CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 Gift of 
 Ifrs, Andrew S, White 
 
 UKIDERGRADUATE LIBRARY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 BX4700.F6S1 11922 
 
 Life of St. Francis o1 Asslsi / 
 
 3 1924 011 038 696 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
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 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924011038696 
 
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 9F ASSISI 
 
LITE OF 
 
 ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI 
 
 PAUL SABATIER 
 
 Qui vere monachus est nihil 
 nputat esse suum nisi citharam 
 
 Sio^ccHiNO Di FioBE in Apoa 18B a 2 
 
 TRANSIiATED ES 
 
 LOUISE SBYMOTTR HOUGHTOH 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1922 
 
CopyRieai, 1894, B« 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 Copyright, 1922, by 
 AUGUSTIN S. HOUGHTON 
 
 Frioted in the United States of America 
 
TO THE 8TRASBUBGHEBS 
 
 S'riendsl 
 
 At last There is this booh which I told you about 
 so long ago. The result is small indeed in 
 relation to the endeavor, as I, alas ! see better than 
 amyone. The widow of the Gosjael put only one 
 ynite into tJie ahm-booo of the temple, but this mite, 
 they tell us, won her Pa/radise. Accept the mite 
 that loffer you to-day as God accepted that of the 
 poor woman, looking not at her offering, but at h,er 
 love. Feci quod potui, omnia dedi. 
 
 Do not chide me too severely for this long delay, 
 for you are somewhat its ca/use. Many times a 
 day at Florence, at Assisi, at Rome, I have for- 
 gotten the document I had to study. Something in 
 me seemed to ha/oe gone to flutter at your windows, 
 and sometimes they opened. . . . One evening 
 at St. Davnian I forgot myself and remained long 
 after sunset. An old monh caane to warn me that 
 the sanct/aa/ry was closed. " Per Bacco ! " he gently 
 mu/rmured as he led me away, all ready to receive 
 my confidence, " sognava d'amore o di tristitia ? " 
 Well, yes. I was dreaming of love and of sad 
 ness, for I was dreaming of SPrasbowrg. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 Introduction, . xi 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 Youth, ,.1 
 
 CHAPTER n. 
 Stages op Conteesion, - , , 15 
 
 CHAPTER m. 
 The Church about 1209, 28 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Struggles and Triumphs, ....... 53 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 First Yeab of Apostolate 71 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 St. Francis and Innocent III., ...... 88 
 
 CHAPTER Vn. 
 BlVO-TOBTO, lOS 
 
VIU TABLE OF CONTENi-S 
 
 CHAPTER Vm. 
 PoETiuircui.A, 130 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Saitta Olaba 147 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 JFlBBT ATTBLIFTB TO BEACH THE tCTFIDELS 168 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 The Inner Man and WoNDER-'WOBKiNe, ...» 183 
 
 CHAPTER XU. 
 
 The Chafteb-Genbbal of 1317, . . . . » 198 
 
 CHAPTER Xin. 
 St. Dominic and St. Francis, ....... 217 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 The Obisib oi< the Obdeb, 239 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 The Rule op 1221, 253 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 The Brothers Minor and Lbabnino, 271 
 
 CHAPTER XVn. 
 Tub Stigmata 387 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS IX 
 
 CHAPTER XVUI. 
 The Canticle op the Sun, ...,.., 297 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 The Last Yeab, . 308 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 Pbancis's Will and Death, 333 
 
 Obitigal Study oi the Soukces, 347 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Critical Study oj- the Stiomata and of the Indulgence 
 
 OF Auoubt S, 433 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 In the renascence of history which is in a manner the 
 characteristic of our time, the Middle Ages have been 
 the object of peculiar fondness with both criticism and 
 erudition. We rummage all the dark comers of the 
 libraries, we bring old parchments to light, and in the 
 zeal and ardor we put into our search there is an inde- 
 finable touch of piety. 
 
 These efforts to make the past live again reveal not 
 merely our curiosity, or the lack of power to grapple with 
 great philosophic problems, they are a token of wisdom 
 and modesty ; we are beginning to feel that the present 
 has its roots in the past, and that in the fields of politics 
 and religion, as in others, slow, modest, persevering toil 
 is that which has the best results. 
 
 There is also a token of love in this. We love our 
 ancestors of five or six centuries ago, and we mingle not 
 a little emotion and gratitude with this love. So, if one 
 may hope everything of a son who loves his parents, 
 we must not despair of an age that loves history. 
 
 The Middle Ages form an organic period in the life of 
 humanity. Like aU powerful organisms the period began 
 with a long and mysterious gestation ; it had its youth, 
 its manhood, its decrepitude. The end of the twelfth 
 century and the beginning of the thirteenth mark its full 
 expansion ; it is the twentieth year of life, with its 
 poetry, its dreams, its enthusiasm, its generosity, its dar- 
 ing. Love overflowed with vigor ; men everywhere had 
 
XU INTKODUCTION 
 
 but one desire — to devote themselves to some great and 
 holy cause. 
 
 Curiously enough, though Europe was more parcelled 
 out than ever, it felt a new thrill run through its entire 
 extent. There was what we migM call a state of Eu- 
 ropean consciousness. 
 
 In ordinary periods each people has its own interests, 
 its tendencies, its tears, and its joys ; but let a time of 
 crisis come, and the true unity of the human family 
 wiU suddenly make itself felt with a strength never be- 
 fore suspected. Each body of water has its own cur- 
 rents, but when the hurricane is abroad they mysteriously 
 intermingle, and from the ocean to the remotest mountain 
 lake the same tremor wiU upheave them all. 
 
 It was thus in '89, it was thus also in the thirteenth 
 century. 
 
 Never was there less of frontier, never, either before or 
 since, such a mingling of nationalities ; and at the present 
 day, with all our highways and railroads, the people live 
 more apart.* 
 
 The great movement of thought of the thirteenth 
 century is above all a religious movement, presenting a 
 double character — it is popular and it is laic. It comes 
 out from the heart of the people, and it looks athwart 
 many uncertainties at nothing less than wresting the 
 sacred things from the hands of the clergy. 
 
 The conservatives of our time who turn to the thir- 
 
 ' The mendicant orders were in their origin a true International. 
 When in the spring of 1216 St. Dominic assembled his friars at Notre 
 Dame de la Prouille, they were found to he sixteen in number, and 
 among them Castilians, Kavarese, Normans, French, Languedocians, 
 and even English and Germans. 
 
 Heretics travelled all over Europe, and nowhere do we find them 
 checked by the diversity of languages. Arnold of Brescia, for example, 
 the famous Tribune of Rome, appeared in France and Switzerland and 
 in the heart of Germany. 
 
INTKODUOTION XU! 
 
 teenth century as to the golden age of authoritative 
 faith make a strange mistake. If it is especially the 
 century of saints, it is also that of heretics. We shall 
 soon see that the two words are not so contradictory as 
 might appear; it is enough for the moment to point 
 out that the Church had never been more powerful nor 
 more threatened. 
 
 There was a genuine attempt at a religious revolution, 
 which, if it had succeeded, would have ended in a 
 universal priesthood, in the proclamation of the rights of 
 the individual conscience. 
 
 The effort failed, and though later on the Revolution 
 made us all kings, neither the thirteenth century nor the 
 Reformation was able to make us aU priests. Herein, no 
 doubt, lies the essential contradiction of our lives and 
 that which periodically puts our national institutions in 
 peril. Politically emancipated, we are not morally or re- 
 ligiously free.* 
 
 The thirteenth century with juvenile ardor undertook 
 this revolution, which has not yet reached its end. In 
 the north of Europe it became incarnate in cathedrals, in 
 the south, in saints. 
 
 The cathedrals were the lay churches of the thirteenth 
 century. Built by the people for the people, they were 
 "srigiaally the true common house of our old cities. Mu- 
 
 > The Reformation only substituted the authority of the book 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 Ood nor sovereignty nor 
 authority, but it sees them where they really are. 
 
XIV INTEODTJCTIOK 
 
 seums, granaries, chambers of commerce, halls of justice, 
 depositories of archiyes, and even labor exchanges, they 
 were all these at once. 
 
 That art of the Middle Ages which Victor Hugo and 
 VioUet-le-Duc have taught us to understand and love 
 was the visible expression of the enthusiasm of a people 
 who were achieving communal liberty. Very far from 
 being the gift of the Church, it was in its beginning an 
 unconscious protest against the hieratic, impassive, esote- 
 ric art of the religious orders. We find only laymen in 
 the long list of master-workmen and painters who have 
 left us the innumerable Gothic monuments which stud the 
 soil of Europe. Those artists of genius who, like those 
 of Greece, knew how to speak to the populace without be- 
 ing common, were for the most part humble workmen ; 
 they found their inspiration not in the formulas of the 
 masters of monastic art, but in constant communion with 
 the very soul of the nation. Therefore this renascence, 
 in its most profound features, concerns less the archae- 
 ology or the architecture than the history of a country. 
 
 While in the northern countries the people were build- 
 ing their own churches, and finding in their enthusiasm 
 an art which was new, original, complete, in the south, 
 above the official, clerical priesthood of divine right they 
 were greeting and consecrating a new priesthood, that of 
 the saints. 
 
 The priest of the thirteenth century is the antithesis of 
 the saint, he is almost always his enemy. Separated bv 
 the holy unction from the rest of mankind, inspiring awe 
 as the representative of an aU-powerful God, able by a 
 few signs to perform unheard-of mysteries, with a word 
 to change bread into flesh and wine into blood, he ap- 
 peared as a sort of idol which can do all things for or 
 against you and before which you have only to adore 
 and tremble. 
 
INTEODTJCTIOK XV 
 
 The saint, on the contrary, was one whose mission was 
 proclaimed by nothing in his apparel, but whose life and 
 words made themselves felt in aU hearts and consciences ; 
 he was one who, with no cure of souls in the Church, felt 
 himself suddenly impelled to Hft up his voice. The 
 child of the people, he knew all their material and moral 
 woes, and their mysterious echo sounded in his own 
 heart. Like the ancient prophet of Israel, he heard an 
 imperious voice saying to him : " Go and speak to the 
 children of my people. " " Ah, Lord God, I am but a 
 child, I know not how to speak." " Say not, I am but a 
 child, for thou shalt go to all those to whom I shall send 
 thee. Behold I have set thee to-day as a strong city, a 
 piUar of iron and a wall of brass against the kings of 
 Judah, against its princes and against its priests." 
 
 These thirteenth - century saints were in fact true 
 prophets. Apostles like St. Paul, not as the result of a 
 canonical consecration, but by the interior order of the 
 Spirit, they were the witnesses of liberty against au- 
 thority. 
 
 The Calabrian seer, Gioacchino di Fiore, hailed the 
 new-bom revolution ; he believed in its success and pro- 
 claimed to the wondering world the advent of a new min- 
 istry. He was mistaken. 
 
 When the priest sees himself vanquished by the 
 prophet he suddenly changes his method. He takes him 
 under his protection, he introduces his harangues into 
 the sacred canon, he throws over his shoulders the 
 priestly chasuble. The days pass on, the years roll by, 
 and the moment comes when the heedless crowd no 
 longer distinguishes between them, and it ends by believ- 
 ing the prophet to be an emanation of the clergy. 
 
 This is one of the bitterest ironies of history. 
 
 Francis of Assisi is pre-eminently the saint of the Mid- 
 dle Ages. Owing nothing to church or school he was 
 
XVI INTEODTJCTION 
 
 truly theodidact,^ and if he perhaps did not perceive the 
 revolutionary bearing of his preaching, he at least always 
 refused to be ordained priest. He divined the superi- 
 ority of the spiritual priesthood. 
 
 The charm of his life is that, thanks to reliable docu- 
 ments, we find the man behind the wonder worker. We 
 find in him not merely noble actions, we find in him a 
 life in the true meaning of the word ; I mean, we feel in 
 him both development and struggle. 
 
 How mistaken are the annals of the Saints in repre- 
 senting him as from the very cradle surrounded with 
 aureole and nimbus ! As if the finest and most manly of 
 spectacles were not that of the man who conquers his 
 soul hour after hour, fighting first against himself, against 
 the suggestions of egoism, idleness, discouragement, then 
 at the moment when he might believe himself victorious, 
 finding in the champions attracted by his ideal those who 
 are destined if not to bring about its complete ruin, at 
 least to give it its most terrible blows. Poor Francis! 
 The last years of his hfe were indeed a via dolorosa as 
 painful as that where his master sank down under the 
 weight of the cross ; for it is still a joy to die for one's 
 ideal, but what bitter pain to look on in advance at the 
 apotheosis of one's body, while seeing one's soul — I 
 would say his thought — misunderstood and frustrated. 
 
 If we ask for the origins of his idea we find them ex- 
 clusively among the common people of his time ; he is the 
 incarnation of the Italian soul at the beginning of the 
 thirteenth century, as Dante was to be its incarnation a 
 hundred years later. 
 
 He was of the people and the people recognized them- 
 selves in him. He had their poetry and their aspirations, 
 
 ' Nemo ostendebat mihi quod deberemfaeere, ged ipie AUittimu* r Mela- 
 tit mihi quod deberem, mvere eecundemformam lancti BvangeSi. Tef ta- 
 mentnm Fr. 
 
INTEODXICTIOK XVU 
 
 he espoused their claims, and the very name of his insti- 
 tute had at first a political signification : in Assisi as in 
 most other Italian towns there were majores and minores, 
 the popolo grasso and the popolo minuto; he resolutely 
 placed himself among the latter. This political side of his 
 apostolate needs to be clearly apprehended if we would 
 understand its amazing success and the wholly unique 
 character of the Franciscan movement in its begioning. 
 
 As to its attitude toward the Church, it was that of 
 filial obedience. This may perhaps appear strange at first 
 as regards an imauthorized preacher who comes speaJiing 
 to the world in the name of his own immediate personal 
 inspiration. But did not most of the men of '89 believe 
 themselves good and loyal subjects of Louis XVI. ? 
 
 The Church was to our ancestors what the fatherland 
 is to us ; we may wish to remodel its government, over- 
 turn its administration, change its constitution, but we 
 do not think ourselves less good patriots for that. 
 
 In the same way, in an age of simple faith when re- 
 ligious beliefs seemed to be in the very fibre and flesh of 
 humanity, Dante, without ceasing to be a good Catholic, 
 could attack the clergy and the court of Home with a 
 violence that has never been surpassed. St. Francis so 
 surely believed that the Church had become unfaithful 
 to her mission that he could speak in his symbolic lan- 
 guage of the widowhood of his Lady Poverty, who from 
 Christ's time to his own had found no husband. How 
 could he better have declared his purposes or revealed 
 his dreams ? 
 
 What he purposed was far more than the foimdation 
 of an order, and it is to do him great wrong thus to 
 restrict his endeavor. He longed for a true awakening 
 of the Church in the name of the evangelical ideal which 
 he had regained. All Europe awoke with a start when 
 it heard of these penitents from a Kttle Umbrian town. 
 
XVifl INTEODUCTION 
 
 It was reported that they had craved a strange privilege 
 from the court of Eome : that of possessing nothing. 
 Men saw them pass by, earning their bread by the labor 
 of their hands, accepting only the bare necessities of 
 bodily sustenance from them to whom they had given 
 with lavish hands the bread of life. The people lifted 
 up their heads, breathing in with deep inspirations the 
 airs of a springtime upon which was already floating the 
 perfume of new flowers. 
 
 Here and there in the world there are many souls 
 capable of all heroism, if only they can see before them 
 a true leader. St. Francis became for these the guide 
 they had longed for, and whatever was best in humanity 
 at that time leaped to follow in his footsteps. 
 
 This movement, which was destined to result in the 
 constitution of a new family of monks, was in the begin- 
 ning anti-monastic. It is not rare for history to have 
 similar contradictions to record. The meek Galilean 
 who preached the religion of a personal revelation, with- 
 out ceremonial or dogmatic law, triumphed only on con- 
 dition of being conquered, and of permitting his words 
 of spirit and life to be confiscated by a church essen- 
 tially dogmatic and sacerdotal. 
 
 In the same way the Franciscan movement was orig- 
 inally, if not the protest of the Christian consciousness 
 against monachism, at least the recognition of an ideal 
 singularly higher than that of the clergy of that time. 
 Let us picture to ourselves the Italy of the beginning of 
 the thirteenth century with its divisions, its perpetual 
 warfare, its depopulated country districts, the impossi^ 
 bility of tilling the fields except in the narrow circle 
 which the garrisons of the towns might protect ; all 
 these cities from the greatest to the least occupied in 
 watching for the most favorable moment for falling upon 
 and pillaging their neighbors ; sieges terminated by un. 
 
INTRODUCTION XiX 
 
 speakable atrocities, and after all this, famine, speedily 
 followed by pestilence to complete the devastation. 
 Then let us picture to ourselves the rich Benedictine 
 abbeys, veritable fortresses set upon the hill-tops, whence 
 they seemed to command all the surrounding plains. 
 There was nothing surprising in their prosperity. 
 Shielded by their inviolability, they were in these dis- 
 ordered times the only refuge of peaceful souls and 
 timid hearts.' The monks were in great majority de- 
 serters from life, who for motives entirely aside from 
 religion had taken refuge behind the only walls which at 
 this period were secure. 
 
 Overlook this as we may, forget as we may the demor- 
 alization and ignorance of the inferior clergy, the siinony 
 and the vices of the prelates, the coarseness and ararice 
 of the monks, judging the Church of the thirteenth cen- 
 tury only by those of her sons who do her the most honor ; 
 none the less are these the anchorites who flee into the 
 desert to escape from wars and vices, pausing only irhen 
 they are very sure that none of the world's noises will in- 
 terrupt their meditations. Sometimes they will draw 
 away with them hundreds of imitators, to the solitudes of 
 Clairvaux, of the Chartreuse, of Vallombrosa, of the 
 Camaldoli ; but even when they are a multitude they are 
 alone ; for they are dead to the world and to their breth- 
 ren. Each cell is a desert, on whose threshold they cry 
 
 O beata solitudo, 
 O sola beatitude. 
 
 ' The wealthiest monasteries of France are of the twelfth century or 
 were enlarged at that time; Aries, 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. 
 
XX INTRODUCTION 
 
 The book of the Imitation is the picture of all that is 
 purest in this cloistered life. 
 
 But is this abstinence from action truly Christian ? 
 
 No, replied St. Francis. He for his part would do like 
 Jesus, and we may say that his life is an imitation of 
 Christ singularly more real than that of Thomas a 
 Kempis. 
 
 Jesus went indeed into the desert, but only that he 
 might find in prayer and communion with the heavenly 
 Father the inspiration and strength necessary for keep- 
 ing up the struggle against evil. Far from avoiding the 
 multitude, he sought them out to enlighten, console, and 
 convert them. 
 
 This is what St. Francis desired to imitate. More than 
 once he felt the seduction of the purely contemplative 
 life, but each time his own spirit warned him that this 
 was only a disguised selfishness ; that one saves oneself 
 only in saving others. 
 
 When he saw suffering, wretchedness, corruption, in- 
 stead of fleeing he stopped to bind up, to heal, feeling in 
 his heart the surging of waves of compassion. He not 
 only preached love to others; he himself was ravished 
 with it; he sang it, and what was of greater value, he 
 lived it. 
 
 There had indeed been preachers of love before his 
 day, but most generally they had appealed to the lowest 
 selfishness. They had thought to triumph by proving 
 that in fact to give to others is to put one's money out at 
 a usurious interest. " Give to the poor," said St. Peter 
 Chrysologus,' "that you may give to yourself; give him a 
 crumb in order to receive a loaf ; give him a shelter to re- 
 ceive heaven." 
 
 ' St. Petrus Gbryeologus, sermo viii., de jejunio et eleemosyna. Da 
 pawperi ut des tibi : da micam, ut aeeyms totum panem ; da tectum, accipe 
 
INTKODUCTION XXI 
 
 There was nothing like this in Francis ; his charity is 
 not selfishness, it is lore. He went, not to the whole, who 
 need no physician, but to the sick, the forgotten, the dis- 
 dained. He dispensed the treasures of his heart accord- 
 ing to the need and reserved the best of himself for the 
 poorest and the most lost, for lepers and thieves. 
 
 The gaps in his education were of marvellous service to 
 him. More learned, the formal logic of the schools 
 would have robbed him of that flower of simplicity which 
 is the great charm of his life ; he would have seen the 
 whole extent of the sore of the Church, and would no 
 doubt have despaired of healing it. If he had known the 
 ecclesiastical discipline he would have felt obliged to ob- 
 serve it ; but thanks to his ignorance he could often vio- 
 late it without knowing it,' and be a heretic quite una- 
 wares. 
 
 We can now determine to what religious family St. 
 Francis belongs. 
 
 Looking at the question from a somewhat high stand- 
 point we see that in the last analysis minds, like relig- 
 ious systems, are to be found in two great families, stand- 
 ing, so to say, at the two poles of thought. These two 
 poles are only mathematical points, they do not exist in 
 concrete reality ; but for all that we can set them down 
 on the chart of philosophic and moral ideas. 
 
 There are religions which look toward divinity and re- 
 ligions which look toward man. Here again the line of 
 demarcation between the two families is purely ideal and 
 artificial ; they often so mingle and blend with one an- 
 other that we have much difficulty in distinguishing them, 
 especially in the intermediate zone ia which our civiliza- 
 
 ' r.y 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 deyolve 
 oTTsn upon pnesM oj an exnress commission. 
 
XXU INTEODTJCTION 
 
 tion finds its place ; but if we go toward the poles we 
 shall find their characteristics growing gradually distinct. 
 
 In the religions which look toward divinity all effort 
 is concentrated on worship, and especially on sacrifice. 
 The end aimed at is a change in the disposition of the 
 gods. They are mighty kings whose support or faTor 
 one must purchase by gifts. 
 
 Most pagan religions belong to this category and phari- 
 saic Judaism as well. This is also the tendency of cer- 
 tain Catholics of the old school for whom the great thing 
 is to appease God or to buy the protection of the Vir- 
 gin and the saints by means of prayers, candles, and 
 masses. 
 
 The other religions look toward man ; their effort is di- 
 rected to the heart and conscience with the purpose of 
 transforming them. Sacrifice disappears, or rather it 
 changes from the exterior to the interior. God is con- 
 ceived of as a father, always ready to welcome him who 
 comes to him. Conversion, perfection, sanctification be- 
 come the pre-eminent religious acts. Worship and prayer 
 cease to be incantations and become reflection, medita- 
 tion, virUe effort ; while in religions of the first class the 
 clergy have an essential part, as intermediaries between 
 heaven and earth, in those of the second they have 
 none, each conscience entering into direct relations with 
 God. 
 
 It was reserved to the prophets of Israel to formulate, 
 with a precision before unknown, the starting-point of 
 spiritual worship. 
 
 Bring no more vain offerings ; 
 
 I have a horror of incense, 
 
 Tour new moons, your Sabbaths, and your assemblies ; 
 
 When you multiply prayers I will not hearken. 
 
 Your hands are full of blood, 
 
 Wash you, make you clean, 
 
INTKODUCTION XXIU 
 
 Put away from before my eyes the evil of your ways, 
 Oease to do evil. 
 Learn to do well.' 
 
 With Isaiah these vehement apostrophes are but 
 flashes of genius, but with Jesus the interior change be- 
 comes at once the principle and the end of the religious 
 life. His promises were not for those who were right 
 with the ceremonial law, or who offered the greatest num- 
 ber of sacrifices, but for the pure in heart, for men of 
 good wiU. 
 
 These considerations are not perhaps without their use 
 in showing the spiritual ancestry of the Saint of Assisi. 
 
 For him, as for St. Paul and St. Augustine, conversion 
 was a radical and complete change, the act of will by 
 which man wrests himself from the slavery of sin and 
 places himself under the yoke of divine authority. 
 Thenceforth prayer, become a necessary act of life, ceases 
 to be a magic formula ; it is an impulse of the heart, it is 
 reflection and meditation rising above the commonplaces 
 of this mortal life, to enter into the mystery of the divine 
 will and conform itself to it ; it is the act of the atom 
 which understands its littleness, but which desires, 
 though only by a single note, to be in harmony with the 
 divine symphony. 
 
 Ecce adsum Domine, utfaciam voluntatem tuam. 
 
 When we reach these heights we belong not to a sect, 
 but to humanity; we are like those wonders of nature 
 which the accident of circumstances has placed upon the 
 territory of this or that people, but which belong to all 
 the world, because in fact they belong to no one, or 
 rather they are the common and inalienable property of 
 the entire human race. Homer, Shakespeare, Dante, 
 Goethe, Michael Angelo, Eembrandt belong to us all as 
 much as the ruins of Athens or Home, or, rather, they be- 
 • Isaiah i. 10-17. Cf. Joel 3, Psalm 50. 
 
XXIV INTRODUCTION 
 
 long to those who love them most and understand them 
 best. 
 
 But that which is a truism, so far as men of genius in 
 the domain of imagination or thought are concerned, still 
 appears like a paradox when we speak of men of relig- 
 ious genius. The Church has laid such absolute claim 
 to them that she has created in her own favor a sort of 
 right. It cannot be that this arbitrary confiscation shall 
 endure forever. To prevent it we have not to perform 
 an act of negation or demolition : let us leave to the 
 chapels their statues and their relics, and far from be- 
 littling the saints, let us make their true grandeiu: shine 
 forth. 
 
 It is time to say a few words concerning the difficul- 
 ties of the work here presented to the public. History 
 always embraces but a very feeble part of the reality: 
 ignorant, she is like the stories children tell of the events 
 that have occurred before their eyes ; learned, she re- 
 minds us of a museum organized with all the modem im- 
 provements. Instead of making you see nature with its 
 external covering, its diffuse life, its mysterious echoes in 
 your own heart, they offer you a herbarium. 
 
 If it is difficult to narrate an ordinary event of our 
 own time, it is far more so to describe the great crises 
 where restless humanity is seeking its true path. 
 
 The first duty of the historian is to forget his own time 
 and country and become the sympathetic and interested 
 contemporary of what he relates ; but if it is difficult to 
 give oneself the heart of a Greek or a Koman, it is in- 
 finitely more so to give oneself a heart of the thirteenth 
 century. I have said that at that period the Middle Age 
 was twenty years old, and the feelings of the twentieth 
 year are, if not the most fugitive, at least the most dif- 
 ficult to note down. Everyone knows that it is impos< 
 
INTRODUCTION XXV 
 
 sible to recall the feelings of youth with the same clear- 
 ness as those of childhood or mature age. Doubtless 
 we may have external facts in the memory, but we can- 
 not recall the sensations and the sentiments ; the con- 
 fused forces which seek to move us are then all at work 
 at once, and to speak the language of beyond the Rhine, 
 it is the essentially phenomenal hour of the phenomena that 
 we are ; everything in us crosses, intermingles, collides, 
 in desperate conflict : it is a time of diabolic or divine ex- 
 citement. Let a few years pass, and nothing in the world 
 can make us live those hours over again. Where was 
 once a volcano, we perceive only a heap of blackened 
 ashes, and scarcely, at long intervals, will a chance meet- 
 ing, a sound, a word, awaken memory and unseal the 
 fountain of recollection ; and even then it is only a flash ; 
 we have had but a glimpse and all has sunk back into 
 shadow and silence. 
 
 We find the same difficulty when we try to take note 
 of the fiery enthusiasms of the thirteenth century, its 
 poetic inspirations, its amorous and chaste visions— all 
 this is thrown up against a background of coarseness, 
 wretchedness, corruption, and folly. 
 
 The men of that time had all the vices except triviality, 
 all the virtues except moderation ; they were either ruf- 
 fians or saints. Life was rude enough to kill feeble or- 
 ganisms ; and thus characters had an energy unknown 
 to-day. It was forever necessary to provide beforehand 
 against a thousand dangers, to take those sudden resolu- 
 tions in which one risks his life. Open the chronicle of 
 Fra SaJimbeni and you will be shocked to find that the 
 largest place is taken up with the account of the annual 
 expeditions of Parma against the neighboring cities, or 
 of the neighboring cities against Parma. What would it 
 have been if this chronicle, instead of being written by 
 a monk of uncommonly open mind, a lover of music, at 
 
XXVI INTEODTJCTIOIT 
 
 certain times an ardent Joacliiniite, an indefatigable 
 traTeller, had been written by a warrior ? And tMs is 
 not all ; these wars between city and city were complicated 
 with civil dissensions, plots were hatched periodically, 
 conspirators were massacred if they were discovered, or 
 massacred and exiled others in their turn if they were 
 triumphant.* When we picture to ourselves this state 
 of things dominated by the grand struggles of the papacy 
 against the empire, heretics, and infidels, we may under- 
 stand how difficult it is to describe such a time. 
 
 The imagination being haunted by horrible or entranc- 
 ing pictures like those of the frescos in the Campo Santo 
 of Pisa, men were always thinking of heaven and hell j 
 they informed themselves about them with the feverish 
 curiosity of emigrants, who pass their days on shipboard 
 in trying to picture that spot in America where in a few 
 days they wiU pitch their tent. 
 
 Every monk of any notoriety must have gone through 
 this. Dante's poem is not an isolated work ; it is the 
 noblest result of a condition which had given birth to 
 hundreds of compositions, and Alighieri had little more 
 to do than to co-ordinate the works of his predecessors 
 and vivify them with the breath of his own genius. 
 
 The unsettled state of men's minds was unimaginable. 
 That unhealthy curiosity which lies at the bottom of the 
 human heart, and which at the present day impels men to 
 seek for refined and even perverse enjoyments, impelled 
 men of that time to devotions which seem like a defiance 
 to common sense. 
 
 Never had hearts been shaken with such terrors, nor 
 
 ' The chronicles of Orvieto {ArcUxm, storico italiano, t. i., of 1889, 
 pp. 7 and follpwing) 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. 
 
INTBODXJCTION XXVU 
 
 ever thrilled with such radiant hopes. The noblest 
 hymns of the liturgy, the Stabat and the IHes Irce, come 
 to us from the thirteenth century, and we may well say 
 that never has the human plaint been more agonized. 
 
 When we look through history, not to find accounts of 
 battles or of the succession of dynasties, but to try to 
 grasp the evolution of ideas and feelings, when we seek 
 above all to discover the heart of man and of epochs, we 
 perceive, on arriving at the thirteenth century, that a 
 fresh wind has blown over the world, the human lyre has 
 a new string, the lowest, the most profound ; one which 
 sings of woes and hopes to which the ancient world had 
 not vibrated. 
 
 In the breast of the men of that time we think some- 
 times we feel the beating of a woman's heart ; they have 
 exquisite sentiments, delightful inspirations, with absurd 
 terrors, fantastic angers, infernal cruelties. Weakness and 
 fear often make them insincere ; they have the idea of the 
 grand, the beautiful, the ugly, but that of order is want- 
 ing ; they fast or feast ; the notion of the laws of nature, 
 so deeply graven in our own minds, is to them entirely a 
 stranger; the words possible and impossible have for 
 them no meaning. Some give themselves to God, others 
 sell themselves to the devil, but not one feels himself 
 strong enough to walk alone, strong enough to have no 
 need to hold on by some one's skirt. 
 
 Peopled with spirits and demons nature appeared to 
 them singularly animated ; in her presence they have all 
 the emotions which a child experiences at night before 
 the trees on the roadside and the vague forms of the 
 rocks. 
 
 Unfortunately, our language is a very imperfect instru- 
 ment for rendering aU this ; it is neither musical nor 
 flexible ; since the seventeenth century it has been deemed 
 seemly to keep one's emotions to oneself, and the old 
 
XXVlil INTRODUCTION 
 
 words which served to note states of the sold have fallen 
 into neglect ; the Imitation and the Fioretti have become 
 untranslatable. 
 
 More than this, in a history like the present one, we 
 must give a large place to the Italian spirit ; it is evident 
 that in a country where they call a chapel hasilica and a 
 tiny house palazxo, or in speaking to a seminarist say 
 " Your Eeverence," words have not the same value as on 
 this side of the Alps. 
 
 The Italians have an imagination which enlarges and 
 simplifies. They see the forms and outlines of men and 
 things more than they grasp their spirit. "What they 
 most admire ia Michael Angelo is gigantic forms, noble 
 and proud attitudes, while we better understand his secret 
 thoughts, hidden sorrows, groans, and sighs. 
 
 Place before their eyes a picture by Bembrandt, and 
 more often than not it wiU appear to them ugly ; its charm 
 cannot be caught at a glance as in those of their artists ; 
 to see it you must examine it, make an effort, and with 
 them effort is the beginning of pain. 
 
 Do not ask them, then, to understand the pathos of 
 things, to be touched by the mysterious and almost fan- 
 ciful emotion which northern hearts discover and enjoy 
 in the works of the Amsterdam master. No, instead of a 
 forest they want a few trees, standing out clearly against 
 the horizon ; instead of a multitude swarming in the pe- 
 numbra of reality, a few personages, larger than nature, 
 forming harmonious groups in an ideal temple. 
 
 The genius of a people ' is aU of a piece : they apply to 
 
 ' 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 Italia often appeared from 
 the pen of Innocent III. See, for instance, the bull of April 16, 1198, 
 Mirrari cogimur, addressed particularly to the Assisans. 
 
INTROBITCTION XXIX 
 
 history the same processes that they apply to the arts. 
 While the Germanic spirit considers events rather in 
 their evolution, in their complex becoming, the Italian 
 spirit takes them at a given moment, overlooks the 
 shadows, the clouds, the mists, everything that makes the 
 line indistinct, brings out the contour sharply, and 
 thus constructs a very lucid story, which is a delight to 
 the eyes, but which is little more than a symbol of the 
 reality. 
 
 At other times it takes a man, separates him from the 
 unnamed crowd, and by a labor often unconscious, makes 
 him the ideal type of a whole epoch.' 
 
 Certainly there is in every people a tendency to give 
 themselves a circle of divinities and heroes who are, so to 
 say, the incarnation of its instincts ; but generally that 
 requires the long labor of centuries. The Italian charac- 
 ter win not suffer this slow action ; as soon as it recog- 
 nizes a man it says so, it even shouts it aloud if that is 
 necessary, and makes him enter upon immortality while 
 stiU alive. Thus legend almost confounds itself with his- 
 tory, and it becomes very difficult to reduce men to their 
 true proportions. 
 
 We must not, then, ask too much of history. The more 
 beautiful is the dawn, the less one can describe it. The 
 most beautiful things in nature, the flower and the but- 
 terfly, should be touched only by delicate hands. 
 
 The effort here made to indicate the variegated, waver- 
 ing tints which form the atmosphere in which St. Francis 
 
 ' Note what the Fioretti say of Brother Bernard : " Stwva solo »}iUe 
 eime dei monti altissimi eontemplando le cose cdesti," Fior., 28. The 
 learned historian of Assisi, Mr. Cristofani, has used similar expressions ; 
 speaking of St. Francis, he says : " Nuovo Ohristo in somma e pero degno 
 i esaere rigumrdato come la piu gigantesea, la piu splendida, la piu ca/ra 
 tra le grandi figure eampeggiantinelP aere del medio evo " {Storia cPAititi, 
 t l.,p. 70, ed. of 1885). 
 
XXX INTROBTTCTION 
 
 lived is therefore of very uncertain success. It was per- 
 haps presumptuous to undertake it. 
 
 Happily we are no longer in the time when historians 
 thought they had done the right thing when they had 
 reduced everything to its proper size, contenting them- 
 selves with denying or omitting everything in the life of 
 the heroes of humanity which rises above the level of our 
 every-day experience. 
 
 No doubt Francis did not meet on the road to Sienna 
 three pure and gentle virgins come from heaven to greet 
 him ; the devil did not overturn rocks for the sake of 
 terrifying him ; but when we deny these visions and ap- 
 paritions, we are victims of an error graver, perhaps, 
 than that of those who affirm them. 
 
 The first time that I was at Assisi I arrived in the 
 middle of the night. When the sun rose, flooding every- 
 thing with warmth and light, the old basilica ' seemed 
 suddenly to quiver ; one might have said that it wished 
 to speak and sing. Giotto's frescos, but now invisible, 
 awoke to a strange life, you might have thought them 
 painted the evening before so much alive they were ; 
 everything was moving without awkwardness or jar. 
 
 I returned six months later. A scaffold had been put 
 up in the middle of the nave ; upon it an art critic was 
 examining the paintings, and as the day was overcast he 
 threw upon the walls the beams of a lamp with a reflector. 
 Then you saw arms thrown out, faces grimacing, without 
 unity, without harmony ; the most exquisite figures took 
 on something fantastic and grotesque. 
 
 He came down triumphant, with a portfolio stuffed 
 with sketches ; here a foot, there a muscle, farther on a 
 bit of face, and I could not refrain from musing on the 
 frescos as I had seen them bathed in sunlight. 
 
 The sun and the lamp are both deceivers ; they trans- 
 ' It remains open all night. 
 
INTEODUCTION XXXl 
 
 form what they show ; but if the truth must be told I 
 own to my preference for the falsehoods of the sun. 
 
 History is a landscape, and like those of nature it is 
 contiaually changing. Two persons who look at it at 
 the same time do not find in it the same charm, and you 
 yourself, if you had it continually before your eyes, 
 would never see it twice alike. The general lines are 
 permanent, but it needs only a cloud to hide the most 
 impoiiant ones, as it needs only a jet of light to bring out 
 such or such a detail and give it a false value. 
 
 "When I began this page the sun was disappearing be- 
 hind the ruins of the Castle of Crussol and the splendors 
 of the sunset gave it a shining aureola ; the light flooded 
 everything, and you no longer saw anywhere the damage 
 which wars have inflicted upon the old feudal manor. I 
 looked, almost thinking I could perceive at the window 
 the figure of the chatelaine . . . Twilight has come, 
 and now there is nothing up there but crumbling walls, 
 a discrowned tower, nothing but ruins and rubbish, 
 which seem to beg for pity. 
 
 It is the same with the landscapes of history. Narrow 
 minds cannot accommodate themselves to these perpetual 
 transformations : they want an objective history in which 
 the author will study the people as a chemist studies a 
 body. It is very possible that there may be laws for 
 historic evolution and social transformations as exact as 
 those of chemical combinations, and we must hope that 
 m the end they wlU be discovered ; but for the present 
 there is no purely objective truth of history. 
 
 To write history we must think it, and to think it is to 
 transform it. Within a few years, it is true, men have 
 believed they had found the secret of objectivity, in the 
 publication of original documents. This is a true prog- 
 ress which renders inestimable service, but here again 
 we must not deceive ourselves as to its significance. All 
 
XXXU INTEODFCTION 
 
 the documents on an epoch or an event cannot usually be 
 published, a selection must be made, and in it will neces- 
 sarily appear the turn of mind of him who makes it. Let 
 us admit that all that can be found is published; but 
 aJas, the most unusual movements have generally the few- 
 est documents. Take, for instance, the religious history 
 of the Middle Ages : it is already a pretty delicate task 
 to collect official documents, such as bulls, briefs, con- 
 ciliary canons, monastic constitutions, etc., but do these 
 documents contain all the life of the Church ? Much is 
 still wanting, and to my mind the movements which se- 
 cretly agitated the masses are much more important, al- 
 though to testify to them we have only a few fragments. 
 
 Poor heretics, they were not only imprisoned and 
 burned, but their books were destroyed and everything 
 that spoke of them ; and more than one historian, finding 
 scarcely a trace of them in his heaps of documents, for- 
 gets these prophets with their strange visions, these poet- 
 monks who from the depths of their cells made the world 
 to thrill and the papacy to tremble. 
 
 Objective history is then a utopia. We create God in 
 our own image, and we impress the mark of our person- 
 ality in places where we least expect to find it again. 
 
 But by dint of talking about the tribunal of history we 
 have made most authors think that they owe to themselves 
 and their readers definitive and irrevocable judgments. 
 
 It is always easier to pronounce a sentence than to 
 wait, to reserve one's opinion, to re-examine. The crowd 
 which has put itself out to be present at a trial is almost 
 always furious with the judges when they reserve the case 
 for further information ; its mind is so made that it re- 
 quires precision in things which will bear it the least ; it 
 puts questions right and left, as children do ; if you ap- 
 pear to hesitate or to be embarrassed you are lost in its 
 estimation, you are evidently only an ignoramus. 
 
INTRODTTCTIOIT XXXIU 
 
 But perhaps below the Areopagites, obliged by their 
 functions to pronounce sentence, there is place at the 
 famous tribunal for a simple spectator who has come ia 
 by accident. He has made out a brief and would like 
 very simply to tell his neighbors his opinion. 
 
 This, then, is not a history ad prohandum, to use the 
 ancient formula. Is this to say that I have only desired 
 to give the reader a moment of diversion ? That would 
 be to understand my thought very ill. In the grand 
 spectacles of history as in those of nature there is some- 
 thing divine ; from it our minds and hearts gaia a virtue 
 at once pacifying and encouraging, we experience the sal- 
 utary sensation of littleness, and seeing the beauties and 
 the sadnesses of the past we learn better how to judge 
 the present hour. 
 
 In one of the frescos of the Upper Church of Assisi, 
 Giotto has represented St. Clara and her companions 
 coming out from St. Damian all in tears, to kiss their 
 spiritual father's corpse as it is being carried to its last 
 home. With an artist's liberty he has made the chapel a 
 rich church built of precious marbles. 
 
 Happily the real St. Damian is stiU there, nestled 
 under some olive-trees like a lark under the heather ; it 
 still has its iU-made walls of irregular stones, like those 
 which bound the neighboring fields. "Which is the more 
 beautiful, the ideal temple of the artist's fancy, or the 
 poor chapel of reality ? No heart wiU be in doubt. 
 
 Francis's official historians have done for his biography 
 what Giotto did for his little sanctuary. In general they 
 have done him iU-service. Their embellishments have 
 hidden the real St. Francis, who was, in fact, infinitely 
 nobler than they have made him to be. Ecclesiastical 
 writers appear to make a great mistake in thus adorn- 
 ing the lives of their heroes, and only mentioning their 
 edifying features. They thus give occasion, even to the 
 
XXXIV INTRODTJCTIO-N- 
 
 most devout, to suspect their testimony. Besides, by 
 thus surrounding their saints with light they make them 
 superhuman creatures, having nothing in common with 
 us; they are privileged characters, marked with the 
 divine seal ; they are, as the litanies say, vials of election, 
 into which God has poured the sweetest perfumes ; their 
 sanctity is revealed almost in spite of themselves ; they 
 are born saints as others are born kiags or slaves, 
 their life is set out against the golden background of 
 a tryptich, and not against the sombre background of 
 reality. 
 
 By such means the saints, perhaps, gain something in 
 the respect of the superstitious; but their lives lose 
 something of virtue and of communicable strength. For- 
 getting that they were men like ourselves, we no longer 
 hear in our conscience the command, " Go and do like- 
 wise." 
 
 It is, then, a work of piety to seek behind the legend 
 for the history. Is it presumptuous to ask our readers 
 to try to understand the thirteenth century and love St. 
 Francis ? They will be amply rewarded for the effort, 
 and will soon find an unexpected charm in these too 
 meagre landscapes, these incorporate souls, these sickly 
 imaginations which will pass before their eyes. Love is 
 the true key of history. 
 
 A book has always a great number of authors, and the 
 following pages owe much to the researches of others ; I ' 
 have tried in the notes to show the whole value of these 
 debts. 
 
 I have also had colaborers to whom it will be more dif- 
 ficult for me to express my gratitude. I refer to the 
 librarians of the libraries of Italy and their assistants ; 
 it is impossible to name them all, their faces are better 
 known to me than their names, but I would here say that 
 during long months passed in the various collections of 
 
INTRODUCTION XXXV 
 
 the Peninsula, all, even to the most humble employees, 
 have shown a tireless helpfulness even at those periods 
 of the year when the number of attendants was the small- 
 est. 
 
 Professor Alessandro Leto, who, barely recovered from 
 a grave attack of influenza, kindly served as my guide 
 among the archives of Assisi, deserves a very particular 
 mention. To the Syndic and municipality of that city 1 
 desire also to express my gratitude. 
 
 I cannot close without a warm remembrance to the 
 spiritual sons of St. Francis dispersed in the mountains 
 of TJmbria and Tuscany. 
 
 Dear dwellers in St. Damian, Portiuncula, the Carceri, 
 the Verna, Monte Colombo, you perhaps remember the 
 strange pilgrim who, though he wore neither the frock 
 nor the cord, used to talk with you of the Seraphic Father 
 with as much love as the most pious Franciscan; you 
 used to be surprised at his eagerness to see everything, 
 to look at everything, to thread all the unexplored paths. 
 You often tried to restrain him by telling him that there 
 was not the smallest relic, the most meagre indulgence 
 in the far-away grottos to which he was dragging you, 
 but you always ended by going with him, thinking that 
 none but a Frenchman could be possessed by a devotion 
 so fervent and so imprudent. 
 
 Thank you, pious anchorites of Greccio, thank you for 
 the bread that you went out and begged when I arrived 
 at your hermitage benumbed with cold and hunger. If 
 you read these lines, read here my gratitude and also a 
 little admiration. You are not all saints, but nearly all 
 of you have hours of saintliness, flights of pure love. 
 
 If some pages of this book give you pain, turn them 
 over quickly ; let me think that others of them will give 
 you pleasure, and will make the name you bear, if possi- 
 ble, stiU more precious to you than it now is. 
 
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 CHAPTEE I 
 
 TOtTTH 
 
 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 hiU-side. Above it Mount Subasio ' 
 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 weU 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,' 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 
 bom has almost entirely disappeared, to make room for » 
 church ; but the street is so modest, and all that remains 
 
 ' Eleven hundred and one metres atove the level of the sea ; the 
 plain around Assisi has an average of two hundred, and the town of two 
 hundred and fifty, metres above. 
 
 ' As in the majority of Tuscan cities the dimensions of the housM 
 were formerly fixed by law. 
 
2 LIFE OF ST. FEAN0I8 
 
 of the jpalazzo dei genitori di San Francesco is so precisely 
 like the neighboring houses that the tradition must ba 
 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 lift. 
 
 He was bom about 1182.* The biographies have pre- 
 served to us few details about his parents.' His father, 
 Pietro Bernardone, was a wealthy cloth-merchant. We 
 know how different was the life of the merchants of that 
 
 ' The biographies say that he died (October 3, 1236) in his forty-fifth 
 year. But the terms are not precise enough to make the date 1181 im- 
 probable. For that matter the question is of small importance. A 
 Franciscan of Erfurt, about the middle of the thirteenth century, fixei 
 the date at 1183. Pertz, vol. xxiv., p. 193. 
 
 "^ A number of different genealogies have been fabricated for Francis ; 
 they prove only one thing, the wreck of the Franciscan idea. How 
 little they understood their hero, who thought to magnify and glorify 
 him by making him spring from a noble family I " Q«£8 wro," says 
 Father Suysken, S. J., "£?« ejus gentUitio insigni disserit Waddingua, 
 turn l-ubet mihi attingere. Factis et mrtuiibus elvait S. M-anciscus non 
 proa/oorum inngnibus out titulis, guos nee desideramt." (A. SS. p. 557a.) 
 It could not be better said. 
 
 In the fourteenth century a whole cycle of legends had gathered 
 about his birth. It could not have been otherwise. They all grow out 
 of the story that tells of an old man who comes knocking at the 
 parents' door, begging them to let him take the infant in his arms, 
 when he announces that it will do great things. Under this form the 
 episode certainly presents nothing impossible, but very soon marvellous 
 Incidents begin to gather around this nucleus until it becomes unrecog- 
 nizable. Bartholomew of Pisa has preserved it in almost its primitiva 
 form. Conform. , 28a 3. Francis certainly had several brothers [3 Soc. , 
 9. Mater . . . qucs cum prte ceteris fUis diligebat], but they have left 
 no trace in history except the incident related farther on. Vide p. 44. 
 Christofani publishes several official pieces concerning Angdo, St. 
 Francis's brother, and his descendants: Storie d?Assisi, vol. i., p. 78 ft. 
 In these documents Angelo is called Angdus Pice, and his son JbTian 
 neetua dim Angeli domine Pice, appellations which might be cited ia 
 favor of the noble origin of Pica. 
 
YOUTH 3 
 
 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, MontpeUier 
 for example, the fair was perpetual. Benjamin of Tudela 
 shows us that city frequented by aU 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 aU lan- 
 guages, 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 vrath the no- 
 bility; in certain countries, Provence for example, the 
 merchants were considered as nobles of a second order * 
 
 Bemardone often made these long journeys ; he went 
 even as far as France, and by this we must surely un- 
 derstand 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 Kufino,' 
 had him baptized by the name of John, but the father 
 
 ' Dooumentary History of Languedoc, iii., p. 607. 
 * The Cathedral of Assisi. To this day all the children of the town 
 are baptized there ; the other churches are without fonts. 
 
4 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 on his return chose to call him Francis.* Had he al- 
 ready determined on the education he was to give the 
 child; did he name him thus because he even then in- 
 tended to bring him up after the French fashion, to make 
 a little Frenchman of him ? It is by no means improb- 
 able. 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." 
 
 These facts about Bemardone 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 col- 
 porters 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 mer- 
 
 ' 3 Soc, 1 ; 2 Gel., 1, 1. Vide also 3 Soo., edition of Pesaro, 1831. 
 
 - The langue d'oU was at this epoch the international language of 
 Europe ; in Italy it wag the language of games and tourneys, and was 
 spoken in the petty princely courts of Northern Italy. Vide Dante, 
 De imlgari eloguio, lib. I. , cap x. Brunette Latini wrote in French be- 
 cause "the speech of France is more delectable and more common to 
 all people." At the other end of Europe the Abbot of Stade, in West- 
 phalia, spoke of the rwbiliiy of the OaUie dialect. Ann. 1324 apud Pertz, 
 Script, xvi. We shall find St. Francis often making allusions to the 
 teles of the Bound Table and the Chanson de Boland. 
 
YOUTH 5 
 
 chants 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 Bemardone, without dreaming of such a thing, be- 
 came 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, un- 
 der a warm ray of sunlight, bring forth unlooked-for fruit. 
 
 The boy's education was not carried very far;^ the 
 school was in those days overshadowed by the church. 
 The priests of San Giorgio were his teachers,^ 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.* 
 
 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.* The autograph of 
 
 ' We must not be led astray by certain remarks upon Ws ignorance, 
 from which one might at first conclude that he knew absolutely noth- 
 ing ; for example, 3 Cel., 3, 45 : Quamvis homo iste beatv^ nuUis fuerit 
 gcienticB »tudiis inmitritus. This evidently refers to science such as the 
 Franciscans soon came to apprehend it, and to theology in particular. 
 
 The close of the passage in Celano is itself an evident proof of this. 
 
 ' Bon. , 219 ; Cf . A. SS. , p. 560a. 1 Cel. , 23. 
 
 • Ozanam, Documents inedits pour servir a VlmlMre UtU'-aire d'ltaUe 
 du vnie au XIITe sUde. Paris, 1851, 8to, pp. 65, 68, 71, 73. Fauriel, 
 Dante et les origines de la litterature italienne. Paris, >854, 2 vols., 
 8vo, ii., p. 832, 379, 439. 
 
 * V. 3 Soc. , 51 and 67 ; 3 Cel. , 3, 110 ; Bon. , 55 ; 2 Cel., 3, 99 ; Bccl., 
 6. Bernard de Besse, Turin MS., fo. 96a, calls Brother Vea the aep* 
 r<;tary of St. Francis. 
 
6 LIFE OP ST. FRANCIS 
 
 Sacro-Convento, which appears to be entirely authentic, 
 shows extreme awkwardness; in general he dictated, 
 signing his letters by a simple t, the symbol of the cross 
 of Jesus.' 
 
 That part of his education which was destined to have 
 most influence upon his life was the French language,^ 
 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 imagi- 
 nation was mysteriously stirred Avith 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, frol- 
 icking with an exquisite charm, very different from the 
 little Eomans, 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 " mor- 
 r'a," 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 sol- 
 diers 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 
 
 • See page 357, n. 8. Bon., 51 and 308. 
 
 « 1 Cel., 16 ; 3 Soc, 10; 38 ; 24 ; 33; 3 Cel., 1, 8; 3, 67. See also 
 the Testament of St. Clara and the Speculum, 119a. 
 
YOUTH 7 
 
 losing one of its splendors. Hither no doubt came often 
 the son of Bemardone, leading one of those farandoles 
 which you may see there to this day : from his very baby- 
 hood he was a prince among the children. 
 
 Thomas of Oelano draws an appalling picture of the 
 education of that day. He describes parents inciting 
 their children to vice, and driving them by main force tc 
 wrong-doing. Francis responded only too quickly tc 
 these unhappy lessons.^ 
 
 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; money, which he spent 
 with both hands, made him welcome among them. Well 
 pleased to enjoy themselves at his expense, the young 
 nobles paid him a sort of court. As to Bemardone, 
 he was too happy to see his son associating with them 
 to be niggardly as to the means. He was miserly, as 
 the course of this history will show, but his pride and 
 self-conceit exceeded his avarice. 
 
 Pica, his wife, gentle and modest creature,^ concerning 
 whom the biographers have been only too laconic, saw 
 aU this, and mourned over it in silence, but though weak 
 as mothers are, she would not despair of her son, and 
 when the neighbors told her of Francis's escapades, she 
 would calmly reply, " What are you thinking about ? I 
 
 ' Primum namque cumfari i>d balbutire incipiunt, turpia qumdam et 
 execrabilia valde signis et vocibus edocentur pueri ii nondum nati : et cum 
 tempus ablactationis advenerit qumdam, luxu et lasc/mia plena non solum 
 fai-i sedetoperwrieoguntur. . . . Sed et cum paulo plusculum estate 
 profecermt, se ipsi) impdlentibus, semper ad deteriora opera dilabuntur 
 1 Cel., 1. 
 
 ^ 3 Cel., 1. Cf. Gonform., 14a, 1. There is notMng impossible in her 
 having been of Provenipal origin, but there is nothing to indicate it in 
 any document worthy of credence. She was no doubt of noble stock, 
 for ofioial documents always give her the title Domina. Cristofanl I. 
 p. 78 ff. Cf. Matrem honestissimam habuit, 3 Soc, Edition of Fesarc^ 
 1831, p. IX 
 
8 LIFE OF ST. FEAN0I8 
 
 am very sure that, if it pleases God, he will become a good 
 Christian." ' The words were natural enough from a 
 mother's lips, but later on they were held to have been 
 truly prophetic. 
 
 How far did the young man permit himself to be led 
 on ? It would be difficult to say. The question which, 
 as we are told, tormented Brother Leo, could only have 
 suggested itself to a diseased imagination.^ Thomas of 
 Celano and the Three Companions agree in picturing 
 him as going to the worst excesses. Later biographers 
 speak with more circumspection of his worldly career. 
 A too widely credited story gathered from Celano's 
 narrative was modified by the chapter-general of 1260,^ 
 and the frankness of the early biographers was, no 
 doubt, one of the causes which most effectively con- 
 tributed to their definitive condemnation three years 
 later.* 
 
 Their statements are in no sense obscure ; according to 
 them the son of Bernardone not only patterned himself 
 after the young men of his age, he made it a point of 
 honor to exceed them. What with eccentricities, buffoon- 
 eries, pranks, prodigalities, he ended by achieving a sort of 
 celebrity. He was forever in the streets with his com- 
 panions, compelling attention by his extravagant or fan- 
 tastic attire. Even at night the joyous company kept 
 
 ' The reading given by the Conform., 14a, 1, MerUorum gratia det 
 fliium ipsum noveritis affuturum, aeeras better than that of 3 Cel., 1, 1, 
 Multorum gratia DeiJUiorum patrem ipsum noveritis affuturum. Cf . 
 3 Soc. , 3. 
 
 " Bernardo of Besse, Turin MS. , 108 b. : An integer carne deaideraru 
 . . . quod non extorsisiet a Sancto . . . meruit obtinere a Deo 
 quod virgo easet. Cf. Conform., 311a, 1, and A. SS., p. 560f. 
 
 ' "In ilia antiphona quae inaipit: Sic vir in vaniiatibus nutriiua 
 insoUnter, Jiat talis mutatis : Dioinis harismatibus preventus eat ele- 
 menter." ArcMio., vi., p. 35. 
 
 * Vide p. 395, the decision of the chapter of 1263 ordaining the d« 
 fraction of legends earlier than that of Bonaveutuia. 
 
■JODTH 9 
 
 up their merrjnnakings, causing the town to ring with 
 their noisy songs.* 
 
 At this very time the troubadours were roaming over 
 the towns of Northern Italy ^ and bringing brilliant fes- 
 tivities and especially Courts of Love into vogue. If 
 they worked upon the passions, they also made appeal 
 to feelings of courtesy and delicacy ; it was this that 
 saved Francis. In the midst of his excesses he was 
 always refined and considerate, carefully abstaining from 
 every base or indecent utterance.' Already his chief 
 aspiration was to rise above the commonplace. Tortured 
 with the desire for that which is far off and high,* he had 
 conceived a sort of passion for chivalry, and fancying 
 that dissipation was one of the distinguishing features of 
 nobility, he had thrown himself into it with all his Soul. 
 
 But he who, at twenty, goes from pleasure to pleasure 
 with the heart not absolutely closed to good, must now 
 
 >lCel., 1 and 3; 89; 3 Soo., 2. Of. A. SS., 560o. Vincent of 
 Beanvais, Spec. hist, lib., 39, cap. 97. 
 
 '^ Pierre Vidal was at tlie court of Boniface, Marquis of Montferrat, 
 about 1195, and liked his surroundings so well that he desired to estab- 
 lish himself there. K. Bartsoh, Piere VidaVs Lieder, Berlin, 1857, n. 
 41. Brn. Monaci, Te«ti antiehi provenzali, Rome, 1889, col. 67. One 
 should read this piece to have an idea of the fervor with which this poet 
 shared the hopes of Italy and desired its independence. This political 
 note is found again in a tenzon of Manfred II. Lancia, addressed to 
 Pierre Vidal. (V. Monaoi, loc. cit., col. 68.) — Gaucelme Faidit was also 
 at this court as well as Baimbaud of Vaoqueyras (1180-1307).— Folquet 
 de Romans passed nearly all his life in Italy. Bernard of Ventadour 
 (1145-1195), Peirol of Auvergne (1180-1330), and many others abode 
 there a longer or shorter time. Very soon the Italians began to sing in 
 Provencal, among others this Manfred Lancia, and Albert, Marquis of 
 Malaspina (1163-1310), Pietro della Caravana, who in 1196 stirred up 
 the Lombard towns against Henry VI., Pietro della Mula, who about 
 1200 was at the court of Cortemiglia. Fragments from these poets may 
 be found in Monaci, op. cit., col. 69 ff. 
 
 •3Soc., 3; 3Cel.,l, 1. 
 
 * Cum esaei gUmoaus ammo et noUet aliguem ae prceeeUere, Giord. 
 
iO LIFK OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 and then, at some turning of the road, become aware that 
 there are hungry folk, who could live a month on what 
 he spends in a few hours on frivolity. Francis saw them, 
 and with his impressionable nature for the moment forgot 
 everything else. In thought he put himself in their 
 place, and it sometimes happened that he gave them all 
 the money he had about him and even his clothes. 
 
 One day he was busy with some customers in his 
 father's shop, when a man came in, begging for charity 
 in the name of God. Losing his patience Francis sharply 
 turned him away ; but quickly reproaching himself for 
 his harshness he thought, " What would I not have done 
 if this man had asked something of me in the name of a 
 count or a baron ? What ought I not to have done when 
 he came in the name of God ? I am no better than a 
 clown ! " Leaving his customers he ran after the beggar.' 
 
 Bemardone had been well pleased with his son's com- 
 mercial aptitude in the early days when the young man 
 was first in his father's employ. Francis was only too 
 proficient in spending money ; he at least knew well how 
 to make it.' But this satisfaction did not last long. 
 Francis's bad companions were exercising over him a 
 most pernicious influence. The time came when he 
 could no longer endure to be separated from them ; if he 
 heard their call, nothing could keep him, he would leave 
 everything and go after them.^ 
 
 All this time political events were hurrying on in TJm- 
 bria and Italy; after a formidable struggle the allied 
 republics had forced the empire to recognize them. By 
 the immortal victory of Legnano (May 29, 1176) and the 
 Peace of Constance (June 25, 1183) the Lombard League 
 had wrested from Frederick Barbarossa almost all the 
 
 • 1 Cel., 17; 3 Soc, 3 ; Bon., 7. Cf. A. SS., p. 562. 
 » 1 Cel., 3 ; Bon., 6 ; Vit. aec. apud, A. SS., p. 660. 
 »8Soo., 9. 
 
TOUTH n 
 
 prerogatives of power ; little was left to the emperor btit 
 insignia and outward show. 
 
 From one end of the Peninsula to the other visions 
 of liberty were making hearts beat high. For an instant 
 it seemed as if aU Italy was about to regain conscious- 
 ness of its unity, was about to rise up as one man and 
 hurl the foreigner from its borders ; but the rivalries of 
 the cities were too strong for them to see that local liberty 
 without a common independence is precarious and illu- 
 sory. Henry YL, the successor of Barbarossa (1183- 
 1196), laid Italy under a yoke of iron ; he might perhaps 
 in the end have assured the domination of the empire, if 
 his career had not been suddenly cut short by a prema- 
 ture death. 
 
 Tet he had not been able to put fetters upon ideas. 
 The communal movement which was shaking the north 
 of France reverberated beyond the Alps. 
 
 Although a city of second rank, Assisi had not been 
 behind in the great struggles for independence.^ She 
 had been severely chastised, had lost her franchise, and 
 was obliged to submit to Conrad of Suabia, Duke of 
 Spoleto, who from the heights of his fortress kept her in 
 subjection. 
 
 But when Innocent III. ascended the pontifical throne 
 (January 8, 1199) the old duke knew himself to be lost. 
 He made a tender to him of money, men, his faith even, 
 but the pontiff refused them all. He had no desire to 
 appear to favor the Tedeschi, who had so odiously op- 
 pressed the country. Conrad of Suabia was forced to 
 yield at mercy, and to go to Nami to put his submission 
 into the hands of two cardinals. 
 
 Like the practical folk that they were, the Assisans did 
 not hesitate an instant. No sooner was the count on 
 
 ' In 1174 Assisi was taken by the chancellor of the empire, Christian, 
 Archbishop of Mayence. A. Cristofani, i., p. 69. 
 
13 LIFE OF ST, FEANCIS 
 
 the road to Nami than they rushed to the assatilt of the 
 castle. The arrival of enroys charged to take posses- 
 sion of it as a pontifical domain by no means gave them 
 pause. Not one stone of it was left upon another.^ Then, 
 with incredible rapidity they enclosed their city with 
 walls, parts of which are stiU standing, their formidable 
 ruins a witness to the zeal with which the whole popula 
 tion labored on them. 
 
 It is natural to think that Francis, then seventeen 
 years old, was one of the most gallant laborers of those 
 glorious days, and it was perhaps there that he gained 
 the habit of carrying stones and wielding the trowel 
 which was destined to serve him so well a few years 
 later. 
 
 Unhappily his fellow-citizens had not the sense to 
 profit by their hard -won liberty. The lower classes, 
 who in this revolution had become aware of their 
 strength, determined to follow out the victory by taking 
 possession of the property of the nobles. The latter 
 took refuge in their fortified houses in the interior of the 
 city, or in their castles in the suburbs. The towns^ 
 people burned down several of the latter, whereupon 
 counts and barons made request of aid and succor from 
 the neighboring cities. 
 
 Perugia was at this time at the apogee of its power,' 
 and had already made many efforts to reduce Assisi to 
 submission. It therefore received the fugitives with 
 alacrity, and making their cause its own, declared war 
 ■■apon Assisi. This was in 1202. An encounter took 
 
 ' AU these events are related in the Oesta Tnnocentii 111. ab auctors 
 vocetwneo, edited by Baluze : Migne, Inn. op., vol. i., col. xxiv. See 
 especially the letter of Innocent, Bectoribtia TuseicB : Mirari cogimur, of 
 April 16, 1198. Migne, vol. i., col. 75-77. Potthast, No. 82. 
 
 » See Luigi Bonazzi, Storia di Perugia, 2 vols., 8vo. Perugia, 1875- 
 1879 vol. i., cap. v., pp. 357-322. 
 
TOTTTH 13 
 
 place IE the plain about half way between the two cities, 
 not far from Ponte San Giovanni. Assisi was defeated, 
 and Francis, who was in the ranks, was made prisoner.^ 
 
 The treachery of the nobles had not been universal ; 
 a few had fought with the people. It was with them 
 and not with the popolani that Francis, in consideration 
 of the nobility of his manners,^ passed the time of his 
 captivity, which lasted an entire year. He greatly aston- 
 ished his companions by his lightness of heart. Very 
 often they thought him almost crazy. Instead of pass- 
 ing his time in wailing and cursing he made plans for 
 the future, about which he was glad to talk to any one 
 who came along. To his fancy life was what the songa 
 of the troubadours had painted it ; he dreamed of glori- 
 ous adventures, and always ended by saying : " You will 
 see that one day I shall be adored by the whole world." ' 
 
 During these long months Francis must have been 
 pretty rudely undeceived with respect to those nobles 
 whom from afar he had so heartily admired. However 
 that may be, he retained with them not only his frank< 
 ness of speech, but also his fuU freedom of action. One 
 of them, a knight, had always held aloof from the others, 
 out of vanity and bad temper. Francis, far from leaving 
 him to himself, always showed him affection, and finally 
 had the joy of reconciling him with his fellow-captives. 
 
 A compromise was finally arrived at between the 
 counts and the people of Assisi. In November, 1203, 
 the arbitrators designated by the two parties announced 
 their decision. The commons of Assisi were to repair 
 in a certain measure the damage done to the lords, and 
 the latter agreed, on their part, to make no further a!* 
 
 1 3 Soc. , 4 ; 3 Gel. ,1,1. Cristof oni, «p. eit., i. , p. 88 S. ; Bonacn, op, 
 »"«.,p. 257. 
 -3 Soc, 4. 
 a 3 Soc., 4; 3 C*l., 1, 1, 
 
14 LIFE OF ST. FBANCIS 
 
 liances without authorization of the commons.* Eurai 
 serfage was maintained, which proves that the revolution 
 had been directed by the burghers, and for their own 
 profit. Ten years more were not, however, to elapse 
 before the common people also would succeed in achiev- 
 ing liberty. In this cause we shall again see Francis 
 fighting on the side of the oppressed, earning the title 
 of Patriarch of religious democracy which has been ac- 
 corded him by one of his compatriots.^ 
 
 The agreement being made the prisoners detained at 
 Perugia were released, and Francis returned to Assisi 
 He was twenty-two years old. 
 
 > See this arbitration in Gristofaui, op. eit., p. S3 £E. 
 * Cristofani, loe. eit., p. 70. 
 
CHAPTEE n 
 
 STAGES OF CONVERSION 
 Spring 1304 — Spring 1206 
 
 Oif his return to Assist Francis at once resumed his 
 former mode of life ; perhaps he even tried in some de- 
 gree to make up for lost time. Fetes, games, festivals, 
 and dissipations began again. He did his part in them 
 so well that he soon fell gravely iU.^ For long weeks he 
 looked death so closely in the face that the physical crisis 
 brought about a moral one. Thomas of Celano has pre- 
 seirved for us an incident of Francis's convalescence. He 
 was regaining strength little by little and had begun to 
 go about the house, when one day he felt a desire to walk 
 abroad, to contemplate nature quietly, and so take hold 
 again of life. Leaning on a stick he bent his steps 
 toward the city gate. 
 
 The nearest one, called Porta Nuova, is the very one 
 which opens upon the finest scenery. Immediately on 
 passiQg through it one finds one's self in the open country ; 
 a fold of the hill hides the city, and cuts off every sound 
 that might come from it. Before you lies the winding 
 road to Foligno ; at the left the imposing mass of Mount 
 Subasio ; at the right the Umbrian plain with its farms, 
 its villages, its cloud-like hills, on whose slopes pines, 
 cedars, oaks, the vine, and the olive-tree shed abroad an 
 incomparable brightness and animation. The whole 
 
 > 1 Cel.. 3; of. Bon., 8, and A. SS., p. 563* 
 
16 LIFE OF ST. FEAirOIS* 
 
 country sparkles with beauty, a beauty harmonious and 
 thoroughly human, that is, made to the measure of man. 
 
 Francis had hoped by this sight to recover the de- 
 licious sensations of his youth. With the sharpened 
 sensibility of the convalescent he breathed in the odors of 
 the spring-time, but spring-time did not come, as he had 
 expected, to his heart. This smiling nature had for him( 
 only a message of sadness. He had believed that the 
 breezes of this beloved country-side would carry away 
 the last shudders of the fever, and instead he felt in his 
 heart a discouragement a thousand-fold more painful 
 than any physical ill. The miserable emptiness of his 
 lite suddenly appeared before him; he was terrified at 
 his solitude, the solitude of a great soul in which there is 
 no altar. 
 
 Memories of the past assailed him with intolerable bit- 
 terness; he was seized with a disgust of himself^ his 
 former ambitions seemed to him ridiculous or despicable. 
 He went home overwhelmed with the weight of a new 
 suffering. 
 
 In such hours of moral anguish man seeks a refuge 
 either in love or in faith. Unhappily the famUy and 
 friends of Francis were incapable of understanding him. 
 As to religion, it was for him, as for the greater number 
 of his contemporaries, that crass fetichism with Christian 
 terminology which is far from having entirely disap- 
 peared. With certain men, in fact, piety consists in mak- 
 ing one's self right with a king more powerful than any 
 other, but also more severe and capricious, who is called 
 God. One proves one's loyalty to him as to other 
 sovereigns, by putting his image more or less everywhere, 
 and punctually paying the imposts levied by his minis- 
 ters. If you are stingy, if you cheat, you run ^se risk of 
 being severely chastised, but there are courtiers around 
 the king who willingly render services. For a vesaov' 
 
STAGES OF OONVEBSIOIT 17 
 
 able recompense they will seize a favorable moment to 
 adroitly make away with the sentence of your condem- 
 nation or to slip before the prince a form of plenary ab- 
 solution which in a moment of good humor he will sign 
 without looking at it.' 
 
 Such was the religious basis upon which Francis had 
 lived up to this time. He did not so much as dream of 
 seeking the spiritual balm which he needed for the heal- 
 ing of his wounds. By a holy violence he was to arrive 
 at last at a pure and virile faith ; but the road to this 
 point is long, and sown thick with obstacles, and at the 
 moment at which we have arrived he had not yet entered 
 upon it, he did not even suspect its existence ; aU he knew 
 was that pleasure leads to nothingness, to satiety and 
 self -contempt. 
 
 He knew this, and yet he was about to throw himself 
 once more into a life of pleasure. The body is so weak, 
 so prone to return to the old paths, that it seeks them 
 of itself, the moment an energetic will does not stop it. 
 Though no longer under any illusion with respect to it, 
 Francis returned to his former life. Was he trying to 
 divert his miad, to forget that day of bitter thought? 
 We might suppose so, seeing the ardor with which he 
 threw himself into his new projects.^ 
 
 An opportunity offered itself for him to realize his 
 dreams of glory. A knight of Assisi, perhaps one of those 
 who had been in captivity with him at Perugia, was pre- 
 paring to go to Apulia under orders from Count Gen- 
 
 ' It is enough to have lived in the country of Naples to know that 
 there is nothing exaggerated in this picture. I am much surprised 
 that intelligent and good men fancy that to change the religious for- 
 mula of these people would suffice to transform them. What a mis- 
 take 1 To-day, as in the time of Jesus, the important matter is not to 
 adore on Mount Morlah or Mount Zion, but to adore in spirit and in 
 truth. 
 
 ' lCel.,3and4. 
 
18 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 tile.' The latter was to join Gaultier de Brieime, -who was 
 in tlie south of Italy fighting on the side of Innocent III. 
 Gaultier's renown was immense all through the Peninsula ; 
 he was held to be one of the most gallant knights of the 
 time. Francis's heart bounded with joy ; it seemed to 
 him that at the side of such a hero he should soon cover 
 himself with glory. His departure was decided upon, and 
 he gave himself up, without reserve, to his joy. 
 
 He made his preparations with ostentatious prodigal- 
 ity. His equipment, of a princely luxury, soon became 
 the universal subject of conversation. It was all the 
 more talked about because the chief of the expedition, 
 ruined perhaps by the revolution of 1202 or by the ex- 
 penses of a long captivity, was constrained to order 
 things much more modestly.^ But with Francis kindli- 
 ness was miich stronger than love of display. He gave 
 his sumptuous clothing to a poor knight. The biogra- 
 phies do- not say whether or not it was to the very one 
 whom he was to accompany.^ To see him running hither 
 and thither in all the bustle of preparation one would 
 
 ' 3 Soc, 5. In the existing state of the documents it is impossihle to 
 know whom this name designates, for at that time it was home hy a 
 number of counts who are only to be distinguished hy the names of 
 their castles. The three following are possible : 1. Gentile comes de 
 GampiHo, who in 1215 paid homage for his property to the commune of 
 Orvieto : Le antiche oronacJie di Ormeio, Arch. star, ital., 5th series., 1889, 
 iii., p. 47. 3. Gentilis comes JUius Alberici, who with others had made 
 donation of a monastery to the Bishop of Foligno : Confirmatory Bull 
 In eminenii of April 10, 1310 : TJghelli, Italia Baora, 1, p. 697 ; Pott- 
 hast, 3974. 3. Gentilis comes ManwpeM; whom we find in July, 1300, 
 assuring to Palermo the victory over the troops sent by Innocent III. 
 against Marokwald; Huillard-BrehoUes, Hist. dipl.,\. p., 46 ffi. Cf. Pot- 
 thast, 1126. Gesta Innocenti, Migne, vol. i., xxxii, ff. Cf. Huillard- 
 BrSholles, loc. cit., pages 60, 84, 89, 101. It is wrong to consider 
 that Gentile could here be a mere adjective ; the 3 Soc. say OentUe 
 iwmine. 
 
 'lCel.,4; 3 Soc, 5. 
 
 8 3 Soc., 6 ; 2 Gel., 1, 2 ; Hon., 8. 
 
STAGES OF OONVEESIOIT 19 
 
 have thought him the son of a great lord. His compan« 
 ions were doubtless not slow to feel chafed by his ways 
 and to promise themselves to make him cruelly expiate 
 them. As for him, he perceived nothing of the jealousies 
 which he was exciting, and night and day he thought 
 only of his future glory. In his dreams he seemed to 
 see his parents' house completely transformed. Instead 
 of bales of cloth he saw there only gleaming bucklers 
 hanging on the walls, and arms of all kinds as in a seigno- 
 rial castle. He saw himself there, beside a noble and 
 beautiful bride, and he never suspected that in this vision 
 there was any presage of the future which was reserved for 
 him. Never had any one seen him so communicative, so 
 radiant ; and when he was asked for the hundredth time 
 whence came all this joy, he would reply with surprising 
 assurance : " I know that I shall become a great prince."* 
 
 The day of departure arrived at last. Francis on 
 horseback, the little buckler of a page on his £ rm, bade 
 adieu to his natal city with joy, and with the lr;tle troop 
 took the road to Spoleto which winds around the base 
 of Mount Subasio. 
 
 "What happened next? The documents do not say. 
 They confine themselves to reporting that that very even- 
 ing Francis had a vision which decided him to return to 
 Assisi.^ Perhaps it would not be far from the truth to 
 conjecture that once fairly on the way the young no- 
 bles took their revenge on the son of Bernardone for his 
 airs as of a future prince. At twenty years one hardly 
 pardons things like these. If, as we are often assured, 
 there is a pleasure unsuspected by the profane in getting 
 even with a stranger, it must be an almost divine deligh< 
 to get even with a young coxcomb upon whom one nas 
 to exercise so righteous a vengeance. 
 
 1 Cel., 5 ; 3 Soc, 5 ; 2 Gel., 1, 2 ; Bon., 9. 
 °3 Soo., 6 ; Bon., 9 ; 2 Cel., 1, 3. 
 
20 LIFE OP ST. FRANCIS 
 
 Arriving at Spoleto, Francis took to his bed. A fever 
 was consuming him ; in a few hours he had seen all his 
 dreams crumble away. The very next day he took the 
 road back to Assisi.* 
 
 So unexpected a return made a great stir in the little 
 city, and was a cruel blow to his parents. As for him, 
 he doubled his charities to the poor, and sought to keep 
 aloof from society, but his old companions came flock, 
 ing about him from all quarters, hoping to find in him 
 once more the tireless purveyor of their idle wants. Ha 
 let them have their way. 
 
 Nevertheless a great change had taken place in him. 
 Neither pleasures nor work could long hold him ; he 
 spent a portion of his days in long country rambles, 
 often accompanied by a friend most different from those 
 whom until now we have seen about him. The name of 
 this friend is not known, but from certain indications one 
 is inclined to believe that he was Bombarone da Bevig 
 lia, the future Brother Elias." 
 
 •3Soo.,6; 2Cel., 1, 3. 
 
 ' These days are recalled hj Celano with a very particular precision. 
 It is yery improbable that Francis, usually so reserved as to his persona] 
 experience, should have told him about them (2 Gel., 3, 68, and 42, of. 
 Bon., 144). On the other hand, nothing forbids his having been in 
 formed on this matter by Brother Elias. (I strongly suspect the legend 
 which tells of an old man appearing on the day Francis was born and 
 begging permission to take the child in his arms, saying, "To-day, two 
 Infants were born — this one, who will be among the best of men, and 
 another, who will be among the worst " — of having been invented by 
 the zelanti against Brother Elias. It is evident 'that such a story is 
 aimed at some one. Whom, if not him who was afterward to appear 
 as the Anti-Francis ?) We have sufficient details about the eleven first 
 disciples to know that none of them is here in question. There is 
 nothing surprising in the fact that Elias does not appear in the earliest 
 years of the Order (1209-1212), because after having practised at As- 
 sisi his double calling of schoolmaster and carriage-trimmer {aiiAat euit- 
 ra$ et doeebat puerulos pmlterium legere, Salimbene, p. 402) he wat 
 scr^tor at Bologna (EccL, 13). And from the psychological point of 
 
' STAGES OP OONVEBSION 31 
 
 Francis now went back to his reflections at the time of 
 his recovery, but with less of bitterness. His own heart 
 and his friend agreed in saying to him that it is possible 
 no longer to trust either in pleasure or in glory and yet to 
 find worthy causes to which to consecrate one's life. It 
 is at this moment that religious thought seems to have 
 awaked in him. From the moment that he saw this new 
 way of life his desire to run in it had all the fiery im- 
 petuosity which he put into all his actions. He was 
 continually calling upon his friend and leading him apart 
 into the most sequestered paths. 
 
 But intense conflicts are indescribable. We struggle, 
 we suffer alone. It is the nocturnal wrestling of Beth- 
 el, mysterious and solitary. The soul of Francis was 
 great enough to endure this tragic duel. His friend had 
 marvellously understood his part in this contest. He 
 gave a few rare counsels, but much of the time he con- 
 tented himself with manifesting his solicitude by follow- 
 ing Francis everywhere and never asking to know more 
 than he could tell him. 
 
 Often Francis directed his steps to a grotto in the 
 country near Assisi, which he entered alone. This rocky 
 cave concealed in the midst of the olive trees became for 
 faithful Franciscans that which Gethsemane is for Chris- 
 tians. Here Francis relieved his overcharged heart by 
 heavy groans. Sometimes, seized with a real horror for the 
 
 view this hypothesis would admirably explain the ascendency which 
 Elias was destined always to exercise over his master. Still it remains 
 difficult to understand why Celano did not name Blias here, hut the 
 passage, 1 Cel., 6, differs In the different manuscripts (cf. A. SS. and 
 Amoni's edition, p. 14) and may have heen retouched after the latter's 
 fall. 
 
 Beviglia is a simple farm three-quarters of an hour northwest of 
 Assisi, almost half way to Petrlgnano. Half an hour from Assisi in 
 the direction of Beviglia la a grotto, which may very well be that of 
 which we are about to speak. 
 
22 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 disorders of his youth, he would implore mercy, but the 
 greater part of the time his face was turned toward the 
 future ; feverishly he sought for that higher truth to 
 which he longed to dedicate himself, that pearl of great 
 price of which the gospel speaks: "Whosoever seeks, 
 finds ; he who asks, receives ; and to him who knocks, it 
 shall be opened." 
 
 When he came out after long hours of seclusion the 
 pallor of his countenance, the painful tension of his feat- 
 ures told plainly enough of the intensity of his asking 
 and the violence of his knocks.^ 
 
 The inward man, to borrow the language of the mystics, 
 was not yet formed in him, but it needed only the oc- 
 casion to bring about the final break with the past. The 
 occasion soon presented itself. 
 
 His friends were making , continual efforts to induce 
 him to take up his old habits again. One day he in- 
 vited them all to a sumptuous banquet. They thought 
 they had conquered, and as in old times they proclaimed 
 him king of the revels. The feast was prolonged far into 
 the night, and at its close the guests rushed out into the 
 streets, which they filled with song and uproar. Sud- 
 denly they perceived that Francis was no longer with 
 them. After long searching they at last discovered him 
 far behind them, still holding in his hand his sceptre of 
 king of misrule, but plunged in so profound a revery 
 that he seemed to be riveted to the ground and uncon- 
 scious of all that was going on. 
 
 " What is the matter with you ? " they cried, bustling 
 about him as if to awaken him. 
 
 " Don't you see that he is thinking of taking a wife ? " 
 said one. 
 
 " Yes," answered Francis, arousing himself and look- 
 ing at them with a smUe which they did not recognize. 
 > 1 Oel., 6 I 3 Cel., 1, 5 ; 3 Soc, 8, 13 ; Bon., 10, 11, 12, 
 
STAGES OP CONVERSION 2b 
 
 " I am thinking of taking a wife more beautiftil, more 
 rich, more pure than you could ever imagine." * 
 
 This reply marks a decisive stage in his inner life. By 
 it he cut the last links which bound him to trivial pleas- 
 ures. It remains for us to see through what struggles he 
 was to give himself to God, after having torn himself 
 free from the world. His friends probably understood 
 nothing of all that had taken place, but he had become 
 aware of the abyss that was opening between them and 
 him. They soon accepted the situation. 
 
 As for himself, no longer having any reason for caution, 
 he gave himself up more than ever to his passion for 
 solitude. If he often wept over his past dissipations and 
 wondered how he could have lived so long without tasting 
 the bitterness of the dregs of the enchanted cup, he never 
 allowed himself to be overwhelmed with vain regrets. 
 
 The poor had remained faithful to him. They gave 
 him an admiration of which he knew himself to be un- 
 worthy, yet which had for him an infinite sweetness. The 
 future grew bright to him in the light of their gratitude, of 
 the timid, trembling affection which they dared not utter 
 but which his heart revealed to him ; this worship which 
 he does not deserve to-day he will deserve to-morrow, at 
 least he promises himself to do all he can to deserve it. 
 
 To understand these feelings one must understand the 
 condition of the poor of a place like Assisi. In an agri- 
 ■ cultural country poverty does not, as elsewhere, almost 
 inevitably involve moral destitution, that degeneration 
 of the entire human being which renders charity so diffi- 
 cult. Most of the poor persons whom Francis knew 
 were in straits because of war, of bad harvests, or of ill- 
 ness. In such eases material succor is but a small part. 
 Sympathy is the thing needed above all. Francis had 
 treasures of it to lavish upon them. 
 
 ■ 3 Soc, 7; 1 Cel., 7^2 Cel., 1. 3 ; 3 Soc, 13. 
 
24 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 He was well requited. All sorrows are sisters; a 
 secret intelligence establishes itself between troubled 
 hearts, however diverse their griefs. The poor people 
 felt that their friend also suffered ; thej did not precisely 
 know with what, but they forgot their own sorrows in 
 pitying their benefactor. Suffering is the true cement of 
 love. For men to love each other truly, they must have 
 shed tears together. 
 
 As yet no influence strictly ecclesiastic had been felt 
 by Francis. Doubtless there was in his heart that leaven 
 of Christian faith which enters one's being without his 
 being aware ; but the interior transformation which was 
 going on in hin» was as yet the fruit of his own intuition. 
 This period was drawing to a close. His thought was 
 soon to find expression, and by that very act to receive 
 the stamp o! external circumstances. Christian instruc- 
 tion will give a precise form to ideas of which as yet 
 he has but vague glimpses, but he will find in this form 
 a frame in which his thought will perhaps lose some- 
 thing of its originality and vigor ; the new wine will 
 be put into old wine-skins. 
 
 By degrees he was becoming calm, was finding in the 
 contemplation of nature joys which up to this time he 
 had sipped but hastily, almost unconsciously, and of which 
 he was now learning to relish the flavor. He drew from 
 them not simply soothing ; in his heart he felt new com- 
 passions springing into lite, and with these the desire to 
 act, to give himself, to cry aloud to these cities perched 
 upon the hill-tops, threatening as warriors who eye one 
 another before the fray, that they should be reconciled 
 and love one another. 
 
 Certainly, at this time Francis had no glimpse of what 
 He was some time to become ; but these hours are perhaps 
 the most important in the evolution of his thought ; it is 
 to them that his life owes that air of liberty, that per- 
 
STAGES OF CONVERSION 25 
 
 fume of the fields which make it as different from the 
 piety of the sacristy as from that of the drawing-room. 
 
 About this time he made a pilgrimage to Eome, 
 whether to ask counsel of his friends, whether as a pen- 
 ance imposed by his confessor, or from a mere impulse, 
 no one knows. Perhaps he thought that in a visit to the 
 Holy Apostles, as people said then, he should find the an- 
 swers to all the questions which he was asking himself. 
 
 At any rate he went. It is hardly probable that he re- 
 ceived from the visit any religious infiuence, for his biog- 
 raphers relate the pained surprise which he experienced 
 when he saw in Saint Peter's how meagre were the offer- 
 ings of pilgrims. He wanted to give everything to the 
 prince of the apostles, and emptying his purse he threw 
 its entire contents upon the tomb. 
 
 This journey was marked by a more important inci- 
 dent. Many a time when succoring the poor he had 
 asked himself if he himself was able to endure poverty ; 
 no one knows the weight of a burden imtil he has carried 
 it, at least for a moment, upon his own shoulders. He 
 desired to know what it is like to have nothing, and to 
 depend for bread upon the charity or the caprice of the 
 passer by.^ 
 
 There were swarms of beggars crowding the Piazza 
 before the great basilica. He borrowed the rags of one 
 of them, lending him his garment in exchange, and a 
 whole day he stood there, fasting, with outstretched 
 hand. The act was a great victory, the triumph of com- 
 passion over natural pride. Beturning to Assisi, he 
 doubled his kindnesses to those of whom he had truly the 
 right to call himself the brother. With such sentiments 
 he could not long escape the influence of the Church. 
 
 On all the roadsides in the environs of the city there 
 were then, as now, numerous chapels. Very often he 
 ' 3 Soc, 8-10; Bon., 13, 14; 3 Cel., 1, 4. 
 
26 LIFE OF ST. FBANCI8 
 
 must haT© heard mass in these rustic sanctuaries, alone 
 with the celebrant. Eecogniziag the tendency of simple 
 natures to bring home to themselves everything that 
 they hear, it is easy to understand his emotion and 
 agitation when the priest, turning toward him, would 
 read the gospel for the day. The Christian ideal was 
 revealed to him, briaging an answer to his secret 
 anxieties. And when, a few moments later, he would 
 plunge into the forest, aU his thoughts would be with 
 the poor carpenter of Nazareth, who placed himself in 
 his path, saying to him, even to him, " FoUow thou me." 
 
 Nearly two years had passed since the day when he 
 felt the first shock; a'*4ife of renunciation appeared to 
 him as the goal of his e£forts, but he felt that his spirit- 
 ual novitiate was not yet ended. He suddenly experi- 
 enced a bitter assurance of the fact. 
 
 He was riding on horseback one day, his mind more 
 than ever possessed with the desire to lead a life of 
 absolute devotion, when at a turn of the road he found 
 himself face to face with a leper. The frightful malady 
 had always inspired in him an invincible repulsion. He 
 could not control a movement of horror, and by instinct 
 he turned his horse in another direction. 
 
 If the shock had been severe, the defeat was com- 
 plete. He reproached himself bitterly. To cherish 
 such fine projects and show himself so cowardly ! Was 
 the knight of Christ then going to give up his arms ? He 
 retraced his steps and springing from his horse he gave 
 to the astounded sufferer all the money that he had; 
 then kissed his hand as he would have done to a priest.^ 
 This new victory, as he himself saw, marked an era in 
 his spiritual life." 
 
 ' To this day in the centre and south of Italy they kiss the hand of 
 priests and monks. 
 ' See the Will. Of. 3 Soc, 11 ; 1 Cel., 17 ; Bon., 11 ; A. SS., p. 566u 
 
STAGES OF CONVERSION 27 
 
 It is far indeed from hatred of evil to love of good. 
 Those are more numerous than we think who, after severe 
 experience, have renounced what the ancient liturgies call 
 the world, with its pomps and lusts ; but the greater 
 number of them have not at the bottom of their hearts 
 the smallest grain of pure love. In vulgar souls disil- 
 lusion leaves only a frightful egoism. 
 
 This victory of Francis had been so sudden that he 
 desired to complete it ; a few days later he went to the 
 lazaretto.! One can imagine the stupefaction of these 
 wretches at the entrance of the brilliant cavalier. If in 
 our days a visit to the sick in our hospitals is a real 
 event awaited with feverish impatience, what must not 
 have been the appearance of Francis among these poor 
 recluses ? One must have seen sufferers thus abandoned, 
 to understand what joy may be given by an affectionate 
 word, sometimes even a simple glance. 
 
 Moved and transported, Francis felt his whole being 
 
 vibrate with unfamiliar sensations. For the first time 
 
 he heard the unspeakable accents of a gratitude which 
 
 cannot find words burning enough to express itself, which 
 
 admires and adores the benefactor almost like an angel 
 
 from heaven. 
 
 > 3 Soc, 11 ; Bon., 13. 
 
CHAPTEE m 
 
 THE CHURCH ABOUT 1209 
 
 S^P. Feancis was inspired as much as any man may be, 
 but it would be a palpable error to study Mm apart from 
 Lis age and from the conditions in which he lived. 
 
 We know that he desired and believed his Hfe to be 
 an imitation of Jesus, but what we know about the Christ 
 is in fact so little, that St. Francis's life loses none of its 
 strangeness for that. His conviction that he was but an 
 imitator preserved him from aU temptation to pride, and 
 enabled him to proclaim his views with incomparable 
 vigor, without seeming in the least to be preaching him- 
 self. 
 
 We must therefore neither isolate him from external 
 influences nor show him too dependent on them. During 
 the period of his life at which we are now arrived, 1205- 
 1206, the religious situation of Italy must more than at 
 any other time have influenced his thought and urged 
 him into the path which he finally entered. 
 
 The morals of the clergy were as corrupt as ever, ren- 
 dering any serious reform impossible. If some among 
 the heresies of the time were pure and without reproach, 
 many were trivial and impure. Here and there a few 
 voices were raised in protest, but the prophesyings of 
 Gioacchino di Fiore had no more power than those of St. 
 Hildegarde to put a stop to wickedness. Luke Wadding, 
 the pious Franciscan annalist, begins his chronicle with 
 
THE CHURCH ABOUT 1399 29 
 
 this appalling picture. The advance in historic research 
 permits us to retouch it somewhat more in detail, but 
 the conclusion remains the same; without Francis of 
 Assisi the Church would perhaps have foundered and the 
 Cathari would have won the day. The little poor man, 
 driven away, cast out of doors by the creatures of Inno- 
 cent in., saved Christianity. 
 
 We cannot here make a thorough study of the state 
 of the Church at the beginning of the thirteenth cen- 
 tury ; it will suffice to trace some of its most prominent 
 features. 
 
 The first glance at the secular clergy brings out into 
 startling prominence the ravages of simony ; the traffic 
 in ecclesiastical places was carried on with boundless 
 audacity ; benefices were put up to the highest bidder, 
 and Innocent III. admitted that fire and sword alone 
 could heal this plague.' Prelates who declined to be 
 bought by propince, fees, were held up as astounding 
 exceptions ! ^ 
 
 " They are stones for understanding," it was said of the 
 officers of the Boman curia, " wood for justice, fire for 
 wrath, iron for forgiveness ; deceitful as foxes, proud as 
 bulls, greedy and insatiate as the minotaur." * The praises 
 showered upon Pope Eugenius III. for rebuffing a priest 
 who, at the beginning of a lawsuit, offered him a golden 
 mark, speak only too plainly as to the morals of Eome in 
 this respect.^ 
 
 The bishops, on their part, found a thousand methods, 
 often most out of keeping with their callings for extorting 
 
 > Bull of June 8, 1198, Quammis. Migne, i., col. 220 ; Potthast, 265. 
 
 ' For example, Pierre, Cardinal of St. Chryzogone and former Bishop 
 of Meaux, who in a single election refused the dazzling offer of five 
 hundred silver marks. Alexander III., Migne's edition, epUt. 395. 
 
 » Fasdeului rerum expetend. et fttgiend., t. ii., 7, pp. 254, 255 (Brown, 
 1690). 
 
 * John of Sriishnry, Folicrat. Migne, v. 16. 
 
80 LIFE OF ST. FKAITCIS 
 
 money from the simple priests.* Violent, quarrelsome, 
 contentious, they were held up to ridicule in popular 
 ballads from one end of Europe to the other.^ As to 
 the priests, they bent all their powers to accumulate bene- 
 fices, and secure inheritances from the dying, stooping 
 to the most despicable measures for providing for their 
 bastards,^ 
 
 The monastic orders were hardly more reputable. A 
 great number of these had sprung up in the eleventh and 
 tweKth centuries; their reputation for sanctity soon 
 stimulated the liberality of the faithful, and thus fatally 
 brought about their own decadence. Few communities 
 Lad shown the discretion of the first monks of the Order 
 of Grammont in the diocese of Limoges. "When Stephen 
 de Muret, its founder, began to manifest his sanctity by 
 giving sight to a blind man, his disciples took alarm at 
 the thought of the wealth and notoriety which was likely 
 to come to them from this cause. Pierre of Limoges, who 
 had succeeded Stephen as prior, went at once to his 
 tomb, praying : 
 
 ' Among their sources of revenue we find the right of coUagium, by pay- 
 ment of which clerics acquired the right to keep a concubine. Pierre le 
 Chantre, Verb. aMyrev., 34. 
 
 " Vide Carmina Burcma, Breslau, 8vo, 1883 ; Political Songs of Eng- 
 land, published by Th. Wright, London, 8vo, 1893 ; Poesies populaires 
 laiines du moyen age, du Meril, Paris, 1847. See also Baynouard, Lemque 
 roman, i., 446, 451, 464, the fine poems of the troubadour Pierre Car- 
 dinal, contemporary of St. Francis, upon the woes of the Church, and 
 Dante, Inferno, xix. If one would gain an idea Of what the bishop of 
 a small city in those days cost his flock, he has only to read the bull of 
 February 13, 1319, Justis petentium, addressed by Honoring III. to the 
 Bishop of Terni, and including the contract by which the inhabitants of 
 that city settled the revenues of the episcopal see. Horoy, t. iii., col. 
 114, or the BvMarium romanum, t. iii., p. 348, Turin. 
 
 • Conosco sacerdoti die f anno gli losura per formate un patrimonio da 
 lasdao't <d hro spurii; altri elie tengono osteria coll' insegna dd coUa/re e 
 tendonovino . . . Salimbene, Cantarelli, Parma, 1883, 2 vols., 8vo, 
 ii., p. 307. 
 
THE CHURCH ABOUT 1209 31 
 
 '•\j servant of God, thou hast shown us the way of poverty, and 
 behold, thou wouldst make us leave the strait and difficult path of 
 salvation, and wouldst set us in the broad road of eternal death. Thon 
 hast preached to us (the virtues of) solitude, and thou art about to change 
 this place into a fair and a market-place. We know well that thou art 
 a saint ! Thou hast no need to prove it to us by performing miracles 
 which will destroy our humility. Be not so zealous for thy reputation 
 as to augment it to the injury of our salvation. This is what we ask of 
 thee, expecting it of thy love. If not, we declare unto thee by the obe- 
 dience which we once owed to thee, we will unearth thy bones and throw 
 them into the river. " 
 
 Stephen obeyed up to the time of his canonization 
 (1189), but from that time forward ambition, avarice, and 
 luxury made such inroads upon the solitude of Gram- 
 mont that its monks became the byword and scoff of the 
 Christian world.* 
 
 Pierre of Limoges was not entirely without reason in 
 fearing that his monastery would be transformed into a 
 fair-ground ; members of the chapters of most of the ca- 
 thedrals kept wine-shops hteraUy under their shadows, 
 and certain monasteries did not hesitate to attract 
 custom by jugglers of all kinds and even by cour- 
 tesans.^ 
 
 To form an idea of the degradation of the greater 
 number of the monks it is not enough to read the ora- 
 torical and often exaggerated reproofs of preachers 
 obliged to strike hard in order to produce an effect. 
 We must run through the collection of bulls, where 
 appeals to the court of Rome against assassinations, 
 
 ' Vide Brevis hisioria Prior. Orandimont. — StepTiani Tomaaenm. 
 Bpist. 115, 153, 153, 156, 162 ; Honorius III., Horoy's edition, lib. i., 
 280, 284, 286-288 ; ii., 12, 130, 186, 383-387. 
 
 ' Guerard, OartvZaire de N". D. de Paris, t. i., p. cxi ; t. ii., p. 406. 
 Of. Honorius HI., Bull Inter statuta of July 25, 1223, Horoy, t. iv., 
 col. 401. See also canon 33 of the Council of Beziers, 1233 ; Guibert da 
 Gemblours, epist. 5 and 6 (Migne) ; Honorius III., lib. ix., 32, 81 ; ii., 
 193 ; iv., 10 ; iii., 253 and 258 ; iv., 33, 27, 70, 144 ; v., 56, 291, 430, 
 430 i vi., 314, 133, 139, 304 ; vli., 137 ; ix., 51. 
 
32 LIPE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 violations, incests, adulteries, recur on almost every page. 
 It is easy to see that even an Innocent III. might feel 
 himself helpless and tempted to yield to discouragement, 
 In the face of so many ills.' 
 
 The best spirits were turning toward the Orient, ask- 
 ing themselves if perchance the Greek Church might 
 not suddenly come forward to purify all these abuses, 
 and receive for herself the inheritance of her sister.^ 
 
 The clergy, though no losiger respected, still overawed 
 the people through their isuperstitious terror of their 
 power. Here and there might have been perceived 
 many a forewarning of direful revolts ; the roads to 
 Bome were crowded with monks hastening to claim the 
 protection of the Holy See against the people among 
 whom they lived. The Pope would promptly declare 
 an interdict, but it was not to be expected that such a 
 resource would avail forever.' 
 
 To maintain the privileges of the Church the papacy 
 was often obliged to spread the mantle of its protection 
 over those who deserved it least Its clients were not 
 always as interesting as the unfortunate Ingelburge. It 
 would be easier to give unreserved admiration to the 
 conduct of Innocent III. if in this matter one could feel 
 certain that his only interest was to maintain the cause 
 of a poor abandoned woman. But it is only too evident 
 that he desired above all to keep up the ecclesiastical 
 
 ' Vide Bull Postquam vocante Domino of July 11, 1206. Fotthast 
 284C. 
 
 ' V. Anncdea Siadenaes [Mbnumenta GermanimMstoriea, Scriptorum, t, 
 16], ad ann. 1337. Among the comprehensive pictures of the situation 
 of the Church in the thirteenth century, there is none more interesting 
 than that left us by the Cardinal Jacques de Vitry in his Hiatoria ocd- 
 dentalia: Libri duo quorum prior OrientaUa, alter Oecidenialia historice 
 nomine inacribitv/r Duaci, 1597, 16mo, pp. 259-480. 
 
 ' V. Honorius III., Horoy's edition, lib. i., ep. 109, 125, 185, 206, 278 j 
 U., 128, 164 ; iv., 120, etc. 
 
THE CHUEOH ABOUT 1209 33 
 
 immunities. This is very evident in his intervention in 
 favor of Waldemar, Bishop of Schleswig. 
 
 Yet we must not assume that all was corrupt in the 
 bosom of the Church; then, as always, the evil made 
 more noise than the good, and the voices of those who 
 desired a reformation aroused only passing interest. 
 
 Among the populace there was superstition unimagi- 
 nable ; the pulpit, which ought to have shed abroad some 
 little light, was as yet open only to the bishops, and the 
 few pastors who did not neglect their duty in this regard 
 accomplished very little, being too much absorbed in other 
 duties. It was the birth of the mendicant orders which 
 obliged the entire body of secular clergy to take up the 
 practice of preaching 
 
 Public worship, reduced to liturgical ceremonies, no 
 longer preserved anything which appealed to the intelli- 
 gence; it was more and more becoming a sort of self- 
 acting magic formula. Once upon this road, the absurd 
 was not far distant. Those who deemed themselves pious 
 told of miracles performed by relics with no need of aid 
 from the moral act of faith. 
 
 In one case a parrot, being carried away by a kite, 
 uttered the invocation dear to his mistress, "Sancte 
 Thoma adjuva me," and was miraculously rescued. In 
 another, a merchant of Groningen, having purloined an 
 arm of St. John the Baptist, grew rich as if by enchant- 
 ment so long as he kept it concealed in his house, but 
 was reduced to beggary so soon as, his secret being dis- 
 covered, the relic was taken away from him and placed 
 in a church.* 
 
 These stories, we must observe, do not come from igno- 
 
 ' DialoffUB mvraculorum, of Cesar of Helsterbach [Strange's edition, 
 Cologne, 1851, 3 vols. , 8to], t. ii., pp. 255 and 135. This book, with the 
 Golden Legend of Giacomo di Varaggio, gives the best idea of the state 
 of religions thought in the thirteenth century. 
 8 
 
34 LIFE OP ST. FRANCIS 
 
 rant enthusiasts, hidden away in obscure country places ; 
 they are given us by one of the most learned monks of 
 his time, who relates them to a novice by way of forming 
 his mind ! 
 
 Eelics, then, were held to be neither more nor less than 
 talismans. Not alone did they perform miracles upon 
 those who were in no special state of faith or devotion, 
 the more potent among them healed the sick in spite of 
 themselves. A chronicler relates that the body of Saint 
 Martin of Tours had in 887 been secretly transported to 
 some remote hiding place for fear of the Danish invasion. 
 When the time came for bringing it home again, there 
 were in Touraine two impotent men who, thanks to their 
 infirmity, gained large sums by begging. They were 
 thrown into great terror by the tidings that the relics 
 were being brought back : Saint Martin would certainly 
 heal them and take away their means of livelihood. 
 Their fears were only too well founded. They had taken 
 to flight, but being too lame to walk fast they had not yet 
 crossed the frontier of Touraine when the saint arrived 
 and healed them ! 
 
 Hundreds of similar stories might be collected, statis- 
 tics might be made up to show, at the accession of Inno- 
 cent III., the greater number of episcopal thrones occu- 
 pied by unworthy bishops, the religious houses peopled 
 with idle and debauched monks ; but would this give a 
 truly accurate picture of the Church at this epoch ? I do 
 not think so. In the first place, we must reckon with the 
 choice spirits, who were without doubt more numerous than 
 is generally supposed. Five righteous men would have 
 saved Sodom ; the Almighty did not find them there, but 
 he perhaps might have found them had He Himself made 
 search for them instead of trusting to Lot. The Church 
 of the thirteenth century had them, and it was for theii 
 sakes that the whirlwind of heresy did not sweep it away. 
 
THE CHUKCH ABOUT 1209 35 
 
 But this is not all : tlie Churcli of that time offered a 
 noble spectacle of moral grandeur. We must learn to lift 
 our eyes from the wretched state of things which has just 
 been pointed out and fix them on the pontifical throne 
 and recognize the beauty of the struggle there going on : 
 a power wholly spiritual undertaking to command the 
 rulers of the world, as the soul masters the body, and tri- 
 umphing in the end. It is true that both soldiers and 
 generals of this army were often little better than ruffians, 
 but here again, in order to be just, we must understand 
 the end they aimed at. 
 
 In that iron age, when brute force was the only force, 
 the Church, notwithstanding its wounds, offered to the 
 world the spectacle of peasants and laboring men receiy- 
 ing the humble homage of the highest potentates of 
 earth, simply because, seated on the throne of Saint Peter, 
 they represented the moral law. This is why Alighieri 
 and many others before and after him, though they 
 might heap curses on wicked ministers, yet in the depths 
 of their heart were never without an immense com- 
 passion and an ardent love for the Church which they 
 never ceased to call their mother. 
 
 Still, everybody was not like them, and the vices of 
 the clergy explain the innumerable heresies of that day. 
 All of them had a certain success, from those which were 
 simply the outcry of an outraged conscience, like that of 
 the Waldenses, to the most absurd of them all, like that 
 of Eon de I'Etoile. Some of these movements were for 
 great and sacred causes ; but we must not let our sym- 
 pathies be so moved by the persecutions suffered by 
 heretics as to cloud our judgment. It would have been 
 better had Home triumphed by gentleness, by education 
 and holiness, but unhappily a soldier may not always 
 choose his weapons, and when life is at stake he seizes 
 the first he finds within his reach. The papacy has not 
 
36 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 always been reactionary and obscurantist ; when it over- 
 threw the Cathari, for example, its victory was that of 
 reason and good sense. 
 
 The list of the heresies of the thirteenth century is 
 already long, but it is increasing every day, to the great 
 joy of those erudite ones who are making strenuous 
 efforts to classify everything in that tohu-bohu of mys- 
 ticism and folly. In that day heresy was very much 
 alive ; it was consequently very complex and its powers 
 of transformation infinite. One may indicate its currents, 
 mark its direction, but to go farther is to condemn one- 
 self to utter confusion in this medley of impulsive, pas- 
 sionate, fantastic movements which were bom, shot up- 
 ward, and fell to earth again, at the caprice of a thousand 
 incomprehensible circumstances. In certain counties 
 of England there are at the present day villages having 
 as many as eight and ten places of worship for a few 
 hundreds of inhabitants. Many of these people change 
 their denomination every three or four years, returning 
 to that they first quitted, leaving it again only to enter it 
 anew, and so on as long as they live. Their leaders set 
 the example, throwing themselves enthusiastically into 
 each new movement only to leave it before long. They 
 would all alike find it diificult to give an intelligible 
 reason for these changes. They say that the Spirit 
 guides them, and it would be unfair to disbelieve them, 
 but the historian who should investigate conditions like 
 these would lose his head in the labyrinth unless he 
 made a separate study of each of these Protean move- 
 ments. They are surely not worth the trouble. 
 
 In a somewhat similar condition was a great part of 
 Christendom under Innocent III. ; but while the sects of 
 which I have just spoken move in a very narrow circle 
 of dogmas and ideas, in the thirteenth century every sort 
 of excess followed in rapid succession. Without the 
 
THE OHUEOH ABOUT 1809 37 
 
 slightest pause of transition men passed through the 
 most contradictory systems of belief. Still, a few general 
 characteristics may be observed ; in the first place, 
 heresies are no longer metaphysical subtleties as in 
 earlier days ; Arius and PrisciUian, Nestorius ajad Euty- 
 chus are dead indeed. In the second place, they no 
 longer arise in the upper and governing class, but pro- 
 ceed especially from the inferior clergy and the common 
 people. The blows which actually threatened the Church 
 of the Middle Ages were struck by obscure laboring 
 men, by the poor and the oppressed, who in their 
 wretchedness and degradation felt that she had failed in 
 her mission. 
 
 No sooner was a voice uplifted, preaching austerity 
 and simplicity, than it drew together not the laity only, 
 but members of the clergy as well. Toward the close 
 of the twelfth century we find a certain Pons rousing all 
 Perigord, preaching evangelical poverty before the com- 
 ing of St. Francis.^ 
 
 Two great currents are apparent : on one side the 
 Cathari, on the other, innumerable sects revolting from 
 the Church by very fidelity to Christianity and the desire 
 to return to the primitive Church. 
 
 Among the sects of the second category the close of 
 the twelfth century saw in Italy the rise of the Poor Men, 
 who without doubt were a part of the movement of 
 Arnold of Brescia; they denied the eflScacy of sacra- 
 ments administered by unworthy hands.* 
 
 A true attempt at reform was made by the Waldenses. 
 Their history, although better known, still remains ob- 
 scure on certain sides ; their name. Poor Men of Lyons, 
 recalls the former movement, with which they were in 
 
 • Recueil des historient de France. Bouquet, t. xii., pp. 550, 551. 
 'BonacoTsi: Yttee TuBretieorum [d'AehBiy, BpkMegivm, t t, p. 215] 
 C£ Lucius UL, epist. 171, Migne. 
 
38 LIFE OF ST. FBANCIS 
 
 close agreement, as also with the Humiliants. All these 
 names involuntarily suggest that by which St. Francis 
 afterward called his Order. The analogy between the 
 inspiration of Peter Waldo and that of St. Francis 
 was so close that one might be tempted to believe 
 the latter a sort of imitation of the former. It would 
 be a mistake : the same causes produced in all quarters 
 the same effects; ideas of reform, of a return to 
 gospel poverty, were in the air, and this helps us to un- 
 derstand how it was that before many years the Francis- 
 can preachiag reverberated through the entire world. If 
 at the outset the careers of these two men were alike, 
 their later lives were very different. Waldo, driven 
 into heresy almost in spite of himself, was obliged to 
 accept the consequences of the premises which he him- 
 self had laid down ; ' whUe Francis, remaining the obe- 
 dient son of the Church, bent all his efforts to develop 
 the inner life in himself and his disciples. It is indeed 
 most likely that through his father Francis had become 
 acquainted with the movement of the Poor Men of Lyons. 
 Hence his oft-repeated counsels to his friars of the duty 
 of submission to the clergy. When he went to seek the 
 approbation of Innocent III., it is evident that the prel- 
 ates with whom he had relations warned him, by the 
 very example of Waldo, of the dangers inherent in his 
 own movement.^ 
 
 The latter had gone to Eome in 1179, accompanied by 
 a few followers, to ask at the same time the approbation 
 of their translation of the Scriptures into the vulgar 
 
 ' Vide Bernard Gui, Practica inqumtionis, Douai edition, 4to, Paris, 
 1886 p. 244 ff., and especially the Vatican MS., 2548, folio 71. 
 
 ' A chronicle of St. Francis's time makes this same comparison : Bur- 
 chard, Abbot of ITrspurg (•{. 1236) {Burchardi et Oitonradi ehromcon. Mo- 
 num. Oerm. Mat, Script, t. 23], has left us an account of the approba- 
 tion of Francis by the Pope, all the more precious for being that of a 
 contemporary. Loe. cit., p._376. 
 
THE CHURCH ABOUT 1209 39 
 
 tongue and the permission to preach. They were granted 
 both requests on condition of gaining for their preaching 
 the authorization of their local clergy. Walter Map 
 (►I- 1210), who was charged with their examination, was 
 constrained, whUe ridiculing their simplicity, to admire 
 their poTerty and zeal for the apostoHc life.' Two or 
 three years later they met a very different reception at 
 Eome, and in 1184 they were anathematized by the Coun- 
 cil of Verona. From that day nothing could stop them, 
 even to the forming of a new Church. They multiplied 
 with a rapidity hardly exceeded afterward by the Fran- 
 ciscans. By the end of the twelfth century we find them 
 spread abroad from Hungary to Spaia ; the first attempts 
 to hunt them down were made in the latter country. 
 Other countries were at first satisfied with treating them 
 as excommunicated persons. 
 
 Obliged to hide themselves, reduced to the impossi- 
 bility of holding their chapters, which ought to have 
 come together once or twice a year, and which, had they 
 done so, might have maintained among them a certain 
 unity of doctrine, the Waldenses rapidly underwent a 
 change according to their environment ; some obstinately 
 insisting upon calling themselves good Catholics, others 
 going so far as to preach the overthrow of the hierarchy 
 and the uselessness of sacraments.^ Hence that mul- 
 tiplicity of differing and even hostile branches which 
 seemed to develop almost hourly. 
 
 A common persecution brought them nearer to the 
 
 ' De nugis Curialmm, Dist. 1, cap. 31, p. 64, Wright's edition. Cf. 
 Chronigue de Laon, Bouquet xiii. , p. 680. 
 
 ' See, for example, the letter of the Italian branch of the Poor Men of 
 Lyons [Pauperos Lombardi] to their brethren of Germany, there called 
 Leonistes. In it they show the points in which they are not in har- 
 mony with the French Waldenses. Published by Preger : Abhand- 
 lungen der K. bayer. Akademie der Wisa. Hiat. CI., t xiii., 1875, p. 
 19 fi. 
 
^ LIFE OF ST. FEANCIS 
 
 Cathari and favored the fusion of their ideas. Their 
 activity was inconceivable. Under pretext of pilgrimages 
 to Borne they were always on the road, simple and insin- 
 uating. The methods of travel of that day were pecul- 
 iarly favorable to the diffusion of ideas. While retailing 
 news to those whose hospitality they received, they would 
 speak of the unhappy state of the Church and the 
 reforms that were needed. Such conversations were a 
 means of apostleship much more efficacious than those 
 of the present day, the book and the newspaper ; there 
 is nothing like the viva vox ' for spreading thought. 
 
 Many vile stories have been told of the Waldenses; 
 calumny is far too facile a weapon not to tempt an 
 adversary at bay. Thus they have been charged with 
 the same indecent promiscuities of which the early Chris- 
 tians were accused. In reality their true strength was in 
 their virtues, which strongly contrasted with the vices of 
 the clergy. 
 
 The most powerful and determined enemies of the 
 Church were the Cathari. Sincere, audacious, often 
 learned and keen in argument, having among them some 
 choice spirits and men of great intellectual powers, they 
 were pre-eminently the heretics of the thirteenth century. 
 Their revolt did not bear upon points of detail and ques- 
 tions of discipline, like that of the early Waldenses ; it had 
 a definite doctrinal basis, taking issue with the whole body 
 of Catholic dogma. But, although this heresy flourished 
 in Italy and under the very eyes of St. Francis, there is 
 
 ' These continual joumeyings sometimes gained for them the name 
 of Paasagieni, as in the south of France the preachers of certain sects 
 are to-day called Courriers. The term, however, specially designates 
 a Judaizing sect who returned to the literal observation of the Mosaic 
 law : DolUnger, Beitrage, t. ii., pp. 827 and 375. They should therefore 
 be identified with the Gireonmi of the constitution of Frederic II. 
 (Huillard-BrehoUes, t. v., p. 380). See especially the fine monograph 
 of M. C. Molinier : Memoire* de PAeadimie de Tovioiae, 1888. 
 
THE OHtTECH ABOUT 1209 41 
 
 need only to indicate it briefly. His work may have 
 received many infiltrations from the Waldensian move- 
 ment, but Catharism was wholly foreign to it. 
 
 This is naturally explained by the fact that St. Francis 
 never consented to occupy himself with questions of doc- 
 trine. For him faith was not of the intellectual but the 
 moral domain ; it is the consecration of the heart. Time 
 spent in dogmatizing appeared to him time lost. 
 
 An incident in the life of Brother Egidio well brings 
 out the slight esteem in which theology was held by the 
 early Brothers Minor. One day, in the presence of St. 
 Bonaventura, he cried, perhaps not without a touch of 
 irony, "Alas! what shall we ignorant and simple ones 
 do to merit the favor of God ? " " My brother," replied 
 the famous divine, " you know very well that it suffices 
 to love the Lord." " Are you very sure of that ? " replied 
 Egidio ; " do you believe that a simple woman might 
 please Him as well as a master in theology ? " Upon the 
 affirmative response of his interlocutor, he ran out into the 
 street and calling to a beggar woman with all his might, 
 " Poor old creature," he exclaimed, " rejoice, for if you 
 love God, you may have a higher place in the kingdom 
 of heaven than Brother Bonaventura ! " ' 
 
 The Oathari, then, had no direct influence upon St. 
 Francis,' but nothing could better prove the disturbance 
 
 ' A. SS., Aprilis, t. iu., p. 338d. 
 
 ' I would say that between the inspiration of Francis and the Catha- 
 rlan doctrines there is an irreconcilable opposition ; but it would not be 
 difficult to find acts and words of his which recall the contempt for mat- 
 ter of the Cathari ; for example, his way of treating his body. Some 
 of his counsels to the friars : Unusguisque habet in potestate sua inimi- 
 cum tuum videlieit corpui, per quod peeeat. Assisi MS. 388, folio 20b. 
 Conform. 138, b. 2. — Gum mc0orem inimicum corpore non haJ)eam. 
 2 Gel. , 3, 63. These are momentary but inevitable obscurations, moments 
 of forgetfulness, of discouragement, when a man is not himself, and 
 repeats mechanically what he hears said around him. The real St 
 Francis is, on the coKtrary, the lover of nature, he who sees in the 
 
42 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 of thought at this epoch than that resurrection of Mani- 
 cheism. To what a depth of lassitude and folly must 
 religious Italy have fallen for this mixture of Buddhism, 
 Mazdeism, and gnosticism to have taken such hold upon 
 it! The Oatharist doctrine rested upon the antago- 
 nism of two principles, one bad, the other good. The 
 first had created matter j the second, the soul, which, for 
 generation after generation passes from one body to 
 another until it achieves salvation. Matter is the cause 
 and the seat of evil ; all contact with it constitutes a 
 blemish,* consequently the Cathari renounced marriage 
 and property and advocated suicide. All this was mixed 
 up with most complicated cosmogonical myths. 
 
 Their adherents were divided into two classes — the 
 pure or perfect, and the believers, who were proselytes 
 in the second degree, and whose obligations were very 
 simple. The adepts, properly so called, were initiated 
 by the ceremony of the consolamentum or imposition of 
 hands, which induced the descent upon them of the Con- 
 soling Spirit. Among them were enthusiasts who after 
 this ceremony placed themselves in endura — that is to say, 
 they starved themselves to death in order not to descend 
 from this state of grace. 
 
 In Languedoc, where this sect went by the name of 
 Albigenses, they had an organization which embraced 
 all Central Europe, and everywhere supported flourish- 
 ing schools attended by the children of the nobles. In 
 Italy they were hardly less powerful ; Concorrezo, near 
 
 whole creation the work of divine goodness, the radiance of the eternal 
 heauty, he who, in the Canticle of the Creatures, sees In the body not 
 the Enemy but a brother : Ctepit Mlariter loqui ad corpvs; Oaude, f rater 
 corpus. 2 Cel., 3, 137. 
 
 ' Quodarn die, dicta fabrissa dixit ipii testi prcegnanti, quod rogwret 
 Deum, ut liberaret earn, a Dcemone, quern habebat in ventre . . . 
 Chilidmus dixit quod ita magnum peccaium erat ja,ce/re ewm uswre sua 
 quam cum eoncubina. DoUineer, loc. cit., pp. 34, 35. 
 
THE CHURCH ABOUT 1209 43 
 
 Monza in Lombardy, and Bagnolo, gave their names to 
 two congregations slightly different from those in Lan- 
 guedoc.^ 
 
 But it was especially from Milan '^ that they spread 
 abroad over all the Peninsula, making proselytes even ia 
 the most remote districts of Calabria. The state of anar- 
 chy prevailing in the country was very favorable to them. 
 The papacy was too much occupied in baffling the spas- 
 modic efforts of the Hohenstaufen, to put the necessary 
 perseverance and system into its struggles against here- 
 sy. Thus the new ideas were preached under the very 
 shadow of the Lateran ; in 1209, Otho IV., coming to 
 Borne to be crowned, found there a school in which Mani- 
 cheism was publicly taught.' 
 
 With all his energy Innocent III. had not been able 
 to check this evil in the States of the Church. The case 
 of Viterbo tells much of the difficulty of repressing it ; in 
 March, 1199, the pope wrote to the clergy and people of 
 this town to recall to their minds, and at the same time 
 to increase, the penalties pronounced against heresy. 
 For all that, the Patarini had the majority in 1205, and 
 succeeded in naming one of themselves consid.* 
 
 ' Those of the Goncorrezensea and Bajolensea. In Italy Gathari be- 
 comes Oassari ; for tliat matter, each country had its special appella- 
 tives ; one of the most general in the north was that of the Bulgcm, 
 which marks the oriental origin of the sect, whence the slang term 
 Boulgres and its derivatives (vide Matthew Paris, ann. 1238). Cf. 
 Bohmit, Hiatoire des Cathares, 8vo, 2 vols, Paris, 1849. 
 
 " The most current name in Italy was that of the Patarini, given them 
 no doubt from their inhabiting the quarter of second-hand dealers in 
 Milan : la conirada dei Patari, found in many cities. Patari! is still 
 the cry of the ragpickers in the small towns of Provence. In the thir- 
 teenth century Patarino and Catharo were synonyms. But before that 
 the term Patarini had an entirely different sense. See the very remark- 
 able study of M. Felice Tocoo on this subject in his Erma net medio ew, 
 12mo, Florence, 1884. 
 
 ' Cesar von Heisterbaoh, Dial. mirae,,t. i., p. 309, Strange s edition. 
 
 * Innocentii opera, Migne, t. i., col. 587: t. ii.. 654. 
 
44 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 The wrath of the pontiff at this event was unbounded," 
 he fulminated a bull menacing the city, with fire and 
 sword, and commanding the neighboring towns to throw 
 themselves upon her if within a fortnight she had not 
 given satisfaction.' It was all in vain : the Patarini were 
 dealt with only as a matter of form ; it needed the pres- 
 ence of the pope himself to assure the execution of his 
 orders and obtain the demolition of the houses of the 
 heretics and their abettors (autumn of 1207).' 
 
 But stifled at one point the revolt burst out at a hun- 
 dred others; at this moment it was triumphant on all 
 sides; at Ferrara, Verona, Eimini, Florence, Prato, 
 Faenza, Treviso, Piacenza. The clergy were expelled 
 from this last town, which remained more than three 
 years without a priest.' 
 
 Viterbo is twenty leagues from Assisi, Orvieto only 
 ten, and disturbances in this town were equally grave. A 
 noble Boman, Pietro Parentio, the deputy of the Holy 
 See in this place, endeavored to exterminate the Patarini. 
 He was assassinated.* 
 
 But Francis needed not to go even so far as Orvieto to 
 become acquainted with heretics. In Assisi the same 
 things were going on as in the neighboring cities. In 
 1203 this town had elected for podesta a heretic named 
 Giraldo di Gilberto, and in spite of warnings from Bome 
 had persisted in keeping him at the head of affairs until 
 the expiration of his term of office (1204). Innocent III., 
 who had not yet been obliged to use vigor with Viterbo, 
 
 ' ComputruUtis in peecatit sieut jumenta in xtercore suo ut fvmws aa 
 fimus putrefactionitvestrcB jam fere cireama^aeentes regionia infeeerit, ae 
 ipmim, Dominum ut eredimus ad nauseam, provoewoerit. Loe. cit., col. 
 654. Cf . 673 ; Potthast, 2533, 3589. 
 
 ' Cfegta Innoeentii, Migne, t. i., col. clzii. Cf. epist. viii., 85 and 105. 
 
 ' Campi, Bistoria Eedemasiiea di Piacema, parte ii., p. 93 ff. Cf. Inr 
 noe., epist. ix., 131, 166-169 ; x., 54, 64, 388. 
 
 • A. SS.. Maii, t. v., p. 81. 
 
THE CHURCH ABOUT 1208 45 
 
 resorted to persuasion and despatched to Umbria the Car- 
 dinal Leo di Santa Croce, who will appear more than 
 once in this history.' The successor of Giraldo and fifty 
 of the principal citizens made the amende honorable and 
 swore fidelity to the Church. 
 
 It is easy to perceive in what a state of ferment Italy 
 was during these early years of the thirteenth century. 
 The moral discredit of the clergy must have been deep 
 indeed for souls to have turned toward Manicheism with 
 such ardor. 
 
 Italy may well be grateful to St. Francis ; it was as 
 much infected with Catharism as Languedoc, and it was 
 he who wrought its purification. He did not pause 
 to demonstrate by syllogisms or theological theses the 
 vanity of the Catharist doctrines ; but soaring as on 
 wings to the religious life, he suddenly made a new ideal 
 to shine out before the eyes of his contemporaries, an 
 ideal before which all these fantastic sects vanished 
 as birds of the night take flight at the first rays of the 
 sun. 
 
 A great part of St. Francis's power came to him thus 
 through his systematic avoidance of polemics. The 
 latter is always more or less a form of spiritual pride ; 
 it only deepens the chasm which it undertakes to fill 
 up. Truth needs not to be proved ; it is its own 
 witness. 
 
 The only weapon which he would use against the 
 wicked was the holiness of a life so full of love as to 
 enlighten and revive those about him, and compel them 
 
 ' Bull of June 6, 1205, Potthast, 2337 ; Migne, vii. , 83. , This Cardinal 
 Leo (of the presbyterial title of Holy Cross of Jerusalem) was one 
 most valued by Innocent III. To him and Ugolini, the futnre Gregory 
 IX. , he at this epoch confided the most delicate missions (for example, 
 !n 1209, they were named legates to Otho IV.). This embassy shows 
 in what importance the pope held the affairs of Aasisi, though it was % 
 terj email olty. 
 
46 MFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 to love.* The disappearance of Catharism in Italy, with- 
 out an upheaval, and above all without the Inquisition, 
 is thus an indirect result of the Franciscan movement, 
 and not the least important among them.^ 
 
 At the voice of the Umbrian reformer Italy roused 
 herself, recovered her good sense and fine temper ; she 
 cast out those doctrines of pessimism and death, as a ro- 
 bust organism casts out morbid substances. 
 
 I have already endeavored to show the strong analogy 
 between the initial efforts of Francis and those of the 
 Poor Men of Lyons. His thought ripened in an atmos- 
 phere thoroughly saturated with their ideas ; uncon- 
 sciously to himself they entered into his being. 
 
 The prophecies of the Calabrian abbot exerted upon 
 him an influence quite as difficult to appreciate, but no 
 less profound. 
 
 Standing on the confines of Italy and as it were at the 
 threshold of Greece, Gioacchino di Fiore ^ was the last 
 link in a chain of monastic prophets, who during nearly 
 four hundred years succeeded one another in the monas- 
 teries and hermitages of Southern Italy. The most 
 famous among them had been St. Nilo, a sort of untamed 
 John the Baptist, living in desert places, but suddenly 
 emerging from them when his duties of maintaining the 
 right called him elsewhere. We see him on one oc- 
 casion appearing in Rome itself, to announce to pope and 
 emperor the unloosing of the divine wrath.^ 
 
 ' Kot once do we find him fighting heretics. The early Dominicans, on 
 the contrary, are incessantly occupied with arguing. See 2 Gel., 3, 46. 
 
 ' It need not be said that I do not assert that no trace of it is to he 
 found after the ministry of St. Francis, but it was no longer a force, 
 and no longer endangered the very existence of the Church. 
 
 ' This strange personality will charm historians and philosophers for 
 a long while to come. I know nothing more learned or more luminous 
 than M. Felice Tocco'b fine study in his Wresia nel medio evo, Florence, 
 1884, 1 vol., 12mo, pp. 361-409. 
 
 * A SS., Sept., t. vii., p. 283 ff. 
 
THE CHURCH ABOUT 1209 47 
 
 Scattered in the Alpine solitudes of Basilicata these 
 Calabrian hermits were continually obliged to retreat 
 higher and higher into the mountain fastnesses to 
 escape the populace, who, pursued by pirates, were 
 taking refuge in these mountains. They thus passed 
 their lives between heaven and earth, with two seas 
 for their horizon. Disquieted by fear of the corsairs, 
 and by the war-cries whose echoes reached even to them, 
 they turned their thoughts toward the future. The ages 
 of great terror are also the ages of great hope ; it is to 
 the captivity of Babylon that we owe, with the second 
 part of Isaiah, those pictures of the future which have 
 not yet ceased to charm the soul of man ; Nero's per- 
 secutions gave us the Apocalypse of St. John, and the 
 paroxysms of the twelfth century the eternal Gospel. 
 
 Converted after a life of dissipation, Gioacchino di 
 More travelled extensively in the Holy Land, Greece, and 
 Constantinople. Ketuming to Italy he began, though a 
 layman, to preach in the outskirts of Bende and Oosen- 
 za. Later on he joined the Cistercians of Cortale, near 
 Catanzaro, and there took vows. Shortly after elected 
 abbot of the monastery in spite of refusal and even 
 flight, he was seized after a few years with the nostalgia 
 of solitude, and sought from Pope Lucius IH. a dis- 
 charge from his functions (1181), that he might conse- 
 crate all his time to the works which he had in mind. 
 The pope granted his request, and even permitted him to 
 go wherever he might deem best in the interest of his 
 work. Then began for Gioacchino a life of wandering 
 from convent to convent, which carried him even as far 
 as Lombardy, to Verona, where we find him with Pope 
 Urban IIL 
 
 When he returned to the south, a group of disciples 
 gathered around him to hear his explanations of the most 
 obscure passages of the Bible. Whether he would or no 
 
48 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 he was obKged to receive them, to talk with them, to give 
 them a rule, and, finally, to instal them in the very heart 
 of the Sila, the Black Forest of Italy,* over against the 
 highest peak, in gorges where the silence is interrupted 
 only by the murmurs of the Arvo and the Neto, which 
 have their source not far from there. The new Athos 
 received the name of Fiore (flower), transparent symbol 
 of the hopes of its founder.' It was there that he put 
 the finishing touch to writings which, after fifty years of 
 neglect, were to become the starting-point of all heresies, 
 and the aliment of all souls burdened with the salvation 
 of Christendom. The men of the first half of the thir- 
 teenth century, too much occupied with other things, did 
 not perceive that the spiritual streams at which they were 
 drinking descended from the snowy mountain-tops of 
 Calabria. 
 
 It is always thus with mystical influences. There is in 
 them something vague, tenuous, and penetrating which 
 escapes an exact estimation. Let two choice souls meet, 
 and they wUl find it a difficult thing to analyze and name 
 the impressions which each has received from the other. 
 It is so with an epoch ; it is not always those who speak to 
 her the oftenest and loudest whom she best understands ; 
 nor even those at whose feet she sits, a faithful pupU, 
 day after day. Sometimes, while on the way to her accus- 
 tomed masters, she suddenly meets a stranger ; she bare- 
 ly catches a few words of what he says ; she knows not 
 whence he comes nor whither he goes ; she never sees 
 him again, but those few words of his go on surging in 
 the depths of her soul, agitating and disquieting her. 
 
 ' A. SS. , Maii, vii. ; ViBcentde Beauvais, Speeulum Tiitioriale, Ub. 29, 
 ewp. 40. La Sila is a wooded mountain, situated eastward from Cosenza, 
 which the peasants call Monte Nero. The summits are nearly 3,000 
 metres above the sea. 
 
 ' Toward 1195. Gioaochino died there, March 30, 1203. 
 
THE CHURCH ABOUT 1209 tf 
 
 Thus it was for a long while with Gioacchino di Fiora 
 His teachings, scattered here and there by enthusiastic 
 disciples, were germinating silently in many hearts.* 
 Giving back hope to men, they restored to them strength 
 also. To think is already to act; alone under the 
 shadow of the hoary pines which surrounded his cell, 
 the cenobite uf Fiore was laboring for the renovation of 
 the Church with as much vigor as the reformers who 
 came after him. 
 
 He was, however, far from attaining the height of the 
 prophets of Israel ; instead of soaring like them to the 
 very heavens, he always remained riveted to the text, 
 upon which he commented in the allegorical method, and 
 whence by this method he brought out the most fantastic 
 improbabilities. A few pages of his books would wear 
 out the most patient reader, but in these fields, burnt over 
 by theological arguments more drying than the winds of 
 the desert, fields where one at first perceives only stones 
 and thistles, one comes at last to the charming oasis, with 
 repose and dreams in its shade. 
 
 The exegesis of Gioacchino di Fiore in fact led up to a 
 sort of philosophy of history ; its grand lines were calcu- 
 lated to make a striking appeal to the imagination. The 
 life of humanity is divided into three periods : in the 
 first, under the reign of the Father, men lived under the 
 rigor of the law ; in the second, reigned over by the Son, 
 
 ' A whole apoohryphal literature has blossomed out around Gioacchino ; 
 certain hyperoritics have tried to prove that he never wrote anything. 
 These are exaggerations. Three large works are certainly authentic : 
 The Agreement of the Old and, New Testaments, The Oommi&ntary on five 
 Apocalypse, and 7%« Psaltery of Ten Strings, published in Venice, the first 
 in 1517, the two others in 1527. His prophecies were so well known, 
 even in his lifetime, that an English Cistercian, Rudolph, Abbot of 
 Coggeshall (►J« 1238), coming to Rome in 1195, sought a conference with 
 him and has left us an interesting account of it. Martdne, AmpUssma 
 CoBectio, t. v., p. 83&, 
 4 
 
00 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 men live under the rule of grace ; in the third, the 
 Spirit shall reign and men shall live in the plenitude of 
 love. The first is the period of servile obedience ; the 
 second, that of filial obedience ; the third, that of liberty. 
 In the first, men lived in fear ; in the second, they rest 
 in faith ; in the third, they shall bum with love. The 
 first saw the shining of the stars ; the second sees the 
 whitening of the dawn ; the third will behold the glory 
 of the day. The first produced nettles, the second gives 
 roses, the third wiU be the age of lilies. 
 
 If now we consider that in the thought of Gioacchino 
 the third period, the Age of the Spirit, was about to open, 
 we shall understand with what enthusiasm men hailed 
 the words which restored joy to hearts stiU disturbed 
 with millenarian fears. 
 
 It is evident that St. Francis knew these radiant hopes. 
 Who knows even that it was not the Oalabrian Seer 
 who awoke his heart to its transports of love ? If this 
 be so, Gioacchino was not merely his precursor ; he was 
 his true spiritual father. However this may be, St. 
 Francis found in Gioacchino's thought many of the ele- 
 ments which, unconsciously to himself, were to become 
 the foundation of his institute. 
 
 The noble disdain which he shows for all men of 
 learning, and which he sought to inculcate upon his 
 Order, was for Gioacchino one of the characteristics of the 
 new era. " The truth which remains hidden to the wise," 
 he says, "is revealed to babes; dialectics closes that 
 which ia open, obscures that which is clear ; it is the 
 mother of useless talk, of rivalries and blasphemy. 
 Learning does not edify, and it may destroy, as is proved 
 by the scribes of the Church, swollen with pride and 
 arrogance, who by dint of reasoning fall into heresy.* 
 
 We have seen that the return to evangelical simplicity 
 ' Oamm. m apoc.,ioUo 78, b. 2, 
 
THE OHtTRCH ABOUT 1209 Cfl 
 
 had become a necessit j ; all the heretical sects were on 
 this point in accord with pious Catholics, but no one 
 spoke in a manner so Franciscan as Gioacchino di Fiore. 
 Not only did he make voluntary poverty one of the 
 characteristics of the age of lilies, but he speaks of it in 
 his pages with so profound, so living an emotion, that 
 St. Francis could do little more than repeat his words. 
 The ideal monk whom he describes,' whose only property 
 is a lyre, is a true Franciscan before the letter, him of 
 whom the Foverello of Assisi always dreamed. 
 
 The feeling for nature also bursts forth in him with in- 
 comparable vigor. One day he was preaching in a chapel 
 which was plunged in almost total darkness, the sky be- 
 ing quite overcast with clouds. Suddenly the clouds 
 broke away, the sun shone, the church was flooded with 
 light. Gioacchino paused, saluted the sun, intoned the 
 Veni Creator, and led his congregation out to gaze upon 
 the landscape. 
 
 It would be by no means surprising if toward 1205 
 Francis should have heard of this prophet, toward whom 
 so many hearts were turning, this anchorite who, gazing 
 up into heaven, spoke with Jesus as a friend talks with 
 his friend, yet knew also how to come down to console 
 men and warm the faces of the dying at his own breast. 
 
 At the other end of Europe, in the heart of Germany, 
 the same causes had produced the same effects. From 
 the excess of the people's sufferings and the despair of 
 religious souls was being born a movement of apocalyp- 
 tic mysticism which seemed to have secret communica- 
 tion with that which was rousing the Peninsula. They 
 had the same views of the future, the same anxious ex- 
 pectation of new cataclysms, joined with a prospect of a 
 reviving of the Church. 
 
 ' Qui vere monaohus est nihU reputat ease auum nisi e&Aaram : Apoc^ 
 a>.,£oUol83. s2. 
 
52 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 " Cry with a loud voice," said her guardian angel to 
 St. Elizabeth of Schonau (►I- 1164), " cry to all nations : 
 Woe ! for the whole world has become darkness. The 
 Lord's vine has withered, there is no one to tend it. The 
 Lord has sent laborers, but they have all been found 
 idle. The head of the Church is ill and her members are 
 dead. . . . Shepherds of my Church, you are sleep- 
 ing, but I shall awaken you ! Kings of the earth, the 
 cry of your iniquity has risen even to me." ' 
 
 "Divine justice," said St. Hildegarde (►!- 1178), « shall 
 have its hour ; the last of the seven epochs symbolized 
 by the seven days of creation has arrived, the judg- 
 ments of God are about to be accomplished ; the empire 
 and the papacy, sunk into impiety, shall crumble away 
 together. . . . But upon their ruins shall appear a 
 new nation of God, a nation of prophets illuminated 
 from on high, living in poverty and solitude. Then the 
 divine mysteries shall be revealed, and the saying of 
 Joel shall be fulfilled ; the Holy Spirit shall shed abroad 
 upon the people the dew of his prophecies, of his wisdom 
 and holiness ; the heathen, the Jews, the worldly and the 
 unbelieving shall be converted together, spring-time and 
 peace shall reign over a regenerated world, and the an- 
 gels will return with confidence to dwell among men." 
 
 These hopes were not wholly confounded. In the 
 evening of his days the prophet of Fiore was able, like a 
 new Simeon, to utter his Nunc dimittis, and for a few 
 years Christendom could turn in amazement to Assisi aa 
 to a new Bethlehem. 
 
 ' E. Koth, Die Ymonen der TwUgm, EluaJMh von SoMnau .- Brilni^ 
 1884i pp. 115-117. 
 
CHAPTEE rV 
 
 STRUGGLES AND TEIUMPH 
 Spring of 1206— February 24, 1209 
 
 The biographies of St. Francis have preserved to us 
 an incident which shows how great was the religious 
 ferment even in the little city of Assisi. A stranger 
 was seen to go up and down the streets saying to every 
 one he met, " Peace and welfare ! " {Pax et bonum.y He 
 thus expressed in his own way the disquietude of those 
 hearts which could neither resign themselves to perpet- 
 ual warfare nor to the disappearance of faith and love ; 
 artless echo, vibrating in response to the hopes and fears 
 that were shading all Europe ! 
 
 " Vox clamantis in deserto ! " it will be said. No, for 
 every heart-cry leaves its trace even when it seems to 
 be uttered in empty air, and that of the Unknown of As- 
 sisi may have contributed in some measure to Francis's 
 definitive call. 
 
 Since his abrupt return from Spoleto, life in his fa- 
 ther's house had become daily more difficult. Bernar- 
 done's self-love had received from his son's discomfiture 
 such a wound as with commonplace men is never healed. 
 He might provide, without counting it, money to be 
 swallowed up in dissipation, that so his son might stand 
 on an equal footing with the young nobles; he could 
 never resign himself to see him giving with lavish hands 
 to every beggar in the streets. 
 
 ■ 8 Soc, 26. 
 
64 LIFE OP ST. FRANCIS 
 
 Francis, continually plunged in reverie and spending 
 his days in lonely wanderings in the fields, was no longer 
 of the least use to his father. Months passed, and the 
 distance between the two men grew ever wider ; and the 
 gentle and loving Pica could do nothing to prevent 
 a irupture which from this time appeared to be inevitable. 
 Francis soon came to feel only one desire, to flee from 
 the abode where, in the place of love, he found only re- 
 proaches, upbraidings, anguish. 
 
 The f aithf td confidant of his earlier struggles had been 
 obliged to leave him, and this absolute solitude weighed 
 heavily upon his warm and loving heart. He did what 
 he could to escape from it, but no one understood him. 
 The ideas which he was beginning timidly to express 
 evoked from those to whom he spoke only mocking 
 smiles or the head-shakings which men sure that they 
 are right bestow upon him who is marching straight 
 to madness. He even went to open his mind to the bish- 
 op, but the latter understood no more than others his 
 vague, incoherent plans, filled with ideas impossible to 
 realize and possibly subversive.' It was thus that in spite 
 of himself Francis was led to ask nothing of men, but to 
 raise himself by prayer to intuitive knowledge of the 
 divine will. The doors of houses and of hearts were 
 alike closing upon him, but the interior voice was about 
 to speak out with irresistible force and make itself for- 
 ever obeyed. 
 
 Among the numerous chapels in the suburbs of Assisi 
 there was one which he particularly loved, that of St. 
 Damian. It was reached by a few minutes' walk over a 
 stony path, almost trackless, under olive trees, amid 
 odors of lavender and rosemary. Standing on the top of 
 « niUock, the entire plain is visible from it, through a 
 curtain of cypresses and pines which seem to be trying 
 > 3 Soo., la 
 
STRUGGLES AND TRIUMPH 55 
 
 to hide the hiuuble hermitage and set tip an ideal 
 barrier between it and the world. 
 
 Served by a poor priest who had scarely the where- 
 withal for necessary food, the sanctuary was falling into 
 ruin. There was nothing in the interior but a simple 
 altar of masonry, and by way of reredos one of those 
 byzantine crucifixes stiU so numerous in Italy, where 
 through the work of the artists of the time has come down 
 to us something of the terrors which agitated the twelfth 
 century. In general the Crucified One, frightfully lac- 
 erated, with bleeding wounds, appears to seek to in- 
 spire only grief and compunction ; that of St. Damian, on 
 the contrary, has an expression of inexpressible calm and 
 gentleness; instead of closing the eyelids in eternal 
 surrender to the weight of suffering, it looks down in 
 self-forgetfulness, and its pure, clear gaze says, not " I 
 suffer" but, " Gome unto me." ^ 
 
 One day Francis was praying before the poor altar : 
 " Great and glorious God, and thou. Lord Jesus, I pray 
 ye, shed abroad your light in the darkness of my mind. 
 . . . Be found of me. Lord, so that in all things 
 I may act only in accordance with thy holy will." ^ 
 
 Thus he prayed in his heart, and behold, little by little 
 it seemed to him that his gaze could not detach itself from 
 that of Jesus ; he felt something marvellous taking place 
 in and around him. The sacred victim took on life, and 
 in the outward silence he was aware of a voice which softly 
 stole iuto the very depths of his heart, speaking to him an 
 ineffable language. Jesus accepted his oblation. Jesus 
 desired his labor, his life, all his being, and the heart of the 
 poor solitary was already bathed in light and strength.^ 
 
 ' This crucifix is preserved in the sacristj of Santa Chiara, whithei 
 the sisters carried it when they left St. Damian. 
 ' Opuscula B. Franeisci, Oratio I. 
 »8Soc.,13; aCel., 1, 6; Bon., 13; 15; 16. 
 
66 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 This vision marks the final triumph of Francis. His 
 union with Christ is consummated ; from this time he can 
 exclaim with the mystics of every age, "My beloved 
 is mine, and I am his." 
 
 But instead of giving himself up to transports of con- 
 templation he at once asks himself how he may repay tc 
 Jesus love for love, in what action he shall employ this 
 life which he has just offered to him. He had not long 
 to seek. We have seen that the chapel where his spiritual 
 espousals had just been celebrated was threatened with 
 ruin. He believed that to repair it was the work assigned 
 to him. 
 
 From that day the remembrance of the Crucified One, 
 the thought of the love which had triumphed in immo- 
 lating itself, became the very centre of his religious life 
 and as it were the soul of his soul. For the first time, 
 no doubt, Francis had been brought into direct, per- 
 sonal, intimate contact with Jesus Christ ; from belief 
 he had passed to faith, to that living faith which a dis- 
 tinguished thinker has so well defined : " To believe is 
 to look ; it is a serious, attentive, and prolonged look ; 
 a look more simple than that of observation, a look 
 which looks, and nothing more ; artless, infantine, it has 
 all the soul in it, it is a look of the soul and not the 
 mind, a look which does not seek to analyze its object, 
 but which receives it as a whole into the soul through 
 the eyes." In these words Vinet unconsciously has mar- 
 vellously characterized the religious temperament of St. 
 Francis. 
 
 This look of love cast upon the crucifix, this mysterious 
 colloquy with the compassionate victim, was never more 
 to cease. At St. Damian, St. Francis's piety took on 
 its outward appearance and its originality. From this 
 time his soul bears the stigmata, and as his biographers 
 have said in words untranslatable, Ab ilia hora vulTiera- 
 
STRUGGLES AND TRIUMPH 67 
 
 tuv), et Uque/actum est cor ejus ed memoriam Dorninicce 
 
 From that time his way was plain before him. Coming 
 out from the sanctuary, he gave the priest all the money 
 he had about him to keep a lamp always burning, and 
 with ravished heart he returned to Assisi. He had 
 decided to quit his father's house and undertake the 
 restoration of the chapel, after having broken the last 
 ties that bound him to the past. A horse and a few 
 pieces of gayly colored stuffs were aU that he possessed. 
 Arrived at home he made a packet of the stuffs, and 
 mounting his horse he set out for Foligno. This city 
 was then as now the most important commercial town of 
 aU the region. Its fairs attracted the whole population 
 of Umbria and the Sabines. Bernardone had often tak- 
 en his son there,' and Francis speedily succeeded in sell- 
 ing all he had brought. He even parted with his horse, 
 and full of joy set out upon the road to Assisi.^ 
 
 This act was to him most important ; it marked his 
 final rupture with the past ; from this day on his life was 
 to be in aU points the opposite of what it had been ; the 
 Crucified had given himself to him ; he on his side had 
 given himself to the Crucified without reserve or return. 
 To uncertainty, disquietude of soul, anguish, longing for 
 an unknown good, bitter regrets, had succeeded a deli- 
 cious calm, the ecstasy of the lost child who finds his 
 mother, and forgets in a moment the torture of his heart. 
 
 From Foligno he returned direct to St. Damian ; it 
 was not necessary to pass through the city, and he was 
 in haste to put his projects into execution. 
 
 >3Soc., 14. 
 
 ' This incident is found in the narrative of 1 Cel., 8 ,• iSi. ex more 
 vendUis. 
 
 ' 1 Cel., 8; 3 Soo;, 16 ; Bon. 16. Foligno is a three hours' walk 
 from Assisi. 
 
58 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 The poor priest was surprised enough when Francis 
 handed over to him the whole product of his sale. He 
 doubtless thought that a passing quarrel had occurred 
 between Bemardone and his son, and for greater pru- 
 dence refused the gift ; but Francis so insisted upon re- 
 maining with him that he finally gave him leave to do so. 
 As to the money, now become useless, Francis cast it as 
 a worthless object upon a window-seat in the chapel.* 
 
 Meanwhile Bemardone, disturbed by his son's fail- 
 ure to return, sought for him in all quarters, and was 
 not long in learning of his presence at St. Damian. 
 In a moment he perceived that Francis was lost to him. 
 Eesolved to try every means, he collected a few neigh- 
 bors, and furious with rage hastened to the hermitage to 
 snatch him away, if need were, by main force. 
 
 But Francis knew his father's violence. When he 
 heard the shouts of those who were in pursuit of him he 
 felt his courage fail and hurried to a hiding-place which 
 he had prepared for himself for precisely such an emer- 
 gency. Bemardone, no doubt Ul seconded in the search, 
 ransacked every comer, but was obliged at last to return 
 to Assisi without his son. Francis remained hidden for 
 long days, weeping and groaning, imploring God to show 
 him the path he ought to follow. Notwithstanding his 
 fears he had an infinite joy at heart, and at no price 
 would he have turned back.^ 
 
 This seclusion could not last long. Francis perceived 
 this, and told himself that for a newly made knight of the 
 Christ he was cutting a very pitiful figure. Arming him- 
 self, therefore, with courage, he went one day to the city 
 to present himself before his father and make known to 
 him his resolution. 
 
 It is easy to imagine the changes wrought in his ap- 
 
 ' 1 Gel., 9 ; 3 Soc, 16 ; Bon., 6. Cf. A. SS., p. 567. 
 » 1 Cel., 10; 3 Soc, 16 ; Bon. 17, A. SS.; p. 568. 
 
STRUGGLES AND TRIUMPH 59 
 
 pearance by these few weeks of seclusion, passed much 
 of them in mental anguish. When he appeared, pale, 
 cadaverous, his clothes in tatters, upon what is now the 
 Piazza Nuova, where hundreds of children play all day 
 long, he was greeted with a great shout, " Pazzo, Pazzo ! " 
 (A madman ! a madman !) " Un pazzo Tie fa cento " (One 
 madman makes a hundred more), says the proverb, but 
 one must have seen the delirious excitement of the street 
 children of Italy at the sight of a madman to gain an idea 
 how true it is. The moment the magic cry resounds they 
 rush iato the street with frightful din, and while their 
 parents look on from the windows, they surround the 
 unhappy sufferer with wild dances mingled with songs, 
 shouts, and savage howls. They throw stones at him, fling 
 mud upon him, blindfold him ; if he flies into a rage, they 
 double their insults ; if he weeps or begs for pity, they 
 repeat his cries and mimic his sobs and supplications 
 without respite and without mercy.^ 
 
 Bemardone soon heard the clamor which jSlled the nar- 
 row streets, and went out to enjoy the show ; suddenly 
 he thought he heard his own name and that of his son, 
 and bursting with shame and rage he perceived Francis. 
 Throwing himself upon him, as if to throttle him, he 
 dragged him into the house and cast him, half dead, into 
 a dark closet. Threats, bad usage, everything was 
 brought to bear to change the prisoner's resolves, but all 
 in vain. At last, wearied out and desperate, he left him 
 in peace, though not without having firmly bound him.^ 
 
 A few days after he was obliged to be absent for a 
 short time. Pica, his wife, understood only too well his 
 grievances against Francis, but feeling that violence 
 would be of no avail she resolved to try gentleness. It 
 was all in vain. Then, not being able longer to see him 
 thus tortured, she set him at liberty. 
 
 ' 1 Cel., 11. ' 1 Cel., 12 ; 3 Soe., 17 ; Bon., 18. 
 
60 LIFE OP ST. FEANCIS 
 
 He retuitied straight to St. Damian.' 
 
 Bernardone, on his return, went so far as to strike Pica 
 in punishment for her weakness. Then, unable to toler- 
 ate the thought of seeing his son the jest of the whole 
 city, he tried to procure his expulsion from the territory 
 of Assisi. Going to St. Damian he summoned him to 
 leave the country. This time Francis did not try to hide. 
 Boldly presenting himself before his father, he declared 
 to him that not only would nothing induce him to aban- 
 don his resolutions, but that, moreover, having become 
 the servant of Christ, he had no longer to receive orders 
 from him.^ As Bernardone launched out into invective, 
 reproaching him with the enormous sums which he had 
 cost him, Francis showed him by a gesture the money 
 which he had brought back from the sale at Foligno 
 lying on the window-ledge. The father greedily seized 
 it and went away, resolving to appeal to the magistrates. 
 
 The consuls summoned Francis to appear before them, 
 but he replied simply that as servant of the Church he 
 did not come under their jurisdiction. Glad of this re- 
 sponse, which relieved them of a delicate dilemma, they 
 referred the complainant to the diocesan authorities.^ 
 
 The matter took on another aspect before the ecclesi- 
 astical tribunal ; it was idle to dream of asking the bishop 
 to pronounce a sentence of banishment, since it was his 
 part to preserve the liberty of the clerics. Bernardone 
 could do no more than disinherit his son, or at least 
 induce him of his own accord to renoimce all claim upon 
 his inheritance. This was not difficult. 
 
 When called upon to appear before the episcopal tri- 
 
 'lCel.,13; 3Soc.,18. 
 
 ' 1 Gel., 13. It is poEEible that at this epoch he had received the 
 lesser order, and that thus he might be subject to the jurisdiction of the 
 Church. 
 
 " 3 Soc, 18 and 19 ; 1 CO., 14; Bon., &. 
 
STRTTGGLES AND TRIUMPH 61 
 
 bunaP Francis experienced a lively joy; his mystical 
 espousals to tlie Crucified One were now to receive a sort 
 of official consecration. To this Jesus, whom he had so 
 often blasphemed and betrayed by word and conduct, he 
 would now be able with equal publicity to promise obe- 
 dience and fidelity. 
 
 It is easy to imagine the sensation which all this caused 
 in a small town like Assisi, and the crowd that on the 
 appointed day pressed toward the Piazza of Santa Maria 
 Maggiore, where the bishop pronounced sentence.^ Ev- 
 ery one held Francis to be assuredly mad, but they 
 anticipated with relish the shame and rage of Bemar- 
 done, whom every one detested, and whose pride was so 
 well punished by all this. 
 
 The bishop first set forth the case, and advised Francis 
 to simply give up all his property. To the great surprise 
 of the crowd the latter, instead of replying, retired to 
 a room in the bishop's palace, and immediately reap- 
 peared absolutely naked, holding in his hand the packet 
 into which he had rolled his clothes ; these he laid down 
 before the bishop with the little money that he still had 
 kept, saying : " Listen, all of you, and understand it 
 well ; until this time I have called Pietro Bemardone my 
 father, but now I desire to serve God. This is why I 
 return to him this money, for which he has given himseK 
 so much trouble, as well as my clothing, and all that I 
 have had from him, for from henceforth I desire to say 
 nothing else than ' Our Father, who art in heaven.' " 
 
 A long murmur arose from the crowd when Bernardone 
 was seen to gather up and carry off the clothing without 
 the least evidence of compassion, while the bishop was 
 
 ■ From 1304 nntil after the death of St. Francis the episcopal throne 
 of Assisi was occupied by Guide II. Vide Cristofano, 1, 169 ff. 
 
 ^ Piazza di Santa Maria Maggiore o del vescovado. Everything has 
 remained pretty nearly in the same state as in the thirteenth centnrj. 
 
6S LIFE OF BT. VBANOIS 
 
 fain to take under Ms mantle the poor Francis, who was 
 trembling with emotion and cold.^ 
 
 The scene of the judgment haU made an immense im- 
 pression ; the ardor, simplicity, and indignation of Fran- 
 cis had been so profound and sincere that scoffers were 
 disconcerted. On that day he won for himself a secret 
 sympathy in many souls. The populace loves such ab- 
 rupt conversions, or those which it considers such. Fran- 
 cis once again forced himself upon the attention of his 
 fellow-citizens with a power all the greater for the con- 
 trast between his former and his new Ufe. 
 
 There are pious folk whose modesty is shocked by the 
 nudity of Francis ; but Italy is not Germany nor Eng- 
 land, and the thirteenth century would have been aston- 
 ished indeed at the prudery of the BoUandists. The 
 incident is simply a new manifestation of Francis's char- 
 acter, with its ingenuousness, its exaggerations, its long- 
 ing to establish a complete harmony, a literal corre- 
 spondence, between words and actions. 
 
 After emotions such as he had just experienced he felt 
 the need of being alone, of realizing his joy, of singing 
 the liberty he had finally achieved along all the lines 
 where once he had so deeply suffered, so ardently 
 struggled. He would not, therefore, return immediately 
 to St. Damian. Leaving the city by the nearest gate, 
 he plunged into the deserted paths which climb the 
 sides of Mount Subasio. 
 
 It was the esirly spring. Here and there were still 
 great drifts of snow, but under the ardor of the March 
 sun winter seemed to own itself vanquished. In the 
 midst of this mysterious and bewildering harmony the 
 heart of Francis felt a delicious thrill, all his being was 
 calmed and uplifted, the soul of things caressed him 
 gently and shed upon him peace. An unwonted hap- 
 • 1 Oel.. 15 ; 3 Soo.. 20 ; Bon. 20. 
 
8TKTrGGI,T:S AND TKIUBIPB 63 
 
 pinebt. «iw«g(fc over him ; he made the forest to resound 
 with his hymns of praise. 
 
 Men utter in song emotions too sveet or too deep to be 
 expressed in ordinary language, but unworded music is 
 in this respect superior to song, it is above all things the 
 language of the ineffable. Song gains almost the same 
 value when the words are only there as a support for the 
 voice. The great beauty of the psalms and hymns of the 
 Church lies in the fact that being sung in an unknown 
 tongue they make no appeal to the intelligence ; they say 
 nothing, but they express everything with marvellous 
 modulations like a celestial accompaniment, which fol- 
 lows the believer's emotions from the most agonizing 
 struggles to the most unspeakable ecstasies. 
 
 So Francis went on his way, deeply inhaling the odors 
 of spring, singing at the top of his voice one of those songs 
 of French chivalry which he had learned in days gone by. 
 
 The forest in which he was walking was the usual re- 
 treat of such people of Assisi and its environs as had 
 any reason for hiding. Some ruffians, aroused by his 
 voice, suddenly fell upon him. " Who are you ? " they 
 asked. "I am the herald of the great King," he an- 
 swered ; " but what is that to you ? " 
 
 His only garment was an old mantle which the bish- 
 op's gardener had lent him at his master's request. 
 They stripped it from him, and throwing him into a ditch 
 full of snow, " There is your place, poor herald of God," 
 they said. 
 
 The robbers gone, he shook off the snow which covered 
 him, and after may efforts succeeded in extricating him- 
 self from the ditch. Stiff with cold, with no other cover- 
 ing than a worn-out shirt, he none the less resumed his 
 singing, happy to suffer and thus to accustom himself the 
 better to understand the words of the Crucified One.^ 
 
 >3Soc., 16; Bon., SI. 
 
64 LIFE 01" ST. FRAWOIS 
 
 Not far away was a monastery. He entered and 
 offered his services. In those solitudes, peopled often 
 by such undesirable neighbors, people were suspicious. 
 The monks permitted him to make himself useful in the 
 kitchen, but they gave him nothing to cover himself with 
 and hardly anything to eat. There was nothing for it 
 but to go away; he directed his steps toward Gubbio, 
 where he knew that he should find a friend. Perhaps 
 this was he who had been his confidant on his return 
 from Spoleto. However this may be, he received from 
 him a tunic, and a few days after set out to return to his 
 dear St. Damian.' 
 
 He did not, however, go directly thither ; before be- 
 ginning to restore the little sanctuary, he desired to see 
 again his friends, the lepers, to promise them that he 
 would love them even better than in the past. 
 
 Since his first visit to the leper-house the brilliant 
 cavalier had become a poor beggar ; he came with empty 
 hands but with heart overfiowing with tenderness and 
 compassion. Taking up his abode in the midst of these 
 afflicted ones he lavished upon them the most touching 
 care, washing and wiping their sores, all the more gentle 
 and radiant as their sores were more repulsive.^ The 
 neglected sufferer is as much blinded by love of him who 
 comes to visit him as the child by its love for its mother. 
 He believes him to be all powerful ; at his approach the 
 most painful sufferings are eased or disappear. 
 
 ' 1 Cel., 16 ; Bon. 31. The curious will read with interest an article 
 by M. Mezzatiuti upon the journey to Gubbio entitled 8. Francesco e 
 IVederioo Spadalunga da Gubbio. [Miscellanea, t. v., pp. 76-78.] This 
 Spadalunga da Gubbio was well able to give a garment to Francis, but 
 it is very possible that the gift was made much later and that this 
 solemn date in the saint's life has been fixed by an optical illusion, almost 
 inevitable because of the identity of the fact with the name of the 
 looalitv. 
 
 « 1 Cel , 17 ; Bon., 11 j 13 ; 21 ; 32 ; 3 Soc. 11 ; A. SS., p. 575. 
 
STEtTGGLES AND TRIUMPH 65 
 
 This love inspired by the sympathy of an aifectionate 
 heart may become so deep as to appear at times super- 
 natural ; the dying have been known to recover con- 
 sciousness in order to look for the last time into the face, 
 not of some member of the family, but of the friend who 
 has tried to be the sunshine of their last days. The ties 
 of pure love are stronger than the bonds of flesh and blood. 
 Francis had many a time sweet experience of this ; from 
 the time of his arrival at the leper-house he felt that if 
 he had lost his life he was about to find it again. 
 
 Encouraged by his sojourn among the lepers, he re- 
 turned to St. Damian and went to work, filled with joy 
 and ardor, his heart as much, in the sunshine as the 
 Umbrian plain in this beautifid month of May. After 
 having fashioned for himself a hermit's dress, he began 
 to go into the squares and open places of the city. 
 There having sung a few hymns, he would announce to 
 those who gathered around him his project of restoring 
 the chapel. " Those who will give me one stone," he 
 would add with a smile, " shall have a reward ; those 
 who give me two shall have two rewards, and those who 
 give me three shaU have three." 
 
 Many deemed him mad, but others were deeply moved 
 by the remembrance of the past. As for Francis, deaf 
 to mockery, he spared himself no labor, carrying upon 
 his shoulders, so ill-fitted for severe toil, the stones which 
 were given him.* 
 
 During this time the poor priest of St. Damian felt his 
 heart swelling with love for this companion who had at 
 first caused him such embarrassment, and he strove to 
 prepare for him his favorite dishes. Francis soon per- 
 ceived it. His delicacy took alarm at the expense which 
 he caused his friend, and, thanking him, he resolved to 
 beg his food from door to door. 
 
 < 1 Cel., 18 ; 3 Soc, 21 ; Bon., 23. 
 
66 LIFE OP ST. FRANCIS 
 
 It was not an easy task. The first time, when at the 
 end of his round he glanced at the broken food in his 
 wallet, he felt his courage fail him. But the thought of 
 being so soon unfaithful to the spouse to whom he had 
 plighted his faith made his blood run cold with shame 
 and gave him strength to eat raTenously.* 
 
 Each hour, so to speak, brought to him a new struggle. 
 One day he was going through the town begging for oil 
 for the lamps of St. Damian, when he arrived at a 
 house where a banquet was going on ; the greater number 
 of his former companions were there, singing and danc- 
 ing. At the sound of those well-known voices he felt as 
 if he could not enter ; he even turned away, but very 
 soon, filled with confusion by his own cowardice, he 
 returned quickly upon his steps, made his way into the 
 banquet-hall, and after confessing his shame, put so much 
 earnestness and fire into his request that every one de- 
 sired to co-operate in this pious work.^ 
 
 His bitterest trial however was his father's anger, 
 which remained as violent as ever. Although he had 
 renounced Francis, Bernardone's pride suffered none the 
 less at seeing his mode of life, and whenever he met his 
 son he overwhelmed him with reproaches and maledic- 
 tions. The tender heart of Francis was so wrung with 
 sorrow that he resorted to a sort of stratagem for 
 charming away the spell of the paternal imprecations. 
 " Come with me," he said to a beggar ; " be to me as a 
 father, and I will give you a part of the alms which I 
 receive. When you see Bemardone curse me, if I say, 
 ' Bless me, my father,' you must sign me with the cross 
 and bless me in his stead." ' His brother was prominent 
 in the front rank of those who harassed him with their 
 mockeries. One winter morning they met in a church ; 
 
 ' 3 Soc, 32 ; 2 Cel., 1,9. '3 Soc, 24 ; 2 Cel., 8 ; Spec, 24. 
 »3Soo.,23; 2 Cel., 7. 
 
STRUGGLES AND TRIUMPH 67 
 
 Augelo leaned over to a friend who was witli him, saying : 
 " Go, ask Francis to sell you a farthing's worth of hia 
 sweat." " No," replied the latter, who overheard. " I 
 shall sell it much dearer to my God." 
 
 In the spring of 1208 he finished the restoration of 
 St. Damian ; he had been aided by all people of good 
 will, setting the example of work and above all of joy, 
 cheering everybody by his songs and his projects for 
 the future. He spoke with such enthusiasm and con- 
 tagious warmth of the transformation of his dear chap- 
 el, of the grace which God would accord to those who 
 should come there to pray, that later on it was believed 
 that he had spoken of Clara and her holy maidens who 
 were to retire to this place four years later.' 
 
 This success soon inspired him with the idea of repair^ 
 ing the other sanctuaries in the suburbs of Assisi. 
 Those which had struck him by their state of decay were 
 St. Peter and Santa Maria, of the Portiwncula, called 
 also Santa Maria degli Angeli. The former is not other- 
 wise mentioned in his biographies.^ As to the sec- 
 ond, it was to become the true cradle of the Franciscan 
 movement. 
 
 This chapel, stUl standing at the present day after 
 escaping revolutions and earthquakes, is a true Bethel, 
 one of those rare spots in the world on which rests the 
 mystic ladder which joins heaven to earth ; there were 
 dreamed some of the noblest dreams which have soothed 
 the pains of humanity. It is not to Assisi in its marvel- 
 lous basilica that one must go to divine and comprehend 
 St. Francis; he must turn his steps to Santa Maria 
 degli Angeli at the hours when the stated prayers cease, 
 at the moment when the evening shadows lengthen, when 
 all the fripperies of worship disappear in the obscurity, 
 
 ■ 3 Soc, 34 ; Testament de Claire, Wadding, ann. 1253 ▼. 
 ' CeL, 21 ; Bon., 24. 
 
68 LIFE OF ST. FEANCIS 
 
 when all the nation seems to coUect itseK to listen to the 
 chime of the distant church bells. Doubtless it was 
 Francis's plan to settle there as a hermit. He dreamed 
 of passing his life there in meditation and silence, keep- 
 ing up the little church and from time to time inviting a 
 priest there to say mass. Nothing as yet suggested to 
 him that he was in the end to become a religious founder. 
 One of the most interesting aspects of his life is in fact 
 the continual development revealing itself in him; he is 
 of the small number to whom to live is to be active, and 
 to be active to make progress. There is hardly anyone, 
 except St. Paul, in whom is found to the same degree 
 the . devouring need of being always something more, 
 always something better, and it is so beautiful in both 
 of them only because it is absolutely instinctive. 
 
 "When he began to restore the Portiuncula his projects 
 hardly went beyond a very narrow horizon ; he was pre- 
 paring himself for a life of penitence rather than a life of 
 activity. But these works once finished it was impos- 
 sible that this somewhat selfish and passive manner of 
 achieving his own salvation should satisfy him long. At 
 the memory of the appearance of the Crucified One his 
 heart would swell with overpowering emotions, and he 
 would melt into tears without knowing whether they were 
 of admiration, pity, or desire.' 
 
 When the repairs were finished meditation occupied 
 the greater part of his days. A Benedictine of the 
 Abbey of Mont Subasio ^ came from time to time to say 
 mass at Santa Maria; these were the bright hours of 
 St. Francis's life. One can imagine with what pious 
 care he prepared himself and with what faith he listened 
 to the divine teachings. 
 
 One day, it was probably February 24, 1209, the fes- 
 
 '3Soe., 14; 2Cel., i., 6. 
 
 ' FoTtiuucula was a dependence of this abbey. 
 
STRUGGLES AND TRIUMPH 69 
 
 tival of St. Matthias, mass was being celebrated at the 
 Portiuncula.' "When the priest turned toward him to 
 read the words of Jesus, Francis felt himself over- 
 powered with a profound agitation. He no longer saw 
 the priest; it was Jesus, the Crucified One of St. 
 Damian, who was speaking : " Wherever ye go, preach, 
 saying, ' The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the 
 sick, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils. Freely ye have 
 received, freely give. Provide neither silver nor gold 
 nor brass in your purses, neither scrip nor two coats, 
 nor shoes nor staff, for the laborer is worthy of his 
 meat." " 
 
 These words burst upon him like a revelation, like the 
 answer of Heaven to his sighs and anxieties. 
 
 " This is what I want," he cried, " this is what I was 
 seeking ; from this day forth I shall set myself with all 
 my strength to put it in practice." Immediately throw- 
 ing aside his stick, his scrip, his purse, his shoes, he 
 determined immediately to obey, observing to the letter 
 the precepts of the apostolic life. 
 
 It is quite possible that some allegorizing tendencies 
 have had some influence upon this narrative." The long 
 struggle through which Francis passed before becom- 
 ing the apostle of the new times assuredly came to a 
 crisis in the scene at Portiuncula ; but we have already 
 seen how slow was the interior travail which prepared 
 f oir it. 
 
 The revelation of Francis was in his heart ; the sacred 
 fire which he was to commimicate to the souls of others 
 came from within his own, but the best causes need a 
 
 ' This is the date adopted by the Bollandists, because the ancient mis- 
 sals mark the pericope, Matt. x. , for the gospel of this day. This en- 
 tails no difficulty and in any case it cannot be very far distant from the 
 truth. A. SS., p. 574. 
 
 ' See in particular Bjoa., 25 and 26. Cf. A. SS., p. 577a. 
 
70 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 standard. Before the shabby altar of the Portiuncula he 
 had perceived the banner of poverty, sacrifice, and love, 
 he would carry it to the assault of every fortress of sin ; 
 under its shadow, a true knight of Christ, he wo\ild 
 marshal all the valiant warriors of a spiritual strife. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 PmST YEAE OP APOSTOLATB 
 Spring of 1209— Summer of 1310 
 
 The Tery next morning Francis went up to Assisi and 
 began to preach. His words were simple, but they came 
 so straight from the heart that all who heard him were 
 touched. 
 
 It is not easy to hear and apply to one's self the ex- 
 hortations of preachers who, aloft in the pulpit, seem 
 to be carrying out a mere formality ; it is just as difficult 
 to escape from the appeals of a layman who walks at our 
 side. The amazing multitude of Protestant sects is due 
 in a great degree to this superiority of lay preaching 
 over clerical. The most brilliant orators of the Christian 
 pulpit are bad converters ; their eloquent appeals may 
 captivate the imagination and lead a few men of the 
 world to the foot of the altar, but these results are not 
 more brilliant than ephemeral. But let a peasant or a 
 workingman speak to those whom he meets a few simple 
 words going directly to the conscience, and the man is 
 always impressed, often won. 
 
 Thus the words of Francis seemed to his hearers like 
 a flaming sword penetrating to the very depths of their 
 conscience. His first attempts were the simplest possi- 
 ble ; in general they were merely a few words addressed 
 to men whom he knew well enough to recognize their weak 
 points and strike at them with the holy boldness of lova 
 
?2 LIFE OP ST. FEANCIS , 
 
 His person, his example, were themselves a sermon, and 
 he spoke only of that which he had himself experienced, 
 proclaiming repentance, the shortness of life, a future 
 retribution, the necessity of arriving at gospel perfec- 
 tion.i It is not easy to realize how many waiting souls 
 there are in this world. The greater number of men 
 pass through life with souls asleep. They are like vir- 
 gins of the sanctuary who sometimes feel a vague agita- 
 tion ; their hearts throb with an infinitely sweet and sub- 
 tile thrill, but their eyelids droop; again they feel the 
 damp cold of the cloister creeping over them ; the deli- 
 cious but baneful dream vanishes ; and this is all they 
 ever know of that love which is stronger than death. 
 
 It is thus with many men for aU that belongs to the 
 higher life. Sometimes, alone in the wide plain at the 
 hour of twilight, they fix their eyes on the fading lights 
 of the horizon, and on the evening breeze comes to them 
 another breath, more distant, fainter, and almost heaven- 
 ly, awaking in them a nostalgia for the world beyond 
 and for holiness. But the darkness falls, they must go 
 back to their homes ; they shake off their reverie ; and 
 it often happens that to the very end of life this is their 
 only glimpse of the Divine ; a fiew sighs, a few thrills, a 
 few inarticulate murmurs — this sums up all our efforts 
 to attain to the sovereign good. 
 
 Yet the instinct for love and for the divine is only 
 slumbering. At the sight of beauty love always awakes ; 
 at the appeal of holiness the divine witness within us at 
 once responds ; and so we see, streaming from all points 
 of the horizon to gather around those who preach in the 
 name of the inward voice, long processions of souls 
 athirst for the ideal. The human heart so naturally 
 yearns to offer itself up, that we have only to meet along 
 
 ' 1 Cel., 23 ; 3 Soc, 25 and 26 ; Bon., 27. Cf. Auct. Vit. Sec. op., A. 
 SS., p. S79. 
 
FIRST TEAR OP APOSTOLATE 73 
 
 our pathway some one who, doubting neither himself 
 nor us, demands it without reserve, and we yield it to 
 him at once. Eeason may understand a partial gift, a 
 transient devotion ; the heart knows only the entire sac- 
 rifice, and like the lover to his beloved, it says to its van- 
 quisher, " Thine alone and forever." 
 
 That which has caused the miserable failure of all the 
 efforts of natural religion is that its founders have not 
 had the courage to lay hold upon the hearts of men, con- 
 senting to no partition. They have not understood the 
 imperious desire for immolation which lies in the depths 
 of every soul, and souls have taken their revenge in not 
 heeding these too lukewarm lovers. 
 
 Francis had given himself up too completely not to 
 claim from others an absolute self-renunciation. In the 
 two years and more since he had quitted the world, the 
 reality and depth of his conversion had shone out in the 
 sight of all ; to the scoffings of the early days had grad- 
 ually succeeded in the minds of many a feeling closely 
 akin to admiration. 
 
 This feeling inevitably provokes imitation. A man of 
 Assisi, hardly mentioned by the biographers, had at- 
 tached himself to Francis. He was one of those simple- 
 hearted men who find life beautiful enough so long as 
 they can be with him who has kindled the divine spark ' 
 
 ' 1 Cel., 24. We must correct the Bollandlst text : Inter quos guidam 
 tfe Asmio puer ac aimplieem anirmim gerens, by : guidam de Asmiopium 
 ac simplicem, etc. The period at which we have arrived is very clear 
 as a whole : the picture which the Three Companions give us is true 
 with a truth which forces conviction at first sight ; but neither they 
 nor Celano are giving an ofScial report. Later on men desired to know 
 precisely in what order the early disciples came, and they tortured 
 the texts to find an answer. The same course was followed with regard 
 to the first missionary journeys. But on both sides they came up 
 against impossibilities and contradictions. What does it matter whether 
 there were two, three, or four missions before the papal approbation ? 
 Of what conse(iuence are the names of those early disciples who are 
 
74 IIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 in their hearts. His arrival at Portiuncula gave Francis 
 a suggestion ; from that time he dreamed of the possibil- 
 ity of bringing together a few companions with whom 
 he could carry on his apostolic mission in the neigh- 
 borhood. 
 
 At Assisi he had often enjoyed the hospitality of a 
 rich and prominent man named Bernardo di Quintavalle,* 
 who took him to sleep in his own chamber ; it is easy 
 to see how such an intimacy would favor confidential 
 outpourings. When in the silence of the early night an 
 ardent and enthusiastic soul pours out to you its disap- 
 pointments, wounds, dreams, hopes, faith, it is difficult 
 indeed not to be carried along, especially when the apos- 
 tle has a secret ally in your soul, and unconsciously 
 meets your most secret aspirations. 
 
 One day Bernardo begged Francis to pass the following 
 night with him, at the same time giving him to under- 
 stand that he was about to make a grave resolution upon 
 which he desired to consult him. The joy of Francis 
 was great indeed as he divined his intentions. They 
 passed the night without thinking of sleep ; it was a long 
 communion of souls. Bernardo had decided to distribute 
 his goods to the poor and cast in his lot with Francis. 
 The latter desired his friend to pass through a sort of 
 initiation, pointing out to him that what he himself 
 
 entirely secondary in the history of the Franciscan movement ? All 
 these things took place with mnch more simplicity and spontaneity 
 than is generally supposed. There is a wide difference between the 
 plan of a house drawn up by an architect and a view of the same house 
 painted by an artist. The second, though abounding in inexactitudes, 
 gives a more just notion of the reality than the plan. The same is true 
 of the Franciscan biographies. 
 
 ' 1 Cel., 34. Bernard de Besse is the first to call him B. di Quinta- 
 valle: De laudibus, to. 95 h.; «f. u3jion him Mark of Lisbon, t. i., 
 second part, pp. 68-70 ; Gmform.,^1 ; J?&r., 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 28 ; 3 Soc, 
 a'?, 80, 39 ; 2 Cel., 1, 10 ; 2, 19 ; Bon., 28 ; 1 Cel., 30 ; Salimbeni, ann, 
 ;*39, and Tribvl. Arch., ii., p. 378, etc. 
 
FIRST TEAR OP APOSTOLATB 75 
 
 practised, what he preached, was not his own invention, 
 but that Jesus himself had expressly ordained it in his 
 word. 
 
 At early dawn they bent their steps to the St. Nicho- 
 las Church, accompanied by another neophyte named 
 Pietro, and there, after praying and hearing mass, Francis 
 opened the Gospels that lay on the altar and read to his 
 companions the portion which had decided his own voca- 
 tion : the words of Jesus sending forth his disciples on 
 their mission. 
 
 " Brethren," he added, " this is our life and our Rule, 
 and that of aU who may join us. Go then and do as 
 you have heard." * 
 
 The persistence with which the Three Companions 
 relate that Francis consulted the book three times in 
 honor of the Trinity, and that it opened of its owa 
 accord at the verses describing the apostolic life, leads 
 to the belief that these passages became the Eule of the 
 new association, if not that very day at least very soon 
 afterward. 
 
 If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, 
 and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come and follow me. 
 
 Jesus having called to him the Twelve, gave them power and author- 
 ity over all devils and to cure diseases. And he sent them to preach the 
 kingdom of God and to heal the sick. And he said unto them, Take 
 nothing for your journey, neither staves, nor scrip, neither bread, 
 neither money ; neither have two coats apiece. And whatsoever house 
 ye enter into, there abide, and thence depart. And whosoever will not 
 receive you, when ye go out of that city shake ofE the very dust from 
 your feet for a testimony against them. And they departed and went 
 through the towns, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere. 
 
 > 1 Cel., 24 ; 3 Soc, 27, 28, 29 ; 2 Gel., 1, 10 ; 3, 52 ; Bon., 28 ; A. 
 SS., p. 680. It is evident that the tradition has been worked over 
 here : it soon came to be desired to find a miracle in the manner in 
 which Francis found the passage for reading. The St. Nicholas Church 
 is no longer in existence ; it stood upon the piece of ground now oocn- 
 pied by the barracks of the gendarmerie (fiorabinieri reaU). 
 
76 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, 
 let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow mo. For who. 
 soever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life 
 +'or my sake shall find it. For what is a. man profited if he shall gain 
 the whole world and lose his own soul ? ' 
 
 At first these verses were hardly more than the official 
 Rule of the Order ; the true Rule was Francis himself ; 
 but they had the great merit of being short, absolute, of 
 promising perfection, and of being taken from the Gospel. 
 
 Bernardo immediately set to work to distribute his 
 fortune among the poor. Full of joy, his friend was 
 looking on at this act, which had drawn together a crowd, 
 when a priest named Sylvester, who had formerly sold 
 him some stones for the repairs of St. Damian, seeing so 
 much money given away to everyone who applied for it, 
 drew near and said : 
 
 " Brother, you did not pay me very well for the stones 
 which you bought of me." 
 
 Francis had too thoroughly killed every germ of av- 
 arice in himself not to be moved to indignation by hear- 
 ing a priest speak thus. " Here," he said, holding out 
 to him a double handful of coins which he took from 
 Bernardo's robe, " here ; are you sufficiently paid now ? " 
 
 " Quite so," replied Sylvester, somewhat abashed by 
 the murmurs of the bystanders.' 
 
 This picture, in which the characters stand out so 
 strongly, must have taken strong hold upon the memory 
 of the bystanders : the Italians only thoroughly under- 
 stand things which they make a picture of. It taught 
 
 > Matt., xix., 21 ; Luke, ix., 1-6 ; Matt., xvl., 34-26. The agreement 
 of tradition upon these passages is complete. 3 Soc, 29 ; 2 Cel., 1, 10 ; 
 Bon., 28; Spec, 5b.; Omform., 37b 2, 47a, 3; Fior., 3 ; Glassberger 
 and the Chronicle of the xxiv. generals reversing the order (Analecta, 
 fr., t. ii., p. 5) as well as the Conformities in another place, 87b, 3. 
 
 '3 Soc, 30. Cf. Anon. Perm., A. SS., p. 881a. This scene is re- 
 ported neither bv Celano nor by St. Bonaventura. 
 
FIRST TEAE OF APOSTOLATE 77 
 
 them, better than all Francis's preachings, what liianner 
 of men these new friars would be. 
 
 The distribution finished, they went at once to Portiun- 
 cula, where Bernardo and Pietro buUt for themselves 
 cabins of boughs, and made themselves tunics like that 
 of Francis. They did not differ much from the garment 
 worn by the peasants, and were of that brown, with its 
 infinite variety of shades, which the Italians call beast 
 color. One finds similar garments to-day among the 
 shepherds of the most remote parts of the Apennines. 
 
 A week later, Thursday, April 23, 1209,* a new dis- 
 ciple of the name of Egidio presented himself before 
 Francis. Of a gentle and submissive nature, he was of 
 those who need to lean on someone, but who, the needed 
 support having been found and tested, lift themselves 
 sometimes even above it. The pure soul of brother 
 Egidio, supported by that of Francis, came to enjoy the 
 intoxicating delights of contemplation with an unheard-of 
 ardor.^ 
 
 Here we must be on our guard against forcing the 
 authorities, and asking of them more than they can give. 
 Later, when the Order was definitely constituted and 
 its convents organized, men fancied that the past had 
 been like the present, and this error still weighs upon 
 the picture of the origins of the Franciscan movement. 
 The first brothers lived as did the poor people among 
 whom they so willingly moved ; Portiuncula was their 
 favorite church, but it would be a mistake to suppose that 
 they sojourned there for any long periods. It was their 
 
 ' This date is given in the life of Brother Egidio-. A. S8., Oct., 
 t. ii., p. 572; AprSis, t. iii., p. 330. It fits well with the accounts. 
 Through it we obtain the approximate date of the definitive conversion 
 of Francis two full years earlier. 
 
 2 1 Cel., 35 ; 3 Soc, 33 ; Bon. 39. Cf. Anon. F^rut., A. SS., p. 582| 
 and A. SS., AprUig, t. iii., p. 230 fE. 
 
78 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 place of meeting, nothing more. "When they set forth 
 they simply knew that they should meet again in the 
 neighborhood of the modest chapel. Their life was that 
 of the Umbrian beggars of the present day, going here 
 and there as fancy dictated, sleeping in hay-lofts, in 
 leper hospitals, or under the porch of some church. So 
 litt-le had they any fixed domicile that Egidio, having de- 
 cided to join them, was at considerable trouble to learn 
 where to find Francis, and accidentally meeting him in 
 the neighborhood of Eivo-Torto * he saw in the fact a prov- 
 idential leading. 
 
 They went up and down the country, joyfully sowing 
 their seed. It was the beginning of summer, the time 
 when everybody in Umbria is out of doors mowing or 
 turning the grass. The customs of the coimtry have 
 changed but little. Walking in the end of May in the 
 fields about Florence, Perugia, or Eieti, one stiU sees, 
 at nightfall, the bagpipers entering the fields as the mow- 
 ers seat themselves upon the hay-cocks for their evening 
 meal ; they play a few pieces, and when the train of hay- 
 makers returns to the village, followed by the harvest- 
 laden carts, it is they who lead the procession, rending 
 the air with their sharpest strains. 
 
 The joyous Penitents who loved to call themselves 
 Joculatores Domini, God's jongleurs, no doubt often did 
 
 ' Spec., 25a: Qualiter dixit fratri Egidio priusquam esset reeeptm ut 
 daret manteUum eiudam pauperi. In primordio rdigionis cum maneret 
 apud Begum Tortum cum duolmifratrAm guos tunc tantum kdbehat. If 
 we compare this passage with 3 Soo. , 44, we shall doubtless arrive at the 
 conclusion that the account in the Speculum is more satisfactory. It is 
 in fact very easy to understand the optical illusion by which later on the 
 Portiunoula was made the scene of the greater number of the events of 
 St. Francis's life, while it would be difficult to see why there shouldhave 
 been any attempt to surround Bivo-Torto with an aureola. The Fioretti 
 say : Ando inverso lo spedale dei lebbroai, which confirms the indication 
 of Eivo-Torto. Vita d' Egidio, § 1. 
 
FIRST TEAK OF APOSTOLATE 79 
 
 the same.^ They did even better, for not willing to be a 
 charge to anyone, they passed a part of the day in 
 aiding the peasants in their field work.^ The iahabitants 
 of these districts are for the most part kindly and se- 
 date ; the friars soon gained their confidence by relating 
 to them first their history and then their hopes. They 
 worked and ate together ; field-hands and friars often slept 
 in the same barn, and when with the morrow's dawn the 
 friars went on their way, the hearts of those they left be- 
 hind had been touched. They were not yet converted, 
 but they knew that not far away, over toward Assisi, were 
 living men who had renounced aU worldly goods, and who, 
 consumed with zeal, were going up and down preaching 
 penitence and peace. 
 
 Their reception was very different in the cities. If thf 
 peasant of Central Italy is mild and kindly the townsfol.i 
 are on a first acquaintance scoffing and iU disposed. We 
 shall shortly see the friars who went to Florence the butt 
 of all sorts of persecutions. 
 
 Only a few weeks had passed since Francis began to 
 preach, and already his words and acts were sounding an 
 irresistible appeal in the depths of many a heart. We 
 have arrived at the most unique and interesting period in 
 the history of the Franciscans. These first months are 
 for their institution what the first days of spring are for 
 nature, days when the almond-tree blossoms, bearing 
 witness to the mysterious labor going on in the womb of 
 the earth, and heralding the flowers that will suddenly 
 enamel the fields. At the sight of these men — bare- 
 footed, scantily clothed, without money, and yet so hap- 
 py — men's minds were much divided. Some held them 
 to be mad, others admired them, finding them widely 
 
 • An. Perus, A. SS., p. 582. Cf. Fior., Vita di Egidio, 1 ; Spec., 124, 
 136 ; a Gel., 3, 68 ; A. SS., Aprilis, t. iii., p.- 227. 
 ' i^M., 84a; Uonform., 319b, 1; Ant.fr., p. 96. 
 
80 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 different from the vagrant monks,' that plague of Chris- 
 tendom. 
 
 Sometimes, however, the friars found success not re- 
 sponding to their efforts, the conversion of souls not tak- 
 ing form with enough rapidity and vigor. To encourage 
 them, Francis would then confide to them his visions and 
 nis hopes. " I saw a multitude of men coming toward 
 us, asking that they might receive the habit of our holy 
 religion, and lo, the sound of their footsteps still echoes 
 in my ears. I saw them coming from every direction, 
 filling all the roads." 
 
 Whatever the biographies may say, Francis was far 
 from foreseeing the sorrows that were to follow this rapid 
 increase of his Order. The maiden leaning with trem- 
 bling rapture on her lover's arm no more dreams of the 
 pangs of motherhood than he thought of the dregs he must 
 drain after quaffing joyfully the generous wine of the 
 chalice.^ 
 
 Every prosperous movement provokes opposition by the 
 very fact of its prosperity. The herbs of the field have 
 their own language for cursing the longer-lived plants 
 that smother them out; one can hardly live without 
 arousing jealousy; in vain the new fraternity showed 
 itself humble, it could not escape this law. 
 
 When the brethren went up to Assisi to beg from door 
 to door, many refused to give to them, reproaching them 
 with desiring to live on the goods of others after having 
 squandered their own. Many a time they had barely 
 enough not to starve to death. It would even seem that 
 the clergy were not entirely without part in this opposi- 
 tion. The Bishop of Assisi said to Francis one day: 
 " Your way of living without owning anything seems to 
 me very harsh and difficult." " My lord," replied he, " if 
 
 " The Gyrovagi. Tr. 
 
 » 3 Soc. 32-34; 1 Gel., 27 and 28 ; Bon., 81. 
 
FIRST TEAB OF APOSTOLATE 81 
 
 we possessed property we should have need of arms for 
 its defence, for it is the source of quarrels and lawsuits, 
 and the love of God and of one's neighbor usually finds 
 many obstacles therein; this is why we do not desire 
 temporal goods." * 
 
 The argument was unanswerable, but Guido began to 
 rue the encouragement which he had formerly offered 
 the son of Bernardone. He was very nearly in the situ- 
 ation and consequently in the state of mind of the Angli- 
 can bishops when they saw the organizing of the Sal- 
 vation Army. It was not exactly hostility, but a distrust 
 which was aU the deeper for hardly daring to show itseH. 
 The only counsel which the bishop could give Francis 
 was to come into the ranks of the clergy, or, it asceticism 
 attracted him, to join some already existing monastic 
 order.^ 
 
 ' 3 Soc, 35. Of. Anon. Perm. ; A. SS., p. 584. 
 
 ' Later on, naturally, it was desired that Francis should have had no 
 better supporter than Guido; some have even made him out to be 
 his spiritual director (St. Francois, Plon, p. 24) ! We have an in- 
 direct but unexceptionable proof of the reserve with which these 
 pious traditions must be accepted ; Francis did not even tell his bishop 
 {pater et dominua animarum, 8 Soc, 29) of his design of having.his Eule 
 approved by the pope. This is the more striking because the bishop 
 would have been his natural advocate at the court of Rome, and be- 
 cause in the absence of any other reason the most elementary politeness 
 required that he should have been informed. Add to this that bishops 
 in Italy are not, as elsewhere, /anciionams approached with difficulty by 
 the common run of mortals. Almost every village in TJmbria has it.T 
 bishop, so that their importance is hardly greater than that of the cure 
 of a French canton. 
 
 Furthermore, several pontifical documents throw a sombre light oiv 
 Guide's character. In a chapter of the decretals of Honorius III. 
 (Quinta compU., lib. ii., tit. iii., cap. i.) is given a complaint 
 against this bishop, brought before the curia by the Crucigeri of the hos- 
 pital San SaJmatore delle Pareti (suburbs of Assisi), of baving maltreated 
 two of their number, and having stolen a part of the wine belonging to 
 the convent : pro eo quod AegiMum presbyterum, et frairem eorem con- 
 vermm viokntas manua iryecerat . . . a^idem quod idem hoapitalt 
 3 
 
82 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 If the bishop's perplexities were great, those of Fran' 
 cis were hardly less so. He was too acute not to foresee 
 the conflict that threatened to break out between the 
 friars and the clergy.. He saw that the enemies of the 
 priests praised him and his companions beyond measure 
 simply to set off their poverty against the avarice and 
 wealth of the ecclesiastics, yet he felt himself urged on 
 from within to continue his work, and could well have 
 exclaimed with the apostle, " Woe is me if I preach not 
 the gospel ! " On the other hand, the families of the Peni- 
 tents could not forgive them for having distributed their 
 goods among the poor, and attacks came from this direc- 
 tion with all the bitter language and the deep hatred 
 natural to disappointed heirs. From this point of view 
 the brotherhood appeared as a menace to families, and 
 many parents trembled lest their sons should join it. 
 Whether the friars would or no, they were an unending 
 subject of interest to the whole city. Evil rumors, plenti- 
 fully spread abroad against them, simply defeated them- 
 selves ; flying from mouth to mouth they speedily found 
 contradictors who had no difficulty ia showing their 
 absurdity. All this indirectly served their cause and 
 gained to their side those hearts, more numerous than is 
 generally believed, who find the defence of the perse- 
 cuted a necessity. 
 
 As to the clergy, they could not but feel a profound dis- 
 
 guadam vini quantitaie fuerat per eumdem episcopum spoliatum. Honorii 
 opera, Horoy's edition, t. i. , col. 200 ff. Of. Potthast, 7746. The men- 
 tion of the hospital de Pariete proves heyond question that the Bishop 
 of Assisi is here concerned and not the Bishop of Osimo, as some critics 
 have suggested. 
 
 Another document shows him at strife with the Benedictines of Mount 
 Subasio (the very ones who afterward gave Portiunoula to Francis), and 
 Honorius III. found the bishop in the wrong : Bull Oonquerente ceco- 
 nomo inonaaterii ap. Kichter, Corpus juris canonici. Leipzig, 1839, Hio, 
 Horoy, he. eit., t. i., col. 163; Potthaet, 7728. 
 
riEST TEAR OF APOSTOLATE 83 
 
 trust of these lay converters, who, though they aroused tha 
 hatred of some interested persons, awakened in more pious 
 souls first astonishment and then admiration. Suddenly 
 to see men without title or diploma succeed brilliantly in 
 the mission which has been officially confided to our- 
 selves, and in which we have made pitiful shipwreck, is 
 cruel torture. Have we not seen generals who preferred 
 to lose a battle rather than gain it with the aid of guer- 
 riUas? 
 
 This covert opposition has left no characteristic traces 
 in the biographies of St. Francis. It is not to be won- 
 dered at ; Thomas of Celano, even if he had had infor- 
 mation of this matter, would have been wanting in tact 
 to make use of it. The clergy, for that matter, possess a 
 thousand means of working upon public opinion without 
 ceasing to show a religious interest in those whom they 
 detest. 
 
 But the more St. Francis shall find himself in contra-, 
 diction with the clergy of his time, the more he wiU be. 
 lieve himself the obedient son of the Church. Confound- 
 ing the gospel with the teaching of the Church, he wiU 
 for a good while border upon heresy, but without ever 
 falling into it. Happy simplicity, thanks to which he 
 had never to take the attitude of revolt ! 
 
 It was five years since, a convalescent leaning upon 
 his staff, he had felt himself taken possession of by a 
 loathing of material pleasures. From that time every 
 one of his days had been marked by a step in ad- 
 vance. 
 
 It was again the spring-time. Perfectly happy, he 
 felt himself more and more impelled to bring others to 
 share his happiness and to proclaim in the four comers 
 of the world how he had attained it. He resolved, 
 therefore, to undertake a new mission. A few days were 
 spent in preparing for it. The Three Companions have 
 
84 LIFE OP ST. PKANCIS 
 
 preserved for us the directions which he gave to his dis- 
 ciples : 
 
 " Let us consider that God in his goodness has not called us merely for 
 our own salvation, but also for that of many men, that we may go through 
 all the world exhorting men, more by our example than by our words, 
 to repent of their sins and bear the commandments in mind. Be not 
 fearful on the ground that we appear little and ignorant, but simply 
 and without disquietude preach repentance. Have faith in God, who 
 has overcome the world, that his Spirit will speak in you and by you, 
 exhorting men to be converted and keep his commandments. 
 
 You will find men full of faith, gentleness, and goodness, who will 
 receive you and your words with joy ; but you will find others, and in 
 greater numbers, faithless, proud, blasphemers, who will speak evil of 
 you, resisting you and your words. Be resolute, then, to endure every- 
 thing with patience and humility." 
 
 Hearing this, the brethren began to be agitated. St. Francis said 
 to them : " Have no fear, for very soon many nobles and learned men 
 will come to you ; they will be with you preaching to kings and princes 
 and to a multitude of peoples. Many will be converted to the Lord, 
 all over the world, who will multiply and increase his family." 
 
 After he had thus spoken he blessed them, saying to 
 each one the word which was in the future to be his su- 
 preme consolation : 
 
 "My brother, commit yourself to God with all your cares, and he 
 will care for you." 
 
 Then the men of God departed, faithfully observing his instructions, 
 and when they found a church or a cross they 'oowed in adoration, say- 
 ing with devotion, " We adore thee, O Christ, and we bless thee here 
 and in all churches in the whole world, for by thy holy cross thou hast 
 'ransomed the world." In fact they believed that they had found a 
 holy place wherever they found a church or a cross. 
 
 Some listened willingly, others scoffed, the greater number over- 
 whelmed them with questions. " Whence come you ? " " Of what order 
 are yoa ? " And they, though sometimes it was wearisome to answer, 
 said simply, " We are penitents, natives of the city of Assisi." ' 
 
 This freshness and poetry will not be found in the 
 later missions. Here the river is still itself, and if it 
 
 ' 3 Soc, 36 and 37. Of. Arum. Perm, op., A. SS., p. 585 ; Teit. B. 
 
FIRST TEAK OP APOSTOLATE 85 
 
 knows toward what sea it is hastening, it knows nothing 
 of the streams, more or less turbid, which shall disturb 
 its limpidity, nor the dykes and the straightenings to 
 which it will have to submit. 
 
 A long account by the Three Companions gives us a 
 picture from life of these first essays at preaching : 
 
 Many men took the friars for knaves or madmen and refused to receive 
 them into their houses for fear of being robbed. So in many places, 
 after having undergone all sorts of bad usage, they could find no other 
 refuge for the night than the porticos of churches or houses. There 
 were at that time two brethren who went to Florence. They begged all 
 through the city but could find no shelter. Coming to a house which 
 had a portico and under the portico a bench, they said to one another, 
 "We shall be very comfortable here for the night.'' As the mistress 
 of the house refused to let them enter, thev humbly asked her per- 
 mission to sleep upon the bench. 
 
 She was about to grant them permission when her husband appeared. 
 "Why have you permitted these lewd fellows to stay under our por- 
 tico ? " he asked. The woman replied that she had refused to receive 
 them into the house, but had given them permission to sleep under the 
 portico where there was nothing for them to steal but the bench. 
 
 The cold was very sharp ; but taking them for thieves no one gave 
 them any covering. 
 
 As for them, after having enjoyed on their bench no more sleep 
 than was necessary, warmed only by divine warmth, and having for 
 covering only their Lady Poverty, in the early dawn they went to the 
 church to hear mass. 
 
 The lady went also on her part, and seeing the friars devoutly pray- 
 ing she said to herself : "If these men were rascals and thieves as my 
 husband said, they would not remain thus in prayer." And while she 
 was making these reflections behold a man of the name of Guido was 
 giving alms to the poor in the church. Coming to the friars he would 
 have given a piece of money to them as to the others, but they refused 
 his money and wouldnot receive it. " Why," he asked. " since you are 
 poor, will you not accept like the others ?" " It is true that we are poor,'' 
 replied Brother Bernardo, " but poverty does not weigh upon us as upon 
 other poor people ; for by the grace of God, whose will we are accom- 
 plishing, we have voluntarily become poor, " 
 
 Much amazed, he asked them if they had ever had anything, and 
 learned that they had possessed much, but that for the love of God they 
 had given everything away. . - . The lady, seeing that the briars 
 
86 LIFE or ST. FRANCIS 
 
 had refused the alms, drew near to them and said that she would gladlj 
 receive them into her house if they would be pleased to lodge there. 
 " May the Lord recompense to you your good will," replied the friars, 
 humbly. 
 
 But Gruido, learning that they had not been able to find a shelter, 
 took them to his own house, saying, "Here is a refuge prepared for you 
 by the Lord ; remain in it as long as you desire." 
 
 As for them, they gave thanks to God and spent several days with 
 him, preaching the fear of the Lord by word and example, so that in 
 the end he made large distributions to the poor. 
 
 Well treated by him, they were despised by others. Many men, 
 great and small, attacked and insulted them, sometimes going so far as 
 to tear off their clothing ; but though despoiled of their only tunic, they 
 would not ask for its restitution. If, moved to pity, men gave back to 
 them what they had taken away, they accepted it cheerfully. 
 
 There were those who threw mud upon them, others who put dice 
 into their hands and invited them to play, and others clutching them 
 by the cowl made them drag them along thus. But seeing that the 
 friars were always full of joy in the midst of their tribulations, that they 
 neither received nor carried money, and that by their love for one an- 
 other they made themselves known as true disciples of the Lord, many 
 of them felt themselves reproved in their hearts and came asking par- 
 don for the offences which they had committed. They, pardoning 
 them with all their heart, said, " The Lord forgive you," and gave them 
 pious Qounsels for the salvation of their souls. 
 
 A translation can but imperfectly give all the repressed 
 emotion, the candid simplicity, the modest joy, the fer- 
 Tent love which breathe in the faulty Latin of the Three 
 Companions. Yet these scattered friars sighed after the 
 home-coming and the long conversations vsdth their spir- 
 itual father in the tranquil forests of the suburbs of 
 Assisi. Friendship among men, when it overpasses a 
 certain limit, has something deep, high, ideal, infinitely 
 sweet, to which no other friendship attains. There 
 was no woman in the Upper Chamber when, on the last 
 evening of his life, Jesus communed with his disci- 
 ples and invited the world to the eternal marriage 
 supper. 
 
 Francis, above all, :jvas impatient to see his young 
 
FIE8T TEAK OP APOSTOLATE 87 
 
 family once more. They all arrived at Portitmcula al- 
 most at the same time, having already, before reaching it, 
 forgotten the torments they had endured, thinking only 
 of the joy of the meeting.^ 
 
 >SSoc., 38-41- 
 
CHAPTEE YI 
 
 ST. FRANCIS AND INNOCENT in 
 Summer 1310 ' 
 
 Seeing the mimber of his friars daily increasing, Fran- 
 cis decided to write the Eule of the Order and go to 
 Borne to procure its approval by the Pope. 
 
 This resolution was not lightly taken. It would be a 
 mistake in fact to take Francis for one of those in- 
 spired ones who rush into action upon the strength 
 of unexpected revelations, and, thanks to their faith 
 
 ' The date usually fixed for the approval of the Rule by Innocent III. 
 is the month of August, 1209. The BoUandists had thought themselves 
 able to infer it from the account where Thomas of Celano (1 Cel. , 43) 
 refers to the passage through TJmbria of the Emperor Otho IV. , on his 
 way to be crowned at Rome (October 4, 1309). Upon this journey see 
 Bohmer-Ficker, Begesta Imperii. Dei Begesien des KaiseiTeicTis unter Phi- 
 Upp, Otto IV., etc., Insbruck, 1879, 4to, pp. 96 and 97. As this account 
 follows that of the approval, they conclude that the latter was earlier. 
 But Thomas of Celano puts this account there because the context led 
 np to it, and not in order to fix its date. Everything leads to the belief 
 that the Brothers retired {recolUgebat, 1 Cel. , 42) to Rivo-Torto before and 
 after their journey to Rome. Besides, the time between April 33d and 
 the middle of August, 1209, is much too short for all that the biographers 
 tell us about the life of the Brothers before their visit to Innocent III. 
 The mission to Florence took place in winter, or at least in a very cold 
 month. But the decisive argument is that Innocent III. quitted Rome 
 toward the end of May, 1309, and went to Viterbo, returning only to 
 crown Otho, October 4th (Potthast, 3727-3803). It is therefore absolute- 
 ly necessary to postpone to the summer of 1210 the visit of the Penitenti 
 to the pope. This is also the date which Wadding arrtvea at. 
 
ST. FEANOIS AKD INNOCENT III 89 
 
 in their own infallibility, overawe the multitude. On 
 the contrary, he was filled with a real humility, and if 
 he believed that God reveals himself in prayer, he never 
 for that absolved himself from the duty of reflection nor 
 even from reconsidering his decisions. St. Bonaventura 
 does him great wrong in picturing the greater number of 
 his important resolutions as taken in consequence of 
 dreams ; this is to rob his life of its profound originality, 
 his sanctity of its choicest blossom. He was of those 
 who struggle, and, to use one of. the noblest expressions 
 of the Bible, of those who hy their perseverance conqtier 
 their souls. Thus we shall see him continually retouch- 
 ing the Bule of his institute, unceasingly revising it down 
 to the last moment, according as the growiii cf the Order 
 and experience of the human heart suggested to him 
 modifications of it. ' 
 
 The first Eule which he submitted to Eome has not 
 come down to us ; we only know that it was extremely 
 simple, and composed especially of passages from the 
 Gospels. It was doubtless only the repetition of those 
 verses which Francis had read to his first companions, 
 with a few precepts about manual labor and the occupa- 
 tions of the new brethren.* 
 
 '3SOC..35. 
 
 ' 1 Cel., 33 ; 3 Soc, 51 ; Bon., 34. Cf. Test. B. Fr. M. K. Miiller 
 of Halle, in his Anfange, has made a very remarkable study of the 
 Rule of 1221, whence he deduces an earlier Rule, which he believes to 
 be that of 1309 (1210). For once I find myself entirely in accord with 
 him, except that the Rule thus reconstructed (Vide Anfange, pp. 14-35, 
 184-188) appears to me to be not that of 1310, which was very short, but 
 another, drawn up between 1310 and 1221. The pluresregulas fedt of 
 fhe 3 Soc, 35, authorizes us to believe that he made perhaps as many as 
 
 four 1st, 1310, very short, containing little more than the three passages 
 
 of the vocation ; 2d, 1317 (?), substantially that proposed by M. Mul- 
 ler ; 3d, 1331, that of which we shall speak at length farther on ; 4th, 
 1326, the Will, which if not a Rule is at least an appendix to the Rule. 
 If from 1331-1336 he had time to make two Roles and the Will, as is 
 
90 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 It will be well to pause here and consider the brethren 
 who are about to set out for Eome. The biographies are 
 in agreement as to their number ; they were twelve, in- 
 cluding Francis ; but the moment they undertake to give 
 a name to each one of them difficulties begin to arise, and 
 it is only by some exegetical sleight of hand that they 
 can claim to have reconciled the various documents. 
 The table given below ^ briefly shows these difficulties. 
 The question took on some importance when in the four- 
 teenth century men undertook to show an exact conform- 
 ity between the life of St. Francis and that of Jesus. It 
 is without interest to us. The profiles of two or three 
 of these brethren stand out very clearly in the picture of 
 the origins of the Order ; others remind one of the pict- 
 
 universally admitted, there is nothing surprising in his having made 
 %o from 1210-1231. Perhaps we have a fragment of that of 1217 in 
 the regulation of hermitages. Vide below, p. 109. 
 
 ' Thomas of Celano's list. 1, Quidam pium gerena animum ; 3, Ber- 
 na/rdua; 3, Vir alter; 4, ^gidius ; 5, Unus alivs appositua; 6, 
 Philtppus ; 7, Alius bonus vir ; 8, 9, 10, 11, Quatiu/r boni et idond mri. 
 1 Gel., 24, 25, 29, 31. The Binaldi-Amoni text says nothing of the last 
 four. Three Companions: 1, Bemardus ; 2, Petrus ; Z, JEgidius ; 4, 
 Sabbatinus; 5, Mbritus; Johannes CapeBM ; 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, Disciples re- 
 ceived by the brethren in their missions. 3 Soo., 88, 35, 41,46, 52. Bon- 
 aventura : 1, JSflrraartiMs ; 3, . . . Z, ^gidiiLS ; A:, ^, . . 6,Sikestro; 
 7, Aliusbomismri ; 8, 9, 10, 11, Quatuor mri honesti. Bon., 28, 39, 80, 
 31, 83. The Fioretti, while insisting on the importance of the twelve 
 Franciscan apostles, cite only six in their list : Giovanni di Capella, £gidio> 
 Philip, Silvestro, Bernardo, and Bufino. Mor. , 1. We must go to the 
 Conformities to find the traditional list, f ° 46b 1:1, Bernardus de Quin- 
 tavaZle; 3, Petrus Ohatanii; 8, Egidius; 4, Sabatinus; 5, Moricus; 6, 
 Johannes de CapMa ; 7, Philippus Longus ; 8, Johannes de Saneto Oon- 
 itantio ; 9, Barbcarws ; 10, Bernwdus de Oleviridante (sic) ; 11, Angelus 
 Tancredi; 13, Sylvester. As will be seen, in the last two documents 
 twelve disciples are in question, while in the preceding ones there are 
 only eleven. This is enough to show a dogmatic purpose. This list 
 reappears exactly in the Speculum, with the sole difEereuce that Fran- 
 cis being there included Angelo di Tanorede is the twelfth brother and 
 Silvestro disappears. Spec, 87a. 
 
ST. FBANCIS AND INNOCENT III 91 
 
 ures of primitiTe Umbrian masters, where the figures of 
 the background have a modest and tender grace, but no 
 shadow of personality. The first Franciscans had all the 
 virtues, including the one which is nearly always wanting, 
 willingness to remain unknown. 
 
 In the Lower Church of Assisi there is an ancient fres- 
 co representing five of the companions of St. Francis. 
 Above them is a Madonna by Cimabue, upon which they 
 are gaziag with all their soul. It would be more true if 
 St. Francis were there in the place of the Madonna ; one 
 is always changed into the image of what one admires, 
 and they resemble their master and one another.' To 
 attempt to give them a name is to make a sort of psycho- 
 logical error and become guilty of infidelity to their 
 memory ; the only name they would have desired is that 
 of their father. His love changed their hearts and shed 
 over their whole persons a radiance of light and joy. 
 These are the true personages of the Fioretti, the men 
 who brought peace to cities, awakened consciences, 
 changed hearts, conversed with birds, tamed wolves. 
 Of them one may truly say: "Having nothing, yet 
 possessing all things " {Nihil hahentes, omnia possidentes). 
 
 They quitted Portiuncula full of joy and confidence. 
 Francis was too much absorbed in thought not to desire 
 to place in other hands the direction of the little com- 
 pany. 
 
 " Let us choose," he said, "one from among ourselves to guide us, 
 and let him be to us as the vicar of Jesus Christ. Wherever it may 
 please him to go we will go, and when he may wish to stop anywhere 
 to sleep there we will stop." They chose Brother Bernardo and did as 
 Francis had said. They went on full of joy, and all their conversations 
 had for their object only the glory of God and the salvation of their 
 souls. 
 
 ' According to tradition, the five a/mpagni del Santo buried there be- 
 side their master are Bernardo, Silvestro, William (an Englishman), 
 Kletto, and Valentino (?) 
 
S3 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 Their journey was happily accomplished. Everywhere they found 
 kindly souls who sheltered them, and they felt beyond a doubt that God 
 was taking care of them.' 
 
 Francis's thoughts were all fixed upon the purpose of 
 their journey ; he thought of it day and night, and natu- 
 rally interpreted his dreams with reference to it. One 
 time, in his dream, he saw himself walking along a road 
 beside which was a gigantic and wonderfully beautiful 
 tree. And, behold, while he looked upon it, filled with 
 wonder, he felt himself become so tall that he could 
 touch the boughs, and at the same time the tree bent 
 down its branches to him.^ He awoke full of joy, sure 
 of a gracious reception by the sovereign pontiff. 
 
 His hopes were to be somewhat blighted. Innocent 
 III. had now for twelve years occupied the throne of St. 
 Peter. Still young, energetic, resolute, he enjoyed that 
 superfluity of authority given by success. Coming after 
 the feeble Celestine III., he had been able in a few years 
 to reconquer the temporal domain of the Church, and so to 
 improve the papal influence as almost to realize the theo- 
 cratic dreams of Gregory VII. He had seen King Pedro 
 of Aragon declaring himself his vassal and laying his 
 crown upon the tomb of the apostles, that he might take 
 it back at his hands. At the other end of Europe, John 
 Lackland had been obliged to receive his crown from a 
 legate after having sworn homage, fealty, and an annual 
 tribute to the Holy See. Preaching union to the cities 
 and republics of Italy, causing the cry Italia ! Italia ! 
 to resound like the shout of a trumpet, he was the natural 
 representative of the national awakening, and appeared to 
 be in some sort the suzerain of the emperor, as he was 
 already that of other kings. Finally, by his efforts to 
 purify the Church, by his indomitable firmness in defend- 
 
 ' 3 Soc, 46 ; 1 Cel., 32 ; Bon., 34. 
 ' 1 Cel., 33 ; 3 Soc, 53 ; Bon., 35. 
 
ST. PEANCIS AND INNOCENT III 93 
 
 ing morality and law in the affair of Ingelburge and in 
 many others, he was gaining a moral strength which in 
 times so disquieted was all the more powerful for being 
 so rare. 
 
 But this incomparable power had its hidden dangers. 
 Occupied with defending the prerogatives of the Holy 
 See, Innocent came to forget that the Church does not 
 exist for herself, that her supremacy is only a transitory 
 means ; and one part of his pontificate may be likened 
 ;o wars, legitimate in the beginning, in which the conque- 
 ror keeps on with depredations and massacres for no 
 reason, except that he is intoxicated with blood and suc- 
 cess. 
 
 And so Eome, which canonized the petty Celestine V., 
 refused this supreme consecration to the glorious Inno- 
 cent III. With exquisite tact she perceived that he was 
 rather king than priest, rather pope than saint. 
 
 When he suppressed ecclesiastical disorders it was less 
 for love of good than for hatred of evil ; it was the judge 
 who condemns or threatens, himself always supported 
 by the law, not the father who weeps his son's offence. 
 This priest did not comprehend the great movement of 
 his age — the awakening of love, of poetry, of liberty. I 
 have already said that at the opening of the thirteenth 
 century the Middle Age was twenty years old. Innocent 
 TTT . undertook to treat it as if it were only fifteen. Pos- 
 sessed by his civil and religious dogmas as others are by 
 their educational doctrines, he never suspected the un- 
 satisfied longings, the dreams, unreasoning perhaps, but 
 beneficent and divine, that were dumbly stirring in the 
 depths of men's hearts. He was a believer, although 
 certain sayings of the historians ' open the door to some 
 
 ' St. Ludgarde (1182-1246) sees him condemned to Purgatory till the 
 Last Judgment. Life of this saint by Thomas of Catimpre in Suriua: 
 ViUB SS. (1618), vi., 215-336. 
 
94 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 doubts on this point, but he drew his religion rather from 
 the Old Testament than from the New, and if he often 
 thought of Moses, the leader of his people, nothing re- 
 minded him of Jesus, the shepherd of souls. One cannot 
 be everything ; a choice intelligence, an iron will ^ are 
 a sufficient portion even for a priest-god ; he lacked love. 
 The death of this pontiff, great among the great ones, 
 was destined to be saluted with songs of joy.^ 
 
 His reception of Francis furnished to Giotto, the 
 friend of Dante, one of his most striking frescos ; the 
 pope, seated on his throne, turns abruptly toward Francis. 
 He frowns, for he does not understand, and yet he feels 
 a strange power in this mean and despised man, vilis et 
 despectus ; he makes a real but futile effort to compre- 
 hend, and now I see in this pope, who lived upon lemons,^ 
 something that recalls another choice mind, theocratic 
 like his own, sacrificed like him to his work : Calvin. 
 One might think that the painter had touched his lips to 
 the Calabrian Seer's cup, and that in the attitude of these 
 two men he sought to symbolize a meeting of represent- 
 atives of the two ages of humanity, that of Law and that 
 of Love.^ 
 
 A surprise awaited the pilgrims on their arrival in 
 
 ' Vir dari ingenii, magnm proUtaiis et aapkntim, cm nullus secundus 
 tempore %uo : Rigordus, de gestis PhUvppi AugvMi In Duchesne. His- 
 torim Francorum scriptores eomianei, t. v., p. 60. — Ifee similem sui 
 seientta, facundia, deeretorum et legwm peritiiiti, strenuitate, judiciorum, 
 neo ndJive visus est habere seguentem. Of. Mencken, Script, rer. Sax., 
 Leipzig, 1738, t. iii. , p. 252. Innocentius, qui vere stupor mundi erat 
 et immutator sceculi. Cotton, Hist. Anglicana., Luard, 1859, p. 107. 
 
 ' Oujus finis ketitiem potius quam tristitiam generamit suigeciis. Al- 
 beric delle Tre Fontane. Leibnitz, Accessiones Mstoriem, t. ii., p. 493. 
 
 3 Decidit in aeutam (febrem) quam cum multis diebus fovisset nee a 
 citris quibus in magna qua/ntitatm et ex consuetudine vesoebatur . . . 
 minime ahstineret . . . ad ultimum in lethargia prolapsus vitam 
 ftnimt. Alberic delle Tre Fontane, loe. cit. 
 
 * Fresco In the great nave of the Upper Church of Asslsi. 
 
ST. FRANCIS AND INNOCENT III 90 
 
 Rome : they met the Bishop of Assisi,' quite as much to 
 his astonishment as to their own. This detail is precious 
 because it proves that Francis had not confided his plans 
 to Guido. Notwithstanding this the bishop, it is said, 
 offered to make interest for them with the princes of the 
 Church. We may suspect that his commendations were 
 not very warm. At all events they did not avail to save 
 Francis and his company either from a searching inquiry 
 or from the extended fatherly counsels of Cardinal Gio- 
 vanni di San Paolo ^ upon the difficulties of the Eule, 
 counsels which strongly resemble those of Guido himself.^ 
 What Francis asked for was simple enough ; he claimed 
 no privilege of any sort, but only that the pope would 
 approve of his undertaking to lead a life of absolute con- 
 formity to the precepts of the gospel. There is a deli- 
 cate point here which it is quite worth while to see 
 clearly. The pope was not called upon to approve the 
 Eule, since that came from Jesus himself; at the very 
 worst all that he could do would be to lay an ecclesiasti- 
 
 •lCel.,3S; 3 Soc, 47. 
 
 ' Of the Colonna family ; he died in 1316. Cf. 3 Soc, 61. Vide Cardella, 
 Memorie storiclie de' Cardinali, 9 vols., 8vo, Rome, 1793 ff., t. i., p. 177. 
 He was at Rome in the summer of 1310, for on the 11th of August he 
 countersigned the bull Mdic/iosem vitam. Potthast, 4061. Angelo Clareno 
 relates the approbation with more precision in certain respects : Oum 
 vera Summo Pontijud ea guas postulabai [Praneiscus] ardua vcUde et quasi 
 impossibilia tnderentur infirmiiate hominum sui temporis, exJwrtabatur 
 eum, quod aUquem ordinem ml regulam de approbatis assumeret, at ipse 
 se a Ohristo missum ad talem vitam et non aliam poslulandam constanter 
 affirmans, fixus in sua petiiione permansit. Tunc dominus Johannes de 
 7ancto Paulo episeopus Sabinensis et dominus Hugo episcopus Hostiensis 
 Dei spiritu moti assisierunt Sancto Francisco et pro his gum petebat coram, 
 summo Pontifice et Cardinalibus plura proposuerunt rationabUia et effica- 
 eia valde. Tribul. Laurentinian MS., f" 6a. This intervention of 
 Ugolini is mentioned in no other document. It is, however, by no 
 means impossible. He also was in Rome in the summer of 1310. (Vide 
 Potthast, p. 463.) 
 
 3 1 Cel., 33 and 33 ; 3 Soc, 47 and ^. Cf. .471. Per., A. SS.. p. 590. 
 
96 LIFE OP ST. FRANCIS 
 
 cal censure upon Francis and his companions for haTing 
 acted withont authority, and to enjoin them to leave to 
 the secular and regular clergy the task of reforming the 
 Church. 
 
 Cardinal Giovanni di San Paolo, to whom the Bishop 
 of Assisi presented them, had informed himself of the 
 whole history of the Penitents. He lavished upon them 
 the most affectionate tokens of interest, even going so far 
 as to beg for a mention in their prayers. But such as- 
 surances, which appear to have been always the small 
 change of the court of Eome, did not prevent his examin- 
 ing them for several successive days,' and putting to them 
 an infinite number of questions, of which the conclusion 
 was always the advice to enter some Order already exist- 
 ing. 
 
 To this the unlucky Francis would reply as best he 
 could, often not without embarrassment, for he had no 
 wish to appear to think lightly of the cardinal's counsels, 
 and yet he felt in his heart the imperious desire to obey 
 his vocation. The prelate would then return to the 
 charge, insinuating that they would find it very hard to 
 persevere, that the enthusiasm of the early days would 
 pass away, and again pointing out a more easy course. 
 He was obliged in the end to own himself vanquished. 
 The persistence of Francis, who had never weakened for 
 an instant nor doubted his mission, begat in him a sort 
 of awe, while the perfect humility of the Penitents and 
 their simple and striking fidelity to the Roman Church 
 reassured him in the matter of heresy. 
 
 He announced to them, therefore, that he would speak 
 of them to the pope, and would act as their advocate with 
 him. According to the Three Companions he said to the 
 pope: "I have found a man of the highest perfection, 
 who desires to live in conformity with the Holy Gospel 
 ' 1 Cel., 33. 
 
ST. PKANOIS AND INNOCENT III 97 
 
 and observe evangelical perfection in all things. I be- 
 lieve that by Mm the Lord intends to reform the faith of 
 the Holy Church throughout the whole world." ' 
 
 On the morrow he presented Francis and his compan- 
 ions to Innocent III. Naturally, the pope was not spar- 
 ing of expressions of sympathy, but he also repeated to 
 them the remarks and counsels which they had already 
 heard so often. " My dear children," he said, " your life 
 appears to me too severe ; I see indeed that your 
 fervor is too great for any doubt of you to be possible, 
 but I ought to consider those who shall come after you, 
 lest your mode of life should be beyond their strength."^ 
 
 Adding a few kind words, he dismissed them without 
 coming to any definite conclusion, promising to consult the 
 cardinals, and advising Francis in particular to address 
 himself to God, to the end that he might manifest his wiU. 
 
 ' 3 Soc, 48. 
 
 ' 3 Soc, 49 ; 1 Cel., 38; Bon., 35 and 36. All this has been much 
 worked over by tradition and gives us only an echo of the reality. It 
 would certainly have needed very little for the Penitents to meet the 
 same fate before Innocent III. as the Waldenses before Lucius III. Traces 
 of this interview are found in two texts which appear to me to be too 
 suspicious to warrant their insertion in the body of the narrative. The 
 first is a fragment of Matthew Paris : Papa itaqiie in fral/re memorato 
 haiitum deformem, vultum despieabUem, harbam prolmt/m, capUlos in 
 cultos, superdlia pendentia et nigra dUigenter considerans ; cum peti- 
 iionem ^us tarn arduam et executione vmpossibUem reoitare fecisset, des- 
 pexit cum et dixit : Vade frater, et qumre poreu), quibus potius debes 
 guam Tiominibus comparari, et inwhe te cum eis in mlutabro, et regulam 
 iUit a te commentatam tradena, offieium tuce prmdicationis impende. 
 Q;uod audiens FVanoiscus indinato capite eximt et porcia tandem inventis, 
 in luto se cum eis tamdiu in/colvit quousque a planta pedis usque ad 
 verticem, corpus suum totum cum ipso habitu poUuisset. Bicque ad conns- 
 torium revertens Popes se conspeetibus prcesentavit dicens: Vomine feet 
 stent prmcepisti exaudi nunc dbsecro petitionem meam. Ed. Wats, p. 340, 
 The incident has a real Franciscan color, and should have some historic 
 basis. Curiously, it in some sort meets a passage in the legend of 
 Bonaventura which is an interpolation of the end at the thirteenth 
 century. See A. SS., p. 591. 
 
98 LIFE OF ST. FEANOIS 
 
 Francis's anxiety must have been great ; lie could not 
 understand these dilatory measures, these expressions of 
 affection which never led to a categorical approbation. 
 It seemed to him that he had said all that he had to say. 
 For new arguments he had only one resource — prayer. 
 
 He felt his prayer answered when in his conversation 
 with Jesus the parable of poverty came to him ; he re- 
 turned to lay it before the pope. 
 
 There was in the desert a woman who was very poor, but beautiful. 
 A great king, seeing her beauty, desired to take her for his wife, for he 
 thought that by her he should have beautiful children. The marriage 
 contracted and consummated, many sons were born to him. Wlien they 
 were grown up, their mother spoke to them thus : " My sons, you have 
 no cause to blush, for you are the sons of the king ; go, therefore, to his 
 wurt, and he will give you everything you need." 
 
 When they arrived at the court the king admired their beauty, anl 
 finding in them his own likeness he asked, "Whose sons are you? 
 And when they replied that they were the sons of a poor woman who 
 lived in the desert, the king clasped them to his heart with joy, saying 
 " Have no fear, for you are my sons ; if strangers eat at my table, much 
 more shall you who are my lawful sons." Then the king sent word tc 
 the woman to send to his court all the sons which she had borne, that 
 they might be nourished there. 
 
 "Very holy father," added Francis, " I am this poor woman whom 
 God in his love has deigned to make beautiful, and of whom he has been 
 pleased to have lawful sons. The King of Kings has told me that he 
 will provide for all the sons which he may have of me, for if he sus- 
 tains bastards, how much more his legitimate sous." ' 
 
 ' 3 Soc, 50 and 51; Bon., 37 ; 3 Cel., 1, 11 ; Bernard de Besse, 
 Turin MS., f" 101b. TTbertini di Casali (Arbor vitce crucifiecB, Venice, 
 1485, lib. v., cap. iii.) tells a curious story in which he depicts the in- 
 dignation of the prelates against Francis. Quwnam hoc est doctrina nova 
 quam infers auribus nostris ? Quis potest mvere sine temporalium posses- 
 stone ? Numquid tu inelior es quam patres nostri qui dederunt nobis tern- 
 poralia et in temporalibus aJmndantes ecdesias possiderunt f Then follows 
 the fine prayer inserted by Wadding in Francis's works. The central 
 idea is the same as in the parable of poverty. This story, though not 
 referable to any source, has nevertheless its importance, since it shows 
 how in the year 1300 a man who had all the documents before his eyes, 
 represented to himself Francis's early steps. 
 
ST. FEANCIS AND INNOCENT III 99 
 
 So much, simplicity, joined with such pious obstinacy, 
 at last conquered Innocent. In the humble mendicant 
 he perceived an apostle and prophet whose mouth no 
 power could close. Successor of St. Peter and vicar 
 of Jesus Christ that he felt himself, he saw in the mean 
 and despised man before him one who with the authority 
 of absolute faith proclaimed himself the root of a new 
 lineage of most legitimate Christians. 
 
 The biographers have held that by this parable Francis 
 sought above all things to tranquillize the pope as to the 
 future of the brethren; they find in it a reply to the 
 anxieties of the pontiff, who feared to see them starve to 
 death. There can be no doubt that its original meaning 
 was totally different. It shows that with all his humility 
 Franicis knew how to speak out boldly, and that all his 
 respect for the Church could not hinder his seeing, and, 
 when necessary, saying, that he and his brethren were 
 the lawful sons of the gospel, of which the members of 
 the clergy were only extrcmei. We shall find in the 
 course of his life more than one example of this indom- 
 itable boldness, which disarmed Innocent HI. as well as 
 the future Gregory IX. 
 
 In a consistory which doubtless was held between the 
 two audiences some of the cardinals expressed the opin- 
 ion that the initiative of the Penitents of Assisi was an 
 innovation, and that their mode of life was entirely be- 
 yond human power. " But," replied Giovanni di San 
 Paolo, "if we hold that to observe gospel perfection 
 and make profession of it is an irrational and impos- 
 sible innovation, are we not convicted of blasphemy 
 against Christ, the author of the gospel ? " * 
 
 These words struck Innocent III. with great force ; he 
 knew better than any one that the possessions of the ec- 
 clesiastics were the great obstacles to the reform of the 
 1 Bon., 36. 
 
100 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 Church, and that the threatened success of the Albigen- 
 sian heresy was especially due to the fact that it preached 
 the doctrine of poverty. 
 
 Two years before he had accorded his approbation to 
 a group of Waldensians, who under the name Poor Cath- 
 olics had desired to remain faithful to the Church ; ' he 
 therefore gave his approval to the Penitents of Assisi, but, 
 as a contemporary chronicler has well observed, it was in 
 the hope that they would wrest the banner from heresy .^ 
 
 Yet his doubts and hesitations were not entirely dis- 
 sipated. He reserved his definitive approbation, there- 
 fore, while lavishing upon the brothers the most affec- 
 tionate tokens of interest. He authorized them to con- 
 tinue their missions everywhere, after having gained the 
 consent of their ordinaries. He required, however, that 
 they should give themselves a responsible superior to 
 whom the ecclesiastical authorities could always address 
 themselves. Naturally, Francis was chosen.^ This fact, 
 so humble in appearance, definitively constituted the 
 Franciscan family. 
 
 ' The attempt of Durand of Huesca to create a mendicant order has 
 not yet been studied with sufficient minuteness. Chief of the Wal- 
 denses of Aragon, he was present in 1207 at the conference of Pamiers, 
 and decided to return to t)ie Church. Received with kindness by the 
 pope he at first had a great success, and by 1309 had established com- 
 munities in Aragon, at Carcassonne, Narbonne, Beziers, Nimes, Uz6s, 
 Milan. We find in this movement all the lineaments of the institute 
 of St. Dominic ; it was an order of priests to whom theological stud- 
 ies were recommended. They disappeared almost completely in the 
 storm of the Albigensian crusade. Innocent III., epiatolm, xi., 196, 
 197, 198, ; xii., 17, 66 ; xiii., 63, 77, 78, 94 ; xv., 82, 83, 90, 91, 92, 93, 
 94, 96, 137, 146. The first of these bulls contains the very curious Rule 
 of this ephemeral order Upon its disappearance vide Ripoli, BvMarium 
 PrcBdicatorum,,% vols., folio, Rome, 1729-1740, t. i., p. 96. Cf . Elia 
 Berger, Registres d' Innocent IV., 2752. 
 
 * Burohard, of the order of the Premostrari, who died in 1226. Sea 
 below, p. 834. 
 
 »3Soo., 53; Bon., 38. 
 
ST. FRANCIS AND INNOCENT III 101 
 
 The mystics whom we saw going from village to vil- 
 lage transported with love and liberty accepted the yoke 
 almost without thinking about it. This yoke will pre- 
 serve them from the disintegration of the heretics, but it 
 will make itself sharply felt by those pure souls ; they 
 will one day look back to the early days of the Order as 
 the only time when their life was truly conformed to the 
 gospel. 
 
 When Francis heard the words of the supreme pontiff 
 he prostrated himseK at his feet, promising the most 
 perfect obedience with all his heart. The pope blessed 
 them, saying : " Go, my brethren, and may God be with 
 you. Preach penitence to everyone according as the 
 Lord may deign to inspire you. Then when the All- 
 powerful shall have made you multiply and go forward, 
 you will refer to us ; we will concede what you ask, and 
 we may then with greater security accord to you even 
 more than you ask." ^ 
 
 Francis and his companions were too little familiar 
 with Koman phraseology to perceive that after aU. the 
 Holy See had simply consented to suspend judgment in 
 view of the uprightness of their intentions and the purity 
 of their faith.^ 
 
 The flowers of clerical rhetoric hid from them the 
 shackles which had been laid upon them. The curia, in 
 fact, was not satisfied with Francis's vow of fidelity, it 
 desired in addition to stamp the Penitents with the seal 
 of the Church : the Cardinal of San Paolo was deputed to 
 confer upon them the tonsure. From this time they were 
 all under the spiritual authority of the Eoman Church. 
 
 '3Soo., 53 and 49. 
 
 'St. Antonino, Archbishop of Florence, saw very clearly that it was 
 qucBdam concessio simplex habiius et modi illius vivendi et quasi permissio. 
 A. SS., p. 839. The expression ' ' approbation of the Rule " by which 
 the act of Innocent III. is usually designated is therefore erroneous. 
 
102 LIFE OP ST. FRANCIS 
 
 The thoroughly lay creation of St. Francis had become, 
 in spite of himself, an ecclesiastical institution : it must 
 soon degenerate into a clerical institution. All un- 
 awares, the Franciscan movement had been unfaithful to 
 its origin. The prophet had abdicated in favor of the 
 priest, not indeed without possibility of return, for when 
 a man has once reigned, I would say, thought, in liberty — 
 what other kingdom is there on this earth ? — he makes 
 but an indifferent slave ; in vain he tries to submit ; in 
 spite of himself it happens at times that he lifts his 
 head proudly, he rattles his chains, he remembers the 
 struggles, sadness, anguish of the days of liberty, and 
 weeps their loss. Among the sons of St. Francis many 
 were destined to weep their lost liberty, many to die to 
 conquer it again. 
 
CHAPTEE Vn 
 
 KIVO-TOETO 
 1210-1211 
 
 The Penitents of Assisi were overflowing with joy. 
 After so many mortally long days spent in that Eome, 
 so different from the other cities that they knew, exposed 
 to the ill-disguised suspicions of the prelates and the 
 jeers of pontifical lackeys, the day of departure seemed 
 to them like a deliverance. At the thought of once more 
 seeing their beloved mountains they were seized by that 
 homesickness of the child for its native village which sim- 
 ple and kindly souls preserve till their latest breath. 
 
 Immediately after the ceremony they prayed at the 
 tomb of St, Peter, and then crossing the whole city they 
 quitted Borne by the Porta Salara. 
 
 Thomas of Celano, very brief as to all that concerns 
 Francis's sojourn in the Eternal City, recounts at full 
 /length the light-heartedness of the little band on quitting 
 it. Already it began to be transfigured in their memory ; 
 pains, fatigues, fears, disquietude, hesitations were all 
 forgotten ; they thought only of the fatherly assurances 
 of the supreme pontiff — the vicar of Christ, the lord and 
 father of the Christian universe — and promised them- 
 selves to make ever new efforts to follow the Eule with 
 fidelity. 
 
 Full of these thoughts they had set out, without pro- 
 visions, to cross the Campagna of Eome, whose few inhab- 
 itants never venture out in the heat of the day. The 
 
104 LIFE OF ST. FEANCIS 
 
 road stretches away northward, keeping at some distance 
 from the Tiber ; on the left the jagged crest of Soracte, 
 bathed in mists formed by the exhalations of the earth, 
 looms up disproportionately as it fades in the distance ; on 
 the right, the everlasting undulations of the hillocks with 
 their wide pastures separated by thickets so parched and 
 ragged that they seemed to cry for mercy and pardon. 
 Between them the dusty road which goes straight forward, 
 implacable, showing, as far as the eye can reach, nothing 
 but the quivering of the fiery air. Not a house, not a 
 tree, not a passing breeze, nothing to sustain the traveller 
 under the disquietude which creeps over him. Here and 
 there are a few abandoned huts, their ruins looking 
 like the corpses of departed civilizations, and on the edge 
 of the horizon the hills rising up like gigantic and un- 
 surmountable walls. 
 
 There are no words to describe the physical and moral 
 sufferings to which he is exposed who undertakes without 
 proper preparation to cross this inhospitable district. 
 To the weakness caused by lack of air soon succeeds an 
 insurmountable lassitude. The feet sink in a soft, tenu- 
 ous dust which every step sends up in clouds ; it covers 
 you, penetrates your skin, and parches your mouth even 
 more than thirst. Little by little all energy ebbs away, 
 a dumb dejection seizes you, sight and thought become 
 alike confused, fever ensues, and you cast yourself down 
 by the roadside, unable to take another step. 
 
 In their haste to leave Eome Francis and his compan- 
 ions had forgotten all this, and had imprudently set forth. 
 They would have succumbed if a chance traveller had 
 not brought them succor. He was obliged to leave them 
 before they had shaken off the last hallucinations of fe- 
 ver, leaving them amazed with the unexpected succor 
 which Providence had sent them.^ 
 
 > 1 Cel., 34 ; 3 Soc., 63 ; 3oii.. 39. 
 
EIVO-TOETO 105 
 
 They were so severely shattered that on arriying at Orte 
 they were obliged to stop awhile. In a desert spot not 
 far from this city they found a shelter admirably adapted 
 to serve them for refuge ; ' it was one of those Etruscan 
 tombs so common in that country, whose chambers serve 
 to this day as a shelter for beggars and gypsies. While 
 some of the brethren hastened to the city to beg for food, 
 the others remained in this solitude enjoying the happi- 
 ness of being together, forming a thousand plans, and 
 more than ever delighting in the charm of freedom from 
 care and renunciation of material goods. 
 
 This place had so strong an attraction for them that it 
 required an effort of will to quit it at the end of a fort- 
 night. The seduction of a life purely contemplative as- 
 sailed Francis, and he asked himself if instead of preach- 
 ing to the multitudes he would not do better to live in 
 retreat, solely mindful of the inward dialogue between 
 the soul and God.^ 
 
 This aspiration for the selfish repose of the cloister 
 came back to him several times in his life ; but love al- 
 ways won the victory. He was too much the child of his 
 time not to be at times tempted by that happiness which 
 the Middle Ages regarded as the supreme bliss of the 
 elect in paradise — peace. Beati mortui quia quiescunt I 
 His distinguishing peculiarity is that he never gave way 
 to it. 
 
 The reflections of Francis and his companions during 
 their stay at Orte only made their apostolic mission 
 more clear and imperative to them. He, above all, seemed 
 to be filled with a new ardor, and like a valiant knight 
 he burned to throw himself into the thick of the fray. 
 
 ' Probably at Otricoli, which lies on the high-road between Borne and 
 Spoleto. Orte is an hour and a half further on. It is the ancient Otrio 
 •alum, where many antiquities have been found. 
 
 ' 1 CeL, 35 ; Bon., 40 and 41. 
 
106 LIFE OP ST. FRANCIS 
 
 Their way now led through the valley of the Nera. 
 The contrast between these cool glens, awake with a 
 thousand voices, and the desolation of the Eioman 0am- 
 pagna, must have struck them vividly ; the stream is only 
 a swollen torrent, but it runs so noisily over pebbles and 
 rocks that it seems to be conversing with them and with 
 the trees of the neighboring forest. In proportion as they 
 had felt themselves alone on the road from Eome to 
 Otricoli, they now felt themselves compassed about with 
 the life, the fecundity, the gayety of the country. 
 
 The account of Thomas of Celano becomes so ani- 
 mated as it describes the life of Francis at this epoch 
 that one cannot help thinking that at this time he must 
 have seen him, and that this first meeting remained al- 
 ways in his memory as the radiant dawn of his spiritual 
 life.' 
 
 The Brothers had taken to preaching in such places 
 as they came upon alcing their route. Their words were 
 always pretty much the same, they showed the blessed- 
 ness of peace and exhorted to penitence. Emboldened by 
 the welcome they had received at Eome, which in all in- 
 nocence they might have taken to be more favorable than 
 it really was, they told the story to everyone they met, 
 and thus set all scruples at rest. 
 
 These exhortations, in which Francis spared not his 
 hearers, but in which the sternest reproaches were min- 
 gled with so much of love, produced an enormous effect. 
 Man desires above all things to be loved, and when he 
 meets one who loves him sincerely he very seldom re- 
 fuses him either his love or his admiration. 
 
 It is only a low understanding that confounds love 
 with weakness and compliance. We sometimes see sick 
 
 ' The only road connecting Celano with Rome, as well as with all 
 Central and Northern Italy, passes by Aquila, Rieti, and Terni, where it 
 joins the high-roads leading from the north toward Rome. 
 
RIVO-TORTO 107 
 
 men feyerishly kissing the hand of the surgeon who per- 
 forms an operation upon them; we sometimes do the 
 same for our spiritual surgeons, for we realize all that 
 there is of "vigor, pity, compassion in the tortures which 
 they inflict, and the cries which they force from us are 
 quite as much of gratitude as of pain. 
 
 Men hastened from all parts to hear these preachers 
 who were more severe upon themselves than on anyone 
 else. Members of the secular clergy, monks, learned men, 
 rich men even, often mingled in the impromptu audiences 
 gathered in the streets and public places. All were not 
 converted, but it would have been very difficult for any 
 of them to forget this stranger whom they met one day 
 upon their way, and who in a few words had moved them 
 to the very bottom of their hearts with anxiety and fear. 
 
 Francis was in truth, as Celano says, the bright morn- 
 ing star. His simple preaching took hold on consciences, 
 snatched his hearers from the mire and blood in which 
 they were painfully trudging, and in spite of themselves 
 carried them to the very heavens, to those serene regions 
 where all is silent save the voice of the heavenly Father. 
 " The whole country trembled, the barren land was already 
 covered with a rich harvest, the withered vine began again 
 to blossom." 1 
 
 Only a profoundly religious and poetic soul (is not the 
 one the other?) can understand the transports of joy 
 which overflowed the souls of St. Francis's spiritual sons. 
 
 The greatest crime of our industrial and commercial 
 civilization is that it leaves us a taste only for that which 
 may be bought with money, and makes us overlook the 
 purest and truest joys which are all the time within our 
 reach. The evil has roots far in the past. " Wherefore," 
 said the God of old Isaiah, " do you weigh money for 
 that which is not meat ? why labor for that which satis- 
 > 1 Cel., 36 and 37 ; 3 Soc, 54 ; Bon., 45-48- 
 
lOE LIFE or ST. PRANOIS 
 
 fieth not? Hearken unto me, and ye shall eat that 
 which is good, and your soul shall delight itself in fat- 
 ness." ^ 
 
 Joys bought with money — noisy, feverish pleasures — 
 are nothing compared with those sweet, quiet, modest but 
 profound, lasting, and peaceful joys, enlarging, not weary- 
 ing the heart, which we too often pass by on one side, 
 like those peasants whom we see going into ecstasies 
 over the fireworks of a fair, while they have not so 
 much as a glance for the glorious splendors of a sum- 
 mer night. 
 
 In the plain of Assisi, at an hour's walk from the city 
 and near the highway between Perugia and Rome, was a 
 ruinous cottage called Kivo-Torto. A torrent, almost 
 always dry, but capable of becoming terrible in a storm, 
 descends from Mount Subasio and passes beside it. The 
 ruin had no owner; it had served as a leper hospital 
 before the construction by the Orucigeri^ of their hospital 
 
 ' Isaiah, Iv., 2. 
 
 ' This Order deserves to be better known ; it was founded under 
 Alexander III. and rapidly spread all over Central Italy and the East. 
 In Francis's lifetime it had in Italy and the Holy Land about forty 
 houses dedicated to the care of lepers. It is very probable that it was at 
 San Sakiatore ddle Pareti that Francis visited these unhappy sufferers. 
 He there made the particular acquaintance of a Cruoiger named Morieo. 
 The latter afterward falling ill, Francis sent him a remedy which would 
 cure him, informing him at the same time that he was to become his 
 disciple, which shortly afterward took place. The hospital San SaVea- 
 tore has disappeared ; it stood in the place now called Ospedaletto, where 
 a, small chapel now stands half way between Assisi and Santa Maria 
 degli Angeli. It was from there that the dying Francis blessed Assisi. 
 For Morieo vide 3 Soc, 35 ; Bon., 49 ; 2 Cel., 3, 128 ; Conform., 63b.— 
 For the hospital vide Bon., 49 ; Gonform., 135a, 1 ; Honorii III. opera, 
 Horoy, t. i., col. 206. Cf. Potthast, 7746 ; L. Auvray, Begistres de CfrSgoire 
 IX., Paris, 1890, 4to, no. 209. For the Orucigeri in the time of St 
 Francis vide the interesting bull Cum tu fli prior, of July 8, 1203 •, 
 Migne, Inn. op., t. ii., col. 125 ff. Cf. Potthast, 1959, and Cum pa»tori$, 
 April 5, 1204 • Migne, he. oit., 319. Cf. Potthast, 2169 and 4474. 
 
EITO-TOETO 109 
 
 San Salvatore delle Pareti; but since that time it had 
 been abandoned. Now came Francis and his companions 
 to seek shelter there.* It is one of the quietest spots in 
 the suburbs of Assisi, and from thence they could easily 
 go out into the neighborhood in aU directions ; it being 
 about an equal distance from Portiuncula and St. Da- 
 mian. But the principal motive for the choice of the 
 place seems to have been the proximity of the Garceri, as 
 those shallow natural grottos are called which are found 
 in the forests, half way up the side of Mount Subasio. 
 Following up the bed of the torrent of Eivo-Torto one 
 reaches them in an hour by way of rugged and slippery 
 paths where the very goats do not AviUingly venture. 
 Once arrived, one might fancy oneself a thousand leagues 
 from any human being, so numerous are the birds of prey 
 which live here quite undisturbed.'' 
 
 Francis loved this solitude and often retired thither 
 with a few companions. The brethren in that case shared 
 between them all care of their material wants, after which, 
 each one retiring into one of these caves, they were able 
 for a few days to listen only to the inner voice. 
 
 These Uttie hermitages, sufficiently isolated to secure 
 them from disturbance, but near enough to the cities 
 to permit their going thither to preach, may be found 
 wherever Francis went. They form, as it were, a series 
 of documents about his life quite as important as the 
 written witnesses. Something of his soul may still be 
 found in these caverns in the Apennine forests. He 
 never separated the contemplative from the active life. 
 A precious witness to this fact is found in the regu- 
 
 ' 3Soo., 55. 
 
 ' AU this yet remains in its primitive state. The road whieh went 
 from Assisi to the now ruined Abbey of Mount Subasio (almost on the 
 summit of the mountain) passed the Ctacen, where there wai a littU 
 chapel built by the Benedictinu^ 
 
110 LIFE OP ST. FRANCIS 
 
 lations for the brethren during their sojourn in her^ 
 mitage.' 
 
 The return of the Brothers to Eivo-Torto was marked 
 by a vast increase of popularity. The prejudiced attacks 
 to which they had formerly been subjected were lost in 
 a chorus of praises. Perhaps men suspected the ill-will 
 of the bishop and were happy to see him checked. How- 
 ever this may be, a lively feeling of sympathy and admi- 
 ration was awakened ; the people recalled to mind the 
 indifference manifested by the son of Bernardone a few 
 months before with regard to Otho IV. going to be 
 crowned at Rome. The emperor had made a progress 
 through Italy with a numerous suite and a pomp de- 
 signed to produce an effect on the minds of the populace ; 
 but not only had Francis not interrupted his work to go 
 and see him, he had enjoined upon his friars also to ab- 
 stain from going, and had merely selected one of them to 
 carry to the monarch a reminder of the ephemeral nature 
 of worldly glory. Later on it was held that he had pre- 
 dicted to the emperor his approaching excommunication. 
 
 This spirited attitude made a vivid impression on the 
 popular imagination.^ Perhaps it was of more service 
 in forming general opinion than anything he had done 
 thus far. The masses, who are not often alive to delicate 
 sentiments, respond quickly to those who, whether rightly 
 or wrongly, do not bow down before power. This time 
 they perceived that where other men would see the poor, 
 the rich, the noble, the common, the learned, Francis 
 
 ' lUi qui religiote wlunt stare m eremig sint tre* aut qmtuor adpVm. 
 Duo tx vpm smt maires, et habeant duos Jilios, vel unum ad minus. 
 Mi dmo t&neant mtam Marfhee et alii duo mtam Maria Magdalena. 
 Assisi MS., 338, 43ar-b ; text gi^en also in Oonf., 143a, 1, from whicli 
 Wadding borrows it for his edition of the Opuscules of St. Francis. 
 Cf. 3 Gel., 3, 113. It is possible that we hare here a fragment of th« 
 Rule, which must have been composed toward 1S17. 
 
 * 1 OeL, 43 and 43 ; 3 Soc, 55 ; Bon., 41. 
 
EIVO-TORTO 111 
 
 saw only souls, which were to him the more precious as 
 they were more neglected or despised. 
 
 No biographer informs us how long the Penitents re- 
 mained at Eivo-Torto. It seems probable, however, that 
 they spent there the latter part of 1210 and the early 
 months of 1211, evangelizing the towns and villages of 
 the neighborhood. 
 
 They suffered much ; this part of the plain of Assisi is 
 inundated by torrents nearly every autumn, and many 
 times the poor friars, blockaded in the lazaretto, were 
 forced to satisfy their hunger with a few roots from the 
 neighboring fields. 
 
 The barrack in which they lived was so narrow that, 
 when they were all there at once, they had much diffi- 
 culty not to crowd one another. To secure to each one 
 his due quota of space, Francis wrote the name of each 
 brother upon the column which supports the building. 
 But these minor discomforts in no sense disturbed their 
 happiness. No apprehension had as yet come to cloud 
 Francis's hopes ; he was overflowing with joy and kind- 
 liness ; all the memories which Kivo-Torto has left with 
 the Order are fresh and sweet pictures of him.* 
 
 One night all the brethren seemed to be sleeping, when 
 he heard a moaning. It was one of his sheep, to speak 
 after the manner of the Franciscan biographer, who had 
 denied himself too rigorously and was dying of hunger. 
 Francis immediately rose, called the brother to him, 
 brought forth the meagre reserve of food, and himself 
 began to eat to inspire the other with courage, explaining 
 to him that if penitence is good it is still necessary to 
 temper it with discretion.^ 
 
 •ICel., 43-44. 
 
 ' 3 Cel., 1, 15 ; Bon. , 65. These two authors do not say where ths erent 
 took place ; bnt there appears to be no reason for suspecting the indica- 
 '*avi of Bivo-Torto given by the Specuhim, to. 31a. 
 
112 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 Francis had that tact of the heart which divines the 
 secrets of others and anticipates their desires. At an- 
 other time, still at Rivo-Torto, he took a sick brother 
 by the hand, led him to a grape-vine, and, presenting 
 him with a fine cluster, began himself to eat of it. It 
 was nothing, but the simple act so bound to him the 
 sick man's heart that many years after the brother could 
 not speak of it without emotion.' 
 
 But Francis was far from neglecting his mission. Ever 
 growing more sure, not of himself but of his duty toward 
 men, he took part in the political and social affairs of his 
 province with the confidence of an upright and pure 
 heart, never able to understand how stupidity, per- 
 verseness, pride, and indolence, by leaguing themselves 
 together, may check the finest and most righteous im- 
 pulses. He had the faith which removes mountains, and 
 was wholly free from that touch of scepticism, so com- 
 mon in our day, which points out that it is of no more 
 use to move mountains than to change the place of 
 difficulties. 
 
 When the people of Assisi learned that his Eule had 
 been approved by the pope there was strong excitement ; 
 every one desired to hear him preach. The clergy were 
 obliged to give way ; they offered him the Church of St. 
 George, but this church was manifestly insufficient for 
 the crowds of hearers; it was necessary to open the 
 cathedral to him. 
 
 St. Francis never said anything especially new ; to win 
 hearts he had that which is worth more than any arts of 
 oratory— an ardent conviction; he spoke as compelled 
 by the imperious need of kindling others with the flame 
 that burned within himself. "When they heard him recall 
 the horrors of war, the crimes of the populace, the laxity 
 of the great, the rapacity which dishonored the Church, 
 ' 3 Cel., 3, 110. C£. ^ec.,22». 
 
EIVO-TOKTO 113 
 
 the age-long widowhood of Poverty, each one felt himself 
 taken to task in his own conscience. 
 
 An attentive or excited crowd is always very impres- 
 sionable, but this peculiar sensitiveness was perhaps 
 stronger in the Middle Ages than at any other time. 
 Nervous disturbances were in the air, and upon men 
 thus prepared the will of the preacher impressed itself in 
 a manner almost magnetic. 
 
 To understand what Francis's preaching must have 
 been like we must forget the manners of to-day, and 
 transport ourselves for a moment to the Cathedral of 
 Assisi in the thirteenth century ; it is stiU standing, but 
 the centuries have given to its stones a fine rust of pol- 
 ished bronze, which recalls Venice and Titian's tones of 
 ruddy gold. It was new then, and all sparkling with 
 whiteness, with the fine rosy tinge of the stones of 
 Mount Subasio. It had been built by the people of 
 Assisi a few years before in one of those outbursts 
 of faith and union which were almost everywhere the 
 prelude of the communal movement. So, when the peo- 
 ple thronged into it on their high days, they not merely 
 had none of that vague respect for a holy place which, 
 though it has passed into the customs of other countries, 
 stUl continues to be unknown in Italy, but they felt 
 themselves at home in a palace which they had built for 
 themselves. More than in any other church they there 
 felt themselves at liberty to criticise the preacher, and 
 they had no hesitation in proving to him, either by mur- 
 murs of dissatisfaction or by applause, just what they 
 thought of his words. We must remember also that the 
 churches of Italy have neither pews nor chairs, that one 
 must listen standing or kneeling, while the preacher 
 walks about gesticulating on a platform ; add to this the 
 general curiosity, the clamorous sympathies of many, the 
 disguised opposition of some, and we shall have a vague 
 
114 LIFE OP ST. FRANCIS 
 
 notion of the conditions under which Francis first entered 
 the pulpit of San Rufino. 
 
 His success was startling. The poor felt that they had 
 found a friend, a brother, a champion, almost an ayenger. 
 The thoughts which they hardly dared murmur beneath 
 their breath Francis proclaimed at the top of his voice, 
 daring to bid all, without distraction, to repent and love 
 one another. His words were a cry of the heart, an ap- 
 peal to the consciences of aU his fellow-citizens, almost 
 recalling the passionate utterances of the prophets of 
 Israel. Like those witnesses for Jehovah the " little poor 
 man" of Assisi had put on sackcloth and ashes to de- 
 nounce the iniquities of his people, like theirs was his 
 courage and heroism, like theirs the divine tenderness in 
 his heart. 
 
 It seemed as if Assisi were about to recover again the 
 feeling of Israel for sin. The eifect of these appeals was 
 prodigious ; the entire population was thrilled, conquered, 
 desiring in future to live only according to Francis's 
 counsels ; his very companions, who had remained behind 
 at Eivo-Torto, heariag of these marvels, felt in them- 
 selves an answering thrill, and their vocation took on a 
 new strength ; during the night they seemed to see their 
 master in a chariot of fire, soaring to heaven like a new 
 Elijah.! 
 
 This almost delirious enthusiasm of a whole people 
 was not perhaps so difficult to arouse as might be sup- 
 posed: the emotional power of the masses was at that 
 time as great all over Europe as it was in Paris during 
 certain days of the Revolution. We aU know the tragic 
 and touching story of those companies of children from 
 the north of Europe who appeared in 1212 in troops of 
 several thousands, boys and girls mingled together pell- 
 mell. Nothing could stop them, a mania had overtaken 
 •lCel.,47; Bon., 43. 
 
EIVO-TOETO 115 
 
 them, in all good faith they believed that they were to 
 deliver the Holy Land, that the sea would be dried up 
 to let them pass. They perished, we hardly know how, 
 perhaps being sold into slavery.* They were accoimted 
 martyrs, and rightly ; popular devotion likened them to 
 the Holy Innocents, dying for a God whom they knew 
 not. These children of the crusade also perished for an 
 unknown ideal, false no doubt; but is it not better to 
 die for an unknown and even a false ideal than to live 
 for the vain realities of an utterly unpoetic existence ? In 
 the end of time we shall be Judged neither by philoso- 
 phers nor by theologians, and if we were, it is to be hoped 
 that even in this case love would cover a multitude of 
 sins and pass by many follies. 
 
 Certainly if ever there was a time when religious affec- 
 tions of the nerves were to be dreaded, it was that which 
 produced such movements as these. All Europe seemed 
 to be beside itself; women appeared stark naked in the 
 streets of towns and villages, slowly walking up and 
 down, silent as phantoms.^ We can understand now the 
 
 ' There are few events of the thirteenth century that offer more docu- 
 ments or are more obscure than this one. The chroniclers of the most 
 different countries speak of it at length. Here is one of the shortest but 
 most exact of the notices, given by an eye-witness (Annals of Genoa 
 of the years 1197-1219, apud Mon. Qerm. hist. Script., t. 18): 1213 in 
 mense Augusti, die Sabhati, octava Kalendarum Septembris, intromit dm- 
 tatem Janue guidampuer Teutonieus nomine Nieholaua peregrinationit 
 eausa, et cum eo multitudo maxima pdegrinorum deferentes eraces et bar- 
 donos atgue scars^las uUra aeptem miUia arbitratu boni wri inter homines 
 et feminas et pvMos et pvMas. Et die dominica sequenti de dmtate 
 exierunt. — Cf. Giacomo di Viraggio : Muratori, t. ix., col. 46 : Dicebant 
 quod mare d(M>at apud Januam siccari et sic ipsi debebant in Hierusalem 
 projieisei. MuUi cmtem inter eos erantflii JVbbUium, quos ipsi etiam cum 
 meretricibus destinwrunt (!) The most tragic account is that of Alberlc, 
 who relates the fate of the company that embarked at Marseilles. Mon. 
 Ger. hist. Script., t. 33, p. 894. 
 
 ' The Benedictine chronicler, Albert von Stade (Mon. Oer. hiit. 
 Seript, 1. 16, pp. 371-379), thus closes his notice of the children's cnr 
 
116 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 accounts which have come down to us, so fantastic at the 
 first glance, of certain popular orators of this time ; of 
 Berthold of Batisbon, for example, who drew together 
 crowds of sixteen thousand persons, or of that Fra Gio- 
 vanni Schio di Vicenza, who for a time quieted all North- 
 em Italy and brought Guelphs and GhibelUnes into one 
 another's arms.' 
 
 That popular eloquence which was to accomplish so 
 many marvels in 1233 comes down in a straight line from 
 the Franciscan movement. It was St. Francis who set 
 the example of those open-air sermons given in the vul- 
 gar tongue, at street comers, in public squares, in the 
 fields. 
 
 To feel the change which he brought about we must 
 read the sermons of his contemporaries; declamatory, 
 scholastic, subtile, they delighted in the minutiae of exe- 
 gesis or dogma, serving up refined dissertations on the 
 most obscure texts of the Old Testament, to hearers starv- 
 ing for a simple and wholesome diet. 
 
 With Francis, on the contrary, all is incisive, clear, 
 practical. He pays no attention to the precepts of the 
 rhetoricians, he forgets himself completely, thinking only 
 of the end desired, the conversion of souls. And con- 
 version was not in his view something vague and indis- 
 tinct, which must take place only between God and the 
 hearer. No, he will have immediate and practical proofs 
 of conversion. Men must give up ill-gotten gains, re- 
 nounce their enmities, be reconciled with their adver- 
 saries. 
 
 sade : Adhue quo dffvenerini ignorantur sed phtrimi redierunt, a quibu» 
 cum qucereretur ecmsa curms dixerunt se neadre. Jfudce etiam muUeres 
 eirca idem tempvs nihU loquentes per viUas et civitates cucurrerunt. Loc. 
 cit., p. 355. 
 
 ' Ohron. Veronese, ann. 1338 (Muratori, Scriptorei Ber. Ital., t. viii., 
 p. 626). Gf. Barbarano de' Mironi: Hiat. Eecles. di Tieensa, t. ii., pp. 
 7&-84. 
 
RIVO-TOETO 117 
 
 At Assisi he threw himself valiantly into the thick of 
 civil dissensions. The agreement of 1202 between the 
 parties who divided the city had been wholly ephemeral. 
 The common people were continually demanding new 
 liberties, which the nobles and burghers would yield to 
 them only under the pressure of fear. Francis took up 
 the cause of the weak, the minores, and succeeded in rec- 
 onciling them with the rich, the majores. 
 
 His spiritual family had not as yet, properly speaking, 
 a name, for, unlike those too hasty spirits who baptize 
 their productions before they have come to light, he 
 was waiting for the occasion that should reveal the true 
 name which he ought to give it.* One day someone was 
 reading the Kule in his presence. When he came to the 
 passage, " Let the brethren, wherever they may find them- 
 selves called to labor or to serve, never take an office 
 which shall put them over others, but on the contrary, 
 let them be always under {sint minores) all those who 
 may be in that house," ^ these words sint minores of the 
 Eule, in the circumstances then existing in the city, 
 suddenly appeared to him as a providential indication. 
 His institution should be called the Order of the Brothers 
 Minor. 
 
 We may imagine the effect of this determination. The 
 Saint, for already this magic word had burst forth where 
 I he appeared,^ the Saint had spoken. It was he who was 
 ' about to bring peace to the city, acting as arbiter be- 
 tween the two factions which rent it. 
 
 We stitl possess the document of this pace civile, ex- 
 
 ' The Brothers were at first called Viri pmnUenUdles de civitate As- 
 sigii (3 Soo. , 37) ; it appears that they had a momentary thought of call- 
 ing themselves Pmiperes de Aisisio, but they were doubtless dissuaded 
 from this at Rome, as too closely resembling that of the Pauperes de 
 I/ugduno. Vide Burchardi chroniam., p. 376 ; vide Introd., cap. 5, 
 
 » Vide Rule of 1231, cap. 7. Cf. 1 Oel., 38, and Bon., 78. 
 
 » 1 del.. 36. 
 
118 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 humed, so to speak, from the communal archives of As- 
 sisi by the learned and pious Antonio Cristofani.' The 
 opening lines are as follows : 
 
 " In the name of God I 
 
 "May the supreme grace of the Holy Spirit assist us I To the honor 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ, the blessed Virgin Mary, the Emperor Otho, 
 and Duke Leopold. 
 
 " This is the statute and perpetual agreement between the Majori and 
 Minori of Assisi. 
 
 " Without common consent there shall never be any sort of alliance 
 either with the pope and his nuncios or legates, or with the emperor, 
 or with the king, or with their nuncios or legates, or with any city or 
 town, or with any important person, except with a common accord they 
 shall do all which there may be to do for the honor, safety, and advan- 
 tage of the commune of Assisi." 
 
 What follows is worthy of the beginning. The lords, 
 in consideration of a small periodical payment, should 
 renounce all the feudal rights; the inhabitants of the 
 ■villages subject to Assisi were put on a par with those 
 of the city, foreigners were protected, the assessment of 
 taxes was fixed. On Wednesday, November 9, 1210, this 
 agreement was signed and sworn to in the public place 
 of Assisi ; it was made in such good faith that exiles were 
 able to return in peace, and from this day we find in the 
 city registers the names of those emigres who, in 1202, 
 had betrayed their city and provoked the disastrous war 
 with Perugia. Francis might well be happy. Love had 
 triumphed, and for several years there were at Assisi 
 neither victors nor vanquished. 
 
 In the mystic marriages which here and there in his- 
 tory unite a man to a people, something takes place of 
 which the transports of sense, the delirium of love, seem 
 to be the only symbol ; a moment comes in which saints, 
 
 ■ SUyria d'AsM, t L, pp. 133-139. 
 
EIVO-TOKTO 119 
 
 or men of genius, feel unknown powers striving mightily 
 within them ; they strive, they seek, they struggle until, 
 triumphing over all obstacles, they have forced trembling, 
 swooning humanity to conceive by them. 
 This moment had come to St. Francis. 
 
CHAPTEE Vm 
 
 POETIUNCULA 
 
 1311 
 
 It was doubtless toward the spring of 1211 that the 
 Brothers quitted Bivo-Torto. They were engaged in 
 prayer one day, when a peasant appeared with an ass, 
 which he noisily drove before him into the poor shelter. 
 
 "Go in, go in!" he cried to his beast; "we shall be 
 most comfortable here." It appeared that he was afraid 
 that if the Brothers remained there much longer they 
 would begin to think this deserted place was their own.* 
 Such rudeness was very displeasing to Francis, who im- 
 mediately arose and departed, followed by his compan- 
 ions. 
 
 Now that they were so numerous the Brothers could 
 no longer continue their wandering life in all respects as 
 in the past ; they had need of a permanent shelter and 
 above all of a little chapel. They addressed themselves 
 in vain first to the bishop and then to the canons of San 
 Rufino for the loan of what they needed, but were more 
 fortunate with the abbot of the Benedictines of Mount 
 Subasio, who ceded to them in perpetuity the use of a 
 chapel already very dear to their hearts, Santa Maria degU 
 Angeli or the Portiuncula.* 
 
 Francis was enchanted; he saw a mysterious harmo- 
 
 "ICel., 44; 3Soo.,55. 
 
 s3Soc., 56; S^ec., 33b; Oonform., 317b, 1; Mor. Bibl. Angel, 
 Amoni, p. 378. 
 
POKTIUNOULA 121 
 
 ny, ordainea by God himself, between the name of the 
 humble sanctuary and that of his Order. The brethren 
 quickly built for themselves a few huts ; a quickset hedge 
 served as enclosing wall, and thus in three or four days 
 was organized the first Franciscan convent. 
 
 For ten years they were satisfied with this. These ten 
 years are the heroic period of the Order. St. Francis, in 
 full possession of his ideal, will seek to inculcate it upon 
 his disciples and will succeed sometimes ; but already the 
 too rapid multiplication of the brotherhood will provoke 
 some symptoms of relaxation. 
 
 The remembrance of the beginning of this period has 
 drawn from the lips of Thomas of Celano a sort of can- 
 ticle in honor of the monastic life. It is the burning and 
 untranslatable commentary of the Psalmist's cry : "Behold 
 how sweet and pleasant it is to he brethren and to dwell to- 
 gether." 
 
 Their cloister was the forest which then extended on all 
 sides of Portiuncula, occupying a large part of the plain. 
 There they gathered around their master to receive his 
 spiritual counsels, and thither they retired to meditate 
 and pray.^ It would be a gross mistake, however, to sup- 
 pose that contemplation absorbed them completely dur- 
 ing the days which were not consecrated to missionary 
 tours : a part of their time was spent in manual labor. 
 
 The intentions of St. Francis have been more misap- 
 prehended on this point than on any other, but it may be 
 said that nowhere is he more clear than when he ordains 
 that his friars shall gain their livelihood by the work of 
 their hands. He never dreamed of creating a mendicant 
 order, he created a laboring order. It is true we shall 
 often see him begging and urging his disciples to do as 
 much, but these incidents ought not to mislead us ; they 
 
 ' This forest has disappeared. Some of Francis's counsels have been 
 collected in the Admonitions. See 1 Cel., 37-41. 
 
122 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 are meant to teach that when a friar arrived in any 
 locality and there spent his strength for long days in 
 dispensing spiritual bread to famished souls, he ought 
 not to blush to receive material bread in. exchange. To 
 work was the rule, to beg the exception ; but this excep- 
 tion was in nowise dishonorable. Did not Jesus, the 
 Virgin, the disciples live on bread bestowed ? Was it 
 not rendering a great service to those to whom they re- 
 sorted to teach them charity ? 
 
 Francis in his poetic language gave the name of mensa 
 Domini, the table of the Lord, to this table of love 
 around which gathered the little poor ones. The bread 
 of charity is the bread of angels ; and it is also that of the 
 birds, which reap not nor gather into bams. 
 
 We are far enough, in this case, from that mendicity 
 which is understood as a means of existence and the 
 essential condition of a life of idleness. It is the oppo- 
 site extreme, and we are true and just to St. Francis and 
 to the origin of the mendicant orders only when we do 
 not separate the obligation of labor from the praise of 
 mendicity.^ 
 
 No doubt this zeal did not last long, and Thomas of 
 Celano already entitles his chapters, " Lament before God 
 over the idleness and gluttony of (ke friars ; " but we must 
 not permit this speedy and inevitable decadence to veil 
 from our sight the holy and manly beauty of the origin. 
 
 With all his gentleness Francis knew how to show an 
 inflexible severity toward the idle ; he even went so far 
 as to dismiss a friar who refused to work.^ Nothing in 
 
 ' Vide Angelo Clareno, Tribvl. cod. Laur., 3b. 
 
 ' 2 Cel. , 3. 97 and 98. The Conformities, 142a, 1, cite textually 97 
 as coming from the Legenda Antigua. Cf. Spee., 64b. — 2 Cel., 3, 21. 
 Cf. Gonform., 171a, 1 ; Spec., 19b. See especially Kule of 1221, coup. 7 ; 
 Bule of 1223, cap. 5; the Will and 3 Soc. 41. The passage, Itdeat m 
 Mbere ferramenta et inatrumenta sum a/rtHmt necesaaria, sufficiently 
 proves that certain friars had real trades. 
 
POETIUNOULA 123 
 
 this matter better shows the intentions of the Porerello 
 than the life of Brother Egidio, one of his dearest com- 
 panions, him of whom he said with a smile : " He is one 
 of the paladins of my Bound Table." 
 
 Brother Egidio had a taste for great adventures, and is 
 a liTuig example of a Franciscan of the earliest days ; he 
 survived his master twenty-five years, and never ceased 
 to obey the letter and spirit of the Eule with freedom and 
 simplicity. 
 
 We find him one day setting out on a pilgrimage to 
 the Holy Land. Arrived at Brindisi, he borrowed a 
 water-jug that he might carry water while he was awaiting 
 the departure of the ship, and passed a part of every 
 day in crying through the streets of the city : "Alia 
 fresca ! Allafresca ! " like other water-carriers. But he 
 would change his trade according to the country and the 
 circumstances ; on his way back, at Ancona, he procured 
 willow for making baskets, which he afterward sold, not 
 for money but for his food. It even happened to him to 
 be employed in burying the dead. 
 
 Sent to Rome, every morning after finishing his relig- 
 ious duties, he would take a walk of several leagues, to 
 a certain forest, whence he brought a load of wood. 
 Coming back one day he met a lady who wanted to buy 
 it ; they agreed on a price, and Egidio carried it to her 
 house. But when he arrived at the house she perceived 
 him to be a friar, and would have given him more than 
 the price agreed upon. "My good lady," he replied, 
 " I wiU not permit myself to be overcome by avarice," 
 and he departed without accepting anything at all. 
 
 In the olive season he helped in the gathering ; in grape 
 season he offered himself as vintager. One day on the 
 Piazza di Eoma, where men are hired for day's work, he 
 saw a padrone who could not fimd a man to thrash his 
 walnut tree ; it was so high that no one dared risk him- 
 
134 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 self in it. " If you will give me part of the nuts," said 
 Egidio, "I will do it willingly." The bargain struck and 
 the tree thrashed, there proved to be so many nuts that 
 he did not know where to put his share. Gathering up 
 his tunic he made a bag of it and full of joy returned to 
 Eome, where he distributed them among aU the poor 
 whom he met. 
 
 Is not this a charming incident ? Does it not by it- 
 self alone reveal the freshness, the youth, the kindness 
 of heart of the first Franciscans ? There is no end to 
 the stories of the ingenuousness of Brother Egidio. All 
 kinds of work seemed good to him provided he had time 
 enough in the morning for his religious duties. Now he 
 is in the service of the Cellarer of the Four Crowns at 
 Rome, sifting flour and carrying water to the convent 
 irom the well of San Sisto. Now he is at Rieti, where 
 he consents to remain with Cardinal Nicholas, bringing 
 to every meal the bread which he had earned, notwith- 
 standing the entreaties of the master of the house, who 
 would gladly have provided for his wants. One day it 
 rained so hard that Brother Egidio could not think 
 of going out ; the cardinal was already making merry 
 over the thought that he would be forced to accept bread 
 that he had not earned. But Egidio went to the kitchen, 
 and finding that it needed cleaning he persuaded the 
 cook to let him sweep it, and returned triumphant 
 with the bread he had earned, which he ate at the car- 
 dinal's table.^ 
 
 From the very beginning Egidio's life commanded re- 
 spect ; it was at once so original, so gay, so spiritual,^ 
 
 ' A. SS., Aprilis, t. iii., pp. 230-248; Fior. Vita d' Egidio ; Spec., 
 158 S ; Conform., 53-60. 
 
 ' Other examples will be found below; it may suffice to recall here 
 his sally : ' ' The glorious Virgin Mother of God had sinners for par- 
 ents, she never entered any religious order, and jet she is what she 
 is 1 " A. SS., loe. eit, p. 234 
 
POETIUNCULA 125 
 
 and so mystical, that even in the least exact and most 
 expanded accounts his legend has remained almost free 
 from aU addition. He is, after St. Francis, the finest 
 incarnation of the Franciscan spirit. 
 
 The incidents which are here cited are aU, so to speak, 
 illustrations of the Eule ; in fact there is nothing more 
 explicit than its commands with respect to work. 
 
 The Brothers, after entering upon the Order, were to 
 continue to exercise the calling which they had when in 
 the world, and if they had none they were to learn one. 
 For payment they were to accept only the food that was 
 necessary for them, but in case that was insufficient they 
 might beg. In addition they were naturally permitted 
 to own the instruments of their calUng.* Brother Gin- 
 epro, whose acquaintance we shall make further on, had 
 an awl, and gained his bread wherever he went by 
 mending shoes, and we see St. Clara working even on 
 her death-bed. 
 
 This obligation to work with the hands merits all the 
 more to be brought into the light, because it was des- 
 tined hardly to survive St. Francis, and because to it is 
 due in part the original character of the first generation 
 of the Order. Yet this was not the real reason for the 
 being of the Brothers Minor. Their mission consisted 
 above all in being the spouses of Poverty. 
 
 Terrified by the ecclesiastical disorders of the time, 
 haunted by painful memories of his past life, Francis 
 saw in money the special instrument of the devil; in 
 moments of excitement he went so far as to execrate it, 
 
 ' The passage of the Will, firmiter volo quod omnes laborent, . . , 
 has a capital importance because it shows Francis renewing in the most 
 solemn manner injunctions already made from the origin of the Order. 
 Cf. 1 Cel., 38 and 39; Confin'm., 219b. 1 : Juvdbant Fraires pauperet 
 Jwmines in agris eorum et ipsi dopant postea eis de pane amore Dei. Bpee. , 
 84 ; 69. Vide also ArcMv., t. ii., pp. 272 and 299 ; Eocleston, 1 and 
 15; 2 Cel., 1, 13. 
 
126 IIFE OP ST. FEANCI8 
 
 as if there had been in the metal itself a sort of magical 
 power and secret curse. Money was truly for him the 
 sacrament of evil. 
 
 This is not the place for asking if he was wrong ; grave 
 authors have demonstrated at length the economic troub- 
 les which would have been let loose upon the world if 
 men had followed him. Alas ! his madness, if madness it 
 were, is a kind of which one need not fear the contagion. 
 
 He felt that in this respect the Rule could not be 
 too absolute, and that if imfortunately the door was 
 opened to various interpretations of it, there would be 
 no stopping-point. The course of events and the period- 
 ical convulsions which shook his Order show clearly 
 enough how rightly he judged. 
 
 I do not know nor desire to know if theologians have 
 yet come to a scientific conclusion with regard to the 
 poverty of Jesus, but it seems evident to me that poverty 
 with the labor of the hands is the ideal held up by the 
 Galilean to the efforts of his disciples. 
 
 Still it is easy to see that Franciscan poverty is neither 
 to be confounded with the unfeeling pride of the stoic, 
 nor with the stupid horror of all joy felt by certain devo- 
 tees ; St. Francis renounced everything only that he 
 might the better possess everything. The lives of the 
 immense majority of our contemporaries are ruled by the 
 fatal error that the more one possesses the more one en- 
 joys. Our exterior, civil liberties continually increase, 
 but at the same time our inward freedom is taking flight ; 
 how many are there among us who are literally possessed 
 by what they possess?^ 
 
 Poverty not only permitted the Brothers to mingle with 
 the poor and speak to them with authority, but, remov- 
 ing from them all material anxiety, it left them free to 
 
 ■ NiM wlebat proprietatis TMbere ut omnia plenivs posut in Domirui 
 possidere. B. de Besse, 102a. 
 
POETIUNOUI/A 127 
 
 enjoy without hindrance those hidden treasures which 
 nature reserves for pure idealists. 
 
 The ever-thickening barriers which modern life, with 
 its sickly search for useless comfort, has set up between 
 us and nature did not exist for these men, so full of 
 youth and life, eager for wide spaces and the outer air. 
 This is what gave St. Francis and his companions that 
 quick susceptibility to Nature which made them thrill 
 in mysterious harmony with her. Their communion 
 with Nature was so intimate, so ardent, that Umbria, with 
 the harmonious poetry of its skies, the joyful outburst of 
 its spring-time, is stiQ the best document from which to 
 study them. The tie between the two is so indissoluble, 
 that after having lived a certain time in company with 
 St. Francis, one can hardly, on reading certain passages 
 of his biographers, help seeing the spot where the inci- 
 dent took place, hearing the vague sounds of creatures 
 and things, precisely as, when reading certain pages of a 
 beloved author, one hears the sound of his voice. 
 
 The worship of Poverty of the early Franciscans had 
 in it, then, nothing ascetic or barbarous, nothing which re- 
 calls the Stylites or the Nazirs. She was their bride, and 
 like true lovers they felt no fatigues which they might 
 endure to find and remain near her. 
 
 La lor Concordia e lor lieti sembianti, 
 Amor e maraviglia e dolce sguardo 
 Facean esser oagion de' pensier santi.' 
 
 To draw the portrait of an ideal knight at the begin- 
 ning of the thirteenth century is to draw Francis's very 
 portrait, with this diflference, that what the knight did for 
 
 ' Their concord and their joyous semblances 
 The love, the wonder and the sweet regard 
 They made to be the cause of holy thought. 
 
 Dante : Paradiso, canto xi., verses 76-7& 
 Longfellow's translation. 
 
138 LIFE OF ST. FEANOIS 
 
 his lady, he did for Poverty. This comparison is not 
 a mere caprice; he himself profoundly felt it and ex- 
 pressed it with perfect clearness, and it is only by keep- 
 ing it clearly present in the mind that we can see into 
 the Tery depth of his heart. ^ 
 
 To fijid any other souls of the same nature one must 
 come down to Giovanni di Parma and Jacoponi di Todi. 
 The life of St. Francis as troubadour has been written ; 
 it would have been better to write it as knight, for this is 
 the explanation of his whole life, and as it were the heart 
 of his heart. From the day when, forgetting the songs 
 of his friends and suddenly stopped in the public place 
 of Assisi, he met Poverty, his bride, and swore to her 
 faith and love, down to that evening when, naked upon 
 the naked earth of Portiuncula, he breathed out his life, 
 it may be said that all his thoughts went out to this lady 
 of his chaste loves. For twenty years he served her with- 
 out faltering, sometimes with an artlessness which would 
 appear infantine, if something infinitely sincere and sub- 
 lime did not arrest the smile upon the most sceptical lips. 
 
 Poverty agreed marvellously with that need which men 
 had at that time, and which perhaps they have lost less 
 than they suppose, the need of an ideal very high, very 
 pure, mysterious, inaccessible, which yet they may pict- 
 ure to themselves in concrete form. Sometimes a few 
 privileged disciples saw the lovely and pure Lady descend 
 from heaven to salute her spouse, but, whether visible or 
 not, she always kept close beside her Umbrian lover, as 
 she kept close beside the Galilean ; in the stable of the 
 nativity, upon the cross at Golgotha, and even in the 
 borrowed tomb where his body lay. 
 
 During several years this ideal was not alone that 
 of St. Francis, but also of all the Brothers. In pov- 
 
 ' Amorfaebua . . . castis ea/m, stringit amplexibus nee ad horam 
 patitur non esse maritus. 2 Cel., 3, 1 ; cf.l Cel., 35 ; 51 ; 75 ; 3 Oel., 
 3, 138 ; 3 Soo., 15; 33 ; 38; 35 j 50; Bon., 87iM>r. 13. 
 
PORTIUKCtTLA 129 
 
 erty the gente poverelle had found safety, love, liberty; 
 and all the efforts of the new apostles are directed to 
 the keeping of this precious treasure. 
 
 Their worship sometimes might seem excessive. They 
 showed their spouse those delicate attentions, those re- 
 finements of courtesy so frequent in the morning light of 
 a betrothal, but which one gradually forgets till they 
 become incomprehensible.* 
 
 The number of disciples continually increased ; almost 
 every week brought new recruits ; the year 1211 was 
 without doubt devoted by Francis to a tour in Umbria 
 and the neighboring provinces. His sermons were short 
 appeals to conscience ; his heart went out to his hearers 
 in ineffable tones, so that when men tried to repeat 
 what they had heard they found themselves incapable.^ 
 The Eule of 1221 has preserved for us a summary of 
 these appeals : 
 
 "Here is an exhortation which all the Brothers may make when they 
 think best : Fear and honor God, praise and bless him. Give thanks 
 unto him. Adore the Lord, Almighty God, in Trinity and nnity, the 
 Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Kepent and make fruits meet 
 for repentance, for you know that we shall soon die. Give, and it 
 shall be given unto you. Forgive, and you shall be forgiven ; for if 
 you forgive not, God will not forgive you. Blessed are they who die 
 repenting, for they shall be in the kingdom of heaven. . . . Ab- 
 stain carefully from all evil, and persevere in the good until the end." ' 
 
 We see how simple and purely ethical was the early 
 Franciscan preaching. The complications of dogma and 
 scholasticism are entirely absent from it. To understand 
 how new this was and how refreshing to the soul we 
 must study the disciples that came after him. 
 
 1 Bon. , 9S.—I^oMbuit fratrem qui faciebat coquinam ne poneret legu- 
 mina de sero in aqua ealida qtue debebai dare fratribus ad manducan- 
 dum die sequenti ut observaverini illud verbum Mangelii : Nolite soUiciti 
 esse de erastino. Bpec., 15. ""^ Cel., 3, 50. 
 
 " Ca^., 21. Cf. Vior. , I. eonsid. , 18 ; 30 ; Conform., 108a, 3 ; 2 Cel, 
 3, 99 ; 100 ; 131. Vide Mflller, An^Wage, p. 187. 
 
130 LIFE OF ST. FEANCI8 
 
 With St. Anthony of Padua (•■> June 13, 1231 ; canon- 
 ized in 1233 '), the most illustrious of them aU, the descent 
 is immense. The distance between these two men is as 
 great as that which separates Jesus from St. Paul. 
 
 I do not judge the disciple ; he was of his time in not 
 knowing how to say simply what he thought, in always 
 desiring to subtilize it, to extract it from passages in the 
 Bible turned from their natural meaning by efforts at 
 once laborious and puerile ; what the alchemists did in 
 their continual making of strange mixtures from which 
 they fancied that they should bring out gold, the preach- 
 ers did to the texts, in order to bring out the truth. 
 
 The originality of St. Francis is only the more brilliant 
 and meritorious ; with him gospel simplicity reappeared 
 upon the earth.^ Like the lark with which he so much 
 loved to compare himself,^ he was at his ease only in the 
 open sky. He remained thus until his death. The 
 epistle to all Christians which he dictated in the last 
 weeks of his life repeats the same ideas in the same 
 terms, perhaps with a little more feeling and a shade of 
 sadness. The evening breeze which breathed upon his 
 face and bore away his words was their symbolical ac- 
 companiment. 
 
 ' Vide his Opera omnia postUlia illustrata, by Father de la Haye, 
 1739, f°. For his life, Surius and Wadding arranged and mutilated the 
 sources to which they had access ; the BoUandists had only a legend of 
 the fifteenth century. The Latin manuscript 14,363 of the Biblioth6que 
 Nationale gives one which dates from the thirteenth. Very Rev. Father 
 Hilary, of Paris : Saint Antoine de Padone, sa Ugende primitive, Mon- 
 f,reull-sur-Mer, Imprimerie Notre-Dame-des-Pres, 18.90, 1 vol., 8vo. Cf. 
 Legenda seu vita et miracula S. Antonii saeulo xiii concinnata ex cod. 
 memb. anUmina bibliothecm a P. M. Antonio Maria Josa min. comv, 
 Bologna, 1888, 1 vol., 8vo. 
 
 ' This evangelical character of his mission is brought out in relief 
 by all his biographers. 1 Gel. 56 ; 84 ; 89 ; 3 Soc. 25 ; 34 ; 40 ; 43 ; 45 i 
 48 ; 51 ; 57 ; 2 Cel. 3, 8 ; 50 ; 93. 
 
 *Spee.,lU;2G6\.,Z, 128. 
 
PORTIUNCULA 131 
 
 " I, Brother Francis, the least of your servants, pray 
 and conjure you by that Love which is God himself, 
 willing to throw myself at your feet and kiss them, to 
 receive with humility and love these words and all others 
 of our Lord Jeaus Christ, to put them to profit and carry 
 them out.'' 
 
 This was not a more or less oratorical formula. Hence 
 conversions multiplied with an incredible rapidity. Often, 
 as formerly with Jesus, a look, a word sufficed Francis 
 to attach to himself men who would follow him until 
 their death. It is impossible, alas ! to analyze the best 
 of this eloquence, all made of love, intimate apprehension, 
 and fire. The written word can no more give an idea of 
 it than it can give us an idea of a sonata of Beethoven 
 or a painting by Rembrandt. We are often amazed, on 
 reading the memoirs of those who have been great con- 
 querors of souls, to find ourselves remaining cold, finding 
 in them all no trace of animation or originality. It is be- 
 cause we have only a lifeless relic in the hand ; the soul is 
 gone. It is the white wafer of the sacrament, but how 
 shall that rouse in us the emotions of the beloved dis- 
 ciple lying on the Lord's breast on the night of the Last 
 Supper ? 
 
 The class from which Francis recruited his disciples 
 was still about the same ; they were nearly all young 
 men of Assisi and its environs, some the sons of agri- 
 culturists, and others nobles ; the School and the Church 
 was very little represented among them.' 
 
 ' The Order was at first essentially lay (at the present time it is, so tax 
 as I know, the only one in which there Is no difference of costume be- 
 tween laymen and priests). Yide'EhTle, Arehiv., iiU, p. 56Z. It is the 
 influence of the friars from northern countries which has especially 
 changed it in this matter. General Aymon, of Faversham (1340-1243), 
 decided that laymen should be excluded from all charges ; laicos ad 
 »ffleia inhdbUitamt, guw usque tune ut derici exercebant. (Ghron. szIt. 
 qen. cod. Gadd. relig., 53, t" 110a). Among the earlj Brothera who 
 
182 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 Everything still went on with an unheard-of simplic« 
 ity. In theory, obedience to the superior was absolute ; 
 in practice, we can see Francis continually giving his com- 
 panions complete liberty of action.^ Men entered the 
 Order without a novitiate of any sort ; it sufficed to say 
 to Francis that they wanted to lead with him a life of 
 evangelical perfection, and to prove it by giving all that 
 they possessed to the poor. The more unpretending 
 were the neophytes, the more tenderness he had for 
 them. Like his Master, he had a partiality for those 
 who were lost, for men whom regular society casts out of 
 its limits, but who with all their crimes and scandals are 
 nearer to sainthood than mediocrities and hypocrites. 
 
 One day St. Francis, passing by the desert of Borgo San Sepolcro 
 came to a place called Monte -Casale,'' and behold a noble and refined 
 young man came to him. "Father," he said, " I would gladly be one 
 of your disciples." 
 
 " My son," said St. Francis, " you are young, refined, and noble ; you 
 will not be able to follow poverty and live wretched like us." 
 
 " But, my father, are not you men like me ? What you do I can do 
 with the grace of Jesus." This reply was well-pleasing to St. Francis, 
 who, giving him his blessing, incontinently received him into the Order 
 under the name of Brother Angelo. 
 
 He conducted himself so well that a little while after he was made 
 
 refused ordination there were surely some who did so from humility , 
 but this sentiment is not enough to explain all the cases. There weri' 
 also with certain of them revolutionary desires and as it were a vagur 
 memory of the prophecies of Gioaoohino di Fiore upon the age succeed 
 Ing that of the priests : Fior. , 27. Prate Pellegrino non voUe ma'. 
 anda/re come cMerico, ma come laico, henclie faasi motto liiterato e grande 
 deeretalista. Of. Conform., 71a,, 2. Fr. Tlurnias Hihemicm sibi 
 poUecem amputwdt ne ad sacerdoiium cogeretur. Conform., 124b, 2. 
 
 ' See, for example, the letter to Brother Leo. Cf. Conform., 53b, 3. 
 Frairi Egidio dedit Ueentiam liberam ut irei guocumgue veUet et staret 
 ubioumque sibi placeret. 
 
 '' The hermitage of Moute-Casale, at two hours walk northeast from 
 Borgo San Sepolcro, still exists in its original state. It is one of the most 
 significant and curious of the Franciscan deserts. 
 
PORTIUNCULA 133 
 
 guardian ' of Monte-Casale. Now, in those times there were three 
 famous robbers who did much evil in the country. They came to the 
 hermitage one day to beg Brother Angelo to give them something to 
 eat ; but he replied to them with severe reproaches : ' ' What ! robbers, 
 evil-doers, assassins, have you not only no shame for stealing the goods 
 of others, but you would farther devour the alms of the servants of 
 God, you who are not worthy to live, and who have respect neither 
 for men nor for God your Creator. Depart, and let me never see you 
 here again 1 " 
 
 They went away full of rage. But behold, the Saint returned, bring, 
 ing a wallet of bread and a bottle of wine which had been given him, 
 and the guardian told him how he had sent away the robbers ; then 
 St. Francis reproved him severely for showing himself so cruel. . . . 
 " I command thee by thine obedience," said he, " to take at once this 
 loaf and this wine and go seek the robbers by hill and dell until you 
 have found them, to offer them this as from me, and to kneel there be- 
 fore them and humbly ask their pardon, and pray them in my name 
 no longer to do wrong but to fear God ; and if they do it, I promise 
 to provide for all their wants, to see that they always have enough 
 to eat and drink. After that you may humbly return hither." 
 
 Brother Angelo did all that had been commanded him, while St. 
 Francis on his part prayed God to convert the robbers. They returned 
 with the brother, and when St. Francis gave them the assurance of the 
 pardon of God, they changed their lives and entered the Order, in 
 which they lived and died most holily." 
 
 What has sometimes been said of the Toice of the blood 
 is still more true of the voice of the soul. When a man 
 truly wakens another to moral life, he gains for him- 
 self an unspeakable gratitude. The word master is often 
 
 ■ The oflce of guardian (superior of a monastery) naturally dates from 
 the time when the Brothers stationed themselves in small groups in the 
 villages of XJmbria — that is to say, most probably from the year 1211. 
 A few years later the monasteries were united to form a, custodia, 
 Finally, about 1215, Central Italy was divided unto a certain number of 
 provinces with provincial ministers at their head. All this was done 
 little by little, for Francis never permitted himself to regulate what did 
 not yet exist. 
 
 « Fior., 26 ; Conform., 119b, 1. Cf. Rule of 1221, cap. vii. Quicumgue 
 ad eos (fraires) venerint, amicus vel admersari'us, fur vel latro ieniffne 
 
134 LIFE OP ST. FRANCIS 
 
 profaned, but it can express the noblest and purest of 
 earthly ties. 
 
 Who are those among us, who in the hours of manly 
 innocence when they examine their own consciences, 
 do not see rising up before them from out of the past 
 the ever beloved and loving face of one who, perhaps 
 without knowing it, initiated them into spiritual things ? 
 At such a time we would throw ourselves at the feet of 
 this father, would teU him in burning words of our ad- 
 miration and gratitude. We cannot do it, for the soul 
 has its own bashfulness ; but who knows that our dis- 
 quietude and embarrassment do not betray us, and un- 
 veil, better than words could do, the depths of our 
 heart? The air they breathed at Portiuncula was all 
 impregnated with joy and gratitude like this. 
 
 To many of the Brothers, St. Francis was truly a 
 saviour ; he had delivered them from chains heavier than 
 those of prisons. And therefore their greatest desire 
 was in their turn to call others to this same liberty. 
 
 We have already seen Brother Bernardo on a mission 
 to Florence a few months after his entrance into the 
 Order. Arrived at maturity when he put on the habit, 
 he appears in some degree the senior of this apostolic 
 college. He knew how to obey St. Francis and remain 
 faithful to the very end to the ideal of the early days ; 
 but he had no longer that privilege of the young — of 
 Brother Leo, for example — of being able to transform 
 himself almost entirely into the image of him whom he 
 admired. His physiognomy has not that touch of juve- 
 nile originality, of poetic fancy, which is so great a 
 charm of the others. 
 
 Toward this epoch two Brothers entered the Order, 
 men such as the successors of St. Francis never received, 
 whose history throws a bright light on the simplicity 
 of the early days. It will be remembered with whai 
 
POETIUNOULA 135 
 
 zeal Francis had repaired several churches; his solici- 
 tude went further ; he saw a sort of profanation in the 
 negligence with which most of them were kept ; the 
 want of cleanliness of the sacred objects, ill-concealed by 
 tinsel, gave him a sort of pain, and it often happened 
 that when he was going to preach somewhere he secretly 
 called together the priests of the locality and implored 
 them to look after the decency of the service. But even 
 in these cases he was not content to preach only in 
 words; binding together some stalks of heather he would 
 make them into brooms for sweeping out the churches. 
 
 One day in the suburbs of Assisi he was performing 
 this task when a peasant appeared, who had left his 
 oxen and cart out in the fields while he came to gaze at 
 him. 
 
 " Brother," said lie on entering, "give me the broom. I will help 
 you," and he swept out the rest of the church. 
 
 When he had finished, " Brother," he said to Francis, " for a long 
 time I have decided to serve God, especially when I heard men speak 
 of you. But I never knew how to find you. Now it has pleased God 
 that we should meet, and henceforth I shall do whatever you may 
 please to command me." 
 
 Francis seeing his fervor felt a great joy ; it seemed to him that with 
 his simplicity and honesty he would become a good friar. 
 
 It appears indeed that he had only too much simplic- 
 ity, for after his reception he felt himself bound to imi- 
 tate every motion of the master, and when the latter 
 coughed, spat, or sighed, he did the same. At last Fran- 
 cis noticed it and gently reproved him. Later he be- 
 came so perfect that the other friars admired him greatly, 
 and after his death, which took place not long after, St. 
 Francis loved to relate his conversion, calling him not 
 Brother John, but Brother St. John.' 
 
 Ginepro is still more celebrated for his holy follies. 
 
 ' 3 CeL, 3, 120 ; Spee., 37 ; Conform., 53a, 1. See below, p. 385, n. 1. 
 
136 LIFE OF ST. FEAirOIS 
 
 One day he went to see a sick Brother and offered him 
 his services. The patient confessed that , he had a great 
 longing to eat a pig's foot; the visitor immediately 
 rushed out, and armed with a knife ran to the neighbor- 
 ing forest, where, espying a troop of pigs, he cut off a 
 foot of one of them, returning to the monastery full of 
 pride over his trophy. 
 
 The owner of the pigs shortly followed, howling like 
 mad, but Ginepro went straight to him and pointed out 
 with so much volubility that he had done him a great 
 service, that the man, after overwhelming him with re- 
 proaches, suddenly begged pardon, killed the pig and in- 
 vited all the Brothers to feast upon it. Ginepro was 
 probably less mad than the story would lead us to sup- 
 pose ; Franciscan humility never had a more sincere dis- 
 ciple ; he could not endure the tokens of admiration which 
 the populace very early lavished on the growing Order, 
 and which by their extravagance contributed so much to 
 its decadence. 
 
 One day, as he was entering Borne, the report of his 
 arrival spread abroad, and a great crowd came out to 
 meet him. To escape was impossible, but he suddenly 
 had an inspiration ; near the gate of the city some chil- 
 di"en were playing at see-saw; to the great amazement 
 of the Romans Ginepro joined them, and, without heed- 
 ing the salutations addressed to him, remained so ab- 
 sorbed in his play that at last his indignant admirers 
 departed.* 
 
 It is clear that the life at Portiuncula must have been 
 very different from that of an ordinary convent. So 
 much youth,' simplicity, love, quickly drew the eyes of 
 men toward it. Prom all sides they were turned to 
 those thatched huts, where dwelt a spiritual family 
 
 ' Fior., Vita di fra Ginepro ; Spec., 174-183 ; Conform. 63b. 
 •A.SS., p. 600. 
 
POETIUNOULA 137 
 
 whose members loved one another more than men lo^o 
 on earth, leading a life of labor, mirth, and devotion. 
 The humble chapel seemed a new Zion destined to en- 
 lighten the world, and many in their dreams beheld blind 
 humanity coming to kneel there and recover sight.' 
 
 Among the first disciples who joined themselves to St. 
 Francis we must mention Brother Silvestro, the first 
 priest who entered the Order, the very same whom we 
 have already seen the day that Bernardo di QuintevalLe 
 distributed his goods among the poor. Since then he 
 had not had a moment's peace, bitterly reproaching 
 himself for his avarice ; night and day he thought only 
 of that, and in his dreams he saw Francis exorcising a 
 horrid monster which infested all the region.^ 
 
 By his age and the nature of the memory he has left 
 behind him Silvestro resembles Brother Bernardo. He 
 was what is usually understood by a holy priest, but 
 nothing denotes that he had the truly Franciscan love 
 of great enterprises, distant journeys, perilous missions. 
 Withdrawn into one of the grottos of the Carceri, ab- 
 sorbed in the contemplative life, he gave spiritual coun- 
 sels to his brethren as occasion served.^ 
 
 The typical Franciscan priest is Brother Leo. The 
 date of his entrance into the Order is not exactly known, 
 but we are probably not far from the truth in placing it 
 about 1214. Of a charming simplicity, tender, affec- 
 tionate, refined, he is, with Brother Elias, the one who 
 plays the noblest part during the obscure years in which 
 the new reform was being elaborated. Becoming Fran- 
 cis's confessor and secretary, treated by him as his 
 
 ' 3 Soc, 56 ; 2 Cel., 1, 13; Bon., 24. 
 
 « Bon., 30 ; 3 Soc, 30, 31 ; 2 Cel., 8, 52. Cf. m>r., 2. The dragon 
 of this dream perhaps symbolizes heresy. 
 
 3 Bon., 88 ; 173 ; Vim-., 1, 16 ; Conform., 49a, 1, and 110b, 1 ; 3 Cel., 
 3,51. 
 
138 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 favorite son, he excited much opposition, and was to the 
 end of his long life the head of the strict observance.' 
 
 One winter's day, St. Francis was going with Brother Leo from Pe- 
 rugia to Santa Maria degli Angeli, and the cold, being intense, made 
 them shiver ; he called Brother Leo, who was walking a little in advance, 
 and said : " O Brother Leo, may it please God that the Brothers Minor 
 all over the world may give a great example of holiness and edification ; 
 write, however, and note with care, that not in this is the perfect joy." 
 
 St. Francis, going on a little farther, called him a second time : " O 
 Brother Leo, if the Brothers Minor gave sight to the blind, healed the 
 infirm, cast out demons, gave hearing to the deaf, or even what is 
 much more, if they raised the four days dead, write that not in this is 
 the perfect joy." 
 
 Going on a little farther he cried : "6 Brother Leo, if the Brother 
 Minor knew all languages, all science, and all scriptures, if he could 
 prophesy and reveal not only future things but even the secrets of con- 
 sciences and of souls, write that not in this consists the perfect joy." 
 
 Going a little farther St. Francis called to him again : " O Brother 
 Leo, little sheep of God, if the Brother Minor could speak the language 
 of angels, if he knew the courses of the stars and the virtues of plants, 
 if all the treasures of earth were revealed to him, and he knew the 
 qualities of birds, fishes, and all animals, of men, trees, rocks, roots, 
 and waters, write that not in these is the perfect joy." 
 
 And advancing still a little farther St. Francis called loudly to him : 
 " Brother Leo, if the Brother Minor could preach so well as to con- 
 vert all infidels to the faith of Christ, write that not in this is the per- 
 fect joy." 
 
 While speaking thus they had already gone more than two miles, and 
 Brother Leo, full of surprise, said to him : '• Father, I pray you in 
 God's name tell me in what consists the perfect joy.'' 
 
 And St. Francis replied : "When we arrive at Santa Maria degli An- 
 geli, soaked with rain, frozen with cold, covered with mud, dying of 
 hunger, and we knock and the porter comes in a rage, saying, ' Who 
 are you ? ' and we answer, ' We are two of your brethren,' and he says, 
 ' You lie, you are two lewd fellows who go up and down corrupting 
 the world and stealing the alms of the poor. Go away from here I ' and 
 he does not open to us, but leaves us outside shivering in the snow and 
 rain, frozen, starved, till night; then, if thus maltreated and turned 
 away, we patiently endure all without murmuring against him, if Wf 
 
 > Bernard de Besse, Be laudibus, Turin MS., f. 102b and 96a. Ht 
 died November 15, 1271. A. SS., Augusti, t. ii., p. 221. 
 
PORTIIINCtrLA 135) 
 
 think with humility and charity that this porter really knows us truly 
 and that Grod makes him speak thus to us, then, Brother Leo, write 
 that in this is the perfect joy. . . . Above all the graces and all 
 the gifts which the Holy Spirit gives to his friends is the grace to 
 conquer oneself, and willingly to suffer pain, oabragea, disgrace, and 
 evil treatment, for the love of Christ I " ' 
 
 Although by its sKght and somewhat playful character 
 this story recalls the insipid statues of the fourteenth 
 century, it has justly become celebrated, its spirit is 
 thoroughly Franciscan ; that transcendent idealism, which 
 sees in perfection and joy two equivalent terms, and 
 places perfect joy in the pure and serene region of the 
 perfecting of oneself ; that sublime simplicity which so 
 easily puts in their true place the miracle-worker and the 
 scholar, these are perhaps not entirely new ; ^ but St. 
 Francis must have had singular moral strength to impose 
 upon his contemporaries ideas in such absolute contra- 
 diction to their habits and their hopes ; for the intellect- 
 ual aristocracy of the thirteenth century with one accord 
 found the perfect joy in knowledge, while the people 
 found it in miracles. 
 
 Doubtless we must not forget those great mystical fam- 
 ilies, which, all through the Middle Ages, were the refuge 
 of the noblest souls ; but they never had this fine simplic- 
 ity. The School is always more or less the gateway to 
 mysticism ; it is possible only to an elect of subtile minds ; 
 a pious peasant seldom understands the Imitation. 
 
 It may be said that all St. Francis's philosophy is con- 
 tained in this chapter of the Fioretti.^ From it we foresee 
 what will be his attitude toward learning, and are helped 
 
 ' Fior., 8 ; Spec, 89b ff.; Oonfwm,., 30b, 2, and 140a, 2. 
 
 " I need not here point out the analogy in form between this chapter 
 and St. Paul's celebrated song of love, 1 Cor. xiii. 
 
 ' We find the same thoughts in nearly the same terms in ea^. v. of 
 the Verba saerce admonitionU, 
 
140 LIFE OF ST. FEANCIS 
 
 fco understand hdw it happens that this famous sainl wad 
 so poor a miracle-worker. 
 
 Twelve centuries before, Jesus had said, " Blesseo are 
 the poor in spirit. Blessed are they who suffer." The 
 words of St. Francis are only a commentary, but this 
 commentary is worthy of the text. 
 
 It remains to say a word concerning two disciples who 
 were always closely united with Brother Leo in the Fran- 
 ciscan memorials — Eufino and Masseo. 
 
 Born of a noble family connected with that of St. 
 Clara, the former was soon distinguished in the Order for 
 his visions and ecstasies, but his great timidity checked 
 him as soon as he tried to preach : for this reason be is 
 always to be found in the most isolated hermitages— Car- 
 ceri, Vema, Greccio.* 
 
 Masseo, of Marignano, a small village in the environs 
 of Assisi, was his very opposite ; handsome, well made, 
 witty, he attracted attention by his fine presence and his 
 great facility of speech ; he occupies a special place in 
 popular Franciscan tradition. He deserves it. St. Fran- 
 cis, to test his humility, made him the porter and cook of 
 the hermitage,^ but in these functions Masseo showed 
 himself to be so perfectly a Minor that from that time 
 the master particularly loved to have him for companion 
 in his missionary journeys. 
 
 One day they were travelling together, when they ar- 
 rived at the intersection of the roads to Sienna, Arezzo, 
 and Florence. 
 
 " Which one shall we take ? " asked Masseo. 
 
 " Whichever one God wills." 
 
 ' He is the second of the Three Companions. 3 See. , 1 ; cf . 1 Cel. , 95 ; 
 Mor., 1 ; 29, 30, 31 ; Eocleston, 13; Spec, 110a-114b ; Conform., Sib 
 ft. ; of. 2 Cel., 2, 4. 
 
 ' Very probably that of the Carceri, though the name is not indicated, 
 Vide 3 Soc, 1 ; Mor., 4 ; 10 ; 11 ; 12 ; 13 ; 16 ; 37 ; 32 ; Conform., 
 51b, Ife ; Tribul. ArcJdv., t. ii., p. 263. 
 
POETItJNCULA 141 
 
 "But how shall we know which one God wills ? " 
 
 " You shall see. Go and stand at the crossing of the 
 roads, turn round and round as the children do, and do 
 not stop until I bid you." 
 
 Brother Masseo began to turn ; seized with a vertigo, he 
 was nearly falling, but caught himself up at once. Fi- 
 nally Francis called out, "Stop! which way are you 
 facing ? " 
 
 " Toward Sienna." 
 
 " Very well ; God wills that we go to Sienna." * 
 
 Such a method of making up one's mind is doubtless 
 not for the daily needs of Ufe, but Francis employed still 
 others, like it, if not in form at least in fact. 
 
 Up to this time we have seen the brethren living 
 together in their hermitages or roving the highways, 
 preaching repentance. It would, however, be a mistake 
 to think that their whole lives were passed thus. To 
 understand the first Franciscans we must absolutely for- 
 get what they may have been since that time, and what 
 monks are in general ; if Portiuncula was a monastery it 
 was also a workshop, where each brother practised the 
 trade which had been his before entering the Order ; but 
 what is stranger still to our ideas, the Brothers often 
 went out as servants.^ 
 
 Brother Egidio's case was not an exception, it was the 
 rule. This did not last long, for very soon the friars who^ 
 entered a house as domestics came to be treated as dis-i 
 tinguished guests ; but in the beginning they were liter- 
 ally servants, and took upon themselves the most menial 
 labors. Among the works which they might under- 
 
 ' Fhr., 11 ; C(mform., 50b, 2; Spec., 104a. 
 
 - Eule of 1321, chap. 7. Omneg fratreg, in guibuseumgueloeit fuerint 
 a/pud aiiguos ad serviendwm, ml ad laborandum, rum sint cornierarii, nea 
 eeUa/rii, nee prasint in dom^ntf torvm quibus serviunt. Cf. 1 Cel., 38 
 and 40 ; A. SS., p. 606. 
 
142 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 take Francis recommended above all the care of lepers. 
 We have already seen the important part which these un- 
 fortunates played in his conversion ; he always retained 
 for them a peculiar pity, which he sought to make his dis- 
 ciples share. 
 
 For several years the Brothers Minor may be said to 
 have gone from lazaretto to lazaretto, preaching by day 
 in the towns and villages, and retiring at night to these 
 refuges, where they rendered to these patients of God 
 the most repugnant services. 
 
 The Orucigeri, who took charge of the greater number 
 of leper-houses, alwavs welcomed these kindly disposed 
 aides, who, far from asking any sort of recompense, were 
 willing to eat whatever the patients might have left.^ In 
 fact, although created solely for the care of lepers, the 
 Brothers of this Order sometimes lost patience when the 
 sufferers were too exacting, and instead of being grateful 
 had only murmurs or even reproaches for their benefac 
 tors. In these desperate cases the intervention of Fran- 
 cis and his disciples was especially precious. It often 
 happened that a Brother was put in special charge of a 
 single leper, whose companion and servant he continued 
 to be, sometimes for a long period.^ 
 
 The following narrative shows Francis's love for these 
 unfortunates, and his method with them.^ 
 
 It happened one time that the Brothers were serving the lepers and 
 the sick in a hospital, near to the place where St. Francis was. Among 
 them was a leper who was so impatient, so cross-grained, so unendur- 
 able, that everyone believed him to be possessed by the devil, and 
 
 ' 1 Cel., 103 ; 39 ; Spec., 28 ; Eeg. 1321, ix.; Giord., 33 and 39. 
 
 ' Vide Spec., 34b.; i?%w., 4. 
 
 ' All the details of this story lead me to think that it refers to Por- 
 tiunonla and the hospital San SaVoatore deUe Pa/reti. The story is given 
 by the Conform., 174b, 2, as taken from the Legenda AtiMgiia. OL 
 i^ee., 58b; Mor.,Sa. 
 
POETIUKCULA 143 
 
 rightly enough, for he heaped insults and blows upon those who waited 
 upon him, and what was worse, he continually insulted and blas- 
 phemed the blessed Christ and his most holy Mother the Virgin Mary, 
 so that there was no longer anyone who could or would wait upon him. 
 The Brothers would willingly have endured the insults and abuse 
 which he lavished upon them, in order to augment the merit of their 
 patience, but their souls could not consent to hear those which he ut- 
 tered against Christ and his Mother. They therefore resolved to aban- 
 don this leper, but not without having told the whole story exactly to 
 St. Francis, who at that time was dwelling not far away. 
 
 When they told him, St. Francis betook himself to the wicked leper ; 
 " May God give thee peace, my most dear brother," he said to him as 
 he drew near. 
 
 " And what peace," asked the leper, " can I receive from God, who 
 has taken away my peace and every good thing, and has made my body 
 a mass of stinking and corruption ?" 
 
 St. Francis said to him : " My brother, be patient, for God gives us 
 diseases in this world for the salvation of our souls, and when we en- 
 dure them patiently they are the fountain of great merit to us." 
 
 " How can I endure patiently continual pains which torture me day 
 and night ? And it is not only my disease that I suffer from, but the 
 friars that yon gave me to wait upon me are unendurable, and do not 
 take care of me as they ought. " 
 
 Then St. Francis perceived that this leper was possessed by the spirit 
 of evil, and he betook himself to his knees in order to pray for him. 
 Then returning he said to him : " My son, since you are not satisfied 
 with the others, I will wait upon you." 
 
 "That is all very well, but what can you do for me more than 
 they?" 
 
 " I will do whatever you wish." 
 
 "Very well ; I wish you to wash me from head to foot, for I smell so 
 badly that I disgust myself." 
 
 Then St. Francis made haste to heat some water with many sweet- 
 smelling herbs ; next he took off the leper's clothes and began to bathe 
 him, while a Brother poured out the water. And behold, by a divine 
 miracle, wherever St. Francis touched him with his holy hands the 
 leprosy disappeared and the fiesh became perfectly sound. And in 
 proportion as the flesh was healed the soul of the wretched man was 
 also healed, and he began to feel a lively sorrow for his sins, and to 
 weep bitterly. . . . And being completely healed both in body and 
 soul, he cried with all his might : " Woe unto me, for I have deserved 
 hell for the abuses and outrages which I have said and done to the 
 Brothers, for my impatience and my blasphemies." 
 
144 LIFE OF ST. FEAirCIS 
 
 One day, Brother John, whose simplicity we have 
 already seen, and who had been especially put in charge 
 of a certain leper, took him for a walk to Portitincula, as 
 if he had not been the victim of a contagious malady. 
 Reproaches were not spared him ; the leper heard them 
 and could not hide his sadness and distress ; it seemed 
 to him like being a second time banished from the world. 
 Francis was quick to remark all this and to feel sharp 
 remorse for it ; the thought of having saddened one of 
 God's patients was unendurable ; he not only begged his 
 pardon, but he caused food to be served, and sitting down 
 beside him he shared his repast, eating from the same 
 porringer.' We see with what perseverance he pursued 
 by every means the realization of his ideal. 
 
 The details just given show the Umbrian movement, 
 as it appears to me, to be one of the most humble and at 
 the same time the most sincere and practical attempts to 
 realize the kingdom of God on earth. How far removed 
 we are here from the superstitious vulgarity of the me- 
 chanical devotion, the deceitful miracle-working of cer- 
 tain Catholics ; how far also from the commonplace, com- 
 placent, quibbling, theorizing Christianity of certain 
 Protestants ! 
 
 Francis is of the race of mystics, for no intermediary 
 comes between God and his soul ; but his mysticism is 
 that of Jesus leading his disciples to the Tabor of con- 
 templation; but when, overflooded with joy, they long 
 to build tabernacles that they may remain on the heights 
 and satiate themselves with the raptures of ecstasy, 
 " Fools," he says to them, " ye know not what ye ask," 
 and directing their gaze to the crowds wandering like 
 sheep having no shepherd, he leads them back to the 
 
 ' In the Speculum,, f° 41a, this story ends with the phrase : Qui mdit 
 JuBC scripsit et testimonium perhibet de Mis. The brother is here callad 
 Frater Jaccbus smnipkx. Of. Conform., 174b. 
 
PORTIUNOULA 145 
 
 plain, to the midst of those who moan, who suffer, who 
 blaspheme. 
 
 The higher the moral stature of Francis the more 
 he was exposed to the danger of being understood only 
 by the very few, and disappointed by those who were 
 nearest to him. Keading the Franciscan authors, one 
 feels every moment how the radiant beauty of the model 
 is marred by the awkwardness of the disciple. It could 
 not have been otherwise, and this difference between th»s 
 master and the companions is evident from the ver^ 
 begiimings of the Order. The greater number of the 
 biographers have drawn the veil of oblivion over the 
 difficulties created by certain Brothers as well as those 
 which came from the ecclesiastical hierarchy, but we 
 must not allow ourselves to be deceived by this almost 
 xmiversal silence. 
 
 Here and there we find indications all the more pre- 
 cious for being, so to say, involuntary. Brother Eufino, 
 for example, the same who was destined to become one 
 of the intimates of Francis's later days, assumed an atti- 
 tude of revolt shortly after his entrance into the Order. 
 He thought it foolish in Francis when, instead of leav- 
 ing the friars to give themselves unceasingly to prayer, 
 he sent them out in aU directions to wait upon lepers.* 
 His own ideal was the life of the hermits of the The- 
 baide, as it is related in the then popular legends of St. 
 Anthony, St. Paul, St. Paconius, and twenty others. He 
 once passed Lent in one of the grottos of the Carceri. 
 Holy Thursday having arrived, Francis, who was also 
 there, summoned all the brethren who were dispersed 
 about the neighborhood, whether in grottos or huts, to 
 observe with him the memories to which this day was 
 consecrated. Bufino refused to come ; " For that mat- 
 ter," he added, " I have decided to foUow him no longer ; 
 
 I Conform., 51b, 1. Cf. 3 Cel., 3, 4 ; Spec., 110b ; Mor., 39. 
 10 
 
146 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 I mean to remain here and live solitary, for in this way I 
 shall be more surely saved than by submitting myself to 
 this man and his nonsense." 
 
 Young and enthusiastic for the most part, it was not 
 always without difficulty that the Brothers formed the 
 habit of keeping their work in the background. Agree- 
 ing with their master as to fundamentals, they would 
 have liked to make more of a stir, attract public atten- 
 tion by more obvious devotion ; there were some among 
 them whom it did not satisfy to be saints, but who also 
 wished to appear such. 
 
CHAPTEE IX 
 
 SANTA CLARA 
 
 PoptJLAE piety in Umbria never separates the memorv 
 of St. Francis from that of Santa Clara. It is right. 
 
 Clara ' was bom at Assisi in 1194, and was conse- 
 quently about twelve years younger than Francis. She 
 belonged to the noble family of the Sciffi. At the age 
 when a little girl's imagination awakes and stirs, she 
 heard the follies of the son of Bemardone recounted at 
 length. She was sixteen when the Saint preached for 
 the first time in the cathedral, suddenly appearing like 
 an angel of peace ia a city torn by intestine dissensions. 
 
 ' Easy as it is to seize the large outlines of her life, it is with diffi- 
 culty that one makes a detailed and documentary study of it. There is 
 nothing surprising in this, for the Clarisses felt the rebound of the 
 struggles which divided and rapidly transformed the Order of the 
 Brothers Minor. The greater number of the documents have disap- 
 peared ; we give summary indication of those which will most often be 
 cited : 1. Life of St. Clara by an anonymous author. A. SS. , Aug. , t. 
 li. , pp. 739-768. 3. Her Will, given by Wadding (Annales, 1253, No. 
 5), but which does not appear to be free from alteration. (Compare, for 
 example, the opening of this will with Chapter VL of the Rule of the 
 Damianites approved by Innocent IV., August 8, 1358.) 3. The bull of 
 canonization, given September 36, 1355 — that is to say, two years after 
 Clara's death; it is much longer than these documents ordinarily are, 
 and relates the principal incidents of her life. A. SS., he. cit., p. 749 ; 
 Potthast, 16,035. 4. Her correspondence. Unhappily we have only 
 fragments of it ; the BoUandists, without saying whence they drew 
 them, have inserted four of her letters in the Acta of St. Agnes of Bohe- 
 mia, to whom they were addressed. (A. SS., Martii, 1. 1, pp. 506-S08.) 
 
148 LIFE OP ST. FKANOIS 
 
 To her his appeals were like a revelation. It seemed as 
 if Francis was speaking for her, that he divined her secret 
 sorrows, her most personal anxieties, and all that was 
 ardent and enthusiastic in the heart of this young girl 
 rushed like a torrent that suddenly finds an outlet into 
 the channel indicated by him. For saints as for heroes 
 the supreme stimulus is woman's admiration. 
 
 But here, more than ever, we must put away the vul- 
 gar judgment which can understand no union between 
 man and woman where the sexual instinct has no part. 
 That which makes the union of the sexes something al- 
 most divine is that it is the prefiguration, the symbol, of 
 the union of souls. Physical love is an ephemeral spark, 
 designed to kindle in human hearts the flame of a more 
 lasting love ; it is the outer court of the temple, but not 
 the most holy place ; its inestimable value is precisely 
 that it leaves us abruptly at the door of the holiest of aU 
 as if to invite us to step over the threshold. 
 
 The mysterious sigh of nature goes out for the union 
 of souls. This is the unknown God to whom debau- 
 chees, those pagans of love, o£fer their sacrifices, and this 
 sacred imprint, even though effaced, though soiled by 
 all pollutions, often saves the man of the world from 
 inspiring as much disgust as the drunkard and the 
 criminal. 
 
 But sometimes — more often than we think — there are 
 souls so pure, so little earthly, that on their first meet- 
 ing they enter the most holy place, and once there the 
 thought of any other union would be not merely a 
 descent, but an impossibility. Such was the love of Si 
 Francis and St. Clara. 
 
 But these are exceptions. There is something mys- 
 terious in this supreme purity; it is so high that ia 
 holding it up to men one risks speaking to them in ao 
 unknown tongue, or even worse. 
 
SANTA CLAKA 149 
 
 The biographers of St. Francis have clearly felt the 
 danger of offering to the multitude the sight of certain 
 beauties which are far beyond them, and this is for us 
 the great fault of their works. They try to give us not 
 so much the true portrait of Francis as that of the perfect 
 minister-general of the Order such as they conceive it, 
 such as it must needs be to serve as a model for his 
 disciples; thus they have made this model somewhat 
 according to the measure of those whom it is to serve, 
 by omitting here and there features which, stupidly in- 
 terpreted, might .have furnished material for the ma- 
 levolence of unscrupulous adversaries, or from which 
 disciples little versed in spiritual things could not have 
 failed to draw support for permitting themselves dan- 
 gerous intimacies. Thus the relations of St. Francis 
 with women in general and St. Clara in particular, have 
 been completely travestied by Thomas of Celano. It 
 could not have been otherwise, and we must not bear 
 him a grudge for it. The life of the founder of an Order, 
 when written by a monk, in the very nature of things 
 becomes always a sort of appendix to or illustration of 
 the Eule. And the Eule, especially if the Order has its 
 thousands of members, is necessarily made not for the 
 elect, but for the average, for the majority of the flock.' 
 
 Hence this portrait, in which St. Francis is represented 
 as a stem ascetic, to whom woman appears to be a sort of 
 
 ' Reading the Chronicle of Fra Salimbeni, which represents the aver- 
 age Franciscan character about 1350, one sees with what reason the 
 Rale had multiplied minute precautions for keeping the Brothers from 
 all relations with women. 
 
 The desire of Celano to present the facts in the life of Francis as the 
 norm of the acts of the friars appears still more in the chapters cou< 
 ceming St. Clara than in all the others. Vide 3 Cel., 3, 133 : N(m ere- 
 datis, (Aarissimi (dixit Jih-ancisciis), quod eaaperfecte rum dUlgam. . . . 
 Sed exemplum do wbi», ut quemadmodum, ego facio, ita et vot faeiatii, 
 Cf. ibid., 134. 
 
150 LIFE OF ST. FKANOIS 
 
 incarnate devil ! The biographers even go so far as to 
 assure us that he knew only two women by sight. These 
 are manifest exaggerations, or rather the opposite of the 
 truth.' 
 
 We are not reduced to conjecture to discover the true 
 attitude of the Umbrian prophet in this matter. With- 
 out suspecting it, Oelano himself gives details enough 
 for the correction of his own errors, and there are be- 
 sides a number of other documents whose scattered 
 hints correspond and agree with one another in a manner 
 all the more marvellous that it is entirely unintentional, 
 giving, when they are brought together, almost all one 
 could desire to know of the intercourse of these two 
 beautiful souls. 
 
 After the sermons of Francis at St. Eufino, Clara's 
 decision was speedily taken ; she would break away from 
 the trivialities of an idle and luxurious life and make 
 herself the servant of the poor ; all her efforts should be 
 bent to make each day a new advance in the royal way 
 of love and poverty ; and for this she would have only 
 to obey him who had suddenly revealed it to her. 
 
 She sought him out and opened to him her heart. 
 With that exaltation, a union of candor and delicacy, 
 which is woman's fine endowment, and to which she 
 would more readily give free course if she did not too 
 
 ' 2 Cel., 3, 55. Fateor veritatem . . . nuUam me si agpkerem re- 
 eogniturum in fade nisi duas. This chapter and the two following give 
 us a sort of caricature, in which Francis is represented as so little sure 
 of himself that he casts down his eyes for fear of yielding to desire. 
 The stories of Francis and Jaoqtueline of Settesoli give a very different 
 picture of the relations between the Brothers aud the women in the 
 origin of the Order from that which was given later. Bernard de 
 Besse (Turin MS., f°. 113) relates at length the coming of Jacqueline 
 to Portiuncula to be present at St. Francis's death. Of. Spec., 107 ; 138 ; 
 Bon., 113. Also Clara's repast at Portiunoula. Mor., 15 j ^ec., 138 
 b.; A. SS. Aug. Vita Olar., No. 39 fE. 
 
SANTA CLARA 151 
 
 often divine the pitfalls of base passion and incredulity, 
 Clara offered herself to Francis. 
 
 It is one of the privileges of saints to suffer more than 
 other men, for they feel in their more loving hearts the 
 echo of all the sorrows of the world ; but they also know 
 joys and delights of which common men never taste. 
 What an inexpressible song of joy must have burst forth 
 in Francis's heart when he saw Clara on her knees be- 
 fore him, awaiting, with his blessing, the word which 
 would consecrate her life to the gospel ideal. 
 
 Who knows if this interview did not inspire another 
 saint, Fra Angelico, to introduce into his masterpiece 
 those two elect souls who, already radiant with the light 
 of the heavenly Jerusalem, stop to exchange a kiss be- 
 fore crossing its threshold ? 
 
 Souls, like flowers, have a perfume of their own which 
 never deceives. One look had sufficed for Francis to 
 go down into the depths of this heart ; he was too kind 
 to submit Clara to useless tests, too much an idealist to 
 prudently confine himself to custom or arbitrary deco- 
 rum ; as when he founded the Order of Friars, he took 
 counsel only of himself and God. In this was his 
 strength ; if he had hesitated, or even if he had simply 
 submitted himseK to ecclesiastical rules, he would have 
 been stopped twenty times before he had done anything. 
 Success is so powerful an argument that the biographers 
 appear not to have perceived how determined Francis 
 was to ignore the canonical laws. He, a simple deacon, 
 arrogated to himself the right to receive Clara's vows 
 and admit her to the Order without the briefest no- 
 vitiate. Such an act ought to have drawn down upon 
 its author all the censures of the Church, but Francis 
 was already one of those powers to whom much is for- 
 given, even by those who speak in the name of the holj 
 Boman Church. 
 
152 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 Francis had decided that on the night between Fabn 
 Sunday and Holy Monday (March 18-19, 1212) Clara 
 should secretly quit the paternal castle and come with 
 two companions to Portiuncula, where he would await 
 her, and would give her the veil. She arrived just as 
 the friars were singing matins. They went out, the 
 story goes, carrying candles in their hands, to meet the 
 bride, while from the woods around Portiuncula re- 
 sounded songs of joy over this new bridal. Then Mass 
 was begun at that same altar where, three years before, 
 Francis had heard the decisive call of Jesus ; he was 
 kneeling in the same place, but surrounded now with a 
 whole spiritual family. 
 
 It is easy to imagine Clara's emotion. The step which 
 she had just taken was simply heroic, for she knew to 
 what persecutions from her family she was exposing 
 herself, and what she had seen of the life of the Brothers 
 Minor was a sufficient warning of the distresses to which 
 she was exposing herself in espousing poverty. No 
 doubt she interpreted the words of the service in har- 
 mony with her own thoughts : 
 
 " Surely they are my people," said Jehovah. 
 ' ' Children who will not be faithless I " 
 
 And he was for them a saviour. 
 
 In none of their afflictions were they without succor. 
 
 And the angel that is before his face saved them. ' 
 
 Then Francis read again the words of Jesus to his dis- 
 ciples ; she vowed to conform her life to them ; her hair 
 was cut o£f; all was finished. A few moments after, 
 Francis conducted her to a house of Benedictine nuns " 
 
 ' Isaiah, Ixiii., 8 and 9 (Sigond's [French] translation). At the Mass on 
 Holy Monday Isaiah Ixiii. is read for the Epistle and Mark ziv. fof 
 the Gospel. 
 
 ' San Paolo on the Chiasco, near Basti*. 
 
SANTA CLAEA 153 
 
 at an hour's distance, where she was to remain provi- 
 sionally and await the progress of events. 
 
 The very next morning Favorino, her father, arrived 
 with a few friends, inveighing, supplicating, abusing 
 everybody. She was unmovable, showing so much 
 courage that at last they gave up the thought of carrying 
 her off by main force. 
 
 She was not, however, at the end of her tribulations. 
 Had this scene frightened the Benedictines ? We can- 
 not tell, but less than a fortnight after we find her in 
 another convent, that of Sant-Angelo in Panso, at Assisi.i 
 A week after Easter, Agnes, her younger sister, joined 
 her there, decided in her turn to serve poverty. Francis 
 received her into the Order. This time the father's fury 
 was horrible. With a band of relatives he invaded the 
 convent, but neither abuse nor blows could subdue this 
 child of fourteen. In spite of her cries they dragged her 
 away. She fainted, and the little inanimate body sud- 
 denly seemed to them so heavy that they abandoned it 
 in the midst of the fields, some laborers looking with 
 pity on the painful scene, until Clara, whose cry God 
 had heard, hastened to succor her sister. 
 
 Their sojourn in this convent was of very short dura- 
 tion. It appears that they did not carry away a very 
 pleasant impression of it.^ Francis knew that several 
 others were burning to join his two women friends ; he 
 therefore set himself to seek out a retreat where th^ 
 
 • At the present day diocesan seminary of Assisi, " Seminarmm 
 seraphicum." In the thirteenth century the north gate of the city 
 was there. The houses which lie between there and the Basilica form 
 the new town, which is rapidly growing and will unite the city with 
 Sacro Convento. 
 
 ' Nam, steteramus in alio loco, licet parum. Test. Clar. It is truly 
 strange that there is not a word here for the house where the first days 
 of her religious life were passed. Gf. Yit., no. 10 : 8. Angdvs de Pan»$ 
 , . . vii eum non plene mens yva qvieieerei. 
 
!54 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 eould live under liis direction and in all liberty practise 
 che gospel rule. 
 
 He had not long to seek ; the Benedictine monks of 
 Mount Subasio always seized every possible opportunity 
 to make themselves popular. They belonged to that 
 congregation of Oamaldoli, whom the common people 
 appear to have particularly detested, and several of whose 
 convents had lately been pillaged.^ The abbey no longer 
 counted more than eight monks, who were trying to save 
 the wreck of their riches and privileges by partial sacri- 
 fices ; on the 22d of April, 1212, they had given to the 
 commune of Assisi for a communal house a monument 
 which is standing this day, the temple of Minerva.^ 
 
 Francis, who already was their debtor for Portiuncula, 
 once more addressed himself to them. Happy in this 
 new opportunity to render service to one who was the 
 incarnation of popular claims, they gave him the chapel 
 of St. Damian ; perhaps they were well pleased, by fa- 
 voring the new Order, to annoy Bishop Guido, of whom 
 they had reason to complain.^ However this may be, in 
 this hermitage, so well adapted for prayer and medita- 
 tion, Francis installed his spiritual daughters.^ In this 
 sanctuary, repaired by his own hands, at the feet of this 
 crucifix which had spoken to him, Clara was hencefor- 
 ward to pray. It was the house of God ; it was also in 
 good measure that of Francis. Crossing its threshold, 
 
 ^ Mittaxelli, Annales Camaldulenses {teniae, 1755-mS, 9 vols., f°.), t. 
 iv., app. 431 and 436. Cf. 156. 
 
 ' The act of donation is still in the archives of Assisi. An analysis of 
 it will be found in Cristofani, t i., p. 133. Their munificence remained 
 without result ; the bull Ab Eeelma of July 37, 1333, shows that they 
 were suppressed less than twenty years after. Bbarc^a, t. 1, p. 81. 
 Potthast, 8984. Of., ib., p. 195, note c, and 840, note a, and the bttllB 
 which are there indicated. 
 
 ' See p. 81, note ii. 
 
 •1 del., 18; 21; 3Soo., 34; 2C«1.,1,& 
 
SANTA OLAKA 155 
 
 Clara doubtless experienced that feeling, at once so sweet 
 and so poignant, of the wife who for the first time enters 
 her husband's house, trembling with emotion at the ra- 
 diant and confused vision of the future. 
 
 If we are not entirely to misapprehend these begin- 
 nings, we must remember with what rapidity external 
 influences transformed the first conception of St. Francis. 
 At this moment he no more expected to found a second 
 order than he had desired to found the first one. In 
 snatching Clara from her family he had simply acted like 
 a true knight who rescues an oppressed woman, and 
 takes her under his protection. In installing her at St. 
 Damian he was preparing a refuge for those who desired 
 to imitate her and apart from the world practise the 
 gospel Rule. But he never thought that the perfection 
 of which he and his disciples were the apostles and mis- 
 sionaries, and which Clara and her companions were to 
 realize in celibacy, was not practicable in social positions 
 also ; thence comes what is wrongly called the Tertiari, 
 or Third Order, and which in its primitive thought was 
 not separated from the first. This Third Order had no 
 need to be instituted in 1221, for it existed from the 
 moment when a single conscience resolved to practise 
 his teachings, without being able to follow him to Por- 
 tiuneula.^ The enemy of the soul for him as for Jesus 
 was avarice, understood in its largest sense — that is to say, 
 that blindness which constrains men to consecrate their 
 hearts to material preoccupations, makes them the slave 
 of a few pieces of gold or a few acres of land, renders 
 
 ' An. Perm., A. SS., p. 600. Cf. 3 Soc, 60. The three Orders are 
 contemporary, one might even say, the four, including among them the 
 one that miscarried among the secular priests (see below). 
 
 In a letter St. Clara speaks of her Order as making only a part with 
 that of the Brothers : Seguaris consilia Meverendi Patris nostri fratnt 
 Mim Mirmtri generalU tolius ordinis. A. SS., Martii, t. i., p. 507. 
 
156 LIFE OP ST. FRANCIS 
 
 them insensible to the beauties of nature, and deprives 
 them of infinite joys which they alone can know who are 
 the disciples of poverty and love. 
 
 Whoever was free at heart from all material servitude, 
 whoever was decided to live without hoarding, every rich 
 man who was willing to labor with his hands and loyally 
 distribute all that he did not consume in order to con- 
 stitute the common fimd which St. Francis called the 
 Lord's table, every poor man who was willing to work, 
 free to resort, in the strict measure of his wants, to this 
 table of the Lord, these were at that time true Francis- 
 cans. 
 
 It was a social revolution. 
 
 There was then at that time neither one Order nor sev- 
 eral.* The gospel of the Beatitudes had been found 
 again, and, as twelve centuries before, it could accommo- 
 date itself to all situations. 
 
 Alas ! the Church, personified by Cardinal Ugolini, was 
 about, if not to cause the Franciscan movement to mis- 
 carry, at least so well to hedge about it that a few years 
 later it would have lost nearly its whole original char- 
 acter. 
 
 As has been seen, the word poverty expresses only 
 very imperfectly St. Francis's point of view, since it 
 contains an idea of renunciation, of abstinence, while in 
 thought the vow of poverty is a vow of liberty. Property 
 is the cage with gilded wires, to which the poor larks are 
 sometimes so thoroughly accustomed that they no longer 
 
 ' This point of view is brought into relief by an anecdote in the De 
 laudibus of Bernard of Besse (Turin MS., 113a). This is how he ends 
 chap. vii. on the three Orders : JVee Santus his contentus ordinibus sata- 
 gebat omnium generi salutis et penitenticB viam dare. Unde pa/rochiali 
 cuidam sacerdoti dicenti sibi quod velkt luus, retenta tcrnien ecdesia. 
 Frater esse, data vivendi et indtiendi mado, dicitur indixme ut annu 
 atim, eoUeetis Eedesimfructibus daret pro Deo, gttod de preeteritia super- 
 meL 
 
SANTA OlAEA 157 
 
 even think of getting away in order to soai up into the 
 blue. 1 
 
 From the beginning St. Damian was the extreme oppo- 
 site to what a convent of Clarisses of the strict observ- 
 ance is now ; it is still to-day very much as Francis saw 
 it. We owe thanks to the Brothers Minor for having pre- 
 served intact this venerable and charming hermitage, 
 and not spoiling it with stupid embellishments. This 
 little corner of Umbrian earth will be for our descend- 
 ants like Jacob's well whereon Christ sat himself down 
 for an instant, one of the favorite courts of the worship 
 in spirit and in truth. 
 
 In installing Clara there Francis put into her hands 
 the Rule which he had prepared for her," which no doubt 
 resembled that of the Brothers save for the precepts with 
 regard to the missionary Ufe. He accompanied it with 
 the engagement ' taken by himself and his brothers to 
 supply by labor or alms all the needs of Clara and her 
 future companions. In return they also were to work 
 and render to the Brothers all the services of which 
 they might be capable. We have seen the zeal which 
 Francis had brought to the task of making the churches 
 worthy of the worship celebrated in them ; he could not 
 endure that the linen put to sacred uses should be less 
 than clean. Clara set herself to spinning thread for the 
 
 > See the lovely story in the Fior., 13. Cf. Spec., 65a ; Conform., 
 168b, 1. 
 
 ' The text of it was doubtless formerly inserted in chapter vi. of the 
 Rule granted to the Clarisses of St. Damian, August 9, 1253, by the bull 
 8ole,t anrmere. Potthast, 15,086. But this chapter has been completely 
 changed in many editions. The text of the Speculum, Morin, Bonen 
 1509, should be read. Tract iii,, 326b. The critical study to be made 
 upon this text by comparing the indications given by the bull Angdit 
 guadium of May 11, 1338, Sbaralea, i,, p 343, is too long to,find a placa 
 here. 
 
 s 2 Cel., 3, 133. Cf. Test. B. Clof. 
 
158 LIFE OF ST. FEANCIS 
 
 altar-cloths and corporals wMch the Brothers undertook 
 to distribute among the poor churches of the district.^ 
 In addition, during the earlier years, she also nursed 
 the sick whom Francis sent to her, and St; Damian was 
 for some time a sort of hospital.^ 
 
 One or two friars, who were called Zealots of the Poor 
 Ladies, were especially charged with the care of the 
 Sisters, making themselves huts beside the chapel, after 
 the model of those of Portiuncula. Francis was also near 
 at hand ; a sort of terrace four paces long overlooks the 
 hermitage ; Clara made there a tiny garden, and when, 
 at twilight, she went thither to water her flowers, she 
 could see, hardly half a league distant, Portiuncula stand- 
 ing out against the aureola of the western sky. 
 
 For several years the relations between the two houses 
 were continual, fuU of charm and freedom. The com- 
 panions of Francis who received Brothers received Sisters 
 also, at times returning from their preaching tours with 
 a neophyte for St. Damian.' 
 
 ^In Ula gram infirmitate . . . fadebat se erigi . . . et sedens 
 filabat. A. SS. , 760e. Sic milt eas {sorores] operate manibm suia. lb. 
 762a. 
 
 « Mor. 33. 
 
 ' Rule of 1331, chap xii. Et nvMa penitus muMer db aliguo frater 
 recipiatur ad obedientiam., ted dato libi consilio spirituali, ubi voluerit 
 agat penitentiam. Of. below, p. 252, note 1, the remainder of this 
 chapter and the indication of the sources. This proves, 1, that the 
 friars had received women into the Order ; 3, that at the beginning 
 they said The Order in the singular, and under this appellation included 
 Sisters as well as Brothers. We see how far the situation was, even at 
 the end of 1221, from being what it became a few years later. It is .to 
 be noted that in all the reforming sects of the commencement of the 
 thirteenth century the two sexes were closely united. (Vide Bureha/rdi 
 ehroniam, Pertz, 1, 33, p. 376. Cf. Potthast, 2611, bull Oum otim ot 
 Nov. 35, 1205.) 
 
 On the 7th of June, 1201 (bull ItMunubit nobis), Innocent III. had ap- 
 proved the Rule of the Humiliants. This was a religious association 
 whose members continued to live in their own homes, and who offer sup 
 
SANTA CLARA 159 
 
 !But such a situation could not last long. The intimacy 
 of Francis and Claxa, the familiarity of the earlier friars 
 and Sisters would not do as a model for the relations of 
 the two Orders when each had some hundreds of mem- 
 bers. Francis himself very soon perceived this, though 
 not so clearly as his sister-friend. Clara survived him 
 nearly twenty-seven years, and thus had time to see the 
 shipwreck of the Franciscan ideal among the Brothers, 
 as well as in almost every one of the houses which had at 
 first followed the Eule of St. Damian. She herself was 
 led by the pressure of events to lay down rules for her 
 own convent, but to her very death-bed she contended 
 for the defence of the true Franciscan ideas, with a hero- 
 ism, a boldness, at once intense and holy, by which she 
 took a place in the first rank of witnesses for conscience. 
 
 Is it not one of the loveliest pictures in religious his- 
 tory, that of this woman who for more than half a cen- 
 tury sustains moment by moment a struggle with all the 
 popes who succeed one another in the pontifical throne, 
 remaining always equally respectful and immovable, not 
 consentiug to die until she has gained her victory ? ^ 
 
 To relate her life is to relate this struggle ; the greater 
 number of its vicissitudes may be found in the docu- 
 
 priaing points of contact with the Franciscan Order, though they took 
 no vow of poverty. From them issued a more restricted association 
 which founded convents where they worked in wool ; these convents re- 
 ceived both men and women. Vide Jacques de Vitry, Hist. Oeeideiitalia, 
 cap. 28. De religione et regula HumUmtorum (Douai, 1597, pp. 334- 
 837). The time came when from these two Orders Issued a third, com- 
 posed solely of priests. These HumUiati are too little known, though 
 they have had a historian whose book is one of the noble works of the 
 eighteenth century : Tiraboschi, Vetera HumMiatorwn monumenta 
 (Milan, 3 vols., 4to, 1766-1768). Toward 1200 they had monopolized 
 Varte deUa lana in all upper Italy as far as to Florence ; it is evident, 
 therefore, that Francis's father must have had relations with them. 
 
 > The bull approving the Rule of St. Damian is of August 9, *.263 
 Clara died two days later. 
 
160 LIFE OF ST. FEANCIS 
 
 ments of the Roman curia. Francis had warded off 
 many a danger from his institution, but he had given 
 himself guardians who were little disposed to yield any 
 of their rights ; Cardinal Ugolini in particular, the fut- 
 ure Gregory IX., took a part in these matters which is 
 very difficult to understand. We see him continually 
 lavishing upon Francis and Clara expressions of affection 
 and admiration which appear to be absolutely sincere ; 
 and yet the Franciscan ideal — regarded as the life of 
 love at which one arrives by freeing himself from all 
 servitude to material things — has hardly had a worse 
 adversary than he. 
 
 In the month of May, 1228, Gregory IX. went to As- 
 sisi for the preliminaries of the canonization of St. Fran- 
 cis. Before entering the city he turned out of his way 
 to visit St. Damian and to see Clara, whom he had known 
 for a long time, and to whom he had addressed letters 
 burning with admiration and paternal affection.' 
 
 How can we understand that at this time, the eve 
 of the canonization (July 16, 1228), the pontiff could 
 have had the idea of urging her to be faithless to her 
 vows? 
 
 He represented to her that the state of the times made 
 life impossible to women who possess nothing, and 
 offered her certain properties. As Clara gazed at him in 
 astonishment at this strange proposition, he said, " If it 
 is your vows which prevent you, we wiU release you 
 from them." 
 
 "Holy Father," replied the Franciscan sister, "ab- 
 solve me from my sins, but I have no desire for a dis- 
 pensation from following Christ." ^ 
 
 Noble and pious utterance, artless cry of independence, 
 in which the conscience proudly proclaims its autonomy ! 
 
 ' 1 Cel., 132. Cf. Potthast. 8194 ff. ; of. ib., 709. 
 li. SS., Vita CI., p. 758. Cf. bull of canonization. 
 
SANTA OLAEA 161 
 
 Jn these words is mirrored at full length the spiritiial 
 daughter of the Poverello. 
 
 By one of those intuitions which often come to Tery 
 enthusiastic and very pure women, she had penetrated to 
 the inmost depths of Francis's heart, and felt herself in- 
 flamed with the same passion which burned in him. She 
 remained faithful to him to the end, but we perceive that 
 it was not without difficulty. 
 
 This is not the place in which to ask whether Gregory 
 IX. was right in desiring that religious communities 
 should hold estates ; he had a right to his own views on 
 the subject ; but there is something shocking, to say no 
 more, in seeing him placing Francis among the saints at 
 the very moment when he was betraying his dearest 
 ideals, and seeking to induce those who had remained 
 faithful to betray them. 
 
 Had Clara and Francis foreseen the difficulties which 
 they would meet? We may suppose so, for already 
 under the pontificate of Innocent III. she had obtained 
 a grant of the privilege of poverty. The pope was so 
 much surprised at such a request that he desired to 
 write with his own hands the opening lines of this 
 patent, the like of which had never been asked for at 
 the court of Eome.' 
 
 Under his successor, Honorius m. , the most important 
 personage of the curia was this very Cardinal Ugolini. 
 Almost a septuagenarian in 1216 he inspired awe at first 
 
 ' Vit. S. Olar.,K. SS., p. 758. This petition was surely made by the 
 medium of Francis ; and there are several indications of his presence in 
 Perugia in the latter part of the life of Innocent III. In obitu suo 
 [Alexandri papce] omnes familiares sui desemerunt eum preeter fratres 
 Mirwrea. Mt similiter Papam Qregoriwm et Honorium et Inrwcentium 
 in eujus obitu fait prtesentialiter S. Franmeus. Bccl. xv. Mon. Oerm. 
 Mst. Script., t. 28 p. 568. Sbaralea puts forth doubts as to the authen- 
 ticity of this privilege, the text of which he gives ; wrongly, I think, 
 for Clar» alludes to it in her will. A SS.. ti. 747. 
 
163 LIFE or ST. FEAWCIS 
 
 sight by the aspect of his person. He had that singular 
 beauty which distinguishes the old who have escaped the 
 usury of life ; pious, enlightened, energetic, he felt him- 
 self made for great undertakings. There is something 
 in him which recalls Cardinal Lavigerie and all the prel- 
 ates whose red robes cover a soldier or a despot rather 
 than a priest.* 
 
 The Franciscan movement was attacked with vio- 
 lence' in various quarters; he undertook to defend it, 
 and a very long time before the charge of protector of 
 the Order was of&cially confided to him, he exercised it 
 with devouring zeal.' He felt an unbounded admiration 
 for Francis and Clara, and often manifested it in a touch- 
 ing manner. If he had been a simple man he might 
 have loved them and followed them. Perhaps he even 
 had thought of doing so.^ Alas ! he was a prince of the 
 Church ; he could not help thinking of what he would do 
 in case he should be called to guide the ship of St. Peter. 
 
 He acted accordingly ; was it calculation on his part or 
 simply one of those states of conscience in which a man 
 absorbed in the end to be attained hardly discusses the 
 ways and means? I do not know, but we see him imme- 
 diately on the death of Innocent III., under pretext of 
 protecting the Clarisses, take their direction in hand, give 
 
 ■ He was born about 1147, created cardinal in 1198. Vide Baynald, 
 ann., 1217, § 88, the eulogy made upon him by Houorius III. Forma 
 decorusetmnuttusaspectu . . . zelaiorJidei,discipUnamriutis, . . . 
 emtitatis amaior et totiita sanciitaiis exempla/i' : Muratori, Sori/ptores rer. 
 ItcU.. iil., 1,575. 
 
 2 1Cel.,74. 
 
 The bull Litteros turn of August 37, 1218, shows him already favor- 
 ing the Clarisses. Sbaralea, i., p. 1. Vide 3 Soo. , 61. Offero me ipaum, 
 dixit Bugolimis, vobis, auxUium et consilium, atque proteelionem paratut 
 
 'In the Conformities, 107a, 2, there is a curious story which shows 
 Cgolini going to the Carceri to find Francis, and asking him if he ought 
 to enter his Order. Of. Bpee., 317. 
 
SANTA CLAEA 163 
 
 them a Rule, and substitute his own ideas for those of St. 
 Francis.^ 
 
 In the privilege which as legate he gave in favor of 
 Monticelli, July 27, 1219, neither Clara nor Francis is 
 named, and the Damianites become as a congregation of 
 Benedictines.^ 
 
 We shall see farther on the wrath of Francis against 
 Brother Philip, a Zealot of the Poor Ladies, who had ac- 
 cepted this privilege in his absence. His attitude was so 
 firm that other documents of the same natm-e granted by 
 UgoHni at the same epoch were not indorsed by the 
 pope xmtil three years later. 
 
 The cardinal's ardor to profit by the enthusiasm which 
 the Franciscan ideas everywhere excited was so great 
 that we find, in the register of his legation of 1221, a sort 
 of formula all prepared for those who would found con- 
 vents like those of the Sisters of St. Damian ; but even 
 there we search in vain for the name of Francis or Clara.' 
 
 This old man had, however, a truly mystical passion 
 for the young abbess ; he wrote to her, lamenting the ne- 
 cessity of being far from her, in words which are the lan- 
 guage of love, respect, and admiration.' There were at 
 
 ' He succeeded so well that Thomas of Celano himself seems to forget 
 that, at least at St. Damian, the Clarisses followed the Rule given hj St. 
 Francis himself : Ipsorum vita mirifica et instituiio glorioia a dommo 
 Papa Gregorio, tunc Hoatiend epiaoopo. 1 Cel. 30. Cf . Honorii Opera, 
 Horoy, t. ill., col. 363; t. It., col. 318 ; Potthast, 6179 and 6879 ff. 
 
 ' This privilege is inserted in the hull Sacrosancta of December 9, 
 1319. Honorii opera, Horoy, t. iii., col. 363 fE. 
 
 * G. Levi, Begistri del Gardinali, no. 135. Vide below, p. 400. Cf. 
 Campi, Hist. ecel. di Piaeema, ii., 390. 
 
 * See, for example, the letter given by Wadding : Annals, ii., p. 16 
 (Rome, 1732). Tanta me amaritudo cordis, abundantia lacrymarum et 
 imrmmitas doloris iv/vasit, quod ni»i ad pedes Jesu, eonsdationem solitcs 
 pietatis invenvrem, spiritus menus forte de/iceret etpenitus anima liguefieret. 
 Wadding's text should be corrected by that of the Riccardi MS. , 379, 
 f° 80a and b. Cf. Mark of Lisbon, t i., p. 185 ; Sbarales, i, p. 37. 
 
164 LIFE OF ST. FEAN0I8 
 
 least two men in Ugolini : the Christian, who felt him- 
 self subdued before Clara and Francis ; the prelate, that 
 is, a man whom the glory of the Church sometimes 
 caused to forget the glory of God. 
 
 Francis, though almost always resisting him, appears 
 to have kept a feeling of ingenuous gratitude toward 
 him to the very end. Clara, on the contrary, had too 
 long a struggle to be able to keep any illusions as to 
 the attitude of her protector. After 1230 there is no 
 trace of any relations between them. 
 
 All the efforts of the pope to mitigate the rigor of 
 Clara's vow of poverty had remained vain. Many other 
 nuns desired to practise strictly the Eule of St. Francis. 
 Among them was the daughter of the King of Bohemia, 
 Ottokar I., who was in continual relations with Clara. 
 But Gregory IX., to whom she addressed herself, was 
 inflexible. WhUe pouring eulogies upon her he en- 
 joined upon her to follow the Eule which he sent to her — 
 that is, the one which he had composed while he was yet 
 cardinal. The Rule of the Poverello was put among the 
 Utopias, not to say heresies.' He never, however, could 
 induce St. Clara to completely submit herself. One day, 
 indeed, she rebelled against his orders, and it was the 
 pope who was obliged to yield : he had desired to bring 
 about a wider separation between the friars and the Sis- 
 ters than had formerly prevailed ; for a long time after 
 the death of Francis a certain familiarity had continued 
 between St. Damian and Portiuncula ; Clara especially 
 loved these neighborly relations, and often begged one or 
 another Brother to come and preach. The pope thought 
 ill of this, and forbade, under the severest penalty, that 
 
 ' Bull Angelis gaudium of May H, 1238 ; it may be found in Sbaralea, 
 t., p. 243. Cf. Palaoky, Literarische Beise nach Italien, Prague, 1838, 
 4to, no. 147, Potthast, 10,596 ; of. 11,175. 
 
SANTA CLARA 165 
 
 any friar of Portiuncula should go to St. Damian with- 
 out express permission of the Holy See. 
 
 This time Clara became indignant. She went to the 
 few friars attached to her monastery, and thanking them 
 for their services, " Go," she said ; " since they deprive 
 us of those who dispense to ua spiritual bread, we will 
 not have those who procure for us our material bread." 
 He who wrote that " the necks of Icings and princes are 
 bowed at the feet of the priests " was obliged to bow before 
 this woman and raise his prohibition.* 
 
 St. Damian had too often echoed with St. Francis's 
 hymns of love and liberty to forget him so soon and be- 
 come an ordinary convent. Clara remained surrounded 
 with the master's early companions ; Egidio, Leo, An- 
 gelo, Ginepro never ceased to be assiduous visitors. 
 These true lovers of poverty felt themselves at home 
 there, and took liberties which would elsewhere have 
 given surprise. One day an English friar, a celebrated 
 theologian, came according to the minister's orders to 
 preach at St. Damian. Suddenly Egidio, though a 
 simple layman, interrupted him : " Stop, brother, let me 
 speak," he said to him. And the master in theology, 
 bowing his head, covered himself with his cowl as a sign 
 of obedience, and sat down to listen to Egidio. 
 
 Clara felt a great joy in this ; it seemed to her that 
 she was once again living in St. Francis's days.^ The 
 little coterie was kept up until her death ; she expired 
 in the arms of Brothers Leo, Angelo, and Ginepro. In 
 her last sufferings and her dying visions she had the 
 supreme happiness of being surrounded by those who 
 had devoted their lives to the same ideal as she.^ 
 
 In her wiU her life shows itself that which we have 
 
 » A. SS., Tit. Glar., p. 762. Cf. Conform., 84b, 8. 
 
 ' A. SS., Aprilis, t. iii., p. 339a ; Conform., 54a, 1 ; 1778, 2. 
 
 »A. 8S., nt. Clar., p. 764d. 
 
166 LIFE OF ST. FKANOIS 
 
 seen it — a daily struggle for the defence of the Francis- 
 can idea. We see how courageous and brave was this 
 woman who has always been represented as frail, emaci- 
 ated, blanched like a flower of the cloister.^ 
 
 She defended Francis not only against others, but also 
 against himself. In those hours of dark discoiiragement 
 which so often and so profoundly disturb the noblest 
 souls and sterilize the grandest efforts, she was beside 
 him to show him his way. When he doubted his mis- 
 sion and thought of fleeing to the heights of repose and 
 solitary prayer, it was she who showed him the ripening 
 harvest with no reapers to gather it in, men going astray 
 with no shepherd to lead them, and drew him once again 
 into the train of the Galilean, into the number of those 
 who give their lives a ransom for many? 
 
 Tet this love with which at St. Damian Francis felt 
 himself surrounded frightened him at times. He feared 
 that his death, making too great a void, would imperil 
 the institution itself, and he took pains to remind the 
 sisters that he would not be always with them. One day 
 when he was to preach to them, instead of entering the 
 pulpit he caused some ashes to be brought, and after 
 having spread them around him and scattered some on 
 his head, he intoned the Miserere, thus reminding them 
 that he was but dust and would soon return to dust.^ 
 
 But in general it is at St. Damian that St. Francis is 
 
 • The bull of canonization says nothing of the Saracens whom she put 
 to flight. Her life in the A. SS. relates the fact, but shows her simply 
 in prayor hefore the Holy Sacrament. Cf . Conform. , 84b, 1. Mark of 
 Lisbon t. i., part 3, pp. 179-181. None of these accounts represents 
 Clara as going to meet them with a monstrance. 
 
 » Bon., 173 ; Fior. 16 ; Spec, 63b; Gon,f<yrm., 84b, 3; 110b 1 ; 49a, 1. 
 With Khese should be compared Spec. , 330b : Frater Leo narrwmt quod 
 Sawitw Franciseua surgens orare (sic) venit adfrairea suos diceiu : " Ite 
 ad smyulum et dimtttatis kabiium, lieentio ws." 
 2 CeL, 8, 134. 
 
SAKTA OLABA 
 
 the most himself ; it is under the shade of its olive-trees, 
 with Clara caring for him, that he composes his finest 
 work, that which Ernest Renan called the most perfect 
 utterance of modem religious sentiment, the " Gautide of 
 the Sun," 
 
CHAPTEE X 
 
 WEST ATTEMPTS TO REACH THE INFIDELS 
 Autumn, 1212 — Summer, 1215 
 
 The early Brothers Minor had too much need of the 
 encouragement and example of Francis not to have very 
 early agreed with him upon certain fixed periods when 
 they would be sure to find him at Portiuncula. Still it 
 appears probable that these meetings did not become 
 true Chapters-General until toward 1216. There were at 
 first two a year, one at Whitsunday, the other at Michael- 
 mas (September 29th). Those of Whitsunday were the 
 most luportant ; all the Brothers came together to gain 
 new strength in the society of Francis, to draw generous 
 ardor and grand hopes from him with his coimsels and 
 directions. 
 
 The members of the young association had everything 
 in common, their joys as well as their sorrows ; their un- 
 certainties as well as the results of their experiences. At 
 these meetings they were particularly occupied with the 
 Kule, the changes that needed to be made in it, and 
 above all, how they might better and better observe it ; * 
 then, in perfect harmony, they settled the allotment of 
 the friars to the various provinces. 
 
 One of Francis's most frequent counsels bore upon the 
 respect due to the clergy; ha begged his disciples to 
 
 ■ 8 Soc, 57 ; cf. An. Perus., A. SS., p. S99. 
 
FIRST ATTEMPTS TO REACH THE INFIDELS 169 
 
 show a very paxticular deference to the priests, and never 
 to meet them withoiit kissing their hands. He saw only 
 too well that the Brothers, having renounced everything, 
 were in danger of being unjust or severe toward the rich 
 and powerful of the earth ; he, therefore, sought to arm 
 them against this tendency, often concluding his counsels 
 with these noble words : " There are men who to-day 
 appear to us to be members of the devil who one day 
 shall be members of Christ." 
 
 " Our life in the midst of the world," said he again, 
 " ought to be such that, on hearing or seeing us, every 
 one shall feel constrained to praise our heavenly Father. 
 You proclaim peace ; have it in your hearts. Be not an 
 occasion of wrath or scandal to anyone, but by your 
 gentleness may aU be led to peace, concord, and good 
 works." 
 
 It was especially when he undertook to cheer his dis- 
 ciples, to fortify them against temptations and deliver 
 them from their power, that Francis was most successful. 
 However anxious a soul might be, his words brought it 
 back to serenity. The earnestness which he showed in 
 calming sadness became fiery and terrible in reproving 
 those who fell away, but in these days of early fervor he 
 seldom had occasion to show severity; more often he 
 needed gently to reprove the Brothers whose piety led 
 them to exaggerate penances and macerations. 
 
 When all was finished and each one had had his part 
 in this banquet of love, Francis would bless them, and 
 they would disperse in all directions like strangers and 
 travellers. They had nothing, but already they thought 
 they saw the signs of the grand and final regeneration. 
 Like the exile on Patmos they saw " the holy city, the 
 new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, 
 like a bride adorned for her husband . . . and the 
 throne upon which is seated the Desired of all nations, 
 
170 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 Jle Messiah of the new times, he who is to make all things 
 new."' 
 
 Yet all eyes were turned toward Syria, where a French 
 knight, Jean de Brienne, had just been declared King of 
 Jerusalem (1210), and toward which were hastening the 
 bands of the children's crusade. 
 
 The conversion of Francis, radical as it was, giving 
 a new direction to his thoughts and will, had not had 
 power to change the foundation of his character. " In 
 a great heart everything is great." In vain is one 
 changed at conversion — he remains the same. That 
 which changes is not he who is converted, but his sur- 
 roundings ; he is suddenly introduced into a new 
 path, but he runs ia it with the same ardor. Francis 
 still remained a knight, and it is perhaps this which won 
 for him in so high a degree the worship of the finest 
 souls of the Middle Ages. There was ia him that long- 
 ing for the unknown, that thirst for adventures and 
 sacrifices, which makes the history of his century so 
 grand and so attractive, in spite of many dark features. 
 
 Those who have a genius for religion have generally 
 the privilege of illusion. They never quite see how 
 large the world is. When their faith has moved a moun- 
 tain they thrill with rapture, like the old Hebrew 
 prophets, and it seems to them that they see the dawn- 
 ing of the day " when the glory of the Lord will appear, 
 when the wolf and the lamb will feed together." Blessed 
 illusion, that fires the blood like a generous wine, so that 
 the soldiers of righteousness hurl themselves against the 
 most terrific fortresses, believing that these once taken 
 the war will be ended. 
 
 Francis had found such joys in his union with poverty 
 that he held it for proven that one needed only to be a 
 man to aspire after the same happiness, and that the 
 
 > Eev. xxi.; 1 Cel., 46 ; 3 Soc, 57-59 ; An. Perils., A. SS., p. 600. 
 
FIRST ATTEMPTS TO REACH THE INFIDELS 171 
 
 Saracens would be converted in crowds to the gospel of 
 Jesus, if only it were announced to them in aU its simplic- 
 ity. He therefore quitted Portiuncula for this new kind 
 of crusade. It is not known from what port he embarked. 
 It was probably in the autumn of 1212. A tempest hav- 
 ing cast the ship upon the coast of Slavonia, he was 
 obliged to resign himself either to remain several months 
 in those parts or to return to Italy ; he decided to re- 
 turn, but found much difficulty in securing a passage on 
 a ship which was about to sail for Aucona. He had no 
 ill-will against the sailors, however, and the stock of food 
 falling short he shared with them the provisions with 
 which his friends had overloaded him. 
 
 No sooner had he landed than he set out on a preach- 
 ing tour, in which souls responded to his appeals ' with 
 even more eagerness than in times past. We may sup- 
 pose that he returned from Slavonia in the winter of 
 1212-1213, and that he employed the following spring in 
 evangelizing Central Italy. It was perhaps during this 
 Lent that he retired to an island in Lake Trasimeno, 
 making a sojourn there which afterward became famous 
 in his legend.^ However that may be, a perfectly reli- 
 able document shows him to have been ia the Bomagna 
 in the month of May, 1213.' One day Francis and his 
 companion, perhaps Brother Leo, arrived at the chateau 
 of Montefeltro,* between Maoerata and San Marino. A 
 grand fete was being given for the reception of a new 
 knight, but the noise and singing did not affright them, 
 and without hesitation they entered the court, where aU 
 
 ' 1 Cel., 55 and 56 ; Bon., 139-132. 
 
 " m>r., 7 ; Spec, 96 ; Conform., 333a, 3. The fact of Francis's m 
 jonrn on an island in this lake is made certain by 1 Cel., 60. 
 
 » Vide below, p. 400. Cf. A. SS., pp. 838 f. 
 
 ' At present Sasso-Feltrio, between Conoa and Mareoohio, south of ani) 
 about two hours' walk from San Marino. 
 
172 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 the nobility of the country was assembled. Francis then 
 taking for his text the two lines, 
 
 Tanto e il bene ch.' aspetto 
 Ch'ogni pena m'e diletto,' 
 
 preached so touching a sermon that several of those 
 present forgot for a moment the tourney for which they 
 had come. One of them, Orlando dei Cattani, Count of 
 Chiusi in Casentino, was so much moved that, drawing 
 Francis aside, "Father," he said to him, "I desire 
 much to converse with you about the salvation of my 
 soul." " Very willingly," replied Francis ; " but go for 
 this morning, do honor to those friends who have in- 
 vited you, eat with them, and after that we will converse 
 as much as you please." 
 
 So it was done. The count came back and concluded 
 the interview by saying, " I have in Tuscany a mountain 
 especially favorable to contemplation ; it is entirely iso- 
 lated and would well suit anyone who desired to do 
 penance far from the noises of the world ; if it pleased 
 you I would willingly give it to you and your brethren 
 for the salvation of my soul." 
 
 Francis accepted it joyfully, but as he was obliged to 
 be at Portiuncula for the "Whitsunday chapter he post- 
 poned the visit to the Vema^ to a more favorable time. 
 
 It was perhaps in this circuit that he went to Imola ; 
 at least nothing forbids the supposition. Always cour- 
 teous, he had gone immediately on his arrival to present 
 himself to the bishop, and ask of him authority to preach. 
 " I am not in need of anyone to aid me in my task,' 
 
 ' The happiness that I expect Is so great that all pain is joyful to me. 
 All the documents give Francis's text in Italian, which is enough to prove 
 that it was the language not only of his poems but also of his sermon*. 
 Spec. 93a ff. Conform. 113a, 3 ; 331a, 1 ; Mor., Prima consid. 
 
 ' See p. 400. 
 
FIRST ATTEMPTS TO REACH THE INFIDELS 173 
 
 replied the bishop dryly. Francis bowed and retired, 
 more polite and even more gentle than usual. But in 
 less than hour he had returned. " What is it, brother, 
 what do you want of me again ? " " Monsignor," replied 
 Francis, " when a father drives his son out at the door 
 he returns by the window." 
 
 The bishop, disarmed by such pious persistence, gave 
 the desired authorization.' 
 
 The aim of Francis at that time, however, was not to 
 evangelize Italy ; his friars were already scattered over it 
 in great numbers ; and he desired rather to gain them 
 access to new countries. 
 
 Not having been able to reach the infidels in Syria, he 
 resolved to seek them in Morocco. Some little time 
 before (July, 1212), the troops of the Almohades had met 
 an irreparable defeat in the plains of Tolosa ; beaten by 
 the coalition of the Kings of Aragon, Navarre, and Castile, 
 Mohammed-el-Naser had returned to Morocco to die. 
 Francis felt that this victory of arms would be nothing 
 if it were not followed by a peaceful victory of the gospel 
 spirit. 
 
 He was so full of his project, so much in haste to 
 arrive at the end of his journey, that very often he would 
 forget his companion, and hastening forward would leave 
 him far behind. The biographers are unfortunately most 
 laconic with regard to this expedition ; they merely say 
 that on arriving in Spain he was so seriously ill that a 
 return home was imperative. Beyond a few local legends, 
 not very well attested, we possess no other informa- 
 tion upon the labors of the Saint in this country, nor 
 upon the route which he followed either in going or 
 returning.^ 
 
 This silence is not at all surprising, and ought not to 
 make us undervalue the importance of this mission. The 
 > 2 CeL, 3, 85 ; Bon., 83. ' 1 Cel., 56 ; Bon., 132. 
 
174 LIFE OF ST. FBAWCIS 
 
 one to Egypt, which took place six years later, with a whole 
 train of friars, and at a time when the Order was much 
 more developed, is mentioned only in a few lines by 
 Thomas of Oelano ; but for the recent discovery of the 
 Chronicle of Brother Giordano di Giano and the copious 
 details given by Jacques de Vitry, we should be reduced 
 to conjectures upon that journey also. The Spanish 
 legends, to which allusion has just been made, cannot be 
 altogether without foundation, any more than those which 
 concern the journey of St. Francis through Languedoo 
 and Piedmont ; but in the actual condition of the sour- 
 ces it is impossible to make a choice, with any sort of 
 authority, between the historic basis and additions to it 
 wholly without value. 
 
 The mission in Spain doubtless took place between 
 the Whitsunday of 1214 and that of 1215.» Francis, I 
 think, had passed the previous year ' in Italy. Perhaps" 
 he was then going to see the Vema. The March of An- 
 cona and the Valley of Eieti would naturally have attracted 
 him equally about this epoch, and finally the growth of 
 the two branches of the Order must have made necessary 
 his presence at Portiuncula and St. Damian. The ra- 
 pidity and importance of these missions ought in no 
 sense to give surprise, nor awaken exaggerated critical 
 doubts. It took only a few hours to become a member 
 of the fraternity, and we may not doubt the sincerity of 
 these vocations, since their condition was the imme- 
 
 • Vide Wadding, ann. 1213-1315. Cf. A. SS., pp. 602, 603, 825-831. 
 Mark of Lisbon, lib. i., cap. 45, pp. 78-80 ; Papini, Storia di 8. Fran- 
 eesco, i., p. 79 ff. (Foligno, 1825, 2 vols., 4to). It is surprising to see 
 father Suysken giving so much weight to the argumentum a gikntio. 
 
 ' From Pentecost, 1313, to that of 1214. — Post non muttum vero tern- 
 voriB ventta MaroeMum iter arripuit, says Thomas of Celano (1 Gel., 56), 
 4fter having mentioned the return from Slavonia. Taking into account 
 ^he author's tuus loguendi thd phrase appears to establish a certain in* 
 ^rval between the two missions. 
 
FIRST ATTEMPTS TO EEACH THE INFIDELS 175 
 
 diate giving up of all property of whatever kind, for the 
 benefit of the poor. The new friars were barely received 
 when they in their turn began to receive others, often 
 becoming the heads of the movement in whatever place 
 they happened to be. The way in which we see things 
 going on in Germany in 1221, and in England in 1224, 
 gives a very living picture of this spiritual germina- 
 tion. 
 
 To found a monastery it was enough that two or three 
 Brothers should have at their disposition some sort of a 
 shelter, whence they radiated out into the city and the 
 neighboring country. It would, therefore, be as much 
 an exaggeration to describe St. Francis as a man who 
 passed his life ia founding convents, as to deny alto- 
 gether the local traditions which attribute to him the 
 erection of a hundred monasteries. In many cases a 
 glance is enough to show whether these claims of an- 
 tiquity are justified; before 1220 the Order had only 
 hermitages after the pattern of the Verna or the Carceri, 
 solely intended for the Brothers who desired to pass some 
 time in retreat. 
 
 Eeturned to Assisi, Francis admitted to the Order a 
 certain number of learned men, among whom was per- 
 haps Thomas of Celano. The latter, in fact, says that 
 God at that time mercifully remembered him, and he adds 
 further on: "The blessed Francis was of an exquisite 
 nobility of heart and full of discernment ; with the great- 
 est care he rendered to each one what was due him, with 
 wisdom considering in each case the degree of their dig- 
 nities." 
 
 This does not harmonize very well with the character 
 of Francis as we have sketched it ; one can hardly imag- 
 ine him preserving in his Order such profound distinc- 
 tions as were at that time made between the different so- 
 cial ranks, but he had that true and eternal politeness 
 
176 LIFE OF ST. FRAKCIS 
 
 which has its roots in the heart, and which is only an 
 expression of tact and love. It could not be otherwise 
 with a man who saw in courtesy one of the qualities of 
 God. 
 
 We are approaching one of the most obscure periods 
 of his life. After the chapter of 1215 he seems to have 
 passed through one of those crises of discouragement so 
 frequent with those who long to realize the ideal in this 
 world. Had he discovered the warning signs of the mis- 
 fortunes which were to come upon his family ? Had he 
 come to see that the necessities of life were to sully and 
 blight his dream ? Had he seen in the check of his mis- 
 sions in Syria and Morocco a providential indication that 
 he had to change his method ? We do not know. But 
 about this time he felt the need of txirning to St. Clara 
 and Brother Silvestro for counsel on the subject of the 
 doubts and hesitations which assailed him ; their reply 
 restored to him peace and joy. God by their mouth 
 commanded him to continue l^is apostolate.- 
 
 Immediately he rose and set forth in the direction of 
 Bevagna/ with an ardor which he had never yet shown. 
 In encouraging him to persevere Clara had in some sort 
 inoculated him with a new enthusiasm. One word from 
 her had suflSced to give him back all his courage, and 
 from this point in his life we find in him more poetry, 
 more love, than ever before. 
 
 Full of joy, he was going on his way when, perceiving 
 some flocks of birds, he turned aside a little from the 
 road to go to them. Far from taking flight, they flocked 
 around him as if to bid him welcome. " Brother birds," 
 he said to them then, " you ought to praise and loVe your 
 Creator very much. He has given you feathers for 
 
 ' Cmform., 110b, 1 ; Spec, 62b; Wior., 16 ; Bon., 170-174. 
 ' Village about two leagues S. W. from Asslsi. The time is indireotlr 
 fixed by Bon., 173, and 1 Cel., 58. 
 
FIEST ATTEMPTS TO EEACH THE INFIDELS 177 
 
 clothing, wings for flying, and all that is needful for you. 
 He has made you the noblest of his creatures ; he per- 
 mits you to live in the pure air ; you have neither to sow 
 nor to reap, and yet he takes care of you, watches over 
 you and guides you." Then the birds began to arch their 
 necks, to spread out their wings, to open their beaks, to 
 look at him, as if to thank him, while he went up and 
 down in their midst stroking them with the border of his 
 tunic, sending them away at last with his blessing.' 
 
 In this same evangelizing tour, passing through Al- 
 viano,^ he spoke a few exhortations to the people, but the 
 swallows so fiUed the air with their chirping that he 
 could not make himself heard. " It is my turn to speak," 
 he said to them ; " little sister swallows, hearken to the 
 word of God ; keep silent and be very quiet until I have 
 finished." ^ 
 
 We see how Francis's love extended to all creation, 
 how the diffused life shed abroad upon all things in- 
 spired and moved him. From the sun to the earthworm 
 which we trample under foot, everything breathed in 
 his ear the ineffable sigh of beings that live and suffer 
 and die, and in their life as in their death have a part in 
 the divine work. 
 
 " Praised be thou, Lord, with all thy creatures, espe- 
 cially for my brother Sun which gives us the day and by 
 him thou showest thy light. He is beautiful and radiant 
 with great splendor ; of thee, Most High, he is the sym- 
 bol." 
 
 Here again, Francis revives the Hebrew inspiration, 
 the simple and grandiose view of the prophets of Israel. 
 «' Praise the Lord ! " the royal Psalmist had sung, 
 
 'ICel. 58; Bon., 109 and 174; Fior., 16; Bpee.,&^To; Conform^ 
 I14b, 3. 
 ' About halfway between Orvieto and Nanii 
 * 1 Cel., 59 • Bon., 175. 
 
178 LIFE OS" ST. FRANCIS 
 
 "praise the Lord, fire and frost, snow and mists, stormy 
 winds that do his will, mountains and all hills, fruit-trees 
 and aU cedars, beasts and all cattle, creeping things and 
 fowls with wings, kings of the earth and all peoples, 
 princes and all judges of the earth, young men and 
 maidens, old men and children, praise the Lord, praise 
 ye the Lord ! " 
 
 The day of the birds of Bevagna remained in his 
 memory as one of the most beautiful of his whole life, 
 and though usually so reserved he always loved to teU of 
 it ; Mt was because he owed to Clara these pure ardors 
 which brought him into a secret and delicious commun- 
 ion with all beings ; it was she who had revived him 
 from sadness and hesitation ; in his heart he bore an 
 immense gratitude to her who, just when he needed it, 
 had known how to return to him love for love, inspiration 
 for inspiration. 
 
 Francis's sympathy for animals, as we see it shining 
 forth here, has none of that sentimentalism, so often 
 artificial and exclusive of all other love, which certain 
 associations of his time noisily displayed ; in him it is 
 only a manifestation of his feeling for nature, a deeply 
 mystical, one might say pantheistic, sentiment, if the 
 word had not a too definitely philosophical sense, quite 
 opposite to the Franciscan thought. 
 
 This sentiment, which in the poets of the thirteenth 
 century is so often false and affected, was in him not 
 only true, but had in it something alive, healthy, robust.' 
 
 ' Ad Twsc, ut ipse dicebat ... 1 Cel., 58. 
 
 ° Francis has been compared in this regard to certain of his contem- 
 poraries, but the similarity of the words only makes more evident 
 the diversity of inspiration. Honorius III. may say : Forma rosm est 
 mferius angusta, superius amvpla et »ignifloat quod Christus pauper fuit 
 m mundo, sed est Dominua super omnia et implel universa. Nam sicut 
 forma roses, etc. (Horoy, t. i., col. xxiv. and 804), and make a whole 
 sermon on the symbolism of the rose ; these overstrained dissertations 
 
FIEST ATTEMPTS TO BEACH THE INFIDELS 179 
 
 It is this vein of poetry which awoke Italy to self-con- 
 sciousness, made her in a few years forget the nightmare 
 of Catharist ideas, and rescued her from pessimism. By 
 it Francis became the forerunner of the artistic move- 
 ment which preceded the Renaissance, the inspirer of 
 that group of Pre-Eaphaelites, awkward, grotesque in 
 drawing though at times they were, to whom we turn 
 to-day with a sort of piety, finding in their ungraceful 
 saints an inner life, a moral feeling which we seek for 
 elsewhere in vain. 
 
 If the voice of the Poverello of Assisi was so well 
 understood it was because in this matter, as in all others, 
 it was entirely unconventional. How far we are, with him, 
 from the fierce or Pharisaic piety of those monks which 
 forbids even the females of animals to enter their con- 
 vent ! His notion of chastity ia no sense resembles this 
 excessive prudery. One day at Sienna he asked for some 
 turtle-doves, and holding them in the skirt of his tunic, 
 he said: "Little sisters turtle-doves, you are simple, 
 innocent, and chaste ; why did you let yourselves be 
 caught ? I shaU save you from death, and have nests 
 made for you, so that you may bring forth young 
 and multiply according to the commandment of our 
 Creator." 
 
 And he went and made nests for them all, and the 
 turtle-doves began to lay eggs and bring up their broods 
 imder the eyes of the Brothers.' 
 
 At Eieti a family of red-breasts were the guests of the 
 monastery, and the young birds made marauding expe- 
 
 haye nothing to do with the feeling for nature. It is the arsenal of 
 mediaeval rhetoric used to dissect a word. It is an intellectual effort, 
 not a song of love. The Imitation would say : If thy Twart were right 
 aU creatures would be for thee a mirror (yf life arid a volume ofhcHy doe- 
 trine, lib. ii., cap. S. The simple sentiment of the beauty of ore»4iou !■ 
 abgent here also ; the passage is a pedagogue in disguise. 
 ^ Spec., 157. Ftor.iZSi. 
 
180 LIFE OF ST. FEANCIS 
 
 ditions on the very table where the Brothers were eating.' 
 Not far from there, at Greccio,^ they brought to Francis 
 a leveret that had been taken alive in a trap. " Come 
 to me, brother leveret," he said to it. And as the poor 
 creature, being set free, ran to him for refuge, he took it 
 up, caressed it, and finally put it on the ground that it 
 might run away ; but it returned to him again and again, 
 so that he was obliged to send it to the neighboring forest 
 before it would consent to return to freedom.^ 
 
 One day he was crossing the Lake of Eieti. The 
 boatman in whose bark he was making the passage 
 offered him a tench of uncommon size. Francis accepted 
 it with joy, but to the great amazement of the fisherman 
 put it back into the water, bidding it bless God.^ 
 
 We should never have done if we were to relate all the 
 incidents of this kind,° for the sentiment of nature was 
 innate with him ; it was a perpetual communion which 
 made him love the whole creation.' He is ravished with 
 the witchery of great forests ; he has the terrors of a 
 child when he is alone at prayer in a deserted chapel, but 
 he tastes ineffable joy merely in inhaling the perfume of 
 a flower, or gazing into the limpid water of a brook.' 
 
 This perfect lover of poverty permitted one luxury — 
 he even commanded it at Portiuncula — ^that of flowers; 
 the Brother was bidden not to sow vegetables and useful 
 plants only ; he must reserve one comer of good ground 
 
 ' 2 Cel., 3, 16 ; Omform., 148a, 1, 183b, 3. Cf. the story of the sheep 
 of Portiuncula : Bon. , 111. 
 
 ' Village In the valley of Bieti, two hours' walk from that town, on 
 the road to Temi. 
 
 »lCel.,60; Bon., 113. 
 
 «lCel.,61; Bon., 114. 
 
 » 2 Cel., 3, 54 ; Bon., 109 ; 2 Cel., 3 ; 103 ff.; Bon., 116 ff.; Bon., 110; 
 1 Cel., 61 ; Bon., 114, 113, 115 ; 1 Cel., 79 ; Fuyr., 13, etc. 
 
 •2Cel., 3, lOlft; Bon., 133. 
 
 ' 2 Cel., 3, 59 ; 1 Cel., 80 and 81. 
 
FIRST ATTEMPTS TO EEAOH THE INFIDELS 181 
 
 for our sisters, the flowers of the fields. Francis talked 
 with them also, or rather he replied to them, for their 
 mysterious and gentle language crept into the yery depth 
 of his heart.' 
 
 The thirteenth century was prepared to understand the 
 voice of the Umbrian poet; the sermon to the birds ** 
 closed the reign of Byzantine art and of the thought of 
 which it was the image. It is the end of dogmatism and 
 aiithority ; it is the coming in of individualism and in- 
 spiration ; very uncertain, no doubt, and to be followed by 
 obstinate reactions, but none the less marking a date in 
 the history of the human conscience.^ Many among the 
 companions of Francis were too much the children of 
 their century, too thoroughly imbued with its theological 
 
 • 3 Cel., 3, 101 ; Spec, 136a ; 1 Gel., 81. 
 
 ' This is the scene in his life most often reproduced by the predeces- 
 sors of Giotto. The unknown artist who (before 1236) decorated the 
 nave of the Lower Church of Asaisi gives five frescos to the history of 
 Jesns and five to the life of St. Francis. Upon the latter he represents: 
 1, the renunciation of the paternal inheritance ; 2, Francis upholding 
 the Lateran church ; 3, the sermon to the birds ; 4, the stigmata ; 5, 
 the funeral. This work, unhappily very badly lighted, and about half 
 of it destroyed at the time of the construction of the chapels of the nave, 
 ought to be engraved before it completely disappears. The history of 
 art in the time of Ginnta Pisano is still too much enveloped in obscu- 
 rity for us to neglect such a source of information. M. Thode (Pranz 
 von Asmi und die Anfange der Kunst, Berlin, 1885, 8vo, illust.) and the 
 Rev. Father Fratini {Storia deda Basilica d! Amsi, Prato, 1882, 8vo) are 
 much too brief so far as these frescos are concerned. 
 
 ° It is needless to say that I do not claim that Francis was the only 
 initiator of this movement, still less that he was its creator ; he was its 
 most inspired singer, and that may suffice for his glory. If Italy was 
 awakened it was because her sleep was not so sound as in the tenth 
 century ; the mosaics of the fapade of the Cathedral of Spoleto (the 
 Christ between the Virgin and St. John) already belong to the new art. 
 Still, the victory was so little final that the mural paintings of St. Law- 
 rence without the walls and of the Quattro Coronate, which are subse- 
 quent to it by half a score of years, relapse into a coarse Byzantiuism. 
 See also those of the Baptistery of Florence. 
 
182 LIFE OF ST. FBANCIS 
 
 and metaphysical methods, to quite understand a senti- 
 ment so simple and profoimd.* But each in his degree 
 felt its charm. Here Thomas of Celano's language rises 
 to an elevation which we find in no other part of his 
 works, closiag with a picture of Francis which makes 
 one think of the Song of Songs.'' 
 
 Of more than middle height, Francis had a delicate 
 and kindly face, black eyes, a soft and sonorous voice. 
 There was in his whole person a delicacy and grace 
 which made him infinitely lovely. All these character- 
 istics are found in the most ancient portraits.^ 
 
 ' Hence the more or less subtile explanations with which they adorn 
 these incidents. — As to the part of animals in thirteenth century legends 
 consult Caesar von Heisterbaoh, Strange's edition, t. ii., pp. 357 ffi. 
 
 « 1 Cel., 80-83. 
 
 » 1 Cel., 83 ; Oonform., Ilia. M. Thode (Anfange, pp. 76-94) makes 
 a study of some thirty portraits. The most important are reproduced in 
 Saint IPranfois (1 vol., 4to, Paris, 1885) ; 1, contemporary portrait, by 
 Brother Eudes, now at Subiaco (loo. cit., p. 30) ; 2, portrait dating about 
 1330, by Giunta Pisano (?) ; preserved at Portiuncula (loe. cit., p. 384) ; 
 3, finally, portrait dated 1235, by Bon. Berlinghieri, and preserved at 
 Pescia, in Tuscany (fco. cit., p. 277). In 1886 Prof. Carattoli studied with 
 great care a portrait which dates from about those years and of which 
 he gives a picture (also preserved of late years at Portiuncula). Mi^ 
 cdlanea franceaoana t. i., pp. 44-48; cf. pp. 160, 190, and 1887, p. 33. 
 M. Bonghi has written some interesting papers on the iconography of 
 St. Francis (Francesco di Aasisi, 1 vol., 13mo, Citta di Castello, Lapi, 
 1884. Vide pp. 108-113). 
 
CHAPTEE XI 
 
 THE INNER MAN AND WONDER- WOEKIN& 
 
 The missionary journey, undertaken under the en- 
 couragement of St. Clara and so poetically inaugurated 
 by the sermon to the birds of Bevagna, appears to have 
 been a continual triumph for Francis.' Legend defini- 
 tiyely takes possession of him ; whether he will or no, 
 miracles burst forth under his footsteps; quite ima- 
 wares to himself the objects of which he has made use 
 produce marvellous effects ; folk come out from the vil- 
 lages in procession to meet him, and the biographer 
 gives us to hear the echo of those religious festivals of 
 Italy — merry, popular, noisy, bathed in sunshine — which 
 so little resemble the fastidiously arranged festivals of 
 northern peoples. 
 
 From Alviano Francis doubtless went to Nami, one 
 of the most charming little towns in Umbria, busy with 
 building a cathedral after the conquest of their com- 
 munal liberties. He seems to have had a sort of predi- 
 lection for this city as well as for its surrounding vil- 
 lages.^ From thence he seems to have plunged into the 
 valley of Rieti, where Greccio, Fonte-Oolombo, San 
 Fabiano, Sant-Eleuthero, Poggio-Buscone retain even 
 stronger traces of him than the environs of Assisi. 
 
 » 1 Cel., 63. 
 
 « 1 Cel., 66 ; cf. Bon., 180; 1 Cel., 67; cf. Bon., 182 ; 1 Cel., 69 ; 
 Bon., 183. After St. Francis's death, the Narniates were the first to 
 come to pray at his tomb. 1 Cel., 138, 135. 136, 188, 141 ; Bon., 275. 
 
184 LIFE OF ST. FEANOIS 
 
 Thomas of Celano gives us no particulars of the route 
 followed, but, on the other hand, he goes at length into 
 the success of the apostle in the March of Ancona, and 
 especially at Ascoli. Did the people of these districts 
 still remember the appeals which Francis and Egidio 
 had made to them six years before (1209), or must we 
 believe that they were peculiarly prepared to understand 
 the new gospel? However this may be, nowhere else 
 was a like enthusiasm shown ; the effect of the sermons 
 was so great that some thirty neophytes at once received 
 the habit of the Order. 
 
 The March of Ancona ought to be held to be the 
 Franciscan province 'pair excellence. There are Offida, 
 San-Severino, Macerata, Fomaro, Cingoli, Fermo, Massa, 
 and twenty other hermitages where, during more than a 
 century, poverty was to find its heralds and its martyrs ; 
 from thence came Giovanni della Vema, Jacopo di 
 Massa, Conrad di Offida, Angelo Clareno, and those le- 
 gions of nameless revolutionists, dreamers, and prophets, 
 who since the extirpes in 12M by the general of the 
 Order, Crescentius of Jesi, never ceased to make new 
 recruits, and by their proud resistance to all powers 
 filled one of the finest pages of religious history in the 
 Middle Ages. 
 
 This success, which bathed the soul of Francis with 
 joy, did not arouse in him the smallest movement of 
 pride. Never has man had a greater power over hearts, 
 because never preacher preached himseK less. One day 
 Brother Masseo desired to put his modesty to the test. 
 
 " Why thee ? Why thee ? Why thee ? " he repeated again and 
 again, as if to make a mock of Francis. " What are you saying ? " 
 cried Francis at last. " I am saying that everybody follows thee, every- 
 one desires to see thee, hear thee, and obey thee, and yet for all that 
 thou art neither beautiful, nor learned, nor of noble family. Whenee 
 Romes it, then, that it should be thee whom the world desires to follow ?" 
 
 On hearing these words the blessed Francis, full of joy, raised hie eyM 
 
THE INNER MAN AND WONDER-WORKING 185 
 
 to heaven, and after remaining a long time absorbed in contemplation 
 he knelt, praising and blessing God with extraordinary fervor. Then 
 taming toward Masseo, ' ' Thou wishest to know why it is I whom men 
 follow ? Thou wishest to know ? It is because the eyes of the Most 
 High have willed it thus ; he continually watches the good and the 
 wicked, and as his most holy eyes have not found among sinners any 
 smaller man, nor any more insuficient and more sinful, therefore he 
 has chosen me to accomplish the marvellous work which God has under- 
 taken ; he chose me because he could find no one more worthless, and 
 he wished here to confound the nobility and grandeur, the strength, the 
 beauty, and the learning of this world." 
 
 This reply throws a ray of light upon St. Francis's heart; 
 the message which he brought to the world is once again 
 the glad tidings announced to the poor ; its purpose is 
 the taking up again of that Messianic work which the 
 Virgin of Nazareth caught a glimpse of in her MagniJUiat, 
 that song of love and liberty, the sighs of which breathe 
 the vision of a new social state. He comes to remind 
 the world that the welfare of man, the peace of his heart, 
 the joy of his life, are neither in money, nor in learn- 
 ing, nor in strength, but in an upright and sincere wiU. 
 Peace to men of good will. 
 
 The part which he had taken at Assisi in the con- 
 troversies of his feUow-citizens he would willingly have 
 taken in aU the rest of Italy, for no man has ever 
 dreamed of a more complete renovation ; but if the end 
 he sought was the same as that of many revolutionaries 
 who came after him, their methods were completely dif- 
 ferent ; his only weapon was love. 
 
 The event has decided against him. Apart from the 
 illuminaM of the March of Ancona and the FraticelU of 
 our own Provence his disciples have vied with one 
 another to misunderstand his thought.^ 
 
 " As concerning : 1, fidelity to Poverty ; 2, prohibition of modifying 
 the Rule ; 3, the equal authority of the Will and the Rule ; 4, the 
 request for privileges at the court of Rome ; 5, the elevation of tha 
 
186 LIFE OF ST. FEANCIS 
 
 Who knows if some one will not arise to take up his 
 work ? Has not the passion for worm-eaten speculations 
 yet made Tictims enough ? Are there not many among 
 us who perceive that luxury is a delusion, that if life is a 
 battle, it is not a slaughter-house where ferocious beasts 
 wrangle over their prey, but a wrestling with the divine, 
 under whatever form it may present itseK — truth, beauty, 
 or love? Who knows whether this expiring nineteenth 
 century will not arise from its winding-sheet to make 
 amende honorable and bequeath to its successor one 
 manly word of faith ? 
 
 Yes, the Messiah wiU come. He who was announced 
 by Gioacchino di Fiore and who is to inaugurate a new 
 epoch in the history of humanity will appear. Hope 
 maheth not ashamed. In our modern Babylons and in 
 the huts on our mountains are too many souls who mys- 
 teriously sigh the hymn of the great vigil. Borate cceli 
 desuper et nubes pluamt Justum,^ for us not to be on the 
 eve of a divine birth. 
 
 All origins are mysterious. This is true of matter, but 
 yet more true of that life, superior to all others, which 
 we caU holiness ; it was in prayer that Francis found the 
 
 friara to high ecclesiastical charges ; 6, the absolute prohibition of put- 
 ting themselves in opposition to the secular clergy ; 7, the interdic- 
 tion of great churches and rich convents. On all these points and 
 many others infidelity to Francis's will was complete in the Order leas 
 than twenty-five years after his death. We might expatiate on all 
 this ; the Holy See in interpreting the Rule had canonical right on its 
 side, but Ubertino di Casali in saying that it was perfectly clear and had 
 no need of interpretation had good sense on his side ; let that suffice I 
 Et est stupor qua/re gueritur expositio super lUtera/m sicapertcm, quia nul- 
 la est diffleultas in reguke mtelMgentia. Arbor mtm erudficcB, Venice, 
 1485. lib. v., cap. 3. Sanetus vw Egidius tanto ^vlatu damabat super 
 regulm destrvctionem quam videbat quad ignorantibvx viam spiritiis quasi 
 videbatur insanus. Id. ibid. 
 
 ' Heavens drop down your dew, and let fhe elouds rain down the Ju*i 
 One. Anthem for Advent. 
 
THE INNER MAN AND WONDEE- WORKING 187 
 
 spiritual strength whicli he needed ; he therefore sought 
 for silence and solitude. If he knew how to do battle 
 in the midst of men in order to win them to the faith, he 
 loved, as Celano says, to fly away like a bird going to 
 make its nest upon the mountain.' 
 
 With men truly pious the prayer of the lips, the for- 
 mulated prayer, is hardly other than an inferior form of 
 true prayer. Even when it is sincere and attentive, and 
 not a mechanical repetition, it is only a prelude for souls 
 not dead of religious materialism. 
 
 Nothing resembles piety so much as love. Formu- 
 laries of prayer are as incapable of speaking the emotions 
 of the soul as model love-letters of speaking the trans- 
 ports of an impassioned heart. To true piety as well as 
 to profound love, the formula is a sort of profanation. 
 
 To pray is to talk with God, to lift ourselves up to 
 him, to converse with him that he may come down to 
 us. It is an act of meditation, of reflection, which pre- 
 supposes the effort of all that is most personal in us. 
 
 Looked at in this sense, prayer is the mother of all 
 liberty and all freedom. 
 
 "Whether or no it be a soliloquy of the soul with itself, 
 the soliloquy would be none the less the very foundation 
 of a strong individuality. 
 
 With St. Francis as with Jesus, prayer has this char- 
 acter of effort which makes of it the greatest moral act. 
 In order to truly know such men one must have been 
 able to go with them, to follow Jesus up to the mountain 
 where he passed his nights. Three favored ones, Peter, 
 James, John, followed him thither one day ; but to de- 
 scribe what they saw, all that a manly sursum corda added 
 to the radiance and the mysterious grandeur of him 
 
 ' In foramilms petra nidijieabat. 1 Cel., 71. Upon the prayers of 
 Francis vide ibid., 71 and 72; 2 Cel., 3, 38-43 ; Ben., 139-148. Of. 1 
 fm. 6 : 91 ; 103 ; 8 Soo.. 8 ; 12 : etc. 
 
188 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 whom they adored, they were obliged to resort to th* 
 language of symbols. 
 
 It was so with St. Francis. For him as for his Master 
 the end of prayer is communion with the heavenly 
 Father, the accord of the divine with the human; or 
 rather it is man who puts forth his strength to do the 
 work of God, not saying to him a mere passive, resigned, 
 powerless Fiat, but courageously raising his head : " Be- 
 hold me. Lord, I delight to do thy will." 
 
 " There are unfathomable depths in the human soul, 
 because at the bottom is God himself." Whether this 
 God be transcendent or immanent, whether he be One, 
 the Creator, the eternal and immutable Principle, or 
 whether he be, as say the doctors beyond the Ehine, the 
 ideal objectivation of our Me, is not the question for the 
 heroes of humanity. The soldier in the thick of battle 
 does not philosophize as to how much truth or falsehood 
 there is in the patriotic sentiment ; he takes his arms and 
 fights at the peril of his life. So the soldiers of spiritual 
 conflicts seek for strength in prayer, in reflection, contem- 
 plation, inspiration; all, poets, artists, teachers, saints, 
 legislators, prophets, leaders of the people, learned men, 
 philosophers, all draw from this same source. 
 
 But it is not without difficulty that the soul unites itself 
 to God, or if one prefers, that it finds itself. A prayer 
 ends at last in divine communion only when it began by 
 a struggle. The patriarch of Israel, asleep near Bethel, 
 had already divined this : the God who passes by tells 
 his name only to those who stop him and do him violence 
 to learn it. He blesses only after long hours of conflict. 
 
 The gospel has found an untranslatable word to char- 
 acterize the prayers of Jesus, it compares the conflict 
 which preceded the voluntary immolation of Christ to 
 the death-struggle : Foetus in agonia} We might say of 
 ' Luke, zzii. 44. 
 
THE INNER MAN AND WONDEE-WORKING 189 
 
 his life that it had been a long temptation, a struggle, a 
 prayer, since these words only express different moments 
 of spiritual activity. 
 
 Like their Master, the disciples and successors of 
 Christ can conquer their own souls only through perse- 
 verance. But these words, empty of meaning for devout 
 conventicles, have had a tragic sense for men of religious 
 genius. 
 
 Nothing is more false, historically, than the saints that 
 adorn our churches, with their mincing attitude, their 
 piteous expression, that indescribably anaemic and ema- 
 ciated — one may almost say emasculated — air which 
 shows in their whole nature ; they are pious seminarists 
 brought up under the direction of St. Alphonso di Li- 
 guori or of St. Louis di Gonzagua ; they are not saints, 
 not the violent who take the kingdom of heaven by force. 
 
 We have come to one of the most delicate features of 
 the life of Francis — his relations with diabolical powers. 
 Customs and ideas have so profoundly changed in aU that 
 concerns the existence of the devil and his relations with 
 men, that it is almost impossible to picture to oneself the 
 enormous place which the thought of demons occupied 
 at that time in the minds of men. 
 
 The best minds of the Middle Ages believed without 
 a doubt in the existence of the perverse spirit, in his 
 perpetual transformations in the endeavor to tempt men 
 and cause them to fall into his snares. Even in the six- 
 teenth century, Luther, who undermined so many beliefs, 
 had no more doubt of the personal existence of Satan 
 than of sorcery, conjurations, or possessions.* 
 
 ' Felix Kuhn : Luther, sa vie et son cmwe, Paris, 1883, 3 vols. , Sto. 
 t. i., p. 128 ; t. ii., p. 9 ; t. Hi., p. 257. Benvenuto Cellini does not hes- 
 itate to describe a visit which he made one day to the Coliseum in com- 
 pany with a, magician whose words evoked clouds of devils who filled 
 the whole place. B. Cellini, La vita scritta da lui medeaimo, Bianahi's 
 edition, Florence, 1890, ISmo, p. 33. 
 
190 LIFE OP ST. FRANCIS 
 
 Finding in their souls a wide background of grandeur 
 and wretchedness, whence they Sometimes heard a burst 
 of distant harmonies calling them to a higher life, soon 
 to be overpowered by the clamors of the brute, our an- 
 cestors could not refrain from seeking the explanation of 
 this duel. They found it in the conflict of the demons 
 with God. 
 
 The devil is the prince of the demons, as God is the 
 prince of the angels ; capable of all transformations, they 
 carry on to the end of time terrible battles which will end 
 in the victory of God, but meantime each man his whole 
 life long is contended for by these two adversaries, and 
 the noblest souls are naturally the most disputed. 
 
 This is how St. Francis, with all men of his time, ex- 
 plained the disquietudes, terrors, anguish, with which his 
 heart was at times assailed, as well as the hopes, consola- 
 tions, joys in which in general his soul was bathed. 
 Wherever we follow his steps local tradition has pre- 
 served the memory of rude assaults of the tempter which 
 he had to undergo. 
 
 It is no doubt useless to recall here the elementary fact 
 that if manners change with the times, man himself is 
 quite as strangely modified. If, according to education, 
 and the manner of life, such or such a sense may develop 
 an acuteness which confounds common experience — hear- 
 ing in the musician, touch with the blind, etc. — we may 
 estimate by this how much sharper certain senses may 
 have been then thani now. Several centuries ago visual 
 delusion was with adults what it is now with children in 
 remotest country parts. A quivering leaf, a nothing, a 
 breath, an unexplained sound creates an image which 
 they see and in the reality of which they believe abso- 
 lutely. Man is all of a piece ; the hyperaesthesia of the 
 will presupposes that of the sensibility, one is con- 
 ditioned on the other, and it is this which makes men of 
 
THE INNER MAN AND WONDER-WORKING 191 
 
 Esvolutionary epochs so much greater than nature. It 
 wotJd be absurd under pretext of truth to try to bring 
 them back to the common measures of our contemporary 
 society, for they were veritably demigods for good as for 
 evil. 
 
 Legends are not always absurd. The men of '93 are 
 still near to us, but it is nevertheless with good right 
 that legend has taken possession of them, and it is piti- 
 able to see these men who, ten times a day, had to take 
 resolutions where everything was at stake — their destiny, 
 that of their ideas, and sometimes that of their country 
 — judged as if they had been mere worthy citizens, with 
 leisure to discuss at length every morning the garments 
 they were to wear or the menu of a dinner. Most of the 
 time historians have perceived only a part of the truth 
 about them ; for not only were there two men in them, 
 almost all of them are at the same time poets, dema- 
 gogues, prophets, heroes, martyrs. To write history, 
 then, is to translate and transpose almost continually. 
 The men of the thirteenth century could not bring them- 
 selves to not refer to an exterior cause the inner motions 
 of their souls. In what appears to us as the result of 
 our own reflections they saw inspiration ; where we say 
 desires, instincts, passions, they said temptation, but we 
 must not permit these differences of language to make 
 us overlook or tax with trickery a part of their spiritual 
 life, bringing us thus to the conclusions of a narrow and 
 ignorant rationalism. 
 
 St. Francis believed himself to have many a time 
 fought with the devil ; the horrible demons of the Etruscan 
 Inferno stiU haunted the forests of Umbria and Tuscany ; 
 but while for his contemporaries and some of his dis- 
 ciples apparitions, prodigies, possessions, are daily phe- 
 nomena, for him they are exceptional, and remain entirely 
 in the background. In the iconoeraphy of St. Benedict, 
 
193 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 as in that of most of the popular saints, the devil occupies 
 a preponderant place; in that of St. Francis he dis- 
 appears so completely that in the long series of Giotto's 
 frescos at Assisi he is not seen a single time.^ 
 
 In the same way all that is magic and miracle-working 
 occupies in his life an entirely secondary rank. Jesus 
 in the Gospels gave his apostles power to cast out evil 
 spirits, and to heal aU sickness and all infirmity.^ 
 Francis surely took literally these words, which made 
 a part of his Eule. He believed that he could work 
 miracles, and he willed to do so ; but his religious 
 thought was too pure to permit him to consider miracles 
 otherwise than as an entirely exceptional means of reliev- 
 ing the sufferings of men. Not once do we see him 
 resorting to miracle to prove his apostolate or to bolster 
 up his ideas. His tact taught him that souls are worthy 
 of being won by better means. This almost complete 
 absence of the marvellous ^ is by so much the more re- 
 markable that it is in absolute contradiction with the 
 tendencies of his time.* 
 
 ' On the devil and Francis vide 1 Gel., 68, 73 ; 3 Soc, 13 ; 2 Cel., 1, 
 6; 3, 10; 53; 58-65; Bon., 59-63. Of. Bcol., 3; 5; 18; i?ion,39; 
 Spec., 110b. To form an idea of the part taken by the devil in the life 
 of a monk at the beginning of the thirteenth century, one must read 
 the DicUogus miraculorium of Csesar von Heisterbach. 
 
 » Matthew, x. 1. 
 
 ' Miracles occupy only ten paragraphs (61-70) in 1 Cel. , and of this 
 number there are several which can hardly be counted as Francis's 
 miracles, since they were performed by objects which had belonged to 
 him. 
 
 * Heretics often took advantage of this thirst for the marvellous to 
 dupe the catholics. The Cathari of Moucoul made a portrait of the 
 Virgin representing her as one eyed and toothless, saying that in his 
 humility Christ had chosen a very ugly woman for mother. They had 
 no difiBculty in healing several cases of disease by its means ; the image 
 becajne famous, was venerated almost everywhere, and accomplished 
 many miracles until the day when the heretics divulged the deception, 
 to the great scandal of the faithful. Egbert von Schonau, Contra 
 
THE INNER MAN AND WONDER-WORKING 193 
 
 Open the life of his disciple, St. Anthony of Padua 
 ("J" 1231) ; it is a tiresome catalogue of prodigies, heal- 
 ings, resurrections. One would say it was rather the 
 prospectus of some druggist who had invented a new 
 drug than a call to men to conversion and a higher 
 Ufe. It may interest invalids or devotees, but neither 
 the heart nor the conscience is touched by it. It must 
 be said in justice to Anthony of Padua that his rela- 
 tions with Francis appear to have been very slight. 
 Among the earliest disciples who had time to fathom 
 their master's thought to the very depths we find 
 traces of this noble disdain of the marvellous ; they 
 knew too well that the perfect joy is not to astound the 
 world with prodigies, to give sight to the blind, nor 
 even to revive those who have been four days dead, but 
 that it lives in the love that goes even to self-immola- 
 tion. MiM absit gloriari nisi in cruce Domini} 
 
 Thus Brother Egidio asked of God grace not to per- 
 form miracles; he saw in them, as in the passion for 
 learning, a snare in which the proud would be taken, and 
 which would distract the Order from its true mission." 
 
 St. Francis's miracles are all acts of love ; the greater 
 number of them are found in the healing of nervous mala- 
 dies, those apparently inexplicable disquietudes which are 
 the cruel afflictions of critical times. His gentle glance, 
 at once so compassionate and so strong, which seemed 
 like a messenger from his heart, often sufficed to make 
 those who met it forget all their suffering. 
 
 The evil eye is perhaps a less stupid superstition than 
 
 Catha/ros. Serm. I. <tap. 3. (Patrol, lat. Migne t. 195.) Of. Helster- 
 bach, loe. at., v. 18. Luc de Tny, De altera Vita, lib. li. 9 ; Hi. 9, 18 
 (Patrol. Migne., 308). 
 
 ' " Bnt God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ." Gal. n. 14. This is to this day the motto of the 
 Brothers Minor. 
 
 *8pee., 182a; 200a; 232a. Of. 199a. 
 13 
 
194 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 is generally fancied. Jesus was right in saying that a 
 look sufficed to make one an adulterer ; but there is also 
 a look — that of the contemplative Mary, for example — ■ 
 which is worth all sacrifices, because it includes them all, 
 because it gives, consecrates, immolates him who looks. 
 
 Civilization dulls this power of the glance. A part 
 of the education the world gives us consists in teaching 
 our eyes to deceive, in making them expressionless, in 
 extinguishing their flames; but simple and straightfor- 
 ward natures never give up using this language of the 
 heart, " which brings life and health in its beams." 
 
 " A Brother was suffering unspeakable tortures ; some- 
 times he would roU upon the ground, striking against 
 whatever lay in his way, frothing at the mouth, horrible 
 to see ; at times he would become rigid, and again, after 
 remaining stark outstretched for a moment, would roU 
 about in horrible contortions ; sometimes lying in a heap 
 on the ground, his feet touching his head, he would bound 
 upward as high as a man's head." Francis came to see 
 him and healed him.* 
 
 But these are exceptions, and the greater part of the 
 time the Saint withdrew himself from the entreaties of 
 his companions when they asked miracles at his hands. 
 
 To sum up, if we take a survey of the whole field of 
 Francis's piety, we see that it proceeds from the secret 
 union of his soul with the divine by prayer ; this intui- 
 tive power of seeing the ideal classes him with the mys- 
 tics. He knew, indeed, both the ecstasy and the liberty 
 of mysticism, but we must not forget those features of 
 character which separate him from it, particularly his 
 apostolic fervor. Besides this his piety had certain pe- 
 culiar qualities which it is necessary to point out. 
 
 And first, liberty with respect of observances : Francis 
 felt all the emptiness and pride of most religious observ- 
 ' 1 Cel., 67. 
 
THE INNEE MAN AND WONDER-WOBKING 195 
 
 ance. He saw the snare that lies hidden there, for the 
 man who carefidly observes all the minutiae of a relig- 
 ious code risks forgetting the supreme law of love. More 
 than this, the friar who lays upon himself a certain num- 
 ber of supererogatory facts gains the admiration of the 
 ignorant, but the pleasure which he finds in this admira- 
 tion actually transforms his pious act into sin. Thus, 
 strangely enough, contrary to other founders of orders, 
 he was continually easing the strictness of the various 
 ndes which he laid down.* We may not take this to be a 
 mere accident, for it was only after a struggle with his 
 disciples that he made his will prevail ; and it was pre- 
 cisely those who were most disposed to relax their vow 
 of poverty who were the most anxious to display certain 
 bigoted observances before the public eye. 
 
 " The sinner can fast," Francis would say at such 
 times ; " he can pray, weep, macerate himself, but one 
 thing he cannot do, he cannot be faithful to God." Noble 
 words, not unworthy to fall from the lips of him who 
 came to preach a worship in spirit and in truth, without 
 temple or priest ; or rather that every fireside shall be a 
 temple and every believer a priest. 
 
 Eeligious formalism, in whatever form of worship, 
 always takes on a forced and morose manner. Phari- 
 sees of every age disfigure their faces that no one may 
 be unaware of their godliness. Francis not merely could 
 not endure these grimaces of false piety, he actually 
 counted mirth and joy in the number of religious duties. 
 
 How shall one be melancholy who has in the heart an 
 inexhaustible treasure of life and truth which only in- 
 creases as one draws upon it? How be sad when in 
 
 ' Secundum primam regvlam fratresferia guarta et stxta etper lieen- 
 tiam beaii Frcmcud feria tecwnda et sabbatoj^undbant. Qiord. 11. ef. 
 Beg. 1331, cap. 3 and Beg. 1323, cap. 3, where Friday is the only fast 
 day retained. 
 
^96 LIFE OP ST. FRANCIS 
 
 spite of falls one never ceases to make progress? The 
 pious soul which grows and develops has a joy like that 
 of the child, happy in feeling its weak little limbs grow- 
 ing strong and permitting it every day a further exertion. 
 
 The word Joy is perhaps that which comes most of- 
 ten to the pen of the Franciscan authors ; ' the master 
 went so far as to make it one of the precepts of the Eule.' 
 He was too good a general not to know that a joyous 
 army is always a victorious army. In the history of the 
 early Franciscan missions there are bursts of laughter 
 which ring out high and clear.' 
 
 For that matter, we are apt to imagine the Middle 
 Ages as much more melancholy than they really were. 
 Men suffered much in those days, but the idea of grief 
 being never separated from that of penalty, suffering was 
 either an expiation or a test, and sorrow thus regarded 
 loses its sting ; light and hope shine through it. 
 
 Francis drew a part of his joy from the communion. 
 He gave to the sacrament of the eucharist that worship 
 imbued with unutterable emotion, with joyful tears, which 
 has aided some of the noblest of human souls to endure 
 the burden and heat of the day.* The letter of the dogma 
 was not fixed in the thirteenth century as it is to-day, but 
 all that is beautiful, true, potent, eternal in the mystical 
 feast instituted by Jesus was then alive in every heart. 
 
 The eucharist was truly the viaticum of the soul. Like 
 the pilgrims of Emmaus long ago, in the hour when the 
 shades of evening fall and a vague sadness invades the 
 soul, when the phantoms of the night awake and seem to 
 
 ' 1 0»1., 10; 33 ; 27 ; 31 ; 43 : 80 ; 2 Cel., 1, 1 ; 3, 65-68 ; Eccl., 5 ; 
 e ; Cfiord., 31 ; Spec., 119a ; Conform., 143a, 3. 
 
 ' Cai)eant fratret quod non ostendant ae trisies extrinsecua nubUosot et 
 hi/pocrita» ; sed ostendant ae gaudentia in Domine, hilar es et convenientet 
 gratioaoa. 
 
 ' Bocl. , toe. cii. ; Giord. , foe. cit. 
 
 * Vide Test.; 1 Cel., 46 ; 63 ; 75 ; 2 Cel., 3, 139 ; Spec., 448. 
 
THE INNER MAN AND WONDEK-WORKIN& 197 
 
 loom up behind all our thoughts, our fathers saw the 
 divine and mysterious Companion coming toward them ; 
 they drank in his words, they felt his strength descend- 
 ing upon their hearts, all their inward being warmed 
 again, and again they whispered, " Abide with us, Lord, 
 for the day is far spent and the night approacheth." 
 And often their prayer was heaxd. 
 
CHAPTEE Xn 
 
 THE CHAPTER-GENERAL OJF 1217 » 
 
 After Whitsunday of 1217 clironological notes of 
 Francis's life are numerous enougli to make error almost 
 
 ' The oommenoement of the great misaions and the institution of pro- 
 vincial ministers is usually fixed either at 1217 or 1319, hut both these 
 dates present great difficulties. I confess that I do not understand the 
 vehemence with which partisans of either side defend their opinions. 
 The most important text is a passage in the 3 Soc, 63 : Expletis Hague 
 undecvm annis ah inaeptione religwnis, el mvltvptiaatu numero et merito 
 fratrSms, dectifuerant ministri, et miasi cum aliquot fratribv^ quasi per 
 universas mundi promneias in quibus fides catholiea colitwr et servatur. 
 
 What does this expression, moeptio rdigionis, mean ? At a first read- 
 ing one unhesitatingly takes it to refer to the foundation of the Order, 
 which occurred in April, 1309, by the reception of the first Brothers ; 
 but on adding eleven full years to this date we reach the summer of 
 1230. This is manifestly too late, for the 3 Soc. say that the brethren 
 who went out were persecuted in most of the countries beyond the 
 mountains, as being accredited by no pontifical letter ; but the bull 
 Cum dUecii, bears the date of June 11, 1319. We are thus led to think 
 that the eleven years are not to be counted from the reception of the 
 first Brothers, but from Francis's conversion, which the authors might 
 well speak of as ine&piio rdigionis, and 1206 -)- 11 = 1317. The use of 
 this expression to designate conversion Is not entirely without example. 
 Glassberger says {An.fr., p. 9) : Ordinem minorum incepit anno 1306. 
 Those who admit 1319 are obliged (like the Bollandists, for example), 
 to attribute an inaoourady to the text of the 3 Soc, that of having 
 counted eleven years as having passed when there had been only ten. 
 We should notice that in the two other chronological indications given 
 by the 8 Soc. (37 and 62) they count from the conversion, that is from 
 1206, as also Thomas of Celauo, 88, 105, 119, 97, 88, 57, 55, 31. Curi. 
 onsly, the Conformities reproduce the passage of the 3 Soc. (118b, 'i). 
 
THE CHAPTER-GENEEAL OP 1217 199 
 
 impossible. Unhappily, this is not the case for the 
 eighteen months which precede it (autumn of 1215- 
 Whitsunday, 1217). For this period we are reduced to 
 conjecture, or little better. 
 
 As Francis at that time undertook no foreign mission, 
 he doubtless employed his time in evangelizing Central 
 Italy and in consolidating the foundations of his institu- 
 tion. His presence at Rome during the Lateran Council 
 (November 11-30, 1215) is possible, but it has left no 
 trace in the earliest biographies. The Council certainly 
 took the new Order into consideration,' but it was to re- 
 but with, the alteration : NoTio auTW db meeptione religionis. Giordano 
 di Giano opens the door to many scruples : Anno vero Domini 1219 et 
 anno converaionis ejus deeimo frater Francisous . . . mmt fratrea 
 in Franciam, in Tlieutoniam, in Hungariam, in Sespania/m, Giord. , 3. 
 As a little later the same author properly harmonizes 1319 with the thir- 
 teenth year from Francis's conversion, everyone is in agreement in 
 admitting that the passage cited needs correction ; we have unfortu- 
 nately only one manuscript of this chronicle. Glassberger, who doubt- 
 less had another before him, substitutes 1217, but he may have drawn 
 this date from another document. It is noteworthy that Brother Gior- 
 dano gives as simultaneous the departure of the friars for Germany, 
 Hungary, and France ; but, as to the latter country, it certainly took 
 place in 1217. So the Speculum, 44a. 
 
 The chronicle of the xxiv. generals and Mark of Lisbon (Diola's ed. , 
 t. i., p. 82) holds also to 1317, so that, though not definitely established, 
 it would appear that this date should be accepted until further informa- 
 tion. Starting from slightly different premises, the learned editors of 
 the AncUecta arrive at the same conclusion (t. ii., pp. 25-36). Of. Evers, 
 Analecta ad Wr. Minorum Imtoriam, Leipsic, 1882, 4to, pp. 7 and 11. 
 That which appears to me decidedly to tip the balance in favor of 1217, 
 is the fact that the missionary friars were persecuted because they had no 
 document of legitimation ; and in 1319 they would have had the bull 
 Cum dilecti, from June 11th of that year. The Bollandists, who hold 
 for 1319, have so clearly seen this argument that they have been obliged 
 to deny the authenticity of the bull (or at least to suppose it wrongly 
 dated). A. SS.,p. 839. 
 
 1 Vide A. SS., p. 604. Of. Angelo Clareno, Tribul. Archiv. , I , -p. 
 559. A papa Innocentis fuit omnibus annuntiatum in eoneilio generali 
 . . . skut nanctus wfr. Leo lerildt etfr. Johannes de Gelano. These 
 
200 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 new the invitation made to it five years before by the 
 supreme pontiff, to choose one of the Eules already 
 approved by the Church.^ St. Dominic, who was then 
 at Kome to beg for the confirmation of his institute, 
 received the same counsel and immediately conformed to 
 it. The Holy See would willingly have conceded special 
 constitutions to the Brothers Minor, if they had adopted 
 for a base the Eule of St. Benedict ; thus the Clarisses, 
 except those of St. Damian, while preserving their name 
 and a certain number of their customs, were obliged to 
 profess the Benedictine rule. 
 
 In spite of all solicitations, Francis insisted upon re- 
 taining his own Eule. One is led to believe that it was 
 to confer upon these questions that we find him at Peru- 
 gia in July, 1216, when Innocent III. died.^ 
 
 However this may be, about this epoch the chapters 
 took on a great importance. The Church, which had 
 looked on at the foundation of the Order with somewhat 
 mixed feelings, could no longer rest content with being 
 the mere spectator of so profound a movement ; it saw 
 the need of utilizing it. 
 
 XJgolini was marvellously well prepared for such a 
 task. Giovanni di San Paolo, Bishop of the Sabine, 
 charged by Innocent III. to look after the Brothers, died 
 in 1216, and Ugolini was not slow to offer his protection 
 
 lines have not perhaps the significance which one would he led to give 
 them at the first glance, their author having perhaps confounded consi- 
 lium and ammtorium. The Speculum, 20b says : Earn (Regulam In- 
 nocentius) appi'ovabit et concessit et poatea in contistorio omnibus annun- 
 ticmit. 
 
 ' Ne nvmia Religionem diversitas gramem in Eedesia Dei eonftmonem 
 indueat, firmiter prohibem/us, ne quis de cmtero novam Bdigionem inve- 
 niat ; sed guicumque voluerii ad Beligionem converti, unam de apprdbatis 
 assumat. Labbe and Cossart : Sacrosancia concilia, Paris, 1673, t. xi. , 
 col. 165. 
 
 ' Eccl., 15 {An. franc, t. 1, p. 253) : Innoeeniium in euju* obitu fait 
 ■preaentiaiiter 8. SYandsctis. 
 
THE CHAPTEE-GENEEAL OP 1317 201 
 
 to Francis, who accepted it with gratitude. This extraor- 
 dinary offer is recounted at length by the Three Com- 
 panions.* It must certainly be fixed in the summer of 
 1216 2 immediately after the death of Giovanni di San 
 Paolo; 
 
 It is very possible that the first chapter held in the 
 presence of this cardinal took place on May 29, 1216. 
 By an error very common in history, most of the Fran- 
 ciscan writers have referred to a single date all the 
 scattered incidents concerning the first solemn assizes 
 of the Order, and have called this typical assembly 
 the Chapter of the Mats. In reality for long years all 
 the gatherings of the Brothers Minor deserved this 
 name.^ 
 
 Coming together at the season of the greatest heat, they 
 slept in the open air or sheltered themselves under booths 
 of reeds. "We need not pity them. There is nothing like 
 the glorious transparency of the summer night in Umbria ; 
 sometimes in Provence one may enjoy a foretaste of it, 
 but if at Baux, upon the rook of Doms, or at St. 
 
 > 3 Soc, 61 ; cf. An. Perm., A. SS., p. 606f. 
 
 * Thomas of Celano must be in error when he declares that Francis was 
 not acquainted with Cardinal TJgolini before the visit which he made 
 him at Florence (summer of 1317) : Nondum alter alteH, eratprcmipua 
 famUiaritate conjunctus (1 Cel., 74 and 75). The Franciscan biogra- 
 pher's purpose was not historic ; chronological indications are given in 
 profusion ; what he seeks is the apta junctura. Tradition has preserved 
 the memory of a chapter held at Portiuncula in presence of TJgolini 
 during a stay of the curia at Perugia {JSpeo. , 137b. ; Pior. , 18 ; Conform. , 
 807a ; 3 Soo. , 61). But the curia did not come back to Perugia between 
 1316 and Francis's death. It is also to be noted that according to An- 
 gelo Clareno, Ugolini was with Francis in 1310, supporting him in the 
 presence of Innocent III. Vide below, p. 413. Finally the bull Sacro- 
 sancta of December 9, 1219, witnesses that already during his legation 
 in Florence (1317) Ugolini was actually interesting himself for the 
 Glarisses. 
 
 • See, for example, the description of the chapter of 1331 by Brother 
 Giordano. Glord., 16. 
 
202 LIFE OP ST. FRANCIS 
 
 Baume, the sight is equally solemn and grandiose, it still 
 wants the caressing sweetness, the effluence of life which 
 in Umbria give the night a bewitching charm. 
 
 The inhabitants of the neighboring towns and TiUagea 
 flocked to these meetings in crowds, at once to see the 
 ceremonies, to be present when their relatives or friends 
 assumed the habit, to listen to the appeals of the Saint 
 and to furnish to the friars the provisions of which they 
 might have need. All this is not without some analogy 
 with the camp-meeting so dear to Americans. As to the 
 figures of several thousands of attendants given in the 
 legends, and furnishing even to a Franciscan, Father 
 Papini, the occasion for pleasantries of doubtful taste, it 
 is perhaps not so surprising as might be supposed.' 
 
 These first meetings, to which all the Brothers eagerly 
 hastened, held in the open air in the presence of crowds 
 come together from distant places, have then nothing in 
 common with the subsequent chapters - general, which 
 were veritable conclaves attended by a small number of 
 delegates, and the majority of the work of which, done in 
 secret, was concerned only with the affairs of the Order. 
 
 During Francis's lifetime the purpose of these assem- 
 blies was essentially religious. Men attended them not 
 
 ' With regard to the figure of five thousand attendants given by Bona- 
 ventura (Bon. , 59) Father Papini writes : lo non credo siato capaee alauno 
 di dwre ad intendere al S. Dottore simil fanfcduea, ne capaee lui di 
 crederla. 
 
 . . . In somma it numero quinque miUia et ultra non i del Santo, 
 ineapace di scrivere una cosa tanio improbabUe e relatioamente impossibile. 
 Storia di S. Fr., i., pp. 181 and 183. This figure, five thousand, is also 
 indicated by Eccl., 6. All this may be explained and become possible 
 by admitting the presence of the Brothers of Penitence, and it seems 
 very difSoult to contest it, since in the Order of the Humiliants, which 
 much resembles that of the Brothers Minor (equally composed of three 
 branches approved by three bulls given June, 1201), the chapters-gen- 
 eral annually held were frequented by the brothers of the three Orders. 
 TiraboschL t. ii., p. 144. Cf. above, p. 168. 
 
THE CHAPTER-GENERAL OF 1217 203 
 
 to talk business, or proceed to tlie nomination of the 
 minister-general, but in mutual communion to gain new 
 strength from the joys, the example, and the sufferings of 
 the other brethren.^ 
 
 The four years which followed the Whitsimday of 1216 
 form a stage in the evolution of the Umbrian movement ; 
 that during which Francis was battling for autonomy. 
 We find here pretty delicate shades of distinction, which 
 have been misunderstood by Church writers as much as 
 by their adversaries, for if Francis was particular not to 
 put himself in the attitude of revolt, he would not com- 
 promise his independence, and he felt with an exquisite 
 divination that all the privileges which the court of Bome 
 could heap upon him were worth nothing in comparison 
 with liberty. Alas, he was soon forced to resign himseK 
 to these gilded bonds, against which he never ceased to 
 protest, even to his last sigh ; " but to shut one's eyes to 
 the moral violence which the papacy did him in this mat- 
 ter 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 strug- 
 gled against favors so eagerly sought by the monastic 
 orders.^ 
 
 1 Vide 3 Cel., 3, 131 ; Spec, 43b; 127b. 
 
 ^ Pfimpio firmiter per obedientiam, fratrOms urmerm quod utieungue 
 sunt, non amdeant petere aliquam litteram in Curia Bomana. Test. B. 
 Fr. 
 
 2 A comparison with the Bullary of the Preaching Friars is especially 
 instructive : from their first chapter at Notre Dame de Prouille, in 1316, 
 they are about fifteen ; we find there at this time absolutely nothing 
 that can be compared to the Franciscan movement, which was already 
 stirring up all Italy. But while the first bull in favor of the Francis- 
 cans bears the date of June 11, 1319, and the approbation properly so 
 called that of November 39, 1333, we find Honorius already in the 
 end of 1316 lavishing marks of affection upon the Dominicans ; Decem- 
 ber 23, 1316, Rdigioaam vitam. Cf. Pressuti, / regesti, del Pontefic* 
 
204 LIFE OF ST. FRAIfOIS 
 
 A great number of legendary anecdotes put Francis's 
 disdain of privileges in the clearest light. Even his dear- 
 est friends did not always understand his scruples. 
 
 " Do you not see," they salfl to Mm 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 re- 
 plied quickly ; ' ' for when they have seen us humble and respectful 
 toward them, they themselves will beg us to preach and cbnvert 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." ' 
 
 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 at- 
 titude 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 con- 
 vulsion and without a crisis. 
 
 The chapter of 1217 was notable fdr the definitive or- 
 ganization of the Franciscan missions. Italy and the 
 other countries were divided off into a certain number of 
 provinces, having each its provincial minister. Imme- 
 
 Onorio in., Eoma, 1884, t. !., no. 175; same date: Nos attendentea, 
 ibid., no. 176 ; January 21, 1217, graiiarumomnium, ib., no. 243. Vide 
 284, 1039, 1156, 1208. It is needless to continue this enumeration. 
 Very much the same could be done for the other Orders ; whence the 
 conclusion that if the Brothers Minor alone are forgotten in this shower 
 of favors, it is because they decidedly wished to be. It must be ad- 
 mitted that immediately upon Francis's death they made up for lost 
 time. 
 
 ' The authenticity of this passage is put beyond doubt by tJbertino 
 dl Casal's citation. Archiv., iii., p. 53. Cf. Spec., 30«; Conforin., 
 111b, 1 ; 118b, 1 ; tJbertino, Arbor mtoe enie., iii., 3. 
 
THE CHAPTER-GENEKAL t)F 1317 205 
 
 diately upon his accession Honorius HI. 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.* 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 opportu- 
 nity to show his high qualities.' 
 
 This Brother, who from this time appears in the fore- 
 ground 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 con- 
 version. However this may be, in his youth he had 
 earned his living in Assisi, making mattresses and teach- 
 ing 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 mis- 
 sions. 
 
 His adversaries vie with one another in asserting that 
 he was the finest mind of his century, but imhappUy 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 refor- 
 
 ' Burehardi ckromeon ann. 1217, he. eit. , p. 377. See also the bulli 
 Indicated by Potthast, 5575, 5585-93. 
 
 ' Before 1317 the office of minister virtually existed, though its defin- 
 Itive institution dates only from 1317. Brother Bernardo in his mis- 
 sion to Bologna, for example (1313 ?), certainly held in gome sort th« 
 ofllee of minister. 
 
y06 LIFE OF ST. FEANOIS 
 
 mation 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. FuU of admi- 
 ration for Francis and gratitude toward him, he desired 
 to regulate and consolidate the movement for renovation. 
 In the inner Franciscan circle, vrhere Leo, Ginepro, 
 Egidio, and many others represent the spirit of liberty, 
 the religion of the humble and the simple, Elias rep- 
 resents 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 agaiast the at- 
 tacks of Brother Elias himself.' 
 
 Caesar of Speyer offers a brilliant example of those 
 Buffering 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 tort- 
 ured 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 Avithout 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 
 
 ' ImpriBoned by order of Elias, he died in ooneequence of blows given 
 him one day when he was taking the air outside of his prison. Tr^ui., 
 g4». 
 
THE CHAPTEE-GENEBAL OF 1317 ^07 
 
 souls when tlie 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 lan- 
 guage of the country which they had undertaken to evan- 
 gelize. Perhaps Francis had not taken into account the 
 iact 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.^ 
 
 The lot of the party going to Hungary was not more 
 happy. Yery 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 makiag themselves imderstood, they 
 were soon obliged to thiuk of returning to Italy. We 
 may thank the Franciscan authors for preserving for us 
 the memory of these checks, and not attempting to pict- 
 ure the friars as suddenly knowing all languages by a 
 divine inspiration, as later on was so often related.^ 
 
 Those who had been sent to Spain had also to under- 
 go persecutions. This country, like the south of France, 
 ivas ravaged by heresy ; but already at that time it was 
 rigorously repressed. The Franciscans, suspected of 
 being false Catholics and therefore eagerly hunted out, 
 found a refuge with Queen Urraca of Portugal, who per- 
 mitted them to establish themselves at Coimbra, Guimar- 
 raens, Alenquero, and Lisbon.^ 
 
 > Giord., 5 and 6 ; 3 Soc, 63. 
 
 ' Of Giovanni di Parma, Clareno, Anthony of Fadna, etc. 
 
 "Mark of Listen, t. i., p. 83. Cf. p. 79, t. ii., p. 86, GlasBbergeis, 
 ann. 1217. An.fr., ii., pp. 9 fE.; Chron xnk. gen., MS. of Assisi, no, 
 828, f» 3b. 
 
208 LIFE OF ST. FEAUOIS 
 
 Francis himself made preparations for going to France.' 
 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 aU harnessed in the early dawn to scan 
 the horizon, dreading the unknown and yet overflowing 
 with joy, for he knows that the day wiU be consecrated 
 to love and to the right. 
 
 The Italian poet has given the one name of " pilgrim- 
 ages 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 father- 
 land.^ Such a pilgrimage as this was Francis undertak- 
 ing. 
 
 " Set forth," said he to the Brothers who aocompanied him, " and 
 walk two and two, humble and gentle, keeping silence until after tieroe, 
 praying to O-od 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 
 termit who dwells in it, there to pray to the Lord and to meditate." 
 
 Arrived at Florence he found there Cardinal Ugolini, 
 dient by the pope as legate to Tuscany to preach the 
 nunisade and take aU needful measures for assuring its 
 
 ' S^ee., 44a. ; Conform., 119a, 3 ; 135a ; 181b, 1 ; 1 Cel., 74 and 75. 
 ' 2 Cel., 3, 129. DUigebat Fromciam . . volebat in ea mori. 
 
THE OMAPTEE- GENERAL OP 1817 209 
 
 Francis was surely far from expecting the 
 reception which the prelate gave him. Instead of en- 
 couraging 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 diffi- 
 culties for you with the court of Borne. 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 tha 
 tribulations which they must undergo." 
 
 "Wherefore, then, have you sent your brethren so far away, expos' 
 ing them thus to starvation and all sorts of perils ? " 
 
 " Do you think," replied Francis warmly, and as if moved by pro- 
 phetic Inspiration, " that Grod 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." '' 
 
 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. 
 
 ' V. bull of January 33, 1217, Tempus aceeptdbile, Potthast, no. 5430, 
 given in Horoy, t. ii., col. 305 fE. ; cf. Pressuti, i., p. 71. This bull and 
 those following fix without question the time of the journey to Plor 
 ence. Potthast, 5488, 5487, and page 495. 
 
 ' It is superfluous to point out the error of the BoUandist text In 
 the phrase MonuU {Oardinalia Pranciscum) coeptum non perjicere iter, 
 where the non is omitted, A. SS., p. 704. Of., p. 607 and 885, whioh 
 luu led Suysken into several other errora 
 14 
 
210 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 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.* 
 
 Pacifico, who was a poet of talent, had before his con- 
 version been sumamed Prince of Poesy and crowned at 
 the capital by the emperor. One day while visiting a rel- 
 ative who was a nun at San Severino in tiie March of An- 
 cona, 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 dis- 
 cerns the thoughts and intents of the heart.^ On the 
 morrow he assumed the habit and received his symboli- 
 cal surname.* 
 
 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.^ 
 
 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 destruc- 
 tion of Assisi ; and yet the time was not very far distant ; 
 
 ' Bon., 51. Cf. Ulassberger, ann. 1317 ; Spec., 45b. 
 
 » Heb., It., 12 ; 3 Cel., 3, 49 ; Bon., 50 and 51. 
 
 ' Brother Pacifico interests us [the French people] particularly as the 
 first minister of the Order in France ; information about him is abun- 
 dant : Bon., 79 ; 3 Cel., 3,63 ; S^ec, 41b.; Oonform., S8a,, 1 ; 43a, 1 ; 71b; 
 173b, 1, and 176 ; 3 Cel., 8, 37 ; £^ee., 38b ; Conform., 181b ; 3 Cel., 3, 
 76 ; Fior. , 4:6 ; Co7iform. , 70a,. I do not indieatw the general references 
 found in Chevalier's Bibliography. The Miscellanea, t. ii. (1887), p. 
 158, contains a most precise and interesting column about him. Gregory 
 IX. speaks of him in the bull Magna sieui dicitur of August 13, 1227. 
 Sbaralea, Bull. fr. , i. , p. 33 (Potthast, 8007). Thomas of Tuscany, socmi 
 of St. Bonaventura, knew him and speaks of him in his Oesta Impera- 
 torum {Mon. germ. hist, script., t. 23, p. 493). 
 
 * Eocl., 1 ; 0(mform,., 113b. 1. 
 
THE CHAPTEE-GENEEAL OP 1217 211 
 
 J, few years more and the Poverello would see a part 
 of his spiritual family forgetting the humility of their 
 name, their origin, and their aspirations, to run after the 
 ephemeral laurels of learning. 
 
 We have already seen that the habit of the Franciscans 
 of this time was to make their abode within easy reach 
 of great cities ; Pacifico and his companions established 
 themselves at St. Denis.* We have no particulars of their 
 Work ; it was singularly fruitful, since it permitted them 
 a few years later to attack England with full success. 
 
 Francis passed the foUowiug year (1218) in evangeliz- 
 ing tours in Italy. It is naturally impossible to foUow 
 him in these travels, the itinerary of which was fixed by 
 his daily inspirations, or by indications as fanciful as the 
 one which had formerly determined his going to Sienna. 
 Bologna,^ the Vema, the valley of Rieti, the Sacro-Speco of 
 St. Benedict at Subiaco,^ Gaeta ; * San Miehele on Mount 
 Gargano 5 perhaps received him at this time, but the notes 
 
 ' Toward 1324 the Brothers Minor desired to draw nearer and build 
 a vast convent near the walls of Paris in the grounds called Vauvert, or 
 Valvert (now the Luxembourg Garden), (Bcol. , 10 ; cf. Top. hist, du 
 vieux Paris, by Berty and Tisserand, t. iv., p. 70). In 1230 they re- 
 ceived at Paris from the Benedictines of Saint-Germain-des-Pres a 
 certain number of houses in parocchia 88. Cosmm et Damiani infra 
 muroa domini regis prope portam de Oibardo (Gfuwtularium Univeniitatis 
 Pa/ridensis, no. 76. Cf. Topograiphie Tmtiorique du 'oieux Paris; Begion 
 oceid. de I'univ., p. 95 ; Felibien, Sisioire de la ville de Paris, i., p. 115). 
 Finally, St. Louis installed them in the celebrated Convent of the Cor- 
 deliers, the refectory of which still exists, transformed into the Dupuy- 
 tren Museum. The Dominicans, who arrived in Paris September 13, 
 1217, went straight to the centre of the city, near the bishop's palace on 
 the lie dela Cite, and on August 6, 1318, were installed in the Con- 
 vent of St. Jacques. 
 
 ^ Fior., 27 ; Spec., 148b ; Conform., 71a and 113a, 2 ; Hon., 182. 
 
 ' The traces of Francis's visit here are numerous. A Brother Endfll 
 painted his portrait kere. 
 
 * Bon., 177. 
 
 » Vide A. SS., pp. 855 and 856. Cf. 2 Cel., 3, 136. 
 
212 LIFE OF ST. FKANCIS 
 
 of his presence in these places are too sparse and vague 
 to permit their being included in any scheme of history. 
 
 It is very possible that he also paid a visit to Eome 
 during this time ; his communications with Ugolini were 
 much more frequent than is generally supposed. We 
 must not permit the stories of biographers to deceive us 
 in this matter ; it is a natural tendency to refer all that 
 we know of a man to three or four especially striking 
 dates. We forget entire years of the life of those whom 
 we have known the best and loved the most and group 
 our memories of them around a few salient events which 
 shine all the more brilliantly the deeper we make the 
 surrounding obscurity. The words of Jesus spoken on a 
 hundred different occasions came at last to be formed 
 into a single discourse, the Sermon on the Mount. It is 
 in such cases that criticism needs to be delicate, to 
 mingle a little divination with the heavy artUlery of 
 scientific argument. 
 
 The texts are sacred, but we must not make fetiches of 
 them ; notwithstanding St. Matthew, no one to - day 
 dreams of representing Jesus as uttering the Sermon on 
 the Mount all at one time. In the same way, in the nar- 
 ratives concerning the relations between St. Francis and 
 Ugolini, we find ourselves every moment shut up in no- 
 thoroughfares, coming up against contradictory indica- 
 tions, just so long as we try to refer everything to two or 
 three meetings, as we are at first led to do. 
 
 With a simple act of analysis these difficulties disap- 
 pear and we find each of the different narratives bringing 
 us fragments which, being pieced together, furnish an or- 
 ganic story, living, psychologically true. 
 
 From the moment at which we have now arrived, we 
 must make a much larger place for Ugolini than in the 
 past; the struggle has definitively opened between the 
 Franciscan ideal — chimerical, perhaps, but sublime — and 
 
THE OHAPTEE-GENEEAL OF 1317 21'3 
 
 kJie ecclesiastical policy, to go on until the day when, half 
 in humility, half in discouragement, Francis, heartsick, 
 abdicates the direction of his spiritual family. 
 
 Ugolini returned to Eome at the end of 1217. During 
 the following winter his countersign is found at the bot- 
 tom of the most important bulls ; ' he devoted this time 
 to the special study of the question of the new orders, 
 and summoned Francis before him. We have seen with 
 what frankness he had declared to him at Florence that 
 many of the prelates would do anything to discredit him 
 with the pope.^ It is evident the success of the Order, its 
 methods, which in spite of aU protestations to the con- 
 trary seemed to savor of heresy, the independence of 
 Francis, who had scattered his friars in all the four 
 comers of the globe without tryiug to gain a confirma- 
 tion of the verbal and entirely provisional authorization 
 accorded him by Innocent III. — all these things were cal- 
 culated to startle the clergy. 
 
 Ugolini, who better than any one else knew Umbria, 
 Tuscany, Emilia, the March of Ancona, aU those regions 
 where the Franciscan preaching had been most success- 
 ful, was able by himself to judge of the power of the new 
 movement and the imperious necessity of directing it ; he 
 felt that the best way to allay the prejudices which the 
 pope and the sacred coUege might have against Francis 
 was to present him before the curia. 
 
 Francis was at first much abashed at the thought of 
 preaching before the Vicar of Jesus Christ, but upon the 
 entreaties of his protector he consented, and for greater 
 security he learned by heart what he had to say. 
 
 ' Among others those of December 5, 1217, Potthast, 5639 ; February 
 8, March 30, April 7, 1218, Potthast, 5695, 5739, 5747. 
 
 « 1 Cel., 74. guanti maxime inprineipio cum hose agerentur novella 
 plantationi ordinii insidiabantur ut perderent. Cf. 2 Cel., 1, 16. Vid& 
 tat I\randseui hiporum more levire qitampltret. 
 
214 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 TJgolini himself was not entirely at ease as to the 
 result of this step ; Thomas of Celano pictures him as 
 devoured -with anxiety ; he was troubled about Francis, 
 whose artless eloquence ran many a risk in the halls of 
 the Lateran Palace ; he was also not without some more 
 personal anxieties, for the failure of his protege might 
 be most damaging to himself. He was in all the greater 
 a,nxiety when, on arriving at the feet of the pontiff, Fran- 
 cis forgot all he had intended to say; but he frankly 
 avowed it, and seeking a new discourse from the inspira- 
 tion of the moment, spoke with so much warmth and 
 simplicity that the assembly was won.^ 
 
 The biographers are mute as to the practical result of 
 this audience. We are not to be surprised at this, for 
 they write with the sole purpose of edification. They 
 wrote after the apotheosis of their master, and would 
 with very bad grace have dwelt upon the difficulties 
 which he met during the early years.^ 
 
 The Holy See must have been greatly perplexed by this 
 
 ■ 1 Cel., 73 (of. 3 Cel., 1, 17; Spec., 103a) ; 3 Soc, 64; Bon., 78. 
 The fixing of this scene in the winter of 1317-1318 seems hardly to be 
 debatable ; Giordano's aooouut (14) in fact determines the date at which 
 TJgolini became offidaUy protector of the Order ; it supposes earlier rela- 
 tions between Honorius, Francis, and TJgolini. We are therefore led 
 to seek a date at which these three personages may have met in Borne, 
 and we arrive thus at the period between December, 1317, and April, 
 1318. 
 
 ^ A word of Brother Giordano's opens the door to certain conjectures. 
 " My lord," said Francis to Honorius III., in 1330, " you have given me 
 many fathers (popes) give me a single one to whom I may turn with 
 the affairs of my Order." (Giord., 14, Mvltos miM papas dedisti da 
 unum, . . . etc.) 
 
 Does not this suggest the idea that the pontiff had perhaps named a 
 commission of cardinals to oversee the Brothers Minor ? Its delibera- 
 tions and the events to be relaited in the following chapter might have 
 impelled him to issue the bull Cum, dUeeti of June 11, 1319, which was 
 not an approbation properly so called, but a safe-conduct in favor of the 
 Franciscans. 
 
THE OHAPTEK-GENEEAL OP 1217 215 
 
 strange man, whose faith and humility were evident, but 
 whom it was impossible to teach ecclesiastical obedience. 
 
 St. Dominic happened to be in Eome at the same 
 time,^ and was overwhelmed with favors by the pope. It 
 is a matter of history that Innocent III. having asked 
 him to choose one of the Rules already approved by the 
 Church, he had returned to his friars at Notre Dame de 
 Prouille, and after conferring with them had adopted that 
 of St. Augustine ; Honorius therefore was not sparing of 
 privileges for him. It is hardly possible that Ugolini 
 did not try to use the influence of his example with St. 
 Francis. 
 
 The curia saw clearly that Dominic, whose Order barely 
 comprised a few dozen members, was not one of the 
 moral powers of the time, but its sentiments toward him 
 were by no means so mixed as those it experienced with 
 regard to Francis. 
 
 To unite the two Orders, to throw over the shoulders 
 of the Dominicans the brown cassock of the Poor Men 
 of Assisi, and thus make a little of the popularity of the 
 Brothers Minor to be reflected upon them, to leave to 
 the latter their name, their habit, and even a semblance 
 of their Rule, only completing it with that of St. Augustine, 
 such a project would have been singularly pleasing to 
 Ugolini, and with Francis's humility would seem to have 
 some chance of success. 
 
 One day Dominic by dint of pious insistance induced 
 Francis to give him his cord, and immediately girded 
 himself with it. " Brother," said he, " I earnestly long 
 that your Order and mine might unite to form one sole 
 and same institute ^ in the Church." But the Brother 
 
 ' He took possession of St. SaTjine on February 88, 1318. 
 
 ' 2 Cel. , 3, 87. The literal meaning of the phrase Is somewhat am- 
 bigaous. The text is : VeUem, frater JPraneisce, unam fieri rdigionem 
 tuametmeamet in Mcclesia pari forma nosvivere. Spec. 27b. The echo 
 
216 LIFE OF ST. FRAKOIS 
 
 Minor wished to remain as he was, and declined the 
 proposition. So truly was he inspired with the needs of 
 his time and of the Church that less than three years 
 after this Dominic was drawn by an irresistible influence 
 to transform his Order of Canons of St. Augustine into 
 an order of mendicant monks, whose constitutions were 
 outlined upon those of the Franciscans.* 
 
 A few years later the Dominicans took, so to speak, 
 their revenge, and obliged the Brothers Minor to give 
 learning a large place in their work. Thus, while hardly 
 come to youth's estate, the two religious families rivalled 
 one another, impressed, influenced one another, yet never 
 so much so as to lose all traces of their origin — summed 
 up for the one in poverty and lay preaching, for the 
 other in learning and the preaching of the clergy. 
 
 of this attempt is found in Thierry d'Apolda, Vie de S. Dominique (A. SS. , 
 Augusti, t. i. , p. 573 d) : 8. Sominicus in oscnila saneta mens et sineeroa 
 amplexus, dixit: Tu es 3oeius mens, tu curves pariter meeum, stemus 
 simul, nuUits adversarius prtevalebii. Bernard of Besse says : B. Domi- 
 nicus tanta B. Francisco dewtione cohesit ut opiatam a6 eo cordmn sub 
 inferiori tunica devotissimi cingeret, cujits et suam, Beligionem unam veUe 
 fieri dicer et, ipsumquepro sanciitaie cmteris sequendem religiosis assereret. 
 Turin MS., 103b. 
 
 ' At the chapter held at Bologna at Whitsunday, 1230. The bul) 
 Beligiosam vitam (Privilege of Notre Dame de Prouille) of March 30, 
 1318, ennmerates the possessions of the Dominicans. Bipolli, BvU, 
 ftee^, t. i., p. 6. Horoy, Honoriiope/ra, t. ii., coL 684. 
 
CHAPTEE Xm 
 
 ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FKANCIS 
 The Egyptian Mission. Summer 1218 — Autumn 1230 
 
 Art and poetry have done well in inseparably asso- 
 ciating St. Dominic and St. Francis ; the glory of the first 
 is only a reflection of that of the second, and it is in plac- 
 ing them side by side that we succeed best in understand- 
 ing the geniue of the Poverello. If Francis is the man 
 of inspiration, Dominic is that of obedience to orders ; 
 one may say that his life was passed on the road to Kome, 
 whither he continually went to ask for instructions. His 
 legend was therefore very slow to be formed, although 
 nothing forbade it to blossom freely ; but neither the zeal 
 of Gregory IX. for his memory nor the learning of his 
 disciples were able to do for the Hammer of heretics that 
 which the love of the people did for the Father of the 
 poor. His legend has the two defects which so soon 
 weary the readers of hagiographical writings, when the 
 question is of the saints whose worship the Church has 
 commanded.' It is encumbered with a spurious super- 
 
 ' One proof of the obscurity in which Dominic remained so long as 
 Rome did not apotheosize him, is that Jacques de Vitry, who consecrates 
 a whole chapter of his Eisioria Oeeidentalis to the Preaching Friars 
 (27, p. 333) does not even name the founder. This is the more signifi- 
 cant since a few pages farther on, the chapter given to the Brothers 
 Minor is almost entirely filled with the person of St. Francis. This 
 (ilence about St. Dominic has been remarked and taken up by Moschas, 
 irho finds no way to explain it. Vide Vitam J. de Vitriaeo, at the head 
 of the Donai edition of 1597. 
 
218 LIFE OF ST. FEANCIS 
 
 naturalismi and witli iBcidents borrowed right and left 
 from earlier legends. The Italian people, who hailed in 
 Francis the angel of all their hopes, and who showed 
 themselves so greedy for his relics, did not so much as 
 dream of taking up the corpse of the founder of the Order 
 of Preaching Friars, and allowed him to wait twelve years 
 for the glories of canonization.^ 
 
 We have already seen the efforts of Cardinal Ugohni to 
 unite the two Orders, and the reasons he had for this 
 course. He went to the Whitsunday chapter-general 
 which met at Portiuncula (June 3, 1218), to which came 
 also St. Dominic with several of his disciples. The cere- 
 monial of these solemnities appears to have been always 
 about the same since 1216 ; the Brothers Minor went in 
 procession to meet the cardinal, who immediately dis- 
 mounted from his horse and lavished expressions of affec- 
 tion upon them. An altar was set up in the open air, at 
 which he said mass, Francis performing the functions of 
 deacon.^ 
 
 It is easy to imagine the emotion which overcame those 
 present when in its beautiful setting of the Umbrian land- 
 scape burst forth that part of the Pentecostal service, that 
 most exciting, the most apocalyptic of the whole Catholic 
 liturgy, the anthem Alleluia, Alleluia, Emitte Spiritum 
 tuum et creabuntuT, et renovahis faciem terrce. Alleluia,^ 
 does not this include the whole Franciscan dream ? 
 
 But what especially amazed Dominic was the absence 
 of material cares. Francis had advised his brethren not 
 to disquiet themselves in any respect about food and 
 
 ' Francis, who died in 1326, is canonized in 1338 ; Anthony of Padua, 
 1231 and 1233 ■, Elisabeth of Thuriugia, 1231 and 1335 ; Dominic, 1321 
 and 1284. 
 
 = 3Soe.,61. 
 
 ^ Shed abroad, Lord, thy Spirit, and all shall be created, and thoa 
 ehalt renew the face of the «arth. 
 
ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FRANCIS 219 
 
 drink ; he knew by experience that they might fearlessly 
 trust all that to the love of the neighboring population. 
 This want of carefulness had greatly surprised Dominic, 
 who thought it exaggerated ; he was able to reassure him- 
 self, when meal-time arrived, by seeing the inhabitants 
 of the district hastening in crowds to bring far larger 
 supplies of provisions than were needed for the several 
 thousands of friars, and holding it an honor to wait upon 
 them. 
 
 The joy of the Franciscans, the sympathy of the pop- 
 ulace with them, the poverty of the huts of Portiuncula, 
 all this impressed him deeply ; so much was he moved 
 by it that in a burst of enthusiasm he announced his res- 
 olution to embrace gospel poverty.^ 
 
 Ugolini, though also moved, even to tears,' did not for- 
 get his former anxieties ; the Order was too numerous 
 not to include a group of malcontents ; a few friars who 
 before their conversion had studied in the universities be- 
 gan to condemn the extreme simplicity laid upon them as 
 a duty. To men no longer sustained by enthusiasm the 
 short precepts of the Kule appeared a charter all too in- 
 sufficient for a vast association ; they turned with envy 
 toward the monumental abbeys of the Benedictines, the 
 regular Canons, the Cistercians, and toward the ancient 
 monastic legislations. They had no difficulty in per- 
 ceiving in Ugolini a powerful ally, nor in confiding their 
 observations to him. 
 
 The latter deemed the propitious moment arrived, 
 and in a private conversation with Francis made a few 
 
 1 2 Cel., 3, 87 ; Spec, 132b ; Oonfarm., 307a, 113a ; Fior., 18. The 
 historians of St, Dominic have not received these details kindly, but an 
 incontestable point gained from diplomatic documents is that in 1318 
 Dominio, at Rome, procured privileges in which the properties of his 
 Order were indicated, and that in 1830 he led his friars to profess pov- 
 erty. 
 
 »aCel., 3, 9; Spec., 17». 
 
220 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 suggestions : Ought he not giye to his disciples, espe- 
 cially to the educated among them, a greater share of the 
 burdens ? consult them, gain inspiration from their views ? 
 was there not room to profit by the experience of the 
 older orders? Though all this was said casually and 
 with the greatest possible tact, Francis felt himself 
 woimded to the quick, and without answering he drew 
 the cardinal to the very midst of the chapter. 
 
 " My brothers," said he with fire, " the Lord has called 
 me into the ways of simplicity and humility. In them 
 he has shown me the truth for myself and for those who 
 desire to believe and follow me ; do not, then, come speak- 
 ing to me of the Eule of St. Benedict, of St. Augustine, 
 of St. Bernard, or of any other, but solely of that which 
 God in his mercy has seen fit to show to me, and of 
 which he has told me that he would, by its means, make 
 a new covenant with the world, and he does not will that 
 we should have any other. But by your learning and 
 your wisdom God will bring you to confusion. For I am 
 persuaded that God will chastise you ; whether you will 
 or no you will be forced to come to repentance, and noth- 
 ing win remain for you but confusion." ' 
 
 This warmth in defending and affirming his ideas pro- 
 foundly astonished Ugolini, who added not a word. As 
 to Dominic, what he had just seen at Portiuncula was to 
 him a revelation. He felt, indeed, that his zeal for the 
 Church could not be greater, but he also perceived that 
 he could serve her with more success by certain changes 
 in his weapons. 
 
 Ugolini no doubt only encouraged him in this view, 
 and Dominic, beset with new anxieties, set out a few 
 months later for Spain. The intensity of the crisis 
 through which he passed has not beee sufficiently no« 
 
 < Spec., 4ga; Tribul., Lara. MS., lia-12b; Sfptc, 183a; Omform^ 
 185b 1. 
 
ST, DOMINIC AND ST. FRANCIS 221 
 
 ticed ; the religious writers recount at length his sojourn 
 in the grotto of Segovia, but they see only the ascetic 
 practices, the prayers, the genuflexions, and do not think 
 of looking for the cause of aU this. From this epoch it 
 might be said that he was unceasingly occupied in copy- 
 ing Francis, if the word had not a somewhat displeasing 
 sense. Arrived at Segovia he follows the example of the 
 Brothers Minor, founds a hermitage in the outskirts of the 
 city, hidden among the rocks'which overlook the town, and 
 thence he descends from time to time to preach to the 
 people. The transformation in his mode of life was so 
 evident that several of his companions rebelled and re- 
 fused to follow him in the new way. 
 
 Popular sentiment has at times its intuitions ; a legend 
 grew up around this grotto of Segovia, and it was said 
 that St. Dominic there received the stigmata. Is there 
 not here an unconscious effort to translate into an image 
 within the comprehension of all, that which actually 
 took place in this cave of the Sierra da Guaderrama ? ' 
 
 Thus St. Dominic also arrived at the poverty of the 
 gospel, but the road by which he reached it was different 
 indeed from that which St. Francis had followed; while 
 the latter had soared to it as on wings, had seen in it the 
 final emancipation from all the anxieties which debase 
 this life, St. Dominic considered it only as a means ; it 
 was for him one more weapon in the arsenal of the host 
 charged with the defence of the Church. "We must not 
 see in this a mere vulgar calculation ; his admiration for 
 him whom he thus imitated and followed afar off was 
 sincere and profound, but genius is not to be copied. 
 This sacred malady was not his ; he has transmitted to 
 his sons a sound and robust blood, thanks to which they 
 have known nothing of those paroxysms of hot fever, 
 
 ' The principal sources are indicated in A. SS., Augusti, t. i., pp, 
 470 fE. 
 
222 LIFE OP ST. FRANCIS 
 
 those lofty flights, those sudden returns which make the 
 story of the Franciscans the story of the most tempest- 
 tossed society which the world has eyer known, in which 
 glorious chapters are mingled with pages trivial and 
 grotesque, sometimes even coarse. 
 
 At the chapter of 1218 Francis had other causes for 
 Badness than the murmurs of a group of malcontents; 
 the missionaries sent out the year before to Germany 
 and Hungary had returned completely discouraged. 
 The account of the sufferings they had endured pro- 
 duced so great an effect that from that time many of the 
 friars added to their prayers the formula : " Lord pre- 
 serve us from the heresy of the Lombards and the feroc- 
 ity of the Germans.' 
 
 This explains how Ugolini at last succeeded in con- 
 vincing Francis of his duty to take the necessary mea- 
 sures no longer to expose the friars to be hunted down 
 as heretics. It was decided that at the end of the next 
 chapter the missionaries should be armed with a papal 
 brief, which should serve them as ecclesiastical pass- 
 port. Here is the translation of this document : 
 
 Honorjus, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to the archbishops, 
 bishops, abbots, deacons, archdeacons, and other ecclesiastical superiors, 
 salutation and the apostolic blessing. 
 
 Our dear son, brother Francis, and his companions of the life and the 
 Order of the Brothers Minor, having renounced the vanities of this 
 world to choose a mode of life which has merited the approval of the 
 Eoman Church, and to go out after the example of the Apostles to oast 
 In various regions the seed of the word of God, we pray and exhort you 
 by these apostolic letters to receive as good catholics the friars of the 
 above mentioned society, bearers of these presents, warning you to be 
 favorable to them and treat them with kindness for the honor of God 
 and out of consideration for us. 
 
 Given (at Rieti) this third day of the ides of June (June 11, 1219), in 
 the third year of our pontificate.' 
 
 •Giord., 18; 3 Soc, 62. 
 
 » Sbsralea, BuU. fr., t. i, p. 2 ; Porthast, 6081 ; Nf adding, owl. 121% 
 
ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FRANCIS 223 
 
 it is evident that this bull was calculated to avoid 
 awakening Francis's susceptibilities. To understand pre- 
 cisely in what it differs from the first letters usually ac- 
 credited to new Orders it is necessary to compare it with 
 them; that which had instituted the Dominicans had 
 been, like the others, a veritable privilege ; ' here there 
 is nothing of the kind. 
 
 The assembly which was opened at Whitsunday of 
 1219 (May 26) was of extreme importance.' It closed 
 the series of those primitive chapters in which the inspi- 
 ration and fancy of Francis were given free course. Those 
 which followed, presided over by the vicars, have neither 
 the same cheerfulness nor the same charm; the crude 
 glare of full day has driven away the hues of dawn and 
 the indescribable ardors of nature at its awakening. 
 
 The summer of 1219 was the epoch fixed by Honorius 
 III. for making a new effort in the East, and directing 
 upon Egypt all the forces of the Crusaders.^ Francis 
 thought the moment arrived for realizing the project 
 which he had not been able to execute in 1212. Strangely 
 enough, Ugolini who, two years before had hindered his 
 going to France, now left him in entire liberty to carry 
 out this new expedition.* Several authors have deemed 
 that Francis, having found in him a true protector, felt 
 
 No. 28, indicates the works where the text may be found. Of. A. SS., 
 p. 839. 
 
 ' The title sufficiently indicated the contents : Domenico priori 8. 
 Romani tolosani ejuggiie fratribus, eos in proteetionem recipit eorumque 
 Ordinem cum bonis et primlegiix confirmat. Religiosam mtam : December 
 22, 1216 ; Pressuti, t. i., 175, text in Horoy t. ii., col. 141-144. 
 
 « Vide A. SS., pp. 608 £E. and 838 fE. 
 
 ' Vide Bull Midti dmncB of August 13, 1218. Horoy, t. iii., col. IS ; 
 Potthast, 5891. 
 
 • The contradiction is so striking that the Bollandists have made of it 
 the principal argument for defending the error in their manuscript (1 
 Cel. , 75), and insisting in the face of, and against everything that Fran- 
 cis had taken that journey. A. SS. , 607. 
 
294 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 himself reassured as to the future of the Order ; he might 
 indeed have thought thus, but the history of the troubles 
 which burst out immediately after his departure, the 
 astounding story of the kind reception given by the court 
 of Eome to some meddlers who took the opportunity of 
 his absence to imperil his Order, would suffice to show 
 how much the Church was embarrassed by him, and with 
 what ardor she longed for the transformation of his work. 
 We shall find later on the detailed account of these facts. 
 
 It appears that a Eomagnol brother Christopher was 
 at this same chapter nominated provincial of Gascony ; 
 he lived there after the customs of the early Franciscans, 
 working with his hands, living in a narrow cell made of 
 the boughs of trees and potter's earth.' 
 
 Egidio set out for Tunis with a few friars, but a great 
 disappointment awaited them there; the Christians of 
 this coimtry, in the fear of being compromised by their 
 missionary zeal, hurried them into a boat and constrained 
 them to recross the sea.^ 
 
 If the date of 1219 for these two missions has little 
 other basis than conjecture, the same is not the case as 
 to the departure of the friars who went to Spain and 
 Morocco. The discovery has recently been made of the 
 account of their last preachings and of their tragic death, 
 made by an eye-witness.' This document is all the more 
 
 ' He died at Cahors, October 31, 1373. Hia legend is found in MS. 
 Biccardi, 379, f°. 69a. Indpit vita f. Ohriatophori quam eompilamtfr. 
 Bernardus de Bessa eustodim Oaturcensis : Quasi vas auri iolidum. Cf . 
 Mark of Lisbon, t. ii., pp. 106-113, t. iii., p. 313, and Glassberger, 
 An.fr., t. ii., p. 14. 
 
 ' A. SS., Aprilis, t. iii., p. 334 ; Conform., 118b, 1 ; 84a; Mark of 
 Lisbon, t. ii. , p. 1. — Brother Luke had been sent to Constantinople, in 
 1319, at latest. Vide Constitutus of December 9, 1330. Sbaralea, BuU. 
 fr., t. i. , p. 6 ; Potthast, 6431. 
 
 * We owe to M. MuUer (Anfange, p, 307) the honor of this publio* 
 tion, copied from a manuscript of the Cottoniana. 
 
ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FBAN0I8 225 
 
 precious because it confirms the general lines of the 
 much longer account given by Mark of Lisbon. It would 
 be out of place to give a summary of it here, because it 
 but very indirectly concerns the life of St. Francis, but 
 we must note that these axta have beyond their historic 
 value a truly remarkable psychological — one must almost 
 say pathological — significance ; never was the mania for 
 martyrdom better characterized than in these long pages, 
 where we see the friars forcing the Mahometans to pursue 
 them and make them win the heavenly palm. The for- 
 bearance which Miramolin as well as his feUow relig- 
 ionists at first show gives an idea of the civilization and 
 the good qualities of these infidels, all the higher that 
 very different sentiments would be natural in the van- 
 quished ones of the plains of Tolosa. 
 
 It is impossible to call by the name of sermons the 
 collections of rude apostrophes which the missionaries 
 addressed to those whom they wished to convert ; at this 
 paroxysm the thirst for martyrdom becomes the madness 
 of suicide. Is this to say that friars Bernard, Pietro, Ad- 
 jutus, Accurso, and Otho have no right to the admiration 
 and worship with which they have been surrounded ? 
 Who would dare say so ? Is not devotion always blind ? 
 That a furrow should be fecimd it must have blood, it 
 must have tears, such tears as St. Augustine has called 
 the blood of the soul. Ah, it is a great mistake to im- 
 molate oneself, for the blood of a single man wiU not 
 save the world nor even a nation ; but it is a still greater 
 mistake not to immolate oneself, for then one lets others 
 be lost, and is oneself lost first of all. 
 
 I greet you, therefore. Martyrs of Morocco; you do 
 not regret your madness, I am sure, and if ever some 
 "ighteous pedant gone astray in the groves of paradise 
 undertakes to demonstrate to you that it would have 
 been better worth while to remain in your own country, 
 15 
 
^^6 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 and found a worthy family of virtuous laborers, I fancy 
 that Miramolin, there become your best friend, will take 
 the trouble to refute him. 
 
 You were mad, but I envy such madness, for you felt 
 that the essential thing in this world is not to serve this 
 ideal or that one, but with all one's soul to serve the 
 ideal which one has chosen. 
 
 When, a few months after, the story of their glorious 
 end arrived at Assisi, Francis discerned a feeling of pride 
 among his companions and reproached them in lively 
 terms ; he who would so have envied the lot of the mar- 
 tyrs felt himself humbled because God had not judged 
 him worthy to share it. As the story was mingled with 
 some words of eulogy of the founder of the Order, he for- 
 bade the further reading of it.' 
 
 Immediately after the chapter he had himself under- 
 taken a mission of the same kiad as he had confided to 
 the Brothers of Morocco, but he had proceeded in it in 
 an entirely different manner : his was not the blind zeal 
 which courts death in a sort of frenzy and forgets all the 
 rest; perhaps he already felt that the persistent effort 
 after the better, the continual immolation of seK for 
 truth, is the martyrdom of the strong. 
 
 This expedition, which lasted more than a year, is men- 
 tioned by the biographers in a few lines.^ Happily we 
 have a number of other papers regarding it ; but their 
 silence suffices to prove the siacerity of the primitive 
 Franciscan authors ; if they had wanted to amplify the 
 deeds of their subject, where could they have found an 
 easier opportunity or a more marvellous theme ? Francis 
 quitted Portiuncula in the middle of June and went to 
 
 1 Giord., 8. 
 
 ' 1 Cel., 57; Bon., 133-138; 154 and 155; 2 Cel., 3, 3; Oonfwm.^ 
 113b, 2; 114a, 2; Spec., 55b ; IHor., 34. 
 
ST. DOMINIO AND ST. FRANCIS 227 
 
 Ancona, whence the Crusaders were to set sail for Egypt 
 on St. John's Day (June 24th). 
 
 Many friars joined him — a fact which was not without 
 its inconveniences for a journey by sea, where they were 
 obliged to depend upon the charity of the owners of the 
 boats, or of their fellow-travellers. 
 
 We can understand Francis's embarrassment on arriv= 
 ing at Ancona and finding himself obliged to leave be- 
 hind a number of those who so earnestly longed to go 
 with him. The Conformities relate here an incident for 
 which we might desire an earlier authority, but which is 
 certainly very like Francis ; he led all his friends to the 
 port and explained to them his perplexities. "The 
 people of the boat," he told them, " refuse to take us aU, 
 and I have not the courage to make choice among you; 
 you might think that I do not love you all alike ; let us 
 then try to learn the will of God." And he called a 
 chUd who was playing close by, and the little one, 
 charmed to take the part of Providence put upon him, 
 pointed out with his finger the eleven friars who were to 
 set sail.' 
 
 "We do not know what itinerary they foUowed. A 
 single incident of the journey has come down to us: 
 that of the chastisement inflicted in the isle of Cyprus on 
 Brother Barbaro, who had been guilty of the fault which 
 the master detested above all others — evil-speaking. He 
 was implacable with regard to the looseness of lan- 
 guage so customary among pious folk, and which often 
 made a hell of religious houses apparently the most 
 peacefid. The offence this time appeared to him the 
 more grave for having been uttered in the presence of 
 a stranger, a knight of that district. The latter was 
 stupefied on hearing Francis command the guilty one to 
 eat a lump of ass's dung which lay there, adding : " The 
 ' Cmform., 113b, 2 ; cf. A SS., p. 611. 
 
228 LIFE OF ST. FBANCIS 
 
 mouth which has distilled the venom of hatred against 
 my brother must eat this excrement." Such indigna- 
 tion, no less than the obedience of the unhappy offender, 
 fiUed him with admiration.^ 
 
 It is very probable, as Wadding has supposed, that 
 the missionaries debarked at St. Jean d'Acre. They ar- 
 rived there about the middle of July.'* In the environs 
 of this city, doubtless, Brother Elias had been established 
 for one or two years. Francis there told off a few of his 
 companions, whom he sent to preach iu divers directions, 
 and a few days afterward he himself set out for Egypt, 
 where all the efforts of the Crusaders were concentrated 
 upon Damietta. 
 
 From the first he was heart-broken with the moral 
 condition of the Christian army. Notwithstanding the 
 presence of numerous prelates and of the apostolic 
 legate, it was disorganized for want of discipline. He 
 was so affected by this that when there was talk of battle 
 he felt it his duty to advise against it, predicting that 
 the Christians would infallibly be beaten. No one heeded 
 him, and on August 29th the Crusaders, having attacked 
 the Saracens, were terribly routed.^ 
 
 His predictions won him a marvellous success. It 
 must be owned that the ground was better prepared 
 than any other to receive the new seed ; not surely that 
 piety was alive there, but in this mass of men come to- 
 gether from every corner of Europe, the troubled, the 
 seers, the enlightened ones, those who thirsted for right- 
 eousness and truth, were elbowed by rascals, adventurers, 
 
 1 2 Cel., 3, 93 ; 8peo., 30b. Of. 2 Cel., 3, 115. Covform., 142b, 1. 
 This incident may possibly have taken place on the return. 
 
 ' With the facilities of tliat period the voyage required from twenty 
 to thirty days. The diarinm of a similar passage may be found in Huil- 
 lard-BrghoUes, Hut. Dipl., t. i., 898-901. Cf. Ibid., Introd., p 
 «ccxxxi. 
 
 • 2 Cel., 32 ; Bon 154, 155 ; cf. A. SS., p. 613. 
 
ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FRANCIS 229 
 
 those who were greedy for gold and plunder, capable of 
 much good or much evil, the sport of fleeting impulses, 
 loosed from the bonds of the family, of property, of the 
 habits which usually twine themselves about man's will, 
 and only by exception permit a complete change in his 
 manner of life; those among them who were sincere 
 and had come there with generous purposes were, so 
 to speak, predestined to enter the peaceful army of the 
 Brothers Minor. Francis was to win in this mission fel- 
 low-laborers who would assure the success of his work in 
 the countries of northern Europe. 
 
 Jacques de Vitry, in a letter to friends written a few 
 days later, thus describes the impression produced on 
 him by Francis : 
 
 "I announce to you that Master Reynier, Prior of St. Michael, has 
 entered the Order of the Brothers Minor, an Order which is multiplying 
 rapidly on all sides, because it imitates the primitive Church and fol- 
 lows the life of the Apostles in everything. The master of these 
 Brothers is named Brother Francis ; he is so lovable that he is venerated 
 by everyone. Having come into our army, he has not been afraid, in 
 his zeal for the faith, to go to that of our enemies. For days together 
 he announced the word of God to the Saracens, but with little success ; 
 then the sultan, King of Egypt, asked him in secret to entreat God to 
 reveal to him, by some miracle, which is the best religion. Colin, the 
 Englishman, our clerk, has entered the same Order, as also two others 
 of our companions, Michael and Dom Matthew, to whom I had given 
 the rectorship of the Saiute Chapelle. Cantor and Henry have done 
 the same, and still others whose names I have forgotten." ' 
 
 The long and enthusiastic chapter which the same au- 
 thor gives to the Brothers Minor in his great work on the 
 Occident is too diffuse to find a place here. It is a liv- 
 ing and accurate picture of the early times of the Order ; 
 in it Francis's sermon before the sultan is again related. 
 It was written at a period when the friars had still neither 
 
 • Jacques de Vitry speaks only incidentally of Francis here in the 
 midst of salutations ; from the critical point of view this only enhances 
 the value of his words. See the Study of the Sources, p. 428. 
 
230 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 monasteries nor churches, and when the chapters were 
 held once or twice a year ; this gives us a date anterior 
 to 1223, and probably even before 1221. We have here, 
 therefore, a verification of the narratives of Thomas of 
 Celano and the Three Companions, and they find in it 
 their perfect confirmation. 
 
 As to the interviews between Francis and the sultan, 
 it is prudent to keep to the narratives of Jacques de 
 Vitry and William of Tyre.' Although the latter wrote 
 at a comparatively late date (between 1275 and 1295), he 
 followed a truly historic method, and founded his work 
 on authentic documents ; we see that he knows no more 
 than Jacques de Vitry of the proposal said to have been 
 made by Francis to pass through a fire if the priests of 
 Mahomet would do as much, intending so to establish the 
 superiority of Christianity. 
 
 We know how little such an appeal to signs is character- 
 istic of St. Francis. Perhaps the story, which comes from 
 Bonaventura, is born of a misconception. The sultan, 
 like a new Pharaoh, may have laid it upon the strange 
 preacher to prove his mission by miracles. However 
 this may be, Francis and his companions were treated 
 with great consideration, a fact the more meritorious that 
 hostilities were then at their height. 
 
 Returned to the Crusading camp, they remained there 
 untU after the taking of Damietta (November 5, 1219). 
 This time the Christians were victorious, but perhaps 
 the heart of the gospel man bled more for this victory 
 than for the defeat of August 29th. The shocking condi- 
 tion of the city, which the victors found piled with heaps 
 of dead bodies, the quarrels over the sharing of booty, 
 the sale of the Avretched creatures who had not suc- 
 cumbed to the pestilence,'' all these scenes of terror, cm* 
 
 ' Vide below, the Study of the Sources, p. 430. 
 ' All this is related at length by Jacques de Vitrjr. 
 
ST. DOMINIC AIS^D ST. FRANCIS 231 
 
 elty, greed, caused him profound horror. The " human 
 beast " was let loose, the apostle's voice could no more 
 make itself heard in the midst of the savage clamor than 
 that of a life-saver over a raging ocean. 
 
 He set out for Syria' and the Holy Places. How 
 gladly would we follow him in this pilgrimage, accompany 
 him in thought through Judea and Galilee, to Bethlehem, 
 to Nazareth, to Gethsemane ! What was said to him by 
 the stable where the Son of Mary was born, the work- 
 shop where he toiled, the olive-tree where he accepted 
 the bitter cup? Alas! the documents here suddenly 
 fail us. Setting out from Damietta very shortly after 
 the siege (November 5, 1219) he may easily have been 
 at Bethlehem by Christmas. But we know nothing, ab- 
 solutely nothing, except that his sojourn was more pro- 
 longed than had been expected. 
 
 Some of the Brothers who were present at Portiuncula 
 at the chapter-general of 1220 (Whitsunday, May 17th) 
 had time enough to go to Syria and still find Francis 
 there ; ^ they could hardly have arrived much earlier than 
 the end of June. What had he been doing those eight 
 months ? Why had he not gone home to preside at the 
 chapter? Had he been ill?^ Had he been belated by 
 some mission ? Our information is too slight to permit 
 us even to venture upon conjecture. 
 
 Angelo Clareno relates that the Sultan of Egypt, 
 
 ' "Cil horn qui oomenpa I'ordre des FrSres Mineurs, si ot nom fr^re 
 Francois . . . vint en I'ost de Damiate, e 1 fist moult de bien, et 
 demora tant que la vllle f ut prise. II vit le mal et le peche qui comen- 
 9a ^ croistre entre les gens de Tost, si li desplot, par quoi il s'en parti, 
 e f u une pi&ce en Surie, et puis s'en rala en son pais. ' ' Historiens des 
 Croisades, il. L'JEst de Erodes Empereur, liv. zxxii., chap. xv. Of. 
 Sanuto; Seeretafid. cruc, lib. ill., p. xi., cap. 8, in Bongars. 
 
 'Giord., Chron., 11-14. 
 
 ' The episode of Brother Leonard's complaints, related below, givea 
 some probability to this hypothesis. 
 
232 LIFE OP ST. FRANCIS 
 
 touched by his preaching, gave command that he and 
 all his friars should have free access to the Holy Sepid- 
 chre without the payment of any tribute.' 
 
 Bartholomew of Pisa on his part says incidentally that 
 Francis, having gone to preach in Antioch and its envi- 
 rons, the Benedictines of the Abbey of the Black Moun- 
 tain,' eight miles from that city, joined the Order in a 
 body, and gave up all their property to the Patriarch. 
 
 These indications are meagre and isolated indeed, and 
 the second is to be accepted only with reserve. On the 
 other hand, we have detailed information of what went 
 on in Italy during Francis's absence. Brother Giorda- 
 no's chronicle, recently discovered and published, throws 
 all the light that could be desired upon a plot laid against 
 Francis by the very persons whom he had commissioned 
 to take his place at Portiuncula, and this, it not with the 
 connivance of Eome and the cardinal protector, at least 
 without their opposition. These events had indeed been 
 narrated by Angelo Clareno, but the undisguised feeling 
 which breathes through all his writings and their lack of 
 accuracy had sufficed with careful critics to leave them in 
 doubt. How could it be supposed that in the very life- 
 time of St. Francis the vicars whom he had instituted 
 could take advantage of his absence to overthrow his 
 work ? How could it be that the pope, who during this 
 period was sojourning at Kieti, how that Ugolini, who 
 was still nearer, did not impose silence on these agita- 
 tors?^ 
 
 Now that all the facts come anew to light, not in an 
 
 ' Tribul., Laur. MS., 9b. Cf. 10b: Septdaro Domini iimtato festinat 
 ad Ohristianorum terram. 
 
 ' Upon this monastery see a letter adfamiliares of Jacques de Vitry, 
 written in 1216 and published in 1847 by Baron Jules de St. Genois in 
 t. xiii. of the Memoires de VAaademie royale des sciences et des hea/uas artt 
 de B)itxelles (1849). Conform., 106b, 3 ; 114a, 2 ; Spec., 184. 
 
 "A. SS., pp. 619-620, 848, 851, 638. 
 
ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FBANOIS 233 
 
 oratorical and impassioned account, but brief, precise, cut- 
 ting, dated, with every appearance of notes taken day by 
 day, we must perforce yield to evidence. 
 
 Does this give us reason clamorously to condemn Ugo- 
 Uno and the pope ? I do not think so. They played a 
 part which is not to their honor, but their intentions were 
 evidently excellent. If the famous aphorism that the end 
 justifies the means is criminal where one examines his 
 own conduct, it becomes the first duty in judging that of 
 others. Here are the facts : 
 
 On July 25th, about one month after Francis's de- 
 parture for Syria, Ugolini, who was at Perugia, laid 
 upon the Clarisses of Monticelli (Florence), Sienna, Pe- 
 rugia, and Lucca that which his friend had so obstinately 
 refused for the friars, the Benedictine Eule.^ 
 
 At the same time, St. Dominic, returning from Spain 
 full of new ardor after his retreat in the grotto of Segovia, 
 and fully decided to adopt for his Order the rule of pov- 
 erty, was strongly encouraged in this purpose and over- 
 whelmed with favors." Honorius III. saw in him the 
 providential man of the time, the reformer of the monas- 
 tic Orders ; he showed him unusual attentions, going so 
 far, for example, as to transfer to him a group of monks 
 belonging to other Orders, whom he appointed to act as 
 Dominic's lieutenants on the preaching tours which he 
 believed it to be his duty to undertake, and to serve, 
 under his direction, an apprenticeship in popular preach- 
 
 ing-'' 
 
 That Ugolini was the inspiration of all this, the bulls 
 
 ' Vide Bull Sacrosancta of December 9, 1319. Cf. those of Septem- 
 ber 19, 1232 ; Sbaralea, i., p. 3, 11 ff. ; Potthast, 6179, 6879a, b, «. 
 
 5 Vide Potthast, 6155, 6177, 6184, 6199, 6214, 6217, 6318, 6230, 6346. 
 See also GhaHvlarium Unwermtatis Par., t. i., 487. 
 
 3 Bull Quia quiteminant of May 13, 1330. Bipalli, Bui. Freed., t. i, 
 p. 10 (Potthast, 6349). 
 
234 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 are here to witness. His ruling purpose at that time 
 was so clearly to direct the two new Orders that he chose 
 a domicile with this end in view, and we find him contin- 
 ually either at Perugia — that is to say, within three leagues 
 of Portiuncula^ — or at Bologna, the stronghold of the Do- 
 minicans. 
 
 It now becomes manifest that just as the fraternity in- 
 stituted by Francis was truly the fruit of his body, flesh 
 of his flesh, so does the Order of the Preaching Friars 
 emanate from the papacy, and St. Dominic is only its 
 putative father. This character is expressed in one 
 word by one of the most authoritative of contemporary 
 annalists, Burchard of Ursperg (»J«1226). "The pope," 
 he says, " instituted and confirmed the Order of the 
 Preachers." ^ 
 
 Francis on his journey in the Orient had taken for 
 special companion a friar whom we have not yet met, 
 Pietro di Catana or dei Cattcmi. Was he a native of the 
 town of Catana ? There is no precise indication of it. 
 It appears more probable that he belonged to the noble 
 family dei Cattani, already known to Francis, and of 
 which Orlando, Count of Chiusi in Casentino, who gave 
 
 ^Mon. Oerm. hist. Servpt., t. 23, p. 376. This passage is of extreme 
 Importance because it sums up in a few lines the ecclesiastical policy of 
 Honorius III. After speaking of the perils with which the Humiliati 
 threatened the Church, Bnrcliard adds : Q;a(B xolens corrigere domi- 
 nus papa ordinem Predicatorum inatituit et confirmamt. Now these 
 Humiliati were an approved Order. But Burchard, while classing them 
 with heretics beside the Poor Men of Lyons, expresses in a word the sen- 
 timents of the papacy toward them ; it had for them an invincible re- 
 pugnance, and not wishing to strike them directly it sought a side issue. 
 Similar tactics were followed with regard to the Brothers Minor, with 
 that overplus of caution which the prodigious success of the Order in- 
 spired. It all became useless when in 1221 Brother Elias became Fran- 
 cis's vicar, and especially when, after the latter's death, he had all the 
 liberty necessary for directing the Order according to the views of Ugo 
 lini, now become Gregory IX. 
 
ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FRANCIS 235 
 
 him the Verna, was a member. However that may be, 
 we must not confound him with the Brother Pietro who 
 assumed the habit ia 1209, at the same time with Ber- 
 nardo of Quintavallo, and died shortly afterward. Tradi- 
 tion, in reducing these two men to a single personage, 
 was influenced not merely by the similarity of the names, 
 but also by the very natural desire to increase the pres- 
 tige of one who in 1220-1221 was to play an important 
 part in the direction of the Order.^ 
 
 At the time of his departure for the East Francis had 
 left two vicars in his place, the Brothers Matteo of Nar- 
 ni and Gregorio of Naples. The former was especially 
 charged to remain at Portiuncula to admit postulants ; ^ 
 Gregorio of Naples, on the other hand, was to pass 
 through Italy to console the Brothers.^ 
 
 The two vicars began at once to overturn everything. 
 It is inexplicable how men still under the influence of 
 their first fervor for a Eule which in the plenitude of 
 their liberty they had promised to obey could have 
 
 ' 1 Cel., 35 ; of. A. SS. , p. 581. Pietro di Catana had the title of doc- 
 tor of laws, Giord., 11, which entirely disagrees with what is related 
 of Brother Pietro, 3 Soc, 28 and 29. Of. Bon., 38 and 29 ; Spec., 5b ; 
 Fior., 3 ; Conform., 47; 52b, 2 ; Petrus vir Utteratus erat et Twbilis, 
 Giord., 13. 
 
 - We know nothing more of him except that after his death he had 
 the gift of miracles. Giord. ,11; Conform., Q%a., 1. 
 
 3 He was not an ordinary man ; a remarkable administrator and ora- 
 tor (Eccl., 6), he was minister in France before 1334 and again in 1340, 
 thanks to the zeal with which he had adopted the ideas of Brother 
 Elias. He was nephew of Gregory IX. , which throws some light upon 
 the practices which have just been described. After having been swept 
 away in Elias's disgrace and condemned to prison for life, he became in 
 the end Bishop of Bayeux. I note for those who take an interest in 
 those things that manuscripts of two of his sermons may be found in 
 the National Library of Paris. The author of them being indicated simply 
 asfr. Or. min., it has only lately become known Whose tUey were. 
 These sermons were preached in Paris on Holy Thursday and Saturday. 
 JIS. new. acq., Lat., 338 f° 148, 159. 
 
236 MFji oji' HT, iiiANOis 
 
 dreamed of such innovations if they had not been urgefl 
 on and upheld by those in high places. To alleviate the 
 vow of poverty and to multiply observances were tha 
 two points toward which their efforts were bent. 
 
 In appearance it was a trifliag matter, in reality it was 
 much, for it was the first movement of the old spirit 
 against the new. It was the effort of men who uncon- 
 sciously, I am willing to think, made religion an affair of 
 rite and observance, instead of seeing in it, like St. Fran- 
 cis, the conquest of the liberty which makes us free in all 
 things, and leads each soul to obey that divine and mys- 
 terious power which the flowers of the fields adore, which 
 the birds of the air bless, which the symphony of the 
 stars praises, and which Jesus of Nazareth called Abba, 
 that is to say. Father. 
 
 The first Eule was excessively simple in the matter of 
 fasts. The friars were to abstain from meat on "Wednes- 
 days and Fridays ; they might add Mondays and Satur- 
 days, but only on Francis's special authorization. The 
 vicars and their adherents complicated this rule in a sur- 
 prising manner. At the chapter-general held in Fran- 
 cis's absence (May 17, 1220), they decided, first, that in 
 times of feasting the friars were not to provide meat, 
 but if it were offered to them spontaneously they were to 
 eat it ; second, that all should fast on Mondays as well as 
 Wednesdays and Fridays ; third, that on Mondays and 
 Saturdays they should abstain from milk products unless 
 by chance the adherents of the Order brought some to 
 them.' 
 
 These beginnings bear witness also to an effort to imi- 
 tate the ancient Orders, not without the vague hope that 
 they would be substituted for them. Brother Giordanq 
 has preserved to us only this decision of the chapter of 
 1220, but the expressions of which he makes use suffi- 
 'Giord.,11. Ct Spec., Ub. Mor., i; Conform., iB^l. 
 
ST. DOMINIC AND ST. FRANCIS '^37 
 
 eiently prove that it was far from being the only one, 
 and that the malcontents had desired, as in the chapters 
 of Citeaux and Monte Cassino, to put forth veritable con- 
 stitutions. 
 
 These modifications of the Rule did not pass, however, 
 without arousing the indignation of a part of the chap- 
 ter ; a lay brother made himself their eager messenger, 
 and set out for the East to entreat Francis to return 
 without delay, to take the measures called for by the 
 cireiunstances. 
 
 There were also other causes of disquiet. Brother 
 Philip, a Zealot of the Glarisses, had made haste to se- 
 cure for them from Ugolini the privileges which had 
 already been under consideration.^ 
 
 A certain Brother Giovanni di ConpeUo ^ had gathered 
 together a great number of lepers of both sexes, and 
 written a Rule, intending to form with them a new Order. 
 He had afterward presented himself before the supreme 
 pontiff with a train of these unfortunates to obtain his 
 approbation. 
 
 Many other distressing symptoms, upon which Brother 
 Giordano does not dwell, had manifested themselves. 
 The report of Francis's death had even been spread 
 abroad, so that the whole Order was disturbed, divided, 
 and in the greatest peril. The dark presentiments which 
 
 ' Giord., 12. Of. Bull Sacrosancta of December 9, 1219. 
 
 ' Giord. , 13. Ought we, perhaps, to read di Campello ? Half way be- 
 tween Foligno and Spoleto there is a place of this name. On the other 
 hand, the 3 Soc. , 35, indicate the entrance into the Order of a Giovan- 
 ni di Capella who in the legend became the Franciscan Judag. Inverdt 
 abusum ca/peUe et ab ipsa denominalua est : ah ordine reeedem foetus le- 
 prosus lagueo ut Jiulas se sit^endii. Oonfoi-m., 104a, 1. Cf. Berna/rd de 
 Besse, 96a ; ^ec, 2; Fior., 1. All this is much mixed up. Perhaps 
 We should believe that Giovanni di Campello died shortly afterward, 
 and that later on, when the stories of this troubled time were forgotten, 
 some ingenious Brother explained the note of infamy attached to hit 
 memory by a hypothesis built upon his name itself. 
 
238 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 Francis seems to have had were exceeded by the reality.' 
 The messenger who brought him the sad news found him 
 in Syria, probably at St. Jean d'Acre. He at once em- 
 barked with Elias, Pietro di Catana, Caesar of Speyer, and 
 a few others, and returned to Italy in a vessel bound for 
 Venice, where he might easily arrive toward the end of 
 July. 
 
 > Giord., 12, 13, and 14. 
 
CHAPTEE XIV 
 
 THE CRISIS OF THE ORDER' 
 Autumn, 1220 
 
 On his arrival in Venice Francis informed himself yet 
 more exactly concerning all that had happened, and con- 
 voked the chapter-general at Portitincula for Michael- 
 mas (September 29, 1220).' His first care was doubtless 
 to reassure his sister-friend at St. Damian ; a short frag- 
 ment of a letter which has been preserved to us gives in- 
 dication of the sad anxieties which filled his miad : 
 
 "I, little Brother Francis, desire to follow the life and the poverty of 
 Jesus Christ, our most high Lord, and of his most holy Mother, perse- 
 vering therein until the end ; and I beg yoa all and exhort you to perse- 
 vere always in this most holy life and poverty, and take good care 
 never to depart from it upon the advice or teachings of any one whom- 
 soever." ' 
 
 A long shout of joy sounded up and down all Italy 
 when the news of his return was heard. Many zealous 
 brethren were already despairing, for persecutions had 
 begun in many provinces ; so when they learned that 
 their spiritual father was alive and coming again to visit 
 
 ■Giord., 14; TiiM., i° 10. 
 
 ' Any other date is impossible, since Francis in open chapter relin- 
 quished the direction of the Order in favor of Pietro di Catana, who 
 died March 10, 1221. 
 
 ' This too short fragment is found in § vi. of the Rule of the Damian^ 
 ites (August 9, 1253): Speculum, Morin, Tract, iii., 226b. 
 
240 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 them their joy was unbounded. From Venice Francis 
 went to Bologna. The journey was marked by an inci- 
 dent which once more shows his acute and wise goodness. 
 Worn out as much by emotion as by fatigue, he one day 
 found himself obliged to give up finishing the journey on 
 foot. Mounted upon an ass, he was going on his way, 
 followed by Brother Leonard of Assisi, when a passing 
 glance showed him what was passing in his companion's 
 mind. " My relatives," the friar was thinking, " would 
 have been far enough from associating with Bemardone, 
 and yet here am I, obliged to follow his son on foot." 
 
 We may judge of his astonishment when he heard 
 Francis saying, as he hastily dismounted from his beast : 
 "Here, take my place; it is most unseemly that thou 
 shouldst follow me on foot, who art of a noble and pow- 
 erful lineage." The unhappy Leonard, much confused, 
 threw himself at Francis's feet, begging for pardon.^ 
 
 Scarcely arrived at Bologna, Francis was obliged to 
 proceed against those who had become backsliders. It 
 will be remembered that the Order was intended to pos- 
 sess nothing, either directly or indirectly. The monas- 
 teries given to the friars did not become their property ; 
 so soon as the proprietor should desire to take them back 
 or anyone else should wish to take possession of them, 
 they were to be given up without the least resistance ; but 
 on drawing near to Bologna he learned that a house was 
 being built, which was already called The house of the 
 Brothers. He commanded its immediate evacuation, not 
 even excepting the sick who happened to be there. The 
 Brothers then resorted to Ugoliui, who was then in that 
 very city for the consecration of Santa Maria di Eheno.' 
 He explained to Francis at length that this house did not 
 belong to the Order ; he had declared himself its propri- 
 
 ' 2 Cel., 2, 3 ; Bon. , 162 ; of. Cmform. , 184b, 2, and 62b, 1. 
 ' Sigonius, Opera, t. hi. ool. 220 ; of. Potthast, 5516, and 6086. 
 
THE CRISIS OF THE OEDEE 241 
 
 etor by public acts ; and he succeeded in convincing 
 him.' 
 
 Bolognese piety prepared for Francis an enthusiastic 
 reception, the echo of which has come down even to our 
 times: 
 
 ' ' I was studying at Bologna, I, Thomas of Spalato, archdeacon in the 
 cathedral church of that city, when in the year 1230, the day of the As- 
 sumption, I saw St. Francis preaching on the piazza of the Lesser Palace, 
 hefore almost every man in the city. The theme of his discourse was 
 the following : Angels, men, the demons. He spoke on all these sub- 
 jects with so much wisdom and eloquence that many learned men who 
 were there were filled with admiration at the words of so plain a man. 
 Yet he had not the manner of a preacher, his ways were rather those of 
 conversation ; the substance of his discourse bore especially upon the 
 abolition of enmities and the necessity of making peaceful alliances. 
 His apparel was poor, his person in no respect imposing, his face not at 
 all handsome ; but God gave such great efficacy to his words that he 
 brought back to peace and harmony many nobles whose savage fury had 
 not even stopped short before the shedding of blood. So great a devo- 
 tion was felt for him that men and women flocked after him, and he 
 esteemed himself happy who succeeded in touching the hem of his gar- 
 ment." 
 
 Was it at this time that the celebrated Accurso the 
 Glossarist,^ chief of that famous dynasty of jurisconsults 
 who during the whole thirteenth century shed lustre 
 upon the University of Bologna, welcomed the Brothers 
 Minor to his villa at Eicardina, near the city ? ' We do 
 not know. 
 
 It appears that another professor, Nicolas dei Pepoli, 
 also entered the Order.* Naturally the pupils did not 
 lag behind, and a certain number asked to receive the 
 habit. Yet all this constituted a danger; this city, which 
 in Italy was as an altar consecrated to the science of law, 
 
 1 3 Cel. , 3, 4 ; Spec, ,11a; Tribvl. , 13a ; Conform. , 169b, 3. 
 'Died in 1329. Cf. Mazzetti, Bepertorio di tuttii prafeasori di B» 
 logna, Bologna, 1847, p. 11. 
 ' See Man. Oerm. hist. Script., t. 28, p. 635, and the notes. 
 « Wadding, ann. 133Q. no. 9 Cf. A. SS., p. 833. 
 
242 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 was destined to exercise upon the evolution of the Ordei 
 the same influence as Paris ; the Brothers Minor could 
 no more hold aloof from it than they could keep aloof 
 from the ambient air. 
 
 This time Francis remained here but a very short time. 
 An ancient tradition, of which his biographers have not 
 preserved any trace, but which nevertheless appears to 
 be entirely probable, says that Ugohni took him to pass 
 a month in the Oamaldoli, in the retreat formerly in- 
 habited by St. Komuald in the midst of the Casentino 
 forest, one of the noblest in Europe, within a few hours' 
 walk of the Verna, whose summit rises up gigantic, over- 
 looking the whole country. 
 
 We know how much Francis needed repose. There is 
 no doubt that he also longed for a period of meditation 
 in order to decide carefully in advance upon his line of 
 conduct, in the midst of the dark conjectures which had 
 called him home. The desire to give him the much- 
 needed rest was only a subordinate purpose with UgolinL 
 The moment for vigorous action appeared to him to have 
 come. We can easily picture his responses to Francis's 
 complaints. Had he not been seriously advised to prof- 
 it by the counsels of the past, by the experience of those 
 founders of Orders who have been not only saints but 
 skilful leaders of men ? Was not TJgolini himself his best 
 friend, his born defender, and yet had not Francis forced 
 him to lay aside the influence to which his love for 
 the friars, his position in the Church, and his great age 
 gave him such just title ? Yes, he had been forced to 
 leave Francis to needlessly expose his disciples to all 
 sorts of danger, to send them on missions as perilous as 
 they had proved to be ineffectual, and all for what ? For 
 the most trivial point of honor, because the Brothers 
 Minor were determined not to enjoy the smallest privi- 
 leges. They were not heretics, but they disturbed the 
 
THE CEISIS OF THE ORDER 243 
 
 Church as much as the heretics did. How many times 
 had he not been reminded that a great association, in 
 order to exist, must have precise and detailed regula- 
 tions? It had all been labor lost! Of course Francis's 
 humility was doubted by no one, but why not manifest 
 it, not only in costume and manner of living, but in all 
 his acts ? He thought himself obeying God in defending 
 his own iaspiration, but does not the Church speak in the 
 name of God ? Are not the words of her representatives 
 the words of Jesus forever perpetuated on earth? He 
 desired to be a man of the Gospel, an apostolic man, but 
 was not the best way of becoming such to obey the 
 Boman pontiff, the successor of Peter? With an excess 
 of condescension they had let him go on in his own way, 
 and the result was the saddest of lessons. But the situa- 
 tion was not desperate, there was stiU time to find a 
 remedy ; to do that he had only to throw himself at the 
 feet of the pope, imploring his blessing, his light, and his 
 counsel. 
 
 Reproaches such as these, mingled with professions of 
 love and admiration on the part of the prelate, could not 
 but profoundly disturb a sensitive heart like that of 
 Francis. His conscience bore him good witness, but 
 with the modesty of noble minds he was ready enough 
 to think that he might have made many mistakes. 
 
 Perhaps this is the place to ask what was the secret of 
 the friendship of these two men, so little known to one 
 another on certain sides. How could it last without a 
 shadow down to the very death of Francis, when we 
 always find Ugolini the very soul of the group who are 
 compromising the Franciscan ideal ? No answer to this 
 question is possible. The same problem presents itself 
 ynth regard to Brother Elias, and we are no better able 
 to find a satisfactory answer. Men of loving hearts 
 seldom have a perfectly clear intelligence. They often 
 
244 LIFE OP ST. FRANCIS 
 
 become fascinated by men the most different from them- 
 selves, in whose breasts they feel none of those feminine 
 weaknesses, those strange dreams, that almost sickly pity 
 for creatures and things, that mysterious thirst for pain 
 which is at once their own happiness and their torment. 
 
 The sojourn at Camaldoli was prolonged until the 
 middle of September, and it ended to the cardinal's 
 satisfaction. Francis had decided to go directly to the 
 pope, then at Orvieto, with the request that Ugolini 
 should be given him as official protector intrusted with 
 the direction of the Order. 
 
 A dream which he had once had recurred to his mem- 
 ory ; he had seen a little black hen which, in spite of her 
 efforts, was not able to spread her wings over her whole 
 brood. The poor hen was himself, the chickens were 
 the friars. This dream was a providential indication 
 commanding him to seek for them a mother under whose 
 wings they could all find a place, and who could defend 
 them against the birds of prey. At least so he thought.^ 
 
 He repaired to Orvieto without taking Assisi in his 
 way, since if he went there he would be obliged to take 
 some measures against the fomentors of disturbance ; he 
 now proposed to refer everything directly to the pope. 
 
 Does his profound humility, with the feeling of culpa- 
 bility which Ugolini had awakened in him, suffice to 
 explain his attitude with regard to the pope, or must we 
 suppose that he had a vague thought of abdicating ? Who 
 knows whether conscience was not already murmuring 
 a reproach, and showing him how trivial were all the 
 sophisms which ha,d been woven around him ? 
 
 " Not daring to present himself in the apartments of so great a prince, 
 he remained outside before the door, patiently waiting till the pope should 
 come out. When he appeared St. Francis made a reverence and said: 
 
 > 2 Crt., 1, 16; Spec., lOOa-lOlb. 
 
THE CRISIS OP THE OEDEE 245 
 
 ' Father Pope, may God give you peace. ' ' May God bless you, my son,' 
 replied he. ' My lord,' then said St. Francis to him, ' you are great and 
 often absorbed by great affairs ; poor friars cannot come and talk with 
 you as often as they need to do ; you have given me many popes ; give 
 me a single one to whom I may address myself when need occurs, and 
 who will listen in your stead, and discuss my affairs and those of the 
 Order.' 'Whom do you wish I should give you, my son ?' 'The 
 Bishop of Ostia.' And he gave him to him." ' 
 
 Conferences with Ugolini now began again ; he imme- 
 diately accorded Francis some amends; the privilege 
 granted the Glarisses was revoked; Giovanni di Gon- 
 pello was informed that he had nothing to hope from the 
 curia, and last of all leave was given to Francis himself 
 to compose the Eule of his Order. Naturally he was not 
 spared counsel on the subject, but there was one point 
 upon which the curia could not brook delay, and of which 
 it exacted the immediate application — the obligation of a 
 year's novitiate for the postulants. 
 
 At the same time a bull was issued not merely for the 
 sake of publishing this ordinance, but especially to mark 
 in a solemn manner the commencement of a new era in 
 the relations of the Church and the Franciscans. The 
 fraternity of the Umbrian Penitents became an Order in 
 the strictest sense of the word. 
 
 Honorius, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to Brother Francis 
 and the other priors or oustodes of the Brothers Minor, greeting and the 
 ) apostolic benediction. 
 
 In nearly all religious Orders it has been wisely ordained that those 
 who present themselves with the purpose of observing the regular life 
 shall make trial of it for a certain time, during which they also shall be 
 tested, in order to leave neither place nor pretext for inconsiderate 
 steps. For these reasons we command you by these presents to admit 
 no one to make profession until after one year of novitiate ; we forbid 
 that after profession any brother shall leave the Order, and that any 
 one shall take back again him who has gone out from it. We also for- 
 
 ' Giord., 14 ; cf. 2 Gel., 1, 17 : Spec., 102 ; 3 Soc., 56 and 63. 
 
346 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 bid that those wearing your habit shall circulate here and there with- 
 out obedience, lest the purity of your poverty be corrupted. If any 
 friars have had this audacity, you will inflict upon them ecclesiastical 
 censures until repentance.' 
 
 It is surely only by a very decided euphemism that 
 such a buU can be considered in the light of a privilege. 
 It was in reality the laying of the strong hand of the 
 papacy upon the Brothers Minor. 
 
 From this time, in the very nature of things it became 
 impossible for Francis to remain minister-general. He 
 felt it himself. Heart-broken, soul-sick, he would fain, 
 in spite of all, have found in the energy of his love those 
 words, those glances which up to this time had taken the 
 place of rule or constitution, giving to his earliest com- 
 panions the intuition of what they ought to do and the 
 strength to accomplish it; but an administrator was 
 needed at the head of this family which he suddenly 
 found to be so different from what it had been a few 
 years before, and he sadly acknowledged that he himself 
 was not in the slightest degree such a person.'' 
 
 Ah, in his own conscience he well knew that the old 
 ideal was the true, the right one ; but he drove away 
 such thoughts as the temptations of pride. The recent 
 events had not taken place without in some degree weak- 
 ening his moral personality; from being continually 
 talked to about obedience, submission, humility, a certain 
 obscurity had come over this luminous soul ; inspiration 
 no longer came to it with the certainty of other days ; 
 
 ' Cum Mcundum. The original is at Assisi with Datum apud Urbem 
 Veterem X. Sal. Oct. pant, nostri anno quinto (September 22, 1220). It 
 Is therefore by an error that Sbaralea and Wadding make it date from 
 Viterbo, which is the less explicable that all the bulls of this epoch are 
 dated from Orvieto. Wadding, ann. 1220, 57 ; Sbaralea, vol. i., p. 6 ; 
 Potthast, 6561. 
 
 « 2 Cel., 3, 118 ; Ubertin, Arbor. V., 2 ; Spec., 26 ; 50 ; 130b ; Cow 
 /WOT., 136a, 2; 143a, 2. 
 
THE CRISIS OF THE ORDER 247 
 
 the prophet had begun to waver, almost to doubt of him- 
 self and of his mission. Anxiously he searched himself 
 to see if in the beginning of his work there had not 
 been some vain self-complacency. He pictured to him- 
 self beforehand the chapter which he was about to 
 open, the attack, the criticisms of which it would be the 
 object, and labored to convince himself that if he did not 
 endure them with joy he was not a true Brother Minor.' 
 The noblest virtues are subject to scruples, that of per- 
 fect humility more than any other, and thus it is that ex- 
 cellent men religiously betray their own convictions to 
 avoid asserting themselves. He resolved then to put the 
 direction of the Order into the hands of Pietro di Catana. 
 It is evident that there was nothing spontaneous in this 
 decision, and the fact that this brother was a doctor of 
 laws and belonged to the nobility squarely argues the 
 transformation of the Franciscan institute. 
 
 It is not known whether or not Ugolini was present at 
 the chapter of September 29, 1220, but if he was not 
 there in person he was assuredly represented by some 
 prelate, charged to watch over the debates.^ The bull 
 which had been issued a week before was communicated 
 to the friars, to whom Francis also announced that he 
 was about to elaborate a new Rule. With reference to 
 this matter there were conferences in which the ministers 
 alone appear to have had a deliberative voice. At these 
 conferences the essential points of the new Bule were 
 settled as to principle, leaving to Francis the care of 
 giving them proper form at his leisure. Nothing better 
 reveals the demoralized state into which he had fallen 
 than the decision which was taken to drop out one of the 
 essential passages of the old Rule, one of his three fun- 
 
 ' 2 Cel., 3, 83 ; Bon. 77. One should read this account In the Oonform. 
 according to the Antiqua Legenda, 143a, 2 ; 81», J ; Spec^, 43b. 
 » Tr^l. Laur. MS., 12b ; Magi. MS., 71b. 
 
248 LIFE OP ST. FRANCIS 
 
 damental precepts, that which began with these words> 
 " Carry nothing with you." ' 
 
 How did they go to work to obtain from Francis this 
 concession which, a little whUe before, he would have 
 looked upon as a denial of his call, a refusal to accept in ^s 
 integrity the message which Jesus had addressed to him ? 
 It is the secret of history, but we may suppose there was 
 in his life at this time one of those moral tempests which 
 overbear the faculties of the strongest, leaving in their 
 wounded hearts only an unutterable pain. 
 
 Something of this pain has passed into the touching 
 narrative of his abdication which the biographers have 
 given us. 
 
 " From henceforth," he said to the friars, " I am dead for you, but 
 here is Brother Pietro di Catana, whom you and I will all obey." And 
 prostrating himself before him he promised him obedience and submis- 
 sion. The friars could not restrain their tears and lamentations when 
 they saw themselves thus becoming in some sort orphans, but Francis 
 arose, and, clasping his hands, with eyes upraised to heaven : " Lord," 
 he said, " I return to thee this family which thou hast confided to me. 
 Now, as thou knowest, most sweet Jesus, I have no longer strength nor 
 ability to keep on caring for them ; I confide them, therefore, to the 
 ministers. May they be responsible before thee at the day of judg- 
 ment if any brother, by their negligence or bad example, or by a too 
 severe discipline, should ever wander away." * 
 
 The functions of Pietro di Catana were destined to 
 continue but a very short time ; he died on March 10, 
 1221.8 
 
 Information abounds as to this period of a few months ; 
 
 • Luke, ix., 1-6. Tribul. , 13b : Etfeeerunt de regulaprima minisiri re- 
 movere. . . . This must have taken place at the chapter of Sep- 
 tember 29, 1320, since the suppression is made in the Rule of 1321. 
 
 '2 Cel., 3, 81 ; J^ec, 26 ; Conform., 175b, 1 ; 53a ; Bon., 76 ; A. 
 SS. , p. 620. 
 
 ' The epitaph on his tomb, which still exists at S. M. dei Angeli bears 
 this date : see Portiuncula, wn P. Barnabas ans dem Elsois, Bixheim, 
 1884, p. IL Ct A. SS., p. 630. 
 
THE CRISIS OF THE OKDEE 249 
 
 nothing is more natural, since Francis remained at Por- 
 tiuncula to complete the task confided to him, living there 
 surrounded with brethren who later on would recall to 
 mind all the incidents of which they were witnesses. 
 Some of them reveal the conflict of which his soul was 
 the arena. Desirous of showing himself submissive, he 
 nevertheless found himself tormented by the desire to 
 shake off his chains and fly away as in former days, to 
 live and breathe in God alone. The following artless 
 record deserves, it seems to me, to be better known.^ 
 
 One day a novioe who could read the psalter, though not without dif- 
 ficulty, obtained from the minister general — that is to say, from the vicar 
 of St. Francis— permission to have one. But as he had learned that St. 
 Francis desired the brethren to be covetous neither for learning nor for 
 books, he would not take his psalter without his consent. So, St. Fran- 
 cis having come to the monastery where the novice was, "Father." 
 said he, ' ' it would be a great consolation to have a psalter ; but though 
 the minister-general has authorized me to get it, I would not have it 
 unknown to you." " Look at the Emperor Charles," replied St. Francis 
 with fire, " Koland, and Oliver and all the paladins, valorous heroes 
 and gallant knights, who gained their famous victories in fighting in- 
 fidels, in toiling and laboring even unto death 1 The holy martyrs, 
 they also have chosen to die in the midst of battle for the faith of 
 Christ ! But now there are many of those who aspire to merit honor 
 and glory simply by relating their feats. Yes, among us also there are 
 many who expect to receive glory and honor by reciting and preaching 
 the works of the saints, as if they had done them themselves I " 
 
 . . . A few days after, St. Francis was sitting before the fire, and 
 the novice drew near to speak to him anew about his psalter. 
 
 "When you have your psalter," said Francis to him, "you will want 
 a breviary, and when you have a breviary you will seat yourself in a 
 pulpit like a great prelate and will beckon to your comparion, ' Bring 
 me my breviary ! ' " 
 
 St. Francis said this with great vivacity, then taking up some ashes 
 he scattered them over the head oi the novice, repeating, ' ' There is 
 She breviary, there is the breviary I " 
 
 Several days after, St. Francis being at Portiuncula and walking up 
 
 ' J^ec., 9b ; Arbor. V., 3 ; Conform., 170a, 1 ; 3 Cel., 3, 134. Ct. 
 Ubertini, Arehiv., iil., pp. 75 and 177. 
 
250 LIFE OP ST. FEANCIS 
 
 and down on the roadside not far from his cell, the same Brother came 
 again to speak to him about his psalter. "Very well, go on," said 
 Francis to him, " you have only to do what your minister tells you. " At 
 these words the novice went away, but Francis began to reflect on what 
 he had said, and suddenly calling to the friar, he cried," Wait for me I 
 wait for me 1 " When he had caught up to him, " Retrace your steps 
 a little way, I beg you," he said. " Where was I when I told you to 
 do whatever your minister told you as to the psalter ? " Then falling 
 upon his knees on the spot pointed out by the friar, he prostrated him- 
 self at his feet: "Pardon, my brother, pardon I " he cried, "for he 
 who would be Brother Minor ought to have nothing but his clothing." 
 
 This long story is not merely precious because it shows 
 as, even to the smallest particular, the conflict between 
 the Francis of the early years, looking only to God and 
 his conscience, and the Francis of 1220, become a sub- 
 missive monk in an Order approved by the Roman 
 Church, but also because it is one of those infrequent 
 narratives where his method shows itself with its artless 
 realism. These allusions to the tales of chivalry, and 
 this freedom of manner which made a part of his success 
 with the masses, were eliminated from the legend with 
 an incredible rapidity. His spiritual sons were perhaps 
 not ashamed of their father in this matter, but they were 
 so bent upon bringing out his other qualities that they 
 forgot a little too much the poet, the troubadour, the 
 joculator Domini. 
 
 Certain fragments, later than Thomas of Celano by 
 more than a century, which relate some incidents of this 
 kind, bear for that very reason the stamp of authenticity. 
 
 It is difficult enough to ascertain precisely what part 
 Francis still took in the direction of the Order. Pietro 
 di Catana and later Brother Elias are sometimes called 
 ministers-general, sometimes vicars ; the two terms often 
 occur successively, as in the preceding narrative. It is 
 very probable that this confusion of terms corresponds 
 to a like confusion of facts. Perhaps it was even iuten- 
 
THE CRISIS OF THE ORDER 25i 
 
 tional. After the chapter of September, 1220, the affairs 
 of the Order pass into the hands of him whom Francis 
 had called minister-general, though the friars as well as 
 the papacy gave him only the title of vicar. It was 
 essential for the popularity of the Brothers Minor that 
 Francis should preserve an appearance of authority, but 
 the reality of government had slipped from his hands. 
 
 The ideal which he had borne in his body until 1209 
 and had then given birth to in anguish, was now taking 
 its flight, hke those sons of our loins whom we see sud- 
 denly leaving us without our being able to help it, since 
 that is life, yet not without a rending of our vitals. Ma- 
 ter dolorosa ! Ah, no doubt they will come back again, 
 and seat themselves piously beside us at the paternal 
 hearth ; perhaps even, in some hour of moral distress, 
 they will feel the need of taking refuge in their mother's 
 arms as in the old days ; but these fleeting returns, with 
 their feverish haste, only reopen the wounds of the poor 
 parents, when they see how the children hasten to depart 
 again — they who bear their name but belong to them no 
 longer. 
 
CHAPTEE XV 
 
 THE RULE OP 1321' 
 
 The winter of 1220-1221 was spent by Francis chiefly 
 in fixing his thought by writing. Until now he had been 
 too much the man of action to have been able to give 
 much thought to anything but the living word, but from 
 this time his exhausted forces compelled him to satisfy 
 his longing for souls by some other means than evangel- 
 izing tours. We have seen that the chapter of Septem- 
 
 ' Text in Firmamentum, 10 ; Spec., 189 ; Spec., Morin. Tract., iii., 3b. 
 M. MuUer (Anfdnge) has made a study of the Rule of 1331 which is a 
 masterpiece of exegetieal scent. Nevertheless if he had more carefully 
 collated the different texts he would have arrived at still more striking 
 results, thanks to the variants which he would have been able to estab- 
 lish I cite a single example. 
 
 Text Firm. — Wadding, adopted by 
 Mr. M. 
 
 Omnes fraWes ubityungiie sunt vd 
 vadunt, ccmeant sibi a malo visu et 
 frequenMa mulierum et nuUus cum 
 eis eongUietur solas. Sacerdos ho- 
 neste logvtttur cum eis dcmdo pen- 
 itentiam vd aliud sprntacile con- 
 silium. 
 
 Text of the Speculum, 189 fE. 
 
 Omnet fratres ubieunque sunt et 
 vadunt ca/seant se a mah msu etfre- 
 guentia mulierum et nuUus eum eis 
 coneUietur aut per viam vadat solus 
 cmt ad mensam in una pa/ropside 
 comedat. {! !) Sacerdos honeste to- 
 quatur cum eis dando . . . etc. 
 
 This passage is sufficient to show the superiority of the text of the 
 Speculum, which is to be preferred also in other respects, but this is 
 not the place for entering into these details. It is evident that the 
 phrase in which we see the earliest friars sometimes sharing the repast 
 of the sisters and eating from their porringer is not a later interpoiatioiit 
 
THE EtTLE OP 1331 5553 
 
 ber 29, 1220, on one side, and the bull Cum secundum on 
 the other, had fixed in advance a certain number of 
 points. For the rest, complete liberty had been given 
 him, not indeed to make a final and unchangeable state- 
 ment of his ideas, but to set them forth. The substance 
 of legislative power had passed into the hands of the 
 ministers.* 
 
 That which we call the Bule of 1221 is, then, nothing 
 more than a proposed law, submitted to a representative 
 government at its parliament. The head of authority 
 will one day give it to the world, so thoroughly modified 
 and altered that Francis's name at the head of such a 
 document will give but small promise, and quite indi- 
 rectly, that it will contain his personal opinion. 
 
 Never was man less capable of making a Rule than 
 Francis. In reality, that of 1210 and the one which the 
 pope solemnly approved in November 29, 1223, had little 
 in common except the name. In the former all is alive, 
 free, spontaneous ; it is a point of departure, an inspira- 
 tion ; it may be summed up in two phrases : the appeal 
 of Jesus to man, " Come, follow me," the act of man, " He 
 left aU and followed him." To the call 'of divine love 
 man replies by the joyful gift of himself, and that quite 
 naturally, by a sort of instinct. At this height of mysti- 
 cism any regulation is not only useless, it is almost a 
 profanation; at the very least it is the symptom of a 
 doubt. Even in earthly loves, when people truly love 
 each other nothing is asked, nothing promised. 
 
 The Rule of 1223, on the other hand, is a reciprocal 
 contract. On the divine side the call has become a com- 
 mand ; on the human, the free impulse of love has become 
 an act of submission, by which life eternal will be earned. 
 
 At the bottom of it all is the antinome of law and love. 
 Under the reign of law we are the mercenaries of God, 
 ' TnbuU, 13b ; Spec., 54b ; Arbor. V., 3 ; Bpec.^ 8b. 
 
354 LIFE OF ST. FEANCIS 
 
 bound down to an irksome task, but paid a hundred-fold, 
 and with an indisputable right to oiu: wages. 
 
 Under the rule of love we are the sons of God, and 
 coworkers with him ; we give ourselves to him without 
 bargaining and without expectation ; we follow Jesus, not 
 because this is well, but because we can do no otherwise, 
 because we feel that he has loved us and we love him in 
 our turn. An inward flame draws us irresistibly toward 
 him : Et Spiritus et Sponsa dicunt : Veni. 
 
 It is necessary to dwell a little on the antithesis be- 
 tween these two Eules. That of 1210 alone is truly Fran- 
 ciscan; that of 1223 is indirectly the work of the 
 Church, endeavoring to assimilate with herself the new 
 movement, which with one touch she transforms and 
 turns wholly from its original purpose. 
 
 That of 1221 marks an intermediate stage. It is 
 the clash of two principles, or rather of two spirits ; they 
 approach, they touch, but they are not merged in one 
 another ; here and there is a mixture, but nowhere com- 
 bination ; we can separate the divers elements without 
 difficulty. Their condition is the exact reflection of what 
 was going on in Francis's soul, and of the rapid evolution 
 of the Order. 
 
 To aid him in his work Francis joined to himself 
 Brother CsBsar of Speyer, who would be especially useful 
 to him by his profound acquaintance with the sacred 
 texts. ^ 
 
 What strikes us first, on glancing over this Eule of 
 1221, is its extraordinary length ; it covers not less than 
 ten folio pages, while that of 1223 has no more than 
 three. Take away from it the passages which ema- 
 nate from the papacy and those which were fixed at the 
 previous chapter, you will hardly have shortened it by a 
 column ; what remains is not a Eule, but a series of im- 
 passioned appeals, in which the father's heart speaks, not 
 
THE RULE OF 1331 255 
 
 to command but to convince, to touch, to awaken in his 
 children the instinct of love. 
 
 It is all chaotic and even contradictory,' vdthont order, 
 a medley of outbursts of joy and bitter sobs, of hopes 
 and regrets. There are passages in which the passion 
 of the sovl speaks in every possible tone, rims over the 
 whole gamut from the softest note to the most masculine, 
 from those which are as joyous and inspiring as the blast 
 of a clarion, to those which are agitated, stifled, hke a 
 voice from beyond the tomb. 
 
 "By the holy love which ia in God, I pray all the friars, ministers 
 as well as others, to put aside every obstacle, every care, every anx- 
 iety, that they may be able to consecrate themselves entirely to serve, 
 love, and honor the Lord God, with a pure heart and a sincere purpose, 
 which is what he asks above all things. Let us have always in our- 
 selves a tabernacle and a home for him who is the Lord God most 
 mighty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who says, ' Watch and pray al- 
 ways, that you may be found worthy to escape all the things which will 
 come to pass, and to appear upright before the Son of man.' 
 
 " Let us then keep in the true way, the life, the truth, and the holy 
 Gospel of Him who has deigned for our sake to leave his Father that 
 he may manifest his name to ns, saying, ' Father, I have manifested 
 thy name to those whom thou hast given me, and the words which 
 thou hast given me I have given also unto them. They have received 
 them, and they have known that I am come from thee, and they believe 
 that thou hast sent me. I pray for them ; I pray not for the world, 
 but for those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one as we 
 are one. I have said these things, being still in the world, that they 
 may have joy in themselves. I have given them thy words, and the 
 world hath hated them, because they are not of the world. I pray not 
 that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou wilt keep 
 them from the evil. Sanctify them through the truth ; thy word is 
 truth . As thou hast sent me into the world I have also sent them into 
 the world, and for their sake I sanctify myself that they may them- 
 selves be sanctified in the truth ; and neither pray I for these alone, 
 but for all those who shall believe on me through their words, that we 
 all may be one, and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, 
 and that thou lovest them as thou hast loved me. I have made known 
 
 • Cf. cap. 17 and 31. 
 
256 ■■ riFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 unto them thy name, that the lore wherewith thou hast loved me may 
 be in them and I in them.' 
 
 PRATER. 
 
 " Almighty, most high and sovereign God, holy Father, righteous 
 Lord, King of heaven and earth, we give thee thanks for thine own 
 sake, in that hy thy holy will, and by thine only Son and thy Holy 
 Spirit thou hast created all things spiritual and corporeal, and that after 
 having made us in thine image and after thy likeness, thou didst place 
 us in that paradise whi<ih we lost by our sin. And we give thee thanks 
 because after having created us by thy Son, by that love which is thine, 
 and which thou hast had for us, thou hast made him to be born very 
 God and very man of the glorious and blessed Mary, ever Virgin, 
 and because by his cross, his blood, and hia death thou hast willed to 
 ransom us poor captives. And we give thee thanks that thy Son is to 
 return in his glorious majesty to send to eternal fire the accursed ones, 
 those who have not repented and have not known thee ; and to say to 
 those who have known and adored thee and served thee by repent- 
 ance, ' Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared 
 for you from before the foundation of the world.' And since we, 
 wretched and sinful, are not worthy to name thee, we humbly ask our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, thy well-beloved Son, in whom thou art well pleased, 
 that he may give thee thanks for everything ; and also the Holy 
 Spirit, the Paraclete, as it may please thee and them ; for this we suppli- 
 cate him who has all power with thee, and by whom thou hast done 
 such great things for us. Alleluia. 
 
 " And we pray the glorious Mother, the blessed Mary, ever Virgin, 
 St. Michael, Gabriel, Eaphael, and all the choir of blessed Spirits, Sera- 
 phim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Principalities and Powers, Vir- 
 tues and Angels, Archangels, John the Baptist, John the Evangelist, 
 Peter, Paul, and the holy Patriarchs, the Prophets, the Holy Innocents, 
 Apostles, Evangelists, Disciples, Martyrs, Confessors, Virgins, the 
 blessed ones, Elijah and Enoch, and all the saints who have been, shall 
 be, and are, we humbly pray them by thy love to give thee thanks for 
 these things, as it pleases thee, sovereign, true, eternal and living God, 
 and also to thy Sou, our most holy Lord Jesus Christ, and to the Holy 
 Spirit, the Comforter, forever and ever. Amen. Alleluia. 
 
 ' ' And we supplicate all those who desire to serve the Lord God , in 
 the bosom of the Catholic and Apostolic Church, all priests, deacons, 
 sub-deacons, acolytes and exorcists, readers, porters, all clerks, all 
 monks and nuns, all children and little ones, paupers and exiles, kings, 
 and princes, workmen and laborers, servants and masters, the virgins, 
 the continent and the married, laics, men and women, all children, 
 youths, young men and old men, the sick and the well, the small 
 
THE RULE OP 1231 267 
 
 and the great, the peoples of every tribe and tongue and nation, all 
 men in every part of the world whatsoever, who are or who shall be, 
 we pray and beseech them, all we Brothers Minor, unprofitable servants, 
 that all together, with one accord we persevere in the true faith and 
 in penitence, for outside of these no person can be saved. 
 
 "Let us all, with all our heart and all our thought, and all our 
 strength, and all our mind, with all our vigor, with all our effort, with 
 all our affection, with all our inward powers, our desires, and our wills, 
 love the Lord God, who has given to us all his body, all his soul, all his 
 life, and still gives them every day to each one of us. He created us, 
 he saved us by his grace alone ; he has been, he still is, full of good- 
 ness to us, us wicked and worthless, corrupt and offensive, ungrateful, 
 ignorant, bad. We desire nothing else, we wish for nothing else ; may 
 nothing else please us, or have any attraction for us, except the Creator, 
 the Redeemer, the Saviour, sole and true God, who is full of goodness, 
 who is all goodness, who is the true and supreme good, who alone is 
 kind, pious, and merciful, gracious, sweet, and gentle, who alone is holy, 
 righteous, true, upright, who alone has benignity, innocence, and purity ; 
 of whom, by whom, and in whom is all the pardon, all the grace, all 
 the glory of all penitents, of all the righteous and all the saints who 
 are rejoicing in heaven. 
 
 " Then let nothing again hinder, let nothing again separate, nothing 
 again retard us, and may we all, so long as we live, in every place, at 
 every hour, at every time, every day and unceasingly, truly and 
 humbly believe. Let us have in our hearts, let us love, adore, serve, 
 praise, bless, glorify, exalt, magnify, thank the most high, sovereign, 
 eternal God, Trinity and Unity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Creator 
 of all men, both of those who believe and hope in him and of those 
 who love him. He is without beginning and without end, immutable 
 and invisible, ineffable, incomprehensible, indiscernible, blessed, lauded, 
 glorious, exalted, sublime, most high, sweet, lovely, delectable, and 
 always worthy of being desired above all things, in all the ages of ages. 
 Amen. " 
 
 Have not these artless repetitions a mysterious charm 
 which steals deliciously into the very depths of the heart ? 
 Is there not in them a sort of sacrament of which the 
 words are only the rude vehicle? Francis is taking 
 refuge in God, as the child throws itself upon its mother's 
 bosom, and in the incoherence of its weakness and its joy 
 stammers out all the words it knows, repeating by them 
 all only the eternal " I am thine " of love and faith. 
 17 
 
258 LIFE OF ST. FBANCIS 
 
 There is in them also somethiag which recalls, not 
 only by citations, but still more by the very inspiration 
 of the thought, that which we call the sacerdotal prayer 
 of Christ. The apostle of poverty appears here as if 
 suspended between earth and heaven by the very strength 
 of his love, consecrated the priest of a new worship by 
 the inward and irresistible unction of the Spirit. He 
 does not offer sacrifice like the priest of the past time ; 
 he sacrifices himself, and carries in his body aU the woes 
 of humanity. 
 
 The more beautiful are these words from the mystical 
 point of view, the less do they correspond with what is 
 expected in a Eule ; they have neither the precision nor 
 the brief and imperative forms of one. The transforma- 
 tions which they were to undergo in order to become the 
 code of 1223 were therefore fatal when we consider the 
 definitive intervention of the Church of Eome to direct 
 the Franciscan movement. 
 
 It is probable that this rough draft of a Bule, such as 
 we have it now, is that which was distributed in the 
 chapter of Whitsunday, 1221. The variants, sometimes 
 capital, which are found in the different texts, can be 
 nothing other than outlines of the corrections proposed 
 by the provincial ministers. Once admit the idea of 
 considering this document as a rough draft, we are very 
 soon brought to think that it had already undergone a 
 rapid preliminary revision, a sort of pruning, in which 
 ecclesiastical authority has caused to disappear all that 
 was in flagrant contradiction with its own projects for 
 the Order. 
 
 If it is asked, who could have made these curtailments, 
 one name springs at once to our lips — Ugolini. He crit- 
 icised its exaggerated proportions, its want of unity and 
 precision. Later on it is related that Francis had seen 
 in a dream a multitude of starving friars, and himself 
 
THE RULE OF 1221 259 
 
 unable to satisfy their wants, because though all around 
 him lay innumerable crumbs of bread, they disappeared 
 between his fingers when he would give them to those 
 about him. Then a voice from heaven said to him : 
 "Francis, make of these crumbs a wafer; with that thou 
 shalt feed these starving ones. " 
 
 There is little hazard in assuming that this is the pict- 
 uresque echo of the conferences which took place at this 
 time between Francis and the cardinal ; the latter might 
 have suggested to him by such a comparison the es- 
 sential defects of his project. All this, no doubt, took 
 place during Francis's stay in Borne, in the beginning 
 of 1221. 
 
 Before going there, we must cast a glance over the 
 similarity in inspiration and even in style which allies 
 the Bule of 1221 with another of St. Francis's works, 
 that which is known under the title of The Admonitions.' 
 This is a series of spiritual counsels with regard to the 
 religious life ; it is closely united both in matter and form 
 with the work which we have just examined. The tone of 
 voice is so perfectly the same that one is tempted to see 
 in it parts of the original draft of the Bule, separated 
 from it as too prolix to find place in a Bule. 
 
 However it may be with this hypothesis, we find in 
 The Admonitions all the anxieties with which the soul 
 of Francis was assailed in this imcertain and troubled 
 hour. Some of these counsels sound like bits from a 
 private journal. We see him seeking, with the simplicity 
 of perfect humility, for reasons for submitting himself, 
 renouncing his ideas, and not quite succeeding in finding 
 them. He repeats to himseK the exhortations that others 
 had given him ; we feel the e£fort to understand and ad- 
 
 • 3 Cel., 3, 136. 
 
 < See below, p. 3S4, text In the Mrmamentum, 19 3, ; l^aeeukmit 
 Horin, tract, iu., 214a ff.; of. Gm/orm., 137 ff. 
 
yeO LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 mire the ideal monk whom Ugolini and the Church have 
 proposed to him for an example : 
 
 The Lord says in the Gospels : " He who does not give up all that he 
 has cannot be my disciple. And he who would save his life shall lose 
 it." One gives up all he possesses and loses his life when he gives him- 
 self entirely into the hands of his superior, to obey him. . . And 
 when the inferior sees things which would be better or more useful to 
 his soul than those which the superior commands him, let him offer to 
 God the sacrifice of his will. 
 
 Heading this one might think that Francis was about 
 to join the ranks of those to whom submission to eccle- 
 siastical authority is the very essence of religion. But 
 no ; even here his true feeling is not wholly effaced, he 
 mingles his words with parentheses and illustrations, 
 timid, indeed, but revealing his deepest thought ; always 
 ending by enthroning the individual conscience as judge 
 of last resort.' 
 
 All this shows clearly enough that we must picture to 
 ourselves moments when his wounded soul sighs after 
 passive obedience, the formula of which, perinde ac cada- 
 ver, goes apparently much farther back than the Company 
 of Jesus. These were moments of exhaustion, when in- 
 spiration was silent. 
 
 One day he was sitting with his companions, when he began to groan 
 and say : " There is hardly a monk upon earth who perfectly obeys his 
 superior." His companions, much astonished, said: " Explain to us, 
 father, what is perfect and supreme obedience. " Then, comparing him 
 who obeys to a corpse, he replied : "Take a dead body, and put it 
 where you will, it will make no resistance ; when it is in one place it 
 will not murmur, when you take it away from there it will not object ; 
 
 ' Cum facit {subditua) voluntaiem {prmlati) dummodo benefacit vera 
 ohedientia est. Admon., in.; Conform., 139a, 3. — Si vero pralatus sub- 
 dito aliguid contra animam prmcipiat liaet ei non obediat tamen ipaum 
 non dimittat.. Ibid. — JVuUus tenetur ad obedientiamin eo vii eommittUvf 
 deMetfum vel peceatum, £^t.,ii. 
 
THE KULE OF 1321 5^61 
 
 put it in a pulpit, it will not look up but down ; wrap it in purple, it 
 will only tie doubly pale." ' 
 
 This longing for corpse-like obedience witnesses to the 
 ravages witli which his soul had been laid waste ; it corre- 
 sponds ia the moral domain to the cry for annihilation of 
 great physical anguish. 
 
 The worst was that he was absolutely alone. Every- 
 where else the Franciscan obedience is living, active, 
 joyful.^ 
 
 He drank this cup to the very dregs, holding sacred 
 the revolts dictated by conscience. One day in the later 
 years of his life a German friar came to see him, and af- 
 ter having long discussed with him pure obedience : 
 
 "I ask you one favor," he said to him, "it is that if the Brothers 
 ever come to live no longer according to the Rule you will permit me to 
 separate myself from them, alone or with a few others, to observe it in 
 its completeness." At these words Francis felt a great joy. " Know," 
 said he, " that Christ as well as I authorize what you have just been ask- 
 ing;" and laying hands upon him, "Thou art » priest forever," he 
 added, " after the order of Melchisedec." ' 
 
 We have a yet more touching proof of his solicitude 
 to safeguard the spiritual independence of his disciples : 
 it is a note to Brother Leo.^ The latter, much alarmed 
 by the new spirit which was gaining power in the Order, 
 opened his mind thereupon to his master, and doubtless 
 asked of him pretty much the same permission as the 
 friar from Germsmy. After an interview in which he re- 
 plied viva voce, Francis, not to leave any sort of doubt or 
 
 1 2 Cel., 3, 89; Spec., 39b ; Conform., 176b, 1 ; Bon., 77. 
 
 ' Per caritatem spiritus voluntarii serniant et obediant invicem. Et 
 hcee est vera et saneia obedientia. Reg., 1331, v. 
 
 » TribuL, Laur. MS., 14b ; Spec, 135a; Conform., 107b, 1 ; 184b, 1. 
 
 * Wadding gives it (B^pist. xvi. ), after the autograph preserved in 
 the treasury of the Conventuals of Spoleto. The authenticity of this 
 piece is evident. 
 
263 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 hesitation in the mind of him whom he sumamed his 
 little sheep of God, pecorella di Dio, wrote to him again : 
 
 Brother Leo, tliy brother Francis wishes thee peace and health. 
 
 I reply yea, my sou, as a mother to her child. This word sums up 
 all we said while walking, as well as all my counsels. If thou hast 
 need to come to me for counsel, it is my wish that thou shouldst do it 
 Whatever may be the manner in which thou thinkest thou canst please 
 the Lord God, follow it, and live in poverty. Do this (faites-le '), God 
 will bless thee and I authorize it. And if it were necessary for thy soul, 
 or for thy consolation that thou shouldst come to see me, or if thou 
 desirest it, my Leo, come. 
 
 Thine in Christ. 
 
 Surely we are far enough here from the corpse of a 
 few pages back. 
 
 It would be superfluous to pause over the other ad- 
 monitions. For the most part they are reflections in- 
 spired by circumstances. Counsels as to humility recur 
 with a frequency which explains both the personal anx- 
 ieties of the author, and the necessity of reminding the 
 brothers of the very essence of their profession. 
 
 The sojourn of St. Francis at Kome, whither he went 
 in the early months of 1221, to lay his plan before Ugo- 
 lini, was marked by a new effort of the latter to bring 
 him and St. Dominic together.^ 
 
 ' This plural, which perplexed Wadding, shows plainly that Brother 
 Leo had spoken in the name of a group. 
 
 ' This date for the new communications between them seems incontes- 
 table, though it has never been proposed ; in fact, we are only concerned 
 to find a time when all three could have met at Borne (2 Cel., 3, 86 ; 
 Spec., 37a), between December 32, 1316 (the approbation of the Domin- 
 icans), and August 6, 1331 (death of Dominic). Only two periods are 
 possible : the early months of 1318 (Potthast, 5739 and 5747) and the 
 winter of 1320-1331. At any other time one of the three was absent 
 from Rome. 
 
 On the other hand we know that Ugolini was in Borne in the winter 
 of 1330-1331 (Huillard BrehoUes, HiM. dipl., ii., pp. 48, 123, 143. Cf. 
 Potthast, 6589).— For Dominic see A. SS., Aug., vol. i., p. 503. The 
 iater date is imperative because Ugolini could not offer prelatures to 
 
THE RtTLE OF 1231 263 
 
 The cardinal was at this time at the apogee of his 
 success. Everything had gone well with him. His 
 voice was all powerful not only in affairs of the Church, 
 but also in those of the Empire. Frederic II., who 
 seemed to be groping his way, and in whose mind were 
 germinating dreams of religious reformation, and the 
 desire of placing his power at the service of the truth, 
 treated him as a friend, and spoke of him with un- 
 bounded admiration.' 
 
 In his reflections upon the remedies to be applied to 
 the woes of Christianity, the cardinal came at last to 
 think that one of the most efficacious would be the sub- 
 stitution of bishops taken from the two new Orders, for 
 the feudal episcopate almost always recruited from local 
 families in which ecclesiastical dignities were, so to 
 speak, hereditary. In the eyes of TJgolini such bishops 
 were usually wanting in two essential qualities of a good 
 prelate : religious zeal and zeal for the Church. 
 
 He believed that the Preaching and the Minor Friars 
 would not only possess those virtues which were lacking 
 in the others, but that in the hands of the papacy they 
 might become a highly centralized hierarchy, truly 
 catholic, wholly devoted to the interests of the Church 
 at large. The difficulties which might occur on the part 
 of the chapters which should elect the bishops, as weU 
 as on the side of the high secular clergy, would be put to 
 flight by the enthusiasm which the people would feel for 
 pastors whose poverty would recall the days of the prim- 
 itive Church. 
 
 At the close of his interviews with Francis and Dom- 
 
 the Brothers Minor before their explicit approbation (June 11, 1219), 
 and this offer had no meaning with regard to the Dominioans until 
 after the definitive establishment of their Order. 
 
 ' See the imperial letters of February 10, 1331 ; Huillard-BrShoUet^ 
 Tol. u.,pp. 1S2--137. 
 
264 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 inic, he communicated to them some of these thoughts, 
 asking their advice as to the elevation of their friars to 
 prelatures. There was a pious contest between the two 
 saints as to which should answer first. Finally, Dominic 
 said simply that he should prefer to see his companions 
 remain as they were. In his turn, Francis showed that 
 the very name of his institute made the thing impossible. 
 " If my friars have been called Minores," he said, " it is 
 not that they may become Majores. If you desire that 
 they become fruitful in the Church of God, leave them 
 alone, and keep them in the estate into which God has 
 called them. I pray you, father, do not so act that 
 their poverty shall become a motive for pride, nor ele- 
 vate them to prelatures which would move them to insol- 
 ence toward others." ^ 
 
 The ecclesiastical policy followed by the popes was 
 destined to render this counsel of the two founders wholly 
 useless.^ 
 
 Francis and Dominic parted, never again to meet. 
 The Master of the Preaching Friars shortly after set out 
 for Bologna, where he died on August 6th following, and 
 Francis returned to Portiuncula, where Pietro di Catana 
 had just died (March 10, 1221). He was replaced at the 
 head of the Order by Brother Elias. Ugolini was doubt- 
 less not without influence in this choice. 
 
 Detained by his functions of legate, he could not be 
 present at the Whitsunday chapter (May 30, 1221).' He 
 was represented there by Cardinal Eeynerio,* who came 
 
 " a Gel., 3, 86 ; Bon., 78; Spec, 37b. 
 
 " Vide K. Eubel : Die Biscfwfe, OardincUe und Papste aus dem Mino- 
 ritenorden, bis 1305, 8vo, 1889. 
 
 ' He was in Northern Italy. Vide Begistri: Doc, 17-38. 
 
 * Reynerius, cardinal-deaoon with the title of S. M. in Cosmedin, 
 Bishop of Viterho (cf. Innocent III., Opera, Migne, 1, col. ooxiii), 1 Gel., 
 125. He had been named rector of the Duchy of Spoleto, August 3, 
 1230. Potthast, 6319. 
 
THE KULE OP 1221 26S 
 
 accompanied by several bishops and by monks of various 
 orders.* About three thousand friars were there assem- 
 bled, but so great was the eagerness of the people of the 
 neighborhood to bring provisions, that after a session of 
 seven days they were obliged to remain two days longer 
 to eat up all that had been brought. The sessions were 
 presided over by Brother Elias, Francis sitting at his feet 
 and pulling at his robe when there was anything that he 
 wished to have put before the Brothers. 
 
 Brother Giordani di Giano, who was present, has pre- 
 served for us aU these details and that of the setting out 
 of a group of friars for Germany. They were placed 
 under the direction of Caesar of Speyer, whose mission 
 succeeded beyond all expectation. Eighteen months 
 after, when he returned to Italy, consumed with the 
 desire to see St. Francis again, the cities of Wurzburg, 
 Mayence, Worms, Speyer, Strasburg, Cologne, Salzburg, 
 and Eatisbon had become Franciscan centres, from whence 
 the new ideas were radiating into all Southern Germany. 
 
 The foundation of the Tertiaries, or Third Order, gen- 
 erally in the oldest documents called Brotherhood of 
 Penitence, is usually fixed as occurring in the year 1221 ; 
 but we have already seen that this date is much too re- 
 cent, or rather that it is impossible to fix any date, for 
 what was later called, quite arbitrarily, the Third Order 
 is evidently contemporary with the First.^ 
 
 ' Giord., 16. The presence of Dominio at an earlier chapter had 
 therefore been quite natural. 
 
 * This view harmonizes in every particular with the witness of 1 Cel., 
 36 and 37, which shows the Third Order as having been quite naturallj 
 born of the enthusiasm excited by the preaching of Francis immedi- 
 ately after his return from Rome in 1310 (cf. Auctor mt. sec; A. SS., 
 p. 593b). Nothing in any other document contradicts it ; quite the 
 contrary. Vide 8 Soc, 60. Cf. Anon. Penis.; A. SS., p. 600; Bon., 25, 
 46. Cf. A. SS., pp. 631-634. The first bull which concerns the 
 Brothers of Penitence (without naming them) is of December 16, 1321, 
 
266 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 Francis and his companions desired to be the apostles 
 of their time ; but they, no more than the apostles of 
 Jesus, desired to have all men enter their association, 
 which was necessarily somewhat restricted, and which, 
 according to the gospel saying, was meant to be the 
 leaven of the rest of humanity. In consequence, their 
 life was literally the apostolic life, but the ideal which 
 they preached was the evangelical life, such as Jesus had 
 preached it. 
 
 St. Francis no more condemned the family or property 
 than Jesus did ; he simply saw in them ties from which 
 the apostle, and the apostle alone, needs to be free. 
 
 If before long sickly minds fancied that they inter- 
 preted his thought in making the union of the sexes an 
 evil, and aU that concerns the physical activity of man a 
 fall ; if unbalanced spirits borrowed the authority of his 
 name to escape from all duty ; if married pel:sons con- 
 demned themselves to the senseless martyrdom of vir- 
 ginity, he should certainly not be made responsible. 
 These traces of an unnatural asceticism come from the 
 dualist ideas of the Catharists, and not from the inspired 
 poet who sang nature and her fecundity, who made nests 
 for doves, inviting them to multiply under the watch of 
 God, and who imposed manual labor on his friars as a 
 sacred duty. 
 
 The bases of the corporation of the Brothers and Sis- 
 ters of Penitence were very simple. Francis gave no 
 new doctrine to the world ; what was new in his message 
 
 Bignifioatum est. If it really refers to them, as Sbaralea thinks, with 
 all those who have interested themselves in the question to M. Miiller 
 inclusively — but which, it appears, might be contested — it is because in 
 1221 they had made appeal to the pope against the podestas of Faenza 
 and the neighboring cities. This evidently supposes an association not 
 recently born. Sbaralea, BuU. Jr., 1, p. 8; Horoy, vol. iv., col. 49 j 
 Potthast, 6736. 
 
THE RULE OF 1321 267 
 
 was wholly in his love, in his direct call to the evangelical 
 life, to an ideal of moral vigor, of labor, and of love. 
 
 Naturally, there were soon found men who did not 
 understand this true and simple beauty ; they fell into 
 observances and devotions, imitated, while living in the 
 world, the life of the cloister to which for one reason or 
 another they were not able to retire; but it would be 
 unjust to picture to ourselves the Brothers of Penitence 
 as modelled after them. 
 
 Did they receive a Rule from St. Francis ? It is im- 
 possible to say. The one which was given ' them in 1289 
 by Pope Nicholas IV. is simply the recasting and amal- 
 gamation of all the rules of lay fraternities which existed 
 at the end of the thirteenth century. To attribute this 
 document to Francis is nothing less than the placing in 
 a new building of certain venerated stones from an an- 
 cient edifice. It is a matter of fagade and ornamentation, 
 nothing more. 
 
 Notwithstanding this absence of any Rule emanating 
 from Francis himself, it is clear enough what, in his 
 estimation, this association ought to be. The Gospel, 
 with its counsels and examples, was to be its true Bule. 
 The great innovation designed by the Third Order was 
 concord; this fraternity was a union of peace, and it 
 brought to astonished Europe a new truce of God. 
 Whether the absolute refusal to carry arms ^ was an idea 
 
 1 Bull Supra montem of August 17, 1289, Potthaat, 33044. M. Mai- 
 ler has made a luminous study of the origin of this hull ; it may be 
 considered final in all essential points (Anfwnge, pp. 117-171). By this 
 bull Nicholas IV. — minister-general of the Brothers Minor before be- 
 coming pope — sought to draw into the hands of his Order the direction 
 of all associations of pious laics (Third Order of St. Dominic, the Gau- 
 denteg, the Humiliati, etc.). He desired by that to give a greater im- 
 pulse to those fraternities which depended directly on the court of 
 Borne, and augment their power by unifying them. 
 
 ^ Vide Bull Signifioatum est of December 16, 1321. Cf. Supra mon- 
 tem, chap. rii. 
 
268 LIFE Ot ST. FRANCIS 
 
 wholly chimerical and ephemeral, the documents are there 
 to prove, but it is a fine thing to have had the power to 
 bring it about for a few years. 
 
 The second essential obligation of the Brothers of 
 Penitence appears to have been that of reducing their 
 wants so far as possible, and while preserving their fort- 
 unes to distribute to the poor at proper intervals the 
 free portion of the revenue after contenting themselves 
 with the strictly necessary.^ 
 
 To do with joy the duties of their calling ; to give a 
 holy inspiration to the slightest actions ; to find in the 
 infinitely littles of existence, things apparently the most 
 commonplace, parts of a divine work ; to keep pure from 
 all debasing interest; to use things as not possessing 
 them, like the servants in the parable who would soon 
 have to give account of the talents confided to them ; to 
 close their hearts to hatred, to open them wide to the 
 poor, the sick, to all abandoned ones, such were the other 
 essential duties of the Brothers and Sisters of Penitence. 
 
 To lead them into this royal road of liberty, love, and 
 responsibility, Francis sometimes appealed to the ter- 
 rors of hell and the joys of paradise, but interested love 
 was so little a part of his nature that these considera- 
 tions and others of the same kind occupy an entirely 
 secondary place in those of his writings which remain, as 
 also in his biographies. 
 
 For him the gospel life is natural to the soul. Who- 
 ever comes to know it will prefer it ; it has no more 
 need to be proved than the outer air and the light. It 
 needs only to lead prisoners to it, for them to lose all de- 
 sire to return to the dungeons of avarice, hatred, or fri- 
 volity. 
 
 Francis and his true disciples make the painful ascent 
 
 > The Rule of the Third Order of the Humiliati, which dates from 
 1301, contains a similar clause. Tiraboschi, vol. ii., p. 133, 
 
THE EULE OP 1231 269 
 
 of the mountain heights, impelled solely, but irresistibly, 
 by the inner voice. The only foreign aid which they ac- 
 cept is the memory of Jesus, going before them upon 
 these heights and mysteriously living again before their 
 eyes in the sacrament of the eueharist. 
 
 The letter to all Christians in which these thoughts 
 break forth is a living souvenir of St. Francis's teachings 
 to the Tertiaries. 
 
 To represent these latter to ourselves in a perfectly 
 concrete form we may resort to the legend of St. Luc- 
 chesio, whom tradition makes the first Brother of Peni- 
 tence.' 
 
 A native of a little city of Tuscany he quitted it to avoid 
 its political enmities, and established himself at Pog- 
 gibonsi, not far from Sienna, where he continued to trade 
 in grain. Already rich, it was not difficult for him to buy 
 up all the wheat, and, selling it in a time of scarcity, rea- 
 lize enormous profits. But soon overcome by Francis's 
 preaching, he took himself to task, distributed all his 
 superfluity to the poor, and kept nothing but his house 
 with a small garden and one ass. 
 
 From that time he was to be seen devoting himself to 
 the cultivation of this bit of ground, and making of his 
 house a sort of hostelry whither the poor and the sick 
 came in swarms. He not only welcomed them, but he 
 sought them out, even to the malaria-infected Maremma, 
 often returning with a sick man astride on his back and 
 preceded by his ass bearing a similar burden. The 
 
 ' In the A. SS. , Aprilis, vol. ii., p. 600-616. Orlando dl Chiusi also re- 
 ceived the habit from the hands of Francis. Vide Instmmentiim, etc. , 
 below, p. 400. The Franciscan fraternity, under the influence of the 
 other third orders, rapidly lost its specific character. As to this title. 
 Third Order, it surely had originally a hierarchical sense, upon which 
 little by little a chronological sense has been superposed. All these 
 questions become singularly clearer when they are compared with what 
 is known of the Humiliati, 
 
270 liirE OF ST. PEANCIS 
 
 resources of the garden were necessarily very limited; 
 when there was no other way, Lucchesio took a wallet 
 and went from door to door asking alms, but most of the 
 time this was needless, for his poor guests, seeing him so 
 diligent and so good, were better satisfied with a few 
 poor vegetables from the garden shared with him than 
 with the most copious repast. In the presence of theii 
 benefactor, so joyful in his destitution, they forgot their 
 own poverty, and the habitual murmurs of these wretches 
 were transformed into outbursts of admiration and grati- 
 tude. 
 
 Conversion had not killed in him all family ties ; Bona 
 Donna, his wife, became his best co-laborer, and when in 
 1260 he saw her gradually fading away his grief was too 
 deep to be endured. " You know, dear companion," he 
 said to her when she had received the last sacraments, 
 " how much we have loved one another while we could 
 serve Grod together; why should we not remain united 
 imtil we depart to the ineffable joy ? Wait for me. I 
 also will receive the sacraments, and go to heaven with 
 
 you." 
 
 So he spoke, and called back the priest to administer 
 them to him. Then after holding the hands of his dying 
 companion, comforting her with gentle words, when he 
 saw that her soul was gone he made over her the sign of 
 the cross, stretched himself beside her, and calling with 
 love upon Jesus, Mary, and St. Francis, he feU asleep for 
 eternity. 
 
CHAPTEE XVI 
 
 THE BROTHBES MINOR AND LEARNING 
 Autumn, 1321— December, 1223 
 
 Aftee the chapter of 1221 the evolution of the Order 
 hurried on with a rapidity which nothing was strong 
 enough to check. 
 
 The creation of the ministers was an enormous step 
 in this direction ; by the very pressure of things the 
 latter came to establish a residence ; those who command 
 must have their subordinates within reach, must know 
 at all times where they are ; the Brothers, therefore, 
 could no longer continue to do without convents properly 
 so-called. This change naturally brought about many 
 others ; up to this time they had had no churches. With- 
 out churches the friars were only itinerant preachers, and 
 their purpose' could not but be perfectly disinterested ; 
 they were, as Francis had wished, the friendly auxiliaries 
 of the clergy. With churches it was inevitable that they 
 should first fatally aspire to preach in them and attract 
 the crowd to them, then in some sort erect them into 
 counter parishes.' 
 
 1 All this took place with prodigious rapidity. The dimensions of 
 the Basilica of Assisi, the plans of which were made in 1228, no more 
 permits it to he considered as a conventual chapel than Santa-Grooe 
 in Florence, San Francesco in Sienna, or the Basilica San Antonio at 
 Padua, monuments commenced between 1230 and 124D. Already be- 
 fore 1245 one party of the episcopate utters a cry of alarm, in which he 
 speaks of nothing less than of closing the door of the secular churches, 
 
272 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 The bull of March 22, 1222/ shows us the papacy 
 hastening these transformations with all its power. The 
 pontiff accords to Brother Francis and the other friars 
 the privilege of celebrating the sacred mysteries in their 
 churches in times of interdict, on the natural condition 
 of not ringing the beUs, of closing the door, and pre- 
 viously expelling those who were excommunicated. 
 
 By an astonishing inadvertence the buU itself bears 
 witness to its uselessness, at least for the time in which 
 it was given : " We accord to you," it runs, " the permis- 
 sion to celebrate the sacraments in times of interdict in 
 your churches, if you come to have any." This is a new 
 proof that in 1222 the Order as yet had none ; but it 
 is not difficult to see in this very document a pressing 
 invitation to change their way of working, and not leave 
 this privilege to be of no avail. 
 
 Another document of the same time shows a like pur- 
 pose, though manifested in another direction. By the 
 bull Ex parte of March 29, 1222, Honorius III. laid 
 upon the Preachers and Minors of Lisbon conjointly a 
 singularly delicate mission ; he gave them full powers to 
 proceed against the bishop and clergy of that city, who 
 exacted from the faithful that they should leave to them 
 
 which have become useless. He complains with incredible bitterness 
 that the Minor and Preaching Friars have absolutely supplanted the 
 parochial clergy. This letter may be found in Pierre de la Vigne, 
 addressed at once to Frederick II. and the Council of Lyons : SipUtola, 
 Basle, 1740, 3 vols., vol. i., pp. 230-332. It is much to be desired 
 that a critical text should be given. See also the satire against the two 
 new Orders, done in rhyme about 1242 by Pierre de la Vigne, and of 
 which, allowing for possible exaggerations, the greater number of the in- 
 cidents cannot have been invented : B. du M6ril, Poesies pop. lat., pp. 
 153-177, Paris, 8vo, 1847. 
 
 ' And not of the 39th, as Sbaralea will have it. BuUfr., vol. i., n. 
 10. Horoy, vol. iv., col. 139 ; the original, still in the archives at 
 Assiei, bears the title : Datum Anagnie 11 Kalendas AprUi* ponlifioatvm 
 nogtri anno sexto. 
 
THE BEOTHEES MIHOE AND LEAENING 273 
 
 by will one-third of their property, and refused the 
 Church's burial service to those who disobeyed.* 
 
 The fact that the pope committed to the Brothers the 
 care of choosing what measures they should take proves 
 how anxious they were at Rome to forget the object for 
 which they had been created, and to transform them into 
 deputies of the Holy See. It is, therefore, needless to 
 point out that the mention of Francis's name at the head 
 of the former of these bulls has no significance. We do 
 not picture the Poverellb seeking a privilege for circum- 
 stances not yet existing ! We perceive here the influence 
 of Ugolini,^ who had found the Brother Minor after his 
 own heart in the person of Elias. 
 
 What was Francis doing all this time ? We have no 
 knowledge, but the very absence of information, so abun- 
 dant for the period that precedes as well as for that which 
 follows, shows plaiidy enough that he has quitted Porti- 
 uncula, and gone to live in one of those Umbrian her- 
 mitages that had always had so strong an attachment 
 for him.^ There is hardly a hill in Central Italy that 
 has not preserved some memento of him. It would be 
 hard to walk half a day between Florence and Eome 
 without coming upon some hut on a hillside bearing his 
 name or that of one of his disciples. 
 
 ' Potthast, 6809 ; Horoy, iv., col. 139. See also the bull Ecce Venit 
 Deus of July 14, 1327 ; L. Auvray : Begistres de Chrigoire IX., no. 129; 
 cf. 153 ; Potthast, 8037 and 8038, 8189. 
 
 ' He had finished his mission as legate in Lombardy toward the close o£ 
 September, 1321 (see his register; cf. Bohmer, Acta imp. sel. doc, 951). 
 In the spring of 1332 we find him continually near the pope at Anagni, 
 Veroli, Alatri (Potthast, 6807, 6813, 6849). The Holy See had still at 
 that time a marked predilection for the Preachers ; the very trite 
 privilege of power to celebrate the offices in times of interdict had 
 been accorded them March 7, 1322, but instead of the formula usual 
 in such cases, a revised form had b?en made expressly for them, with a 
 handsome eulogy. Ripolli, BuU. Prmd., t. i., p. 15. 
 
 ^2 Cel., 3, 98 : SubtrahAat i» a consortiofrabrum. 
 18 
 
274 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 There was a time when these huta were inhabited, 
 when in these leafy booths Egidio, Masseo, Bernardo, 
 Silvestro, Ginepro, and many others whose names his- 
 tory has forgotten, received visits from their spiritual 
 father, coming to them for their consolation.' 
 
 They gave him love for love and consolation for con- 
 solation. His poor heart had great need of both, for in 
 his long, sleepless nights it had come to him at times to 
 hear strange voices ; weariness and regret were laying 
 hold on him, and looking over the past he was almost 
 driven to doubt of himself, his Lady Poverty, and every- 
 thing. 
 
 Between Chiusi and Eadicofani — an hour's walk from 
 the village of Sartiano — a few Brothers had made a shel- 
 ter which served them by way of hermitage, with a 
 little cabin for Francis in a retired spot. There he 
 passed one of the most agonizing nights of his life. The 
 thought that he had exaggerated the virtue of asceticism 
 and not counted enough upon the mercy of God assailed 
 him, and suddenly he came to regret the use he had 
 made of his life. A picture of what he might have been, 
 of the tranquil and happy home that might have been his, 
 rose up before him in such living colors that he felt 
 himself giving way. In vain he disciplined himself with 
 his hempen girdle until the blood came ; the vision would 
 not depart. 
 
 It was midwinter ; a heavy fall of snow covered the 
 ground ; he rushed out without his garment, and gather- 
 ing up great heaps of snow began to make a row of 
 images. "See," he said, "here is thy wife, and behind 
 her are two sons and two daughters, with the servant and 
 the maid carrying all the baggage." 
 
 ' It is needless to say tliat local traditions, in this case, though as to 
 detail they must he accepted only with great reserve, yet on the whole 
 are surely true. The geography of St. Francis's life is yet to be made. 
 
THE BEOTHEES MINOR AND LEARNING 275 
 
 With this child-like representation of the tyranny of 
 material cares which he had escaped, he finally put away 
 the temptation.^ 
 
 There is nothing to show whether or not we should fix 
 at the same epoch another incident which legend gives 
 as taking place at Sartiano. One day a brother of whom 
 he asked, " Whence do you come ? " replied, " From your 
 cell." This simple answer was enough to make the vehe- 
 ment lover of Poverty refuse to occupy it again. "Foxes 
 have holes," he loved to repeat, " and the birds of the air 
 have nests, but the Son of man had not where to lay his 
 head. When the Lord spent forty days and forty nights 
 praying and fasting in the desert, he built himself neither 
 cell nor house, but made the side of a rock his shelter." * 
 
 It would be a mistake to think, as some have done, 
 that as time went on Francis changed his point of view. 
 Certain ecclesiastical writers have assumed that since he 
 desired the multiplication of his Order, he for that very 
 reason consented to its transformation. The suggestion 
 is specious, but in this matter we are not left to conject- 
 ure ; almost everything which was done in the Order 
 after 1221 was done either without Francis's knowledge 
 or against his will. If one were inclined to doubt this, it 
 would need only to glance over that most solemn and 
 also most adequate manifesto of his thought — his Will. 
 There he is shown freed from all the temptations which 
 had at times made him hesitate in the expression of his 
 ideas, bravely gathering himself up to summon back the 
 primitive ideal, and set it up in opposition to all the 
 concessions which had been wrung from his weakness. 
 
 The Will is not an appendix to the Bule of 1223, it is 
 almost its revocation. But it would be a mistake to see 
 in it the first attempt made to return to the early ideal 
 
 ' 2 Cel., 3, 59 ; Bon., 60; Conform., 122b, 2. 
 '2 Cel., 3, 5; Spec., 12a; Conform., 169b, 2. 
 
276 LIFE OF ST. FEANCIS 
 
 The last five years of his life were only one incessant 
 effort at protest, both by his example and his words. 
 
 In 1222 he addressed to the brethren of Bologna a 
 letter filled with sad forebodings. In that city, where 
 the Dominicans, overwhelmed with attentions, were 
 occupied with making themselves a stronghold in the 
 system of instruction, the Brothers Minor were more 
 than anywhere else tempted to forsake the way of sim- 
 plicity and poverty. Francis's warnings had put on such 
 dark and threatening colors that after the famous earth- 
 quake of December 23, 1222, which spread terror over 
 all northern Italy, there was no hesitation in believing 
 that he had predicted the catastrophe.' He had indeed 
 predicted a catastrophe which was none the less horrible 
 for being wholly moral, and the vision of which forced 
 from him the most bitter imprecations : 
 
 "Lord Jesus, thou didst choose thine apostles to the num'ber of 
 twelve, and if one of them did betray thee, the others, remaining 
 united to thee, preached thy holy gospel, filled with one and the same 
 inspiration ; and behold now, remembering the former days, thou hast 
 raised up the Religion of the Brothers in order to uphold faith, and 
 that by them the mystery of thy gospel may be accomplished. Who 
 will take their place if, instead of fulfilling their mission and being 
 shining examples for all, they are seen to give themselves up to works 
 of darkness ? Oh ! may they be accursed by thee, Lord, and by all the 
 court of heaven, and by me, thine unworthy servant, they who by their 
 bad example overturn and destroy all that thou didst do in the begin- 
 ning and ceasest not to do by the holy Brothers of this Order." '' 
 
 This passage from Thomas of Celano, the most mode- 
 rate of the biographers, shows to what a pitch of vehe- 
 mence and indignation the gentle Francis could be 
 worked up. 
 
 In spite of very natural efforts to throw a veil of re- 
 
 ' Eccl., 6. Vide Liebermann's text, Mon. Qerm. hist. Seiipt., t. 28» 
 p. 663. 
 « 3 Cel., 3, 93 ; Hon., 104 and 105 ; C(mf<yrm., 101a, 2. 
 
THE BEOTHEKS MINOR AND LEABNING 277 
 
 serve over the anguish of the founder with regard to the 
 future of his spiritual family, we find traces of it at every 
 step. " The time wiU come," he said one day, " when our 
 Order wiU so have lost all good renown that its members 
 will be ashamed to show themselves by daylight." ' 
 
 He saw in a dream a statue with the head of pure 
 gold, the breast and arms of silver, the body of crystal, 
 and the legs of iron. He thought it was an omen of the' 
 future in store for his institute.^ 
 
 He believed his sons to be attacked with two maladies, 
 unfaithful at once to poverty and humility ; but perhaps 
 he dreaded for them the demon of learning more than 
 the temptation of riches. 
 
 What were his views on the subject of learning ? It is 
 probable that he never examined the question as a whole, 
 but he had no difficulty in seeing that there wUl always 
 be students enough in the universities, and that if scien- 
 tific effort is an homage ofiered to God, there is no risk 
 of worshippers of this class being wanting ; but in vain he 
 looked about him on all sides, he saw no one to fulfil the 
 mission of love and humility reserved for his Order, if 
 the friars came to be unfaithful to it. 
 
 Therefore there was something more in his anguisK 
 than the grief of seeing his hopes confounded. The rout 
 of an army is nothing in comparison with the overthrow 
 of an idea ; and in him an idea had been incarnated, the 
 idea of peace and happiness restored to mankind, by the 
 victory of love over the trammels of material things. 
 
 By an ineffable mystery he felt himself the Man of his 
 age, him in whose body are borne all the efforts, the de- 
 
 '2 Cel., 3, 93; Spec., 49b ; 182a; Conform., 182a, 1 ; Tribul, t° 
 5a; 2Cel.,3,98; 113; 115; lCel.,28,50; 96; 103; 104; 108; 111; 
 118. 
 
 « 3 Cel., 3, 27 ; Spec., 38b ; Conform.. 181b, 1 ; Tr&iU., 7b. Ct 
 S^ee., 220b ; Conform., 103b. 
 
278 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 sires, the aspirations of men ; vdtli him, in him, by him 
 humanity yearns to be renewed, and to use the language 
 of the gospel, born again. 
 
 In this lies his true beauty. By this, far more than 
 by a vain conformity, an exterior imitation, he is a 
 Christ. 
 
 He also bears the affliction of the world, and if we will 
 look into the very depths of his soul we must give this 
 word affliction the largest possible meaning for him as for 
 Jesus. By their pity they bore the physical sufferings of 
 humanity, but their overwhelming anguish was some- 
 thing far different from this, it was the birth-throes of 
 the divine. They suffer, because in them the Word is 
 made flesh, and at Gethsemane, as under the olive-trees 
 of Greccio, they are in agony "because their own re- 
 ceived them not." 
 
 Yes, St. Francis forever felt the travail of the transfor- 
 mation taking place in the womb of humanity, going for- 
 ward to its divine destiny, and he offered himself, a living 
 oblation, that in him might take place the mysterious 
 palingenesis. 
 
 Do we now understand his pain ? He was trembling 
 for the mystery of the gospel. There is in him some- 
 thing which reminds us of the tremor of life when it 
 stands face to face with death, something by so much 
 the more painful as we have here to do with moral life. 
 
 This explains how the man who would run after ruf- 
 fians that he might make disciples of them could be piti- 
 less toward his feUow-laborers who by an indiscreet, 
 however well-intentioned, zeal forgot their vocation and 
 would transform their Order into a scientific institute. 
 
 Under pretext of putting learning at the service of God 
 and of religion, the Church had fostered the worst of 
 vices, pride. According to some it is her title to glory, 
 but it will be her greatest shame. 
 
THE BBOTHERS MINOE AND LEABNING 279 
 
 Must we renounce the use of this weapon against the 
 enemies of the faith? she asks. But can you imagine 
 Jesus joining the school of the rabbins under the pretext 
 of learning how to reply to them, enfeebling his thought 
 by their dialectic subtleties and fantastic exegesis ? He 
 might perhaps have been a great doctor, but would he 
 have become the Saviour of the world ? Tou feel that 
 he would not. 
 
 When we hear preachers going into raptures over the 
 marvellous spread of the gospel preached by twelve poor 
 fishermen of Galilee, might we not point out to them 
 that the miracle is at once more and less astounding than 
 they say ? More — for among the twelve several returned 
 to the shores of their charming lake, and forgetful of 
 the mystic net, thought of the Crucified One, if they 
 thought of him at all, only to lament him, and not to raise 
 him from the dead by continuing his work in the four 
 quarters of the world ; less — ^f or if even now, in these 
 dying days of the nineteenth century, preachers would 
 go forth beside themselves with love, sacrificing them- 
 selves for each and all as in the old days their Master 
 did, the miracle would be repeated again. 
 
 But no ; theology has killed religion. The clergy re- 
 peat to satiety that we must not confound the two ; but 
 what good does this do if in practice we do not distin- 
 guish them ? 
 
 Never was learning more eagerly coveted than in the 
 thirteenth century. The Empire and the Church were 
 anxiously asking of it the arguments with which they 
 might defend their opposing claims. Innocent III. sends 
 the collection of his Decretals to the University of Bo- 
 logna and heaps favors upon it. Frederick II. founds 
 that of Naples, and the Patarini themselves send their 
 sons from Tuscany and Lombardy to study at Paris. 
 
 We remember the success of Francis's preaching at 
 
280 LIFE OF ST. PBANCIS 
 
 Bologna/ in August, 1220 ; at the same period he had 
 strongly reprimanded Pietro Staccia, the provincial min- 
 ister and a doctor of laws, not only for having installed 
 the Brothers in a house which appeared to belong to 
 them, but especially for having organized a sort of col- 
 lege there. 
 
 It appears that the minister paid no attention to these 
 reproaches. When Francis became aware of his obstinacy 
 he cursed him with frightful vehemence ; his indignation 
 was so great that when, later on, Pietro Staccia was 
 about to die and his numerous friends came to entreat 
 Francis to revoke his malediction, all their efforts were in 
 vain.^ 
 
 In the face of this attitude of the founder it is very 
 difficult to believe in the authenticity of the note pur- 
 porting to be addressed to Anthony of Padua : 
 
 " To my very dear Anthony, brother Francis, greetings in Christ. 
 
 ' ' It pleases me that you interpret to the Brothers the sacred writings 
 and theology, in such a way, however (conformably to our Rule), that 
 the spirit of holy prayer be not extinguished either in you or in the 
 others, which I desire earnestly. Greetings." 
 
 Must we see in this a pious fraud to weaken the num- 
 berless clear declarations of Francis against learning? 
 It is difficult to picture to ourselves the rivalry which 
 
 ' Francis's successors were nearly all without exception students of 
 Bologna. Pietro di Catana wag doctor of laws, as also Giovanni Parent! 
 (Giord., 51). — Blias had been acrvptor at Bologna. — Alberto of Pisa had 
 been minister there (Bccl,, 6). — Aymou had been reader there (Eccl., 
 6). — Cresoentius wrote works on jurisprudence (Cbn/'omi., 121b, l,eto., 
 etc.). 
 
 ^ This name cannot be warranted ; he is called Giovanni di Laschac- 
 cia in a passage of the Conformities (104a, 1) ; Pietro Schiaecia in the 
 Italian MS. of the Tribulations (f ° 75a) ; Petrus Stacia in the Lauren- 
 tinian MS. (13b ; of. Archil}., ii., p. 358). TribuL, 13b ; Spec., 184b. 
 This story has been much amplified in other places. Spec., 126a ; Con- 
 form., 104b, 1. 
 
THE BKOTHEBS MINOK AND LEARNING 281 
 
 existed at this time between the Dominicans and Francis- 
 cans in the attempt to draw the most illustrious masters 
 into their respective Orders. Petty intrigues were or- 
 ganized, in which the devotees had each his part, to lead 
 such or such a famous doctor to assume the habit.* If 
 the object of St. Francis had been scientific, the friars of 
 Bologna, Paris, and Oxford could not have done more.^ 
 
 The current was so strong that the elder Orders were 
 swept away in it whether they would or no ; twenty years 
 later the Cistercians also desired to become legists, theo- 
 logians, decretalists, and the rest. 
 
 Perhaps Francis did not in the outset perceive the 
 gravity of the danger, but illusion was no longer pos- 
 sible, and from this time he showed, as we have seen, 
 an implacable firmness. If later on his thought was 
 travestied, the guilty ones — the popes and most of the 
 ministers-general — were obliged to resort to feats of pres- 
 tidigitation that are not to their credit. " Suppose," he 
 would say, " that you had subtility and learning enough 
 to know all things, that you were acquainted with aU 
 languages, the courses of the stars, and all the rest, what 
 is there in that to be proud of ? A single demon knows 
 more on these subjects than all the men in this world put 
 together.' But there is one thing that the demon is in- 
 
 ' Vide Eccl., 3 : History of the entrance of Adam of Oxford into the 
 Order. Cf., ChartuUmum Univ. Par., t. i., nos. 47 and 49. 
 
 ° Ecoleston's entire chronicle is a living witness to this. 
 
 ' AdmoniUo, v.; cf. Conform., 141a. 
 
 Compare the Constitutionet antiqua (Speevlum, Morin, iii. , f ° 195b- 
 306) with the Rule. From the opening chapters the contradiction is 
 apparent : Ordinamus gttod nvMus reeipiatur in ordine nostra nisi sit 
 talis derieus qui sit competenter instructus in grammatica ml logica ; ant 
 nisi sit talis laieus de eujus ingressu esset valde Celebris et edificatio in 
 popvlo et in Aero. This is surely far from the spirit of him who said : 
 Et guicumque venerit amicus vel adversarius fur vd latro benigne reeipi- 
 atur. Bale of 1231, cap. vii. See also the Exposition of the Rnle 
 of Bonaventara. Speculum, Morin, iii., f° 21-40. 
 
a«a LIFE OF ST. FEANCIS 
 
 capable of, and which is the glory of man : to be faithful 
 to God." 1 
 
 Definite information with regard to the chapters of 
 1222 and 1223 is wanting. The proposed modifications 
 of the project of 1221 were discussed by the ministers ^ 
 and afterward definitively settled by Cardinal Ugolini. 
 The latter had long conferences on the subject with 
 Francis, who has himself given us the account of them.' 
 
 The result of them all was the Eule of 1223. Very 
 soon a swarm of marvellous stories, which it would be 
 tedious to examine in detail, came to be clustered around 
 the origin of this document ; all that we need to retain 
 of them is the memory that they keep of the struggles 
 of Francis against the ministers for the preservation of 
 his ideal. 
 
 Before going to Rome to ask for the final approbation 
 he had meditated long in the solitude of Monte Colombo, 
 near Eieti. This hill was soon represented as a new 
 Sinai, and the disciples pictured their master on its 
 heights receiving another Decalogue from the hands of 
 Jesus himself.'' 
 
 Angelo Clareno, one of the most complacent narrators 
 of these traditions, takes upon himself to point out their 
 slight value ; he shows us Honorious III. modifying an 
 essential passage in the plan at the last moment.' I 
 
 ' CJpon Francis's attitude toward learning see 7'ribul., Laur., 14b; 
 8pe<:., 184a ; 3 Cel., 3, 8 ; 43 ; 100 ; 116; 119 ; 120-134. Bon., chap. 153, 
 naturally expresses only Bouaventura's views. See especially Eule of 
 1331, cap. xvii.; of 1333, cap. x. 
 
 ' Spec. , 7b : Fecit Franmous regvlam quam pa/pa Honorius oonfir- 
 mavit cum bulla, de qua regida mitlta fueruni extrctctaper minutros con- 
 tra wluntatem b. Francisai. Cf. 3 Cel., 3, 186. 
 
 ' Bull Quo elonqati of September 38, 1380 ; Sbaralea i. , p. 56. 
 
 « Bon., 55 and 56 [3 Soc, 63]; Spec., 76 ; 124a; Trihil, Laur., 17b- 
 19b; Ubertini, Arbor. K, 5; Conform., 88a, 3. 
 
 s Tribul, Laur., 19a ; Archvo.. t. iii.^ p. 601. Cf. A. SS., p. 688e. 
 
THE BROTHERS MINOR AND LEARNING 283 
 
 have already so far described this Eule that there is no 
 need to return to the subject here. 
 
 It was approved November 25, 1223.^ Many mem- 
 ories appear to have clustered about the journey of 
 Francis to Rome. One day Cardinal Ugolini, whose 
 hospitality he had accepted, was much surprised, and his 
 guests as well, to find him absent as they were about to 
 sit down at table, but they soon saw him coming, carry- 
 ing a quantity of pieces of dry bread, which he joyfidly 
 distributed to all the noble company. His host, some- 
 what abashed by the proceeding, having undertaken after 
 the meal to reproach him a little, Francis explained that 
 he had no right to forget, for a sumptuous feast, the bread 
 of charity on which he was fed every day, and that he 
 desired thus to show his brethren that the richest table 
 is not worth so much to the poor in spirit as this table 
 of the Lord.' 
 
 We have seen that during the earlier years the Broth- 
 ers Minor had been in the habit of earning their bread 
 by going out as servants. Some of them, a very small 
 number, had continued to do so. Little by little, in 
 this matter also all had been changed. Under color of 
 serving, the friars entered the families of the highest 
 personages of the pontifical court, and became their con- 
 fidential attendants ; instead of submitting themselves 
 to all, as the Rule of 1221 ordained, they were above 
 everyone. 
 
 Entirely losing sight of the apostolic life, they became 
 courtiers of a special type ; their character, half ecclesi- 
 astic and halt lay, rendered them capable of carrying out 
 a number of delicate missions and of playing a part in 
 
 ' Fotthast, 7108. — The work of tWs bull was completed by that of 
 December 18, 1223 (The original of the Sacro Oonvento bears Datum 
 Laterani XV. Kal.jan.) Fratrem Minorum : Potthast, 7133. 
 
 « % Oel., 3, 19 ; Bon., 95 ; Spec., 18b ; Ctmftyrm., 171a, 1. 
 
284 LIFE OF ST. FEANOIS 
 
 the varied intrigues for which the greater number of 
 Roman prelates have always seemed to live.^ By way 
 of protest Francis had only one weapon, his example. 
 
 One day, the Speculum relates, the Blessed Francis came to Rome to 
 see the Bishop of Ostia (Ugolini), and after having remained some time 
 at his house, he went also to visit Cardinal Leo, who had a great devo- 
 tion for him. 
 
 It was winter ; the cold, the wind, the rain made any journey impos- 
 sible, so the cardinal begged him to pass a few days in his house and to 
 take his food there, like the other poor folk who came there to eat. 
 . . . " I will give you," he added, "a good lodging, quite retired, 
 where if you like you may pray and eat." Then Brother Angelo, one 
 of the twelve first disciples, who lived with the cardinal, said to Francis : 
 " There is, close by here, a great tower standing by itself and very 
 quiet ; you will be there as in a hermitage.'' Francis went to see it and 
 it pleased him. Then, returning to the cardinal, " Monsiguor," he 
 said, " it is possible that I may pass a few days with you." The latter 
 was very joyful, and Brother Angelo went to prepare the tower for the 
 Blessed Francis and his companion. 
 
 But the very first night, when he would have slept, the demons came 
 and smote him. Calling then to his companion, " Brother," he said, 
 " the demons have come and smitten me with violence ; remain near 
 me, I beg, for I am afraid here alone." 
 
 He was trembling in all his members, like one who has a fever. 
 They passed the night both without sleeping. " The demons are com- 
 missioned with the chastisements of God," said Francis; "as a podestii 
 sends his executioner to punish the criminal, so God sends demons, who 
 in this are his ministers. . . . Why has he sent them to me ? Per- 
 haps this is the reason : The cardinal desired to be kind to me, and I 
 have truly great need of repose, but the Brothers who are out in the 
 world, suffering hunger and a thousand tribulations, and also those 
 others who are in hermitages or in miserable houses, when they hear of 
 my sojourn with a cardinal will be moved to repine. ' We endure all 
 privations,' they will say, ' while he has all that he can desire ; ' but I 
 ought to give them a good example — that is my true mission." . . . 
 
 Early next morning, therefore, he quitted the tower, and having told 
 the cardinal all, took leave of him and returned to the hermitage of 
 Monte Colombo, near Bieti. " They think me a holy man," he said, 
 " and see, it needed demons to cast me out of prison." ' 
 
 < 2CeI., 3, 61 and 62. Of. Ecol., 6, the account of Rod. de Roia. 
 • l^ee., 47b ff. J 2 Cel., 8, 61 ; Bon., 84 and 85. 
 
THE BKOTHEES MINOK AND LEARNING 285 
 
 This story, notwithstanding its strange coloring, shows 
 plainly how strong was his instinct for independence. 
 To compare the hospitality of a cardinal to an imprison- 
 ment ! He spoke better than he knew, characterizing in 
 one word the relation of the Church to his Order. 
 
 The lark was not dead ; in spite of cold and the north 
 wind it gayly took its flight to the vale of Eieti. 
 
 It was mid-December. An ardent desire to observe to 
 the life the memories of Christmas had taken possession 
 of Francis. He opened his heart to one of his friends, 
 the knight Giovanni di Greccio, who vmdertook the nec- 
 essary preparations. 
 
 The imitation of Jesus has in aU times been the very 
 centre of Christianity ; but one must be singularly spir- 
 itual to be satisfied with the imitation of the heart. 
 With most men there is need that this should be pre- 
 ceded and sustained by an external imitation. It is 
 indeed the spirit that gives life, but it is only in the 
 country of the angels that one can say that the flesh 
 profiteth nothing. 
 
 In the Middle Ages a religious festival was before all 
 things else a representation, more or less faithful, of the 
 event which it recalled ; hence the santons of Provence, 
 the processions of the Palmesel, the Holy Supper of 
 Maundy Thursday, the Road to the Cross of Good Fri- 
 day, the drama of the Eesurrection of Easter, and the 
 flaming tow of Whitsunday. Francis was too thoroughly 
 Italian not to love these festivals where every visible 
 thing speaks of God and of his love. 
 
 The population of Greccio and its environs was, there- 
 fore, convoked, as well as the Brothers from the neighbor- 
 ing monasteries. On the evening of the vigil of Christ- 
 mas one might have seen the faithful hastening to the 
 hermitage by every path with torches in their hands, 
 making the forests ring with their joyful hymns. 
 
a«e LIFE OP ST. FRANCIS 
 
 Everyone was rejoicing — Francis most of all. The 
 knight had prepared a stable with straw, and brought an 
 ox and an ass, whose breath seemed to give warmth to 
 the poor bambino, benumbed with the cold. At the 
 sight the saint felt tears of pity bedew his face ; he was 
 no longer in Greccio, his heart was in Bethlehem. 
 
 Finally they began to chant matins ; then the mass was 
 begun, and Francis, as deacon, read the Gospel. Already 
 hearts were touched by the simple recital of the sacred 
 legend in a voice so gentle and so fervent, but when he 
 preached, his emotion soon overcame the audience ; his 
 voice had so imutterable a tenderness that they also for- 
 got everything, and were living over again the feeling of 
 the shepherds of Judea who in those old days went to 
 adore the God made man, born in a stable.^ 
 
 Toward the close of the thirteenth century, the authoj 
 of the Stabat Mater dolorosa, Giacopone dei Todi, thai 
 Franciscan of genius who spent a part of his life in dun^ 
 geons, inspired by the memory of Greccio, composed an» 
 other Stabat, that of joy, Stahat Mater speciosa. This 
 hymn of Mary beside the manger is not less noble than 
 that of Mary at the foot of the cross. The sentiment is 
 even more tender, and it is hard to explain its neglect 
 except by an unjust caprice of fate. 
 
 Stabat Mater gpeoiosa 
 Juxtmn fcEnum gaudiosa 
 Dum jacebat parvulus. 
 
 Quae gaudebat et ridebat 
 Exsultabat cum videbat 
 Nati partum inolyti. 
 
 Fao me vera oongaudere 
 Jesulino cohaerere 
 Donee ego vixero.' 
 
 'ICel., 84^87; Bon., 149. 
 
 ' This little poem -nns published entire by M. Ozanam in vol. t. of his 
 works, p. 184. 
 
CHAPTEE XVn 
 
 THE STIGMATA 
 1234 
 
 The upper valley of the Amo forms in the very centre 
 of Italy a country apart, the Casentino, which through 
 centuries had its own life, somewhat like an island in the 
 midst of the ocean. 
 
 The river flows out from it by a narrow defile at the 
 south, and on all other sides the Apennines encircle it 
 with a girdle of inaccessible mountains.' 
 
 This plain, some ten leagues in diameter, is enlivened 
 with picturesque villages, finely posted on hillocks at the 
 base of which flows the stream ; here are Bibbiena, Poppi, 
 the antique Romena sung by Dante, the CamaldoH, and 
 up there on the crest Chiusi, long ago the capital of the 
 country, with the ruins of Count Orlando's castle. 
 
 The people are charming and refined ; the mountains 
 have sheltered them from wars, and on every side we 
 see the signs of labor, prosperity, a gentle gayety. At 
 any moment we might fancy ourselves transported into 
 some vaUey of the Vivarais or Provence. The vegetation 
 on the borders of the Arno is thoroughly tropical ; the 
 olive and the mulberry marry with the vine. On the 
 lower hill-slopes are wheat fields divided by meadows ; 
 
 ' The passes that give access to the Casentino hare all about one 
 thousand metres of altitude. Until the most recent years there waa 
 no road properly so called. 
 
200 LIFE OP ST. FEAN0I8 
 
 then come the chestnuts and the oaks, higher still the 
 pine, the fir, the larch, and above all the bare rock. 
 
 Among all the peaks there is one which especially 
 attracts the attention; instead of a rounded and so to 
 say flattened top, it uplifts itself slender, proud, isolated ; 
 it is the Vema.* 
 
 One might think it an immense rock fallen from the 
 sky. It is in fact an erratic block set there, a little like a 
 petrified Noah's ark on the summit of Mount Ararat. 
 The basaltic mass, perpendicular on all sides, is croTmed 
 with a plateau planted with pines and gigantic beeches, 
 and accessible only by a footpath. '^ 
 
 Such was the solitude which Orlando had given to 
 Francis, and to which Francis had already many a time 
 come for quiet and contemplation. 
 
 Seated upon the few stones of the Penna,' he heard 
 only the whispering of the wind among the trees, but in 
 the splendor of the sunrise or the sunset he could see 
 nearly all the districts in which he had sown the seed of 
 the gospel : the Eomagna and the March of Ancona, los- 
 ing themselves on the horizon in the waves of the Adri- 
 atic ; Umbria, and farther away, Tuscany, vanishing in 
 the waters of the Mediterranean. 
 
 The impression on this height is not crushing like that 
 which one has in the Alps : a feeling infinitely calm and 
 
 ' In France Mount Aiguille, one of the seven wonders of Dauphiny, 
 presents tie same aspect and the same geological formation. St. Odile 
 also recalls the Verna, but is very much smaller. 
 
 ' The summit has an altitude of 1269 metres. In Italian they call it 
 the Verna, in Latin Alvemus. The etymology, which has tested the 
 acuteness of tie learned, appears to be very simple ; the verb vernare, 
 used by Dante, signifies make cold, freeze. 
 
 ' Name of the highest point on the plateau. Hardly three-quarters 
 of an hour from the monastery, and not two hours and a half, as these 
 worthy anchorites believed. This is said for tie benefit of tourists . . . 
 and pilgrims. 
 
THE STIGMATA 289 
 
 sweet flows over you ; you are Mgh enough to judge of 
 men from above, not liigh enough to forget their exist- 
 ence. 
 
 Besides the wide horizons, Francis found there other 
 objects of delight ; in this forest, one of the noblest in 
 Europe, live legions of birds, which never having been 
 hunted are surprisingly tame.^ Subtile perfumes arise 
 from the ground, and in the midst of borage and lichens 
 frail and exquisite cyclamens blossom in fantastic va- 
 riety. 
 
 He desired to return thither after the chapter of 1224. 
 This meeting, held in the beginning of June, was the last 
 at which he was present. The new Eule was there put 
 into the hands of the ministers, and the mission to 
 England decided upon. 
 
 It was in the early days of August that Francis took 
 his way toward Verna. With him were only a few 
 Brothers, Masseo, Angelo, and Leo. The first had been 
 charged to direct the little band, and spare him all duties 
 except that of prayer ^ 
 
 They had been two days on the road when it became 
 necessary to seek for an ass for Francis, who was too 
 much enfeebled to go farther on foot. 
 
 The Brothers, in asking for this service, had not con- 
 cealed the name of their master, and the peasant, to 
 whom they had addressed themselves respectfully, asked 
 leave to guide the beast himself. After going on a 
 certain time, "Is it true," he said, "that you are 
 Brother Francis of Assisi?" "Very well," he went on, 
 
 ' The forest has been preserved as a relic. Alexander IV. fulmi- 
 nated exoommunioation against whomever should cut down the firs of 
 Verna. As to the birds, it is enough to pass a day at the monastery to 
 be amazed at their number and variety. M. 0. Beni has begun at Stia 
 ^In Oasentino) an ornithological collection which already includes more 
 than five hundred and fifty varieties. 
 
 ^ 1 Cal, 91 ; Bon., 188 ; Mo' ' - 'Ui. 
 
290 LIFE OP ST. FRANCIS 
 
 after the answer in the affirmative, " apply yourself to be 
 as good as folk say you are, that they may not be de- 
 ceived in their expectation ; that is my advice." Francis 
 immediately got down from his beast and, prostrating 
 himself before the peasant, thanked him warmly.' 
 
 Meanwhile the warmest hour of the day had come on. 
 The peasant, exhausted with fatigue, little by little forgot 
 his surprise and joy ; one does not feel the burning of 
 thirst the less for walking beside a saint. He had begun 
 to regret his kindness, when Francis pointed with his 
 finger to a spring, unknown till then, and which has never 
 since been seen.^ 
 
 At last they arrived at the foot of the last precipice. 
 Before scaling it they paused to rest a little under a 
 great oak, and immediately flocks of birds gathered 
 around them, testifying their joy by songs and flutterings 
 of their wings. Hovering around Francis, they alighted 
 on his head, his shoulders, or his arms. " I see," he said 
 joyfully to his companions, " that it is pleasing to our 
 Lord Jesus that we live in this solitary mount, since our 
 brothers and sisters the birds have shown such great 
 delight at our coming." ^ 
 
 This mountain was at once his Tabor and his Calvary. 
 We must not wonder, then, that legends have flourished 
 here even more numerously than at any other period of 
 his life ; the greater number of them have the exquisite 
 charm of the little flowers, rosy and perfumed, which 
 hide themselves modestly at the feet of the fir-trees of 
 Vema. 
 
 The summer nights up there are of unparalleled beauty : 
 nature, stifled by the heat of the sun, seems then to 
 breathe anew. In the trees, behind the rocks, on the 
 
 ' Fior. i., eonsid.; Conform., 176b,l. 
 
 » 2 Cel., 2, 15 ; Bon., 100. Fior. l, eonsid. 
 
 • Bon., 118. Pior. i., conaid. 
 
THE STIGMATA 291 
 
 turf, a thousand voices rise up, sweetly harmonizing with 
 the murmur of the great woods; but among all these 
 voices there is not one which forces itself upon the 
 attention, it is a melody which you enjoy without listen- 
 ing. You let your eyes wander over the landscape, still 
 for long hours illumined with hieratic tints by the de- 
 parted star of day, and the peaks of the Apennines, flooded 
 with rainbow hues, drop down into your soul what the 
 Franciscan poet called the nostalgia of the everlasting 
 hiUs.i 
 
 More than anyone Francis felt it. The very evening of 
 their arrival, seated upon a mound in the midst of his 
 Brothers, he gave them his directions for their dwelling- 
 place. 
 
 The quiet of nature would have sufficed to sow in their 
 hearts some germs of sadness, and the voice of the 
 master harmonized with the emotion of the last gleams 
 of light ; he spoke with them of his approaching death, 
 with the regret of the laborer overtaken by the shades of 
 evening before the completion of his task, with the 
 sighs of the father who trembles for the future of his 
 children.^ 
 
 For himself he desired from this time to prepare him- 
 self for death by prayer and contemplation ; and he 
 begged them to protect him from all intrusion. Or- 
 lando,' who had already come to bid them welcome and 
 offer his services, had at his request hastily caused a 
 hut of boughs to be made, at the foot of a great beech. 
 It was there that he desired to dwell, at a stone's throw 
 from the cells inhabited by his companions. Brother Leo 
 was charged to bring him each day that which he would 
 need. 
 
 ' 2 Cel., 100. ' Fior. it., coniid. 
 
 ^ The rains of the castle of Chiusi are three-quarters of an hour from 
 Verna. 
 
292 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 He retired to it immediately after this memorable con- 
 versation, but several days later, embarj:assed no doubt 
 by the pious curiosity of the friars, who watched all his 
 movements, he went farther into the woods, and on As- 
 sumption Day he there began the Lent which he desired 
 to observe in honor of the Archangel Michael and the 
 celestial host. 
 
 Genius has its modesty as well as love. The poet, the 
 artist, the saint, need to be alone when the Spirit comes 
 to move them. Every effort of thought, of imagination, 
 or of will is a prayer, and one does not pray in public. 
 
 Alas for the man who has not in his inmost heart some 
 secret which may not be told, because it cannot be 
 spoken, and because if it were spoken it could not be un- 
 derstood. Secketum meum mihi ! Jesus felt it deeply : 
 the raptures of Tabor are brief ; they may not be told. 
 
 Before these soul mysteries materialists and devotees 
 often meet and are of one mind in demanding precision 
 in those things which can the least endure it. 
 
 The believer asks in what spot on the Vema Francis 
 received the stigmata ; whether the seraph which appeared 
 to him was Jesus or a celestial spirit ; what words were 
 spoken as he imprinted them upon him ; ' and he no 
 more understands that hour when Francis swooned with 
 woe and love than the materialist, who asks to see with 
 his eyes and touch with his hands the gaping wound. 
 
 Let us try to avoid these extremes. Let us hear what 
 the documents give us, and not seek to do them violence, 
 to wrest from them what they do not tell, what they can- 
 not tell. 
 
 ' Vior. iv. and v. eonsid. These two considerations appear to be the 
 result of a reworking of the primitive document. The latter no doubt 
 included the three former, which the continuer has interpolated and 
 lengthened. Of. Cmform., 231a, Ij Spec, 91b, 93a, 97; A. SS., pp. 
 860 ff. 
 
THE STIGMATA 293 
 
 They show ns Francis distressed for the future of the 
 Order, and with an infinite desire for new spiritual prog- 
 ress. 
 
 He was consumed with the fever of saints, that need 
 of immolation which wrung from St. Theresa the pas- 
 sionate cry, " Either to suffer or to die ! " He was bit- 
 terly reproaching himself with not having been found 
 worthy of martyrdom, not having been able to give him- 
 seii for Him who gave himself for us. 
 
 We touch here upon one of the most powerful and 
 mysterious elements of the Christian life. We may very 
 easily not understand it, but we may not for all that deny 
 it. It is the root of true mysticism.* The really new 
 thing that Jesus brought into the world was that, feeling 
 himself in perfect union with the heavenly Father, he 
 called all men to unite themselves to him and through 
 him to God : " I am the vine, and ye are the branches ; 
 he who abides in me and I in him brings forth much 
 fruit, for apart from me ye can do nothing." 
 
 The Christ not only preached this union, he made it 
 felt. On the evening of his last day he instituted its 
 sacrament, and there is probably no sect which denies 
 that communion is at once the symbol, the principle, and 
 the end of the religious life. For eighteen centuries 
 Christians who differ on everything else cannot but look 
 with one accord to him who in the upper chamber insti- 
 tuted the rite of the new times. 
 
 The night before he died he took the bread and brake 
 
 ' In current language we often inehide under the word mysticism all 
 the tendeneies^often far from Christian— which give predominance in 
 the religious life to vague poetic elements, impulses of the heart. The 
 name of mystic ought to be applied only to those Christians to whom 
 immediate relations with Jesus form the basis of the religious life. In 
 this sense St Paul (whose theologico philosophical system is one of the 
 most powerful efforts of the human mind to explain sin and redemp- 
 tion) is at the same time the prince of mystics. 
 
294 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 it and distributed it to them, saying, " Take and eat, for 
 
 THIS IS MY BODY." 
 
 Jesus, while presenting union with himself as the very 
 foundation of the new life,^ took care to point out to his 
 brethren that this imion was before all things a sharing 
 in his work, in his struggles, and his sufferings : " Let 
 him that would be my disciple take up his cross and fol- 
 low me." 
 
 St. Paul entered so perfectly into the Master's thought 
 in this respect that he uttered a few years later this cry 
 of a mysticism that has never been equalled : " I have 
 been crucified with Christ, yet I live ... or rather, 
 it is not I who live, but Christ who liveth in me." This 
 utterance is not an isolated exclamation with him, it is 
 the very centre of his religious consciousness, and he goes 
 so far as to say, at the risk of scandalizing many a Chris- 
 tian : " I fill up in my body that which is lacking of the 
 sufferings of Christ, for his body's sake, which is the 
 Church." 
 
 Perhaps it has not been useless to enter into these 
 thoughts, to show to what point Francis during the last 
 years of his life, where he renews in his body the passion 
 of Christ, is allied to the apostolic tradition. 
 
 In the solitudes of the Verna, as formerly at St. Da- 
 mian, Jesus presented himself to him under his form of 
 the Crucified One, the man of sorrows.^ 
 
 That this intercourse has been described to us in a 
 poetic and inexact form is nothing surprising. It is the 
 contrary that would be surprising. In the paroxysms 
 
 ' He did not desire to institute a religion, for he felt the vanity of ob- 
 servances and dogmas. (The apostles continued to frequent the Jewish 
 temple. Acts, ii., 46 ; iii., 1 ; v., 25 ; xxi., 36.) He desired to inoculate 
 the world with a new life. 
 
 " 2 Cel., 3, 29 ; cf. 1 Cel., 115 ; s'soc, 13 and 14 ; 2 Cel., 1, 6 ; 2 Cel., 
 3, 128 and 131 ; Bon., 57; 124; 203; 204; 224; 225 ; 309 ; 310; 311; 
 Conform., 229b fl. 
 
THE STIGMATA 295 
 
 of divine love there are ineffaMlia which, far from being 
 able to relate them or make them understood, we can 
 hardly recall to our own minds. 
 
 Francis on the Verna was even more absorbed than 
 usual in his ardent desire to suffer for Jesus and with 
 him. His days went by divided between exercises of 
 piety in the humble sanctuary on the mountain-top and 
 meditation in the depths of the forest. It even hap- 
 pened to him to forget the services, and to remain sev- 
 eral days alone in some cave of the rock, going over iu 
 his heart the memories of Golgotha. At other times he 
 would remain for long hours at the foot of the altar, 
 reading and re-reading the Gospel, and entreating God 
 to show him the way in which he ought to walk.' 
 
 The book almost always opened of itself to the story 
 ,)f the Passion, and this simple coincidence, though easy 
 e»nough to explain, was enough of itself to excite him. 
 
 The vision of the Crucified One took the fuller posses- 
 sion of his faculties as the day of the Elevation of the 
 Holy Cross drew near (September 14th), a festival now 
 relegated to the background, but in the thirteenth cen- 
 tury celebrated with a fervor and zeal very natural for a 
 solemnity which might be considered the patronal fes- 
 tival of the Crusades. 
 
 Francis doubled his fastings and prayers, " quite trans- 
 formed into Jesus by love and compassion," says one of 
 the legends. He passed the night before the festival 
 alone in prayer, not far from the hermitage. In the 
 morning he had a vision. In the rays of the rising sun, 
 which after the chiU of night came to revive his body, he 
 suddenly perceived a strange form. 
 
 A seraph, with outspread wings, flew toward him 
 from the edge of the horizon, and bathed his soul in 
 raptures unutterable. In the centre of the vision ap- 
 ' 1 Cel., 91-ai : gon.. 189, 190. 
 
296 UPE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 peared a cross, and the seraph was nailed upon it. 
 "When the vision disappeared, he felt sharp sufferings 
 mingling with the ecstasy of the first moments. Stirred 
 to the very depths of his being, he was anxiously seek- 
 ing the meaning of it all, when he perceived upon his 
 body the stigmata of the Crucified.^ 
 
 ' See the annotations of Brother Leo upon the autograph of St. Francis 
 (Crit. Study, p. 357) and 1 Cel.. 94, 95 ; Bon., 191, 192, 193 (3 Soc, 69, 
 70) ; Pior. in. conaid. Cf. Auct. vii. sec; A. SS., p. 649. It is to be noted 
 that Thomas of Celano (1 Cel., 95), as well as all the primitive docu- 
 ments, describe the stigmata as being fleshy excrescences, recalling in 
 form and color the nails with which the limbs of Jesus were pierced. 
 No one speaks of those gaping, sanguineous wounds which were imag- 
 ined later. Only the mark at the side was a wound, whence at times 
 exuded a little blood. Finally, Thomas of Celano says that after the 
 geraphic vision began to wppem, cxperunt apparere signa davorum. Vide 
 Appendix : Study of the Stigmata. 
 
CHAPTEE XVin 
 
 THE CANTICLE OP THE SUN 
 Autumn, 1224— Autumn, 1225 
 
 The morning after St. Miciiaers Day (September 30, 
 1224) Francis quitted Vema and went to Portiuncula. 
 He was too much exhausted to think of making the 
 journey on foot, and Count Orlando put a horse at his 
 disposal. 
 
 We can imagiae the emotion with which he bade adieu 
 to the mountain on which had been unfolded the drama 
 of love and pain which had consummated the union of 
 his entire being with the Crucified One. 
 
 Amor, amor, Gesu desideroso, 
 
 Amor Toglio morire, 
 
 Te abrazando 
 
 Amor, dolce Gesu, meo sposo, 
 
 Amor, amor, la morte te domando. 
 
 Amor, amor, Gesu si pietoso 
 
 Tn me te dai in te transformato 
 
 Pensa ch' io vo spasmando 
 
 Non so o io me sia 
 
 Gesu speranza mia 
 
 Ormai va, dormi in amore. 
 
 So sang Giacopone dei Todi in the raptures of a like 
 love.* 
 
 ' Thirty-sixth and last strophe of the song 
 
 Amor ds caritade 
 Perche m' hai siferitoT 
 
 found in the collection of St. Francis's worki. 
 
298 LIFE OF ST. FEANOIS 
 
 If we are to believe a recently pubUshed document/ 
 Brother Masseo, one of those who remained on the Verna, 
 made a written account of the events of this day. 
 
 They set out early in the morning. Francis, after 
 having given his directions to the Brothers, had had a 
 look and a word for everything around ; for the rocks, 
 the flowers, the trees, for brother hawk, a privileged 
 character which was authorized to enter his cell at all 
 times, and which came every morning, with the first 
 glimmer of dawn, to remind him of the hour of service.^ 
 
 Then the little band set forth upon the path leading to 
 Monte-Acuto.^ Arrived at the gap from whence one gets 
 the last sight of the Verna, Francis alighted from his 
 horse, and kneeling upon the earth, his face turned tow- 
 ard the mountain, " Adieu," he said, " mountain of God, 
 sacred mountain, mons coagukdus, mons pinguis, mons in 
 quo bene placitum est Deo habitare ; adieu Monte- Verna, 
 may God bless thee, the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
 Spirit ; abide in peace ; we shall never see one another 
 more." 
 
 Has not this artless scene a delicious and poignant 
 sweetness ? He must surely have uttered these words, 
 in which suddenly the Italian does not suffice and Fran- 
 
 ' By tlie Abbe Amoni , at the close of his edition of the Pioretti, Rome, 
 1 vol. , 12mo, 1889, pp. 390-392. We can but once more regret the 
 silence of the editor as to the manuscript whence he has drawn these 
 charming pages. Certain indications seem unfavorable to the author 
 having written it before the second half of the thirteenth century ; on 
 the other hand, ihe object of a forgery is not evident. An apochryphal 
 piece always betrays itself by some interested purpose, but here the 
 story is of an infantine simplicity. 
 
 2 3 Cel., 3, 104 ; Bon., 119 ; Fior. ii. consid. 
 
 ' Parti san Franeeseo per Monte-Acuto prendendo la ma di Monte- Ar- 
 coppe e delforesto. This road from the Verna to Borgo San-Sepolcro is 
 far from being the shortest or the easiest, for instead of leading directly 
 to the plain it lingers for long hoars among the hills. Is not all Francis 
 in this choice ? 
 
THE CANTICLE OF THE SUN 299 
 
 cis is obliged to resort to the mystical language of the 
 breviary to express his feelings. 
 
 A few minutes later the rock of the ecstacy had disap- 
 peared. The descent into the valley is rapid. The Broth- 
 ers had decided to spend the night at Monte-Casale, the 
 little hermitage above Borgo San-Sepolcro. All of them, 
 even those who were to remain on the Verna, were still 
 following their master. As for him, absorbed in thought 
 he had become entirely oblivious to what was going on, 
 and did not even perceive the noisy enthusiasm which 
 his passage aroused in the numerous villages along the 
 Tiber. 
 
 At Borgo San-Sepolcro he received a real ovation with- 
 out even then coming to himself ; but when they had 
 some time quitted the town, he seemed suddenly to 
 awake, and asked his companion if they ought not soon 
 to arrive there.' 
 
 The first evening at Monte Casale was marked by a 
 miracle. Francis healed a friar who was possessed.^ 
 The next morning, having decided to pass several days 
 in this hermitage, he sent the brothers back to the Verna, 
 and with them Count Orlando's horse. 
 
 In one of the villages through which they had passed 
 the day before a woman had been lying several days 
 between death and life unable to give birth to her child. 
 Those about her had only learned of the passage of the 
 saint through their village when he was too far distant 
 to be overtaken. We may judge of the joy of these poor 
 people when the rumor was spread that he was about to 
 return. They went to meet him, and were terribly dis- 
 appointed on finding only the friars. Suddenly an idea 
 occurred to them : taking the bridle of the horse con- 
 secrated by the touch of Francis's hands, thev carried it 
 
 'd Oel. , §■, 41 ; Bon. , 141 ; Fmt. it. &mma. 
 ' 1 Cel., 63 and 64 : Fior. iie. consid. 
 
300 LIFE OP ST. FRANCIS 
 
 to the sufferer, who, having laid it upon her body, gava 
 birth to her child without the slightest pain.^ 
 
 This miracle, established by narratives entirely au- 
 thentic, shows the degree ■ of enthusiasm felt by the 
 people for the person of Francis. As for him, after a 
 few days at Monte-Casale, he set out with Brother Leo 
 for Citta di Castello. He there healed a woman suffer- 
 ing from frightful nervous disorders, and remained an 
 entire month preaching in this city and its environs. 
 When he once more set forth winter had almost closed 
 in. A peasant lent him his ass, but the roads were so 
 bad that they were unable to reach any sort of shelter be- 
 fore nightfall. The unhappy travellers were obliged to 
 pass the night under a rock ; the shelter was more than 
 rudimentary, the wind drifted the snow in upon them, and 
 nearly froze the unlucky peasant, who with abominable 
 oaths heaped curses on Francis ; but the latter replied 
 with such cheerfulness that he made him at last forget 
 both the cold and his bad humor. 
 
 On the morrow the saint reached Portiuncula. He 
 seems to have made only a brief halt there, and to have 
 set forth again almost immediately to evangelize South- 
 em Umbria. 
 
 It is impossible to f oUow him in this mission. Brother 
 Elias accompanied him, but so feeble was he that Elias 
 could not conceal his uneasiness as to his lite.^ 
 
 Ever since his return from Syria (August, 1220), he 
 had been growing continually weaker, but his fervor had 
 increased from day to day. Nothing could check him, 
 neither suffering nor the entreaties of the Brothers ; 
 seated on an ass he would sometimes go over three or 
 four villages in one day. Such excessive toil brought on 
 
 ' 1 Cel., 70 ; Fior. iv. consid. 
 
 « 1 Cel., 109 ; 69; Bon. 308. Perhaps we must refer to this circuit 
 the visit to Celano. 2 Gel., 3, 30 ; Spec., 22 ; Bon. , 156 and lfi7. 
 
THE CANTICLE OF THE SUN 301 
 
 an infirmity even more painful than any he had hitherto 
 suffered from : he was threatened with loss of sight.' 
 
 Meanwhile a sedition had forced Honorius III. to 
 leave Bome (end of April, 1225). After passing a few 
 weeks at Tivoli, he established himself at Eieti, where he 
 remained until the end of 1226.^ 
 
 The pope's arrival had drawn to this city, with the 
 entire pontifical court, several physicians of renown ; 
 Cardinal Ugolini, who had come in the pope's train, 
 hearing of Francis's malady, summoned him to Eieti for 
 treatment. But notwithstanding Brother Elias's en- 
 treaties Francis hesitated a long time as to accepting the 
 invitation.' It seemed to him that a sick man has but 
 one thing to do ; place himself purely and simply in the 
 hands of the heavenly Father. What is pain to a soul 
 that is fixed in God ! * 
 
 Elias, however, at last overcame his objections, and 
 the Journey was determined upon, but first Francis de- 
 sired to go and take leave of Clara, and enjoy a little 
 rest near her. 
 
 He remained at St. Damian much longer than he had 
 proposed to do ^ (end of July to beginning of September, 
 1225). His arrival at this beloved monastery was 
 marked by a terrible aggravation of his malady. For fif- 
 teen days he was so completely blind that he could not 
 even distinguish light. The care lavished upon him 
 produced no result, since every day he passed long hours 
 in weeping — tears of penitence, he said, but also of 
 regret.' Ah, how different they were from those tears of 
 
 ' 1 Cel., 97 and 98 ; 2 Cel , 3, 137; Bon., 205 and 206. 
 
 ' Biohard of St. Germano, ann. 1225. Of. Potthaet, 7400 ff. 
 
 > 1 Cel., 98 and 99 ; 2 Cel., 3, 137 ; Mor. , 19. 
 
 * 2 Cel., 3, 110 ; Rule of 1221, cap. 10. 
 
 s See the reference to the sources after the Canticle of the Snn. 
 
 ' 3 Cel., 3, 138. 
 
302 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 his moments of inspiration and emotion, which had 
 flowed over a countenance all illumined with joy ! They 
 had seen him, in such moments, take up two bits of 
 wood, and, accompanying himself with this rustic vioUn, 
 improvise French songs in which he would pour out the 
 abundance of his heart.' 
 
 But the radiance of genius and hope had become 
 dimmed. Kachel weeps for her children, and will not be 
 comforted because they are not. There are in the tears 
 of Francis this same quia non sunt for his spiritual sons. 
 
 But if there are irremediable pains there are none 
 which may not be at once elevated and softened, when 
 we endure them at the side of those who love us. 
 
 In this respect his companions could not be of much 
 help to him. Moral consolations are possible only from 
 our peers, or when two hearts are united by a mystical 
 passion so great that they mingle and understand one 
 another. 
 
 " Ah, if the Brothers knew what I suffer," St. Francis 
 said a few days before the impression of the stigmata, 
 " with what pity and compassion they would be moved ! " 
 
 But they, seeing him who had laid cheerfulness upon 
 them as a duty becoming more and more sad and keep- 
 ing aloof from them, imagined that he was tortured with 
 temptations of the devil.' 
 
 Clara divined that which could not be uttered. At 
 St. Damian her friend was looking back over all the past : 
 what memories lived again in a single glance ! Here, 
 the olive-tree to which, a brilliant cavalier, he had fast- 
 ened his horse ; there, the stone bench where his friend, 
 the priest of the poor chapel, used to sit ; yonder, the 
 hiding-place in which he had taken refuge from the pater- 
 
 ' This incident appeared to the authors so peculiar that they em' 
 phasized it with an ut oculis mdemus. 2 Cel., 3, 67 ; £^ee., 119a. 
 «^«(;.,123a;3Cel., 3, 58. 
 
THE CANTICLE OF THE SVA 303 
 
 nal wrath, and, above all, the sanctuary with the myste- 
 rious crucifix of the decisive hour. 
 
 In living over these pictures of the radiant past, Fran- 
 cis aggravated his pain ; yet they spoke to him of other 
 things than death and regret. Clara was there, as stead- 
 fast, as ardent as ever. Long ago transformed by admi- 
 ration, she was now transfigured by compassion. Seated 
 at the feet of him whom she loved with more than earthly 
 love she felt the soreness of his soul, and the failing of his 
 heart. After that, what did it matter that Francis's tears 
 became more abundant to the point of making him blind 
 for a fortnight ? Soothing would come ; the sister of 
 consolation would give him peace once more. 
 
 And first she kept him near her, and, herself taking 
 part in the labor, she made him a large ceU of reeds in 
 the monastery garden, that he might be entirely at lib- 
 erty as to his movements. 
 
 How could he refuse a hospitality so thoroughly Fran- 
 ciscan ? It was indeed only too much so : legions of rats 
 and mice infested this retired spot ; at night they ran 
 over Francis's bed with an infernal uproar, so that he 
 could find no repose from his sufferings. But he soon 
 forgot all that when near his sister-friend. Once again 
 she gave back to him faith and courage. "A single 
 sunbeam," he used to say, " is enough to drive away 
 many shadows ! " 
 
 Little by little the man of the former days began to 
 show himself, and at times the Sisters would hear, min- 
 gling with the murmur of the olive trees and pines, the 
 echo of unfamiliar songs, which seemed to come from the 
 cell of reeds. 
 
 One day he had seated himseK at the monastery table 
 after a long conversation with Clara. The meal had 
 hardly begun when suddenly he seemed to be rapt away 
 in ecstasy. 
 
304 LIFE OF ST. FEANCIS 
 
 " Lavdaio sia lo Signore 1 " he cried on coining to him- 
 self. He had just composed the Canticle of the Sun.' 
 
 text'' 
 
 Inoipiunt Laudes Cbeatubabum 
 QuAS FEorr Beatus Feanciscus ad latidem et honoeem 
 
 Dei 
 Cum esset infibmus ad Sanctum Damianum. 
 
 Altissimu, onnipotente, bon signore, 
 tue so le laude la gloria e I'onore et onne benedictione. 
 Ad te sole, altissimo, se konf ano 
 et nuUu homo ene dignu te mentovare. 
 
 Laudato sie, mi signore, cum tucte le tue creature 
 spetialmente messor lo frate sole, 
 lo quale joma, et illumini per lui ; 
 Et ellu e bellu e radiante cum grande splendore ; 
 de te, altissimo, porta significatione. 
 
 Laudato si, mi signore, per sora luna e le steUe, 
 in celu r M formate clarite et pretiose et belle. 
 
 Laudato si, mi signore, per frate vento 
 et per aere et nubilo et sereno et onne tempo, 
 per le quale a le tue creature dai sustentamento. 
 
 ' I have combined Oelano's narrative with that of the Conformities. 
 The details given in the latter document appear to me entirely worthy 
 of faith. It is easy to see, however, why Celano omitted them, and it 
 would be difficult to explain how they could have been later invented. 
 2 Cel., 3, 138; Conform., 43b, 2 ; 119b, 1; 184b, 2 ; 239a, 2; Spec., 
 123a ff. ; Fior., 19. 
 
 ' After the Assisan MS. , 338, f ° 33a. Vide p. 354. Father Panfilo 
 da Magliano has already published it after this manuscript : Storia com- 
 pendiosa di San Frcmeesco, Rome, 2 vols., 18mo, 1874-1876. The Con- 
 formities, 203b, 2-203a 1, give a version of it which differs from this 
 only by insignificant variations. The learned philologue Monaoi has 
 established a very remarkable critical text in his Creatomaaia italiana 
 del primi secoli. Citta di Castello, fas. i., 1889, 8vo, pp. 29-31. This 
 thoroughly scrupulous work dispenses me from indicating manuscripts 
 •nd editions more at length. 
 
THE CANTICLE OP THE SUIf 305 
 
 Laudato si, mi signore, per sor acqua, 
 la quale e multo utile et humele et pretiosa et casta. 
 
 Laudato si, mi signore, per frate focu, 
 per lo quale ennallumini la nocte, 
 ed ello e bello et jucundo et robustoso et forte. 
 
 Laudato si, mi signore, per sora nostra matre terra, 
 la quale ne sustenta, et governa 
 et produce diversi fructi con colorite flori et herba. 
 
 Laudato si, mi signore, per quilli ke perdonano per 
 lo tuo amore 
 et sostengo infirmitate et tribulatione. 
 beati quilli ke sosterrano in pace, 
 ka da te, altissimo, sirano incoronati. 
 
 Laudato si, mi signore, per sora nostra morte corporals, 
 de la quale nuUu homo vivente po skappare : 
 guai a quilli ke morrano ne le peccata mortali ; 
 beati quilli ke se trovaret ne le tue sanctissime voluntati, 
 ka la morte secunda nol farra male. 
 
 Laudato et benedicete mi signore et rengratiate 
 et serviteli cum grande humUitate. 
 
 TRANSLATION.' 
 
 most high, almighty, good Lord God, to thee belong 
 praise, glory, honor, and all blessing ! 
 
 Praised be my Lord God with all his creatures, and 
 specially our brother the sun, who brings us the day and 
 who brings us the light ; fair is he and shines with a 
 very great splendor : O Lord, he signifies to us thee ! 
 
 Praised be my Lord for our sister the moon, and for 
 the stars, the which he. has set clear and lovely in heaven. 
 
 Praised be my Lord for our brother the wind, and for 
 air and cloud, calms and all weather by the which thou 
 upholdest life in all creatures. 
 
 1 Matthew Arnold, Essays in Criticism, First Series. Macmillan & 
 Company, 1883. 
 
 20 
 
806 LIFE OF ST. FKANOIS 
 
 Praised be my Lord for our sister water, who is very 
 serviceable unto us and humble and precious and clean. 
 
 Praised be my Lord for our brother fire, through 
 whom thou givest us light in the darkness ; and he is 
 bright and pleasant and very mighty and strong. 
 
 Praised be my Lord for our mother the earth, the 
 which doth sustain us and keep us, and bringeth forth 
 divers fruits and flowers of many colors, and grass. 
 
 Praised be my Lord for all those who pardon one 
 another for his love's sake, and who endure weakness 
 and tribulation ; blessed are they who peaceably shall 
 endure, for thou, O most Highest, shalt give them a 
 crown. 
 
 Praised be my Lord for our sister, the death of the 
 body, from which no man escapeth. Woe to him who 
 dieth in mortal sin ! Blessed are they who are found 
 walking by thy most holy will, for the second death shall 
 have no power to do them harm. 
 
 Praise ye and bless the Lord, and give thanks unto 
 him and serve him with great humility. 
 
 Joy had returned to Francis, joy as deep as ever. For 
 a whole week he forsook his breviary and passed his days 
 in repeating the Canticle of the Sun. 
 
 During a night of sleeplessness he had heard a voice 
 saying to him," If thou hadst faith as a grain of mustard 
 seed, thou wouldst say to this mountain, ' Be thou re- 
 moved from there,' and it would move away." Was not 
 the mountain that of his sufferings, the temptation to 
 murmur and despair? "Be it. Lord, according to thy 
 word," he had replied with all his heart, and immediately 
 he had felt that he was delivered.^ 
 
 He might have perceived that the mountain had not 
 greatly changed its place, but for several days he had 
 '3Cel.,3, 58; Spec., USlk 
 
THE CANTICLE OF THE SUN 307 
 
 turned his eyes away from it, he had been able to forget 
 its existence. 
 
 For a moment he thought of summoning to his side 
 Brother Pacifico, the King of Verse, to retouch his can- 
 ticle ; his idea was to attach to him a certain number of 
 friars, who would go with him from village to village, 
 preaching. After the sermon they would sing the Hymn 
 of the Sun ; and they were to close by saying to the 
 crowd gathered around them in the public places, " We 
 are God's jugglers. We desire to be paid for our sermon 
 and our song. Our payment shall be that you persevere 
 in penitence."' 
 
 " Is it not in fact true," he would add, " that the ser- 
 vants of God are really like jugglers, intended to revive 
 the hearts of men and lead them into spiritual joy ? " 
 
 The Francis of the old raptures had come back, the 
 layman, the poet, the artist. 
 
 The Canticle of the Creatures is very noble : it lacks, 
 however, one strophe ; if it was not upon Francis's lips, 
 it was surely ia his heart : 
 
 Be praised, Lord, for Sister Clara ; 
 
 thou hast made her silent, active, and sagacious, 
 
 and by her thy light shines in our hearts. 
 
 • iS^. , 134a. Of. MisceOama (1889), iv. , p. 88i. 
 
CHAPTEE XIX 
 
 THE LAST TEAE 
 September, 1335— End of September, 1336 
 
 What did TJgolini think when they told him that Fran- 
 cis was planning to send his friars, transformed into 
 Joculaiores Domini, to sing up and down the country the 
 Canticle of Brother Sun ? Perhaps he never heard of it. 
 His pro%e' finally decided to accept his invitation and left 
 St. Damian in the course of the month of September. 
 
 The landscape which lies before the eyes of the trav- 
 eller from Assisi, when he suddenly emerges upon the 
 plain of Eieti, is one of the most beautiful in Europe. 
 From Terni the road follows the sinuous course of the 
 Vehno, passes not far from the famous cascades, whose 
 clouds of mist are visible, and then plunges into the de- 
 files in whose depths the torrent rushes noisily, choked 
 by a vegetation as luxuriant as that of a virgin forest. 
 On all sides uprise walls of perpendicular rocks, and on 
 their crests, several hundred yards above your head, are 
 feudal fortresses, among others the Castle of Miranda, 
 more giddy, more fantastic than any which Gustave 
 Dora's fancy ever dreamed. 
 
 After four hours of walking, the defile opens out and 
 you find yourself without transition in a broad valley, 
 sparkling with light. 
 
 Eieti, the only city in this plain of several leagues, ap- 
 pears far away at the other extremity, commanded by 
 
THE LAST TEAR 309 
 
 hills of a thoroughly tropical aspect, behind which rise 
 the mighty Apennines, almost always covered with snow. 
 
 The highway goes directly toward this town, passing 
 between tiny lakes ; here and there roads lead off to little 
 Tillages which you see, on the hillside, between the cul- 
 tivated fields and the edge of the forests ; there are Stron- 
 cone, Greccio, Cantalice, Poggio-Buscone, and ten other 
 small towns, which have given more saints to the Church 
 than a whole province of France. 
 
 Between the inhabitants of the district and their 
 neighbors of Umbria, properly so called, the difference 
 is extreme. They are all of the striking type of the 
 Sabine peasants, and they remain to this day entire 
 strangers to new customs. One is born a Capuchin 
 there as elsewhere one is born a soldier, and the traveller 
 needs to have his wits about him not to address every 
 man he meets as Reverend Father. 
 
 Francis had often gone over this district in every direc- 
 tion. Like its neighbor, the hilly March of Ancona, it 
 was peculiarly prepared to receive the new gospel. In 
 these hermitages, with their almost impossible simplicity, 
 perched near the villages on every side, without the least 
 care for material comfort, but always where there is the 
 widest possible view, was perpetuated a race of Brothers 
 Minor, impassioned, proud, stubborn, almost wUd, who 
 did not wholly understand their master, who did not 
 catch his exquisite simplicity, his impossibility of hating, 
 his dreams of social and political renovation, his poetry 
 and delicacy, but who did understand the lover of nature 
 and of poverty.^ They did more than understand him ; 
 
 ' The following is the list of monasteries which, according to Bodolfo 
 di Tossi^nano, accepted the ideas of Angelo Clareno before the end of 
 the thirteenth century : Fermo, Spoleto, Camerino, Asooli, Bieti, Fo- 
 ligno, Nursia, Aquila, Amelia : Ei»toriarum8era,pMo(Breligiorm, Ubritres, 
 Venice, 1586, 1 vol., f°, 155a. 
 
310 LIFE OP ST. rRANCIS 
 
 they lived his life, and from that Christmas festival ob- 
 served in the woods of Greccio down to to-day they have 
 remained the simple and popular representatives of the 
 Strict Observance. From them comes to us the Legend 
 of the Three Companions, the most life-like and true of 
 all the portraits of the Poverello, and it was there, in a 
 cell three paces long, that Giovanni di Parma had his 
 apocalyptic visions. 
 
 The news of Francis's arrival quickly spread, and long 
 before he reached Eieti the population had come out to 
 meet him. 
 
 To avoid this noisy welcome he craved the hospital- 
 ity of the priest of St. Fabian. This little church, now 
 known under the name of Our Lady of the Forest, is 
 somewhat aside from the road upon a grassy mound 
 about a league from the city. He was heartily wel- 
 comed, and desiring to remain there for a little, prelates 
 and devotees began to flock thither in the next few days. 
 
 It was the time of the early grapes. It is easy to 
 imagine the disquietude of the priest on perceiving the 
 ravages made by these visitors among his vines, his best 
 source of revenue, but he probably exaggerated the dam- 
 age. Francis one day heard him giving vent to his bad 
 humor. " Father," he said, " it is useless for you to dis- 
 turb yourself for what you cannot hinder ; but, tell me, 
 how much wine do you get on an average ? " 
 
 "Fourteen measures," replied the priest. 
 
 " Very well, if you have less than twenty, I undertake 
 to make up the difference." 
 
 This promise reassured the worthy man, and when at 
 the vintage he received twenty measures, he had no hesi- 
 tation in believing in a miracle.* 
 
 Upon Ugolini's entreaties Francis had accepted the 
 
 ' Spec, 129b; Fior., 19. In some of the stories of this period the 
 evidence is clear how ce«tain facts have been, little bj little, transformed 
 
THE LAST YEAE 311 
 
 hospitality of the bishop's palace in Eieti. Thomas oj 
 Celano enlarges with delight upon the marks of devotion 
 lavished on Francis by this prince of the Church. Un- 
 happily all this is written in that pompous and confused 
 style of which diplomats and ecclesiastics appear to have 
 by nature the secret. 
 
 Francis entered into the condition of a relic in his lite- 
 time. The mania for amulets displayed itself around him 
 in aU its excesses. People quarrelled not only over his 
 clothing, but even over his hair and the parings of his 
 nails.^ 
 
 Did these merely exterior demonistrations disgust him ? 
 Did he sometimes think of the contrast between these 
 honors offered to his body, which he picturesquely called 
 Brother Ass, and the subversion of his ideal ? We can- 
 not tell. If he had feelings of this kind those who sur- 
 rounded him were not the men to understand them, and 
 it would be idle to expect any expression of them from 
 his pen. 
 
 Soon after he had a relapse, and asked to be removed 
 to Monte-Colombo,^ a hermitage an hour distant from the 
 city, hidden amidst trees and scattered rocks. He had 
 already retired thither several times, notably when he 
 was preparing the Eule of 1223. 
 
 The doctors, having exhausted the therapeutic arsenal 
 of the time, decided to resort to cauterization ; it was de- 
 cided to draw a rod of white-hot iron across his forehead. 
 
 When the poor patient saw them bringing in the bra- 
 zier and the instruments he had a moment of terror ; but 
 
 into miracles. Compare, for example, the miracle of St. TJrbano in Bon., 
 68, and 1 Gel., 61. See also 3 Cel., 2, 10 ; Bon., 158 and 159. 
 
 1 1 Cel., 87; 2 Cel., 2, 11 ; Conform., 148a, 2 ; Bon., 99. Upon this 
 visit see 2 Cel., 2, 10; Bon., 158 and 159 ; 2 Cel., 3, 11 ; 2 Cel. , 3, 36. 
 
 ' The present Italian name of the monastery which has also be90 
 called Monte-Bainerio and Fonte-Palumbo. 
 
312 LIFE OP ST. FBAj!rCIS 
 
 immediately making the sign of the cross over the glow- 
 ing iron, "Brother fire," he said, "you are beautiful 
 above all creatures ; be favorable to me in this hour ; you 
 know how much I have always loved you ; be then cour- 
 teous to-day." 
 
 Afterward, when his companions, who had not had the 
 courage to remain, came back he said to them, smiling, 
 " Oh, cowardly folk, why did you go away ? I felt no pain. 
 Brother doctor, if it is necessary you may do it again." 
 
 This experiment was no more successful than the other 
 remedies. In vain they qilickened the wound on the 
 forehead, by applying plasters, salves, and even by mak- 
 ing incisions in it; the only result was to increase the 
 pains of the sufferer.' 
 
 One day, at Bieti, whither he had again been carried, 
 he thought that a little music would relieve his pain. 
 Calling a friar who had formerly been clever at playing 
 the guitar, he begged him to borrow one ; but the friar 
 was afraid of the scandal which this might cause, and 
 Francis gave it up. 
 
 God took pity upon him ; the following night he sent 
 an invisible angel to give him such a concert as is never 
 heard on earth.^ Francis, hearing it, lost all bodily feel- 
 ing, say the Fioretti, and at one moment the melody was 
 so sweet and penetrating that if the angel had given one 
 more stroke of the bow, the sick man's soul would have 
 left his body.' 
 
 It seems that there was some amelioration of his state 
 when the doctors left him ; we find him during the 
 
 ' 1 Cel., 101; 2 Gel., 3, 102; Bon., 67; Spec., 134a. 
 
 » 2 Gel., 3, 66; Bon., 69. 
 
 ' Mor. a. condi. Gf . B,oger Bacon, Opus tertium {ap. Mon. Oerm, 
 \ist.. Script, t. 28, p. 577). B. Francisciis jumt fratri eythariste ut 
 duteiva persona/ret, quaterms mens exeitaretur ad Tiarmonias cmlestet 
 gvMs phiries andimt. Wifo-eni/m musiex super omnes scientias et ipec- 
 
THE LAST TEAR 313 
 
 months of this winter, 1225-1226, in the most remote 
 hermitages of the district, for as soon as he had a little 
 strength he was determined to begin preaching again. 
 
 He went to Poggio-Buscone* for the Christmas festi- 
 val. People flocked thither in crowds from all the coun- 
 try round to see and hear him. " You come here," he said, 
 "expecting to find a great saint; what will you think 
 when I tell you that I ate meat all through Advent? "^ 
 At St. Eleutheria,' at a time of extreme cold which tried 
 him much, he had sewn some pieces of stuff into his own 
 tunic and that of his companion, so as to make their gar- 
 ments a little warmer. One day his companion came 
 home with a fox-skin, with which in his turn he proposed 
 to line his master's tunic. Francis rejoiced much over it, 
 but would permit this excess of consideration for his body 
 only on condition that the piece of fur should be placed 
 on the outside over his chest. 
 
 All these incidents, almost insignificant at a first view, 
 show how he detested hypocrisy even in the smallest 
 Slings. 
 
 We will not follow him to his dear Greecio,* nor even 
 to the hermitage of St. Urbano, perched on one of the 
 highest peaks of the Sabine.^ The accounts which we 
 
 ' Village three hours' walk northward rem Rleti. Francis's cell still 
 remains on the mountain, three-quarters of an hour from the place. 
 
 = 2 Cel.,3, 71 ; of. Spec., 43a. 
 
 ' Chapel still standing, a few minutes' walk from Rieti. 2 Cel., 3, 70 ; 
 Spec., 15a, 43a. 
 
 -■ 2 Cel., 2, 14 ; Bon., 167 ; 2 Cel., 3, 10 ; Bon., 58 ; Spec, 122b. 
 
 ' Wadding, ann. 1213, n. 14, rightly places St. Urbano in the county 
 of Narni. L'JEremo di S. Urbano is about half an hour from the village 
 of the same name, on Mount San Pancrazio (1026 m.), three leagues south 
 of Narni. The panorama is one of the finest in Central Italy. The Bol- 
 landists allowed themselves to be led into error by an interested asser- 
 tion when they placed San ITrbano near to Jesi (pp. 623f and 624a). 1 
 f«i., 61; Bon., 68. (Vide Bull Cum aligua of May 15, 1218, wieis 
 mention is made of San TTrbana) 
 
314 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 have of tlie brief visits he made there at this time tell 
 us nothing new of his character or of the history of his 
 life. They simply show that the imaginations of those 
 who surrounded Hm were extraordinarily overheated; 
 the least incidents immediately took on a miraculous 
 coloring.' 
 
 The documents do not say how it came about that he 
 decided to go to Sienna. It appears that there was in 
 that city a physician of great fame as an oculist. The 
 treatment he prescribed was no more successful than 
 that of the others ; but with the return of spring Francis 
 made a new effort to return to active life. We find him 
 describing the ideal Franciscan monastery,' and another 
 day explaining a passage in the Bible to a Dominican. 
 
 Did the latter, a doctor in theology, desire to bring the 
 rival Order into ridicule by showing its founder incapable 
 of explaining a somewhat difficult verse? It appears 
 extremely likely. " My good father," he said, " how do 
 you understand this saying of the prophet Ezekiel, 'If 
 thou dost not warn the wicked of his wickedness, I will 
 require his soul oi thee ? ' I am acquainted with many 
 men whom I know to be in a state of mortal sin, and yet 
 I am not always reproaching them for their vices. Am 
 I, then, responsible for their souls ? " 
 
 At first Francis excused himself, alleging his ignorance, 
 but urged by his interlocutor he said at last : " Yes, the 
 true servant unceasingly rebukes the wicked, but he does 
 it most of all by his conduct, by the truth which shines 
 forth in his words, by the liight of his example, by aU 
 the radiance of his life."' 
 
 He soon suffered so grave a relapse that the Brothers 
 
 ' As much may be said of the apparition of the three virgins between 
 Campilia and San Quirioo. 3 Cel., 3, 37 ; Bon., 93. 
 « 4pec., 13b; Conform., 169a, 1. 
 »2 Cel., 3, 46 ; Bon., 163; Spec., 31b; Ezek., zzziu., 9. 
 
THE LAST TEAR 315 
 
 thought his last hour had come. They were especially 
 affrighted by the hemorrhages, which reduced him to a 
 state of extreme prostration. Brother Elias hastened to 
 him. At his arrival the invalid felt in himself such an 
 improvement that they could acquiesce in his desire to 
 be taken back to Umbria. Toward the middle of April 
 they set out, going in the direction of Cortona. It is the 
 easiest route, and the delightful hermitage of that city 
 was one of the best ordered to permit of his taking 
 some repose. He doubtless remained there a very short 
 time : he was in haste to see once more the skies of his 
 native country, Portiuncula, St. Damian, the Carceri, all 
 those paths and hamlets which one sees from the terraces 
 of Assisi and which recalled to him so many sweet mem- 
 ories. 
 
 Instead of going by the nearest road, they made a long 
 circuit by Gubbio and Nocera, to avoid Perugia, fearing 
 some attempt of the inhabitants to get possession of the 
 Saint. Such a relic as the body of Francis lacked little of 
 the value of the sacred nail or the sacred lance.' Battles 
 were fought for less than that. 
 
 They made a short halt near Nocera, at the hermitage 
 of Bagnara, on the slopes of Monte-Pennino.^ His com- 
 panions were again very much disturbed. The swelling 
 which had shown itself in the lower limbs was rapidly 
 gaining the upper part of the body. The Assisans learned 
 this, and wishing to be prepared for whatever might 
 happen sent their men-at-arms to protect the Saint and 
 hasten his return. 
 
 Bringing Francis back with them they stopped for food 
 
 ' Two years after, the King of France and all his court kissed and re- 
 vered the pillow which Francis had used during his illness. 1 Cel. , 
 120. 
 
 ' Bagnara is near the sources of the Topino, about an hour east of 
 Nocera. These two localities were then dependents of Assisi. 
 
316 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 at the hamlet of Balciano,^ but in vain they begged the 
 inhabitants to sell them provisions. As the escort were 
 confiding their discomfiture to the friars, Francis, who 
 knew these good peasants, said : " If you had asked for 
 food without offering to pay, you would have found all 
 you wanted." 
 
 He was right, for, following his advice, they received 
 for nothing all that they desired.' 
 
 The arrival of the party at Assisi was hailed with 
 frantic joy. This time Francis's fellow-citizens were 
 sure that the Saint was not going to diie somewhere 
 else.' 
 
 Customs in this matter have changed too much for ua 
 to be able thoroughly to comprehend the good fortune of 
 possessing the body of a saiat. If you are ever so un- 
 lucky as to mention St. Andrew before an inhabitant of 
 Amalfi, you will immediately find him beginning to shout 
 " Evviva San Andrea ! Evviva San Andrea ! " Then with 
 extraordinary volubility he will relate to you the legend 
 of the Grande Protettore, his miracles past and present, 
 those which he might have done if he had chosen, but 
 which he refrained from doing out of charity because St. 
 Januarius of Naples could not do as much. He gesticu- 
 lates, throws himself about, hustles yoii, more enthusi- 
 astic over his relic and more exasperated by your cold- 
 ness than a soldier of the Old Guard before an enemy of 
 the Emperor. 
 
 In the thirteenth century all Europe was like that. 
 
 We shall find here several incidents which we may be 
 tempted to consider shocking or even ignoble, if we do 
 
 ' And not Sartiano. Balciano Btill exists, about half way between No. 
 cera and Assisi. 
 
 ' 2 Gel., 3, 23 ; Bon., 98 ; Spec., 17b ; Conform., 239», 3f. 
 
 ' 3 Gel., 3, 33 ; 1 Gel., 105, is still more explicit : "The multitud* 
 boped that he would die very soon, and that was the subject of their 
 joy," 
 
THE LAST TEAR 317 
 
 not make an effort to put them all into their proper sur- 
 roundings. 
 
 Fraoicis was installed in the bishop's palace ; he would 
 have preferred to be at Portiunoula, but the Brothers 
 were obliged to obey the injunctions of the populace, and 
 to make assurance doubly sure, guards were placed at all 
 the approaches of the palace. 
 
 The abode of the Saint in this place was much longer 
 than had been anticipated. It perhaps lasted several 
 months (July to September). This dying man did not 
 consent to die. He rebelled against death ; in this 
 centre of the work his anxieties for the future of the 
 Order, which a little while before had been in the back- 
 ground, now returned, more agonizing and terrible than 
 ever. 
 
 " We must begin again," he thought, " create a new 
 family who wiU not forget humility, who wiU go and 
 serve lepers and, as in the old times, put themselves al- 
 ways, not merely in words, but in reality, below all men." ' 
 
 To feel that implacable work of destruction going on 
 against which the most submissive cannot keep from 
 protesting : " My God, my God, why ? why hast thou 
 forsaken me?" To be obliged to look on at the still 
 more dreaded decomposition of his Order ; he, the lark, 
 to be spied upon by soldiers watching for his corpse — 
 there was quite enough here to make him mortally sad. 
 
 During these last weeks all his sighs were noted. The 
 disappearance of the greater part of the legend of the 
 Three Companions certainly deprives us of some touch- 
 ing stories, but most of the incidents have been preserved 
 for us, notwithstanding, in documents from a second hand. 
 
 Four Brothers had been especially charged to lavish 
 care upon him : Leo, Angelo, Kufino, and Masseo. We 
 already know them j they are of those intimate friends 
 • 1 CeL, 103 and 104. 
 
318 LIFE OF ST. FRANOIS 
 
 of the first days, who had heard in the Franciscan gospel 
 a call to love and liberty. And they too began to com- 
 plain of everything.^ 
 
 One day one of them said to the sick man : " Father, 
 you are going away to leave us here ; point out to us, 
 then, if you know him, the one to whom we might ia all 
 security confide the burden of the generalship." 
 
 Alas, Francis did not know the ideal Brother, capable 
 of assuming such a duty ; but he took advantage of the 
 question to sketch the portrait of the perfect minister- 
 general.^ 
 
 We have two impressions of this portrait, the one 
 which has been retouched by Celano, and the original 
 proof, much shorter and more vague, but showing us 
 Francis desiring that his successor shall have but a sin- 
 gle weapon, an unalterable love. 
 
 It was probably this question which suggested to him 
 the thought of leaving for his successors, the generals of 
 the Order, a letter which they should pass on from one 
 to another, and where they should find, not directions for 
 particular cases, but the very inspiration of their activ- 
 ity.^ 
 
 To the Reverend Father in Christ, N . . . , Minister-General of 
 the entire Order of the Brothers Minor. May God bless thee and keep 
 thee in his holy love. 
 
 Patience in all things and everywhere, this, my Brother, is what I 
 specially recommend. Even if they oppose thee, if they strike thee, 
 then shouldst be grateful to them and desire that it should be thus and 
 not otherwise. 
 
 In this will be manifest thy love for God and for me, his servant and 
 thine ; that there shall not be a single friar in the world who, having 
 sinned as much as one can sin, and coming before thee, shall go away 
 
 'ICel., 102; Spec., 83b. 
 
 » 2 Cel., 3, 116 ; ^ee., 67a ; Conform., 143b, 1, and 225b, 2 ; 3 Get, 
 3, 117; Spec., 130a. 
 • For the text vide Oonform,., 136b, 3 ; 138b, 2 ; 143 b, 1. 
 
THE LAST TEAR 319 
 
 "Tithout having received thy pardon. And if he does not ask it, do 
 thou ask it for him, whether he wills or not. 
 
 And if he should return again a thousand times before thee, love 
 him more than myself, in order to lead him to well-doing. Have pity 
 always on these Brothers. 
 
 These words show plainly enough how in former days 
 Francis had directed the Order ; in his dream the min- 
 isters-general were to stand in a relation of pure affec- 
 tion, of tender devotion toward those under them ; but 
 was this possible for one at the head of a family whose 
 branches extended over the entire world ? It would be 
 hazardous to say, for among his successors have not been 
 wanting distinguished minds and noble hearts ; but save 
 for Giovanni di Parma and two or three others, this ideal 
 is in sharp contrast with the reality. St. Bonaventura 
 himself will drag his master and friend, this very Gio- 
 vanni of Parma, before an ecclesiastical tribunal, will 
 cause him to be condemned to perpetual imprisonment, 
 and it will need the intervention of a cardinal out- 
 side of the Order to secure the commutation of this sen- 
 tence.' 
 
 The agonies of grief endured by the dying Francis 
 over the decadence of the Order would have been less 
 poignant if they had not been mingled with self-re- 
 proaches for his own cowardice. Why had he deserted 
 his post, given up the direction of his family, if not from 
 idleness and selfishness? And now it was too late to 
 take back this step ; and in hours of frightful anguish he 
 arsked himself if God would not hold him responsible for 
 this subversion of his ideal. 
 
 " Ah, if I could go once again to the chapter-general," 
 he would sigh, "I would show them what my wUl is." 
 
 Shattered as he was by fever, he would suddenly 
 rise up in his bed, crying with a despairing intensity : 
 ' Tribvl., Archiv., ii., pp. 285 S. 
 
320 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 " Where are they who have ravished my brethren from 
 me ? Where are they who have stolen away my family ? " 
 
 Alas, the real criminals were nearer to him than he 
 thought. The provincial ministers, of whom he ap- 
 pears to have been thinking when he thus spoke, were 
 only instruments in the hands of the clever Brother 
 Elias ^ and he — what else was he doing but putting 
 his intelligence and address at Cardinal Ugolini's ser- 
 vice ? 
 
 Far from finding any consolation in those around him, 
 Francis was constantly tortured by the confidences of 
 his companions, who, impelled by mistaken zeal, ag- 
 gravated his pain instead of calming it.' 
 
 " Forgive me, Father," said one of them to him one day, " but many 
 people have already thought what I am going to say to you. You know 
 how, in the early days, by God's grace the Order walked in the path of 
 perfection ; for all that concerns poverty and love, as well as for all 
 the rest, the Brothers were but one heart and one soul. But for some 
 time past all that is entirely changed : it is true that people often 
 excuse the Brothers by saying that the Order has grown too large to 
 keep up the old observances ; they even go so far as to claim that 
 infidelities to the Rule, such as the building of great monasteries, are 
 a means of edification of the people, and so the primitive simplicity 
 and poverty are held for nothing. Evidently all these abuses are dis- 
 pleasing to you ; but then, people ask, why do you tolerate them? " 
 
 "God forgive you, brother," replied Francis. "Why do you lay at 
 my door things with which I have nothing to do ? So long as I had 
 the direction of the Order, and the Brothers persevered in their voca- 
 tion I was able, in spite of weakness, to do what was needful. But 
 when I saw that, without caring for my example or my teaching, they 
 walked in the way you have described, I confided them to the Lord 
 and to the ministers. It is true that when I relinquished the direction, 
 alleging my incapacity as the motive, if they had walked in the way 
 of my wishes I should not have desired that before my death they 
 should have had any other minister than myself ; though ill, though 
 bedridden, even, I should have found strength to perform the duties of 
 
 '2 0el.,3, 118. 
 
THE LAST YEAE 321 
 
 my charge. But this charge is wholly spiritual ; I will not become an 
 executioner to itrike and punish as political governors must." ' 
 
 Francis's complaints became so sharp and bitter that, 
 to avoid scandal, the greatest prudence was exercised 
 with regard to those who were permitted to see him.^ 
 
 Disorder was everywhere, and every day brought its 
 contingent of subjects for sorrow. The confusion of 
 ideas as to the practice of the Rule was extreme ; occult 
 influences, which had been working for several years, 
 had succeeded in veiling the Franciscan ideal, not only 
 from distant Brothers, or those who had newly joined 
 the Order, but even from those who had lived under 
 the influence of the founder.^ 
 
 Under circumstances such as these, Francis dictated 
 the letter to all the members of the Order, which, as 
 he thought would be read at the opening of chapters 
 and perpetuate his spiritual presence in them.'' 
 
 In this letter he is perfectly true to himself ; as in the 
 
 ' These words are borrowed from a long fragment cited by Ubertini 
 di Casall, as coming from Brother Leo : Arbor vit. cruc, lib. v., cap. 3. 
 It is surely a bit of the Legend of the Three Companions ; it may be 
 found textually in the Tribulations, Laur. , f° 16b, with a few more 
 sentences at the end. Of. Conform., 136a, 3 ; 143a, 3 ; /S^ec, 8b ; S6b -, 
 50a; 130b; 3 Cel., 3, 118. 
 
 ' Tribvl, Laur., 17b. 
 
 ' See, for example, Brother Eicher's question as to the books : Uber- 
 tini, Loo. dt. Cf. Arclm., iii., pp. 75 and 177; Spec, 8a ; Conform., 
 71b, 3. See also: Ubertini, Archw.,n\., pp. 75 and 177; Tribid., 
 13a; ;^ec., 9a ; Conform., 170a,, 1. It is curious to compare the account 
 as it found in the documents with the version of it given in 3 Cel. , 3, 8. 
 
 * Assisi MS., 338, f° 38a-31a, with the rubric : De lictera et ammoni- 
 tione beatimmi patris nostri Francisaiquam mmt fratribiis ad capUulum 
 quando erat injirmus. This letter was wrongly divided into three by 
 Kodolfo di Tossignano (f° 337), who was followed by Wadding (Epis- 
 tolae X., xi,, xii.). The text is found without this senseless division in 
 the manuscript cited and in Mrmamentum, f°31; Spec, Morin, iii.r 
 {J17a; Ubertini, Arbor vit. erue., v., 7. 
 SI _ 
 
322 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 past, lie desires to influence the Brothers, not by re. 
 proaches but by fixing their eyes on the perfect holiness. 
 
 To all the reyered and well-beloved Brothers Minor, to Brother 
 A . . .,' minister-general, its Lord, and to che ministers-general who 
 shall be after him, and to all the ministers, custodians, and priests of 
 this fraternity, humble in Christ, and to all the simple and obedient 
 Brothers, the oldest and the most recent, Brother Francis, a mean ani 
 perishing man, your little servant, gives greeting 1 
 
 Hear, my Lords, you who are my sons and my brothers, give ear to 
 my words. Open your hearts and obey the voice of the Son of God. 
 Keep his commandments with all your hearts, and perfectly observe 
 his counsels. Praise him, for he is good, and glorify him by your 
 works. 
 
 God has sent you through all the world, that by your words and 
 example you may bear witness of him, and that you may teach all men 
 that he alone is all powerful. Persevere in discipline and obedience, 
 and with an honest and firm will keep that which you have promised. 
 
 After this opening Francis immediately passes to the 
 essential matter of the letter, that of the love and respect 
 due to the Sacrament of the altar; faith in this mys- 
 tery of love appeared to him indeed as the salvation of 
 the Order. 
 
 Was he wrong ? How can a man who truly believes 
 in the real presence of the God-Man between the fingers 
 of him who lifts up the host, not consecrate his life to 
 this God and to holiness ? One has some difficulty in 
 imagining. 
 
 It is true that legions of devotees profess the most ab- 
 solute faith in this dogma, and we do not see that they 
 are less bad ; but faith with them belongs in the intel- 
 
 ' This initial (given only by the Assisi MS.) has not failed to ex- 
 cite surprise. It appears that there ought to have been simply an 
 N . . . This letter then would have been replaced by the copyist, 
 who would have used the initial of the minister general in charge at the 
 j'me of his writing. If this hypothesis has any weight it will aid to fix 
 Ve exact date of the manuscript. (Alberto of Pisa minister from 1339- 
 1240 ; Aimon of Faversham, 1340-1244.) 
 
THE LAST YEAK '623 
 
 lectual sphere ; it is the abdication of reason, and in 
 sacrificing their intelligence to God they are most happy 
 to offer to him an instrmnent which they very much pre- 
 fer not to use. 
 
 To Francis the question presented itself quite differ- 
 ently ; the thought that there could be any merit in be- 
 lieving could never enter his mind ; the fact of the real 
 presence was for him of almost concrete evidence. There- 
 fore his faith in this mystery was an energy of the heart, 
 that the life of God, mysteriously present upon the altar, 
 might become the soul of all his actions. 
 
 To the eucharistic transubstantiation, effected by the 
 words of the priest, he added another, that of his own 
 heart. 
 
 God offers himself to us as to Ms children. This is why 1 beg you, 
 all of you, my brothers, kissing your feet, and with all the love of which 
 I am capable, to have all possible respect for the body and blood of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 Then addressing himself particularly to the priests : 
 
 Hearken, my brothers, if the blessed Virgin Mary is justly honored 
 for having carried Jesus in her womb, if John the Baptist trembled be- 
 cause he dared not touch the Lord's head, if the sepulchre in which for 
 a little time he lay is regarded with such great adoration, oh, how holy, 
 pure, and worthy should be the priest who touches with his hands, who 
 receives into his mouth and into his heart, and who distributes to others 
 the living, glorified Jesus, the sight of whom makes angels rejoice! 
 Understand your dignity, brother priests, and be holy, for he is holy. 
 Oh I what great wretchedness and what a frightful infirmity to have him 
 there present before you and to think of other things. Let each man 
 be struck with amazement, let the whole earth tremble, let the heavens 
 thrill with joy when the Christ, the Son of the living God, descends 
 upon the altar into the hands of the priest. Oh, wonderful profundity I 
 Oh, amazing grace ! Oh, triumph of humility I See, the Master of all 
 things, God, and the Sou of God, humbles himself for our salvation, 
 even to disguising himself under the appearance of a bit of bread. 
 
 Contemplate, my brothers, this humility of God, and enlarge your 
 bearts before him ; humble yourselves as well, that you, even yon. 
 
Ha4 LIFE OF ST. FEANCIS 
 
 may be lifted up by him. Keep nothing for yourselves, that he may 
 receive you without reserve, who has given himself to you without 
 reserve. 
 
 We see with what vigor of love Francis's heart had 
 laid hold upon the idea of the communion. 
 
 He closes with long counsels to the Brothers, and after 
 having conjured them faithfully to keep their promises, 
 aU his mysticism breathes out and is summed up in a 
 prayer of admirable simplicity. 
 
 God Almighty, eternal, righteous, and merciful, give to us poor 
 wretches to do for tliy sake all that we know of thy will, and to will 
 always what pleases thee ; so that inwardly purified, enlightened, and 
 kindled by the fire of the Holy Spirit, we may follow in the footprints 
 of thy well-beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 What separates this prayer from the effort to discern 
 duty made by choice spirits apart from all revealed 
 religion ? Very little in truth ; the words are different, 
 the action is the same. 
 
 But Francis's solicitudes reached far beyond the limits 
 of the Order. His longest epistle is addressed to all 
 Christians ; its words are so living that you fancy you 
 hear a voice speaking behind you ; and this voice, usu- 
 ally as serene as that which from the mountain in Galilee 
 proclaimed the law of the new times, becomes here and 
 there unutterably sweet, like that which sounded in the 
 upper chamber on the night of the first eucharist. 
 
 As Jesus forgot the cross that was standing in the 
 shadows, so Francis forgets his sufferings, and, overcome 
 with a divine sadness, thinks of humanity, for each mem- 
 ber of which he would give his life; he thinks of his 
 spiritual sons, the Brothers of Penitence, whom he is 
 about to leave without having been able to make them 
 feel, as he would have had them feel, the love for them 
 with which he bums : " Father, I have given them the 
 
THE LAST TEAR 325 
 
 words Tshich thou hast given me. . . . For them I 
 pray ! " 
 
 The whole Franciscan gospel is in these words, but to 
 understand the fascination which it exerted we must 
 have gone through the School of the Middle Ages, 
 and there listened to the interminable tournaments of 
 dialectics by which minds were dried up ; we must have 
 seen the Church of the thirteenth century, honeycombed 
 by simony and luxury, and only able, under the pressure 
 of heresy or revolt, to make a few futile efforts to scotch 
 the evil. 
 
 To all Christians, monks, clerics, or laymen, whether men or women, 
 to all who dwell in the whole world. Brother Francis, their most sub- 
 missive servitor, presents his duty and wishes the true peace of heaven, 
 and sincere love in the Lord. 
 
 Being the servitor of all men, I am hound to serve them and to dis. 
 pense to them the wholesome words of my Master. This is why, seeing 
 I am too weak and ill to visit each one of you in particular, I have re- 
 solved to send you my message by this letter, and to offer you the words 
 of our Lord Jesas Christ, the Word of God, and of the Holy Spirit, 
 which are spirit and life. 
 
 It would be puerile to expect here new ideas either in 
 fact or form. Francis's appeals are of value only by the 
 spirit which animates them. 
 
 After having briefly recalled the chief featm-es of the 
 gospel, and urgently recommended the communion, 
 Francis addresses himself in particular to certain cate- 
 gories of hearers, with special counsels. 
 
 Let the podestSs, governors, and those who are placed in authority, 
 exercise their functions with mercy, as they would be judged with 
 mercy by God. . . . 
 
 Monks in particular, who have renounced the world, are bound to do 
 more and better than simple Christians, to renounce all that is not 
 necessary to them, and to have in hatred the vices and sins of the body. 
 . . . They should love their enemies, do good to them who hate them, 
 observe the precepts and counsels of our Redeemer, renounce them- 
 
326 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 aelves, and subdue their bodies. And no monk is bound to obedience, 
 if in obeying he would be obliged to commit a fault or a sin. . . . 
 
 Let us not be wise and learned according to the flesh, but simple, 
 humble, and pure. . . . We should never desire to be above others, 
 but rather to be below, and to obey all men. 
 
 He closes by showing the foolishness of those who set 
 their hearts on the possession of earthly goods, and con- 
 cludes by the very realistic picture of the death of the 
 wicked. 
 
 His money, his title, his learning, all that he believed himself to pos- 
 sess, all are taken from him ; his relatives and his friends to whom he 
 has given his fortune will come to divide it among themselves, and will 
 end by saying : ' ' Curses on him, for he might have given us more and 
 he has not done it ; be might have amassed a larger fortune, and he has 
 done nothing of the kind." The worms will eat his body and the de- 
 mons will consume his soul, and thus he will lose both soul and body. 
 
 I, Brother Francis, your little servitor, I beg and conjure you by the 
 love that is in God, ready to kiss your feet, to receive with humility and 
 love these and all other words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to conform 
 your conduct to them. And let those who devoutly receive them and 
 understand them pass them on to others. And if they thus persevere 
 unto the end, may they be blessed by the Father, the Son, and the 
 Holy Spirit. Amen.' 
 
 If Francis ever made a Eule for the Third Order it 
 must have very nearly resembled this epistle, and until 
 this problematical document is found, the letter shows 
 what were originally these associations of Brothers of 
 Penitence. Everything in these long pages looks toward 
 the development of the mystic religious life in the heart 
 of each Christian. But even when Francis dictated 
 them, this high view had become a Utopia, and the Third 
 Order was only one battalion more in the armies of the 
 papacy. 
 
 We see that the epistles which we have just examined 
 
 ' This epistle also was unskilfully divided into two distinct letters by 
 Eodolfo di Tossignano, t" 174a, who was followed by Wadding. Sea 
 Assisi MS., 338, 33»-28a; Oor^orm., 137a, 1 fE. 
 
THE LAST TEAR '627 
 
 proceed definitely from a single inspiration. Whether 
 he is leaving instructions for his successors, the minis- 
 ters-general, whether he is writing to all the present and 
 future members of his Order, to all Christians or even to 
 the clergy ,1 Francis has only one aim, to keep on preach- 
 ing after his death, and perhaps, too, by putting into 
 writing his message of peace and love, to provide that he 
 shall not be entirely travestied or misunderstood. 
 
 Considered in connection with those sorrowful hours 
 which saw their birth, they form a whole whose import 
 and meaning become singularly energetic. If we would 
 find the Franciscan spirit, it is here, in the Eule of 1221, 
 and in the Will that we must seek for it. 
 
 Neglect, and especially the storms which later over- 
 whelmed the Order, explain the disappearance of several 
 other documents which would cast a glimmer of poetry 
 and joy over these sad days ; ^ Francis had not forgotten 
 his sister-friend at St. Damian. Hearing that she had 
 been greatly disquieted by knowing him to be so ill, he 
 desired to reassure her : he still deceived himself as to 
 his condition, and wrote to her promising soon to go to 
 see her. 
 
 To this assurance he added some affectionate counsels, 
 advising her and her companions not to go to extremes 
 with their macerations. To set her an example of cheer- 
 
 ' The letter to tlie clergy only repeats the thoughts already expressed 
 upon the worship of the holy sacrament. We remember Francis sweep- 
 ing out the churches and imploring the priests to keep them clean ; 
 this epistle has the same object : it is found in the Assisi MS., 338, f° 
 31b-32b, with the rubric : De reverentia Corporis Domini et de mun- 
 ditia aUaris ad omnes derieos. Incipit : Attendamm omnes. Explicit : 
 feeerint exemplari. This, therefore, is the letter given by Wadding 
 xiii. , but without address or salutation. 
 
 '' We need not despair of finding them. The archives of the monas- 
 teries of Clarisses are usually rudimentary enough, but they are preserved 
 with pious care. 
 
328 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 fulness he added to this letter a Lands in the vulgar 
 tongue which he had himself set to music* 
 
 In that chamber of the episcopal palace in which he 
 was as it were imprisoned he had achieved a new vic- 
 tory, and it was doubtless that which inspired his joy. 
 The Bishop of Assisi, the irritable Guido, always at war 
 with somebody, was at this time quarrelling with the 
 podesta of the city ; nothing more was needed to excite 
 in the little town a profound disquiet. Guido had ex- 
 communicated the podestk, and the latter had issued a 
 prohibition against selling and buying or making any con- 
 tract with ecclesiastics. 
 
 The difference grew more bitter, and no one appeared 
 to dream of attempting a reconciliation. We can the 
 better understand Francis's grief over all this by remem- 
 bering that his very first effort had been to bring peace 
 into his native city, and that he considered the return of 
 Italy to union and concord to be the essential aim of his 
 apostolate. 
 
 War in Assisi would be the final dissolution of his 
 dream ; the voice of events crying brutally to him, 
 " Thou hast wasted thy life ! " 
 
 The dregs of this cup were spared him, thanks to an 
 inspiration in which breaks forth anew his natural play 
 of imagination. To the Canticle of the Sun he added a 
 new strophe : 
 
 Be praised, Lord, for those who forgive for love of thee, 
 and bear trials and tribulations ; 
 happy they who persevere in peace, 
 hy thee. Most high, shall they be crowned. 
 
 Then, calling a friar, he charged him to beg the gov- 
 ernor to betake himself, with all the notables whom he 
 could assemble, to the paved square before the bishop's 
 
 ' Spec., 117b ; Conform., 185a 1 ; 135b, 1. Of. Test. B. Olarce, A. SS„ 
 Aug., «., p.. 747. 
 
THE LAST YEAE 329* 
 
 palace. The magistrate, to whom legend gives the nobler 
 part in the whole affair, at once yielded to the saint's re- 
 quest. 
 
 When he arrived and the bishop had come forth from the palace, two 
 friars came forward and said : " Brother Francis has made to the praiss 
 of God a hymn to which he prays you to listen piously,'' and imme- 
 diately they began to sing the Hymn of Brother Sun, with its new 
 strophe. 
 
 The governor listened, standing in an attitude of profound attention, 
 copiously weeping, for he dearly loved the blessed Francis. 
 
 When the singing was ended, " Know in truth,'' said he, " that I de- 
 sire to forgive the lord bishop, that I wish and ought to look upon him 
 as my lord, for if one had even assassinated my brother I should be 
 ready to pardon the murderer." With these words he threw himself at 
 the bishop's feet, and said: " I am ready to do whatsoever you would, 
 for the love of our Lord Jesus Christ and his servant Francis." 
 
 Then the bishop, taking him by the hand, lifted him up and said, 
 "With my position it would become me to be humble, but since I am 
 naturally too quick to wrath, thou must pardon me." ' 
 
 This unexpected reconciliation was immediately looked 
 upon as miraculous, and increased still more the reverence 
 of the Assisans for their fellow-citizen. 
 
 The summer was drawing to a close. After a few days 
 of relative improvement Francis's sufferings became 
 greater than ever : incapable of movement, he even 
 thought that he ought to give up his ardent desire to see 
 St. Damian and Portiuncula once more, and gave the 
 brothers all his directions about the latter sanctuary: 
 " Never abandon it," he would repeat to them, " for that 
 place is truly sacred : it is the house of God." ^ 
 
 'This story is given in the Spec., 138b, as from eye-witnesses. Of. 
 Conform., 184b, 1 ; 303a, 1. 
 
 " 1 Cel. 106. These recommendations as to Portiuncula were ampli. 
 fied by the Zelanti, when, under the generalship of Cresoentius (Bull Is 
 qui ecdmam, March 6, 1245), the Basilica of Assisi was substituted for 
 Santa Maria degli Angeli as mater et caput of the Order. Vide Spee., 
 33b, 69b-71a ; Conform., 144a, 3 ; 318a, 1 ; 3 Soc, 56 ; 2 Cel., 1, 12 an(J 
 13; Bon., 34, 35; see the Appendix, the Study of the Indulgence of 
 August 3. 
 
330 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 It seemed to him that if the Brothers remained attached 
 to that bit of earth, that chapel ten feet long, those 
 thatched huts, they would there find the living reminder 
 of the poverty of the early days, and could never wander 
 far from it. 
 
 One evening he grew worse with frightful rapidity ; all 
 the following night he had hemorrhages which left not 
 the slightest hope ; the Brothers hastening to him, he 
 dictated a few lines in form of a Will and gave them his 
 blessing : " Adieu, my children ; remain all of you in the 
 fear of God, abide always united to Christ ; great trials 
 are in store for you, and tribulation draws nigh. Happy 
 are they who persevere as they have begun; for there 
 will be scandals and divisions among you. As for me, 
 I am going to the Lord and my God. Yes, I have the 
 assurance that I am going to him whom I have served." ' 
 
 During the following days, to the great surprise of 
 those who were about him, he again grew somewhat 
 better ; no one could understand the resistance to death 
 offered by this body so long worn out by suffering. 
 
 He himself began to hope again. A physician of 
 Arezzo whom he knew well, having come to visit him, 
 " Good friend," Francis asked him, " how much longer do 
 you think I have to live ? " 
 
 " Father," replied the other reassuringly, " this will 
 all pass away, if it pleases God." 
 
 " I am not a cuckoo," ^ replied Francis smiling, using 
 a popular saying, " to be afraid of death. By the grace 
 of the Holy Spirit I am so intimately united to God that 
 I am equally content to live or to die." 
 
 " In that case, father, from the medical point of view^ 
 
 ' 2 Cel., 108. As will be seen (below, p. 367) the remainder of Cela- 
 no's narrative seems to require to be taken with some reserve. Ct 
 S^ec., 115b ; Conform., 335a, 3 ; Bon., 211. 
 
 * Ifon sum cueulus, in Italian cuculo. 
 
THE LAST YEAR 331 
 
 fOTir disease is incurable, and I do not think that you 
 can last longer than the beginning of autumn." 
 
 At these words the poor iuTalid stretched out his 
 hands as if to call on God, crying with an indescribable 
 expression of joy, " Welcome, Sister Death ! " Then he 
 began to sing, and sent for Brothers Angelo and Leo. 
 
 On their arrival they were made, in spite of their emo- 
 tion, to sing the Canticle of the Sun. They were at the 
 last doxology when Francis, checking them, improvised 
 the greeting to death : 
 
 Be praised, Lord, for our Sister the Death of the body, 
 
 whom no man may escape ; 
 
 alas for them who die In a state of mortal sin ; 
 
 happy they who are found conformed to thy most holy will, 
 
 for the second death will do to them no harm. 
 
 From this day the palace rang unceasingly with his 
 songs. Continually, even through the night, he would 
 sing the Canticle of the Sun or some other of his favorite 
 compositions. Then, when wearied out, he would beg 
 Angelo and Leo to go on. 
 
 One day Brother Elias thought it his duty to make a 
 few remarks on the subject. He feared that the nurses 
 and the people of the neighborhood would be scandalized ; 
 ought not a saint to be absorbed in meditation in the face 
 of death, to await it with fear and trembling instead of in- 
 dulging in a gayety that might be misinterpreted ? ^ Per- 
 haps Bishop Guido was not entirely a stranger to these 
 reproaches ; it seems not improbable that to have his 
 palace crowded with Brothers Minor all these long weeks 
 had finally put him a little out of humor. But Francis 
 would not yield ; his union with God was too sweet for 
 him to consent not to sing it. 
 
 ' Soec, 136b ; Fior. iv. consid. It is to be noted that Guide, Instead 
 of waiting at Assisi for the certainly Impending death of Prar S, went 
 away to Mont Gargano. 2 Cel., 3, 142. 
 
332 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 They decided at last to remove him to Portiuncula. 
 His desire was to be fulfilled ; he was to die beside the 
 humble chapel where he had heard God's voice conse- 
 crating him apostle. 
 
 His companions, bearing their precious burden, took 
 the way through the olive-yards across the plain. From 
 time to time the invalid, unable to distinguish anything, 
 asked where they were. When they were half way there, 
 at the hospital of the Crucigeri, where long ago he had 
 tended the leper, and from whence there was a full view 
 of all the houses of the city, he begged them to set him 
 upon the ground with his face toward Assisi, and raising 
 his hand he bade adieu to his native place and blessed it. 
 
CHAPTEE XX 
 
 FRANCIS'S WILL AND DEATH 
 End of September— October 3, 1236 
 
 The last days of Francis's life are of radiant beauty. 
 He went to meet death, singing,' says Thomas of Celano, 
 summing up the impression of those who saw him then. 
 
 To be once more at Portiuncula after so long a deten- 
 tion at the bishop's palace was not only a real joy to his 
 heart, but the pure air of the forest must have been much 
 to his physical well-being ; does not the Canticle of the 
 Creatures seem to have been made expressly to be sung 
 in the evening of one of those autumn days of Umbria, 
 so soft and luminous, when all nature seems to retire 
 into herself to sing her own hymn of love to Brother 
 Sun? 
 
 "We see that Francis has come to that almost entire 
 cessation of pain, that renewing of life, which so often 
 precedes the approach of the last catastrophe. 
 
 He took advantage of it to dictate his Will." 
 
 ' Mortem eantando tuteepit. 2 Cel. , 3, 139. 
 
 ' The text here taken as a basis is that of the Assisi MS., 338 (f° 16»- 
 18a). It is also to be found in Pirmamentum, f° 19, col. 4 ; Speeuhim, 
 Morin, tract, iii., 8a; Wadding, ann. 1226, 35 ; A. SS., p. 663 ; Amoni, 
 Legenda Trium BoeUyrum ; Appendix, p. 110. Everything in this doc- 
 ument proclaims its authenticity, but we are not reduced to internal 
 proof. It is expressly cited in 1 Cel., 17 (before 1230) ; by the Three 
 Companions (1246), 3 Soc, 11 ; 26 ; 29 ; by 2 Cel., 3, 99 (1347). These 
 proofs would be more than sufficient, but there is another of even greater 
 
334 LIFE OP ST. FRANCIS 
 
 It is to these pages that we must go to find the true 
 note for a sketch of the life of its author, and an idea of 
 the Order as it was in his dreams. 
 
 In this record, which is of an incontestable authen- 
 ticity, the most solemn manifestation of his thought, the 
 PovereUo reveals himself absolutely, with a virginal can- 
 dor. 
 
 His humility is here of a sincerity which strikes one 
 with awe ; it is absolute, though no one could dream that 
 it was exaggerated. And yet, wherever his mission is 
 concerned, he speaks with tranquil and serene assurance. 
 Is he not an ambassador of God ? Does he not hold his 
 message from Christ himself? The genesis of his 
 thought here shows itself to be at once wholly divine 
 and entirely personal. The individual conscience here 
 proclaims its sovereign authority. " No one showed me 
 what I ought to do, but the Most High himself revealed 
 to me that I ought to live conformably to his holy gos- 
 pel." 
 
 When a man has once spoken thus, submission to the 
 Church has been singularly encroached upon. We may 
 love her, hearken to her, venerate her, but we feel our- 
 selves, perhaps without daring to avow it, superior to 
 her. Let a critical hour come, and one finds himself 
 heretic without knowing it or wishing it. 
 
 " Ah, yes," cries Angelo Clareno, " St. Francis prom- 
 ised to obey the pope and his successors, but they can- 
 not and must not command anything contrary to the 
 conscience or to the Rule." ^ 
 
 For him, as for aU. the spiritual Franciscans, when there 
 
 value : the bull Qtw elongati of September 28, 1230, where Gregory IX. 
 cites it textually aud declares that the friars are not bound to observe it. 
 ' Promittet Franoiseus ohedientiam, . . . papm . . . et meee»- 
 gm'ibus . . . qui non possunt nee debent eis prcecipere aliquid ^uoi 
 tit contra animam et regulam. Arehiv. , s, p. 563. 
 
Francis's will and death 335 
 
 is conflict between what tlie inward voice of God ordains 
 and what the Church wills, he has only to obey the 
 fornaer.i 
 
 If you tell him that the Church and the Order are there 
 to define the true signification of the Rule, he appeals to 
 common sense, and to that interior certitude which is 
 given by a clear view of truth. 
 
 The Rule, as also the gospel, of which it is a summary, 
 is above all ecclesiastical power, and no one has the right 
 to say the last word in their interpretation.^ 
 
 The Will was not slow to gain a moral authority 
 superior even to that of the Rule. Giovanni of Parma, 
 to explain the predilection of the Joachimites for this 
 document, points out that after the impression of the 
 stigmata the Holy Spirit was in Francis with still greater 
 plenitude than before.^ 
 
 Did the innumerable sects which disturbed the Church 
 in the thirteenth century perceive that these two writ- 
 ings — the Rule and the Testament — the one apparently 
 made to follow and support the other, substantially iden- 
 tical as it was said, proceeded from two opposite inspira- 
 tions? Very confusedly, no doubt, but guided by a very 
 sure iastinct, they saw in these pages the banner of lib- 
 erty. 
 
 They were not mistaken. Even to-day, thinkers, mor- 
 alists, mystics may arrive at solutions very different from 
 those of the TJmbrian prophet, but the method which 
 they employ is his, and they may not refuse to acknowl- 
 edge in him the precursor of religious subjectivism. 
 
 ' Quod gi quando a quocv/mque . . . pontiflee cUiquid . . . mem- 
 daretur quod esset contra Jidem . . . el caritatem et fructus ejus tune 
 dbediet Deo magia quam ?iominibua. lb., p. 561. 
 
 ' Est [Regula] et staf et inteUigitur super eos . . . Cum spei fdii- 
 eia pace fruemur cum conscientits et Ohrisii spi/ritus testimonio eerto. lb., 
 pp. 563 and 565. 
 
 'Arehiv., ii., p. 274. 
 
336 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 The Church, too, was not mistaken. She immediately 
 understood the spirit that animated these pages. 
 
 Four years later, perhaps to the very day, September 
 28, 1230, Ugolini, then Gregory IX., solemnly interpreted 
 the Kule, in spite of the precautions of Francis, who had 
 forbidden all gloss or commentary on the Eule or the 
 Will, and declared that the Brothers were not bound to 
 the observation of the Will.' 
 
 What shall we say of the bull in which the pope alleges 
 his familiar relations with the Saint to justify his com- 
 mentary, and in which the clearest passages are so dis- 
 torted as to change their sense completely. "One is 
 stupefied," cries Ubertini of Oasali, " that a text so clear 
 should have need of a commentary, for it suffices to have 
 common sense and to know grammar in order to under- 
 stand it." And this strange monk dares to add : " There 
 is one miracle which God himself cannot do; it is to 
 make two contradictory things true." ^ 
 
 Certainly the Church should be mistress in her own 
 house ; it would have been nothing wrong had Gregory 
 IX. created an Order conformed to his views and ideas, but 
 when we go through Sbaralea's folios and the thousands 
 of bulls accorded to the spiritual sons of him who in the 
 clearest and most solemn manner had forbidden them to 
 ask any privilege of the court of Borne, we cannot but 
 feel a bitter sadness. 
 
 Thus upheld by the papacy, the Brothers of the Com- 
 mon Observance made the Zelanti sharply expiate their 
 attachment to Francis's last requests. Csesar of Speyer 
 
 ' Ad mandatum UMid vos dicmus rum teneri: quod nine consensu Fro- 
 trum mamime minigtrtmtm, quos urmersos tangebat Miga/re neguwH nte 
 lueeessorem suwn quomodolibet oiligemt ; cum non habeat impeiriiwm par 
 in pa/rem. The sophism is barely specious ; Francis was not on a par 
 with his successors ; he did not act as minister-general, but as founder. 
 
 ' Arbor ml, cruc., lib. v., cap. 3 and 5. See above, p. 185. 
 
Francis's will and death 337 
 
 died of violence from the Brother placed in charge of 
 him ; ' the first disciple, Bernardo di Quintavalle, hunted 
 like a wild beast, passed two years in the forests of Monte- 
 Sefro, hidden by a wood-cutter;^ the other first compan- 
 ions who did not succeed in flight had to undergo the 
 severest usage. In the March of Ancona, the home of 
 the Spirituals, the vict^ious party used a terrible vio- 
 lence. The Will was confiscated and destroyed; they 
 went so far as to burn it over the head of a friar who 
 persisted in desiring to observe it.' 
 
 WILL (literal TBANSLATION). 
 
 See in what maimer God gave it to me, to me, Brother Francis, to 
 begin to do penitence ; when I lived in sin, it was very painful to me 
 to see lepers, but Ood himself led me into their midst, and I remained 
 here a little while.* When I left them, that which had seemed to me 
 oitter had become sweet and easy. 
 
 A little while after I quitted the world, and God gave me such a faith 
 in his churches that I would kneel down with simplicity and I would 
 ■Wy : " We adore thee. Lord Jesus Christ, here and in all thy churches 
 ifhidh are in the world, and we bless thee that by thy holy cross thou 
 hast ransomed the world. " 
 
 Besides, the Lord gave me and still gives me so great a faith in priests 
 who live according to the form of the holy Koman Church, because of 
 their sacerdotal character, that even if they persecuted me I would have 
 recourse to them. And even though I had all the wisdom of Solomon, 
 if I should find poor secular priests, I would not preach in their parishes 
 without their consent. I desire to respect them like all the others, to 
 love them and honor them as my lords. I will not consider their sins, 
 
 ' Tribul, Laur., 25b ; AreMv., i., p. 533. 
 
 ' At the summit of the Apennines, about half way between Camerino 
 and Nocera (Umbria). Tnbul., Laur,, 26b; Magi,, 135b. 
 
 ^ Dedaraiio Ubertini, ArcMu., ill., p. 168. This fact is not to be 
 questioned, since it is alleged in a piece addressed to the pope, in re- 
 jpouse to the liberal friars, to whom it was to be communicated. 
 
 * Feci moram cum iUis. , MS, , 33S. Most of the printed texts give mis- 
 eraeordiaim, which gives a less satisfactory meaning. Cf. Miscellane* 
 iii. (1888), p. 70; 1 Gel., 17; 3 Soc, 11. 
 22 
 
338 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 for in them I see the Son of God and they are my lords. I do this be- 
 cause here below I see nothing, I perceive nothing corporally of the 
 most high Sou of God, if not his most holy Body and Blood, which they 
 receive and they alone distribute to others. I desire above all things to 
 honor and venerate all these most holy mysteries and to keep them pre- 
 cious. Whenever I find the sacred names of Jesus or his words in inde- 
 cent places, I desire to take them away, and I pray that others take them 
 away and pnt them in some decent place. We ought to honor and re- 
 vere all the theologians and those who preach the most holy word of 
 God, as dispensing to us spirit and life. 
 
 When the Lord gave me some brothers no one showed me what I ought 
 to do, but the Most High himself revealed to me that I ought to live 
 according to the model of the holy gospel. I caused a short and simple 
 formula to be written, and the lord pope confirmed it for me. 
 
 Those who presented themselves to observe this kind of life distrib- 
 uted all that they might have to the poor. They contented themselves 
 with a tunic, patched within and without, with the cord and breeches, 
 and we desired to have nothing more. 
 
 The clerks said the office like other clerks, and the laymen PaXetr 
 noUer. 
 
 We loved to live in poor and abandoned churches, and we were 
 ignorant and submissive to all. I worked with my hands and would 
 continue to do, and I will also that all other friars work at some honor- 
 able trade. Let those who have none learn one, not for the purpose of 
 receiving the price of their toil, but for their good example and to flee 
 idleness. And when they do not give us the price of the work, let us 
 resort to the table of the Lord, begging our bread from door to door. 
 The Lord revealed to me the salutation which we ought to give : " God 
 give you peace I " 
 
 Let the Brothers take great care not to receive churches, habitations, 
 and all that men build for them, except as all is in accordance with the 
 holy poverty which we have vowed in the Rule, and let them not re- 
 ceive hospitality In them except as strangers and pilgrims. 
 
 I absolutely interdict all the brothers, in whatever place they may be 
 found, from asking any bull from the court of Rome, whether directly 
 or indirectly, under pretext of church or convent or under pretext of 
 preachings, nor even for their personal protection. If they are not re- 
 ceived anywhere let them go elsewhere, thus doing penance with the 
 benediction of God. 
 
 I desire to obey the minister-general of this fraternity, and the guar- 
 dian whom he may please to give me. I desire to put myself entirely 
 into his hands, to go nowhere and do nothing against his will, for he la 
 my lord. 
 
FRANCIS'S WILL AND DEATH 339 
 
 Though I be simple and ill, I would, however, have always a clerk who 
 will perform the office, as it is said in the Rule ; let all the other brother! 
 also be careful to obey their guardians and to do the office according 
 to the Rule. If it come to pass that there are any who do not the 
 office according to the Rule, and who desire to make any other change, 
 or if they are not Catholics, let all the Brothers, wherever they may be, 
 be bound by obedience to present them to the nearest custode. Let the 
 custodes be bound by obedience to keep him well guarded like a man 
 who is in bonds night and day, so that he may not escape from their 
 hands until they personally place him in the minister's hands. And let 
 the minister be bound by obedience to send him by brothers who will 
 guard him as a prisoner day and night until they shall have placed him 
 in the hands of the Lord Bishop of Ostia, who is the lord, the protector, 
 and the correcter of all the Fraternity. ' 
 
 And let the Brothers not say : " This is a new Rule ; " for this is a re- 
 minder, a warning, an exhortation ; it is my Will, that I, little Brother 
 Francis, make for you, my blessed Brothers, in order that we may ob- 
 serve in a more catholic way the Rule which we promised the Lord to 
 keep. 
 
 Let the ministers-general, all the other ministers and the custodes 
 be held by obedience to add nothing to and take nothing from these 
 words. Let them always keep this writing near them, beside the Rule ; 
 and in all the chapters which shall be held, when the Rule is read let 
 these words be read also. 
 
 I interdict absolutely, by obedience, all the Brothers, clerics and 
 layman, to introduce glosses in the Rule, or in this Will, under pretext 
 of explaining it. But since the Lord has given me to speak and to write 
 the Rule and these words in a clear and simple manner, without com- 
 mentary, understand them in the same way, and put them in practice 
 until the end. 
 
 And may whoever shall have observed these things be crowned in 
 heaven with the blessings of the heavenly Father, and on earth with 
 those of his well-beloved Son and of the Holy Spirit the consoler, with 
 the assistance of all the heavenly virtues and all the saints. 
 
 And I, little Brother Francis, your servitor, confirm to you so far as 
 I am able this most holy benediction. Amen. 
 
 After thinking of his Brothers Francis thought of his 
 dear Sisters at St. Damian and made a wUl for them. 
 It has not come down to us, and we need not wonder ; 
 
 ' T* is evident that heresy is not here in question. The Brothers who 
 (tore infected with it were to be delivered to the Church. 
 
340 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 the Spiritual Brothers might flee away, and protest from 
 the depths of their retreats, but the Sisters were com- 
 pletely unarmed against the machinations of the Com- 
 mon ObserTauce.^ 
 
 In the last words that he addressed to the Clarisses, 
 after calling upon them to persevere in poverty and union, 
 he gave them his benediction.^ Then he recommended 
 them to the Brothers, supplicating the latter never to for- 
 get that they were members of one and the same relig- 
 ious family.^ After having done all that he could for 
 those whom he was about to leave, he thought for a mo- 
 ment of himself. 
 
 He had become acquainted in Kome with a pious lady 
 named Giacomina di Settisoli. Though rich, she was 
 simple and good, entirely devoted to the new ideas ; even 
 the somewhat singular characteristics of Francis pleased 
 her. He had given her a lamb which had become her 
 inseparable companion.* 
 
 Unfortunately all that concerns her has suffered much 
 from later retouchings of the legend. The perfectly 
 natural conduct of the Saint with women has much em- 
 barrassed his biographers; hence heavy and distorted 
 commentaries tacked on to episodes of a delicious sim- 
 plicity. 
 
 Before dying Francis desired to see again this friend, 
 
 ' tTrban IV. published, October 18, 1263, Potthast (18680), a Rule for 
 the Clarisses which completely changed the character of this Order. 
 Its author was the cardinal protector Giovanni degli Ursini (the future 
 Nicholas III.), who by way of precaution forbade the Brothers Minor 
 under the severest penalties to dissuade the Sisters from accepting it. 
 " It differs as much from the first Rule," said TJbertini di Casali "as 
 black and white, the savory and the insipid." ArioT. vit. cruc. lib. v., 
 cop. vi. 
 
 ^ V. Test. B. OUtrot; Conform. , 185» 1 ; Spec, 117b. 
 
 = 3Cel.,8, 132. 
 
 * Bon., 112. 
 
FRANCIS'S WILL AND DEATH 341 
 
 whom he smilingly called Brother Giacomina. He caused 
 a letter to be written her to come to Portiuncula ; we 
 can imagine the dismay of the narrators at this far from 
 monastic invitation. 
 
 But the good lady had anticipated his appeal : at the 
 moment when the messenger with the letter was about to 
 leave for Rome, she arrived at Portiuncula and remained 
 there until the last sigh of the Saint.* For one moment 
 she thought of sending away her suite ; the invalid was 
 so cahn and joyful that she could not believe him dying, 
 but he himself advised her to keep her people with her. 
 This time he felt with no possible doubt that his captivity 
 was about to be ended. 
 
 He was ready, he had finished his work. 
 
 Did he think then of the day when, cursed by his 
 father, he had renounced aU earthly goods and cried to 
 God with an ineffable confidence, " Our Father who art 
 in heaven ! " We cannot say ; but he desired to finish 
 his life by a symbolic act which very closely recalls the 
 scene in the bishop's palace. 
 
 He caused himself to be stripped of his clothing and 
 laid upon the ground, for he wished to die in the arms 
 of his Lady Poverty. With one glance he embraced the 
 twenty years that had glided by since their imion : " I 
 
 ' The BoUandists deny this whole story, which they find in opposi- 
 tion to the prescriptions of Francis himself. A. SS. , p. 664 ffi. But it 
 is difficult to see for what object authors who take great pains to explain 
 it could have had for inventing at. Spec, 133a; IKor. iv. ; consid.; 
 Conform., 240a. I have borrowed the whole account from Bernard of 
 Besse : De Laud&us, f° 113b. It appears that Giacomina settled for the 
 Test of her life at Assist, that she might gain edification from the first 
 companions of Francis, fifpec., 107b. (What a lovely scene, and with 
 what a Franciscan fragrance !) The exact date of her death is not 
 known. She was buried in the lower church of the basilica of Assisi, 
 and on her tomb was engraved : Hie jacit Jaeoha sancta nobUisgue ro- 
 mana. Vide Pratini : Storia deUa basilica, p. 48. Cf. Jacobilli : Vite 
 del Santi e Beati deB,' Vmbria, Foligno, 3 vols., 4to, 1647 ; i., p. 314 
 
342 LIFE OF ST. FEANCIS 
 
 have done my duty," he said to the Brothers, " may the 
 Christ now teach you yours ! " ' 
 
 This was Thursday, October 1.^ 
 
 They laid him back upon his bed, and, conforming to 
 his wishes, they again sang to him the Canticle of the 
 Sun. 
 
 At times he added his Toice to those of his Brothers,' 
 and came back with preference to Psalm 142, Voce mea 
 ad Dominum clamavi.* 
 
 With my voice I cry unto the Lord, 
 
 With my voice I implore the Lord, 
 
 I pour out my complaint before him, 
 
 I tell him all my distress. 
 
 When my spirit is cast down within me. 
 
 Thou knowest my path. 
 
 Upon the way where I walk 
 
 They have laid a snare for me, 
 
 Cast thine eyes to the right and look I 
 
 No one recognizes me ; 
 
 All refuge is lost for me, 
 
 No one takes thought for my soul. 
 
 Lord, unto thee I cry ; , 
 
 I say : Thou art my refuge, 
 
 My portion in the land of the living. 
 
 Be attentive to my cries I 
 
 For I am very unhappy. 
 
 Deliver me from those who pursue me t 
 
 For they are stronger than L 
 
 Bring my soul out of its prison 
 
 That I may praise thy name. 
 
 The righteous shall compass me about 
 
 When thou hast done good unto me I 
 
 The visits of death are always solemn, but the end of 
 the just is the most moving sursum cor da that we can 
 
 ' 2 Cel., 3, 139 ; Bon., 209, 210 ; Conform., 171b, 2. 
 » 2 Cel. , 3, 139 : Cum me nderitis . . , mut me nudiiu terfiui 
 nudum vidistis. 
 
 » 1 Cel., 109 ; 2 Cel., 3, 139. 
 MCel., 109; Bon., 213. 
 
343 
 
 hear on earth. The hours flowed by and the Brothers 
 would not leave him. " Alas, good Father," said one of 
 them to him, unable longer to contain himself, " your 
 children are going to lose you, and be deprived of the 
 true light which lightened them : think of the orphans 
 you are leaving and forgive all their faults, give to them 
 aU, present and absent, the joy of your holy bene- 
 diction." 
 
 " See," replied the dying man, " God is calling me. I 
 forgive aU. my Brothers, present and absent, their offences 
 and faults, and absolve them according to my power. 
 Tell them so, and bless them all in my name." ' 
 
 Then crossing his arms he laid his hands upon those 
 who surrounded him. He did this with peculiar emo- 
 tion to Bernard of Quintavalle : " I desire," he said, 
 " and with all my power I urge whomsoever shall be min- 
 ister-general of the Order, to love and honor him as my- 
 self ; let the provincials and all the Brothers act toward 
 him as toward me.^ " 
 
 He thought not only of the absent Brothers but of the 
 future ones ; love so abounded in him that it wrung from 
 him a groan of regret for not seeing all those who shoidd 
 enter the Order down to the end of time, that he might 
 lay his hand upon their brows, and make them feel those 
 things that may only be spoken by the eyes of him who 
 loves in God.' 
 
 He had lost the notion of time ; believing that it was 
 still Thursday he desired to take a last meal with his 
 disciples. Some bread was brought, he broke it and gave 
 it to them, and there in the poor cabin of Portiimcula, 
 
 > 1 Cel., 109. Cf. Epiat. Mim. 
 
 ' Tribul. Laur. , 22b. Nothing better shows the historic value of the 
 chronicle of the Tribulations than to compare its story of these moment* 
 with that of the following documents : Conform., 48b, 1 ; 185a, 2 : 
 Fior.,6.;Spec., 86a. 
 
 ' 3 Cel., 3. 139 ; ^ec., 116b ; Oonform., 334b, 1. 
 
344 LIFE OP ST. FRANCIS 
 
 without altar and without a priest, was celebrated the 
 Lord's Supper.^ 
 
 A Brother read the Gospel for Holy Thursday, Ante 
 diem festum Faschce : " Before the feast of the PassoTer, 
 Jesus knowing that his hour was come to go from this 
 world to the Father, having loved his own who were in 
 the world he loved them unto the end." 
 
 The sun was gilding the crests of the mountains with 
 his last rays, there was silence around the dying one. 
 All was ready. The angel of death might come. 
 
 Saturday, October 3, 1226, at nightfall, without pain, 
 without struggle, he breathed the last sigh. 
 
 The Brothers were still gazing on his face, hoping yet 
 to catch some sign of life, when innumerable larks 
 alighted, singing, on the thatch of his cell,^ as if to salute 
 the soul which had just taken flight and give the Little 
 Poor Man the canonization of which he was most worthy, 
 the only one, doubtless, which he would ever have cov- 
 eted. 
 
 On the morrow, at dawn, the Assisans came down to 
 take possession of his body and give it a triumphant fu- 
 neral. 
 
 By a pious inspiration, instead of going straight to the 
 city they went around by St. Damian, and thus was rea- 
 lized the promise made by Francis to the Sisters a few 
 weeks before, to come once more to see them. 
 
 ' 2 Cel. , 3, 189. A simple comparison TDetween this story in the Spec- 
 ulum (116b) and that in the Conformities (234b, 1) is enough to show 
 how in certain of its parts the Speculum represents a state of the legend 
 anterior to 1385. 
 
 ' Bon. , 214. This cell has been transformed into a chapel and may 
 be found a few yards from the little church of Portiuncula. Church 
 and chapel are now sheltered under the great Basilica of Santa Maria 
 degli Angeli. See the picture and plan, A. SS., p. 814, or better still in 
 P. Barnabas aus dem EUass, Portiuncula oder GescMchte U., L. V, v. 
 den Engeln, Bizheim, 1884, 1 vol., 8to, pp. 311 and 3U. 
 
Francis's will and death 345 
 
 Their grief was heart-rending. 
 
 These women's hearts revolted against the absurdity 
 of death ; ^ but there were tears (Jn that day at St. Da- 
 mian only. The Brothers forgot their sadness on seeing 
 the stigmata, and the inhabitants of Assisi manifested an 
 indescribable joy on having their relic at last. They de- 
 posited it in the Church St. George.' 
 
 Less than two years after, Sunday, July 26, 1228, 
 Gregory IX. came to Assisi to preside in person over the 
 ceremonies of canonization, and to lay, on the morrow, 
 the first stone of the new church dedicated to the Stig- 
 matized. 
 
 Built under the inspiration of Gregory IX. and the 
 direction of Brother Elias, this marvellous basilica is also 
 one of the documents of this history, and perhaps I have 
 been wrong in neglecting it. 
 
 Go and look upon it, proud, rich, powerful, then go 
 down to Portiuncula, pass over to St. Damian, hasten to 
 the Carceri, and you wiU understand the abyss that sep- 
 arates the ideal of Francis from that of the pontiff who 
 canonized him. 
 
 ' 1 Cel., 116 and 117 ; Bon., 219 ; Conform. 185a, 1. 
 
 » To-day in the doture of the convent St. Clara. Vide Miscellanea 1, 
 pp. 44-48, a very interesting study by Prof. Carattoli upon the coffin of 
 St. Francis. 
 
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES 
 
 SUMMAEY 
 
 I. St. Francis's Woeks. 
 
 H. BlOGBAPHIBS PkOPBBLT So CAIiUBD. 
 
 1. Preliminary Note. 
 
 2. First Life by Thomas of Celano. 
 
 3. Eeview of the History of the Order 1230-1244. 
 
 4. Legend of the Three Companions. 
 
 5. Fragments of the Suppressed Portion of the Legend. 
 
 6. Second Life by Thomas of Celano. First Part. 
 
 7. Second Life by Thomas of Celano. Second Part 
 
 8. Documents of Secondary Importance : 
 
 Biography for Use of the Choir. 
 Life in Verse. 
 
 Biography by Giovanni di Ceperano. 
 Life by Brother Julian. 
 
 9. Legend of St. Bonaventura. 
 
 10. De Laudibus of Bernard of Besse. 
 
 £n. DiPIiOMATIC DOOUMENTS. 
 
 1. Donation of the Vema. 
 
 2. Begisters of Cardinal UgolinL 
 
 3. Balls. 
 
b4» LIFE OF ST. FBAN0I8 
 
 rV. Chboniolees of the Obdeb. 
 
 1. Chronicle of Brother Giordano di Giano. 
 
 2. Eccleston : Arrival of the Friars in England. 
 
 3. Chronicle of Fra Salimbeni. 
 4 Chronicle of the Tribulations. 
 
 5. The Fioretti and their Appendices. 
 
 6. Chronicle of the XXIV. Generals. 
 
 7. The Conformities of Bartolommeo di PisOi. 
 
 8. Glassberger's Chronicle. 
 
 9. Chronicle of Mark of Lisbon. 
 
 V. Chboniclebs not of the Obdeb. 
 
 1. Jacques de Vitiy. 
 
 2. Thomas of Spalato. 
 '% Divers Chronicleirs. 
 
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOUECES 
 
 Theee are few lives in history so abundantly provided 
 with documents as that of St. Francis. This will perhaps 
 surprise the reader, but to convince himself he has only 
 to run over the preceding Ust, which, however, has been 
 made as succinct as possible. 
 
 It is admitted in learned circles that the essential ele- 
 ments of this biography have disappeared or have been 
 entirely altered. The exaggeration of certain religious 
 writers, who accept everything, and among several ac- 
 counts of the same fact always choose the longest and 
 most marvellous, has led to a like exaggeration in the 
 contrary sense. 
 
 If it were necessary to point out the results of these 
 two excesses as they affect each event, this volume would 
 need to be twice and even four times as large as it is. 
 Those who are interested in these questions wiU find in 
 the notes brief indications of the original documents on 
 which each narrative is based.^ 
 
 To close the subject of the errors which are current in 
 the Franciscan documents, and to show in a few lines 
 their extreme importance, I shall take two examples. 
 Among our own contemporaries no one has so well 
 spoken on the subject of St. Francis as M. Eenan ; he 
 comes back to him with affecting piety, and he was in a 
 
 ' If any student finds himself embarrassed by the extreme rarity of 
 certain works cited, I shall make it my duty and pleasure to send them 
 to him, as well as a copy of the Italian manuscripts. 
 
3S0 LIFE OF ST. FiJANCIS 
 
 better condition than any one to know the sources of this 
 history. And yet he does not hesitate to say in his study 
 of the Canticle of the Sun, Francis's best known work : 
 " The authenticity of this piece appears certain, but we 
 must observe that we have not the Italian original. The 
 Italian text which we possess is a translation of a Port- 
 uguese version, which was itself translated from the 
 Spanish." ' 
 
 And yet the primitive Italian exists' not only in 
 numerous manuscripts in Italy and France, particularly 
 in the Mazarine Library,^ but also in the weU-known 
 book of the Conformities.* 
 
 An error, grave from quite another point of view, is 
 made by the same author when he denies the authenticity 
 of St. Francis's Will ; this piece is not only the noblest 
 expression of its author's religious feeling, it constitutes 
 also a sort of autobiography, and contains the solemn 
 and scarcely disguised revocation of all the concessions 
 which had been wrung from him. We have already 
 seen that its authenticity is not to be challenged.' This 
 double example will, I hope, suffice to show the necessity 
 of beginning this study by a conscientious examination 
 of the sources. 
 
 If the eminent historian to whom I have alluded were 
 
 ' B. Renan : Nouvellei etudes d'histoire religmtae, Paris, 1884, 8vo, p. 
 331. 
 
 ' See above, pp. 304 £E. 
 
 ' Mazarine Library, MS. 8531 : Speculum perfeeUonis S. Fra/neiaci; 
 the Canticle is found at fo. 51. Cf. MS., 1350 (date of 1459). That text 
 was published by Boehmer in the Bomanische Stvdien, Halle, 1871, pp. 
 118-132. Der Sonnengesang v. Pr. d'A. 
 
 ' Conform. (Milan, 1510), 202b, 2s. For that matter it is correct that 
 Diola, in the Croniche degli ordiniinatituU da S. i'Voracwco (Venice, 1606, 
 3 vols. 4to), translated after the Castilian version of the work composed 
 in Portuguese by Mark of Lisbon, was foolish enough to render into 
 Italian this translation of a translation. 
 
 ' See pages 333 S. 
 
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOUECES 351 
 
 still living, he would have for this page his large and 
 benevolent smile, that simple, Oui, oui, which once made 
 his pupils in the little hall of the College de France to 
 tremble with emotion. 
 
 I do not know what he would think of this book, but I 
 well know that he would love the spirit in which it was 
 undertaken, and would easily pardon me for having 
 chosen him for scape-goat of my wrath against the 
 learned men and biographers. 
 
 The documents to be examined have been divided into 
 five categories. 
 
 The first includes St. Francis's works. 
 
 The second, biographies properly so called. 
 
 The third, diplomatic documents. 
 
 The fourth, chronicles of the Order. 
 
 The fifth, chronicles of authors not of the Order. 
 
 ST. FRANCIS'S WORKS 
 
 The writings of St. Francis ^ are assuredly the best 
 source of acquaintance with him ; we can only be sur- 
 prised to find them so neglected by most of his biog- 
 raphers. It is true that they give little information as 
 to his life, and furnish neither dates nor facts,^ but they 
 
 ' Collected first by Wadding (Antwerp, 163R, 4to), they have been 
 published many times since then, particularly by Be la Haye (Paris, 
 1641, f°). These two editions having become scarce, were repub- 
 lished — in a very unsatisfactory manner — by the Abbe Horoy : S. Fran- 
 eisci Assisiaiis opera omnia (Paris, 1880, 4to). For want of a more 
 exact edition, that, of Father Bernardo da Fivizzano is the most useful : 
 OpvscoU di 8. Franeesm iV Assist, 1 vol., 12mo,pp. 564, Florence, 1880. 
 The Latin text is accompanied by an Italian translation. 
 
 ' "ZJj'e Brief e, die unter seinem Namen gehen, mogen theikueise Acht 
 lein. Aber tie tragen kmim etwas zur naheren Kenntniss bet und Mnnen 
 
352 LIFE OF ST. FKAWCI8 
 
 do better, they mark the stages of his thought and of his 
 spiritual development. The legends give us Francis as 
 he appeared, and by that very fact suffer in some degree 
 the compulsion of circumstances ; they are obliged to 
 bend to the exigencies of his position as general of an 
 Order approved by the Church, as miracle-worker, and as 
 saint. His works, on the contrary, show us his very 
 soul ; each phrase has not only been thought, but lived ; 
 they bring us the PovereUo's emotions, still alive and 
 palpitating. 
 
 So, when in the writings of the Franciscans we find any 
 utterance of their master, it unconsciously betrays itself, 
 sounding out suddenly in a sweet, pure tone which pen- 
 etrates to your very heart, awakening with a thrill a 
 sprite that was sleeping there. 
 
 This bloom of love enduing St. Francis's words would 
 be an admirable criterion of the authenticity of those opus- 
 cules which tradition attributes to him ; but the work of 
 testing is neither long nor difficult. If after his time inju- 
 dicious attempts were here and there made to honor him 
 with miracles which he did not perform, which he would 
 not even have wished to perform, no attempt was ever 
 made to burden his literary efforts with false or-supposi- 
 titious pieces.^ The best proof of this is that it is not 
 until Wadding — that is to say, until the seventeenth cen- 
 tury — that we find the first and only serious attempt to 
 collect these precious memorials. Several of them have 
 
 dahefr fast gam. ausser Aoht bleiben." Miiller, Die Anfdnge des Minori- 
 tenordens, Freiburg, 1 vol., 8vo, 1885, p. 3. 
 
 ' Pieces have been often attributed to St. Francis which do not be- 
 long to him ; but those are unintentional errors and made without pur- 
 pose. The desire for literary exactness is relatively of recent date, and 
 it was easier for those who were ignorant of the author of certain Fran- 
 ciscan writings to attribute them to St. Francis than to admit their ig- 
 norance or to make deep researches. 
 
OEITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES 353 
 
 been lost,* but those whicb remain are enough to give us 
 in some sort the refutation of the legends. 
 
 In these pages Francis gives himself to his readers, 
 as long ago he gave himself to his companions ; in each 
 one of them a feeling, a cry of the heart, or an aspira- 
 tion toward the Invisible is prolonged down to our own 
 time. 
 
 Wadding thought it his duty to give a place in his 
 collection to several suspicious pieces; more than this, 
 instead of following the oldest manuscripts that he had 
 before him, he often permitted himself to be led astray 
 by sixteenth-century writers whose smallest concern was 
 to be critical and accurate. To avoid the tedious and 
 entirely negative task to which it would be necessary to 
 proceed if I took him for my starting-point I shall con- 
 fine myseK to a positive study of this question. 
 
 All the pieces which wUl be enumerated are found in 
 his collection. They are sometimes cut up in a singular 
 way ; but in proportion as each document is studied we 
 
 ' For example, the first Rule ; probably also a few canticles ; a letter 
 to the Brothers in France, Eccl., 6; another to the Brothers in Bo- 
 logna : " Prmdixerat per Utteram in qua fuit plwimum laiinum" Eccl., 
 ib. ; a letter to Antony of Padua, other than the one we have, since on 
 the witness of Celano it was addressed : Pratri Antonio episcopo meo (3 
 Cel., 3, 99) ; certain letters to St. Clara : " Scripsit Clarm et sororibus ad 
 consolationem littera/m in qud dabat benedictionem suam et absohebat," 
 etc. Conform., f°. 185a, 1 ; cf. Test. B. Olarce. A. SS., Augustl, t. ii., p. 
 767 : " Plura scrip ta tradidit nobis, nepost mortem suam dedinaremus a 
 pa/upertate ; " certain letters to Cardinal Ugolini, 3 Soo. , 67. 
 
 It is not to negligence alone that we must attribute the loss of many 
 of the epistles : " Quod nepMs est cogita/re, in promnda Mardde et in 
 pluribus atiis locis testamentum beati Franeisci mandaverunt (prelaii or- 
 dinis) districte per dbedientiam ab omnibus auferi et combv/ri. Et uni 
 fratri dmoto et saneto, cujus nomen est N. de Rocanato eombuxerunt die- 
 wm testamentum super caput suum. Et toto conatu fuerunt sollieiti, an- 
 nulare scripta beati patris nostri Franeisci, in quibu^s sua intentio de 6b- 
 aenantia regule deda/ratur." Ubertino di Casali, apud ArcMv., iji., pp, 
 16&-169. 
 
 33 
 
354 LIFE OP ST. FEANCIS 
 
 shall find sufficient indications to enable us to make the 
 necessary rectifications. 
 
 The archives of Sacro Convento of Assisi ' possess a 
 manuscript whose importance is not to be overestimated. 
 It has ah'eady been many times studied,^ and bears the 
 number 338. 
 
 It appears, however, that a very important detail of 
 form has been overlooked. It is this : that No. 338 is 
 not one manuscript, but a collection of manuscripts of very 
 different periods, which were put together because they 
 were of very nearly the same size, and have been foliated 
 in a peculiar manner. 
 
 This artificial character of the collection shows that 
 each of the pieces which compose it needs to be exam- 
 ined by itself, and that it is impossible to say of it as a 
 whole that it is of the thirteenth or the fourteenth cen- 
 tury. 
 
 The part that interests us is perfectly homogeneous, 
 is formed of three parchment books (fol. 12a^4b) and 
 contains a part of Francis's works. 
 
 1. The Eule, definitively approved by Honorius III., 
 November 20, 1223 ' (fol. 12a-16a). 
 
 2. St. Francis's Will* (fol. 16a-18a). 
 
 3. The Admonitions ^ (fol. 18a^23b). 
 
 4 The Letter to all Christians » (fol. 23b-28a). 
 
 ' Italy is too obliging to artists, archseologists, and scholars not to do 
 them the favor of disposing in a more practical manner this trust, the 
 most precious of all Umbria. Even with the Indefatigable kindness 
 of the curator, M. Alessandro, and of the municipality of Assisi, it is 
 very difB.oult to profit by these treasures heaped up in a dark room 
 without a table to write upon. 
 
 ' In particular by Ehrle : Die historischen Sandschrifien von S. 
 Franeesao in Assisi. Arehiv., t. i., p. 484. 
 
 ii See pages 253 ff . . . and 283. 
 
 * See pages 333 ffi. 
 
 'See pages 359 fE 
 
 •Sae page 325 S. 
 
CEITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES 355 
 
 5. The letter to all the members of the Order assem- 
 bled in Chapter-general ' (fol. 28a-31a). 
 
 6. Coimsel to all clerics on the respect to be paid to 
 the Eucharist ^ (fol., 31b-32b). 
 
 7. A very short piece preceded by the rubric : " Of the 
 virtues which adorn the Virgin Mary and which ought to 
 adorn the holy soul " ^ (fol. 32b). 
 
 8. The Laudes Oreaturarum, or Canticle of the Sun ^ 
 (fol. 33a). 
 
 9. A paraphrase of the Pater introduced by the 
 rubric: Indpiunt laudes quas ordinavit. B. pater noster 
 Franciscus et dicebat ipsas ad omnes horas diei et noctis et 
 anteofficiumB. V. Marios sic incipiens: Sanctissime Pater ^ 
 (fol. 34a). 
 
 10. The office of the Passion (34b-43a). This office, 
 where the psalms are replaced by several series of bibli- 
 cal verses, are designed to make him who repeats them 
 foUow, hour by hour, the emotions of the Crucified One 
 from the evening of Holy Thursday.* 
 
 11. A rule for friars in retreat in hermitages ' (fol. 43ar- 
 43b). 
 
 ' See pages 332 ff. 
 
 ' See page 327. 
 
 'I give it entire: " Begma sapientia, Dominus ie mlvet, cum iua 
 iorore sancta pura simplieitaU. — Domina sonata paupertas, Dominus te 
 tdket, cum tua sorore sancta humilUate. — Domina sancta caritas, Domi* 
 nus te salvet, cum, tua sorrore sancta obedientia. Sanctissimce mrtutes 
 omnes, vos salvet Dominus, a quo venitis el proceditis." Its authenticity is 
 guaranteed by a citation by Celano : 2 Cel., 3, 119. Of. 126b and 127a 
 
 * See pages 304 f . 
 
 ' I shall not recur to this : the text is in the Conformities 138a 3. 
 
 ' The authenticity of this service, to which there is not a single allu- 
 sion in the biographies of St. Francis, is rendered certain by the life of 
 St. Clara : " Offlcium orucis, prout crucis (vmator Pranciscus instiiuerat 
 (Gla/ra) didicit et affectu simili frequentavii. A. SS., August!, t. ii., p. 
 761a. 
 
 ' It begins : lUi qui volunt sta/re in heremis. This text is also found 
 in the Conformities, 148a, 1. Cf. 3 Cel., 3, 43 ; see p. 97. 
 
356 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 A glance over this list is enough to show that the 
 works of Francis here collected are addressed to all 
 the Brothers, or are a sort of encyclicals, which they are 
 charged to pass on to those for whom they are destined. 
 
 The Tery order of these pieces shows us that we have 
 in this manuscript the primitive library of the Brothers 
 Minor, the collection of which each minister was to carry 
 with him a copy. It was truly their viaticum. 
 
 Matthew Paris tells us of his amazement at the sight 
 of these foreign monks, clothed in patched tunics, and 
 carrying their books in a sort of case suspended from 
 their necks.* 
 
 The Assisi manuscript was without doubt destined to 
 this service ; if it is silent on the subject of the journeys 
 it has made, and of the Brothers to whom it has been a 
 guide and an inspiration, it at least brings us, more than 
 all the legends, into intimacy with Francis, makes us 
 thrill in unison with that heart which never admitted a 
 separation between joy, love, and poetry. As to the date 
 of this manuscript, one must needs be a paleographer to 
 determine. We have already found a hypothesis which, 
 if well grounded, would carry it back to the neighborhood 
 of 1240.^ 
 
 Its contents seem to countenance this early date. In 
 fact, it contains several pieces of which the Manual of the 
 Brother Minor very early rid itself. 
 
 Very soon they were content to have only the Rule to 
 keep company with the breviary ; sometimes they added 
 the Will. But the other writings, if they did not fall en- 
 tirely into neglect, ceased at least to be of daily usage. 
 
 ' Nudis pedibiis incedentes. funicvMs cincti, tvnicis griseis et talaribvi 
 peciatis , insuto capueio utentes . . . nihil sibi vltra noctem resenan- 
 tes . . . libros continue suns . . . inforvMs a coUo dependentei 
 bagvlantes. Historla Anglorum, Pertz : Script., t. 28, p. 397. Cf. 3 
 Cel., 3, 135; Myr., 5; Spec, 45b. 
 
 ' See page 822 n. 
 
OKITIOAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES 357 
 
 Those of St. Francis's writings which are not of general 
 interest or do not concern the Brothers naturally find no 
 place in this collection. In this new category we must 
 range the following documents : 
 
 1. The Eule of 1221.» 
 
 2. The Kule of the Clarisses, which we no longer pos- 
 sess in its original form.^ 
 
 3. A sort of special instruction for ministers-general,^ 
 
 4. A letter to St. Clara.^ 
 
 5. Another letter to the same.' 
 
 6. A letter to Brother Leo.* 
 
 7. A few prayers.' 
 
 8. The benediction of Brother Leo. The original auto- 
 graph, which is preserved in the treasury of Sacro Oon- 
 ■vento, has been very well reproduced by heliograph.* 
 
 ' See page 253. " See page 157. * See pages 318 H. 
 
 ' See page 239. ' See page 327. « See page 263. 
 
 ' a. Sanctua Dominua Deus noster. Cf . E^ec. , 126a ; liwmamentum, 
 18b, 3 ; Conform. , 202b, 1. 
 
 b. AmBomma sancta. Cf. Spec., 127a; Conform., 138a, 3. 
 
 c. Sancta Maria virgo. Cf. Spec, 126b ; Conform., 302b, 3. 
 
 « Vide S. Francois, in 4to, Paris, 1885 (Plon), p. 233. The authenticity 
 of this benediction appears to be well established, since it was already 
 jealously guarded during the life of Thomas of Celano. No one has ever 
 dreamed of requiring historical proof of this writing. Is this perhaps 
 a mistake ? The middle of the sheet is taken up with the benediction 
 which was dictated to Brother Leo : Benedioat tM Bominiis el custodiat 
 te, ostendaifaemn suam tibi et misereatur tui convertat mdtum swum ad 
 te et det tibi pOfCem. At the bottom, Francis added the letter tau, T, 
 which was, so to speak, his signature (Bon., 51 ; 308), and the words ! 
 Vrater Leo Domirms benedicat te. 
 
 Then when this memorial became a part of the relics of the Saint, 
 Brother Leo, to authenticate it in a measure, added the following notes: 
 toward the middle : Beatua Franciscus scripsii manu sua istam bene- 
 dicUonem mihi fratri Leoni; toward the close : Simili modo fecit istud 
 signum thau cum, capiie manu sua. But the most valuable annotation is 
 found at the top of the sheet : Beatus Franciscus duobus annis ante 
 mortem suam, fecit guadragesimdm in loco Ahernce ad lionorem Beatm 
 Virginia Ma/ria matris Dei et beati Michael wrchangeli a festo astump- 
 
'^58 LIFE OF ST. FKANOIS 
 
 As to the two famous hymns Amor de caritade^ and In 
 foco V amor mi mise,^ they cannot be attributed to St. 
 Francis, at least in their present form. 
 
 It belongs to M. Monaci and his numerous and learned 
 emulators to throw light upon these delicate questions 
 by publishing in a scientific manner the earliest monu- 
 ments of Italian poetry. 
 
 I haTe already spoken of several tracts of which assured 
 traces have been found, though they themselves are lost. 
 They are much more numerous than would at first be sup- 
 posed. In the missionary zeal of the early years the 
 Brothers would not concern themselves with collecting 
 documents. "We do not write our memoirs in the fulness 
 of our youth. 
 
 We must also remember that Portiuncula had neither 
 archives nor library. It was a chapel ten paces long, 
 with a few huts gathered around it. The Order was ten 
 years old before it had seen any other than a single 
 book: a New Testament. The Brothers did not even 
 keep this one. Francis, having nothing else, gave it to 
 a poor woman who asked for alms, and when Pietro di 
 Catania, his vicar, expressed his surprise at this prodigal- 
 ity : " Has she not given her two sons to the Order ? " re- 
 plied the master ^ quickly. 
 
 tionis sanctm Ma/rice Virginia itsgue adfestum sancti Michael septembria 
 et facta est super eum manus Domini per visionem et allucotionem sera- 
 phym et impressionem stigmatum in ayrpore suo. Fedt has laudes ex alio 
 latere eatule scripias et manu, sua scripsii gratias agens Domino de bene- 
 ficio sibi collato. Vide 2 Cel., 8, 18. 
 
 ' Wadding gives the text according to St. Bernardino da Siena. Opera, 
 t. iv., sermo 16, extraord. et sermoferim sextm Parasceves. Amoni: Le- 
 genda triwm sociorum, p. 166. 
 
 * Wadding has drawn the text from St. Bernardino, loo. eit, sermo iv., 
 extraord. It was also reproduced hy Amoni, loc. cit. , p. 165. Two very 
 curious versions may be found in the Miscellanea, 1888, pp. 96 and 190. 
 
 ' 2 Cel., 3, 35. This took place under the vioariat of Pietro di Ca- 
 tania ; consequently between September 29, 1320, and March 10, 1221. 
 
CRITICAL STUDY OP THE SOURCES 359 
 
 n 
 
 BIOGRAPHIES PROPERLY SO CALLED 
 I. Prbliminaby Note 
 
 To form a somewhat exact notion of tlie documents 
 which are to occupy us, we must put them back into the 
 midst of the circumstances in which they appeared, 
 study them in detail, and determine the special value of 
 each one. 
 
 Here, more than anywhere else, we must beware of 
 facile theories and hasty generalizations. The same life 
 described by two equally truthful contemporaries may 
 take on a very different coloring. This is especially the 
 case if the man concerned has aroused enthusiasm and 
 wrath, if his inmost thought, his works, have been the 
 subject of discussion, if the very men who were commis- 
 sioned to realize his ideals and carry on his work are 
 divided, and at odds with one another. 
 
 This was the case with St. Francis. In his lifetime 
 and before his own eyes divergences manifested them- 
 selves, at first secretly, then in the light of day. 
 
 In a rapture of love he went from cottage to cottage, 
 from castle to castle, preaching absolute poverty ; but 
 that buoyant enthusiasm, that unbounded idealism, could 
 not last long. The Order of the Brothers Minor in 
 process of growth was open not only to a few choice 
 spirits aflame with mystic fervor, but to all men who 
 aspired after a religious reformation ; pious laymen, 
 monks undeceived as to the virtues of the ancient Orders, 
 priests shocked at the vices of the secular clergy, all 
 brought with them — unintentionally no doubt and even 
 unconsciously — too much of their old man not by degrees 
 to transform the Institution. 
 
360 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 Francis perceived the peril several years before his 
 death, and made every effort to avert it. Even in his 
 dying hour we see him summoning all his powers to 
 declare his Will once again, and as clearly as possible, 
 and to conjure his Brothers never to touch the Eule, 
 even under pretext of commenting upon or explaining it, 
 Alas ! four years had not rolled away when Gregory IX., 
 at the prayer of the Brothers themselves, became the 
 first one of a long series of pontiffs who have explained 
 the Eule.i 
 
 Poverty, as Francis understood it, soon became only a 
 memory. The unexampled success of the Order brought 
 to it not merely new recruits, but money. How refuse it 
 when there were so many works to found? Many of 
 the friars discovered that their master had exaggerated 
 many things, that shades of meaning were to be observed 
 in the Eule, for example, between counsels and precepts. 
 The door once opened to interpretations, it became 
 impossible to close it. The Franciscan family began 
 to be divided into opposing parties often difficult to 
 distinguish. 
 
 At first there were a few restless, undisciplined men 
 who grouped themselves around the older friars. The 
 latter, in their character of first companions of the Saint, 
 found a moral authority often greater than the official 
 authority of the ministers and guardians. The people 
 turned to them by instinct as to the true continuers of 
 St. Francis's work. They were not far from right. 
 
 They had the vigor, the vehemence of absolute convic- 
 tions ; they could not have temporized had they desired 
 to do so. When they emerged from their hermitages 
 in the Apennines, their eyes shining with the fever of 
 their ideas, absorbed in contemplation, their whole being 
 spoke of the radiant visions they enjoyed ; and the 
 ' Bull quo elongati of September 28, 1230. See p. 336. 
 
CEITICAL STUDY OF THE SOTJROES 361 
 
 amazed and subdued multitude would kneel to kiss the 
 prints of their feet with hearts mysteriously stirred. 
 
 A larger group was that of those Brothers who con- 
 demned these methods without being any the less saints. 
 Bom far away from XJmbria, in countries where nature 
 seems to be a step-mother, where adoration, far from be- 
 ing the instinctive act of a happy soul soaring upward 
 to bless the heavenly Father, is, on the contrary, the de- 
 spairing cry of an atom lost in immensity, they desired 
 above all things a religious reformation, rational and 
 profound. They dreamed of bringing the Church back 
 to the purity of the ancient days, and saw in the vow of 
 poverty, understood in its largest sense, the best means 
 of struggling against the vices of the clergy ; but they 
 forgot the freshness, the Italian gayety, the sunny poetry 
 that there had been in Francis's mission. 
 
 FuU of admiration for him, they yet desired to enlarge 
 the foundations of his work, and for that they would 
 neglect no means of influence, certainly not learning. 
 
 This tendency was the dominant one in France, Ger- 
 many, and England. In Italy it was represented by a 
 very powerful party, powerful if not in the number, at 
 least in the authority, of its representatives. This was 
 the party favored by the papacy. It was the party of 
 Brother Blias and all the ministers-general of the Order 
 in the thirteenth century, if we except Giovanni di Parma 
 (1247-1257) and Eaimondo Gaufridi (1289-1295). 
 
 In Italy a third group, the liberals, was much more 
 numerous ; men of mediocrity to whom monastic life 
 appeared the most facile existence, vagrant monks happy 
 to secure an aftermath of success by displaying the new 
 Rule, formed in this country the greater part of the 
 Franciscan family. 
 
 We can understand without difficulty that documents 
 emanating from such different quarters must bear the 
 
363 LIFE OP ST, FRANCIS 
 
 impress of their origin. The men who are to bring us 
 their testimony are combatants in the struggle over the 
 question of poverty, a struggle which for two centuries 
 agitated the Church, aroused all consciences, and which 
 had its monsters and its martyrs. 
 
 To determine the value of these witnesses we must first 
 of all discover their origin. It is evident that the narra- 
 tives of the no-compromise party of the right or the left 
 can have but slender value where controverted points are 
 concerned ; whence the conclusion that the authority of a 
 narrator may vary from page to page, or even from line 
 to line. 
 
 These considerations, so simple that one almost needs 
 to beg pardon for uttering them, have not, however, 
 guided those who have studied St. Francis's life. The 
 most learned, like Wadding and Papini, have brought 
 together the narratives of different biographers, here and 
 there pruning those that are too contradictory ; but they 
 have done this at random, with neither rule nor method, 
 guided by the impression of the moment. 
 
 The long work of the BoUandist Suysken is vitiated by 
 an analogous fault ; fixed in his principle that the oldest 
 documents are always the best.^ he takes his stand upon 
 the first Life of Thomas of Celano as upon an impreg- 
 nable rock, and judges all other legends by that one.' 
 
 When we connect the documents with the disturbed 
 circumstances which brought them into being, some of 
 them lose a little of their authority, others which have 
 been neglected, as being in contradiction with witnesses 
 who have become so to say official, suddenly recover 
 
 ' It is needless to say that I have no desire to put myself in opposition 
 to that principle, one of the most fruitful of criticism, hut still it should 
 not be employed alone. 
 
 " The learned works that have appeared in Germany in late years 
 err in the same way. They will be found cited in the body of the work. 
 
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOTJKOES 363 
 
 credit, and in fact all gain a new life which doubles their 
 interest. 
 
 This altered point of view in the valuation of the 
 sources, this criticism which I am inclined to call recip- 
 rocal and organic, brings about profoimd alterations in 
 the biography of St. Francis. By a phenomenon which 
 may appear strange we end by sketching a portrait of him 
 much more like that which exists in the popular imagina- 
 tion of Italy than that made by the learned historians 
 above mentioned. 
 
 When Francis died (1226) the parties which divided 
 the Order had already entered iuto conflict. That event 
 .precipitated the crisis : Brother Elias had been for five 
 years exercising the functions of minister-general with 
 the title of vicar. He displayed an amaziag activity. In- 
 trenched in the confidence of Gregory IX. he removed 
 the Zelcmti from their charges, strengthened the discipline 
 even in the most remote provinces, obtained numerous 
 privileges from the curia, and with incredible rapidity 
 prepared for the buUdiag of the double basilica, destined 
 for the repose of the ashes of the Stigmatized Saint ; but 
 notwithstanding all his eiforts, the chapter of 1227 set 
 him aside and chose Giovanni Parenti as minister-gen- 
 eral. 
 
 Furious at this check, he immediately set all influences 
 to work to be chosen at the following chapter. It even 
 seems as if he paid no attention to the nomination of 
 Giovanni Parenti, and continued to go on as if he had 
 been minister.' 
 
 Very popular among the Assisans, who were dazzled 
 by the magnificence of the monument which was springing 
 up on the Hill of Hell, now become the Hill of Paradise, 
 
 ' Ecol., 13. Voluerunt ipsi, quos ad capitvlami coneesaerat venire f ra- 
 ter Hdias; nam omnes concessit, etc. An. fr., t. »., p. 241. Cf. Man. 
 Germ. Met. Script., t., 38, p. 564. 
 
364 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 sure of being supported by a considerable party in the 
 Order and by the pope, he pushed forward the work on 
 the basilica with a decision and success perhaps unique 
 in the annals of architecture.' 
 
 All this could not be done without arousing the indig- 
 nation of the Zealots of poTerty. When they saw a mon- 
 umental poor-box, designed to receive the alms of the 
 faithful, upon the tomb of him who had forbidden his 
 disciples the mere contact of money, it seemed to them 
 that Francis's prophecy of the apostasy of a part of the 
 Order was about to be fulfilled. A tempest of revolt 
 swept over the hermitages of Umbria. Must they not, by 
 any means, prevent this abomination in the holy place ? 
 
 They knew that Elias was terrible in his severities, but 
 his opponents felt in themselves courage to go to the last 
 extremity, and suffer everything to defend their convic- 
 tions. One day the poor-box was found shattered by 
 Brother Leo and his friends.^ 
 
 To this degree of intensity the struggle had arrived. 
 At this crisis the first legend appeared. 
 
 ' The death of Francis occurred on October 3, 1326. On March 29, 
 1228, Elias acquired the site for the basilica. The Instrumentum do- 
 nattonis is still preserved at Assisi : Piece No. 1 of the twelfth pack- 
 age of Instrumenta diversa pertineniia ad Sacrum Conventum. It has 
 been published by Thode : Franz von Assm, p. 359. 
 
 On July 17th of the same year, the day after the canonization, Greg- 
 ory IX. solemnly laid the first stone. Less than two years afterward 
 the Lower church was finished, and on May 25, 1230, the body of the 
 Saint was carried there. In 1236 the Upper church was finished. It 
 was already decorated with a first series of frescos, and Giunta Pisano 
 painted Elias, life size, kneeling at the foot of the crucifix over the en- 
 trance to the choir. In 1389 everything was finished, and the campa- 
 nile received the famous bells whose chimes still delight all the valley 
 of Umbria. Thus, then, three months and a half before the canoniza- 
 tion, Elias received the site of the basilica. The act of canonization 
 commenced at the end of May, 1338 (1 Gel., 123 and 124. Of. Potthagt, 
 8194fE). 
 
 " Spec., 167a. Of. An. Jr., ii., p. 45 and note. 
 
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES 365 
 
 II. FiRBT LiPB BY Thomas of Celano ' 
 
 Thomas of Celano, in writing this legend, to which he , 
 was later to return for its completion, obeyed an express 
 order of Pope Gregory IX." 
 
 Why did he not apply to one of the Brothers of the 
 Saint's immediate circle? The talent of this author 
 
 ■The BoUandists followed the text (A. SS., Octobris, t. il., pp. 683-723) 
 of a manuscript of the Cistercian abbey of Longpont in the diocese of 
 Soissons. It has since been published in Rome in 1806, withont the 
 name of the editor (in reality by the Convent Father Rinaldi), under the 
 title : Seraphici vvn 8. Franciaei Assimatia mtm dual auetore B. Thoma 
 de CeUtru), according to a manuscript (of Fallerone, in the March of 
 Anoona) which was stolen in the vicinity of Terni by brigands from the 
 Brother chai'ged with bringing it back. The second text was repro- 
 duced at Rome in 1880 by Canon Amoni : Vitapi-ima 8. Franeiaci, aue- 
 tore B. Thoma de Celano. Boma, Upografla delta pace, 1880, in 8vo, 42 pp. 
 The citations will follow the diyisions made by the BoUandists, but in 
 many important passages the Rinaldi-Amoni text gives better readings 
 than that of the BoUandists. The latter has been here and there re- 
 touched and filled out. See, for example, 1 Cel., 24 and 31. As for 
 the manuscripts, Father Denifle thinks that the oldest of those which 
 are known is that at Barcelona : Archivo de la corona de Aragon, 
 RipoU, n. 41 {ArcMn., t. i., p. 148). There is one in the National Li- 
 brary of Paris, Latin alcove, TSo. 3817, which includes a curious note : 
 " Apud Perusiiim felix domnua pwpa Qregorius nanus gUni/m eecundo 
 pontijieus sui anno, quinto kal. martii (February 25, 1229) legendam, hane 
 recepit, conflrmamt et cenauit fore tenendam." Another manuscript, 
 which merits attention, both because of its age, thirteenth century, and 
 because of the correction in the text, and which appears to have escaped 
 the researches of the students of the Franciscans, is the one owned by 
 the Sloole de Medicine at Montpellier, No. 30, in vellum folio : Passion' 
 ale 'setus ecclesia 8. Benigni dwionenaia. The story of Celano oceupieg 
 in It the fos. 257a-371b. The text ends abruptly in the middle of 
 paragraph 112 with aupiriis oatendebant. Except for this final break it 
 is complete. Cf. Archives Pertz, t. vii., pp. 195 and 196. Vide General 
 catalogue of the manuscripts of the public libraries of the departments, 
 t. i., p. 295. 
 
 ' Vide 1 Cel., Prol. Jubente domino et glorioso Papa Oregorio. Celana 
 wrote it after the canonization (July 16, 1228) and before February 36, 
 1229, for the date indicated above raises no difficulty. 
 
366 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 might explain this choice, but besides the fact that liter- 
 ary considerations would in this case hold a secondary 
 place, Brother Leo and several others proved later that 
 they also knew how to handle the pen. 
 
 If Celano was put in trust with the official biography, 
 it is because, being equally in sympathy with Gregory 
 IX. and Brother Elias, his absence had kept him out of 
 the conflicts which had marked the last years of Fran- 
 cis's life. Of an irenic temper, he belonged to the cate- 
 gory of those souls who easily persuade themselves that 
 obedience is the first of virtues, that every superior is 
 a saint ; and if unluckily he is not, that we should none 
 the less act as though he were. 
 
 We have some knowledge of his life. A native of Cela- 
 ao in the Abruzzi, he discreetly observes that his family 
 was noble, even addiag, with a touch of artless simplicity, 
 ihat the master had a peculiar regard for noble and edu- 
 cated Brothers. He entered the Order about 1215,i on 
 the return of Francis from Spain. 
 
 At the chapter of 1221 Caesar of Speyer, charged with 
 the mission to Germany, took him among those who 
 were to accompany him.^ In 1223 he was named cus- 
 tode of Mayenoe, Worms, Cologne, and Speyer. In 
 April of the same year, when Caesar returned to Italy, 
 devoured with the longing to see St. Francis again, he 
 commissioned Celano to execute his functions until the 
 arrival of the new provincial.* 
 
 We have no information as to where he was after the 
 chapter-general held at Speyer September 8, 1223. H9 
 
 ' 1 Cel. , 56. Perhaps he was the sou of that Thomas, Count of Celano 
 to whom Rycoardi di S. Germane so often made allusion in his chroni 
 ole : 1219-1323. See also two letters of Frederick II. to Honorius III., 
 on April 24 and 25, 1233, published in Winekeltaann : Acta imperU 
 inedita, t. i., p. 232. 
 
 «Giord.,19. 
 
 'Giord., 30 and 31. 
 
CRITICAL STUDY OP THE SOURCES 867 
 
 must have been in Assisi in 1228, for his account of the 
 canonization is that of an eye-witness. He was there 
 again in 1230, and doubtless clothed with an important 
 office, since he could commit to Brother Giordano the 
 relics of St. Francis.* 
 
 Written in a pleasing style, very often poetic, his work 
 breathes an affecting admiration for his hero ; his testi- 
 mony at once makes itself felt as sincere and true : when 
 he is partial it is without intention and even without his 
 knowledge. The weak point in this biography is the 
 picture which it outlines of the relations between Brother 
 Elias and the founder of the Order : from the chapters 
 devoted to the last two years we receive a very clear 
 impression that Elias was named by Francis to succeed 
 him.^ 
 
 Kow' if we reflect that at the time when Celano wrote, 
 f Giovanni Parent! was minister-general, we at once per- 
 ceive the bearing of these indications.^ Every opportu- 
 nity is seized to give a preponderating importance to 
 Elias.^ It is a true manifesto in his favor. 
 ~Have we reason to blame Celano? I think not. We 
 
 ' Giord. , 59. Cf. Glassberger, ann. 1330. The question whether he 
 is the author of the Dies vrm would be out of place here. 
 
 ' This is so true that the majority of historians have been brought to 
 believe in two generalates of Elias, one in 1227-1230, the other in 1236- 
 1289. The letter Non ex odio of Frederick II. (1289) gives the same 
 idea : Bevera papa iste quemdam, r^giosum. et timoratum fratrem Hel- 
 yam, ministrum ordmis fratrum minorum db ipBo beato Vranmco patre 
 ordinis migrationis sucb tempore consiiiuium . . . m odium nostrum 
 . . . deposuit. Huillard-BrehoUes : Bist. d^l. Fred. II., t. v., p. 
 346. 
 
 ' He is named only once, 1 Cel., 48. 
 
 *1 Cel., 95, 98, 105, 109. The account of the Benediction is espe- 
 daily significant. Super guem inguit (Fraveiscus) tenes dexterammemn f 
 Super fratrem Helfimn, inguiunt. Et ego sic volo, sit. . . . 1 Cel., 
 108. Those last words obviously disclose the intention. Cf. 3 Cel., 
 3, 139. 
 
368 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 must simply remember that his work might with justice 
 be called the legend of Gregory IX. Elias was the pope's 
 man, and the biography is worked up from the informa- 
 tion he gave. He could not avoid dwelling with pecul- 
 iar satisfaction upon his intimacy with Francis. 
 
 On the other hand, we cannot expect to find here such 
 details as might have sustained the pretension of the ad- 
 versaries of Elias, those unruly Zealots who were already 
 proudly adorning themselves with the title of Companions 
 of the Saint and endeavoring to constitute a sort of spirit- 
 ual aristocracy in the Order. Among them were four 
 who during the last two years had not, so to say, quitted 
 Francis. We can imagine how difficult it was not to 
 speak of them. Celano carefully omits to mention their 
 names imder pretext of sparing their modesty ; ' but by 
 the praises lavished upon Gregory IX., Brother Elias,' 
 St. Clara,' and even upon very secondary persons, he 
 shows that his discretion is far from being always so 
 alert. 
 
 All this is very serious, but we must not exaggerate it. 
 There is an evident partiality, but it would be unjust to 
 go farther and believe, as men did later, that the last part 
 of Francis's life was an active struggle against the very 
 person of Elias. A struggle there surely was, but it was 
 against tendencies whose spring Francis did not perceive. 
 He carried with him to his tomb his delusion as to his 
 Go-laborer. 
 
 For that matter this defect is after all secondary so far 
 as the physiognomy of Francis himself is concerned. In 
 CelanO's Life, as in the Three Companions or the Fioretti, 
 
 ' 1 Cel., 102 ; of. 91 and 109. Brother Leo is not even named in the 
 whole work. Nor Angelo, Illuminato, Masseo either ! 
 
 n Cel., Prol., 73-75 ; 99-101 ; 121-126. Next to St. Tranois, Greg- 
 ory IX. and Brother Elias (1 Cel., 69 ; 95 ; 98; 105 ; 108 ; 109) are in the 
 foreground. 
 
 »1 Cel., 18 and 19 ; 116 and 117. 
 
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES 369 
 
 he appears with a smile for all joys, and floods of tears 
 for all woes ; we feel everywhere the restrained emotion 
 of the writer ; his heart is subjected by the moral beauty 
 of his hero. 
 
 III. feuRTEY OF THE HiBTOBT OF THE ORDER FROM 1230-1244 
 
 "When Thomas of Oelano closed his legend he perceived 
 more than anyone the deficiencies of his work, for which 
 he had been able to collect but insufficient material. 
 
 Elias and the other Assisan brothers had told him of 
 Francis's youth and his activity in Umbria; but be- 
 sides that he would have preferred, whether from pru- 
 dence or from love of peace, to keep silence upon certain 
 events,! there were long periods upon which he had not 
 received a single item of information.^ 
 
 He therefore seems to indicate his intention of re- 
 suming and completing his work.' 
 
 This is not the place to write the history of the Order, 
 but a few facts are necessary to put the documents into 
 their proper surroundings. 
 
 Elected minister-general in 1232, Brother Elias took 
 advantage of the fact to labor with indomitable energy 
 toward the realization of his own ideas. In all the prov- 
 inces new collections were organized for the Basilica of 
 Assisi, the work upon which was pushed with an activity 
 which however injured neither the strength of the edifice 
 
 ' Those which occurred during the absence of Francis (1220-1231). 
 He overlooks the difficulties met at Borne in seeking the approbation of 
 the first Rule ; be mentions those connected neither with the second 
 nor the third, and makes no allusion to the circumstances which pro 
 yoked them. He recognized them, however, having lived in intimacy 
 with Caesar of Speyer, the collaborator of the second (1221). 
 
 ^ For example, Francis's journey to Spain, 
 
 ' 1 Cel. , 1, 88. Et sola quae neeessaria magis oecurrunt ad prseseiis 
 inUndimua adnotare. It is to be observed that in the prologue h« 
 speaks in the singular. 
 S4 
 
370 LIFE OP ST. KEANCIS 
 
 nor the beauty of its details, which are as finished and 
 perfect as those of any monument in Europe. 
 
 We may conceive of the enormous sums which it had 
 been necessary to raise in order to complete such an 
 enterprise in so short a time. More than that, Brother 
 Elias exacted absolute obedience from all his subor- 
 dinates; naming and removing the provincial ministers 
 according to his personal views, he neglected to con- 
 voke the chapter-general, and sent his emissaries under 
 the name of visitors into all the provinces to secure the 
 execution of his orders. 
 
 The moderate party in Germany, France, and Eng- 
 land very soon found his yoke insupportable. It was 
 hard for them to be directed by an Italian minister 
 resident at Assisi, a small town quite aside from the 
 highways of civilization, entirely a stranger to the 
 scientific movement concentred in the universities of 
 Oxford, Paris, and Bologna. 
 
 In the indignation of the Zelanti against Elias and 
 his contempt for the Eule, they found a decisive sup- 
 port. Very soon the minister had for his defence noth- 
 ing but his own energy, and the favor of the pope and of 
 the few Italian moderates. By a great increase of vigil' 
 ance and severity he repressed several attempts at revolt. 
 
 His adversaries, however, succeeded in establishing 
 secret intelligence at the court of Home ; even the pope's 
 confessor was gained ; yet in spite of all these circum- 
 stances, the success of the conspiracy was still uncertain 
 when the chapter of 1239 opened. 
 
 Gregory IX., still favorable to Elias,* presided. Fear 
 gave sudden courage to the conspirators; they threw 
 their accusations in their enemy's face. 
 
 ' In 1238 he had sent Eliaa to Cremona, charged with a mission for 
 Frederick II. Salembeni, ann. 1329. See also the reception given by 
 Gregory IX. to the appellants against the General. Giord., 63. 
 
CKITICAL STUDY OF THE SOUEOES 371 
 
 Thomas of Eccleston gives a highly colored narrative 
 of what took place. Elias was proud, violent, even 
 threatening. There were cries and vociferations from 
 both sides ; they were about to come to blows when a 
 few words from the pope restored silence. He had 
 made up his mind to abandon his protege. He asked 
 for his resignation. Elias indignantly refused. 
 
 Gregory IX. then explained that in keeping him in 
 charge he had thought himself acting in accordance 
 with the wishes of the majority ; that he had no in- 
 tention to dominate the Order, and, since the Brothers 
 no longer desired Elias, he declared him deposed from 
 the generalate. 
 
 The joy of the victors, says Eccleston, was immense 
 and ineffable. They chose Alberto di Pisa, provincial of 
 England, to succeed him, and from that time bent all 
 their efforts to represent Elias as a creature of Frederick 
 n.' The former minister wrote indeed to the pope to 
 explain his conduct, but the letter did not reach its des- 
 tination. It must have reached the hands of his succes- 
 sor, and not been sent forward ; when Alberto of Pisa 
 died it was found in his tunic.^ 
 
 All the fury of the aged pontiff was unchained against 
 EHas. One must read the documents to see to what a 
 height his anger could rise. The friar retorted with a 
 virulence which though less wordy was far more over- 
 powering.^ 
 
 ' See the letter of Frederick II. to Elias upon the translation of St. 
 Elizabeth, May, 1336. Winkelmann, .46to i., p. 299l. Of. Huillard- 
 BrehoUes, Mist. dypl. Intr. p. oc. 
 
 ! The authorities for this story are : Oatcdogus ministrorum of Bernard 
 of Besse, op Ehrle, Zeitschrift, vol. 7 (1883), p. 339 ; SpeeiUim, 207b, 
 and especially 167a-170a; Eccl., 13; Giord., 61-63; Speculum, Morin., 
 tract i., fo. 60b. 
 
 ^ Asserabat etiam, ipse proedietvs frater Helyas . . . papam . . 
 fra%tdem facere de pecunia coUecta ad swccuraum Terra Sattcta, aor^m 
 
372 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 These events gained an indescribable notoriety* all 
 over Europe and threw the Order into profound dis- 
 turbance. Many of the partisans of Elias became con- 
 vinced that they had been deceived by an impostor, and 
 they drew toward the group of Zealots, who never ceased 
 to demand the observance pure and simple of the Eule 
 and the Will. 
 
 Thomas of Celano was of this number.^ With pro- 
 found sadness he saw the innumerable influences that 
 were secretly undermining the Franciscan institute and 
 menacing it with ruin. Already a refrain was going the 
 rounds of the convents, singing the victory of Paris over 
 Assisi, that is, of learning over poverty. 
 
 The Zealots gained new courage. Unaccustomed to 
 the subtleties of ecclesiastical politics, they did not per- 
 ceive that the pope, while condemning Brother Elias, had 
 in nowise modified the general course which he had 
 marked out for the Order. The ministers-general, Al- 
 berto di Pisa, 1239-1240, Aymon of Faversham, 1240- 
 1244, Crescentius de Jesi, 1244^1247, were all, with 
 different shades of meaning, representatives of the mod- 
 erate party. 
 
 Thomas of Celano's first legend had become impos- 
 
 etia/m ad beneplacitum suum in camera sua bullare dam et sine fratrum 
 asiensu et etiam cedidas vaevas, sed buUatas, multas nuneiis suis traderet 
 , . . et alia mvMa enormia imposuit domino papce, ponens os suum in 
 eelo. Matth. Paris, Ohron. Mdj., ann. 1239, ap Mon. Oer. hist. Seript,, 
 t. 38, p. 183. Cf. Fieker, n. 2685. 
 
 ' Vide Eyooardi di S. Germano, Oh/r<m., ap Mon. Oer. hist. Script., t. 
 19, p. 380, ann. 1239. The letter of Frederick complaining of the depo- 
 sition of Ellas (1239) : Huillard-Brfiholles, Pist. Dipt, v., pp. 346-849. 
 Cf. the Bull, Attendite ad pet/ram, at the end of February, 1240, ibid., 
 pp. 777-779 ; Potthast, 10849. 
 
 ' He was without doubt one of the bitterest adversaries of the emperor. 
 His village had been burnt in 1224, by order of Frederick 11., and the 
 inhabitants transported to Sicily, afterward to Malta. Byccardi di S. 
 Germano, he. eit,, ann. 1228 and 1224. 
 
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES 373 
 
 sible. The prominence there given to Elias was almost 
 a scandal. The necessity of working it over and com- 
 pleting it became clearly evident at the chapter of 
 Genoa (1244). 
 
 All the Brothers who had anything to tell about Fran- 
 cis's life were invited to commit it to writing and send 
 it to the minister Crescentius de Jesi.' The latter im- 
 mediately caused a tract to be drawn up in the form of a 
 dialogue, commencing with the words : " Venerabilium 
 gesta Fatrum." So soon after as the time of Bemaa-d de 
 Besse, only fragments of this were left.^ 
 
 But happily several of the works which saw the light 
 in consequence of the decision of this chapter have been 
 preserved to us. It is to this that we owe the Legend of 
 the Three Companions and the Second Life by Thomas 
 of Celano. 
 
 rv. Legend of the Three Compakionb ' 
 
 The life of St. Francis which has come down to us 
 imder the name of the Legend of the Three Companions 
 
 ' Vide the prologue to 2 Cel. and to the 3 Soo. Cf . Glassberger, ann. 
 1344, An.fr., ii., p. 68. Speculum, Morln, tract, i., 61b. 
 
 ^ C'aialogus minisirorum, edited by Bhrle : Zeitsehrift, t. 7 (1883), no. 
 5. Cf. Spec., 208a. Mark of Lisbon speaks of it a little more at length, 
 but he gives the honor of it to Giovanni of Parma, ed. Diola, t. ii. , p. 
 38. On the other hand, in manuscript 691 of the archives of the Sacro- 
 Convento at Assisi (a catalogue of the library of the convent made in 
 / 1381) is found, fo. 45a, a note of that work : " Dyalogui sanctorum fro- 
 trum cum postibus cujus principium e*t : Venerabilia gesta patrum dig- 
 nosgue memoria, finis vera ; non indigne feram me guogue reperiase con- 
 sortem. In quo libro omnes quatemi sunt xiii. 
 
 ^ The text was published for the first time by the Bollandists (A. SS. , 
 Octobris, t. ii., pp. 733-743), after a manuscript of the convent of the 
 Brothers Minor of Louvain. It is from this edition that we make our 
 citations. The editions published in Italy in the course of this century, 
 cannot be found, except the last, due to AbbS Amoni. This one, un- 
 fortunately, is too faulty to serve as the basis of a scientific study. It 
 sppaaied In Borne in 1880 (8yo, pp. 184) under the title : Legenda 8, 
 
374 LIFE OF ST. FEANOIS 
 
 was finished on August 11, 1246, in a little convent in 
 tlie vale of Bieti, which appears often in the course of 
 this history, that of Greccio. This hermitage had been 
 Francis's favorite abode, especially in the latter part of 
 his life. He had thus made it doubly dear to the hearts 
 of his disciples.' It naturally became, from the earliest 
 days of the Order, the headquarters of the Observants," 
 and it remains through all the centuries one of the purest 
 centres of Franciscan piety. 
 
 The authors of this legend were men worthy to tell St. 
 Francis's story, and perhaps the most capable of doing 
 it : the friars Leo, Angelo, and Eufino. All three had 
 lived in intimacy with him, and had been his compan- 
 ions through the most important years. More than this, 
 they took the trouble to go to others for further informa- 
 tion, particularly to Filippo, the visitor of the Clarisses, 
 to lUuminato di Eieti, Masseo di Marignano, John, the 
 confidant of Egidio, and Bernardo di Quintavalle. 
 
 Such names as these promise much, and happily we 
 are not disappointed iu our expectation. As it has come 
 down to us, this document is the only one worthy from 
 the point of view of history to be placed beside the First 
 Life by Celano. 
 
 The names of the authors and the date of the compo- 
 sition indicate before examination the tendency with 
 which it is likely to be in harmony. It is the first mani- 
 festo of the Brothers who remained faithful to the spirit 
 and letter of the Bule. This is confirmed by an 
 attentive reading ; it is at least as much a panegyric of 
 Poverty as a history of St. Francis. 
 
 Wraneisei AasisieriMS qum dieitur Legenda trium sodorwm ex cod. membr, 
 Biblioth. Vatic, num. 7339. 
 
 1 3 Cel., 3, 5 ; 8, 7 ; 1 Cel., 60 ; Bon. , 113 ; 1 Cel. , 84 ; Bon., 149 ; 
 2Cel.,3, 14; 8, 10. 
 
 '' Giovanni di Parma retired thither in 1376 and lived there almost en' 
 %ielj until his death (1388). IHlyul., Arehiv., vol. u. (1886), jp. 386. 
 
OKITICAL STUDY OP THE SOURCES 375 
 
 We naturally expect to see the Three Companions 
 relating to us with a very particular delight the innumer- 
 able features of the legends of which Greccio was the 
 theatre ; we turn to the end of the volume, expecting to 
 find the story of the last years of which they were 
 witnesses, and are lost in surprise to find nothing of the 
 kind. 
 
 While the first half of the work describes Francis's 
 youth, filling out here and there Celano's First Life, the 
 second ' is devoted to a picture of the early days of the 
 Order, a picture of incomparable freshness and intensity 
 of lite; but strangely enough, after having told us so 
 much at length of Francis's youth and then of the first 
 days of the Order, the story abruptly leaps over from the 
 year 1220 to the death and the canonization, to which 
 after all only a few pages are given.^ 
 
 This is too extraordinary to be the result of chance. 
 What has happened ? It is evident that the Legend of 
 the Three Companions as we have it to-day is only a 
 fragment of the original, which was no doubt revised, 
 corrected, and considerably cut down by the authorities 
 of the Order before they would permit it to be circulated.' 
 
 '3Soe., 35-67. 
 
 «3Soc., 68-73. 
 
 ' The minister-general Orescentius of Jesi was an avowed adversary of 
 the Zealots of the Rule. The contrary idea has been held by M. MtiUer 
 (Anfange, p. 180) ; but that learned scholar is not, it appears, acquainted 
 with the recitals of the Chronicle of the Tribulations, which leave not 
 a single doubt as to the persecutions which he directed against the Zeal- 
 ots (Arohw,, t. ii., pp. 257-360). Anyone who attempts to dispute the 
 historical worth of this proof will find a confirmation in the bulls of 
 August 5, 1344, and of February 7, 1246 (Potthast, 11450 and 12007). 
 It was Crescentius, also, who obtained a bull stating that the Basilica of 
 Assisi was Caput et Mater ordinis, while for the Zealots this rank per- 
 tained to the Portiunonla (1 Cel., 106 ; 3 Soc, 56 ; Bon., 33 ; 3 Cel., 1, 
 13; Conform., 317 fi). (See also on Crescentius, Glassberger, ann. 
 1344, An. fr. , p. 69 ; Sbaralea, Bull. fr. , i., p. 503 fE ; Conform., 131b. 1.) 
 
376 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 If the authors had been interrupted in their work, and 
 obliged to cut short the end, as might have been the 
 case, they would have said so in their letter of envoy, but 
 there are still other arguments in favor of our hypothe- 
 sis. 
 
 Brother Leo having had the first and principal part in 
 the production of the work of the Three Companions, it is 
 often called Brother Leo's Legend; now Brother Leo's 
 Legend is several times cited by Ubertini di Casali, 
 arraigned before the court of Avignon by the party of the 
 Common Observance. Evidently Ubertini would have 
 taken good care not to appeal to an apocryphal docu- 
 ment ; a false citation would have been enough to bring 
 him to confusion, and his enemies would not have failed 
 to make the most of his imprudence. We have at hand 
 all the documents of the trial,' attacks, replies, counter 
 replies, and nowhere do we see the Liberals accuse their 
 adversary of falsehood. For that matter, the latter makes 
 his citations with a precision that admits of no cavil." 
 
 M. Miiller has been led into error through a blunder of Bocleston, 9 
 {An. fr.,i., p. 235). It is evident that the chapter of Genoa (1344) could 
 not have pronounced against the Deelaratio Regulm published Novem- 
 ber 14, 1245. On the contrary, it is Crescentius who called forth this 
 Deelaratio, against which, not without regret, the Zealots found a ma- 
 jority of the chapter of Metz (1249) presided over by Giovanni of Par- 
 ma, a decided enemy of any Declaraiio (4rc7tM)., ii., p. 276). This 
 view is found to be confirmed by a passage of the Speculum Morin 
 (Rouen, 1509), f ° 62a : In hoc eapitulo (Narbonnm) fuit ordinatum quod 
 deda/ratio D. Innooentii, p. iv., maneat mspensa siout in Capitulo ME- 
 TBNSI. Et prceceptwm e»t omnibus ne quia utatv/r ea in iis in guibiis ex- 
 positioni D. Cfregorii IX. coniradieit. 
 
 ' Published with all necessary scientific apparatus by F. Ehrle, S. J., 
 in his studies 2fur Vorgeachichte des Coneils von Vieune. Arehiv., ii., 
 pp. 353-416; iil., pp. 1-195. 
 
 ^ See, for example, Are7iiv.,\ii., p. 53 S. Of. 76. Addun verba et facta 
 b. Pranciaei dcut est aUquando in legenda et sicut a soeiis sanctipatrit 
 audivi et in cedulis saneUs memoricB fratris Leonis legi manu sua cotf 
 teriptis, sicut ab ore beati Franciici audiut. lb., p. 86. 
 
OKITIOAL STTTDY OF THE SOtTEOES 377 
 
 He appeals to writings to be found in a press in the 
 convent of Assisi, of which he gives sometimes a copy, 
 sometimes an original.^ We are then authorized to con- 
 clude that we have here fragments which have survived 
 the suppression of the last and most important part of 
 the Legend of the Three Companions. 
 
 It is not surprising that the work of Francis's dearest 
 friends should have been so seriously mutilated. It was 
 the manifesto of a party that Crescentius was hunting 
 down with all his power. 
 
 After the fleeting reaction of the generalate of Giovanni 
 di Parma we shall see a man of worth like St. Bonaven- 
 tura moving for the suppression of all the primitive 
 legends that his own compilation may be substituted for 
 them. 
 
 It is truly singular that no one has perceived the frag- 
 mentary state of the work of the Three Companions. 
 The prologue alone might have suggested this idea. 
 Why should it take three to write a few pages? Why 
 this solemn enumeration of Brothers whose testimony 
 and collaboration are asked for ? There would be a sur- 
 prising disproportion between the effort and the result. 
 
 More than all, the authors say that they shall not stop 
 at relating the miracles, but they desire above all to 
 exhibit the ideas of Francis and his life with the Brothers, 
 but we search in vain for any account of miracles in what 
 we now have.^ 
 
 An Italian translation of this legend, published by 
 
 ' Bcec omnia patent per sua [B. Francisei] verba expressa per sanctum 
 fratrem virum Leonem ejia soeium tarn de mandato sancti patris guam 
 etiatn de devotione pradicii fratris fuerunt solemniter comeripta, in libra 
 qui jMbetur in m'marw fratrum de Asmio et in rotvMs ^us, quog a/pud me 
 habeo, manu gusdem fratris Leonis oommptis. Archiv., iii., p. 168. 
 Cf. p. 178. 
 
 ' 3 Soo., Prol. Hon contenti narrare sohtm miraciUa . , , armer- 
 eationis intigniaet pii benepUwiU voluntaUm. 
 
378 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 Father Stanislaus Melcliiorri,\has suddenly given me ao 
 indirect confirmation of this point of view. This monk 
 is only its publisher, and has simply been able to dis- 
 cover that in 1577 it was taken from a very ancient 
 manuscript by a certain Muzio Achillei di San Sev- 
 erino.^ 
 
 This Italian translation contained only the last chap- 
 ters of the legend, those which tell of the death, the stig- 
 mata, and the translation of the remains.^ It was, then, 
 made at a time when the suppressed portion had not 
 been replaced by a short summary of the other legends. 
 
 From all this two conclusions emerge for the critics : 
 1. This final summary has not the same authority as the 
 rest of the work, since the time when it was added is 
 unknown. 2. Fragments of a legend by Brother Leo or 
 by the Three Companions scattered through later com- 
 pilations may be perfectly authentic. 
 
 In its present condition this legend of the Three Com- 
 panions is the finest piece of Franciscan literature, and 
 one of the most delightful productions of the Middle 
 Ages. There is something indescribably sweet, con- 
 fiding, chaste, in these pages, an energy of virile youth 
 which the Fioretti suggest but never attain to. At more 
 than six hundred years of distance the purest dream 
 that ever thrilled the Christian Church seems to live 
 again. 
 
 These friars of Greccio, who, scattered over the moun- 
 tain, under the shade of the olive-trees, passed their 
 days in singing the Hymn of the Sun, are the true 
 models of the primitive Umbrian Masters. They are 
 all alike ; they are awkwardly posed ; everything in and 
 
 ' Leggenda di 8. Fi-aneesco, tipografia Morici et BadaUmi, Becanati, 
 1856, 1 vol., 8vo. 
 ' See Father Stanislaus's preface. 
 »3Soc.,68-73. 
 
CRITICAL STUDY OP THE S0TTECE8 379 
 
 around them sins against the most elementary rules of 
 art, and yet their memory pursues you, and when you 
 have long forgotten the works of impeccable modem 
 artists you recall without effort these creations of those 
 unknown painters; for love calls for love, and these 
 vapid personages have very true and pure hearts, a more 
 than human love shines forth from their whole being, 
 they speak to you and make you better. 
 
 Such is this book, the first utterance of the Spiritual 
 Franciscans, in which we already see the coming to life 
 of some of those bold doctrines that not only divided the 
 Franciscan family into two hostile branches, but which 
 were to bring some of their defenders to the heretic's 
 stake.i 
 
 V. Fkagmbnts of the Suppressed Past of the Legend of -rHH 
 Three Companions 
 
 We may now take a step forward and try to group 
 the fragments of the Legend of the Three Compan- 
 ions, or of Brother Leo, which are to be found in later 
 writings. 
 
 We must here be more than ever on our guard against 
 absolute theories ; one of the most fruitful principles of 
 historic criticism is to prefer contemporary documents, 
 or at least those which are nearest them ; but even with 
 these it is necessary to use a little discretion. 
 
 It seems impossible to attack the reasoning of the Bol- 
 landists, who refuse to know anything of legends written 
 after that of St. Bonaventura (1260), under pretext that, 
 
 ' The book lacks little of representing St. Francis as taking up the 
 work of Jesus, interrupted (by the fault of the secular clergy) since the 
 time of the apostles. The viri evangdici consider the members of the 
 elergj fiios extraneos. 3 Soc, 48 and 51. Cf. 3 Soc, 48. Inveni virum 
 . . . per quem credo Dominus velit in toto mundofedem sanctm Ec- 
 elesuB reformare. Cf. 2 Cel., 3, 141. Videbaiur revera frairi et om- 
 nium eomUatiiim turbm quod Christi et b. Fremcisci una pertonaforet. 
 
380 LIFE OF ST. FEANOIS 
 
 coming after several other authorized biographies, he 
 was better situated than anyone for getting information 
 and completiag the work of his predecessors.^ In reality 
 this is absurd, for it assumes that Bonaventura under- 
 took to write as a historian. This is to forget that he 
 wrote not only for the purpose of edification, but also as 
 minister-general of the Minor Brothers. From this fact 
 his first duty was to keep silent on many facts, and those 
 not the least interesting. What shall we say of a biogra- 
 phy where Francis's Will is not even mentioned ? 
 
 It is easy to turn away from a writing of the fourteenth 
 century, on the ground that the author did not see what 
 was going on a hundred years before ; still we must not 
 forget that many books of the end of the Middle Ages 
 resemble those old mansions at which four or five gen- 
 erators have toUed. An inscription on their front often 
 only shows the touch of the last restorer or the last 
 destroyer, and the names which are set forth with the 
 greatest complacency are not always those of the real 
 workmen. 
 
 Such have been many Franciscan books ; to attribute 
 them to any one author wQuld be impracticable ; very 
 different hands have worked upon them, and such an 
 amalgam has its own charm and interest. 
 
 Turning them over — I had almost said associating with 
 them — we come to see clearly into this tangled web, for 
 every work of man bears the trace of the hand that made 
 it : this trace may perhaps be of an almost imperceptible 
 delicacy; it exists none the less, ready to reveal itself to 
 practised eyes. What is more impersonal than the pho- 
 tograph of a landscape or of a painting, and yet among 
 several hundreds of proofs the amateur wiU go straight 
 to the work of the operator he prefers. 
 
 These reflections were suggested by the careful study 
 > A. SS. p. 553. 
 
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOUKCES 381 
 
 of a curious book printed many times since the sixteenth 
 century, the Speculum Vitce S. Francisci et sociorum ejus} 
 A complete study of this work, its sources, its printed 
 editions, the numerous differences in the manuscripts, 
 would by itself require a volume and an epitome of the 
 history of the Order. I can give here only a few notes, 
 taking for base the oldest edition, that of 1504. 
 
 The confusion which reigns here is frightful. Inci- 
 dents in the life of Francis and his companions are 
 brought together with no plan ; several of them are re- 
 peated after the interval of a few pages in a quite differ- 
 ent manner;^ certain chapters are so awkwardly intro- 
 duced that the compiler has forgotten to remove the 
 number that they bore in the work from which he bor- 
 rowed them ; ^ finally, to our great surprise, we find sev- 
 eral Incipit* 
 
 ' Venetiis, ex/perms domini Jordani de Dinslaken per Simonem de 
 Luere, 30 januarii, 1504. Impressum Metis per Jcisparem Hoehffeder, 
 Anno Domini 1509. Tliese two editions are identical, small 12mos, of 
 240 folios badly numbered. Edited under the same title by Spoelberch, 
 Antwerp, 1620, 2 tomes in one volume, 8vo, 208 and 192 pages, with a 
 mass of alterations. The most important manuscript resembles that of 
 the Vatican 4354. There are two at the Mazarin Library, 904 and 1350, 
 dated 1459 and 1460, one at Berlin (MS. theol. lat., 4to, no. 196 sseo. 
 14). Vide Bhrle, ZdUehrift, t. vii. (1883), p. 892f ; Anaheta fr., t. i., 
 p. xi. ; Miscellanea, 1888, pp. 119, 164. Cf. A. SS. , pp. 550-552. 
 
 The chapters are numbered in the first 72 folios only, but these 
 numbers teem with errors ; fo. 38b, caput lix. , 40b, lix., 41b, Ixi. , ibid., 
 Ixii., 42a, Ix., 43a, Ixi. Besides at fos. 46b and 47b there are two 
 chapters Ixvi. There are two Ixxi. , two Ixxii., two Ixxiii., etc. 
 
 ' For example, the history of the brigands of Monte-Casale, fos. 46b, 
 and 58b. The remarks of Brother Blias to Francis, who is continually 
 singing, 136b and 137a. The visit of Giaoomina di Settesoli, 133a and 
 188a. The autograph benediction given to Brother Leo, 87a ; 188a. 
 
 ' At f o. 20b we read : Tertium eapituUmi de chantate et eompasmne et 
 eondeaceimone ad proximum. Capitulum xxvi. Cf. 26a, 83a, 117b, 
 119a, 122a, 128b, 133b, 136b, where there are similar indications. 
 
 * Fo. 5b : Incipit Speeidum mUs b. Francesei et sociorum ^its. Po. 7b? 
 Ineipit Speculum perfeetionie. 
 
382 LIFE OP ST. FRANCIS 
 
 However, with a little perseverance we soon perceive 
 a few openings in the labyrinth. In the first place, here 
 are several chapters of the legend of Bonaventura which 
 seem to have been put in the van as if to protect the rest 
 of the book. If we abstract them and the whole series 
 of chapters from the Fioretti, we shall have diminished 
 the work by nearly three-quarters. 
 
 If we take away two more chapters taken from St. 
 Bernard of Clairvaux and those containing Franciscan 
 prayers, or various attestations concerning the indulgence 
 of PortiuncTila, we finally arrive at a sort of residue, if 
 the expression may be forgiven, of a remarkable homo- 
 geneity. 
 
 Here the style is very different from that in the sur- 
 rounding pages, closely recalling that of the Three Com- 
 panions ; a single thought inspires these pages, that the 
 comer-stone of the Order is the love of poverty. 
 
 Why should we not have here some fragments of the 
 original legend of the Three Companions? We find 
 here nothing which does not fit in with what we know, 
 nothing which suggests the embellishments of a late tra- 
 dition. 
 
 To confirm this hypothesis come different passages 
 which we find cited by Ubertini di Casali and by Angelo 
 Clareno as being by Brother Leo, and an attentive 
 comparison of the text shows that these authors can 
 neither have drawn them from the Speculum nor the 
 Speculum from them. 
 
 There is, besides, one phrase which, apart from the in^ 
 spiration and style, will suffice at the first glance to mark 
 the common origin of most of these pieces.^ Nos qvi 
 cum ipso fuimus. " We who have been with him." These 
 
 > We should search for it in vain in the other pieces of the Speculum, 
 and it reappears in the fragments of Brother Leo cited by Ubertini di 
 Casali and Angelo Clareno. 
 
OEITIOAL STUDY OF THE SOTTECES 'S83 
 
 words, which recur in almost every incident," are in many 
 cases only a grateful tribute to their spiritual father, but 
 sometimes, too, they have a touch of bitterness. These 
 hermits of Greccio suddenly recall to mind their rights. 
 Are we not the only, the true interpreters of the Saint's 
 instructions — we who lived continually with him; we 
 who, hour after hour, have meditated upon his words, 
 his sighs, and his hymns ? 
 
 We can imderstand that such pretensions were not to 
 the taste of the Common Observance, and that Cres- 
 centius, with an incontestable authority, has suppressed 
 nearly all this legend.^ 
 
 As for the fragments that have been preserved to 
 us, though they furnish many details about the last 
 years of St. Francis's life, they still are not those whose 
 loss is so much to be regretted. The authors who repro- 
 duce them were defending a cause. We owe them little 
 more than the incidents which in one way or another 
 concern the question of poverty. They had nothing to 
 do with the other accounts, as they were not writing a 
 biography. But even within these narrow limits these 
 fragments are in the first order of importance; and I 
 have not hesitated to use them largely. It is needless 
 to say that while ascribing their origin to the Three 
 Companions, and in particular to Brother Leo, we must 
 not suppose that we have the very letter in the texts 
 which have come down to us. , The pieces given by 
 Ubertini di Casali and Angelo Clareno are actual cita- 
 tions, and deserve full confidence as such. As for those 
 which are preserved to us in the Speculum, they may 
 
 > Fo. 8b, 11a, 13a. 15a, 18b, 21b, 23b, 36a, 39a, 33b, 48b, 41a, 48b, 
 il8a, 129a, 130a, 134a, 135a, 136a. 
 
 ^ Does not Thomas de Oelano say in the prologue of the Second Life : 
 " Oramus ergo, ienignissime pater, ut Moris hvjus rwn eontemnenda 
 munuseula . . . vestra benedictione consetirare veUtis, corrigenda 
 errata et swperfiua reseeantes." 
 
384 LIFE OF ST. FRAWCIS 
 
 often have been abridged, explanatory notes may hay© 
 slipped into the text, but nowhere do we find inter- 
 polations in the bad sense of the word.' 
 
 Finally, if we compare the fragments with the cor- 
 responding accounts in the Second Life of Oelano, we 
 see that the latter has often borrowed verbatim from 
 Brother Leo, but generally he has considerably abridged 
 the passages, adding reflections here and there, es- 
 pecially retouching the style to make it more elegant. 
 
 • The legend of 3 Soc. was preserved in the Convent of Assisi : " Om- 
 nia . . . fuerunt conscripta . . . per Leonem . . . in libra 
 qui hahebwr in a/rma/rio fratrwm, de Assisio." Ubertini, Archio., iii., p. 
 168. Later, Brother Leo seems to have gone more into detail as to 
 certain facts ; he confided these new manuscripts to the Clarisses : "In 
 roiudia ejus guos apud me Mbeo, manu ^•mdem fratres Leonis con- 
 seriptis," ibid. Cf . p. 178. " Quod sequitur a sancto fratre Conrado 
 predicio et viva voce audivit a sancto fratre Leone qui presens erat et 
 regulam saripsit. JSt Iwc ipmm in quibusdam rotulis manu sua con- 
 tcriptis guos commendavit in monasterio S. Ola/rm custodiendos. . . . 
 In ilMs mvUa scripsit . . . gum industria fr. Bonaventura omisit et 
 nokdt in legenda puUice seribere, maxime quia aliqua erani ibi in guibus 
 ex tune deviatio regula publice monstrabatur et nolebat frat/res ante tern.- 
 pus in famare." .drSor., lib. v., cap. 5. Ot. Antiquitates,-p. 1^. Cf. 
 Speculum, 50b. " Infra scripta verba, f rater Leo soeius et Confessor 
 B. Francisci, Conrado de Offida, dieehat se liabuisae ex ore Beati Patria 
 nosiri Wraneisd, gum idem Frater Co<"''adua retvlit, apud Sanctnim Da- 
 mianum prope Assimtm." 
 
 Conrad di Offidia copied, then, both the book of Brother Leo and hiB 
 rotuli; he added to it certain oral information {Arbor, vit. cruc., lib. 
 V. , cap. 3), and so perhaps composed the collection so often cited by the 
 Conformists ander the title of Legenda Antigua and reproduced in part 
 in the Speculum. 
 
 The numbering of the chapters, which the Speculum has awkwardly 
 inserted without noting that they were not in accord with his own 
 division, were vestiges of the division adopted by Conrad di Offida. 
 
 It may well be that, after the interdiction of his book and its confisca- 
 tion at the Sacro Convento, Brother Leo repeated in his rotuli a large 
 part of the facts already made, so that the same incident, while coming 
 solely from Brother Leo, could be presented under two different forms, 
 according as it would be copied from the book or the rotuli. 
 
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOTTECES 386 
 
 Such a comparison soon proves that Brother Leo's 
 narratives are the original and that it is impossible to 
 see in them a later amplification of those of Thomas of 
 Celano, as we might at first be tempted to think them.' 
 
 VI. Secohd Life by Thomas op Cblauo ' 
 
 First Part 
 
 In consequence of the decision of the chapter of 1244 
 search was begmi in all quarters for memorials of the 
 
 ' Compare, for example, 2 Cel., 120 : Vocation of John the Simple, 
 and Speculum, f ° 37a. Prom the account of Thomas de Celano, one 
 ices not understand what drew John to St. Francis ; in the Speculum 
 iverything is explained, but Celano has not dared to depict Francis go- 
 ing about preaching with a broom upon his shoulder to sweep the dirty 
 churches. 
 
 ' It was published for the first time at Rome, in 1806, by Father 
 Rlualdi, following upon the First Life (vide above, p 365, note 3), and 
 restored in 1880 by Abb6 Amoni : Vita secunda S. Francisd Asaisiensis 
 auetore B. Thomade (Jda/no yus disoipulo. Somm, tvpografia delta pace, 
 1880, 8vo, 152 pp. The citations are from this last edition, which I 
 collated at Assisi with the most important of the rare manuscripts at 
 present known : Archives of Sacro Convento, MS. 686, on parchment 
 of the end of the thirteenth century, if I do not mistake, 130 miillm. 
 by 142 ; 102 numbered pages. Except for the fact that the bojk is 
 divided into two parts instead of three, the last two forming only one, 
 I have not found that it noticeably differs from the text published by 
 Amoni ; the chapters are divided only by » paragraph and a red letter, 
 but they have in the table which occupies the firsi seven pages of the 
 volume the same titles as in the edition Amoni. 
 
 This Second Life escaped the researches of the BoUandists. It is 
 impossible to explain how these students ignored the worth of the 
 manuscript which Father Theobaldi, keeper of the records of Assisi, 
 mentioned to them, and of which he offered them a copy (A. SS. , Oct. , 
 t. ii., p. 546f). Father Suysken was thus thrown into inextricable 
 difficulties, and exposed to a failure to understand the lists of biog- 
 raphies of St. Francis arranged by the annalists of the Order ; he was 
 at the same time deprived of one of the most fruitful sources of in- 
 formation upon the acts and works of the Saint. Professor Mfiller (Die 
 Anfdnge, pp. 175-184) was the first, to make a critical study of this 
 legend. His conclusions appear to me narrow aa£ extreme C£. Atm- 
 •5 
 
386 LIFE OF ST. FEANOIS 
 
 early times of the Order. In view of the ardor of this 
 inquiry, in which zeal for the glory of the Franciscan 
 institute certainly cast the interests of history into the 
 background, the minister-general, Crescentius, was obliged 
 to take certain precautions. 
 
 Many of the pieces that he received were doing 
 double duty ; others might contradict one another ; many 
 of them, imder color of telling the life of the Saint, 
 had no other object than to oppose the present to the 
 past. 
 
 It soon became imperative to constitute a sort of com- 
 mission charged to study and coordinate all this matter.' 
 What more natural than to put Thomas of Celano at 
 its head ? Ever since the approbation of the first legend 
 by Gregory IX. he had appeared to be in a sense the 
 official historiographer of the Order.^ 
 
 This view accords perfectly with the contents of the 
 seventeen chapters which contain the first part of the 
 second legend. It offers itself at the outset as a com- 
 pilation. Celano is surrounded with companions who 
 help him.' A more attentive examination shows that its 
 principal source is the Legend of the Three Companions, 
 
 lecta fr., t. li., pp. xvii.-xx. Father Ehrle mentions two manuscripts, 
 one in the British Museum, Harl., 47 ; the other at Oxford, Christ 
 College, cod. 302. Zeitschrift, 1883, p. 390. 
 
 ' The Three Companions foresee the possibility of their legend being 
 incorporated with other documents : quihus (legendis) fuse pauaa qum 
 icribimns poteritis facere inseri, si vestra discretio viderii esse justum. 
 8 Soc, Prol. 
 
 ' One phrase of the Prologue (2 Cel.) shows that the author received 
 an entirely special commission : Placuit . . . whis . . . par- 
 mtati nostrm iryungere, while on the contrary the 3 Soc. shows that 
 the decision of the chapter only remotely considered them : Oum 
 de mandato prceteriti eapituli fratres teneantur . . . visum mi 
 nobis . . . pauea de multis . . . sanctitati vestrce intima/re. 
 ? Soc, Prol. 
 
 Compare the Prologue of 2 Cel. with that of 1 Cel. 
 
CRITICAL STUDY OP THE SOURCES 387 
 
 which the compilers worked over, sometimes filling out 
 certain details, more often making large excisions. 
 
 Everything that does not concern St. Francis is ruth- 
 lessly proscribed; we feel the weU-defined purpose to 
 leave in the background the disciples who so compW 
 cently placed themselves in the foreground.' 
 
 The work of the Three Companions had been finished 
 August 11, 1246. On July 13, 1247, the chapter of 
 Lyons put an end to the powers of Crescentius. It is, 
 therefore, between these two dates that we must place 
 the composition of the first part of Thomas of Celano's 
 Second Life.^ 
 
 VII. Second Life by Thomas op Cblano " 
 Second Pa/rt 
 
 The election of Giovanni di Parma (1247-1257) as 
 successor of Crescentius was a victory for the Zealots. 
 This man, in whose work-table the birds came to make 
 their nests,^ was to astonish the world by his virtues. No 
 one saw more deeply into St. Francis's heart, no one was 
 more worthy to take up and continue his work. 
 
 He soon asked Celano to resume his work.' The lat- 
 
 ' Longumesset de dngulia periegui, guaUter bramum supernce wcationii 
 attigent. 3 Cel., 1, 10. 
 
 ^ This first part corresponds exactly to that portion of the legend of 
 the 3 Soc, which Crescentius had authorized. 
 
 ^Observe that the Assisi MS. 686 divides the Second Life into two 
 parts only by joining the last two. 
 
 * Salimbeni, aun. 1348. 
 
 ° Grlassherger, ann. 1253. An. fr. t. ii., p. 73. Water Johannes de 
 Pwrma mirmter generalis, muUvpUcatis UtterisprcBcipUfr. T/iomm de Ce- 
 lano (cod. Geperano), ut mtam heati Frandaci qum cmiiqua Legenda 
 dicUur perjkeret, quia solum de ^us conversatione et verbis in primo 
 tractaiu, de mandato, Fr. Crescentii olira geneiroMs cornpilato, omissis mi- 
 rwsulia fecerai Tnentionem, et sic secundum tractatum de miraculis samcii 
 Patris compUmyit, quern cum, epistola quae ineijpit : Seligiosa vestra soU 
 Udtudo eidem generali misit. 
 
 This treatise on the miracles is lost, for one cannot identify it, as M. 
 
388 LIFE OF ST. FRAirCIS 
 
 ter was perhaps alone at first, but little by little a group 
 of collaborators formed itself anew about him.' Thence- 
 forth nothing prevented his doing with that portion of 
 the work of the Three Companions which Crescentius 
 had suppressed what he had already done with the part 
 he had approved. 
 
 The Legend of Brother Leo has thus come down to 
 us, entirely worked over by Thomas of Celano, abridged 
 and with all its freshness gone, but still of capital impor- 
 tance in the absence of the major part of the original. 
 
 The events of which we possess two accounts permit 
 us to measure the extent of our loss. We find, in fact, 
 in Celano's compilation all that we expected to find in 
 the Three Companions : the incidents belong especially 
 to the last two years of Francis's life, and the scene of 
 many of them is either Greccio or one of the hermitages 
 of the vale of Kieti;^ according to tradition, Brother Leo 
 was the hero of a great number of the incidents here re- 
 lated * and all the citations that Ubertini di Casali makes 
 from Brother Leo's book find their correspondents here.^ 
 
 MuUer suggests (Anfange, p. 177), with the second part (counting three 
 with the Amoni edition) of the Second Life : 1', epistle Beligiosa vestra 
 soUidtudo does not have it ; 2' , this second part is not a collection of mir- 
 acles, using this word in the sense of miraculous cures which it had in 
 the thirteenth century. The twenty-two chapters of this second part 
 have a marked unity ; they might be entitled Francis a prophet, but 
 not Frauds a thaumaliurgus. 
 
 ' In the Prologue (2 Cel., 2, Prol.) Insignia pairum, the author spe.iks 
 in the singular, while the Epilogue is written in the name of a group ol 
 disciples. 
 
 = Greccio, 2 Cel., 3, 5 ; 14 ; 3, 7 ; 10 ; 103.— Rieti, 2 Cel., 2, 10; 11 ; 
 12 ; 13 ; 3, 36 ; 37 ; 66 ; 103. 
 
 'St. Francis gives him an autograph, 2 Cel., 2, 18. Cf. Fior. il. 
 consjd. ; his tunic, 3 Gel., 3, 19 ; he predicts to him a famine, 2 Cel., 3, 
 21 ; cf. Gmform., 49b. Fr. Leo ill at Bologna, 2 Cel., 3, 5. 
 
 *The text of Ubertini di Casali may be found in the AraTm., t. iii., 
 pp. 53, 75, 76, 85, 168, 178, where Father Ehrle points out the cor- 
 responding passages of 2 Cel. 
 
CBITICAL STUDY OP THE SOURCES 389 
 
 This second part of the Second Life perfectly reflects 
 I the new circumstances to which it owes its existence. 
 The question of Poverty dominates everything ; ' the 
 struggle between the two parties in the Order reveals it- 
 self on every page; the collaborators are determined 
 that each event narrated shall be an indirect lesson to the 
 Liberals, to whom they oppose the Spirituals ; the popes 
 had commented on the Rule in the large sense ; they, on 
 their side, undertook to comment on it in a sense at once 
 literal and spiritual, by the actions and words of its 
 author himself. 
 
 History has hardly any part here except as the vehicle 
 of a thesis, a fact which diminishes nothing of the his- 
 toric value of the information given in the course of 
 these pages. But while in Celano's First Life and in the 
 Legend of the Three Companions the facts succeed one 
 another organically, here they are placed side by side. 
 Therefore when we come to read this work we are sensi- 
 ble of a fall ; even from the literary point of view the 
 inferiority makes itself cruelly felt. Bistead of a poem 
 we have before us a catalogue, very cleverly made, it is 
 true, but with no power to move us. 
 
 VIII. Notes on a Few Secondary Documents 
 
 a. Gelano's Life of St. Francis for Use in the Choir 
 Thomas of Celano made also a short legend for use 
 
 in the choir. It is divided into nine lessons and served for 
 
 the Franciscan breviaries up to the time when St. Bona- 
 
 ventura made his Legenda Minor. 
 
 That of Celano may be found in part (the first three 
 
 lessons) in the Assisi MS. 338, fol. 52a-53b ; it is pre- 
 
 ' It is the subject of thirty-seven narratives (1, 2 Cel., 3, 1-37), then 
 come examples on the spirit of prayer (2 Cel. , 3, 88-44), the temptations 
 (2 Gel., 3, 58-64), true happiness (2 Cel., 3, 64-79), humility (2 Cel., 3, 
 79-87), submission (2 Cel., 3, 88. 91), etc. 
 
390 LIFE OF ST, FRANCIS 
 
 ceded by a letter of envoy : " Rogasti m^frater Benedicte, 
 ut de legenda B. P. N. F. qucedam exciperem et in novem 
 lectionwm seriem ordinarem . . . etc. B. Franciscus 
 de civitate Assisii ortus a puerilibus annis nutritus extitU 
 insolenter." 
 
 This work has no historic importance. 
 
 b. Life of St. Francis in Verse. 
 
 In the list of biographers has sometimes been counted 
 a poem in hexameter verse ' the text of which was edited 
 in 1882 by the lamented Cristofani.'* 
 
 This work does not furnish a single new historic note. 
 It is the Life by Celano in verse and nothiag more j the 
 author's desire was to figure as a poet. It is superflu- 
 ous, therefore, to concern ourselves with it.^ 
 
 c. Biography of Si. Francis by Giovanni di Oeperano. 
 
 One of the biographies which disappeared, no doubt 
 in consequence of the decision of the chapter of 1266,^ is 
 that of Giovanni di Ceperano. The resemblance of his 
 name to that of Thomas of Oelano has occasioned much 
 confusion." The most precious information which we 
 have respecting him is given by Bernard of Besse in the 
 opening of his De laudibus St. Frandsci : " Plenam 
 virtutibus B. Frandsci vitam scripsit in Italia exquisitce 
 
 ' Le Monnier, t. i., p. xi. ; F. Barnab§, PorUunoula, ip. 15. Cf. 
 Analeetafr., t. ii., p. xxi. Zeiteehrift fur kath. Theol., vii. (1883), p. 
 397. 
 
 " 11 piu antico poema deUa vita di S. Francisco d'Assisi saritto inami 
 aU' anno 1830 or a per la prima volta pubiliaato et tradotto da Antonio 
 Oristoj'ani, Prato, 1883, 1 vol., 8vo, 388 pp. 
 
 ' Note, however, two articles of the Miscellanea, one on the manu- 
 script of this biography which is found in the library at Versailles, t. 
 iv.(1889), p. 34 ffi. ; the other on the author of the poem, t. v. (1890), 
 pp. 3-4 and 74 ff. 
 
 * See below, p. 410. 
 
 * Vide Grlassberger, ann. 1344 ; Analecta, t. ii., p. 68. Cf. A. SS., f. 
 S45 S. 
 
CEITIOAL STUDY OF THE SOUB0E8 391 
 
 vir eloquenticB fr. Thomas jubente Domino Oregorio pa- 
 pa IX. et earn quce indpit : Quasi stella matutina vir 
 venerabilis Dominus et fertur Joannes, Apostolicce sedis 
 notarius " ' 
 
 In the face of so precise a text all doubt as to the ex- 
 istence of the work of GioYanni di Ceperano is impossible. 
 The Reverend Father Denifle has been able to throw new 
 light upon this question. In a manuscript containing the 
 liturgy of the Brothers Minor and finished in 1256 he 
 found the nine lessons for the festival of St. Francis pre- 
 ceded by the title : Ex gestis ejus abhreviatis quce sic in- 
 cipiunt : Quasi stella {ZeitscJirift fur hath. Theol., vii., p. 
 710. Cf. Archiv., i., p. 148). This summary of Ceperano's 
 work gives, as we should expect, no new information ; but 
 perhaps we need not despair of finding the very work of 
 this author. 
 
 d. Life of St. Francis by Brother Julian. 
 
 It was doubtless about 1230 that Brother Julian, the 
 
 Teuton, who had been chapel-master at the court of the 
 
 King of France, was commissioned to put the finishing 
 
 touches to the Office of St. Francis.^ Evidently such a 
 
 work would contain nothing original, and its loss is little 
 
 felt. 
 
 IX. Legend of St. Bonavkntura 
 
 Under the generalate of Giovanni di Parma (1247-1257) 
 the Franciscan parties underwent modifications, ia conse- 
 quence of which their opposition became stiU more strik- 
 ing than before. 
 
 'Manuscript in the Library of Turin, J. vi., 33, t° 95a. 
 
 ' Plena/m mriutibus S. franeiad mtam soripdt in Italia . . . fra- 
 ter Thomas . . . in ffranoia vera f rater Jtdianus scientia et saneii- 
 iate eonspicuus qui etiam, noetumali saneii offieium, in littera et cantu 
 poasuit prmter hymnos et aZiquas antiphonas quce summus ipsePontifex et 
 aUqui de Ga/rdincdibus in sanati prcBconium ediderunt. Opening of the 
 De laudibus of Bernard of Besse. See below, p. 413. Laur. MS., 
 f 95a. Cf. Giord., 53 ; Conform., 75b. 
 
392 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 The Zelaati, with the minister-general at their head, en- 
 thusiastically adopted the views of Gioacchino di Fiore. 
 The predictions of the Calabrian abbot corresponded too 
 well with their inmost convictions for any other course 
 to be possible : they seemed to see Francis, as a new 
 Christ, inaugurating the third era of the world. 
 
 For a few years these dreams moved all Europe ; the 
 faith of the Joachimites was so ardent that it made its 
 way by its own force ; sceptics like Salimbeni told them- 
 selves that on the whole it was surely wiser not to be 
 taken unawares by the great catastrophe of 1260, and 
 hastened in crowds to the cell of Hyeres to be initiated 
 by Hugues de Digne in the mysteries of the new times : 
 as to the people, they waited, trembling, divided between 
 hope and terror. Nevertheless their adversaries did not 
 consider themselves beaten, and the Liberal party still re- 
 mained the most numerous. Of an angelic purity, Gio- 
 vanni di Parma believed in the omnipotence of example : 
 events showed how mistaken he was ; at the close of his 
 term of office scandals were not less flagrant than ten 
 years earlier.* 
 
 Between these two extreme parties, against which he 
 was to proceed with equal rigor, stood that of the Mod- 
 erates, to which belonged St. Bonaventura.^ 
 
 A mystic, but of a formal and orthodox mysticism, he 
 saw the revolution toward which the Church was hasten- 
 ing if the party of the eternal Gospel was to triumph ; its 
 
 ' In proof of this is the circular letter, Licet insufficentiam nosiram, 
 addressed by Bonaventura, April 33, 1257, immediately after his elec- 
 tion, to the provincials and custodes upon the reformation of the Order. 
 Text : Speculum,, Morin, tract, iii., f° 213a. 
 
 - Salimbeni, anu. 1248, p. 131. The Chronica tribvlationum gives 
 a long and dramatic account of these events : Arohiv., t. ii., pp. 288 ff. 
 " Tunc enim sapientia et sanctitas fratria Bonaventwrn edipsata paluit 
 et obscurata est et ejus manswetudo (sic) ab agitante apiritu infurorvm »t 
 iram dtfedt.'" lb., p. 283. 
 
CEITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES iSVii 
 
 ■victory would not be that of this or that heresy in detail, 
 it would be, with brief delay, the ruin of the entire eccle- 
 siastical edifice ; he was too perspicacious not to see that 
 in the last analysis the struggle then going on was that 
 of the individual conscience against authority. This ex- 
 plains, and up to a certain point gains him pardon for, 
 his severities against his opponents ; he was supported 
 by the court of Borne and by all those who desired to 
 make the Order a school at once of piety and of learning. 
 
 No sooner was he elected general than, with a purpose 
 that never knew hesitation, and a will whose firmness 
 made itself everywhere felt, he took his steps to forward 
 this double aim. On the very morrow of his nomination 
 he sketched the programme of reforms against the Liberal 
 party, and at the same time secured the summons of the 
 Joachimite Brothers before an ecclesiastical tribunal at 
 Citta-della-Pieve. This tribunal condemned them to 
 perpetual imprisonment, and it needed the personal in- 
 tervention of Cardinal Ottobonus, the future Adrian V., 
 for Giovanni di Parma to be left free to retire to the Con- 
 vent of Greccio. 
 
 The first chapter held under the presidence of Bona- 
 ventura, in the extended decisions of which we find every- 
 where tokens of his influence, assembled at Narbonne in 
 1260. He was then commissioned to compose a new life 
 of St. Francis.^ 
 
 We easily understand the anxieties to which this de- 
 
 ' Bon., 3, 1. At the same chapter were collected the constitutions of 
 the Order according to edicts of the preceding chapters ; new ones were 
 added to them and all were arranged. In the first of the twelve rubrics 
 the chapter prescribed that, upon the publication of the account, all the 
 old constitutions should be destroyed. The text was published in the 
 Pirmamentum trium ordinum, f° 7b, and restored lately by Father 
 Bhrle: Ardhiv., t. vi. (1891), in his beautiful work Die aUetten Bedae- 
 tionen der Oeneral-eonstitutiemen des Fransiakanen'ordem. Cf . Speeulum 
 Moriu, fo. 195b of tract, ik. 
 
394 LIFE OF ST. FKANCIS 
 
 cision of the Brothers was an answer. The number of 
 legends had greatly increased, for besides those which we 
 have first studied or noted there were others in existence 
 which have completely disappeared, and it had become 
 equally difficult for the Brothers who went forth on mis- 
 sions either to make a choice between them or to carry 
 them all. 
 
 The course of the new historian was therefore clearly 
 marked out : he must do the work of compiler and peace- 
 maker. He failed in neither. His book is a true sheaf, 
 or rather it is a millstone under which the indefatigable 
 author has pressed, somewhat at hazard, the sheaves of 
 his predecessors. Most of the time he inserts them just 
 as they are, confining himself to the work of harvesting 
 them and weeding out the tares. 
 
 Therefore, when we reach the end of this voluminous 
 work we have a very vague impression of St. Francis. 
 We see that he was a saint, a very great saint, since he 
 performed an innumerable quantity of miracles, great 
 and small ; but we feel very much as if we had been go- 
 ing through a shop of objects of piety. All these statues, 
 whether they are called St. Anthony the Abbot, St. 
 Dominic, St. Theresa, or St. Vincent de Paul, have the 
 same expression of mincing humility, of a somewhat 
 shallow ecstasy. These are saints, if you please, miracle- 
 workers ; they are not men ; he who made them made 
 them by rule, by process ; he has put nothing of his 
 heart in these ever-bowed foreheads, these lips with their 
 wan smile. 
 
 God forbid that I should say or think that St. Bona- 
 ventura was not worthy to write a life of St. Francis, 
 but the circumstances controlled his work, and it is no 
 injustice to him to say that it is fortunate for Francis, 
 and especially for us, that we have another biography of 
 the PovereUo than that of the Seraphic Doctor. 
 
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES 395 
 
 Three years after, in 1263, he brought his completed 
 work to the chapter-general convoked under his presi- 
 dence at Pisa. It was there solemnly approved.' 
 
 It is impossible to say whether they thought that the 
 presence of the new legend would suffice to put the old 
 ones out of mind, but it seems that at this time nothing 
 was said about the latter. 
 
 It was not so at the following chapter. This one, held 
 at Paris, came to a decision destined to have disastrous 
 results for the primitive Franciscan documents. This 
 decree, emanating from an assembly presided over by 
 Bonaventura in person, is too important not to be quoted 
 textually : " Item, the Chapter-general ordains on obedi- 
 ence that all the legends of the Blessed Francis formerly 
 made shall be destroyed. The Brothers who shall find 
 any without the Order must try to make away with them 
 since the legend made by the General is compiled from 
 accounts of three who almost always accompanied the 
 Blessed Francis ; all that they could certainly know and 
 all that is proven has been carefully inserted therein." * 
 
 ' The Legenda Minor of Bonaventura was also approved at this time ; 
 it is simply an abridgment of the Legenda Major arranged for use of the 
 clioir on the festival of St. Francis and its octave. 
 
 '' Item pracipii Oenerdle cwpitvXwm per obedientiam quod omnes legenda 
 deS. Francisco olim faelm dekantur et ubi invenm poierant extra ordi- 
 nem yasas fratres studeant amovere, cum ilia legenda quce facta est per 
 Generalem git compUata prout ipse Tiabuit ab ore Hlorum qui cum B. 
 Francisco quasi semper fuerunt et euncta certitudinaliter sdverint et pro- 
 bata ibi sint posita diligenter." This precious text has been found and 
 published by Father Binaldi in his preface to the text of Celano •. Sera- 
 phici viri Francisci mice dues, p. xi. Wadding seems to have known of 
 it, at least indirectly, for he says : " Utramque Historiam, hngiorem et 
 breviorem, dbtulit {Bonaventura) triennio post in cwnitiis Pisanispatribus 
 Ordinis, quaa revereniur cum gratiarum a^tione, supressis aliis qui- 
 BUSQUB LBGBNDIS, ADMISBBUNT." Ad ann., 1360, no. 18. Cf. Bhrle, 
 Zdtschrift fwr hath. Theol., t. vii. (1883), p. 386. — " Oommunicaverat 
 sanctus Franciscus plurvma sociis suis etfratrilms antiquis, que oUvmni 
 tg'odita sunt, turn quia que scrota erant in legenda prima, nova edita a 
 
396 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 It would have been difficult to be more precise. We see 
 the perseverance with which Bonaventura carried on his 
 struggle against the extreme parties. This decree ex- 
 plains the almost complete disappearance of the manu- 
 scripts of Celano and the Three Companions, since in 
 certain collections even those of Bonaventura's legend 
 are hardly to be found. 
 
 As we have seen, Bonaventura aimed to write a sort of 
 official or canonical biography; he succeeded only too 
 well. Most of the accounts that we already know have 
 gone into his collection, but not without at times suffer- 
 ing profound mutilations. We are not surprised to find 
 him passing over Francis's youth with more discretion 
 than Celano in the First Life, but we regret to find him 
 ornamenting and materializing some of the loveliest inci- 
 dents of the earher legends. 
 
 It is not enough for him that Francis hears the cruci- 
 fix of St. Damian speak ; he pauses to lay stress on the 
 assertion that he heard it ' corporeis auribus and that no 
 one was in the chapel at that moment! Brother Mo- 
 naldo at the chapter of Aries sees St. Francis appear cor- 
 poreis oculis. He often abridges his predecessors, but 
 this is not his invariable rule. When he reaches the 
 account of the stigmata he devotes long pages to it,* re- 
 lates a sort of consultation held by St. Francis as to 
 whether he could conceal them, and adds several miracles 
 due to these sacred wounds ; further on he returns to the 
 subject to show a certain Girolamo, Knight of Assisi, de- 
 siring to touch with his hands the miraculous nails.' On 
 the other hand, he uses a significant discretion wher- 
 ever the companions of the Saint are in question. Ha 
 
 fratre. Bonaventura deleta et destrueta sunt, ipsojtjbbnte turn quia 
 , . ." Chronica tntml., Arolm., t. ii., p. 356. 
 
 ' Bon., 188-204. 
 
 SBon,, 218. 
 
OEITICAL STUDY OF THE SOtJECBS 397 
 
 names only three of the first eleven disciples,' and no 
 more mentions Brothers Leo, Angelo, Kufino, Masseo, 
 than their adyersary, Brother Elias. 
 
 As to the incidents which we find for the first time in 
 this collection, they hardly make us regret the unknown 
 sources which must have been at the service of the famous 
 Doctor ; it would appear that the healing of Morico, re- 
 stored to health by a few pellets of bread soaked in the 
 oil of the lamp which burned before the altar of the Vir- 
 gin,^ has little more importance for the life of St. Fran- 
 cis than the story of the sheep given to Giacomina di 
 Settesoli which awakened its mistress to summon her to 
 go to mass.^ What shall we think of that other sheep, of 
 Portiuncula, which hastened to the choir whenever it 
 heard the psalmody of the friars, and kneeled devoutly 
 for the elevation of the Holy Sacrament ? ' 
 
 All these incidents, the Hst of which might be en- 
 larged,' betrays the working-over of the legend. St. 
 Francis becomes a great thaumaturgist, but his physiog- 
 nomy loses its originality. 
 
 The greatest fault of this work is, in fact, the vagueness 
 of the figure of the Saint. "While in Celano there are 
 the large lines of a soul-history, a sketch of the affecting 
 drama of a man who attains to the conquest of himself, 
 with Bonaventura all this interior action disappears be^ 
 fore divine interventions ; his heart is, so to speak, the\ 
 geometrical locality of a certain number of visitants ; he | 
 is a passive instrument in the hands of God, and we 
 really cannot see why he should have been chosen rather 
 than another. ^' 
 
 ' Bernardo (Bon., 38), Egidio (Bon., 29), and Silvestro (Bon., 30) 
 » Bon., 49. 
 »Bon., 112. 
 • Bou., 111. 
 
 ' Vide Bon., 115 ; 99, etc. M. Thode has enumerated the storiM r* 
 lating especially to Bonaventura : [Vraria von Assist, p. 535), 
 
398 LIFE OF ST. FEANCIS 
 
 And yet Bonaventura was an Italian; he had seen 
 Umbria ; he must have knelt and celebrated the sacred 
 mysteries in Portiuncula, that cradle of the noblest of re- 
 ligious reformations; he had conversed with Brother 
 Egidio, and must have heard from his lips an echo of the 
 first Franciscan fervor; but, alas! nothing of that rapture 
 passed into his book, and if the truth must be told, I 
 find it quite inferior to much later documents, to the 
 Fioretti, for example; for they understood, at least in 
 part, the soul of Francis ; they felt the throbbing of that 
 heart, with all its sensitiveness, admiration, indulgence, 
 love, independence, and absence of carefulness. 
 
 X. De Latjdibtjs of Bebnaed op Bessb ' 
 
 Bonaventura's work did not discourage the biogra- 
 phers. The historic value of their labor is almost noth- 
 ing, and we shall not even attempt to catalogue them. 
 
 Bernard of Basse, a native probably of the south of 
 France ' and secretary of Bonaventura,' made a summary 
 of the earlier legends. This work, which brings us no 
 authentic historic indication, is iaterestiag only for the 
 care with which the author has noted the places where 
 
 ' Manuscript 1, iv. , 33, of the library of the University of Turin. It 
 is a 4to upon parchment of the close of the fourteenth century, 124 S. 
 It comprises first the biography of St. Francis by St. Bonaventura and 
 a legend of St. Clara, afterwards at f° 95 the De laudibus. The text 
 will soon be published in the Analeeta franciscana of the Franciscans 
 of Quaraochi, near Florence. 
 
 ' In reading it we quickly discover that he was specially well ac- 
 quainted with the convents of the Province of Aquitania, and noted with 
 care everything that concerned them. 
 
 ' Wadding, ann. 1230, no. 7. Many passages prove at least that he ac- 
 companied Bonaventura in his travels : "Hoe «rem (the special aid of 
 Brother Egidio) in its qua ad bonum animm perUnent devotus Qeneralit et 
 OardinaUa predictm . . . nos docuiV F° 96a. Jam&udvm ego 
 per Theutonim partes et Flandrice cum Miniatro transiem Qenerali 
 Ibi4.. i° M». 
 
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES 399 
 
 repose the Brothers who died in odor of sanctity, and re- 
 lates a mass of visions all tending to prove the excellence 
 of the Order.i 
 
 Still the publication of this document will perform the 
 valuable ofSce of throwing a little light upon the difficult 
 question of the sources. Several passages of the De 
 laudihus appear again textually in the Speculum,^ and 
 as a single glance is enough to show that the Speculum 
 did not copy the De lavdihus, it must be that Bernard 
 of Besse had before him a copy, if not of the Speculum 
 at least of a document of the same kind. 
 
 Ill 
 
 DIPLOMATIO DOCUMENTS 
 
 In this category we place all the acts having a char- 
 acter of public authenticity, particularly those which 
 were drawn up by the pontifical cabinet. 
 
 This source of information, where each document has 
 its date, is precisely the one which has been most 
 neglected up to this time. 
 
 ' Bernard de Besse is the author of many other writings, notably as 
 important Gatalogtts Ministroruin generalium published after the Turin 
 manuscript by Father Ehrle (Zeitschrift fur hath. Theol., t. vii. , pp. 
 338-353), with a very remarkable critical introduction (ib., pp. 323-337). 
 Cf. Archil) far Litt. u. Kirchg., i., p. 145. — Baitolommeo di Pisa, 
 when writing his Conformities, had before him a part of his works, f° 
 148b, 3 ; 136a, 1 ; but he calls the author sometimes Bernar^ua de 
 Blem, then again Johannes de Blesa. See also Mark of Lisbon, t. ii.. 
 p. 212, and Haureau, Notices est extraits, t. vi., p. 153. 
 
 " " Demque primos Praneisci xii. disdpulos . . . omnes sanetoi 
 fititse audivimus preter unum qui Ordinem exiens leprosus foetus laqueo 
 vd alter Judas interiit, ne JPrancisoo cum Ohrisio vd in discipuUs tmSi' 
 tudo dejieeret,'" V 96a. 
 
400 LIFE OF ST. FEANOIS 
 
 I. Donation of thb Vbsna 
 
 The InstrumeMum, donationis Montis Alvernce, a notarial 
 document preserved in the archives of Borgo San Se- 
 polcro,' not only gives the name of the generous friend 
 of Francis, and many picturesque details, but it fixes 
 with precision a date all the more important because 
 it occurs in the most obscure period of the Saint's life. 
 It was on May 8, 1213, that Orlamdo del Catani, Count 
 of Chiusi in Casentino, gave the Verna to Brother 
 Francis. 
 
 II. Rbgistbbs op Cardinal Ugolini 
 
 The documents of the pontifical chancellery addressed 
 to Cardinal UgoUni, the future Gregory IX., and those 
 which emanate from the hand of the latter during his long 
 journeys as apostolic legate,^ are of first rate importance. 
 
 It would be too long to give even a simple enumera- 
 tion of them. Those which mark important facts have 
 been carefully indicated in the course of this work. It 
 wiU suffice to say that by bringing together these two 
 series of documents, and interposing the dates of the 
 papal bulls countersigned by TJgolini, we are able to 
 follow almost day by day this man, who was, perhaps 
 without even excepting St. Francis, the one whose will 
 
 ' It was published by Sbaralea, Bull., t. iv., p. 156, note h. This act 
 was drawn up July 9, 1274, at a time when the son of Orlando as well 
 as the Brothers Minor desired to authenticate the donation, which until 
 then had been verbal. 
 
 '' See Registri dei CardinaU Updino d'Ostia e OUomano degli Vbal- 
 dini pubblieati a cura di Chiido Levi dalVIatituto storieo italiano. — Fonti 
 per la itoria d'liaUa, Boma, 1890, 1 vol. , 4to, xxviii. and 250 pp. This 
 edition follows the manuscriut of the National Library, Paris : Ancien 
 fonds Colbert lat. , 5152A. We must draw attention to a very beauti- 
 ful work, 4ue also to Mr. G. Le". : Documenti ad illustrazione del Be- 
 gistro dd Card. XTgolino, in the Ai'ehimo della aocieta Somana di atoria 
 patria, t. xii. (1889), pp. 241-336. 
 
CEITIOAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES 401 
 
 most profoundly fashioned the Franciscan institute. We 
 see also the pre-eminent part which the Order had from 
 the beginning in the interest of the future pontiff, and 
 we arrive at perfect accuracy as to the dates of his meet- 
 ings with St. Francis. 
 
 III. Bulls 
 
 The pontifical bulls concerning the Franciscans were 
 collected and published in the last century by the monk 
 Sbaralea.' But from these we gain little help for the 
 history of the origins of the Order.^ 
 
 The following is a compendious list ; the details have 
 been given in the course of the work : 
 
 No. 1. August 18, 1218. — Bull Literce tuce addressed to 
 Ugolini. The pope permits him to accept donations of 
 landed property in behalf of women fleeing the world 
 
 ' BuUarium frandsoanum seu Bom. Pontifioum constitutiones epistdlcB 
 diplomata ordinibus Minorum, Clarisaarum et Pcenitentium cormessa, 
 edidit Jdh. Eycus. Siaralea ord. min. conv., 4 vols., fol., Rome, t. i. 
 (1759), t. 11. (1761), t. ill. (1763), t. iv., (,n68).—Supplemmtum ab An- 
 nibale de Latera ord. min. obs. Mom<B, 1780. — Sbaralea had a compara- 
 tively easy task, because of the number of collections made before his. 
 I shall mention only one of those which I have before me. It is, com- 
 paratively, very well done, and appears to have escaped the researches 
 of the Franciscan bibliographers : Singula/rissimum exmmmque opiis uni- 
 vergis mortaiibus sacratisaimi ordinis sera/phiei patris nosiri Francisci a 
 Domino Jesu mirabili modo a^robati necnon a guamphir&ua nosiri 
 Bedemptoris acmciisaimis vicariis romania pontijieabua mvltipharie de- 
 darati notitiam habere evpientibua profecto per neceaaarium,. Bpeaulum 
 Minorum . . . per Martinum Morin . . . Bouen, 1509. It is 
 8vo, with numbered folios, printed with remarkable care. It contains 
 besides the bulls the principal dissertations upon the Rule, elaborated 
 in the thirteenth century, and a Memoriale ordinia (first part, f ° 60-82), 
 a kind of catalogue of the ministers-general, which would have pre- 
 vented many of the errors of the historians, if it had been known. 
 
 ' The Bollandists themselves have entirely overlooked those sources 
 of information, thinking, upon the authority of a single badly inter- 
 preted passage, that the Order had not obtained a single bull before th« 
 solemn approval of Honorius III., November 29, 1323. 
 26 
 
402 LIFE OF ST. FEANOIS 
 
 (Clarisses) and to declare that these monasteries are 
 holden by the Apostolic See. 
 
 No. 2. June 11, 1219— Gum delectifilii. This buU, ad- 
 dressed in a general way to all prelates, is a sort of safe 
 conduct for the Brothers Minor. 
 
 No. 3. December 19, 1219. — Sacrosancta romana. 
 Privileges conceded to the Sisters (Clarisses) of Monti- 
 celli, near Florence. 
 
 No. 4. May 29, 1220.— Pro dilectis. The pope prays 
 the prelates of France to give a kindly reception to the 
 Brothers Minor. 
 
 No. 5. September 22, 1220. — Cum secundum. Hono- 
 rius III. prescribes a year of noviciate before the entry 
 into the Order. 
 
 No. 6. December 9, 1220. — Oonstitutus in prcesentia. 
 This bull concerns a priest of Constantinople who had 
 made a vow to enter the Order. As there is question 
 here oif rater Imcas Magister fratrum Minor em de pa/rti- 
 bus Bomcmice we have here indirect testimony, all the 
 more precious for that reason, as to the period of the 
 establishment of the Order in the Orient. 
 
 No. 7. February 13, 1221. — New bull for the same 
 priest. 
 
 No. 8. December 16, 1221. — Significatum est nobis, 
 Honorius III. recommends to the Bishop of Eimini to 
 protect the Brothers of Penitence (Third Order). 
 
 No. 9. March 22, 1222.' — Devotionis vestrce. Conces- 
 sion to the Franciscans, under certain conditions) to cele- 
 brate the offices in times of interdict. 
 
 No. 10. March 29, 1222. — Ex parte Universitatis. Mis- 
 sion given to the Dominicans, Franciscans, and Brothers 
 of the Troops of San lago in Lisbon. 
 
 ' And not Marcli S9, as Sbaralea has it. The original, which I have 
 idad under my eyes in the archives of Assist, bears in fact : Datum 
 Anagnie XL Kal. aprUU pontijkat/us noatri anno sexto. 
 
OEITICAL STUDY OF THE S0UKCE8 403 
 
 Nos. 11, 12, and 13.— September 19, 1222.— >Sfacro- 
 sancta Bomana. Privileges for the monasteries (Olaris- 
 ses) of Lucca, Sienna, and Perugia. 
 
 No. 14. November 29, 1223. — Solet annuere. Solemn 
 approbation of the Bule, which is inserted in the buU. 
 
 No. 15. December 18, 1223. — Fratrum Minorum. 
 Concerns apostates from the Order. 
 
 No. 16. December 1,1224. — Oumillorum. Authoriza- 
 tion given to the Brothers of Penitence to take part in the 
 offices in times of interdict, etc. 
 
 No. 17. December 3, 1224. — Quia popula/res tvmultus. 
 Concession of the portable altar. 
 
 No. 18. August 28, 1225. — In Mis. Honorius explains 
 to the Bishop of Paris and the Archbishop of Bheims 
 the true meaning of the privileges accorded to the 
 Brothers Minor. 
 
 No. 19. October 7, 1225. — Vineae Domini. This bull 
 contains divers authorizations in favor of the Brothers 
 who are going to evangelize Morocco. 
 
 This list includes only those of Sbaralea's buUs which 
 may directly or indirectly throw some light upon the life 
 of St. Francis and his institute. Sbaralea's nomencla- 
 ture is surely incomplete and should be revised when the 
 Eegisters of Honorius HI. shall have been published in 
 full.i 
 
 ' The Abbe Horoy has indeed published in five volumes what he en- 
 titles the Opera omnia of Honorius III., but he omits, without a word of 
 explanation, a great number of letters, certain of which are brought for- 
 ward in the well-known collection of Potthast. The Abbe Pietro Pres- 
 suti has undertaken to publish a compendium of all the bulls of this 
 pope according to the original Eegisters of the Vatican. / regesti del 
 Poniijke Onorio III. Boma, t. i., 1884. Volume i. only has as yet 
 •ppeaied. 
 
404 LIFE OF ST. FKAN0I8 
 
 IV 
 
 CHRONICLERS OF THE ORDER 
 I. Ghbonicle op Brotheb Giordano di Giano ' 
 
 Born at Giano, in Umbria, in the mountainous district 
 which closes the southern horizon of Assisi, Brother 
 Giordano was in 1221 one of the twenty-six friars who, 
 under the conduct of Osesar of Speyer, set out for Ger- 
 many. He seems to have remained attached to this prov- 
 ince until his death, even when most of the friars, espe- 
 cially those who held cures, had been transferred, often 
 to a distance of several months' journey, from one end of 
 Europe to the other. It is not, then, surprising that he 
 was often prayed to commit his memories to writing. He 
 dictated them to Brother Baldwin of Brandenburg in the 
 spring of 1262. He must have done it with joy, having 
 long before prepared himself for the task. He relates 
 with artless simplicity how in 1221, at the chapter-gen- 
 eral of Portiuncula, he went from group to group question- 
 ing as to their names and country the Brothers who were 
 going to set out on distant missions, that he might be 
 able to say later, especially if they came to suffer mar- 
 tyrdom : " I knew them myself ! " ^ 
 
 ' Ohroniea frai/ris Jordani a Giano. The text was published for the 
 first time iu 1870 by Dr. G. Volgt under the title : " Die Denkwurdig- 
 keiten des Minoriten Jordanus m>n Giano in the AbTiandlungen derphUo- 
 log. histor. 01. der Konigl. sdehsischen Gesellsahaft der Wissenaehaften" 
 pp. 421-545, Leipsio, by Hirzel, 1870. Only one manuscript is known ; 
 it is in the royal library at Berlin (Manuscript, theolog. lat. , 4to, n. 196, 
 ssec. xiv., foliorum 141). It has served as the base of the second edition : 
 Analeeta franciacana sice Chronica aliaque documenta ad Tmtoriam mi- 
 norum »peetantia. Ad Olaras Aquas {Quaracchi) ex typographia col- 
 legii 8. Bonamenturm, 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. Voigl. 
 
 » Giord., 81. 
 
CRITICAL STUDY OE THE SOURCES 405 
 
 His chronicle bears the imprint of this tendency. 
 What he desires to describe is the introduction of the 
 Order into Germany and its early developments there, 
 and he does it by enumerating, with a complacency which 
 has its own coquetry, the names of a multitude of friars ^ 
 and by carefully dating the events. These details, tedious 
 for the ordinary reader, are precious to the historian ; he 
 sees there the diverse conditions from which the friars 
 were recruited, and the rapidity with which a handful of 
 missionaries thrown into an unknown country were able 
 to branch out, found new stations, and in five years cover 
 with a network of monasteries, the Tyrol, Saxony, Bavaria, 
 Alsace, and the neighboring provinces. 
 
 It is needless to say that it is worth while to test Gior- 
 dfvno's chronology, for he begins by praying the reader to 
 forgive the errors which may have escaped him on this 
 head ; but a man who thus marks in his memory what he 
 desires later to tell or to write is not an ordinary witness. 
 
 Beading his chronicle, it seems as if we were listening 
 to the recollections of an old soldier, who grasps certain 
 worthless details and presents them with an extraordinary 
 power of relief, who knows not how to resist the tempta- 
 tion to bring himself forward, at the risk sometimes of 
 slightly embellishing the dry reality.^ 
 
 In fact this chronicle swarms with anecdotes somewhat 
 personal, but very artless and welcome, and which on the 
 whole carry in themselves the testimony to their authen- 
 ticity. The perfume of the Fioretti already exhales from 
 these pages so full of candor and manliness ; we can fol- 
 low the missionaries stage by stage, then when they are 
 settled, open the door of the monastery and read in the 
 
 ' He names more than twenty -four persons; 
 
 ' It does not seem to me that we can look upon the account of the'ii^ 
 terview between Gregory IX. and Brother Giordano as rigorously accu' 
 rate. Giord., 63. 
 
406 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 very hearts of these men, many of whom are as brave as 
 heroes and harmless as doves. 
 
 It is true that this chronicle deals especially with Ger- 
 many, but the first chapters have an importance for Fran- 
 cis's history that exceeds even that of the biographers. 
 Thanks to Giordano of Giano, we are from this time for- 
 ward informed upon the crises which the institute of 
 Francis passed through after 1219 ; he furnishes us the 
 solidly historical base which seems to be lacking in the 
 documents emanating from the Spirituals, and corrobo- 
 rates their testimony. 
 
 II. BCCLESTON : AERIVAL OF THE FRIABS IN ENGLAND ' 
 
 Our knowledge of Thomas of Eccleston is very slight, 
 for he has left no more trace of himself in the history of 
 the Order than of Simon of Esseby, to whom he dedicates 
 his work. A native no doubt of Yorkshire, he seems 
 never to have quitted England. He was twenty-five 
 years gathering the materials of his work, which em- 
 braces the course of events from 1224 almost to 1260. 
 The last facts that he relates belong to years very near to 
 this date. 
 
 Of almost double the length of that of Giordano, Eccles- 
 ton's work is far from furnishing as interestiug reading. 
 The former had seen nearly everything that he described, 
 and thence resulted a vigor in his story that we cannot 
 
 ' lAer de adventu Minorum in Angliam, published under the title of 
 Mormmenta Franciseana (in the series of Berum Britannicarum medii 
 JSm acrirptores. Boll series) in two volumes, 8vo ; the first through the 
 care of J. S. Brewer (1858), the second through that of E. Howlett 
 (1882). This text is reproduced without the scientific dress of the Ana- 
 lecta franciseana, t. i. , pp. 217-257. Cf. English Historical Review, t 
 (1890), 754. He has published an excellent critical edition of it, fcnt 
 unfortunately partial, in vol. xxviii., Scriptorum, of the Monumenca 
 Oermanix Histarica by Mr. Liebermann, Hanover, 1888, folio, pp. 560- 
 669. 
 
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOXTEOES 407 
 
 find in an author who writes on the testimony of others. 
 More than this, while Giordano follows a chronological 
 order, Eccleston has divided his incidents under fifteen 
 rubrics, in which the same people continually reappear in 
 a confusion which at length becomes very wearisome. 
 Finally, his document is amazingly partial : the author is 
 not content with merely proving that the English friars 
 are saints ; he desires to show that the province of Eng- 
 land surpasses all others ' by its fidelity to the Rule and 
 its courage against the upholders of new ways. Brother 
 Elias in particular. 
 
 But these few faults ought not to make us lose sight of 
 the true value of this document. It embraces what we 
 may call the heroic period of the Franciscan movement 
 in England, and describes it with extreme simplicity. 
 
 Aside from aU question of history, we have here enough 
 to interest all those who are charmed by the spectacle of 
 moral conquest. On Monday, September 10th, the 
 Brothers Minor landed at Dover. They were nine in 
 number : a priest, a deacon, two who had only the lesser 
 Orders, and five laymen. They visited Canterbury, 
 London, Oxford, Cambridge, Lincoln, and less than ten 
 months later all who have made their mark in the history 
 of science or of sanctity had joined them ; it may suf- 
 fice to name Adam of Marisco, Eichard of Cornwall, 
 Bishop Eobert GrossetSte, one of the proudest and pu- 
 rest figures of the Middle Ages, and Eoger Bacon, that 
 persecuted monk who several centuries before his time 
 grappled with and answered in his lonely cell the prob- 
 lems of authority and method, with a firmness and power, 
 which the sixteenth century would find it hard to sur- 
 pass. 
 
 ' Ecol., 11 ; 13 ; 14 ; 15. Cf. Ecol., 14, where the author takes pains 
 to say that Alberto of Pisa died at Borne, surrounded bj English Brothers 
 " inter Anglioos." 
 
408 LIFE OF ST, FRANCIS 
 
 It is impossible that in such a movement human weak- 
 nesses and passions should not here and there reveal 
 themselves, but we owe our chronicler thanks for not 
 hiding them. Thanks to him, we can for a moment for- 
 get the present hour, call to life again that first Cam- 
 bridge chapel — so slight that it took a carpenter only one 
 day to build it — listen to three Brothers chanting matins 
 that same night, and that with so much ardor that one of 
 them — so rickety that his two companions were obliged to 
 carry him — wept for joy: in England as in Italy the 
 Franciscan gospel was a gospel of peace and joy. Moral 
 ugliness inspired them with a pity which we no longer 
 know. There are few historic incidents finer than that of 
 Brother Geoffrey of Salisbury confessing Alexander of 
 Bissingbum ; the noble penitent was performing this 
 duty without attention, as if he were telling some sort of 
 a story; suddenly his confessor melted into tears, making 
 him blush with shame and forcing tears also from him, 
 working in him so complete a revolution that he begged 
 to be taken into the Order. 
 
 The most interesting parts are those where Thomas 
 gives us an intimate view of the friars : here drinking 
 their beer, there hastening, in spite of the Eule, to buy 
 some on credit for two comrades who have been mal- 
 treated, or again clustering about Brother Solomon, who 
 had just come in nearly frozen with cold, and whom they 
 could not succeed in warming — sicut porcis mos est cum 
 comprimendo foverunt, says the pious narrator.^ All this 
 is mingled with dreams, visions, numberless apparitions,' 
 which once more show us how different were the ideas 
 most familiar to the religious minds of the thirteenth 
 century from those which haunt the brains and hearts of 
 to-day. 
 
 The information given by Bccleston bears only indi- 
 > EceJi 4, J* ' Bcpl- 4; S • * • 7- lO; 12: 13; 14; "^ 
 
CEITIOAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES 409 
 
 rectly on this book, but if he speaks little of Francis he 
 speaks much at length of some of the men who have been 
 most closely mingled with his life. 
 
 m. Chkonicle of Fra Salimbeni ' 
 
 As celebrated as it is little known, this chronicle is of 
 quite secondary value in all that concerns the lite of St. 
 Francis. Its author, born October 9, 1221, entered the 
 Order in 1238, and wrote his memoirs in 1282-1287 ; it is 
 therefore especially for the middle years of the thirteenth 
 century that his importance is capital. Notwithstanding 
 this, it is surprising how small a place the radiant figure 
 of the master holds in these long pages, and this very 
 fact shows, better than long arguments could do, how 
 profound was the fall of the Franciscan idea. 
 
 IV. The Chronicle op the Tribulations by Angelo Careno " 
 
 This chronicle was written about 1330; we might 
 therefore be surprised to see it appear among the sources 
 
 ' It was published, but with many suppressions, in 1857, at Parma. 
 The Franciscans of Quaracchi prepared a new edition of it, which ap- 
 peared in the Ancdeeta Frcuyniscana. This work is in manuscript in 
 the Vatican under no. 7260. Vide Ehrle, Zeiischrift fur 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 ehronicce auctoritate, 
 Paris, 4to, 1877, with fac simile. 
 
 ' Father Ehrle has published it, but unfortunately not entire, in 
 the ArchiB., 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 (Pint. 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 Archimo sto- 
 rico italiano, t. xvii. (1886), pp. 12-36 and 243-61, and one of Mr. Rich- 
 ard's : Library of the feole des chartes, 1884, 5th livr. p. 525. Cf. 
 Tocco, the Eresia net medio Evo, p. 419 S. As to the text published bj 
 
410 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 to be consulted for the life of St. Francis, dead more 
 than a century before; but the picture which Clareno 
 gives us of the early days of the Order gains its impor- 
 tance from the fact that in sketching it he made con- 
 stant appeal to eye-witnesses, and precisely to those 
 whose works have disappeared. 
 
 Angelo Clareno, earlier called Pietro da Fossombrone * 
 from the name of his native town, and sometimes da 
 Cingoli, doubtless from the little convent where he made 
 profession, belonged to the Zelanti of the March of 
 Ancona as early as 1265. Hunted and persecuted by 
 his adversaries during his whole life, he died in the 
 odor of sanctity June 15, 1339, in the little hermitage 
 of Santa Maria d' Aspro in the diocese of Marsico in 
 Basilicata. 
 
 Thanks to published documents, we may now, so to 
 speak, follow day by day not only the external circum- 
 stances of his life, but the inner workings of his soul. 
 With him we see the true Franciscan live again, one of 
 those men who, while desiring to remain the obedient 
 son of the Church, cannot reconcile themselves to permit 
 the domain of the dream to slip away from them, the 
 ideal which they have hailed. Often they are on the 
 borders of heresy ; in these utterances against bad priests 
 and unworthy pontiffs there is a bitterness which the 
 sectaries of the sixteenth century will not exceed.' Of- 
 ten, too, they seem to renounce all authority and make 
 
 Dolliuger in his Beiir&ge sur 8ektengeaehichte des Mittdalters, Mftnich, 
 1890, 2 vols., 8to, II. Theil Dokumente, pp. 417-427, it is of no use. It 
 can only beget errors, as it abounds with gross mistakes. Whole pages 
 are wanting. 
 
 ' Arehiv., t. iii., pp. 406-409. 
 
 ^ Vide Arehiv., i., p. 557 . . . " Et hoe latum ex rapaeitaie et ma- 
 Ugnitate hiporum pastorum qui wlueruni esse pastores, sedopenbus ««• 
 gamerunt deum," et seq. Of., p. 562: ^' Avaritia et aynumiaoa TwretU 
 absque paiiio regnat etfere totum invaeit eedesie corput." 
 
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES 411 
 
 fimal appeal to the inward witness of the Holy Spirit ; * 
 and yet Protestantism would be mistaken in seeking its 
 ancestors among them. No, they desired to die as they 
 had lived, in the communion of that Church which was 
 as a stepmother to them and which they yet loved with 
 that heroic passion which some of the ci-devant nobles 
 brought in '93 to the love of France, governed though 
 she was by Jacobins, and poured out their blood for her. 
 
 Clareno and his friends not only believed that Francis 
 had been a great Saint, but to this conviction, which was 
 also that of the Brothers of the Common Observance, 
 they added the persuasion that the work of the Stigma- 
 tized could only be continued by men who should attain 
 to his moral stature, to which men might arrive through 
 the power of faith and love. They were of the violent 
 who take the kingdom of heaven by force ; so when, after 
 the frivolous and senile interests of every day we come 
 face to face with them, we feel ourselves both humbled 
 and exalted, for we suddenly find unhoped-for powers, 
 an unrecognized lyre in the human heart. 
 
 There is one of Jesus's apostles of whom it is difficult 
 not to think while reading the chronicle of the Tribula- 
 tions and Angelo Clareno's correspondence : St. John. 
 Between the apostle's words about love and those of the 
 Franciscan there is a similarity of style all the more 
 stnking because they were written in different languages. 
 In both of these the soul is that of the aged man, where 
 all is only love, pardon, desire for holiness, and yet it 
 
 ' " Qui excommunicat etherelusat (Missiimam eoangdii paupefrtatem, ex- 
 communieatus est a Deo et heretiem coram Christo, qui est etema et in com- 
 mutabUis Veritas." ArcTi., i., -p. 509. ^' Non est potestas contra chrit- 
 'ibm Dominum et contra emangdium. " lb. p. 560. He closes one of his 
 'etters with a sentence of a mysticism full of serenity, and which lets us 
 see to the bottom of the hearts of the Spiritual Brothers. " Totum 
 igitur stvMum esse debet quod unum inseparoMiier simus per Frandsettnt 
 iirh Ohnsto." lb., p. 564. 
 
412 LIFE OP ST. FRANCIS 
 
 sometimes wakes with a sudden thrill — like that which 
 stirred the soul of the seer of Patmos — of indignation, 
 wrath, pity, terror, and joy, when the future unveils it- 
 seK and gives a glimpse of the close of the great trib- 
 ulation. 
 
 Clareno's works, then, are in the strictest sense of the 
 word partisan ; the question is whether the author has 
 designedly falsified the facts or mEtUated the texts. To 
 this question we may boldly answer, No. He commits 
 errors,' especially in his earlier pages, but they are not 
 such as to diminish our confidence. 
 
 Like a good Joachimite, he believed that the Order 
 would have to traverse seven tribulations before its final 
 triumph. The pontificate of John XXII. marked, he 
 thought, the commencement of the seventh ; he set him- 
 self, then, to write, at the request of a friend, the history 
 of the first six.^ 
 
 His account of the first is naturally preceded by an 
 introduction, the purpose of which is to exhibit to the 
 reader, taking the life of St. Francis as a framework, the 
 intention of the latter in composing the Eule and dic- 
 tating the Will. 
 
 Bom between 1240 and 1250, Clareno had at his ser- 
 vice the testimony of several of the first disciples ; ' he 
 
 ' For example, in the list of the first six generals of the Order. 
 
 'The first (1219-1336) extends from the departure of St. Francis for 
 Egypt up to his death ; the second includes the generalate of Brother 
 Elias (1232-1339) ; the third that of Crescentius (1244-1248) ; the fourth 
 that of Bonaventura (1357-1274) ; the fifth commences with the epoch 
 of the council of Lyon (1274) and extends up to the death of the inquis- 
 itor, Thomas d'Aversa (1204). And the sixth goes from 1308 to 1333. 
 
 "^ Super erant adhue midii de sociis b. Franeisci . . . et alii non 
 pmtcide guibus ego vidi et ah vpm avMei qua narro." Laur. Ms., cod. 
 7, pi. XX., f° 34a : " Quipassi sunt earn (tribulationem tertiam) soeiifun- 
 daioris fratreg Aegdius et Angelua, qui super erant me audiente referi 
 batU." Laur. Mb., f ° 27b. Cf., Italian Ms., xxxrii., 38, Magliab., 1° ISSbk 
 
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOUKCES 413 
 
 found himself in relations with Angelo di Eieti,* Egidio,' 
 and with that Brother Giovanni, companion of Egidio, 
 mentioned in the prologue of the Legend of the Three 
 Companions.* 
 
 His chronicle, therefore, forms as it were the continua- 
 tion of that legend. The members of the little circle 
 of Greccio are they who recommend it to us ; it has also 
 their inspiration. 
 
 But writing long years after the death of these Broth- 
 ers, Clareno feels the need of supporting himself also on 
 written testimony; he repeatedly refers to the four 
 legends from which he borrows a part of his narrative ; 
 they are those of Giovanni di Oeperano, Thomas of Oe- 
 lano, Bonaventura, and Brother Leo.^ Bonaventura's 
 work is mentioned only by way of reference; Clareno 
 borrows nothing from him, while he cites long passages 
 
 > The date of his death is unknown ; on August 11, 1353, he was pres^ 
 ent at the death-bed of St. Clara. 
 
 = Died April 33, 1261. 
 
 ' " Quern (fratrem Jacobum de Massa) dirigente mefratre Johanne socio 
 fratrisprefati Egidumderelaboravi. Hie enimf rater Johannes . . . 
 dixit mihi. . . ." Arch., ii., Tp. 219. 
 
 *" . . . Trilmlationes preteritas memoram, ut omdivi db illis qui 
 sustinuerunt eas et aMqua commemwam de Mis que didici in quatuor 
 legendis quas mdi et legi." Arch., ii., p. 135. — " Vitam pauperis et hu- 
 mUis viri Dei Francisei trium ordinum fandatoris quatuor solemnet 
 personm scripserunt, fratres videlicet saientia et sanctitate pradari, 
 Johannes et Thomas de Oelano, frater Bonaventura unus post Beatum 
 Franciscum Oeneralis Minister et vir mirce simplidtatis et sanetHatis 
 frater Leo, ejusdem sancti francisci socius. Has quatuor descriptiones 
 seu historias qui legerit . . . " Laurent. MS., pi. xx., c. 7, f° la. 
 Did the Italian translator think there was an error in this quotation ? I 
 do not know, but he suppressed it. At f° 12a of manuscript xxxvii., 
 38, of the Magliabecchina, we read : " Incomineiano aleune croniche del 
 ordine franolscano, come la vita del povero e humile servo di Bio Frances- 
 co fondatore dd minorico ordine fu scripta da San Bonaventura e da qua- 
 tro altrifrati. Quests poche scripture omeramente hystorie queUo U qucdt 
 diligentemenie le leggiera, expeditamente potra oognoscere . . . la 
 vocatume la santita di San Francisco." 
 
414 LIFE OP ST. FRANCIS 
 
 from Giovanni di Ceperano,^ Thomas of Celano'and 
 Brother Leo.' 
 
 Clareno takes from these writers narratives containing 
 several new and extremely curious facts.* 
 
 I have dwelt particularly upon this document because 
 its value appears to me not yet to have been properly 
 
 ' Laur. MS. , f ° 4b ff. On the other hand we read in a letter of Cla- 
 reno : " Ad Jianc(j)av/pertatem)perfecte servandam CJiriatus Franciscum 
 weamt ei elegit in hac Iwra rwvissima etprecefpit ei evangdicam assumere 
 regulam, et a papa Innocentiofuii omnibus annuntiatnim in concilio gen- 
 traZi, quod de sua auatoritate et obedientia sanetus Franciseus evwngeli- 
 cam viiam et regulam assumpserat et Christo inspirante servare promise- 
 rat, sicut sanetus mrfr. Leo soribit etfr. Johannes de Cekmo." Arehiv. , 
 i., p. 559. 
 
 "'Audiens enim semel guorundam. frairum enormes exeessus, utfr. 
 Thomas de Oelano scribit, et malum exemplum pereos secvlaribus datum. " 
 Lanr. MS., f ° 13b. The passage which follows evidently refers to 3 Cel., 
 3, 93 and 112. 
 
 3 "■ Et fecerunt de reguUi prima ministri removeri eapituhim istud de 
 prohibiiionibus sancti evangelii, sicui f rater Leo scribit." Laur. Ms. f° 
 12b. Cf. ,^«c.,9a, see p. 248. ^^jyameumrediissetdepartibusvltrama- 
 rinis, minister guidam loquebatur cum eo, ut f rater Leo refert, de capi- 
 tulo paupertatis," i° 18a, cf. Spec, 9a, "S. Franciseus, teste fr. Leone, 
 freqUfCnter et cum mtdto studio recitabat fabulam . . . quod oporte- 
 baifinaliter ordinem humiliari et ad sue humilitatis prinei/pia confitenda 
 et tenenda reduei." Arehiv., ii., p. 129. 
 
 There is only one point of contact between the Legend of the Three 
 Companions, such as it is to-day, and these passages ; but we find on 
 the contrary revised accounts in the Bpeevlum and in the other collec- 
 tions, where they are cited as coming from Brother Leo. 
 
 * Clareno, for example, holds that the Cardinal TJgolini had sus- 
 tained St. Francis without approving of the first Rule, in concert with 
 Cardinal Giovanni di San Paolo. This is possible, since Ugolini was cre- 
 ated cardinal in 1198 (Vide Cardella : Mem/yiHe storiche de' Oardinali, 9 
 vols., 8vo, Rome, 1792-1793, t. i., pt. 2, p. 190). Besides this would bet- 
 ter explain the zeal with which he protected the divers Orders founded 
 by St. Francis, from 1217. The chapter where Clareno tells how St. 
 Francis wrote the Rule shows the working over of the legend, but it is 
 very possible that he has borrowed it in its present form from Brother 
 Leo. It is to be noted that we do not find in this document a single allu- 
 ■ion to the Indulgences of Portioncula. 
 
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES 415 
 
 appreciated. It is indeed partisan ; the documents of 
 which we must be most wary are not those whose ten- 
 dency is manifest, but those where it is skilfully con- 
 cealed. 
 
 The life of St. Francis and a great part of the re- 
 ligious history of the thirteenth century will surely 
 appear to us in an entirely different light when we are 
 able to fiU out the documents of the "victorious party by 
 those of the party of the vanquished. Just as Thomas 
 of Celano's first legend is dominated by the desire to asso- 
 ciate closely St. Francis, Gregory IX., and Brother Elias, 
 so the Chronicle of the Tribulations is inspired from 
 beginning to end with the thought that the troubles of 
 the Order — to say the word, the apostasy — began so early 
 as 1219. This contention finds a striking confirmation 
 in the Chronicle of Giordano di Giano. 
 
 V. The Fioketti ' 
 
 With the Fioretti we enter definitively the domain of 
 legend. This literary gem relates the Ufe of Francis, 
 his companions and disciples, as it appeared to the 
 popular imagination at the beginning of the fourteenth 
 century. We have not to discuss the literary value of 
 this document, one of the most exquisite religious works 
 of the Middle Ages, but it may well be said that from 
 the historic point of view it does not deserve the neglect 
 to which it has been left. 
 
 > The manuscripts and editions are well-nigh innumerable. M. Luigi 
 Manzoni has studied them with a carefulness that makes it much to be 
 desired that he continue this difficult work. Studi mi Moretti: Misce- 
 lenea, 1888, pp. 116-119, 150-152, 162-168 ; 1889, 9-15, 78-84, 132— 
 135. When shall we And some one who can and will undertake to make 
 a scientific edition of them ? Those which have appeared during our 
 time in the various cities of Italy are insignificant from a critical point 
 of view. See Mazzoni Guido, Oapitoli inediti dei FioreUi di 8. Fran- 
 ceico, in the Propugnatore, Bologna, 1888, vol. xxi., pp. 396-411. 
 
416 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 Most authors have failed in courage to revise the sen- 
 tence lightly uttered against it by the successors of Bol- 
 landus. Why make anything of a book which Father 
 Suysken did not even deign to read ! ' 
 
 Yet that which gives these stories an inestimable worth 
 is what for want of a better term we may call their atmos- 
 phere. They are legendary, worked over, exaggerated, 
 false even, if you please, but they give us with a vivac- 
 ity and intensity of coloring something that we shall 
 search for in vain elsewhere — the surroundings in which 
 St. Francis lived. More than any other biography the 
 Fioretti transport us to Umbria, to the mountains of 
 the March of Ancona ; they make us visit the hermi- 
 tages, and mingle with the life, half childish, half angelic, 
 which was that of their inhabitants. 
 
 It is difficult to pronounce upon the name of the 
 author. His work was only that of gathering the flowers 
 of his bouquet from written and oral tradition. The 
 question whether he wrote in Latin or Italian has been 
 much discussed and appears to be not yet settled; 
 what is certain is that though this work may be anterior 
 to the Conformities,^ it is a little later than the Chron- 
 icle of the Tribulations, for it would be strange that it 
 made no mention of Angelo Clareno, if it was written 
 after his death. 
 
 This book is in fact an essentially local ^ chronicle ; 
 the author has in mind to erect a monument to the 
 glory of the Brothers Minor of the March of Ancona. 
 This province, which is evidently his own, " does it not 
 
 ' Vide A. SS. , p. 865 : "Moretum non legi, nee curandum putavi." 
 Cf. 563f : "■Floretum ad manum non habeo." 
 
 ' Bartolommeo di Pisa compiled it in 1385 ; then certain manuscripts of 
 the Fioretti are earlier. Besides, in the stories that the Conformities bor- 
 row from the Fioretti, we perceive Bartolommeo's work of abbreviation. 
 
 ' I am speaking here only of the fiftj-three chapters which form the 
 true collection of the Fioretti. 
 
OEITICAL STUDY OP THE SOURCES 417 
 
 resemble the sky blazing with stajs ? The holy Brothers 
 who dwelt in it, like the stars in the sky, have illumi- 
 nated and adorned the Order of St. Francis, filling the 
 world with their examples and teaching." He is ac- 
 quainted with the smallest villages,' each having at a 
 short distance its monastery, well apart, usually near a 
 torrent, in the edge of a wood, and above, near the hill- 
 top, a few almost inaccessible cells, the asylums of 
 Brothers even more than the others in love with con- 
 templation and retirement.'* 
 
 The chapters that concern St. Francis and the TJm- 
 brian Brothers are only a sort of introduction ; Egidio, 
 Masseo, Leo on one side, St. Clara on the other, are wit- 
 nesses that the ideal at Portiuncula and St. Damian was 
 indeed the same to which in later days Giachimo di 
 Massa, Pietro di Monticulo, Conrad di Offida, Giovanni 
 di Penna, and Giovanni della Verna endeavored to attain. 
 
 While most of the other legends give us the Franciscan 
 tradition of the great convents, the Fioretti are almost 
 the only document which shows it as it was perpetuated 
 in the hermitages and among the people. In default of 
 accuracy of detail, the incidents which are related here 
 contain a higher truth — their tone is true. Here are 
 words that were never uttered, acts that never took 
 place, but the soul and the heart of the early Franciscans 
 w,^re surely what they are depicted here. 
 
 ' 'The province of the March of Ancona counted seven oustodias : 
 1, Asooli ; 2, Camerino ; 3, Aneona ; 4, Jesi ; 5, Fermo ; 6, Fano ; 7, 
 Felestro. The Fioretti mention at least six of the monasteries of tho 
 oustodia of Fermo : Moliano, 51, 53 ; Fallerone, 32, 51 ; Bruforte and 
 Soffiano, 46, 47 ; Massa, 51 ; Penna, 45 ; Fermo, 41, 49, 51. 
 
 ' At each page we are reminded of those groves which were originally 
 the indispensable appendage of the Franciscan monasteries : La seltia 
 cK era aMora allato u. 8. M. degli Angeli, 3, 10, 13, 16, etc. La selm 
 cP vn Ivogo deserto del ml di Spoleto (Carceri ?), 4 ; selva di Forarw, 42. rf' 
 Massa, 51, etc. 
 27 
 
418 LIFE OF ST. FEANCIS 
 
 The Fioretti haTe the living truth that the pencil gives. 
 Something is wanting in the physiognomy of the Pover- 
 ello when we forget his conversation with Brother Leo 
 on the perfect joy, his journey to Sienna with Masseo, or 
 even the conversion of the wolf of Gubbio. 
 
 We must not, however, exaggerate the legendary side 
 of the Fioretti : there are not more that two or three of 
 these stories of which the kernel is not historic and easy 
 to find. The famous episode of the wolf of Gubbio, 
 which is unquestionably the most marvellous of all the 
 series, is only, to speak the engraver's language, the third 
 state of the story of the robbers of Monte Casale^ 
 mingled with a legend of the Vema. 
 
 The stories crowd one another in this book like flocks 
 of memories that come upon us pell-mell, and in which 
 insignificant details occupy a larger place than the most 
 important events ; our memory is, in fact, an overgrown 
 child, and what it retains of a man is generally a feature, 
 a word, a gesture. Scientific history is trying to react, to 
 mark the relative value of facts, to bring forward the im- 
 portant ones, to cast into shade that which is secondary. 
 Is it not a mistake ? Is there such a thing as the impor- 
 tant and the secondary ? How is it going to be marked? 
 
 The popular imagination is right : what we need to re- 
 tain of a man is the expression of countenance in which 
 lives his whole being, a heart-cry, a gesture that expresses 
 his personality. Do we not find all of Jesus in the words 
 of the Last Supper ? And all of St. Francis in his ad- 
 dress to brother wolf and his sermon to the birds ? 
 
 Let us beware of despising these documents in which 
 the first Franciscans are described as they saw them- 
 selves to be. Unfolding under the Umbrian sky at the 
 foot of the olives of St. Damian, or the firs of the March 
 
 ' The Specuhim, 46b, 58b, 158a, gives us three states. Of. Mor., 26 
 and 21 ; Conform., 119b, 3. 
 
CRITICAL STtTDT OF THE SOURCES 419 
 
 of Ancona, these wild flowers have a perfume and an 
 originality which we look for in vain in the carefuUy 
 cultivated flowers of a learned gardener. 
 
 Appendices of the Fiobetti 
 
 In the first of these appendices the compiler has di- 
 vided into five chapters aU the information on the stig- 
 mata which he was able to gather. It is easy to under- 
 stand the success of the Fioretti. The people fell in love 
 with these stories, in which St. Francis and his compan- 
 ions appear both more human and more divine than in 
 the other legends ; and they began very soon to feel the 
 need of so completing them as to form a veritable biog- 
 raphy.' 
 
 The second, entitled Life of Brother Ginepro, is only 
 indirectly connected with St. Francis ; yet it deserves to 
 be studied, for it offers the same kind of interest as the 
 principal collection, to which it is doubtless posterior. 
 In these fourteen chapters we find the principal features 
 of the life of this Brother, whose mad and saintly freaks 
 stiU furnish material for conversation in Umbrian monas- 
 teries. These unpretending pages discover to us one 
 aspect of the Franciscan heart. The official historians 
 have thought it their duty to keep silence upon this 
 Brother, who to them appeared to be a supremely indis- 
 creet personage, very much in the way of the good name 
 of the Order in the eyes of the laics. They were right 
 from their point of view, but we owe a debt of gratitude 
 to the Fioretti for having preserved for us this person- 
 
 > This desire was so natural that the manuscript of the Angelica 
 Library includes many additional chapters, concerning the gift of Por- 
 tiuncnla, the indulgence of August 3d, the birth of St. Francis, etc. 
 (Vide Amoni, Fioretti, Homa, 1889, pp. 266, 378-386.) It would be an 
 Interesting study to seek the origin of these documents and to establish 
 their relationship with the Speculum and the Conformities. Vide (?<»•' 
 /om,, 231a, 1 ; 131b ; ^ee., 92-96. 
 
420 LIFE OP ST. FEAN0I3 
 
 ality, so blithe, so modest, and with so arch a good nat- 
 ure. Certainly St. Francis was more like Ginepro than 
 like Brother Elias or St. BonaTentura.' 
 
 The third, Life of Brother Egidio, appears to be 
 on the whole the most ancient document on the life of 
 the famous Ecstatic that we possess. It is very possi- 
 ble that these stories might be traced to Brother Gio- 
 vanni, to whom the Three Companions appeal in their 
 prologue. 
 
 In the defective texts given us in the existing editions 
 we perceive the hand of an annotator whose notes have 
 slipped into the text,^ but in spite of that this life is one 
 of the most important of the secondary texts. This al- 
 ways itinerant brother, one of whose principal preoccu- 
 pations 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 Eule, and precisely in 
 those that have had the most to suffer from the enter- 
 prise 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 mys- 
 ticism, 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.° 
 
 ' Ginepro was received into tte Order by St Francis. In 1353 he 
 was present at St. Clara's death, A. SS., Aug., t. ii. , p. 764d. The 
 Conformities speak of him in detail, f° 63b. 
 
 ^ The first seven chapters form a whole. The three which follow ar« 
 doubtless a first attempt at completing them. 
 
 » Conformities, f ° 55b, l-60a, 1. 
 
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES 421 
 
 VI. Oebonicle of the XXIV. Gbnbkalb ' 
 
 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 au- 
 thors 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 prepariog to 
 print it. 
 
 It is difficult not to bring the epoch in which this col- 
 lection 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 Baktolommeo of Pisa ' 
 
 The Book of the Conformities, to which Brother Barto- 
 lommeo of Pisa devoted more than fifteen years of his 
 life,* appears to have been read very inattentively by 
 
 ' See Archis., t. i., p. 145, an article of Father Denifie : Zur QvMen- 
 hande der XVamiskaner Oeachichie, where he mentions at least eight 
 manuscripts of this work. Cf. Ehrle : ZeiUchrift, 1883, p. 324, note 3. 
 I have studied only the two manuscripts of Florence : Riccardi, 279, 
 paper, 243 fos. of two cols, recently numbered. The Codex of the Lau- 
 rentian Gaddian. rel. , 53, is less careful. It is also on paper, 20 x 27, 
 and counts 254 fos. of 1 column. F° 1 was formerly numbered 88. 
 The order of the chapters is not the same as in the preceding. 
 
 ' The citations are always made from the edition of Milan, 1510, 4to 
 of 256 folios of two columns. The best known of the subsequent edi 
 tions are those of Milan, 1513, and Bologna, 1590. 
 
 * He began it in 1385 (f° 1), and it was authorized by the chapter 
 
422 LIFE OF ST. FKANOIS 
 
 most of the authors who have spoken of it.^ In justice 
 to them we miist 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 neg- 
 lect to which it has been left. I do not hesitate, how- 
 ever, 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 histo- 
 rian, we can boldly place him in the front rank of com- 
 pilers.^ 
 
 If the BoUandists had more thoroughly studied him 
 they would have seen more clearly into the difficult ques- 
 tion of the sources, and the authors who have come after 
 them would have been spared numberless errors and in- 
 terminable researches. 
 
 general August 2, 1399 (f' iJ56a, 1). Besides, on f° 150a, 1, he set down 
 the date when he was writing. It was in 1390. 
 
 ' I am not here concerned with the foolish attacks of certain Protes- 
 tant authors upon this life. That is a quarrel of the theologians which 
 in no way concerns history. Nowhere does Bartolommeo of Pisa make 
 St. Francis the equal of Jesus, and he was able even to forestall criti- 
 cism in this respect. The BoUandists are equally severe : ' ' Oum Pisaniis 
 fuerit aorvptor magis pius et eredvius quam erisi aevera usus. ..." 
 A. SS., p. 551e. 
 
 ' He has avoided the mistakes so unfortunately committed by Wadding 
 in his list of ministers general. Vide 66a, 3, 104a, 1, 118b, 3. He was 
 lecturer on theology at Bologna; Padua, Pisa, Sienna, and Florence. 
 He preached for many years and with great success in the principal vil- 
 lages of the Peninsula and could thus take advantage of his travels by 
 collecting useful notes. Mark of Lisbon has preserved for us a notice of 
 his life. Vide Groniche dd fratri Minori, t. iii., p. 6 ff., of the Diola 
 edition. He died December 10, 1401. For further details see Wadding, 
 ann. 1899, vii., viii., and above ail Sbaralea, Swpplementum, p. 109. 
 He is the author of an exposition of the Bule little known which can be 
 found in the Speculum Morin, Rouen, 1509, f ° 66b-83a, of part three. 
 
CEITICAIi STUDY OP THE SOURCES 423 
 
 Starting with the thought that Francis's life had been 
 a perfect imitation of that of Jesus, Bartolommeo at- 
 tempted to collect, without losing a single one, all the in- 
 stances of the life of the PovereUo 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,* 
 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 centu- 
 ries ; they are there only in fragments, it is true, but with 
 perfect accuracy.' 
 
 When his researches were unsuccessful he avows it 
 simply, without attempting to fil' out the written testi- 
 monies with his own conjectures.^ He goes farther, and 
 submits the documents he has before him to a real test- 
 
 ' This opinion is expressed in a guarded manner. For example, 
 f» 207a, 1, Bartolommeo relates the miracle of the Chapter of the Mats, 
 first following St. Bonaventura, then adding: "^t quia non aUter 
 tcmgit dicta pars (fegendm majoris) hoc insigne miraculum : antiqua legen- 
 da hoc rtfertw in hwne modum." Cf. 335a, 3m. " Et guiafr. Bona- 
 ventura suceincte mvlta tangii et in brem: pro emdentia prefatorum no- 
 tandiwm est . . . ut didt antiqua legenda." 
 
 ' However, it is necessary to note that not only are there considerable 
 differences between the editions published, but also that the first (that 
 of Milan, 1510) has been completed and revised by its editor. The 
 judgments passed upon Raymond Ganfridi, 104a, 1, and Boniface VIII., 
 103b, 1, show traces of later corrections. (Cf. 135a, 1. At f 73a, 3m, is 
 indicated the date of the death of St. Bernardin, which was in 1444, etc.) 
 Besides, we are surprised to find beside the pages where the sources are 
 indicated with clearness others where stories follow one another coming 
 one knows not from whence. 
 
 ' F° 70a, 1 : "Gvjus nomen non reperi." la, 2 : " Multague rum ea 
 industria sed quia ea noncere rum valui omiitendo." 
 
424 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 ing, laying aside those he considers uncertain.' Finally 
 he takes pains to point out the passages in which his 
 only authority is oral testimony.^ 
 
 As he is almost continually citing the legends of Ce- 
 lano, the Three Companions, and Bonaventura, and as 
 the citations prove on verification to be literally accu- 
 rate, as well as those of the WiU, the divers Eules, 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.^ 
 
 ' F° 78a, 1 : InformaUones guas non saribo quia vmperfeetas reperi. 
 Cf. 339b, 3 : " De aUia muliia apparitionibus non reperi seri/pturam, 
 quare hie non pono." 
 
 ' F° 69a, 1 : " Hec ut audim posui quia ejus legendam non vidi." Cf . 
 68b, 2m : 'BV. Hemrieus generaUa minister mihi niagistro Bartholomew 
 dixit ipse oretenus. 
 
 * The citations from Bonaventura are decidedly more frequent. Wa 
 should not be surprised, since this story is the official biography of St. 
 Francis ; the chapter from which Bartolommeo takes his quotations is 
 almost always indicated, and, naturally, follows the old division in 
 five parts. Opening the book at hazard at folio 186a I find no less 
 than six references to the Legenda Major in the first column. To give 
 an idea of the style of Bartolommeo of Pisa I shall give in substance the 
 contents of a page of his book. See, for example, f° Ilia (lib. i., con- 
 form. X., pars, ii., Franciscus predicator). In the third line he cites 
 Bonaventura : " Fr. Bonaventura in guarta parte majoris legende dicit 
 quod b. Franciscus mdebaiur intuentibus homo alteriua seculi." Textual 
 citation of Bonaventura, 45. Three lines further on : " Verum qualis 
 ssset b. F. quoad personam, sic habeiur in legenda aniiqua 
 homo facundissimus, facie hilaris, etc." The literal citation of the sketch 
 of Francis follows as 1 Celano, 83, gives it as far as : " inter pecaatores 
 quasi unus ex Ulis," and to mark the end of the quotation Bartolommeo 
 adds : " Sec legenda aniigua." In the next column paragraph 4 com- 
 mences with the words : B. Frandsci predicationem reddebat mirabikm 
 et gloriosam ipsius sancti hquutio : etenvm legenda trmm Bocwrum dicU et 
 Legenda m^or parte tertia : B. Frandsei eloquia erant non inania, neo 
 risu digna, etc. , which corresponds literally with 3 Soc. , 35, and Bon. , 28. 
 Then come two chapters of Bonaventura almost entire, beginning with : 
 In dMoOecima parte legende mc0oris dieit Fr. Bonaventura: Erateaim 
 
OEITIOAL STUDY OF THE SOUKCES 425 
 
 The citations which he makes from Celano present no 
 difficulty ; they are all accurate, corresponding sometimes 
 with the First sometimes with the Second Legend.' 
 
 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.^ 
 
 With the citations from the Legeruia Antiqua the ques- 
 tion 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 nega- 
 tive, 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 
 
 verbum ejus, etc. Textual quotation of Bou., 178 and 179. The page 
 ends with another quotation from Bonaventura : Sic dicebat prout 
 recitat Bonaventura in octava parte Legends majoris : Hoc offidum, patri 
 misericordiarum. Vide Bonav., 103 end and 103 entire. This suffices 
 without doubt to show with what precision the authorities have been 
 quoted in this work, with what attention and confidence ought to be 
 examined those portions of documents lost or mislaid which he has 
 here preserved for us. 
 
 ' F° 31b, 2 : tit dicit fr. Thomas in sua legenda, at. 3 Cel., 8, 60. — 
 140a, 3 : Pr. in leg. fr. TJwme, cf. 3 Cel., 8, 60.— 140a 1, of. 3 Cel., 3 
 16. — 143b, 1 : IV. in leg. Thome capitulo de chaniaie, of.. 8 Cel. , 8, 115. 
 — 144b, 1 : Fr. in leg. fr. Thome capitulo de m-atione, cf . 3 Cel. , 3, 40. — 
 144b, 1, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 65.— 144b, 3, cf. 3 Cel., 3, 78.— 176b, 3, of. 2 
 Cel., 3, 79.— 183b, 3, cf. 2 Cel., 2, 1.— 241b, 1, cf. 2 Cel., 8, 141.— 181a, 
 3, cf. 1 Cel., 37. It is needless to say that these lists of quotations do 
 not pretend to be complete. 
 
 " F» 86b, 2. Ut enim habetur in leg. 8 Soc, cf. 3 Soc, 10.— 46b, 1, 
 cf. 3 Soc, 25-38. —88b 2, cf. 3 Soc. 8.— Ilia, 3, of. 3 Soc, 35.— 134a, 2, 
 cf. 8 Soc, 4— 143b, 3, cf. 3 Soc, 57 and 68.— 167b, 3, cf. 3 Soc, 3 and 
 8.— 168a, 1, cf. 3 Soc, 10.— 170b, 1, cf. 3 Soc, 39, 4.— 175b, 3, cf. 3 
 Soc, 59.— 180b, 3, cf. 3 Soc, 4.— 181a, 1, cf. 8 Soc, 5, 7, 24, 83, and 
 67.— 181a, 2, cf. 8 Soc, 36.— 329b, 3, of 3 Soc, 14. etc The reading 
 of 8 Soc which Bartolommeo had before his eyes was pretty much the 
 same we have to-day, for he says, 181a, 3, referring to 3 Soc, 67 : " Ut 
 habetur quasi in fine leg. 3 8oe." 
 
426 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 by the Order the Legends anterior to that, and especially 
 that of Celano, were called Legenda Antiqua. The Con- 
 formities permit us to look a little closer into the ques- 
 tion. We find, in fact, passages from the Legenda Antiqua 
 which reproduce Celano's First Life.^ Others present 
 points of contact with the Second, sometimes a literary 
 exactitude,^ but often these are the same stories told in too 
 different a way for us to consider them borrowed.' 
 
 Finally there are many of these extracts from the Le- 
 genda Antiqua of which we find no source in any of the 
 documents already discussed.* This would suffice to 
 show that the two are not to be confounded. It has ab- 
 sorbed them and brought about certain changes while 
 completing them with others.^ 
 
 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 
 
 ' F" Ilia, 1, Sic hdbetur in leg. ant, corresponds literally with 1 Cel., 
 83. — 144a, 3. M'anciscus in leg. ant. cap. v. de zdo ad rdigionem, to 1 
 Cel. 106. 
 
 ' F» 111b, 1. De predicamMbus loqueus sic dicebat in ant. leg. C£. 
 2 Cel., 3, 99 and 106. 140b, 1. Cf. 3 Gel., 3, 84.— 144b, 1, of, 3 Cel.» 
 3, 45.— 144a, 1, cf. 3 Cel., 3, 95 and 15.— 335b, 3, cf. 3 Cel., 3, 116. 
 
 ' F° 31a, 1. Vide 3 Cel., 3, 83.— 143a, 3. Vide 3 Cel., 3, 65 and 
 116.— 144a, 1. Vide 3 Cel., 3, 94.— 170b, 1. Vide 2 Cel. , 3, 11. 
 
 * F" 14a, 2.— 33a, 1.— 101a, 2.— 169b, 1.— 144b, 3.— 142a, 2.— 143b, 
 3.— 168b, 1.— 144b, 1. 
 
 ' Chapters 18 (chapter of the mats) and 25 (lepers cured) of the Fio- 
 retti are found in Latin in the Conf . as borrowed from the Leg. Ant. 
 Vide 174b, 1, and 307a, 1. 
 
 Finally, according to f° 168b, 3, it is also from the Leg. Ant. that the 
 description of the coat, such as we find at the end of the Chronique del 
 Tribulations, was borrowed. See Arehiv. , t. ii. , p. 163. 
 
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SOURCES 427 
 
 Legenda Antiqua.'^ 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.' 
 
 However this may be, it appears that in this collec- 
 tion the stories have been given us (the principal source 
 being the Legend of Brother Leo or the Three Com- 
 panions before its mutUation) 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 ad- 
 dressed to the persecuted Zealots.^ 
 
 VIII. Chboniclb of Glassbbrgbk ♦ 
 
 Evidently this work, written about 1508, cannot be 
 classed among the sources properly so called ; but it pre- 
 
 'P°182a, 2; of. 51b, 1 ; 144a, 1. 
 
 ' He died December 12, 1306, at Bastia, near Assisi. See upon him 
 Ghrm. Tribul. Arohiv., ii. ; 311 and 812; Conform., 60, 119, and 153. 
 
 ' Although the history of the Indulgence of Portiuncula was of all 
 subjects the one most largely treated in the Conformities, 151b, 2- 
 157a, 2, not once does Bartolommeo of Pisa refer to it in the Legenda 
 Antigua. It seems, then, that this collection also was silent as to this 
 celebrated pardon. 
 
 * Published with extreme care by the Franciscan Fathers of the 
 Observance in t. ii. of the Analeeta Franciaeana, ad Clara Aquas 
 (Quaracchi, near Florence), 1888, 1 vol., crown 8vo, of xxxvi.-612 pp. 
 This edition, as much from the critical point of view of the text, its 
 correctness, its various readings and notes, as from the material point 
 of view, is perfect and makes the more desirable a publication of the 
 chronicles of the xxiv. generals and of Salimbeni by the same editors. 
 The beginning up to the year 1262 has been published already by Dr. 
 Karl Evers under the title AnaUeta ad Fratrwm Minorum historiam, 
 Leipsio, 1882, 4to of 89 pp. 
 
438 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 sents 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 particulai 
 with the chronicle of Brother Giordano di Giano, which he 
 has inserted almost bodily in his own work. 
 
 IX. Chkoniclb of Mark of Lisbon ' 
 
 This work is of the same character as that of Glass- 
 berger ; 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 sub- 
 ject which did not reach the friars in distant coimtries. 
 
 CHRONICLES OUTSIDE OP THE ORDER 
 
 I. Jacques db Vitry 
 
 The following documents, which we can only briefly in- 
 dicate, are of inestimable value ; they emanate from men 
 particularly well situated to give us the impression which 
 the Umbrian prophet produced on his generation. 
 
 Jacques de Vitry' has left extended writings on St. 
 
 ' I have been able only to procure the Italian edition published by 
 Horatio Diola under the title Cronic?te degli Ordini instituti dal P. 8. 
 Francesco, 3 vols., 8vo, Venice, 1606. 
 
 '' He was born at Vitrysur-Seine, became CurS of Argenteuil, near 
 Paris ; Canon of Oignies, in the diocese of Namur, preached the crusade 
 against the Albigenses, and accompanied the Crusaders to Palestine; 
 having been made Bishop of Acre, he was present in 1219 at the siege 
 and at the capture of Damietta and returned to Europe in 1225 ; created 
 Cardinal-bishop of Frascati in 1239, he died in 1244, leaving a number 
 of writings. For his life, see the preface of his Siatorice, edition ci 
 Douai, 1597. 
 
CEITIOAL STUDY OP THE SOURCES 429 
 
 Francis. Like a prudent man who has already seen 
 many religious madmen, he is at first reserved ; but soon 
 this sentiment disappears, and we find in him only a; 
 humble and active admiration for the Apostolic Man. 
 
 He speaks of him in a letter which he wrote immedi- 
 ately after the taking of Damietta (November, 1219), to 
 his friends in Lorraine, to describe it to them.^ A few 
 lines suffice to describe St. Francis and point out his ir- 
 resistible influence. There is not a single passage in the 
 Franciscan biographers which gives a more living idea of 
 the apostolate of the Poverello. 
 
 He returns to him more at length in his Historia Occi- 
 dentalis, devoting to him the thirty-second chapter of this 
 curious work.^ These pages, vibrating with enthusiasm, 
 were written during Francis's lifetime,' at the time when 
 the most enlightened members of the Church, who had 
 believed themselves to be living in the evening of the 
 world, in vespere mundi tendenfis ad occaswn, suddenly saw 
 in the direction of TJmbria the light of a new day. 
 
 II. Thomas of Spalato 
 
 An archdeacon of the Cathedral of Spalato, who in 1220 
 was studying at Bologna, has left us a very living por- 
 trait of St. Francis and the memory of the impression 
 which his preachings produced in that learned town.* 
 
 ' This letter may be found in (Bongars) Gesta Dei per Frtmeio, pp. 
 1146-1149. 
 
 "^ Jacdbi de Vitriaeo Libri duo quorum prior Orientalis, alter Oeeiden' 
 talis HistorioB nomine inscribitwr studio Fr. MoscM Thutci ex offidna Sal- 
 thaairis BeUeri, 1597, 16mo, 480 pp. Chapter xxxii. fills pages 349-353, 
 and is entitled De ordine et prcsdieatione frairum Minorum,. See above, 
 p. 239. 
 
 ' This appears from the passage : yvdenvM primus ordirm fundatorem 
 magestrum cut tanquam sum/mo Priori suo omnes alii obediont. Loe. 
 vit., p. 353. 
 
 * It is inserted in the treatise of Sigonius on the bishops of Bologna i 
 CaroU Sigonii de episa^it BonpnifinsSius libri quingue cum notia L. 
 
430 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 Something of his enthusiasm has passed into his story; 
 we feel that that day, August 15, 1220, when he met 
 the Poverello of Assisi, was one of the best of his life.' 
 
 III. DivBBS Chronicles 
 
 The continuation of William of Tyre ^ brings us a new 
 account of Francis's attempt to conquer the Soudan. This 
 narratiTe, the longest of all three we have on this subject, 
 contains no feature essentially new, but it gives one more 
 witness to the historic value of the Franciscan legends. 
 
 Finally, there are two chronicles written during Fran- 
 cis's life, which, without giving anything new, speak 
 with accuracy of his foundation, and prove how rapidly 
 that religious renovation which started in Umbria was 
 being propagated to the very ends of Europe. The 
 anonymous chronicler of Monte Sereno ' in fact wrote 
 about 1225, and tells us, not without regret, of the brill- 
 iant conquests of the Franciscans. 
 
 Burchard,^ Abbot Premontr^ d'Ursberg (died in 1226), 
 who was in Bome in 1211, leaves us a very curious criti- 
 cism of the Order. 
 
 The Brothers Minor appeared to hiin a little like an or- 
 thodox branch of the Poor Men of Lyons. He even de- 
 sires that the pope, while approving the Franciscans, 
 
 Bdbbii, a work which occupies cols. 353-590 of t. iii. of his Opera 
 omnia, Milan, 1732-1737, 6 vols., f». We find our fragment in col. 433. 
 
 ' This passage will be found above, p. 241. 
 
 ' Chiillelmi Tyrerma wrch. Continuala ieUi sacri historia in Martene •. 
 Amplissima OoUectio, t v. pp. 584-572. The piece concerning Francis 
 is cols. 689-690. 
 
 ° Ohromcon Montis Sereni (at present Petersberg, near Halle), edited by 
 Ehrenfenchter in the Mim. Germ. hist. Script., t. 23, pp, 130-226, 
 229. 
 
 * Bwrcha/rdiet Gvxmradi Vrspergensium ehronicon ed., A Otto Abel and 
 L. Weiland, apud Mm. Oerm. hist., t. 23, pp. 333-383. The monaster;!' 
 of XJrsperg was half-way between Ulin and Augsburg. Vide p. 376. 
 
OBITIOAL STUDY OP THE SOURCES 431 
 
 should do so with a view to satisfy, ia the measure of 
 the possible, the aspirations manifested by that heresy 
 and that of the Humiliati. 
 
 It is impossible to attribute any value whatever to the 
 long pages given to St. Francis by Matthew Paris.* His 
 information is correct wherever the activities of the 
 friars are concerned, and he could examine the work 
 around him.^ They are absolutely fantastic when he 
 comes to the life of St. Francis, and we can only feel sur- 
 prised to find M. Hase ' adopting the English monk's ac- 
 count of the stigmata. 
 
 The notice which he gives of Francis contains as 
 many errors as sentences ; he makes him bom of a family 
 illustrious by its nobility, makes him study theology from 
 his infancy f^oc didicerat in litteris et theologicis disdplinis 
 quUms ah cetate tenera incubuerat, usque ad notitiam per/ec- 
 tam), etc.* 
 
 It would be useless to enlarge this list and mention 
 those chroniclers who simply noticed the foundation of 
 the Order, its approbation, and the death of St. Francis,' 
 or those which spoke of him at length, but simply by 
 copying a Franciscan legend." 
 
 ' Matthm Parimnm monotchie Albanemis, Eistoria major, edition 
 Watts, London, 1640. The Brothers Minor are first mentioned in the 
 year 1207, p. 323, then 1337, pp. 339-343. 
 
 ^ See the article, Minores, in the table of contents of the Mon. Germ. 
 hist. Script., t. xxviii. 
 
 ' From ton Assiai, p. 168 £E. 
 
 * See above, p. 97, his story of the audience with Innocent III. 
 
 ' For example, Chronica Albrioi tnum fontium in Pertz : Seript. , t. 33, 
 ad ann. 1307, 1326, 1338. Vide Fragment of the chron. of Philippe 
 Mousket (4. before 1345). BeeueU des hiatoriena, t. xxii., p. 71, lines 
 30347-30360. The number of annalists in this century is appalling, 
 and there is not one in ten who has omitted to note the foundation of 
 the Minor Brothers. 
 
 ' For example, Vincent de Beauvais ("fi 1364) gives in his l^eeuhim, hit- 
 toriale, lib. 39, cap. 97-99, lib. 30, cap. 99-111, nearly every story given 
 
432 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 It sufl5ces to point out by way of memory the long 
 chapter consecrated to St. Francis in the Golden Legend. 
 Giachimo di Voraggio (►J* 1298) there sums up with accu- 
 racy but without order the essential features of the first 
 legends and ia particular the Second Life by Celano.' 
 
 As for the inscription of Santa Maria del VescoYado at 
 Assisi it is too unformed to be anything but a simple ob- 
 ject of curiosity.^ 
 
 I have given up preparing a complete bibliography of 
 works concerning St. Francis, that task having been very 
 weU done by the Abbe Ulysse Chevalier ia his Repertoire 
 des sources historiques du moyen age, Bio-Bibliographie, 
 cols. 765-767 and 2588-2590, Paris, 1 vol., 4to, 1876- 
 1888. To it I refer my readers. 
 
 by the Bollandists under the title of Secunda legenda in their Gommen- 
 ta/riwm, promam. 
 
 ' Legenda aurea, Graesse, Breslau, 1890, pp. 663-674. 
 
 ' A good reproduction of it will be found in the Miscellanea frances- 
 eana, t. ii., pp. 33-37, accompanied by a learned dissertation by M. 
 Falooi Fulignani. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 SEITICAL STUDY OF THE STIOMATA AND THE INDULGENCE 
 OF AUGUST 3 
 
 I. The Stigmata 
 
 A dissertation upon the possibility of miracles would 
 be out of place here ; a historic sketch is not a treatise on 
 philosophy or dogmatics. 
 
 StiU, I owe the reader a few explanations, to enable 
 him with thorough understanding to judge of my manner 
 of viewing the subject. 
 
 If by miracle we understand either the suspension or 
 subversion of the laws of nature, or the intervention of 
 the first cause in certain particular cases, I could not 
 concede it. In this negation physical and logical reasons 
 are secondary ; the true reason — let no one be surprised 
 — is entirely religious; the miracle is immoral. The 
 equaUty of all before God is one of the postulates of the 
 religious consciousness, and the miracle, that good pleas- 
 ure of God, only degrades him to the level of the capri- 
 cious tyrants of the earth. 
 
 The existing churches, making, as nearly all of them do, 
 this notion of miracle the very essence of religion and the 
 basis of all positive faith, involuntarily render themselves 
 guilty of that emasculation of manliness and morality of 
 which they so passionately complain. If God intervenes 
 tihus irregularly in the affairs of men, the latter can 
 88 
 
434 LIFE OF ST. FEAWCIS 
 
 hardly do otherwise than seek to become courtiers who 
 expect all things of the sovereign's /awor. 
 
 The question changes its aspect, if we call miracle, as 
 we most generally do, all that goes beyond ordinary- 
 experience. 
 
 Many apologists delight in showing that the unheard 
 of, the inexplicable, are met with aU through life. They 
 are right and I agree with them, on condition that they 
 do not at the close of their explanation replace this new 
 notion of the supernatural by the former one. 
 
 It is thus that I have come to conclude the reality ol 
 the stigmata. They may have been a unique fact with- 
 out being more miraculous than other phenomena; for 
 example, the mathematical powers or the musical ability 
 of an infant prodigy. 
 
 There are in the human creature almost indefinite 
 powers, marvellous energies; in the great majority of 
 men these lie in torpid slumber, but awaking to life in a 
 few, they make of them prophets, men of genius, and 
 saints who show humanity its true nature. 
 
 We. have caught but fleeting glimpses into the domain 
 of mental pathology, so vast is it and unexplored ; the 
 learned men of the future will perhaps make, ia the 
 realms of psychology and physiology, such discoveries as 
 will bring about a complete revolution in our laws and 
 customs. 
 
 It remains to examine the stigmata from the point of 
 view of history. And though in this field there is no 
 lack of difficulties, small and great, the testimony appears 
 to me to be at once too abundant and too precise not to 
 command conviction. 
 
 "We may at the outset set aside the system of those 
 who hold that Brother Elias helped on their appearance 
 by a pious fraud. Such a claim might indeed be de- 
 fended if these marks had been gaping wounds, as they 
 
APPENDIX 435 
 
 are now or in most cases have been represented to be ; 
 but all the testimony agrees in describing them, with the 
 exception of the mark on the side, as blackish, fleshy 
 excrescences, like the heads of nails, and in the palms of 
 the hands like the points of nails clinched by a hammer. 
 There was no bloody exudation except at the side. 
 
 On the other hand, any deception on the part of Elias 
 would oblige us to hold that his accomplices were actually 
 the heads of the party opposed to him, Leo, Angelo, and 
 Bufino. Such want of wit would be surprising indeed 
 in a man so circumspect. 
 
 Finally the psychological agreement between the ex- 
 ternal circumstances and the event is so close that an in- 
 vention of this character would be as inexplicable as the 
 fact itself. That which indeed almost always betrays 
 invented or unnatural incidents is that they do not fit 
 into the framework of the facts. They are extraneous 
 events, purely decorative elements whose place might be 
 changed at will. 
 
 Nothing of the sort is the case here : Thomas of Celano 
 is so veracious and so exact, that though holding the 
 stigmata to be miraculous, he gives us all the elements 
 necessary for explaining them in a diametrically opposite 
 manner. 
 
 1. The preponderating place of the passion of Jesus in 
 Francis's conscience ever since his conversion (1 Cel., 
 115; 2Cel., 1, 6; 3,29; 49; 52). 
 
 2. His sojourn in the Vema coincides with a great in- 
 crease of mystical fervor. 
 
 3. He there observes a Lent in honor of the archangel 
 St. Michael. 
 
 4. The festival of the exaltation of the cross comes on, 
 and in the vision of the crucified seraph is blended the 
 two ideas which have taken possession of him, the angels 
 and the crucifix (1 Cel., 91-96, 112-115). 
 
436 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 This perfect congruity between the circumstances and 
 the prodigy itself forms a moral proof whose value can- 
 not be exaggerated. 
 
 It is time to pass the principal witnesses in review. 
 
 1. Brother Elias, 1226. On the very day after the 
 death of Francis, Brother Elias, in his capacity of vicar, 
 sent letters to the entire Order announcing the event 
 and prescribing prayers.' 
 
 After having expressed his sorrow and imparted to the 
 Brothers the blessing with which the dying Francis had 
 charged him for them, he adds : " I announce to you a 
 great joy and a new miracle. Never has the world seen 
 such a sign, except on the Son of God who is the Christ 
 God. For a long time before his death our Brother and 
 Father appeared as crucified, having in his body five 
 wounds which are truly the stigmata of Christ, for his 
 hands and his feet bore marks as of nails without and 
 within, forming a sort of scars ; while at the side he was 
 as if pierced with a lance, and often a little blood oozed 
 from it." 
 
 2. Brother Leo. We find that it is the very adversary of 
 Elias who is the natural witness, not only of the stig- 
 
 ' The text was published in 1620 by Spoelberoh (in his Spemdum vita 
 B. Franciaci, Antwerp, 2 vols., 12mo, ii., pp. 103-106), after the copy 
 addressed to Brother Gregory, minister in Prance, and then preserved 
 in the convent of the Recollects in Valenciennes. It was reproduced 
 by Wadding (Ann. 1226, no. 44) and the BoUandists (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 Soeiorum, Rome, 1880, pp. 105-109), but accord- 
 ing to his deplorable habit, he neglects to tell whence he has drawn it. 
 'jChis is the more to be regretted since he gives a variant of the first 
 order : Nam diu ante mortem instead of 2fon diu, as Spoelberch's text 
 has it. The reading; Nam, diu appears preferable from a philological point 
 of vien. 
 
APPENDIX 437 
 
 mata, but of the circumstances of their imprinting. This 
 fact adds a peculiar value to his account. 
 
 We learned above (Critical Study, p. 377) the untoward 
 fate of a part of the Legend of Brothers Leo, Angelo, and 
 Rufino. The chapters with which it now closes (68-73) 
 and in which the narrative of the miracle occurs, were 
 not originally a part of it. They are a summary added 
 at a later time to complete this document. This appendix, 
 therefore, has no historic value, and we neither depend on 
 it with the ecclesiastical authors to affirm the miracle, nor 
 with M. Hase to call it in question. 
 
 Happily the testimony of Brother Leo has come down 
 to us in spite of that. We are not left even to seek for 
 it in the Speculum, the Fioretti, the Conformities, where 
 fragments of his work are to be found ; we find it in sev- 
 eral other documents of incontestable authority. 
 
 The authenticity of the autograph of St. Francis pre- 
 served at Assisi appears to be thoroughly established 
 (see Critical Study, p. 357) ; it contains the following note 
 by Brother Leo's hand : " The Blessed Francis two years 
 before his death kept on the Vema in honor of the B. V. 
 Mary mother of God, and St. Michael Archangel, a Lent 
 from the festival of the Assumption of the B. V. M. to 
 the festival of St. Michael in September, and the hand of 
 God was upon him by the vision and the address of the 
 seraph and the impression of the stigmata upon his 
 body. He made the laudes that are on the other side, 
 
 . . . etc." 
 
 Again, Eccleston (13) shows us Brother Leo complain- 
 ing to Brother Peter of Tewkesbury, minister in Eng- 
 land, that the legend is too brief concerning the events 
 on the Vema, and relating to him the greater nimiber of 
 the incidents which form the nucleus of the Fioretti on 
 the stigmata. These memorials are all the more certain 
 4hat they wesre immediately committed to writing by 
 
438 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 Peter of Tewkesbury's companion, Brother Garin tod 
 Sedenfeld. 
 
 Finally Salembeni, in his chronicle (ad ann. 1224) in 
 speaking of Ezzelino da Eomano 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 Francis- 
 cans to fix it in a sort of canonical and so to say, stereo- 
 typed narrative. 
 
 4. The portrait of Francis, by Berlinghieri, dated 
 1236,* preserved at Pescia (province of Lucca) shows the 
 stigmata as they are described in the preceding docu- 
 ments. 
 
 6. 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 cer- 
 tain countries. The pope asks all the faithful to believe 
 in them. Two other bulls of the same day, one ad- 
 dressed to the Bishop of Olmiitz, the other to the Do- 
 minicans,, energetically condemns them for calling the 
 stigmata in question (Potthast, 10308 and 10309). 
 
 6. Alexander IV., in his bull Benigna operatic of Oc- 
 tober 29, 1255 (Potthast, 16077), states that having 
 ' Engraved in Saint Francois d' Assise, Paris, 4to, 1885, f, 277. 
 
APPENDIX 439 
 
 formerly been the domestic prelate of Cardinal Ugolioi, 
 he knew St. Francis familiarly, and supports his descrip- 
 tion of the stigmata by these relations. 
 
 To this pontiff are due several bulls declaring excom- 
 mmiicate 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 Gel. 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 (►I-' 1259), His discordant witness 
 barely deserves being cited by way of memoir (see Crit- 
 ical 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 stig- 
 mata 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 ; ^ 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 sequen- 
 ces composed in 1228 by the pope and several cardinals 
 
 ' BOAtofheca Patrum. Lyons, 1677, xxv., adv. AUngenses, lib. ii., capb 
 11., ef. Ui., 14 and 15. Beproduced in the A. SS., p. 653. 
 
440 LIFE OP ST. TEANOIS 
 
 for the OflSce of St. Francis ; but sucli a work, to be done 
 with accuracy, would carry us very far, and the authori- 
 ties already cited doubtless suffice without bringing in 
 others.* 
 
 The objections which have been opposed to these wit- 
 nesses may be reduced, I think, to the following : ^ 
 
 a. Francis's funeral took place with surprising precipi- 
 tation. Dead on Saturday evening, he was buried Sun- 
 day morning. 
 
 6. 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). 
 
 6. 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 cer- 
 tainly 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 
 
 ' The curious may consult the following sources : Salimbeni, ann. 
 1250.— CoJi/orm., 171b 3, 335a 3 ; Bon., 300 ; Wadding, ann. 1228, no. 
 78 ; A. SS. , p. 800. Manuscript 340 of the Sawo Oonmnto contains (fo. 
 55b-56b) four of these hymns. Cf . Arctm. i. , p. 485. 
 
 ^ See in particular Hase : Franz v. Aasm. Leipsic, 1 vol., 8vo., 1856. 
 The learned professor devotes no less than sixty closely printed pages to 
 the study of the stigmata, 142-208. 
 
APPENDIX 441 
 
 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 Himgary. 
 [^QtKsdam aures illius truncabant, etiam summitatem mor 
 millarum ejus quidampraecidebcmt et pro reliquiis sibi ser- 
 vabant. — lAber de dictis iv. cmcilla/rum, Mencken, vol. ii., 
 p. 2032.] 
 
 c. The ceremony of translation brought an innumerable 
 multitude to Assisi. If Brother Elias concealed the 
 body,' he may have been led to do so by the fear of some 
 organized surprise of the Pemgians to gain possession 
 of the precious relic. With the customs of those days, 
 such a theft would have been in nowise extraordinary. 
 These very Pemgians 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 
 
 ' The more I think about it, the more incapable I become of attribut- 
 ing any sort of weight to this argument from the disappearance of the 
 body ; for in fact, if there had been any pious fraud on Qlias'e part, ht 
 would on the contrary have displayed the corpse. 
 
442 LIFE OF ST. PKANCIS 
 
 testimony of other bulls by the same pontiff in 1227, and 
 after the part given to the stigmata in the liturgical songs 
 which ia 1228 he composed for the office of St. Francis. 
 
 e. These attacks by certain bishops are in nowise sur- 
 prising ; they are episodes in the struggle of the secular 
 clergy against the mendicant orders. 
 
 At the time when these negations were brought for- 
 ward (1237) the narrative of Thomas of Celano was offi- 
 cial 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 Olmiitz 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 ; ' 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 ("f 1271) ? 
 
 Thus the witnesses appear to me to maintain their in- 
 tegrity. 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,^ but it is very 
 seldom that a witness does not try to prove his affirma- 
 
 ' See, for example, 3 Cel., 3, 86, as well as the encyclical of Giovanni 
 ii Parma and TJmberto di Romano, in 1325. 
 
 ' 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, 
 Hi. consid. 
 
 Hase, in his study, is continually under the weight of the bad im- 
 pression 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 dif* 
 f erent conclusions. 
 
APPENDIX 443 
 
 tions 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, cailed Indulgence of Poeti- 
 
 UNCULA ' 
 
 This question might be set aside ; on the whole it has 
 no direct connection with the history of St. Francis. 
 
 ' The most important document is manuscript 344 of the archives of 
 Sacro Convento at Assisi. Liber mdidgentice 8. Marim de Angdis me 
 de Portiuncvla in quo libra ego fr. Pranciscus Bartlwli de Assisio poaui 
 quidguid potui soUicite iniienire in legendis antiguia et noms b. Franeisci 
 et in (dm diciie soeiorum ejv^ de loco eodem et commendatione ^sms loci et 
 quidguid veritaiis et certitudinis potui inmnvre de sacra inchilgentia pre- 
 fati lod, guomodo scilicet fuii imvpetrata et data b. Francisco de mvraculis 
 ipmts indulgentioB gum ipsam, dedarant certain et veram. Bartholi lived 
 in the first half of the fourteenth century. 
 
 His work is still unpublished, but Father Leo Patrem M. O. is pre- 
 paring it for publication. The name of this learned monk gives every 
 guaranty for the accuracy of this difficult work; meanwhile a de- 
 tailed description and long extracts may be found in the Miscellanea 
 (ii., 1887). La stmia ddperdono di Francesco de Bartlwli, by Don Mi- 
 chele Faloci Pulignani, pp. 149-153 (of. Archiv., i. , p. 486). See also in 
 the Miscellanea (i., 1886, p. 15) a bibliographical note containing a de- 
 tailed list of fifty-eight works (cf. ibid., pp. 48, 145). 
 
 The legend itself is found in the Speculum, 69b-88a, and in the Con- 
 formities, 151b-157a. In these two collections it is still found labori- 
 ously 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 devel- 
 opment of the tradition. The most complete work is that of the Recol- 
 lect Father Grouwel : Historia eritica 8. Indulgentim B. Marim Angel- 
 orum vulgo de Portiuncida . . . contra Lib^s aXiguos anonymo ac 
 famosos nwper editos, Antwerp, 1726, 1 vol., 8vo, pp. 510. 
 
 The BoUandist Suysken also makes a long study of it (A. SS., pp. 879- 
 910), as also the Recollect Father Candide Chalippe, Vie de saint Fran- 
 cois d'Asme, 8 vols., 8vo, Paris, 1874 (the first edition is of 1730), vol. 
 iii., pp. 190-327. 
 
 In each of these works we find what has been said in all the others. 
 
444 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 Yet it occupies too large a place in modem 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 condi- 
 tion 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 in- 
 dulgence, 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 inci- 
 dents. 
 
 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 difficul- 
 ties, contradictions, impossibilities of this story, many a 
 time pointed out by orthodox writers. In spite of all 
 
 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 Ohalippe. 
 
 Among contemporaries Father Barnabas of Alsace : Portiurusvla Oder 
 OesehicMe Unaerer lieben M-cm von den Engeln (Rixheim, 1 vol., 8vo, 
 1884), represents the tradition of the Order, and the Abbe Le Monnier 
 (HisUme de Saint Wran^xm, 3 vols., 8vo, Paris, 1889), moderate Catholic 
 opinion in non-Franciscan circles. 
 
 The best summary is that of Father Panfilo da Magliano in his Slmia 
 compendiosa. It has been completed and amended in the German 
 translation : OescMchte dea h. Franciscus und der Franziskantr ubersetzt 
 und bearieitet von Fr. Quintianus Muller, vol. i., Munich, 1883, pp. 
 233-359. 
 
APPENDIX 445 
 
 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 over- 
 whelming. 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, Giordi- 
 ano 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 thir- 
 teenth 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 Por- 
 tiuncula 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 pontifif s register ? 
 
446 LIFE OF ST. FEANOIS 
 
 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 nan habet locum adhuc. Quia hcec 
 indulgentia occuUahitur ad tempus ; sed Dominus trahet 
 earn extra et manifestahitur." 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 dif- 
 ficulties ; how is it that the chapters-general were not 
 fixed for August 2d, to allow the 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 
 aU the others — Francis's Will : 
 
 " I forbid absolutely all the Brothers by their obe- 
 dience, in whatever place they may be, to ask any bull 
 of the court of Eome, 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 PojP- 
 tiuncula to recover sight.* 
 
 ' 3 Gel., 1, 13 ; 3 Soc, 56 ; Bon., 24. 
 
APPENDIX 447 
 
 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 Porti- 
 uncula.* 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* 
 (1244-1247) aroused a vast increase of fervor among their 
 adversaries. To the buU of Innocent IV. declaring the 
 basilica thenceforth Capvi et Mater of the Order ^ the 
 Zealots replied by the narratives of Celano's Second Life 
 and the legends of that period.* They went so far as to 
 quote a promise of Francis to make it in perpetuity the 
 Mater et Caput of his institute.^ 
 
 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 Porti- 
 uncula, whUe the Basilica of Assisi is in the hands of the 
 
 ■ Conform., 239b, 3. 
 
 'See in particnlaT ArcMv,, li., p. 259, and the bull of February 7, 
 1246. Potthast, 12007 ; Glassberger, ann. 1344 (An. fr. t. ii., p. 69). 
 
 ' Is qui ecdeeiam, March 6, 1345, Potthast, 11576. 
 
 *2 Cel., 1, 13 (cf. Conform^, 318a, 1) ; 3 Soc, 56; Spec., 33b S. ; 49b 
 ff. ; Conform., 144a, 3. 
 
 » Conform., 169a ; 3, 317b, 1 ff. Cf . I%>r., Amoni's ed. (Appendix to 
 the Codez of the Bib. Angelica), p. 378. 
 
448 LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 ConTentuals (Large Observance), wlio have adopted all 
 tlie interpretations and mitigations of the Eules ; 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 infidel- 
 ity 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 ex- 
 cept 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 Kaimondo Gaufridi 
 (1289-1295) ; Conrad di Offida (►:- 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 in- 
 fallible authority, and yet in its origin it was a veritable 
 cry of revolt against the decisions of Eome.