FOOTNOTES1.It was published by Sbaralea, Bull., t. iv., p. 156, note h. This act was drawn up July 9, 1274, at a time when the son of Orlando as well as the Brothers Minor desired to authenticate the donation, which until then had been verbal.2.SeeRegistri dei Cardinali Ugolino d'Ostia e Ottaviano degli Ubaldini pubblicati a cura di Guido Levi dall'Istituto storico italiano.—Fonti per la storia d'Italia, Roma, 1890, 1 vol., 4to, xxviii. and 250 pp. This edition follows the manuscript of the National Library, Paris: Ancien fonds Colbert lat., 5152A. We must draw attention to a very beautiful work due also to Mr. G. Levi:Documenti ad illustrazione del Registro del Card. Ugolino, in theArchivio della societa Romana di storia patria, t. xii. (1889), pp. 241-326.3.Bullarium franciscanum seu Rom. Pontificum constitutiones epistolæ diplomata ordinibus Minorum, Clarissarum et Pœnitentium concessa, edidit Joh. Hyac. Sbaralea ord. min. conv., 4 vols., fol., Rome, t. i. (1759), t. ii. (1761), t. iii. (1763), t iv., (1768)—Supplementum ab Annibale de Latera ord. min. obs. Romæ, 1780.—Sbaralea had a comparatively easy task, because of the number of collections made before his. I shall mention only one of those which I have before me. It is, comparatively, very well done, and appears to have escaped the researches of the Franciscan bibliographers:Singularissimum eximiumque opus universis mortalibus sacratissimi ordinis seraphici patris nostri Francisci a Domino Jesu mirabili modo approbati necnon a quampluribus nostri Redemptoris sanctissimis vicariis romanis pontificabus multipharie declarati notitiam habere cupientibus profecto per necessarium. Speculum Minorum ... per Martinum Morin ... Rouen, 1509. It is 8vo, with numbered folios, printed with remarkable care. It contains besides the bulls the principal dissertations upon the Rule, elaborated in the thirteenth century, and aMemoriale ordinis(first part, fo60-82), a kind of catalogue of the ministers-general, which would have prevented many of the errors of the historians, if it had been known.4.The Bollandists themselves have entirely overlooked those sources of information, thinking, upon the authority of a single badly interpreted passage, that the Order had not obtained a single bull before the solemn approval of Honorius III., November 29, 1223.5.And not March 29, as Sbaralea has it. The original, which I have had under my eyes in the archives of Assisi, bears in fact:Datum Anagnie XI. Kal. aprilis pontificatus nostri anno sexto.6.The Abbé Horoy has indeed published in five volumes what he entitles theOpera omniaof Honorius III., but he omits, without a word of explanation, a great number of letters, certain of which are brought forward in the well-known collection of Potthast. The Abbé Pietro Pressuti has undertaken to publish a compendium of all the bulls of this pope according to the original Registers of the Vatican.I regesti del Pontifice Onorio III.Roma, t. i., 1884. Volume i. only has as yet appeared.
1.It was published by Sbaralea, Bull., t. iv., p. 156, note h. This act was drawn up July 9, 1274, at a time when the son of Orlando as well as the Brothers Minor desired to authenticate the donation, which until then had been verbal.2.SeeRegistri dei Cardinali Ugolino d'Ostia e Ottaviano degli Ubaldini pubblicati a cura di Guido Levi dall'Istituto storico italiano.—Fonti per la storia d'Italia, Roma, 1890, 1 vol., 4to, xxviii. and 250 pp. This edition follows the manuscript of the National Library, Paris: Ancien fonds Colbert lat., 5152A. We must draw attention to a very beautiful work due also to Mr. G. Levi:Documenti ad illustrazione del Registro del Card. Ugolino, in theArchivio della societa Romana di storia patria, t. xii. (1889), pp. 241-326.3.Bullarium franciscanum seu Rom. Pontificum constitutiones epistolæ diplomata ordinibus Minorum, Clarissarum et Pœnitentium concessa, edidit Joh. Hyac. Sbaralea ord. min. conv., 4 vols., fol., Rome, t. i. (1759), t. ii. (1761), t. iii. (1763), t iv., (1768)—Supplementum ab Annibale de Latera ord. min. obs. Romæ, 1780.—Sbaralea had a comparatively easy task, because of the number of collections made before his. I shall mention only one of those which I have before me. It is, comparatively, very well done, and appears to have escaped the researches of the Franciscan bibliographers:Singularissimum eximiumque opus universis mortalibus sacratissimi ordinis seraphici patris nostri Francisci a Domino Jesu mirabili modo approbati necnon a quampluribus nostri Redemptoris sanctissimis vicariis romanis pontificabus multipharie declarati notitiam habere cupientibus profecto per necessarium. Speculum Minorum ... per Martinum Morin ... Rouen, 1509. It is 8vo, with numbered folios, printed with remarkable care. It contains besides the bulls the principal dissertations upon the Rule, elaborated in the thirteenth century, and aMemoriale ordinis(first part, fo60-82), a kind of catalogue of the ministers-general, which would have prevented many of the errors of the historians, if it had been known.4.The Bollandists themselves have entirely overlooked those sources of information, thinking, upon the authority of a single badly interpreted passage, that the Order had not obtained a single bull before the solemn approval of Honorius III., November 29, 1223.5.And not March 29, as Sbaralea has it. The original, which I have had under my eyes in the archives of Assisi, bears in fact:Datum Anagnie XI. Kal. aprilis pontificatus nostri anno sexto.6.The Abbé Horoy has indeed published in five volumes what he entitles theOpera omniaof Honorius III., but he omits, without a word of explanation, a great number of letters, certain of which are brought forward in the well-known collection of Potthast. The Abbé Pietro Pressuti has undertaken to publish a compendium of all the bulls of this pope according to the original Registers of the Vatican.I regesti del Pontifice Onorio III.Roma, t. i., 1884. Volume i. only has as yet appeared.
1.It was published by Sbaralea, Bull., t. iv., p. 156, note h. This act was drawn up July 9, 1274, at a time when the son of Orlando as well as the Brothers Minor desired to authenticate the donation, which until then had been verbal.
2.SeeRegistri dei Cardinali Ugolino d'Ostia e Ottaviano degli Ubaldini pubblicati a cura di Guido Levi dall'Istituto storico italiano.—Fonti per la storia d'Italia, Roma, 1890, 1 vol., 4to, xxviii. and 250 pp. This edition follows the manuscript of the National Library, Paris: Ancien fonds Colbert lat., 5152A. We must draw attention to a very beautiful work due also to Mr. G. Levi:Documenti ad illustrazione del Registro del Card. Ugolino, in theArchivio della societa Romana di storia patria, t. xii. (1889), pp. 241-326.
3.Bullarium franciscanum seu Rom. Pontificum constitutiones epistolæ diplomata ordinibus Minorum, Clarissarum et Pœnitentium concessa, edidit Joh. Hyac. Sbaralea ord. min. conv., 4 vols., fol., Rome, t. i. (1759), t. ii. (1761), t. iii. (1763), t iv., (1768)—Supplementum ab Annibale de Latera ord. min. obs. Romæ, 1780.—Sbaralea had a comparatively easy task, because of the number of collections made before his. I shall mention only one of those which I have before me. It is, comparatively, very well done, and appears to have escaped the researches of the Franciscan bibliographers:Singularissimum eximiumque opus universis mortalibus sacratissimi ordinis seraphici patris nostri Francisci a Domino Jesu mirabili modo approbati necnon a quampluribus nostri Redemptoris sanctissimis vicariis romanis pontificabus multipharie declarati notitiam habere cupientibus profecto per necessarium. Speculum Minorum ... per Martinum Morin ... Rouen, 1509. It is 8vo, with numbered folios, printed with remarkable care. It contains besides the bulls the principal dissertations upon the Rule, elaborated in the thirteenth century, and aMemoriale ordinis(first part, fo60-82), a kind of catalogue of the ministers-general, which would have prevented many of the errors of the historians, if it had been known.
4.The Bollandists themselves have entirely overlooked those sources of information, thinking, upon the authority of a single badly interpreted passage, that the Order had not obtained a single bull before the solemn approval of Honorius III., November 29, 1223.
5.And not March 29, as Sbaralea has it. The original, which I have had under my eyes in the archives of Assisi, bears in fact:Datum Anagnie XI. Kal. aprilis pontificatus nostri anno sexto.
6.The Abbé Horoy has indeed published in five volumes what he entitles theOpera omniaof Honorius III., but he omits, without a word of explanation, a great number of letters, certain of which are brought forward in the well-known collection of Potthast. The Abbé Pietro Pressuti has undertaken to publish a compendium of all the bulls of this pope according to the original Registers of the Vatican.I regesti del Pontifice Onorio III.Roma, t. i., 1884. Volume i. only has as yet appeared.
Born at Giano, in Umbria, in the mountainous district which closes the southern horizon of Assisi, Brother Giordano was in 1221 one of the twenty-six friars who, under the conduct of Cæsar of Speyer, set out for Germany. He seems to have remained attached to this province until his death, even when most of the friars, especially those who held cures, had been transferred, often to a distance of several months' journey, from one end of Europe to the other. It is not, then, surprising that he was often prayed to commit his memories to writing. He dictated them to Brother Baldwin of Brandenburg in the spring of 1262. He must have done it with joy, having long before prepared himself for the task. He relates with artless simplicity how in 1221, at the chapter-general of Portiuncula, he went from group to group questioning as to their names and country the Brothers who were going to set out on distant missions, that he might be able to say later, especially if they came to suffer martyrdom: "I knew them myself!"2
His chronicle bears the imprint of this tendency. What he desires to describe is the introduction of the Order into Germany and its early developments there, and he does it by enumerating, with a complacency which has its own coquetry, the names of a multitude of friars3and by carefully dating the events. These details, tedious for the ordinary reader, are precious to the historian; he sees there the diverse conditions from which the friars were recruited, and the rapidity with which a handful of missionaries thrown into an unknown country were able to branch out, found new stations, and in five years cover with a network of monasteries, the Tyrol, Saxony, Bavaria, Alsace, and the neighboring provinces.
It is needless to say that it is worth while to test Giordano's chronology, for he begins by praying the reader to forgive the errors which may have escaped him on this head; but a man who thus marks in his memory what he desires later to tell or to write is not an ordinary witness.
Reading his chronicle, it seems as if we were listening to the recollections of an old soldier, who grasps certain worthless details and presents them with an extraordinary power of relief, who knows not how to resist the temptation to bring himself forward, at the risk sometimes of slightly embellishing the dry reality.4
In fact this chronicle swarms with anecdotes somewhat personal, but very artless and welcome, and which on the whole carry in themselves the testimony to their authenticity. The perfume of the Fioretti already exhales from these pages so full of candor and manliness; we can follow the missionaries stage by stage, then when they are settled, open the door of the monastery and read in thevery hearts of these men, many of whom are as brave as heroes and harmless as doves.
It is true that this chronicle deals especially with Germany, but the first chapters have an importance for Francis's history that exceeds even that of the biographers. Thanks to Giordano of Giano, we are from this time forward informed upon the crises which the institute of Francis passed through after 1219; he furnishes us the solidly historical base which seems to be lacking in the documents emanating from the Spirituals, and corroborates their testimony.
Our knowledge of Thomas of Eccleston is very slight, for he has left no more trace of himself in the history of the Order than of Simon of Esseby, to whom he dedicates his work. A native no doubt of Yorkshire, he seems never to have quitted England. He was twenty-five years gathering the materials of his work, which embraces the course of events from 1224 almost to 1260. The last facts that he relates belong to years very near to this date.
Of almost double the length of that of Giordano, Eccleston's work is far from furnishing as interesting reading. The former had seen nearly everything that he described, and thence resulted a vigor in his story that we cannotfind in an author who writes on the testimony of others. More than this, while Giordano follows a chronological order, Eccleston has divided his incidents under fifteen rubrics, in which the same people continually reappear in a confusion which at length becomes very wearisome. Finally, his document is amazingly partial: the author is not content with merely proving that the English friars are saints; he desires to show that the province of England surpasses all others6by its fidelity to the Rule and its courage against the upholders of new ways, Brother Elias in particular.
But these few faults ought not to make us lose sight of the true value of this document. It embraces what we may call the heroic period of the Franciscan movement in England, and describes it with extreme simplicity.
Aside from all question of history, we have here enough to interest all those who are charmed by the spectacle of moral conquest. On Monday, September 10th, the Brothers Minor landed at Dover. They were nine in number: a priest, a deacon, two who had only the lesser Orders, and five laymen. They visited Canterbury, London, Oxford, Cambridge, Lincoln, and less than ten months later all who have made their mark in the history of science or of sanctity had joined them; it may suffice to name Adam of Marisco, Richard of Cornwall, Bishop Robert Grossetête, one of the proudest and purest figures of the Middle Ages, and Roger Bacon, that persecuted monk who several centuries before his time grappled with and answered in his lonely cell the problems of authority and method, with a firmness and power which the sixteenth century would find it hard to surpass.
It is impossible that in such a movement human weaknesses and passions should not here and there reveal themselves, but we owe our chronicler thanks for not hiding them. Thanks to him, we can for a moment forget the present hour, call to life again that first Cambridge chapel—so slight that it took a carpenter only one day to build it—listen to three Brothers chanting matins that same night, and that with so much ardor that one of them—so rickety that his two companions were obliged to carry him—wept for joy: in England as in Italy the Franciscan gospel was a gospel of peace and joy. Moral ugliness inspired them with a pity which we no longer know. There are few historic incidents finer than that of Brother Geoffrey of Salisbury confessing Alexander of Bissingburn; the noble penitent was performing this duty without attention, as if he were telling some sort of a story; suddenly his confessor melted into tears, making him blush with shame and forcing tears also from him, working in him so complete a revolution that he begged to be taken into the Order.
The most interesting parts are those where Thomas gives us an intimate view of the friars: here drinking their beer, there hastening, in spite of the Rule, to buy some on credit for two comrades who have been maltreated, or again clustering about Brother Solomon, who had just come in nearly frozen with cold, and whom they could not succeed in warming—sicut porcis mos est cum comprimendo foverunt, says the pious narrator.7All this is mingled with dreams, visions, numberless apparitions,8which once more show us how different were the ideas most familiar to the religious minds of the thirteenth century from those which haunt the brains and hearts of to-day.
The information given by Eccleston bears only indirectlyon this book, but if he speaks little of Francis he speaks much at length of some of the men who have been most closely mingled with his life.
As celebrated as it is little known, this chronicle is of quite secondary value in all that concerns the life of St. Francis. Its author, born October 9, 1221, entered the Order in 1238, and wrote his memoirs in 1282-1287; it is therefore especially for the middle years of the thirteenth century that his importance is capital. Notwithstanding this, it is surprising how small a place the radiant figure of the master holds in these long pages, and this very fact shows, better than long arguments could do, how profound was the fall of the Franciscan idea.
This chronicle was written about 1330; we might therefore be surprised to see it appear among the sourcesto be consulted for the life of St. Francis, dead more than a century before; but the picture which Clareno gives us of the early days of the Order gains its importance from the fact that in sketching it he made constant appeal to eye-witnesses, and precisely to those whose works have disappeared.
Angelo Clareno, earlier called Pietro da Fossombrone11from the name of his native town, and sometimes da Cingoli, doubtless from the little convent where he made profession, belonged to the Zelanti of the March of Ancona as early as 1265. Hunted and persecuted by his adversaries during his whole life, he died in the odor of sanctity June 15, 1339, in the little hermitage of Santa Maria d' Aspro in the diocese of Marsico in Basilicata.
Thanks to published documents, we may now, so to speak, follow day by day not only the external circumstances of his life, but the inner workings of his soul. With him we see the true Franciscan live again, one of those men who, while desiring to remain the obedient son of the Church, cannot reconcile themselves to permit the domain of the dream to slip away from them, the ideal which they have hailed. Often they are on the borders of heresy; in these utterances against bad priests and unworthy pontiffs there is a bitterness which the sectaries of the sixteenth century will not exceed.12Often, too, they seem to renounce all authority and makefinal appeal to the inward witness of the Holy Spirit;13and yet Protestantism would be mistaken in seeking its ancestors among them. No, they desired to die as they had lived, in the communion of that Church which was as a stepmother to them and which they yet loved with that heroic passion which some of theci-devantnobles brought in '93 to the love of France, governed though she was by Jacobins, and poured out their blood for her.
Clareno and his friends not only believed that Francis had been a great Saint, but to this conviction, which was also that of the Brothers of the Common Observance, they added the persuasion that the work of the Stigmatized could only be continued by men who should attain to his moral stature, to which men might arrive through the power of faith and love. They were of the violent who take the kingdom of heaven by force; so when, after the frivolous and senile interests of every day we come face to face with them, we feel ourselves both humbled and exalted, for we suddenly find unhoped-for powers, an unrecognized lyre in the human heart.
There is one of Jesus's apostles of whom it is difficult not to think while reading the chronicle of the Tribulations and Angelo Clareno's correspondence: St. John. Between the apostle's words about love and those of the Franciscan there is a similarity of style all the more striking because they were written in different languages. In both of these the soul is that of the aged man, where all is only love, pardon, desire for holiness, and yet itsometimes wakes with a sudden thrill—like that which stirred the soul of the seer of Patmos—of indignation, wrath, pity, terror, and joy, when the future unveils itself and gives a glimpse of the close of the great tribulation.
Clareno's works, then, are in the strictest sense of the word partisan; the question is whether the author has designedly falsified the facts or mutilated the texts. To this question we may boldly answer, No. He commits errors,14especially in his earlier pages, but they are not such as to diminish our confidence.
Like a good Joachimite, he believed that the Order would have to traverse seven tribulations before its final triumph. The pontificate of John XXII. marked, he thought, the commencement of the seventh; he set himself, then, to write, at the request of a friend, the history of the first six.15
His account of the first is naturally preceded by an introduction, the purpose of which is to exhibit to the reader, taking the life of St. Francis as a framework, the intention of the latter in composing the Rule and dictating the Will.
Born between 1240 and 1250, Clareno had at his service the testimony of several of the first disciples;16hefound himself in relations with Angelo di Rieti,17Egidio,18and with that Brother Giovanni, companion of Egidio, mentioned in the prologue of the Legend of the Three Companions.19
His chronicle, therefore, forms as it were the continuation of that legend. The members of the little circle of Greccio are they who recommend it to us; it has also their inspiration.
But writing long years after the death of these Brothers, Clareno feels the need of supporting himself also on written testimony; he repeatedly refers to the four legends from which he borrows a part of his narrative; they are those of Giovanni di Ceperano, Thomas of Celano, Bonaventura, and Brother Leo.20Bonaventura's work is mentioned only by way of reference; Clareno borrows nothing from him, while he cites long passagesfrom Giovanni di Ceperano,21Thomas of Celano22and Brother Leo.23
Clareno takes from these writers narratives containing several new and extremely curious facts.24
I have dwelt particularly upon this document because its value appears to me not yet to have been properlyappreciated. It is indeed partisan; the documents of which we must be most wary are not those whose tendency is manifest, but those where it is skilfully concealed.
The life of St. Francis and a great part of the religious history of the thirteenth century will surely appear to us in an entirely different light when we are able to fill out the documents of the victorious party by those of the party of the vanquished. Just as Thomas of Celano's first legend is dominated by the desire to associate closely St. Francis, Gregory IX., and Brother Elias, so the Chronicle of the Tribulations is inspired from beginning to end with the thought that the troubles of the Order—to say the word, the apostasy—began so early as 1219. This contention finds a striking confirmation in the Chronicle of Giordano di Giano.
With the Fioretti we enter definitively the domain of legend. This literary gem relates the life of Francis, his companions and disciples, as it appeared to the popular imagination at the beginning of the fourteenth century. We have not to discuss the literary value of this document, one of the most exquisite religious works of the Middle Ages, but it may well be said that from the historic point of view it does not deserve the neglect to which it has been left.
Most authors have failed in courage to revise the sentence lightly uttered against it by the successors of Bollandus. Why make anything of a book which Father Suysken did not even deign to read!26
Yet that which gives these stories an inestimable worth is what for want of a better term we may call their atmosphere. They are legendary, worked over, exaggerated, false even, if you please, but they give us with a vivacity and intensity of coloring something that we shall search for in vain elsewhere—the surroundings in which St. Francis lived. More than any other biography the Fioretti transport us to Umbria, to the mountains of the March of Ancona; they make us visit the hermitages, and mingle with the life, half childish, half angelic, which was that of their inhabitants.
It is difficult to pronounce upon the name of the author. His work was only that of gathering the flowers of his bouquet from written and oral tradition. The question whether he wrote in Latin or Italian has been much discussed and appears to be not yet settled; what is certain is that though this work may be anterior to the Conformities,27it is a little later than the Chronicle of the Tribulations, for it would be strange that it made no mention of Angelo Clareno, if it was written after his death.
This book is in fact an essentially local28chronicle; the author has in mind to erect a monument to the glory of the Brothers Minor of the March of Ancona. This province, which is evidently his own, "does it notresemble the sky blazing with stars? The holy Brothers who dwelt in it, like the stars in the sky, have illuminated and adorned the Order of St. Francis, filling the world with their examples and teaching." He is acquainted with the smallest villages,29each having at a short distance its monastery, well apart, usually near a torrent, in the edge of a wood, and above, near the hilltop, a few almost inaccessible cells, the asylums of Brothers even more than the others in love with contemplation and retirement.30
The chapters that concern St. Francis and the Umbrian Brothers are only a sort of introduction; Egidio, Masseo, Leo on one side, St. Clara on the other, are witnesses that the ideal at Portiuncula and St. Damian was indeed the same to which in later days Giachimo di Massa, Pietro di Monticulo, Conrad di Offida, Giovanni di Penna, and Giovanni della Verna endeavored to attain.
While most of the other legends give us the Franciscan tradition of the great convents, the Fioretti are almost the only document which shows it as it was perpetuated in the hermitages and among the people. In default of accuracy of detail, the incidents which are related here contain a higher truth—their tone is true. Here are words that were never uttered, acts that never took place, but the soul and the heart of the early Franciscans were surely what they are depicted here.
The Fioretti have the living truth that the pencil gives. Something is wanting in the physiognomy of the Poverello when we forget his conversation with Brother Leo on the perfect joy, his journey to Sienna with Masseo, or even the conversion of the wolf of Gubbio.
We must not, however, exaggerate the legendary side of the Fioretti: there are not more that two or three of these stories of which the kernel is not historic and easy to find. The famous episode of the wolf of Gubbio, which is unquestionably the most marvellous of all the series, is only, to speak the engraver's language, the third state of the story of the robbers of Monte Casale31mingled with a legend of the Verna.
The stories crowd one another in this book like flocks of memories that come upon us pell-mell, and in which insignificant details occupy a larger place than the most important events; our memory is, in fact, an overgrown child, and what it retains of a man is generally a feature, a word, a gesture. Scientific history is trying to react, to mark the relative value of facts, to bring forward the important ones, to cast into shade that which is secondary. Is it not a mistake? Is there such a thing as the important and the secondary? How is it going to be marked?
The popular imagination is right: what we need to retain of a man is the expression of countenance in which lives his whole being, a heart-cry, a gesture that expresses his personality. Do we not find all of Jesus in the words of the Last Supper? And all of St. Francis in his address to brother wolf and his sermon to the birds?
Let us beware of despising these documents in which the first Franciscans are described as they saw themselves to be. Unfolding under the Umbrian sky at the foot of the olives of St. Damian, or the firs of the Marchof Ancona, these wild flowers have a perfume and an originality which we look for in vain in the carefully cultivated flowers of a learned gardener.
In the first of these appendices the compiler has divided into five chapters all the information on the stigmata which he was able to gather. It is easy to understand the success of the Fioretti. The people fell in love with these stories, in which St. Francis and his companions appear both more human and more divine than in the other legends; and they began very soon to feel the need of so completing them as to form a veritable biography.32
The second, entitled Life of Brother Ginepro, is only indirectly connected with St. Francis; yet it deserves to be studied, for it offers the same kind of interest as the principal collection, to which it is doubtless posterior. In these fourteen chapters we find the principal features of the life of this Brother, whose mad and saintly freaks still furnish material for conversation in Umbrian monasteries. These unpretending pages discover to us one aspect of the Franciscan heart. The official historians have thought it their duty to keep silence upon this Brother, who to them appeared to be a supremely indiscreet personage, very much in the way of the good name of the Order in the eyes of the laics. They were right from their point of view, but we owe a debt of gratitude to the Fioretti for having preserved for us this personality,so blithe, so modest, and with so arch a good nature. Certainly St. Francis was more like Ginepro than like Brother Elias or St. Bonaventura.33
The third, Life of Brother Egidio, appears to be on the whole the most ancient document on the life of the famous Ecstatic that we possess. It is very possible that these stories might be traced to Brother Giovanni, to whom the Three Companions appeal in their prologue.
In the defective texts given us in the existing editions we perceive the hand of an annotator whose notes have slipped into the text,34but in spite of that this life is one of the most important of the secondary texts. This always itinerant brother, one of whose principal preoccupations is to live by his labor, is one of the most original and agreeable figures in Francis's surroundings, and it is in lives of this sort that we must seek the true meaning of some of the passages of the Rule, and precisely in those that have had the most to suffer from the enterprise of exegetes.
The fourth includes the favorite maxims of Brother Egidio; they have no other importance than to show the tendencies of the primitive Franciscan teaching. They are short, precise, practical counsels, saturated with mysticism, and yet in them good sense never loses its rights. The collection, just as it is in the Fioretti, is no doubt posterior to Egidio, for in 1385 Bartolommeo of Pisa furnished a much longer one.35
We find here at the end of the life of Francis that of most of his companions, and the events that occurred under the first twenty-four generals.
It is a very ordinary work of compilation. The authors have sought to include in it all the pieces which they had succeeded in collecting, and the result presents a very disproportioned whole. A thorough study of it might be interesting and useful, but it would be possible only after its publication. This cannot be long delayed: twice (at intervals of fifteen months) when I have desired to study the Assisi manuscript it was found to be with the Franciscans of Quaracchi, who were preparing to print it.
It is difficult not to bring the epoch in which this collection was closed near to that when Bartolommeo of Pisa wrote his famous work. Perhaps the two are quite closely related.
This chronicle was one of Glassberger's favorite sources.
The Book of the Conformities, to which Brother Bartolommeo of Pisa devoted more than fifteen years of his life,38appears to have been read very inattentively bymost of the authors who have spoken of it.39In justice to them we must add that it would be hard to find a work more difficult to read; the same facts reappear from ten to fifteen times, and end by wearying the least delicate nerves.
It is to this no doubt that we must attribute the neglect to which it has been left. I do not hesitate, however, to see in it the most important work which has been made on the life of St. Francis. Of course the author does not undertake historical criticism as we understand it to-day, but if we must not expect to find him a historian, we can boldly place him in the front rank of compilers.40
If the Bollandists had more thoroughly studied him they would have seen more clearly into the difficult question of the sources, and the authors who have come after them would have been spared numberless errors and interminable researches.
Starting with the thought that Francis's life had been a perfect imitation of that of Jesus, Bartolommeo attempted to collect, without losing a single one, all the instances of the life of the Poverello scattered through the diverse legends still known at that time.
He regretted that Bonaventura, while borrowing the narratives of his predecessors, had often abridged them,41and himself desired to preserve them in their original bloom. Better situated than any one for such a work, since he had at his disposal the archives of the Sacro Convento of Assisi, it may be said that he has omitted nothing of importance and that he has brought into his work considerable pieces from nearly all the legends which appeared in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; they are there only in fragments, it is true, but with perfect accuracy.42
When his researches were unsuccessful he avows it simply, without attempting to fill out the written testimonies with his own conjectures.43He goes farther, and submits the documents he has before him to a real testing,laying aside those he considers uncertain.44Finally he takes pains to point out the passages in which his only authority is oral testimony.45
As he is almost continually citing the legends of Celano, the Three Companions, and Bonaventura, and as the citations prove on verification to be literally accurate, as well as those of the Will, the divers Rules, or the pontifical bulls, it seems natural to conclude that he was equally accurate with the citations which we cannot verify, and in which we find long extracts from works that have disappeared.46
The citations which he makes from Celano present no difficulty; they are all accurate, corresponding sometimes with the First sometimes with the Second Legend.47
Those from the Legend of the Three Companions are accurate, but it appears that Bartolommeo drew them from a text somewhat different from that which we have.48
With the citations from theLegenda Antiquathe question is complicated and becomes a nice one. Was there a work of this name? Certain authors, and among them the Bollandist Suysken, seem to incline toward the negative, and believe that to cite theLegenda Antiquais about the same as to refer vaguely to tradition. Others among contemporaries have thought that after the approbation and definitive adoption of Bonaventura'sLegenda Majorby the Order the Legends anterior to that, and especially that of Celano, were calledLegenda Antiqua. The Conformities permit us to look a little closer into the question. We find, in fact, passages from theLegenda Antiquawhich reproduce Celano's First Life.49Others present points of contact with the Second, sometimes a literary exactitude,50but often these are the same stories told in too different a way for us to consider them borrowed.51
Finally there are many of these extracts from theLegenda Antiquaof which we find no source in any of the documents already discussed.52This would suffice to show that the two are not to be confounded. It has absorbed them and brought about certain changes while completing them with others.53
The study of the fragments which Bartolommeo has preserved to us shows immediately that this collection belonged to the party of the Zealots of Poverty; we might be tempted to see in it the work of Brother Leo.
Most fortunately there is a passage where Bartolommeo di Pisa cites as being by Conrad di Offida a fragment which he had already cited before as borrowed from theLegenda Antiqua.54I would not exaggerate the value of an isolated instance, but it seems an altogether plausible hypothesis to make Conrad di Offida the author of this compilation. All that we know of him, of his tendencies, his struggle for the strict observance, accords with what the known fragments of theLegenda Antiquapermit us to infer as to its author.55
However this may be, it appears that in this collection the stories have been given us (the principal source being the Legend of Brother Leo or the Three Companions before its mutilation) in a much less abridged form than in the Second Life of Celano. This work is hardly more than a second edition of that of Brother Leo, here and there completed with a few new incidents, and especially with exhortations to perseverance addressed to the persecuted Zealots.56
Evidently this work, written about 1508, cannot be classed among the sources properly so called; but it presentsin a convenient form the general history of the Order, and thanks to its citations permits us to verify certain passages in the primitive legends of which Glassberger had the MS. before his eyes. It is thus in particular with the chronicle of Brother Giordano di Giano, which he has inserted almost bodily in his own work.
This work is of the same character as that of Glassberger; it can only be used by way of addition. There is, however, a series of facts in which it has a special value; it is when the Franciscan missions in Spain or Morocco are in question. The author had documents on this subject which did not reach the friars in distant countries.
FOOTNOTES1.Chronica fratris Jordani a Giano.The text was published for the first time in 1870 by Dr. G. Voigt under the title: "Die Denkwürdigkeiten des Minoriten Jordanus von Gianoin theAbhandlungen der philolog. histor. Cl. der Königl. sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften," pp. 421-545, Leipsic, by Hirzel, 1870. Only one manuscript is known; it is in the royal library at Berlin (Manuscript. theolog. lat., 4to, n. 196, sæc. xiv., foliorum 141). It has served as the base of the second edition:Analecta franciscana sive Chronica aliaque documenta ad historiam minorum spectantia. Ad Claras Aquas (Quaracchi) ex typographia collegii S. Bonaventuræ, 1885, t. i., pp. 1-19. Except where otherwise noted, I cite entirely this edition, in which is preserved the division into sixty-three paragraphs introduced by Dr. Voigt.2.Giord., 81.3.He names more than twenty four persons.4.It does not seem to me that we can look upon the account of the interview between Gregory IX. and Brother Giordano as rigorously accurate. Giord., 63.5.Liber de adventu Minorum in Angliam, published under the title ofMonumenta Franciscana(in the series ofRerum Britannicarum medii Ævi scriptores,Roll series) in two volumes, 8vo; the first through the care of J. S. Brewer (1858), the second through that of R. Howlett (1882). This text is reproduced without the scientific dress of theAnalecta franciscana, t. i., pp. 217-257. Cf. English Historical Review, v. (1890), 754. He has published an excellent critical edition of it, but unfortunately partial, in vol. xxviii.,Scriptorum, of theMonumenta Germaniæ Historicaby Mr. Liebermann, Hanover, 1888, folio, pp. 560-569.6.Eccl., 11; 13; 14; 15. Cf. Eccl., 14, where the author takes pains to say that Alberto of Pisa died at Rome, surrounded by English Brothers "inter Anglicos."7.Eccl., 4; 12.8.Eccl., 4; 5; 6; 7; 10; 12; 13; 14; 15.9.It was published, but with many suppressions, in 1857, at Parma. The Franciscans of Quaracchi prepared a new edition of it, which appeared in theAnalecta Franciscana. This work is in manuscript in the Vatican under no. 7260. Vide Ehrle.Zeitschrift für kath. Theol.(1883), t. vii., pp. 767 and 768. The work of Mr. Clédat will be read with interest:De fratre Salembene et de ejus chronicæ auctoritate, Paris, 4to, 1877, with fac simile.10.Father Ehrle has published it, but unfortunately not entire, in theArchiv., t. ii., pp. 125-155, text of the close of the fifth and of the sixth tribulation; pp. 256-327 text of the third, of the fourth, and of the commencement of the fifth. He has added to it introductions and critical notes. For the parts not published I will cite the text of the Laurentian manuscript (Plut. 20, cod. 7), completed where possible with the Italian version in the National Library at Florence (Magliabecchina, xxxvii.-28). See also an article of Professor Tocco in theArchivio storico italiano, t. xvii. (1886), pp. 12-36 and 243-61, and one of Mr. Richard's: Library of the École des chartes, 1884, 5th livr. p. 525. Cf. Tocco, theEresia nel medio Evo, p. 419 ff. As to the text published by Döllinger in hisBeiträge zur Sektengeschichte des Mittelalters, Münich, 1890, 2 vols., 8vo, II.Theil Dokumente, pp. 417-427, it is of no use. It can only beget errors, as it abounds with gross mistakes. Whole pages are wanting.11.Archiv., t. iii., pp. 406-409.12.VideArchiv., i., p. 557 ... "Et hoc totum ex rapacitate et malignitate luporum pastorum qui voluerunt esse pastores, sed operibus negaverunt deum," et seq. Cf., p. 562: "Avaritia et symoniaca heresis absque pallio regnat et fere totum invasit ecclesie corpus."13."Qui excommunicat et hereticat altissimam evangelii paupertatem, excommunicatus est a Deo et hereticus coram Christo, qui est eterna et in commutabilis veritas."Arch., i., p. 509. "Non est potestas contra christum Dominum et contra evangelium." Ib. p. 560. He closes one of his letters with a sentence of a mysticism full of serenity, and which lets us see to the bottom of the hearts of the Spiritual Brothers. "Totum igitur studium esse debet quod unum inseparabiliter simus per Franciscum in Christo." Ib., p. 564.14.For example in the list of the first six generals of the Order.15.The first (1219-1226) extends from the departure of St. Francis for Egypt up to his death; the second includes the generalate of Brother Elias (1232-1239); the third that of Crescentius (1244-1248); the fourth, that of Bonaventura (1257-1274); the fifth commences with the epoch of the council of Lyon (1274) and extends up to the death of the inquisitor, Thomas d'Aversa (1204). And the sixth goes from 1308 to 1323.16."Supererant adhuc multi de sociis b. Francisci ... et alii non pauci de quibus ego vidi et ab ipsis audivi quæ narro." Laur. Ms., cod. 7, pl. xx., fo24a: "Qui passi sunt eam (tribulationem tertiam) socii fundatoris fratres Aegdius et Angelus, qui supererant me audiente referibant." Laur. Ms., fo27b. Cf., Italian Ms., xxxvii., 28, Magliab., fo138b.17.The date of his death is unknown; on August 11, 1253, he was present at the death-bed of St. Clara.18.Died April 23, 1261.19."Quem (fratrem Jacobum de Massa) dirigente me fratre Johanne socio fratris prefati Egidii videre laboravi. Hic enim frater Johannes ... dixit mihi...."Arch., ii., p. 279.20." ...Tribulationes preteritas memoravi, ut audivi ab illis qui sustinuerunt eas et aliqua commemoravi de hiis que didici in quatuor legendis quas vidi et legi."Arch., ii., p. 135.—"Vitam pauperis et humilis viri Dei Francisci trium ordinum fundatoris quatuor solemnes personæ scripserunt, fratres videlicet scientia et sanctitate præclari, Johannes et Thomas de Celano, frater Bonaventura unus post Beatum Franciscum Generalis Minister et vir miræ simplicitatis et sanctitatis frater Leo, ejusdem sancti Francisci socius. Has quatuor descriptiones seu historias qui legerit...." Laurent. MS., pl. xx., c. 7, fo1a. Did the Italian translator think there was an error in this quotation? I do not know, but he suppressed it. At fo12a of manuscript xxxvii., 28, of the Magliabecchina, we read: "Incominciano alcune croniche del ordine franciscano, come la vita del povero e humile servo di Dio Francesco fondatore del minorico ordine fu scripta da San Bonaventura e da quatro altri frati. Queste poche scripture ovveramente hystorie quello il quale diligentemente le leggiera, expeditamente potra cognoscere ... la vocatione la santita di San Francisco."21.Laur. MS., fo4b ff. On the other hand we read in a letter of Clareno: "Ad hanc (paupertatem) perfecte servandam Christus Franciscum vocavit et elegit in hac hora novissima et precepit ei evangelicam assumere regulam, et a papa Innocentio fuit omnibus annuntiatum in concilio generali, quod de sua auctoritate et obedientia sanctus Franciscus evangelicam vitam et regulam assumpserat et Christo inspirante servare promiserat, sicut sanctus vir fr. Leo scribit et fr. Johannes de Celano."Archiv., i., p. 559.22."Audiens enim semel quorundam fratrum enormes excessus, ut fr. Thomas de Celano scribit, et malum exemplum per eos secularibus datum." Laur. MS., fo13b. The passage which follows evidently refers to 2 Cel., 3, 93 and 112.23."Et fecerunt de regula prima ministri removeri capitulum istud de prohibitionibus sancti evangelii, sicut frater Leo scribit." Laur. Ms. fo12b. Cf.Spec., 9a, see p. 248. "Nam cum rediisset de partibus ultramarinis, minister quidam loquebatur cum eo, ut frater Leo refert, de capitulo paupertatis," fo13a, cf.Spec., 9a, "S. Franciscus, teste fr. Leone, frequenter et cum multo studio recitabat fabulam ... quod oportebat finaliter ordinem humiliari et ad sue humilitatis principia confitenda et tenenda reduci."Archiv., ii., p. 129.There is only one point of contact between the Legend of the Three Companions, such as it is to-day, and these passages; but we find on the contrary revised accounts in theSpeculumand in the other collections, where they are cited as coming from Brother Leo.24.Clareno, for example, holds that the Cardinal Ugolini had sustained St. Francis without approving of the first Rule, in concert with Cardinal Giovanni di San Paolo. This is possible, since Ugolini was created cardinal in 1198 (Vide Cardella:Memorie storiche de' Cardinali, 9 vols., 8vo, Rome, 1792-1793, t. i., pt. 2, p. 190). Besides this would better explain the zeal with which he protected the divers Orders founded by St. Francis, from 1217. The chapter where Clareno tells how St. Francis wrote the Rule shows the working over of the legend, but it is very possible that he has borrowed it in its present form from Brother Leo. It is to be noted that we do not find in this document a single allusion to the Indulgences of Portiuncula.25.The manuscripts and editions are well-nigh innumerable. M. Luigi Manzoni has studied them with a carefulness that makes it much to be desired that he continue this difficult work.Studi sui Fioretti: Miscelenea, 1888, pp. 116-119, 150-152, 162-168; 1889, 9-15, 78-84, 132-135. When shall we find some one who can and will undertake to make a scientific edition of them? Those which have appeared during our time in the various cities of Italy are insignificant from a critical point of view. See Mazzoni Guido,Capitoli inediti dei Fioretti di S. Francesco, in thePropugnatore, Bologna, 1888, vol. xxi., pp. 396-411.26.Vide A. SS., p. 865: "Floretum non legi, nec curandum putavi." Cf. 553f: "Floretum ad manum non habeo."27.Bartolommeo di Pisa compiled it in 1385; then certain manuscripts of the Fioretti are earlier. Besides, in the stories that the Conformities borrow from the Fioretti, we perceive Bartolommeo's work of abbreviation.28.I am speaking here only of the fifty-three chapters which form the true collection of the Fioretti.29.The province of the March of Ancona counted seven custodias: 1, Ascoli; 2, Camerino; 3, Ancona; 4, Jesi; 5, Fermo; 6, Fano; 7, Felestro. The Fioretti mention at least six of the monasteries of the custodia of Fermo: Moliano, 51, 53; Fallerone, 32, 51; Bruforte and Soffiano, 46, 47; Massa, 51; Penna, 45; Fermo, 41, 49, 51.30.At each page we are reminded of those groves which were originally the indispensable appendage of the Franciscan monasteries:La selva ch' era allora allato a S. M. degli Angeli, 3, 10, 15, 16, etc.La selva d' un luogo deserto del val di Spoleto(Carceri?), 4;selva di Forano, 42.di Massa, 51, etc.31.TheSpeculum, 46b, 58b, 158a, gives us three states. Cf.Fior., 26 and 21;Conform., 119b, 2.32.This desire was so natural that the manuscript of the Angelica Library includes many additional chapters, concerning the gift of Portiuncula, the indulgence of August 2d, the birth of St. Francis, etc. (Vide Amoni, Fioretti, Roma, 1889, pp. 266, 378-386.) It would be an interesting study to seek the origin of these documents and to establish their relationship with the Speculum and the Conformities. VideConform., 231a, 1; 121b;Spec., 92-96.33.Ginepro was received into the Order by St. Francis. In 1253 he was present at St. Clara's death. A. SS.,Aug., t. ii., p. 764d. The Conformities speak of him in detail, fo62b.34.The first seven chapters form a whole. The three which follow are doubtless a first attempt at completing them.35.Conformities, fo55b, 1-60a, 1.36.SeeArchiv., t. i., p. 145, an article of Father Denifle:Zur Quellenkunde der Franziskaner Geschichte, where he mentions at least eight manuscripts of this work. Cf. Ehrle:Zeitschrift, 1883, p. 324, note 3. I have studied only the two manuscripts of Florence: Riccardi, 279, paper, 243 fos. of two cols. recently numbered. The Codex of the Laurentian Gaddian. rel., 53, is less careful. It is also on paper, 20 x 27, and counts 254 fos. of 1 column. Fo1 was formerly numbered 88. The order of the chapters is not the same as in the preceding.37.The citations are always made from the edition of Milan, 1510, 4to of 256 folios of two columns. The best known of the subsequent editions are those of Milan, 1513, and Bologna, 1590.38.He began it in 1385 (fo1), and it was authorized by the chapter general August 2, 1399 (fo256a, 1). Besides, on fo150a, 1, he set down the date when he was writing. It was in 1390.39.I am not here concerned with the foolish attacks of certain Protestant authors upon this life. That is a quarrel of the theologians which in no way concerns history. Nowhere does Bartolommeo of Pisa make St. Francis the equal of Jesus, and he was able even to forestall criticism in this respect. The Bollandists are equally severe: "Cum Pisanus fuerit scriptor magis pius et credulus quam crisi severa usus...." A. SS., p. 551e.40.He has avoided the mistakes so unfortunately committed by Wadding in his list of ministers general. Vide 66a. 2, 104a, 1, 118b, 2. He was lecturer on theology at Bologna, Padua, Pisa, Sienna, and Florence. He preached for many years and with great success in the principal villages of the Peninsula and could thus take advantage of his travels by collecting useful notes. Mark of Lisbon has preserved for us a notice of his life. VideCroniche dei fratri Minori, t. iii., p. 6 ff. of the Diola edition. He died December 10, 1401. For further details see Wadding, ann. 1399, vii., viii., and above all Sbaralea,Supplementum, p. 109. He is the author of an exposition of the Rule little known which can be found in the Speculum Morin, Rouen, 1509, fo66b-83a, of part three.41.This opinion is expressed in a guarded manner. For example, fo207a, 1, Bartolommeo relates the miracle of the Chapter of the Mats, first following St. Bonaventura, then adding: "Et quia non aliter tangit dicta pars (legendæ majoris) hoc insigne miraculum: antiqua legenda hoc refertur in hunc modum." Cf. 225a, 2m. "Et quia fr. Bonaventura succincte multa tangit et in brevi: pro evidentia prefatorum notandum est ... ut dicit antiqua legenda."42.However, it is necessary to note that not only are there considerable differences between the editions published, but also that the first (that of Milan, 1510) has been completed and revised by its editor. The judgments passed upon Raymond Ganfridi, 104a, 1, and Boniface VIII., 103b, 1, show traces of later corrections. (Cf. 125a, 1. At fo72a, 2m, is indicated the date of the death of St. Bernardin, which was in 1444, etc.) Besides, we are surprised to find beside the pages where the sources are indicated with clearness others where stories follow one another coming one knows not from whence.43.Fo70a, 1: "Cujus nomen non reperi." 1a, 2: "Multaque non ex industria sed quia ea noscere non valui omittendo."44.Fo78a, 1:Informationes quas non scribo quia imperfectas reperi.Cf. 229b, 2: "De aliis multis apparitionibus non reperi scripturam, quare hic non pono."45.Fo69a, 1: "Hec ut audivi posui quia ejus legendam non vidi." Cf. 68b, 2m:Fr. Henricus generalis minister mihi magistro Bartholomeo dixit ipse oretenus.46.The citations from Bonaventura are decidedly more frequent. We should not be surprised, since this story is the official biography of St. Francis; the chapter from which Bartolommeo takes his quotations is almost always indicated, and, naturally, follows the old division in five parts. Opening the book at hazard at folio 136a I find no less than six references to theLegenda Majorin the first column. To give an idea of the style of Bartolommeo of Pisa I shall give in substance the contents of a page of his book. See, for example, fo111a (lib. i., conform. x., pars. ii., Franciscus predicator). In the third line he cites Bonaventura: "Fr. Bonaventura in quarta parte majoris legende dicit quod b. Franciscus videbatur intuentibus homo alterius seculi." Textual citation of Bonaventure, 45. Three lines further on: "Verum qualis esset b. F. quoad personam sic habetur in legenda antiqua ... homo facundissimus, facie hilaris, etc." The literal citation of the sketch of Francis follows as 1 Celano, 83, gives it as far as: "inter peccatores quasi unus ex illis," and to mark the end of the quotation Bartolommeo adds: "Hec legenda antiqua." In the next column paragraph 4 commences with the words:B. Francisci predicationem reddebat mirabilem et gloriosam ipsius sancti loquutio: etenim legenda trium Sociorum dicit et Legenda major parte tertia: B. Francisei eloquia erant non inania, neo risu digna, etc., which corresponds literally with 3 Soc., 25, and Bon., 28. Then come two chapters of Bonaventura almost entire, beginning with:In duodecima parte legende majoris dicit Fr. Bonaventura: Erat enim verbum ejus, etc. Textual quotation of Bon., 178 and 179. The page ends with another quotation from Bonaventura:Sic dicebat prout recitat Bonaventura in octava parte Legende majoris: Hac officium patri misericordiarum. Vide Bonav., 102 end and 103 entire. This suffices without doubt to show with what precision the authorities have been quoted in this work, with what attention and confidence ought to be examined those portions of documents lost or mislaid which he has here preserved for us.47.Fo31b, 2:ut dicit fr. Thomas in sua legenda, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 60.—140a, 2:Fr. in leg. fr. Thome, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 60.—140a 1, cf. 2 Cel., 3 16.—142b, 1:Fr. in leg. Thome capitulo de charitate, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 115.—144b, 1:Fr. in leg. fr. Thome capitulo de oratione, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 40.—144b, 1, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 65.—144b, 2, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 78.—176b, 2, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 79.—182b, 2, cf. 2 Cel., 2, 1.—241b, 1, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 141.—181a, 2, cf. 1 Cel., 27. It is needless to say that these lists of quotations do not pretend to be complete.48.Fo36b, 2.Ut enim habetur in leg.3 Soc., cf. 3 Soc., 10.—46b, 1, cf. 3 Soc., 25-28.—38b 2, cf. 3 Soc. 3.—111a, 2, cf. 3 Soc., 25.—134a, 2, cf. 3 Soc, 4.—142b, 2, cf. 3 Soc., 57 and 58.—167b, 2, cf. 3 Soc., 3 and 8.—168a, 1, cf. 3 Soc., 10.—170b, 1, cf. 3 Soc., 39, 4.—175b, 2, cf. 3 Soc., 59.—180b, 2, cf. 3 Soc., 4.—181a, 1, cf. 3 Soc., 5, 7, 24, 33, and 67.—181a. 2, cf. 3 Soc., 36.—229b, 2, cf. 3 Soc., 14. etc. The reading of 3 Soc. which Bartolommeo had before his eyes was pretty much the same we have to day, for he says, 181a, 2. referring to 3 Soc., 67: "Ut habetur quasi in fine leg. 3Soc."49.Fo111a, 1,Sic habetur in leg. ant., corresponds literally with 1 Cel., 83.—144a, 2.Franciscus in leg. ant. cap. v. de zelo ad religionem, to 1 Cel. 106.50.Fo111b, 1.De predicantibus loqueus sic dicebat in ant. leg.Cf. 2 Cel., 3, 99 and 106. 140b, 1. Cf. 2 Cel., 3, 84.—144b, 1, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 45—144a, 1, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 95 and 15.—225b, 2, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 116.51.Fo31a, 1. Vide 2 Cel., 3, 83.—143a, 2. Vide 2 Cel., 3, 65 and 116.—144a, 1. Vide 2 Cel., 3, 94.—170b. 1. Vide 2 Cel., 3, 11.52.Fo14a, 2.—32a. 1.—101a, 2.—169b, 1.—144b, 2.—142a, 2.—143b, 2.—168b, 1.—144b, 1.53.Chapters 18 (chapter of the mats) and 25 (lepers cured) of theFiorettiare found in Latin in the Conf. as borrowed from the Leg. Ant. Vide 174b, 1, and 207a. 1.Finally, according to fo168b, 2, it is also from the Leg. Ant. that the description of the coat, such as we find at the end of theChronique des Tribulations, was borrowed. SeeArchiv., t. ii., p. 153.54.Fo182a, 2; cf. 51b, 1; 144a, 1.55.He died December 12, 1306, at Bastia, near Assisi. See upon himChron. Tribul. Archiv., ii.; 311 and 312;Conform., 60, 119, and 153.56.Although the history of the Indulgence of Portiuncula was of all subjects the one most largely treated in the Conformities, 151b, 2—157a, 2, not once does Bartolommeo of Pisa refer to it in theLegenda Antiqua. It seems, then, that this collection also was silent as to this celebrated pardon.57.Published with extreme care by the Franciscan Fathers of the Observance in t. ii. of theAnalecta Franciscana, ad Claræ Aquas(Quaracchi, near Florence), 1888, 1 vol., crown 8vo, of xxxvi.-612 pp. This edition, as much from the critical point of view of the text, its correctness, its various readings and notes, as from the material point of view, is perfect and makes the more desirable a publication of the chronicles of the xxiv. generals and of Salimbeni by the same editors. The beginning up to the year 1262 has been published already by Dr. Karl Evers under the titleAnalecta ad Fratrum Minorum historiam, Leipsic, 1882, 4to of 89 pp.58.I have been able only to procure the Italian edition published by Horatio Diola under the titleCroniche degli Ordini instituti dal P. S. Francesco, 3 vols., 8vo, Venice, 1606.
1.Chronica fratris Jordani a Giano.The text was published for the first time in 1870 by Dr. G. Voigt under the title: "Die Denkwürdigkeiten des Minoriten Jordanus von Gianoin theAbhandlungen der philolog. histor. Cl. der Königl. sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften," pp. 421-545, Leipsic, by Hirzel, 1870. Only one manuscript is known; it is in the royal library at Berlin (Manuscript. theolog. lat., 4to, n. 196, sæc. xiv., foliorum 141). It has served as the base of the second edition:Analecta franciscana sive Chronica aliaque documenta ad historiam minorum spectantia. Ad Claras Aquas (Quaracchi) ex typographia collegii S. Bonaventuræ, 1885, t. i., pp. 1-19. Except where otherwise noted, I cite entirely this edition, in which is preserved the division into sixty-three paragraphs introduced by Dr. Voigt.2.Giord., 81.3.He names more than twenty four persons.4.It does not seem to me that we can look upon the account of the interview between Gregory IX. and Brother Giordano as rigorously accurate. Giord., 63.5.Liber de adventu Minorum in Angliam, published under the title ofMonumenta Franciscana(in the series ofRerum Britannicarum medii Ævi scriptores,Roll series) in two volumes, 8vo; the first through the care of J. S. Brewer (1858), the second through that of R. Howlett (1882). This text is reproduced without the scientific dress of theAnalecta franciscana, t. i., pp. 217-257. Cf. English Historical Review, v. (1890), 754. He has published an excellent critical edition of it, but unfortunately partial, in vol. xxviii.,Scriptorum, of theMonumenta Germaniæ Historicaby Mr. Liebermann, Hanover, 1888, folio, pp. 560-569.6.Eccl., 11; 13; 14; 15. Cf. Eccl., 14, where the author takes pains to say that Alberto of Pisa died at Rome, surrounded by English Brothers "inter Anglicos."7.Eccl., 4; 12.8.Eccl., 4; 5; 6; 7; 10; 12; 13; 14; 15.9.It was published, but with many suppressions, in 1857, at Parma. The Franciscans of Quaracchi prepared a new edition of it, which appeared in theAnalecta Franciscana. This work is in manuscript in the Vatican under no. 7260. Vide Ehrle.Zeitschrift für kath. Theol.(1883), t. vii., pp. 767 and 768. The work of Mr. Clédat will be read with interest:De fratre Salembene et de ejus chronicæ auctoritate, Paris, 4to, 1877, with fac simile.10.Father Ehrle has published it, but unfortunately not entire, in theArchiv., t. ii., pp. 125-155, text of the close of the fifth and of the sixth tribulation; pp. 256-327 text of the third, of the fourth, and of the commencement of the fifth. He has added to it introductions and critical notes. For the parts not published I will cite the text of the Laurentian manuscript (Plut. 20, cod. 7), completed where possible with the Italian version in the National Library at Florence (Magliabecchina, xxxvii.-28). See also an article of Professor Tocco in theArchivio storico italiano, t. xvii. (1886), pp. 12-36 and 243-61, and one of Mr. Richard's: Library of the École des chartes, 1884, 5th livr. p. 525. Cf. Tocco, theEresia nel medio Evo, p. 419 ff. As to the text published by Döllinger in hisBeiträge zur Sektengeschichte des Mittelalters, Münich, 1890, 2 vols., 8vo, II.Theil Dokumente, pp. 417-427, it is of no use. It can only beget errors, as it abounds with gross mistakes. Whole pages are wanting.11.Archiv., t. iii., pp. 406-409.12.VideArchiv., i., p. 557 ... "Et hoc totum ex rapacitate et malignitate luporum pastorum qui voluerunt esse pastores, sed operibus negaverunt deum," et seq. Cf., p. 562: "Avaritia et symoniaca heresis absque pallio regnat et fere totum invasit ecclesie corpus."13."Qui excommunicat et hereticat altissimam evangelii paupertatem, excommunicatus est a Deo et hereticus coram Christo, qui est eterna et in commutabilis veritas."Arch., i., p. 509. "Non est potestas contra christum Dominum et contra evangelium." Ib. p. 560. He closes one of his letters with a sentence of a mysticism full of serenity, and which lets us see to the bottom of the hearts of the Spiritual Brothers. "Totum igitur studium esse debet quod unum inseparabiliter simus per Franciscum in Christo." Ib., p. 564.14.For example in the list of the first six generals of the Order.15.The first (1219-1226) extends from the departure of St. Francis for Egypt up to his death; the second includes the generalate of Brother Elias (1232-1239); the third that of Crescentius (1244-1248); the fourth, that of Bonaventura (1257-1274); the fifth commences with the epoch of the council of Lyon (1274) and extends up to the death of the inquisitor, Thomas d'Aversa (1204). And the sixth goes from 1308 to 1323.16."Supererant adhuc multi de sociis b. Francisci ... et alii non pauci de quibus ego vidi et ab ipsis audivi quæ narro." Laur. Ms., cod. 7, pl. xx., fo24a: "Qui passi sunt eam (tribulationem tertiam) socii fundatoris fratres Aegdius et Angelus, qui supererant me audiente referibant." Laur. Ms., fo27b. Cf., Italian Ms., xxxvii., 28, Magliab., fo138b.17.The date of his death is unknown; on August 11, 1253, he was present at the death-bed of St. Clara.18.Died April 23, 1261.19."Quem (fratrem Jacobum de Massa) dirigente me fratre Johanne socio fratris prefati Egidii videre laboravi. Hic enim frater Johannes ... dixit mihi...."Arch., ii., p. 279.20." ...Tribulationes preteritas memoravi, ut audivi ab illis qui sustinuerunt eas et aliqua commemoravi de hiis que didici in quatuor legendis quas vidi et legi."Arch., ii., p. 135.—"Vitam pauperis et humilis viri Dei Francisci trium ordinum fundatoris quatuor solemnes personæ scripserunt, fratres videlicet scientia et sanctitate præclari, Johannes et Thomas de Celano, frater Bonaventura unus post Beatum Franciscum Generalis Minister et vir miræ simplicitatis et sanctitatis frater Leo, ejusdem sancti Francisci socius. Has quatuor descriptiones seu historias qui legerit...." Laurent. MS., pl. xx., c. 7, fo1a. Did the Italian translator think there was an error in this quotation? I do not know, but he suppressed it. At fo12a of manuscript xxxvii., 28, of the Magliabecchina, we read: "Incominciano alcune croniche del ordine franciscano, come la vita del povero e humile servo di Dio Francesco fondatore del minorico ordine fu scripta da San Bonaventura e da quatro altri frati. Queste poche scripture ovveramente hystorie quello il quale diligentemente le leggiera, expeditamente potra cognoscere ... la vocatione la santita di San Francisco."21.Laur. MS., fo4b ff. On the other hand we read in a letter of Clareno: "Ad hanc (paupertatem) perfecte servandam Christus Franciscum vocavit et elegit in hac hora novissima et precepit ei evangelicam assumere regulam, et a papa Innocentio fuit omnibus annuntiatum in concilio generali, quod de sua auctoritate et obedientia sanctus Franciscus evangelicam vitam et regulam assumpserat et Christo inspirante servare promiserat, sicut sanctus vir fr. Leo scribit et fr. Johannes de Celano."Archiv., i., p. 559.22."Audiens enim semel quorundam fratrum enormes excessus, ut fr. Thomas de Celano scribit, et malum exemplum per eos secularibus datum." Laur. MS., fo13b. The passage which follows evidently refers to 2 Cel., 3, 93 and 112.23."Et fecerunt de regula prima ministri removeri capitulum istud de prohibitionibus sancti evangelii, sicut frater Leo scribit." Laur. Ms. fo12b. Cf.Spec., 9a, see p. 248. "Nam cum rediisset de partibus ultramarinis, minister quidam loquebatur cum eo, ut frater Leo refert, de capitulo paupertatis," fo13a, cf.Spec., 9a, "S. Franciscus, teste fr. Leone, frequenter et cum multo studio recitabat fabulam ... quod oportebat finaliter ordinem humiliari et ad sue humilitatis principia confitenda et tenenda reduci."Archiv., ii., p. 129.There is only one point of contact between the Legend of the Three Companions, such as it is to-day, and these passages; but we find on the contrary revised accounts in theSpeculumand in the other collections, where they are cited as coming from Brother Leo.24.Clareno, for example, holds that the Cardinal Ugolini had sustained St. Francis without approving of the first Rule, in concert with Cardinal Giovanni di San Paolo. This is possible, since Ugolini was created cardinal in 1198 (Vide Cardella:Memorie storiche de' Cardinali, 9 vols., 8vo, Rome, 1792-1793, t. i., pt. 2, p. 190). Besides this would better explain the zeal with which he protected the divers Orders founded by St. Francis, from 1217. The chapter where Clareno tells how St. Francis wrote the Rule shows the working over of the legend, but it is very possible that he has borrowed it in its present form from Brother Leo. It is to be noted that we do not find in this document a single allusion to the Indulgences of Portiuncula.25.The manuscripts and editions are well-nigh innumerable. M. Luigi Manzoni has studied them with a carefulness that makes it much to be desired that he continue this difficult work.Studi sui Fioretti: Miscelenea, 1888, pp. 116-119, 150-152, 162-168; 1889, 9-15, 78-84, 132-135. When shall we find some one who can and will undertake to make a scientific edition of them? Those which have appeared during our time in the various cities of Italy are insignificant from a critical point of view. See Mazzoni Guido,Capitoli inediti dei Fioretti di S. Francesco, in thePropugnatore, Bologna, 1888, vol. xxi., pp. 396-411.26.Vide A. SS., p. 865: "Floretum non legi, nec curandum putavi." Cf. 553f: "Floretum ad manum non habeo."27.Bartolommeo di Pisa compiled it in 1385; then certain manuscripts of the Fioretti are earlier. Besides, in the stories that the Conformities borrow from the Fioretti, we perceive Bartolommeo's work of abbreviation.28.I am speaking here only of the fifty-three chapters which form the true collection of the Fioretti.29.The province of the March of Ancona counted seven custodias: 1, Ascoli; 2, Camerino; 3, Ancona; 4, Jesi; 5, Fermo; 6, Fano; 7, Felestro. The Fioretti mention at least six of the monasteries of the custodia of Fermo: Moliano, 51, 53; Fallerone, 32, 51; Bruforte and Soffiano, 46, 47; Massa, 51; Penna, 45; Fermo, 41, 49, 51.30.At each page we are reminded of those groves which were originally the indispensable appendage of the Franciscan monasteries:La selva ch' era allora allato a S. M. degli Angeli, 3, 10, 15, 16, etc.La selva d' un luogo deserto del val di Spoleto(Carceri?), 4;selva di Forano, 42.di Massa, 51, etc.31.TheSpeculum, 46b, 58b, 158a, gives us three states. Cf.Fior., 26 and 21;Conform., 119b, 2.32.This desire was so natural that the manuscript of the Angelica Library includes many additional chapters, concerning the gift of Portiuncula, the indulgence of August 2d, the birth of St. Francis, etc. (Vide Amoni, Fioretti, Roma, 1889, pp. 266, 378-386.) It would be an interesting study to seek the origin of these documents and to establish their relationship with the Speculum and the Conformities. VideConform., 231a, 1; 121b;Spec., 92-96.33.Ginepro was received into the Order by St. Francis. In 1253 he was present at St. Clara's death. A. SS.,Aug., t. ii., p. 764d. The Conformities speak of him in detail, fo62b.34.The first seven chapters form a whole. The three which follow are doubtless a first attempt at completing them.35.Conformities, fo55b, 1-60a, 1.36.SeeArchiv., t. i., p. 145, an article of Father Denifle:Zur Quellenkunde der Franziskaner Geschichte, where he mentions at least eight manuscripts of this work. Cf. Ehrle:Zeitschrift, 1883, p. 324, note 3. I have studied only the two manuscripts of Florence: Riccardi, 279, paper, 243 fos. of two cols. recently numbered. The Codex of the Laurentian Gaddian. rel., 53, is less careful. It is also on paper, 20 x 27, and counts 254 fos. of 1 column. Fo1 was formerly numbered 88. The order of the chapters is not the same as in the preceding.37.The citations are always made from the edition of Milan, 1510, 4to of 256 folios of two columns. The best known of the subsequent editions are those of Milan, 1513, and Bologna, 1590.38.He began it in 1385 (fo1), and it was authorized by the chapter general August 2, 1399 (fo256a, 1). Besides, on fo150a, 1, he set down the date when he was writing. It was in 1390.39.I am not here concerned with the foolish attacks of certain Protestant authors upon this life. That is a quarrel of the theologians which in no way concerns history. Nowhere does Bartolommeo of Pisa make St. Francis the equal of Jesus, and he was able even to forestall criticism in this respect. The Bollandists are equally severe: "Cum Pisanus fuerit scriptor magis pius et credulus quam crisi severa usus...." A. SS., p. 551e.40.He has avoided the mistakes so unfortunately committed by Wadding in his list of ministers general. Vide 66a. 2, 104a, 1, 118b, 2. He was lecturer on theology at Bologna, Padua, Pisa, Sienna, and Florence. He preached for many years and with great success in the principal villages of the Peninsula and could thus take advantage of his travels by collecting useful notes. Mark of Lisbon has preserved for us a notice of his life. VideCroniche dei fratri Minori, t. iii., p. 6 ff. of the Diola edition. He died December 10, 1401. For further details see Wadding, ann. 1399, vii., viii., and above all Sbaralea,Supplementum, p. 109. He is the author of an exposition of the Rule little known which can be found in the Speculum Morin, Rouen, 1509, fo66b-83a, of part three.41.This opinion is expressed in a guarded manner. For example, fo207a, 1, Bartolommeo relates the miracle of the Chapter of the Mats, first following St. Bonaventura, then adding: "Et quia non aliter tangit dicta pars (legendæ majoris) hoc insigne miraculum: antiqua legenda hoc refertur in hunc modum." Cf. 225a, 2m. "Et quia fr. Bonaventura succincte multa tangit et in brevi: pro evidentia prefatorum notandum est ... ut dicit antiqua legenda."42.However, it is necessary to note that not only are there considerable differences between the editions published, but also that the first (that of Milan, 1510) has been completed and revised by its editor. The judgments passed upon Raymond Ganfridi, 104a, 1, and Boniface VIII., 103b, 1, show traces of later corrections. (Cf. 125a, 1. At fo72a, 2m, is indicated the date of the death of St. Bernardin, which was in 1444, etc.) Besides, we are surprised to find beside the pages where the sources are indicated with clearness others where stories follow one another coming one knows not from whence.43.Fo70a, 1: "Cujus nomen non reperi." 1a, 2: "Multaque non ex industria sed quia ea noscere non valui omittendo."44.Fo78a, 1:Informationes quas non scribo quia imperfectas reperi.Cf. 229b, 2: "De aliis multis apparitionibus non reperi scripturam, quare hic non pono."45.Fo69a, 1: "Hec ut audivi posui quia ejus legendam non vidi." Cf. 68b, 2m:Fr. Henricus generalis minister mihi magistro Bartholomeo dixit ipse oretenus.46.The citations from Bonaventura are decidedly more frequent. We should not be surprised, since this story is the official biography of St. Francis; the chapter from which Bartolommeo takes his quotations is almost always indicated, and, naturally, follows the old division in five parts. Opening the book at hazard at folio 136a I find no less than six references to theLegenda Majorin the first column. To give an idea of the style of Bartolommeo of Pisa I shall give in substance the contents of a page of his book. See, for example, fo111a (lib. i., conform. x., pars. ii., Franciscus predicator). In the third line he cites Bonaventura: "Fr. Bonaventura in quarta parte majoris legende dicit quod b. Franciscus videbatur intuentibus homo alterius seculi." Textual citation of Bonaventure, 45. Three lines further on: "Verum qualis esset b. F. quoad personam sic habetur in legenda antiqua ... homo facundissimus, facie hilaris, etc." The literal citation of the sketch of Francis follows as 1 Celano, 83, gives it as far as: "inter peccatores quasi unus ex illis," and to mark the end of the quotation Bartolommeo adds: "Hec legenda antiqua." In the next column paragraph 4 commences with the words:B. Francisci predicationem reddebat mirabilem et gloriosam ipsius sancti loquutio: etenim legenda trium Sociorum dicit et Legenda major parte tertia: B. Francisei eloquia erant non inania, neo risu digna, etc., which corresponds literally with 3 Soc., 25, and Bon., 28. Then come two chapters of Bonaventura almost entire, beginning with:In duodecima parte legende majoris dicit Fr. Bonaventura: Erat enim verbum ejus, etc. Textual quotation of Bon., 178 and 179. The page ends with another quotation from Bonaventura:Sic dicebat prout recitat Bonaventura in octava parte Legende majoris: Hac officium patri misericordiarum. Vide Bonav., 102 end and 103 entire. This suffices without doubt to show with what precision the authorities have been quoted in this work, with what attention and confidence ought to be examined those portions of documents lost or mislaid which he has here preserved for us.47.Fo31b, 2:ut dicit fr. Thomas in sua legenda, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 60.—140a, 2:Fr. in leg. fr. Thome, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 60.—140a 1, cf. 2 Cel., 3 16.—142b, 1:Fr. in leg. Thome capitulo de charitate, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 115.—144b, 1:Fr. in leg. fr. Thome capitulo de oratione, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 40.—144b, 1, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 65.—144b, 2, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 78.—176b, 2, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 79.—182b, 2, cf. 2 Cel., 2, 1.—241b, 1, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 141.—181a, 2, cf. 1 Cel., 27. It is needless to say that these lists of quotations do not pretend to be complete.48.Fo36b, 2.Ut enim habetur in leg.3 Soc., cf. 3 Soc., 10.—46b, 1, cf. 3 Soc., 25-28.—38b 2, cf. 3 Soc. 3.—111a, 2, cf. 3 Soc., 25.—134a, 2, cf. 3 Soc, 4.—142b, 2, cf. 3 Soc., 57 and 58.—167b, 2, cf. 3 Soc., 3 and 8.—168a, 1, cf. 3 Soc., 10.—170b, 1, cf. 3 Soc., 39, 4.—175b, 2, cf. 3 Soc., 59.—180b, 2, cf. 3 Soc., 4.—181a, 1, cf. 3 Soc., 5, 7, 24, 33, and 67.—181a. 2, cf. 3 Soc., 36.—229b, 2, cf. 3 Soc., 14. etc. The reading of 3 Soc. which Bartolommeo had before his eyes was pretty much the same we have to day, for he says, 181a, 2. referring to 3 Soc., 67: "Ut habetur quasi in fine leg. 3Soc."49.Fo111a, 1,Sic habetur in leg. ant., corresponds literally with 1 Cel., 83.—144a, 2.Franciscus in leg. ant. cap. v. de zelo ad religionem, to 1 Cel. 106.50.Fo111b, 1.De predicantibus loqueus sic dicebat in ant. leg.Cf. 2 Cel., 3, 99 and 106. 140b, 1. Cf. 2 Cel., 3, 84.—144b, 1, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 45—144a, 1, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 95 and 15.—225b, 2, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 116.51.Fo31a, 1. Vide 2 Cel., 3, 83.—143a, 2. Vide 2 Cel., 3, 65 and 116.—144a, 1. Vide 2 Cel., 3, 94.—170b. 1. Vide 2 Cel., 3, 11.52.Fo14a, 2.—32a. 1.—101a, 2.—169b, 1.—144b, 2.—142a, 2.—143b, 2.—168b, 1.—144b, 1.53.Chapters 18 (chapter of the mats) and 25 (lepers cured) of theFiorettiare found in Latin in the Conf. as borrowed from the Leg. Ant. Vide 174b, 1, and 207a. 1.Finally, according to fo168b, 2, it is also from the Leg. Ant. that the description of the coat, such as we find at the end of theChronique des Tribulations, was borrowed. SeeArchiv., t. ii., p. 153.54.Fo182a, 2; cf. 51b, 1; 144a, 1.55.He died December 12, 1306, at Bastia, near Assisi. See upon himChron. Tribul. Archiv., ii.; 311 and 312;Conform., 60, 119, and 153.56.Although the history of the Indulgence of Portiuncula was of all subjects the one most largely treated in the Conformities, 151b, 2—157a, 2, not once does Bartolommeo of Pisa refer to it in theLegenda Antiqua. It seems, then, that this collection also was silent as to this celebrated pardon.57.Published with extreme care by the Franciscan Fathers of the Observance in t. ii. of theAnalecta Franciscana, ad Claræ Aquas(Quaracchi, near Florence), 1888, 1 vol., crown 8vo, of xxxvi.-612 pp. This edition, as much from the critical point of view of the text, its correctness, its various readings and notes, as from the material point of view, is perfect and makes the more desirable a publication of the chronicles of the xxiv. generals and of Salimbeni by the same editors. The beginning up to the year 1262 has been published already by Dr. Karl Evers under the titleAnalecta ad Fratrum Minorum historiam, Leipsic, 1882, 4to of 89 pp.58.I have been able only to procure the Italian edition published by Horatio Diola under the titleCroniche degli Ordini instituti dal P. S. Francesco, 3 vols., 8vo, Venice, 1606.
1.Chronica fratris Jordani a Giano.The text was published for the first time in 1870 by Dr. G. Voigt under the title: "Die Denkwürdigkeiten des Minoriten Jordanus von Gianoin theAbhandlungen der philolog. histor. Cl. der Königl. sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften," pp. 421-545, Leipsic, by Hirzel, 1870. Only one manuscript is known; it is in the royal library at Berlin (Manuscript. theolog. lat., 4to, n. 196, sæc. xiv., foliorum 141). It has served as the base of the second edition:Analecta franciscana sive Chronica aliaque documenta ad historiam minorum spectantia. Ad Claras Aquas (Quaracchi) ex typographia collegii S. Bonaventuræ, 1885, t. i., pp. 1-19. Except where otherwise noted, I cite entirely this edition, in which is preserved the division into sixty-three paragraphs introduced by Dr. Voigt.
2.Giord., 81.
3.He names more than twenty four persons.
4.It does not seem to me that we can look upon the account of the interview between Gregory IX. and Brother Giordano as rigorously accurate. Giord., 63.
5.Liber de adventu Minorum in Angliam, published under the title ofMonumenta Franciscana(in the series ofRerum Britannicarum medii Ævi scriptores,Roll series) in two volumes, 8vo; the first through the care of J. S. Brewer (1858), the second through that of R. Howlett (1882). This text is reproduced without the scientific dress of theAnalecta franciscana, t. i., pp. 217-257. Cf. English Historical Review, v. (1890), 754. He has published an excellent critical edition of it, but unfortunately partial, in vol. xxviii.,Scriptorum, of theMonumenta Germaniæ Historicaby Mr. Liebermann, Hanover, 1888, folio, pp. 560-569.
6.Eccl., 11; 13; 14; 15. Cf. Eccl., 14, where the author takes pains to say that Alberto of Pisa died at Rome, surrounded by English Brothers "inter Anglicos."
7.Eccl., 4; 12.
8.Eccl., 4; 5; 6; 7; 10; 12; 13; 14; 15.
9.It was published, but with many suppressions, in 1857, at Parma. The Franciscans of Quaracchi prepared a new edition of it, which appeared in theAnalecta Franciscana. This work is in manuscript in the Vatican under no. 7260. Vide Ehrle.Zeitschrift für kath. Theol.(1883), t. vii., pp. 767 and 768. The work of Mr. Clédat will be read with interest:De fratre Salembene et de ejus chronicæ auctoritate, Paris, 4to, 1877, with fac simile.
10.Father Ehrle has published it, but unfortunately not entire, in theArchiv., t. ii., pp. 125-155, text of the close of the fifth and of the sixth tribulation; pp. 256-327 text of the third, of the fourth, and of the commencement of the fifth. He has added to it introductions and critical notes. For the parts not published I will cite the text of the Laurentian manuscript (Plut. 20, cod. 7), completed where possible with the Italian version in the National Library at Florence (Magliabecchina, xxxvii.-28). See also an article of Professor Tocco in theArchivio storico italiano, t. xvii. (1886), pp. 12-36 and 243-61, and one of Mr. Richard's: Library of the École des chartes, 1884, 5th livr. p. 525. Cf. Tocco, theEresia nel medio Evo, p. 419 ff. As to the text published by Döllinger in hisBeiträge zur Sektengeschichte des Mittelalters, Münich, 1890, 2 vols., 8vo, II.Theil Dokumente, pp. 417-427, it is of no use. It can only beget errors, as it abounds with gross mistakes. Whole pages are wanting.
11.Archiv., t. iii., pp. 406-409.
12.VideArchiv., i., p. 557 ... "Et hoc totum ex rapacitate et malignitate luporum pastorum qui voluerunt esse pastores, sed operibus negaverunt deum," et seq. Cf., p. 562: "Avaritia et symoniaca heresis absque pallio regnat et fere totum invasit ecclesie corpus."
13."Qui excommunicat et hereticat altissimam evangelii paupertatem, excommunicatus est a Deo et hereticus coram Christo, qui est eterna et in commutabilis veritas."Arch., i., p. 509. "Non est potestas contra christum Dominum et contra evangelium." Ib. p. 560. He closes one of his letters with a sentence of a mysticism full of serenity, and which lets us see to the bottom of the hearts of the Spiritual Brothers. "Totum igitur studium esse debet quod unum inseparabiliter simus per Franciscum in Christo." Ib., p. 564.
14.For example in the list of the first six generals of the Order.
15.The first (1219-1226) extends from the departure of St. Francis for Egypt up to his death; the second includes the generalate of Brother Elias (1232-1239); the third that of Crescentius (1244-1248); the fourth, that of Bonaventura (1257-1274); the fifth commences with the epoch of the council of Lyon (1274) and extends up to the death of the inquisitor, Thomas d'Aversa (1204). And the sixth goes from 1308 to 1323.
16."Supererant adhuc multi de sociis b. Francisci ... et alii non pauci de quibus ego vidi et ab ipsis audivi quæ narro." Laur. Ms., cod. 7, pl. xx., fo24a: "Qui passi sunt eam (tribulationem tertiam) socii fundatoris fratres Aegdius et Angelus, qui supererant me audiente referibant." Laur. Ms., fo27b. Cf., Italian Ms., xxxvii., 28, Magliab., fo138b.
17.The date of his death is unknown; on August 11, 1253, he was present at the death-bed of St. Clara.
18.Died April 23, 1261.
19."Quem (fratrem Jacobum de Massa) dirigente me fratre Johanne socio fratris prefati Egidii videre laboravi. Hic enim frater Johannes ... dixit mihi...."Arch., ii., p. 279.
20." ...Tribulationes preteritas memoravi, ut audivi ab illis qui sustinuerunt eas et aliqua commemoravi de hiis que didici in quatuor legendis quas vidi et legi."Arch., ii., p. 135.—"Vitam pauperis et humilis viri Dei Francisci trium ordinum fundatoris quatuor solemnes personæ scripserunt, fratres videlicet scientia et sanctitate præclari, Johannes et Thomas de Celano, frater Bonaventura unus post Beatum Franciscum Generalis Minister et vir miræ simplicitatis et sanctitatis frater Leo, ejusdem sancti Francisci socius. Has quatuor descriptiones seu historias qui legerit...." Laurent. MS., pl. xx., c. 7, fo1a. Did the Italian translator think there was an error in this quotation? I do not know, but he suppressed it. At fo12a of manuscript xxxvii., 28, of the Magliabecchina, we read: "Incominciano alcune croniche del ordine franciscano, come la vita del povero e humile servo di Dio Francesco fondatore del minorico ordine fu scripta da San Bonaventura e da quatro altri frati. Queste poche scripture ovveramente hystorie quello il quale diligentemente le leggiera, expeditamente potra cognoscere ... la vocatione la santita di San Francisco."
21.Laur. MS., fo4b ff. On the other hand we read in a letter of Clareno: "Ad hanc (paupertatem) perfecte servandam Christus Franciscum vocavit et elegit in hac hora novissima et precepit ei evangelicam assumere regulam, et a papa Innocentio fuit omnibus annuntiatum in concilio generali, quod de sua auctoritate et obedientia sanctus Franciscus evangelicam vitam et regulam assumpserat et Christo inspirante servare promiserat, sicut sanctus vir fr. Leo scribit et fr. Johannes de Celano."Archiv., i., p. 559.
22."Audiens enim semel quorundam fratrum enormes excessus, ut fr. Thomas de Celano scribit, et malum exemplum per eos secularibus datum." Laur. MS., fo13b. The passage which follows evidently refers to 2 Cel., 3, 93 and 112.
23."Et fecerunt de regula prima ministri removeri capitulum istud de prohibitionibus sancti evangelii, sicut frater Leo scribit." Laur. Ms. fo12b. Cf.Spec., 9a, see p. 248. "Nam cum rediisset de partibus ultramarinis, minister quidam loquebatur cum eo, ut frater Leo refert, de capitulo paupertatis," fo13a, cf.Spec., 9a, "S. Franciscus, teste fr. Leone, frequenter et cum multo studio recitabat fabulam ... quod oportebat finaliter ordinem humiliari et ad sue humilitatis principia confitenda et tenenda reduci."Archiv., ii., p. 129.
There is only one point of contact between the Legend of the Three Companions, such as it is to-day, and these passages; but we find on the contrary revised accounts in theSpeculumand in the other collections, where they are cited as coming from Brother Leo.
24.Clareno, for example, holds that the Cardinal Ugolini had sustained St. Francis without approving of the first Rule, in concert with Cardinal Giovanni di San Paolo. This is possible, since Ugolini was created cardinal in 1198 (Vide Cardella:Memorie storiche de' Cardinali, 9 vols., 8vo, Rome, 1792-1793, t. i., pt. 2, p. 190). Besides this would better explain the zeal with which he protected the divers Orders founded by St. Francis, from 1217. The chapter where Clareno tells how St. Francis wrote the Rule shows the working over of the legend, but it is very possible that he has borrowed it in its present form from Brother Leo. It is to be noted that we do not find in this document a single allusion to the Indulgences of Portiuncula.
25.The manuscripts and editions are well-nigh innumerable. M. Luigi Manzoni has studied them with a carefulness that makes it much to be desired that he continue this difficult work.Studi sui Fioretti: Miscelenea, 1888, pp. 116-119, 150-152, 162-168; 1889, 9-15, 78-84, 132-135. When shall we find some one who can and will undertake to make a scientific edition of them? Those which have appeared during our time in the various cities of Italy are insignificant from a critical point of view. See Mazzoni Guido,Capitoli inediti dei Fioretti di S. Francesco, in thePropugnatore, Bologna, 1888, vol. xxi., pp. 396-411.
26.Vide A. SS., p. 865: "Floretum non legi, nec curandum putavi." Cf. 553f: "Floretum ad manum non habeo."
27.Bartolommeo di Pisa compiled it in 1385; then certain manuscripts of the Fioretti are earlier. Besides, in the stories that the Conformities borrow from the Fioretti, we perceive Bartolommeo's work of abbreviation.
28.I am speaking here only of the fifty-three chapters which form the true collection of the Fioretti.
29.The province of the March of Ancona counted seven custodias: 1, Ascoli; 2, Camerino; 3, Ancona; 4, Jesi; 5, Fermo; 6, Fano; 7, Felestro. The Fioretti mention at least six of the monasteries of the custodia of Fermo: Moliano, 51, 53; Fallerone, 32, 51; Bruforte and Soffiano, 46, 47; Massa, 51; Penna, 45; Fermo, 41, 49, 51.
30.At each page we are reminded of those groves which were originally the indispensable appendage of the Franciscan monasteries:La selva ch' era allora allato a S. M. degli Angeli, 3, 10, 15, 16, etc.La selva d' un luogo deserto del val di Spoleto(Carceri?), 4;selva di Forano, 42.di Massa, 51, etc.
31.TheSpeculum, 46b, 58b, 158a, gives us three states. Cf.Fior., 26 and 21;Conform., 119b, 2.
32.This desire was so natural that the manuscript of the Angelica Library includes many additional chapters, concerning the gift of Portiuncula, the indulgence of August 2d, the birth of St. Francis, etc. (Vide Amoni, Fioretti, Roma, 1889, pp. 266, 378-386.) It would be an interesting study to seek the origin of these documents and to establish their relationship with the Speculum and the Conformities. VideConform., 231a, 1; 121b;Spec., 92-96.
33.Ginepro was received into the Order by St. Francis. In 1253 he was present at St. Clara's death. A. SS.,Aug., t. ii., p. 764d. The Conformities speak of him in detail, fo62b.
34.The first seven chapters form a whole. The three which follow are doubtless a first attempt at completing them.
35.Conformities, fo55b, 1-60a, 1.
36.SeeArchiv., t. i., p. 145, an article of Father Denifle:Zur Quellenkunde der Franziskaner Geschichte, where he mentions at least eight manuscripts of this work. Cf. Ehrle:Zeitschrift, 1883, p. 324, note 3. I have studied only the two manuscripts of Florence: Riccardi, 279, paper, 243 fos. of two cols. recently numbered. The Codex of the Laurentian Gaddian. rel., 53, is less careful. It is also on paper, 20 x 27, and counts 254 fos. of 1 column. Fo1 was formerly numbered 88. The order of the chapters is not the same as in the preceding.
37.The citations are always made from the edition of Milan, 1510, 4to of 256 folios of two columns. The best known of the subsequent editions are those of Milan, 1513, and Bologna, 1590.
38.He began it in 1385 (fo1), and it was authorized by the chapter general August 2, 1399 (fo256a, 1). Besides, on fo150a, 1, he set down the date when he was writing. It was in 1390.
39.I am not here concerned with the foolish attacks of certain Protestant authors upon this life. That is a quarrel of the theologians which in no way concerns history. Nowhere does Bartolommeo of Pisa make St. Francis the equal of Jesus, and he was able even to forestall criticism in this respect. The Bollandists are equally severe: "Cum Pisanus fuerit scriptor magis pius et credulus quam crisi severa usus...." A. SS., p. 551e.
40.He has avoided the mistakes so unfortunately committed by Wadding in his list of ministers general. Vide 66a. 2, 104a, 1, 118b, 2. He was lecturer on theology at Bologna, Padua, Pisa, Sienna, and Florence. He preached for many years and with great success in the principal villages of the Peninsula and could thus take advantage of his travels by collecting useful notes. Mark of Lisbon has preserved for us a notice of his life. VideCroniche dei fratri Minori, t. iii., p. 6 ff. of the Diola edition. He died December 10, 1401. For further details see Wadding, ann. 1399, vii., viii., and above all Sbaralea,Supplementum, p. 109. He is the author of an exposition of the Rule little known which can be found in the Speculum Morin, Rouen, 1509, fo66b-83a, of part three.
41.This opinion is expressed in a guarded manner. For example, fo207a, 1, Bartolommeo relates the miracle of the Chapter of the Mats, first following St. Bonaventura, then adding: "Et quia non aliter tangit dicta pars (legendæ majoris) hoc insigne miraculum: antiqua legenda hoc refertur in hunc modum." Cf. 225a, 2m. "Et quia fr. Bonaventura succincte multa tangit et in brevi: pro evidentia prefatorum notandum est ... ut dicit antiqua legenda."
42.However, it is necessary to note that not only are there considerable differences between the editions published, but also that the first (that of Milan, 1510) has been completed and revised by its editor. The judgments passed upon Raymond Ganfridi, 104a, 1, and Boniface VIII., 103b, 1, show traces of later corrections. (Cf. 125a, 1. At fo72a, 2m, is indicated the date of the death of St. Bernardin, which was in 1444, etc.) Besides, we are surprised to find beside the pages where the sources are indicated with clearness others where stories follow one another coming one knows not from whence.
43.Fo70a, 1: "Cujus nomen non reperi." 1a, 2: "Multaque non ex industria sed quia ea noscere non valui omittendo."
44.Fo78a, 1:Informationes quas non scribo quia imperfectas reperi.Cf. 229b, 2: "De aliis multis apparitionibus non reperi scripturam, quare hic non pono."
45.Fo69a, 1: "Hec ut audivi posui quia ejus legendam non vidi." Cf. 68b, 2m:Fr. Henricus generalis minister mihi magistro Bartholomeo dixit ipse oretenus.
46.The citations from Bonaventura are decidedly more frequent. We should not be surprised, since this story is the official biography of St. Francis; the chapter from which Bartolommeo takes his quotations is almost always indicated, and, naturally, follows the old division in five parts. Opening the book at hazard at folio 136a I find no less than six references to theLegenda Majorin the first column. To give an idea of the style of Bartolommeo of Pisa I shall give in substance the contents of a page of his book. See, for example, fo111a (lib. i., conform. x., pars. ii., Franciscus predicator). In the third line he cites Bonaventura: "Fr. Bonaventura in quarta parte majoris legende dicit quod b. Franciscus videbatur intuentibus homo alterius seculi." Textual citation of Bonaventure, 45. Three lines further on: "Verum qualis esset b. F. quoad personam sic habetur in legenda antiqua ... homo facundissimus, facie hilaris, etc." The literal citation of the sketch of Francis follows as 1 Celano, 83, gives it as far as: "inter peccatores quasi unus ex illis," and to mark the end of the quotation Bartolommeo adds: "Hec legenda antiqua." In the next column paragraph 4 commences with the words:B. Francisci predicationem reddebat mirabilem et gloriosam ipsius sancti loquutio: etenim legenda trium Sociorum dicit et Legenda major parte tertia: B. Francisei eloquia erant non inania, neo risu digna, etc., which corresponds literally with 3 Soc., 25, and Bon., 28. Then come two chapters of Bonaventura almost entire, beginning with:In duodecima parte legende majoris dicit Fr. Bonaventura: Erat enim verbum ejus, etc. Textual quotation of Bon., 178 and 179. The page ends with another quotation from Bonaventura:Sic dicebat prout recitat Bonaventura in octava parte Legende majoris: Hac officium patri misericordiarum. Vide Bonav., 102 end and 103 entire. This suffices without doubt to show with what precision the authorities have been quoted in this work, with what attention and confidence ought to be examined those portions of documents lost or mislaid which he has here preserved for us.
47.Fo31b, 2:ut dicit fr. Thomas in sua legenda, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 60.—140a, 2:Fr. in leg. fr. Thome, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 60.—140a 1, cf. 2 Cel., 3 16.—142b, 1:Fr. in leg. Thome capitulo de charitate, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 115.—144b, 1:Fr. in leg. fr. Thome capitulo de oratione, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 40.—144b, 1, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 65.—144b, 2, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 78.—176b, 2, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 79.—182b, 2, cf. 2 Cel., 2, 1.—241b, 1, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 141.—181a, 2, cf. 1 Cel., 27. It is needless to say that these lists of quotations do not pretend to be complete.
48.Fo36b, 2.Ut enim habetur in leg.3 Soc., cf. 3 Soc., 10.—46b, 1, cf. 3 Soc., 25-28.—38b 2, cf. 3 Soc. 3.—111a, 2, cf. 3 Soc., 25.—134a, 2, cf. 3 Soc, 4.—142b, 2, cf. 3 Soc., 57 and 58.—167b, 2, cf. 3 Soc., 3 and 8.—168a, 1, cf. 3 Soc., 10.—170b, 1, cf. 3 Soc., 39, 4.—175b, 2, cf. 3 Soc., 59.—180b, 2, cf. 3 Soc., 4.—181a, 1, cf. 3 Soc., 5, 7, 24, 33, and 67.—181a. 2, cf. 3 Soc., 36.—229b, 2, cf. 3 Soc., 14. etc. The reading of 3 Soc. which Bartolommeo had before his eyes was pretty much the same we have to day, for he says, 181a, 2. referring to 3 Soc., 67: "Ut habetur quasi in fine leg. 3Soc."
49.Fo111a, 1,Sic habetur in leg. ant., corresponds literally with 1 Cel., 83.—144a, 2.Franciscus in leg. ant. cap. v. de zelo ad religionem, to 1 Cel. 106.
50.Fo111b, 1.De predicantibus loqueus sic dicebat in ant. leg.Cf. 2 Cel., 3, 99 and 106. 140b, 1. Cf. 2 Cel., 3, 84.—144b, 1, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 45—144a, 1, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 95 and 15.—225b, 2, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 116.
51.Fo31a, 1. Vide 2 Cel., 3, 83.—143a, 2. Vide 2 Cel., 3, 65 and 116.—144a, 1. Vide 2 Cel., 3, 94.—170b. 1. Vide 2 Cel., 3, 11.
52.Fo14a, 2.—32a. 1.—101a, 2.—169b, 1.—144b, 2.—142a, 2.—143b, 2.—168b, 1.—144b, 1.
53.Chapters 18 (chapter of the mats) and 25 (lepers cured) of theFiorettiare found in Latin in the Conf. as borrowed from the Leg. Ant. Vide 174b, 1, and 207a. 1.
Finally, according to fo168b, 2, it is also from the Leg. Ant. that the description of the coat, such as we find at the end of theChronique des Tribulations, was borrowed. SeeArchiv., t. ii., p. 153.
54.Fo182a, 2; cf. 51b, 1; 144a, 1.
55.He died December 12, 1306, at Bastia, near Assisi. See upon himChron. Tribul. Archiv., ii.; 311 and 312;Conform., 60, 119, and 153.
56.Although the history of the Indulgence of Portiuncula was of all subjects the one most largely treated in the Conformities, 151b, 2—157a, 2, not once does Bartolommeo of Pisa refer to it in theLegenda Antiqua. It seems, then, that this collection also was silent as to this celebrated pardon.
57.Published with extreme care by the Franciscan Fathers of the Observance in t. ii. of theAnalecta Franciscana, ad Claræ Aquas(Quaracchi, near Florence), 1888, 1 vol., crown 8vo, of xxxvi.-612 pp. This edition, as much from the critical point of view of the text, its correctness, its various readings and notes, as from the material point of view, is perfect and makes the more desirable a publication of the chronicles of the xxiv. generals and of Salimbeni by the same editors. The beginning up to the year 1262 has been published already by Dr. Karl Evers under the titleAnalecta ad Fratrum Minorum historiam, Leipsic, 1882, 4to of 89 pp.
58.I have been able only to procure the Italian edition published by Horatio Diola under the titleCroniche degli Ordini instituti dal P. S. Francesco, 3 vols., 8vo, Venice, 1606.