Life of St. Francis of Assisi by Paul Sabatier (top 10 inspirational books .txt) 📕

1. Eleven hundred and one metres above the level of the sea; the plain around Assisi has an average of two hundred, and the town of two hundred and fifty, metres above.

2. As in the majority of Tuscan cities the dimensions of the houses were formerly fixed by law.

3. The biographies say that he died (October 3, 1226) in his forty-fifth year. But the terms are not precise enough to make the date 1181 improbable. For that matter the question is of small importance. A Franciscan of Erfurt, about the middle of the thirteenth century, fixes the date at 1182. Pertz, vol. xxiv., p. 193.

4. A number of different genealogies have been fabricated for Francis; they prove only one thing, the wreck of the Franciscan idea. How little they understood their hero, who thought to magnify and glorify him by making him spring from a noble family! "Quæ rero," says Father Suysken, S. J., "de ejus gentilitio insigni disserit Waddingus, non lubet mihi attingere. Factis et virtutibus eluxit S. Franciscus non proavorum insignibus aut titulis, quos nec desideravit." (A. SS. p. 557a.) It could not be better said.

In the fourteenth century a whole cycle of legends had gathered about his birth. It could not have been otherwise. They all grow out of the story that tells of an old man who comes knocking at the parents' door, begging them to let him take the infant in his arms, when he announces that it will do great things. Under this form the episode certainly presents nothing impossible, but very soon marvellous incidents begin to gather around this nucleus until it becomes unrecognizable. Bartholomew of Pisa has preserved it in almost its primitive form. Conform., 28a 2. Francis certainly had several brothers [3 Soc., 9. Mater ... quæ cum præ ceteris filiis diligebat], but they have left no trace in history except the incident related farther on. Vide p. 44. Christofani publishes several official pieces concerning Angelo, St. Francis's brother, and his descendants: Storie d'Assisi, vol. i., p. 78 ff. In these documents Angelo is called Angelus Pice, and his son Johannectus olim Angeli domine Pice, appellations which might be cited in favor of the noble origin of Pica.

5. Documentary History of Languedoc, iii., p. 607.

6. The Cathedral of Assisi. To this day all the children of the town are baptized there; the other churches are without fonts.

7. 3 Soc., 1; 2 Cel., 1, 1. Vide also 3 Soc., edition of Pesaro, 1831.

8. The langue d'oïl was at this epoch the international language of Europe; in Italy it was the language of games and tourneys, and was spoken in the petty princely courts of Northern Italy. Vide Dante, De vulgari eloquio, lib. I., cap. x. Brunetto Latini wrote in French because "the speech of France is more delectable and more common to all people." At the other end of Europe the Abbot of Stade, in Westphalia, spoke of the nobility of the Gallic dialect. Ann. 1224 apud Pertz, Script. xvi. We shall find St. Francis often making allusions to the tales of the Round Table and the Chanson de Roland.

9. We must not be led astray by certain remarks upon his ignorance, from which one might at first conclude that he knew absolutely nothing; for example, 2 Cel., 3, 45: Quamvis homo iste beatus nullis fuerit scientiæ studiis innutritus. This evidently refers to science such as the Franciscans soon came to apprehend it, and to theology in particular.

The close of the passage in Celano is itself an evident proof of this.

10. Bon., 219; Cf. A. SS., p. 560a. 1 Cel., 23.

11. Ozanam, Documents inédits pour servir à l'histoire littéraire d'Italie du VIIIe au XIIIe siècle. Paris, 1851, 8vo, pp. 65, 68, 71, 73. Fauriel, Dante et les origines de la littérature italienne. Paris, 1854, 2 vols., 8vo, ii., p. 332, 379, 429.

12. V. 3 Soc., 51 and 67; 2 Cel., 3, 110; Bon., 55; 2 Cel., 3, 99; Eccl., 6. Bernard de Besse, Turin MS., fo. 96a, calls Brother Leo the secretary of St. Francis.

13. See page 357, n. 8. Bon., 51 and 308.

14. 1 Cel., 16; 3 Soc., 10; 23; 24; 33; 2 Cel., 1, 8; 3, 67. See also the Testament of St. Clara and the Speculum, 119a.

15. Primum namque cum fari vel balbutire incipiunt, turpia quædam et execrabilia valde signis et vocibus edocentur pueri ii nondum nati: et cum tempus ablactationis advenerit quædam luxu et lascivia plena non solum fari sed et operari coguntur.... Sed et cum paulo plusculum ætate profecerint, se ipsis impellentibus, semper ad deteriora opera dilabuntur. 1 Cel., 1.

16. 2 Cel., 1. Cf. Conform., 14a, 1. There is nothing impossible in her having been of Provençal origin, but there is nothing to indicate it in any document worthy of credence. She was no doubt of noble stock, for official documents always give her the title Domina. Cristofani I., p. 78 ff. Cf. Matrem honestissimam habuit. 3 Soc., Edition of Pesaro, 1831, p. 17.

17. The reading given by the Conform., 14a, 1, Meritorum gratia dei filium ipsum noveritis affuturum, seems better than that of 2 Cel., 1, 1, Multorum gratia Dei filiorum patrem ipsum noveritis affuturum. Cf. 3 Soc., 2.

18. Bernardo of Besse, Turin MS., 102 b.: An integer carne desiderans ... quod non extorsisset a Sancto ... meruit obtinere a Deo quod virgo esset. Cf. Conform., 211a, 1, and A. SS., p. 560f.

19. "In illa antiphona quæ incipit: Hic vir in vanitatibus nutritus insolenter, fiat talis mutatis: Divinis karismatibus preventus est clementer." Archiv., vi., p. 35.

20. Vide p. 395, the decision of the chapter of 1263 ordaining the destruction of legends earlier than that of Bonaventura.

21. 1 Cel., 1 and 2; 89; 3 Soc., 2. Cf. A. SS., 560c. Vincent of Beauvais, Spec. hist. lib., 29, cap. 97.

22. Pierre Vidal was at the court of Boniface, Marquis of Montferrat, about 1195, and liked his surroundings so well that he desired to establish himself there. K. Bartsch, Piere Vidal's Lieder, Berlin, 1857, n. 41. Ern. Monaci, Testi antichi provenzali, Rome, 1889, col. 67. One should read this piece to have an idea of the fervor with which this poet shared the hopes of Italy and desired its independence. This political note is found again in a tenzon of Manfred II. Lancia, addressed to Pierre Vidal. (V. Monaci, loc. cit., col. 68.)—Gaucelme Faidit was also at this court as well as Raimbaud of Vacqueyras (1180-1207).—Folquet de Romans passed nearly all his life in Italy. Bernard of Ventadour (1145-1195), Peirol of Auvergne (1180-1220), and many others abode there a longer or shorter time. Very soon the Italians began to sing in Provençal, among others this Manfred Lancia, and Albert Marquis of Malaspina (1162-1210), Pietro della Caravana, who in 1196 stirred up the Lombard towns against Henry VI., Pietro della Mula, who about 1200 was at the court of Cortemiglia. Fragments from these poets may be found in Monaci, op. cit., col. 69 ff.

23. Soc., 3; 2 Cel., 1, 1.

24. Cum esset gloriosus animo et nollet aliquem se præcellere, Giord. 20.

25. 1 Cel., 17; 3 Soc., 3; Bon., 7. Cf. A. SS., p. 562.

26. 1 Cel., 2; Bon., 6; Vit. sec. apud, A. SS., p. 560.

27. 3 Soc., 9.

28. In 1174 Assisi was taken by the chancellor of the empire, Christian, Archbishop of Mayence. A. Cristofani, i., p. 69.

29. All these events are related in the Gesta Innocentii III. ab auctore coætaneo, edited by Baluze: Migne, Inn. op., vol. i., col. xxiv. See especially the letter of Innocent, Rectoribus Tusciæ: Mirari cogimur, of April 16, 1198. Migne, vol. i., col. 75-77. Potthast, No. 82.

30. See Luigi Bonazzi, Storia di Perugia, 2 vols., 8vo. Perugia, 1875-1879 vol. i., cap. v., pp. 257-322.

31. 3 Soc., 4; 2 Cel., 1, 1. Cristofani, op. cit., i., p. 88 ff.; Bonazzi, op. cit., p. 257.

32. 3 Soc., 4.

33. 3 Soc., 4; 2 Cel., 1, 1.

34. See this arbitration in Cristofani, op. cit., p. 93

35. Cristofani, loc. cit., p. 70.

Table of
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On his return to Assisi Francis at once resumed his former mode of life; perhaps he even tried in some degree to make up for lost time. Fêtes, games, festivals, and dissipations began again. He did his part in them so well that he soon fell gravely ill.1 For long weeks he looked death so closely in the face that the physical crisis brought about a moral one. Thomas of Celano has preserved for us an incident of Francis's convalescence. He was regaining strength little by little and had begun to go about the house, when one day he felt a desire to walk abroad, to contemplate nature quietly, and so take hold again of life. Leaning on a stick he bent his steps toward the city gate.

The nearest one, called Porta Nuova, is the very one which opens upon the finest scenery. Immediately on passing through it one finds one's self in the open country; a fold of the hill hides the city, and cuts off every sound that might come from it. Before you lies the winding road to Foligno; at the left the imposing mass of Mount Subasio; at the right the Umbrian plain with its farms, its villages, its cloud-like hills, on whose slopes pines, cedars, oaks, the vine, and the olive-tree shed abroad an incomparable brightness and animation. The whole country sparkles with beauty, a beauty harmonious and thoroughly human, that is, made to the measure of man.

Francis had hoped by this sight to recover the delicious sensations of his youth. With the sharpened sensibility of the convalescent he breathed in the odors of the spring-time, but spring-time did not come, as he had expected, to his heart. This smiling nature had for