Life of St. Francis of Assisi
preoccupations is to live by his labor, is one of the most original and
agreeable figures in Francis's surroundings, and it is in lives of this
sort that we must seek the true meaning of some of the passages of the
Rule, and precisely in those that have had the most to suffer from the
enterprise of exegetes.
The fourth includes the favorite maxims of Brother Egidio; they have no
other importance than to show the tendencies of the primitive Franciscan
teaching. They are short, precise, practical counsels, saturated with
mysticism, and yet in them good sense never loses its rights. The
collection, just as it is in the Fioretti, is no doubt posterior to
Egidio, for in 1385 Bartolommeo of Pisa furnished a much longer
one.[35]
VI. CHRONICLE OF THE XXIV. GENERALS[36]
We find here at the end of the life of Francis that of most of his
companions, and the events that occurred under the first twenty-four
generals.
It is a very ordinary work of compilation. The authors have sought to
include in it all the pieces which they had succeeded in collecting, and
the result presents a very disproportioned whole. A thorough study of it
might be interesting and useful, but it would be possible only after its
publication. This cannot be long delayed: twice (at intervals of fifteen
months) when I have desired to study the Assisi manuscript it was found
to be with the Franciscans of Quaracchi, who were preparing to print it.
It is difficult not to bring the epoch in which this collection was
closed near to that when Bartolommeo of Pisa wrote his famous work.
Perhaps the two are quite closely related.
This chronicle was one of Glassberger's favorite sources.
VII. THE CONFORMITIES OF BARTOLOMMEO OF PISA[37]
The Book of the Conformities, to which Brother Bartolommeo of Pisa
devoted more than fifteen years of his life,[38] appears to have been
read very inattentively by most of the authors who have spoken of
it.[39] In justice to them we must add that it would be hard to find a
work more difficult to read; the same facts reappear from ten to fifteen
times, and end by wearying the least delicate nerves.
It is to this no doubt that we must attribute the neglect to which it
has been left. I do not hesitate, however, to see in it the most
important work which has been made on the life of St. Francis. Of course
the author does not undertake historical criticism as we understand it
to-day, but if we must not expect to find him a historian, we can boldly
place him in the front rank of compilers.[40]
If the Bollandists had more thoroughly studied him they would have seen
more clearly into the difficult question of the sources, and the authors
who have come after them would have been spared numberless errors and
interminable researches.
Starting with the thought that Francis's life had been a perfect
imitation of that of Jesus, Bartolommeo attempted to collect, without
losing a single one, all the instances of the life of the Poverello
scattered through the diverse legends still known at that time.
He regretted that Bonaventura, while borrowing the narratives of his
predecessors, had often abridged them,[41] and himself desired to
preserve them in their original bloom. Better situated than any one for
such a work, since he had at his disposal the archives of the Sacro
Convento of Assisi, it may be said that he has omitted nothing of
importance and that he has brought into his work considerable pieces
from nearly all the legends which appeared in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries; they are there only in fragments, it is true, but
with perfect accuracy.[42]
When his researches were unsuccessful he avows it simply, without
attempting to fill out the written testimonies with his own
conjectures.[43] He goes farther, and submits the documents he has
before him to a real testing, laying aside those he considers
uncertain.[44] Finally he takes pains to point out the passages in
which his only authority is oral testimony.[45]
As he is almost continually citing the legends of Celano, the Three
Companions, and Bonaventura, and as the citations prove on verification
to be literally accurate, as well as those of the Will, the divers
Rules, or the pontifical bulls, it seems natural to conclude that he was
equally accurate with the citations which we cannot verify, and in which
we find long extracts from works that have disappeared.[46]
The citations which he makes from Celano present no difficulty; they are
all accurate, corresponding sometimes with the First sometimes with the
Second Legend.[47]
Those from the Legend of the Three Companions are accurate, but it
appears that Bartolommeo drew them from a text somewhat different from
that which we have.[48]
With the citations from the _Legenda Antiqua_ the question is
complicated and becomes a nice one. Was there a work of this name?
Certain authors, and among them the Bollandist Suysken, seem to incline
toward the negative, and believe that to cite the _Legenda Antiqua_ is
about the same as to refer vaguely to tradition. Others among
contemporaries have thought that after the approbation and definitive
adoption of Bonaventura's _Legenda Major_ by the Order the Legends
anterior to that, and especially that of Celano, were called _Legenda
Antiqua_. The Conformities permit us to look a little closer into the
question. We find, in fact, passages from the _Legenda Antiqua_ which
reproduce Celano's First Life.[49] Others present points of contact
with the Second, sometimes a literary exactitude,[50] but often these
are the same stories told in too different a way for us to consider them
borrowed.[51]
Finally there are many of these extracts from the _Legenda Antiqua_ of
which we find no source in any of the documents already discussed.[52]
This would suffice to show that the two are not to be confounded. It has
absorbed them and brought about certain changes while completing them
with others.[53]
The study of the fragments which Bartolommeo has preserved to us shows
immediately that this collection belonged to the party of the Zealots of
Poverty; we might be tempted to see in it the work of Brother Leo.
Most fortunately there is a passage where Bartolommeo di Pisa cites as
being by Conrad di Offida a fragment which he had already cited before
as borrowed from the _Legenda Antiqua_.[54] I would not exaggerate the
value of an isolated instance, but it seems an altogether plausible
hypothesis to make Conrad di Offida the author of this compilation. All
that we know of him, of his tendencies, his struggle for the strict
observance, accords with what the known fragments of the _Legenda
Antiqua_ permit us to infer as to its author.[55]
However this may be, it appears that in this collection the stories have
been given us (the principal source being the Legend of Brother Leo or
the Three Companions before its mutilation) in a much less abridged form
than in the Second Life of Celano. This work is hardly more than a
second edition of that of Brother Leo, here and there completed with a
few new incidents, and especially with exhortations to perseverance
addressed to the persecuted Zealots.[56]
VIII. CHRONICLE OF GLASSBERGER[57]
Evidently this work, written about 1508, cannot be classed among the
sources properly so called; but it presents in a convenient form the
general history of the Order, and thanks to its citations permits us to
verify certain passages in the primitive legends of which Glassberger
had the MS. before his eyes. It is thus in particular with the chronicle
of Brother Giordano di Giano, which he has inserted almost bodily in his
own work.
IX. CHRONICLE OF MARK OF LISBON[58]
This work is of the same character as that of Glassberger; it can only
be used by way of addition. There is, however, a series of facts in
which it has a special value; it is when the Franciscan missions in
Spain or Morocco are in question. The author had documents on this
subject which did not reach the friars in distant countries.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Chronica fratris Jordani a Giano._ The text was published
for the first time in 1870 by Dr. G. Voigt under the title:
"_Die Denkwuerdigkeiten des Minoriten Jordanus von Giano_ in the
_Abhandlungen der philolog. histor. Cl. der Koenigl. saechsischen
Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften_," pp. 421-545, Leipsic, by
Hirzel, 1870. Only one manuscript is known; it is in the royal
library at Berlin (Manuscript. theolog. lat., 4to, n. 196, saec.
xiv., foliorum 141). It has served as the base of the second
edition: _Analecta franciscana sive Chronica aliaque documenta
ad historiam minorum spectantia. Ad Claras Aquas (Quaracchi) ex
typographia collegii S. Bonaventurae_, 1885, t. i., pp. 1-19.
Except where otherwise noted, I cite entirely this edition, in
which is preserved the division into sixty-three paragraphs
introduced by Dr. Voigt.
[2] Giord., 81.
[3] He names more than twenty four persons.
[4] It does not seem to me that we can look upon the account of
the interview between Gregory IX. and Brother Giordano as
rigorously accurate. Giord., 63.
[5] _Liber de adventu Minorum in Angliam_, published under the
title of _Monumenta Franciscana_ (in the series of _Rerum
Britannicarum medii AEvi scriptores_, _Roll series_) in two
volumes, 8vo; the first through the care of J. S. Brewer (1858),
the second through that of R. Howlett (1882). This text is
reproduced without the scientific dress of the _Analecta
franciscana_, t. i., pp. 217-257. Cf. English Historical Review,
v. (1890), 754. He has published an excellent critical edition
of it, but unfortunately partial, in vol. xxviii., _Scriptorum_,
of the _Monumenta Germaniae Historica_ by Mr. Liebermann,
Hanover, 1888, folio, pp. 560-569.
[6] Eccl., 11; 13; 14; 15. Cf. Eccl., 14, where the author takes
pains to say that Alberto of Pisa died at Rome, surrounded by
English Brothers "_inter Anglicos_."
[7] Eccl., 4; 12.
[8] Eccl., 4; 5; 6; 7; 10; 12; 13; 14; 15.
[9] It was published, but with many suppressions, in 1857, at
Parma. The Franciscans of Quaracchi prepared a new edition of
it, which appeared in the _Analecta Franciscana_. This work is
in manuscript in the Vatican under no. 7260. Vide Ehrle.
_Zeitschrift fuer kath. Theol._ (1883), t. vii., pp. 767 and 768.
The work of Mr. Cledat will be read with interest: _De fratre
Salembene et de ejus chronicae auctoritate_, Paris, 4to, 1877,
with fac simile.
[10] Father Ehrle has published it, but unfortunately not
entire, in the _Archiv._, t. ii., pp. 125-155, text of the close
of the fifth and of the sixth tribulation; pp. 256-327 text of
the third, of the fourth, and of the commencement of the fifth.
He has added to it introductions and critical notes. For the
parts not published I will cite the text of the Laurentian
manuscript (Plut. 20, cod. 7), completed where possible with the
Italian version in the National Library at Florence
(Magliabecchina, xxxvii.-28). See also an article of Professor
Tocco in the _Archivio storico italiano_, t. xvii. (1886), pp.
12-36 and 243-61, and one of Mr. Richard's: Library of the Ecole
des chartes, 1884, 5th livr. p. 525. Cf. Tocco, the _Eresia nel
medio Evo_, p. 419 ff. As to the text published by Doellinger in
his _Beitraege zur Sektengeschichte des Mittelalters_, Muenich,
1890, 2 vols., 8vo, II. _Theil Dokumente_, pp. 417-427, it is of
no use. It can only beget errors, as it abounds with gross