Life of St. Francis of Assisi by Paul Sabatier (i am malala young readers edition TXT) 📖

24, 33, and 67.—181a. 2, cf. 3 Soc., 36.—229b, 2, cf. 3 Soc., 14. etc. The reading of 3 Soc. which Bartolommeo had before his eyes was pretty much the same we have to day, for he says, 181a, 2. referring to 3 Soc., 67: "Ut habetur quasi in fine leg. 3 Soc."

49. Fo 111a, 1, Sic habetur in leg. ant., corresponds literally with 1 Cel., 83.—144a, 2. Franciscus in leg. ant. cap. v. de zelo ad religionem, to 1 Cel. 106.

50. Fo 111b, 1. De predicantibus loqueus sic dicebat in ant. leg. Cf. 2 Cel., 3, 99 and 106. 140b, 1. Cf. 2 Cel., 3, 84.—144b, 1, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 45—144a, 1, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 95 and 15.—225b, 2, cf. 2 Cel., 3, 116.

51. Fo 31a, 1. Vide 2 Cel., 3, 83.—143a, 2. Vide 2 Cel., 3, 65 and 116.—144a, 1. Vide 2 Cel., 3, 94.—170b. 1. Vide 2 Cel., 3, 11.

52. Fo 14a, 2.—32a. 1.—101a, 2.—169b, 1.—144b, 2.—142a, 2.—143b, 2.—168b, 1.—144b, 1.

53. Chapters 18 (chapter of the mats) and 25 (lepers cured) of the Fioretti are found in Latin in the Conf. as borrowed from the Leg. Ant. Vide 174b, 1, and 207a. 1.

Finally, according to fo 168b, 2, it is also from the Leg. Ant. that the description of the coat, such as we find at the end of the Chronique des Tribulations, was borrowed. See Archiv., t. ii., p. 153.

54. Fo 182a, 2; cf. 51b, 1; 144a, 1.

55. He died December 12, 1306, at Bastia, near Assisi. See upon him Chron. Tribul. Archiv., ii.; 311 and 312; Conform., 60, 119, and 153.

56. Although the history of the Indulgence of Portiuncula was of all subjects the one most largely treated in the Conformities, 151b, 2—157a, 2, not once does Bartolommeo of Pisa refer to it in the Legenda Antiqua. It seems, then, that this collection also was silent as to this celebrated pardon.

57. Published with extreme care by the Franciscan Fathers of the Observance in t. ii. of the Analecta Franciscana, ad Claræ Aquas (Quaracchi, near Florence), 1888, 1 vol., crown 8vo, of xxxvi.-612 pp. This edition, as much from the critical point of view of the text, its correctness, its various readings and notes, as from the material point of view, is perfect and makes the more desirable a publication of the chronicles of the xxiv. generals and of Salimbeni by the same editors. The beginning up to the year 1262 has been published already by Dr. Karl Evers under the title Analecta ad Fratrum Minorum historiam, Leipsic, 1882, 4to of 89 pp.

58. I have been able only to procure the Italian edition published by Horatio Diola under the title Croniche degli Ordini instituti dal P. S. Francesco, 3 vols., 8vo, Venice, 1606.

Table of
Contents

V CHRONICLES OUTSIDE OF THE ORDER I. Jacques de Vitry

The following documents, which we can only briefly indicate, are of inestimable value; they emanate from men particularly well situated to give us the impression which the Umbrian prophet produced on his generation.

Jacques de Vitry1 has left extended writings on St. Francis. Like a prudent man who has already seen many religious madmen, he is at first reserved; but soon this sentiment disappears, and we find in him only a humble and active admiration for the Apostolic Man.

He speaks of him in a letter which he wrote immediately after the taking of Damietta (November, 1219), to his friends in Lorraine, to describe it to them.2 A few lines suffice to describe St. Francis and point out his irresistible influence. There is not a single passage in the Franciscan biographers which gives a more living idea of the apostolate of the Poverello.

He returns to him more at length in his Historia Occidentalis, devoting to him the thirty-second chapter of this curious work.3 These pages, vibrating with enthusiasm, were written during Francis's lifetime,4 at the time when the most enlightened members of the Church, who had believed themselves to be living in the evening of the world, in vespere mundi tendentis ad occasum, suddenly saw in the direction of Umbria the light of a new day.

II. Thomas of Spalato

An archdeacon of the Cathedral of Spalato, who in 1220 was studying at Bologna, has left us a very living portrait of St. Francis and the memory of the impression which his preachings produced in that learned town.5

Something of his enthusiasm has passed into his story; we feel that that day, August 15, 1220, when he met the Poverello of Assisi, was one of the best of his life.6

III. Divers Chronicles

The continuation of William of Tyre7 brings us a new account of Francis's attempt to conquer the Soudan. This narrative, the longest of all three we have on this subject, contains no feature essentially new, but it gives one more witness to the historic value of the Franciscan legends.

Finally, there are two chronicles written during Francis's life, which, without giving anything new, speak with accuracy of his foundation, and prove how rapidly that religious renovation which started in Umbria was being propagated to the very ends of Europe. The anonymous chronicler of Monte Sereno8 in fact wrote about 1225, and tells us, not without regret, of the brilliant conquests of the Franciscans.

Burchard,9 Abbot Prémontré d'Ursberg (died in 1226), who was in Rome in 1211, leaves us a very curious criticism of the Order.

The Brothers Minor appeared to him a little like an orthodox branch of the Poor Men of Lyons. He even desires that the pope, while approving the Franciscans, should do so with a view to satisfy, in the measure of the possible, the aspirations manifested by that heresy and that of the Humiliati.

It is impossible to attribute any value whatever to the long pages given to St. Francis by Matthew Paris.10 His information is correct wherever the activities of the friars are concerned, and he could examine the work around him.11 They are absolutely fantastic when he comes to the life of St. Francis, and we can only feel surprised to find M. Hase12 adopting the English monk's account of the stigmata.

The notice which he gives of Francis contains as many errors as sentences; he makes him born of a family illustrious by its nobility, makes him study theology from his infancy (hoc didicerat in litteris et theologicis disciplinis quibus ab ætate tenera incubuerat, usque ad notitiam perfectam), etc.13

It would be useless to enlarge this list and mention those chroniclers who simply noticed the foundation of the Order, its approbation, and the death of St. Francis,14 or those which spoke of him at length, but simply by copying a Franciscan legend.15

It suffices to point out by way of memory the long chapter consecrated to St. Francis in the Golden Legend. Giachimo di Voraggio (Cross 1298) there sums up with accuracy but without order the essential features of the first legends and in particular the Second Life by Celano.16

As for the inscription of Santa Maria del Vescovado at Assisi it is too unformed to be anything but a simple object of curiosity.17

I have given up preparing a complete bibliography of works concerning St. Francis, that task having been very well done by the Abbé Ulysse Chevalier in his Répertoire des sources historiques du moyen age, Bio-Bibliographie, cols. 765-767 and 2588-2590, Paris, 1 vol., 4to, 1876-1888. To it I refer my readers.