and he went to Honorius III. at Orvieto and begged that Hugolino should be appointed the official protector of the order. The request was granted, and a bull was issued formally approving the order of Friars Minor, and decreeing that before admission every one must pass a year’s novitiate, and that after profession it was not lawful to leave the order. By this bull the Friars Minor were constituted an order in the technical sense of the word. When the chapter assembled, Francis, no doubt from a genuine feeling that he was not able to govern a great world-wide order, practically abdicated the post of minister-general by appointing a vicar, and the policy of turning the Friars Minor into a great religious order was consistently pursued, especially by Elias, who a year later became Francis’s vicar.
St Francis’s attitude towards this change is of primary importance for the interpretation of Franciscan history. There can be little doubt that his affections never altered from his first love, and that he looked back regretfully on the “Umbrian idyll” that had passed away; on the other hand, there seems to be no reason for doubting that he saw that the methods of the early days were now no longer possible, and that he acquiesced in the inevitable. This seems to be Professor Goetz’s view, who holds that Sabatier’s picture of Francis’s agonized sadness at witnessing the destruction of his great creation going on under his eyes, has no counterpart in fact, and who rejects the view that the changes were forced on Francis against his better judgment by Hugolino and Elias (see “Note on Sources” at end of article Francis of Assisi; also Elias of Cortona); Goetz holds that the only conflict was the inevitable one between an unrealizable ideal and its practical working among average men. But there does seem to be evidence that Francis deplored tendencies towards a departure from the severe simplicity of life and from the strict observance of poverty which he considered the ground-idea of his institute. In the final redaction of his Rule made in 1223 and in his Testament, made after it, he again clearly asserts his mind on these subjects, especially on poverty; and in the Testament he forbids any glosses in the interpretation of the Rule, declaring that it is to be taken simply as it stands. Sabatier’s view as to the difference between the “First Rule” and that of 1223 is part of his general theory, and is, to say the least, a grave exaggeration. No doubt the First Rule, which is fully four times as long, gives a better picture of St Francis’s mind and character; the later Rule has been formed from the earlier by the elimination of the frequent scripture texts and the edificatory element; but the greater portion of it stood almost verbally in the earlier.
On Francis’s death in 1226 the government of the order rested in the hands of Elias until the chapter of 1227. At this chapter Elias was not elected minister-general; the building of the great basilica and monastery at Assisi was so manifest a violation of St Francis’s ideas and precepts that it produced a reaction, and John Parenti became St Francis’s first successor. He held fast to St Francis’s ideas, but was not a strong man. At the chapter of 1230 a discussion arose concerning the binding force of St Francis’s Testament, and the interpretation of certain portions of the Rule, especially concerning poverty, and it was determined to submit the questions to Pope Gregory IX., who had been St Francis’s friend and had helped in the final redaction of the Rule. He issued a bull, Quo elongati, which declared that as the Testament had not received the sanction of the general chapter it was not binding on the order, and also allowed trustees to hold and administer money for the order. John Parenti and those who wished to maintain St Francis’s institute intact were greatly disturbed by these relaxations; but a majority of the chapter of 1232, by a sort of coup d’etat, proclaimed Elias minister-general, and John retired, though in those days the office was for life. Under Elias the order entered on a period of extraordinary extension and prosperity: the number of friars in all parts of the world increased wonderfully, new provinces were formed, new missions to the heathen organized, the Franciscans entered the universities and vied with the Dominicans as teachers of theology and canon law, and as a body they became influential in church and state. With all this side of Elias’s policy the great bulk of the order sympathized; but his rule was despotic and tyrannical and his private life was lax—at least according to any Franciscan standard, for no charge of grave irregularity was ever brought against him. And so a widespread movement against his government arose, the backbone of which was the university element at Paris and Oxford, and at a dramatic scene in a chapter held in the presence of Gregory IX. Elias was deposed (1239).
The story of these first years after St Francis’s death is best told by Ed. Lempp, Frère Élie de Cortone (1901) (but see the warning at the end of the article Elias of Cortona).
At this time the Franciscans were divided into three parties: there were the Zealots, or Spirituals, who called for a literal observance of St Francis’s Rule and Testament; they deplored all the developments since 1219, and protested against turning the institute into an order, the frequentation of the universities and the pursuit of learning; in a word, they wished to restore the life to what it had been during the first few years—the hermitages and the huts of twigs, and the care of the lepers and the nomadic preaching. The Zealots were few in number but of great consequence from the fact that to them belonged most of the first disciples and the most intimate companions of St Francis. They had been grievously persecuted under Elias—Br. Leo and others had been scourged, several had been imprisoned, one while trying to escape was accidentally killed, and Br. Bernard, the “first disciple,” passed a year in hiding in the forests and mountains hunted like a wild beast. At the other extreme was a party of relaxation, that abandoned any serious effort to practise Franciscan poverty and simplicity of life. Between these two stood the great middle party of moderates, who desired indeed that the Franciscans should be really poor and simple in their manner of life, and really pious, but on the other hand approved of the development of the Order on the lines of other orders, of the acquisition of influence, of the cultivation of theology and other sciences, and of the frequenting of the universities.
The questions of principle at issue in these controversies is reasonably and clearly stated, from the modern Capuchin standpoint, in the “Introductory Essay” to The Friars and how they came to England, by Fr. Cuthbert (1903).
The moderate party was by far the largest, and embraced nearly all the friars of France, England and Germany. It was the Moderates and not the Zealots that brought about Elias’s deposition, and the next general ministers belonged to this party. Further relaxations of the law of poverty, however, caused a reaction, and John of Parma, one of the Zealots, became minister-general, 1247–1257. Under him the more extreme of the Zealots took up and exaggerated the theories of the Eternal Gospel of the Calabrian Cistercian abbot Joachim of Fiore (Floris); some of their writings were condemned as heretical, and John of Parma, who was implicated in these apocalyptic tendencies, had to resign. He was succeeded by St Bonaventura (1257–1274), one of the best type of the middle party. He was a man of high character, a theologian, a mystic, a holy man and a strong ruler. He set himself with determination to effect a working compromise, and proceeded with firmness against the extremists on both sides. But controversy and recrimination and persecution had stiffened the more ardent among the Zealots into obstinate fanatics—some of them threw themselves into a movement that may best be briefly described as a recrudescence of Montanism (see Émile Gebhart’s Italie mystique, 1899, cc. v. and vi.), and developed into a number of sects, some on the fringe of Catholic Christianity and others beyond its pale. But the majority of the Zealot party, or Spirituals, did not go so far, and adopted as the principle of Franciscan poverty the formula “a poor and scanty use” (usus pauper et tenuis) of earthly goods, as opposed to the “moderate use” advocated by the less strict party. The question thus posed came before the Council of Vienne, 1312, and was determined, on the whole, decidedly in favour of the stricter view. Some of the French Zealots were not satisfied and formed a semi-schismatical body in Provence; twenty-five of them were tried before the Inquisition, and four were burned alive at Marseilles as obstinate heretics, 1318. After this the schism in the Order subsided. But the disintegrating forces produced by the Great Schism and by the other disorders of the 14th century caused among the Franciscans the same relaxations and corruptions, and also the same reactions and reform movements, as among the other orders.
The chief of these reforms was that of the Observants, which began at Foligno about 1370. The Observant reform was on the basis of the “poor and scanty use” of worldly goods, but it was organized as an order and its members freely pursued
