CHAPTER VII
RIVO-TORTO
1210-1211
The Penitents of Assisi were overflowing with joy. After so many
mortally long days spent in that Rome, so different from the other
cities that they knew, exposed to the ill-disguised suspicions of the
prelates and the jeers of pontifical lackeys, the day of departure
seemed to them like a deliverance. At the thought of once more seeing
their beloved mountains they were seized by that homesickness of the
child for its native village which simple and kindly souls preserve till
their latest breath.
Immediately after the ceremony they prayed at the tomb of St. Peter, and
then crossing the whole city they quitted Rome by the Porta Salara.
Thomas of Celano, very brief as to all that concerns Francis's sojourn
in the Eternal City, recounts at full length the light-heartedness of
the little band on quitting it. Already it began to be transfigured in
their memory; pains, fatigues, fears, disquietude, hesitations were all
forgotten; they thought only of the fatherly assurances of the supreme
pontiff--the vicar of Christ, the lord and father of the Christian
universe--and promised themselves to make ever new efforts to follow the
Rule with fidelity.
Full of these thoughts they had set out, without provisions, to cross
the Campagna of Rome, whose few inhabitants never venture out in the
heat of the day. The road stretches away northward, keeping at some
distance from the Tiber; on the left the jagged crest of Soracte, bathed
in mists formed by the exhalations of the earth, looms up
disproportionately as it fades in the distance; on the right, the
everlasting undulations of the hillocks with their wide pastures
separated by thickets so parched and ragged that they seemed to cry for
mercy and pardon. Between them the dusty road which goes straight
forward, implacable, showing, as far as the eye can reach, nothing but
the quivering of the fiery air. Not a house, not a tree, not a passing
breeze, nothing to sustain the traveller under the disquietude which
creeps over him. Here and there are a few abandoned huts, their ruins
looking like the corpses of departed civilizations, and on the edge of
the horizon the hills rising up like gigantic and unsurmountable walls.
There are no words to describe the physical and moral sufferings to
which he is exposed who undertakes without proper preparation to cross
this inhospitable district. To the weakness caused by lack of air soon
succeeds an insurmountable lassitude. The feet sink in a soft, tenuous
dust which every step sends up in clouds; it covers you, penetrates your
skin, and parches your mouth even more than thirst. Little by little all
energy ebbs away, a dumb dejection seizes you, sight and thought become
alike confused, fever ensues, and you cast yourself down by the
roadside, unable to take another step.
In their haste to leave Rome Francis and his companions had forgotten
all this, and had imprudently set forth. They would have succumbed if a
chance traveller had not brought them succor. He was obliged to leave
them before they had shaken off the last hallucinations of fever,
leaving them amazed with the unexpected succor which Providence had sent
them.[1]
They were so severely shattered that on arriving at Orte they were
obliged to stop awhile. In a desert spot not far from this city they
found a shelter admirably adapted to serve them for refuge;[2] it was
one of those Etruscan tombs so common in that country, whose chambers
serve to this day as a shelter for beggars and gypsies. While some of
the brethren hastened to the city to beg for food, the others remained
in this solitude enjoying the happiness of being together, forming a
thousand plans, and more than ever delighting in the charm of freedom
from care and renunciation of material goods.
This place had so strong an attraction for them that it required an
effort of will to quit it at the end of a fortnight. The seduction of a
life purely contemplative assailed Francis, and he asked himself if
instead of preaching to the multitudes he would not do better to live in
retreat, solely mindful of the inward dialogue between the soul and
God.[3]
This aspiration for the selfish repose of the cloister came back to him
several times in his life; but love always won the victory. He was too
much the child of his time not to be at times tempted by that happiness
which the Middle Ages regarded as the supreme bliss of the elect in
paradise--peace. _Beati mortui quia quiescunt!_ His distinguishing
peculiarity is that he never gave way to it.
The reflections of Francis and his companions during their stay at Orte
only made their apostolic mission more clear and imperative to them. He,
above all, seemed to be filled with a new ardor, and like a valiant
knight he burned to throw himself into the thick of the fray.
Their way now led through the valley of the Nera. The contrast between
these cool glens, awake with a thousand voices, and the desolation of
the Roman Campagna, must have struck them vividly; the stream is only a
swollen torrent, but it runs so noisily over pebbles and rocks that it
seems to be conversing with them and with the trees of the neighboring
forest. In proportion as they had felt themselves alone on the road from
Rome to Otricoli, they now felt themselves compassed about with the
life, the fecundity, the gayety of the country.
The account of Thomas of Celano becomes so animated as it describes the
life of Francis at this epoch that one cannot help thinking that at this
time he must have seen him, and that this first meeting remained always
in his memory as the radiant dawn of his spiritual life.[4]
The Brothers had taken to preaching in such places as they came upon
along their route. Their words were always pretty much the same, they
showed the blessedness of peace and exhorted to penitence. Emboldened by
the welcome they had received at Rome, which in all innocence they might
have taken to be more favorable than it really was, they told the story
to everyone they met, and thus set all scruples at rest.
These exhortations, in which Francis spared not his hearers, but in
which the sternest reproaches were mingled with so much of love,
produced an enormous effect. Man desires above all things to be loved,
and when he meets one who loves him sincerely he very seldom refuses him
either his love or his admiration.
It is only a low understanding that confounds love with weakness and
compliance. We sometimes see sick men feverishly kissing the hand of
the surgeon who performs an operation upon them; we sometimes do the
same for our spiritual surgeons, for we realize all that there is of
vigor, pity, compassion in the tortures which they inflict, and the
cries which they force from us are quite as much of gratitude as of
pain.
Men hastened from all parts to hear these preachers who were more severe
upon themselves than on anyone else. Members of the secular clergy,
monks, learned men, rich men even, often mingled in the impromptu
audiences gathered in the streets and public places. All were not
converted, but it would have been very difficult for any of them to
forget this stranger whom they met one day upon their way, and who in a
few words had moved them to the very bottom of their hearts with anxiety
and fear.
Francis was in truth, as Celano says, the bright morning star. His
simple preaching took hold on consciences, snatched his hearers from the
mire and blood in which they were painfully trudging, and in spite of
themselves carried them to the very heavens, to those serene regions
where all is silent save the voice of the heavenly Father. "The whole
country trembled, the barren land was already covered with a rich
harvest, the withered vine began again to blossom."[5]
Only a profoundly religious and poetic soul (is not the one the other?)
can understand the transports of joy which overflowed the souls of St.
Francis's spiritual sons.
The greatest crime of our industrial and commercial civilization is that
it leaves us a taste only for that which may be bought with money, and
makes us overlook the purest and truest joys which are all the time
within our reach. The evil has roots far in the past. "Wherefore," said
the God of old Isaiah, "do you weigh money for that which is not meat?
why labor for that which satisfieth not? Hearken unto me, and ye shall
eat that which is good, and your soul shall delight itself in
fatness."[6]
Joys bought with money--noisy, feverish pleasures--are nothing compared
with those sweet, quiet, modest but profound, lasting, and peaceful
joys, enlarging, not wearying the heart, which we too often pass by on
one side, like those peasants whom we see going into ecstasies over the
fireworks of a fair, while they have not so much as a glance for the
glorious splendors of a summer night.
In the plain of Assisi, at an hour's walk from the city and near the
highway between Perugia and Rome, was a ruinous cottage called
Rivo-Torto. A torrent, almost always dry, but capable of becoming
terrible in a storm, descends from Mount Subasio and passes beside it.
The ruin had no owner; it had served as a leper hospital before the
construction by the Crucigeri[7] of their hospital San Salvatore
delle Pareti; but since that time it had been abandoned. Now came
Francis and his companions to seek shelter there.[8] It is one of the
quietest spots in the suburbs of Assisi, and from thence they could
easily go out into the neighborhood in all directions; it being about an
equal distance from Portiuncula and St. Damian. But the principal motive
for the choice of the place seems to have been the proximity of the
_Carceri_, as those shallow natural grottos are called which are found
in the forests, half way up the side of Mount Subasio. Following up the
bed of the torrent of Rivo-Torto one reaches them in an hour by way of
rugged and slippery paths where the very goats do not willingly venture.
Once arrived, one might fancy oneself a thousand leagues from any human
being, so numerous are the birds of prey which live here quite
undisturbed.[9]
Francis loved this solitude and often retired thither with a few
companions. The brethren in that case shared between them all care of
their material wants, after which, each one retiring into one of these
caves, they were able for a few days to listen only to the inner voice.
These little hermitages, sufficiently isolated to secure them from
disturbance, but near enough to the cities to permit their going thither
to preach, may be found wherever Francis went. They form, as it were, a
series of documents about his life quite as important as the written
witnesses. Something of his soul may still be found in these caverns in
the Apennine forests. He never separated the contemplative from the
active life. A precious witness to this fact is found in the
regulations for the brethren during their sojourn in hermitage.[10]
The return of the Brothers to Rivo-Torto was marked by a vast increase
of popularity. The prejudiced attacks to which they had formerly been
subjected were lost in a chorus of praises. Perhaps men suspected the
ill-will of the bishop and were happy to see him checked. However this
may be, a lively feeling of sympathy and admiration was awakened; the
people recalled to mind the indifference manifested by the son of
Bernardone a few months before with regard to Otho IV. going to be
crowned at Rome. The emperor had made a progress through Italy with a
numerous suite and a pomp designed to produce an effect on the minds of
the populace; but not only had Francis not interrupted his work to go
and see him, he had enjoined upon his friars also to abstain from going,
and had merely selected one of them to carry to the monarch a reminder
of the ephemeral nature of worldly glory. Later on it was held that he
had predicted to the emperor his approaching excommunication.
This spirited attitude made a vivid impression on the popular
imagination.[11] Perhaps it was of more service in forming general
opinion than anything he had done thus far. The masses, who are not
often alive to delicate sentiments, respond quickly to those who,
whether rightly or wrongly, do not bow down before power. This time they
perceived that where other men would see the poor, the rich, the noble,
the common, the learned, Francis saw only souls, which were to him the
more precious as they were more neglected or despised.
No biographer informs us how long the Penitents remained at Rivo-Torto.
It seems probable, however, that they spent there the latter part of
1210 and the early months of 1211, evangelizing the towns and villages
of the neighborhood.
They suffered much; this part of the plain of Assisi is inundated by
torrents nearly every autumn, and many times the poor friars, blockaded
in the lazaretto, were forced to satisfy their hunger with a few roots
from the neighboring fields.
The barrack in which they lived was so narrow that, when they were all
there at once, they had much difficulty not to crowd one another. To
secure to each one his due quota of space, Francis wrote the name of
each brother upon the column which supports the building. But these
minor discomforts in no sense disturbed their happiness. No apprehension
had as yet come to cloud Francis's hopes; he was overflowing with joy
and kindliness; all the memories which Rivo-Torto has left with the
Order are fresh and sweet pictures of him.[12]
One night all the brethren seemed to be sleeping, when he heard a
moaning. It was one of his sheep, to speak after the manner of the
Franciscan biographer, who had denied himself too rigorously and was
dying of hunger. Francis immediately rose, called the brother to him,
brought forth the meagre reserve of food, and himself began to eat to
inspire the other with courage, explaining to him that if penitence is
good it is still necessary to temper it with discretion.[13]
Francis had that tact of the heart which divines the secrets of others
and anticipates their desires. At another time, still at Rivo-Torto, he
took a sick brother by the hand, led him to a grape-vine, and,
presenting him with a fine cluster, began himself to eat of it. It was
nothing, but the simple act so bound to him the sick man's heart that
many years after the brother could not speak of it without emotion.[14]
But Francis was far from neglecting his mission. Ever growing more sure,
not of himself but of his duty toward men, he took part in the political
and social affairs of his province with the confidence of an upright and
pure heart, never able to understand how stupidity, perverseness, pride,
and indolence, by leaguing themselves together, may check the finest and
most righteous impulses. He had the faith which removes mountains, and
was wholly free from that touch of scepticism, so common in our day,
which points out that it is of no more use to move mountains than to
change the place of difficulties.
When the people of Assisi learned that his Rule had been approved by the
pope there was strong excitement; every one desired to hear him preach.
The clergy were obliged to give way; they offered him the Church of St.
George, but this church was manifestly insufficient for the crowds of
hearers; it was necessary to open the cathedral to him.
St. Francis never said anything especially new; to win hearts he had
that which is worth more than any arts of oratory--an ardent conviction;
he spoke as compelled by the imperious need of kindling others with the
flame that burned within himself. When they heard him recall the horrors
of war, the crimes of the populace, the laxity of the great, the
rapacity which dishonored the Church, the age-long widowhood of
Poverty, each one felt himself taken to task in his own conscience.
An attentive or excited crowd is always very impressionable, but this
peculiar sensitiveness was perhaps stronger in the Middle Ages than at
any other time. Nervous disturbances were in the air, and upon men thus
prepared the will of the preacher impressed itself in a manner almost
magnetic.
To understand what Francis's preaching must have been like we must
forget the manners of to-day, and transport ourselves for a moment to
the Cathedral of Assisi in the thirteenth century; it is still standing,
but the centuries have given to its stones a fine rust of polished
bronze, which recalls Venice and Titian's tones of ruddy gold. It was
new then, and all sparkling with whiteness, with the fine rosy tinge of
the stones of Mount Subasio. It had been built by the people of Assisi a
few years before in one of those outbursts of faith and union which were
almost everywhere the prelude of the communal movement. So, when the
people thronged into it on their high days, they not merely had none of
that vague respect for a holy place which, though it has passed into the
customs of other countries, still continues to be unknown in Italy, but
they felt themselves at home in a palace which they had built for
themselves. More than in any other church they there felt themselves at
liberty to criticise the preacher, and they had no hesitation in proving
to him, either by murmurs of dissatisfaction or by applause, just what
they thought of his words. We must remember also that the churches of
Italy have neither pews nor chairs, that one must listen standing or
kneeling, while the preacher walks about gesticulating on a platform;
add to this the general curiosity, the clamorous sympathies of many, the
disguised opposition of some, and we shall have a vague notion of the
conditions under which Francis first entered the pulpit of San Rufino.
His success was startling. The poor felt that they had found a friend, a
brother, a champion, almost an avenger. The thoughts which they hardly
dared murmur beneath their breath Francis proclaimed at the top of his
voice, daring to bid all, without distinction, to repent and love one
another. His words were a cry of the heart, an appeal to the consciences
of all his fellow-citizens, almost recalling the passionate utterances
of the prophets of Israel. Like those witnesses for Jehovah the "little
poor man" of Assisi had put on sackcloth and ashes to denounce the
iniquities of his people, like theirs was his courage and heroism, like
theirs the divine tenderness in his heart.
It seemed as if Assisi were about to recover again the feeling of Israel
for sin. The effect of these appeals was prodigious; the entire
population was thrilled, conquered, desiring in future to live only
according to Francis's counsels; his very companions, who had remained
behind at Rivo-Torto, hearing of these marvels, felt in themselves an
answering thrill, and their vocation took on a new strength; during the
night they seemed to see their master in a chariot of fire, soaring to
heaven like a new Elijah.[15]
This almost delirious enthusiasm of a whole people was not perhaps so
difficult to arouse as might be supposed: the emotional power of the
masses was at that time as great all over Europe as it was in Paris
during certain days of the Revolution. We all know the tragic and
touching story of those companies of children from the north of Europe
who appeared in 1212 in troops of several thousands, boys and girls
mingled together pell-mell. Nothing could stop them, a mania had
overtaken them, in all good faith they believed that they were to
deliver the Holy Land, that the sea would be dried up to let them pass.
They perished, we hardly know how, perhaps being sold into slavery.[16]
They were accounted martyrs, and rightly; popular devotion likened them
to the Holy Innocents, dying for a God whom they knew not. Those
children of the crusade also perished for an unknown ideal, false no
doubt; but is it not better to die for an unknown and even a false ideal
than to live for the vain realities of an utterly unpoetic existence? In
the end of time we shall be judged neither by philosophers nor by
theologians, and if we were, it is to be hoped that even in this case
love would cover a multitude of sins and pass by many follies.
Certainly if ever there was a time when religious affections of the
nerves were to be dreaded, it was that which produced such movements as
these. All Europe seemed to be beside itself; women appeared stark naked
in the streets of towns and villages, slowly walking up and down, silent
as phantoms.[17] We can understand now the accounts which have come
down to us, so fantastic at the first glance, of certain popular orators
of this time; of Berthold of Ratisbon, for example, who drew together
crowds of sixteen thousand persons, or of that Fra Giovanni Schio di
Vicenza, who for a time quieted all Northern Italy and brought Guelphs
and Ghibellines into one another's arms.[18]
That popular eloquence which was to accomplish so many marvels in 1233
comes down in a straight line from the Franciscan movement. It was St.
Francis who set the example of those open-air sermons given in the
vulgar tongue, at street corners, in public squares, in the fields.
To feel the change which he brought about we must read the sermons of
his contemporaries; declamatory, scholastic, subtile, they delighted in
the minutiæ of exegesis or dogma, serving up refined dissertations on
the most obscure texts of the Old Testament, to hearers starving for a
simple and wholesome diet.
With Francis, on the contrary, all is incisive, clear, practical. He
pays no attention to the precepts of the rhetoricians, he forgets
himself completely, thinking only of the end desired, the conversion of
souls. And conversion was not in his view something vague and
indistinct, which must take place only between God and the hearer. No,
he will have immediate and practical proofs of conversion. Men must give
up ill-gotten gains, renounce their enmities, be reconciled with their
adversaries.
At Assisi he threw himself valiantly into the thick of civil
dissensions. The agreement of 1202 between the parties who divided the
city had been wholly ephemeral. The common people were continually
demanding new liberties, which the nobles and burghers would yield to
them only under the pressure of fear. Francis took up the cause of the
weak, the _minores_, and succeeded in reconciling them with the rich,
the _majores_.
His spiritual family had not as yet, properly speaking, a name, for,
unlike those too hasty spirits who baptize their productions before they
have come to light, he was waiting for the occasion that should reveal
the true name which he ought to give it.[19] One day someone was
reading the Rule in his presence. When he came to the passage, "Let the
brethren, wherever they may find themselves called to labor or to serve,
never take an office which shall put them over others, but on the
contrary, let them be always under (_sint minores_) all those who may be
in that house,"[20] these words _sint minores_ of the Rule, in the
circumstances then existing in the city, suddenly appeared to him as a
providential indication. His institution should be called the Order of
the Brothers Minor.
We may imagine the effect of this determination. The _Saint_, for
already this magic word had burst forth where he appeared,[21] the
Saint had spoken. It was he who was about to bring peace to the city,
acting as arbiter between the two factions which rent it.
We still possess the document of this _pace civile_, exhumed, so to
speak, from the communal archives of Assisi by the learned and pious
Antonio Cristofani.[22] The opening lines are as follows:
"In the name of God!
"May the supreme grace of the Holy Spirit assist us! To the
honor of our Lord Jesus Christ, the blessed Virgin Mary, the
Emperor Otho, and Duke Leopold.
"This is the statute and perpetual agreement between the
_Majori_ and _Minori_ of Assisi.
"Without common consent there shall never be any sort of
alliance either with the pope and his nuncios or legates, or
with the emperor, or with the king, or with their nuncios or
legates, or with any city or town, or with any important person,
except with a common accord they shall do all which there may be
to do for the honor, safety, and advantage of the commune of
Assisi."
What follows is worthy of the beginning. The lords, in consideration of
a small periodical payment, should renounce all the feudal rights; the
inhabitants of the villages subject to Assisi were put on a par with
those of the city, foreigners were protected, the assessment of taxes
was fixed. On Wednesday, November 9, 1210, this agreement was signed and
sworn to in the public place of Assisi; it was made in such good faith
that exiles were able to return in peace, and from this day we find in
the city registers the names of those _émigrés_ who, in 1202, had
betrayed their city and provoked the disastrous war with Perugia.
Francis might well be happy. Love had triumphed, and for several years
there were at Assisi neither victors nor vanquished.
In the mystic marriages which here and there in history unite a man to a
people, something takes place of which the transports of sense, the
delirium of love, seem to be the only symbol; a moment comes in which
saints, or men of genius, feel unknown powers striving mightily within
them; they strive, they seek, they struggle until, triumphing over all
obstacles, they have forced trembling, swooning humanity to conceive by
them.
This moment had come to St. Francis.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] 1 Cel., 34; 3 Soc., 53; Bon., 39.
[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
Grégoire 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 Marthæ et alii
duo vitam Mariæ Magdalenæ._ 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 quæreretur causa cursus dixerunt
se nescire. Nudæ 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 pænitentiales 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.
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