CHAPTER III

_The Carceri, Rivo-Torto and Life at the Portiuncula_

"O beata solitudo, O sola beatudine."

These three places near Assisi, so intimately associated with St. Francis, were in a way emblematic of the various stages in the rise and growth of his young community, and we shall see that the saint went from one to the other, not by chance, but with a settled purpose in his mind. The Carceri he kept as a something apart from, and outside his daily life; it was a hermitage in the strict sense of the word, where, far from the sound of any human voice, he could come and live a short time in isolated communion with God. As his followers increased, and the Order he had founded with but a few brethren developed even in its first years into a great army, we can easily understand the longing for solitude which at times became too strong to be resisted, for his nature was well fitted for the hermit's life, and it called him with such persistence to the woods among the flowers and the birds he loved, that had he been less tender for the sufferings of others, more blind to the ills of the Church, it is possible that the whole course of events might have been altered. Giotto would not have been called to Assisi, or if he had been, the legends told to him by the friars might not have inspired him to paint such master-pieces as he has left us in the Franciscan Basilica; and we should now be the poorer because St. Francis had chosen seven hundred years ago to live in an Etruscan tomb at Orte, or in a grotto on Mount Subasio. So much depended, not only upon what St. Francis achieved, but on the way in which he chose to work. Who therefore can tell how much we owe to the little mountain retreat of the Carceri, where, spending such hours of wondrous peace surrounded by all that he most cherished in nature, the saint could refresh himself and gain new strength for long periods of arduous labour among men.

The Carceri came into the possession of St. Francis through the generosity of the Benedictines who, until his advent, had held unlimited sway in Umbria. Many churches, and we may say, almost all the hermitages of the surrounding country belonged to them. But their principal stronghold, built in the eleventh century, stood on the higher slopes of Mount Subasio, while the Carceri, lying a little to the west, was used by them probably as a place of retreat when wearied of monastic life. Both monastery and hermitage seem to have been quiet enough, and we only occasionally hear of the Benedictine monks starting off on a visit to some hermit of renowned sanctity, or going upon some errand of mercy among the peasants in the valley, whom they often surprised by marvellous though somewhat aimless miracles wrought for their edification. Then early in the fourteenth century these hermit monks of Mount Subasio suddenly found themselves in the midst of the fighting of a mediæval populace, for the Assisans, not slow to discover the great military importance of the Benedictine Abbey, wished to possess it. When the struggle between Guelph and Ghibelline was at its height, the monks were driven to take refuge in the town, while their home was taken possession of by the exiled party who used it as a fortress whence they could sally forth and harass the eastern approach to Assisi. Perpetual skirmishes took place beneath its walls until the roving adventurer Broglia di Trino, who had made himself master of the town in 1399, in a solemn council held at the Rocca Maggiore issued an edict that the Monastery of St. Benedict was to be razed to the ground, determining thus to deprive the turbulent nobles and their party of so sure a refuge in times of civil war.

The solid walls and fine byzantine columns of what once was the most celebrated abbey in Umbria now remain much as in the mediæval days of their wreckage, and, until a few years ago when some repairs were made, the church was open for the mountain birds to nest in, and wild animals used it as their lair.

But both church and monastery stood proudly upon the mountain height above the plain when St. Francis, then the young mendicant looked upon by many as a madman, would knock at the gates, and the abbot followed by his monks, came out to listen to the humble requests he so often had to make. These prosperous religious most generously patronised St. Francis in the time of his obscurity, giving him the chapel of the Portiuncula, and later (the date is uncertain but some say in 1215) they allowed him to take possession of the still humbler chapel and huts of the Carceri. Even to call such shelters huts is giving them too grand a name, for they were but caverns excavated in the rock, scattered here and there in a deep mountain gorge. They can still be seen, unchanged since the days of St. Francis save for the tresses of ivy growing thick, like a curtain, across the entrance, for now there are none to pass in and out to pray there.

Even the attempt to describe the loneliness and discomfort of this hermitage seems to strike terror into the hearts of later franciscan writers, who no longer caring to live in caves, only saw Dantesque visions when they thought of these arid, sunburnt rocks, rushing torrents and wild wastes of mountains which even shepherds never reached. But luckily in those days there was one Umbrian who loved such isolated spots; and the charm of that silence, born of the very soul of Francis and guarded jealously by nature herself during long centuries in memory of him, now tempts us up the mountain side upon a pilgrimage to the one place where his spirit still lives in all its primitive vigour and purity.

The road leading to the Carceri[51] from the Porta Cappucini passes first through rich corn fields and olive groves, but as it skirts round Mount Subasio towards the ravine it becomes a mere mountain track. Only here and there, where peasants have patiently scraped away the stones, grows a little struggling corn, while small hill flowers nestle between the rocks unshaded even by olive trees; the colour of a stray Judas tree, or a lilac bush in bloom, only makes the landscape seem more barren and forlorn. Looking upon the road to Spello, winding down the hill through luxuriant fields of indian corn and olive groves, with the oak trees spreading their still fresher green over the vineyards of the plain, we feel that this pathway to the Carceri is something novel and unlike anything at Assisi which we have hitherto explored. Just as we are marvelling at its loveliness, a sudden turn brings Assisi once more in view, and the sight we get of it from here carries us straight back to the days of St. Francis; for the great basilica and convent are hidden by the brow of the hill, and what we now see is exactly what he looked upon so often as he hastened from Assisi to his hermitage, or left it when he was ready to take up the burden of men's lives once more. The old walls, looking now much as they did after a stormy battle with Perugia, stretch round the same rose-tinted town, which, strangely enough, time has altered but slightly--it is only a little more toned in colour, the Subasian stone streaked here and there with deeper shades of yellow and pink, while the castle is more ruined, rearing itself less proudly from its green hill-top than in earlier days of splendour. But charming as the view of the town is, we quickly leave it to watch the changes of light and colour in the valley and on the wide-bedded Tescio as it twists and turns in countless sharp zig-zags till we lose it where it joins the Tiber--there where the mist rises. We might travel far and not find so fascinating a river as the Tescio; only a trickle of water it is true, but sparkling in the sunshine like a long flash of lightning which has fallen to earth and can find no escape from a tangle of fields and vineyards.[52] Then our road turns away again from the glowing valley shimmering in the haze of a late May afternoon, and mounting ever higher we plunge into the very heart of the Assisan mountain, uncultivated, wild, colourless and yet how strangely beautiful.

Another half mile brings us round the mountain side to a narrow gorge, and the only thing in sight except the ilex trees is an arched doorway with a glimpse, caught through the half open gate, of a tiny courtyard. A step further on and we find ourselves standing amidst a cluster of cells and chapels seeming as if they hung from the bare rocks with nothing to prevent them falling straight into the depths of the ravine; and the silence around is stranger far than the mountain solitude. Surely none live here, we think, when suddenly a brown-clothed friar looks round the corner of a door, and without waste of time or asking of questions beckons us to follow, telling rapidly as he goes the story of each tree, rock, cell and shrine.

Crossing two or three chapels and passing through a trap-door and down a ladder, we reach a narrow cave-like cell where St. Francis used to sleep during those rare moments when he was not engaged in prayer. As at La Vernia this "bed" was scooped out of the rock, and a piece of wood served him as a pillow. Adjoining is an oratory where the crucifix the saint always carried with him is preserved. The doors are so narrow and so low that the smallest person must stoop and edge in sideways. From these underground caves it is a joy to emerge once more into the sunlight, and one of the delightful surprises of the place is to step straight out of the oppressive darkness of the cells into the ilex wood, with the banks above and around us glowing with sweet-scented cyclamen, yellow orchids, and long-stemmed violets. It is not surprising that St. Francis often left his cell to wander further into these woods when the birds, as though they had waited for his coming, would gather from all sides and intercept him just as he reached the bridge close to the hermitage. While they perched upon an ilex tree (which is still to be seen), he stood beneath and talked to them as only St. Francis knew how. His first sermon to the birds took place at Bevagna, but at the Carceri he was continually holding conversations with his little feathered brethren. This perhaps was also where he held his nocturnal duet with the nightingale, which was singing with especial sweetness just outside his cell. St. Francis called Brother Leo to come also and sing and see which would tire first, but the "little Lamb of God" replied that he had no voice, refusing even to try. So the saint went forth alone to the strange contest, and he and the bird sang the praises of God all through the darkest hours of the night until, quite worn out, the saint was forced to acknowledge the victory of Brother Nightingale.

Very different is the story of his encounter with the tempting devil whom he precipitated by his prayers into the ravine below; the hole through which the unwelcome visitor departed is still shown outside the saint's cell. Devils do not play a very prominent part in the story of the first franciscans, but this mountain solitude seems to have so excited the imaginations of later chroniclers that yet another story of a devil belongs to the Carceri, and is quaintly recounted in the _Fioretti_. This time he appeared to Brother Rufino in the form of Christ to tempt him from his life of holiness. "O Brother Rufino," said the devil, "have I not told thee that thou shouldst not believe the son of Pietro Bernardone?... And straightway Brother Rufino made answer: 'Open thy mouth that I may cast into it filth.' Whereat the devil, being exceeding wroth, forthwith departed with so furious a tempest and shaking of the rocks of Mount Subasio, which was hard by, that the noise of the falling rocks lasted a great while; and so furiously did they strike one against the other in rolling down that they flashed sparks of terrific fire in all the valley, and at the terrible noise they made St. Francis and his companions came out of the house in amazement to see what strange thing was this; and still is to be seen that exceeding great ruin of rocks."

Close to the spot rendered famous by the devil's visits a bridge crosses the gorge of a great torrent, which, threatening once to destroy the hermitage, was miraculously dried up by St. Francis, and now only fills its rocky bed when any public calamity is near. From it a good view is obtained of the hermitage, but perhaps a still better is to be had from under the avenue of trees a little beyond, on the opposite side of the deep ravine whence the groups of hovels are seen to hang like a honeycomb against the mountain side, so tightly set together that one can hardly distinguish where the buildings begin and the rock ends.

The ilex trees grow in a semicircle round this cluster of cells and caverns, and high above it all rises a peak of Mount Subasio, grey as St. Francis' habit, with a line of jagged rocks on the summit which looks more like the remains of some Umbrian temple of almost prehistoric days than the work of nature.

The sides of this mountain ravine approach so near together that only a narrow vista of the plain is obtained, blue in the summer haze, with no village or even house in sight. It would be difficult to find a place with the feeling of utter solitude so unbroken, and as we realised that these friars lived here nearly all their life, many not even going to Assisi more than once in five years, we said to one of them: "How lonely you must be," and he, as though recalling a time of struggle in the world, answered: "Doubtless there are better things in the town, but here, at the Carceri, there is peace."

It is the hermit's answer; but now the need of such lives has long since passed away, and even St. Francis, living at the time when the strain of perpetual warfare, famine, pestilence and crime, created a fierce craving for solitude in the lives of many, realised that a hermitage must only be a place to rest in for a while--not to live in. His anxiety to keep his Order from becoming a contemplative one is shown in the following rule he carefully thought out for his disciples. "Those religious who desire to sojourn in a hermitage are to be at the most three or four. Two are to be like mothers having a son. Two are to follow the life of a Martha, the other the life of a Mary." Then they were to go forth again strenuously to their work abroad and give place to others in search of rest and peace.

But after the death of St. Francis the Carceri gradually lost its primitive use, and the principal person who entirely changed its character was St. Bernardine of Siena who in 1320 made many alterations and additions, building a larger chapel, adding cells and a kitchen, but so small, remarks a discontented franciscan chronicler, that it barely held the cooking utensils. Although we can no longer call it a hermitage, the Carceri became the type of an ideal franciscan convent such as Francis dreamed of for his followers when he went to live at the Portiuncula, and such it has remained to this day. For certainly the place, as left by St. Bernardine, would have been approved of by the first franciscans as a dwelling-place, but those of later years can only tell us of its discomforts. Here is a graphic description of its primeval simplicity which very nearly corresponds to its present state: "It were better called a grotto with six lairs; one sees but the naked rock untouched by the chisel, all rough and full of holes as left by nature; those who see it for the first time are seized with extraordinary fear on climbing the ladder leading to the dormitory, at each end of which are other poor buildings, added by the religious according as need arose for the use of the friars, who do not care to live as hermits did in the olden times. The refectory is small, and can contain but few friars; a brother guardian made an excavation, of sufficient height and breadth in the rock, and added thereto a table around which can sit other six religious, so that those who take their places at this new table are huddled up in the arched niche which forms a baldaquin above their heads. There is also a little common room which horrifies all beholders, wherein is lit a fire, for besides being far inside the rocky mass it is gloomy beyond description by reason of the dense smoke always enclosed therein, this is a lively cause to the religious of reflection on the hideousness and obscurity of the darkness of hell; in lieu of receiving comfort from the fire the poor friars generally come out with tears in their eyes." To somewhat atone for these discomforts they possessed a fountain, raised, as we are told, by the prayers of St. Francis, which never ran dry, "a miracle God has wished to perpetuate for the glory of His faithful servants and the continual comfort of the monks."

The crucifixion in the chapel built by St. Bernardine adjoining the choir, is said to have been painted by his orders. The artistic merits of the fresco are questionable, but connected with it is a legend possibly invented by some humorous member of the franciscan brotherhood in order to point a moral to his companions. "Here," says a chronicler, "is adored that most marvellous crucifixion, so famous in religion; it is well known to have spoken several times to the devout Sister Diomira Bini of the Third Order of St. Francis and a citizen of Assisi; and in our own times, in the last century (the seventeenth) it was seen by Brother Silvestro dello Spedalicchio to detach itself from the cross, and with most gentle slaps on the face, warn a worshipper to be reverent and vigilant while praying in this His Sacred Oratory."

In a small wooden cupboard in the chapel, according to an inventory made two hundred years ago, are preserved some relics, a few of which we have unfortunately not been able to identify. Part of the wooden pillow used by St. Francis, and a piece of the Golden Gate through which our Lord passed into Jerusalem, are still here, but the hair of the Virgin, and, strangest of all, some of the earth out of which God created Adam, are no longer to be found!

* * * * *

Ten or twelve friars continued to live at the Carceri for a few years after the death of St. Bernardine; some begged their daily bread from the villagers in the valley, others dug in the tiny garden at the foot of the ravine where a few vegetables grew, and two always remained at the convent to spin the wool for the habits of the religious. But soon wearying of the life they went to live at other convents, and the place passed away from the franciscans into the possession of various sects, among others to the excommunicated Fraticelli. In 1415 it was given back to the Observants, and Paolo Trinci, who had done much to reform the Order, persuaded some friars to live once more at the deserted hermitage. Again the Carceri became such an ideal franciscan convent that many came from afar to visit it, and there is a strange story of how a "woman monk" found a home and died here in the middle of the fifteenth century.

"Beata Anonima," a chronicler recounts, "being already a Cistercian nun in the convent of S. Cerbone of Lucca at the time of the siege of that city by the Florentines, when the said nuns, for valid reasons, were transferred to the convent of Sta. Christina inside the city. Now this most fervent servant of God took this opportune time and fled by stealth, disguised as a man, and went, or rather flew, to Assisi; there, fired with an ardent desire to fight under the seraphic standard, she breathlessly climbed the steep slopes of Mount Subasio, and having found the horrible cavern of Santa Maria delle Carceri fervently entreated those good Fathers to admit her amongst them and to bestow on her their sacred habit, for which her longing was extreme. At length, having overcome all resistance, believing her to be a man as appeared from her dress, and not a woman which in reality she was, they admitted her to the convent and gave her the habit of religion." She edified all by the holiness of her life and the rigid penances she performed, but her health soon suffered and only upon her death-bed, surrounded by the friars chanting the psalms for the dying, the Blessed Anonima confessed to the fraud she had practised in order to dwell in the hermitage rendered so dear because of the memory of the Poverello d'Assisi.

RIVO-TORTO[53]

A straight and stony road, the old Roman one, now overgrown in many parts with grass and trails of ivy and bordered by mulberry and oak trees, leads out of the Porta Mojano to two little chapels in the plain. Set back from the main road in the midst of the fields few people find them, and the peasants know nothing of their story and can only tell of a miraculous well in which a youthful saint met his death. When his body was brought to the surface a lily had grown from his mouth and upon its petals was written in letters of gold the one word, _Veritas_, for he had died in the cause of truth. Since then, as the peasants recount with pride, many come from afar to drink of the waters of this well for it cures every ill. It is over-grown with ferns and close by stands an ancient sarcophagus where the children sit to eat their midday meal. A piece of old worn sculpture still ornaments the chapel of the young martyr, and the feeling of the place is very charming, but the pilgrim who comes to Assisi to visit St. Francis, has a different picture to recall with another kind of beauty belonging to it than that of holy wells and flowering banks and meadows.

It is difficult, when looking on San Rufino d'Arce, with its cluster of vine-shaded peasant houses, and then on Santa Maria Maddalena, narrow windowed, the small apse marking it as a primitive Umbrian chapel of the fields, to realise that in the Middle Ages this was a leper village separated from Assisi by a little more than a mile of open country. And yet here, without doubt, we have Rivo-Torto where, even before his famous interview with Innocent III, St. Francis had stayed with those three first Assisan companions, Bernard di Quintavalle, Peter Cataneo and Egidio. Then in the autumn of 1210, when he returned from Rome after the rule of poverty had been sanctioned by the Church, but before he was ready to begin his mission as preacher, he came to live among the lepers, forming with his disciples a little family which we may call the beginning of a first franciscan settlement.

The leper village was divided according to the social rank of the outcasts, the richer living together near the chapel of Sta. Maria Maddalena and forming quite a community with the right of freely administering their own goods. As M. Sabatier observes, it was therefore not "only a hospital, but almost a little town near the city with the same social distinctions of classes."

Those tended by St. Francis were the poorest of the lepers, whose wretched hovels lay near the chapel of San Rufino d'Arce; and Celano must be referring to this settlement when he tells us how Francis in his early days, even if he chanced to look down from Assisi upon the houses of the lepers in the plain, would hold his nostrils with his hand, because his horror of them was so great.

But as the grace of God touched his heart, making him take pity upon all things weak and suffering, he turned the force of his strong nature to overcoming this repugnance, and there is a beautiful story telling of the first victory gained shortly after his conversion. While riding one day near Assisi he met a leper, and filled with disgust and even fear at the sight, his first impulse was to turn his horse round, but, remembering his new resolutions to follow the teaching of Christ, he went forward to meet the poor man, and even kissed the hand extended to him for alms. "Then," says St. Bonaventure, "having mounted his horse, he looked around him over the wide and open plain, but the leper was nowhere to be seen. And Francis being filled with wonder and gladness, devoutly gave thanks to God, purposing within himself to proceed to still greater things than this." Certainly the event heralded a life of holiness, and was the means of rousing his latent energies and the feelings for self-sacrifice which drove him from the wild and solitary places he loved into the very midst of the world, there to work strenuously, in every part of Italy, at first among lepers and then among the wealthy, the ignorant and the sorrowful.

For the life at Rivo-Torto led by "these valiant despisers of the great and good things of this world" we cannot do better than turn to the Three Companions (Brothers Masseo, Ruffino and Leo) who knew by personal experience the hardships and roughness of the place. Feelingly they describe: "a hovel, or rather a cavern abandoned by man; the which place was so confined that they could hardly sit down to repose themselves. Many a time they had no bread, and ate nought but turnips which they begged for here and there in travail and in anguish. On the beams of the poor hut the man of God wrote the names of the brethren, so that whoso would repose or pray might know his place and not disturb, by reason of the cramped and limited space in the small hovel, the quietude of the night." Even the appearance of Otto IV, close to their hut seems in no way to have disturbed the peaceful course of their lives, but only gave St. Francis the opportunity of bestowing a timely warning upon the Emperor. Celano, ever delighting in the picturesque details of ceremonies and pageants, tells us how "there came at that time with much noise and pomp the great Emperor on his way to take the terrestrial crown of the Empire; now the most holy father with his companions being in the said house near the road where the cavalcade was passing, would neither go out to see it, nor permit his brethren to go, save one, whom he commanded fearlessly to announce to Otto that his glory would be short-lived."

Thus, if the tale be true, a German Emperor was the first to listen to Francis' message to a mediæval world sunk in the love of earthly things, and who knows whether the saint's words did not come back to Otto again in after years.

The Penitents of Assisi only remained until the spring at Rivo-Torto, for even during those few months' sojourn among the lepers their numbers had so increased that it became necessary to think of some surer abode. One day St. Francis called the brethren to tell them how he had thought of obtaining from one of his various kind friends in Assisi, a small chapel where they could peacefully say their Hours, having some poor little houses for shelter close by built of wattle and mud.

His speech was pleasing to the brethren, and so, following the master they loved and trusted, all went to dwell at the Portiuncula, where, as we shall see, a new life was to begin for them.

THE PORTIUNCULA

"Holy of Holies is this Place of Places, Meetly held worthy of surpassing honour! Happy thereof the surname, 'Of the Angels,' Happier yet the name, 'The Blessed Mary.'

Now, a true omen, the third name conferreth 'The Little Portion' on the Little Brethren, Here, where by night a presence oft of Angels Singing sweet hymns illumineth the watches." (_The Mirror of Perfection_, translated by Sebastian Evans.)

Those who want to realise the charm of the Portiuncula and of the memories that cling about it, must try to forget the great church which shuts out from it the sunlight, and with the early chroniclers as their guides, call up the image of St. Francis with his first disciples who in an age of unrest came here to seek for peace.

Make your pilgrimage in the springtime or in the early summer, when pink hawthorn and dogroses are flowering in every hedge and the vines fill the valley with a delicate green light. Looking at cities and villages so purely Umbrian, some spread among cornfields close to a swift clear river, others set upon heights which nearly touch the sky on stormy days, we forget that beyond these hills and mountains encircling the big valley of Umbria stretch other lands as fair. We forget, because it is a little world which during long centuries has been set apart from all else, and where man has but completed the work of nature herself. During the long hours of a summer's day, when the sense of remoteness in the still plain is most intense, it brings to us, as nothing else can ever do, some feeling of that early time when four hermits came from Palestine and found a quiet retreat in the oak forests of Assisi.

It was in the year 352, as St. Cyril, Patriarch of Jerusalem, relates, when a cross had been seen stretched from Calvary to the Mount of Olives and to shine more brightly than the sun, that four holy men, impelled by a feeling that some great crisis was at hand, determined to visit the shrines of Rome. Having performed their devotions and offered many precious relics to Pope Liberius, they expressed a great desire to find some hermitage where, each in a silent cell, they could meditate upon the marvellous things they had seen in the Eternal City. The Pope gave them most excellent advice when he told them to go to the Spoletan valley. With his sanction to choose any part of it they liked, they passed over the mountains dividing Umbria from the Campagna, and by many towns until, when about a mile from Assisi, they determined to build their dwellings in the plain, thinking, as indeed they might, to find no other spot so suited for a quiet retreat. Close to four huts of rough hewn stone and brushwood they erected a tiny chapel with a pent roof and narrow window which, perhaps in memory of their native valley, they dedicated to St. Mary of Jehosaphat. But after a few years, forsaking the life of hermits, they again took up their staves and returned home to Palestine by way of the Romagna, leaving beneath the altar of the chapel they had built a relic of the Virgin's sepulchre.

At different times other devout hermits, charmed by the lonely chapel, took possession of it for a time, but it was often deserted for many years. Its preservation is due to St. Benedict who, passing through Umbria during the early part of the sixth century, was inspired to restore the ruined chapel and dwell near it for awhile. He not only repaired the walls, but built the two large round arched doors we see to this day, and which many declare to be quite out of proportion to the rest of the building, but their unusual size is accounted for by a charming legend. Once when St. Benedict was praying in the chapel he saw a marvellous vision as he knelt wrapt in ecstasy. A crowd of people were praying around him to St. Francis, singing hymns of praise and calling for mercy on their souls, while outside still greater multitudes waited for their turn to come and pray before the shrine. St. Benedict, understanding from this that a great saint would one day be honoured here, made the two doors in the chapel, and made them large enough for many to pass in and out at a time. Thus was the feast of the "Pardon of St. Francis" prepared for some seven hundred years too soon.

St. Benedict obtained from the Assisans the gift of a small plot of ground near the sanctuary, which suggested to him the name of St. Mary of the Little Portion--Sta. Maria della Portiuncula. When a few years later St. Benedict founded his famous order at Monte Cassino, he did not forget the Umbrian chapel he had saved from ruin, and sent some of his monks to live there and to minister among the people. Like the first hermits they lived in poor huts, saying their Hours in the little chapel, until in the eleventh century they built a large monastery and church upon the higher slopes of Mount Subasio to the east of Assisi, and the Portiuncula was again deserted. But although no one lived near, and mass was never celebrated there, it still remained in the keeping of the benedictines who occasionally must have seen to its repair, and thus preserved it for the coming of St. Francis.

* * * * *

It has been suggested to me that the spot selected by the four holy pilgrims in the fourth century may have been even then the site of a sacred shrine, for the custom of erecting tabernacles over the graves of distinguished persons reaches back to very early times. Originally designed as a mortuary cell such a structure might, being duly oriented, come to be used as a chapel for service.

The subject of "Sepulchral Cellæ" will be found treated of by the late Sir Samuel Fergusson[54] in a memoir in which he figures some of the burial vaults and early oratories of Ireland, some of which are in shape identical with Sta. Maria della Portiuncula, with the same pent roof, round arched door, and perfectly plain walls. A building thus erected over a grave was called _Porticulus_, and any who pillaged "a house made in form of a basilica over a dead person" had to pay a fine.

From an archæological point of view there is much to be desired in the published descriptions of the Portiuncula. A great part of its exterior walls is now covered with frescoes which hide all detail, but perhaps a minute examination of the interior walls might reveal portions of the foundations built upon by St. Benedict, and we sincerely hope that these few words may attract attention to so interesting a subject.

But even if the shrine said to have been built by the hermits from Palestine for Our Lady's Girdle turns out to have been an ancient tomb, the later legends are by no means destroyed. It is not unlikely that St. Benedict, attracted as much by lonely places as St. Francis, took possession of the Umbrian tomb, and perhaps little thinking what it was, rebuilt and used it as a chapel. Whatever may be the true story, it is very certain that the Portiuncula, from earliest times, has possessed a strange attraction for all who passed by, each one thinking a tiny chapel situated so charmingly in the woods, within sight, though not within sound, of the Umbrian towns, to be a perfect spot for prayer.

The country people treasure the legend that Madonna Pica often came to pray at the Portiuncula, and through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin obtained a son after seven years of waiting, and this son of prayer and patience was St. Francis of Assisi.

Half ruined and neglected as the chapel was, Francis learned, even as quite a child, to love it, and kneeling therein by his mother's side would pray with all the fervour of his childish faith. Later in life when he had turned from the mad follies of his youth to follow in the footsteps of Christ, he remembered the shrine he had loved in childhood, and would pass many nights there in prayer and bitter meditation upon the Passion. At last touched by the sight of its crumbling walls, he set himself the task of repairing them, working so busily with stones and mortar that the chapel soon regained its former simple beauty. The Benedictines of Mount Subasio, touched by his ungrudging labour and piety, arranged with an Assisan priest to celebrate mass at the Portiuncula from time to time, and this fact drew the young saint there still oftener.

Then followed his time of ministry among the lepers of San Rufino d'Arce, when day by day so many disciples came to enlist in this new army of working beggars that the little hut in the leper-village could no longer hold them, and Francis had to think of some means of housing the brethren, and obtaining, what he had often desired, a chapel wherein they could say the Hours. (The saint, we may be sure, always said his office in the woods.) But evidently he had no particular place in his mind, not even his beloved Portiuncula, for he went first to his friend Guido, Bishop of Assisi, and then to the canons of San Rufino to ask if they could help him. They only answered that they had no church to dispose of, and could offer no advice upon the subject. Then sorrowfully, like a man begging from door to door, St. Francis climbed Mount Subasio to lay his request in piteous terms before the benedictine abbot, where he met with more success. Brother Leo tells us that the abbot was "moved to pity, and after taking counsel with his monks, being inspired by divine grace and will, granted unto the Blessed Francis and his brethren the church of St. Mary of the Little Portion, as being the smallest and poorest church they possessed. And the abbot said to the Blessed Francis, 'Behold Brother, we grant what thou desirest. But should the Lord multiply thy brotherhood we will that this place shall be the mother-house of thy Order.'"[55]

With a willing heart Francis promised what the abbot asked, and further insisted upon paying rent for the Portiuncula, because he wished his followers always to bear in mind the point of his rule, which he so often dwelt upon, namely, that they owned no property whatever, but were only in this world as pilgrims. So every year two of his brethren brought to the gate of the benedictine monastery a basket full of roach caught in the Chiaggio which flows at no great distance from the Portiuncula, and the abbot, smiling at the simplicity of Francis, who had imagined yet another device for humility, gave back a vessel full of oil in exchange for the gift of fish.[56]

With great rejoicing St. Francis set to work building cells of a most simple pattern, with walls of wattle and dab, and thatched with straw, each brother inscribing his name upon a portion of the mud floor set apart for him to rest in. "And no sooner had they come to live here," writes Brother Leo, "than the Lord multiplied their number day by day, and the sweet scent of their good name spread marvellously abroad throughout all the Spoletan valley, and in many parts of the world."

It was thus that St. Mary of the Little Portion, henceforth to be the nucleus of the franciscan order, and a place familiar to pilgrims from far and near for many succeeding centuries, came into the keeping of St. Francis in the year 1211, about nine months after Innocent III had sanctioned his work among the people of Italy.

St. Francis and the brethren had been but a year in their new abode when a figure passed in among them for a moment and then was gone, leaving, as a vision to haunt them to their dying day, the memory of her beauty and soul's purity.

Never in the history of any saint has there been so touching and wondrous a scene as when the young Clare left her father's palace in Assisi to take the vows of perpetual and voluntary poverty at the altar of the Portiuncula. Followed by two trembling women, she passed swiftly through the town in the dead of night, across the fields by the slumbering village of Valecchio, and through dark woods made more sombre by the starry Umbrian sky which at intervals gleamed between the wide-spreading branches of the oak trees. The hurrying figure of the young girl, swathed in a long mantle, seemed like some spirit driven by winds towards an unknown future. One thing alone was clear to her, she was nearing the abode of Francis Bernardone whose preaching at San Giorgio only a month before had so thrilled her, inspiring her in this strange way to seek the life he had described in such fiery words. And just as she came in sight of the Portiuncula the chanting of the brethren, which had reached her in the wood, suddenly ceased, and they came out with lighted torches in expectation of her coming. Swiftly and without a word she passed in to attend the midnight mass which Francis was to serve.

The ceremony was simple, wherein lies the charm of all things franciscan. The service over and the last blessing given, St. Francis led Clare towards the altar and with his own hands cut off her long fair hair and unclasped the jewels from her neck. But a few minutes more and a daughter of the proud house of Scifi stood clothed in the brown habit of the order, the black veil of religion falling about her shoulders, lovelier far in this nun-like severity than she had been when decked out in all her former luxury of silken gowns and precious gems.

It was arranged that Clare was to go afterwards to the benedictine nuns of San Paolo near Bastia, about an hour's walk further on in the plain. So when the final vows had been taken, St. Francis took her by the hand and they passed out of the chapel together just as dawn was breaking, while the brethren returned to their cells gazing half sadly as they passed, at the coils of golden hair and the little heap of jewels which still lay upon the altar cloth.

* * * * *

Those early days at the Portiuncula were among the most important of Francis' life; dreams which had come to him while he spent long hours in the caves and woods near Assisi were to be fully realised, and the work he felt inspired to perform was to be carried out in the busy villages and cities of Italy and even further afield. All this was now very clear to Francis, and more than ever anxious to keep the simplicity of his order untouched, he taught his followers, in words which fell so gently yet so earnestly from his lips, that they were to toil without ceasing, and restlessly and without pause to wander from castle to castle, from city to city, in search of those who needed help. It may therefore at first seem strange that the "Penitents of Assisi" owning nothing but the peace within their hearts, desiring no better place for prayer than a cavern in some mountain gorge, should establish themselves near a chapel which, if not nominally their own, was practically regarded as the property of the Friars Minor. But in this again we feel the wisdom and tenderness of the saint for his little community. With all the fervour and fire of enthusiasm which impelled him like a living force to seek his end, he well knew that without some place in which to meet together and rest awhile, his followers, who however much imbued with his ardent spirit were but mortal men, would very likely fall away from the high ideal he had set before them.

Thus the Portiuncula became to the brethren as a nest, where like tired birds that long had been upon the wing, they could return after much wandering to peaceful thoughts, to prayer and quiet labour.

It is not very difficult, with the print from the "Collis Paradisi"[57] before us, and the remembrance of the large oaks which still mark the ancient Roman roads leading from Assisi to the plain, to call up the picture of the strange franciscan hamlet clustering round a pent-roofed chapel, and with only trees for a convent wall. What a life of peace in the mud huts! what a life of turmoil and angry strife raging in the city just in sight!

The spirit of those days, when monachism meant all that was purely ideal and beautiful, seems to live again. Then, day and night, each brother strove to fit himself for the work he had in view, drawing into his soul the peace and love he learned from nature herself as the forest leaves rustled above his cell or the nightingales accompanied the midnight office with their song. And when his turn came to take up the pilgrim's staff and follow the lead of Francis, he went with cheerfulness to bring to the people some of that child-like joy and lightness of heart which marked the Little Brethren through whatever land they wandered as the disciples of St. Francis.

Let us for a moment leave the Umbrian valley for the country near Oxford, where on a bitter Christmas Day, two friars were journeying upon their first mission to England.

"Going into a neighbouring wood they picked their way along a rugged path over the frozen mud and hard snow, whilst blood stained the track of their naked feet without their perceiving it. The younger friar said to the elder: 'Father, shall I sing and lighten our journey?' and on receiving permission he thundered forth a Salve Regina misericordiæ.... Now, when the hymn was concluded ... he who had been the consoler said, with a kind of self congratulation to his companion: 'Brother, was not that antiphonal well sung?'"

In this simple story, told us in the chronicle of Lanercost, how true rings the franciscan note struck by Francis in those early days at the Portiuncula. He was for ever telling the brethren not to show sorrowful faces to one another, saying, as recorded by Brother Leo: "Let this sadness remain between God and thyself, and pray to Him that of His mercy He may forgive thee, and restore to thy soul His healthy joyance whereof He deprived thee as a punishment for thy sins."

It is all so long ago, and yet in reading those ancient chronicles the big church of the Angeli is for a time forgotten, and only the vision of the Portiuncula and the mud huts, with the brethren ever to and fro upon the road, remains with us as a strange picture in our modern hurried life.

But although the brethren lived so quietly in this retreat of still repose, St. Francis, ever watching over the welfare of his flock, was careful that prayer and meditation should never be an excuse for idleness, which of all vices he most abhorred. Therefore he encouraged each friar who in the world had followed some trade, to continue it here; so we hear of Beato Egidio, on his return from one of his long journeys, seated at the door of his hut busily employed in making rush baskets, while Brother Juniper, in those rare moments when he was out of mischief, would pass his time in mending sandals with an awl he kept up his sleeve for the purpose. Besides these individual occupations there was much to attend to even in such humble dwellings as those round the Portiuncula. Sometimes there were sick friars to nurse, or vegetables had to be planted in the orchard and provisions to be obtained, while the office of doorkeeper, as "Angels" came perpetually to ask pertinent questions of the brethren, became quite a laborious task. When it fell to Brother Masseo to answer the door he had little peace. Upon one occasion he went in haste to see who was making such a noise and found a "fair youth clothed as though for a journey," so he spoke somewhat roughly, and the youth enquired how knocking should be done. "Give three knocks," quoth Brother Masseo, little dreaming he was instructing an angel in the art of knocking, "with a brief space between each knock, then wait until the brother has time to say a paternoster and to come unto thee; and if at the end of that time he does not come knock once again."

Things went smoothly enough when left to the management of such friars as Leo, Masseo or Rufino, but when one day the office of cook fell to Juniper, that dear jester of the brotherhood, we get a humorous picture of what his companions sometimes had to endure, and of the kindness with which they pardoned all shortcomings. The brethren had gone out, and Juniper being left alone devised an excellent plan whereby the convent might be supplied with food for a fortnight, and thus the cook have more time for prayer. "With all diligence," it is related in the _Fioretti_, "he went into the village and begged for several large cooking-pots, obtained fresh meat and bacon, fowls, eggs and herbs, also he begged a quantity of firewood, and placed all these upon the fire, to wit, the fowls with their feathers on, the eggs in their shells, and the rest in like fashion." When the brethren came home, one that was well acquainted with the simplicity of Brother Juniper went into the kitchen, and seeing so many and such large pots on a great fire, sat down amazed without saying a word, and watched with what anxious care Brother Juniper did this cooking. Because of the fierceness of the fire he could not well get near to skim the pots, so he took a plank and tied it with a rope tight to his body and sprang from one pot to the other, so that it was a joy to see him. Contemplating all with great delight, this brother went forth from the kitchen and finding the other brothers, said: "In sooth I tell you, Brother Juniper is making a marriage feast."

Then in hurried Juniper, all red with his exertions and the heat of the fire, explaining the excellent plan he had devised; and as he set his mess upon the table he praised it, saying: "Now these fowls are nourishing to the brain, this stew will refresh the body, it is so good"; but the stew remained untasted, for, says the _Fioretti_, "there is no pig in the land of Rome so famished that he would eat of it."

At the end of any foolish adventure Brother Juniper would always ask pardon with such humility that he edified his companions and all the people he came in contact with, instead of annoying them with his childish pranks. His goodness was manifest, and St. Francis was often heard to say to those who wished to reprove him after one of his wildest frolics, "would that I had a whole forest of these junipers."

Between the men who lived at the Portiuncula with the saint, and those who in later times ruled large convents in the cities, the contrast is so great that we would wish to draw still further from these inexhaustible chronicles which reveal so charmingly the life of these Umbrian friars. But to tell of all the events connected with the Portiuncula would mean recounting the history of the whole franciscan brotherhood, and we must now pass over many years to that saddest year of all, when St. Francis was brought to die in the place he had so carefully tended.

Knowing that he had but a few more weeks of life, he begged the brethren to find some means to carry him away from the Bishop's Palace at Assisi where he had been staying some time. "Verily," he told them pathetically, "because of my very infirmity I cannot go afoot"; so they carried him in their arms down the hill to the plain, and when they came to the hospital of San Salvatore dei Crociferi they laid him gently down upon the ground with his face towards Assisi, because he desired to bless the town for the last time before he died.

The blind saint, lifting his hand in blessing, pronounced these words dear to the hearts of the Assisans to this day: "Blessed be thou of the Lord, O city, faithful to God, because through thee many souls shall be saved. The servants of the Most High shall dwell in great numbers within thy walls, and many of thy sons shall be chosen for the realms of heaven."

Then they carried him to the hut nearest the Portiuncula which was the infirmary, and here his last days were passed.[58] Although he suffered acutely, they were days of marvellous peace and joy. It is beautiful to read how, with his usual tenderness, he thought of the brethren he was leaving to carry on the work without him, encouraging them all as they stood weeping round his bed. Like Isaac of old, the Umbrian patriarch blessed his first born, Bernard of Quintavalle, saying: "Come my little son that my soul may bless thee before I die," while he enjoined upon all to love and honour Bernard, who had been the first to listen to his words now so many years ago. With all his sons near him St. Francis dictated his will, wherein he describes the way of life they were to lead, and which, coming from him at this solemn moment, must always remain as a precious message from the saint, in many ways of more importance than the Rule approved in his life-time by Pope Honorius. When this was done he commended once again to their special care the chapel of the Portiuncula. "I will," he said to them, "that for all times it be the mirror and good example of all religion, and as it were a lamp ever burning and resplendent before the throne of God and before the Blessed Virgin."

The farewells to those of his immediate circle had been made and a letter written to St. Clare, and now he wished to bid "the most noble Roman matron, Madonna Giacoma dei Settesoli," one of his most devoted followers, to come and take leave of him at Assisi. The letter had only just been written when knocking at the door and the sound of horses trampling was heard outside, and the brethren going out to discover the cause of such unwonted noise found that Madonna Giacoma, accompanied by her sons, two Roman senators, had been inspired to come and visit the dying saint.

The brethren, somewhat averse to allow a woman, even one so renowned for holiness as Madonna Giacoma, to enter their sacred precincts, called to St. Francis in their doubt: "Father, what shall be done? Shall we let her enter and come unto thee?" And the Blessed Francis said: "The regulation is to be set aside in respect to this lady whose great faith and devotion hath brought her hither from such far-off parts." So Madonna Giacoma came into the presence of the Blessed Francis weeping bitterly, and she brought with her the shroud-cloth, incense, and a great quantity of wax for the candles which were to burn before his body after death. She had even thought of some cakes made of almonds and sugar, known in Rome by the name of _mostaccioli_, which she had often made for him when he visited her. But the saint was fast failing, and could eat but little of the cakes.

As the end came nearer his thoughts were drawn away from earth, and true to the last to his Lady Poverty, he caused himself to be laid naked on the ground as a token of his complete renouncement of the world. His face radiant with happiness, he kept asking his companions to recite the Canticle of the Sun, often joining in it himself or breaking forth into his favourite psalm _Voce mea ad Dominum Clamavi_.

With words of praise and gladness the Blessed Francis of Assisi, the spouse of Poverty, died in a mud hut close to the shrine he loved, on the 3rd of October of 1226 in the forty-fifth year of his age.

His soul was seen to ascend to heaven under the semblance of a star, but brilliant as the sun, upon clouds as white as snow. It was sunset, the hour when in Umbria after the stillness of a warm autumn day an unusual tremor passes through the land and all things in the valley and upon the hill-sides are stirred by it, when a flight of larks circled above the roof of the hut where the saint lay at rest. And these birds of light and gladness "seemed by their sweet singing to be in company with Francis praising the Lord God."

FOOTNOTES:

[51] It has sometimes happened that visitors, who have not read their Murray with sufficient care, thinking "Le Carceri" are prisons where convicts are kept, leave Assisi without visiting this charming spot. "Carceri" certainly now means "prisons," but the original meaning of the word in old Italian is a place surrounded by a fence and often remote from human habitation.

[52] It is perhaps an insult to the Tescio to leave the traveller in Umbria under the impression that this mountain torrent is always dry. Certainly that is its usual condition, but we have seen it during the storms that break upon the land in August and September overflow its banks and inundate the country on either side; but with this wealth of water its beauty goes.

[53] The large modern church of Rivo-Torto, on the road from Sta. Maria degli Angeli to Spello, built to enclose the huts that St. Francis and his companions are supposed to have lived in while tending the lepers, has been proved without doubt by M. Paul Sabatier to have no connection whatever with the Saint. In these few pages we have followed the information given in a pamphlet which is to be found in the Italian translation of his _Vie de S. François d'Assise_. It is impossible here to enter into all the arguments relating to this disputed point, but I think the authority of the best, and by far the most vivid of the biographers of St. Francis can be trusted without further comment, and that we may safely believe the hut of St. Francis, known as Rivo-Torto, lay close to the present chapels of San Rufino d'Arce and Sta. Maria Maddalena. See Appendix for information as to their exact position in the plain and the nearest road to them. _Disertazione sul primo luogo abitato dai Frati Minori su Rivo-Torto e nell'Ospedale dei Lebbrosi di Assisi._ di Paul Sabatier (Roma, Ermanno Loescher and Co., 1896).

[54] See _The Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy_, vol. xxvii. Nov. 1882.

[55] _Speculum Perfectionis_, cap. lv., edited by Paul Sabatier.

[56] This custom ceased in the fifteenth century; but in the year 1899, through the piety of the Rev. Father Bernardine Ibald, it was revived. Once again the franciscans take a small basket of fish to the abbot and his monks who now live at S. Pietro in Assisi, where the benedictines went when their mountain retreat was destroyed by order of the Assisan despot, Broglia di Trino.

[57] This illustration is from a print to be seen in the somewhat rare edition of the _Collis Paradisi Amoenitas, seu Sacri Conventus Assisiensis Historiæ_, published in 1704 at Montefalco by Padre Angeli, and it may even have been taken from an earlier drawing. In it there is the true feeling of a franciscan convent, such as the saint hoped would continue for all time, and though there are some points which are incorrect (the Church of Sta. Chiara, though curiously enough not the convent, is represented, which was built several years later than San Francesco), we get a clear idea of both Assisi and its immediate neighbourhood. All the ancient gates of the town can be made out, the Roman road from Porta Mojano to San Rufino d'Arce, a faint indication of the path to the Carceri, and also the old road from Assisi to the plain out of the gate of S. Giacomo, passing not very far from the Ponte S. Vittorino. The wall round the Portiuncula and the huts did not exist in the time of St. Francis, which, together with the wooden gate, may have been added by Brother Elias. The largest hut a little to the right of the chapel was the infirmary where St. Francis died (now called the Chapel of St. Francis), and the one behind it was his cell (now known as the Chapel of the Roses, see