Chapter XX: Francis's Will and Death (3)

[15] 1 Cel., 95, 98, 105, 109. The account of the Benediction is
especially significant. _Super quem inquit (Franciscus) tenes
dexteram meam? Super fratrem Heliam, inquiunt. Et ego sic volo,
sit...._ 1 Cel., 108. Those last words obviously disclose the
intention. Cf. 2 Cel., 3, 139.

[16] 1 Cel., 102; cf. 91 and 109. Brother Leo is not even named
in the whole work. Nor Angelo, Illuminato, Masseo either!

[17] 1 Cel., Prol., 73-75; 99-101; 121-126. Next to St. Francis,
Gregory IX. and Brother Elias (1 Cel., 69; 95; 98; 105; 108;
109) are in the foreground.

[18] 1 Cel., 18 and 19; 116 and 117.

[19] Those which occurred during the absence of Francis
(1220-1221). He overlooks the difficulties met at Rome in
seeking the approbation of the first Rule; he mentions those
connected neither with the second nor the third, and makes no
allusion to the circumstances which provoked them. He recognized
them, however, having lived in intimacy with Cæsar of Speyer,
the collaborator of the second (1221).

[20] For example, Francis's journey to Spain.

[21] 1 Cel., 1, 88. _Et sola quæ necessaria magis occurrunt_ ad
præsens _intendimus adnotare_. It is to be observed that in the
prologue he speaks in the singular.

[22] In 1238 he had sent Elias to Cremona, charged with a
mission for Frederick II. Salembeni, ann. 1229. See also the
reception given by Gregory IX. to the appellants against the
General. Giord., 63.

[23] See the letter of Frederick II. to Elias upon the
translation of St. Elizabeth, May, 1236. Winkelmann, _Acta_ i.,
p. 299. Cf. Huillard-Bréholles, _Hist. dipl._ Intr. p. cc.

[24] The authorities for this story are: _Catalogus ministrorum_
of Bernard of Besse, _ap_ Ehrle, _Zeitschrift_, vol. 7 (1883),
p. 339; _Speculum_, 207b, and especially 167a-170a; Eccl., 13;
Giord., 61-63; _Speculum_, Morin., tract i., fo. 60b.

[25] _Asserabat etiam ipse prædictus frater Helyas ... papam ...
fraudem facere de pecunia collecta ad succursum Terræ Sanctæ,
scripta etiam ad beneplacitum suum in camera sua bullare clam et
sine fratrum assensu et etiam cedulas vacuas, sed bullatas,
multas nunciis suis traderet ... et alia multa enormia imposuit
domino papæ ponens os suum in celo_. Matth. Paris, _Chron.
Maj._, _ann. 1239_, _ap Mon. Ger. hist. Script._, t. 28, p. 182.
Cf. Ficker, n. 2685.

[26] Vide Ryccardi di S. Germano, _Chron._, _ap Mon. Ger. hist.
Script._, t. 19, p. 380, ann. 1239. The letter of Frederick
complaining of the deposition of Elias (1239):
Huillard-Bréholles, _Hist. Dipl._, v., pp. 346-349. Cf. the
Bull, _Attendite ad petram_, at the end of February, 1240,
ibid., pp. 777-779; Potthast, 10849.

[27] He was without doubt one of the bitterest adversaries of
the emperor. His village had been burnt in 1224, by order of
Frederick II., and the inhabitants transported to Sicily,
afterward to Malta. Ryccardi di S. Germano, _loc. cit._, _ann._
1223 and 1224.

[28] Vide the prologue to 2 Cel. and to the 3 Soc. Cf.
Glassberger, ann. 1244, _An. fr._, ii., p. 68. _Speculum_,
Morin, tract. i., 61b.

[29] _Catalogus ministrorum_, edited by Ehrle: _Zeitschrift_, t.
7 (1883). no. 5. Cf. _Spec._, 208a. Mark of Lisbon speaks of it
a little more at length, but he gives the honor of it to
Giovanni of Parma, ed. Diola, t. ii., p. 38. On the other hand,
in manuscript 691 of the archives of the Sacro-Convento at
Assisi (a catalogue of the library of the convent made in 1381)
is found, fo. 45a, a note of that work: "_Dyalogus sanctorum
fratrum cum postibus cujus principium est: Venerabilia gesta
patrum dignosque memoria, finis vero; non indigne feram me
quoque reperisse consortem. In quo libro omnes quaterni sunt
xiii_."

[30] The text was published for the first time by the
Bollandists (A. SS., Octobris, t. ii., pp. 723-742), after a
manuscript of the convent of the Brothers Minor of Louvain. It
is from this edition that we make our citations. The editions
published in Italy in the course of this century, cannot be
found, except the last, due to Abbé Amoni. This one,
unfortunately, is too faulty to serve as the basis of a
scientific study. It appeared in Rome in 1880 (8vo, pp. 184)
under the title: _Legenda S. Francisci Assisiensis quæ dicitur
Legenda trium sociorum ex cod. membr._ _Biblioth. Vatic. num.
7339._

[31] 2 Cel., 2, 5; 3, 7; 1 Cel., 60; Bon., 113; 1 Cel., 84;
Bon., 149; 2 Cel., 2, 14; 3, 10.

[32] Giovanni di Parma retired thither in 1276 and lived there
almost entirely until his death (1288). _Tribul._, _Archiv._,
vol. ii. (1886), p. 286.

[33] 3 Soc., 25-67.

[34] 3 Soc., 68-73.

[35] The minister-general Crescentius of Jesi was an avowed
adversary of the Zealots of the Rule. The contrary idea has been
held by M. Müller (_Anfänge_, p. 180); but that learned scholar
is not, it appears, acquainted with the recitals of the
Chronicle of the Tribulations, which leave not a single doubt as
to the persecutions which he directed against the Zealots
(_Archiv._, t. ii., pp. 257-260). Anyone who attempts to dispute
the historical worth of this proof will find a confirmation in
the bulls of August 5, 1244, and of February 7, 1246 (Potthast,
11450 and 12007). It was Crescentius, also, who obtained a bull
stating that the Basilica of Assisi was _Caput et Mater
ordinis_, while for the Zealots this rank pertained to the
Portiuncula (1 Cel., 106; 3 Soc., 56; Bon., 23; 2 Cel., 1, 12;
_Conform._, 217 ff). (See also on Crescentius, Glassberger, ann.
1244, _An. fr._, p. 69; Sbaralea, _Bull. fr._, i., p. 502 ff;
_Conform._, 121b. 1.) M. Müller has been led into error through
a blunder of Eccleston, 9 (_An. fr._, i., p. 235). It is evident
that the chapter of Genoa (1244) could not have pronounced
against the _Declaratio Regulæ_ published November 14, 1245. On
the contrary, it is Crescentius who called forth this
_Declaratio_, against which, not without regret, the Zealots
found a majority of the chapter of Metz (1249) presided over by
Giovanni of Parma, a decided enemy of any _Declaratio_
(_Archiv._, ii., p. 276). This view is found to be confirmed by
a passage of the Speculum Morin (Rouen, 1509), f^o 62a: _In hoc
capitulo (Narbonnæ) fuit ordinatum quod declaratio D.
Innocentii, p. iv., maneat suspensa sicut in Capitulo_ METENSI.
_Et præceptum est omnibus ne quis utatur ea in iis in quibus
expositioni D. Gregorii IX. contradicit._

[36] Published with all necessary scientific apparatus by F.
Ehrle, S. J., in his studies _Zur Vorgeschichte des Concils von
Vienne_. _Archiv._, ii., pp. 353-416; iii., pp. 1-195.

[37] See, for example, _Archiv._, iii., p. 53 ff. Cf. 76.
_Adduxi verba et facta b. Francisci sicut est aliquando in
legenda et sicut a sociis sancti patris audivi et in cedulis
sanctæ memoriæ fratris Leonis legi manu sua conscriptis, sicut
ab ore beati Francisci audivit._ Ib., p. 85.

[38] _Hæc omnia patent per sua [B. Francisci] verba expressa per
sanctum fratrem virum Leonem ejus socium tam de mandato sancti
patris quam etiam de devotione prædicti fratris fuerunt
solemniter conscripta, in libro qui habetur in armario fratrum
de Assisio et in rotulis ejus, quos apud me habeo, manu ejusdem
fratris Leonis conscriptis. Archiv._, iii., p. 168. Cf. p. 178.

[39] 3 Soc., Prol. _Non contenti narrare solum miracula ...
conversationis insignia et pii beneplaciti voluntatem_.

[40] _Leggenda di S. Francesco, tipografia Morici et Badaloni_,
Recanati, 1856, 1 vol., 8vo.

[41] See Father Stanislaus's preface.

[42] 3 Soc., 68-73.

[43] The book lacks little of representing St. Francis as taking
up the work of Jesus, interrupted (by the fault of the secular
clergy) since the time of the apostles. The _viri evangelici_
consider the members of the clergy _filios extraneos._ 3 Soc.,
48 and 51. Cf. 3 Soc., 48. _Inveni virum ... per quem, credo
Dominus velit in toto mundo fedem sanctæ Ecclesiæ reformare_.
Cf. 2 Cel., 3, 141. _Videbatur revera fratri et omnium
comitatium turbæ quod Christi et b. Francisci una persona
foret_.

[44] A. SS. p. 552.

[45] _Venetiis, expensis domini Jordani de Dinslaken per Simonem
de Luere_, 30 januarii, 1504. _Impressum Metis per Jasparem
Hochffeder_, Anno Domini 1509. These two editions are identical,
small 12mos, of 240 folios badly numbered. Edited under the same
title by Spoelberch, Antwerp, 1620, 2 tomes in one volume, 8vo,
208 and 192 pages, with a mass of alterations. The most
important manuscript resembles that of the Vatican 4354. There
are two at the Mazarin Library, 904 and 1350, dated 1459 and
1460, one at Berlin (MS. theol. lat., 4to, no. 196 sæc. 14).
Vide Ehrle, _Zeitschrift_. t. vii. (1883), p. 392f; _Analecta
fr._, t. i., p. xi.; _Miscellanea_, 1888, pp. 119. 164. Cf. A.
SS., pp. 550-552.

The chapters are numbered in the first 72 folios only, but these
numbers teem with errors; fo. 38b. caput lix., 40b, lix., 41b,
lxi. ibid., lxii., 42a, lx., 43a, lxi. Besides at fos. 46b and
47b there are two chapters lxvi. There are two lxxi., two
lxxii., two lxxiii., etc.

[46] For example, the history of the brigands of Monte-Casale,
fos. 46b, and 58b. The remarks of Brother Elias to Francis, who
is continually singing, 136b and 137a. The visit of Giacomina di
Settesoli, 133a and 138a. The autograph benediction given to
Brother Leo, 87a; 188a.

[47] At fo. 20b we read: _Tertium capitulam de charitate et
compassione et condescensione ad proximum. Capitulum_ xxvi. Cf.
26a, 83a, 117b, 119a, 122a, 128b, 133b, 136b, where there are
similar indications.

[48] Fo. 5b: _Incipit Speculum vitæ b. Francesci et sociorum
ejus_. Fo. 7b; _Incipit Speculum perfectionis_.

[49] We should search for it in vain in the other pieces of the
Speculum, and it reappears in the fragments of Brother Leo cited
by Ubertini di Casali and Angelo Clareno.

[50] Fo. 8b, 11a, 12a, 15a, 18b, 21b, 23b, 26a, 29a, 33b, 43b,
41a, 48b, 118a, 129a, 130a, 134a, 135a, 136a.

[51] Does not Thomas de Celano say in the prologue of the Second
Life: "_Oramus ergo, benignissime pater, ut laboris hujus non
contemnenda munuscula ... vestra benedictione consecrare
velitis, corrigendo errata et superflua resecantes_."

[52] The legend of 3 Soc. was preserved in the Convent of
Assisi: "_Omnia ... fuerunt conscripta ... per Leonem, ... in
libro qui habetur in armario fratrum de Assisio_." Ubertini,
_Archiv._, iii., p. 168. Later, Brother Leo seems to have gone
more into detail as to certain facts; he confided these new
manuscripts to the Clarisses: "_In rotulis ejus quos apud me
habeo, manu ejusdem fratres Leonis conscriptis_," ibid. Cf. p.
178. "_Quod sequitur a sancto fratre Conrado predicto et viva
voce audivit a sancto fratre Leone qui presens erat et regulam
scripsit. Et hoc ipsum in quibusdam rotulis manu sua conscriptis
quos commendavit in monasterio S. Claræ custodiendos.... In
illis multa scripsit ... quæ industria fr. Bonaventura omisit et
noluit in legenda publice scribere, maxime quia aliqua erant ibi
in quibus ex tunc deviatio regulæ publice monstrabatur et
nolebat fratres ante tempus in famare._" _Arbor._, lib. v., cap
5. Cf. _Antiquitates_, p. 146. Cf. _Speculum_, 50b. "_Infra
scripta verba, frater Leo socius et Confessor B. Francisci,
Conrado de Offida, dicebat se habuisse ex ore Beati Patris
nostri Francisci, quæ idem Frater Conradus retulit, apud Sanctum
Damianum prope Assisium._" Conrad di Offidia copied, then, both
the book of Brother Leo and his _rotuli_; he added to it certain
oral information (_Arbor, vit. cruc._, lib. v., cap. 3), and so
perhaps composed the collection so often cited by the
Conformists under the title of _Legenda Antiqua_ and reproduced
in part in the Speculum. The numbering of the chapters, which
the Speculum has awkwardly inserted without noting that they
were not in accord with his own division, were vestiges of the
division adopted by Conrad di Offida.

It may well be that, after the interdiction of his book and its
confiscation at the Sacro Convento, Brother Leo repeated in his
_rotuli_ a large part of the facts already made, so that the
same incident, while coming solely from Brother Leo, could be
presented under two different forms, according as it would be
copied from the book or the _rotuli_.

[53] Compare, for example, 2 Cel., 120: Vocation of John the
Simple, and Speculum, f^o 37a. From the account of Thomas de
Celano, one does not understand what drew John to St. Francis;
in the Speculum everything is explained, but Celano has not
dared to depict Francis going about preaching with a broom upon
his shoulder to sweep the dirty churches.

[54] It was published for the first time at Rome, in 1806, by
Father Rinaldi, following upon the First Life (vide above, p.
365, note 2), and restored in 1880 by Abbé Amoni: _Vita secunda
S. Francisci Assisiensis auctore B. Thomade Celano ejus
discipulo. Romæ, tipografia della pace_, 1880, 8vo, 152 pp. The
citations are from this last edition, which I collated at Assisi
with the most important of the rare manuscripts at present
known: Archives of Sacro Convento, MS. 686, on parchment of the
end of the thirteenth century, if I do not mistake, 130 millim.
by 142; 102 numbered pages. Except for the fact that the book is
divided into two parts instead of three, the last two forming
only one, I have not found that it noticeably differs from the
text published by Amoni; the chapters are divided only by a
paragraph and a red letter, but they have in the table which
occupies the first seven pages of the volume the same titles as
in the edition Amoni.

This Second Life escaped the researches of the Bollandists.
It is impossible to explain how these students ignored the
worth of the manuscript which Father Theobaldi, keeper of the
records of Assisi, mentioned to them, and of which he offered
them a copy (A. SS., _Oct._, t. ii., p. 546f). Father Suysken
was thus thrown into inextricable difficulties, and exposed
to a failure to understand the lists of biographies of St.
Francis arranged by the annalists of the Order; he was at the
same time deprived of one of the most fruitful sources of
information upon the acts and works of the Saint. Professor
Müller (_Die Anfänge_, pp. 175-184) was the first to make a
critical study of this legend. His conclusions appear to me
narrow and extreme. Cf. _Analecta_ fr., t. ii., pp. xvii.-xx.
Father Ehrle mentions two manuscripts, one in the British
Museum, Harl., 47; the other at Oxford, Christ College, cod.
202. _Zeitschrift_, 1883, p. 390.

[55] The Three Companions foresee the possibility of their
legend being incorporated with other documents: _quibus
(legendis) hæc pauca quæ scribimus poleritis facere inseri, si
vestra discretio viderit esse justum._ 3 Soc., Prol.

[56] One phrase of the Prologue (2 Cel.) shows that the author
received an entirely special commission: _Placuit ... robis ...
parvitati nostræ injungere_, while on the contrary the 3 Soc.
shows that the decision of the chapter only remotely considered
them: _Cum de mandato proeteriti capituli fratres teneantur
... visum est nobis ... pauca de multis ... sanctitati vestræ
intimare._ 3 Soc., Prol.

[57] Compare the Prologue of 2 Cel. with that of 1 Cel.

[58] _Longum esset de singulis persequi, qualiter bravium
supernæ vocationis attigerit_. 2 Cel., 1, 10.

[59] This first part corresponds exactly to that portion of the
legend of the 3 Soc., which Crescentius had authorized.

[60] Observe that the Assisi MS. 686 divides the Second Life
into two parts only by joining the last two.

[61] Salimbeni, ann. 1248.

[62] Glassberger, ann. 1253. _An. fr._ t. ii., p. 73. _Frater
Johannes de Parma minister generalis, multiplicatis litteris
præcipit fr. Thomæ de Celano (cod. Ceperano), ut vitam beati
Francisci quæ antiqua Legenda dicitur perficeret, quia solum de
ejus conversatione et verbis in primo tractatu, de mandato, Fr.
Crescentii olim generalis compilato, ommissis miraculis fecerat
mentionem, et sic secundum tractatum de miraculis sancti Patris
compilavit, quem cum epistola quæ incipit: Religiosa vestra
sollicitudo eidem generali misit_.

This treatise on the miracles is lost, for one cannot identify
it, as M. Müller suggests (_Anfänge_, p. 177), with the second
part (counting three with the Amoni edition) of the Second Life:
1^o, epistle _Religiosa vestra sollicitudo_ does not have it;
2^o, this second part is not a collection of miracles, using
this word in the sense of miraculous cures which it had in the
thirteenth century. The twenty-two chapters of this second part
have a marked unity; they might be entitled _Francis a prophet_,
but not _Francis a thaumaturgus_.

[63] In the Prologue (2 Cel., 2, Prol.) _Insignia patrum_ the
author speaks in the singular, while the Epilogue is written in
the name of a group of disciples.

[64] Greccio, 2 Cel., 2, 5; 14; 3, 7; 10; 103.--Rieti, 2 Cel.,
2, 10; 11; 12; 13; 3, 36; 37; 66; 103.

[65] St. Francis gives him an autograph, 2 Cel., 2, 18. Cf.
_Fior._ ii. _consid._; his tunic, 2 Cel., 2, 19; he predicts to
him a famine, 2 Cel., 2, 21; cf. _Conform._, 49b. Fr. Leo ill at
Bologna, 2 Cel., 3, 5.

[66] The text of Ubertini di Casali may be found in the
_Archiv._, t. iii., pp. 53, 75, 76, 85, 168, 178, where Father
Ehrle points out the corresponding passages of 2 Cel.

[67] It is the subject of thirty-seven narratives (1, 2 Cel., 3,
1-37), then come examples on the spirit of prayer (2 Cel., 3,
38-44), the temptations (2 Cel., 3, 58-64), true happiness (2
Cel., 3, 64-79), humility (2 Cel., 3, 79-87), submission (2
Cel., 3, 88, 91), etc.

[68] Le Monnier, t. i., p. xi.; F. Barnabé, _Portiuncula_, p.
15. Cf. _Analecta fr._, t. ii., p. xxi. _Zeitschrift für kath.
Theol._, vii. (1883), p. 397.

[69] _Il piu antico poema della vita di S. Francisco d'Assisi
scritto inanzi all' anno 1230 ora per la prima volta pubblicato
et tradotto da Antonio Cristofani_, Prato, 1882, 1 vol., 8vo.
288 pp.

[70] Note, however, two articles of the Miscellanea, one on the
manuscript of this biography which is found in the library at
Versailles, t. iv. (1889), p. 34 ff.; the other on the author of
the poem, t. v. (1890), pp. 2-4 and 74 ff.

[71] See below, p. 410.

[72] Vide Glassberger, ann. 1244; _Analecta_, t. ii., p. 68. Cf.
A. SS., p. 545 ff.

[73] Manuscript in the Library of Turin, J. vi., 33, f^o 95a.

[74] _Plenam virtutibus S. Francisci vitam scripsit in Italia
... frater Thomas ... in Francia vero frater Julianus scientia
et sanctitate conspicuus qui etiam nocturnali sancti officium in
littera et cantu possuit præter hymnos et aliquas antiphonas
quae summus ipse Pontifex et aliqui de Cardinalibus in sancti
præconium ediderunt._ Opening of the _De laudibus_ of Bernard of
Besse. See below, p. 413. Laur. MS., f^o 95a. Cf. Giord., 53;
_Conform._, 75b.

[75] In proof of this is the circular letter, _Licet
insufficentiam nostram_, addressed by Bonaventura, April 23,
1257, immediately after his election, to the provincials and
custodes upon the reformation of the Order. Text: _Speculum_,
Morin, tract. iii., f^o 213a.

[76] Salimbeni, ann. 1248, p. 131. The _Chronica tribulationum_
gives a long and dramatic account of these events: _Archiv._, t.
ii., pp. 283 ff. "_Tunc enim sapientia et sanctitas fratris
Bonaventuræ eclipsata paluit et obscurata est et ejus manswetudo
(sic) ab agitante spiritu in furorum et iram defecit._" Ib., p.
283.

[77] Bon., 3. 1. At the same chapter were collected the
constitutions of the Order according to edicts of the preceding
chapters; new ones were added to them and all were arranged. In
the first of the twelve rubrics the chapter prescribed that,
upon the publication of the account, all the old constitutions
should be destroyed. The text was published in the _Firmamentum
trium ordinum_, f^o 7b, and restored lately by Father Ehrle:
_Archiv._, t. vi. (1891), in his beautiful work _Die ältesten
Redactionen der General-constitutionen des Franziskanerordens_.
Cf. _Speculum_ Morin, fo. 195b of tract. iii.

[78] The _Legenda Minor_ of Bonaventura was also approved at
this time; it is simply an abridgment of the _Legenda Major_
arranged for use of the choir on the festival of St. Francis and
its octave.

[79] "_Item præcipit Generale capitulum per obedientiam quod
omnes legenæ de B. Francisco olim factæ deleantur et ubi
inveniri poterant extra ordinem ipsas fratres studeant amovere,
cum illa legenda quæ facta est per Generalem sit compilata prout
ipse habuit ab ore illorum qui cum B. Francisco quasi semper
fuerunt et cuncta certitudinaliter sciverint et probata ibi sint
posita diligenter._" This precious text has been found and
published by Father Rinaldi in his preface to the text of
Celano: _Seraphici viri Francisci vitæ duæ_, p. xi. Wadding
seems to have known of it, at least indirectly, for he says:
"_Utramque Historiam, longiorem et breviorem, obtulit
(Bonaventura) triennio post in comitiis Pisanis patribus
Ordinis, quas reverentur cum gratiarum actione_, SUPRESSIS ALIIS
QUIBUSQUE LEGENDIS, ADMISERUNT." Ad ann., 1260, no. 18. Cf.
Ehrle, _Zeitschrift für kath. Theol._, t. vii. (1883), p.
386.--"_Communicaverat sanctus Franciscus plurima sociis suis et
fratribus antiquis, que oblivioni tradita sunt, tum quia que
scripta erant in legenda prima, nova edita a fratre. Bonaventura
deleta et destructa sunt_, IPSOJUBENTE _tum quia_ ..." _Chronica
tribul._, _Archiv._, t. ii., p. 256.

[80] Bon., 188-204.

[81] Bon., 218.

[82] Bernardo (Bon., 28), Egidio (Bon., 29), and Silvestro
(Bon., 30).

[83] Bon., 49.

[84] Bon., 112.

[85] Bon., 111.

[86] Vide Bon., 115; 99, etc. M. Thode has enumerated the
stories relating especially to Bonaventura: (_Franz von Assisi_,
p. 535).

[87] Manuscript I, iv., 33, of the library of the University of
Turin. It is a 4to upon parchment of the close of the fourteenth
century, 124 ff. It comprises first the biography of St. Francis
by St. Bonaventura and a legend of St. Clara, afterwards at f^o
95 the _De laudibus_. The text will soon be published in the
_Analecta franciscana_ of the Franciscans of Quaracchi, near
Florence.

[88] In reading it we quickly discover that he was specially
well acquainted with the convents of the Province of Aquitania,
and noted with care everything that concerned them.

[89] Wadding, ann. 1230, no. 7. Many passages prove at least
that he accompanied Bonaventura in his travels: "_Hoc enim_ (the
special aid of Brother Egidio) _in iis quæ ad bonum animæ
pertinent devotus Generalis et Cardinalis predictus ... nos
docuit_." F^o 96a. _Jamdudum ego per Theutoniæ partes et
Flandriæ cum Ministro transiens Generali._ Ibid., f^o 106a.

[90] Bernard de Besse is the author of many other writings,
notably an important _Calalogus Ministrorum generalium_
published after the Turin manuscript by Father Ehrle
(_Zeitschrift für kath. Theol._, t. vii., pp. 338-352), with a
very remarkable critical introduction (ib., pp. 323-337). Cf.
_Archiv für Litt. u. Kirchg._, i., p. 145.--Bartolommeo di Pisa,
when writing his _Conformities_, had before him a part of his
works, f^o 148b, 2; 126a, 1; but he calls the author sometimes
_Bernardus de Blesa_, then again _Johannes de Blesa_. See also
Mark of Lisbon, t. ii., p. 212, and Hauréau, _Notices et
extraits_, t. vi., p. 153.

[91] "_Denique primos Francisci xii. discipulos ... omnes
sanctos fuisse audirimus preter unum qui Ordinem exiens leprosus
factus laqueo vel alter Judas interiit, ne Francisco cum Christo
vel in discipulis similitudo deficeret_," f^o 96a.

* * * * *

III

DIPLOMATIC DOCUMENTS

In this category we place all the acts having a character of public authenticity, particularly those which were drawn up by the pontifical cabinet.

This source of information, where each document has its date, is precisely the one which has been most neglected up to this time.

I. DONATION OF THE VERNA

The _Instrumentum donationis Montis Alvernæ_, a notarial document preserved in the archives of Borgo San Sepolcro,[1] not only gives the name of the generous friend of Francis, and many picturesque details, but it fixes with precision a date all the more important because it occurs in the most obscure period of the Saint's life. It was on May 8, 1213, that _Orlando dei Catani_, Count of Chiusi in Casentino, gave the Verna to Brother Francis.

II. REGISTERS OF CARDINAL UGOLINI

The documents of the pontifical chancellery addressed to Cardinal Ugolini, the future Gregory IX., and those which emanate from the hand of the latter during his long journeys as apostolic legate,[2] are of first rate importance.

It would be too long to give even a simple enumeration of them. Those which mark important facts have been carefully indicated in the course of this work. It will suffice to say that by bringing together these two series of documents, and interposing the dates of the papal bulls countersigned by Ugolini, we are able to follow almost day by day this man, who was, perhaps without even excepting St. Francis, the one whose will most profoundly fashioned the Franciscan institute. We see also the pre-eminent part which the Order had from the beginning in the interest of the future pontiff, and we arrive at perfect accuracy as to the dates of his meetings with St. Francis.

III. BULLS

The pontifical bulls concerning the Franciscans were collected and published in the last century by the monk Sbaralea.[3] But from these we gain little help for the history of the origins of the Order.[4]

The following is a compendious list; the details have been given in the course of the work:

No. 1. August 18, 1218.--Bull _Literæ tuæ_ addressed to Ugolini. The pope permits him to accept donations of landed property in behalf of women fleeing the world (Clarisses) and to declare that these monasteries are holden by the Apostolic See.

No. 2. June 11, 1219.--_Cum delecti filii._ This bull, addressed in a general way to all prelates, is a sort of safe conduct for the Brothers Minor.

No. 3. December 19, 1219.--_Sacrosancta romana._ Privileges conceded to the Sisters (Clarisses) of Monticelli, near Florence.

No. 4. May 29, 1220.--_Pro dilectis._ The pope prays the prelates of France to give a kindly reception to the Brothers Minor.

No. 5. September 22, 1220.--_Cum secundum._ Honorius III. prescribes a year of noviciate before the entry into the Order.

No. 6. December 9, 1220.--_Constitutus in præsentia._ This bull concerns a priest of Constantinople who had made a vow to enter the Order. As there is question here of _frater Lucas Magister fratrum Minorem de partibus Romaniæ_ we have here indirect testimony, all the more precious for that reason, as to the period of the establishment of the Order in the Orient.

No. 7. February 13, 1221.--New bull for the same priest.

No. 8. December 16, 1221.--_Significatum est nobis._ Honorius III. recommends to the Bishop of Rimini to protect the Brothers of Penitence (Third Order).

No. 9. March 22, 1222.[5]--_Devotionis vestræ._ Concession to the Franciscans, under certain conditions, to celebrate the offices in times of interdict.

No. 10. March 29, 1222.--_Ex parte Universitatis._ Mission given to the Dominicans, Franciscans, and Brothers of the Troops of San Iago in Lisbon.

Nos. 11, 12, and 13.--September 19, 1222.--_Sacrosancta Romana._ Privileges for the monasteries (Clarisses) of Lucca, Sienna, and Perugia.

No. 14. November 29, 1223.--_Solet annuere._ Solemn approbation of the Rule, which is inserted in the bull.

No. 15. December 18, 1223.--_Fratrum Minorum._ Concerns apostates from the Order.

No. 16. December 1, 1224.--_Cum illorum._ Authorization given to the Brothers of Penitence to take part in the offices in times of interdict, etc.

No. 17. December 3, 1224.--_Quia populares tumultus._ Concession of the portable altar.

No. 18. August 28, 1225.--_In hiis._ Honorius explains to the Bishop of Paris and the Archbishop of Rheims the true meaning of the privileges accorded to the Brothers Minor.

No. 19. October 7, 1225.--_Vineae Domini._ This bull contains divers authorizations in favor of the Brothers who are going to evangelize Morocco.

This list includes only those of Sbaralea's bulls which may directly or indirectly throw some light upon the life of St. Francis and his institute. Sbaralea's nomenclature is surely incomplete and should be revised when the Registers of Honorius III. shall have been published in full.[6]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] It was published by Sbaralea, Bull., t. iv., p. 156, note h.
This act was drawn up July 9, 1274, at a time when the son of
Orlando as well as the Brothers Minor desired to authenticate
the donation, which until then had been verbal.

[2] See _Registri dei Cardinali Ugolino d'Ostia e Ottaviano
degli Ubaldini pubblicati a cura di Guido Levi dall'Istituto
storico italiano.--Fonti per la storia d'Italia_, Roma, 1890, 1
vol., 4to, xxviii. and 250 pp. This edition follows the
manuscript of the National Library, Paris: Ancien fonds Colbert
lat., 5152A. We must draw attention to a very beautiful work due
also to Mr. G. Levi: _Documenti ad illustrazione del Registro
del Card. Ugolino_, in the _Archivio della societa Romana di
storia patria_, t. xii. (1889), pp. 241-326.

[3] _Bullarium franciscanum seu Rom. Pontificum constitutiones
epistolæ diplomata ordinibus Minorum, Clarissarum et
Poenitentium concessa, edidit Joh. Hyac. Sbaralea ord. min.
conv._, 4 vols., fol., Rome, t. i. (1759), t. ii. (1761), t.
iii. (1763), t iv., (1768)--_Supplementum ab Annibale de Latera
ord. min. obs. Romæ_, 1780.--Sbaralea had a comparatively easy
task, because of the number of collections made before his. I
shall mention only one of those which I have before me. It is,
comparatively, very well done, and appears to have escaped the
researches of the Franciscan bibliographers: _Singularissimum
eximiumque opus universis mortalibus sacratissimi ordinis
seraphici patris nostri Francisci a Domino Jesu mirabili modo
approbati necnon a quampluribus nostri Redemptoris sanctissimis
vicariis romanis pontificabus multipharie declarati notitiam
habere cupientibus profecto per necessarium. Speculum Minorum
... per Martinum Morin ... Rouen_, 1509. It is 8vo, with
numbered folios, printed with remarkable care. It contains
besides the bulls the principal dissertations upon the Rule,
elaborated in the thirteenth century, and a _Memoriale ordinis_
(first part, f^o 60-82), a kind of catalogue of the
ministers-general, which would have prevented many of the errors
of the historians, if it had been known.

[4] The Bollandists themselves have entirely overlooked those
sources of information, thinking, upon the authority of a single
badly interpreted passage, that the Order had not obtained a
single bull before the solemn approval of Honorius III.,
November 29, 1223.

[5] And not March 29, as Sbaralea has it. The original, which I
have had under my eyes in the archives of Assisi, bears in fact:
_Datum Anagnie XI. Kal. aprilis pontificatus nostri anno sexto_.

[6] The Abbé Horoy has indeed published in five volumes what he
entitles the _Opera omnia_ of Honorius III., but he omits,
without a word of explanation, a great number of letters,
certain of which are brought forward in the well-known
collection of Potthast. The Abbé Pietro Pressuti has undertaken
to publish a compendium of all the bulls of this pope according
to the original Registers of the Vatican. _I regesti del
Pontifice Onorio III._ Roma, t. i., 1884. Volume i. only has as
yet appeared.

* * * * *

IV

CHRONICLERS OF THE ORDER

I. CHRONICLE OF BROTHER GIORDANO DI GIANO[1]

Born at Giano, in Umbria, in the mountainous district which closes the southern horizon of Assisi, Brother Giordano was in 1221 one of the twenty-six friars who, under the conduct of Cæsar of Speyer, set out for Germany. He seems to have remained attached to this province until his death, even when most of the friars, especially those who held cures, had been transferred, often to a distance of several months' journey, from one end of Europe to the other. It is not, then, surprising that he was often prayed to commit his memories to writing. He dictated them to Brother Baldwin of Brandenburg in the spring of 1262. He must have done it with joy, having long before prepared himself for the task. He relates with artless simplicity how in 1221, at the chapter-general of Portiuncula, he went from group to group questioning as to their names and country the Brothers who were going to set out on distant missions, that he might be able to say later, especially if they came to suffer martyrdom: "I knew them myself!"[2]

His chronicle bears the imprint of this tendency. What he desires to describe is the introduction of the Order into Germany and its early developments there, and he does it by enumerating, with a complacency which has its own coquetry, the names of a multitude of friars[3] and by carefully dating the events. These details, tedious for the ordinary reader, are precious to the historian; he sees there the diverse conditions from which the friars were recruited, and the rapidity with which a handful of missionaries thrown into an unknown country were able to branch out, found new stations, and in five years cover with a network of monasteries, the Tyrol, Saxony, Bavaria, Alsace, and the neighboring provinces.

It is needless to say that it is worth while to test Giordano's chronology, for he begins by praying the reader to forgive the errors which may have escaped him on this head; but a man who thus marks in his memory what he desires later to tell or to write is not an ordinary witness.

Reading his chronicle, it seems as if we were listening to the recollections of an old soldier, who grasps certain worthless details and presents them with an extraordinary power of relief, who knows not how to resist the temptation to bring himself forward, at the risk sometimes of slightly embellishing the dry reality.[4]

In fact this chronicle swarms with anecdotes somewhat personal, but very artless and welcome, and which on the whole carry in themselves the testimony to their authenticity. The perfume of the Fioretti already exhales from these pages so full of candor and manliness; we can follow the missionaries stage by stage, then when they are settled, open the door of the monastery and read in the very hearts of these men, many of whom are as brave as heroes and harmless as doves.

It is true that this chronicle deals especially with Germany, but the first chapters have an importance for Francis's history that exceeds even that of the biographers. Thanks to Giordano of Giano, we are from this time forward informed upon the crises which the institute of Francis passed through after 1219; he furnishes us the solidly historical base which seems to be lacking in the documents emanating from the Spirituals, and corroborates their testimony.

II. ECCLESTON: ARRIVAL OF THE FRIARS IN ENGLAND[5]

Our knowledge of Thomas of Eccleston is very slight, for he has left no more trace of himself in the history of the Order than of Simon of Esseby, to whom he dedicates his work. A native no doubt of Yorkshire, he seems never to have quitted England. He was twenty-five years gathering the materials of his work, which embraces the course of events from 1224 almost to 1260. The last facts that he relates belong to years very near to this date.

Of almost double the length of that of Giordano, Eccleston's work is far from furnishing as interesting reading. The former had seen nearly everything that he described, and thence resulted a vigor in his story that we cannot find in an author who writes on the testimony of others. More than this, while Giordano follows a chronological order, Eccleston has divided his incidents under fifteen rubrics, in which the same people continually reappear in a confusion which at length becomes very wearisome. Finally, his document is amazingly partial: the author is not content with merely proving that the English friars are saints; he desires to show that the province of England surpasses all others[6] by its fidelity to the Rule and its courage against the upholders of new ways, Brother Elias in particular.

But these few faults ought not to make us lose sight of the true value of this document. It embraces what we may call the heroic period of the Franciscan movement in England, and describes it with extreme simplicity.

Aside from all question of history, we have here enough to interest all those who are charmed by the spectacle of moral conquest. On Monday, September 10th, the Brothers Minor landed at Dover. They were nine in number: a priest, a deacon, two who had only the lesser Orders, and five laymen. They visited Canterbury, London, Oxford, Cambridge, Lincoln, and less than ten months later all who have made their mark in the history of science or of sanctity had joined them; it may suffice to name Adam of Marisco, Richard of Cornwall, Bishop Robert Grossetête, one of the proudest and purest figures of the Middle Ages, and Roger Bacon, that persecuted monk who several centuries before his time grappled with and answered in his lonely cell the problems of authority and method, with a firmness and power which the sixteenth century would find it hard to surpass.

It is impossible that in such a movement human weaknesses and passions should not here and there reveal themselves, but we owe our chronicler thanks for not hiding them. Thanks to him, we can for a moment forget the present hour, call to life again that first Cambridge chapel--so slight that it took a carpenter only one day to build it--listen to three Brothers chanting matins that same night, and that with so much ardor that one of them--so rickety that his two companions were obliged to carry him--wept for joy: in England as in Italy the Franciscan gospel was a gospel of peace and joy. Moral ugliness inspired them with a pity which we no longer know. There are few historic incidents finer than that of Brother Geoffrey of Salisbury confessing Alexander of Bissingburn; the noble penitent was performing this duty without attention, as if he were telling some sort of a story; suddenly his confessor melted into tears, making him blush with shame and forcing tears also from him, working in him so complete a revolution that he begged to be taken into the Order.

The most interesting parts are those where Thomas gives us an intimate view of the friars: here drinking their beer, there hastening, in spite of the Rule, to buy some on credit for two comrades who have been maltreated, or again clustering about Brother Solomon, who had just come in nearly frozen with cold, and whom they could not succeed in warming--_sicut porcis mos est cum comprimendo foverunt_, says the pious narrator.[7] All this is mingled with dreams, visions, numberless apparitions,[8] which once more show us how different were the ideas most familiar to the religious minds of the thirteenth century from those which haunt the brains and hearts of to-day.

The information given by Eccleston bears only indirectly on this book, but if he speaks little of Francis he speaks much at length of some of the men who have been most closely mingled with his life.

III. CHRONICLE OF FRA SALIMBENI[9]

As celebrated as it is little known, this chronicle is of quite secondary value in all that concerns the life of St. Francis. Its author, born October 9, 1221, entered the Order in 1238, and wrote his memoirs in 1282-1287; it is therefore especially for the middle years of the thirteenth century that his importance is capital. Notwithstanding this, it is surprising how small a place the radiant figure of the master holds in these long pages, and this very fact shows, better than long arguments could do, how profound was the fall of the Franciscan idea.

IV. THE CHRONICLE OF THE TRIBULATIONS BY ANGELO CARENO[10]

This chronicle was written about 1330; we might therefore be surprised to see it appear among the sources to be consulted for the life of St. Francis, dead more than a century before; but the picture which Clareno gives us of the early days of the Order gains its importance from the fact that in sketching it he made constant appeal to eye-witnesses, and precisely to those whose works have disappeared.

Angelo Clareno, earlier called Pietro da Fossombrone[11] from the name of his native town, and sometimes da Cingoli, doubtless from the little convent where he made profession, belonged to the Zelanti of the March of Ancona as early as 1265. Hunted and persecuted by his adversaries during his whole life, he died in the odor of sanctity June 15, 1339, in the little hermitage of Santa Maria d' Aspro in the diocese of Marsico in Basilicata.

Thanks to published documents, we may now, so to speak, follow day by day not only the external circumstances of his life, but the inner workings of his soul. With him we see the true Franciscan live again, one of those men who, while desiring to remain the obedient son of the Church, cannot reconcile themselves to permit the domain of the dream to slip away from them, the ideal which they have hailed. Often they are on the borders of heresy; in these utterances against bad priests and unworthy pontiffs there is a bitterness which the sectaries of the sixteenth century will not exceed.[12] Often, too, they seem to renounce all authority and make final appeal to the inward witness of the Holy Spirit;[13] and yet Protestantism would be mistaken in seeking its ancestors among them. No, they desired to die as they had lived, in the communion of that Church which was as a stepmother to them and which they yet loved with that heroic passion which some of the _ci-devant_ nobles brought in '93 to the love of France, governed though she was by Jacobins, and poured out their blood for her.

Clareno and his friends not only believed that Francis had been a great Saint, but to this conviction, which was also that of the Brothers of the Common Observance, they added the persuasion that the work of the Stigmatized could only be continued by men who should attain to his moral stature, to which men might arrive through the power of faith and love. They were of the violent who take the kingdom of heaven by force; so when, after the frivolous and senile interests of every day we come face to face with them, we feel ourselves both humbled and exalted, for we suddenly find unhoped-for powers, an unrecognized lyre in the human heart.

There is one of Jesus's apostles of whom it is difficult not to think while reading the chronicle of the Tribulations and Angelo Clareno's correspondence: St. John. Between the apostle's words about love and those of the Franciscan there is a similarity of style all the more striking because they were written in different languages. In both of these the soul is that of the aged man, where all is only love, pardon, desire for holiness, and yet it sometimes wakes with a sudden thrill--like that which stirred the soul of the seer of Patmos--of indignation, wrath, pity, terror, and joy, when the future unveils itself and gives a glimpse of the close of the great tribulation.

Clareno's works, then, are in the strictest sense of the word partisan; the question is whether the author has designedly falsified the facts or mutilated the texts. To this question we may boldly answer, No. He commits errors,[14] especially in his earlier pages, but they are not such as to diminish our confidence.

Like a good Joachimite, he believed that the Order would have to traverse seven tribulations before its final triumph. The pontificate of John XXII. marked, he thought, the commencement of the seventh; he set himself, then, to write, at the request of a friend, the history of the first six.[15]

His account of the first is naturally preceded by an introduction, the purpose of which is to exhibit to the reader, taking the life of St. Francis as a framework, the intention of the latter in composing the Rule and dictating the Will.

Born between 1240 and 1250, Clareno had at his service the testimony of several of the first disciples;[16] he found himself in relations with Angelo di Rieti,[17] Egidio,[18] and with that Brother Giovanni, companion of Egidio, mentioned in the prologue of the Legend of the Three Companions.[19]

His chronicle, therefore, forms as it were the continuation of that legend. The members of the little circle of Greccio are they who recommend it to us; it has also their inspiration.

But writing long years after the death of these Brothers, Clareno feels the need of supporting himself also on written testimony; he repeatedly refers to the four legends from which he borrows a part of his narrative; they are those of Giovanni di Ceperano, Thomas of Celano, Bonaventura, and Brother Leo.[20] Bonaventura's work is mentioned only by way of reference; Clareno borrows nothing from him, while he cites long passages from Giovanni di Ceperano,[21] Thomas of Celano[22] and Brother Leo.[23]

Clareno takes from these writers narratives containing several new and extremely curious facts.[24]

I have dwelt particularly upon this document because its value appears to me not yet to have been properly appreciated. It is indeed partisan; the documents of which we must be most wary are not those whose tendency is manifest, but those where it is skilfully concealed.

The life of St. Francis and a great part of the religious history of the thirteenth century will surely appear to us in an entirely different light when we are able to fill out the documents of the victorious party by those of the party of the vanquished. Just as Thomas of Celano's first legend is dominated by the desire to associate closely St. Francis, Gregory IX., and Brother Elias, so the Chronicle of the Tribulations is inspired from beginning to end with the thought that the troubles of the Order--to say the word, the apostasy--began so early as 1219. This contention finds a striking confirmation in the Chronicle of Giordano di Giano.

V. THE FIORETTI[25]

With the Fioretti we enter definitively the domain of legend. This literary gem relates the life of Francis, his companions and disciples, as it appeared to the popular imagination at the beginning of the fourteenth century. We have not to discuss the literary value of this document, one of the most exquisite religious works of the Middle Ages, but it may well be said that from the historic point of view it does not deserve the neglect to which it has been left.

Most authors have failed in courage to revise the sentence lightly uttered against it by the successors of Bollandus. Why make anything of a book which Father Suysken did not even deign to read![26]

Yet that which gives these stories an inestimable worth is what for want of a better term we may call their atmosphere. They are legendary, worked over, exaggerated, false even, if you please, but they give us with a vivacity and intensity of coloring something that we shall search for in vain elsewhere--the surroundings in which St. Francis lived. More than any other biography the Fioretti transport us to Umbria, to the mountains of the March of Ancona; they make us visit the hermitages, and mingle with the life, half childish, half angelic, which was that of their inhabitants.

It is difficult to pronounce upon the name of the author. His work was only that of gathering the flowers of his bouquet from written and oral tradition. The question whether he wrote in Latin or Italian has been much discussed and appears to be not yet settled; what is certain is that though this work may be anterior to the Conformities,[27] it is a little later than the Chronicle of the Tribulations, for it would be strange that it made no mention of Angelo Clareno, if it was written after his death.

This book is in fact an essentially local[28] chronicle; the author has in mind to erect a monument to the glory of the Brothers Minor of the March of Ancona. This province, which is evidently his own, "does it not resemble the sky blazing with stars? The holy Brothers who dwelt in it, like the stars in the sky, have illuminated and adorned the Order of St. Francis, filling the world with their examples and teaching." He is acquainted with the smallest villages,[29] each having at a short distance its monastery, well apart, usually near a torrent, in the edge of a wood, and above, near the hilltop, a few almost inaccessible cells, the asylums of Brothers even more than the others in love with contemplation and retirement.[30]

The chapters that concern St. Francis and the Umbrian Brothers are only a sort of introduction; Egidio, Masseo, Leo on one side, St. Clara on the other, are witnesses that the ideal at Portiuncula and St. Damian was indeed the same to which in later days Giachimo di Massa, Pietro di Monticulo, Conrad di Offida, Giovanni di Penna, and Giovanni della Verna endeavored to attain.

While most of the other legends give us the Franciscan tradition of the great convents, the Fioretti are almost the only document which shows it as it was perpetuated in the hermitages and among the people. In default of accuracy of detail, the incidents which are related here contain a higher truth--their tone is true. Here are words that were never uttered, acts that never took place, but the soul and the heart of the early Franciscans were surely what they are depicted here.

The Fioretti have the living truth that the pencil gives. Something is wanting in the physiognomy of the Poverello when we forget his conversation with Brother Leo on the perfect joy, his journey to Sienna with Masseo, or even the conversion of the wolf of Gubbio.

We must not, however, exaggerate the legendary side of the Fioretti: there are not more that two or three of these stories of which the kernel is not historic and easy to find. The famous episode of the wolf of Gubbio, which is unquestionably the most marvellous of all the series, is only, to speak the engraver's language, the third state of the story of the robbers of Monte Casale[31] mingled with a legend of the Verna.

The stories crowd one another in this book like flocks of memories that come upon us pell-mell, and in which insignificant details occupy a larger place than the most important events; our memory is, in fact, an overgrown child, and what it retains of a man is generally a feature, a word, a gesture. Scientific history is trying to react, to mark the relative value of facts, to bring forward the important ones, to cast into shade that which is secondary. Is it not a mistake? Is there such a thing as the important and the secondary? How is it going to be marked?

The popular imagination is right: what we need to retain of a man is the expression of countenance in which lives his whole being, a heart-cry, a gesture that expresses his personality. Do we not find all of Jesus in the words of the Last Supper? And all of St. Francis in his address to brother wolf and his sermon to the birds?

Let us beware of despising these documents in which the first Franciscans are described as they saw themselves to be. Unfolding under the Umbrian sky at the foot of the olives of St. Damian, or the firs of the March of Ancona, these wild flowers have a perfume and an originality which we look for in vain in the carefully cultivated flowers of a learned gardener.

APPENDICES OF THE FIORETTI

In the first of these appendices the compiler has divided into five chapters all the information on the stigmata which he was able to gather. It is easy to understand the success of the Fioretti. The people fell in love with these stories, in which St. Francis and his companions appear both more human and more divine than in the other legends; and they began very soon to feel the need of so completing them as to form a veritable biography.[32]

The second, entitled Life of Brother Ginepro, is only indirectly connected with St. Francis; yet it deserves to be studied, for it offers the same kind of interest as the principal collection, to which it is doubtless posterior. In these fourteen chapters we find the principal features of the life of this Brother, whose mad and saintly freaks still furnish material for conversation in Umbrian monasteries. These unpretending pages discover to us one aspect of the Franciscan heart. The official historians have thought it their duty to keep silence upon this Brother, who to them appeared to be a supremely indiscreet personage, very much in the way of the good name of the Order in the eyes of the laics. They were right from their point of view, but we owe a debt of gratitude to the Fioretti for having preserved for us this personality, so blithe, so modest, and with so arch a good nature. Certainly St. Francis was more like Ginepro than like Brother Elias or St. Bonaventura.[33]

The third, Life of Brother Egidio, appears to be on the whole the most ancient document on the life of the famous Ecstatic that we possess. It is very possible that these stories might be traced to Brother Giovanni, to whom the Three Companions appeal in their prologue.

In the defective texts given us in the existing editions we perceive the hand of an annotator whose notes have slipped into the text,[34] but in spite of that this life is one of the most important of the secondary texts. This always itinerant brother, one of whose principal preoccupations is to live by his labor, is one of the most original and agreeable figures in Francis's surroundings, and it is in lives of this sort that we must seek the true meaning of some of the passages of the Rule, and precisely in those that have had the most to suffer from the enterprise of exegetes.