Life of St. Francis of Assisi
Brothers to secure the indulgence?
How explain that Francis, after having received in 1216 a privilege
unique in the annals of the Church, should be a stranger to the pope in
1219!
There is, however, one more proof whose value exceeds all the
others--Francis's Will:
"I forbid absolutely all the Brothers by their obedience, in whatever
place they may be, to ask any bull of the court of Rome, whether
directly or indirectly, nor under pretext of church or convent, nor
under pretext of preaching, nor even for their personal protection."
Before closing it remains for us to glance at the growth of this legend.
It was definitively constituted about 1330-1340, but it was in the air
long before. With the patience of four Benedictines (of the best days)
we should doubtless be able to find our way in the medley of documents,
more or less corrupted, from which it comes to us, and little by little
we might find the starting-point of this dream in a friar who sees
blinded humanity kneeling around Portiuncula to recover sight.[10]
It is not difficult to see in general what led to the materialization of
this graceful fancy: people remembered Francis's attachment to the
chapel where he had heard the decisive words of the gospel, and where
St. Clara in her turn had entered upon a new life.
When the great Basilica of Assisi was built, drawing to itself pilgrims
and privileges, an opposition of principles and of inspiration came to
be added to the petty rivalry between it and Portiuncula.
The zealots of poverty said aloud that though the Saint's body rested in
the basilica his heart was at Portiuncula.[11] By dint of repeating and
exaggerating what Francis had said about the little sanctuary, they came
to give a precise and so to say doctrinal sense to utterances purely
mystical.
The violences and persecutions of the party of the Large Observance
under the generalship of Crescentius[12] (1244-1247) aroused a vast
increase of fervor among their adversaries. To the bull of Innocent IV.
declaring the basilica thenceforth _Caput et Mater_ of the Order[13]
the Zealots replied by the narratives of Celano's Second Life and the
legends of that period.[14] They went so far as to quote a promise of
Francis to make it in perpetuity the _Mater et Caput_ of his
institute.[15]
In this way the two parties came to group themselves around these two
buildings. Even to-day it is the same. The Franciscans of the Strict
Observance occupy Portiuncula, while the Basilica of Assisi is in the
hands of the Conventuals (Large Observance), who have adopted all the
interpretations and mitigations of the Rules; they are worthy folk, who
live upon their dividends. By a phenomenon, unique, I think, in the
annals of the Church, they have pushed the freedom of their infidelity
to the point of casting off the habit, the popular brown cassock.
Dressed all in black, shod and hatted, nothing distinguishes them from
the secular clergy except a modest little cord.
Poor Francis! That he may have the joy of feeling his tomb brushed by a
coarse gown, some daring friar must overcome his very natural
repugnances, and come to kneel there. The indulgence of August 2d is
then the reply of the Zealots to the persecutions of their brothers.
An attentive study will perhaps show it emerging little by little under
the generalship of Raimondo Gaufridi (1289-1295); Conrad di Offida ([Cross]
1306) seems to have had some effect upon it, but only with the next
generation do we find the legend completed and avowed in open day.
Begun in a misapprehension it ends by imposing itself upon the Church,
which to-day guarantees it with its infallible authority, and yet in its
origin it was a veritable cry of revolt against the decisions of Rome.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The text was published in 1620 by Spoelberch (in his
_Speculum vitae B. Francisci_, Antwerp, 2 vols., 12mo, ii., pp.
103-106), after the copy addressed to Brother Gregory,
minister in France, and then preserved in the convent of the
Recollects in Valenciennes. It was reproduced by Wadding (Ann.
1226, no. 44) and the Bollandists (pp. 668 and 669).
So late an appearance of a capital document might have left
room for doubts; there is no longer reason for any, since the
publication of the chronicle of Giordano di Giano, who relates
the sending of this letter (Giord., 50). The Abbe Amoni has
also published this text (at the close of his _Legenda trium
Sociorum_, Rome, 1880, pp. 105-109), but according to his
deplorable habit, he neglects to tell whence he has drawn it.
This is the more to be regretted since he gives a variant of
the first order: _Nam diu ante mortem_ instead of _Non diu_,
as Spoelberch's text has it. The reading _Nam diu_ appears
preferable from a philological point of view.
[2] Engraved in Saint Francois d'Assise, Paris, 4to, 1885, p. 277.
[3] _Bibliotheca Patrum._ Lyons, 1677, xxv., _adv.
Albigenses_, lib. ii., cap. 11., cf. iii., 14 and 15.
Reproduced in the A. SS., p. 652.
[4] The curious may consult the following sources: Salimbeni,
ann. 1250--_Conform._, 171b 2, 235a 2; Bon., 200; Wadding,
_ann. 1228_, no. 78; A. SS., p. 800. Manuscript 340 of the
_Sacro Convento_ contains (fo. 55b-56b) four of these hymns.
Cf. _Archiv._ i., p. 485.
[5] See in particular Hase: _Franz v. Assisi_. Leipsic, 1
vol., 8vo., 1856. The learned professor devotes no less than
sixty closely printed pages to the study of the stigmata,
142-202.
[6] The more I think about it, the more incapable I become of
attributing any sort of weight to this argument from the
disappearance of the body; for in fact, if there had been any
pious fraud on Elias's part, he would on the contrary have
displayed the corpse.
[7] See, for example, 2 Cel., 3, 86, as well as the encyclical
of Giovanni di Parma and Umberto di Romano, in 1225.
[8] The following among many others: Francis had particularly
high breeches made for him, to hide the wound in the side
(Bon., 201). At the moment of the apparition, which took place
during the night, so great a light flooded the whole country,
that merchants lodging in the inns of Casentino saddled their
beasts and set out on their way. _Fior., iii. consid._
Hase, in his study, is continually under the weight of the bad
impression made upon him by Bonaventura's deplorable
arguments; he sees the other witness only through him. I think
that if he had read simply Thomas of Celano's first Life, he
would have arrived at very different conclusions.
[9] The most important document is manuscript 344 of the
archives of Sacro Convento at Assisi. _Liber indulgentiae S.
Mariae de Angelis sive de Portiuncula in quo libra ego fr.
Franciscus Bartholi de Assisio posui quidquid potui sollicite
invenire in legendis antiquis et novis b. Francisci et in
aliis dictis sociorum ejus de loco eodem et commendatione
ipsius loci et quidquid veritatis et certitudinis potui
invenire de sacra indulgentia prefati loci, quomodo scilicet
fuit impetrata et data b. Francisco de miraculis ipsius
indulgentiae quae ipsam declarant certam et veram._ Bartholi
lived in the first half of the fourteenth century. His work is
still unpublished, but Father Leo Patrem M. O. is preparing it
for publication. The name of this learned monk gives every
guaranty for the accuracy of this difficult work; meanwhile a
detailed description and long extracts may be found in the
Miscellanea (ii., 1887). _La storia del perdono di Francesco
de Bartholi_, by Don Michele Faloci Pulignani, pp. 149-153
(cf. _Archiv._, i., p. 486). See also in the Miscellanea (i.,
1886, p. 15) a bibliographical note containing a detailed list
of fifty-eight works (cf. ibid., pp. 48, 145). The legend
itself is found in the _Speculum_, 69b-83a, and in the
_Conformities_, 151b-157a. In these two collections it is
still found laboriously worked in and is not an integral part
of the rest of the work. In the latter, Bartolemmeo di Pisa
has carried accuracy so far as to copy from end to end all the
documents that he had before him, and as they belong to
different periods he thus gives us several phases of the
development of the tradition. The most complete work is that
of the Recollect Father Grouwel: _Historia critica S.
Indulgentiae B. Mariae Angelorum vulgo de Portiuncula ... contra
Libellos aliquos anonymo ac famosos nuper editos_, Antwerp,
1726, 1 vol., 8vo. pp. 510. The Bollandist Suysken also makes
a long study of it (A. SS., pp. 879-910), as also the
Recollect Father Candide Chalippe, _Vie de saint Francois
d'Assise_, 3 vols., 8vo, Paris, 1874 (the first edition is of
1720), vol. iii., pp. 190-327.
In each of these works we find what has been said in all the
others. The numerous writings against the Indulgence are
either a collection of vulgarities or dogmatic treatises; I
refrain from burdening these pages with them. The principal
ones are indicated by Grouwel and Chalippe.
Among contemporaries Father Barnabas of Alsace: _Portiuncula
oder Geschichte Unserer lieben Frau von den Engeln_ (Rixheim,
1 vol., 8vo. 1884), represents the tradition of the Order, and
the Abbe Le Monnier (_Histoire de Saint Francois_, 2 vols.,
8vo, Paris, 1889), moderate Catholic opinion in non-Franciscan
circles.
The best summary is that of Father Panfilo da Magliano in his
_Storia compendiosa_. It has been completed and amended in the
German translation: _Geschichte des h. Franciscus und der
Franziskaner uebersetzt und bearbeitet_ von Fr. Quintianus
Mueller, vol. i., Munich, 1883, pp. 233-259.
[10] 2 Cel., 1, 13; 3 Soc., 56; Bon., 24.
[11] _Conform._, 239b, 2.
[12] See in particular _Archiv._, ii., p. 259, and the bull of
February 7, 1246. Potthast, 12007; Glassberger, _ann. 1244_
(_An. fr._ t. ii., p. 69).
[13] _Is qui ecclesiam_, March. 6, 1245, Potthast, 11576.
[14] 2 Cel., 1, 12 (cf. _Conform._, 218a, 1); 3 Soc., 56;
_Spec._, 32b ff.; 49b ff.; _Conform._, 144a, 2.
[15] _Conform._, 169a; 2, 217b. 1 ff. Cf. _Fior._, Amoni's ed.
(Appendix to the Codex of the Bib. Angelica), p. 378.
* * * * *
* * * * *
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
TEXT CONVENTIONS
Text surrounded by underscores (_text_) indicates italics in the
original.
Text surrounded by tildes (~text~) indicates bold in the original.
'Folio' abbreviation: The original has two versions. 'F' or 'f'
followed by superscripted 'o' is transcribed F^o/f^o.
'fo.'/'fos.' is transcribed 'fo.'/'fos.'.
[Cross] is used where the text had a single character that resembled a
Maltese Cross, and denotes year of death.
Footnotes have been moved from the bottom of each page to the end
of each chapter, and renumbered by chapter.
CHANGES FROM THE ORIGINAL TEXT
In many spots in the scans, primarily in footnote citations,
periods and commas are partially or completely obscured, with
white space where the mark would logically appear. Where the scan
is unclear, punctuation has been transcribed to match the most
common use in the book. Where the punctuation is different from