FOOTNOTES1.The mendicant orders were in their origin a trueInternational. When in the spring of 1216 St. Dominic assembled his friars at Notre Dame de la Prouille, they were found to be sixteen in number, and among them Castilians, Navarese, Normans, French, Languedocians, and even English and Germans.Heretics travelled all over Europe, and nowhere do we find them checked by the diversity of languages. Arnold of Brescia, for example, the famous Tribune of Rome, appeared in France and Switzerland and in the heart of Germany.2.The Reformation only substituted the authority of the book for that of the priest; it is a change of dynasty and nothing more. As to the majority of those who to-day call themselves free-thinkers, they confuse religious freedom with irreligion; they choose not to see that in religion as in politics, between a royalty based on divine right and anarchy there is room for a government which may be as strong as the first and a better guarantee of freedom than the second. The spirit of the older time put God outside of the world; the sovereignty outside of the people; authority outside of the conscience. The spirit of the new times has the contrary tendency: it denies neither God nor sovereignty nor authority, but it sees them where they really are.3.Nemo ostendebat mihi quod deberem facere, sed ipse Altissimus revelavit mihi quod deberem vivere secundem formam sancti Evangelii.Testamentum Fr.4.The wealthiest monasteries of France are of the twelfth century or were enlarged at that time: Arles, S. Gilles, S. Sernin, Cluny, Vézelay, Brioude, Issoire, Paray-le-Monial. The same was the case in Italy.Down to the year 1000, 1,108 monasteries had been founded in France. The eleventh century saw the birth of 326 and the twelfth of 702. The convents of Mount Athos in their present state give us a very accurate notion of the great monasteries of Europe at the close of the twelfth century.5.St. Petrus Chrysologus, sermo viii., de jejunio et eleemosyna.Da pauperi ut des tibi: da micam ut accipias totum panem; da tectum, accipe cœlum.6.By what right did he begin to preach? By what right did he, a mere deacon, admit to profession and cut off the hair of a young girl of eighteen? That is an episcopal function, one which can only devolve even upon priests by an express commission.7.Isaiah i. 10-17. Cf. Joel 2, Psalm 50.8.The chronicles of Orvieto (Archivio, storico italiano, t. i., of 1889, pp. 7 and following) are nothing more than a list, as melancholy as they are tedious of wars, which, during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, all the places of that region carried on, from the greatest to the smallest.9.Do not forget that in the thirteenth century Italy was not a mere geographical expression. It was of all the countries of Europe the one which, notwithstanding its partitions, had the clearest consciousness of its unity. The expressionprofectus et honor Italiæoften appeared from the pen of Innocent III. See, for instance, the bull of April 16, 1198,Mirari cogimur, addressed particularly to the Assisans.10.Note what the Fioretti say of Brother Bernard: "Stava solo sulle cime dei monti altissimi contemplando le cose celesti." Fior., 28. The learned historian of Assisi, Mr. Cristofani, has used similar expressions; speaking of St. Francis, he says: "Nuovo Christo in somma e pero degno d'essere riguardoto come la piu gigantesca, la piu splendida, la piu cara tra le grandi figure campeggianti nell' aere del medio evo" (Storia d'Assisi, t. i., p. 70, ed. of 1885).11.It remains open all night.
1.The mendicant orders were in their origin a trueInternational. When in the spring of 1216 St. Dominic assembled his friars at Notre Dame de la Prouille, they were found to be sixteen in number, and among them Castilians, Navarese, Normans, French, Languedocians, and even English and Germans.Heretics travelled all over Europe, and nowhere do we find them checked by the diversity of languages. Arnold of Brescia, for example, the famous Tribune of Rome, appeared in France and Switzerland and in the heart of Germany.2.The Reformation only substituted the authority of the book for that of the priest; it is a change of dynasty and nothing more. As to the majority of those who to-day call themselves free-thinkers, they confuse religious freedom with irreligion; they choose not to see that in religion as in politics, between a royalty based on divine right and anarchy there is room for a government which may be as strong as the first and a better guarantee of freedom than the second. The spirit of the older time put God outside of the world; the sovereignty outside of the people; authority outside of the conscience. The spirit of the new times has the contrary tendency: it denies neither God nor sovereignty nor authority, but it sees them where they really are.3.Nemo ostendebat mihi quod deberem facere, sed ipse Altissimus revelavit mihi quod deberem vivere secundem formam sancti Evangelii.Testamentum Fr.4.The wealthiest monasteries of France are of the twelfth century or were enlarged at that time: Arles, S. Gilles, S. Sernin, Cluny, Vézelay, Brioude, Issoire, Paray-le-Monial. The same was the case in Italy.Down to the year 1000, 1,108 monasteries had been founded in France. The eleventh century saw the birth of 326 and the twelfth of 702. The convents of Mount Athos in their present state give us a very accurate notion of the great monasteries of Europe at the close of the twelfth century.5.St. Petrus Chrysologus, sermo viii., de jejunio et eleemosyna.Da pauperi ut des tibi: da micam ut accipias totum panem; da tectum, accipe cœlum.6.By what right did he begin to preach? By what right did he, a mere deacon, admit to profession and cut off the hair of a young girl of eighteen? That is an episcopal function, one which can only devolve even upon priests by an express commission.7.Isaiah i. 10-17. Cf. Joel 2, Psalm 50.8.The chronicles of Orvieto (Archivio, storico italiano, t. i., of 1889, pp. 7 and following) are nothing more than a list, as melancholy as they are tedious of wars, which, during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, all the places of that region carried on, from the greatest to the smallest.9.Do not forget that in the thirteenth century Italy was not a mere geographical expression. It was of all the countries of Europe the one which, notwithstanding its partitions, had the clearest consciousness of its unity. The expressionprofectus et honor Italiæoften appeared from the pen of Innocent III. See, for instance, the bull of April 16, 1198,Mirari cogimur, addressed particularly to the Assisans.10.Note what the Fioretti say of Brother Bernard: "Stava solo sulle cime dei monti altissimi contemplando le cose celesti." Fior., 28. The learned historian of Assisi, Mr. Cristofani, has used similar expressions; speaking of St. Francis, he says: "Nuovo Christo in somma e pero degno d'essere riguardoto come la piu gigantesca, la piu splendida, la piu cara tra le grandi figure campeggianti nell' aere del medio evo" (Storia d'Assisi, t. i., p. 70, ed. of 1885).11.It remains open all night.
1.The mendicant orders were in their origin a trueInternational. When in the spring of 1216 St. Dominic assembled his friars at Notre Dame de la Prouille, they were found to be sixteen in number, and among them Castilians, Navarese, Normans, French, Languedocians, and even English and Germans.
Heretics travelled all over Europe, and nowhere do we find them checked by the diversity of languages. Arnold of Brescia, for example, the famous Tribune of Rome, appeared in France and Switzerland and in the heart of Germany.
2.The Reformation only substituted the authority of the book for that of the priest; it is a change of dynasty and nothing more. As to the majority of those who to-day call themselves free-thinkers, they confuse religious freedom with irreligion; they choose not to see that in religion as in politics, between a royalty based on divine right and anarchy there is room for a government which may be as strong as the first and a better guarantee of freedom than the second. The spirit of the older time put God outside of the world; the sovereignty outside of the people; authority outside of the conscience. The spirit of the new times has the contrary tendency: it denies neither God nor sovereignty nor authority, but it sees them where they really are.
3.Nemo ostendebat mihi quod deberem facere, sed ipse Altissimus revelavit mihi quod deberem vivere secundem formam sancti Evangelii.Testamentum Fr.
4.The wealthiest monasteries of France are of the twelfth century or were enlarged at that time: Arles, S. Gilles, S. Sernin, Cluny, Vézelay, Brioude, Issoire, Paray-le-Monial. The same was the case in Italy.
Down to the year 1000, 1,108 monasteries had been founded in France. The eleventh century saw the birth of 326 and the twelfth of 702. The convents of Mount Athos in their present state give us a very accurate notion of the great monasteries of Europe at the close of the twelfth century.
5.St. Petrus Chrysologus, sermo viii., de jejunio et eleemosyna.Da pauperi ut des tibi: da micam ut accipias totum panem; da tectum, accipe cœlum.
6.By what right did he begin to preach? By what right did he, a mere deacon, admit to profession and cut off the hair of a young girl of eighteen? That is an episcopal function, one which can only devolve even upon priests by an express commission.
7.Isaiah i. 10-17. Cf. Joel 2, Psalm 50.
8.The chronicles of Orvieto (Archivio, storico italiano, t. i., of 1889, pp. 7 and following) are nothing more than a list, as melancholy as they are tedious of wars, which, during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, all the places of that region carried on, from the greatest to the smallest.
9.Do not forget that in the thirteenth century Italy was not a mere geographical expression. It was of all the countries of Europe the one which, notwithstanding its partitions, had the clearest consciousness of its unity. The expressionprofectus et honor Italiæoften appeared from the pen of Innocent III. See, for instance, the bull of April 16, 1198,Mirari cogimur, addressed particularly to the Assisans.
10.Note what the Fioretti say of Brother Bernard: "Stava solo sulle cime dei monti altissimi contemplando le cose celesti." Fior., 28. The learned historian of Assisi, Mr. Cristofani, has used similar expressions; speaking of St. Francis, he says: "Nuovo Christo in somma e pero degno d'essere riguardoto come la piu gigantesca, la piu splendida, la piu cara tra le grandi figure campeggianti nell' aere del medio evo" (Storia d'Assisi, t. i., p. 70, ed. of 1885).
11.It remains open all night.
Assisi is to-day very much what it was six or seven hundred years ago. The feudal castle is in ruins, but the aspect of the city is just the same. Its long-deserted streets, bordered by ancient houses, lie in terraces half-way up the steep hill-side. Above it Mount Subasio1proudly towers, at its feet lies outspread all the Umbrian plain from Perugia to Spoleto. The crowded houses clamber up the rocks like children a-tiptoe to see all that is to be seen; they succeed so well that every window gives the whole panorama set in its frame of rounded hills, from whose summits castles and villages stand sharply out against a sky of incomparable purity.
These simple dwellings contain no more than five or six little rooms,2but the rosy hues of the stone of which they are built give them a wonderfully cheerful air. The one in which, according to the story, St. Francis was born has almost entirely disappeared, to make room for a church; but the street is so modest, and all that remainsof thepalazzo dei genitori di San Francescois so precisely like the neighboring houses that the tradition must be correct. Francis entered into glory in his lifetime; it would be surprising if a sort of worship had not from the first been centred around the house in which he saw the light and where he passed the first twenty-five years of his life.
He was born about 1182.3The biographies have preserved to us few details about his parents.4His father, Pietro Bernardone, was a wealthy cloth-merchant. We know how different was the life of the merchants of thatperiod from what it is to-day. A great portion of their time was spent in extensive journeys for the purchase of goods. Such tours were little short of expeditions. The roads being insecure, a strong escort was needed for the journey to those famous fairs where, for long weeks at a time, merchants from the most remote parts of Europe were gathered together. In certain cities, Montpellier for example, the fair was perpetual. Benjamin of Tudela shows us that city frequented by all nations, Christian and Mohammedan. "One meets there merchants from Africa, from Italy, Egypt, Palestine, Greece, Gaul, Spain, and England, so that one sees men of all languages, with the Genoese and the Pisans."
Among all these merchants the richest were those who dealt in textile stuffs. They were literally the bankers of the time, and their heavy wagons were often laden with the sums levied by the popes in England or France.
Their arrival at a castle was one of the great events. They were kept as long as possible, everyone being eager for the news they brought. It is easy to understand how close must have been their relations with the nobility; in certain countries, Provence for example, the merchants were considered as nobles of a second order.5
Bernardone often made these long journeys; he went even as far as France, and by this we must surely understand Northern France, and particularly Champagne, which was the seat of commercial exchange between Northern and Southern Europe.
He was there at the very time of his son's birth. The mother, presenting the child at the font of San Rufino,6had him baptized by the name of John, but the fatheron his return chose to call him Francis.7Had he already determined on the education he was to give the child; did he name him thus because he even then intended to bring him up after the French fashion, to make a little Frenchman of him? It is by no means improbable. Perhaps, indeed, the name was only a sort of grateful homage tendered by the Assisan burgher to his noble clients beyond the Alps. However this may be, the child was taught to speak French, and always had a special fondness for both the language and the country.8
These facts about Bernardone are of real importance; they reveal the influences in the midst of which Francis grew up. Merchants, indeed, play a considerable part in the religious movements of the thirteenth century. Their calling in some sense forced them to become colporters of ideas. What else could they do, on arriving in a country, but answer those who asked for news? And the news most eagerly looked for was religious news, for men's minds were turned upon very different subjects then from now. They accommodated themselves to the popular wish, observing, hearkening everywhere, keeping eyes and ears open, glad to find anything to tell; and little by little many of them became active propagandists of ideas concerning which at first they had been simply curious.
The importance of the part thus played by the merchantsas they came and went, everywhere sowing the new ideas which they had gathered up in their travels, has not been put in a clear enough light; they were often, unconsciously and quite involuntarily, the carriers of ideas of all kinds, especially of heresy and rebellion. It was they who made the success of the Waldenses, the Albigenses, the Humiliati, and many other sects.
Thus Bernardone, without dreaming of such a thing, became the artisan of his son's religious vocation. The tales which he brought home from his travels seemed at first, perhaps, not to have aroused the child's attention, but they were like germs a long time buried, which suddenly, under a warm ray of sunlight, bring forth unlooked-for fruit.
The boy's education was not carried very far;9the school was in those days overshadowed by the church. The priests of San Giorgio were his teachers,10and taught him a little Latin. This language was spoken in Umbria until toward the middle of the thirteenth century; every one understood it and spoke it a little; it was still the language of sermons and of political deliberations.11
He learned also to write, but with less success; all through his life we see him take up the pen only on rare occasions, and for but a few words.12The autograph ofSacro-Convento, which appears to be entirely authentic, shows extreme awkwardness; in general he dictated, signing his letters by a simpleΤ, the symbol of the cross of Jesus.13
That part of his education which was destined to have most influence upon his life was the French language,14which he perhaps spoke in his own family. It has been rightly said that to know two languages is to have two souls; in learning that of France the boy felt his heart thrill to the melody of its youthful poetry, and his imagination was mysteriously stirred with dreams of imitating the exploits of the French cavaliers.
But let us not anticipate. His early life was that of other children of his age. In the quarter of the town where his house is still shown no vehicles are ever seen; from morning till night the narrow streets are given over to the children. They play there in many groups, frolicking with an exquisite charm, very different from the little Romans, who, from the time they are six or seven years old, spend hours at a time squatting behind a pillar, or in a corner of a wall or a ruin, to play dice or "morra," putting a passionate ferocity even into their play.
In Umbria, as in Tuscany, children love above all things games in which they can make a parade; to play at soldiers or procession is the supreme delight of Assisan children. Through the day they keep to the narrow streets, but toward evening they go, singing and dancing, to one of the open squares of the city. These squares are one of the charms of Assisi. Every few paces an interval occurs between the houses looking toward the plain, and you find a delightful terrace, shaded by a few trees, the very place for enjoying the sunset withoutlosing one of its splendors. Hither no doubt came often the son of Bernardone, leading one of thosefarandoleswhich you may see there to this day: from his very babyhood he was a prince among the children.
Thomas of Celano draws an appalling picture of the education of that day. He describes parents inciting their children to vice, and driving them by main force to wrong-doing. Francis responded only too quickly to these unhappy lessons.15
His father's profession and the possibly noble origin of his mother raised him almost to the level of the titled families of the country; money, which he spent with both hands, made him welcome among them. Well pleased to enjoy themselves at his expense, the young nobles paid him a sort of court. As to Bernardone, he was too happy to see his son associating with them to be niggardly as to the means. He was miserly, as the course of this history will show, but his pride and self-conceit exceeded his avarice.
Pica, his wife, gentle and modest creature,16concerning whom the biographers have been only too laconic, saw all this, and mourned over it in silence, but though weak as mothers are, she would not despair of her son, and when the neighbors told her of Francis's escapades, she would calmly reply, "What are you thinking about? Iam very sure that, if it pleases God, he will become a good Christian."17The words were natural enough from a mother's lips, but later on they were held to have been truly prophetic.
How far did the young man permit himself to be led on? It would be difficult to say. The question which, as we are told, tormented Brother Leo, could only have suggested itself to a diseased imagination.18Thomas of Celano and the Three Companions agree in picturing him as going to the worst excesses. Later biographers speak with more circumspection of his worldly career. A too widely credited story gathered from Celano's narrative was modified by the chapter-general of 1260,19and the frankness of the early biographers was, no doubt, one of the causes which most effectively contributed to their definitive condemnation three years later.20
Their statements are in no sense obscure; according to them the son of Bernardone not only patterned himself after the young men of his age, he made it a point of honor to exceed them. What with eccentricities, buffooneries, pranks, prodigalities, he ended by achieving a sort of celebrity. He was forever in the streets with his companions, compelling attention by his extravagant or fantastic attire. Even at night the joyous company keptup their merrymakings, causing the town to ring with their noisy songs.21
At this very time the troubadours were roaming over the towns of Northern Italy22and bringing brilliant festivities and especially Courts of Love into vogue. If they worked upon the passions, they also made appeal to feelings of courtesy and delicacy; it was this that saved Francis. In the midst of his excesses he was always refined and considerate, carefully abstaining from every base or indecent utterance.23Already his chief aspiration was to rise above the commonplace. Tortured with the desire for that which is far off and high,24he had conceived a sort of passion for chivalry, and fancying that dissipation was one of the distinguishing features of nobility, he had thrown himself into it with all his soul.
But he who, at twenty, goes from pleasure to pleasure with the heart not absolutely closed to good, must nowand then, at some turning of the road, become aware that there are hungry folk, who could live a month on what he spends in a few hours on frivolity. Francis saw them, and with his impressionable nature for the moment forgot everything else. In thought he put himself in their place, and it sometimes happened that he gave them all the money he had about him and even his clothes.
One day he was busy with some customers in his father's shop, when a man came in, begging for charity in the name of God. Losing his patience Francis sharply turned him away; but quickly reproaching himself for his harshness he thought, "What would I not have done if this man had asked something of me in the name of a count or a baron? What ought I not to have done when he came in the name of God? I am no better than a clown!" Leaving his customers he ran after the beggar.25
Bernardone had been well pleased with his son's commercial aptitude in the early days when the young man was first in his father's employ. Francis was only too proficient in spending money; he at least knew well how to make it.26But this satisfaction did not last long. Francis's bad companions were exercising over him a most pernicious influence. The time came when he could no longer endure to be separated from them; if he heard their call, nothing could keep him, he would leave everything and go after them.27
All this time political events were hurrying on in Umbria and Italy; after a formidable struggle the allied republics had forced the empire to recognize them. By the immortal victory of Legnano (May 29, 1176) and the Peace of Constance (June 25, 1183) the Lombard League had wrested from Frederick Barbarossa almost all theprerogatives of power; little was left to the emperor but insignia and outward show.
From one end of the Peninsula to the other visions of liberty were making hearts beat high. For an instant it seemed as if all Italy was about to regain consciousness of its unity, was about to rise up as one man and hurl the foreigner from its borders; but the rivalries of the cities were too strong for them to see that local liberty without a common independence is precarious and illusory. Henry VI., the successor of Barbarossa (1183-1196), laid Italy under a yoke of iron; he might perhaps in the end have assured the domination of the empire, if his career had not been suddenly cut short by a premature death.
Yet he had not been able to put fetters upon ideas. The communal movement which was shaking the north of France reverberated beyond the Alps.
Although a city of second rank, Assisi had not been behind in the great struggles for independence.28She had been severely chastised, had lost her franchise, and was obliged to submit to Conrad of Suabia, Duke of Spoleto, who from the heights of his fortress kept her in subjection.
But when Innocent III. ascended the pontifical throne (January 8, 1199) the old duke knew himself to be lost. He made a tender to him of money, men, his faith even, but the pontiff refused them all. He had no desire to appear to favor the Tedeschi, who had so odiously oppressed the country. Conrad of Suabia was forced to yield at mercy, and to go to Narni to put his submission into the hands of two cardinals.
Like the practical folk that they were, the Assisans did not hesitate an instant. No sooner was the count onthe road to Narni than they rushed to the assault of the castle. The arrival of envoys charged to take possession of it as a pontifical domain by no means gave them pause. Not one stone of it was left upon another.29Then, with incredible rapidity they enclosed their city with walls, parts of which are still standing, their formidable ruins a witness to the zeal with which the whole population labored on them.
It is natural to think that Francis, then seventeen years old, was one of the most gallant laborers of those glorious days, and it was perhaps there that he gained the habit of carrying stones and wielding the trowel which was destined to serve him so well a few years later.
Unhappily his fellow-citizens had not the sense to profit by their hard-won liberty. The lower classes, who in this revolution had become aware of their strength, determined to follow out the victory by taking possession of the property of the nobles. The latter took refuge in their fortified houses in the interior of the city, or in their castles in the suburbs. The townspeople burned down several of the latter, whereupon counts and barons made request of aid and succor from the neighboring cities.
Perugia was at this time at the apogee of its power,30and had already made many efforts to reduce Assisi to submission. It therefore received the fugitives with alacrity, and making their cause its own, declared war upon Assisi. This was in 1202. An encounter tookplace in the plain about half way between the two cities, not far fromPonte San Giovanni. Assisi was defeated, and Francis, who was in the ranks, was made prisoner.31
The treachery of the nobles had not been universal; a few had fought with the people. It was with them and not with thepopolanithat Francis, in consideration of the nobility of his manners,32passed the time of his captivity, which lasted an entire year. He greatly astonished his companions by his lightness of heart. Very often they thought him almost crazy. Instead of passing his time in wailing and cursing he made plans for the future, about which he was glad to talk to any one who came along. To his fancy life was what the songs of the troubadours had painted it; he dreamed of glorious adventures, and always ended by saying: "You will see that one day I shall be adored by the whole world."33
During these long months Francis must have been pretty rudely undeceived with respect to those nobles whom from afar he had so heartily admired. However that may be, he retained with them not only his frankness of speech, but also his full freedom of action. One of them, a knight, had always held aloof from the others, out of vanity and bad temper. Francis, far from leaving him to himself, always showed him affection, and finally had the joy of reconciling him with his fellow-captives.
A compromise was finally arrived at between the counts and the people of Assisi. In November, 1203, the arbitrators designated by the two parties announced their decision. The commons of Assisi were to repair in a certain measure the damage done to the lords, and the latter agreed, on their part, to make no further allianceswithout authorization of the commons.34Rural serfage was maintained, which proves that the revolution had been directed by the burghers, and for their own profit. Ten years more were not, however, to elapse before the common people also would succeed in achieving liberty. In this cause we shall again see Francis fighting on the side of the oppressed, earning the title ofPatriarch of religious democracywhich has been accorded him by one of his compatriots.35
The agreement being made the prisoners detained at Perugia were released, and Francis returned to Assisi. He was twenty-two years old.
FOOTNOTES1.Eleven hundred and one metres above the level of the sea; the plain around Assisi has an average of two hundred, and the town of two hundred and fifty, metres above.2.As in the majority of Tuscan cities the dimensions of the houses were formerly fixed by law.3.The biographies say that he died (October 3, 1226) in his forty-fifth year. But the terms are not precise enough to make the date 1181 improbable. For that matter the question is of small importance. A Franciscan of Erfurt, about the middle of the thirteenth century, fixes the date at 1182. Pertz, vol. xxiv., p. 193.4.A number of different genealogies have been fabricated for Francis; they prove only one thing, the wreck of the Franciscan idea. How little they understood their hero, who thought to magnify and glorify him by making him spring from a noble family! "Quæ rero," says Father Suysken, S. J., "de ejus gentilitio insigni disserit Waddingus, non lubet mihi attingere. Factis et virtutibus eluxit S. Franciscus non proavorum insignibus aut titulis, quos nec desideravit." (A. SS. p. 557a.) It could not be better said.In the fourteenth century a whole cycle of legends had gathered about his birth. It could not have been otherwise. They all grow out of the story that tells of an old man who comes knocking at the parents' door, begging them to let him take the infant in his arms, when he announces that it will do great things. Under this form the episode certainly presents nothing impossible, but very soon marvellous incidents begin to gather around this nucleus until it becomes unrecognizable. Bartholomew of Pisa has preserved it in almost its primitive form.Conform., 28a 2. Francis certainly had several brothers [3 Soc., 9.Mater...quæ cum præ ceteris filiis diligebat], but they have left no trace in history except the incident related farther on. Vide p. 44. Christofani publishes several official pieces concerningAngelo, St. Francis's brother, and his descendants:Storie d'Assisi, vol. i., p. 78 ff. In these documents Angelo is calledAngelus Pice, and his sonJohannectus olim Angeli domine Pice, appellations which might be cited in favor of the noble origin of Pica.5.Documentary History of Languedoc, iii., p. 607.6.The Cathedral of Assisi. To this day all the children of the town are baptized there; the other churches are without fonts.7.3 Soc., 1; 2 Cel., 1, 1. Vide also 3 Soc., edition of Pesaro, 1831.8.Thelangue d'oïlwas at this epoch the international language of Europe; in Italy it was the language of games and tourneys, and was spoken in the petty princely courts of Northern Italy. Vide Dante,De vulgari eloquio, lib. I., cap. x. Brunetto Latini wrote in French because "the speech of France is more delectable and more common to all people." At the other end of Europe the Abbot of Stade, in Westphalia, spoke of thenobility of the Gallic dialect.Ann.1224apudPertz, Script. xvi. We shall find St. Francis often making allusions to the tales of the Round Table and theChanson de Roland.9.We must not be led astray by certain remarks upon his ignorance, from which one might at first conclude that he knew absolutely nothing; for example, 2 Cel., 3, 45:Quamvis homo iste beatus nullis fuerit scientiæ studiis innutritus. This evidently refers to science such as the Franciscans soon came to apprehend it, and to theology in particular.The close of the passage in Celano is itself an evident proof of this.10.Bon., 219; Cf. A. SS., p. 560a. 1 Cel., 23.11.Ozanam,Documents inédits pour servir à l'histoire littéraire d'Italie du VIIIe au XIIIe siècle. Paris, 1851, 8vo, pp. 65, 68, 71, 73. Fauriel,Dante et les origines de la littérature italienne. Paris, 1854, 2 vols., 8vo, ii., p. 332, 379, 429.12.V. 3 Soc., 51 and 67; 2 Cel., 3, 110; Bon., 55; 2 Cel., 3, 99; Eccl., 6. Bernard de Besse, Turin MS., fo. 96a, calls Brother Leo the secretary of St. Francis.13.See page 357, n. 8. Bon., 51 and 308.14.1 Cel., 16; 3 Soc., 10; 23; 24; 33; 2 Cel., 1, 8; 3, 67. See also the Testament of St. Clara and the Speculum, 119a.15.Primum namque cum fari vel balbutire incipiunt, turpia quædam et execrabilia valde signis et vocibus edocentur pueri ii nondum nati: et cum tempus ablactationis advenerit quædam luxu et lascivia plena non solum fari sed et operari coguntur.... Sed et cum paulo plusculum ætate profecerint, se ipsis impellentibus, semper ad deteriora opera dilabuntur.1 Cel., 1.16.2 Cel., 1. Cf.Conform., 14a, 1. There is nothing impossible in her having been of Provençal origin, but there is nothing to indicate it in any document worthy of credence. She was no doubt of noble stock, for official documents always give her the titleDomina. Cristofani I., p. 78 ff. Cf.Matrem honestissimam habuit. 3 Soc., Edition of Pesaro, 1831, p. 17.17.The reading given by theConform., 14a, 1,Meritorum gratia dei filium ipsum noveritis affuturum, seems better than that of 2 Cel., 1, 1,Multorum gratia Dei filiorum patrem ipsum noveritis affuturum. Cf. 3 Soc., 2.18.Bernardo of Besse, Turin MS., 102 b.:An integer carne desiderans ... quod non extorsisset a Sancto ... meruit obtinere a Deo quod virgo esset. Cf.Conform., 211a, 1, and A. SS., p. 560f.19."In illa antiphona quæ incipit: Hic vir in vanitatibus nutritus insolenter, fiat talis mutatis: Divinis karismatibus preventus est clementer." Archiv., vi., p. 35.20.Videp. 395, the decision of the chapter of 1263 ordaining the destruction of legends earlier than that of Bonaventura.21.1 Cel., 1 and 2; 89; 3 Soc., 2. Cf. A. SS., 560c. Vincent of Beauvais,Spec. hist. lib., 29, cap. 97.22.Pierre Vidal was at the court of Boniface, Marquis of Montferrat, about 1195, and liked his surroundings so well that he desired to establish himself there. K. Bartsch,Piere Vidal's Lieder, Berlin, 1857, n. 41. Ern. Monaci,Testi antichi provenzali, Rome, 1889, col. 67. One should read this piece to have an idea of the fervor with which this poet shared the hopes of Italy and desired its independence. This political note is found again in atenzonof Manfred II. Lancia, addressed to Pierre Vidal. (V. Monaci,loc. cit., col. 68.)—Gaucelme Faidit was also at this court as well as Raimbaud of Vacqueyras (1180-1207).—Folquet de Romans passed nearly all his life in Italy. Bernard of Ventadour (1145-1195), Peirol of Auvergne (1180-1220), and many others abode there a longer or shorter time. Very soon the Italians began to sing in Provençal, among others this Manfred Lancia, and Albert Marquis of Malaspina (1162-1210), Pietro della Caravana, who in 1196 stirred up the Lombard towns against Henry VI., Pietro della Mula, who about 1200 was at the court of Cortemiglia. Fragments from these poets may be found in Monaci,op. cit., col. 69 ff.23.Soc., 3; 2 Cel., 1, 1.24.Cum esset gloriosus animo et nollet aliquem se præcellere, Giord. 20.25.1 Cel., 17; 3 Soc., 3; Bon., 7. Cf. A. SS., p. 562.26.1 Cel., 2; Bon., 6;Vit. sec. apud, A. SS., p. 560.27.3 Soc., 9.28.In 1174 Assisi was taken by the chancellor of the empire, Christian, Archbishop of Mayence. A. Cristofani, i., p. 69.29.All these events are related in theGesta Innocentii III. ab auctore coætaneo, edited by Baluze: Migne,Inn. op., vol. i., col. xxiv. See especially the letter of Innocent,Rectoribus Tusciæ: Mirari cogimur, of April 16, 1198. Migne, vol. i., col. 75-77. Potthast, No. 82.30.See Luigi Bonazzi,Storia di Perugia, 2 vols., 8vo. Perugia, 1875-1879 vol. i., cap. v., pp. 257-322.31.3 Soc., 4; 2 Cel., 1, 1. Cristofani,op. cit., i., p. 88 ff.; Bonazzi,op. cit., p. 257.32.3 Soc., 4.33.3 Soc., 4; 2 Cel., 1, 1.34.See this arbitration in Cristofani,op. cit., p. 9335.Cristofani,loc. cit., p. 70.
1.Eleven hundred and one metres above the level of the sea; the plain around Assisi has an average of two hundred, and the town of two hundred and fifty, metres above.2.As in the majority of Tuscan cities the dimensions of the houses were formerly fixed by law.3.The biographies say that he died (October 3, 1226) in his forty-fifth year. But the terms are not precise enough to make the date 1181 improbable. For that matter the question is of small importance. A Franciscan of Erfurt, about the middle of the thirteenth century, fixes the date at 1182. Pertz, vol. xxiv., p. 193.4.A number of different genealogies have been fabricated for Francis; they prove only one thing, the wreck of the Franciscan idea. How little they understood their hero, who thought to magnify and glorify him by making him spring from a noble family! "Quæ rero," says Father Suysken, S. J., "de ejus gentilitio insigni disserit Waddingus, non lubet mihi attingere. Factis et virtutibus eluxit S. Franciscus non proavorum insignibus aut titulis, quos nec desideravit." (A. SS. p. 557a.) It could not be better said.In the fourteenth century a whole cycle of legends had gathered about his birth. It could not have been otherwise. They all grow out of the story that tells of an old man who comes knocking at the parents' door, begging them to let him take the infant in his arms, when he announces that it will do great things. Under this form the episode certainly presents nothing impossible, but very soon marvellous incidents begin to gather around this nucleus until it becomes unrecognizable. Bartholomew of Pisa has preserved it in almost its primitive form.Conform., 28a 2. Francis certainly had several brothers [3 Soc., 9.Mater...quæ cum præ ceteris filiis diligebat], but they have left no trace in history except the incident related farther on. Vide p. 44. Christofani publishes several official pieces concerningAngelo, St. Francis's brother, and his descendants:Storie d'Assisi, vol. i., p. 78 ff. In these documents Angelo is calledAngelus Pice, and his sonJohannectus olim Angeli domine Pice, appellations which might be cited in favor of the noble origin of Pica.5.Documentary History of Languedoc, iii., p. 607.6.The Cathedral of Assisi. To this day all the children of the town are baptized there; the other churches are without fonts.7.3 Soc., 1; 2 Cel., 1, 1. Vide also 3 Soc., edition of Pesaro, 1831.8.Thelangue d'oïlwas at this epoch the international language of Europe; in Italy it was the language of games and tourneys, and was spoken in the petty princely courts of Northern Italy. Vide Dante,De vulgari eloquio, lib. I., cap. x. Brunetto Latini wrote in French because "the speech of France is more delectable and more common to all people." At the other end of Europe the Abbot of Stade, in Westphalia, spoke of thenobility of the Gallic dialect.Ann.1224apudPertz, Script. xvi. We shall find St. Francis often making allusions to the tales of the Round Table and theChanson de Roland.9.We must not be led astray by certain remarks upon his ignorance, from which one might at first conclude that he knew absolutely nothing; for example, 2 Cel., 3, 45:Quamvis homo iste beatus nullis fuerit scientiæ studiis innutritus. This evidently refers to science such as the Franciscans soon came to apprehend it, and to theology in particular.The close of the passage in Celano is itself an evident proof of this.10.Bon., 219; Cf. A. SS., p. 560a. 1 Cel., 23.11.Ozanam,Documents inédits pour servir à l'histoire littéraire d'Italie du VIIIe au XIIIe siècle. Paris, 1851, 8vo, pp. 65, 68, 71, 73. Fauriel,Dante et les origines de la littérature italienne. Paris, 1854, 2 vols., 8vo, ii., p. 332, 379, 429.12.V. 3 Soc., 51 and 67; 2 Cel., 3, 110; Bon., 55; 2 Cel., 3, 99; Eccl., 6. Bernard de Besse, Turin MS., fo. 96a, calls Brother Leo the secretary of St. Francis.13.See page 357, n. 8. Bon., 51 and 308.14.1 Cel., 16; 3 Soc., 10; 23; 24; 33; 2 Cel., 1, 8; 3, 67. See also the Testament of St. Clara and the Speculum, 119a.15.Primum namque cum fari vel balbutire incipiunt, turpia quædam et execrabilia valde signis et vocibus edocentur pueri ii nondum nati: et cum tempus ablactationis advenerit quædam luxu et lascivia plena non solum fari sed et operari coguntur.... Sed et cum paulo plusculum ætate profecerint, se ipsis impellentibus, semper ad deteriora opera dilabuntur.1 Cel., 1.16.2 Cel., 1. Cf.Conform., 14a, 1. There is nothing impossible in her having been of Provençal origin, but there is nothing to indicate it in any document worthy of credence. She was no doubt of noble stock, for official documents always give her the titleDomina. Cristofani I., p. 78 ff. Cf.Matrem honestissimam habuit. 3 Soc., Edition of Pesaro, 1831, p. 17.17.The reading given by theConform., 14a, 1,Meritorum gratia dei filium ipsum noveritis affuturum, seems better than that of 2 Cel., 1, 1,Multorum gratia Dei filiorum patrem ipsum noveritis affuturum. Cf. 3 Soc., 2.18.Bernardo of Besse, Turin MS., 102 b.:An integer carne desiderans ... quod non extorsisset a Sancto ... meruit obtinere a Deo quod virgo esset. Cf.Conform., 211a, 1, and A. SS., p. 560f.19."In illa antiphona quæ incipit: Hic vir in vanitatibus nutritus insolenter, fiat talis mutatis: Divinis karismatibus preventus est clementer." Archiv., vi., p. 35.20.Videp. 395, the decision of the chapter of 1263 ordaining the destruction of legends earlier than that of Bonaventura.21.1 Cel., 1 and 2; 89; 3 Soc., 2. Cf. A. SS., 560c. Vincent of Beauvais,Spec. hist. lib., 29, cap. 97.22.Pierre Vidal was at the court of Boniface, Marquis of Montferrat, about 1195, and liked his surroundings so well that he desired to establish himself there. K. Bartsch,Piere Vidal's Lieder, Berlin, 1857, n. 41. Ern. Monaci,Testi antichi provenzali, Rome, 1889, col. 67. One should read this piece to have an idea of the fervor with which this poet shared the hopes of Italy and desired its independence. This political note is found again in atenzonof Manfred II. Lancia, addressed to Pierre Vidal. (V. Monaci,loc. cit., col. 68.)—Gaucelme Faidit was also at this court as well as Raimbaud of Vacqueyras (1180-1207).—Folquet de Romans passed nearly all his life in Italy. Bernard of Ventadour (1145-1195), Peirol of Auvergne (1180-1220), and many others abode there a longer or shorter time. Very soon the Italians began to sing in Provençal, among others this Manfred Lancia, and Albert Marquis of Malaspina (1162-1210), Pietro della Caravana, who in 1196 stirred up the Lombard towns against Henry VI., Pietro della Mula, who about 1200 was at the court of Cortemiglia. Fragments from these poets may be found in Monaci,op. cit., col. 69 ff.23.Soc., 3; 2 Cel., 1, 1.24.Cum esset gloriosus animo et nollet aliquem se præcellere, Giord. 20.25.1 Cel., 17; 3 Soc., 3; Bon., 7. Cf. A. SS., p. 562.26.1 Cel., 2; Bon., 6;Vit. sec. apud, A. SS., p. 560.27.3 Soc., 9.28.In 1174 Assisi was taken by the chancellor of the empire, Christian, Archbishop of Mayence. A. Cristofani, i., p. 69.29.All these events are related in theGesta Innocentii III. ab auctore coætaneo, edited by Baluze: Migne,Inn. op., vol. i., col. xxiv. See especially the letter of Innocent,Rectoribus Tusciæ: Mirari cogimur, of April 16, 1198. Migne, vol. i., col. 75-77. Potthast, No. 82.30.See Luigi Bonazzi,Storia di Perugia, 2 vols., 8vo. Perugia, 1875-1879 vol. i., cap. v., pp. 257-322.31.3 Soc., 4; 2 Cel., 1, 1. Cristofani,op. cit., i., p. 88 ff.; Bonazzi,op. cit., p. 257.32.3 Soc., 4.33.3 Soc., 4; 2 Cel., 1, 1.34.See this arbitration in Cristofani,op. cit., p. 9335.Cristofani,loc. cit., p. 70.
1.Eleven hundred and one metres above the level of the sea; the plain around Assisi has an average of two hundred, and the town of two hundred and fifty, metres above.
2.As in the majority of Tuscan cities the dimensions of the houses were formerly fixed by law.
3.The biographies say that he died (October 3, 1226) in his forty-fifth year. But the terms are not precise enough to make the date 1181 improbable. For that matter the question is of small importance. A Franciscan of Erfurt, about the middle of the thirteenth century, fixes the date at 1182. Pertz, vol. xxiv., p. 193.
4.A number of different genealogies have been fabricated for Francis; they prove only one thing, the wreck of the Franciscan idea. How little they understood their hero, who thought to magnify and glorify him by making him spring from a noble family! "Quæ rero," says Father Suysken, S. J., "de ejus gentilitio insigni disserit Waddingus, non lubet mihi attingere. Factis et virtutibus eluxit S. Franciscus non proavorum insignibus aut titulis, quos nec desideravit." (A. SS. p. 557a.) It could not be better said.
In the fourteenth century a whole cycle of legends had gathered about his birth. It could not have been otherwise. They all grow out of the story that tells of an old man who comes knocking at the parents' door, begging them to let him take the infant in his arms, when he announces that it will do great things. Under this form the episode certainly presents nothing impossible, but very soon marvellous incidents begin to gather around this nucleus until it becomes unrecognizable. Bartholomew of Pisa has preserved it in almost its primitive form.Conform., 28a 2. Francis certainly had several brothers [3 Soc., 9.Mater...quæ cum præ ceteris filiis diligebat], but they have left no trace in history except the incident related farther on. Vide p. 44. Christofani publishes several official pieces concerningAngelo, St. Francis's brother, and his descendants:Storie d'Assisi, vol. i., p. 78 ff. In these documents Angelo is calledAngelus Pice, and his sonJohannectus olim Angeli domine Pice, appellations which might be cited in favor of the noble origin of Pica.
5.Documentary History of Languedoc, iii., p. 607.
6.The Cathedral of Assisi. To this day all the children of the town are baptized there; the other churches are without fonts.
7.3 Soc., 1; 2 Cel., 1, 1. Vide also 3 Soc., edition of Pesaro, 1831.
8.Thelangue d'oïlwas at this epoch the international language of Europe; in Italy it was the language of games and tourneys, and was spoken in the petty princely courts of Northern Italy. Vide Dante,De vulgari eloquio, lib. I., cap. x. Brunetto Latini wrote in French because "the speech of France is more delectable and more common to all people." At the other end of Europe the Abbot of Stade, in Westphalia, spoke of thenobility of the Gallic dialect.Ann.1224apudPertz, Script. xvi. We shall find St. Francis often making allusions to the tales of the Round Table and theChanson de Roland.
9.We must not be led astray by certain remarks upon his ignorance, from which one might at first conclude that he knew absolutely nothing; for example, 2 Cel., 3, 45:Quamvis homo iste beatus nullis fuerit scientiæ studiis innutritus. This evidently refers to science such as the Franciscans soon came to apprehend it, and to theology in particular.
The close of the passage in Celano is itself an evident proof of this.
10.Bon., 219; Cf. A. SS., p. 560a. 1 Cel., 23.
11.Ozanam,Documents inédits pour servir à l'histoire littéraire d'Italie du VIIIe au XIIIe siècle. Paris, 1851, 8vo, pp. 65, 68, 71, 73. Fauriel,Dante et les origines de la littérature italienne. Paris, 1854, 2 vols., 8vo, ii., p. 332, 379, 429.
12.V. 3 Soc., 51 and 67; 2 Cel., 3, 110; Bon., 55; 2 Cel., 3, 99; Eccl., 6. Bernard de Besse, Turin MS., fo. 96a, calls Brother Leo the secretary of St. Francis.
13.See page 357, n. 8. Bon., 51 and 308.
14.1 Cel., 16; 3 Soc., 10; 23; 24; 33; 2 Cel., 1, 8; 3, 67. See also the Testament of St. Clara and the Speculum, 119a.
15.Primum namque cum fari vel balbutire incipiunt, turpia quædam et execrabilia valde signis et vocibus edocentur pueri ii nondum nati: et cum tempus ablactationis advenerit quædam luxu et lascivia plena non solum fari sed et operari coguntur.... Sed et cum paulo plusculum ætate profecerint, se ipsis impellentibus, semper ad deteriora opera dilabuntur.1 Cel., 1.
16.2 Cel., 1. Cf.Conform., 14a, 1. There is nothing impossible in her having been of Provençal origin, but there is nothing to indicate it in any document worthy of credence. She was no doubt of noble stock, for official documents always give her the titleDomina. Cristofani I., p. 78 ff. Cf.Matrem honestissimam habuit. 3 Soc., Edition of Pesaro, 1831, p. 17.
17.The reading given by theConform., 14a, 1,Meritorum gratia dei filium ipsum noveritis affuturum, seems better than that of 2 Cel., 1, 1,Multorum gratia Dei filiorum patrem ipsum noveritis affuturum. Cf. 3 Soc., 2.
18.Bernardo of Besse, Turin MS., 102 b.:An integer carne desiderans ... quod non extorsisset a Sancto ... meruit obtinere a Deo quod virgo esset. Cf.Conform., 211a, 1, and A. SS., p. 560f.
19."In illa antiphona quæ incipit: Hic vir in vanitatibus nutritus insolenter, fiat talis mutatis: Divinis karismatibus preventus est clementer." Archiv., vi., p. 35.
20.Videp. 395, the decision of the chapter of 1263 ordaining the destruction of legends earlier than that of Bonaventura.
21.1 Cel., 1 and 2; 89; 3 Soc., 2. Cf. A. SS., 560c. Vincent of Beauvais,Spec. hist. lib., 29, cap. 97.
22.Pierre Vidal was at the court of Boniface, Marquis of Montferrat, about 1195, and liked his surroundings so well that he desired to establish himself there. K. Bartsch,Piere Vidal's Lieder, Berlin, 1857, n. 41. Ern. Monaci,Testi antichi provenzali, Rome, 1889, col. 67. One should read this piece to have an idea of the fervor with which this poet shared the hopes of Italy and desired its independence. This political note is found again in atenzonof Manfred II. Lancia, addressed to Pierre Vidal. (V. Monaci,loc. cit., col. 68.)—Gaucelme Faidit was also at this court as well as Raimbaud of Vacqueyras (1180-1207).—Folquet de Romans passed nearly all his life in Italy. Bernard of Ventadour (1145-1195), Peirol of Auvergne (1180-1220), and many others abode there a longer or shorter time. Very soon the Italians began to sing in Provençal, among others this Manfred Lancia, and Albert Marquis of Malaspina (1162-1210), Pietro della Caravana, who in 1196 stirred up the Lombard towns against Henry VI., Pietro della Mula, who about 1200 was at the court of Cortemiglia. Fragments from these poets may be found in Monaci,op. cit., col. 69 ff.
23.Soc., 3; 2 Cel., 1, 1.
24.Cum esset gloriosus animo et nollet aliquem se præcellere, Giord. 20.
25.1 Cel., 17; 3 Soc., 3; Bon., 7. Cf. A. SS., p. 562.
26.1 Cel., 2; Bon., 6;Vit. sec. apud, A. SS., p. 560.
27.3 Soc., 9.
28.In 1174 Assisi was taken by the chancellor of the empire, Christian, Archbishop of Mayence. A. Cristofani, i., p. 69.
29.All these events are related in theGesta Innocentii III. ab auctore coætaneo, edited by Baluze: Migne,Inn. op., vol. i., col. xxiv. See especially the letter of Innocent,Rectoribus Tusciæ: Mirari cogimur, of April 16, 1198. Migne, vol. i., col. 75-77. Potthast, No. 82.
30.See Luigi Bonazzi,Storia di Perugia, 2 vols., 8vo. Perugia, 1875-1879 vol. i., cap. v., pp. 257-322.
31.3 Soc., 4; 2 Cel., 1, 1. Cristofani,op. cit., i., p. 88 ff.; Bonazzi,op. cit., p. 257.
32.3 Soc., 4.
33.3 Soc., 4; 2 Cel., 1, 1.
34.See this arbitration in Cristofani,op. cit., p. 93
35.Cristofani,loc. cit., p. 70.
On his return to Assisi Francis at once resumed his former mode of life; perhaps he even tried in some degree to make up for lost time. Fêtes, games, festivals, and dissipations began again. He did his part in them so well that he soon fell gravely ill.1For long weeks he looked death so closely in the face that the physical crisis brought about a moral one. Thomas of Celano has preserved for us an incident of Francis's convalescence. He was regaining strength little by little and had begun to go about the house, when one day he felt a desire to walk abroad, to contemplate nature quietly, and so take hold again of life. Leaning on a stick he bent his steps toward the city gate.
The nearest one, calledPorta Nuova, is the very one which opens upon the finest scenery. Immediately on passing through it one finds one's self in the open country; a fold of the hill hides the city, and cuts off every sound that might come from it. Before you lies the winding road to Foligno; at the left the imposing mass of Mount Subasio; at the right the Umbrian plain with its farms, its villages, its cloud-like hills, on whose slopes pines, cedars, oaks, the vine, and the olive-tree shed abroad an incomparable brightness and animation. The wholecountry sparkles with beauty, a beauty harmonious and thoroughly human, that is, made to the measure of man.
Francis had hoped by this sight to recover the delicious sensations of his youth. With the sharpened sensibility of the convalescent he breathed in the odors of the spring-time, but spring-time did not come, as he had expected, to his heart. This smiling nature had for him only a message of sadness. He had believed that the breezes of this beloved country-side would carry away the last shudders of the fever, and instead he felt in his heart a discouragement a thousand-fold more painful than any physical ill. The miserable emptiness of his life suddenly appeared before him; he was terrified at his solitude, the solitude of a great soul in which there is no altar.
Memories of the past assailed him with intolerable bitterness; he was seized with a disgust of himself, his former ambitions seemed to him ridiculous or despicable. He went home overwhelmed with the weight of a new suffering.
In such hours of moral anguish man seeks a refuge either in love or in faith. Unhappily the family and friends of Francis were incapable of understanding him. As to religion, it was for him, as for the greater number of his contemporaries, that crass fetichism with Christian terminology which is far from having entirely disappeared. With certain men, in fact, piety consists in making one's self right with a king more powerful than any other, but also more severe and capricious, who is called God. One proves one's loyalty to him as to other sovereigns, by putting his image more or less everywhere, and punctually paying the imposts levied by his ministers. If you are stingy, if you cheat, you run the risk of being severely chastised, but there are courtiers around the king who willingly render services. For a reasonablerecompense they will seize a favorable moment to adroitly make away with the sentence of your condemnation or to slip before the prince a form of plenary absolution which in a moment of good humor he will sign without looking at it.2
Such was the religious basis upon which Francis had lived up to this time. He did not so much as dream of seeking the spiritual balm which he needed for the healing of his wounds. By a holy violence he was to arrive at last at a pure and virile faith; but the road to this point is long, and sown thick with obstacles, and at the moment at which we have arrived he had not yet entered upon it, he did not even suspect its existence; all he knew was that pleasure leads to nothingness, to satiety and self-contempt.
He knew this, and yet he was about to throw himself once more into a life of pleasure. The body is so weak, so prone to return to the old paths, that it seeks them of itself, the moment an energetic will does not stop it. Though no longer under any illusion with respect to it, Francis returned to his former life. Was he trying to divert his mind, to forget that day of bitter thought? We might suppose so, seeing the ardor with which he threw himself into his new projects.3
An opportunity offered itself for him to realize his dreams of glory. A knight of Assisi, perhaps one of those who had been in captivity with him at Perugia, was preparing to go to Apulia under orders from Count Gentile.4The latter was to join Gaultier de Brienne, who was in the south of Italy fighting on the side of Innocent III. Gaultier's renown was immense all through the Peninsula; he was held to be one of the most gallant knights of the time. Francis's heart bounded with joy; it seemed to him that at the side of such a hero he should soon cover himself with glory. His departure was decided upon, and he gave himself up, without reserve, to his joy.
He made his preparations with ostentatious prodigality. His equipment, of a princely luxury, soon became the universal subject of conversation. It was all the more talked about because the chief of the expedition, ruined perhaps by the revolution of 1202 or by the expenses of a long captivity, was constrained to order things much more modestly.5But with Francis kindliness was much stronger than love of display. He gave his sumptuous clothing to a poor knight. The biographies do not say whether or not it was to the very one whom he was to accompany.6To see him running hither and thither in all the bustle of preparation one wouldhave thought him the son of a great lord. His companions were doubtless not slow to feel chafed by his ways and to promise themselves to make him cruelly expiate them. As for him, he perceived nothing of the jealousies which he was exciting, and night and day he thought only of his future glory. In his dreams he seemed to see his parents' house completely transformed. Instead of bales of cloth he saw there only gleaming bucklers hanging on the walls, and arms of all kinds as in a seignorial castle. He saw himself there, beside a noble and beautiful bride, and he never suspected that in this vision there was any presage of the future which was reserved for him. Never had any one seen him so communicative, so radiant; and when he was asked for the hundredth time whence came all this joy, he would reply with surprising assurance: "I know that I shall become a great prince."7
The day of departure arrived at last. Francis on horseback, the little buckler of a page on his arm, bade adieu to his natal city with joy, and with the little troop took the road to Spoleto which winds around the base of Mount Subasio.
What happened next? The documents do not say. They confine themselves to reporting that that very evening Francis had a vision which decided him to return to Assisi.8Perhaps it would not be far from the truth to conjecture that once fairly on the way the young nobles took their revenge on the son of Bernardone for his airs as of a future prince. At twenty years one hardly pardons things like these. If, as we are often assured, there is a pleasure unsuspected by the profane in getting even with a stranger, it must be an almost divine delight to get even with a young coxcomb upon whom one has to exercise so righteous a vengeance.
Arriving at Spoleto, Francis took to his bed. A fever was consuming him; in a few hours he had seen all his dreams crumble away. The very next day he took the road back to Assisi.9
So unexpected a return made a great stir in the little city, and was a cruel blow to his parents. As for him, he doubled his charities to the poor, and sought to keep aloof from society, but his old companions came flocking about him from all quarters, hoping to find in him once more the tireless purveyor of their idle wants. He let them have their way.
Nevertheless a great change had taken place in him. Neither pleasures nor work could long hold him; he spent a portion of his days in long country rambles, often accompanied by a friend most different from those whom until now we have seen about him. The name of this friend is not known, but from certain indications one is inclined to believe that he was Bombarone da Beviglia, the future Brother Elias.10
Francis now went back to his reflections at the time of his recovery, but with less of bitterness. His own heart and his friend agreed in saying to him that it is possible no longer to trust either in pleasure or in glory and yet to find worthy causes to which to consecrate one's life. It is at this moment that religious thought seems to have awaked in him. From the moment that he saw this new way of life his desire to run in it had all the fiery impetuosity which he put into all his actions. He was continually calling upon his friend and leading him apart into the most sequestered paths.
But intense conflicts are indescribable. We struggle, we suffer alone. It is the nocturnal wrestling of Bethel, mysterious and solitary. The soul of Francis was great enough to endure this tragic duel. His friend had marvellously understood his part in this contest. He gave a few rare counsels, but much of the time he contented himself with manifesting his solicitude by following Francis everywhere and never asking to know more than he could tell him.
Often Francis directed his steps to a grotto in the country near Assisi, which he entered alone. This rocky cave concealed in the midst of the olive trees became for faithful Franciscans that which Gethsemane is for Christians. Here Francis relieved his overcharged heart by heavy groans. Sometimes, seized with a real horror for thedisorders of his youth, he would implore mercy, but the greater part of the time his face was turned toward the future; feverishly he sought for that higher truth to which he longed to dedicate himself, that pearl of great price of which the gospel speaks: "Whosoever seeks, finds; he who asks, receives; and to him who knocks, it shall be opened."
When he came out after long hours of seclusion the pallor of his countenance, the painful tension of his features told plainly enough of the intensity of his asking and the violence of his knocks.11
The inward man, to borrow the language of the mystics, was not yet formed in him, but it needed only the occasion to bring about the final break with the past. The occasion soon presented itself.
His friends were making continual efforts to induce him to take up his old habits again. One day he invited them all to a sumptuous banquet. They thought they had conquered, and as in old times they proclaimed him king of the revels. The feast was prolonged far into the night, and at its close the guests rushed out into the streets, which they filled with song and uproar. Suddenly they perceived that Francis was no longer with them. After long searching they at last discovered him far behind them, still holding in his hand his sceptre of king of misrule, but plunged in so profound a revery that he seemed to be riveted to the ground and unconscious of all that was going on.
"What is the matter with you?" they cried, bustling about him as if to awaken him.
"Don't you see that he is thinking of taking a wife?" said one.
"Yes," answered Francis, arousing himself and looking at them with a smile which they did not recognize."I am thinking of taking a wife more beautiful, more rich, more pure than you could ever imagine."12
This reply marks a decisive stage in his inner life. By it he cut the last links which bound him to trivial pleasures. It remains for us to see through what struggles he was to give himself to God, after having torn himself free from the world. His friends probably understood nothing of all that had taken place, but he had become aware of the abyss that was opening between them and him. They soon accepted the situation.
As for himself, no longer having any reason for caution, he gave himself up more than ever to his passion for solitude. If he often wept over his past dissipations and wondered how he could have lived so long without tasting the bitterness of the dregs of the enchanted cup, he never allowed himself to be overwhelmed with vain regrets.
The poor had remained faithful to him. They gave him an admiration of which he knew himself to be unworthy, yet which had for him an infinite sweetness. The future grew bright to him in the light of their gratitude, of the timid, trembling affection which they dared not utter but which his heart revealed to him; this worship which he does not deserve to-day he will deserve to-morrow, at least he promises himself to do all he can to deserve it.
To understand these feelings one must understand the condition of the poor of a place like Assisi. In an agricultural country poverty does not, as elsewhere, almost inevitably involve moral destitution, that degeneration of the entire human being which renders charity so difficult. Most of the poor persons whom Francis knew were in straits because of war, of bad harvests, or of illness. In such cases material succor is but a small part. Sympathy is the thing needed above all. Francis had treasures of it to lavish upon them.
He was well requited. All sorrows are sisters; a secret intelligence establishes itself between troubled hearts, however diverse their griefs. The poor people felt that their friend also suffered; they did not precisely know with what, but they forgot their own sorrows in pitying their benefactor. Suffering is the true cement of love. For men to love each other truly, they must have shed tears together.
As yet no influence strictly ecclesiastic had been felt by Francis. Doubtless there was in his heart that leaven of Christian faith which enters one's being without his being aware; but the interior transformation which was going on in him was as yet the fruit of his own intuition. This period was drawing to a close. His thought was soon to find expression, and by that very act to receive the stamp of external circumstances. Christian instruction will give a precise form to ideas of which as yet he has but vague glimpses, but he will find in this form a frame in which his thought will perhaps lose something of its originality and vigor; the new wine will be put into old wine-skins.
By degrees he was becoming calm, was finding in the contemplation of nature joys which up to this time he had sipped but hastily, almost unconsciously, and of which he was now learning to relish the flavor. He drew from them not simply soothing; in his heart he felt new compassions springing into life, and with these the desire to act, to give himself, to cry aloud to these cities perched upon the hill-tops, threatening as warriors who eye one another before the fray, that they should be reconciled and love one another.
Certainly, at this time Francis had no glimpse of what he was some time to become; but these hours are perhaps the most important in the evolution of his thought; it is to them that his life owes that air of liberty, that perfumeof the fields which make it as different from the piety of the sacristy as from that of the drawing-room.
About this time he made a pilgrimage to Rome, whether to ask counsel of his friends, whether as a penance imposed by his confessor, or from a mere impulse, no one knows. Perhaps he thought that in a visit to theHoly Apostles, as people said then, he should find the answers to all the questions which he was asking himself.
At any rate he went. It is hardly probable that he received from the visit any religious influence, for his biographers relate the pained surprise which he experienced when he saw in Saint Peter's how meagre were the offerings of pilgrims. He wanted to give everything to the prince of the apostles, and emptying his purse he threw its entire contents upon the tomb.
This journey was marked by a more important incident. Many a time when succoring the poor he had asked himself if he himself was able to endure poverty; no one knows the weight of a burden until he has carried it, at least for a moment, upon his own shoulders. He desired to know what it is like to have nothing, and to depend for bread upon the charity or the caprice of the passer by.13
There were swarms of beggars crowding the Piazza before the great basilica. He borrowed the rags of one of them, lending him his garment in exchange, and a whole day he stood there, fasting, with outstretched hand. The act was a great victory, the triumph of compassion over natural pride. Returning to Assisi, he doubled his kindnesses to those of whom he had truly the right to call himself the brother. With such sentiments he could not long escape the influence of the Church.
On all the roadsides in the environs of the city there were then, as now, numerous chapels. Very often hemust have heard mass in these rustic sanctuaries, alone with the celebrant. Recognizing the tendency of simple natures to bring home to themselves everything that they hear, it is easy to understand his emotion and agitation when the priest, turning toward him, would read the gospel for the day. The Christian ideal was revealed to him, bringing an answer to his secret anxieties. And when, a few moments later, he would plunge into the forest, all his thoughts would be with the poor carpenter of Nazareth, who placed himself in his path, saying to him, even to him, "Follow thou me."
Nearly two years had passed since the day when he felt the first shock; a life of renunciation appeared to him as the goal of his efforts, but he felt that his spiritual novitiate was not yet ended. He suddenly experienced a bitter assurance of the fact.
He was riding on horseback one day, his mind more than ever possessed with the desire to lead a life of absolute devotion, when at a turn of the road he found himself face to face with a leper. The frightful malady had always inspired in him an invincible repulsion. He could not control a movement of horror, and by instinct he turned his horse in another direction.
If the shock had been severe, the defeat was complete. He reproached himself bitterly. To cherish such fine projects and show himself so cowardly! Was the knight of Christ then going to give up his arms? He retraced his steps and springing from his horse he gave to the astounded sufferer all the money that he had; then kissed his hand as he would have done to a priest.14This new victory, as he himself saw, marked an era in his spiritual life.15
It is far indeed from hatred of evil to love of good. Those are more numerous than we think who, after severe experience, have renounced what the ancient liturgies call the world, with its pomps and lusts; but the greater number of them have not at the bottom of their hearts the smallest grain of pure love. In vulgar souls disillusion leaves only a frightful egoism.
This victory of Francis had been so sudden that he desired to complete it; a few days later he went to the lazaretto.16One can imagine the stupefaction of these wretches at the entrance of the brilliant cavalier. If in our days a visit to the sick in our hospitals is a real event awaited with feverish impatience, what must not have been the appearance of Francis among these poor recluses? One must have seen sufferers thus abandoned, to understand what joy may be given by an affectionate word, sometimes even a simple glance.
Moved and transported, Francis felt his whole being vibrate with unfamiliar sensations. For the first time he heard the unspeakable accents of a gratitude which cannot find words burning enough to express itself, which admires and adores the benefactor almost like an angel from heaven.