OLIVI
245
OLIVI
years later, they were accused of heresy and sum-
moned to give an explanation of their innovations be-
fore John XXII at Avignon. The two disciples —
Tolomei remained behind — obeyed the mandate and
succeeded in gaining the good-will of the Holy Father,
who, however, in order to bring them into line with
other monks, bade them go to Guido di Pietromala,
Bishop of Arezzo, and ask him to give them a Rule
which had the approbation of the Church. The
bishop remembered that once, in a vision or dream,
Our Lady had put into his hands the Rule of St. Ben-
edict and bade him give white habits to some persons
who knelt before her. He did not doubt that these
monks were the Sienese hermits commended to his
care by the pope. Wherefore, he clothed the three of
them with white habits and gave them the Benedictine
Rule and placed them under the protection of the
Blessed Virgin. Tolomei took the name of Bernard
and their olive-clothed mountain hermitage was re-
named "Monte Oliveto", in memory of Christ's agony
and as a perpetual reminder to themselves of the life of
sacrifice and expiatory penance they had undertaken.
Evidently, in what he did, the good bishop had before his mind the history of St. Romuald — there is even a repetition of the well-knov^Ti "Vision of St. Romuald" in the story — and hoped, through the en- thusiasm of Bernard and his monks, to witness an- other wide-spread monastic revival, like that which spread from the Hermitage of Camaldoli. He was not disappointed. Through the generosity of a mer- chant a monastery was erected at Siena; he himself built another at Arezzo; a third sprang up at Florence; and within a very few years there were establishments at Camprena, Volterra, San Geminiano, Eugubio, Foligno, and Rome. Before St. Bernard's death from the plague in 1348 — he had quitted his monastery to devote himself to the care of those stricken with the disease and died a martyr of charity — the new con- gregation was already in great repute, as well for the number of its houses and monks as for the saintliness of its members and the rigour of its observance. Yet it never succeeded in planting itself successfully on the other side of the Alps.
St. Bernard Ptolomei's idea of monastic reform was that which had inspired every founder of an order or congregation since the days of St. Benedict — a return to the primitive life of soUtude and austerity. Severe corporal mortifications were ordained by rule and in- flicted in public. The usual ecclesisatical and con- ventual fasts were largely increased and the daily food was bread and water. The monks slept on a straw mattress without bed-coverings, and did not he down after the midnight Office, but continued in prayer until Prime. They wore wooden sandals and habits of the coarsest stuff. They were also fanatical total abstainers; not only was St. Benedict's kindly concession of a hemina of wine rejected, but the vine- yards were rooted up and the wine-presses and vessels destroyed. Attention has been called to this last par- ticular, chiefly to contrast with it a provision of the later constitutions, in which the monks are told to keep the best wine for themselves and sell the inferior product ("Meliora \-ina pro monachorum usu serven- tur, pejora vendantur") and, should they have to buy wine, to purchase only the better quality ("si vinum emendum erit, emetur illud quod mehus erit"). Truly, relaxation was inevitable. It was never rea- sonable that the heroic austerities of St. Bernard and his companions should be made the rule, then and always, for every monk of the order. But the man- date concerning the quality of the wine chiefly aimed to remove any excuse for differential treatment of the monks in meat and drink. Where everything on the table was of exceptional quality, there could be no reason why anyone should be especially provided for. It was always the custom for each one to dilute the wine given him.
Though the foundation of the Olivetans was not
professedly an introduction of constitutional reform
among the Benedictines, it had that result. They
were a new creation and hence, as we may say, up-
to-date. They had a superior general, like the friars,
and officials of the order distinct from those of the
abbey. They set an example of adaptation to present
needs by the frequent modification of their constitu-
tions at the general chapters, and by the short terra
of office enjoyed by the superiors. In 1408 Gregory
XII gave them the extinct monastery of St. Justina
at Padua, which they occupied until the institution
there of the famous lienedictine reform. This great
movement, out of which the present Cassinese Con-
gregation resulted, may, therefore, in a very literal
sense, be described as having followed in the footsteps
of the Olivetans. At the present date, the Order of
Our Lady of Mount Olivet numbers only 10 monaster-
ies and 122 brethren.
H^LYOT, Hist, des ordres monast.; MiGNE, Did, des ordres relig.; Lan'celotto. Hist. Olivetanm; Bonanni, Catalog, ord. relig.; Cum- mins, The Olivetan Constitutiotis in Amplejorth Journal (Dec, 1896).
J. C. Almond.
Olivi, Pierre Jean (Petrus Johannis), Spiritual Franciscan and theological author, b. at Serignan, Diocese of Bcziers, 1248-9; d. at Narbonne, 14 March, 1298. At twelve he entered the Friars Minor at Bcziers, and later took the baccalaureate at Paris. Returning to his native province, he soon distin- guished himself by his strict observance of the rule and his theological knowledge. When Nicholas III prepared his Decretal "Exiit" (1279), Oh\n, then at Rome, was asked to express his opinion with regard to Franciscan poverty {usus pauper). Unfortunately there was then in the convents of Provence a con- troversy about the stricter or laxer observance of the rule. Olivi soon became the principal spokesman of the rigorists, and met with strong opposition on the part of the community. At the General Chapter of Strasburg (1282) he was accu.sed of heresy, and hence- forward almost every general chapter concerned itself with him. His doctrine was examined by seven friars, graduates of the University of Paris (see Anal. Franc., Ill, 374-7.5), and censured in thirty-four propositions, whereupon his writings were confiscated (1283). Olivi cleverly defended himself in several responses (1283-85), and finally the General Chapter of Mont- pellier (1287) decided in his favour. The new general, Matthew of Aquasparta, sent him as lector in theology to the convent of Sta. Croce, Florence, whence Mat- thew's successor, Raymond Gaufredi, sent him as lector to Montpellier. At the General Chapter of Paris (1292) Olivi again gave explanations, which were apparently satisfactory. He spent his last years in the convent of Narbonne, and died, surrounded by his friends, after an earnest profession of his Catholic Faith (published by Wadding ad a. 1297, n. 33).
Peace, however, was not obtained by his death. His friends, friars and seculars, showed an exaggerated veneration for their leader, and honoured his tomb as that of a saint; on the other hand the General Chap- ter of Lyons (1299) ordered his writings to be col- lected and burnt as heretical. The General Council of Vienne (1312), in the Decretal "Fidei catholica; fun- damento" (Bull. Franc, V, 86), establi.shed the Cath- olic doctrine against three points of Olivi's teaching, without mentioning the author; these points referred to: (1) the moment Our Lord's body was transfixed by the lance, (2) the manner in which the soul is united to the body, (3) the baptism of infants. In 1318 the friars went so far as to destroy Olivi's tomb, and in the next year two further steps were taken against him: his writings were absolutely forbidden by the Gen- eral Chapter of Marseilles, and a special commission of theologians examined Olivi's "Postilla in Apoca- lypsim" and marked out sixty sentences, chiefly joar
