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St. CLARE OF ASSISI

INT CLARE Ob

SI SI: HER LIFE

AND LEGISLATION

BY

ERNEST GILLIAT-SMITH

1914 LONDON & TORONTO

J. M. DENT fc? SONS, LIMITED New York: E. P. DUTTON & CO.

SAINT CLARE OF ASSISI: HER LIFE AND LEGISLATION

BY

ERNEST GILLIAT-SMITH

1914 LONDON fcf TORONTO

J. M. DENT 6? SONS, LIMITED New York: E. P. DUTTON & CO.

TO THE MOST EMINENT

FRANCIS AIDAN GASQUET

ABBOT OF READING

CARDINAL -DEACON OF THE HOLY ROMAN CHURCH

THIS BOOK

CONCERNING THE SERAPHIC FOUNDRESS OF THE ORDER OF SAINT CLARE

WHO FOR MORE THAN THIRTY YEARS WALKED IN THE

WAY OF PEACE UNDER THE BANNER OF SAINT

BENEDICT, IS WITH HIS EMINENCE'S

GRACIOUS PERMISSION MOST

RESPECTFULLY

INSCRIBED

nihil ©bstat

F. Thomas Bergh, O.S.B.

Censor Deputatus

Smprfmatnr:

EDM. CAN. SURMONT

Vic. Gen.

Westmonasterii,

d'e lS Junii, 19 14

CONTENTS

PART I

The Life of Saint Clare

CHAPTER I

Of Saint Clare's kinsfolk : the testimony of contemporary witnesses — Celano, the author of the Legenda Sanctae Clarae, Alexander IV, in the bull of canonization and in the primitive office, Cardinal Ugolino. What later mediaeval writers say — the author of the Chronicle of the Twenty-four Generals, Marianus of Florence, Pietro Rodolfi of Tossignano. Concerning- the fables of Wadding and of his disciples ancient and modern . pp. i-io

CHAPTER II

Of certain noteworthy dates according to contemporary evidence : Saint Clare died on the nth of August, 1253. She began to reside at Saint Damian's in the summer of 12 n. She re- nounced the world earlier in the same year — on the night of Palm Sunday. She was in all probability born in 1193 pp. 11-13

CHAPTER III

Concerning the moral complexion of Christendom at the opening of the twelve hundreds. Of the cockle in God's field and of the wheat ; of the good work done by philanthropic associations — the Hospitalers of Saint Anthony, the Crutched Friars, the Noble Order of Fontevrault, Saint Norbert's White Canons, Beguines and Beghards, the Umiliati. Of the flourishing condition of the contemplative orders when Saint Francis began to preach, and of some great mystics who were likewise men of the world pp. 14-32

CHAPTER IV

Of Saint Clare's home life. Dearth of evidence concerning her childhood : Celano the only contemporary witness ; what he says. His account of her conversion to religion, wherein he contradicts himself inadvertently. His second statement cor- roborated by Alexander IV, Fra Salimbene and Saint Bonaven- ture, viz. that Saint Clare determined to renounce the world

Vll

t)QX 1^

viii CONTENTS

not before, as he says in his first statement, but after she had met Saint Francis and at his suggestion. Of the cause of Celano's slip. Under what circumstances Saint Clare made the acquaintance of Saint Francis; why she wished "to see and to hear him," and why he wished her to take the veil. Of the complexity of his character and of the motives which inspired him to found a community of cloistered nuns . . pp. 33-42

CHAPTER V

Of Saint Clare's farewell to the world, according to Celano. Abridged English version. The complete Latin text. Some notes on persons and places referred to therein : Guido of Assisi, the Porziuncola, the Church of Saint Paul and the Benedictine nuns who dwelt there. Celano's strange story concerning one of them. Pope Alexander IV and Salimbene's appreciation of him. The Benedictine church and community of Saint Angelo di Panzo ; these nuns become Poor Ladies and amalgamate with the nuns of Santa Chiara. Concerning the incident of the closed door. The dramatic details of Saint Clare's farewell not fortuitous, but expressly devised by Saint Francis . pp. 43-51

CHAPTER VI

Of Pope Alexander's account of Saint Clare's farewell to the world : wherein it differs from Celano's. The Latin text. Concerning two facts therein related which are not mentioned by Celano. Reasons for thinking that Saint Clare's profession was per- fectly regular. Alexander's story of the meeting of Saint Clare with her kinsfolk not the same as Celano's, and probably more trustworthy. Unlike Celano, Alexander says nothing of Saint Clare's migration to a second church. The testimony of Saint Clare's will concerning this matter. Alexander refrains from identifying alike the place of Saint Clare's profession and the place in which she afterwards took refuge. Wherefore pp. 52-56

CHAPTER VII

Of the quarrel about the making of the rule of the Friars Minor. Concerning the cause of the quarrel ; and of the belligerents and their first leaders. How both sides endeavoured during Saint Francis's lifetime to obtain his support, and said after his death that their views had been his. How the Zelanti superiors, whom Saint Francis had left in charge during his absence in the East, increased the rigour of the rule and vexed the order throughout Italy with "insolent innovations," and how, warned by a secret messenger, Saint Francis returned in haste and arrived just in time to prevent a schism. How, broken in health and half blind, he named a coadjutor : one Peter Catani, a man of moderate views ; and how with his help and the help of Elias and Brother Caesar of Spires he set his house in order. Some

CONTENTS ix

biographical notes concerning these men. Of Brother Peter's death six months after his nomination, and how his mantle fell on Elias of Cortona. Of the opinion that this appointment was dictated by Ugolino. Concerning the rule that Saint Francis made on his return from the Levant, in what it differed from the old rule, and how the "spiritual brethren" groaned at the mildness of it. How Saint Francis fell under the influ- ence of Brother Leo, and how this man compelled him to make a new rule so strict that all his officers with one accord repudi- ated it. How Saint Francis stiffened his neck and refused to change one jot or tittle, and how at last, through the good offices of Cardinal Ugolino, a compromise was effected : the rule as we have it to-day pp. 57-69

CHAPTER VIII

Ugolino 's compromise in respect to the rule fails to give satisfac- tion to any of the parties concerned. The strife between the sons of Saint Francis breaks out more fiercely than ever immediately after his death. Wherefore. Of Brother Leo's rebellion and the whipping which Brother Elias caused to be administered to him in consequence. Of the three earliest accounts that have come down to us of this affair. Of Brother Elias 's defence when later on he was accused of breaking the rule. His statement that he had the Pope's authority for all that he did in the matter of the Sacro Convento, shown to be true by Pope Gregory's own letters. An examination of these documents and of another still more important. The complete Latin text of it. Some notes on the interesting information contained in these old papers pp. 70-80

CHAPTER IX

Of John Parenti's election. Some notes concerning him. Of his goodness and his unpopularity, and how he was forced to resign. How Elias, in spite of his reluctance, was compelled to take office. How he realized the good expectations of his friends and the evil forebodings of his enemies. Of his failure to con- vert the spiritual men and his success in coercing them. Of the Seraphic Mother's friendship for him, and her approval of his methods of government. Celano's story concerning her in this connection. Of the restiveness of the spiritual men after Elias 's fall, and the ill-treatment which they experienced under some of his successors. How they at last obtained a general to their liking, although he was not of them : Brother John of Parma. Some notes concerning him and concerning the mem- bers of his council. Of his goodness, his brilliant abilities and his attractive personality. How Innocent IV loved him, and desired to make him a cardinal. How, accused of heresy, he was compelled to resign office, but saved from condemnation by

x CONTENTS

his friend, Cardinal Fieschi. How, later on, he was offered a cardinal's hat. Of his friendship with John XXI, Nicholas IV and Cardinal Giacomo Colonna. Of two great birds who nested under his writing-table ; and how an angel served his Mass when his acolyte overslept himself . . . pp. 81-100

CHAPTER X

A chapter of odds and ends. Celano's story of Saint Clare and the Saracens. Reasons for thinking that it is historical. The legend of the Porziuncola repast not related by Celano, nor by any other contemporary writer, and is in contradiction with his evidence and with the evidence of Alexander IV. Latin text of the earliest known version of this tale. It perhaps originally formed part of a polemical pamphlet in support of the nuns' con- tention that the Friars were bound to serve them, and which they denied. The similar legend concerning Saint Benedict and his sister according to the flesh. Celano's account of the passing of Saint Clare pp. 101-114

PART II

Of the Rules observed by the Poor Ladies of the Order of Saint Damian during the Lifetime of St. Clare

Introduction p. 115

CHAPTER I

Of the importance of the letter addressed by Gregory IX on the 9th of May, 1238, to Blessed Agnes of Prague, by reason of the information therein contained concerning the Primitive Rule and the Ugolino Rule. Some notes on Blessed Agnes : of her betrothal to Frederick II and how the contract was cancelled; how, moved thereto by the Friars Minor, she put on the Francis- can habit, and how not a few of her friends followed her example; of the convent of Poor Ladies which her brother, King Wenceslaus, founded at Prague. Of the Supreme Pontiff's approval, and how Agnes was named abbess. Of Brother John of Piano-Carpine, the nuns' director. Of the hospital which Agnes founded before she entered religion, and how it was richly endowed by Constance, Queen of Bohemia and Premislaus, Lord of Moravia. How the Pope bestowed the whole of this wealth on Agnes and her sisters, and how they exchanged it three years later for a "Privilege of Poverty." How the Pope forthwith restored their estates to the hospital folk, and at their own request, and with Agnes 's approval, gave them for spiritual

CONTENTS xi

guides Dominicans instead of Franciscans. An inquiry as to the motives which inspired this change of direction. How Blessed Agnes resigned office, but later on resumed the reins of government. Of the high esteem in which she was held within and without the cloister. Of her objection to the Ugolino Rule, and of two unsuccessful attempts she made to exchange it for a Rule of her own making . . pp. 1 18-132

CHAPTER II

Of the Primitive Rule. Ugolino's testimony in the bull Angelis gaudium. The testimony of Saint Clare in her own Rule and in one of her letters to Blessed Agnes of Prague. When did the Seraphic Father give the Primitive Rule ? What Saint Clare says in this connection, and Alexander IV and Celano. Did the Primitive Rule consist of the Benedictine Rule with special constitutions? Reasons for thinking that such was the case. Some notes on Saint Francis's relations with the Black Order. Summary pp. 133-148

CHAPTER III

Of the making of the Ugolino Rule. Pope Gregory's evidence con- cerning this matter in the bull Angelis gaudium. Some notes on the same. Reasons for thinking that Saint Francis assisted him to draw up the Rule. What Philip of Perugia says. Latin text of his evidence. Saint Francis accepts the Rule, but is exceedingly loath to do so. Wherefore. Of the intolerable harshness of this unfortunate piece of legislation, and how Innocent IV and Clement IV denounced it in consequence. Neither Ugolino nor Saint Francis, but Saint Clare herself the cause of the severity complained of. A curious letter addressed to her by Ugolino. How she ruined her health by her excessive austerities, and afterwards counselled prudence. Of the success- ful attempt she made to remedy Ugolino's lack of precision in the matter of Sublime Poverty pp. 149-161

CHAPTER IV

Concerning Sublime Poverty. Were the privileges of exemption, which Ugolino granted in virtue of the powers conferred on him by Honorius III in his letter, Litter ae tuae, made condi- tional on the due observance of evangelical poverty? Some preliminary observations concerning this question. Of the kind of Poverty which the Seraphic Mother desired her children to practise as shown by her own words in the sixth chapter of her Rule. Of the poverty of the Poor Ladies of San Severino in the days when Saint Francis himself was their spiritual superior, as attested by certain contemporary documents at present laid up in the cathedral archive chamber of that city pp. 162-174

xii CONTENTS -

CHAPTER V

Of the privileges of exemption conferred by Ugolino in virtue of the bull Litterae tuae. Four have come down to us — viz. those granted to Florence, Perugia, Siena and Lucca. A detailed account of these documents and of the property held by the convents exempted at the time that they obtained their exemp- tions. In no case did it exceed the limits prescribed by Saint Clare. Of the tribute of gold, why it was imposed and why it was afterwards remitted. How the Poor Ladies were com- pelled to abandon the observance of Sublime Poverty. Of the numerous Mendicant Orders founded in the middle of the twelve hundreds, and especially of the Friars Apostolic. Conclusions.

pp. 175-190

CHAPTER VI

Of the text of the Ugolino Rule. Two copies have come down to us : one written by Ugolino himself in 1239, the other promul- gated by Innocent IV in 1245. These versions differ slightly, and probably neither of them is identical with the original version, which seems to have been more rigid. Of Ugolino's alleged declaration that the Poor Ladies were not bound to observe the Benedictine Rule, save only so far as concerned Poverty, Chastity and Obedience. Wherein the version of 1239 differs from the version of 1245. A brief summary of the articles of the Ugolino statutes. Some notes concerning them and some quotations pp. 191-203

CHAPTER VII

Of the relations between the friars and the Poor Ladies in Ugolino 's day. Celano's testimony and Saint Clare's, and the testimony of official papers. Of Brother Philip of Adria, the first Visitor- General. Of Saint Clare's love of sermons. A most important footnote pp. 204-209

CHAPTER VIII

An extraordinary anecdote of Celano's touching the subject dealt with in the last chapter. Reasons for thinking that he heard it from Saint Clare herself, but did not note it down exactly as she related it. Of the quarrel between the sisters and the brethren in the days of several popes pp. 210-216

CHAPTER IX

Of certain diplomatic documents which throw light on Celano's strange story concerning Saint Clare's dismissal of the friars attached to her service — namely, Honorius's letter to Brother Francis and the other brethren of the Order of Minors of

CONTENTS xiii

November 29, 1223; Gregory's letter to the minister-general and the provincial ministers of September 28, 1230 ; Pope Innocent's letter to the same of November 14, 1245 ; Gregory's letter to John Parenti of December 14, 1227; an undated letter from the same pontiff to the Abbess Clare and her nuns at Saint Damian's by Assisi; Pope Gregory's letters to all abbesses and sisters of the Order of Saint Damian of February 9, 1237, and May 31, 1241.

pp. 217-231

CHAPTER X

Of the death and burial of Gregory IX and the tardy election of Innocent IV in the stronghold of Anagni. Some notes concern- ing this Pontiff, and his kindly and intimate relations with the children of Saint Francis. Of his visits to the Seraphic Mother, and how he attended her funeral. Of his vain endeavours to heal their disputes, and of the difficulties which he encountered in his no less futile efforts to disentangle the complicated affairs of the Poor Enclosed Ladies pp. 232-246

CHAPTER XI

A description of the Rule of Pope Innocent IV, with some quotations from and notes on the text. How it came about that the Poor Ladies for the most part refused to observe it . . pp. 247-257

CHAPTER XII

Of Saint Clare's attitude in respect to the Rule of Innocent IV, and some notes concerning her so-called "Privileges of Poverty."

pp. 258-271

CHAPTER XIII

Of the Rule of Saint Clare pp. 272-286

Appendix pp. 287-305

SAINT CLARE OF ASSISI

AND

THE FIRST POOR LADIES OF THE ORDER OF SAINT DAMIAN

PART I

THE LIFE OF SAINT CLARE CHAPTER I

Of Saint-Clare's kinsfolk : the testimony of contemporary witnesses — Celano, the author of the Lege?tda Sanctae Clarae, Alexander IV, in the bull of canonization and in the primitive office, Cardinal Ugolino. What later mediaeval writers say — the author of the Chronicle of the Twenty-four Generals, Marianus of Florence, Pietro Rodolfi of Tossignano. Concerning the fables of Wadding and of his disciples ancient and modern.

"This is that happy and holy place," says Thomas of Celano, referring to the convent of Saint Damian, " this is that holy and happy place wherein, not quite six years after the con- version of Blessed Francis and through his efforts, the glorious religion and most excellent order of poor ladies first began. The foundation stone is stronger and more precious than all the other stones of the pile — to wit, the Lady Clara, bright in name, more bright in life, most bright in conversation. She is a native of Assisi, of noble birth and by grace nobler, a virgin most pure in heart, young in years but hoary in resolution, very steadfast of purpose, but withal wise and meek and a marvellous lover of God."

The above passage occurs in the eighth chapter of Celano's first life of Saint Francis, a work which was in all probability written at Assisi and completed in the spring of the year 1229. At this time the Seraphic Mother was about five-and-thirty years of age, she was actually residing at Assisi, in the old convent

B

2 ST. CLARE OF^ASSISI

of St. Damian, just outside the city walls, and all the Assisi world was talking of her recent triumph over John Parenti, the general of the Franciscan order, of which later on.

" The admirable woman Clara, whose name signifieth bright- ness and the light of whose glorious life doth shine in every land, was the child of an illustrious house of the little town of Assisi; she was the fellow citizen of Blessed Francis on earth, and in Heaven they reign together. Her father was a knight and all her kinsmen of like rank — an influential clan, and rich in all those things that are accounted riches in the land wherein she dwelt." " Her mother's name was Ortolana, and she, destined to bring forth a most prolific little plant for Christ's garden, was herself fruitful in good works. For notwithstanding household cares and the marriage yoke, she found time for the service of God and to cherish Christ in His poor. Nay, she crossed the sea for the sake of devotion, and traversed the places which the footsteps of the God-Man had sanctified, and returning with joy to her native land must needs visit Saint Michael in his shrine on Mount Gargano and undertake a pilgrimage to the threshold of the Apostles. And when at last she was with child and her hour was almost at hand, whilst she was praying before the Cross in church to the Crucified to preserve her from the great pain and peril of childbirth, behold she heard a voice saying, ' Fear not, woman, for thou shalt bring forth a light in safety that shall enlighten the whole earth,' and thus it came to pass that when presently a maid-child was born she called the babe Clara, hoping that the words of the oracle would one day be fulfilled." x

1 The complete passage in the original runs thus : —

Admirabilis femina, Clara vocabulo et virtute, de civitate Asisii, claro satis genere traxit originem : beato Francisco primum concivis in terris, conregnans postmodum in excelsis. Pater ejus miles et tota utroque parente progenies milita^ ris ; domus abundans, et copiosae, juxta morem patriae, facultates. Mater ejus nomine Ortulana, fructiferam in orto Ecclesiae plantulam paritura, fructibus bonis et ipsa non mediocriter abundabat. Nam quamvis maritali jugo subdita, quamvis curis familiaribus alligata, vacabat tamen proposse divinis obsequiis, insistebat operibus pietatis. Ultra mare siquidem cum peregrinantitms devota transivit, et loca ilia perlustrans, quae Deus homo sacris vestigiis consecrarat, tandem cum gaudio remeavit. Iterum ad S. Michaelem Archangelum causa orationis accessit, et Apostolorum limina devotius visitavit.

Quid plura? Ex fructu arbor cognoscitur, et fructus ex arbore commendatur. Praecessit in radice divini copia muneris, ut in ramusculo sequeretur abundant ia sanctitatis. Praegnans denique mulier, et partui jam vicina, cum ante crucem in ecclesia Crucifixum attente oraret ut earn de partus periculo salubriter expediret, vocem audivit dicentem sibi : ne paveas mulier, quia quoddam lumen salva par- tmies, quod ipsum mundum clarius illustrabit. Quo edocta oraculo, natam infan-

THE LIFE OF ST. CLARE 3

Thus, in substance, Celano (if Celano be indeed the author of the Legenda Sanctae Clarae) in the opening chapter of the legend. He adds later on that the Lady Ortolana, from whose lips Saint Clare had learned the rudiments of the Christian faith, in her old age herself became a nun and dwelt in her daughter's convent, a widow amongst virgins, renowned as a worker of miracles. He mentions too, once, a paternal uncle of Saint Clare's, the Lord Monaldo, a very violent man, and more than once a sister, Agnes, of whom he tells us many things, and this is all that he has to say concerning his heroine's family.

Pope Alexander IV is even more reticent : he informs us that Saint Clare was a native of Assisi, of noble birth but nobler con- versation, that her mother's name was Ortolana, and that this most skilful gardener, who had set so excellent a graft in God's orchard, at last planted herself in the walled garden of St. Damian's where she happily ended her days. Also he refers briefly to the story which Celano has told us of the heavenly voice, but is sufficiently cautious not to vouch for the truth of it. The following is what he says : " His et quamplurimis aliis operibus et miraculis haec venerabilis Virgo resplenduit gloriosis, ut evidenter appareat adimpletum illud, quod de ipsa mater ejus, dum esset ex ea gravida, et oraret, dicitur audivisse : videlicet quod paritura erat quoddam lumen, quod orbem plurimum illustraret."

In the office of Saint Clare that was drawn up about the time of her canonization in 1255, and of which Salimbene says, writing some twenty years later, that Pope Alexander himself composed the collects and the hymns,1 we find more than one allusion to the Seraphic Mother's family. Her sister Agnes's name is men- tioned twice in the psalm antiphons of Lauds —

Ant. 2. Agnes ad Agni nuptias, Et aeternas delicias,

Post Claram evocatur : Ubi per Sion filias Post transitas miserias,

Aeterne jubilatur.

tulam sacro baptismate renascentem, Claram vocari jussit, sperans promissi luminis claritatem pro divinae beneplacito voluntatis aliqualiter fore complendam. 1 See Cronica Fratris Salimbene, Holder-Egger edition. Hanover 1905, page 383 : " Alexander papa canonicavit Sanctam Claram et fecit hymnos ejus et collectas," and again on page 453 : "Hie beatam Claram cathalogo sanctorum ascripsit, quam beatus P'ranciscus convertit ad Christum. Et fecit collectas ejus et hymnos."

4 ST. CLARE OF ASSISI

Ant. 3. Sicut sorore praevia, Christi passi vestigia

Sectatur, gaudens cruce : Sic, dum haec signis rutilat, Agnes post ipsam vigilat, Deus, ad te de luce.

Again, in the fourth stanza of the vesper hymn it is said that Clare was the scion of an illustrious stock — Claris orta natalibus — and in the third stanza of the sequence 1 that her glorious deeds were worthy of her glorious ancestors. Also in the same stanza the story of the miraculous voice is hinted at —

Clara stirpe generata

Claris claret actibus. Nominata nee dum nata

Et praeventa laudibus.

We have only one other contemporary witness — Cardinal Ugolino — better known as Pope Gregory IX. He was one of Saint Clare's most intimate friends, and doubtless he knew as much as she herself knew of her kinsfolk and their social standing, but the most that can be gathered from his writings on this score amounts to very little and adds nothing to what we have already learnt from the lips of Alexander and Celano. What follows is the gist of his evidence : Saint Clare and her sister Agnes were women of noble race, who for Christ's sake had exchanged ample means for abject poverty.

The above information is contained in two very curious and characteristic letters, one addressed to Honorius III and the other to Saint Clare herself. If these faded parchments tell us next to nothing of the Seraphic Mother's lineage, they are eloquent as to several things of greater moment, and in another chapter we shall have to examine them carefully.

In that delightful, but not always reliable, work, The Chronicle of the Twenty- four Generals, which seems to have been com- pleted somewhere about the year 1379, we find, along with several other lives of Franciscan worthies, a life of Brother Rufino, one of the founder's first disciples,2 which is thus headed —

1 In this curious and beautiful sequence Pope Alexander epitomizes, and I think very cleverly, the entire legend of Saint Clare's life as contained in his bull of canonization.

a According to a note in the Kalendar of St. Francis's book of hours, which is still preserved in the convent of St. Clare at Assisi, Rufino was the second disciple of St. Francis.

THE LIFE OF ST. CLARE 5

Vita fratris Rufini consanguinei Sanctae Clarae. In the text of this life Rufino is called Frater Rufinus Cipii, and it contains the following passage in reference to him : Qui cum esset de nobilioribus civibus Assisii, consanguineus Sanctae Clarae. . . . Also in the chronicle itself we have : Frater quoque Rufinus, nobilis consanguineus Sanctae Clarae.

The above sentences from the life of Rufino were written by a scribe unknown many years after Rufino's death — at least fifty, may be a hundred or more; l and the assertions therein contained are not made by any earlier writer. Albeit they are not in them- selves incredible, and no evidence has come down to us that tends either directly or indirectly to render them suspect. But even if it be true that Brother Rufino was a noble citizen of Assisi whose surname was Cipius, or something like it, and that he was a kinsman of Saint Clare, it does not follow, as some have too hastily concluded, that the Seraphic Mother's family name was Cipius, much less Scefi, or even that Cipius was Rufino's family name : consanguineus does not always signify a kinsman on the father's side — it is not unfrequently used to denote any kind of blood relation; and who shall say whether Cipius was Rufino's patronymic or whether it was a surname peculiar to himself?

Our next witness is Fra Mariano da Firenze, a devout son of Saint Francis and the writer of several books which have never been printed and for centuries have been ignored. He was born at Florence in the middle of the fourteen hundreds, and died pf the plague whilst tending the sick in the pest-house of his native city, on the 20th of July, 1523. He seems to have been an honest man, and he was evidently a painstaking writer. He began to write about 1480, and he continued to do so almost till the day he died. He was no doubt well informed of the doings of his own day in his own neighbourhood, but, like most other historians, he is not always to be trusted concerning past events.

On the first page of the book which contains his evidence as to Saint Clare's parentage runs the following inscription : Libro delle degnita et excellentie delV ordine della Seraphica madre delle povere donne sancta Chiara da Asisij, composto per Frate Mariano da Firenze nel loco di sancto Gerolamo presso Volterra anno 151 8.

1 Rufino died, according to Wadding (who is not always to be trusted), in 1230, and in the Vita Fratris Rufini Blessed Conrad's death is referred to, which took place, according to the same author, on December 12, 1306.

6 ST. CLARE OF ASSISI

This book, then, was written in 151 8 at the Franciscan monastery of Saint Jerome near Volterra.

Now on the 12th of June, 1256, Alexander IV ratified a privilege of exemption from episcopal control which had recently been granted by Raynerio, bishop-elect of Volterra, to the abbess and sisters of the Clare Convent of Saint Mary and Saint Francis in the same city; Sbaralea x gives the text of this brief according to the original, which, when he wrote (about 1759), was still in the hands of the Poor Ladies of Volterra. It follows, then, that in Mariano's day, not far from the place in which he dwelt, there was an old Clare convent that had been founded perhaps in St. Clare's lifetime, certainly within three years of her death, and I think it may be taken for granted that he gathered much of the material for his book on the Second Order from the vener- able traditions and from the ancient parchments of this time- honoured house.

Was there in the nuns' library a Life of Saint Clare, which has not come down to us, by Saint Bonaventure or which Mariano believed to be by Saint Bonaventure? At all events he quotes him as his authority for saying that Saint Clare bade good-bye to the world four years after Saint Francis's conversion, and I cannot recall any passage in the Seraphic Doctor's writing in which such a statement is made. However this may be, our friend was acquainted with the contemporary life of Saint Clare, now generally attributed to Celano, and, what is more, he had no doubt whatever that it was written by Celano, for he alleges in favour of her great perfection Vautorita del santo discipolo di S. Fran- cesco Frate Tomaso da Celano, il quale -per autorita d'Alessandro papa quarto scrisse la sua legenda, etc. For the rest, it is likely enough that Mariano had access to various original documents which have not come down to us, or at all events have not yet been discovered. But too much weight must not be attached to his uncorroborated assertions on this account, because it is certain that he also had under his eyes papers we still possess, and that sometimes he misinterpreted them. Thus much for the witness and the sources of his information, now for what he has to say concerning Saint Clare's family.

He tells us what Celano has told us, and adds that her father's

1 The reader will kindly note that unless otherwise indicated all diplomatic documents referred to in this book are to be found in full in Sbaralea's Bullarium Franciscannm. They are arranged in chronological order.

THE LIFE OF ST. CLARE 7

Christian name was Favorone, and that when Pope Celestine III was sitting on Saint Peter's throne, in the year of our Lord 1193, the Lady Ortolana brought forth her firstborn, the glorious virgin Saint Clare, that four years later she presented her lord with a second daughter, Agnes, and the following year with a third, who was called Beatrice.

Trifles these, if you will, but what follows is of moment, for it changes the received legend of Saint Clare's life materially — removes from it a stumbling-block which has more than once given occasion to the enemy to blaspheme. For if what Mariano says be true, it was not on account of her father's opposition that Saint Clare was constrained to flee from home at midnight and by a back door and to take the veil in secret, and in refusing later on to return to the world she in no sense disobeyed him, for the worthy knight had been in his grave for many years when these things happened : he died when St. Clare was about nine years old, and when she became a nun she was already nineteen. Neither can she be blamed or praised (for some on this account have praised her) for disregarding her mother's wishes in the matter of her vocation, for, though he does not say so expressly, Mariano distinctly suggests that Ortolana did not disapprove of her daughter's choice of life.

What are we to think of these statements concerning Saint Clare's parentage, and, first of all, that which is the most impor- tant of all : that her father passed from this present life when she was still a child? There is this much in its favour. So far is it from clashing with anything set forth by St. Clare's first biographers, that several writers of our own day, who had no knowledge of Mariano's work, have deduced what he there affirms as to the death of Favorone from what is said and from what is left unsaid in the bull of canonization, and more especially in the legend attributed to Celano, and I myself, from studying these works, came to a like conclusion long before I had made Mariano's acquaintance.

As to his further statements — that Saint Clare had a second sister, Beatrice, and that her father's name was Favorone — no earlier writer mentions these things, and Pietro Rodolfi da Tossign- ano, who lived half a century later, tells us another tale, but after all it matters little whether they be false or true. Albeit Tossignano must not be left on the shelf, for he talks of other things as well as Christian names, and what he says is significant,

8 ST. CLARE OF ASSISI

and so, too, is what he omits to say. This man, as he himself informs us in the work which contains his evidence as to Saint Clare's family, was born at Tossignano, a little town of no small fame at the foot of the Apennines in the plain of Imola, in 1537. He was the son of Pietro Rodolh" and Gallitia Pogia, his lawful wife, who were gentlefolk of moderate means, and he adds with manifest satisfaction that his paternal grandfather was a knight who for many years had been keeper of the Castle of Forli for Catherine Sforza. Fra Pietro joined the Franciscan Religion in his early youth, in due course he became warden of the convent of San Francesco at Bologna, and at the time when he wrote about Saint Clare he was acting in a like capacity at Venice. He was the author of numerous theological and devotional works, and later on he became Bishop of Senigallia on the Adriatic, in the March of Ancona. He used to occupy his leisure time in collect- ing all that he could find concerning the origin and growth of the Seraphic Religion; of his notes he made a book which he dedi- cated to Sixtus V, on the 12th of September, 1586, and printed and published at Venice in the same year in three volumes : " Historiarum Seraphicae Religionis libri tres," and on page 132 B of the first of them, he tells us that Saint Clare's great-grandfather was one Paul, an Assisi man of good estate, that he had a son called Bernard, who in his turn begat three sons — Paul, Favorino (not Favorone) and Monaldo, warriors all of them without violence, without bluster, men of mild complexion; and that Favorino of his lawful wife, the Lady Ortolana, begat two daughters — Clare and Agnes.

In the original Latin this passage runs thus —

" Fuit B. Clarae . . . proavus Paulus quidam bonae conditionis Assisias, cujus filius Bernardus nomine tres filios suscepit, Paulum, Favorinum, Monaldum qui milites fuerunt sine vi, sine tumultu, studio, et voluntate humani. Favorinus ex domina Hortulana ejus conjuge suscepit duas filias Claram et Agnetem."

The reader will note that whilst Favorino and his brethren are here described as knights and with emphasis, nothing what- ever is said as to the state of life of their father Bernard, and that the words used to denote the social position of great-grand- father Paul could be applied, indeed, to a man of rank, but also, and no less aptly, to a plain citizen who had made his way in the world.

It would seem, then, if Tossignano was well informed, that

THE LIFE OF ST. CLARE 9

Saint Clare was not the descendant of a long line of noble ancestors, but the daughter of a man who had been ennobled, of a knight who had no doubt won his spurs on the field of battle. But was Tossignano well informed? Who shall say? All that can be said is that his testimony is the testimony of Celano, with certain supplementary details which cannot be verified, but are not incredible and are not in contradiction with anything that Celano says, save only in the case of Uncle Monaldo's temper.

Thus much for Fra Pietro's statements, now of the things he neglects to say. He says nothing of the fact, legend, fable — call it what you will — that the Seraphic Mother was a scion of the time-honoured race of Scefi. He keeps silence concerning the tradition that the Lady Ortolana belonged to the historic house of Fiumi; nor does he tell us that Saint Clare's father was Count of Sasso Rosso — a mighty feudal keep of which some fragments still remain perched on a crag not far from the summit of the great mountain which swells up gently from the plain of Spoleto.

Perhaps the good folk of Assisi had not yet begun to talk of these things in Tossignano's day.

There was a time when illustrious birth was so highly esteemed that the possession of it increased the glory even of the greatest saints; and when sanctity was likewise held in such repute that to be akin to one who had earned the honours of the altar added not a little to the credit even of princes. In those days at Assisi there were great folk who believed, and perhaps rightly believed, that they were of the same stock as Saint Clare; and also, genealogists who were not troubled with scruples. It was during this period that the legends above referred to concerning Saint Clare's family were for the first time committed to writing.

The Scefi story comes to us through Wadding, who had it, he says, from a certain citizen of Assisi — ab cive Assisiate — in 1625 or thereabout. Alas! there is reason to think that Assisi was never the home of any family, gentle or simple, with this patronymic. The Fiumi statement and the Sasso Rosso state- ment are from sources unknown, and reach us through later channels. All these things and many more which rest on no surer basis, which can neither be proved by documentary evidence nor the evidence of tradition, are repeated by writers to-day with- out so much as a hint that perhaps they may not be true; and not

io ST. CLARE OF ASSISI

only in pious manuals — wherein no man looks for historical exactitude — but also in the writings of men of letters who are critics of note and specialists in things Franciscan — men from whom one expects, even in trifles of this kind, something approaching to accuracy.

CHAPTER II

Of certain noteworthy dates according to contemporary evidence : Saint Clare died on the nth of August, 1253. She began to reside at Saint Damian's in the summer of 121 1. She renounced the world earlier in the same year — on the night of Palm Sunday. She was in all probability born in 1193.

The date of Saint Clare's death is known to us from the clear and precise testimony of a witness beyond suspicion, who was actually at Assisi when she died, and with her, most likely, a few hours before she breathed her last : that scrupulously punctilious lover of dates, Niccolo di Carbio (Calvi in Umbria), friar minor, friend, confessor and biographer of Pope Innocent IV, and, at the time we are now considering, Bishop of Assisi. This is what he says : " On the day of the octave of our Lord's Resurrection, Anno Domini 1253 [April 27], it being the tenth year of his pontificate, the Pope left Perugia and came to Assisi . . . and he sojourned there all that summer together with his whole house- hold in the convent of the Blessed Confessor Francis, where the saint's most holy body rests . . . and twice like a kind father of much compassion and meekness he visited on her sick bed the illustrious Lady Clare, first Abbess of the cloistered nuns of the order of Saint Damian, who afterwards — on the feast of Saint Rufino — was happily called by the Lord to another life." The Latin text runs thus : " Recedens postmodum de Perusio ipse papa Dominica die octavarum resurrectionis Domini anno Domini MCCLIII pontificatus sui anno X venit Assisium . . . et moratus est tota ilia aestate cum omni sua familia in loco beati confessoris Sancti Francisci, in quo loco corpus ejus sanctissimum requiescit . . . Dominam autem Claram, vita claram et nomine, primam abbatissam dominarum monialium inclusarum ordinis Sancti Damiani in infirmitatis suae lectulo decubantem bis tanquam pius pater et multae compassionis et mansuetudinis visitavit. Quae postmodum die festi beati Rufini a Domino feliciter ad vitam aliam est vocata."

Saint Rufino is the patron saint of the cathedral church of Assisi, and in the twelve hundreds his festival was celebrated throughout the diocese, as it is still on the eleventh day of August. Witness

12 ST. CLARE OF ASSISI

the following note from the Kalendar of Saint Francis's famous book of hours in the convent of Santa Chiara, an undoubtedly genuine relic : " Aug. 1 1 (iii Idus Augusti) S.S. Tiburtii et Susanne " (this in red ink, and added in black in another hand) : " Eodem die S. Rufini epi. et m."

Bishop Carbio's testimony as to the day of the month on which Saint Clare died is confirmed by Celano, who, however, with his usual lack of precision, neglects to mention the year. " On the morrow of Blessed Lawrence," he says, " her most holy soul went forth." Saint Lawrence's Day, the reader will call to mind, is the ioth of August.

I think, then, that it is quite certain that the Seraphic Mother died on Aug. u, 1253.

Now we learn from Celano that at the time of her death Saint Clare had spent forty-two years in the convent of Saint Damian's : " Here," he says, " she found shelter from the storm of the world, and here she remained as long as she lived, shut up, as it were, in a dungeon for love of Jesus Christ. Here, in a hole in the wall like a most fair dove, she made for herself a nest, and brooding over it with silver wings, presently hatched out the Order of Poor Ladies. Here in the way of penance she crushed the clod of the flesh, sowed the seed of righteousness, set a most excellent example for them that should come after her. In this little place for forty-two years she broke with the scourge of discipline the alabaster box of her body in order that the good odour of the spikenard might fill the whole house of God's Church." x

Therefore, if Celano is to be trusted, Saint Clare began to reside at Saint Damian's somewhere about the month of August 1 21 1. Albeit, according to Alexander IV, she had dwelt in another convent, according to Celano in two other convents, before she came to St. Damian's. What, then, was the date of her dramatic flight from home?

In the thirty-ninth chapter of his Legenda Sanctae Clarae (De infirmitatibus ejus et languore diutino) Celano says : " For forty years Blessed Clara had run in the race of sublime poverty, when behold, by reason of her multiplied infirmities, at last she began to near the goal of her heavenly vocation." Now a few lines further on he makes it quite clear that the time to which he here refers

1 In hoc arcto reclusorio per XLII annos disciplinae flagellis frangit sui corporis alabastrum, ut domus Ecclesiae repleatur fragiantia unguentorum." — Legenda Sanctae Clarae (ed. Pennacchi c. 10, p. 16).

THE LIFE OF ST. CLARE 13

was shortly before the papal court left Lyons for Perugia; the date of this event is made known to us by Bishop Niccolo di Carbio, who was in attendance on the Pope during his sojourn in France, and returned with him to Italy. "We set out from Lyons," he says, "on the evening of the Wednesday in Easter week 1 251." Hence it follows that Saint Clare began her religious life some time during the spring of the year 121 1. Thomas of Celano enables us to fix the exact date — almost the exact hour : it was during the night following Palm Sunday, he tells us, that this lowly virgin gave the world a bill of divorce and espoused herself to heaven. This is the first of the few dates in Saint Clare's life that can be fixed with anything like certainty.

That she was still young when she took the veil there can be no doubt, Celano says so explicitly over and over again; we have, too, the evidence of the primitive office and of the bull of canoniza- tion, but no contemporary writer tells us in what year she was born. Albeit we learn from Celano's story of her home-life that upon a certain occasion she refused the hand of a suitor whom her kinsfolk favoured, and it would seem, less from what he actually says than from his manner of telling the tale, that Saint Clare was at this time on the threshold of womanhood, and also that only a short while — an interval rather of weeks than of months — separated these events : her refusal of the unwelcome suitor and her farewell to the world. It is likely, then, that Fra Mariano was not far wrong in assigning the Seraphic Mother's birthday to the year 1 193. In any case she can hardly have been born earlier than 1 1 90 or later than 1196.

CHAPTER III

Concerning the moral complexion of Christendom at the opening of the twelve hundreds. Of the cockle in God's field and of the wheat ; of the good work done by philanthropic associations — the Hospitalers of Saint Anthony, the Crutched Friars, the Noble Order of Fonte- vrault, Saint Norbert's White Canons, Beguines and Beghards, the Umiliati. Of the flourishing condition of the contemplative orders when Saint Francis began to preach, and of some great mystics who were likewise men of the world.

The Seraphic Mother, as we have seen, was born somewhere about the year 1193, and since, as Celano has it, she touched "the mark of the prize of her high calling" on the nth of August, 1253, t^ie days °f her life fulfilled a large half of that century which a writer has not inaptly called the twenty-first year of the middle age. The world of Europe was young in those days, and, like a youth on the verge of manhood, impul- sive, sanguine, keen, inclined to be sentimental, imaginative enough to dream dreams, and sufficiently foolish to think it worth while to make violent efforts to realize them. The Church, we are told, was a veritable sink of corruption, the gates of hell had prevailed against her, and she stank in men's nostrils : " Le clerge" avait des mceurs aussi corrompues que jamais et rendait impossible par la toute reforme s6rieuse. Si parmi les heresies, il y en avait de pures et d'honnetes, il en £tait beaucoup d'absurdes et d'abomi- nables. Quelques voix s'^Ievaient bien 9a et la pour protester, mais les prophecies de Joachim de Flore pas plus que celles de Sainte Hildegarde n'avaient pu enrayer le mal. Luc Wadding, le pieux annaliste franciscain, a commence" son ouvrage par cet effrayant tableau. Le progres de recherches historiques permet de le refaire avec plus de details, mais la conclusion reste la m£me : sans Francois d'Assise, l'Eglise aurait peut-6tre sombr£, et les Cathares auraient £t6 vainqueurs. Le -petit pauvre, chasse par la valetaille d'Innocent III, sauva la chnkienteV'

And what are we to think of this delicately painted miniature ? Consider the man who made it : it is the work of Paul Sabatier, and therein his individuality is impressed. He is a painstaking and resourceful historian, a brilliant and imaginative writer; full of poetry and enthusiasm, his touchstone of truth is intuition, and he

14

THE LIFE OF ST. CLARE 15

is a staunch believer and skilled master in stage effect. Nursed in the strait school of Calvin, for some time a Lutheran preacher, he now believes in Saint Francis, and has become the chief hiero- phant of his fashionable cultus outside the Church. Also, it would seem, he is firmly convinced of the infallibility of Wadding. In the introduction to his Vie it Saint Frangois he has jotted down some instructive remarks on the writing of history; some of them he forgot as the work progressed, as we shall see, and some of them he did not forget, notably this : " Pour ecrire l'histoire il faut la penser, et la penser, c'est la transformer." No comment is needed — and this : " L 'amour est la veritable clef de l'histoire." If it be, no man can doubt that Monsieur Sabatier possesses it, at least in the case of Saint Francis, but I venture to think that, so far as concerns the question we are now considering, the state of the Church, that is, at the beginning of the twelve hundreds, Vamour has proved his pierre cTachoppement. For, prompted by the folly of love, carried away by an excess of devotion, he has thought to exalt the Seraphic Father by belittling his predecessors, to magnify his grand achievements by diminishing theirs, or by exaggerating the difficulties under which he laboured; and though Saint Francis needs no foil to emphasize the beauty of his holiness, though his halo would not be dimmed by a background of arch- angels, Monsieur Sabatier has deemed it expedient to depict him surrounded by fiends. And note, the above quotation from the Vie de Saint Frangois is only the prelude to a treatise in which the author develops his ideas in detail and at length. He arraigns the Church at the bar of history and holds, or seems to hold, a brief for the prosecution. Perfectly convinced of the guilt of the accused, he desires at the same time to appear perfectly just — nay, it is pain and grief to him to show that she is such a poor polluted thing, and any little circumstance which can be alleged in her favour he is quite ready to admit. He summons many witnesses, examines them with acumen and skill, and the unfavour- able conclusions which he draws from their evidence he presents to the jury with tears in his voice. This, however, is not the role which Monsieur Sabatier conceives himself to be playing : he is only a looker-on who has come into court by chance : " II a rassembl£ un dossier et voudrait dire tout simplement son opinion a ses voisins." It is a pity that his dossier is incomplete, strange that all his papers point in one direction, unfortunate that he should have been so oblivious of some of his own maxims on the

1 6 ST. CLARE OF ASSISI

writing of history. This, for example : " Le premier devoir de l'historien est d'oublier son temps et son pays pour devenir le contemporain emu et bienveillant de ce qu'il raconte "; and this: " Dans une histoire comme celle-ci " (La Vie de Saint Francois) " il faut tenir grand compte du genie italien : il est Evident que dans un pays oil on appelle une chapelle basilica, une bicoque fialazzo, oil en s'adressant a un seminariste on lui dit Votre Reverence, les mots n'ont pas la meme valeur que de ce cori-ci des Alpes."

The ethical standard of the twelve hundreds— an age emerging from barbarism — differed in several respects from the ethical standard of to-day : some things which are now universally regarded as grave transgressions were often then held to be of comparatively trivial account, and vice versa. Moreover, material sin is not necessarily formal sin, and only formal sin entails moral degradation.

Whatever may have been the custom in earlier days, it is certain that when Hildebrand began his campaign in favour of sacerdotal celibacy a large number of the clergy of the Western Church, bishops as well as priests, were openly living in wedlock; and it is also certain that the violent measures which he took against the married clergy, when presently he himself was seated in Peter's chair, raised throughout Europe a storm of opposition. And note this : amongst those who fought for milder measures were church- men of repute, devout, conscientious, pure. They were for the most part in the ranks of the secular clergy, but some of them wore the cowl. More than one great provincial council held about this time suffered married priests to retain their wives : the Synod of Rouen, for example, in 1063, of Lisieux in 1064, of Rouen again in 1072, of Winchester, presided over by the saintly Lanfranc, himself a monk, as late as 1076, and there were others. And had it not been for Hildebrand and his iron will, and the untiring zeal of Cluny — in those days a power in Christendom — it is likely enough that the milder discipline of the Eastern Church in this respect — a discipline, be it borne in mind, which is still observed not only by the schismatic East but also by the Eastern Churches which are in union with the Holy See — would have prevailed also in the West permanently.

But though clerical celibacy at last became the recognized law of the Latin Church, some of the bishops for a long time were unable or unwilling to enforce it; and some of Saint Gregory VII's successors seem to have been less eager than he that they should

THE LIFE OF ST. CLARE 17

do so. At all events at the opening of the twelve hundreds, and for many years afterwards, there were still in Italy and elsewhere not a few married clergymen.1

Herein we have the explanation of many, perhaps most of the stories that have come down to us concerning the unclean lives of the secular clergy in the days when Saint Francis began to preach. And in the eyes of zealots and perhaps, too, in the eyes of the law, the married priest was a fornicator; for these same zealots, and perhaps, too^ again, according to the strict letter of the law, the prelate who owed his appointment to the favour of some temporal prince was no less surely a simonist; and this, I suspect, is the origin of half the charges of simony made against the prelates of this period. It was a time of transition : the reins of ecclesiastical government were being gradually drawn tighter, and some were inclined to kick at it; in the opinion of these men the old ways were pleasanter.

What, then, are we to think of the historian who deems it his first duty to forget his own land and his own time and become the sympathetic and benevolent contemporary of the facts which he relates, and who, nevertheless, keeps silence concerning these things ?

Of course, all the charges of corruption and laxity of life brought against the clergy of the eleven hundreds by contemporary scribes are not covered by the cases of the prelates who owed their preferment to outside influence, and of the parish priests who were married. " That there was much moral darkness in this period,', as a recent writer has it, "no student of history will deny; but that darkness was its chief, if not only, characteristic, no student of history may assert." Albeit Monsieur Sabatier does not hesitate to say : " Pour se faire une idee de la degradation de la plupart des moines, il faut lire, non pas les apostrophes souvent oratoires et exagerees des predicateurs, obliges de frapper fort pour £mouvoir, mais parcourir les recueils des bulles, 011 les appels en cour de Rome pour des assassinats, des viols, des incestes, des adul- teres reviennent presque a chaque page." Well, I suppose, from his long stay in Italy, our learned friend has himself become

1 The bull Pro salute procuranda fideliwn by which Pope Clement IV on the 1 2th of February, 1266, authorized the Franciscans of the German province to accept the hospitality of married priests, clericorum concubinas tenentium, when no more suitable shelter was available, is noteworthy in this connection. (See Eubel — Bullarii Franciscani Epitome, No. 1252, p. 125.) C

1 8 ST. CLARE OF ASSISI

Italianate. Evidences of corruption there certainly are in the volumes to which he refers, but it is not true to say that they are to be found on almost every page; and why is no count to be taken of the genie Italien in the case of official documents — letters of Italian Bishops, bulls of Italian Popes, Southerners, too, some of them, like Innocent III and that stalwart old Pontiff his nephew, Gregory IX, a man most easily moved to tears and to laughter, and who, whether he praised or whether he blamed, was always in the superlative, one who invariably used burnished gold for his high lights and lamp-black for his shadows. And was Salimbene not an Italian, and was he not, too, an inveterate gossip of the Saint Simon tribe, with as vivid an imagination and as sharp a tongue ? Are this man's lickerish stories to be taken au pied de la lettre? For certain grave charges against parish priests he is Monsieur Sabatier's only witness; and mark this : Salimbene was born on the 9th of August, 1221; he wrote his reminiscences between the years 1282 and 1287, and the title of the chapter in which our friend quotes him is " VEglise vers 1209."

" There was a man in the land of Vienne whose name was Gaston. He was a mighty man and rich, a warrior from his youth upwards, and he feared God. And the finger of God touched him, and he fell sick of Saint Anthony's fire, which at that time was raging in those parts; and in his anguish he cried to Saint Anthony, who delivered him from the jaws of death. Whereat, rejoicing in Christ, he set out with his son Guerin for the saint's shrine at Saint Didier de la Mothe to offer thanks. And as they journeyed thither the young man fell sick of the sacred fire; but Gaston vowed to the Lord that if his son should be spared he would henceforth spend himself and his substance in God's service; and at the same moment the fever left him. That night Gaston lay on his bed considering these things, and when sleep came to him there came, too, Saint Anthony with his tau-headed crutch in his hand and arrayed in his sheepskin. ' But why,' said the old man, ' why take thought for the body which to-day is and to-morrow shall be cast into the pit? Albeit, since thou wouldst have it so, I prayed to Christ for thy son, and Christ has vouchsafed to hear me. Wherefore make good thy promise.' Then, handing him his staff, ' plant it,' he said, ' in the soil.' Gaston did so, and forthwith it became a tree with spreading branches and leaves and fruit and most fair flowers; and soon crouching in the shade of it was a vast multitude afflicted with leprosy and other foul diseases;

THE LIFE OF ST. CLARE 19

and as Gaston gazed and wondered, all of them were made whole, such virtue was there in the fruit and in the flowers of that life- giving tree. ' Dost know the meaning of it ? ' said Saint Anthony, with a smile; ' the tree is the order which thou shalt found. Serve God in His sick.' On the morrow Gaston related the vision to his son, and soon they built a hospital at Saint Didier to which they devoted the whole of their substance, and wherein they spent the rest of their days in the service of the afflicted."

Thus, it is said, began the great order of the Hospitalers of Saint Anthony, an order which was at first composed exclusively of laymen who took no vows, and which obtained official recognition almost as soon as it was founded. The rule was confirmed by Urban II in 1096.

Fostered as it was by kings and prelates, this little plant took root and grew almost as fast as the tree in Gaston's dream; before the close of the eleven hundreds the Hospitalers had houses in all the chief towns of Europe, and they had lost nothing of their fervour when Saint Francis began to preach. He lodged in one of their convents when he came to Rome, in 1209, to beg Pope Innocent III to confirm his rule. Saint Bonaventure describes this place as the hospital of Saint Anthony near the Lateran; it was about a quarter of a mile from the Lateran, for the chapel is still standing, not a stone's throw from the old church of Santa Maria Maggiore.

" These men," says Jacques de Vitry of the Antonines, writing some thirty years later, " these men, by forcing themselves to it, endure amidst filth and foul smells such grievous hardship for Christ's sake that no kind of penance which the wit of man can devise can for a moment be compared with their holy martyrdom — most precious in God's sight."

When Saint John of Matha was saying his first Mass, so runs the legend, he saw an angel in white raiment with a cross on the breast in red and blue, who stretched out his arms, as it were, to protect two captives, one a white man and the other a Moor. And when he had come to himself, for the youth was rapt in ecstasy, he went forth alone and wandered in wild places, hoping that God would vouchsafe to reveal the meaning of the vision; and presently, in the forest of Meaux, he fell in with a man who had bartered glory and the prospect of a crown for a hidden life with nature and with God, one Felix, in the world Hugh of the great house of Valois. With this man John of Matha took up his

20 ST. CLARE OF ASSISI

abode, and one evening, whilst they were sitting together beside a brook and refreshing themselves with spiritual converse, a white hart came forth from the thicket to drink, and there was this strange thing about him : a cross in red and blue was fixed between his antlers. And when the old hermit marvelled, for he, who knew all the beasts of the forest, was unacquainted with this stag, his guest told him for the first time what he had seen at his first Mass.

That night, three times, each of these men dreamed that an angel bade him go to Rome and learn the will of God from the lips of the Lord Pope, and on the morrow they went forth; and when they had reached the eternal city, Pope Innocent III, who had just been set in Peter's chair, received them with exultation, and lodged them in his own house, for they had brought with them papers from his friend the Bishop of Paris; but he was not then able to tell them what God willed they should do.

And it came to pass on the second feast of Saint Agnes (January 28th), when Mass was being celebrated in the Lateran basilica and the Sacred Host was lifted up and the Lord Pope raised his eyes to look upon his God, that he saw the same vision that Brother John had seen on the day of his first Mass, and at the same moment the will of God was revealed to him. And presently he sent for the hermits and bade them found a religion to ransom Christian slaves, and he gave them money and a rule of life and letters of recommendation to the King of Morocco. Thus began an order famous in the annals of the Church — the order of Crutched Friars, so called from the cross in red and blue embroidered on their white habits.

Saint Francis was about ten years old when these things hap- pened.

Brother Felix, who was now some fourscore years of age, and too feeble to endure the hardships of life in a strange land, returned to the forest of Meaux and built near his old hermitage the famous abbey called Cerfroid, which became the mother-house of the order. Here for fifteen years he busied himself in training the recruits who from all parts of Europe flocked to his standard. He died on the 4th of November, 121 2, and was canonized by Urban IV fifty years later.

As for John of Matha, he himself at first superintended the ransom work, and with such success that in less than two years the first company of ransomed captives arrived from Morocco; but

THE LIFE OF ST. CLARE 21

he was a man of feeble constitution, and soon, worn out with work and fever, he came back to Rome to die; on the 8th of February, 121 3, he fell asleep, and they buried him in the old church of Saint Thomas on the Celian hill, which Innocent III some years before had given to his order.

The gateway of this ancient building still remains; in the tympanum of the arch there is a curious mosaic of Brother John's vision; it was in all probability executed not long after his death. The work which the two hermits had so successfully begun did not die with them : within fifty years of their decease their disciples had no less than six hundred great hospices for men in various parts of Europe, and hospices not a few for the female captives whom they had rescued, which were in charge of sisters affiliated to the order.

Blessed Robert of Arbrissel was a friend of publicans and sinners who, with a reckless disregard for his own good fame, devoted the best energies of his life to reclaiming dissolute women, and who founded a most successful order for carrying on this difficult and dangerous mission. He was a devout priest of good parts and of good birth; in his childhood he had taken Chastity for his bride, and he was true to her to the end.

We first hear of him soon after his ordination — in 1080 or thereabout — when he was studying, or perhaps teaching, theology in Paris. About this time he made the acquaintance of the reforming Bishop Balderic of Rennes, who was now vainly striving to enforce clerical celibacy throughout his diocese. This man in 1085 made Robert his coadjutor, but though he did his utmost to second the bishop's endeavours, his efforts met with little success, and when shortly afterwards Balderic died, he withdrew dis- heartened to the forest of Craon, determined to spend the rest of his life in " blessed solitude." Like the beasts of the forest — his only friends — he browsed on herbs and burrowed for roots; the bare earth was his bed, his shelter a hollow tree. Presently it was whispered about that this wild man was a saint, and soon he had disciples — they were so numerous, he himself tells us, that he was forced to make three companies of them and to distribute them in neighbouring woods. At last his fame as a teacher reached the ears of Urban II, who bade him come forth and preach. He did so, and with effect : crowds flocked to hear him, heretics renounced their errors, enemies embraced, sinners grown old in iniquity abandoned their evil ways.

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It was probably about this time that it first came into his mind to found the fantastic order which saved his name from oblivion. Like all the great mystics of the Middle Age, the chief object of his devotion after God was the Mother of God, and in order to emphasize this, and considering, too, that the God-man with his last breath had committed his Church in the person of Saint John to her care, Robert determined that his religion, which was to embrace women as well as men, should have a woman for chief, and that all the chief officers should likewise be women. This determination he carried into effect, and the Holy See approved. The rule which he prescribed was the rule of Saint Benedict, with special constitutions which he himself drew up and which Paschal II confirmed in 1 106 and again in 1 1 13.

In accordance with these constitutions, to every community of women there was affiliated a community of men, who were ruled, indeed, by a superior of their own sex, but in every case he was only the delegate of the superior of the nunnery to which his house was attached, and he was not even held to be competent to deal with the crumbs that fell from his own board : the scraps of meat and broken bread were collected every day and handed over to the sisters, who distributed them to the poor.

The men ate their bread by the sweat of the face : they tilled the fields and tended the flocks, for " sublime poverty " did not enter into Robert's scheme of religion, and they went forth into the highways and hedges daily to preach repentance. The women's part was to watch and pray and to welcome the outcasts whom Christ, the Friend of outcasts, committed to their keeping. In case of necessity the nuns could come forth, but under no pretext whatsoever could they visit the houses of the monks, who in their turn were strictly forbidden to enter the nuns' enclosure : the Mother General and her lady lieutenants commanded through a grating.

The Abbey of Fontevrault near Candes in Poitou was the mother-house of the order; and the Abbess of Fontevrault was in spiritual things and in temporal things supreme head of the order. Exempt from episcopal control, and subject only to the Pope, she named her own officers, men as well as women, appointed her own chaplains, and herself chose the confessors of her daughters and her sons; no novice could be received without her sanction : every nun and every monk made profession in her hands, promising

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solemnly to obey her, and Blessed Robert himself was the first to swear allegiance.

The Noble Order of Fontevrault was neither a large nor a widespread order : the number of communities never exceeded a hundred and twenty all told, a few of which were in Spain and in England, and the rest in France; but it was one of the best administered, the richest and the most aristocratic orders of the Western Church : the Abbess almost always belonged to some sovereign house, her subjects, both women and men, were all of them of illustrious birth, and they were renowned throughout Christendom for their culture, their learning, their piety, their good works, and the exactitude with which they observed their rule. During the Hundred Years War they suffered much, and again, later on, from the Calvinists; material decay and a general relaxation of discipline was the outcome, but they renewed their youth and vigour in the course of the sixteen hundreds, and this strange old-world garden was being carefully tilled and was yield- ing most excellent fruit when at last it was laid waste by the angels of the Revolution.

Robert of Arbrissel was born in the middle of the ten hundreds; he died in the odour of sanctity in 1117, and the grand order which he founded in 1105 was in the heyday of its magnificence when Saint Francis began to preach.

Norbert, of the great house of Genappe, was born at Xanten in the Rhineland in 1080 or thereabout. He was an ambitious youth, and he took orders because he thought that with the influence which his family could command, the Church would help him to glory, and the Church did something for him : she gave him the honours of the altar. That was not the kind of glory that Norbert had in those days dreamed of.

Shortly after his ordination he became court chaplain to the Emperor Henry V. Later on he obtained a canon's stall at Cologne; and then, one sultry afternoon in the summer of 11 14, he took it into his head to ride over to a neighbouring village. A storm arose, a flash of lightning flung him from his saddle, and when he came to himself he was a new man : he resigned his prebend, bestowed his goods on the poor, and for two years, ragged and barefoot, wandered about preaching. He spoke well, had the gift of address, the charm of personal beauty; he was all things to all men, and all men were drawn to him; but though he reckoned his converts by thousands, Norbert was not contented.

24 ST. CLARE OF ASSISI

Of the sheep he had brought to the fold most of them, he knew, would not have strayed if the shepherds had done their duty : the carelessness and incompetence of these hirelings was the crying ill of the day, and he determined to abate it.

To this end he withdrew to the forest of Coucy, near Laon, with a little band of disciples, and presently there rose up in a secluded vale — which Norbert called Premontre, because the place had been pointed out to him by an angel in a dream — a rude habitation with a church beside it and a few outbuildings. It was the first home of the world-famed Premonstratensian Order, an order whose members, whilst leading the lives of monks, devoted themselves at the same time to pastoral work and to preaching. This was in the spring of the year 1 1 20.

The rule was confirmed by Honorius II in 1 1 26, and in the same year Norbert preached at the Diet of Spires, and was unani- mously elected to the vacant See of Magdeburg; and soon, in strange contrast with the richly apparelled retinue that attended him, he entered his episcopal city in the garb of a beggar, very loath to undertake the burthen that had been imposed upon him, perhaps because he knew that his shoulders were not suited to it. At all events he was less successful as a bishop than as a missioner : his zeal in enforcing clerical celibacy drew down upon him the ill-will of his married priests, who, it would seem, were numerous, for at last he was constrained to save himself by flight. He died in exile on the 6th of June, n 34, and then these men acknowledged that their bishop was a saint.

Brabant was the scene of the first great triumph of Saint Nor- bert's White Canons. It came about in this fashion. Towards the close of the year 11 14 one Tankhelm, a fanatic, of whose antecedents we know nothing, appeared in the market-place of Antwerp and proclaimed himself to be the incarnation of the Paraclete. Half the population believed in him; churches were consecrated in his honour; he lived like a prince, and when he came forth he was attended by a body-guard of armed men. Riot and bloodshed were the outcome, and Tankhelm escaped by the skin of his teeth. Some twelve months later he returned, and when Duke Godfrey of Brabant, fearing renewed disturbance, was meditating his arrest, the fanatic got wind of it, and again determined on flight, but as under cover of darkness he was making his way to the wharf, whence he would have set sail for England he was stabbed in the back " by a man full of zeal " as

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an ancient writer has it. Thus died Tankhelm; but his death only increased the number of his disciples, and soon the religion that he had founded spread all over the Low Countries.

" The social and moral disturbance provoked by the Communal Movement," notes Pirenne, "sufficiently explains this state of things." Maybe, but the fewness of the parochial clergy and the indifferent lives of many of them must also be taken into account.

For six years the clergy of Antwerp called in vain after their wandering sheep, and then at last, at their wits' end, they bethought themselves of Norbert and his White Brethren, some of whom came to Antwerp, where the canons of Saint Michael ceded to them " their church and churchyard with the chapels and outbuild- ings thereon and an acre of land adjoining," and forthwith they began to preach by word and example. At first it was uphill work, for these northern heretics were as determined and as fierce as the heretics who a little later wrought havoc in the South — Albigenses, Patarini, Cathari, call them what you will, Manichasans all of them more or less, as too were the disciples of Tankhelm. But the sons of Saint Norbert did not lose courage, and before the close of the first half of the eleven hundreds the last straggler had come home. In a word, these men did for the Duchy of Brabant and the counties of Holland, and Zealand and Hainaut and Flanders what Saint Francis and his companions a little later did for Central Italy — delivered the land from error by the talisman of sweetness and self-effacement. But if in these things the White Canons and the Grey Friars resembled one another, for the rest, they differed widely.

The Franciscan evangelist was, at all events in Saint Francis's time, a wandering preacher, very often a layman, and not unfrequently without letters. A stranger and a wayfarer on the face of the earth, he lived from day to day by the sweat of his brow, if he could; and when no man would hire him, by begging. The Norbertine missioner was always a priest canonically invested with the cure of souls, and almost always a man of liberal educa- tion; his monastery was his home, the surrounding country his field of labour; he lived on tithes and on stole-fees and the produce of the land he tilled, for though individually he was as poor as the Franciscan, the order to which he belonged was not forbidden to hold property, and very soon became rich. Thus within ten years of their coming to Antwerp the White Canons obtained in addition to the little holding granted to them by the canons

26 ST. CLARE OF ASSISI

of Saint Michael vast estates at Tongerloo in the Campine country, at Parcq, hard by Louvain, at Grimgerghe and Jette in the neigh- bourhood of Brussels, and further afield at Tronchiennes near Ghent, and in the polders of Veurne in West Flanders; and before the end of the eleven hundreds they had settlements all over the Netherlands. Most of this property when they received it was heath or bog — land which had never been cultivated or for centuries had lain fallow; but they soon had it under corn or sweet pasture, for these men were no less skilful in the taming of wild soil than in the taming of wild souls. But if they realized large profits from their agricultural pursuits, they were not corrupted by their contact with filthy lucre, for they did not consider their wealth their own — they were only God's trustees for the orphan and the widow.

These men were still doing excellent work when Saint Francis began to preach, and not only in the Netherlands, but in France, in Spain, in England and in Italy. Moreover, the Beguinage — one of the most striking manifestations of the religious life of the Flemish burgher brought back to orthodoxy — was the offspring without doubt of Saint Norbert's disciples; so, too, a kindred institution for men : the confraternity of Beghards. We first hear of these half-way houses between the world and the cloister towards the close of the eleven hundreds; but their foundations at least were laid fifty years earlier.

The Beguines were recruited from all ranks of society; they had no common rule — every community fixed its own order of life and chose its own superior; they were not enclosed, they did not take vows, they neither asked nor accepted alms nor renounced individual ownership, but lived in their own homes on their own means, or, if need be, worked for their living. Hence, containing as they sometimes did several hundred habitations, these great sisterhoods resembled towns rather than nunneries. The Beghards were not in holy orders; in their ranks were a few professional men and perhaps, too, a few knights, but nearly all of them were worn-out artizans — fullers, dyers, weavers and such- like, and they earned their bread as best they could by practising their handicrafts. Like the Beguines, they made no vows, refused alms, had no common rule, and elected their own chiefs, to whom alone they owed obedience; but unlike them, they had all things in common, lived under one roof, and ate at the same board.

These semi-religious associations — ardent centres of mysticism —

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which soon spread all over the Netherlands and reckoned their members by thousands — the men from their connection with the trade companies, the women through their intimacy with the burghers, whose children they taught, and from whose families they were chiefly recruited, to a great extent moulded the religious life and largely directed the religious thought of the cities of the Low Countries for more than two hundred years; and note this : if in the twelve and in the thirteen hundreds the cultus of the Mother of God was more pronounced in these parts than in any other quarter of Europe, it was the outcome of their influence.

Though these congregations never crossed the Alps, in Italy there arose about the same time, or perhaps a little earlier, a mixed congregation of women and men which occupied an intermediate place between the world and religion, and resembled them in several respects — the great industrial and commercial undertaking called the Order of Umiliati.

This order, famous in the annals of Christendom, had not yet reached the zenith of its exuberance when the Poor Man of Umbria began to lay the foundations of his own house; and, strange as it may seem, there is reason to think that this rich association of trading evangelists, who, in accordance with the Gospel precept made to themselves friends of the mammon of iniquity, was the model from which he built.

The Umiliati, according to the fifteenth-century chroniclers of the order, derived their origin from a group of noble Milanese families which Henry the Fowler had banished to Northern Germany in 1014. Strangers in a strange land, they consoled themselves as best they could by devotional exercises; in order to keep the wolf from the door they learned how to handle the spindle, and soon became such cunning workers in cloth that they were able to live, and to live well, on the profits of their trade. It was by these folk, we are told, that the woollen industry was first planted in their native soil, for when at last they came home they continued of choice to lead the lives which in exile they had led of necessity.

Recent research has cast discredit on these statements : 1 we now know that this Order dates from somewhere about the year n 50,

1 See Professor Zanoni's Gli Umiliati. (Milan. Hoepli. 191 1.) To this most interesting and reliable work I am indebted for most of the information concerning the Umiliati set down in these pages.

28 ST. CLARE OF ASSISI

and that its founders were not men of high degree but of very humble condition. The first Brethren were all of them labourers and artizans connected with the local wool trade in various towns of Northern Italy — Milan, Pavia, Verona, Como — and the first Sisters were their women-folk. They clubbed their little savings together in order that they might have the wherewithal to set up in business in a small way for themselves, driven thereto by the harsh treatment and the starvation wages of their taskmasters; and they formed themselves into a religious association, partly because they were devotees in an age of religious upheaval, and partly because they knew that the Church, and the Church alone, was powerful enough to protect them from the machinations of the rich merchants and manufacturers whose slaves they had been and with whom they were now presuming to compete.

In the early days each community lived under one roof, men and women together, single folk and married couples and their little ones, and ate at the same table. Individual ownership was forbidden to them : personal property to any amount they could hold in common, but they were not allowed to hold real property, save only their houses and other buildings necessary for the exercise of their trade, and as much land as they themselves were able to till with their own hands; they were not allowed to beg, or even to accept unsolicited offerings, but were bound by their Rule to work for their living; and only the sick, the aged, and children of tender years were exempt from this obligation. They were industrious, thrifty, frugal, and the new undertaking throve; their own wants were few, and all their superfluous earnings they distributed to the poor.

Attracted by the good odour of their faith and charity, and perhaps, too, on account of the temporal advantages which they hoped to obtain by uniting themselves to a society of successful traders who had all things in common, not a few individuals, priests as well as laymen, and sometimes, too, whole families of good social standing, soon began to ask to be admitted to their ranks, and before the close of the eleven hundreds this little society of Christian socialists had settlements in all the chief towns of Northern and Central Italy.

About this time a change was made in the organization of the order, and it was divided into three branches. The first consisted of unmarried persons of both sexes, who dwelt under one roof but not in the same abode : for each of their monasteries contained

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two cloisters, one for the women and the other for the men. In the wall of separation there was a little window with shutters and an iron grille through which they could communicate with one another in case of necessity, but no brother could cross the nuns' threshold unless he had first obtained the authorization of the head of the house. This individual, to whom all the inmates of the house were subject, women as well as men, was elected by the suffrages of all of them, and a sister was eligible for election. The rule which they observed has come down to us : it contains various passages from the Benedictine Rule, the Rule of Saint Basil, the Rule of the Augustinian Canons, and the writings of Saint Gregory the Great; and several special regulations concerning their own peculiar work and manner of life. For the rest they continued to busy themselves with the wool trade, and with no less success than of yore.

The Second Order resembled the first in all things save this: neither the Brethren nor the Sisters were bound by vows; they could return to the world when they would; it was an entirely voluntary association.

The Third Order consisted of married couples and single persons of both sexes who lived in their own homes. Their Rule has come down to us : it is drawn up on much the same lines as the Rule which Pope Nicholas IV, nearly a hundred years later (in 1289), gave to the Tertiaries of Saint Francis.

Towards the close of the eleven hundreds some of the Umiliati folk had become more or less infected by the errors of the Cathari, who were now sufficiently numerous in the diocese of Milan and in several of the neighbouring dioceses. Thus, the whole order fell into disrepute and was treated with considerable harshness by local ecclesiastical authorities. Wherefore in the last days of the last year of the century these persecuted folk brought their trouble to the feet of Pope Innocent III, who had just been set in Peter's Chair, and that great and wise Pontiff, having first assured himself of their orthodoxy, took the whole order under the special pro- tection of the Apostolic See, confirmed their Rules, gave them faculties to preach, and invested them with various privileges. As for the Brethren and Sisters who had been the cause of all the trouble, they went forth from the order and, too, from the Church, and the heretical sect known as the Poor Men of Lombardy seems to have owed its origin to these misguided people.

It was at the time of this crisis, I suspect, and no doubt under

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the auspices of Pope Innocent himself, that the changes above referred to in the organization of the Order were effected.

Jacques de Vitry, who passed through Lombardy on his way to Perugia in the spring of 1216, has some curious notes concerning theUmiliati of his day. The following is the gist of what he says —

"Just as we were entering Lombardy the devil seized the weapons with which I meant to shame him — in other words, my books — and flung them into a stream impetuous and terribly deep, vehemently and beyond measure swollen from the melting of the winter snow, and which was sweeping away bridges and carrying along with it great blocks of stone. One of my trunks, which was full of books, was borne away by the current, but the other, wherein I had placed the finger of my mother, Blessed Mary of Ognies, buoyed up, as I verily believe, the mule on which I was riding and saved us from being drowned; for whereas hardly one in a thousand escaped, we reached the bank in safety. As for the box of books, it drifted up against some trees, and its course being arrested by the branches, it was recovered, though with difficulty; and, marvellous to say, though the writing was a bit blurred it was still legible.

" After this adventure we came to a certain Milanese town which is a hotbed of heretics. There I tarried some days and preached the Word of God in several places. For hardly any one is found in that city to resist heretics but certain holy men and religious women who are called by worldly and malicious folk Patroni; but by the supreme pontiff (Innocent III), who confirmed their religion, and from whom they have faculties to preach and confute heretics, Umiliati. For Christ's sake they have given up all; they are gathered together in divers places and live by the labour of their hands. They hear the Word of God gladly, and often preach themselves; steadfast in faith, sound in doctrine, they are fruitful in good works. This order has succeeded to such an extent that now they have a hundred and fifty convents of brethren and sisters in the diocese of Milan alone. Each of their monas- teries is divided into two parts, whereof one is occupied by the men, and the other by the women. Moreover, not a few of them dwell in their own homes."

Thus much — and much more might be said did space permit — concerning active orders in various parts of Christendom, which originated at a time when, we are told, the Church was in full decadence, and were still doing admirable work a hundred years

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later, when she was in extremis, and Saint Francis stepped in and miraculously saved her from dissolution, according to the gospel of Sabatier.

And if we turn to the contemporary communities which had no external work peculiar to them — Benedictine, Cistercian, Cluniac, and, though later, the hermit orders of the Grande Chartreuse, of Camaldoli, of Valombrosa — we find the same phenomenon : thistles producing figs; thorns, grapes in abundance, and fruit of the finest quality. If the monasteries of the eleven hundreds were indeed hotbeds of vice, saints without number were nurtured in these dens of abomination, and if the monks of the same period were deserters from the battle of life, somehow or other they came to the fore in every branch of human activity, and when men wanted a leader they looked for him, and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred they found him, in the ranks of these wastrels. Amongst them were mystics like Adam of Saint Victor and Richard and Hugh of the same house, of whom Neale says that they were " three of the greatest men of that marvellous twelfth century," and of Adam, that " he was the greatest Latin poet not only of mediaeval but of all ages." There were statesmen, too, and scholars, like Lanfranc, who made the Benedictine Abbey of Bee — a cluster of huts when he came there — the foremost school in Christendom; philosophers and men of letters like his pupil and successor in the See of Canterbury, Saint Anselm; men who knew how to fight, like that stalwart hermit Saint Hugh, who wore the cowl when he was eight years old, and when he was fifty exchanged a Carthusian cell for the See of Lincoln, and, says Dymock, " a more self-denying, earnest, energetic and fearless bishop has seldom, if ever, ruled this see or any other. He brought with him all his Carthusian simple devotedness to the service of Christ, all the Carthusian contempt for the things of this world; nowhere, perhaps, but in a Carthusian cell could such a man have been formed. He was consumed with zeal for the glory of God and the good of his fellow-men. He fought for the rights of his Church and for the rights of the poor, and he proved himself a match, and more than a match, for Henry II and Richard I and John. Once sure of the straight path of duty, no earthly influence or fear or power could stop him : he never bated an inch even to such opponents as these; and while fighting and beating them, still, all the while, won and retained their admiration and reverence."

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The twelfth century was an age of great prelates and of great popes, and the greatest of them wore the cowl; in the course of the eleven hundreds the Church was governed by four monks at least — Paschal II (1098-1 113) and Gelasfus II (1 1 18-19), Cluniacs; St. Eugene III, Cistercian (1145-53), the friend and disciple of St. Bernard; and Hadrian IV, Benedictine (1145-59), the only Englishman who has ever sat in Peter's chair. When this man was dying he said : u I have spent all the days of my life between the anvil and the hammer," and every one of these glorious pontiffs, when death came to him, might with equal truth have uttered the same complaint; and all of them could have justly added, including Hadrian himself : " but I have kept the faith, I have finished my course, I have fought a good fight for the sheep entrusted to my care, and henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness."

CHAPTER IV

Of Saint Clare's home life. Dearth of evidence concerning her child- hood : Celano the only contemporary witness ; what he says. His account of her conversion to religion, wherein he contradicts himself inadvertently. His second statement corroborated by Alexander IV, Fra Salimbene and Saint Bonaventure, viz. that Saint Clare determined to renounce the world not before, as he says in his first statement, but after she had met Saint Francis and at his suggestion. Of the cause of Celano's slip. Under what circumstances Saint Clare made the acquaintance of Saint Francis ; why she wished " to see and to hear him," and why he wished her to take the veil. Of the complexity of his character and of the motives which inspired him to found a community of cloistered nuns.

Of Saint Clare's childhood and upbringing hardly anything has come down to us. Her own writings are barren in this respect; Pope Alexander IV Contents himself with mellifluous generalities : " O Clara multimode titulis praedita claritatis ! ante conversionem tuam utique clara, in conversione clarior, in claustrali conversa- tione praeclara. . . ." And again : " O admiranda Clarae beatae claritas! . . . Emicuit haec, inquam, in hoc saeculo, in religione praefulsit : in domo illuxit ut radius, in claustro coruscavit ut fulgor." The writer of the primitive office is no less reticent : " Haec in paternis laribus puella sacris moribus agebat caelibatum quam praedocebat unctio sine magistro medio cor Christo dare gratum," and so forth; even the author of the Legenda has next to nothing to say of the child life of his heroine, and, in all prob- ability, because he knew next to nothing which seemed to his puritanical mind to be worth noting down : there were no pro- digies to relate, no acts of eccentric piety, no deeds of precocious asceticism wherewith to edify his readers. Saint Clare, I think, was not fortunate in her first biographer. He elaborates, how- ever, with some skill the meagre details of this sort which he was able to find, and, strictly adhering to the traditions of his craft,1 he begins his story, as we have seen, by relating a miracle, or what he deemed to be a miracle, which took place shortly before her birth. But, after all, the incident in question is a sufficiently ordinary one, nor is it necessary in order to explain it to have

1 See Les Legendes Hagiographiques, par Hippolyte Delehaye, S.J., p. no; Bruxelles : Bureau de la societe des Bollandistes. 1905.

D 33

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recourse to supernatural intervention : that a Christian woman about to endure the perils of childbirth should pray for a safe delivery is not an unusual thing, nor is it contrary to everyday experience that to such a one God should vouchsafe some measure of consolation. Ortolana received it in this way : she heard a voice saying : " Ne parveas mulier, quia quoddam lumen salva parturies, quod ipsum mundum clarius illustrabit." Whence did our author learn this tale ? From one of the nuns of Saint Damian's there can be no doubt (though, maybe, it was not told to him exactly as he tells it to us), who, in her turn, had learnt it, perhaps, from Saint Clare herself, perhaps — and this, I think, is more likely — from the lips of old Ortolana, who, we know, spent the last years of her life in the convent over which her daughter ruled. It must have been, too, from the Saint Damian's folk that he obtained the scraps of information which he deigns to give us concerning Saint Clare's childhood : how Ortolana taught her her catechism; how, when she was quite a little thing, childlike mingling her games and devotions, she used to reckon the number of Paters she had said with little stones; of her charity to the poor when she grew older, and how, in order that she might not give to God that which had cost her nothing, it was her wont to deny herself the .delicacies of her mother's well-spread board, and with these choice viands to nourish the bowels of orphans.

One can hardly imagine a woman of Saint Clare's humility telling to her nuns or to any one else self-commendatory stories of this kind, but it is easy to believe that the Lady Ortolana took an old woman's delight in fondly recalling and in recounting to a sympathetic audience the child-life of a daughter whom she had always loved tenderly and of whom she was naturally proud, nor is it difficult to see this venerable matron in the common room of Saint Damian's with a group of sisters about her, eagerly drinking in her reiterated tales of the little happenings of their mother's baby days, banal enough, no doubt, but always fresh and always interesting to the woman who talked and to the women who listened.

When Saint Clare was about eighteen years of age she reached the turning-point of her existence, and gave the world a bill of divorce, as we have already seen.

" When this virgin began to feel the first stings of divine love, she deemed the fleeting picture of human love a thing to be despised, and, taught by the unction of the Spirit, she esteemed the vile things

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of the world according to their vileness. She used to wear a hair shirt beneath her soft clothing : all radiant in glorious apparel she put on Christ within; and when at last her kinsfolk would have made for her a brilliant marriage, instead of acquiescing she gave them an evasive answer, and committed her virginity to God.1 " Thus Celano in the chapter concerning Saint Clare's home-life; he tells the rest of the story at considerable length in the succeed- ing chapter, the chapter wherein he treats " of her acquaintance and friendship with Blessed Francis." The following is the gist of what he says —

"At this time the most holy Father was preaching the way of perfection, and the fame of him reaching Saint Clare's ears she desired to see and to hear him, and Francis himself was no less eager to make her acquaintance, for all men were singing her praises, and he, God's huntsman, was minded to snatch this noble booty from the world and to offer it to his Master. And so he visited her, and many times she visited him, coming forth from her home in secret with an intimate female friend. Father Francis exhorted her to despise the world — said that its hopes were vain, its beauty false, and, acting deftly like a faithful brideman, instilled into her ears the sweet nuptials of Heaven. Nor did she for long resist his importunity, for, enlightened by the flaming torch of his speech, she caught, as it were, a glimpse of the beatific vision, and forthwith the world and the things of the world seemed to her but as dung, and, dreading the allurements of the flesh, she resolved to lay aside all thought of earthly marriage and to do her utmost to render herself worthy of the espousals of the Heavenly King; and henceforth she regarded Blessed Francis, after God, as the charioteer of her soul."

In this curious and unsatisfactory account of Saint Clare's con- version to religion, the only detailed account we possess from the pen of a contemporary writer, Celano, strangely enough, contra- dicts himself in a matter of importance, as the reader will have observed. He tells us in the second part of his story that it was the Seraphic Father who persuaded Saint Clare to take the veil; she

1 Ubi ergo sancti amoris stimulos primitivos sentire coepit, mundani floris pic- turam instabilem judicat contemnendam, Spiritus unctione perdocta, vilibus rebus pretium imponere vilitatis. Sub vestibus namqv.e pretiosis ac molibus, ciliciolum gerebat absconditum, mundo exterius florens, Christum interius induens. Denique suis earn nobiliter maritare volentibus, nullatenus acquievit ; sed dissimulato in posterum mortali conjugio, virginitatem suam Domino committebat.

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hesitated a little at first,1 hitherto she had looked forward without repugnance and without fear to being one day a wife;2 and we learn from the first part of his story that before she met Saint Francis she had already come to the conclusion that earthly love was vain, inspired thereto by the Holy Ghost, and that on this account she had refused an advantageous offer of marriage and made a vow of perpetual virginity.

Now, Alexander IV was one of Saint Clare's most intimate friends, a very honest man, a writer most careful of his facts; and in the bull of canonization he tells us explicitly that Saint Clare's decision to forsake the world was inspired by Blessed Francis : " Beatus Franciscus, audito hujus famae praeconio, coepit confestim hortari earn, et ad Christi perfectam inducere servitutem. Quae sacris illius monitis mox adherens, et mundum cum terrenis omni- bus penitus abdicare, ac soli Domino in paupertate voluntaria famulari desiderans, hoc suum fervens desiderium, quam cito potuit, adimplevit." Salimbene gives like testimony : " Hie (Alex- ander) beatam Claram cathalogo sanctorum ascripsit, quam Beatus Franciscus convertit ad Christum" So, too, Saint Bonaventure : " Many virgins were also called to a life of perpetual chastity, amongst whom was Clare, that virgin most dear to God, the first flower amongst them all, who, like a sweet spring blossom, diffused a fragrant odour around her and shone like a brilliant star in the Church of God. She who is now glorified in Heaven, and worthily venerated by the Church on earth, was the daughter in Christ of the Holy Father Francis, the poor servant of God, and the mother of the Poor Ladies." I think, then, there can be no doubt that Celano spoke the truth in the second part of his story; but why does he contradict himself in this extraordinary fashion ? What he says in his prefatory letter to Alexander IV will perhaps help us to guess the answer to the riddle. The passage referred to runs thus —

" Your Domination was pleased to command my humility to draw up a life of Saint Clare from the evidence that was collected concerning her at the time of her canonization. It was a task that I was loath to undertake, having little skill in letters; but urged thereto again and again by pontifical authority, at last I set to work;

1 Instante patre sanctissimo, et more fidelissimi paranymphi sollerter agente, non trahit in longum virgo consmsum.

2 Carnis quoque illecebras perhorrescens jam torum in delicto se nescituram proponit.

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and judging that ft would not be prudent to rely on the official papers alone, and likewise calling to mind that of old it was not considered lawful for a man to write history unless he had seen with his own eyes or learned from eye witnesses, I deemed it expedient to seek out the surviving friends of Saint Francis and to have a little talk with the Poor Ladies at Saint Damian's. And when these folk, under the guidance of truth and in the fear of the Lord, had more fully instructed me, I set down in simple style some of what I had learnt, and many things I omitted, in order that virgins might delight to read the mighty deeds of this virgin and that the minds of the ignorant might not be obscured by a superfluity of words." *

We have it, then, on the authority of Celano himself, that he knew much more of Saint Clare than he deemed it expedient to set down. Not that there was anything in the life of the Seraphic Mother over which it was in reality expedient to throw a veil, but the mind of this man was cast in a narrow mould, as all his writings show; he wrote his legend for Saint Clare's greater glory and for the edification of her children, and for him what savoured of human nature was not for her greater glory and not unto edification.

Bearing these things in mind, and Celano's incoherent account of Saint Clare's conversion, I venture to think that it has not come down to us as he originally wrote it; in his original version the beginning of the story did not clash with the end, on reading it over he had qualms of conscience, carefully revised the first part, and forgot to revise the second. Celano was a very old man, remember, when he wrote his Life of Saint Clare. What, then, was the incident in the child life of his heroine which this scrupulous old man was at such pains to conceal ? Something of this sort, I suspect —

The Lord Monaldo had set his face against his niece's marriage

1 Sane placuit Dominationi vestrae, meae parvitati iniungere, ut, recensitis actibus sanctae Clarae, Legendam eius formarem : opus certe, quod mea in Uteris ruditas formirlabat, nisi pontificalis auctoritas verbum coram posito, iterum atque iterum repetisset. Igitur me colligens ad mandatum, nee tutum ratus per ea pro- cederequae defectiva legebam, ad socios beati Francisci, atque ad ipsum collegium virginum Christi perrexi, frequenter illud corde revoh'ens, non licuisse antiquitus historiam texere, nisi his, qui vidissent, aut a videntibus accepissent. His, inquam, veritate praevia, cum timore Domini me plenius instruentibus, aliqua col- ligens, et plura dimittens, piano stylo transcurri ; ut quia magnalia Virginis, virgines legere delectabit, rudis intelligentia non inveniat, ubipro verborum ambitu tenebrescat.

38 ST. CLARE OF ASSISI

with a suitor whom she favoured, having it in his mind to make for her a more advantageous alliance. Clare respected her uncle's wishes and, hoping to cure her heartache, set her affections on things above — did her utmost to convince herself of the vanity of earthly things. There was a struggle — the flesh wrestled against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and at last she took what in those days of violent medicines was held to be a most efficacious means of bringing the old enemy into subjection : she began to wear a hair shirt beneath her soft garments : " all radiant in glorious apparel she put on Christ within," as Celano picturesquely has it.

Deceived by her outward bearing, for Clare was not the woman to wear her heart on her sleeve, her uncle thought that the time had come for urging his friend's suit with some chance of success. At first Clare temporized, and then, I think, there was a quarrel; Monaldo was hot-headed, and the Seraphic Mother in these days was far from being mild. Perhaps he threatened compulsion, at all events Clare feared a forced marriage, and, as Celano tells us, committed her virginity to Christ.

Such, it would seem, was the state of affairs in this worthy knight's household when his niece first made the acquaintance of Brother Francis.

This man, who had once been notorious for his wild life and mad frolics, and who afterwards, when he was converted, had been hooted in the streets as a fool and pelted with mud, was now beginning to be talked about all over Italy as a great religious teacher — a man after God's own heart. It is not to be wondered at, then, that Clare, set in such sorry straits, should have desired to see and to hear him. But if she wished to meet Saint Francis, he himself was no less eager to make her acquaintance — the fame of her good report had reached his ears, we are told, and he hoped to be able to induce her to take the veil. Albeit I suspect that not only the rumour of Clare's virtue had reached his ears, but likewise the rumour of her affliction, and that his desire to make her a nun was prompted to a certain extent by this knowledge; in a little place like Assisi, where every man would be sure to know all about his neighbour's affairs, a quarrel between two such notable folk as the Lord Monaldo and his beautiful niece must have been the talk of the town. Moreover, we must not forget that in those days, for a girl of Clare's condition the only escape from matrimony was through the cloister door.

That the Seraphic Mother was a woman of brilliant parts, a

THE LIFE OF ST. CLARE 39

woman of inflexible will, a woman possessed of a mysterious power of drawing to herself and subjecting persons of the most varied dispositions, and withal largely endowed with what is called com- mon sense, these things are set forth in the numerous contemporary documents which treat of her directly or indirectly, in her own letters and other writings, and in the general trend of the history of the making of the great order which she founded. At the time which now concerns us she was, of course, little more than a child, but the child is the father of the man, and she must have already possessed the germs of these qualities, and, what is more, that she possessed them was publicly known : Celano's " rumor bonitatis ejus vulgabatur in populo" should include much. That she was rich, too, was common knowledge, and all who had eyes in Assisi could see that she was fair. Wealth, beauty, wisdom, a great worldly position along with the will and the courage to give up all for Christ, these things were essential in the heroine whom Francis at this time needed; for he had it in his mind to give to the world a mystery play on the breaking of " Brother Ass," and the opening scene must be sensational; he wished to create a college of virgins who, from behind the walls of their cloister, should silently proclaim to a people forgetful of these things the beauty of poverty and the beauty of chastity and the sweetness of self- denial. In Clare he descried the " mulier fortis " who should accomplish all this — the strong woman raised up by God for whom he had so long been waiting.

I know that some modern writers tell us that Saint Francis, when first he forsook the world, had no idea whatsoever of found- ing religious orders, and that the orders which he afterwards founded were rather the outcome of circumstances than of any deliberate intention on his part to found them. The evidence adduced in support of this view is not, however, to my mind con- vincing, especially in the case of the Poor Ladies; and, on the other hand, the fact that two of the churches which he restored imme- diately after his conversion — Saint Mary of the Angels and Saint Damian's — were later on respectively the first homes of his friars and his nuns is in itself significant, and so, too, is what Celano says in his second Life of Saint Francis: " With much zeal did the man of God stir up all to the work of restoring the Church of Saint Damian, and in the hearing of all he prophesied, crying aloud in the French tongue, that in that place there would presently be a convent of Christ's Holy Virgins. Now, when this man was

4o ST. CLARE OF ASSISI

enkindled by the fire of the Holy Ghost, flaming words in French always burst from his lips, for he knew right well that the men of Prance would one day hold him in high esteem and give him unwonted worship." Which, I suppose, is Celano's poetical way of saying that in moments of excitement Saint Francis always spoke the language which he had first learnt : his mother, accord- ing to later writers, was a native of Provence or, at all events, of French extraction.

The above incident is also related, and at greater length, in that curious and, as some say, apocryphal document called the Will of Saint Clare, who, in the passage referred to, is made to speak thus —

" In considering, then, dear sisters, the inestimable blessings of God, we ought to give the first place to what he hath vouchsafed to work in us, not only after our conversion but when we were in the vanity of the world, through his beloved servant, our father Blessed Francis. For almost immediately after his own conversion, before he had any disciples or friends, he prophesied concerning us what God in due season brought to pass. It was when the man of God was restoring the church of Saint Damian — that church wherein, completely embraced by divine consolation, he had been compelled to quit the world and worldly things; at this time, I say, enlightened by the Holy Ghost and in a transport of holy joy, he leapt on to a wall and from thence addressed some peasant folk who were standing near, speaking in a high voice and in the French tongue : * Come, help me,' he cried, ' in the work of this monastery, for here shall devout women one day dwell, and our heavenly Father shall be glorified throughout the length and breadth of his Church by the good odour of their conversation. ' "

It would seem, then, that Saint Francis already had it in his mind to found an order of women when he was restoring Saint Damian's, and that the restoration work had been undertaken in view of this project.

To prepare habitations on other men's property on the chance that they would one day be given to him to shelter religious orders which at present had no existence save in his own brain, is not out of keeping with what we know of the character of this extra- ordinary man. He believed that all his ideas were inspired by the Father of lights or by the Prince of darkness, and when once he was convinced that he had received a divine intimation he never hesitated : He who had revealed his will to him, would assuredly enable him to fulfil it; he had only to go on step by step as God

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should give him guidance. The first revelation, in this connection, had come to him whilst he was praying for light before the crucifix in Saint Damian's, when he heard a voice saying, " Francis, build up My tottering church." The old building was falling to ruins, and when, presently, he set about restoring it there can be no doubt whatever that he believed that he was busying himself with work which he had been divinely commissioned to do. Albeit he did not tie himself down to this literal interpretation, as Celano bears witness : he conceived that the words which he had heard embraced a far wider scope, he was thereby divinely commissioned to build up the mystical body of Christ. He had received, then, two distinct commissions, but they were not independent of one another : the fulfilment of the first was the first step towards the carrying out of the second : Saint Damian's was to be the mother- house of a great religious order whose members were to co-operate in the work of evangelization in the way we have already described. Whence his conception of this scheme and when did he first conceive it ? Consider the natural temperament of the man, the sort of life he had led in the world, and what from his childhood until he was twenty-five years of age had been his surroundings. By what strange irony of fate did a man like Peter Bernardone beget a child like Francis. The father was a worthy tradesman, whose one thought was gain and whose constant preoccupation was the current price of cloth. The son was a man of the widest sym- pathies and of interests the most varied, steeped to the lips in romance, with a character made up of contradictions — surely the most fantastic creature that ever drew breath. A man of trans- parent simplicity, like children at play, he was always pretending that something was something else. Throughout his life he was a sensationalist, and to the end of it he remained a child. If, when God had touched him, he became the most human of saints, in the days of his aberration he was the most unworldly of sinners; after ten years of riotous living he still had the freshness, the enthusiasm, the simplicity of the youth who has never eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and after twenty years of penance he could still laugh and sing. When he took part in his father's affairs he proved himself an excellent man of business, but there was nothing mean or sordid in his dealing; he was more prone to spend than to save,1 he rarely scrupled to

1 Celano, Legenda Prima B. Francisci, Chap. I, p. 7, edition d'Alencon.

42 ST. CLARE OT ASSISI

gratify his own wayward fancies, and he never refused to open his purse for those who appealed to his generosity.

So tender-hearted was this man that if he chanced to see a worm in his path he used to move it aside, for " mercy," as Saint Bonaventure has it, " was born with him," yet his dearest wish before his conversion was to win fame on the battlefield. He loved the wild things of the countryside and a free life in the open air; but no less pleasing to him was the excitement of the city and the society of his fellow men, and as he was the spoilt child of rich parents he was able to give free rein to his inclinations. He delighted in poetry and music and dancing, and was himself a poet and a musician; he had a keen wit and a ready tongue, and was able to tell a good story; he was warm-hearted, genial, kind, and withal he had tact and refinement, and his boon companions loved him. From the time when he left his mother's apron-strings, till the night when he bade farewell to the world, he was the chosen leader of the pleasures and follies of the gilded youth of Assisi. Their fellowship was as the breath of his nostrils, but through it all he never forgot that God was his best friend, and he loved Him even as a froward child will sometimes love the fond parent whose behests he neglects and whose heart he wounds, and afterwards weeps for these things and then sins again. So did Francis of Assisi, until God in His pity touched him and made his strength perfect in weakness.

It is not conceivable that a man of this kind should ever have wilfully been the cause of any woman's ruin, but we may be sure that he held himself responsible for the shortcomings of those who had participated in the follies of his youth, whether or no the blame were in reality his or theirs. He was rich, impulsive, passionate; he had the gift of beauty, and in all probability he was more often sinned against than sinning; but to the end of his days he beat his breast and cried : " Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa."

To plant for the Queen of Heaven a bower of white roses in compensation for the faded flowers which he thought he had stolen from Her garden : some such fancy as this must have been in Francis's mind when first he conceived the project of founding an order of enclosed nuns; and I think the inspiration must have come to him very soon after his conversion.

CHAPTER V

Of Saint Clare's farewell to the world, according to Celano. Abridged English version. The complete Latin text. Some notes on persons and places referred to therein : Guido of Assisi, the Porziuncola, the Church of Saint Paul and the Benedictine nuns who dwelt there. Celano's strange story concerning one of them. Pope Alexander IV, and Salimbene's appreciation of him. The Benedictine church and community of Saint Angelo di Panzo ; these nuns become Poor Ladies and amalgamate with the nuns of Santa Chiara. Concerning the incident of the closed door. The dramatic details of Saint Clare's farewell not fortuitous, but expressly devised by Saint Francis.

Now it came to pass when the solemn day of Palms was at hand that the virgin Clare betook herself for the last time to the man of God. She wished to confer with him concerning her con- version : when and how it was to take place. And Father Francis bade her array herself in her best and seek her palm on the festal day along with other folk, and at night go forth without the camp and exchange earthly joy for the mourning of God's passion; and, when Sunday came, amongst the crowd of women who flocked to church not one was so daintily clad as this fair damsel; but when the rest went up to receive their palms, the Lady Clare was too shy to move, and when the bishop espied her standing alone in her place, he came forth from the sanctuary and, approaching her, placed a palm in her hand.

That night, in accordance with the saint's behest, the maiden fled from home in honest company; and because she was not minded to go forth by the ordinary door, with a strength by which she herself was astounded, with her own hands she burst open another that was blocked up with wood and stone.

Thus, having left her house, her town, her kinsfolk, she sped to the Church of Saint Mary of Porziuncola, where she found the brethren singing the night hours, and they came forth to greet her with flaming torches. In this place she cast aside the sordid things of Babylon; here she gave to the world a bill of divorce; here before the altar of Blessed Mary she left her hair and her jewels, and when she had put on the frock of repentance and plighted her troth to Christ, Saint Francis straightway led her to

43

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the Church of St. Paul, there to remain until the Most High should provide for her another place.

When her kinsfolk knew that Clare had fled, cut to the quick, they condemned alike the project of the maiden and the means by which she had carried it out, and, banding together, they rushed to the place where she was lodged, determined to accomplish some- thing that they were not able to perform. For fair speech and foul, threats, promises, sage advice, all failed in their purpose : she laid hold of the altar cloth and, uncovering her tonsured head, boldly declared that no man should separate her from God; and although they persisted for many days, she remained steadfast, and at last her kinsfolk were constrained to hold their peace.

Soon afterwards she removed from St. Paul's to the Church of Sant' Angelo di Panzo, but her mind was not perfectly at rest, and so, by the advice of Blessed Francis, she went to Saint Damian's. There, undeterred by the straitness of the place or by the loneliness of the situation, she at last cast anchor, and there she remained till the end of her days without thought of changing — at peace from the storms of earth in these still waters.

Such, in brief, is Celano's account of Saint Clare's flight and veiling. His exact words run thus: —

" Instabat Palmarum dies solemnis, cum ad virum Dei puella [Clara] fervido corde se confert, sciscitans de sua conversione, quando et qualiter sit agendum. Jubet pater Franciscus, ut in die festo compta et ornata procedat ad palmam cum frequentia popu- lorum, ac nocte sequenti exiens extra castra, mundanum gaudium in luctum convertat dominicae passionis. Die itaque dominico veniente, in turba dominarum splendore festivo puella perradians, cum reliquis intrat ecclesiam. Ubi illo digno praesagio contigit, ut caeteris ad ramos currentibus, dum Clara prae verecundia suo in loco manet immota, pontifex per gradus descendens, usque ad earn accederet, et palmam suis in manibus poneret. Nocte sequenti ad sancti mandatum se praeparans, optatam fugam cum honesta socie- tate aggreditur. Cumque ostio consueto exire non placuit, aliud ostium, quod lignorum et lapidum pondera obstruebant, miranda sibi fortitudine, propriis manibus reseravit.

" Igitur domo, civitate et consanguineis derelictis, ad Sanctam Mariam de Portiuncula festinavit : ubi fratres, qui in arula Dei sacras excubias observabant, virginem Claram cum luminaribus receperunt. Mox ibi rejectis sordibus Babylonis, mundo libellum repudii tradidit : ibi manu fratrum crines deponens, ornatus varios

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derelfquit. Nee decuit alibi florigere virginitatis Ordinem ad ves- peram temporum excitari, quam in ejus aula, quae prima omnium atque dignissima, sola extitit mater et virgo. Hie locus est ille, in quo nova militia pauperum, duce Francisco, felicia sumebat primordia, ut liquido videtur utramque religionem Mater Misericordiae in suo diversorio paturire. Cum autem coram altari beatae Mariae sanctae poenitentiae suscepisset insignia, et quasi ante to rum hujus Virginis, humilis ancilla Christo nupsisset, statim earn ad ecclesiam sancti Pauli sanctus Franciscus deduxit, donee aliud provideret Altis- simus, in eodem loco mansuram.

" Ad consanguineos autem rumore volante, dilacerato corde, factum et propositum virginis damnant; et conglobati in unum, currunt ad locum, tentantes quod obtinere non possunt. Violentiae impetum, venena consiliorum, blanditias adhibent promissionum, suadentes ab hujusmodi vilitate discedere, quae nee genere congruat, nee exemplum habeat in contrata. At ilia pannos apprehendens altaris, caput denudat attonsum, firmans se nullatenus a Christo servitio ulterius avellendam. Crescit animus, bello crescente suorum viresque ministrat amor injuriis lacessitus. Sic sic per plures dies cum in via Domini obicem pateretur, et sui se opponerent ejus proposito sanctitatis, non collapsus est animus, non fervor remissus : sed inter verba et odia ad spem animum tandiu reformat, donee propinqui, retrusa fronte, quiescunt.

" Paucis interjectis diebus, ad ecclesiam Sancti Angeli de Panso transivit : ubi cum non plene mens ejus quiesceret, tandem ad ecclesiam Sancti Damiani, bead Francisci consilio, commigravit. Ibi mentis anchoram quasi in certo figens, non jam pro loci muta- tione ulterius fluctuat, non pro arctitudine dubitat, nee pro soli- tudine reformidat."

The bishop referred to in the cathedral scene was undoubtedly Guido II, who ruled the Church of Assisi from 1204 to 1228, and who from the first had shown himself a good friend to Saint Francis : " This venerable prelate," says Celano in the Legenda Prima, "honoured him and the brethren in all things, and held them in unwonted esteem "; and the same writer tells us that Guido was a man of much devotion, that he had taken Saint Francis's part in the quarrel with his father at the opening of his religious career, that he had helped him at Rome in the matter of the confirmation of the rule in 1209, that he was in the habit of visiting him frequently in informal fashion, that he gave him hospitality in his own palace during his last sickness, and that on

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the night on which Saint Francis died he appeared to Guido in a vision and said : " Behold, my father, I am leaving the world and going to Jesus Christ."

The Church of Saint Mary of the Porziuncola was originally a wayside shrine; it stands at the foot of that spur of Mount Subasio on which Assisi is situated, about a mile or a mile and a half beyond the city walls. It was one of the three churches that Saint Francis restored in the early days of his conversion, and in those days it is said to have been the property of the Benedictine monks of Subasio, who, we are told, made it over to the Friars Minor soon after Pope Innocent III confirmed their rule. Be this as it may, somewhere about the year 1210 the friars somehow or other obtained possession of this place, and it was their first permanent settlement. Wherefore Saint Francis loved it, and he used to call it his home; thither he caused himself to be carried in the last days of his last sickness; there he died, and, alas, the breath was hardly out of his body when the Porziuncola became a centre of disaffection, the place where those men met and plotted who said that they loved him most, and who, under the plea that they were carrying out the instruction which Saint Francis not long before his death had imparted to them secretly, justified to their consciences that which he most abhorred — disobedience.

These men, who alleged that it was the Founder's wish that the Porziuncola should always be what it had been in his lifetime — the chief house of the order, were cut to the quick when, on the 22nd of April, 1230, Pope Gregory IX ordained in a letter to the minister-general that the church which he himself had built at Assisi in honour of Blessed Francis and over his grave, in the place called Paradise Hill, erst the Hill of Hell, should hence- forth be the Mother Church and the head of the Order of Friars Minor. This bull was renewed by Innocent IV on the 6th of March, 1245, and it has never been revoked. But for Brother Leo and his friends the little church in the plain was a far holier place; it became, as it were, the embodiment of their ideal, the standard under which they fought, and they did their utmost to enhance its prestige, not only in the eyes of the order but in the eyes of the whole world.

The Church of Saint Paul to which Celano refers is on the outskirts of the village of Bastia, some three miles from the Porziuncola. It stands on the left bank of the river Chiagio, in a

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grove of ancient cypress trees, close to the spot where the tributary Tescio rushes in winter time and in summer dribbles into the main stream. It is a simple Romanesque structure, consisting only of a nave with a rounded apse, about eighty feet long, I suppose, and maybe twenty wide. Now the mortuary chapel of the local burying-ground, in Saint Clare's day this venerable building was the abbey church of a small community of Bene- dictine Dames which, it will be interesting to note, still exists, and is at present installed in the convent of Saint Benedict hard by Assisi Cathedral.

Towards the middle of the twelve hundreds, when all the rural communities of Umbria were flocking into the towns because, on account of the troubled times, the open country had ceased to be a safe place of abode, these women somehow or other acquired a little property at Assisi — a good-sized house with a garden and orchard in an angle of the city wall, between the bishop's palace and the old Benedictine Church of Saint Peter. To this place they presently came — hence the local tradition that Saint Clare sojourned here — and here their successors continued to dwell until the middle of last century, when their convent was confiscated by the Italian Government, and they removed to their present abode.

The author of the Legenda Sanctae Clarae, in the chapter wherein he treats " of her long sickness and infirmities," and in the following chapter, has a curious anecdote concerning one of the nuns of Saint Paul's, from which it is clear that the members of this community were on intimate terms with the Seraphic Mother and her children. The gist of it is as follows —

" Now when the Lord Pope and his cardinals were prolonging their stay at Lyons, the Lady Clare grew so much worse that all her children believed that she was even now entering the valley of the shadow of death, and a sharp sword of sorrow was thrust into their souls; but soon they found consolation in a dream vouchsafed to a certain devout virgin who served God under the rule of Saint Benedict in the cloister of Saint Paul. This woman dreamed that she and her sisters were at Saint Damian's nursing the Lady Clare, who lay on a costly bed, sick unto death. And whilst they were weeping and waiting for the passing of her soul, lo, at the head of the couch there appeared a beautiful lady, who said to them : ' Grieve not my daughters for her who shall presently conquer, for she will not be able to die until the Lord and His disciples have come.' And behold, after a little while

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the papal court arrived at Perugia, and the Lord of Ostia, her father in office — nay, from the care he used to take of her he might well be called her nurse, one who in his pure affection had always shown himself her most devoted friend — this man, I say, as soon as he knew that the infirmities of his beloved daughter were increasing, sped forthwith to Assisi and fed her with the Word made Flesh and her children with words of consolation, and she begged him with tears in the name of Christ to be a father to them always and to all her other children, and above all else to obtain from the Pope and the Cardinals the confirmation of her Privilege of Poverty. These things he promised to do, and he kept his promise. And when the new year had come the court removed to Assisi, and then was the dream aforesaid realized, for Pope Innocent of holy memory made haste to visit the victorious hand- maid of Christ attended by all his cardinals, thus honouring by his apostolic presence the death of her who, during her life, as he often used to say, was the most valiant woman of her time. Now the Pope, who is higher than man and lower than God, himself represents the person of the Lord, and the cardinals who familiarly cling to him in the temple of the Church Militant represent the Lord's disciples."

The " Lord of Ostia " above referred to was Alexander IV, who before he became Pope was Bishop of Ostia and Velletri, and in this story he is called Saint Clare's " father in office " — officio pater — because during the greater part of the pontificate of his uncle, Gregory IX, and throughout the whole of the reign of Innocent IV he had been the official protector of the Poor Ladies. Alexander was a great lover of Franciscans and was himself deeply imbued with the Franciscan spirit : he was above all things a man of peace, of blameless life and unwonted piety there was nothing in him of the puritan or the fanatic; he was a large-hearted, large-minded, tolerant man, stern to himself maybe, very gentle to others; " he was placid, sanguine, kind, one who knew how to laugh," as the chronicler of Saint Bertin has it. I think, too, he must have been singularly free from those venial offences and imperfections to which all men are prone — the little failings and the little follies of everyday life; for sharp-tongued Salimbene, who knew every one and everything, a man who was no sycophant, and who did not spare even his best friends, could find nothing to criticize in the conduct of Alexander. " This Pope," he says, "was born at Anagni; he began in 1253, an(^ sat

THE LIFE OF ST. CLARE 49

for seven years; he was Bishop of Ostia before they put him in Peter's chair, and in those days men used to call him the Lord Rainaldo. He was for many years the cardinal protector of our order, and it was at our petition that the Lord Pope Gregory had given him his red hat. He canonized Blessed Clare, whom Blessed Francis brought to Christ, and he wrote her collects and hymns. He had a nephew a friar and a sister a Poor Lady, but he did not make her an abbess nor his nephew a cardinal. Indeed, he created no cardinals, although in his time there were only eight in the sacred college. He was a man of letters, and loved the study of theology, and often and gladly he used to preach and sing Mass and consecrate churches.

" That he knew how to preserve friendship is clear from his treatment of Brother Rainaldo of Tocca, of our order, whom he loved so dearly that not even the friendship of Jonathan and David can be compared for a moment with his friendship with this man. If all the world had said ill of him Alexander would have closed his ears to it, and once he went barefoot to open to him when he knocked at the door of his chamber; another friar saw him do this thing who was alone with the Pope within : to wit, my friend Brother Mansueto, from whose mouth I heard all these things which I now set down. This Pope never embroiled himself in quarrels, but passed all his days in peace. He was stout and full-bodied, like Eglon, King of Moab, a very fat man. Just he was and merciful, in manner courteous and very kind; he had the fear of God in his heart, and he served Him faithfully."

The Church of Saint Angelo di Panzo, like the Church of Saint Paul at Bastia, was the community chapel of a convent of Benedictine nuns, who at the time of Saint Clare's profession were living in the open country on one of the southern slopes of Mount Subasio; their monastery was about three miles to the east of Assisi, just off the old Spello road, a little below Saint Francis's favourite hermitage, called the Carceri, and almost directly over- looking the village of San Vitale. What remains of it is now a farmhouse. Adjoining the stable of this establishment there is a little shrine which sometimes serves as a storehouse for forage, sometimes as a place of worship; according to an inscription on the wall facing the altar it was built in 1604 cum lapidibus vetustissimi celeb errimi sed diruti templi Sancti Angeli in Panzo.

The Benedictines of Panzo, like their sisters of Bastia, presently flitted to town, constrained thereto, like them, by the perils of the

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countryside; on the 29th of May, 1270, they purchased from one Donna Testa and her daughter Francesca, for a hundred and twenty pounds and some odd pence, a house and a piece of land at Assisi in the parish of Saint Stephen in the old StradaSuperba, which now, alas, is called the Via Principe di Napoli. To this place in due course they came, and here they continued to dwell for a hundred and fifty years or more, when they amalgamated with the nuns of Santa Chiara. In the early days of the Franciscan revival these Benedictine Dames had joined the Order of Poor Ladies, per- suaded thereto, seemingly, by Pope Gregory IX, who on the 17th of December, 1238, addressed a letter to the Abbess and Convent of the monastery of Saint Angelo di Panzo in the diocese of Assisi, by which he confirmed them in the possession of all their property and took their monastery under the special protection of the Apostolic See. This Brief, I suspect, was the price of their acquiescence. The original document, and several others relating to the affairs of the Panzo folk, is still preserved in the archive chamber of the nuns of Santa Chiara. The old convent in the Strada Superba is now the diocesan seminary.

Celano's story of Saint Clare and the closed door is curious : no other contemporary writer relates it. As time went on this story grew : later writers tell us that the door was opened for her by angels. In the days of Saint Clare, and until a much later period, throughout Umbria, and also in some other parts of Italy, the belief was still current that it boded ill for the new owner of a house to enter it by the same threshold through which the dead body of his predecessor had been carried out : thus it was customary to construct separate doorways for the dead — many of them can still be seen in Assisi and elsewhere — which were only opened for the passage of a corpse, and immediately afterwards blocked up again. Now, bearing this in mind, Celano's description seems to suggest that on the night when St. Clare fled to the Porziuncola she went out by the death door.

It will be interesting to note in this connection the following verses from the vesper hymn of the primitive office of Saint Clare, which hymn, the reader will bear in mind, was composed by Alexander IV, according to Salimbene —

Spretis nativo genere Carnis et mundi foedere Clauditur velut carcere Dives superno munere.

THE LIFE OF ST. CLARE 51

Clauditur velut tumulo Nequam subducta saeculo Patet in hoc ergastulo Solum Dei spectaculo.

This and the other dramatic details of St. Clare's farewell to the world were not fortuitous : they were without doubt expressly prescribed by that great dramatist, Saint Francis. Palm Sunday, the first day of Christ's passion, should be the first day, too, of her long passion; she should put on her best clothes, for was it not meet that she should be arrayed gloriously on the day of her mystical marriage with Christ? She should go to the cathedral and receive her palm, the palm which she merited for her victory over self, and which should be to her the symbol of the palm which she should one day receive in heaven; she should leave her home by the door of death and be escorted to the place of sacrifice like a corpse with cross and candles, for was she not dead to the world, dead to human joy, dead to human affection, and was she not soon to be buried in the living tomb of the cloister ? " Dead to the world and buried with Christ in the cloister " : these words occur over and over again in pontifical bulls and episcopal letters addressed to the first Poor Ladies.

CHAPTER VI

Of Pope Alexander's account of Saint Clare's farewell to the world : wherein it differs from Celano's. The Latin text. Concerning two facts therein related which are not mentioned by Celano. Reasons for thinking that Saint Clare's profession was perfectly regular. Alexander's story of the meeting of Saint Clare with her kinsfolk not the same as Celano's, and probably more trustworthy. Unlike Celano, Alexander says nothing of Saint Clare's migration to a second church. The testimony of Saint Clare's will concerning this matter. Alexander refrains from identifying alike the place of Saint Clare's profession and the place in which she afterwards took refuge. Wherefore.

Pope Alexander's account of Saint Clare's profession, and of the circumstances attending it, differs very considerably from the account contained in the Legenda Sanctae Clarae. In the first place, Alexander omits much that Celano sets down, and this is not surprising, for we cannot expect in a legal document the details of a developed biography; in the second place, he adds to our little store of information two noteworthy facts, and lastly, and this is the most important point of all, Celano and Pope Alexander are not always agreed. But the reader shall judge for himself. Alex- ander's story is as follows : after relating how St. Clare, converted by Saint Francis, determined to renounce the world, he says —

" Quae tandem cuncta sua bona, ut una secum quidquid etiam habebat, Christi obsequio deputaret in eleemosynas, et pauperum subsidia distribuit et conyertit.

" Cumque de saeculi streptitu fugiena ad quamdam campestrem declinasset ecclesiam, et ab ipso beato Francisco sacra ibi recepta tonsura, processisset in aliam, consanguineis ejus ipsam exinde redu- cere molientibus, ilia protinus amplectens altare, pannosque appre- hendens ipsius, crinium sui capitis incisura detecta eisdem consan- guineis, in hoc fortiter restitit, et constanter; quia cum jam esset mente integra juncta Deo, pati non poterat ab ejus servitio se divelli. Denique cum ad ecclesiam sancti Damiani extra civitatem Assisinatem unde traxit originem, per eundem beatum Franciscum adducta fuisset, ibi ei Dominus ad amorem et cultum assiduum sui nominis, plures socias aggregavit."

In the above passage, then, Alexander relates two incidents, both

52

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of them interesting, one of supreme importance, which, as the reader will call to mind, are not mentioned by Celano : he tells us that shortly before her flight Saint Clare disposed of her property and distributed the proceeds amongst the poor, and that it was Saint Francis himself who tonsured her. The first statement needs no comment, but one asks oneself, with regard to the second, by what authority did Saint Francis do this thing? — he, a simple clerk, certainly not in priest's orders, perhaps not even jet a deacon ! Monsieur Sabatier thinks that he acted entirely on his own initia- tive and without any authority whatever, that he was thus guilty of a grave breach of ecclesiastical discipline, but owing to his ignorance of canon law he was unaware of the fact, and that the ecclesiastical authorities, on account of his success, deemed it prudent to close their eyes to it. But Bishop Guido, we know, was exceedingly jealous of his episcopal rights, not at all the kind of man to wink at the least infringement of his prerogatives, even in the case of a popular preacher who had violated them not out of contumely, but through ignorance; and if Saint Francis acted thus, I very much fear that he was not in a position to plead ignor- ance, for, although he was himself no canonist, there were people about him who were assuredly well acquainted with the law. Moreover, there is no evidence to prove that he acted without warrant in this business : nay, everything that we know of the case suggests a contrary conclusion. The Seraphic Father was one of the humblest and most submissive of men, and even if he had had the temperament of a rebel he would surely not have acted in an affair of this kind without having first obtained the requisite faculties, for it was essential to the success of his project that the tonsuring should be perfectly regular, otherwise it would have been open to Monaldo to make application in the Bishops' Court for a decree of nullity; nor, we may be very sure, would this man have hesitated to take advantage of it if there had been any kind of flaw in the proceeding, and Bishop Guido would have hardly dared to refuse justice to so mighty an applicant, even if he had desired to do so. Moreover, that Saint Clare should have uncovered her tonsured head when her kinsfolk endeavoured to persuade her to return home, this, I think, is significant, and so, too, is what happened in the cathedral on Palm Sunday : it is most improbable that Bishop Guido would have acted as he did upon this occasion, unless Brother Francis had previously taken him into his confidence. The reader will not have failed to note that Alexander depicts

54 ST. CLARE OF ASSISI

the first meeting of the Seraphic Mother with her relatives after she had taken the veil in much less vivid colours than does Celano. In Alexander's account there is no suggestion of violence or even anger on the part of Saint Clare's kinsmen; there is nothing to lead us to suppose that the interview lasted " for many days," as Celano has it; in truth it seems to have been a sufficiently tame affair according to the bull of canonization : her relatives entreated her to return home, and Saint Clare, with characteristic firmness, refused to do so; having uncovered her tonsured head she embraced the altar and laid hold of the altar cloth, not that furious men were striving, as Celano implies, to carry her off by main force, but as one who should say : " I swear by this altar and by the cloth of this altar that I am a virgin consecrated to Christ. Do you not see my tonsure ? "

Herein, then, Pope Alexander and Celano are not at one, and Pope Alexander, it seems to me, is the more credible witness, for this honest man was a friend of Saint Clare's and in all probability had his account of this business from Saint Clare herself, and Friar Thomas acknowledges that he had his information at second hand. But, after all, whether Saint Clare's relatives endeavoured to gain their end by entreaties alone or by entreaties combined with threats and violence, whether they drew in their horns after the first encounter or, hoping against hope, persisted for many days, these things are not matters of moment; the important point of the story is this — and herein Alexander and Celano are agreed — at last they were convinced that they had attempted something which they were unable to perform.

In the course of her after life Saint Clare often found herself at issue with all sorts and conditions of men, armed with all kinds of weapons which they wielded in various ways, but none of them were ever able to bend or to break the iron of her inflexibility; in the end they were always convinced; they heard with her ears, saw with her eyes, and held their peace.

The next point in Alexander's narrative to which I should like to call the reader's attention is this : unlike Celano, he says nothing of Saint Clare's migration to a second church before she finally settled at Saint Damian's. Wherefore? In order to economize space, the incident in Alexander's opinion being one of trifling account, or because there was no such migration ? Celano, indeed, later on recounts a most astounding prodigy which, he says, took place during Saint Clare's stay at Panzo; but he is the only

THE LIFE OF ST. CLARE 55

contemporary writer who tells us this tale, and Iacobili, who repeats it in his Saints of Umbria in the Sixteen Hundreds, makes Saint Damian's the scene of the miracle; also the Seraphic Mother herself bears testimony in her will (we must not, however, forget that the authenticity of this document has not yet been established) that before she came to Saint Damian's she had only sojourned in one other convent, and that for a short while. This is what she says —

" And thus by the will of God and of our most Blessed Father Francis we came to dwell in the Church of Saint Damian, where soon the Lord of His mercy and His grace multiplied us in order that that might be fulfilled which he had foretold by the mouth of His Holy One. For we had sojourned in another place but only for a short time " — " nam steteramus in alio loco, licet parum." In documents of this period the word locus is frequently used to signify a religious house.

The reader will have no doubt observed that Alexander does not tell us the name of the church where Saint Clare was tonsured, nor the name of the convent in which she afterwards took refuge. He contents himself by saying that the first was "a certain church in the plain," and the second, "another church"; and again one asks oneself wherefore? Not in this case, surely, from a desire to be brief : Celano's ad sanctam Mariam de Portiuncula and ad ecclesiam Sancti Pauli are no less concise than the vague terms which Alexander uses; and not, I think, because he was unable to identify the places to which he refers, nor yet from a mere whim nor from inadvertence.

Saint Clare took the veil on the Palm Sunday of the year 121 1. The ceremony was performed secretly in a country church at dead of night, in the presence, perhaps, of five or six witnesses, for Saint Francis had not yet many disciples; they were wanderers and wayfarers on the face of the earth; they had only recently obtained possession of the Porziuncola, and it is not likely that more than two or three of them were dwelling there in those early days. The bull of canonization was published in the fall of the year 1255. Celano's Legend was completed after that date and before the 25th of May, 1261. Of those who had been present at Saint Clare's tonsuring, how many were in the flesh when Alex- ander began to write ? Were any of them still alive when Celano took up his pen ? I suspect that two versions of the story were current at this time — that some said the Porziuncola was the scene

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of Clare's profession, some the Church of Saint Paul, that the question, hotly debated, had become a party one and that Alexander, perhaps not sure which tale was true, and in any case loath to com- mit himself in an official document to either of them, lest by so doing he should add fuel to the fire, deemed it expedient to write the ambiguous words above quoted; for Saint Paul's and the Porziuncoia are both situated in the plain.

Pope Alexander, as we have seen, was above all things a man of peace; Thomas of Celano throughout his career was, in the first place, a partisan — keen, hard, narrow like the blade of a well- worn knife. Monsieur Sabatier and others think that he belonged to the party of large observance, and such may have been the case when he wrote his first life of Saint Francis, but he was surely of the Zelanti when he wrote the second life and the Life of the Seraphic Mother ; how eager these men were to enhance the glory of the Porziuncoia I have already pointed out, and we must not forget that at the time we are now considering the strife between the sons of Saint Francis was raging more fiercely than ever.

The story of this ancient quarrel is one of intense interest, but it is complicated by cross currents and side issues, bristles with controversv and covers more than a hundred years. It is not, then, possible to tell it at length in these pages, but some know- ledge of at least the main outlines is indispensable to a right appreciation, not only of the obscure problems which now concern us, but of the life of Saint Clare generally and of the early history of the order which she founded. Therefore in the following chapters I have jotted down a few notes concerning this com- plicated trouble.

CHAPTER VII

Of the quarrel about the making of the rule of the Friars Minor. Con- cerning the cause of the quarrel ; and of the belligerents and their first leaders. How both sides endeavoured during Saint Francis's lifetime to obtain his support, and said after his death that their views had been his. How the Zelanti superiors, whom Saint Francis had left in charge during his absence in the East, increased the rigour of the rule and vexed the order throughout Italy with " insolent innovations," and how, warned by a secret messenger, Saint Francis returned in haste and arrived just in time to prevent a schism. How, broken in health and half blind, he named a coad- jutor : one Peter Catani, a man of moderate views ; and how with his help and the help of Elias and Brother Caesar of Spires he set his house in order. Some biographical notes concerning these men. Of Brother Peters death six months after his nomination, and how his mantle fell on Elias of Cortona. Of the opinion that this appointment was dictated by Ugolino. Concerning the rule that Saint Francis made on his return from the Levant, in what it differed from the old rule, and how the "spiritual brethren " groaned at the mildness of it. How Saint Francis fell under the influence of Brother Leo, and how this man compelled him to make a new rule so strict that all his officers with one accord repudiated it. How Saint Francis stiffened his neck and refused to change one jot or tittle, and how at last, through the good offices of Cardinal Ugolino, a compromise was effected : the rule as we have it to-day.

So fierce and so bitter was the strife in the ranks of the seraphic regiment during the first period of its existence, that in the natural order of things it must have gone to pieces long before Saint Francis died; but instead of breaking up, during this same period it increased rapidly, produced heroes without number, proved itself over and over again one of the most efficient corps in the army of the Church Militant.

The man whom God raised up to accomplish this thing, who, in spite of ill health and a naturally irritable temper, was able by the grace of God to work this miracle, nay, who made, as we know it, the great Seraphic Religion — sweetest, lowliest, most alluring of all religious orders which by charity and self-effacement draw souls to Christ — was Elias of Cortona.

The chief point at issue in this long battle was from first to last concerning the rule : at first concerning the making of the rule, and afterwards as to the meaning of the rule. On the one

57

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side were the moderate men — the men who favoured mild measures and later on a large interpretation of the law, the " brethren of common observance," as they were then called; on the other side were the Zelanti, or, as they called themselves, the " spiritual brethren " : men of zeal, whose zeal, their opponents said, was not according to discretion, men of poverty and penance, who in this respect were more Franciscan than Saint Francis. Their guiding spirit in the early days was Brother Leo, and the first leader of the moderate party was the aforesaid Elias of Cortona.

As long as the founder lived both sides did their utmost to obtain his approval, and when he was dead both sides maintained that their policy had been his; and though, perhaps, in each case the wish was, to a certain extent, the father to the thought, there is reason to believe that what each side averred was not altogether without foundation : Saint Francis's views on all points were not always the same : taught by experience as time went on, he seems to have become larger, milder, more practical. Elias and his followers travelled along the same road, but they went faster than the Seraphic Father, and perhaps further than he ever did. Nor were Leo and his friends standing still : they moved in the opposite direction, grew sterner, narrower, stiffened their backs, and, con- tinually hugging the letter of the gospel, at last lost sight of the spirit. Moreover, towards the close of his life, the founder seems to have reverted from time to time to the opinion of his earlier days. All men are influenced by their suroundings; Saint Francis was of an impressionable nature, he was weak and ill, and his intellect was perhaps clouded by suffering. Leo and his henchmen, Angelo and Rufino, were his sick nurses. The first is said to have also acted as his secretary, and to have been his confessor. These things are significant. The violent outbursts recorded in Zelanti chronicles, if St. Francis ever uttered them, the pathetic document called his will, if it be genuine and has come down to us in its original form, the stringent poverty clauses inserted in the rule of 1223 — all these things were directly or indirectly the outcome of Leo's influence. Albeit his influence was not paramount : the man whom St. Francis most trusted was the man whom he had set over his religion. Of others Leo could, and did at times, instil into his mind doubts, but to the end he never lost faith in Elias of Cortona.

We first hear of strife in the ranks of the Franciscans somewhere about the year 1220, when Saint Francis returned in haste from

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the East, called home by the rumour that his children were at loggerheads. It was not to be wondered at : the order now con- sisted of several thousand members of divers nationalities, of every rank and calling in life, clerks and layfolk, monks and married men, all sorts and conditions of persons; they had been received without any kind of preparation, for in those days there was no novitiate, and it is almost certain that they were not bound by vows. This heterogeneous mass had been kept together by the magic influence of Saint Francis's personality, but when that personality was withdrawn, when he set sail for the East and was lost sight of, and when presently rumour had it that he was dead, the storm that had long been brewing burst, and he only arrived just in time to prevent his army from going to pieces. But Saint Francis was no longer the man that he had been : for years past Brother Ass had been beaten, overburthened, underfed, and ill treatment was beginning to tell. In other words, his health was broken; also during his travels in the Levant he had contracted a malady of the eyes which rendered him half blind. Wherefore, at the general chapter which met at the Porziuncola on Michaelmas Day, 1220, he appointed a vicar-general to assist him in the govern- ment of the order : Brother Peter Catani, a clerk of birth and learning, vir literatus et nobilis^ as Jordan has it. He was one of St. Francis's first disciples, he had journeyed with him in the East, before he entered religion, he had held a canon's stall in the cathedral church of Assisi, and he was a jurisconsult of repute. A noteworthy appointment this, and one full of significance : it was almost a blow in the mouth to Brother Leo and his friends, for Peter's thoughts were not their thoughts, nor his ways their ways, and Saint Francis, who had been intimate with him for years, was surely well aware of the aims and aspirations of the man whom it had seemed good to him to set over his brethren. Nor was this all : he had brought with him from the East two other learned and capable men to assist him in the difficult task of setting his house in order : Brother Elias of Cortona and Brother Caesar of Spires. Elias was a man of humble origin. " When he was in the world men called him Bombarone; his father was of the diocese of Bologna, his mother of Assisi; he began life as a mattress-maker; somehow or other he managed to pick up a little learning, and he used to teach Assisi youths to read the psalter " — so says Salimbene. Later on he studied at the university of Bologna, and with profit : " vir adeo in sapientia etiam humana

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famosus ut raros in ea pares Ytalfa putaretur habere," says the writer of The Catalogue of the Fourteen Generals J~ and Eccleston : " Quis in universo Christianitatis orbe vel gratiosior vel famosior quam Helias? " When did he join the order? Before 1217. This much can be said with certainty, for in that year or there- about Saint Francis sent him to the Holy Land at the head of a little band of missioners. Monsieur Sabatier suggests that they had been friends in the world, and that together they had experi- enced the throes of conversion. The conjecture is, I think, a happy one; but, alas, it is only a conjecture.

Caesar, according to his friend Jordan of Giano, who is generally to be trusted, was a subdeacon of the diocese of Spires, his native place, when he put on the frock and cord. He was a student of the university of Paris, deeply versed in Holy Writ. In theology he had sat at the feet of Master Conrad of Spires, the preacher of the Cross and afterwards Bishop of Hildesheim. Even before he became a Franciscan he was a " zealous propagator and imitator of evangelical perfection, and certain women of his native town who had listened to his discourses cast off their jewels and fine clothes and began to walk humbly, whereat their husbands, indignant, would fain have burnt him as a heretic; but Master Conrad befriended him, and he returned to Paris. Presently he set out for the Holy Land, where he fell in with Brother Elias, by whose preaching he was converted to our order."

But though all these men — Elias, Caesar, Peter Catani — co-operated with the founder in the much-needed work of reform, and though each man set his mark on the work, as we shall presently see, Saint Francis was deprived of the assistance of two of them long before it was finished : death carried off Peter when he had been vicar-general not quite six months — on the 10th of March, 1221, and six months later Francis himself dispatched Caesar to Germany at the head of a missionary undertaking; for Francis was firmly determined to make the work a success, and Caesar at this time seems to have been the only man in the order who could speak the German language, and so it came about that Elias, on whose shoulders Peter's mantle had fallen, was left alone to face the fury of the fanatics.

Monsieur Sabatier is of opinion that Saint Francis was not

1 The Latin text of this most valuable thirteenth-century work is given by Holder-Egger at the end of his Salimbene, with an excellent introduction, pp. 653-74.

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a free agent when he made this man his vicar : he is quite cer- tain that the appointment was dictated by Cardinal Ugolino — afterwards Pope Gregory IX — and he gives reason for the faith that is in him : " la preuve," he says, " la plus decisive qu'on puisse imaginer, l'aveu du pontife lui-meme . . . 'Istum feceramus generalem,' dit Gregoire IX, ' credentes quod placeret toto ordini et propter familiaritatem quam habuit cum Beato Francisco sed videmus nunc quod turbat ordinem et destruit manifested " l

It is difficult to follow the learned writer's train of thought : somehow or other the Latin quotation does not seem to fit in. Even his faithful disciple Lempp is constrained to make a mild protest : " La demonstration de Sabatier," he says, " n'est cependant pas inattaquable, car les mots istum feceramus generalem doivent se rapporter a l'election d'Elie en 1232." 2

A word of explanation is perhaps needed. Elias, who was vicar-general from 1221 until the founder's death in 1226, in 1232 was elected minister-general in succession to John Parenti, the immediate successor of Saint Francis, and he continued to govern the order till 1239, when he was deposed by Pope Gregory IX (Ugolino). Now the words which Monsieur Sabatier quotes : " I made this man general," in proof of his assertion that Ugolino compelled St. Francis to make Elias his vicar-general in 1 221, occur in the Speculum vitae account of Elias's deposition from the minister-generalship in 1239, and hence it is quite clear that Gregory, if he ever uttered them, was referring not to Elias's appointment in 1221, but to his nomination in 1232.

The Speculum vitae is a late fifteenth-century or early sixteenth- century compilation by an unknown scribe; it was printed at Venice in 1504, at Metz in 1509, and at Antwerp in 1620, and it bristles with inaccuracies.

One of the first things that Saint Francis did on his return from the East was to recast the rule with the assistance of Caesar and Peter certainly, of Elias most likely, and perhaps, too, of Cardinal Ugolino, whom Honorius III, at the founder's request, had just appointed official protector of the order.

In the early days Saint Francis had composed for himself and his brethren a short form of life in simple words, as we learn from Celano and Saint Bonaventure. It had for its irremovable foundation the observance of the Holy Gospel, and he added

1 See Introduction to Speculum Perfectionis, p. ciii.

2 See Frtre Elie de Cortone, p. 46, note 4.

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thereto a few other things which seemed to him to be necessary for uniformity of life. This rule was confirmed by Innocent III, " without a bull " — that is, by word of mouth only — on the 23rd of April, 1 209. As time went on " the few other things," little by little, became many, for it was the friars' custom " to meet every year, and with the help of good men to adopt and promulgate holy institutions approved by the Pope," as Jacques de Vitry informs us, writing somewhere about the year 1216. The original rule, be it borne in mind, was written for a handful of men — thirteen, according to Saint Bonaventure : the founder and twelve followers — who had banded together to observe the evangelical counsels, and by their word and example to preach penance — vagabonds with no fixed abode, who lived from hand to mouth, spent their days in the open air and their nights in caves, in barns, in church porches, and sometimes with no shelter but a haystack, and it is clear that some regulations well enough adapted for a little itinerant corps of this kind needed revision as the army increased and to a certain extent became settled, and that fresh regulations also were required if discipline was to be maintained. What happened, then, was this : the rule was added to and modified as circumstances demanded by the brethren assembled from time to time in general chapter, and by the year 1220 it had become a most cumbersome and unwieldy instrument. It was this rule that the Seraphic Father now threw into the melting-pot, and when it came forth and had been recast, it was a very different rule from what it had been before : the fasting clause was milder, the poverty clauses were larger, a novitiate was prescribed, and the brethren were strictly forbidden " to wander about beyond obedience," and there were other differences as well. The new rule was drafted by Caesar of Spires, and we have the complete text : the text of the original rule has not come down to us, or has not been discovered, but from Jordan, Celano, and other contemporary writers we know at least the substance of the clauses referred to in the above paragraph.

" Once upon a time," says Thomas of Celano, with his usual lack of precision; "once upon a time, when the Porziuncola was crowded with foreign brethren, and the offerings of the faithful were not sufficient for their needs, Brother Peter Catani, his vicar, thus addressed Saint Francis : ' I know not, brother, what to do, for I have not the wherewithal to provide for the corporal necessities of these men who are flocking hither from all parts. Prithee suffer

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me to reserve a portion of the property of novices entering the order, so that we have a little hoard on which to fall back when we are set in such straits as these.' ' Away with such piety/ said the holy man; * away with such piety, dearest brother, as to im- piously break the rule for the sake of any man's necessities ' — absit haec pietas, frater carissime, ut pro quovis homine impie agatur in regula."

This incident must have taken place when the brethren were coming together for the Michaelmas chapter of 1 220, the same chapter at which Francis announced that he had made Peter his vicar-general, the only chapter celebrated during this man's term of office. But though the new vicar was not suffered to have his way upon this occasion, and the immediate difficulty seems to have been met by selling or pawning the altar plate, it was not long before he was able to bring Saint Francis over to his way of thinking, for in the second chapter of the new rule, the chapter concerning the reception and clothing of the brethren, we read the following words, and they reveal to us the kind of argument with which this wily old lawyer overcame the scruples of his spiritual chief : " Let him (the new brother) sell all his goods and endeavour to distribute them to the poor. But let the brothers and the ministers of the brothers take heed not to interfere in any way in his affairs, and let them not receive coin either themselves or through any person acting as intermediary; but if they should be in want, the brethren may accept other necessaries for the body, money excepted, by reason of their necessity, like other poor folk."

By this door, then, all kinds of goods and chattels could enter the citadel of the Lady Poverty, provided the inhabitants had need of them, and if it was not opened wide enough for filthy lucre to enter, licence was given to the unclean thing to creep in by another way : in Chapter VIII (that the brethren may not receive money) we find this clause : " Let none of the brethren . . . carry or receive money or coin in any manner, or cause it to be received ... for any reason, save only on account of the manifest necessity of the sick; and again, a few lines further down : " and if, per- chance, which God forbid, it should happen that any brother should collect or have coin, save only because of the aforesaid necessity of the sick, let him be held for a false brother," etc. Further, it does not seem to have been absolutely forbidden to receive or even to ask for money by way of alms for lepers, though the brethren are

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warned to be very wary in doing so. The wording, however, of this clause is far from clear.

It goes without saying that in the matter of fasting and abstinence and in all other things the sons of Saint Francis have always been bound to observe the ordinary discipline of the Church like other folk. In addition to this they were bound by the original rule — the rule which Pope Innocent III confirmed in 1 209 — to fast on every Wednesday and Friday throughout the year.

During Saint Francis's absence in the East an extra day was added to the weekly fast — Monday — and every week-day through- out the year was to all intents and purposes made a day of abstinence from flesh meat, and every Monday and Saturday from all kinds of milk food as well; for although the brethren were still allowed to partake of these articles of diet on the days in question if they were offered spontaneously by charitable friends, they were no longer suffered to beg for them nor by any other means to procure them for themselves, save in the case of meat on Sundays and in the case of milk on Sundays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.

These innovations, which were not in harmony with the general feeling of the order, were ordained by a chapter of Italian superiors, convoked and presided over by Brother Matthew of Narni, one of the two vicars to whose care Saint Francis had entrusted his flock before he set out for the East. All these things we learn from Jordan of Giano. The chapter in question assembled, certainly in 1220 and most likely on the Feast of Pentecost, in the Church of the Porziuncola, where Matthew was now residing.

We know nothing of this man's antecedents nor of his sub- sequent career, but that he was one of Brother Leo's friends I think may be taken for granted from his rigorism in the matter of fasting, and that Saint Francis disapproved of it there cannot be the least doubt, as we shall see.

" Now it came to pass," says honest old Jordan in his delightful gossiping way, " that a certain lay brother was so indignant at these presumptuous constitutions, that without asking the vicars' per- mission, he put a copy of them into his pocket and crossed the sea; and the first thing he did when he had found Blessed Francis was to beg pardon for the fault that he had committed in coming to see him without leave; ' but,' said he, excusing himself, ' I was induced thereto by this necessity : the vicars whom you have left in charge have presumed in the absence of your reverence to increase

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the rigour of the rule and,' he added, ' these vicars and some other brethren are vexing the order throughout the whole of Italy with their insolent innovations.'

" Now it chanced when this brother arrived that Blessed Francis was at table with a dish of meat before him, just about to begin his dinner, and when he had read the new constitutions, ' Well, my Lord Peter,' said he, addressing Peter Catani, ' how think you, what shall we do? ' Whereat Brother Peter : ' Ah ha, my Lord Francis, as you will; you are master.' (For they always called one another ' my Lord,' both in Italy and in foreign parts : Blessed Francis did so from courtesy, for Brother Peter was a learned man and a gentleman, and he in his turn deemed it fitting to address his spiritual father in like fashion.) For a while the seraphic man kept silence, considering the matter in his heart, and at last he said : ' Let us eat, then, what is set before us according to the gospel.' "

As soon as Saint Francis had finished his dinner, he set out for Italy. One of the first things he did on his arrival, as we have seen, was to draw up a new rule, and in that rule we find the following clause —

" Let all the brethren fast from All Saints until Christmas, and from the Epiphany, when our Lord began to fast, until Easter; but throughout the rest of the year they are only bound to fast, accord- ing to this life, on Fridays. And they may eat of every kind of food that is set before them according to the gospel."

Moreover, not only is it certain that the enactments contained in the second chapter of Caesar's rule were not in the original rule, but we know the exact date when they became law. This chapter treats of the reception and clothing of the brothers, and ordains that only provincial ministers should have power to receive new members into the order, that no candidate should be professed until the manner of life had been diligently explained to him and he had made trial of it for a year, and that when once he had been received to obedience it should " not be lawful for him to pass to another order," nor " to wander about beyond obedience," and then follow these words : " according to the commandment of the Lord Pope." On the 22nd of September, 1220, Honorius III had issued a bull in which the above provisions are contained.

The first Franciscans were all of them more or less free-lances; Saint Francis himself in the early days had countenanced this manner of warfare. It may have been necessary and even useful

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when he counted his soldiers by units and all of them were known to him; but now that he reckoned them up by thousands it had become a source of danger. He recognized this on his return from the East, and, too, he was shrewd enough to foresee that some of his disciples would kick at it, if any attempt were made to draw in the reins of discipline. It was to strengthen his vicar's arm in dealing with these insubordinate folk that he obtained from Honorius III the injunction above referred to.

I know that some historians say that Saint Francis was forced by the Holy See to forbid his brethren to wander about beyond obedience, and I know, too, that Saint Francis himself says in his letter to all the friars — a letter of which the authenticity has never been contested : " I entreat my lord the vicar-general to see to it that the rule be observed inviolably by all . . . and if any man will not observe it, him I do not hold to be a Catholic or my brother, nor do I wish to speak with him or to see him until he shall have done penance. / say this, too, of all those who, setting aside the discipline of the rule, go wandering about; for our Lord Jesus Christ gave His life that He might not lose the obedience of His most Holy Father"

Brother Caesar's rule was in all probability promulgated by Saint Francis himself during the general chapter which met at Assisi at Whitsuntide in the year 1221. The last clause of this remarkable document runs thus : " In the name of Almighty God, of the Lord Pope and by obedience, I, Brother Francis, command and strictly enjoin that no man shall add to or take away from the things which are written in this form of life, and that the friars shall have no other rule." Albeit whilst the ink was still wet Saint Francis himself cancelled it.

When Brother Leo and his friends had read and re-read this intricate piece of legislation and had thoroughly grasped the significance — no easy task — of Caesar's obscure draftsmanship, they were neither edified nor consoled. It was a cruel humiliation for these zealous folk to find that Saint Francis had disavowed their rigorous enactments concerning fasting — nay, he had made the fasting clause easier than it had ever been before; they were scandal- ized at the laxity of the poverty clauses, dismayed at the institution of a novitiate, furious that they would no longer be able to wander about beyond obedience. This was the bitterest pill of all. For, like the Sarabites to whom Saint Benedict refers in the first chapter of his Rule, " they desired to be shut up not in our

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Lord's sheepfolds but in their own; the pleasure of their whims and fancies was to them a law; whatever they liked or made choice of they held to be holy, and what they liked not they deemed unlawful." They determined, then, to do their utmost to restore the old order of things, and the current of events brought them very near to success.

Peter Catani was now in his grave; somewhere about Michaelmas Caesar had set out for Germany; Elias, eager, restless, fretted with official cares, was always moving from place to place on the business of the order. Saint Francis, now too sick to travel much, rarely left Assisi, and here, too, Leo was stationed. Thus was the Seraphic Father deprived of his old friends and counsellors, thus was the field open for Leo's machinations, and, too, fortune favoured him in other ways. This man wrote a clear, neat hand — several specimens of his writing have come down to us — he was able, too, to express himself clearly and in simple language — as rare a gift in the twelve hundreds as it is to-day. Saint Francis had a large correspondence; he had never been a good penman, and he was now almost blind. What more natural, then, than that he should employ Leo as his secretary ? Moreover, Leo was a priest, perhaps the only priest in the Porziuncola, for not many of the brethren in those days were in priest's orders. Again, what more natural than that Saint Francis should make him his confessor. Therefore it is not surprising that these men soon became friends, nor that Leo was at last able to induce his sick penitent to re-write the rule. And presently, with the aid of a confederate, one Brother Bonizo of Bologna, he carried him off to a certain mountain, under pretext, seemingly, of making a spiritual retreat; but the true reason of their journey somehow or other became known, and what happened Leo himself tells, if Leo be indeed the author of the Speculum Perfectionis. " Whereupon," we read in the first chapter of that fascinating book, " whereupon very many of the ministers came to Brother Elias, who was Blessed Francis's vicar, and thus addressed him : ' It has come to our ears that Brother Francis is writing another rule, and we fear that he will make it so stern that it will be impossible for us to observe it. Do you therefore tell him in our behalf that we refuse to be bound by this rule : let him make it for himself, but not for us.' But Brother Elias would not go alone, so they all set out together, and when they had reached the place where Blessed Francis was sojourning Brother Elias called to him, and he, coming forth and

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seeing the minister, ' What,' he said, ' do these men want ? ' and Brother Elias made answer, ' They are the ministers of your religion; they have heard that you are making a new rule, and fear that it will be too stern; wherefore they say and protest that they will not bind themselves to observe it; make it for yourself, if you will, but not for them.' "

But the new rule was already drafted : it justified all their fears, and Saint Francis refused to change one jot or tittle, firmly con- vinced that Christ had dictated the words that Leo had written down; and Leo adds that a heavenly voice was heard saying: To the letter, to the letter, to the letter; without gloss, without gloss, without gloss. Let them that will not so observe them go forth from this religion. " Whereat," he continues, " Brother Elias and his comrades returned to their place discomfited and ashamed." Albeit they presently received some consolation : " This rule," says Leo, " was confirmed by bull by Pope Honorius after these ministers, contrary to the will of Blessed Francis, had cut out many things."

Pope Honorius III confirmed one Franciscan rule, and one only : the rule which is still binding on all the sons of Saint Francis — black, brown and bearded. The deed of confirmation has come down to us, and it contains the text of the rule confirmed, in full, so there can be no doubt whatever about it. This document is in the possession of the Friars of the Sacro Convento at Assisi; it is addressed to Brother Francis and the other brethren of the order of Friars Minor, and is dated from the Lateran, November 29th, 1223. It is clear, then, that this time- honoured code, which is, and has been for nearly seven hundred years the only rule of the great " Seraphic Religion," is nothing more than Brother Leo's rule above referred to, revised. But who revised it ? Leo says, " these ministers " — Elias, that is, and the other superiors who refused to be bound by his scruples — and that they did so in opposition to the wishes of Blessed Francis. Later on he tells a somewhat different tale : Saint Francis was exceedingly loth that anything should be changed, but at last yielded to the entreaties of the ministers in order to avoid scandal. On the other hand we have the testimony of Ugolino, and it is most important : he tells us in a letter which he addressed to the whole order on the 28th of September, 1230, that he himself had helped St. Francis to make the new rule, and also that he had helped him to obtain its confirmation. It is certain that Ugolino

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was not on the mountain with Francis and Leo and Bonizo when they drew up this rule, but I think there can be no doubt whatever that he and Saint Francis later on revised it very carefully. Some- thing of this kind, I suspect, happened : when the Seraphic Father had come to himself and had at last been able to break the spell which Brother Leo had cast over him, he willingly agreed with his provincial ministers to refer the points in dispute to the arbitration of his old friend Ugolino, "his pope," as he used to call him, " the governor, protector and corrector of my religion."

At the Whitsuntide chapter which met at Assisi in 1223, and over which Ugolino himself presided, this agreement was carried out, and through his good offices a compromise was effected. In the matter of diet Elias and his friends — the vast majority of the order — obtained complete satisfaction. Poor Leo's stringent fasting clause, when Ugolino had revised it, was even less strict than Caesar's : the long fast from the Epiphany to Lent now ceased to be of obligation. "May the Lord bless them that keep it of their own free will; but those who do not wish to observe it shall not be constrained thereto " : thus runs the passage referred to, and a little further on we read : " In time of manifest necessity the brethren shall not be bound to corporal fasting." But Leo scored in the matter of poverty; the carefully chosen phrases by which he had excluded coin and every other kind of possession, and had forbidden the brethren, notwithstanding their poverty, to participate with other poor folk in the possessions of neophytes : all these remained intact. In the matter which grieved him most, too, he received some crumbs of comfort, for though he had the mortifica- tion of finding the substance of Caesar's novitiate clause inserted in his rule, these words were cut out from it : " nor to wander about beyond obedience." Albeit this concession was something less than it seemed to be. The obnoxious words were only cancelled to save Leo's face : the bull which was the cause of their original insertion still remained in force. I suspect that Leo at first thought otherwise, arguing with himself that Honorius's con- firmation of the rule had to all intents and purposes cancelled the obnoxious words from the bull. If so, he was mistaken. Hardly was he seated in Peter's chair than Ugolino re-issued his predecessor's bull word for word as Honorius had written it.

CHAPTER VIII

Ugolino's compromise in respect to the rule fails to give satisfaction to any of the parties concerned. The strife between the sons of Saint Francis breaks out more fiercely than ever immediately after his death. Wherefore. Of Brother Leo's rebellion and the whipping which Brother Elias caused to be administered to him in consequence. Of the three earliest accounts that have come down to us of this affair. Of Brother Elias's defence when later on he was accused of breaking the rule. His statement that he had the Pope's authority for all that he did in the matter of the Sacro Convento shown to be true by Pope Gregory's own letters. An examination of these documents and of another still more important. The complete Latin text of it. Some notes on the interesting information contained in these old papers.

I do not think that any of the parties concerned were rendered particularly comfortable by the compromise which Ugolino had effected in the matter of the rule; Elias and his friends must have been convinced from the first that the poverty clauses would prove impracticable; Leo and his comrades were surely not satisfied with the meagre concessions they had obtained; and as for the Seraphic Father, we learn from the Speculum Perfectionis that his last days were made wretched by the complaints, the scruples, the evil fore- bodings of these disappointed men; and the breath was hardly out of his body when the cauldron of strife, which had been so long simmering, boiled over.

Monsieur Sabatier tells us how it all happened, from a spiritual point of view, and very pleasantly, in the introduction to his Speculum Perfectionis. After informing us (on page li) that Brother Leo was the author of this work, that it was written at the Porziuncola and completed on the nth of May, 1227, he thus continues in his usual picturesque style: —

" Cette oeuvre n'etait en quelque sorte que la consequence du grand acte de courage accompli par lui (Leon) peu de jours auparavant."

" Lorsque, au moment 011 Francois n'etait pas encore refroidi dans son tombeau, il avait vu Elie non seulement encourager un esprit contraire a celui de leur pere spirituel, mais annoncer bruyam- ment son projet d'eriger une fastueuse basil ique pour servir de tombeau au petit pauvre du bon Dieu, il ne sut pas contenir son

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indignation. Frere Egide l'avertit bien des dangers qu'il courrait s'il levait l'^tendard de la revoke, mais il avait trop v6cu de l'ame de Francois pour permettre ce qu'il considerait comme la profana- tion de son tombeau, et aide de quelques amis, il brisa le vase de marbre plac6 aux abords de remplacement de la future basilique pour recevoir les dons de visiteurs."

" Elie le fit batonner et expulser de la ville d'Assise."

And in the Appendix to the Speculum he tells us that this work was composed by Leon : " sous le coup de son indignation contre Elie et surtout dans le but de faire echouer la candidature de celui-ci au generalat."

Brother Leo, then, when Saint Francis's body was not yet cold, courageously raised the standard of revolt against the man whom Saint Francis himself had appointed his vicar-general and who, therefore, now that Saint Francis was dead and until such time as a new general should be elected, was legitimate head of the order; and, smarting under the stripes which Elias had caused to be administered to him for acting thus, he withdrew in dudgeon to the Porziuncola and set to work to write a book with this aim in view — to frustrate, if might be, the success of Elias's candidature for the generalship.

Although this story does not show poor Frate Pecorella in a very lamb-like mood, it clears away so many difficulties, fits in so well with the rest of the story — provided we ignore dates — and withal makes such good reading that one is tempted to regret that Monsieur Sabatier has not yet been able to establish it on a sound historical basis.

The three earliest accounts that have come down to us of this affair are to be found in The Chronicle of the Twenty-four Generals, to wit, in the Life of Brother Leo and in the Life of Brother Giles, both of which works are incorporated in the Chronicle, and in the Chronicle itself, under the year 1 227. This work is a late-fourteenth-century compilation by a writer who has not yet been identified. Many of the statements which it contains are beyond suspicion, many, manifestly erroneous, of not a few it is impossible to say whether they be true or false. Our author does not pretend that all that he says is gospel — indeed, he not unfrequently warns us to be on our guard : " This is the only account I can find, and I will not vouch for its accuracy." " There must be some confusion here : this man was in his grave when the deeds attributed to him took place." " Some

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tell us this, some that, what really happened, who shall say ? " and so forth. As a rule, however, he sets down his facts without note or comment. Now Salimbene informs us that Leo himself wrote a life of Brother Giles.1 Is this the life incorporated in the Twenty-four Generals? 2 If so, we have here the evidence of the man who played the chief part in the little theatrical scene we are now considering. The following is the gist of it : —

" Now Giles was a great zealot of poverty : he was content with one coat, lived in a wattle hut, and all superfluous things were abhorrent to him. And when he heard from Brother Leo that a vast and splendid church was being built at Assisi, and that a marble vase had been set up hard by to receive the contributions of the faithful to the building fund, he burst out crying, and said : 1 If this place were so vast as to extend from Assisi to Perugia, one corner of it would suffice for me to dwell in.' Then, turning to Leo, he added in a voice choking with tears : ' If you are tired of your life, go break that marble vase set up for the collection of coin contrary to Holy Poverty, but if you wish to live let it be, for you will not be able to endure the tribulation that Brother Elias will bring on you.' Then Leo, understanding and strengthened in the Lord, with the help of some of his friends, overthrew that vase of porphyry and utterly destroyed it."

Here the story breaks off, but in each of the other accounts we are told that Elias, when he knew what had happened, caused these men to be beaten and hunted out of the town; and also, it will be interesting to note, that the spot on which the basilica was built was originally called Hell Hill, but that when Pope Gregory IX laid the foundation-stone the name was changed to Paradise Hill.

1 Fuit autem Frater Egidius, qui Perusii in archa saxea tumulatus est in ecclesia fratrum, quartus frater ordinis fratrum minorum computato beato Francisco ; cujus vitam Frater Leo, qui fuit unus de tribus specialibus sociis beati Francisci, sufficienter descripsit. (Salimbene. Holder- Egger edition, p. 557.)

2 Papini is quite sure of it, so too Sabatier, but he thinks that much is omitted. (See Speculum Perfectionis, p. xcvi.) Dr. Lempp is less confident : "II est im- probable que la l^gende des Analecta Franciscana, (t. Ill, p. 74-114) soit bien la l^gende originale de Leon : l'auteur dit bien en commencant qu'il ecrit prout asuis sociis intelhxi et ab eodem viro sancto, cui familiaris fui, experientia didici, mais le iedacteur de la Chronique des XXIV Ge'ne'raux doit avoir en tout cas rajeuni la legende : il parle, par exemple (p. 114) du cardinal Bonayenture (juin 1273) alors que L6on mourut en novembre 1271. (See Lempp: Elie de Cortone, p. 27, note 3). But did Brother Leo die in November 1271 ? Wadding says so, but Wadding is not always accurate.

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There is no difficulty in accepting any of the above statements : none of them are out of harmony with the evidence of earlier witnesses, and some of them find support in documents which date from the time when the Church of Saint Francis was being built. Moreover, the story as it stands is altogether in keeping with the habits and customs of the age and with the characters of its heroes. Brother Leo, we know, was of an excitable and impetuous tempera- ment, and Elias was not the man to brook insubordination. But the redactor of the Chronicle account does not stop here, and what he adds to the story throws the whole of it into confusion.

The reader will bear in mind that all these writers tell us that the events we are now considering took place when the basilica was being built. Now the site was only acquired (the deed of conveyance has come down to us) on the 29th of March, 1228, and the founda- tion-stone was not laid until more than three months later. The following is the embarrassing statement tacked on to the Chronicler's story : " And because Elias had done this thing, there was a great stir amongst the brethren, and meeting together in general chapter they deprived him of his government, and chose for minister-general Brother John of Florence, surnamed Parenti, who at this time was provincial minister in Spain."

Parenti was elected general on Whit Sunday, the 10th of June, 1227.

It is clear, then, that either all three writers are mistaken as to the time when the quarrel took place, or else — and this seems to be the more likely — that the Chronicle writer is mistaken in making this trouble the cause of Elias's failure to obtain the generalship when John Parenti was elected : what he himself says in another part of his book, what Eccleston says, Salimbene, the author of the Catalogue of the Fourteen Ge?ierals, points, I think, in this direction. They tell us that when Elias was deposed in 1239 — not when the generalship escaped him in 1227 — his opponents accused him amongst other things of having broken the rule by collecting himself and compelling his subordinates to collect money for the completion of the Sacro Convento.

Elias did not deny the fact, but he denied that he had broken the rule. His conscience, he said, was perfectly clear : he had never undertaken to observe the rule confirmed by the Lord Honorius; when he was professed another rule was in force, under which the brethren were not forbidden to receive offerings of

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money : to wit, the rule which the Lord Innocent had confirmed by word of mouth. For the rest, from first to last in this business, he had acted under the Pope's instructions.

Although the text of the original rule has not come down to us, there is good reason to think that Elias spoke the truth when he said that it contained no prohibition against collecting money; and that he had the Pope's warrant for all that he did concerning the Sacro Convento can be proved up to the hilt by contemporary documents of undeniable authenticity.

Before examining these papers, I think it will be well, in order to avoid confusion, to remind the reader of the following facts : Saint Francis died on the evening of the 4th of October, 1226; the next day he was buried at Assisi in the Church of Saint George, and in the spring of the year 1230 his bones were trans- lated to the place where they still lie in the Sacro Convento — immediately under the high altar of the middle church. On the 1 8th of March, 1227, Honorius III was gathered to his fathers, an old man full of years — a hundred, Salimbene says — and on the morrow another old man was set in Peter's chair : Ugolino, now about eighty-five years of age, and henceforth men called him " the Lord Pope Gregory."

In his brief of the 29th of April, 1228 (Recolentes qualiter sancta plantatio fratrum minorum), this pontiff informed the faithful generally that he had decided to build a special church wherein to treasure the bones of Blessed Francis, and that as he deemed it opportune that every one should participate in this salutary work, by these presents he granted an indulgence of forty days to all who should contribute to the building fund. Was it about this time that Elias set up the marble vase ? Gregory had acquired the site of the church a few weeks earlier, and a few weeks later he laid the foundation-stone, as we shall presently see.

On the 22nd of October in the same year, he addressed a letter (Recolentes qualiter sancta plantatio vestri ordinis) to the minister-general (John Parenti) and brethren of the Minorite Order, in which he said that whereas he deemed it a fitting thing that the church which was being erected as a burial-place for Blessed Francis, on land which had been offered to himself, should rejoice in unwonted freedom, he thereby took possession of the same in the name of the Apostolic See and declared the church and land alike to be exempt from any kind of jurisdiction save that of the aforesaid See.

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In the bull Is qui ecclesiam suam, by which Gregory on the 22nd of April, 1230, declared the Sacro Convento to be the mother church and the mistress of the whole Franciscan order, we find the following words —

" Since, then, at Assisi, on land donated to us and to the Roman Church, to wit, on the spot which is called Paradise Hill, a temple is being built in honour of Blessed Francis, wherein a most precious treasure — his holy body — is to be hidden," etc.

A few weeks after Gregory had written these words — towards the close of the month of May ensuing — " this most precious treasure " was hidden so successfully in the field called Paradise Hill, that for something like six hundred years no man was able to find it. For the holy body of Francis was not borne in triumph from the Church of Saint George to the new basilica, by John Parenti and his friars, in the broad daylight of Whit Sunday, as the Sovereign Pontiff had prescribed, but secretly and stealthily at dead of night on the vigil of the appointed day, or perhaps a few days earlier, by the civic authorities of Assisi, persuaded thereto by Elias, ductus humano timore, as our chronicler explains. But of what was Elias afraid? Of nothing less than this — that his master's body would be torn to pieces by a fierce mob of relic- hunters. We know what happened at Saint Anthony's funeral. We know, too, how the bosom of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary was wrenched off, and how the men of Bruges and the men of Ghent fought for the relics of Blessed Charles of Flanders. Gregory had granted large indulgences to all who should take part in Saint Francis's translation. The town that night was thronged to overflowing, and great flocks of pilgrims were lying out in the open fields like sheep; the normal population of Assisi at this time is said to have been about thirty thousand.

Of course, Elias's conduct caused no little commotion amongst the brethren, but somehow or other he succeeded in quieting them, and he was able, too, to appease Gregory, as after events show; but when first that fiery old pontiff heard that the sacred body of his friend had been touched by profane hands he was furious, and forthwith delivered his soul in a long and vigorous epistle addressed to his beloved brethren the bishops of Perugia and Spoleto.

This document, which is known as the rescript Speravimus hactenus, is dated Lateran, July 16, 1230, and it is one of the most delightful of Pope Gregory's literary productions. Alas, on account of its great length it is impossible to give the complete

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text or anything like an adequate description of it in this book, and we must content ourselves with considering the points which immediately concern us.

Our old friend began his letter by groaning a little at the ingratitude of the men of Assisi, whom he said he had always treated with very great kindness — not only since he had been Pope, but in the days when he occupied a less exalted posi- tion. He had hoped that these men would have appreciated his benevolence — alas, they had rendered him evil for good, and that, in a matter in which they ought to have shown him the utmost consideration. For what had he done ? When he was sojourning with them to enrol one of their fellow citizens — Francis of glorious memory — in the catalogue of saints, desiring to build a church in his honour, he himself with his own hands had laid the foundation-stone, that church he had since adorned with all kinds of privileges, exemptions, immunities, desiring to make it famous for ever, a boon to the men of Assisi collectively and individually. And what had these vexatious citizens done ? Unmindful of their spiritual welfare — aye, and of their temporal interests as well — spoilt everything, upset everything, put the whole business out of joint, by their damnable presumption.

Having told the story of his grievance in detail, and in many words, and with much scriptural illustration, Pope Gregory pro- ceeded to deprive the Sacro Convento of all its privileges, submitted it to episcopal control, set the place under interdict, and forebade any chapter of the brethren to be held there, or any one of them to dwell within its walls until full satisfaction had been made for the sacrilege committed. Moreover, he enjoined the bishops of Perugia and Spoleto to place the city under interdict and to excom- municate the mayor and the members of the town council, unless within fifteen days they should have dispatched to Rome fitting delegates to apologize for what had happened and to give pledges for future good conduct.

At the risk of wearying the reader I will venture to bring yet another document under his notice : the deed of gift by which, on the 29th of March, 1228, one Simon Puzarelli bestowed on Brother Elias, the representative of the Lord Pope Gregory IX, a piece of land at the place called Hell Hill in the county of Assisi for ever, in order that an oratory or church might be built thereon for the most blessed body of Saint Francis.

The original parchment is at present in the municipal library

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of Assisi. The text is perfectly clear and needs no comment. It runs thus —

" In Dei nomine Amen. Anno mccxxviii indictione prima, quarto kalendas aprilis Gregorio Papa Nono et Frederico imperatore existentibus dedit, tradidit, cessit, delegavit et donavit simpliciter et inrevocabiliter inter vivos Simon Puzarelli Fratri Helye recipienti pro Domino Gregorio Papa nono petiam unam terre positam in voca- bulo Collis Inferni in comitatu Assisii, cui scilicet a duobus lateribus via ; a tertio bona ecclesie S. Agathe ; a quarto bona hliorum Bonomi, vel si qui alii sint confines cum introitu et exitu suo et cum omnibus que supra se et infra se habet in integrum et cum omni jure et actione et usu seu requisitione sibi de ipsa re competenti ad habendum tenendum possidendum faciendum omnes utilitates et usus fratrum in ea, videlicet locum oratorium vel ecclesiam pro beatissimo corpore Sancti Francisci vel quidquid ei de ipsa re placuerit in perpetuum, quam rem se suo nomine constituit possidere donee corporaliter intraverit possessionem, in quam intrandi licen- tiam sua auctoritate concessit promittens non dedisse jus vel actionem de ea alicui. Quod si apparuerit eum dedisse promisit de- fendere suis pignoribus et expensis renunciando juri patronatus omnique auxilio legum ipsi competenti vel competituro. Et pro- misit per se et suos heredes dicto frati Helye recipienti pro Domino Papa nono Gregorio contra non facere vel fecisse sed defendere dictam rem ab omni litigante persona omni tempore suis pignoribus et expensis in curia vel extra sub pena dupli ipsius re habita com- pensatione meliorationis et extimationis.

Qua soluta vel non hoc totum semper sit firmum.

Factum in domo dicti Symonis presentibus et vocatis testibus.

Domino Guidone, judice communis Assisiensis. Petro Tebaldi. Somo Gregorii.

Petro Capitanie. Tiberio Petri.

Andrea Agrestoli. Jacobo Bartoli.

Ego Paulus Notarius rogatus his inter fui, et scripsi et auctenticavi."

Who, then, can doubt that Elias had the Pope's authority for all that he did in the matter of the Sacro Convento ?

But very much more than this may be learnt from the testimony of these old parchments. In the first place, does not what Gregory

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says in his letters of the 22nd of October, 1228, and of the 16th of June, 1230, distinctly suggest that not Elias, but he himself conceived the project of founding the famous basilica? At all events, in the passages referred to he takes all the credit of it to himself: in the first his exact words run thus —

" Recolentes qualiter sancta plantatio fratrum minorum ordinis sub beato Francisco bonae memoriae incipit et mirabiliter pro fecit . . . dignum providimus et conveniens ut pro ipsius patris reverentia specialis aedificetur ecclesia in qua ejus corpus debeat conservari; " and in the second he expresses himself as follows —

" Quum enim beatum Franciscum gloriricatum in coelis clari- ficantes in tern's adscripserimus catalogo confessorum et in honorem ejus ecclesiam fundari volentes de manibus nostris lapide ibi primario posito ipsam duxerimus eximendam," etc.

Again, the letters of Oct. 2nd, 1228, and of April 22nd, 1230, contain explicit evidence, as the reader will call to mind, that Gregory was the legal owner of the Sacro Convento and of the land on which it stood; a passage in the brief Speravimus hactenus no less clearly shows that his ownership of this property was not a mere legal fiction — in other words, that the title deeds were not registered in Gregory's name to enable the brethren of common observance to wriggle through the closely woven meshes of the Pecorella's poverty clause. That expedient they had recourse to later on, in the case of other convents; but the Sacro Convento was not only de jure, but de facto the property of the Holy See; the friars who dwelt there were only tenants, and tenants without any kind of fixity of tenure, and if Gregory had desired to leave it on record that such was the case, he could hardly have done so more effectually than by taking the course which for another reason he actually took — namely, by evicting them.

Moreover, these ancient parchments make known the motives which inspired Gregory to erect this vast conglomeration of build- ings and the purposes he intended them to serve : he wished to do honour to the memory of a saint who, in his lifetime, had been his friend, by building a special church wherein to treasure his bones, and also to conciliate the goodwill of the men of Assisi, always a stiff-necked and rebellious people, and at the present juncture not quite sure, perhaps, whether they would cast in their lot with the Emperor or with the Pope; as to the domestic build- ings, he intended them