FOOTNOTES1.Collected first by Wadding (Antwerp, 1623, 4to), they have been published many times since then, particularly by De la Haye (Paris, 1641, fo). These two editions having become scarce, were republished—in a very unsatisfactory manner—by the Abbé Horoy:S. Francisci Assisiatis opera omnia(Paris, 1880, 4to). For want of a more exact edition, that of Father Bernardo da Fivizzano is the most useful:Opuscoli di S. Francesco d'Assisi, 1 vol., 12mo, pp. 564, Florence, 1880. The Latin text is accompanied by an Italian translation.2."Die Briefe, die unter seinem Namen gehen, mögen theilweise ächt sein. Aber sie tragen kaum etwas zur näheren Kenntniss bei und können daher fast ganz ausser Acht bleiben." Müller,Die Anfänge des Minoritenordens, Freiburg, 1 vol., 8vo, 1885, p. 3.3.Pieces have been often attributed to St. Francis which do not belong to him; but those are unintentional errors and made without purpose. The desire for literary exactness is relatively of recent date, and it was easier for those who were ignorant of the author of certain Franciscan writings to attribute them to St. Francis than to admit their ignorance or to make deep researches.4.For example, the first Rule; probably also a few canticles; a letter to the Brothers in France, Eccl., 6; another to the Brothers in Bologna: "Prædixerat per litteram in qua fuit plurimum latinum," Eccl., ib.; a letter to Antony of Padua, other than the one we have, since on the witness of Celano it was addressed:Fratri Antonio episcopo meo(2 Cel., 3, 99); certain letters to St. Clara: "Scripsit Claræ et sororibus ad consolationem litteram in quâ dabat benedictionem suam et absolvebat," etc.Conform., fo. 185a, 1; cf.Test. B. Claræ. A. SS., Augusti, t. ii., p. 767: "Plura scripta tradidit nobis, ne post mortem suam declinaremus a paupertate;" certain letters to Cardinal Ugolini, 3 Soc., 67.It is not to negligence alone that we must attribute the loss of many of the epistles: "Quod nephas est cogitare, in provincia Marchie et in pluribus aliis locis testamentum beati Francisci mandaverunt (prelati ordinis) districte per obedientiam ab omnibus auferi et comburi. Et uni fratri devoto et sancto, cujus nomen est N. de Rocanato combuxerunt dicum testamentum super caput suum. Et toto conatu fuerunt solliciti, annulare scripta beati patris nostri Francisci, in quibus sua intentio de observantia regule declaratur." Ubertino di Casali,apud Archiv., iii., pp. 168-169.5.Italy is too obliging to artists, archæologists, and scholars not to do them the favor of disposing in a more practical manner this trust, the most precious of all Umbria. Even with the indefatigable kindness of the curator, M. Alessandro, and of the municipality of Assisi, it is very difficult to profit by these treasures heaped up in a dark room without a table to write upon.6.In particular by Ehrle:Die historischen Handschriften von S. Francesco in Assisi.Archiv., t. i., p. 484.7.Seepages 252 ff... and283.8.Seepages 333 ff.9.Seepages 259 ff.10.Seepage 325 ff.11.Seepages 322 ff.12.Seepage 327.13.I give it entire: "Regina sapientia, Dominus te salvet, cum tua sorore sancta pura simplicitate.—Domina sancta paupertas, Domimus te salvet, cum tua sorore sancta humilitate.—Domina sancta caritas, Dominus te salvet, cum tua sorrore sancta obedientia. Sanctissimæ virtutes omnes, vos salvet Dominus, a quo venitis et proceditis." Its authenticity is guaranteed by a citation by Celano: 2 Cel., 3, 119. Cf. 126b and 127a.14.Seepages 304 f.15.I shall not recur to this: the text is in the Conformities 138a 2.16.The authenticity of this service, to which there is not a single allusion in the biographies of St. Francis, is rendered certain by the life of St. Clara: "Officium crucis, prout crucis amator Franciscus instituerat (Clara) didicit et affectu simili frequentavit." A. SS., Augusti, t. ii., p. 761a.17.It begins:Illi qui volunt stare in heremis. This text is also found in the Conformities, 143a, 1. Cf. 2 Cel., 3, 43; seep. 97.18.Nudis pedibus incedentes, funiculis cincti, tunicis griseis et talaribus peciatis, insuto capucio utentes ... nihil sibi ultra noctem reservantes ... libros continue suos ... in forulis a collo dependentes bajulantes.Historia Anglorum, Pertz:Script., t. 28, p. 397. Cf. 2 Cel., 3, 135;Fior., 5;Spec., 45b.19.Seepage 322 n.20.Seepage 252.21.Seepage 157.22.Seepages 318 ff.23.Seepage 239.24.Seepage 327.25.Seepage 262.26.a.Sanctus Dominus Deus noster.Cf.Spec., 126a;Firmamentum, 18b, 2;Conform., 202b, 1.b.Ave Domina sancta.Cf.Spec., 127a;Conform., 138a, 2.c.Sancta Maria virgo.Cf.Spec., 126b;Conform., 202b, 2.27.Vide S. François, in 4to, Paris. 1885 (Plon), p. 233. The authenticity of this benediction appears to be well established, since it was already jealously guarded during the life of Thomas of Celano. No one has ever dreamed of requiring historical proof of this writing. Is this perhaps a mistake? The middle of the sheet is taken up with the benediction which was dictated to Brother Leo:Benedicat tibi Dominus et custodiat te, ostendat faciem suam tibi et misereatur tui convertat vultum suum ad te et det tibi pacem.At the bottom, Francis added the lettertau.Τ, which was, so to speak, his signature (Bon., 51; 308), and the words:Frater Leo Dominus benedicat te.Then when this memorial became a part of the relics of the Saint, Brother Leo, to authenticate it in a measure, added the following notes: toward the middle:Beatus Franciscus scripsit manu sua istam benedictionem mihi fratri Leoni; toward the close:Simili modo fecit istud signum thau cum capite manu sua. But the most valuable annotation is found at the top of the sheet:Beatus Franciscus duobus annis ante mortem suam fecit quadragesimam in loco Alvernæ ad honorem Beatæ Virginia Mariæ matris Dei et beati Michael archangeli a festo assumptionis sanctæ Mariæ Virginis usque ad festum sancti Michael septembris et facta est super eum manus Domini per visionem et allucotionem seraphym et impressionem stigmatum in corpore suo. Fecit has laudes ex alio latere catule scriptas et manu, sua scripsit gratias agens Domino de beneficio sibi collato.Vide 2 Cel., 2, 18.28.Wadding gives the text according to St. Bernardino da Siena.Opera, t. iv.,sermo16,extraord. et sermo feriæ sextæ Parasceves. Amoni:Legenda trium sociorum, p. 166.29.Wadding has drawn the text from St. Bernardino,loc. cit.,sermoiv.,extraord.It was also reproduced by Amoni,loc. cit., p. 165. Two very curious versions may be found in the Miscellanea, 1888, pp. 96 and 190.30.2 Cel., 3, 35. This took place under the vicariat of Pietro di Catania; consequently between September 29, 1220, and March 10, 1221.
1.Collected first by Wadding (Antwerp, 1623, 4to), they have been published many times since then, particularly by De la Haye (Paris, 1641, fo). These two editions having become scarce, were republished—in a very unsatisfactory manner—by the Abbé Horoy:S. Francisci Assisiatis opera omnia(Paris, 1880, 4to). For want of a more exact edition, that of Father Bernardo da Fivizzano is the most useful:Opuscoli di S. Francesco d'Assisi, 1 vol., 12mo, pp. 564, Florence, 1880. The Latin text is accompanied by an Italian translation.2."Die Briefe, die unter seinem Namen gehen, mögen theilweise ächt sein. Aber sie tragen kaum etwas zur näheren Kenntniss bei und können daher fast ganz ausser Acht bleiben." Müller,Die Anfänge des Minoritenordens, Freiburg, 1 vol., 8vo, 1885, p. 3.3.Pieces have been often attributed to St. Francis which do not belong to him; but those are unintentional errors and made without purpose. The desire for literary exactness is relatively of recent date, and it was easier for those who were ignorant of the author of certain Franciscan writings to attribute them to St. Francis than to admit their ignorance or to make deep researches.4.For example, the first Rule; probably also a few canticles; a letter to the Brothers in France, Eccl., 6; another to the Brothers in Bologna: "Prædixerat per litteram in qua fuit plurimum latinum," Eccl., ib.; a letter to Antony of Padua, other than the one we have, since on the witness of Celano it was addressed:Fratri Antonio episcopo meo(2 Cel., 3, 99); certain letters to St. Clara: "Scripsit Claræ et sororibus ad consolationem litteram in quâ dabat benedictionem suam et absolvebat," etc.Conform., fo. 185a, 1; cf.Test. B. Claræ. A. SS., Augusti, t. ii., p. 767: "Plura scripta tradidit nobis, ne post mortem suam declinaremus a paupertate;" certain letters to Cardinal Ugolini, 3 Soc., 67.It is not to negligence alone that we must attribute the loss of many of the epistles: "Quod nephas est cogitare, in provincia Marchie et in pluribus aliis locis testamentum beati Francisci mandaverunt (prelati ordinis) districte per obedientiam ab omnibus auferi et comburi. Et uni fratri devoto et sancto, cujus nomen est N. de Rocanato combuxerunt dicum testamentum super caput suum. Et toto conatu fuerunt solliciti, annulare scripta beati patris nostri Francisci, in quibus sua intentio de observantia regule declaratur." Ubertino di Casali,apud Archiv., iii., pp. 168-169.5.Italy is too obliging to artists, archæologists, and scholars not to do them the favor of disposing in a more practical manner this trust, the most precious of all Umbria. Even with the indefatigable kindness of the curator, M. Alessandro, and of the municipality of Assisi, it is very difficult to profit by these treasures heaped up in a dark room without a table to write upon.6.In particular by Ehrle:Die historischen Handschriften von S. Francesco in Assisi.Archiv., t. i., p. 484.7.Seepages 252 ff... and283.8.Seepages 333 ff.9.Seepages 259 ff.10.Seepage 325 ff.11.Seepages 322 ff.12.Seepage 327.13.I give it entire: "Regina sapientia, Dominus te salvet, cum tua sorore sancta pura simplicitate.—Domina sancta paupertas, Domimus te salvet, cum tua sorore sancta humilitate.—Domina sancta caritas, Dominus te salvet, cum tua sorrore sancta obedientia. Sanctissimæ virtutes omnes, vos salvet Dominus, a quo venitis et proceditis." Its authenticity is guaranteed by a citation by Celano: 2 Cel., 3, 119. Cf. 126b and 127a.14.Seepages 304 f.15.I shall not recur to this: the text is in the Conformities 138a 2.16.The authenticity of this service, to which there is not a single allusion in the biographies of St. Francis, is rendered certain by the life of St. Clara: "Officium crucis, prout crucis amator Franciscus instituerat (Clara) didicit et affectu simili frequentavit." A. SS., Augusti, t. ii., p. 761a.17.It begins:Illi qui volunt stare in heremis. This text is also found in the Conformities, 143a, 1. Cf. 2 Cel., 3, 43; seep. 97.18.Nudis pedibus incedentes, funiculis cincti, tunicis griseis et talaribus peciatis, insuto capucio utentes ... nihil sibi ultra noctem reservantes ... libros continue suos ... in forulis a collo dependentes bajulantes.Historia Anglorum, Pertz:Script., t. 28, p. 397. Cf. 2 Cel., 3, 135;Fior., 5;Spec., 45b.19.Seepage 322 n.20.Seepage 252.21.Seepage 157.22.Seepages 318 ff.23.Seepage 239.24.Seepage 327.25.Seepage 262.26.a.Sanctus Dominus Deus noster.Cf.Spec., 126a;Firmamentum, 18b, 2;Conform., 202b, 1.b.Ave Domina sancta.Cf.Spec., 127a;Conform., 138a, 2.c.Sancta Maria virgo.Cf.Spec., 126b;Conform., 202b, 2.27.Vide S. François, in 4to, Paris. 1885 (Plon), p. 233. The authenticity of this benediction appears to be well established, since it was already jealously guarded during the life of Thomas of Celano. No one has ever dreamed of requiring historical proof of this writing. Is this perhaps a mistake? The middle of the sheet is taken up with the benediction which was dictated to Brother Leo:Benedicat tibi Dominus et custodiat te, ostendat faciem suam tibi et misereatur tui convertat vultum suum ad te et det tibi pacem.At the bottom, Francis added the lettertau.Τ, which was, so to speak, his signature (Bon., 51; 308), and the words:Frater Leo Dominus benedicat te.Then when this memorial became a part of the relics of the Saint, Brother Leo, to authenticate it in a measure, added the following notes: toward the middle:Beatus Franciscus scripsit manu sua istam benedictionem mihi fratri Leoni; toward the close:Simili modo fecit istud signum thau cum capite manu sua. But the most valuable annotation is found at the top of the sheet:Beatus Franciscus duobus annis ante mortem suam fecit quadragesimam in loco Alvernæ ad honorem Beatæ Virginia Mariæ matris Dei et beati Michael archangeli a festo assumptionis sanctæ Mariæ Virginis usque ad festum sancti Michael septembris et facta est super eum manus Domini per visionem et allucotionem seraphym et impressionem stigmatum in corpore suo. Fecit has laudes ex alio latere catule scriptas et manu, sua scripsit gratias agens Domino de beneficio sibi collato.Vide 2 Cel., 2, 18.28.Wadding gives the text according to St. Bernardino da Siena.Opera, t. iv.,sermo16,extraord. et sermo feriæ sextæ Parasceves. Amoni:Legenda trium sociorum, p. 166.29.Wadding has drawn the text from St. Bernardino,loc. cit.,sermoiv.,extraord.It was also reproduced by Amoni,loc. cit., p. 165. Two very curious versions may be found in the Miscellanea, 1888, pp. 96 and 190.30.2 Cel., 3, 35. This took place under the vicariat of Pietro di Catania; consequently between September 29, 1220, and March 10, 1221.
1.Collected first by Wadding (Antwerp, 1623, 4to), they have been published many times since then, particularly by De la Haye (Paris, 1641, fo). These two editions having become scarce, were republished—in a very unsatisfactory manner—by the Abbé Horoy:S. Francisci Assisiatis opera omnia(Paris, 1880, 4to). For want of a more exact edition, that of Father Bernardo da Fivizzano is the most useful:Opuscoli di S. Francesco d'Assisi, 1 vol., 12mo, pp. 564, Florence, 1880. The Latin text is accompanied by an Italian translation.
2."Die Briefe, die unter seinem Namen gehen, mögen theilweise ächt sein. Aber sie tragen kaum etwas zur näheren Kenntniss bei und können daher fast ganz ausser Acht bleiben." Müller,Die Anfänge des Minoritenordens, Freiburg, 1 vol., 8vo, 1885, p. 3.
3.Pieces have been often attributed to St. Francis which do not belong to him; but those are unintentional errors and made without purpose. The desire for literary exactness is relatively of recent date, and it was easier for those who were ignorant of the author of certain Franciscan writings to attribute them to St. Francis than to admit their ignorance or to make deep researches.
4.For example, the first Rule; probably also a few canticles; a letter to the Brothers in France, Eccl., 6; another to the Brothers in Bologna: "Prædixerat per litteram in qua fuit plurimum latinum," Eccl., ib.; a letter to Antony of Padua, other than the one we have, since on the witness of Celano it was addressed:Fratri Antonio episcopo meo(2 Cel., 3, 99); certain letters to St. Clara: "Scripsit Claræ et sororibus ad consolationem litteram in quâ dabat benedictionem suam et absolvebat," etc.Conform., fo. 185a, 1; cf.Test. B. Claræ. A. SS., Augusti, t. ii., p. 767: "Plura scripta tradidit nobis, ne post mortem suam declinaremus a paupertate;" certain letters to Cardinal Ugolini, 3 Soc., 67.
It is not to negligence alone that we must attribute the loss of many of the epistles: "Quod nephas est cogitare, in provincia Marchie et in pluribus aliis locis testamentum beati Francisci mandaverunt (prelati ordinis) districte per obedientiam ab omnibus auferi et comburi. Et uni fratri devoto et sancto, cujus nomen est N. de Rocanato combuxerunt dicum testamentum super caput suum. Et toto conatu fuerunt solliciti, annulare scripta beati patris nostri Francisci, in quibus sua intentio de observantia regule declaratur." Ubertino di Casali,apud Archiv., iii., pp. 168-169.
5.Italy is too obliging to artists, archæologists, and scholars not to do them the favor of disposing in a more practical manner this trust, the most precious of all Umbria. Even with the indefatigable kindness of the curator, M. Alessandro, and of the municipality of Assisi, it is very difficult to profit by these treasures heaped up in a dark room without a table to write upon.
6.In particular by Ehrle:Die historischen Handschriften von S. Francesco in Assisi.Archiv., t. i., p. 484.
7.Seepages 252 ff... and283.
8.Seepages 333 ff.
9.Seepages 259 ff.
10.Seepage 325 ff.
11.Seepages 322 ff.
12.Seepage 327.
13.I give it entire: "Regina sapientia, Dominus te salvet, cum tua sorore sancta pura simplicitate.—Domina sancta paupertas, Domimus te salvet, cum tua sorore sancta humilitate.—Domina sancta caritas, Dominus te salvet, cum tua sorrore sancta obedientia. Sanctissimæ virtutes omnes, vos salvet Dominus, a quo venitis et proceditis." Its authenticity is guaranteed by a citation by Celano: 2 Cel., 3, 119. Cf. 126b and 127a.
14.Seepages 304 f.
15.I shall not recur to this: the text is in the Conformities 138a 2.
16.The authenticity of this service, to which there is not a single allusion in the biographies of St. Francis, is rendered certain by the life of St. Clara: "Officium crucis, prout crucis amator Franciscus instituerat (Clara) didicit et affectu simili frequentavit." A. SS., Augusti, t. ii., p. 761a.
17.It begins:Illi qui volunt stare in heremis. This text is also found in the Conformities, 143a, 1. Cf. 2 Cel., 3, 43; seep. 97.
18.Nudis pedibus incedentes, funiculis cincti, tunicis griseis et talaribus peciatis, insuto capucio utentes ... nihil sibi ultra noctem reservantes ... libros continue suos ... in forulis a collo dependentes bajulantes.Historia Anglorum, Pertz:Script., t. 28, p. 397. Cf. 2 Cel., 3, 135;Fior., 5;Spec., 45b.
19.Seepage 322 n.
20.Seepage 252.
21.Seepage 157.
22.Seepages 318 ff.
23.Seepage 239.
24.Seepage 327.
25.Seepage 262.
26.a.Sanctus Dominus Deus noster.Cf.Spec., 126a;Firmamentum, 18b, 2;Conform., 202b, 1.b.Ave Domina sancta.Cf.Spec., 127a;Conform., 138a, 2.
c.Sancta Maria virgo.Cf.Spec., 126b;Conform., 202b, 2.
27.Vide S. François, in 4to, Paris. 1885 (Plon), p. 233. The authenticity of this benediction appears to be well established, since it was already jealously guarded during the life of Thomas of Celano. No one has ever dreamed of requiring historical proof of this writing. Is this perhaps a mistake? The middle of the sheet is taken up with the benediction which was dictated to Brother Leo:Benedicat tibi Dominus et custodiat te, ostendat faciem suam tibi et misereatur tui convertat vultum suum ad te et det tibi pacem.At the bottom, Francis added the lettertau.Τ, which was, so to speak, his signature (Bon., 51; 308), and the words:Frater Leo Dominus benedicat te.
Then when this memorial became a part of the relics of the Saint, Brother Leo, to authenticate it in a measure, added the following notes: toward the middle:Beatus Franciscus scripsit manu sua istam benedictionem mihi fratri Leoni; toward the close:Simili modo fecit istud signum thau cum capite manu sua. But the most valuable annotation is found at the top of the sheet:Beatus Franciscus duobus annis ante mortem suam fecit quadragesimam in loco Alvernæ ad honorem Beatæ Virginia Mariæ matris Dei et beati Michael archangeli a festo assumptionis sanctæ Mariæ Virginis usque ad festum sancti Michael septembris et facta est super eum manus Domini per visionem et allucotionem seraphym et impressionem stigmatum in corpore suo. Fecit has laudes ex alio latere catule scriptas et manu, sua scripsit gratias agens Domino de beneficio sibi collato.Vide 2 Cel., 2, 18.
28.Wadding gives the text according to St. Bernardino da Siena.Opera, t. iv.,sermo16,extraord. et sermo feriæ sextæ Parasceves. Amoni:Legenda trium sociorum, p. 166.
29.Wadding has drawn the text from St. Bernardino,loc. cit.,sermoiv.,extraord.It was also reproduced by Amoni,loc. cit., p. 165. Two very curious versions may be found in the Miscellanea, 1888, pp. 96 and 190.
30.2 Cel., 3, 35. This took place under the vicariat of Pietro di Catania; consequently between September 29, 1220, and March 10, 1221.
To form a somewhat exact notion of the documents which are to occupy us, we must put them back into the midst of the circumstances in which they appeared, study them in detail, and determine the special value of each one.
Here, more than anywhere else, we must beware of facile theories and hasty generalizations. The same life described by two equally truthful contemporaries may take on a very different coloring. This is especially the case if the man concerned has aroused enthusiasm and wrath, if his inmost thought, his works, have been the subject of discussion, if the very men who were commissioned to realize his ideals and carry on his work are divided, and at odds with one another.
This was the case with St. Francis. In his lifetime and before his own eyes divergences manifested themselves, at first secretly, then in the light of day.
In a rapture of love he went from cottage to cottage, from castle to castle, preaching absolute poverty; but that buoyant enthusiasm, that unbounded idealism, could not last long. The Order of the Brothers Minor in process of growth was open not only to a few choice spirits aflame with mystic fervor, but to all men who aspired after a religious reformation; pious laymen, monks undeceived as to the virtues of the ancient Orders, priests shocked at the vices of the secular clergy, all brought with them—unintentionally no doubt and even unconsciously—too much of their old man not by degrees to transform the institution.
Francis perceived the peril several years before his death, and made every effort to avert it. Even in his dying hour we see him summoning all his powers to declare his Will once again, and as clearly as possible, and to conjure his Brothers never to touch the Rule, even under pretext of commenting upon or explaining it. Alas! four years had not rolled away when Gregory IX., at the prayer of the Brothers themselves, became the first one of a long series of pontiffs who have explained the Rule.1
Poverty, as Francis understood it, soon became only a memory. The unexampled success of the Order brought to it not merely new recruits, but money. How refuse it when there were so many works to found? Many of the friars discovered that their master had exaggerated many things, that shades of meaning were to be observed in the Rule, for example, between counsels and precepts. The door once opened to interpretations, it became impossible to close it. The Franciscan family began to be divided into opposing parties often difficult to distinguish.
At first there were a few restless, undisciplined men who grouped themselves around the older friars. The latter, in their character of first companions of the Saint, found a moral authority often greater than the official authority of the ministers and guardians. The people turned to them by instinct as to the true continuers of St. Francis's work. They were not far from right.
They had the vigor, the vehemence of absolute convictions; they could not have temporized had they desired to do so. When they emerged from their hermitages in the Apennines, their eyes shining with the fever of their ideas, absorbed in contemplation, their whole being spoke of the radiant visions they enjoyed; and theamazed and subdued multitude would kneel to kiss the prints of their feet with hearts mysteriously stirred.
A larger group was that of those Brothers who condemned these methods without being any the less saints. Born far away from Umbria, in countries where nature seems to be a step-mother, where adoration, far from being the instinctive act of a happy soul soaring upward to bless the heavenly Father, is, on the contrary, the despairing cry of an atom lost in immensity, they desired above all things a religious reformation, rational and profound. They dreamed of bringing the Church back to the purity of the ancient days, and saw in the vow of poverty, understood in its largest sense, the best means of struggling against the vices of the clergy; but they forgot the freshness, the Italian gayety, the sunny poetry that there had been in Francis's mission.
Full of admiration for him, they yet desired to enlarge the foundations of his work, and for that they would neglect no means of influence, certainly not learning.
This tendency was the dominant one in France, Germany, and England. In Italy it was represented by a very powerful party, powerful if not in the number, at least in the authority, of its representatives. This was the party favored by the papacy. It was the party of Brother Elias and all the ministers-general of the Order in the thirteenth century, if we except Giovanni di Parma (1247-1257) and Raimondo Gaufridi (1289-1295).
In Italy a third group, the liberals, was much more numerous; men of mediocrity to whom monastic life appeared the most facile existence, vagrant monks happy to secure an aftermath of success by displaying the new Rule, formed in this country the greater part of the Franciscan family.
We can understand without difficulty that documents emanating from such different quarters must bear theimpress of their origin. The men who are to bring us their testimony are combatants in the struggle over the question of poverty, a struggle which for two centuries agitated the Church, aroused all consciences, and which had its monsters and its martyrs.
To determine the value of these witnesses we must first of all discover their origin. It is evident that the narratives of the no-compromise party of the right or the left can have but slender value where controverted points are concerned; whence the conclusion that the authority of a narrator may vary from page to page, or even from line to line.
These considerations, so simple that one almost needs to beg pardon for uttering them, have not, however, guided those who have studied St. Francis's life. The most learned, like Wadding and Papini, have brought together the narratives of different biographers, here and there pruning those that are too contradictory; but they have done this at random, with neither rule nor method, guided by the impression of the moment.
The long work of the Bollandist Suysken is vitiated by an analogous fault; fixed in his principle that the oldest documents are always the best,2he takes his stand upon the first Life of Thomas of Celano as upon an impregnable rock, and judges all other legends by that one.3
When we connect the documents with the disturbed circumstances which brought them into being, some of them lose a little of their authority, others which have been neglected, as being in contradiction with witnesses who have become so to say official, suddenly recovercredit, and in fact all gain a new life which doubles their interest.
This altered point of view in the valuation of the sources, this criticism which I am inclined to call reciprocal and organic, brings about profound alterations in the biography of St. Francis. By a phenomenon which may appear strange we end by sketching a portrait of him much more like that which exists in the popular imagination of Italy than that made by the learned historians above mentioned.
When Francis died (1226) the parties which divided the Order had already entered into conflict. That event precipitated the crisis: Brother Elias had been for five years exercising the functions of minister-general with the title of vicar. He displayed an amazing activity. Intrenched in the confidence of Gregory IX. he removed theZelantifrom their charges, strengthened the discipline even in the most remote provinces, obtained numerous privileges from the curia, and with incredible rapidity prepared for the building of the double basilica, destined for the repose of the ashes of the Stigmatized Saint; but notwithstanding all his efforts, the chapter of 1227 set him aside and chose Giovanni Parenti as minister-general.
Furious at this check, he immediately set all influences to work to be chosen at the following chapter. It even seems as if he paid no attention to the nomination of Giovanni Parenti, and continued to go on as if he had been minister.4
Very popular among the Assisans, who were dazzled by the magnificence of the monument which was springing up on theHill of Hell, now become theHill of Paradise,sure of being supported by a considerable party in the Order and by the pope, he pushed forward the work on the basilica with a decision and success perhaps unique in the annals of architecture.5
All this could not be done without arousing the indignation of the Zealots of poverty. When they saw a monumental poor-box, designed to receive the alms of the faithful, upon the tomb of him who had forbidden his disciples the mere contact of money, it seemed to them that Francis's prophecy of the apostasy of a part of the Order was about to be fulfilled. A tempest of revolt swept over the hermitages of Umbria. Must they not, by any means, prevent this abomination in the holy place?
They knew that Elias was terrible in his severities, but his opponents felt in themselves courage to go to the last extremity, and suffer everything to defend their convictions. One day the poor-box was found shattered by Brother Leo and his friends.6
To this degree of intensity the struggle had arrived. At this crisis the first legend appeared.
Thomas of Celano, in writing this legend, to which he was later to return for its completion, obeyed an express order of Pope Gregory IX.8
Why did he not apply to one of the Brothers of the Saint's immediate circle? The talent of this authormight explain this choice, but besides the fact that literary considerations would in this case hold a secondary place, Brother Leo and several others proved later that they also knew how to handle the pen.
If Celano was put in trust with the official biography, it is because, being equally in sympathy with Gregory IX. and Brother Elias, his absence had kept him out of the conflicts which had marked the last years of Francis's life. Of an irenic temper, he belonged to the category of those souls who easily persuade themselves that obedience is the first of virtues, that every superior is a saint; and if unluckily he is not, that we should none the less act as though he were.
We have some knowledge of his life. A native of Celano in the Abruzzi, he discreetly observes that his family was noble, even adding, with a touch of artless simplicity, that the master had a peculiar regard for noble and educated Brothers. He entered the Order about 1215,9on the return of Francis from Spain.
At the chapter of 1221 Cæsar of Speyer, charged with the mission to Germany, took him among those who were to accompany him.10In 1223 he was named custode of Mayence, Worms, Cologne, and Speyer. In April of the same year, when Cæsar returned to Italy, devoured with the longing to see St. Francis again, he commissioned Celano to execute his functions until the arrival of the new provincial.11
We have no information as to where he was after the chapter-general held at Speyer September 8, 1223. Hemust have been in Assisi in 1228, for his account of the canonization is that of an eye-witness. He was there again in 1230, and doubtless clothed with an important office, since he could commit to Brother Giordano the relics of St. Francis.12
Written in a pleasing style, very often poetic, his work breathes an affecting admiration for his hero; his testimony at once makes itself felt as sincere and true: when he is partial it is without intention and even without his knowledge. The weak point in this biography is the picture which it outlines of the relations between Brother Elias and the founder of the Order: from the chapters devoted to the last two years we receive a very clear impression that Elias was named by Francis to succeed him.13
Now if we reflect that at the time when Celano wrote, Giovanni Parenti was minister-general, we at once perceive the bearing of these indications.14Every opportunity is seized to give a preponderating importance to Elias.15It is a true manifesto in his favor.
Have we reason to blame Celano? I think not. Wemust simply remember that his work might with justice be called the legend of Gregory IX. Elias was the pope's man, and the biography is worked up from the information he gave. He could not avoid dwelling with peculiar satisfaction upon his intimacy with Francis.
On the other hand, we cannot expect to find here such details as might have sustained the pretension of the adversaries of Elias, those unruly Zealots who were already proudly adorning themselves with the title ofCompanions of the Saintand endeavoring to constitute a sort of spiritual aristocracy in the Order. Among them were four who during the last two years had not, so to say, quitted Francis. We can imagine how difficult it was not to speak of them. Celano carefully omits to mention their names under pretext of sparing their modesty;16but by the praises lavished upon Gregory IX., Brother Elias,17St. Clara,18and even upon very secondary persons, he shows that his discretion is far from being always so alert.
All this is very serious, but we must not exaggerate it. There is an evident partiality, but it would be unjust to go farther and believe, as men did later, that the last part of Francis's life was an active struggle against the very person of Elias. A struggle there surely was, but it was against tendencies whose spring Francis did not perceive. He carried with him to his tomb his delusion as to his co-laborer.
For that matter this defect is after all secondary so far as the physiognomy of Francis himself is concerned. In Celano's Life, as in the Three Companions or the Fioretti,he appears with a smile for all joys, and floods of tears for all woes; we feel everywhere the restrained emotion of the writer; his heart is subjected by the moral beauty of his hero.
When Thomas of Celano closed his legend he perceived more than anyone the deficiencies of his work, for which he had been able to collect but insufficient material.
Elias and the other Assisan brothers had told him of Francis's youth and his activity in Umbria; but besides that he would have preferred, whether from prudence or from love of peace, to keep silence upon certain events,19there were long periods upon which he had not received a single item of information.20
He therefore seems to indicate his intention of resuming and completing his work.21
This is not the place to write the history of the Order, but a few facts are necessary to put the documents into their proper surroundings.
Elected minister-general in 1232, Brother Elias took advantage of the fact to labor with indomitable energy toward the realization of his own ideas. In all the provinces new collections were organized for the Basilica of Assisi, the work upon which was pushed with an activity which however injured neither the strength of the edificenor the beauty of its details, which are as finished and perfect as those of any monument in Europe.
We may conceive of the enormous sums which it had been necessary to raise in order to complete such an enterprise in so short a time. More than that, Brother Elias exacted absolute obedience from all his subordinates; naming and removing the provincial ministers according to his personal views, he neglected to convoke the chapter-general, and sent his emissaries under the name of visitors into all the provinces to secure the execution of his orders.
The moderate party in Germany, France, and England very soon found his yoke insupportable. It was hard for them to be directed by an Italian minister resident at Assisi, a small town quite aside from the highways of civilization, entirely a stranger to the scientific movement concentred in the universities of Oxford, Paris, and Bologna.
In the indignation of theZelantiagainst Elias and his contempt for the Rule, they found a decisive support. Very soon the minister had for his defence nothing but his own energy, and the favor of the pope and of the few Italian moderates. By a great increase of vigilance and severity he repressed several attempts at revolt.
His adversaries, however, succeeded in establishing secret intelligence at the court of Rome; even the pope's confessor was gained; yet in spite of all these circumstances, the success of the conspiracy was still uncertain when the chapter of 1239 opened.
Gregory IX., still favorable to Elias,22presided. Fear gave sudden courage to the conspirators; they threw their accusations in their enemy's face.
Thomas of Eccleston gives a highly colored narrative of what took place. Elias was proud, violent, even threatening. There were cries and vociferations from both sides; they were about to come to blows when a few words from the pope restored silence. He had made up his mind to abandon hisprotégé. He asked for his resignation. Elias indignantly refused.
Gregory IX. then explained that in keeping him in charge he had thought himself acting in accordance with the wishes of the majority: that he had no intention to dominate the Order, and, since the Brothers no longer desired Elias, he declared him deposed from the generalate.
The joy of the victors, says Eccleston, was immense and ineffable. They chose Alberto di Pisa, provincial of England, to succeed him, and from that time bent all their efforts to represent Elias as a creature of Frederick II.23The former minister wrote indeed to the pope to explain his conduct, but the letter did not reach its destination. It must have reached the hands of his successor, and not been sent forward; when Alberto of Pisa died it was found in his tunic.24
All the fury of the aged pontiff was unchained against Elias. One must read the documents to see to what a height his anger could rise. The friar retorted with a virulence which though less wordy was far more overpowering.25
These events gained an indescribable notoriety26all over Europe and threw the Order into profound disturbance. Many of the partisans of Elias became convinced that they had been deceived by an impostor, and they drew toward the group of Zealots, who never ceased to demand the observance pure and simple of the Rule and the Will.
Thomas of Celano was of this number.27With profound sadness he saw the innumerable influences that were secretly undermining the Franciscan institute and menacing it with ruin. Already a refrain was going the rounds of the convents, singing the victory of Paris over Assisi, that is, of learning over poverty.
The Zealots gained new courage. Unaccustomed to the subtleties of ecclesiastical politics, they did not perceive that the pope, while condemning Brother Elias, had in nowise modified the general course which he had marked out for the Order. The ministers-general, Alberto di Pisa, 1239-1240, Aymon of Faversham, 1240-1244, Crescentius de Jesi, 1244-1247, were all, with different shades of meaning, representatives of the moderate party.
Thomas of Celano's first legend had become impossible.The prominence there given to Elias was almost a scandal. The necessity of working it over and completing it became clearly evident at the chapter of Genoa (1244).
All the Brothers who had anything to tell about Francis's life were invited to commit it to writing and send it to the minister Crescentius de Jesi.28The latter immediately caused a tract to be drawn up in the form of a dialogue, commencing with the words: "Venerabilium gesta Patrum." So soon after as the time of Bernard de Besse, only fragments of this were left.29
But happily several of the works which saw the light in consequence of the decision of this chapter have been preserved to us. It is to this that we owe the Legend of the Three Companions and the Second Life by Thomas of Celano.
The life of St. Francis which has come down to us under the name of the Legend of the Three Companionswas finished on August 11, 1246, in a little convent in the vale of Rieti, which appears often in the course of this history, that of Greccio. This hermitage had been Francis's favorite abode, especially in the latter part of his life. He had thus made it doubly dear to the hearts of his disciples.31It naturally became, from the earliest days of the Order, the headquarters of the Observants,32and it remains through all the centuries one of the purest centres of Franciscan piety.
The authors of this legend were men worthy to tell St. Francis's story, and perhaps the most capable of doing it: the friars Leo, Angelo, and Rufino. All three had lived in intimacy with him, and had been his companions through the most important years. More than this, they took the trouble to go to others for further information, particularly to Filippo, the visitor of the Clarisses, to Illuminato di Rieti, Masseo di Marignano, John, the confidant of Egidio, and Bernardo di Quintavalle.
Such names as these promise much, and happily we are not disappointed in our expectation. As it has come down to us, this document is the only one worthy from the point of view of history to be placed beside the First Life by Celano.
The names of the authors and the date of the composition indicate before examination the tendency with which it is likely to be in harmony. It is the first manifesto of the Brothers who remained faithful to the spirit and letter of the Rule. This is confirmed by an attentive reading; it is at least as much a panegyric of Poverty as a history of St. Francis.
We naturally expect to see the Three Companions relating to us with a very particular delight the innumerable features of the legends of which Greccio was the theatre; we turn to the end of the volume, expecting to find the story of the last years of which they were witnesses, and are lost in surprise to find nothing of the kind.
While the first half of the work describes Francis's youth, filling out here and there Celano's First Life, the second33is devoted to a picture of the early days of the Order, a picture of incomparable freshness and intensity of life; but strangely enough, after having told us so much at length of Francis's youth and then of the first days of the Order, the story abruptly leaps over from the year 1220 to the death and the canonization, to which after all only a few pages are given.34
This is too extraordinary to be the result of chance. What has happened? It is evident that the Legend of the Three Companions as we have it to-day is only a fragment of the original, which was no doubt revised, corrected, and considerably cut down by the authorities of the Order before they would permit it to be circulated.35If the authors had been interrupted in their work, and obliged to cut short the end, as might have been the case, they would have said so in their letter of envoy, but there are still other arguments in favor of our hypothesis.
Brother Leo having had the first and principal part in the production of the work of the Three Companions, it is often called Brother Leo's Legend; now Brother Leo's Legend is several times cited by Ubertini di Casali, arraigned before the court of Avignon by the party of the Common Observance. Evidently Ubertini would have taken good care not to appeal to an apocryphal document; a false citation would have been enough to bring him to confusion, and his enemies would not have failed to make the most of his imprudence. We have at hand all the documents of the trial,36attacks, replies, counter replies, and nowhere do we see the Liberals accuse their adversary of falsehood. For that matter, the latter makes his citations with a precision that admits of no cavil.37He appeals to writings to be found in a press in the convent of Assisi, of which he gives sometimes a copy, sometimes an original.38We are then authorized to conclude that we have here fragments which have survived the suppression of the last and most important part of the Legend of the Three Companions.
It is not surprising that the work of Francis's dearest friends should have been so seriously mutilated. It was the manifesto of a party that Crescentius was hunting down with all his power.
After the fleeting reaction of the generalate of Giovanni di Parma we shall see a man of worth like St. Bonaventura moving for the suppression of all the primitive legends that his own compilation may be substituted for them.
It is truly singular that no one has perceived the fragmentary state of the work of the Three Companions. The prologue alone might have suggested this idea. Why should it take three to write a few pages? Why this solemn enumeration of Brothers whose testimony and collaboration are asked for? There would be a surprising disproportion between the effort and the result.
More than all, the authors say that they shall not stop at relating the miracles, but they desire above all to exhibit the ideas of Francis and his life with the Brothers, but we search in vain for any account of miracles in what we now have.39
An Italian translation of this legend, published byFather Stanislaus Melchiorri,40has suddenly given me an indirect confirmation of this point of view. This monk is only its publisher, and has simply been able to discover that in 1577 it was taken from a very ancient manuscript by a certain Muzio Achillei di San Severino.41
This Italian translation contained only the last chapters of the legend, those which tell of the death, the stigmata, and the translation of the remains.42It was, then, made at a time when the suppressed portion had not been replaced by a short summary of the other legends.
From all this two conclusions emerge for the critics: 1. This final summary has not the same authority as the rest of the work, since the time when it was added is unknown. 2. Fragments of a legend by Brother Leo or by the Three Companions scattered through later compilations may be perfectly authentic.
In its present condition this legend of the Three Companions is the finest piece of Franciscan literature, and one of the most delightful productions of the Middle Ages. There is something indescribably sweet, confiding, chaste, in these pages, an energy of virile youth which the Fioretti suggest but never attain to. At more than six hundred years of distance the purest dream that ever thrilled the Christian Church seems to live again.
These friars of Greccio, who, scattered over the mountain, under the shade of the olive-trees, passed their days in singing the Hymn of the Sun, are the true models of the primitive Umbrian Masters. They are all alike; they are awkwardly posed; everything in andaround them sins against the most elementary rules of art, and yet their memory pursues you, and when you have long forgotten the works of impeccable modern artists you recall without effort these creations of those unknown painters; for love calls for love, and these vapid personages have very true and pure hearts, a more than human love shines forth from their whole being, they speak to you and make you better.
Such is this book, the first utterance of the Spiritual Franciscans, in which we already see the coming to life of some of those bold doctrines that not only divided the Franciscan family into two hostile branches, but which were to bring some of their defenders to the heretic's stake.43
We may now take a step forward and try to group the fragments of the Legend of the Three Companions, or of Brother Leo, which are to be found in later writings.
We must here be more than ever on our guard against absolute theories; one of the most fruitful principles of historic criticism is to prefer contemporary documents, or at least those which are nearest them; but even with these it is necessary to use a little discretion.
It seems impossible to attack the reasoning of the Bollandists, who refuse to know anything of legends written after that of St. Bonaventura (1260), under pretext that,coming after several other authorized biographies, he was better situated than anyone for getting information and completing the work of his predecessors.44In reality this is absurd, for it assumes that Bonaventura undertook to write as a historian. This is to forget that he wrote not only for the purpose of edification, but also as minister-general of the Minor Brothers. From this fact his first duty was to keep silent on many facts, and those not the least interesting. What shall we say of a biography where Francis's Will is not even mentioned?
It is easy to turn away from a writing of the fourteenth century, on the ground that the author did not see what was going on a hundred years before; still we must not forget that many books of the end of the Middle Ages resemble those old mansions at which four or five generators have toiled. An inscription on their front often only shows the touch of the last restorer or the last destroyer, and the names which are set forth with the greatest complacency are not always those of the real workmen.
Such have been many Franciscan books; to attribute them to any one author would be impracticable; very different hands have worked upon them, and such an amalgam has its own charm and interest.
Turning them over—I had almost said associating with them—we come to see clearly into this tangled web, for every work of man bears the trace of the hand that made it: this trace may perhaps be of an almost imperceptible delicacy; it exists none the less, ready to reveal itself to practised eyes. What is more impersonal than the photograph of a landscape or of a painting, and yet among several hundreds of proofs the amateur will go straight to the work of the operator he prefers.
These reflections were suggested by the careful studyof a curious book printed many times since the sixteenth century, theSpeculum Vitæ S. Francisci et sociorum ejus.45A complete study of this work, its sources, its printed editions, the numerous differences in the manuscripts, would by itself require a volume and an epitome of the history of the Order. I can give here only a few notes, taking for base the oldest edition, that of 1504.
The confusion which reigns here is frightful. Incidents in the life of Francis and his companions are brought together with no plan; several of them are repeated after the interval of a few pages in a quite different manner;46certain chapters are so awkwardly introduced that the compiler has forgotten to remove the number that they bore in the work from which he borrowed them;47finally, to our great surprise, we find severalIncipit.48
However, with a little perseverance we soon perceive a few openings in the labyrinth. In the first place, here are several chapters of the legend of Bonaventura which seem to have been put in the van as if to protect the rest of the book. If we abstract them and the whole series of chapters from the Fioretti, we shall have diminished the work by nearly three-quarters.
If we take away two more chapters taken from St. Bernard of Clairvaux and those containing Franciscan prayers, or various attestations concerning the indulgence of Portiuncula, we finally arrive at a sort of residue, if the expression may be forgiven, of a remarkable homogeneity.
Here the style is very different from that in the surrounding pages, closely recalling that of the Three Companions; a single thought inspires these pages, that the corner-stone of the Order is the love of poverty.
Why should we not have here some fragments of the original legend of the Three Companions? We find here nothing which does not fit in with what we know, nothing which suggests the embellishments of a late tradition.
To confirm this hypothesis come different passages which we find cited by Ubertini di Casali and by Angelo Clareno as being by Brother Leo, and an attentive comparison of the text shows that these authors can neither have drawn them from the Speculum nor the Speculum from them.
There is, besides, one phrase which, apart from the inspiration and style, will suffice at the first glance to mark the common origin of most of these pieces.49Nos qui cum ipso fuimus. "We who have been with him." Thesewords, which recur in almost every incident,50are in many cases only a grateful tribute to their spiritual father, but sometimes, too, they have a touch of bitterness. These hermits of Greccio suddenly recall to mind their rights. Are we not the only, the true interpreters of the Saint's instructions—we who lived continually with him; we who, hour after hour, have meditated upon his words, his sighs, and his hymns?
We can understand that such pretensions were not to the taste of the Common Observance, and that Crescentius, with an incontestable authority, has suppressed nearly all this legend.51
As for the fragments that have been preserved to us, though they furnish many details about the last years of St. Francis's life, they still are not those whose loss is so much to be regretted. The authors who reproduce them were defending a cause. We owe them little more than the incidents which in one way or another concern the question of poverty. They had nothing to do with the other accounts, as they were not writing a biography. But even within these narrow limits these fragments are in the first order of importance; and I have not hesitated to use them largely. It is needless to say that while ascribing their origin to the Three Companions, and in particular to Brother Leo, we must not suppose that we have the very letter in the texts which have come down to us. The pieces given by Ubertini di Casali and Angelo Clareno are actual citations, and deserve full confidence as such. As for those which are preserved to us in the Speculum, they mayoften have been abridged, explanatory notes may have slipped into the text, but nowhere do we find interpolations in the bad sense of the word.52
Finally, if we compare the fragments with the corresponding accounts in the Second Life of Celano, we see that the latter has often borrowed verbatim from Brother Leo, but generally he has considerably abridged the passages, adding reflections here and there, especially retouching the style to make it more elegant.
Such a comparison soon proves that Brother Leo's narratives are the original and that it is impossible to see in them a later amplification of those of Thomas of Celano, as we might at first be tempted to think them.53
In consequence of the decision of the chapter of 1244 search was begun in all quarters for memorials of theearly times of the Order. In view of the ardor of this inquiry, in which zeal for the glory of the Franciscan institute certainly cast the interests of history into the background, the minister-general, Crescentius, was obliged to take certain precautions.
Many of the pieces that he received were doing double duty; others might contradict one another; many of them, under color of telling the life of the Saint, had no other object than to oppose the present to the past.
It soon became imperative to constitute a sort of commission charged to study and coördinate all this matter.55What more natural than to put Thomas of Celano at its head? Ever since the approbation of the first legend by Gregory IX. he had appeared to be in a sense the official historiographer of the Order.56
This view accords perfectly with the contents of the seventeen chapters which contain the first part of the second legend. It offers itself at the outset as a compilation. Celano is surrounded with companions who help him.57A more attentive examination shows that its principal source is the Legend of the Three Companions,which the compilers worked over, sometimes filling out certain details, more often making large excisions.
Everything that does not concern St. Francis is ruthlessly proscribed; we feel the well-defined purpose to leave in the background the disciples who so complacently placed themselves in the foreground.58
The work of the Three Companions had been finished August 11, 1246. On July 13, 1247, the chapter of Lyons put an end to the powers of Crescentius. It is, therefore, between these two dates that we must place the composition of the first part of Thomas of Celano's Second Life.59
The election of Giovanni di Parma (1247-1257) as successor of Crescentius was a victory for the Zealots. This man, in whose work-table the birds came to make their nests,61was to astonish the world by his virtues. No one saw more deeply into St. Francis's heart, no one was more worthy to take up and continue his work.
He soon asked Celano to resume his work.62The latterwas perhaps alone at first, but little by little a group of collaborators formed itself anew about him.63Thenceforth nothing prevented his doing with that portion of the work of the Three Companions which Crescentius had suppressed what he had already done with the part he had approved.
The Legend of Brother Leo has thus come down to us, entirely worked over by Thomas of Celano, abridged and with all its freshness gone, but still of capital importance in the absence of the major part of the original.
The events of which we possess two accounts permit us to measure the extent of our loss. We find, in fact, in Celano's compilation all that we expected to find in the Three Companions: the incidents belong especially to the last two years of Francis's life, and the scene of many of them is either Greccio or one of the hermitages of the vale of Rieti;64according to tradition, Brother Leo was the hero of a great number of the incidents here related65and all the citations that Ubertini di Casali makes from Brother Leo's book find their correspondents here.66
This second part of the Second Life perfectly reflects the new circumstances to which it owes its existence. The question of Poverty dominates everything;67the struggle between the two parties in the Order reveals itself on every page; the collaborators are determined that each event narrated shall be an indirect lesson to the Liberals, to whom they oppose the Spirituals; the popes had commented on the Rule in the large sense; they, on their side, undertook to comment on it in a sense at once literal and spiritual, by the actions and words of its author himself.
History has hardly any part here except as the vehicle of a thesis, a fact which diminishes nothing of the historic value of the information given in the course of these pages. But while in Celano's First Life and in the Legend of the Three Companions the facts succeed one another organically, here they are placed side by side. Therefore when we come to read this work we are sensible of a fall; even from the literary point of view the inferiority makes itself cruelly felt. Instead of a poem we have before us a catalogue, very cleverly made, it is true, but with no power to move us.
Thomas of Celano made also a short legend for use in the choir. It is divided into nine lessons and served for the Franciscan breviaries up to the time when St. Bonaventura made hisLegenda Minor.
That of Celano may be found in part (the first three lessons) in the Assisi MS. 338, fol. 52a-53b; it is precededby a letter of envoy: "Rogasti me frater Benedicte, ut de legenda B. P. N. F. quædam exciperem et in novem lectionum seriem ordinarem... etc.B. Franciscus de civitate Assisii ortus a puerilibus annis nutritus extitit insolenter."
This work has no historic importance.
In the list of biographers has sometimes been counted a poem in hexameter verse68the text of which was edited in 1882 by the lamented Cristofani.69
This work does not furnish a single new historic note. It is the Life by Celano in verse and nothing more; the author's desire was to figure as a poet. It is superfluous, therefore, to concern ourselves with it.70
One of the biographies which disappeared, no doubt in consequence of the decision of the chapter of 1266,71is that of Giovanni di Ceperano. The resemblance of his name to that of Thomas of Celano has occasioned much confusion.72The most precious information which we have respecting him is given by Bernard of Besse in the opening of hisDe laudibus St. Francisci: "Plenam virtutibus B. Francisci vitam scripsit in Italia exquisitævir eloquentiæ fr. Thomas jubente Domino Gregorio papa IX. et eam quæ incipit: Quasi stella matutina vir venerabilis Dominus et fertur Joannes, Apostolicæ sedis notarius."73
In the face of so precise a text all doubt as to the existence of the work of Giovanni di Ceperano is impossible. The Reverend Father Denifle has been able to throw new light upon this question. In a manuscript containing the liturgy of the Brothers Minor and finished in 1256 he found the nine lessons for the festival of St. Francis preceded by the title:Ex gestis ejus abbreviatis quæ sic incipiunt: Quasi stella(Zeitschrift für kath. Theol., vii., p. 710. Cf.Archiv., i., p. 148). This summary of Ceperano's work gives, as we should expect, no new information; but perhaps we need not despair of finding the very work of this author.
It was doubtless about 1230 that Brother Julian, the Teuton, who had been chapel-master at the court of the King of France, was commissioned to put the finishing touches to the Office of St. Francis.74Evidently such a work would contain nothing original, and its loss is little felt.