Life of St. Francis of Assisi by Paul Sabatier (best novels of all time txt) 📖

domain by no means gave them pause. Not one stone of it was left upon another.[29] Then, with incredible rapidity they enclosed their city with walls, parts of which are still standing, their formidable ruins a witness to the zeal with which the whole population labored on them.

It is natural to think that Francis, then seventeen years old, was one of the most gallant laborers of those glorious days, and it was perhaps there that he gained the habit of carrying stones and wielding the trowel which was destined to serve him so well a few years later.

Unhappily his fellow-citizens had not the sense to profit by their hard-won liberty. The lower classes, who in this revolution had become aware of their strength, determined to follow out the victory by taking possession of the property of the nobles. The latter took refuge in their fortified houses in the interior of the city, or in their castles in the suburbs. The townspeople burned down several of the latter, whereupon counts and barons made request of aid and succor from the neighboring cities.

Perugia was at this time at the apogee of its power,[30] and had already made many efforts to reduce Assisi to submission. It therefore received the fugitives with alacrity, and making their cause its own, declared war upon Assisi. This was in 1202. An encounter took place in the plain about half way between the two cities, not far from Ponte San Giovanni . Assisi was defeated, and Francis, who was in the ranks, was made prisoner.[31]

The treachery of the nobles had not been universal; a few had fought with the people. It was with them and not with the popolani that Francis, in consideration of the nobility of his manners,[32] passed the time of his captivity, which lasted an entire year. He greatly astonished his companions by his lightness of heart. Very often they thought him almost crazy. Instead of passing his time in wailing and cursing he made plans for the future, about which he was glad to talk to any one who came along. To his fancy life was what the songs of the troubadours had painted it; he dreamed of glorious adventures, and always ended by saying: "You will see that one day I shall be adored by the whole world."[33]

During these long months Francis must have been pretty rudely undeceived with respect to those nobles whom from afar he had so heartily admired. However that may be, he retained with them not only his frankness of speech, but also his full freedom of action. One of them, a knight, had always held aloof from the others, out of vanity and bad temper. Francis, far from leaving him to himself, always showed him affection, and finally had the joy of reconciling him with his fellow-captives.

A compromise was finally arrived at between the counts and the people of Assisi. In November, 1203, the arbitrators designated by the two parties announced their decision. The commons of Assisi were to repair in a certain measure the damage done to the lords, and the latter agreed, on their part, to make no further alliances without authorization of the commons.[34] Rural serfage was maintained, which proves that the revolution had been directed by the burghers, and for their own profit. Ten years more were not, however, to elapse before the common people also would succeed in achieving liberty. In this cause we shall again see Francis fighting on the side of the oppressed, earning the title of
Patriarch of religious democracy which has been accorded him by one of his compatriots.[35]

The agreement being made the prisoners detained at Perugia were released, and Francis returned to Assisi. He was twenty-two years old.


FOOTNOTES:

[1] Eleven hundred and one metres above the level of the sea;
the plain around Assisi has an average of two hundred, and the
town of two hundred and fifty, metres above.

[2] As in the majority of Tuscan cities the dimensions of the
houses were formerly fixed by law.

[3] The biographies say that he died (October 3, 1226) in his
forty-fifth year. But the terms are not precise enough to make
the date 1181 improbable. For that matter the question is of
small importance. A Franciscan of Erfurt, about the middle of
the thirteenth century, fixes the date at 1182. Pertz, vol.
xxiv., p. 193.

[4] A number of different genealogies have been fabricated for
Francis; they prove only one thing, the wreck of the Franciscan
idea. How little they understood their hero, who thought to
magnify and glorify him by making him spring from a noble
family! " Quæ rero ," says Father Suysken, S. J., " de ejus
gentilitio insigni disserit Waddingus, non lubet mihi attingere.
Factis et virtutibus eluxit S. Franciscus non proavorum
insignibus aut titulis, quos nec desideravit ." (A. SS. p.
557a.) It could not be better said.

In the fourteenth century a whole cycle of legends had gathered
about his birth. It could not have been otherwise. They all grow
out of the story that tells of an old man who comes knocking at
the parents' door, begging them to let him take the infant in
his arms, when he announces that it will do great things. Under
this form the episode certainly presents nothing impossible, but
very soon marvellous incidents begin to gather around this
nucleus until it becomes unrecognizable. Bartholomew of Pisa has
preserved it in almost its primitive form. Conform ., 28a 2.
Francis certainly had several brothers [3 Soc., 9. Mater ...
quæ cum præ ceteris filiis diligebat ], but they have left no
trace in history except the incident related farther on. Vide p.
44. Christofani publishes several official pieces concerning
Angelo , St. Francis's brother, and his descendants: Storie
d'Assisi , vol. i., p. 78 ff. In these documents Angelo is called
Angelus Pice , and his son Johannectus olim Angeli domine
Pice , appellations which might be cited in favor of the noble
origin of Pica.

[5] Documentary History of Languedoc, iii., p. 607.

[6] The Cathedral of Assisi. To this day all the children of the
town are baptized there; the other churches are without fonts.

[7] 3 Soc., 1; 2 Cel., 1, 1. Vide also 3 Soc., edition of
Pesaro, 1831.

[8] The langue d'oïl was at this epoch the international
language of Europe; in Italy it was the language of games and
tourneys, and was spoken in the petty princely courts of
Northern Italy. Vide Dante, De vulgari eloquio , lib. I., cap.
x. Brunetto Latini wrote in French because "the speech of France
is more delectable and more common to all people." At the other
end of Europe the Abbot of Stade, in Westphalia, spoke of the
nobility of the Gallic dialect . Ann. 1224 apud Pertz,
Script. xvi. We shall find St. Francis often making allusions to
the tales of the Round Table and the Chanson de Roland .

[9] We must not be led astray by certain remarks upon his
ignorance, from which one might at first conclude that he knew
absolutely nothing; for example, 2 Cel., 3, 45: Quamvis homo
iste beatus nullis fuerit scientiæ studiis innutritus . This
evidently refers to science such as the Franciscans soon came to
apprehend it, and to theology in particular.

The close of the passage in Celano is itself an evident proof of
this.

[10] Bon., 219; Cf. A. SS., p. 560a. 1 Cel., 23.

[11] Ozanam, Documents inédits pour servir à l'histoire
littéraire d'Italie du VIIIe au XIIIe siècle . Paris, 1851, 8vo,
pp. 65, 68, 71, 73. Fauriel, Dante et les origines de la
littérature italienne . Paris, 1854, 2 vols., 8vo, ii., p. 332,
379, 429.

[12] V. 3 Soc., 51 and 67; 2 Cel., 3, 110; Bon., 55; 2 Cel., 3,
99; Eccl., 6. Bernard de Besse, Turin MS., fo. 96a, calls
Brother Leo the secretary of St. Francis.

[13] See page 357, n. 8. Bon., 51 and 308.

[14] 1 Cel., 16; 3 Soc., 10; 23; 24; 33; 2 Cel., 1, 8; 3, 67.
See also the Testament of St. Clara and the Speculum, 119a.

[15] Primum namque cum fari vel balbutire incipiunt, turpia
quædam et execrabilia valde signis et vocibus edocentur pueri ii
nondum nati: et cum tempus ablactationis advenerit quædam luxu
et lascivia plena non solum fari sed et operari coguntur.... Sed
et cum paulo plusculum ætate profecerint, se ipsis impellentibus,
semper ad deteriora opera dilabuntur. 1 Cel., 1.

[16] 2 Cel., 1. Cf. Conform. , 14a, 1. There is nothing
impossible in her having been of Provençal origin, but there is