Life of St. Francis of Assisi

38.Hæc omnia patent per sua [B. Francisci] verba expressa per sanctum fratrem virum Leonem ejus socium tam de mandato sancti patris quam etiam de devotione prædicti fratris fuerunt solemniter conscripta, in libro qui habetur in armario fratrum de Assisio et in rotulis ejus, quos apud me habeo, manu ejusdem fratris Leonis conscriptis. Archiv., iii., p. 168. Cf. p. 178.

39. 3 Soc., Prol. Non contenti narrare solum miracula ... conversationis insignia et pii beneplaciti voluntatem.

40.Leggenda di S. Francesco, tipografia Morici et Badaloni, Recanati, 1856, 1 vol., 8vo.

41. See Father Stanislaus's preface.

42. 3 Soc., 68-73.

43. The book lacks little of representing St. Francis as taking up the work of Jesus, interrupted (by the fault of the secular clergy) since the time of the apostles. The viri evangelici consider the members of the clergy filios extraneos. 3 Soc., 48 and 51. Cf. 3 Soc., 48. Inveni virum ... per quem, credo Dominus velit in toto mundo fedem sanctæ Ecclesiæ reformare. Cf. 2 Cel., 3, 141. Videbatur revera fratri et omnium comitatium turbæ quod Christi et b. Francisci una persona foret.

44. A. SS. p. 552.

45.Venetiis, expensis domini Jordani de Dinslaken per Simonem de Luere, 30 januarii, 1504. Impressum Metis per Jasparem Hochffeder, Anno Domini 1509. These two editions are identical, small 12mos, of 240 folios badly numbered. Edited under the same title by Spoelberch, Antwerp, 1620, 2 tomes in one volume, 8vo, 208 and 192 pages, with a mass of alterations. The most important manuscript resembles that of the Vatican 4354. There are two at the Mazarin Library, 904 and 1350, dated 1459 and 1460, one at Berlin (MS. theol. lat., 4to, no. 196 sæc. 14). Vide Ehrle, Zeitschrift. t. vii. (1883), p. 392f; Analecta fr., t. i., p. xi.; Miscellanea, 1888, pp. 119. 164. Cf. A. SS., pp. 550-552.

The chapters are numbered in the first 72 folios only, but these numbers teem with errors; fo. 38b. caput lix., 40b, lix., 41b, lxi. ibid., lxii., 42a, lx., 43a, lxi. Besides at fos. 46b and 47b there are two chapters lxvi. There are two lxxi., two lxxii., two lxxiii., etc.

46. For example, the history of the brigands of Monte-Casale, fos. 46b, and 58b. The remarks of Brother Elias to Francis, who is continually singing, 136b and 137a. The visit of Giacomina di Settesoli, 133a and 138a. The autograph benediction given to Brother Leo, 87a; 188a.

47. At fo. 20b we read: Tertium capitulam de charitate et compassione et condescensione ad proximum. Capitulum xxvi. Cf. 26a, 83a, 117b, 119a, 122a, 128b, 133b, 136b, where there are similar indications.

48. Fo. 5b: Incipit Speculum vitæ b. Francesci et sociorum ejus. Fo. 7b; Incipit Speculum perfectionis.

49. We should search for it in vain in the other pieces of the Speculum, and it reappears in the fragments of Brother Leo cited by Ubertini di Casali and Angelo Clareno.

50. Fo. 8b, 11a, 12a, 15a, 18b, 21b, 23b, 26a, 29a, 33b, 43b, 41a, 48b, 118a, 129a, 130a, 134a, 135a, 136a.

51. Does not Thomas de Celano say in the prologue of the Second Life: "Oramus ergo, benignissime pater, ut laboris hujus non contemnenda munuscula ... vestra benedictione consecrare velitis, corrigendo errata et superflua resecantes."

52. The legend of 3 Soc. was preserved in the Convent of Assisi: "Omnia ... fuerunt conscripta ... per Leonem, ... in libro qui habetur in armario fratrum de Assisio." Ubertini, Archiv., iii., p. 168. Later, Brother Leo seems to have gone more into detail as to certain facts; he confided these new manuscripts to the Clarisses: "In rotulis ejus quos apud me habeo, manu ejusdem fratres Leonis conscriptis," ibid. Cf. p. 178. "Quod sequitur a sancto fratre Conrado predicto et viva voce audivit a sancto fratre Leone qui presens erat et regulam scripsit. Et hoc ipsum in quibusdam rotulis manu sua conscriptis quos commendavit in monasterio S. Claræ custodiendos.... In illis multa scripsit ... quæ industria fr. Bonaventura omisit et noluit in legenda publice scribere, maxime quia aliqua erant ibi in quibus ex tunc deviatio regulæ publice monstrabatur et nolebat fratres ante tempus in famare." Arbor., lib. v., cap 5. Cf. Antiquitates, p. 146. Cf. Speculum, 50b. "Infra scripta verba, frater Leo socius et Confessor B. Francisci, Conrado de Offida, dicebat se habuisse ex ore Beati Patris nostri Francisci, quæ idem Frater Conradus retulit, apud Sanctum Damianum prope Assisium." Conrad di Offidia copied, then, both the book of Brother Leo and his rotuli; he added to it certain oral information (Arbor, vit. cruc., lib. v., cap. 3), and so perhaps composed the collection so often cited by the Conformists under the title of Legenda Antiqua and reproduced in part in the Speculum.

The numbering of the chapters, which the Speculum has awkwardly inserted without noting that they were not in accord with his own division, were vestiges of the division adopted by Conrad di Offida.

It may well be that, after the interdiction of his book and its confiscation at the Sacro Convento, Brother Leo repeated in his rotuli a large part of the facts already made, so that the same incident, while coming solely from Brother Leo, could be presented under two different forms, according as it would be copied from the book or the rotuli.

53. Compare, for example, 2 Cel., 120: Vocation of John the Simple, and Speculum, fo 37a. From the account of Thomas de Celano, one does not understand what drew John to St. Francis; in the Speculum everything is explained, but Celano has not dared to depict Francis going about preaching with a broom upon his shoulder to sweep the dirty churches.

54. It was published for the first time at Rome, in 1806, by Father Rinaldi, following upon the First Life (vide above, p. 365, note 2), and restored in 1880 by Abbé Amoni: Vita secunda S. Francisci Assisiensis auctore B. Thomade Celano ejus discipulo. Romæ, tipografia della pace, 1880, 8vo, 152 pp. The citations are from this last edition, which I collated at Assisi with the most important of the rare manuscripts at present known: Archives of Sacro Convento, MS. 686, on parchment of the end of the thirteenth century, if I do not mistake, 130 millim. by 142; 102 numbered pages. Except for the fact that the book is divided into two parts instead of three, the last two forming only one, I have not found that it noticeably differs from the text published by Amoni; the chapters are divided only by a paragraph and a red letter, but they have in the table which occupies the first seven pages of the volume the same titles as in the edition Amoni.

This Second Life escaped the researches of the Bollandists. It is impossible to explain how these students ignored the worth of the manuscript which Father Theobaldi, keeper of the records of Assisi, mentioned to them, and of which he offered them a copy (A. SS., Oct., t. ii., p. 546f). Father Suysken was thus thrown into inextricable difficulties, and exposed to a failure to understand the lists of biographies of St. Francis arranged by the annalists of the Order; he was at the same time deprived of one of the most fruitful sources of information upon the acts and works of the Saint. Professor Müller (Die Anfänge, pp. 175-184) was the first to make a critical study of this legend. His conclusions appear to me narrow and extreme. Cf. Analecta fr., t. ii., pp. xvii.-xx. Father Ehrle mentions two manuscripts, one in the British Museum, Harl., 47; the other at Oxford, Christ College, cod. 202. Zeitschrift, 1883, p. 390.

55. The Three Companions foresee the possibility of their legend being incorporated with other documents: quibus (legendis) hæc pauca quæ scribimus poleritis facere inseri, si vestra discretio viderit esse justum. 3 Soc, Prol.

56. One phrase of the Prologue (2 Cel.) shows that the author received an entirely special commission: Placuit ... robis ... parvitati nostræ injungere, while on the contrary the 3 Soc. shows that the decision of the chapter only remotely considered them: Cum de mandato prœteriti capituli fratres teneantur ... visum est nobis ... pauca de multis ... sanctitati vestræ intimare. 3 Soc., Prol.

57. Compare the Prologue of 2 Cel. with that of 1 Cel.

58.Longum esset de singulis persequi, qualiter bravium supernæ vocationis attigerit. 2 Cel., 1, 10.

59. This first part corresponds exactly to that portion of the legend of the 3 Soc., which Crescentius had authorized.

60. Observe that the Assisi MS. 686 divides the Second Life into two parts only by joining the last two.

61. Salimbeni, ann. 1248.

62. Glassberger, ann. 1253. An. fr. t. ii., p. 73. Frater Johannes de Parma minister generalis, multiplicatis litteris præcipit fr. Thomæ de Celano (cod. Ceperano), ut vitam beati Francisci quæ antiqua Legenda dicitur perficeret, quia solum de ejus conversatione et verbis in primo tractatu, de mandato, Fr. Crescentii olim generalis compilato, ommissis miraculis fecerat mentionem, et sic secundum tractatum de miraculis sancti Patris compilavit, quem cum epistola quæ incipit: Religiosa vestra sollicitudo eidem generali misit.

This treatise on the miracles is lost, for one cannot identify it, as M. Müller suggests (Anfänge, p. 177), with the second part (counting three with the Amoni edition) of the Second Life: 1o, epistle Religiosa vestra sollicitudo does not have it; 2o, this second part is not a collection of miracles, using this word in the sense of miraculous cures which it had in the thirteenth century. The twenty-two chapters of this second part have a marked unity; they might be entitled Francis a prophet, but not Francis a thaumaturgus.

63. In the Prologue (2 Cel., 2, Prol.) Insignia patrum the author speaks in the singular, while the Epilogue is written in the name of a group of disciples.

64. Greccio, 2 Cel., 2, 5; 14; 3, 7; 10; 103.—Rieti, 2 Cel., 2, 10; 11; 12; 13; 3, 36; 37; 66; 103.

65. St. Francis gives him an autograph, 2 Cel., 2, 18. Cf. Fior. ii. consid.; his tunic, 2 Cel., 2, 19; he predicts to him a famine, 2 Cel., 2, 21; cf. Conform., 49b. Fr. Leo ill at Bologna, 2 Cel., 3, 5.

66. The text of Ubertini di Casali may be found in the Archiv., t. iii., pp. 53, 75, 76, 85, 168, 178, where Father Ehrle points out the corresponding passages of 2 Cel.

67. It is the subject of thirty-seven narratives (1, 2 Cel., 3, 1-37), then come examples on the spirit of prayer (2 Cel., 3, 38-44), the temptations (2 Cel., 3, 58-64), true happiness (2 Cel., 3, 64-79), humility (2 Cel., 3, 79-87), submission (2 Cel., 3, 88, 91), etc.

68. Le Monnier, t. i., p. xi.; F. Barnabé, Portiuncula, p. 15. Cf. Analecta fr., t. ii., p. xxi. Zeitschrift für kath. Theol., vii. (1883), p. 397.

69.Il piu antico poema della vita di S. Francisco d'Assisi scritto inanzi all' anno 1230 ora per la prima volta pubblicato et tradotto da Antonio Cristofani, Prato, 1882, 1 vol., 8vo. 288 pp.

70. Note, however, two articles of the Miscellanea, one on the manuscript of this biography which is found in the library at Versailles, t. iv. (1889), p. 34 ff.; the other on the author of the poem, t. v. (1890), pp. 2-4 and 74 ff.

71. See below, p. 410.

72. Vide Glassberger, ann. 1244; Analecta, t. ii., p. 68. Cf. A. SS., p. 545 ff.