Part 11

§ 98.3. =The Beginnings of the Franciscan Order down to A.D. 1219.=--The founder of this order was =St. Francis=, born in A.D. 1182, son of a rich merchant of Assisi in Umbria. His proper name was Giovanni Bernardone. The name of Francis is said to have been given him on account of his early proficiency in the French language; “Francesco”--the little Frenchman. As a wealthy merchant’s son, he gave himself to worldly pleasures, but was withdrawn from these, in A.D. 1207, by means of a severe illness. A dream, in which he saw a multitude with the sign of the cross, bearing weapons designed for him and his companions, led him to resolve upon a military career. But a new vision taught him that he was called to build up the fallen house of God. He understood this of a ruined chapel of St. Damiani at Assisi, and began to apply the proceeds of valuable cloth fabrics from his father’s factory to its restoration. Banished for such conduct from his father’s house, he lived for a time as a hermit, until the gospel passage read in church of the sending forth of the disciples without gold or silver, without staff or scrip (Matt. x.), fell upon his soul like a thunderbolt. Divesting himself of all his property, supplying the necessaries of life by the meanest forms of labour, even begging when need be, he went about the country from A.D. 1209, sneered at by some as an imbecile, revered by others as a saint, preaching repentance and peace. In the unexampled power of his self-denial and renunciation of the world, in the pure simplicity of his heart, in the warmth of his love to God and man, in the blessed riches of his poverty, St. Francis was like a heavenly stranger in a selfish world. Wonderful, too, and powerful in its influence was the depth of his natural feeling. With the birds of the forest, with the beasts of the field, he held intercourse in childlike simplicity as with brothers and sisters, exhorting them to praise their Creator. The paradisiacal relation of man to the animal world seemed to be restored in the presence of this saint.--Very soon he gathered around him a number of like-minded men, who under his direction had decided to devote themselves to a similar vocation. For the society of “_Viri pœnitentiales de civitate Assisii oriundi_” thus formed Francis issued, in A.D. 1209, a rule, at the basis of which lay a literal acceptance of the precepts of Christ to His disciples, sent forth to preach the kingdom of God (Matt. x.; Luke x.), along with similar gospel injunctions (Matt. xix. 21, 29; Luke vi. 29; ix. 23; xiv. 26), and then he went to Rome to get for it the papal confirmation. The pope was, indeed, unwilling; but through the pious man’s simplicity and humility he was prevailed upon to grant his request. In later times this incident was in popular tradition transformed into a legend, representing the pope as at first bidding him go to attend the swine, which the holy man literally obeyed. =Innocent III.= was the more inclined to yield, owing to the painful experiences through which the church had passed in consequence of its unwise treatment of similar proposals made by the Waldensians thirty years before. He therefore gave at least verbal permission to Francis and his companions to live and teach according to this rule. At the same time also Francis heartily responded to the demand to place at the head of his rule the obligation to obey and reverence the pope, and to conclude with a vow of the most rigid avoidance of every kind of addition, abatement, or change. There was no thought of founding a new monkish order, but only of a free union and a wandering life, amid apostolic poverty, for preaching repentance and salvation by word and example. On entering the society the brothers were required to distribute all their possessions among the poor, and dress in the poor clothing of the order, consisting of a coarse cloak bound with a cord and a capouch, to preach the gospel of the kingdom of God wherever their master sent them, and to earn their livelihood by their usual occupation, or any other servile work. In case of need they were even to beg the necessaries of life. Thus mendicancy, though only allowed in case of necessity, soon came to be transformed by the lustre of the example of the poverty of Jesus and His disciples and mother, who all had lived upon alms, and by the idea of a twofold merit attaching to self-abnegation, inasmuch as not only the receiver, by voluntarily submitting to the disgrace which it involved in the eyes of the world, but also the giver of alms, obtained before the judgment seat of God a great reward. But neither as wages for work nor as alms were the brothers permitted to accept money, but only the indispensable means of life, while that which remained after their own wants had been supplied was divided among the poor. From time to time they withdrew, either singly or in little groups, for prayer, contemplation, and spiritual exercises into deserts, caves, or deserted huts; and annually at Pentecost they assembled for mutual edification and counsel in the small chapel at Assisi, dedicated to “Mary of the Angel,” given to St. Francis by the Benedictines. This church, under the name of the _Portiuncula_, became the main centre of the order, and all who visited it on the day of its consecration received from the pope a plenary indulgence. The number of the brothers meanwhile increased from day to day. When representatives of all ranks in society and of all the various degrees of culture sought admission, it soon became evident that the obligation to preach, hitherto enjoined upon all the members of the order, should be restricted to those who were specially qualified for the work, and that the rest should take care to carry out in their personal lives the ideal of poverty, joined with loving service in institutions for the poor, the sick, and the lepers. A further move in the development of the order, tending to secure for it an independent ecclesiastical position, was the admission into it of ordained priests. Their missionary activity among Christian people was restricted at first to Umbria and the neighbouring districts of central Italy. But soon the thought of a missionary vocation among the unbelievers got possession of the mind of the founder. Even in A.D. 1212 he himself undertook for this purpose a journey to the East, to Syria, and afterwards to Morocco; in neither case, however, were his efforts attended with any very signal success. In A.D. 1218, Elias of Cortona, with some companions, again took up the mission to Syria, with equally little success; and in A.D. 1219 five brethren were again sent to Morocco, and there won the crown of martyrdom. In that same year, A.D. 1219, the Pentecost assembly at Assisi passed the resolution to include within the range of their call as itinerants the sending of missions, with a “_minister_” at the head of each, into all the Christian countries of Europe. They began immediately, privileged with a papal letter of recommendation to the higher secular clergy and heads of orders in France, to carry out the resolution in France, Spain, Portugal, and Germany; while at the same time Francis himself, accompanied by twelve brethren, again turned his steps toward the East.

§ 98.4. =The Franciscans from A.D. 1219 to A.D. 1223.=--Soon after the departure of St. Francis the report of his death spread through Italy, and loosened the bonds which, by reason of the obligation to render him obedience hitherto operative, had secured harmony among the brethren. Francis had, on the basis of Luke x. 7, 8, laid upon his companions only the commonly accepted rules of fasting, but the observance of a more rigorous fast required his own special permission. Now, however, some rigorists, at a convention of the elders, gave expression to the opinion, that the brethren should be enjoined to fast not as hitherto, like all the rest of Christendom, only on two, but on four, days of the week, a resolution which not only removed the rule altogether from its basis in Luke x. 7, 8, but also broke the solemn promise to observe the wish of Innocent III., incorporated in it, that in no particular should it be altered. And while the rule forbade any intercourse with women, brother Philip obtained a papal bull which appointed him representative of the order of “poor women,” afterwards the Nuns of St. Clara, founded in A.D. 1212 on the model of the Franciscan ideal of poverty. Another brother, John of Capella, sought to put himself at the head of an independent order of poor men and women. Many such projects were being planned. So soon as news reached Francis of these vagaries, he returned to Italy, accompanied by his favourite pupil, the energetic, wise, and politic Elias of Cortona, whose organizing and governing talent was kept within bounds down to the founder’s death. Perceiving that all these confusions had arisen from the want of a strictly defined organization, legitimized by the pope and under papal protection, Francis now endeavoured to secure such privileges for his order. He therefore entreated Honorius III. to appoint Cardinal Ugolino of Ostia, afterwards Pope Gregory IX., previously a zealous promoter of his endeavours, as protector and governor of his brotherhood; and he soon with a strong hand put a stop to all secessionist movements in the community. A vigorous effort was now made by the brotherhood, suggested and encouraged by the papal chair, to carry out a scheme of transformation, by means of which the order, which had hitherto confined itself to simple religious and ascetic duties, should become an independent and powerful monkish order, to place it “with the whole force of its religious enthusiasm, with its extraordinary flexibility and its mighty influences over the masses, at the service of the papacy, and to turn it into a standing army of the pope, ever ready to obey his will in the great movements convulsing the church and the world of that time.” Honorius III. took the first step in this direction by a bull addressed, in Sept., A.D. 1220, to Francis himself and the superiors of his order, there styled “_Ordo fratrum minorum_,” by which a novitiate of one year and an irrevocable vow of admission were prescribed, the wearing of the official dress made its exclusive privilege, and jurisdiction given to its own tribunal to deal with all its members. Francis was now also obliged, willing or unwilling, to agree to a revision of his rule. This new rule was probably confirmed or at least approved at the famous Pentecost chapter held at the Portiuncula chapel in A.D. 1221, called the “_Mat Chapter_” (_C. storearum_), because the brethren assembled there lived in tents made of rush-mats.[283] It is, as Carl Müller has incontestably proved, this same rule which was formerly regarded by all as the first rule composed in A.D. 1209. The older rule, however, formed in every particular its basis, and the enlargements and modifications rendered necessary by the adoption of the new ideas appear so evidently as additions, that the two different constituents can even yet with tolerable certainty be distinguished from one another, and so the older rule can be reconstructed. But the development and modification of the order necessarily proceeding in the direction indicated soon led to a gradual reformation of the rule, which in this new form was solemnly and formally ratified by Honorius III. in November, A.D. 1223, as possessing henceforth definite validity. In it the requirement of the literal acceptance of the commands of Jesus on sending out His disciples in Matthew x. and Luke x. is no longer made the basis and pattern, as in the two earlier rules, but all the stress is laid rather upon the imitation of the lives of poverty led by Jesus and His apostles; as an offset to the renunciation of all property, the obligation to earn their own support by work was now set aside, and the practice of mendicancy was made their proper object in life, came indeed to be regarded as constituting the special ideal and sanctity of the order, which in consequence was now for the first time entitled to be called a =mendicant or begging order=. At its head stood a _general-minister_, and all communications between the order and the holy see were conducted through a _cardinal-protector_. The mission field of the order, comprising the whole world, was divided into _provinces_ with a _provincial-minister_, and the provinces into _custodies_ with a _custos_ at its head.--Every third year at Pentecost the general called together the provincials and custodes to a general chapter, and the custodes assembled the brethren of their dioceses as required in provincial and custodial chapters. The dress of the order remained the same. The usual requirement to go barefoot, however, was modified by the permission in cases of necessity, on journeys and in cold climates, to wear shoes or sandals.

§ 98.5. =The Franciscans from A.D. 1223.=--There was no mention in the rule of A.D. 1223 of any sort of fixed place of abode either in cloisters or in houses of their own. The life of the order was thus conceived of as a homeless and possessionless pilgrimage; and as for the means of life they were dependent on what they got by begging, so also it was considered that for the shelter of a roof they should depend upon the hospitable. The gradual transition from a purely itinerant life had already begun by the securing of fixed residences at definite points in the transalpine district and first of all in Germany. After the first sending forth of disciples in A.D. 1219, without much attention to rule and without much plan, had run its course there with scarcely any success, a more thoroughly organized mission, under the direction of brother Cæsarius of Spires, consisting of twelve clerical and thirteen lay brethren, including John v. Piano Cupini, Thomas v. Celano, Giordano v. Giano, was sent by the “_Mat Chapter_” of A.D. 1221 to Germany, which, strengthened by oft-repeated reinforcements, carried on from A.D. 1228 a vigorous propaganda in Bohemia, Hungary, Poland, Denmark, and Norway. In accordance with the rule of A.D. 1223 Germany as forming one province was divided into five custodies, but in A.D. 1230 into two distinct provinces, the Rhineland and Saxony, with a corresponding number of custodies. Even more brilliant was the success attending the mission to England in A.D. 1224. On their missionary tours the brethren took up their residence temporarily in hospitals and leper houses, or in hospitable parsonages and private houses, and preached by preference in the open air, where the people flocked around them in crowds, occasionally at the invitation of a bishop or priest in the churches. Presents of lands gave them the opportunity of erecting convents of their own, with churches and burying-grounds for themselves, which, placed under the charge of a guardian, soon increased in number and importance. The begging, which was now made the basis of the whole institution, was regulated by the principle, that, besides the benefactions voluntarily paid into the cloister, monks sent forth at particular terms, hence called Terminants[284] with a beggar’s bag, should beg about for the necessaries of life. With agriculture and industrial work, and generally all bodily labour, the brothers had nothing to do. On the contrary, what was altogether foreign to the intention of the founder and their rules, and so originating not from within the order itself, but from without, first of all by the admission of scientifically cultured priests, a strong current set in in favour of scientific studies, stimulated by their own personal ambition as well as by rivalry with the Dominicans. These scholarly pursuits soon yielded abundant fruit, which raised the reputation, power, and influence of the order to such a height, that it has been enabled to carry out in all details the task assigned it in the papal polity. Architecture, painting, and poetry also found among the members of the order distinguished cultivators and ornaments.--Supported by accumulating papal privileges, which, for example, gave immunity from all episcopal jurisdiction and supervision, and allowed its clergy the right in all parts, not only of preaching, but also of reading mass and hearing confessions, and aided in its course of secularization by papal modifications and alterations of its rule, which permitted the obtaining and possessing rich cloister property, the order of Minor Brothers or Minorites soon could boast of an extension embracing several thousands of cloisters.--Francis, wasted by long-continued sickness and by increasing infirmities, was found dead, in A.D. 1226, stretched on the floor of the Portiuncula chapel. Two years afterwards he was canonized by Gregory IX., and in A.D. 1230 there was a solemn translation of his relics to the beautiful basilica built in his honour at Assisi. The legend, that a seraph during his last years had imprinted upon him the bloody wound-prints or stigmata of the Saviour was also turned to account for the glorification of the whole order, which now assumed the epithet “_seraphic_.”--The one who possessed most spiritual affinity to his master of all the disciples of St. Francis, and after him most famous among his contemporaries and posterity, was =St. Anthony of Padua=. Born in A.D. 1195 at Lisbon, when an Augustinian canon at Coimbra he was, in A.D. 1220, received into the communion of the Minorites, when the relics of the five martyrs of Morocco were deposited there, and thereupon he undertook a mission to Africa. But a severe sickness obliged him to return home, and driven out of his course by a storm, he landed at Messina, from whence he made a pilgrimage to Assisi. The order now turned his learning to account by appointing him teacher of theology, first at Bologna, then at Montpellier. For three years he continued as custos in the south of France, going up and down through the land as a powerful preacher of repentance, till the death of the founder and the choice of a successor called him back to Italy. He died at Padua in A.D. 1231. The pope canonized him in A.D. 1232, and in A.D. 1263 his relics were enshrined in the newly built beautiful church at Padua dedicated to him. Among the numerous tales of prodigies, which are said to have accompanied his goings wherever he went, the best known and most popular is, that when he could obtain no ready hearing for his doctrine among men, he preached on a lonely sea-shore to shoals of fishes that crowded around to listen. His writings, sermons, and a biblical concordance, under the title _Concordantiæ Morales SS. Bibliorum_, are often printed along with the _Letters, Hymns, Testament_, etc., ascribed to St. Francis.--Among the legends of the order still extant about the life of St. Francis is the _Vita I._ of Thomas of Celano, written in A.D. 1229, the oldest and relatively the most impartial. On the other hand, the later biographies, especially that of the so-called _Tres socii_ and the _Vita II._ of Thomas, which has been made accessible by the Roman edition of Amoni of 1880, written contemporaneously somewhere about A.D. 1245, as well as that of St. Bonaventura of A.D. 1263, recognised by the chapter of the order as the only authoritative form of the legends, are all more or less influenced by the party strifes that had arisen within its ranks, while all are equally overladen with reports of miracles. In A.D. 1399, by authority of the general chapter at Assisi, the “_Liber Conformitatum_” of Bartholomew of Pisa pointed out forty resemblances between Christ and St. Francis, in which the saint has generally the advantage over the Saviour. In the Reformation times an anonymous German version of this book was published by Erasmus Alber with a preface by Luther, under the title, _Der Barfüssermönche Eulenspiegel und Alkoran_, Wittenberg, 1542. The most trustworthy contemporary source of information has been only recently again rendered accessible to us in the _Memorabilia de Primitiv. Fratrum in Teutoniam Missorum Conversatione et Vita_ of the above-named Giordano of Giano, embracing the years 1207-1238, which G. Voigt discovered among his father’s papers, and has published with a full and comprehensive introduction. The Franciscans of Quaracchi near Florence have re-edited it “after the unique Berlin manuscript,” as well as the supplementary document, the _De Adventu Fratrum Minorum in Anglia_, in the first volume of their _Analecta Franciscana, Quar._, 1885.--Thode, in his _Fr. v. A. und die Anfänge d. Kunst d. Renaissance in Ital._ (Berl., 1885), has described in a thorough and brilliant style the mighty influence which St. Francis and his order exerted upon the development of art in Italy, especially of painting and architecture, as well as of poetry in the vernacular; for he has shown how the peculiar and close relation in which the saint stood to nature gave the first effective impulse to the emancipation of art from the trammels of formalism, and how the new artistic tendency, inspired by his spirit, was first given expression to in the building and adorning of the basilica at Assisi dedicated to him.[285]