"Set forth," said he to the Brothers who accompanied him, "and walk two and two, humble and gentle, keeping silence until after tierce, praying to God in your hearts, carefully avoiding every vain or useless word. Meditate as much while on this journey as if you were shut up in a hermitage or in your cell, for wherever we are, wherever we go, we carry our cell with us; Brother body is our cell, and the soul is the hermit who dwells in it, there to pray to the Lord and to meditate."
"Set forth," said he to the Brothers who accompanied him, "and walk two and two, humble and gentle, keeping silence until after tierce, praying to God in your hearts, carefully avoiding every vain or useless word. Meditate as much while on this journey as if you were shut up in a hermitage or in your cell, for wherever we are, wherever we go, we carry our cell with us; Brother body is our cell, and the soul is the hermit who dwells in it, there to pray to the Lord and to meditate."
Arrived at Florence he found there Cardinal Ugolini, sent by the pope as legate to Tuscany to preach the crusade and take all needful measures for assuring itssuccess.21Francis was surely far from expecting the reception which the prelate gave him. Instead of encouraging him, the cardinal urged him to give up his project.
"I am not willing, my brother, that you should cross the mountains; there are many prelates who ask nothing better than to stir up difficulties for you with the court of Rome. But I and the other cardinals who love your Order desire to protect and aid you, on the condition, however, that you do not quit this province.""But, monsignor, it would be a great disgrace for me to send my brethren far away while I remained idly here, sharing none of the tribulations which they must undergo.""Wherefore, then, have you sent your brethren so far away, exposing them thus to starvation and all sorts of perils?""Do you think," replied Francis warmly, and as if moved by prophetic inspiration, "that God raised up the Brothers for the sake of this country alone? Verily, I say unto you, God has raised them up for the awakening and the salvation of all men, and they shall win souls not only in the countries of those who believe, but also in the very midst of the infidels."22
"I am not willing, my brother, that you should cross the mountains; there are many prelates who ask nothing better than to stir up difficulties for you with the court of Rome. But I and the other cardinals who love your Order desire to protect and aid you, on the condition, however, that you do not quit this province."
"But, monsignor, it would be a great disgrace for me to send my brethren far away while I remained idly here, sharing none of the tribulations which they must undergo."
"Wherefore, then, have you sent your brethren so far away, exposing them thus to starvation and all sorts of perils?"
"Do you think," replied Francis warmly, and as if moved by prophetic inspiration, "that God raised up the Brothers for the sake of this country alone? Verily, I say unto you, God has raised them up for the awakening and the salvation of all men, and they shall win souls not only in the countries of those who believe, but also in the very midst of the infidels."22
The surprise and admiration which these words awoke in Ugolini were not enough to make him change his mind. He insisted so strongly that Francis turned back to Portiuncula, the inspiration of his work not even shaken. Who knows whether the joy which he would have felt in seeing France did not confirm him in the idea that he ought to renounce this plan? Souls athirst with the longing for sacrifice often have scruples such as these; they refuse the most lawful joys that they may offer them to God.We cannot tell whether it was immediately after this interview or not till the following year that Francis put Brother Pacifico at the head of the missionaries sent into France.23
Pacifico, who was a poet of talent, had before his conversion been surnamed Prince of Poesy and crowned at the capital by the emperor. One day while visiting a relative who was a nun at San Severino in the March of Ancona, Francis also arrived at the monastery, and preached with such a holy impetuosity that the poet felt himself pierced with the sword of which the Bible speaks, which penetrates between the very joints and marrow, and discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart.24On the morrow he assumed the habit and received his symbolical surname.25
He was accompanied to France by Brother Agnello di Pisa, who was destined to be put at the head of the first mission to England in 1224.26
Francis, on sending them forth, was far from dreaming that from this country, which exerted such a fascination over him, was to come forth the influence which was to compromise his dream—that Paris would be the destruction of Assisi; and yet the time was not very far distant;a few years more and the Poverello would see a part of his spiritual family forgetting the humility of their name, their origin, and their aspirations, to run after the ephemeral laurels of learning.
We have already seen that the habit of the Franciscans of this time was to make their abode within easy reach of great cities; Pacifico and his companions established themselves at St. Denis.27We have no particulars of their work; it was singularly fruitful, since it permitted them a few years later to attack England with full success.
Francis passed the following year (1218) in evangelizing tours in Italy. It is naturally impossible to follow him in these travels, the itinerary of which was fixed by his daily inspirations, or by indications as fanciful as the one which had formerly determined his going to Sienna. Bologna,28the Verna, the valley of Rieti, the Sacro-Speco of St. Benedict at Subiaco,29Gaeta;30San Michele on Mount Gargano31perhaps received him at this time, but the notesof his presence in these places are too sparse and vague to permit their being included in any scheme of history.
It is very possible that he also paid a visit to Rome during this time; his communications with Ugolini were much more frequent than is generally supposed. We must not permit the stories of biographers to deceive us in this matter; it is a natural tendency to refer all that we know of a man to three or four especially striking dates. We forget entire years of the life of those whom we have known the best and loved the most and group our memories of them around a few salient events which shine all the more brilliantly the deeper we make the surrounding obscurity. The words of Jesus spoken on a hundred different occasions came at last to be formed into a single discourse, the Sermon on the Mount. It is in such cases that criticism needs to be delicate, to mingle a little divination with the heavy artillery of scientific argument.
The texts are sacred, but we must not make fetiches of them; notwithstanding St. Matthew, no one to-day dreams of representing Jesus as uttering the Sermon on the Mount all at one time. In the same way, in the narratives concerning the relations between St. Francis and Ugolini, we find ourselves every moment shut up in no-thoroughfares, coming up against contradictory indications, just so long as we try to refer everything to two or three meetings, as we are at first led to do.
With a simple act of analysis these difficulties disappear and we find each of the different narratives bringing us fragments which, being pieced together, furnish an organic story, living, psychologically true.
From the moment at which we have now arrived, we must make a much larger place for Ugolini than in the past; the struggle has definitively opened between the Franciscan ideal—chimerical, perhaps, but sublime—andthe ecclesiastical policy, to go on until the day when, half in humility, half in discouragement, Francis, heartsick, abdicates the direction of his spiritual family.
Ugolini returned to Rome at the end of 1217. During the following winter his countersign is found at the bottom of the most important bulls;32he devoted this time to the special study of the question of the new orders, and summoned Francis before him. We have seen with what frankness he had declared to him at Florence that many of the prelates would do anything to discredit him with the pope.33It is evident the success of the Order, its methods, which in spite of all protestations to the contrary seemed to savor of heresy, the independence of Francis, who had scattered his friars in all the four corners of the globe without trying to gain a confirmation of the verbal and entirely provisional authorization accorded him by Innocent III.—all these things were calculated to startle the clergy.
Ugolini, who better than any one else knew Umbria, Tuscany, Emilia, the March of Ancona, all those regions where the Franciscan preaching had been most successful, was able by himself to judge of the power of the new movement and the imperious necessity of directing it; he felt that the best way to allay the prejudices which the pope and the sacred college might have against Francis was to present him before the curia.
Francis was at first much abashed at the thought of preaching before the Vicar of Jesus Christ, but upon the entreaties of his protector he consented, and for greater security he learned by heart what he had to say.
Ugolini himself was not entirely at ease as to the result of this step; Thomas of Celano pictures him as devoured with anxiety; he was troubled about Francis, whose artless eloquence ran many a risk in the halls of the Lateran Palace; he was also not without some more personal anxieties, for the failure of hisprotégémight be most damaging to himself. He was in all the greater anxiety when, on arriving at the feet of the pontiff, Francis forgot all he had intended to say; but he frankly avowed it, and seeking a new discourse from the inspiration of the moment, spoke with so much warmth and simplicity that the assembly was won.34
The biographers are mute as to the practical result of this audience. We are not to be surprised at this, for they write with the sole purpose of edification. They wrote after the apotheosis of their master, and would with very bad grace have dwelt upon the difficulties which he met during the early years.35
The Holy See must have been greatly perplexed by thisstrange man, whose faith and humility were evident, but whom it was impossible to teach ecclesiastical obedience.
St. Dominic happened to be in Rome at the same time,36and was overwhelmed with favors by the pope. It is a matter of history that Innocent III. having asked him to choose one of the Rules already approved by the Church, he had returned to his friars at Notre Dame de Prouille, and after conferring with them had adopted that of St. Augustine; Honorius therefore was not sparing of privileges for him. It is hardly possible that Ugolini did not try to use the influence of his example with St. Francis.
The curia saw clearly that Dominic, whose Order barely comprised a few dozen members, was not one of the moral powers of the time, but its sentiments toward him were by no means so mixed as those it experienced with regard to Francis.
To unite the two Orders, to throw over the shoulders of the Dominicans the brown cassock of the Poor Men of Assisi, and thus make a little of the popularity of the Brothers Minor to be reflected upon them, to leave to the latter their name, their habit, and even a semblance of their Rule, only completing it with that of St. Augustine, such a project would have been singularly pleasing to Ugolini, and with Francis's humility would seem to have some chance of success.
One day Dominic by dint of pious insistance induced Francis to give him his cord, and immediately girded himself with it. "Brother," said he, "I earnestly long that your Order and mine might unite to form one sole and same institute37in the Church." But the BrotherMinor wished to remain as he was, and declined the proposition. So truly was he inspired with the needs of his time and of the Church that less than three years after this Dominic was drawn by an irresistible influence to transform his Order of Canons of St. Augustine into an order of mendicant monks, whose constitutions were outlined upon those of the Franciscans.38
A few years later the Dominicans took, so to speak, their revenge, and obliged the Brothers Minor to give learning a large place in their work. Thus, while hardly come to youth's estate, the two religious families rivalled one another, impressed, influenced one another, yet never so much so as to lose all traces of their origin—summed up for the one in poverty and lay preaching, for the other in learning and the preaching of the clergy.
FOOTNOTES1.The commencement of the great missions and the institution of provincial ministers is usually fixed either at 1217 or 1219, but both these dates present great difficulties. I confess that I do not understand the vehemence with which partisans of either side defend their opinions. The most important text is a passage in the 3 Soc., 62:Expletis itaque undecim annis ab inceptione religionis, et multiplicatis numero et merito fratribus, electi fuerant ministri, et missi cum aliquot fratribus quasi per universas mundi provincias in quibus fides catholica colitur et servatur.What does this expression,inceptio religionis, mean? At a first reading one unhesitatingly takes it to refer to the foundation of the Order, which occurred in April, 1209, by the reception of the first Brothers; but on adding eleven full years to this date we reach the summer of 1220. This is manifestly too late, for the 3 Soc. say that the brethren who went out were persecuted in most of the countries beyond the mountains, as being accredited by no pontifical letter; but the bullCum dilecti, bears the date of June 11, 1219. We are thus led to think that the eleven years are not to be counted from the reception of the first Brothers, but from Francis's conversion, which the authors might well speak of asinceptio religionis, and 1206 + 11 = 1217. The use of this expression to designate conversion is not entirely without example. Glassberger says (An. fr., p. 9):Ordinem minorum incepit anno 1206.Those who admit 1219 are obliged (like the Bollandists, for example), to attribute an inaccuracy to the text of the 3 Soc., that of having counted eleven years as having passed when there had been only ten. We should notice that in the two other chronological indications given by the 3 Soc. (27 and 62) they count from the conversion, that is from 1206, as also Thomas of Celano, 88, 105, 119, 97, 88, 57, 55, 21. Curiously, the Conformities reproduce the passage of the 3 Soc. (118b, 1), but with the alteration:Nono anno ab inceptione religionis. Giordano di Giano opens the door to many scruples:Anno vero Domini1219et anno conversionis ejus decimo frater Franciscus ... misit fratres in Franciam, in Theutoniam, in Hungariam, in Hespaniam, Giord., 3. As a little later the same author properly harmonizes 1219 with the thirteenth year from Francis's conversion, everyone is in agreement in admitting that the passage cited needs correction; we have unfortunately only one manuscript of this chronicle. Glassberger, who doubtless had another before him, substitutes 1217, but he may have drawn this date from another document. It is noteworthy that Brother Giordano gives as simultaneous the departure of the friars for Germany, Hungary, and France; but, as to the latter country, it certainly took place in 1217. So the Speculum, 44a.The chronicle of the xxiv. generals and Mark of Lisbon (Diola's ed., t. i., p. 82) holds also to 1217, so that, though not definitely established, it would appear that this date should be accepted until further information. Starting from slightly different premises, the learned editors of theAnalectaarrive at the same conclusion (t. ii., pp. 25-36). Cf. Evers,Analecta ad Fr. Minorum historiam, Leipsic, 1882, 4to, pp. 7 and 11. That which appears to me decidedly to tip the balance in favor of 1217, is the fact that the missionary friars were persecuted because they had no document of legitimation; and in 1219 they would have had the bullCum dilecti, from June 11th of that year. The Bollandists, who hold for 1219, have so clearly seen this argument that they have been obliged to deny the authenticity of the bull (or at least to suppose it wrongly dated). A. SS., p. 839.2.Vide A. SS., p. 604. Cf. Angelo Clareno,Tribul. Archiv., i., p. 559.A papa Innocentis fuit omnibus annuntiatum in concilio generali ... sicut sanctus vir fr. Leo scribit et fr. Johannes de Celano.These lines have not perhaps the significance which one would be led to give them at the first glance, their author having perhaps confoundedconsiliumandconsistorium. The Speculum, 20b says:Eam (Regulam Innocentius) approvabit et concessit et postea in consistorio omnibus annuntiavit.3.Ne nimia Religionem diversitas gravem in Ecclesia Dei confusionem inducat, firmiter prohibemus, ne quis de cœtero novam Religionem inveniat; sed quicumque voluerit ad Religionem converti, unam de approbatis assumat.Labbé and Cossart:Sacrosancta concilia, Paris, 1672, t. xi., col. 165.4.Eccl., 15 (An. franc., t. 1, p. 253):Innocentium in cujus obitu fuit presentialiter S. Franciscus.5.3 Soc., 61; cf.An. Perus., A. SS., p. 606f.6.Thomas of Celano must be in error when he declares that Francis was not acquainted with Cardinal Ugolini before the visit which he made him at Florence (summer of 1217):Nondum alter alteri erat præcipua familiaritate conjunctus(1 Cel., 74 and 75). The Franciscan biographer's purpose was not historic; chronological indications are given in profusion; what he seeks is theapta junctura. Tradition has preserved the memory of a chapter held at Portiuncula in presence of Ugolini during a stay of the curia at Perugia (Spec., 137b.;Fior., 18;Conform., 207a; 3 Soc., 61). But the curia did not come back to Perugia between 1216 and Francis's death. It is also to be noted that according to Angelo Clareno, Ugolini was with Francis in 1210, supporting him in the presence of Innocent III. Vide below,p. 413. Finally the bullSacrosanctaof December 9, 1219, witnesses that already during his legation in Florence (1217) Ugolini was actually interesting himself for the Clarisses.7.See, for example, the description of the chapter of 1221 by Brother Giordano. Giord., 16.8.With regard to the figure of five thousand attendants given by Bonaventura (Bon., 59) Father Papini writes:Io non credo stato capace alcuno di dare ad intendere al S. Dottore simil fanfaluca, ne capace lui di crederla.... In somma il numero quinque millia et ultra non è del Santo, incapace di scrivere una cosa tanto improbabile e relativamente impossibile. Storia di S. Fr., i., pp. 181 and 183. This figure, five thousand, is also indicated by Eccl., 6. All this may be explained and become possible by admitting the presence of the Brothers of Penitence, and it seems very difficult to contest it, since in the Order of the Humiliants, which much resembles that of the Brothers Minor (equally composed of three branches approved by three bulls given June, 1201), the chapters-general annually held were frequented by the brothers of the three Orders. Tiraboschi t. ii., p. 144. Cf. above, p. 158.9.Vide 2 Cel., 3, 121;Spec., 42b; 127b.10.Præcipio firmiter per obedientiam fratribus universis quod ubicunque sunt, non audeant petere aliquam litteram in Curia Romana.Test. B. Fr.11.A comparison with the Bullary of the Preaching Friars is especially instructive: from their first chapter at Notre Dame de Prouille, in 1216, they are about fifteen; we find there at this time absolutely nothing that can be compared to the Franciscan movement, which was already stirring up all Italy. But while the first bull in favor of the Franciscans bears the date of June 11, 1219, and the approbation properly so called that of November 29, 1223, we find Honorius already in the end of 1216 lavishing marks of affection upon the Dominicans; December 22, 1216,Religiosam vitam. Cf. Pressuti,I regesti, del Pontefice Onorio III., Roma, 1884, t. i., no. 175; same date;Nos attendentes, ibid., no. 176; January 21, 1217,gratiarum omnium, ib., no. 243. Vide 284, 1039, 1156, 1208. It is needless to continue this enumeration. Very much the same could be done for the other Orders; whence the conclusion that if the Brothers Minor alone are forgotten in this shower of favors, it is because they decidedly wished to be. It must be admitted that immediately upon Francis's death they made up for lost time.12.The authenticity of this passage is put beyond doubt by Ubertino di Casal's citation.Archiv., iii., p. 53. Cf.Spec., 30a;Conform., 111b, 1; 118b, 1; Ubertino,Arbor vitæ cruc., iii., 3.13.Burchardi chronicon ann. 1217,loc. cit., p. 377. See also the bulls indicated by Potthast, 5575, 5585-92.14.Before 1217 the office of minister virtually existed, though its definitive institution dates only from 1217. Brother Bernardo in his mission to Bologna, for example (1212?), certainly held in some sort the office of minister.15.Imprisoned by order of Elias, he died in consequence of blows given him one day when he was taking the air outside of his prison.Tribul., 24a.16.Giord., 5 and 6; 3 Soc., 62.17.Of Giovanni di Parma, Clareno, Anthony of Padua, etc.18.Mark of Lisbon, t. i., p. 82. Cf. p. 79, t. ii., p. 86, Glassbergerann., 1217.An. fr., ii., pp. 9 ff.;Chron xxiv. gen., MS. of Assisi, no. 328, fo2b.19.Spec., 44a.;Conform., 119a, 2; 135a; 181b, 1; 1 Cel., 74 and 75.20.Cel., 3, 129.Diligebat Franciam ... volebat in ea mori.21.V. bull of January 23, 1217,Tempus acceptabile, Potthast, no. 5430, given in Horoy, t. ii., col. 205 ff.; cf. Pressuti, i., p. 71. This bull and those following fix without question the time of the journey to Florence. Potthast, 5488, 5487, and page 495.22.It is superfluous to point out the error of the Bollandist text in the phraseMonuit (Cardinalis Franciscum) cœptum non perficere iter, where thenonis omitted, A. SS., p. 704. Cf., p. 607 and 835, which has led Suysken into several other errors.23.Bon., 51. Cf. Glassberger,ann. 1217;Spec., 45b.24.Heb., iv., 12; 2 Cel., 3, 49; Bon., 50 and 51.25.Brother Pacifico interests us [the French people] particularly as the first minister of the Order in France; information about him is abundant: Bon., 79; 2 Cel., 3, 63;Spec., 41b.:Conform., 38a, 1; 43a, 1; 71b; 173b, 1, and 176; 2 Cel., 8, 27;Spec., 38b;Conform., 181b; 2 Cel., 3, 76;Fior., 46;Conform., 70a. I do not indicate the general references found in Chevalier's Bibliography. The Miscellanea, t. ii. (1887), p. 158, contains a most precise and interesting column about him. Gregory IX. speaks of him in the bullMagna sicut diciturof August 12, 1227. Sbaralea, Bull, fr., i., p. 33 (Potthast, 8007). Thomas of Tuscany,sociusof St. Bonaventura, knew him and speaks of him in hisGesta Imperatorum (Mon. germ. hist. script., t. 22, p. 492).26.Eccl., 1;Conform., 113b, 1.27.Toward 1224 the Brothers Minor desired to draw nearer and build a vast convent near the walls of Paris in the grounds called Vauvert, or Valvert (now the Luxembourg Garden), (Eccl., 10; cf.Top. hist. du vieux Paris, by Berty and Tisserand, t. iv., p. 70). In 1230 they received at Paris from the Benedictines of Saint-Germain-des-Prés a certain number of housesin parocchia SS. Cosmæ et Damiani infra muros domini regis prope portam de Gibardo (Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, no. 76. Cf.Topographie historique du vieux Paris; Région occid. de l'univ., p. 95; Félibien,Histoire de la ville de Paris, i., p. 115). Finally, St. Louis installed them in the celebrated Convent of the Cordeliers, the refectory of which still exists, transformed into the Dupuytren Museum. The Dominicans, who arrived in Paris September 12, 1217, went straight to the centre of the city, near the bishop's palace on theIle de la Cité, and on August 6, 1218, were installed in the Convent of St. Jacques.28.Fior., 27;Spec., 148b;Conform., 71a and 113a, 2; Bon., 182.29.The traces of Francis's visit here are numerous. A Brother Eudes painted his portrait here.30.Bon., 177.31.Vide A. SS., pp. 855 and 856. Cf. 2 Cel., 3, 136.32.Among others those of December 5, 1217, Potthast, 5629; February 8, March 30, April 7, 1218, Potthast, 5695, 5739, 5747.33.1 Cel., 74.O quanti maxime in principio cum hæc agerentur novellæ plantationi ordinis insidiabantur ut perderent.Cf. 2 Cel., 1, 16.Videbat Franciscus luporum more sevire quamplures.34.1 Cel., 73 (cf. 2 Cel., 1, 17;Spec., 102a); 3 Soc., 64; Bon., 78. The fixing of this scene in the winter of 1217-1218 seems hardly to be debatable; Giordano's account (14) in fact determines the date at which Ugolini becameofficiallyprotector of the Order; it supposes earlier relations between Honorius, Francis, and Ugolini. We are therefore led to seek a date at which these three personages may have met in Rome, and we arrive thus at the period between December, 1217, and April, 1218.35.A word of Brother Giordano's opens the door to certain conjectures. "My lord," said Francis to Honorius III., in 1220, "you have given me many fathers (popes) give me a single one to whom I may turn with the affairs of my Order." (Giord., 14,Multos mihi papas dedisti da unum, ... etc.)Does not this suggest the idea that the pontiff had perhaps named a commission of cardinals to oversee the Brothers Minor? Its deliberations and the events to be related in the following chapter might have impelled him to issue the bullCum dilectiof June 11, 1219, which was not an approbation properly so called, but a safe-conduct in favor of the Franciscans.36.He took possession of St. Sabine on February 28, 1218.37.2 Cel., 3, 87. The literal meaning of the phrase is somewhat ambiguous. The text is:Vellem, frater Francisce, unam fieri religionem tuam et meam et in Ecclesia pari forma nos vivere.Spec.27b. The echo of this attempt is found in Thierry d'Apolda,Vie de S. Dominique(A. SS., Augusti, t. i., p. 572 d):S. Dominicus in oscula sancta ruens et sinceros amplexus, dixit: Tu es socius meus, tu curres pariter mecum, stemus simul, nullus adversarius prævalebit. Bernard of Besse says:B. Dominicus tanta B. Francisco devotione cohesit ut optatam ab eo cordam sub inferiori tunica devotissimi cingeret, cujus et suam Religionem unam velle fieri diceret, ipsumque pro sanctitate cæteris sequendem religiosis assereret.Turin MS., 102b.38.At the chapter held at Bologna at Whitsunday, 1220. The bullReligiosam vitam(Privilege of Notre Dame de Prouille) of March 30, 1218, enumerates the possessions of the Dominicans. Ripolli,Bull. Præd., t. i., p. 6. Horoy,Honorii opera, t. ii., col. 684.
1.The commencement of the great missions and the institution of provincial ministers is usually fixed either at 1217 or 1219, but both these dates present great difficulties. I confess that I do not understand the vehemence with which partisans of either side defend their opinions. The most important text is a passage in the 3 Soc., 62:Expletis itaque undecim annis ab inceptione religionis, et multiplicatis numero et merito fratribus, electi fuerant ministri, et missi cum aliquot fratribus quasi per universas mundi provincias in quibus fides catholica colitur et servatur.What does this expression,inceptio religionis, mean? At a first reading one unhesitatingly takes it to refer to the foundation of the Order, which occurred in April, 1209, by the reception of the first Brothers; but on adding eleven full years to this date we reach the summer of 1220. This is manifestly too late, for the 3 Soc. say that the brethren who went out were persecuted in most of the countries beyond the mountains, as being accredited by no pontifical letter; but the bullCum dilecti, bears the date of June 11, 1219. We are thus led to think that the eleven years are not to be counted from the reception of the first Brothers, but from Francis's conversion, which the authors might well speak of asinceptio religionis, and 1206 + 11 = 1217. The use of this expression to designate conversion is not entirely without example. Glassberger says (An. fr., p. 9):Ordinem minorum incepit anno 1206.Those who admit 1219 are obliged (like the Bollandists, for example), to attribute an inaccuracy to the text of the 3 Soc., that of having counted eleven years as having passed when there had been only ten. We should notice that in the two other chronological indications given by the 3 Soc. (27 and 62) they count from the conversion, that is from 1206, as also Thomas of Celano, 88, 105, 119, 97, 88, 57, 55, 21. Curiously, the Conformities reproduce the passage of the 3 Soc. (118b, 1), but with the alteration:Nono anno ab inceptione religionis. Giordano di Giano opens the door to many scruples:Anno vero Domini1219et anno conversionis ejus decimo frater Franciscus ... misit fratres in Franciam, in Theutoniam, in Hungariam, in Hespaniam, Giord., 3. As a little later the same author properly harmonizes 1219 with the thirteenth year from Francis's conversion, everyone is in agreement in admitting that the passage cited needs correction; we have unfortunately only one manuscript of this chronicle. Glassberger, who doubtless had another before him, substitutes 1217, but he may have drawn this date from another document. It is noteworthy that Brother Giordano gives as simultaneous the departure of the friars for Germany, Hungary, and France; but, as to the latter country, it certainly took place in 1217. So the Speculum, 44a.The chronicle of the xxiv. generals and Mark of Lisbon (Diola's ed., t. i., p. 82) holds also to 1217, so that, though not definitely established, it would appear that this date should be accepted until further information. Starting from slightly different premises, the learned editors of theAnalectaarrive at the same conclusion (t. ii., pp. 25-36). Cf. Evers,Analecta ad Fr. Minorum historiam, Leipsic, 1882, 4to, pp. 7 and 11. That which appears to me decidedly to tip the balance in favor of 1217, is the fact that the missionary friars were persecuted because they had no document of legitimation; and in 1219 they would have had the bullCum dilecti, from June 11th of that year. The Bollandists, who hold for 1219, have so clearly seen this argument that they have been obliged to deny the authenticity of the bull (or at least to suppose it wrongly dated). A. SS., p. 839.2.Vide A. SS., p. 604. Cf. Angelo Clareno,Tribul. Archiv., i., p. 559.A papa Innocentis fuit omnibus annuntiatum in concilio generali ... sicut sanctus vir fr. Leo scribit et fr. Johannes de Celano.These lines have not perhaps the significance which one would be led to give them at the first glance, their author having perhaps confoundedconsiliumandconsistorium. The Speculum, 20b says:Eam (Regulam Innocentius) approvabit et concessit et postea in consistorio omnibus annuntiavit.3.Ne nimia Religionem diversitas gravem in Ecclesia Dei confusionem inducat, firmiter prohibemus, ne quis de cœtero novam Religionem inveniat; sed quicumque voluerit ad Religionem converti, unam de approbatis assumat.Labbé and Cossart:Sacrosancta concilia, Paris, 1672, t. xi., col. 165.4.Eccl., 15 (An. franc., t. 1, p. 253):Innocentium in cujus obitu fuit presentialiter S. Franciscus.5.3 Soc., 61; cf.An. Perus., A. SS., p. 606f.6.Thomas of Celano must be in error when he declares that Francis was not acquainted with Cardinal Ugolini before the visit which he made him at Florence (summer of 1217):Nondum alter alteri erat præcipua familiaritate conjunctus(1 Cel., 74 and 75). The Franciscan biographer's purpose was not historic; chronological indications are given in profusion; what he seeks is theapta junctura. Tradition has preserved the memory of a chapter held at Portiuncula in presence of Ugolini during a stay of the curia at Perugia (Spec., 137b.;Fior., 18;Conform., 207a; 3 Soc., 61). But the curia did not come back to Perugia between 1216 and Francis's death. It is also to be noted that according to Angelo Clareno, Ugolini was with Francis in 1210, supporting him in the presence of Innocent III. Vide below,p. 413. Finally the bullSacrosanctaof December 9, 1219, witnesses that already during his legation in Florence (1217) Ugolini was actually interesting himself for the Clarisses.7.See, for example, the description of the chapter of 1221 by Brother Giordano. Giord., 16.8.With regard to the figure of five thousand attendants given by Bonaventura (Bon., 59) Father Papini writes:Io non credo stato capace alcuno di dare ad intendere al S. Dottore simil fanfaluca, ne capace lui di crederla.... In somma il numero quinque millia et ultra non è del Santo, incapace di scrivere una cosa tanto improbabile e relativamente impossibile. Storia di S. Fr., i., pp. 181 and 183. This figure, five thousand, is also indicated by Eccl., 6. All this may be explained and become possible by admitting the presence of the Brothers of Penitence, and it seems very difficult to contest it, since in the Order of the Humiliants, which much resembles that of the Brothers Minor (equally composed of three branches approved by three bulls given June, 1201), the chapters-general annually held were frequented by the brothers of the three Orders. Tiraboschi t. ii., p. 144. Cf. above, p. 158.9.Vide 2 Cel., 3, 121;Spec., 42b; 127b.10.Præcipio firmiter per obedientiam fratribus universis quod ubicunque sunt, non audeant petere aliquam litteram in Curia Romana.Test. B. Fr.11.A comparison with the Bullary of the Preaching Friars is especially instructive: from their first chapter at Notre Dame de Prouille, in 1216, they are about fifteen; we find there at this time absolutely nothing that can be compared to the Franciscan movement, which was already stirring up all Italy. But while the first bull in favor of the Franciscans bears the date of June 11, 1219, and the approbation properly so called that of November 29, 1223, we find Honorius already in the end of 1216 lavishing marks of affection upon the Dominicans; December 22, 1216,Religiosam vitam. Cf. Pressuti,I regesti, del Pontefice Onorio III., Roma, 1884, t. i., no. 175; same date;Nos attendentes, ibid., no. 176; January 21, 1217,gratiarum omnium, ib., no. 243. Vide 284, 1039, 1156, 1208. It is needless to continue this enumeration. Very much the same could be done for the other Orders; whence the conclusion that if the Brothers Minor alone are forgotten in this shower of favors, it is because they decidedly wished to be. It must be admitted that immediately upon Francis's death they made up for lost time.12.The authenticity of this passage is put beyond doubt by Ubertino di Casal's citation.Archiv., iii., p. 53. Cf.Spec., 30a;Conform., 111b, 1; 118b, 1; Ubertino,Arbor vitæ cruc., iii., 3.13.Burchardi chronicon ann. 1217,loc. cit., p. 377. See also the bulls indicated by Potthast, 5575, 5585-92.14.Before 1217 the office of minister virtually existed, though its definitive institution dates only from 1217. Brother Bernardo in his mission to Bologna, for example (1212?), certainly held in some sort the office of minister.15.Imprisoned by order of Elias, he died in consequence of blows given him one day when he was taking the air outside of his prison.Tribul., 24a.16.Giord., 5 and 6; 3 Soc., 62.17.Of Giovanni di Parma, Clareno, Anthony of Padua, etc.18.Mark of Lisbon, t. i., p. 82. Cf. p. 79, t. ii., p. 86, Glassbergerann., 1217.An. fr., ii., pp. 9 ff.;Chron xxiv. gen., MS. of Assisi, no. 328, fo2b.19.Spec., 44a.;Conform., 119a, 2; 135a; 181b, 1; 1 Cel., 74 and 75.20.Cel., 3, 129.Diligebat Franciam ... volebat in ea mori.21.V. bull of January 23, 1217,Tempus acceptabile, Potthast, no. 5430, given in Horoy, t. ii., col. 205 ff.; cf. Pressuti, i., p. 71. This bull and those following fix without question the time of the journey to Florence. Potthast, 5488, 5487, and page 495.22.It is superfluous to point out the error of the Bollandist text in the phraseMonuit (Cardinalis Franciscum) cœptum non perficere iter, where thenonis omitted, A. SS., p. 704. Cf., p. 607 and 835, which has led Suysken into several other errors.23.Bon., 51. Cf. Glassberger,ann. 1217;Spec., 45b.24.Heb., iv., 12; 2 Cel., 3, 49; Bon., 50 and 51.25.Brother Pacifico interests us [the French people] particularly as the first minister of the Order in France; information about him is abundant: Bon., 79; 2 Cel., 3, 63;Spec., 41b.:Conform., 38a, 1; 43a, 1; 71b; 173b, 1, and 176; 2 Cel., 8, 27;Spec., 38b;Conform., 181b; 2 Cel., 3, 76;Fior., 46;Conform., 70a. I do not indicate the general references found in Chevalier's Bibliography. The Miscellanea, t. ii. (1887), p. 158, contains a most precise and interesting column about him. Gregory IX. speaks of him in the bullMagna sicut diciturof August 12, 1227. Sbaralea, Bull, fr., i., p. 33 (Potthast, 8007). Thomas of Tuscany,sociusof St. Bonaventura, knew him and speaks of him in hisGesta Imperatorum (Mon. germ. hist. script., t. 22, p. 492).26.Eccl., 1;Conform., 113b, 1.27.Toward 1224 the Brothers Minor desired to draw nearer and build a vast convent near the walls of Paris in the grounds called Vauvert, or Valvert (now the Luxembourg Garden), (Eccl., 10; cf.Top. hist. du vieux Paris, by Berty and Tisserand, t. iv., p. 70). In 1230 they received at Paris from the Benedictines of Saint-Germain-des-Prés a certain number of housesin parocchia SS. Cosmæ et Damiani infra muros domini regis prope portam de Gibardo (Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, no. 76. Cf.Topographie historique du vieux Paris; Région occid. de l'univ., p. 95; Félibien,Histoire de la ville de Paris, i., p. 115). Finally, St. Louis installed them in the celebrated Convent of the Cordeliers, the refectory of which still exists, transformed into the Dupuytren Museum. The Dominicans, who arrived in Paris September 12, 1217, went straight to the centre of the city, near the bishop's palace on theIle de la Cité, and on August 6, 1218, were installed in the Convent of St. Jacques.28.Fior., 27;Spec., 148b;Conform., 71a and 113a, 2; Bon., 182.29.The traces of Francis's visit here are numerous. A Brother Eudes painted his portrait here.30.Bon., 177.31.Vide A. SS., pp. 855 and 856. Cf. 2 Cel., 3, 136.32.Among others those of December 5, 1217, Potthast, 5629; February 8, March 30, April 7, 1218, Potthast, 5695, 5739, 5747.33.1 Cel., 74.O quanti maxime in principio cum hæc agerentur novellæ plantationi ordinis insidiabantur ut perderent.Cf. 2 Cel., 1, 16.Videbat Franciscus luporum more sevire quamplures.34.1 Cel., 73 (cf. 2 Cel., 1, 17;Spec., 102a); 3 Soc., 64; Bon., 78. The fixing of this scene in the winter of 1217-1218 seems hardly to be debatable; Giordano's account (14) in fact determines the date at which Ugolini becameofficiallyprotector of the Order; it supposes earlier relations between Honorius, Francis, and Ugolini. We are therefore led to seek a date at which these three personages may have met in Rome, and we arrive thus at the period between December, 1217, and April, 1218.35.A word of Brother Giordano's opens the door to certain conjectures. "My lord," said Francis to Honorius III., in 1220, "you have given me many fathers (popes) give me a single one to whom I may turn with the affairs of my Order." (Giord., 14,Multos mihi papas dedisti da unum, ... etc.)Does not this suggest the idea that the pontiff had perhaps named a commission of cardinals to oversee the Brothers Minor? Its deliberations and the events to be related in the following chapter might have impelled him to issue the bullCum dilectiof June 11, 1219, which was not an approbation properly so called, but a safe-conduct in favor of the Franciscans.36.He took possession of St. Sabine on February 28, 1218.37.2 Cel., 3, 87. The literal meaning of the phrase is somewhat ambiguous. The text is:Vellem, frater Francisce, unam fieri religionem tuam et meam et in Ecclesia pari forma nos vivere.Spec.27b. The echo of this attempt is found in Thierry d'Apolda,Vie de S. Dominique(A. SS., Augusti, t. i., p. 572 d):S. Dominicus in oscula sancta ruens et sinceros amplexus, dixit: Tu es socius meus, tu curres pariter mecum, stemus simul, nullus adversarius prævalebit. Bernard of Besse says:B. Dominicus tanta B. Francisco devotione cohesit ut optatam ab eo cordam sub inferiori tunica devotissimi cingeret, cujus et suam Religionem unam velle fieri diceret, ipsumque pro sanctitate cæteris sequendem religiosis assereret.Turin MS., 102b.38.At the chapter held at Bologna at Whitsunday, 1220. The bullReligiosam vitam(Privilege of Notre Dame de Prouille) of March 30, 1218, enumerates the possessions of the Dominicans. Ripolli,Bull. Præd., t. i., p. 6. Horoy,Honorii opera, t. ii., col. 684.
1.The commencement of the great missions and the institution of provincial ministers is usually fixed either at 1217 or 1219, but both these dates present great difficulties. I confess that I do not understand the vehemence with which partisans of either side defend their opinions. The most important text is a passage in the 3 Soc., 62:Expletis itaque undecim annis ab inceptione religionis, et multiplicatis numero et merito fratribus, electi fuerant ministri, et missi cum aliquot fratribus quasi per universas mundi provincias in quibus fides catholica colitur et servatur.What does this expression,inceptio religionis, mean? At a first reading one unhesitatingly takes it to refer to the foundation of the Order, which occurred in April, 1209, by the reception of the first Brothers; but on adding eleven full years to this date we reach the summer of 1220. This is manifestly too late, for the 3 Soc. say that the brethren who went out were persecuted in most of the countries beyond the mountains, as being accredited by no pontifical letter; but the bullCum dilecti, bears the date of June 11, 1219. We are thus led to think that the eleven years are not to be counted from the reception of the first Brothers, but from Francis's conversion, which the authors might well speak of asinceptio religionis, and 1206 + 11 = 1217. The use of this expression to designate conversion is not entirely without example. Glassberger says (An. fr., p. 9):Ordinem minorum incepit anno 1206.Those who admit 1219 are obliged (like the Bollandists, for example), to attribute an inaccuracy to the text of the 3 Soc., that of having counted eleven years as having passed when there had been only ten. We should notice that in the two other chronological indications given by the 3 Soc. (27 and 62) they count from the conversion, that is from 1206, as also Thomas of Celano, 88, 105, 119, 97, 88, 57, 55, 21. Curiously, the Conformities reproduce the passage of the 3 Soc. (118b, 1), but with the alteration:Nono anno ab inceptione religionis. Giordano di Giano opens the door to many scruples:Anno vero Domini1219et anno conversionis ejus decimo frater Franciscus ... misit fratres in Franciam, in Theutoniam, in Hungariam, in Hespaniam, Giord., 3. As a little later the same author properly harmonizes 1219 with the thirteenth year from Francis's conversion, everyone is in agreement in admitting that the passage cited needs correction; we have unfortunately only one manuscript of this chronicle. Glassberger, who doubtless had another before him, substitutes 1217, but he may have drawn this date from another document. It is noteworthy that Brother Giordano gives as simultaneous the departure of the friars for Germany, Hungary, and France; but, as to the latter country, it certainly took place in 1217. So the Speculum, 44a.
The chronicle of the xxiv. generals and Mark of Lisbon (Diola's ed., t. i., p. 82) holds also to 1217, so that, though not definitely established, it would appear that this date should be accepted until further information. Starting from slightly different premises, the learned editors of theAnalectaarrive at the same conclusion (t. ii., pp. 25-36). Cf. Evers,Analecta ad Fr. Minorum historiam, Leipsic, 1882, 4to, pp. 7 and 11. That which appears to me decidedly to tip the balance in favor of 1217, is the fact that the missionary friars were persecuted because they had no document of legitimation; and in 1219 they would have had the bullCum dilecti, from June 11th of that year. The Bollandists, who hold for 1219, have so clearly seen this argument that they have been obliged to deny the authenticity of the bull (or at least to suppose it wrongly dated). A. SS., p. 839.
2.Vide A. SS., p. 604. Cf. Angelo Clareno,Tribul. Archiv., i., p. 559.A papa Innocentis fuit omnibus annuntiatum in concilio generali ... sicut sanctus vir fr. Leo scribit et fr. Johannes de Celano.These lines have not perhaps the significance which one would be led to give them at the first glance, their author having perhaps confoundedconsiliumandconsistorium. The Speculum, 20b says:Eam (Regulam Innocentius) approvabit et concessit et postea in consistorio omnibus annuntiavit.
3.Ne nimia Religionem diversitas gravem in Ecclesia Dei confusionem inducat, firmiter prohibemus, ne quis de cœtero novam Religionem inveniat; sed quicumque voluerit ad Religionem converti, unam de approbatis assumat.Labbé and Cossart:Sacrosancta concilia, Paris, 1672, t. xi., col. 165.
4.Eccl., 15 (An. franc., t. 1, p. 253):Innocentium in cujus obitu fuit presentialiter S. Franciscus.
5.3 Soc., 61; cf.An. Perus., A. SS., p. 606f.
6.Thomas of Celano must be in error when he declares that Francis was not acquainted with Cardinal Ugolini before the visit which he made him at Florence (summer of 1217):Nondum alter alteri erat præcipua familiaritate conjunctus(1 Cel., 74 and 75). The Franciscan biographer's purpose was not historic; chronological indications are given in profusion; what he seeks is theapta junctura. Tradition has preserved the memory of a chapter held at Portiuncula in presence of Ugolini during a stay of the curia at Perugia (Spec., 137b.;Fior., 18;Conform., 207a; 3 Soc., 61). But the curia did not come back to Perugia between 1216 and Francis's death. It is also to be noted that according to Angelo Clareno, Ugolini was with Francis in 1210, supporting him in the presence of Innocent III. Vide below,p. 413. Finally the bullSacrosanctaof December 9, 1219, witnesses that already during his legation in Florence (1217) Ugolini was actually interesting himself for the Clarisses.
7.See, for example, the description of the chapter of 1221 by Brother Giordano. Giord., 16.
8.With regard to the figure of five thousand attendants given by Bonaventura (Bon., 59) Father Papini writes:Io non credo stato capace alcuno di dare ad intendere al S. Dottore simil fanfaluca, ne capace lui di crederla.
... In somma il numero quinque millia et ultra non è del Santo, incapace di scrivere una cosa tanto improbabile e relativamente impossibile. Storia di S. Fr., i., pp. 181 and 183. This figure, five thousand, is also indicated by Eccl., 6. All this may be explained and become possible by admitting the presence of the Brothers of Penitence, and it seems very difficult to contest it, since in the Order of the Humiliants, which much resembles that of the Brothers Minor (equally composed of three branches approved by three bulls given June, 1201), the chapters-general annually held were frequented by the brothers of the three Orders. Tiraboschi t. ii., p. 144. Cf. above, p. 158.
9.Vide 2 Cel., 3, 121;Spec., 42b; 127b.
10.Præcipio firmiter per obedientiam fratribus universis quod ubicunque sunt, non audeant petere aliquam litteram in Curia Romana.Test. B. Fr.
11.A comparison with the Bullary of the Preaching Friars is especially instructive: from their first chapter at Notre Dame de Prouille, in 1216, they are about fifteen; we find there at this time absolutely nothing that can be compared to the Franciscan movement, which was already stirring up all Italy. But while the first bull in favor of the Franciscans bears the date of June 11, 1219, and the approbation properly so called that of November 29, 1223, we find Honorius already in the end of 1216 lavishing marks of affection upon the Dominicans; December 22, 1216,Religiosam vitam. Cf. Pressuti,I regesti, del Pontefice Onorio III., Roma, 1884, t. i., no. 175; same date;Nos attendentes, ibid., no. 176; January 21, 1217,gratiarum omnium, ib., no. 243. Vide 284, 1039, 1156, 1208. It is needless to continue this enumeration. Very much the same could be done for the other Orders; whence the conclusion that if the Brothers Minor alone are forgotten in this shower of favors, it is because they decidedly wished to be. It must be admitted that immediately upon Francis's death they made up for lost time.
12.The authenticity of this passage is put beyond doubt by Ubertino di Casal's citation.Archiv., iii., p. 53. Cf.Spec., 30a;Conform., 111b, 1; 118b, 1; Ubertino,Arbor vitæ cruc., iii., 3.
13.Burchardi chronicon ann. 1217,loc. cit., p. 377. See also the bulls indicated by Potthast, 5575, 5585-92.
14.Before 1217 the office of minister virtually existed, though its definitive institution dates only from 1217. Brother Bernardo in his mission to Bologna, for example (1212?), certainly held in some sort the office of minister.
15.Imprisoned by order of Elias, he died in consequence of blows given him one day when he was taking the air outside of his prison.Tribul., 24a.
16.Giord., 5 and 6; 3 Soc., 62.
17.Of Giovanni di Parma, Clareno, Anthony of Padua, etc.
18.Mark of Lisbon, t. i., p. 82. Cf. p. 79, t. ii., p. 86, Glassbergerann., 1217.An. fr., ii., pp. 9 ff.;Chron xxiv. gen., MS. of Assisi, no. 328, fo2b.
19.Spec., 44a.;Conform., 119a, 2; 135a; 181b, 1; 1 Cel., 74 and 75.
20.Cel., 3, 129.Diligebat Franciam ... volebat in ea mori.
21.V. bull of January 23, 1217,Tempus acceptabile, Potthast, no. 5430, given in Horoy, t. ii., col. 205 ff.; cf. Pressuti, i., p. 71. This bull and those following fix without question the time of the journey to Florence. Potthast, 5488, 5487, and page 495.
22.It is superfluous to point out the error of the Bollandist text in the phraseMonuit (Cardinalis Franciscum) cœptum non perficere iter, where thenonis omitted, A. SS., p. 704. Cf., p. 607 and 835, which has led Suysken into several other errors.
23.Bon., 51. Cf. Glassberger,ann. 1217;Spec., 45b.
24.Heb., iv., 12; 2 Cel., 3, 49; Bon., 50 and 51.
25.Brother Pacifico interests us [the French people] particularly as the first minister of the Order in France; information about him is abundant: Bon., 79; 2 Cel., 3, 63;Spec., 41b.:Conform., 38a, 1; 43a, 1; 71b; 173b, 1, and 176; 2 Cel., 8, 27;Spec., 38b;Conform., 181b; 2 Cel., 3, 76;Fior., 46;Conform., 70a. I do not indicate the general references found in Chevalier's Bibliography. The Miscellanea, t. ii. (1887), p. 158, contains a most precise and interesting column about him. Gregory IX. speaks of him in the bullMagna sicut diciturof August 12, 1227. Sbaralea, Bull, fr., i., p. 33 (Potthast, 8007). Thomas of Tuscany,sociusof St. Bonaventura, knew him and speaks of him in hisGesta Imperatorum (Mon. germ. hist. script., t. 22, p. 492).
26.Eccl., 1;Conform., 113b, 1.
27.Toward 1224 the Brothers Minor desired to draw nearer and build a vast convent near the walls of Paris in the grounds called Vauvert, or Valvert (now the Luxembourg Garden), (Eccl., 10; cf.Top. hist. du vieux Paris, by Berty and Tisserand, t. iv., p. 70). In 1230 they received at Paris from the Benedictines of Saint-Germain-des-Prés a certain number of housesin parocchia SS. Cosmæ et Damiani infra muros domini regis prope portam de Gibardo (Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, no. 76. Cf.Topographie historique du vieux Paris; Région occid. de l'univ., p. 95; Félibien,Histoire de la ville de Paris, i., p. 115). Finally, St. Louis installed them in the celebrated Convent of the Cordeliers, the refectory of which still exists, transformed into the Dupuytren Museum. The Dominicans, who arrived in Paris September 12, 1217, went straight to the centre of the city, near the bishop's palace on theIle de la Cité, and on August 6, 1218, were installed in the Convent of St. Jacques.
28.Fior., 27;Spec., 148b;Conform., 71a and 113a, 2; Bon., 182.
29.The traces of Francis's visit here are numerous. A Brother Eudes painted his portrait here.
30.Bon., 177.
31.Vide A. SS., pp. 855 and 856. Cf. 2 Cel., 3, 136.
32.Among others those of December 5, 1217, Potthast, 5629; February 8, March 30, April 7, 1218, Potthast, 5695, 5739, 5747.
33.1 Cel., 74.O quanti maxime in principio cum hæc agerentur novellæ plantationi ordinis insidiabantur ut perderent.Cf. 2 Cel., 1, 16.Videbat Franciscus luporum more sevire quamplures.
34.1 Cel., 73 (cf. 2 Cel., 1, 17;Spec., 102a); 3 Soc., 64; Bon., 78. The fixing of this scene in the winter of 1217-1218 seems hardly to be debatable; Giordano's account (14) in fact determines the date at which Ugolini becameofficiallyprotector of the Order; it supposes earlier relations between Honorius, Francis, and Ugolini. We are therefore led to seek a date at which these three personages may have met in Rome, and we arrive thus at the period between December, 1217, and April, 1218.
35.A word of Brother Giordano's opens the door to certain conjectures. "My lord," said Francis to Honorius III., in 1220, "you have given me many fathers (popes) give me a single one to whom I may turn with the affairs of my Order." (Giord., 14,Multos mihi papas dedisti da unum, ... etc.)
Does not this suggest the idea that the pontiff had perhaps named a commission of cardinals to oversee the Brothers Minor? Its deliberations and the events to be related in the following chapter might have impelled him to issue the bullCum dilectiof June 11, 1219, which was not an approbation properly so called, but a safe-conduct in favor of the Franciscans.
36.He took possession of St. Sabine on February 28, 1218.
37.2 Cel., 3, 87. The literal meaning of the phrase is somewhat ambiguous. The text is:Vellem, frater Francisce, unam fieri religionem tuam et meam et in Ecclesia pari forma nos vivere.Spec.27b. The echo of this attempt is found in Thierry d'Apolda,Vie de S. Dominique(A. SS., Augusti, t. i., p. 572 d):S. Dominicus in oscula sancta ruens et sinceros amplexus, dixit: Tu es socius meus, tu curres pariter mecum, stemus simul, nullus adversarius prævalebit. Bernard of Besse says:B. Dominicus tanta B. Francisco devotione cohesit ut optatam ab eo cordam sub inferiori tunica devotissimi cingeret, cujus et suam Religionem unam velle fieri diceret, ipsumque pro sanctitate cæteris sequendem religiosis assereret.Turin MS., 102b.
38.At the chapter held at Bologna at Whitsunday, 1220. The bullReligiosam vitam(Privilege of Notre Dame de Prouille) of March 30, 1218, enumerates the possessions of the Dominicans. Ripolli,Bull. Præd., t. i., p. 6. Horoy,Honorii opera, t. ii., col. 684.
Art and poetry have done well in inseparably associating St. Dominic and St. Francis; the glory of the first is only a reflection of that of the second, and it is in placing them side by side that we succeed best in understanding the genius of the Poverello. If Francis is the man of inspiration, Dominic is that of obedience to orders; one may say that his life was passed on the road to Rome, whither he continually went to ask for instructions. His legend was therefore very slow to be formed, although nothing forbade it to blossom freely; but neither the zeal of Gregory IX. for his memory nor the learning of his disciples were able to do for theHammer of hereticsthat which the love of the people did for theFather of the poor. His legend has the two defects which so soon weary the readers of hagiographical writings, when the question is of the saints whose worship the Church has commanded.1It is encumbered with a spurious supernaturalism,and with incidents borrowed right and left from earlier legends. The Italian people, who hailed in Francis the angel of all their hopes, and who showed themselves so greedy for his relics, did not so much as dream of taking up the corpse of the founder of the Order of Preaching Friars, and allowed him to wait twelve years for the glories of canonization.2
We have already seen the efforts of Cardinal Ugolini to unite the two Orders, and the reasons he had for this course. He went to the Whitsunday chapter-general which met at Portiuncula (June 3, 1218), to which came also St. Dominic with several of his disciples. The ceremonial of these solemnities appears to have been always about the same since 1216; the Brothers Minor went in procession to meet the cardinal, who immediately dismounted from his horse and lavished expressions of affection upon them. An altar was set up in the open air, at which he said mass, Francis performing the functions of deacon.3
It is easy to imagine the emotion which overcame those present when in its beautiful setting of the Umbrian landscape burst forth that part of the Pentecostal service, that most exciting, the most apocalyptic of the whole Catholic liturgy, the anthemAlleluia, Alleluia, Emitte Spiritum tuum et creabuntur, et renovabis faciem terræ.Alleluia,4does not this include the whole Franciscan dream?
But what especially amazed Dominic was the absence of material cares. Francis had advised his brethren not to disquiet themselves in any respect about food anddrink; he knew by experience that they might fearlessly trust all that to the love of the neighboring population. This want of carefulness had greatly surprised Dominic, who thought it exaggerated; he was able to reassure himself, when meal-time arrived, by seeing the inhabitants of the district hastening in crowds to bring far larger supplies of provisions than were needed for the several thousands of friars, and holding it an honor to wait upon them.
The joy of the Franciscans, the sympathy of the populace with them, the poverty of the huts of Portiuncula, all this impressed him deeply; so much was he moved by it that in a burst of enthusiasm he announced his resolution to embrace gospel poverty.5
Ugolini, though also moved, even to tears,6did not forget his former anxieties; the Order was too numerous not to include a group of malcontents; a few friars who before their conversion had studied in the universities began to condemn the extreme simplicity laid upon them as a duty. To men no longer sustained by enthusiasm the short precepts of the Rule appeared a charter all too insufficient for a vast association; they turned with envy toward the monumental abbeys of the Benedictines, the regular Canons, the Cistercians, and toward the ancient monastic legislations. They had no difficulty in perceiving in Ugolini a powerful ally, nor in confiding their observations to him.
The latter deemed the propitious moment arrived, and in a private conversation with Francis made a fewsuggestions: Ought he not give to his disciples, especially to the educated among them, a greater share of the burdens? consult them, gain inspiration from their views? was there not room to profit by the experience of the older orders? Though all this was said casually and with the greatest possible tact, Francis felt himself wounded to the quick, and without answering he drew the cardinal to the very midst of the chapter.
"My brothers," said he with fire, "the Lord has called me into the ways of simplicity and humility. In them he has shown me the truth for myself and for those who desire to believe and follow me; do not, then, come speaking to me of the Rule of St. Benedict, of St. Augustine, of St. Bernard, or of any other, but solely of that which God in his mercy has seen fit to show to me, and of which he has told me that he would, by its means, make a new covenant with the world, and he does not will that we should have any other. But by your learning and your wisdom God will bring you to confusion. For I am persuaded that God will chastise you; whether you will or no you will be forced to come to repentance, and nothing will remain for you but confusion."7
This warmth in defending and affirming his ideas profoundly astonished Ugolini, who added not a word. As to Dominic, what he had just seen at Portiuncula was to him a revelation. He felt, indeed, that his zeal for the Church could not be greater, but he also perceived that he could serve her with more success by certain changes in his weapons.
Ugolini no doubt only encouraged him in this view, and Dominic, beset with new anxieties, set out a few months later for Spain. The intensity of the crisis through which he passed has not been sufficiently noticed;the religious writers recount at length his sojourn in the grotto of Segovia, but they see only the ascetic practices, the prayers, the genuflexions, and do not think of looking for the cause of all this. From this epoch it might be said that he was unceasingly occupied in copying Francis, if the word had not a somewhat displeasing sense. Arrived at Segovia he follows the example of the Brothers Minor, founds a hermitage in the outskirts of the city, hidden among the rocks which overlook the town, and thence he descends from time to time to preach to the people. The transformation in his mode of life was so evident that several of his companions rebelled and refused to follow him in the new way.
Popular sentiment has at times its intuitions; a legend grew up around this grotto of Segovia, and it was said that St. Dominic there received the stigmata. Is there not here an unconscious effort to translate into an image within the comprehension of all, that which actually took place in this cave of the Sierra da Guaderrama?8
Thus St. Dominic also arrived at the poverty of the gospel, but the road by which he reached it was different indeed from that which St. Francis had followed; while the latter had soared to it as on wings, had seen in it the final emancipation from all the anxieties which debase this life, St. Dominic considered it only as a means; it was for him one more weapon in the arsenal of the host charged with the defence of the Church. We must not see in this a mere vulgar calculation; his admiration for him whom he thus imitated and followed afar off was sincere and profound, but genius is not to be copied. This sacred malady was not his; he has transmitted to his sons a sound and robust blood, thanks to which they have known nothing of those paroxysms of hot fever,those lofty flights, those sudden returns which make the story of the Franciscans the story of the most tempest-tossed society which the world has ever known, in which glorious chapters are mingled with pages trivial and grotesque, sometimes even coarse.
At the chapter of 1218 Francis had other causes for sadness than the murmurs of a group of malcontents; the missionaries sent out the year before to Germany and Hungary had returned completely discouraged. The account of the sufferings they had endured produced so great an effect that from that time many of the friars added to their prayers the formula: "Lord preserve us from the heresy of the Lombards and the ferocity of the Germans."9
This explains how Ugolini at last succeeded in convincing Francis of his duty to take the necessary measures no longer to expose the friars to be hunted down as heretics. It was decided that at the end of the next chapter the missionaries should be armed with a papal brief, which should serve them as ecclesiastical passport. Here is the translation of this document:
Honorius, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to the archbishops, bishops, abbots, deacons, archdeacons, and other ecclesiastical superiors, salutation and the apostolic blessing.Our dear son, brother Francis, and his companions of the life and the Order of the Brothers Minor, having renounced the vanities of this world to choose a mode of life which has merited the approval of the Roman Church, and to go out after the example of the Apostles to cast in various regions the seed of the word of God, we pray and exhort you by these apostolic letters to receive as good catholics the friars of the above mentioned society, bearers of these presents, warning you to be favorable to them and treat them with kindness for the honor of God and out of consideration for us.Given (at Rieti) this third day of the ides of June (June 11, 1219), in the third year of our pontificate.10
Honorius, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to the archbishops, bishops, abbots, deacons, archdeacons, and other ecclesiastical superiors, salutation and the apostolic blessing.
Our dear son, brother Francis, and his companions of the life and the Order of the Brothers Minor, having renounced the vanities of this world to choose a mode of life which has merited the approval of the Roman Church, and to go out after the example of the Apostles to cast in various regions the seed of the word of God, we pray and exhort you by these apostolic letters to receive as good catholics the friars of the above mentioned society, bearers of these presents, warning you to be favorable to them and treat them with kindness for the honor of God and out of consideration for us.
Given (at Rieti) this third day of the ides of June (June 11, 1219), in the third year of our pontificate.10
It is evident that this bull was calculated to avoid awakening Francis's susceptibilities. To understand precisely in what it differs from the first letters usually accredited to new Orders it is necessary to compare it with them; that which had instituted the Dominicans had been, like the others, a veritable privilege;11here there is nothing of the kind.
The assembly which was opened at Whitsunday of 1219 (May 26) was of extreme importance.12It closed the series of those primitive chapters in which the inspiration and fancy of Francis were given free course. Those which followed, presided over by the vicars, have neither the same cheerfulness nor the same charm; the crude glare of full day has driven away the hues of dawn and the indescribable ardors of nature at its awakening.
The summer of 1219 was the epoch fixed by Honorius III. for making a new effort in the East, and directing upon Egypt all the forces of the Crusaders.13Francis thought the moment arrived for realizing the project which he had not been able to execute in 1212. Strangely enough, Ugolini who, two years before had hindered his going to France, now left him in entire liberty to carry out this new expedition.14Several authors have deemed that Francis, having found in him a true protector, felthimself reassured as to the future of the Order; he might indeed have thought thus, but the history of the troubles which burst out immediately after his departure, the astounding story of the kind reception given by the court of Rome to some meddlers who took the opportunity of his absence to imperil his Order, would suffice to show how much the Church was embarrassed by him, and with what ardor she longed for the transformation of his work. We shall find later on the detailed account of these facts.
It appears that a Romagnol brother Christopher was at this same chapter nominated provincial of Gascony; he lived there after the customs of the early Franciscans, working with his hands, living in a narrow cell made of the boughs of trees and potter's earth.15
Egidio set out for Tunis with a few friars, but a great disappointment awaited them there; the Christians of this country, in the fear of being compromised by their missionary zeal, hurried them into a boat and constrained them to recross the sea.16
If the date of 1219 for these two missions has little other basis than conjecture, the same is not the case as to the departure of the friars who went to Spain and Morocco. The discovery has recently been made of the account of their last preachings and of their tragic death, made by an eye-witness.17This document is all the moreprecious because it confirms the general lines of the much longer account given by Mark of Lisbon. It would be out of place to give a summary of it here, because it but very indirectly concerns the life of St. Francis, but we must note that theseactahave beyond their historic value a truly remarkable psychological—one must almost say pathological—significance; never was the mania for martyrdom better characterized than in these long pages, where we see the friars forcing the Mahometans to pursue them and make them win the heavenly palm. The forbearance which Miramolin as well as his fellow religionists at first show gives an idea of the civilization and the good qualities of these infidels, all the higher that very different sentiments would be natural in the vanquished ones of the plains of Tolosa.
It is impossible to call by the name of sermons the collections of rude apostrophes which the missionaries addressed to those whom they wished to convert; at this paroxysm the thirst for martyrdom becomes the madness of suicide. Is this to say that friars Bernard, Pietro, Adjutus, Accurso, and Otho have no right to the admiration and worship with which they have been surrounded? Who would dare say so? Is not devotion always blind? That a furrow should be fecund it must have blood, it must have tears, such tears as St. Augustine has called the blood of the soul. Ah, it is a great mistake to immolate oneself, for the blood of a single man will not save the world nor even a nation; but it is a still greater mistake not to immolate oneself, for then one lets others be lost, and is oneself lost first of all.
I greet you, therefore, Martyrs of Morocco; you do not regret your madness, I am sure, and if ever some righteous pedant gone astray in the groves of paradise undertakes to demonstrate to you that it would have been better worth while to remain in your own country,and found a worthy family of virtuous laborers, I fancy that Miramolin, there become your best friend, will take the trouble to refute him.
You were mad, but I envy such madness, for you felt that the essential thing in this world is not to serve this ideal or that one, but with all one's soul to serve the ideal which one has chosen.
When, a few months after, the story of their glorious end arrived at Assisi, Francis discerned a feeling of pride among his companions and reproached them in lively terms; he who would so have envied the lot of the martyrs felt himself humbled because God had not judged him worthy to share it. As the story was mingled with some words of eulogy of the founder of the Order, he forbade the further reading of it.18
Immediately after the chapter he had himself undertaken a mission of the same kind as he had confided to the Brothers of Morocco, but he had proceeded in it in an entirely different manner: his was not the blind zeal which courts death in a sort of frenzy and forgets all the rest; perhaps he already felt that the persistent effort after the better, the continual immolation of self for truth, is the martyrdom of the strong.
This expedition, which lasted more than a year, is mentioned by the biographers in a few lines.19Happily we have a number of other papers regarding it; but their silence suffices to prove the sincerity of the primitive Franciscan authors; if they had wanted to amplify the deeds of their subject, where could they have found an easier opportunity or a more marvellous theme? Francis quitted Portiuncula in the middle of June and went toAncona, whence the Crusaders were to set sail for Egypt on St. John's Day (June 24th).
Many friars joined him—a fact which was not without its inconveniences for a journey by sea, where they were obliged to depend upon the charity of the owners of the boats, or of their fellow-travellers.
We can understand Francis's embarrassment on arriving at Ancona and finding himself obliged to leave behind a number of those who so earnestly longed to go with him. The Conformities relate here an incident for which we might desire an earlier authority, but which is certainly very like Francis; he led all his friends to the port and explained to them his perplexities. "The people of the boat," he told them, "refuse to take us all, and I have not the courage to make choice among you; you might think that I do not love you all alike; let us then try to learn the will of God." And he called a child who was playing close by, and the little one, charmed to take the part of Providence put upon him, pointed out with his finger the eleven friars who were to set sail.20
We do not know what itinerary they followed. A single incident of the journey has come down to us: that of the chastisement inflicted in the isle of Cyprus on Brother Barbaro, who had been guilty of the fault which the master detested above all others—evil-speaking. He was implacable with regard to the looseness of language so customary among pious folk, and which often made a hell of religious houses apparently the most peaceful. The offence this time appeared to him the more grave for having been uttered in the presence of a stranger, a knight of that district. The latter was stupefied on hearing Francis command the guilty one to eat a lump of ass's dung which lay there, adding: "Themouth which has distilled the venom of hatred against my brother must eat this excrement." Such indignation, no less than the obedience of the unhappy offender, filled him with admiration.21
It is very probable, as Wadding has supposed, that the missionaries debarked at St. Jean d'Acre. They arrived there about the middle of July.22In the environs of this city, doubtless, Brother Elias had been established for one or two years. Francis there told off a few of his companions, whom he sent to preach in divers directions, and a few days afterward he himself set out for Egypt, where all the efforts of the Crusaders were concentrated upon Damietta.
From the first he was heart-broken with the moral condition of the Christian army. Notwithstanding the presence of numerous prelates and of the apostolic legate, it was disorganized for want of discipline. He was so affected by this that when there was talk of battle he felt it his duty to advise against it, predicting that the Christians would infallibly be beaten. No one heeded him, and on August 29th the Crusaders, having attacked the Saracens, were terribly routed.23
His predictions won him a marvellous success. It must be owned that the ground was better prepared than any other to receive the new seed; not surely that piety was alive there, but in this mass of men come together from every corner of Europe, the troubled, the seers, the enlightened ones, those who thirsted for righteousness and truth, were elbowed by rascals, adventurers,those who were greedy for gold and plunder, capable of much good or much evil, the sport of fleeting impulses, loosed from the bonds of the family, of property, of the habits which usually twine themselves about man's will, and only by exception permit a complete change in his manner of life; those among them who were sincere and had come there with generous purposes were, so to speak, predestined to enter the peaceful army of the Brothers Minor. Francis was to win in this mission fellow-laborers who would assure the success of his work in the countries of northern Europe.
Jacques de Vitry, in a letter to friends written a few days later, thus describes the impression produced on him by Francis: