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YALE
DIVINITY SCHOOL
LIBRARY

Gift of
Williston Walker

American Historical Association

THE

SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS

DAVID SAVILLE MUZZEY, PH. D

Hebert Baxter Adams Prize Essay, Awarded December, 1905

JTileto gotfc
1907

THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS
When an idea finds acceptance in the world, it clothes itself
in forms available for it and adapted to it. Socialization
means institutionalization. For if an idea is to have growth, it
must adopt propagandism; and propagandism implies the
equipment of missionaries, the establishment of posts
and stations, the instruction of neophytes, the con
trol of agents, the commission of tribunals — in a single
word, organization. To a majority of converts to any
religious ideal this course of development seems normal and
desirable ; the index of the triumph of the ideal among men.
But a minority have always deplored such adaptation and in
stitutionalization as a weak compromise with the world, or
even as a treasonable surrender of the pure ideal to those very
powers of evil for whose destruction it was conceived. More
over, the zealous minority, bound into a closer solidarity by
the very fact of their minority, their puritanism heightened
by persecution, have quite commonly developed the patho
logical traits conseqxient upon the conviction of persecuted in
nocence and impotent fidelity. They have appealed from the
world to heaven, from time to eternity, from man to God.
Their language has ceased to be a medium of human com
merce, and has become an instrument of supernatural oracles.
Their refuge has been in retreat, absorption, mysticism, proph
ecy, ecstasy. Their fate, in so far as they have not been
crushed by persecution, reconciled by persuasion, or sobered
by compromise, has been a gradual weakening to final eu
thanasia. The Franciscan zealots were such a minority. Their for
tunes during the century from the death of Saint Francis of
Assisi to the death of Pope John XXII form an important
chapter of medieval history. For not only did they manifest
in themselves all the traits of the righteous and persecuted
minority — mysticism, asceticism, prophetism — but they also

had a part to play in events of general significance for
Europe. They were the occasion of deliberation of cardinals
and princes, of the publication of solemn bulls and the decrees
of ecclesiastical councils. They had a hand in the creation of
popes and antipopes. They stood between a hostile curia and
a Holy Roman Emperor. They won the favor of kingly courts.
They formed centers of attraction for heretics of various
types. Yet these remarkable enthusiasts have received but scant
attention at the hands of the historians of the Church. Hardly
any serious effort was made to discriminate and investigate
the various groups of Franciscan zealots which appeared in
the provinces of Italy and southern France until the Jesuit
scholar Franz Ehrle in 1885 began his series of publications
in the Archiv fur Literatur- und Eirchengeschichte, entitled,
"Die Spdritualen, i'hr Verhaltniss zum l'Francitecanerorden
und zu den Fraticellen, " "Zur Vorgeschichte des Concils von
Vienne, " and "Petrus Johannis Olivi, sein Leben und seine
Schriften. ' n As the titles show, Ehrle 's work was concerned
primarily with the Spiritual Franciscans of the late thirteenth
and the fourteenth centuries. The same year (1885) there
appeared a trenchant critical analysis of the Franciscan order
in the earlier years of the thirteenth century, by Karl Miiller,2
and the first volume of a series of careful publications of
early Franciscan texts by the Minorite brothers of the College
of Saint Bonaventura at Quaracchi, near Florence.3 These
books marked rather than inaugurated the revival in the
study of the Franciscan movement, which was stimulated by
the celebration of the seven hundredth anniversary of the
Poverello's birth (1882), and which has continued strong to
the present time.
Since the appearance in 1894 of Paul Sabatier's Vie de
Saint Francois d'Assise, the literature of .the Franciscan re
vival has been characterized by two tendencies : the first to
ward the study of the earliest years of the order, and the
^Archiv fiir Literatur- und Kirchengeschichte (A. L. K. G.), vol. 1,
pp. 508-569; vol. ii, pp. 108-164, 249-336, 353-416; vol. iii, pp. 1-196,
409-552, 553-623 ; vol. iv, pp. 1-201.
-Die Anfange des Minoritenordens und der Bussbruderschaften, Frei
burg, 1885.
'Analeeta Franeiscana, sive Chronica aliaque Documenta ad Historiam
Minorum Spectantia, ed. Qttinzianus Hilller et al. ad Claras Aquas
1885 fig. '

second toward the separation of Franciscan scholars into two
sharply defined groups — Sabatier 's followers and Sabatier 's
opponents.4 In the intense polemics over the early years of
the order, the history of the later development of the Spiritual
party has been unduly neglected. Even Ehrle 's magnificent
contribution has lain unused and almost unread, except for
the gleaning of some quotations from Angelo da Clarino's
Historia Tribulacionum as proof texts in the controversies
over the origins of the order.5
The object of this essay is to give a survey of the Spiritual
Franciscans through the entire first century of the order,
from the death of Saint Francis to the days of Pope John
XXII. For logical purposes I shall neglect the chronological
ordor, taking as a starting point an event just in the middle
of the period under survey and working both backward and
forward therefrom.
At the chapter-general of the order held at Narbonne in
1260, the minister-general, Bonaventura, was commissioned to
write the legend o,f Saint Francis.6 The chapter at Pisa
three years later solemnly approved the work ; while the next
chapter, held at Paris under Bonaventura 's presidency in
1266, published the following significant decree: Item prae-
cipit generate Capitulum per oboedientiam quod omnes le-
gendae de beato Francisco olim factae deleantur; et ubi in-
venire poterunt extra ordinem ipsas fratres studeant amovere,
cum ilia legenda quae facta est per Generalem sit compilata
prout ipse habuit ab ore Morum qui cum beato Francisco
quasi semper fuerunt et cuncta certitudinaliter sciverint.7

'The most determined opponents of Sabatier have been the Bollandist
Van Ortroy and Faloei-Pulignani, editor of the Miscellanea Franeis
cana. The chief question at issue has been the authenticity and date
of certain documents purporting to come from Francis' immediate disci
ples. A statement of the case for and against Sabatier's "school"
would need more space than a. foot-note can afford. See Bibliographical
Note, Appendix III.
5Mr. H. C. Lea in his History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages,
(vol. iii), has used Ehrle's writings for his short chapter on "The Spiri
tual Franciscans."
'Legenda Sancti Francisea, Bonaventura auctore. Acta Sanctorum,
Oct., torn, ii, 3, 1.
'Found in a manuscript of sermons at Gubbio, and published by
Einaldi in the preface to his edition of the Vita Secunda 8. Francisci
by Thomas of Celano, 1806. Luke Wadding, the annalist of the Order,
knew of the decree suppressing the legends prior to Bonaventura's,
but he wrongly attributed it to the chapter of Pisa. He says: Vtram-
que historiam, obtulit (Bonaventura) triennio post m comtiis Pisanis

That this decree was not simply a guileless, disinterested
measure "to secure liturgical harmony," as Van Ortroy con
tends (Analecta Bollandiana XVIII, 1899), but was part of
a policy to have done with the dangerous influence of the
party which stood for a return to the early purity and sim
plicity of the order, is shown by the fact that the same chap
ter of Narbonne drew up the official catalogue of the Consti
tutions of the order, and prescribed in the first rubric of the
same that all other existing Constitutions should be de
stroyed.8 The moment of Bonaventura 's accession to the generalship
of the order was a critical one. His predecessor, John of
Parma (1247-1257), had been a pronounced patron of the
strict party, himself a man of stern ascetic piety.9 Under
his generalate the party had dared to assert itself in pro
phetic writings which breathed a tone of hostility to the
Roman Church, and to hail the dawn of a new era of the
Spirit, in which the "true Franciscans" (themselves, nat
urally) should rule. The great order was seriously compro
mised in the eyes of the Roman court. The time had come to
put a stop to the ravings of fanatics. Bonaventura, though
he was himself a mystic10 and keenly alive to the worldliness
which had crept in among the brothers,11 nevertheless did not
hesitate an instant when it was a question of saving the
reputation of the order in the eyes of the great Catholic
Church. In the chapter of Citta della Pieve he proceeded
with such severity against the "fanatics" that even the
saintly John of Parma himself was condemned, and would

fratribus ordinis quas. . .suppressis aliis quibttsque legendis admiserunt.
Wadding, Annales Minorum, 2d ed. Fonseca, Rome, 1731 ffg., ad ami.
1260, No. 18.
sSee Ehrle's original discussion of the subject in the A. L. K. G., vol.
vi, Die alteste Redaction der Generalconstitutionen des Framciscaneror-
dens. "For the opposition of the "lax" Franciscans to John of Parma see
Wadding's Tacitean passage, ad ami. 1256, No. l:Hinc seeretum murmur,
frequentia conciliabitla. dcinde constans in hominem conspiratio quae
eoitsque prorupit ut de multis accusarent virum probum apud Pontifi-
cem. 10See his works, the Breviloquium and the Itinerarium Mentis in
Deum, ed. Hefele, Tubingen, 1861. Thomas Davidson has declared the
latter work, "a complete manual of mysticism."
"Bonaventura says of the abuses in the Order: licet tepidis et inde-
votis et secundum carnem sapientibus . . . quasi facilia et eoocusabilia et
irmnediabilia videantur. Opera 8. Bonaventurae, Epist. I (Quaracchi
vol. iii. pp. 468-9).

hardly have escaped prison had it not been for the timely in
tervention of his friend, the cardinal Ottobonus Fliseus, later
Pope Hadrian V.12
How well the decree of the Parisian chapter of 1266 suc
ceeded in retiring the earlier legends of Saint Francis is
strikingly shown by the embarrassment of the Spiritual party
a few decades later. Angelo da Clarino and his followers
knew that the Poverello had "communicated many things to
his companions and the earliest brethren, ' ' which had been lost
in consequence of Bonaventura 's decree.13 They were there
fore limited to a few meager documents like the cedulae and
rotuli of Brother Leo in the conduct of their case against the
lax majority of the order. Moreover, the early Rules, in
which Saint Francis had expressed his own will for his
order, were superseded by the emasculated, official Rule, which
was approved by the pope in 1223 (regula bullata). The
earlier biographers1* mention the several Rules which the
saint composed, but from Bonaventura 's day these Rules fell
into oblivion, and were (like the early legends) lost to the
Spirituals of the fourteenth century.15
The crusade of the opening years of Bonaventura 's gen-
eralate against the Franciscan writings which could become

12Historia Septem Tribulacionum Ordinis Minorum, by Angelo da
Olarino; Ehrle in A. L. K. G., vol. ii, pp. 285-6 (ci^ed below as Hist.
Trib.). iaCommunicaverat enim sanctus Franciscus plurima sociis suis et
fratribus antiquis, que oblivione tradita sunt, turn quia que scripta
erant in legenda prima. . .deleta et destructa sunt ipso (Bonaventura)
jubente. Hist. Trib. folio 326. Ehrle, A. L. K. G., vol. ii, pp. 265-6.
^Legenda Trium Sociorum, 35, 57; Vita Secunda, auctore Celano, 3,
68; 3, 110.
15See Sabatier, Speculum Perfectionis, seu 8. Francisci Assisiensis
Legenda Antiquissima, Paris, 1898, Introduction, pp. lix-lx. In insisting
on the fact that the use of the primitive Rule (1210-1221) by the
author of the Speculum Perfectionis places the composition of the leg
end in the early part of the thirteenth century, Sabatier remarks :
A partir de Bonaventure, la rdgle primitive tombe dans I'oubli. Les
Franciscaims spirituels du commencement du XIV si&ele ne songerent
pas a Ven tirer. But Van Ortroy in 1902 found in the library of Saint
Isidor a manuscript containing the "Declaration of the Rule of Angelo
da Clarino," showing that the early Rule was known to this prominent
Spiritual of the fourteenth century. Lemmens in his recent edition of
the Opuscula sancti Patris Francisci Assisiensis (Quaracchi, 1904)
attacks Sabatier's position, as if it were taken after Van Ortroy's dis
covery ( p. 165 ) . To this Sabatier very justly replies in the tenth
fascicule of the Opuscules de Critique historique (Paris, 1904) : Me
pardonnera-t-on si je rtfponds que n'etant ni prophete ni m4me devin, il
m'aurait etd difficile de tenir compte en 1898 d'une oeuvre signaUe pour
la premiere fois le 15 Octobre, 1902? (p. 122).

8
dangerous weapons in the hands of the Spiritual party,
though not accompanied by cruel persecutions like those under
Boniface VIII and Clement V, nor attended by the dramatic
scenes of the long struggle of the party against the implaca
ble John XXII, nevertheless was the very chief crisis in the
history of the order. It marked the consummation of the
policy begun by Gregory IX in his famous bull, Quo elongati
saeculo, namely, the subordination of the order to the Roman
curia. Until Bonaventura 's time the strict minority, al
though a party of protest, and subject to some persecution,
were not schismatists. They had seen the order growing
worldly and rich, building fine churches and competing for
chairs of learning in the universities. They had seen it bind
ing itself in closer and closer obligation to the pope, by the
acceptance of various concessions and exemptions. They
hoped still, however, for reform in this present age and for
the continuance of the order, under the guidance of spirit
ually minded leaders, in the path of obedience to the Rule and
Testament of Saint Francis.16 When John of Parma was
elected to the generalate a prayer of thanksgiving went up
from the hearts of the patient saints, and the impetuous
Brother Giles saluted the new chief with the cry of plaintive
triumph: Bene et opportune venisti, f rater, sed tarde
venisti." Their rejoicing was cut short however. John of
Parma was not strong enough to sustain the attacks of the lax
majority inspired by Rome. He was accused of insubordina
tion, presumptuousness, and heresy; 1S and at the chapter of
Ara Coeli in Rome (February, 1257) he was compelled by
the pope to resign.19
10See the account of the seventy-two brothers who came on an em
bassy to Innocent IV in the time of Crescentius (1244) to plead for
the reform of the Order. Hist. Trib. 29a, Ehrle, loc. cit. Angelo dig
nifies this protest by the name of "schism," which seems to me a
premature use of the word.
'"Socii s. Francisci qui tunc supereeant lactabantur et gaudebant, quia
in ipso (John of Parma) s. Franciscmn in spiritu resurrect urn cemc-
bant, Qratia agimus iibi, Domine, dicebant, quia recordatus es nostri . .
Hist. Trib. 31, Ehrle, loc. cit. cf. Wadding, add aim. 1247, No. 4:
Vir sanctus . . .cuius electio pacem ordini restituit.
"See above, note 9. Charges at length in Wadding, ad ann. 1256
No. 2.
"There is a dispute among the early historians of the Order whether
John of Parma resigned voluntarily or under pressure from the pope.
Angelo (Hist. Trib. 34b), Bernard of Bessa (Ehrle, in Zeitschrift
fiir katholische Theologie, vii, 343), Salimbene (Chronica, ed. Parma,

Therewith the hopes of the zealots for the realization of
their ideals in the present age and in the order at large were
rudely shattered. They drew farther and farther apart from
the lax majority, and took refuge in the mystical interpreta
tion of Scripture and in apocalyptic hopes. Under the leader
ship of that obscure genius, Petrus Johannis Olivi in Pro
vence, and of Ubertino da Casale, Liberato, and Angelo da
Clarino in Italy, they established strong centers for the pro
mulgation of the ascetic-apocalyptic ideas of the Abbot
Joachim of Flora, and brought upon themselves the bitter
persecution of the heads of the order. Even the hunted vic
tims of the Inquisition, the sly Cathari and the meek Wal
denses, were less halteful to the great community of the
Minorites than were these puritanical separatists. "Never
was meat sold dearer in a butcher's shop than the price 'your
flesh would bring," said the inquisitor Thomas of Aversa to
Brother Liberato, who was injudiciously tarrying in his dis
trict.20 The history of the persecution of the zealots in
Provence, Tuscany, Umbria, the Mark of Ancona, and the
Kingdom of Naples, in the years from the Council of Lyons
(1274) to the death of John XXII (1334), forms a stirring
chapter of medieval history. We may say, then, that the
generalate of Bonaventura marks the dividing line between
the two periods in the history of the Spiritual Franciscans:
the first period extending from the early protests in the order
to the deposition of John of Parma and the measures of Bona
ventura for the suppression of the literature inspired by the
zealous companion of Saint Francis; the second period ex
tending from the Council of Lyons to the extinction of the
schismatists by John XXII.
The recovery of pieces of literature which antedate the of
ficial legend of Bonaventura has been, until the last genera
tion, only occasional. Luke Wadding, the classic historiogra-

1857, p. 137), and Wadding (loc* cit.) support the former view. On
the other hand, the author of the Chronica XXIV Generalium reports a
certain legend of Peregrinus de Bononia as authority for the enforced
resignation: Et ego, inquit, in capitulo fui mediator inter ipsum et
ministros, et hoc habui ex ore cius. H. Denifle, in A. L. K. G., vol. i,
p. 147. Perhaps Peregrinus' legend was one of those lost after 1266.
"Et conversus ad fratrem Liberatum dixit : Non potest exprimi
lingua quantum fratres Minores aversus te odium conceperunt. Et
ego, si voluissem te vendere, nunquam alicuius animalis carnes fuerunt
ita care vendita in macello. Hist. Trib. 54b.

10
pher of the order, and an indefatigable collector of manu
scripts, used a number of such pieces in his monumental
Annates Fratrum Minorum (Antwerp, 1625 ffg.). But Wad
ding was neither exact in the description nor careful in the
preservation of his sources. The BoUandist Suyskens,21 in
the eighteenth century, published along with Bonaventura 's
two earlier legends of the Poverello : one written by Thomas
of Celano at Pope Gregory IX 's bidding, in 1228-922; the
other, by three companions of Saint Francis, Brothers Leo,
Angelo, and Rufinus.23 A third step in the recovery of the
early legends was the publication by Father Rinaldi at Rome
in 1806 of Thomas of Celano 's Vita Secunda s. Francisci.24
From 1806 no advance was made in the study of the sources
of the Franciscan movement until recent years, when Ehrle,
Miiller, Sabatier, Van Ortroy, Little, Mandonnet, and other
scholars have contributed important documents and critical
articles to early Franciscan history.
Doubtless such literature as is now recovered and printed is
only a meager scrap of what was written in the early years of
the order, and what may still, in great abundance, be await
ing discovery — especially in the monasteries of the Low
Countries and northern Germany, because there they were
furthest from the hands of the censor.25
We have not hints alone, but proof positive, that there was
a lively literary activity in the order before the middle of the
thirteenth century. In the first place, the closing words of
the endorsement of the Vita Prima by Thomas of Celano con-

'-'Acta Sanctorum, Oct.. torn, ii, pp. 683-723, 723-742. A new edition
of the legend of Celano, published by H. G. Rosedale. London, 1904.
(See notice of same in Biographical Note, Appendix 111.)
~'M. S. Latin 3817 [Alcove] of the Bibliotlieque nationale of Paris:
Apud Perusium felix dominus papa firegorius nonus. secundo pontifieis
sui anno, quint o Kal. Martii (Feb. 25. 1229) legcndam hanc recepit et
cciiKiiil fore tenendum. The last three words indicate that even as
early as 1229 there were competing legends of the saint.
"Legenda Trium Sociorum. Acta Sanctorum, Oct., torn, ii, pp. 723-
742. 2i8eraphici Viri s. Francisci Assisiensis Vitae duae, Rome, 1806. The
Second Life was written at the invitation of the General Crescentius
1246-7. See Prologue I: Placit robis . . . pervitati nostrae injungere,
etc. . . For new developments in the criticism of this legend see Ap
pendix 111.
"M. Sabatier has. already begun the search among the convent li
braries of Belgium, but thus far with little success, d cause de la
mauvaise grace rencontrie dans les convents, as he writes me in a
recent letter.

11
tain strong suggestion that there were conflicting interpreta
tions of the life of Saint Francis as early as the year 1229
(see note 22). Secondly, when the legend just mentioned be
came impracticable as the official legend of the order, on ac
count of the disgrace and defection of Brother Elias, the
chapter of Genoa (1244) issued a general invitation to the
Minorites to write down whatever they knew of the life of
Saint Francis, and submit it to the General Crescentius for
the compilation of a new legend.26 Thirdly, the only piece of
writing that has come down to us as a result of the solicita
tion of the chapter of Genoa, the Legenda Trium Sociorum
(note 23), is only a fragment. It recounts the early life, the
conversion and the ministry of the Saint, down to the year
1220, in great detail (chs. 1-67) ; then it skips the years of
quarrel between the zealots and the party of Elias, and ends
with a hasty notice of the death and canonization of Saint
Francis (chs. 68-73). It promises in the Prologue to relate
the miracles as well as the conversation of the Saint, but there
is no trace of miracles in the legend as we have it.27
Now all this points to an activity of parties in the earlier
decades of the Franciscan movement, far different from the
atmosphere of monotonous miracles which envelops Bona
ventura 's official legend. We find the ascetic "companions"
of the Saint, Bernard of Quintevalle, Leo, Angelo, Rufinus,
Masseo, Giles — men who receive no mention at all in the
legends of Celano and Bonaventura — in decided opposition to
the measures introduced by Elias for the popularization of
the order. Their norm of conduct was the Rule of Saint
Francis sine glossa, which Gregory IX in his bull Quo elongati
(1230) "interpreted" in such manner as to exclude the laxer
party from obeying its spirit, while they observed all the
26Glassberger's Cronica, ad ann, 1244, in Analecta Franciscana,
Quaracchi, vol. ii, p. 68 (1889).
27There have been two notable attempts at the reconstruction of the
Legenda Trium Sociorum within the past seven years. In 1899 two
Roman Minorites, Marcellino da Civezza ana Teofilo Domenichelli, pub
lished what they claimed to be the complete text of the legend, re
translated into Latin from the publication by Melchiorri (1856) of
an old Italian translation made by Achille Muzio di San Severino in
the year 1577. The author believes this translation to have been made
from a. manuscript of the thirteenth century. Of M. Sabatier's dis
covery and publication of the Speculum Perfectionis, in 1898, as the
basis of. the Legend, I shall speak presently in the text of this essay.
Sabatier, as recently as March, 1903, recovered fifteen new chapters
of the Legenda Trium Sociorum. See Bibliographical Note, Appen
dix III.

12
while its letter.-8 Their gospel was the Testament, of Saint
Francis, Which the same bull of Gregory IX declared not
binding on the order at large, on the irrelevant ground that a
minister-general could not bind his successors — as if Saint
Francis' relation to the order were analogous to that of John
Parenti or Elias!29 Their manifesto was a legend (or several
legends) whose contents were mutilated and whose circulation
was suppressed by ministerial authority.30
M. Sabatier, in a magnificent piece of critical sifting of a
sixteenth century source, has recovered what he claims to be
the oldest version of the legend, or group of legends, of Saint
Francis, compiled by Brother Leo in 1227 as a protest against
the incipient extravagance of Brother Elias and 'his follow
ers.31 It was immediately recognized by scholars of all shades
of opinion that the document published by Sabatier was of
great importance for the history of the order. A spirited
controversy is still being waged over it by the champions of
the Conventual Franciscans, on the one side, and M. Sabatier,
with a few sympathetic helpers, on the other. M. Sabatier
has met the attacks of the orthodox Franciscans with patient
respect, and replied to them with scrupulous honesty of
scholarship (cf. La Revue Historique, vol. 75, pp. 61-101). He
zbThe Spiritual Franciscans of the fourteenth century looked back
with indignant protest on this "betrayal" of the trust of St. Francis.
Ubertino da Casale, in his Arbor Vitae CrucipZxi a mystical work pub
lished in 1305, says: Est stupor quare quacritur expositio super lit-
teram (the Rule of Saint Francis) sic a pert am. v, 3.
29 Ad mandalum Mud vos dicimus non teneri...cum non habeat
imperium par in parent ( ! ) . Bull, Quo elongati, 1230.
a"Thia statement refers to Bonaventura's decree of 1266. But M.
Sabatier ingeniously suggests that even the Vita Secunda of
(1246) may have been planned with the same end in view. He thinks
Celano was chosen by Gregory IX as a sort of chairman of a com
mittee to sift and order the material brought in, in response to the
invitation of the chapter of Genoa (note 26), and to destroy the
"dangerous" portions. Critical Study of the Sources in Appendix to
the Life of St. Francis of Assisi, Eng. tr., p. 386. The view is not sup
ported by suflicient evidence for unreserved acceptance; but it is a
very tempting hypothesis. See Appendix III.
^Speculum Perfectionis, seu s. Francisci Assisiensis Legenda An-
tiquissima, auetore Fratre Leone. Paris. Fischbacher, 1898. In hunt
ing for the lost chapters of the Legenda Trium Sociorum, Sabatier
analyzed the Speculum Vitae s. Francisci, published at Venice, 1504.
Separating from this very uneven composite work some chapters 'on the
Fioretti, bits of St. Francis' own works, and comments on the Indul
gence of the Portiuncula, Sabatier reduced his source to 118 homogene
ous chapters which he believed to be a very early legend of the Saint
The Speculum Perfectionis (Cod. Mazarinus, 1743) was found to con
tain 124 chapters, of which 116 correspond to Sabatier's 118 (!)

13
may have yielded rather hastily, in his enthusiasm, to the
temptation of declaring, with too little qualification, the time
and motive of the composition of the document,32 but he
has shown beyond reasonable doubt that the Speculum Perfec
tionis is built up, in its present shape, on the earliest and most
valuable legendary material of the Saint that we possess
(sayings of early companions, cedulae and rotuli of Brothers
Leo and Angelo, etc.). It is the elder brother of the
Legenda Trium Sociorum, completing that valuable but frag1-
mentary source in just the respect most needed — the portrayal
of the religious and social ideas of Saint Francis. The Spec
ulum Perfectionis (or its ancestor) may have been suppressed
by Elias, just as the most valuable part of the Legenda Trium
Sociorum was suppressed by Crescentius (see note 30).
We may therefore follow the line back from Bonaventura,
through the group of writings called out by the invitation of
the chapter of Genoa, to the earliest legends of Thomas of
Celano and Brother Leo :
Legends op the Zealots Official Legends
Rotuli and Cedulae of Brother Leo, I Celano, by
as original of the Speculum Perfectionis, order of Gregory IX
(1227) and Legenda Vetus (1229)
I I
Legenda Trium Sociorum,' by II Celano, by order of
Leo, Rufinus, and Angelo (1246) on invi- ^» > Crescentiu3 (1247)
tation of Chapter of Genoa (1244) (revision of Leg. Trium Soc.t)
Legend of Bonaventura, 1261
(Wiitten by, oi der of Chapter of Narbonne, 1260,
approved, 1263, made official, 1266)
In addition to the early legends, we have one very valu
able source for the history of the Franciscan zealots both be
fore and after Bonaventura's time in the works of an Italian
Spiritual of the fourteenth century, Angelo da Clarino. His
Epistola Excusatoria, presented to Pope John XXII in 1317,
and his Historia Septem Tribulacionum Ordinis Minorum,
written about 1330, are both apologies for the orthodoxy and
orderliness of the Spiritual party in the midst of persecution

32See Bibliographical Note, Appendix III.

14
through its whole existence.33 The first four of the Tribula
tions deal with the years anterior to the Parisian decree of
1266. The picture which we get from all these sources of the
early history of the brothers of the stricter observance of the
Rule and Testament of Saint Francis is that of a protesting
minority rather than a revolting faction. They have not yet
thought of a separate order, but only of a purified order.
They have not developed a theology; for their whole creed
has been obedience to the ideal of poverty as pursued by their
master. They have endured persecution, not because they
boldly advanced to champion new heresies, but because they
refused to drift with the tide of prosperity and accept the
standard of life prescribed for them by the pope and his
advisers. Wherever we open the story of the early persecu
tions we find the same tale; the zealots protest against the
violence and extravagance of Elias and are shut up in
prison34 ; they make up a committee of seventy-two to carry
their complaints of Crescentius' mismanagement of the order
to the pope, but are anticipated by the machinations of Bona-
dies, and sent in pairs into distant exile33 ; they rally to the
support of John of Parma, but only to see their champion de
posed and escaping by a hair's breadth the prisoner's cell.38
It was a prolonged moral struggle37 for supremacy between
the party of accommodation to prevailing ecclesiastical stand
ards, and the party of uncompromising fidelity to the lofty
ideal of self-abandonment and self -emptying which was set up
by the Poverello. The party of accommodation won when
they overthrew John of Parma, and they clinched their vic
tory by the Parisian decree of 1266.

83Both published by Ehrle in A. L. K. G.. vols, i and ii (except the
first two Tribulations) . Dollinger's text in the Beitrrige zur Sektcngc-
schichte des Mittelalters, Munich, 1890, ii, pp. 417-427, is very unsatis
factory; whole pages are wanting.
s4Subject of the second Tribulation. Outlined only in Angelo da
Clarino's Hist. Trib., Ehrle A. L. K. G. ii, 120.
""Subject of the third Tribulation. A. L. K. G. ii, 250-271.
"Subject of the fourth Tribulation. A. L. K. G. ii, 271-289.
"'Even the first Tribulation (1220-1220) is described by Angelo as
secretum schismn ct magna dissentio, Ehrle, loc. cit.

15
II
The history of the Spiritual party under the successors of
Bonaventura presents a considerable contrast to that of the
early zealpts. It is a story of schism and rebellion in the
order, of compromising relations with heretical sects, and of
warfare with the Roman curia. We have to do here with sev
eral quite distinct groups of zealots in Provence, Umbria,' Tus
cany, the Mark of Ancona, Sicily, and Naples, which were
not bound together organically or even intimately associated
with each other. Strict observance of the Rule of Saint
Francis was the only common bond of these groups. On the
questions of attitude to the pope, of obedience to the heads
of the order, of purity of Catholic doctrine, there was con
siderable diversity. It is necessary, therefore, to treat dis
tinctly the various groups of zealots after Bonaventura 's
time. Our primary source here again is the Historia Tribula
cionum of Angelo da Clarino, which grows more extensive and
explicit as it approaches the fourteenth century, and deals
with events in the author's own memory. Furthermore, we
have the works of Petrus Johannis Olivi, the chief of the
Provencal group of zealots, and the dossier of the proceed
ings against Olivi and his followers at the Council of Vienne
(1310-1312) ; voluminous bulls and constitutions of Pope John
XXII, directed against the refractory brothers of Provence
and Italy; and the documents relating to the quarrel be
tween John XXII and the schismatic Michaelists.38 The va
rious chronicles and annals of the order (especially Wad
ding's) have saved us many scattered notices of the Spirituals
not found in the continuous sources.
We shall now follow the fortunes of the Spiritual Francis
cans in their various groups from the close of Bonaventura 's
generalate (1274) to the extinction of the schismatic Parfils-
ser, who deserted the pope for Lewis, the "cursed Bavarian."

M01ivi's writings are published, together with a sketch of his life.
by Ehrle in A. L. K. G., vol. iii, pp. 409-540. The documents of the
tribunal of Clement V are in the same author's Zur Vorgeschichte .des
Concils von Vienne, ib. II, 353-374, iii, 1-196. John XXII's decretals
in Extravagantes Johannis, Corpus Juris Canoniei, Friedberg, 1881,
vol. ii. The documents relating to the quarrel over poverty, in Karl
Miiller's Der Kampf Ludwigs des Baiern mit der rbmischen Curie,
Tubingen, 1879.

16 A
THE SPIRITUALS OF THE MARK OF ANCONA
"While the council (of 1274) was being celebrated at
Lyons, a rumor arose among the brothers in Italy, and espe
cially in the province of the Mark of Ancona, that the pope
wished to force the Minorites and the Brothers Preachers to
receive possessions and hold them in their own right. This
news was received with various comments among the brothers,
some of them deploring the fact that the pope should conceive
such a plan, 'others maintaining that the brothers at laige
would live more comfortably and peaceably by accepting the
decree, and that innumerable scruples would be lifted from
their hearts.39 The discussion of the matter waxed warm,
threatening to divide the brothers into two irreconcilable
camps. One party strenuously maintained that the pope had
a right to ordain such a statute, and that it was every
brother's duty to obey. Their opponents said (and not so
wisely) that the pope had no right to change a statute which
was revealed by God,40 confirmed by the pontiffs before him,*1
and recommended by the lives of the Apostles. The dispute
grew more violent, till finally the men who were for obedience
to the pope above all else clamored for proceedings against

S8The Rule of St. Francis contained the express prohibition: Unde
nullus fratrum, ubicumque sit et quocumque vadat, aliquo modo tollat
nee reeipiat nee recipi faciat pecuniam, aut denarios . . . quia non de-
bemus maiorem utilitatem habere et refutare in pecunia et de-
narUs quam in lapidibus. Regula (1221) cap. 8. As the Order grew,
however, and funds became necessary for the maintenance of churches
and convents, Gregory IX (at the instigation of Elias?) in the bull
Quo Elongati (1230) virtually abrogated this provision of the Rule
by providing agents (nuncii) who should receive and manage all
moneys donated to the Order. The brothers' hands were still kept
from the contaminating touch of the denarii, but the flimsy subterfuge
must have seemed a mockery of honor to the few who wished to ob
serve the Poverello's commands.
"It was the claim of St. Francis that his Rule was not the work
of human wisdom, but a revelation from God. When Pope Honorius
III, in 1221, attempted to get him to modify some of its provisions, he
replied: Pater sancte, ego ista verba in regula non posui, sed Christus
MS. Laurenttana, Codex XX. Compare the words of St. Francis in his
Testament: Nemo mihi ostendit quid deberem facere, sed Altissimus
ipse mihi revelavit. Wadding, ad ann. 1226, No. 35.
"E.g. Pope Innocent IV's bull Ordinem Vestrun, 1245

17
their opponents by a diligent inquisition, to force them to re
tract their erroneous opinions. ' '42
Such is Wadding's account, taken almost literally from
Angelo da Clarino,43 of the beginning of the systematic perse
cution of the Spiritual Franciscans. The "rumor" which
gave occasion to the rebellious stand of the Italian zealots
proved baseless44; but was enough to kindle to a flame the
smouldering fires of protest in the souls of the faithful broth
ers who lived in the mountain-girt convents of the Mark of
Ancona.45 Angelo da Clarino himself was one of these broth
ers, and his chronicle here takes on the completeness, the
vividness, the accuracy of the man who is writing of what he
has experienced among his closest friends and compatriots.
It would be difficult to find in the whole literature of the
medieval church a tale more varied and exciting than that of
the persecution of these Spirituals of the Mark of Ancona.
The inquisition demanded by the papal party was estab
lished, and some of the most influential zealots, remaining ob
stinate in their single attachment to the Rule of Saint Francis,
were committed to prison. A reign of terror was instituted.
Criticism of the acts of terror was interdicted on pain
of fresh torture. The chiefs of the party (Angelo, Liberato,
Thomas of Tollentius) were kept in prison until the election
of Raymundus Gaufridi as minister-general in 1289. Gau-
fridi was in thorough sympathy with the zealots.46 He liber
ated the imprisoned men, and, at their own urgent request,

"Wadding, ad ann. 1275, No. 68. The fascinating story of the
whole movement has been published by Ehrle in the A. L. K. G., vol.
ii, pp. 301-327. My indebtedness to Ehrle appears on every page
of this essay.
aHist. Trib. fol. 48b. Ehrle, loc. cit.
"It may have started from an extreme interpretation of the twenty-
third decree of the Council of Lyons (Mansi, xxiv, 97) ; quod nulla
religio mulierum sustineatur nisi habeat unde possit sustentari in
domo sine mendicitate et discursu.
"We have ample proof that the aggressive party of zealots in the
Mark of Ancona antedated by more than twenty years the Council of
Lyons. The Cronica XXIV Generalium informs us anent the
election of Crescentius (1244): Hie generalis senex ingressus est or-
dinem . . . qui parum post foetus minister Marchie invenit in ordine
unam seetam fratrum non ambulantium secundum Evangelii veritatem
(sic I), qui se meliores aliis existimabant . However, we have no notice
of the "sect" till after the Council of Lyons.
"Like John of Parma, Gaufridi was obliged to resign (1295) by the
pope (Boniface VIII). He later began the defence of the Spirituals
before Clement Vs tribunal (1310), but died before the case was fin
ished.

IS
sent them on a mission to King Haiton of Armenia, far from
the persecution of the jealous brothers of the laxer observ
ance.47 But hatred followed them even beyond the seas. The
brothers of the province of Syria (one of Saint Francis'
earliest conquests) compelled their minister to send a "slan
derous letter" to the King of Armenia and to the Minorites
in his realm, in which the little group of missionaries were ac
cused of apostasy, schism, and heresy. The noble king refused
to be prejudiced against his visitors, but the hatred of the
Syrian brothers became so keen that Liberato and his group
deemed it best to return to Italy and seek exculpation and
protection from the minister-general of the order. The ani
mus of the Italian brothers against them was intense. When
Liberato and Angelo sought a resting-place in their own prov
ince of the Mark, until they could get an audience with the
general, they were rudely repulsed by the vicar of, the prov
ince, who declared that he would ' ' rather receive and shelter a
band of fornicators in his province than these two men."48
In less than a year after the return of the missionaries from
Armenia, however, an event happened which suddenly raised
the zealots from a position of precarious vagrancy to one of
secure power. The papal conclave, after two years of wrang
ling between the creatures of the French king, led by the
Colonnas, and the Italian "patriots," led by the Orsini, in a
transport of apparent reconciliation, chose for the supreme
lord of Christendom a decrepit eremite monk, Peter of Morro.
The splendid train of cardinals and archbishops filed up the
steep mountain side of the Abruzzi to his lowly hermitage,
and hailed the unwilling monk as the successor of Saint Peter.
Resistance was vain; and the hermit came down to Rome as
Pope Celestin V.
It was all a sham and a pageant. Celestin V was only a
pawn in the game played by the astute Cardinal Benedetto
Gaetani to keep the Colonnas out of power. In a few months
another move was made on the chess-board of Italian politics.
The pawn was sacrificed. "Persuaded" by Gaetani to resign
— an act unprecedented in the history of the papacy — the poor

"When Gaufridi was told why the zealots were in prison he ex
claimed, Vtiuniu omucs nos et totvs ordo talis cri minis noxa tcnerctur '
Hist. Trib., 50a. --— 
"Hist.' Trib., fol. 52b. . ,-<T * I

19
old hermit willingly confessed before the assembled digni
taries of the church his inability to rule as pope, and retired in
favor of the Cardinal Gaetani himself, that famous Boniface
VIII, who ' ' came in like a fox, ruled like a lion, and died like
a dog. ' '
Celestin V was naturally a patron of the brothers of
the stricter observance, and he was besides a friend of
Liberato 's. Therefore the minister Gaufridi, unable to pro
tect the zealots himself, sent them to Celestin.49 The pope did
for them all they asked, and more. He commended their pur
pose to live strictly by the Rule of Saint Francis, absolved
them from all obedience to the authorities of the order, gave
them the name of "Poor Hermits of Celestin," appointed
Brother Liberato as their head and Cardinal Napoleone Or-
sini as their protector in the curia, and assigned them sev
eral hermitages of the Celestinian Benedictines.
But a sudden reversal of fortune came when Celestin V
left the chair of Saint Peter's, December 13, 1294. Boniface
VIII immediately declared all the acts of his predecessor
which were not approved by himself null and void (April 8,
1295). Naturally, the favors granted by Celestin to the
zealots of the Mark had not been approved by Boniface. The
condition of Liberato and his companions was worse than
before Celestin 's accession. Then they had been only a dis
affected, protesting, persecuted minority; now they were
schismatics. They had abjured the name of Franciscans, and
consequently forfeited all claim to the protection of the order.
It was a rash deed, and the punishment was severe; but we
may learn how sorely they were tempted to the deed by the
fact that eighteen years later their brothers in Tuscany were
not deterred by their fate from repeating their act of de
fiance, in the face of bitter persecution.
According to the narrative of Angelo da Clarino, the
Minorites began their persecution of the Poor Hermits of
Celestin even before Celestin 's abdication. They "sharked up
a list of lawless resolutes, ' '50 and hunted them with violence.

"Interea fratre Petro de Morrone ad pontificatum assumpto, placuit
generali ministro et omnibus principalioribus fratnbus in quibus
Christus et eius spiritus inhabitare flrmiter credebatur, quod ad
sanctum pontificem frater Petrus de Macerata et evus socius (Angelo?)
succederent. Hist. Trib., fol. 52b.
MHist. Trib. fol. 53a: Stipendio conducunt catervam hominum mun-
danorum.

20
After Celestin had made lo gran rifuto, there was small chance
for help. The schismatics fled to an island (quaedam parva
insula) somewhere in the east, where they hoped to escape
the notice of their pursuers. But the Minorites at home were
implacable. They accused the fugitives of the worst heresy
of the age, Manicheism, and subjected them to an inquisition.
When this failed to bring them to punishment, their enemies
appealed to Boniface VIII, through the Minister-General John
of Murro, who had the pope's ear. Boniface, finding that the
only offence justly charged against the zealots was their ex
treme devotion to the Rule of Saint Francis, replied to their
persecutors, "Let them alone, for they serve God better than
you."61 Then the wily accusers played their trump card.
"Holy Father," they cried, "these men are heretics aud
schismatics, who are preaching throughout the world that you
are not rightfully pope, and many such things.' ' Boniface
could bear least of all things to have the legitimacy of his
office called into question, especially at a time when his rela
tions with the two most powerful kings of Europe, Philip the
Fair of France and Edward Longshanks of England, were
strained to the breaking point.52 The accusation was effective.
Boniface issued a letter of condemnation against the zealots,
and committed their punishment to the Patriarch of Con
stantinople and the Archbishops of Athens and Patras. There
is no doubt that the Spirituals under the lead of Liberato and
Angelo were innocent of sedition against Boniface VIII,
though they looked with disfavor, quite naturally, on his as
sumption of the tiara.53 Their whole object was the peaceable
enjoyment of independence in the observance of the Rule of
Saint Francis. Italy was full of religious vagabonds, how-

slSinite eos servire Deo, quia ipsi faciunt melius quam vos facitis.
Hist. Trib. fol. 53b.
™Nihil aegrius audiebat Bonifacius quam vcl levissime de sua auc-
toritate et canonica electione dubitari, eo praesertim tempore quo Gal-
lorum rex Philippus Pulcher aspere et tcmere nimis hoc vulnus frica-
bat. Wadding, ad. Ann. 1302, No. 7.
MWhen subjected to the Inquisition under the Patriarch of Con
stantinople in 1299 it was found that they prayed for Boniface as
pope, and, when persecuted beyond endurance in their Eastern refuge,
they sent messengers with their letters of apology to Pope Boniface!
His. Trib. fol. 54b. The disposition of the Spirituals toward Boniface
personally, however, may be seen in the savage poems of execration
addressed to him by Jacopone da Todi. Cantu, Erectici d'ltalia, i 129

21
ever, at the close of the thirteenth century, 54 who generally
combined a social-political purpose (the heritage of Arnold of
Brescia) with their religious vagaries. It was inevitable that
the extremists among the Spiritual Franciscans, in whose
eyes a regimen that was not to be approved was no more to be
tolerated, should coalesce with these violent ' ' reformers. ' ' In
fact, we find a group of them in 1297 proceeding to the elec
tion of a new Celestin as pope in Saint Peter's, a certain ¦
Brother Martin of Bodici, from Provence. The inquisitors
soon hunted the unfortunate pope-makers out of the neighbor
hood of Rome. The latter took refuge in Sicily — a land which
seems to have been as popular an asylum for religious exiles
since the days of Frederick II as was England for the political
exiles of the nineteenth century.55
But to return to Liberato and his group. After trying in
vain to escape the persecution encouraged by Boniface's let
ter of condemnation, they decided to make another plea before
the pope. Their letters were intercepted by the Minorites. As
a last resort, Liberato himself started for Italy, to defend the
zealots in person at the Roman court. But Boniface died
(October 11, 1303) before Liberato reached him. The leader
of the Spirituals then fixed his hopes on Boniface's successor,
Benedict XI, to whom he was introduced in Perugia in the
early summer of 1304.56 But hope was again deceived. Bene
dict died in July, and the French and Italian parties began
anew their wrangle over the succession to the tiara. After a
vacancy of eleven months the French bishop, Bertrand of
Bourges, was chosen pope, and enthroned as Clement V. He
was pledged to Philip IV of France as completely as any
modern candidate is pledged to his party boss. Liberato
again 'started for Rome to plead his case before the pope, but
again the shadow of death stood between him and his desire.
He was stricken with a mortal illness on his way.
Meanwhile Angelo marshalled the brothers in the east, and
brought them back to Italy. Angelo himself found favor with

"Compare Boniface VIIl's orders to all bishops in 1296-7 to reduce
the Bizochi to submission, and compel them either to enter some ap
proved order (Lateran Council of 1215) or lay aside their religious
habits. Lea, History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, iii, 37.
MJordanes Cronica, 236, 3 in Muratori, Antiquitates, xi, 766.
"The visit is not mentioned in the Hist. Trib? but Angelo speaks of
it in his Epistola Excusatoria, fol. 148b (A. L. K. G., vol. i, p. 531).

22
Cardinal Orsini. His followers, after a searching examina
tion into their orthodoxy by Isnard, at Rome, constituted
themselves into the congregation of ' ' Clarines ' ' in the Mark of
Ancona. They were never free from persecution. Such of
the Celestins as were taken by the inquisitor Thomas of
Aversa, in Naples, were put to dreadful tortures under the
name of Lombard heretics of the sect of Dolcino.57
The sources fail us for the continuous history of the
Spirituals of the Mark after the first decade of the fourteenth
century. That their influence was considerable we know
from scattered notices in the later chronicles. Rudolphus,
for example, a chronicler of the strict party, calls the prov
ince of the Mark provincia stellata.5* The group of Angelo,
on the whole, preserved itself from offensive separatism. It
is to this fact, I believe, that we must attribute the otherwise^,
inexplicable fact that Clement V expressly allowed the group
to continue free from the discipline of the order.59
John XXII, however, was of a different stamp from the
"mild and considerate" (mitis et mansuetus) Clement V. He
was determined to purge the Church of every trace of non
conformity. In 1317, notwithstanding the elaborate plea of
Angelo in the Epistola Excusatoria, he issued the decretal
Sancta Bomana, which classed together under a sweeping ex
communication "all those who, under the name of Fraticelli,
Beghines, Bizochi, and Brothers of the Poor Life, in Sicily,
Italy, and France, were organizing an independent order,
under the pretence of observing strictly the Rule of Saint
Francis, receiving multitudes into their sects, building or ac
cepting as gifts fine houses, begging in public, and electing
superiors."60 Angelo did not obey this decretal of John
XXII. Taking advantage of the pope's nearer and more
serious troubles with the Provengal Spirituals (see next sec
tion) , he returned to his brothers in Italy, and continued to
be their ' ' general ' ' until his death in 1337. A manuscript dis-

"The details of their merciless persecution are related in the Hist.
Trib., fols. 55a-58a.
""Quoted by Wadding, ad aim. 1289, No. 34.
"Veni igitur ad curiam in Mo anno in quo concilium viennense cele-
bratnm fuit (opened Oct. 16, 1311), et propositum est meum negotium
el sotiorum domino Clcmenti papae, et placuit ei quod Domino ser-
viremus in statu in quo eramus (i.e. as "Poor Hermits of Celestin").
E]iistola Excusatoria, fol. 146a.
"'Exiravagantes Johannis, xxii, tit. vii. Friedberg, loc. cit.

23
covered and published by Ehrle in 1888 {Vat. Cod. 4029) con
tains the report of an inquisition held in 1334 in the
province of Rome, before which several of Angelo 's followers
were summoned as Fraticelli. From this report it appears
that the sect regarded Angelo as their "minister-general,"
that there were under him several "guardians," that his
secretary (socius) visited the various brotherhoods, that he
himself, as general, sent out letters commanding obedience,
and that the sect observed strictly the Rule and Testament of
Saint Francis, and looked for the advent of a Spiritual
pope.61 Wadding in his Annates Minorum gives us a full account
of the work of the later Spirituals of the Mark, in the four
teenth century (John de Vallibus,62 Gentile da Spoleto,63
Paola da' Trinci64) in establishing on the basis of the sect
aries of Angelo an orthodox community of brothers of the
strict observance, which, after various quarrels and fruitless
negotiations wifh the order at large (the Conventuals),65 was
finally recognized by Leo X in his bull, Ite et vos in vineam
(May 28, 1517 ).66 Their history lies beyond the limits of this
essay ; and we turn our attention now to the second group of
Spiritual Franciscans.

01Ehrle, A. L. K. G., vol. iv, p. 8 ffg. I quote a bit to show the
flavor of the document: Interrogatus quis est generalis eorum respon-
dit quod est frater Angelus Clarani de Fossabruno (sic!) . . .item dixit
quod dictus frater Angelus scripserit sicut generalis ipsis fraticelli
morantibus in loco Poli. MS. Vat. Cod. 4029, fol. 75b, 76.
02Wadding, ad ann. 1334, No. 24; 1343, No. 10.
"Wadding, ad ann. 1350, No. 16; 1355, No. 1.
"Wadding, ad ann. 1368, Nos. .10-13.
"Wadding, ad ann. 1383, No. 1; 1387, No. 1; 1418, No. 1.
"Wadding, ad ann. 1517, No. 20.

24
B
THE SPIRITUALS OP PROVENCE
It will aid us in the appreciation of the Spirituals of Pro
vence if at the outset we bear in mind certain marked char
acteristics, determined by geography as well as by history.
which distinguish them from their brothers in Italy. The
southern part of France was a region peculiarly susceptible to
intellectual revolution in the Middle Ages. Various heresies
of dogma and vagaries of philosophy made their way from the
east, across the Lombard plain, to find a home in the rich
valleys of Provence and Languedoc. The fierce Albigensian
crusade at the beginning of the thirteenth century had made
a desert of the land, but had not cured the temper of its in
habitants. The old kingdom of Raymond of Toulouse har
bored heretics in abundance still after it had been incorpor
ated into the orthodox realm of Louis of France.
Perhaps the most striking fact of the social condition of
southern France as compared with Italy in the thirteenth cen
tury was the wide diffusion of culture. The land had been
receptive to the first voices of that early humanism Which,
but for the torture of men's bodies by the holy inquisi
tion and the torture of their senses by scholasticism,
might have put the work of the sixteenth century
back into the thirteenth. The remains of the literature
of the troubadours and satirists of the Middle Ages bear
witness to an increasing brotherhood of sanity. The religious
reformer appealed directly and confidently to the people. He
entered their homes. He preached in their wide fields. The
hermitage never found an abiding-place in the plains of
Provence, but rather on the rough sides of the Apennines and
the lonely fastnesses of the Abruzzi. In Tuscany and the
Mark of Ancona the zelanti drew apart from society into little
groups and brotherhoods. In Provence there were no such
gilds of saints. The leaven of the zealots pervaded the shops
and kitchens of the country. It was there that the Spiritual
Franciscans became practically amalgamated with the lay
sect of the Beghines. A glance at the records of the Inquisi
tion of Toulouse67 shows that the inquisitor found the demo-

"" Liber Sententiarum Inquisitiouis Tolosani, ed. Limborch.

25
cratic heresies of the vagrant reformers wide-spread. The
Spirituals of Provence were not so much a sect as an in
fluence. It is not until well into the fourteenth century that
we can trace any signs of organization for offence or defence
among them.
Again, in Italy there was invariably and inevitably a
political tinge to all heresy or suspicion of heresy. There
was the pope close at hand, the lord of large territories and
the master of armies. Since the days of the Saxon Ottos, yes,
even since Charles the Great, the tremendous combine or con
flict between emperor and pope had controlled the fortunes
of the Italian towns as the moon sways the tides. Heresy
in Italy generally meant revolt against the Roman pontiff
and his court. It expressed itself in open deed rather than in
covert opinion, and was dealt with as a practical political
problem rather than as a speculative theory.68 We have seen
how the crucial moment came in the career of the zealots of
the Mark of Ancona, not when they were accused of Mani-
eheism, but when they were charged with denying the legits
macy of Boniface's accession to the papacy. So we shall see
in the next section how quick the Tuscan group of Spirituals
were to draw the practical logical consequences of what they
considered to be the prejudgment of their cause by the
tribunal of Clement V. But the Spirituals of Provence were
not quick to action. They had no political temptation to an
tagonize the pope. It was not until John XXII, at the in
stigation of Michael of Cesena, forced them to fight, by de
claring it a heresy to wear short gowns and condemn grana
ries and wine cellars, that they came into direct conflict with
the Roman court.69 The idolized leader of the Provengal
Spirituals, Petrus Johannis Olivi, had even written to Con
rad of Offida, upbraiding the Italian Spirituals for question
ing the legality of the abdication of Pope Celestin V.70
The dominant influence of Petrus Johannis Olivi, just
named, was the third distinguishing mark of the Spirituals of
Provence. This remarkable person was not only the stalwart

""Note the example of Brother Elias, who, when removed from the
generalate by Gregory IX, immediately went over to Gregory's mortal
foe, the Emperor Frederick II.
""Bull Quorundam exegit caecitas, April 13, 1317. Wadding, ad loc.
"Letter printed in the Historische Jahrbiicher der Gorresgesellschaft,
vol. iii, pp. 657 ffg.

26
champion of the strict observance of the Rule and Testament
of Saint Francis in his life, but after his death he became
the patron saint of the Spirituals of Provence. His writings,
which according to the testimony of one of his most noted
disciples, exceeded by seventeenfold the Sentences of Peter
Lombard71, were held in almost equal reverence with Holy
Scripture.72 There is not a crisis in the history of the
Spiritual Franciscans of Provence, down to their extinction
by John XXII, that is not at the same time an inquisition
over the writings of Olivi. And since there was a great deal
of speculative theology in those writings, the case of the
Provencal Spirituals was complicated by questions not at all
relevant to its nature. The enemies of the party, fortified
with Olivi 's works, were skilful in shifting the debate from
the ground of morals, where the zealots really stood, to one
of dogma. The Italian Spirituals had many leaders — Lib
erato, Angelo da Clarino, Conrad of Offida, Ubertino da Ca
sale, Raymundus Gaufridi, Tramundus of Tollentino — but no
"uncanonized saints" or infallible oracles.73 The issue be
tween them and their persecutors was kept to the practical
question of obedience to the order and to the pope.
Our sources for the history of the Spirituals of Provence,
while far more numerous than those for the Italian group,
are far less satisfactory. Angelo da Clarino treats of the
French group, to be sure, in the fifth and sixth of the ' ' Tribu
lations" ; but the most cursory reading of his pages is enough
to show the immense difference between them and the account
of the Spirituals of the Mark of Ancona. Angelo was him
self a member of the latter group, and he tells the story of

71Et sciat sapientia apostolica quod quantitas librorum fratris
Petri. . .ascend it plus quam X et VII vicibus ultra quam textus libri
Sententiarum . Ubertino da Ca sale's apology before the tribunal of
\ lenne Codex A 60, fol. 19a., Chapter library of Padua.
,2In the inquisition of 1321 in Toulouse Olivi is characterized as
sanctus non canonizatus ... quern Deus canoni~arcrat in vita et in
morte. Lib. Sent. Inq. Tolos. ed. Limborch, p. 319.
,SA letter from Angelo da Clarino written from Avignon to his con
freres in Italy describes the immense concourse of clergy and people
that flocked to Olivi's tomb at Narbonne on the day of his "feast"
(March 14, 1313). It was "not less than what was customary at the
feast of Saint Mary of the Portiuncula." Published by Ehrle (from
MS. Strozziana) in A. L. K. G, vol. i, p. 544. John XXII ordered the
bones of Olivi to be exhumed and his sepulcher with its votive offer
ings to be destroyed, ib. vol. ii, p. 293.

27
their fortunes in a direct, continuous, vivid style, which is
convincing from the first word to the last. His account of
the French group, on the other hand — except for the years
1317-18, when he himself was one of those under examination
by John XXII at Avignon — is vague and rambling. It con
sists of a few facts, interspersed with mystic disquisitions on
the Rule of Saint Francis, appeals to God to judge the cause
of the zealots, laudations of Olivi, miracles — in a word, pad
ding. It is the work of a man who realizes that he is handling
a subject of importance enough to demand several pages more
than he has the material at hand to fill. Moreover such few
facts as Angelo gives concerning the party prior to 1317 are
not always to be relied on. For example, he tells us (Hist.
Trib. fol. 43 b), in a rather fabulous vein, how, Olivi, after the
condemnation of a part of his writings by the Parisian cen
sors in 1282, made Ms way to the Minister-General Bona-
gratia74 at Avignon, unbidden, and preached before him with
such power and fervor that the minister, gladiatus corde, re
pented of the severe measures he had conceived against Olivi,
and shortly afterward gave up the ghost ! Now we have from
Olivi 's own hand a letter of self -justification written in 1285
to the Parisian censors, in which he tells us how he had tried
in vain to get the ear of the authorities to exculpate himself
from the errors charged against him.75 Such, a triumph as
that at Avignon in 1283, recounted by Angelo, must have put
an end to the inquisition.
Except for pieces like the letter just mentioned, we have
nothing to take the place of Angelo 's continuous narrative.
Ehrle has published a number of these pieces (most important
of which are an Index of a projected work on the history of
the Spirituals of Provence by Raymond of Fronciaeho, pro
curator of the order, and Ubertino da Casale 's defence of
Olivi) in his two long articles in the Archiv entitled, Zur
Vorgeschichte des Concils von Vienne™ Wadding had some
of these documents,77 but, like Angelo, he did not have the
material necessary to place them in their true historical set
ting. The important defence of Olivi by Ubertino da Casale

71Bonagratia Tielci, minister-general 1279-83, not to be confounded
with Bonagratia of Bergamo, champion of the "lax" party at Vienne.
"Olivi's letter published by Ehrle in A. L. K. G. iii, 418.
76A. L. K. G., ii, 353-416; iii, 1-195.
,7Ad ann. 1310, No. 4.

28
before the tribunal of Clement V, for example, Wadding puts
back into the year of Olivi 's death (1298), thus robbing it
entirely of its significance as an apology before the head of
the Church, and reducing it to a private funeral panegyric.78
At the same time, the annalist has full and accurate informa
tion on the life of Olivi.79 For Wadding then, in the seven
teenth century, as for the Spirituals of the fourteenth, Olivi
completely overshadowed his party.
We have references in Fra Salimbene 's Chronicle, that mas
terpiece of medieval gossip, to early Spirituals and Joachites
in Provence; and also scattered notices in the collections of
Baluzius and D'Argentre, and the Liber Sententiarum In-
quisitionis Tolosanae.
A source which we do not possess deserves mention among
these fragments for the value it will be, if ever discovered to
be actually in existence. That is the collection of documents
by Raymond of Fronciacho, of which we have mentioned the
Index in the preceding paragraph. The work is divided into
five parts, as follows: Part 1 (8 chapters) discusses the Rule
of Saint Francis and the four papal ' ' interpretations ' ' of the
same in the thirteenth century.80 Part 2 (46 chapters) eon-
tains the history of the Provengal Spirituals up to Olivi 's
time, cir. 1275 — a subject on which we have almost no infor
mation at all — and, further, discusses the influence of Olivi
on the party up to the time of the summons of the leaders
of the Spirituals to Avignon (1309).81 Part 3 (41 chapters)
is devoted to the proceedings at Avignon and Vienne (1309-
1312). Part 4 (25 chapters) treats of the rebellion and pun
ishment of the Spirituals of Narbonne and Beziers (1314-
1318). Part 5 (18 chapters) contains the history of the
Tuscan group of Spirituals (1312). The Index alone to this
collection of documents occupies twenty-six large octavo pages
of fine print. What must be the fulness of the work itself
which "roars so loud in the index !" Was it ever completed?
Does it still lie undiscovered in the corner of some monastery?
"Ad ann. 1297, No. 36.
"Ad ann. 1278, No. 28; 1282, No. 2; 1285, No. 5; 1290 No 10-
1292, No. 13; 1297, Nos. 33 ffg. ' W'
"By -Gregory IX (1230), Innocent IV (1245), Nicholas III (1279)
and Nicholas IV (1289). \>-i»),
"Raymond most unfairly connects the Franciscan zealots with the old
heretical sects of JNicolaitans and Manicheans as well as with the recent
Apostolicians and Waldensians, in this part of the Index

29
With this brief notice of the sources, let us proceed to the
history of the Provencal Spirituals. The tendency of the
apologists for the party of the stricter observance is to carry
the party as a well-defined sect back into the days of Saint
Francis himself. As we have seen above, however, in spite
of such manifestos as the Speculum Perfectionis, it was not
until the middle of the thirteenth century that the viri spiri-
tuales began to be distinguished as a sect within the order.
The generalate of the zealous John of Parma (1247-1257)
was naturally a period of rapid incubation of their ideas. It
was then that the hope for the reform of the order from
within flourished ; and the Joachitic prophecy of a new stage
of religion, in which the viri spirituales should be God's in
struments in the conversion of the whole earth, was revived,
retouched to fit the Franciscan order, wilfully misinterpreted
in certain points, and launched against the Church of the
day in a volume which created more commotion than any other
book of the thirteenth century : namely, the Introductorius in
Evangelium Aeternum, published by the Franciscan Gerhard
de Borgo San Donino at Paris, in 1254. The book was ex
hibited in the parvis of Notre Dame, so that all who ran
might read.82 Brought to the notice of Pope Alexander IV
by the Parisian theologians, who were hostile to the Francis
cans on account of a dispute of several years' standing over
professorial chairs, the work of Gerhard was investigated by a
papal commission of three cardinals, sitting at Anagni, and
condemned as heretical, Oct. 23, 1255.83 The Introductorius,
though written by a Franciscan zealot, was by no means a
manifesto of the Franciscans (as Reuter tried to prove it),
even of those Franciscans who cherished the prophetic views

B2It is mentioned by Jean de Meung in the Roman de la Rose (verses
11204 ffg.) as "Ung livre de par le grant diable,
Dit l'Evangile pardurable ..."
^The tempting subject of the relation of the Introductorius to the
Evangelium Alternum of Joachim of Flora, "the abbot gifted with
prophetic soul," is not germain to this essay. Joachim has been interest
ingly treated by Renan (Reveu des Deux Mondes, 1886, vol. 64),
Preger (Kgl. Bair. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaft, Munich, 1874), Tocco
(L'Eresia nel Medio Evo, Florence, 1884), and Reuter (Geschichte der
religiosen Aufkldrung im Mittelalter, 1875) ; but best of all by Denifle
(in A. L. K. G. i, pp. 49-145), who not only discusses with great acu
men the relation of the Introductorius to Joachim, but prints the full
text of the protocol of the commission of Anagni, by which the work
was condemned.

30
of Joachim of Flora. Salimbene, for example, was a confessed
Joachite; and yet he speaks of Gerhard's work in scathing
terms of censure,84 and witnesses to its baneful effects on the
order.85 Furthermore, the terms of Alexander IV 's condem
nation make clear that he did not hold the order, or any con
siderable part of it, responsible for Gerhard's impudent book.86
The episode served to bring the question of the Joachitic
prophecies into the foreground, however; and their influence
was discovered to be so potent among the Provencals that the
provincial Council of Aries (1262 or later) saw fit to condemn
the writings of the Calabrian abbot en bloc.S7
The next fact in the history of the Spirituals was the Coun
cil of Lyons (1274), with its determined attitude of hostility
to the multiplying groups of vagrant mendicants, who, under
the palladium of the Franciscan name, were defying the
orders of the Lateran Council of 1215. We have already seen
how an exaggerated rumor of the purposes of this council
started the movement in Italy which resulted in the revolt
of the Spirituals of the Mark of Ancona and the ultimate
schism of the "Poor Hermits of Celestin" from the order.
In Provence the influence of the council against the Spirituals
was more than balanced by the contemporaneous emergence
of Petrus Johannis Olivi as the leader of the zealots.
Olivi, born in 1247, and educated at the University of
Paris, had entered the order (convent of Beziersl in the
year 1260, the fatal year of the Joachitic prophecies. He im
mediately distinguished himself by his speculative and exe-
getical writings. In 1278 he was called to account for some
unorthodox sentences in a book on the Virgin Mary, and on

"Excogitavii fatuitatem componendo libellum. et divulgavit stulti-
tiam suam propalando ipsum ignorantibus fratribus. Mult as falsitates
contra doctrinam abbatis Joachim scripsit. Salimbene, Cronica, ed.
Parma, 1857, pp. 102-233.
^'Occasione istius libelli improperatum fnit oraini et Parisius et
alibi, ib. p. 102.
'"Quod dicti (Minores) nullum ex hoc opprobrium nulla m que in-
famiam incurrerc raleant . .ct obloquitores et armitli non possint
exinclc mimrre contra i/isos matcriam (Ictrahcnfli. Letter of Innocent to
the Archbishop of Paris, D'Argentrfi, Coll. Judic. i, 166.
"The Council condemned the libri Concordantium ct alii libri joachit-
ici qui a majoribus nostris usque ad tempora manserunt intacti,
utpote la-Mantes apud quosdam religiosos in angulis et a nostris doc-
tonbus indiscussi. Mansi, Hist. Cone, xxii, 1001. Salimbene has an
amusing account of a prior
arbor behind the convent.

--.„.._  »""<»i, uw». vimv. i_aji, xvvi. oaim
amusing account of a prior reading his forbidden Joachim in a "rane

31
the order of Minister-General Hieronymus Ascoli (afterward
Pope Nicholas IV) he burned the book.88 His ascetic wri
tings, which Wadding says were even then inviting a schism
in the order,89 seem not to have been noticed until the chapter-
general of 1282, assembled at Strassburg, accused him of
"publishing a great deal hostile to the order at large."90 The
Minister-General Bonogratia, at the behest of the chapter,
went to Paris, and there summoned a commission of seven
chief men of the order to examine the works of Olivi — a
suggestion that those works had already reached a goodly
bulk.91, The results of the commission were embodied in a
scroll containing thirty-two passages of questionable ortho
doxy, culled from all of Olivi 's works. The scroll was sup
plemented by a letter (the famous Litterae septem Sigillorum)
in which were twenty-two positive propositions submitted to
Olivi for subscription. Olivi concurred in the judgment of
his censors, and signed the letter of the seven seals, although
he objected that the heads of the order were confusing their
disciplinary powers with inquisitorial prerogatives. He justly
complained in his apology, dated from Nimes in 1285, that
the commission spoke with all the finality of assurance of the
Roman pontiff or a general council.92 Olivi 's profession of
faith satisfied the heads of the order for a time, apparently;
for we find him appointed as lector in the convent of Santa
Croce in Florence by the General Aquasparta (1287-89), a
noted Conventualist93 ; and transferred by Aquasparta 's suc
cessor Raymundus Gaufridi (1289-95) to the higher place
of lector at Montpelier. It was about the time of Olivi 's
transfer to Montpelier that the persecutions of the Spirituals

^Wadding, ad ami. 1278, Nos. 27, 28. Angelo, Hist. Trib. fol. 41b.
"'Tendebat tunc alii in laxiorem vitam non secundum spiritum ....
quibus Petrus sesc opposuit. Alii vero ei adhaerebant et vitam vene-
rantes et doctrinam sequentes. Wadding, ad ann. 1278, No. 29.
mAccusatus fuit Petrus quod plurima libere nimis contra communi-
tatem ordinis frequenter proferret. ib. 1282, No. 2.
"The source for the commission of inquisitors at Paris is mainly the
Cronica XXIV Generalium, edited by the College of Saint Bonaventura,
Quaracchi, vol. iii. Angelo fails us here completely.
K4c si omnia ibidem (i.e. in the letter of the seven seals) contenta
esset mera fides out autentica determinatio romani pontificis vel con-
cilii generalis," says Olivi in his Apologia, published for the first time
by Ehrle in A. L. K. G. iii, 418-421. It is a masterpiece of patient
logic, enough alone to prove Olivi a born leader of thought.
""Aquasparta is contrasted by Dante (Paradiso, xii, 124) with
Ubertino da Casale, the former as "fleeing," the latter as "tightening"
the Rule of St. Francis.

32
of Provence began.94 At the next-following chapter-general of
Paris (1292) Olivi appeared and argued for the strict ob
servance of the Rule of Saint Francis, coupled with obedience
to Rome and to the order— a counsel which may have been
possible of observance in 1292, but was made impossible by
popes like Boniface VIII and generals like John of Murro.95
Olivi again satisfied the order as to his obedience, and was
left, for "all we know, to end his days in peace (March 14,
1298). We lose sight of the Spirituals of Provence from Olivi 's
death until near the close of the first decade of the four
teenth century. It is then that the followers of Olivi begin
to stand out as a well-defined group. They had patiently
borne the continuous persecution of the lax majority of the
order for years, when, in the spring of 1309, Arnold of
Villanuova, the physician of Charles II of Sicily, and a friend
of the party of the strict observance, induced his royal
master to write to the minister-general, demanding a cessa
tion of the unjust persecutions in Provence, under threat of
appeal to the pope.96 This letter, coupled with a petition to
the burghers of Narbonne, had the effect of bringing the
Provencal zealots before Clement V, who ordered Raymundus
Gaufridi (the ex-minister-general), Guido of Mirepoix, Uber
tino da Casale and others to draw up a statement of the
abuses in the order which needed correction. At the same
time he appointed a tribunal of three cardinals to hear and
judge the case, and, since the Spirituals whom he had called
upon to present their case were exposed to annoyance from
the heads of the order, he issued the decretal Dudum ad
Apostolatus (April 14, 1310), exempting the Spirituals from
the jurisdiction of the order during the investigations.97
Ubertino 's indictment of the order was scathing. He de-

"iCron. XXIV Generalinm, ad ann, 1290, copied by Wadding almost
verbatim, ad ann. 1290, No. 11.
"Raymond of Fronciacho in the Index mentioned above speaks
of a letter of John of Murro in which mandat sectam fratris
Petri Johannis exstingui et sectatorcs dispcrgi. A. L. K. G. iii, p.
15. Cf. Hist. Trib. fol. 47b.
"'Tunc (after Ohvi's death) siluerunt, latuerunt el abstcntaverunt
se ex Us plurimi (of Olivi's followers) rvinam gladii persequencium
non ferrentes, fucrunlque sab pressura donee Deus per hominem ama-
torem reritatis Reinrilduni de Villa Norn . . .regem induxit ad scriben-
dum titteras efficaces generali ministro... Hist. Trib. fol. 59b.
"Wadding, ad ann. 1310, No. 3.

33
tailed twenty-five abuses against the Rule of Saint Francis
and ten more against Nicholas III 's decretal Exiit qui seminat
(1279). He was feebly answered in a writing signed by
Minister-General Gonsalvus, Alexander of Alexandria,
Bonagratia of Bergamo and others. Refutation and counter-
refutation followed, and the matter resolved itself into a
literary debate between Raymond and Bonagratia, the volumi-
nousness of which may be judged from the list of the titles
of the pamphlets, preserved in Raymond of Fronciacho's In
dex.9* '
The champions of the Spirituals demanded nothing more
than the reformation of the order, but their opponents skil
fully shifted the argument to the theological plane, making
capital out of the earlier suspicions against the writings of
Olivi (see note 88). They picked out eight points of
heterodoxy (it had been thirty-four in 1283!) ; and when the
Spirituals accused them of treachery to the ideals of Saint
Francis, they replied by the counter-charge of rebellion
against the orthodox faith. With these mutual recriminations
the matter dragged on for two or three years, until Clement V
in 1312 issued the bull Exivi de Paradiso, which was adopted
as a canon of the Council of Vienne then sitting.99 The
Exivi was promulgated as the final adjustment of the quarrel.
As it stands, it contains terms very favorable to the Spirituals,
proscribing the abuses and luxuries in the order which Uber
tino had scored. But it does not, as Angelo da Clarino
claims,100 allow the Spirituals to live apart, exempt from the
discipline of the order. It is impossible that Clement V
could have countenanced anything like schism in the order,
though he may have ordered the dissenting brothers to be
treated kindly until he finally remanded them (summer of
1313) to the full authority of the general and the ministers.
Only a few of the zealots threatened schism, says Wadding,
sub pallio zeli. They all finally came round to obedience and

9"A. L. K. G. ii, 17.26.
"For the whole proceedings, see Wadding, ad ann. 1310, Nos. 1-8.
The bull Exivi is printed in full in Melissanus de Macro's supplement
to Wadding, ad ann. 1312.
™Hist. Trib. 65b, 66a. Lea thinks that the Exivi as it stands may be
modified from its original tenor. He reminds us that the Canons of
Clement V were delayed for revision and finally published by John
XXII in 1317. "That they underwent changes in this process is more
than probable,'' says Lea, Hist. Inq. of the Middle Ages, iii, p. 60.

34
some even did penance for their stubborn resistance : dies suos
pie et laudabiliter in religione terminarunt.101 Considering
the events of the years 1314-18, however, this view of Wad
ding's appears rather roseate.
Clement V's Exivi did not bring the desired harmony. The
zealots were so tenacious of their case and so fully intrenched
in popular favor in Provence, that Alexander of Alexandria,
Gonsalvus' successor in the generalate (1313-14), thought it
advisable, while holding to the letter of Clement V's Exivi,
to allow the Spirituals the three convents of Narbonne,
Beziers and Carcassonne, with the further indulgence that
the prelates assigned to them Should be always "personae
gratae.1"2 The experiment proved a signal failure. Alex
ander died a few months after his grant, and during the long
vacancy in the generalate (which coincided with the two
years' vacancy in the papacy after Clement V's death) the
convents at Narbonne and Beziers became rallying-places for
malcontents. Wadding has a lively passage on the situation:
"The chair of Saint Peter and the headship of the order of
the Minorites being vacant for a long time, those brothers
of the stricter observance whom a little while before Clement
had brought back to the bosom of the order separated from
their brothers with rash impatience, and one hundred and
twenty of them, with the help of certain lay friends (Beg-
hines) in Provence, ejected the prelates from the convents of
Narbonne and Beziers. They were joined by many of the
Franciscans of the stricter observance from other provinces.103
The citizens of Narbonne and Beziers supported them zeal
ously, on account of their devotion to the memory of Petrus
Johannis Olivi. "104
The interregnum in the order and the papacy was brought
to an end in 1316 by the election of two men of uncompromis
ing severity of character, Michael of Cesena and Pope John
XXII. Both were determined in their respective offices, to
""Wadding, ad ami. 1312, No. 5.
™Volo inquit (Alexander), quod vobis dentur prelati, non displicibiles.
Deposition of a brother of Narbonne. A. L. K. G. iii, 159.
,raln an earlier paragraph Wadding speaks of the' survivors of the
dreadful persecution of Ue Italian Spirituals by Boniface VIII and
John of Murro, who had fled to France to appeal to the pope. Mox ad-
haeserunt aliis fratribus in regione Provincie quos viderunt sui zeli
participes et a communitate ordinis recessisse. Ad ann 1307 No 4
104Wadding, ad ami. 1314, No. 8. '

35
recover the authority which had been impaired by the long
vacancy. Michael addressed the pope immediately on the
subject of restoring unity in the order. He sent Raymond of
Fronciacho (the author of the Index) and Bonagratia of
Bergamo (the prosecutor at Vienne) to meet John XXII in
consistory and to lay before him five petitions : first, that the
Fraticelli be punished; second, that the brothers who had
fled to Sicily105 be reduced to obedience ; third, that Ubertino
da Casale be imprisoned ; fourth, that all appeals to the order
be forbidden; and fifth that the Beghines be forbidden to
assume the garb of the order and preach their heresies under
cover of the Franciscan name.106 The petition thus called
for the correction of the Spirituals and their allies throughout
the whole zone of disturbance from Provence to Sicily. It
was the word of a man who intended to finish with rebellion
once for all. Angelo da Clarino, who was one of the brothers
summoned to Avignon as a result of this petition, and whose
Historia septem Tribulacionum, consequently, becomes again
at this point a source of the first value, informs us that the
petition was made up almost entirely of lies and slanders, and
that "the supreme pontiff shuddered at the grievous evils,
crimes, and heresies which the community set down to the ac
count of the zealots.' '107
John XXII's response to the petition was immediate and
cordial. He ordered King Frederick of Sicily to apprehend
the fugitives in his kingdom, and commissioned Bertrand of
Tour, provincial minister of Aquitaine, to force the rebellious
brothers of Narbonne and Beziers to conformity and obedi
ence.108 When the Provengal zealots refused to obey Ber
trand 's orders, and presented to the pope a petition signed by
forty members, John summoned them to Avignon within ten
days, on pain of excommunication.109 "About the Feast of
Pentecost," says Angelo, "sixty-four110 brothers from the con-

10!See next section (C) for the details concerning these brothers.
mIndex of Raymond of Fronciacho, part iv, eh. 7. A. L. K. G. iii,
27. imHist. Trib. fol. 67a.
108A full account in Wadding (ad ann. 1317, Nos. 9-14) who, besides
Angelo's source, had important papal documents from the rich archives
of Avignon.
imIndex of Raymond of Fronciacho, part iv, ch. 16. Letter of Cita
tion in Wadding, ad ann. 1317, No. 11.
1MLea, loc. cit. iii, 70, says, "They set forth seventy-four in number,"
but the Hist. Trib. says sexaginta quattuor.

36
vents of Narbonne and Beziers came to the supreme pontiff.
They did not turn in at the Franciscan convent, but, entering
the town of Avignon, marched directly to the papal palace
and stood all night before the doors, refusing to depart until
the pontiff gave them audience." One of their number,
Bernard Delicieux, a man of great modesty, astonishing learn
ing, and irresistible eloquence, set forth their case before the
pontiff and his cardinals in such circumspect and persuasive
speech that his adversaries despaired of replying. It soon be
came evident to the zealots that their case was prejudged, and
that they had been summoned not to be heard in defence but to
receive their sentence. Bernard and those who attempted to
follow him were silenced on one flimsy pretext or another.111
Gaufridus de Cornone was the victim of an especially shame
less piece of bullying by the pope. John was anxious to keep
this eloquent saint from talking and, just as the latter was
about to begin, interrupted him with the irrelevant remark,
' ' Brother Gaufridus, I wonder that you clamor for the strict
observance of the Rule, when you own five gowns yourself. ' '
Gaufridus : ' ' Holy Father, you are deceived ; it is not true
that I own five gowns, saving your reverence."
John XXII : ' ' Then we lie, do we?"
Gaufridus : ' ' Holy Father, I did not say, nor would I say
that you lie; but I did and do say that I do not own five
gowns. ' '
John XXII: "We order you to be arrested, till we see
whether it be true or not that you own five gowns. ' '
No wonder that the rest of the deputation despaired of
further audience and fell on their knees before the pontiff
crying, "Justice, Holy Father, justice!"112 Their cry fell on
deaf ears. The leaders were committed to prison, the rest
remanded to their convents, there to wait, under strict over
sight of their superiors, until the pope deliberated further,
what to do with them. In a few days he ordered them to be
subjected to an examination on the basis of his Constitution
Quonmdam exegit caecitas (April 13, 1317), which confirmed

"'¦Hist. Trib. fol. 68a. It is amusing to contrast with Angelo's
laudation the description of Bernard in the Index of Raymond of
Fronciacho. There he appears as a braggart and blasphemer who had
been in jail three times and deserves to be there still. Part iv ch 18
A. L. K. G. iii, 29.
"-Hist. Trib. fol. 69a.

37
to the general of the order absolute jurisdiction on the points
of garments and granaries. Twenty-five brothers failed to
satisfy the examiners, and were turned over to the inquisitors
at Marseilles. Four continued "hardened" in the presence of
the inquisitors, and were handed over to the secular arm.
They were burned at the stake in Marseilles, May 7, 1318. 113
By the same inquisitorial sentence, it was forbidden on pain
of excommunication to defend or countenance the errors of the
Spirituals, or to have in one's possession any of the works of
Olivi.114 The fires kindled at Marseilles were a signal for the ex
termination of the Spiritualists throughout Provence. We
hear of burnings at Narbonne, Montpelier, Toulouse, Lunel,
Lodvere, Carcassonne, Cabestaing, Beziers, Montreal. ' Mos-
heim tells us of a band of a hundred and thirteen Spirituals
sacrificed at Carcassonne from 1318 to 1350. 115 Wadding
tells us that the Franciscan inquisitors alone burned one hun
dred and fourteen of the zealots in a single year (1323). 116
And Angelo compares the indiscriminate frenzy of the perse
cutors to the fierceness of rabid dogs and wolves.117 The
works of Olivi were condemned at the Pentecostal chapter of
1319 at Marseilles, and even the bones of many saints who
had died uncondemned (though suspected), were cast out of
their tombs.118 The result of the fierce persecutions was to
stamp out the Spirituals in Provence. A few of the most
radical of the party were driven into violent but unavailing

^Hist. Trib. fol. 69a.
"AIndex of Raymond of Fronciacho, part iv, ch. 24. A. L. K. G. iii,
30. 11BMosheim, De Beghardis et Beguinabus, 1790, p. 499.
""Wadding, ad ann. 1317, No. 45.
'LL7Et ancusabant simpliciter gradientis pro maliciosis et oboedientes
pro inoboedientibus et fideles et catholicos pro infidelibus et schis-
maticis ymitantes canes et luppos rabidos, qui in rabiem conversi nihil
aliud quam mordere appetunt et absque timore bestias et homines in-
differenter invadunt. Hist. Trib. fol. 70b. That the Beghines were con
fused with the Third Order of St. Francis, much to the detriment of
the Franciscans, is shown by an examination of the Lib. Sent. Inq.
Tolos, and Bernard of Gui's Practica, part v. Bernard in his Flores
Chronicorum even says that the Beghines took their rise from Olivi's
"Postil on the Apocalypse" ( Quoted by Ehrle in A. L. K. G. iii, 456 ) .
The name Beghine seems to have been definitely fastened upon the
suspected Franciscans at the provincial Council of Beziers in 1299.
Mansi, Hist. Cone, xxiv, 1216. Compare Tocco's opinion: / Beguini
non erano se non teriziarii francescani. L'Eresia nel medio Evo, p.
355. llsHist. Trib. fol. 69a.

3S
schism. They revived the wildest interpretation of the wri
tings of Joachim of Flora, and revelled in vaticinations of the
fall of the carnal Church. John XXII, for the promulgation
of the Quorundam exegit, became the Antichrist of the
Apocalypse. The martyrs of Marseilles were honored by a
special cult. Saint Francis was to return in the flesh and
preside over the "holy" Church in the third and perfect
age. Olivi 's writings were interpolated with passages from
the prophecies of Joachim. Olivi himself was celebrated as
the Enoch of the Third Age, the second Saint Paul, and even
endowed with all the graces of the human Christ.119 A highly
colored legendary account of Olivi 's death, the Transitus
Sancti Patris, was made the hand-book of the party. They
despised their brother Spirituals in Italy as cowardly op
portunists,120 and predicted the speedy extinction of all sects
but their own. They were the true Church, destined to en
dure to the end of the world.121 In this extravagant sect the
unreconciled Spirituals of Provence lost their social signifi
cance, and sank into oblivion.

119See the trial of the "prophetess" Naprous Boneta, in Lea, iii, 82.
™At the time of the separation of the brothers of the Mark (1294),
it had been the Provencal Spirituals who were the "moderates." Olivi
wrote in 1295 to Conrad of Offida, reprimanding the Italian group for
denying the legitimacy of Boniface VIII's accession io the papacy.
121Lib. Sent. Inq. Tolos. pp. 303, 305, 307, 310, 330.

39

THE TUSCAN SPIRITUALS
While the great debate over the correction of abuses in the
order was raging between Ubertino and Bonagratia in the
presence of Clement V and the prelates attending the Council
of Vienne, ' ' the brothers of Tuscany, seeing clearly the hatred
of the Community against them, and knowing well that their
own destruction was aimed at, took counsel with a certain
holy and wise man named Martin, canon-regular of Siena,
and decided upon flight. This brother Martin, hearing and
to some extent seeing with his own eyes how violent the con
duct of the Community was, said to the zealots, whose holy
walk and conduct he had observed, ' Brothers, believe me, your
enemies will drive you out of your convents. For they do not
obey the authority of the Church, but flout it. If you were
but three in number, you could still elect a general;' and I
am ready to prove in the presence of the pope and all the
cardinals that your secession from the Community is a sacred
right, and that the election which you make is canonical and
just.' The zealots had confidence in the advice of this wise
man (who was, to be sure, ignorant of the effect of the course
which he advised), and chose a general and other officers for
themselves according to the Rule of Saint Francis — a pro
ceeding which brought obloquy on them and on all their as
sociates. Then the supreme pontiff and all the cardinals,
even those who favored the earlier proposal,122 were greatly
shocked, and were easily persuaded to believe all the evil
reports circulated about the Spirituals. And although the
latter sent an epistle to Clement V just before his death, pro
testing that they were ready to obey him as dutiful children
and to endure his correction, the letter never reached the
pontiff, bcause the friends to whom it was entrusted did not
dare to present it. The Tuscan zealots likewise sent mes
sengers to Pope John XXII on the same errand, but the mes-

122This proposal (negotium) was the request of Ubertino that the
Spirituals might be allowed to separate peacefully from the Community
since reconciliation seemed hopeless. Clement's decision came in the
summer of 1313 (see note 101).

40
seugers were seized and imprisoned by the Community and
the message never reached its goal."123
The foregoing passage, inserted by Angelo da Clarino in
his inadequate account of the proceedings of the Council
of Vienne is almost all we know of the little group of Tuscan
zealots, who impatiently broke away from the Community
and fled to Sicily in the years 1312-14. Wadding tells us that
a certain Jacobus da Tundo of Siena in his source for the
knowledge of the Tuscan Spirituals,124 but, as no chronicler
bearing such a name has been discovered, we are not much
helped by the information. There is more suggestion in a few
scattered notices in the writings of Ubertino da Casale, An
gelo da Clarino, and Raymond of Fronciacho. Ubertino was
doubtless the leader of the group of Tuscan Spirituals125;
and had he not been temporarily absent, fighting their cause
before the tribunal of Clement V, the revolt of 1312 would
probably never have taken place. Ubertino tells us in his
reply to the charges of Bonagratia against Olivi 's doctrines,
how sorely the Brothers Minor in Tuscany had betrayed the
ideal of Saint Francis. They had full cellars and granaries.
They had amassed wealth and put it out at usury. They had
even added dishonesty to avarice.126 The provocation of the
zealots to revolt from such disloyal followers of Saint Francis
was heightened by the persecution which they had to endure
from hostile prelates. In a letter of Angelo da Clarino, writ
ten from Avignon (1313) to his brother Spirituals in Italy,
the hope is expressed that Pope Clement will be pleased to
treat the prelates of Tuscany who are persecuting the Spiri
tuals beyond endurance as he treated Bonagratia of Bergamo
for the same offence in Provence.127 From Raymond of Fron
ciacho we learn the names of the convents in which the Tuscan
revolt took place: Carmignano (near Florence), Arezzo, and
Ascanio (near Siena). Raymond, who we must remember

lsaHis1. Trib. fol. 65a.l.
'-'Wadding, ad ami. 1307, No. 4.
wHic frater Vbertinus habitants in montc Alrcrnac provincic Tuscie.
""Item pecunia nomine oblacionis in pluribus locis provineie s. Fran
cisci et aliquibus Tuscie recipitnr et diversae fraudes fiunt in missis
novis. . .quoted T>y Ehrle, A. L. K. G. iii, 68.
137 1 am enim fratrem Bonagratiam adjudicavit perpetuo carceri et
omnes prelatos de pronincia Prorincie tanquam excommunicatos ci-
tavit, et speramus quod similiter faciet de prelatis Tuscie qui non ccs-
sant in contemptum Dei el ecclesie sanetos fratres . . .vexare. MS.

41
was a determined foe of the Spirituals, says that the latter
drove the Minorites of the Community out of their convents
by sheer force. When overcome in arms, some of the Spiri
tuals took refuge in private houses that were opened to them,
while others (forty-nine in number) fled to Sicily, where
King Frederick received them kindly. Clement V warned the
rebels in two letters to desist from their schism, and When
warning proved vain he commissioned the Archbishop of
Genoa and the Bishops of Lucca and Bologna to suppress the
recalcitrants. The Inquisition was established against them,
and a second detachment took refuge in Sicily, where we hear
of their organization by Henry of Ceva, a refugee from Boni
face VIII's persecution. Forthwith a letter was dispatched
from Avignon, signed by several cardinals, to the prelates of
Sicily, warning them to crush out the schism by all means
possible. John XXII followed the matter up, immediately
after his election, by a letter to King Frederick in the
same style.12S The formal and public condemnation of the
Tuscan schismatics followed in the bull Gloriosam ecclesiam
non habentem maculam nee rugam (Jan. 23, 1318). 129
In point of numbers and of subsequent influence this move
ment of the Tuscan Spirituals is not of particular conse
quence. It is significant chiefly for the rapidity with which
the breach with the order was consummated. It gives us a
singularly clear picture of the irreconcilable status and claims
of the Community on the one hand and the Spirituals on the
other. Furthermore, it is interesting as a most decisive step
in the organization of the Fraticelli.
Perhaps no other term in the whole vocabulary of medieval
heresiology has been so loosely used as the word "Fraticelli." '
Lea in his History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages ,
(iii, 158 ) , speaking of the zealots in Germany, says : ' ' Though
we occasionally hear of Fraticelli in these regions, it is<
rather as a convenient name employed by monkish chron-
Strozziana (Florence) 63b. This MS. containing the letter just quoted
and the Epistola Excusatoria (see note 33) was discovered by the
BoUandist Papebroch in the MS. collection of Senator Strozzi of
Florence in 1660, and is now in the National Library of the same
city. It is described and (in part) printed for the first time by
Ehrle in A. L. K. G. i, 509-570.
128March 15, 1317. Published in Wadding, ad ann. 1317, No. 9.
(Note 108.)
12°Index of Raymond of Fronciacho, part v entire. A. L. K. G. iii,
30-31.

42
iclers than as really representing a distinctive sect. " It is not
the monkish chroniclers alone, however, that have sinned
against clearness of definition in respect to the Fraticelli.
Among modern writers on medieval history it is difficult to
find one that is at pains to define the sect clearly. Gieseler
applies the name to the Spirituals who were driven out of
the convents of Narbonne and Beziers by John XXII in
1317. 13° Riezler also uses the name for the Spirituals of
Provence, with the additional information that Henry of
Ceva was their leader!131 Carl Schmidt in the article "Frati
celli" in the Realencyklopadie fiir protestantische Theologie
employs the term indiscriminately for the group of Angelo in
Italy, the evicted brothers of the convents of Provence, and
the Beghines persecuted by the Inquisition of Toulouse. He
says, further, that the sect vanished before the middle of the
fourteenth century. Finally, even Lea himself is far from
explicit in his use of the word. In his chapter entitled "The
Fraticelli,"132 he treats of the schismatic Franciscans of the
Community who, under Micheal of Cesena and Bonagratia,
joined forces with Lewis of Bavaria against John XXII (see
below, D) ; of the "remains of the moderate Spiritualists of
Italy who had never indulged in the dangerous enthusiasm
of the Olivists, but were willing to suffer martyrdom in de-
fence of the sacred principles of poverty" (p. 144) ; of the
group under Henry of Ceva in Sicily, "which, when John
XXII triumphed over the order, gathered in its recalcitrant
factions and constituted a sect whose strange persistence
under the fiercest persecution we shall have to follow for a
century and a half" (ib. Compare Schmidt's statement
above) ; of the Ghibelline heretics of Todi, and the Bavarian's
anti-pope ; of the sectarians in Languedoc and Provence, whose
suppression was facilitated by the "rigorous severity with
which the Spirituals had been exterminated" (p. 167); of
heretics of the Mark of Ancona awaiting extirpation even in
the middle of the fifteenth century (p. 175) ; and of the
Observantine movement,183 which "may be credited with the
destruction of the Fraticelli, not so much by furnishing the

™Lehrbuch der Kirch cngeschichte ii, 3, p. 200
mDie literarischen Widcrsacher der Pa'pste im ' Zeitalter Lud wigs des
Baiern, p. 62. '
™Hist. Inq. of the Middle Ages, vol. iii, pp 129-180
""See above, notes 62-66.

43
men and the zeal required for their violent suppression as
by supplying an organization in which their ascetic longings
could be safely gratified" (p. 179). Thus all of the dis
satisfied Franciscans, in all of their vicissitudes, religious
and political, from the beginning of the fourteenth century
down, are grouped under the title ' ' The Fraticelli. ' '
In fact, the clear demarcation of any of the mystic anti-
hierarchical, popular sects of the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries is practically impossible. Europe from the North
Sea to the Mediterranean simply swarmed with them. There
were Beclusi, Murati, Humiliati, Beghines, Beghards, Apos
tolic Brethren, Brothers of the Free Spirit, Brothers and Sis
ters of the Order of the Militia of Christ and the Blessed
Virgin, Brothers and Sisters of Pentinence, Continentes, Ter-
tiarii, etc., etc. The Lateran Council of 1215 had forbidden
the creation of new religious orders, and this astounding mul
tiplication of lay brotherhoods was the response. Then th^
Council of Lyons (1274) attempted to check these brother
hoods,134 but to no purpose; they increased toward the close
of the thirteenth century faster than ever. Composed as they
were almost entirely of men and women from the humblei
walks of life,135 with no education themselves and with a
hearty hatred of learning as one of the chief temptations to
pride and worldliness136; without official recognition, except
as they joined themselves to one of the approved orders, like
the Humiliati or the Tertiarii of Saint Francis or Saint Domi
nic,137 it was obviously impossible for them to leave much ma
terial for the chronicler and the historian. We have to get

'ziConc. Lugdun. c. 23. Mansi, xxiv, 96.
13BAlvarus Pelagius, De Planctu Ecclesie, ii, 5, says that they were
porcarii, pecorarii, armentarii, caementarii, carbonarii (compare the
Carbonari of the 19th century), fabriferarii, and the like, who left
their workshops, mutato habitu sed non corde.
1!0An amusing account of the trial of one of these "half-monks of
the Middle Ages" is incorporated in a MS. entitled "A Tractate against
Beguines and Beghards," published by Haupt in the Zeitschrift fiir
Kirchengesehichte, xii, 86. The speaker is the inquisitor : Quaesavi eum
sive cognoverit Domini orationem. Primum sorrisit, demum, me gra-
vius instante ut diceret, extensis manibus et elevatis oculis ad celum
clamavit: "Ach Gott, mein Gott, trie hast mich verlassen!" et penitus
non novit principium nee finem.
137Alvarus Pelagius ( loc. cit. ) speaks of them as sicut passeres in-
solenter de monte in montem transmigrantes ; and Matthew Paris (ad
1244), says, sub nullius sancti regula coarctati nee adhuc ullo claustro
contenti.

44
such distinctive impressions as we can from the official docu
ments of the curia and from the inquisitorial processes.138
Moreover, an unfortunate quarrel between the Franciscan and
Dominician chroniclers of the first half of the seventeenth
century did much to obscure the origin and character of the
Fraticelli. Abram Bzovius, the Dominican continuator of
Baronius' Ann-ales, accused the Spiritual Franciscans of
hatching the heretical sect which caused the Catholic in
quisitors a century and a half of labor to extirpate. The Irish
Franciscan of the stricter observance, Hiquey, felt called upon
to defend his order, and especially his branch of the order, in
a work entitled Nitela Beligionis Franciscanae. Wadding
was compiling his Annates Minorum, our standard chronicle
of the order, at the time. He was a fellow-countryman of
Hiquey 's, and also a brother of the stricter observance of the
Rule of Saint Francis. He entered the controversy, and in
stead of scientifically investigating who the Fraticelli were
(as he might have done with the material at his disposal),
he bent all his efforts to prove that the sect never had any
connection with the Franciscans, but arose in Germany.139-
Instead of accepting the historian's duty of impartial analysis,
Wadding here yielded to the temptation of selecting his ma
terial as a partisan. He arbitrarily groups the Fraticelli
with the pseudo-Apostolics, the Brothers of the Poor Life, the
Beghines and Beghards, as "practically one sect, obtaining
its different names either from various restorers or from the
difference in popular nomenclature. ' '140 Wadding 's deservedly
great authority has caused his theory concerning the Frati
celli to be received by scholars even to the present day.141
But Ehrle, in a fine study of the Fraticelli (A. L. K. G., ivr
^ 64-180) has collected all the papal documents and inquisitorial
records relating to the Fraticelli, and proved beyond a doubt
that we have in them a sect of purely Italian origin, trace-
' able to the Franciscan Spirituals. It would be beyond our

i:*Sec Ehrle's diligent collection in A. L. K. C iv. 64-138.
""Wadding, ad ann. 1317, Nos. 23-44.
""Wadding, ad ann. 1317, No. 42: Potiori opera et maiore studio
potuissem hie ostendere (Why didn't he?) in unam sectam coaluisse
pseudo-aposiolos, Fraticellos, etc. Cf. ad ann. 1297, No. 30 ; diversaque
nomina sortitos vcl ex diversis restauratoribus aut popuu nomcnclntura.
141For example, Panfilo da Magliano, Storia di s. Francesco. 1876;
and Loofs in Thcologische, Literaturzeitung, 1887.

45
purpose to discuss Ehrle 's article at length. The points which
he makes and ably defends are as follows:
1. The oldest document in which the word "Fraticelli" oc
curs (John XXII's Sancta Bomana of Dec. 30, 1317) applies
the term to the group of Spirituals led by Liberato and An-;
gelo da Clarino142 (see section A).
2. The name is not used of all the schismatic followers of
Michael of Cesena (see below, section D), but only of such of _
them as came out of the Spiritual party.
3. The name is never used in the sources to designate the
Spirituals of Provence who broke away from obedience to the
order in 1317.143
4. Neither Segarelli nor Doleino nor their successors, the
Apostolic Brothers, can be called Fraticelli.144
5. Besides the followers of Liberato and Angelo, the mem-_
bers of the Tuscan group of Spirituals also are called Frati--
celli. Now it is only in this last point that Ehrle seems to me
Jiot to have maintained the thoroughness and critical acumen
of the rest of his article. He does not give the Tuscan Spiri
tuals any particular prominence in the development of the
Fraticelli as a sect; whereas it seems to me clear that they
were practically the originators of the sect. I say "of the
sect," because the term "Fraticelli" was not originally a
term of opprobrium applied by the Church or the order to-
heretics or schismatics, but a popular appellation, almost a "
term of endearment — "the Little Brothers." It was the name
given to the followers of Saint Francis who wore the scant
tunic and begged their bread from door to door, like the

""Raymond of Fronciacho, Index. A. L. K. G., iii, 32. Hist. Trib. fol.
¦67a Tocco Bolletino di Storia Abruzzi, 1895, 15: "I Fraticelli o poveri.
Eremiti di Celestino V."
iaLib. Sent. Inq. Tolos. ed. Limborch, p. 326.
"*Angelo's fierce outburst of wrath against these Apostolics (Hist.
Trib. fol. 60b) would be in itself sufficient to prove that they can
not be classed in the same company with his followers. The language
he applies to them, as well as the reputed prophecy of St. Francis, that
these Apostles of Satan would arise, precludes the possibility of their
having their origin in the order. There were, to be sure, many points of
contact between these Apostolics and the Fraticelli, such as
Joachitic dreams, laudations of poverty, anti-hierarchical tendencies;
but, for all that, the Fraticelli differed sharply from the Apostolic
Brothers in holding to the Rule of St. Francis, in confining_their hos
tility to Rome to the pontificate of John XXII only, and iVmuch better
. organization. \ J

46
early brothers of the order; and, furthermore, no designation
of his followers could have been more after Saint Francis'
own heart than just the word ' ' Fraticelli. ' ' When the word
is first used by the pope, however, in a formal bull of con
demnation (Sancta romana, 1317) it signifies rebels and here
tics. John XXII in a letter to Charles, Duke of Calabria
(March 7, 1317) acknowledged that he got the term "Frati
celli" from popular usage.145
The bull Sancta romana was published just after the dra
matic negotiations of the curia with the rebellious brothers of
Provence.146 Its purpose was to chastise in a body the sect-
1 aries who were breaking away from obedience to the order.
Now the Tuscan brothers had been the leaders of the defec
tion. It was their rash deed of 1312 that made the innocent
name of "Fraticelli" a hissing at the court of Avignon. It
even seems to me that Ehrle 's chosen quotation to prove that
the Fraticelli were originally Angelo and his group better
suits the interpretation that refers the word to the Tuscans.
It is a sentence from the invaluable Index of Raymond of
Fronciacho, which we have had occasion to notice so often:
VIII° capitulo ponitur alia lictera eiusdem domini nostri
papae (John XXII) per quam dampnat et cassat station et
sectam Angeli et Liberati eorumque complicmn fraticellorum
et omnium Bizochorum, et incipit Sancta romana. Part V,
ch. 8. Commenting on this passage, Ehrle says : "Ich glaube
dass diese Stelle bedarf keine Erklarung; die Fraticelli sind
nach ihr die Anhanger (complices) Angelo 's und Lib
erato 's."147 But does not the word "complices" mean "con
federates" rather than "followers"; and would it not better-
designate an allied group like the Tuscans? In that case the
word "fraticellorum" would be in apposition with "comph-
cum" only, and not with the phrase " Angeli .... compli-
cum"; and we should have the two groups of "the sect of
Angelo and Liberato" on the one hand, and "their confed-
prRtes the Fraticelli (the Tuscan rebels) " on the other.
. The term "Fraticelli," once adopted by the Church as a
term of opprobrium, soon lost its original popular meaning
of the "Little Brothers," and was used quite indiscriminately
"'Nonnulli prophani qui fraticelli vulgariter nuncupantur
A. L. K. G. iv, 65.
'-'"See note 112.
"'A. L. K. G. iv, 140.

47
for "rebels." Italian heretics were persecuted for contempt
of the hierarchy under the name of ' ' Fraticelli, ' ' down beyond
the middle of the fifteenth century. It was the lot of the lit
tle company of Tuscan Spirituals who broke away from the
authority of the order, then, according to our interpretation
of the documents, to bring the name of "Fraticelli" into re
proach with Rome, and to give the signal for a century and a
half of bitter persecution.148

"•Wadding, ad ann. 1334, No. 1; 1335, No. 10; 1354, No. 1; 1374,
No. 22. Cf. ad ann. 1368, No. 4: Xuttis artibus comprimi. . .potuit in
Italia Fraticellorum contagio.

48D
THE MICHAELISTS
The episode of the struggle between John XXII and the
heads of the Franciscan party over the doctrine of the poverty
of Christ and the Apostles is not, strictly speaking, a part of
the history of the Spiritual Franciscans. In that struggle the
Minorites were divided on a different line from that which
marked the boundary between the Community and the zealots.
Men of each of these parties were on Michael's side against
the pope. Nevertheless, for two reasons it seems desirable
to speak of the Michaelists in concluding our sketch of the
Spiritual Franciscans. In the first place, many of the Spiri
tuals (at least of the Fraticelli)149 were enlisted in the bat-,
tie, not that they loved Michael more, but that they loved
John less, and saw here a chance to be avenged on him for
the persecutions he had set on foot against them. In the sec
ond place, this struggle over the poverty of Christ developed
into a political struggle when Michael, William of Ockham,
and Bonagratia fled from Avignon to join Lewis of Bavaria;
and it therefore shows the Fraticelli in the new role of polit
ical demagogues.
There seems not the slightest cause for the bitter fight
over the dogma of poverty, beyond John XXII's pugnacious
and domineering spirit.150 It looks as if the Dominicans used
him as a tool to work their spite against the Franciscans.
During the trial of a Spiritual at Narbonne in 1321 the
Dominican inquisitor invited a Franciscan teacher of the con
vent of Narbonne, one Berengar Talon, to give an opinion on
the orthodoxy of the defendant's statement that Christ and
the Apostles had no property, either individually or collect
ively. Berengar replied that the statement was orthodox,
sanctioned as a tenet of the order by Nicholas Ill's bull of
1979, Exiit qui seminat. Therefore the inquisitor accused

""Collection of documents in Nicolaus Minorita, ed. Baluzius-Mansi
iii, 2065. '
•_ 15°Villani the historian describes John XXII as. virtute invictus, faci-
lis irae, propositi tenax, in cibo temperatus, inris utriusque ralde veri-
tus. '

49
Berengar of heresy and ordered him to recant. When
Beranger refused to budge from the doctrine of the order, and
started for Avignon to appeal to the pope, the Dominican
was before him, and was not disappointed in his hope that
John's recent experiences with recalcitrant Minorites would
influence him to take sides against Berengar. The pope, who
should have recognized the validity of Berengar 's position and
forbidden the inquisitor to meddle with his Franciscan neigh
bors, was foolish enough to foster the quarrel by pompously
reserving to himself the decision of the case. The tyrant is
generally a pedant too. In the bull Quia nonnunquam
(March 26, 1322), he suspended Nicholas IV 's Exiit qui semi-
nat. This was a slap at the Franciscan order, and was
promptly resented. The chapter-general of Perugia (May,
1322), without waiting for John's final word in the case,
published a decree in which it declared that the doctrine of the
poverty of Christ and the Apostles was orthodox, and was
even approved by John's own bull Quorundam exegit (1317).
John was furious. In the bull Ad conditorem (Dec. 8, 1322)
he gratified both his tyranny and his pedantry to the last
degree. He revoked the Minorites ' privilege, granted seventy-
seven years before by Innocent IV, of holding property in the
name of the Roman See, exposing the flimsiness of his pretext
in long chains of logic. The next year (Nov. 12, 1323), in the
bull Cum inter nonnullos, John formally decided the question
of Christ's poverty in the negative. The action of the chapter
of Perugia was condemned, and henceforth the maintenance
of the doctrine of the poverty of Christ and his Apostles was
declared to be a heresy. The battle between the dictator-pope
and the order of Saint Francis was fairly joined.
The folly of John XXII's presumptuous behavior toward
the strong order of Saint Francis appears doubly great when
we remember the political conditions of the time. Only two
months before the promulgation of the bull Ad conditorem
the most important battle of the fourteenth century had been
fought at Miihldorf. There Lewis the Bavarian was vic
torious over his rival for the imperial crown, Frederick of
Austria, the ally of the King of Naples and the pope. In the
victorious Lewis the pope had an antagonist against whom
he needed all the allies he could muster. At this critical
moment he was foolish enough to alienate the Franciscans by

50
his piece of petty, revengeful pedantry. Lewis the Bavarian,
who cared as little for the doctrine of the poverty of Christ
as he did for the Grand Turk, was shrewd enough to enlist the
disaffected Minorites in his cause at once. The "Protest of
Sachsenhausen, ' '151 by which he replied to the pope 's sentence
of excommunication, contains a long excursus from the pen
of a Franciscan writer (or writers), in which John is de
clared to have ' ' risen against the Lord Jesus, his Mother, and
the Apostles, and attempted to destroy the evangelical doe-
trine of perfect poverty, the beacon of our faith." The
seraphic Francis, the document continues, was sealed with the
stigmata, and his Rule was thus confirmed beyond the power
of any "leaden seal" to disturb.152
It has been recognized for centuries that the Minorites had
a hand in the protest of Sachsenhausen, but just whose hand it
was still remains unknown. Riezler believes that it was Uber
tino da Casale153 ; and in fact we have in Ubertino 's writings
the simile of the stigmata and the seal.154 Still we learn from
Raynaldus155 that Ubertino was in Avignon until 1325; and
the fact that John XXII treated him with consideration until
that time, even requesting from him a written opinion on the
dispute over the poverty of Christ,156 argues against his being
the author of the excursus. Marcour357 thinks that the author
was Henry of Thalheim, Provincial of Upper Germany, who
was one of the signers of the decree of Perugia, and who was
deposed from his high office at Constance in 1323. Preger
points to Franciscus de Lutra, a fugitive from Avignon, as the
author, and is certain that the excursus is from the pen of a
Spiritual.158 This position Ehrle criticises as untenable,159

1B1Karl Miiller, Der Kampf Ludicigs des Baiern. mit der romischen
Curie, Tubingen, 1879, i, 180.
"•-Lb, p. 81.
1MRiezler, Die litcrarischcn Widersaeher der Pdbste zur Zeit Ludicigs
des Baierns, Leipzig, 1874, p. 73.
"'Ubertino's reply to Bonagratia at Vienne: quod regula a Christ o
data, quam bullavit bulla mirabili, volens institutionem ipsius in
sanctae regidae testimonium paucis post cius confectionem diebus
passionis suae stigmatibns insignire. A. L. K. G., iii, 87.
"'"Annates Ecclesiasticae. Rome, 1652. ad ann. 1325,' No. 20
'""Baluzius-Mansi, ii, 279.
"7Anteil der Minorifcn am Kampfe zicischen Ludwig dem Baiern und
Papst Johann, xxii, 1874, p. 83.
1KVeber die Anfange des kirchenpolitischen Kampfes unter Ludwig
dem Baiern, Munich Academy, Historical Class, vol. xvi, pp. 138 ffg.
""Olivi und die Sacliscnhiiuser Appellation, A. L. K. G., iii, 540.

51
and shows by quotations from Michael of Cesena 's tracts that
the language used in the excursus could have been employed
by a Franciscan of the Community as well as by a Spiritual.
Karl Miiller, in his exhaustive work quoted above on the con
test between the Bavarian and the pope, found the original
of a short piece of the excursus in a tract of Bonagratia of
Bergamo160 ; and Ehrle, in the article just cited, has shown
that a much larger section of the excursus is taken from the
eighth Quaestio of Olivi. Other parts of the excursus may
be traced to Franciscan documents, but there is little pros
pect of finding who the author of the whole was.161
Lewis followed up his victory at Miihldorf with bold ag
gressiveness. He put into effect the doctrine of imperial in
dependence announced in the Protests of Niirnberg and Sach
senhausen by marching to Rome in 1327, electing an antipope,
and receiving at his hands the imperial crown of Charles the
Great. Lewis' antipope, Nicholas V, was the Franciscan
friar Peter of Corbario.
The heads of the order, meanwhile, were in virtual im
prisonment at Avignon. Their position was becoming pre
carious in the extreme. The Bavarian's headlong course was
involving the order deeper and deeper in the sin of rebellion.
John XXII met the crisis with resolute severity. In 1325
Ubertino da Casale was summoned for trial. He fled to
Lewis. In 1326 the writings of Olivi were again subjected to
censorship and the Commentary on the Apocalypse was or
dered to be burned. In 1328 John detained the minister-gen
eral, Michael of Cesena, in Avignon, while he sent his own
legate to the chapter of Franciscans assembled at Bologna to
prevent the reelection of Michael to the generalate. But the
chapter defied the pope and elected Michael. , John summoned
the general to his presence, but the latter, following the ex
ample of Ubertino da Casale, fled from Avignon to join Lewis
of Bavaria. With him went Bonagratia of Bergamo and the
famous scholastic William of Ockham. John immediately as
sembled a "packed" chapter of the order at Paris, in which
Michael was deposed from his office and Gerhard Odo, a sub
missive creature of the pope, was elected in his stead (1329).

imOp. cit. p. 86.
181Glassherger's Cronica (1508): Hoc zempore composita fuit quae-
dam s'criptura de qua habebantur suspecti fratres minores, quam attri-
buebant dud Bavariae Ludovico. Anal. Francisc. ii, 148.

52
«, Michael's open rebellion against the pope, which was prob
ably necessary to save him from disgrace and imprisonment,
was too bold a step for the order at large to sanction. The
same man who had been supported enthusiastically by the
chapter of Bologna in May found himself an exile and an out
cast in July. The Minorites could not be sponsors for Lewis'
extreme measures. The time was three centuries past when
a Holy Roman Emperor could march to Rome to make and
unmake popes. Although the Bavarian's antipope was a
Franciscan, nevertheless only four brothers of the order would
endorse the emperor's presence and purpose in Rome.162 In
the Ghibelline towns Lewis' progress occasioned some revival
' of the enthusiasm with which Dante had hailed Henry of
Luxembourg twenty years before ; and we find records of in
quisitorial action against fratres rebelles, pseudo-fratres
Minores, sequaces Michaelis, fautores sectae Michaelis in Todi,
Amelia, the Pennine province, and other parts of Italy.163
But the Minorites had ceased to be of any use to Lewis, when
the dogma of the poverty of Christ could not 'be used to
further the cause of German independence. Lewis protected
his old allies, the self-exiled fugitives of the Minorites, in a
Franciscan convent in Munich, where Bonagratia, Michael,
and Ockham, with a few followers maintained defiance to the
pope to the last.164
John XXII died in 1334, and with his death the personal
element of the quarrel between the papacy and the Fran
ciscans was gone. "Nicholas V" had already made his peace
with Avignon four years before John's death, repenting his
insolent blasphemy in sackcloth and ashes. In the succeed
ing decade most of the disaffected Minorites returned to their
allegiance to the order. Pope Clement VI, in 1349, called on
the General Farinerius to bring the last of the persecuted
rebels to terms, but the general replied, "They are only a
handful ; let them die in peace. ' ' So the Parfusser of Lewis
the Bavarian died out — and, except for the persistent Frati
celli of Italy, the order had peace.
102MartSne, Amplissima Colleetio, ii, 763.
MSEhrle, A. L. K. G., iv, 150.
"'Ockham even went so far, in the Opus nonaginta Dierum as to ap
peal to a general council, and called the pope a heretic for refusing to
summon the same. The idea was revived toward the close of the cen
tury by the Parisian theologians and eventuated in the great but futile
councils of the fifteenth century.

53
III
To sum up the results of our investigation, we find, from
the very inception of the Franciscan order, two tendencies at
work. One was the determination to make the order a potent
influence on the age and a world-factor in history, by securing
its close connection with the papacy, acquiring numerous con
vents, increasing membership as rapidly as possible, building
fine churches, securing privileges and exemptions from the
pope — in a word, by entering into competition with the estab
lished monastic orders. The other tendency was the equally
strong determination to preserve the order from the corrupt
ing influences of wealth and privilege, to keep the members
true "Brothers Minor," imitators, not alone admirers, of
Saint Francis.
The former tendency quite naturally soon gained the
ascendancy; the more rapidly, as it had for its champion
a man of tyrannical force of will and exceptional executive
ability, Brother Elias of Cortona. Ineffectual protest
or voluntary retirement to some hermitage was all that
was left for the zealots.165 They remained a protesting mi
nority within the order, looking forward to the time of puri
fication, when all the sons of Saint Francis should be holy;
and at the same time losing that hold on their times which
would have taught them that such a consummation as they
hoped for was hopeless. Their only attempt at concerted ac
tion before the middle of the thirteenth century, so far as we
know, was the deputation of the seventy -two brothers to the
pope, in Crescentius' generalate. That was quickly broken up,
and the brothers were scattered to the farthest provinces of
the order.166
About the middle of the thirteenth century, however, we
find forces at work which consolidated the protesting zealots
into a party. Chief among the forces were : first, the election
to the generalate of the zealot John of Parma; second, the
appropriation of the prophetic writings of Joachim of Flora

""Wadding says of Brother Leo, head of the zealots, in Elias' time:
Successit fr. Leo ad eremitorium Fabriani in patientia et longanimitate
tempus redempturus qoniam dies mali erant, ab alto exspectans malorum
remedium, ad ann. 1229, No. 2: Salimbene says of Elias: Ministros
provinciales ita tenebat sub baculo quod tremebant eum sieut iuncus
tremit cum ab aqua concutitur. Liber de Prelato ii.
166See above, note 16.

54
and their manipulation to suit the dawning apocalyptic hopes
of the zealots; third, the attitude of John of Parma's suc-
' cessor Bonaventura, who immediately gave the champions of
the stricter observance of the Rule to understand that no hint
of hostility to the see of Rome or of an esoteric authority of
the "companions" of Saint Francis would be tolerated.
After Bonaventura we mark an ever widening rupture be
tween the fautors of the papal interpretations of the Rule
of Saint Francis and the champions of its observance ' ' to the
letter." The Council of Lyons of 1274 almost provoked a
schism in Italy, and the persecutions to which the zealots were
subjected led in 1294 to the actual separation from the order
of a group of zealots of the Mark of Ancona, led by Liberato,
Angelo da Clarino, and others (group A).
The zealots of the Mark of Ancona had the sanction of
1 Pope Celestin V in their withdrawal from the order, and by
his permission took the name of "Poor Hermits of Celestin."
But the Tuscan zealots, who broke away from the order in
* 1312 (group C), had no such authority for their action. It
was rebellion pure and simple; and it made the name of
"Fraticelli," or "Little Brothers," by which the zealots of
Italy were popularly called, a term of reproach and a
synonym for "rebel" and "schismatic."
At the time of the secession of the Tuscan brothers, the
case of the Spirituals versus the Community was being argued
before Pope Clement V at Avignon. Clement's decision, em
bodied in the decree Exivi de Paradiso, was, on the whole,
favorable to the party of the stricter observance, although it
enjoined on them obedience to the officers of the order. In
the long interregnum which followed, both in the generalate
and in the papacy (1314-16), the zealots of Provence were
tempted (sub specie declinandae perse cutionis) to expel the
priors from the convents of Narbonne and Beziers, so declaring
themselves independent of the discipline of the order. They
were promptly punished by John XXII (1317-18), and the
Inquisition was set to work to crush out the last traces of in
subordination in Provence (group B).
_ Meanwhile the Fraticelli were being hunted down in Italy.
They gave the inquisitors trouble down to past the middle of
- the fifteenth century. The more moderate of the Italian
zealots, who wished to follow the precepts of Saint Francis

55
strictly and still neither quarrel with the order nor defy the
pope, made several attempts during the fourteenth century to
get convents granted them in which they might lead their
severe life unmolested by jealous brothers and untempted by
worldly offices. They were finally successful under Paolo da '
Trinci (1368). The Brothers of the Stricter Observance were
formally separated from the Community in 1517, by Pope
Leo X's bull Ite et vos in vineam.

56

APPENDIX I
The Genealogy of the Spiritual Franciscans

Lax party

Brother Elias

Saint Francis

Strict party

~\
Brother Leo

The Community

I
The Celestins
(Group A)
1294

I

The Spirituals

The Tuscans
(Group C)
1312

Brothers of the
Stiict Observance
(1368)
Recognized by
LeoX (1517)

Fraticelli Fi aticelli
^  i
v
Persecuted till
1466

The Michaelists or
Parfiisser of Lewis
of Bavaria
(Group D)
1321-1345 (dr.)

The Provencals
(Group B)
1309-18
Persecuted as
Beghines, fratres
rebelles, etc.

57

APPENDIX II
Generals of the Order and Roman Pontiffs 1200-1334 (from the Catalogue
of Bernard of Besse, Zeitschrift fiir Katholische Theologie, vii.).

Date

General

Pope

1198

Innocent III

1216

Honorius III

1227

John Parenti

Gregory IX

1232

Elias of Cortona

1240

Albert of Pisa (8 mos.)

1241
Aymo of Fevesham
Celestin IV (18 days)
(vacancy two years)
1243
Innocent IV
1244
Creseentius of Jesi
1248
John of Parma
1254
Alexander IV
1257
Bonaventura
1261
Urban IV
1265
Clement IV
1268
(vacancy two years)
1270
Gregory X
1274
Hieronymus of Ascoli
1276
Innocent IV (4 mos.)
Adrian V (2 mos.)
John XXI (8 mos.)
1277
(vacancy six months)
1278
Nicholas III,
1279
Bonagratia of Tielci
-1280
(vacancy six months)
1281
Martin IV
1284
Arlotto of Prato
.1285
Honorius IV
1287
Matthew of Aquasparta
(vacancy ten months)
1288
Nicholas IV
1289
Raymundus Gaufr'di
1292
(vacancy two years)
1294
Celestin V
1295
John of Murro
Boniface VIII
1303
Benedict XI
1304
Gonsalvus of Valboa
(vacancy eleven months)
1305
Clement V
1313
Alexander of Alexandria.
1314
(vacancy two years).
(vacancy two years)
1316
Michael of Cesena
John XXII.
1329
Gerardus Odo
58
APPENDIX III
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ON THE EARLY LEGENDS OF SAINT
FRANCIS
A lengthy discussion of the sources of the life of Saint
Francis would be out of place in the text of an essay dealing
with the history of the Spiritual Franciscans. But for two
reasons it seems right to refer in a note to these sources : first,
because almost the Whole of the present great interest in the
history of the Franciscan movement is in the question of the
relative value of the interpretation of the character and pur
pose of Saint Francis as given, on the one 'hand, by the of
ficial legends of Celano and Bonaventura, and, on the other
hand, by the more fragmentary and dubious writings pur
porting to have come from the companions of the Saint ; and
secondly, because the knowledge of what confidence the
zealots themselves had in the documentary support of their
cause helps us to understand the claims of their later litera
ture, as well as the unyielding fervor of their opposition to the
curial closure of Gregory IX 's Quo elongati and Innocent
IV 's Ordinem vestrum.
The Legenda Prima of Thomas of Celano, the fragment of
the Legenda Trium Sociorum, and the official Legenda of
Bonaventura, published by the BoUandist Suyskens in the
Acta Sanctorum (Oct. vol. ii, 1768 ffg.), together with the
Legenda Secunda of Thomas of Celano, discovered by Rinaldi
and published at Rome ( 1806 ) , constituted, until about twenty
years ago, the only sources for the history of the origins of
the order, of Saint Francis. It was recognized, to be sure,
that the later chroniclers of the order, especially the classic
annalist Luke Wadding, had access to much material not
contained in the Legends of Celano and Bonaventura; but
that that material was of enough value to modify seriously
the accepted interpretation of the early historians of the order
was not dreamed of. Even the works of Saint Francis him
self, published with considerable pains but little critical sense
by Wadding (Antwerp, 1623) were unheeded in the study of
the order.
Karl Midler's Die Anfange des Minoritenordens unfit der
Bussbruderschaften (Freiburg, 1885) and Franz Ehrle 's

59
studies on the relation of the Franciscan Spirituals to the
order at large, in the Archiv fiir Literatur und Kirchen-
geschichte (1885-89), opened up the field for a new apprecia
tion of the sources. The great value of Miiller 's brilliant and
radical criticism of the origins of the order was in the empha
sis which it put on the fragmentary Legenda Trium Sociorum,
till then the Cinderella in the family of Franciscan Legends.
By showing the close dependence on it of Celano 's Legenda
Secunda, Miiller prepared the way for Sabatier and other
scholars to seek further light on the early writings of Saint
Francis' companions through the recovery of the lost chap
ters of the Legenda Trium Sociorum. The shift of interest
from Celano and Bonaventura to the companions of the Saint
is the crucial fact in the' new study of the Franciscan sources.
Following the way opened by Miiller and Ehrle, sifting the
chronicles of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth cen
turies for fragments from the immediate surroundings of
Saint Francis, carefully studying the writings of the Saint
himself, ransacking the convent libraries of Europe for Fran
ciscan documents, Sabatier has succeeded, almost single-
handed, in revolutionizing the traditional view of the early
years of the order. Instead of the undisturbed story of the
spread of missions, the multiplication of miracles, the pro
gressive commitment of the discipline of the order to the
Church, the grateful acceptance of the declaration of the mind
of Saint Francis from the mouth of the pope, we have a story
of conflict within the order and persecution from without.
Even the earliest of the current biographies of the Saint, the
Legenda Prima of Thomas of Celano, is a polemic, justifying
the "practical" course of the expansionist Brother Elias
against the attacks of Leo, the leader of the puritan faction
among the early companions (see note 165).
Against this thesis of Sabatier 's the defendants of the tra
ditional interpretation of Saint Francis protest, led by the
Jesuit Father Van Ortroy (in the Analecta Bollandiana),
Monseigneur Faloci-Pulignani (in the Miscellanea Francis-
cana), and Professor Delia Giovanma, author of the article
"San Francesco d 'Assisi Giullare" in the Giornale Storico
delta Letterdtura Italiana (vol. xxv, 1895). The champions
of the Saint Francis of Catholic tradition argue for the suf
ficiency of Celano and Bonaventura as biographers of the

60
Poverello, deny any serious disagreement between the Church
and any considerable part of the order, and maintain that
the documents purporting to come from the companions of the
Saint (even the BoUandist Legenda Trium Sociorum, in the
case of Van Ortroy, Anal. Boll., xix, 1900, pp. 119-197) are
forgeries of the end of the fourteenth or the beginning of the
fifteenth century.
The Franciscans of the Strict Observance, while good
Catholics, are favorable to Sabatier's vindication of the gen
uineness of the early "spiritual" sources. Two of them, the
Fathers Marcellino da Civezza and Teofilo Domenichelli, re
cently paid with exile from Rome their too radical views in
the publication of their reconstructed Legenda Trium So
ciorum (see note 27). After having the "true history" of the
order unquestioned since the days of Saint Bonaventura it
must have come like something of a shock to Catholic scholars
to read that the first century of Franciscan tradition has been
piena di tante oscuritd da parere un dedale inestricabile.1
Unfortunately there has been considerable manifestation of
the odium theologicum in the argument of the case against
Sabatier, whose procedure has been strictly scientific. The
following paragraph from Mariano's article on the modern
biographers of Saint Francis is typical of the attitude of too
many of the Catholic scholars: Che cosa e infatti San Fran
cesco rappresentato del Sabatier? E suppergiit lui stesso. un
Paolo Sabatier, un anticipata incarnazione delta persona sua,
un appartenente alia sinistra radicate del moderno protestan-
tismo, venuto gia al mondo or sono secoli, animato dagli iden-
tici concetti dissolventi e negative, tendente idcnticamente a
far man bassa sul Cristianismo positivo e storico, e in conclu
sion sulla religioner And Monsiegneur Faloci-Pulignani has
practically converted his once scientific periodical, the Mis
cellanea Franciscana, into an organ of attack on Sabatier's
theological position. Remonstrated with by Father Minocchi,
in the Bivista Bibliografica Italiana, 1898, for his unfair
treatment of Sabatier, he replied: Minocchi e padrona di aver
simpatia per chi accusa Gregorio IX, il gran amico di San

1La Leggenda di San Francesco, scritta da tre suoi Compagni, Rome,
1899, Introduction, p. xxix.
"Francesco d'Assisi ed alcuni dei suoi pin reccnti biografi, in the
Atti delta reale Aocademia di scicn~i morale c politiche, Naples 1896
p. 258.

61
Francesco . . .di farsi paladino di un partito di zelanti die
non volevano sentir parlare di papa, it che e eresia. . .mai non
pud vietare a noi di denunciare al.pubblico lo scopo .del Sa
batier che e quello di voter sottrare al Catolicismo la gloria di
aver dato al mondo San Francesco d' Assisi.3 All of which is
militant theology and not historical criticism.
The document about which the storm of criticism has raged
most fiercely is the Speculum Perfectionis, published by Sa
batier in 1898, as "the oldest legend" of the Saint.* Mr.
Alfred G. Little gives a list twenty lines long (which he ' ' does
not pretend is complete") of the titles only of works called
out by the publication of the Speculum Perfectionis.5 The
•circumstances of Sabatier's discovery of the Speculum Perfec
tionis have already been given (see note 31). The Explicit
of the Codex Mazarinus (1743) which Sabatier regards as
confirmation of his conjecture of the priority of the Specu
lum Perfectionis over all other Legends of Saint Francis, ends
with the words: Actum in sacrosancto loco sanctae Mariae de
Portiuncula et completum V° ydus May anno Domini
M°CC°XXVIII° (May 11, 1228). Apart from this exact
date of the Explicit, Sabatier urges in support of his theory
the fact that the later "spiritual" writings of Angelo da
Clarino (Historia septem Tribulacionum) and Conrad of
Offida (Arbor Vitae Crucifixi) contain quotations from the
writings of Brother Leo which are frequently found in the
Speculum Perfectionis; that the style and matter of
the Speculum Perfectionis show unmistakable signs of
very early composition (little of miracle or prophecy,
very human view of the Saint, preference for the
early Rule of 1220-1221 over the official Rule of
1223) ; that Gregory IX 's emphasis in the bull Quo elongati
(1230) on his familiaritas longa with the Saint, and his claim
plenius novisse intentionem eius, is a direct reply to the nos
qui cum ipso fuimus of Brother Leo; and especially the de
pendence of Thomas of Celano 's Legenda Secunda upon the
Speculum Perfectionis.8
'Misc. Frances., Foligno, vol. vi, p. 78.
'Speculum Perfectionis, seu s. Francisci Assisiensis Legenda Anti-
quissima, Fischbacher, Paris, 1898.
5"The Sources of the Life of Saint Francis of Assisi," in the English
Historical Review, Oct. 1902, vol. 17, pp. 643-677.
"See Sabatier's Introduction, and his reply to Van Ortroy in the
Revue Historique, vol. 75, pp. 61-101.

62
However, there are perhaps equally strong points to urge
against the date 1228 for the Speculum Perfectionis. The
commendatory letter of the authors of the Legenda Trium
Sociorum, addressed to Crescentius in 1246, in presenting
matter very closely related to the Speculum Perfectionis,
says: Credimus quod si venerabilibus viris qui praefatus le-
gendas confecerant haec nota fuissent ea minime praeterissent
— a sentence hardly intelligible if the Speculum Perfectionis
had been written twenty years earlier. Furthermore, the
grievance of Leo over the erection of the new basilica at
Assisi (which is assumed by Sabatier as the occasion of the
publication of the Speculum Perfectionis) could not well have
been prior to the laying of the corner-stone of the edifice by
Gregory IX, in July, 1228.7
Finally, it is characteristic of the whole work of Sabatier
that he himself was the discoverer of a codex in the Ognissanti
Library at Florence,8 whose Explicit closes with the words,
Actum in sacrosancto loco sanctae Mariae de Portiuncula et
completum V° idus maii M°CCC°XVIII° (May 11, 1318;
modern style, 1317). The Explicit of the Ognissanti codex is
probably the original, as that of the Mazarinus shows inter
polations. Therefore Little, Boehmer, and other distinguished
Franciscan critics have accepted the year 1317 as the correct
date for the Speculum Perfectionis. Sabatier himself has not
accepted this date. So far as I know, his last publie utter
ance on the subject is in his Examen de quelques Travaux
recents sur les Opuscules de Saint Francois.9 There he
urges that there is nothing in the external criticism of the
manuscripts to determine whether the scribe of the Mazarinus
has changed a C into an M, or the scribe of the Ognissanti an
M into a C; that the Speculum Perfectionis has remarkable
homogeneity for a compilation made in the fourteenth cen
tury; and that it and the Legenda Trium Sociorum (largely
Brother Leo's work) are the only early documents on Saint
Francis bearing an exact date. He concludes with the judg
ment: II faut conclure que, si la date de 1317 est exacte, elle
indiquerait non la date de la compilation mais la date de la
'See M. Barbi, Bolletino della Societd, Dantesca, vol. vii, 1900, p. 73;
A. G. Little, Eng. Hist. Rev., loc. cit.; H. Boehmer, Analekten zur
Geschichte des Franziskus von Assisi, Tubingen and Leipzig, 1904.
"Collection d' Etudes et de Documents sur I'histoire du Moyen iqe
vol. ii, Paris, 1900.
'Opuscules de Critique historique, Fascicule X. Paris, 1904.

63
copie d'une oeuvre preexistante . . . .Que le Speculum Perfec
tionis soil une compilation ou une oeuvre ecrite d'une trait,
qu'il soit de 1228 (1227) ou de 1318 (1317), it nous vient de
Frere Leon.10 Little concedes as much, in fact, when he sums
up the case as follows : ' ' The greater part of the Speculum
Perfectionis consists of documents transmitted to Crescentius
by the Three Companions in 1246. It also contains earlier
and later writings of Friar Leo. All these were collected
together and arranged by the friars of the Portiuncula in
1318 (1317). Some slight alterations and interpolations were
made at this date, but in general the actual words of Leo
and the other socii have been preserved. Though the Spec-
culum Perfectionis was not written in 1227, it still remains
the most valuable authority for the inner life of Saint Francis,
and to Sabatier belongs the credit of having restored it to its
rightful place. ' ni
Compared with the Speculum Perfectionis, the recon
structed Legenda Trium Sociorum published by Civezza and
Domenichello is of minor importance. It undoubtedly repre
sents a Latin manuscript considerably more complete than the
BoUandist fragment; but there is no reason for entertaining
the optimistic view expressed by the authors in the sub-title :
pubblicata per la prima volta nella vera sua integrita. The
fact that many of its chapters are mere summaries of chapters
in the Speculum Perfectionis (Van Ortroy, in Anal. Boll, xix,
458), which are themselves in aU probability material sub
mitted to Crescentius by the companions of Saint Francis, is
enough to show that we are not dealing here with a work
nella vera sua integrita. Its publication was hardly worth
the price of exile!
Meanwhile the champions1 of the official Legends of Celano
and Bonaventura continue to find the BoUandist fragment of
the Legenda Trium Sociorum something of an embarrassment.

'"Opuscules, loc. cit. p. 143. M. Sabatier assured me in a letter, dated
Aug. 10, 1905, in reply to the question whether he still held to the
early date: Oui, je crois toujours qu'il date de 1227.
"English Historical Review, loc. cit., p. 622. Father Leonard Lem-
mens, successor of Ignatius Jeiler as prefect of the College of Saint
Bonaventura, believes there were two recensions of the Speculum Per
fectionis: one made about 1277 from the documents submitted to
Crescentius by the Companions in 1246; and a later one, compiled at
the Portiuncula in 1317. He believes he has the first (containing 54
of Sabatier's chapters) in a MS. of St. Isidor in Rome. Documenta
antiqua franciscana, Quaracchi, 1901, part ii.

64
Pulignani (Misc. Frances, vii, 81-119) and Delia Giovanna
(Giornale, Stor, ital. xxxii, 383) stoutly maintain that the leg
end is both genuine and complete as we have it in the Acta
Sanctorum. Van Ortroy, whose critical acumen could never
be satisfied with so direct a denial of every mark of internal
evidence, seeks to prove that the Legenda Trium Sociorum is a
clever forgery dating from the fourteenth century, and made
up of pieces from Celano, Julian of Speyer, Bonaventura,
Jordan of Giano, the Speculum Perfectionis, the Vita Aegidii,
etc., etc.1- But the attempt to silence the evidence in the
Legenda Trium Sociorum of early writings by the companions
of Saint Francis in vain. Too much of the Legend itself
has been preserved, and every newly discovered manuscript
and every newly analyzed compilation bears witness to the
soundness of Sabatier's fundamental thesis of the very early
existence of "spiritual" sources, however, many conjectures
or points of detail here and there in the lively polemic. may
prove to have been wrongly conceived.13
Another of the sources of Franciscan history which has
given perplexity to scholars and on which valuable light has
been thrown in the last few years is the so-called Legenda
Secunda of Thomas of Celano. It had been known to an
nalists and historians of the order from the thirteenth century
to the nineteenth that in addition to his Legenda Prima of
Saint Francis, written at Gregory IX 's bidding in 1228,
Thomas of Celano wrote at least one other life of the Saint.
Brothers Jordan of Giano and Salimbene of Parma, both
chroniclers of the thirteenth century, mention a second work
(secundum legendam, alium librum) by Celano; and the
Cronica XXIV Generalium (14th century), Mariano of
Florence (15th century), Glassberger (16th century), and
Wadding (17th century) continue the tradition. A copy of
the Legenda Secunda by Celano was offered to the BoUandist
Suyskens when he was at work on the life of Saint Francis,
'-Anal. Boll. 1900, vol. xix, pp. 119-197. Sabatier's forceful reply in
Revue Historique, vol. lxxv. pp. 61-101.
"See above, note 15. The most astonishing theory of the Legenda
Trium Sociorum is proposed by Salvatore Minocchi in the Archive
Storico Iialiano, 1900, vol. xxiv, p. 81, Xuori studi sulle folate bio-
grafiche di s. Francesco d' Assisi. On the strength of a single ex
pression (quasi Stella matutina) in a Vatican MS. (7339), which cor
responds to a reference in Bernard of Bessa's De Laudibus, Minocchi
makes an elaborate argument for John of Ceperano's authorship of the
Legenda Trium Sociorum.

65
but he declined it (Commentarius praevius, ch. 7), thinking
that Wadding was mistaken in his notice among the sources
of the life of Saint Francis of an ampliorem historiam by
Celano quae communiter nuucupatur Legenda Antiqua.1*
Perhaps only a fragment of the Legenda Secunda, which failed
to justify the description of the annalist, was offered to Suys
kens. It was not until 1806 that the Legenda Secunda was
published by Rinaldi at Rome.
A new edition of Rinaldi 's work by Amoni appeared in
1880. The title-page of the Amoni edition reads, Vita Secun
da, seu Appendix ad Vitam Primam. The only manuscript
of this Legend known up to 1899 was No. 686 of the library
at Assisi (14th century). It has on its fly-leaf in a modern
hand: Memoriale beati Francisci in Desiderio Animae, id
est vita eiusdem Francisci secunda a Thome de Celano prae-
memorati s. patris discipulo conscripta. Both the Rinaldi-
Amoni edition and the MS. 686 of Assisi are accompanied by
an introductory letter, addressed to Crescentius and the chap
ter of Genoa (see above, note 26), Placuit sanctae Universitati
vestrae, which is attested by the Cronica XXIV Generalium:
Et post frater Thomas de Celano de mandato eiusdem ministri
(Crescentius) et generalis capituli primum (sic!) tractatum
legendae b. Francisci, de vita scilicet et verbis et intentione
eius circa ea quae pertinent ad regulam compilavit, quae dici-
tur Legenda Antiqua. Quae dicto generali et capitulo dirig-
itur cum prologo qui incipit, Placuit sanctae Universitati
vestrae.1* But how, if this Legenda Antiqua is the Legenda Secunda
of Thomas of Celano, can the Rinaldi- Amoni edition speak of
it as the "Appendix" to the first Legend; and how can the
Cronica XXIV Generalium call it a primum tractatum!
Moreover, the latter source goes on to say of John of Parma,
the successor of Crescentius (1248-57) : Hie generalis prae-
cepit multiplicatis fratri Thomae de Celano ut vitam b.
Francisci quae Antiqua Legenda dicitur perficeret, quia solum
de eius conversatione et verbis in primo tractatu, de mandato
fratris Crescentii generalis praedicti comp'ilato omissis mirac-
ulis fecerat mentionem, et sic secundum tractatum qui de
eiusdem s. patris agit miraculis compilavit quern cum epistula

"Wadding, Annales Minorum, ii, 240.
"Anal. Franc. Quaracchi. vol. iii (1897), p. 262.

66
quae incipit Beligiosa nostra solicitudo misit eidem generali.1*
There was a completion, then (perficeret) of this primus trac-
tatus under John of Parma, containing the miracles of the
Saint. One further complication to be reckoned with is Fra
Salimbene 's statement that Crescentius praecepit fratri
Thomae de Celano qui primam legendam b. Francisci fecerat
ut iterum scriberet alium librum, eo quod multa inveniebantur'
(contributions of Leo's party?) de b. Francisco quae scripta
non erant; et scripsit pulcherrimum librum tarn de miraculis
quam de vita quern appelavit Memoriale beati Francisci in
desiderio animae. (Cf. fly-leaf of codex" of Assisi 686, men
tioned above).17
Now neither the Rinaldi-Amoni edition nor the Assisi codex
686 contains the miracles spoken of in the Cronica XXIV
Generalium and Cronica of Fra Salimbene; though some stu
dent of the codex (Papini?), not finding any other secundum
tractatum, has adopted for it Salimbene 's title, Memoriale b.
Francisci in desiderio animae.
The question of the Legenda Secunda was in this confused
state when in 1899 Father Antoine de Porrentruy of the
Capucins bought at the sale of the private library of an
Italian nobleman (Buoncompagni) what proved to be a manu
script of the fourteenth century, entitled Memorialis gestorum
el virtutum s. Francisci. This manuscript fulfils in every
way the announcement of the Cronica XXIV Generalium and
Fra Salimbene, containing, after the Legend, a short account
of the canonization of the Saint and fourteen chapters of
miracles performed by him living and dead. Rev. H. G.
Rosedale has borrowed this manuscript of Pere Edouard d'
Alencon, archivist-general of the Capucins, and published it
as the true Legenda Secunda in his recent book, St. Francis
of Assisi according to Brother Thomas of Celano (Dent, Lon
don, 1904). Rosedale believes that the discovery of this
manuscript clears up the mist surrounding the Legenda Se
cunda. The Legenda Antiqua of the Cronica XXIV Genera
lium, the Assisi codex 686, and the Secunda Vita of Rinaldi-
Amoni are one and the same thing, namely, an appendix to the
Legenda Prima of Thomas of Celano.18 Rosedale then ar
ranges the writings of Thomas of Celano thus :
"Anal. Franc. Quaracchi, vol. iii (1897), p. 276.
"Fra Salimbene, Cronica, ed. Parma, 1857, p. 60.
"Rosedale, op. cit., Introduction, pp. xxix-xxxiii.

67
I. Tractatus Primus, containing (a), the Legenda Gre-
gorii (our Legenda Prima of 1228), and (b) the Appendix ad
Vitam Primam (our Rinaldi-Amoni Legenda Secunda of
1247). II. Tractatus Secundus, containing (c) the Life and Mir
acles of Saint Francis, from the "Buoncompagni oodex,"
written under John of Parma (1248-57).
This conclusion of Rosedale 's seems to me unwarranted.
The works lettered (b) and (c) belong together, rather than
those lettered (a) and (b). For aside from the absurdity of
an "Appendix" written nineteen years after the Legenda
Prima, both the Cronica XXIV Generalium and Salimbene
point to the grouping of (b) and (e) together. The former
says that Celano's work under John of Parma was to com
plete (perficeret) that done under Crescentius; the latter,
looking back on (b) (e) as a whole, attributed it all to the
invitation of Crescentius. If this Buoncompagni codex is
really "nothing less than the pulcherrimum librum of Salim
bene" (Rosedale Introduction, xxi), then Salimbene must
have erred in dating it from the generalate of Crescentius in
stead of John of Parma. Rosedale 's argument to dispel "the
reader's first disposition to consider the Buoncompagni codex
as merely the Legenda Antiqua (b), with the miracles added"
(Introduction, xxxii), seems to me very weak. However, we
have a valuable document in the newly found manuscript of
Porrentruy's, which Rosedale, by the courtesy of Pere d'
Alencon, has first made public. It is only a pity that Rose-
dale's book is marred by such unpardonable typographical
errors as Assisii and Crescentius da Jesu, among many minor
slips. The discovery of the Speculum Perfectionis has proved that
Suyskens builded better than he knew in rejecting the Le
genda Secunda of Thomas of Celano, if offered to him in the
form of the Assisi codex 686 or the Rinaldi-Amoni edition.
For of the three parts of the Legend there contained, the first
corresponds closely to the BoUandist Legenda Trium Socio
rum (as pointed out by Miiller in 1885), while the second and
third parts contain about eighty chapters of the Speculum
Perfectionis. Moreover, the material in the second and third
parts is arranged topically, like that of the Speculum Perfec
tionis, while the first part follows the Legenda Trium Socio-

68
rum in the form of a continuous biography. The theory of
Sabatier (above, note 30) seems to me inevitable: under the
lax Crescentius, Celano suppressed the inconvenient material
furnished by the companions of Saint Francis; but at the
bidding of the zealot John of Parma he let the "spiritual"
writings come out (as they now appear in the Speculum Per
fectionis). Between the Legenda Prima of Thomas of Celano and the
writings called out by Crescentius' invitation at the chapter
of Genoa (1244), we have a notice of biographies of Saint
Francis by Thomas of Ceperano and Julian of Speyer.19 The
former is as yet undiscovered20 ; the latter has been identified
by Weis with the anonymous Vita in the Commentarius Prae
vius to the BoUandist Acta Sanctorum (Oct. torn, ii).21 Frag
ments of a Dialogue on Saint Francis, prepared by Crescen
tius, still existed in the time of Bernard of Bessa,22 which
Lemmens claims to have discovered and promises to edit.23
Getting back to the Legenda Prima of Thomas of Celano,
we have a source authenticated beyond question. Even the
date of the Legend is determined to within a few months.
The Legend recounts the canonization of the saint, which took
place July 11, 1228, while the endorsement on the Mazarinus
codex (above, note 22) sets as the terminus ad quern the 25th
of February, 1229. There are nine manuscripts of the Legend
extant (described by Rosedale, Introduction, xiii-xxvii) scat
tered from Barcelona in Spain to Ossegg in Bohemia. These
codices show no important variations, and thereby prove that
the closing words of Gregory IX 's decree (above, note 26),
et censuit fore tenendam, were thoroughly effective. The
Legend, whether or not written as a reply to the attacks of the
"Spiritual" Leo (Speculum Perfectionis) on the "practical"
policy of Brother Elias, represents the interests of Elias,
quern loco matris sibi elegerat (Francis, himself!) et aliorum
fratrum fecerat patrem. The Legend has no word for the
troubles of the order in 1219-202*; it does not mention the
"Wadding, Annates Minorum, ii, p. 240.
20Roo Minocchi's theory of Ceperano's Legend, note 13.
"J. E. Weis, Julian von Speier, Forsohungen zur Franeiskus und-
Antonius Eritik, Munich, 1900.
22 'Anal. Frances. Quaracchi, vol. iii (1897), p. 263. Sabatier, Opus
cules, vol. iii.
2aDocumenta Antiqua Franciscana. Quaracchi, 1902, part iii. p. 19.
2iCf. the Chronicle of Jordan of Giano, ed. Quaracchi, vol i (1885),
chs. y-12.

69
early zealots, Leo, Angelo, Masseo, Bernard, Rufinus, Egidius;
it ignores the early Rule of 1210-21; it skips the chapters-
general of the order.25
The Celanese Legend was rendered in verse by John of
Kent before 1230, and the quaint hexameters, excellent in
have been published by Cristof ani, librarian of the commune of
Assisi.26 The writings of Saint Francis himself (Opuscula) have
been sadly neglected by the historians of the order. To be
sure, Wadding published them, with little critical work, be
fore the middle of the seventeenth century (Antwerp, 1623),
and a few biographers of the Saint, whose sympathies have
been with the Spirituals, have made use of the Opuscula."
But generally the Legends have been preferred to Saint
Francis' own writings as a source for his life. At present the
criticism of the older "spiritual" writings has led us back
through Leo to Saint Francis himself.28 Three important
works touching the Opuscula s. Francisci have been published
lately, viz : Opuscula s. Francisci Assisiensis secundum
codices manuscriptas etc., by L. Lemmens (Quaracchi, 1904) ;
Analekten zur Geschichte des Franciscus von Assisi, by H.
Boehmer (Tubingen, 1904) ; and Die Quellen zur Geschichte
des heiligen Franciscus von Assisi, by Goetz (Gotha, 1904).
Sabatier, in the tenth Fascicule of the Opuscules de critique
historique (Appendix III, note 9), reviews these works, con
cluding with the remark : II y a dix ans fut tente le premier
effort pour rechercher dans les Opuscules une des sources de
I'histoire de Saitit Francois.2" Aujourd'hui historiens et
critiques ne se sont plus separes que sur les details :tous s'ac-
cordent a, voir dans les Opuscules la pierre de touche sur
laquelle it faut eprouver la valeur diverses legendas.
To sum up the present status of the sources of the life of
Saint Francis before Bonaventura and the decree of the
Parisian chapter of 1266, we have :

25Elias omitted all chapters-general during the autocratic term of
his generalate, 1232-39. Salimbene, p. 34.
28Cristofani, II piu antico poema delta vita di San Francesco, seritta
innanzi al anno 1230. Prato, 1882.
'"E.g. Chalippe, Vie de St. Francois d'Assise, Paris, 1728.
™L'oeuvre de Frire Leon n'est en quelque sort que le prolongement
des Opuscules, Sabatier, Speculum Perfectionis, xxv.
MIn Sabatier's own Vie de Saint Frangois d'Assise, Paris, 1894;
Etude critique des sources.

70
1. The Opuscula of Saint Francis, offering many points o±
contact with the early "spiritual" sources.
(ed. Wadding, Antwerp, 1623; Heroy, Paris, 1880; Boeh
mer, Tubingen, 1904; Lemmens, Quaracchi, 1904.)
2. The Legenda Prima of Thomas of Celano (1228),
adopted as the official biography of the Saint by Gregory IX,
1229. (ed. Suyskens, AA. SS. 1768; Rinaldi, Rome, 1806; Amoni,
Rome, 1880; Rosedale [as Legenda Gregorii], London, 1904.)
3. The Speculum Perfectionis, probably arranged in its
present form by the friars of the Portiuncula in 1317, but con
taining material directly transmitted from Brother Leo and
his associates.
(ed. Sabatier, Paris, 1898.)
4. The Legenda Trium Sociorum, written in 1246, in re
sponse to Crescentius' call for material on the life of Saint
Francis, by the companions Leo, Rufinus, and Angelo. The
material was "edited" (probably by Celano) and reduced to
the fragmentary form in which we find it in the Acta Sanc
torum. (ed. Suyskens, AA. SS., 1768; Le Monnier, Paris, 1828;
Civezza and Domenichelli, Rome, 1899, from an old Italian
version of the sixteenth century.)
5. The Legenda Secunda of Thomas of Celano, a product
of the same historical conditions as the foregoing source, writ
ten 1248-57 ; corresponding in its first part (written under
Crescentius) with No. 4, and in its second and third parts
(written under John of Parma) with No. 3.
(ed. Rinaldi, Rome, 1806; Amoni, Rome, 1880; Rosedale.
London, 1904.)
6, The Legenda of Julian of Speyer, mentioned in the
thirteenth-century chroniclers Jordan of Giano and Bernard
of Bessa. Of no significance.
(ed. Suyskens, A A. SS. <Jomm„ praev., 1768; Van Ortroy,
Anal. Boll, 1902.)

71
APPENDIX IV
BIBLIOGRAPHY
[Works discussed in Appendix III are starred in this list.]
A
SOURCES
*1. S. Francisci Opuscula. Lemmens, Quaracchi, 1904.
Boehmer, Tiibingen, 1904.
*2. Legendae by Celano. Rosedale, London, 1904.
*3. Legenda Trium Sociorum. Domenichello, Rome, 1899.
Da Civezza,
*4. Speculum Perfectionis. Sabatier, Paris, 1898.
*5. Analecta Franciscana, etc.
Miiller, et al., Quaracchi, 1885 ffg.
Vol. i, Chronicles of Jordan of Giano and Thomas of
Eccleston, 1885.
Vol. ii, Chronicle of Nicholas Glassberger, 1887.
Vol. iii, Chronicle of the XXIV Generals and the
De Laudibus of Bernard of Bessa, 1897.
6. Historia Septem Tribulacionum, auctore Angelo da
Clareno. Ehrle, Archiv, ii, iv, 1885.
7. Annates Minorum (2d ed.) Wadding, Rome, 1731.
(The classic source for the history of the order. A
polemic in favor of the strict observance of the Rule.
Charming style, but too much emphasis on miracles,
missions, and hagiography. )
8. Cronica Fra Salimbene Parmensis. Parma, 1857.
(Diffuse and often trivial, but of value for the rela
tions of the order to the Ghibelline forces of northern
Italy.)
9. Memorabilia Jordani de Giano. See No. 5, vol. i.
(Written in 1262. Valuable for the early years of the
order in Germany, and especially as a corrective to
Celano on the troublesome years 1219-20.)
10. De Adventu Minorum in AngUam, Auctore Thomas
of Eccleston. See No. 5, vol. i.
Brewer, London, 1858.

72
Auctore 'Thomas of Eccleston.
(Valuable for list of early ministers-general, and for
the account of the chapter of 1239, in which Elias was
deposed. )
11. Writings of Petrus Johannis Olivi and Ubertino da
Casale. Ehrle, in Archiv, 1886-7.
(Defence of the "Spirituals" in Italy and Provence.)
12. Bernardi Guidonis Practica Inquisitionis Haereticae
Pravitatis. Douais, Paris, 1886.
(Part V contains cases of procedure against "those
commonly called Beguines, who also pretend to be of
the Third Order of the Rule of Saint Francis.")
13. Directorium Inquisitorum of Nicholas Eymerich.
Pegna, Venice, 1607.
(Valuable for Inquisition of the 14th century in Spain
and Portug-al.)
14. Bullarium Franciscanum. i-iv, Sbaralea, 1759 afg.
v, Euler, 1898.
(Contains papal bulls, letters, decrees referring to the
order, from various Begisters of popes and Morini's
Speculum Minoritum, Venice, 1509.)
15. Begesta Pontificum Bomanorum. Potthast, Berlin, 1874.
(A full collection of papal bulls from 1198 to 1304.)
16. Joachim Florensis in Apocalipsim Libri VI; accedit
Psalterium X Cordarum. Venice, 1707.
(The genuine works of Joachim, contrasting in
their attitude toward the Roman curia with the pseudo-
Joachitic writings of the 13th century. See note 136.)
17. Sacrorum Conciliorum nova et amplissima Collectio.
Mansi, Florence, 1759 ffg.
18. Corpus Juris Canonici. Friedberg, Leipzig, 1879.
(For the decretals of John XXII.)
Occasional notices touching the subject of this essay are
found in the following collections of sources :
19. Annates Ecclesiastici. Raynaldus, Rome, 1652.
20. Historia Angliae. Matthew Paris, ed. London, 1866.
21. Antiqitates Italicae. Muratori, Arretium, 1773, ffg.

73
22. Fontes Berum Germanicarum. Boehmer, Stuttgart, 1843.
23. Begesta Imperii (1314-1347). Boehmer, Frankfort, 1839.
24. Monumenta Miscellanea Varia. Baluzius-Mansi, Luca, 1761.
25. Spicilegium Veterum .... Scriptorum. DAchery, Paris, 1723.
26. Collectio Judiciorum, etc. D'Argentre, Paris, 1728.
27. Thesaurus novus, etc. Martene-Durand, Paris, 1717.

B
LITERATURE I
ON SAINT FRANCIS AND THE SPREAD OF THE ORDER
28. Vita di San Francesco. Bonghi, Citta di CasteUo, 1884.
(The only one of the many lives of the Saint called out
by the anniversary of 1882 that is large and scholarly
in its treatment. In most of the Italian biographies
the polemic or edifying purpose is evident.)
29. Vie de Saint Francois d'Assise. Sabatier, Paris, 1894.
(The classic biography of the Saint. Brilliant scholar
ship combined with the utmost charm of style.)
30. Francois d'Assise. Renan, Paris, 1879.
(A sympathetic study of the Saint — the best before
Sabatier's — in the Nouvelles iStudes Beligieuses.)
*31. Die Anf iinge des Minoritenordens und der Bussbru-
derschaften. Miiller, Freiburg, 1885.
32. Franz von Assisi und die Grundung des Franciskaner-
ordens. Hegler, 1895.
(Article in the Zeitschrift fiir Theologie und Kirche,
criticising Sabatier's work as too radical.)
33. Die Niederlassungen der Minoriten im Bheingebiet.
Koch, Leipzig, 1881.
(Valuable for the early history of the Franciscans in
Germany, but painfully detailed and dry.)

74 II
ON THE THEOLOGY OF THE FRANCISCANS
34. L'Eresia nel Medio Evo. Tocco, Florence, 1884.
(Shows the progress first from heresy to schism, then
from schism to heresy in medieval thought. Identifies
the Spiritual Franciscans with the heretical Beghines.)
35. Die Geschichte der religiosen Aufkldrung im Mittel-
alter. Reuter, Berlin, 1875.
(The classic presentation of radical religious thought
in the Middle Ages. Not so sympathetic a treatment of
the Franciscans as Tocco 's.)
36. History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages.
Lea, New York, 1880 ffg.
(A work of the very first rank, but rather severe on
the Church. Vol. iii contains an account of the per
secution of the Spiritual Franciscans.)
37. L 'Inquisition dans le Midi de la France, au 13e et au
14e siecles. Molinier, Paris, 1880.
(Very exhaustive and scholarly account of the perse
cutions suffered by the suspected Spirituals of Pro
vence and Languedoc.)
38. L'ltalie Mystique. Gebhardt, Paris, 1889.
(Study of the radical and quietistie influences at work
in Italy in the Middle Ages.)
39. Articles on Olivi and the Council of Vienne.
(For the combat of the Spirituals of the fourteenth
century with the papal court at Avignon. )
III
ON JOACHIM OF FLORA AND THE ETERNAL GOSPEL.
(See note 83.)
IV
ON THE POLITICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FRANCISCANS.
40. Der Kampf Ludwigs des Baiern mit der rbmischen
Curie- Midler, Tubingen, 1879
(For discussion of authorship of the Sachsenhausen
Protest.)

75
41. Die literarischen Widersacher der Pdpste im Zeitalter
Ludwigs des Baiern. Riezler, Leipzig, 1874.
More general works containing considerable material of im
portance on the subject of this essay are :
42. L'Heresie et le Bras seculier au Moyen age.
Havet, Paris, 1880.
43. Beitrage zur Sektengeschichte des Mittelalters.
Dollinger, Munich, 1890.
44. Geschichte K. Friedrichs des Zweiten and seinen
Beiches. Winkelmann, Berlin, 1863.
45. Geschichte Innocenz des Drittens. Hurter, Hamburg, 1834.
46. Pierre de la Vigne. Huillard-Breholles, Paris, 1865.
47. Histoire litteraire de la France, vol. xxii.
Leclerc-Renan, Paris, 1865.
48. Histoire diplomatique de Frederic II.
Huillard-Breholles, Paris, 1870.
49. Les Poetes franciscains en Italie au 13e siecle.
Ozanam, Paris, 1882.
50. Studies in Medieval Life and Literature.
McLaughlin, New York, 1894.

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