borders of the Arno is thoroughly tropical; the
olive and the mulberry marry with the vine. On the
lower hill-slopes are wheat fields divided by meadows;
1
The passes that give access to the Casentino have all about one
thousand metres of altitude. Until the most recent years there was
no road properly so called.
288
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
then come the chestnuts and the oaks, higher still the
pine, the fir, the larch, and above all the bare rock.
Among all the peaks there is one which especially
attracts the attention; instead of a rounded and so to
say flattened top, it uplifts itself slender, proud, isolated;
it is the Verna.1
One might think it an immense rock fallen from the
sky. It is in fact an erratic block set there, a little like a
petrified Noah's ark on the summit of Mount Ararat.
The basaltic mass, perpendicular on all sides, is crowned
with a plateau planted with pines and gigantic beeches,
and accessible only by a footpath.?
Such was the solitude which Orlando had given to
Francis, and to which Francis had already many a time
come for quiet and contemplation.
Seated upon the few stones of the Penna, he heard
only the whispering of the wind among the trees, but in
the splendor of the sunrise or the sunset he could see
nearly all the districts in which he had sown the seed of
the gospel : the Romagna and the March of Ancona, los-
ing themselves on the horizon in the waves of the Adri-
atic; Umbria, and farther away, Tuscany, vanishing in
the waters of the Mediterranean.
The impression on this height is not crushing like that
which one has in the Alps: a feeling infinitely calm and
1 In France Mount Aiguille, one of the seven wonders of Dauphiny,
presents the same aspect and the same geological formation. St. Odile
also recalls the Verna, but is very much smaller.
2 The summit has an altitude of 1269 metres. In Italian they call it
the Verna, in Latin Alvernus. The etymology, which has tested the
acuteness of the learned, appears to be very simple ; the verb vernare,
used by Dante, signifies make cold, freeze.
3 Name of the highest point on the plateau. Hardly three-quarters
of an hour from the monastery, and not two hours and a half, as these
worthy anchorites believed. This is said for the benefit of tourists ...
and pilgrims.
THE STIGMATA
289
sweet flows over you ; you are high enough to judge of
men from above, not high enough to forget their exist-
ence.
Besides the wide horizons, Francis found there other
objects of delight; in this forest, one of the noblest in
Europe, live legions of birds, which never having been
hunted are surprisingly tame. Subtile perfumes arise
from the ground, and in the midst of borage and lichens
frail and exquisite cyclamens blossom in fantastic va-
riety.
He desired to return thither after the chapter of 1224.
This meeting, held in the beginning of June, was the last
at which he was present. The new Rule was there put
into the hands of the ministers, and the mission to
England decided upon.
It was in the early days of August that Francis took
his way toward Verna. With him were only a few
Brothers, Masseo, Angelo, and Leo. The first had been
charged to direct the little band, and spare him all duties
except that of prayer 2
They had been two days on the road when it became
necessary to seek for an ass for Francis, who was too
much enfeebled to go farther on foot.
The Brothers, in asking for this service, had not con-
cealed the name of their master, and the peasant, to
whom they had addressed themselves respectfully, asked
leave to guide the beast himself. After going on a
certain time, “Is it true,” he said, “that you are:
Brother Francis of Assisi?” “Very well,” he went or
,
1 The forest has been preserved as a relic. Alexander IV. fulmi-
nated excommunication against whomever should cut down the firs of
Verza. As to the birds, it is enough to pass a day at the monastery to
be amazed at their number and variety. M. C. Beni has begun at Stia
(in Casentino) an ornithological collection which already includes more
than five hundred and fifty varieties.
? 1 Cel. 91 ; Bon., 188; Firm con
290
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
1
after the answer in the affirmative, "apply yourself to be
as good as folk say you are, that they may not be de-
ceived in their expectation; that is my advice.” Francis
immediately got down from his beast and, prostrating
himself before the peasant, thanked him warmly.
Meanwhile the warmest hour of the day had come on.
The peasant, exhausted with fatigue, little by little forgot
his surprise and joy; one does not feel the burning of
thirst the less for walking beside a saint. He had begun
to regret his kindness, when Francis pointed with his
finger to a spring, unknown till then, and which has never
since been seen.?
At last they arrived at the foot of the last precipice.
Before scaling it they paused to rest a little under a
great oak, and immediately flocks of birds gathered
around them, testifying their joy by songs and flutterings
of their wings. Hovering around Francis, they alighted
on his head, his shoulders, or his arms. “I see," he said
joyfully to his companions, “ that it is pleasing to our
Lord Jesus that we live in this solitary mount, since our
brothers and sisters the birds have shown such great
delight at our coming." 3
This mountain was at once his Tabor and his Calvary.
We must not wonder, then, that legends have flourished
here even more numerously than at any other period of
his life; the greater number of them have the exquisite
charm of the little flowers, rosy and perfumed, which
hide themselves modestly at the feet of the fir-trees of
Verna.
The summer nights up there are of unparalleled beauty :
nature, stifled by the heat of the sun, seems then to
breathe anew. In the trees, behind the rocks, on the
| Fior. i., consid. ; Conform., 176b, 1.
3 2 Cel., 2, 15; Bon., 100. Fior, i., consid.
* Bon., 118. Fior. i., consid,
THE STIGMATA
291
turf, a thousand voices rise up, sweetly harmonizing with
the murmur of the great woods; but among all these
voices there is not one which forces itself upon the
attention, it is a melody which you enjoy without listen-
ing. You let your eyes wander over the landscape, still
for long hours illumined with hieratic tints by the de-
parted star of day, and the peaks of the Apennines, flooded
with rainbow hues, drop down into your soul what the
Franciscan poet called the nostalgia of the everlasting
hills.1
More than anyone Francis felt it. The very evening of
their arrival, seated upon a mound in the midst of his
Brothers, he gave them his directions for their dwelling-
place.
The quiet of nature would have sufficed to sow in their
hearts some germs of sadness, and the voice of the
master harmonized with the emotion of the last gleams
of light; he spoke with them of his approaching death,
with the regret of the laborer overtaken by the shades of
evening before the completion of his task, with the
sighs of the father who trembles for the future of his
children.
For himself he desired from this time to prepare him-
self for death by prayer and contemplation; and he
begged them to protect him from all intrusion. Or-
lando,s who had already come to bid them welcome and
offer his services, had at his request hastily caused a
hut of boughs to be made, at the foot of a great beech.
It was there that he desired to dwell, at a stone's throw
from the cells inhabited by his companions. Brother Leo
was charged to bring him each day that which he would
need.
2
1 2 Cel., 100.
? Fior. ii., consid.
3 The ruins of the castle of Chiusi are three-quarters of an hour from
Verna.
292
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
1
He retired to it immediately after this memorable con-
versation, but several days later, embarrassed no doubt
by the pious curiosity of the friars, who watched all his
movements, he went farther into the woods, and on As-
sumption Day he there began the Lent which he desired
to observe in honor of the Archangel Michael and the
celestial host.
Genius has its modesty as well as love. The poet, the
artist, the saint, need to be alone when the Spirit comes
to move them. Every effort of thought, of imagination,
or of will is a prayer, and one does not pray in public. .
Alas for the man who has not in his inmost heart some
secret which may not be told, because it cannot be
spoken, and because if it were spoken it could not be un-
derstood. SECRETUM MEUM MIHI! Jesus felt it deeply:
the raptures of Tabor are brief; they may not be told.
Before these soul mysteries materialists and devotees
often meet and are of one mind in demanding precision
in those things which can the least endure it.
The believer asks in what spot on the Verna Francis
received the stigmata; whether the seraph which appeared
to him was Jesus or a celestial spirit; what words were
spoken as he imprinted them upon him ;l and he no
more understands that hour when Francis swooned with
woe and love than the materialist, who asks to see with
his eyes and touch with his hands the gaping wound.
Let us try to avoid these extremes. Let us hear what
the documents give us, and not seek to do them violence,
to wrest from them what they do not tell, what they can-
not tell.
1 Fior, iv. and v. consid. These two considerations appear to be the
result of a reworking of the primitive document. The latter no doubt
included the three former, which the coutinuer has interpolated and
lengthened. Cf. Conform., 231a, 1; Spec., 91b, 92a, 97; A. SS., pp.
860 ff.
THE STIGMATA
293
They show us Francis distressed for the future of the
Order, and with an infinite desire for new spiritual prog-
ress.
He was consumed with the fever of saints, that need
of immolation which wrung froin St. Theresa the pas-
sionate cry, "Either to suffer or to die !” He was bit-
terly reproaching himself with not having been found
worthy of martyrdom, not having been able to give him-
self for Him who gave himself for us.
We touch here upon one of the most powerful and
mysterious elements of the Christian life. We may very
easily not understand it, but we may not for all that deny
it. It is the root of true mysticism. The really new
thing that Jesus brought into the world was that, feeling
himself in perfect union with the heavenly Father, he
called all men to unite themselves to him and through
him to God: “I am the vine, and ye are the branches;
he who abides in me and I in him brings forth much
fruit, for apart from me ye can do nothing."
The Christ not only preached this union, he made it
felt. On the evening of his last day he instituted its
sacrament, and there is probably no sect which denies
that communion is at once the symbol, the principle, and
the end of the religious life. For eighteen centuries
Christians who differ on everything else cannot but look
with one accord to him who in the upper chamber insti-
tuted the rite of the new times.
The night before he died he took the bread and brake
? In current language we often include under the word mysticism all
the tendencies—often far from Christian-which give predominance in
the religious life to vague poetic elements, impulses of the heart. The
name of mystic ought to be applied only to those Christians to whom
immediate relations with Jesus form the basis of the religious life. In
this sense St Paul (whose theologico-philosophical system is one of the
most powerful efforts of the human mind to explain sin and redemp.
tion) is at the same time the prince of mystics.
294
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
it and distributed it to them, saying, “TAKE AND EAT, FOR
THIS IS MY BODY.”
Jesus, while presenting union with himself as the very
foundation of the new life, took care to point out to his
brethren that this union was before all things a sharing
in his work, in his struggles, and his sufferings : “Let
him that would be my disciple take up his cross and fol-
low me.”
St. Paul entered so perfectly into the Master's thought
in this respect that he uttered a few years later this cry
of a mysticism that has never been equalled : “I have
been crucified with Christ, yet I live
or rather,
it is not I who live, but Christ who liveth in me.”. This
utterance is not an isolated exclamation with him, it is
the very centre of his religious consciousness, and he goes
so far as to say, at the risk of scandalizing many a Chris-
tian : “I fill up in my body that which is lacking of the
sufferings of Christ, for his body's sake, which is the
Church."
Perhaps it has not been useless to enter into these
thoughts, to show to what point Francis during the last
years of his life, where he renews in his body the passion
of Christ, is allied to the apostolic tradition.
In the solitudes of the Verna, as formerly at St. Da-
mian, Jesus presented himself to him under his form of
the Crucified One, the man of sorrows.?
That this intercourse has been described to us in a
poetic and inexact form is nothing surprising. It is the
contrary that would be surprising. In the paroxysms
He did not desire to institute a religion, for he felt the vanity of ob-
servances and dogmas. (The apostles continued to frequent the Jewish
temple. Acts, ii., 46 ; iii., 1 ; V., 25; xxi., 26.) He desired to inoculate
the world with a new life.
2 Cel., 3, 29; cf. 1 Cel., 115 ; 3 Soc., 13 and 14 ; 2 Cel., 1, 6 ; 2 Cel.,
3, 123 and 131 ; Bon., 57; 124; 203; 204; 224; 225 ; 309; 310; 311;
Conform., 229b ff.
THE STIGMATA
295
1
of divine love there are ineffabilio which, far from being
able to relate them or make them understood, we can
hardly recall to our own minds.
Francis on the Verna was even more absorbed than
usual in his ardent desire to suffer for Jesus and with
him. His days went by divided between exercises of
piety in the humble sanctuary on the mountain-top and
meditation in the depths of the forest. It even hap-
pened to him to forget the services, and to remain sev-
eral days alone in some cave of the rock, going over in
his heart the memories of Golgotha. At other times he
would remain for long hours at the foot of the altar,
reading and re-reading the Gospel, and entreating God
to show him the way in which he ought to walk.
The book almost always opened of itself to the story
of the Passion, and this simple coincidence, though easy
ynough to explain, was enough of itself to excite him.
The vision of the Crucified One took the fuller posses-
sion of his faculties as the day of the Elevation of the
Holy Cross drew near (September 14th), a festival now
relegated to the background, but in the thirteenth cen-
tury celebrated with a fervor and zeal very natural for a
solemnity which might be considered the patronal fes-
tival of the Crusades.
Francis doubled his fastings and prayers, “ quite trans-
formed into Jesus by love and compassion,” says one of
the legends. He passed the night before the festival
alone in prayer, not far from the hermitage. In the
morning he had a vision. In the rays of the rising sun,
which after the chill of night came to revive his body, he
suddenly perceived a strange form.
A seraph, with outspread wings, flew toward him
from the edge of the horizon, and bathed his soul in
raptures unutterable. In the centre of the vision ap-
11 Cel., 91-94 : Bon.. 189, 190.
296
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
1
peared a cross, and the seraph was nailed upon it.
When the vision disappeared, he felt sharp sufferings
mingling with the ecstasy of the first moments. Stirred
to the very depths of his being, he was anxiously seek-
ing the meaning of it all, when he perceived upon his
body the stigmata of the Crucified.
1
See the annotations of Brother Leo upon the autograph of St. Francis
(Crit. Study, p. 357) and 1 Cel., 94, 95 ; Bon., 191, 192, 193 (3 Soc., 69,
70); Fior. iii. consid. Cf. Auct, vit. sec.; A. SS., p. 649. It is to be noted
that Thomas of Celano (1 Cel., 95), as well as all the primitive docu-
ments, describe the stigmata as being fleshy excrescences, recalling in
form and color the nails with which the limbs of Jesus were pierced.
No one speaks of those gaping, sanguineous wounds which were imag-
ined later. Only the mark at the side was a wound, whence at times
exuded a little blood. Finally, Thomas of Celano says that after the
seraphic vision began to appear, coeperunt apparere signa clavorum. Vide
Appendix : Study of the Stigmata.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE CANTICLE OF THE SUN
Autumn, 1224-Autumn, 1225
The morning after St. Michael's Day (September 30,
1224) Francis quitted Verna and went to Portiuncula.
He was too much exhausted to think of making the
journey on foot, and Count Orlando put a horse at his
disposal.
We can imagine the emotion with which he bade adieu
to the mountain on which had been unfolded the drama
of love and pain which had consummated the union of
his entire being with the Crucified One.
Amor, amor, Gesu desideroso,
Amor voglio morire,
Te abrazando
Amor, dolce Gesu, meo sposo,
Amor, amor, la morte te domando,
Amor, amor, Gesu si pietoso
Tu me te dai in te transformato
Pensa ch' io vo spasmando
Non so o io me sia
Gesu speranza mia
Ormai va, dormi in amore.
So sang Giacopone dei Todi in the raptures of a like
love.1
1
Thirty-sixth and last strophe of the song
Amor de caritade
Perche m'hui si ferito?
found in the collection of St. Francis's workı.
298
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
1
If we are to believe a recently published document,
Brother Masseo, one of those who remained on the Verna,
made a written account of the events of this day.
They set out early in the morning. Francis, after
having given his directions to the Brothers, had had a
look and a word for everything around; for the rocks,
the flowers, the trees, for brother hawk, a privileged
character which was authorized to enter his cell at all
times, and which came every morning, with the first
glimmer of dawn, to remind him of the hour of service.?
Then the little band set forth upon the path leading to
Monte-Acuto. Arrived at the gap from whence one gets
the last sight of the Verna, Francis alighted from his
horse, and kneeling upon the earth, his face turned tow-
ard the mountain, “Adieu," he said, “mountain of God,
sacred mountain, mons coagulatus, mons pinguis, mons in
quo bene placitum est Deo habitare ; adieu Monte-Verna,
may God bless thee, the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit; abide in peace; we shall never see one another
more.”
Has not this artless scene a delicious and poignant
sweetness? He must surely have uttered these words,
in which suddenly the Italian does not suffice and Fran-
1
By the Abbé Amoni, at the close of his edition of the Fioretti, Rome,
1 vol., 12mo, 1889, pp. 390–392. We can but once more regret the
silence of the editor as to the manuscript whence he has drawn these
charming pages. Certain indications seem unfavorable to the author
having written it before the second half of the thirteenth century ; on
the other hand, the object of a forgery is not evident. An apochryphal
piece always betrays itself by some interested purpose, but here the
story is of an infantine simplicity.
? 2 Cel., 3, 104 ; Bon., 119; Fior. i. consid.
3 Parti san Francesco per Monte-Acuto prendendo la via di Monte-Ar.
coppe e del foresto. This road from the Verna to Borgo San-Sepolcro is
far froin being the shortest or the easiest, for instead of leading directly
to the plain it lingers for long hours among the hills. Is not all Francis
in this choice ?
THE CANTIOLE OF THE SUN
299
cis is obliged to resort to the mystical language of the
breviary to express his feelings.
A few minutes later the rock of the ecstacy had disap-
peared. The descent into the valley is rapid. The Broth-
ers had decided to spend the night at Monte-Casale, the
little hermitage above Borgo San-Sepolcro. All of them,
even those who were to remain on the Verna, were still
following their master. As for him, absorbed in thought
he had become entirely oblivious to what was going on,
and did not even perceive the noisy enthusiasm which
his passage aroused in the numerous villages along the
Tiber.
At Borgo San-Sepolcro he received a real ovation with-
out even then coming to himself; but when they had
some time quitted the town, he seemed suddenly to
awake, and asked his companion if they ought not soon
to arrive there. 1
The first evening at Monte Casale was marked by a
miracle. Francis healed a friar who was possessed.?
The next morning, having decided to pass several days
in this hermitage, he sent the brothers back to the Verna,
and with them Count Orlando's horse.
In one of the villages through which they had passed
the day before a woman had been lying several days
between death and life unable to give birth to her child.
Those about her had only learned of the passage of the
saint through their village when he was too far distant
to be overtaken. We may judge of the joy of these poor
people when the rumor was spread that he was about to
return. They went to meet him, and were terribly dis-
appointed on finding only the friars. Suddenly an idea
occurred to them : taking the bridle of the horse con-
secrated by the touch of Francis's hands, they carried it
-
s cel., 3, 41 ; Bon., 141; A. tv. cunista.
? 1 Cel., 63 and 64 ; Fior. iv. consid.
300
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
to the sufferer, who, having laid it upon her body, gave
birth to her child without the slightest pain.
This miracle, established by narratives entirely au-
thentic, shows the degree of enthusiasm felt by the
people for the person of Francis. As for him, after a
few days at Monte-Casale, he set out with Brother Leo
for Città di Castello. He there healed a woman suffer-
ing from frightful nervous disorders, and remained an
entire month preaching in this city and its environs.
When he once more set forth winter had almost closed
in. A peasant lent him his ass, but the roads were so
bad that they were unable to reach any sort of shelter be-
fore nightfall. The unhappy travellers were obliged to
pass the night under a rock; the shelter was more than
rudimentary, the wind drifted the snow in upon them, and
nearly froze the unlucky peasant, who with abominable
oaths heaped curses on Francis; but the latter replied
with such cheerfulness that he made him at last forget
both the cold and his bad humor.
On the morrow the saint reached Portiuncula. He
seems to have made only a brief halt there, and to have
set forth again almost immediately to evangelize South-
ern Umbria.
It is impossible to follow him in this mission. Brother
Elias accompanied him, but so feeble was he that Elias
could not conceal his uneasiness as to his life.2
Ever since his return from Syria (August, 1220), he
had been growing continually weaker, but his fervor had
increased from day to day. Nothing could check him,
neither suffering nor the entreaties of the Brothers ;
seated on an ass he would sometimes go over three or
four villages in one day. Such excessive toil brought on
11 Cel., 70; Fior. iv. consid.
1 Cel., 109; 69; Bon. 208. Perhaps we must refer to this circuit
the visit to Celano. 2 Cel., 3, 30 ; Spec., 22; Bon., 156 and 157.
THE OANTICLE OF THE SUN
301
1
en-
an infirmity even more painful than any he had hitherto
suffered from: he was threatened with loss of sight.
Meanwhile a sedition had forced Honorius III. to
leave Rome (end of April, 1225). After passing a few
weeks at Tivoli, he established himself at Rieti, where he
remained until the end of 1226.?
The pope's arrival had drawn to this city, with the
entire pontifical court, several physicians of renown;
Cardinal Ugolini, who had come in the pope's train,
hearing of Francis's malady, summoned him to Rieti for
treatment. But notwithstanding Brother Elias's
treaties Francis hesitated a long time as to accepting the
invitation. It seemed to him that a sick man has but
one thing to do; place himself purely and simply in the
hands of the heavenly Father. What is pain to a soul
that is fixed in God ! 4
Elias, however, at last overcame his objections, and
the journey was determined upon, but first Francis de-
sired to go and take leave of Clara, and enjoy a little
rest near her.
He remained at St. Damian much longer than he had
proposed to do 5 (end of July to beginning of September,
1225). His arrival at this beloved monastery was
marked by a terrible aggravation of his malady. For fif-
teen days he was so completely blind that he could not
even distinguish light. The care lavished upon him
produced no result, since every day he passed long hours
in weeping-tears of penitence, he said, but also of
regret. Ah, how different they were from those tears of
11 Cel., 97 and 98; 2 Cel , 3, 137; Bon., 205 and 206.
· Richard of St. Germano, ann. 1225. Cf. Potthast, 7400 ff.
3 1 Cel., 98 and 99 ; 2 Cel., 3, 137; Fior., 19.
4 2 Cel., 3, 110 ; Rule of 1221, cap. 10.
5 See the reference to the sources after the Canticle of the Sun.
• 2 Col., 3, 138.
302
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
1
none
his moments of inspiration and emotion, which had
flowed over a countenance all illumined with joy! They
had seen him, in sych moments, take up two bits of
wood, and, accompanying himself with this rustic violin,
improvise French songs in which he would pour out the
abundance of his heart.
But the radiance of genius and hope had become
dimmed. Rachel weeps for her children, and will not be
comforted because they are not. There are in the tears
of Francis this same quia non sunt for his spiritual sons.
But if there are irremediable pains there are
which may not be at once elevated and softened, when
we endure them at the side of those who love us.
In this respect his companions could not be of much
help to him. Moral consolations are possible only from
our peers, or when two hearts are united by a mystical
passion so great that they mingle and understand one
another.
“Ah, if the Brothers knew what I suffer," St. Francis
said a few days before the impression of the stigmata,
“with what pity and compassion they would be moved !”
But they, seeing him who had laid cheerfulness upon
them as a duty becoming more and more sad and keep-
ing aloof from them, imagined that he was tortured with
temptations of the devil.”
Clara divined that which could not be uttered. At
St. Damian her friend was looking back over all the past :
what memories lived again in a single glance! Here,
the olive-tree to which, a brilliant cavalier, he had fast-
ened his horse; there, the stone bench where his friend,
the priest of the poor chapel, used to sit; yonder, the
hiding-place in which he had taken refuge from the pater-
i This incident appeared to the authors so peculiar that they em
phasized it with an ut oculis videmus. 2 Cel., 3, 67; Spec., 119a.
Spec., 123a ; 2 Cel., 3, 58.
2
THE CANTICLE OF THE SUN
303
nal wrath, and, above all, the sanctuary with the myste-
rious crucifix of the decisive hour.
In living over these pictures of the radiant past, Fran-
cis aggravated his pain ; yet they spoke to him of other
things than death and regret. Clara was there, as stead-
fast, as ardent as ever. Long ago transformed by admi-
ration, she was now transfigured by compassion. Seated
at the feet of him whom she loved with more than earthly
love she felt the soreness of his soul, and the failing of his
heart. After that, what did it matter that Francis's tears
became more abundant to the point of making him blind
for a fortnight? Soothing would come; the sister of
consolation would give him peace once more.
And first she kept him near her, and, herself taking
part in the labor, she made him a large cell of reeds in
the monastery garden, that he might be entirely at lib-
erty as to his movements.
How could he refuse a hospitality so thoroughly Fran-
ciscan? It was indeed only too much so: legions of rats
and mice infested this retired spot; at night they ran
over Francis's bed with an infernal uproar, so that he
could find no repose from his sufferings. But he soon
forgot all that when near his sister-friend. Once again
she gave back to him faith and courage.
sunbeam,” he used to say, " is enough to drive away
many shadows !"
Little by little the man of the former days began to
show himself, and at times the Sisters would hear, min-
gling with the murmur of the olive trees and pines, the
echo of unfamiliar songs, which seemed to come from the
cell of reeds.
One day he had seated himself at the monastery tablo
after a long conversation with Clara. The meal had
hardly begun when suddenly he seemed to be rapt away
in ecstasy.
“ A single
304
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
“ Laudato sia lo Signore !” he cried on coming to him-
self. He had just composed the Canticle of the Sun.
TEXT 2
INCIPIUNT LAUDES CREATURARUM
QUAS FECIT BEATUS FRANCISCUS AD LAUDEM ET HONOREM
DEI
CUM ESSET INFIRMUS AD SANCTUM DAMIANUM.
ALTISSIMU, onnipotente, bon signore,
tue so le laude la gloria e l'onore et onne benedictione.
Ad te sole, altissimo, se konfano
et nullu homo ene dignu te mentovare.
Laudato sie, mi signore, cum tucte le tue creature
spetialmente messor lo frate sole,
lo quale jorna, et illumini per lui ;
Et ellu è bellu e radiante cum grande splendore ;
de te, altissimo, porta significatione.
Laudato si, mi signore, per sora luna e le stelle,
in celu l' ài formate clarite et pretiose et belle.
Laudato si, mi signore, per frate vento
et per aere et nubilo et sereno et onne tempo,
per le quale a le tue creature dai sustentamento.
1 I have combined Celano's narrative with that of the Conformities.
The details given in the latter document appear to me entirely worthy
of faith. It is easy to see, however, why Celano omitted them, and it
would be difficult to explain how they could have been later invented.
2 Cel., 3, 138; Conform., 42b, 2; 119b, 1; 1846, 2; 239a, 2; Spec.,
123a ff. ; Fior., 19.
& After the Assisan MS., 338, fº 33a. Vide p. 354. Father Panfilo
da Magliano has already published it after this manuscript: Storia com-
pendiosa di San Francesco, Rome, 2 vols., 18mo, 1874–1876. The Con-
formities, 202b, 2-203a 1, give a version of it which differs from this
only by insignificant variations. The learned philologne Monaci has
established a very remarkable critical text in his Crestomazia italiana
dei primi secoli. Citta di Castello, fas. i., 1889, 8vo, pp. 29–31. This
thoroughly scrupulous work dispenses me from indicating manuscripts
and editions more at length.
THE CANTICLE OF THE SUN
305
Laudato si, mi signore, per sor acqua,
la quale è multo utile et humele et pretiosa et casta.
Laudato si, mi signore, per frate focu,
per lo quale ennallumini la nocte,
ed ello è bello et jucundo et robustoso et forte.
Laudato si, mi signore, per sora nostra matre terra,
la quale ne sustenta et governa
et produce diversi fructi con colorite flori et herba.
Laudato si, mi signore, per quilli ke perdonano per
lo tuo amore
et sostengo infirmitate et tribulatione.
beati quilli ke sosterrano in pace,
ka da te, altissimo, sirano incoronati.
Laudato si, mi signore, per sora nostra morte corporale,
de la quale nullu homo vivente po skappare :
guai a quilli ke morrano ne le peccata mortali;
beati quilli ke se trovarà ne le tue sanctissime voluntati,
ka la morte secunda nol farrà male.
Laudate et benedicete mi signore et rengratiate
et serviteli cum grande humilitate.
TRANSLATION.1
O most high, almighty, good Lord God, to thee belong
praise, glory, honor, and all blessing!
Praised be my Lord God with all his creatures, and
specially our brother the sun, who brings us the day and
who brings us the light; fair is he and shines with a
very great splendor : O Lord, he signifies to us thee!
Praised be my Lord for our sister the moon, and for
the stars, the which he has set clear and lovely in heaven.
Praised be my Lord for our brother the wind, and for
air and cloud, calms and all weather by the which thou
upholdest life in all creatures.
Matthew Arnold, Essays in Criticism, First Series. Macmillan &
Company, 1883.
20
306
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
have no power to do them harm.
Praised be my Lord for our sister water, who is very
serviceable unto us and humble and precious and clean.
Praised be my Lord for our brother fire, through
whom thou givest us light in the darkness; and he is
bright and pleasant and very mighty and strong.
Praised be my Lord for our mother the earth, the
which doth sustain us and keep us, and bringeth forth
divers fruits and flowers of many colors, and grass.
Praised be my Lord for all those who pardon one
another for his love's sake, and who endure weakness
and tribulation ; blessed are they who peaceably shall
endure, for thou, O most Highest, shalt give them a
crown.
Praised be my Lord for our sister, the death of the
body, from which no man escapeth. Woe to him who
dieth in mortal sin! Blessed are they who are found
walking by thy most holy will, for the second death shall
.
Praise ye and bless the Lord, and give thanks unto
him and serve him with great humility.
Joy had returned to Francis, joy as deep as ever. For
a whole week he forsook his breviary and passed his days
in repeating the Canticle of the Sun.
During a night of sleeplessness he had heard a voice
saying to him," If thou hadst faith as a grain of mustard
seed, thou wouldst say to this mountain, 'Be thou re-
moved from there,' and it would move away.” Was not
the mountain that of his sufferings, the temptation to
murmur and despair ? · Be it, Lord, according to thy
word,” he had replied with all his heart, and immediately
he had felt that he was delivered,
He might have perceived that the mountain had not
greatly changed its place, but for several days he had
12 Cel., 3, 58; Spec., 123m
1
THE CANTICLE OF THE SUN
307
turned his eyes away from it, he had been able to forget
its existence.
For a moment he thought of summoning to his side
Brother Pacifico, the King of Verse, to retouch his can-
ticle; his idea was to attach to him a certain number of
friars, who would go with him from village to village,
preaching. After the sermon they would sing the Hymn
of the Sun; and they were to close by saying to the
crowd gathered around them in the public places, “We
are God's jugglers. We desire to be paid for our sermon
and our song. Our payment shall be that you persevere
in penitence.
"Is it not in fact true," he would add," that the ser-
vants of God are really like jugglers, intended to revive
the hearts of men and lead them into spiritual joy ?”
The Francis of the old raptures had come back, thë
layman, the poet, the artist.
The Canticle of the Creatures is very noble: it lacks,
however, one strophe; if it was not upon Francis's lips,
it was surely in his heart:
971
Be praised, Lord, for Sister Clara ;
thou hast made her silent, active, and sagacious,
and by her thy light shines in our hearts.
.
Spec., 124a. Cf. Miscellanea (1889), iv., p. 88.
CHAPTER XIX
THE LAST YEAR
September, 1225-End of September, 1226
What did Ugolini think when they told him that Fran-
cis was planning to send his friars, transformed into
Joculatores Domini, to sing up and down the country the
Canticle of Brother Sun? Perhaps he never heard of it.
His protégé finally decided to accept his invitation and left
St. Damian in the course of the month of September.
The landscape which lies before the eyes of the trav-
eller from Assisi, when he suddenly emerges upon the
plain of Rieti, is one of the most beautiful in Europe.
From Terni the road follows the sinuous course of the
Velino, passes not far from the famous cascades, whose
clouds of mist are visible, and then plunges into the de-
files in whose depths the torrent rushes noisily, choked
by a vegetation as luxuriant as that of a virgin forest.
On all sides uprise walls of perpendicular rocks, and on
their crests, several hundred yards above your head, are
feudal fortresses, among others the Castle of Miranda,
more giddy, more fantastic than any which Gustave
Dore's fancy ever dreamed.
After four hours of walking, the defile opens out and
you find yourself without transition in a broad valley,
sparkling with light.
Rieti, the only city in this plain of several leagues, ap-
pears far away at the other extremity, commanded by
1
alone
THE LAST YEAR
309
hills of a thoroughly tropical aspect, behind which rise
the mighty Apennines, almost always covered with snow.
The highway goes directly toward this town, passing
between tiny lakes; here and there roads lead off to little
villages which you see, on the hillside, between the cul-
tivated fields and the edge of the forests; there are Stron-
cone, Greccio, Cantalice, Poggio-Buscone, and ten other
small towns, which have given more saints to the Church
than a whole province of France.
Between the inhabitants of the district and their
neighbors of Umbria, properly so called, the difference
is extreme. They are all of the striking type of the
Sabine peasants, and they remain to this day entire
strangers to new customs. One is born a Capuchin
there as elsewhere one is born a soldier, and the traveller
needs to have his wits about him not to address every
man he meets as Reverend Father.
Francis had often gone over this district in every
direc-
tion. Like its neighbor, the hilly March of Ancona, it
was peculiarly prepared to receive the new gospel. In
these hermitages, with their almost impossible simplicity,
perched near the villages on every side, without the least
care for material comfort, but always where there is the
widest possible view, was perpetuated a race of Brothers
Minor, impassioned, proud, stubborn, almost wild, who
did not wholly understand their master, who did not
catch his exquisite simplicity, his impossibility of hating,
his dreams of social and political renovation, his poetry
and delicacy, but who did understand the lover of nature
and of poverty. They did more than understand him;
1 The following is the list of monasteries which, according to Rodolfo
di Tossignano, accepted the ideas of Angelo Clareno before the end of
the thirteenth century : Fermo, Spoleto, Camerino, Ascoli, Rieti, Fo-
ligno, Nursia. Aquila, Amelia : Historiarum seraphicce religionis, libri tres,
Venice, 1586, 1 vol., fº, 155a.
310
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
they lived his life, and from that Christmas festival ob-
served in the woods of Greccio down to to-day they have
remained the simple and popular representatives of the
Strict Observance. From them comes to us the Legend
of the Three Companions, the most life-like and true of
all the portraits of the Poverello, and it was there, in a
cell three paces long, that Giovanni di Parma had his
apocalyptic visions.
The news of Francis's arrival quickly spread, and long
before he reached Rieti the population had come out to
meet him.
To avoid this noisy welcome he craved the hospital-
ity of the priest of St. Fabian. This little church, now
known under the name of Our Lady of the Forest, is
somewhat aside from the road upon a grassy mound
about a league from the city. He was heartily wel-
comed, and desiring to remain there for a little, prelates
and devotees began to flock thither in the next few days.
It was the time of the early grapes. It is easy to
imagine the disquietude of the priest on perceiving the
ravages made by these visitors among his vines, his best
source of revenue, but he probably exaggerated the dam-
age. Francis one day heard him giving vent to his bad
humor. “Father," he said, “it is useless for you to dis-
turb yourself for what you cannot hinder; but, tell me,
how much wine do you get on an average
“Fourteen measures," replied the priest.
“Very well, if you have less than twenty, I undertake
to make up the difference.”
This promise reassured the worthy man, and when at
the vintage he received twenty measures, he had no hesi-
tation in believing in a miracle.
Upon Ugolini's entreaties Francis had accepted the
1
1
Spec., 129b; Fior., 19. In some of the stories of this period the
ovidence is clear how certain facts bave been, little by little, transformed
THE LAST YEAR
311
hospitality of the bishop's palace in Rieti. Thomas of
Celano enlarges with delight upon the marks of devotion
lavished on Francis by this prince of the Church. Un-
happily all this is written in that pompous and confused
style of which diplomats and ecclesiastics appear to have
by nature the secret.
Francis entered into the condition of a relic in his life-
time. The mania for amulets displayed itself around him
in all its excesses. People quarrelled not only over his
clothing, but even over his hair and the parings of his
nails.1
Did these merely exterior demonstrations disgust him ?
Did he sometimes think of the contrast between these
honors offered to his body, which he picturesquely called
Brother Ass, and the subversion of his ideal? We can-
not tell. If he had feelings of this kind those who sur-
rounded him were not the men to understand them, and
it would be idle to expect any expression of them from
his pen.
Soon after he had a relapse, and asked to be removed
to Monte-Colombo, a hermitage an hour distant from the
city, hidden amidst trees and scattered rocks. He had
already retired thither several times, notably when he
was preparing the Rule of 1223.
The doctors, having exhausted the therapeutic arsenal
of the time, decided to resort to cauterization; it was de-
cided to draw a rod of white-hot iron across his forehead.
When the poor patient saw them bringing in the bra-
zier and the instruments he had a moment of terror; but
into miracles. Compare, for example, the miracle of St. Urbano in Bon.,
68, and 1 Cel., 61. See also 2 Cel., 2, 10; Bon., 158 and 159.
11 Cel., 87; 2 Cel., 2, 11 ; Conform., 148a, 2 ; Bon., 99. Upon this
visit see 2 Cel., 2, 10; Bon., 158 and 159 ; 2 Cel., 2, 11 ; 2 Cel., 3, 36.
2 The present Italian name of the monastery which has also been
called Monte-Rainer'io and Fonte-Palumbo.
312
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
immediately making the sign of the cross over the glow-
ing iron, “Brother fire,” he said, "you are beautiful
above all creatures; be favorable to me in this hour; you
know how much I have always loved you; be then cour-
teous to-day.”
Afterward, when his companions, who had not had the
courage to remain, came back he said to them, smiling,
“Oh, cowardly folk, why did you go away? I felt no pain.
Brother doctor, if it is necessary you may do it again.”
This experiment was no more successful than the other
remedies. In vain they quickened the wound on the
forehead, by applying plasters, salves, and even by mak-
ing incisions in it; the only result was to increase the
pains of the sufferer.1
One day, at Rieti, whither he had again been carried,
he thought that a little music would relieve his pain.
Calling a friar who had formerly been clever at playing
the guitar, he begged him to borrow one; but the friar
was afraid of the scandal which this might cause, and
Francis gave it up.
God took pity upon him ; the following night he sent
an invisible angel to give him such a concert as is never
heard on earth. Francis, hearing it, lost all bodily feel-
ing, say the Fioretti, and at one moment the melody was
so sweet and penetrating that if the angel had given one
more stroke of the bow, the sick man's soul would have
left his body.
It seems that there was some amelioration of his state
when the doctors left him; we find him during the
11 Cel., 101; 2 Cel., 3, 102 ; Bon., 67 ; Spec., 134a.
* 2 Cel., 3, 66 ; Bon., 69.
3 Fior. ii. consid. Cf. Roger Bacon, Opus tertium (ap. Mon. Germ.
hist., Script. t. 28, p. 577). B. Franciscus jussit fratri cythariste ut
dulcius personaret, quatenus mens excitaretur ad harmonias cælestes
quas pluries andivit. Mira enim musicce super omnes scientias et speca
tanda potestas.
3
THE LAST YEAR
313
months of this winter, 1225-1226, in the most remote
hermitages of the district, for as soon as he had a little
strength he was determined to begin preaching again.
He went to Poggio-Buscone for the Christmas festi-
val. People flocked thither in crowds from all the coun-
try round to see and hear him. “You come here,” he said,
expecting to find a great saint; what will you think
when I tell you that I ate meat all through Advent ? ”2
At St. Eleutheria, at a time of extreme cold which tried
him much, he had sewn some pieces of stuff into his own
tunic and that of his companion, so as to make their gar-
ments a little warmer. One day his companion came
home with a fox-skin, with which in his turn he proposed
to line his master's tunic. Francis rejoiced much over it,
but would permit this excess of consideration for his body
only on condition that the piece of fur should be placed
on the outside over his chest.
All these incidents, almost insignificant at a first view,
show how he detested hypocrisy even in the smallest
things.
We will not follow him to his dear Greccio, nor even
to the hermitage of St. Urbano, perched on one of the
highest peaks of the Sabine. The accounts which we
1
Village three hours' walk northward rom Rieti. Francis's cell still
remains on the mountain, three-quarters of an hour from the place.
2 2 Cel., 3, 71 ; cf. Spec., 43a.
3 Chapel still standing, a few minutes' walk from Rieti. 2 Cel., 3, 70;
Spec., 15a, 43a.
4 2 Cel., 2, 14 ; Bon., 167; 2 Cel., 3, 10; Bon., 58; Spec., 122b.
5 Wadding, ann. 1213, n. 14, rightly places St. Urbano in the county
of Narni. L'Eremo di S. Urbano is about half an hour from the village
of the same name, on Mount San Pancrazio (1026 m.), three leagues south
of Narni. The panorama is one of the finest in Central Italy. The Bol-
landists allowed themselves to be led into error by an interested asser-
tion when they placed San Urbano near to Jesi (pp. 623f and 624a). 1
rel., 61; Bon., 68. (Vide Bull Cum aliqua of May 15, 1218, where
mention is made of San Urbano.)
314
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
have of the brief visits he made there at this time tell
us nothing new of his character or of the history of his
life. They simply show that the imaginations of those
who surrounded him were extraordinarily overheated;
the least incidents immediately took on a miraculous
coloring."
The documents do not say how it came about that he
decided to go to Sienna. It appears that there was in
that city a physician of great fame as an oculist. The
treatment he prescribed was no more successful than
that of the others; but with the return of spring Francis
made a new effort to return to active life. We find him
describing the ideal Franciscan monastery, and another
day explaining a passage in the Bible to a Dominican.
Did the latter, a doctor in theology, desire to bring the
rival Order into ridicule by showing its founder incapable
of explaining a somewhat difficult verse ? It appears
extremely likely. “My good father,” he said, “how do
you understand this saying of the prophet Ezekiel, 'If
thou dost not warn the wicked of his wickedness, I will
require his soul of thee?' I am acquainted with many
men whom I know to be in a state of mortal sin, and yet
I am not always reproaching them for their vices. Am
I, then, responsible for their souls ? "
At first Francis excused himself, alleging his ignorance,
but urged by his interlocutor he said at last : “Yes, the
true servant unceasingly rebukes the wicked, but he does
it most of all by his conduct, by the truth which shines
forth in his words, by the light of his example, by all
the radiance of his life." 3
He soon suffered so grave a relapse that the Brothers
1 As much may be said of the apparition of the three virgins between
Campilia and San Quirico. 2 Cel., 3, 37; Bon., 93.
Spec., 12b; Conform., 169a, 1.
3 2 Cel., 3, 46 ; Bon., 153; Spec., 31b: Ezek., xxxiii., 9.
2
THE LAST YEAR
315
thought his last hour had come. They were especially
affrighted by the hemorrhages, which reduced him to a
state of extreme prostration. Brother Elias hastened to
him. At his arrival the invalid felt in himself such an
improvement that they could acquiesce in his desire to
be taken back to Umbria. Toward the middle of April
they set out, going in the direction of Cortona. It is the
easiest route, and the delightful hermitage of that city
was one of the best ordered to permit of his taking
some repose. He doubtless remained there a very short
time: he was in haste to see once more the skies of his
native country, Portiuncula, St. Damian, the Carceri, all
those paths and hamlets which one sees from the terraces
of Assisi and which recalled to him so many sweet mem-
ories.
Instead of going by the nearest road, they made a long
circuit by Gubbio and Nocera, to avoid Perugia, fearing
some attempt of the inhabitants to get possession of the
Saint. Such a relic as the body of Francis lacked little of
the value of the sacred nail or the sacred lance.' Battles
were fought for less than that.
They made a short halt near Nocera, at the hermitage
of Bagnara, on the slopes of Monte-Pennino. His com-
panions were again very much disturbed. The swelling
which had shown itself in the lower limbs was rapidly
gaining the upper part of the body. The Assisans learned
this, and wishing to be prepared for whatever might
happen sent their men-at-arms to protect the Saint and
hasten his return.
Bringing Francis back with them they stopped for food
1 Two years after, the King of France and all his court kissed and re-
vered the pillow which Francis had used during his illness. 1 Cel.,
120.
Bagnara is near the sources of the Topino, about an hour east of
Nocera. These two localities were then dependents of Assisi.
2
316
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
at the hamlet of Balciano, but in vain they begged the
inhabitants to sell them provisions. As the escort were
confiding their discomfiture to the friars, Francis, who
knew these good peasants, said: “If you had asked for
food without offering to pay, you would have found all
you wanted.”
He was right, for, following his advice, they received
for nothing all that they desired.?
The arrival of the party at Assisi was hailed with
frantic joy. This time Francis's fellow-citizens were
sure that the Saint was not going to die somewhere
else.3
Customs in this matter have changed too much for us
to be able thoroughly to comprehend the good fortune of
; possessing the body of a saint. If you are ever so un-
lucky as to mention St. Andrew before an inhabitant of
Amalfi, you will immediately find him beginning to shout
« Evviva San Andrea! Evviva San Andrea !” Then with
extraordinary volubility he will relate to you the legend
of the Grande Protettore, his miracles past and present,
those which he might have done if he had chosen, but
which he refrained from doing out of charity because St.
Januarius of Naples could not do as much. He gesticu-
lates, throws himself about, hustles you, more enthusi-
astic over his relic and more exasperated by your cold-
ness than a soldier of the Old Guard before an enemy of
the Emperor.
In the thirteenth century all Europe was like that.
We shall find here several incidents which we may be
tempted to consider shocking or even ignoble, if we do
1 And not Sartiano. Balciano still exists, about half way between No-
cera and Assisi.
2 Cel., 3, 23 ; Bon., 98; Spec., 17b ; Conform., 239a, 2f.
3 2 Cel., 3, 33; 1 Cel., 105, is still more explicit : "The multitude
hoped that he wouid die very soon, and that was the subject of their
joy."
2
THE LAST YEAR
317
ever.
not make an effort to put them all into their proper sur-
roundings.
Francis was installed in the bishop's palace; he would
have preferred to be at Portiuncula, but the Brothers
were obliged to obey the injunctions of the populace, and
to make assurance doubly sure, guards were placed at all
the approaches of the palace.
The abode of the Saint in this place was much longer
than had been anticipated. It perhaps lasted several
months (July to September). This dying man did not
consent to die. He rebelled against death ; in this
centre of the work his anxieties for the future of the
Order, which a little while before had been in the back-
ground, now returned, more agonizing and terrible than
.
“ We must begin again,” he thought, “ create a new
family who will not forget humility, who will go and
serve lepers and, as in the old times, put themselves al-
ways, not merely in words, but in reality, below all men.'
To feel that implacable work of destruction going on
against which the most submissive cannot keep from
protesting : “My God, my God, why? why hast thou
forsaken me?” To be obliged to look on at the still
more dreaded decomposition of his Order; he, the lark,
to be spied upon by soldiers watching for his corpse-
there was quite enough here to make him mortally sad.
During these last weeks all his sighs were noted. The
disappearance of the greater part of the legend of the
Three Companions certainly deprives us of some touch-
ing stories, but most of the incidents have been preserved
for us, notwithstanding, in documents from a second hand.
Four Brothers had been especially charged to lavish
care upon him: Leo, Angelo, Rufino, and Masseo. We
already know them; they are of those intimate friends
: 1 Cel., 103 and 104.
318
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
1
1
of the first days, who had heard in the Franciscan gospel
a call to love and liberty. And they too began to com-
plain of everything.
One day one of them said to the sick man: "Father,
you are going away to leave us here; point out to us,
then, if you know him, the one to whom we might in all
security confide the burden of the generalship.
Alas, Francis did not know the ideal Brother, capable
of assuming such a duty; but he took advantage of the
question to sketch the portrait of the perfect minister-
general.?
We have two impressions of this portrait, the one
which has been retouched by Celano, and the original
proof, much shorter and more vague, but showing us
Francis desiring that his successor shall have but a sin-
gle weapon, an unalterable love.
It was probably this question which suggested to him
the thought of leaving for his successors, the generals of
the Order, a letter which they should pass on from one
to another, and where they should find, not directions for
particular cases, but the very inspiration of their activ-
ity.3
To the Reverend Father in Christ, N
Minister-General of
the entire Order of the Brothers Minor. May God bless thee and keep
thee in his holy love.
Patience in all things and everywhere, this, my Brother, is what I
specially recommend. Even if they oppose thee, if they strike thee,
thou shouldst be grateful to them and desire that it should be thus and
not otherwise.
In this will be manifest thy love for God and for me, his servant and
thine ; that there shall not be a single friar in the world who, having
sinned as much as one can sin, and coming before thee, shall go away
2
11 Cel., 102 ; Spec., 83b.
2 Cel., 3, 116; Spec., 67a ; Conform., 143b, 1, and 225b, 2 ; 2 Cel.,
3, 117; Spec., 130a.
3 For the text vide Conform., 136b, 2 ; 138b, 2; 142 b, 1.
THE LAST YEAR
319
cithout having received thy pardon. And if he does not ask it, do
thou ask it for him, whether he wills or not.
And if he should return again a thousand times before thee, love
him more than myself, in order to lead him to well-doing. Have pity
always on these Brothers.
These words show plainly enough how in former days
Francis had directed the Order ; in his dream the min-
isters-general were to stand in a relation of pure affec-
tion, of tender devotion toward those under them; but
was this possible for one at the head of a family whose
branches extended over the entire world? It would be
hazardous to say, for among his successors have not been
wanting distinguished minds and noble hearts; but save
for Giovanni di Parma and two or three others, this ideal
is in sharp contrast with the reality. St. Bonaventura
himself will drag his master and friend, this very Gio-
vanni of Parma, before an ecclesiastical tribunal, will
cause him to be condemned to perpetual imprisonment,
and it will need the intervention of a cardinal out-
side of the Order to secure the commutation of this sen-
tence.1
The agonies of grief endured by the dying Francis
over the decadence of the Order would have been less
poignant if they had not been mingled with self-re-
proaches for his own cowardice. Why had he deserted
his post, given up the direction of his family, if not from
idleness and selfishness? And now it was too late to
take back this step; and in hours of frightful anguish he
asked himself if God would not hold him responsible for
this subversion of his ideal.
“Ah, if I could go once again to the chapter-general,"
he would sigh, “I would show them what my will is.”
Shattered as he was by fever, he would suddenly
rise up in his bed, crying with a despairing intensity:
1 Tribul., Archiv., ii., pp. 285 ff.
320
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
“Where are they who have ravished my brethren from
me? Where are they who have stolen away my family?”
Alas, the real criminals were nearer to him than he
thought. The provincial ministers, of whom he ap-
pears to have been thinking when he thus spoke, were
only instruments in the hands of the clever Brother
Elias ; and he — what else was he doing but putting
his intelligence and address at Cardinal Ugolini's ser-
vice ?
Far from finding any consolation in those around him,
Francis was constantly tortured by the confidences of
his companions, who, impelled by mistaken zeal, ag-
gravated his pain instead of calming it.1
Forgive me, Father," said one of them to him one day,
but many
people have already thought what I am going to say to you. You know
how, in the early days, by God's grace the Order walked in the path of
perfection ; for all that concerns poverty and love, as well as for all
the rest, the Brothers were but one heart and one soul. But for some
time past all that is entirely changed : it is true that people often
excuse the Brothers by saying that the Order has grown too large to
keep up the old observances; they even go so far as to claim that
infidelities to the Rule, such as the building of great monasteries, are
a means of edification of the people, and so the primitive simplicity
and poverty are held for nothing. Evidently all these abuses are dis-
pleasing to you; but then, people ask, why do you tolerate them?”
“God forgive you, brother," replied Francis. “Why do you lay at
my door things with which I have nothing to do? So long as I had
the direction of the Order, and the Brothers persevered in their voca-
tion I was able, in spite of weakness, to do what was needful. But
when I saw that, without caring for my example or my teaching, they
walked in the way you have described, I confided them to the Lord
and to the ministers. It is true that when I relinquished the direction,
alleging my incapacity as the motive, if they had walked in the way
of my wishes I should not have desired that before my death they
should have had any other minister than myself; though ill, though
bedridden, even, I should have found strength to perform the duties of
1 2 Cel., 3, 118.
A
THE LAST YEAR
321
my charge. But this charge is wholly spiritual ; I will not become an
executioner to strike and punish as political governors must.” 1
Francis's complaints became so sharp and bitter that,
to avoid scandal, the greatest prudence was exercised
with regard to those who were permitted to see him.?
Disorder was everywhere, and every day brought its
contingent of subjects for sorrow. The confusion of
ideas as to the practice of the Rule was extreme ; occult
influences, which had been working for several years,
had succeeded in veiling the Franciscan ideal, not only
from distant Brothers, or those who had newly joined
the Order, but even from those who had lived under
the influence of the founder.3
Under circumstances such as these, Francis dictated
the letter to all the members of the Order, which, as
he thought would be read at the opening of chapters
and perpetuate his spiritual presence in them.
In this letter he is perfectly true to himself; as in the
1 These words are borrowed from a long fragment cited by Ubertini
di Casali, as coming from Brother Léo: Arbor vit. Cruc., lib. v., cap. 3.
It is surely a bit of the Legend of the Three Companions ; it may be
found textually in the Tribulations, Laur., fº 16b, with a few more
sentences at the end. Cf. Conform., 136a, 2 ; 143a, 2; Spec., 8b ; 26b.;
50a ; 130b; 2 Cel., 3, 118.
2 Tribul., Laur.,
17b.
* See, for example, Brother Richer's question as to the books : Uber-
tini, Loc. cit. Cf. Archiv., iii., pp. 75 and 177 ; Spec., 8a ; Conform.,
71b, 2. See also: Ubertini, Archiv., iii., pp. 75 and 177 ; Tribul.,
13a; Spec., 9a; Conform., 170a, 1. It is curious to compare the account
as it found in the documents with the version of it given in 2 Cel., 3, 8.
* Assisi MS., 338, fº 288-31a, with the rubric: De lictera et ammoni-
tione beatissimi patris nostri Francisci qurim misit fratribus ad capitulum
quando erat infirmus. This letter was wrongly divided into three by
Rodolfo di Tossignano (fº 237), who was followed by Wadding (Epis-
tola xi., xii.). The text is found without this senseless division in
the manuscript cited and in Firmamentum, fº 21; Spec., Morin, iii.,
217a; Ubertini, Arbor vit. cruc., 6., 7.
8.9
21
322
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
past, he desires to influence the Brothers, not by ro-
proaches but by fixing their eyes on the perfect holiness.
To all the revered and well-beloved Brothers Minor, to Brother
A. I minister-general, its Lord, and to che ministers-general who
shall be after him, and to all the ministers, custodians, and priests
this fraternity, humble in Christ, and to all the simple and obedient
Brothers, the oldest and the most recent, Brother Francis, a mean and
perishing man, your little servant, gives greeting !
Hear, my Lords, you who are my sons and my brothers, give ear to
Open your hearts and obey the voice of the Son of God.
Keep his commandments with all your hearts, and perfectly observe
his counsels. Praise him, for he is good, and glorify him by your
works.
God has sent you through all the world, that by your words and
example you may bear witness of him, and that you may teach all men
chat he alone is all powerful. Persevere in discipline and obedience,
and with an honest and firm will keep that which you have promised.
my words.
After this opening Francis immediately passes to the
essential matter of the letter, that of the love and respect
due to the Sacrament of the altar; faith in this mys-
tery of love appeared to him indeed as the salvation of
the Order.
Was he wrong? How can a man who truly believes
in the real presence of the God-Man between the fingers
of him who lifts up the host, not consecrate his life to
this God and to holiness? One has some difficulty in
imagining
It is true that legions of devotees profess the most ab-
solute faith in this dogma, and we do not see that they
are less bad; but faith with them belongs in the intel-
1 This initial (given only by the Assisi MS.) has not failed to ex-
cite surprise. It appears that there ought to have been simply an
N
This letter then would have been replaced by the copyist,
who would have used the initial of the minister general in charge at the
time of his writing. If this hypothesis has any weight it will aid to fix
the exact date of the manuscript. (Alberto of Pisa minister from 1239-
1240 ; Aimon of Faversham, 1240--1244.)
THE LAST YEAR
323
lectual sphere; it is the abdication of reason, and in
sacrificing their intelligence to God they are most happy
to offer to him an instrument which they very much pre-
fer not to use.
To Francis the question presented itself quite differ-
ently; the thought that there could be any merit in be-
lieving could never enter his mind; the fact of the real
presence was for him of almost concrete evidence. There-
fore his faith in this mystery was an energy of the heart,
that the life of God, mysteriously present upon the altar,
might become the soul of all his actions.
To the eucharistic transubstantiation, effected by the
words of the priest, he added another, that of his own
heart.
God offers himself to us as to his children. This is why I beg you,
all of you, my brothers, kissing your feet, and with all the love of which
I am capable, to have all possible respect for the body and blood of our
Lord Jesus Christ.
Then addressing himself particularly to the priests :
Hearken, my brothers, if the blessed Virgin Mary is justly honored
for having carried Jesus in her womb, if John the Baptist trembled be-
cause he dared not touch the Lord's head, if the sepulchre in which for
a little time he lay is regarded with such great adoration, oh, how holy,
pure, and worthy should be the priest who touches with his hands, who
receives into his mouth and into his heart, and who distributes to others
the living, glorified Jesus, the sight of whom makes angels rejoice!
Understand your dignity, brother priests, and be holy, for he is holy.
Oh! what great wretchedness and what a frightful infirmity to have him
there present before you and to think of other things. Let each man
be struck with amazement, let the whole earth tremble, let the heavens
thrill with joy when the Christ, the Son of the living God, descends
upon the altar into the hands of the priest. Oh,wonderful profundity!
Oh, amazing grace! Oh, triumph of humility! See, the Master of all
things, God, and the Son of God, humbles himself for our salvation,
even to disguising himself under the appearance of a bit of bread.
Contemplate, my brothers, this humility of God, and enlarge your
hearts before him; humble yourselves as well, that you, even you,
324
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
may be lifted up by him. Keep nothing for yourselves, that he may
receive you without reserve, wlio has given himself to you without
.
reserve.
We see with what vigor of love Francis's heart had
laid hold upon the idea of the communion.
He closes with long counsels to the Brothers, and after
having conjured them faithfully to keep their promises,
all his mysticism breathes out and is summed up in a
prayer of admirable simplicity.
God Almighty, eternal, righteous, and merciful, give to us poor
wretches to do for thiy sake all that we know of thy will, and to will
always what pleases thee; so that inwardly purified, enlightened, and
kindled by the fire of the Holy Spirit, we may follow in the footprints
of thy well-beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.
What separates this prayer from the effort to discern
duty made by choice spirits apart from all revealed
religion ? Very little in truth; the words are different,
the action is the same.
But Francis's solicitudes reached far beyond the limits
of the Order. His longest epistle is addressed to all
Christians; its words are so living that you fancy you
hear a voice speaking behind you; and this voice, usu-
ally as serene as that which from the mountain in Galilee
proclaimed the law of the new times, becomes here and
there unutterably sweet, like that which sounded in the
upper chamber on the night of the first eucharist.
As Jesus forgot the cross that was standing in the
shadows, so Francis forgets his sufferings, and, overcome
with a divine sadness, thinks of humanity, for each mem-
ber of which he would give his life; he thinks of his
spiritual sons, the Brothers of Penitence, whom he is
about to leave without having been able to make them
feel, as he would have had them feel, the love for them
with which he burns: “Father, I have given them the
THE LAST YEAR
325
words which thou hast given me.
For them I
pray!”
The whole Franciscan gospel is in these words, but to
understand the fascination which it exerted we must
have gone through the School of the Middle Ages,
and there listened to the interminable tournaments of
dialectics by which minds were dried up; we must have
seen the Church of the thirteenth century, honeycombed
by simony and luxury, and only able, under the pressure
of heresy or revolt, to make a few futile efforts to scotch
the evil.
To all Christians, monks, clerics, or laymen, whether men or women,
to all who dwell in the whole world, Brother Francis, their most sub-
missive servitor, presents his duty and wishes the true peace of heaven,
and sincere love in the Lord.
Being the servitor of all men, I am bound to serve them and to dis-
pense to them the wholesome words of my Master. This is why, seeing
I am too weak and ill to visit each one of you in particular, I have re-
solved to send you my message by this letter, and to offer you the words
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, and of the Holy Spirit,
which are spirit and life.
It would be puerile to expect here new ideas either in
fact or form. Francis's appeals are of value only by the
spirit which animates them.
After having briefly recalled the chief features of the
gospel, and urgently recommended the communion,
Francis addresses himself in particular to certain cate-
gories of hearers, with special counsels.
Let the podestàs, governors, and those who are placed in authority,
exercise their functions with mercy, as they would be judged with
mercy by God..
Monks in particular, who have renounced the world, are bound to do
more and better than simple Christians, to renounce all that is not
necessary to them, and to have in hatred the vices and sins of the body.
They should love their enemies, do good to them who hate them,
observe the precepts and counsels of our Redeemer, renounce them
326
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
.
selves, and subdue their bodies. And no monk is bound to obedience,
if in obeying he would be obliged to commit a fault or a sin.
Let us not be wise and learned according to the flesh, but simple,
humble, and pure.
We should never desire to be above others,
but rather to be below, and to obey all men.
He closes by showing the foolishness of those who set
their hearts on the possession of earthly goods, and con-
cludes by the very realistic picture of the death of the
wicked.
His money, his title, his learning, all that he believed himself to pos-
sess, all are taken from him ; his relatives and his friends to whom he
has given his fortune will come to divide it among themselves, and will
end by saying : “Curses on him, for he might have given us more and
he has not done it; he might have amassed a larger fortune, and he has
done nothing of the kind.” The worms will eat bis body and the de-
mons will consume his soul, and thus he will lose both soul and body.
I, Brother Francis, your little servitor, I beg and conjure you by the
love that is in God, ready to kiss your feet, to receive with humility and
love these and all other words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to conform
your conduct to them. And let those who devoutly receive them and
understand them pass them on to others. And if they thus persevere
unto the end, may they be blessed by the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit. Amen.'
If Francis ever made a Rule for the Third Order it
must have very nearly resembled this epistle, and until
this problematical document is found, the letter shows
what were originally these associations of Brothers of
Penitence. Everything in these long pages looks toward
the development of the mystic religious life in the heart
of each Christian. But even when Francis dictated
them, this high view had become a Utopia, and the Third
Order was only one battalion more in the armies of the
рарасу.
We see that the epistles which we have just examined
? This epistle also was unskilfully divided into two distinct letters by
Rodolfo di Tossignano, fo 174a, who was followed by Wadding. See
Assisi MS., 338, 239-28a ; Conform., 137a, 1 ff.
THE LAST YEAR
327
proceed definitely from a single inspiration. Whether
he is leaving instructions for his successors, the minis-
ters-general, whether he is writing to all the present and
future members of his Order, to all Christians or even to
the clergy, Francis has only one aim, to keep on preach-
ing after his death, and perhaps, too, by putting into
writing his message of peace and love, to provide that he
shall not be entirely travestied or misunderstood.
Considered in connection with those sorrowful hours
which saw their birth, they form a whole whose import
and meaning become singularly energetic. If we would
find the Franciscan spirit, it is here, in the Rule of 1221,
and in the Will that we must seek for it.
Neglect, and especially the storms which later over-
whelmed the Order, explain the disappearance of several
other documents which would cast a glimmer of poetry
and joy over these sad days ;? Francis had not forgotten
his sister-friend at St. Damian. Hearing that she had
been greatly disquieted by knowing him to be so ill, he
desired to reassure her: he still deceived himself as to
his condition, and wrote to her promising soon to go to
see her.
To this assurance he added some affectionate counsels,
advising her and her companions not to go to extremes
with their macerations. To set her an example of cheer-
í
1 The letter to the clergy only repeats the thoughts already expressed
upon the worship of the holy sacrament. We remember Francis sweep-
ing out the churches and imploring the priests to keep them clean ;
this epistle has the same object: it is found in the Assisi MS., 338, fº
31b-32b, with the rubric : De reverentia Corporis Domini et de mun-
ditia altaris ad omnes clericos. Incipit ; Attendamus omnes. Explicit:
fecerint exemplari. This, therefore, is the letter given by Wadding
xiii., but without addresy or salutation.
? We need not despair of finding them. The archives of the monas-
teries of Clarisses are usually rudimentary enough, but they are preserved
with pious care.
328
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
1
fulness he added to this letter a Laude in the vulgar
tongue which he had himself set to music.
In that chamber of the episcopal palace in which he
was as it were imprisoned he had achieved a new vic-
tory, and it was doubtless that which inspired his joy.
The Bishop of Assisi, the irritable Guido, always at war
with somebody, was at this time quarrelling with the
podestà of the city; nothing more was needed to excite
in the little town a profound disquiet. Guido had ex-
communicated the podestà, and the latter had issued a
prohibition against selling and buying or making any con-
tract with ecclesiastics.
The difference grew more bitter, and no one appeared
to dream of attempting a reconciliation. We can the
better understand Francis's grief over all this by remem-
bering that his very first effort had been to bring peace
into his native city, and that he considered the return of
Italy to union and concord to be the essential aim of his
apostolate.
War in Assisi would be the final dissolution of his
dream; the voice of events crying brutally to him,
“Thou hast wasted thy life!”
The dregs of this cup were spared him, thanks to an
inspiration in which breaks forth anew his natural play
of imagination. To the Canticle of the Sun he added a
new strophe :
Be praised, Lord, for those who forgive for love of thee,
and bear trials and tribulations ;
happy they who persevere in peace,
by thee, Most high, shall they be crowned.
Then, calling a friar, he charged him to beg the gov-
ernor to betake himself, with all the notables whom he
could assemble, to the paved square before the bishop's
Spec., 117b; Conform., 185a 1 ; 135b, 1. Cf. Test. B. Clare, A. SS.,
Aug., ii., p. 747.
1
THE LAST YEAR
329
palace. The magistrate, to whom legend gives the nobler
part in the whole affair, at once yielded to the saint's re-
quest.
When he arrived and the bishop had come forth from the palace, two
friars came forward and said : “ Brother Francis has made to the praise
of God a hymn to which he prays you to listen piously,” and imme-
diately they began to sing the Hymn of Brother Sun, with its new
strophe.
The governor listened, standing in an attitude of profound attention,
copiously weeping, for he dearly loved the blessed Francis.
When the singing was ended, “Know in truth," said he, “that I de.
sire to forgive the lord bishop, that I wish and ought to look upon him
as my lord, for if one had even assassinated my brother I should be
ready to pardon the murderer. With these words he threw himself at
the bishop's feet, and said: “I am ready to do whatsoever you would,
for the love of our Lord Jesus Christ and his servant Francis."
Then the bishop, taking him by the hand, lifted him up and said,
"With my position it would become me to be humble, but since I am
naturally too quick to wrath, thou must pardon me.”
This unexpected reconciliation was immediately looked
upon as miraculous, and increased still more the reverence
of the Assisans for their fellow-citizen.
The summer was drawing to a close. After a few days
of relative improvement Francis's sufferings became
greater than ever: incapable of movement, he even
thought that he ought to give up his ardent desire to see
St. Damian and Portiuncula once more, and gave the
brothers all his directions about the latter sanctuary :
“Never abandon it,” he would repeat to them, “for that
place is truly sacred : it is the house of God.” 2
1 This story is given in the Spec., 128b, as from eye-witnesses. Cf.
Conform., 184b, 1 ; 203a, 1.
? 1 Cel., 106. These recommendations as to Portiuncula were ampli-
fied by the Zelanti, when, under the generalship of Crescentius (Bull Is
qui ecclesiam, March 6, 1245), the Basilica of Assisi was substituted for
Santa Maria degli Angeli as mater et caput of the Order. Vide Spec.,
32b, 69b-71a ; Conform., 144a, 2 ; 218a, 1; 3 Soc., 56 ; 2 Cel., 1, 12 and
13; Bon., 24, 25; see the Appendix, the Study of the Indulgence of
August 2.
330
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
It seemed to him that if the Brothers remained attached
to that bit of earth, that chapel ten feet long, those
thatched huts, they would there find the living reminder
of the poverty of the early days, and could never wander
far from it.
One evening he grew worse with frightful rapidity; all
the following night he had hemorrhages which left not
the slightest hope; the Brothers hastening to him, he
dictated a few lines in form of a Will and gave them his
blessing : “Adieu, my children; remain all of you in the
fear of God, abide always united to Christ; great trials
are in store for you, and tribulation draws nigh. Happy
are they who persevere as they have begun; for there
will be scandals and divisions among you. As for me,
I am going to the Lord and my God. Yes, I have the
assurance that I am going to him whom I have served." 1
During the following days, to the great surprise of
those who were about him, he again grew somewhat
better; no one could understand the resistance to death
offered by this body so long worn out by suffering.
He himself began to hope again. A physician of
Arezzo whom he knew well, having come to visit him,
“Good friend,” Francis asked him, “how much longer do
you think I have to live ? "
“Father,” replied the other reassuringly, “this will
all pass away, if it pleases God.”
"I am not a cuckoo,"? replied Francis smiling, using
a popular saying, “to be afraid of death. By the grace
of the Holy Spirit I am so intimately united to God that
I am equally content to live or to die."
“In that case, father, from the medical point of view,
12 Cel., 108. As will be seen (below, p. 367) the remainder of Cela-
no's narrative seems to require to be taken with some reserve. Cf.
Spec., 115b ; Conform., 225a, 2 ; Bon., 211.
? Non sum cuculus, in Italian cuculo.
THE LAST YEAR
331
your disease is incurable, and I do not think that you
can last longer than the beginning of autumn.”
At these words the poor invalid stretched out his
hands as if to call on God, crying with an indescribable
expression of joy, "Welcome, Sister Death !” Then he
began to sing, and sent for Brothers Angelo and Leo.
On their arrival they were made, in spite of their emo-
tion, to sing the Canticle of the Sun. They were at the
last doxology when Francis, checking them, improvised
the greeting to death :
Be praised, Lord, for our Sister the Death of the body,
whom no man may escape ;
alas for them who die in a state of mortal sin ;
happy they who are found conformed to thy most holy will,
for the second death will do to them no harm.
From this day the palace rang unceasingly with his
songs. Continually, even through the night, he would
sing the Canticle of the Sun or some other of his favorite
compositions. Then, when wearied out, he would beg
Angelo and Leo to go on.
One day Brother Elias thought it his duty to make a
few remarks on the subject. He feared that the nurses
and the people of the neighborhood would be scandalized;
ought not a saint to be absorbed in meditation in the face
of death, to await it with fear and trembling instead of in-
dulging in a gayety that might be misinterpreted ? 1 Per-
haps Bishop Guido was not entirely a stranger to these
reproaches; it seems not improbable that to have his
palace crowded with Brothers Minor all these long weeks
had finally put him a little out of humor. But Francis
would not yield; his union with God was too sweet for
him to consent not to sing it.
Spec., 136b; Fior. iv. consid. It is to be noted that Guido, instead
of waiting at Assisi for the certainly impending death of Frar 1, wenn
away to Mont Gargano. 2 Cel., 3, 142.
332
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
They decided at last to remove him to Portiuncula.
His desire was to be fulfilled; he was to die beside the
humble chapel where he had heard God's voice conse-
crating him apostle.
His companions, bearing their precious burden, took
the way through the olive-yards across the plain. From
time to time the invalid, unable to distinguish anything,
asked where they were. When they were half way there,
at the hospital of the Crucigeri, where long ago he had
tended the leper, and from whence there was a full view
of all the houses of the city, he begged them to set him
upon the ground with his face toward Assisi, and raising
his hand he bade adieu to his native place and blessed it.
CHAPTER XX
FRANCIS'S WILL AND DEATH
End of September-October 3, 1226
The last days of Francis's life are of radiant beauty.
He went to meet death, singing," says Thomas of Celano,
summing up the impression of those who saw him then.
To be once more at Portiuncula after so long a deten-
tion at the bishop's palace was not only a real joy to his
heart, but the pure air of the forest must have been much
to his physical well-being; does not the Canticle of the
Creatures seem to have been made expressly to be sung
in the evening of one of those autumn days of Umbria,
so soft and luminous, when all nature seems to retire
into herself to sing her own hymn of love to Brother
Sun ?
We
e see that Francis has come to that almost entire
cessation of pain, that renewing of life, which so often
precedes the approach of the last catastrophe.
He took advantage of it to dictate his Will.2
1 Mortem cantando suscepit. 2 Cel., 3, 139.
2 The text here taken as a basis is that of the Assisi MS., 338 (f° 168
18a). It is also to be found in Firmamentum, fº 19, col. 4; Speculum,
Morin, tract. iii., 8a; Wadding, ann. 1226, 35; A. SS., p. 663; Amoni,
Legenda Trium Sociorum ; Appendix, p. 110. Everything in this doc-
ument proclaims its authenticity, but we are not reduced to internal
proof. It is expressly cited in 1 Cel., 17 (before 1230); by the Three
Companions (1246), 3 Soc., 11 ; 26 ; 29; hy 2 Cel., 3, 99 (1247). These
proofs would be more than sufficient, but there is another of even greater
334
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
It is to these pages that we must go to find the true
note for a sketch of the life of its author, and an idea of
the Order as it was in his dreams.
In this record, which is of an incontestable authen-
ticity, the most solemn manifestation of his thought, the
Poverello reveals himself absolutely, with a virginal can
dor.
His humility is here of a sincerity which strikes one
with awe; it is absolute, though no one could dream that
it was exaggerated. And yet, wherever his mission is
concerned, he speaks with tranquil and serene assurance.
Is he not an ambassador of God ? Does he not hold his
message from Christ himself ?
The genesis of his
thought here shows itself to be at once wholly divine
and entirely personal. The individual conscience here
proclaims its sovereign authority. “No one showed me
what I ought to do, but the Most High himself revealed
to me that I ought to live conformably to his holy gos-
pel."
When a man has once spoken thús, submission to the
Church has been singularly encroached upon. We may
love her, hearken to her, venerate her, but we feel our-
selves, perhaps without daring to avow it, superior to
her. Let a critical hour come, and one finds himself
heretic without knowing it or wishing it.
“Ah, yes," cries Angelo Clareno, “St. Francis prom-
ised to obey the pope and his successors, but they can-
not and must not command anything contrary to the
conscience or to the Rule.” 1
For him, as for all the spiritual Franciscans, when there
value: the bull Quo elongati of September 28, 1230, where Gregory IX.
cites it textually and declares that the friars are not bound to observe it.
i Promittet Franciscus obedientiam
papce
et succes-
80ribus
qui non possunt nec debent cis præcipere aliquid quod
sit contra animam et regulam. Archiv., i, p. 563.
FRANCIS'S WILL AND DEATH
335
3
is conflict between what the inward voice of God ordains
and what the Church wills, he has only to obey the
former. 1
If
you
tell him that the Church and the Order are there
to define the true signification of the Rule, he appeals fo
common sense, and to that interior certitude which is
given by a clear view of truth.
The Rule, as also the gospel, of which it is a summary,
is above all ecclesiastical power, and no one has the right
to say the last word in their interpretation.?
The Will was not slow to gain a moral authority
superior even to that of the Rule. Giovanni of Parma,
to explain the predilection of the Joachimites for this
document, points out that after the impression of the
stigmata the Holy Spirit was in Francis with still greater
plenitude than before.
Did the innumerable sects which disturbed the Church
in the thirteenth century perceive that these two writ-
ings—the Rule and the Testament—the one apparently
made to follow and support the other, substantially iden-
tical as it was said, proceeded from two opposite inspira-
tions? Very confusedly, no doubt, but guided by a very
sure instinct, they saw in these pages the banner of lib-
erty.
They were not mistaken. Even to-day, thinkers, mor-
alists, mystics may arrive at solutions very different from
those of the Umbrian prophet, but the method which
they employ is his, and they may not refuse to acknowl-
edge in him the precursor of religious subjectivism.
Quod si quando a quocumque pontifice aliquid
daretur quod esset contra fidem et caritatem et fructus ejus tunc
obediet Deo magis quam hominibus. Ib., p. 561.
? Est (Regula] et stat et intelligitur super eos
Cum spei fidu.
cia pace fruemur cum conscientia et Christi spiritus testimonio certo. Ib.,
pp. 563 and 565.
3 Archiv., ii., p. 274.
1
man -
.
336
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
The Church, too, was not mistaken. She immediately
understood the spirit that animated these pages.
Four years later, perhaps to the very day, September
28, 1230, Ugolini, then Gregory IX., solemnly interpreted
the Rule, in spite of the precautions of Francis, who had
forbidden all gloss or commentary on the Rule or the
Will, and declared that the Brothers were not bound to
the observation of the Will.1
What shall we say of the bull in which the pope alleges
his familiar relations with the Saint to justify his com-
mentary, and in which the clearest passages are so dis-
torted as to change their sense completely. “One is
stupefied,” cries Ubertini of Casali, “that a text so clear
should have need of a commentary, for it suffices to have
common sense and to know grammar in order to under-
stand it.” And this strange monk dares to add: “There
is one miracle which God himself cannot do; it is to
make two contradictory things true.” 2
Certainly the Church should be mistress in her own
house; it would have been nothing wrong had Gregory
IX. created an Order conformed to his views and ideas, but
when we go through Sbaralea's folios and the thousands
of bulls accorded to the spiritual sons of him who in the
clearest and most solemn manner had forbidden them to
ask any privilege of the court of Rome, we cannot but
feel a bitter sadness.
Thus upheld by the papacy, the Brothers of the Com-
mon Observance made the Zelanti sharply expiate their
attachment to Francis's last requests. Cæsar of Speyer
| Ad mandatum illud vos dicimus non teneri: quod sine consensu Fra-
trum maxime ministrorum, quos universos tangebat obligare nequivit nec
successorem suum quomodolibet obligavit ; cum non habeat imperium par
in parem. The sophism is barely specious; Francis was not on a par
with his successors; he did not act as minister-general, but as founder
? Arbor vit. cruc., lib. v., cap. 3 and 5. See above, p. 185.
FRANCIS'S WILL AND DEATH
337
died of violence from the Brother placed in charge of
him ;' the first disciple, Bernardo di Quintavalle, hunted
like a wild beast, passed two years in the forests of Monte-
Sefro, hidden by a wood-cutter;2 the other first compan-
ions who did not succeed in flight had to undergo the
severest usage. In the March of Ancona, the home of
the Spirituals, the vict, rious party used a terrible vio-
lence. The Will was confiscated and destroyed; they
went so far as to burn it over the head of a friar who
persisted in desiring to observe it.3
WILL (LITERAL TRANSLATION).
See in what manner God gave it to me, to me, Brother Francis, to
begin to do penitence; when I lived in sin, it was very painful to me
to see lepers, but God himself led me into their midst, and I remained
here a little while. When I left them, that which had seemed to me
sitter had become sweet and easy.
A little while after I quitted the world, and God gave me such a faith
in his churches that I would kneel down with simplicity and I would
say : “We adore thee, Lord Jesus Christ, here and in all thy churches
shich are in the world, and we bless thee that by thy holy cross thou
hast ransomed the world."
Besides, the Lord gave me and still gives me so great a faith in priests
who live according to the form of the holy Roman Church, because of
their sacerdotal character, that even if they persecuted me I would have
'ecourse to them. And even though I had all the wisdom of Solomon,
f I should find poor secular priests, I would not preach in their parishes
without their consent. I desire to respect them like all the others, to
love them and honor them as my lords. I will not consider their sins,
| Tribul., Laur., 25b ; Archiv., i., p. 532.
? At the summit of the Apennines, about half way between Camerino
and Nocera (Umbria). Tribul., Laur., 26b; Magl., 135b.
3 Declaratio Ubertini, Archiv., iii., p. 168. This fact is not to be
questioned, since it is alleged in a piece addressed to the pope, in re-
ponse to the liberal friars, to whom it was to be communicated.
* Feci moram cum illis., MS., 338. Most of the printed texts give mis.
eracordiam, which gives a less satisfactory meaning. Cf. Miscellanea
iii. (1888), p. 70; 1 Cel., 17; 3 Soo., 11.
22
338
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
for in them I see the Son of God and they are my lords. I do this be-
cause here below I see nothing, I perceive nothing corporally of the
most high Son of God, if not his most holy Body and Blood, which they
receive and they alone distribute to others. I desire above all things to
honor and venerate all these most holy mysteries and to keep them pre-
cious. Whenever I find the sacred names of Jesus or his words in inde-
cent places, I desire to take them away, and I pray that others take them
away and put them in some decent place. We ought to honor and re-
vere all the theologians and those who preach the most holy word of
God, as dispensing to us spirit and life.
When the Lord gave me some brothers no one showed me what I ought
to do, but the Most High himself revealed to me that I ought to live
according to the model of the holy gospel. I caused a short and simple
formula to be written, and the lord pope confirmed it for me.
Those who presented themselves to observe this kind of life distrib-
uted all that they might have to the poor. They contented themselves
with a tunic, patched within and without, with the cord and breeches,
and we desired to have nothing more.
The clerks said the office like other clerks, and the laymen Pater
noster.
We loved to live in poor and abandoned churches, and we were
ignorant and submissive to all. I worked with my hands and would
continue to do, and I will also that all other friars work at some honor-
able trade. Let those who have none learn one, not for the purpose of
receiving the price of their toil, but for their good example and to flee
idleness. And when they do not give us the price of the work, let us
resort to the table of the Lord, begging our bread from door to door.
The Lord revealed to me the salutation which we ought to give: “God
give you peace !"
Let the Brothers take great care not to receive churches, habitations,
and all that men build for them, except as all is in accordance with the
holy poverty which we have vowed in the Rule, and let them not re-
ceive hospitality in them except as strangers and pilgrims.
I absolutely interdict all the brothers, in whatever place they may be
found, from asking any bull from the court of Rome, whether directly
or indirectly, under pretext of church or convent or under pretext of
preachings, nor even for their personal protection. If they are not re-
ceived anywhere let them go elsewhere, thus doing penance with the
benediction of God.
I desire to obey the minister-general of this fraternity, and the guar-
dian whom he may please to give me. I desire to put myself entirely
into his hands, to go nowhere and do nothing against his will, for he is
my lord.
FRANCIS'S WILL AND DEATH
339
Though I be simple and ill, I would, however, have always a clerk who
will perform the office, as it is said in the Rule; let all the other brothers
also be careful to obey their guardians and to do the office according
to the Rule. If it come to pass that there are any who do not the
office according to the Rule, and who desire to make any other change,
or if they are not Catholics, let all the Brothers, wherever they may be,
be bound by obedience to present them to the nearest custode. Let the
custodes be bound by obedience to keep him well guarded like a man
who is in bonds night and day, so that he may not escape from their
hands until they personally place him in the minister's hands. And let
the minister be bound by obedience to send him by brothers who will
guard him as a prisoner day and night until they shall have placed him
in the hands of the Lord Bishop of Ostia, who is the lord, the protector,
and the correcter of all the Fraternity.'
And let the Brothers not say : " This is a new Rule ;” for this is a re-
minder, a warning, an exhortation ; it is my Will, that I, little Brother
Francis, make for you, my blessed Brothers, in order that we may ob-
serve in a more catholic way the Rule which we promised the Lord to
keep.
Let the ministers-general, all the other ministers and the custodes
be held by obedience to add nothing to and take nothing from these
words. Let them always keep this writing near them, beside the Rule;
and in all the chapters which shall be held, when the Rule is read let
these words be read also.
I interdict absolutely, by obedience, all the Brothers, clerics and
layman, to introduce glosses in the Rule, or in this Will, under pretext
of explaining it. But since the Lord has given me to speak and to write
the Rule and these words in a clear and simple manner, without com-
mentary, understand them in the same way, and put them in practice
until the end.
And may whoever shall have observed these things be crowned in
heaven with the blessings of the heavenly Father, and on earth with
those of his well-beloved Son and of the Holy Spirit the consoler, with
the assistance of all the heavenly virtues and all the saints.
And I, little Brother Francis, your servitor, confirm to you so far as
I am able this most holy benediction. Amen.
After thinking of his Brothers Francis thought of his
dear Sisters at St. Damian and made a will for them.
It has not come down to us, and we need not wonder;
1 It is evident that heresy is not here in question. The Brothers who
were infected with it were to be delivered to the Church.
340
LIFE OF ST. FRANOIS
the Spiritual Brothers might flee away, and protest from
the depths of their retreats, but the Sisters were com-
pletely unarmed against the machinations of the Com-
mon Observance.1
In the last words that he addressed to the Clarisses,
after calling upon them to persevere in poverty and union,
he gave them his benediction. Then he recommended
them to the Brothers, supplicating the latter never to for-
get that they were members of one and the same relig-
ious family. After having done all that he could for
those whom he was about to leave, he thought for a mo-
ment of himself.
He had become acquainted in Rome with a pious lady
named Giacomina di Settisoli. Though rich, she was
simple and good, entirely devoted to the new ideas; even
the somewhat singular characteristics of Francis pleased
her. He had given her a lamb which had become her
inseparable companion.
Unfortunately all that concerns her has suffered much
from later retouchings of the legend. The perfectly
natural conduct of the Saint with women has much em-
barrassed his biographers; hence heavy and distorted
commentaries tacked on to episodes of a delicious sim-
plicity
Before dying Francis desired to see again this friend,
1
1 Urban IV. published, October 18, 1263, Potthast (18680), a Rule for
the Clarisses which completely changed the character of this Order.
Its author was the cardinal protector Giovanni degli Ursini (the future
Nicholas III.), who by way of precaution forbade the Brothers Minor
under the severest penalties to dissuade the Sisters from accepting it.
" It differs as much from the first Rule,” said Ubertini di Casali" as
black and white, the savory and the insipid.” Arbor. vit. cruc. lib. v.,
cap. vi.
? V. Test. B. Claræ ; Conform., 185a 1 ; Spec., 117b.
5 2 Cel., 3, 132.
Bon., 112.
FRANCIS'S WILL AND DEATH
341
whom he smilingly called Brother Giacomina. He caused
a letter to be written her to come to Portiuncula ; we
can imagine the dismay of the narrators at this far from
monastic invitation.
But the good lady had anticipated his appeal : at the
moment when the messenger with the letter was about to
leave for Rome, she arrived at Portiuncula and remained
there until the last sigh of the Saint. For one moment
she thought of sending away her suite ; the invalid was
so calm and joyful that she could not believe him dying,
but he himself advised her to keep her people with her.
This time he felt with no possible doubt that his captivity
was about to be ended.
He was ready, he had finished his work.
Did he think then of the day when, cursed by his
father, he had renounced all earthly goods and cried to
God with an ineffable confidence, “Our Father who art
in heaven!” We cannot say ; but he desired to finish
his life by a symbolic act which very closely recalls the
scene in the bishop's palace.
He caused himself to be stripped of his clothing and
laid upon the ground, for he wished to die in the arms
of his Lady Poverty. With one glance he embraced the
twenty years that had glided by since their union: “I
1 The Bollandists deny this whole story, which they find in opposi.
tion to the prescriptions of Francis himself. A. SS., p. 664 ff. But it
is difficult to see for what object authors who take great pains to explain
it could have had for inventing it. Spec., 133a; Fior. iv.; consid.;
Conform., 240a. I have borrowed the whole account from Bernard of
Besse : De Laudibus, fº 113b. It appears that Giacomina settled for the
rest of her life at Assisi, that she might gain edification from the first
companions of Francis. Spec., 107b. (What a lovely scene, and with
what a Franciscan fragrance !) The exact date of her death is not
kuown. She was buried in the lower church of the basilica of Assisi,
and on her tomb was engraved : Hic jacit Jacoba sancta nobilisque ro-
mana. Vide Fratini : Storia della basilica, p. 48. Cf. Jacobilli: Vite
dei Santi e Beati dell' Umbria, Foligno, 3 vols., 4to, 1647 ; i., P.
214.
342
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
> 1
have done my duty," he said to the Brothers, "may the
Christ now teach you yours !”
This was Thursday, October 1.2
They laid him back upon his bed, and, conforming to
his wishes, they again sang to him the Canticle of the
Sun.
At times he added his voice to those of his Brothers,
and came back with preference to Psalm 142, Voce mea
ad Dominum clamavi.4
3
With my voice I cry unto the Lord,
With my voice I implore the Lord,
I pour out my complaint before him,
I tell him all my distress.
When my spirit is cast down within me,
Thou knowest my path.
Upon the way where I walk
They have laid a snare for me,
Cast thine eyes to the right and look!
No one recognizes me ;
All refuge is lost for me,
No one takes thought for my soul.
Lord, unto thee I cry ;
I say : Thou art my refuge,
My portion in the land of the living.
Be attentive to my cries !
For I am very unhappy.
Deliver me from those who pursue me !
For they are stronger than I.
Bring my soul out of its prison
That I may praise thy name.
The righteous shall compass me about
When thou hast done good unto me!
The visits of death are always solemn, but the end of
the just is the most moving sursum corda that we can
1 2 Cel., 3, 139 ; Bon., 209, 210; Conform., 171b, 2.
2 2 Cel., 3, 139 : Cum me videritis
sicut me nudius tertius
nudum vidistis.
3 1 Cel., 109; 2 Cel., 3, 139.
1 Cel., 109 ; Bon., 212.
FRANCIS'S WILL AND DEATH
343
” 1
hear on earth. The hours flowed by and the Brothers
would not leave him. Alas, good Father," said one of
them to him, unable longer to contain himself, “ your
children are going to lose you, and be deprived of the
true light which lightened them : think of the orphans
you are leaving and forgive all their faults, give to them
all, present and absent, the joy of your holy bene-
diction.'
“See,” replied the dying man, “God is calling me. I
forgive all my Brothers, present and absent, their offences
and faults, and absolve them according to my power.
Tell them so, and bless them all in my name.
Then crossing his arms he laid his hands upon those
who surrounded him. He did this with peculiar emo-
tion to Bernard of Quintavalle: “I desire,” he said,
“and with all my power I urge whomsoever shall be min-
ister-general of the Order, to love and honor him as my-
self; let the provincials and all the Brothers act toward
him as toward me.?
He thought not only of the absent Brothers but of the
future ones; love so abounded in him that it wrung
from
him a groan of regret for not seeing all those who should
enter the Order down to the end of time, that he might
lay his hand upon their brows, and make them feel those
things that may only be spoken by the eyes of him who
loves in God.3
He had lost the notion of time; believing that it was
still Thursday he desired to take a last meal with his
disciples. Some bread was brought, he broke it and gave
it to them, and there in the poor cabin of Portiuncula,
11 Cel., 109. Cf. Epist. Elice.
2 Tribul. Laur., 22b. Nothing better shows the historic value of the
chronicle of the Tribulations than to compare its story of these moments
with that of the following documents : Conform., 48b, 1; 185a, 2 :
Fior., 6.; Spec., 86a.
3 2 Cel., 3. 139; Spec., 116b ; Conform., 224b, 1.
29
344
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
without altar and without a priest, was celebrated the
Lord's Supper.
A Brother read the Gospel for Holy Thursday, Ante
diem festum Pascha : "Before the feast of the Passover,
Jesus knowing that his hour was come to go from this
world to the Father, having loved his own who were in
the world he loved them unto the end."
The sun was gilding the crests of the mountains with
his last rays, there was silence around the dying one.
All was ready. The angel of death might come.
Saturday, October 3, 1226, at nightfall, without pain,
without struggle, he breathed the last sigh.
The Brothers were still gazing on his face, hoping yet
to catch some sign of life, when innumerable larks
alighted, singing, on the thatch of his cell, as if to salute
the soul which had just taken flight and give the Little
Poor Man the canonization of which he was most worthy,
the only one, doubtless, which he would ever have cov-
eted.
On the morrow, at dawn, the Assisans came down to
take possession of his body and give it a triumphant fu-
neral.
By a pious inspiration, instead of going straight to the
city they went around by St. Damian, and thus was rea-
lized the promise made by Francis to the Sisters a few
weeks before, to come once more to see them.
1
2 Cel., 3, 139. A simple comparison between this story in the Spec-
ulum (116b) and that in the Conformities (224b, 1) is enough to show
how in certain of its parts the Speculum represents a state of the legend
anterior to 1385.
? Bon., 214. This cell has been transformed into a chapel and may
be found a few yards from the little church of Portiuncula. Church
and chapel are now sheltered under the great Basilica of Santa Maria
degli Angeli. See the picture and plan, A. SS., p. 814, or better still in
P. Barnabas aus dem Elsass, Portiuncula oder Geschichte U. L. F.«
der. Engeln. Rixheim, 1884, 1 vol., 850, pp. 311 and 312.
FRANCIS'S WILL AND DEATH
345
Their grief was heart-rending.
These women's hearts revolted against the absurdity
of death ;1 but there were tears on that day at St. Da-
mian only. The Brothers forgot their sadness on seeing
the stigmata, and the inhabitants of Assisi manifested an
indescribable joy on having their relic at last. They de-
posited it in the Church St. George.?
Less than two years after, Sunday, July 26, 1228,
Gregory IX. came to Assisi to preside in person over the
ceremonies of canonization, and to lay, on the morrow,
the first stone of the new church dedicated to the Stig-
matized.
Built under the inspiration of Gregory IX. and the
direction of Brother Elias, this marvellous basilica is also
one of the documents of this history, and perhaps I have
been wrong in neglecting it.
Go and look upon it, proud, rich, powerful, then go
down to Portiuncula, pass over to St. Damian, hasten to
the Carceri, and you will understand the abyss that sep-
arates the ideal of Francis from that of the pontiff who
canonized him.
11 Cel., 116 and 117; Bon., 219 ; Conform. 185a, 1.
To-day in the clôture of the convent St. Clara. Vide Miscellanea 1,
pp. 44–48, a very interesting study by Prof. Carattoli upon the coffin of
St. Francis.
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
SUMMARY
I. ST. FRANCIS'S WORKS.
II. BIOGRAPHIES PROPERLY SO CALLED.
1. Preliminary Note.
2. First Life by Thomas of Celano.
3. Review of the History of the Order 1230-1244
4. Legend of the Three Companions.
5. Fragments of the Suppressed Portion of the Legend.
6. Second Life by Thomas of Celano. First Part.
7. Second Life by Thomas of Celano. Second Part.
8. Documents of Secondary Importance :
Biography for Use of the Choir.
Life in Verse.
Biography by Giovanni di Ceperano.
Life by Brother Julian.
9. Legend of St. Bonaventura.
10. De Laudibus of Bernard of Besse.
II. DIPLOMATIC DOCUMENTS.
1. Donation of the Verna.
2. Registers of Cardinal Ugolini.
3. Bulls.
348
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
IV. CHRONICLERS OF THE ORDER.
1. Chronicle of Brother Giordano di Giano.
2. Eccleston : Arrival of the Friars in England.
3. Chronicle of Fra Salimbeni.
4. Chronicle of the Tribulations.
5. The Fioretti and their Appendices.
6. Chronicle of the XXIV. Generals.
7. The Conformities of Bartolommeo di Pisah.
8. Glassberger's Chronicle.
9. Chronicle of Mark of Lisbon.
V. CHRONICLERS NOT OF THE ORDA..
1, Jacques de Vitry.
2. Thomas of Spalato.
3. Divers Chroniclers.
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
THERE are few lives in history so abundantly provided
with documents as that of St. Francis. This will perhaps
surprise the reader, but to convince himself he has only
to run over the preceding list, which, however, has been
made as succinct as possible.
It is admitted in learned circles that the essential ele-
ments of this biography have disappeared or have been
entirely altered. The exaggeration of certain religious
writers, who accept everything, and among several ac-
counts of the same fact always choose the longest and
most marvellous, has led to a like exaggeration in the
contrary sense.
If it were necessary to point out the results of these
two excesses as they affect each event, this volume would
need to be twice and even four times as large as it is.
Those who are interested in these questions will find in
the notes brief indications of the original documents on
which each narrative is based.1
To close the subject of the errors which are current in
the Franciscan documents, and to show in a few lines
their extreme importance, I shall take two examples.
Among our own contemporaries no one has so well
spoken on the subject of St. Francis as M. Renan; he
comes back to him with affecting piety, and he was in a
1 If any student finds himself embarrassed by the extreme rarity of
certain works cited, I shall make it my duty and pleasure to send them
to him, as well as a copy of the Italian manuscripts.
350
LIFE OF ST. FRANOIS
better condition than any one to know the sources of this
history. And yet he does not hesitate to say in his study
of the Canticle of the Sun, Francis's best known work :
“The authenticity of this piece appears certain, but we
must observe that we have not the Italian original. The
Italian text which we possess is a translation of a Port-
uguese version, which was itself translated from the
Spanish.” 1
And yet the primitive Italian exists? not only in
numerous manuscripts in Italy and France, particularly
in the Mazarine Library, but also in the well-known
book of the Conformities.
An error, grave from quite another point of view, is
made by the same author when he denies the authenticity
of St. Francis's Will; this piece is not only the noblest
expression of its author's religious feeling, it constitutes
also a sort of autobiography, and contains the solemn
and scarcely disguised revocation of all the concessions
which had been wrung from him. We have already
seen that its authenticity is not to be challenged. This
double example will, I hope, suffice to show the necessity
of beginning this study by a conscientious examination
of the sources.
If the eminent historian to whom I have alluded were
1 E. Renan : Nouvelles études d'histoire religieuse, Paris, 1884, 8vo, p.
331.
? See above, pp. 304 ff.
3 Mazarine Library, MS. 8531 : Speculum perfectionis S. Francisci ;
the Canticle is found at fo. 51. Cf. MS., 1350 (date of 1459). That text
was published by Boehmer in the Romanische Studien, Halle, 1871, pp.
118–122. Der Sonnengesang v. Fr. d'A.
Conform. (Milan, 1510), 202b, 28. For that matter it is correct that
Diola, in the Croniche degli ordini instituti da S. Francisco (Venice, 1606,
3 vols. 4to), translated after the Castilian version of the work composed
in Portuguese by Mark of Lisbon, was foolish enough to render into
Italian this translation of a translation.
* See pages 333 ff.
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
351
still living, he would have for this page his large and
benevolent smile, that simple, Oui, oui, which once made
his pupils in the little hall of the Collège de France to
tremble with emotion.
I do not know what he would think of this book, but I
well know that he would love the spirit in which it was
undertaken, and would easily pardon me for having
chosen him for scape-goat of my wrath against the
learned men and biographers.
The documents to be examined have been divided into
five categories.
The first includes St. Francis's works.
The second, biographies properly so called.
The third, diplomatic documents.
The fourth, chronicles of the Order.
The fifth, chronicles of authors not of the Order.
I
ST. FRANCIS'S WORKS
The writings of St. Francis ? are assuredly the best
source of acquaintance with him ; we can only be sur-
prised to find them so neglected by most of his biog-
raphers. It is true that they give little information as
to his life, and furnish neither dates nor facts, but they
1 Collected first by Wadding (Antwerp, 1623, 4to), they have been
published many times since then, particularly by De la Haye (Paris,
1641, fº). These two editions having become scarce, were repub-
lished in a very unsatisfactory manner-by the Abbé Horoy : S. Fran-
cisci Assisiutis opera omnia (Paris, 1880, 4to). For want of a more
exact edition, that of Father Bernardo da Fivizzano is the most useful :
Opuscoli di S. Francesco d'Assisi, 1 vol., 12mo, pp. 564, Florence, 1880.
The Latin text is accompanied by an Italian translation.
2“ Die Briefe, die unter seinem Namen gehen, mögen theilweise ächt
sein. Aber sie tragen kaum etwas zur näheren Kenntniss bei und können
352
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
do better, they mark the stages of his thought and of his
spiritual development. The legends give us Francis as
he appeared, and by that very fact suffer in some degree
the compulsion of circumstances; they are obliged to
bend to the exigencies of his position as general of an
Order approved by the Church, as miracle-worker, and as
saint. His works, on the contrary, show us his very
soul ; each phrase has not only been thought, but lived ;
they bring us the Poverello's emotions, still alive and
palpitating.
So, when in the writings of the Franciscans we find any
utterance of their master, it unconsciously betrays itself,
sounding out suddenly in a sweet, pure tone which pen-
etrates to your very heart, awakening with a thrill a
sprite that was sleeping there.
This bloom of love enduing St. Francis's words would
be an admirable criterion of the authenticity of those opus-
cules which tradition attributes to him ; but the work of
testing is neither long nor difficult. If after his time inju-
dicious attempts were here and there made to honor him
with miracles which he did not perform, which he would
not even have wished to perform, no attempt was ever
made to burden his literary efforts with false or supposi-
titious pieces. The best proof of this is that it is not
until Wadding-that is to say, until the seventeenth cen-
tury--that we find the first and only serious attempt to
collect these precious memorials. Several of them have
daher fast ganz ausser Acht bleiben.” Müller, Die Anfänge des Minori-
tenordens, Freiburg, 1 vol., 8vo, 1885, p. 3.
1 Pieces have been often attributed to St. Francis which do not be.
long to him ; but those are unintentional errors and made without pur-
pose. The desire for literary exactness is relatively of recent date, and
it was easier for those who were ignorant of the author of certain Fran-
ciscan writings to attribute them to St Francis than to adınit their ig.
norance or to make deep researches.
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
353
been lost, but those which remain are enough to give us
in some sort the refutation of the legends.
In these pages Francis gives himself to his readers,
as long ago he gave himself to his companions; in each
one of them a feeling, a cry of the heart, or an aspira-
tion toward the Invisible is prolonged down to our own
time.
Wadding thought it his duty to give a place in his
collection to several suspicious pieces; more than this,
instead of following the oldest manuscripts that he had
before him, he often permitted himself to be led astray
by sixteenth-century writers whose smallest concern was
to be critical and accurate. To avoid the tedious and
entirely negative task to which it would be necessary to
proceed if I took him for my starting-point I shall con-
fine myself to a positive study of this question.
All the pieces which will be enumerated are found in
his collection. They are sometimes cut up in a singular
way; but in proportion as each document is studied we
| For example, the first Rule ; probably also a few canticles; a letter
to the Brothers in France, Eccl., 6; another to the Brothers in Bo-
logna : “ Prædixerat per litteram in qua fuit plurimuin latinum,” Eccl.,
ib.; a letter to Antony of Padua, other than the one we have, since on
the witness of Celano it was addressed : Fratri Antonio episcopo meo (2
Cel., 3, 99); certain letters to St. Clara : 66 Scripsit Claræ et sororibus ad
consolationem litterum in quâ dabat benedictionem suam et absolvebat,"
etc. Conform., fº. 185a, 1 ; cf. Test. B. Clara. A. SS., Augusti, t. ii., p.
767: “ Plura scripta tradidit nobis, ne post mortem suam declinaremus a
paupertate ; ” certain letters to Cardinal Ugolini, 3 Soc., 67.
It is not to negligence alone that we must attribute the loss of many
of the epistles : “ Quod nephas est cogitare, in provincia Murchie et in
pluribus aliis locis testamentum beati Francisci mandaverunt (prelati or-
dinis) districte per obedientiam ab omnibus auferi et comburi. Et uni
fratri devoto et sancto, cujus nomen est N. de Rocanato combuxerunt dic-
um testamentum super caput suum. Et toto conatu fuerunt solliciti, an-
nulare scripta beati patris nostri Francisci, in quibus sua intentio de ob-
servantia regule declaratur." Ubertino di Casali, apud Archiv., iii., pp.
168-169.
23
354
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
shall find sufficient indications to enable us to make the
necessary rectifications.
The archives of Sacro Convento of Assisi 1 possess a
manuscript whose importance is not to be overestimated.
It has already been many times studied, and bears the
number 338.
It appears, however, that a very important detail of
form has been overlooked. It is this : that No. 338 is
not one manuscript, but a collection of manuscripts of very
different periods, which were put together because they
were of very nearly the same size, and have been foliated
in a peculiar manner.
This artificial character of the collection shows that
each of the pieces which compose it needs to be exam-
ined by itself, and that it is impossible to say of it as a
whole that it is of the thirteenth or the fourteenth cen-
tury.
The part that interests us is perfectly homogeneous,
is formed of three parchment books (fol. 12a-44b) and
contains a part of Francis's works.
1. The Rule, definitively approved by Honorius III.,
November 20, 1223 3 (fol. 12a-16a).
2. St. Francis's Will 4 (fol. 16a-18a).
3. The Admonitions 5 (fol. 18a-23b).
4. The Letter to all Christians (fol. 236-28a).
1 Italy is too obliging to artists, archæologists, and scholars not to do
them the favor of disposing in a more practical manner this trust, the
most precious of all Umbria. Even with the indefatigable kindness
of the curator, M. Alessandro, and of the municipality of Assisi, it is
very difficult to profit by these treasures heaped up in a dark room
without a table to write upon.
? In particular by Ehrle : Die historischen Handschriften von S.
Francesco in Assisi. Archiv., t. i., p. 484.
3 See pages 252 ff
and 283.
* See pages 333 ff.
*See pages 259 ff
. See page 325 ff.
1
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
355
5. The letter to all the members of the Order assem-
bled in Chapter-general? (fol. 28a-31a).
6. Counsel to all clerics on the respect to be paid to
the Eucharist 2 (fol., 31b-32b).
7. A very short piece preceded by the rubric: “Of the
virtues which adorn the Virgin Mary and which ought to
adorn the holy soul ”3 (fol. 32b).
8. The Laudes Creaturarum, or Canticle of the Sun 4
(fol. 33a).
9. A paraphrase of the Pater introduced by the
rubric: Incipiunt laudes quas ordinavit. B. pater noster
Franciscus et dicebat ipsas ad omnes horas diei et noctis et
ante officium B. V. Marice sic incipiens: Sanctissime Pater 5
(fol. 34a).
10. The office of the Passion (34b-43a). This office,
where the psalms are replaced by several series of bibli-
cal verses, are designed to make him who repeats them
follow, hour by hour, the emotions of the Crucified One
from the evening of Holy Thursday.
11. A rule for friars in retreat in hermitages ? (fol. 43a-
43b).
See pages 322 ff.
See page 327.
3 I give it entire : Regina sapientia, Dominus te salvet, cum tua
sorore sancta pura simplicitate.-Domina sancta paupertas, Dominus te
salvet, cum tua sorore sancta humilitate. -Domina sancta caritas, Domi-
nus te salvet, cum tua sorrore sancta obedientia. Sanctissimae virtutes
omnes, vos salvet Dominus, a quo venitis et proceditis." Its authenticity is
guaranteed by a citation by Celano: 2 Cel., 3, 119. Cf. 126b and 127a.
See pages 304 f.
I shall not recur to this : the text is in the Conformities 138a 2.
6 The authenticity of this service, to which there is not a single allu-
sion in the biographies of St. Francis, is rendered certain by the life of
St. Clara : “ Officium crucis, prout crucis amator Franciscus instituerat
(Clara) didicit et affectu simili frequentavit. A. SS., Augusti, t. ii., P.
761a.
? It begins : Illi qui volunt stare in heremis. This text is also found
in the Conformities, 143a, 1. Cf. 2 Cel., 3, 43 ; see p. 97.
6
2
356
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
1
A glance over this list is enough to show that the
works of Francis here collected are addressed to all
the Brothers, or are a sort of encyclicals, which they are
charged to pass on to those for whom they are destined.
The very order of these pieces shows us that we have
in this manuscript the primitive library of the Brothers
Minor, the collection of which each minister was to carry
with him a copy. It was truly their viaticum.
Matthew Paris tells us of his amazement at the sight
of these foreign monks, clothed in patched tunics, and
carrying their books in a sort of case suspended from
their necks.
The Assisi manuscript was without doubt destined to
this service; if it is silent on the subject of the journeys
it has made, and of the Brothers to whom it has been a
guide and an inspiration, it at least brings us, more than
all the legends, into intimacy with Francis, makes us
thrill in unison with that heart which never admitted a
separation between joy, love, and poetry. As to the date
of this manuscript, one must needs be a paleographer to
determine. We have already found a hypothesis which,
if well grounded, would carry it back to the neighborhood
of 1240.2
Its contents seem to countenance this early date. In
fact, it contains several pieces of which the Manual of the
Brother Minor very early rid itself.
Very soon they were content to have only the Rule to
keep company with the breviary; sometimes they added
the Will. But the other writings, if they did not fall en-
tirely into neglect, ceased at least to be of daily usage.
· Nudis pedibus incedentes, funiculis cincti, tunicis griseis et talaribus
peciatis, insuto capucio utentes
nihil sibi ultra noctem reservan-
libros continue suos
in forulis a collo dependentes
bajulantes. Historia Anglorum, Pertz: Script., t. 28, p. 397. Cf. 2
Cel., 3, 135; Fior., 5; Spec., 45b.
See page 322 n.
tes
ORITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
357
Those of St. Francis's writings which are not of general
interest or do not concern the Brothers naturally find no
place in this collection. In this new category we must
range the following documents :
1. The Rule of 1221.1
2. The Rule of the Clarisses, which we no longer pos-
sess in its original form.”
3. A sort of special instruction for ministers-general.3
4. A letter to St. Clara.4
5. Another letter to the same.5
6. A letter to Brother Leo.6
7. A few prayers.?
?
8. The benediction of Brother Leo. The original auto-
graph, which is preserved in the treasury of Sacro Con-
vento, has been very well reproduced by heliograph.8
1 See page 252.
? See page 157. 3 See pages 318 ff.
* See page 239.
6 See page 327. 6 See page 262.
a. Sanctus Dominus Deus noster. Cf. Spec., 126a ; Hirmamentum,
18b, 2; Conform., 202b, 1.
7. Ave Domina sancta. Cf. Spec., 1274 ; Conform., 138a, 2.
C. Sancta Maria virgo. Cf. Spec., 126b; Conform., 202b, 2.
8 Vide S. François, in 4to, Paris, 1885 (Plon), p. 233. The authenticity
of this benediction appears to be well established, since it was already
jealously guarded during the life of Thomas of Celuno. No one has ever
dreamed of requiring historical proof of this writing. Is this perhaps
a mistake? The middle of the sheet is taken up with the benediction
which was dictated to Brother Leo: Benedicat tibi Dominus et custodiat
te, ostendat faciem suam tibi et misereatur tui convertat vultum suum ad
te et det tibi pacem. At the bottom, Francis added the letter tau, T,
which was, so to speak, his signature (Bon., 51 ; 308), and the words :
Frater Leo Dominus benedicat te.
Then when this memorial became a part of the relics of the Saint,
Brother Leo, to authenticate it in a measure, added the following notes:
toward the middle: Beatus Franciscus scripsit manu sua istam bene-
dictionem mihi fratri Leoni; toward the close : Simili modo fecit istud
signum thau cum capite manu sua. But the most valuable annotation is
found at the top of the sheet : Beatus Franciscus duobus annis ante
mortem suam fecit quadragesimam in loco Alverno ad honorem Beatos
Virginis Mariæ matris Dei et beati Michael archangeli a festo assump-
358
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
As to the two famous hymns Amor de caritadel and In
foco l'amor mi mise, they cannot be attributed to St.
Francis, at least in their present form.
It belongs to M. Monaci and his numerous and learned
emulators to throw light upon these delicate questions
by publishing in a scientific manner the earliest monu-
ments of Italian poetry.
I have already spoken of several tracts of which assured
traces have been found, though they themselves are lost.
They are much more numerous than would at first be sup-
posed. In the missionary zeal of the early years the
Brothers would not concern themselves with collecting
documents. We do not write our memoirs in the fulness
of our youth.
We must also remember that Portiuncula had neither
archives nor library. It was a chapel ten paces long,
with a few huts gathered around it. The Order was ten
years old before it had seen any other than a single
book: a New Testament. The Brothers did not even
keep this one. Francis, having nothing else, gave it to
a poor woman who asked for alms, and when Pietro di
Catania, his vicar, expressed his surprise at this prodigal-
ity: “Has she not given her two sons to the Order ? ” re-
plied the master & quickly.
tionis sanctæ Mariæ Virginis usque ad festum sancti Michael septembris
et facta est super eum manus Domini per visionem et allucotionem sera-
phym et impressionem stigmatum in corpore suo. Fecit has laudes ex alio
latere catule scriptas et manu, sua scripsit gratias agens Domino de bene-
ficio sibi collato. Vide 2 Cel., 2, 18.
Wadding gives the text according to St. Bernardino da Siena. Opera,
t. iv., sermo 16, extraord. et sermo ferice sexto Parasceves. Amoni: Le-
genda trium sociorum, p. 166.
Wadding has drawn the text from St. Bernardino, loc. cit., sermo iv.,
extraord. It was also reproduced by Amoni, loc. cit., p. 165. Two very
curious versions may be found in the Miscellanea, 1888, pp. 96 and 190.
3 2 Cel., 3, 35. This took place under the vicariat of Pietro di Ca-
tania ; consequently between September 29, 1220, and March 10, 1221,
1
2
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
359
II
BIOGRAPHIES PROPERLY SO CALLED
I. PRELIMINARY NOTE
To form a somewhat exact notion of the documents !
which are to occupy us, we must put them back into the
midst of the circumstances in which they appeared,
study them in detail, and determine the special value of
each one.
Here, more than anywhere else, we must beware of
facile theories and hasty generalizations. The same life
described by two equally truthful contemporaries may
take on a very different coloring. This is especially the
case if the man concerned has aroused enthusiasm and
wrath, if his inmost thought, his works, have been the
subject of discussion, if the very men who were commis-
sioned to realize his ideals and carry on his work are
divided, and at odds with one another.
This was the case with St. Francis. In his lifetime
and before his own eyes divergences manifested them-
selves, at first secretly, then in the light of day.
In a rapture of love he went from cottage to cottage,
from castle to castle, preaching absolute poverty; but
that buoyant enthusiasm, that unbounded idealism, could
not last long. The Order of the Brothers Minor in
process of growth was open not only to a few choice
spirits aflame with mystic fervor, but to all men who
aspired after a religious reformation ; pious laymen,
monks undeceived as to the virtues of the ancient Orders,
priests shocked at the vices of the secular clergy, all
brought with them—unintentionally no doubt and even
unconsciously—too much of their old man not by degrees
to transform the institution.
360
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
Francis perceived the peril several years before his
death, and made every effort to avert it. Even in his
dying hour we see him summoning all his powers to
declare his Will once again, and as clearly as possible,
and to conjure his Brothers never to touch the Rule,
even under pretext of commenting upon or explaining it.
Alas! four years had not rolled away when Gregory IX.,
at the prayer of the Brothers themselves, became the
first one of a long series of pontiffs who have explained
the Rule.1
Poverty, as Francis understood it, soon became only a
memory. The unexampled success of the Order brought
to it not merely new recruits, but money. How refuse it
when there were so many works to found ? Many of
the friars discovered that their master had exaggerated
many things, that shades of meaning were to be observed
in the Rule, for example, between counsels and precepts.
The door once opened to interpretations, it became
impossible to close it. The Franciscan family began
to be divided into opposing parties often difficult to
distinguish.
At first there were a few restless, undisciplined men
who grouped themselves around the older friars. The
latter, in their character of first companions of the Saint,
found a moral authority often greater than the official
authority of the ministers and guardians. The people
turned to them by instinct as to the true continuers of
St. Francis's work. They were not far from right.
They had the vigor, the vehemence of absolute convic-
tions; they could not have temporized had they desired
to do so.
When they emerged from their hermitages
in the Apennines, their eyes shining with the fever of
their ideas, absorbed in contemplation, their whole being
spoke of the radiant visions they enjoyed; and the
1 Bull Quo elongati of September 28, 1230. See p. 336.
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
361
amazed and subdued multitude would kneel to kiss the
prints of their feet with hearts mysteriously stirred.
A larger group was that of those Brothers who con-
demned these methods without being any the less saints.
Born far away from Umbria, in countries where nature
seems to be a step-mother, where adoration, far from be-
ing the instinctive act of a happy soul soaring upward
to bless the heavenly Father, is, on the contrary, the de-
spairing cry of an atom lost in immensity, they desired
above all things a religious reformation, rational and
profound. They dreamed of bringing the Church back
to the purity of the ancient days, and saw in the vow of
poverty, understood in its largest sense, the best means
of struggling against the vices of the clergy ; but they
forgot the freshness, the Italian gayety, the sunny poetry
that there had been in Francis's mission.
Full of admiration for him, they yet desired to enlarge
the foundations of his work, and for that they would
neglect no means of influence, certainly not learning.
This tendency was the dominant one in France, Ger-
many, and England. In Italy it was represented by a
very powerful party, powerful if not in the number, at
least in the authority, of its representatives. This was
the party favored by the papacy. It was the party of
Brother Elias and all the ministers-general of the Order
in the thirteenth century, if we except Giovanni di Parma
(1247-1257) and Raimondo Gaufridi (1289-1295).
In Italy a third group, the liberals, was much more
numerous; men of mediocrity to whom monastic life
appeared the most facile existence, vagrant monks happy
to secure an aftermath of success by displaying the new
Rule, formed in this country the greater part of the
Franciscan family.
We can understand without difficulty that documents
emanating from such different quarters must bear the
362
LIFE OF ST. FRANOIS
impress of their origin. The men who are to bring us
their testimony are combatants in the struggle over the
question of poverty, a struggle which for two centuries
agitated the Church, aroused all consciences, and which
had its monsters and its martyrs.
To determine the value of these witnesses we must first
of all discover their origin. It is evident that the narra-
tives of the no-compromise party of the right or the left
can have but slender value where controverted points are
concerned; whence the conclusion that the authority of a
narrator may vary from page to page, or even from line
to line.
These considerations, so simple that one almost needs
to beg pardon for uttering them, have not, however,
guided those who have studied St. Francis's life. The
most learned, like Wadding and Papini, have brought
together the narratives of different biographers, here and
there pruning those that are too contradictory; but they
have done this at random, with neither rule nor method,
guided by the impression of the moment.
The long work of the Bollandist Suysken is vitiated by
an analogous fault; fixed in his principle that the oldest
documents are always the best," he takes his stand upon
the first Life of Thomas of Celano as upon an impreg-
nable rock, and judges all other legends by that one.?
When we connect the documents with the disturbed
circumstances which brought them into being, some of
them lose a little of their authority, others which have
been neglected, as being in contradiction with witnesses
who have become so to say official, suddenly recover
1 It is needless to say that I have no desire to put myself in opposition
to that principle, one of the most fruitful of criticism, but still it should
not be employed alone.
2 The learned works that have appeared in Germany in late years
err in the same way. They will be found cited in the body of the work.
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
363
credit, and in fact all gain a new life which doubles their
interest.
This altered point of view in the valuation of the
sources, this criticism which I am inclined to call recip-
rocal and organic, brings about profound alterations in
the biography of St. Francis. By a phenomenon which
may appear strange we end by sketching a portrait of him
much more like that which exists in the popular imagina-
tion of Italy than that made by the learned historians
above mentioned.
When Francis died (1226) the parties which divided
the Order had already entered into conflict. That event
precipitated the crisis : Brother Elias had been for five
years exercising the functions of minister-general with
the title of vicar. He displayed an amazing activity. In-
trenched in the confidence of Gregory IX. he removed
the Zelanti from their charges, strengthened the discipline
even in the most remote provinces, obtained numerous
privileges from the curia, and with incredible rapidity
prepared for the building of the double basilica, destined
for the repose of the ashes of the Stigmatized Saint; but
notwithstanding all his efforts, the chapter of 1227 set
him aside and chose Giovanni Parenti as minister-gen-
eral.
Furious at this check, he immediately set all influences
to work to be chosen at the following chapter. It even
seems as if he paid no attention to the nomination of
Giovanni Parenti, and continued to go on as if he had
been minister.1
Very popular among the Assisans, who were dazzled
by the magnificence of the monument which was springing
up on the Hill of Hell, now become the Hill of Paradise,
| Eccl., 13. Voluerunt ipsi, quos ad capitulam concesserat venire fra-
ter Helias ; nam omnes concessit, etc. An. fr., t. 1., p. 241. Cf. Mon.
Germ. hist. Script., t., 28, p. 564.
364
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
2
sure of being supported by a considerable party in the
Order and by the pope, he pushed forward the work on
the basilica with a decision and success perhaps unique
in the annals of architecture.1
All this could not be done without arousing the indig-
nation of the Zealots of poverty. When they saw a mon-
umental poor-box, designed to receive the alms of the
faithful, upon the tomb of him who had forbidden his
disciples the mere contact of money, it seemed to them
that Francis's prophecy of the apostasy of a part of the
Order was about to be fulfilled. A tempest of revolt
swept over the hermitages of Umbria. Must they not, by
any means, prevent this abomination in the holy placa?
They knew that Elias was terrible in his severities, but
his opponents felt in themselves courage to go to the last
extremity, and suffer everything to defend their convic-
tions. One day the poor-box was found shattered by
Brother Leo and his friends,
To this degree of intensity the struggle had arrived.
At this crisis the first legend appeared.
1 The death of Francis occurred on October 3, 1226. On March 29,
1228, Elias acquired the site for the basilica. The Instrumentum do-
nationis is still preserved at Assisi : Piece No. 1 of the twelfth pack-
age of Instrumenta diversa pertinentia ad Sacrum Conventum. It has
been published by Thode : Franz von Assisi, p. 359.
On July 17th of the same year, the day after the canonization, Greg-
ory IX. solemnly laid the first stone. Less than two years afterward
the Lower church was finished, and on May 25, 1230, the body of the
Saint was carried there. In 1236 the Upper church was finished. It
was already decorated with a first series of frescos, and Giunta Pisano
painted Elias, life size, kneeling at the foot of the crucifix over the en-
trance to the choir. In 1239 everything was finished, and the campa-
nile received the famous bells whose chimes still delight all the valley
of Umbria. Thus, then, three months and a half before the canoniza-
tion, Elias received the site of the basilica. The act of canonization
commenced at the end of May, 1228 (1 Cel., 123 and 124. Cf. Potthast,
8194ff).
? Spec., 167a. Cf. An. fr., ii., p. 45 and note.
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
365
II. FIRST LIFE BY THOMAS OF CELANO I
Thomas of Celano, in writing this legend, to which he
was later to return for its completion, obeyed an express
order of Pope Gregory IX.2
Why did he not apply to one of the Brothers of the
Saint's immediate circle? The talent of this author
i The Bollandists followed the text (A. SS., Octobris, t. ii., pp. 683–723)
of a manuscript of the Cistercian abbey of Longpont in the diocese of
Soissons. It has since been published in Rome in 1806, without the
name of the editor (in reality by the Convent Father Rinaldi), under the
title : Seraphici viri S. Francisci Assisiatis vitae dual auctore B. Thoma
de Celano, according to a manuscript (of Fallerone, in the March of
Ancona) which was stolen in the vicinity of Terni by brigands from the
Brother charged with bringing it back. The second text was repro-
duced at Rome in 1880 by Canon Amoni : Vita prima S. Francisci, auc-
tore B. Thoma de Celano. Roma, tipografia della pace, 1880, in 8vo, 42 pp.
The citations will follow the divisions made by the Bollandists, but in
many important passages the Rinaldi-Amoni text gives better readings
than that of the Bollandists. The latter has been here and there re-
touched and filled out. See, for example, 1 Cel., 24 and 31. As for
the manuscripts, Father Denifle thinks that the oldest of those which
are known is that at Barcelona : Archivo de la corona de Aragon,
Ripoll, n. 41 (Archiv., t. i., p. 148). There is one in the National Li-
brary of Paris, Latin alcove, No. 3817, which includes a curious note:
Apud Perusium feliz domnus papa Gregorius nonus gloriosi secundo
pontificus sui anno, quinto kal. martii (February 25, 1229) legendam hano
recepit
, confirmavit et censuit fore tenendam.” Another manuscript,
which merits attention, both because of its age, thirteenth century, and
because of the correction in the text, and which appears to have escaped
the researches of the students of the Franciscans, is the one owned by
the École de Médicine at Montpellier, No. 30, in vellum folio : Passion-
ale vetus ecclesiae S. Benigni divionensis. The story of Celano occupies
in it the fos. 257a-271b. The text ends abruptly in the middle of
paragraph 112 with supiriis ostendebant. Except for this final break it
is complete. Cf. Archives Pertz, t. vii., pp. 195 and 196. Vide General
catalogue of the manuscripts of the public libraries of the departments,
p.
295.
? Vide 1 Cel., Prol. Jubente domino et glorioso Papa Gregorio. Celano
wrote it after the canonization (July 16, 1228) and before February 25,
1229, for the date indicated above raises no difficulty.
t. i.,
366
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
might explain this choice, but besides the fact that liter-
ary considerations would in this case hold a secondary
place, Brother Leo and several others proved later that
they also knew how to handle the pen.
If Celano was put in trust with the official biography,
it is because, being equally in sympathy with Gregory
IX. and Brother Elias, his absence had kept him out of
the conflicts which had marked the last years of Fran-
cis's life. Of an irenic temper, he belonged to the cate-
gory of those souls who easily persuade themselves that
obedience is the first of virtues, that every superior is
a saint; and if unluckily he is not, that we should none
the less act as though he were.
We have some knowledge of his life. A native of Cela-
no in the Abruzzi, he discreetly observes that his family
was noble, even adding, with a touch of artless simplicity,
that the master had a peculiar regard for noble and edu-
cated Brothers. He entered the Order about 1215, on
the return of Francis from Spain.
At the chapter of 1221 Cæsar of Speyer, charged with
the mission to Germany, took him among those who
were to accompany him. In 1223 he was named cus-
tode of Mayence, Worms, Cologne, and Speyer.
In
April of the same year, when Cæsar returned to Italy,
devoured with the longing to see St. Francis again, he
commissioned Celano to execute his functions until the
arrival of the new provincial.
We have no information as to where he was after the
chapter-general held at Speyer September 8, 1223. He
11 Cel., 56. Perhaps he was the son of that Thomas, Count of Celano,
to whom Ryccardi di S. Germano so often made allusion in his chroni.
cle : 1219–1223. See also two letters of Frederick II. to Honorius III.,
on April 24 and 25, 1223, published in Winckelmann : Acta imperis
inedita, t. i., p. 232.
º Giord., 19.
*Giord., 30 and 31.
3
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
367
must have been in Assisi in 1228, for his account of the
canonization is that of an eye-witness. He was there
again in 1230, and doubtless clothed with an important
office, since he could commit to Brother Giordano the
relics of St. Francis.1
Written in a pleasing style, very often poetic, his work
breathes an affecting admiration for his hero; his testi-
mony at once makes itself felt as sincere and true : when
he is partial it is without intention and even without his
knowledge. The weak point in this biography is the
picture which it outlines of the relations between Brother
Elias and the founder of the Order: from the chapters
devoted to the last two years we receive a very clear
impression that Elias was named by Francis to succeed
him.
Now if we reflect that at the time when Celano wrote,
Giovanni Parenti was minister-general, we at once per-
ceive the bearing of these indications. Every opportu-
nity is seized to give a preponderating importance to
Elias. It is a true manifesto in his favor.
Have we reason to blame Celano? I think not. We
2
1 Giord., 59. Cf. Glassberger, ann. 1230. The question whether he
is the author of the Dies iræ would be out of place here.
2 This is so true that the majority of historians have been brought to
believe in two generalates of Elias, one in 1227_1230, the other in 1236–
1239. The letter Non ex odio of Frederick II. (1239) gives the same
idea : Revera papa iste quemdam religiosum et timoratum fratrein Hel-
yam, ministrum ordinis fratrum minorum ab ipso beato Francisco patre
ordinis migrationis suce tempore constitutum
in odium nostrum
deposuit. Huillard-Breholles : Hist. dipl. Fred. II., t. V., p.
346.
3 He is named only once, 1 Cel., 48.
4 1 Cel., 95, 98, 105, 109. The account of the Benediction is espe.
cially significant. Super quem inquit (Franciscus) tencs dexteram meam ?
Super fratrem Heliam, inquiunt. Et ego sic volo, sit.
108. Those last words obviously disclose the intention. Cf. 2 Cel.,
3, 139.
1 Cel.,
368
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
must simply remember that his work might with justice
be called the legend of Gregory IX. Elias was the pope's
man, and the biography is worked up from the informa-
tion he gave. He could not avoid dwelling with pecul-
iar satisfaction upon his intimacy with Francis.
On the other hand, we cannot expect to find here such
details as might have sustained the pretension of the ad-
versaries of Elias, those unruly Zealots who were already
proudly adorning themselves with the title of Companions
of the Saint and endeavoring to constitute a sort of spirit-
ual aristocracy in the Order. Among them were four
who during the last two years had not, so to say, quitted
Francis. We can imagine how difficult it was not to
speak of them. Celano çarefully omits to mention their
names under pretext of sparing their modesty ;' but by
the praises lavished upon Gregory IX., Brother Elias,
St. Clara, and even upon very secondary persons, he
shows that his discretion is far from being always so
alert.
All this is very serious, but we must not exaggerate it.
There is an evident partiality, but it would be unjust to
go farther and believe, as men did later, that the last part
of Francis's life was an active struggle against the very
person of Elias. A struggle there surely was, but it was
against tendencies whose spring Francis did not perceive.
He carried with him to his tomb his delusion as to his
co-laborer.
For that matter this defect is after all secondary so far
as the physiognomy of Francis himself is concerned. In
Celano's Life, as in the Three Companions or the Fioretti,
'1 Cel., 102 ; cf. 91 and 109. Brother Leo is not even named in the
whole work. Nor Angelo, Illuminato, Masseo either !
? 1 Cel., Prol., 73–75 ; 99-101 ; 121–126. Next to St. Francis, Greg-
ory IX. and Brother Elias (1 Cel., 69; 95; 98; 105; 108; 109) are in the
foreground.
31 Cel., 18 and 19 ; 116 and 117.
1
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
369
he appears with a smile for all joys, and floods of tears
for all woes; we feel everywhere the restrained emotion
of the writer; his heart is subjected by the moral beauty
of his hero.
III. SURVEY OF THE HISTORY OF THE ORDER FROM 1230-1244
When Thomas of Celano closed his legend he perceived
more than anyone the deficiencies of his work, for which
he had been able to collect but insufficient material.
Elias and the other Assisan brothers had told him of
Francis's youth and his activity in Umbria; but be-
sides that he would have preferred, whether from pru-
dence or from love of peace, to keep silence upon certain
events, there were long periods upon which he had not
received a single item of information.?
He therefore seems to indicate his intention of re-
suming and completing his work.3
This is not the place to write the history of the Order,
but a few facts are necessary to put the documents into
their proper surroundings.
Elected minister-general in 1232, Brother Elias took
advantage of the fact to labor with indomitable energy
toward the realization of his own ideas. In all the
In all the prov-
inces new collections were organized for the Basilica of
Assisi, the work upon which was pushed with an activity
which however injured neither the strength of the edifice
1 Those which occurred during the absence of Francis (1220_1221).
He overlooks the difficulties met at Rome in seeking the approbation of
the first Rule ; he mentions those connected neither with the second
nor the third, and makes no allusion to the circumstances which pro
voked them. He recognized them, however, having lived in intimacy
with Cæsar of Speyer, the collaborator of the second (1221).
For example, Francis's journey to Spain.
3 1 Cel., 1, 88. Et sola quæ necessaria magis occurrunt ad præsens
intendimus adnotare. It is to be observed that in the prologne he
speaks in the singular.
24
370
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
nor the beauty of its details, which are as finished and
perfect as those of any monument in Europe.
We may conceive of the enormous sums which it had
been necessary to raise in order to complete such an
enterprise in so short a time. More than that, Brother
Elias exacted absolute obedience from all his subor-
dinates; naming and removing the provincial ministers
according to his personal views, he neglected to con-
voke the chapter-general, and sent his emissaries under
the name of visitors into all the provinces to secure the
execution of his orders.
The moderate party in Germany, France, and Eng-
land very soon found his yoke insupportable. It was
hard for them to be directed by an Italian minister
resident at Assisi, a small town quite aside from the
highways of civilization, entirely a stranger to the
scientific movement concentred in the universities of
Oxford, Paris, and Bologna.
In the indignation of the Zelanti against Elias and
his contempt for the Rule, they found a decisive sup-
port. Very soon the minister had for his defence noth-
ing but his own energy, and the favor of the pope and of
the few Italian moderates. By a great increase of vigil-
ance and severity he repressed several attempts at revolt.
His adversaries, however, succeeded in establishing
secret intelligence at the court of Rome; even the pope's
confessor was gained; yet in spite of all these circum-
stances, the success of the conspiracy was still uncertain
when the chapter of 1239 opened.
Gregory IX., still favorable to Elias,1 presided. Fear
gave sudden courage to the conspirators; they threw
their accusations in their enemy's face.
1 In 1238 he had sent Elias to Cremona, charged with a mission for
Frederick II. Salembeni, ann. 1229. See also the reception given by
Gregory IX, to the appellants against the General. Giord., 63.
CRITIC.IL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
371
Thomas of Eccleston gives a highly colored narrative
of what took place. Elias was proud, violent, even
threatening. There were cries and vociferations from
both sides; they were about to come to blows when a
few words from the pope restored silence. He had
made up his mind to abandon his protégé. He asked
for his resignation. Elias indignantly refused.
Gregory IX. then explained that in keeping him in
charge he had thought himself acting in accordance
with the wishes of the majority; that he had no in-
tention to dominate the Order, and, since the Brothers
no longer desired Elias, he declared him deposed from
the generalate.
The joy of the victors, says Eccleston, was immense
and ineffable. They chose Alberto di Pisa, provincial of
England, to succeed him, and from that time bent all
their efforts to represent Elias as a creature of Frederick
II. The former minister wrote indeed to the pope to
explain his conduct, but the letter did not reach its des-
tination. It must have reached the hands of his succes-
sor, and not been sent forward; when Alberto of Pisa
died it was found in his tunic.2
All the fury of the aged pontiff was unchained against
Elias. One must read the documents to see to what a
height his anger could rise. The friar retorted with a
virulence which though less wordy was far more over-
powering. 3
See the letter of Frederick II. to Elias upon the translation of St.
Elizabeth, May, 1236. Winkelmann, Acta i., p. 299. Cf. Huillard-
Bréholles, Hist. dipl. Intr. p. cc.
2 The authorities for this story are : Catalogus ministrorum of Bernard
of Besse, ap Ehrle, Zeitschrift, vol. 19 (1883), p. 339; Speculum, 207b,
and especially 1678-170a ; Eccl., 13; Giord., 61-63; Speculum, Morin.,
tract i., fo. 60b.
3 Asserabat etiam ipse prædictus frater Helyas
papam
fraudem facere de pecunia collecta ad succursum Terræ Sanctæ, scripta
372
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
These events gained an indescribable notoriety? all
over Europe and threw the Order into profound dis-
turbance. Many of the partisans of Elias became con-
vinced that they had been deceived by an impostor, and
they drew toward the group of Zealots, who never ceased
to demand the observance pure and simple of the Rule
and the Will.
Thomas of Celano was of this number. With pro-
found sadness he saw the innumerable influences that
were secretly undermining the Franciscan institute and
menacing it with ruin. Already a refrain was going the
rounds of the convents, singing the victory of Paris over
Assisi, that is, of learning over poverty.
The Zealots gained new courage. Unaccustomed to
the subtleties of ecclesiastical politics, they did not per-
ceive that the pope, while condemning Brother Elias, had
in nowise modified the general course which he had
marked out for the Order. The ministers-general, Al-
berto di Pisa, 1239-1240, Aymon of Faversham, 1240–
1244, Crescentius de Jesi, 1244–1247, were all, with
different shades of meaning, representatives of the mod-
erate party.
Thomas of Celano's first legend had become impos-
etiam ad beneplacitum suum in camera sua bullare clam et sine fratrum
assensu et etiam cedulas vacuas, sed bullatas, multas nunciis suis traderet
et alia multa enormia imposuit domino papo, ponens os suum in
celo. Matth. Paris, Chron. Maj., ann. 1239, ap Mon. Ger. hist. Script.,
t. 28, p. 182. Cf. Ficker, n. 2685.
1 Vide Ryccardi di S. Germano, Chron., ap Mon. Ger. hist. Script., t.
19, p. 380, ann. 1239. The letter of Frederick complaining of the depo-
sition of Elias (1239): Huillard-Bréholles, Hist. Dipl., V., pp. 346-349.
Cf. the Bull, Attendite ad petram, at the end of February, 1240, ibid.,
pp. 777–779 ; Potthast, 10849.
2 He was without doubt one of the bitterest adversaries of the emperor.
His village had been burnt in 1224, by order of Frederick II., and the
inhabitants transported to Sicily, afterward to Malta. Ryccardi di S.
Germano, loc. cit., ann. 1223 and 1224.
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
373
sible. The prominence there given to Elias was almost
a scandal. The necessity of working it over and com-
pleting it became clearly evident at the chapter of
Genoa (1244).
All the Brothers who had anything to tell about Fran-
cis's life were invited to commit it to writing and send
it to the minister Crescentius de Jesi. The latter im-
mediately caused a tract to be drawn up in the form of a
dialogue, commencing with the words: “ Venerabilium
gesta Patrum.” So soon after as the time of Bernard de
Besse, only fragments of this were left.?
But happily several of the works which saw the light
in consequence of the decision of this chapter have been
preserved to us. It is to this that we owe the Legend of
the Three Companions and the Second Life by Thomas
of Celano.
IV. LEGEND OF THE THREE COMPANIONS
3
The life of St. Francis which has come down to us
under the name of the Legend of the Three Companions
1 Vide the prologue to 2 Cel. and to the 3 Soc. Cf. Glassberger, ann.
1244, An. fr., ii., p. 68. Speculum, Morin, tract. i., 61b.
Catalogus ministrorum, edited by Ehrle : Zeitschrift, t. 7 (1883), no.
5. Cf. Spec., 208a. Mark of Lisbon speaks of it a little more at length,
but he gives the honor of it to Giovanni of Parma, ed. Diola, t. ii., p.
38. On the other hand, in manuscript 691 of the archives of the Sacro-
Convento at Assisi (a catalogue of the library of the convent made in
1381) is found, fo. 45a, a note of that work : " Dyalogus sanctorum fra-
trum cum postibus cujus principium est: Venerabilia gesta patrum dig-
nosque memoria, finis vero ; non indigne feram me quoque reperisse con-
sortem. In quo libro omnes quaterni sunt viri.
3 The text was published for the first time by the Bollandists (A. SS.,
Octobris, t. ii., pp. 723–742), after a manuscript of the convent of the
Brothers Minor of Louvain. It is from this edition that we make our
citations. The editions published in Italy in the course of this century,
cannot be found, except the last, due to Abbé Amoni. This one, un
fortunately, is too faulty to serve as the basis of a scientific study. It
appeared in Rome in 1880 (870, pp. 184) under the title : Legenda S.
374
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
2
was finished on August 11, 1246, in a little convent in
the vale of Rieti, which appears often in the course of
this history, that of Greccio. This hermitage had been
Francis's favorite abode, especially in the latter part of
his life. He had thus made it doubly dear to the hearts
of his disciples. It naturally became, from the earliest
days of the Order, the headquarters of the Observants,
and it remains through all the centuries one of the purest
centres of Franciscan piety.
The authors of this legend were men worthy to tell St.
Francis's story, and perhaps the most capable of doing
it: the friars Leo, Angelo, and Rufino. All three had
lived in intimacy with him, and had been his compan-
ions through the most important years. More than this,
they took the trouble to go to others for further informa-
tion, particularly to Filippo, the visitor of the Clarisses,
to Iluminato di Rieti, Masseo di Marignano, John, the
confidant of Egidio, and Bernardo di Quintavalle.
Such names as these promise much, and happily we
are not disappointed in our expectation. As it has come
down to us, this document is the only one worthy from
the point of view of history to be placed beside the First
Life by Celano.
The names of the authors and the date of the compo-
sition indicate before examination the tendency with
which it is likely to be in harmony. It is the first mani-
festo of the Brothers who remained faithful to the spirit
and letter of the Rule. This is confirmed by an
attentive reading; it is at least as much a panegyric of
Poverty as a history of St. Francis.
Francisci Assisiensis quc dicitur Legenda trium sociorum ex cod. membr.
Biblioth. Vatic. num. 7339.
12 Cel., 2, 5; 3,7; 1 Cel., 60; Bon., 113 ; 1 Cel., 84; Bon., 149;
2 Cel., 2, 14; 3, 10.
2 Giovanni di Parma retired thither in 1276 and lived there almost en.
iely until his death (1288). Tribul., Archiv., vol. ii. (1886), p. 286.
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
375
We naturally expect to see the Three Companions
relating to us with a very particular delight the innumer-
able features of the legends of which Greccio was the
theatre; we turn to the end of the volume, expecting to
find the story of the last years of which they were
witnesses, and are lost in surprise to find nothing of the
kind.
While the first half of the work describes Francis's
youth, filling out here and there Celano's First Life, the
second 1 is devoted to a picture of the early days of the
Order, a picture of incomparable freshness and intensity
of life; but strangely enough, after having told us so
much at length of Francis's youth and then of the first
days of the Order, the story abruptly leaps over from the
year 1220 to the death and the canonization, to which
after all only a few pages are given.?
This is too extraordinary to be the result of chance.
What has happened ? It is evident that the Legend of
the Three Companions as we have it to-day is only a
fragment of the original, which was no doubt revised,
corrected, and considerably cut down by the authorities
of the Order before they would permit it to be circulated.
3
13 Soc., 25–67.
? 3 Soc., 68–73.
8 The minister-general Crescentius of Jesi was an avowed adversary of
the Zealots of the Rule. The contrary idea has been held by M. Müller
(Anfänge, p. 180); but that learned scholar is not, it appears, acquainted
with the recitals of the Chronicle of the Tribulations, which leave not
a single doubt as to the persecutions which he directed against the Zeal-
ots (Archiv., t. ii., pp. 257–260). Anyone who attempts to dispute the
historical worth of this proof will find a confirmation in the bulls of
August 5, 1244, and of February 7, 1246 (Potthast, 11450 and 12007),
It was Crescentius, also, who obtained a bull stating that the Basilica of
Assisi was Caput et Mater ordinis, while for the Zealots this rank per-
tained to the Portiuncula (1 Cel., 106; 3 Soc., 56; Bon., 23; 2 Cel., 1,
12; Conform., 217 ff). (See also on Crescentius, Glassberger, ann. .
1244, An. fr., p. 69 ; Sbaralea, Bull. fr., i., p. 502 ff ; Conform., 121b, 1..)
376
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
If the authors had been interrupted in their work, and
obliged to cut short the end, as might have been the
case, they would have said so in their letter of envoy, but
there are still other arguments in favor of our hypothe-
sis.
Brother Leo having had the first and principal part in
the production of the work of the Three Companions, it is
often called Brother Leo's Legend; now Brother Leo's
Legend is several times cited by Ubertini di Casali,
arraigned before the court of Avignon by the party of the
Common Observance. Evidently Ubertini would have
taken good care not to appeal to an apocryphal docu-
ment; a false citation would have been enough to bring
him to confusion, and his enemies would not have failed
to make the most of his imprudence. We have at hand
all the documents of the trial," attacks, replies, counter
replies, and nowhere do we see the Liberals accuse their
adversary of falsehood. For that matter, the latter makes
his citations with a precision that admits of no cavil.2
M. Müller has been led into error through a blunder of Eccleston, 9
(An. fr., i., p. 235). It is evident that the chapter of Genoa (1244) could
not have pronounced against the Declaratio Regulve published Novem-
ber 14, 1245. On the contrary, it is Crescentius who called forth this
Declaratio, against which, not without regret, the Zealots found a ma-
jority of the chapter of Metz (1249) presided over by Giovanni of Par-
ma, a decided enemy of any Declaratio (Archiv., ii., p. 276). This
view is found to be confirmed by a passage of the Speculum Morin
(Rouen, 1509), fº 62a : In hoc capitulo (Narbonnc) fuit ordinatum quod
declaratio D. Innocentii, p. iv., maneat suspensa sicut in Capitulo ME.
TENSI. Et præceptum est omnibus ne quis utatur ea in iis in quibus ex-
positioni D. Gregorii IX. contradicit.
1 Published with all necessary scientific apparatus by F. Ehrle, S. J.,
in his studies Zur Vorgeschichte des Concils von Vienne. Archiv., ii.,
pp. 353–416 ; iii., pp. 1-195.
"See, for example, Archiv., iii., p. 53 ff. Cf. 76. Adduxi verba et facta
6. Francisci sicut est aliquando in legenda et sicut a sociis sancti patris
audivi et in cedulis sanctæ memoriæ fratris Leonis legi manu sua con
8criptis, sicut ab ore beati Francisci audivit. Ib., p. 85.
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
377
A
He appeals to writings to be found in a press in the
convent of Assisi, of which he gives sometimes a copy,
sometimes an original. We are then authorized to con-
clude that we have here fragments which have survived
the suppression of the last and most important part of
the Legend of the Three Companions.
It is not surprising that the work of Francis's dearest
friends should have been so seriously mutilated. It was
the manifesto of a party that Crescentius was hunting
down with all his power.
After the fleeting reaction of the generalate of Giovanni
di Parma we shall see a man of worth like St. Bonaven-
tura moving for the suppression of all the primitive
legends that his own compilation may be substituted for
them.
It is truly singular that no one has perceived the frag-
mentary state of the work of the Three Companions.
The prologue alone might have suggested this idea.
Why should it take three to write a few pages? Why
this solemn enumeration of Brothers whose testimony
and collaboration are asked for? There would be a sur-
prising disproportion between the effort and the result.
More than all, the authors say that they shall not stop
at relating the miracles, but they desire above all to
exhibit the ideas of Francis and his life with the Brothers,
but we search in vain for any account of miracles in what
we now have.
An Italian translation of this legend, published by
* Hæc omnia patent per sua (B. Francisca] verba expressa per sanctum
fratrem virum Leonem ejus socium tam de mandato sancti patris quam
etiam de devotione prædicti fratris fuerunt solemniter conscripta, in libro
qui habetur in armario fratrum de Assisio et in rotulis ejus, quos apud me
habco, manu ejusdem fratris Leonis conscriptis. Archiv., iii., p. 168.
Cf. p. 178.
2 3 Soc., Prol. Non coritenti narrare soluin miracula
conver.
sationis insignia et più beneplaciti voluntatem.
378
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
Father Stanislaus Melchiorri, has suddenly given me an
indirect confirmation of this point of view. This monk
is only its publisher, and has simply been able to dis-
cover that in 1577 it was taken from a very ancient
manuscript by a certain Muzio Achillei di San Sev-
erino.2
This Italian translation contained only the last chap-
ters of the legend, those which tell of the death, the stig-
mata, and the translation of the remains. It was, then,
made at a time when the suppressed portion had not
been replaced by a short summary of the other legends.
From all this two conclusions emerge for the critics :
1. This final summary has not the same authority as the
rest of the work, since the time when it was added is
unknown. 2. Fragments of a legend by Brother Leo or
by the Three Companions scattered through later com-
pilations may be perfectly authentic.
In its present condition this legend of the Three Com-
panions is the finest piece of Franciscan literature, and
one of the most delightful productions of the Middle
Ages. There is something indescribably sweet, con-
fiding, chaste, in these pages, an energy of virile youth
which the Fioretti suggest but never attain to. At more
than six hundred years of distance the purest dream
that ever thrilled the Christian Church seems to live
again.
These friars of Greccio, who, scattered over the moun-
tain, under the shade of the olive-trees, passed their
days in singing the Hymn of the Sun, are the true
models of the primitive Umbrian Masters. They are
all alike; they are awkwardly posed; everything in and
1
Leggenda di S. Francesco, tipografia Morici et Badaloni, Recanati,
1856, 1 vol., 8vo.
2 See Father Stanislaus's preface.
3 3 Soc., 68-73.
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
379
around them sins against the most elementary rules of
art, and yet their memory pursues you, and when you
have long forgotten the works of impeccable modern
artists you recall without effort these creations of those
unknown painters; for love calls for love, and these
vapid personages have very true and pure hearts, a more
than human love shines forth from their whole being,
they speak to you and make you better.
Such is this book, the first utterance of the Spiritual
Franciscans, in which we already see the coming to life
of some of those bold doctrines that not only divided the
Franciscan family into two hostile branches, but which
were to bring some of their defenders to the heretic's
stake.1
V. FRAGMENTS OF THE SUPPRESSED PART OF THE LEGEND OF THE
THREE COMPANIONS
We may now take a step forward and try to group
the fragments of the Legend of the Three Compan-
ions, or of Brother Leo, which are to be found in later
writings.
We must here be more than ever on our guard against
absolute theories; one of the most fruitful principles of
historic criticism is to prefer contemporary documents,
or at least those which are nearest them; but even with
these it is necessary to use a little discretion.
It seems impossible to attack the reasoning of the Bol-
landists, who refuse to know anything of legends written
after that of St. Bonaventura (1260), under pretext that,
1 The book lacks little of representing St. Francis as taking up the
work of Jesus, interrupted (by the fault of the secular clergy) since the
time of the apostles. The viri evangelici consider the members of the
clergy filios extraneos. 3 Soc., 48 and 51. Cf. 3 Soc., 48. Inveni virum
per quem credo Dominus velit in toto mundo fedem sanctæ Ec-
clesice reformare. Cf. 2 Cel., 3, 141. Videbatur revera fratri et om.
nium comitatium turbce quod Christi et 6. Francisci una persona foret.
380
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
coming after several other authorized biographies, he
was better situated than anyone for getting information
and completing the work of his predecessors. In reality
this is absurd, for it assumes that Bonaventura under-
took to write as a historian. This is to forget that he
wrote not only for the purpose of edification, but also as
minister-general of the Minor Brothers. From this fact
his first duty was to keep silent on many facts, and those
not the least interesting. What shall we say of a biogra-
phy where Francis's Will is not even mentioned ?
It is easy to turn away from a writing of the fourteenth
century, on the ground that the author did not see what
was going on a hundred years before ; still we must not
forget that many books of the end of the Middle Ages
resemble those old mansions at which four or five gen-
erators have toiled. An inscription on their front often
only shows the touch of the last restorer or the last
destroyer, and the names which are set forth with the
greatest complacency are not always those of the real
workmen.
Such have been many Franciscan books; to attribute
them to any one author would be impracticable; very
different hands have worked upon them, and such an
amalgam has its own charm and interest.
Turning them over-I had almost said associating with
them--we come to see clearly into this tangled web, for
every work of man bears the trace of the hand that made
it: this trace may perhaps be of an almost imperceptible
delicacy; it exists none the less, ready to reveal itself to
practised eyes. What is more impersonal than the pho-
tograph of a landscape or of a painting, and yet among
several hundreds of proofs the amateur will go straight
to the work of the operator he prefers.
These reflections were suggested by the careful study
1 A. SS. p. 552.
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
381
of a curious book printed many times since the sixteenth
century, the Speculum Vitae S. Francisci et sociorum ejus.
A complete study of this work, its sources, its printed
editions, the numerous differences in the manuscripts,
would by itself require a volume and an epitome of the
history of the Order. I can give here only a few notes,
taking for base the oldest edition, that of 1504.
The confusion which reigns here is frightful. Inci-
dents in the life of Francis and his companions are
brought together with no plan ; several of them are re-
peated after the interval of a few pages in a quite differ-
ent manner;? certain chapters are so awkwardly intro-
duced that the compiler has forgotten to remove the
number that they bore in the work from which he bor-
rowed them ; : finally, to our great surprise, we find sev-
eral Incipit.
1 Venetiis, expensis domini Jordani de Dinslaken per Simonem de
Luere, 30 januarii, 1504. Impressum Metis per Jasparem Hochffeder',
Anno Domini 1509. These two editions are identical, small 12mos, of
240 folios badly numbered. Edited under the same title by Spoelberch,
Antwerp, 1620, 2 tomes in one volume, 8vo, 208 and 192 pages, with a
mass of alterations. The most important manuscript resembles that of
the Vatican 4354. There are two at the Mazarin Library, 904 and 1350,
dated 1459 and 1460, one at Berlin (MS. theol. lat., 4to, no. 196 sæc.
14). Vide Ehrle, Zeitschrift, t. vii. (1883), p. 392f; Analecta fr., t. i.,
p. xi.; Miscellanea, 1888, pp. 119, 164. Cf. A. SS., pp.
550-552.
The chapters are numbered in the first 72 folios only, but these
numbers teem with errors; fo. 38b, caput lix., 40b, lix., 41b, lxi., ibid.,
lxii., 42a, 1x., 43a, lxi. Besides at fos. 46b and 47b there are two
chapters lxvi. There are two lxxi., two lxxii., two lxxiii.,
2 For example, the history of the brigands of Monte-Casale, fos. 46b,
and 58b. The remarks of Brother Elias to Francis, who is continually
singing, 136b and 137a. The visit of Giacomina di Settesoli, 133a and
138a. The autograph benediction given to Brother Leo, 87a; 188a.
3 At fo. 20b we read : Tertium capitulam de charitate et compassione et
condescensione ad proximum. Capitulum xxvi. Cf. 26a, 83a, 117b,
119a, 122a, 128b, 133b, 136b, where there are similar indications.
4 Fo. 5b: Incipit Speculum vitce 1. Francesci et sociorum ejus. Fo. 770:
Incipit Speculuin perfectionis.
etc.
382
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
However, with a little perseverance we soon perceive
a few openings in the labyrinth. In the first place, here
are several chapters of the legend of Bonaventura which
seem to have been put in the van as if to protect the rest
of the book. If we abstract them and the whole series
of chapters from the Fioretti, we shall have diminished
the work by nearly three-quarters.
If we take away two more chapters taken from St.
Bernard of Clairvaux and those containing Franciscan
prayers, or various attestations concerning the indulgence
of Portiuncula, we finally arrive at a sort of residue, if
the expression may be forgiven, of a remarkable homo-
geneity.
Here the style is very different from that in the sur-
rounding pages, closely recalling that of the Three Com-
panions; a single thought inspires these pages, that the
corner-stone of the Order is the love of poverty.
Why should we not have here some fragments of the
original legend of the Three Companions ? We find
here nothing which does not fit in with what we know,
nothing which suggests the embellishments of a late tra-
dition.
To confirm this hypothesis come different passages
which we find cited by Ubertini di Casali and by Angelo
Clareno as being by Brother Leo, and an attentive
comparison of the text shows that these authors can
neither have drawn them from the Speculum nor the
Speculum from them.
There is, besides, one phrase which, apart from the in-
spiration and style, will suffice at the first glance to mark
the common origin of most of these pieces. Nos qui
cum ipso fuimus. “We who have been with him.” These
1 We should search for it in vain in the other pieces of the Speculum,
and it reappears in the fragments of Brother Leo cited by Ubertini di
Casali and Angelo Clareno.
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
383
words, which recur in almost every incident,' are in many
cases only a grateful tribute to their spiritual father, but
sometimes, too, they have a touch of bitterness. These
hermits of Greccio suddenly recall to mind their rights.
Are we not the only, the true interpreters of the Saint's
instructions—we who lived continually with him; we
who, hour after hour, have meditated upon his words,
his sighs, and his hymns?
We can understand that such pretensions were not to
the taste of the Common Observance, and that Cres-
centius, with an incontestable authority, has suppressed
nearly all this legend.
As for the fragments that have been preserved to
us, though they furnish many details about the last
years of St. Francis's life, they still are not those whose
loss is so much to be regretted. The authors who repro-
duce them were defending a cause. We owe them little
more than the incidents which in one way or another
concern the question of poverty. They had nothing to
do with the other accounts, as they were not writing a
biography. But even within these narrow limits these
fragments are in the first order of importance; and I
have not hesitated to use them largely. It is needless
to say that while ascribing their origin to the Three
Companions, and in particular to Brother Leo, we must
not suppose that we have the very letter in the texts
which have come down to us. The pieces given by
Ubertini di Casali and Angelo Clareno are actual cita-
tions, and deserve full confidence as such. As for those
which are preserved to us in the Speculum, they may
1 Fo. 8b, 11a, 12a, 15a, 18b, 216, 236, 26a, 29a, 33b, 43b, 41a, 48b,
118a, 129a, 130a, 134a, 135a, 136a.
? Does not Thomas de Celano say in the prologue of the Second Life :
" Oramus ergo, benignissime pater, ut laboris hujus non contemnenda
munuscula
vestra benedictione consecrare velitis, corrigendo
errata et superflua resecantes."
384
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
often have been abridged, explanatory notes may have
slipped into the text, but nowhere do we find inter-
polations in the bad sense of the word.
Finally, if we compare the fragments with the cor-
responding accounts in the Second Life of Celano, we
see that the latter has often borrowed verbatim from
Brother Leo, but generally he has considerably abridged
the passages, adding reflections here and there, es-
pecially retouching the style to make it more elegant.
- Omo
per Leonem
.
| The legend of 3 Soc. was preserved in the Convent of Assisi :
nia
fuerunt conscripta .
in libro
qui habetur in armario fratrum de Assisio.” Ubertini, Archiv., iii.,
, p.
168. Later, Brother Leo seems to have gone more into detail as to
certain facts; he coufided these new manuscripts to the Clarisses : "In
rotulis ejus quos apud me hubeo, manu ejusdem fratres Leonis con-
scriptis," ibid. Cf. p. 178. Quod sequitur a sancto fratre Conrado
predicto et viva voce audivit a sancto fratre Leone qui presens erut et
regulam scripsit. Et hoc ipsum in quibusdam rotulis manu sua con-
scriptis quos commendavit in monasterio S. Claro custodiendos.
In illis multa scripsit
quc industria fr. Bonaventura omisit et
noluit in legenda publice scribere, maxime quia aliqua erant ibi in quibus
ex tunc deviatio regulce publice monstrabatur et nolebat fratres ante tem-
pus in famare." Arbor., lib. V., cap. 5. Cf. Antiquitates, p. 146. Cf.
Speculum, 50b. Infra scripta verba, frater Leo socius et Confessor
B. Francisci, Conrado de Offica, dicebat se habuisse ex ore Beati Patre's
nostri Francisci, quo idem Frater Conradus retulit, apud Sanctum Da-
mianum prope Assisium."
Conrad di Ofidia copied, then, both the book of Brother Leo and his
rotuli ; he added to it certain oral information (Arbor, vit. Cruc., lib.
V., cap. 3), and so perhaps composed the collection so often cited by the
Conformists under the title of Legenda Antiqua and reproduced in part
in the Speculum.
The numbering of the chapters, which the Speculum has awkwardly
inserted without noting that they were not in accord with his own
division, were vestiges of the division adopted by Conrad di Offida.
It may well be that, after the interdiction of his book and its confisca-
tion at the Sacro Convento, Brother Leo repeated in his rotuli a large
part of the facts already made, so that the same incident, while coming
solely from Brother Leo, could be presented under two different forms.
according as it would be copied from the book or the rotuli.
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
385
Such a comparison soon proves that Brother Leo's
narratives are the original and that it is impossible to
see in them a later amplification of those of Thomas of
Celano, as we might at first be tempted to think them.
VI. SECOND LIFE BY THOMAS OF CELANO 3
First Part
In consequence of the decision of the chapter of 1244
Bearch was begun in all quarters for memorials of the
1
Compare, for example, 2 Cel., 120 : Vocation of John the Simple,
and Speculum, f° 37a, From the account of Thomas de Celano, one
does not understand what drew John to St. Francis; in the Speculum
overything is explained, but Celano has not dared to depict Francis go-
ing about preaching with a broom upon his shoulder to sweep the dirty
churches,
? It was published for the first time at Rome, in 1806, by Father
Rinaldi, following upon the First Life (vide above, p 365, note 2), and
restored in 1880 by Abbé Amoni : Vita secunda S. Francisci Assisiensis
auctore B. Thomade Celano ejus discipulo. Romæ, tipografia della pace,
1880, 8vo, 152 pp. The citations are from this last edition, which I
collated at Assisi with the most important of the rare manuscripts at
present known : Archives of Sacro Convento, MS. 686, on parchment
of the end of the thirteenth century, if I do not mistake, 130 millim.
by 142 ; 102 numbered pages. Except for the fact that the book is
divided into two parts instead of three, the last two forming only one,
I have not found that it noticeably differs from the text published by
Amoni; the chapters are divided only by a paragraph and a red letter,
but they have in the table which occupies the first seven pages of the
volume the same titles as in the edition Amoni.
This Second Life escaped the researches of the Bollandists. It is
impossible to explain how these students ignored the worth of the
manuscript which Father Theobaldi, keeper of the records of Assisi,
mentioned to them, and of which he offered them a copy (A. SS., Oct.,
t. ii., p. 546f). Father Suysken was thus thrown into inextricable
difficulties, and exposed to a failure to understand the lists of biog-
raphies of St. Francis arranged by the arnalists of the Order ; he was
at the same time deprived of one of the most fruitful sources of in-
formation upon the acts and works of the Saint. Professor Müller (Die
Anfänge, pp. 175–184) was the first to make a critical study of this
legend. His conclusions appear to me narrow and extreme Cf, Ana.
2.5
386
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
early times of the Order. In view of the ardor of this
inquiry, in which zeal for the glory of the Franciscan
institute certainly cast the interests of history into the
background, the minister-general, Crescentius, was obliged
to take certain precautions.
Many of the pieces that he received were doing
double duty; others might contradict one another; many
of them, under color of telling the life of the Saint,
had no other object than to oppose the present to the
past.
It soon became imperative to constitute a sort of com-
mission charged to study and coördinate all this matter.1
What more natural than to put Thomas of Celano at
its head? Ever since the approbation of the first legend
by Gregory IX. he had appeared to be in a sense the
official historiographer of the Order.2
This view accords perfectly with the contents of the
seventeen chapters which contain the first part of the
second legend. It offers itself at the outset as a com-
pilation. Celano is surrounded with companions who
help him. A more attentive examination shows that its
principal source is the Legend of the Three Companions,
lecta fr., t. ii., pp. xvii.-XX. Father Ehrle mentions two manuscripts,
cne in the British Museum, Harl., 47; the other at Oxford, Christ
College, cod. 202. Zeitschrift, 1883, p. 390.
1 The Three Companions foresee the possibility of their legend being
incorporated with other documents : quibus (legendis) hæc pauca quce
scribimus poteritis fucere inseri, si vestra discretio viderit esse justum.
3 Soc., Prol.
2 One phrase of the Prologue (2 Cel.) shows that the author received
an entirely special commission : Placuit
vobis
par-
vitati nostrc injungere, while on the contrary the 3 Soc. shows that
the decision of the chapter only remotely considered them: Cum
de mandato præteriti capituli frutres teneantur
visum est
nobis
pauca de multis
sanctitati vestrae intimare,
3 Soc., Prol.
Compare the Prologue of 2 Cel. with that of 1 Cel.
.
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
387
which the compilers worked over, sometimes filling out
certain details, more often making large excisions.
Everything that does not concern St. Francis is ruth-
lessly proscribed; we feel the well-defined purpose to
leave in the background the disciples who so compla-
cently placed themselves in the foreground.
The work of the Three Companions had been finished
August 11, 1246. On July 13, 1247, the chapter of
Lyons put an end to the powers of Crescentius. It is,
therefore, between these two dates that we must place
the composition of the first part of Thomas of Celano's
Second Life.
2
VII. SECOND LIFE BY THOMAS OF CELANO 3
Second Part
The election of Giovanni di Parma (1247-1257) as
successor of Crescentius was a victory for the Zealots.
This man, in whose work-table the birds came to make
their nests,' was to astonish the world by his virtues. No
one saw more deeply into St. Francis's heart, no one was
more worthy to take up and continue his work.
He soon asked Celano to resume his work.5 The lat-
1
Longum esset de singulis persequi, qualiter bravium supernce vocationis
attigerit. 2 Cel., 1, 10.
2 This first part corresponds exactly to that portion of the legend of
the 3 Soc., which Crescentius had authorized.
3 Observe that the Assisi MS. 686 divides the Second Life into two
parts only by joining the last two.
* Salimbeni, ann. 1248.
5 Glassberger, ann. 1253. An. fr. t. ii., p. 73. Frater Johannes de
Parma minister generalis, multiplicatis litteris præcipit fr. Thomæ de Ce-
lano (cod. Ceperano), ut vitam beati Francisci quce antiqua Legenda
dicitur perficeret, quia solum de ejus conversatione et verbis in primo
tractatu, de mandato, Fr. Crescentii olim generalis compilato, omissis mi-
raculis fecerat mentionem, et sic secundum tractatum de miraculis sancti
Patris compilavit, quem cum epistola que incipit : Religiosa vestra sol-
licitudo eidem generali misit.
This treatise on the miracles is lost, for one cannot identify it, as M.
388
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
ter was perhaps alone at first, but little by little a group
of collaborators formed itself anew about him.' Thence-
forth nothing prevented his doing with that portion of
the work of the Three Companions which Crescentius
had suppressed what he had already done with the part
he had approved.
The Legend of Brother Leo has thus come down to
us, entirely worked over by Thomas of Celano, abridged
and with all its freshness gone, but still of capital impor-
tance in the absence of the major part of the original.
The events of which we possess two accounts permit
us to measure the extent of our loss. We find, in fact,
in Celano's compilation all that we expected to find in
the Three Companions: the incidents belong especially
to the last two years of Francis's life, and the scene of
many of them is either Greccio or one of the hermitages
of the vale of Rieti; according to tradition, Brother Leo
was the hero of a great number of the incidents here re-
lated and all the citations that Ubertini di Casali makes
from Brother Leo's book find their correspondents here.
Müller suggests (Anfänge, p. 177), with the second part (counting three
with the Amoni edition) of the Second Life : 1°, epistle Religiosa vestra
sollicitudo does not have it ; 2', this second part is not a collection of mir-
acles, using this word in the sense of miraculous cures which it had in
the thirteenth century. The twenty-two chapters of this second part
have a marked unity ; they might be entitled Francis a prophet, but
not Francis a thaumaturgus.
'In the Prologue (2 Cel., 2, Prol.) Insignia patrum the author speaks
in the singular, while the Epilogue is written in the name of a group of
disciples.
2 Greccio, 2 Cel., 2, 5; 14; 3,7; 10; 103.–Rieti, 2 Cel., 2, 10; 11 ;
12 ; 13 ; 3, 36 ; 37; 66 ; 103.
3 St. Francis gives him an autograph, 2 Cel., 2, 18. Cf. Fior. ii.
consid.; his tunic, 2 Cel., 2, 19; he predicts to him a famine, 2 Cel., 2,
21 ; cf. Conform., 49b. Fr. Leo ill at Bologna, 2 Cel., 3, 5.
* The text of Ubertini di Casali may be found in the Archiv., t. iii.,
pp. 53, 75, 76, 85, 168, 178, where Father Ehrle points out the cor-
responding passages of 2 Cel.
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
389
This second part of the Second Life perfectly reflects
the new circumstances to which it owes its existence.
The question of Poverty dominates everything ;l the
struggle between the two parties in the Order reveals it-
self on every page; the collaborators are determined
that each event narrated shall be an indirect lesson to the
Liberals, to whom they oppose the Spirituals; the popes
had commented on the Rule in the large sense; they, on
their side, undertook to comment on it in a sense at once
literal and spiritual, by the actions and words of its
author himself.
History has hardly any part here except as the vehicle
of a thesis, a fact which diminishes nothing of the his-
toric value of the information given in the course of
these pages. But while in Celano's First Life and in the
Legend of the Three Companions the facts succeed one
another organically, here they are placed side by side.
Therefore when we come to read this work we are sensi-
ble of a fall; even from the literary point of view the
inferiority makes itself cruelly felt. Instead of a poem
we have before us a catalogue, very cleverly made, it is
true, but with no power to move us.
VIII. NOTES ON A FEW SECONDARY DOCUMENTS
a. Celano's Life of St. Francis for Use in the Choir
Thomas of Celano made also a short legend for use
in the choir. It is divided into nine lessons and served for
the Franciscan breviaries up to the time when St. Bona-
ventura made his Legenda Minor.
That of Celano may be found in part (the first three
lessons) in the Assisi MS. 338, fol. 52a-53b; it is pre-
1 It is the subject of thirty-seven narratives (1, 2 Cel., 3, 1-37), then
come examples on the spirit of prayer (2 Cel., 3, 38–44), the temptations
(2 Cel., 3, 58-64), true happiness (2 Cel., 3, 64-79), humility (2 Cel., 3,
79-87), submission (2 Cel., 3, 88. 91), etc.
390
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
ceded by a letter of envoy :“ Rogasti me frater Benedicte,
ut de legenda B. P. N. F. quædam exciperem et in novem
lectionum seriem ordinarem
etc. B. Franciscus
de civitate Assisii ortus a puerilibus annis nutritus extitit
insolenter."
This work has no historic importance.
b. Life of St. Francis in Verse.
In the list of biographers has sometimes been counted
a poem in hexameter verse 1 the text of which was edited
in 1882 by the lamented Cristofani.?
This work does not furnish a single new historic note.
It is the Life by Celano in verse and nothing more; the
author's desire was to figure as a poet. It is superflu-
ous, therefore, to concern ourselves with it.3
c. Biography of St. Francis by Giovanni di Ceperano.
One of the biographies which disappeared, no doubt
in consequence of the decision of the chapter of 1266,4 is
that of Giovanni di Ceperano. The resemblance of his
name to that of Thomas of Celano has occasioned much
confusion. The most precious information which we
have respecting him is given by Bernard of Besse in the
opening of his De laudibus St. Francisci : “Plenam
virtutibus B. Francisci vitam scripsit in Italia exquisite
..
Le Monnier, t. i., p. xi. ; F. Barnabé, Portiuncula, p. 15. Cf.
Analecta fr., t. ii., P. xxi. Zeitschrift für kath. Theol., vii. (1883), p.
397.
Il piu antico poema della vita di 8. Francisco d'Assisi scritto inanzi
all' anno 1230 ora per la prima volta pubblicato et tradotto da Antonio
Cristojani, Prato, 1882, 1 vol., 8vo, 288 pp.
Note, however, two articles of the Miscellanea, one on the manu-
script of this biography which is found in the library at Versailles, t.
iv.(1889), p. 34 ff. ; the other on the author of the poem, t. v. (1890),
pp. 2-4 and 74 ff.
4 See below, p. 410.
Vide Glassberger, ann. 1244; Analecta, t. ii., p. 68. Cf. A. SS., p.
545 ff.
3
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
391
vir eloquentice fr. Thomas jubente Domino Gregorio pa-
pa IX. et eam quce incipit: Quasi stella matutina vir
venerabilis Dominus et fertur Joannes, Apostolicae sedis
notarius" 1
In the face of so precise a text all doubt as to the ex-
istence of the work of Giovanni di Ceperano is impossible.
The Reverend Father Denifle has been able to throw new
light upon this question. In a manuscript containing the
liturgy of the Brothers Minor and finished in 1256 he
found the nine lessons for the festival of St. Francis pre-
ceded by the title: Ex gestis ejus abbreviatis quce sic in-
cipiunt: Quasi stella (Zeitschrift für kath. Theol., vii., p.
710. Cf. Archiv., i., p. 148). This summary of Ceperano's
work gives, as we should expect, no new information; but
perhaps we need not despair of finding the very work of
this author.
d. Life of St. Francis by Brother Julian.
It was doubtless about 1230 that Brother Julian, the
Teuton, who had been chapel-master at the court of the
King of France, was commissioned to put the finishing
touches to the Office of St. Francis. Evidently such a
work would contain nothing original, and its loss is little
felt.
IX. LEGEND OF ST. BONAVENTURA
Under the generalate of Giovanni di Parma (1247–1257)
the Franciscan parties underwent modifications, in conse-
quence of which their opposition became still more strik-
ing than before.
1 Manuscript in the Library of Turin, J. vi., 33, fº95a.
· Plenam virtutibus S. Francisci vitam scripsit in Italia
fra-
ter Thomas
in Francia vero frater Julianus scientia et sancti-
tate conspicuus qui etiam nocturnali sancti officium in littera et cantu
possuit præter hymnos et aliquas antiphonas quæ summus ipse Pontifex et
aliqui de Cardinalibus in sancti preconium ediderunt. Opening of the
De laudibus of Bernard of Besse. See below, p. 413. Laur. MS.,
f° 95a. Cf. Giord., 53; Conforin., 75b.
392
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
The Zelanti, with the minister-general at their head, en-
thusiastically adopted the views of Gioacchino di Fiore.
The predictions of the Calabrian abbot corresponded too
well with their inmost convictions for any other course
to be possible: they seemed to see Francis, as a new
Christ, inaugurating the third era of the world.
For a few years these dreams moved all Europe; the
faith of the Joachimites was so ardent that it made its
way by its own force; sceptics like Salimbeni told them-
selves that on the whole it was surely wiser not to be
taken unawares by the great catastrophe of 1260, and
hastened in crowds to the cell of Hyères to be initiated
by Hugues de Digne in the mysteries of the new times :
as to the people, they waited, trembling, divided between
hope and terror. Nevertheless their adversaries did not
consider themselves beaten, and the Liberal party still re-
mained the most numerous. Of an angelic purity, Gio-
vanni di Parma believed in the omnipotence of example :
events showed how mistaken he was; at the close of his
term of office scandals were not less flagrant than ten
years earlier.
Between these two extreme parties, against which he
was to proceed with equal rigor, stood that of the Mod-
erates, to which belonged St. Bonaventura.?
A mystic, but of a formal and orthodox mysticism, he
saw the revolution toward which the Church was hasten-
ing if the party of the eternal Gospel was to triumph ; its
1 In proof of this is the circular letter, Licet insufficentiam nostram,
addressed by Bonaventura, April 23, 1257, immediately after his elec-
tion, to the provincials and custodes upon the reformation of the Order.
Text: Speculum, Morin, tract. iii., fº 213a.
• Salimbeni, ann. 1248, p. 131. The Chronica tribulationum gives
a long and dramatic account of these events : Archiv., t. ii., pp. 283 ff.
“ Tunc enim sapientia et sanctitas fratris Bonaventuræ eclipsata paluit
et obscurata est et ejus mansuetudo (sic) ab agitante spiritu in furorum et
iram defecit.” Ib., p. 283.
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
393
victory would not be that of this or that heresy in detail,
it would be, with brief delay, the ruin of the entire eccle-
siastical edifice; he was too perspicacious not to see that
in the last analysis the struggle then going on was that
of the individual conscience against authority. This ex-
plains, and up to a certain point gains him pardon for,
his severities against his opponents; he was supported
by the court of Rome and by all those who desired to
make the Order a school at once of piety and of learning.
No sooner was he elected general than, with a purpose
that never knew hesitation, and a will whose firmness
made itself everywhere felt, he took his steps to forward
this double aim. On the very morrow of his nomination
he sketched the programme of reforms against the Liberal
party, and at the same time secured the summons of the
Joachimite Brothers before an ecclesiastical tribunal at
Città-della-Pieve. This tribunal condemned them to
perpetual imprisonment, and it needed the personal in-
tervention of Cardinal Ottobonus, the future Adrian V.,
for Giovanni di Parma to be left free to retire to the Con-
vent of Greccio.
The first chapter held under the presidence of Bona-
ventura, in the extended decisions of which we find every-
where tokens of his influence, assembled at Narbonne in
1260. He was then commissioned to compose a new life
of St. Francis.
We easily understand the anxieties to which this de-
1
Bon., 3, 1. At the same chapter were collected the constitutions of
the Order according to edicts of the preceding chapters; new ones were
added to them and all were arranged. In the first of the twelve rubrics
the chapter prescribed that, upon the publication of the account, all the
old constitutions should be destroyed. The text was published in the
Firmamentum trium ordinuin, fº 7b, and restored lately by Father
Ehrle: Archiv., t. vi. (1891), in his beautiful work Die ältesten Redac-
tionen der General constitutionen des Franziskanerordens. Cf. Speculum
Morin, fo. 195b of tract. Dan
394
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS .
cision of the Brothers was an answer. The number of
legends had greatly increased, for besides those which we
have first studied or noted there were others in existence
which have completely disappeared, and it had become
equally difficult for the Brothers who went forth on mis-
sions either to make a choice between them or to carry
them all.
The course of the new historian was therefore clearly
marked out: he must do the work of compiler and peace-
maker. He failed in neither. His book is a true sheaf,
or rather it is a millstone under which the indefatigable
author has pressed, somewhat at hazard, the sheaves of
his predecessors. Most of the time he inserts them just
as they are, confining himself to the work of harvesting
them and weeding out the tares.
Therefore, when we reach the end of this voluminous
work we have a very vague impression of St. Francis.
We see that he was a saint, a very great saint, since he
performed an innumerable quantity of miracles, great
and small; but we feel very much as if we had been go-
ing through a shop of objects of piety. All these statues,
whether they are called St. Anthony the Abbot, St.
Dominic, St. Theresa, or St. Vincent de Paul, have the
same expression of mincing humility, of a somewhat
shallow ecstasy. These are saints, if you please, miracle-
workers; they are not men; he who made them made
them by rule, by process; he has put nothing of his
heart in these ever-bowed foreheads, these lips with their
wan smile.
God forbid that I should say or think that St. Bona-
ventura was not worthy to write a life of St. Francis,
but the circumstances controlled his work, and it is no
injustice to him to say that it is fortunate for Francis,
and especially for us, that we have another biography of
the Poverello than that of the Seraphic Doctor.
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
395
1
Three years after, in 1263, he brought his completed
work to the chapter-general convoked under his presi-
dence at Pisa. It was there solemnly approved.
It is impossible to say whether they thought that the
presence of the new legend would suffice to put the old
ones out of mind, but it seems that at this time nothing
was said about the latter.
It was not so at the following chapter. This one, held
at Paris, came to a decision destined to have disastrous
results for the primitive Franciscan documents. This
decree, emanating from an assembly presided over by
Bonaventura in person, is too important not to be quoted
textually : “Item, the Chapter-general ordains on obedi-
ence that all the legends of the Blessed Francis formerly
made shall be destroyed. The Brothers who shall find
any without the Order must try to make away with them
since the legend made by the General is compiled from
accounts of three who almost always accompanied the
Blessed Francis; all that they could certainly know and
all that is proven has been carefully inserted therein." 2
1 The Legenda Minor of Bonaventura was also approved at this time;
it is simply an abridgment of the Legenda Major arranged for use of the
choir on the festival of St. Francis and its octave.
2 Item præcipit Generale capitulum per obedientiam quod omnes legendo
de B. Francisco olim facto debeantur et ubi inveniri poterant extra ordi-
nem ipsas fratres studeant amovere, cum illa legenda quæ facta est per
Generalem sit compilata prout ipse habuit ab ore illorum qui cum B.
Francisco quasi semper fuerunt et cuncta certitudinaliter sciverint et pro-
bata ibi sint posita diligenter.” This precious text has been found and
published by Father Rinaldi in his preface to the text of Celano: Scra-
phici viri Francisci vitæ duæ, p. xi. Wadding seems to have known of
it, at least indirectly, for he says: “ Utramque Historiam, longiorem et
breviorem, obtulit (Bonaventura) triennio post in comitiis Pisanis patribus
Ordinis, quas reverentur cum gratiarum actione, SUPRESSIS ALIIS QUI.
BUSQUE LEGENDIS, ADMISERUNT." Ad ann., 1260, no. 18. Cf. Ehrle,
Zeitschrift für kath. Theol., t. vii. (1883), p. 386.—“ Communicaverat
sanctus Franciscus plurima sociis suis et fratribus antiquis, que oblivioni
tradita sunt, tum quia que scripta erant in legenda prima, nova edita a
396
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
It would have been difficult to be more precise. We see
the perseverance with which Bonaventura carried on his
struggle against the extreme parties. This decree ex-
plains the almost complete disappearance of the manu-
scripts of Celano and the Three Companions, since in
certain collections even those of Bonaventura's legend
are hardly to be found.
As we have seen, Bonaventura aimed to write a sort of
official or canonical biography; he succeeded only too
well. Most of the accounts that we already know have
gone into his collection, but not without at times suffer-
ing profound mutilations. We are not surprised to find
him passing over Francis's youth with more discretion
than Celano in the First Life, but we regret to find him
ornamenting and materializing some of the loveliest inci-
dents of the earlier legends.
It is not enough for him that Francis hears the cruci-
fix of St. Damian speak; he pauses to lay stress on the
assertion that he heard it corporeis auribus and that no
one was in the chapel at that moment! Brother Mo-
naldo at the chapter of Arles sees St. Francis appear cor-
poreis oculis. He often abridges his predecessors, but
this is not his invariable rule. When he reaches the
account of the stigmata he devotes long pages to it,' re-
lates a sort of consultation held by St. Francis as to
whether he could conceal them, and adds several miracles
due to these sacred wounds ; further on he returns to the
subject to show a certain Girolamo, Knight of Assisi, de-
siring to touch with his hands the miraculous nails. On
the other hand, he uses a significant discretion wher-
ever the companions of the Saint are in question. He
fratre. Bonaventura deleta et destructa sunt, IPSOJUBENTE tum quia
Chronica tribul., Archiv., t. ii., p. 256.
Bon., 188–204.
9 Bon., 218.
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
397
names only three of the first eleven disciples,' and no
more mentions Brothers Leo, Angelo, Rufino, Masseo,
than their adversary, Brother Elias.
As to the incidents which we find for the first time in
this collection, they hardly make us regret the unknown
sources which must have been at the service of the famous
Doctor; it would appear that the healing of Morico, re-
stored to health by a few pellets of bread soaked in the
oil of the lamp which burned before the altar of the Vir-
gin, has little more importance for the life of St. Fran-
cis than the story of the sheep given to Giacomina di
Settesoli which awakened its mistress to summon her to
go to mass. What shall we think of that other sheep, of
Portiuncula, which hastened to the choir whenever it
heard the psalmody of the friars, and kneeled devoutly
for the elevation of the Holy Sacrament?
All these incidents, the list of which might be en-
larged, betrays the working-over of the legend. St.
Francis becomes a great thaumaturgist, but his physiog-
nomy loses its originality.
The greatest fault of this work is, in fact, the vagueness
of the figure of the Saint. While in Celano there are
the large lines of a soul-history, a sketch of the affecting
drama of a man who attains to the conquest of himself,
with Bonaventura all this interior action disappears be-
fore divine interventions; his heart is, so to speak, the
geometrical locality of a certain number of visitants; he
is a passive instrument in the hands of God, and we
really cannot see why he should have been chosen rather
than another.
i Bernardo (Bon., 28), Egidic (Bon., 29), and Silvestro (Bon., 30;
Bon., 49.
3 Bon., 112.
Bon., 111.
5 Vide Bon., 115 ; 99, etc. M. Thode has enumerated the stories ro
lating especially to Bonaventura : (Franz von Assisi, p. 535).
398
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
And yet Bonaventura was an Italian; he had seen
Umbria; he must have knelt and celebrated the sacred
mysteries in Portiuncula, that cradle of the noblest of re-
ligious reformations; he had conversed with Brother
Egidio, and must have heard from his lips an echo of the
first Franciscan fervor; but, alas ! nothing of that rapture
passed into his book, and if the truth must be told, I
find it quite inferior to much later 'documents, to the
Fioretti, for example; for they understood, at least in
part, the soul of Francis; they felt the throbbing of that
heart, with all its sensitiveness, admiration, indulgence,
love, independence, and absence of carefulness.
X. DE LAUDIBUS OF BERNARD OF BESSE 1
Bonaventura's work did not discourage the biogra-
phers. The historic value of their labor is almost noth-
ing, and we shall not even attempt to catalogue them.
Bernard of Besse, a native probably of the south of
France 2 and secretary of Bonaventura, made a summary
of the earlier legends. This work, which brings us no
authentic historic indication, is interesting only for the
care with which the author has noted the places where
1 Manuscript 1, iv., 33, of the library of the University of Turin. It
is a 4to upon parchment of the close of the fourteenth century, 124 ff.
It comprises first the biography of St. Francis by St. Bonaventura and
a legend of St. Clara, afterwards at fº 95 the De laudibus. The text
will soon be published in the Analecta franciscana of the Franciscans
of Quaracchi, near Florence.
2 In reading it we quickly discover that he was specially well ac-
quainted with the convents of the Province of Aquitania, and noted with
care everything that concerned them.
Wadding, ann. 1230, no. 7. Many passages prove at least that he ac-
companied Bonaventura in his travels : “ Hoc enim (the special aid of
Brother Egidio) in iis quæ ad bonum animæ pertinent devotus Generalis et
Cardinalis predictus
nos docuit.' F° 96a. Jamdudum ego
per Theutonia partes et Flandrios cum Ministro transiens Generali
Ibid., fº 106a.
3
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
399
repose the Brothers who died in odor of sanctity, and re-
lates a mass of visions all tending to prove the excellence
of the Order.1
Still the publication of this document will perform the
valuable office of throwing a little light upon the difficult
question of the sources. Several passages of the De
laudibus appear again textually in the Speculum, and
as a single glance is enough to show that the Speculum
did not copy the De laudibus, it must be that Bernard
of Besse had before him a copy, if not of the Speculum
at least of a document of the same kind.
III
DIPLOMATIC DOCUMENTS
In this category we place all the acts having a char-
acter of public authenticity, particularly those which
were drawn up by the pontifical cabinet.
This source of information, where each document has
its date, is precisely the one which has been most
neglected up to this time.
1 Bernard de Besse is the author of many other writings, notably an
important Catalogus Ministrorum generalium published after the Turin
manuscript by Father Ehrle (Zeitschrift für kath. Theol., t. vii., pp.
338-352), with a very remarkable critical introduction (ib., pp. 323–337).
Cf. Archiv für Litt. U. Kirchg., i., p. 145. — Bartolommeo di Pisa,
when writing his Conformities, had before him a part of his works, fº
148b, 2 ; 126a, 1 ; but he calls the author sometimes Bernardus de
Blesa, then again Johannes de Blesa. See also Mark of Lisbon, t. ii..
p. 212, and Hauréau, Notices et extraits, t. vi., p. 153.
Denique primos Francisci xiï. discipulos
omnes sanctos
fuisse audivimus preter unum qui Ordinem exiens leprosus factus laqueo
vel alter Judas interiit, ne Francisco cum Christo vel in discipulis simía.
tudo deficeret," fº 96a.
40C
LIFE OF ST. FRANOIS
1. DONATION OF THE VERNA
The Instrumentum donationis Montis Alvernce, a notarial
document preserved in the archives of Borgo San Se-
polcro,' not only gives the name of the generous friend
of Francis, and many picturesque details, but it fixes
with precision a date all the more important because
it occurs in the most obscure period of the Saint's life.
It was on May 8, 1213, that Orlando dei Catani, Count
of Chiusi in Casentino, gave the Verna to Brother
Francis.
II. REGISTERS OF CARDINAL UGOLINI
The documents of the pontifical chancellery addressed
to Cardinal Ugolini, the future Gregory IX., and those
which emanate from the hand of the latter during his long
journeys as apostolic legate, are of first rate importance.
It would be too long to give even a simple enumera-
tion of them. Those which mark important facts have
been carefully indicated in the course of this work. It
will suffice to say that by bringing together these two
series of documents, and interposing the dates of the
papal bulls countersigned by Ugolini, we are able to
follow almost day by day this man, who was, perhaps
without even excepting St. Francis, the one whose will
1 It was published by Sbaralea, Bull., t. iv., p. 156, note h. This act
was drawn up July 9, 1274, at a time when the son of Orlando as well
as the Brothers Minor desired to authenticate the donation, which until
then had been verbal.
? See Registri dei Cardinali Ugolino d'Ostia e Ottaviano degli Ubal-
dini pubblicati a cura di Guido Levi dall'Istituto storico italiano.- Fonti
per la storia d'Italia, Roma, 1890, 1 vol., 4to, xxviii. and 250 pp. This
edition follows the manuscript of the National Library, Paris : Ancien
fonds Colbert lat., 5152A. We must draw attention to a very beauti-
ful work due also to Mr. G. Levi : Documenti ad illustrazione del Re-
gistro del Card. Ugolino, in the Archivio della societa Romana di storia
patria, t. xii. (1889), pp. 241-326.
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
401
most profoundly fashioned the Franciscan institute. We
see also the pre-eminent part which the Order had from
the beginning in the interest of the future pontiff
, and
we arrive at perfect accuracy as to the dates of his meet-
ings with St. Francis.
III. BULLS
The pontifical bulls concerning the Franciscans were
collected and published in the last century by the monk
Sbaralea. But from these we gain little help for the
history of the origins of the Order.?
The following is a compendious list; the details have
been given in the course of the work:
No. 1. August 18, 1218.—Bull Liter ce tuce addressed to
Ugolini. The pope permits him to accept donations of
landed property in behalf of women fleeing the world
i Bullarium franciscanum seu Rom. Pontificum constitutiones epistolos
diplomata ordinibus Minorum, Clarissarum et Ponitentium conuessa,
edidit Joh. Hyac. Sbaralea ord. min. conv., 4 vols., fol., Rome, t. i.
(1759), t. ii. (1761), t. iii. (1763), t. iv., (1768). --Supplementum ab An-
nibale de Latera ord. min. obs. Romo, 1780.—Sbaralea had a compara-
tively easy task, because of the number of collections made before his.
I shall mention only one of those which I have before me. It is, com-
paratively, very well done, and appears to have escaped the researches
of the Franciscan bibliographers: Singularissimum eximiumque opus uni-
versis mortalibus sacratissimi ordinis seraphici patris nostri Francisci a
Domino Jesu mirabili modo approbati necnon a quampluribus nostri
Redemptoris sanctissimis vicariis romanis pontificubus multipharie de-
clarati notitiam habere cupientibus profecto per necessarium. Speculum
Minorum
per Martinum Morin
Rouen, 1509. It is
8vo, with numbered folios, printed with remarkable care. It contains
besides the bulls the principal dissertations upon the Rule, elaborated
in the thirteenth century, and a Memoriale ordinis (first part, fº 60–82),
a kind of catalogue of the ministers-general, which would have pre-
vented many of the errors of the historians, if it had been known.
? The Bollandists themselves have entirely overlooked those sources
of information, thinking, upon the authority of a single badly inter-
preted passage, that the Order had not obtained a single bull before the
solemn approval of Honorius III., November 29, 1223.
.
26
402
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
(Clarisses) and to declare that these monasteries are
holden by the Apostolic See.
No. 2. June 11, 1219~Cum delecti filii. This bull, ad-
dressed in a general way to all prelates, is a sort of safe
conduct for the Brothers Minor.
No. 3. December 19, 1219. — Sacrosancta romana.
Privileges conceded to the Sisters (Clarisses) of Monti-
celli, near Florence.
No. 4. May 29, 1220.—Pro dilectis. The pope prays
the prelates of France to give a kindly reception to the
Brothers Minor.
No. 5. September 22, 1220.—Cum secundum. Hono-
rius III. prescribes a year of noviciate before the entry
into the Order.
No. 6. December 9, 1220.—Constitutus in prosentia.
This bull concerns a priest of Constantinople who had
made a vow to enter the Order. As there is question
here of frater Lucas Magister fratrum Minorem de parti-
bus Romanice we have here indirect testimony, all the
more precious for that reason, as to the period of the
establishment of the Order in the Orient.
No. 7. February 13, 1221.–New bull for the same
priest.
No. 8. December 16, 1221.-Significatum est nobis.
Honorius III. recommends to the Bishop of Rimini to
protect the Brothers of Penitence (Third Order).
No. 9. March 22, 1222.- Devotionis vestrae. Conces-
sion to the Franciscans, under certain conditions, to cele-
brate the offices in times of interdict.
No. 10. March 29, 1222.-Ex parte Universitatis. Mis-
sion given to the Dominicans, Franciscans, and Brothers
of the Troops of San Iago in Lisbon.
1 And not March 29, as Sbaralea has it. The original, which I have
had under my eyes in the archives of Assisi, bears in fact : Datum
Anugnie XI. Kal. aprilis pontificatus nostri anno sexto.
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
403
A
Nos. 11, 12, and 13.- September 19, 1222.--Sacro-
sancta Romana. Privileges for the monasteries (Claris-
ses) of Lucca, Sienna, and Perugia.
No. 14. November 29, 1223.—Solet annuere. Solemn
approbation of the Rule, which is inserted in the bull.
No. 15. December 18, 1223.-Fratrum Minorum.
Concerns apostates from the Order.
No. 16. December 1,1224.-Cuin illorum. Authoriza-
tion given to the Brothers of Penitence to take part in the
offices in times of interdict, etc.
No. 17. December 3, 1224.—Quia populares tumultus.
Concession of the portable altar.
No. 18. August 28, 1225.-In hiis. Honorius explains
to the Bishop of Paris and the Archbishop of Rheims
the true meaning of the privileges accorded to the
Brothers Minor.
No. 19. October 7, 1225.- Vineae Domini. This bull
contains divers authorizations in favor of the Brothers
who are going to evangelize Morocco.
This list includes only those of Sbaralea's bulls which
may directly or indirectly throw some light upon the life
of St. Francis and his institute. Sbaralea's nomencla-
ture is surely incomplete and should be revised when the
Registers of Honorius III. shall have been published in
full. 1
The Abbé Horoy has indeed published in five volumes what he en-
titles the Opera omnia of Honorius III., but he omits, without a word of
explanation, a great number of letters, certain of which are brought for-
ward in the well-known collection of Potthast. The Abbé Pietro Pres-
suti has undertaken to publish a compendium of all the bulls of this
pope according to the original Registers of the Vatican. I regesti del
Pontifice Onorio 111. Roma, t. i., 1884. Volume i. only has as yet
appeared.
404
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
IV
CHRONICLERS OF THE ORDER
I. CHRONICLE OF BROTHER GIORDANO DI GIANO 1
Born at Giano, in Umbria, in the mountainous district
which closes the southern horizon of Assisi, Brother
Giordano was in 1221 one of the twenty-six friars who,
under the conduct of Cæsar of Speyer, set out for Ger-
many. He seems to have remained attached to this
prov-
ince until his death, even when most of the friars, espe-
cially those who held cures, had been transferred, often
to a distance of several months' journey, from one end of
Europe to the other. It is not, then, surprising that he
was often prayed to commit his memories to writing. He
dictated them to Brother Baldwin of Brandenburg in the
spring of 1262. He must have done it with joy, having
long before prepared himself for the task. He relates
with artless simplicity how in 1221, at the chapter-gen-
eral of Portiuncula, he went from group to group question-
ing as to their names and country the Brothers who were
going to set out on distant missions, that he might be
able to say later, especially if they came to suffer mar-
tyrdom: “I knew them myself!
Chronica fratris Jordani a Ginno. The text was published for the
first time in 1870 by Dr. G. Voigt under the title: “ Die Denkwürdig-
Iceiten des Minoriten Jordanus von Giano in the Abhandlungen der philo-
log. histor. Cl. der Königl. sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften,'
pp. 421-545, Leipsic, by Hirzel, 1870. Only one manuscript is known;
it is in the royal library at Berlin (Manuscript. theolog. lat. , 4to, n. 196,
sæc. xiv., foliorum 141). It has served as the base of the second edition :
Analecta franciscana sive Chronica aliaque documenta ad historiam mi-
norum spectantia. Ad Claris Aquas (Quaracchi) ex typographia col-
legii S. Bonaventurce, 1885, t. i.. pp. 1-19. Except where otherwise
noted, I cite entirely this edition, in which is preserved the division
into sixty-three paragraphs introduced by Dr. Voigt.
? Giord., 81.
92
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
405
His chronicle bears the imprint of this tendency.
What he desires to describe is the introduction of the
Order into Germany and its early developments there,
and he does it by enumerating, with a complacency which
has its own coquetry, the names of a multitude of friars 1
and by carefully dating the events. These details, tedious
for the ordinary reader, are precious to the historian; he
sees there the diverse conditions from which the friars
were recruited, and the rapidity with which a handful of
missionaries thrown into an unknown country were able
to branch out, found new stations, and in five years cover
with a network of monasteries, the Tyrol, Saxony, Bavaria,
Alsace, and the neighboring provinces.
It is needless to say that it is worth while to test Gior-
dano's chronology, for he begins by praying the reader to
forgive the errors which may have escaped him on this
head; but a man who thus marks in his memory what he
desires later to tell or to write is not an ordinary witness.
Reading his chronicle, it seems as if we were listening
to the recollections of an old soldier, who grasps certain
worthless details and presents them with an extraordinary
power
of relief, who knows not how to resist the tempta-
tion to bring himself forward, at the risk sometimes of
slightly embellishing the dry reality.”
In fact this chronicle swarms with anecdotes somewhat
personal, but very artless and welcome, and which on the
whole carry in themselves the testimony to their authen-
ticity. The perfume of the Fioretti already exhales from
these pages so full of candor and manliness; we can fol-
low the missionaries stage by stage, then when they are
settled, open the door of the monastery and read in the
1 He names more than twenty-four persons.
? It does not seem to me that we can look upon the account of the is
terview between Gregory IX. and Brother Giordano as rigorously accu.
rate. Giord., 63.
406
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
very hearts of these men, many of whom are as brave as
heroes and harmless as doves.
It is true that this chronicle deals especially with Ger-
many, but the first chapters have an importance for Fran-
cis's history that exceeds even that of the biographers.
Thanks to Giordano of Giano, we are from this time for-
ward informed upon the crises which the institute of
Francis passed through after 1219; he furnishes us the
solidly historical base which seems to be lacking in the
documents emanating from the Spirituals, and corrobo-
rates their testimony.
II. ECCLESTON: ARRIVAL OF THE FRIARS IN ENGLAND 1
Our knowledge of Thomas of Eccleston is very slight,
for he has left no more trace of himself in the history of
the Order than of Simon of Esseby, to whom he dedicates
his work. A native no doubt of Yorkshire, he seems
never to have quitted England. He was twenty-five
years gathering the materials of his work, which em-
braces the course of events from 1224 almost to 1260.
The last facts that he relates belong to years very near to
this date.
Of almost double the length of that of Giordano, Eccles-
ton's work is far from furnishing as interesting reading.
The former had seen nearly everything that he described,
and thence resulted a vigor in his story that we cannot
| Liber de adventu Minorum in Angliam, published under the title of
Monumenta Franciscana (in the series of Rerum Britannicarum medii
Avi scriptores, Roll series) in two volumes, 8vo; the first through the
care of J. S. Brewer (1858), the second through that of R. Howlett
(1882). This text is reproduced without the scientific dress of the Ana.
lecta franciscana, t. i., pp. 217-257. Cf. English Historical Review, v.
(1890), 754. He has published an excellent critical edition of it, but
unfortunately partial, in vol. xxviii., Scriptorum, of the Monumenta
Germaniæ Historica by Mr. Liebermann, Hanover, 1888, folio, pp. 560-
569.
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
407
find in an author who writes on the testimony of others.
More than this, while Giordano follows a chronological
order, Eccleston has divided his incidents under fifteen
rubrics, in which the same people continually reappear in
a confusion which at length becomes very wearisome.
Finally, his document is amazingly partial : the author is
not content with merely proving that the English friars
are saints; he desires to show that the province of Eng-
land surpasses all others' by its fidelity to the Rule and
its courage against the upholders of new ways, Brother
Elias in particular.
But these few faults ought not to make us lose sight of
the true value of this document. It embraces what we
may call the heroic period of the Franciscan movement
in England, and describes it with extreme simplicity.
Aside from all question of history, we have here enough
to interest all those who are charmed by the spectacle of
moral conquest. On Monday, September 10th, the
Brothers Minor landed at Dover. They were nine in
number: a priest, a deacon, two who had only the lesser
Orders, and five laymen. They visited Canterbury,
London, Oxford, Cambridge, Lincoln, and less than ten
months later all who have made their mark in the history
of science or of sanctity had joined them ; it may suf-
fice to name Adam of Marisco, Richard of Cornwall,
Bishop Robert Grossetête, one of the proudest and pu-
rest figures of the Middle Ages, and Roger Bacon, that
persecuted monk who several centuries before his time
grappled with and answered in his lonely cell the prob-
lems of authority and method, with a firmness and power
which the sixteenth century would find it hard to sur-
pass.
| Eocl., 11; 13; 14; 15. Cf. Eccl., 14, where the author takes pains
to say that Alberto of Pisa died at Rome, surrounded by English Brothers
" inter Anglicos.”
408
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
It is impossible that in such a movement human weak-
nesses and passions should not here and there reveal
themselves, but we owe our chronicler thanks for not
hiding them. Thanks to him, we can for a moment for-
get the present hour, call to life again that first Cam-
bridge chapel-so slight that it took a carpenter only one
day to build it-listen to three Brothers chanting matins
that same night, and that with so much ardor that one of
them—so rickety that his two companions were obliged to
carry him—wept for joy: in England as in Italy the
Franciscan gospel was a gospel of peace and joy. Moral
ugliness inspired them with a pity which we no longer
know. There are few historic incidents finer than that of
Brother Geoffrey of Salisbury confessing Alexander of
Bissingburn; the noble penitent was performing this
duty without attention, as if he were telling some sort of
a story; suddenly his confessor melted into tears, making
him blush with shame and forcing tears also from him,
working in him so complete a revolution that he begged
to be taken into the Order.
The most interesting parts are those where Thomas
gives us an intimate view of the friars : here drinking
their beer, there hastening, in spite of the Rule, to buy
some on credit for two comrades who have been mal-
treated, or again clustering about Brother Solomon, who
had just come in nearly frozen with cold, and whom they
could not succeed in warming-sicut porcis mos est cum
comprimendo foverunt, says the pious narrator. All this
is mingled with dreams, visions, numberless apparitions,
which once more show us how different were the ideas
most familiar to the religious minds of the thirteenth
century from those which haunt the brains and hearts of
to-day.
The information given by Eccleston bears only indi-
1 Eccl. 4. 12, ? Eçal, d: 5.8.7: 10: 12: 13 ; 14; 16.
2
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
409
rectly on this book, but if he speaks little of Francis he
speaks much at length of some of the men who have been
most closely mingled with his life.
III. CHRONICLE OF FRA SALIMBENI
1
As celebrated as it is little known, this chronicle is of
quite secondary value in all that concerns the life of St.
Francis. Its author, born October 9, 1221, entered the
Order in 1238, and wrote his memoirs in 1282–1287; it is
therefore especially for the middle years of the thirteenth
century that his importance is capital. Notwithstanding
this, it is surprising how small a place the radiant figure
of the master holds in these long pages, and this very
fact shows, better than long arguments could do, how
profound was the fall of the Franciscan idea.
IV. THE CHRONICLE OF THE TRIBULATIONS BY ANGELO CARENO?
This chronicle was written about 1330; we might
therefore be surprised to see it appear among the sources
1 It was published, but with many suppressions, in 1857, at Parma.
The Franciscans of Quaracchi prepared a new edition of it, which ap-
peared in the Analecta Fracniscana. This work is in manuscript in
the Vatican under no. 7260. Vide Ehrle, Zeitschrift für kath. Theol.
(1883), t. vii., pp. 767 and 768. The work of Mr. Clédat will be read
with interest : De fratre Salembene et de ejus chronico auctoritate,
Paris, 4to, 1877, with fac simile.
? Father Ehrle has published it, but unfortunately not entire, in
the Archid., t. ii., pp. 125-155, text of the close of the fifth and of the
sixth tribulation ; pp. 256-327 text of the third, of the fourth, and of
the commencement of the fifth. He has added to it introductions and
critical notes. For the parts not published I will cite the text of the
Laurentian manuscript (Plut. 20, cod. 7), completed where possible with
the Italian version in the National Library at Florence (Magliabecchina,
xxxvii.-28). See also an article of Professor Tocco in the Archivio sto-
rico italiano, t. xvii. (1886), pp. 12-36 and 243-61, and one of Mr. Rich.
ard's : Library of the École des chartes, 1884, 5th livr. p. 525. Cf.
Tocco, the Fresia nel medio Evo, p. 419 ff. As to the text published by
410
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
to be consulted for the life of St. Francis, dead more
than a century before; but the picture which Clareno
gives us of the early days of the Order gains its impor-
tance from the fact that in sketching it he made con-
stant appeal to eye-witnesses, and precisely to those
whose works have disappeared.
Angelo Clareno, earlier called Pietro da Fossombrone 1
from the name of his native town, and sometimes da
Cingoli, doubtless from the little convent where he made
profession, belonged to the Zelanti of the March of
Ancona as early as 1265. Hunted and persecuted by
his adversaries during his whole life, he died in the
odor of sanctity June 15, 1339, in the little hermitage
of Santa Maria d'Aspro in the diocese of Marsico in
Basilicata.
Thanks to published documents, we may now, so to
speak, follow day by day not only the external circum-
stances of his life, but the inner workings of his soul.
With him we see the true Franciscan live again, one of
those men who, while desiring to remain the obedient
son of the Church, cannot reconcile themselves to permit
the domain of the dream to slip away from them, the
ideal which they have hailed. Often they are on the
borders of heresy ; in these utterances against bad priests
and unworthy pontiffs there is a bitterness which the
sectaries of the sixteenth century will not exceed. Of-
ten, too, they seem to renounce all authority and make
Döllinger in his Beiträge zur Sektengeschichte des Mittelalters, Münich,
1890, 2 vols., 8vo, II. Theil Dokumente, pp. 417–427, it is of no use. It
can only beget errors, as it abounds with gross mistakes. Whole pages
are wanting.
Archiv., t. iii., pp. 406-409.
? Vide Archiv., i., p. 557
“ Et hoc totum ex rapacitate et ma-
lignitate luporum pastorum qui voluerunt esse pastores, sed operibus ne-
gaverunt deum," et seq. Cf., p. 562: “ Avaritia et symoniaca heresis
absque pallio regnat et fere totum invasit ecclesie corpus."
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
411
final appeal to the inward witness of the Holy Spirit;'
and yet Protestantism would be mistaken in seeking its
ancestors among them. No, they desired to die as they
had lived, in the communion of that Church which was
as a stepmother to them and which they yet loved with
that heroic passion which some of the ci-devant nobles
brought in '93 to the love of France, governed though
she was by Jacobins, and poured out their blood for her.
Clareno and his friends not only believed that Francis
had been a great Saint, but to this conviction, which was
also that of the Brothers of the Common Observance,
they added the persuasion that the work of the Stigma-
tized could only be continued by men who should attain
to his moral stature, to which men might arrive through
the power of faith and love. They were of the violent
who take the kingdom of heaven by force; so when, after
the frivolous and senile interests of every day we come
face to face with them, we feel ourselves both humbled
and exalted, for we suddenly find unhoped-for powers,
an unrecognized lyre in the human heart.
There is one of Jesus's apostles of whom it is difficult
not to think while reading the chronicle of the Tribula-
tions and Angelo Clareno's correspondence: St. John.
Between the apostle's words about love and those of the
Franciscan there is a similarity of style all the more
striking because they were written in different languages.
In both of these the soul is that of the aged man, where
all is only love, pardon, desire for holiness, and yet it
1“ Qui excommunicat et hereticat altissimam evangelii paupertatem, ex-
communicatus est a Deo et hereticus coram Christo, qui est eterna et in com.
mutabilis veritas.” Arch., i., p. 509. “Non est potestas contra chris-
tum Dominum et contra evangelium." Ib. p. 560. He closes one of his
letters with a sentence of a mysticism full of serenity, and which lets us
see to the bottom of the hearts of the Spiritual Brothers.
6 Totum
igitur studium esse debet quod unum inseparabiliter simus per Franciscum
in Christo." Ib., p. 564.
412
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
sometimes wakes with a sudden thrill-like that which
stirred the soul of the seer of Patmos—of indignation,
wrath, pity, terror, and joy, when the future unveils it-
self and gives a glimpse of the close of the great trib-
ulation.
Clareno's works, then, are in the strictest sense of the
word partisan ; the question is whether the author has
designedly falsified the facts or mutilated the texts. To
this question we may boldly answer, No. He commits
errors, especially in his earlier pages, but they are not
such as to diminish our confidence.
Like a good Joachimite, he believed that the Order
would have to traverse seven tribulations before its final
triumph. The pontificate of John XXII. marked, he
thought, the commencement of the seventh; he set him-
self, then, to write, at the request of a friend, the history
of the first six.?
His account of the first is naturally preceded by an
introduction, the purpose of which is to exhibit to the
reader, taking the life of St. Francis as a framework, the
intention of the latter in composing the Rule and dic-
tating the Will.
Born between 1240 and 1250, Clareno had at his ser-
vice the testimony of several of the first disciples ; : he
i For example, in the list of the first six generals of the Order.
? The first (1219-1226) extends from the departure of St. Francis for
Egypt up to his death ; the second includes the generalate of Brother
Elias (1232–1239); the third that of Crescentius (1244–1248); the fourth
that of Bonaventura (1257–1274); the fifth commences with the epoch
of the council of Lyon (1274) and extends up to the death of the inquis-
itor, Thomas d'Aversa (1204). And the sixth goes from 1308 to 1323.
Supererant adhuc multi de sociis 6. Francisci
et alii non
pauci de quibus ego vidi et ab ipsis audivi quæ narro." Laur. Ms., cod.
7, pl. XX.,
fº 24a : “ Qui passi sunt eam (tribulationem tertiam) socii fun.
datoris fratres Aegdius et Angelus, qui supererant me audiente referi-
vant.” Laur. Ms., f° 27b. Cf., Italian Ms., xxxvii., 28, Magliab., fº 138b.
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
413
2
3
4.
found himself in relations with Angelo di Rieti, Egidio,
and with that Brother Giovanni, companion of Egidio,
mentioned in the prologue of the Legend of the Three
Companions.
His chronicle, therefore, forms as it were the continua-
tion of that legend. The members of the little circle
of Greccio are they who recommend it to us ; it has also
their inspiration.
But writing long years after the death of these Broth-
ers, Clareno feels the need of supporting himself also on
written testimony; he repeatedly refers to the four
legends from which he borrows a part of his narrative;
they are those of Giovanni di Ceperano, Thomas of Ce-
lano, Bonaventura, and Brother Leo.4 Bonaventura's
work is mentioned only by way of reference; Clareno
borrows nothing from him, while he cites long passages
1 The date of his death is unknown; on August 11, 1253, he was pres-
ent at the death-bed of St. Clara.
Died April 23, 1261.
366 Quem (fratrem Jacobum de Massa) dirigente me fratre Johanne socio
fratris prefati Egidii videre laboravi. Hic enim frater Johannes
dixit mihi.
Arch., ii., p. 279.
Tribulationes preteritas memoravi, ut audivi ab illis qui
sustinuerunt eas et aliqua commemoravi de hiïs que didici in quatuor
legendis quas vidi et legi.” Arch., ii., p. 135.-“Vitam pauperis et hu-
milis viri Dei Francisci trium ordinum fundatoris quatuor solemnes
personce scripserunt, fratres videlicet scientia et sanctitate præclari,
Johannes et Thomas de Celano, frater Bonaventura unus post Beatum
Franciscum Generalis Minister et vir mirce simplicitatis et sanctitatis
frater Leo, ejusdem sancti Francisci socius. Has quatuor descriptiones
seu historias qui legerit
Laurent. MS., pl. xx., c. 7, fº 1a.
Did the Italian translator think there was an error in this quotation ? I
do not know, but he suppressed it. At fº 12a of manuscript xxxvii.,
28, of the Magliabecchina, we read : “ Incominciano alcune croniche del
ordine franciscano, come la vita del povero e humile servo di Dio Frances-
co fondatore del minorico ordine fu scripta da San Bonaventura e da qua-
tro altri frati. Queste poche scripture ovveramente hystorie quello il quale
diligentemente le leggiera, expeditamente potra cognoscere
la
vocatione la santita di San Francisco."
.
414
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
from Giovanni di Ceperano, Thomas of Celano” and
Brother Leo,3
Clareno takes from these writers narratives containing
several new and extremely curious facts.
I have dwelt particularly upon this document because
its value appears to me not yet to have been properly
4
reno:
1
1 Laur. MS., fº 4b ff. On the other hand we read in a letter of Cla-
“Ad hanc (paupertatem) perfecte servandam Christus Franciscum
vocavit et elegit in hac hora novissima et precepit ei evangelicam assumere
regulam, et a papa Innocentio fuit omnibus annuntiatum in concilio gen-
erali, quod de sua auctoritate et obedientia sanctus Franciscus evangeli-
cam vitam et regulam assumpserat et Christo inspirante servare promise-
rat, sicut sanctus vir fr. Leo scribit et fr. Johannes de Celano.” Archiv.,
i., p. 559.
2 « Audiens enim semel quorundam fratrum enormes excessus, ut fr.
Thomas de Celano scribit, et malum exemplum per eos secularibus datum.”
Laur. MS., fº 13b. The passage which follows evidently refers to 2 Cel.,
3, 93 and 112.
3 “ Et fecerunt de regula prima ministri removeri capitulum istud de
prohibitionibus sancti evangelii, sicut frater Leo scribit.” Laur. Ms. fº
12b. Cf. Spec., 9a, see p. 248. “Nam cum rediisset de partibus ultramu-
rinis, minister quidam loquebatur cum eo, ut frater Leo refert, de capi-
tulo paupertatis," fº 13a, cf. Spec., 9a, “S. Franciscus, teste fr. Leone,
frequenter et cum multo studio recitubat fabulam
quod oporte-
bat finaliter ordinem humiliari et ad sue humilitatis principia confitenda
et tenenda reduci.” Archiv., ii., p. 129.
There is only one point of contact between the Legend of the Three
Companions, such as it is to-day, and these passages; but we find on
the contrary revised accounts in the Speculum and in the other collec-
tions, where they are cited as coming from Brother Leo.
4 Clareno, for example, holds that the Cardinal Ugolini had sus-
tained St. Francis without approving of the first Rule, in concert with
Cardinal Giovanni di San Paolo. This is possible, since Ugolini was cre-
ated cardinal in 1198 (Vide Cardella : Memorie storiche de' Cardinali, 9
vols., 8vo, Rome, 1792–1793, t. i., pt. 2, p. 190). Besides this would bet-
ter explain the zeal with which he protected the divers Orders founded
by St. Francis, from 1217. The chapter where Clareno tells how St.
Francis wrote the Rule shows the working over of the legend, but it is
very possible that he has borrowed it in its present form from Brother
Leo. It is to be noted that we do not find in this document a single allu-
sion to the Indulgences of Portiuncula.
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOUROES
415
appreciated. It is indeed partisan ; the documents of
which we must be most wary are not those whose ten-
dency is manifest, but those where it is skilfully con-
cealed.
The life of St. Francis and a great part of the re-
ligious history of the thirteenth century will surely
appear to us in an entirely different light when we are
able to fill out the documents of the victorious party by
those of the party of the vanquished. Just as Thomas
of Celano's first legend is dominated by the desire to asso-
ciate closely St. Francis, Gregory IX., and Brother Elias,
so the Chronicle of the Tribulations is inspired from
beginning to end with the thought that the troubles of
the Order-to say the word, the apostasy--began so early
as 1219. This contention finds a striking confirmation
in the Chronicle of Giordano di Giano.
V. THE FIORETTI 1
With the Fioretti we enter definitively the domain of
legend. This literary gem relates the life of Francis,
his companions and disciples, as it appeared to the
popular imagination at the beginning of the fourteenth
century. We have not to discuss the literary value of
this document, one of the most exquisite religious works
of the Middle Ages, but it may well be said that from
the historic point of view it does not deserve the neglect
to which it has been left.
| The manuscripts and editions are well-nigh innumerable. M. Luigi
Manzoni has studied them with a carefulness that makes it much to be
desired that he continue this difficult work. Studi sui Fioretti : Misce.
lenea, 1888, pp. 116–119, 150–152, 162–168 ; 1889, 9-15, 78–84, 132
135. When shall we find some one who can and will undertake to make
a scientific edition of them? Those which have appeared during our
time in the various cities of Italy are insignificant from a critical point
of view. See Mazzoni Guido, Capitoli inediti dei Fioretti di S. Fran.
cesco, in the Propugnatore, Bologna, 1888, vol. xxi., pp. 396-411.
416
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
1
Most authors have failed in courage to revise the sen-
tence lightly uttered against it by the successors of Bol-
landus. Why make anything of a book which Father
Suysken did not even deign to read !
Yet that which gives these stories an inestimable worth
is what for want of a better term we may call their atmos-
phere. They are legendary, worked over, exaggerated,
false even, if you please, but they give us with a vivac-
ity and intensity of coloring something that we shall
search for in vain elsewhere—the surroundings in which
St. Francis lived. More than any other biography the
Fioretti transport us to Umbria, to the mountains of
the March of Ancona; they make us visit the hermi-
tages, and mingle with the life, half childish, half angelic,
which was that of their inhabitants.
It is difficult to pronounce upon the name of the
author. His work was only that of gathering the flowers
of his bouquet from written and oral tradition. The
question whether he wrote in Latin or Italian has been
much discussed and appears to be not yet settled ;
what is certain is that though this work may be anterior
to the Conformities, it is a little later than the Chron-
icle of the Tribulations, for it would be strange that it
made no mention of Angelo Clareno, if it was written
after his death.
This book is in fact an essentially local 3 chronicle;
the author has in mind to erect a monument to the
glory of the Brothers Minor of the March of Ancona.
This province, which is evidently his own,
ently his own, “does it not
Vide A. SS., p. 865 : “ Floretum non legi, nec curandum putavi.”
Cf. 553f: "Floretum ad manum non habeo."
2 Bartolommeo di Pisa compiled it in 1385; then certain manuscripts of
the Fioretti are earlier. Besides, in the stories that the Conformities bor-
row from the Fioretti, we perceive Bartolommeo's work of abbreviation.
· I am speaking here only of the fifty-three chapters which form the
true collection of the Fioretti.
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
417
resemble the sky blazing with stars? The holy Brothers
who dwelt in it, like the stars in the sky, have illumi-
nated and adorned the Order of St. Francis, filling the
world with their examples and teaching." He is ac-
quainted with the smallest villages,' each having at a
short distance its monastery, well apart, usually near a
torrent, in the edge of a wood, and above, near the hill-
top, a few almost inaccessible cells, the asylums of
Brothers even more than the others in love with con.
templation and resirement.?
The chapters that concern St. Francis and the Um-
brian Brothers are only a sort of introduction; Egidio,
Masseo, Leo on one side, St. Clara on the other, are wit-
nesses that the ideal at Portiuncula and St. Damian was
indeed the same to which in later days Giachimo di
Massa, Pietro di Monticulo, Conrad di Offida, Giovanni
di Penna, and Giovanni della Verna endeavored to attain.
While most of the other legends give us the Franciscan
tradition of the great convents, the Fioretti are almost
the only document which shows it as it was perpetuated
in the hermitages and among the people. In default of
accuracy of detail, the incidents which are related here
contain a higher truth—their tone is true. Here are
words that were never uttered, acts that never took
place, but the soul and the heart of the early Franciscans
ware surely what they are depicted here.
The province of the March of Ancona counted seven custodias :
1, Ascoli; 2, Camerino ; 3, Ancona; 4, Jesi ; 5, Fermo ; 6, Fano; 7,
Felestro. The Fioretti mention at least six of the monasteries of the
custodia of Fermo : Moliano, 51, 53 ; Fallerone, 32, 51; Bruforte and
Soffiano, 46, 47; Massa, 51; Penna, 45 ; Fermo, 41, 49, 51.
? At each page we are reminded of those groves which were originally
the indispensable appendage of the Franciscan monasteries : La selva
ch'era allora allato a S. M. degli Angeli, 3, 10, 15, 16, etc. La selva
d'un luogo deserto del val di Spoleto (Carceri ?), 4; selva di Forano, 42. m.
Massa, 51, etc.
27
418
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
The Fioretti have the living truth that the pencil gives.
Something is wanting in the physiognomy of the Pover-
ello when we forget his conversation with Brother Leo
on the perfect joy, his journey to Sienna with Masseo, or
even the conversion of the wolf of Gubbio.
We must not, however, exaggerate the legendary side
of the Fioretti : there are not more that two or three of
these stories of which the kernel is not historic and easy
to find. The famous episode of the wolf of Gubbio,
which is unquestionably the most marvellous of all the
series, is only, to speak the engraver's language, the third
state of the story of the robbers of Monte Casale 1
mingled with a legend of the Verna.
The stories crowd one another in this book like flocks
of memories that come upon us pell-mell, and in which
insignificant details occupy a larger place than the most
important events; our memory is, in fact, an overgrown
child, and what it retains of a man is generally a feature,
a word, a gesture. Scientific history is trying to react, to
mark the relative value of facts, to bring forward the im-
portant ones, to cast into shade that which is secondary.
Is it not a mistake? Is there such a thing as the impor-
tant and the secondary? How is it going to be marked ?
The popular imagination is right: what we need to re-
tain of a man is the expression of countenance in which
ives his whole being, a heart-cry, a gesture that expresses
his personality. Do we not find all of Jesus in the words
of the Last Supper? And all of St. Francis in his ad-
dress to brother wolf and his sermon to the birds?
Let us beware of despising these documents in which
the first Franciscans are described as they saw them-
selves to be. Unfolding under the Umbrian sky at the
foot of the olives of St. Damian, or the firs of the March
1 The Speculum, 461, 58b, 158a, gives us three states. Cf. Fior., 26
and 21 ; Conform., 119b, 2.
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
419
of Ancona, these wild flowers have a perfume and an
originality which we look for in vain in the carefully
cultivated flowers of a learned gardener.
APPENDICES OF THE FIORETTI
In the first of these appendices the compiler has die
vided into five chapters all the information on the stig-
mata which he was able to gather. It is easy to under-
stand the success of the Fioretti. The people fell in love
with these stories, in which St. Francis and his compan-
ions appear both more human and more divine than in
the other legends; and they began very soon to feel the
need of so completing them as to form a veritable biog.
raphy."
The second, entitled Life of Brother Ginepro, is only
indirectly connected with St. Francis; yet it deserves to
be studied, for it offers the same kind of interest as the
principal collection, to which it is doubtless posterior.
In these fourteen chapters we find the principal features
of the life of this Brother, whose mad and saintly freaks
still furnish material for conversation in Umbrian monas-
teries. These unpretending pages discover to us one
aspect of the Franciscan heart. The official historians
have thought it their duty to keep silence upon this
Brother, who to them appeared to be a supremely indis-
creet personage, very much in the way of the good name
of the Order in the eyes of the laics. They were right
from their point of view, but we owe a debt of gratitude
to the Fioretti for having preserved for us this person-
1 This desire was so natural that the manuscript of the Angelica
Library includes many additional chapters, concerning the gift of Por-
tiuncula, the indulgence of August 2d, the birth of St. Francis, etc.
(Vide Amoni, Fioretti, Roma, 1889, pp. 266, 378–386.) It would be an
interesting study to seek the origin of these documents and to establish
their relationship with the Speculum and the Conformities. Vide Cono
form., 231a, 1; 121b; Spec., 92-96.
420
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
}
ality, so blithe, so modest, and with so arch a good nat-
ure. Certainly St. Francis was more like Ginepro than
like Brother Elias or St. Bonaventura.1
The third, Life of Brother Egidio, appears to be
on the whole the most ancient document on the life of
the famous Ecstatic that we possess. It is very possi-
ble that these stories might be traced to Brother Gio-
vanni, to whom the Three Companions appeal in their
prologue.
In the defective texts given us in the existing editions
we perceive the hand of an annotator whose notes have
slipped into the text, but in spite of that this life is one
of the most important of the secondary texts. This al-
ways itinerant brother, one of whose principal preoccu-
pations is to live by his labor, is one of the most original
and agreeable figures in Francis's surroundings, and it is
in lives of this sort that we must seek the true meaning
of some of the passages of the Rule, and precisely in
those that have had the most to suffer from the enter-
prise of exegetes.
The fourth includes the favorite maxims of Brother
Egidio; they have no other importance than to show the
tendencies of the primitive Franciscan teaching. They
are short, precise, practical counsels, saturated with mys-
ticism, and yet in them good sense never loses its
rights. The collection, just as it is in the Fioretti, is no
doubt posterior to Egidio, for in 1385 Bartolommeo of
Pisa furnished a much longer one.3
1
Ginepro was received into the Order by St. Francis. In 1253 he
was present at St. Clara's death. A. SS., Aug., t. ii., p. 764d. The
Conformities speak of him in detail, fº 62b.
2 The first seven chapters form a whole. The three which follow are
doubtless a first attempt at completing them.
3 Conformities, fº 55b, 1-60a, 1.
ORITICAL STUDY OF THE SOUROES
421
VI. CHRONICLE OF THE XXIV. GENERALS 1
We find here at the end of the life of Francis that of
most of his companions, and the events that occurred
under the first twenty-four generals.
It is a very ordinary work of compilation. The au-
thors have sought to include in it all the pieces which
they had succeeded in collecting, and the result presents
a very disproportioned whole. A thorough study of it
might be interesting and useful, but it would be possible
only after its publication. This cannot be long delayed :
twice (at intervals of fifteen months) when I have desired
to study the Assisi manuscript it was found to be with
the Franciscans of Quaracchi, who were preparing to
print it.
It is difficult not to bring the epoch in which this col-
lection was closed near to that when Bartolommeo of
Pisa wrote his famous work. Perhaps the two are quite
closely related.
This chronicle was one of Glassberger's favorite sources.
VII. THE CONFORMITIES OF BARTOLOMMEO OF PISA ?
The Book of the Conformities, to which Brother Barto-
lommeo of Pisa devoted more than fifteen years of his
life, appears to have been read very inattentively by
I See Archiv., t. i., p. 145, an article of Father Denifle: Zur Quellen-
kunde der Franziskaner Geschichte, where he mentions at least eight
manuscripts of this work. Cf. Ehrle: Zeitschrift, 1883, p. 324, note 3.
I have studied only the two manuscripts of Florence : Riccardi, 279,
paper, 243 fos. of two cols. recently numbered. The Codex of the Lau.
rentian Gaddian. rel., 53, is less careful. It is also on paper, 20 x 27,
and counts 254 fos. of 1 column. F° 1 was formerly numbered 88.
The order of the chapters is not the same as in the preceding.
? The citations are always made from the edition of Milan, 1510, 4to
of 256 folios of two columns. The best known of the subsequent edi
tions are those of Milan, 1513, and Bologna, 1590.
• He began it in 1385 (fº 1), and it was authorized by the chapter
422
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
most of the authors who have spoken of it." In justice
to them we must add that it would be hard to find a
work more difficult to read; the same facts reappear
from ten to fifteen times, and end by wearying the least
delicate nerves.
It is to this no doubt that we must attribute the neg-
lect to which it has been left. I do not hesitate, how-
ever, to see in it the most important work which has been
made on the life of St. Francis. Of course the author
does not undertake historical criticism as we understand
it to-day, but if we must not expect to find him a histo-
rian, we can boldly place him in the front rank of com-
pilers.
If the Bollandists had more thoroughly studied him
they would have seen more clearly into the difficult ques-
tion of the sources, and the authors who have come after
them would have been spared numberless errors and in-
terminable researches.
2
general August 2, 1399 (fa 256a, 1). Besides, on fº 150a, 1, he set down
the date when he was writing. It was in 1390.
i I am not here concerned with the foolish attacks of certain Protes-
tant authors upon this life. That is a quarrel of the theologians which
in no way concerns history. Nowhere does Bartolommeo of Pisa make
St. Francis the equal of Jesus, and he was able even to forestall criti-
cism in this respect. The Bollandists are equally severe:
Cum Pisanus
fuerit scriptor magis pius et credulus quam crisi severa usus.
A. SS., p. 5510.
? He has avoided the mistakes so unfortunately committed by Wadding
in his list of ministers general. Vide 66a, 2, 104a, 1, 118b, 2. He was
lecturer on theology at Bologna, Padua, Pisa, Sienna, and Florence.
He preached for many years and with great success in the principal vil-
lages of the Peninsula and could thus take advantage of his travels by
collecting useful notes. Mark of Lisbon has preserved for us a notice of
his life. Vide Croniche dei fratri Minori, t. iii., p. 6 ff., of the Diola
edition. He died December 10, 1401. For further details see Wadding,
ann. 1399, vii., viii., and above all Sbaralea, Supplementum, p. 109.
He is the author of an exposition of the Rule little known which can be
found in the Speculum Morin, Rouen, 1509, fº 66b-83a, of part three.
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
423
1
Starting with the thought that Francis's life had been
a perfect imitation of that of Jesus, Bartolommeo at-
tempted to collect, without losing a single one, all the in-
stances of the life of the Poverello scattered through the
diverse legends still known at that time.
He regretted that Bonaventura, while borrowing the
narratives of his predecessors, had often abridged them,
and himself desired to preserve them in their original
bloom. Better situated than any one for such a work,
since he had at his disposal the archives of the Sacro
Convento of Assisi, it may be said that he has omitted
nothing of importance and that he has brought into his
work considerable pieces from nearly all the legends
which appeared in the thirteenth and fourteenth centu-
ries; they are there only in fragments, it is true, but with
perfect accuracy.
When his researches were unsuccessful he avows it
simply, without attempting to fil' out the written testi-
monies with his own conjectures. He goes farther, and
submits the documents he has before him to a real test-
2
1 This opinion is expressed in a guarded manner. For example,
fº 207a, 1, Bartolommeo relates the miracle of the Chapter of the Mats,
first following St. Bonaventura, then adding : "Et quia non aliter
tangit dicta pars (legendoe majoris) hoc insigne miraculum : antiqua legen-
da hoc refertur in hunc modum.” Cf. 225a, 2m, “ Et quia fr. Bona-
ventura succincte multa tangit et in brevi : pro eridentia prefatorum no-
tandum est
ut dicit antiqua legenda."
? However, it is necessary to note that not only are there considerable
differences between the editions published, but also that the first (that
of Milan, 1510) has been completed and revised by its editor. The
judgments passed upon Raymond Ganfridi, 104a, 1, and Boniface VIII.,
103b, 1, show traces of later corrections. (Cf. 125a, 1. At fº 72a, 2m, is
indicated the date of the death of St. Bernardin, which was in 1444, etc.}
Besides, we are surprised to find beside the pages where the sources are
indicated with clearness others where stories follow one another coming
one knows not from whence.
* F. 70a, 1 : “Cujus nomen non reperi.” 1a, 2 :
1a, 2 : “ Multaque non ex
industria sed quia ea noscere non valui omittendo."
424
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
ing, laying aside those he considers uncertain. Finally
he takes pains to point out the passages in which his
only authority is oral testimony?
As he is almost continually citing the legends of Ce-
lano, the Three Companions, and Bonaventura, and as
the citations prove on verification to be literally accu-
rate, as well as those of the Will, the divers Rules, or
the pontifical bulls, it seems natural to conclude that he
was equally accurate with the citations which we cannot
verify, and in which we find long extracts from works
that have disappeared.
3
Fº 78a, 1: Informationes quas non soribo quia imperfectas reperi.
Cf. 229b, 2:“De aliis multis apparitionibus non reperi scripturam,
quare hic non pono."
? F° 69a, 1 : “ Hec ut audivi posui quia ejus legendam non vidi.” Cf.
68b, 2m: Fr. Henricus generalis minister mihi magistro Bartholomeo
dixit ipse oretenus.
3 The citations from Bonaventura are decidedly more frequent. We
should not be surprised, since this story is the official biography of St.
Francis; the chapter from which Bartolommeo takes his quotations is
almost always indicated, and, naturally, follows the old division in
five parts. Opening the book at hazard at folio 136a I find no less
than six references to the Legenda Major in the first column. To give
an idea of the style of Bartolommeo of Pisa I shall give in substance the
contents of a page of his book. See, for example, fº 111a (lib. i., con-
form. X., pars. ii., Franciscus predicator). In the third line he cites
Bonaventura : Fr. Bonaventura in quarta parte majoris legende dicit
quod b. Franciscus videbatur intuentibus homo alterius seculi." Textual
citation of Bonaventure, 45. Three lines further on :
u Verum qualis
esset 6. F. quoad personam sic habetur in legenda antiqua
homo facundissimus, facie hilaris, etc.” The literal citation of the sketch
of Francis follows as 1 Celano, 83, gives it as far as : inter peccatores
quasi unus ex illis," and to mark the end of the quotation Bartolommeo
adds: “ Hec legenda antiqua.” In the next column paragraph 4 com-
mences with the words : B. Francisci predicationem reddebat mirabilem
et gloriosam ipsius sancti loquutio : etenim legenda trium Sociorum dicit et
Legenda major parte tertia : B. Francisci eloquia erant non inania, neo
risu digna, etc., which corresponds literally with 3 Soc., 25, and Bon., 28.
Then come two chapters of Bonaventura almost entire, beginning with :
In duodecima parte legende majoris dicit Fr. Bonaventura : Erat enim
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
425
1
The citations which he makes from Celano present no
difficulty; they are all accurate, corresponding sometimes
with the First sometimes with the Second Legend.
Those from the Legend of the Three Companions are
accurate, but it appears that Bartolommeo drew them
from a text somewhat different from that which we have.?
With the citations from the Legenda Antiqua the ques-
tion is complicated and becomes a nice one. Was there
a work of this name? Certain authors, and among them
the Bollandist Suysken, seem to incline toward the nega-
tive, and believe that to cite the Legenda Antiqua is about
the same as to refer vaguely to tradition. Others among
contemporaries have thought that after the approbation
and definitive adoption of Bonaventura's Legenda Major
verbum ejus, etc. Textual quotation of Bon., 178 and 179. The page
ends with another quotation from Bonaventura : Sic dicebat prout
recitat Bonaventura in octava parte Legende anajoris : Hac officium patri
misericordiarum. Vide Bonav., 102 end. and 103 entire. This suffices
without doubt to show with what precision the authorities have been
quoted in this work, with what attention and confidence ought to be
examined those portions of documents lost or mislaid which he has
here preserved for us.
| Fu 31b, 2 : ut dicit fr. Thomas in sua legenda, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 60.-
140a, 2: Fr. in leg. fr. T'home, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 60.—140a 1, cf. 2 Cel., 3
16.--142b, 1: Fr. in leg. Thome capitulo de charitate, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 115.
-144b, 1: Fr. in leg. fr. Thome capitulo de oratione, cf. 2 Cel., 3,40.-
144b, 1, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 65.-144b, 2, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 78.—176b, 2, cf. 2
Cel., 3, 79.–182b, 2, cf. 2 Cel., 2, 1.--241b, 1, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 141.-181a,
2, cf. 1 Cel., 27. It is needless to say that these lists of quotations do
not pretend to be complete.
? Fo 36b, 2. Ut enim habetur in leg. 3 Soc., cf. 3 Soc., 10.–46b, 1,
cf. 3 Soc., 25-28.--38b 2, cf. 3 Soc. 3.-111a, 2, cf. 3 Soc., 25.–134a, 2,
cf. 3 Soc., 4.--142b, 2, cf. 3 Soc., 57 and 58.—167b, 2, cf. 3 Soc., 3 and
8.-168a, 1, cf. 3 Soc., 10.–170b, 1, cf. 3 Soc., 39, 4.-175b, 2, cf. 3
Soc., 59.-180b, 2, cf. 3 Soc., 4.-181a, 1, cf. 3 Soc., 5, 7, 24, 33, and
67.-181a, 2, cf. 3 Soc., 36.-229b, 2, cf. 3 Soc., 14, etc. The reading
of 3 Soc. which Bartolommeo had before his eyes was pretty much the
same we have to-day, for he says, 181a, 2, referring to 3 Soc., 67 : “ Ut
habetur quasi in fine leg. 3 Soc.”
426
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
3
by the Order the Legends anterior to that, and especially
that of Celano, were called Legenda Antiqua. The Con-
formities permit us to look a little closer into the ques-
tion. We find, in fact, passages from the Legenda Antiqua
which reproduce Celano's First Life. Others present
points of contact with the Second, sometimes a literary
exactitude, but often these are the same stories told in too
different a way for us to consider them borrowed.
Finally there are many of these extracts from the Le-
genda Antiqua of which we find no source in any of the
documents already discussed. This would suffice to
show that the two are not to be confounded. It has ab-
sorbed them and brought about certain changes while
completing them with others.5
The study of the fragments which Bartolommeo has
preserved to us shows immediately that this collection
belonged to the party of the Zealots of Poverty; we might
be tempted to see in it the work of Brother Leo.
Most fortunately there is a passage where Bartolommeo
di Pisa cites as being by Conrad di Offida a fragment
which he had already cited before as borrowed from the
| F° 111a, 1, Sic habotur in leg. ant., corresponds literally with 1 Cel.,
83.–144a, 2. Franciscus in leg. ant. cap. v. de zelo ad religionem, to 1
Cel. 106.
2 Fo 111b, 1.
De predicantibus loqueus sic dicebat in ant. leg. Cf.
2 Cel., 3, 99 and 106. 140b, 1. Cf. 2 Cel., 3, 84.-144b, 1, cf. 2 Cel.,
3, 45.–144a, 1, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 95 and 15.-225b, 2, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 116.
3 F. 31a, 1. Vide 2 Cel., 3, 83.–143a, 2. Vide 2 Cel., 3, 65 and
116.—144a, 1. Vide 2 Cel., 3, 94.–170b, 1. Vide 2 Cel., 3, 11.
· F° 14a, 2.-32a, 1.-101a, 2.—169b, 1.–144b, 2.-142a, 2.--143b,
2.---168b, 1.--144b, 1.
Chapters 18 (chapter of the mats) and 25 (lepers cured) of the Fio-
retti are found in Latin in the Conf. as borrowed from the Leg. Ant.
Vide 174b, 1, and 207a, 1.
Finally, according to fº 168b, 2, it is also from the Leg. Ant. that the
description of the coat, such as we find at the end of the Chronique des
Tribulations, was borrowed. See Archiv., t. ii., p. 153.
6
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
427
Legenda Antiqua. I would not exaggerate the value of
an isolated instance, but it seems an altogether plausible
hypothesis to make Conrad di Offida the author of this
compilation. All that we know of him, of his tendencies,
his struggle for the strict observance, accords with what
the known fragments of the Legenda Antiqua permit us
to infer as to its author.?
However this may be, it appears that in this collec-
tion the stories have been given us (the principal source
being the Legend of Brother Leo or the Three Com-
panions before its mutilation) in a much less abridged
form than in the Second Life of Celano. This work is
hardly more than a second edition of that of Brother
Leo, here and there completed with a few new incidents,
and especially with exhortations to perseverance ad-
dressed to the persecuted Zealots.3
VIII. CHRONICLE OF GLASSBERGER
Evidently this work, written about 1508, cannot be
classed among the sources properly so called; but it
pre-
F° 182a, 2; cf. 51b, 1; 144a, 1.
2 He died December 12, 1306, at Bastia, near Assisi. See upon him
Chron. Tribul. Archiv., ii. ; 311 and 312; Conform., 60, 119, and 153.
Although the history of the Indulgence of Portiuncula was of all
subjects the one most largely treated in the Conformities, 151b, 2-
157a, 2, not once does Bartolommeo of Pisa refer to it in the Legenda
Antiqua. It seems, then, that this collection also was silent as to this
celebrated pardon.
* Published with extreme care by the Franciscan Fathers of the
Observance in t. ii. of the Analecta Franciscana, ad Claro Aquas
(Quaracchi, near Florence), 1888, 1 vol., crown 8vo, of xxxvi. -612 pp.
This edition, as much from the critical point of view of the text, its
correctness, its various readings and notes, as from the material point
of view, is perfect and makes the more desirable a publication of the
chronicles of the xxiv. generals and of Salimbeni by the same editors.
The beginning up to the year 1262 has been published already by Dr.
Karl Evers under the title Analecta ad Fratrum Minorum historiam.
Leipsic, 1882, 4to of 89 pp.
428
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
sents in a convenient form the general history of the Order,
and thanks to its citations permits us to verify certain
passages in the primitive legends of which Glassberger
had the MS. before his eyes. It is thus in particular
with the chronicle of Brother Giordano di Giano, which he
has inserted almost bodily in his own work.
IX. CHRONICLE OF MARK OF LISBON !
This work is of the same character as that of Glass-
berger; it can only be used by way of addition. There is,
however, a series of facts in which it has a special value;
it is when the Franciscan missions in Spain or Morocco
are in question. The author had documents on this sub-
ject which did not reach the friars in distant countries.
V
CHRONICLES OUTSIDE OF THE ORDER
I. JACQUES DE VITRY
The following documents, which we can only briefly in-
dicate, are of inestimable value; they emanate from men
particularly well situated to give us the impression which
the Umbrian prophet produced on his generation.
Jacques de Vitry' has left extended writings on St.
1 I have been able only to procure the Italian edition published by
Horatio Diola under the title Croniche degli Ordini instituti dal P. S.
Francesco, 3 vols., 8vo, Venice, 1606.
? He was born at Vitry-sur-Seine, became Curé of Argenteuil, near
Paris; Canon of Oignies, in the diocese of Namur, preached the crusade
against the Albigenses, and accompanied the Crusaders to Palestine;
having been made Bishop of Acre, he was present in 1219 at the siege
and at the capture of Damietta and returned to Europe in 1225 ; created
Cardinal-bishop of Frascati in 1229, he died in 1244, leaving a number
of writings. For his life, see the preface of his Historie, edition of
Douai, 1597.
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
429
Francis. Like a prudent man who has already seen
many religious madmen, he is at first reserved ; but soon
this sentiment disappears, and we find in him only a
humble and active admiration for the Apostolic Man.
He speaks of him in a letter which he wrote immedi-
ately after the taking of Damietta (November, 1219), to
his friends in Lorraine, to describe it to them. A few
lines suffice to describe St. Francis and point out his ir-
resistible influence. There is not a single passage in the
Franciscan biographers which gives a more living idea of
the apostolate of the Poverello.
He returns to him more at length in his Historia Occi-
dentalis, devoting to him the thirty-second chapter of this
curious work. These pages, vibrating with enthusiasm,
were written during Francis's lifetime, at the time when
the most enlightened members of the Church, who had
believed themselves to be living in the evening of the
world, in vespere mundi tendentis ad occasum, suddenly saw
in the direction of Umbria the light of a new day.
II. THOMAS OF SPALATO
An archdeacon of the Cathedral of Spalato, who in 1220
was studying at Bologna, has left us a very living por-
trait of St. Francis and the memory of the impression
which his preachings produced in that learned town.'
1 This letter may be found in (Bongars) Gesta Dei per Francio, pp.
1146–1149.
Jacobi de Vitriaco Libri duo quorum prior Orientalis, alter Occiden-
talis Historic nomine inscribitur studio F. Moschi Duaci ex officina Bal.
thazaris Belleri, 1597, 16mo, 480 pp. Chapter xxxii. fills pages 349–353,
and is entitled De ordine et prædicatione fratrum Minorum. See above,
p. 229.
* This appears from the passage : Videmus primus ordinis fundatorem
magestrum cui tanquam summo Priori suo omnes alii obediunt. Loc.
cit., p. 352.
4 It is inserted in the treatise of Sigonius on the bishops of Bologna :
Caroli Sigonii de episcopis Bononiensibus libri quinque cum notis L. C.
431)
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
Something of his enthusiasm has passed into his story;
we feel that that day, August 15, 1220, when he met
the Poverello of Assisi, was one of the best of his life.
III. DIVERS CHRONICLES
The continuation of William of Tyre 2 brings us a new
account of Francis's attempt to conquer the Soudan. This
narrative, the longest of all three we have on this subject,
contains no feature essentially new, but it gives one more
witness to the historic value of the Franciscan legends.
Finally, there are two chronicles written during Fran-
cis's life, which, without giving anything new, speak
with accuracy of his foundation, and prove how rapidly
that religious renovation which started in Umbria was
being propagated to the very ends of Europe. The
anonymous chronicler of Monte Sereno 3 in fact wrote
about 1225, and tells us, not without regret, of the brill-
iant conquests of the Franciscans.
Burchard,4 Abbot Prémontré d'Ursberg (died in 1226),
who was in Rome in 1211, leaves us a very curious criti-
cism of the Order.
The Brothers Minor appeared to him a little like an or-
thodox branch of the Poor Men of Lyons. He even de-
sires that the pope, while approving the Franciscans,
Rabbiż, a work which occupies cols. 353–590 of t. iii. of his Opera
omnia, Milan, 1732–1737, 6 vols., fº. We find our fragment in col. 432.
This passage will be found above, p. 241.
2 Guillelmi Tyrensis arch. Continuala belli sacri historia in Martène :
Amplissima Collectio, t. V. pp. 584-572. The piece concerning Francis
is cols. 689-690.
3 Chronicon Montis Sereni (at present Petersberg, near Halle), edited by
Ehrenfeuchter in the Mon. Germ. hist. Script., t. 23, pp. 130–226,
229.
* Burchardi et Cuonradi Urspergensium chronicon ed., A Otto Abel and
L. Weiland, apud Mon. Germ. hist., t. 23, pp. 333-383. The monastery
of Ursperg was half-way between Ulm and Augsburg. Vide p. 376.
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES
431
should do so with a view to satisfy, in the measure of
the possible, the aspirations manifested by that heresy
and that of the Humiliati.
It is impossible to attribute any value whatever to the
long pages given to St. Francis by Matthew Paris.1 His
information is correct wherever the activities of the
friars are concerned, and he could examine the work
around him. They are absolutely fantastic when he
comes to the life of St. Francis, and we can only feel sur-
prised to find M. Hase 3 adopting the English monk's ac-
count of the stigmata.
The notice which he gives of Francis contains as
many errors as sentences; he makes him born of a family
illustrious by its nobility, makes him study theology from
his infancy (hoc didicerat in litteris et theologicis disciplinis
quibus ab cetate tenera incubuerat, usque ad notitiam perfec-
tam), etc.4
It would be useless to enlarge this list and mention
those chroniclers who simply noticed the foundation of
the Order, its approbation, and the death of St. Francis, 5
or those which spoke of him at length, but simply by
copying a Franciscan legend.
6
1 Matthæi Parisiensis monachie Albanensis, Historia major, edition
Watts, London, 1640. The Brothers Minor are first mentioned in the
year 1207, p. 222, then 1227, pp. 339–342.
2 See the article, Minores, in the table of contents of the Mon. Germ.
hist. Script., t. xxviii.
9 Franz von Assisi, p. 168 ff.
4 See above, p. 97, his story of the audience with Innocent III.
6 For example, Chronica Albrici trium fontium in Pertz: Script., t. 23,
ad ann. 1207, 1226, 1228. Vide Fragment of the chron. of Philippe
Mousket (+ before 1245). Recueil des historiens, t. xxii., p. 71, lines
30347–30360. The number of annalists in this century is appalling,
and there is not one in ten who has omitted to note the foundation of
the Minor Brothers.
6 For example, Vincent de Beauvais (-1264) gives in his Speculum his.
toriale, lib. 29, cap. 97–99, lib. 30, cap. 99–111, nearly every story given
432
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
It suffices to point out by way of memory the long
chapter consecrated to St. Francis in the Golden Legend.
Giachimo di Voraggio (* 1298) there sums up with accu-
racy
but without order the essential features of the first
legends and in particular the Second Life by Celano.
As for the inscription of Santa Maria del Vescovado at
Assisi it is too unformed to be anything but a simple ob-
ject of curiosity.
2
I have given up preparing a complete bibliography of
works concerning St. Francis, that task having been very
well done by the Abbé Ulysse Chevalier in his Répertoire
des sources historiques du moyen age, Bio-Bibliographie,
cols. 765–767 and 2588-2590, Paris, 1 vol., 4to, 1876–
1888. To it I refer my readers.
1
by the Bollandists under the title of Secunda legenda in their Commen,
tarium prævium.
Legenda aurea, Graesse, Breslau, 1890, pp. 662-674.
2 A good reproduction of it will be found in the Miscellanea francese
cuna, t. ii., pp. 33–37, accompanied by a learned dissertation by M.
Faloci Pulignani.
APPENDIX
SRITICAL STUDY OF THE STIGMATA AND THE INDULGENCE
OF AUGUST 2
I. THE STIGMATA
A dissertation upon the possibility of miracles would
be out of place here ; a historic sketch is not a treatise on
philosophy or dogmatics.
Still, I owe the reader a few explanations, to enable
him with thorough understanding to judge of my manner
of viewing the subject.
If by miracle we understand either the suspension or
subversion of the laws of nature, or the intervention of
the first cause in certain particular cases, I could not
concede it. In this negation physical and logical reasons
are secondary; the true reason—let no one be surprised
mis entirely religious; the miracle is immoral. The
equality of all before God is one of the postulates of the
religious consciousness, and the miracle, that good pleas-
ure of God, only degrades him to the level of the capri-
cious tyrants of the earth.
The existing churches, making, as nearly all of them do,
this notion of miracle the very essence of religion and the
basis of all positive faith, involuntarily render themselves
guilty of that emasculation of manliness and morality of
which they so passionately complain. If God intervenes
thus irregularly in the affairs of men, the latter can
28
434
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
hardly do otherwise than seek to become courtiers who
expect all things of the sovereign's favor.
The question changes its aspect, if we call miracle, as
we most generally do, all that goes beyond ordinary
experience.
Many apologists delight in showing that the unheard
of, the inexplicable, are met with all through life. They
are right and I agree with them, on condition that they
do not at the close of their explanation replace this new
notion of the supernatural by the former one.
It is thus that I have come to conclude the reality of
the stigmata. They may have been a unique fact with-
out being more miraculous than other phenomena; for
example, the mathematical powers or the musical ability
of an infant prodigy.
There are in the human creature almost indefinite
powers, marvellous energies; in the great majority of
men these lie in torpid slumber, but awaking to life in a
few, they make of them prophets, men of genius, and
saints who show humanity its true nature.
We have caught but fleeting glimpses into the domain
of mental pathology, so vast is it and unexplored; the
learned men of the future will perhaps make, in the
realms of psychology and physiology, such discoveries as
will bring about a complete revolution in our laws and
customs.
It remains to examine the stigmata from the point of
view of history. And though in this field there is no
lack of difficulties, small and great, the testimony appears
to me to be at once too abundant and too precise not to
command conviction.
We may at the outset set aside the system of those
who hold that Brother Elias helped on their appearance
by a pious fraud. Such a claim might indeed be de-
fended if these marks had been gaping wounds, as they
APPENDIX
435
are now or in most cases have been represented to be;
but all the testimony agrees in describing them, with the
exception of the mark on the side, as blackish, fleshy
excrescences, like the heads of nails, and in the palms of
the hands like the points of nails clinched by a hammer.
There was no bloody exudation except at the side.
On the other hand, any deception on the part of Elias
would oblige us to hold that his accomplices were actually
the heads of the party opposed to him, Leo, Angelo, and
Rufino. Such want of wit would be surprising indeed
in a man so circumspect.
Finally the psychological agreement between the ex-
ternal circumstances and the event is so close that an in-
vention of this character would be as inexplicable as the
fact itself. That which indeed almost always betrays
invented or unnatural incidents is that they do not fit
into the framework of the facts. They are extraneous
events, purely decorative elements whose place might be
changed at will.
Nothing of the sort is the case here : Thomas of Celano
is so veracious and so exact, that though holding the
stigmata to be miraculous, he gives us all the elements
necessary for explaining them in a diametrically opposite
manner.
1. The preponderating place of the passion of Jesus in
Francis's conscience ever since his conversion (1 Cel.,
115; 2 Cel., 1, 6; 3, 29; 49; 52).
2. His sojourn in the Verna coincides with a great in-
crease of mystical fervor.
3. He there observes a Lent in honor of the archangel
St. Michael.
4. The festival of the exaltation of the cross comes on,
and in the vision of the crucified seraph is blended the
two ideas which have taken possession of him, the angels
and the crucifix (1 Cel., 91-96, 112-115).
436
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
1
This perfect congruity between the circumstances and
the prodigy itself forms a moral proof whose value can-
not be exaggerated.
It is time to pass the principal witnesses in review.
1. Brother Elias, 1226. On the very day after the
death of Francis, Brother Elias, in his capacity of vicar,
sent letters to the entire Order announcing the event
and prescribing prayers.
After having expressed his sorrow and imparted to the
Brothers the blessing with which the dying Francis had
charged him for them, he adds: "I announce to you a
great joy and a new miracle. Never has the world seen
such a sign, except on the Son of God who is the Christ
God. For a long time before his death our Brother and
Father appeared as crucified, having in his body five
wounds which are truly the stigmata of Christ, for his
hands and his feet bore marks as of nails without and
within, forming a sort of scars; while at the side he was
as if pierced with a lance, and often a little blood oozed
from it.”
2. Brother Leo. We find that it is the very adversary of
Elias who is the natural witness, not only of the stig-
The text was published in 1620 by Spælberch (in his Speculum vitae
B. Francisci, Antwerp, 2 vols., 12mo, ii., pp. 103–106), after the copy
addressed to Brother Gregory, minister in France, and then preserved
in the convent of the Recollects in Valenciennes. It was reproduced
by Wadding (Ann. 1226, no. 44) and the Bollandists (pp. 668 and 669).
So late an appearance of a capital document might have left room for
doubts ; there is no longer reason for any, since the publication of the
chronicle of Giordano di Giano, who relates the sending of this letter
(Giord. , 50). The Abbé Amoni has also published this text (at the close
of his Legenda trium Sociorum, Rome, 1880, pp. 105–109), but accord-
ing to his deplorable habit, he neglects to tell whence he has drawn it.
This is the more to be regretted since he gives a variant of the first
order : Nam diu ante mortem instead of Non dir, as Spoelberch's text
has it. The reading Nam diu appears preferable from a philological point
of view.
APPENDIX
437
mata, but of the circumstances of their imprinting. This
fact adds a peculiar value to his account.
We learned above (Critical Study, p. 377) the untoward
fate of a part of the Legend of Brothers Leo, Angelo, and
Rufino. The chapters with which it now closes (68–73)
and in which the narrative of the miracle occurs, were
not originally a part of it. They are a summary added
at a later time to complete this document. This appendix,
therefore, has no historic value, and we neither depend on
it with the ecclesiastical authors to affirm the miracle, nor
with M. Hase to call it in question.
Happily the testimony of Brother Leo has come down
to us in spite of that. We are not left even to seek for
it in the Speculum, the Fioretti, the Conformities, where
fragments of his work are to be found; we find it in seva
eral other documents of incontestable authority.
The authenticity of the autograph of St. Francis pre-
served at Assisi appears to be thoroughly established
(see Critical Study, p. 357); it contains the following note
by Brother Leo's hand: “The Blessed Francis two years
before his death kept on the Verna in honor of the B. V.
Mary mother of God, and St. Michael Archangel, a Lent
from the festival of the Assumption of the B. V. M. to
the festival of St. Michael in September, and the hand of
God was upon him by the vision and the address of the
seraph and the impression of the stigmata upon his
body. He made the laudes that are on the other side,
etc."
Again, Eccleston (13) shows us Brother Leo complain-
ing to Brother Peter of Tewkesbury, minister in Eng-
land, that the legend is too brief concerning the events
on the Verna, and relating to him the greater number of
the incidents which form the nucleus of the Fioretti on
the stigmata. These memorials are all the more certain
that they were immediately committed to writing by
-438
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
Peter of Tewkesbury's companion, Brother Garin von
Sedenfeld.
Finally Salembeni, in his chronicle (ad ann. 1224) in
speaking of Ezzelino da Romano is led to oppose him to
Francis. He suddenly remembers the stigmata and
says, “Never man on earth, but he, has had the five
wounds of Christ. His companion, Brother Leo, who
was present when they washed the body before the
burial, told me that he looked precisely like a crucified
man taken down from the cross.
3. Thomas of Celano, before 1230. He describes
them more at length than Brother Elias (1 Cel., 94, 95,
112).
The details are too precise not to suggest a lesson
learned by heart. The author nowhere assumes to be
an eye-witness, yet he has the tone of a legal deposition.
These objections are not without weight, but the very
novelty of the miracle might have induced the Francis-
cans to fix it in a sort of canonical and so to say, stereo-
typed narrative.
4. The portrait of Francis, by Berlinghieri, dated
1236,' preserved at Pescia (province of Lucca) shows the
stigmata as they are described in the preceding docu-
ments.
5. Gregory IX. in 1237. Bull of March 31 ; Confessor
Domini (Potthast, 10307. Cf. 10315). A movement of
opinion against the stigmata had been produced in cer-
tain countries. The pope asks all the faithful to believe
in them. Two other bulls of the same day, one ad-
dressed to the Bishop of Olmütz, the other to the Do-
minicans, energetically condemns them for calling the
stigmata in question (Potthast, 10308 and 10309).
6. Alexander IV., in his bull Benigna operatio of Oc-
tober 29, 1255 (Potthast, 16077), states that having
Engraved in Saint François d'Assise, Paris, 4to, 1885, p. 277.
1
APPENDIX
439
formerly been the domestic prelate of Cardinal Ugolini,
he knew St. Francis familiarly, and supports his descrip-
tion of the stigmata by these relations.
To this pontiff are due several bulls declaring excom-
municate all those who deny them. These contribute
nothing new to the question.
7. Bonaventura (1260) repeats in his legend Thomas of
Celano's description (Bon., 193; cf. 1 Cel. 94 and 95), not
without adding some new factors (Bon., 194–200 and 215-
218), often so coarse and clumsy that they inevitably
awaken doubt (see for example, 201).
8. Matthew Paris (* 1259). His discordant witness
barely deserves being cited by way of memoir (see Crit-
ical Study, p. 431). To be able to forgive the fanciful
character of his long disquisitions on St. Francis, we are
forced to recall to mind that he owed his information to
the verbal account of some pilgrim. He makes the stig-
mata appear a fortnight before the Saint's death, shows
them continually emitting blood, the wound on the side
so wide open that the heart could be seen. The people
gather in crowds to see the sight, the cardinals come also,
and all together listen to Francis's strange declarations.
(Historia major, Watts's edition London, 1 vol. fol., 1640,
pp. 339–342.)
This list might be greatly lengthened by the addition
of a passage from Luke bishop of Tuy (Lucas Tudensis)
written in 1231 ;1 based especially on the Life by Thomas
of Celano, and oral witnesses.
The statement of Brother Boniface, an eye-witness, at
the chapter of Genoa (1254). (Eccl. 13.)
Finally and especially, we should study the strophes
relating to the stigmata in the proses, hymns, and sequen-
ces composed in 1228 by the pope and several cardinals
1 Bibliotheca Patrum. Lyons, 1677, xxv., adv. Albigenses, lib. ii., cap
11., cf. iii., 14 and 15. Reproduced in the A. SS., p. 652.
440
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
1
2
for the Office of St. Francis; but such a work, to be done
with accuracy, would carry us very far, and the authori-
ties already cited doubtless suffice without bringing in
others.
The objections which have been opposed to these wit-
nesses may be reduced, I think, to the following:
a. Francis's funeral took place with surprising precipi.
tation. Dead on Saturday evening, he was buried Sun-
day morning.
b. His body was enclosed in a coffin, which is contrary
to Italian habits.
C. At the time of the removal, the body, wrested from
the multitude, is so carefully hidden in the basilica that
for centuries its precise place has been unknown.
d. The bull of canonization makes no mention of the
stigmata.
e. They were not admitted without a contest, and
among those who denied them were some bishops.
None of these arguments appears to me decisive.
a. In the Middle Ages funerals almost always took
place immediately after death (Innocent III. dying at
Perugia July 16, 1216, is interred the 17th ; Honorius III.
dies March 18, 1227, and is interred the next day).
b. It is more difficult than many suppose to know what
were the habits concerning funerals in Umbria in the
thirteenth century. However that may be, it was cer-
tainly necessary to put Francis's body into a coffin. He
being already canonized by popular sentiment, his corpse
was from that moment a relic for which a reliquary was
i The curious may consult the following sources : Salimbeni, ann.
1250.- Conform., 171b 2, 235a 2 ; Bon., 200 ; Wadding, ann. 1228, no.
78; A. SS., p. 800. Manuscript 340 of the Sucio Convento contains (fo.
55b-56b) four of these hymns. Cf. Archiv. i., p. 485.
2 See in particular Hase: Franz v. Assisi. Leipsic, 1 vol., 8vo., 1856.
The learned professor devotes no less than sixty closely printed pages to
the study of the stigmata, 142–202.
APPENDIX
441
necessary; nay more, a strong box such as the secondary
scenes in Berlinghieri's picture shows it to have been.
Without such a precaution the sacred body would have
been reduced to fragments in a few moments. Call to
mind the wild enthusiasm that led the devotees to cut off
the ears and even the breasts of St. Elizabeth of Hungary.
[Qucedam aures illius truncabant, etiam summitatem ma-
millarum ejus quidam praecidebant et pro reliquiis sibi ser-
vabant.--Lüber de dictis iv. ancillarum, Mencken, vol. ii.,
p. 2032.]
C. The ceremony of translation brought an innumerable
multitude to Assisi. If Brother Elias concealed the
body,' he may have been led to do so by the fear of some
organized surprise of the Perugians to gain possession
of the precious relic. With the customs of those days,
such a theft would have been in nowise extraordinary.
These very Perugians a few years later stole away from
Bastia, a village dependent on Assisi, the body of Conrad
of Offida, which was performing innumerable miracles
there. (Conform., 60b, 1; cf. Giord., 50.) Similar affrays
took place at Padua over the relics of St. Anthony
(Hilaire, Saint Antoine de Padoue, sa légende primitive,
Montreuil-sur-Mer, 1 vol., 8vo, 1890, pp. 30–40.)
d. The bull of canonization, with the greater number
of such documents, for that matter, makes no historic
claim. In its wordy rhetoric we shall sooner learn the
history of the Philistines, of Samson, or even of Jacob,
than of St. Francis. Canonization here is only a pretext
which the old pontiff seizes for recurring to his favorite
figures.
This silence signifies nothing after the very explicit
? The more I think about it, the more incapable I become of attribut-
ing any sort of weight to this argument from the disappearance of the
body; for in fact, if there had been any pious fraud on Elias's part, he
would on the contrary have displayed the corpse.
442
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
testimony of other bulls by the same pontiff in 1227, and
after the part given to the stigmata in the liturgical songs
which in 1228 he composed for the office of St. Francis.
e. These attacks by certain bishops are in nowise sur-
prising; they are episodes in the struggle of the secular
clergy against the mendicant orders.
At the time when these negations were brought for-
ward (1237) the narrative of Thomas of Celano was offi-
cial and everywhere known; nothing therefore would
have been easier, half a score of years after the events,
than to bring witnesses to expose the fraud if there had
been any; but the Bishop of Olmütz and the others
base their objections always and only upon dogmatic
grounds.
As to the attacks of the Dominicans, it is needless to
recall the rivalry between the two Orders ;1 is it not then
singular to find these protestations coming from Silesia
(!) and never from Central Italy, where, among other eye-
witnesses, Brother Leo was yet living (+ 1271) ?
Thus the witnesses appear to me to maintain their in-
tegrity. We might have preferred them more simple and
shorter, we could wish that they had reached us without
details which awake all sorts of suspicions, but it is very
seldom that a witness does not try to prove his affirma-
See, for example, 2 Cel., 3, 86, as well as the encyclical of Giovanni
di Parma and Umberto di Romano, in 1225.
? The following among many others: Francis had particularly high
breeches made for him, to hide the wound in the side (Bon., 201). At
the moment of the apparition, which took place during the night, so
great a light flooded the whole country, that merchants lodging in the
inns of Casentino saddled their beasts and set out on their way. Fior.
iii. consid.
Hase, in his study, is continually under the weight of the bad im-
pression made upon him by Bonaventura's deplorable arguments ; he
sees the other witness only through him. I think that if he had read
simply Thomas of Celano's first Life, he would have arrived at very dif.
ferent conclusions.
1
APPENDIX
443
tions and to prop them up by arguments which, though
detestable, are appropriate to the vulgar audience to
which he is speaking.
II. THE PARDON OF AUGUST 2D, CALLED INDULGENCE OF PORTI.
UNCULA 1
This question might be set aside; on the whole it has
no direct connection with the history of St. Francis.
1 The most important document is manuscript 344 of the archives of
Sacro Convento at Assisi. Liber indulgentice S. Maria de Angelis sive
de Portiuncula in quo libro ego fr. Franciscus Bartholi de Assisio posui
quidquid potui sollicite invenire in legendis antiquis et novis 6. Francisci
et in aliis dictis sociorum ejus de loco eodem et commendatione ipsius loci et
quidquid veritatis et certitudinis potui invenire de sacra indulgentia pre-
fati loci, quomodo scilicet fuit impetrata et data 6. Francisco de miraculis
ipsius indulgentice quæ ipsam declarant certam et veram. Bartholi lived
in the first half of the fourteenth century.
His work is still unpublished, but Father Leo Patrem M. O. is pre-
paring it for publication. The name of this learned monk gives every
guaranty for the accuracy of this difficult work; meanwhile a de.
tailed description and long extracts may be found in the Miscellanea
(ii., 1887). La storia del perdono di Francesco de Bartholi, by Don Mi-
chele Faloci Pulignani, pp. 149–153 (cf. Archiv., i., p. 486). See also in
thə Miscellanea (i., 1886, p. 15) a bibliographical note containing a de-
tailed list of fifty-eight works (cf. ibid., pp. 48, 145).
The legend itself is found in the Speculium, 69b-83a, and in the Con-
formities, 1516–157a. In these two collections it is still found labori-
ously worked in and is not an integral part of the rest of the work. In
the latter, Bartolemmeo di Pisa has carried accuracy so far as to copy
from end to end all the documents that he had before him, and as they
belong to different periods he thus gives us several phases of the devel-
opment of the tradition. The most complete work is that of the Recol-
lect Father Grouwel : Historia critica S. Indulgentice B. Maria Angel-
orum vulgo de Portiuncula
contra Libellos aliquos anonymo ac
famosos nuper editos, Antwerp, 1726, 1 vol., 8vo, pp. 510.
The Bollandist Suysken also makes a long study of it (A. SS., pp. 879–
910), as also the Recollect Father Candide Chalippe, Vie de saint Fran-
çois d'Assise, 3 vols., 8vo, Paris, 1874 (the first edition is of 1720), vol.
iii., pp. 190–327.
In each of these works we find what has been said in all the others.
444
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
Yet it occupies too large a place in modern biographies
not to require a few words : it is related that Francis was
in prayer one night at Portiuncula when Jesus and the
Virgin appeared to him with a retinue of angels. He
made bold to ask an unheard-of privilege, that of plenary
indulgence of all sins for all those who, having confessed
and being contrite, should visit this chapel. Jesus
granted this at his mother's request, on the sole condi-
tion that his vicar the pope would ratify it.
The next day Francis set out for Perugia, accompanied
by Masseo, and obtained from Honorius the desired in-
dulgence, but only for the day of August 2d.
Such, in a few lines, is the summary of this legend,
which is surrounded with a crowd of marvellous inci-
dents.
The question of the nature and value of indulgences is
not here concerned. The only one which is here put is
this: Did Francis ask this indulgence and did Honorius
III. grant it?
Merely to reduce it to these simple proportions is to
be brought to answer it with a categorical No.
It would be tedious to refer even briefly to the difficul-
ties, contradictions, impossibilities of this story, many a
time pointed out by orthodox writers. In spite of all
The numerous writings against the Indulgence are either a collection of
vulgarities or dogmatic treatises; I refrain from burdening these pages
with them. The principal ones are indicated by Grouwel and Chalippe.
Among contemporaries Father Barnabas of Alsace: Portiuncula oder
Geschichte Unserer lieben Frau von den Engeln (Rixheim, 1 vol., 8vo,
1884), represents the tradition of the Order, and the Abbé Le Monnier
(Histoire de Saint François, 2 vols., 8vo, Paris, 1889), moderate Catholic
opinion in non-Franciscan circles.
The best summary is that of Father Panfilo da Magliano in his Storia
compendiosa. It has been completed and amended in the German
translation : Geschichte des h. Franciscus und der Franziskaner übersetzt
und bearbeitet von Fr. Quintianus Müller, vol. i., Munich, 1883, pp.
233-259.
APPENDIX
445
they have come to the affirmative conclusion: Roma
locuta est.
Those whom this subject may interest will find in the
note above detailed bibliographical indications of the
principal elements of this now quieted discussion. I
shall confine myself to pointing out the impossibilities
with which tradition comes into collision; they are both
psychological and historical. The Bollandists long since
pointed out the silence of Francis's early biographers
upon this question. Now that the published documents
are much more numerous, this silence is still more over-
whelming. Neither the First nor the Second Life by
Thomas of Celano, nor the anonymous author of the
second life given in the Acta Sanctorum, nor even the
anonymous writer of Perugia, nor the Three Companions,
nor Bonaventura say a single word on the subject. No
more do very much later works mention it, which sin only
by excessive critical scruples: Bernard of Besse, Giordi-
ano di Giano, Thomas Eccleston, the Chronicle of the
Tribulations, the Fioretti, and even the Golden Legend.
This conspiracy of silence of all the writers of the thir-
teenth century would be the greatest miracle of history if
it were not absurd.
By way of explanation, it has been said that these
writers refrained from speaking of this indulgence for
fear of injuring that of the Crusade; but in that case,
why did the pope command seven bishops to go to Por-
tiuncula to proclaim it in his name?
The legend takes upon itself to explain that Francis
refused a bull or any written attestation of this privilege;
but, admitting this, it would still be necessary to explain
why no hint of this matter has been preserved in the
papers of Honorius III. And how is it that the bulls
sent to the seven bishops have left not the slightest trace
upon this pontiff's register?
446
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
Again, how does it happen, if seven bishops officially
promulgated this indulgence in 1217, that St. Francis,
after having related to Brother Leo his interview with
the pope, said to him: “Teneas secretum hoc usque circa
mortem tuam; quia non habet locum adhuc. Quia hæc
indulgentia occultabitur ad tempus ; sed Dominus trahet
eam extra et manifestabitur.” Conform., 153b, 2. Such
an avowal is not wanting in simplicity. It abundantly
proves that before the death of Brother Leo (1271) no
one had spoken of this famous pardon.
After this it is needless to insist upon secondary dif-
ficulties; how is it that the chapters-general were not
fixed for August 2d, to allow the Brothers to secure the
indulgence ?
How explain that Francis, after having received in 1216
a privilege unique in the annals of the Church, should be
a stranger to the pope in 1219 !
There is, however, one more proof whose value exceeds
all the others—Francis's Will :
“I forbid absolutely all the Brothers by their obe-
dience, in whatever place they may be, to ask any bull
of the court of Rome, whether directly or indirectly, nor
under pretext of church or convent, nor under pretext of
preaching, nor even for their personal protection.”
Before closing it remains for us to glance at the growth
of this legend.
It was definitively constituted about 1330-1340, but it
was in the air long before. With the patience of four
Benedictines (of the best days) we should doubtless be
able to find our way in the medley of documents, more or
less corrupted, from which it comes to us, and little by
little we might find the starting-point of this dream in a
friar who sees blinded humanity kneeling around Por-
tiuncula to recover sight.
1 2 Cel., 1, 13; 3 Soc., 56 ; Bon., 24.
APPENDIX
447
It is not difficult to see in general what led to the
materialization of this graceful fancy : people remembered
Francis's attachment to the chapel where he had heard
the decisive words of the gospel, and where St. Clara in
her turn had entered upon a new life.
When the great Basilica of Assisi was built, drawing to
itself pilgrims and privileges, an opposition of principles
and of inspiration came to be added to the petty rivalry
between it and Portiuncula.
The zealots of poverty said aloud that though the
Saint's body rested in the basilica his heart was at Porti-
uncula. By dint of repeating and exaggerating what
Francis had said about the little sanctuary, they came to
give a precise and so to say doctrinal sense to utterances
purely mystical.
The violences and persecutions of the party of the
Large Observance under the generalship of Crescentius
(1244-1247) aroused a vast increase of fervor among their
adversaries. To the bull of Innocent IV. declaring the
basilica thenceforth Caput et Mater of the Order the
Zealots replied by the narratives of Celano's Second Life
and the legends of that period. They went so far as to
quote a promise of Francis to make it in perpetuity the
Mater et Caput of his institute.
In this way the two parties came to group themselves
around these two buildings. Even to-day it is the same.
The Franciscans of the Strict Observance occupy Porti-
uncula, while the Basilica of Assisi is in the hands of the
5
1 Conform., 239b, 2.
* See in particular Archiv., ii., p. 259, and the bull of February 7,
1246. Potthast, 12007; Glassberger, ann. 1244 (An. fr. t. ii., p. 69).
3 Is qui ecclesiam, March 6, 1245, Potthast, 11576.
*2 Cel., 1, 12 (cf. Conform., 218a, 1); 3 Soc., 56 ; Spec., 32b ff. ; 49b
ff. ; Conform., 144a, 2.
5 Conform., 169a ; 2, 217b, 1 ff. Cf. Fior., Amoni's ed. (Appendix to
the Codex of the Bib. Angelica), p. 378.
448
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
Conventuals (Large Observance), who have adopted all
the interpretations and mitigations of the Rules; they
are worthy folk, who live upon their dividends. By a
phenomenon, unique, I think, in the annals of the
Church, they have pushed the freedom of their infidel-
ity to the point of casting off the habit, the popular
brown cassock. Dressed all in black, shod and hatted,
nothing distinguishes them from the secular clergy ex-
cept a modest little cord.
Poor Francis! That he may have the joy of feeling
his tomb brushed by a coarse gown, some daring friar
must overcome his very natural repugnances, and come
to kneel there. The indulgence of August 2d is then the
reply of the Zealots to the persecutions of their brothers.
An attentive study will perhaps show it emerging little
by little under the generalship of Raimondo Gaufridi
(1289_1295); Conrad di Offida (* 1306) seems to have had
some effect upon it, but only with the next generation do
we find the legend completed and avowed in open day.
Begun in a misapprehension it ends by imposing itself
upon the Church, which to-day guarantees it with its -
fallible authority, and yet in its origin it was a veritabie
cry of revolt against the decisions of Rome.
MAR 23 1920
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
/
3 9015 00417 0455
-one
MI