Saint Francis of Assisi, social reformer

Introduction

1. The Spirit of the Time of St. Francis.

2. The Social Problem.

THE bibliography of St. Francis reveals to us two facts equally striking : the wonderful abundance of the literature on the saint and his work, and, at the same time, the absence of any study professedly treating St. Francis as a social reformer. In the following pages an attempt is made to present him in this light. Hence, the sociological point of view is taken throughout. An effort is made to describe the steps by which he became a reformer, the work accomplished by him, the processes of his mind and the traits of his character as far as these affected his reform work, the social ideas and principles on which his reform work was grounded.

The following conclusions seem to be justified by the facts as brought to our knowledge by a study of the documents of St. Francis's time:

Francis, born in an age of faith,, feeling, and enthusiasm, but also of social unrest, became a reformer as the natural outcome of his love for God and for everything which God has created. A strenuous saint, but none the less open to the tenderest human sentiments, a poet, a troubadour, a chevalier in character and aspirations, intensely in love with a poor, abandoned, but chaste maiden, "La donna Poverta," Francis felt that he had received from God a mission to convert the world and to restore the peace and happiness which ought to reign among His children. He went to the people, to the poor and the rich, to the laymen and the clergy, to the great and the lowly, captivating all, not only by his charming character, but also by his unstudied and unaffected, yet irresistible eloquence; thus he became the soul of a popular movement, which spread over all Europe and made itself felt in all parts of the then known world.

There was no philosophy, no method, no spirit of organization in Francis, nor were they necessary for the creation of a popular movement. When the preservation of Francis's work required thought, order, direction, he himself applied to the Church, that, "like a loving mother," she

M might supply what was lacking in the child, and bring his work to completion and success.

Though the reform which Francis and the Church accomplished conjointly was above all religious, based on the Gospel and aimed at the conversion and salvation of man, it was nevertheless all-comprehensive, including the natural as well as the supernatural, the material as well as the spiritual in man. It aimed, not at the destruction of existing principles and institutions, but at the repression of abuses committed by individuals, and the triumph of charity and justice among men.

1. St. Francis was born in the year 1182, in the town of Assisi, situated on the slope of the mountains of Umbria, on the road from Perugia to Spoleto. He died in his native place, October 3, 1226. The greatest part of his life was spent in Italy, the center of Christendom.

His age was above all an age of faith. It was the age which saw two of the greatest manifestations of religious faith, the Crusades and the Gothic cathedrals. It was the age of saints, when heads of nations, kings and emperors, emulated the inhabitants of the cloister in the pursuit of Christian perfection. Such were, for instance, St. Ferdinand, king of Leon and Castille; St. Elizabeth of Hungary and her holy husband, Louis of Thuringia; Blanche of Castille, the mother of St. Louis. The saints, perhaps even more than the warriors, were the popular heroes of the day. The discovery of the relics of a martyr was an event as remarkable as a change of dynasty. Public penances, long and painful pilgrimages, foundations of cloisters, sudden conversions, also were evidences of that active faith which permeated the people of the thirteenth century. It sounds like a paradox, yet it is true, to say that for them the supernatural was natural and the natural became supernatural. They lived in a supernatural atmosphere: everything which happened was a supernatural intervention of God, and they continually expected Him to perform miracles; the "Judgments of God" are an example to the point. They believed that they saw Christ, the Blessed Virgin, and the saints, and spoke with them. They thought that numerous devils were always ready to attack men if they were not on guard. St. Francis was not the only one who believed he found a legion of devils in his pillow. The numberless demons carved in the stalls, or painted on the frescoes, or inlaid in the stained windows of the churches of that period, manifest well the mind of the time. Every fact which was somewhat out of the ordinary was immediately traced to God or the devil as supposed causes.

The supremacy of the Church in temporal as well as in religious matters, at the time when St. Francis began his life as a reformer, was a fact which could only strengthen this faith in the supernatural. Innocent III, then on the pontifical throne, had reached the climax of his power, and he practically ruled the world. He had compelled the French monarch to take back the wife from whom he had sought a divorce. The king of England had surrendered his crown to him, to receive it again as the humble vassal of the pontiff. Constantinople itself had become a Latin kingdom, and a Latin church had been established by Innocent within its walls.

The time, however, was not without its evils. This young people, full of faith, had many faults. The records of the Council of the Lateran, in 1215, reveal the presence of corruption in the ranks of the clergy; celibacy was not faithfully practised; simony was far from unknown, and many clerics entirely neglected one of the essential duties of their office: the preaching and teaching of the word of God. The monasteries had become rich. With riches, corruption had too often entered the sacred inclosure. Among the people was found the strangest mixture of faith and vice. Not only were there great saints and great criminals, but frequently an individual passed suddenly from sin to self-denial or from virtue to vice. For the knight of the thirteenth century, God and the lady of his heart, devotion and gallantry, charity and revenge, cloister and battle-field, were all objects equally worthy of his ambition.

The Teutonic tribes that had invaded Europe several centuries before were still in the youth of civilization, unstable and enthusiastic. Enthusiasm was their normal state. They had only one desire: to consecrate themselves to a great cause. It may be the Crusade, the strict life of a Carthusian monk, the adventurous life of a knight or of a brigand ; they would enter on any walk of life with the same ardor.

Poetry, imagination, mysticism, love of symbolism, were also characteristic of this young people. The troubadours and minnesingers celebrated the exploits of imaginary or real heroes. They sang religion, love, and war; but religion, love, and war were personified: in Christ, in the

Pope, in the lady whose banner the courteous knight carried through the world, or in the warrior who had performed wonderful exploits among the Saracens. The people of St. Francis's time understood abstract ideas only by their concrete realizations — they saw rather than understood. Religion for them consisted in devotion to saints and martyrs, to the person of Christ in the crib or on the cross, and it was unaccompanied by systematic contemplation of great spiritual truths. They saw in every creature a symbol of something higher and nobler: the material was the symbol of the spiritual; the natural of the supernatural. They saw God in the Pope, and for them the heretic was the devil incarnate. Lessons were better imparted to their minds by practical images than by speeches and theories; the sight of the Flagellants scourging themselves on the public squares moved them more than the sermon of their bishop.

At the same time, the age of St. Francis was one of transition. Besides the vigor, ardor, sensibility and imagination of youth, a deep and serious feeling began to take root. The feeling was one of dissatisfaction with actual conditions; a vague consciousness arose that in the Christian world something was wrong. This discontent manifested itself in revolts, heresies, social conflicts. The ideal after which they aspired was not well defined in their minds. The spirit of discontent revealed itself in the lamentations and prophecies of Joachim of Fiora, the Calabrian visionary; in the revelations of St. Elizabeth of Schonau, and of St. Hildegarde of Bingen. Many attempts at religious and social reform characterized that epoch. Everyone felt the need of reform, though no one knew what should be the nature of it. Men, pushed at the same time by their restlessness and their enthusiasm, eagerly embraced any ideal of reform, and whenever a saint, a hero, or a deluded leader raised the banner of reform, he found numbers of adherents who adopted his cause, thinking that they had found at last the ideal for which they had been longing.

2. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the feudal system was in its decline. It had served a great purpose, after the invasions of the barbarians, in introducing order among European countries, and in protecting them from further incursions. But the system was far from perfect, and the evils which it entailed grew as the reasons which had justified the introduction of it disappeared. The feudal system had necessarily brought about the division of society into two classes, serfs and lords. In the beginning the serfs had gladly offered to the lords their services in exchange for a much needed protection; but when the need of protection was diminished, the lords continued to exact from the serfs equal or greater services and taxes. Again, the system was based on the hierarchical distribution of land; land meant sovereignty, and a mere lord might possess more power than the king himself, solely because he had more land under his immediate jurisdiction. The serfs, owning no land, were deprived of all social and political power. The division between the two classes was thus rendered still greater, and the lower class was continually oppressed by those who possessed land and power.

The Church at this time was busily engaged in asserting against the emperors the supremacy of her power. The Popes, it is true, had done a great deal to improve the condition of the serfs and to obtain a recognition of their rights against the lords, and they used the ascendency which they had gained over the Christian nations in favor not only of morality, but also of justice and liberty. At the same time, the bishops had too often abandoned themselves to a worldly life and to worldly ambitions; they possessed land, and enjoyed the power which the land gave them; they had their serfs, and often treated them no better than did the lords. The monasteries in the past had been refuges for those who, tired of the world and of the ways of the world, sought there the liberty of the children of God. Now they had become very rich, and a worldly spirit had followed the acquisition of worldly goods. Though still generous toward the poor, they had ceased to be their friends.

Hence the very agencies which, in the past, had softened the harshness of the feudal system, failed to apply the remedy at the very time when it was most needed.

The conditions, however, were not the same throughout all Italy. The Italian republics of the North had gone a long way toward emancipation and were at the head of the European movement for liberty. Pisa, Genoa, Venice, and other cities of Northern Italy had become, particularly since the beginning of the Crusades, the centers toward which gravitated all the traffic to and from the Orient. These circumstances had brought them riches, prosperity, and at the same time ambition, love of liberty and of power. Each aimed not only at independence, but at supremacy as well. The bitter quarrels between Guelphs and Ghibellines, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, were the outcome of this condition: the former represented the radical and progressive element, which stood for liberation from the foreign yoke, the independence of the Italian republics; the latter, more conservative, favored the emperor and his party, and thought that the only way to bring back to Italy unity and peace was to affiliate all those young states to the German empire.

Outside of these republics the movement was less advanced. It was particularly slow among country people, serfs or villains, who still formed the great bulk of population. They lacked the force which townsmen found in union. They lacked the resources which trade and commerce brought.

However, in the towns outside of the more advanced Italian republics, the movement fell in with the time of transition from feudal to communal regime. A general craving for liberty was felt by the townsmen. The communes were struggling against the lords. Charters were applied for, paid for, fought for.

The conditions in these towns deserve particular attention, for it was in a town that Francis was trained and in towns also that Franciscan activity mostly exercised itself. The towns of Italy had developed rapidly in the twelfth century, owing chiefly to the revival of trade at the time of the Crusades. A mixed population had flocked there, partly from the class of the villains, who found there a refuge against the oppression of their masters ; partly from the classes of the nobles , whose interests had brought them to those centers of trade and commerce. As already mentioned, in the towns virtue and vice were found side by side; there were great and noble actions, as well as crimes. The towns were often the refuge of suspicious characters, of tramps, of beggars, who lived on the work of others, of criminals, who found there a comparatively safe hiding-place. They were also the seat of much misery; the poor, the infirm, the aged, naturally frequented the places where riches abounded. This misery was further increased by the diseases which then infested the towns. The population was compactly inclosed within the walls in a space often comparatively small, having little air and little light, as the streets were narrow, the houses low and dark. The dirt of the streets was hardly ever removed; there were no sewers, and all the refuse was simply thrown on the streets. Nor were there any sanitary measures to prevent or stop the progress of contagious diseases. Hence arose those epidemics which often visited the towns of Europe and destroyed a great number of their inhabitants.

Their intellectual and religious condition was little better. The instruction of the townsmen was greatly neglected, either on account of the lack of priests, or on account of the separation of the clergy from the lower classes. The clergy, as they became rich and powerful, had come to form a class of their own, which, as well as the class of the lords, considered itself superior to the townsmen.

At the same time, the towns represented the rising element of the age. As the feudal system, which had divided the European world into two social classes — lords and serfs, rich and poor, powerful and oppressed — was disappearing, a middle class was rising, the class of merchants and artisans, the burgesses, who now began to constitute a third estate. This was the progressive class, the class which largely formed the population of towns, and to this class the Bernardone family and Francis himself belonged.

Whatever may have been the political aspect of the social condition, the problem itself was regarded as religious, the evil was considered as religious, and the remedies offered were religious. Francis, as well as the majority of reformers at the time, was a religious reformer.

Religion was the basis of everything in the thirteenth century, and everything was seen through a religious coloring. The people thought and spoke of heaven and hell as our college boys speak of baseball and football. They were imbued with a religious spirit which we can hardly realize. They could never have thought of a political or economic question which was not, before all, a religious question. They did not isolate, as we do, the political and economic phases of a social system. They saw only lords, serfs, clerics, monks — all more or less in need of religious virtues which would have restored to all peace and happiness.

Besides, the evil, whose effects all might see, was the abuse of the power given by riches. To the eyes of this simple population, the love of riches and of the power which they gave was the great evil which made reform necessary. This excessive love of riches was a sin, and they saw no manner of doing away with it but by practising virtue, and particularly the virtue of poverty which Christ had taught to the world.

Hence the remedies offered for the social failings of the thirteenth century were religious, and all the plans of reform were inspired by religion. As a matter of fact, religion had already contributed largely to temper the social evils of the time. We hear continually of the foundation of new monasteries, of lands and houses bequeathed to religious orders, of new communities which consecrated themselves to the redemption of captives or to the care of the sick, of generous almsgiving. But these good works did not eradicate the evil. Monasteries and religious orders were already too rich, and, though they gave abundantly to the poor, they, like private benefactors, did not use sufficient discrimination in their distribution of alms. Men of that age in their simple faith saw in almsgiving rather the meritorious action benefiting the donor than the relief of the poor, and we may well imagine that such indiscriminate charity must have often encouraged idleness. The congregations which had a social utility and which arose at the end of the twelfth century and beginning of the thirteenth, like the Confraternity of the Charitable of St. Eloy, of the Hospitallers of St. James, the Trinitarians and the Order of Mercy for the redemption of captives, the Order of the Holy Ghost for the service of hospitals — all these certainly did a great deal of good, but they were limited in their aim, in their influence, and on the whole, were of little avail to eradicate the social evils of the time.

To quote Leo XIII, in his Encyclical "Auspicato" of September 17, 1882: "There was a penury of Christian virtues in the thirteenth century. A great number of men, enslaved by temporal things, either coveted honors and riches with frenzy, or lived in luxury and pleasure. All the power belonged to a few, and this power had almost become a tool of oppression against the despised and unhappy people. Those very persons who by their profession should have served as examples to the others had not avoided the stains of general vices. The extinction of charity in various places had had as consequences the apparition of manifold and many scourges: envy, jealousy, hatred; minds were so divided and so unfriendly that for the least cause neighboring cities waged war, and individuals took arms against each other." It was in one of these wars between cities that the ardent Francis took . part when little over twenty years old.

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Long before the day of Francis, vigorous efforts had been made on the part of Catholic reformers and of visionaries to reform society. In the first half of the twelfth century, St. Bernard (1091- 1153) had already endeavored by his warnings and example to bring about the reform needed. His work hardly survived him, while the evil increased in the following period, and with the evil the protests which arose under various forms.

We find these protests in the visions and prophecies of St. Hildegarde of Bingen (1098- 1179), and of Elizabeth of Schonau, who died in 1164, both nuns of great repute. The former boldly rebuked the clergy for their worldly conduct, their ambition, their thirst for riches, and announced to them a divine judgment which would deprive them of the riches through which they had been corrupted. The prophecies of St. Hildegarde were much read, and contributed largely to bring about the reaction.

Joachim of Fiora (1145-1202), the Calabrian monk who had been converted by the sight of the plague while on a voyage to the East, and had embraced poverty, announced the approaching end of the second age in the history of the world, and the beginning of the third age, the age of the Holy Ghost, the "Evangelium iEternum,"

in which the world, sick with the corruption caused by riches, would return to apostolical simplicity and poverty.

Among the more practical efforts of Catholic reformers may be mentioned the rise of the "Humiliati" of Milan, who wore a poor habit and earned their living by common manual labor, and of the "Pauperes Catholici," that branch of the Waldenses which, under Innocent III, submitted to the Church. But neither society had much influence: the former remained a local institution; the latter, regarded by the bishops with suspicion, never received their favor.

A number of the reformers came from the ranks of the heretics, and directed their efforts in opposition to the Church. They not only appealed to the ideal of the primitive Church, to the simplicity and poverty of Christ and His Apostles, but attacked the prelates of the Church for their worldliness, attacked the doctrines of the Church and her institutions, and pretended that she had no right to possess earthly goods, some going so far as to proclaim these earthly goods intrinsically bad.

Arnauld of Brescia, who died in 1155, left behind him a number of disciples who, until the Council of Verona (1184), continued to protest against the possession of riches by the Church and the exercise of temporal power by Popes and bishops.

About 1160, Pierre Waldo, a rich burgess of Lyons, struck by the words of Our Lord on poverty, distributed his goods to the poor, and founded the society of the "Pauperes Lugduni." Led into revolt, they were excommunicated by Lucius III in 1184; they spread nevertheless with great rapidity, particularly in Northern Italy, preaching the return to apostolical simplicity and poverty.

Other sects of reformers arose, going by the name of Apostolicals, like those of Perigueux in the South of France. As their name indicates, they claimed to follow the Apostles in renouncing all earthly goods and interests. But their influence was very small compared with that of the Albigenses, who also spread chiefly in the South of France. The Albigenses were not, it is true, a new sect, and their origin can not be attributed to the spirit of reaction against the corruption of the Christian world by riches. But, if this spirit of reaction did not cause their rise, it certainly caused their wonderful spread at the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth century through Southern France, Northern Italy, and Germany.

They condemned matter as coming from the evil principle, and, with more logic than moderation, looked upon riches, property, marriage, as radically bad, because belonging to the material world. The members of this sect, particularly the "Perfecti," presented themselves before the people as rigid observers of the evangelical law and of evangelical poverty, and it was the practice of the Gospel and of poverty, far more than their dualistic doctrines, which brought to their ranks so many recruits. We read in St. Dominic's life that the Papal legate and the twelve Cistercian abbots sent by the Pope to convert the Albigenses gained no success whatever. The heretics would naturally compare their own leaders, professing to live in poverty as followers of Christ and His Apostles, with the pomp and luxury which accompanied the Catholic prelates. The popular feeling was on the side of poverty, and when Dominic and Didacus, bishop of Osma, began their missionary labors among the Albigenses, they first put themselves on a level with the leaders of the sect by renouncing all pomp and state. They led a poor life, traveled on foot, and avoided all demonstrations of honor; and, later, Dominic, as far as circumstances allowed him, adopted for the Preaching Friars, as a more effective means of obtaining success among the heretics, the absolute poverty which was practised so well by the Franciscans.

What may surprise us is the success of these anti-Catholic movements in that time of active faith. It may be accounted for by the restlessness — that vague but constant aspiration after a better state — which characterized the age. Nor were these movements limited by physical barriers or by nationality. The European world as a society was then beginning to exist. The merchants, travelers, troubadours, propagated the news and the popular movements as well.

The merchants went about from castle to castle, from borough to borough, and were welcomed by all — lords and townsmen. During the long winter evenings all gathered around them and heard from them the happenings of distant lands. They had seen much themselves, but they had also learned a great deal from the Crusaders, from the pilgrims, from the soldiers and adventurers whom they had met in the ports, in the inns, on the roads.

At the same time the troubadours of Provence spread everywhere their poetic strains on the popular questions of the day. Bernard of

Ventadour, Cadenet, Raimbaud de Vaqueiras, and Pierre Vidal, went to Northern and Central Italy, and sojourned there during Francis's boyhood. They also spoke of the corruption caused by riches and the desire of wealth, and neither cleric nor bishop was spared at their hands. Hence, a heresy born in France was soon transplanted into Italy and even Germany, and vice versa.

It seems, however, that those popular and religious movements affected more particularly the South of France and the Northern part of Italy. It was there that the Waldenses and Albigenses obtained their greatest success, the towns being generally their headquarters and center of operation. It was from Northern Italy, and from a town, that the great Catholic reformer of the thirteenth century arose.

The common remedy proposed by all reformers of that epoch, in and outside of the Church, was a return to apostolic poverty and simplicity. These features of reform agitation had attracted great numbers. It was by practising and preaching apostolic poverty and simplicity that Francis and his followers achieved their great reform.

Chapter I— Antecedents

1. Early Life.

2. To Social Reform.

1. rilHE father of St. Francis, Pietro Bernardone, -■- was a rich merchant who traveled through Italy and France, in the interests of his business. 1 He has been represented by some as a hard, avaricious man; by others, as liberal and generous, but irascible and obstinate. The latter view seems to be the better supported.

While Francis was working at his father's trade, we know that he arrayed himself in the most costly clothes, and that it was customary for him frequently to invite his numerous friends to sumptuous banquets. At the same time he gave abundantly to his friends and to the poor. 2 His father never thought of inter-

1 3 Soc, 2. References are given to the edition of the Bollandists for the legend of the Three Companions, as also for the first life of Tommaso di Celano and the legend of St. Bonaventure. For the second life of Tommaso di Celano, the Amoni edition has been used.

fering with these habits. In fact he allowed Francis to spend money as freely as he wished. But when Francis gave up his worldly life, and resolved to follow Christ, a complete change appeared in the conduct of his father. He not only refused to cooperate in his son's good work as he had formerly encouraged him in his life of dissipation, but even disowned him and took from him the very clothes he worer*

In Francis's mother, Pica, a Provencal, according to tradition, we find a very different character. She was simple, affable, virtuous, yet at the same time energetic. She did not hesitate, in spite of Bernardone's orders, to break the chains which held Francis prisoner in a dark corner of the house. 2

We know but little more about the parents of Francis. Yet, from what we know, we can not help remarking certain general traits common to parents and son. We find in the latter a strength of will much akin to the obstinacy of Bernardone. We also find in him the simplicity and affability of his mother, Pica. His early education was perhaps a little neglected, since the extravagant manners and princely ways of his youth were

those of a spoiled child. 1 Though he received little instruction, calling himself an illiterate man, yet he learned some Latin at the ecclesiastical school of Santo Giorgio, and also spoke some French. 2

A quick intelligence and early contact with business made up, to a certain extent, for this lack of schooling. While a young man he was associated with his father in business, proving to be a "clever merchant." 3 In this capacity we may presume that he had frequent intercourse with men of different countries, and that he, like his father, traveled somewhat in Northern Italy and in Provence. Unfortunately, his early biographers confined themselves to the mere statement that he was a clever merchant.

Some details concerning his worldly life and his early ambitions have been preserved. At the head of the young men of Assisi, he gave his time to poetry and gayety, to songs of love and pleasure, and the inhabitants of the little town wondered at the sight of his extravagant way of dressing, of the money which he spent or gave away lavishly, of the banquets to which he invited his numerous friends; and his own parents were heard to say, "Our son lives like the son of a prince." 1