It appears that a Romagnol brother Christopher was at this same chapter

nominated provincial of Gascony; he lived there after the customs of the

early Franciscans, working with his hands, living in a narrow cell made

of the boughs of trees and potter's earth.[15]

Egidio set out for Tunis with a few friars, but a great disappointment

awaited them there; the Christians of this country, in the fear of being

compromised by their missionary zeal, hurried them into a boat and

constrained them to recross the sea.[16]

If the date of 1219 for these two missions has little other basis than

conjecture, the same is not the case as to the departure of the friars

who went to Spain and Morocco. The discovery has recently been made of

the account of their last preachings and of their tragic death, made by

an eye-witness.[17] This document is all the more precious because it

confirms the general lines of the much longer account given by Mark of

Lisbon. It would be out of place to give a summary of it here, because

it but very indirectly concerns the life of St. Francis, but we must

note that these _acta_ have beyond their historic value a truly

remarkable psychological--one must almost say pathological--significance;

never was the mania for martyrdom better characterized than in these

long pages, where we see the friars forcing the Mahometans to pursue

them and make them win the heavenly palm. The forbearance which

Miramolin as well as his fellow religionists at first show gives an

idea of the civilization and the good qualities of these infidels, all

the higher that very different sentiments would be natural in the

vanquished ones of the plains of Tolosa.

It is impossible to call by the name of sermons the collections of rude

apostrophes which the missionaries addressed to those whom they wished

to convert; at this paroxysm the thirst for martyrdom becomes the

madness of suicide. Is this to say that friars Bernard, Pietro, Adjutus,

Accurso, and Otho have no right to the admiration and worship with which

they have been surrounded? Who would dare say so? Is not devotion always

blind? That a furrow should be fecund it must have blood, it must have

tears, such tears as St. Augustine has called the blood of the soul. Ah,

it is a great mistake to immolate oneself, for the blood of a single man

will not save the world nor even a nation; but it is a still greater

mistake not to immolate oneself, for then one lets others be lost, and

is oneself lost first of all.

I greet you, therefore, Martyrs of Morocco; you do not regret your

madness, I am sure, and if ever some righteous pedant gone astray in the

groves of paradise undertakes to demonstrate to you that it would have

been better worth while to remain in your own country, and found a

worthy family of virtuous laborers, I fancy that Miramolin, there become

your best friend, will take the trouble to refute him.

You were mad, but I envy such madness, for you felt that the essential

thing in this world is not to serve this ideal or that one, but with all

one's soul to serve the ideal which one has chosen.

When, a few months after, the story of their glorious end arrived at

Assisi, Francis discerned a feeling of pride among his companions and

reproached them in lively terms; he who would so have envied the lot of

the martyrs felt himself humbled because God had not judged him worthy

to share it. As the story was mingled with some words of eulogy of the

founder of the Order, he forbade the further reading of it.[18]

Immediately after the chapter he had himself undertaken a mission of the

same kind as he had confided to the Brothers of Morocco, but he had

proceeded in it in an entirely different manner: his was not the blind

zeal which courts death in a sort of frenzy and forgets all the rest;

perhaps he already felt that the persistent effort after the better, the

continual immolation of self for truth, is the martyrdom of the strong.

This expedition, which lasted more than a year, is mentioned by the

biographers in a few lines.[19] Happily we have a number of other

papers regarding it; but their silence suffices to prove the sincerity

of the primitive Franciscan authors; if they had wanted to amplify the

deeds of their subject, where could they have found an easier

opportunity or a more marvellous theme? Francis quitted Portiuncula in

the middle of June and went to Ancona, whence the Crusaders were to set

sail for Egypt on St. John's Day (June 24th).

Many friars joined him--a fact which was not without its inconveniences

for a journey by sea, where they were obliged to depend upon the charity

of the owners of the boats, or of their fellow-travellers.

We can understand Francis's embarrassment on arriving at Ancona and

finding himself obliged to leave behind a number of those who so

earnestly longed to go with him. The Conformities relate here an

incident for which we might desire an earlier authority, but which is

certainly very like Francis; he led all his friends to the port and

explained to them his perplexities. "The people of the boat," he told

them, "refuse to take us all, and I have not the courage to make choice

among you; you might think that I do not love you all alike; let us then

try to learn the will of God." And he called a child who was playing

close by, and the little one, charmed to take the part of Providence put

upon him, pointed out with his finger the eleven friars who were to set

sail.[20]

We do not know what itinerary they followed. A single incident of the

journey has come down to us: that of the chastisement inflicted in the

isle of Cyprus on Brother Barbaro, who had been guilty of the fault

which the master detested above all others--evil-speaking. He was

implacable with regard to the looseness of language so customary among

pious folk, and which often made a hell of religious houses apparently

the most peaceful. The offence this time appeared to him the more grave

for having been uttered in the presence of a stranger, a knight of that

district. The latter was stupefied on hearing Francis command the guilty

one to eat a lump of ass's dung which lay there, adding: "The mouth

which has distilled the venom of hatred against my brother must eat this

excrement." Such indignation, no less than the obedience of the unhappy

offender, filled him with admiration.[21]

It is very probable, as Wadding has supposed, that the missionaries

debarked at St. Jean d'Acre. They arrived there about the middle of

July.[22] In the environs of this city, doubtless, Brother Elias had

been established for one or two years. Francis there told off a few of

his companions, whom he sent to preach in divers directions, and a few

days afterward he himself set out for Egypt, where all the efforts of

the Crusaders were concentrated upon Damietta.

From the first he was heart-broken with the moral condition of the

Christian army. Notwithstanding the presence of numerous prelates and of

the apostolic legate, it was disorganized for want of discipline. He was

so affected by this that when there was talk of battle he felt it his

duty to advise against it, predicting that the Christians would

infallibly be beaten. No one heeded him, and on August 29th the

Crusaders, having attacked the Saracens, were terribly routed.[23]

His predictions won him a marvellous success. It must be owned that the

ground was better prepared than any other to receive the new seed; not

surely that piety was alive there, but in this mass of men come together

from every corner of Europe, the troubled, the seers, the enlightened

ones, those who thirsted for righteousness and truth, were elbowed by

rascals, adventurers, those who were greedy for gold and plunder,

capable of much good or much evil, the sport of fleeting impulses,

loosed from the bonds of the family, of property, of the habits which

usually twine themselves about man's will, and only by exception permit

a complete change in his manner of life; those among them who were

sincere and had come there with generous purposes were, so to speak,

predestined to enter the peaceful army of the Brothers Minor. Francis

was to win in this mission fellow-laborers who would assure the success

of his work in the countries of northern Europe.

Jacques de Vitry, in a letter to friends written a few days later, thus

describes the impression produced on him by Francis:

"I announce to you that Master Reynier, Prior of St. Michael,

has entered the Order of the Brothers Minor, an Order which is

multiplying rapidly on all sides, because it imitates the

primitive Church and follows the life of the Apostles in

everything. The master of these Brothers is named Brother

Francis; he is so lovable that he is venerated by everyone.

Having come into our army, he has not been afraid, in his zeal

for the faith, to go to that of our enemies. For days together

he announced the word of God to the Saracens, but with little

success; then the sultan, King of Egypt, asked him in secret to

entreat God to reveal to him, by some miracle, which is the best

religion. Colin, the Englishman, our clerk, has entered the same

Order, as also two others of our companions, Michael and Dom

Matthew, to whom I had given the rectorship of the Sainte

Chapelle. Cantor and Henry have done the same, and still others

whose names I have forgotten."[24]

The long and enthusiastic chapter which the same author gives to the

Brothers Minor in his great work on the Occident is too diffuse to find

a place here. It is a living and accurate picture of the early times of

the Order; in it Francis's sermon before the sultan is again related. It

was written at a period when the friars had still neither monasteries

nor churches, and when the chapters were held once or twice a year; this

gives us a date anterior to 1223, and probably even before 1221. We have

here, therefore, a verification of the narratives of Thomas of Celano

and the Three Companions, and they find in it their perfect

confirmation.

As to the interviews between Francis and the sultan, it is prudent to

keep to the narratives of Jacques de Vitry and William of Tyre.[25]

Although the latter wrote at a comparatively late date (between 1275 and

1295), he followed a truly historic method, and founded his work on

authentic documents; we see that he knows no more than Jacques de Vitry

of the proposal said to have been made by Francis to pass through a fire

if the priests of Mahomet would do as much, intending so to establish

the superiority of Christianity.

We know how little such an appeal to signs is characteristic of St.

Francis. Perhaps the story, which comes from Bonaventura, is born of a

misconception. The sultan, like a new Pharaoh, may have laid it upon the

strange preacher to prove his mission by miracles. However this may be,

Francis and his companions were treated with great consideration, a fact

the more meritorious that hostilities were then at their height.

Returned to the Crusading camp, they remained there until after the

taking of Damietta (November 5, 1219). This time the Christians were

victorious, but perhaps the heart of the _gospel man_ bled more for this

victory than for the defeat of August 29th. The shocking condition of

the city, which the victors found piled with heaps of dead bodies, the

quarrels over the sharing of booty, the sale of the wretched creatures

who had not succumbed to the pestilence,[26] all these scenes of

terror, cruelty, greed, caused him profound horror. The "human beast"

was let loose, the apostle's voice could no more make itself heard in

the midst of the savage clamor than that of a life-saver over a raging

ocean.

He set out for Syria[27] and the Holy Places. How gladly would we

follow him in this pilgrimage, accompany him in thought through Judea

and Galilee, to Bethlehem, to Nazareth, to Gethsemane! What was said to

him by the stable where the Son of Mary was born, the workshop where he

toiled, the olive-tree where he accepted the bitter cup? Alas! the

documents here suddenly fail us. Setting out from Damietta very shortly

after the siege (November 5, 1219) he may easily have been at Bethlehem

by Christmas. But we know nothing, absolutely nothing, except that his

sojourn was more prolonged than had been expected.

Some of the Brothers who were present at Portiuncula at the

chapter-general of 1220 (Whitsunday, May 17th) had time enough to go to

Syria and still find Francis there;[28] they could hardly have arrived

much earlier than the end of June. What had he been doing those eight

months? Why had he not gone home to preside at the chapter? Had he been

ill?[29] Had he been belated by some mission? Our information is too

slight to permit us even to venture upon conjecture.

Angelo Clareno relates that the Sultan of Egypt, touched by his

preaching, gave command that he and all his friars should have free

access to the Holy Sepulchre without the payment of any tribute.[30]

Bartholomew of Pisa on his part says incidentally that Francis, having

gone to preach in Antioch and its environs, the Benedictines of the

Abbey of the Black Mountain,[31] eight miles from that city, joined the

Order in a body, and gave up all their property to the Patriarch.

These indications are meagre and isolated indeed, and the second is to

be accepted only with reserve. On the other hand, we have detailed

information of what went on in Italy during Francis's absence. Brother

Giordano's chronicle, recently discovered and published, throws all the

light that could be desired upon a plot laid against Francis by the very

persons whom he had commissioned to take his place at Portiuncula, and

this, if not with the connivance of Rome and the cardinal protector, at

least without their opposition. These events had indeed been narrated by

Angelo Clareno, but the undisguised feeling which breathes through all

his writings and their lack of accuracy had sufficed with careful

critics to leave them in doubt. How could it be supposed that in the

very lifetime of St. Francis the vicars whom he had instituted could

take advantage of his absence to overthrow his work? How could it be

that the pope, who during this period was sojourning at Rieti, how that

Ugolini, who was still nearer, did not impose silence on these

agitators?[32]

Now that all the facts come anew to light, not in an oratorical and

impassioned account, but brief, precise, cutting, dated, with every

appearance of notes taken day by day, we must perforce yield to

evidence.

Does this give us reason clamorously to condemn Ugolino and the pope? I

do not think so. They played a part which is not to their honor, but

their intentions were evidently excellent. If the famous aphorism that

the end justifies the means is criminal where one examines his own

conduct, it becomes the first duty in judging that of others. Here are

the facts:

On July 25th, about one month after Francis's departure for Syria,

Ugolini, who was at Perugia, laid upon the Clarisses of Monticelli

(Florence), Sienna, Perugia, and Lucca that which his friend had so

obstinately refused for the friars, the Benedictine Rule.[33]

At the same time, St. Dominic, returning from Spain full of new ardor

after his retreat in the grotto of Segovia, and fully decided to adopt

for his Order the rule of poverty, was strongly encouraged in this

purpose and overwhelmed with favors.[34] Honorius III. saw in him the

providential man of the time, the reformer of the monastic Orders; he

showed him unusual attentions, going so far, for example, as to transfer

to him a group of monks belonging to other Orders, whom he appointed to

act as Dominic's lieutenants on the preaching tours which he believed it

to be his duty to undertake, and to serve, under his direction, an

apprenticeship in popular preaching.[35]

That Ugolini was the inspiration of all this, the bulls are here to

witness. His ruling purpose at that time was so clearly to direct the

two new Orders that he chose a domicile with this end in view, and we

find him continually either at Perugia--that is to say, within three

leagues of Portiuncula--or at Bologna, the stronghold of the Dominicans.

It now becomes manifest that just as the fraternity instituted by

Francis was truly the fruit of his body, flesh of his flesh, so does

the Order of the Preaching Friars emanate from the papacy, and St.

Dominic is only its putative father. This character is expressed in

one word by one of the most authoritative of contemporary annalists,

Burchard of Ursperg ([Cross] 1226). "The pope," he says, "_instituted_

and confirmed the Order of the Preachers."[36]

Francis on his journey in the Orient had taken for special companion a

friar whom we have not yet met, Pietro di Catana or _dei Cattani_. Was

he a native of the town of Catana? There is no precise indication of it.

It appears more probable that he belonged to the noble family _dei

Cattani_, already known to Francis, and of which Orlando, Count of

Chiusi in Casentino, who gave him the Verna, was a member. However that

may be, we must not confound him with the Brother Pietro who assumed the

habit in 1209, at the same time with Bernardo of Quintavallo, and died

shortly afterward. Tradition, in reducing these two men to a single

personage, was influenced not merely by the similarity of the names, but

also by the very natural desire to increase the prestige of one who in

1220-1221 was to play an important part in the direction of the

Order.[37]

At the time of his departure for the East Francis had left two vicars in

his place, the Brothers Matteo of Narni and Gregorio of Naples. The

former was especially charged to remain at Portiuncula to admit

postulants;[38] Gregorio of Naples, on the other hand, was to pass

through Italy to console the Brothers.[39]

The two vicars began at once to overturn everything. It is inexplicable

how men still under the influence of their first fervor for a Rule which

in the plenitude of their liberty they had promised to obey could have

dreamed of such innovations if they had not been urged on and upheld by

those in high places. To alleviate the vow of poverty and to multiply

observances were the two points toward which their efforts were bent.

In appearance it was a trifling matter, in reality it was much, for it

was the first movement of the old spirit against the new. It was the

effort of men who unconsciously, I am willing to think, made religion an

affair of rite and observance, instead of seeing in it, like St.

Francis, the conquest of the liberty which makes us free in all things,

and leads each soul to obey that divine and mysterious power which the

flowers of the fields adore, which the birds of the air bless, which the

symphony of the stars praises, and which Jesus of Nazareth called

_Abba_, that is to say, Father.

The first Rule was excessively simple in the matter of fasts. The friars

were to abstain from meat on Wednesdays and Fridays; they might add

Mondays and Saturdays, but only on Francis's special authorization. The

vicars and their adherents complicated this rule in a surprising manner.

At the chapter-general held in Francis's absence (May 17, 1220), they

decided, first, that in times of feasting the friars were not to provide

meat, but if it were offered to them spontaneously they were to eat it;

second, that all should fast on Mondays as well as Wednesdays and

Fridays; third, that on Mondays and Saturdays they should abstain from

milk products unless by chance the adherents of the Order brought some

to them.[40]

These beginnings bear witness also to an effort to imitate the ancient

Orders, not without the vague hope that they would be substituted for

them. Brother Giordano has preserved to us only this decision of the

chapter of 1220, but the expressions of which he makes use sufficiently

prove that it was far from being the only one, and that the malcontents

had desired, as in the chapters of Citeaux and Monte Cassino, to put

forth veritable constitutions.

These modifications of the Rule did not pass, however, without arousing

the indignation of a part of the chapter; a lay brother made himself

their eager messenger, and set out for the East to entreat Francis to

return without delay, to take the measures called for by the

circumstances.

There were also other causes of disquiet. Brother Philip, a Zealot of

the Clarisses, had made haste to secure for them from Ugolini the

privileges which had already been under consideration.[41]

A certain Brother Giovanni di Conpello[42] had gathered together a

great number of lepers of both sexes, and written a Rule, intending to

form with them a new Order. He had afterward presented himself before

the supreme pontiff with a train of these unfortunates to obtain his

approbation.

Many other distressing symptoms, upon which Brother Giordano does not

dwell, had manifested themselves. The report of Francis's death had even

been spread abroad, so that the whole Order was disturbed, divided, and

in the greatest peril. The dark presentiments which Francis seems to

have had were exceeded by the reality.[43] The messenger who brought

him the sad news found him in Syria, probably at St. Jean d'Acre. He at

once embarked with Elias, Pietro di Catana, Cæsar of Speyer, and a few

others, and returned to Italy in a vessel bound for Venice, where he

might easily arrive toward the end of July.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] One proof of the obscurity in which Dominic remained so long

as Rome did not apotheosize him, is that Jacques de Vitry, who

consecrates a whole chapter of his _Historia Occidentalis_ to

the Preaching Friars (27, p. 333) does not even name the

founder. This is the more significant since a few pages farther

on, the chapter given to the Brothers Minor is almost entirely

filled with the person of St. Francis. This silence about St.

Dominic has been remarked and taken up by Moschus, who finds no

way to explain it. Vide _Vitam J. de Vitriaco_, at the head of

the Douai edition of 1597.

[2] Francis, who died in 1226, is canonized in 1228; Anthony of

Padua, 1231 and 1233; Elisabeth of Thuringia, 1231 and 1235;

Dominic, 1221 and 1234.

[3] 3 Soc., 61.

[4] Shed abroad, Lord, thy Spirit, and all shall be created, and

thou shalt renew the face of the earth.

[5] 2 Cel., 3. 87; _Spec._, 132b; _Conform._, 207a, 112a;

_Fior._, 18. The historians of St. Dominic have not received

these details kindly, but an incontestable point gained from

diplomatic documents is that in 1218 Dominic, at Rome, procured

privileges in which the properties of his Order were indicated,

and that in 1220 he led his friars to profess poverty.

[6] 2 Cel., 3, 9; _Spec._, 17a.

[7] _Spec._, 49a; _Tribul._, Laur. MS., 11a-12b; _Spec._, 183a;

_Conform._, 135b 1.

[8] The principal sources are indicated in A. SS., Augusti, t.

i., pp. 470 ff.

[9] Giord., 18; 3 Soc., 62.

[10] Sbaralea, _Bull. fr._, t. i, p. 2; Potthast, 6081: Wadding,

_ann. 1219_, No. 28, indicates the works where the text may be

found. Cf. A. SS., p. 839.

[11] The title sufficiently indicated the contents: _Domenico

priori S. Romani tolosani ejusque fratribus, eos in protectionem

recipit eorumque Ordinem cum bonis et privilegiis confirmat_.

_Religiosam vitam_: December 22, 1216; Pressuti, t. i., 175,

text in Horoy t. ii., col. 141-144.

[12] Vide A. SS., pp. 608 ff. and 838 ff.

[13] Vide Bull _Multi divinæ_ of August 13, 1218. Horoy, t.

iii., col. 12; Potthast, 5891.

[14] The contradiction is so striking that the Bollandists have

made of it the principal argument for defending the error in

their manuscript (1 Cel., 75), and insisting in the face of, and

against everything that Francis had taken that journey. A. SS.,

607.

[15] He died at Cahors, October 31, 1272. His legend is found in

MS. Riccardi, 279, f^o. 69a. _Incipit vita f. Christophori quam

compilavit fr. Bernardus de Bessa custodiæ Caturcensis: Quasi

vas auri solidum._ Cf. Mark of Lisbon, t. ii., pp. 106-113, t.

iii., p. 212, and Glassberger, _An. fr._, t. ii., p. 14.

[16] A. SS., Aprilis, t. iii., p. 224; _Conform._, 118b, 1; 54a;

Mark of Lisbon, t. ii., p. 1--Brother Luke had been sent to

Constantinople, in 1219, at latest. Vide _Constitutus_ of

December 9, 1220. Sbaralea, _Bull. fr._, t. i., p. 6; Potthast,

6431.

[17] We owe to M. Müller (_Anfänge_, p. 207) the honor of this

publication, copied from a manuscript of the Cottoniana.

[18] Giord., 8.

[19] 1 Cel., 57; Bon., 133-138; 154 and 155; 2 Cel., 2, 2;

_Conform._, 113b, 2; 114a, 2; _Spec._, 55b; _Fior._, 24.

[20] _Conform._, 113b, 2; cf. A. SS., p. 611.

[21] 2 Cel., 3, 92; _Spec._, 30b. Cf. 2 Cel., 3, 115.

_Conform._, 142b, 1. This incident may possibly have taken place

on the return.

[22] With the facilities of that period the voyage required from

twenty to thirty days. The _diarium_ of a similar passage may be

found in Huillard-Bréholles, _Hist. Dipl._, t. i., 898-901. Cf.

_Ibid._, Introd., p. cccxxxi.

[23] 2 Cel., 22; Bon 154, 155; cf. A. SS., p. 612.

[24] Jacques de Vitry speaks only incidentally of Francis here

in the midst of salutations; from the critical point of view

this only enhances the value of his words. See the Study of the

Sources, p. 428.

[25] Vide below, the Study of the Sources, p. 430.

[26] All this is related at length by Jacques de Vitry.

[27] "Cil hom qui comença l'ordre des Frères Mineurs, si ot nom

frère François ... vint en l'ost de Damiate, e i fist moult de

bien, et demora tant que la ville fut prise. Il vit le mal et le

péché qui comença à croistre entre les gens de l'ost, si li

desplot, par quoi il s'en parti, e fu une pièce en Surie, et

puis s'en rala en son pais." Historiens des Croisades, ii.

_L'Est de Eracles Empereur_, liv. xxxii., chap. xv. Cf. Sanuto;

_Secreta fid. cruc._, lib. iii., p. xi., cap. 8, in Bongars.

[28] Giord., Chron., 11-14.

[29] The episode of Brother Leonard's complaints, related below,

gives some probability to this hypothesis.

[30] _Tribul._, Laur. MS., 9b. Cf. 10b: _Sepulcro Domini

visitato festinat ad Christianorum terram_.

[31] Upon this monastery see a letter _ad familiares_ of Jacques

de Vitry, written in 1216 and published in 1847 by Baron Jules

de St. Genois in t. xiii. of the _Mémoires de l'Académie royale

des sciences et des beaux arts de Bruxelles_ (1849). _Conform._,

106b, 2; 114a, 2; _Spec._, 184.

[32] A. SS., pp. 619-620, 848, 851, 638.

[33] Vide Bull _Sacrosancta_ of December 9, 1219. Cf. those of

September 19, 1222; Sbaralea, i., p. 3, 11 ff.; Potthast, 6179,

6879a, b, c.

[34] Vide Potthast, 6155, 6177, 6184, 6199, 6214, 6217, 6218,

6220, 6246. See also _Chartularium Universitatis Par._, t. i.,

487.

[35] Bull _Quia qui seminant_ of May 12, 1220. Ripalli, _Bul.

Præd._, t. i., p. 10 (Potthast, 6249).

[36] _Mon. Germ. hist. Script._, t. 23, p. 376. This passage is

of extreme importance because it sums up in a few lines the

ecclesiastical policy of Honorius III. After speaking of the

perils with which the _Humiliati_ threatened the Church,

Burchard adds: _Quæ volens corrigere dominus papa ordinem

Predicatorum instituit et confirmavit._ Now these _Humiliati_

were an approved Order. But Burchard, while classing them with

heretics beside the Poor Men of Lyons, expresses in a word the

sentiments of the papacy toward them; it had for them an

invincible repugnance, and not wishing to strike them directly

it sought a side issue. Similar tactics were followed with

regard to the Brothers Minor, with that overplus of caution

which the prodigious success of the Order inspired. It all

became useless when in 1221 Brother Elias became Francis's

vicar, and especially when, after the latter's death, he had all

the liberty necessary for directing the Order according to the

views of Ugolini, now become Gregory IX.

[37] 1 Cel., 25; cf. A. SS., p. 581. Pietro di Catana had the

title of doctor of laws, Giord., 11, which entirely disagrees

with what is related of Brother Pietro, 3 Soc., 28 and 29. Cf.

Bon., 28 and 29; _Spec._, 5b; _Fior._, 2; _Conform._, 47; 52b,

2; _Petrus vir litteratus erat et nobilis_, Giord., 12.

[38] We know nothing more of him except that after his death he

had the gift of miracles. Giord., 11; _Conform._, 62a, 1.

[39] He was not an ordinary man; a remarkable administrator and

orator (Eccl., 6), he was minister in France before 1224 and

again in 1240, thanks to the zeal with which he had adopted the

ideas of Brother Elias. He was nephew of Gregory IX., which

throws some light upon the practices which have just been

described. After having been swept away in Elias's disgrace and

condemned to prison for life, he became in the end Bishop of

Bayeux. I note for those who take an interest in those things

that manuscripts of two of his sermons may be found in the

National Library of Paris. The author of them being indicated

simply as _fr. Gr. min._, it has only lately become known whose

they were. These sermons were preached in Paris on Holy Thursday

and Saturday. MS. new. acq., Lat., 338 f^o 148, 159.

[40] Giord., 11. Cf. _Spec._, 34b. _Fior._, 4; _Conform._, 184a, 1.

[41] Giord., 12. Cf. Bull _Sacrosancta_ of December 9, 1219.

[42] Giord., 12. Ought we, perhaps, to read di Campello? Half

way between Foligno and Spoleto there is a place of this name.

On the other hand, the 3 Soc., 35, indicate the entrance into

the Order of a Giovanni di Capella who in the legend became the

Franciscan Judas. _Invenit abusum capelle et ab ipsa denominatus

est: ab ordine recedens factus leprosus laqueo ut Judas se

suspendit._ _Conform._, 104a, 1. Cf. _Bernard de Besse_, 96a;

_Spec._, 2; _Fior._, 1. All this is much mixed up. Perhaps we

should believe that Giovanni di Campello died shortly afterward,

and that later on, when the stories of this troubled time were

forgotten, some ingenious Brother explained the note of infamy

attached to his memory by a hypothesis built upon his name

itself.

[43] Giord., 12, 13, and 14.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XIV

THE CRISIS OF THE ORDER[1]

Autumn, 1220

On his arrival in Venice Francis informed himself yet more exactly

concerning all that had happened, and convoked the chapter-general at

Portiuncula for Michaelmas (September 29, 1220).[2] His first care was

doubtless to reassure his sister-friend at St. Damian; a short fragment

of a letter which has been preserved to us gives indication of the sad

anxieties which filled his mind:

"I, little Brother Francis, desire to follow the life and the

poverty of Jesus Christ, our most high Lord, and of his most

holy Mother, persevering therein until the end; and I beg you

all and exhort you to persevere always in this most holy life

and poverty, and take good care never to depart from it upon the

advice or teachings of any one whomsoever."[3]

A long shout of joy sounded up and down all Italy when the news of his

return was heard. Many zealous brethren were already despairing, for

persecutions had begun in many provinces; so when they learned that

their spiritual father was alive and coming again to visit them their

joy was unbounded. From Venice Francis went to Bologna. The journey was

marked by an incident which once more shows his acute and wise goodness.

Worn out as much by emotion as by fatigue, he one day found himself

obliged to give up finishing the journey on foot. Mounted upon an ass,

he was going on his way, followed by Brother Leonard of Assisi, when a

passing glance showed him what was passing in his companion's mind. "My

relatives," the friar was thinking, "would have been far enough from

associating with Bernardone, and yet here am I, obliged to follow his

son on foot."

We may judge of his astonishment when he heard Francis saying, as he

hastily dismounted from his beast: "Here, take my place; it is most

unseemly that thou shouldst follow me on foot, who art of a noble and

powerful lineage." The unhappy Leonard, much confused, threw himself at

Francis's feet, begging for pardon.[4]

Scarcely arrived at Bologna, Francis was obliged to proceed against

those who had become backsliders. It will be remembered that the Order

was intended to possess nothing, either directly or indirectly. The

monasteries given to the friars did not become their property; so soon

as the proprietor should desire to take them back or anyone else should

wish to take possession of them, they were to be given up without the

least resistance; but on drawing near to Bologna he learned that a house

was being built, which was already called _The house of the Brothers_.

He commanded its immediate evacuation, not even excepting the sick who

happened to be there. The Brothers then resorted to Ugolini, who was

then in that very city for the consecration of Santa Maria di

Rheno.[5] He explained to Francis at length that this house did not

belong to the Order; he had declared himself its proprietor by public

acts; and he succeeded in convincing him.[6]

Bolognese piety prepared for Francis an enthusiastic reception, the echo

of which has come down even to our times:

"I was studying at Bologna, I, Thomas of Spalato, archdeacon in

the cathedral church of that city, when in the year 1220, the

day of the Assumption, I saw St. Francis preaching on the piazza

of the Lesser Palace, before almost every man in the city. The

theme of his discourse was the following: Angels, men, the

demons. He spoke on all these subjects with so much wisdom and

eloquence that many learned men who were there were filled with

admiration at the words of so plain a man. Yet he had not the

manner of a preacher, his ways were rather those of

conversation; the substance of his discourse bore especially

upon the abolition of enmities and the necessity of making

peaceful alliances. His apparel was poor, his person in no

respect imposing, his face not at all handsome; but God gave

such great efficacy to his words that he brought back to peace

and harmony many nobles whose savage fury had not even stopped

short before the shedding of blood. So great a devotion was felt

for him that men and women flocked after him, and he esteemed

himself happy who succeeded in touching the hem of his garment."

Was it at this time that the celebrated Accurso the Glossarist,[7]

chief of that famous dynasty of jurisconsults who during the whole

thirteenth century shed lustre upon the University of Bologna, welcomed

the Brothers Minor to his villa at Ricardina, near the city?[8] We do

not know.

It appears that another professor, Nicolas dei Pepoli, also entered the

Order.[9] Naturally the pupils did not lag behind, and a certain

number asked to receive the habit. Yet all this constituted a danger;

this city, which in Italy was as an altar consecrated to the science of

law, was destined to exercise upon the evolution of the Order the same

influence as Paris; the Brothers Minor could no more hold aloof from it

than they could keep aloof from the ambient air.

This time Francis remained here but a very short time. An ancient

tradition, of which his biographers have not preserved any trace, but

which nevertheless appears to be entirely probable, says that Ugolini

took him to pass a month in the Camaldoli, in the retreat formerly

inhabited by St. Romuald in the midst of the Casentino forest, one of

the noblest in Europe, within a few hours' walk of the Verna, whose

summit rises up gigantic, overlooking the whole country.

We know how much Francis needed repose. There is no doubt that he also

longed for a period of meditation in order to decide carefully in

advance upon his line of conduct, in the midst of the dark conjectures

which had called him home. The desire to give him the much-needed rest

was only a subordinate purpose with Ugolini. The moment for vigorous

action appeared to him to have come. We can easily picture his responses

to Francis's complaints. Had he not been seriously advised to profit by

the counsels of the past, by the experience of those founders of Orders

who have been not only saints but skilful leaders of men? Was not

Ugolini himself his best friend, his born defender, and yet had not

Francis forced him to lay aside the influence to which his love for the

friars, his position in the Church, and his great age gave him such just

title? Yes, he had been forced to leave Francis to needlessly expose his

disciples to all sorts of danger, to send them on missions as perilous

as they had proved to be ineffectual, and all for what? For the most

trivial point of honor, because the Brothers Minor were determined not

to enjoy the smallest privileges. They were not heretics, but they

disturbed the Church as much as the heretics did. How many times had he

not been reminded that a great association, in order to exist, must have

precise and detailed regulations? It had all been labor lost! Of course

Francis's humility was doubted by no one, but why not manifest it, not

only in costume and manner of living, but in all his acts? He thought

himself obeying God in defending his own inspiration, but does not the

Church speak in the name of God? Are not the words of her

representatives the words of Jesus forever perpetuated on earth? He

desired to be a man of the Gospel, an apostolic man, but was not the

best way of becoming such to obey the Roman pontiff, the successor of

Peter? With an excess of condescension they had let him go on in his own

way, and the result was the saddest of lessons. But the situation was

not desperate, there was still time to find a remedy; to do that he had

only to throw himself at the feet of the pope, imploring his blessing,

his light, and his counsel.

Reproaches such as these, mingled with professions of love and

admiration on the part of the prelate, could not but profoundly disturb

a sensitive heart like that of Francis. His conscience bore him good

witness, but with the modesty of noble minds he was ready enough to

think that he might have made many mistakes.

Perhaps this is the place to ask what was the secret of the friendship

of these two men, so little known to one another on certain sides. How

could it last without a shadow down to the very death of Francis, when

we always find Ugolini the very soul of the group who are compromising

the Franciscan ideal? No answer to this question is possible. The same

problem presents itself with regard to Brother Elias, and we are no

better able to find a satisfactory answer. Men of loving hearts seldom

have a perfectly clear intelligence. They often become fascinated by

men the most different from themselves, in whose breasts they feel none

of those feminine weaknesses, those strange dreams, that almost sickly

pity for creatures and things, that mysterious thirst for pain which is

at once their own happiness and their torment.

The sojourn at Camaldoli was prolonged until the middle of September,

and it ended to the cardinal's satisfaction. Francis had decided to go

directly to the pope, then at Orvieto, with the request that Ugolini

should be given him as official protector intrusted with the direction

of the Order.

A dream which he had once had recurred to his memory; he had seen a

little black hen which, in spite of her efforts, was not able to spread

her wings over her whole brood. The poor hen was himself, the chickens

were the friars. This dream was a providential indication commanding him

to seek for them a mother under whose wings they could all find a place,

and who could defend them against the birds of prey. At least so he

thought.[10]

He repaired to Orvieto without taking Assisi in his way, since if he

went there he would be obliged to take some measures against the

fomentors of disturbance; he now proposed to refer everything directly

to the pope.

Does his profound humility, with the feeling of culpability which

Ugolini had awakened in him, suffice to explain his attitude with regard

to the pope, or must we suppose that he had a vague thought of

abdicating? Who knows whether conscience was not already murmuring a

reproach, and showing him how trivial were all the sophisms which had

been woven around him?

"Not daring to present himself in the apartments of so great a

prince, he remained outside before the door, patiently waiting

till the pope should come out. When he appeared St. Francis made

a reverence and said:

"'Father Pope, may God give you peace.' 'May God bless you, my

son,' replied he. 'My lord,' then said St. Francis to him, 'you

are great and often absorbed by great affairs; poor friars

cannot come and talk with you as often as they need to do; you

have given me many popes; give me a single one to whom I may

address myself when need occurs, and who will listen in your

stead, and discuss my affairs and those of the Order.' 'Whom do

you wish I should give you, my son?' 'The Bishop of Ostia.' And

he gave him to him."[11]

Conferences with Ugolini now began again; he immediately accorded

Francis some amends; the privilege granted the Clarisses was revoked;

Giovanni di Conpello was informed that he had nothing to hope from the

_curia_, and last of all leave was given to Francis himself to compose

the Rule of his Order. Naturally he was not spared counsel on the

subject, but there was one point upon which the curia could not brook

delay, and of which it exacted the immediate application--the obligation

of a year's novitiate for the postulants.

At the same time a bull was issued not merely for the sake of publishing

this ordinance, but especially to mark in a solemn manner the

commencement of a new era in the relations of the Church and the

Franciscans. The fraternity of the Umbrian Penitents became an Order in

the strictest sense of the word.

Honorius, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to Brother

Francis and the other priors or custodes of the Brothers Minor,

greeting and the apostolic benediction.

In nearly all religious Orders it has been wisely ordained that

those who present themselves with the purpose of observing the

regular life shall make trial of it for a certain time, during

which they also shall be tested, in order to leave neither place

nor pretext for inconsiderate steps. For these reasons we

command you by these presents to admit no one to make profession

until after one year of novitiate; we forbid that after

profession any brother shall leave the Order, and that any one

shall take back again him who has gone out from it. We also

forbid that those wearing your habit shall circulate here and

there without obedience, lest the purity of your poverty be

corrupted. If any friars have had this audacity, you will

inflict upon them ecclesiastical censures until repentance.[12]

It is surely only by a very decided euphemism that such a bull can be

considered in the light of a privilege. It was in reality the laying of

the strong hand of the papacy upon the Brothers Minor.

From this time, in the very nature of things it became impossible for

Francis to remain minister-general. He felt it himself. Heart-broken,

soul-sick, he would fain, in spite of all, have found in the energy of

his love those words, those glances which up to this time had taken the

place of rule or constitution, giving to his earliest companions the

intuition of what they ought to do and the strength to accomplish it;

but an administrator was needed at the head of this family which he

suddenly found to be so different from what it had been a few years

before, and he sadly acknowledged that he himself was not in the

slightest degree such a person.[13]

Ah, in his own conscience he well knew that the old ideal was the true,

the right one; but he drove away such thoughts as the temptations of

pride. The recent events had not taken place without in some degree

weakening his moral personality; from being continually talked to about

obedience, submission, humility, a certain obscurity had come over this

luminous soul; inspiration no longer came to it with the certainty of

other days; the prophet had begun to waver, almost to doubt of himself

and of his mission. Anxiously he searched himself to see if in the

beginning of his work there had not been some vain self-complacency. He

pictured to himself beforehand the chapter which he was about to open,

the attack, the criticisms of which it would be the object, and labored

to convince himself that if he did not endure them with joy he was not a

true Brother Minor.[14] The noblest virtues are subject to scruples,

that of perfect humility more than any other, and thus it is that

excellent men religiously betray their own convictions to avoid

asserting themselves. He resolved then to put the direction of the Order

into the hands of Pietro di Catana. It is evident that there was nothing

spontaneous in this decision, and the fact that this brother was a

doctor of laws and belonged to the nobility squarely argues the

transformation of the Franciscan institute.

It is not known whether or not Ugolini was present at the chapter of

September 29, 1220, but if he was not there in person he was assuredly

represented by some prelate, charged to watch over the debates.[15] The

bull which had been issued a week before was communicated to the friars,

to whom Francis also announced that he was about to elaborate a new

Rule. With reference to this matter there were conferences in which the

ministers alone appear to have had a deliberative voice. At these

conferences the essential points of the new Rule were settled as to

principle, leaving to Francis the care of giving them proper form at his

leisure. Nothing better reveals the demoralized state into which he had

fallen than the decision which was taken to drop out one of the

essential passages of the old Rule, one of his three fundamental

precepts, that which began with these words, "_Carry nothing with

you_."[16]

How did they go to work to obtain from Francis this concession which, a

little while before, he would have looked upon as a denial of his call,

a refusal to accept in its integrity the message which Jesus had

addressed to him? It is the secret of history, but we may suppose there

was in his life at this time one of those moral tempests which overbear

the faculties of the strongest, leaving in their wounded hearts only an

unutterable pain.

Something of this pain has passed into the touching narrative of his

abdication which the biographers have given us.

"From henceforth," he said to the friars, "I am dead for you,

but here is Brother Pietro di Catana, whom you and I will all

obey." And prostrating himself before him he promised him

obedience and submission. The friars could not restrain their

tears and lamentations when they saw themselves thus becoming in

some sort orphans, but Francis arose, and, clasping his hands,

with eyes upraised to heaven: "Lord," he said, "I return to thee

this family which thou hast confided to me. Now, as thou

knowest, most sweet Jesus, I have no longer strength nor ability

to keep on caring for them; I confide them, therefore, to the

ministers. May they be responsible before thee at the day of

judgment if any brother, by their negligence or bad example, or

by a too severe discipline, should ever wander away."[17]

The functions of Pietro di Catana were destined to continue but a very

short time; he died on March 10, 1221.[18]

Information abounds as to this period of a few months; nothing is more

natural, since Francis remained at Portiuncula to complete the task

confided to him, living there surrounded with brethren who later on

would recall to mind all the incidents of which they were witnesses.

Some of them reveal the conflict of which his soul was the arena.

Desirous of showing himself submissive, he nevertheless found himself

tormented by the desire to shake off his chains and fly away as in

former days, to live and breathe in God alone. The following artless

record deserves, it seems to me, to be better known.[19]

One day a novice who could read the psalter, though not without

difficulty, obtained from the minister general--that is to say,

from the vicar of St. Francis--permission to have one. But as he

had learned that St. Francis desired the brethren to be covetous

neither for learning nor for books, he would not take his psalter

without his consent. So, St. Francis having come to the monastery

where the novice was, "Father," said he, "it would be a great

consolation to have a psalter; but though the minister-general

has authorized me to get it, I would not have it unknown to you."

"Look at the Emperor Charles," replied St. Francis with fire,

"Roland, and Oliver and all the paladins, valorous heroes and

gallant knights, who gained their famous victories in fighting

infidels, in toiling and laboring even unto death! The holy

martyrs, they also have chosen to die in the midst of battle for

the faith of Christ! But now there are many of those who aspire

to merit honor and glory simply by relating their feats. Yes,

among us also there are many who expect to receive glory and

honor by reciting and preaching the works of the saints, as if

they had done them themselves!"

... A few days after, St. Francis was sitting before the fire,

and the novice drew near to speak to him anew about his psalter.

"When you have your psalter," said Francis to him, "you will want

a breviary, and when you have a breviary you will seat yourself

in a pulpit like a great prelate and will beckon to your

companion, 'Bring me my breviary!'"

St. Francis said this with great vivacity, then taking up some

ashes he scattered them over the head of the novice, repeating,

"There is the breviary, there is the breviary!"

Several days after, St. Francis being at Portiuncula and walking

up and down on the roadside not far from his cell, the same

Brother came again to speak to him about his psalter. "Very well,

go on," said Francis to him, "you have only to do what your

minister tells you." At these words the novice went away, but

Francis began to reflect on what he had said, and suddenly

calling to the friar, he cried, "Wait for me! wait for me!" When

he had caught up to him, "Retrace your steps a little way. I beg

you," he said. "Where was I when I told you to do whatever your

minister told you as to the psalter?" Then falling upon his knees

on the spot pointed out by the friar, he prostrated himself at

his feet: "Pardon, my brother, pardon!" he cried, "for he who

would be Brother Minor ought to have nothing but his clothing."

This long story is not merely precious because it shows us, even to the

smallest particular, the conflict between the Francis of the early

years, looking only to God and his conscience, and the Francis of 1220,

become a submissive monk in an Order approved by the Roman Church, but

also because it is one of those infrequent narratives where his method

shows itself with its artless realism. These allusions to the tales of

chivalry, and this freedom of manner which made a part of his success

with the masses, were eliminated from the legend with an incredible

rapidity. His spiritual sons were perhaps not ashamed of their father in

this matter, but they were so bent upon bringing out his other qualities

that they forgot a little too much the poet, the troubadour, the

_joculator Domini_.

Certain fragments, later than Thomas of Celano by more than a century,

which relate some incidents of this kind, bear for that very reason the

stamp of authenticity.

It is difficult enough to ascertain precisely what part Francis still

took in the direction of the Order. Pietro di Catana and later Brother

Elias are sometimes called ministers-general, sometimes vicars; the two

terms often occur successively, as in the preceding narrative. It is

very probable that this confusion of terms corresponds to a like

confusion of facts. Perhaps it was even intentional. After the chapter

of September, 1220, the affairs of the Order pass into the hands of him

whom Francis had called minister-general, though the friars as well as

the papacy gave him only the title of vicar. It was essential for the

popularity of the Brothers Minor that Francis should preserve an

appearance of authority, but the reality of government had slipped from

his hands.

The ideal which he had borne in his body until 1209 and had then given

birth to in anguish, was now taking its flight, like those sons of our

loins whom we see suddenly leaving us without our being able to help it,

since that is life, yet not without a rending of our vitals. _Mater

dolorosa!_ Ah, no doubt they will come back again, and seat themselves

piously beside us at the paternal hearth; perhaps even, in some hour of

moral distress, they will feel the need of taking refuge in their

mother's arms as in the old days; but these fleeting returns, with their

feverish haste, only reopen the wounds of the poor parents, when they

see how the children hasten to depart again--they who bear their name

but belong to them no longer.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Giord., 14; _Tribul._, f^o 10.

[2] Any other date is impossible, since Francis in open chapter

relinquished the direction of the Order in favor of Pietro di

Catana, who died March 10, 1221.

[3] This too short fragment is found in § vi. of the Rule of the

Damianites (August 9, 1253): Speculum, Morin, Tract. iii., 226b.

[4] 2 Cel., 2, 3; Bon., 162; cf. _Conform._, 184b, 2, and 62b, 1.

[5] Sigonius, _Opera_, t. iii. col. 220; cf. Potthast, 5516, and

6086.

[6] 2 Cel., 3, 4; _Spec._, 11a; _Tribul._, 13a; _Conform._,

169b, 2.

[7] Died in 1229. Cf. Mazzetti, _Repertorio di tutti i

professori di Bologna_, Bologna, 1847, p. 11.

[8] See _Mon. Germ. hist. Script._, t. 28, p. 635, and the

notes.

[9] Wadding, _ann. 1220_, no. 9. Cf. A. SS., p. 823.

[10] 2 Cel., 1, 16; _Spec._, 100a-101b.

[11] Giord., 14; cf. 2 Cel., 1, 17; _Spec._, 102; 3 Soc., 56 and 63.

[12] _Cum secundum._ The original is at Assisi with _Datum apud

Urbem Veterem X. Kal. Oct. pont. nostri anno quinto_ (September

22, 1220). It is therefore by an error that Sbaralea and Wadding

make it date from Viterbo, which is the less explicable that all

the bulls of this epoch are dated from Orvieto. Wadding, _ann.

1220_, 57; Sbaralea, vol. i., p. 6; Potthast, 6561.

[13] 2 Cel., 3, 118; Ubertin, _Arbor. V._, 2; _Spec._, 26; 50;

130b; _Conform._, 136a, 2; 143a, 2.

[14] 2 Cel., 3, 83; Bon. 77. One should read this account in the

_Conform._ according to the _Antigua Legenda_, 142a, 2; 31a, 1;

_Spec._ 43b.

[15] _Tribul._ Laur. MS., 12b; Magl. MS., 71b.

[16] Luke, ix., 1-6. _Tribul._, 12b: _Et fecerunt de regula

prima ministri removere_.... This must have taken place at the

chapter of September 29, 1220, since the suppression is made in

the Rule of 1221.

[17] 2 Cel., 3, 81; _Spec._, 26; _Conform._, 175b, 1; 53a; Bon.,

76; A. SS., p. 620.

[18] The epitaph on his tomb, which still exists at S. M. dei

Angeli bears this date: see _Portiuncula, von P. Barnabas aus

dem Elsass_, Rixheim, 1884, p. 11. Cf. A. SS., p. 630.

[19] _Spec._, 9b; _Arbor. V._, 3; _Conform._, 170a, 1; 2 Cel.,

3, 124. Cf. Ubertini, _Archiv._, iii., pp. 75 and 177.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XV

THE RULE OF 1221[1]

The winter of 1220-1221 was spent by Francis chiefly in fixing his

thought by writing. Until now he had been too much the man of action to

have been able to give much thought to anything but the _living word_,

but from this time his exhausted forces compelled him to satisfy his

longing for souls by some other means than evangelizing tours. We have

seen that the chapter of September 29, 1220, on one side, and the bull

_Cum secundum_ on the other, had fixed in advance a certain number of

points. For the rest, complete liberty had been given him, not indeed to

make a final and unchangeable statement of his ideas, but to set them

forth. The substance of legislative power had passed into the hands of

the ministers.[2]

That which we call the Rule of 1221 is, then, nothing more than a

proposed law, submitted to a representative government at its

parliament. The head of authority will one day give it to the world, so

thoroughly modified and altered that Francis's name at the head of such

a document will give but small promise, and quite indirectly, that it

will contain his personal opinion.

Never was man less capable of making a Rule than Francis. In reality,

that of 1210 and the one which the pope solemnly approved in November

29, 1223, had little in common except the name. In the former all is

alive, free, spontaneous; it is a point of departure, an inspiration; it

may be summed up in two phrases: the appeal of Jesus to man, "Come,

follow me," the act of man, "He left all and followed him." To the call

of divine love man replies by the joyful gift of himself, and that quite

naturally, by a sort of instinct. At this height of mysticism any

regulation is not only useless, it is almost a profanation; at the very

least it is the symptom of a doubt. Even in earthly loves, when people

truly love each other nothing is asked, nothing promised.

The Rule of 1223, on the other hand, is a reciprocal contract. On the

divine side the call has become a command; on the human, the free

impulse of love has become an act of submission, by which life eternal

will be earned.

At the bottom of it all is the antinome of law and love. Under the reign

of law we are the mercenaries of God, bound down to an irksome task,

but paid a hundred-fold, and with an indisputable right to our wages.

Under the rule of love we are the sons of God, and coworkers with him;

we give ourselves to him without bargaining and without expectation; we

follow Jesus, not because this is well, but because we can do no

otherwise, because we feel that he has loved us and we love him in our

turn. An inward flame draws us irresistibly toward him: _Et Spiritus et

Sponsa dicunt: Veni_.

It is necessary to dwell a little on the antithesis between these two

Rules. That of 1210 alone is truly Franciscan; that of 1223 is

indirectly the work of the Church, endeavoring to assimilate with

herself the new movement, which with one touch she transforms and turns

wholly from its original purpose.

That of 1221 marks an intermediate stage. It is the clash of two

principles, or rather of two spirits; they approach, they touch, but

they are not merged in one another; here and there is a mixture, but

nowhere combination; we can separate the divers elements without

difficulty. Their condition is the exact reflection of what was going on

in Francis's soul, and of the rapid evolution of the Order.

To aid him in his work Francis joined to himself Brother Cæsar of

Speyer, who would be especially useful to him by his profound

acquaintance with the sacred texts.

What strikes us first, on glancing over this Rule of 1221, is its

extraordinary length; it covers not less than ten folio pages, while

that of 1223 has no more than three. Take away from it the passages

which emanate from the papacy and those which were fixed at the previous

chapter, you will hardly have shortened it by a column; what remains is

not a Rule, but a series of impassioned appeals, in which the father's

heart speaks, not to command but to convince, to touch, to awaken in

his children the instinct of love.

It is all chaotic and even contradictory,[3] without order, a medley

of outbursts of joy and bitter sobs, of hopes and regrets. There are

passages in which the passion of the soul speaks in every possible tone,

runs over the whole gamut from the softest note to the most masculine,

from those which are as joyous and inspiring as the blast of a clarion,

to those which are agitated, stifled, like a voice from beyond the tomb.

"By the holy love which is in God, I pray all the friars,

ministers as well as others, to put aside every obstacle, every

care, every anxiety, that they may be able to consecrate

themselves entirely to serve, love, and honor the Lord God, with

a pure heart and a sincere purpose, which is what he asks above

all things. Let us have always in ourselves a tabernacle and a

home for him who is the Lord God most mighty, Father, Son, and

Holy Spirit, who says, 'Watch and pray always, that you may be

found worthy to escape all the things which will come to pass,

and to appear upright before the Son of man.'

"Let us then keep in the true way, the life, the truth, and the

holy Gospel of Him who has deigned for our sake to leave his

Father that he may manifest his name to us, saying, 'Father, I

have manifested thy name to those whom thou hast given me, and

the words which thou hast given me I have given also unto them.

They have received them, and they have known that I am come from

thee, and they believe that thou hast sent me. I pray for them;

I pray not for the world, but for those whom thou hast given me,

that they may be one as we are one. I have said these things,

being still in the world, that they may have joy in themselves.

I have given them thy words, and the world hath hated them,

because they are not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldst

take them out of the world, but that thou wilt keep them from

the evil. Sanctify them through the truth; thy word is truth. As

thou hast sent me into the world I have also sent them into the

world, and for their sake I sanctify myself that they may

themselves be sanctified in the truth; and neither pray I for

these alone, but for all those who shall believe on me through

their words, that we all may be one, and that the world may know

that thou hast sent me, and that thou lovest them as thou hast

loved me. I have made known unto them thy name, that the love

wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them.'

PRAYER.

"Almighty, most high and sovereign God, holy Father, righteous

Lord, King of heaven and earth, we give thee thanks for thine

own sake, in that by thy holy will, and by thine only Son and

thy Holy Spirit thou hast created all things spiritual and

corporeal, and that after having made us in thine image and

after thy likeness, thou didst place us in that paradise which

we lost by our sin. And we give thee thanks because after having

created us by thy Son, by that love which is thine, and which

thou hast had for us, thou hast made him to be born very God and

very man of the glorious and blessed Mary, ever Virgin, and

because by his cross, his blood, and his death thou hast willed

to ransom us poor captives. And we give thee thanks that thy Son

is to return in his glorious majesty to send to eternal fire the

accursed ones, those who have not repented and have not known

thee; and to say to those who have known and adored thee and

served thee by repentance, 'Come, ye blessed of my Father,

inherit the kingdom prepared for you from before the foundation

of the world.' And since we, wretched and sinful, are not worthy

to name thee, we humbly ask our Lord Jesus Christ, thy

well-beloved Son, in whom thou art well pleased, that he may

give thee thanks for everything; and also the Holy Spirit, the

Paraclete, as it may please thee and them; for this we

supplicate him who has all power with thee, and by whom thou

hast done such great things for us. Alleluia.

"And we pray the glorious Mother, the blessed Mary, ever Virgin,

St. Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and all the choir of blessed

Spirits, Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Principalities

and Powers, Virtues and Angels, Archangels, John the Baptist,

John the Evangelist, Peter, Paul, and the holy Patriarchs, the

Prophets, the Holy Innocents, Apostles, Evangelists, Disciples,

Martyrs, Confessors, Virgins, the blessed ones, Elijah and

Enoch, and all the saints who have been, shall be, and are, we

humbly pray them by thy love to give thee thanks for these

things, as it pleases thee, sovereign, true, eternal and living

God, and also to thy Son, our most holy Lord Jesus Christ, and

to the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, forever and ever. Amen.

Alleluia.

"And we supplicate all those who desire to serve the Lord God,

in the bosom of the Catholic and Apostolic Church, all priests,

deacons, sub-deacons, acolytes and exorcists, readers, porters,

all clerks, all monks and nuns, all children and little ones,

paupers and exiles, kings, and princes, workmen and laborers,

servants and masters, the virgins, the continent and the

married, laics, men and women, all children, youths, young men

and old men, the sick and the well, the small and the great, the

peoples of every tribe and tongue and nation, all men in every

part of the world whatsoever, who are or who shall be, we pray

and beseech them, all we Brothers Minor, unprofitable servants,

that all together, with one accord we persevere in the true

faith and in penitence, for outside of these no person can be

saved.

"Let us all, with all our heart and all our thought, and all our

strength, and all our mind, with all our vigor, with all our

effort, with all our affection, with all our inward powers, our

desires, and our wills, love the Lord God, who has given to us

all his body, all his soul, all his life, and still gives them

every day to each one of us. He created us, he saved us by his

grace alone; he has been, he still is, full of goodness to us,

us wicked and worthless, corrupt and offensive, ungrateful,

ignorant, bad. We desire nothing else, we wish for nothing else;

may nothing else please us, or have any attraction for us,

except the Creator, the Redeemer, the Saviour, sole and true

God, who is full of goodness, who is all goodness, who is the

true and supreme good, who alone is kind, pious, and merciful,

gracious, sweet, and gentle, who alone is holy, righteous, true,

upright, who alone has benignity, innocence, and purity; of

whom, by whom, and in whom is all the pardon, all the grace, all

the glory of all penitents, of all the righteous and all the

saints who are rejoicing in heaven.

"Then let nothing again hinder, let nothing again separate,

nothing again retard us, and may we all, so long as we live, in

every place, at every hour, at every time, every day and

unceasingly, truly and humbly believe. Let us have in our

hearts, let us love, adore, serve, praise, bless, glorify,

exalt, magnify, thank the most high, sovereign, eternal God,

Trinity and Unity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Creator of all

men, both of those who believe and hope in him and of those who

love him. He is without beginning and without end, immutable and

invisible, ineffable, incomprehensible, indiscernible, blessed,

lauded, glorious, exalted, sublime, most high, sweet, lovely,

delectable, and always worthy of being desired above all things,

in all the ages of ages. Amen."

Have not these artless repetitions a mysterious charm which steals

deliciously into the very depths of the heart? Is there not in them a

sort of sacrament of which the words are only the rude vehicle? Francis

is taking refuge in God, as the child throws itself upon its mother's

bosom, and in the incoherence of its weakness and its joy stammers out

all the words it knows, repeating by them all only the eternal "I am

thine" of love and faith.

There is in them also something which recalls, not only by citations,

but still more by the very inspiration of the thought, that which we

call the sacerdotal prayer of Christ. The apostle of poverty appears

here as if suspended between earth and heaven by the very strength of

his love, consecrated the priest of a new worship by the inward and

irresistible unction of the Spirit. He does not offer sacrifice like the

priest of the past time; he sacrifices himself, and carries in his body

all the woes of humanity.

The more beautiful are these words from the mystical point of view, the

less do they correspond with what is expected in a Rule; they have

neither the precision nor the brief and imperative forms of one. The

transformations which they were to undergo in order to become the code

of 1223 were therefore fatal when we consider the definitive

intervention of the Church of Rome to direct the Franciscan movement.

It is probable that this rough draft of a Rule, such as we have it now,

is that which was distributed in the chapter of Whitsunday, 1221. The

variants, sometimes capital, which are found in the different texts, can

be nothing other than outlines of the corrections proposed by the

provincial ministers. Once admit the idea of considering this document

as a rough draft, we are very soon brought to think that it had already

undergone a rapid preliminary revision, a sort of pruning, in which

ecclesiastical authority has caused to disappear all that was in

flagrant contradiction with its own projects for the Order.

If it is asked, who could have made these curtailments, one name springs

at once to our lips--Ugolini. He criticised its exaggerated proportions,

its want of unity and precision. Later on it is related that Francis had

seen in a dream a multitude of starving friars, and himself unable to

satisfy their wants, because though all around him lay innumerable

crumbs of bread, they disappeared between his fingers when he would give

them to those about him. Then a voice from heaven said to him: "Francis,

make of these crumbs a wafer; with that thou shalt feed these starving

ones."

There is little hazard in assuming that this is the picturesque echo of

the conferences which took place at this time between Francis and the

cardinal; the latter might have suggested to him by such a comparison

the essential defects of his project. All this, no doubt, took place

during Francis's stay in Rome, in the beginning of 1221.[4]

Before going there, we must cast a glance over the similarity in

inspiration and even in style which allies the Rule of 1221 with another

of St. Francis's works, that which is known under the title of The

Admonitions.[5] This is a series of _spiritual counsels_ with regard

to the religious life; it is closely united both in matter and form with

the work which we have just examined. The tone of voice is so perfectly

the same that one is tempted to see in it parts of the original draft of

the Rule, separated from it as too prolix to find place in a Rule.

However it may be with this hypothesis, we find in The Admonitions all

the anxieties with which the soul of Francis was assailed in this

uncertain and troubled hour. Some of these counsels sound like bits from

a private journal. We see him seeking, with the simplicity of perfect

humility, for reasons for submitting himself, renouncing his ideas, and

not quite succeeding in finding them. He repeats to himself the

exhortations that others had given him; we feel the effort to understand

and admire the ideal monk whom Ugolini and the Church have proposed to

him for an example:

The Lord says in the Gospels: "He who does not give up all that

he has cannot be my disciple. And he who would save his life

shall lose it." One gives up all he possesses and loses his life

when life gives himself entirely into the hands of his superior,

to obey him.... And when the inferior sees things which would be

better or more useful to his soul than those which the superior

commands him, let him offer to God the sacrifice of his will.

Reading this one might think that Francis was about to join the ranks of

those to whom submission to ecclesiastical authority is the very essence

of religion. But no; even here his true feeling is not wholly effaced,

he mingles his words with parentheses and illustrations, timid, indeed,

but revealing his deepest thought; always ending by enthroning the

individual conscience as judge of last resort.[6]

All this shows clearly enough that we must picture to ourselves moments

when his wounded soul sighs after passive obedience, the formula of

which, _perinde ac cadaver_, goes apparently much farther back than the

Company of Jesus. These were moments of exhaustion, when inspiration was

silent.

One day he was sitting with his companions, when he began to

groan and say: "There is hardly a monk upon earth who perfectly

obeys his superior." His companions, much astonished, said:

"Explain to us, father, what is perfect and supreme obedience."

Then, comparing him who obeys to a corpse, he replied: "Take a

dead body, and put it where you will, it will make no resistance;

when it is in one place it will not murmur, when you take it away

from there it will not object; put it in a pulpit, it will not

look up but down; wrap it in purple, it will only be doubly

pale."[7]

This longing for corpse-like obedience witnesses to the ravages with

which his soul had been laid waste; it corresponds in the moral domain

to the cry for annihilation of great physical anguish.

The worst was that he was absolutely alone. Everywhere else the

Franciscan obedience is living, active, joyful.[8]

He drank this cup to the very dregs, holding sacred the revolts dictated

by conscience. One day in the later years of his life a German friar

came to see him, and after having long discussed with him pure

obedience:

"I ask you one favor," he said to him, "it is that if the

Brothers ever come to live no longer according to the Rule you

will permit me to separate myself from them, alone or with a few

others, to observe it in its completeness." At these words

Francis felt a great joy. "Know," said he, "that Christ as well

as I authorize what you have just been asking;" and laying hands

upon him, "Thou art a priest forever," he added, "after the

order of Melchisedec."[9]

We have a yet more touching proof of his solicitude to safeguard the

spiritual independence of his disciples: it is a note to Brother

Leo.[10] The latter, much alarmed by the new spirit which was gaining

power in the Order, opened his mind thereupon to his master, and

doubtless asked of him pretty much the same permission as the friar from

Germany. After an interview in which he replied _viva voce_, Francis,

not to leave any sort of doubt or hesitation in the mind of him whom he

surnamed his little sheep of God, _pecorella di Dio_, wrote to him

again:

Brother Leo, thy brother Francis wishes thee peace and health.

I reply _yes_, my son, as a mother to her child. This word sums

up all we said while walking, as well as all my counsels. If

thou hast need to come to me for counsel, it is my wish that

thou shouldst do it. Whatever may be the manner in which thou

thinkest thou canst please the Lord God, follow it, and live in

poverty. Do this (faites le[11]), God will bless thee and I

authorize it. And if it were necessary for thy soul, or for thy

consolation that thou shouldst come to see me, or if thou

desirest it, my Leo, come.

Thine in Christ.

Surely we are far enough here from the corpse of a few pages back.

It would be superfluous to pause over the other admonitions. For the

most part they are reflections inspired by circumstances. Counsels as to

humility recur with a frequency which explains both the personal

anxieties of the author, and the necessity of reminding the brothers of

the very essence of their profession.

The sojourn of St. Francis at Rome, whither he went in the early months

of 1221, to lay his plan before Ugolini, was marked by a new effort of

the latter to bring him and St. Dominic together.[12]

The cardinal was at this time at the apogee of his success. Everything

had gone well with him. His voice was all powerful not only in affairs

of the Church, but also in those of the Empire. Frederic II., who seemed

to be groping his way, and in whose mind were germinating dreams of

religious reformation, and the desire of placing his power at the

service of the truth, treated him as a friend, and spoke of him with

unbounded admiration.[13]

In his reflections upon the remedies to be applied to the woes of

Christianity, the cardinal came at last to think that one of the most

efficacious would be the substitution of bishops taken from the two new

Orders, for the feudal episcopate almost always recruited from local

families in which ecclesiastical dignities were, so to speak,

hereditary. In the eyes of Ugolini such bishops were usually wanting in

two essential qualities of a good prelate: religious zeal and zeal for

the Church.

He believed that the Preaching and the Minor Friars would not only

possess those virtues which were lacking in the others, but that in the

hands of the papacy they might become a highly centralized hierarchy,

truly catholic, wholly devoted to the interests of the Church at large.

The difficulties which might occur on the part of the chapters which

should elect the bishops, as well as on the side of the high secular

clergy, would be put to flight by the enthusiasm which the people would

feel for pastors whose poverty would recall the days of the primitive

Church.

At the close of his interviews with Francis and Dominic, he

communicated to them some of these thoughts, asking their advice as to

the elevation of their friars to prelatures. There was a pious contest

between the two saints as to which should answer first. Finally, Dominic

said simply that he should prefer to see his companions remain as they

were. In his turn, Francis showed that the very name of his institute

made the thing impossible. "If my friars have been called _Minores_," he

said, "it is not that they may become _Majores_. If you desire that they

become fruitful in the Church of God, leave them alone, and keep them in

the estate into which God has called them. I pray you, father, do not so

act that their poverty shall become a motive for pride, nor elevate them

to prelatures which would move them to insolence toward others."[14]

The ecclesiastical policy followed by the popes was destined to render

this counsel of the two founders wholly useless.[15]

Francis and Dominic parted, never again to meet. The _Master_ of the

Preaching Friars shortly after set out for Bologna, where he died on

August 6th following, and Francis returned to Portiuncula, where Pietro

di Catana had just died (March 10, 1221). He was replaced at the head of

the Order by Brother Elias. Ugolini was doubtless not without influence

in this choice.

Detained by his functions of legate, he could not be present at the

Whitsunday chapter (May 30, 1221).[16] He was represented there by

Cardinal Reynerio,[17] who came accompanied by several bishops and by

monks of various orders.[18] About three thousand friars were there

assembled, but so great was the eagerness of the people of the

neighborhood to bring provisions, that after a session of seven days

they were obliged to remain two days longer to eat up all that had been

brought. The sessions were presided over by Brother Elias, Francis

sitting at his feet and pulling at his robe when there was anything that

he wished to have put before the Brothers.

Brother Giordani di Giano, who was present, has preserved for us all

these details and that of the setting out of a group of friars for

Germany. They were placed under the direction of Cæsar of Speyer, whose

mission succeeded beyond all expectation. Eighteen months after, when he

returned to Italy, consumed with the desire to see St. Francis again,

the cities of Wurzburg, Mayence, Worms, Speyer, Strasburg, Cologne,

Salzburg, and Ratisbon had become Franciscan centres, from whence the

new ideas were radiating into all Southern Germany.

The foundation of the Tertiaries, or Third Order, generally in the

oldest documents called Brotherhood of Penitence, is usually fixed as

occurring in the year 1221; but we have already seen that this date is

much too recent, or rather that it is impossible to fix any date, for

what was later called, quite arbitrarily, the Third Order is evidently

contemporary with the First.[19]

Francis and his companions desired to be the apostles of their time; but

they, no more than the apostles of Jesus, desired to have all men enter

their association, which was necessarily somewhat restricted, and which,

according to the gospel saying, was meant to be the leaven of the rest

of humanity. In consequence, their life was literally the _apostolic

life_, but the ideal which they preached was the _evangelical life_,

such as Jesus had preached it.

St. Francis no more condemned the family or property than Jesus did; he

simply saw in them ties from which the _apostle_, and the apostle alone,

needs to be free.

If before long sickly minds fancied that they interpreted his thought in

making the union of the sexes an evil, and all that concerns the

physical activity of man a fall; if unbalanced spirits borrowed the

authority of his name to escape from all duty; if married persons

condemned themselves to the senseless martyrdom of virginity, he should

certainly not be made responsible. These traces of an unnatural

asceticism come from the dualist ideas of the Catharists, and not from

the inspired poet who sang nature and her fecundity, who made nests for

doves, inviting them to multiply under the watch of God, and who imposed

manual labor on his friars as a sacred duty.

The bases of the corporation of the _Brothers and Sisters of Penitence_

were very simple. Francis gave no new doctrine to the world; what was

new in his message was wholly in his love, in his direct call to the

evangelical life, to an ideal of moral vigor, of labor, and of love.

Naturally, there were soon found men who did not understand this true

and simple beauty; they fell into observances and devotions, imitated,

while living in the world, the life of the cloister to which for one

reason or another they were not able to retire; but it would be unjust

to picture to ourselves the _Brothers of Penitence_ as modelled after

them.

Did they receive a Rule from St. Francis? It is impossible to say. The

one which was given[20] them in 1289 by Pope Nicholas IV. is simply the

recasting and amalgamation of all the rules of lay fraternities which

existed at the end of the thirteenth century. To attribute this document

to Francis is nothing less than the placing in a new building of certain

venerated stones from an ancient edifice. It is a matter of façade and

ornamentation, nothing more.

Notwithstanding this absence of any Rule emanating from Francis himself,

it is clear enough what, in his estimation, this association ought to

be. The Gospel, with its counsels and examples, was to be its true Rule.

The great innovation designed by the Third Order was concord; this

fraternity was a union of peace, and it brought to astonished Europe a

new truce of God. Whether the absolute refusal to carry arms[21] was an

idea wholly chimerical and ephemeral, the documents are there to prove,

but it is a fine thing to have had the power to bring it about for a few

years.

The second essential obligation of the Brothers of Penitence appears to

have been that of reducing their wants so far as possible, and while

preserving their fortunes to distribute to the poor at proper intervals

the free portion of the revenue after contenting themselves with the

strictly necessary.[22]

To do with joy the duties of their calling; to give a holy inspiration

to the slightest actions; to find in the infinitely littles of

existence, things apparently the most commonplace, parts of a divine

work; to keep pure from all debasing interest; to use things as not

possessing them, like the servants in the parable who would soon have to

give account of the talents confided to them; to close their hearts to

hatred, to open them wide to the poor, the sick, to all abandoned ones,

such were the other essential duties of the Brothers and Sisters of

Penitence.

To lead them into this royal road of liberty, love, and responsibility,

Francis sometimes appealed to the terrors of hell and the joys of

paradise, but interested love was so little a part of his nature that

these considerations and others of the same kind occupy an entirely

secondary place in those of his writings which remain, as also in his

biographies.

For him the gospel life is natural to the soul. Whoever comes to know it

will prefer it; it has no more need to be proved than the outer air and

the light. It needs only to lead prisoners to it, for them to lose all

desire to return to the dungeons of avarice, hatred, or frivolity.

Francis and his true disciples make the painful ascent of the mountain

heights, impelled solely, but irresistibly, by the inner voice. The only

foreign aid which they accept is the memory of Jesus, going before them

upon these heights and mysteriously living again before their eyes in

the sacrament of the eucharist.

The letter to all Christians in which these thoughts break forth is a

living souvenir of St. Francis's teachings to the Tertiaries.

To represent these latter to ourselves in a perfectly concrete form we

may resort to the legend of St. Lucchesio, whom tradition makes the

first Brother of Penitence.[23]

A native of a little city of Tuscany he quitted it to avoid its

political enmities, and established himself at Poggibonsi, not far from

Sienna, where he continued to trade in grain. Already rich, it was not

difficult for him to buy up all the wheat, and, selling it in a time of

scarcity, realize enormous profits. But soon overcome by Francis's

preaching, he took himself to task, distributed all his superfluity to

the poor, and kept nothing but his house with a small garden and one

ass.

From that time he was to be seen devoting himself to the cultivation of

this bit of ground, and making of his house a sort of hostelry whither

the poor and the sick came in swarms. He not only welcomed them, but he

sought them out, even to the malaria-infected Maremma, often returning

with a sick man astride on his back and preceded by his ass bearing a

similar burden. The resources of the garden were necessarily very

limited; when there was no other way, Lucchesio took a wallet and went

from door to door asking alms, but most of the time this was needless,

for his poor guests, seeing him so diligent and so good, were better

satisfied with a few poor vegetables from the garden shared with him

than with the most copious repast. In the presence of their benefactor,

so joyful in his destitution, they forgot their own poverty, and the

habitual murmurs of these wretches were transformed into outbursts of

admiration and gratitude.

Conversion had not killed in him all family ties; Bona Donna, his wife,

became his best co-laborer, and when in 1260 he saw her gradually fading

away his grief was too deep to be endured. "You know, dear companion,"

he said to her when she had received the last sacraments, "how much we

have loved one another while we could serve God together; why should we

not remain united until we depart to the ineffable joy? Wait for me. I

also will receive the sacraments, and go to heaven with you."

So he spoke, and called back the priest to administer them to him. Then

after holding the hands of his dying companion, comforting her with

gentle words, when he saw that her soul was gone he made over her the

sign of the cross, stretched himself beside her, and calling with love

upon Jesus, Mary, and St. Francis, he fell asleep for eternity.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Text in _Firmamentum_, 10; _Spec._, 189; _Spec._, Morin.

Tract., iii., 2b. M. Müller (_Anfänge_) has made a study of the

Rule of 1221 which is a masterpiece of _exegetical scent_.

Nevertheless if he had more carefully collated the different

texts he would have arrived at still more striking results,

thanks to the variants which he would have been able to

establish. I cite a single example.

Text _Firm_.--Wadding, adopted by Mr. M.

_Omnes fratres ubicunque sunt vel vadunt, caveant sibi a

malo visu et frequentia mulierum et nullus cum eis

consilietur solus. Sacerdos honeste loquatur cum eis

dando penitentiam vel aliud spirituale consilium._

Text of the _Speculum_, 189 ff.

_Omnes fratres ubicunque sunt et vadunt caveant se a malo

visu et frequentia mulierum et nullus cum eis concilietur

aut per viam vadat solus aut ad mensam in una paropside

comedat. (!!) Sacerdos honeste loquatur cum eis dando ...

etc._

This passage is sufficient to show the superiority of the text

of the Speculum, which is to be preferred also in other

respects, but this is not the place for entering into these

details. It is evident that the phrase in which we see the

earliest friars sometimes sharing the repast of the sisters and

eating from their porringer is not a later interpolation.

[2] _Tribul._, 12b; _Spec._, 54b; _Arbor._ V., 3; _Spec._, 8b.

[3] Cf. _cap._ 17 and 21.

[4] 2 Cel., 3, 136.

[5] See below, p. 354, text in the _Firmamentum_, 19 ff.;

_Speculum_, Morin, tract. iii., 214a ff.; cf. _Conform._,

137 ff.

[6] _Cum facit (subditus) voluntatem (prælati) dummodo benefacit

vera obedientia est. Admon._, iii.; _Conform._, 139_a_, 2.--_Si

vero prælatus subdito aliquid contra animam præcipiat licet ei

non obediat tamen ipsum non dimittat._, Ibid.--_Nullus tenetur

ad obedientiam in eo ubi committitus delictum vel peccatum.

Epist._, ii.

[7] 2 Cel., 3, 89; _Spec._, 29b; _Conform._, 176b, 1; Bon., 77.

[8] _Per caritatem spiritus voluntarii serviant et obediant

invicem. Et hæc est vera et sancta obedientia. Reg._, 1221, v.

[9] _Tribul._, Laur. MS., 14b; _Spec._, 125a; _Conform._, 107b, 1;

184b, 1.

[10] Wadding gives it (_Epist._ xvi.), after the autograph

preserved in the treasury of the Conventuals of Spoleto. The

authenticity of this piece is evident.

[11] This plural, which perplexed Wadding, shows plainly that

Brother Leo had spoken in the name of a group.

[12] This date for the new communications between them seems

incontestable, though it has never been proposed; in fact, we

are only concerned to find a time when all three could have met

at Rome (2 Cel., 3, 86; _Spec._, 27a), between December 22, 1216

(the approbation of the Dominicans), and August 6, 1221 (death

of Dominic). Only two periods are possible: the early months of

1218 (Potthast, 5739 and 5747) and the winter of 1220-1221. At

any other time one of the three was absent from Rome.

On the other hand we know that Ugolini was in Rome in the winter

of 1220-1221 (Huillard-Bréholles, _Hist. dipl._, ii., pp. 48,

123, 142. Cf. Potthast, 6589).--For Dominic see A. SS., Aug.,

vol. i., p. 503. The later date is imperative because Ugolini

could not offer prelatures to the Brothers Minor before their

explicit approbation (June 11, 1219), and this offer had no

meaning with regard to the Dominicans until after the definitive

establishment of their Order.

[13] See the imperial letters of February 10, 1221;

Huillard-Bréholles, vol. ii., pp. 122-127.

[14] 2 Cel., 3, 86; Bon., 78; _Spec._, 27b.

[15] Vide K. Eubel: _Die Bischöfe, Cardinäle und Päpste aus dem

Minoritenorden bis_ 1305, 8vo, 1889.

[16] He was in Northern Italy. Vide _Registri: Doc._, 17-28.

[17] Reynerius, cardinal-deacon with the title of S. M. in

Cosmedin, Bishop of Viterbo (cf. Innocent III., _Opera_, Migne,

1, col. ccxiii), 1 Cel., 125. He had been named rector of the

Duchy of Spoleto, August 3, 1220. Potthast, 6319.

[18] Giord, 16. The presence of Dominic at an earlier chapter

had therefore been quite natural.

[19] This view harmonizes in every particular with the witness

of 1 Cel., 36 and 37, which shows the Third Order as having been

quite naturally born of the enthusiasm excited by the preaching

of Francis immediately after his return from Rome in 1210 (cf.

_Auctor vit. sec._; A. SS., p. 593b). Nothing in any other

document contradicts it; quite the contrary. Vide 3 Soc., 60.

Cf. _Anon. Perus._; A. SS., p. 600; Bon., 25, 46. Cf. A. SS.,

pp. 631-634. The first bull which concerns the Brothers of

Penitence (without naming them) is of December 16, 1221,

_Significatum est_. If it really refers to them, as Sbaralea

thinks, with all those who have interested themselves in the

question to M. Müller inclusively--but which, it appears, might

be contested--it is because in 1221 they had made appeal to the

pope against the podestàs of Faenza and the neighboring cities.

This evidently supposes an association not recently born.

Sbaralea, _Bull. fr._, 1, p. 8; Horoy, vol. iv., col. 49;

Potthast, 6736.

[20] Bull _Supra montem_ of August 17, 1289, Potthast. 23044. M.

Müller has made a luminous study of the origin of this bull; it

may be considered final in all essential points (_Anfänge_, pp.

117-171). By this bull Nicholas IV.--minister-general of the

Brothers Minor before becoming pope--sought to draw into the

hands of his Order the direction of all associations of pious

laics (Third Order of St. Dominic, the Gaudentes, the Humiliati.

etc.). He desired by that to give a greater impulse to those

fraternities which depended directly on the court of Rome, and

augment their power by unifying them.

[21] Vide Bull _Significatum est_ of December 16, 1221. Cf.

_Supra montem_, chap. vii.

[22] The Rule of the Third Order of the Humiliati, which dates

from 1201, contains a similar clause. Tiraboschi, vol. ii., p.

132.

[23] In the A. SS., Aprilis, vol. ii. p. 600-616. Orlando di

Chiusi also received the habit from the hands of Francis. Vide

_Instrumentum_, etc., below, p. 400. The Franciscan fraternity,

under the influence of the other third orders, rapidly lost its

specific character. As to this title, Third Order, it surely had

originally a hierarchical sense, upon which little by little a

chronological sense has been superposed. All these questions

become singularly clearer when they are compared with what is

known of the Humiliati.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XVI

THE BROTHERS MINOR AND LEARNING

Autumn, 1221-December, 1223

After the chapter of 1221 the evolution of the Order hurried on with a

rapidity which nothing was strong enough to check.

The creation of the ministers was an enormous step in this direction; by

the very pressure of things the latter came to establish a residence;

those who command must have their subordinates within reach, must know

at all times where they are; the Brothers, therefore, could no longer

continue to do without convents properly so-called. This change

naturally brought about many others; up to this time they had had no

churches. Without churches the friars were only itinerant preachers, and

their purpose could not but be perfectly disinterested; they were, as

Francis had wished, the friendly auxiliaries of the clergy. With

churches it was inevitable that they should first fatally aspire to

preach in them and attract the crowd to them, then in some sort erect

them into counter parishes.[1]

The bull of March 22, 1222,[2] shows us the papacy hastening these

transformations with all its power. The pontiff accords to Brother

Francis and the other friars the privilege of celebrating the sacred

mysteries in their churches in times of interdict, on the natural

condition of not ringing the bells, of closing the door, and previously

expelling those who were excommunicated.

By an astonishing inadvertence the bull itself bears witness to its

uselessness, at least for the time in which it was given: "We accord to

you," it runs, "the permission to celebrate the sacraments in times of

interdict in your churches, _if you come to have any_." This is a new

proof that in 1222 the Order as yet had none; but it is not difficult to

see in this very document a pressing invitation to change their way of

working, and not leave this privilege to be of no avail.

Another document of the same time shows a like purpose, though

manifested in another direction. By the bull _Ex parte_ of March 29,

1222, Honorius III. laid upon the Preachers and Minors of Lisbon

conjointly a singularly delicate mission; he gave them full powers to

proceed against the bishop and clergy of that city, who exacted from the

faithful that they should leave to them by will one-third of their

property, and refused the Church's burial service to those who

disobeyed.[3]

The fact that the pope committed to the Brothers the care of choosing

what measures they should take proves how anxious they were at Rome to

forget the object for which they had been created, and to transform them

into deputies of the Holy See. It is, therefore, needless to point out

that the mention of Francis's name at the head of the former of these

bulls has no significance. We do not picture the Poverello seeking a

privilege for circumstances not yet existing! We perceive here the

influence of Ugolini,[4] who had found the Brother Minor after his own

heart in the person of Elias.

What was Francis doing all this time? We have no knowledge, but the very

absence of information, so abundant for the period that precedes as well

as for that which follows, shows plainly enough that he has quitted

Portiuncula, and gone to live in one of those Umbrian hermitages that

had always had so strong an attachment for him.[5] There is hardly a

hill in Central Italy that has not preserved some memento of him. It

would be hard to walk half a day between Florence and Rome without

coming upon some hut on a hillside bearing his name or that of one of

his disciples.

There was a time when these huts were inhabited, when in these leafy

booths Egidio, Masseo, Bernardo, Silvestro, Ginepro, and many others

whose names history has forgotten, received visits from their spiritual

father, coming to them for their consolation.[6]

They gave him love for love and consolation for consolation. His poor

heart had great need of both, for in his long, sleepless nights it had

come to him at times to hear strange voices; weariness and regret were

laying hold on him, and looking over the past he was almost driven to

doubt of himself, his Lady Poverty, and everything.

Between Chiusi and Radicofani--an hour's walk from the village of

Sartiano--a few Brothers had made a shelter which served them by way of

hermitage, with a little cabin for Francis in a retired spot. There he

passed one of the most agonizing nights of his life. The thought that he

had exaggerated the virtue of asceticism and not counted enough upon the

mercy of God assailed him, and suddenly he came to regret the use he had

made of his life. A picture of what he might have been, of the tranquil

and happy home that might have been his, rose up before him in such

living colors that he felt himself giving way. In vain he disciplined

himself with his hempen girdle until the blood came; the vision would

not depart.

It was midwinter; a heavy fall of snow covered the ground; he rushed out

without his garment, and gathering up great heaps of snow began to make

a row of images. "See," he said, "here is thy wife, and behind her are

two sons and two daughters, with the servant and the maid carrying all

the baggage."

With this child-like representation of the tyranny of material cares

which he had escaped, he finally put away the temptation.[7]

There is nothing to show whether or not we should fix at the same epoch

another incident which legend gives as taking place at Sartiano. One day

a brother of whom he asked, "Whence do you come?" replied, "From your

cell." This simple answer was enough to make the vehement lover of

Poverty refuse to occupy it again. "Foxes have holes," he loved to

repeat, "and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man had not

where to lay his head. When the Lord spent forty days and forty nights

praying and fasting in the desert, he built himself neither cell nor

house, but made the side of a rock his shelter."[8]

It would be a mistake to think, as some have done, that as time went on

Francis changed his point of view. Certain ecclesiastical writers have

assumed that since he desired the multiplication of his Order, he for

that very reason consented to its transformation. The suggestion is

specious, but in this matter we are not left to conjecture; almost

everything which was done in the Order after 1221 was done either

without Francis's knowledge or against his will. If one were inclined to

doubt this, it would need only to glance over that most solemn and also

most adequate manifesto of his thought--his Will. There he is shown

freed from all the temptations which had at times made him hesitate in

the expression of his ideas, bravely gathering himself up to summon back

the primitive ideal, and set it up in opposition to all the concessions

which had been wrung from his weakness.

The Will is not an appendix to the Rule of 1223, it is almost its

revocation. But it would be a mistake to see in it the first attempt

made to return to the early ideal. The last five years of his life were

only one incessant effort at protest, both by his example and his words.

In 1222 he addressed to the brethren of Bologna a letter filled with sad

forebodings. In that city, where the Dominicans, overwhelmed with

attentions, were occupied with making themselves a stronghold in the

system of instruction, the Brothers Minor were more than anywhere else

tempted to forsake the way of simplicity and poverty. Francis's warnings

had put on such dark and threatening colors that after the famous

earthquake of December 23, 1222, which spread terror over all northern

Italy, there was no hesitation in believing that he had predicted the

catastrophe.[9] He had indeed predicted a catastrophe which was none

the less horrible for being wholly moral, and the vision of which forced

from him the most bitter imprecations:

"Lord Jesus, thou didst choose thine apostles to the number of

twelve, and if one of them did betray thee, the others,

remaining united to thee, preached thy holy gospel, filled with

one and the same inspiration; and behold now, remembering the

former days, thou hast raised up the Religion of the Brothers in

order to uphold faith, and that by them the mystery of thy

gospel may be accomplished. Who will take their place if,

instead of fulfilling their mission and being shining examples

for all, they are seen to give themselves up to works of

darkness? Oh! may they be accursed by thee, Lord, and by all the

court of heaven, and by me, thine unworthy servant, they who by

their bad example overturn and destroy all that thou didst do in

the beginning and ceasest not to do by the holy Brothers of this

Order."[10]

This passage from Thomas of Celano, the most moderate of the

biographers, shows to what a pitch of vehemence and indignation the

gentle Francis could be worked up.

In spite of very natural efforts to throw a veil of reserve over the

anguish of the founder with regard to the future of his spiritual

family, we find traces of it at every step. "The time will come," he

said one day, "when our Order will so have lost all good renown that its

members will be ashamed to show themselves by daylight."[11]

He saw in a dream a statue with the head of pure gold, the breast and

arms of silver, the body of crystal, and the legs of iron. He thought it

was an omen of the future in store for his institute.[12]

He believed his sons to be attacked with two maladies, unfaithful at

once to poverty and humility; but perhaps he dreaded for them the demon

of learning more than the temptation of riches.

What were his views on the subject of learning? It is probable that he

never examined the question as a whole, but he had no difficulty in

seeing that there will always be students enough in the universities,

and that if scientific effort is an homage offered to God, there is no

risk of worshippers of this class being wanting; but in vain he looked

about him on all sides, he saw no one to fulfil the mission of love and

humility reserved for his Order, if the friars came to be unfaithful to

it.

Therefore there was something more in his anguish than the grief of

seeing his hopes confounded. The rout of an army is nothing in

comparison with the overthrow of an idea; and in him an idea had been

incarnated, the idea of peace and happiness restored to mankind, by the

victory of love over the trammels of material things.

By an ineffable mystery he felt himself the Man of his age, him in whose

body are borne all the efforts, the desires, the aspirations of men;

with him, in him, by him humanity yearns to be renewed, and to use the

language of the gospel, born again.

In this lies his true beauty. By this, far more than by a vain

conformity, an exterior imitation, he is a Christ.

He also bears the affliction of the world, and if we will look into the

very depths of his soul we must give this word affliction the largest

possible meaning for him as for Jesus. By their pity they bore the

physical sufferings of humanity, but their overwhelming anguish was

something far different from this, it was the birth-throes of the

divine. They suffer, because in them the Word is made flesh, and at

Gethsemane, as under the olive-trees of Greccio, they are in agony

"because their own received them not."

Yes, St. Francis forever felt the travail of the transformation taking

place in the womb of humanity, going forward to its divine destiny, and

he offered himself, a living oblation, that in him might take place the

mysterious palingenesis.

Do we now understand his pain? He was trembling for the mystery of the

gospel. There is in him something which reminds us of the tremor of life

when it stands face to face with death, something by so much the more

painful as we have here to do with moral life.

This explains how the man who would run after ruffians that he might

make disciples of them could be pitiless toward his fellow-laborers who

by an indiscreet, however well-intentioned, zeal forgot their vocation

and would transform their Order into a scientific institute.

Under pretext of putting learning at the service of God and of religion,

the Church had fostered the worst of vices, pride. According to some it

is her title to glory, but it will be her greatest shame.

Must we renounce the use of this weapon against the enemies of the

faith? she asks. But can you imagine Jesus joining the school of the

rabbins under the pretext of learning how to reply to them, enfeebling

his thought by their dialectic subtleties and fantastic exegesis? He

might perhaps have been a great doctor, but would he have become the

Saviour of the world? You feel that he would not.

When we hear preachers going into raptures over the marvellous spread of

the gospel preached by twelve poor fishermen of Galilee, might we not

point out to them that the miracle is at once more and less astounding

than they say? More--for among the twelve several returned to the shores

of their charming lake, and forgetful of the mystic net, thought of the

Crucified One, if they thought of him at all, only to lament him, and

not to raise him from the dead by continuing his work in the four

quarters of the world; less--for if even now, in these dying days of the

nineteenth century, preachers would go forth beside themselves with

love, sacrificing themselves for each and all as in the old days their

Master did, the miracle would be repeated again.

But no; theology has killed religion. The clergy repeat to satiety that

we must not confound the two; but what good does this do if in practice

we do not distinguish them?

Never was learning more eagerly coveted than in the thirteenth century.

The Empire and the Church were anxiously asking of it the arguments with

which they might defend their opposing claims. Innocent III. sends the

collection of his Decretals to the University of Bologna and heaps

favors upon it. Frederick II. founds that of Naples, and the Patarini

themselves send their sons from Tuscany and Lombardy to study at Paris.

We remember the success of Francis's preaching at Bologna,[13] in

August, 1220; at the same period he had strongly reprimanded Pietro

Staccia, the provincial minister and a doctor of laws, not only for

having installed the Brothers in a house which appeared to belong to

them, but especially for having organized a sort of college there.

It appears that the minister paid no attention to these reproaches. When

Francis became aware of his obstinacy he cursed him with frightful

vehemence; his indignation was so great that when, later on, Pietro

Staccia was about to die and his numerous friends came to entreat

Francis to revoke his malediction, all their efforts were in vain.[14]

In the face of this attitude of the founder it is very difficult to

believe in the authenticity of the note purporting to be addressed to

Anthony of Padua:

"To my very dear Anthony, brother Francis, greetings in Christ.

"It pleases me that you interpret to the Brothers the sacred

writings and theology, in such a way, however (conformably to

our Rule), that the spirit of holy prayer be not extinguished

either in you or in the others, which I desire earnestly.

Greetings."

Must we see in this a pious fraud to weaken the numberless clear

declarations of Francis against learning?

It is difficult to picture to ourselves the rivalry which existed at

this time between the Dominicans and Franciscans in the attempt to draw

the most illustrious masters into their respective Orders. Petty

intrigues were organized, in which the devotees had each his part, to

lead such or such a famous doctor to assume the habit.[15] If the

object of St. Francis had been scientific, the friars of Bologna, Paris,

and Oxford could not have done more.[16]

The current was so strong that the elder Orders were swept away in it

whether they would or no; twenty years later the Cistercians also

desired to become legists, theologians, decretalists, and the rest.

Perhaps Francis did not in the outset perceive the gravity of the

danger, but illusion was no longer possible, and from this time he

showed, as we have seen, an implacable firmness. If later on his thought

was travestied, the guilty ones--the popes and most of the

ministers-general--were obliged to resort to feats of prestidigitation

that are not to their credit. "Suppose," he would say, "that you had

subtility and learning enough to know all things, that you were

acquainted with all languages, the courses of the stars, and all the

rest, what is there in that to be proud of? A single demon knows more on

these subjects than all the men in this world put together.[17] But

there is one thing that the demon is incapable of, and which is the

glory of man: to be faithful to God."[18]

Definite information with regard to the chapters of 1222 and 1223 is

wanting. The proposed modifications of the project of 1221 were

discussed by the ministers[19] and afterward definitively settled by

Cardinal Ugolini. The latter had long conferences on the subject with

Francis, who has himself given us the account of them.[20]

The result of them all was the Rule of 1223. Very soon a swarm of

marvellous stories, which it would be tedious to examine in detail, came

to be clustered around the origin of this document; all that we need to

retain of them is the memory that they keep of the struggles of Francis

against the ministers for the preservation of his ideal.

Before going to Rome to ask for the final approbation he had meditated

long in the solitude of Monte Colombo, near Rieti. This hill was soon

represented as a new Sinai, and the disciples pictured their master on

its heights receiving another Decalogue from the hands of Jesus

himself.[21]

Angelo Clareno, one of the most complacent narrators of these

traditions, takes upon himself to point out their slight value; he shows

us Honorious III. modifying an essential passage in the plan at the last

moment.[22] I have already so far described this Rule that there is no

need to return to the subject here.

It was approved November 25, 1223.[23] Many memories appear to have

clustered about the journey of Francis to Rome. One day Cardinal

Ugolini, whose hospitality he had accepted, was much surprised, and his

guests as well, to find him absent as they were about to sit down at

table, but they soon saw him coming, carrying a quantity of pieces of

dry bread, which he joyfully distributed to all the noble company. His

host, somewhat abashed by the proceeding, having undertaken after the

meal to reproach him a little, Francis explained that he had no right to

forget, for a sumptuous feast, the bread of charity on which he was fed

every day, and that he desired thus to show his brethren that the

richest table is not worth so much to the poor in spirit as this table

of the Lord.[24]

We have seen that during the earlier years the Brothers Minor had been

in the habit of earning their bread by going out as servants. Some of

them, a very small number, had continued to do so. Little by little, in

this matter also all had been changed. Under color of serving, the

friars entered the families of the highest personages of the pontifical

court, and became their confidential attendants; instead of submitting

themselves to all, as the Rule of 1221 ordained, they were above

everyone.

Entirely losing sight of the apostolic life, they became courtiers of a

special type; their character, half ecclesiastic and half lay, rendered

them capable of carrying out a number of delicate missions and of

playing a part in the varied intrigues for which the greater number of

Roman prelates have always seemed to live.[25] By way of protest

Francis had only one weapon, his example.

One day, the Speculum relates, the Blessed Francis came to Rome

to see the Bishop of Ostia (Ugolini), and after having remained

some time at his house, he went also to visit Cardinal Leo, who

had a great devotion for him.

It was winter; the cold, the wind, the rain made any journey

impossible, so the cardinal begged him to pass a few days in his

house and to take his food there, like the other poor folk who

came there to eat. ... "I will give you," he added, "a good

lodging, quite retired, where if you like you may pray and eat."

Then Brother Angelo, one of the twelve first disciples, who

lived with the cardinal, said to Francis: "There is, close by

here, a great tower standing by itself and very quiet; you will

be there as in a hermitage." Francis went to see it and it

pleased him. Then, returning to the cardinal, "Monsignor," he

said, "it is possible that I may pass a few days with you." The

latter was very joyful, and Brother Angelo went to prepare the

tower for the Blessed Francis and his companion.

But the very first night, when he would have slept, the demons

came and smote him. Calling then to his companion, "Brother," he

said, "the demons have come and smitten me with violence; remain

near me, I beg, for I am afraid here alone."

He was trembling in all his members, like one who has a fever.

They passed the night both without sleeping. "The demons are

commissioned with the chastisements of God," said Francis; "as a

podestà sends his executioner to punish the criminal, so God

sends demons, who in this are his ministers.... Why has he sent

them to me? Perhaps this is the reason: The cardinal desired to

be kind to me, and I have truly great need of repose, but the

Brothers who are out in the world, suffering hunger and a

thousand tribulations, and also those others who are in

hermitages or in miserable houses, when they hear of my sojourn

with a cardinal will be moved to repine. 'We endure all

privations,' they will say, 'while he has all that he can

desire; 'but I ought to give them a good example--that is my

true mission." ...

Early next morning, therefore he quitted the tower, and having

told the cardinal all, took leave of him and returned to the

hermitage of Monte Colombo, near Rieti. "They think me a holy

man," he said, "and see, it needed demons to cast me out of

prison."[26]

This story, notwithstanding its strange coloring, shows plainly how

strong was his instinct for independence. To compare the hospitality of

a cardinal to an imprisonment! He spoke better than he knew,

characterizing in one word the relation of the Church to his Order.

The lark was not dead; in spite of cold and the north wind it gayly took

its flight to the vale of Rieti.

It was mid-December. An ardent desire to observe to the life the

memories of Christmas had taken possession of Francis. He opened his

heart to one of his friends, the knight Giovanni di Greccio, who

undertook the necessary preparations.

The imitation of Jesus has in all times been the very centre of

Christianity; but one must be singularly spiritual to be satisfied with

the imitation of the heart. With most men there is need that this should

be preceded and sustained by an external imitation. It is indeed the

spirit that gives life, but it is only in the country of the angels that

one can say that the flesh profiteth nothing.

In the Middle Ages a religious festival was before all things else a

representation, more or less faithful, of the event which it recalled;

hence the _santons_ of Provence, the processions of the _Palmesel_, the

Holy Supper of Maundy Thursday, the Road to the Cross of Good Friday,

the drama of the Resurrection of Easter, and the flaming tow of

Whitsunday. Francis was too thoroughly Italian not to love these

festivals where every visible thing speaks of God and of his love.