Chapter 14
THE CHAPTER-GENERAL OF 1217[1]
After Whitsunday of 1217 chronological notes of Francis's life are numerous enough to make error almost impossible. Unhappily, this is not the case for the eighteen months which precede it (autumn of 1215-Whitsunday, 1217). For this period we are reduced to conjecture, or little better.
As Francis at that time undertook no foreign mission, he doubtless employed his time in evangelizing Central Italy and in consolidating the foundations of his institution. His presence at Rome during the Lateran Council (November 11-30, 1215) is possible, but it has left no trace in the earliest biographies. The Council certainly took the new Order into consideration,[2] but it was to renew the invitation made to it five years before by the supreme pontiff, to choose one of the Rules already approved by the Church.[3] St. Dominic, who was then at Rome to beg for the confirmation of his institute, received the same counsel and immediately conformed to it. The Holy See would willingly have conceded special constitutions to the Brothers Minor, if they had adopted for a base the Rule of St. Benedict; thus the Clarisses, except those of St. Damian, while preserving their name and a certain number of their customs, were obliged to profess the Benedictine rule.
In spite of all solicitations, Francis insisted upon retaining his own Rule. One is led to believe that it was to confer upon these questions that we find him at Perugia in July, 1216, when Innocent III. died.[4]
However this may be, about this epoch the chapters took on a great importance. The Church, which had looked on at the foundation of the Order with somewhat mixed feelings, could no longer rest content with being the mere spectator of so profound a movement; it saw the need of utilizing it.
Ugolini was marvellously well prepared for such a task. Giovanni di San Paolo, Bishop of the Sabine, charged by Innocent III. to look after the Brothers, died in 1216, and Ugolini was not slow to offer his protection to Francis, who accepted it with gratitude. This extraordinary offer is recounted at length by the Three Companions.[5] It must certainly be fixed in the summer of 1216[6] immediately after the death of Giovanni di San Paolo.
It is very possible that the first chapter held in the presence of this cardinal took place on May 29, 1216. By an error very common in history, most of the Franciscan writers have referred to a single date all the scattered incidents concerning the first solemn assizes of the Order, and have called this typical assembly the _Chapter of the Mats_. In reality for long years all the gatherings of the Brothers Minor deserved this name.[7]
Coming together at the season of the greatest heat, they slept in the open air or sheltered themselves under booths of reeds. We need not pity them. There is nothing like the glorious transparency of the summer night in Umbria; sometimes in Provence one may enjoy a foretaste of it, but if at Baux, upon the rock of Doms, or at St. Baume, the sight is equally solemn and grandiose, it still wants the caressing sweetness, the effluence of life which in Umbria give the night a bewitching charm.
The inhabitants of the neighboring towns and villages flocked to these meetings in crowds, at once to see the ceremonies, to be present when their relatives or friends assumed the habit, to listen to the appeals of the Saint and to furnish to the friars the provisions of which they might have need. All this is not without some analogy with the camp-meeting so dear to Americans. As to the figures of several thousands of attendants given in the legends, and furnishing even to a Franciscan, Father Papini, the occasion for pleasantries of doubtful taste, it is perhaps not so surprising as might be supposed.[8]
These first meetings, to which all the Brothers eagerly hastened, held in the open air in the presence of crowds come together from distant places, have then nothing in common with the subsequent chapters-general, which were veritable conclaves attended by a small number of delegates, and the majority of the work of which, done in secret, was concerned only with the affairs of the Order.
During Francis's lifetime the purpose of these assemblies was essentially religious. Men attended them not to talk business, or proceed to the nomination of the minister-general, but in mutual communion to gain new strength from the joys, the example, and the sufferings of the other brethren.[9]
The four years which followed the Whitsunday of 1216 form a stage in the evolution of the Umbrian movement; that during which Francis was battling for autonomy. We find here pretty delicate shades of distinction, which have been misunderstood by Church writers as much as by their adversaries, for if Francis was particular not to put himself in the attitude of revolt, he would not compromise his independence, and he felt with an exquisite divination that all the privileges which the court of Rome could heap upon him were worth nothing in comparison with liberty. Alas, he was soon forced to resign himself to these gilded bonds, against which he never ceased to protest, even to his last sigh;[10] but to shut one's eyes to the moral violence which the papacy did him in this matter is to condemn oneself to an entire misapprehension of his work.
A glance over the collection of bulls addressed to the Franciscans suffices to show with what ardor he struggled against favors so eagerly sought by the monastic orders.[11]
A great number of legendary anecdotes put Francis's disdain of privileges in the clearest light. Even his dearest friends did not always understand his scruples.
"Do you not see," they said to him one day, "that often the bishops do not permit us to preach, and make us remain several days without doing anything before we are permitted to proclaim the word of God? It would be better worth while to obtain for this end a privilege from the pope, and it would be for the good of souls."
"I would first convert the prelates by humility and respect," he replied quickly; "for when they have seen us humble and respectful toward them, they themselves will beg us to preach and convert the people. As for me, I ask of God no privilege unless it be that I may have none, to be full of respect for all men, and to convert them, as our Rule ordains, more by our example than by our speech."[12]
The question whether Francis was right or wrong in his antipathy to the privileges of the curia does not come within the domain of history; it is evident that this attitude could not long continue; the Church knows only the faithful and rebels. But the noblest hearts often make a stand at compromises of this kind; they desire that the future should grow out of the past without convulsion and without a crisis.
The chapter of 1217 was notable for the definitive organization of the Franciscan missions. Italy and the other countries were divided off into a certain number of _provinces_, having each its provincial minister. Immediately upon his accession Honorius III. had sought to revive the popular zeal for the crusades. He had not stopped at preaching it, but appealed to prophecies which had proclaimed that under his pontificate the Holy Land would be reconquered.[13] The renewal of fervor which ensued, and of which the rebound was felt as far as Germany, had a profound influence on the Brothers Minor. This time Francis, perhaps from humility, did not put himself at the head of the friars charged with a mission to Syria; for leader he gave them the famous Elias, formerly at Florence, where he had had opportunity to show his high qualities.[14]
This Brother, who from this time appears in the foreground of this history, came from the most humble ranks of society; the date and the circumstances of his entrance into the Order are unknown, and hence conjecture has come to see in him that friend of the grotto who had been Francis's confidant shortly before his decisive conversion. However this may be, in his youth he had earned his living in Assisi, making mattresses and teaching a few children to read; then he had spent some time in Bologna as _scriptor_; then suddenly we find him among the Brothers Minor, charged with the most difficult missions.
His adversaries vie with one another in asserting that he was the finest mind of his century, but unhappily it is very difficult, in the existing state of the documents, to pronounce as to his actions; learned and energetic, eager to play the leading part in the work of the reformation of religion, and having made his plan beforehand as to the proper mode of realizing it, he made straight for his goal, half political, half religious. Full of admiration for Francis and gratitude toward him, he desired to regulate and consolidate the movement for renovation. In the inner Franciscan circle, where Leo, Ginepro, Egidio, and many others represent the spirit of liberty, the religion of the humble and the simple, Elias represents the scientific and ecclesiastical spirit, prudence and reason.
He had great success in Syria and received into the Order one of the disciples most dear to Francis, Cæsar of Speyer, who later on was to make the conquest of all Southern Germany in less than two years (1221-1223), and who in the end sealed with his blood his fidelity to the strict observance, which he defended against the attacks of Brother Elias himself.[15]
Cæsar of Speyer offers a brilliant example of those suffering souls athirst for the ideal, so numerous in the thirteenth century, who everywhere went up and down, seeking first in learning, then in the religious life, that which should assuage the mysterious thirst which tortured them. Disciple of the scholastic Conrad, he had felt himself overpowered with the desire to reform the Church; while still a layman he had preached his ideas, not without some success, since a certain number of ladies of Speyer had begun to lead a new life; but their husbands disapproving, he was obliged to escape their vengeance by taking refuge at Paris, and thence he went to the East, where in the preaching of the Brothers Minor he found again his hopes and his dreams. This instance shows how general was the waiting condition of souls when the Franciscan gospel blazed forth, and how its way had been everywhere prepared.
But it is time to return to the chapter of 1217: the friars who went to Germany under conduct of Giovanni di Penna were far from having the success of Elias and his companions; they were completely ignorant of the language of the country which they had undertaken to evangelize. Perhaps Francis had not taken into account the fact that though Italian might, in case of need, suffice in all the countries bathed by the Mediterranean, this could not be the case in Central Europe.[16]
The lot of the party going to Hungary was not more happy. Very often it came to pass that the missionaries were fain to give up their very garments in the effort to appease the peasants and shepherds who maltreated them. But no less incapable of understanding what was said to them than of making themselves understood, they were soon obliged to think of returning to Italy. We may thank the Franciscan authors for preserving for us the memory of these checks, and not attempting to picture the friars as suddenly knowing all languages by a divine inspiration, as later on was so often related.[17]
Those who had been sent to Spain had also to undergo persecutions. This country, like the south of France, was ravaged by heresy; but already at that time it was vigorously repressed. The Franciscans, suspected of being false Catholics and therefore eagerly hunted out, found a refuge with Queen Urraca of Portugal, who permitted them to establish themselves at Coimbra, Guimarraens, Alenquero, and Lisbon.[18]
Francis himself made preparations for going to France.[19] This country had a peculiar charm for him because of his fervent love of the Holy Sacrament. Perhaps also he was unwittingly drawn toward this country to which he owed his name, the chivalrous dreams of his youth, all of poetry, song, music, delicious dream that had come into his life.
Something of the emotion that thrilled through him on undertaking this new mission has passed into the story of his biographers; one feels there the thrill at once sweet and agonizing, the heart-throb of the brave knight who goes forth all harnessed in the early dawn to scan the horizon, dreading the unknown and yet overflowing with joy, for he knows that the day will be consecrated to love and to the right.
The Italian poet has given the one name of "pilgrimages of love" to the farings forth of chivalry and the journeys undertaken by dreamers, artists, or saints to those parts of the earth which forever mirror themselves before their imagination and remain their chosen fatherland.[20] Such a pilgrimage as this was Francis undertaking.
"Set forth," said he to the Brothers who accompanied him, "and walk two and two, humble and gentle, keeping silence until after tierce, praying to God in your hearts, carefully avoiding every vain or useless word. Meditate as much while on this journey as if you were shut up in a hermitage or in your cell, for wherever we are, wherever we go, we carry our cell with us; Brother body is our cell, and the soul is the hermit who dwells in it, there to pray to the Lord and to meditate."
Arrived at Florence he found there Cardinal Ugolini, sent by the pope as legate to Tuscany to preach the crusade and take all needful measures for assuring its success.[21] Francis was surely far from expecting the reception which the prelate gave him. Instead of encouraging him, the cardinal urged him to give up his project.
"I am not willing, my brother, that you should cross the mountains; there are many prelates who ask nothing better than to stir up difficulties for you with the court of Rome. But I and the other cardinals who love your Order desire to protect and aid you, on the condition, however, that you do not quit this province."
"But, monsignor, it would be a great disgrace for me to send my brethren far away while I remained idly here, sharing none of the tribulations which they must undergo."
"Wherefore, then, have you sent your brethren so far away, exposing them thus to starvation and all sorts of perils?"
"Do you think," replied Francis warmly, and as if moved by prophetic inspiration, "that God raised up the Brothers for the sake of this country alone? Verily, I say unto you, God has raised them up for the awakening and the salvation of all men, and they shall win souls not only in the countries of those who believe, but also in the very midst of the infidels."[22]
The surprise and admiration which these words awoke in Ugolini were not enough to make him change his mind. He insisted so strongly that Francis turned back to Portiuncula, the inspiration of his work not even shaken. Who knows whether the joy which he would have felt in seeing France did not confirm him in the idea that he ought to renounce this plan? Souls athirst with the longing for sacrifice often have scruples such as these; they refuse the most lawful joys that they may offer them to God. We cannot tell whether it was immediately after this interview or not till the following year that Francis put Brother Pacifico at the head of the missionaries sent into France.[23]
Pacifico, who was a poet of talent, had before his conversion been surnamed Prince of Poesy and crowned at the capital by the emperor. One day while visiting a relative who was a nun at San Severino in the March of Ancona, Francis also arrived at the monastery, and preached with such a holy impetuosity that the poet felt himself pierced with the sword of which the Bible speaks, which penetrates between the very joints and marrow, and discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart.[24] On the morrow he assumed the habit and received his symbolical surname.[25]
He was accompanied to France by Brother Agnello di Pisa, who was destined to be put at the head of the first mission to England in 1224.[26]
Francis, on sending them forth, was far from dreaming that from this country, which exerted such a fascination over him, was to come forth the influence which was to compromise his dream--that Paris would be the destruction of Assisi; and yet the time was not very far distant; a few years more and the Poverello would see a part of his spiritual family forgetting the humility of their name, their origin, and their aspirations, to run after the ephemeral laurels of learning.
We have already seen that the habit of the Franciscans of this time was to make their abode within easy reach of great cities; Pacifico and his companions established themselves at St. Denis.[27] We have no particulars of their work; it was singularly fruitful, since it permitted them a few years later to attack England with full success.
Francis passed the following year (1218) in evangelizing tours in Italy. It is naturally impossible to follow him in these travels, the itinerary of which was fixed by his daily inspirations, or by indications as fanciful as the one which had formerly determined his going to Sienna. Bologna,[28] the Verna, the valley of Rieti, the Sacro-Speco of St. Benedict at Subiaco,[29] Gaeta;[30] San Michele on Mount Gargano[31] perhaps received him at this time, but the notes of his presence in these places are too sparse and vague to permit their being included in any scheme of history.
It is very possible that he also paid a visit to Rome during this time; his communications with Ugolini were much more frequent than is generally supposed. We must not permit the stories of biographers to deceive us in this matter; it is a natural tendency to refer all that we know of a man to three or four especially striking dates. We forget entire years of the life of those whom we have known the best and loved the most and group our memories of them around a few salient events which shine all the more brilliantly the deeper we make the surrounding obscurity. The words of Jesus spoken on a hundred different occasions came at last to be formed into a single discourse, the Sermon on the Mount. It is in such cases that criticism needs to be delicate, to mingle a little divination with the heavy artillery of scientific argument.
The texts are sacred, but we must not make fetiches of them; notwithstanding St. Matthew, no one to-day dreams of representing Jesus as uttering the Sermon on the Mount all at one time. In the same way, in the narratives concerning the relations between St. Francis and Ugolini, we find ourselves every moment shut up in no-thoroughfares, coming up against contradictory indications, just so long as we try to refer everything to two or three meetings, as we are at first led to do.
With a simple act of analysis these difficulties disappear and we find each of the different narratives bringing us fragments which, being pieced together, furnish an organic story, living, psychologically true.
From the moment at which we have now arrived, we must make a much larger place for Ugolini than in the past; the struggle has definitively opened between the Franciscan ideal--chimerical, perhaps, but sublime--and the ecclesiastical policy, to go on until the day when, half in humility, half in discouragement, Francis, heartsick, abdicates the direction of his spiritual family.
Ugolini returned to Rome at the end of 1217. During the following winter his countersign is found at the bottom of the most important bulls;[32] he devoted this time to the special study of the question of the new orders, and summoned Francis before him. We have seen with what frankness he had declared to him at Florence that many of the prelates would do anything to discredit him with the pope.[33] It is evident the success of the Order, its methods, which in spite of all protestations to the contrary seemed to savor of heresy, the independence of Francis, who had scattered his friars in all the four corners of the globe without trying to gain a confirmation of the verbal and entirely provisional authorization accorded him by Innocent III.--all these things were calculated to startle the clergy.
Ugolini, who better than any one else knew Umbria, Tuscany, Emilia, the March of Ancona, all those regions where the Franciscan preaching had been most successful, was able by himself to judge of the power of the new movement and the imperious necessity of directing it; he felt that the best way to allay the prejudices which the pope and the sacred college might have against Francis was to present him before the curia.
Francis was at first much abashed at the thought of preaching before the Vicar of Jesus Christ, but upon the entreaties of his protector he consented, and for greater security he learned by heart what he had to say.
Ugolini himself was not entirely at ease as to the result of this step; Thomas of Celano pictures him as devoured with anxiety; he was troubled about Francis, whose artless eloquence ran many a risk in the halls of the Lateran Palace; he was also not without some more personal anxieties, for the failure of his _protégé_ might be most damaging to himself. He was in all the greater anxiety when, on arriving at the feet of the pontiff, Francis forgot all he had intended to say; but he frankly avowed it, and seeking a new discourse from the inspiration of the moment, spoke with so much warmth and simplicity that the assembly was won.[34]
The biographers are mute as to the practical result of this audience. We are not to be surprised at this, for they write with the sole purpose of edification. They wrote after the apotheosis of their master, and would with very bad grace have dwelt upon the difficulties which he met during the early years.[35]
The Holy See must have been greatly perplexed by this strange man, whose faith and humility were evident, but whom it was impossible to teach ecclesiastical obedience.
St. Dominic happened to be in Rome at the same time,[36] and was overwhelmed with favors by the pope. It is a matter of history that Innocent III. having asked him to choose one of the Rules already approved by the Church, he had returned to his friars at Notre Dame de Prouille, and after conferring with them had adopted that of St. Augustine; Honorius therefore was not sparing of privileges for him. It is hardly possible that Ugolini did not try to use the influence of his example with St. Francis.
The curia saw clearly that Dominic, whose Order barely comprised a few dozen members, was not one of the moral powers of the time, but its sentiments toward him were by no means so mixed as those it experienced with regard to Francis.
To unite the two Orders, to throw over the shoulders of the Dominicans the brown cassock of the Poor Men of Assisi, and thus make a little of the popularity of the Brothers Minor to be reflected upon them, to leave to the latter their name, their habit, and even a semblance of their Rule, only completing it with that of St. Augustine, such a project would have been singularly pleasing to Ugolini, and with Francis's humility would seem to have some chance of success.
One day Dominic by dint of pious insistance induced Francis to give him his cord, and immediately girded himself with it. "Brother," said he, "I earnestly long that your Order and mine might unite to form one sole and same institute[37] in the Church." But the Brother Minor wished to remain as he was, and declined the proposition. So truly was he inspired with the needs of his time and of the Church that less than three years after this Dominic was drawn by an irresistible influence to transform his Order of Canons of St. Augustine into an order of mendicant monks, whose constitutions were outlined upon those of the Franciscans.[38]
A few years later the Dominicans took, so to speak, their revenge, and obliged the Brothers Minor to give learning a large place in their work. Thus, while hardly come to youth's estate, the two religious families rivalled one another, impressed, influenced one another, yet never so much so as to lose all traces of their origin--summed up for the one in poverty and lay preaching, for the other in learning and the preaching of the clergy.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The commencement of the great missions and the institution of provincial ministers is usually fixed either at 1217 or 1219, but both these dates present great difficulties. I confess that I do not understand the vehemence with which partisans of either side defend their opinions. The most important text is a passage in the 3 Soc., 62: _Expletis itaque undecim annis ab inceptione religionis, et multiplicatis numero et merito fratribus, electi fuerant ministri, et missi cum aliquot fratribus quasi per universas mundi provincias in quibus fides catholica colitur et servatur._ What does this expression, _inceptio religionis_, mean? At a first reading one unhesitatingly takes it to refer to the foundation of the Order, which occurred in April, 1209, by the reception of the first Brothers; but on adding eleven full years to this date we reach the summer of 1220. This is manifestly too late, for the 3 Soc. say that the brethren who went out were persecuted in most of the countries beyond the mountains, as being accredited by no pontifical letter; but the bull _Cum dilecti_, bears the date of June 11, 1219. We are thus led to think that the eleven years are not to be counted from the reception of the first Brothers, but from Francis's conversion, which the authors might well speak of as _inceptio religionis_, and 1206 + 11 = 1217. The use of this expression to designate conversion is not entirely without example. Glassberger says (_An. fr._, p. 9): _Ordinem minorum incepit anno 1206._ Those who admit 1219 are obliged (like the Bollandists, for example), to attribute an inaccuracy to the text of the 3 Soc., that of having counted eleven years as having passed when there had been only ten. We should notice that in the two other chronological indications given by the 3 Soc. (27 and 62) they count from the conversion, that is from 1206, as also Thomas of Celano, 88, 105, 119, 97, 88, 57, 55, 21. Curiously, the Conformities reproduce the passage of the 3 Soc. (118b, 1), but with the alteration: _Nono anno ab inceptione religionis_. Giordano di Giano opens the door to many scruples: _Anno vero Domini_ 1219 _et anno conversionis ejus decimo frater Franciscus ... misit fratres in Franciam, in Theutoniam, in Hungariam, in Hespaniam_, Giord., 3. As a little later the same author properly harmonizes 1219 with the thirteenth year from Francis's conversion, everyone is in agreement in admitting that the passage cited needs correction; we have unfortunately only one manuscript of this chronicle. Glassberger, who doubtless had another before him, substitutes 1217, but he may have drawn this date from another document. It is noteworthy that Brother Giordano gives as simultaneous the departure of the friars for Germany, Hungary, and France; but, as to the latter country, it certainly took place in 1217. So the Speculum, 44a.
The chronicle of the xxiv. generals and Mark of Lisbon (Diola's ed., t. i., p. 82) holds also to 1217, so that, though not definitely established, it would appear that this date should be accepted until further information. Starting from slightly different premises, the learned editors of the _Analecta_ arrive at the same conclusion (t. ii., pp. 25-36). Cf. Evers, _Analecta ad Fr. Minorum historiam_, Leipsic, 1882, 4to, pp. 7 and 11. That which appears to me decidedly to tip the balance in favor of 1217, is the fact that the missionary friars were persecuted because they had no document of legitimation; and in 1219 they would have had the bull _Cum dilecti_, from June 11th of that year. The Bollandists, who hold for 1219, have so clearly seen this argument that they have been obliged to deny the authenticity of the bull (or at least to suppose it wrongly dated). A. SS., p. 839.
[2] Vide A. SS., p. 604. Cf. Angelo Clareno, _Tribul. Archiv._, i., p. 559. _A papa Innocentis fuit omnibus annuntiatum in concilio generali ... sicut sanctus vir fr. Leo scribit et fr. Johannes de Celano._ These lines have not perhaps the significance which one would be led to give them at the first glance, their author having perhaps confounded _consilium_ and _consistorium_. The Speculum, 20b says: _Eam (Regulam Innocentius) approvabit et concessit et postea in consistorio omnibus annuntiavit._
[3] _Ne nimia Religionem diversitas gravem in Ecclesia Dei confusionem inducat, firmiter prohibemus, ne quis de coetero novam Religionem inveniat; sed quicumque voluerit ad Religionem converti, unam de approbatis assumat._ Labbé and Cossart: _Sacrosancta concilia_, Paris, 1672, t. xi., col. 165.
[4] Eccl., 15 (_An. franc._, t. 1, p. 253): _Innocentium in cujus obitu fuit presentialiter S. Franciscus_.
[5] 3 Soc., 61; cf. _An. Perus._, A. SS., p. 606f.
[6] Thomas of Celano must be in error when he declares that Francis was not acquainted with Cardinal Ugolini before the visit which he made him at Florence (summer of 1217): _Nondum alter alteri erat præcipua familiaritate conjunctus_ (1 Cel., 74 and 75). The Franciscan biographer's purpose was not historic; chronological indications are given in profusion; what he seeks is the _apta junctura_. Tradition has preserved the memory of a chapter held at Portiuncula in presence of Ugolini during a stay of the curia at Perugia (_Spec._, 137b.; _Fior_., 18; _Conform._, 207a; 3 Soc., 61). But the curia did not come back to Perugia between 1216 and Francis's death. It is also to be noted that according to Angelo Clareno, Ugolini was with Francis in 1210, supporting him in the presence of Innocent III. Vide below, p. 413. Finally the bull _Sacrosancta_ of December 9, 1219, witnesses that already during his legation in Florence (1217) Ugolini was actually interesting himself for the Clarisses.
[7] See, for example, the description of the chapter of 1221 by Brother Giordano. Giord., 16.
[8] With regard to the figure of five thousand attendants given by Bonaventura (Bon., 59) Father Papini writes: _Io non credo stato capace alcuno di dare ad intendere al S. Dottore simil fanfaluca, ne capace lui di crederla_.
_... In somma il numero quinque millia et ultra non è del Santo, incapace di scrivere una cosa tanto improbabile e relativamente impossibile. Storia di S. Fr._, i., pp. 181 and 183. This figure, five thousand, is also indicated by Eccl., 6. All this may be explained and become possible by admitting the presence of the Brothers of Penitence, and it seems very difficult to contest it, since in the Order of the Humiliants, which much resembles that of the Brothers Minor (equally composed of three branches approved by three bulls given June, 1201), the chapters-general annually held were frequented by the brothers of the three Orders. Tiraboschi t. ii., p. 144. Cf. above, p. 158.
[9] Vide 2 Cel., 3, 121; _Spec._, 42b; 127b.
[10] _Præcipio firmiter per obedientiam fratribus universis quod ubicunque sunt, non audeant petere aliquam litteram in Curia Romana._ _Test. B. Fr._
[11] A comparison with the Bullary of the Preaching Friars is especially instructive: from their first chapter at Notre Dame de Prouille, in 1216, they are about fifteen; we find there at this time absolutely nothing that can be compared to the Franciscan movement, which was already stirring up all Italy. But while the first bull in favor of the Franciscans bears the date of June 11, 1219, and the approbation properly so called that of November 29, 1223, we find Honorius already in the end of 1216 lavishing marks of affection upon the Dominicans; December 22, 1216, _Religiosam vitam_. Cf. Pressuti, _I regesti, del Pontefice Onorio III._, Roma, 1884, t. i., no. 175; same date; _Nos attendentes_, ibid., no. 176; January 21, 1217, _gratiarum omnium_, ib., no. 243. Vide 284, 1039, 1156, 1208. It is needless to continue this enumeration. Very much the same could be done for the other Orders; whence the conclusion that if the Brothers Minor alone are forgotten in this shower of favors, it is because they decidedly wished to be. It must be admitted that immediately upon Francis's death they made up for lost time.
[12] The authenticity of this passage is put beyond doubt by Ubertino di Casal's citation. _Archiv._, iii., p. 53. Cf. _Spec._, 30a; _Conform._, 111b, 1; 118b, 1; Ubertino, _Arbor vitæ cruc._, iii., 3.
[13] _Burchardi chronicon ann. 1217_, _loc. cit._, p. 377. See also the bulls indicated by Potthast, 5575, 5585-92.
[14] Before 1217 the office of minister virtually existed, though its definitive institution dates only from 1217. Brother Bernardo in his mission to Bologna, for example (1212?), certainly held in some sort the office of minister.
[15] Imprisoned by order of Elias, he died in consequence of blows given him one day when he was taking the air outside of his prison. _Tribul._, 24a.
[16] Giord., 5 and 6; 3 Soc., 62.
[17] Of Giovanni di Parma, Clareno, Anthony of Padua, etc.
[18] Mark of Lisbon, t. i., p. 82. Cf. p. 79, t. ii., p. 86, Glassberger _ann._, 1217. _An. fr._, ii., pp. 9 ff.; _Chron xxiv. gen._, MS. of Assisi, no. 328, f^o 2b.
[19] _Spec._, 44a.; _Conform._, 119a, 2; 135a; 181b, 1; 1 Cel., 74 and 75.
[20] Cel., 3, 129. _Diligebat Franciam ... volebat in ea mori_.
[21] V. bull of January 23, 1217, _Tempus acceptabile_, Potthast, no. 5430, given in Horoy, t. ii., col. 205 ff.; cf. Pressuti, i., p. 71. This bull and those following fix without question the time of the journey to Florence. Potthast, 5488, 5487, and page 495.
[22] It is superfluous to point out the error of the Bollandist text in the phrase _Monuit (Cardinalis Franciscum) coeptum non perficere iter_, where the _non_ is omitted, A. SS., p. 704. Cf., p. 607 and 835, which has led Suysken into several other errors.
[23] Bon., 51. Cf. Glassberger, _ann_. 1217; _Spec._, 45b.
[24] Heb., iv., 12; 2 Cel., 3, 49; Bon., 50 and 51.
[25] Brother Pacifico interests us [the French people] particularly as the first minister of the Order in France; information about him is abundant: Bon., 79; 2 Cel., 3, 63; _Spec._, 41b.: _Conform._, 38a, 1; 43a, 1; 71b; 173b, 1, and 176; 2 Cel., 8, 27; _Spec._, 38b; _Conform._, 181b; 2 Cel., 3, 76; _Fior._, 46; _Conform._, 70a. I do not indicate the general references found in Chevalier's Bibliography. The Miscellanea, t. ii. (1887), p. 158, contains a most precise and interesting column about him. Gregory IX. speaks of him in the bull _Magna sicut dicitur_ of August 12, 1227. Sbaralea, Bull, fr., i., p. 33 (Potthast, 8007). Thomas of Tuscany, _socius_ of St. Bonaventura, knew him and speaks of him in his _Gesta Imperatorum (Mon. germ. hist. script._, t. 22, p. 492).
[26] Eccl., 1; _Conform._, 113b, 1.
[27] Toward 1224 the Brothers Minor desired to draw nearer and build a vast convent near the walls of Paris in the grounds called Vauvert, or Valvert (now the Luxembourg Garden), (Eccl., 10; cf. _Top. hist. du vieux Paris_, by Berty and Tisserand, t. iv., p. 70). In 1230 they received at Paris from the Benedictines of Saint-Germain-des-Prés a certain number of houses _in parocchia SS. Cosmæ et Damiani infra muros domini regis prope portam de Gibardo (Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis_, no. 76. Cf. _Topographie historique du vieux Paris; Région occid. de l'univ._, p. 95; Félibien, _Histoire de la ville de Paris_, i., p. 115). Finally, St. Louis installed them in the celebrated Convent of the Cordeliers, the refectory of which still exists, transformed into the Dupuytren Museum. The Dominicans, who arrived in Paris September 12, 1217, went straight to the centre of the city, near the bishop's palace on the _Ile de la Cité_, and on August 6, 1218, were installed in the Convent of St. Jacques.
[28] _Fior._, 27; _Spec._, 148b; _Conform._, 71a and 113a, 2; Bon., 182.
[29] The traces of Francis's visit here are numerous. A Brother Eudes painted his portrait here.
[30] Bon., 177.
[31] Vide A. SS., pp. 855 and 856. Cf. 2 Cel., 3, 136.
[32] Among others those of December 5, 1217, Potthast, 5629; February 8, March 30, April 7, 1218, Potthast, 5695, 5739, 5747.
[33] 1 Cel., 74. _O quanti maxime in principio cum hæc agerentur novellæ plantationi ordinis insidiabantur ut perderent._ Cf. 2 Cel., 1, 16. _Videbat Franciscus luporum more sevire quamplures._
[34] 1 Cel., 73 (cf. 2 Cel., 1, 17; _Spec._, 102a); 3 Soc., 64; Bon., 78. The fixing of this scene in the winter of 1217-1218 seems hardly to be debatable; Giordano's account (14) in fact determines the date at which Ugolini became _officially_ protector of the Order; it supposes earlier relations between Honorius, Francis, and Ugolini. We are therefore led to seek a date at which these three personages may have met in Rome, and we arrive thus at the period between December, 1217, and April, 1218.
[35] A word of Brother Giordano's opens the door to certain conjectures. "My lord," said Francis to Honorius III., in 1220, "you have given me many fathers (popes) give me a single one to whom I may turn with the affairs of my Order." (Giord., 14, _Multos mihi papas dedisti da unum_, ... etc.)
Does not this suggest the idea that the pontiff had perhaps named a commission of cardinals to oversee the Brothers Minor? Its deliberations and the events to be related in the following chapter might have impelled him to issue the bull _Cum dilecti_ of June 11, 1219, which was not an approbation properly so called, but a safe-conduct in favor of the Franciscans.
[36] He took possession of St. Sabine on February 28, 1218.
[37] 2 Cel., 3, 87. The literal meaning of the phrase is somewhat ambiguous. The text is: _Vellem, frater Francisce, unam fieri religionem tuam et meam et in Ecclesia pari forma nos vivere_. _Spec._ 27b. The echo of this attempt is found in Thierry d'Apolda, _Vie de S. Dominique_ (A. SS., Augusti, t. i., p. 572 d): _S. Dominicus in oscula sancta ruens et sinceros amplexus, dixit: Tu es socius meus, tu curres pariter mecum, stemus simul, nullus adversarius prævalebit_. Bernard of Besse says: _B. Dominicus tanta B. Francisco devotione cohesit ut optatam ab eo cordam sub inferiori tunica devotissimi cingeret, cujus et suam Religionem unam velle fieri diceret, ipsumque pro sanctitate cæteris sequendem religiosis assereret._ Turin MS., 102b.
[38] At the chapter held at Bologna at Whitsunday, 1220. The bull _Religiosam vitam_ (Privilege of Notre Dame de Prouille) of March 30, 1218, enumerates the possessions of the Dominicans. Ripolli, _Bull. Præd._, t. i., p. 6. Horoy, _Honorii opera_, t. ii., col. 684.
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