Life of St. Francis of Assisi by Paul Sabatier (best historical biographies txt) 📕

/> approbation with more precision in certain respects: Cum vero
Summo Pontifici ea quæ postulabat [Franciscus] ardua valde et
quasi impossibilia viderentur infirmitate hominum sui temporis,
exhortabatur eum, quod aliquem ordinem vel regulam de approbatis
assumeret, at ipse se a Christo missum ad talem vitam et non
aliam postulandam constanter affirmans, fixus in sua petitione
permansit. Tunc dominus Johannes de Sancto Paulo episcopus
Sabinensis et dominus Hugo episcopus Hostiensis Dei spiritu moti
assisterunt Sancto Francisco et pro his quæ petebat coram summo
Pontifice et Cardinalibus plura proposuerunt rationabilia et
efficacia valde. Tribul. Laurentinian MS., f^o 6a. This
intervention of Ugolini is mentioned in no other document. It
is, however, by no means impossible. He also was in Rome in the
summer of 1210. (Vide Potthast, p. 462.)

[15] 1 Cel., 32 and 33; 3 Soc., 47 and 48. Cf. An. Per. , A.
SS., p. 590.

[16] 1 Cel., 33.

[17] 3 Soc., 48.

[18] 3 Soc., 49; 1 Cel., 33; Bon., 35 and 36. All this has been
much worked over by tradition and gives us only an echo of the
reality. It would certainly have needed very little for the
Penitents to meet the same fate before Innocent III. as the
Waldenses before Lucius III. Traces of this interview are found
in two texts which appear to me to be too suspicious to warrant
their insertion in the body of the narrative. The first is a
fragment of Matthew Paris: Papa itaque in fratre memorato
habitum deformem, vultum despicabilem, barbam prolixam, capillos
incultos, supercilia pendentia et nigra diligenter considerans;
cum petitionem ejus tam arduam et executione impossibilem
recitare fecisset, despexit cum et dixit: Vade frater, et quære
porcus, quibus potius debes quam hominibus comparari, et involve
te cum eis in volutabro, et regulam illis a te commentatam
tradens, officium tuæ prædicationis impende. Quod audiens
Franciscus inclinato capite exixit et porcis tandem inventis, in
luto se cum eis tamdiu involvit quousque a planta pedis usque ad
verticem, corpus suum totum cum ipso habitu polluisset. Sicque
ad consistorium revertens Papæ se conspectibus præsentavit
dicens: Domine feci sicut præcepisti exaudi nunc obsecro
petitionem meam . Ed. Wats, p. 340. The incident has a real
Franciscan color, and should have some historic basis.
Curiously, it in some sort meets a passage in the legend of
Bonaventura which is an interpolation of the end of the
thirteenth century. See A. SS., p. 591.

[19] 3 Soc., 50 and 51; Bon., 37; 2 Cel., 1, 11; Bernard de
Besse, Turin MS., f^o 101b. Ubertini di Casali ( Arbor vitæ
crucifixæ , Venice, 1485, lib. v., cap. iii.) tells a curious
story in which he depicts the indignation of the prelates
against Francis. Quænam hæc est doctrina nova quam infers
auribus nostris? Quis potest vivere sine temporalium
possessione? Numquid tu melior es quam patres nostri qui
dederunt nobis temporalia et in temporalibus abundantes
ecclesias possiderunt? Then follows the fine prayer inserted by
Wadding in Francis's works. The central idea is the same as in
the parable of poverty. This story, though not referable to any
source, has nevertheless its importance, since it shows how in
the year 1300 a man who had all the documents before his eyes,
represented to himself Francis's early steps.

[20] Bon., 36.

[21] The attempt of Durand of Huesca to create a mendicant order
has not yet been studied with sufficient minuteness. Chief of
the Waldenses of Aragon, he was present in 1207 at the
conference of Pamiers, and decided to return to the Church.
Received with kindness by the pope he at first had a great
success, and by 1209 had established communities in Aragon, at
Carcassonne, Narbonne, Béziers, Nimes, Uzès, Milan. We find in
this movement all the lineaments of the institute of St.
Dominic; it was an order of priests to whom theological studies
were recommended. They disappeared almost completely in the
storm of the Albigensian crusade. Innocent III., epistolæ ,
xi., 196, 197, 198; xii., 17, 66; xiii., 63, 77, 78, 94; xv.,
82, 83, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 137, 146. The first of these
bulls contains the very curious Rule of this ephemeral order.
Upon its disappearance vide Ripoli, Bullarium Prædicatorum , 8
vols., folio, Rome, 1729-1740, t. i., p. 96. Cf. Elie Berger,
Registres d'Innocent IV. , 2752.

[22] Burchard, of the order of the Premostrari, who died in
1226. See below, p. 234.

[23] 3 Soc., 52; Bon., 38.

[24] 3 Soc., 52 and 49.

[25] St. Antonino, Archbishop of Florence, saw very clearly that
it was quædam concessio simplex habitus et modi illius vivendi
et quasi permissio . A. SS., p. 839. The expression "approbation
of the Rule" by which the act of Innocent III. is usually
designated is therefore erroneous.

* * * * *


CHAPTER VII

RIVO-TORTO

1210-1211


The Penitents of Assisi were overflowing with joy. After so many mortally long days spent in that Rome, so different from the other cities that they knew, exposed to the ill-disguised suspicions of the prelates and the jeers of pontifical lackeys, the day of departure seemed to them like a deliverance. At the thought of once more seeing their beloved mountains they were seized by that homesickness of the child for its native village which simple and kindly souls preserve till their latest breath.

Immediately after the ceremony they prayed at the tomb of St. Peter, and then crossing the whole city they quitted Rome by the Porta Salara.

Thomas of Celano, very brief as to all that concerns Francis's sojourn in the Eternal City, recounts at full length the light-heartedness of the little band on quitting it. Already it began to be transfigured in their memory; pains, fatigues, fears, disquietude, hesitations were all forgotten; they thought only of the fatherly assurances of the supreme pontiff--the vicar of Christ, the lord and father of the Christian universe--and promised themselves to make ever new efforts to follow the Rule with fidelity.

Full of these thoughts they had set out, without provisions, to cross the Campagna of Rome, whose few inhabitants never venture out in the heat of the day. The road stretches away northward, keeping at some distance from the Tiber; on the left the jagged crest of Soracte, bathed in mists formed by the exhalations of the earth, looms up disproportionately as it fades in the distance; on the right, the everlasting undulations of the hillocks with their wide pastures separated by thickets so parched and ragged that they seemed to cry for mercy and pardon. Between them the dusty road which goes straight forward, implacable, showing, as far as the eye can reach, nothing but the quivering of the fiery air. Not a house, not a tree, not a passing breeze, nothing to sustain the traveller under the disquietude which creeps over him. Here and there are a few abandoned huts, their ruins looking like the corpses of departed civilizations, and on the edge of the horizon the hills rising up like gigantic and unsurmountable walls.

There are no words to describe the physical and moral sufferings to which he is exposed who undertakes without proper preparation to cross this inhospitable district. To the weakness caused by lack of air soon succeeds an insurmountable lassitude. The feet sink in a soft, tenuous dust which every step sends up in clouds; it covers you, penetrates your skin, and parches your mouth even more than thirst. Little by little all energy ebbs away, a dumb dejection seizes you, sight and thought become alike confused, fever ensues, and you cast yourself down by the roadside, unable to take another step.

In their haste to leave Rome Francis and his companions had forgotten all this, and had imprudently set forth. They would have succumbed if a chance traveller had not brought them succor. He was obliged to leave them before they had shaken off the last hallucinations of fever, leaving them amazed with the unexpected succor which Providence had sent them.[1]

They were so severely shattered that on arriving at Orte they were obliged to stop awhile. In a desert spot not far from this city they found a shelter admirably adapted to serve them for refuge;[2] it was one of those Etruscan tombs so common in that country, whose chambers serve to this day as a shelter for beggars and gypsies. While some of the brethren hastened to the city to beg for food, the