The Cathari, then, had no direct influence upon St. Francis,[22] but

nothing could better prove the disturbance of thought at this epoch

than that resurrection of Manicheism. 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 antagonism 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,[23] 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 Consoling 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 flourishing schools attended by the children of the nobles. In

Italy they were hardly less powerful; Concorrezo, near Monza in

Lombardy, and Bagnolo, gave their names to two congregations slightly

different from those in Languedoc.[24]

But it was especially from Milan[25] that they spread abroad over all

the Peninsula, making proselytes even in the most remote districts of

Calabria. The state of anarchy prevailing in the country was very

favorable to them. The papacy was too much occupied in baffling the

spasmodic efforts of the Hohenstaufen, to put the necessary perseverance

and system into its struggles against heresy. 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 Manicheism was

publicly taught.[26]

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.[27]

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.[28] It was all in vain: the Patarini were

dealt with only as a matter of form; it needed the presence 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).[29]

But stifled at one point the revolt burst out at a hundred 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.[30]

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.[31]

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, resorted to persuasion and despatched to

Umbria the Cardinal Leo di Santa Croce, who will appear more than once

in this history.[32] 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 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 to love.[33] The disappearance of Catharism in Italy,

without an upheaval, and above all without the Inquisition, is thus an

indirect result of the Franciscan movement, and not the least important

among them.[34]

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 robust 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 atmosphere thoroughly saturated with their ideas;

unconsciously 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[35] was the last link in a chain of monastic

prophets, who during nearly four hundred years succeeded one another in

the monasteries 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 occasion

appearing in Rome itself, to announce to pope and emperor the unloosing

of the divine wrath.[36]

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 ages 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 persecutions 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

Cosenza. 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 discharge

from his functions (1181), that he might consecrate 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 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,[37] 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.[38] 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 thirteenth 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 accustomed masters, she suddenly meets a stranger; she barely

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.

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.[39] 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 calculated 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, 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 elements 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."[40]

We have seen that the return to evangelical simplicity 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,[41] 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 incomparable vigor.

One day he was preaching in a chapel which was plunged in almost total

darkness, the sky being 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

apocalyptic mysticism which seemed to have secret communication with

that which was rousing the Peninsula. They had the same views of the

future, the same anxious expectation of new cataclysms, joined with a

prospect of a reviving of the Church.

"Cry with a loud voice," said her guardian angel to St. Elizabeth of

Schonau ([Cross] 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 sleeping, but I shall awaken you! Kings of the earth,

the cry of your iniquity has risen even to me."[42]

"Divine justice," said St. Hildegarde ([Cross] 1178), "shall have its hour;

the last of the seven epochs symbolized by the seven days of creation

has arrived, the judgments 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 angels 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 to

Assisi as to a new Bethlehem.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Bull of June 8, 1198, _Quamvis_. Migne, i., col. 220;

Potthast, 265.

[2] 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.

[3] _Fasciculus rerum expetend. et fugiend._, t. ii., 7, pp.

254, 255 (Brown, 1690).

[4] John of Salisbury, _Policrat._ Migne, v. 15.

[5] Among their sources of revenue we find the right of

_collagium_, by payment of which clerics acquired the right to

keep a concubine. Pierre le Chantre, _Verb. abbrev._, 24.

[6] Vide _Carmina Burana_, Breslau, 8vo, 1883; Political Songs

of England, 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 Cardinal, 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.

[7] _Conosco sacerdoti che fanno gli usura per formare un

patrimonio da lasciare ai loro spurii; altri che tengono osteria

coll' insegna del collare e vendono vino_ ... Salimbene,

Cantarelli, Parma, 1882, 2 vols., 8vo, ii., p. 307.

[8] 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.

[9] 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., col. 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.

[10] Vide Bull _Postquam vocante Domino_ of July 11, 1206.

Potthast 2840.

[11] V. _Annales Stadenses_ [_Monumenta Germaniæ historica,

Scriptorum_, t. 16], _ad ann. 1237_. Among the comprehensive

pictures 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 occidentalis: Libri

duo quorum prior Orientalis, alter Occidentalis historiæ nomine

inscribitur Duaci_, 1597, 16mo. pp. 259-480.

[12] V. Honorius III., Horoy's edition, lib. i., ep. 109, 125,

135, 206, 273; ii., 128, 164; iv., 120, etc.

[13] _Dialogus miraculorum_ of Cesar 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.

[14] _Recueil des historiens de France._ Bouquet, t. xii., pp.

550, 551.

[15] Bonacorsi: _Vitæ hæreticorum_ [d'Achery, _Spicilegium_, t.

i., p. 215] Cf. Lucius III., epist. 171, Migne.

[16] Vide Bernard Gui, _Practica inquisitionis_, Douai edition,

4to, Paris, 1886 p. 244 ff., and especially the Vatican MS.,

2548, folio 71.

[17] A chronicle of St. Francis's time makes this same

comparison: Burchard, Abbot of Urspurg ([Cross] 1226) [_Burchardi et

Cuonradi chronicon. Monum. Germ. hist. Script._, t. 23], has

left us an account of the approbation of Francis by the Pope,

all the more precious for being that of a contemporary. _Loc.

cit._, p. 376.

[18] _De nugis Curialium_, Dist. 1, cap. 31, p. 64, Wright's

edition. Cf. _Chronique de Laon_, Bouquet xiii., p. 680.

[19] 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 harmony with the French Waldenses.

Published by Preger: _Abhandlungen der K. bayer. Akademie der

Wiss. Hist. Cl._, t. xiii., 1875, p. 19 ff.

[20] 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-Bréholles, t. v., p. 280). See especially the fine

monograph of M. C. Molinier: _Mémoires de l'Académie de

Toulouse_, 1888.

[21] A. SS., Aprilis, t. iii., p. 238d.

[22] I would say that between the inspiration of Francis and the

Catharian doctrines there is an irreconcilable opposition; but

it would not be difficult to find acts and words of his which

recall the contempt for matter of the Cathari; for example, his

way of treating his body. Some of his counsels to the friars:

_Unusquisque habet in potestate sua inimicum 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 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.

[23] _Quodam die, dicta fabrissa dixit ipsi testi prægnanti,

quod rogaret Deum, ut liberaret eam 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.

[24] Those of the _Concorrezenses_ and _Bajolenses_. In Italy

_Cathari_ becomes _Gazzari_; for that matter, each country had

its special appellatives; 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.

[25] 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. _Patari!_ is still the cry of the ragpickers in the

small towns of Provence. In the thirteenth century Patarino and

Catharo were synonyms. But before that the term Patarini had an

entirely different sense. See the very remarkable study of M.

Felice Tocco on this subject in his _Eresia net medio evo_,

12mo, Florence, 1884.

[26] Cesar von Heisterbach, _Dial. mirac._, t. i., p. 309,

Strange's edition.

[27] _Innocentii opera_, Migne, t. i., col. 537; t. ii., 654.

[28] _Computruistis in peccatis sicut jumenta in stercore suo ut

fumus ac fimus putrefactionis vestræ jam fere circumadjacentes

regionis infecerit, ac ipsum Dominum ut credimus ad nauseam

provocaverit._ _Loc. cit._, col. 654. Cf. 673; Potthast, 2532,

2539.

[29] _Gesta Innocentii_, Migne, t. i., col. clxii. Cf. _epist._

viii., 85 and 105.

[30] Campi, _Historia Ecclesiastica di Piacenza_, parte ii., p.

92 ff. Cf. _Innoc., epist._ ix., 131, 166-169; x., 54, 64, 222.

[31] A. SS., Maii, t. v., p. 87.

[32] 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.

[33] Not once do we find him fighting heretics. The early

Dominicans, on the contrary, are incessantly occupied with

arguing. See 2 Cel., 3, 46.

[34] 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.

[35] This strange personality will charm historians and

philosophers 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.

[36] A. SS., Sept., t. vii., p. 283 ff.

[37] 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.

[38] Toward 1195. Gioacchino died there, March 30, 1202.

[39] 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 Commentary 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 ([Cross] 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.

[40] _Comm. in apoc._, folio 78, b. 2.

[41] _Qui vere monachus est nihil reputat esse suum nisi

citharam:_ Apoc., ib., folio 183. a. 2.

[42] 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._)[1] He thus

expressed in his own way the disquietude of those hearts which could

neither resign themselves to perpetual 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 Assisi may have contributed in some measure to

Francis's definitive call.

Since his abrupt return from Spoleto, life in his father's house had

become daily more difficult. Bernardone'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.

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 reproaches, 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

bishop, but the latter understood no more than others his vague,

incoherent plans, filled with ideas impossible to realize and possibly

subversive.[2] 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 forever 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 to hide the humble hermitage and set up

an ideal barrier between it and the world.

Served by a poor priest who had scarcely the wherewithal 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 lacerated, with bleeding wounds, appears to seek to

inspire 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_."[3]

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."[4]

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.[5]

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 contemplation he at

once asks himself how he may repay to 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 immolating 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, personal, intimate

contact with Jesus Christ; from belief he had passed to faith, to that

living faith which a distinguished 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 marvellously 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 vulneratum et liquefactum est

cor ejus ed memoriam Dominicæ passionis._[6]

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 taken

his son there,[7] and Francis speedily succeeded in selling all he had

brought. He even parted with his horse, and full of joy set out upon the

road to Assisi.[8]

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 delicious 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.

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 prudence

refused the gift; but Francis so insisted upon remaining 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.[9]

Meanwhile Bernardone, disturbed by his son's failure 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 neighbors, 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

emergency. 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.[10]

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 himself, 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 appearance 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.[11]

Bernardone soon heard the clamor which filled the narrow 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.[12]

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.

He returned straight to St. Damian.[13]

Bernardone, on his return, went so far as to strike Pica in punishment

for her weakness. Then, unable to tolerate 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 abandon his resolutions, but that, moreover,

having become the servant of Christ, he had no longer to receive orders

from him.[14] 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 response, which relieved them of a delicate

dilemma, they referred the complainant to the diocesan authorities.[15]

The matter took on another aspect before the ecclesiastical 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 tribunal[16] 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 obedience 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.[17] Every one held Francis to be assuredly mad, but they

anticipated with relish the shame and rage of Bernardone, 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 reappeared 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 fain to take under his mantle the poor Francis,

who was trembling with emotion and cold.[18]

The scene of the judgment hall made an immense impression; the ardor,

simplicity, and indignation of Francis 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 abrupt conversions, or

those which it considers such. Francis once again forced himself upon

the attention of his fellow-citizens with a power all the greater for

the contrast 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 England, and the thirteenth century would

have been astonished indeed at the prudery of the Bollandists. The

incident is simply a new manifestation of Francis's character, with its

ingenuousness, its exaggerations, its longing to establish a complete

harmony, a literal correspondence, 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 happiness swept 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 follows 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 retreat 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 answered "but what is that to

you?"

His only garment was an old mantle which the bishop'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 himself from the ditch. Stiff with

cold, with no other covering 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.[19]

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.[20]

He did not, however, go directly thither; before beginning 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.[21] 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.

This love inspired by the sympathy of an affectionate heart may become

so deep as to appear at times supernatural; the dying have been known to

recover consciousness 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 returned 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.[22]

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 perceived 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.

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.[23]

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 dancing. 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 desired to co-operate in this pious

work.[24]

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 maledictions. 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."[25] His brother was prominent in the

front rank of those who harassed him with their mockeries. One winter

morning they met in a church; 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 contagious warmth of the

transformation of his dear chapel, 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.[26]

This success soon inspired him with the idea of repairing 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

otherwise mentioned in his biographies.[27] As to the second, 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 marvellous basilica

that one must go to divine and comprehend St. Francis; he must turn 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, 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, keeping 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 preparing himself for a life of penitence

rather than a life of activity. But these works once finished it was

impossible 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.[28]

When the repairs were finished meditation occupied the greater part of

his days. A Benedictine of the Abbey of Mont Subasio[29] 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 festival of St.

Matthias, mass was being celebrated at the Portiuncula.[30] When the

priest turned toward him to read the words of Jesus, Francis felt

himself overpowered 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 throwing 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.[31] The long struggle through which

Francis passed before becoming 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 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] 3 Soc., 26.

[2] 3 Soc., 10.

[3] This crucifix is preserved in the sacristy of Santa Chiara,

whither the sisters carried it when they left St. Damian.

[4] _Opuscula B. Francisci, Oratio I._

[5] 3 Soc., 13; 2 Cel., 1, 6; Bon., 12; 15; 16.

[6] 3 Soc., 14.

[7] This incident is found in the narrative of 1 Cel., 8: _Ibi

ex more venditis_.

[8] 1 Cel., 8; 3 Soc., 16; Bon. 16. Foligno is a three hours'

walk from Assisi.

[9] 1 Cel., 9; 3 Soc., 16; Bon., 6. Cf. A. SS., p. 567.

[10] 1 Cel., 10; 3 Soc., 16; Bon., 17, A. SS.; p. 568.

[11] 1 Cel., 11.

[12] 1 Cel., 12; 3 Soc., 17; Bon., 18.

[13] 1 Cel., 13; 3 Soc., 18.

[14] 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.

[15] 3 Soc., 18 and 19; 1 Cel., 14; Bon., 19.

[16] From 1204 until after the death of St. Francis the

episcopal throne of Assisi was occupied by Guido II. Vide

Cristofano, 1, 169 ff.

[17] _Piazza di Santa Maria Maggiore o del vescovado._

Everything has remained pretty nearly in the same state as in

the thirteenth century.

[18] 1 Cel., 15; 3 Soc., 20; Bon., 20.

[19] 3 Soc., 16; Bon., 21.

[20] 1 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.

[21] 1 Cel., 17; Bon., 11; 13; 21; 22; 3 Soc., 11; A. SS., p.

575.

[22] 1 Cel., 18; 3 Soc., 21; Bon., 23.

[23] 3 Soc., 22; 2 Cel., 1, 9.

[24] 3 Soc., 24; 2 Cel., 8; _Spec._, 24.

[25] 3 Soc., 23; 2 Cel., 7.

[26] 3 Soc., 24; _Testament de Claire_, Wadding, _ann. 1253_ v.

[27] Cel., 21; Bon., 24.

[28] 3 Soc., 14; 2 Cel., i., 6.

[29] Portiuncula was a dependence of this abbey.

[30] This is the date adopted by the Bollandists, because the

ancient missals mark the pericope, Matt. x., for the gospel of

this day. This entails no difficulty and in any case it cannot

be very far distant from the truth. A. SS., p. 574.

[31] See in particular Bon., 25 and 26. Cf. A. SS., p. 577d.

* * * * *

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 exhortations 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 possible; 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. 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

perfection.[1] 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 virgins of the sanctuary who sometimes feel

a vague agitation; their hearts throb with an infinitely sweet and

subtile thrill, but their eyelids droop; again they feel the damp cold

of the cloister creeping over them; the delicious 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

heavenly, 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 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 sacrifice, and like the lover to his beloved, it says to its

vanquisher, "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, consenting 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 gradually

succeeded in the minds of many a feeling closely akin to admiration.

This feeling inevitably provokes imitation. A man of Assisi, hardly

mentioned by the biographers, had attached 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[2] in their

hearts. His arrival at Portiuncula gave Francis a suggestion; from that

time he dreamed of the possibility of bringing together a few companions

with whom he could carry on his apostolic mission in the neighborhood.

At Assisi he had often enjoyed the hospitality of a rich and prominent

man named Bernardo di Quintavalle,[3] 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 disappointments, wounds, dreams,

hopes, faith, it is difficult indeed not to be carried along, especially

when the apostle 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 understand 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 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. Nicholas 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 vocation:

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."[4]

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

authority 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.

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 whosoever 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?[5]

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 avarice in himself not

to be moved to indignation by hearing 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.[6]

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 understand things which they make a picture of. It taught

them, better than all Francis's preachings, what manner of men these new

friars would be.

The distribution finished, they went at once to Portiuncula, 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,[7] a new disciple 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.[8]

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 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 decided to join them, was at considerable trouble to learn where

to find Francis, and accidentally meeting him in the neighborhood of

Rivo-Torto[9] he saw in the fact a providential 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 mowers seat themselves upon the hay-cocks for

their evening meal; they play a few pieces, and when the train of

haymakers 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 the same.[10] 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.[11] The inhabitants

of these districts are for the most part kindly and sedate; 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 behind 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 townsfolk 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 happy--men's minds were much divided.

Some held them to be mad, others admired them, finding them widely

different from the vagrant monks,[12] that plague of Christendom.

Sometimes, however, the friars found success not responding to their

efforts, the conversion of souls not taking form with enough rapidity

and vigor. To encourage them, Francis would then confide to them his

visions and his 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 trembling 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.[13]

Every prosperous movement provokes opposition by the very fact of its

prosperity. The herbs of the field have their 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 opposition. 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 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."[14]

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 situation and consequently in the state of mind of the Anglican

bishops when they saw the organizing of the Salvation 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.[15]

If the bishop's perplexities were great, those of Francis 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 Penitents could not

forgive them for having distributed their goods among the poor, and

attacks came from this direction 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,

plentifully spread abroad against them, simply defeated themselves;

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 persecuted a necessity.

As to the clergy, they could not but feel a profound distrust 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

ourselves, 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 guerrillas?

This covert opposition has left no characteristic traces in the

biographies of St. Francis. It is not to be wondered at; Thomas of

Celano, even if he had had information 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 contradiction with the

clergy of his time, the more he will believe himself the obedient son of

the Church. Confounding 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

advance.

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 preserved for us the

directions which he gave to his disciples:

"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 everything 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 supreme 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 bowed

in adoration, saying 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

overwhelmed 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."[16]

This freshness and poetry will not be found in the later missions. Here

the river is still itself, and if it 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, they humbly asked her permission 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 portico?" 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

praying 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

accomplishing, we have voluntarily become poor."

Much amazed, he asked them if they had ever had anything, and

learned that they had possessed much, but that for the love of

God they had given everything away.... The lady, seeing that the

friars 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 another they made themselves known as

true disciples of the Lord, many of them felt themselves

reproved in their hearts and came asking pardon 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 fervent 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 spiritual

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 disciples and invited the world to the eternal

marriage supper.

Francis, above all, was impatient to see his young family once more.

They all arrived at Portiuncula almost at the same time, having already,

before reaching it, forgotten the torments they had endured, thinking

only of the joy of the meeting.[17]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] 1 Cel., 23; 3 Soc., 25 and 26; Bon., 27. Cf. _Auct. Vit.

Sec. ap._, A. SS., p. 579.

[2] 1 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 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.

[3] 1 Cel., 24. Bernard de Besse is the first to call him B. di

Quintavalle: _De laudibus_, fo. 95 h.; cf. upon 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. 1229, and _Tribul. Arch._,

ii., p. 278, etc.

[4] 1 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 occupied by the barracks of the

_gendarmerie_ (_carabinieri reali_).

[5] 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.

[6] 3 Soc., 30. Cf. _Anon. Perus._, A. SS., p. 581a. This scene

is reported neither by Celano nor by St. Bonaventura.

[7] 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.

[8] 1 Cel., 25; 3 Soc., 23; Bon. 29. Cf. _Anon. Perus._, A. SS.,

p. 582, and A. SS., _Aprilis_, t. iii., p. 220 ff.

[9] _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.

[10] _An. Perus_, A. SS., p. 582. Cf. _Fior._, _Vita di Egidio_,

1; _Spec._, 124, 136; 2 Cel., 3, 68; A. SS., _Aprilis_, t. iii.,

p. 227.

[11] _Spec._, 34a; _Conform._, 219b, 1; _Ant. fr._, p. 96.

[12] The Gyrovagi. Tr.

[13] 3 Soc. 32-34; 1 Cel., 27 and 28; Bon., 31.

[14] 3 Soc., 35. Cf. _Anon. Perus._; A. SS., p. 584.

[15] 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 indirect 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 because 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

its 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 III. (_Quinta compil._,

lib. ii., tit. iii., cap. i.) is given a complaint against this

bishop, brought before the curia by the Crucigeri of the

hospital _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 conversum violentas manus

injecerat ... adjiciens quod idem hospitale quadam vini

quantitate fuerat per eumdem episcopum spoliatum._ _Honorii

opera_, Horoy's edition, t. i., col. 200 ff. Cf. Potthast, 7746.

The mention 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 oeconomo monasterii ap_. Richter, _Corpus juris

canonici_. Leipzig, 1839, 4to, Horoy, _loc. cit._, t. i., col.

163; Potthast, 7728.

[16] 3 Soc., 36 and 37. Cf. _Anon. Perus. ap._, A. SS., p. 585;

_Test. B. Francisci_.

[17] 3 Soc., 38-41.

* * * * *

CHAPTER VI

ST. FRANCIS AND INNOCENT III

Summer 1210[1]

Seeing the number of his friars daily increasing, Francis 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 inspired ones who rush into action upon

the strength of unexpected revelations, and, thanks to their faith 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 retouching the Rule of his institute,

unceasingly revising it down to the last moment, according as the growth

of the Order and experience of the human heart suggested to him

modifications of it.[2]

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 occupations of the new

brethren.[3]

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, including 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[4] briefly

shows these difficulties. The question took on some importance when in

the fourteenth century men undertook to show an exact conformity 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

pictures 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 fresco 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.[5] To attempt to give them a name is to

make a sort of psychological 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 company.

"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.

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.[6]

Francis's thoughts were all fixed upon the purpose of their journey; he

thought of it day and night, and naturally 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.[7] 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 theocratic 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 defending

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 to

wars, legitimate in the beginning, in which the conqueror keeps on with

depredations and massacres for no reason, except that he is intoxicated

with blood and success.

And so Rome, which canonized the petty Celestine V., refused this

supreme consecration to the glorious Innocent 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. Possessed by his civil and religious dogmas as others are by

their educational doctrines, he never suspected the unsatisfied

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[8] open the door

to some 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 reminded him of Jesus, the shepherd of

souls. One cannot be everything; a choice intelligence, an iron

will[9] 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.[10]

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 comprehend, and now I

see in this pope, who lived upon lemons,[11] 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 representatives of the two ages of

humanity, that of Law and that of Love.[12]

A surprise awaited the pilgrims on their arrival in Rome: they met the

Bishop of Assisi,[13] 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

Giovanni di San Paolo[14] upon the difficulties of the Rule, counsels

which strongly resemble those of Guido himself.[15]

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 conformity to the precepts of the gospel. There is a

delicate 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

ecclesiastical 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 assurances,

which appear to have been always the small change of the court of Rome,

did not prevent his examining them for several successive days,[16] and

putting to them an infinite number of questions, of which the conclusion

was always the advice to enter some Order already existing.

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 and

observe evangelical perfection in all things. I believe that by him the

Lord intends to reform the faith of the Holy Church throughout the whole

world."[17]

On the morrow he presented Francis and his companions to Innocent III.

Naturally, the pope was not sparing 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."[18]

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.

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 returned 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 court,

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, much 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 sustains bastards, how much more his legitimate

sons."[19]

So much 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 indomitable 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 opinion that the initiative of the

Penitents of Assisi was an innovation, and that their mode of life was

entirely beyond 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 impossible innovation, are we not convicted of

blasphemy against Christ, the author of the gospel?"[20]

These words struck Innocent III. with great force; he knew better than

any one that the possessions of the ecclesiastics were the great

obstacles to the reform of the Church, and that the threatened success

of the Albigensian 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 Catholics_ had desired to remain

faithful to the Church;[21] 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.[22]

Yet his doubts and hesitations were not entirely dissipated. He reserved

his definitive approbation, therefore, while lavishing upon the brothers

the most affectionate tokens of interest. He authorized them to continue

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.[23] This fact, so

humble in appearance, definitively constituted the Franciscan family.

The mystics whom we saw going from village to village transported with

love and liberty accepted the yoke almost without thinking about it.

This yoke will preserve 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."[24]

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.[25]

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.

The thoroughly lay creation of St. Francis had become, in spite of

himself, an ecclesiastical institution: it must soon degenerate into a

clerical institution. All unawares, 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[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 Philipp, 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 absolutely

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.

[2] 3 Soc., 35.

[3] 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. Müller; 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 the Rule. If from 1221-1226 he had time

to make two Rules and the Will, as is 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.

[4] Thomas of Celano's list. 1, _Quidam pium gerens animum_; 2,

_Bernardus_; 3, _Vir alter_; 4, _Ægidius_; 5, _Unus alius

appositus_; 6, _Philippus_; 7, _Alius bonus vir_; 8, 9, 10, 11,

_Quatuor boni et idonei viri_. 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 received by the brethren in their missions. 3 Soc.,

33, 35, 41, 46, 52. Bonaventura: 1, _Bernardus_; 2, ... 3,

_Ægidius_; 4, 5, ... 6, _Silvestro_; 7, _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, f^o 46b 1: 1, _Bernardus de Quintavalle_; 2,

_Petrus Chatanii_; 3, _Egidius_; 4, _Sabatinus_; 5, _Moricus_;

6, _Johannes de Capella_; 7, _Philippus Longus_; 8, _Johannes de

Sancto Constantio_; 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 Francis

being there included Angelo di Tancrede is the twelfth brother

and Silvestro disappears. _Spec._, 87a.

[5] According to tradition, the five _compagni del Santo_ buried

there beside their master are Bernardo, Silvestro, William (an

Englishman), Eletto, and Valentino(?)

[6] 3 Soc., 46; 1 Cel., 32; Bon., 34.

[7] 1 Cel., 33; 3 Soc., 53; Bon., 35.

[8] St. Ludgarde (1182-1246) sees him condemned to Purgatory

till the Last Judgment. Life of this saint by Thomas of Catimpré

in Surius: _Vitæ SS._ (1618), vi., 215-226.

[9] _Vir clari ingenii, magnæ probitatis et sapientiæ, cui

nullus secundus tempore suo:_ Rigordus, _de gestis Philippi

Augusti_ in Duchesne. _Historiæ 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.

[10] _Cujus finis lætitiem potius quam tristitiam generavit

subjectis._ Alberic delle Tre Fontane. Leibnitz, _Accessiones

historicæ_, t. ii., p. 492.

[11] _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._

[12] Fresco in the great nave of the Upper Church of Assisi.

[13] 1 Cel., 32; 3 Soc., 47.