Life of St. Francis of Assisi
stigmata. These memorials are all the more certain that they were
immediately committed to writing by Peter of Tewkesbury's companion,
Brother Garin von Sedenfeld.
Finally Salembeni, in his chronicle (ad ann. 1224) in speaking of
Ezzelino da Romano is led to oppose him to Francis. He suddenly
remembers the stigmata and says, "Never man on earth, but he, has had
the five wounds of Christ. His companion, Brother Leo, who was present
when they washed the body before the burial, told me that he looked
precisely like a crucified man taken down from the cross."
3. Thomas of Celano, before 1230. He describes them more at length than
Brother Elias (1 Cel., 94, 95, 112).
The details are too precise not to suggest a lesson learned by heart.
The author nowhere assumes to be an eye-witness, yet he has the tone of
a legal deposition.
These objections are not without weight, but the very novelty of the
miracle might have induced the Franciscans to fix it in a sort of
canonical and so to say, stereotyped narrative.
4. The portrait of Francis, by Berlinghieri, dated 1236,[2] preserved
at Pescia (province of Lucca) shows the stigmata as they are described
in the preceding documents.
5. Gregory IX. in 1237. Bull of March 31; _Confessor Domini_ (Potthast,
10307. Cf. 10315). A movement of opinion against the stigmata had been
produced in certain countries. The pope asks all the faithful to believe
in them. Two other bulls of the same day, one addressed to the Bishop of
Olmuetz, the other to the Dominicans, energetically condemns them for
calling the stigmata in question (Potthast, 10308 and 10309).
6. Alexander IV., in his bull _Benigna operatio_ of October 29, 1255
(Potthast, 16077), states that having formerly been the domestic
prelate of Cardinal Ugolini, he knew St. Francis familiarly, and
supports his description of the stigmata by these relations.
To this pontiff are due several bulls declaring excommunicate all those
who deny them. These contribute nothing new to the question.
7. Bonaventura (1260) repeats in his legend Thomas of Celano's
description (Bon., 193; cf. 1 Cel. 94 and 95), not without adding some
new factors (Bon., 194-200 and 215-218), often so coarse and clumsy that
they inevitably awaken doubt (see for example, 201).
8. Matthew Paris ([Cross] 1259). His discordant witness barely
deserves being cited by way of memoir (see Critical Study, p. 431). To
be able to forgive the fanciful character of his long disquisitions on
St. Francis, we are forced to recall to mind that he owed his
information to the verbal account of some pilgrim. He makes the
stigmata appear a fortnight before the Saint's death, shows them
continually emitting blood, the wound on the side so wide open that
the heart could be seen. The people gather in crowds to see the sight,
the cardinals come also, and all together listen to Francis's strange
declarations. (_Historia major_, Watts's edition London, 1 vol. fol.,
1640, pp. 339-342.)
This list might be greatly lengthened by the addition of a passage from
Luke bishop of Tuy (Lucas Tudensis) written in 1231;[3] based
especially on the Life by Thomas of Celano, and oral witnesses.
The statement of Brother Boniface, an eye-witness, at the chapter of
Genoa (1254). (Eccl. 13.)
Finally and especially, we should study the strophes relating to the
stigmata in the proses, hymns, and sequences composed in 1228 by the
pope and several cardinals for the Office of St. Francis; but such a
work, to be done with accuracy, would carry us very far, and the
authorities already cited doubtless suffice without bringing in
others.[4]
The objections which have been opposed to these witnesses may be
reduced, I think, to the following:[5]
_a._ Francis's funeral took place with surprising precipitation. Dead on
Saturday evening, he was buried Sunday morning.
_b._ His body was enclosed in a coffin, which is contrary to Italian
habits.
_c._ At the time of the removal, the body, wrested from the multitude,
is so carefully hidden in the basilica that for centuries its precise
place has been unknown.
_d._ The bull of canonization makes no mention of the stigmata.
_e._ They were not admitted without a contest, and among those who
denied them were some bishops.
None of these arguments appears to me decisive.
_a._ In the Middle Ages funerals almost always took place immediately
after death (Innocent III. dying at Perugia July 16, 1216, is interred
the 17th; Honorius III. dies March 18, 1227, and is interred the next
day).
_b._ It is more difficult than many suppose to know what were the habits
concerning funerals in Umbria in the thirteenth century. However that
may be, it was certainly necessary to put Francis's body into a coffin.
He being already canonized by popular sentiment, his corpse was from
that moment a relic for which a reliquary was necessary; nay more, a
strong box such as the secondary scenes in Berlinghieri's picture shows
it to have been. Without such a precaution the sacred body would have
been reduced to fragments in a few moments. Call to mind the wild
enthusiasm that led the devotees to cut off the ears and even the
breasts of St. Elizabeth of Hungary. [_Quaedam aures illius truncabant,
etiam summitatem mamillarum ejus quidam praecidebant et pro reliquiis
sibi servabant._--_Liber de dictis iv. ancillarum_, Mencken, vol. ii.,
p. 2032.]
_c._ The ceremony of translation brought an innumerable multitude to
Assisi. If Brother Elias concealed the body,[6] he may have been led
to do so by the fear of some organized surprise of the Perugians to gain
possession of the precious relic. With the customs of those days, such a
theft would have been in nowise extraordinary. These very Perugians a
few years later stole away from Bastia, a village dependent on Assisi,
the body of Conrad of Offida, which was performing innumerable miracles
there. (_Conform._, 60b, 1; cf. Giord., 50.) Similar affrays took place
at Padua over the relics of St. Anthony. (Hilaire, _Saint Antoine de
Padoue, sa legende primitive_, Montreuil-sur-Mer, 1 vol., 8vo, 1890, pp.
30-40.)
_d._ The bull of canonization, with the greater number of such
documents, for that matter, makes no historic claim. In its wordy
rhetoric we shall sooner learn the history of the Philistines, of
Samson, or even of Jacob, than of St. Francis. Canonization here is only
a pretext which the old pontiff seizes for recurring to his favorite
figures.
This silence signifies nothing after the very explicit testimony of
other bulls by the same pontiff in 1227, and after the part given to the
stigmata in the liturgical songs which in 1228 he composed for the
office of St. Francis.
_e._ These attacks by certain bishops are in nowise surprising; they are
episodes in the struggle of the secular clergy against the mendicant
orders.
At the time when these negations were brought forward (1237) the
narrative of Thomas of Celano was official and everywhere known; nothing
therefore would have been easier, half a score of years after the
events, than to bring witnesses to expose the fraud if there had been
any; but the Bishop of Olmuetz and the others base their objections
always and only upon dogmatic grounds.
As to the attacks of the Dominicans, it is needless to recall the
rivalry between the two Orders;[7] is it not then singular to find
these protestations coming from Silesia (!) and never from Central
Italy, where, among other eye-witnesses, Brother Leo was yet living
([Cross] 1271)?
Thus the witnesses appear to me to maintain their integrity. We might
have preferred them more simple and shorter, we could wish that they had
reached us without details which awake all sorts of suspicions,[8] but
it is very seldom that a witness does not try to prove his affirmations
and to prop them up by arguments which, though detestable, are
appropriate to the vulgar audience to which he is speaking.
II. THE PARDON OF AUGUST 2D, CALLED INDULGENCE OF PORTIUNCULA[9]
This question might be set aside; on the whole it has no direct
connection with the history of St. Francis.
Yet it occupies too large a place in modern biographies not to require a
few words: it is related that Francis was in prayer one night at
Portiuncula when Jesus and the Virgin appeared to him with a retinue of
angels. He made bold to ask an unheard-of privilege, that of plenary
indulgence of all sins for all those who, having confessed and being
contrite, should visit this chapel. Jesus granted this at his mother's
request, on the sole condition that his vicar the pope would ratify it.
The next day Francis set out for Perugia, accompanied by Masseo, and
obtained from Honorius the desired indulgence, but only for the day of
August 2d.
Such, in a few lines, is the summary of this legend, which is surrounded
with a crowd of marvellous incidents.
The question of the nature and value of indulgences is not here
concerned. The only one which is here put is this: Did Francis ask this
indulgence and did Honorius III. grant it?
Merely to reduce it to these simple proportions is to be brought to
answer it with a categorical No.
It would be tedious to refer even briefly to the difficulties,
contradictions, impossibilities of this story, many a time pointed out
by orthodox writers. In spite of all they have come to the affirmative
conclusion: _Roma locuta est_.
Those whom this subject may interest will find in the note above
detailed bibliographical indications of the principal elements of this
now quieted discussion. I shall confine myself to pointing out the
impossibilities with which tradition comes into collision; they are both
psychological and historical. The Bollandists long since pointed out the
silence of Francis's early biographers upon this question. Now that the
published documents are much more numerous, this silence is still more
overwhelming. Neither the First nor the Second Life by Thomas of Celano,
nor the anonymous author of the second life given in the Acta Sanctorum,
nor even the anonymous writer of Perugia, nor the Three Companions, nor
Bonaventura say a single word on the subject. No more do very much later
works mention it, which sin only by excessive critical scruples: Bernard
of Besse, Giordiano di Giano, Thomas Eccleston, the Chronicle of the
Tribulations, the Fioretti, and even the Golden Legend.
This conspiracy of silence of all the writers of the thirteenth century
would be the greatest miracle of history if it were not absurd.
By way of explanation, it has been said that these writers refrained
from speaking of this indulgence for fear of injuring that of the
Crusade; but in that case, why did the pope command seven bishops to go
to Portiuncula to proclaim it in his name?
The legend takes upon itself to explain that Francis refused a bull or
any written attestation of this privilege; but, admitting this, it would
still be necessary to explain why no hint of this matter has been
preserved in the papers of Honorius III. And how is it that the bulls
sent to the seven bishops have left not the slightest trace upon this
pontiff's register?
Again, how does it happen, if seven bishops officially promulgated this
indulgence in 1217, that St. Francis, after having related to Brother
Leo his interview with the pope, said to him: "_Teneas secretum hoc
usque circa mortem tuam; quia non habet locum adhuc. Quia haec
indulgentia occultabitur ad tempus; sed Dominus trahet eam extra et
manifestabitur._" _Conform._, 153b, 2. Such an avowal is not wanting in
simplicity. It abundantly proves that before the death of Brother Leo
(1271) no one had spoken of this famous pardon.
After this it is needless to insist upon secondary difficulties; how is
it that the chapters-general were not fixed for August 2d, to allow the