Life of St. Francis of Assisi
court of Rome could heap upon him were worth nothing in comparison with
liberty. Alas, he was soon forced to resign himself to these gilded
bonds, against which he never ceased to protest, even to his last
sigh;[10] but to shut one's eyes to the moral violence which the papacy
did him in this matter is to condemn oneself to an entire
misapprehension of his work.
A glance over the collection of bulls addressed to the Franciscans
suffices to show with what ardor he struggled against favors so eagerly
sought by the monastic orders.[11]
A great number of legendary anecdotes put Francis's disdain of
privileges in the clearest light. Even his dearest friends did not
always understand his scruples.
"Do you not see," they said to him one day, "that often the
bishops do not permit us to preach, and make us remain several
days without doing anything before we are permitted to proclaim
the word of God? It would be better worth while to obtain for
this end a privilege from the pope, and it would be for the good
of souls."
"I would first convert the prelates by humility and respect," he
replied quickly; "for when they have seen us humble and
respectful toward them, they themselves will beg us to preach
and convert the people. As for me, I ask of God no privilege
unless it be that I may have none, to be full of respect for all
men, and to convert them, as our Rule ordains, more by our
example than by our speech."[12]
The question whether Francis was right or wrong in his antipathy to the
privileges of the curia does not come within the domain of history; it
is evident that this attitude could not long continue; the Church knows
only the faithful and rebels. But the noblest hearts often make a stand
at compromises of this kind; they desire that the future should grow out
of the past without convulsion and without a crisis.
The chapter of 1217 was notable for the definitive organization of the
Franciscan missions. Italy and the other countries were divided off into
a certain number of _provinces_, having each its provincial minister.
Immediately upon his accession Honorius III. had sought to revive the
popular zeal for the crusades. He had not stopped at preaching it, but
appealed to prophecies which had proclaimed that under his pontificate
the Holy Land would be reconquered.[13] The renewal of fervor which
ensued, and of which the rebound was felt as far as Germany, had a
profound influence on the Brothers Minor. This time Francis, perhaps
from humility, did not put himself at the head of the friars charged
with a mission to Syria; for leader he gave them the famous Elias,
formerly at Florence, where he had had opportunity to show his high
qualities.[14]
This Brother, who from this time appears in the foreground of this
history, came from the most humble ranks of society; the date and the
circumstances of his entrance into the Order are unknown, and hence
conjecture has come to see in him that friend of the grotto who had been
Francis's confidant shortly before his decisive conversion. However this
may be, in his youth he had earned his living in Assisi, making
mattresses and teaching a few children to read; then he had spent some
time in Bologna as _scriptor_; then suddenly we find him among the
Brothers Minor, charged with the most difficult missions.
His adversaries vie with one another in asserting that he was the finest
mind of his century, but unhappily it is very difficult, in the existing
state of the documents, to pronounce as to his actions; learned and
energetic, eager to play the leading part in the work of the
reformation of religion, and having made his plan beforehand as to the
proper mode of realizing it, he made straight for his goal, half
political, half religious. Full of admiration for Francis and gratitude
toward him, he desired to regulate and consolidate the movement for
renovation. In the inner Franciscan circle, where Leo, Ginepro, Egidio,
and many others represent the spirit of liberty, the religion of the
humble and the simple, Elias represents the scientific and
ecclesiastical spirit, prudence and reason.
He had great success in Syria and received into the Order one of the
disciples most dear to Francis, Caesar of Speyer, who later on was to
make the conquest of all Southern Germany in less than two years
(1221-1223), and who in the end sealed with his blood his fidelity to
the strict observance, which he defended against the attacks of Brother
Elias himself.[15]
Caesar of Speyer offers a brilliant example of those suffering souls
athirst for the ideal, so numerous in the thirteenth century, who
everywhere went up and down, seeking first in learning, then in the
religious life, that which should assuage the mysterious thirst which
tortured them. Disciple of the scholastic Conrad, he had felt himself
overpowered with the desire to reform the Church; while still a layman
he had preached his ideas, not without some success, since a certain
number of ladies of Speyer had begun to lead a new life; but their
husbands disapproving, he was obliged to escape their vengeance by
taking refuge at Paris, and thence he went to the East, where in the
preaching of the Brothers Minor he found again his hopes and his dreams.
This instance shows how general was the waiting condition of souls when
the Franciscan gospel blazed forth, and how its way had been everywhere
prepared.
But it is time to return to the chapter of 1217: the friars who went to
Germany under conduct of Giovanni di Penna were far from having the
success of Elias and his companions; they were completely ignorant of
the language of the country which they had undertaken to evangelize.
Perhaps Francis had not taken into account the fact that though Italian
might, in case of need, suffice in all the countries bathed by the
Mediterranean, this could not be the case in Central Europe.[16]
The lot of the party going to Hungary was not more happy. Very often it
came to pass that the missionaries were fain to give up their very
garments in the effort to appease the peasants and shepherds who
maltreated them. But no less incapable of understanding what was said to
them than of making themselves understood, they were soon obliged to
think of returning to Italy. We may thank the Franciscan authors for
preserving for us the memory of these checks, and not attempting to
picture the friars as suddenly knowing all languages by a divine
inspiration, as later on was so often related.[17]
Those who had been sent to Spain had also to undergo persecutions. This
country, like the south of France, was ravaged by heresy; but already at
that time it was vigorously repressed. The Franciscans, suspected of
being false Catholics and therefore eagerly hunted out, found a refuge
with Queen Urraca of Portugal, who permitted them to establish
themselves at Coimbra, Guimarraens, Alenquero, and Lisbon.[18]
Francis himself made preparations for going to France.[19] This country
had a peculiar charm for him because of his fervent love of the Holy
Sacrament. Perhaps also he was unwittingly drawn toward this country to
which he owed his name, the chivalrous dreams of his youth, all of
poetry, song, music, delicious dream that had come into his life.
Something of the emotion that thrilled through him on undertaking this
new mission has passed into the story of his biographers; one feels
there the thrill at once sweet and agonizing, the heart-throb of the
brave knight who goes forth all harnessed in the early dawn to scan the
horizon, dreading the unknown and yet overflowing with joy, for he knows
that the day will be consecrated to love and to the right.
The Italian poet has given the one name of "pilgrimages of love" to the
farings forth of chivalry and the journeys undertaken by dreamers,
artists, or saints to those parts of the earth which forever mirror
themselves before their imagination and remain their chosen
fatherland.[20] Such a pilgrimage as this was Francis undertaking.
"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 its success.[21] Francis 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]
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.[24] On 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