Life of St. Francis of Assisi
for that of the priest; it is a change of dynasty and nothing
more. As to the majority of those who to-day call themselves
free-thinkers, they confuse religious freedom with irreligion;
they choose not to see that in religion as in politics, between
a royalty based on divine right and anarchy there is room for a
government which may be as strong as the first and a better
guarantee of freedom than the second. The spirit of the older
time put God outside of the world; the sovereignty outside of
the people; authority outside of the conscience. The spirit of
the new times has the contrary tendency: it denies neither God
nor sovereignty nor authority, but it sees them where they
really are.
[3] _Nemo ostendebat mihi quod deberem facere, sed ipse
Altissimus revelavit mihi quod deberem vivere secundem formam
sancti Evangelii._ Testamentum Fr.
[4] The wealthiest monasteries of France are of the twelfth
century or were enlarged at that time: Arles, S. Gilles, S.
Sernin, Cluny, Vezelay, Brioude, Issoire, Paray-le-Monial. The
same was the case in Italy.
Down to the year 1000, 1,108 monasteries had been founded in
France. The eleventh century saw the birth of 326 and the
twelfth of 702. The convents of Mount Athos in their present
state give us a very accurate notion of the great monasteries of
Europe at the close of the twelfth century.
[5] St. Petrus Chrysologus, sermo viii., de jejunio et
eleemosyna. _Da pauperi ut des tibi: da micam ut accipias totum
panem; da tectum, accipe coelum._
[6] By what right did he begin to preach? By what right did he,
a mere deacon, admit to profession and cut off the hair of a
young girl of eighteen? That is an episcopal function, one which
can only devolve even upon priests by an express commission.
[7] Isaiah i. 10-17. Cf. Joel 2, Psalm 50.
[8] The chronicles of Orvieto (_Archivio, storico italiano_, t.
i., of 1889, pp. 7 and following) are nothing more than a list,
as melancholy as they are tedious of wars, which, during the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, all the places of that
region carried on, from the greatest to the smallest.
[9] Do not forget that in the thirteenth century Italy was not a
mere geographical expression. It was of all the countries of
Europe the one which, notwithstanding its partitions, had the
clearest consciousness of its unity. The expression _profectus
et honor Italiae_ often appeared from the pen of Innocent III.
See, for instance, the bull of April 16, 1198, _Mirari cogimur_,
addressed particularly to the Assisans.
[10] Note what the Fioretti say of Brother Bernard: "_Stava solo
sulle cime dei monti altissimi contemplando le cose celesti._"
Fior., 28. The learned historian of Assisi, Mr. Cristofani, has
used similar expressions; speaking of St. Francis, he says:
"_Nuovo Christo in somma e pero degno d'essere riguardoto come
la piu gigantesca, la piu splendida, la piu cara tra le grandi
figure campeggianti nell' aere del medio evo_" (_Storia
d'Assisi_, t. i., p. 70, ed. of 1885).
[11] It remains open all night.
* * * * *
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
* * * * *
CHAPTER I
YOUTH
Assisi is to-day very much what it was six or seven hundred years ago.
The feudal castle is in ruins, but the aspect of the city is just the
same. Its long-deserted streets, bordered by ancient houses, lie in
terraces half-way up the steep hill-side. Above it Mount Subasio[1]
proudly towers, at its feet lies outspread all the Umbrian plain from
Perugia to Spoleto. The crowded houses clamber up the rocks like
children a-tiptoe to see all that is to be seen; they succeed so well
that every window gives the whole panorama set in its frame of rounded
hills, from whose summits castles and villages stand sharply out against
a sky of incomparable purity.
These simple dwellings contain no more than five or six little
rooms,[2] but the rosy hues of the stone of which they are built give
them a wonderfully cheerful air. The one in which, according to the
story, St. Francis was born has almost entirely disappeared, to make
room for a church; but the street is so modest, and all that remains of
the _palazzo dei genitori di San Francesco_ is so precisely like the
neighboring houses that the tradition must be correct. Francis entered
into glory in his lifetime; it would be surprising if a sort of worship
had not from the first been centred around the house in which he saw the
light and where he passed the first twenty-five years of his life.
He was born about 1182.[3] The biographies have preserved to us few
details about his parents.[4] His father, Pietro Bernardone, was a
wealthy cloth-merchant. We know how different was the life of the
merchants of that period from what it is to-day. A great portion of
their time was spent in extensive journeys for the purchase of goods.
Such tours were little short of expeditions. The roads being insecure, a
strong escort was needed for the journey to those famous fairs where,
for long weeks at a time, merchants from the most remote parts of Europe
were gathered together. In certain cities, Montpellier for example, the
fair was perpetual. Benjamin of Tudela shows us that city frequented by
all nations, Christian and Mohammedan. "One meets there merchants from
Africa, from Italy, Egypt, Palestine, Greece, Gaul, Spain, and England,
so that one sees men of all languages, with the Genoese and the Pisans."
Among all these merchants the richest were those who dealt in textile
stuffs. They were literally the bankers of the time, and their heavy
wagons were often laden with the sums levied by the popes in England or
France.
Their arrival at a castle was one of the great events. They were kept as
long as possible, everyone being eager for the news they brought. It is
easy to understand how close must have been their relations with the
nobility; in certain countries, Provence for example, the merchants were
considered as nobles of a second order.[5]
Bernardone often made these long journeys; he went even as far as
France, and by this we must surely understand Northern France, and
particularly Champagne, which was the seat of commercial exchange
between Northern and Southern Europe.
He was there at the very time of his son's birth. The mother, presenting
the child at the font of San Rufino,[6] had him baptized by the name of
John, but the father on his return chose to call him Francis.[7] Had
he already determined on the education he was to give the child; did he
name him thus because he even then intended to bring him up after the
French fashion, to make a little Frenchman of him? It is by no means
improbable. Perhaps, indeed, the name was only a sort of grateful homage
tendered by the Assisan burgher to his noble clients beyond the Alps.
However this may be, the child was taught to speak French, and always
had a special fondness for both the language and the country.[8]
These facts about Bernardone are of real importance; they reveal the
influences in the midst of which Francis grew up. Merchants, indeed,
play a considerable part in the religious movements of the thirteenth
century. Their calling in some sense forced them to become colporters of
ideas. What else could they do, on arriving in a country, but answer
those who asked for news? And the news most eagerly looked for was
religious news, for men's minds were turned upon very different subjects
then from now. They accommodated themselves to the popular wish,
observing, hearkening everywhere, keeping eyes and ears open, glad to
find anything to tell; and little by little many of them became active
propagandists of ideas concerning which at first they had been simply
curious.
The importance of the part thus played by the merchants as they came
and went, everywhere sowing the new ideas which they had gathered up in
their travels, has not been put in a clear enough light; they were
often, unconsciously and quite involuntarily, the carriers of ideas of
all kinds, especially of heresy and rebellion. It was they who made the
success of the Waldenses, the Albigenses, the Humiliati, and many other
sects.
Thus Bernardone, without dreaming of such a thing, became the artisan of
his son's religious vocation. The tales which he brought home from his
travels seemed at first, perhaps, not to have aroused the child's
attention, but they were like germs a long time buried, which suddenly,
under a warm ray of sunlight, bring forth unlooked-for fruit.
The boy's education was not carried very far;[9] the school was in
those days overshadowed by the church. The priests of San Giorgio were
his teachers,[10] and taught him a little Latin. This language was
spoken in Umbria until toward the middle of the thirteenth century;
every one understood it and spoke it a little; it was still the language
of sermons and of political deliberations.[11]
He learned also to write, but with less success; all through his life we
see him take up the pen only on rare occasions, and for but a few
words.[12] The autograph of Sacro-Convento, which appears to be
entirely authentic, shows extreme awkwardness; in general he dictated,
signing his letters by a simple [Greek: tau], the symbol of the cross of
Jesus.[13]
That part of his education which was destined to have most influence
upon his life was the French language,[14] which he perhaps spoke in his
own family. It has been rightly said that to know two languages is to
have two souls; in learning that of France the boy felt his heart thrill
to the melody of its youthful poetry, and his imagination was
mysteriously stirred with dreams of imitating the exploits of the French
cavaliers.
But let us not anticipate. His early life was that of other children of
his age. In the quarter of the town where his house is still shown no
vehicles are ever seen; from morning till night the narrow streets are
given over to the children. They play there in many groups, frolicking
with an exquisite charm, very different from the little Romans, who,
from the time they are six or seven years old, spend hours at a time
squatting behind a pillar, or in a corner of a wall or a ruin, to play
dice or "morra," putting a passionate ferocity even into their play.
In Umbria, as in Tuscany, children love above all things games in which
they can make a parade; to play at soldiers or procession is the supreme
delight of Assisan children. Through the day they keep to the narrow
streets, but toward evening they go, singing and dancing, to one of the
open squares of the city. These squares are one of the charms of Assisi.
Every few paces an interval occurs between the houses looking toward the
plain, and you find a delightful terrace, shaded by a few trees, the
very place for enjoying the sunset without losing one of its splendors.
Hither no doubt came often the son of Bernardone, leading one of those
_farandoles_ which you may see there to this day: from his very babyhood
he was a prince among the children.
Thomas of Celano draws an appalling picture of the education of that
day. He describes parents inciting their children to vice, and driving
them by main force to wrong-doing. Francis responded only too quickly to
these unhappy lessons.[15]
His father's profession and the possibly noble origin of his mother
raised him almost to the level of the titled families of the country;