[1]On this point see Paulin Paris, _Etudes sur le regne de Francois
I^er_.
FRANCIS II. (1544-1560), king of France, eldest son of Henry II. and of
Catherine de' Medici, was born at Fontainebleau on the 19th of January
1544. He married the famous Mary Stuart, daughter of James V. of
Scotland, on the 25th of April 1558, and ascended the French throne on
the 10th of July 1559. During his short reign the young king, a sickly
youth and of feeble understanding, was the mere tool of his uncles
Francis, duke of Guise, and Charles, cardinal of Lorraine, into whose
hands he virtually delivered the reins of government. The exclusiveness
with which they were favoured, and their high-handed proceedings,
awakened the resentment of the princes of the blood, Anthony king of
Navarre and Louis prince of Conde, who gave their countenance to a
conspiracy (conspiracy of Amboise) with the Protestants against the
house of Guise. It was, however, discovered shortly before the time
fixed for its execution in March 1560, and an ambush having been
prepared, most of the conspirators were either killed or taken
prisoners. Its leadership and organization had been entrusted to Godfrey
de Barri, lord of la Renaudie (d. 1560); and the prince of Conde, who
was not present, disavowed all connexion with the plot. The duke of
Guise was now named lieutenant-general of the kingdom, but his Catholic
leanings were somewhat held in check by the chancellor Michel de
l'Hopital, through whose mediation the edict of Romorantin, providing
that all cases of heresy should be decided by the bishops, was passed in
May 1560, in opposition to a proposal to introduce the Inquisition. At a
meeting of the states-general held at Orleans in the December following,
the prince of Conde, after being arrested, was condemned to death, and
extreme measures were being enacted against the Huguenots; but the
deliberations of the Assembly were broken off, and the prince was saved
from execution, by the king's somewhat sudden death, on the 5th of the
month, from an abscess in the ear.
PRINCIPAL AUTHORITIES.--"Lettres de Catherine de Medicis," edited by
Hector de la Ferriere (1880 seq.), and "Negociations ... relatives au
regne de Francois II," edited by Louis Paris (1841), both in the
_Collection de documents inedits sur l'histoire de France_; notice of
Francis, duke of Guise, in the _Nouvelle Collection des memoires pour
servir a l'histoire de France_, edited by J.F. Michaud and J.J.F.
Poujoulat, series i. vol. vi. (1836 seq.); _Memoires de Conde servant
d'eclaircissement ... a l'histoire de M. de Thou_, vols. i and ii.
(1743); Pierre de la Place, _Commentaires de l'estat de la religion et
de la republique sous les rois Henri II, Francois II, Charles IX_
(1565); and Louis Regnier de la Planche, _Histoire de l'estat de
France ... sous ... Francois II (Pantheon litteraire_, new edition,
1884). See also Ernest Lavisse, _Histoire de France_ (vol. vi. by J.H.
Mariejol, 1904), which contains a bibliography.
FRANCIS I. (1777-1830), king of the Two Sicilies, was the son of
Ferdinand IV. (I.) and Maria Carolina of Austria. He married Clementina,
daughter of the emperor Leopold II. of Austria, in 1796, and at her
death Isabella, daughter of Charles IV. of Spain. After the Bourbon
family fled from Naples to Sicily in 1806, and Lord William Bentinck,
the British resident, had established a constitution and deprived
Ferdinand IV. of all power, Francis was appointed regent (1812). On the
fall of Napoleon his father returned to Naples and suppressed the
Sicilian constitution and autonomy, incorporating his two kingdoms into
that of the Two Sicilies (1816); Francis then assumed the revived title
of duke of Calabria. While still heir-apparent he professed liberal
ideas, and on the outbreak of the revolution of 1820 he accepted the
regency apparently in a friendly spirit towards the new constitution.
But he was playing a double game and proved to be the accomplice of his
father's treachery. On succeeding to the throne in 1825 he cast aside
the mask of liberalism and showed himself as reactionary as his father.
He took little part in the government, which he left in the hands of
favourites and police officials, and lived with his mistresses,
surrounded by soldiers, ever in dread of assassination. During his reign
the only revolutionary movement was the outbreak on the Cilento (1828),
savagely repressed by the marquis Delcarretto, an ex-Liberal turned
reactionary.
See Nisco, _Il Reame di Napoli sotto Francesco I_ (Naples, 1893).
FRANCIS II. (1836-1894), king of the Two Sicilies, son of Ferdinand II.
and Maria Cristina of Savoy, was the last of the Bourbon kings of
Naples. His education had been much neglected and he proved a man of
weak character, greatly influenced by his stepmother Maria Theresa of
Austria, by the priests, and by the _Camarilla_, or reactionary court
set. He ascended the throne on the death of his father (22nd of May
1859). As prime minister he at once appointed Carlo Filangieri, who,
realizing the importance of the Franco-Piedmontese victories in
Lombardy, advised Francis to accept the alliance with Piedmont proposed
by Cavour. On the 7th of June a part of the Swiss Guard mutinied, and
while the king mollified them by promising to redress their grievances,
General Nunziante collected other troops, who surrounded the mutineers
and shot them down. The incident resulted in the disbanding of the whole
Swiss Guard, the strongest bulwark of the dynasty. Cavour again proposed
an alliance to divide the papal states between Piedmont and Naples, the
province of Rome excepted, but Francis rejected an idea which to him
savoured of sacrilege. Filangieri strongly advocated a constitution as
the only measure which might save the dynasty, and on the king's refusal
he resigned. Meanwhile the revolutionary parties were conspiring for the
overthrow of the Bourbons in Calabria and Sicily, and Garibaldi was
preparing for a raid in the south. A conspiracy in Sicily was discovered
and the plotters punished with brutal severity, but Rosalino Pilo and
Francesco Crispi had organized the movement, and when Garibaldi landed
at Marsala (May 1860) he conquered the island with astonishing ease.
These events at last frightened Francis into granting a constitution,
but its promulgation was followed by disorders in Naples and the
resignation of ministers, and Liborio Romano became head of the
government. The disintegration of the army and navy proceeded apace, and
Cavour sent a Piedmontese squadron carrying troops on board to watch
events. Garibaldi, who had crossed the straits of Messina, was advancing
northwards and was everywhere received by the people as a liberator.
Francis, after long hesitations and even an appeal to Garibaldi himself,
left Naples (6th of September) with his wife Maria Sophia, the court,
the diplomatic corps (the French and English ministers excepted), and
went by sea to Gaeta, where a large part of the army was concentrated.
The next day Garibaldi entered Naples, was enthusiastically welcomed,
and formed a provisional government. King Victor Emmanuel had decided on
the invasion of the papal states, and after occupying Romagna and the
Marche entered the Neapolitan kingdom. Garibaldi's troops defeated the
Neapolitan royalists on the Volturno (1st and 2nd of October), while the
Piedmontese captured Capua. Only Gaeta, Messina, and Civitella del
Tronto still held out, and the siege of the former by the Piedmontese
began on the 6th of November 1860. Both Francis and Maria Sophia behaved
with great coolness and courage, and even when the French fleet, whose
presence had hitherto prevented an attack by sea, was withdrawn, they
still resisted; it was not until the 12th of February 1861 that the
fortress capitulated. Thus the kingdom of Naples was incorporated in
that of Italy, and the royal pair from that time forth led a wandering
life in Austria, France and Bavaria. Francis died on the 27th of
December 1894 at Arco in Tirol. His widow survived him.
Francis II. was weak-minded, stupid and vacillating, but, although his
short reign was stained with some cruel massacres and persecutions, he
was less of a tyrant than his father. The courage and dignity he
displayed during his reverses inspired pity and respect. But the fact
that he protected brigandage in his former dominions and countenanced
the most abominable crimes in the name of legitimism greatly diminished
the sympathy which was felt for the fallen monarch.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--R. de Cesare, _La Fine d'un regno_, vol. ii. (Citta di
Castello, 1900) gives a detailed account of the reign of Francis II.,
while H.R. Whitehouse's _Collapse of the Kingdom of Naples_ (New York,
1899) may be recommended to English readers; Nisco's _Francesco II_
(Naples, 1887) should also be consulted. See under NAPLES; GARIBALDI;
BIXIO; CAVOUR; ITALY; FILANGIERI; &c. (L. V.*)
FRANCIS IV. (1779-1846) duke of Modena, was the son of the archduke
Ferdinand, Austrian governor of Lombardy, who acquired the duchy of
Modena through his wife Marie Beatrice, heiress of the house of Este as
well as of many fiefs of the Malaspina, Pio da Carpi, Pico della
Mirandola, Cibo, and other families. At the time of the French invasion
(1796) Francis was sent to Vienna to be educated, and in 1809 was
appointed governor of Galicia. Later he went to Sardinia, where the
exiled King Victor Emmanuel I. and his wife Maria Theresa were living in
retirement. The latter arranged a marriage between her daughter Marie
Beatrice and Francis, and a secret family compact was made whereby if
the king and his two brothers died without male issue, the Salic law
would be changed so that Francis should succeed to the kingdom instead
of Charles Albert of Carignano (N. Bianchi, _Storia della diplomazia
europea in Italia_, i. 42-43). On the fall of Napoleon in 1814 Francis
received the duchy of Modena, including Massa-Carrara and Lunigiana; his
mother's advice was "to be above the law ... never to forgive the
Republicans of 1796, nor to listen to the complaints of his subjects,
whom nothing satisfies; the poorer they are the quieter they are"
(Silingardi, "Ciro Menotti," in _Rivista europea_, Florence, 1880).
The duke was well received at Modena; inordinately ambitious,
strong-willed, immensely rich, avaricious but not unintelligent, he soon
proved one of the most reactionary despots in Italy. He still hoped to
acquire either Piedmont or some other part of northern Italy, and he was
in touch with the Sanfedisti and the Concistoro, reactionary Catholic
associations opposed to the Carbonari, but not always friendly to
Austria. Against the Carbonari and other Liberals he issued the severest
edicts, and although there was no revolt at Modena in 1821 as in
Piedmont and Naples, he immediately instituted judicial proceedings
against the supposed conspirators. Some 350 persons were arrested and
tortured, 56 being condemned to death (only a few of them were executed)
and 237 to imprisonment; a large number, however, escaped, including
Antonio Panizzi (afterwards director of the British Museum). The
ferocious police official Besini who conducted the trials was afterwards
murdered. The duke actually proposed to Prince Metternich, the Austrian
chancellor, an agreement whereby the various Italian rulers were to
arrest every Liberal in the country on a certain day, but the project
fell through owing to opposition from the courts of Florence and Rome.
At the congress of Verona Metternich made another attempt to secure the
Piedmontese succession for Francis, but without success. The duke became
ever more despotic; Modena swarmed with spies and informers, education
was hampered, feudalism strengthened; for the duke hoped to consolidate
his power by means of the nobility, and the least expression of
liberalism, or even failure to denounce a Carbonaro, involved arrest and
imprisonment. But strange to say, in 1830 we find Francis actually
coquetting with revolution. Having lost all hope of acquiring the
Piedmontese throne, he entered into negotiations with the French
Orleanist party with a view to obtaining its support in his plans for
extending his dominions. He was thus brought into touch with Ciro
Menotti (1798-1831) and the Modenese Liberals; what the nature of the
connexion was is still obscure, but it was certainly short-lived and
merely served to betray the Carbonari. As soon as Francis learned that a
conspiracy was on foot to gain possession of the town, he had Menotti
and several other conspirators arrested on the night of the 3rd of
February 1831, and sent the famous message to the governor of Reggio:
"The conspirators are in my hands; send me the hangman" (there is some
doubt as to the authenticity of the actual words). But the revolt broke
out in other parts of the duchy and in Romagna, and Francis retired to
Mantua with Menotti. A provisional government was formed at Modena which
proclaimed that "Italy is one," but the duke returned a few weeks later
with Austrian troops, and resistance was easily quelled. Then the
political trials began; Menotti and two others were executed, and
hundreds condemned to imprisonment. The population was now officially
divided into four classes, viz. "very loyal, loyal, less loyal, and
disloyal," and the reaction became worse than ever, the duke interfering
in the minutest details of administration, such as hospitals, schools,
and roads. New methods of procedure were introduced to deal with
political trials, but the ministerial cabal by which the country was
administered intrigued and squabbled to such an extent that it had to be
dismissed.
On the 20th of February 1846 Francis died. Although he had many domestic
virtues and charming manners, was charitable in times of famine, and was
certainly the ablest of the Italian despots, Liberalism was in his eyes
the most heinous of crimes, and his reign is one long record of
barbarous persecution. (L. V.*)
FRANCIS V. (1819-1875), duke of Modena, son of Francis IV., succeeded
his father in 1846. Although less cruel and also less intelligent than
his father, he had an equally high opinion of his own authority. His
reign began with disturbances at Fivizzano and Pontremoli, which Tuscany
surrendered to him according to treaty but against the wishes of the
inhabitants (1847), and at Massa and Carrara, where the troops shot down
the people. Feeling his position insecure, the duke asked for and
obtained an Austrian garrison, but on the outbreak of revolution
throughout Italy and at Vienna in 1848, further disorders occurred in
the duchy, and on the 20th of March he fled with his family to Mantua. A
provisional government was formed, and volunteers were raised who fought
with the Piedmontese against Austria. But after the Piedmontese defeat
Francis returned to Modena, with Austrian assistance, in August and
conferred many appointments on Austrian officers. Like his father, he
interfered in the minutest details of administration, and instituted
proceedings against all who were suspected of Liberalism. Not content
with the severity of his judges, he overrode their sentences in favour
of harsher punishments. The disturbances at Carrara were ruthlessly
suppressed, and the prisons filled with politicals. In 1859 numbers of
young Modenese fled across the frontier to join the Piedmontese army, as
war with Austria seemed imminent; and after the Austrian defeat at
Magenta the duke left Modena to lead his army in person against the
Piedmontese, taking with him the contents of the state treasury and many
valuable books, pictures, coins, tapestries and furniture from the
palace. The events of 1859-1860 made his return impossible; and after a
short spell of provisional government the duchy was united to Italy. He
retired to Austria, and died at Munich in November 1875.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--N. Bianchi, _I Ducati Estensi_ (Turin, 1852); Galvani,
_Memorie di S.A.R. Francesco IV_ (Modena, 1847); _Documenti
riguardanti il governo degli Austro-Estensi in Modena_ (Modena, 1860);
C. Tivaroni, _L'Italia durante il dominio austriaco_, i. 606-653
(Turin, 1892), and _L'Italia degli Italiani_, i. 114-125 (Turin,
1895); Silingardi, "Ciro Menotti," in the _Rivista europea_ (Florence,
1880); F.A. Gualterio, _Gli ultimi rivolgimenti italiani_ (Florence,
1850); Bayard de Volo, _Vita di Francesco V_ (4 vols., Modena,
1878-1885). (L. V.*)
FRANCIS OF ASSISI, ST. (1181 or 1182-1226), founder of the Franciscans
(q.v.), was born in 1181 or 1182 at Assisi, one of the independent
municipal towns of Umbria. He came from the upper middle class, his
father, named Pietro Bernardone, being one of the larger merchants of
the city. Bernardone's commercial enterprises made him travel abroad,
and it was from the fact that the father was in France at the time of
his son's birth that the latter was called Francesco. His education
appears to have been of the slightest, even for those days. It is
difficult to decide whether words of the early biographers imply that
his youth was not free from irregularities; in any case, he was the
recognized leader of the young men of the town in their revels; he was,
however, always conspicuous for his charity to the poor. When he was
twenty (1201) the neighbouring and rival city of Perugia attempted to
restore by force of arms the nobles who had been expelled from Assisi by
the burghers and the populace, and Francis took part in the battle
fought in the plain that lies between the two cities; the men of Assisi
were defeated and Francis was among the prisoners. He spent a year in
prison at Perugia, and when peace was made at the end of 1202 he
returned to Assisi and recommenced his old life.
Soon a serious and prolonged illness fell upon him, during which he
entered into himself and became dissatisfied with his way of life. On
his recovery he set out on a military expedition, but at the end of the
first day's march he fell ill, and had to stay at Spoleto and return to
Assisi. This disappointment brought on again the spiritual crisis he had
experienced in his illness, and for a considerable time the conflict
went on within him. One day he gave a banquet to his friends, and after
it they sallied forth with torches, singing through the streets, Francis
being crowned with garlands as the king of the revellers; after a time
they missed him, and on retracing their steps they found him in a trance
or reverie, a permanently altered man. He devoted himself to solitude,
prayer and the service of the poor, and before long went on a pilgrimage
to Rome. Finding the usual crowd of beggars before St Peter's, he
exchanged his clothes with one of them, and experienced an overpowering
joy in spending the day begging among the rest. The determining episode
of his life followed soon after his return to Assisi; as he was riding
he met a leper who begged an alms; Francis had always had a special
horror of lepers, and turning his face he rode on; but immediately an
heroic act of self-conquest was wrought in him; returning he alighted,
gave the leper all the money he had about him, and kissed his hand. From
that day he gave himself up to the service of the lepers and the
hospitals. To the confusion of his father and brothers he went about
dressed in rags, so that his old companions pelted him with mud. Things
soon came to a climax with his father: in consequence of his profuse
alms to the poor and to the restoration of the ruined church of St
Damian, his father feared his property would be dissipated, so he took
Francis before the bishop of Assisi to have him legally disinherited;
but without waiting for the documents to be drawn up, Francis cast off
his clothes and gave them back to his father, declaring that now he had
better reason to say "Our Father which art in heaven," and having
received a cloak from the bishop, he went off into the woods of Mount
Subasio singing a French song; some brigands accosted him and he told
them he was the herald of the great king (1206).
The next three years he spent in the neighbourhood of Assisi in abject
poverty and want, ministering to the lepers and the outcasts of society.
It was now that he began to frequent the ruined little chapel of St Mary
of the Angels, known as the Portiuncula, where much of his time was
passed in prayer. One day while Mass was being said therein, the words
of the Gospel came to Francis as a call: "Everywhere on your road preach
and say--The kingdom of God is at hand. Cure the sick, raise the dead,
cleanse the lepers, drive out devils. Freely have you received, freely
give. Carry neither gold nor silver nor money in your girdles, nor bag,
nor two coats, nor sandals, nor staff, for the workman is worthy of his
hire" (Matt. x. 7-10). He at once felt that this was his vocation, and
the next day, layman as he was, he went up to Assisi and began to preach
to the poor (1209). Disciples joined him, and when they were twelve in
number Francis said: "Let us go to our Mother, the holy Roman Church,
and tell the pope what the Lord has begun to do through us, and carry it
out with his sanction." They obtained the sanction of Innocent III., and
returning to Assisi they gave themselves up to their life of apostolic
preaching and work among the poor.
The character and development of the order are traced in the article
FRANCISCANS; here the story of Francis's own life and the portrayal of
his personality will be attempted. To delineate in a few words the
character of the Poverello of Assisi is indeed a difficult task. There
is such a many-sided richness, such a tenderness, such a poetry, such an
originality, such a distinction revealed by the innumerable anecdotes in
the memoirs of his disciples, that his personality is brought home to us
as one of the most lovable and one of the strongest of men. It is
probably true to say that no one has ever set himself so seriously to
imitate the life of Christ and to carry out so literally Christ's work
in Christ's own way. This was the secret of his love of poverty as
manifested in the following beautiful prayer which he addressed to our
Lord: "Poverty was in the crib and like a faithful squire she kept
herself armed in the great combat Thou didst wage for our redemption.
During Thy passion she alone did not forsake Thee. Mary Thy Mother
stopped at the foot of the Cross, but poverty mounted it with Thee and
clasped Thee in her embrace unto the end; and when Thou wast dying of
thirst, as a watchful spouse she prepared for Thee the gall. Thou didst
expire in the ardour of her embraces, nor did she leave Thee when dead,
O Lord Jesus, for she allowed not Thy body to rest elsewhere than in a
borrowed grave. O poorest Jesus, the grace I beg of Thee is to bestow on
me the treasure of the highest poverty. Grant that the distinctive mark
of our Order may be never to possess anything as its own under the sun
for the glory of Thy name, and to have no other patrimony than begging"
(in the _Legenda 3 Soc._). This enthusiastic love of poverty is
certainly the keynote of St Francis's spirit; and so one of his
disciples in an allegorical poem (translated into English as _The Lady
of Poverty_ by Montgomery Carmichael, 1901), and Giotto in one of the
frescoes at Assisi, celebrated the "holy nuptials of Francis with Lady
Poverty."
Another striking feature of Francis's character was his constant
joyousness; it was a precept in his rule, and one that he enforced
strictly, that his friars should be always rejoicing in the Lord. He
retained through life his early love of song, and during his last
illness he passed much of his time in singing. His love of nature,
animate and inanimate, was very keen and manifested itself in ways that
appear somewhat naive. His preaching to the birds is a favourite
representation of St Francis in art. All creatures he called his
"brothers" or "sisters"--the chief example is the poem of the "Praises
of the Creatures," wherein "brother Sun," "sister Moon," "brother Wind,"
and "sister Water" are called on to praise God. In his last illness he
was cauterized, and on seeing the burning iron he addressed "brother
Fire," reminding him how he had always loved him and asking him to deal
kindly with him. It would be an anachronism to think of Francis as a
philanthropist or a "social worker" or a revivalist preacher, though he
fulfilled the best functions of all these. Before everything he was an
ascetic and a mystic--an ascetic who, though gentle to others, wore out
his body by self-denial, so much so that when he came to die he begged
pardon of "brother Ass the body" for having unduly ill treated it: a
mystic irradiated with the love of God, endowed in an extraordinary
degree with the spirit of prayer, and pouring forth his heart by the
hour in the tenderest affections to God and our Lord. St Francis was a
deacon but not a priest.
From the return of Francis and his eleven companions from Rome to Assisi
in 1209 or 1210, their work prospered in a wonderful manner. The effect
of their preaching, and their example and their work among the poor,
made itself felt throughout Umbria and brought about a great religious
revival. Great numbers came to join the new order which responded so
admirably to the needs of the time. In 1212 Francis invested St Clara
(q.v.) with the Franciscan habit, and so instituted the "Second Order,"
that of the nuns. As the friars became more and more numerous their
missionary labours extended wider and wider, spreading first over Italy,
and then to other countries. Francis himself set out, probably in 1212,
for the Holy Land to preach the Gospel to the Saracens, but he was
shipwrecked and had to return. A year or two later he went into Spain to
preach to the Moors, but had again to return without accomplishing his
object (1215 probably). After another period of preaching in Italy and
watching over the development of the order, Francis once again set out
for the East (1219). This time he was successful; he made his way to
Egypt, where the crusaders were besieging Damietta, got himself taken
prisoner and was led before the sultan, to whom he openly preached the
Gospel. The sultan sent him back to the Christian camp, and he passed on
to the Holy Land. Here he remained until September 1220. During his
absence were manifested the beginnings of the troubles in the order that
were to attain to such magnitude after his death. The circumstances
under which, at an extraordinary general chapter convoked by him shortly
after his return, he resigned the office of minister-general (September
1220) are explained in the article FRANCISCANS: here, as illustrating
the spirit of the man, it is in place to cite the words in which his
abdication was couched: "Lord, I give Thee back this family which Thou
didst entrust to me. Thou knowest, most sweet Jesus, that I have no more
the power and the qualities to continue to take care of it. I entrust
it, therefore, to the ministers. Let them be responsible before Thee at
the Day of Judgment, if any brother by their negligence, or their bad
example, or by a too severe punishment, shall go astray." These words
seem to contain the mere truth: Francis's peculiar religious genius was
probably not adapted for the government of an enormous society spread
over the world, as the Friars Minor had now become.
The chief works of the next years were the revision and final redaction
of the Rule and the formation or organization of the "Third Order" or
"Brothers and Sisters of Penance," a vast confraternity of lay men and
women who tried to carry out, without withdrawing from the world, the
fundamental principles of Franciscan life (see TERTIARIES).
If for no other reason than the prominent place they hold in art, it
would not be right to pass by the Stigmata without a special mention.
The story is well known; two years before his death Francis went up
Mount Alverno in the Apennines with some of his disciples, and after
forty days of fasting and prayer and contemplation, on the morning of
the 14th of September 1224 (to use Sabatier's words), "he had a vision:
in the warm rays of the rising sun he discerned suddenly a strange
figure. A seraph with wings extended flew towards him from the horizon
and inundated him with pleasure unutterable. At the centre of the vision
appeared a cross, and the seraph was nailed to it. When the vision
disappeared Francis felt sharp pains mingling with the delights of the
first moment. Disturbed to the centre of his being he anxiously sought
the meaning of it all, and then he saw on his body the Stigmata of the
Crucified." The early authorities represent the Stigmata not as bleeding
wounds, the holes as it were of the nails, but as fleshy excrescences
resembling in form and colour the nails, the head on the palm of the
hand, and on the back as it were a nail hammered down. In the first
edition of the _Vie_, Sabatier rejected the Stigmata; but he changed his
mind, and in the later editions he accepts their objective reality as an
historically established fact; in an appendix he collects the evidence:
there exists what is according to all probability an autograph of Br.
Leo, the saint's favourite disciple and companion on Mount Alverno at
the time, which describes the circumstances of the stigmatization; Elias
of Cortona (q.v.), the acting superior, wrote on the day after his death
a circular letter wherein he uses language clearly implying that he had
himself seen the Stigmata, and there is a considerable amount of
contemporary authentic second hand evidence. On the strength of this
body of evidence Sabatier rejects all theories of fraud or
hallucination, whatever may be the explanation of the phenomena.
Francis was so exhausted by the sojourn on Mount Alverno that he had to
be carried back to Assisi. The remaining months of his life were passed
in great bodily weakness and suffering, and he became almost blind.
However, he worked on with his wonted cheerfulness and joyousness. At
last, on the 3rd of October 1226, he died in the Portiuncula at the age
of forty-five. Two years later he was canonized by Gregory IX., whom, as
Cardinal Hugolino of Ostia, he had chosen to be the protector of his
order.
The works of St Francis consist of the Rule (in two redactions), the
Testament, spiritual admonitions, canticles and a few letters. They were
first edited by Wadding in 1623. Two critical editions were published in
1904, one by the Franciscans of Quaracchi near Florence, the other (in a
longer and a shorter form) by Professor H. Boehmer of Bonn. Sabatier and
Goetz (see below) have investigated the authenticity of the several
works; and the four lists, while exhibiting slight variations, are in
substantial accord. Besides the works, properly so called, there is a
considerable amount of traditional matter--anecdotes, sayings,
sermons--preserved in the biographies and in the _Fioretti_;[1] a great
deal of this matter is no doubt substantially authentic, but it is not
possible to subject it to any critical sifting.
_Note on Sources._--The sources for the life of St Francis and early
Franciscan history are very numerous, and an immense literature has
grown up around them. Any attempt to indicate even a selection of this
literature would here be impossible and also futile; for the discovery
of new documents has by no means ceased, and the criticism of the
materials is still in full progress, nor can it be said that final
results have yet emerged from the discussion. Students will find the
chief materials in the following collections: _Archiv fuer Litteratur
und Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters_ (ed. by Ehrle and Denifle,
1885, &c.); publications of the Franciscans of Quaracchi (list to be
obtained from Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau); and the two series edited
by Paul Sabatier, _Collection d'etudes et de documents sur l'histoire
religieuse et litteraire du moyen age_ (5 vols. published up to 1906)
and _Opuscules de critique historique_ (12 fascicules): the easiest
and most consecutive way of following the controversy is by the aid of
the "Bulletin Hagiographique" in _Analecta Bollandiana_. Relatively
popular accounts of the most important sources are supplied in the
introductory chapters of Sabatier's _Vie de S. Francois_ and _Speculum
perfectionis_, and Lempp's _Frere Elie de Cortone_.
Concerning the life of St Francis and the beginnings of the order, the
chief documents that come under discussion are: the two _Lives_ by
Thomas of Celano (1228 and 1248 respectively; Eng. trans. with
introduction by A.G. Ferrers Howell, 1908), of which the only critical
edition is that of Friar Ed. d'Alencon (1906); the so-called _Legenda
trium sociorum_; the _Speculum perfectionis_, discovered by Paul
Sabatier and edited in 1898 (Eng. trans. by Sebastian Evans, _Mirror
of Perfection_, 1899). Sabatier's theory as to the nature of these
documents was, in brief, that the _Speculum perfectionis_ was the
first of all the Lives of the saint, written in 1227 by Br. Leo, his
favourite and most intimate disciple, and that the _Legenda 3 Soc._ is
what it claims to be--the handiwork of Leo and the two other most
intimate companions of Francis, compiled in 1246; these are the most
authentic and the only true accounts, Thomas of Celano's Lives being
written precisely in opposition to them, in the interests of the
majority of the order that favoured mitigations of the Rule especially
in regard to poverty. For ten years the domain of Franciscan origins
was explored and discussed by a number of scholars; and then the whole
ground was reviewed by Professor W. Goetz of Munich in a study
entitled _Die Quellen zur Geschichte des hl. Franz von Assisi_ (1904).
His conclusions are substantially the same as those of Pere van
Ortroy, the Bollandist, and Friar Lemmens, an Observant Franciscan,
and are the direct contrary of Sabatier's: the _Legenda 3 Soc._ is a
forgery; the _Speculum perfectionis_ is a compilation made in the 14th
century, also in large measure a forgery, but containing an element
(not to be precisely determined) derived from Br. Leo; on the other
hand, Thomas of Celano's two Lives are free from the "tendencies"
ascribed to them by Sabatier, and that of 1248 was written with the
collaboration of Leo and the other companions; thus the best sources
of information are those portions of the _Speculum_ that can with
certainty be carried back to Br. Leo, and the Lives by Thomas of
Celano, especially the second _Life_. Goetz's criticism of the
documents is characterized by exceeding carefulness and sobriety. Of
course he does not suppose that his conclusions are in all respects
final; but his investigations show that the time has not yet come when
a biography of St Francis could be produced answering to the demands
of modern historical criticism. The official life of St Francis is St
Bonaventura's _Legenda_, published in a convenient form by the
Franciscans of Quaracchi (1898); Goetz's estimate of it (op. cit.) is
much more favourable than Sabatier's.
Paul Sabatier's fascinating and in many ways sympathetic _Vie de S.
Francois_ (1894; 33rd ed., 1906; Eng. trans, by L.S. Houghton, 1901)
will probably for a long time to come be accepted by the ordinary
reader as a substantially correct portrait of St Francis; and yet
Goetz declares that the most competent and independent critics have
without any exception pronounced that Sabatier has depicted St Francis
a great deal too much from the standpoint of modern religiosity, and
has exaggerated his attitude in face of the church (op. cit. p. 5). In
articles in the _Hist. Vierteljahrsschrift_ (1902, 1903) Goetz has
shown that Sabatier's presentation of St Francis's relations with the
ecclesiastical authority in general, and with Cardinal Hugolino
(Gregory IX.) in particular, is largely based on misconception; that
the development of the order was not forced on Francis against his
will; and that the differences in the order did not during Francis's
lifetime attain to such a magnitude as to cause him during his last
years the suffering depicted by Sabatier. This from a Protestant
historian like Goetz is most valuable criticism. In truth Sabatier's
St Francis is an anachronism--a man at heart, a modern pietistic
French Protestant of the most liberal type, with a veneer of 13th
century Catholicism.
Of lives of St Francis in English may be mentioned those by Mrs
Oliphant (2nd ed., 1871) and by Canon Knox Little (1897). For general
information and references to the literature of the subject, see Otto
Zoeckler, _Askese und Moenchtum_ (1897), ii. 470-493, and his article in
Herzog's _Realencyklopaedie_ (ed. 3), "Franz von Assisi" (1899); also
Max Heimbucher, _Orden und Kongregationen_ (1896), i. Sec. 38. The
chapter on St Francis in Emile Gebhart's _Italie mystique_ (ed. 3,
1899) is very remarkable; indeed, though this writer is as little
ecclesiastically-minded as Sabatier himself, his general picture of
the state of religion in Italy at the time is far truer; here also
Sabatier has given way to the usual temptation of biographers to exalt
their hero by depreciating everybody else. (E. C. B.)