Concerning the life of St Francis and the beginnings of the order, the chief documents that come under discussion are: the two Lives by Thomas of Celano (1228 and 1248 respectively; Eng. trans. with introduction by A.G. Ferrers Howell, 1908), of which the only critical edition is that of Friar Ed. d’Alençon (1906); the so-called Legenda trium sociorum; the Speculum perfectionis, discovered by Paul Sabatier and edited in 1898 (Eng. trans. by Sebastian Evans, Mirror of Perfection, 1899). Sabatier’s theory as to the nature of these documents was, in brief, that the Speculum perfectionis was the first of all the Lives of the saint, written in 1227 by Br. Leo, his favourite and most intimate disciple, and that the Legenda 3 Soc. is what it claims to be—the handiwork of Leo and the two other most intimate companions of Francis, compiled in 1246; these are the most authentic and the only true accounts, Thomas of Celano’s Lives being written precisely in opposition to them, in the interests of the majority of the order that favoured mitigations of the Rule especially in regard to poverty. For ten years the domain of Franciscan origins was explored and discussed by a number of scholars; and then the whole ground was reviewed by Professor W. Goetz of Munich in a study entitled Die Quellen zur Geschichte des hl. Franz von Assisi (1904). His conclusions are substantially the same as those of Père van Ortroy, the Bollandist, and Friar Lemmens, an Observant Franciscan, and are the direct contrary of Sabatier’s: the Legenda 3 Soc. is a forgery; the Speculum perfectionis is a compilation made in the 14th century, also in large measure a forgery, but containing an element (not to be precisely determined) derived from Br. Leo; on the other hand, Thomas of Celano’s two Lives are free from the “tendencies” ascribed to them by Sabatier, and that of 1248 was written with the collaboration of Leo and the other companions; thus the best sources of information are those portions of the Speculum that can with certainty be carried back to Br. Leo, and the Lives by Thomas of Celano, especially the second Life. Goetz’s criticism of the documents is characterized by exceeding carefulness and sobriety. Of course he does not suppose that his conclusions are in all respects final; but his investigations show that the time has not yet come when a biography of St Francis could be produced answering to the demands of modern historical criticism. The official life of St Francis is St Bonaventura’s Legenda, published in a convenient form by the Franciscans of Quaracchi (1898); Goetz’s estimate of it (op. cit.) is much more favourable than Sabatier’s.
Paul Sabatier’s fascinating and in many ways sympathetic Vie de S. François (1894; 33rd ed., 1906; Eng. trans, by L.S. Houghton, 1901) will probably for a long time to come be accepted by the ordinary reader as a substantially correct portrait of St Francis; and yet Goetz declares that the most competent and independent critics have without any exception pronounced that Sabatier has depicted St Francis a great deal too much from the standpoint of modern religiosity, and has exaggerated his attitude in face of the church (op. cit. p. 5). In articles in the Hist. Vierteljahrsschrift (1902, 1903) Goetz has shown that Sabatier’s presentation of St Francis’s relations with the ecclesiastical authority in general, and with Cardinal Hugolino (Gregory IX.) in particular, is largely based on misconception; that the development of the order was not forced on Francis against his will; and that the differences in the order did not during Francis’s lifetime attain to such a magnitude as to cause him during his last years the suffering depicted by Sabatier. This from a Protestant historian like Goetz is most valuable criticism. In truth Sabatier’s St Francis is an anachronism—a man at heart, a modern pietistic French Protestant of the most liberal type, with a veneer of 13th century Catholicism.
Of lives of St Francis in English may be mentioned those by Mrs Oliphant (2nd ed., 1871) and by Canon Knox Little (1897). For general information and references to the literature of the subject, see Otto Zöckler, Askese und Mönchtum (1897), ii. 470-493, and his article in Herzog’s Realencyklopädie (ed. 3), “Franz von Assisi” (1899); also Max Heimbucher, Orden und Kongregationen (1896), i. § 38. The chapter on St Francis in Emile Gebhart’s Italie mystique (ed. 3, 1899) is very remarkable; indeed, though this writer is as little ecclesiastically-minded as Sabatier himself, his general picture of the state of religion in Italy at the time is far truer; here also Sabatier has given way to the usual temptation of biographers to exalt their hero by depreciating everybody else.
(E. C. B.)
[1] The Little Flowers of St Francis.
FRANCIS OF MAYRONE [Franciscus de Mayronis] (d. 1325), scholastic philosopher, was born at Mayrone in Provence. He entered the Franciscan order and subsequently went to Paris, where he was a pupil of Duns Scotus. At the Sorbonne he acquired a great reputation for ability in discussion, and was known as the Doctor Illuminatus and Magister Acutus. He became a professor of philosophy, and took part in the discussions on the nature of Universals. Following Duns Scotus, he adopted the Platonic theory of ideas, and denied that Aristotle had made any contribution to metaphysical speculation. It is a curious commentary on the theories of Duns Scotus that one pupil, Francis, should have taken this course, while another pupil, Occam, should have used his arguments in a diametrically opposite direction and ended in extreme Nominalism.
His works were collected and published at Venice in 1520 under the title Praeclarissima ac multum subtilia scripta Illuminati Doctoris Francisci de Mayronis, &c.