CHAPTER XV

THE RULE OF 1221[1]

The winter of 1220-1221 was spent by Francis chiefly in fixing his

thought by writing. Until now he had been too much the man of action to

have been able to give much thought to anything but the _living word_,

but from this time his exhausted forces compelled him to satisfy his

longing for souls by some other means than evangelizing tours. We have

seen that the chapter of September 29, 1220, on one side, and the bull

_Cum secundum_ on the other, had fixed in advance a certain number of

points. For the rest, complete liberty had been given him, not indeed to

make a final and unchangeable statement of his ideas, but to set them

forth. The substance of legislative power had passed into the hands of

the ministers.[2]

That which we call the Rule of 1221 is, then, nothing more than a

proposed law, submitted to a representative government at its

parliament. The head of authority will one day give it to the world, so

thoroughly modified and altered that Francis's name at the head of such

a document will give but small promise, and quite indirectly, that it

will contain his personal opinion.

Never was man less capable of making a Rule than Francis. In reality,

that of 1210 and the one which the pope solemnly approved in November

29, 1223, had little in common except the name. In the former all is

alive, free, spontaneous; it is a point of departure, an inspiration; it

may be summed up in two phrases: the appeal of Jesus to man, "Come,

follow me," the act of man, "He left all and followed him." To the call

of divine love man replies by the joyful gift of himself, and that quite

naturally, by a sort of instinct. At this height of mysticism any

regulation is not only useless, it is almost a profanation; at the very

least it is the symptom of a doubt. Even in earthly loves, when people

truly love each other nothing is asked, nothing promised.

The Rule of 1223, on the other hand, is a reciprocal contract. On the

divine side the call has become a command; on the human, the free

impulse of love has become an act of submission, by which life eternal

will be earned.

At the bottom of it all is the antinome of law and love. Under the reign

of law we are the mercenaries of God, bound down to an irksome task,

but paid a hundred-fold, and with an indisputable right to our wages.

Under the rule of love we are the sons of God, and coworkers with him;

we give ourselves to him without bargaining and without expectation; we

follow Jesus, not because this is well, but because we can do no

otherwise, because we feel that he has loved us and we love him in our

turn. An inward flame draws us irresistibly toward him: _Et Spiritus et

Sponsa dicunt: Veni_.

It is necessary to dwell a little on the antithesis between these two

Rules. That of 1210 alone is truly Franciscan; that of 1223 is

indirectly the work of the Church, endeavoring to assimilate with

herself the new movement, which with one touch she transforms and turns

wholly from its original purpose.

That of 1221 marks an intermediate stage. It is the clash of two

principles, or rather of two spirits; they approach, they touch, but

they are not merged in one another; here and there is a mixture, but

nowhere combination; we can separate the divers elements without

difficulty. Their condition is the exact reflection of what was going on

in Francis's soul, and of the rapid evolution of the Order.

To aid him in his work Francis joined to himself Brother Cæsar of

Speyer, who would be especially useful to him by his profound

acquaintance with the sacred texts.

What strikes us first, on glancing over this Rule of 1221, is its

extraordinary length; it covers not less than ten folio pages, while

that of 1223 has no more than three. Take away from it the passages

which emanate from the papacy and those which were fixed at the previous

chapter, you will hardly have shortened it by a column; what remains is

not a Rule, but a series of impassioned appeals, in which the father's

heart speaks, not to command but to convince, to touch, to awaken in

his children the instinct of love.

It is all chaotic and even contradictory,[3] without order, a medley

of outbursts of joy and bitter sobs, of hopes and regrets. There are

passages in which the passion of the soul speaks in every possible tone,

runs over the whole gamut from the softest note to the most masculine,

from those which are as joyous and inspiring as the blast of a clarion,

to those which are agitated, stifled, like a voice from beyond the tomb.

"By the holy love which is in God, I pray all the friars,

ministers as well as others, to put aside every obstacle, every

care, every anxiety, that they may be able to consecrate

themselves entirely to serve, love, and honor the Lord God, with

a pure heart and a sincere purpose, which is what he asks above

all things. Let us have always in ourselves a tabernacle and a

home for him who is the Lord God most mighty, Father, Son, and

Holy Spirit, who says, 'Watch and pray always, that you may be

found worthy to escape all the things which will come to pass,

and to appear upright before the Son of man.'

"Let us then keep in the true way, the life, the truth, and the

holy Gospel of Him who has deigned for our sake to leave his

Father that he may manifest his name to us, saying, 'Father, I

have manifested thy name to those whom thou hast given me, and

the words which thou hast given me I have given also unto them.

They have received them, and they have known that I am come from

thee, and they believe that thou hast sent me. I pray for them;

I pray not for the world, but for those whom thou hast given me,

that they may be one as we are one. I have said these things,

being still in the world, that they may have joy in themselves.

I have given them thy words, and the world hath hated them,

because they are not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldst

take them out of the world, but that thou wilt keep them from

the evil. Sanctify them through the truth; thy word is truth. As

thou hast sent me into the world I have also sent them into the

world, and for their sake I sanctify myself that they may

themselves be sanctified in the truth; and neither pray I for

these alone, but for all those who shall believe on me through

their words, that we all may be one, and that the world may know

that thou hast sent me, and that thou lovest them as thou hast

loved me. I have made known unto them thy name, that the love

wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them.'

PRAYER.

"Almighty, most high and sovereign God, holy Father, righteous

Lord, King of heaven and earth, we give thee thanks for thine

own sake, in that by thy holy will, and by thine only Son and

thy Holy Spirit thou hast created all things spiritual and

corporeal, and that after having made us in thine image and

after thy likeness, thou didst place us in that paradise which

we lost by our sin. And we give thee thanks because after having

created us by thy Son, by that love which is thine, and which

thou hast had for us, thou hast made him to be born very God and

very man of the glorious and blessed Mary, ever Virgin, and

because by his cross, his blood, and his death thou hast willed

to ransom us poor captives. And we give thee thanks that thy Son

is to return in his glorious majesty to send to eternal fire the

accursed ones, those who have not repented and have not known

thee; and to say to those who have known and adored thee and

served thee by repentance, 'Come, ye blessed of my Father,

inherit the kingdom prepared for you from before the foundation

of the world.' And since we, wretched and sinful, are not worthy

to name thee, we humbly ask our Lord Jesus Christ, thy

well-beloved Son, in whom thou art well pleased, that he may

give thee thanks for everything; and also the Holy Spirit, the

Paraclete, as it may please thee and them; for this we

supplicate him who has all power with thee, and by whom thou

hast done such great things for us. Alleluia.

"And we pray the glorious Mother, the blessed Mary, ever Virgin,

St. Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and all the choir of blessed

Spirits, Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Principalities

and Powers, Virtues and Angels, Archangels, John the Baptist,

John the Evangelist, Peter, Paul, and the holy Patriarchs, the

Prophets, the Holy Innocents, Apostles, Evangelists, Disciples,

Martyrs, Confessors, Virgins, the blessed ones, Elijah and

Enoch, and all the saints who have been, shall be, and are, we

humbly pray them by thy love to give thee thanks for these

things, as it pleases thee, sovereign, true, eternal and living

God, and also to thy Son, our most holy Lord Jesus Christ, and

to the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, forever and ever. Amen.

Alleluia.

"And we supplicate all those who desire to serve the Lord God,

in the bosom of the Catholic and Apostolic Church, all priests,

deacons, sub-deacons, acolytes and exorcists, readers, porters,

all clerks, all monks and nuns, all children and little ones,

paupers and exiles, kings, and princes, workmen and laborers,

servants and masters, the virgins, the continent and the

married, laics, men and women, all children, youths, young men

and old men, the sick and the well, the small and the great, the

peoples of every tribe and tongue and nation, all men in every

part of the world whatsoever, who are or who shall be, we pray

and beseech them, all we Brothers Minor, unprofitable servants,

that all together, with one accord we persevere in the true

faith and in penitence, for outside of these no person can be

saved.

"Let us all, with all our heart and all our thought, and all our

strength, and all our mind, with all our vigor, with all our

effort, with all our affection, with all our inward powers, our

desires, and our wills, love the Lord God, who has given to us

all his body, all his soul, all his life, and still gives them

every day to each one of us. He created us, he saved us by his

grace alone; he has been, he still is, full of goodness to us,

us wicked and worthless, corrupt and offensive, ungrateful,

ignorant, bad. We desire nothing else, we wish for nothing else;

may nothing else please us, or have any attraction for us,

except the Creator, the Redeemer, the Saviour, sole and true

God, who is full of goodness, who is all goodness, who is the

true and supreme good, who alone is kind, pious, and merciful,

gracious, sweet, and gentle, who alone is holy, righteous, true,

upright, who alone has benignity, innocence, and purity; of

whom, by whom, and in whom is all the pardon, all the grace, all

the glory of all penitents, of all the righteous and all the

saints who are rejoicing in heaven.

"Then let nothing again hinder, let nothing again separate,

nothing again retard us, and may we all, so long as we live, in

every place, at every hour, at every time, every day and

unceasingly, truly and humbly believe. Let us have in our

hearts, let us love, adore, serve, praise, bless, glorify,

exalt, magnify, thank the most high, sovereign, eternal God,

Trinity and Unity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Creator of all

men, both of those who believe and hope in him and of those who

love him. He is without beginning and without end, immutable and

invisible, ineffable, incomprehensible, indiscernible, blessed,

lauded, glorious, exalted, sublime, most high, sweet, lovely,

delectable, and always worthy of being desired above all things,

in all the ages of ages. Amen."

Have not these artless repetitions a mysterious charm which steals

deliciously into the very depths of the heart? Is there not in them a

sort of sacrament of which the words are only the rude vehicle? Francis

is taking refuge in God, as the child throws itself upon its mother's

bosom, and in the incoherence of its weakness and its joy stammers out

all the words it knows, repeating by them all only the eternal "I am

thine" of love and faith.

There is in them also something which recalls, not only by citations,

but still more by the very inspiration of the thought, that which we

call the sacerdotal prayer of Christ. The apostle of poverty appears

here as if suspended between earth and heaven by the very strength of

his love, consecrated the priest of a new worship by the inward and

irresistible unction of the Spirit. He does not offer sacrifice like the

priest of the past time; he sacrifices himself, and carries in his body

all the woes of humanity.

The more beautiful are these words from the mystical point of view, the

less do they correspond with what is expected in a Rule; they have

neither the precision nor the brief and imperative forms of one. The

transformations which they were to undergo in order to become the code

of 1223 were therefore fatal when we consider the definitive

intervention of the Church of Rome to direct the Franciscan movement.

It is probable that this rough draft of a Rule, such as we have it now,

is that which was distributed in the chapter of Whitsunday, 1221. The

variants, sometimes capital, which are found in the different texts, can

be nothing other than outlines of the corrections proposed by the

provincial ministers. Once admit the idea of considering this document

as a rough draft, we are very soon brought to think that it had already

undergone a rapid preliminary revision, a sort of pruning, in which

ecclesiastical authority has caused to disappear all that was in

flagrant contradiction with its own projects for the Order.

If it is asked, who could have made these curtailments, one name springs

at once to our lips--Ugolini. He criticised its exaggerated proportions,

its want of unity and precision. Later on it is related that Francis had

seen in a dream a multitude of starving friars, and himself unable to

satisfy their wants, because though all around him lay innumerable

crumbs of bread, they disappeared between his fingers when he would give

them to those about him. Then a voice from heaven said to him: "Francis,

make of these crumbs a wafer; with that thou shalt feed these starving

ones."

There is little hazard in assuming that this is the picturesque echo of

the conferences which took place at this time between Francis and the

cardinal; the latter might have suggested to him by such a comparison

the essential defects of his project. All this, no doubt, took place

during Francis's stay in Rome, in the beginning of 1221.[4]

Before going there, we must cast a glance over the similarity in

inspiration and even in style which allies the Rule of 1221 with another

of St. Francis's works, that which is known under the title of The

Admonitions.[5] This is a series of _spiritual counsels_ with regard

to the religious life; it is closely united both in matter and form with

the work which we have just examined. The tone of voice is so perfectly

the same that one is tempted to see in it parts of the original draft of

the Rule, separated from it as too prolix to find place in a Rule.

However it may be with this hypothesis, we find in The Admonitions all

the anxieties with which the soul of Francis was assailed in this

uncertain and troubled hour. Some of these counsels sound like bits from

a private journal. We see him seeking, with the simplicity of perfect

humility, for reasons for submitting himself, renouncing his ideas, and

not quite succeeding in finding them. He repeats to himself the

exhortations that others had given him; we feel the effort to understand

and admire the ideal monk whom Ugolini and the Church have proposed to

him for an example:

The Lord says in the Gospels: "He who does not give up all that

he has cannot be my disciple. And he who would save his life

shall lose it." One gives up all he possesses and loses his life

when life gives himself entirely into the hands of his superior,

to obey him.... And when the inferior sees things which would be

better or more useful to his soul than those which the superior

commands him, let him offer to God the sacrifice of his will.

Reading this one might think that Francis was about to join the ranks of

those to whom submission to ecclesiastical authority is the very essence

of religion. But no; even here his true feeling is not wholly effaced,

he mingles his words with parentheses and illustrations, timid, indeed,

but revealing his deepest thought; always ending by enthroning the

individual conscience as judge of last resort.[6]

All this shows clearly enough that we must picture to ourselves moments

when his wounded soul sighs after passive obedience, the formula of

which, _perinde ac cadaver_, goes apparently much farther back than the

Company of Jesus. These were moments of exhaustion, when inspiration was

silent.

One day he was sitting with his companions, when he began to

groan and say: "There is hardly a monk upon earth who perfectly

obeys his superior." His companions, much astonished, said:

"Explain to us, father, what is perfect and supreme obedience."

Then, comparing him who obeys to a corpse, he replied: "Take a

dead body, and put it where you will, it will make no resistance;

when it is in one place it will not murmur, when you take it away

from there it will not object; put it in a pulpit, it will not

look up but down; wrap it in purple, it will only be doubly

pale."[7]

This longing for corpse-like obedience witnesses to the ravages with

which his soul had been laid waste; it corresponds in the moral domain

to the cry for annihilation of great physical anguish.

The worst was that he was absolutely alone. Everywhere else the

Franciscan obedience is living, active, joyful.[8]

He drank this cup to the very dregs, holding sacred the revolts dictated

by conscience. One day in the later years of his life a German friar

came to see him, and after having long discussed with him pure

obedience:

"I ask you one favor," he said to him, "it is that if the

Brothers ever come to live no longer according to the Rule you

will permit me to separate myself from them, alone or with a few

others, to observe it in its completeness." At these words

Francis felt a great joy. "Know," said he, "that Christ as well

as I authorize what you have just been asking;" and laying hands

upon him, "Thou art a priest forever," he added, "after the

order of Melchisedec."[9]

We have a yet more touching proof of his solicitude to safeguard the

spiritual independence of his disciples: it is a note to Brother

Leo.[10] The latter, much alarmed by the new spirit which was gaining

power in the Order, opened his mind thereupon to his master, and

doubtless asked of him pretty much the same permission as the friar from

Germany. After an interview in which he replied _viva voce_, Francis,

not to leave any sort of doubt or hesitation in the mind of him whom he

surnamed his little sheep of God, _pecorella di Dio_, wrote to him

again:

Brother Leo, thy brother Francis wishes thee peace and health.

I reply _yes_, my son, as a mother to her child. This word sums

up all we said while walking, as well as all my counsels. If

thou hast need to come to me for counsel, it is my wish that

thou shouldst do it. Whatever may be the manner in which thou

thinkest thou canst please the Lord God, follow it, and live in

poverty. Do this (faites le[11]), God will bless thee and I

authorize it. And if it were necessary for thy soul, or for thy

consolation that thou shouldst come to see me, or if thou

desirest it, my Leo, come.

Thine in Christ.

Surely we are far enough here from the corpse of a few pages back.

It would be superfluous to pause over the other admonitions. For the

most part they are reflections inspired by circumstances. Counsels as to

humility recur with a frequency which explains both the personal

anxieties of the author, and the necessity of reminding the brothers of

the very essence of their profession.

The sojourn of St. Francis at Rome, whither he went in the early months

of 1221, to lay his plan before Ugolini, was marked by a new effort of

the latter to bring him and St. Dominic together.[12]

The cardinal was at this time at the apogee of his success. Everything

had gone well with him. His voice was all powerful not only in affairs

of the Church, but also in those of the Empire. Frederic II., who seemed

to be groping his way, and in whose mind were germinating dreams of

religious reformation, and the desire of placing his power at the

service of the truth, treated him as a friend, and spoke of him with

unbounded admiration.[13]

In his reflections upon the remedies to be applied to the woes of

Christianity, the cardinal came at last to think that one of the most

efficacious would be the substitution of bishops taken from the two new

Orders, for the feudal episcopate almost always recruited from local

families in which ecclesiastical dignities were, so to speak,

hereditary. In the eyes of Ugolini such bishops were usually wanting in

two essential qualities of a good prelate: religious zeal and zeal for

the Church.

He believed that the Preaching and the Minor Friars would not only

possess those virtues which were lacking in the others, but that in the

hands of the papacy they might become a highly centralized hierarchy,

truly catholic, wholly devoted to the interests of the Church at large.

The difficulties which might occur on the part of the chapters which

should elect the bishops, as well as on the side of the high secular

clergy, would be put to flight by the enthusiasm which the people would

feel for pastors whose poverty would recall the days of the primitive

Church.

At the close of his interviews with Francis and Dominic, he

communicated to them some of these thoughts, asking their advice as to

the elevation of their friars to prelatures. There was a pious contest

between the two saints as to which should answer first. Finally, Dominic

said simply that he should prefer to see his companions remain as they

were. In his turn, Francis showed that the very name of his institute

made the thing impossible. "If my friars have been called _Minores_," he

said, "it is not that they may become _Majores_. If you desire that they

become fruitful in the Church of God, leave them alone, and keep them in

the estate into which God has called them. I pray you, father, do not so

act that their poverty shall become a motive for pride, nor elevate them

to prelatures which would move them to insolence toward others."[14]

The ecclesiastical policy followed by the popes was destined to render

this counsel of the two founders wholly useless.[15]

Francis and Dominic parted, never again to meet. The _Master_ of the

Preaching Friars shortly after set out for Bologna, where he died on

August 6th following, and Francis returned to Portiuncula, where Pietro

di Catana had just died (March 10, 1221). He was replaced at the head of

the Order by Brother Elias. Ugolini was doubtless not without influence

in this choice.

Detained by his functions of legate, he could not be present at the

Whitsunday chapter (May 30, 1221).[16] He was represented there by

Cardinal Reynerio,[17] who came accompanied by several bishops and by

monks of various orders.[18] About three thousand friars were there

assembled, but so great was the eagerness of the people of the

neighborhood to bring provisions, that after a session of seven days

they were obliged to remain two days longer to eat up all that had been

brought. The sessions were presided over by Brother Elias, Francis

sitting at his feet and pulling at his robe when there was anything that

he wished to have put before the Brothers.

Brother Giordani di Giano, who was present, has preserved for us all

these details and that of the setting out of a group of friars for

Germany. They were placed under the direction of Cæsar of Speyer, whose

mission succeeded beyond all expectation. Eighteen months after, when he

returned to Italy, consumed with the desire to see St. Francis again,

the cities of Wurzburg, Mayence, Worms, Speyer, Strasburg, Cologne,

Salzburg, and Ratisbon had become Franciscan centres, from whence the

new ideas were radiating into all Southern Germany.

The foundation of the Tertiaries, or Third Order, generally in the

oldest documents called Brotherhood of Penitence, is usually fixed as

occurring in the year 1221; but we have already seen that this date is

much too recent, or rather that it is impossible to fix any date, for

what was later called, quite arbitrarily, the Third Order is evidently

contemporary with the First.[19]

Francis and his companions desired to be the apostles of their time; but

they, no more than the apostles of Jesus, desired to have all men enter

their association, which was necessarily somewhat restricted, and which,

according to the gospel saying, was meant to be the leaven of the rest

of humanity. In consequence, their life was literally the _apostolic

life_, but the ideal which they preached was the _evangelical life_,

such as Jesus had preached it.

St. Francis no more condemned the family or property than Jesus did; he

simply saw in them ties from which the _apostle_, and the apostle alone,

needs to be free.

If before long sickly minds fancied that they interpreted his thought in

making the union of the sexes an evil, and all that concerns the

physical activity of man a fall; if unbalanced spirits borrowed the

authority of his name to escape from all duty; if married persons

condemned themselves to the senseless martyrdom of virginity, he should

certainly not be made responsible. These traces of an unnatural

asceticism come from the dualist ideas of the Catharists, and not from

the inspired poet who sang nature and her fecundity, who made nests for

doves, inviting them to multiply under the watch of God, and who imposed

manual labor on his friars as a sacred duty.

The bases of the corporation of the _Brothers and Sisters of Penitence_

were very simple. Francis gave no new doctrine to the world; what was

new in his message was wholly in his love, in his direct call to the

evangelical life, to an ideal of moral vigor, of labor, and of love.

Naturally, there were soon found men who did not understand this true

and simple beauty; they fell into observances and devotions, imitated,

while living in the world, the life of the cloister to which for one

reason or another they were not able to retire; but it would be unjust

to picture to ourselves the _Brothers of Penitence_ as modelled after

them.

Did they receive a Rule from St. Francis? It is impossible to say. The

one which was given[20] them in 1289 by Pope Nicholas IV. is simply the

recasting and amalgamation of all the rules of lay fraternities which

existed at the end of the thirteenth century. To attribute this document

to Francis is nothing less than the placing in a new building of certain

venerated stones from an ancient edifice. It is a matter of façade and

ornamentation, nothing more.

Notwithstanding this absence of any Rule emanating from Francis himself,

it is clear enough what, in his estimation, this association ought to

be. The Gospel, with its counsels and examples, was to be its true Rule.

The great innovation designed by the Third Order was concord; this

fraternity was a union of peace, and it brought to astonished Europe a

new truce of God. Whether the absolute refusal to carry arms[21] was an

idea wholly chimerical and ephemeral, the documents are there to prove,

but it is a fine thing to have had the power to bring it about for a few

years.

The second essential obligation of the Brothers of Penitence appears to

have been that of reducing their wants so far as possible, and while

preserving their fortunes to distribute to the poor at proper intervals

the free portion of the revenue after contenting themselves with the

strictly necessary.[22]

To do with joy the duties of their calling; to give a holy inspiration

to the slightest actions; to find in the infinitely littles of

existence, things apparently the most commonplace, parts of a divine

work; to keep pure from all debasing interest; to use things as not

possessing them, like the servants in the parable who would soon have to

give account of the talents confided to them; to close their hearts to

hatred, to open them wide to the poor, the sick, to all abandoned ones,

such were the other essential duties of the Brothers and Sisters of

Penitence.

To lead them into this royal road of liberty, love, and responsibility,

Francis sometimes appealed to the terrors of hell and the joys of

paradise, but interested love was so little a part of his nature that

these considerations and others of the same kind occupy an entirely

secondary place in those of his writings which remain, as also in his

biographies.

For him the gospel life is natural to the soul. Whoever comes to know it

will prefer it; it has no more need to be proved than the outer air and

the light. It needs only to lead prisoners to it, for them to lose all

desire to return to the dungeons of avarice, hatred, or frivolity.

Francis and his true disciples make the painful ascent of the mountain

heights, impelled solely, but irresistibly, by the inner voice. The only

foreign aid which they accept is the memory of Jesus, going before them

upon these heights and mysteriously living again before their eyes in

the sacrament of the eucharist.

The letter to all Christians in which these thoughts break forth is a

living souvenir of St. Francis's teachings to the Tertiaries.

To represent these latter to ourselves in a perfectly concrete form we

may resort to the legend of St. Lucchesio, whom tradition makes the

first Brother of Penitence.[23]

A native of a little city of Tuscany he quitted it to avoid its

political enmities, and established himself at Poggibonsi, not far from

Sienna, where he continued to trade in grain. Already rich, it was not

difficult for him to buy up all the wheat, and, selling it in a time of

scarcity, realize enormous profits. But soon overcome by Francis's

preaching, he took himself to task, distributed all his superfluity to

the poor, and kept nothing but his house with a small garden and one

ass.

From that time he was to be seen devoting himself to the cultivation of

this bit of ground, and making of his house a sort of hostelry whither

the poor and the sick came in swarms. He not only welcomed them, but he

sought them out, even to the malaria-infected Maremma, often returning

with a sick man astride on his back and preceded by his ass bearing a

similar burden. The resources of the garden were necessarily very

limited; when there was no other way, Lucchesio took a wallet and went

from door to door asking alms, but most of the time this was needless,

for his poor guests, seeing him so diligent and so good, were better

satisfied with a few poor vegetables from the garden shared with him

than with the most copious repast. In the presence of their benefactor,

so joyful in his destitution, they forgot their own poverty, and the

habitual murmurs of these wretches were transformed into outbursts of

admiration and gratitude.

Conversion had not killed in him all family ties; Bona Donna, his wife,

became his best co-laborer, and when in 1260 he saw her gradually fading

away his grief was too deep to be endured. "You know, dear companion,"

he said to her when she had received the last sacraments, "how much we

have loved one another while we could serve God together; why should we

not remain united until we depart to the ineffable joy? Wait for me. I

also will receive the sacraments, and go to heaven with you."

So he spoke, and called back the priest to administer them to him. Then

after holding the hands of his dying companion, comforting her with

gentle words, when he saw that her soul was gone he made over her the

sign of the cross, stretched himself beside her, and calling with love

upon Jesus, Mary, and St. Francis, he fell asleep for eternity.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Text in _Firmamentum_, 10; _Spec._, 189; _Spec._, Morin.

Tract., iii., 2b. M. Müller (_Anfänge_) has made a study of the

Rule of 1221 which is a masterpiece of _exegetical scent_.

Nevertheless if he had more carefully collated the different

texts he would have arrived at still more striking results,

thanks to the variants which he would have been able to

establish. I cite a single example.

Text _Firm_.--Wadding, adopted by Mr. M.

_Omnes fratres ubicunque sunt vel vadunt, caveant sibi a

malo visu et frequentia mulierum et nullus cum eis

consilietur solus. Sacerdos honeste loquatur cum eis

dando penitentiam vel aliud spirituale consilium._

Text of the _Speculum_, 189 ff.

_Omnes fratres ubicunque sunt et vadunt caveant se a malo

visu et frequentia mulierum et nullus cum eis concilietur

aut per viam vadat solus aut ad mensam in una paropside

comedat. (!!) Sacerdos honeste loquatur cum eis dando ...

etc._

This passage is sufficient to show the superiority of the text

of the Speculum, which is to be preferred also in other

respects, but this is not the place for entering into these

details. It is evident that the phrase in which we see the

earliest friars sometimes sharing the repast of the sisters and

eating from their porringer is not a later interpolation.

[2] _Tribul._, 12b; _Spec._, 54b; _Arbor._ V., 3; _Spec._, 8b.

[3] Cf. _cap._ 17 and 21.

[4] 2 Cel., 3, 136.

[5] See below, p. 354, text in the _Firmamentum_, 19 ff.;

_Speculum_, Morin, tract. iii., 214a ff.; cf. _Conform._,

137 ff.

[6] _Cum facit (subditus) voluntatem (prælati) dummodo benefacit

vera obedientia est. Admon._, iii.; _Conform._, 139_a_, 2.--_Si

vero prælatus subdito aliquid contra animam præcipiat licet ei

non obediat tamen ipsum non dimittat._, Ibid.--_Nullus tenetur

ad obedientiam in eo ubi committitus delictum vel peccatum.

Epist._, ii.

[7] 2 Cel., 3, 89; _Spec._, 29b; _Conform._, 176b, 1; Bon., 77.

[8] _Per caritatem spiritus voluntarii serviant et obediant

invicem. Et hæc est vera et sancta obedientia. Reg._, 1221, v.

[9] _Tribul._, Laur. MS., 14b; _Spec._, 125a; _Conform._, 107b, 1;

184b, 1.

[10] Wadding gives it (_Epist._ xvi.), after the autograph

preserved in the treasury of the Conventuals of Spoleto. The

authenticity of this piece is evident.

[11] This plural, which perplexed Wadding, shows plainly that

Brother Leo had spoken in the name of a group.

[12] This date for the new communications between them seems

incontestable, though it has never been proposed; in fact, we

are only concerned to find a time when all three could have met

at Rome (2 Cel., 3, 86; _Spec._, 27a), between December 22, 1216

(the approbation of the Dominicans), and August 6, 1221 (death

of Dominic). Only two periods are possible: the early months of

1218 (Potthast, 5739 and 5747) and the winter of 1220-1221. At

any other time one of the three was absent from Rome.

On the other hand we know that Ugolini was in Rome in the winter

of 1220-1221 (Huillard-Bréholles, _Hist. dipl._, ii., pp. 48,

123, 142. Cf. Potthast, 6589).--For Dominic see A. SS., Aug.,

vol. i., p. 503. The later date is imperative because Ugolini

could not offer prelatures to the Brothers Minor before their

explicit approbation (June 11, 1219), and this offer had no

meaning with regard to the Dominicans until after the definitive

establishment of their Order.

[13] See the imperial letters of February 10, 1221;

Huillard-Bréholles, vol. ii., pp. 122-127.

[14] 2 Cel., 3, 86; Bon., 78; _Spec._, 27b.

[15] Vide K. Eubel: _Die Bischöfe, Cardinäle und Päpste aus dem

Minoritenorden bis_ 1305, 8vo, 1889.

[16] He was in Northern Italy. Vide _Registri: Doc._, 17-28.

[17] Reynerius, cardinal-deacon with the title of S. M. in

Cosmedin, Bishop of Viterbo (cf. Innocent III., _Opera_, Migne,

1, col. ccxiii), 1 Cel., 125. He had been named rector of the

Duchy of Spoleto, August 3, 1220. Potthast, 6319.

[18] Giord, 16. The presence of Dominic at an earlier chapter

had therefore been quite natural.

[19] This view harmonizes in every particular with the witness

of 1 Cel., 36 and 37, which shows the Third Order as having been

quite naturally born of the enthusiasm excited by the preaching

of Francis immediately after his return from Rome in 1210 (cf.

_Auctor vit. sec._; A. SS., p. 593b). Nothing in any other

document contradicts it; quite the contrary. Vide 3 Soc., 60.

Cf. _Anon. Perus._; A. SS., p. 600; Bon., 25, 46. Cf. A. SS.,

pp. 631-634. The first bull which concerns the Brothers of

Penitence (without naming them) is of December 16, 1221,

_Significatum est_. If it really refers to them, as Sbaralea

thinks, with all those who have interested themselves in the

question to M. Müller inclusively--but which, it appears, might

be contested--it is because in 1221 they had made appeal to the

pope against the podestàs of Faenza and the neighboring cities.

This evidently supposes an association not recently born.

Sbaralea, _Bull. fr._, 1, p. 8; Horoy, vol. iv., col. 49;

Potthast, 6736.

[20] Bull _Supra montem_ of August 17, 1289, Potthast. 23044. M.

Müller has made a luminous study of the origin of this bull; it

may be considered final in all essential points (_Anfänge_, pp.

117-171). By this bull Nicholas IV.--minister-general of the

Brothers Minor before becoming pope--sought to draw into the

hands of his Order the direction of all associations of pious

laics (Third Order of St. Dominic, the Gaudentes, the Humiliati.

etc.). He desired by that to give a greater impulse to those

fraternities which depended directly on the court of Rome, and

augment their power by unifying them.

[21] Vide Bull _Significatum est_ of December 16, 1221. Cf.

_Supra montem_, chap. vii.

[22] The Rule of the Third Order of the Humiliati, which dates

from 1201, contains a similar clause. Tiraboschi, vol. ii., p.

132.

[23] In the A. SS., Aprilis, vol. ii. p. 600-616. Orlando di

Chiusi also received the habit from the hands of Francis. Vide

_Instrumentum_, etc., below, p. 400. The Franciscan fraternity,

under the influence of the other third orders, rapidly lost its

specific character. As to this title, Third Order, it surely had

originally a hierarchical sense, upon which little by little a

chronological sense has been superposed. All these questions

become singularly clearer when they are compared with what is

known of the Humiliati.

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