Life of St. Francis of Assisi

[2] Probably at Otricoli, which lies on the high-road between Rome and Spoleto. Orte is an hour and a half further on. It is the ancient Otriculum, where many antiquities have been found.

[3] 1 Cel., 35; Bon., 40 and 41.

[4] The only road connecting Celano with Rome, as well as with all Central and Northern Italy, passes by Aquila, Rieti, and Terni, where it joins the high-roads leading from the north toward Rome.

[5] 1 Cel., 36 and 37; 3 Soc., 54; Bon., 45-48.

[6] Isaiah, lv., 2.

[7] This Order deserves to be better known; it was founded under Alexander III. and rapidly spread all over Central Italy and the East. In Francis's lifetime it had in Italy and the Holy Land about forty houses dedicated to the care of lepers. It is very probable that it was at San Salvatore delle Pareti that Francis visited these unhappy sufferers. He there made the particular acquaintance of a Cruciger named Morico. The latter afterward falling ill, Francis sent him a remedy which would cure him, informing him at the same time that he was to become his disciple, which shortly afterward took place. The hospital San Salvatore has disappeared; it stood in the place now called Ospedaletto, where a small chapel now stands half way between Assisi and Santa Maria degli Angeli. It was from there that the dying Francis blessed Assisi. For Morico vide 3 Soc., 35; Bon., 49; 2 Cel., 3, 128; Conform., 63b.--For the hospital vide Bon., 49; Conform., 135a, 1; Honorii III. opera, Horoy, t. i., col. 206. Cf. Potthast, 7746; L. Auvray, Registres de Gregoire IX., Paris, 1890, 4to, no. 209. For the Crucigeri in the time of St. Francis vide the interesting bull Cum tu fili prior, of July 8, 1203; Migne, Inn. op., t. ii., col. 125 ff. Cf. Potthast, 1959, and Cum pastoris, April 5, 1204; Migne, loc. cit., 319. Cf. Potthast, 2169 and 4474.

[8] 3 Soc., 55.

[9] All this yet remains in its primitive state. The road which went from Assisi to the now ruined Abbey of Mount Subasio (almost on the summit of the mountain) passed the Carceri, where there was a little chapel built by the Benedictines.

[10] Illi qui religiose volunt stare in eremis sint tres aut quatuor ad plus. Duo ex ipsis sint matres, et habeant duos filios, vel unum ad minus. Illi duo teneant vitam Marthae et alii duo vitam Mariae Magdalenae. Assisi MS., 338, 43a-b; text given also in Conf., 143a, 1, from which Wadding borrows it for his edition of the Opuscules of St. Francis. Cf. 2 Cel., 3, 113. It is possible that we have here a fragment of the Rule, which must have been composed toward 1217.

[11] 1 Cel., 42 and 43; 3 Soc., 55; Bon., 41.

[12] 1 Cel., 42-44.

[13] 2 Cel., 1, 15; Bon., 65. These two authors do not say where the event took place; but there appears to be no reason for suspecting the indication of Rivo-Torto given by the Speculum, fo. 21a.

[14] 2 Cel., 3, 110. Cf. Spec., 22a.

[15] 1 Cel., 47; Bon., 43.

[16] There are few events of the thirteenth century that offer more documents or are more obscure than this one. The chroniclers of the most different countries speak of it at length. Here is one of the shortest but most exact of the notices, given by an eye-witness (Annals of Genoa of the years 1197-1219, apud Mon. Germ. hist. Script., t. 18): 1212 in mense Augusti, die Sabbati, octava Kalendarum Septembris, intravit civitatem Janue quidam puer Teutonicus nomine Nicholaus peregrinationis causa, et cum eo multitudo maxima pelegrinorum defferentes cruces et bordonos atque scarsellas ultra septem millia arbitratu boni viri inter homines et feminas et puellos et puellas. Et die dominica sequenti de civitate exierunt.--Cf. Giacomo di Viraggio: Muratori, t. ix., col. 46: Dicebant quod mare debebat apud Januam siccari et sic ipsi debebant in Hierusalem proficisci. Multi autem inter eos erant filii Nobilium, quos ipsi etiam cum meretricibus destinarunt (!) The most tragic account is that of Alberic, who relates the fate of the company that embarked at Marseilles. Mon. Ger. hist. Script., t. 23, p. 894.

[17] The Benedictine chronicler, Albert von Stade (Mon. Ger. hist. Script., t. 16, pp. 271-379), thus closes his notice of the children's crusade: Adhuc quo devenerint ignorantur sed plurimi redierunt, a quibus cum quaereretur causa cursus dixerunt se nescire. Nudae etiam mulieres circa idem tempus nihil loquentes per villas et civitates cucurrerunt. Loc. cit., p. 355.

[18] Chron. Veronese, ann. 1238 (Muratori, Scriptores Rer. Ital., t. viii., p. 626). Cf. Barbarano de' Mironi: Hist. Eccles. di Vicenza, t. ii., pp. 79-84.

[19] The Brothers were at first called Viri paenitentiales de civitate Assisii (3 Soc., 37); it appears that they had a momentary thought of calling themselves Pauperes de Assisio, but they were doubtless dissuaded from this at Rome, as too closely resembling that of the Pauperes de Lugduno. Vide Burchardi chronicon., p. 376; vide Introd., cap. 5.

[20] Vide Rule of 1221, cap. 7. Cf. 1 Cel., 38, and Bon., 78.

[21] 1 Cel., 36.

[22] Storia d'Assisi, t. i., pp. 123-129.

It was doubtless toward the spring of 1211 that the Brothers quitted Rivo-Torto. They were engaged in prayer one day, when a peasant appeared with an ass, which he noisily drove before him into the poor shelter.

"Go in, go in!" he cried to his beast; "we shall be most comfortable here." It appeared that he was afraid that if the Brothers remained there much longer they would begin to think this deserted place was their own.[1] Such rudeness was very displeasing to Francis, who immediately arose and departed, followed by his companions.

Now that they were so numerous the Brothers could no longer continue their wandering life in all respects as in the past; they had need of a permanent shelter and above all of a little chapel. They addressed themselves in vain first to the bishop and then to the canons of San Rufino for the loan of what they needed, but were more fortunate with the abbot of the Benedictines of Mount Subasio, who ceded to them in perpetuity the use of a chapel already very dear to their hearts, Santa Maria degli Angeli or the Portiuncula.[2]

Francis was enchanted; he saw a mysterious harmony, ordained by God himself, between the name of the humble sanctuary and that of his Order. The brethren quickly built for themselves a few huts; a quickset hedge served as enclosing wall, and thus in three or four days was organized the first Franciscan convent.

For ten years they were satisfied with this. These ten years are the heroic period of the Order. St. Francis, in full possession of his ideal, will seek to inculcate it upon his disciples and will succeed sometimes; but already the too rapid multiplication of the brotherhood will provoke some symptoms of relaxation.

The remembrance of the beginning of this period has drawn from the lips of Thomas of Celano a sort of canticle in honor of the monastic life. It is the burning and untranslatable commentary of the Psalmist's cry: "_Behold how sweet and pleasant it is to be brethren and to dwell together._"

Their cloister was the forest which then extended on all sides of Portiuncula, occupying a large part of the plain. There they gathered around their master to receive his spiritual counsels, and thither they retired to meditate and pray.[3] It would be a gross mistake, however, to suppose that contemplation absorbed them completely during the days which were not consecrated to missionary tours: a part of their time was spent in manual labor.

The intentions of St. Francis have been more misapprehended on this point than on any other, but it may be said that nowhere is he more clear than when he ordains that his friars shall gain their livelihood by the work of their hands. He never dreamed of creating a mendicant order, he created a laboring order. It is true we shall often see him begging and urging his disciples to do as much, but these incidents ought not to mislead us; they are meant to teach that when a friar arrived in any locality and there spent his strength for long days in dispensing spiritual bread to famished souls, he ought not to blush to receive material bread in exchange. To work was the rule, to beg the exception; but this exception was in nowise dishonorable. Did not Jesus, the Virgin, the disciples live on bread bestowed? Was it not rendering a great service to those to whom they resorted to teach them charity?

Francis in his poetic language gave the name of mensa Domini, the table of the Lord, to this table of love around which gathered the little poor ones. The bread of charity is the bread of angels; and it is also that of the birds, which reap not nor gather into barns.

We are far enough, in this case, from that mendicity which is understood as a means of existence and the essential condition of a life of idleness. It is the opposite extreme, and we are true and just to St. Francis and to the origin of the mendicant orders only when we do not separate the obligation of labor from the praise of mendicity.[4]

No doubt this zeal did not last long, and Thomas of Celano already entitles his chapters, "_Lament before God over the idleness and gluttony of the friars_;" but we must not permit this speedy and inevitable decadence to veil from our sight the holy and manly beauty of the origin.

With all his gentleness Francis knew how to show an inflexible severity toward the idle; he even went so far as to dismiss a friar who refused to work.[5] Nothing in this matter better shows the intentions of the Poverello than the life of Brother Egidio, one of his dearest companions, him of whom he said with a smile: "He is one of the paladins of my Round Table."