The Story of Assisi Part 4

[29] Life of Beato Egidio in the _Little Flowers of St. Francis_.

[30] One of the most beautiful stories in the _Fioretti_ (chapter x.x.xiv.) recounts how St. Louis, King of France, visited Beato Egidio at Perugia. The king and the poor friar kneeling together in the courtyard of the convent, embracing each other like familiar friends, is a picture such as only Umbrian literature could have left us. There was absolute silence between the two, yet we are told St. Louis returned to his kingdom and Egidio to his cell with "marvellous content and consolation" in their souls.

[31] See _Supra_, p. 47.

[32] Quoted by Sigonius in his work on the Bishops of Bologna. _Opera omnia_, v. iii., translated by Canon Knox Little. _Life of St. Francis of a.s.sisi_, p. 179.

[33] _Speculum Perfectionis_, cap. cv., edited by Paul Sabatier.

[34] _Fioretti_, cap. xiii.

[35] To franciscan influence must surely be traced the rise of the Flagellants at Perugia in 1265.

[36] See _Histoire de Sainte Elizabeth_, Comte de Montalembert, pp.

71, 72.

[37] It is related that when in 1216 some Franciscans went on a mission to Germany the only word they knew was "Ja," which they used upon every occasion. In one town they were asked if they were heretics preaching a rival faith to catholicism, and as they continued to say "Ja, Ja," the citizens threw them into prison, and after beating them cruelly drove them ignominiously from the country. The account they gave of their experience to the other friars at a.s.sisi created such a panic that they were often heard in their prayers to implore G.o.d to deliver them from the barbarity of the Teutons.

[38] Celano. _Vita_ I. cap. xxi.

[39] Paul Sabatier. _Vie de S. Francis d'a.s.sise_, p. 205.

[40] _Vita di S. Francesco_, p. 76. Edizione Amoni (1888. Roma).

[41] Celano, a learned n.o.bleman from Celano in the Abruzzi, joined the Order in 1215, and gives by far the most charming and vivid account of St Francis, for besides knowing him well he had the gift of writing in no ordinary degree.

[42] _Vita_ I. cap. xxvii.

[43] _Vita di S. Francesco_, da S. Bonaventura, p. 148, Edizione Amoni.

[44] This was a small chapel built for St. Francis by Count Orlando, and must not be confounded with the church of the same name near a.s.sisi.

[45] The earnest wishes of the saint are to this day carried out by faithful friars who, even through the terrible winter months, live at La Vernia, suffering privation and cold with cheerfulness. At midnight a bell calls them to sing matins in the chapel of the Stigmata connected with the convent by an open colonnade, down which the procession files, following a crucifix and lanterns. When the service has ceased, the monks flit like ghosts behind the altar while the lights are extinguished and in the gloom comes the sound of clashing chains. For an hour they chastise themselves: then the torches are relit, the chanting is resumed, and calmly they pa.s.s down the corridor towards their cells. Moonlight may stream into the colonnade across the dark forms, or gusts of wind drive the snow in heaps before them, but the chanting is to be heard, and the monotonous cries of _ora pro n.o.bis_ break the awful solitude of night throughout the year upon the mountain of La Vernia.

[46] Here reference is made to the Portiuncula, near a.s.sisi.

[47] The Sa.s.so Spicco, which still can be seen at La Vernia, is a block of rock rising high above the mountain ridge, and seems to hang suspended in the air. It forms a roof over dark and cavernous places where St. Francis loved to pray, often spending his nights there with stones for his bed.

[48] The _Fioretti_ relates that once while St. Francis was praying on the edge of a precipice, not far from the spot where he had received the Stigmata, suddenly the devil appeared in terrible form amidst the loud roar of a furious tempest. St. Francis, unable to flee or to endure the ferocious aspect of the devil, turned his face and whole body to the rock to which he clung; and the rock, as though it had been soft wax, received the impress of the saint and sheltered him.

Thus by the aid of G.o.d he escaped.

[49] _Speculum Perfectionis_, cap. c., edited by Paul Sabatier.

[50] St. Francis composed this verse later on the occasion of a quarrel which arose between the Bishop of a.s.sisi and the Podesta. The last couplet was added at the Portiuncula while he was on his death-bed.

CHAPTER III

_The Carceri, Rivo-Torto and Life at the Portiuncula_

"O beata solitudo, O sola beatudine."

These three places near a.s.sisi, so intimately a.s.sociated with St.

Francis, were in a way emblematic of the various stages in the rise and growth of his young community, and we shall see that the saint went from one to the other, not by chance, but with a settled purpose in his mind. The Carceri he kept as a something apart from, and outside his daily life; it was a hermitage in the strict sense of the word, where, far from the sound of any human voice, he could come and live a short time in isolated communion with G.o.d. As his followers increased, and the Order he had founded with but a few brethren developed even in its first years into a great army, we can easily understand the longing for solitude which at times became too strong to be resisted, for his nature was well fitted for the hermit's life, and it called him with such persistence to the woods among the flowers and the birds he loved, that had he been less tender for the sufferings of others, more blind to the ills of the Church, it is possible that the whole course of events might have been altered.

Giotto would not have been called to a.s.sisi, or if he had been, the legends told to him by the friars might not have inspired him to paint such master-pieces as he has left us in the Franciscan Basilica; and we should now be the poorer because St. Francis had chosen seven hundred years ago to live in an Etruscan tomb at Orte, or in a grotto on Mount Subasio. So much depended, not only upon what St. Francis achieved, but on the way in which he chose to work. Who therefore can tell how much we owe to the little mountain retreat of the Carceri, where, spending such hours of wondrous peace surrounded by all that he most cherished in nature, the saint could refresh himself and gain new strength for long periods of arduous labour among men.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HERMITAGE OF THE CARCERI]

The Carceri came into the possession of St. Francis through the generosity of the Benedictines who, until his advent, had held unlimited sway in Umbria. Many churches, and we may say, almost all the hermitages of the surrounding country belonged to them. But their princ.i.p.al stronghold, built in the eleventh century, stood on the higher slopes of Mount Subasio, while the Carceri, lying a little to the west, was used by them probably as a place of retreat when wearied of monastic life. Both monastery and hermitage seem to have been quiet enough, and we only occasionally hear of the Benedictine monks starting off on a visit to some hermit of renowned sanct.i.ty, or going upon some errand of mercy among the peasants in the valley, whom they often surprised by marvellous though somewhat aimless miracles wrought for their edification. Then early in the fourteenth century these hermit monks of Mount Subasio suddenly found themselves in the midst of the fighting of a mediaeval populace, for the a.s.sisans, not slow to discover the great military importance of the Benedictine Abbey, wished to possess it. When the struggle between Guelph and Ghibelline was at its height, the monks were driven to take refuge in the town, while their home was taken possession of by the exiled party who used it as a fortress whence they could sally forth and hara.s.s the eastern approach to a.s.sisi. Perpetual skirmishes took place beneath its walls until the roving adventurer Broglia di Trino, who had made himself master of the town in 1399, in a solemn council held at the Rocca Maggiore issued an edict that the Monastery of St. Benedict was to be razed to the ground, determining thus to deprive the turbulent n.o.bles and their party of so sure a refuge in times of civil war.

The solid walls and fine byzantine columns of what once was the most celebrated abbey in Umbria now remain much as in the mediaeval days of their wreckage, and, until a few years ago when some repairs were made, the church was open for the mountain birds to nest in, and wild animals used it as their lair.

But both church and monastery stood proudly upon the mountain height above the plain when St. Francis, then the young mendicant looked upon by many as a madman, would knock at the gates, and the abbot followed by his monks, came out to listen to the humble requests he so often had to make. These prosperous religious most generously patronised St.

Francis in the time of his obscurity, giving him the chapel of the Portiuncula, and later (the date is uncertain but some say in 1215) they allowed him to take possession of the still humbler chapel and huts of the Carceri. Even to call such shelters huts is giving them too grand a name, for they were but caverns excavated in the rock, scattered here and there in a deep mountain gorge. They can still be seen, unchanged since the days of St. Francis save for the tresses of ivy growing thick, like a curtain, across the entrance, for now there are none to pa.s.s in and out to pray there.

Even the attempt to describe the loneliness and discomfort of this hermitage seems to strike terror into the hearts of later franciscan writers, who no longer caring to live in caves, only saw Dantesque visions when they thought of these arid, sunburnt rocks, rushing torrents and wild wastes of mountains which even shepherds never reached. But luckily in those days there was one Umbrian who loved such isolated spots; and the charm of that silence, born of the very soul of Francis and guarded jealously by nature herself during long centuries in memory of him, now tempts us up the mountain side upon a pilgrimage to the one place where his spirit still lives in all its primitive vigour and purity.

The road leading to the Carceri[51] from the Porta Cappucini pa.s.ses first through rich corn fields and olive groves, but as it skirts round Mount Subasio towards the ravine it becomes a mere mountain track. Only here and there, where peasants have patiently sc.r.a.ped away the stones, grows a little struggling corn, while small hill flowers nestle between the rocks unshaded even by olive trees; the colour of a stray Judas tree, or a lilac bush in bloom, only makes the landscape seem more barren and forlorn. Looking upon the road to Spello, winding down the hill through luxuriant fields of indian corn and olive groves, with the oak trees spreading their still fresher green over the vineyards of the plain, we feel that this pathway to the Carceri is something novel and unlike anything at a.s.sisi which we have hitherto explored. Just as we are marvelling at its loveliness, a sudden turn brings a.s.sisi once more in view, and the sight we get of it from here carries us straight back to the days of St. Francis; for the great basilica and convent are hidden by the brow of the hill, and what we now see is exactly what he looked upon so often as he hastened from a.s.sisi to his hermitage, or left it when he was ready to take up the burden of men's lives once more. The old walls, looking now much as they did after a stormy battle with Perugia, stretch round the same rose-tinted town, which, strangely enough, time has altered but slightly--it is only a little more toned in colour, the Subasian stone streaked here and there with deeper shades of yellow and pink, while the castle is more ruined, rearing itself less proudly from its green hill-top than in earlier days of splendour. But charming as the view of the town is, we quickly leave it to watch the changes of light and colour in the valley and on the wide-bedded Tescio as it twists and turns in countless sharp zig-zags till we lose it where it joins the Tiber--there where the mist rises. We might travel far and not find so fascinating a river as the Tescio; only a trickle of water it is true, but sparkling in the sunshine like a long flash of lightning which has fallen to earth and can find no escape from a tangle of fields and vineyards.[52] Then our road turns away again from the glowing valley shimmering in the haze of a late May afternoon, and mounting ever higher we plunge into the very heart of the a.s.sisan mountain, uncultivated, wild, colourless and yet how strangely beautiful.

Another half mile brings us round the mountain side to a narrow gorge, and the only thing in sight except the ilex trees is an arched doorway with a glimpse, caught through the half open gate, of a tiny courtyard. A step further on and we find ourselves standing amidst a cl.u.s.ter of cells and chapels seeming as if they hung from the bare rocks with nothing to prevent them falling straight into the depths of the ravine; and the silence around is stranger far than the mountain solitude. Surely none live here, we think, when suddenly a brown-clothed friar looks round the corner of a door, and without waste of time or asking of questions beckons us to follow, telling rapidly as he goes the story of each tree, rock, cell and shrine.

Crossing two or three chapels and pa.s.sing through a trap-door and down a ladder, we reach a narrow cave-like cell where St. Francis used to sleep during those rare moments when he was not engaged in prayer. As at La Vernia this "bed" was scooped out of the rock, and a piece of wood served him as a pillow. Adjoining is an oratory where the crucifix the saint always carried with him is preserved. The doors are so narrow and so low that the smallest person must stoop and edge in sideways. From these underground caves it is a joy to emerge once more into the sunlight, and one of the delightful surprises of the place is to step straight out of the oppressive darkness of the cells into the ilex wood, with the banks above and around us glowing with sweet-scented cyclamen, yellow orchids, and long-stemmed violets. It is not surprising that St. Francis often left his cell to wander further into these woods when the birds, as though they had waited for his coming, would gather from all sides and intercept him just as he reached the bridge close to the hermitage. While they perched upon an ilex tree (which is still to be seen), he stood beneath and talked to them as only St. Francis knew how. His first sermon to the birds took place at Bevagna, but at the Carceri he was continually holding conversations with his little feathered brethren. This perhaps was also where he held his nocturnal duet with the nightingale, which was singing with especial sweetness just outside his cell. St. Francis called Brother Leo to come also and sing and see which would tire first, but the "little Lamb of G.o.d" replied that he had no voice, refusing even to try. So the saint went forth alone to the strange contest, and he and the bird sang the praises of G.o.d all through the darkest hours of the night until, quite worn out, the saint was forced to acknowledge the victory of Brother Nightingale.

Very different is the story of his encounter with the tempting devil whom he precipitated by his prayers into the ravine below; the hole through which the unwelcome visitor departed is still shown outside the saint's cell. Devils do not play a very prominent part in the story of the first franciscans, but this mountain solitude seems to have so excited the imaginations of later chroniclers that yet another story of a devil belongs to the Carceri, and is quaintly recounted in the _Fioretti_. This time he appeared to Brother Rufino in the form of Christ to tempt him from his life of holiness. "O Brother Rufino,"

said the devil, "have I not told thee that thou shouldst not believe the son of Pietro Bernardone?... And straightway Brother Rufino made answer: 'Open thy mouth that I may cast into it filth.' Whereat the devil, being exceeding wroth, forthwith departed with so furious a tempest and shaking of the rocks of Mount Subasio, which was hard by, that the noise of the falling rocks lasted a great while; and so furiously did they strike one against the other in rolling down that they flashed sparks of terrific fire in all the valley, and at the terrible noise they made St. Francis and his companions came out of the house in amazement to see what strange thing was this; and still is to be seen that exceeding great ruin of rocks."

Close to the spot rendered famous by the devil's visits a bridge crosses the gorge of a great torrent, which, threatening once to destroy the hermitage, was miraculously dried up by St. Francis, and now only fills its rocky bed when any public calamity is near. From it a good view is obtained of the hermitage, but perhaps a still better is to be had from under the avenue of trees a little beyond, on the opposite side of the deep ravine whence the groups of hovels are seen to hang like a honeycomb against the mountain side, so tightly set together that one can hardly distinguish where the buildings begin and the rock ends.

The ilex trees grow in a semicircle round this cl.u.s.ter of cells and caverns, and high above it all rises a peak of Mount Subasio, grey as St. Francis' habit, with a line of jagged rocks on the summit which looks more like the remains of some Umbrian temple of almost prehistoric days than the work of nature.

The sides of this mountain ravine approach so near together that only a narrow vista of the plain is obtained, blue in the summer haze, with no village or even house in sight. It would be difficult to find a place with the feeling of utter solitude so unbroken, and as we realised that these friars lived here nearly all their life, many not even going to a.s.sisi more than once in five years, we said to one of them: "How lonely you must be," and he, as though recalling a time of struggle in the world, answered: "Doubtless there are better things in the town, but here, at the Carceri, there is peace."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CARCERI WITH A VIEW OF THE BRIDGE]

It is the hermit's answer; but now the need of such lives has long since pa.s.sed away, and even St. Francis, living at the time when the strain of perpetual warfare, famine, pestilence and crime, created a fierce craving for solitude in the lives of many, realised that a hermitage must only be a place to rest in for a while--not to live in. His anxiety to keep his Order from becoming a contemplative one is shown in the following rule he carefully thought out for his disciples. "Those religious who desire to sojourn in a hermitage are to be at the most three or four. Two are to be like mothers having a son. Two are to follow the life of a Martha, the other the life of a Mary." Then they were to go forth again strenuously to their work abroad and give place to others in search of rest and peace.

But after the death of St. Francis the Carceri gradually lost its primitive use, and the princ.i.p.al person who entirely changed its character was St. Bernardine of Siena who in 1320 made many alterations and additions, building a larger chapel, adding cells and a kitchen, but so small, remarks a discontented franciscan chronicler, that it barely held the cooking utensils. Although we can no longer call it a hermitage, the Carceri became the type of an ideal franciscan convent such as Francis dreamed of for his followers when he went to live at the Portiuncula, and such it has remained to this day. For certainly the place, as left by St. Bernardine, would have been approved of by the first franciscans as a dwelling-place, but those of later years can only tell us of its discomforts. Here is a graphic description of its primeval simplicity which very nearly corresponds to its present state: "It were better called a grotto with six lairs; one sees but the naked rock untouched by the chisel, all rough and full of holes as left by nature; those who see it for the first time are seized with extraordinary fear on climbing the ladder leading to the dormitory, at each end of which are other poor buildings, added by the religious according as need arose for the use of the friars, who do not care to live as hermits did in the olden times. The refectory is small, and can contain but few friars; a brother guardian made an excavation, of sufficient height and breadth in the rock, and added thereto a table around which can sit other six religious, so that those who take their places at this new table are huddled up in the arched niche which forms a baldaquin above their heads. There is also a little common room which horrifies all beholders, wherein is lit a fire, for besides being far inside the rocky ma.s.s it is gloomy beyond description by reason of the dense smoke always enclosed therein, this is a lively cause to the religious of reflection on the hideousness and obscurity of the darkness of h.e.l.l; in lieu of receiving comfort from the fire the poor friars generally come out with tears in their eyes." To somewhat atone for these discomforts they possessed a fountain, raised, as we are told, by the prayers of St. Francis, which never ran dry, "a miracle G.o.d has wished to perpetuate for the glory of His faithful servants and the continual comfort of the monks."

The crucifixion in the chapel built by St. Bernardine adjoining the choir, is said to have been painted by his orders. The artistic merits of the fresco are questionable, but connected with it is a legend possibly invented by some humorous member of the franciscan brotherhood in order to point a moral to his companions. "Here," says a chronicler, "is adored that most marvellous crucifixion, so famous in religion; it is well known to have spoken several times to the devout Sister Diomira Bini of the Third Order of St. Francis and a citizen of a.s.sisi; and in our own times, in the last century (the seventeenth) it was seen by Brother Silvestro dello Spedalicchio to detach itself from the cross, and with most gentle slaps on the face, warn a worshipper to be reverent and vigilant while praying in this His Sacred Oratory."

In a small wooden cupboard in the chapel, according to an inventory made two hundred years ago, are preserved some relics, a few of which we have unfortunately not been able to identify. Part of the wooden pillow used by St. Francis, and a piece of the Golden Gate through which our Lord pa.s.sed into Jerusalem, are still here, but the hair of the Virgin, and, strangest of all, some of the earth out of which G.o.d created Adam, are no longer to be found!

Ten or twelve friars continued to live at the Carceri for a few years after the death of St. Bernardine; some begged their daily bread from the villagers in the valley, others dug in the tiny garden at the foot of the ravine where a few vegetables grew, and two always remained at the convent to spin the wool for the habits of the religious. But soon wearying of the life they went to live at other convents, and the place pa.s.sed away from the franciscans into the possession of various sects, among others to the excommunicated Fraticelli. In 1415 it was given back to the Observants, and Paolo Trinci, who had done much to reform the Order, persuaded some friars to live once more at the deserted hermitage. Again the Carceri became such an ideal franciscan convent that many came from afar to visit it, and there is a strange story of how a "woman monk" found a home and died here in the middle of the fifteenth century.